Western Standard - In defense of 15-minute cities

00:00:00.000 Good day. Welcome to the Cory Morgan Show. It's the last day of summer, or at least last show

00:00:10.960 of summer for me. We got a little more summer coming on this. I hate winter. I can't stand it.

00:00:15.440 I know I've been in Canada my whole life. I just suffered too much working as a surveyor,

00:00:19.360 freezing way too many times. I can take the heat. So I'm going to mourn the end of summer. I guess

00:00:24.200 on the bright side, we can look forward to our political clowns getting back in session at every 0.94

00:00:28.700 level of government, though, so we have a lot more stuff to go on and piss and moan about, which is, 0.87

00:00:32.840 you know, what I specialize in. Never a shortage of material, of course, and then there's none

00:00:37.700 of a shortage of it today. Later on, I'm going to have guest David Clement on. He's been on before.

00:00:42.680 It's been quite a while, though, and he's with the Consumer Choice Center. We're going to talk

00:00:45.680 about that big liberal move where they've now banned nicotine pouches. They're saving the youth of the

00:00:51.440 world from nicotine pouches, apparently. That was the biggest threat to them. We can get a crack pipe,

00:00:56.220 you know, from a vending machine in Nanaimo, but heaven help us if somebody got a hold of a

00:01:00.380 nicotine pouch. So we'll discuss that. And yes, be sure, guys, for those who are watching live,

00:01:05.000 anyways, use the comment scroll. I appreciate it. I like seeing the comments. Keep them civil. I see

00:01:10.420 what the title of this show today, and I'll get into that in a moment. I knew it was going to work

00:01:14.340 some folks out, and somebody, Corey Starkiller, a commenter, came in an hour ago, actually. I hope he's

00:01:19.380 still here. He says, so the Western Standard openly admits to being controlled opposition. I wonder who's

00:01:24.680 paying for this. No, we're in controlled opposition. Not everything is a conspiracy. If we were getting

00:01:30.480 big bucks from the WEF, do you think I'd be wearing this cheap sport coat? Come on, guys.

00:01:35.680 I only get my hair cut once every couple of months. Either way, I'll go further as we discuss these

00:01:41.120 things. Good to see you there, Ron, Mr. Stanley, and Paradoxy, some of the regulars in the comments

00:01:45.420 scroll. This can be an interactive show. We can have some fun. So, okay, let's see what this guy's

00:01:49.080 commenting about, why he's worked up. I'm talking about 15-minute cities. Now, bear with me.

00:01:53.060 I know they trigger many people, and I'm talking about defending them in a way. The issue we have

00:01:58.840 isn't 15-minute communities in themselves. It's that we're dealing with urban density-obsessed

00:02:04.800 authoritarian zealots who plan cities. The issue isn't the concept. It's with the motivation of

00:02:10.940 those promoting it and how they want to go about it. The World Economic Forum Density Zealots, 0.71

00:02:15.860 they want to see densely packed urban centers with high-rise buildings and strictly controlled

00:02:20.240 living standards. Their motivations are based on building a rigid socialist society with the

00:02:25.080 movement and actions of people strongly regulated. They claim their motivations are based on

00:02:30.300 environmentalism, of course, and egalitarianism, but that's what the Soviet Union claimed as well.

00:02:34.960 And actually, I did have the pleasure of seeing those giant ugly row houses in Moscow back in the 1.00

00:02:39.200 80s. Not a pretty thing. Now, the 15-minute city proponents inspired by the WF, they have no interest

00:02:44.320 in allowing people to exercise their individual choice. That's why they're obsessed with public

00:02:48.620 transit, making individual automobile ownership impractical, if not impossible. They want to

00:02:53.500 squash people into enclaves, and they feel the only way to do it is to regulate movement. This was evident

00:02:57.880 in the UK, where a city tried to force auto owners to stay within certain districts, and they were offering

00:03:02.200 fines if they didn't do so. The WF vision of the 15-minute cities, it's one of virtual imprisonment.

00:03:08.680 Like most authoritarian states, the elites, of course, would travel and enjoy lavish lifestyle,

00:03:12.660 lifestyles, but the commoners would be left to dull, drudging existences. We're kind of almost

00:03:16.900 there. I mean, look at Canada, where we send our folks overseas to environmental conferences,

00:03:21.820 and they treat themselves on the taxpayers' dime to nice lavish affairs there, these shindigs. 0.77

00:03:26.740 We aren't that far from the two-tiered world the WF types want us to enjoy. 0.94

00:03:31.220 So, people don't trust the government to manage their lives, and for very good reasons. I mean,

00:03:34.920 the COVID days aren't that far in the rearview mirror, and we can remember just how eager the

00:03:39.040 political class and their bureaucrats are to control us whenever possible. Unfortunately, 1.00

00:03:44.440 this mistrust has led me to instinctively oppose all forms of community planning, even if the planning

00:03:49.960 is good. Now, think of a 15-minute city concept that's not based on authoritarianism, but it's

00:03:55.260 instead based on free market capitalism, free movement, and minor zoning controls. Think of a

00:04:00.200 community where stores, schools, medical centers, other services are all mostly within a 15-minute walk,

00:04:04.480 or at least a short drive. Savings could be had as people don't find themselves commuting as far for

00:04:09.200 worker services, and we get a tighter community bonding as people get to know each other and

00:04:13.040 socialize in the community hubs. Now, what I'm describing isn't nefarious at all if living within

00:04:17.560 these communities is voluntary. In fact, we have thousands of them already. We call them small towns.

00:04:22.420 Dense urban downtown hubs are obsolete. It used to be essential that large businesses had to set up

00:04:27.980 administrative centers nearby each other so meetings could be held, communications and documents could be

00:04:32.200 sent, and so the workers could all commute to one spot in reasonable time. With modern vehicles and

00:04:37.220 communication methods, businesses can and are moving away from urban centers, and they're setting

00:04:41.320 up suburban campuses or heading to smaller cities and towns. With the ability to work from home

00:04:45.780 increasing, many people are choosing. That's the key part here, guys, choice. They're choosing to escape

00:04:50.320 the cities and enjoying smaller town life, or at least moving to the fringes of the cities rather than

00:04:54.500 being stuck in the core. New and growing communities are enjoying an influx of new residents, and they're

00:04:58.980 creating local services to make the areas more appealing. They aren't doing it because city planners are

00:05:03.680 making them doing it. They're doing it because that's what citizens want. The irony of the whole 15-minute

00:05:08.200 city issue is that 15-minute cities will form organically if only the authoritarians would just leave

00:05:12.960 citizens alone. Smaller business hubs will form on the outskirts of cities, and residential communities will

00:05:17.880 surround them. The density zealots will decry this trend. Of course, it's urban sprawl. They claim it's

00:05:22.460 environmentally harmful to let people spread out. In reality, smaller suburban communities and small

00:05:28.000 towns, they foster more green space than any densely packed urban downtown, and there tend to be fewer

00:05:33.000 discarded syringes and less scent of piss as well. The world's changing, and we need to plan for it.

