Western Standard - LIVE - Triggered： Tamara Lich is a political prisoner in Canada

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's March 3rd, 2022, and welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. So now we're

00:00:37.540 in a day three with Alberta being unmasked. So far, disaster has not happened, thankfully.

00:00:43.400 You listen to Rachel Notley's pet doctor, Vi Pond, you know we should be stacking the

00:00:48.820 bodies in the streets anytime now. Of course, he said that unmasking children would lead

00:00:52.280 to catastrophe as well, and that's been weeks and weeks and it hasn't happened. So let's

00:00:56.200 enjoy these freedoms and uh keep hanging on to them so this is our live show at the western

00:01:01.140 standard it comes to you every day monday to friday 11 30 a.m until i'm done talking to you

00:01:07.540 usually about an hour and a half we have a number of guests and we of course encourage commenting

00:01:13.160 back and forth that's one of the good things i like about being live you know we get our technical

00:01:16.720 hiccups and things like that but it's a small price to pay for the ability to interact and get

00:01:22.240 back and forth. So if you've got things you'd like to pass on to the guests or myself,

00:01:26.060 throw it in the comments area or discuss with each other on what's going on. I won't necessarily

00:01:29.620 address them all, but I like to try and keep up with them as well as I can. So today I have

00:01:35.780 Joseph Connell. He's from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He's a specialist in Indigenous

00:01:40.420 issues. And we're going to talk about a column he put out on residential schools and the dangers

00:01:45.380 of black and white thinking on it. A delicate and important subject to talk about. I'm going to have 0.62

00:01:50.200 Western Standard columnist Alex McCall on, and he's going to talk, he's been our military

00:01:53.880 specialist actually for quite some time, and he's going to talk about Canada's response to the

00:01:57.800 Russia-Ukraine conflict and some of the arms and hardware we sent over to Ukraine to help out there.

00:02:03.700 I'm also going to have our reporter, Eva Sudeik, coming in. She's going to be in studio, and yes,

00:02:09.960 she's of Polish descent and Ukrainian descent, and she's been over there, and I just want to

00:02:14.160 talk about Eastern Europe a little bit. I mean, it's a different part of the world. There's

00:02:18.280 different cultures. They got their nuances. There's a lot of, it's a complicated area.

00:02:22.860 So being able to speak with somebody who's had such direct experience with things out there will

00:02:26.620 be important to us. So let me get on though to what has got me triggered today. And there's always

00:02:32.360 something, and there's a good one today. So let's not beat around the bush with this. There's no

00:02:36.780 other way to put it. Truckers for Freedom convoy organizer Tamara Leach is a political, a political 0.94

00:02:42.120 prisoner. Leach was arrested weeks ago and charged with counseling mischief. That's it. Nothing 1.00

00:02:47.700 violent, nothing dangerous. Essentially, she was one of a number of voices speaking on behalf of

00:02:52.440 the trucker's convoy. She set up a fundraising account. Leach has appeared before the courts

00:02:57.420 twice since her arrest. In the first appearance, her bail was outright denied. Ontario Court Justice

00:03:03.020 Julie Bourgeois, by the name too, you know, it's appropriate in some senses, felt that Leach was a

00:03:08.120 risk to re-offend, though Leach stated she was willing to abide by bail conditions. Leach appeared

00:03:13.380 again yesterday in a hearing that took nearly seven hours and the judge reserved a decision

00:03:17.960 on the issue. That's simply a version of judicial cowardice. The court couldn't come up with a

00:03:22.420 decent rationale to keep leash locked up, so the ball was kicked down the road until next week.

00:03:27.020 It's just another way to deny bail. Now, bail is an important part of our justice system. If we

00:03:30.960 didn't allow people who are considered to be low risk, you know, a low risk to offend to leave the

00:03:35.580 system while they're awaiting their hearings, our remand centers across the nation would be

00:03:38.820 overflowing within days. Judges need to determine who can be released and who needs to remain in

00:03:43.860 custody. It's like a legal triage almost. It's a difficult and important task. Unfortunately though

00:03:49.140 they're often terrible about it. I've recently you know I've spoken before about my recent

00:03:53.040 experience with the justice system. No I wasn't arrested or anything. What happened with me at

00:03:57.120 least not that time. A gang of losers went on a crime spree in rural areas west of Calgary and

00:04:01.200 that included the robbery of a bar I used to own. They robbed it twice in a matter of weeks along

00:04:05.320 with a whole bunch of other places around there. The RCMP did manage to arrest these guys, the

00:04:09.360 members of that gang, and they were promptly released on bail. Now in the months that followed

00:04:13.400 them being released on bail, Ian Abercrombie murdered his friend Shane Smith. Hunter Van

00:04:18.600 McElberg killed his friend, Calix Lagano, execution style in a field with a shot to the head, by the

00:04:24.000 way. Those were two separate murders. These were guys released on bail. The police had them. They

00:04:28.340 let them out. Ian, Shane, and Hunter had all been charged in the spate of robberies that impacted

00:04:33.120 me. This is an example of the bail system failing, and it was at the expense of two lives.

