It’s time to gut Canada Post
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Summary
The Canadian Postal Service is going on strike, and it s going to cost the government billions of dollars in lost revenue and millions in lost productivity. The union representing Canada Post workers has served a strike notice, and they re demanding an 11.5% raise, along with protections against technology that might take their jobs.
Transcript
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Good day and welcome to the show. Got another good one ahead. I like to think they're all good.
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Some are better than others, so we got to admit that. We got coming on as a guest in a little
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while, Sam Cooper. He's an investigative journalist. Anybody online should know that
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name the second they hear it. He's just been owning the foreign interference file for a couple
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of years. He's actually been on that file for closer to 15 years, so it's a little wonder that
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he has so much to share on it. It's going to be great to talk to him about his latest
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revision on his book and his latest things that have been breaking as they come out.
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It's going to be great chatting with him. Lots of other stuff on the go as well.
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So I see a bunch of you already in the comment scroll. I love seeing that. Jordan, Paradoxie,
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Don, checking in there. Mr. Stanley, use that comment scroll. That's the great part of having
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a live show. I don't necessarily read out every comment, as you know, but it can help inspire.
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I can pass those comments or questions on to guests, or at least I see them and I appreciate
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that. Just be civil with each other. You know, we can fight on Twitter at another time. We don't
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need to do it in the comments. Scroll for this show because it will go quickly. So let me get
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on to one of my favorite subjects to start things off. What's got me worked up? You know, one of my
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favorite characters from Seinfeld in the past was Newman, and part of it was because he hit right
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home on what your typical lazy entitled post he was. He really knocked it out of the park with that.
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Stereotypes don't come from nowhere, guys. The reason he was, I mean, he was a fantastic actor,
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Mr. Knight, and because it just, people could smell that glimmer of truth. And in Canada,
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our posties are a little better. And Canada Post, as we know it right now, can't be saved. This has
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been actually been a reality for decades, pretty much since the fax machine came out. Even if
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delusional unions won't accept it and callow politicians won't deal with it. The Canada,
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this crown corporation lost five billion, no, three billion dollars since 2018. And the losses are
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growing by the year. Home delivery by letter mail used to be their prime service. That service
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peaked in 2006 with 5.5 billion letters delivered. In 2023, that number of letters had dropped to 2.2
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billion, and it's only going to continue to drop. Look, people don't need letters delivered to their
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homes anymore. Email and electronic documents have replaced letter mail, and it's only diehard
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romantics and great-grandma Abby sending her annual Christmas checks to grandchildren who still
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correspond by mail. You know, romance is lovely, and great-grandmothers are fantastic, but it
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doesn't justify maintaining an obsolete service at a cost of billions of dollars. In an astounding
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act of financial illiteracy and greed, though, the Canadian Union of postal workers, they've served
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strike notice. Yeah, the unions refused and offered an 11.5% raise, and they're demanding large raises,
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along with protections against technology that might take their jobs. Look, unless Canada Post can
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somehow illegalize email and fax machines, I'm not sure how these jobs are going to be protected.
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It's time to call the Cup W Bluff. Let them strike. Go for it, guys. It's only going to speed the
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inevitable process of winding down Canada's National Postal Service anyways. The postal workers will
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lose what little political capital they had in public support anyways, because, as usual, they pick
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Christmas, and they're going to delay grandma's Christmas checks, and they're going to drive the
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few businesses still using antiquated postal services into modernizing their systems. Indeed, even city
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governments are moving to alternative communication systems in anticipation of this strike.
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civic bureaucracies are slow to change, and they're often supportive of unions, but the
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posties have pushed it too far. Municipal mail-outs make up a large part of the dwindling mail going
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now, and it's going to end. They're not going to move back to Canada Post after the strike ends.
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The inefficiencies within Canada's bloated postal service, they're myriad. I mean, to begin with,
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there simply isn't enough need to have mail delivered five days a week. Most Canadians can get
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by a service once, maybe twice a week. Most of the mails these days is junk anyhow, and we don't need it
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arriving in a timely manner. And then that junk mail is declining too, because businesses are moving to
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more efficient electronic means of promotion and marketing. All door-to-door home mail and
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delivery has to end. It's ridiculous that money's still being spent to have a postal carrier walk
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to one-third of the homes in Canada five days a week. Canada Post realized this years ago and began
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moving services to centralized boxes, but unfortunately in 2016, the union cut a deal with
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Justin Trudeau, and they halted the conversion, so a third of the country is still getting home
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delivery of mail. Postal carriers work short days with long pay. They even have taxis delivering
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them to their postal walks in some cities so they don't have to suffer the indignity of riding a bus
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like the commoners. Let's face it, being a postal worker is a good gig. They're highly paid, enjoy full
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benefits, and a generous pension for what's really a relatively unskilled job. If Canada Post was to cut
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two-thirds of the workforce, you can rest assured the remaining third who were employed would suddenly
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discover work ethics, and they'd be able to put in those 40-hour work weeks the rest of us get to
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enjoy. If unions truly cared about workers, what they would be negotiating for right now would be
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transitioning packages and job training for the postal workers who are going to be facing layoffs
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in the coming years. Unions rarely care about workers, however, and they know the Canada Post is
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speeding towards a fiscal wall. They don't care. The union heads just want to milk the company for as
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much in dues as they possibly can before the crash comes. Let the postal workers strike. Let
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them demonstrate to Canadians just how little we actually need them. Then the environment will be
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ripe to restructure Canada Post and cut the service down to a tiny fraction of what it is. I mean,
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some remote regions still need subsidized delivery services, and a trickle of letter mail service can
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still be provided to centralized postal stations. Private operators are already dominating the package
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delivery market, and they'll fill the demand much more efficiently than a crown corporation ever could.
