Western Standard - LIVE SHOW Triggered： COVID-zero policies are more dangerous than COVID-19 itself.

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's April 12th, 2022. It's Tuesday and welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey

00:00:38.560 Morgan. Looks like it's bloody winter out there again. What, minus 10 or 11 and snowing

00:00:44.260 in Calgary? Of course, it sounds like they're getting a heck of a lot worse out in Manitoba

00:00:48.000 and Saskatchewan out that way. So, hey, thoughts and prayers with you guys. Hopefully it's

00:00:53.280 the last blast of winter for us to deal with. I've been in Canada my whole life and I've

00:00:57.480 never learned to like winter. I loved skiing and everything when I was young. And I do like the

00:01:01.620 lack of bugs, I guess. But aside from that, winter is just a pain in the ass. So this is our live 0.99

00:01:06.400 show. It's going to be coming to you guys every day at 1130 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, Monday

00:01:10.920 to Friday, except for this Friday. It's a good Friday. We don't do the holidays. So, but we're

00:01:16.300 going to be covering a whole lot of stuff going on. It's that reminder in case I forgot to mention

00:01:19.440 it later though. On Friday, I'm going to be going to the firearms show. There's a big one, an annual

00:01:25.140 one that happens in calgary it's going to be over on the sutina reserve at their arena i'm not sure

00:01:29.700 the exact details on that i'll let people know before then but if you're interested in firearms

00:01:33.640 that's the place to go and james and i'll be out there as well representing the western standard

00:01:38.260 as well a lot of course vendors and and other people so comments i see a bunch coming in

00:01:44.100 already scott ashley jackie all good to see you guys and as i like to remind everybody on the show

00:01:49.420 they're welcome i like that interactivity showing that i've got live people on the other side i'm

00:01:54.340 not just talking to the air like I am at home when Jane just tunes out and I'm ranting at her.

00:02:00.000 It's good to know you're there. Just make sure to keep it civil. You know, you can throw questions

00:02:03.540 towards my guests, towards me, and you know, I can read some of them sometimes and other times

00:02:08.300 discuss things with each other. I like seeing that activity. I mean, we've come up with things. I've

00:02:11.820 had people give guest suggestions on here I never would have thought of or questions I never would

00:02:16.560 have considered, and it really helps make the show work. You know, recorded shows, hey, they're great.

00:02:21.600 They've got their place, but they just don't quite have that flow of these live ones.

00:02:25.140 Of course, we get those hiccups and technical issues now and then with it being live, but

00:02:27.960 I think it's well worth it.

00:02:29.720 And it's good to see you all out there.

00:02:31.260 I see Debbie from Nova Scotia.

00:02:32.520 We're going to talk a little bit of East Coast stuff in a way, and Kathy and Bright Anthony.

00:02:37.920 So we should get on, though, enough of my positivity and fluffy things, and get on to

00:02:43.100 what I'm triggered by today and what I'm ranting about.

00:02:46.400 So, I mean, if nothing else, China can be counted on to offer the world an example of

00:02:50.580 how not to treat citizens. From Mao Zedong's collectivization of farms leading to the

00:02:55.800 mass starvation, and then later on to the massacre of protesters in response to

00:03:01.220 Tiananmen Square protests, to today's incarceration of millions with a COVID-0 policy,

00:03:07.500 China never hesitates to step on individual rights in misguided efforts to ostensibly

00:03:12.760 protect the majority. Remember, it's always for your own good. Well, right now, 25 million 0.86

00:03:17.840 citizens in Shanghai have been locked in their homes for weeks in response to what's actually a

00:03:22.100 relatively low number of COVID-19 cases being reported. Now, while COVID isn't harming the

00:03:27.860 Chinese much in a relative way, the lockdowns, of course, are causing massive unrest. People are

00:03:32.780 running out of food. We're seeing incidents of the slaughter of people's house pets by government

00:03:37.260 officials. There was a dog beaten to death out in the streets. This is what they're down to. China

00:03:41.560 is in a state of panic. And it isn't due to the virus, it's due to the failure of the state.

00:03:48.100 You see, China has embraced the state as a religion. And as with any religion, adherents 0.83

00:03:53.220 see their holy leadership as being infallible. It can't be wrong. The state can do no wrong,

00:03:58.940 and only impure individuals can. With that sort of faith, it becomes inconceivable to people that

00:04:04.840 the state can't control a simple virus. They believe the only reason that COVID-19 is still

00:04:08.940 spreading despite government opposing such a spread is that people aren't sticking to state

00:04:13.240 enforced mandates closely enough. The answer for people who follow this faith, of course, is for

00:04:18.840 the state to crack down even harder, lock up people further. If only the state could exert

00:04:23.200 itself hard enough, this virus would go away forever. We have many adherents to the same

00:04:27.500 cult in Canada. It's just a matter of degree. So despite years of effort and lockdowns of varying

00:04:33.500 intrusiveness, not a single nation on earth has eradicated COVID-19. While vaccines may reduce

00:04:39.120 negative outcomes, they clearly have a negligible impact upon the spread of the virus at best.

00:04:44.360 Vaccine mandates had little effect on the spread of COVID, but they destroyed lives, careers,

00:04:48.680 and relationships around the world. We're now well into our third year of the pandemic.

00:04:53.800 We know what doesn't work yet, but many are still doggedly, they want to keep trying to

00:04:59.160 legislate our way out of this pandemic. We still see mainstream media reporting on every fearful

00:05:04.500 statistic they can find with hushed tones. If deaths go down, they'll report on the infections.

00:05:09.840 If the infections go down, they'll report on wastewater studies. If hospitalizations are down,

00:05:14.280 they'll give five minutes of airtime to some hypochondriac speaking on their ailments due

00:05:18.140 to what they feel might be a case of long COVID. Next, the media, of course, will always turn to

00:05:23.360 some expert or another who's going to insist we need lockdowns. They'll say if we just close

00:05:27.780 schools long enough, shut down businesses hard enough, locked up the unmasked effectively enough, 0.64

00:05:32.900 and pushed vaccination hard enough the pandemic will finally end. This cycle is becoming predictable

00:05:37.780 and tiresome. Aren't the COVID-0 cultists getting tired of being wrong yet? It appears not. What

00:05:43.880 we've learned over the last couple of years is that while COVID-19 is far from harmless,

00:05:47.440 it isn't nearly as dangerous as doomsayers warned us of. Healthy young people rarely have negative

00:05:52.840 outcomes after infection, particularly if they've been vaccinated. We need to end this insane push

00:05:57.680 to lock down and restrict people who are at low risk of harm

00:06:00.620 and work to mitigate the harm to the vulnerable.

00:06:03.020 This advice was offered by countless medical experts

00:06:05.160 in the Great Barrington Declaration long ago, and it was ignored.

00:06:08.360 Signatories of that document were dismissed,

00:06:10.140 and the state insisted they could get this virus under control through legislation.

00:06:14.440 The state and its faithful were and remain dead wrong.

00:06:18.620 Our government can't even manage their own bloody payroll system.

00:06:21.600 How can people believe that they can somehow manage a virus?

00:06:24.340 Yet many believe it.

00:06:25.060 As I said, China is providing us all with the most stark of examples, even in an authoritarian dictatorship, the kind that Justin Trudeau admires, where tens of millions of people can be locked down on a whim, they can't control this virus.

00:06:39.480 Ironically, they might actually be making the virus more dangerous as they slow the inevitable progression of natural immunity through infection.

00:06:46.760 They aren't stopping the virus, but they might be delaying it long enough to allow it to evolve into a potentially more deadly variant.

00:06:53.200 Let's learn from this.

00:06:54.880 We have to learn to live with COVID-19.

00:06:56.740 It's going to have its ups and downs.

00:06:58.340 It's going to kill some people.

00:06:59.740 It's going to leave some people with lingering after effects.

00:07:01.960 This is all unfortunate.

00:07:03.500 But there's little sense demanding the state do something about it

00:07:05.860 when there's nothing effective the state can do.

00:07:08.100 COVID-0 is a myth, an unreasonable goal,

00:07:10.660 and only a person in extreme denial of reality can pursue that goal.

00:07:14.560 Unfortunately, we still have a lot of people living in that world of delusion,

00:07:17.340 and many of them influence our public policy.

00:07:19.960 We called out and villainized those who chose not to be vaccinated.

00:07:22.640 We sat by and watched our prime minister, among others, label people who protested against mandates as being racists and Nazis.

00:07:29.200 We let the state divide us all so they could pursue a vain effort to stop a virus that they have no control over.

00:07:34.420 Now we need to change the tide. 0.86

00:07:36.280 Now we need to call out the COVID-0 cultists. 0.87

00:07:38.560 Make them feel uncomfortable. Speak up. 1.00

00:07:40.880 Drown out their fearful, ridiculous, and dangerous cries for more state intervention into our lives. 0.95

00:07:45.580 A person demanding more government intervention should be dismissed and their stance should be labeled as being extreme. 0.99

00:07:51.460 Because it is.

00:07:52.640 How can we comfortably accept a call for the government to stomp on individual rights as being reasonable?

00:07:57.520 We should never let ourselves accept that sort of call as being rational.

00:08:01.160 Don't let the COVID zero cultists and their fears trump your rights any longer.

00:08:07.460 We've seen what happens if they're allowed to go unchecked, and it's happening right now in China.

00:08:12.260 Okay, so that's what's got me going today, guys.

00:08:15.440 Hopefully they let the poor people of China free and stop beating their pets to this soon.

00:08:19.300 And let's check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor, over way on the other end of the Western Standard headquarters. 1.00

00:08:24.720 How's it going, Dave?

00:08:25.800 It's going well, Corey.

00:08:27.340 Hey, that was an interesting story yesterday about Councillor Carra involved in some sort of road rage incident.

00:08:34.940 Yes.

00:08:35.700 I know that brought a smile to your face.

00:08:37.600 It did. It looks very good on him. He's an angry little man.

00:08:40.860 Yeah, and ironically, he was the councillor that was pushing most for Sean Chu to have to resign.

00:08:46.540 And, you know, Sean Chu wasn't charged with anything.

00:08:50.020 And it'll be interesting to see what happens to Councillor Cara here.

00:08:54.340 He's already dropped from or he's resigned from the police commission.

00:08:58.200 So it'll be interesting.

00:09:00.320 Also interesting, very good news this morning, Corey.

00:09:03.600 Danielle Smith, former leader of the Wild Rose, former talk show host on QR 77,

00:09:10.220 is bringing her brand of radio talk to the Western Standard.

00:09:14.360 She's going to be hosting three shows a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

00:09:19.420 And then on Saturday, she'll have a special longer show.

00:09:22.740 So that's really good news for us.

00:09:25.660 She's going to be, ironically, on Saturday going head-to-head with the Premier on his talk show on QR.

00:09:31.900 So very interested to see who gets what in the world of ratings.

00:09:37.660 Other stuff that's on the site at the moment, Corey, Mike Thomas,

00:09:42.040 who's one of your guests later on today has a story on bidding wars across the country on

00:09:48.360 houses for sale there was one in ottawa last week that went for eight hundred thousand dollars

00:09:53.640 over the asking price if you can believe that or not it's uh it's just crazy out there other stuff

00:09:59.240 we've got the canada research chair says the liberal bill to try and control facebook and

00:10:05.720 And Google with the media is just absurd and one of the worst things he's ever seen.

00:10:12.060 Our Linda Slobodian and Chris Oldcorn are preparing for a massive blizzard coming into Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

00:10:20.060 Poor Linda is going to have to shovel somewhere up to 80 centimeters of snow.

00:10:25.000 So that is just a ton of snow.

00:10:28.260 We've got a story on interpreters who worked with Canada in Kabul pleading for help, pleading for Canada.