00:05:37.820 Smaller communities with independent services within them are the future. There's nothing wrong with 15-minute 0.94

00:05:42.360 cities. We just need to reimagine what they'll be and how we're going to achieve them. We've got to

00:05:46.540 distinguish between good 15-minute cities and bad ones. It's not hard to tell which ones with a simple rule.

00:05:52.080 If the proponent of a 15-minute city says we need more government to get there, they're proposing

00:05:56.320 the wrong kind. So, I guess to use a cheesy statement, you know, let's not throw out the baby

00:06:00.560 with the bathwater. 15-minute cities aren't all that bad. Just let us choose them. All right, enough

00:06:05.560 about that. Let's get on to our news editor, Dave Naylor, and update on what else is going on out there

00:06:09.840 in the world. Hey, Dave, how's it going? I knew it. Knew what? I knew you were a WF student. Yes, I know.

00:06:15.260 I've just got a poster of Klaus Schwab in my bedroom. I mean, you live in a place that takes two minutes to

00:06:20.780 walk across the entire town. Yeah. And you're lecturing us city folk on city life. I'm saying

00:06:26.160 you should move out to areas like I live in, if possible. All right. Hey, I'm declaring the drought

00:06:31.240 over. This alleged drought that we've been undergoing. Holy cow, was it raining heavy this

00:06:35.760 morning? Yeah, the drought's really caused a lot of mushrooms to spring up my lawn this year. No kidding.

00:06:39.680 No kidding. You know what? I haven't seen much, though, just thinking about it. Dandelions.

00:06:43.900 Is it just me? I haven't seen any dandelions this year. Not in a while. I mean, the early part,

00:06:47.520 they came up. But yeah, they kind of disappeared pretty fast. It wasn't wasps, though.

00:06:51.620 You know, that's the news you're not going to believe. So you remember that ISIS terrorist who

00:06:55.860 was granted citizenship in Toronto? Yeah. And then they arrested him for trying to do terrorist type

00:07:01.380 things. Yeah, he dissected a guy on video. Yeah, he dissected him. Yeah, chopped him up. The Liberals,

00:07:06.580 public safety minister today, testified that's how the system should work. Oh, for ISIS. You let the 1.00

00:07:13.760 terrorists in. You give them citizenship. You're only tipped off by a foreign government that they're 0.99

00:07:18.460 going to blow something up. And that's how the system should work? I mean, come on, man. It's

00:07:23.400 ridiculous. The ridiculousness continues into wacky BC, where Fraser Health, as they did, they were 0.97

00:07:30.700 offering a free crack pipe delivery service. You know, order up a crack pipe, another drug 0.84

00:07:37.800 paraphernalia, they'll drop it off at your house. No problem. Well, Premier Eby didn't like that

00:07:42.160 and ordered that stopped. Then the story on the crack vending machines in BC hospitals, Nanaimo and

00:07:49.560 a couple of other places where you can just go up to a vending machine, press a button and get a

00:07:54.680 cocaine snorting kid or a crack pipe. Well, Minister Eby, even though it was his government that approved

00:08:00.140 them, sorry, Premier Eby, his government approved them, but he's now going to review it after it's

00:08:05.200 being brought to light. Here's your head a shake. Got a call from yourself, defending Premier Smith and her

00:08:13.000 decision to move around AHS and maybe get them out of the hospital running business. Yeah. And of course,

00:08:19.100 the left has lost their mind and the head and then she is openly weeping in the streets. I must say, I'm not

00:08:25.880 sucking up to you, but it's a good call. Perfect. It's a good call. Hammer time at Home Depot. They've become the 0.98

00:08:31.320 latest company to come under fire for their woke policies and sponsoring all sorts of sexual 0.93

00:08:39.740 minority stuff. So we'll see if they bow to the pressure like Harley Davidson and Jack Daniels and

00:08:46.040 John Deere and Tractor World and all the companies that have wilted under the pressure. And under the

00:08:53.160 category of no blank Sherlock, the Public Health Agency of Canada has admitted their pandemic COVID

00:09:00.260 action plan was a failure. Holy cow. Who would have guessed it? Only a little late out of the gate with that,

00:09:08.180 aren't they? A little late out of the gate. But you know what? They're just getting ready for the monkey pox.

00:09:12.500 So hopefully they've now got a better game plan. Well, there's a new one I just saw today. It's called EEE. I forget what that all

00:09:17.700 stands for. It's mosquito born and an 80 year old man in eastern states has been diagnosed. The first one with it. 0.94

00:09:24.680 Sloth virus. Yeah, something like that. And the legacy media has made that a headline because one

00:09:30.280 person out of the, you know, a few hundred million in North America has come down with something

00:09:33.960 non-fatal. So as soon as I know where you can get your vaccine for that, I'll let you know.

00:09:37.960 Okay. And our readers and viewers. Well, I'm sure our state learned from COVID though,

00:09:42.200 so they can properly respond. Absolutely. We won't be able to get on airplanes without it.

00:09:46.600 All right. Thanks, Dave. I'll let you get back to digging through the rest of those, again,

00:09:53.000 absurd stories. Sometimes you just shake your head. The truth really is stranger than fiction.

00:09:57.960 That's why I enjoyed it. It's so strange. It is. And we'll see you on the pipeline.

00:10:02.120 You bet. All right. So that is our news editor, Dave Naylor. As you see,

00:10:05.720 lots of stories coming out from the good, the bad, and the ridiculous, but we put them all out there.

00:10:10.520 There's a lot of content and good stuff. Guys, this one I like to nag. Yeah, I have to. 1.00

00:10:14.200 This is how we pay the bills. It's $9.99 a month. It's $100 a year. Get past that paywall.

00:10:18.920 Keep us independent. Keep me flogging these 15 minute cities. All that good stuff. Get on there.

00:10:24.280 Westernstandard.news slash subscription. We don't take government dollars. We won't take it. They're

00:10:29.800 not really that eager to give it to us, but the reason we can do that is because you've been

00:10:32.440 subscribing. So if you have already, thank you very much. And if you haven't, come on guys, get in there.

