Western Standard - It's time to remove addicts from the streets

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 good day it's wednesday december 21st 2022 first day of winter i don't really come up with this

00:00:40.520 crap i think they should back it off a little i mean come on we'll just base it on when the

00:00:44.320 snow starts so with that winter started a while ago god it's disgusting out there though i even

00:00:48.140 had to wear a touca on my way in today i hate wearing stuff on my head drives me bananas

00:00:51.380 so welcome to this week's show i am cory morgan as you might have seen that little pre thing as

00:00:57.280 was put by one of our more dedicated fans, my constipated look when I'm caught on camera

00:01:02.900 unexpectedly. So I'll try and look as amicable and non-bound up as possible for the remainder

00:01:09.140 of the show. We got a good one today. Lots of stuff to talk about. We're going to have Arthur

00:01:13.540 Green on. He's our Edmonton reporter out there, guys. And he's been covering a lot of stuff on

00:01:19.300 the street since he moved out that way. He's our legislative guy up there, but he's also been

00:01:23.400 hitting stuff on the, out in the city, on transit and in shelters. And in general, I mean, we've

00:01:28.080 got, and it's going to tie into what my monologue is in a minute here, a real big homeless problem.

00:01:33.200 We'll be checking in with Dave Naylor in a moment too, and seeing what's happening in the news.

00:01:37.440 And of course, covering just a lot of things in general. I see y'all checking in on the comment

00:01:41.280 scroll there. Geeks, it's December 21st, according to Mike Damore. Isn't that what I said? I don't

00:01:47.580 know, Mike's always a nitpicking on the little things, but that is his job. And yes, so use

00:01:53.240 that comment, scroll guys, have some interaction with me, send your critique, comments, questions,

00:01:59.160 talk with each other. That's half the fun of doing this live is that you guys can interact with me,

00:02:03.760 with the guests, with each other. Let's just try and keep it civil. All right. I'll get things off

00:02:08.120 with my rant for today. So, I mean, we need to start facing some hard realities when it comes to

00:02:13.700 the addiction epidemic and start implementing

00:02:15.940 some solid policies to deal with it.

00:02:18.240 Progressives may fixated on failed policies

00:02:20.760 of enablement to deal with it,

00:02:22.920 if they can be coaxed into addressing the issue at all.

00:02:25.660 With overdoses rising, progressive activists

00:02:28.280 and politicians insist that providing free drugs

00:02:30.840 and safe consumption sites will somehow ease the problem.

00:02:33.900 The numbers tell a different tale as overdoses

00:02:35.860 and addiction levels continue to skyrocket

00:02:37.940 in West Coast cities where these policies

00:02:40.040 have been attempted for years.

00:02:41.860 And conservatives, they can be too fixated on treatment.

00:02:44.400 I mean, addicts do indeed desperately need treatment,

00:02:46.760 but they often aren't willing to take part in it.

00:02:48.480 And if they aren't willing, it won't work.

00:02:49.920 Many addicts won't survive long enough to reach a point where they're ready for treatment.

00:02:53.620 So, I mean, supervised consumption sites do provide some benefits,

00:02:57.040 but most of the addicts in the streets don't partake in them.

00:03:00.080 And providing safe supplies is of limited value as well.

00:03:03.100 Is it really such a thing as a safe supply of meth?

00:03:06.060 I mean, we aren't even allowed to talk about light cigarettes

00:03:08.020 because they're supposed to be harmful for us,

00:03:09.380 but apparently we can get a safe supply of meth to the addicts. Come on. It's time, I'm going to

00:03:14.040 say it outright, to start committing addicts to secured facilities or treatment without their

00:03:18.660 consent. There. Yes, I said it out loud. I mean, addiction has been correctly labeled as a disease.

00:03:25.040 People have also accepted that addiction and mental health issues are deeply intertwined.

00:03:29.440 And we've always had the ability to commit people to mental institutions when they clearly were

00:03:33.660 presenting a risk to themselves or others due to their mental illness. I mean, such a move is a

00:03:38.300 measure of last resort, of course. Taking personal liberty away from somebody who hasn't committed a

00:03:42.140 crime can't be taken lightly. We do so when we have to, though, and we need to start doing it

00:03:47.500 with the late-stage street addicts. How can anybody deny that an untreated addict will do

00:03:52.720 harm to themselves if there isn't an intervention of some sort? How can we sit and watch them

00:03:56.880 wither away while the drugs eat them alive? It's a terrible path to death. Everybody who spends

00:04:01.680 time in urban areas has seen it, though we prefer to look the other way. They look like zombies.

00:04:06.140 Addicts grow gaunt, their teeth fall out, their bodies become covered in sores, 0.96

00:04:10.160 their minds become damaged, and they lose touch with reality, whether they're stoned or not anymore.

00:04:14.360 If an overdose doesn't take them out, they'll die of exposure eventually in the elements,

00:04:18.100 or their organs will just cease to function.

00:04:20.140 We can't pretend that the street addicts won't harm others either.

00:04:23.280 The high numbers of violent crime in areas frequented by addicts

00:04:26.460 and the random acts of violence committed by strong-out addicts

00:04:29.040 demonstrates a measurable risk to the public.

00:04:32.040 Heavily addicted people on the street meet the requirements for involuntary commitment,

00:04:36.200 so let's get on with it.

00:04:37.640 Yes, we need to bring facilities on stream to deal with the new load of inpatients,

00:04:41.140 and yes, it'll be expensive.

00:04:42.800 But how costly is it going to be to just maintain the status quo

00:04:45.660 and leave the addicts on the street?

00:04:47.480 How much time do they spend in court already or in jail

00:04:49.760 for when they commit crimes to feed their addictions?

00:04:52.260 How much time are they spending in the hospital for their health challenges

00:04:54.740 or when they overdose?

00:04:55.940 How much pressure are they putting on emergency responders at every level every day?

00:04:59.560 incarcerating somebody can never be taken lightly but we need to establish some checks and measures

00:05:04.580 we can that there's no you know making sure there's no other reasonable course of action

00:05:09.520 that can be taken before taking their liberty but there's little be gained in leaving heavily

00:05:13.240 addicted people out on the street some people will claim securing them against their will

00:05:16.240 will infringe on their dignity well again let's face it when people hit rock bottom on the streets

00:05:20.460 they have little to no dignity left how much dignity is there for the person passed out in

00:05:24.920 the park soaked in their own bodily eliminations how much dignity is there shuffling around street

00:05:29.300 corners begging for money or prostituting themselves for a fix. Some of the addicts may

00:05:33.520 respond to treatment and be rehabilitated. Some may not and could be secured for indefinite periods.

00:05:39.220 There's no easy solutions. One can say though with confidence that sticking with the status quo is

00:05:44.260 offering nothing but a slow death sentence to many addicts on the streets while citizens suffer from

00:05:47.820 the crime and disorder associated with the drug use. It's inhumane not to intervene and we have

00:05:52.900 to face that and get on with it. That's what's got me going today and we'll talk a little more

00:05:57.740 with Arthur about that in a while all right well let's get on and see what else is going on in the

00:06:02.600 news there and check in with our news editor Dave Naylor and see what's happening he's down in the

00:06:07.220 chilly south Calgary today hey there Dave how's it going it's going well Corey uh thought you

00:06:14.360 might have been wearing a black arm band today uh with the the death of the the stealer there

00:06:19.980 yeah and I mean it was just before you know the the the man with the immaculate reception passed

00:06:24.720 away and it was just before a ceremony uh celebrating 50 years of that was coming up it

00:06:28.400 is a sad day yeah uh franco harris for those uh younger than corey which i think is probably most

00:06:34.080 people uh he was credited with that immaculate reception and it was it was voted the the number

00:06:38.960 one play in nfl history so yeah only 72 so it was sad to see him go um sorry i couldn't be with you

00:06:46.160 there today corey after three years uh covet finally got me on on saturday so i don't remember

00:06:53.440 much of saturday or sunday but uh road to recovery now so it's got me out of the office and uh and

00:06:59.840 the couple of very freezing uh drives in so uh if there's one good thing that was it well there you

00:07:06.640 go enjoy the break exactly so we've had a very very busy uh news morning uh the news does not

00:07:13.360 appear to be taking a winter break uh the top story on our side right now is actually a an

00:07:18.800 Arthur Green story he's talked to a witness of a machete attack on the LRT

00:07:24.260 system last night and the witness is talking about what happens and he's now

00:07:28.640 having second questions about ever writing it again and I know that's what

00:07:33.080 you're going to be talking about later on other stuff right now our Prime

00:07:36.960 Minister Trudeau is giving a lot of year-end interviews today our David

00:07:41.240 Creighton has found out he reveals why he really crushed the Freedom Convoy so

00:07:46.040 So, you know, David's always got a good twist on things, so I urge everybody to go read that column.

