High speed ripoff!
Episode Stats
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199.82988
Summary
Corey rants about the Alberta government's new plan to bring faster internet service to rural areas at a price 5,300% higher than it would be if you just got the service yourself. Plus, Erica Baruti, Alberta's new senator-elect, joins the show to explain why we have elected senators.
Transcript
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Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. We got a busy one today. I came in the newsrooms
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just a buzz and they're just stuff breaking on the federal, provincial and municipal fronts.
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We've got three levels of government with things for me to go on about and rant about and dissect
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and all that good stuff. It's kind of a morbid thing. Yes, I enjoy tumultuous or crazy political
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times. It keeps me active, gives me lots of stuff to go on about. Good times would be boring and dull
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and leave me little to report. I don't think we have to worry, though, there's always going to be
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more stuff for me to go on about. I got a good guest coming on today, Erica Baruti. She's the
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senator-elect for Alberta. I'll get her to kind of explain for the non-Albertan viewers why we have
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these elected senators. They rarely actually end up in the Senate, but we do try to elect them anyways.
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And she's going to talk about the latest Senate appointments and a bit on the Senate system,
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because there's some confusion. I saw some people not quite sure how the Canadian system works and
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it is kind of a messed up system. So the confusion is understandable. So yes, this is for those
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watching live. Use that comment scroll. I see Mr. Stanley and Paradoxy saying hello. Yeah, say hi
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in there. I don't necessarily read them all out. I do see them all there though. Mavis there.
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Chat with each other. Get those questions to me and the guest. I don't necessarily get to them all,
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but I see them and it helps model the show. I like it being interactive. There's more than just me
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talking at a camera here. All right, but I am going to talk at the camera here for a minute and get on
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what I'm ranting about. For some of you who watch me on X, you've seen this debate going on a little
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bit over the weekend. I thought I'm going to expand a little bit on it because, yeah, it's something I
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got personal experience with and it's really stupid. So these are things I like to rant about. So the
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Alberta government and the federal government, they've actually teamed up on something and they're
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going to provide internet service to rural areas at a cost 5,300% higher than it would be if
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people just got the service themselves. It's nuts and the program should be scrapped, but
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let's get into it. Access to high-speed internet has been a need for modern living, fair enough,
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much like telephone service has. I mean, it's changed. And like the early days of telephone
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services, rural areas, they take longer to get the infrastructure. You know, there used to be
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party lines until surprisingly not too long ago. Living in rural areas is a choice and residents in
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them understand. You won't necessarily have access to as many services or as quickly as urban
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dwellers do, or at least they should understand that. Now, I live near a pretty massive urban
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center, but I'm on a rural property and our quest for decent internet access has been long and painful.
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Well, cities have had cable and fiber optic internet options for decades now. Lots of rural areas have
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had terrible provision, if any options at all. At my place, we had to set up a small tower on the roof
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to receive this wireless signal, which provided unstable, slow internet service at a high cost
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and terrible customer service. We then switched to using a hub to get service through our cellular
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provider. That was expensive and pointless as the local cell tower couldn't keep up with demand and
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the speeds were nearly as bad as dial-up if they weren't totally crashed. Now, despite being only 800
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meters from a fiber optic cable on a nearby highway, we can't get fiber optic services because it's too
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expensive for any provider to install a stub line down in my community. Fiber optic cable is difficult and
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expensive to put down. It's not like copper power wires or telephone lines. Finally, though, we heard
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about this new option a few years ago. Starlink was offering high-speed service. It was going to cost
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$700 for the hardware and we'd have to go on a waiting list. We eagerly jumped on the option and
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when the unit finally arrived six months later, we set it up on the roof of our house with some
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trepidation. Our home's surrounded by trees and I'm in a valley, so we were worried the satellite
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system might not work well. Our fears were unfounded. The system was true plug and play. You just place it on the
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roof powered up and it orients itself to the best signal. It's almost creepy. There's no need for
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professional installation or tedious aiming in the dish like with your satellite TV services and other
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internet options. And best of all, we immediately had high-speed internet service. And that speed and
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reliability has only gotten better since we put it up there, even though most of our neighbors now have
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Starlink as well. It's not overloading the system. Now, it's a little depressing that the price has fallen to
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$200 for a system now and you don't need to have a contract, but that's fine. Good for those who waited.
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Now, let's look at what the provincial and federal governments have been up to in the issue. Well,
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governments at every level have been promising to bring high-speed internet to rural areas for over a decade.
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It's a popular promise to make, but apparently a difficult one to keep. Until Starlink came, all that most
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rural dwellers saw were promises and spending announcements. Most didn't even see that because our internet was too
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crappy to surf the news and find out. The promised spending has been significant, though. The Alberta government
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partnered with the federal government to spend $780 million on what they're calling the Alberta Broadband Fund.
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In bits and pieces, they figured they're going to bring high-speed internet service to the entire rural
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Alberta population by 2030 or so. Yeah, right up, you know, when we all go to electric cars. Then they break that
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fund up to make grand announcements. Like the one last June trumpeting, they're going to bring high-speed internet
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to 1,440 rural Alberta homes for the low price of $10,625 per household. That's not a typo. Only the government
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could manage to take a service that costs $200 per household and manage to soak taxpayers for $10,625.
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The announcement didn't provide a timeline either, so we can assume it would probably be a few years
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before those 1,400 or 14,000 homes see this new service. In the meantime, the $200 Starlink option
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usually arrives within a couple of weeks of ordering it. There's no more waiting times. It's available in
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every part of the province. Now, on top of that last announcement, the government still has $620 million
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laying around dedicated to this project of high-speed internet. The Starlink dishes are appearing on
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rooftops like daisies already. Rural citizens aren't waiting for the government to provide something in
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years that they can get now in weeks. The government's definition of high-speed, by the way, is 50
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megabytes per second. The Starlink's already at over 100 megabytes per second. It's just not even
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in the realm. Some people are claiming we shouldn't become dependent on a service provided by a billionaire
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like Elon Musk. Well, I hate to break it to you guys, but the government isn't providing local mom-and-pop
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internet providers. You're going to be just dependent on a different bunch of billionaires.
