Western Standard - Let’s talk about Fiscal Responsibility

00:00:00.000 All right, we're live.

00:00:27.780 Hey, thanks for joining me, folks.

00:00:30.000 um i just noticed in the introduction video there uh john put that together four weeks ago and i

00:00:36.700 just noticed there's like uh on one of the scenes there's a little sort of blurred spot in the

00:00:40.900 middle one of the scenes where i'm hiking i remember that day i dropped my camera and then

00:00:45.160 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

00:00:49.340 scenes for uh for the for the video uh hey thanks for taking time out of your day to join me you

00:00:56.200 know when when i accepted this uh offer from derek to come here and do the show i really wanted to

00:01:03.020 do this live interaction with you guys and gals right i mean i'm like my biggest platform is i'm

00:01:10.440 on x and the reason i've always said i like x is because the feedback is instantaneous right i can

00:01:14.980 put out a tweet and if i'm wrong or if i have a bad take on something i'll get some quick feedback

00:01:20.740 it's actually a useful platform for me you know when you're you're when you're practicing

00:01:25.040 debating and politics and and commenting on stuff i get to practice stuff on x and then see how it

00:01:31.740 resonates with people so the reason i'm saying that is this show will be super successful if

00:01:36.500 you guys call in right so you can see down on the screen there there's the number uh you know

00:01:41.940 866-479-WEST uh back in the good old days that would have cost you probably a long distance call

00:01:48.360 but we're past that right everybody pays the same rate regardless of where you're calling in the

00:01:51.960 province last week somebody even I think it was a lady named Diane who who said she had to build

00:01:57.340 up the courage to call and she was calling down from Florida which was fantastic and and that's

00:02:02.840 another reminder right don't be shy like I don't know how many times I've said this to people I am

00:02:09.020 as average Joe Albertan as you can possibly get right sure I have a bigger following than a few

00:02:15.720 people but I'm just literally an average guy look at me right I'm wearing a Columbia sweater my my

00:02:20.820 wife hates this sweater she says it's all frayed but it's my favorite sweater I think I have Costco

00:02:25.020 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

00:02:30.320 and and that happens all the time by the way I see people they're looking at me on the train or

00:02:34.840 someplace like that yeah I even took the train that's how I get to downtown Calgary I take the

00:02:38.940 train so don't be shy please call um and and before before we get too deeply into the show

00:02:44.460 and I want to take a lot of calls today because I really don't have a lot of topics I mean I put

00:02:48.480 up there on the screen you can see the topic i want to talk about is fiscal responsibility

00:02:52.960 it's in light of danielle's budget last week so let's let call in you know give me your thoughts

00:02:58.560 on on the budget i'll offer some other suggestions i'd like to talk a little bit about the referendum

00:03:03.440 that she proposed because i'm now that i've had time to digest it i'm not too happy about what

00:03:09.120 she's proposing the fact that she wants to have sort of her own referendum i'll talk a bit about

00:03:13.840 that and i want to talk about some of the things that are going on in ottawa uh but just before i

00:03:20.120 dive deeply into that uh speaking of referendum i just got so i've been some of you guys know this

00:03:26.220 i've been actually canvassing so i'm a i'm a i'm a canvasser there's about six thousand seven

00:03:31.780 thousand canvassers in alberta i got a nice little pop-up on the corner of crow child and

00:03:37.220 bear's paw road i got two crews i'm usually on the south side and i got some buddies that are

00:03:42.360 on the north side. We're there almost every day from 11 to 4 collecting signatures. It's going

00:03:47.360 really, really well. And if you happen to be driving by, come by, stop by. If you've already

00:03:52.600 signed, that's fine. Stop anyways, come say hi. But I want to emphasize one thing that I heard

00:03:57.360 about in the last couple of days. Prior to the petition campaign that we're going through right

00:04:03.540 now, the Alberta Prosperity Project was collecting names online in what they were calling pledges.

00:04:11.040 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.

00:04:23.140 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.

00:04:31.640 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.

00:04:52.700 So just a reminder, if you pledged on the website and you thought that that was good enough, it's not.

00:04:58.380 Unfortunately, you have to come out and sign. All right. So no, no question.

00:05:03.820 So let's talk about let's talk about a couple of things.

00:05:06.820 So actually, let's let's let's stay sort of on the referendum topic.

00:05:11.480 Last week, Danielle had a press conference, Danielle Smith.

00:05:15.160 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.

00:05:21.940 she announced that coming up in uh october of this year october 19th she was going to have

00:05:28.700 a referendum and and then she proposed a whole bunch of questions and i got a big problem with

00:05:35.340 that first of all i got a problem with the fact that uh you know we're going to show up in the

00:05:39.240 booth there and we're going to have like nine or ten referendum questions i think that's too many

00:05:43.340 i think that's an abuse of a process to me seriously referendums should be very rare

00:05:49.180 and uh and and when they happen they should be on some very specific topics among the things that

00:05:56.120 danielle smith wants on her referendum i think are things that fall in her purview as premier i mean

00:06:01.800 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

00:06:06.440 quick i mean she wants to have several questions around immigration right should uh she's going to 0.81

00:06:12.440 ask the people of alberta you know should we quote unquote deny benefits to people that are

00:06:18.260 still just seeking uh i don't know residency and things like that i don't think she needs to 0.89

00:06:25.700 uh hold a referendum for that i think that's in her that's in her mandate but i'll come back to

00:06:32.600 the word mandate right because danielle seems to take that to heart that she feels that if she's

00:06:38.360 elected to do something she's elected on a platform and then she does it and if something

00:06:43.380 new comes along that she needs to go get a mandate i don't think so right i mean politicians are 0.97

00:06:48.420 elected for four-year terms if they only campaigned on things that were current in the year that they

00:06:53.620 get elected and something new came up i think they're allowed to deal with new issues throughout

00:06:57.940 their terms i don't think they need to go necessarily get a new um mandate but so she 0.90

00:07:04.740 wants to talk about things that i think are clearly within you know her jurisdiction she can 0.93

00:07:09.620 she can uh change the laws around immigration and benefits and things like that but then the other 1.00

00:07:15.300 thing worrisome in her speech two weeks ago she talked about wanting to put up some questions

00:07:21.140 that are really constitutional in nature right like should uh alberta um force uh ottawa's hand

00:07:29.300 and and to discussions around i don't know the courts and other things that are really constitutional

00:07:34.580 and i don't think that that is a mandate so that's something that up until recently the people of

00:07:42.880 alberta weren't talking about weren't asking so i don't know why she's putting that on there we're

00:07:46.920 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

00:07:53.480 the opportunity to talk to her right now is i would say this drop all your silly referendum 0.92

00:07:59.020 questions that you have. You have five of them that to me are related to things that are already

00:08:05.340 in your control. And if you don't feel like they're in your control right now and they're

00:08:08.340 not in your mandate, then either call a snap election or wait another year and a half because

