Western Standard - LIVE SHOW - Triggered： The Liberal government has made the housing crunch worse.

00:00:00.000 Good morning.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's April 8th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. Yes, it's Friday. We're almost to the weekend. This is, for those who are new to the show, this is the Western Standards Daily Live Show. We come Monday to Friday, 11.30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time and run until usually about 1 p.m. Depends on how the guest conversations go and how the subjects are.

00:00:53.620 it's uh good to see you all out there that reminder i see the commenters coming in already

00:00:58.340 uh we are a live show and i encourage commentary you know uh yesterday there was some good

00:01:04.240 discussion going back and forth between some of the people on the comment scroll with each other

00:01:08.140 i mean you don't always just have to put questions to me or to the guests you can chat with each

00:01:11.960 other and uh again put those things forward just try try to remain civil uh as as nico has put a

00:01:19.360 I see at the bottom, Corey B. Morgan.

00:01:20.900 That's my Twitter handle.

00:01:22.800 If we really want to get rough and tumble, that's the place to go.

00:01:26.200 We can have some discourse there, of course,

00:01:28.220 and I do encourage tweets and following me on Twitter,

00:01:31.300 and we can get a little rougher.

00:01:32.380 But here in the comments, let's just try and have a good conversation

00:01:35.220 while we're going.

00:01:35.760 I've got a couple of really good guests coming up today,

00:01:38.700 and hey there, Dash and Margaret and Rose.

00:01:40.900 I've got Peter Menzies.

00:01:41.720 He's the former vice chair of the CRTC,

00:01:45.860 and he was a publisher of the Calgary Herald,

00:01:48.080 a man very well established in Canadian journalism and the regulation of journalism for a long time.

00:01:53.460 He's going to talk to us about Bill C-18 and some of the controls we've had put on media

00:01:59.340 and attempted controls going further. It's not a good trend. Things are not looking very good.

00:02:04.720 And the Liberals are really out to put the screws to the social media providers.

00:02:08.400 I know not too many people feel sorry for Facebook and Google. They're large social media giants.

00:02:12.780 But all the same, we aren't doing ourselves favors by attacking them and trying to force them to pay out on certain journalists.

00:02:21.140 And that's the thing, certain ones. Not all of them. I suspect we wouldn't be among the preferred journalists.

00:02:26.200 And after that, I am going to talk to Franco Teresano. Of course, I think pretty much everybody expected Franco would have to come on.

00:02:31.480 He's a regular guest, a friend of the show. He's with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:02:35.100 And yesterday we did have our federal budget released.

00:02:38.380 It was kind of a lot, as predicted, a lot of fluff, a whole lot of spending, and a heck of a lot of debt.

00:02:44.860 Franco's going to break all that down for us, and we will discuss our federal budget on what the Liberals plan on doing with your money for the next year.

00:02:54.940 And among that budget, that's kind of what brings about a bit of what I'm going to rant about and what I'm triggered by today.

00:03:00.420 And that's housing, which is clearly the top priority in the big spending Liberal budget that was dropped yesterday.

00:03:06.820 I mean, the word housing appeared and it was used 231 times in that budget document.

00:03:12.480 Of course, shelter is a need.

00:03:14.260 And when we're living in the Canadian environment, you know, it's really pointing out the obvious when it's saying a need.

00:03:20.180 Inflation, on the other hand, is only used 86 times within the budget, though it's an issue on top of mind for many Canadians.

00:03:27.200 The rising cost of housing has put a lot of pressure on Canadians right now.

00:03:31.140 So the word supply is used in the budget 114 times.

00:03:35.080 So if we look at these words, one would hope the government's kind of realized that the way to reduce the cost of housing is to increase the supply.

00:03:42.440 And some statements within the budget do actually acknowledge that.

00:03:45.300 Once one reads into how the government intends to address the lack of supply, however, it becomes clear that they still just don't get it.

00:03:52.560 The budget calls for dumping $72 billion tax dollars into the market to address housing issues over the next six years.

00:04:00.260 As usual, the government's solution to a problem is to blindly toss money at it

00:04:04.000 rather than try to address the underlying issues at the bottom of things.

00:04:07.120 So it's not terribly surprising that a government,

00:04:09.840 from a government that's led by a man who said,

00:04:12.540 budgets balance themselves.

00:04:14.420 Government spending and borrowing spawns inflation.

00:04:17.240 This isn't economic theory.

00:04:18.540 This is economic law.

00:04:20.040 So as we continue to run huge deficits while dumping money into a market,

00:04:23.500 the government's actually going to make housing even less affordable for people.

00:04:28.180 This won't be too damaging for the people who have already gotten into the market and they're

00:04:31.060 paying off their mortgages. Inflation will simply increase the dollar value of their homes.

00:04:35.460 But as long as their mortgage debt remains the same, they're fine. But that's not everybody.

00:04:40.260 Renters and prospective new homebuyers are going to be the ones paying the price for these bad

00:04:43.480 government policies. I mean, if we want to increase housing supply, we need government

00:04:47.400 to get out of the damn way and on a number of levels. Municipal governments across the country

00:04:51.660 have been dominated by ideologues fixated upon increasing urban density. These politicians

00:04:57.300 purposely strangle outward development in their cities and this causes housing shortages. They

00:05:03.160 also stack a ridiculous amount of regulation upon developers and builders which shoots the

00:05:07.720 cost through the roof. In Calgary it takes eight years for development to go from concept to

00:05:12.560 construction and that's assuming it doesn't get rejected at some point during the countless

00:05:16.340 studies and permit applications, which are required. And yes, they get rejected often

00:05:21.060 and regularly. So municipal deregulation would do wonders for increasing housing supply.

00:05:27.580 Now, it isn't within the spectrum of the federal government, though they should understand that.

00:05:31.720 They do talk about working with municipal governments, though, and they should work

00:05:35.100 with them to get their regulations under control, which would be much more effective in increasing

00:05:39.680 supply than pouring tax dollars into the issue will. The government document does address working

00:05:45.120 with municipalities, but it actually calls for them to encourage them to build even denser

00:05:49.420 neighborhoods. Now, the most affordable housing in North America is always in the least dense

00:05:54.240 jurisdictions. While Phoenix, Houston, and Las Vegas, they all have reasonable housing prices.

00:06:00.520 Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston, they're some of the most expensive on earth, and it's no

00:06:04.340 coincidence. Allowing outward growth helps keep housing affordable. An obsession with urban density

00:06:10.420 is not having the effect the government claims it will, and it's been rather well proven.

00:06:15.120 The government plan calls for funding for more cooperative housing as well.

00:06:19.260 And this is a band-aid solution, and it certainly will help some people who are in need,

00:06:23.200 but it doesn't do a thing for the general lack of supply.

00:06:26.460 If the state goes further into directly building housing, we're going to see slums.

00:06:30.580 And that's been well proven already as well.

00:06:32.440 Drive through projects in any large American city to see how well that turns out.

00:06:36.280 I mean, if you go south of Niagara Falls and through Buffalo, New York,

00:06:40.860 look at all those nice big brick row housing and building in there

00:06:44.220 see how well when things go when the government takes care of housing. Tax relief and deregulation

00:06:49.740 in industries that support home building could bring down costs. I mean let's you know in other

00:06:55.740 areas we could do the same to help out. I mean let's open up more regions for logging. We have

00:06:59.900 some of the most abundant lumber resources on the planet yet our costs for wooden building materials

00:07:04.220 are as high as any other nation on the world. I'm not talking about clear-cutting the entire country

00:07:08.540 with wild abandon but we've put such gross levels of environmental controls upon our operations that

00:07:13.980 many areas just aren't worth logging or developing. Again, we're going to get back to that supply

00:07:18.140 issue. Energy, of course, is another big element. Carbon taxes and efforts to strangle conventional

00:07:23.660 energy development increase the cost of everything. And that includes material required in home

00:07:28.700 building, everything from cement to shingles. If we reduce energy costs, we reduce home construction

00:07:33.660 costs. Government and regulation are the problem, not the solution. The government's managed to

00:07:39.340 recognize that there is a problem, but they've come up with the opposite of a solution.

00:07:43.980 I truly feel for those who've been saving and hoping to buy a new home or those with fixed

00:07:48.540 incomes right now who are trying to make rent payments. Their situation is only going to get

00:07:51.960 worse thanks to a fiscally incompetent government, and there's not going to be a sign of relief for

00:07:57.000 some years to come. Of course, this may not be the actions of an incompetent government. This may be

00:08:00.860 exactly what they want to do. If we want to expand the welfare state and increase the number of 0.60

00:08:06.100 dependents living in government housing, well, this was a great step towards that end, and that

00:08:09.740 does make people start thinking about some of the agendas in the World Economic Forum and things

00:08:14.060 that Justin Trudeau has said he admires. This budget was a disappointment on many levels,

00:08:19.440 particularly for people, the ones who were most in need of financial relief. But again,

00:08:25.400 it wasn't terribly surprising. Well, let's check into the top news items of the day. We've got

00:08:30.880 Eva Siddick coming in from the newsroom, and she'll talk about some things other than my

00:08:36.460 ranting on the housing. How's it going Eva? Good, how are you Corey? Oh good, good. Yeah, I'm also

00:08:43.240 worried about housing. I'm trying to look for a house but it's not turning out very much in my

00:08:47.880 price range in Calgary at the moment so I'm very much on my mind and many Canadians. Yes. With the

00:08:55.720 in the news today we got lots on the 2022 budget that came out yesterday afternoon. A lot of

00:09:01.900 articles and opinion pieces breaking down what that means for Canadians.

00:09:06.540 Like you said, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday that housing,

00:09:11.500 sustainability and affordability is going to be addressed by spending billions on

00:09:16.260 permits, systems, affordable housing, construction and payments to those who

00:09:20.820 are struggling to make ends meet.

00:09:24.060 The budget will continue electric vehicle rebates as well to continue to try

00:09:28.500 encouraging Canadians to drive electric, but the program has been reviewed as costly and

00:09:34.040 ineffective. In 2022, banks and insurers will pay higher taxes. This was announced by Freeland

00:09:41.820 in an effort to pay off Canada's extraordinary debts. The CTF says that the real result of this

00:09:49.280 will be higher bank fees for Canadians. In the House of Commons, MPs are helping to protect

00:09:57.800 Quebec from losing one seat as the province's growth lags behind others. We got lots of comments

00:10:04.440 from MPs on that in that article. We also have an opinion piece up pointing out how Freeland talks

00:10:11.480 about the federal budget covered climate change and Ukraine, but it did not mention inflation

00:10:17.960 like you mentioned earlier, which is what most Canadians are really worried about.

