Western Standard - September 07, 2024


High speed ripoff!


Episode Stats

Length

48 minutes

Words per Minute

199.82988

Word Count

9,632

Sentence Count

711

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

5


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

00:00:00.000 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. We got a busy one today. I came in the newsrooms
00:00:11.400 just a buzz and they're just stuff breaking on the federal, provincial and municipal fronts.
00:00:16.160 We've got three levels of government with things for me to go on about and rant about and dissect
00:00:20.580 and all that good stuff. It's kind of a morbid thing. Yes, I enjoy tumultuous or crazy political
00:00:28.920 times. It keeps me active, gives me lots of stuff to go on about. Good times would be boring and dull
00:00:34.920 and leave me little to report. I don't think we have to worry, though, there's always going to be
00:00:37.780 more stuff for me to go on about. I got a good guest coming on today, Erica Baruti. She's the
00:00:43.400 senator-elect for Alberta. I'll get her to kind of explain for the non-Albertan viewers why we have
00:00:48.260 these elected senators. They rarely actually end up in the Senate, but we do try to elect them anyways.
00:00:53.060 And she's going to talk about the latest Senate appointments and a bit on the Senate system,
00:00:56.760 because there's some confusion. I saw some people not quite sure how the Canadian system works and
00:01:00.280 it is kind of a messed up system. So the confusion is understandable. So yes, this is for those
00:01:06.440 watching live. Use that comment scroll. I see Mr. Stanley and Paradoxy saying hello. Yeah, say hi
00:01:12.200 in there. I don't necessarily read them all out. I do see them all there though. Mavis there.
00:01:17.120 Chat with each other. Get those questions to me and the guest. I don't necessarily get to them all,
00:01:20.940 but I see them and it helps model the show. I like it being interactive. There's more than just me
00:01:24.940 talking at a camera here. All right, but I am going to talk at the camera here for a minute and get on
00:01:28.820 what I'm ranting about. For some of you who watch me on X, you've seen this debate going on a little
00:01:33.140 bit over the weekend. I thought I'm going to expand a little bit on it because, yeah, it's something I
00:01:37.200 got personal experience with and it's really stupid. So these are things I like to rant about. So the
00:01:41.360 Alberta government and the federal government, they've actually teamed up on something and they're
00:01:44.760 going to provide internet service to rural areas at a cost 5,300% higher than it would be if
00:01:51.060 people just got the service themselves. It's nuts and the program should be scrapped, but
00:01:55.120 let's get into it. Access to high-speed internet has been a need for modern living, fair enough,
00:01:59.920 much like telephone service has. I mean, it's changed. And like the early days of telephone
00:02:04.360 services, rural areas, they take longer to get the infrastructure. You know, there used to be
00:02:07.820 party lines until surprisingly not too long ago. Living in rural areas is a choice and residents in
00:02:12.740 them understand. You won't necessarily have access to as many services or as quickly as urban
00:02:17.920 dwellers do, or at least they should understand that. Now, I live near a pretty massive urban
00:02:22.260 center, but I'm on a rural property and our quest for decent internet access has been long and painful.
00:02:27.500 Well, cities have had cable and fiber optic internet options for decades now. Lots of rural areas have
00:02:33.000 had terrible provision, if any options at all. At my place, we had to set up a small tower on the roof
00:02:39.040 to receive this wireless signal, which provided unstable, slow internet service at a high cost
00:02:44.040 and terrible customer service. We then switched to using a hub to get service through our cellular
00:02:48.660 provider. That was expensive and pointless as the local cell tower couldn't keep up with demand and
00:02:53.200 the speeds were nearly as bad as dial-up if they weren't totally crashed. Now, despite being only 800
00:02:58.440 meters from a fiber optic cable on a nearby highway, we can't get fiber optic services because it's too
00:03:03.200 expensive for any provider to install a stub line down in my community. Fiber optic cable is difficult and
00:03:08.920 expensive to put down. It's not like copper power wires or telephone lines. Finally, though, we heard
00:03:14.080 about this new option a few years ago. Starlink was offering high-speed service. It was going to cost
00:03:18.400 $700 for the hardware and we'd have to go on a waiting list. We eagerly jumped on the option and
00:03:22.680 when the unit finally arrived six months later, we set it up on the roof of our house with some
00:03:26.580 trepidation. Our home's surrounded by trees and I'm in a valley, so we were worried the satellite
00:03:29.640 system might not work well. Our fears were unfounded. The system was true plug and play. You just place it on the
00:03:35.000 roof powered up and it orients itself to the best signal. It's almost creepy. There's no need for
