Western Standard - Let’s talk about Fiscal Responsibility

00:00:00 All right, we're live.

00:00:27 Hey, thanks for joining me, folks.

00:00:30 um i just noticed in the introduction video there uh john put that together four weeks ago and i

00:00:36 just noticed there's like uh on one of the scenes there's a little sort of blurred spot in the

00:00:40 middle one of the scenes where i'm hiking i remember that day i dropped my camera and then

00:00:45 i had like a scratch right in the middle so it's it's on that scene i'll have to get john some new

00:00:49 scenes for uh for the for the video uh hey thanks for taking time out of your day to join me you

00:00:56 know when when i accepted this uh offer from derek to come here and do the show i really wanted to

00:01:03 do this live interaction with you guys and gals right i mean i'm like my biggest platform is i'm

00:01:10 on x and the reason i've always said i like x is because the feedback is instantaneous right i can

00:01:14 put out a tweet and if i'm wrong or if i have a bad take on something i'll get some quick feedback

00:01:20 it's actually a useful platform for me you know when you're you're when you're practicing

00:01:25 debating and politics and and commenting on stuff i get to practice stuff on x and then see how it

00:01:31 resonates with people so the reason i'm saying that is this show will be super successful if

00:01:36 you guys call in right so you can see down on the screen there there's the number uh you know

00:01:41 866-479-WEST uh back in the good old days that would have cost you probably a long distance call

00:01:48 but we're past that right everybody pays the same rate regardless of where you're calling in the

00:01:51 province last week somebody even I think it was a lady named Diane who who said she had to build

00:01:57 up the courage to call and she was calling down from Florida which was fantastic and and that's

00:02:02 another reminder right don't be shy like I don't know how many times I've said this to people I am

00:02:09 as average Joe Albertan as you can possibly get right sure I have a bigger following than a few

00:02:15 people but I'm just literally an average guy look at me right I'm wearing a Columbia sweater my my

00:02:20 wife hates this sweater she says it's all frayed but it's my favorite sweater I think I have Costco

00:02:25 pants on and a pair of running shoes like if you see me on the street I'm not a I'm just a guy and

00:02:30 and and that happens all the time by the way I see people they're looking at me on the train or

00:02:34 someplace like that yeah I even took the train that's how I get to downtown Calgary I take the

00:02:38 train so don't be shy please call um and and before before we get too deeply into the show

00:02:44 and I want to take a lot of calls today because I really don't have a lot of topics I mean I put

00:02:48 up there on the screen you can see the topic i want to talk about is fiscal responsibility

00:02:52 it's in light of danielle's budget last week so let's let call in you know give me your thoughts

00:02:58 on on the budget i'll offer some other suggestions i'd like to talk a little bit about the referendum

00:03:03 that she proposed because i'm now that i've had time to digest it i'm not too happy about what

00:03:09 she's proposing the fact that she wants to have sort of her own referendum i'll talk a bit about

00:03:13 that and i want to talk about some of the things that are going on in ottawa uh but just before i

00:03:20 dive deeply into that uh speaking of referendum i just got so i've been some of you guys know this

00:03:26 i've been actually canvassing so i'm a i'm a i'm a canvasser there's about six thousand seven

00:03:31 thousand canvassers in alberta i got a nice little pop-up on the corner of crow child and

00:03:37 bear's paw road i got two crews i'm usually on the south side and i got some buddies that are

00:03:42 on the north side. We're there almost every day from 11 to 4 collecting signatures. It's going

00:03:47 really, really well. And if you happen to be driving by, come by, stop by. If you've already

00:03:52 signed, that's fine. Stop anyways, come say hi. But I want to emphasize one thing that I heard

00:03:57 about in the last couple of days. Prior to the petition campaign that we're going through right

00:04:03 now, the Alberta Prosperity Project was collecting names online in what they were calling pledges.

00:04:11 People had the ability in, you know, in the last year, year and a half to actually go on the Alberta Prosperity website and pledge that once the petition signing period would be on, that they would sign.

00:04:23 Right. Well, we're calling around and we're talking to people and we're realizing that some people think that that pledge was actually signing the petition.

00:04:31 It's not, folks. The laws, the independence petition that was launched by Mitch Sylvester on behalf of the Alberta Prosperity Project, it requires hand signatures. People have to show up, show a quick piece of ID, confirm you're in Albertan, you live here, and then sign, physically sign.

00:04:52 So just a reminder, if you pledged on the website and you thought that that was good enough, it's not.

00:04:58 Unfortunately, you have to come out and sign. All right. So no, no question.

00:05:03 So let's talk about let's talk about a couple of things.

00:05:06 So actually, let's let's let's stay sort of on the referendum topic.

00:05:11 Last week, Danielle had a press conference, Danielle Smith.

00:05:15 And in there, she announced that she was going to do a referendum in or actually it was two weeks ago now, not not last week.

00:05:21 she announced that coming up in uh october of this year october 19th she was going to have

00:05:28 a referendum and and then she proposed a whole bunch of questions and i got a big problem with

00:05:35 that first of all i got a problem with the fact that uh you know we're going to show up in the

00:05:39 booth there and we're going to have like nine or ten referendum questions i think that's too many

00:05:43 i think that's an abuse of a process to me seriously referendums should be very rare

00:05:49 and uh and and when they happen they should be on some very specific topics among the things that

00:05:56 danielle smith wants on her referendum i think are things that fall in her purview as premier i mean

00:06:01 she wants to put things on there i got a list on there here but i'm you know i'll go by memory real

00:06:06 quick i mean she wants to have several questions around immigration right should uh she's going to 0.81

00:06:12 ask the people of alberta you know should we quote unquote deny benefits to people that are

00:06:18 still just seeking uh i don't know residency and things like that i don't think she needs to 0.89

00:06:25 uh hold a referendum for that i think that's in her that's in her mandate but i'll come back to

00:06:32 the word mandate right because danielle seems to take that to heart that she feels that if she's

00:06:38 elected to do something she's elected on a platform and then she does it and if something

00:06:43 new comes along that she needs to go get a mandate i don't think so right i mean politicians are 0.97

00:06:48 elected for four-year terms if they only campaigned on things that were current in the year that they

00:06:53 get elected and something new came up i think they're allowed to deal with new issues throughout

00:06:57 their terms i don't think they need to go necessarily get a new um mandate but so she 0.90

00:07:04 wants to talk about things that i think are clearly within you know her jurisdiction she can 0.93

00:07:09 she can uh change the laws around immigration and benefits and things like that but then the other 1.00

00:07:15 thing worrisome in her speech two weeks ago she talked about wanting to put up some questions

00:07:21 that are really constitutional in nature right like should uh alberta um force uh ottawa's hand

00:07:29 and and to discussions around i don't know the courts and other things that are really constitutional