00:10:21.880 We have COVID updates from Saskatchewan. The health officer said made announcements on COVID

00:10:29.560 numbers in case case counts right now and it says they are not in a sixth wave. The leader of the

00:10:37.240 Buffalo party in Saskatchewan is calling out the Prime Minister, the Premier and the United Nations

00:10:44.920 on various issues saying that politics has lost its common sense which I think is a very

00:10:51.560 interesting statement to make about politics um i also have an article up which talk i dove into

00:10:59.800 the latest uh pfizer documents which were going to be withheld until 2076. it shows that in less

00:11:07.720 than three months after countries around the world approved the vax over 41 000 cases with over

00:11:14.280 over 150,000 adverse events were reported.

00:11:19.280 Pfizer then concluded that those to be theoretical risks,

00:11:23.920 which did not provide enough data

00:11:25.640 to make conclusions on vaccine safety.

00:11:31.400 In upcoming news,

00:11:32.240 we have more about the fallout from the federal budget.

00:11:35.700 And we also have some transgender focus stories.

00:11:40.160 I'll be doing one on British cycling,

00:11:42.100 which is now banning transgender and non-binary people

00:11:47.560 from participating in the women rider events

00:11:51.460 because it poses an unfair challenge

00:11:53.520 and risks to integrity of the sport.

00:11:57.160 Another one, out of the liberal budget,

00:12:01.340 they will include menstrual integrity to women, girls,

00:12:05.100 transgender and non-binary persons,

00:12:08.500 which is interesting

00:12:09.560 because now menstrual products will be available to all Canadians regardless of their gender.

00:12:15.440 This hasn't been seen before. I think it's a great thing to have menstrual products provided for

00:12:21.140 people who have no choice but to menstruate. But a reporter, Amanda, even looked into 0.98

00:12:26.780 how transgender women can stimulate a period, which is interesting. So even if you don't have

00:12:33.360 naturally you can still I suspect is what you meant there oh uh simulate yeah yeah so you can uh

00:12:46.320 simulate your own period and then the government can provide you products to help you

00:12:50.880 well and I think that's only fair I I mean we're all taxpayers here and I don't intend on simulating

00:12:56.960 any periods but I mean if we're going to be buying products for everybody and gender doesn't matter

00:13:01.120 anymore. I should be entitled to my fair share of MaxiPad and whatever other products typically I

00:13:07.440 haven't bothered with over these years. I mean, it's only equity, isn't it?

00:13:11.760 I guess so. I mean, maybe for me, but for other people who don't menstruate naturally,

00:13:19.520 I don't know about that. So we got an upcoming news.

00:13:22.320 Okay. Well, lots to look forward to. I appreciate the update today, Eva,

00:13:28.000 and uh we'll uh talk to you later thanks gory great thanks yes that that awkward subject that

00:13:36.480 makes us males always put our fingers into our ears as i was kind of saying in our newsroom

00:13:41.120 discussion this morning we prefer to live in our denial that those uh issues even happen to to

00:13:47.280 women out there but we do have to admit it but boy 25 million a year guys to address that and 1.00

00:13:52.640 yes the language within the budget on that is something else it makes sure that you cover every

00:13:57.440 every possible uh conceivable letter of the alphabet wherever things are these days with

00:14:01.920 the alphabet people and that's kind of the point where you got to get calling it now because it

00:14:05.760 just seems when you catch up on the amount of genders they're supposed to be they come up with 0.96

00:14:10.240 a few more so i'll just you know look to the alphabet i mean lgbtq used to cover it funny you

00:14:16.400 know going way back uh to uh you know i'll talk some political history before we move on with our

00:14:22.480 our next guest there actually no i'm going to talk about our news first i got it i see nico is ahead

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00:14:41.600 they help us pay our bills it's uh things like i'm going to be talking about with our our first

00:14:47.280 guest here when you are beholden to somebody to pay your bills when they start funding you

00:14:52.680 chances are you're going to lean towards you know doing what they tell you well we do what

00:14:58.420 our subscribers tell us we are responsive to our subscribers that's how we stay independent

00:15:02.920 and uh if you haven't subscribed already guys come on get on there take it out

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00:15:25.980 aren't used to paying for things online. Sometimes they chafe at it, but you got to put it in the

00:15:29.360 right perspective. You're paying for a service and we really appreciate it. And we've been spreading

00:15:33.020 out, you know, we've got new reporters in Ottawa, in Edmonton, in BC, Saskatchewan. We were really

00:15:38.980 broadening our ability to provide good news content for you guys out there and some real

00:15:44.180 professionals in here. So thank you all who've subscribed already. And if you haven't subscribed

00:15:48.320 yet, get on there and take out a subscription as well. I mean, as I'll speak to one of our

00:15:53.980 sponsors, because that's the thing, the more subscribers we have, the more sponsors we'll get,

00:15:59.980 you know, because we are capitalists and Bitcoin Well is one of our primary sponsors. They were

00:16:04.920 one of our first big sponsors here at the Western Standard really allowed us to up our game. I mean,

00:16:09.660 It's hard to believe this publication is only two and a half years old, but really coming along.

00:16:14.560 Bitcoin Well really helped in that growth, and they provide a fantastic service.

00:16:19.820 If you're looking to get into digital currencies, into that, as I said, nebulous, weird world of it,

00:16:24.960 I mean, it's growing.

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00:16:52.800 Bitcoin Academy, they call it on there to show you what it's all about. And it's safe. It's

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00:17:07.840 it's there to educate and perhaps that's not the way you want to go but i it's the way i wanted to

00:17:12.740 go and i've gotten involved with uh getting some bitcoin i'll go on about that later when i talk

00:17:17.680 to the sponsor a little later but bitcoinwell.com guys they're a good service they're a canadian

00:17:21.980 service check them out so that story i interrupted myself with before i get to my guest there i'm

00:17:26.820 looking forward to peter menzies but um if people remember like i used to be on the wild rose party

00:17:32.260 executive i was very politically involved in the past there was an agm shortly before uh danielle

00:17:37.600 Smith crossed the floor. The party was in a lot of internal turmoil. There was a lot of problems

00:17:42.500 going on. And two years in a row at these AGMs, we kept getting these motions from people who felt

00:17:47.320 if we just fed the woke enough, if we just bent over enough and made sure that we accommodate

00:17:53.900 and address everybody, that we would never suffer from these issues. So we had this policy put

00:18:00.260 forward two years in a row that talked about how we have to affirm and recognize the rights of the

00:18:06.080 LGBTQ community. And back then, that was the only letters that was involved in it.

00:18:11.440 And it was shot down both times with members. And both times, of course, I mean, it was idiotic to 0.99

00:18:16.320 put the policy out there in the first place, because no other party had that. You don't have 0.97

00:18:19.400 to say that. Look, affirm equality for everybody. There, it's simple, it's done. And follow up with

00:18:25.340 it, of course. Practice it. Be that way. But part of the issue, when you start picking and choosing

00:18:31.720 who you're going to address, which ones, then you're going to exclude somebody somewhere else.

00:18:36.660 And that was part of the rationale.

00:18:38.100 You know, we shot ourselves in the foot as a party back and forth.

00:18:40.380 Again, not so much in voting down those policies.

00:18:42.300 We shot ourselves in the feet by putting forward in the first place.

00:18:45.260 But now that we look at it, the case that some people made from the floor, they said,

00:18:47.900 we can't do this because if we do LGBTQ this year, it'll be LGBTQ something else next year, 0.98

00:18:53.240 and we'll be out of date.

00:18:54.000 We'll be accused of excluding people.

00:18:56.200 Well, that was prescient because now, I mean, I can't keep up with the amount of numbers

00:19:01.420 and alphabet to keep up.

00:19:03.000 I mean, there's two S and X, Y, Z, and I don't know.

00:19:07.000 I mean, I want to respect everybody.

00:19:08.640 I really do.

00:19:10.040 Whatever their orientation is

00:19:12.120 and whatever they identify as a gender, go for it.

00:19:14.760 But come on, guys, we just can't address

00:19:17.680 each and every possible thing, non-binary this and that. 0.99

00:19:22.840 Yet here we are with a federal government policy

00:19:25.020 now that addresses all of those things

00:19:27.520 and provides menstruation products for them.

00:19:31.520 So there's your tax dollars at work, guys, on those high-priority issues for everybody.

00:19:37.000 But what would the world be if we didn't dip into those realms?

00:19:40.480 Okay, I'm going to bring our next guest in, actually our first guest in.

00:19:44.460 I've been looking forward to this.

00:19:45.620 This is Mr. Peter Menzies, and he's been, again, a very established individual in media in Canada for quite some time.

00:19:54.200 I don't like trying to age people or insult them so much, but he's been established for a number of decades.

00:19:58.380 and as a publisher of the Calgary Herald, as the vice chair of the CRTC, which is the Canadian

00:20:04.740 Radio and Telecommunications Commission. And he's been very outspoken about some of the

00:20:08.620 government policies regarding media and the CRTC lately, particularly now with C18. So let's bring

00:20:14.620 Peter in and discuss a bit of that. Hey, how's it going? Great. Thanks for having me on your show.