00:10:35.720 to do anything to try and get him out of the country. This is into the parliamentary inquiry

00:10:41.480 into why our ambassador Reed Sirs fled the country on a half-empty plane when there was

00:10:47.560 all these people just clamoring to get out. And we've got Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe

00:10:55.480 talking about, he came across earlier this week that he didn't care about climate change. Well,

00:11:02.200 that's not exactly what he meant and uh we've got a story clarifying uh those remarks uh coming up

00:11:08.920 later today cory i know you've got a column uh from carrie de ott former edmonton mp he's talking

00:11:15.880 about the ucp leadership race and uh big political doings in calgary tonight pierre polyev should be

00:11:22.520 hosting a massive massive crowd down at spruce meadows so the western standard will be there

00:11:28.760 with a full team uh to cover that cory so busy day ahead yes i'm gonna be uh among those down

00:11:35.000 there at uh tonight's uh pierre pauliev event and we'll see how that goes he's sure been

00:11:39.640 grabbing a lot of attention across the country with those rallies you know for a leadership

00:11:43.160 race i mean an internal race you don't usually see quite such you know excitement building or

00:11:48.200 we haven't in quite a while anyways yeah i think rex murphy kind of hit the nail on the head because

00:11:53.400 the reason he's got so so much charisma is that he just has no charisma and the canadians are

00:11:58.840 looking for ideas they're not just looking for you know sunshine ways and uh and nicely clothed

00:12:04.840 hair they want they want good ideas so he's sure packing them in wherever he goes great well i'll

00:12:10.360 be looking forward to that and uh more of the stories as they come thanks uh for checking in

00:12:14.280 today dave and i'll talk to you later thanks cory okay guys so yes lots of news on the go lots

00:12:20.920 breaking. I've heard some other stuff. We've got some investigations going on. There'll be more

00:12:24.680 news stories popping up of good interest. And I can't quite leak right now. But if you haven't,

00:12:30.060 this is where I've got a plug. This is why we can do this. This is how we have these reporters

00:12:33.860 across the country. It's because of you guys subscribing. And I really appreciate those guys

00:12:38.400 who have subscribed already and gals, all of you. I don't really worry about gender. If you haven't

00:12:43.320 taken out a subscription yet, though, please do. This is how we can do this. This is how we pay

00:12:47.960 for this studio, how we pay for Nico to put up with me for an hour and a half a day as a producer

00:12:52.240 and how we can keep getting those reporters across the country. We don't take any tax dollars.

00:12:58.400 We qualify for them. We won't take them. It's you guys who tell us how to operate what we're doing

00:13:04.260 and how we're doing. And we've been doing great. I, you know, I'll pat myself on the back because

00:13:07.500 we've had loads of subscribers and that's how we've been able to expand. But of course we still

00:13:11.420 need more because we still need to replace that rotten mainstream media that's out there. So take

00:13:16.100 out a subscription. $10 a month, guys, gets you full access to everything. Use the coupon code

00:13:21.700 Triggered. You'll get 10 bucks off. Hey, everybody needs to save a few bucks these days, especially

00:13:25.720 with the price of gas. And yeah, if it's 90, you take it a whole year, it's 99 bucks, way under 10

00:13:30.720 bucks a month. You get full access for this. I know some people pay more than that to play World

00:13:34.620 of Warcraft, and I assure you, you will get more educational content out of what we offer here

00:13:40.560 rather than what you'll get from online gaming. So again, thanks to all of you who have already

00:13:45.520 subscribed. And if you haven't already, please get out there, take out a subscription, buy one

00:13:49.100 on somebody else's behalf or nag your boss. We have some corporate subscribers. They'll buy 0.93

00:13:53.500 a whole block of subscriptions and give access to their employees. So their employees get

00:13:57.760 unfettered news and opinion access here with the Western Standard.

00:14:02.520 So yeah, that's something coming up. We've got Danielle Smith, who's going to start with us. 0.97

00:14:07.160 She's going to be on for a while. And Derek wrote a long story breaking down how all that works and

00:14:11.320 where he's sitting with it. Derek talked about in his column as well. You know, he was, and I was

00:14:15.580 among them. I did some media back then too. When Danielle did cross the floor, we were furious. We

00:14:20.980 were upset. It took us all kind of years before we even started talking to each other again.

00:14:26.780 And, you know, eventually once Danielle got on radio, she was fantastic. She did really well on

00:14:31.980 QR 77. And the editorial pressures in the cancel crowd and the rest of them, he's eventually pushed

00:14:38.440 her away. And she was effective on talk radio. She was engaging to listen to. And she talked about

00:14:44.900 issues that the mainstream media didn't want to talk about. And that's why eventually they had

00:14:48.800 to part ways. So she's going to be here. She'll be unrestrained. That schedule is going to be in

00:14:54.280 the mornings, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Pretty sure it's going to be at 9am on those

00:14:59.840 three mornings. And it's just going to be a half hour thing. So she'll give three kind of half hour

00:15:03.200 live daily shots. And then on Saturday, it's an extended show. She'll have a guest and she'll go 0.60

00:15:07.820 for an hour and a half. So four days a week. And yeah, you can warm up your morning here. And from

00:15:12.720 Danielle, seeing what she's on about. And of course, you know, take your break, have some

00:15:18.020 coffee, breakfast, and then come back and join my show afterwards. But I think it's going to be a

00:15:22.780 great addition to the standard. You know, some people are still upset with some of the things

00:15:26.740 she's done in the past. Well, she's never hidden from what her political history was. I'm certain

00:15:31.500 she'll probably answer questions about that on her show as she gets it rolling. But it's going

00:15:35.900 to be great. And she's got political aspirations. We understand too, that if an election's called, 0.96

00:15:41.140 things like that, and she's running well, then that'll be the end of her time here at the

00:15:44.940 Standard, because of course, it's just too difficult to try and maintain impartiality

00:15:48.960 whilst in the middle of an election or something like that. But it's going to be a great addition.

00:15:56.680 As Philip's saying, is Danielle no longer going to be talking about the UCP leadership? I don't

00:16:00.460 know exactly what Danielle's going to talk about. That's going to be her show. As Claudette's saying 0.95

00:16:05.040 and others though, they know that she does a good job

00:16:09.220 and did a good job in the past.

00:16:10.720 Somebody's saying, Andrea's saying

00:16:11.940 we should do a call-in show.

00:16:13.480 And we're working towards that with some of our tech.

00:16:15.200 There's actually a podcasting streaming software

00:16:17.580 that allows that sort of thing

00:16:19.080 to make it almost like a live call-in radio show.

00:16:21.800 And we might evolve to that.

00:16:22.740 We've really, for those who've been watching this for a while,

00:16:25.220 know that we've been growing and evolving

00:16:26.900 and we've got new gear and stuff going on in here all the time.

00:16:30.680 And that's one of the other areas we're going to evolve to.

00:16:33.320 I'm not sure exactly when for now.

00:16:34.920 it's just text comments, but we still have that interactivity happening and it's a great addition

00:16:40.320 and that's why I like getting those out from other folks. Tammy saying about Danielle, she's done

00:16:45.580 what few have, is taking responsibility. And I think there's some truth to that. Again, Danielle's

00:16:50.600 never denied that she made a mistake. I think she's these days been the first person. She spent

00:16:55.620 more time dwelling on what that decision was back then than anybody else has. Again, whether that'll

00:17:02.720 work out well with her political aspirations in the future or whatnot. I don't know. That's up

00:17:07.880 to you guys as voters and party members and in the future as things break down. But again,

00:17:14.720 I'm really looking forward to seeing her here at The Standard. So before we get to our next guest,

00:17:20.540 I'll look into some of those other things. I had to laugh when we saw that come across the news

00:17:26.560 yesterday, though, on break and with Giancarlo Carras. For people, we got a lot of non-Calgary

00:17:31.360 listeners, but he's one of those pure, woke, hipster, self-righteous chodes. And he's just 0.85

00:17:38.480 maddening. And it just looks really good on him to see him under investigation for apparently

00:17:44.220 a road rage incident. We'll get more of the details of whatever that incident was, I guess,

00:17:48.580 down the road. But it sounds like there was some property damage potentially involved.

00:17:52.660 And they brought in. So he stepped down from the police commission. And I'm sure

00:17:55.600 that the police commission is breathing a sigh of relief, or at least police officers,

00:17:59.080 because that commission's been terrible.

00:18:01.020 And Edmonton police are investigating on this issue now,

00:18:06.000 which makes sense because, again,

00:18:07.240 when you had a former member of a police commission,

00:18:09.300 still, even if he stepped down,

00:18:11.200 he holds some degree of sway and authority within there.

00:18:15.680 So you don't want to see that conflict of interest

00:18:19.660 going on with a gentleman

00:18:21.500 who has some degree of influence on the police

00:18:24.920 while being investigated.

00:18:26.400 So the Edmonton police are looking into that,

00:18:27.820 and hopefully we see some more news uh leaking and coming out on that soon so uh okay and shortly

00:18:34.420 we're going to get on to our next guest and that's lindsey wilson of alberta proud and uh we're going

00:18:41.140 to talk about something that was really counterintuitive and unexpected and almost strange

00:18:45.240 and that was uh stephen gilbo actually approving an oil pipeline project so uh lindsey's sit up in

00:18:54.880 the studio here. Hey, Lindsay, good to see you back. Hey, good. Yeah. Thanks for having me back.

00:18:58.480 Yeah. Welcome to the newer, larger studio. You know, we're not mashed into that little one that

00:19:02.740 we were before. It was always quite adequate. Yes. So I appreciate you coming in. You put in a

00:19:09.120 column. We got that up this morning. You've been with Alberta Proud for quite some time. You guys

00:19:13.900 advocate a lot on energy issues, Western issues, things like that. And the big project, I guess,

00:19:20.540 you know, Bay de Nord. Maybe if you want to explain what that is and what happened with

00:19:23.380 Well, much to our surprise, it seemed that our uneven Stephen, as we like to call our environment minister, became just slightly less uneven this last week.

00:19:32.380 So we think that this is a big win.

00:19:34.380 This is something to really celebrate here in Alberta, because maybe it's showing that the tides are changing and that and perhaps it took it.

00:19:43.380 Perhaps it took the Ukraine war for the world to see and for Ottawa to start to see that, you know, Alberta, Canada needs to become a global supplier.

00:19:52.380 global supplier of energy and we need pipelines to do it so it's pretty exciting that this this

00:19:58.060 is our first deep water drilling offshore project that has been approved and it's i think the fifth

00:20:04.460 project out in fifth oil project out in newfoundland and labrador so this is very exciting for the east

00:20:11.820 coast typically it's been a have not region of course and this is going to provide thousands

00:20:15.980 of jobs and they're estimating around 3.5 billion dollars um into uh the coffers for sure and

00:20:24.380 looks good so and they're saying i think about you know could push as much as 200 000

00:20:28.940 barrels a day of oil and um beginning production about 2028 so uh it's surprising to us because

00:20:37.180 um uneven steven you know with his own past and with greenpeace and equiter and you know he is

00:20:43.020 an eco radical and he's come out on on record saying that uh he wants to phase out oil and gas

00:20:49.080 in as early as 18 months something he later retracted but still that was that was said and

00:20:53.500 the tone started started there and and for him to come out and support this project it really shows

00:20:59.220 you that perhaps common sense is finally trumping ideology and even though the NDP are pushing back

00:21:04.340 on it and the there's a lot of eco radical groups out there pushing back on it um we are gonna tip

00:21:09.420 our hat to him for now for, for giving the green light on this.

00:21:14.360 And I mean, it was a reality check. I think it would happen. As we said,

00:21:17.000 the conflict in Ukraine and Russia, energy prices are through the roof.

00:21:21.020 People are quite finally, you know, getting upset, realizing, Holy cow,

00:21:24.420 we've been importing oil from those guys over there and we have domestic

00:21:28.780 resources.

00:21:29.260 They just would have looked terrible if they'd rejected the Bay du Nord in

00:21:33.160 the midst of all of this. I suspect, I mean,

00:21:35.200 cause they delayed it a few times too though, right?

00:21:36.840 Like this should have been approved a while ago, but it's a good sign.

00:21:39.720 I mean, they face the reality.

00:21:41.120 We just can't stop these projects yet.

00:21:44.120 Do you think that reality is going to spread to Western ones?

00:21:46.020 Because as Claudette pointed out, the Suncor expansion got rejected and they still don't

00:21:50.460 seem terribly more receptive of Western Canadian projects than they do the Eastern one at this

00:21:55.900 time.

00:21:56.620 Yeah, it's hard to say.

00:21:57.820 I mean, it's anybody's guess right now.

00:21:59.500 And when there's a war happening, I think, you know, it really depends on how long this

00:22:03.100 gets dragged out.

00:22:03.980 But we're hopeful.

00:22:05.160 You know, we produce the cleanest energy in the world, and we can transport it by pipelines.

00:22:14.060 That's the safest way to supply the world with it.

00:22:16.440 So it's conflict-free oil.