00:04:37.620 During the convoy protests in Winnipeg, extreme activist David Alexander Zegarach drove his car

00:04:42.620 through peaceful protesters. He caused injuries, but thankfully didn't manage to kill anybody.

00:04:46.820 He was released on bail shortly after his arrest. Apparently, people who allegedly, at least,

00:04:52.520 attempt to commit vehicular homicide are not considered dangerous. Now back to Tamara Leach.

00:04:58.440 Her crime was to be an organizer. 1.00

00:05:00.000 She counseled mischief. 1.00

00:05:01.900 Big friggin' deal. 0.99

00:05:03.460 That's like the bottom of the food chain on criminal charges, guys.

00:05:06.660 This is not major.

00:05:07.920 I mean, they keep talking about sedition and people trying to take over the government

00:05:10.980 and things like that.

00:05:11.520 Well, you know what?

00:05:11.800 There's treason charges for that sort of thing.

00:05:13.660 Nobody's been charged with any of that because nobody did it.

00:05:15.820 So what has to be asked is what risk to anybody does she present if she's released?

00:05:22.020 Protests are all but gone.

00:05:23.900 Police have retaken every blockade and nobody's ready or planning to set up a new one in

00:05:27.800 Ottawa. Do they think Leish will somehow set up a new kind of one-woman blockade and bring Ottawa

00:05:32.660 to its knees again? Do they think she will attack people despite never having a violent history and

00:05:37.720 shown an inclination to do so before? Conditions are usually set upon bail as well. Tamara would

00:05:43.320 likely have to stay away from existing protests and locations. She'd have to have some degree of 1.00

00:05:47.540 supervision and she would understand that if she violates any of those conditions she'll land right 1.00

00:05:51.640 back in jail. Now whether or not she even committed crimes or not has to be determined by the courts.

00:05:56.660 that's the system, but that's likely going to take months at least in our slow system.

00:06:00.980 Is it realistic or even humane to keep her in remand over that period? Remand isn't the same

00:06:05.540 as prison by the way. It's a temporary incarceration and it's much like solitary confinement. I don't

00:06:10.260 imagine any form of being in jail is pleasant, but remand is worse than other forms because

00:06:14.420 it's meant to be short term. There aren't the opportunities for recreation, learning,

00:06:17.860 or socialization as prisons provide. That's why remand times often actually turn into a

00:06:22.260 a two-for-one credit when real jail sentences are imposed later on. Judges recognize that remand time

00:06:27.240 is exceptionally punitive. Look, the reason Leach remains locked up is purely political.

00:06:34.120 The Truckers for Freedom Convoy protests, they embarrassed the government. It took over the

00:06:37.800 nation's capital for weeks and caused the Prime Minister to humiliate himself as he

00:06:41.260 scrambled and imposed a form of martial law in order to quell the disorder, only to drop it

00:06:47.960 within a couple of days of forcing Parliament to embrace it. The state wants people to see just how

00:06:52.460 harshly they're going to punish those who dare to protest in the future. They're making an example

00:06:57.480 of Leach, and they're keeping her locked up like this before trial is nothing less than a sick, 0.57

00:07:02.320 vindictive travesty. Civil rights were suspended as our inept and panicked government scrambled to

00:07:07.060 try and shut down the protests. Funds have been seized from citizens while free movement was

00:07:10.700 suppressed. In light of these actions, it's not surprising to see Canada taking and holding

00:07:14.540 political prisoners. Every day that Tamara Leach languishes without bail deepens Canada's shame

00:07:20.880 further. And it was even more shameful, you know, when they led her into the courtroom in shackles.

00:07:26.800 What was she going to do? Jump over the desk and fly out the window in a movie sort of scene?

00:07:31.820 This is how absurd this is. We see they want to make an image. They want to scare people. They

00:07:36.860 want to say she's extreme. We have to lock her up. We have to protect society from her. It's absurd. 1.00

00:07:41.740 The other thing they want to say is, don't you dare push back against the government or you will share her fate.

00:07:48.940 That's what they're doing.

00:07:50.020 And that's what political intimidation and political imprisonment is all about.

00:07:54.060 And that's what's happening in Canada right now.

00:07:56.660 Canada is broken.

00:07:59.280 So enough on that triggering.

00:08:01.100 Let's get on to some of the other news.

00:08:02.380 We will bring in our intrepid reporter, Melanie Risden from the newsroom and see what other stories we're on top of today.

00:08:08.660 Hey, Mel, how's it going?