00:20:20.340 Oh, I really appreciate it. You're, of course, very well placed to speak to these issues of

00:20:25.160 concern that are kind of rising up. I mean, we've seen this for a few years. The government just

00:20:29.600 seems to be more focused than ever to just try to control. I mean, even if perhaps they mean well

00:20:35.420 with some of these things, the outcomes of some of these bills and acts could be pretty bad,

00:20:40.440 particularly C-18. Yeah, well, like Grandpa used to say, the road to hell is paved with good

00:20:45.520 intentions, right? Yeah, they've got C-18 came in this week. Prior to that, C-11, which was a year

00:20:54.080 ago called c10 before the government fell was reintroduced uh we've still got uh the

00:21:00.880 uh online harms bill to come the government seems uh uh very determined to control the internet and

00:21:10.160 that kind of makes me sad because the internet is such a dynamic and wonderful thing

00:21:15.600 yes it has problems yes there are issues with it yes there are areas that you know in terms

00:21:21.840 of privacy data collection and that sort of stuff with big tech that you want to look at for

00:21:26.800 regulation but uh these guys are kind of funny they they they keep saying that free speech will

00:21:32.880 be protected and one breath and then the next breath they say well we have to do this to stop

00:21:37.360 disinformation so one of the problems one of the things you have to live with with free speech is

00:21:43.760 a certain amount of disinformation so there you go that's uh uh you've got uh you're looking down

00:21:50.960 three barrels at the moment and uh i'm really quite concerned that uh the interaction between

00:22:00.080 funding for media and that sort of stuff is uh uh going to interfere with the debate

00:22:07.280 well that's something i was kind of ranting about before i mean in a bit of a self-serving way but

00:22:10.880 it's the truth what you're going to be beholden to whoever pays your bills and uh if that turns

00:22:17.040 out to be the government at some point well then chances are you're going to be a lot less

00:22:20.560 inclined to be critical of the government at the time because you just don't want that boat to be

00:22:24.160 rocked right i mean bill c18 uh you know for your viewers and listeners who uh who aren't familiar

00:22:31.120 with it it it forces big uh tech companies like facebook and linkedin and and google to pay money

00:22:38.400 to news organizations um not just any news organizations but organ approved news organizations

00:22:46.320 that the federal government has set up a panel

00:22:49.800 to approve what is a real news organization

00:22:52.120 and what isn't a real news organization.

00:22:54.940 You guys applied for that just to see what would happen.

00:22:59.560 You got a couple raised eyebrows, but a nod,

00:23:02.360 and then you politely declined to take the cash,

00:23:06.220 which I think speaks well of you

00:23:08.880 because as a former newspaper man,

00:23:12.360 i'm shocked at the extent to which uh pub today's publishers are willing to accept this uh

00:23:21.640 contradiction in in their independence uh to their independence like that uh anyway c18

00:23:28.680 feeds forces the face uh facebook etc to feed money to these companies for a fantasy uh commercial

00:23:37.400 exchange and it really puts the big publishers in the pocket of the government in not directly but

00:23:47.560 indirectly enough that it's going to make i think it's going to undermine their credibility with

00:23:54.040 their readers and listeners well absolutely i mean they're kind of pointing out some pointed back

00:23:58.760 said well i see the standard qualified you know they're not unfair as a as a committee but the

00:24:03.800 thing was if we had accepted that and then we became dependent on that shakedown as the term

00:24:08.760 has been put for the social media giants to get that money well we are always going to be fearful

00:24:13.080 though of losing our status as an approved media outlet so i mean if that rug could be yanked out

00:24:18.040 from under us at any given time we're not going to be fully independent and we're going to always

00:24:22.600 have that in the back of our minds even if unintentional when reporting on anything and

00:24:26.440 that's not good yeah and you know even if you are pure as the driven snow um people who consume your

00:24:34.440 product will wonder if you are right so like these conflicts of interest like really interesting

00:24:41.240 going back been involved in a few of these you know you hear people say hey i know when i'm in

00:24:45.320 a conflict of interest you know i'm okay you know it doesn't matter that you know this story is

00:24:50.440 about the priest at the church i went to i can still report on it fairly well you know perhaps

00:24:56.360 you can't um but the point is you should not because other people will think you can't um

00:25:02.440 and that's the way conflict of interest works so that's what happens with uh with these sort

00:25:07.480 of connections where you are always thinking about it in the back of your head um and it

00:25:13.560 it uh it informs your behavior right i mean one of the things with c18 as laid out right

00:25:19.480 the facebook let's use facebook as an example has to come to an agreement with uh uh call it

00:25:27.560 the national post right and as part of that agreement they have to assure that the money

00:25:33.080 they are sending them is spent on uh national you know canadian news right um and then after that

00:25:44.280 the crtc has to approve that agreement right so just like you said when you're building that

00:25:51.000 agreement about how that money gets spent you're going to build it knowing that you are seeking

00:25:57.960 the crtc's approval right so you essentially through this system whether intended or otherwise

00:26:04.520 you have the behaviors of the newsrooms of the nation being they are they are being overseen

00:26:14.040 by an arm of government and i just find that um no matter how benign the intentions

00:26:20.680 i just find that terrifying well that's it and i mean any developed democracy always will have a

00:26:28.400 clause somewhere in their constitution or their charter or whatever making sure to protect

00:26:31.840 free press. I mean, they recognize how important it is to have media feel comfortable with the

00:26:39.000 ability to be critical of their own government. If you lose that, you can be into a great deal

00:26:43.960 of trouble. And of course, whether well-meaning or not, authoritarian regimes do not like a free

00:26:49.820 press. That's one of the first things they'll always control. Yeah. And when we get into this,

00:26:56.720 we're talking about this sort of misuse of language, right? This is a free and independent

00:27:00.820 media everybody says that right um our media are free and independent russia tv you know was in

00:27:08.420 the news recently rtv right i mean the russians claim it's a free and independent media one of

00:27:13.620 the things we have to be careful about when we do these things is well we may assume that we have

00:27:18.260 the high moral ground on things and that we do is that we are not using the exact same arguments as

00:27:26.740 um other nations who are less democratically inclined than say we are and think it's okay

00:27:33.620 because we're better you know the argument is either good or the argument is bad so you either

00:27:38.180 you either have an independent press or you don't just because um you're getting your money from a

00:27:43.620 justin trudeau government as opposed to a vladimir putin government doesn't mean you're not taking

00:27:48.740 the government's money well that's it we're in a period of great flux and i mean i understand

00:27:54.340 people are also mistrustful of some of these social media giants. I mean, they exert a great

00:27:58.760 amount of influence on the information that's going out and our abilities. Facebook frustrates

00:28:03.340 us to no end with the Western Standard because they're very essential to us to be able to share

00:28:07.820 our stories to a broad audience. But at the same time, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship. I

00:28:14.100 mean, we're providing content for them. It's good for them. And they provide a platform for us to

00:28:18.440 share it out. But we can be pushed around a bit by some of those bigger ones as well. But I mean,

00:28:23.560 you know, letting those relationships evolve on their own, we should be able to let the chips fall

00:28:28.260 the right way. We don't need the government in there stirring it up in the meantime. Yeah, but

00:28:32.160 I mean, you raise a good point there, and you raise one in which I think there's a legitimate

00:28:35.980 case for some oversight, not by the government itself, but from a, you know, an arm's length

00:28:41.760 agency. And like, I'm a senior fellow with the Macdonald Laurier Institute, and my former chairman

00:28:48.900 at the crtc conrad von finkenstein is a senior fellow at the cd how institute and we actually

00:28:55.060 created a policy paper that said okay if you're going to do this stuff this is how you should do

00:28:59.540 it and we called it the social response of the social media responsibility act and the idea

00:29:06.020 behind that is to make sure that companies like facebook who are let's face it are in a pretty

00:29:12.100 dominant position in the marketplace right it's a not a full monopoly but it's as close as you're

00:29:21.300 going to get right if you want to reach audiences you don't have too many options other than to go

00:29:25.380 through facebook it's to make sure that they're behaving themselves and they're treating everybody

00:29:30.980 equally and fairly and they're upholding free speech that's a different approach than the one

00:29:37.620 that uh canadian department of heritage has been taking which is much more hands-on we want to make

00:29:43.860 our suggestion is that if you're going to regulate the internet you make sure that you

00:29:48.020 rate you regulate not the internet but these large dominant companies to make sure that they

00:29:54.740 are treating people fairly and giving everyone an equal voice um so if you get booted off for

00:30:00.340 saying something bad um uh somebody on the on the other end of the spectrum gets booted off for

00:30:08.020 saying the same thing that's bad you have the same rules and the same application of the rules yeah

00:30:13.460 which is a you know always difficult to come up with but not impossible uh media though is in a

00:30:18.660 in a general period of flux you know we're in a transition right now that we've never seen

00:30:23.940 before uh you know the the conventional outlets are having a very hard time there's no denying

00:30:29.620 that I mean I've talked about that before the advantages we have we've set up you know at some

00:30:34.780 degree of expense a studio and a broadcast and a publication now and everything which took some

00:30:41.120 investment but I mean not even a tiny fraction of what it would have cost 20 years ago if you

00:30:45.500 wanted to open a television studio or a printing press or things like that so I mean the older 0.99

00:30:51.680 institutions and the mainstream media outlets that still have those large infrastructure and

00:30:57.600 and uh overhead they are having a really hard time competing with outlets like ours right now and

00:31:03.600 again i mean i'm a free market guy i just kind of say let the chips fall where they may but it still

00:31:07.840 is putting a lot of pressure on the entire industry right now how can we work with that transition

00:31:13.120 oh yeah i mean we're going through a transition right now that's every bit as profound as the

00:31:16.960 invention of the printing press right i mean people need to get their heads around that there's a lot

00:31:21.200 of people in the traditional in the traditional uh fields who are kind of like well this is like the

00:31:26.560 the new, you know, internet, this is like the new cable, or is this what this? No, this is something

00:31:31.000 entirely new, right? And it's had a devastating effect on the old newspaper industry and that

00:31:37.200 sort of stuff. So if governments are looking to support, you know, if people are worried about

00:31:43.080 the state of journalism, which is a legitimate worry, I mean, you can worry about it for all

00:31:47.760 kinds of reasons, but if you're worried about it, you know, it having a financial foundation,

00:31:52.120 what you should be investing in

00:31:54.340 or what you should be getting out of the way of.

00:31:56.880 And this is, I'm a bit more like you in this,

00:31:59.320 is where can government get out of the way, right?

00:32:02.940 And allow for innovation to flourish, right?

00:32:06.760 So like your media and there's some others around,

00:32:10.720 you know, it'll work or it won't.

00:32:12.800 Nobody knows yet,

00:32:13.780 but you probably are making,

00:32:15.300 adjusting things all the time on the way you go.

00:32:17.960 But you are innovating, you are being entrepreneurial.