00:10:37.160 It's less than a newspaper subscription used to be. So yeah, you know, I see a lot of the comments

00:10:41.720 we're talking about with the monologue, like Mark Bass saying the same thing. I don't have a problem

00:10:44.920 with 15 minute cities as long as I'm not forced to stay within them. That's the thing that you see,

00:10:48.600 they've taken in this, the typical thing of governments, isn't it? You take a good thing

00:10:52.760 and you add government and you turn it bad. That's the problem. A meritocrat also saying,

00:10:58.920 yep, you can drive through a 10,000 population, small town within 15 minutes. Yeah. And a community of

00:11:03.720 10,000 would typically have, you know, everything you'd need, a school, grocery store,

00:11:07.720 some sort of medical center, things like that. Like we can spread out. We just, there is a

00:11:12.760 difference. The loons, the civic planners, the mayors and councils, they want to squash us all

00:11:18.760 in and up, which is horrible. We need them to go out, little communities outside. We can communicate.

00:11:25.800 We don't need to be all jammed in like that anymore. But yeah, some of the stuff is just not so

00:11:31.640 speaking of healthcare, then let's get back to that. And that's funny, because I want to see more

00:11:36.280 healthcare options growing out there. Premier Smith, you know, things have gone bananas on our

00:11:39.720 own. And she says, as Dave says, weeping the blues. He's the Alberta NDP leader. And what has happened

00:11:46.440 is Premier Smith said at a town hall meeting that we should consider having Covenant Health take over

00:11:53.960 the administration of some hospitals in Alberta to add competition between the administrations, you know,

00:11:59.960 from Alberta Health Services, which is a giant bureaucracy. And maybe with the competition,

00:12:03.800 it would actually, you know, encourage them all to manage things a little better. That's all she

00:12:08.040 said. That's what she said. Oh, the legacy media and then she and the unions and friends of Medicare,

00:12:13.720 which is just a union group, are furious. Now listen, a lot of people don't look at the nuts

00:12:19.000 and bolts of healthcare provision because it's boring. Most of what they're worried about is,

00:12:22.520 hey, I'm dying waiting to see a specialist, literally, or I'm dying while waiting in an emergency

00:12:27.560 room, literally. We've got people in hallways on gurneys, literally. You know, the word literally

00:12:32.680 gets abused a heck of a lot. But in this case, it's properly applied. And when you look to BC,

00:12:37.000 it's run by the NDP, the socialists. Guess what? They got the same problem. Because Canada's system

00:12:43.800 is broken. We need to change some things. It's a monopoly. And you see, when there's a monopoly,

00:12:50.040 the consumer always loses. Always. It doesn't matter if the consumer or if the monopoly is a

00:12:56.520 government one or if it's a private business one. You're hooped either way. You need competition.

00:13:00.760 You need more than one option. Well, we have a health provision monopoly and an administration

00:13:06.760 monopoly. So AHS, you hear the term quite often. That's Alberta Health Services. That is the giant

00:13:12.840 government bureaucracy that manages Alberta's health care system. It has over 100,000 employees

00:13:19.320 under its umbrella. And 90% of them are unionized. They don't want to see anything change. They have

00:13:26.440 nobody to compete with. And what they do, and the unions do and the rest, is lobby against any change.

00:13:31.560 Now, in Alberta, we have some stuff going on. We have nurses who've been playing the part-time

00:13:37.720 shift shuffling game. They stay on as part-timers. They still get big giant pensions and benefits,

00:13:42.280 by the way, because people say, oh, the AHS won't give them jobs as full-timers because they

00:13:45.720 wouldn't get benefits. That's not true. They get benefits even as part-timers.

00:13:49.080 And then they shuffle around and play the overtime game. And what we have is hundreds of nurses in 1.00

00:13:53.080 Alberta who make over 100,000 a year. There was a nurse, a nurse in Alberta a couple years ago made 0.99

00:13:57.080 over $500,000 playing this game. How do they get away with this? Well, because you have a union-dominated

00:14:06.200 administration all under one umbrella that has a monopoly that doesn't have the motivation

00:14:12.120 to take on that battle, to change those things. So how can you change that, break the monopoly?

00:14:17.320 And Smith talked about having Covenant Health break it. And in fact, Covenant Health already

00:14:22.360 manages a number of hospitals. In fact, some big ones, big ones in Edmonton, big ones in smaller towns.

00:14:28.920 But they are Catholic-based. I propose that Smith goes even further. It's not enough to just switch

00:14:33.800 some management to Covenant Health. Let's get some private companies bidding on the management of

00:14:38.120 these hospitals. Let's give them incentives. And again, you build them into it. There's got to be

00:14:43.560 good patient outcomes and, of course, better efficiency in doing it. And we can all win.

00:14:49.960 All right. I see my guest in the lobby, though. So I'm going to bring him in and we'll talk a little

00:14:53.720 more. I want to get on a little more about healthcare after that. But first, we should

00:14:57.160 talk to Mr. Clement from the Consumer Choice Center. So thanks for joining me today, David.

00:15:02.120 Thank you very much for having me.

00:15:03.240 Yeah, it's been a while since I've had you on. I've overdue. I'm sorry for the lapse.

00:15:07.720 No worries. No worries at all.

00:15:09.640 So, you know, what I've got, John, and I appreciate you, you know, you've been speaking

00:15:13.160 on this issue a bit. I've read past columns. When we talk about, I guess, harm mitigation when

00:15:18.120 it comes to tobacco use. I mean, you know, smoking is bad for you. We got that. Everybody kind of agrees

00:15:22.040 with that. But now the war seems to have turned against alternative nicotine delivery systems.

00:15:27.240 And the government is cracking down on nicotine pouches. Can you kind of expand on what's happening

00:15:33.320 here?

00:15:33.560 Yeah. So essentially what's happened is the federal health minister was upset that Health Canada had

00:15:41.800 approved nicotine pouches to be used as a smoking cessation tool, basically a way to get people off of

00:15:51.240 cigarettes, just like Nicorette, right? We've seen those products advertised for decades, it seems.

00:15:59.480 And so he was particularly concerned that nicotine pouches would end up in the hands of kids and all

00:16:07.400 sorts of, I mean, somewhat valid concerns. But the issue here is that rather than simply age-gate all

00:16:16.840 nicotine products, which he certainly could have done, he's removed them from corner stores,

00:16:23.240 and he's banned two of the three available flavors that exist. And that's a huge disservice to anybody

00:16:31.160 who's trying to quit, because if we know, I'm sure you do, and I certainly do, people who've tried for

00:16:38.360 years or even longer to quit, it's really important that when they go to buy cigarettes, they're prompted

00:16:44.760 with the less risky alternative. It's why it's great that we sell vape products at corner stores,

00:16:49.720 so that when someone goes in, maybe they'll consider buying something that isn't going to

00:16:55.080 cause cancer, that would be great for public health, it's a win all around, it's something

00:16:59.800 that should be celebrated. But for some reason, the health minister has had his sights set on

00:17:06.440 nicotine pouches, despite the fact that Health Canada has deemed them equal to Nicorette.