00:03:39.120 professional installation or tedious aiming in the dish like with your satellite TV services and other
00:03:43.920 internet options. And best of all, we immediately had high-speed internet service. And that speed and
00:03:49.000 reliability has only gotten better since we put it up there, even though most of our neighbors now have
00:03:53.380 Starlink as well. It's not overloading the system. Now, it's a little depressing that the price has fallen to
00:03:58.840 $200 for a system now and you don't need to have a contract, but that's fine. Good for those who waited.
00:04:02.760 Now, let's look at what the provincial and federal governments have been up to in the issue. Well,
00:04:06.600 governments at every level have been promising to bring high-speed internet to rural areas for over a decade.
00:04:11.120 It's a popular promise to make, but apparently a difficult one to keep. Until Starlink came, all that most
00:04:16.960 rural dwellers saw were promises and spending announcements. Most didn't even see that because our internet was too
00:04:21.860 crappy to surf the news and find out. The promised spending has been significant, though. The Alberta government
00:04:26.620 partnered with the federal government to spend $780 million on what they're calling the Alberta Broadband Fund.
00:04:32.760 In bits and pieces, they figured they're going to bring high-speed internet service to the entire rural
00:04:36.420 Alberta population by 2030 or so. Yeah, right up, you know, when we all go to electric cars. Then they break that
00:04:42.560 fund up to make grand announcements. Like the one last June trumpeting, they're going to bring high-speed internet
00:04:46.500 to 1,440 rural Alberta homes for the low price of $10,625 per household. That's not a typo. Only the government
00:04:55.420 could manage to take a service that costs $200 per household and manage to soak taxpayers for $10,625.
00:05:02.760 The announcement didn't provide a timeline either, so we can assume it would probably be a few years
00:05:06.280 before those 1,400 or 14,000 homes see this new service. In the meantime, the $200 Starlink option
00:05:13.080 usually arrives within a couple of weeks of ordering it. There's no more waiting times. It's available in
00:05:16.960 every part of the province. Now, on top of that last announcement, the government still has $620 million
00:05:21.160 laying around dedicated to this project of high-speed internet. The Starlink dishes are appearing on
00:05:26.020 rooftops like daisies already. Rural citizens aren't waiting for the government to provide something in
00:05:29.920 years that they can get now in weeks. The government's definition of high-speed, by the way, is 50
00:05:34.080 megabytes per second. The Starlink's already at over 100 megabytes per second. It's just not even
00:05:39.860 in the realm. Some people are claiming we shouldn't become dependent on a service provided by a billionaire
00:05:44.240 like Elon Musk. Well, I hate to break it to you guys, but the government isn't providing local mom-and-pop
00:05:48.560 internet providers. You're going to be just dependent on a different bunch of billionaires.
00:05:52.880 With the Rogers internet crash and periodic internet service losses due to fiber optic strikes,
00:05:58.000 let's not pretend that non-Starlink options are any more reliable. Governments like to pretend they've
00:06:02.800 operated top efficiency and there's no room for cuts anywhere. And of course, we know that's bunk.
00:06:06.580 Well, here's an area for an easy cut. With the Universal Broadband Fund, we could just cut that now.
00:06:12.360 Nationally, it's $3.2 billion. Sure, there's some contracts that have to be bought out, but hey, why throw good money
00:06:17.900 after bad? By the time the government manages to string those internet services to rural homes, most have
00:06:22.900 already gotten satellite internet anyways. It's like laying out landlines to new urban houses for phones that
00:06:27.960 are never going to be used. We need to call out and dump this fund now. It's flushing tax dollars down the
00:06:32.740 toilet that, yeah, we could probably spend somewhere else for better funds. One thing Paradox is saying, bring on
00:06:40.180 the EMP. I think you're talking about the electromagnetic thing that would knock out the satellites and leave us
00:06:44.120 all lacking. Yeah, but if that happened, it would blow out the internet on every service we've got and
00:06:50.340 the satellite service would be the least of our problems. All right, enough out of me. That was a
00:06:54.240 long one out of me. We got Dave Naylor, our news editor in the room and lost a cover there too. How's it
00:06:58.620 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
00:07:03.620 the shouting over in the corner of the newsroom there. So kickoff is tomorrow in the NFL season, so this is the
00:07:09.920 first time I'll be able to get to mock you on your Steelers. What's the over-under for
00:07:15.320 quarterback, Steelers quarterback raping a maid in the hotel this year? Well, it's down now that
00:07:20.140 Mr. Roethlisberger has moved along. We've got the leftovers from your old team, Seattle. Oh, you mean