00:22:18.720 It's ethically produced.

00:22:20.560 It's just a complete no-brainer.

00:22:22.340 And everything shows that global demand for energy is going to increase and not decrease.

00:22:27.740 So why can't we lead that way?

00:22:30.660 It just doesn't make sense any other way.

00:22:32.240 Yeah, it's been counterintuitive.

00:22:33.380 I mean, Germany kind of learned that reality check. You know, they were held up for years.

00:22:36.820 Look at these guys. They're net zero. And oh, they've gone so green and they've got,

00:22:41.380 you know, the wind generation and the solar. But then when push came to shove, we found out, no,

00:22:45.700 they've also become incredibly dependent upon foreign sources of energy. And it left them in

00:22:50.260 a terrible situation today. And they're reevaluating their entire energy future. Hopefully Canada gets

00:22:57.140 some more of that reality coming into place. That's the word I keep using over and over,

00:23:01.860 you know, it's reality. It is, it's common sense, you know, and the European Union has determined

00:23:06.160 that natural gas is green energy and we need to be doing that here too. So another country that

00:23:12.300 doesn't seem to be facing reality though is the United States. President Biden has been constantly

00:23:17.280 pointing out that, oh, we need to get off of Russian oil, thus we need to get more Saudi oil,

00:23:21.100 we need to get more Venezuelan oil, we need to get more Nigerian oil, but the words Canadian oil just

00:23:25.820 don't seem to come from its mouth. I mean, maybe the Geritol overwhelmed his tongue before he

00:23:29.980 could say it, or they just won't consider Canadian oil. Like, shouldn't we see Gilbole

00:23:34.460 and Trudeau lobbying him saying, look, we've got clean ethical oil here.

00:23:39.460 Bring that bloody pipeline back and let's, you know, allow us to help you guys out.

00:23:44.100 Well, let's, you know, they're midterm now in the state. So, so hopefully I can't even imagine if

00:23:49.720 we had, you know, an anti-resource leadership right now in the province and how much further

00:23:55.540 that would bring us back but um hopefully i know um there was some some representation from the

00:24:00.980 states that was up the other day and um speaking with the province about that so so let's hope

00:24:06.540 let's hope that the current provincial government can keep advocating strong and and that just the

00:24:11.580 global pressures just you know cause trudeau and uneven steven to keep being a little less uneven

00:24:18.140 and and and start getting on board you know well and to speak for myself i suspect steven's going

00:24:22.460 be uneven forever. That's his nature. That's what he's about. But he still has bosses and he still

00:24:28.480 has, you know, a government. I mean, this is a government that seems to be reactive rather than

00:24:32.760 proactive. I mean, I'll tie it into something unrelated, but in the sense with the Emergencies

00:24:36.660 Act, it wasn't really till all the banks came in and said, guys, guys, you're killing us.

00:24:40.820 We're having a bank run. You got to back off. Two days later, they got rid of the act

00:24:43.860 because reality had to set in. And so even these guys can figure it out.

00:24:48.340 but uh i just don't have faith they're thinking long yet i mean they should at least be talking

00:24:53.880 about that they should be saying well let's expedite the trans mountain expansion that's

00:24:57.900 been creeping along ever so slowly or reconsider energy east or lobby to get uh uh something like

00:25:06.300 the keystone if not the keystone itself you know expanding its stuff and they've been dead silent

00:25:10.460 yeah and i think i think really at this point we just need to hit them hard with pushing um you

00:25:15.320 all the good stories and all the boon it will do for our economy and for Canada as a whole and

00:25:22.600 you know this is where alternative media comes in because we know that the legacy media isn't

00:25:26.600 telling the stories about the energy sector the positive stories the focus on the negative stories

00:25:31.800 which are actually fewer and further between than people realize and and we just need to hit them

00:25:35.880 hard with information we do that through Alberta proud you know we have a Facebook following of

00:25:39.320 over 200 000 people we're on all the other social media channels and we have a network that we share

00:25:44.120 amongst and um share a lot of you know graphics stories alternative media videos that sort of

00:25:49.880 thing and gets really good reach and you know awareness is everything and and getting people

00:25:54.200 out come election time to vote for pro resource candidates it's it's everything it's imperative

00:25:58.840 we can't back down yeah and just that reminder with alberta proud that's that's your biggest

00:26:03.400 presence it's facebook where you are there right like you've got a load you've got a website as

00:26:07.080 well but uh most interactivity and lobbying i guess uh promotion of western energy sources

00:26:13.080 comes from there on the facebook site yeah so yeah again we do have a following of over 200 000

00:26:18.040 people on uh on facebook and that is our biggest reach but we're also on twitter instagram telegram

00:26:24.520 um and yeah all of it linkedin linkedin even i know you just you try and list them all but we're

00:26:29.800 on all of them and everybody has their own way they they like to reach out but uh facebook is

00:26:33.640 definitely where we you know we we share things on our network and we we reach millions of people

00:26:39.080 so it is really powerful and i'm always encouraging people to communicate with me send a facebook

00:26:43.720 message or send send an email to me lindsay.wilson at strongandproud.ca and send me in graphic story

00:26:51.880 ideas different things like that and i'm happy to get that out there you know it's all about

00:26:55.640 telling alberta story it's about talking about our our energy sector and about our resource sector

00:27:01.320 and about how great we are as a province and we just think we're the best i know we're the best

00:27:05.560 Well, we know that. We just got to convince our federal leaders that we do for now.

00:27:10.540 Keep banging on their door.

00:27:11.480 As you said with graphical stories, it's more of a blight term to use for memes.

00:27:15.820 I mean, they shouldn't be under, I mean, there's a lot of funny ones and goofy ones out there,

00:27:20.120 but there's a lot of, it's a good way to communicate short form. You know,

00:27:23.340 you can put serious messages across. This is, to use the cheesy old cliche, but a picture says a

00:27:28.060 thousand words. And there's some, sometimes, you know, a big, a nice big long column, which I

00:27:33.040 I write those long, boring things all the time, which can cover a lot of ground, but

00:27:39.100 I mean, sometimes a snapshot with just a, even a funny caricature can get that same

00:27:43.400 serious message out and in a good transferable way to a lot of people who wouldn't typically

00:27:47.540 read those.

00:27:48.120 So that's a lot of what you guys do as well.

00:27:49.920 Yeah, it's really powerful.

00:27:51.240 You know, we live in this age of instant gratification, instant communication.

00:27:56.180 People scroll, they often don't click.

00:27:58.080 They go on headlines and pull quotes and photos.

00:28:00.600 they like short videos you know videos that are 20 seconds 30 seconds long um so we just try and

00:28:07.300 hit people from all those memes but yeah it's amazing like a meme a meme says a thousand words

00:28:11.840 and um you know if you go and follow us like we do have a lot of fun light-hearted stuff and

00:28:17.060 we've got you know i'm a farm girl and we've got a lot of you know farmer stuff and stuff that we

00:28:22.540 feel really connects with the average albertan and uh but we do you know we do say a lot politically

00:28:27.700 on there too we we are non-partisan we're we're a non-profit organization and we are largely

00:28:35.140 reliant on you know the donations from everyday albertans like you and me but we we do make it

00:28:41.780 very clear that we support pro-resource candidates when it comes down to election time and we can't

00:28:46.800 get behind candidates who you know speak out against our our energy sector particularly so

00:28:51.880 we make that so you'll see a lot of um well you will see a lot of anti not lee and a lot of uh

00:28:57.320 anti-Trudeau stuff on our pages. Well, they're not supportive of us. Not going to be nice to

00:29:01.340 them. If they want to turn around to be nice to the West, maybe they'll get some nice.

00:29:04.580 Absolutely. That's the way it works. Agriculture you brought up. I mean, it's not just energy.

00:29:09.820 That's just been kind of more of your prime focus. And a lot of it ties together. That's

00:29:13.460 another freight train that's kind of approaching right now, though, with the mess going on in

00:29:16.980 Russia and Ukraine. And Ukraine, it sounds like their crop output is going to be dropped by half

00:29:20.960 this year. And they are a large provider in the world markets for grain and oil seeds and a lot

00:29:25.880 of things. The next biggest one almost is Canada, Saskatchewan, Alberta, the rest, as well as potash,

00:29:32.380 things like that. Do you guys promote on some of those fronts and things like that as well?

00:29:37.340 Yeah, we are very focused on pipelines and energy, but absolutely. I grew up on a cattle ranch,

00:29:42.960 and so that's very near and dear to my heart. I support farmers. Anytime we'll share a meme about

00:29:48.680 hug a farmer or anything like that, it goes crazy. It resonates, I think, with the people who follow

00:29:53.220 us and um yeah you know if you're eating today thank you for thank a farmer right we we believe

00:29:58.900 strongly in that so you know generally speaking alberta proud stands for we stand up to you know

00:30:03.780 elitist hypocritical celebrities politicians uh those who oppose our energy sector we and we we

00:30:11.540 stand up for smaller um smaller government not bigger government and more common sense 0.63

00:30:17.140 so you know supporting our farmers and supporting um investment into our agriculture sector into

00:30:23.220 all the agri-tech that's coming down the pipeline, so to speak. It makes sense. It aligns with us,

00:30:29.620 for sure. Yeah, well, and a couple of things that have been pressuring agricultural producers have

00:30:33.220 been, well, rail capacity, because, of course, due to our lack of pipelines, we're packing our

00:30:37.940 railways with oil products right now to get them to market. If we could get that oil out of those

00:30:42.340 trains and into some pipes, we could be moving a lot more seed and product and fertilizer. I mean,

00:30:48.100 things all tie together. And the carbon tax, of course, which is beating on everybody,

00:30:51.700 really pressures uh agricultural producers as well i mean there's credits but it's not efficient and

00:30:56.340 it's it's troublesome so uh it's just you know they meld together and this is being a resource

00:31:02.500 economy in the west that i think our leaders in ottawa don't understand that they have an

00:31:06.500 anti-rural attitude i think quite often dismissive you know i mean you hear them you drive a pickup

00:31:10.820 truck as if it's a sin or something bad absolutely but you know you can't fit hay bales in the back

00:31:16.660 of a car. A little Hyundai accident doesn't get up to that oil lease on a muddy road up north when

00:31:23.540 you're looking to check and service a pump jack or something. We do often stress through Alberta

00:31:29.620 Proud that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to these unreliable alternatives.

00:31:37.220 We're not ready to get rid of oil and gas. We're nowhere close to that and replacing our vehicles

00:31:41.940 with electric vehicles that are made of these tiny little components often made by slave labor 1.00

00:31:46.260 in third world countries and then they come here they're used they're driven uh they they're not

00:31:51.700 ideal in the colder temperatures um it's it's just we haven't perfected these technologies

00:31:57.540 yet and then they decompose in landfills and what do you do with all these tiny parts so

00:32:01.780 and you know same thing for wind turbines and that sort of thing we're just made of all these tiny

00:32:06.180 little components that don't that don't decompose so there's a lot of hypocrisy there and we we

00:32:11.780 We definitely like to call that out on a regular basis.

00:32:14.760 Yeah.

00:32:15.040 Well, there's a lot of one-side narrative.

00:32:16.660 I mean, we've seen that in a lot of issues in general when a government takes a side

00:32:21.240 on something.

00:32:22.100 So cost benefit, they constantly talk about the benefits with whatever they may be, but

00:32:26.140 they refuse to talk about the cost as we go to electric options.

00:32:29.780 I mean, the crazed push for electrical vehicles.

00:32:32.060 I mean, in other words, pressuring manufacturers, they're not talking about pressuring retailers,

00:32:36.800 even forcing them to sell electrical vehicles.

00:32:39.660 But we don't have the infrastructure to charge the bloody things.

00:32:41.620 that's the cost part they're forgetting to mention. Like if we don't have the infrastructure

00:32:45.680 or the means, are you going to let us open more hydro dams then? Are you going to let us build

00:32:49.660 new plants? Because the power's got to come from somewhere, but they don't talk about that.

00:32:53.840 Yeah. And we're just not ready for it. And it doesn't, you know, the government always likes

00:32:57.840 to pit an us versus them. And they like to do that with these technologies. And, you know,

00:33:01.680 like we stress, like these are alternative energy sources and, you know, the technology's not quite

00:33:06.200 there yet. It doesn't trump oil and gas. It's not dirty oil. It's clean energy that we have here.