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With the Rogers internet crash and periodic internet service losses due to fiber optic strikes,
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let's not pretend that non-Starlink options are any more reliable. Governments like to pretend they've
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operated top efficiency and there's no room for cuts anywhere. And of course, we know that's bunk.
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Well, here's an area for an easy cut. With the Universal Broadband Fund, we could just cut that now.
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Nationally, it's $3.2 billion. Sure, there's some contracts that have to be bought out, but hey, why throw good money
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after bad? By the time the government manages to string those internet services to rural homes, most have
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already gotten satellite internet anyways. It's like laying out landlines to new urban houses for phones that
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are never going to be used. We need to call out and dump this fund now. It's flushing tax dollars down the
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toilet that, yeah, we could probably spend somewhere else for better funds. One thing Paradox is saying, bring on
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the EMP. I think you're talking about the electromagnetic thing that would knock out the satellites and leave us
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all lacking. Yeah, but if that happened, it would blow out the internet on every service we've got and
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the satellite service would be the least of our problems. All right, enough out of me. That was a
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long one out of me. We got Dave Naylor, our news editor in the room and lost a cover there too. How's it
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going, Dave? Oh, it's crazy, Corey. It's nice to come in here and have a 10-minute break. Yeah, just to hide from
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the shouting over in the corner of the newsroom there. So kickoff is tomorrow in the NFL season, so this is the
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first time I'll be able to get to mock you on your Steelers. What's the over-under for
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quarterback, Steelers quarterback raping a maid in the hotel this year? Well, it's down now that
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Mr. Roethlisberger has moved along. We've got the leftovers from your old team, Seattle. Oh, you mean
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God's team. Seattle Seahawks. We were happy to get rid of Russell Wilson years ago and he was
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completely useless in Denver. So now you've got him. What are you expecting? Well, this is the way it works
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in football, right? They suddenly wake up in a new environment and blossom and he'll throw it to
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that lack of wide receivers that the Steelers have sitting out the backfield as it sits anyways. And
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he'll eventually get crushed by the terrible offensive line the Steelers have and I'll cry and
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complain about it through the rest of the season. There you go. I look forward to your whining.
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Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. It's crazy news today. Where to begin? The breakup, the big breakup.
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Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau are no longer an item. Jagmeet tore up their supply deal today.
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So it doesn't mean an election immediately. They're going to go bill by bill and they're
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going to have to try and get NDP support for every bill they pass. And if it's a confidence
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motion and they pull it, we could have an election at any point yet. But a new poll out today puts
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sort of a damper on immediate election talks because the Tories are at 20, what is it? 22%
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now ahead of the Liberals. And polling has, when you put that into seats, the Liberals will only
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have 25 seats if an auction is called today. And the NDP, not much better. And those are historic
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lows. So whatever Trudeau is trying to do to get his numbers up, it ain't working. The other big story
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is the green line and the province has put the boots to it. So this is the big plan for Calgary's
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expanded LRT system. The government has announced no more money. And the past money that we've
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said we were going to provide, no chance because they're bringing in consultants and they're
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going to have a whole rethink about it. Mayor Gondek issued a statement saying, well, we just
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can't afford it any longer with all this stuff. And we've got another school massacre on the
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go, Corey, in the United States in a small town in Georgia called Winder at a high school.
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Got reports of four fatalities and more than 30 students wounded, all by a student-age gunman
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who is now in custody. And Costco must have just realized that I'm a new member. So they're
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raising the membership fees for the first time in seven years. And the other big story is the
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trade war with China. I'll leave that to our business expert, Sean Polzer, who'll be in there
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and later to talk to you about the canola concerns out on the West. And Western farmers once again
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will face the brunt of it. Yeah, well, Western farmers get to pay for Trudeau's Eastern playing
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in the markets. The usual setup. At least with Costco, seven years, that's not bad for the prices
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to go up on something, in all honesty. I mean, I know you don't like it when you see it on your
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own wallet, but everything else has been going up by the month. In fairness, they've kept the hot dogs
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the same price. Oh, wow. And they've kept the roast chicken the same price. There you go.
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Can't blame them, really. The important incentives are still well-priced. Exactly.
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All right. Thanks, Dave. I'll see you after the show. Thanks for it. Right on. That is our news
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editor, Dave Naylor. And yes, big ones breaking today. And again, you know, as I said, that newsroom
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is busy. There's shouting, there's hollering going on there. And most of this, not the news guys,
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but I won't go into details with that. It's about all the same. The reason we can cover these,
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get that news out there as it's breaking, is because you guys have been subscribing.
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It's $9.99 a month, a hundred bucks for a year, guys. Well worth it. Like a newspaper
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00:11:04.140
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00:11:08.400
guys. The old ways are gone. The dinosaurs are finally fading away. Maybe we'll get an election to
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finally get rid of the CBC. We'll see if Polyev follows through on that promise. You know,
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I'm going to go on a sidetrack. And I just heard about that when Dave came in here with this latest
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school shooting, this massacre down in the States and Georgia. And of course, it's awful. I hope it's
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settled. There's a problem down there. The thing is, though, it's a cultural problem. Something's
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wrong. I don't know what it is. I don't. But people point to the guns. That's the instinctive reaction to
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these awful, awful tragedies we get all the time. All the Americans have all those guns. That's why this
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happens predominantly in the States. Yeah, you know, the guns are an element of the crime, and it's a
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part of it. But people often forget Canada actually is the seventh most civilian armed country in the
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world. We have millions and millions of firearms in Canada. We have handguns. We have rifles. We have
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lots. Many, many people have firearms. But we aren't getting, and I understand we have a smaller
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population, of course. But still, even on the scale of it, we aren't getting those kinds of
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things happening here. So it's not a matter of the firearms itself. There's something culturally
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wrong. I don't know what it is. I don't. But you see, I hope that some brilliant person can come up
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and try to find a way and figure out what motivates an individual to go out and murder fellow human
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beings like that and somehow fix it. I don't know how you find that out. I don't know how you deal
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with it. But I know the one way not to deal with it is worrying about the tool they used. As I said,
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if it was just firearms alone, Canada would be having those shootings all the time too. And
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thankfully, we don't. But we have many, many firearms for now. The Liberals might want to change
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that. But so let's make sure we point and try to find what the real root of the problem is,
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instead of pointing at what is more immediate and seems more simple. Because obviously,
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that's not the case. There's something more to it, something more complicated.