00:07:34 and i don't think that that is a mandate so that's something that up until recently the people of

00:07:42 alberta weren't talking about weren't asking so i don't know why she's putting that on there we're

00:07:46 not interested in that kind of stuff so what i'm saying to danielle if i if i if i had the you know 0.87

00:07:53 the opportunity to talk to her right now is i would say this drop all your silly referendum 0.92

00:07:59 questions that you have. You have five of them that to me are related to things that are already

00:08:05 in your control. And if you don't feel like they're in your control right now and they're

00:08:08 not in your mandate, then either call a snap election or wait another year and a half because

00:08:13 your term is up and then make those things, make immigration an issue on your next platform. So

00:08:20 you don't need a referendum for now. Either act now on a referendum or sorry, act now on immigration

00:08:25 or make it an issue in the next election and as far as the constitutional things again that's not

00:08:31 even in your that's not in your purview that's not your jurisdiction that's not your responsibility

00:08:36 no one wants to even talk about that so don't even force the issue on that let the people of

00:08:43 alberta and and let the people of alberta who are currently collecting signatures yeah we had

00:08:49 thomas lukasik had his uh petition and he collected 400 000 signatures on something like

00:08:55 an independence question and now you have mitch sylvester collecting his signatures on an

00:08:59 independence question so let's just have a very simple referendum in october with an independence

00:09:04 question and let's not muddy the waters with a whole bunch of other things all right so that's

00:09:10 that's my thoughts on that um folks i'm serious don't be shy give us a buzz you see the number

00:09:16 there on the bottom 866 479 west i'm not sure what west translates to in the number i have to

00:09:23 figure it out on my keyboard. All right, let's talk then a bit about, let's talk about fiscal

00:09:31 responsibility, which is, it's one of the things that I'm most known for online is the fact that

00:09:39 I like to go through numbers. I had a career in the oil patch and as I moved into upper management

00:09:46 and in the office in my career, managing budgets, managing my finances, knowing on a day-to-day

00:09:53 basis how much oil i was producing how much gas what it was costing me all of that was something

00:09:59 that i had to do but it was something that i actually enjoyed doing i enjoy diving through

00:10:04 numbers and using datas and numbers to manage my assets and and when i retired that translated

00:10:12 nicely it's something i love doing i love going through the budgets of you know ottawa and and

00:10:17 And in particular, Alberta.

00:10:20 And I'm going to be honest, two years ago or last year when, when two years ago, Smith's budget disappointed me.

00:10:27 I mean, the first one after Kenny, the first one after COVID, you know, I understood what happened during COVID.

00:10:33 I mean, everybody went crazy during COVID and we started spending, not we, government started spending a little too much, I think, during COVID.

00:10:41 And I was hoping that in the first few budgets after COVID, that things would start coming down again.

00:10:46 because often when i talk about actually when i talk about life in general i'm i'm i'm at the

00:10:51 point now where i call i talk about pre-covid and post-covid you know the the for me in my life

00:10:57 covid was a big demarcation a lot of things changed before and after so when when smith

00:11:02 published her first budget uh when she first got elected and it was a post-covid one i was

00:11:06 disappointed it was it was a big number right it was like in the 70 billion dollar range

00:11:11 i expected it to be back into the 60 billion dollar range but i i forgave that one then last

00:11:17 year she published another budget and same thing she started getting on track um she was on a she's

00:11:24 as far as i'm concerned the province is on a bad track the provinces you know the the amount of

00:11:28 money that the province is spending is outpacing population growth and inflation and and the problem

00:11:35 with inflation is that the government spending causes inflation right so you can see how that's

00:11:39 like a spiraling problem government creates inflation and then budgets to match inflation

00:11:45 well that makes no sense so so i was disappointed with uh last year's budget because it's on it's

00:11:50 it's outpacing inflation and population growth well this year's budget the one that just came out

00:11:56 as far as i'm concerned this is a catastrophe i haven't even dove into it i will dive into it

00:12:02 but on the surface when i see a province like uh alberta publish a budget with a 9.4 billion

00:12:10 dollar deficit i don't even need to go into it i mean immediately it's a non-starter for me

00:12:17 because um a a governments to me as far as i'm concerned government should be spending within

00:12:24 we should be living within our own means we do it as citizens and i think governments should

00:12:28 be doing the same thing if the money's not coming in then you have to cut somewhere this constant

00:12:32 idea of going into deficit after deficit after deficit to me that doesn't resonate and and i

00:12:39 and i do think there are lots of places where government can cut their spending i'd love i'd

00:12:45 love personally to have something like uh like donald trump had for a while that you know the

00:12:49 department of government efficiency the doge i guarantee you if i was allowed full access to

00:12:54 the government's books i could find 10 15 savings across the board i mean i know for a fact that

00:13:00 we've been hiring you know our civil service has been growing again disproportionately in recent

00:13:07 years like for every 10 jobs that are that are created in alberta three of them are in the public

00:13:12 or in the public sector like government jobs and then the other seven are in the private that's an

00:13:16 unsustainable level so so back to the budget you know the 9.4 billion to me that's that's a non-starter

00:13:23 and it's also um against smith's own rules i mean she passed these accountability rules that said we 0.82

00:13:31 cannot have deficit after deficit we can't have three in a row and she has three in a row now so

00:13:36 there's so there's a so there's a big problem there and um and i and i come back to this all

00:13:43 the time to me alberta has a spending problem not a revenue problem everybody keeps blaming

00:13:50 oil and and other prices and other commodities that affect the budget but um that that's a that's

00:13:57 a non-starter the other thing that's really really discouraging when i see uh danielle's budget and

00:14:04 this is a bigger picture thing the 9.4 billion dollar deficit almost matches dollar for dollar

00:14:12 alberta taxpayers share of the equalization payments that are going to the east

00:14:16 so how how how am i supposed to feel as an albertan knowing that you know i'm going in debt

00:14:23 my future generations my kids my grandkids are going into debt so that we can have money that

00:14:30 we then leaves our province goes to ottawa and ottawa redistributes to provinces out east and

00:14:36 again i've i've always said i'm i'm in favor of helping in times of need but we're not in times

00:14:42 of need in recent history i don't understand why quebec would require year after year after year

00:14:48 after year a nine billion dollar bailout so as far as i'm concerned i'm going into debt right now so

00:14:54 that the equalization payment can go to quebec and quebec can give themselves free tuition i mean am

00:14:59 i the only one who sees it that way um so uh anyways that so so that's uh that's my thoughts

00:15:07 on uh on danielle's budget at the highest of levels i don't like what's going on i will i

00:15:14 will dive deep into it but uh you know while i wait for calls one of the one of the other things

00:15:20 i really really don't like in her recent budget is she basically admitted she basically admitted

00:15:28 that some of the costs have to go up to deal with the influx of immigrants and again that's that's

00:15:35 something that i have a problem with right like well i'll give you an example regional to where

00:15:39 i live i i belong in the little water co-op right so i live out in the country and there's an acre

00:15:45 and we're all in acreages and we stopped drilling wells we we formed a cooperative together and we

00:15:51 have a little water plant and then we have 2500 members to belong to this co-op well if a new

00:15:57 member if a developer comes in our neck of the woods and wants to build a development with 15

00:16:03 new houses and i don't have enough capacity in our co-op to provide him water i'm not the one

00:16:09 who pays the extra money to provide right so the developer who comes in at the last minute the last

00:16:16 people who come in in our development they pay for their upgrade to the water system because they

00:16:22 came on board well i feel the same way about the recent tax increases and one of the tax increases

00:16:28 that's really hard to swallow is education.