00:32:20.460 material and that's what you need to do what the government's doing right now with c18

00:32:25.420 is it is propping up failed clearly failed business models um what it should be doing

00:32:32.220 if it does anything is getting out of the way of innovation for innovators such as yourself

00:32:36.860 and also seeing if these guys helping these guys transition into whatever it is that's

00:32:42.280 going to work for the next stage but all that big old infrastructure all those collective

00:32:47.160 bar expensive collective bargaining agreements they're not sustainable no we just have to accept

00:32:54.120 that it's going to change and some people have to flex and there's still room for some some

00:32:58.440 great media professionals i mean it's worked in our benefit in some ways you know we've gotten a

00:33:02.360 hold of uh dave naylor here in our newsroom and we have columnists people you've worked with

00:33:06.920 familiar with such as macka chuck and and others then they've moved on to the new format right now

00:33:11.640 though it's it's still difficult because i mean it's not as lucrative as it used to be i mean

00:33:15.160 one of the things people forget is classified ads that you would know as well as anyway that was a

00:33:19.240 huge part of the revenue stream for newspapers and they're gone now and they've got to figure

00:33:22.920 out how to cope with that no they've been gone for a long time classified basically paid for the

00:33:27.160 newsroom right um in terms of profit and maybe even more than that right so losing that and

00:33:34.200 that's like a remarkable right because it's initially you were losing it to other online

00:33:40.200 you know revenue uh or uh companies and that sort of stuff who were still charging and then

00:33:44.840 kijiji came along and has given it away for free how do you compete against that here you've got

00:33:49.400 something that you know uh uh job ads you know the the employment section that sort of stuff

00:33:56.280 those are all new things um attaching a subscription to things and and proving your value

00:34:02.600 uh two readers um is really important it seems to be working you guys do it um knobby's putting

00:34:09.880 the old band back together uh all that sort of stuff right so yeah i mean keep innovating that's

00:34:17.000 what uh that's what new companies should be doing what concerns one of the things that concerns me

00:34:22.360 about c18 is that by propping up the failed business models they're actually handicapping

00:34:28.040 entrepreneurs like you. Yeah, well, and slowing that evolution. I mean, to a degree, you can

00:34:35.020 think it's doing a disservice to some of the established journalists who, you know, unfortunately

00:34:39.900 might have to move on from those legacy outlets, but they delay it too long. I mean, it's a boat

00:34:45.700 that's sailing. I used the analogy the other day. I mean, I started in the conventional survey

00:34:49.400 industry. I had to learn optical survey and all of that. And then GPS came along and wiped out all

00:34:54.080 my training, a guy could learn in 20 minutes, you know, with a digital unit, what took me years

00:34:58.140 of getting abused by a surveyor to figure out how to do with a transit. But your options as a

00:35:02.340 surveyor were to embrace GPS and move on to the new technology, or be left behind. And if somebody

00:35:08.560 had artificially held up the old survey sort, some guys would have stuck with it, but they would

00:35:13.860 have paid a bad price for it in the long run. Absolutely. I mean, you've got to be able to

00:35:19.060 change. And it's very, I remember when I was in the newspaper business, somebody used to say,

00:35:23.340 the moment at the moment you see a trend arrive on the pages of a newspaper you know it's over

00:35:29.180 um which was like they were big like oil tanker type um very vehicles they're very powerful

00:35:38.380 very strong very very rich um at their time but they were pretty hard to turn around

00:35:44.780 um in a hurry in in terms of that so i mean you know the dinosaur analogy isn't fair but

00:35:53.340 um well in a sense it is i mean it wasn't the dinosaur fault dinosaurs fault that the asteroid

00:35:58.900 hit right um and you know the the internet is the asteroid that hit the newspaper industry

00:36:05.340 there's no doubt about that um i think there's always going to be a market for good fair uh

00:36:10.440 unbiased news i think people really need to get back to their uh back to their basics and become

00:36:15.840 reporters there's way too much journalism going on you know activism blended and that sort of stuff

00:36:22.120 people always just wanted tell me what happened and let me make up my own mind right that's that's

00:36:28.780 always what worked um there's no reason why it can't work again and if people get back to that

00:36:33.980 straight news um let it go there's a lot of young people running around parliament hill right now

00:36:39.520 that's their first job they've uh i'm not sure if they can i don't want to insult some of them but

00:36:45.960 certainly all of them but there's some of them that i'm not sure you could trust to cover a motel

00:36:51.460 fire um you know it's a craft you need to get good at it it's not uh you're not on a mission to do

00:36:58.900 anything other than gather the facts and present them in a fair and unbiased fashion to your

00:37:03.620 audience i think i think that's the prayer people should hold to yeah well and those principles can

00:37:10.820 be re-established with new outfit you know new outlets and new outfits like here i i won't write

00:37:16.100 up paragraph of news copy i'm not uh appropriate for it or capable for it of it i'm a i'm an

00:37:20.900 opinion guy and likewise uh as you said knobby keeps a high standard and makes sure that all

00:37:26.180 of our reporters are sticking to journalistic standards and you know if we can do that other

00:37:29.780 outlets can and that's part of been what's been our success so far yeah and i mean it you know

00:37:34.900 all this funding going to you know what we call legacy media and and the big companies bell and

00:37:40.980 shaw and rogers and and i mean bill c18 the biggest beneficiary of that is going to be the cbc

00:37:47.140 which isn't an extremist at all how does that work i mean you're creating a fund to help people who

00:37:52.740 are you know whose businesses are dying and the cbc comes along all of a sudden just bellies up to

00:37:57.780 the bar and says make that around for me as well right um away you go but there might be some

00:38:03.540 advantage to entrepreneurs like uh like western standard uh now to be able to label yourself as

00:38:10.420 we don't take the money we are unapproving you know we we don't count the only approval we want

00:38:16.820 is from readers we don't care about the government's approval um you'll do so at some expense

00:38:22.020 to yourself but um that's short term and long term you might actually it might actually really

00:38:28.500 work for you yeah well i like to think it's going to benefit as much more than than any expense yeah

00:38:33.380 the short-term pain so in kind of closing up though we've got all these bills they're pending

00:38:37.620 right now as you said it's a multi-front thing we got c11 we got c18 with the liberal ndp coalition

00:38:43.940 it's pretty likely they're going to pass without issue uh how can we fight back against this well

00:38:48.980 i think there's there's still some opportunities left in the in the committee process right there's

00:38:54.020 um when you get into that the it's not like question period where people have their politicians

00:38:59.780 have to perform theatrics and i have seen in the past once they get into the committee process and

00:39:04.820 people start proposing amendments that there are points at which somebody might say you know you

00:39:09.460 kind of got a point there right we can reword this to this and that so the legislation will pass

00:39:15.140 maybe with some impact but i mean people should uh do their best to follow this uh make noise with

00:39:24.100 their mps and make noise with heritage canada and other places and even with their local media

00:39:30.820 um you know who are benefiting from this and ask ask for more information it's been kind of

00:39:38.160 frustrating for somebody like me who's i realize i'm really close to it and i there's some sort of

00:39:44.660 risk of me coming across as too policy wonky but like if people can get that upset about wearing

00:39:50.080 a mask how can you not get upset about losing your free freedom of speech how can you not get upset

00:39:56.640 about your about your media right taking money from the government being dependent on the

00:40:03.460 government right like i'm not saying being upset about a mask doesn't have that doesn't have isn't

00:40:09.100 isn't doesn't have value or isn't purposeless but you know it's temporary right this other stuff is

00:40:16.140 going to last for a very long time and we'll have a creep to it that uh um is worrisome

00:40:24.280 yeah it's always a lot harder to get rights back than it is to give them away oh yeah once they're

00:40:29.640 out the door they're gone well we'll see how it all develops uh you know it's troublesome but i

00:40:35.640 i mean i'm looking still to the future with a lot of optimism i mean we're doing well you know we'll

00:40:40.200 keep pushing through no matter what as well a number of other outlets and people with uh you

00:40:44.440 know an integrity and ambition uh but just might be some bumps in the road along the way so uh keep

00:40:52.280 your head up because c11 applies to all online audio and video oh i know i'm watching that's what

00:40:58.680 we just did and i'm not uh always one who's uh you know unafraid to to ruffle some feathers with

00:41:05.160 stuff i do and there's that risk i could tick off the wrong person and uh something gets interpreted

00:41:09.400 through that and suddenly they pull the plug on our broadcast i i do worry about that but i can't

00:41:13.880 let that uh change how i'll approach things or or there just won't be much point to the show anymore

00:41:19.080 That's right. I really, as I said, appreciate your voice. How can people find out more information?

00:41:24.700 You're with the McDonnell Laurier Institute as well. I mean, I was trying to look up the one line

00:41:28.280 description of what you're up to these days. It was just so long. You're a busy man.

00:41:32.240 Oh, yeah. I'm there. Yeah. No, I usually just go with a former newspaper executive and past

00:41:38.640 CRTC vice chair. That tightens it up. That tightens it up a little bit. I would encourage

00:41:45.120 people to uh you know go online and go to places like michaelgeist.ca michael's a uh

00:41:54.480 a a law professor at the university of ottawa the canada research chair in internet law

00:42:00.080 and he is a very articulate critic of this and he manages to analyze it legally but still make his

00:42:08.960 analyses accessible to those of us among the great unwashed when it comes to that sort of stuff so

00:42:15.840 michael's actually very good at translating things like that um i expect there will be uh some

00:42:22.160 reporting uh in platforms such as your own uh independent platforms uh black locks reporter

00:42:28.320 is another one i think the line is another uh group that's not taking the money so find the

00:42:34.480 find the find the truly independent media and look for commentary and stories on those posts

00:42:41.600 because I'm afraid we can't expect right now within our major media to see much pushback on

00:42:48.040 any of these bills no unfortunately and as you said that's that consequence perhaps of making

00:42:53.260 them a bit dependent on that in the first place which is sad to see it is and it's sad to see that

00:42:58.920 they're actually so desperate that this is happening to you know nobody nobody wants to

00:43:03.720 see that happen nobody likes to see people get laid off nobody likes to see companies fail

00:43:07.800 no and that's why I hope and I like talking about a transition rather than uh you know the

00:43:12.640 dynamiting of an old institution and I do I get on the case of establishment media a lot but I do

00:43:18.660 like to put out the caveat on and there's still some very fantastic skilled journalists out there

00:43:23.040 in those legacy outlets including even the CBC I just wish they'd move on to private ventures

00:43:28.380 yeah no I agree there's some there's some really really good journalists and you know like the old

00:43:33.200 phrase used to be newspapers don't report when airplanes land safely so you know people don't

00:43:40.020 react when they see good journalism as much as they react when they see bad journalism right so

00:43:44.320 that's it makes me angry I guess it makes me frustrated or I'm disappointed is probably a

00:43:50.560 better way to say it when I see bad journalism because it drags down the good ones and there

00:43:55.380 are a lot of good ones and as you said including at the CBC so we need to make sure they make it

00:44:02.440 through this. Absolutely. Well, again, I really appreciate you joining us today. I hope we get

00:44:07.060 the chance to talk again soon. Maybe we'll have a positive development in media to discuss at that

00:44:10.820 time. We'll continue to make sure this works. Right on. Thanks, Peter. Thanks. Thanks very

00:44:18.240 much. So as I said, that was Peter Menzies. As you said, a former newspaper executive. He's with

00:44:24.320 the CRTC. He's a fellow with the McDonnell Laurier Institute and a great number of things. And he's

00:44:30.380 active on Twitter and social media in general and can really speak with experience and authority

00:44:35.780 on these media issues. I mean, it sounds a little self-serving when we're on here discussing those

00:44:39.780 things sometimes, but well, I guess it is. But it's to everybody's benefit to have a free press.

