00:08:41.680So we're looking at shocking for a province,
00:08:44.840$116 billion debt we're gonna be left with here.
00:08:49.940where do we even begin to address that? Well, let's just talk with these debt numbers for a
00:08:55.200quick second. Then we can move into the spending side. But yeah, $116 billion by the end of this
00:09:01.320year, that's more than $20,000 per Albertan if the government doesn't cut spending that we're
00:09:06.880going to have to be paying back. And you know, it's more than just debt that we have to worry
00:09:10.800about. I mean, one of the big things that I think we all need to be considered right now is interest
00:09:14.640charges, right? You don't just pay the debt, you got to pay interest charges on the debt every
00:09:18.900single year. And this year's interest charges are going to be about $2.7 billion. So that's
00:09:24.880a big budget item right there. And you know what $2.7 billion means? I mean, that's $600
00:09:29.460per person. That's 600 bucks that is leaving our pockets. And instead of going into something
00:09:35.140important, maybe healthcare or lowering taxes, that's going to the bond fund managers on Bay
00:09:40.320Street. Yeah, that's something I always found as an irony on when you would get, I guess,
00:09:46.120you know left of center parties and they like to screech about how they hate big business they don't
00:09:50.840they can't stand corporations and they want to stand for the little guys yet they never blink
00:09:54.760an eye about blowing billions on interest which you know again it's not the small business loan
00:10:00.440shark down the street who's doing this these are uh big bond businesses and and companies out there
00:10:06.200that are making the money out of this debt but they seem to overlook that uh and and that's an
00:10:11.240interesting thing with interest i mean just this this crazy road we're going down with covet in
00:10:16.760the works and i'm quite fearful about you know potential hyperinflation hitting us pretty soon
00:10:21.800and to get a bit more of the dorky economics if that happens usually the response from the
00:10:26.440bank of canada to cool down the inflation is to raise interest rates and we saw a really horrific
00:10:31.960chain of events through the 80s and onwards with with double digit uh prime lending lending rates
00:10:37.160which we're just bankrupting people uh we've got to be nervous i mean we're just being lucky with
00:10:42.820these low interest rates right now i mean a couple of points rise and we've got a lot of people losing
00:10:46.640their homes yeah that's i think that is is bang on right like if you want to bet that interest
00:10:51.640rates are going to remain let's say historically low well i don't think that's a very good bet for
00:10:55.700you and but regardless right we don't have a crystal ball we don't exactly know what's going
00:11:00.060to happen and that's why when governments are setting their budgets especially in alberta's
00:11:04.000case right now, you have to control what you can control. And what can you control? You can
00:11:08.460control the spending. But unfortunately, we saw this budget just completely blow the lid
00:11:13.780on spending. We're going to see total spending this year, Corey, at $62 billion. Now, let me
00:11:20.020give you some context. And I think this is going to make you think twice. That $62 billion in total
00:11:25.520spending is billions of dollars more than what the NDP spent in their last year in 2018, even when
00:11:32.340you account for inflation. So this government is spending billions of dollars more than the big
00:11:37.920spending NDP. Well, yeah. And outside of things that, okay, I guess people are assuming and
00:11:44.240expecting some spending increases from the government because of the pandemic in areas
00:11:48.960of health. And I guess in stimulus, it's really painful for a guy, a free enterprise guy,
00:11:55.960but I see it. If the state is going to make it illegal to do your business,
00:12:00.200They're sort of obligated to come in and try and keep your head above water until it is legal to
00:12:04.560do it again. I mean, my answer would be open the bloody businesses. Let's get these gears rolling
00:12:08.920again. But that's a bigger discussion. So with the spending, though, now some of what they're
00:12:16.700bragging about is capital projects and things they're putting into the nice Keynesian approach
00:12:21.180that we can spend ourselves, Rich, and keep everybody working. I see that as kind of a
00:12:25.980Band-Aid, but they have done some spending on things like the Green Line and some other big
00:12:30.400capital projects. I mean, sorry to interrupt, Corey, but I'm just, my blood is boiling over
00:12:34.940here. I had to jump in. I mean, think about where we are right now in Alberta. Think about
00:12:39.560our spending problem. We have a $10 billion spending problem. If this Keynesian economics
00:12:45.240worked, we'd all be rich by now, right? We're already spending, the Blue Ribbon Panel said0.96
00:12:50.440we were spending more per person than every other province, right? We just had the new
00:12:55.380democrats run this type of experiment and how did that work out well you know i think we all know
00:13:00.380the answer here so so let's just remember that we we've had massive spending in alberta for a very
00:13:05.600long time like that is that is not the way that we're gonna um be able to to grow our economy and
00:13:10.680get out of this now now um on growing the economy it's not just on premier kenny right there's
00:13:16.060there's things that premier kenny has done that's very good like reducing the business tax to one
00:13:20.740of the most competitive tax systems in North America. He deserves credit for that. I'm sure
00:13:25.700we're going to jump into the corporate welfare side of things, which he does not deserve credit
00:13:29.180for. But it's not just on Premier Kenney. I mean, to be very blunt, we need the municipal governments