00:16:30 Danielle says that we have so many new immigrants here,

00:16:33 like 600,000, which brought in 80,000 new kids.

00:16:37 We need to catch up on building schools.

00:16:39 And our taxes are going up disproportionately,

00:16:43 especially on the education side,

00:16:46 to pay for new people that are coming in the province.

00:16:49 Well, that makes no sense

00:16:50 because I mean, I've always been sold on the idea

00:16:52 that we're supposed to have immigrants 0.99

00:16:53 and growth is supposed to be good for us

00:16:56 and it's supposed to make all our costs go down economies of scale but in this instance growth

00:17:01 means that we're having to pay extra costs and i and i got a big problem with that all right we got

00:17:06 a call on the line um before i take it i'll take the call uh like i said give me your name where

00:17:11 you're calling from and and if if you just want to drop a question and let me answer that's great

00:17:17 because if you hang up that allows somebody else to call in if you stay on the line too long the

00:17:22 line sounds busy and nobody else can call it you know what i mean so uh so so if i ask you to drop

00:17:27 off that's because we're just trying to open the line for other people so go ahead name and where

00:17:31 are you calling from please helen from foothills hi helen how are you today i'm good marty and you

00:17:39 excellent well i think you and i have probably are on the same wavelength uh in that um um we

00:17:47 we should scrutinize what is being spent and have something like the united states dodge

00:17:52 or whatever to go through the books because it's ridiculous my focus and that's all because i know

00:17:59 about it it is about um the waste of money spending good data after bad money on nothing

00:18:08 that is what we call the education system and uh first of all we don't teach english property

00:18:17 Second of all, we don't teach cursive writing anymore.

00:18:20 We don't teach the basics or do it properly.

00:18:23 Even academia professors are shaking their heads in regard to the skills that grade 12 students come out with now.

00:18:33 And this has been, you know, for a long time.

00:18:36 We have gatekeepers there and secret, what is it called, sealed servicing managers that seem to want to keep the status quo rather than developing our true potential.

00:18:52 I have two nieces that are both teachers in Ottawa, and they started teaching French, learning French in very primary schools.

00:19:04 I don't know what grade, but, you know, the first couple of grades and neither of them know how to speak French or English well, in my opinion.

00:19:14 my opinion um math um i didn't know that i'm sorry i i wasn't good with math at all and when

00:19:24 i went back to university and had to take some statistics courses i learned that um the best

00:19:30 students there as being a mentor for me were were the russian students because they knew how to

00:19:36 and they were very helpful and they knew how to show you how to learn the math yeah okay uh helen

00:19:44 that's that's awesome let me let me unpack a little bit of what you've said you gave me some

00:19:48 some food for thought but if you don't mind uh hang up and then uh we can let somebody else but

00:19:54 thanks for calling helen uh so let me unpack a couple things she brought up which are fantastic

00:19:58 right um she she did bring up the fact that uh we spend a lot of money without accountability

00:20:05 and i'll talk a lot and i got more to say about that but that's one of the that you know in in

00:20:10 in i understand that industry and government are not the same but they have some similarities

00:20:15 right in industry if my boss gave me money year after year and i didn't show results i wouldn't

00:20:20 get more money at some point whereas so in government there's two problems the first problem

00:20:26 is there's no measurement to see if there has been improvement she brings up good point i think in

00:20:31 some in some things like education i guess we can measure and see if it's getting better or not

00:20:36 but there's other areas where we barely measure we don't know how the government's doing how the

00:20:40 money is being spent what value we're getting for that money and they keep asking for more money so

00:20:46 i think that that that brings up that's a very important point ultimately that's why i always

00:20:51 believe in smaller governments i mean smaller governments that spend less it's it's easier to

00:20:55 manage but you know governments in and of themselves are are beasts um now as far as uh

00:21:03 as far as the the language and the skills that the kids are getting when they graduate

00:21:11 one thing i'm still hearing is that um alberta uh is still producing some pretty good kids right

00:21:17 like our system is not completely broken so that's one good thing but um i lost my i just lost my

00:21:26 thought she she had something else she said that was interesting but anyways uh thanks for calling

00:21:31 Helen. I hate it when that happens, when I lose my thought. She brought up something that made

00:21:38 me think of something good, but now I completely lost it. Well, actually, what I was going to bring

00:21:45 it down to is charter schools and other schools, right? Boy, there's so much to unpack today.

00:21:53 that is another issue that we have in this province right now is that um when uh i now i

00:22:02 just remembered my thought the the the problem is with the bigger government and the bigger system

00:22:07 she was talking about gatekeepers that's what she was talking about gatekeepers right a lot of

00:22:12 people know the problems right so let's say that loosely speaking if if if some of the kids have

00:22:17 issues and and and we know how to address the issues with either technology or changes to the

00:22:24 classroom or things like that it can be in a classroom we even know in other areas where

00:22:28 government spends right we know we know problem in health care we know we know some of the problems

00:22:32 we know some of the wait lists the waiting times we know some of the inefficiencies people who work

00:22:37 as ambulance drivers can tell you stories people who are cops can tell you inefficiencies and

00:22:41 inefficiencies like a lot it goes back to what i said earlier you give me access to the data i'll

00:22:46 find those efficiencies they're everywhere they're they're inefficiencies everywhere the problem is as

00:22:53 our governments get bigger the bureaucracy becomes a problem in and of itself and you can't address

00:22:59 the efficiencies you can't bring in solutions to the problem because you get blocked by people who

00:23:05 quote unquote benefit from the problem right teachers are a perfect example i pick on teachers

00:23:10 a lot but there are there are way better ways of teaching kids we could bring in tools we could

00:23:17 bring in uh methods and technologies that would improve but it might mean that you could get by

00:23:24 with a few less teachers and and the unions are will fight those those initiatives the health care

00:23:30 system does that all the time too you you know i mean you walk into a modern uh alberta hospital

00:23:36 if there is such a thing and you see and and then you go go go go to europe like you'll hear you go

00:23:43 to europe go visit germany go visit france and go see what super efficient modern healthcare looks