00:33:12.880 It's the best in the world. We always say that we have best in the world, Canadian energy,

00:33:17.020 Alberta energy. Well, that's it. We're not opposed to alternatives, at least I'm not. You know,

00:33:20.640 if there was a breakthrough and they said, you know, we got this car with a solar panel on top

00:33:24.840 and it's electric and it'll charge itself and it'll only cost you $30,000 and it can drive for

00:33:29.660 1200 kilometers. Hey, I'm in. I'll go for it. I'll buy it. It's not there yet. It's just not

00:33:35.840 even close. It's not very good. I'm going to keep driving my Dodge half-ton for now.

00:33:39.600 Yeah. Likewise for home heating. I mean, you know, people forget it's not little gremlins that bring,

00:33:45.320 make your furnace go and make your water hot or anything like that at night. It's a pipeline,

00:33:49.760 even if a small one is bringing you gas and it keeps it relatively affordable. I mean,

00:33:53.460 look at the electricity prices these days already as it is. Imagine electric heat on top.

00:33:56.920 I can't even imagine it. And, you know, I, you know, I just want to give a shout out to all our,

00:34:03.120 all our men and women that are working out on the oil sands and working out there on cold days to

00:34:06.840 keep us warm you know when we have those stretches of minus 30 i always think about those folks out

00:34:10.740 there and and and uh yeah i appreciate you thank you yeah no it's it's a tough job i was in the

00:34:16.700 field for 20 years myself and uh i there's things i miss i miss some of the travel and stuff i don't

00:34:21.860 miss the weather extremes not in the slightest no four years in the arctic but but we we still

00:34:27.580 need those resources we need to promote them i mean something else people i i guess get confused

00:34:32.460 as they ask, well, we're producing it all here and such, why are our prices not lower? And it's

00:34:36.980 fair enough, but we're based on world commodity prices. We don't want another national energy

00:34:40.260 program. We don't want to force them to sell at a lower rate domestically. Though if we bring more

00:34:44.720 on stream, then the world prices will drop a bit. But the advantages are we can get some tax breaks

00:34:48.920 if we're bringing in oil and gas revenue, whether it's in Newfoundland or out here in Alberta or

00:34:53.520 Saskatchewan or BC or any of those places. I mean, I guess some of the anti-energy people or anti-oil,

00:34:58.800 you know they say oh look you still get screwed at the pump because the price is high well wait

00:35:02.740 you know you're benefiting in a whole lot of ways with some great health care and and a government

00:35:07.680 that's posting surpluses in alberta now and things such as that and that's very much due to a lot of

00:35:11.720 energy resource development and you know as oil source passed a hundred dollars a barrel like this

00:35:15.960 is an exciting time right like and and you know just to just to tie it back to you know everything

00:35:21.180 with uneven steven approving this beta nord project last week it's it's positive like i feel really

00:35:27.600 good right now. I feel like, I feel like maybe there's going to be, I'm hopeful there's going

00:35:31.400 to be a shift in this paradigm, you know, shift away from this ideology into this common sense

00:35:35.660 and, and, uh, putting our, putting our energy on the world stage. Yeah. We can hope it's a tipping

00:35:40.800 point, you know, that they're realizing that benefit. Well, thank you very much for coming

00:35:45.520 in to talk with us again today then. And again, just a reminder to everybody where they can find

00:35:49.040 information on what you guys are up to and any other initiatives you got coming up soon.

00:35:52.460 Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, just reach out to us and check out our new sweet merchandise. We've

00:35:58.200 got some great hoodies and toques and t-shirts, something for everybody. And it's at shop.albertaproud.org

00:36:03.480 and yeah, find us on Facebook. Great. Well, thanks. Well, that's Lindsay Wilson of Alberta

00:36:09.640 Proud coming into the studio. And again, well, the name kind of says it all and what it's all

00:36:13.680 about. So I'm sure we'll be talking again soon. Thanks for coming in. And yeah, everybody look

00:36:18.380 at that weather out there. Let's thank those oil and gas producers for your not freezing to death

00:36:21.920 today because it's horrible outside. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

00:36:25.380 Thanks, everybody. Okay. So let's go on to digital currency while we're at it. And I will talk about

00:36:31.520 one of our sponsors while Lindsay makes her way out of here. And that's BitcoinWell.com. While I

00:36:36.560 was speaking to the benefits of our, sorry, I've lost my train of thought there for a moment.

00:36:45.780 our subscribers. That's it. Okay. I got a little bit distracted. Of course, subscribers help us

00:36:52.420 pay our bills. Subscribers are the way we do things right now. And as well, it sponsors in

00:36:57.940 that Bitcoin. Well has been a fantastic sponsor for us so far. If you're looking to get into the

00:37:02.340 world of digital currencies, looking to hedge your bets, you know, we don't trust this federal

00:37:07.900 government. I mean, they came after our bank accounts. They will take your money if they

00:37:11.840 are given half a chance. Bitcoin well helps lead you into digital currencies. They can put your

00:37:17.000 funds into a safe place and they can lead you there. If you're not experienced with digital

00:37:20.960 currencies, I wasn't initially. These guys, that's their job is to facilitate you, show you how it

00:37:25.580 works, show you how a cold wallet works, how a hot wallet works. How do you get a ledger? How do you

00:37:29.820 keep your currency safe? They're a Western Canadian company. They're publicly traded because

00:37:33.860 of course, everybody's biggest fear is of being ripped off. I mean, there's a lot of unfortunately

00:37:38.100 scam artists out there and they're trying to take your money. Bitcoin Well is not one of those.

00:37:43.120 They never actually hang on to your money. They are a service that helps you get into the Bitcoin

00:37:50.540 itself. As you can see with Bitcoin Academy, they will teach you how the digital currency works.

00:37:55.660 But you will always maintain control of your money. Check them out. Bitcoinwell.com online.

00:38:00.600 It's an Alberta company. They're well worth looking into and they've been a great sponsor for us.

00:38:05.180 so yes as uh we saw with with lindsey it was interesting to see crazy stephen gilbo i know

00:38:13.040 she's more polite than me she'll say uneven i'll say crazy uh you know you look at those pictures

00:38:17.080 of him if you search him out where he's in his orange jumpsuit where he's being arrested and

00:38:21.340 taken to court and is grinning ear to ear for one of his eco uh extreme acts and this is uh yeah

00:38:26.860 one of the top fellows with uh the trudeau government that that's really of some serious

00:38:31.520 concern. But even he, or at least his boss is in the government as far as that goes, had said,

00:38:37.360 look, you've got to back down. You've got to approve these projects because the world commodity

00:38:42.940 markets just don't allow you not to. But we still can't trust these guys. And we're always going to

00:38:50.360 keep pushing back. And that's what Alberta Proud does. They can help out there. Nico found that 1.00

00:38:56.880 picture. I mean, look at that bizarre grin on his face and everything. It's almost kind of creepy,

00:39:00.800 This is a guy, this is one of the senior cabinet ministers in Ottawa, and they unfortunately have a lot of impact upon our lives.

00:39:12.220 But seeing him back off a little bit can only be positive.

00:39:17.160 Let's look a little bit more on what we've got going on the news.

00:39:22.200 Dave mentioned that earlier.

00:39:23.320 Some sweetheart tax deals have been alleged in internal memos.

00:39:28.040 and it sounds like a senior Canada revenue agency executives are suspected of arranging sweetheart

00:39:34.600 tax treatment for large corporations. Like we've got a government that's really sinking badly

00:39:39.680 into corruption. We do. And it's not necessarily, you know, people always look at the elected

00:39:44.640 officials and yeah, they're tied into it and everything else, but there's a giant bloated

00:39:48.840 civil service. And this is where a lot of the misdoings are going on. This is where the problems

00:39:55.820 are. And it looks like they've been giving preferential treatment, at least in one case,

00:40:03.160 for an unidentified company, at least at this point, and then had employees rubber stamp the

00:40:07.980 deal. This is your money, guys. And there's a staff complaint, I guess, that came in and says,

00:40:13.120 what did they get out of this? Prestige, a feeling of power, influence, future favors,

00:40:16.880 or perhaps 10 million in a Swiss account. Now, that's speculation. Let's not get it wrong.

00:40:21.260 We haven't seen or proven that anybody's getting money in a Swiss account, but we've got some

00:40:24.840 very big things are concerned. You know, we've been getting a lot of these stories from all of

00:40:29.400 these committee hearings and things like that with CRA, with our revenue agency. And these guys

00:40:35.480 manage your money. Speaking of, you know, I was talking before with Bitcoin and how you can manage

00:40:40.480 your own money with it. Well, these guys are the ones that manage the rest of your money. They're

00:40:43.520 Revenue Canada or CRA these days. And it's scary. So, you know, there's somebody questioning it,

00:40:51.140 saying it's wrong no matter what they do, and that they're going to go to the Auditor General

00:40:55.060 and the Minister of Revenue. But how they catch these things, I don't know. So there's allegations

00:41:01.300 of targeted so-called advanced pricing arrangements sought by multinational corporations for tax

00:41:06.300 treatment of income tax, let's see, transfer between subsidiaries in different countries.

00:41:11.540 And again, you see this corrupted government, and it is corrupt, particularly Quebec. I'll point my

00:41:17.460 finger at it. That's where it's been, you know, it's been noted before. I think there was a

00:41:20.940 columnist got into a whole bunch of crap, or was it a politician for calling it a culture of 0.99

00:41:24.740 corruption in Quebec? But it's true. They look at corruption differently than we do. There's a 0.99

00:41:30.280 more accepting attitude of it. If you want to see the most corrupt civil government, there's a story

00:41:34.740 on civil governments being corrupted lately too. Look at Montreal. My God, those guys are tied in

00:41:40.280 with the bloody mafia that way. Brutal. And our dollars are getting filtered away from us. And 0.99

00:41:46.680 you know, that frustrates when they talk about these are always large, multinational corporations

00:41:50.540 with these scams, you know, these, they move their money in and out of our country, unfettered,

00:41:55.060 you don't get those kinds of advantages with your money. And look at the we

00:41:57.640 charity, if you want to call it that, that scam, that again, Teflon Trudeau, somehow his close ties 0.99

00:42:05.120 with those clowns, the Kielberg brothers, or whatever they were, but this was this wretched 0.93

00:42:10.760 charity that just took millions and millions of dollars, you know, all sorts of government support, 0.95

00:42:14.280 You know, Trudeau's mommy got lots of good money to talk to them and things like that.

00:42:19.820 International, of course.

00:42:21.460 No charges, no follow-up.

00:42:22.980 What's happened?

00:42:23.600 I mean, they seem to have kind of gone underground.

00:42:25.260 I guess the gravy train might have rolled to a stop, but I'm sure they've socked away plenty.

00:42:30.400 And that's what I mean.

00:42:31.040 It's that general attitude.

00:42:32.340 And this might not really, you know, the way that might not be related to what this

00:42:35.100 CRA thing is, but we've got, as the term I used earlier, a culture of corruption going on.

00:42:40.840 And your dollars are being stolen.

00:42:42.440 and it's not straight hand into your wallet.

00:42:45.260 No, they pull it in through your tax payments

00:42:47.320 and then it gets filtered around to good friends

00:42:50.140 and buddies, as Jackie's pointing out SNC level.

00:42:53.520 It's not just tax treatment.

00:42:55.000 Yeah, it's just direct subsidies

00:42:56.540 to, again, predominantly Quebec corporations all the time,

00:43:01.220 your money put into their pockets.

00:43:02.760 And it's always the big ones, you know,

00:43:03.880 and the failure rate.

00:43:04.700 I don't think the government should be in the business

00:43:06.160 of subsidizing any business anyway. 0.97

00:43:08.560 They always pick losers. 0.97

00:43:09.560 They're always, it leads to corruption. 0.99

00:43:11.180 It leads to problems.

00:43:11.940 But if they have to, they don't have to, if for some reason you just absolutely have to, and you're going to spend a billion dollars on subsidies, you know, that's as much as the government will sometimes give a single business.

00:43:25.880 Well, often that single business won't give us much return on that billion dollars of tax dollars that they gave to someone else.

00:43:32.100 But what if you took that billion dollars and gave out $100,000, $10,000 tax grants to small startups for small businesses to get rolling?