00:13:34.800in Alberta, and we need the federal government in Ottawa to get their act together if Alberta
00:13:39.660is really going to be firing on all cylinders again. Yeah, well, and then a lot of it's beyond
00:13:46.120his control, but there's things in speculation. So another big part that we'd always watch at
00:13:49.880budget time was where they're speculating the price of oil is going to go because that's
00:13:54.120a large chunk of their royalty revenues, land sales, all sorts of things. So it looks like
00:14:01.600they've been modest in what they're projecting for oil prices, which is probably wise. I
00:14:07.320mean, you're going to burn if you really project a high oil price and it comes in low because
00:14:10.500you end up short. But governments have often done that in the past too, where they'll low
00:14:14.420ball what they expect out of the energy. And then when they get a little bit extra money,
00:14:18.240they can try and look like heroes when they apply it to spending uh what do you think of their
00:14:22.600energy uh projections at this point well let me just be honest with you i mean at the end of the
00:14:28.620day we'll we'll see what happens right in a few years with hindsight 2020 um i think what you
00:14:33.720said was was fair um i so i'm not exactly sure how that's going to play out but if i can go back to
00:14:38.920the point that i made just before is in alberta you got to control what you can control and that's
00:14:43.280the spending and we're not, and we're really seeing a lack of effort from this government
00:14:48.620to find savings. Now, let me, let me pull up something that's small, but that really goes
00:14:52.980to say a lot, right? Because you have to do the little things, right? If you're going to expect,
00:14:56.600if we're going to expect you to do the big things. So we see the executive council's budget this
00:15:02.080year, increasing by $2 million. Now that's premier Jason Kenney Shaw. So right under his nose,
00:15:08.240he wasn't able to find savings. And, you know, Corey, we're talking about a very difficult time
00:15:14.420for taxpayers. We expect the government to spending our money efficiently. Well, you know
00:15:18.640what? I don't think there's too many people who are laying awake at night, hoping and wishing
00:15:22.780that the premier shop would see its budget increase by another $2 million this year.
00:15:29.400No, well, and that starts getting a little more political, I think. I mean, the UCP has been
00:15:34.880having a really tough time trying to retain popularity with Albertans and they I think
00:15:44.020they're pouring a lot of money into comms because they can't seem to figure it out I mean their
00:15:46.720communications have been terrible the war room has been an embarrassment things like that where
00:15:51.680you're just pouring good money after bad so I suspect there's a bit of that effort they know
00:15:55.660it looks bad when you're pouring money into the premier's own budget but they see it as an area
00:15:59.880where they're trying to save their political butts a little bit. But I mean, the small things
00:16:06.260as said are there and you talked about finding efficiencies, but I see a question from somebody
00:16:11.380who's pretty blunt. Where would you cut the spending though? I mean, it's always easier
00:16:14.300to say cut, cut, cut. But there will be potential economic repercussions. There'll certainly
00:16:19.940be political repercussions if you cut certain areas. I mean, you cut somewhere, somebody's
00:16:25.120going to lose a job, somebody's going to be upset and you're going to have to deal with
00:16:29.200that so uh what is the taxpayers federation what are the big areas we could do i mean you know the
00:16:33.500not just the little stuff yeah no absolutely so so first let me let me just go to one thing when
00:16:38.820you said about the political implications for cutting well guess what you know where he they're
00:16:43.440really going to face a pushback is when it comes time to pay for all of this right because i can
00:16:47.580tell you right now after five plus years of economic hardships small businesses holding on
00:16:52.620by a thread nobody has any money to be paying for this right all this spending so they're going to
00:16:57.660have to cut spending now that was a great question so let me give you three three places where you
00:17:02.360got a cut the first is across the board right you have to have across the board cuts let me tell you
00:17:07.320why that blue ribbon panel on albertas finances said that we would spend 10 billion dollars less
00:17:12.420every single year if our per person spending was like bc ontario and quebec right the most
00:17:17.640comparable provinces to alberta 10 billion dollars of savings now you also have to remember too that
00:17:23.100for the last decade plus we have had runaway government spending the progressive conservatives
00:17:27.880they they about doubled program spending in their last decade then you had the NDP who came in and
00:17:33.480we all know that story another big spending government so when you have this type of history
00:17:37.560and this magnitude of overspending you have to be able to find savings across the board now one
00:17:42.720place that we do have to give credit to this government is in advanced education wildly
00:17:46.800inefficient department and they're doing what needs to be done so you have to give kudos there
00:17:50.580Now, the second thing, the second area where there's a lot, a lot of money to be saved is in corporate welfare. Now I'm not talking about reducing taxes on businesses across the board. That's not corporate welfare. And I'm also not talking about the government helping gyms and restaurants keep their lights on through government imposed lockdowns and restrictions. What I'm talking about is the massive subsidies, for example, that are going to the petrochemical industry.