00:23:49 like and ask yourself why we don't have that which by the way brings up a whole other point

00:23:55 which is interesting uh you know yesterday i saw uh naheed nenshi is piling up on the the

00:24:02 NDP are piling on to the Conservatives saying, you know, the Conservatives are mismanaging

00:24:07 the province, which is ironic because some of the biggest deficits we ran, I mean,

00:24:12 under Notley, I think we ran about a $90 billion deficit. So I don't think the NDP are in a position

00:24:19 to lecture Conservatives on fiscal responsibility. But then she's piling up on and he uses a term

00:24:26 that I really can't stand, which is, you know, he'll use language along the lines of Albertans

00:24:31 deserve better or not just deserve better albertans deserve the best health care albertans deserve the

00:24:38 best schools albertans deserve the best roads albertans you know and and then she's not the 1.00

00:24:42 only one who does that pay attention you'll hear a lot of politicians say that we deserve the best

00:24:48 again there's no such thing we'd all like the best but do we deserve the best can we afford

00:24:55 the best i just don't like that language i don't like and and i'm critical of if of nenshi using

00:25:00 it but if danielle smith used the same language if danielle smith says we deserve the best schools

00:25:05 i'd be like no no no no put that to a vote and specifically ask the people who are paying for

00:25:11 the schools if they think we deserve the best schools right i mean i'm i'm by her language

00:25:17 but by using that language i should be driving a mercedes-benz car and i should have a million

00:25:23 dollar house because i deserve the best but what i deserve versus what i can work for and afford

00:25:29 is a big difference which is why i drive uh a ford uh f350 instead of uh of something nicer

00:25:36 you know what i mean um okay well uh you guys are testing me today here you're going to make

00:25:41 me keep talking uh and weirdly and sometimes it just doesn't go that way right so i showed up in

00:25:48 studio and i kind of told john like hope i didn't have a lot of topics to talk about so i told john

00:25:53 i hope well let's make it all about collins and now you guys are testing me i'm gonna go start

00:25:58 going down through my uh my list of uh of topics let's stay on schools for a second

00:26:05 um here in calgary uh the new mayor uh jeremy farkas has been making a big stink about something

00:26:14 else that came out of the budget right so i said earlier that smith has has admitted that we need

00:26:19 to increase the funding to schools to catch up with all this influx of new people immigrants

00:26:26 and 80 000 new kids so we have to catch up and that catch up means like a son that everybody

00:26:32 who's here who's been here for the last 20 years now has to pony up to build quickly some new

00:26:38 schools for the people who are arriving i think that's wrong in and of itself but i also think

00:26:43 the way they're going about it is wrong right so danielle smith increased the amount of money 1.00

00:26:49 she wants to spend on education but the education taxes are collected by the municipalities and so

00:26:55 So Calgary noticed it. I noticed it last year in our in our municipal taxes. There was a sudden jump. And, you know, go look at your tax bill. Right. When you get your tax bill, you'll see on there that you'll probably most tax bills, municipal tax bills have about four things. Right. You'll have let's say you have a three thousand dollar tax bill. You'll have fifteen hundred bucks of that. That's probably going through to this municipality directly.

00:27:24 and that's for your road repairs and your snow removal and your garbage disposal and stuff like

00:27:30 that. Then you'll have a chunk in there that's like a thousand bucks and that's your education

00:27:35 levy. So the government decides how much money it needs to spend on schools, but then it makes the

00:27:41 municipality collect that chunk. I think that's wrong. I think municipalities should only be

00:27:46 collecting stuff that they are responsible for. And then the other two, three things you'll usually

00:27:52 find on your tax bill might be something like a little bit of money for libraries, some money for

00:27:58 some foundation, old age homes, things like that. So if you look at this year's tax bill,

00:28:04 you probably haven't received your tax bill yet. You've only received your tax assessment,

00:28:08 your property assessment at this point, but take a look at your tax bill for this year.

00:28:12 Hopefully you got last year's and the years before and go look at it. And I guarantee you,

00:28:16 you're going to see the education portion of them going up disproportionately. Last year,

00:28:21 me personally when I got my tax bill for the municipality I got mad and I called my county

00:28:26 I'm like what's going on right why this you know nine percent jump because it didn't match what

00:28:31 what the county told us the county told us that they were whatever increasing taxes by about three

00:28:36 and a half percent but I got a nine percent jump and when I looked at it the big bulk of that jump

00:28:41 was the um the education component so Farkas is uh is on to something there and uh we'll see what

00:28:48 happens i i i don't think anything will happen a bit i mean the budget is the budget and the

00:28:53 municipalities will be stuck uh they're the ones stuck being the bad guys and collecting um

00:28:58 collecting the money um any calls john come on folks give me a give me a buzz i know it's lunch

00:29:05 time everybody's uh uh welcome to alberta right where everybody takes their lunch break and then

00:29:12 immediately goes back to to uh to work don't i know how it works folks i know you guys are sitting

00:29:19 at your desk and you can take a few minutes to to make a phone call or some of you guys are probably

00:29:23 driving um well i guess we're gonna we're gonna stay on the topic of uh of fiscal responsibility

00:29:31 helen brought up something that there wasn't oversight i want to talk about something that

00:29:35 again something that's bugging me um in ottawa well a lot of things this is going to turn out

00:29:42 to be the marty monologue today in ottawa ottawa's ottawa actually danielle just did her budget 0.99

00:29:49 and ottawa is about to do their budget weirdly right people keep saying well how how could

00:29:55 ottawa be just getting ready to do their budget when we just had the budget the budget cycle

00:30:02 in ottawa runs from april 1st to march 31st okay so it's not a it's not the same fiscal year as you

00:30:10 and i most of us have a january 1st to december 31st fiscal year ottawa and most governments

00:30:16 because of their recesses and summers and when they sit whatever have a have a basically a

00:30:23 an april 1st to april 1st budget so so when ottawa passed the budget recently in november

00:30:29 it was actually seven months late okay so it should have passed way back in uh march april may

00:30:37 but they waited until november in fact remember ottawa said they weren't even going to do a

00:30:41 budget and we forced carney to do a budget but um um so ottawa was re used the excuse that they

00:30:53 weren't going to do a budget because they had just had the election and the carney just came into

00:30:57 power and he didn't know what was going on again i call bull because they'd been and it's not like

00:31:04 if if we'd had a change of government if the conservatives if the liberals had been in power

00:31:09 and suddenly the conservatives came into power okay maybe they need a little more time to see

00:31:13 what's going on and do a budget but the but we basically had no change in power it was the same

00:31:17 guys so carney tried to pull a fast one by not doing a budget he was forced into it he finally

00:31:23 submitted a budget in september that was voted on in november and uh and now and by the way it was

00:31:31 approved by the narrowest of margin but there's actually after it's done the budget is not