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Either way, I hate hearing about those, particularly with schools. It's just so, so awful.
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And, you know, it keeps happening. And it just makes it difficult to work in a newsroom at times
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when things are breaking out like that. You know, we got lots of other things. That's why,
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you know, sometimes people get on our case, why are you reporting on light stuff like, you know,
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yeah, the raising of Costco rates or the price of hot dogs in there? Well, because you need to break
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it up, guys. We can't have nothing but bad news all the bloody time, or political news,
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which going into the drudgery of things, and I'll torment you with our Senate elect,
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Erica Barutti's on that sort of thing right away here. Actually, we like that sort of stuff. It's
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not as really bad, but you know what I mean. Got to break it up. We got to spread it up. So yes,
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we cover a little bit of everything here from the price of hot dogs at Costco to unfortunately,
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tragic, terrible events down in the United States. That's just part of covering a broad variety of
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news. Either way, let's hope that the death count doesn't rise any further down there and
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that they've got this as resolved as it possibly can be. It's a terrible, terrible thing. The other
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thing, you know, before I get to Ms. Barutti's there is, yeah, we got some pretty crazy stuff going
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on in the federal parliament. Jagmeet Singh is finally implying that he might show some courage
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and hold the government to account. I'm in the, I'll believe it when I see it mode. He says he's
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just going to take it bill by bill now. Well, that's all he's ever done. So he'll stomp his
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little feet and he'll pretend to act strong and he'll pass every bill all the way along until they
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have to hold an election a year or possibly more from now. But either way, we've held elections for
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something else in Alberta for many years. It's been a tradition actually for a long time. And
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occasionally the senators we choose end up in the Senate. Often they kind of sit there and waiting
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and never quite get there. But we have one of those elected senators here, Erica Barutti's,
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and she's joining the show. She's been on before and it's overdue. And yes, because our prime minister
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just appointed two senators in Alberta to represent us in the Senate that really, as far as I could tell,
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don't represent many Albertans whatsoever. So thank you very much for joining me today, Ms. Barutti's.
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I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I like that you said it's long overdue. I'm always happy to join.
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Yeah, right on. So I mean, maybe, you know, because some people are from outside of Alberta
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viewing the show and such, can you kind of give in a nutshell what the deal is with elected senators
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in Alberta, what your role is and what we're hoping for? Yeah. So I mean, I think you talked
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about how we have had a history of elected senators in Alberta in 20, between 2012 and 2015. We actually
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had two of the three in the last Senate election be appointed. The reason why it kind of came to be
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was wanting to have a voice for Albertans, which is the role of Senate. It's not a specific group.
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It's not a woke agenda item. It is actually about having a voice for the entire province.
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And so in 2021, aligned with the last municipal election, there was several of us, three of us,
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which ran under the Conservative Party of Canada under new legislative changes by then Premier
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Jason Kenney, and a whole slew of independents that wanted, again, to be able to stand up for
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Alberta in the upper chamber, in the red chamber, to make sure that when bills are passing, that
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our region is definitely considered and that perspective is being brought. Now, fast forward
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from 2015 to 29 or from 2015 till now, we've had Justin Trudeau, who I'm not even sure if he believes
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in the Senate, but who hasn't respected Alberta's elected senators. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper
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did, but we've had an individual named Mike Shaikh, who sat for a very long time. Who knows if that'll be
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my future as well. But we do have three individuals that were elected by Albertans with,
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I'll say quite large numbers. It's larger than, you know, any leader, any premier, any political
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party individual gets. So there was a big uptake by Albertans to actually elect and vote for these
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individuals. So, I mean, a lot of, when I talk to Americans, they're just flabbergasted that we
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actually appoint our senators. I mean, how on earth could you possibly, how undemocratic do you get?
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Well, yeah, I'm afraid that that's the reality. To kind of work around or make that sugarcoat it a
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bit, I mean, Prime Minister Trudeau has claimed all the senators he's elected now are independents.
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They aren't party senators. It's a little hard to believe, isn't it?
00:17:47.860
Well, it is, especially with the most recent appointment in Daryl Finlader. He has been a
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conservative fundraiser. Even when he was a member of the PC party in Alberta, it was a federal liberal
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fundraiser for Justin Trudeau and the liberal party. So, I mean, that's one that really frustrates me
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because I think he does. I mean, he has a great resume from his professional career. I think a
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perspective he could bring, but don't call that an independent senator. Just say they're going to go
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join the liberal caucus. And I think that Justin Trudeau would actually hold a little bit more
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street cred within the individuals that love and respect the purpose of the Senate.
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Well, and another aspect of Senate abuse, and to be fair, over enough years, we can see some
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terrible examples of it from conservative and liberal governments. It's a partisan role
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that can be used as an incentive for people or a handout, a plum. And, you know, somewhere it
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frustrates us a lot, of course, is when media members are suddenly popped in there. Yeah, I'm
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going to speak of Charles Adler. Paula Simons was the first before Charles, too.
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And others prior to that. But, I mean, you know, unfortunately, we shouldn't be seeing media
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members dancing around trying to curry favor with the federal government. Mike Duffy was another
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example. He didn't turn out to be actually, he was a conservative appointee. It didn't turn out to
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really be the best senator we could hope for. If we could take away that reason for the
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government to appoint senators, it would bring some more honesty into that house.
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Yeah, I definitely think and something I did campaign on was the need for Senate reform. So
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I don't think that the Senate is currently working in the way it was either intended or the way that
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it can best suit Albertans. We have seen a few pieces of legislation, including the original,
00:19:31.780
you know, censorship bill that the Senate actually shut down and put back. So we have seen some
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examples where the Senate has actually acted as that sober second thought. But if you're looking
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at even the lay of the land of individuals that are currently senators in Alberta, I think most
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Albertans would find it very hard to sit there and say that these individuals have a track record
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of standing up for the values and beliefs that our province upholds. And so I think there is an
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argument that, you know, I'm sure you and I would both agree, mainstream media or former journalists
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probably aren't the best candidates. But I do think that there is, you know, concern by others
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that we also shouldn't have the partisanship or if you're going to be partisan, at least own it.