00:07:52.080 Matthew Harwood, our parliamentary bureau chief, has got a story on Canada to mandate 20% of all vehicle sales must be electric by 2026.

00:08:01.380 So I imagine there'll be a rush to stock up on regular cars in 2025, Corey, and I'll be at the head of the line.

00:08:08.460 everybody's favorite mainstream journalist Rachel Gilmour was out in a

00:08:13.780 Twitter rant today saying she's not a Trudeau government parrot despite the

00:08:18.220 fact she has been in the past and EHS press conference just wrapped up step

00:08:24.420 number one for reducing the number of ambulances waiting at hospitals are you

00:08:28.440 know introduce a fleet of vans that can carry patients that have non-emergencies

00:08:35.460 to get to where they're going so that's going to free up I think they said 10 to 15 percent more

00:08:41.600 ambulances on the streets so first step in in fixing health care I've got a very interesting

00:08:48.600 story coming up from our Jonathan Bradley after I'm done with you here Corey a new study out on

00:08:55.000 the morale of Calgary police force showing it is at its lowest mark ever in history lower than a

00:09:02.520 snake's belly in a wagon rut as the old westerners would say cory so that's obviously a significant

00:09:08.460 significant piece so there you go back to you uh we'll see you in the uh see you in the new year

00:09:14.360 and uh merry christmas uh to you and jane right on well thanks and uh to you and i hope you heal

00:09:20.800 and continue to get well soon have some chicken soup or something i guess yeah i got 12 three

00:09:26.040 straight days of negative tests so uh looks like it's all good for me to uh try and get out of this

00:09:30.900 deep freeze tomorrow, but I'm sort of heading from the one fire into another. I'm heading out

00:09:37.840 towards Vancouver. So we know how well they plow their streets and they've had a ton of snow in the

00:09:43.720 last 24 hours. So you got 24 hours to clean it up Vancouver till I get there. So get on it.

00:09:49.180 All right. They've been warned. Okay. That is our news editor, Dave Naylor coming to us

00:09:54.680 ill and diseased from his household in South Calgary, but on the road to recovery. As you

00:10:00.400 said, the news isn't taking a break. It is busy, and there's lots coming up all the time from,

00:10:04.780 yeah, Jonathan Bradley, Creighton out there, and of course, Nigel Hannaford bringing in all that

00:10:09.180 great opinion stuff. Just want to like to remind everybody, get on there, subscribe. That's how we

00:10:13.380 can afford to keep this news crew, how to keep these columnists, keep that content going on the

00:10:17.420 Western Standard. This is how we don't end up like that Rachel Gilmore, who, come on, I mean, 0.96

00:10:23.580 she's got to have a, oh no, I'm not going to even go there. Her liking for Trudeau is clear and deep,

00:10:30.040 not as much as perhaps Rosie Barton, who, you know, sort of melts a little every time she

00:10:34.180 whispers Justin's name to the camera, but for her to come out and claim she isn't supporting

00:10:39.500 liberals. And the reason she does is because they are, and particularly Rosie, they're tax funded. 1.00

00:10:44.580 They're getting their money from bailouts and subsidies and programs from the federal government.

00:10:48.200 And that makes them bound and beholden to them. And we aren't, we refuse to be, we won't be,

00:10:54.100 we rely on subscribers, $10 a month, guys, $99 a year. We're talking newspaper subscription type

00:10:59.560 things. And if you ever looked at newspaper lately, I saw Congress on a little while back.

00:11:02.540 It looks like a brochure. They even shrunk it in size and it's so thin. It's done. This is the way

00:11:07.400 it is. Thank you to everybody who subscribed already. And if you haven't, get on there guys,

00:11:10.960 the more you subscribe, the more we can increase our reporters and get that content out and not

00:11:14.880 have to report that government crap like Rachel Gilmore does. All right. I see some comments on

00:11:20.380 some of the stuff I was talking about. I saw an interesting one. You know, there's a few

00:11:25.720 from Laureen saying not everyone who's homeless is an addict because the government took away

00:11:30.420 their livelihoods. Okay, I understand that there's people who find themselves displaced for many,

00:11:34.980 many reasons. The ones I am talking about in particular right now, though, are the addicts.

00:11:39.080 And the ones you see on the streets, the vast majority of them are addicts and or have mental

00:11:45.740 health issues. I mean, often it's a mental health, an untreated mental health issue that led to them

00:11:49.900 being addicted to something and found themselves on the street in the first place. There are people

00:11:54.080 have fallen through the cracks because of government policies, or even just made bad

00:11:57.540 mistakes. And we do have programs for that, you know, help people out, help them up, get them back

00:12:02.160 into homes, get them into housing, find them work, things like that. We have that out there.

00:12:06.200 The people though, who are in the throes of addiction, those programs are no good for them.

00:12:10.400 You can't bring them into shelters. They're too wasted. And the reason they won't go in,

00:12:14.040 they claim, oh, we feel unsafe in the shelter. Oh, spare me. And that's the stuff that those

00:12:17.280 progressive BSers put out. They're scared to go into the shelters. No, they aren't.

00:12:21.480 They won't go in the shelters because the shelters won't let them fix in there.

00:12:24.860 They can't take their drugs in the shelter.

00:12:27.580 That's the reason.

00:12:29.140 Because they're that heavily addicted.

00:12:30.920 Thus, they're putting themselves at risk on the streets.

00:12:32.760 As we see, those little tents in little chunks of bush throughout the suburbs even,

00:12:37.200 downtown and alleys in this minus 30 weather.

00:12:39.680 Guys, this is not humane.

00:12:41.200 This is not a way to leave people living in a civilized modern society.

00:12:45.880 And we do want to help the others out who are homeless as well, of course,

00:12:49.080 without the addiction. And those are the ones we don't need, of course, intervention or

00:12:52.660 incarceration with, but we got to reevaluate this. Everything else is failing. I mean,

00:12:57.000 it's getting worse and worse and worse and it's harming things all around. A recent article I

00:13:03.760 wanted to talk about that one was, I think it was Arthur who wrote about that one. It was a company

00:13:08.440 that was considering moving into Edmonton there and they came out and checked things out. Let's

00:13:14.340 see, where is that thing? I'm just scrolling through. I got a lot of stories queued up for

00:13:18.260 myself, because global energy financing, they were there, they came up to Edmonton, they were

00:13:22.580 going to open a branch, you could have employed as many as 80 people, they saw the amount of

00:13:26.840 homelessness and crime and how awful looking the streets were. And they basically said, you know

00:13:30.800 what, we aren't going to set up shop here. I mean, this costs us on levels and levels and levels.

00:13:35.800 If you're not even gonna just look at the human level of the people, of course, who are suffering

00:13:39.220 in addiction and with these problems right now, we've got to intervene, we've got to do something

00:13:44.560 about it. And again, this soft touch, that's what gets me with these, these, these, and we'll talk

00:13:50.540 to Arthur about it too. These people in denial, we don't even want to talk about it. Or they just

00:13:54.740 seem, they keep saying it's a housing issue. Oh, it is not. Housing is part of it, certainly.