00:18:15.300Well, you know, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we identified 14, 14 different corporate welfare programs since the United Conservative government came in, totaling $5 billion.
00:18:28.080And finally, you really have to go to the big budget item.
00:18:32.700And the big budget item is labor costs, right?
00:18:34.780We have seen labor costs balloon since the downturn began back at the end of 2014, right?
00:18:40.620And what did we see in the private sector?
00:18:42.220Well, unfortunately, we've seen so many people lose their jobs, take significant pay cuts, right? Families having a difficult time putting food on the table. And you know what we learned through freedom of information requests that you still have 1000s of Alberta government bureaucrats getting pay raises during lockdowns in 2020. So that was a bit of a rant, but I hope I answered that question.
00:19:05.340Oh, that's okay. This show's about ranting. We need to vent hopefully productively while we're
00:19:10.900at it. You know, so there is a big elephant in the room and a couple of people have mentioned
00:19:16.480things, you know, unions. Governments are terrified of public sector unions. They don't
00:19:22.860want to battle with them, but it seems to be kind of unavoidable. And unfortunately, a lot of union
00:19:27.460heads, they're being very well paid. I haven't heard of many of them taking pay cuts, but
00:19:31.020either way uh you know the the options seem to come down to if a courageous government can get
00:19:36.300up there cut labor compensation i know it hurts it hurts for people out there but they're still
00:19:41.800working at least you can still work and be bringing in five ten percent less per year and
00:19:47.180it looked like maybe he was starting to move in that direction like klein did you know they cut
00:19:50.660the mla salaries first they cut the gold-plated pension first and then they cut the public sector
00:19:55.460but i didn't hear anything in this like they're saying we're ready to start negotiating with
00:20:00.200unions and saying, look, you know, we're not doing this out of vitriol or spite. We've just
00:20:04.840got to get our affairs in order and we can keep people working, but it'll be for less money.
00:20:08.940Because the other option will be some heavy duty cuts and it won't be the wages. It'll be the jobs.
00:20:13.640Yeah. Let me just give me some, give me some room to run here on this one.
00:20:17.220Yeah. You put the ball on the tee for me. So, so hopefully I can get a good hack at it. So,
00:20:23.500I mean, you really, you really set it up really well. Okay. Because the last government pay cut,
00:20:29.360the last broad-based government pay cut was back in 1994. That was a 5% cut. And what did Premier
00:20:35.620Klein back in the day do? He went to the union bosses and he said, look, I'm cutting the budget.