00:07:24.920 God's team. Seattle Seahawks. We were happy to get rid of Russell Wilson years ago and he was
00:07:32.360 completely useless in Denver. So now you've got him. What are you expecting? Well, this is the way it works
00:07:37.680 in football, right? They suddenly wake up in a new environment and blossom and he'll throw it to
00:07:42.000 that lack of wide receivers that the Steelers have sitting out the backfield as it sits anyways. And
00:07:46.680 he'll eventually get crushed by the terrible offensive line the Steelers have and I'll cry and
00:07:50.520 complain about it through the rest of the season. There you go. I look forward to your whining.
00:07:54.180 Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. It's crazy news today. Where to begin? The breakup, the big breakup.
00:08:00.060 Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau are no longer an item. Jagmeet tore up their supply deal today.
00:08:07.700 So it doesn't mean an election immediately. They're going to go bill by bill and they're
00:08:13.780 going to have to try and get NDP support for every bill they pass. And if it's a confidence
00:08:18.300 motion and they pull it, we could have an election at any point yet. But a new poll out today puts
00:08:24.520 sort of a damper on immediate election talks because the Tories are at 20, what is it? 22%
00:08:31.140 now ahead of the Liberals. And polling has, when you put that into seats, the Liberals will only
00:08:39.420 have 25 seats if an auction is called today. And the NDP, not much better. And those are historic
00:08:46.800 lows. So whatever Trudeau is trying to do to get his numbers up, it ain't working. The other big story
00:08:53.160 is the green line and the province has put the boots to it. So this is the big plan for Calgary's
00:09:00.820 expanded LRT system. The government has announced no more money. And the past money that we've
00:09:07.720 said we were going to provide, no chance because they're bringing in consultants and they're
00:09:12.460 going to have a whole rethink about it. Mayor Gondek issued a statement saying, well, we just
00:09:17.700 can't afford it any longer with all this stuff. And we've got another school massacre on the
00:09:24.820 go, Corey, in the United States in a small town in Georgia called Winder at a high school.
00:09:30.620 Got reports of four fatalities and more than 30 students wounded, all by a student-age gunman
00:09:39.800 who is now in custody. And Costco must have just realized that I'm a new member. So they're
00:09:46.140 raising the membership fees for the first time in seven years. And the other big story is the
00:09:52.020 trade war with China. I'll leave that to our business expert, Sean Polzer, who'll be in there
00:09:58.140 and later to talk to you about the canola concerns out on the West. And Western farmers once again
00:10:04.760 will face the brunt of it. Yeah, well, Western farmers get to pay for Trudeau's Eastern playing
00:10:09.760 in the markets. The usual setup. At least with Costco, seven years, that's not bad for the prices
00:10:15.200 to go up on something, in all honesty. I mean, I know you don't like it when you see it on your
00:10:18.220 own wallet, but everything else has been going up by the month. In fairness, they've kept the hot dogs
00:10:22.600 the same price. Oh, wow. And they've kept the roast chicken the same price. There you go.
00:10:27.220 Can't blame them, really. The important incentives are still well-priced. Exactly.
00:10:30.660 All right. Thanks, Dave. I'll see you after the show. Thanks for it. Right on. That is our news
00:10:35.280 editor, Dave Naylor. And yes, big ones breaking today. And again, you know, as I said, that newsroom
00:10:39.840 is busy. There's shouting, there's hollering going on there. And most of this, not the news guys,
00:10:43.140 but I won't go into details with that. It's about all the same. The reason we can cover these,
00:10:47.360 get that news out there as it's breaking, is because you guys have been subscribing.
00:10:50.740 It's $9.99 a month, a hundred bucks for a year, guys. Well worth it. Like a newspaper
00:10:54.680 subscription. Keeps us independent. We don't take tax dollars. We don't want to take tax dollars.
00:10:59.940 If you've subscribed already, thank you. If you haven't yet, get on there. Westernstandard.news
00:11:04.140 slash subscription. Take one out. Tell your friends to get on board. This is the future of media,
00:11:08.400 guys. The old ways are gone. The dinosaurs are finally fading away. Maybe we'll get an election to
00:11:14.700 finally get rid of the CBC. We'll see if Polyev follows through on that promise. You know,
00:11:17.820 I'm going to go on a sidetrack. And I just heard about that when Dave came in here with this latest
00:11:22.540 school shooting, this massacre down in the States and Georgia. And of course, it's awful. I hope it's
00:11:28.920 settled. There's a problem down there. The thing is, though, it's a cultural problem. Something's
00:11:35.240 wrong. I don't know what it is. I don't. But people point to the guns. That's the instinctive reaction to
00:11:42.440 these awful, awful tragedies we get all the time. All the Americans have all those guns. That's why this