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And I think that that's some of the challenge for people that maybe don't understand or support what
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the current Senate, how it operates and what is it, what's its purpose.
00:20:27.080
Yeah. And to change the structure of the Senate itself would take a constitutional reform,
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which is a whole bag of worms that probably would be impossible at this point. But there are
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superficial changes we could do. I was an old, you know, I was a young reformer at the time. Now I'm
00:20:42.380
an old former reformer. The big rallying call in the 90s was triple E Senate, which was elected,
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effective and equal. The equal part would take constitutional reform. But the other two E's,
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if we could, if other provinces jumped on board, if we just at least started the trend of having
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elected senators, I think it would turn them effective because they would feel, you know,
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a mandate and the ability to act as a senator and they'd be answering to the voters rather than to
00:21:07.900
whoever appointed them. Absolutely. I mean, I campaign on term limits. That is, you know, more of a
00:21:13.920
personal statement than again, the ability to have a constitutional reform. You are right,
00:21:21.000
there has been that triple E Senate. The states though, like I want to point out that it's not
00:21:26.420
impossible to actually fully reform the structure of the Senate. They started out as appointees
00:21:33.040
and then shifted away. And now they have 2% regardless of your size. I would love to see that.
00:21:40.200
But to your point, you know, there's wishful thinking and an ideal scenario versus what the
00:21:45.380
realities and the barriers such as constitutional reform exhibits. I'd also love to see other
00:21:51.480
provinces taking this. Now, if I was another province watching what's happening in Alberta and
00:21:55.840
the lack of respect for the senators in waiting to be appointed, you know, it's probably very
00:22:01.840
discouraging under this current administration that that is going to be, you know, the will of
00:22:06.960
the people equals the will of what's happening in Ottawa. And that those appointments, you know,
00:22:13.080
the appointments become the symbol, but the elections become the voice of who folks want
00:22:19.020
to be sitting in those seats. Yeah. And as for term limits, as you said, it'd almost have to be sort
00:22:23.660
of voluntary sort of thing. Again, I saw some people and that's part of why I was hoping to get
00:22:28.960
you on as well, just to correct some of the misconceptions, because some people are saying,
00:22:32.200
well, as soon as Paul Yev becomes prime minister, presuming becomes prime minister,
00:22:36.260
saying he could revoke some of those appointments or turn them over. And no, once the senators in,
00:22:40.180
it's actually very difficult to remove them from that role, if not impossible, until they reach
00:22:46.320
retirement age. Yeah. And so it is deemed an appointment for life until the age of 75. Now,
00:22:52.760
several individuals have stepped down before. Doug Black was an example of someone, Senator Doug
00:22:58.760
Black, that said, you know, in 10 or 12 years, like, the mandate in which I would be able to carry
00:23:04.340
forward has kind of run its course. And I'd like to step aside. His hope was that one of the
00:23:09.100
elected senators, as he waited till the day after our election, or a week after to do so.
00:23:15.740
You know, they don't necessarily stay still 75. But I would suspect someone like Paula Simons,
00:23:21.160
who probably this is the best gig of her life, isn't going to leave that seat. And a lot,
00:23:26.060
unfortunately, those two vacancies that had been there for three years, are now being filled.
00:23:32.340
I suspect it's, you know, the silver lining to me is it's how scared he is that he's going to be out.
00:23:38.440
And all he's trying to do is make Polyev's life difficult when he's in government. So I want to
00:23:44.460
take away a positive from this entire experience. But I do think that a lot of the individuals that
00:23:50.420
are currently there are, you know, 50, 60. So their runway is a little bit discouraging for me,
00:23:56.520
obviously, personally, but also that we're stuck with some of these individuals that I think many
00:24:02.280
Albertans would say are maybe not the best candidate. Yeah, they could sit for a long time.
00:24:09.460
And then as Ian Leslie, one of the commenters said, the Senate's going to be a block on whatever
00:24:12.780
Polyev tries to do. That's a concern some people have is we could end up at a majority parliament
00:24:18.280
that Canadian voters selected. But they can't pass a bill without Senate consent. And that's
00:24:26.240
something else. There was some debate online. A lot of people confused about that saying, oh,
00:24:29.300
the Senate can't block bills. Yes, they can. And in fact, they can do it in perpetuity.
00:24:34.080
Yeah. And so if I can just I'm and I think you know this, I'm developing an applied politics course
00:24:39.340
to teach individuals all of these things at Macamie College. So I'll do a little plug there because
00:24:44.620
we're going to be launching our pilot in the new year. But that's exactly it is there's first reading,
00:24:49.960
second reading, it goes to committee. And then the like the step before, you know,
00:24:55.440
in the process, it's got to go to the other house. And so another thing people don't know is that
00:25:01.640
actually the upper chamber of the Senate can introduce their own private members bills.