00:44:47.060 As I've talked about before in the past, I've had some good experiences. I did have a good young

00:44:53.280 life and I did have the opportunity to travel the Soviet Union while it was still the Soviet Union

00:44:58.320 and to see the true extreme of where propaganda and information control can get to.

00:45:04.140 And it's possible and it does happen.

00:45:07.380 We don't want to go back there.

00:45:10.180 It is a terrible area to go.

00:45:12.360 So looking at some of this other stuff and, you know, we're going to talk to Franco pretty quickly.

00:45:16.580 I'm going to speak actually to one more of our sponsors since we're talking about paying our bills

00:45:19.620 and being the good capitalists that we are and people who support freedoms.

00:45:23.120 And that's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:45:26.240 these guys have been a sponsor for us for quite some time as well and they're a very good one

00:45:31.200 their name says what they are they're an association for people who enjoy firearms

00:45:35.600 for whatever reason they may want to you know where you're a collector you're a target shooter

00:45:39.080 a trap shooter like that picture there uh or hunter it's up to you as long as you're obeying

00:45:44.640 the laws none of the governance business what you're doing and these guys offer everything

00:45:48.380 from you know uh links to videos on safe firearm use and stuff like that or networking with other

00:45:53.780 firearm owners. That's what an association is all about. Most importantly of all, they're pushing

00:45:59.540 back against the government's legislation that's trying to take away your right and ability to own

00:46:04.100 and enjoy these firearms. Because as we've seen with the liberals, they keep recategorizing

00:46:08.960 firearms, turning law-abiding people into criminals. You know, hunting rifles are suddenly

00:46:13.500 assault-style rifles, and now they're going to take them away. Well, you've got to push back,

00:46:18.400 guys. If you don't push back, they will get away with it. And these guys have a number of legal

00:46:23.460 challenges out on behalf of firearm owners they are taking the government to court they're pushing

00:46:28.160 back on this and if we don't push back it's kind of like when i was talking to our previous guest

00:46:32.720 peter menzies you put you lose those rights they're a lot harder to get back so get on there

00:46:38.060 canadian shooting sports association their website cssa-cila.org or just google them

00:46:44.340 and join them take out a membership that's how they can keep standing up for you because it's

00:46:48.980 very, very important. All right. So we're going to get on some more budget talk with Mr. Terrizano

00:46:54.660 pretty soon here. Let me just look a little more through the news scroll. Here's an interesting

00:46:59.100 one. It's, you know, it's mixed with me. You see, you want to, you always want someone else to be

00:47:05.720 the one that gets taxed. That's the thing. It's always easy to say tax that guy, but not me. Tax

00:47:09.040 this person, but not me. But a lot of people don't look at the progression on how that all works. And

00:47:12.780 I see that the government went out though, and they're putting, it looks like over a billion

00:47:17.180 new taxes against banks and insurers. And you know, I despise dealing with banks. I despise

00:47:23.240 dealing with insurance companies because there are two areas of business where you can't avoid them.

00:47:27.620 You have to deal with them. And you go in and you always feel like a supplicant. You don't feel like 0.99

00:47:31.520 a customer. You feel like you're always going to ask if they could do this for you. Could you please

00:47:35.320 finance this for me? Could you please lend me money for that? Could you please cover my vehicle or

00:47:40.100 cover my house? And it seems on a whim, they could always decline you. So it makes it kind of hard

00:47:44.720 to like those guys, but they are a part of life and we can't avoid them. And now with these new

00:47:51.900 taxes coming on the banks and insurers, as much as people feel that's a good finger in the eye to

00:47:56.200 them, guys, it still comes back to you. It always comes back to you. The bank is just going to raise

00:48:03.360 your rates. The insurance companies are just going to raise your rates. The government is just finding

00:48:08.460 other ways to suck money out of your pocket. It's just a more indirect route. So don't celebrate

00:48:14.020 higher taxes on institutions even if they're institutions you don't like and like I said I

00:48:20.300 don't like banks and insurance companies but I also understand that the government taxes them

00:48:25.240 I'm still going to end up the one who's on the hook for that in the long run they're just going

00:48:30.280 to raise my insurance rates they're just going to raise my banking rates we've got to push the

00:48:35.320 government to cut their bloody spending not just try and put them say tax that person over there 1.00

00:48:39.620 instead or get more money out of this over there. It's not the way to do it. It's not going to work.

00:48:45.000 You always pay for it. And if enough Canadians could ever understand that, maybe we'd start 0.82

00:48:50.940 electing better governments, though we've got a little ways to go yet. So this is just a quote

00:48:56.040 to finish up with that from the prime minister saying when he sent me his promises, everyone

00:49:00.740 else had to tighten their belt. Well, actually, the prime minister never did. So I don't, he can't

00:49:04.580 speak to that firsthand. And he says, we're going to ask them to do a little bit more. You know,

00:49:08.740 it's always a little bit more. I love it when people ask for spending or talk about increases,

00:49:11.820 you know, it's just a cup of coffee a day. It adds up, guys, and I can only drink so much coffee. But

00:49:16.180 either way, he points out that banks and insurance insurers have been doing very well. Well, so what?

00:49:22.280 They speak of that as if it's a problem. It's good for businesses to do well, even if they're

00:49:26.860 businesses you don't like. The main thing is keep them competitive. So I can move from bank to bank

00:49:30.800 or insurance company to insurance company. And then I'll probably still get the best deal out

00:49:34.580 of them that I can, even if I hate dealing with them. But man, when the government starts getting

00:49:38.520 in on it, we're all going to lose and we do every time. Okay, I've bitched, cursed, whined, and

00:49:42.600 ranted enough. Let's bring somebody else in to take that over for a bit. We've got Franco

00:49:45.880 Terrazzano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation because this is Super Bowl day for Franco or

00:49:52.240 yesterday was. It's the annual federal budget and I'm certain he's got a lot to tell us about it.

00:49:57.280 Hey, Franco, how's it going? Corey, I'm doing well, man. How are you doing? Pretty good,

00:50:01.860 actually get ready for the weekend good stuff um love the rant on the uh on the bank tax i think

00:50:08.860 you absolutely nailed it right it's really going to fall on canadians when we go to the banks we'll

00:50:14.100 hire fees surprise surprise but it's not only that cory um yesterday we saw the government

00:50:20.800 going after banks and insurance companies well what business what sector what industry what type

00:50:27.320 of Canadian are they going to go after next with higher taxes, right? These taxes on certain

00:50:32.680 businesses, these taxes on the so-called wealthy, they're the Trojan horse of politics. They get

00:50:38.580 the tax through the door and then they expand it and expand it. And eventually they tax more and

00:50:43.900 more Canadians. And here's just one other point. I've heard some people say, well, how are you

00:50:48.800 going to pay down the $1 trillion debt? Well, when it comes to deficit reduction, this is little

00:50:53.760 more than silly political posturing cory the way the trudeau government is spending money left right

00:50:59.220 and center the government would blow through that type of cash in a day in a day and uh one last

00:51:05.840 thing to end my rant you know they uh trudeau talks about the banks and these businesses doing

00:51:11.500 well you know who's been doing really well during the pandemic mr trudeau himself who's pocketed

00:51:17.020 not one not two but three pay raises during the pandemic yeah most of us haven't been enjoying

00:51:23.580 such as you know speaking his language i mean you know to throw his own words back when he was

00:51:27.720 talking about that he said big banks got a windfall well what the hell did you get justin

00:51:31.820 if the rest of us aren't getting raises yeah no kidding if you if you total up the three pandemic

00:51:37.600 pay raises that mps our members of parliament gave to themselves they range all the way from

00:51:43.660 an extra ten thousand dollars in total for your back venture all the way up to more than twenty

00:51:48.920 thousand dollars for trudeau compared to his pre-pandemic salary yeah good work if you can get

00:51:56.360 it uh it's uh something else so uh where else to go with this budget uh maybe uh you got a coles

00:52:02.600 notes version to give us here to start things off oh i absolutely do so budget 2022 it's another

00:52:09.640 credit card budget from canada's national credit card government we're seeing a huge deficit 52.8

00:52:17.220 billion, which follows the last two years of astronomical deficits of $300 billion plus in

00:52:23.580 2020, $100 billion plus last year. So another big deficit. What's so frustrating though,

00:52:29.780 Corey, is that this government has absolutely zero plan on when it's going to balance the budget.

00:52:35.600 The best that this government can give taxpayers is, hey, in 2026, we'll finally bring the deficit

00:52:41.160 down to a single digit billions. That's the best they want to give us. And Corey,

00:52:46.360 I don't even know if we can trust them to meet that target.

00:52:49.460 Remember back in the day, Prime Minister Trudeau said he would balance the budget in 2019,

00:52:54.100 but then he missed that target by $20 billion.

00:52:58.120 Yeah, and I mean, I'm glad you pointed out that you can't use that excuse forever.

00:53:02.920 The difference between the pre-pandemic spending budget and our current one.

00:53:06.280 So, I mean, there were some exceptional circumstances in the last couple of years,

00:53:09.800 but that excuse has to go by the wayside.

00:53:11.960 We've got to try and look back to what our normal bar of spending was,

00:53:15.180 and they didn't stay anywhere close to within it.

00:53:17.580 And Corey, then if you want to call it normal, if we can call it normal, it really wasn't normal.

00:53:23.220 Remember, pre-pandemic, the federal government was spending all-time highs.

00:53:27.660 So in 2018, you had Trudeau spending more than the federal government did during any single year during World War II.