00:31:36 authority to spend the budget is simply a budget the authority to spend comes from bills there has

00:31:41 been absolutely no uh appropriation bill since the budget was approved i'll i'll come back to the

00:31:49 budget i got a call on the line all right who's on the line name and where are you calling from please

00:31:56 hi marty uh this is ed uh from uh how's it going ed met you a couple of times good good good uh

00:32:04 a question for you uh when alberta becomes independent do we basically go from three

00:32:11 levels of government to two and uh i'll hold there for a second yeah yeah no that's that's

00:32:18 exactly what happens we go from three to two but the one you know we we go in we we have municipal

00:32:26 provincial and federal so now we'll have municipal provincial but our provincial government will have

00:32:31 to do a little bit more our provincial government will have to do things that used to be done by

00:32:35 ottawa like uh border security and the military okay i'll just make the comments and then uh

00:32:44 get your thoughts on it. So we now have 120 elected officials. We've got 37 MPs, 87 MLAs,

00:32:55 and six senators. So that's 120. Could we operate with 10 senators, two from the north,

00:33:07 two from Tedmonton, two from central, two from Calgary, two from southern Alberta,

00:33:12 And then 25 elected officials, one for every $200,000.

00:33:20 Look at the savings we get off of that.

00:33:22 Your thoughts?

00:33:23 Yeah, no.

00:33:24 We will – well, a couple of things.

00:33:28 If Alberta stayed as a constitutional-type monarchy with the Westminster system, then –

00:33:36 I'll hang up here, Marty.

00:33:38 Okay.

00:33:39 All right.

00:33:39 Thanks, Ed.

00:33:39 All right.

00:33:42 so ed's let's stick to the sort of the the the easy model if if we get rid of ottawa then uh the

00:33:51 in the coming days after the separation alberta would no longer need a senate because we'd have 0.89

00:33:55 our own little senate right so instead of uh the 10 senators he's right we might need a a handful

00:34:01 here we'll have to have some something to replace the senate um the mps the the uh 34 the 37 albertans

00:34:10 that are federal MPs right now, they all lose their job because we don't need that anymore.

00:34:14 We don't need any representation in Ottawa. Anybody who's in the Canadian military that

00:34:19 wants to stay in Alberta, welcome aboard. And then we'd have to build a Canadian and Alberta 0.78

00:34:25 military and Alberta police force, a few things like that. But so we lose a few jobs. We definitely

00:34:31 save money because right now we're sending, you know, $70 billion of Alberta taxpayer money goes

00:34:39 ottawa and in return we get like 40 billion dollars in services 30 billion just disappears

00:34:46 through equalization payments and and money misallocated and spent elsewhere and given and

00:34:52 wasted so we would we would net out in principle we'd net out 30 billion dollars we come out at

00:34:59 top 30 billion dollars richer but then we have to use some of that for the military and things like

00:35:03 that i mean a military you know two percent spending on gdp annually alberta's gdp is like

00:35:09 you know three hundred uh billion dollars so what's two percent spending on gdp on that like

00:35:15 it's you know six billion dollars a year i mean it's not a huge amount of money that's kind of

00:35:20 the status quo but i think the bigger question is uh what does alberta look like down the road i 1.00

00:35:27 don't think we want and this is where corey morgan and some of the others are like the real experts

00:35:32 the the the the the jeff raths and and others what the i i think in alberta has to transform itself

00:35:42 and not simply be a mini version of canada with a westminster system i personally hope that we

00:35:48 will end up being a republic with a we the people type constitution uh maybe smaller representation

00:35:55 i like i hope we have a big overhaul and and change some things very drastically and and

00:36:02 and shrink the size of our government so that's um you know that's that i'm all in that way i i

00:36:09 don't want i don't want to just separate and be a mini uh a mini canada yeah feel bad if you're uh

00:36:15 if you're an mp uh you know if you're uh whatever some of the mps that are that are sitting in

00:36:21 ottawa right now the day after the election you're you're out of a job so are some of the

00:36:26 two senators that we have out there and and some of the judges and things like that but um it is

00:36:30 what it is so so so back to uh where was i i was talking about uh so ottawa all right so i was

00:36:36 talking about ottawa's budget so uh the budget was passed by the narrowest of margins and and then

00:36:42 ottawa has been spending on it incorrectly because they should have passed some appropriation bills

00:36:48 and there hasn't been any appropriation bills parliament's not even sitting right now and by

00:36:53 the time parliament resumes in a couple of weeks the the number one of their number one priorities

00:36:58 will be to start preparing to table the budget for 2026 2027 so you know crazy time we live in

00:37:06 but the craziest thing that's going on right now uh on and people aren't aware of this is there's

00:37:13 there are these important non-partisan positions in ottawa and one of them is a position called the

00:37:18 parliamentary budget officer and so the parliamentary budget officers helps put together

00:37:24 the budget helps analyze the budget along with you know the auditor general has an important role but

00:37:29 the parliamentary budget officer has an important role in preparing the budget analyzing the budget

00:37:35 and analyzing proposals that come from mp so let's say an mp wants to study uh you know wants to

00:37:42 table some uh once once a budget wants a universal basic income some some some mp thinks that we

00:37:48 should you know the government should go down that path well the cost of that can they can ask the

00:37:54 parliamentary budget officer to investigate what that would cost you know if somebody says we

00:37:59 should cancel uh diesel cars and force everybody to go to electric vehicles that has an impact so

00:38:05 then the parliamentary budget officer could study that well right now we don't have a parliamentary

00:38:09 budget officer. I mean, we had one, a really good one named Eve Giroux. He had been appointed. So

00:38:17 Eve Giroux was appointed for a five-year term as a parliamentary budget officer. His term came to

00:38:23 an end last year, and they knew when his term was going to end. It's a fixed date, and the Liberals

00:38:29 dragged their feet. They had nobody to replace Giroux when his term ended, and they appointed

00:38:35 instead an interim person while they continued their search to find a suitable replacement and

00:38:40 that interim parliamentary budget officer a guy named jason jock he his term ended on march 2nd

00:38:48 a couple of days ago so for the first time in forever in as long as i can remember we don't

00:38:53 even have a parliamentary budget officer so we we have a government that wasted uh half a year

00:38:59 before they finally gave us a budget the budget is approved no appropriation bills have been

00:39:04 passed to allow spending of budget money we don't know how much they're spending we don't know what

00:39:09 the deficits are like we don't know anything and now we don't have a parliamentary budget officer

00:39:13 and we're entering the budgetary period in ottawa like am i the only one who thinks that's crazy

00:39:19 go ahead who's on the line where are you calling from what's your name please

00:39:29 sorry you you are totally rubber banding i i you uh hang up and call again i really can't hear a

00:39:40 word you're saying okay okay we'll we'll let that caller uh try and and get back to us there um but