00:43:41.940 It's the same amount of money. Even if 50% of those businesses with that extra little $10,000

00:43:48.880 to help get them going went broke, 50% of them wouldn't. And those would be the small businesses,

00:43:54.060 the little restaurants, the hair stylists, the landscape companies, the independent auto lot

00:43:59.380 that just needed a little bit or whatever. These are the ones that'll last a while. A guy with a

00:44:03.300 little construction company, an artist trying to get their stuff out. A $10,000 seed loan could

00:44:08.820 make all the difference between starting and going down. But the government doesn't help

00:44:12.900 little businesses. They don't like little businesses. They like their big corporate

00:44:17.100 friends. Little businesses don't take them to those nice cocktail events, you know, where they

00:44:23.740 can rub shoulders with the famous. They won't wine them and dine them. And of course, they won't give

00:44:28.040 them large kickbacks. Large businesses can, and they do. And so again, I mean, I don't think we

00:44:36.360 should be subsidizing any of them. Just cut everybody's taxes. This is a dreamland. I

00:44:40.060 understand that. This is just the libertarian in me talking. But just get out of the business of

00:44:44.700 being in business altogether in my dreamland and drop the taxes and let smart business people

00:44:48.820 move ahead because we've got lots of them, big businesses and small. I mean, we're not all

00:44:53.060 against big business. We need big businesses. We need big corporations. Not everything can be done

00:44:58.140 on a mom and pop level. Not everything can be done with a good economy of scale. I mean,

00:45:02.800 And big business does help us with a lot of affordability and they employ a lot of people.

00:45:07.120 But unfortunately, a lot of those bigger ones also get caught up in that subsidy mess and that

00:45:11.560 corruption and that ugliness, you know, Loblaws. What was it they got? I remember that came up

00:45:15.820 when I owned my restaurant in our pub. And you know, one of the things, if you own a food service

00:45:20.280 industry, one of your most huge expenses is refrigeration. It drove me nuts. I thought

00:45:24.940 if anything, I should have gone to school to learn how to service refrigeration equipment

00:45:29.860 because I had, I think like 18 different pieces of refrigeration from the beer coolers to the

00:45:35.960 freezers, to the walk-in cooler, to front end pop displays, you name it. And it just seemed there

00:45:42.580 was always one or the other was breaking down. They're very expensive to get repaired,

00:45:46.340 very expensive to replace. And it was at that time, Loblaws, Loblaws, billions and billions

00:45:51.960 of money got a giant grant of millions of dollars to get a whole bunch of new freezer equipment

00:45:56.740 under some BS green thing. Really? Here I am, again, rolling nickels to make the bills during

00:46:05.820 wintertime when things are slow in the pub. In winter, you still need refrigeration. And I'm

00:46:10.060 paying these bills, and these big bloated giants are getting my tax dollars tossed to them when 0.99

00:46:15.820 they don't need it. Again, that's just constant when we see the government through that corruption

00:46:20.960 and that inbred world that they live in.

00:46:24.820 Again, it gets back to my push for independence

00:46:28.360 because I think we need a big flush 0.83

00:46:29.960 and we need a big cleanup.

00:46:31.920 And we're going to talk to actually tomorrow,

00:46:33.320 I mean, I'll say at the end of the show too,

00:46:34.620 but a couple of guests, Rob Anderson,

00:46:36.620 he's been working on something

00:46:37.720 of an independence project.

00:46:38.700 And I'll be talking to the leader

00:46:39.480 of the Saskatchewan Buffalo Party.

00:46:41.540 And we'll be moving on to those subject matter

00:46:44.320 and things like that.

00:46:45.240 As more people realize

00:46:47.020 the Canadian system's broken,

00:46:48.480 I think more people are concluding

00:46:49.760 that we do need to shake it up.

00:46:51.840 We need to break it down.

00:46:53.040 We need to rebuild it.

00:46:53.940 And I personally think independence

00:46:55.860 and an independence movement

00:46:57.280 is the best way to get there.

00:46:58.400 We aren't there yet.

00:47:00.020 We aren't there yet.

00:47:01.180 So here's another one from the CRA again.

00:47:03.800 I'm just following my stories here.

00:47:05.180 Junkets and Facebook friends,

00:47:07.100 internal human resources reports,

00:47:08.960 detailed dysfunction in senior management

00:47:11.060 at the CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency,

00:47:13.400 including one executive who hired Facebook friends.

00:47:15.640 Yeah, so it's made friends on Facebook.

00:47:17.360 Hey, I'll give you a job.

00:47:18.600 Sure. One of those nice government jobs with bloated pension and massive amounts of vacation

00:47:24.500 time and overtime deals that are incredibly sweet. Yeah. Apparently that's going on in the CRA with

00:47:30.380 their executives too. Isn't that nice? And he was suspected of billing taxpayers for his junkets

00:47:35.700 abroad. Isn't it nice when you can travel for free? Boy, and bill the government. So this is

00:47:41.540 a briefing for the director general. A certain level of dysfunction exists within the existing

00:47:44.940 working relationships. Further action will likely be required in order to remedy the apparent toxic

00:47:49.720 nature of the workplace, read the confidential memo. Records didn't name any manager who was

00:47:55.340 fired as a result of proven or alleged misconduct. Now, you see, that's going further into what's

00:48:00.300 going on too. When you get a culture of corruption, it spreads. So this is showing that it's causing

00:48:05.180 difficulty among other people in the workplace. I mean, if you are one of the drones who sits in

00:48:10.140 your office cubicle, and perhaps, you know, you're a mid-level bureaucrat and you're doing okay,

00:48:14.940 with CRA, but still you're watching it going on. You're watching your boss. You're watching

00:48:19.420 the executives taking trips on the company card, giving money to their buddies, things such as

00:48:28.000 that, and hiring Facebook friends. You're going to get more discontent. And that's how you're

00:48:33.320 going to get more employees again, acting out, abusing their roles within there. And we're not

00:48:39.100 talking about, speaking of big business, CRA employs tens of thousands of people. We get to

00:48:44.560 pay for them. So this same executive apparently was found to criticize other coworkers over drinks

00:48:51.080 at a two hour birthday party. Yeah. So, you know, this is a director failed to show professionalism

00:48:57.440 respect when discussing sensitive information pertaining to agency managers. So what we got is

00:49:02.080 just a jerk in the, in a senior level executive, but see, it's more of the rot. It's the whole 0.99

00:49:10.040 thing. And yeah, we were looking at five figure business class trips to Jamaica, Japan, whether

00:49:16.860 in-person attendance meetings was required or not. And they aren't. Come on, guys. We've shown this

00:49:20.580 last couple of years that we learned anything. Most meetings can be done remotely. We can do

00:49:24.160 it through Zoom. We can do it through StreamYard here. We can do all sorts of things. But these

00:49:27.700 guys are flying all over the world. What the hell does the CRA need to go over there for anyways?

00:49:32.260 Why does a tax bureaucrat, paper pushing monkey need to fly across the country on our dime to 0.96

00:49:37.700 hang around and rub shoulders with a bunch of other tax-taking monkeys? Well, because they can,

00:49:42.820 because we let them, and you get to pay for it. Isn't that an honor? All right, enough

00:49:48.760 for anything about CRA. We're going to bring another guest in so we can rant about some other

00:49:52.380 things. So as Mike starts to get set up, I will talk about another one of our sponsors, and that's

00:49:56.440 the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. These guys, their name sort of says it all and what

00:50:03.580 they are about. They're an association for people who own firearms and enjoy them. Whatever means

00:50:08.620 you might want to use with your firearms. If you're a collector, whether you're a target shooter,

00:50:16.200 a hunter, any of those things, it's up to you. It doesn't matter. It's your business. It's your

00:50:20.080 property. Well, these guys, their name says it all. They're an association of other firearm

00:50:23.960 owners. Cause you know, like anything, if it's something that's important to you, it's good to

00:50:27.420 be able to network with other people who enjoy those things, share resources, whether it's

00:50:32.120 videos on safe firearm use or links to upcoming shows and events. Like I said,

00:50:38.960 this Friday and Saturday, the Western Standard is going to be at that firearms show

00:50:42.120 on the Sutina Reserve. I'll be there on Friday. These guys advertise those sorts of things. And

00:50:47.900 then of course, most importantly of all is they are lobbying on your behalf. They got multiple

00:50:54.480 court challenges out on your behalf against the Liberal government because they keep recategorizing

00:50:59.160 your firearms, trying to take away your property, and they have taken the government to court. But

00:51:03.680 they need you. They need you as a member because, hey, these things aren't free. And if you don't

00:51:09.320 stand up for your own rights, they will be taken away. We're seeing that every day. So check them

00:51:13.620 out, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Their website is cssa-cila.org. And hey, take out

00:51:21.460 a membership, protect your property and rights, guys, because if you don't do it, nobody else will.

00:51:26.920 and uh well that's where we're sitting with that today so we've got mike thomas in the studio

00:51:34.080 today this is uh the nicer things with having our bigger expanded studio two guests in studio

00:51:39.520 on the same day that's the first time we've done that so groundbreaking history being made today

00:51:43.300 it's amazing i gotta don't write this down put it in the diary yes yes so we'll have large crowds

00:51:49.460 going on in here before you know well we still have a little bit of room to go there so well

00:51:53.100 we could fit a couple more people. We can, we can, and we probably will. We're going to be

00:51:56.900 doing great around here. You've been providing a lot of great columns and we appreciate it.

00:52:03.880 And an issue that's kind of been near and dear to your heart. You write about all sorts of things,

00:52:08.000 which is great, but a lot on real estate and a lot on housing. And that's been the big issue.

00:52:12.780 I mean, it was the big federal government. The other bloated giant budget was that they're going

00:52:17.580 to save us all with our housing. And then now we've seen Mr. Polly have as well as he's coming

00:52:22.620 up with his housing plans and uh shared your thoughts on it where do you think they're all

00:52:27.100 going with it well let's talk about the budget um i just want to say that i want to give kudos to

00:52:35.300 whoever wrote the opening stanza to the housing thing because they they fully realize that

00:52:41.740 uh the federal government can do nothing about uh increasing the supply of housing uh they can

00:52:49.580 throw money at it forever but they can't dictate uh what can be built where that's up to the

00:52:55.860 municipalities individually under guidance from the uh government in alberta's the mga

00:53:02.300 um after that it uh it's a mess they they're talking about putting four billion dollars over

00:53:11.820 five years into the hands of the canada mortgage and housing corporation and then they will use

00:53:17.060 that money to incentivize is their word my word is bribe municipalities uh so they'll get x number

00:53:24.500 of dollars for every new house that's built but you're running into a conflict of personalities

00:53:30.260 i think here um we know what city council's like in calgary i doubt it's any different anywhere

00:53:36.020 else in the country but when one level of government comes in and tries to influence

00:53:40.820 another level of government uh that level that's being trying that they're trying to influence

00:53:47.300 pushes back uh one example i guess would be uh there's a provincial election coming up in ontario

00:53:56.420 pretty soon and part of doug ford's uh campaign his platform is a new housing policy and what

00:54:04.740 What he's talking about is building more multifamily houses

00:54:10.120 in areas where there aren't a lot of multifamily houses.

00:54:14.460 He's focusing on duplexes and fourplexes right now. 1.00

00:54:20.500 That's going to cause a problem because of the nimbyism that you've got. 0.98

00:54:24.900 I know here it would be a huge problem.

00:54:28.400 Calgary already has a higher density thing called planet Calgary 0.99

00:54:34.520 that was brought in under the Nezhi regime that dictates how many multifamily houses can be built 0.84

00:54:41.120 in each new community versus single-family houses, and it's slanted heavily towards multifamily, 0.91

00:54:47.760 which is fine. I have no problem with that. Ford, I think, is being smart in terms of

00:54:53.380 staying away from talking about high-rises, but at some point in time, that has to happen.