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Giving in to the postal union, that would be tacitly admitting the Canada Post is expecting
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another taxpayer bailout. They're losing billions of the current model, and they'd only lose billions
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more if they capitulate to the unions. There's no use in continuing to keep this dying organization
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on life support. Like blockbuster video and home milk delivery, the service isn't required any longer,
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and we should be facilitating the natural evolution of this industry rather than trying to fight it.
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Either way, that's all we got going. I'm not worried too much about them going on strike,
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because to be honest, guys, I don't really care. You can't hold a sausage anymore. Too damn bad.
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All right, well, that's got me going to start things off today. Let's check in with our
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news editor, Dave Naylor, and see what else is going on out there. Hey, Dave, how's it going?
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Well, I think you can get an app, and you can get all the online flyers you want coming straight to
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your phone, so you can annoy me at the superstore lineup while you're pulling every bloody coupon in
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front of me when I'm just trying to buy some milk.
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So what's going on at your house? I see a strange video that Jane put up.
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And that deranged, brain-damaged cat that somehow we'd acquired brings them in and leaves them
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alive in our house rather than taking care of mice and varmints and taking them out.
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So, yeah, it was quite interesting. The cat ignored that thing, and Jane actually led it
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like a pied vole piper out the door. The thing followed her.
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I thought it was a rat, then I remembered Alberta's rat frame.
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And I thought maybe a baby muskrat or a baby beaver, and then maybe a vole.
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It was bigger than our average mouse. I mean, there's, yeah, I share the game cam pictures
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with the cougars and the deer and the bears, which are kind of interesting, but the reality
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of country living, too, means we get those bloody rodents now.
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And you know what they say about the same as mice. If you see one of them, you know there's
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another hundred all lurking around somewhere in your basement.
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Well, I think they're outside. Like I said, that stupid cat brings them in.
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So we do get some mice in the house, but I have to take care of them.
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I noticed when I meet someone for the first time, I am most attracted to a guy who smiles
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In the basement. No bigger than a broom closet, literally. And for some reason, started to smell,
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and we couldn't figure it out. Eventually, the smell got so bad, my dad decided to tear
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down the wall. And there were just dozens and dozens and dozens of dead, decaying mice
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causing that stink. So I hope this doesn't happen to you in bowls.
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So far, nothing of this sort. Glad to make me think of that tonight, you know, as I listen
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Yeah, I'm sure Jane won't sleep tonight. Anyways, quick news update, because I'm excited
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about your guest. Yes. My mom wanted me to get his autograph, but he's not in studio.
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So our site is leading off with Stephen Harper last night, got an award for his support of
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the State of Israel. And of course, the usual crowd was outside trying to disrupt it and cause
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chaos. But for the first time, they were a bit more subdued because a huge lineup of huge
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police horses were there. And I don't think they wanted much to do with dealing with police
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President-elect Trump's new borders are Tom Holman calls Canada an extreme natural, extreme
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national security vulnerability because of our border weaknesses. So we Mark Miller, our
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immigration minister was on a press conference and he was asked about the comments and his
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reply is up now. You're an early riser, aren't you?
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Yeah, typically. Did you see the meteor this morning? 6.30, a meteor blazed across Alberta
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skies, visible all the way from Montana to Edmonton.
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Geez, right about then I'd have been sitting around drinking coffee, reading the news, not
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Yeah, so the video of it is up on our website for all people like you who missed it.
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Another horror story from Remembrance Day. We've had a lot of them. This comes from a Muslim
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York University female professor by the name of Aliyah Khan. She filmed herself yelling,
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F you to veterans as they walked along a Toronto street. Just disgusting. Speaking of disgusting,
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we have our columnist David Marsden taking a run at Mayor Gondek for her ridiculous comments
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on Remembrance Day and how we're all settlers. And a big historic day in Washington. President
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Trump walked back into the Oval Office for the first time in four years and President Biden
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said, welcome back. And they've had a private meeting and a good long discussion. So that's
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what's been happening this morning. It's good. I mean, I pointed that out online. I'm happy
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that the, as I said, this outgoing president is being more civilized about the transition
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of power than the last outgoing president was. And I know it gets my viewers worked up, but
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I'm not a Trump fan. I would still vote for him as a lesser evil, but no, I don't think
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he's a good person and I just hope he does good things. But at least Mr. Biden's cooperating
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for what he can. Yeah, he's got some interesting cabinet picks, that's for sure. Yeah, he certainly
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is. I know there's a lot to look forward to yet. Yep. Right on. Well, thanks, Steve.
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And thanks for the visions of rotting mice in my walls to keep in mind tonight. You're
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very welcome. I appreciate it. As our news editor, Dave Naylor. And yeah, as you can hear,
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there's lots breaking, lots going on all the time. We've got reporters across the West
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and contributors across the country. And the reason we can do that, guys, is because you've
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00:11:07.440
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00:11:12.320
have to get rid of all those newspapers afterwards either. So those of us who subscribed already,
00:11:17.020
thank you very much. If you haven't yet, come on. Westernstandard.news slash subscription.
00:11:19.960
Hey, buy a subscription for a Christmas gift for somebody. Come on. Why not? All right. Yeah.
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So, you know, some of the Canada Post discussion, it's, it's, look, guys, I mean, so, you know,
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it's, you know, this blownie out of DKI research saying, you know, that because it's a crown
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corporation, it can't lose money. Yes, it can, actually. It's lost $3 billion, and it's going
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deeper and deeper in debt. What does happen eventually is they got to get bailed out. The Canadian
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citizens in the end are the owners of this. And when the debt amounts to too much, you either got
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to shut it down, or you got to tap the taxpayers to bail it out. We're backstopping this industry.