00:14:02.360 But what are you going to do with a person? Again, one of those zombies who's walking up and down

00:14:05.140 the street court, hey, look, we got a nice house for you. Move on in. What do you think they're

00:14:08.320 going to do? They'll strip the copper wire out of the walls and sell it for their next fix. They

00:14:11.660 aren't in condition for long-term housing yet. They need shelter, but they won't go into it

00:14:16.720 because they want to get their fix. That's where I'm talking where we have to get in and intervene.

00:14:20.980 We have to. I mean, they just need a job. Come on. The guy's walking down the street and he

00:14:25.620 crapped himself. He's not ready to walk down there and just sign up for a job somewhere.

00:14:30.420 They need help and they won't seek it on their own. And that's where we're talking about being

00:14:36.260 a society that takes care of those who can't take care of themselves as opposed to those who won't.

00:14:39.800 These guys can't. They can't. They're in trouble, these guys and women. They aren't in their right

00:14:44.840 minds, and that's my point. That's what I'm talking about when it comes to falling under the

00:14:49.160 seam as if somebody's had a disconnect from mental health and reality, when for their own protection

00:14:53.800 and safety, we will take them in and try and treat them. And we should apply that to these addicts.

00:14:58.300 I mean, you don't need to be a doctor to go out and see those people on the streets and realize

00:15:03.140 that there's not a good end for them remaining out there.

00:15:06.140 It won't end well.

00:15:08.240 And, yeah, I mean, Dean Amor is saying,

00:15:13.880 you can't change the spots.

00:15:14.720 You want to make that change and not be lazy

00:15:16.480 and rely on handouts and victim cards.

00:15:17.860 So many people are just lazy.

00:15:19.560 Yeah, but it's not lazy.

00:15:22.060 I mean, it's not an easy life.

00:15:23.280 They're slaves to the addiction.

00:15:25.420 And, you know, they take handouts,

00:15:28.380 but they're desperate.

00:15:29.620 I do agree.

00:15:30.620 They're sick.

00:15:31.140 and however they fell into it, whatever it might be, and it could be people from anywhere.

00:15:34.980 We don't want to forget that. These people came, they have family members, they had loved ones

00:15:39.140 somewhere. And I imagine those loved ones, as I said, would prefer

00:15:42.920 to at least think that whoever that lost person was

00:15:47.140 in their family is being taken care of in a facility. They might not be happy about it, but they're not

00:15:51.000 freezing to death or overdosing. Or finding themselves in a prison because

00:15:55.020 they robbed somebody out of desperation. Or getting stabbed by another homeless person because they're robbing

00:15:59.100 each other to try and get means for their fix. It's a problematic thing. Let's see here.

00:16:08.840 You'll see 21 and the decision of the feds. Yes, that's another interesting one.

00:16:14.040 Hitting top news. I'm going to run an ad in a moment, but it is about firearms. And we did see,

00:16:20.120 you know, it's a tough discussion going on there. I'll pivot a little bit. And we got C21. It sounds

00:16:26.920 like the liberals overstepped themselves. And you know, one of the things they've always liked

00:16:30.140 doing is taking firearm disasters and upping the ante with their legislation. You know, every time

00:16:38.020 there's a shooting, they add a little more and a little more, but they pushed it too far and they

00:16:41.420 went after hunting rifles and things like that. And now it sounds like, well, they might tap the

00:16:46.460 brakes. I think they're starting to realize they bit off more than they can chew, but how they're

00:16:50.560 going to back out on it, I don't know. Now we saw that, I saw a lot of political play going on from

00:16:54.700 both sides with that situation in Toronto or near York or wherever it was. That lunatic who shot,

00:17:00.540 you know, all those people over a dispute with this condo board. It's horrible. What a waste of

00:17:07.020 life. But some people are saying it was a legally owned gun and that shows why people shouldn't have

00:17:10.940 handguns. And some people are saying it was illegal. As far as I can tell, nobody knows

00:17:14.820 the origins of that firearm yet. So I'm not going to speak to that. I don't know. Until I know,

00:17:20.940 then we can start discussing that sort of thing. But I have seen some people pointing out, this is

00:17:25.360 why we need 21 guys. He didn't go up and down the hallways with a hunting rifle. That's one thing we

00:17:30.740 know for sure. So nothing in that bill would have prevented this. So let's look a little harder.

00:17:37.000 Let's quit looking at individual blowups and awful tragedies like this to try and model more

00:17:41.740 overreaching policies that infringe upon our rights in general. We have to look bigger than

00:17:47.100 that. I mean, we still want to find out what was at the roots of this and see if it could have been

00:17:50.400 preventable were there reports on this man's mental health uh did he somehow after reports

00:17:55.520 get a hold of a firearm when he shouldn't have then yeah let's see if we can close those cracks

00:17:59.080 because there's some people we don't want to have firearms i don't oppose licensing people

00:18:02.760 some people don't aren't fit to have firearms there's some people again they're not in their

00:18:07.880 right mind or they've got a long violent history or they've been known criminals they shouldn't

00:18:11.440 be allowed to legally have firearms but leave the ones who are legal alone i mean that's what

00:18:15.260 it always comes down to but let's run a quick ad on one of our good sponsors there and that's the

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00:18:22.560 we'll talk a little further after that.

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00:18:48.940 okay i'll just answer a couple of comments before we move on to kim holmes saying what do you 1.00

00:18:55.720 suggest make everybody who's addicted apply for uh medically assisted death like what a stupid

00:18:59.640 leap i'm sorry kim i appreciate you uh commenting i do but come on yeah yeah that's what i'm gonna

00:19:06.160 do i'm gonna say you guys should commit suicide of course i'm not saying that why do we jump to 0.82

00:19:10.940 things like that when when the discussion gets going and i i mean i had a guest on where we

00:19:16.000 talked about medically assisted death and how it's going too far and certainly shouldn't be

00:19:20.000 applied to people who aren't in their right mind and people with mental health issues. And that

00:19:23.880 applies in my view to those with addiction challenges. So I don't want them to die. That's

00:19:32.600 the point. And that's why we're trying to, or I think we should start trying to take them in so

00:19:36.380 they don't. And maybe there's a chance. I mean, even if it's a long chance, it's better than no

00:19:40.440 chance. And, uh, uh, either way, I'm sorry, but just looking at other private comments there and

00:19:47.460 I get distracted with it. Uh, and Kim saying, no, I never said that. You said that. Okay. Yeah.

00:19:52.260 Sorry, Kim. I, I, I just, you know, things can be taken out of context when we discuss things,

00:19:56.600 but we get a lot of, uh, uh, emotional stuff that comes up when we talk about these issues.

00:20:01.740 They're sensitive ones. And, uh, we do, we do worry about the people out there, what we're

00:20:05.900 going to do about it. So I, I'm going to bring somebody in who's offended a lot of those

00:20:09.400 sensitivities because he's been exposing it. And, um, and, uh, yeah, you know, let's have a little

00:20:17.540 more discussion on this. It's Arthur Green. He moved out a few months ago to Edmonton from

00:20:21.200 Bonneville, and you'll be able to tell within a few sentences from him, he moved out from Newfoundland

00:20:25.220 at one point or another, and, uh, he's been doing some excellent, uh, I guess you could say photo

00:20:29.920 journalism. He's been going out there and taking pictures of the, the, the mess and the havoc on

00:20:35.340 transit systems and in other areas in edmonton showing just how bad things are with the addicts

00:20:40.520 out there so let's bring arthur in and uh have a discussion about some of this um hey there arthur

00:20:45.860 how's it going good day cory merry christmas yes merry christmas to you too welcome back to the

00:20:51.120 show it's been a while since i've had you on yeah i've been quite some time i think i was actually

00:20:55.780 in bonnieville the last time i was on your show yeah it could be it could be so i well now that

00:21:01.660 i'm on weekly i don't get through our our personalities as uh regularly as i'd like to