00:20:40.040Either you take pay cuts or you lose some staff. It's up to you, right? And fortunately,
00:20:44.760the government employees decided to take a 5% cut. Now, I think if you go to government employees
00:20:50.120now, the government employees, I'm not talking about the union bosses. I'm talking about the
00:20:53.200government employees. And you say, hey, can you take a cut to help ease some of the costs on your
00:20:59.100neighbor who just got laid off i think most government employees would be willing to do that
00:21:03.580especially if it meant they get to keep you they get to keep their job um but but unfortunately
00:21:07.960the union bosses seem to be opposing um any any suggestion to return back to reality right so
00:21:15.180you got to ask these union bosses a question i mean how many more albertans need to lose their
00:21:19.060job before these union bosses are willing to take a pay cut and core you know we did some research
00:21:24.540looking at collective bargaining in Alberta since the downturn began back in 2015. And we saw many
00:21:31.200private sector unions taking pay reductions. Why? Because they wanted to help keep their businesses
00:21:37.320afloat and they wanted to help keep their employees on staff. But we couldn't find a single
00:21:43.180government union contract that led to any pay reductions during the downturn. In fact, we found
00:21:49.120many that led to pay increases i mean so this is the biggest spending item uh that the alberta
00:21:54.980government has so they have to tackle it if they're going to um you know get their spending
00:22:00.640in order now we do see them making some movement in the right direction but they're not even going
00:22:04.940close enough not even yeah not even close no and i mean i think if we on the ground people as you're
00:22:10.680saying there's no well i can't say no sense speaking to union bosses they're in charge and
00:22:15.340representing the the members but we got to reach out to the members and get them to speak upwards
00:22:20.460to their leadership and say look you know we got to start reasoning with things i mean the
00:22:24.220leadership are kind of in their hallowed halls just as our political uh leaders are i guess in
00:22:29.180some ways and they kind of lose some of the reality and maybe some of the things too is to
00:22:34.060remind uh our government like they'll always predict doom and gloom if you cut spending
00:22:39.500particularly if you're going to go to war with unions but i i'm you know admittedly old enough
00:22:44.140to remember the 90s very well and everybody projected that if ralph klein took on the unions
00:22:49.260if he cut spending for labor he's toast he's gonna get wiped out the liberals are gonna replace him
00:22:54.700and the unions were there they were literally i remember them literally outside the legislature
00:22:58.380kicking on the doors they broke a couple of windows i mean the the protests were something
00:23:02.940else and every pundit oh klein has just destroyed himself politically and everything else so they
00:23:07.420finally went to the polls and what happened he won a bigger majority and four more years of austerity
00:23:13.260and cleaning things up moving towards re ending our debt we got to the point of uh the deficit
00:23:18.220was gone and what happened he got a bigger majority and then four more years after that
00:23:23.980when he started spending again and he you know started moving towards hiking spending his
00:23:29.500popularity started to sink so i i think maybe they're not giving the voters as much credit as
00:23:33.420they should with this yeah um you know i i agree with you and i think um just everyone is is it's
00:23:39.420It's so obvious, unfortunately, Corey, we really are starting to have a bit of a class
00:26:55.760Why are we spending billions of dollars more than the NDP did in 2018-19 when we have such an inefficient provincial government to begin with?
00:27:06.740Yeah, I think a lot of us really expect it better.
00:27:28.740To get a little looking in the crystal ball a little farther down the road, though.
00:27:32.160So they didn't, you know, and it always comes back to this.
00:27:35.960They didn't allow it this time, but they said we should examine a sales tax down the road.
00:27:42.220It's a political horror story for Albertans, yet it's a holy grail, it seems, for politicians and economists to say we've got to get a sales tax because then we can tax ourselves rich.
00:28:05.660The problem is that our government spends way too much, way too much, and the government's continuing to spend.
00:28:11.140And unfortunately, the government isn't really taking this spending problem as serious or nearly as serious as it should.
00:28:18.880But I mean, look, we should be seeing Premier Jason Kenney and the finance minister outright reject the possibility of a provincial sales tax.
00:28:26.360I mean, we have a $10 billion spending problem and the government isn't addressing it, really isn't addressing it.
00:28:32.220we saw spending um go up again this year so so i guess i guess that's in in high level what what
00:28:39.120i would be saying to that and i think you also have to remember too just because you give a
00:28:43.620government a new tax it doesn't mean the budget problem goes away you know what you know what
00:28:48.640politicians like to do with other people's money they like to spend it right i i sometimes get this
00:28:54.560that every other single province um has a sales tax so alberta should have a sales tax well there's
00:28:59.540two obvious answers to that. I mean, the first one is just because other provinces are doing
00:29:03.560something bad doesn't mean we should. And the second one is, well, yeah, look at other provinces,
00:29:09.200big deficits as well. So just because you give the government and politicians another way to
00:29:13.580take more of our money, it doesn't mean the situation is going to improve in Alberta.
00:29:18.100No, and it seems that you see a shallow, shallow assumption all the time that with a sales tax,
00:29:23.280that it won't have an economic impact farther down. I mean, if you hit consumers with another
00:29:27.3605% on everything they're going to buy, they're going to spend something less. And if they're
00:29:32.080spending less, businesses are going to cut back on what they're doing. I mean, it goes all the
00:29:36.360way down the line and that might lead to layoffs. I mean, it has an economic impact. You know,
00:29:41.480people who, proponents of sales taxes always overlook, you know, well, it's not harmless.