00:17:11.880 So some of the concern, I guess it's a bit of a valid one, we don't want to create

00:17:17.640 new addicts. We don't want kids to come in, or anybody, even adults for that matter, if you never

00:17:22.040 take a nicotine, don't start, whether it's a pouch or whatever you do. But is there any evidence that

00:17:26.440 anybody really started an addiction through these pouches? I mean, most I would think just kind of

00:17:32.440 usually you begin with cigarettes. Well, it's weird, because in the government's announcement

00:17:39.000 about this, they didn't cite any Canadian data, they just cited some anecdotes from the United States,

00:17:47.320 which is an entirely different market, because all of these things have been on the market for a lot

00:17:53.000 longer. But ironically, what they missed in their figures about youth access is that if you wanted

00:18:02.520 to use the United States, youth smoking is at an all time low. And that's a great thing. And it really,

00:18:11.000 for me, just missed the whole point, because we don't want minors to access alcohol. And that's why

00:18:19.400 we make it, we have an age restriction on it. That would be the easy way to ensure that 1.00

00:18:27.000 kids don't have access to nicotine pouches would just be, okay, we're going to make it equal to

00:18:32.360 the age of smoking. And that's it. And leave it with these retailers to sort out the rest. Because

00:18:40.200 think about the cognitive dissonance here, where the government trusts convenience stores to sell

00:18:49.560 cigarettes, which cause cancer, but not sell them to minors, but doesn't trust convenience stores,

00:18:57.240 just to sell, excuse me, a product that doesn't cause cancer to minors. And to me, that did the

00:19:05.400 limited or hypocritical application of harm reduction here from the federal government is just mind boggling.

00:19:12.520 Well, that's it when we're talking about harm reduction, of course, we hear a lot more about it

00:19:15.960 when it comes to opioid addiction, areas of consumption, and so on, where they insist then,

00:19:22.680 and okay, perhaps is a valid case, if we're going to get addicts to utilize harm reduction products,

00:19:27.480 whether it's free syringes, or even pipes now that are being given out in vending machines,

00:19:32.200 under the rationale that we need to make it easy for them to grab these things, we need to be

00:19:36.120 visible and available. But at the same time, when it comes to smoking, we want to make the secession

00:19:43.640 products as invisible and unavailable as humanly possible. It's a complete double standard.

00:19:48.600 Well, it's a complete double standard, and it completely undermines the rest of their arguments

00:19:53.800 on harm reduction. And what's even more irritating is like, if we look at safe supply, right, we're

00:19:59.960 talking hydromorphone, which is equivalent to heroin, you have a government that's distributing

00:20:06.280 hydromorphone, which may or may not be a good policy, there's a huge debate about that. But it's

00:20:14.760 so confusing to me, to have a government go that route on harm reduction for opioids,

00:20:22.280 and then go the prohibitionist mentality on tools that we know help smokers quit,

00:20:28.840 and are so exponentially less risky. And when I say that, it's just to put it into perspective

00:20:34.520 for anybody who's watching, if smoking is a risk level of 99, the vaping is about a five,

00:20:42.040 Nicorette and nicotine pouches are a one. So we're talking about as low risk as you can get

00:20:49.000 while still consuming nicotine. And so yeah, the cognitive dissonance here from the health minister

00:20:55.640 is baffling. It just feels weirdly vindictive on his part, where he just has a grudge.

00:21:01.960 And so he's asked, he's now through the budget, has these new powers to do what he calls precision

00:21:10.360 regulating. And they can go after any product or any medical device or any drug that Health Canada

00:21:17.240 has approved and basically veto that. And the precedent there, we're talking about nicotine

00:21:23.160 pouches today, but the precedent for a politically motivated health minister to just willy-nilly

00:21:28.760 ban something because he says so is a pretty dangerous precedent.

00:21:34.280 There's a lot of authority packed into his chair. And I mean, part of it is when we've got,

00:21:38.680 he's a bit of an activist in himself. I mean, he isn't a medical professional,

00:21:41.720 though he did work as communications person for the Heart and Lung Association, I think,

00:21:45.800 or something like that, Heart and Stroke Foundation. But I mean, I find with activists,

00:21:50.920 especially if they've gotten their way, I mean, it's kind of a broader discussion, but

00:21:53.960 you know, cigarette smoking, I mean, it's down to a minuscule amount of what it used to be.

00:21:58.520 Smokers have been chased out of every public spot, they kind of have to hide in the alley,

00:22:02.280 and then I was going to say in doorways, but they're not allowed in your doorways to smoke.

00:22:06.840 But you know, the anti-smoking lobby has almost succeeded, they've really knocked it down.

00:22:13.160 And now it's like they have to set their sights somewhere new, they've got to find a new target.

00:22:18.280 Like in Calgary, they were working on banning vaping from city parks, there was no indication

00:22:23.080 whatsoever that people were being harmed by people vaping in city parks, or that it was,

00:22:27.320 you know, some sort of problematic thing, but they just seem to have a chip on their shoulder for

00:22:31.720 any kind of product and they're going to come after them.

00:22:34.360 It's the fun police. It's the fun police. That's all it is. It's an anti-statism and mission creep.

00:22:41.560 And I mean, it's just really uncomfortable behavior. It's fine for the anti-organizations

00:22:48.920 to have their stance if they want to convince the public to essentially be teetotalers or

00:22:55.880 temperous or avoid all of these substances. That's their prerogative and I wish them the best of luck

00:23:02.360 in doing so. But when it crafts policies, that's when I get really uncomfortable because you get these

00:23:08.840 ridiculous things like allowing Nicorette to be flavored fresh fruit or berry, but not allowing

00:23:17.160 nicotine pouches to have those flavors, allowing Nicorette to be sold anywhere, not allowing nicotine 0.54

00:23:24.200 pouches to be sold anywhere except for pharmacies. And so it's, you see this kind of activist

00:23:30.600 policy push. And it's that mission creep where, I mean, ironically, Canada wants to get to a place

00:23:40.120 where we're deemed smoke-free, which is less than 5%. There's really only one OECD country who's gotten

00:23:46.520 to that mark and it's Sweden. And what does Sweden have to do with all of this? Well, where do nicotine

00:23:52.600 pouches come from? They come from Sweden. They're widely available in Sweden. Hardly anybody smokes.