00:21:06.420 so i appreciate you coming on today and uh i've appreciated what you've been doing getting out

00:21:11.300 there lately in edmonton like i said and i kind of said in the intro uh you've been hitting the

00:21:15.400 streets and you know taking some some pictures of some people in an absolutely pretty rough

00:21:19.600 condition and shape but i mean somebody needs to expose i mean the vast majority of people never

00:21:24.980 go downtown so they don't know how bad it's getting and i think maybe it's time we let people

00:21:29.700 know well corey first of all uh silence is acceptance in in my mind and uh you know i just

00:21:37.940 want to let our viewers know i've taken tons of heat and hate on the internet in the last couple

00:21:44.660 of weeks since i started posting these pictures uh corey but the reason why i'm out there doing

00:21:50.660 this is because i genuinely care about people and through and anyone who knows me and has followed

00:21:57.620 my career uh knows that i've been in the north and i've done extensive work with the homeless

00:22:02.980 and towards helping cure uh addiction um that being said with silence being acceptance uh

00:22:11.380 acceptance uh residents in edmonton are now terrified to to ride the lrt system uh here to

00:22:18.500 get to work and you know they they needed someone to speak up for them and and being the voice of

00:22:23.140 to the voiceless. I'm that person. And, you know, they're very upset with what's happening

00:22:29.520 in Edmonton. And, you know, again, people have been super critical of me taking these

00:22:36.560 pictures. One, I'd like to remind those critical people that it is legal to under photo journalism

00:22:42.720 law to take pictures of people and publish them if they're in a public place. And of

00:22:48.000 course, if they are also breaking the law, Corey, but what people don't realize, and

00:22:53.820 I haven't spoken about my own life very much during this ordeal, but I actually have a

00:23:00.620 family member who's addicted to methamphetamine and who lives on the street. So when people

00:23:05.220 say that I'm not compassionate, I have more compassion than anybody for this issue.

00:23:11.380 Well, yeah, and you know, it's getting so widespread now. It's one of those things

00:23:16.020 where just about everybody, if you talk to them, they will know somebody, if not very directly,

00:23:20.120 it'll be a nearby family member or a friend. I mean, I was speaking in the office earlier

00:23:24.100 of, yeah, I'm at an age where most of my, I guess, compatriots or peers are people whose

00:23:30.620 kids are grown and moved out of the house. And I can now list three men I know who have lost sons

00:23:36.620 to overdoses. Three. And, you know, this is from middle class, average families. I don't believe

00:23:44.180 any of those cases were people on the streets, but the danger of those drugs can't be overstated.

00:23:49.860 We need to talk about it. We do. And my pictures have started quite the conversation

00:23:55.960 on the internet here in Alberta. And we've seen the Alberta government step up recently and create

00:24:03.140 a task force, spending 187 million to try to address some of these issues. But the drug use

00:24:10.680 and the violence continues cory even though this task force has been been established and you know

00:24:17.320 i've spent quite some time traveling throughout these lrt's throughout the stations and you know

00:24:23.080 i've spoken to to lots of these people and you know it's i don't i'll try not to cry cory because

00:24:34.440 i really do feel for these people you know a lot of these people are hard-working albertans

00:24:39.560 who killed themselves in the oil field you know to to grow alberta's prosperity and got addicted

00:24:46.440 to drugs while they you know there wasn't enough education in in the school system growing up

00:24:51.560 about the dangers of methamphetamine and cocaine and crack addiction and you know they used drugs

00:24:57.160 to stay awake so they could work these 20-hour shifts to heat the province and you know when we

00:25:02.920 saw the downturn in the province and and and we started losing jobs you know a lot of these people

00:25:09.400 live paycheck to paycheck even though they were making big money corey they were also spending

00:25:13.960 big money so you know and when the downturn happened and they had nowhere to go you know

00:25:19.640 out to the street they went and you know it's it's sad and you know i i'm not against uh homeless or

00:25:27.080 people that are addicted to drugs but i i will talk to them and and show their side of the story

00:25:33.320 and you know this safe consumption that the federal government is talking about is putting

00:25:38.040 in the minds of these addicts and these home people, homeless people, you know, that consumption

00:25:44.020 of these drugs are okay because the government is going to decriminalize it and legalize it.

00:25:48.940 And that's the mentality that I've been hearing, you know. Yes, meth use is illegal in the city

00:25:55.560 of Edmonton for open air drug use, but, you know, the government's going to decriminalize it.

00:26:01.060 And, you know, we see safe consumption sites in Vancouver and, you know, it's starting to become

00:26:06.940 socially accepted amongst these people. Yeah, and as we saw, just, you know, Cheryl's asking,

00:26:12.760 because, yeah, you've been out there on the ground, and Cheryl Dawn pointed out, 0.96

00:26:15.560 how do you protect yourself on the LRT? Because that gets to another aspect. Unfortunately,

00:26:19.780 these addicts, I mean, something a lot of people keep saying is they're harmless, and

00:26:22.940 just leave them alone, and they don't bother anybody. But actually, they can be pretty

00:26:26.700 aggressive. And when you're out there taking pictures, you're not necessarily going to be

00:26:30.880 bringing attention to yourself that you want to deal with. Well, I mean, I won't act as

00:26:36.920 a snowflake or anything like that corey but like i've been all over the world okay so during my

00:26:41.800 university career i traveled through 27 countries and i've been through the lrt system in london and

00:26:48.600 and in paris france and you know rome italy all over the world i've been in lrt and i'm

00:26:55.400 going to say it right now edmonton has the worst lrt in the world for dangers and uh to

00:27:01.880 to protect myself um i won't say that you know i've been around the block cory um i worked as

00:27:09.560 a taxi driver for for seven years uh in the dead of night in st john's newfoundland and i know

00:27:15.400 just how unpredictable uh addiction can be and i've driven many people who have been addicted

00:27:22.040 to drugs and i think it just comes with my my knowing sense of you know when a situation

00:27:28.360 is dangerous and again i didn't report this last week but like when i went into the lrt with my

00:27:33.960 camera i was literally there like four seconds and there was people screaming hey he's got an

00:27:38.680 expensive camera who is this guy what are you doing and you know it was scary i mean i saw

00:27:47.320 um addict spraying lighter fluid and lighting it on fire as i walked by um but being able to

00:27:55.080 to protect myself uh i'm an i'm an assertive individual and i don't mind speaking up and

00:28:00.980 i've always said in my career that i've been fearless cory because i've had to be but the

00:28:08.540 edmonton lrt system scares me and i don't get paid enough to put my life on the line uh like i've

00:28:16.060 been doing so i'm gonna cease actually uh taking pictures in the lrt we all got the point we we all

00:28:22.160 know what it looks like. Things haven't changed in a week. Um, but you know, after, after a chat

00:28:29.200 with my, uh, with my loving girlfriend and my mother, uh, back in Newfoundland, they actually

00:28:33.820 don't want me, uh, going in this system anymore because of my safety, Corey. Yeah. Well, and the

00:28:40.140 point's been kind of made, as you said, I mean, some of your pictures, they were very graphic.

00:28:43.120 You also showed, uh, unfortunately the, the, the, the human feces that's, you know, ubiquitous in

00:28:48.940 these transit and it's in calgary and it's everywhere uh this is happening i see a black 0.99

00:28:54.500 locks piece today that was saying transit ridership nationwide is down and there's no doubt it's in

00:28:59.640 every city it's the same problem they they're all scratching their heads they say we don't know why

00:29:03.600 people haven't come back well look at them look at the state you've let it get into in all of these

00:29:08.280 cities people if they have any other way of getting around they'll they'll take it and of course what

00:29:13.460 do they respond they said they well they want more subsidies to offset the fares like guys you know

00:29:17.720 no amount of subsidies is going to get me to ride that train if I don't have to when it's overrun

00:29:22.480 with addicts like that. Well, and Corey, the city in the past have actually closed the public

00:29:27.740 washrooms in the LRT system because they were being used by gangs and drug addicts and prostitutes 0.97

00:29:35.680 as offices. And that's the main reason why these bathrooms have been closed. But now 0.78

00:29:41.000 So the homeless people in the LRT system have MacGyvered the water fountains to be used as urinals now.

