Western Standard - LIVE： Today on Triggered - This can’t be the “new normal”

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's Friday, February 4th, 2022, and welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:45.180 This is the Western Standards Live Daily Show. We're going to be coming to you every day,

00:00:49.500 Monday to Friday, with a number of guests, interaction, and live updates as we will today,

00:00:55.400 coming from reporters we have

00:00:57.740 around the province when issues are unfolding

00:00:59.900 and the issues are unfolding

00:01:01.760 hard and heavy these days.

00:01:03.980 Hey, Fred, I see somebody in the audience

00:01:05.740 already there making a comment. So yes,

00:01:07.540 the comments are welcome. Bring them on in.

00:01:09.700 I won't necessarily bring them all

00:01:11.600 in the scroll or pass them all along to guests,

00:01:13.800 but you certainly put it out there.

00:01:15.760 We like it to be as interactive as possible.

00:01:18.640 But, you know,

00:01:19.680 be polite, be somewhat civil. We can be

00:01:21.540 a little angry. I'm angry all the time.

00:01:23.400 Hey, Stephen.

00:01:23.820 And we just don't have to be at each other's throats.

00:01:29.100 We're here to be triggered, but reasonably so.

00:01:32.360 Happy Friday, Ben.

00:01:33.580 So I'm going to get on to what's got me triggered today.

00:01:36.240 But, you know, first I want to trigger all of those folks on the left

00:01:39.880 because they deserve it and they drive me bananas.

00:01:41.880 Oh, by the way, I want to mention our guests today.

00:01:43.980 They're going to be Renaud Broussard of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:01:47.200 We're going to talk about the Quebec backing down on their idea for a vaccination tax. 0.53

00:01:51.420 That's some good news.

00:01:52.640 But of course, there's still lots of other taxation things to talk about.

00:01:56.120 I'm going to have Western Standard columnist Dave McAchuk.

00:01:58.500 He writes on international affairs and things quite often.

00:02:01.580 He also wrote on his thoughts on bringing the protests to an end,

00:02:04.780 and it got some people good and stirred up and triggered, as we would say.

00:02:08.300 But it's good to discuss lots of points of views on what's breaking

00:02:11.300 and what's huge right now in the news.

00:02:13.160 So Dave's going to join me a little later.

00:02:14.920 Our own James Finkbeiner is still down in coots.

00:02:17.660 He's still watching things develop.

00:02:18.980 That scene is just changing constantly down there.

00:02:21.940 it's hard to keep up with. So it's important to have somebody there in person so we can get these

00:02:26.320 updates and know what's happening down there. Now I'm going to quickly talk about, I'm going to get

00:02:32.220 on to why I'm triggered. Actually, in a moment, I'm just scrolling through this long teleprompter,

00:02:38.300 but I do write this stuff. I just need some prompting to read it. Now I'm going to trigger

00:02:42.920 the liberals who are out there, all 10 who are watching this show, honk honk. Keep that going,

00:02:48.200 guys. Now what I want to talk about, this isn't normal. It's not a new normal right now. It's not

00:02:55.460 even an old normal. What we're living right now is abnormal, and it has to end. Lots of things get

00:03:00.660 me worked up and make the vein pulse in the side of my head. That's why this show is called

00:03:04.380 Triggered, and it would be rather dull if I was docile about issues. So there's few things to get

00:03:08.760 me worked up faster though than when some vacuous twit shrugs and declares today as being the new 0.88

00:03:13.840 normal. It isn't normal. It isn't normal to have lost the ability to smile at people

00:03:18.800 due to being smothered with a fast mask that covers a third of our face or to scowl at them

00:03:23.920 as I typically do. We are facially expressive people and we shouldn't be covering them up

00:03:29.040 without it being dire need and it isn't. It isn't normal for post-secondary students to constantly

00:03:34.640 be pushed into online learning with every spike in COVID-19 infections. Students still pay full

00:03:40.000 tuition for this new normal form of education by the way if indeed this is the new normal we

00:03:44.960 might as well close the universities and do all future education through youtube videos

00:03:49.040 i shudder to think that a future doctor doing a procedure on me may have gotten some or all

00:03:53.920 of their education online and hey let's get those professors on there they can make their money

00:03:58.640 through youtube ad revenue because boy they sure get paid a lot for doing uh learning from home

00:04:02.800 don't they and and then getting into the other kids in school it isn't normal for children in

00:04:07.600 in K-12 to be distanced from each other and masked under threats of expulsion for non-compliance.

00:04:13.760 There was a vulgar Quebec TV production that even prompted children to speak on how they think

00:04:18.320 unvaccinated children should be put in jail. This disgusting campaign of fear and division can never

00:04:23.580 be normal. It isn't normal for people to attend funerals and weddings through Zoom. We're social

00:04:28.680 creatures and develop large ceremonies around these life events for a good reason. We bond and

00:04:33.680 share these experiences with each other at these gatherings and we can't lose them and there's no

00:04:37.680 substituting for them it isn't normal for businesses to ride a roller coaster of openings and closings

00:04:42.960 on the whim of the state nor is it normal for people to have to present proof of their personal

00:04:47.120 medical status in order to enter these businesses taverns and pubs have been hubs of social gatherings

00:04:53.040 for thousands of years i mean they've been since medieval times people meet and interact with their

00:04:57.120 neighbors they develop relationships and bond at these establishments i used to own a pub

00:05:01.120 in a rural area that was the place where people got to see each other where they wouldn't otherwise

00:05:06.240 this is now impossible when it's literally illegal for a person to leave their table

00:05:10.480 and socialize with people at another table all while being masked of course so don't you tear

00:05:14.880 dare tell me this is normal it isn't normal to be separated from friends and family members

00:05:20.240 for months or even years at a time due to international travel restrictions that to date

00:05:26.160 have had little to no impact in stopping the spread of code 19. jane and i have grandchildren

00:05:30.400 in australia we haven't seen in years and it's causing incredible pressure on jane and maria

00:05:36.800 and the family in general and we're just one of thousands of families millions of families

00:05:40.640 around the world having their life stunted by these restrictions it's not normal it isn't

00:05:45.360 normal for society to split itself over the medical status of their compatriots we literally

00:05:50.480 have a prime minister calling on vaccinated people racists and extremists how the hell could we ever

00:05:55.280 consider this sort of political division normal. I'm exhausted with fools trying to paint all these 0.99

00:06:00.960 restrictions as minor inconveniences. People are going bankrupt, families are being permanently 0.99

00:06:05.840 ruptured, and opioid addictions are going through the roof. There's nothing harmless about their

00:06:10.320 sick concept of what should be a new normal. The only acceptable state of normalcy has to be a

00:06:16.640 state of personal freedom. Our new normal should only include a knowledge and acceptance that

00:06:21.920 COVID-19 is one among many communicable diseases that will always be with us, and we learn to live

00:06:27.200 with it. We no longer keep shutting down our world in a futile attempt to bring it an end.

00:06:31.600 It hasn't worked, it won't work, and the damage caused by these actions is piling up.

00:06:36.400 Canadians are starting to stand up and push back, and it's beautiful to behold.

00:06:40.160 Thousands, supported by millions, are refusing to accept our current status as being any kind of

00:06:46.240 of normal. I want to see this attitude spread faster than Omicron did. Some things will likely

00:06:51.880 never be the same, but don't you dare for a second try to tell me this is some kind of new normal.

00:06:56.100 I won't accept it, nor should anybody else. The only normal we should be pursuing is the one we

00:07:00.660 lived under in 2019 and nothing less. New normal, not for a second. Anybody trying to convince me

00:07:06.240 such will be quickly invited to kiss my ass. That's what's got me triggered today. And again, 1.00

00:07:11.980 the word for the day, let's have one, endemic. You know what that means? It means it's there,

00:07:16.920 it remains there, and we deal with it. We protect the vulnerable, and we let the 99.6% of the world

00:07:23.780 get non-living. So remember, it's not new normal. If you think otherwise, kiss my ass. Okay, on that 1.00

00:07:30.300 note, we'll get on to somebody who's a little more normal, and that's our news editor, Dave Naylor,

00:07:35.040 who's covering the other stories breaking out there in the world of Canada. Let's bring him in.

00:07:39.700 Hey, Dave, how are you doing?

00:07:41.000 I'm doing well, Corey.

00:07:41.980 Not too many people call me normal though.

00:07:45.080 Well, around this newsroom, actually you stand out as a being

00:07:48.380 more stable than some of us anyways.

00:07:50.740 Well, I don't know about that, but a TGIF and hopefully a

00:07:57.520 hopefully a good weekend for everybody.

00:07:59.940 Yeah.

00:08:02.700 Okay.

00:08:03.220 Well, I guess we'll just get right into the news then, shall we?

00:08:06.880 Oh, sure.

00:08:07.760 Yeah.

00:08:08.060 I guess I didn't give a good introduction.

00:08:10.200 Dave comes daily.

00:08:11.080 I assume all you guys have been regular viewers,

00:08:12.980 but we've gained so many new ones too.

00:08:14.340 I should explain the routine that this show has been building.

00:08:17.300 We check in with Dave.

00:08:18.280 Dave's working his butt off in the newsroom with Mel, Eva, Amber.

00:08:21.580 We got people all over and they are writing the stuff up there.

00:08:24.760 I check in with Dave to see what's recently been topping our news

00:08:27.340 and what is coming up.

00:08:28.820 Sorry for that piss poor intro. 1.00

00:08:30.340 I was still just thinking about people kissing my ass, Dave. 1.00

00:08:33.140 Don't worry, Corey. 1.00

00:08:34.520 I'll kick you in the shins when you come back to the newsroom. 1.00

00:08:37.100 All right. 1.00

00:08:38.060 Yeah, where to begin today? Why don't we start with truckers? You remember that CBC story last week, Corey, where they tried to blame Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin for organizing the trucker protest?

00:08:54.280 Well, CBC has admitted today they may have got it wrong.

00:08:58.520 Do you think?

00:09:00.140 So we've got a story up on that.

00:09:03.780 The mainstream media, if you listen to them,

00:09:07.120 you would think that the city of Ottawa is in a state of anarchy right now.

00:09:12.520 Fires burning and looting going on.

00:09:16.440 But as we all know, that is not the truth.

00:09:19.060 The mainstream media has got it wrong again.

00:09:20.980 In fact, Ottawa police crime statistics show that since the protests started, street crime has actually dropped.

00:09:28.860 So it sounds like the protesters are doing a good job of policing themselves.

00:09:36.700 Truckers, as you know, you'll be having James Finkbeiner on the show at some point.

00:09:43.020 They don't seem to know whether they're coming or going at the border.

00:09:46.740 yesterday they decided that they were going to leave and move the blockade to edmonton and then

00:09:52.580 they changed their minds about two hours after they initially said they were going so

00:09:58.420 they're still trying to figure out what they're doing down there and our legislature reporter

00:10:03.300 in amber in edmonton amber she'll be down at the grounds on the ledge tomorrow for

00:10:08.420 all the excitement that will no doubt happen. Other stories we've got, Corey, if you drove

00:10:17.040 home last night, you probably had a bit of a shock when you saw the price for a liter

00:10:21.820 of gasoline. It's now averaging $1.40 in Alberta and even higher in Calgary. So the Canadian

00:10:30.380 Taxpayers Federation has issued a plea this morning for the governments to, hey, maybe

00:10:35.600 take a cut of their taxes and drop certain taxes. They actually tax the tax. So there's

00:10:44.760 a plea for the government to stop doing that. You remember the Bowdoin classroom from yesterday,

00:10:54.860 Corey. This was a group of about a dozen kids that decided they were no longer going to wear masks.