00:54:57.900 and putting high rises into established neighborhoods especially is impossible you

00:55:05.760 just can't get it done and and even here if if if a homeowner is incentivized by the federal budget

00:55:14.900 and they're not going to be um they could tear down their single family house and build a four

00:55:21.680 flex on that that thing but in calgary i don't know what it's like elsewhere you have to go to

00:55:26.800 city council stand in line and address council and say this is what i want to build uh this is

00:55:33.700 why i want to build it then they ask you all these crazy questions what color is the house

00:55:37.380 going to be are you going to have a roof i mean i'm being silly but that they're the questions

00:55:42.320 are like that um and then what gets to happen is that people your your neighbors or potential

00:55:50.140 neighbors get to uh step up and tell you or tell council why they don't want that house in the 0.59

00:55:55.920 neighborhood it's ridiculous it's just a ridiculous system i remember once uh years ago and it's

00:56:02.640 heartbreaking this poor old lady whose husband had died and she wasn't making a lot of money 0.99

00:56:08.440 she's living on the dole but she wanted to tear down not tear down she wanted to add a basement 1.00

00:56:14.860 suite in her house for income purposes and her her son and daughter were going to pay for the 0.97

00:56:21.420 the construction for the basement suite she had to go down and talk to counsel to get permission to

00:56:27.900 do this and people got up and and said well no we don't want that kind of house in our neighborhood 0.86

00:56:34.860 and this lady had to get up and explain her entire financial situation her husband dying and it's 0.96

00:56:42.220 just like you watch this and go this is so stupid and i'm going on a lot which i do but um back to 0.97

00:56:49.340 the budget, that's the kind of problem that is facing everybody. And that budget will solve 0.99

00:56:55.400 none of it. I mean, the tax-free savings plan, good idea, but you'd have to put $1,000 a month

00:57:04.580 away for like 120 months to even get close to having a down payment. So that's not going to

00:57:10.180 happen. I mean, it's nice to have a few extra bucks to add to your down payment. Any tax reduction

00:57:14.580 still good i mean but it's it's a drop in the bucket compared to where the bigger issues are

00:57:19.380 it is a drop in the bucket yeah the the the supply issue is uh is huge they got to figure that out

00:57:27.540 and then they need to get all the municipalities because it's not just calgary's vancouver's got

00:57:32.180 the same problem uh toronto is going uh they've got uh restrictions there vancouver's are really

00:57:38.500 really hard uh severe um but they have to figure that out uh because the i think the they're

00:57:46.900 talking about 200 000 new immigrants into the country every year is what they want traditionally

00:57:53.380 the bulk of those people will go to toronto or they will go to vancouver uh and so you got the

00:57:59.700 two markets in in the country that are the most expensive and the most difficult to build in

00:58:05.060 welcoming the most people um 40 no no amount of four billion dollars over five years are going

00:58:11.380 to fix that and you don't need a crystal ball to see we got a crunch coming like let's address it

00:58:15.220 i mean as you said they started the budget right they realized supply is the problem that's you

00:58:19.140 got to make more okay they figured out the basis of economics if you got more supply the price

00:58:24.020 can come down yeah uh you know another problem that happens with this though is and i gotta

00:58:28.020 admit i like to blame government for everything but a lot of it is actually existing homeowners

00:58:33.220 Because it's kind of in our interest to keep that supply throttle.

00:58:36.020 And I'll even use kind of a personal example.

00:58:37.560 My father got into his place in Canmore decades ago at a very good price.

00:58:41.940 Now that Canmore shuts down every possible expansion and new project, every time they

00:58:46.160 shut one down, the value of his property shoots up all the more.

00:58:49.620 Plus, he doesn't have to deal with as much of a crowded town.

00:58:52.300 I'm not saying he's one of the ones lobbying council and everything saying shut everything

00:58:55.160 down, but there's a very much of an incentive for existing homeowners to not see an expansion

00:59:00.560 of the market. Even if they aren't consciously lobbying for that, they aren't necessarily eager

00:59:05.600 to see anything that'll bring a stabilizing or downward pressure against the value of their house.

00:59:09.680 Yeah. Well, homeownership is very emotional. I mean, yes, there's the buy a house and after

00:59:17.120 50 or 20 years, you're going to have equity. You're going to make money on your purchase.

00:59:21.040 That's always been true. But the emotional factor of housing gets in the way of a lot of decisions

00:59:27.520 and a lot of things that should be done.

00:59:30.760 And I don't know how you fix that.

00:59:34.520 I mean, and I don't think fix is the right word.

00:59:36.900 How do you change that?

00:59:38.000 It's tough.

00:59:38.820 I mean, I'm still, hey, I'm happy with where I am.

00:59:42.240 I've got a place down in Prittis just outside of Calgary.

00:59:44.520 You know what?

00:59:44.820 Calgary's rotten civic policies serve me great

00:59:47.420 because people are fleeing the city to the suburbs

00:59:51.100 and places outside of it.

00:59:52.940 And again, it's putting my value up.

00:59:54.340 But I mean, personally, I'm still happy with where I'm at.

00:59:56.380 I'm okay if it doesn't rise. Get some more supply, guys. Get out there. I mean, the city just shut

01:00:02.560 down a bunch of proposed expansions. I think it takes eight years to get from planning to

01:00:06.440 construction in the city of Calgary. Oh, it's ridiculous. So I mean, the problem, we don't need 0.96

01:00:09.980 to, like where you're getting, I think, we don't need to spend more money on it. We just need the

01:00:13.140 government to get out of the way, as applies to so many other issues. Yeah, and that was a small

01:00:17.340 part of the budget. They did mention that, and they didn't use this language, what they were

01:00:23.600 saying is they that the municipalities have to do something about all the red tape that that they

01:00:31.040 make developers go through but you also have to remember that that red tape is a revenue source

01:00:38.880 for the city uh as i mean the biggest the biggest revenue source for any municipal government is

01:00:44.800 property taxes and the the fees and and taxes that they put on builders and developers at city hall

01:00:52.160 for permits and and inspections and and all the other stuff so the municipalities i think are not

01:00:58.800 that interested in getting rid of this bureaucracy which in fact despite the fact is huge and

01:01:04.560 and expensive still makes money for them yeah and we broke that down a while back when i had

01:01:09.440 shane wins along because he worked in that world a lot and pointed out like all of these steps and

01:01:13.520 and there was all these different and every one of them costs millions i mean we're talking larger

01:01:17.920 developments well it gets passed down to consumers it's not you know people say oh let the developer

01:01:21.360 or eat it. Well, they don't. They pass it down.

01:01:23.480 And then you go through all that, and then five years in, it gets

01:01:25.300 rejected. Well, you've just lost

01:01:27.320 millions of dollars that the city took.

01:01:32.120 Land development is

01:01:33.060 the biggest gambling game in the world, I think.

01:01:35.740 You know, because you buy the land

01:01:37.460 and it's going to take you

01:01:39.420 10 to 15

01:01:41.200 years before

01:01:42.460 you're going to start seeing money coming back

01:01:45.400 on that money you spent.

01:01:47.080 Now, you're going to see more coming back, obviously.

01:01:49.200 But you're laying down

01:01:50.600 $15, $20 million to buy a big chunk of land, and you get nothing back on that for 10 or 15 years

01:01:57.980 because of the hoops that you have to hop through.

01:02:01.520 Well, and there's an ideology, as you kind of touched upon, and we see that with municipal

01:02:06.660 governments everywhere. A lot of them are dominated by a density thing. They feel it has to be dense,

01:02:10.640 it has to be dense, we have to push development inward. But I mean, I've written on that before,

01:02:17.340 every place where you have a high density urban living, the cost of living is through the roof.

01:02:21.260 I mean, if we look at areas, if we want to keep cost of living low, if we want to keep houses

01:02:25.100 affordable, you've got to let them grow out. You have to. Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas,

01:02:31.420 all got great. In fact, Portland even allows upward growth, you know, hipster central and

01:02:36.700 it's reasonable, but anywhere where they squeeze it, Manhattan, San Francisco, Vancouver,

01:02:41.900 cost through the roof, but we need a whole change of attitude from these municipalities.

01:02:45.740 yeah i don't think it's gonna happen again it goes back to uh you know who's who's buttering

01:02:50.780 the bread so to speak but you mentioned phoenix and i'm quite familiar with the phoenix area and

01:02:56.300 they did i don't know the phoenix is the only city that has done this but the value of the

01:03:01.580 sun is actually made up the phoenix area is eight separate cities um that circle uh greater phoenix

01:03:10.620 and so they're all connected on a free you don't know if you're on the freeway if you're in chandler

01:03:18.220 or gilbert or mesa you just know you're where you're going but what happens is that the the

01:03:24.540 individual cities have their individual tax bases and then they share revenues to to get the the

01:03:30.380 roads built and things like that so they're not swallowing the whole pill and so it makes

01:03:34.860 it a little bit easier financially to spread out like that. Which they didn't do here.

01:03:42.300 No. And again, there's that, and I still call it a myth when you look at the numbers,

01:03:47.980 they say, oh, the inner city subsidizing the suburbs and we're pouring the money in to help.

01:03:52.620 I mean, again, new developments, the developer eats all of those infrastructure costs. The last

01:03:58.060 time I looked, I'm seeing the inner city get ripped up all the time to replace aging infrastructure.

01:04:02.700 nobody's subsidizing anybody i mean you know inner area pointing fingers i think doesn't help

01:04:07.980 no but it's the the act as if the infrastructure in the inner city is permanent no it still has to

01:04:12.620 be replaced plus if you if you densify an inner city neighborhood quite often you will overwhelm

01:04:17.340 the existing utility so you still got to root it all out and rebuild it well you know they're

01:04:20.940 talking about doing all the uh residential units in downtown calgary and i don't know i've never

01:04:28.460 been able to find out exactly how many they're talking about but the extra pipes and toilets

01:04:33.260 and sinks and stuff like that are going to have to put in there the question is can the

01:04:37.100 infrastructure underneath those buildings handle it so your point is well taken they may have to

01:04:41.660 just rip it up well it's it you go into and i don't know the limits of it but you go into say

01:04:46.780 you know crescent heights and those areas that are nice areas around the city and they're really

01:04:49.820 putting a lot of infills in and you drive down that residential street though and it's bump

01:04:53.180 bump because what they've had to do with every new infill is cut in to the road

01:04:56.860 and dig in and tap it into another sewer.

01:04:59.620 Well, if you're doubling the population,

01:05:01.460 I'm certain when they put those water and sewer lines in there 80, 100 years ago,

01:05:05.460 sometimes they're going to run out of space.

01:05:07.760 But the city doesn't like to talk about that.

01:05:09.880 No, no.

01:05:11.620 No, and I guess the other thing that's happening in terms of real estate is,

01:05:16.000 and I wrote a story about it today,

01:05:18.520 and that is that the Toronto and Vancouver in particular have the bidding wars,

01:05:25.180 big big big big time bidding wars but they're starting to fall back uh vancouver has seen less

01:05:32.120 a lot of people aren't uh getting in involved in a bidding war what what a lot of people would do

01:05:39.000 is is they would put their house on a market at a price that they knew was below market value

01:05:44.320 and then people would see that and go oh let's get that house because it's below market value

01:05:49.920 but so they'll put a bid in and they end up bidding it up like the one that

01:05:54.000 Nabi was talking about earlier the house went up $800,000 over asking that's

01:05:59.400 starting to fall back now so I think getting back to the budget where and

01:06:04.380 obviously what they're trying to do is increase supply to get bring their

01:06:07.380 stabilized the prices I don't think they want to bring down they want to

01:06:10.620 stabilize them so it could be that the market's going to correct itself which

01:06:15.980 brings us to tomorrow and the bank of canada's rate announcement and there's no doubt in my mind

01:06:22.700 they're going to do 0.5 which is the most the way biggest one-time raise in in four or five years

01:06:31.100 uh so they'll do 0.5 tomorrow which will take up the rate up to one percent and then maybe a 0.5

01:06:37.420 again in uh early june and then the speculation was that they would do another three four five

01:06:45.580 increases through to the end of the year but now i'm wondering about that because the market like

01:06:50.860 i say in toronto mississauga vancouver not so much in calgary yet um it's starting to slow down

01:07:00.540 the heat is really coming off of it and it's it's just become slightly noticeable this week

01:07:06.220 so it's i think it's one of the old snowballs at the top of the mountain deal yeah it should wind

01:07:11.660 down. Well, we'll see as interest rates rise, it makes it more expensive to get in. So people are

01:07:17.020 going to back off, but there's still a crunch rental wise. I mean, people still, you know,

01:07:20.780 hopefully we see more coming onto the market. We'll move on quickly to something else you've

01:07:24.700 written a couple of, like you say, you read about more than real estate. You hit on Elon Musk in

01:07:28.860 his Twitter purchase a couple of times. Hey, you wrote the columns. Let's go there.