00:25:06.120
And that would require that they can pass it within their house and then send it. But yes,
00:25:10.200
absolutely. We saw it with I think it was C11. We've seen it, you know, with amendments coming back,
00:25:16.600
like there is a strategic move here that Trudeau is doing to create this blockage for many of I
00:25:26.200
suspect Polyev's policies and legislation that he's going to try passing or trying to, you know,
00:25:32.260
water down policies, et cetera. And so I think it's actually like quite unnerving
00:25:37.580
that he's doing this politics by political strategist hat says it's it's smart politics
00:25:44.380
for him to do this should he not know when he's going to get the boot. But it was something that
00:25:49.000
Stephen Harper missed and didn't appoint some of those Senate roles and the Supreme Court
00:25:53.220
appointments. But it's all signs point to Trudeau's very scared about his future and knows he's he's done
00:26:00.080
soon and is trying to build up this Senate as as an obstacle to democracy rather than part of the
00:26:07.660
democratic process. Yeah. And you brought up something else that's interesting. I mean,
00:26:11.540
a lot of people have mentioned, you know, Prime Minister Harper made a terrible mistake because
00:26:14.780
he left a bunch of vacant Senate spots when he went to the polls and thus just left an opening for
00:26:19.320
more liberals to get put in there. Yeah, I think strategically that was a bad move. I'm certain if I can only
00:26:27.480
guess he was more confident that he might be in for another term. But when a Senate vacancy happens,
00:26:32.700
as you pointed out, some were vacant for three years. It's not the same as when a House of Commons
00:26:36.660
seats open up and they have to hold a by-election within six months. They can keep those seats empty
00:26:41.960
until it's practical for them, which again, is ridiculous. Oh, absolutely. I mean, when we started
00:26:46.920
running in 2000 or 2021, there was two vacancies. And then during it, I mean, talk about a slap to the
00:26:55.140
face for the, regardless of if they were running under the conservative banner, which I was,
00:27:00.020
or independence people that were like going from all four corners of our province, trying to, like,
00:27:05.060
most of the time I felt we were educating that we have a Senate and that a Senate exists and what
00:27:08.940
its powers were. So I felt I was doing a service to grade six democracy class. But also talking about
00:27:15.600
the value of the Senate and how we need to reform it. And that like, there is, there is some
00:27:21.760
opportunity here. But as we were mid campaigning, he appointed Karen Swanson, who is known for her
00:27:29.720
selfies with Trudeau when she was the former mayor of Banff. And so that went down to one,
00:27:35.800
didn't appoint both. And then obviously Doug Black resigned. And then from then, from 2021,
00:27:42.820
he hasn't appointed anyone in Alberta. And so he left those sitting. I don't know if it was like,
00:27:48.480
you know, to, to punish us, and make us feel like there was hope. But I can just say that now he's
00:27:56.500
going through his list, and trying to appoint as many people to drive his narrative. I mean,
00:28:03.000
the other individual, Chris Wells, doesn't have necessarily clear party allegiance, but, you know,
00:28:09.760
isn't really speaking for all Albertans. He has one agenda, one agenda only, and he's running on,
00:28:14.740
you know, his desire to bring wokeism to the upper chamber.
00:28:19.040
Yeah, Mr. Wells is, he would be more akin to an NDP type selection if they,
00:28:23.200
exactly, in my view. But I mean, it's interesting, and it's frustrating with the games played,
00:28:27.700
the appointment historians, and the timing of it was a political middle finger to Albertans. It was
00:28:32.640
his way of saying, I'm going to choose now just to let you all know that I think you're pissing in
00:28:36.840
the wind. And I will choose your senators, you know, no matter what you guys try to do. And it just
00:28:42.640
shows some of the spite, I think, to a degree between the federal government and the provinces.
00:28:47.840
Yeah, I mean, I will say, so when Trudeau got in, he said that there needs to be some type of
00:28:51.900
changes. He created his own application process, myself and the other two, like the top three
00:28:58.100
candidates of the Senate race, all applied through his process. I can tell you, I think I
00:29:05.900
did more background information for my Costco membership than I did for the Senate application.
00:29:12.980
It was basically a resume and some reference letters. It wasn't robust, and nor was it a
00:29:19.040
reflection of, you know, what qualities and characteristics you would be bringing to the
00:29:23.060
upper chamber. But I also haven't heard from any of the recent ones, Charles Adler included,
00:29:29.400
who is new to Manitoba's Senate and has actually, you know, said he doesn't believe in the Senate,
00:29:36.740
he believes it should be abolished, and now is getting a pretty good paycheck to sit there and
00:29:42.140
sit in that house. I don't think that they, I don't know if any of them, especially the two in
00:29:48.540
Alberta, actually went through that process. I know Paula Simons did, and I know Karen Swanson did,
00:29:53.940
because they've shared that. None of these, these three recent appointments have shared if they went
00:30:00.080
through his process. So, I mean, and again, not only a slap, but even more, a bigger slap to democracy
00:30:04.980
and a hypocritical action by, by Trudeau. And the process is token at best. Well, before I let you go,
00:30:13.040
then you're, you're not just going to sit idly staring at the computer, waiting until you get your
00:30:16.440
Senate seat. You've been working on other things in the meantime, as you alluded to, you've got
00:30:20.560
something on the go in the college, can I, you know, get your plug out there? And where can people,
00:30:25.100
you know, see what you're up to and what you're doing? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I will never stop
00:30:30.460
relentlessly standing up for Alberta. It might just be me being a Senator and waiting longer,
00:30:36.740
but my aspirations to get there and be able to move the Alberta agenda will, will stick with me
00:30:43.020
until probably the rest of my life. But when it comes to what I'm doing now, I recognize that for my
00:30:48.400
years, my 20 plus years in politics, working on campaigns, as well as working within the legislature
00:30:54.380
and for political parties, that there was a really big need to start teaching those, those skills.
00:31:01.440
I have a poli sci degree and I can guarantee there's very few from my political science degree
00:31:05.580
that I actually applied to my career and definitely did not help me get my foot in the door to have
00:31:11.780
a career in politics. So we've created at Macamie college, the applied politics and public affairs
00:31:17.780
specialist diploma program, two years, you should be able to learn everything from briefing notes to
00:31:23.920
stakeholder relations to event planning, you'll learn how to run and win campaigns. And so we're
00:31:29.320
bringing together a group of experts in those respected areas to teach this program, and hopefully
00:31:37.020
get that will for democracy, the excitement around politics, and the divisiveness in which we see
00:31:44.400
shrink while we grow the ability for people to engage in the process.
00:31:50.540
Well, excellent. I hope you get packed classes. And I know we need a lot more people to get a little
00:31:54.280
more knowledge in that field. Absolutely. So I appreciate you coming on. I do hope you get into
00:31:58.680
the Senate because I want to see the people who were elected get in there. It's not that big an ask,
00:32:03.220
you would think. So I thank you again for clarifying a lot of that and for putting your name out there.
00:32:08.360
And I hope it happens. And I hope we get to talk again sometime soon. Yeah, thanks so much, Corey.