00:39:50 yeah you know no parliamentary budget officer like this this is this should be this is egregious and

00:40:00 canadians should be upset about this now i understand that canadians aren't upset about

00:40:05 it because most canadians don't even know what's going on so on our behalf the conservative party

00:40:10 or the opposition should be upset about this and i'm not hearing any noise from them so you know

00:40:16 know we don't have our systems are falling apart like I keep saying we're

00:40:21 not a serious country when these basic structural elements of our democracy are

00:40:26 not functioning is that the same caller John we'll try again go ahead please

00:40:31 hey Marty it's back again there you go perfect Marty I think that what you were

00:40:40 just talking about in regards to Jason Jocks I think he's a fantastic

00:40:43 parliamentary by the officer and the new republic of alberta should hire that guy but that's my

00:40:49 opinion because i thought he did his job well he pulled the fire alarm on the federal government

00:40:54 saying this is crazy this is a danger and i think it makes a great argument for alberta independence

00:41:00 when you have a federal government that is so irresponsible with everybody's money i mean i'm

00:41:06 a couple years away from retirement but i don't expect ctp to be there i mean it's just crazy how

00:41:12 they're leveraging the future of all Canadians but never mind Albertans who have put in the most

00:41:19 and zero accountability and that's what I think most people what brought me to the Alberta

00:41:25 independent movement was the fact that we're going to be looking at having complete accountability

00:41:31 over every dollar that's collected instead of these runaway budgets and reckless spending

00:41:37 that puts everybody's future at risk yeah no stay on the line let me uh let's talk about this a bit

00:41:45 further you're right and actually uh jason jock is good but um yves jeroux was even better

00:41:53 yves jeroux as a parliamentary budget officer do you remember like he was the guy he would be

00:41:58 brought to committee and like you said he was trying to he was doing his job almost and pushing

00:42:04 back and identifying issues. One of the issues that Jacques, maybe it was Jacques or maybe it was

00:42:09 Giroux, but either or, they were both very good. Remember, one of them identified the fact, and you

00:42:14 brought up pension, right? One of them identified the fact that Carney included the Canada Pension

00:42:20 Fund in the balance sheet of Canada. And I think it was Giroux. Giroux said, you cannot do that

00:42:28 because the Canada, the excess money that Canadians have contributed to their pension plans

00:42:34 has been invested in something called the Canada Pension Fund. And it's there for future generations

00:42:39 if we ever, if the, when the pyramid scheme starts to fall apart, because by the way, the Canada

00:42:45 Pension is a pyramid scheme, right? Seven workers today pay for the one retiree. And then in the

00:42:51 future, it'll be five workers for every one retiree and then three to one. And eventually

00:42:54 we will run out of workers, and that's why that fund's important.

00:42:59 But yeah, they got in trouble for pointing out things like that.

00:43:05 Yeah, and that's, for me, to have any spending without a parliamentary budget officer is

00:43:12 completely irresponsible, and a great advertisement for why Alberta needs its independence.

00:43:18 I mean, when we're going down the road where the prime minister invests in his own former

00:43:23 company with Canadian pension money which is illegal under the law yeah but

00:43:28 oh they've done it in such a way where it kind of buzzes the numbers but he's

00:43:33 enriching himself in front of everybody that's why I agree with Jeff Ross so

00:43:37 he's like one of the best proponents for Alberta independence without a doubt

00:43:40 totally agree yeah yeah no thanks for that appreciate the call yeah that was

00:43:46 yeah excellent haven't had a chance to look into that but I think he was

00:43:51 He's referring to, you know, on his trip to India and currently in Australia, Carney apparently looks like he's making some pretty shady deals and he's throwing around the Canada Pension Fund as an investment tool or something like that.

00:44:07 So we'll have to come back on that one maybe next week when I've had a chance to digest that one.

00:44:13 By the way, that's another report I love to.

00:44:16 I mean, this is Marty's routine, right?

00:44:18 so i have a little list of of reports that i go look at so i i used to go look at the parliamentary

00:44:24 budget officer's website about every couple of weeks i got a checklist wake up in the morning

00:44:28 read a couple of news stories you know surf x but then i go dive into parliamentary budget officer

00:44:34 always excellent because i could go see what they were thinking of right you so if the parliamentary

00:44:41 budget like i'll tell you right now the one of the latest reports that the parliamentary budget

00:44:45 officer did was he was he was sounding the alarm on the cost of uh salaries in the in the government

00:44:53 sector like he has a whole report not only a report he built a tool there's a tool on the part

00:44:57 on the pbo website that shows um the fully burdened cost of uh of federal employees and and

00:45:07 by departments you like the the best paid federal employees were the ones who work for uh you know

00:45:13 the department of justice of course that's mostly lawyers and judges so you know they're paid like

00:45:17 260 000 a year kind of thing on average but then you go down there and you start seeing like

00:45:23 departments like the canada revenue agency with with like 70 000 employees and the average salary

00:45:29 of a cra agent is like 137 000 a year plus benefit so you know that that was an example of a report

00:45:37 but the other report on there you could see they were they're toying with universal basic income

00:45:41 they're toying with the idea of taxing cap uh uh capital gains on primary residences how do i know

00:45:48 that and how can they can't hide it because the parliamentary budget officer says i ran a report

00:45:53 on this proposal from mp so-and-so so you go to the website and you see what they're what silly

00:45:59 ideas are coming up so as just giving an example i go i go there every day but then i other reports

00:46:05 i love looking at i'm anxiously waiting right now because it's the end of the year and so

00:46:09 you know the the private sector is doing its annual reports they all come out in march april

00:46:14 right at this time of year but so the public corporations so i'm looking forward to seeing

00:46:19 uh the annual report for the canada pension fund i'm looking forward to the annual report for

00:46:24 canada post and you know organizations like that canada post going to be a disaster by the way

00:46:29 i mean i i'm forecasting the canada post will have lost two billion dollars last year as a crown

00:46:34 corporation and and don't get me started on uh on the cpp the cpp has extra funds that get invested

00:46:41 into the cpp investment inc which is a crown corporation and last quarter cpp investment inc

00:46:49 uh had a 0.9 return on investment 0.9 return on investment if you factor in that inflation

00:46:56 sitting at 2.3 they're losing money and they keep showcasing that oh the fund is growing the fund's

00:47:01 not growing organically the funds growing by the fact that albertans over contribute to cpp

00:47:07 for for working albertans paid nine billion dollars in cpp uh deductions from their payroll

00:47:15 and retired albertans get six billion dollars in cpp benefits from ottawa so what's happening with

00:47:21 the other three billion huh go look at the cpp investment inc and they'll they'll boldly say hey

00:47:26 our investments grew by 3 billion yeah because you had an infusion of cash from alberta

00:47:31 but that that that's that's a topic i wish now that's a topic i wish danielle would bring back