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Otherwise, nobody would provide them the credit to carry on with such massive losses. And it's got
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to be cut. I mean, it doesn't mean there's zero posts. There's the hysterics from the lazy postal
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workers. And that's usually who we hear from on social media getting so upset because, hey,
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they got a good gig. They know it. They want to protect it. Well, good for you. But I'm sick of paying
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for it. It's kind of like the CBC as far as that goes. Say, we wouldn't have a country without
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Canada Post. Oh, baloney, we wouldn't. You wouldn't have a country without the CBC. Yes,
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we would. In fact, we'd have a better country. And yes, we can subsidize some degree of delivery to
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rural areas and things like that. But let's get real. We don't need this giant, expensive,
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inefficient dinosaur of a crown corporation any longer. We just don't. The world has changed.
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The world's changed. Banks give us our bank statements online. You can do your online banking.
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You know, you can correspond with anybody in seconds through email. You know, your bills,
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the rest, you just don't need it. You really want those things? Pay for a private service. You know,
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Canada Post had an opportunity on the package thing, but they blew that. Their package delivery
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sales have dropped to a tiny fraction and the private market's eating it up. That's fine.
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Let the private market do it. That's a growth area, but we don't need a crown corporation to do it.
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So either way, you know, don't have to believe me. Let these clowns go on strike. Go on strike for a
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month or two. Go for it. Because, you know, the people who, you know, used to get Canada Postal
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Service, when the strike comes, they're going to find other areas of service. They're going to find
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somebody else to fill that void. They're going to change their practices. They're going to go to more
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electronic billing, more electronic payments. Do you think they're going to go back to Canada
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Post after the strike? Not a chance. Not a chance. So, I mean, you're just speeding along
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a progression that was supposed to happen anyways, guys. Don't listen to the union. They're not
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thinking about you. They're just thinking about the union. And you might want to think about finding
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a new job. All right, let's see what else we got. You know, speaking of hypocrites, just one thing I
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want to point out before we get to our guest. Look at the numbers. We've got COP29 going on. It's the
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UN Climate Conference. You know, we're a bunch of well-heeled politicos and environmentalists like to get
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together and rub shoulders and tell us all how to tighten our belts and live a little more frugally
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and save the world. Last year, it was in Dubai and 85,000 of them flew out there to tell us how to
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live. This year, only 50,000 went because it's in Azerbaijan. It's interesting. I guess the climate
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crisis must be going down when, you know, 30% fewer of them need to go out. Or could it be that they just
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only like going to the shindigs when there are places like Dubai that offer a lot of five-star
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accommodations and luxury living? The hypocrisy of some of these guys is pretty galling, but those
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numbers sort of tell the tale. All right, so let's get on to our guest. I've been looking forward to
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this investigative journalist, Sam Cooper. He's not in studio. He's here remotely, but I really
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appreciate him taking the time to talk to us today. Hello. Good to see you again, and thank you for
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joining us, Mr. Cooper. Good to be here, Corey. So, I mean, it's hard to keep up. I thought I was ready
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to, you know, with what I was going to speak with you, but then I got the email from the Bureau,
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and I see you've got yet another breaking sort of story coming up. Can you kind of lay out what
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you just sent out about, what, half an hour ago or so? Yeah, this breaking story indicates that
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Commissioner Mary Jose Ogue of the Hogue Commission into Foreign Interference just released a ruling today,
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weeks after the phase of hearing from witnesses has closed, a pretty stunning ruling. She says that
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she's granting a complete anonymity to two secret protected witnesses because they have either
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life safety threats or threats of serious repercussions to their lives in Canada.
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Her ruling says that they have direct evidence regarding how Beijing's United Front foreign influence
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arm allegedly targets Chinese-Canadian political candidates and community groups. So, Corey, as you
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know, this has been the thrust of my reporting that drove the Hogue inquiry that China uses,
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nefarious networks inside Canada that threaten Canadians and attempt to leverage politicians. So,
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really, it just, it adds concrete evidence that this judge from Quebec is saying she's so concerned
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with the credible safety threats that she's going to seal records from these two secret witnesses for 99 years.
00:16:22.000
Really? That's sealing the records of their identity, but she still wants to hear the testimony, right?
00:16:28.840
She wants to hear their testimony in affidavit form, and I believe there could be in-camera or secret
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interviews, but done in such a way that the public will receive very sanitized, anonymized summaries.
00:16:44.600
And so, for your viewers and listeners that are wondering, could direct witnesses such as these that
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have evidence of what politicians may have been colluding with Beijing, will they be named? I don't
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think they'll be named in these documents, but at least it looks to me positive that the commission
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wants to hear from people with serious evidence and serious safety concerns that need to be protected.
00:17:07.500
Okay, so we probably won't be seeing any specific bombshells getting that tight, but as you said,
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it's a good trend that they even want to have this in here, and they're putting the protections up for
00:17:15.980
these witnesses to come forward. So, it is a good indication they're taking this inquiry seriously.
00:17:20.400
This has always been my view that they've got to some good evidence, and I believe they only have
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the tip of the iceberg, of course, evident to the public. They're holding back so much information.
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Justin Trudeau and his cabinet have held back documents that they claim are not pointing
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to nefarious activities, so why are they holding them back? And so, I do believe this commission
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has been valuable. It's proven that something very deeply nefarious is happening, and yet I still think
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it's minimizing what the public knows in a big way. So, some information we're getting, though,
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I guess you could say is coming from China itself. Yesterday, what you broke with Beijing endorsed
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41 of the races or candidates in them in the 2019 election. I mean, the evidence just keeps mounting
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about how heavily invested they were in that election, and they're not hiding it even, it seems.