00:11:46.500 happens predominantly in the States. Yeah, you know, the guns are an element of the crime, and it's a
00:11:52.840 part of it. But people often forget Canada actually is the seventh most civilian armed country in the
00:11:59.020 world. We have millions and millions of firearms in Canada. We have handguns. We have rifles. We have
00:12:04.640 lots. Many, many people have firearms. But we aren't getting, and I understand we have a smaller
00:12:10.160 population, of course. But still, even on the scale of it, we aren't getting those kinds of
00:12:17.020 things happening here. So it's not a matter of the firearms itself. There's something culturally
00:12:22.780 wrong. I don't know what it is. I don't. But you see, I hope that some brilliant person can come up
00:12:29.820 and try to find a way and figure out what motivates an individual to go out and murder fellow human
00:12:35.920 beings like that and somehow fix it. I don't know how you find that out. I don't know how you deal
00:12:40.220 with it. But I know the one way not to deal with it is worrying about the tool they used. As I said,
00:12:46.620 if it was just firearms alone, Canada would be having those shootings all the time too. And
00:12:50.500 thankfully, we don't. But we have many, many firearms for now. The Liberals might want to change
00:12:54.420 that. But so let's make sure we point and try to find what the real root of the problem is,
00:12:59.300 instead of pointing at what is more immediate and seems more simple. Because obviously,
00:13:04.160 that's not the case. There's something more to it, something more complicated.
00:13:09.160 Either way, I hate hearing about those, particularly with schools. It's just so, so awful.
00:13:15.740 And, you know, it keeps happening. And it just makes it difficult to work in a newsroom at times
00:13:21.700 when things are breaking out like that. You know, we got lots of other things. That's why,
00:13:24.760 you know, sometimes people get on our case, why are you reporting on light stuff like, you know,
00:13:28.960 yeah, the raising of Costco rates or the price of hot dogs in there? Well, because you need to break
00:13:33.020 it up, guys. We can't have nothing but bad news all the bloody time, or political news,
00:13:38.240 which going into the drudgery of things, and I'll torment you with our Senate elect,
00:13:42.020 Erica Barutti's on that sort of thing right away here. Actually, we like that sort of stuff. It's
00:13:46.160 not as really bad, but you know what I mean. Got to break it up. We got to spread it up. So yes,
00:13:50.160 we cover a little bit of everything here from the price of hot dogs at Costco to unfortunately,
00:13:54.500 tragic, terrible events down in the United States. That's just part of covering a broad variety of
00:13:59.500 news. Either way, let's hope that the death count doesn't rise any further down there and
00:14:03.620 that they've got this as resolved as it possibly can be. It's a terrible, terrible thing. The other
00:14:11.080 thing, you know, before I get to Ms. Barutti's there is, yeah, we got some pretty crazy stuff going
00:14:18.800 on in the federal parliament. Jagmeet Singh is finally implying that he might show some courage
00:14:23.840 and hold the government to account. I'm in the, I'll believe it when I see it mode. He says he's
00:14:28.520 just going to take it bill by bill now. Well, that's all he's ever done. So he'll stomp his
00:14:32.800 little feet and he'll pretend to act strong and he'll pass every bill all the way along until they
00:14:36.840 have to hold an election a year or possibly more from now. But either way, we've held elections for
00:14:41.300 something else in Alberta for many years. It's been a tradition actually for a long time. And
00:14:45.440 occasionally the senators we choose end up in the Senate. Often they kind of sit there and waiting
00:14:51.760 and never quite get there. But we have one of those elected senators here, Erica Barutti's,
00:14:57.160 and she's joining the show. She's been on before and it's overdue. And yes, because our prime minister
00:15:01.860 just appointed two senators in Alberta to represent us in the Senate that really, as far as I could tell,
00:15:06.820 don't represent many Albertans whatsoever. So thank you very much for joining me today, Ms. Barutti's.
00:15:13.240 I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I like that you said it's long overdue. I'm always happy to join.
00:15:20.140 Yeah, right on. So I mean, maybe, you know, because some people are from outside of Alberta
00:15:25.140 viewing the show and such, can you kind of give in a nutshell what the deal is with elected senators
00:15:29.080 in Alberta, what your role is and what we're hoping for? Yeah. So I mean, I think you talked
00:15:34.200 about how we have had a history of elected senators in Alberta in 20, between 2012 and 2015. We actually
00:15:44.580 had two of the three in the last Senate election be appointed. The reason why it kind of came to be
00:15:51.800 was wanting to have a voice for Albertans, which is the role of Senate. It's not a specific group.
00:15:56.200 It's not a woke agenda item. It is actually about having a voice for the entire province.