00:47:37 i think she messed up on the cp on the alberta uh the alberta pension plan they scared everyone

00:47:43 right remember when we started talking about having our own alberta pension plan and how

00:47:47 we were entitled to money from from the cpp and then they were throwing around a big number like

00:47:52 were entitled to 300 billion dollars and everybody said well that makes no sense right they were

00:47:56 looking at the fact that the cpp had 700 billion in there and then they're divided by 10. you don't

00:48:03 divide by 10 you divide by nine because quebec doesn't even contribute there they have their own

00:48:08 pension plan so you got 700 billion you divide by nine but then you realize ontario and alberta

00:48:14 are putting most of the money in there the other little provinces aren't doing it so is it

00:48:18 reasonable that Alberta's share of the CPP if we withdrew today would be in the 300 billion range,

00:48:24 100%. It absolutely is reasonable. But I'll say this, having looked at the numbers myself,

00:48:30 we should just start our own Alberta pension plan today, regardless, because we got more workers

00:48:36 per retiree than any other province. So the quote unquote pyramid scheme of a pension plan

00:48:43 works in alberta despite not having a fund it will work that way for at least 20 or 30 years

00:48:49 because of our population demographic and we have time to build up our fund now if we got money back

00:48:55 from cpp that's even better that's but that's just gravy you know what i'm saying so we don't need we

00:49:00 we don't need to drag our feet on starting our own pension plan in this province uh we we don't need

00:49:05 to wait to see what ottawa sends us we could start one tomorrow morning and we'd start benefiting

00:49:10 i mean just think of um well i i don't want to talk about independence that wasn't the the it

00:49:16 wasn't the purpose of my show today it wasn't independence um all right no calls well let's uh

00:49:22 all right okay well i got luckily i put down a couple of things so let's go back this is in line

00:49:28 with in line with um in line with the parliamentary budget officer uh john if you don't mind uh do it

00:49:37 in a second here but every i told you i i belong to different i go look at data at different places

00:49:43 and i belong to different uh newsletters right a lot of federal newsletters so i registered with

00:49:48 the um you know with the with the prime minister's office so i get their daily newsletters i also get

00:49:55 daily newsletters from the ndp daily newsletters from the liberals like i take trust me folks

00:50:00 sometimes i i take one for the team right being a member of the ndp party just so i can get their

00:50:07 newsletter that truly is taking one for the team because that newsletter reads like a communist

00:50:12 manifesto every week but um but i get other uh i get the briefings and the press releases from the

00:50:19 from from the prime minister's office so yesterday out comes this press release on senior appointments

00:50:25 So just flash it up real quick there, John. It's probably too small for you folks to see, but I'll just read the headline. Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced the following changes in the senior ranks of the public service to take effect in the coming weeks.

00:50:39 that's where i was looking to see if if the new parliamentary budget officer was being announced

00:50:44 in there so i'm just glancing through there you you can take it down john but uh you know there

00:50:49 there was there was like 50 names on there and not one of them is a new parliamentary budget officer

00:50:55 but um maybe john will be able to put the link and you guys can go see it just for your own fun

00:51:01 just for your own fun go look at that announcement right go look at these titles and and look at

00:51:06 let me read you one of them. Right. So, um, well actually there was a couple of interesting ones.

00:51:11 Let me, let me bring up this first one. Right. So Paul McKinnon, who was the president of the

00:51:17 Canadian food inspection agency. So he got in trouble because he's the guy who oversaw the

00:51:23 ostrich fiasco in BC. Right. So Carney brushed him out of the way, but they do this regularly

00:51:28 anyway. So, so Paul McKinnon gets in trouble for the ostrich fiasco and his reward is he goes from

00:51:34 being president of canada food inspection agency and he becomes deputy minister of fisheries and

00:51:38 oceans second in command at fisheries and ocean that's his reward that's how government in this

00:51:44 country works now um and so who replaces paul the guy above him is dr harpeet something kochar

00:51:53 he goes from being deputy minister of immigration refugees and citizenship which is again a file

00:51:59 it was taking a lot of beating and he becomes the the president of the canada food inspection

00:52:04 agency that's our government folks so you go from being in charge of immigration to being in charge

00:52:09 of food zero qualifications but it doesn't matter that's what you get a couple of other ones that

00:52:14 were interesting I'll go down one as I went down the line the one that really caught my eye

00:52:19 immediately was Kevin Brasso he's the commissioner of Canada's fight against fentanyl do you remember

00:52:24 him nobody remembers him but I'll remind you who he was right remember in the days after when Trump

00:52:30 was first getting elected and and carney was campaigning and trump was pissed off that our

00:52:35 border wasn't secure because all the fentanyl that was spilling over while trudeau actually

00:52:41 sorry it happened under trudeau trudeau appointed this guy kevin brosso as the fentanyl czar okay

00:52:48 because the americans had this cool terms right the american had the border czar so we thought

00:52:51 well we might as well copy him so we had the the the fentanyl czar officially the commissioner of

00:52:56 of Canada's fight against fentanyl that guy never did anything nothing zero like google him search

00:53:02 him try and find out any initiative from that department they barely had they don't need I

00:53:06 don't even think they built a website and that's usually the first thing they do when they create

00:53:10 a new job they create a big website to make it look like they're doing something so that guy does

00:53:14 nothing gets appointed fentanyl czar and now uh his reward because we don't need a fentanyl czar

00:53:20 no everybody's forgotten about that so now suddenly he becomes the senior associate deputy minister

00:53:25 that's hilarious in and of itself right senior associate deputy minister so there's a minister

00:53:34 second to the minister is the deputy minister when somebody's deputized that means they're

00:53:38 in charge when the main guy's not there so minister deputy minister but now the deputy

00:53:43 minister also has an associate so there's an associate deputy minister and then and then

00:53:49 there's several associate deputy ministers to the point where one are senior associate deputy

00:53:54 minister and one is junior associate minister like like am i the only one who thinks this is

00:53:59 like the most bizarre thing right and and that's just what they do in ottawa they just pad and pad

00:54:04 and tap pat each other on the back and reward each other for jobs poorly done there's no merit there's

00:54:10 no merit it's who can suck up to who the best and be the most loyal top of the list on that one and

00:54:17 it's the last one i read but the very first one that caught my eye was glenn purvis right glenn

00:54:22 becomes the global head uh sorry glenn who was the global head of research at black rock investments

00:54:30 becomes the deputy minister of international trade that's basically one of carney's buddies

00:54:35 investment buddies so anyways get just just go look at the list try not to get too mad when you 0.90

00:54:40 look at these lists i'll take it on the chin i'll take it for the team i'll be the sucker who goes

00:54:45 and looks at these lists every day and report back on it. But needless to say, it is what it is.

00:54:53 That was the topic of today. We tried to talk a little bit about fiscal responsibility.