00:32:13.720
Great. Thank you. So it is over to Senator elect Erica Barutis. And as you can hear, yes, she's quite
00:32:18.320
busy on a lot of the other things. And I'm seeing some of the things in the discussion scroll going on
00:32:23.740
that shows confusion about the Senate. You know, some of the discussion between Mr. Stanley, I see
00:32:28.040
and Ian Leslie saying, you know, why do we need a Senate? And Ian Leslie saying it's a breaking system on a
00:32:31.880
majority government. Both are kind of yeses in a sense. Yes, technically it should be. But because
00:32:37.960
it's unaccountable, because it's appointed, because they, you know, answer to it. I mean, Mr. Stanley
00:32:43.380
said, who does the Senate serve? And Ian Leslie said Canadians. Okay, theoretically, yes, but they
00:32:47.380
don't. If you aren't elected, you don't serve Canadians. You serve whoever appointed you. It's a
00:32:52.320
Senate with a theoretical use, but because it's been abused the way it has, has become a sad shadow of
00:32:59.080
what it should be. It should be a second house to make a check on what's going on. It should help for
00:33:04.340
regional balance. So you can look at the American system, which again, has many, many challenges.
00:33:09.600
It's equal. There's two senators per state, no matter what, and they're elected. So Idaho has as many
00:33:17.180
senators as California or New York. And meanwhile, of course, with Congress, then it's based on
00:33:23.340
population. So this way, though, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana can't all get together and jam something for
00:33:29.060
because it won't pass Congress, because the populated states won't get, you know, won't
00:33:33.600
support it. Likewise, the populated states can't override and crush the lesser populated states
00:33:38.760
because the Senate won't pass those things, or at least that's the theory in how it's supposed to
00:33:41.980
work. And it certainly works more effectively in Canada. Canada's is just kind of a mismatch of
00:33:46.080
a number of senators all over. And again, as usual, it's dominated in Quebec and East. The West gets a
00:33:51.600
very bad shake out of it. Dave Keehan saying they can legislate the power of the Senate to basically
00:33:58.220
zero. No, they can't actually. It's very, very constitutionally entrenched what the Senate can
00:34:02.460
do. We can't do a heck of a lot. If we're talking about the governor general, that's one of the
00:34:06.080
things I think we can defund her down to next to nothing. You can't get rid of the role. You can't
00:34:09.140
get rid of the theoretical power, but you could at least stop the lavish travel on her part.
00:34:15.320
But the Senate, unfortunately, is a mess. Mr. Stanley is saying appointed by who? By the prime minister.
00:34:20.240
That's the one and only person. Well, or if you start playing with the formalities of things,
00:34:23.960
the senators are appointed by the governor general on the recommendation of the prime minister,
00:34:28.880
blah, blah, blah. It's the prime minister. That's all there is to it. The governor general never says
00:34:33.360
no, never. It's another token role. So we've got a system that's a semi-democracy. If you want to
00:34:41.480
listen to my dreamland thing, if we somehow tore Canada's constitution apart and rebuilt it and built
00:34:49.100
a second house, a Senate, I'd love to see one that was equally dispersed across the country. People
00:34:55.380
talk about proportional representation. I wouldn't want to see one level elected by proportional
00:34:59.480
representation, but you know, we could have one house elected by it. Maybe have 10 senators per
00:35:04.200
province and they were elected and not for, until the age of 75, they had to face it every four years
00:35:10.240
and you had proportional representation there. Maybe we can have a whole different thing there,
00:35:13.720
but I mean, that's dreamland. As it is right now, what we have is this appointed Senate that does
00:35:19.780
the wishes of the prime minister. And again, it's been abused by conservative and liberal governments
00:35:23.340
both. I mean, Mulroney stacked the Senate to get the GST shoved through in the past. You can't point
00:35:28.380
a finger to any government being good with it. In the meantime, though, one of the things we can do,
00:35:32.560
and that was way back in Mulroney's days with Stan Waters. He was the first elected senator. We can elect
00:35:36.220
him. We can go through the motions that we can at least let the provincial voters choose
00:35:39.260
and a willing prime minister can put them in. But that's a stopgap thing until the constitution's
00:35:45.900
reformed. It's always just going to be more of an honor system on the part of the prime minister
00:35:49.560
to deal with. All right, let's check in with our business and energy fella, Sean Pulzer. I know
00:35:54.880
you've been busy in there with everything breaking. They forced you to watch that Trudeau conference.
00:35:58.240
My condolence. It was the, you know, 15 minutes of my life. We'll never get back. Oh, his voice. I just
00:36:04.760
can't take it. I turned around. I looked and I saw you seated in front of the TV in Trudeau. And
00:36:07.840
going, oh, God, I got to go write my monologue. Well, I've actually been at Trudeau Presser's
00:36:13.080
here in Calgary. And he just has, I'm not sure if it's a skillful way of completely avoiding
00:36:18.800
the question and using an awful lot of words. Word salad. Yes. Oh, well. Well, what else
00:36:25.700
is that breaking out there? What do you got for me today? Well, on the business front, we've
00:36:29.500
been fairly busy. So our old friend, Robbie Starbuck is back at it again. Yes. This time
00:36:34.740
we went after Molson and Coors. So back in around 2015, Molson and Coors merged, right?
00:36:40.980
Yeah. You remember all the controversy with Bud Light. You know, they lost $3 billion in
00:36:45.980
market cap. Well, it turned, you know, and they were pitching Coors as a reasonable alternative
00:36:50.980
to, you know, the silver bullet to, uh, Bud Light and Coors Light are both carbonated piss.
00:36:55.220
I mean, well, it turns out that Molson Coors was, uh, just as woke, uh, as Bud Light. They
00:37:02.980
just didn't put, uh, you know, Mulvaney on the can. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good to see Starbucks
00:37:07.780
still aiming for them. I'm sure there's gotta be other businesses now scrambling on saying,
00:37:11.300
like, Oh, we do not want to be targeted by this fellow. Let's, let's get rid of our DEI garbage
00:37:15.580
right now before, before we're in action on the list. Well, that's pretty much exactly what happened.
00:37:19.420
So, uh, he's the last three times, uh, he hasn't even really had to quote unquote out anybody. He's
00:37:24.780
just, uh, you know, he sends them an email and then that's it. They, they caved like the very next
00:37:29.580
day. So I don't want to hear from that guy. Well, and after Bud Light, they lost $3 billion in sales.