00:23:59.480 Yes, some people use nicotine pouches, former smokers, etc. But they got to smoke-free by actually

00:24:05.560 having a somewhat principled approach to harm reduction. And so if they wanted to achieve

00:24:11.240 their grand goal of a, in quotes, smoke-free Canada, the best way to do that is to offer as many

00:24:17.880 less harmful alternatives as possible to people to get them away from smoking, not to

00:24:24.280 make it harder to quit, right? The point is to try and make it easier for people to quit smoking,

00:24:30.120 not to make it harder. And these, these pouches bans and flavor bans and all of the policies that

00:24:35.960 they've done in regards to vaping, just make it harder for smokers to quit. And nobody wins,

00:24:40.920 nobody wins in that scenario. Yeah. I see Mark Bass, I'm just responding to one of the commenters

00:24:46.440 wondering about flavored patches and wondering if it sticks to your tongue. No, it's pouches we're

00:24:49.960 speaking of, not patches. So that it'll go under your lip, kind of like chewing tobacco,

00:24:53.880 but it's not tobacco-based. It's a nicotine delivery system. I'll offer a bit of an anecdote.

00:24:58.280 Like I was a heavy, heavy smoker. I was in the oil field for 20 years. We would just chain smoke

00:25:02.200 when I'd stand at my survey transit and so on. When I quit, oh boy, it was a hard time for everybody

00:25:07.000 who had to live around me at the time too. I used patches to help wean me off it. And they helped.

00:25:12.600 They helped me a lot. And to be honest, if I was a three weeks into my quitting,

00:25:17.640 and for some reason I couldn't get ahold of patches, you know what I would have done?

00:25:22.680 And we launched a campaign on this and we have, oh, I think 13, 1400 people who are in their

00:25:29.240 quitting journey or who have quit smoking, who have all said, like, don't ban the flavors.

00:25:35.560 Don't restrict these because they're helping me get away from smoking. One of the guys who gave us

00:25:40.520 the testimonial went from 16 cigarettes a day, which is pretty heavy, to one or two now in the

00:25:47.960 matter of months. That is great. And that should be encouraged, not discouraged. And for some reason,

00:25:55.160 our health minister doesn't really seem to be focused on health when we're talking about nicotine

00:25:59.720 pouches. No, and it's just counterintuitive. I mean, we aren't seeing the secondary grief that's

00:26:05.880 happening. Again, if we talk about harm mitigation, when you mentioned hydromorphone,

00:26:10.040 which is a very dangerous, very strong drug in itself. I mean, they feel that it's less dangerous

00:26:13.960 than the street fentanyl or other drugs somebody is getting, fine. But the problem that's been

00:26:18.680 happening is that, of course, people will get their hydromorphone, they're trading it to their

00:26:23.400 dealer for fentanyl. And then the dealer is selling the secondary hydromorphone, they call it diversion.

00:26:29.240 It's actually creating new addicts. But there's been no secret secondary market of nicotine pouches,

00:26:34.920 to my knowledge. You know, I haven't seen a guy in a trench coat in a street corner offering any

00:26:38.520 nicotine pouches or patches for that matter. Well, they're actually there in 2018,

00:26:43.880 Health Canada issued a recall notice on products that a brand called White Fox, which are not

00:26:50.120 regulated by Health Canada. The illegal pouches, which are legal in other jurisdictions, they just

00:26:57.480 end up in Canada to be sold. That industry is going to boom now. Because the legal nicotine pouches are

00:27:06.520 going to only be one flavor, and are going to be exponentially harder to get. And so I think that

00:27:13.160 problem will get worse. It's not a question of like, what you'll have is you'll either have people

00:27:19.640 who use nicotine pouches go back to smoking. And that is not great. Nobody wants that. Or you're going

00:27:24.840 to have a scenario where they're going to find out ways to either order through the gray market online,

00:27:30.280 which exists, it's very prominent, or find stores that sell them, which exist. Anyone who uses them

00:27:39.240 probably knows where to get them. And so you're going to have the unregulated products boom, which

00:27:45.320 from a government perspective is completely defeats the purpose here. The products that Health Canada

00:27:50.920 approves are obviously the better ones for consumers to consume. And yet we've just created a situation

00:27:59.800 where the alternatives for these folks is going to be either going back to smoking or finding gray

00:28:05.880 market slash black market alternatives, none of which is a good scenario from the perspective of public

00:28:14.040 health or the health ministry. Yeah. And flavoring these wasn't trying to draw in kids or new addicts.

00:28:19.800 I mean, uh, you know, uh, uh, some sort of flavored pouch to go under your lip. If a kid wants

00:28:25.080 something sweet, they can buy candy. They can buy all sorts of things. Why would they reach for that?

00:28:29.800 But I mean, if I'm trying to quit, I don't want to stick something under my lip all the time that

00:28:32.920 tastes like a cigarette butt. The point is to make it desirable for me to prefer it over cigarettes.

00:28:38.200 And that's the point is the flavors are enjoyable for people trying to quit because they don't remind them

00:28:47.480 of smoking. And that's the, that's the best part for people who are trying to quit is they can get

00:28:52.680 something that's mint or berry or, um, or fruit flavored that doesn't taste like cigarettes at

00:28:59.640 all. They still get to consume nicotine, um, and, and try to wean off possibly nicotine altogether that

00:29:06.120 way. Um, but it's, yeah, it's just, it's all under the guise of protecting children. And the easy answer

00:29:13.320 would have been just age gating all nicotine products so that minors can't access them.

00:29:17.720 But for some reason, the health minister didn't want to do that. He wanted to target

00:29:21.560 just nicotine pouches. Again, I think just because he has a grudge because of who made them. Um, and,

00:29:28.440 and that is it. And the, the power that he now has, which a future health minister will have,

00:29:34.280 I always say to everyone, every power you give the government, if you are, uh, a liberal, uh,

00:29:40.680 imagine Pierre Polyev's health minister with that, with that power. Uh, if you're a conservative,

00:29:45.160 imagine Jagmeet Singh's health minister with that power. Um, if that makes you uncomfortable,

00:29:50.920 it's probably a bad law or a bad, uh, piece of a bad policy tool for the health minister to have.

00:29:59.320 Absolutely. I mean, they, they have enough authority as it, as it stands. It's just, uh,

00:30:03.720 yet another, uh, overreach on the government. There's so many of them, but I guess we can discuss it.

00:30:08.520 It's going to be hard to reverse anything until a government changes. If, and if they change

00:30:12.440 anything, once they get in, that's the thing, they don't tend to turn things back. Uh, well,

00:30:16.680 thanks for coming to explain, you know, what's, what's going on and some of the aspects of this,

00:30:20.440 uh, before I let you go, where, where can people find your work and what you've been up to?

00:30:23.240 Because I know you, you, you cover a lot of great stuff with, uh, consumer choice center.org

00:30:29.240 and leave pouches alone.ca. Uh, those, those are the, our main website and our campaign website

00:30:36.120 where we're talking about this and why, why and how it works. Great. Well, thanks for coming on,

00:30:41.320 David and, uh, lending some common sense to yet another bizarre, uh, federal government policy.