00:08:13.600 your term is up and then make those things, make immigration an issue on your next platform. So

00:08:20.440 you don't need a referendum for now. Either act now on a referendum or sorry, act now on immigration

00:08:25.780 or make it an issue in the next election and as far as the constitutional things again that's not

00:08:31.780 even in your that's not in your purview that's not your jurisdiction that's not your responsibility

00:08:36.980 no one wants to even talk about that so don't even force the issue on that let the people of

00:08:43.320 alberta and and let the people of alberta who are currently collecting signatures yeah we had

00:08:49.520 thomas lukasik had his uh petition and he collected 400 000 signatures on something like

00:08:55.180 an independence question and now you have mitch sylvester collecting his signatures on an

00:08:59.420 independence question so let's just have a very simple referendum in october with an independence

00:09:04.900 question and let's not muddy the waters with a whole bunch of other things all right so that's

00:09:10.740 that's my thoughts on that um folks i'm serious don't be shy give us a buzz you see the number

00:09:16.340 there on the bottom 866 479 west i'm not sure what west translates to in the number i have to

00:09:23.620 figure it out on my keyboard. All right, let's talk then a bit about, let's talk about fiscal

00:09:31.540 responsibility, which is, it's one of the things that I'm most known for online is the fact that

00:09:39.220 I like to go through numbers. I had a career in the oil patch and as I moved into upper management

00:09:46.200 and in the office in my career, managing budgets, managing my finances, knowing on a day-to-day

00:09:53.500 basis how much oil i was producing how much gas what it was costing me all of that was something

00:09:59.260 that i had to do but it was something that i actually enjoyed doing i enjoy diving through

00:10:04.300 numbers and using datas and numbers to manage my assets and and when i retired that translated

00:10:12.060 nicely it's something i love doing i love going through the budgets of you know ottawa and and

00:10:17.420 And in particular, Alberta.

00:10:20.200 And I'm going to be honest, two years ago or last year when, when two years ago, Smith's budget disappointed me.

00:10:27.680 I mean, the first one after Kenny, the first one after COVID, you know, I understood what happened during COVID.

00:10:33.040 I mean, everybody went crazy during COVID and we started spending, not we, government started spending a little too much, I think, during COVID.

00:10:41.640 And I was hoping that in the first few budgets after COVID, that things would start coming down again.

00:10:46.480 because often when i talk about actually when i talk about life in general i'm i'm i'm at the

00:10:51.680 point now where i call i talk about pre-covid and post-covid you know the the for me in my life

00:10:57.120 covid was a big demarcation a lot of things changed before and after so when when smith

00:11:02.560 published her first budget uh when she first got elected and it was a post-covid one i was

00:11:06.800 disappointed it was it was a big number right it was like in the 70 billion dollar range

00:11:11.520 i expected it to be back into the 60 billion dollar range but i i forgave that one then last

00:11:17.520 year she published another budget and same thing she started getting on track um she was on a she's

00:11:24.640 as far as i'm concerned the province is on a bad track the provinces you know the the amount of

00:11:28.720 money that the province is spending is outpacing population growth and inflation and and the problem

00:11:35.280 with inflation is that the government spending causes inflation right so you can see how that's

00:11:39.040 like a spiraling problem government creates inflation and then budgets to match inflation

00:11:45.440 well that makes no sense so so i was disappointed with uh last year's budget because it's on it's

00:11:50.160 it's outpacing inflation and population growth well this year's budget the one that just came out

00:11:56.000 as far as i'm concerned this is a catastrophe i haven't even dove into it i will dive into it

00:12:02.160 but on the surface when i see a province like uh alberta publish a budget with a 9.4 billion

00:12:10.640 dollar deficit i don't even need to go into it i mean immediately it's a non-starter for me

00:12:17.360 because um a a governments to me as far as i'm concerned government should be spending within

00:12:24.240 we should be living within our own means we do it as citizens and i think governments should

00:12:28.080 be doing the same thing if the money's not coming in then you have to cut somewhere this constant

00:12:32.720 idea of going into deficit after deficit after deficit to me that doesn't resonate and and i

00:12:39.600 and i do think there are lots of places where government can cut their spending i'd love i'd

00:12:45.040 love personally to have something like uh like donald trump had for a while that you know the

00:12:49.520 department of government efficiency the doge i guarantee you if i was allowed full access to

00:12:54.320 the government's books i could find 10 15 savings across the board i mean i know for a fact that

00:13:00.960 we've been hiring you know our civil service has been growing again disproportionately in recent

00:13:07.120 years like for every 10 jobs that are that are created in alberta three of them are in the public

00:13:12.480 or in the public sector like government jobs and then the other seven are in the private that's an

00:13:16.640 unsustainable level so so back to the budget you know the 9.4 billion to me that's that's a non-starter

00:13:23.840 and it's also um against smith's own rules i mean she passed these accountability rules that said we 0.82

00:13:31.920 cannot have deficit after deficit we can't have three in a row and she has three in a row now so

00:13:36.960 there's so there's a so there's a big problem there and um and i and i come back to this all

00:13:43.120 the time to me alberta has a spending problem not a revenue problem everybody keeps blaming

00:13:50.400 oil and and other prices and other commodities that affect the budget but um that that's a that's

00:13:57.680 a non-starter the other thing that's really really discouraging when i see uh danielle's budget and

00:14:04.320 this is a bigger picture thing the 9.4 billion dollar deficit almost matches dollar for dollar

00:14:12.720 alberta taxpayers share of the equalization payments that are going to the east

00:14:16.800 so how how how am i supposed to feel as an albertan knowing that you know i'm going in debt

00:14:23.640 my future generations my kids my grandkids are going into debt so that we can have money that

00:14:30.340 we then leaves our province goes to ottawa and ottawa redistributes to provinces out east and

00:14:36.980 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

00:14:42.140 of need in recent history i don't understand why quebec would require year after year after year

00:14:48.780 after year a nine billion dollar bailout so as far as i'm concerned i'm going into debt right now so

00:14:54.540 that the equalization payment can go to quebec and quebec can give themselves free tuition i mean am

00:14:59.740 i the only one who sees it that way um so uh anyways that so so that's uh that's my thoughts

00:15:07.980 on uh on danielle's budget at the highest of levels i don't like what's going on i will i

00:15:14.300 will dive deep into it but uh you know while i wait for calls one of the one of the other things

00:15:20.540 i really really don't like in her recent budget is she basically admitted she basically admitted

00:15:28.460 that some of the costs have to go up to deal with the influx of immigrants and again that's that's

00:15:35.340 something that i have a problem with right like well i'll give you an example regional to where

00:15:39.740 i live i i belong in the little water co-op right so i live out in the country and there's an acre

00:15:45.740 and we're all in acreages and we stopped drilling wells we we formed a cooperative together and we

00:15:51.340 have a little water plant and then we have 2500 members to belong to this co-op well if a new

00:15:57.580 member if a developer comes in our neck of the woods and wants to build a development with 15

00:16:03.100 new houses and i don't have enough capacity in our co-op to provide him water i'm not the one

00:16:09.260 who pays the extra money to provide right so the developer who comes in at the last minute the last

00:16:16.300 people who come in in our development they pay for their upgrade to the water system because they

00:16:22.300 came on board well i feel the same way about the recent tax increases and one of the tax increases

00:16:28.300 that's really hard to swallow is education.