00:37:34.220
They were the number one brand in the U S like by far. And Hauser-Busch has like pretty close to about
00:37:38.940
80% of the U S beer market stock up. So it was a, it was a huge hit for them. So some people are
00:37:44.380
getting smart there. Uh, the other big one that we have today is the canola, you know, the EV trade
00:37:49.980
war. So, uh, Ottawa is protecting, uh, what is it? $50 billion in taxpayer subsidized, uh, EV plants
00:37:57.980
in Ottawa and Quebec. And in the meantime, they're throwing basically canola farmers in Alberta and
00:38:04.620
Saskatchewan and a lesser degree Manitoba under the bus. Yeah. And the trade with China, I think
00:38:09.420
on canola is around $3 billion or something like that. It's actually about 3 billion in Saskatchewan
00:38:14.060
alone. So across the prairies, it's closer to about five. So, I mean, again, it just shows the
00:38:18.380
regional discrepancy when he'll give a market that massive, the middle finger, at least throw them
00:38:23.260
out, leave them hanging in the wind, uh, to protect the central Canadian one that takes 50 billion a
00:38:28.380
year or whatever in subsidies. Well, and I was talking to the vice president of the wheat growers
00:38:32.780
here and, uh, they're based in Calgary, but he farms out by Fort McLeod. And he basically said,
00:38:38.460
uh, you know, the liberals don't have a rural riding. They, they barely have any ridings,
00:38:43.020
you know, west of Thunder Bay, but absolutely none of them are anywhere near them. You know,
00:38:47.980
like you were saying the agriculture minister, one that they have now, Macaulay, he says he's a nice
00:38:52.300
guy, but he's from Prince Edward Island. And it's kind of like, you know, having the fisheries minister
00:38:56.780
from Saskatoon, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, and then he wasn't consulted and like just the canola
00:39:03.500
hit alone would be about 10% of the farmer seats. Yeah. Well, I think they're, they're taking it with
00:39:09.100
an India trade war on, uh, lentils as well. That's another, I won't take it down that road,
00:39:15.260
but our agricultural producers are really getting a beating with Trudeau's international reputation
00:39:19.420
that, you know, cause that's our big exports. Our big exports are resource and, and, uh, agricultural,
00:39:24.620
even if the federal government thinks that we should change. Well, potash was only a billion
00:39:27.820
dollars last year, you know, in Saskatchewan. And that's a huge export for them as well.
00:39:31.820
Right. So, uh, the value of canola sales is almost five times. And to put it into perspective,
00:39:37.740
uh, we're talking Tesla, right? So imports duties on Chinese made EVs. There is only one Chinese made
00:39:46.780
EV that is available in the Canadian market. That is the Tesla model. Oh, what a mess. Just when
00:39:53.340
governments get into market. There's only about 40,000 of them a year that actually come in. So,
00:39:57.820
you know, we're talking, uh, peanuts. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And finally, Costco cranked up their
00:40:05.100
membership. Yeah. Dave mentioned that. Yeah. Oh, Dave did. Yeah. Dave's a Costco shopper. There's no
00:40:09.980
doubt. I think he goes for the dollar 50 hot dogs. He did. He said they haven't raised the price on that
00:40:14.220
at least. No, but it's been a while since they raised their membership price, right? Yeah. And, uh, you know,
00:40:19.580
it's very interesting because, uh, the way their business model works about, uh, 60% of their
00:40:23.980
profits actually come from membership revenues. So, uh, the analysts are saying that it's structured
00:40:29.180
more like, um, you know, uh, online subscription service, like Netflix, you know, so how Netflix was
00:40:36.300
trying to stop the double leakage on the memberships and all that kind of thing. So basically you have to
00:40:40.860
kind of think of Costco as kind of like a Netflix that sells, you know, gallon size jars of toothpaste.
00:40:46.540
Yeah. Well, we'll see how it works for me. It's a business decision. They'll probably,
00:40:50.300
they'll lose some people who are just saying hip to heck with you guys, I'm not going to renew,
00:40:53.580
but others, you know, they should garner some revenue by others who are just going to say,
00:40:57.020
well, I'll take, well, and that was part of the, that was part of the suggestion too, was,
00:41:00.460
uh, you know, the shopping experience, you know, on the one hand, they have to try to encourage people
00:41:03.420
to come in by having low enough prices. But then at the, uh, on the other hand, they have to harass
00:41:07.660
you enough, you know, at the gate and check your card and scan you and, you know, scribble on your receipts,
00:41:13.420
you know, to let you through. It's a different business model. Yeah. It's kind of a balance.
00:41:18.620
It'd be interesting to watch anyways. All right. Well, thanks for those updates. So I'll let you
00:41:23.740
get back to the newsroom and chew on whatever you, you pulled out of your, your news conference.
00:41:27.820
So Trudeau, that looks American. What do you got there? Oh, I'm heading off to Washington DC.
00:41:31.660
Oh, that's right. Yeah. We're going to try and catch a Trump rally here on the weekend.
00:41:35.420
I should be fun. Watch your ears. Watch my back. Did you see that guy jumped into the media stand
00:41:42.940
last week? No, I haven't seen that. Oh, Trump says, oh, media's the enemy. Next thing you know,
00:41:47.100
they had to taste this guy because he jumped over the media riser. Well, I'll happily watch from afar.
00:41:51.740
And then Trump says, aren't my rallies fun? And I hope it is for you, uh, but you don't get
00:41:57.100
tackled or lose an ear or something. Oh, you'll read all about it on Western Center. Excellent. All right,
00:42:01.660
Sean. Well, thank you. And, uh, we'll see you in the newsroom. Excellent. Thanks. That's great.