00:30:45.800 Hopefully we can, uh, hammer some sense into them so we can get on the more important issues down

00:30:50.040 the road. Of course. Thank you, Corey. Appreciate it. Thanks. Well, as David Clement, as I said,

00:30:55.080 from the consumer choice center and, uh, yes, he covers a lot of things as well as that subject

00:31:00.040 in itself. It's just counterintuitive. And, and again, you see, when we get interests getting

00:31:04.760 into healthcare that have nothing to do with the outcomes in health, that's when we get a problem.

00:31:11.880 And the activist background of our federal health minister seems to be more of what's motivating

00:31:16.200 his moves rather than trying to make things safer or better for people. So I'm kind of segueing that

00:31:20.680 into what I was talking about a bit before, which is the Alberta issue with, uh,

00:31:24.120 premier Smith trying to break up Alberta health services, that giant bloated bureaucracy and kind

00:31:30.120 of, as I was getting to before, uh, a hundred thousand employees under that bureaucracy,

00:31:34.520 90% of them are unionized. Look, that bureaucracy does not have patient interest in mind. And I'm not

00:31:41.560 saying that they're evil people who want patients to be harmed. No, that's not the case. But the thing is

00:31:47.080 their priorities start becoming themselves. It becomes how to, you know, keep the unions happy,

00:31:53.080 how to get more compensation, how to reduce your workload and the patient outcomes become secondary.

00:31:59.800 And it shouldn't be controversial. It shouldn't to consider having different management of

00:32:05.000 hospitals. I'm talking baby steps to getting into reforming our healthcare system. We need a heck

00:32:09.240 of a lot more. I tell you what, I think investors should be able to go down the street and build a

00:32:13.880 private hospital right in the middle of a residential area. If they can get the zoning permits for it and

00:32:17.720 go to town charging whatever they want for services. But I'm a libertarian. And that's the way I think.

00:32:21.800 I know a lot of other Canadians wouldn't accept that, but let's talk baby steps. Let's talk about

00:32:25.960 the current hospitals. Why can't we have private professionals administer them under regulation

00:32:33.880 and, uh, you know, try to bring these hospitals up to the best standard they can. Like I said,

00:32:39.160 make some of the compensation based on patient outcome and, uh, you know, getting that,

00:32:45.880 those outcomes in a reasonable cost because we're spending more on healthcare every year.

00:32:50.440 You'll listen to the NDP squawk and they squawk and you know, and then she squawks and oh boy,

00:32:56.200 we're underfunding it. No, we aren't. There is no province in Canada who has cut health spending,

00:33:02.120 none political suicide. No government will do it. They've never done it. They're spending more and more

00:33:08.440 and more and more. And guess what? The outcomes are getting worse in just about anything else in

00:33:13.960 the world. You would say, maybe we're going to try something different, but not here because again,

00:33:18.920 you get those bureaucracies like AHS, the only acceptable thing they support and the friends

00:33:23.960 of Medicare, again, I despise that. No, they're friends of unions guys. It's a union group.

00:33:27.640 Cut through the BS with these guys. All they will accept is pouring more money into it.

00:33:33.000 You don't fix it that way. You just add to the bloat. So Smith has actually had a bit of the

00:33:37.720 courage to start at least with baby steps. Something else is Dave mentioned. I wrote a

00:33:42.680 column on this and it went on to the Western standard today. And, uh, I like innovation.

00:33:47.880 Let's find other ways to fix stuff up. And, and something that's happened is supposed to open next

00:33:52.360 year. The Enoch reserve up by Edmonton has an orthopedic surgical center. They've been building

00:33:56.680 now for a year and a half. And you know what? A lot of people haven't heard of it. You want to know why?

00:33:59.480 Because the only thing that terrifies the left more than changing healthcare is conflict with

00:34:08.040 First Nations. They're chicken poop when it comes to them. So, I mean, they're not going to go up to 1.00

00:34:13.000 the Enoch reserve and tell the chief and the people, you aren't allowed to do that. You aren't allowed

00:34:17.080 to build this facility that's going to employ people on your reserve and bring funds into your reserve.

00:34:22.520 There's not a chance. They're way too cowardly to do that. So what have they done? They sat silently. 0.97

00:34:27.400 If that surgery clinic was being built, this is a big one. We're talking 3000 procedures a year.

00:34:32.280 If that was being built anywhere else, then she would be standing outside beating a 0.99

00:34:37.320 drum and screaming and howling about it's the selling of healthcare in the works. But guess

00:34:41.080 what? He's dead silent. And it's pretty rare when then she's silent on anything. I tell you

00:34:45.960 let's build more of them. Let's see it. Most of our major centers have a reserve nearby. Calgary has the

00:34:50.680 Sutina reserve nearby. They've been doing fantastic. They got a Costco with cheap gas because they get

00:34:54.520 exempted from the fuel taxes federally. They got car dealerships going in dollar stores,

00:34:59.320 you name it. And it's great for the reserve. It's great for consumers. You know what? I want

00:35:02.760 to see them build more. Let's build hospitals on reserves, private ones for profit. Yes. The P word.

00:35:09.960 And guess what? Maybe we'll get some people treated because let's quit BS and people are literally dying,

00:35:16.040 waiting for care, dying. That's been reported. Thousands are dying in Canada every year because we can't get

00:35:22.760 them in fast enough. Yet still stubbornly, some people are saying the system works. We just need

00:35:27.000 to give it more money. No, we don't. So if we can find cracks and ways to whittle and show that there's

00:35:32.680 better ways to do it, whether it's changing the management of some hospitals or even building new

00:35:36.040 facilities on reserves, let's do it. Ralph Klein, one of the regrets he said in the end, he always said

00:35:42.440 he backed off when it came to that third way health idea. He was looking to reform healthcare and

00:35:45.880 that's one of the areas he actually backed off and he said he regretted doing it. Smith has mentioned that

00:35:50.040 that before. I hope she remembers that. I hope she maintains the courage to take on those healthcare

00:35:54.360 zealots, those Puritans, those nut cases. And we can actually see some reforms and see some benefits 1.00

00:35:58.680 and maybe people will be finally inspired to change Canada's system. Because guess what, guys?

00:36:02.600 Our system sucks. And I don't care about the American system, by the way, before you bring it up. 0.99

00:36:06.120 Their system sucks too. There's dozens of systems around the world better than ours and it's about time 0.74

00:36:11.080 we utilize them. All right, I've been going on long enough. Let's go on about something else and turn to,

00:36:15.880 we got our business and energy specialist here. Sean Polzer in the room. How's it going, Sean?