00:16:30.740 Danielle says that we have so many new immigrants here,

00:16:33.860 like 600,000, which brought in 80,000 new kids.

00:16:37.340 We need to catch up on building schools.

00:16:39.940 And our taxes are going up disproportionately,

00:16:43.300 especially on the education side,

00:16:46.180 to pay for new people that are coming in the province.

00:16:49.480 Well, that makes no sense

00:16:50.280 because I mean, I've always been sold on the idea

00:16:52.200 that we're supposed to have immigrants 0.99

00:16:53.740 and growth is supposed to be good for us

00:16:56.580 and it's supposed to make all our costs go down economies of scale but in this instance growth

00:17:01.540 means that we're having to pay extra costs and i and i got a big problem with that all right we got

00:17:06.180 a call on the line um before i take it i'll take the call uh like i said give me your name where

00:17:11.460 you're calling from and and if if you just want to drop a question and let me answer that's great

00:17:17.380 because if you hang up that allows somebody else to call in if you stay on the line too long the

00:17:22.580 line sounds busy and nobody else can call it you know what i mean so uh so so if i ask you to drop

00:17:27.940 off that's because we're just trying to open the line for other people so go ahead name and where

00:17:31.220 are you calling from please helen from foothills hi helen how are you today i'm good marty and you

00:17:39.380 excellent well i think you and i have probably are on the same wavelength uh in that um um we

00:17:47.620 we should scrutinize what is being spent and have something like the united states dodge

00:17:52.980 or whatever to go through the books because it's ridiculous my focus and that's all because i know

00:17:59.860 about it it is about um the waste of money spending good data after bad money on nothing

00:18:08.420 that is what we call the education system and uh first of all we don't teach english property

00:18:17.060 Second of all, we don't teach cursive writing anymore.

00:18:20.540 We don't teach the basics or do it properly.

00:18:23.860 Even academia professors are shaking their heads in regard to the skills that grade 12 students come out with now.

00:18:33.940 And this has been, you know, for a long time.

00:18:36.600 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.

00:18:52.660 I have two nieces that are both teachers in Ottawa, and they started teaching French, learning French in very primary schools.

00:19:04.660 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.

00:19:14.660 my opinion um math um i didn't know that i'm sorry i i wasn't good with math at all and when

00:19:24.020 i went back to university and had to take some statistics courses i learned that um the best

00:19:30.560 students there as being a mentor for me were were the russian students because they knew how to

00:19:36.440 and they were very helpful and they knew how to show you how to learn the math yeah okay uh helen

00:19:44.320 that's that's awesome let me let me unpack a little bit of what you've said you gave me some

00:19:48.600 some food for thought but if you don't mind uh hang up and then uh we can let somebody else but

00:19:54.080 thanks for calling helen uh so let me unpack a couple things she brought up which are fantastic

00:19:58.960 right um she she did bring up the fact that uh we spend a lot of money without accountability

00:20:05.620 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

00:20:10.940 in i understand that industry and government are not the same but they have some similarities

00:20:15.180 right in industry if my boss gave me money year after year and i didn't show results i wouldn't

00:20:20.700 get more money at some point whereas so in government there's two problems the first problem

00:20:26.620 is there's no measurement to see if there has been improvement she brings up good point i think in

00:20:31.100 some in some things like education i guess we can measure and see if it's getting better or not

00:20:36.060 but there's other areas where we barely measure we don't know how the government's doing how the

00:20:40.460 money is being spent what value we're getting for that money and they keep asking for more money so

00:20:46.060 i think that that that brings up that's a very important point ultimately that's why i always

00:20:51.340 believe in smaller governments i mean smaller governments that spend less it's it's easier to

00:20:55.500 manage but you know governments in and of themselves are are beasts um now as far as uh

00:21:03.100 as far as the the language and the skills that the kids are getting when they graduate

00:21:11.020 one thing i'm still hearing is that um alberta uh is still producing some pretty good kids right

00:21:17.820 like our system is not completely broken so that's one good thing but um i lost my i just lost my

00:21:26.780 thought she she had something else she said that was interesting but anyways uh thanks for calling

00:21:31.820 Helen. I hate it when that happens, when I lose my thought. She brought up something that made

00:21:38.520 me think of something good, but now I completely lost it. Well, actually, what I was going to bring

00:21:45.380 it down to is charter schools and other schools, right? Boy, there's so much to unpack today.

00:21:53.480 that is another issue that we have in this province right now is that um when uh i now i

00:22:02.160 just remembered my thought the the the problem is with the bigger government and the bigger system

00:22:07.840 she was talking about gatekeepers that's what she was talking about gatekeepers right a lot of

00:22:12.260 people know the problems right so let's say that loosely speaking if if if some of the kids have

00:22:17.820 issues and and and we know how to address the issues with either technology or changes to the

00:22:24.380 classroom or things like that it can be in a classroom we even know in other areas where

00:22:28.540 government spends right we know we know problem in health care we know we know some of the problems

00:22:32.340 we know some of the wait lists the waiting times we know some of the inefficiencies people who work

00:22:37.320 as ambulance drivers can tell you stories people who are cops can tell you inefficiencies and

00:22:41.300 inefficiencies like a lot it goes back to what i said earlier you give me access to the data i'll

00:22:46.780 find those efficiencies they're everywhere they're they're inefficiencies everywhere the problem is as

00:22:53.340 our governments get bigger the bureaucracy becomes a problem in and of itself and you can't address

00:22:59.100 the efficiencies you can't bring in solutions to the problem because you get blocked by people who

00:23:05.740 quote unquote benefit from the problem right teachers are a perfect example i pick on teachers

00:23:10.300 a lot but there are there are way better ways of teaching kids we could bring in tools we could

00:23:17.180 bring in uh methods and technologies that would improve but it might mean that you could get by

00:23:24.460 with a few less teachers and and the unions are will fight those those initiatives the health care

00:23:30.860 system does that all the time too you you know i mean you walk into a modern uh alberta hospital

00:23:36.540 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

00:23:43.180 to europe go visit germany go visit france and go see what super efficient modern healthcare looks

00:23:49.980 like and ask yourself why we don't have that which by the way brings up a whole other point

00:23:55.900 which is interesting uh you know yesterday i saw uh naheed nenshi is piling up on the the

00:24:02.780 NDP are piling on to the Conservatives saying, you know, the Conservatives are mismanaging