00:16:04.800 And so in 2021, aligned with the last municipal election, there was several of us, three of us,
00:16:13.060 which ran under the Conservative Party of Canada under new legislative changes by then Premier
00:16:18.600 Jason Kenney, and a whole slew of independents that wanted, again, to be able to stand up for
00:16:26.020 Alberta in the upper chamber, in the red chamber, to make sure that when bills are passing, that
00:16:31.860 our region is definitely considered and that perspective is being brought. Now, fast forward
00:16:36.840 from 2015 to 29 or from 2015 till now, we've had Justin Trudeau, who I'm not even sure if he believes
00:16:45.120 in the Senate, but who hasn't respected Alberta's elected senators. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper
00:16:53.000 did, but we've had an individual named Mike Shaikh, who sat for a very long time. Who knows if that'll be
00:16:59.000 my future as well. But we do have three individuals that were elected by Albertans with,
00:17:04.320 I'll say quite large numbers. It's larger than, you know, any leader, any premier, any political
00:17:13.100 party individual gets. So there was a big uptake by Albertans to actually elect and vote for these
00:17:20.900 individuals. So, I mean, a lot of, when I talk to Americans, they're just flabbergasted that we
00:17:26.580 actually appoint our senators. I mean, how on earth could you possibly, how undemocratic do you get?
00:17:31.400 Well, yeah, I'm afraid that that's the reality. To kind of work around or make that sugarcoat it a
00:17:37.840 bit, I mean, Prime Minister Trudeau has claimed all the senators he's elected now are independents.
00:17:42.680 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
00:17:54.320 conservative fundraiser. Even when he was a member of the PC party in Alberta, it was a federal liberal
00:17:59.700 fundraiser for Justin Trudeau and the liberal party. So, I mean, that's one that really frustrates me
00:18:06.720 because I think he does. I mean, he has a great resume from his professional career. I think a
00:18:11.020 perspective he could bring, but don't call that an independent senator. Just say they're going to go
00:18:16.800 join the liberal caucus. And I think that Justin Trudeau would actually hold a little bit more
00:18:22.560 street cred within the individuals that love and respect the purpose of the Senate.
00:18:27.420 Well, and another aspect of Senate abuse, and to be fair, over enough years, we can see some
00:18:32.520 terrible examples of it from conservative and liberal governments. It's a partisan role
00:18:36.500 that can be used as an incentive for people or a handout, a plum. And, you know, somewhere it
00:18:42.740 frustrates us a lot, of course, is when media members are suddenly popped in there. Yeah, I'm
00:18:46.780 going to speak of Charles Adler. Paula Simons was the first before Charles, too.
00:18:52.020 And others prior to that. But, I mean, you know, unfortunately, we shouldn't be seeing media
00:18:57.880 members dancing around trying to curry favor with the federal government. Mike Duffy was another
00:19:03.580 example. He didn't turn out to be actually, he was a conservative appointee. It didn't turn out to
00:19:06.960 really be the best senator we could hope for. If we could take away that reason for the
00:19:12.720 government to appoint senators, it would bring some more honesty into that house.
00:19:16.460 Yeah, I definitely think and something I did campaign on was the need for Senate reform. So
00:19:20.760 I don't think that the Senate is currently working in the way it was either intended or the way that
00:19:25.860 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
00:19:37.460 examples where the Senate has actually acted as that sober second thought. But if you're looking
00:19:42.240 at even the lay of the land of individuals that are currently senators in Alberta, I think most
00:19:48.140 Albertans would find it very hard to sit there and say that these individuals have a track record
00:19:53.520 of standing up for the values and beliefs that our province upholds. And so I think there is an
00:19:59.440 argument that, you know, I'm sure you and I would both agree, mainstream media or former journalists
00:20:05.180 probably aren't the best candidates. But I do think that there is, you know, concern by others
00:20:11.140 that we also shouldn't have the partisanship or if you're going to be partisan, at least own it.
00:20:17.400 And I think that that's some of the challenge for people that maybe don't understand or support what
00:20:23.300 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,
00:20:32.700 which is a whole bag of worms that probably would be impossible at this point. But there are
00:20:36.980 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,
00:20:47.600 effective and equal. The equal part would take constitutional reform. But the other two E's,
00:20:54.040 if we could, if other provinces jumped on board, if we just at least started the trend of having
00:20:57.900 elected senators, I think it would turn them effective because they would feel, you know,
00:21:02.700 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.
00:47:40.060 Oh, dear,
00:48:10.060 You