00:29:51.060 And again, they've beat them open and stole the copper that was inside that used to make the water fountain work.

00:29:57.860 But again, this is all taxpayer-funded items that these people are destroying.

00:30:03.740 And, you know, it's not just in Edmonton, Corey.

00:30:08.260 It's everywhere.

00:30:08.880 Because, like, I lived in Bonneville for a year.

00:30:10.740 I lived in Meth Alley in Bonneville, where there's a meth house that sells it right out the door to anybody who got money.

00:30:18.800 You know, I've also witnessed people go there with cans, bags of cans, trading for drugs in Bonneville.

00:30:24.840 And I've spoken to hundreds of people throughout my career, including the RCMP, who say meth use is different in Alberta now.

00:30:34.460 Before, they could deal with the people who they were constantly arresting for meth use.

00:30:39.960 Now these people have a certain state of psychosis and paranoia, which makes arresting and dealing with their mental health issues that much more complex.

00:30:50.740 Oh, they are out of control. And again, any of us who've been downtown and in these urban centers

00:30:55.140 have seen it and we're seeing more of it. And it's that denial and that visceral response to

00:30:59.940 people like yourself or myself when I read columns on it, pointing it out. I mean, I've been going on

00:31:04.460 about this for a couple of years now on standard columns, particularly so in a year and some ago

00:31:09.380 when I ran across an overdose, a fatal one, and it ended poorly. It really shook me up. It was just

00:31:13.660 young men. And it was a total waste. And we need to face the ugliness of it. The real seeing that

00:31:21.100 young guy dying in front of me, that really drove it home to me. And people need to see some of

00:31:25.860 these pictures. They don't have to come downtown and see it themselves. But I mean, it's municipal

00:31:30.600 leaders and others just don't like to face it. In Calgary, we did the same thing last winter.

00:31:34.660 There was problems. The LRT stations were completely taken over by addicts. So what did

00:31:38.320 the city do they close the stations well now taxpayers are shivering freezing out on a platform

00:31:43.800 because they can't go indoors and you got that heated building next to them because the city

00:31:47.500 would rather just close it than do the hard decisions that'll come with dealing with the

00:31:51.300 problem and i agree with you cory and you know people or residents in edmonton have told me that

00:31:57.920 they feel like the municipal council here in edmonton has failed taxpayers uh with the disarray

00:32:03.240 of the system. And I'm just going to touch on something, Corey, that you said that

00:32:06.980 may be quite controversial, and that's involuntary treatment. Like I said, a family member of mine

00:32:14.720 is struggling with drug addiction. She's lived with me countless times over the last year and

00:32:21.060 a half. We have a set of rules in my house, and one of those is you don't smoke drugs in my house,

00:32:28.020 and she couldn't abide by those rules. We're still hoping that she's going to take the first

00:32:33.220 step. And this is the point of my conversation. It doesn't matter how much housing you throw

00:32:37.400 or funding or whatever to try to fix this issue. If the person addicted to drugs is not willing

00:32:44.080 to take the first step, then that's where the train stops, Corey. So like I have had countless

00:32:51.600 conversations with people and I had a conversation just a couple of days ago with someone who

00:32:57.380 actually just touched on your involuntary treatment idea and you know her her thoughts

00:33:03.220 were if you notice someone walking around in the middle of the night in edmonton and it's minus 30

00:33:08.900 and it's minus 40 and you know their question about an officer where they're headed

00:33:14.100 or where do you live and they don't have an address like they should be sent to a temporarily

00:33:21.380 temporary uh homeless housing facility or mental health facility if there's one available and like

00:33:28.420 you said there's lots of places for these addicts to go but the problem is is that they can't get

00:33:34.500 high there or they can't take their drugs and that's the issue that we're seeing so i mean

00:33:40.340 is it good and again i've been reporting on this i've been up to like one o'clock every night

00:33:45.140 since i started posting these pictures overwhelmed by messages from albertans

00:33:50.580 about the issue but like what is the plan corey what are we going to do do we need

00:33:56.480 you know like i said there's feces from one end of the stations to the other are we going to like

00:34:02.160 you know get a biohazard team start in the south and go to the north and start to round up

00:34:07.220 uh addicts and all these people and because like it it's just become lawless and like i i saw this

00:34:15.420 on saturday cory i went to i went to safeway just you know just up from from downtown well it's

00:34:21.040 actually still in the downtown uh you know i watched a man you could obviously tell he was a

00:34:25.960 vulnerable citizen uh you know he wore tattered clothes and i could tell that he was homeless

00:34:31.460 having having dealt with so many homeless people in the last five years i can people say well you

00:34:35.900 can't assume he's a drug addict, but I could because I seen the blowtorch that was in his

00:34:40.400 book bag. But anyway, he checked in a bunch of groceries when it came time to pay. He pretended

00:34:45.880 to search for his debit card and he had a box cutter in his hand while he was doing this. And

00:34:51.140 then, you know, he just decided that he wasn't going to pay for his groceries and he was just

00:34:55.960 going to leave the safe way with his items. And, you know, this is the way society has become in

00:35:02.280 downtown Edmonton. It is lawless, Corey. Yeah, well, and these policies of enablement,

00:35:07.640 and I think that's part of why you get some of the backlash, and I do when we talk about these

00:35:11.980 things, because they can't pretend, the people who push this, they can't pretend it hasn't been

00:35:16.400 tried already. If we want to see where we're going to be in a year, just go to any city on the West

00:35:20.620 Coast. Go to Portland, go to Seattle, go to Vancouver, because they've been doing, or San

00:35:24.960 Francisco, the progressive approaches and safe supplies and safe consumption and decriminalization,

00:35:31.320 And I spoke to a state legislator from Oregon.

00:35:34.960 And once they'd moved on to that, their addiction rates shot through the roof and their overdose

00:35:38.920 rates went up as well.

00:35:41.220 Like it's not working.

00:35:42.860 I know it's well-meaning, but it's not working.

00:35:45.600 I mean, East Hastings, now it's the whole Hastings area is a giant tent city.

00:35:49.560 And again, the crime, an RCMP officer, a female one in Burnaby at a tent city got stabbed

00:35:54.540 to death by an addict.

00:35:56.020 We can't keep pretending that this enablement policy is going to work.

00:36:00.720 it has failed. I mean, we learned that with Needle Park in the 90s. You can't naively just

00:36:05.880 let it go. It will get worse. We have to intervene sometime. I mean, again, my own opinion, and I try

00:36:12.560 not to state my opinion very often because I'd like to remain unbiased on the subject, but I

00:36:17.260 believe, Corey, that, you know, to help addiction, giving an addicted person drugs is not helping

00:36:24.860 care of their addiction it's enabling it and you know these the people that are in the lrt station

00:36:32.540 they believe that the users around them are their family cory and you know having a family member

00:36:40.320 who's addicted to drugs she thinks that the people that she does drugs with is her family when she 0.99

00:36:47.080 has a caring family at home that just wants her to be safe and you know i've tried endless times

00:36:54.520 me and my girlfriend and uh you know we're at our wit's end and i would fully support

00:37:01.720 involuntary treatment and i know people are going to yell at me and scream and and and hate on me

00:37:08.280 for saying that because you know they're like preserving people's dignity well i watched a man

00:37:14.360 use the bathroom the number two on jasper avenue the other evening at minus 35 um trying to wipe

00:37:21.640 himself while it was frozen uh to his skin uh where's his dignity corey and and that's what we

00:37:30.120 and i know i i'm gonna take heat for this interview but i know the left whoa doesn't like

00:37:34.440 what i'm doing and you know they're like preserve new dignity and you know we need housing we need

00:37:38.840 this we need that what we need is someone to stand up and tell these people this is not okay

00:37:44.760 hey, this is not okay.