00:24:07.500 the province, which is ironic because some of the biggest deficits we ran, I mean,

00:24:12.060 under Notley, I think we ran about a $90 billion deficit. So I don't think the NDP are in a position

00:24:19.100 to lecture Conservatives on fiscal responsibility. But then she's piling up on and he uses a term

00:24:26.700 that I really can't stand, which is, you know, he'll use language along the lines of Albertans

00:24:31.980 deserve better or not just deserve better albertans deserve the best health care albertans deserve the

00:24:38.300 best schools albertans deserve the best roads albertans you know and and then she's not the 1.00

00:24:42.940 only one who does that pay attention you'll hear a lot of politicians say that we deserve the best

00:24:48.860 again there's no such thing we'd all like the best but do we deserve the best can we afford

00:24:55.020 the best i just don't like that language i don't like and and i'm critical of if of nenshi using

00:25:00.300 it but if danielle smith used the same language if danielle smith says we deserve the best schools

00:25:05.580 i'd be like no no no no put that to a vote and specifically ask the people who are paying for

00:25:11.100 the schools if they think we deserve the best schools right i mean i'm i'm by her language

00:25:17.740 but by using that language i should be driving a mercedes-benz car and i should have a million

00:25:23.660 dollar house because i deserve the best but what i deserve versus what i can work for and afford

00:25:29.100 is a big difference which is why i drive uh a ford uh f350 instead of uh of something nicer

00:25:36.380 you know what i mean um okay well uh you guys are testing me today here you're going to make

00:25:41.940 me keep talking uh and weirdly and sometimes it just doesn't go that way right so i showed up in

00:25:48.160 studio and i kind of told john like hope i didn't have a lot of topics to talk about so i told john

00:25:53.460 i hope well let's make it all about collins and now you guys are testing me i'm gonna go start

00:25:58.080 going down through my uh my list of uh of topics let's stay on schools for a second

00:26:05.600 um here in calgary uh the new mayor uh jeremy farkas has been making a big stink about something

00:26:14.160 else that came out of the budget right so i said earlier that smith has has admitted that we need

00:26:19.280 to increase the funding to schools to catch up with all this influx of new people immigrants

00:26:26.480 and 80 000 new kids so we have to catch up and that catch up means like a son that everybody

00:26:32.640 who's here who's been here for the last 20 years now has to pony up to build quickly some new

00:26:38.560 schools for the people who are arriving i think that's wrong in and of itself but i also think

00:26:43.440 the way they're going about it is wrong right so danielle smith increased the amount of money 1.00

00:26:49.200 she wants to spend on education but the education taxes are collected by the municipalities and so

00:26:55.840 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.

00:27:24.340 and that's for your road repairs and your snow removal and your garbage disposal and stuff like

00:27:30.000 that. Then you'll have a chunk in there that's like a thousand bucks and that's your education

00:27:35.660 levy. So the government decides how much money it needs to spend on schools, but then it makes the

00:27:41.340 municipality collect that chunk. I think that's wrong. I think municipalities should only be

00:27:46.340 collecting stuff that they are responsible for. And then the other two, three things you'll usually

00:27:52.220 find on your tax bill might be something like a little bit of money for libraries, some money for

00:27:58.060 some foundation, old age homes, things like that. So if you look at this year's tax bill,

00:28:04.260 you probably haven't received your tax bill yet. You've only received your tax assessment,

00:28:08.600 your property assessment at this point, but take a look at your tax bill for this year.

00:28:12.920 Hopefully you got last year's and the years before and go look at it. And I guarantee you,

00:28:16.340 you're going to see the education portion of them going up disproportionately. Last year,

00:28:21.240 me personally when I got my tax bill for the municipality I got mad and I called my county

00:28:26.720 I'm like what's going on right why this you know nine percent jump because it didn't match what

00:28:31.420 what the county told us the county told us that they were whatever increasing taxes by about three

00:28:36.260 and a half percent but I got a nine percent jump and when I looked at it the big bulk of that jump

00:28:41.620 was the um the education component so Farkas is uh is on to something there and uh we'll see what

00:28:48.980 happens i i i don't think anything will happen a bit i mean the budget is the budget and the

00:28:53.820 municipalities will be stuck uh they're the ones stuck being the bad guys and collecting um

00:28:58.860 collecting the money um any calls john come on folks give me a give me a buzz i know it's lunch

00:29:05.960 time everybody's uh uh welcome to alberta right where everybody takes their lunch break and then

00:29:12.700 immediately goes back to to uh to work don't i know how it works folks i know you guys are sitting

00:29:19.100 at your desk and you can take a few minutes to to make a phone call or some of you guys are probably

00:29:23.260 driving um well i guess we're gonna we're gonna stay on the topic of uh of fiscal responsibility

00:29:31.500 helen brought up something that there wasn't oversight i want to talk about something that

00:29:35.740 again something that's bugging me um in ottawa well a lot of things this is going to turn out

00:29:42.940 to be the marty monologue today in ottawa ottawa's ottawa actually danielle just did her budget 0.99

00:29:49.980 and ottawa is about to do their budget weirdly right people keep saying well how how could

00:29:55.500 ottawa be just getting ready to do their budget when we just had the budget the budget cycle

00:30:02.860 in ottawa runs from april 1st to march 31st okay so it's not a it's not the same fiscal year as you

00:30:10.940 and i most of us have a january 1st to december 31st fiscal year ottawa and most governments

00:30:16.540 because of their recesses and summers and when they sit whatever have a have a basically a

00:30:23.020 an april 1st to april 1st budget so so when ottawa passed the budget recently in november

00:30:29.500 it was actually seven months late okay so it should have passed way back in uh march april may

00:30:37.020 but they waited until november in fact remember ottawa said they weren't even going to do a

00:30:41.180 budget and we forced carney to do a budget but um um so ottawa was re used the excuse that they

00:30:53.740 weren't going to do a budget because they had just had the election and the carney just came into

00:30:57.580 power and he didn't know what was going on again i call bull because they'd been and it's not like

00:31:04.940 if if we'd had a change of government if the conservatives if the liberals had been in power

00:31:09.100 and suddenly the conservatives came into power okay maybe they need a little more time to see

00:31:13.020 what's going on and do a budget but the but we basically had no change in power it was the same

00:31:17.980 guys so carney tried to pull a fast one by not doing a budget he was forced into it he finally

00:31:23.420 submitted a budget in september that was voted on in november and uh and now and by the way it was

00:31:31.180 approved by the narrowest of margin but there's actually after it's done the budget is not

00:31:36.700 authority to spend the budget is simply a budget the authority to spend comes from bills there has

00:31:41.980 been absolutely no uh appropriation bill since the budget was approved i'll i'll come back to the

00:31:49.740 budget i got a call on the line all right who's on the line name and where are you calling from please

00:31:56.300 hi marty uh this is ed uh from uh how's it going ed met you a couple of times good good good uh

00:32:04.460 a question for you uh when alberta becomes independent do we basically go from three

00:32:11.820 levels of government to two and uh i'll hold there for a second yeah yeah no that's that's

00:32:18.940 exactly what happens we go from three to two but the one you know we we go in we we have municipal

00:32:26.220 provincial and federal so now we'll have municipal provincial but our provincial government will have

00:32:31.340 to do a little bit more our provincial government will have to do things that used to be done by

00:32:35.500 ottawa like uh border security and the military okay i'll just make the comments and then uh

00:32:44.460 get your thoughts on it. So we now have 120 elected officials. We've got 37 MPs, 87 MLAs,

00:32:55.520 and six senators. So that's 120. Could we operate with 10 senators, two from the north,

00:33:07.200 two from Tedmonton, two from central, two from Calgary, two from southern Alberta,

00:33:12.840 And then 25 elected officials, one for every $200,000.