00:53:34.680 And yes, that's even after accounting for inflation and population growth.

00:53:38.660 Now this year, Trudeau wants to spend about $452 billion.

00:53:44.180 dollars cory that's 90 billion dollars more than pre-pandemic that's 90 billion dollars more than

00:53:53.220 what the government was spending when it was spending all-time highs so this is another

00:53:57.700 very costly budget of course the pain is being felt today through inflation and it's going to

00:54:03.620 be felt tomorrow through higher taxes well so some of the spending initiatives i mean they really had

00:54:10.100 a housing focus it was housing housing housing i see billions of dollars committed over the next

00:54:15.060 five or six years towards uh affordable housing but does it look like these this will be effective

00:54:21.380 whatsoever i started my rant off with it people are who are listening all the way through no i i

00:54:24.980 don't believe that but what's uh the the taxpayers interpretation federation yeah the government

00:54:29.700 wants to uh tackle affordability with more debt but trying to fight inflation with more government

00:54:36.500 debt is like trying to put out the fire with a can of gasoline. It's just going to make things

00:54:41.640 worse. Look, this government tries to talk about affordability and it should care about affordability

00:54:47.600 because Canadians are struggling. Many Canadians can't afford to fuel the car up with gasoline or

00:54:52.940 to put ground beef in the grocery cart. And that's because you have this government that's been

00:54:57.180 spending like crazy for years and raising taxes. But the answer to this inflation problem is not

00:55:03.800 more spending it's less spending it's less government deficits and it's less tax hikes

00:55:09.860 so we're seeing the government pull us in the wrong direction we're seeing the government

00:55:13.660 double down on what is really driving this inflation so let's get to some of the the

00:55:20.960 positive areas i guess not positive in reality but what would we like to see how could the budget be

00:55:26.040 balanced and of course there's the thing with the people who are fearful and dependent on

00:55:29.680 government largesse all the time what would be cut cory the government could balance its budget

00:55:36.660 within a few years by 2024 just by bringing spending back to pre-pandemic levels which were

00:55:44.060 already all-time highs that's how the government could balance the budget and with overspending

00:55:50.920 that we've seen from this trudeau government for years and years and years finding savings

00:55:55.400 in every single area of the budget should be like finding water in the ocean, right? So we should be

00:56:00.720 seeing across the board savings. But let's even set those aside for now. Here's a few other ones.

00:56:05.720 Of course, leadership has to start at the top. MPs got to stop giving themselves pay raises while

00:56:11.080 the people that they're supposed to represent continue to struggle with revolving government

00:56:16.040 lockdowns, restrictions, higher taxes, you name it. But also you can't keep giving bureaucrats

00:56:21.860 bigger pay raises 312,000 federal government bureaucrats got a pay raise during the pandemic

00:56:27.660 let's look at equalization this is a slush fund for some provincial premiers it continues to go

00:56:34.220 up by a billion dollars every single year well of course the canadian taxpayers federation presented

00:56:39.080 to the finance committee a way to phase out equalization in a fair manner over 20 years

00:56:45.700 something like that needs to happen and cory just before our segment i heard you talking about the

00:56:50.380 gun grab and buyback. Now this is going to be a taxpayer boondoggle. It has every makings of one.

00:56:57.520 This is likely going to cost billions of dollars, but it won't even make Canada safe. And that's

00:57:03.160 because it's going after law-abiding citizens. Corey, I don't know about you, but I can't imagine

00:57:08.180 too many gang members showing up at government offices handing in their guns. No, this is

00:57:13.220 targeting Canadian citizens, law-abiding citizens. It's really not going to do much to address the

00:57:18.580 real threat which is uh criminal activity and the illegal flow of guns across the border yeah i mean

00:57:24.760 this is it's like the liberals can't learn from their own actions i mean it was kind of before

00:57:29.080 your time there but with uh alan rock and the big gun registry of the 90s and they assured us this

00:57:34.880 is going to cost 20 30 40 million dollars it ended up costing i believe billions billion dollars by

00:57:40.740 the time they scrapped it and again it wasn't effective it didn't reduce crime it didn't take

00:57:44.640 illegal guns off the street they're just doing the same thing from a different angle and it'll

00:57:48.300 be just as effective and just as expensive, I'm afraid. And Corey, let me talk about two

00:57:52.920 big spending items that really caught my eye in the budget. So even just setting aside all the

00:57:58.580 spending reductions I just named. Number one, $15 billion on what they're calling some type

00:58:05.460 of growth fund. Now, the details aren't really in the budget, but essentially what it smells like

00:58:11.580 is just some corporate welfare slush fund to the tune of $15 billion. But look, this government

00:58:18.080 could even balance the budget of a lemonade stand. I don't trust it to be running around

00:58:22.700 playing investment banker with $15 billion worth of taxpayers' money. If they want to grow the

00:58:28.060 economy, cut out the middleman, just keep that $15 billion in taxpayers' pockets and families' 0.58

00:58:34.400 pockets and businesses' budgets and let businesses and families do the rest. The next thing that

00:58:40.160 caught my eye, Corey, is a billion dollars to create some type of government agency to be

00:58:45.180 promoting investment and innovation but corey i don't know about you but doesn't that sound

00:58:49.340 like a bit of an oxymoron government agency on innovation yeah no that's never been an area of

00:58:56.220 skill and no government's immune from that i mean in alberta yeah look at our investment in the

00:59:01.660 keystone that didn't pay off well or going farther back we went into mag can we went into gainers we

00:59:07.740 went into uh nova tell all these things that people don't remember but the alberta government

00:59:11.980 got into business all over the place and all of them failed all of them their their record was

00:59:16.380 abysmal and uh this was a ostensibly conservative government now we got the liberals running around

00:59:21.980 picking winners and losers i i think the only winners are going to be of course those guys who

00:59:26.020 accept the subsidies and the losers will be canadians as usual and the bond fund managers

00:59:30.660 don't forget about the bond fund managers because all the interest charges that taxpayers have to

00:59:36.040 pay. Look, it's a crazy amount of money that is being wasted on interest charges on the

00:59:42.740 government credit card. Every single month, taxpayers have to pay more than $2 billion

00:59:48.180 just on interest charges on the government's credit card. Now, to put that in perspective,

00:59:54.260 that means taxpayers are paying more this year on federal debt interest charges than the Alberta

01:00:00.600 government will spend on health care yeah and that's just money essentially flushed down the

01:00:06.280 toilet and and they're borrowing more so not only will they add to what we have to pay interest on

01:00:11.480 but the government the bank can has already been signaling they're going to be raising those

01:00:14.520 interest rates in the years to come too i know it's it's it seems like a lot of pain for canadians

01:00:21.480 and the reason is is because you have this government that put itself between a rock and

01:00:25.640 hard place years of easy money policy massive printing of money on display during the pandemic

01:00:34.040 and of course overspending for years from the federal government so um look there's just no way

01:00:39.960 to um skip out on paying the piper eventually you have to pay the piper and if you don't believe so

01:00:46.680 well then just ask the finance ministers from the 1990s what happens when politicians kick the

01:00:51.960 deficit can down the road for far too long remember in the 90s core you'll remember this

01:00:57.240 maybe i won't but you had these finance ministers um from all levels of government from different

01:01:03.880 political parties who had to make some very very very tough decisions and what we continue to say

01:01:09.720 now is either this government makes some tough decisions like bringing spending back to pre

01:01:14.840 pandemic levels which were already all-time highs or tougher decisions are going to be forced on us

01:01:21.480 just like what happened in saskatchewan when you had an ndp government that was forced to close

01:01:26.200 more than 50 hospitals across that prairie province well that's it i mean fiscal reality

01:01:32.440 does come home to roost there's a lot of parts of the 90s i don't remember really well but i i've

01:01:37.640 i indulged a lot in those days but i do remember the politics a lot of the time and and uh yeah

01:01:43.720 politicians of every stripe had to do with the romano ndp government had to balance their budget

01:01:48.760 jean chretien a liberal government had to balance their budget and this will eventually come

01:01:54.840 to us and i mean it doesn't matter how much the unions scream and how much the left screams

01:01:58.920 because that's what happens when the cuts come when the when the cupboard truly becomes bare

01:02:03.800 it doesn't matter if it's an ndp government a liberal government they have to cut and if we'd

01:02:07.720 cut modestly now it'll save from the drastic cuts later but not enough people seem to realize that

01:02:13.000 yet and i also want to just make it clear this isn't just consequences for years down the road

01:02:18.760 right a lot of people when they think about government debt they think of yeah there's

01:02:22.120 there's money being wasted on interest payments and it's too much money we need that to be going

01:02:26.520 and used to build more hospitals roads lower taxes things of that nature but we're also

01:02:32.360 seeing real life consequences today the inflation tax is showing canadians firsthand that you can't

01:02:39.720 just have government debt running wild. You can't have the government's printing press

01:02:44.120 on overdrive and think that nothing's going to happen. During the pandemic, we saw the federal

01:02:48.760 government central bank, the bank of Canada print $370 billion right out of thin air,

01:02:55.720 buying financial assets like government of Canada debt. And the problem there is the more dollars

01:03:02.280 that this bank of Canada prints, the less that your dollars in your bank account or in your savings

01:03:06.920 account will buy. So it sure has seemed that Ottawa has been financing a good chunk of its

01:03:13.140 deficits with the printing press, which means that Ottawa has been financing and getting some

01:03:19.500 of its money by devaluing your money. That's the inflation tax. And the debt is having a real world

01:03:26.880 consequence by driving up the cost of living here in Canada. Yeah. And it's just brutal on people

01:03:32.420 with fixed incomes and such. I mean, you can't flex and move to go with that. I mean, some people

01:03:36.740 can float a bit with inflation, their, their salaries will increase a bit, but not everybody's

01:03:41.180 in that position. And it's going to be very harmful. There was also some payroll taxes that

01:03:46.600 rose. Yep. Payroll taxes are up again in 2022. Expect to pay about $400 extra if you're making

01:03:56.200 about $65,000 or more just through payroll taxes. So what really caught the eye in the budget,

01:04:02.180 i think of of the media is the um is the bank and insurance tax but we also have to remember that

01:04:07.780 taxes are going up this year even outside of what was really in that budget and i'm talking about

01:04:13.140 the carbon tax right that's got that just went up april one alcohol taxes just went up april one

01:04:19.060 and payroll taxes are are are also going up in 2022. so was there a couple of taxes they reduced

01:04:26.340 somewhere just to throw a little credit where due? Well, yeah. There was, I guess, two types

01:04:32.520 of tax reductions. There was a tax on low alcoholic beer, an excise tax on that. And

01:04:38.960 there should have never been an excise tax on low or non-alcoholic beverages, right? So it's good

01:04:44.240 to see the government scrap that. That's good policy, credit where credit's due. And there

01:04:48.860 was some other tax relief for small businesses. Oh, I mean, everyone knows that small businesses

01:04:54.280 need tax relief especially right now after the last two years that governments have put them

01:04:58.440 through and the government is um allowing more businesses so medium-sized businesses to be

01:05:04.780 eligible for the small business tax rate which is lower than the general business tax rate so those

01:05:09.960 are both you know good moves for sure um but not even close to what we what we need to be seeing

01:05:16.600 from this government on tax relief yeah no they they are drops in the bucket and uh you know but

01:05:22.120 I guess it's worth mentioning. We're here to cover the whole budget. I mean, what it gets me is any

01:05:27.020 kind of increase to payroll taxes. I mean, government talks about taxes as being something

01:05:30.640 to stop the activity of something. Well, when you're going to tax people on their employment,

01:05:34.880 you're going to reduce their employment. They don't seem to understand that when it comes.