00:29:47.220You're adding another tax to the economy here. Yeah. Corey, if I can just jump in, like, sorry,
00:29:52.180sorry for cutting you off but i think you just reminded me of a really good point um and it's
00:29:57.860essentially this i mean we have heard the finance minister say um and premier kenny say now is not
00:30:03.140the right time to consider a sales tax right this would be the worst possible time our finance
00:30:08.020minister hasn't completely shut the door on the idea and it's almost it almost seems to me like
00:30:14.420there's this idea like well you know a pandemic isn't exactly the best time to be taking more
00:30:19.620money from families, better to wait till after the pandemic ends. But Corey, I mean, how many people
00:30:25.760do you know that just has a bucket of money laying around for after the pandemic? And remember,
00:30:32.540after the, when the pandemic ends, Albertans will have faced more than five years of economic
00:30:37.320hardships, many layoffs, many pay cuts, businesses closing their doors, many businesses holding on by
00:30:43.540a thread. So just when the pandemic ends, it doesn't mean that the hardships for Albertans
00:30:47.740will magically go away. And we have to remember and be cognizant of the fact that many Alberta
00:30:52.600families and businesses have been struggling for five plus years. So we don't have all this tax
00:30:57.280dollars just lying around on our money trees to be paying higher taxes in the future as well.
00:31:02.620No. And I mean, the other aspect some people make, I'll just talk about the sales tax a little
00:31:07.680further because it just, it keeps coming up and it's usually economists who do it. They say it's
00:31:12.020a more efficient way of taxing, but I don't care. I mean, the only way I would say go for it, okay,
00:31:17.220cut the income tax to the core down to nothing and make it truly revenue revenue neutral and i
00:31:22.440don't trust you cut that first then bring in the sales tax yeah but until then first all i see is
00:31:29.760another tax and we definitely can't afford it can i uh can i can i interject again sorry but you're
00:31:35.280you keep teeing me off and tee me up so um like look we hear our we hear economists arm wrestle
00:31:42.880all the time over which type of tax should we think about? Which type of tax should we think
00:31:47.740about? But I think many miss the obvious. You know what really matters to everyday Albertans?
00:31:54.840How much tax the government is taking. That is the most important thing for people's lives. Not,
00:32:00.480oh, did I pay this income tax? Did I pay this sales tax? No, it's how much money did the
00:32:05.940government take, right? That is what matters truly when it comes to a tax burden. Now let's talk
00:32:11.920about this revenue-neutral idea, when I hear revenue-neutral, to me, that's the old wolf
00:32:17.340in sheep's clothing, right? The problem with revenue-neutral anything is that it's only
00:32:21.120revenue-neutral until it's not. So the government might come out and say, well, we'll put in a sales
00:32:26.480tax, we'll reduce income taxes to a smaller level. Well, what's stopping the politicians
00:32:32.780from them turning around in two, three, five years and then jacking up income taxes again,
00:32:37.040right so so we have to remember that this whole idea of revenue neutral it really is that that
00:32:42.820wolf in sheep's clothing well then another area then uh which is a little bit separated from the
00:32:49.900budget but it still impacts it and it's coming up and you guys have been active with that though
00:32:54.260is uh the referendum coming up on equalization because part of the issue we do have as albertans
00:33:00.600too though is whatever we seem to gather up the federal government is more than happy to kind of
00:33:05.380take it away from us or give an excuse not to transfer services back to us like they typically
00:33:10.640could. It's something that's kind of not in our control, but could be in our control if we speak
00:33:14.900up on it. Where's the Taxpayers Federation landing with that referenda? Yeah, well, thanks for
00:33:20.960bringing that up. We did launch the fight equalization campaign. So please go to0.79
00:33:25.320fightequalization.ca and it's going to be our campaign for the October 18th referendum. And
00:33:31.320we're fighting for equalization fairness, fighting against the status quo. And let's just let's call
00:33:37.260a spade a spade. What we need is we need Ottawa to take their boots off our necks, right? And look,
00:33:42.600it's equalization is very important. And we do need to fight the status quo. But this equalization
00:33:49.200referendum is much more than just about equalization, right? It's really a way to put
00:33:54.160our legitimate grievances across the country. And we do have legitimate beefs with the rest
00:34:01.100of Canada. I mean, there has been so much research showing that we have spent, or we have paid more
00:34:06.000than $600 billion more to the feds than we've received back in spending since the 1960s. That's