00:33:20.300 Look at the savings we get off of that.

00:33:22.460 Your thoughts?

00:33:23.320 Yeah, no.

00:33:24.820 We will – well, a couple of things.

00:33:28.100 If Alberta stayed as a constitutional-type monarchy with the Westminster system, then –

00:33:36.720 I'll hang up here, Marty.

00:33:38.840 Okay.

00:33:39.180 All right.

00:33:39.500 Thanks, Ed.

00:33:39.940 All right.

00:33:42.180 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

00:33:51.300 in the coming days after the separation alberta would no longer need a senate because we'd have 0.89

00:33:55.860 our own little senate right so instead of uh the 10 senators he's right we might need a a handful

00:34:01.380 here we'll have to have some something to replace the senate um the mps the the uh 34 the 37 albertans

00:34:10.660 that are federal MPs right now, they all lose their job because we don't need that anymore.

00:34:14.140 We don't need any representation in Ottawa. Anybody who's in the Canadian military that

00:34:19.940 wants to stay in Alberta, welcome aboard. And then we'd have to build a Canadian and Alberta 0.78

00:34:25.180 military and Alberta police force, a few things like that. But so we lose a few jobs. We definitely

00:34:31.900 save money because right now we're sending, you know, $70 billion of Alberta taxpayer money goes

00:34:39.900 ottawa and in return we get like 40 billion dollars in services 30 billion just disappears

00:34:46.460 through equalization payments and and money misallocated and spent elsewhere and given and

00:34:52.060 wasted so we would we would net out in principle we'd net out 30 billion dollars we come out at

00:34:59.180 top 30 billion dollars richer but then we have to use some of that for the military and things like

00:35:03.260 that i mean a military you know two percent spending on gdp annually alberta's gdp is like

00:35:09.340 you know three hundred uh billion dollars so what's two percent spending on gdp on that like

00:35:15.020 it's you know six billion dollars a year i mean it's not a huge amount of money that's kind of

00:35:20.780 the status quo but i think the bigger question is uh what does alberta look like down the road i 1.00

00:35:27.740 don't think we want and this is where corey morgan and some of the others are like the real experts

00:35:32.540 the the the the the jeff raths and and others what the i i think in alberta has to transform itself

00:35:42.140 and not simply be a mini version of canada with a westminster system i personally hope that we

00:35:48.300 will end up being a republic with a we the people type constitution uh maybe smaller representation

00:35:55.500 i like i hope we have a big overhaul and and change some things very drastically and and

00:36:02.700 and shrink the size of our government so that's um you know that's that i'm all in that way i i

00:36:09.100 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

00:36:15.260 if you're an mp uh you know if you're uh whatever some of the mps that are that are sitting in

00:36:21.020 ottawa right now the day after the election you're you're out of a job so are some of the

00:36:26.060 two senators that we have out there and and some of the judges and things like that but um it is

00:36:30.860 what it is so so so back to uh where was i i was talking about uh so ottawa all right so i was

00:36:36.220 talking about ottawa's budget so uh the budget was passed by the narrowest of margins and and then

00:36:42.380 ottawa has been spending on it incorrectly because they should have passed some appropriation bills

00:36:48.060 and there hasn't been any appropriation bills parliament's not even sitting right now and by

00:36:53.180 the time parliament resumes in a couple of weeks the the number one of their number one priorities

00:36:58.380 will be to start preparing to table the budget for 2026 2027 so you know crazy time we live in

00:37:06.940 but the craziest thing that's going on right now uh on and people aren't aware of this is there's

00:37:13.260 there are these important non-partisan positions in ottawa and one of them is a position called the

00:37:18.460 parliamentary budget officer and so the parliamentary budget officers helps put together

00:37:24.700 the budget helps analyze the budget along with you know the auditor general has an important role but

00:37:29.900 the parliamentary budget officer has an important role in preparing the budget analyzing the budget

00:37:35.260 and analyzing proposals that come from mp so let's say an mp wants to study uh you know wants to

00:37:42.700 table some uh once once a budget wants a universal basic income some some some mp thinks that we

00:37:48.700 should you know the government should go down that path well the cost of that can they can ask the

00:37:54.540 parliamentary budget officer to investigate what that would cost you know if somebody says we

00:37:59.100 should cancel uh diesel cars and force everybody to go to electric vehicles that has an impact so

00:38:05.020 then the parliamentary budget officer could study that well right now we don't have a parliamentary

00:38:09.500 budget officer. I mean, we had one, a really good one named Eve Giroux. He had been appointed. So

00:38:17.740 Eve Giroux was appointed for a five-year term as a parliamentary budget officer. His term came to

00:38:23.600 an end last year, and they knew when his term was going to end. It's a fixed date, and the Liberals

00:38:29.440 dragged their feet. They had nobody to replace Giroux when his term ended, and they appointed

00:38:35.000 instead an interim person while they continued their search to find a suitable replacement and

00:38:40.520 that interim parliamentary budget officer a guy named jason jock he his term ended on march 2nd

00:38:48.600 a couple of days ago so for the first time in forever in as long as i can remember we don't

00:38:53.160 even have a parliamentary budget officer so we we have a government that wasted uh half a year

00:38:59.080 before they finally gave us a budget the budget is approved no appropriation bills have been

00:39:04.600 passed to allow spending of budget money we don't know how much they're spending we don't know what

00:39:09.720 the deficits are like we don't know anything and now we don't have a parliamentary budget officer

00:39:13.880 and we're entering the budgetary period in ottawa like am i the only one who thinks that's crazy

00:39:19.400 go ahead who's on the line where are you calling from what's your name please

00:39:29.080 sorry you you are totally rubber banding i i you uh hang up and call again i really can't hear a

00:39:40.280 word you're saying okay okay we'll we'll let that caller uh try and and get back to us there um but

00:39:50.600 yeah you know no parliamentary budget officer like this this is this should be this is egregious and

00:40:00.280 canadians should be upset about this now i understand that canadians aren't upset about

00:40:05.480 it because most canadians don't even know what's going on so on our behalf the conservative party