01:05:38.680 Yeah. And that's money that they should be leaving in Canadians' pockets. Families are

01:05:42.520 having such a difficult time. Canadians are having such a difficult time. But also that's

01:05:46.780 that impacts businesses as well. And obviously businesses need liquidity. They need to have

01:05:51.980 money to reinvest in their operations, get more people back to work. So it should be a no-brainer

01:05:58.640 that right now is the worst possible time to raise taxes. So very unfortunate that Ottawa

01:06:03.900 continues to raise taxes. And Corey, I think it's important to talk about international comparisons

01:06:09.000 here because we're seeing other countries do the exact opposite. We saw South Korea reduce gas

01:06:14.200 taxes by 20%. We saw both France and Spain reduce electricity taxes, Italy reducing taxes as well.

01:06:21.880 You have India that cut fuel taxes, Poland cut fuel taxes, Sri Lanka cutting taxes. The United

01:06:27.700 Kingdom just announced fuel tax relief. Corey, you even have President Joe Biden down south

01:06:33.260 saying that he is considering big time gas tax relief. So you have these other countries that

01:06:39.040 are reducing taxes while Ottawa continues to make our lives harder with higher tax bills.

01:06:44.900 Yeah, we're certainly not going to remain competitive for much longer at that rate.

01:06:49.520 Well, thanks for the update today, Franco.

01:06:52.100 I knew it wasn't going to be all sunshine and lollipops, but we need that realistic breakdown

01:06:57.240 of what we're facing year by year on these things.

01:06:59.400 Hopefully enough people will eventually turn that tide at some point.

01:07:04.460 So where can we find more information on what you do and where people can push back a bit against this ever-increasing tax burden?

01:07:13.000 Head over to Taxpayer.com.

01:07:14.500 Check out our newsroom.

01:07:15.840 Check out the petitions on there.

01:07:17.660 Follow us on Facebook.

01:07:18.780 Just type in Canadian Taxpayers Federation and you can follow us on Twitter as well.

01:07:22.540 And, Corey, thank you so much for having me on today.

01:07:25.420 Oh, never a problem.

01:07:26.620 Always good to have you on, Franco.

01:07:28.440 So I'm sure we'll talk again sometime soon and I'll let you get back to what I'm sure is the busiest week of the year for you.

01:07:34.460 okay take care cory thanks thanks so yes that was franco terrazzano of the canadian taxpayers

01:07:40.060 federation you know some people say why do i get those ctf guys on all the time well for 0.75

01:07:43.500 one because i like them but the the other part is they're one of the few guests who they never

01:07:47.900 ask it for more money you know everybody else say i want you know they talk about a pet program or

01:07:51.500 this or that and but they feel that there should be more money going towards it from here there

01:07:55.660 or wherever the taxpayers federation is actually constantly saying no we want to let you have a

01:08:00.620 little more of your own money so it's a refreshing change and i like to bring them on they stand up

01:08:05.580 and dig into those dry issues i mean that budget was 304 pages i think if i recall i did actually

01:08:11.900 read and skim it and somebody's got to have the job of going through all those things and finding

01:08:17.020 out what they're really burying in there what they're really hiding in there and the taxpayers

01:08:21.100 federation does that on our behalf it's their job but at least they can summarize it and encapsulate

01:08:25.740 it so we can digest it and see what they're doing uh speaking of inflation and things such as that

01:08:31.980 let's uh get on to i see some discussion and i know not everybody uh agrees on bitcoin and i

01:08:36.700 see from marvin uh sherry stewart there so you know back and forth on digital currencies look

01:08:41.500 digital currencies are voluntary you don't have to get into them i like them i think they're a wave

01:08:46.860 of the future i think they're a beneficial thing i do worry about the government getting into a

01:08:50.700 cashless world but you know what we're already there i mean how many people carry cash and do

01:08:54.700 anything anymore. All your money is in conventional banks right now. It comes off your credit card,

01:08:59.900 your debit card. And we saw just recently that the government will get at that money. They will

01:09:04.460 take it. They will seize it and the banks will be complicit with it. They've done it. It's not

01:09:08.520 conspiracy theory anymore. It's not paranoia. It's been done right in this country only a couple

01:09:13.800 months ago. One thing the government didn't get a bit of, no Bitcoin. They didn't get a penny of it

01:09:18.440 because they can't. Bitcoin Well, this is our sponsor, and they show you how that can work,

01:09:24.680 how you can put your money into a wallet, a ledger that is completely separate and apart

01:09:29.520 from the banks. They don't share that with the banks. They don't share that with the government.

01:09:33.360 It's yours. What Bitcoin Well does, they didn't ever even have access to your money.

01:09:38.500 They just guide you through the process. And we do it here at the Western Standard. I got involved,

01:09:44.380 you know, an old Luddite like me by just having a monthly program we have here at the Western

01:09:49.820 Standard. A percentage of my paycheck goes into a Bitcoin wallet. The Western Standard actually

01:09:54.380 matches that. So every month, a little bit more gets set aside. And now that it's set up, if I

01:09:58.380 should choose to, if I ever have any extra money at the end of the month, that's not kind of a rare

01:10:02.200 thing, but I could put a little more into the Bitcoin account if I wanted. And that's something

01:10:05.600 that, you know, isn't based on Canadian inflation rates and things like that. It's a whole different

01:10:10.240 currency for you. So I mean, you can look at that as a hedge. And I mean, there's other digital

01:10:14.240 currencies out there besides Bitcoin as well. But Bitcoin, well, of course, they specialize in

01:10:18.140 Bitcoin as per their name. And they are fantastic for, you know, leading you through the process,

01:10:24.900 showing you how to do it. And you don't have to go in with a giant big investment. It's not a big

01:10:29.480 thing like that. And as we can see, you can pay your bills and your credit cards with it. They

01:10:32.940 make it practical, right? It's not just something you're setting aside. I mean, hey, there's some

01:10:37.520 benefit to say, talk about grabbing some gold and sticking it under the bed for when the apocalypse

01:10:41.440 comes. But you can't pay your electric bill that month with it. Well, with Bitcoin, actually you

01:10:46.620 can. So you can actually utilize this currency practically while you're at it too, if you want

01:10:52.040 to. And also a lot of people use it as a longer term investment. Either way, check out bitcoinwell.com.

01:10:57.780 These guys will help you take control of your money. And again, it's a Western Canadian company.

01:11:03.500 I love pushing those. So let's look at some of this other stuff from the government. The cabinet's

01:11:08.020 going to extend for years the payment of $5,000 rebates to electric car buyers. Again, the

01:11:12.940 government punishing you, trying to direct you. You know what term we used to hear a lot of before

01:11:16.880 is social engineering. People talk now with how governments do the social credit system to try

01:11:24.980 and push people into doing different things and things like that. Brad asking, by the way,

01:11:28.820 do I use Bitcoin well? I just said it. Yes, I do. So either way, this way they just keep trying to

01:11:36.540 force us into electric cars. We don't want to. They're expensive. They're inefficient. They

01:11:42.340 suck in the cold. They got a crappy range. My house isn't built to charge them and electricity 1.00

01:11:47.740 isn't free. My electric bill the other month was horrible. At least Jane told me I don't take care

01:11:52.680 of all that stuff. I'm lucky I have a wife who deals with all that in my behalf, but she does

01:11:56.960 remind me how much it costs, you know, as I'm leaving the lights on around the house and

01:12:00.220 charging up stuff that doesn't need to be charged. Either way, the Privy Council office showed that

01:12:05.520 Canadians consider electric cars too expensive for everyday drivers. Yes, they still do. And

01:12:09.760 it's because they suck. Giving me another $5,000 to pay it doesn't make me any more inclined to 0.99

01:12:15.040 get there. But what it will do is, of course, force all of us to pay the people who choose to

01:12:18.560 take those vehicles out. And with the only people who are using them still, despite a decade of

01:12:23.800 always saying, we're all going to switch to it. Look around. They're urban dwelling virtue

01:12:28.200 signalers with big budgets. You want to be able to drive around in your Tesla and show off that

01:12:32.220 you have an electric vehicle. And hey, if that's what you like, you know what? Good for you. As

01:12:35.760 long as it's your money. I shouldn't have to subsidize your purchase of a luxury electric

01:12:42.820 vehicle. Do it on your own. Living in rural areas, nobody's buying those things. You can't rely on

01:12:48.640 that. Either way, they might get there one day. They might. I mean, they're developing. They're

01:12:52.860 better now than they were 10 years ago but they're still not practical like jade the commenter is

01:12:57.540 pointing out yeah how are people living in apartments going to charge their cars you get in

01:13:00.880 trouble in the city as it is just running an electric cord across to plug in your block heater

01:13:05.820 in winter time you can get a ticket for that or people steal it or it gets chopped up when people

01:13:10.060 run a snowblower over it electric cars are not for everybody they're not that practical but the

01:13:16.100 government will not give up on trying to force us into these bloody things and uh it's costly so

01:13:21.840 they're extending that plan now till 2025 at a cost of $1.7 billion. And getting back to what

01:13:26.600 I was talking about before, not costing somebody else that much money, costing us. We all get to

01:13:32.440 pay for it. And it's insane. Insane. The finance department says 136,000 buyers received rebates

01:13:40.900 for that. Yeah, but when you think out of a country of nearly 40 million people of whom

01:13:46.320 at least half are drivers, this is a tiny minority that we're all subsidizing, guys.