00:11:01.360 So they were put away and locked down into the school's boot room and not allowed to leave for the day and basically had their reading, writing and arithmetic sitting in the boardroom, in the boot room, I'm sorry.

00:11:17.520 That caused some consternation with parents who dashed to the school to see what was going on.

00:11:24.100 The RCMP were actually called.

00:11:27.180 A trucker apparently showed up and was blaring his horn in support.

00:11:32.740 So the school went into lockdown.

00:11:34.760 And they have decided that it's too volatile a situation to have classes today.

00:11:42.400 So today and Monday, all the kids will be at home learning off their computer.

00:11:50.100 Mel's just got off the phone with school authorities,

00:11:52.460 so we'll have what they've got to say up on the site shortly.

00:11:59.120 Liberals are talking about their bill that they're bringing in again to censor the Internet.

00:12:04.100 They basically say, yeah, we know Canadians don't like it, but we're going to do it anyways.

00:12:08.660 So that's the Liberals for you.

00:12:11.840 And Jason Kenney last night confirming the worst kept secret in the province that vaccine mandates will soon be gone.

00:12:21.380 And I guess the cabinet's going to be meeting on Monday to figure out exactly when they're going to drop it.

00:12:28.020 So it looks like vaccine passports may be coming to an end sooner than later in the province, Corey.

00:12:34.920 So that's it for me. You got any big weekend plans?

00:12:39.220 Me?

00:12:39.800 Nah, probably just rounding up more guests for next week

00:12:42.060 and being the wiener I am,

00:12:43.180 watching news as hard as I can

00:12:44.880 and trying to dodge chores around the house

00:12:46.900 in the chicken coop that Jane will surely be assigning me.

00:12:50.260 Yeah, well, unlike last weekend,

00:12:51.740 make sure you stay away from mainstream media.

00:12:54.980 Yeah, I'll see what I can do.

00:12:57.680 All right, thanks, Dave.

00:12:58.480 I know there's, boy, you guys are just working your fingers off

00:13:00.560 to keep the news up there,

00:13:01.600 so I'll let you get back to it.

00:13:03.400 And we'll talk to you later.

00:13:05.600 Thanks, Corey.

00:13:06.880 Okay, and I am going to go to James, who's down in Coots pretty shortly here.

00:13:10.440 Just a quick reminder to everybody, as Dave was saying, there is so much news going on out there.

00:13:15.100 I mean, we are just scrambling to keep up with it right now, just provincial, federal, even international on all fronts.

00:13:21.320 It's just been crazy.

00:13:22.940 But I mean, we are a news organization.

00:13:24.440 We're on it.

00:13:25.140 We're a small one.

00:13:25.900 We're alternative.

00:13:27.160 And we're, I think, I'm a little biased, doing far better than the mainstream media when it brings this stuff to you.

00:13:33.420 So, I mean, be sure if you haven't already, though, take out a subscription with us.

00:13:37.100 That's how we keep rolling.

00:13:38.020 We don't get tax dollars like some of those other outlets.

00:13:40.860 We aren't asking for it.

00:13:42.180 They aren't offering it.

00:13:43.240 We rely on you guys to subscribe.

00:13:44.860 For $10 a month, full access to all of the articles, columns, the works.

00:13:51.320 You get straight in there.

00:13:52.300 You get a free trial for two weeks.

00:13:53.460 You can check it out, see if it's worth your $10.

00:13:55.460 95% of people, once they try it out, they stay on.

00:13:58.860 They keep the deal because it is less than a newspaper subscription.

00:14:01.520 you are getting all that content and it's just breaking its news keep checking into the site

00:14:06.920 and again as well here we break stuff on here mel comes on with live reports james comes on

00:14:11.860 uh subscribe on youtube facebook rumble we broadcast all of them that way you'll see the

00:14:16.540 alerts when they come up okay i'm going to bring james in because we've got a couple of things to

00:14:20.360 cover i've only got about five minutes with him but he's going to come back again a little later

00:14:23.920 in the show and let's see what's going on down in coots hey james how you doing cory welcome back to

00:14:30.020 our southern Alberta offices.

00:14:32.520 Yeah, you've

00:14:33.660 been entrenched for quite some time there.

00:14:37.080 We're at a week

00:14:38.120 now. Tomorrow's going to be

00:14:40.380 a long

00:14:42.160 day and Sunday's coming next.

00:14:45.200 Well, you'll have to change

00:14:46.280 the address on your driver's license soon.

00:14:48.420 So, I mean, one thing I want to hit

00:14:50.060 real fast, we'll get a quick update. Like I said, we've got about

00:14:52.120 five minutes. Paul Brent,

00:14:54.120 by the way, follows me on Twitter, so I have messaged

00:14:56.100 him. He hasn't gotten back to me. We've heard a lot of rumors.

00:14:58.820 There were rumors of the helicopter, which sound like, unfortunately, guys, I know you'll want it to be true, but it doesn't sound like it was true.

00:15:04.580 And now there's rumors that he's going to be doing a concert at the side of the blockades.

00:15:07.520 I don't know.

00:15:08.220 It's in the realm of rumor, but we haven't heard anything about it.

00:15:11.040 What have you heard on that one?

00:15:12.960 I tell you what.

00:15:14.200 If I see Paul Brandt, I will be the first one to let everyone know.

00:15:17.940 But I have asked absolutely everybody here.

00:15:21.720 Nobody can confirm that Paul Brandt was here.

00:15:25.100 There was a helicopter in the area.

00:15:27.480 I know some people got a picture with a helicopter.

00:15:30.700 We've asked for confirmation that Paul Brandt's in that picture.

00:15:34.200 We have not had any confirmation that Paul Brandt is in that picture.

00:15:38.400 And nobody has actually physically laid eyes on Paul Brandt.

00:15:43.040 Okay.

00:15:43.480 And we will report on it.

00:15:44.440 I mean, hey, we'd love to see him down there.

00:15:45.860 But for now, it still kind of seems to remain in the realm of rumor.

00:15:50.020 So a lot of things are fluid, James.

00:15:51.680 The last night, it sounded like some were leaving, some weren't leaving.

00:15:53.960 They changed their minds.

00:15:54.880 Some are heading to Edmonton.

00:15:55.660 Some are remaining blockaded.

00:15:57.480 See what you can pack into four minutes to let us know what's happening before we can expand further later.

00:16:02.300 And only four minutes. Wow.

00:16:04.140 Yesterday, that situation just developed.

00:16:08.880 It started developing slowly over the course of the afternoon.

00:16:12.500 And then it just developed very, very rapidly.

00:16:16.620 A larger group of the committee that's, I wouldn't say making decisions,

00:16:22.380 but essentially working as a group to communicate with the whole of the protest.

00:16:29.020 They came together. They had a discussion.

00:16:32.520 They thought, you know, we're starting to overstay our welcome here.

00:16:38.700 Some of the locals, more of the locals were beginning to get frustrated.

00:16:42.620 They were having a little bit of issues, but they did start getting food and fuel and everything else in here.

00:16:48.840 But they decided, you know, we've made a point here.

00:16:52.100 We've made an impact. How can we continue to make an impact without hurting the people that we work for?

00:16:59.420 They don't want to hurt the locals. They don't want to hurt businesses.

00:17:02.880 They don't want to hurt the cattle industry. They don't want to hurt agriculture producers.

00:17:07.800 So they didn't want to overstay their welcome.

00:17:10.440 So they thought, you know what? There's a large group that is now going to start to convoy to Edmonton.

00:17:16.780 let's go with them let's take our message from here and what we've done here and take it to

00:17:22.300 Edmonton with us and they they had that decision they had a vote they called the RCMP over they

00:17:30.580 told the RCMP what they had planned to do and then they wrote up a press release they they wrote up

00:17:36.620 the press release they gave me the press release they they gave us some interviews I talked to a

00:17:43.520 few of them they gave us their side of the story uh mel reached out she uh she interviewed one of

00:17:48.940 the guys and uh and we put the story out after they left here they went back to the bigger group

00:17:56.000 and uh they had a couple more discussions and uh pastor art pulowski uh he somehow snuck into

00:18:03.400 the protest area past the police checkpoints and he delivered an impassioned sermon and when he was

00:18:09.500 done his sermon I was about 25 minutes long the uh the group as a whole uh had had mostly changed

00:18:16.420 their mind they they decided to hold the line and that was their message after that actually

00:18:21.520 their specific message was hashtag hold the line now some of the guys did not agree with that some

00:18:27.080 of the protesters that have been here since day one uh they they still thought they would be better

00:18:32.420 to take their message to Edmonton try to meet with some MLAs and go have coffee with Kenny

00:18:37.300 So this morning, three of the protesters, they actually went to go join the convoy leaving from Lethbridge.

00:18:45.280 And they're saying, we're not leaving the line, we're expanding the line.

00:18:50.760 We're taking the line that we drew here and we're taking that line all the way to Edmonton.

00:18:55.360 And they want everyone to join in with them.

00:18:57.760 And I'm just working on some video from this morning.

00:19:01.160 Mel's working on updating a story for that.

00:19:03.420 And we'll have some video of those trucks pulling out this morning.

00:19:06.440 and taking their message to Edmonton.

00:19:09.500 Great. So yeah, watch for that

00:19:10.780 on all of the channels you guys are watching on there.

00:19:12.820 James is going to be uploading some videos

00:19:15.260 that you can see, you know, straight out what's happening.

00:19:17.320 And I know some people get upset with what they see

00:19:20.440 or they, you know, it's hard when rumors are coming and going.

00:19:22.660 That's why we have someone on the ground

00:19:23.740 to just try and clarify as much as we can.

00:19:25.680 This is fluid, it's developing.

00:19:27.480 It sounds like there was unity

00:19:29.240 and it quickly split, unfortunately.

00:19:32.020 And yeah, some are heading north and some are remaining.

00:19:34.960 So we'll bring a longer update.

00:19:37.740 I won't have James nearly so squeezed for time

00:19:39.500 when I bring him back a little bit later.

00:19:41.000 There's just so much to cover and do.

00:19:42.920 This gives you, I guess, a teaser on knowing

00:19:44.760 what he can expand upon when that time comes.

00:19:47.420 So thanks, James.

00:19:48.960 And we'll see you in a little while here

00:19:50.820 to get a more expanded update on what's going on out there.

00:19:54.440 Thanks to Mr. Pawlowski.

00:19:58.500 Yeah, for sure, Corey.

00:19:59.700 Look forward to it.

00:20:00.880 All right, James.

00:20:01.980 So yes, that's our James Finkbeiner

00:20:03.720 who has, as he said, been down at the border for a week now.

00:20:07.600 It's quite a dedicated guy, and it's been something else.

00:20:10.820 There was so much more we could have covered in that short time,

00:20:13.000 but I've just got a packed show of guests,

00:20:14.760 and he will be back to talk some more on this.

00:20:17.640 Before I go to Renaud Broussard from Quebec,

00:20:20.900 I'm going to quickly mention another one of our sponsors here,

00:20:23.320 and that's the Canada Shooting Sports Association.