00:42:06.940
It's Sean Polzer. Yes. Covering our news energy and Trumpism, important things out there. Uh,
00:42:13.820
yeah, so much to cover. Like I said, it's got crazy. Jagmeet Singh is posturing, but BC,
00:42:19.500
I haven't even been able to touch that yet today. And boy, have an eye on that. We got a reporter
00:42:23.180
out in BC, Mr. Jaeger. I think the name is there. Jared. Boy, I'm terrible with names. Yes,
00:42:29.260
but he's been writing excellent stuff. I just don't look at the name all the time of the article,
00:42:33.020
but no. And, and I mean, so the BC United has basically folded its tent. You've got the BC
00:42:38.540
conservatives. Suddenly the, the only conservative option, the BC NDP is reaching out, trying to figure
00:42:43.980
out how to pull in some of that support. There's a real neck and neck race going on out in BC for the
00:42:48.460
provincial government right now. And it's a big one. I mean, this is, you know, when you're looking at
00:42:53.980
the government turnover as, as radically different from NDP to conservative, and that election is just
00:42:59.340
a month away, we're going to see some very interesting campaigning going on over there.
00:43:03.580
And boy, unexpected. It gave a little bit of memories in a sense to, to when Premier Smith
00:43:09.340
did her, well, she wasn't Premier yet. She was the head of the Wildrose party. I was on the board of
00:43:12.540
the party at the time when she suddenly did her ill-fated floor crossing, thinking that would unite the
00:43:18.220
conservative parties and Jim Prentiss would have this, this new united force going forward. Instead,
00:43:23.660
the Wildrose survived. Daniel Smith's political career we thought was dead at the time, but
00:43:27.660
obviously wasn't. What a crazy fiasco, but it did lead to four years of NDP in Alberta. And now where we
00:43:35.580
are, politics, boy, it's, it's just a, a loony, loony world, isn't it? And it's hard to keep up. But yeah,
00:43:42.940
speaking to the West, speaking of us taking it on the canola front, you know, you drive, you see those
00:43:47.580
yellow fields that they're everywhere in the West. It's, it's a huge market. As Sean said,
00:43:51.580
five billion dollars a year. And it is being threatened. Now there's other buyers besides
00:43:57.500
China. Of course there are. But when you lose a major, major customer like that, it hurts the market
00:44:03.660
dramatically. It means that they've got to find other buyers. Well, what's another buyer going to
00:44:08.300
say? Yeah, I'll take that off your hands, but you know, we're going to have to change price a little bit.
00:44:12.940
So they're going to get a lower return on those crops. Again, it's Trudeau's terrible
00:44:20.060
diplomatic actions. Trudeau's complete lack of business sense is, is, is led to this mess. As
00:44:26.700
I said, the lentil producers, it's smaller, but same sort of thing. Trudeau getting in fights with
00:44:30.940
India. And meanwhile, it's the lentil producers who get it on the tail end because India says,
00:44:35.740
fine, we're not buying your lentils anymore because we don't export a lot. Despite Trudeau's
00:44:40.300
dreams, we aren't an EV producer. We aren't an EDV exporter. We aren't selling these batteries. We
00:44:44.620
aren't selling these parts. So when the other countries want to shoot back at us, when they
00:44:49.660
want to, during a trade war to, you know, fire a shot at Canada, they go after the agricultural
00:44:57.180
products. And guess where most of that's coming from? Yeah. So in the West as usual, I've said it
00:45:02.860
before and I'll say it again, guys, Canada is broken. I think we kind of covered that with the
00:45:06.380
the Senate discussion with looking at how we're being shot at with, you know, our agricultural
00:45:12.140
products because of Trudeau's mess. So Trudeau came on defiantly though, as I said, Jagmeet Singh,
00:45:17.500
saying he's not, he's torn up the agreement that he had with Trudeau. And, and the, now it's just
00:45:21.740
going to be policy by policy and he could invoke an election anytime. Look, he's not going to. Singh's
00:45:25.820
a coward. He's a wimp, but he's posturing, he's talking. And the bottom line is the support for
00:45:31.660
both of them is just going to keep tanking. But as, as others, as commenters have pointed out,
00:45:36.220
and, uh, you know, as a, if we have a stacked Senate, even if it does end up with only 25
00:45:41.260
liberal seats, all of Canada is ready for a change. We've got a whole bunch of these bums
00:45:45.260
and a bunch of them are bums in the Senate who will block almost everything that Pierre
00:45:51.260
Pauliev tries to put through. If that happens, then we're looking at a constitutional crisis.
00:45:56.540
We're looking at a real problem. We've got an unelected house stuck until the age of 75 in there.
00:46:01.660
That will not allow an elected majority to get things done. That is a broken system.
00:46:08.300
And it's pretty frightening. I've proposed a way to sell it. I'll throw my own plug in at
00:46:11.740
the end. Just look up, uh, Corey Morgan is an author. I wrote a book on how we might be able
00:46:14.940
to change that, but I won't go too far in my self-promotion on that. You can look it up for
00:46:18.380
yourselves if you're not familiar with it. Lots going on. Be sure to tune in. We're going to break
00:46:22.380
some more of this stuff down on the pipeline tonight with, uh, Nigel Hannaford and Derek Fildebrand.
00:46:27.260
And of course, uh, Nigel has a fantastic show that comes out weekly. He does channel kind
00:46:31.100
of a Rex Murphy sort of feel with things. Check it out. Check out Hannaford. We're expanding our
00:46:35.340
production. Share the links to our sites, guys. Get it out there. Keep tuning in. This is how we
00:46:40.220
stay independent. This is how we get the news that the mainstream won't give you. Thank you all for
00:46:44.300
tuning in this week. There was so much more I wanted to get to, but I just ran out of time.
00:46:47.660
I will see you all again next week at this time.
00:46:51.580
If the name Ted Byfield brings back fond memories, well, we got a party coming up for you guys.
00:46:56.380
On September 25th, Toasting Ted is what it's called. It's going to honor a great conservative
00:47:01.020
who published Alberta Report news magazine. It's going to be bagpipes, singing, live auction,
00:47:06.140
stakes, speeches by Premier Smith, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, quite a lineup.
00:47:10.060
The Western Standard is the final incarnation or the latest incarnation of Alberta Report that Ted
00:47:15.420
Byfield founded. And I mean, he was a great Albertan. He really made his mark on this province.
00:47:20.540
And this evening of celebration for him is really going to be outstanding. Get there,
00:47:24.060
toastingted.ca. That's the website. You can get your tickets. This one's going to sell out. I mean,
00:47:28.860
again, if you want to see Smith, Manning, Harper, all in one spot, one night, be sure to get there.