00:36:21.160 Really well, Corey. How are you? I'm all right. I can tell. Yeah, the veins pulsing in my head.

00:36:25.800 I got lots to spew out. That is what makes me happy. It makes Jane happy at home too, because

00:36:31.080 good, the nut case is getting it out of the system. So he'll shut up when he gets here,

00:36:35.480 more at least a little bit. So we got some breaking news, Corey. Okay. Okay. So in the past few weeks,

00:36:40.920 we've had this warrior of anti-woke in Tennessee, Robbie Starbuck, and he's going up against the

00:36:48.920 corporate Titans and they've been crumbling at his feet, just the mere mention. So just less than 10

00:36:56.680 minutes ago, the latest, I don't know if you want to call it a victim. Do you want to take a guess?

00:37:04.280 Well, go for it. I think I might've heard, so I don't want to pop that balloon.

00:37:07.160 I was in the- Ford. Oh no, I'm wrong then. Okay, good. Ford Motor Company. They're going to drop

00:37:12.520 their human rights counts. That's the LGBTQ index. They're going to, you know, these 500 best places

00:37:21.000 to work. Apparently these companies, they just pay to get on those lists. So they're going to stop

00:37:25.080 doing that. Everything in the company is going to be merit. Employee resource groups are going to be

00:37:31.160 open to all employees regardless. And these are changes that are going to take place in all its

00:37:35.800 operations all around the world. Well, good. I mean, that trend, as you mentioned in Starbuck,

00:37:40.920 I mean, yeah, when you hear somebody raging against the corporations, people think, oh,

00:37:43.400 is this some leftist? Is this some, you know, person is going to, no, he's coming from just

00:37:49.320 pressuring these guys and exposing the ridiculous DEI trash that they've been consuming rather than 0.82

00:37:55.400 actually doing the business they're supposed to be in. Absolutely. And you know what? We've actually 0.96

00:37:59.240 been in contact. He was supposed to be here on the show like today. And unfortunately his wife

00:38:06.040 is having a baby and it's supposed to be a complicated pregnancy. So we're rescheduled for

00:38:10.680 September 11th, but we are going to get a live video feed with the man himself and get him to

00:38:18.840 provide his insights and maybe some things that we could do here in Canada. I'm sure we have a long

00:38:23.480 list of corporations. Absolutely. I'm sure the shareholders will be happy for it. I mean,

00:38:27.720 that's the bottom line. They're in business to make money and not to worry about pandering to

00:38:32.280 every little left wing cause and whatnot out there. Well, and this is what's happening is

00:38:37.160 these companies are doing it proactively because they're getting a bounce. You know what I mean?

00:38:43.480 Like their shares have been going down because of all this stuff. Then when they come out and they

00:38:47.320 proactively do this, like Jack Daniels, John Deere, Harley Davidson, you know, then they get kind of a,

00:38:55.720 you know, a residual out of it. It's almost like a positive news story for them and their shareholders.

00:39:00.600 Oh, good. It's going to see some positive stories for a change.

00:39:03.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:39:03.560 Right on. Well, looking forward to that.

00:39:04.680 And in Alberta here, so German petrochemical giant Lind, they're one of the biggest petrochemical

00:39:11.400 companies in the world. They're going to be building a $2 billion hydrogen plant. I don't,

00:39:16.280 I don't know if you recall this Dow cracker. It's going to be the first net zero cracker in the

00:39:21.240 world. They announced it back in November, $6 and a half billion. So this is an adjunct onto that $2

00:39:27.800 billion to kind of feed that facility. And it's hydrogen and it's kind of a validation of Alberta

00:39:34.360 Premier Danielle Smith's, you know, hydrogen strategy. And it seems to be bearing fruit.

00:39:40.040 So along with that, are there subsidies going into this or is this just being drawn in for a good

00:39:44.520 investment climate?

00:39:45.240 It's not so much direct subsidy. So it's, it's not like these EV plants down east, but they are

00:39:51.480 getting some investment tax credits. So if you remember back in the old oil sands day, Ralph

00:39:58.040 had the, you know, as long as you kept on building things, then you could defer the royalties.

00:40:03.720 Yeah. And they had the brick program and a few other things too.

00:40:06.360 Yeah. So it's kind of similar to that. There's a petrochemical royalty

00:40:11.400 program. There's some direct investment credits from the federal government and then the Alberta

00:40:17.880 government tops them up.

00:40:18.840 Okay. I just like to check, you know, cause I mean, I don't want to be too faced when I

00:40:23.640 rip into 50 billion going into a battery plant. Right.

00:40:26.840 If we were tossing 10 billion into this, you know, I'd say maybe it's not a good deal.

00:40:31.240 We're not going into the business of producing hydrogen. Cool.

00:40:33.800 We're not going into the business of being in business.

00:40:35.240 The government's not going into it. Yes.

00:40:36.680 Yes. Exactly. Or the taxpayers shouldering that risk.

00:40:39.560 That's the important part. So yes, that is the important part. And going back to your little

00:40:43.880 take there on EVs, Trudeau finally put a hundred percent tariffs on Chinese made EVs.

00:40:51.640 Yes.

00:40:52.120 So, and there's some dispute out there on whether or not it's actually a good thing because,

00:41:01.000 well, on his part, whether it's a coherent policy, because if your goal is to reduce emissions and you

00:41:07.800 want people to do the uptake on these so-called clean cars, then why wouldn't you want them buying

00:41:14.600 $20,000 Chinese? Does it really matter where they come from? 1.00

00:41:17.400 Well, that's it. And I've looked at that and I kind of laughed because I mean,

00:41:21.880 one of the biggest things that people mention on why they aren't going into EVs, they're expensive.

00:41:25.240 They cost more than a conventional vehicle. If you put this tariff on the Chinese ones,

00:41:30.120 it's going to raise the cost of EVs here. There's no getting around it. So what's your goal? Keeping

00:41:35.400 out foreign source cheaper vehicles or greening the world?

00:41:40.280 Well, no, what he's trying to do is protect all these $50 billion of subsidies that they've

00:41:45.000 already tossed out all these things that they're losing money at. So the goal isn't really to reduce

00:41:50.360 the emissions. The goal is to protect, you know, his little pet project there that he's already sunk

00:41:57.800 like tens of billions, like the indirect costs on this thing are probably closer to a hundred billion

00:42:03.240 of taxpayers money.

00:42:04.360 Yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to watch where this goes. We're going to pay for it one way or

00:42:09.160 another. That's one way or another. Yeah.

00:42:11.080 All right. Anything else breaking out there while I got you?

00:42:13.320 Yeah. Well, we got me Magandak in Norway.