00:20:27.300 These guys, cssa-cila.org, they are, as their name says,

00:20:33.220 they're a shooting sports association check them out you can take out a membership with them if

00:20:37.380 you're a firearms owner whatever way you are responsibly safely legally uh enjoying a firearm

00:20:41.780 whether it's a collector a target shooter or a hunter these are the guys to join so you can

00:20:48.000 network with other firearms owners and keep organized to keep safely using these these great

00:20:52.940 pieces of property out there and they're standing up for it the shooting sports association they

00:20:57.300 have all sorts of resources by the way you know for for upcoming shows and and how to safely

00:21:01.900 utilize firearms and things, but they're also behind legal challenges against the government

00:21:06.940 because they are trying to take away your right and ability to use a firearm. And you know what?

00:21:12.260 It's like we're seeing with everything else. They will take our rights if we don't push back.

00:21:15.540 So these guys are helping you push back. Check them out. Canada Shooting Sports Association.

00:21:19.960 If you value your firearms, you will want to take out a membership with them.

00:21:24.040 CSSA-CILA.org. Okay. I've held them up a little bit there. We've got Renaud from Quebec with the

00:21:31.400 Canadian Taxpayers Federation because we've had a pretty big development in Quebec. So we'll bring

00:21:36.880 Renaud in here and, or am I slaughtering the pronunciation of his name? He's going to let me

00:21:41.340 know in a moment. Oh, I think you may be muted there, Renaud. You're right. Yeah, sorry. And

00:21:48.820 no, no worries. You got a name right. How are you? Okay. Very good. Thanks. No, thanks for coming

00:21:53.100 back to the show. The last time we had you on here, and as I said, you're the Quebec Director

00:21:57.380 of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we were talking about the proposal of a tax being imposed

00:22:02.960 upon people who have chosen not to be vaccinated. And now I've got you back, at least kind of for

00:22:08.020 some good news. It sounds like the Premier of Quebec has relented and they're not going to

00:22:12.260 impose that tax after all. Absolutely. And I got to say, it's not very often in my job that I get

00:22:17.040 to report on some good news. Not a lot of good news for taxpayers these days, but this is one

00:22:21.300 good one. Premier Legault had some sober second thoughts and admitted that his proposal for the

00:22:28.660 vaccine tax was wrong, that it was going to be too divisive. It was not going to have as much

00:22:33.380 of an effect as he anticipated and decided to scrap it on Wednesday. Great. Well, that's moving

00:22:41.060 along. I mean, what sort of pressures do you think came about to make him change his mind on this?

00:22:46.220 Was there legal experts or they just, you know, we know how politicians work. They probably did a

00:22:50.060 of polling and discovered perhaps that oh boy this is we're going to take a lot of flack for this

00:22:54.380 like why do you think they decided to change their mind i think there's a variety of reasons of course

00:22:59.100 there were some experts against it their opposition did some work against it uh even the department

00:23:03.820 of finance when they looked at it saw that it wouldn't be that effective but i really think the

00:23:07.980 people that are uh those that are tank for this are the people uh it was people sending in messages 0.59

00:23:13.740 with people telling their politicians that this was a step too far and this was both the unvaccinated

00:23:19.900 but also the vaccinated. There was a very, very low support compared to what the Premier

00:23:24.780 taught for that measure. And the people understood rightfully so that this was the thin end of the

00:23:29.660 wedge. If we bring in some health taxes, if we allow the revenue agencies to access our

00:23:37.180 private medical data, they're going to start dreaming up of new ways to use our private

00:23:41.260 medical data to tax us. So people understood that, people fought back, and the Premier backed them.

00:23:47.260 Yeah, well, it definitely flew in the face, I think, of the concept of universal coverage for

00:23:51.220 people in healthcare as well. From the taxation front, I believe you talked a bit about some of

00:23:55.300 the numbers at the time too. I mean, even if they brought in this tax and they brought in and taxed

00:23:59.240 the number of people, roughly what they were talking about for the unvaccinated, it really

00:24:02.380 would barely make a dent in the healthcare expenses of the province anyways. Oh, absolutely. 0.99

00:24:06.760 And the number I was using back then was a thousand bucks. We did get a little bit more

00:24:11.480 specific numbers they were thinking of modulating it based on revenue so between 100 and 800 bucks

00:24:17.240 and basically what they did is their models they looked at it only about half of the unvaccinated

00:24:22.760 would actually have had the tax uh and they looked at what would have been the impact on getting more

00:24:28.420 people vaccinated and they just thought you know this is going to be a whole lot of hassle and it's

00:24:33.420 not worth the cost there's not going to be that many extra people getting vaccinated because of

00:24:37.560 tax and so once again thankfully they backed down on that bad proposal. Yeah well and as you said

00:24:43.500 you know let's give a thumbs up to the people who spoke up and pushed back when government throws

00:24:47.440 things out there when they pitch things it doesn't mean it's graven in stone yet we can we can stand

00:24:52.800 up and you know what if enough of us are standing up they will actually back off we're seeing kind

00:24:56.700 of a lot of that across Canada they dig their heels in on points of pride sometimes but when

00:25:01.720 the writing's on the wall they'll find an excuse and they will get out so that's a good development.

00:25:05.360 Another area you wanted to talk about in Quebec though, and it's something for a lot of our Western listeners, you know, people forget, there are oil and gas reserves in Quebec, there are resources out there. And Quebec has chosen though not to develop or produce from these. What have you guys been looking at on the front there? Is there room to get them to remove those bans or things such as that?

00:25:26.260 Actually, now what they're trying to do is to make it a complete and permanent ban on any oil and gas development. So they just introduced a bill. It was introduced yesterday, I believe, to ban any oil and gas exploration or development in the entire province of Quebec.

00:25:43.120 And let me be very clear. This is not an environmental policy. This is an ideological policy. This will not reduce the amount of barrels of oil that Quebec needs. This will not move everybody from heating with natural gas to heating with electricity. This is very much an ideological battle against the production of oil and gas in Quebec, which, quite frankly, doesn't really make sense.

00:26:06.000 We know that there's a lot of natural gas resources in Quebec. There's a very, very rich basin

00:26:12.000 in the St. Lawrence Valley that we could explore, that we could, you know, get some revenue out of

00:26:18.720 and get some good paying jobs in the province. And unfortunately, the government's choosing to

00:26:22.800 turn its back on that. Yeah. And I mean, for both, it's just odious from an environmental and a

00:26:28.960 revenue generating point of view. I mean, when you have a resource that can be responsibly developed

00:26:33.760 and you're refusing to it's it's it's just ridiculous and i mean liquid natural gas this

00:26:38.640 is one of the areas to not talking about the oil sands in alberta or anything that can be spilled

00:26:42.960 even or anything like that this is something that's getting big all around the world we are

00:26:46.480 seeing producing companies setting up liquid natural gas terminals and exporting gas to great

00:26:52.480 effect and they're sending it to a lot of countries that are burning coal otherwise they're burning

00:26:56.480 wood even or animal dung in some places why should we deprive them of a cleaner source of energy such

00:27:02.560 as liquid natural gas when they are stuck on on more primitive forms it's actually doing the

00:27:08.880 opposite of making the environment any better it's setting them back well absolutely and when you

00:27:13.920 look at it even the renewables a lot of countries that are using solar or winds well solar and wind

00:27:21.040 are intermittent sources of power and we still need to have power so a lot of those countries

00:27:25.200 are reopening either coal or natural gas or other kind of plants so using resources like natural gas

00:27:31.360 is a whole lot greener. But I think another point is when you look at it, there's a lot of support

00:27:37.920 in Quebec for resource development. The latest poll we saw was from back in October, it was 66%

00:27:45.600 of Quebecers in favor of developing local natural gas resources in the province. That's about,

00:27:51.840 there was about 20% undecided. So really the fraction of people that is against developing

00:27:56.960 these resources very small. Unfortunately, that's not what it looks like when you look at the

00:28:01.920 National Assembly in Quebec. Out of 125 M&As, I think there's 124 that say they're against it.

00:28:07.400 So you see there's a clear disconnect between what do people want and what do politicians

00:28:11.180 think people want. Yeah, well, and as Mark Bass, one of our commentators, you know,

00:28:15.800 pointing out hydropower for the wind. Well, yeah, and they got a massive hydro energy resources in

00:28:21.320 Quebec, but it doesn't mean you can't produce other things. Even if you're not domestically

00:28:24.900 consuming it, you can export. I mean, it's how you actually bring revenue and money and jobs

00:28:30.480 into your region and into your province. I mean, nobody's saying stop developing hydropower or

00:28:35.260 nuclear in some areas or anything else. We can supplement and bring in more. It's just such

00:28:40.420 absurd and expensive virtue signaling by trying to ban the production of these resources when you

00:28:45.460 have them literally under your very feet and you're consuming them. Absolutely. And there's

00:28:50.660 there's also the fact that having this kind of domestic production allows us to have the kind

00:28:55.140 of environmental regulations that we believe needs to be around the development of these resources.

00:29:00.820 Now, especially on natural gas, well, both on petroleum and natural gas, we rely on imports.

00:29:05.860 Petroleum, thankfully now it's a mix of Canadian and US. We're done with importing from Saudi 1.00

00:29:11.700 Arabia, so that's a good thing. But when it comes to natural gas, we're still importing from a lot

00:29:16.980 of other places there's still a very very big need for natural gas in quebec i actually you

00:29:22.980 know right before the pandemic when there was the rail blockades quebec was actually at risk of

00:29:27.460 running out of propane and that was a major major issue for agricultural sector for health sector

00:29:34.420 so to to have this kind of domestic production that could rely us with clean with clean burning

00:29:40.420 natural gas but at the same time give us those jobs and that tax revenue would have made sense

00:29:46.980 But to say that we're going to ban it outright, we're not even going to try to put the right regulations around it or whatever else.

00:29:53.880 Once again, it just screams ideology rather than actual environmental policy.

00:29:58.500 Yeah, well, we've got so many areas of insecurity in a lot of ways right now, whether it's economic or social, unfortunately, in a lot of ways, but also energy insecurity.

00:30:07.140 And, you know, it's not brought up often enough.

00:30:09.540 I mean, the more local resources you have for generation, the safer you are in an adverse weather event or something like that.

00:30:15.960 if there is another ice storm or if there are supply change challenges the chances are a lot

00:30:21.560 better that you'll be able to get power and services though to people on the ground because

00:30:25.520 we're a winter country we can die if we don't heat our houses and again it's absurd to have

00:30:31.900 that resort sitting next to us and not developing it even for domestic needs if not for export

00:30:36.380 it is and there's also a cost to it because what we've had before was a moratorium on oil

00:30:43.440 gas development for the last 10 years like it started in 2011 no one could do anything but uh

00:30:50.160 the um the rights were still sold the rights were still uh still belonged to certain companies uh

00:30:57.120 what the government is doing now is going to expropriate those companies of those rights

00:31:01.040 uh is going to try and compensate them with a hundred million dollars worth of taxpayers money

00:31:05.760 so not only are we missing out on revenue we're also going to pay a decent amount of money and

00:31:11.600 And that is not that's that's also not including the amount of money that some of the crown corporations like EVSISMA Quebec here have invested in some of the junior oil and gas companies in Quebec.

00:31:24.740 Yeah, you're actually paying money to keep it in the ground.