01:13:50.840 You shouldn't be subsidizing anybody. If you want it, buy your own. Put it on me. Again,

01:13:56.200 the government is trying to push us where we don't want to go, and it's a very bad trend,

01:14:02.040 and it's taking us bad places. Going further, I mean, on to some of that discussion. We've got

01:14:07.740 a real problem with ideology, and things that bother me a lot, actually, are the politics of

01:14:13.560 envy. And we get a lot of confusion with things when people talk about, say, raising corporate

01:14:19.100 taxes. That's one of the siren calls of the NDP, you know, and others too, when they talk about

01:14:23.680 tax the rich, well, a few things and people throw the numbers out, they show it. If we raise taxes

01:14:28.380 on like every billionaire in Canada by a certain chunk, the government would still burn through

01:14:32.220 that money within a couple of days. All it does is beat down the larger industrialists who still

01:14:38.460 brought a lot of business and revenue into the country and doesn't really help the bottom line

01:14:42.180 of the budget. When the government wants to pay the bills, they hit the middle class every time

01:14:45.940 they have to. It's just math. And then when people say, well, raise corporate taxes. Well,

01:14:51.580 that still costs you. People don't follow the chain of money enough quite often. And corporate

01:14:56.600 taxes, corporations, think about what they are. You know, a lot of people envision some Scrooge

01:15:01.800 McDuck swimming through a money bin full of dollars and coins and cents. And it's just all

01:15:07.000 liquid cash that they can get into. The reality is they're owned by shareholders, millions and

01:15:12.000 millions. And who are those? They're you. Even if you don't have a formal stock portfolio,

01:15:17.780 what do you think your pension plan is? I mean, they don't just set that money aside and stick

01:15:22.660 it somewhere. The only reason it grows and that it floats a bit with inflation, whether it's a

01:15:27.080 private pension plan or even the federal plan, or if we get to the point, if we ever get the

01:15:31.260 Alberta pension plan, which I hope we do, it's going to be invested in a bunch of stocks. You

01:15:36.060 will be a stockholder. And if you tax those corporations more, you're just taxing yourself.

01:15:42.380 Those corporate profits go down. The growth of your pension plan goes down. Banks make their

01:15:47.900 money out of a lot of those investments. Insurance companies, getting back to those companies I don't

01:15:51.600 like. And if they aren't making their money out of those, they will raise those direct fees upon you.

01:15:57.900 You can't win. I know it sounds like it. The bottom line is we need smaller government. And

01:16:01.540 just simply punishing and taxing the fat cats as we see them, we don't realize that we're a

01:16:06.040 part of those fat cats. We're integrated with them. We're tied into them. And the other thing

01:16:10.740 is, of course, it's an international market. It's a world market. And this is something the left

01:16:14.660 just refuses to realize and figure out. So when they raise corporate taxes,

01:16:19.160 business activity goes down. Investment goes down. You can't draw new money in for new ventures and

01:16:24.680 projects. And the ones that are existing, of course, don't have as much profit. Thus, they don't

01:16:30.880 invest more in expansion and innovation and hiring more people. Like we got to understand

01:16:35.680 that chain of money and how it works. There's no simple answers. And that simplistic call of tax

01:16:40.960 the rich or tax the corporations doesn't work, guys, even if it sounds good. You, you know,

01:16:48.560 that's something that that statement is a lot that comes from the Taxpayers Federation,

01:16:51.800 came from the provincial government in the past. Remember Ralph Klein, I think he used to say it,

01:16:54.880 there's only one taxpayer, guys, and it always ends up landing on you in the end. So what we

01:17:00.720 have to do. There's no taxing our way out of trouble. We have to shrink the damn government. 0.99

01:17:06.220 They have to require less money. We have to cut spending. And as Franco was pointing out to us, 0.99

01:17:14.560 and as I was talking about, it's inevitable. Like we're going to hit that wall. We're going to.

01:17:18.660 Right now we're just borrowing and borrowing, but the point will come where we'll have to cut.

01:17:23.020 And those cuts are going to be hard. The longer we put it off, the harder those cuts are going

01:17:28.040 to be. So quit looking at new ways to get more money to government. And we've got to find ways

01:17:32.340 to make the government smaller. Easier said than done. I think one of the biggest ways to make it

01:17:36.400 smaller, of course, would be just to chop the West off from it altogether. But that's a whole other

01:17:40.140 show. And I've talked about that in length before. And we'll probably eventually get to that point.

01:17:46.320 But right now, we're still stuck with this federal government. They're still spending like mad. And

01:17:51.040 we've got to try and figure out how to reduce that burden upon ourselves. We've got to quit

01:17:57.100 listening to those siren calls though listening to these budgets and this feel-good crap with them 0.69

01:18:01.080 spending and subsidizing all over the place corporate welfare i actually i wanted to talk

01:18:05.400 to franco a little more about that uh he expanded more he was talking about slush funds but if we

01:18:09.260 keep putting money and then that covers a bit with what peter menzies was talking about too

01:18:13.340 you keep giving money to companies they don't become more efficient don't become better they

01:18:18.400 don't serve us better they become just dependent and bloated and and don't help us at all i mean

01:18:23.680 look at how efficient Bombardier is, you know, SNC-Lavalin, you know, the corruption that it

01:18:29.100 fosters as well. We're into an ugly place. Yeah, it's Casey Willis pointing out, you know,

01:18:36.340 380,000 public, federal public sector employees are billing us 46 billion a year, an average 121,000

01:18:43.920 employee. Boy, I wish alternative media paid that well. But, you know, hey, keep viewing guys,

01:18:49.860 keep buying advertising. Maybe I'll get up into that sort of salary level yet eventually.

01:18:53.680 And that's the only way I would want it to go out to that, is that we're doing so well,

01:18:57.360 we're drawing so many viewers and so many advertisers that I will warrant pulling a

01:19:01.640 six-figure income. So far, I'm not there. The only way I could do it with a straight face and with

01:19:05.560 pride and look myself in the eye is if we did it right and we did it through capitalism. That's

01:19:10.460 the only way we're all going to benefit, guys. The only way to keep everybody responsible.

01:19:15.440 Jade pointing out defund the CBC. That's a quick billion we can get back. Yeah, actually 1.4.

01:19:20.540 And the other part with the CBC is they steal money from the advertising market.

01:19:24.540 And I use that term, stealing it.

01:19:26.560 Because if you are getting $1.4 billion a year already, and then you sell advertising on top of it,

01:19:32.040 that's advertising dollars taken away from private enterprise.

01:19:35.620 So it's stolen from them.

01:19:37.940 And that just screws the market up even that much more.

01:19:41.180 And as Peter Menzies was pointing out, of all the corporations that were sidling up to now shake down Facebook and Google and others for more money out of that,

01:19:49.780 Why? Why is that bloated pig of an organization that already gets all that money entitled to 1.00

01:19:55.260 suck more money even out of the private market while they're at it? Big problem. But we need a 1.00

01:20:01.060 giant national change in attitude. Unfortunately, I don't think we're there yet. I think a lot of

01:20:05.580 our viewers here are there, and I appreciate that. But we're not quite there yet. But we've got to

01:20:09.980 keep pushing. You know, the only way to assure that you'll lose, though, is to give up. As futile

01:20:14.060 as it feels, as frustrating as it is, as annoying as it is, you got to keep trying. You got to keep

01:20:20.420 trying. And we will. And eventually it'll cycle around. We'll get the cuts. Make sure to squirrel

01:20:24.540 away some money for when that time comes and make sure you're not going to be dependent on

01:20:29.160 everything. It's a King Dupe 101 saying that's a lot of chickens and bees. Yes, our little home

01:20:33.400 homestead. I'll be reporting on that soon. My bees are coming. I'm really excited about that

01:20:37.460 in a couple of weeks, I think. And I got my hive built and set up and everything. So I'm probably

01:20:41.040 going to be coming in here with a bunch of welts on myself and frustration and I'll be sick of

01:20:44.340 beekeeping already but we do those little things I'm still going to have to rely on this job to

01:20:49.180 pay the bills I don't think I'll be a master beekeeper quite too soon but the more independent

01:20:54.100 we can become in general whether it's home uh homesteading sort of things and saving money on

01:21:00.720 food and items or again just with our employment that just watch out guys if you're dependent on

01:21:05.400 the government for your income it's temporary government will run out of money eventually

01:21:10.640 and we're moving towards that.

01:21:12.260 And that's what Franco was talking about.

01:21:13.360 That's why he was talking about the 90s

01:21:14.680 when even Romano with the NDP had to cut spending

01:21:18.080 because they spent too much

01:21:19.600 that you just eventually run out.

01:21:21.320 The Liberals, with McCretchen, had to cut spending.

01:21:23.800 There was no way to get around it.

01:21:25.920 All right, I think we've ranted enough this week.

01:21:27.920 We've got another nice weekend coming up.

01:21:29.740 But next Monday, we've got Jonathan Dennis

01:21:32.040 and we're going to be talking about

01:21:33.540 the federal leadership race.

01:21:36.240 A little more broad talk on things like that.

01:21:39.120 And we'll probably talk about

01:21:39.860 some of the provincial issues as well. Jonathan Dennis was a cabinet minister in Alberta for some

01:21:44.280 years as an MLA and now he's back to working as a lawyer again. And yes, Jonathan was the

01:21:49.940 Solicitor General of Alberta for a period of time. It'll be a good conversation. And Rachel

01:21:54.360 Emmanuel, who is our Edmonton Bureau Chief up there, she's had a week there. We moved her all

01:22:00.000 the way from Ottawa and stuck her up in Edmonton. She got that legislative office there. We're going

01:22:04.280 to check in with Rachel and see how her first week was in chasing our goofy provincial politicians. 1.00

01:22:09.860 and the stories she's been on and which stories are coming up.

01:22:13.280 So make sure to come back on Monday, guys.

01:22:15.580 Thank you all for coming in today, and I will see you then at 1130.

01:22:39.860 Transcription by CastingWords

Western Standard - April 09, 2022

LIVE SHOW - Triggered： The Liberal government has made the housing crunch worse.

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