00:34:12.920not just equalization, that's the tax and spend system at large. So we had this massive, massive
00:34:18.640oversized contribution to the rest of Canada. Now, what do we get now, right? Well, we get
00:34:22.840politicians that seem to be getting their kicks by roadblocking our development. We had British1.00
00:34:28.600colombia saying that they would employ every tool in the toolbox to block our pipelines we have the
00:34:33.260quebec's premier what is he calling our oil dirty energy say there's no social acceptability for
00:34:38.180another pipeline and then there's the feds right then there's the feds you got bill c69 you have
00:34:43.760to give kudos to kenny by the way who's who's challenging that so that's very well done bill
00:34:48.340c48 the tanker ban then you've got the carbon tax the feds are getting ready to hit us with a second
00:34:52.960carbon tax the feds rejected northern gateway they moved the regulatory goalposts on energy east
00:34:57.660our political and legal system chased away Kinder Morgan company when it was trying to spend its
00:35:03.020money to build the Trans Mountain expansion so I mean I see this equalization referendum as
00:35:09.000Albertans chance to really send Trudeau and the rest of Canada a message yeah well and budgetary
00:35:16.160wise it's something people love bringing up all the time and again vapidly it frustrates me
00:35:20.820we should be like Norway they got this giant fund and they they saved it all and now they're
00:35:24.920getting revenue from it. Okay, there's some truth to that, you know, and we kind of started along
00:35:29.260that with the heritage front. But Norway doesn't have a Quebec. Norway doesn't have a federal
00:35:35.240government. The EU doesn't take that sort of chunk out of that country from their revenue. So it
00:35:41.140allowed them to sock it away. I mean, sure, we might have pissed it away anyways, even if the
00:35:45.360feds didn't take it. I can't necessarily think we're that good as stewards of our own money
00:35:50.260sometimes, but it is a big factor. I mean, if Albertans want to get stirred up too, they don't
00:35:55.740want to see as much spending cuts. We need them no matter what, but don't want to see as much and
00:36:00.320they don't want to see the tax hikes. Well, let's have a look at where some of that money is also
00:36:03.040siphoning out of us and we're not getting a return on it. You know what, Corey, I actually
00:36:08.460see the issue on both sides. I agree with you. Of course, I agree with you, right? All the amount
00:36:13.600of money that we're paying in federal taxes greater than what we're getting back. I mean,
00:36:18.680that's a no-brainer but but i do see our one of the key fundamental challenges in alberta has been
00:36:25.040the massive provincial government spending problem the pcs spent spent spent the ndp what do they do
00:36:32.080hiked business taxes hiked income taxes hit us with a carbon tax and still added tens of billions
00:36:37.240of dollars of debt onto our backs and now the united conservative government right they came
00:36:41.880into power what were they supposed to do fix the finances without raising taxes and you know what
00:36:47.300this is a challenging situation absolutely but they're spending billions of dollars more than
00:36:51.940the ndp right so i agree with with your sentiment there in terms of ottawa and we do need to fix
00:36:57.940that but but boy do we ever need to clean up our own backyard here in alberta oh yeah it's on both
00:37:03.700ends it's one of the things with people pursuing independence in the past i talked about particularly
00:37:07.220when we had ndp and we had redford in you know saying look guys until we could prove that we
00:37:11.940could manage the province better than ottawa who are we to talk about separating from them
00:37:16.420i mean first things first if we're just going to make a smaller version of the same thing we're
00:37:19.620not going to be anywhere better off uh so what do you think albertans can do to help uh turn this
00:37:25.300around and stand up for themselves in the meantime i mean aside from electoral efforts well hey i'd
00:37:29.940love for everyone to check out what the taxpayers federation is doing i i think that would be step
00:37:34.660one obviously that i would recommend i mean check us out at taxpayer.com go to our newsroom that
00:37:39.060would be that would be fantastic but but really we have to stay on our our politicians right um
00:37:44.660There's a famous quote that I'm not even going to try to remember because I'll butcher,
00:37:48.460but essentially what it is is that the policies are really decided upon by those people who get involved, right?
00:38:02.840Because all of this debt, this $160 billion worth of debt that we're going to have by the end of the year is going to come due at some point.
00:38:10.940And that's why we need this government.
00:38:12.520We need to push them to do a better job finding savings.