00:31:28.380 I mean, what an odd notion yet.

00:31:31.400 You know, nobody can be more odd with our money than government ideologues, unfortunately.

00:31:36.320 I'll kind of pivot.

00:31:37.200 this wasn't something we've mentioned before but I mean is part of the motivation or could you talk

00:31:42.080 a bit about that is equalization now non-renewable resources have always because the fact that

00:31:46.880 provinces when Quebec or when Newfoundland was heavily producing suddenly they they were no

00:31:51.120 longer uh eligible for larger amounts of equalization because Alberta has such a large

00:31:55.520 amount of this we are never qualifying for equalization but Quebec's hydroelectric has

00:32:00.880 always been exempted from it uh is it also the fact that they know that suddenly it will cut

00:32:06.320 into their local equalization money if they start producing and getting money out of

00:32:10.240 petrochemical resources i think it's not directly because of that but i think it's indirectly

00:32:14.880 related let me explain the point it's just uh what it what it does to have these equalization

00:32:20.800 payments is it means that whenever the government makes a bad decision against economic development

00:32:25.360 it actually doesn't have to pay the full price because it does get that compensation from other

00:32:29.360 provinces that do the right stuff like saskatchewan alberta uh so when we do get that conversation it

00:32:34.720 just reduces the cost of bad policy and encourages the government to actually adopt those bad policies

00:32:41.280 because there's a cost to a government to even adopting a good policy it's going to get some

00:32:45.600 some blowback there's a lot of people that still don't want to see oil and gas development in

00:32:49.280 quebec we we've seen from surveys that while they're not a majority they exist but now the

00:32:54.880 government can not not only not get that kind of blowback from from the people against those

00:32:59.920 developments but they don't have to cover the full cost because they're sure they're losing some

00:33:04.880 revenue but part of it gets compensated by equalization so indirectly i think that is

00:33:09.040 definitely part of the answer it's also something we've seen in other provinces uh one of the

00:33:13.200 arguments why a couple of years ago when new brunswick was not developing uh natural gas

00:33:18.960 uh was because it uh it would have cost a little bit too much in lost equalization revenues so it

00:33:24.640 is very much something that government officials think about yeah well and i mean it's just it's

00:33:30.080 it's a backstop it's one more thing it's sort of like the CERB payments for some people i guess who

00:33:34.240 had a lesser motivation in life and and uh don't mind sitting back for a while they felt more

00:33:39.520 willing to quit a job or uh take on uh making money in the creative arts if they knew they

00:33:45.040 could actually count on getting their bills paid in the background by CERB and such which wasn't

00:33:49.360 the actual intention of that program absolutely and at least from an equalization perspective

00:33:56.000 there's one good thing about legault is that while he believes a program should be kept

00:34:00.880 unfortunately uh he still wants to progressively get quebec half of equalization uh he has put a

00:34:07.120 goal for within 15 years trying to get those equalized equalization payments down to zero

00:34:13.040 i hope it's going to get it's going to be faster than that but at least just the fact that there's

00:34:16.800 a quebec premier that wants to get off of this economic dependency on the resident country

00:34:21.840 is definitely welcome yes yeah absolutely i mean as a point of pride and i know

00:34:26.400 regionalistically when we're throwing shots at each other and i'm guilty of it quite often 1.00

00:34:30.400 but uh you know a lot of quebecers would be more than happy to say no we're not relying on

00:34:35.520 you know welfare or payments from other parts of the country we are self-sustaining and we're

00:34:39.120 paying our bills now leave us alone absolutely absolutely i mean it's i think you got it right

00:34:46.080 it's regionalism. We all have pride in our various parts of the country. Quebecers definitely have

00:34:52.080 pride in Quebec. Every single Albertan I've met has a lot of pride about being an Albertan for

00:34:57.760 good reason. So there's a point of pride, but also there's even a point from just a development

00:35:04.080 perspective. If we don't rely on equalization payments, it means our people are richer, they

00:35:09.040 have more money in their pockets, their lives are better. And I think that's what everyone's

00:35:13.120 striving for great well thanks for coming in to talk to us a bit about that again it's going to

00:35:17.760 get a little bit of good news maybe a little bit of bad news at the same time but it's always

00:35:21.360 ongoing and it's a battle of push and pull and you guys are the taxpayers federation are good at

00:35:25.760 standing up for of course the the rights of citizens taxes take a big bite out of our

00:35:30.240 living so uh that you know we need somebody to defend us from government getting overly zealous

00:35:34.880 as they typically do with it where can we find more information on what you're up to and what

00:35:39.440 what you're doing out there.

00:35:40.840 Oh, always feel free to go on taxpayer.com

00:35:43.560 to keep aware of our campaigns

00:35:45.820 or to follow us on Facebook,

00:35:47.220 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:35:48.320 We're very active there.

00:35:49.780 And once again, thanks for having me, Corey.

00:35:52.540 It's been an absolute pleasure as always.

00:35:54.900 Great, well, thank you.

00:35:55.820 And I'm certain we'll be talking again soon down the road.

00:35:57.920 The taxation issues never go away.

00:36:02.540 Okay, so yeah, that was Renaud Brassard from Quebec.

00:36:05.000 And again, it's that reminder,

00:36:06.700 there's still common sense people in Quebec.

00:36:08.940 we get upset with them, we get on their case and things like that. But there are actually a lot

00:36:14.640 of Conservatives in Quebec, the Quebec Conservative Party, actually, if you look it up, I interviewed

00:36:18.920 his leader, the leader of it, boy, and I'm forgetting his name. But they're actually second,

00:36:24.440 I think, to the NDP in Quebec right now, provincially, and rising, they're doing quite

00:36:28.520 well out there. Check them out, you know, we can reason with enough Quebecers, maybe we can stop

00:36:33.440 being at each other's throats a bit regionally, and do better for ourselves. I mean, there's a lot

00:36:37.480 of common ground between Albertans and Quebec. I think we've just gone about things a lot

00:36:41.580 differently. But one thing we certainly have in common is we don't like the federal government.

00:36:45.440 The Quebecers have no more love for Ottawa than Albertans do. And the more we can talk between

00:36:50.240 each other and get Ottawa out of our hair and allow provincial jurisdiction to come in,

00:36:54.920 I think we would get out of each other's regional hair quite a bit more. So I'm going to stop for a

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00:37:54.500 Hey there, welcome back. Thanks for listening to our sponsor. Again, you know, for those who

00:37:59.340 subscribe to us. That helps, gives us the numbers, helps draw in sponsors for more local companies.

00:38:05.060 And it's just capitalism in its beautiful form. That way we can pay for more reporters,

00:38:09.800 upgrade our gear to avoid those technical difficulties. Yesterday we had some website

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00:38:19.120 all you existing subscribers and to those who haven't already, please take out a subscription,

00:38:23.560 check it out. It's well worth it. So we've got a little time before we get to my next guest,

00:38:27.860 and that's all right. There's lots to talk about. James, as I said, is down on the border. I know I

00:38:33.600 saw, I think it was Cheryl brought up a comment about the word of it. And James, we talked off

00:38:38.580 air about it. We'll confirm a little more of that later about the possibility of a bunch of horses

00:38:43.420 being brought down there. And that might be where Paul Brandt appears. I mean, it is the area where

00:38:49.260 a lot of people do own a lot of horses. So that's very much a possibility if we're going to see it

00:38:54.020 anywhere. I don't know. I see James kind of in the background, though. If he feels like popping

00:38:57.960 in to talk a little more, I got the time. He can give me a wave. If not, okay, he's nodding. We're

00:39:02.380 abusing poor James down there. We're just working the hell out of him. But come on, it's well worth

00:39:06.360 it. We need that live voice. So come on in, James. How are you doing? I'm here working on a couple of

00:39:12.020 projects anyways, Corey. So I'm strapped in the office for a couple of hours before I get out

00:39:16.800 there and start talking to the protesters again and continuing on my work with that story.

00:39:22.740 but uh as for the horses uh there actually is a facebook group from um a company they they do have

00:39:30.520 professional wranglers that are supposed to be coming down with it now i haven't reached out to

00:39:34.860 that group yet um that was something that was on my list to do this afternoon to find out the details

00:39:39.780 and actually see what's going on but uh yeah there's just a ton of social media rumors there

00:39:45.780 are so many social media groups uh telegram groups uh just uh twitter so and it really is hard to

00:39:54.420 figure out what's fact and what's fiction right now um so there could be horses there may not be

00:40:00.840 horses um it appears it's likely there will be horses and possibly wagons as well so um i i i

00:40:10.460 don't know yet but that is something that we're working on to find out for today

00:40:13.800 yeah well it gives all that yellowstone imagery i mean you're right on the montana border we've

00:40:19.100 got these cowboys we've got these horses uh and we've got uh ranchers and upset people i mean we

00:40:25.460 just want to make sure it always remains peaceful i mean from what i can envision the horse owners

00:40:28.480 i know they would take it out for a nice big symbolic ride it'll make for some interesting

00:40:32.900 optics uh but how many or what happens well i guess time will tell now that the weather's

00:40:37.800 relenting a little on you i think it's pretty possible yeah uh there's a there's a nice chinook

00:40:42.980 rolling through. It's nice and warm again. And yeah, we're hearing that some of the protesters

00:40:49.620 from the Milk River protest site are going to be riding into the Coutts site on horseback and

00:40:55.900 delivering supplies in with them. Now, there has been a call out for some supplies, but for the

00:41:05.000 most part, they're good on food. What I'm hearing now is that they're actually concerned with a

00:41:09.480 shinook coming through that they may have an excessive food and they may not be able to keep 0.98

00:41:13.820 it cool anymore um so so that's something that's kind of developing right now um i believe i like

00:41:21.380 i i've even heard a rumor that uh adamson's barbecue is going to be doing a barbecue tomorrow

00:41:27.900 uh i haven't confirmed that either um so i mean we've got horses we've got barbecue we've got

00:41:33.800 Paul Brandt. One of the things that I've seen, though, was that Albertans can't seem to do

00:41:39.860 anything without a beer in their hand. And I have to be honest, Corey, there is no drinking here.

00:41:47.320 This has been a completely dry event. I have not seen a single person have a sip of alcohol. I have

00:41:54.440 not seen any drugs or anything here. These are mostly very religious, blue-collar working men,

00:42:01.820 And it's been more about the protest than having a party.

00:42:08.940 Well, you know, then that's a good thing to note from the ground, because, yeah, you have a whole lot of people camped, gathered and hanging about.

00:42:14.500 And as we know, I've got my share of experience with it.

00:42:17.640 We don't get any smarter for the more we drink. 0.98

00:42:20.340 Often, actually, some of our dumbest notions suddenly become brilliant in our minds and we do foolish things. 0.60

00:42:25.860 And with a large amount of people gathered in something that still has potential tension and potential danger.

00:42:31.800 I mean, if things go off the rails, some people really could get hurt if we're not careful.

00:42:34.740 So it's good to hear, you know, it's a jubilant gathering, but it's not an alcohol-fueled party or anything at all like that.

00:42:42.520 No, I mean, the first weekend had the feel of a music festival, but I didn't see anybody drinking that first weekend.

00:42:50.000 I didn't see a lot of horsing around.

00:42:52.960 Sorry for the bad pun there.

00:42:54.440 I was going to go on about barbecuing horses later, so that's okay.

00:42:58.740 It's, you know, it's been, it's been reasonable.