00:42:18.440 Oh yes. She's going to help us all detransition or some bloody thing. 1.00

00:42:22.520 Right. On the, on the day that the Norwegian state oil company announces like

00:42:27.800 six and a half billion dollars a year into its oil fields.

00:42:30.840 Yeah. They're expanding in the North Sea, but you know, you know, and the president says like,

00:42:35.960 do you think that the oil age is over here? Forget it. You know, nobody's going to stop us.

00:42:41.000 The environmentalists, nobody. And to put it in perspective, six and a half billion dollars is

00:42:45.480 probably a decent sized thermal oil sands plant in Alberta every year for the next 10 years.

00:42:51.000 Oh, Gondek. Well, she's just trying to figure out her exit strategy. I think

00:42:54.120 Calgarians have had enough.

00:42:55.240 No, I think we've figured out the exit strategy.

00:42:57.480 Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks. I'll let you get back to digging into those energy stories

00:43:02.360 and hypocrisy.

00:43:03.000 I've got to write up for it.

00:43:04.200 All righty. And look forward to that Robbie Starbuck, man.

00:43:07.240 That's all.

00:43:07.800 Cool. All right. That is Sean Pulser in energy. So yeah, lots of stuff going on. You know,

00:43:12.680 we're going to talk business. I'm going to talk a little more on the health. And I see

00:43:14.680 Wildrose popped in and you always do when we talk health. The American system sucks worse than ours. 1.00

00:43:19.480 No, it doesn't actually. People don't die waiting for it. But you know what? I don't care. I don't 1.00

00:43:23.320 care. It's intellectually lazy. And I expect better of you, Wildrose. It's lazy to pretend

00:43:28.520 there's only two systems. There's hundreds of systems. There's dozens of systems that are better

00:43:35.080 than ours. Quit the stupid discussion. And it is stupid to shut down discussions of changing our care 1.00

00:43:42.200 for fear of being the Americans. It's stupid. European and Asian systems are blowing us out of the 1.00

00:43:48.520 water. And yes, they allow profit, but it's regulated. You know, think of French hospitals,

00:43:55.560 for example. The way that sets up, you can set up a private hospital in France. You can build it.

00:44:00.360 You can get investors and you can do procedures and charge people for them. But a part of the

00:44:05.400 procedures have to be in the public system. You see, there's still universal coverage.

00:44:08.680 Nobody dies waiting for care. But yes, some people pay to get in faster. Guess what? You all get

00:44:13.880 through faster. You all get better doctors. You all get better treatment. Suck up the envy. As I

00:44:19.560 noticed you pointed out the other thing, but the rich people will just pay to jump the line. Guess

00:44:22.360 what they already do? They already do. They fly to Vietnam. They drive to the United States. It happens.

00:44:28.840 And they get treated by Canadian trained people sometimes. So let's look at the best systems.

00:44:33.960 Which systems are working best? And there's lots of them. And let's emulate them. Let's look at them.

00:44:39.560 But if you immediately dismiss any sort of change because profits are bad, 0.99

00:44:43.160 then you're being dumb. You're dismissing solutions. And when you do that, we all suffer. 0.98

00:44:49.240 Canada has that system. Guess which other countries share Canada's system? North Korea and Cuba. That's it.

00:44:55.240 That's it. There's nowhere else in the world where it's actually illegal to give somebody healthcare

00:45:02.040 for a price. It's ridiculous. Is it my body or not? Is it my wallet or not? Why should I not have the 0.96

00:45:08.040 right to spend my money to get something done? Guess what? I do have the right. I just have to leave the

00:45:11.160 country to do it. And it's not just rich people. It's desperate people. I mean, I'm not rich. But

00:45:16.840 if I was told by a doctor, yeah, you're going to need this heart procedure in the next four months,

00:45:21.160 or you're going to die. We'll schedule you in for seven months from now. And that's really kind of

00:45:24.440 what's happening right now in Canada. What am I going to do? Sit here and say, oh, well, it's a

00:45:28.680 bummer. I'm not allowed to buy it. I'll just die. No, I will remortgage my house. I will borrow from

00:45:34.120 friends and family. I'll do everything I can. And I will cross the border and get it done anyways.

00:45:39.560 So why don't we accept this reality and get the better care here? Let's quit closing our minds and

00:45:45.800 snapping them shut every time when somebody talks about changing our system. Our system stinks.

00:45:50.200 It stinks. Look online. Search it yourself. There's all sorts of ratings in different countries and 0.95

00:45:55.800 healthcare systems. And Canada's is way, way far from the top, guys. Way from the top. And I don't care

00:46:02.680 about the American system. I couldn't care less. As others mentioned on here, I saw the Swiss.

00:46:08.520 We talk about Swedes. Let's talk about Taiwan. Let's talk about Singapore. They're all outperforming us,

00:46:13.560 guys. And they all have universal care. That's the aspect everybody's talking about. Universal.

00:46:17.400 That's the important part. You never get turned away for lack of money. We can have that. But we got to

00:46:22.840 quit this idiocy of illegalizing private provision. It's dumb. And it's costing us. And it's time to get 1.00

00:46:31.080 better. All right. That's enough out of me for today. I appreciate you tuning in. I do appreciate

00:46:35.000 you, Wildrose. You're great. I just, we always differ on that healthcare one. So be sure to tune

00:46:41.400 in again. Next week, we will cover all this all over again. Check into the pipeline. Check into

00:46:45.880 Hannaford. We're building up our productions. Lots of stuff going on out there. Sean's going to be

00:46:49.400 talking to Starbuck. It's all there, guys. So subscribe to these channels, share these channels,

00:46:56.040 and be sure to come in next week. We'll do this all again with a whole new set of issues. Thanks.

00:47:01.800 If the name Ted Byfield brings back fond memories, well, we got a party coming up for you guys.

00:47:06.600 On September 25th, Toasting Ted is what it's called. It's going to honor a great conservative

00:47:11.240 who published Alberta Report news magazine. It's going to be bagpipes, singing, live auction stakes,

00:47:16.760 speeches by Premier Smith, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, quite a lineup. The Western Standard is the

00:47:21.880 the final incarnation or the latest incarnation of Alberta Report that Ted Byfield founded. And I

00:47:27.400 mean, he was a great Albertan. He really made his mark on this province. And this, this evening of

00:47:31.640 celebration for him is really going to be outstanding. You get there, toastingted.ca. That's the website.

00:47:36.920 You can get your tickets. This one's going to sell out. I mean, again, if you want to see Smith,

00:47:40.360 Manning, Harper, all in one spot, one night, be sure to get there.

00:48:10.360 He really didn't know". 0.87

Western Standard - August 29, 2024

In defense of 15-minute cities

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