00:18:20.800
Absolutely, Corey. To briefly explain the power of this document, I, as you know,
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I have community sources from Asia throughout Canada that are so deeply concerned, much like
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these witnesses that will be protected by Hoag, with how they are threatening Canada, and how the
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penetration of the CCP into Canada's democracy is far beyond what most people understand. So,
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these sources provided to me a Chinese Communist Party record from an entity that is specifically
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tasked to influence ethnic Chinese people wherever they live in the world to surveil them, to mobilize
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them when China needs them. And this document explains how Beijing was very satisfied that 41 candidates
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that it viewed, according to expert Charles Burton, it viewed as potentially useful, were nominated in
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the 2019 contest. And it described, very succinctly how China was pleased with those results, but wanted
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to see improvements, you know, more leveraging of these community associations into our politics.
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And a nugget from this Chinese Communist Party document that I know your viewers will find important
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is it says, Little Trudeau, or the translation is Trudeau Jr, specifically went into the heart of a
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Toronto area ridings that Beijing views as important to themselves because they feel they would like
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to control the Chinese populations there. Trudeau went there seeking votes days before the 2019 election.
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So this piece of evidence, I believe, suggests that it tells us why Justin Trudeau was standing in the
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way of evidence coming out in the inquiry. The document indicates that Trudeau wanted to get votes,
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and that Beijing knows he wants those votes. Furthermore, it says that Mr. Trudeau appointing
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the candidate from the area he visited, Minister Merying, was seen as very, you know,
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very notable by the Chinese Communist Party. But the key figure here is 41 candidates endorsed.
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It was just incredibly sophisticated, the analysis pointing to how that was better than the past few
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elections. But China wants to cultivate and control, unfortunately, more political talent within the diaspora.
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So I just, you know, as things keep breaking, you know, the reports are going to keep coming.
00:20:50.400
But I want to kind of dial things back. And I can't suggest strongly enough to our viewers to read your book,
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Willful Blindness and the latest edition of it, because it really gives the backstory on the why, you know,
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the Chinese are so interested in influencing Canada. And it's just really astounding. You've been working
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on this for, what, over 15 years now. And, you know, the money laundering, the interest in the lower
00:21:14.640
mainland British Columbia, perhaps, you know, it was astounding reading that, just how integrated into
00:21:21.040
our economy they are down there and seeing why they're so interested in everything from the drug
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trade to casinos. It read like a spy novel. And but it was chilling and knowing that it was real.
00:21:31.440
Can you kind of expand a bit on that? Yeah, Corey, you're exactly right. I feel that I sort of
00:21:37.120
stumbled into this story with my interest in Vancouver's inexplicable real estate prices.
00:21:44.720
Everyone knew that massive amounts of money from offshore and mostly East Asia, Hong Kong,
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mainland China, other areas was flowing into our Vancouver's condo towers. But people were not
00:21:57.520
curious about the nature of this mystery money. So I chased down the origins very tightly associated to
00:22:05.760
what is called international Chinese mafia underground banking, casino money laundering,
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real estate money laundering. And I was able to start to get my handle on the scale
00:22:16.960
of that money laundering activity, which is in Vancouver. It's also in Calgary, Toronto,
00:22:22.800
it's across Canada, I've now discovered. And this was my work was termed, a professor looked at it said
00:22:30.080
this is the Vancouver model of money laundering. So the key thing here I discovered is not only is this
00:22:36.480
money laundering from foreign nations that are involved in the fentanyl trade, but there's a direct
00:22:43.760
strategic aspect to the money laundering that is these very same Chinese Communist Party political
00:22:50.080
interference networks, that's called the United Front, that are supporting candidates that they
00:22:55.680
want to see in parliament, are involved with organized crime in operations to corrupt Canada's
00:23:02.160
political system to raise funds to influence our society. And so it all rolls together. And I'll end my
00:23:08.640
answer here that yes, my book, walking on the ground floor doing that shoe leather reporting,
00:23:14.560
I discovered really this unbelievable connection between hostile state activity and organized crime.
00:23:21.040
And this is the very activity that now the US government is saying, reports have come out saying
00:23:27.520
that they need to tell the American people fentanyl is being strategically delivered into North America by
00:23:34.160
the Chinese Communist Party, with connections to Chinese mafias. And this is part of what they call
00:23:40.800
I know this is shocking term, but a clandestine hybrid war tactic that China is using against North
00:23:47.200
America. So my book was a for forerunner in an area now very much at the center of the US government's
00:23:54.720
response mechanisms. Well, and I appreciate you exposing it. And something else you pointed out was even the
00:23:59.920
Sinaloa and cartels have been involved in the you know, some of this and tied in just today in the
00:24:04.800
Western standard report on the BC investigators, they disorganized the Mexican drug cartel funded
00:24:10.080
group in Surrey. So I mean, Canada is turning into quite a jumping off point. But something that you
00:24:16.080
mentioned in the book too, as you said, you know, I guess it wasn't that surprising, but the CCP had
00:24:20.480
opened a file. And of course, they were watching you. Are you concerned about your own safety? I mean,
00:24:24.480
you're kind of, you know, ticking off some people who could be people of concern. I mean, I really
00:24:29.360
appreciate your work. But when you have to hide the witnesses and things like that as deeply as we
00:24:33.840
do to get them to come testify. How are you taking care of yourself? Yeah, Corey, very honestly, due to
00:24:40.400
my work, which included testifying in Parliament, when when I was summoned to reveal my knowledge of
00:24:47.920
how China targets Canadian politicians in a threatening way, I told Parliament that I had been targeted in
00:24:56.240
the same way as someone that is bringing critical information that hurts the Beijing regime's
00:25:02.560
interest to the surface. And after testifying in Parliament, fulfilling my duty as a Canadian,
00:25:09.120
an RCMP National Security Unit knocked on my door in Ottawa and said they had received a credible safety
00:25:16.240
threat regarding my reporting on the People's Republic of China. So mark this, I just told you a breaking
00:25:23.280
story today. The whole commission has said they're protecting witnesses for safety reasons for these
00:25:29.200
very same issues. So no one can deny this is happening. Corey, I have to be honest that I have friends in
00:25:35.600
law enforcement, military circles in North America, I keep them apprised of the work that they see very
00:25:43.600
important that I'm very important that I'm doing. But I'm not armed. I'm out there doing this work for
00:25:49.840
the interest of Canada. And it's not only safety threats, but I believe very nefarious lawyers in
00:25:56.640
Canada are working to, you know, people to defend the reputations of people that claim they've been
00:26:04.320
wronged. Corey, they haven't been wronged. The people that are suing me could be the people involved in
00:26:11.520
attacking other Canadian politicians. So these are the types of threats I face. And on a bad day,
00:26:17.200
I tell you, I wonder, you know, maybe the United States is the home of the free and brave and Canada
00:26:21.600
isn't anymore. And maybe I should think about, think about a move in the future. Well said,
00:26:26.800
you would have to think about that. But I mean, as per the title of your book, willful blindness,
00:26:30.560
I mean, you talk about some of the buildings and agencies. And I mean, Canadian security agencies have
00:26:37.360
been aware of this for a long time. It's only the fact that you've been pushing it out. In fact,
00:26:41.920
you kind of imply they're counting on journalists and people like yourself to get this information
00:26:45.760
out because Canadian laws don't really allow them to disclose these sorts of things and expose them.