00:43:01.820 And like, even with the RCMP talking to, to the group last night, you know, they said

00:43:07.260 the situation is, is so unique because cowboys, farmers and truckers and police get along.

00:43:15.200 One of the RCMP was telling a story about a time he broke down in the middle of nowhere

00:43:19.820 and, and a trucker stopped and helped him.

00:43:22.600 And he said, now we're in this situation where, you know, we're frenemies.

00:43:27.360 And I think that's actually been a good thing because it's de-escalated a lot of tense situations.

00:43:34.700 And I don't think anybody feels that there is a imminent threat of some sort of SWAT invasion anymore.

00:43:42.000 It's more, you guys ask and we'll make some concessions and you guys make some concessions and let's get through this together.

00:43:52.420 Let's stay focused on getting the mandates repealed.

00:43:56.020 But, you know, there have been some concerns coming out of the Melk River site.

00:44:01.320 Some of the landowners are concerned that the lane that's open down there isn't quite wide enough, that there's not enough room to get through.

00:44:08.340 I know some of the landowners in the area are having a meeting right now.

00:44:11.900 I'm hoping with one of my sources is going to be following up with me right after that.

00:44:15.620 But, you know, the Coots group, the original group of protesters have been very good at communicating to the Milk River group, you know, this is what we're negotiating up here.

00:44:28.020 Please abide by it. Don't don't do anything down there that can jeopardize what we've done up here.

00:44:34.920 And that's been good. And I think that message needs to go out. I think anybody that is coming into this area should be aware that this is a serious protest. This is a serious thing. There's chances for anything to get out of control if anything goes wrong. So please don't drink and drive. Don't bring drugs into the site. Keep things calm. Keep things peaceful.

00:44:58.800 Last night, we were told that they were having a hockey game in the middle of the highway.

00:45:02.620 Now, obviously, they're supposed to be keeping the highway open.

00:45:05.440 As of 7 o'clock this morning, I've seen plenty of commercial vehicles going back and forth across the border.

00:45:12.500 I've even seen some personal vehicles coming across the border.

00:45:15.180 I've seen a motorhome come north into Canada.

00:45:19.760 And the guys at Coots really want to make sure that the guys down at Melk River are doing exactly what they're doing up here

00:45:27.080 and working with the police uh i seen earlier some posts on facebook they were thanking the rcmp they

00:45:33.880 were thanking the sheriffs and uh thanking the there's conservation officers here and the lethbridge

00:45:40.360 municipal police force they said you know you guys have been great you you've worked with us you're

00:45:44.760 not working they're not working against them they're not working for them they're they're

00:45:50.680 keeping things safe and they're containing the situation and and they really want that message

00:45:56.120 to go out to the people coming into the area. Great. And as I've said before, it's kind of,

00:46:00.500 it's protesting done right. I mean, there's always potential for it to go wrong, but there's a lot

00:46:04.180 of effort to keep this positive. I was going to ask you about that because I keep asking through

00:46:07.580 the updates through the week. So there is some traffic getting through the border. Like that's

00:46:11.380 the big pinch point. I think that's what will raise the tensions quickly and dramatically.

00:46:14.880 Those, if they stop it up altogether and don't let anybody through, then it forces the hand of

00:46:19.540 the police and the government. So there's still some traffic getting through then.

00:46:22.960 yeah uh this morning i've seen uh um three cattle liners loaded up headed south um there there was

00:46:32.020 um there was a couple of trucks coming north as well actually some oversized loads so if the

00:46:37.640 the oversized loads i believe the one that i i was talking to at the scale this morning

00:46:41.280 they were just checking to make sure that they could actually fit um down the highway and and

00:46:47.820 they left the scale so i i'm taking that as they found a route either around the the protest site

00:46:54.220 at melk river or the police checkpoint at melk river and uh and there was there was two oversized

00:46:59.620 loads that came north into canada this morning so you know uh there there has been still some

00:47:04.540 rumors that the highway shut down and and i'm just gonna say if if oversized loads are headed north

00:47:10.900 into canada there there's got to be enough room for for traffic and emergency vehicles to get

00:47:15.760 through and that's good to know and again we're seeing a lot of smearing of protesters and and a

00:47:21.400 lot of misinformation some perhaps real you know at times but we need to constantly clarify that

00:47:27.060 like everybody's being communal nobody down there wants to stop emergency vehicles from getting into

00:47:31.540 coots or or starving people from coots or keeping them from getting to work and back i think it's

00:47:36.340 been pretty cooperative with the locals to make sure that doesn't happen yeah for sure um i i've

00:47:42.060 even seen posts on on some of the convoy groups saying don't you dare bring any hate symbols here

00:47:47.920 we are not those kind of people this is not what that's about this is about the mandates and we're

00:47:53.480 going to stay focused on the mandates we're not sending mixed messages it's one clear message

00:47:58.560 and uh and yeah and and they've been they've been good with meeting and communicating with the the

00:48:04.440 locals but they do have to be aware that their welcome is wearing out um you know they're they're

00:48:11.060 um that some of the landowners are getting concerned about damage to their land and the

00:48:15.500 potential of an influx of people over the weekend and the situation getting out of control so they've

00:48:21.360 said to people you know make make sure you stay in control manage yourself manage your own personal

00:48:27.700 responsibility in this situation come be peaceful speak your mind protest but don't damage anything

00:48:34.960 Don't don't ruin the farmers fields. Don't wreck the roads. Don't don't harass the locals. Don't go into their businesses and and fight with them about masking and vaccine passports. I've heard that, you know, some of them do see that as simple civil disobedience.

00:48:52.620 But they do have to remember that these businesses have been put at massive risk, massive fines from AHS.

00:49:00.020 We've seen AHS go after businesses before that have participated in civil disobedience.

00:49:06.160 But it's a small area.

00:49:11.220 Coots is a very small village.

00:49:13.160 Milk River is a small town.

00:49:15.260 You know, they have limited resources, limited restaurants.

00:49:17.620 so you know they're asking for respect for the locals and and they're asking for everybody to

00:49:22.280 stay peaceful and on message great well thanks for the update we'll come back to you a little later

00:49:27.340 uh in the show here to get the final one before the weekend hits us here and then talk a little

00:49:31.600 more about it and see if you've heard anything uh after my guest there david makachuk who i'm gonna

00:49:35.960 have so thanks again for checking in with us james and we'll uh keep an eye on her yeah actually you

00:49:41.660 know what i'm hoping that today is not another day where i get handed a note right towards the end of

00:49:46.440 show and have to go running off to some crazy event i'm kind of enjoying the peaceful relaxed

00:49:51.240 atmosphere that's happening around here right now yeah well we'll take it as it comes and yes as

00:49:56.600 things break we just gotta flow with it as well best we can so uh let's hope you can get a breather

00:50:01.000 and catch up on a bit of stuff and then you can go out and catch whatever's going wild a little

00:50:04.440 later sounds good thanks corey hey thanks james and uh it sounds like uh somebody's having some

00:50:10.440 issues with the youtube getting a feed i other viewers seem to be doing all right uh keep in

00:50:15.000 in mind if you if you search us out on rumble actually western standard on rumble you'll find

00:50:19.180 the live feed on there facebook is actually where the majority of our viewers watch us on these

00:50:24.500 these live feeds as they go uh you can join any of those and catch them as they go and make sure

00:50:29.340 to subscribe to those you know whatever feed you prefer whether it's uh or subscribe to all of them

00:50:33.920 and share them you know this is how we bypass the mainstream media and their wretched coverage of

00:50:38.600 things we we don't need to rely on them for information anymore we can do better but you'll

00:50:43.460 get alerted. You know, if you've got a subscription to YouTube and you allow the alerts as much as

00:50:46.420 they can be annoying, you know, every dumb video that pops up gives you an alert. But if we break

00:50:49.980 in, because we've done that before, if things are breaking out in Milk River and James is covering

00:50:54.920 it or something goes crazy in the Edmonton and Amber's covering it or anything like that,

00:50:59.200 you'll get that alert and you'll be able to see live in real time what is going on. That's what

00:51:03.020 we bring to you. So I'm going to bring our next guest, Dave Makachuk. He's a columnist with the

00:51:09.740 Western standard. He writes a prolific one at that. He writes a lot of, uh, quite often on

00:51:14.400 international issues and things such as that. And he's got, of course, a long storied history with

00:51:19.080 Sun News. So let's bring him into the show here and have a chat. Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:51:24.180 Very good. Very good. Thank you. How are you today?

00:51:27.680 Good, good. You mentioned you were quite a hundred percent this morning. I hope you're

00:51:30.700 feeling a little better. No, no, just, I, I am actually feeling better now. So yeah, but I'm,

00:51:36.460 I'm fine I'm fine nothing serious okay so I mean some of our tensions I guess you

00:51:43.900 could say on the international front militarily or almost as wild as all the

00:51:47.980 crazed protests sprouting up all over North America or Canada right now you

00:51:53.080 just the one more recent column I just want to quickly start with we had a lot

00:51:56.860 to talk about was that what was it an F 35 that crashed into the South China Sea

00:52:02.680 and then they were scrambling to go out and try and recover it before the the

00:52:06.340 others could. I mean, it sounds like something out of a movie almost. It is, it is. It's like

00:52:11.500 Hunt for Red October, only it's not Admiral Ramius, Sean Connery, that they're after.

00:52:19.880 They're after probably one of the most advanced, well, it is, it is the most advanced piece of

00:52:27.820 military weapon in the world today.

00:52:32.700 It's a computer with wings.

00:52:35.780 It can communicate through multi-domains,

00:52:39.740 which is air, land, sea, cyber, and space as well.

00:52:44.780 It can communicate through all these areas instantaneously.

00:52:48.740 It can jam you, you can't see it.

00:52:51.580 You may be able to track it coming in,

00:52:54.580 but you're not gonna be able to see it.

00:52:56.620 it'll hit you so hard you won't know what hit you it can carry weapons like a dozen different kinds

00:53:02.460 of weapons missiles bombs uh smart bombs smart bombs and and and uh nobody has anything like

00:53:11.100 this except for our allies of course uh there's a naval version which is this version uh i believe

00:53:17.900 it was it was a c it was actually a c the f-35c they were trying to land it was just

00:53:24.300 uh um you know a typical landing on the uss vinson an aircraft carrier in the south china state

00:53:31.340 and something went terribly wrong and it crashed uh the pilot ejected and uh six or seven people

00:53:39.020 were injured on the ground uh happy to say they've all been airlifted to hospital and are doing okay

00:53:44.700 nobody was killed but as you can see from the photo that's an actual photo which the air force

00:53:50.140 has confirmed to be uh uh uh real so you can see the seat is missing you can see the canopy is

00:53:59.020 missing and you know it makes me think had the pilot just kept his cool he might have just uh

00:54:06.940 been able to walk out on that wing and uh and had a drink with his uh his pals that night in the bar

00:54:14.660 Well, certainly he personally had a code brown over the whole affair in general, but it's good that he got out of it.

00:54:21.440 You know, as they say, any crash you can walk away from is a good one out of that sort of thing.

00:54:25.780 Exactly.

00:54:26.060 So that much is good.

00:54:28.060 And it kind of brings back to what we talked about the last time you were on.

00:54:30.380 You know, we're really getting those rumbles of the Cold War coming back to us again, those memories.