00:37:47.420 Society needs help, Corey.

00:37:49.940 Absolutely.

00:37:50.500 I remember one of the Twitter discussions,

00:37:52.220 I mean, that's something I've been open about on this show

00:37:54.020 and I've written columns about as well.

00:37:55.760 I'm an alcoholic.

00:37:56.720 I haven't had a drink in years,

00:37:58.000 but I went to many, many, many AA meetings.

00:38:00.960 Actually, when I was working in the States,

00:38:02.200 I'd travel around city to city

00:38:03.600 and I got to meet a lot of people

00:38:05.020 when I'd go to the local meetings

00:38:06.260 when I'd be working down there.

00:38:07.980 And somebody tweeted, you know, pointed out saying,

00:38:09.560 you know what, in none of the AA meetings I went to,

00:38:11.820 did they ever hand out a round of shooters to start it off?

00:38:14.080 And I mean, it's the truth. That's how ridiculous this, this, this enablement through adding more drugs can be. And, and, and I saw a news piece a while back and I was infuriated watching it on TV. They were talking to this young lady cause they were talking about safe consumption sites. And she was saying, I need that site so I can go down and take my prescription, uh, fentanyl or whatever the heck it was. It was, it was some sort of a, you know, addictive drug. Uh, but then aside from that, I can just maintain my life and go on perfectly safely and normally. Well, no, no, you can't.

00:38:43.680 I mean, I'm glad you're avoiding the overdoses, but it's giving that impression that you can

00:38:48.780 be functional when you're addicted to something like that.

00:38:51.040 And no, you cannot.

00:38:52.360 And in the long run, you will die.

00:38:55.000 And exactly.

00:38:56.000 Exactly.

00:38:57.000 Corey, like, again, a certain set of health issues come with continued drug use.

00:39:03.800 And, you know, I've I've seen many people die in my career because of addiction and

00:39:10.360 it breaks my heart.

00:39:12.100 I genuinely care about these people, but with the safe consumption site, Corey, I don't know if you've seen the picture that I posted on Twitter, what safe consumption looks like.

00:39:21.660 I had a lady in Vancouver, BC, God bless her heart, she's actually coming to Alberta for Christmas with family and she's going to look me up and we're going to have a chat, an interview.

00:39:33.280 But, you know, she's been telling me the horror stories of safe consumption sites and she hands out needles to addicts. And she said, you know, some weeks it really plays on her mind because she's enabling them to use drugs through the federal government by handing them these safe needles.

00:39:56.360 and you know she's like if i meet 20 people in a week the next week there's only 10 of those people

00:40:04.200 left so uh you know workers are starting to speak up about these policies the people that are

00:40:10.440 actually on the ground doing the federal government's dirty work i'll call it because

00:40:15.180 you know like you said at aaa meetings we don't hand out drinks and in canada we shouldn't be

00:40:21.060 handing out drugs to addicted people.

00:40:23.580 Oh, well, I'm looking forward to seeing you.

00:40:26.620 You're right up on that interview.

00:40:27.680 And I appreciate what you've been putting out there.

00:40:29.260 And I'm sure, you know, you're not going out of your way to take pictures,

00:40:31.940 but you'll still be documenting and talking about what you see.

00:40:34.400 Where can people find your stuff besides the Western Standard?

00:40:37.020 You know, you're pretty active on Facebook and Twitter.

00:40:40.800 I'm active on Facebook.

00:40:42.380 I more or less lean towards Twitter.

00:40:46.740 You can follow me at Art C. Green, A-R-T C. Green. 0.55

00:40:51.060 And again, Corey, I just want to stress the point to people, you know, I'm not doing this like like people have accused me of some wild acquisitions in the last two weeks, you know, clickbait and blah, blah, blah.

00:41:02.000 No, I'm trying to make change. And if my pictures and what I'm doing saves one life, then then it's worth it, Corey.

00:41:09.800 And, you know, I'm interviewing people every day who are getting attacked and I'm interviewing both sides of this story.

00:41:16.520 uh it's just you know the addicted people that i'm talking to can't seem to break the cycle

00:41:23.680 cory to to make change and and that's where we as humanity need to step in and help these people

00:41:30.640 yeah well i appreciate your work and hopefully uh we'll drive it home and get some positive

00:41:35.300 change eventually and then start saving some of those poor folks out there so thanks for coming

00:41:39.680 on to talk to me about it today arthur i probably won't talk to you at least on the show or anything

00:41:43.540 before Christmas, so Merry Christmas to you, and we'll talk again soon, I'm sure. Same to you,

00:41:49.180 Corey. Stay where you're at until that comes where you're to. Right on. Thanks, Arthur.

00:41:53.900 All right, that's our Arthur Green, you know, and again, doing a lot of work on covering

00:41:58.720 what a lot of people don't typically see, as I said, that the problems on the streets, the

00:42:02.780 addiction, the issues in Edmonton. In Calgary, I mean, it's the same thing. People forget the vast,

00:42:09.120 vast majority of people they work in the suburbs or they're working from home uh they don't go

00:42:14.040 downtown they don't need to and if they do they often don't take transit so they don't know how

00:42:18.300 bad it's getting and if we can't point out how bad it's getting then how can we fix it and safe

00:42:23.400 consumption you know i'm not wholly opposed to that i mean if for those who are willing to go to

00:42:28.020 it if we can get them clean supplies like i mean if syringes and things like that and avoid the

00:42:33.260 spread of Hep C and HIV and things like that long enough. It's a band-aid though. That's where

00:42:39.760 you're trying to keep them going until you can get them to treatment. Because if it's not an end,

00:42:44.740 plus the problem with safe consumption sites is they turn the area they're in into a hellhole.

00:42:49.480 People got to stop denying that. That denial gets on my nerves too. Go down to the Sheldon

00:42:53.720 Chumer in Calgary, where that safe consumption site's been going for a long time. Walk around

00:42:57.840 any of the alleys or the buildings. What it has done is gathered a large number of the addicts

00:43:02.420 into one area, but not all of them necessarily use that site. You can find that out because you

00:43:05.360 see the syringes laying in the alleys and in the parks. But the dealers also, of course,

00:43:09.400 follow their customers and you get a concentrated area of addicts. And those addicts, of course,

00:43:13.960 need the money to get their drugs. What do they do? Property crimes and they rob people in the

00:43:18.700 local area. So how many, I spoke to, his name was Dr. Go. He was an addictions expert. One of the

00:43:25.740 things he pointed out was saying that safe consumption sites are only good for about a

00:43:30.040 500 meter radius. I mean, these are people pushing shopping carts. These are people on foot. They're

00:43:34.280 not going to take a taxi to the safe consumption center. They'll only go when it's convenient when

00:43:38.500 it's nearby. We can't have hundreds and hundreds of safe consumption sites for the addicts all over

00:43:43.320 the city. Again, it's not a solution. It's not something we should have none of. Fine, let's

00:43:48.120 let's have them where it's appropriate and where we can. But it's just it's just one piece of a

00:43:53.900 much bigger puzzle. Laureen pointed out a comment to reopen the mental institutions that were shut

00:43:58.320 done decades ago. And yeah, I was talking to Nigel about that in the newsroom earlier.

00:44:02.120 That's a large part of this problem. A lot of, you know, we talk about how people fall into

00:44:05.360 addiction. Arthur mentioned it and some others. And there's a thousand different paths where

00:44:09.120 people can find themselves in the state of addiction. There's a story in San Francisco,

00:44:12.620 which is a great one of a fellow who recovered and got out of it. But it started, he was a family

00:44:17.280 man. He was a professional. He had a great job. He was into sports. I think it was a bicycling

00:44:21.200 accident, but he got onto some painkillers while he was recovering from the surgery of that accident.

00:44:26.320 And in the end of it, he got addicted to the painkillers.

00:44:28.740 And he maintained it for a while through his work and buying them.