00:54:59 At this point, it might as well be an oxymoron. I don't think there is such a thing as fiscal

00:55:04 responsibility at any level of government. I mean, if you know of a good government,

00:55:09 you know send me a note and uh and and i'll look into it but you know from uh from a canadian

00:55:15 citizen as a canadian taxpayer i'm i'm i'm very discouraged by what's going on uh i i mean i

00:55:23 definitely look forward to uh carney's budget i mean the last one was a doozy and uh i think he's

00:55:28 gonna he's gonna outdo i mean remember when trudeau got elected trudeau said i'm just gonna run like

00:55:34 three little deficits of like five ten billion and then we'll go into a balanced budget trudeau

00:55:39 never had a balanced budget um and outside of covid trudeau at least stayed under the 80 million

00:55:46 dollar deficit like i mean i'm laughing we're like we're literally talking in billions of dollar

00:55:52 deficits not millions billions of dollars and then out comes carney supposedly a world banker

00:55:57 a guy who's supposed to be super financially savvy and he turns out to be just about the most

00:56:03 crooked one uh that that we've had so uh looking forward to seeing uh to seeing that uh budget

00:56:11 trying to go through my list here i wanted to talk about uh i didn't want to talk about iran

00:56:17 i guess i managed to uh go all along without talking about iran maybe we'll talk about iran

00:56:23 next week i mean the one thing i'll say about iran um i i've been asked repeatedly my thoughts on it

00:56:30 i'm pretty pretty biased on this i think iran was a really bad dangerous regime and uh i think it

00:56:38 was long overdue that the regime themselves be taken out i i i do i think in hindsight when we

00:56:45 see how this all unfolds i think the i'm a little disappointed i thought the americans would have

00:56:51 had a better plan you know you remove the guy and you sort of have a backup plan right now it kind

00:56:56 looks like they're shooting from the hip and uh maybe i'm wrong but you know i mean i'm not privy

00:57:02 to all the information but right now as an outsider it looks like they're shooting a little

00:57:05 bit from the hip but uh glass half full half empty uh for alberta this is good news i mean

00:57:13 the you know um qatar just announced uh it's good news and it's bad news it's good news for alberta

00:57:19 because the price of oil is going up bad news at the pump but good news broadly speaking right

00:57:24 Danielle just budgeted a deficit on $60 oil. Oil's at $80 today. So I think Danielle's deficit is

00:57:32 completely wiped out. Doesn't excuse you, Danielle. If you get a big surplus, do the right thing and

00:57:36 pay down some of the debt and don't just go spending big surpluses. That's how we keep

00:57:41 getting in trouble. So good news. And the other good news is it exposes again how unprepared

00:57:49 um canada was i mean qatar just imposed uh just invoke force majeure clause on all their contracts

00:57:56 and they're not shipping lng and if you're expected to get lng from qatar it's not arriving and you

00:58:01 don't have a recourse you're you're you're you know you're up the creek without a paddle wouldn't

00:58:07 it have been nice if canada could provide some lng to replace all this qatar stuff right i told you 1.00

00:58:12 guys the story last week we wanted to build 10 million metric tons and in the same time we wanted

00:58:17 to build 110 the the the qataris built 70 seven units 70 million metric tons per year so wouldn't

00:58:24 it be nice if we had done that so wake up call right um you know anyways i digress i i didn't

00:58:31 want to talk about the war because the war is not over and it's not my it's not my forte i i saw it

00:58:37 but i'm not uh not a huge expert when it comes to war all right folks i'll give it a second maybe

00:58:43 is there somebody like diane last week who's trying to build up the courage to call marty

00:58:47 uh diane if you're there call again like i said folks don't be shy next week call please uh we

00:58:54 that's how this show is going to be successful i want to talk i mean i'm okay talking but it's way

00:58:59 more fun when i get your questions and your topics and like i said if you see if you if you if you

00:59:05 If you want to talk to me, it's got a comment from somebody, a super chat.

00:59:13 Give charter schools incentives by reopening inner city public schools.

00:59:17 I could make that a whole topic, okay?

00:59:19 I might make – I'll try and remember that, Prairie Cossack.

00:59:22 I'll try and remember that for next week.

00:59:23 I actually got invited to a wonderful charter school just –

00:59:28 maybe I'll bring a charter school person as a guest, right?

00:59:30 I can do that, right, John?

00:59:32 I can have a guest on the show.

00:59:33 Maybe I'll bring a charter school person.

00:59:34 we can dive into charter schools and why I think charter schools in this province are important

00:59:39 you know I talked about unions fighting resisting change charter schools are a great example of a

00:59:45 success story in Alberta they operate in parallel with the main schools they do their own thing

00:59:50 okay we got a call on the line I'm trying to end it let's take the call on the line and then we'll

00:59:54 end it after that go ahead please hi Marty I'll be real quick it's Canadian Spider-Man Steve here

01:00:01 game and i just wanted to ask what are your thoughts on is it possible to make something

01:00:07 in the constitution that makes it illegal for governments to run uh deficit budgets and would

01:00:14 that be effective yes um the answer is yes but but but here's the here's the real answer our

01:00:23 governments putting anything in our constitution at this point is almost a waste of time you know

01:00:27 what i mean i mean look at how many times our constitution has been violated or they'll use

01:00:32 the notwithstanding clause right and and and or use a limitation clause and have all sorts of

01:00:37 excuses so i that i'd love to i'd love in principle the answer is yes but in practically

01:00:42 the answer is no because they ignore it i'll give you a very good example i mean i talked earlier

01:00:47 about um you know uh needing bills to to to spend after you get the budget you need to pass bills

01:00:57 that needs to be debated in the house of commons the budget is necessary to have the debate then

01:01:01 you have to debate then you have the appropriation bills and the only part of our constitution that

01:01:08 really protects citizens is section i'm going to say 28 but it might be 52. there is a section of

01:01:14 our constitution that says there has to be debate on any money being spent and we're ignoring that

01:01:20 section in like last year was a perfect example of of all the mechanisms meant to protect the

01:01:25 taxpayers have been ignored so i like the question um danielle's tried it lots of places have tried

01:01:32 it but in canada we're making a mockery of our constitution laws laws seem to be uh meaningless

01:01:38 at this point appreciate the call um okay uh we're kind of running out of time uh just a quick plug

01:01:44 so uh uh definitely call in again next thursday folks the same time one o'clock if you're not

01:01:50 already a member of the western standard please join it's ten dollars a month it's uh or a hundred

01:01:56 dollars a year it's uh www.westernstandard.news and uh and do me a favor too i mean i like talking

01:02:05 here i also like texting so you can find me marty up north on x otherwise uh we'll see you next week

01:02:11 folks. Thanks.

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Western Standard - March 05, 2026

Let’s talk about Fiscal Responsibility

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