00:26:51.920
Are there systematic things we could do to aid, I guess, with our agencies so they could,
00:26:56.080
you know, bring this more to light? Absolutely. You're right. And I'll get to that. I want to jump on
00:27:02.000
a point you raised. It came up very recently. I had learned from the RCMP that officers wanted senior,
00:27:11.200
you know, public safety bureaucrats and RCMP leaders to go after these Chinese communist police
00:27:16.320
stations, which are targeting diaspora members with violence and threats and harassment. This was
00:27:22.880
known by RCMP officers from after 2010. Nothing happened until my report and others pointed to this
00:27:30.560
nefarious activity and safety risks. Same for CSIS. They knew this was going on. They were tracking it,
00:27:36.720
but they weren't acting on it. So yes, there's a huge gap between what police and intelligence know
00:27:43.680
is happening in Canada and what they can do or what the political will allows them to do to tackle it.
00:27:50.240
So I would say in terms of the measures needed, of course, we have supposedly we have a new foreign
00:27:56.400
interference transparency law in place. I haven't seen any names or I haven't even seen the register
00:28:01.440
where these names of foreign agents are supposed to be registered. But very clearly I've said it over
00:28:06.640
and again, the United States law enforcement will protect its citizens no matter what the race,
00:28:12.400
if they're Iranian, if they're Chinese, if they're from anywhere and they come to live in that country
00:28:17.840
to exercise their freedoms. US law enforcement has the power to put away agents being hired by foreign
00:28:25.920
intelligence and mafias to target people. Canada needs those types of laws and we're very far away
00:28:31.200
from having them. Well, and I mean, just getting a little more on the political end, but it's still
00:28:35.840
it ties in. I mean, the American, there's a new administration coming in that's very protectionist,
00:28:40.880
speaking up a lot more on the security of their borders. And Canada, to be honest, starts to look like
00:28:46.000
a security threat, like for the sake of our trade, for the sake of our Canadians and Americans traveling
00:28:50.800
freely back and forth on the border. We really want to tighten this mess up because it's sort
00:28:55.680
of an embarrassment and it's inspiring the states to hinder travel between our countries.
00:29:00.880
There's no question that's happening. And, you know, I have liked traveling to Mexico in the past,
00:29:07.200
but I'll never go there again because I've talked to the people there. I've been to certain spots and
00:29:12.240
they're run by organized crime cartels. The corruption is top to bottom. Why I raise that
00:29:17.520
is that people in the United States, highly, you know, knowledgeable and well-placed start to see
00:29:24.080
Canada as, you know, captured. That is, our cities have a deep problem with organized crime. You just
00:29:31.680
mentioned super labs in BC, in the mountainous areas, in Alberta, tied to Mexican and Chinese,
00:29:39.600
Mexican cartels, Chinese triads using our country. Look, you're right. The US administration isn't
00:29:47.120
going to put up with that. There will be a new war on fentanyl cartels. And Canada could be,
00:29:53.920
come into a lot of scrutiny for our role in those international networks.
00:29:59.200
Yeah. And that fentanyl is just doing horrific damage throughout all of North America right now.
00:30:04.000
And if we're pinpointed as the source of it coming into the United States, I can't blame them for
00:30:09.840
starting to crack down on us. It's a terrible outcome. As these hearings, you know, before I
00:30:14.960
finish, I guess, you know, they're going, do you expect anything productive to come from this though?
00:30:19.040
It just seems like they keep kicking the can down the road and kicking the can down the road and we
00:30:22.400
never actually achieve anything. You're right. One of the most credible witnesses I found, in my view,
00:30:28.880
was MP Michael Chan, who was targeted, as we know, along with his family by the Ministry of State
00:30:34.640
Security and Trudeau's administration did nothing and then had the audacity to claim in the hearings
00:30:41.440
that this was normal diplomatic activity. No reasonable person believes that. Mr. Chan
00:30:48.640
told the Hogue Commission, even this commission itself is a form of kicking the can.
00:30:54.000
We've known this activity is going on for a long time. My reports exposed it and no changes happen.
00:31:00.880
So I think he said this is just a Canadian sort of wrapping a problem in process after process and not
00:31:07.840
dealing with it. So that said, I do believe the Hogue Commission is a step. There have been some
00:31:14.960
significant revelations and confirmations. I still believe minimizing the problem in an extreme way.