00:44:31.260 But when he couldn't get the prescription ones anymore, then he started buying street drugs.

00:44:34.700 Of course, eventually his family life fell apart.

00:44:36.600 His job fell apart and he found himself on the streets.

00:44:38.820 This can happen to anybody.

00:44:41.620 Or a lot of the people, as I said, I think I was mentioning with Dave or somebody earlier,

00:44:46.420 when you see them on the streets and they're addicted to substances,

00:44:49.040 the thing is they had a mental health issue before that.

00:44:52.380 And they were self-medicating, basically.

00:44:54.400 if they'd have been perhaps in a secured facility

00:44:57.140 a mental institution earlier

00:44:58.100 they wouldn't have found themselves on the street

00:45:00.200 and addicted

00:45:00.860 but we've gone on this deinstitutionalization craze

00:45:03.960 where we pushed people out of those institutions

00:45:06.060 and into the streets

00:45:06.920 and I know institutionalization in the long term

00:45:09.300 certainly is no ideal solution

00:45:11.480 it's something you don't want to imagine being there for life

00:45:13.400 or somebody else being there for life

00:45:14.640 for a long long period of time

00:45:15.840 but it beats the hell out of what we're seeing on the streets

00:45:18.200 you know you really want them to freeze to death

00:45:20.240 or die of an overdose out there

00:45:21.340 there's really not many other options

00:45:22.960 we've got to start getting realistic and the answers are ones we don't like that's part of

00:45:27.280 why people don't like talking about that's why they get so upset with arthur when when he posts

00:45:30.940 those pictures of those addicts or the mess they're making or when i write about it but

00:45:34.380 it's not going away for pretending it isn't there so again i appreciate arthur uh uh pointing that

00:45:42.000 sort of thing out and uh you know bringing that discussion about uh somebody was saying uh i just

00:45:47.960 one of the commenters i've scrolled past that was saying with some of the news items that dave was

00:45:51.140 talking about. One of the aspects, finally, that Danielle Smith brought in, boy, she gets abused 1.00

00:45:55.280 from the media in every direction, no matter what. But they've released the plan for patient

00:46:00.560 transport and using vans for it rather than ambulances. This is such a no-brainer. Why did

00:46:05.440 it take this long? And I really appreciate that she's done it. And when she first talked about it,

00:46:09.640 I remember some of the ding-dongs on Twitter going on, oh, she's going to be sticking sick 1.00

00:46:12.940 people and Ubers and cancer patients on bicycles. No, but you don't need an ambulance to transfer

00:46:20.800 a senior from a nursing home to a hospital to get some testing done or a minor minor procedure but

00:46:26.240 that's what's been happening in a lot of cases and things like that these are not people in an

00:46:30.920 emergency situation these are fragile people but you're using a full ambulance with paramedics to

00:46:37.060 transport them terribly wasteful when our ambulances are overloaded as it is and overwhelmed

00:46:41.980 why on earth are we putting non-emergency people into them so yes there's a bunch of vans are

00:46:47.400 going to be going out that are set up, I imagine, with somebody who's still a trained driver and

00:46:51.560 with some degree of first aid skills, but otherwise they can move those patients and that frees up

00:46:55.880 all of those trucks to actually respond to emergencies where they need to be as much as

00:46:59.140 10 to 15%. The sad part is I'm sure the media is going to come out and explain why Daniel Smith's

00:47:08.020 an asshole for proposing it. Because I swear she would say water is wet and we would see 10

00:47:13.280 editorials in the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Senate on Global saying why Daniel Smith was

00:47:17.420 wrong when she said water was wet. I have never seen media so lined up against one single politician

00:47:23.260 as I have in my life with Smith. And she's made mistakes. She's going to make some more.

00:47:27.660 But holy cow, the full court press against Premier Smith has just been something to behold.

00:47:33.920 Either way, I applaud this move. It's a good quick fix. That's what we need. Quick, real fixes for

00:47:40.260 some problems, not more studies, not more commissions, not more committees. Look, we need

00:47:45.580 to transport patients. Okay, let's get vehicles and people to transport them. Holy crap, it's done.

00:47:50.120 We didn't need to spend six months on that. We didn't need to spend $5 billion on that.

00:47:54.040 Those are the more the kind of solutions I'm hoping to see out of Smith's government

00:47:57.640 so that she can at least regain some of that trust of Albertans over this next five months,

00:48:04.220 six months, so we don't end up with horror of horrors, another four-year term of Premier Notley

00:48:10.000 which gives me the shivers.

00:48:12.680 Let's see, we'll get on to the Ag Report in a minute,

00:48:14.400 but I do want to say one of the big things to celebrate,

00:48:16.460 the officially now we have banned single-use plastics.

00:48:19.940 Justin Trudeau has saved us from straws.

00:48:23.600 Oh, it's a wonder we made it this long before this happened.

00:48:26.320 You know, no more red plastic cups, plastic forks for takeout,

00:48:32.780 no more plastic bags from the grocery store.

00:48:37.360 Yeah, yeah, these are the biggest problems.

00:48:39.140 So I guess most of our problems around the world have been solved, if that's what we got down to.

00:48:42.860 I don't have time to go in depth on the whole thing about it, but I'll tell you something.

00:48:45.840 A lot of people seem not to understand and realize we are not short of landfill space, okay?

00:48:50.640 We aren't running out of it.

00:48:52.700 We've got lots of room to dispose of these items, and they don't pollute an area when they're properly dealt with.

00:48:57.980 The problem with plastic bags, they're visible.

00:49:01.700 That's what it is.

00:49:02.420 I mean, they're ugly, yes, when some jerk throws it out of their car or doesn't properly deal with their garbage,

00:49:06.620 and it blows and it gets stuck on a fence line and you see it around, it's ugly and it's visible.

00:49:10.800 And yes, we should clean it up, but it doesn't mean that they are a large part of an environmental

00:49:14.600 problem. In fact, they take up, you know, again, what are they? A few micrograms, you know, you

00:49:19.100 ball it up, you bury it in a landfill. And yes, and you know what happens in a landfill? Eventually

00:49:22.520 we build housing developments on top of them. We're not out of space to get rid of our garbage.

00:49:26.400 We don't want to be wasteful, but these blanket bands, this shallow myopic approach we get from

00:49:31.520 this federal government trying to solve minor problems with a large hammer. And Alberta,

00:49:38.660 in a sense, it's another one of the things where they've undercut Alberta because under Jason

00:49:42.820 Kenny, Premier Kenny had made great strides on recycling of plastic products. We were actually

00:49:48.680 moving along quite well where we could take them then at least and keep them out of landfills

00:49:52.280 and recycle. But now, now that it's banned, it doesn't matter. So all of those investments,

00:49:57.380 all of that, as usual, when it comes to Alberta, well, sorry, you're just going to have to go

00:50:00.740 broke because Justin has now made your trade illegal. All right. Well, let's talk about some

00:50:07.020 of the more important trades out there anyways, and that is our agricultural market. And do our

00:50:12.080 weekly check-in with Jim Busicum. I'll get it one of these days. With Marketplace Commodities.

00:50:19.720 Hey, how's it going? It must be as bloody full down where you are as it is here, eh, Jim?