00:54:34.320 We've got China as a player.

00:54:36.000 We've got Russia as a player.

00:54:37.620 They're getting increasingly hostile with neighboring nations.

00:54:40.520 They're looking expansionist.

00:54:42.360 And we're seeing a military buildup.

00:54:44.640 I mean, as the Americans keep training, that's how these accidents are happening, too.

00:54:47.600 I mean, it's all kind of posturing at this point, but it could turn into something much more.

00:54:51.900 It could. It could.

00:54:53.020 And well, and the scary thing is the Chinese-Russian alignment. 0.87

00:55:00.680 That's quite scary because they both want to end American hegemony, which is what they call it. 0.90

00:55:10.100 They want to end that. 0.89

00:55:11.780 And if they go into Ukraine, you know, just if we talk about Ukraine for a second, if they do go into Ukraine, from everything I'm seeing, from professionals and from people in the Pentagon, from analysts, this is going to be, at least in the short term, a win-win for Russia and China. 0.94

00:55:35.180 This will be a win-win because they, I mean, sending a few thousand troops to Poland, which is what they're doing now. 0.79

00:55:44.200 They're sending a few thousand troops to Poland and Romania.

00:55:47.760 And this is on top of the 8,500 troops that are on alert.

00:55:54.000 They're sending a few thousand troops in.

00:55:56.840 So does that project fear to you or anybody?

00:56:01.980 It doesn't.

00:56:02.840 It doesn't project fear.

00:56:04.360 it's it's going to make it's going to make us look weak and and and both countries stand to gain and

00:56:11.640 china stands to gain obviously obviously uh putin was uh uh empowered empowered or emboldened let's

00:56:19.000 say emboldened by the u.s pull out from afghanistan it was a disaster an absolute disaster and what 0.87

00:56:26.520 What does that say? I mean, and then we switch over to Russia, which has done a remarkable job in Syria.

00:56:37.900 They've actually restored Assad, who, you know, let's not talk about that guy, what that guy's about.

00:56:44.700 But anyway, they restored him to power, and they want to expand that.

00:56:50.680 They're also making inroads with Turkey, selling them weapons.

00:56:53.900 they're also using the same game plan with egypt and they're all and they i mean the the big

00:57:00.460 picture is that putin wants to restore that cold war uh strength uh uh of russia mother russia get 0.67

00:57:11.060 out of eastern europe get the hell out we don't want you in there they want to restore that and

00:57:17.700 i mean and the problem is the problem is they backed each other into a bloody corner

00:57:23.040 and they can't back down neither side is backing down the americans are not going to leave

00:57:30.500 eastern europe they're not and russia is not going to back down and you know and then the

00:57:38.380 and the russian populace has been bombarded with propaganda for years and decades and and and and

00:57:46.180 they believe that NATO and America is the aggressor.

00:57:52.420 So it's like, what do you do now?

00:57:54.820 There's nothing you can do.

00:57:56.160 You can't back down.

00:57:59.060 They're going to have to go in.

00:58:00.520 And if they do, I think in the short term, 0.66

00:58:02.880 and then you have allies, so-called allies, okay, Israel and Germany.

00:58:08.760 Germany says, well, we can't send, I'm sorry,

00:58:11.540 But we cannot allow any, you know, Baltic countries to send weapons we've sold Baltic countries to sell to Ukraine because of ethical issues, ethical issues.

00:58:22.700 Well, for God's sake, Germany has one of the biggest arms industries in the world, and they're selling arms to anybody, anybody, regardless of ethics.

00:58:33.260 But suddenly, suddenly, oh, we have ethnic issues with Ukraine.

00:58:37.960 We can't do that.

00:58:39.140 And Israel, to placate Russia, will not sell any weapons or allow any of their weapons to be sold to Ukraine as well.

00:58:51.320 And this is a country that receives billions, billions upon billions upon billions of dollars from the United States.

00:58:59.380 So there you go.

00:59:00.760 It's a mess.

00:59:01.840 It's an absolute mess.

00:59:03.060 It is.

00:59:03.820 I mean, throughout human history, it's countless the millions of people that have died over political leadership on points of pride.

00:59:12.620 I mean, whether from medieval wars to contemporary ones, it never just seems to change.

00:59:17.000 They invest their political capital into it, and they're willing to sacrifice soldiers on the ground rather than back off.

00:59:24.500 I mean, it's an ugly situation building up over there, and it's hard to see where the vent is.

00:59:30.760 how are we going to find a way to avoid a larger conflict? Because I mean, expansionist states

00:59:36.920 never stop with the first one they take. Neville Chamberlain figured that out pretty darn fast

00:59:42.100 back in the end of the 30s. And the rest of the world is going to realize if Russia gets away 0.59

00:59:48.420 with taking Ukraine, they're not going to stop there. No. And you know, as well as I do,

00:59:54.600 that they'll throw sanctions on there, but the Russians will find a way around it.

00:59:58.780 They will find a way around it. Germany is not going to shut down that pipeline, that pipeline that they need. They need that. And again, and they consider that none of America's business, which maybe it's not. I don't know.

01:00:14.180 But, I mean, you're not just going to, you know, you've got a few Baltic countries, good on them, good on them for supporting Ukraine, sending in weapons.

01:00:23.120 And I just heard today that Poland is also sending in artillery and shells.

01:00:31.620 And so that's great. 1.00

01:00:33.820 That's great for them to do that.

01:00:35.600 You know, so at least they're getting support from a few countries who are showing some courage and saying, yeah, we don't want to be a Russian satellite country again.

01:00:47.500 We don't want to go back to the Cold War. 0.80

01:00:49.680 But it seems like we are heading back to that.

01:00:53.820 And that's got to be a huge concern.

01:00:55.580 And I mean, I don't know about you, but I remember, I remember as a kid growing up in a small town, southern Ontario, we had a big, big horn on a post next to our house.

01:01:10.940 We had a house behind a garage and it's just, you know, area in Ontario, blue collar, blue collar area of Ontario.

01:01:19.020 And every once in a while that horn would go off.

01:01:22.960 And we all knew what that was.

01:01:25.580 Like, we all knew, we all knew, hang on just a second.

01:01:30.160 I got to squirt my cat because she's meowing.

01:01:32.980 Yeah, yeah.

01:01:34.160 Sorry.

01:01:35.280 Bert, be quiet.

01:01:36.660 Anyway, as I said, that horn went off.

01:01:42.140 It meant third world war. 0.84

01:01:44.240 It meant we were all going to die. 0.96

01:01:45.800 We're all going to be cinders. 0.75

01:01:48.240 We were going to be destroyed.

01:01:50.140 And I don't want it to go back to that.

01:01:52.200 dear god no where we are hiding under our desks and going like this and getting ready for for a

01:01:58.840 nuclear attack because you know i mean we all know one american submarine one could destroy

01:02:06.680 every major city in china one and that's just one and they have like 30 or 40 of them plus you know 0.64

01:02:15.560 every other weapon known to man and now china is is boosting their nuclear weapons across the board 0.73

01:02:22.680 russia too i understand is now looking at uh modernizing their nuclear weapons 0.66

01:02:28.600 so where the hell are we headed is this the madness of it all the madness of it all it's

01:02:33.560 i mean it's like dr strangelove all over again we just haven't learned a damn thing we haven't

01:02:40.280 and i've been washington i've been to the army i've been to the army uh a usa show and i've seen

01:02:46.840 how huge the military industry is and man it can't be stopped it's just going to keep going

01:02:54.920 yeah and just i guess for our younger viewers because it is a it's a must watch since you

01:02:59.240 brought it up dr strange love it's a kubrick classic with peter sellers and uh slim pickens

01:03:04.760 and it's it's a a dark dark parody but it was so the reason it was a hit in its time was because 0.80

01:03:10.280 it was so realistic on uh how much idiocy and intractability we have among our superpowers 0.90

01:03:16.600 and how the capability for an error leading to a troll world destruction is is real it's not 0.98

01:03:23.720 impossible yeah no it's not i mean we came close at the um we came close at the uh cuban missile

01:03:32.040 crisis that was very close but we had uh two guys by the name of john kennedy and bobby kennedy

01:03:38.920 and they were looking out for us i mean when when jfk walked out of the meeting with curtis lemay

01:03:44.520 he was devastated by the madness of the joint chiefs they wanted to use nuclear weapons on cuba

01:03:51.000 and he just thought these guys were nuts and that he had to stop them so they went around them they

01:03:56.680 went around them and they spoke directly to uh you know representatives at the russian embassy

01:04:03.800 and thankfully apparently there was one point where a submarine commander a russian submarine

01:04:11.240 commander was was was going to respond to an american ship and decided not to i can't remember

01:04:17.880 if it was a russian or i think it was a russian sub and he had nuclear missiles on board and thank

01:04:25.400 god he didn't otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here talking and that's what we have to avoid 0.54

01:04:30.760 here we we have to have calmer cooler heads but i mean putin is again he's pushing hard he's

01:04:40.760 pushing really hard and what do you do when two sides have backed themselves into a corner

01:04:45.560 and now you've probably heard the um the reports of a fake attack they're going to use that as a

01:04:53.640 as a fake false flag in order to go into Ukraine.

01:04:59.220 Make it look like the Ukrainian troops did something terrible,

01:05:03.640 that they attacked and there were atrocities

01:05:06.380 and they did terrible things to children and blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:05:11.220 This is what this report came out saying,

01:05:14.300 that there was going to be a video with actors and actual corpses

01:05:20.600 and videos of American or whatever, drones and everything,

01:05:27.160 a false flag to try and spark this attack.

01:05:34.220 And that's like, but at least we're getting it out 1.00

01:05:37.340 and we're telling the world, don't believe this shit. 0.99

01:05:40.920 You know, don't believe it because it's just not. 0.99

01:05:44.380 So I don't know.

01:05:47.600 We don't seem to be on the same wavelength as Putin.

01:05:50.600 We don't seem to be. He has his concerns with NATO. He has his concerns. And maybe we can alleviate some of those concerns. But basically, we're at a very, very dangerous time in the world. 2022, February. This is a very dangerous time for the entire world. Because if they go in, it's going to change the whole world.

01:06:14.340 Well, yeah, and this gets back to, again, you know, those who forget history.

01:06:16.860 I think that most of the generation now has just forgotten how serious the Cold War was,

01:06:21.240 living under a threat, really thinking this could happen.

01:06:23.520 Any moment was there.

01:06:24.840 I mean, it was even worse prior to my generation.

01:06:27.620 I was on the tail end of it.

01:06:28.800 But I'm going to hold out some optimism because a lot of things have changed too, though.

01:06:33.320 As I think I'd mentioned in the last time we talked, I'd gone to the Soviet Union while it was still under communism,

01:06:38.420 and I toured, and they searched my bags looking for cassette tapes and books and everything

01:06:42.760 because they wanted to keep outside information from coming in and they still have a lot of

01:06:47.300 propaganda there now. They still try to tell, as you said, the citizens feel that NATO is the

01:06:51.960 aggressor, but there are at least, there are many more ways now for them to seek a broader

01:06:57.480 information. Like I said, they can't cork the outside information as effectively as they did

01:07:02.420 30, 40, 50 years ago. Maybe that can help ease some of the pressure because they're not going to

01:07:07.720 have the broad public support they did as a communist state that didn't allow any information

01:07:11.980 into itself. Well, you know, you would think one would think so. One would think so with all the

01:07:16.960 information that's out there. Now, just a small confession. I have a lady friend who's who's

01:07:23.820 Russian and she she lives in Beirut and and but she's from eastern Ukraine.