01:07:31.900 I did. Well, it's funny because for the longest time, I thought Elon Musk was one of the

01:07:39.500 left-wing elites that you know hung around with bill gates and and all that group and had the

01:07:45.420 same political uh points of view the war and i i in ukraine um really kind of caught my attention

01:07:54.060 when when musk uh opened up the starlink uh system so that the uh ukraine's uh didn't lose

01:08:01.260 communication with the world i thought that's not something that you know a conservative would do

01:08:06.300 that um and then this whole thing with with twitter going all right this guy's okay um

01:08:16.140 but i it's interesting i think he's a fascinating guy i mean you know you don't agree with everything

01:08:21.740 at least with me either that he does like i don't like the amount of subsidies tesla took in and

01:08:25.100 things like that but at the same time he's his own person i mean he just kind of goes where sure

01:08:29.500 but you know i mean if the government's going to give you subsidies to build something like

01:08:34.540 electric cars which is huge on the government agenda then take it take the money because if

01:08:39.900 you don't take it they're going to give it to somebody else so in that particular case a

01:08:43.420 government government subsidy in my mind is fine um because that's money that is going to get spent

01:08:51.020 regardless so you might as well give it to somebody like like musk who's smart enough to

01:08:55.260 know what to do with it he's not going to martyr himself with it i mean he's turned around and said

01:08:59.580 out right guys we need to develop more oil and gas not you know hey it's in his interest the

01:09:04.300 higher oil prices go the better it is for his electric vehicle market but he's just saying no

01:09:08.860 we need this stuff right now you know and uh the cleaning up twitter which i think is he

01:09:15.980 very intent to to do that is a great idea i mean it's a cesspool i just hate twitter uh i can't

01:09:23.020 tell you so if he's if he's prepared to to clean it up open it up get free speech back on and and

01:09:30.380 reinstate some of the people that have been banned um then i'm all for that and i think that uh when

01:09:38.300 he bought the big shares the ceo took him aside and said well you know about you sitting on the

01:09:45.420 board i'm getting a lot of bad feedback from my employees about this is speculation yeah yeah okay

01:09:50.620 Okay. Getting a lot of feedback. People are going to quit. We're going to lose all our employees.

01:09:56.420 It's just going to be all hell. We're going to break loose. So don't get, don't come on the

01:10:00.400 board. The thing about not going on the board is if you're on the board, you're restricted to how

01:10:05.000 many shares you can own. If you're not on the board, you can buy the whole thing. And Elon,

01:10:09.680 I think has got enough money to buy the whole thing. And if not become the dominant partner.

01:10:15.800 So if that's where he's going with it, and I really hope he is,

01:10:19.020 that would be a signal to all of the social media people to smarten up your act.

01:10:25.640 Yeah, because they've been selective in who they're going to shut down and who they aren't.

01:10:29.180 I mean, you've got to be balanced.

01:10:30.480 I mean, they're a private company.

01:10:31.620 It's a dicey area, you know, because you don't really want intervention into a private company.

01:10:34.760 They should run their standards however they please.

01:10:37.060 But when you're such a dominant giant and you have so much impact upon the information everywhere,

01:10:41.160 it becomes troublesome.

01:10:42.240 and watching him shake them up like that

01:10:44.540 was just nice to see

01:10:45.660 and it shook them, it really shook them

01:10:48.620 I mean part of what I see as being

01:10:50.460 a cesspool though is that

01:10:51.620 and that's on the social media in general is the anonymity

01:10:54.200 you know, I understand

01:10:56.580 I got in a big

01:10:57.280 discussion with that, actually it was with

01:11:00.460 me and James Woods and this is

01:11:02.440 one of my weirder higher profile

01:11:04.340 Twitter followers but he's outspoken

01:11:06.680 and a lot of people got upset because I

01:11:08.500 agreed with him, I said like let's get rid of the anonymity

01:11:10.680 okay, not get rid of it

01:11:12.240 but should find a way to have verified accounts,

01:11:15.600 even if the person didn't have their real name on it any longer.

01:11:19.040 But it was said, it was proven that that person is behind that account.

01:11:23.800 I can't just spawn one with a Gmail account or spawn 10 of them or spawn 15 of them

01:11:27.660 and have it voluntary, but don't leave it just the realm of the blue checks.

01:11:31.600 Because it's amazing how much more polite a lot of people get

01:11:34.340 when they have their real identity behind it.

01:11:36.640 I was just going to say that.

01:11:37.680 um you know and if they if they can remove the animosity level from twitter i think people would

01:11:45.440 be more inclined to use their real names i mean on my social media chicken and egg almost yeah

01:11:50.560 my social media i always use my real name i don't have uh any cutesy funny blue green slipper boy

01:11:57.520 things um and but you see other people on there they don't want because because of the way they're

01:12:03.520 using it. They don't want people to know who they are because they're not just using it,

01:12:08.000 they're abusing it. Yeah. Well, and there's some people who legitimately as well, and we are in a

01:12:11.860 crazy world of cancel culture. And if they work for a crazy woke boss or with woke work meets,

01:12:17.760 if they found out that they were tweeting something conservative on there, they could

01:12:20.860 be losing a job. They could be pressured in the workplace. So I understand they're wanting to

01:12:24.980 remain anonymous in it, but I think there's ways we could address that. There's ways that you could

01:12:30.080 At least, as I said, I kind of envision if you verify an account somehow between you

01:12:34.240 and whatever social media provider, but you can still use an anonymous name even, but

01:12:38.160 that way it keeps you to only one account.

01:12:40.600 And that's the other thing too, you know, you're not going to get too belligerent because

01:12:44.160 if you get your one and only account shut down, well, you're out of luck.

01:12:47.700 You know, now, well, I got one shut down.

01:12:49.100 I'll just spawn another one.

01:12:50.120 I'll spawn another one. 0.97

01:12:50.780 Yeah.

01:12:51.300 But I just think there's room for discussions.

01:12:52.900 I like seeing Musk shake it up and at least start re-examining.

01:12:55.740 I mean, social media is new and it's evolving, but we've hit kind of a top point with only a handful of heavyweights providing.

01:13:03.180 Yeah, but, you know, it's like everything else in the world.

01:13:06.460 You get one good leader and all of a sudden there's a whole bunch more followers.

01:13:10.420 That is so true.

01:13:11.640 So that'll happen. 0.55

01:13:13.760 I think the thing that I like the most about Musk is that he is basically looking at the woke folk and saying, going, yeah, shut up.

01:13:23.240 And they need it and it's nice.

01:13:25.200 Yeah, they do.

01:13:26.160 But yeah, and I love that cesspool of Twitter, though.

01:13:28.200 I mean, I can't help myself.

01:13:29.200 I'm just looking at something I threw out.

01:13:31.060 This shows, though, I guess the...

01:13:33.060 Here's my top tweet from the other day.

01:13:37.640 I'm just pulling it up.

01:13:38.640 It's scrolling so fast, I can't even see it.

01:13:41.460 So a three-word tweet I put out yesterday that said, 1.00

01:13:45.300 fuck your masks. 1.00

01:13:46.180 And right now, let's see, there's 10,528 likes and 1,100 retweets. 1.00

01:13:50.940 I guess that's a sad indication of how Twitter is on short form on what actually appeals to people versus, you know, I'll write a 1200 word column and it gets a few thousand reads.

01:14:03.260 But if I throw out some obscenities straight ahead, but as long as you're not abusing people going on, it can still be a little short form graphic and be fun to get a message across.

01:14:13.420 Yeah. But it's also the cesspool part is people, you know, the old hiding in mom's basement attacking people because they're just cowards, attack dog cowards. 0.99

01:14:25.820 And it's not a left or right thing. Every side's got these ones. 0.99

01:14:29.800 You know, we've always called them trolls and it's a good term for them. 0.98

01:14:32.140 You envision just a little dork in a mom's basement, you know, unwashed and firing away. 0.96

01:14:37.900 I think more often than not, that's what you do have. 0.96

01:14:40.180 Oh, yeah, absolutely. No question about it.

01:14:43.420 Well, we're in interesting times anyways.

01:14:45.680 It gives us lots to write about.

01:14:46.980 It does.

01:14:47.980 So, you know, Elon gave you things to write on besides real estate,

01:14:51.620 though you've got plenty of other stuff to go on.

01:14:53.920 So before we let you go,

01:14:55.200 is there more stuff you're working on in the near future here?

01:14:57.800 There's a couple of things,

01:14:58.800 but I don't want to talk about right now because they're kind of up in the air.

01:15:03.080 But I talked about the woke thing.

01:15:06.420 I got to have a look at that.

01:15:08.000 I'm working on a thing about what's going on with Disney.

01:15:13.420 um i don't know if you're familiar with that too much but they've gone very weird they're they're

01:15:20.460 getting into lawsuits with the state of florida it's too complicated yeah i've heard little bits

01:15:26.780 of it but i haven't looked into that yet it's it's actually not not pretty um what else have

01:15:32.620 i got going on i don't know there's always lots anyways yeah um as i said you know just as another

01:15:39.580 municipal person i mean i've been uh celebrating uh karra's uh fall from grace perhaps i saw that

01:15:45.740 and i thought yeah nobody deserves that more oh he's just such a a belligerent soul when it comes

01:15:52.220 to others so i've had some personal discussions with karra yeah it's uh what was it there's

01:15:59.740 another media member who tweeted that it is but i think it was brian passive he said uh

01:16:04.860 the striking news item in this that nobody's taking note of is i think it's the first time

01:16:08.860 that Korra has ever actually responded to a media inquiry so that could be true

01:16:15.580 see again and that's where some of the fun with Twitter can be in some

01:16:17.980 well I'm keen to find out exactly what the details are on that yeah we'll be

01:16:21.620 watching with the interest and smiles yeah that might be worth a visit to

01:16:25.840 council. Yes. Look what it did to poor Rick. Yeah. Oh, well, I love Rick. Boy, I still

01:16:38.180 think with that zany attitude, Rick is too many years of watching those clowns go on 0.99

01:16:41.780 ballistic in council. Well, it would drive you crazy. I've been there enough. I go, 0.99

01:16:47.980 no, this can't be real. It can't be real. Gives him lots of material to keep us enjoying

01:16:53.960 is right yeah well you know bureaucracies are entertaining they're not very handy or oh it's

01:17:00.120 dark comedy yes dark comedy yeah yeah that's it all right well thank you very much for coming in

01:17:05.920 and talking yes and i'm certain we'll be talking again soon you're nearby and i appreciate it when

01:17:12.260 you come to talk to the audience mike all right well uh stay warm yeah try it's crazy it's nuts

01:17:19.060 All right. So that was Western Standard columnist, Mike Thomas. Get online, westernstandardonline.com. You'll see he is a prolific writer and a media person with a long history of experience through a number of publications. When I get those veteran writers on, I don't like to explain just how long some of them have been around, but they've been at it for a bit there.

01:17:39.400 and let's talk about one of our sponsors and that's Bitcoin. Well, I'll talk about them one

01:17:43.560 more time while Mike makes his way out there. These guys are an Alberta company. You know,

01:17:48.740 we're talking about big companies, small companies. These guys aren't one of the

01:17:52.200 giant multinationals. They aren't, I don't think they're taking any subsidies. I couldn't see it.

01:17:57.300 They facilitate you getting into the digital currency world, guys, and safely with the money

01:18:02.520 that you worked hard for, protecting it and getting you involved. I've talked about it before.

01:18:06.360 one of their plans is just awesome, you know, for kind of dipping your toe into the digital

01:18:10.640 currency waters safely and easily. They've set us up with, and they'll do that for any company,

01:18:17.020 a portion of all of your, well, a portion of your paycheck every month goes into a Bitcoin account.

01:18:22.920 They help you set all that up. And then in the case of Western Standard, they actually match

01:18:26.920 that up to a maximum percentage. So every month, trouble-free, pain-free, because I'm not good at

01:18:31.480 saving money. I can't admit that. It just goes off into that side account and builds up for me over

01:18:35.780 there. And, uh, you know, it's one of those savings plans as we see with, with Nico putting

01:18:39.580 up there, even if you don't do it through your company, you can set it up in your own bank

01:18:42.720 account with automatic debit and things like that to make it trouble-free and just putting a little

01:18:46.620 money aside into something different, something that's not tied into, uh, you know, the Canadian

01:18:50.980 currency and things like that. Hedge your bets against those sorts of things. And it's safe,

01:18:55.360 non-custodial. They got ATMs all through, all across Canada. They got a map on there showing

01:19:00.160 where all of their, uh, ATMs are. So you make it as easy as possible and make it practical.