00:50:23.340 Yeah, you bet. It's probably about minus 30, minus 40 with windchill. So very similar to Calgary,

00:50:28.480 i think so but uh other than that all is going good cory right on well staying busy as you always

00:50:34.320 watching those markets so uh we're looking to talk about a recap of some of the feed markets

00:50:40.240 yeah you bet so um taking a look at the feed markets in lethbridge we've got uh you know to

00:50:47.760 finish out the year we are coming off the highs in october we're off probably about 20 30 per ton

00:50:53.520 which on a percent basis isn't that much yet it's maybe down about five percent

00:50:57.840 over the course of the year compared to starting in 2022 we're we're roughly still you know five

00:51:05.440 to ten percent higher markets have actually done really well even though we've gone through

00:51:12.880 another growing season and had good production in 2022 but you know finishing the year on a weaker

00:51:19.920 note. You know, some of this markets, what I actually want to, you know, I just want to point

00:51:27.460 out as well what the Canadian dollar is doing. So over the course of 2022, the Canadian dollar

00:51:33.860 has dropped roughly about 10%. We started the year roughly at around 80 cents and now are trading

00:51:41.560 around 73, 73 and a quarter. That's a good 10% loss on the Canadian dollar. Now, whether you're

00:51:47.520 commodity trade like we are or whether you're buying groceries or your favorite widget you're

00:51:51.760 buying power is really in u.s dollars so part of our commodity price and appreciation is actually

00:51:57.920 just inflation the canadian dollar dropping 10 is really you know everything relative in u.s dollars

00:52:05.360 will be 10 higher i think canadian inflation rate is somewhere around 6.8 is what they're

00:52:11.760 telling us in november uh i dare say it's probably quite a bit higher than that myself but

00:52:17.520 So Canadian dollar implies it should be higher than that.

00:52:20.960 Yeah, well, and that's a difficult one, I guess, for anybody when you're trying to base your planning and things like that.

00:52:26.260 I mean, it's really kind of outside of your control, international currencies, but it can have a very strong impact on your returns for your products if you're producing something that goes into an export market.

00:52:36.380 Yeah, exactly.

00:52:37.500 So like it's good returns for farmers to be able to sell their commodities.

00:52:41.100 They get paid in Canadian dollars, but really they're getting sold in U.S. dollars on the export market.

00:52:45.400 of course the flip side is when they go and buy their inputs their equipment everything it takes

00:52:51.980 to produce a crop again they pay in Canadian dollars but really it's valued in U.S. dollars

00:52:56.800 it's still valued off the export market equipment comes in from United States or overseas

00:53:01.920 it's all U.S. dollar based so when the price of commodities are higher so their inputs also

00:53:08.720 increase so I mean markets are good right now so I do think the spread is reasonable but

00:53:13.300 those are certainly some things as we go into 2023 the cost of production versus returns

00:53:20.200 are always concerning and not necessarily always concerning but how do you lock that up as a

00:53:27.440 producer yeah well some energy products have been kind of coming down at least gasoline and things

00:53:32.060 such as that and natural gas but diesel's still kind of hanging up there right now that's sort of

00:53:36.340 the one that impacts the producers the most I guess yeah yeah exactly so diesel affects them

00:53:41.880 with their production, putting in a crop, energy costs, fertilizer, et cetera.

00:53:46.480 And then, of course, transportation of that crop.

00:53:49.280 So we are massively supply surplus in Canada, Western Canada.

00:53:54.540 We produce, you know, we grow crops on roughly about 65, 70 million acres of land.

00:54:01.860 A lot of that product has to be at very least trucked to the closest elevator,

00:54:06.220 railed to the port, and from there, steamship lines take it to destination and so on.

00:54:10.840 So there's a lot of transportation to move something from

00:54:13.180 inland Canada destination.

00:54:15.220 So the high cost of diesel and still actually relatively high

00:54:19.480 cost of energy, it definitely has an impact.

00:54:23.260 Okay.

00:54:23.620 Well, always lots to watch.

00:54:26.020 Uh, anything else you'd like to add before I let you go, I guess,

00:54:28.800 until into the new year, that'll be it till the new year.

00:54:31.400 Merry Christmas, Corey, and wish you guys the best.

00:54:33.560 And we'll talk to you guys again soon.

00:54:35.440 Great.

00:54:35.700 Thanks.

00:54:35.960 Merry Christmas to you too, Jim.

00:54:37.100 We'll see you in the new year.

00:54:37.860 That is Jim Buzicum of Marketplace Commodities, and you can check them out online, Marketplace

00:54:44.240 Commodities online, and they can help you out with some of your planning as an ag producer.

00:54:50.080 You really want to maximize your returns. It's a big business and an important one. So

00:54:54.460 check that site out, guys. It's a great local company. Okay, well, we'll run another quick

00:55:00.620 ad here, and then I'll discuss a few more news items before we wrap up for this week.

00:55:04.180 it takes work to run this place for my mental wellness I try to exercise more days when I don't

00:55:12.980 now my husband is joining us too and we've all seen the difference

00:55:17.060 and if I need more support I call 2-1-1

00:55:20.080 okay quick add for 2-1-1 all right uh you know something uh interesting in an article I saw

00:55:29.820 earlier too. So we've seen some of that discussion, some of the fights going on and battles between

00:55:35.100 Premier Smith and Rachel Notley and Alberta Federation of Labour. They keep saying that

00:55:39.380 Smith's going to drive away investment. She's going to drive away people and Sovereignty Act 1.00

00:55:43.420 is going to do so. They've been saying that since basically spring and the numbers have been coming

00:55:49.840 in. Alberta's growing and it's growing fast actually all the way through last summer and

00:55:53.480 into September, the population has been growing. So whatever might be going on so far, I mean,

00:56:00.200 it's a long game, but it's not scaring people away. It's not scaring migration away or investment

00:56:05.620 away. What is scaring it away? I think is, well, as we saw earlier too, was there was a company

00:56:12.020 looking to invest in downtown Edmonton. They pulled out when they saw the disorder and the

00:56:15.640 mess down there. That's a direct loss of jobs and people and money. And as well, whatever people

00:56:21.460 might want to claim. I tell you what, if you want to stick a socialist NDP government in for four

00:56:25.060 more years, that'll scare away investment. I don't care what you're claiming when they want to,

00:56:29.820 because I mean, that's not least thing. She wants to raise the corporate tax. She wants to increase 1.00

00:56:33.940 regulations on businesses. Again, Smith might be the wrong answer. I don't know. I'm not going to

00:56:38.740 get so much into that, but let's not pretend the NDP would be good for business in Alberta. It will 0.66

00:56:44.100 not. It absolutely will not be. Ah, let's see. Here's another interesting one. Dan McTague came

00:56:54.100 out. Yeah. So they had this COP15 meetings in Montreal. Again, it's just more globalists

00:57:00.000 getting together, talking about ways to basically run our lives and plan our future. And they're

00:57:05.020 talking about setting aside 30% of all land and water for conservation. This is the sort of thing

00:57:10.400 that is going to starve the world, guys. I mean, they're talking about basically bringing farmland

00:57:15.220 and putting it back to nature and stuff like that. That's great as long as the rest of us don't need

00:57:18.920 to eat, but it's dangerous, dangerous talk. And for the most part, it's just talk. I mean,

00:57:24.140 these guys, they set their goals, they set their bars and they never achieve them because their

00:57:27.020 bars and goals are stupid, but they do impact and influence policy. And when we get clowns like

00:57:33.440 Justin Trudeau talking about, you know, basically eliminating and banning forms of fertilizer and

00:57:38.860 things like that on our agricultural producers this is where you can see some of the inspiration

00:57:42.100 for that sort of thing coming from and we got to be watching for it uh well i think that's pretty

00:57:48.840 much covered a lot for today guys a lot of addiction talk it's a bit of a downer but still

00:57:53.120 there's a lot of bright sides this is the last show before christmas guys uh so i wish you all

00:57:58.700 uh merry christmas a lot of people are having trouble traveling vancouver's been shut down

00:58:02.820 things like that well maybe make your plans at home if you were going to be moving around but

00:58:06.540 at least, you know, as compared to the last couple of years,

00:58:08.860 there's not a bunch of people screaming about super spreader events or any of

00:58:11.940 that crap. Get out there, see some loved ones, see some family,

00:58:15.300 enjoy yourselves, socialize, eat too much,

00:58:18.580 do all of the stuff that's important during these times guys.

00:58:21.960 And I will see you all after Christmas.

00:58:25.560 So thanks for joining me today and we'll talk to you later.

00:58:36.540 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - December 22, 2022

It's time to remove addicts from the streets

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