01:07:33.760 And we we get in arguments all the time because she blames everything on on America and the CIA.

01:07:41.240 Every, oh, the America did this, or the CIA did that. 1.00

01:07:44.620 But then this poor lady has had years and decades of propaganda thrown at her. 1.00

01:07:49.260 So it's pretty tough to crack that.

01:07:51.600 I mean, I've tried to explain to her, no, this is not true.

01:07:55.600 You're being brainwashed.

01:07:57.740 And she says to me, no, you are being brainwashed.

01:08:01.940 So I don't know, where do you go from there, you know?

01:08:06.280 Just one thing I wanted to mention about the false flag.

01:08:09.460 Nobody is reporting this.

01:08:10.840 nobody but what's interesting here is that america i don't know if you remember the gulf of tonkin

01:08:17.960 incident off the coast of vietnam and somebody just mentioned it now yeah a long time ago well

01:08:24.760 that was a false flag way it was a complete lie it didn't happen it was about the vietnamese

01:08:32.040 attacking american ships and so on and so forth apparently it didn't happen there's no proof

01:08:37.400 but they used it they they threw it out there as propaganda as you know back in the day america

01:08:42.440 could do no wrong and they threw it out there and it basically led america into the vietnam war

01:08:49.160 they needed that false flag to go in they wanted the bigger picture was of course stopping the

01:08:55.480 communism in in in southeast asia but they use that so it's been done before and it's been done

01:09:01.800 by the united states yeah we can't rule anything out so well thanks for joining me and you know i

01:09:07.320 just want to remind everybody that dave yeah i mean the western standard uh covers a lot of things

01:09:12.040 in broad and particularly western canadian issues but we also have lots of columns and stories on

01:09:16.840 everything up to and including international issues and dave watches that like a hawk and

01:09:20.920 writes on it very regularly so thanks for coming to expand a bit on your recent columns i'm certain

01:09:26.200 you've got more to come as we watch this develop yes for sure for sure and uh just one last parting

01:09:32.520 uh story uh that the media pretty much ignored was the uh houthi missile and drone attack on

01:09:39.940 abu dhabi airport so if you're going to abu dhabi for a holiday and you want to go in some of those 1.00

01:09:46.220 beautiful big buildings watch out now because the houthis can now reach it they've got iranian 0.93

01:09:51.740 weapons and they can strike the united arab emirates and that's got everybody in the middle 1.00

01:09:57.340 east spooked anyway let me part you with that with that story okay a little more fear but all the

01:10:03.980 same we'll keep watching and and hoping it gets better thanks dave we'll talk again soon thanks

01:10:09.260 man take care stay soon thanks okay and we're getting some messages from james i i've been

01:10:16.540 watching in the other comment scroll uh we're gonna cut to him pretty quickly here i guess

01:10:21.420 there's some things have developed at the coots border uh blockade hey there james looks chilly

01:10:27.180 uh windy at least it's uh it's windy but uh you know what for once it's not cutting directly

01:10:33.260 through my clothes uh yeah so i i was just saying that uh so far today has been one of those days

01:10:39.740 that nobody's broken into the office and uh told me that there's developments but uh it turns out

01:10:46.060 there has been some developments i'm gonna flip the camera around here right now but uh the uh

01:10:51.420 the border uh the southbound border into uh into the united states has been blocked again the uh

01:10:59.500 the protesters have have uh have moved the trucks back across the highway uh just in the southbound

01:11:06.700 lanes only and uh you can see the rcmp have moved back in to monitor the situation uh i haven't been

01:11:14.620 able to get inside to talk to any of the organizers yet i'm hoping to do that here rather quickly

01:11:22.140 so i i understand i i was stopped by some locals as i drove over here and they were telling me

01:11:30.700 that there's some some loads of live animals down at the milk river checkpoint or either in between

01:11:37.340 the checkpoint and the border crossing so uh i i uh i'm going to imagine that uh things are going

01:11:44.620 to get a little bit tense here i know that there has been some concerns about moving live animals

01:11:51.340 as you know we've had some supply chain issues they're having some issues getting the trains

01:11:57.420 into canada with uh corn and uh this sim or this this won't uh won't help the situation

01:12:04.620 now i'm trying to get around this here just to see um further down the highway here if you look

01:12:11.180 there's a service road over there now that service road has been left open and that service road

01:12:17.420 goes uh just straight south here and you can cut back into the border crossing up there now i can't

01:12:24.620 say for sure that that was left open so that live animals could move through there is still a lane

01:12:31.820 open that comes up here so there is still emergency access to the village of coots

01:12:36.940 there's still bus access to the village of coots but i am being told that the rcmp

01:12:41.820 has since shut down um access for people to come um self into into the village of coots now

01:12:52.860 well that's unfortunately gonna lead uh definitely to some more tension down there i mean that's that's

01:12:57.900 the big sticking point and there's that concern i mean we've heard some people claim it's false

01:13:02.460 some people claim it's true that there's been livestock stuck on each side of the border because

01:13:06.860 it kind of moves both ways down there it's it's our only agricultural checkpoint actually they

01:13:10.700 can't go to a different crossing uh but it's very difficult i mean for people who don't know about

01:13:15.900 it you can't just throw livestock on and keep them in a trailer for long they have to be let out they

01:13:20.700 have to be watered you'll kill them if they're stuck for for an extended period of time so it's

01:13:25.660 very serious if that's happening and i certainly hope it isn't yeah we're gonna we're gonna try

01:13:31.260 to confirm that as as soon as we're done here i'm gonna head back into the saloon i'm gonna try to

01:13:36.220 get as much information as i can so uh make sure you uh keep an eye on the western standard online

01:13:42.060 dot com i'll be updating dave and mel as soon as i can get as much information as i can i will uh

01:13:48.140 i'll be sure to uh to get some pictures and get some video for everyone and uh keep everybody

01:13:54.700 updated on what's happening here in this latest development okay well my show will probably be

01:14:00.220 wrapped up before you pop out there again unless something crazy uh happens let's hope it doesn't

01:14:04.460 but uh thanks for the update as things develop and uh yeah we'll look forward to your reports

01:14:09.020 and finding out just what's going on down there james thanks take care corey all right so yes

01:14:15.980 the situation is still fluid it's still ongoing the borders open the borders closed uh james has

01:14:21.500 been attending a lot of the meetings in person. They have meetings. They try, I guess you could

01:14:26.880 say committee in a sense and leadership, but there's differences in points of view. Some went

01:14:31.300 north, some stayed down. Now, James doesn't know why, but it appears that some have determined that

01:14:36.420 they want to close the border again, which again will force the hand of the RCMP eventually.

01:14:44.560 They can't allow that to keep being shut up like that. You can do this protest,

01:14:48.660 But I tell you, you can't stop the border altogether.

01:14:52.680 It forces them. 0.92

01:14:54.800 But again, hopefully they open up again soon.

01:14:56.840 You can still hinder it.

01:14:57.760 You know, that's the point of a protest.

01:14:59.140 You want to make sure your message is out there.

01:15:01.160 You want to make it uncomfortable and difficult for the government.

01:15:04.320 But you can't draw a line in the sand and force them to act.

01:15:10.180 It's just not going to end well.

01:15:12.040 Unfortunately, it's not well, as Shelley was saying, the pastor is the instigator.

01:15:17.020 Yeah, I don't know.

01:15:17.780 Well, I'll tell you some things. I know there's some people who like Art Palowski. Fine. He does his things. He stands up for some freedoms. He's got the right to be a preacher. He's been wronged in some things. But he's also a very intractable, hot-tempered man. And he doesn't mind getting his butt thrown in jail. But I'm not sure if going down there and trying to work other people up to encourage them to get their butts thrown into jail is a good plan at this point.

01:15:42.600 but he's free to go down and he's done his thing. I don't think it helped, but that's up to the

01:15:48.860 individuals down there. But when you've got art involved in things, your chances of seeing a

01:15:53.800 reasonable outcome decline very quickly and very dramatically. We've been talking about that for

01:16:01.720 days. The government is on their heels right now. I think, this is just theory, maybe I'm dead

01:16:08.420 wrong. Even if Trudeau doesn't want to back down, the federal government knows they're under serious

01:16:12.740 pressure right now. They're trying to figure out how they can extricate themselves, what sort of

01:16:17.220 concessions can be done to bring this to an end. And that has been due, though, to the protesters

01:16:23.140 being civil, being good, being effective. You know, they've tried smearing them wrongly, and it's

01:16:28.440 failing, and public support for the government has been dropping over that. This is a story Dave

01:16:32.900 talked about earlier. It was in Blackhawks Reporter. I think we'll probably get to cover it in the

01:16:35.780 standard if we haven't already but uh it's from this is a direct quote so the freedom convoy

01:16:41.280 blockade at parliament yesterday completed sixth day so this is a little bit a little bit back

01:16:45.100 amid mp claims that lawless truckers were attacking passerbys on the streets of ottawa

01:16:49.640 now preliminary data show the police reported street climb actually fell yeah so there we go

01:16:54.860 western standard reported on it so yeah i should have more faith in dave i knew he'd have that up

01:16:59.640 there but i just wanted to be sure as i'm talking about the crime has fallen since the protests

01:17:05.680 began in Ottawa. There's a video I wanted to play. I can't do it. Some of you might have seen it out

01:17:10.620 there. I wish I'd written down a name of where you can find it. It's a TikTok video. It's probably

01:17:15.160 gone to a few other areas. The problem was there was music playing in it that's licensed music and

01:17:20.040 we'd be in trouble if we ran it during our live feed because then suddenly we'd be getting a

01:17:25.020 strike against us. But it has the speech Trudeau was giving where he's smearing the people who are

01:17:31.500 demonstrating as terrorists, as extremists, as racists, and all the rest of the garbage. 0.98

01:17:38.320 And meanwhile, it's showing all these clips of people dancing, of people being friendly, 0.99

01:17:41.940 of people being jubilant, of people being positive. And it's just well worth a watch.

01:17:49.000 Try to search it out. I couldn't throw it on here. Because again, as we get this instigation going on,

01:17:54.320 you know, there's an imbecile out there, and I'm going to call him that, a complete imbecile. 1.00

01:17:57.300 His name is David Kleiman Haga. He's a union leader and he writes for the Taiyi, which is a virtual borderline communist publication. I'll say that outright. Very, very hard left wing. And he wrote a piece recently where he outright was saying that it's time for the military to move in, surround the truckers and start forcefully removing them. 1.00

01:18:17.480 Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That would really end well, Dave. That's a real good idea. Brilliant. That's how you bring this situation down. You know, we've got a peaceful protest. We've got over 10,000 people more showed up in Ottawa, an incredible low amount. I think perhaps what part of what David said about is that we're showing how it's done right. If it was 10,000 lefties, they'd probably still be trying to put out the fires from the windows smashed out and the firebombs going into the Starbucks and other businesses around there.

01:18:47.480 And they're upset with this, so maybe they're hoping that they can incite a riot at these things, because that's what would happen if the military tried to move in, when you don't need to, and attack these peaceful people protesting out there.