00:40:10.440 or the opposition should be upset about this and i'm not hearing any noise from them so you know

00:40:16.120 know we don't have our systems are falling apart like I keep saying we're

00:40:21.100 not a serious country when these basic structural elements of our democracy are

00:40:26.380 not functioning is that the same caller John we'll try again go ahead please

00:40:31.120 hey Marty it's back again there you go perfect Marty I think that what you were

00:40:40.060 just talking about in regards to Jason Jocks I think he's a fantastic

00:40:43.780 parliamentary by the officer and the new republic of alberta should hire that guy but that's my

00:40:49.840 opinion because i thought he did his job well he pulled the fire alarm on the federal government

00:40:54.500 saying this is crazy this is a danger and i think it makes a great argument for alberta independence

00:41:00.840 when you have a federal government that is so irresponsible with everybody's money i mean i'm

00:41:06.320 a couple years away from retirement but i don't expect ctp to be there i mean it's just crazy how

00:41:12.760 they're leveraging the future of all Canadians but never mind Albertans who have put in the most

00:41:19.420 and zero accountability and that's what I think most people what brought me to the Alberta

00:41:25.380 independent movement was the fact that we're going to be looking at having complete accountability

00:41:31.060 over every dollar that's collected instead of these runaway budgets and reckless spending

00:41:37.360 that puts everybody's future at risk yeah no stay on the line let me uh let's talk about this a bit

00:41:45.640 further you're right and actually uh jason jock is good but um yves jeroux was even better

00:41:53.680 yves jeroux as a parliamentary budget officer do you remember like he was the guy he would be

00:41:58.760 brought to committee and like you said he was trying to he was doing his job almost and pushing

00:42:04.060 back and identifying issues. One of the issues that Jacques, maybe it was Jacques or maybe it was

00:42:09.820 Giroux, but either or, they were both very good. Remember, one of them identified the fact, and you

00:42:14.900 brought up pension, right? One of them identified the fact that Carney included the Canada Pension

00:42:20.960 Fund in the balance sheet of Canada. And I think it was Giroux. Giroux said, you cannot do that

00:42:28.540 because the Canada, the excess money that Canadians have contributed to their pension plans

00:42:34.280 has been invested in something called the Canada Pension Fund. And it's there for future generations

00:42:39.260 if we ever, if the, when the pyramid scheme starts to fall apart, because by the way, the Canada

00:42:45.100 Pension is a pyramid scheme, right? Seven workers today pay for the one retiree. And then in the

00:42:51.000 future, it'll be five workers for every one retiree and then three to one. And eventually

00:42:54.740 we will run out of workers, and that's why that fund's important.

00:42:59.080 But yeah, they got in trouble for pointing out things like that.

00:43:05.860 Yeah, and that's, for me, to have any spending without a parliamentary budget officer is

00:43:12.560 completely irresponsible, and a great advertisement for why Alberta needs its independence.

00:43:18.180 I mean, when we're going down the road where the prime minister invests in his own former

00:43:23.300 company with Canadian pension money which is illegal under the law yeah but

00:43:28.820 oh they've done it in such a way where it kind of buzzes the numbers but he's

00:43:33.020 enriching himself in front of everybody that's why I agree with Jeff Ross so

00:43:37.160 he's like one of the best proponents for Alberta independence without a doubt

00:43:40.700 totally agree yeah yeah no thanks for that appreciate the call yeah that was

00:43:46.760 yeah excellent haven't had a chance to look into that but I think he was

00:43:51.800 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.

00:44:07.040 So we'll have to come back on that one maybe next week when I've had a chance to digest that one.

00:44:13.820 By the way, that's another report I love to.

00:44:16.260 I mean, this is Marty's routine, right?

00:44:18.740 so i have a little list of of reports that i go look at so i i used to go look at the parliamentary

00:44:24.020 budget officer's website about every couple of weeks i got a checklist wake up in the morning

00:44:28.580 read a couple of news stories you know surf x but then i go dive into parliamentary budget officer

00:44:34.820 always excellent because i could go see what they were thinking of right you so if the parliamentary

00:44:41.940 budget like i'll tell you right now the one of the latest reports that the parliamentary budget

00:44:45.860 officer did was he was he was sounding the alarm on the cost of uh salaries in the in the government

00:44:53.300 sector like he has a whole report not only a report he built a tool there's a tool on the part

00:44:57.940 on the pbo website that shows um the fully burdened cost of uh of federal employees and and

00:45:07.860 by departments you like the the best paid federal employees were the ones who work for uh you know

00:45:13.060 the department of justice of course that's mostly lawyers and judges so you know they're paid like

00:45:17.700 260 000 a year kind of thing on average but then you go down there and you start seeing like

00:45:23.780 departments like the canada revenue agency with with like 70 000 employees and the average salary

00:45:29.780 of a cra agent is like 137 000 a year plus benefit so you know that that was an example of a report

00:45:37.460 but the other report on there you could see they were they're toying with universal basic income

00:45:41.620 they're toying with the idea of taxing cap uh uh capital gains on primary residences how do i know

00:45:48.420 that and how can they can't hide it because the parliamentary budget officer says i ran a report

00:45:53.700 on this proposal from mp so-and-so so you go to the website and you see what they're what silly

00:45:59.780 ideas are coming up so as just giving an example i go i go there every day but then i other reports

00:46:05.540 i love looking at i'm anxiously waiting right now because it's the end of the year and so

00:46:09.860 you know the the private sector is doing its annual reports they all come out in march april

00:46:14.740 right at this time of year but so the public corporations so i'm looking forward to seeing

00:46:19.860 uh the annual report for the canada pension fund i'm looking forward to the annual report for

00:46:24.020 canada post and you know organizations like that canada post going to be a disaster by the way

00:46:29.380 i mean i i'm forecasting the canada post will have lost two billion dollars last year as a crown

00:46:34.580 corporation and and don't get me started on uh on the cpp the cpp has extra funds that get invested

00:46:41.620 into the cpp investment inc which is a crown corporation and last quarter cpp investment inc

00:46:49.380 uh had a 0.9 return on investment 0.9 return on investment if you factor in that inflation

00:46:56.100 sitting at 2.3 they're losing money and they keep showcasing that oh the fund is growing the fund's

00:47:01.940 not growing organically the funds growing by the fact that albertans over contribute to cpp

00:47:07.700 for for working albertans paid nine billion dollars in cpp uh deductions from their payroll

00:47:15.380 and retired albertans get six billion dollars in cpp benefits from ottawa so what's happening with

00:47:21.460 the other three billion huh go look at the cpp investment inc and they'll they'll boldly say hey

00:47:26.900 our investments grew by 3 billion yeah because you had an infusion of cash from alberta

00:47:31.780 but that that that's that's a topic i wish now that's a topic i wish danielle would bring back

00:47:37.860 i think she messed up on the cp on the alberta uh the alberta pension plan they scared everyone