00:31:22.800
But it's taking a baby step. And I really do believe it's up to the Canadian voting public
00:31:28.800
to make this a top three issue. And, you know, that's up to people like myself and you to make
00:31:35.600
people know, to let them know how important this is and how this ties into housing affordability,
00:31:41.840
fentanyl deaths and other issues that they don't understand yet.
00:31:44.880
Yeah, they directly impact people a lot more than they necessarily understand.
00:31:48.720
I mean, there's a lot of people are dealing with and, you know, it's the only one to cope with so
00:31:52.320
much. But this is very important to everybody. And I really, really appreciate the amount of work
00:31:57.280
you've done and the work you're continuing to do. So before I let you go, your book is Willful
00:32:01.280
Blindness. It's in its third edition now. I guess part of the reason is just this keeps unfolding
00:32:06.160
and unfolding. So you have to keep updating, which I appreciate. And you've got the Bureau as well.
00:32:11.680
So if people want to keep up exactly with what you've been on, you've been so prolific. I don't
00:32:15.840
know when you sleep. Where can people find a copy of your book? And how can they get to subscribe to
00:32:21.600
Yeah, so just Google the Bureau dot news. That's where my brand and platform is up. It's on the
00:32:28.880
Substack app if you're on Substack, but I have my direct website home. So the Bureau dot news,
00:32:35.200
first and foremost, you're right, I'm up to over 12,000 on my email list. Once that gets up over to
00:32:42.320
20, 25,000, everyone in Canada will have to take this news outlet very seriously. So it's going in the
00:32:49.360
right direction, go there first. And you can go to Amazon and look for Willful Blindness,
00:32:55.200
third edition, and that's rising up the charts again. And you're right. I think this will be the
00:33:00.720
last update, the third edition, and then it's on to a new book. But this book has certainly been read in
00:33:07.600
capitals around the world by people that know the problems facing us very well.
00:33:13.840
Well, I really appreciate the work you've done and the work you're continuing to do. And of course,
00:33:17.760
you're taking your time to come speak to us today. So thank you very much. Be safe and keep it up.
00:33:23.120
I hope we get to talk again sometime soon. Me too. Thanks, Corey. Great. Thank you.
00:33:28.080
So again, that was Sam Cooper. And as he said, the book is Willful Blindness. And like I said,
00:33:32.800
it's not a dry read. He actually writes it excellently. It's a nice style of writing that makes
00:33:40.240
it an enjoyable read. And you have to check yourself now and then to realize, though, this isn't fiction.
00:33:45.120
This is real things happening in Canada, that how integrated the foreign operators have been in the
00:33:51.280
economy, in money laundering, and how dangerous this is to all of us as well. You know, I was
00:33:57.520
talking earlier about independent media, the importance of it and keeping it rolling, because,
00:34:01.600
yeah, government funded media, they're not going to want to shake the tree that's embarrassing Trudeau,
00:34:05.760
or even the next government. I mean, this has been happening prior to Trudeau. We lay a lot of this
00:34:10.160
at Trudeau's feet. But Mr. Cooper was working on this before Trudeau was even in power in Canada.
00:34:17.360
So get on, check it out, the Bureau, subscribe. This is how he can keep operating. This is how he
00:34:21.840
pays his bills. And I mean, like I said, he's got some balls. I mean, these are dangerous people.
00:34:26.640
He's annoying, and he's still pushing forward. You know, they're giving all that protection and
00:34:31.360
anonymity to those witnesses. But Sam Cooper has his own name out there. So, you know, help support
00:34:36.480
them, guys. Get on there. The Bureau on Substack, subscribe, you know, spend a few bucks on it.
00:34:42.320
It's how to keep these things going. And I mean, he has broken so much stuff. He's the go-to for
00:34:48.400
the intelligence agents and the others impacted to leak information too, so they can get it out there.
00:34:54.720
It's really, really important. I was really thrilled he came on to talk to us again today,
00:34:59.040
because his work has just been, it's been making changes. It's been changing things. It's forcing this
00:35:05.200
country to deal with a problem that's been festering. And as I said, security agencies are
00:35:10.240
aware of it. They know this, but they're bound in Canada. They can't release it. But the Americans,
00:35:15.520
as Sam said, they will crack down on this. And this is harder on us, us as Canadians,
00:35:21.680
the works. It's brutal. He said he won't go to Mexico anymore. And it's sad. It's a beautiful
00:35:25.680
country, but it's true. Mexico, I mean, the corruption down there is unreal. I go down regularly. We get the
00:35:31.680
teeth done down in Algodones, just on the other side of the Mexican border. But the
00:35:34.720
interesting thing when you go down to use those dentists down there and you cross that border,
00:35:38.000
of course, it's just a revolving gate to go in. There's nothing else. On the way back,
00:35:41.360
it's a long line and heavy American border security. But you get on the other side
00:35:45.280
and you see a compound to the right with barbed wire, light armored vehicles. And you see those
00:35:50.640
vehicles blasting up and down the streets in Algodones. And these guys have got, you know,
00:35:54.720
assault rifles and fully masked faces and glasses on, because again, they're trying to make sure the area
00:35:59.600
and the business and the trade is kept safe from the local cartels, because there's an ongoing drug
00:36:04.640
war going on down there. But it's leaking up into Canada. And as we said, you know, since the
00:36:09.840
Sinaloa cartel involved in Vancouver, that's a long ways to go. But hey, they follow money.
00:36:14.240
And now as was just broken or, you know, reported on in the standard in Surrey, yeah, another drug
00:36:20.080
cartel, Mexican tide cartel was there was just a big bust there. This is scary stuff. Just keeps going.