01:19:05.120 You know, so I mean, because that's what people imagine.

01:19:07.520 Well, what good is it just sits there?

01:19:08.680 Well, no, you can use it to pay your utility bills.

01:19:10.940 So we saw Pierre Pauly of the other day.

01:19:13.300 He used it to pay for, you know, it was a publicity stunt,

01:19:16.480 but he used it to pay for a pizza at a place he was at.

01:19:18.880 These digital currencies are really spreading.

01:19:20.400 So check them out, bitcoinwell.com

01:19:22.660 and take control of your money, guys.

01:19:28.220 So let's see here.

01:19:29.520 You know, another person saying,

01:19:30.600 see, this was the discussion.

01:19:31.480 I see Soneco saying,

01:19:33.520 the ability to have anonymous account

01:19:34.800 strengthens freedom of speech.

01:19:37.320 No, it's mixed.

01:19:39.640 I agree somewhat.

01:19:41.280 As I said to Mike,

01:19:42.740 yeah, there's some people

01:19:44.320 who could lose their jobs.

01:19:45.300 There's people who don't feel

01:19:46.160 they can speak out

01:19:46.880 and they need an anonymous means

01:19:48.140 to speak up.

01:19:48.820 And I appreciate that

01:19:49.640 and they should have it.

01:19:50.480 Nobody's talking about,

01:19:51.440 at least I'm not talking about,

01:19:53.000 taking away the ability

01:19:54.240 to be anonymous.

01:19:56.100 I'm just talking about

01:19:57.120 bringing a level

01:19:57.740 for those who choose not to be

01:19:59.760 or at least choose to have it verified one way or another,

01:20:02.980 even if the public doesn't see what that account is.

01:20:05.640 Because again, we've dealt with it.

01:20:07.000 I've dealt with, you know, again, I get on Twitter,

01:20:08.840 I dive into that cesspool, I invite it,

01:20:10.620 I stir people up, I tick them off. 0.98

01:20:12.540 And I'll get sometimes, and you can tell some clown, 0.87

01:20:15.400 you know, as Mike was talking about, 0.92

01:20:17.020 who's sitting in his basement,

01:20:18.380 just spawning up new Twitter accounts.

01:20:19.860 And I do block them when they get on me

01:20:21.200 because they'll just spam me

01:20:22.500 and they'll just keep coming and coming

01:20:23.580 and seeing belligerent things.

01:20:24.680 And then I block them and they just spawn another one.

01:20:26.900 And then I block them and they spawn another one.

01:20:28.340 like these, it only takes me a second to block them. It takes them at least five or 10 minutes

01:20:31.460 to make a new account, I think. So I think I win those races, but it does ruin the discourse. It

01:20:36.520 makes it ugly. It makes it mixed. It still have the anonymous accounts on there, but I, you know, 1.00

01:20:42.800 like, let's say for example, okay, we got the blue checks on Twitter. They only offer that

01:20:47.440 verification to people that they determine is a person of public interest, which is kind of

01:20:52.920 arbitrary and not, you know, there's people who qualify for blue checks who probably shouldn't.

01:20:56.940 and there's others who really have a lot of profile

01:20:59.520 and they don't get a blue check

01:21:00.620 or they even use that blue check

01:21:01.920 to punish Twitter accounts they don't like.

01:21:03.820 Jonathan Kay, he annoyed them.

01:21:05.620 They didn't kick him off Twitter,

01:21:06.600 but they took away his verification.

01:21:08.500 It shouldn't be a carrot and a stick thing,

01:21:10.440 but that's what they use it for.

01:21:11.800 But maybe have a, I think Parler sort of started

01:21:14.680 along those lines in that too, with like a red check.

01:21:16.900 You know, you could verify your account.

01:21:18.420 Doesn't mean you have to have your name front and center,

01:21:20.020 but you verify it.

01:21:21.420 And then there will be at least a checkbox next to it.

01:21:24.060 So it shows that there's a real person behind it.

01:21:26.000 And as I said, then you can't constantly spawn off new ones all the time and things like that.

01:21:33.560 It's just other ways that social media evolves and moves.

01:21:36.160 I mean, Twitter, like I said, I enjoy it, but there's definitely limitations.

01:21:39.220 And you've got to really have a thick skin to play around on Twitter.

01:21:42.560 And, you know, there's just, there's good stuff, there's bad stuff.

01:21:45.780 I mean, we see stuff as it breaks.

01:21:47.120 Twitter is very valuable to us.

01:21:48.400 If you want to see things as they rate when they come out, because whether people like it or not,

01:21:51.580 most people aren't on Twitter, but I tell you what, all of the media are on Twitter.

01:21:55.060 So if something's happening, something comes out right now, it's going to hit Twitter first.

01:21:58.560 So it's valuable to us as news providers just to keep an eye on.

01:22:02.220 And it's good for us to share and get our stuff out when we get something breaking and moving as well, as we do sometimes here at The Standard.

01:22:07.780 We get a lot of unique breaking content and things like that.

01:22:11.300 But social media, I mean, who knows where it's going to be in 10 years?

01:22:13.460 I mean, look where it was 10 years ago compared to where it is today.

01:22:15.960 You know, nothing's going to be static.

01:22:18.520 This is not going to remain the same.

01:22:19.960 these giants, and they seem like they're never going to go away.

01:22:24.660 Well, let's remember Yahoo used to be huge.

01:22:28.400 What were some of the others?

01:22:29.640 You know, some of those providers, the very first dial-up one I was with,

01:22:32.560 I'm even forgetting their name.

01:22:34.160 I had to pay a huge amount so I could dial into this 1-800 number.

01:22:37.960 And America Online, that was it.

01:22:41.120 Where'd they go?

01:22:42.160 Vanished, yet they were a massive giant at the end of the 90s.

01:22:45.280 You know, and they're gone.

01:22:47.680 MySpace, massive.

01:22:49.580 Facebook wiped them out.

01:22:50.560 It seems like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

01:22:52.900 are going to dominate these things.

01:22:55.860 They'll be pushed aside by something.

01:22:57.960 Somebody's going to come up with something.

01:22:59.220 And we'll watch it.

01:23:00.180 Hopefully it evolves for the better.

01:23:01.900 But as we talk about on here,

01:23:03.120 with the amount of woke and cancel culture

01:23:04.700 and lunatics out there who don't like free speech,

01:23:06.900 don't like unrestrained speech, 0.98

01:23:08.180 it might not be that much better.

01:23:10.280 We'll see as it comes along.

01:23:11.440 This is Adam Fulton saying CAD vision.

01:23:13.220 Yeah.

01:23:14.040 And oh, what were some of the others?

01:23:15.900 CompuServe.

01:23:16.300 there's another beauty we'll see what comes next twitter we'll see how long it lasts i like it for

01:23:21.680 now anyways as i said i mean hey i could put a three word tweet out there and actually i don't

01:23:26.160 know what the stats are but it's probably reached like 200 000 people right now uh just for the sake

01:23:29.960 of a dark entertainment it's it's fun for that so uh we'll watch as it goes there uh all right

01:23:37.280 back to one of those stories earlier uh yeah gangland at city hall organized crime i was

01:23:41.660 talking a little bit about that before and i was talking to mike about the public sector municipal

01:23:45.420 governments. I ranted about that the other day too. People underestimate just how important

01:23:50.900 municipal governments are to you. They're boring, they're dry, but they really are a lot closer to

01:23:55.780 you than any other level and people don't pay enough attention to them. And that's why they

01:23:58.380 get away with this. So there's a federal report from CSIS that counted 31 gangs and other criminal

01:24:04.440 departments or criminal groups with agents and city departments. These groups actually have agents

01:24:10.100 in city departments.

01:24:12.380 And so 31 assessed organized crime groups

01:24:14.080 have access via employment

01:24:15.680 within the Canadian public sector.

01:24:17.620 Like these guys are actually entrenched.

01:24:19.600 I mean, it says of these,

01:24:20.480 26% were mafia groups,

01:24:22.780 10% outlaw biker gangs

01:24:24.980 and 6% of street gangs.

01:24:27.060 These are in our municipal governments, guys.

01:24:31.900 Familial and romantic relationships,

01:24:33.540 monetary benefits appear to be the principal factors

01:24:35.660 in motivating corruption and infiltration.

01:24:37.440 If you look at the mafia,

01:24:38.220 you. I'm going to be, what's his name again? AJ, I guess I've got coming up next week, by the way,

01:24:46.480 is it's AJ Galante. Where are we? I got it somewhere. I just got an email from him. If

01:24:56.220 people watched a Netflix special, it was on him and his family. They were involved in some shady

01:25:03.660 happenings. And he owned a whole pile of trash, uh, trucks and companies, uh, out on the East

01:25:08.780 coast in the States, the Galante family. And, and, uh, they went down on a whole pile of

01:25:12.620 racketeering charges, but they also started this hockey team, the, uh, uh, Dansbury trashers or

01:25:18.460 something like that. And they were just a bunch of goons. It was really bizarre. If you look it up 0.88

01:25:21.660 on Netflix with those trashers, it's really fascinating either way, kind of tying together 1.00

01:25:27.340 with, I got him on as a guest next week to talk about an event they got coming in, in Alberta 0.60

01:25:31.040 out with this hockey fighting thing that they got going on. But why was the media so tied up

01:25:39.280 in trash or the media, the mafia? Oh, the media is trashy too. Because again, that's where they 0.99

01:25:45.680 got into all those municipal contracts. And it's funny because the Netflix special implies that

01:25:51.420 the family, the father of the fellow I'm talking to was the one that they modeled Tony Soprano

01:25:55.940 after because of his trash company and how that was infiltrated. And that's why they get into

01:26:00.740 unions, the mafia and organized crime and things like that. They can't get into it through provincial

01:26:05.460 and federal governments. It's a lot harder. Well, I mean, there's corruption in them,

01:26:08.760 like a municipal level. That's where you get those sole source contracts. That's where you get some

01:26:12.640 big money and that's where you can infiltrate. And that's what this story is coming up.

01:26:16.620 The police counted 71 gangs infiltrating construction companies, which are at risk

01:26:20.760 of being exploited to obtain government contracts. See, they get into the government,

01:26:24.840 they get into the companies, they pull it all together. We've got organized crime

01:26:28.500 under the guise of government.

01:26:30.240 So yeah, you wonder why I'm anti-government?

01:26:31.700 There's another one of the reasons.

01:26:32.840 I don't want to get too hard on this.

01:26:34.480 I'm going to have AJ on next week as a guest.

01:26:36.460 I'm not knocking his family.

01:26:38.020 I'm sure you guys are all on the up and up now

01:26:39.920 and just dealing with sporting events

01:26:41.960 and no longer any questionable things.

01:26:44.320 Your father did his time,

01:26:45.600 and I'm certain he's well-reformed now,

01:26:48.220 and we'll leave that aside when we talk later.

01:26:51.660 So again, we've got some very problematic things

01:26:57.020 going on with our governments. There's another one with executives drinking on the job. I think

01:27:01.940 Dave's got that story up there as well. Man, so I think we've covered a lot today, guys. I appreciate

01:27:08.880 that. So as I said, tonight, I'm going to be going to the Pierre Polyev event. I'll be live tweeting

01:27:12.920 from there and I'll report and talk about what I saw. Maybe I'll see some of you guys out there

01:27:17.220 tonight. It's going to be at Spruce Meadows down in South Calgary there. And tomorrow, I've got

01:27:22.940 guests, Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan leader, Philip Zajac, perhaps, pronouncing a gentleman's

01:27:30.100 name, but he's their new leader, and we'll talk to him about things. They made a decent splash in

01:27:35.220 the last Saskatchewan general election. And then I'm going to talk to Rob Anderson of the Free

01:27:39.140 Alberta Strategy. He got together with Barry Cooper and Derek Fromm, and it's, again, more of

01:27:44.920 an independence-leaning sort of organization and promoting those sorts of things. Just that one

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01:28:36.520 at 1130 AM sharp, and I'm sure we'll have another good show.

01:28:49.240 Transcription by CastingWords

01:29:19.240 You

Western Standard - April 13, 2022

LIVE SHOW Triggered： COVID-zero policies are more dangerous than COVID-19 itself.

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