00:47:43.700 right remember when we started talking about having our own alberta pension plan and how

00:47:47.380 we were entitled to money from from the cpp and then they were throwing around a big number like

00:47:52.820 were entitled to 300 billion dollars and everybody said well that makes no sense right they were

00:47:56.900 looking at the fact that the cpp had 700 billion in there and then they're divided by 10. you don't

00:48:03.060 divide by 10 you divide by nine because quebec doesn't even contribute there they have their own

00:48:08.100 pension plan so you got 700 billion you divide by nine but then you realize ontario and alberta

00:48:14.660 are putting most of the money in there the other little provinces aren't doing it so is it

00:48:18.900 reasonable that Alberta's share of the CPP if we withdrew today would be in the 300 billion range,

00:48:24.740 100%. It absolutely is reasonable. But I'll say this, having looked at the numbers myself,

00:48:30.900 we should just start our own Alberta pension plan today, regardless, because we got more workers

00:48:36.660 per retiree than any other province. So the quote unquote pyramid scheme of a pension plan

00:48:43.620 works in alberta despite not having a fund it will work that way for at least 20 or 30 years

00:48:49.780 because of our population demographic and we have time to build up our fund now if we got money back

00:48:55.700 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

00:49:00.180 we don't need to drag our feet on starting our own pension plan in this province uh we we don't need

00:49:05.700 to wait to see what ottawa sends us we could start one tomorrow morning and we'd start benefiting

00:49:10.740 i mean just think of um well i i don't want to talk about independence that wasn't the the it

00:49:16.180 wasn't the purpose of my show today it wasn't independence um all right no calls well let's uh

00:49:22.260 all right okay well i got luckily i put down a couple of things so let's go back this is in line

00:49:28.740 with in line with um in line with the parliamentary budget officer uh john if you don't mind uh do it

00:49:37.540 in a second here but every i told you i i belong to different i go look at data at different places

00:49:43.460 and i belong to different uh newsletters right a lot of federal newsletters so i registered with

00:49:48.900 the um you know with the with the prime minister's office so i get their daily newsletters i also get

00:49:55.620 daily newsletters from the ndp daily newsletters from the liberals like i take trust me folks

00:50:00.580 sometimes i i take one for the team right being a member of the ndp party just so i can get their

00:50:07.540 newsletter that truly is taking one for the team because that newsletter reads like a communist

00:50:12.020 manifesto every week but um but i get other uh i get the briefings and the press releases from the

00:50:19.060 from from the prime minister's office so yesterday out comes this press release on senior appointments

00:50:25.140 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.

00:50:39.640 that's where i was looking to see if if the new parliamentary budget officer was being announced

00:50:44.520 in there so i'm just glancing through there you you can take it down john but uh you know there

00:50:49.720 there was there was like 50 names on there and not one of them is a new parliamentary budget officer

00:50:55.140 but um maybe john will be able to put the link and you guys can go see it just for your own fun

00:51:01.040 just for your own fun go look at that announcement right go look at these titles and and look at

00:51:06.080 let me read you one of them. Right. So, um, well actually there was a couple of interesting ones.

00:51:11.780 Let me, let me bring up this first one. Right. So Paul McKinnon, who was the president of the

00:51:17.580 Canadian food inspection agency. So he got in trouble because he's the guy who oversaw the

00:51:23.720 ostrich fiasco in BC. Right. So Carney brushed him out of the way, but they do this regularly

00:51:28.620 anyway. So, so Paul McKinnon gets in trouble for the ostrich fiasco and his reward is he goes from

00:51:34.760 being president of canada food inspection agency and he becomes deputy minister of fisheries and

00:51:38.940 oceans second in command at fisheries and ocean that's his reward that's how government in this

00:51:44.760 country works now um and so who replaces paul the guy above him is dr harpeet something kochar

00:51:53.300 he goes from being deputy minister of immigration refugees and citizenship which is again a file

00:51:59.020 it was taking a lot of beating and he becomes the the president of the canada food inspection

00:52:04.300 agency that's our government folks so you go from being in charge of immigration to being in charge

00:52:09.100 of food zero qualifications but it doesn't matter that's what you get a couple of other ones that

00:52:14.580 were interesting I'll go down one as I went down the line the one that really caught my eye

00:52:19.220 immediately was Kevin Brasso he's the commissioner of Canada's fight against fentanyl do you remember

00:52:24.760 him nobody remembers him but I'll remind you who he was right remember in the days after when Trump

00:52:30.320 was first getting elected and and carney was campaigning and trump was pissed off that our

00:52:35.680 border wasn't secure because all the fentanyl that was spilling over while trudeau actually

00:52:41.040 sorry it happened under trudeau trudeau appointed this guy kevin brosso as the fentanyl czar okay

00:52:48.320 because the americans had this cool terms right the american had the border czar so we thought

00:52:51.840 well we might as well copy him so we had the the the fentanyl czar officially the commissioner of

00:52:56.880 of Canada's fight against fentanyl that guy never did anything nothing zero like google him search

00:53:02.640 him try and find out any initiative from that department they barely had they don't need I

00:53:06.800 don't even think they built a website and that's usually the first thing they do when they create

00:53:10.280 a new job they create a big website to make it look like they're doing something so that guy does

00:53:14.820 nothing gets appointed fentanyl czar and now uh his reward because we don't need a fentanyl czar

00:53:20.280 no everybody's forgotten about that so now suddenly he becomes the senior associate deputy minister

00:53:25.760 that's hilarious in and of itself right senior associate deputy minister so there's a minister

00:53:34.020 second to the minister is the deputy minister when somebody's deputized that means they're

00:53:38.780 in charge when the main guy's not there so minister deputy minister but now the deputy

00:53:43.540 minister also has an associate so there's an associate deputy minister and then and then

00:53:49.280 there's several associate deputy ministers to the point where one are senior associate deputy

00:53:54.480 minister and one is junior associate minister like like am i the only one who thinks this is

00:53:59.840 like the most bizarre thing right and and that's just what they do in ottawa they just pad and pad

00:54:04.960 and tap pat each other on the back and reward each other for jobs poorly done there's no merit there's

00:54:10.720 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

00:54:17.120 it's the last one i read but the very first one that caught my eye was glenn purvis right glenn

00:54:22.320 becomes the global head uh sorry glenn who was the global head of research at black rock investments

00:54:30.480 becomes the deputy minister of international trade that's basically one of carney's buddies

00:54:35.520 investment buddies so anyways get just just go look at the list try not to get too mad when you 0.90

00:54:40.880 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

00:54:45.920 and looks at these lists every day and report back on it. But needless to say, it is what it is.

00:54:53.680 That was the topic of today. We tried to talk a little bit about fiscal responsibility.