01:19:01.260 And that's how heated things are getting. And some people are pouring gasoline on the fire from both sides, from Art Pawlowski pouring it on his side, and from Dave Kleiman-Haga pouring it on the other.

01:19:11.940 So let's keep cutting through it. And yes, Cheryl's saying the federal government doesn't even want to negotiate. Yeah, I know. They've dug their heels in, Cheryl. But they will feel pressure eventually. I don't think Jason Kenney wanted to negotiate on this whatsoever either. But he's feeling cornered. And that's why his messaging is getting mixed. It's hard for these politicians. That's what I was talking with David Makachuk about.

01:19:33.560 Unfortunately, they make decisions often based on political pride rather than pragmatism

01:19:38.720 and won't back off in a circumstance when they probably should.

01:19:43.200 And then it escalates and it can get worse.

01:19:45.740 And that's a problem that happens with international diplomacy.

01:19:48.480 And that's what we're happening is with these protests all over the place.

01:19:52.120 So I'm just looking at the messaging coming from James.

01:19:55.380 He's really running around to trying to find out what's happening.

01:19:57.720 He talked to the RCMP.

01:19:59.060 They're saying the same thing as what he's seen.

01:20:01.440 He said everything was quiet.

01:20:02.280 Everything was fine.

01:20:03.160 And then out of nowhere, they blocked the border again.

01:20:07.080 Yeah, he doesn't feel he needs to be cut in for that.

01:20:08.600 No, that's okay.

01:20:09.440 He's going to get more information on what's happening.

01:20:12.280 And he said, have a good weekend guys.

01:20:14.980 That's to us.

01:20:15.820 I think it's also to you guys, the viewers,

01:20:17.380 he's still gonna be around there in person.

01:20:19.500 And that's what's so important.

01:20:20.680 Get there in person.

01:20:22.400 You know, some people, again,

01:20:23.180 I see some commenters saying

01:20:24.180 we've been spreading false information.

01:20:26.000 Wow, we got a guy live on the ground.

01:20:28.140 He's reporting what he sees.

01:20:29.700 That's what we do.

01:20:30.940 If you don't like the information,

01:20:33.160 there's nothing much I can do about that.

01:20:35.480 You know, sometimes we give messaging

01:20:36.480 you don't want to hear.

01:20:38.220 I'm sorry about that.

01:20:39.160 Actually, I'm not sorry about that.

01:20:40.060 I'm not even a bit sorry about that.

01:20:41.260 We'll go back to that, you know, 0.99

01:20:42.160 kiss my ass idea I had earlier 0.99

01:20:43.540 with people talking about the new normal. 0.99

01:20:45.000 Look, we'll give you the opinions from me

01:20:46.880 on an opinion guy.

01:20:48.240 And we get the news from guys like Dave,

01:20:50.400 guys, you know, people like Mel,

01:20:52.200 people like James,

01:20:53.100 who's out there on the ground.

01:20:55.020 Sometimes the message coming out

01:20:56.160 isn't going to be what you want to hear,

01:20:57.480 but we're giving it as unvarnished

01:20:59.040 and as truthful as we can find.

01:21:00.800 There are some of the difficulties.

01:21:02.240 You know, James has talked about that.

01:21:03.360 We've got two blockades on the go.

01:21:05.760 Two.

01:21:06.060 There's one up by Milk River that the RCMP are maintaining, and it's got a whole pile of protesters all around that.

01:21:10.760 And then there's the other one right down by the border at Cootes.

01:21:12.800 And that's the one where James showed us the footage of all, yeah, let's see pictures.

01:21:16.720 Well, we have, Leanne.

01:21:18.160 We've been putting them constantly.

01:21:20.600 James has been taking the pictures, and we've been given outright live video as it happens.

01:21:24.700 And James showed us live video of the trucks, again, pulled out across the road and blocking the border.

01:21:32.140 We don't know why, but it has happened.

01:21:35.880 So he's going out to try and figure out what happened.

01:21:38.280 And we, of course, will continue to report on every development as it happens.

01:21:43.180 And it's just live. It keeps going.

01:21:46.000 And, you know, we got some, as much as it's not happening fast enough,

01:21:49.640 uh we're seeing a lot of indications that premier kenny i mean we know he wanted to wait on

01:21:55.420 removing restrictions until it came closer to his leadership date politics politics politics 0.64

01:21:59.880 but this thing has been blowing up on his butt he can't sit back he's backing off now they're

01:22:05.860 talking about them perhaps getting lifted right away here like very quickly or at least after 0.88

01:22:09.620 the weekend i know some people want it yesterday i'm among you but we're seeing a government a

01:22:14.260 stubborn government moving because of peaceful rational protests that have been pressuring them

01:22:19.140 and pushing them. Ernie Sue, he was a guest on here before. He's the Calgary Hospitality

01:22:23.840 Association. I was listening to him on the radio this morning when I came in and he pointed out

01:22:30.320 that too, you know, even the vaccine passport, which has been a hindrance and it really doesn't

01:22:34.100 seem to show any benefit and it doesn't, it really makes it more difficult to do business.

01:22:38.860 There's other restrictions in place in the restaurants and bars that are really hurting

01:22:42.380 them. It's kind of, as I was talking about my rant before, when you go to the restaurant or bar,

01:22:45.940 Often you're going to socialize with people at the next table.

01:22:48.040 You're going there to interact with other people, and they can't do that.

01:22:51.560 These are the restrictions they got in.

01:22:52.900 They've got to close early.

01:22:54.540 You know, they can't stay open as late as normal.

01:22:56.560 Their last call is at 11.

01:22:57.880 That's three hours of revenue at prime time for some of these bars.

01:23:00.840 It's hurting them.

01:23:01.440 These restrictions are hurting them a lot.

01:23:04.220 And maybe we're coming towards the end, though.

01:23:06.300 It's been really positive developments, really good pressure.

01:23:09.560 As some others have pointed out, the American coverage of Canada's protests

01:23:13.320 has been much better than our domestic, wretched mainstream coverage of it.

01:23:17.560 The CBC even, you know, had to do their groveling little backtrack,

01:23:20.140 and they're pretending that they didn't try to claim Russians were behind this.

01:23:24.180 But they were. They were.

01:23:26.100 A Russian, you know, there we go, you know, CBC, oops, we got the Russian story wrong.

01:23:31.180 And there, you know, Nico is always on it here.

01:23:35.220 So given the Canada's support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia,

01:23:38.680 I don't know if it's far-fetched to ask,

01:23:40.200 but could there be concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things?

01:23:44.040 And she's already presuming that they are, so they're continuing to fuel things as this protest goes,

01:23:48.440 or perhaps even instigating it from the outside.

01:23:50.500 That was from a CBC News anchor as the protests were going.

01:23:55.220 A peaceful, effective protest, and the instigators, the instigators are in the mainstream media.

01:24:00.960 And on the other side, again, yeah, Art Pawlowski, he's another instigator, and he's on the other side.

01:24:05.780 most of the people protesting are reasonable peaceful positive and they're getting stuff done

01:24:12.240 and it's getting seen around the world and it's fantastic and i've loved watching it and i want

01:24:17.400 it to remain that way so that's why i'm concerned about developments i'm concerned about movement

01:24:22.060 splitting i'm concerned about infighting i'm concerned about them being there too long uh

01:24:27.760 you know as james said there's a risk they will wear out their welcome if it's too hard on the

01:24:31.720 locals the locals are putting up with it it's still a pain in the butt for them it's not 0.84

01:24:34.400 devastate their lives, but it's a big pain in the butt and they will get sick of it.

01:24:39.760 You know, you get something of a curve with these protests where your support's going up and up and 0.68

01:24:43.260 up, but if you go too long, it will drop. And if you lose public support, you lose the whole works.

01:24:47.860 So let's all be careful here. I'm really optimistic. I'm really happy. I'm really

01:24:52.460 looking forward to seeing Canadians continue to stand up for themselves as they have been.

01:24:56.560 And we're going to report on it as much as possible with as much clarity as possible

01:25:01.940 as we can with people on the ground

01:25:04.360 and as people let us know what's going on.

01:25:07.060 So just before I go,

01:25:08.360 you know, there's Nico.

01:25:09.460 He's shown my Twitter handle,

01:25:10.580 Corey B Morgan at Corey B Morgan.

01:25:12.100 That's really where you get your best chances

01:25:13.900 of interacting with the old crab.

01:25:15.520 That's where I tend to respond a lot.

01:25:17.140 I have a good time there.

01:25:18.180 You can email me,

01:25:19.320 cmorgan at westernstandardonline.com.

01:25:22.120 That's, you know, if you've got guest ideas,

01:25:23.640 you've got critique,

01:25:24.520 you've got to give me a thumbs up. 1.00

01:25:26.140 You want to tell me to kiss your ass. 1.00

01:25:27.780 That's all fine. 1.00

01:25:28.840 That's where you can send that.

01:25:30.740 And again, make sure to take out a membership,

01:25:33.200 westernstandardonline.com slash membership,

01:25:35.820 and then you can get the full stories as they're written.

01:25:38.860 And again, we're a real newsroom.

01:25:40.580 We don't just cut and paste press releases

01:25:42.200 like some of the alternative media sources do.

01:25:44.840 That's why Dave and Mel and Amber and the rest

01:25:47.080 are always so busy.

01:25:48.140 Eva, they're on the phone all the time in there

01:25:50.100 because they check the sources.

01:25:51.260 They talk to people.

01:25:52.460 We look into the news

01:25:53.280 and we really actually report on it.

01:25:56.180 So yes, disappear.

01:25:57.820 I do answer that chat sometimes.

01:25:59.180 but often I've got guests on and I can only hit so many of the comments but I do appreciate them

01:26:04.440 I do see them and I will speak to them you know as often as the show allows so before I go for

01:26:12.600 the weekend guys on Monday who have I got coming I got a couple of good ones as usual where are we

01:26:18.780 down in that darn teleprompter and my vacuous memory myself where are we I got Franco Tarazano

01:26:25.740 of course, of the Canadian Tax Fairies Federation, because we've got some federal dollar and cents 0.98

01:26:29.500 numbers to talk about. And then Lionel Kambates of Delta Clean Tech, because we're going to talk

01:26:35.580 about carbon technology, because people act as if it's impossible to do oil and gas development

01:26:40.940 without controlling carbon emissions. And that is just not true at all. Pat Andrusiak saying

01:26:47.500 he loves Art Pawlowski. He brought a lot to getting people to care about what corrupt governments

01:26:51.980 are doing open some eyes see yeah some people like art some don't i'm not a fan of his but i

01:26:56.200 mean i don't begrudge other people who are i do worry about him throwing gas on some fires now

01:27:00.400 and then so again subscribe on youtube subscribe on facebook rumble whatever way you're watching

01:27:06.080 because as james was saying if anything breaks if anything new is coming up him or mel or me are

01:27:10.440 going to pop up there all of a sudden we're going to have live coverage of it and this is where

01:27:14.220 you're going to see it so thanks for tuning in and i'm going to leave you for one more message

01:27:18.140 from our sponsors before we finish there, Algadex. Those guys are into digital currency and a new way

01:27:24.040 of doing things. Thank you all. I will see you on Monday. Algadex is owned by Algonata. This is

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01:28:14.900 Transcription by CastingWords

01:28:44.900 Thank you.

Western Standard - February 05, 2022

LIVE： Today on Triggered - This can’t be the “new normal”

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