00:36:27.920
By the way, I know somebody earlier, and I can't remember which comment or it was, it mentioned,
00:36:31.280
you know, so I'm just going to turn the page now, Azerbaijan, because that's where the COP29 summit is,
00:36:36.960
he said Azerbaijan is a beautiful country. That's true. I don't want to crap on Azerbaijan or any
00:36:40.880
country for that matter. It's just that if you're one of those travelers who likes going to those
00:36:45.280
shindigs, you know, those climate conferences, because that's all it is, is they stay in five
00:36:49.600
star hotels, eat top of the line food, fly first class, things that we can't imagine. And they get
00:36:54.000
their governments to pay for it and their charity organizations. But they're much more inclined to
00:36:58.400
go to places like Dubai, because Dubai has massive facilities and, you know, because they've used
00:37:03.520
virtual slave labor from India and things like that to maintain it in the Philippines.
00:37:07.360
They prefer to go there. That's why 85,000 of them went to Dubai, though, versus Azerbaijan,
00:37:12.400
which I'm sure, again, is a beautiful country and has some facilities, but just not quite the same
00:37:16.240
resources to really pamper these climate travelers, you know, like some of the other areas would.
00:37:25.040
So let's see what else have we got. Yeah, this came out in Blacklocks. I think it's been put out
00:37:30.160
in the standard now as well. Blacklocks reporter, another great independent outlet. Trudeau's liberals have
00:37:34.320
since 2016 sent nearly $286 million to the UNRWA. Now that's the United Nations Relief and Works
00:37:43.680
Agency. What it's also known as is a front for Hamas. It always has been. The money, the arms,
00:37:50.240
the tunnels, all of that stuff going to Hamas. I mean, the UNRWA has been getting billions over
00:37:55.520
the years from all different countries, yet somehow, oh my God, Gaza's an open air prison. Oh,
00:38:00.400
we can't feed our children. Sure, they got the money, but what do they do with it? They bought
00:38:04.640
rockets. They dug tunnels. Oh, and of course, their leadership lived in luxury. Well, Canada spent
00:38:10.880
$286 million, gave it to that group. And when it was found that not only that group, you know,
00:38:17.520
just funds the terrorism, they are the terrorists. UNRWA workers were found to have taken part in the
00:38:25.120
October 7th slaughter and rape of people at a music festival. Yeah, they directly took part in it.
00:38:32.960
And we stopped funding, almost every civilized country stopped funding the UNR, you know,
00:38:37.520
that group when they saw that. Except Canada two months later said, yeah, we're going to start giving
00:38:41.600
them money again. They've learned their lesson. Good Lord. This is what you work for, guys. This is what
00:38:46.080
you pay your taxes for, so they can fund terrorists. Literally. Literally. It's just, there's no end to it.
00:38:55.920
Canada. So, you know, here's more news. This is stuff that makes me optimistic, and yeah, has some
00:39:01.600
trepidation at the same time. You know, it's a big headline. Trump names it, and this is the fun thing.
00:39:05.520
I grabbed this headline from the CBC just to prompt myself so I could have something to speak of our state
00:39:09.200
broadcaster, which hopefully is on the way out as well. Trump names Elon Musk and more mega hardliners
00:39:15.600
to administration. You know, the bottom line is, incoming president appoints supporters to his
00:39:22.160
administration. That's the reality of it, but not the state broadcaster in Canada. Yes, he's going
00:39:27.280
to bring them in. If it had been Kamala Harris, she would have brought in a bunch of her lefty
00:39:31.440
supporters in there. That's the way these things works. It's called democracy. It's called politics.
00:39:35.200
But Green and Elon Musk is really interesting. It really is. What do they call it? The Department of
00:39:42.800
government efficiency or something like that? I think so. You know, Doge, they're kind of
00:39:45.920
going to play on the cryptocurrency that must support. But you see, bloated civil services
00:39:52.640
are crushing developed nations. They really are. They're hurting our productivity. I mean,
00:39:56.240
Canada is so much worse off than the Americans when it comes to this. You know, Trudeau bloated our
00:40:01.760
bureaucrats by, what, 40% since he got in. Our country hasn't grown by that much. We've got 40% more
00:40:07.120
government workers doing whatever the heck they do. Usually not a heck of a lot. Usually,
00:40:10.960
just going on strike a lot and whining about having to go into work two days a week.
00:40:15.600
Now, they're costing us a fortune. Canada's productivity, our GDP per capita is crap. We're
00:40:20.160
like $30,000 a year less than the Americans now, and it's dropping. And part of that reason is just
00:40:26.640
a whole bunch of our resources as a nation get poured into government, get poured into a bunch
00:40:31.120
of pointy-headed bureaucrats who push one piece of paper from a desk to another desk, if they even show
00:40:35.920
up at work to go to the desks. And they make a lot of money to do so. Somebody needs the knackers to
00:40:40.880
cut, cut heavily, cut deeply. Somebody who's got those kind of knackers in the States is Elon Musk.
00:40:46.880
He's not afraid of shaking the tree. The Americans have the problem not as badly as us, but they still
00:40:50.720
have it badly. And he's looking to go in and cut. This is the sort of thing that can inspire change
00:40:56.400
in Canada. Think about how bad Twitter got, for example, before Musk bought it. So he bought it.
00:41:03.200
He laid off 80% of the workers with Twitter. Any other company that was operating efficiently, decently,
00:41:11.520
if you cut 80% of the staff out, that company is in terrible trouble. It's not going to work
00:41:16.400
worth a crap. Yet they're fine. They're fine. You know, and everybody, it's funny, I've been
00:41:22.400
seeing reports about that. So I mean, that 80% of workers weren't doing a heck of a lot.
00:41:26.560
They weren't doing much at all. Censoring and a lot of things like that.