00:54:59.520 At this point, it might as well be an oxymoron. I don't think there is such a thing as fiscal

00:55:04.000 responsibility at any level of government. I mean, if you know of a good government,

00:55:09.600 you know send me a note and uh and and i'll look into it but you know from uh from a canadian

00:55:15.120 citizen as a canadian taxpayer i'm i'm i'm very discouraged by what's going on uh i i mean i

00:55:23.120 definitely look forward to uh carney's budget i mean the last one was a doozy and uh i think he's

00:55:28.800 gonna he's gonna outdo i mean remember when trudeau got elected trudeau said i'm just gonna run like

00:55:34.240 three little deficits of like five ten billion and then we'll go into a balanced budget trudeau

00:55:39.920 never had a balanced budget um and outside of covid trudeau at least stayed under the 80 million

00:55:46.480 dollar deficit like i mean i'm laughing we're like we're literally talking in billions of dollar

00:55:52.000 deficits not millions billions of dollars and then out comes carney supposedly a world banker

00:55:57.760 a guy who's supposed to be super financially savvy and he turns out to be just about the most

00:56:03.040 crooked one uh that that we've had so uh looking forward to seeing uh to seeing that uh budget

00:56:11.920 trying to go through my list here i wanted to talk about uh i didn't want to talk about iran

00:56:17.920 i guess i managed to uh go all along without talking about iran maybe we'll talk about iran

00:56:23.360 next week i mean the one thing i'll say about iran um i i've been asked repeatedly my thoughts on it

00:56:30.000 i'm pretty pretty biased on this i think iran was a really bad dangerous regime and uh i think it

00:56:38.800 was long overdue that the regime themselves be taken out i i i do i think in hindsight when we

00:56:45.440 see how this all unfolds i think the i'm a little disappointed i thought the americans would have

00:56:51.500 had a better plan you know you remove the guy and you sort of have a backup plan right now it kind

00:56:56.820 looks like they're shooting from the hip and uh maybe i'm wrong but you know i mean i'm not privy

00:57:02.420 to all the information but right now as an outsider it looks like they're shooting a little

00:57:05.860 bit from the hip but uh glass half full half empty uh for alberta this is good news i mean

00:57:13.220 the you know um qatar just announced uh it's good news and it's bad news it's good news for alberta

00:57:19.380 because the price of oil is going up bad news at the pump but good news broadly speaking right

00:57:24.740 Danielle just budgeted a deficit on $60 oil. Oil's at $80 today. So I think Danielle's deficit is

00:57:32.100 completely wiped out. Doesn't excuse you, Danielle. If you get a big surplus, do the right thing and

00:57:36.980 pay down some of the debt and don't just go spending big surpluses. That's how we keep

00:57:41.460 getting in trouble. So good news. And the other good news is it exposes again how unprepared

00:57:49.060 um canada was i mean qatar just imposed uh just invoke force majeure clause on all their contracts

00:57:56.020 and they're not shipping lng and if you're expected to get lng from qatar it's not arriving and you

00:58:01.780 don't have a recourse you're you're you're you know you're up the creek without a paddle wouldn't

00:58:07.380 it have been nice if canada could provide some lng to replace all this qatar stuff right i told you 1.00

00:58:12.660 guys the story last week we wanted to build 10 million metric tons and in the same time we wanted

00:58:17.700 to build 110 the the the qataris built 70 seven units 70 million metric tons per year so wouldn't

00:58:24.500 it be nice if we had done that so wake up call right um you know anyways i digress i i didn't

00:58:31.780 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

00:58:37.700 but i'm not uh not a huge expert when it comes to war all right folks i'll give it a second maybe

00:58:43.140 is there somebody like diane last week who's trying to build up the courage to call marty

00:58:47.620 uh diane if you're there call again like i said folks don't be shy next week call please uh we

00:58:54.900 that's how this show is going to be successful i want to talk i mean i'm okay talking but it's way

00:58:59.540 more fun when i get your questions and your topics and like i said if you see if you if you if you

00:59:05.620 If you want to talk to me, it's got a comment from somebody, a super chat.

00:59:13.760 Give charter schools incentives by reopening inner city public schools.

00:59:17.560 I could make that a whole topic, okay?

00:59:19.560 I might make – I'll try and remember that, Prairie Cossack.

00:59:22.260 I'll try and remember that for next week.

00:59:23.700 I actually got invited to a wonderful charter school just –

00:59:28.360 maybe I'll bring a charter school person as a guest, right?

00:59:30.720 I can do that, right, John?

00:59:32.060 I can have a guest on the show.

00:59:33.320 Maybe I'll bring a charter school person.

00:59:34.800 we can dive into charter schools and why I think charter schools in this province are important

00:59:39.120 you know I talked about unions fighting resisting change charter schools are a great example of a

00:59:45.280 success story in Alberta they operate in parallel with the main schools they do their own thing

00:59:50.640 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

00:59:54.320 end it after that go ahead please hi Marty I'll be real quick it's Canadian Spider-Man Steve here

01:00:01.060 game and i just wanted to ask what are your thoughts on is it possible to make something

01:00:07.040 in the constitution that makes it illegal for governments to run uh deficit budgets and would

01:00:14.520 that be effective yes um the answer is yes but but but here's the here's the real answer our

01:00:23.200 governments putting anything in our constitution at this point is almost a waste of time you know

01:00:27.820 what i mean i mean look at how many times our constitution has been violated or they'll use

01:00:32.280 the notwithstanding clause right and and and or use a limitation clause and have all sorts of

01:00:37.040 excuses so i that i'd love to i'd love in principle the answer is yes but in practically

01:00:42.660 the answer is no because they ignore it i'll give you a very good example i mean i talked earlier

01:00:47.700 about um you know uh needing bills to to to spend after you get the budget you need to pass bills

01:00:57.040 that needs to be debated in the house of commons the budget is necessary to have the debate then

01:01:01.360 you have to debate then you have the appropriation bills and the only part of our constitution that

01:01:08.000 really protects citizens is section i'm going to say 28 but it might be 52. there is a section of

01:01:14.240 our constitution that says there has to be debate on any money being spent and we're ignoring that

01:01:20.320 section in like last year was a perfect example of of all the mechanisms meant to protect the

01:01:25.920 taxpayers have been ignored so i like the question um danielle's tried it lots of places have tried

01:01:32.240 it but in canada we're making a mockery of our constitution laws laws seem to be uh meaningless

01:01:38.000 at this point appreciate the call um okay uh we're kind of running out of time uh just a quick plug

01:01:44.160 so uh uh definitely call in again next thursday folks the same time one o'clock if you're not

01:01:50.720 already a member of the western standard please join it's ten dollars a month it's uh or a hundred

01:01:56.160 dollars a year it's uh www.westernstandard.news and uh and do me a favor too i mean i like talking

01:02:05.760 here i also like texting so you can find me marty up north on x otherwise uh we'll see you next week

01:02:11.920 folks. Thanks.

Western Standard - March 05, 2026

Let’s talk about Fiscal Responsibility

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