00:41:32.240
So he cut them out, things went fine. And I see reports, oh, look, their revenue's down,
00:41:36.240
their revenue's way down. Oh, you know, they're in trouble. You see, because it's private,
00:41:38.960
they can't find exactly what the net revenue is or what. But yeah, the revenue's down, but their
00:41:42.560
expenses are way, way down. And they're still there, guys. They're still doing fine. So let's see how much
00:41:49.040
he can do by cutting the civil service. Because I bet we can cut a whole whack and not feel it.
00:41:52.800
But here we got Kelly, a commenter saying, so much disinformation, everything you said. I'd love to
00:41:56.480
come do our job for two weeks and see how fast you change your mind. Yeah, yeah. No, I did a flyer
00:42:01.680
delivery boy stint before. It was pretty easy, actually. And to do it for the large pension and
00:42:06.480
wages and 30 so hours and taxi delivery that posties get to enjoy while they're at, I don't think I would
00:42:12.000
change my mind. And then I worked 20 years as a surveyor in the energy industry. I did heli portable jobs
00:42:17.360
carrying my tripod and backpack on my back up the Northern Rockies. I worked in the New Mexico
00:42:21.920
desert. I worked on the Gulf of Mexico carrying my stuff. Don't worry, guys, I'm not afraid of
00:42:25.200
physical labor. And I got paid well to do that. That's because it was a skilled position. And it
00:42:31.040
was based on merit. So no, don't start feeding me about how tough the job of the poor downtrodden
00:42:37.360
postie is. Hey, you get some rough days walking when it's a bit snowy. You get the odd dog get on your
00:42:42.640
case, things like that. That's fine. But it's still an industry in decline, one that we don't
00:42:47.680
need any longer in the form it's in. Face reality. Quit trying to keep this dead model alive.
00:42:56.480
Change it. Streamline it. There could still be a Canada Post, but it's got to be a tiny amount. I mean,
00:43:01.680
it gets back to what I'm talking about, the general civil service. You know, again,
00:43:05.440
they're not civil service. They're a crown corporation, which makes a weird blurry line.
00:43:09.920
But in reality, the taxpayers end up storing it up. And we just don't need to anymore, guys.
00:43:16.560
It doesn't mean we shut down the entire Canada Post, but we can cut it down to a tiny fraction
00:43:20.080
of what it is. And it's not going to bother people. It really isn't. We don't need them
00:43:24.640
like we used to. It's ridiculous. They're going door to door. AIMCO. We'll finish with that.
00:43:30.720
Here's an area I'm kind of mixed for people outside of Alberta. That's the investment corporation for
00:43:35.360
Alberta that manages pension plans and Alberta's heritage fund and things like that.
00:43:39.040
It's supposed to be an arm's length, non-political group, but it seems to be always politicized.
00:43:45.520
It's funny. The NDP in Alberta and everybody talk about how horrible AIMCO was, how terrible these
00:43:50.240
managers were. Oh, we can't trust the government with these pension plans and things like that.
00:43:54.320
Well, apparently, Premier Smith agreed because she fired the entire board of AIMCO and she's
00:43:59.840
going to appoint new heads to it. And then all of a sudden, the NDP said, what's she doing?
00:44:04.080
No. And the head and inchies up and up in arms and being all purple and doing what he does.
00:44:08.000
Oh, this is terrible. Wait a second. I thought you said they were incompetent. Well, yeah,
00:44:12.000
but we didn't want her to change. Well, come on, guys. You know, talking about trying to suck and
00:44:16.960
blow at the same time. But I do worry about it. I do. I don't want to see things like that
00:44:23.120
politicized. I don't care which person is in power. It's true. We do have to keep government,
00:44:27.440
like politicians' hands as far away from pension funds and things like that as humanly possible.
00:44:33.120
So when Premier Smith works to find out who's going to be the new board and who's going to run
00:44:38.240
AIMCO, there's rumors that it might be Stephen Harper. We'll see. But let's just hope that the
00:44:43.440
only goal of AIMCO ever should be maximizing returns on investments. That's it. Not developing
00:44:49.920
local Alberta businesses, not subsidizing political friends, not any of those sorts of things.
00:44:55.600
Just maximize returns. That's your only mandate. That's it. You start going beyond that. That's how
00:45:01.520
you either mismanage it and fly it down the toilet or you find corruption where people start using a
00:45:05.440
fund like that or the access to a fund like that to line their pockets. So I'm going to maintain
00:45:11.120
cautious optimism that Premier Smith, because I do like a lot of what she's done, is going to improve
00:45:16.640
AIMCO with the replacement of the people managing it and running it on that board. But it can also be
00:45:23.840
a recipe for disaster. So let's watch that really carefully, actually, and hope for the best and
00:45:29.440
keep an eye on it. Because if something like that starts to derail, we want to hit that sooner rather
00:45:35.520
than later. It's always easy to fix those things in hindsight once you've lost billions of dollars
00:45:39.120
in people's pensions, funds. Better to catch the problem before it happens. Okay, that's the time
00:45:45.200
I've got for today, guys. Thank you very much for joining in and tuning in. By the way, I'm going to
00:45:50.640
be moderating a panel at Mount Royal University, the Sovereign Minds Conference. If you're interested,
00:45:56.000
check it out. Look up Sovereign Minds. You can come on out there, register, come meet me and a whole
00:46:00.960
bunch of other people. It's going to be a really cool event going on this Saturday. And yes, we're
00:46:05.920
going to be on the pipeline a little later tonight, breaking down a few more of those issues and things are
00:46:09.600
always constantly coming down the line. So thank you all for tuning in today, guys.
00:46:13.840
And we will see you again this time next week and do it all again.
00:46:39.600
We'll see you again next week and we'll see you again next week and we'll see you again next week.