00:08:09.760 Good, good.

00:08:10.940 How are you ranting over there?

00:08:13.120 I'm good, actually.

00:08:13.840 Yes.

00:08:15.060 All right.

00:08:15.680 Yeah, we have got a lot that we're working on today.

00:08:18.300 We're talking about the fact that gas prices, I mean, everybody's been hit hard by this

00:08:22.760 across the country.

00:08:23.760 They're absolutely skyrocketing right now.

00:08:26.100 The Canadian Taxpayer Federation calling on the feds to do something about that, to step

00:08:31.180 in and act.

00:08:33.320 We also have details on the Conservative Leadership Contest on the website, so you can find out

00:08:39.660 what they have in store for that. Parliamentary Budgetary Office says good luck trying to follow

00:08:48.360 federal spending in Canada. We've got another article on the Canadian Taxpayer Federation.

00:08:57.420 52,000 have signed a petition in just one week calling on the defunding of CBC. CBC apparently

00:09:08.560 last year raked in $1.4 billion from taxpayer dollars with the government funding for CBC.

00:09:17.800 So Canadian Taxpayer Federation, again, looking to get people signing a petition against that.

00:09:25.720 We've got a CPS investigation looking into hate speech that's been happening online to

00:09:33.300 Russian Calgarians. So CPS, looking into that, we'll have that on the site. Pierre Polyev,

00:09:42.020 he apparently very much hates the carbon tax and says if he's elected PM in the future,

00:09:47.820 he would remove it. So we've got that up on the website now. Another interesting story,

00:09:54.240 digital IDs coming to Ontario this fall. That would have Ontario being the first

00:10:01.560 in Canada to install sort of this digital ID ecosystem. So lots of information on the website

00:10:09.500 about what that's going to look like, what the government says those digital IDs will allow for

00:10:16.740 and what they won't allow for. We've got a Tory MP that says Regina, a Regina mill is making steel

00:10:23.780 for Russian tanks. So you can find out about that on the website. And we have lots more coming up.

00:10:31.560 this afternoon. I'm actually working on a story right now on what the federal government has

00:10:38.280 said they are committing to spend for COVID-19, yet based on some information that's been released

00:10:46.280 on some of the costs involved with procuring vaccinations, it looks like they're going to blow

00:10:54.200 way past what they've committed or what they've said they've committed to spend on COVID-19

00:10:59.960 vaccinations and supplies so we'll have that up on the website here very shortly great lots on the

00:11:06.040 go as always well we'll look forward to seeing all that posted on the site i'll let you get back to

00:11:11.080 hammered away that keyboard and phoning and nagging people for quotes will do thank you

00:11:15.560 hey thanks billy so yeah and we're always very busy in that newsroom uh we do uh you know as

00:11:21.400 we've said before we report our own news we've we've got new people getting hired all the time

00:11:25.720 they're coming on we got somebody in ottawa now that that poor soul to have to report on things

00:11:29.960 out there and uh we rely on you guys and we appreciate you guys the reason we've been hiring

00:11:36.160 so much is our subscriptions been going through the roof people have been signing up they've been

00:11:39.320 realizing that hey for 10 bucks a month it's well worth getting that news direct from an independent

00:11:44.900 source none of that stuff like the cbc has as uh was just said to get a one and a half billion tax

00:11:49.580 dollars a year and uh all of the rest of the bailout sucking uh conventional media outlets

00:11:54.840 out there we don't take any tax bailouts or subsidies in any way we rely on you guys and

00:11:59.700 that means we have to keep putting good content out there or of course we'll lose our subscribers

00:12:03.160 so it all feeds each other it's been going fantastic if you haven't subscribed yet already

00:12:06.920 though please do check it out as you can see with nico pulling it on the screen there western

00:12:11.320 standard online.com membership take out a subscription free trial for the first 15 days

00:12:17.200 so hey if you don't like it it's no risk you know you can say no but 95 of the people keep it after

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00:12:36.140 subscription or get it for somebody else, you know, share that, get it around. This is how we can talk

00:12:40.720 about these things. So I just wanted to go on about our members. It's very important. And some of that

00:12:46.520 discussion, you know, getting back to Tamara Leach. How much discussion are we seeing from

00:12:51.880 that on the mainstream media? Where are we seeing the legacy media talking about this? Like, this

00:12:55.580 is an embarrassment. This is ridiculous. This is mischief. This is what you get charged with if

00:13:02.640 you spray paint something. And there's idiots and clowns out there saying, oh, there was billions

00:13:07.100 of dollars in damage. BS. BS. They're taking a number. And by the way, she was nowhere near the

00:13:12.620 border blockages anyways. And they're taking that number of trade that was hindered and using it to

00:13:17.480 say it was lost. But delayed shipments, cost, they are an expense. But they don't just take, oh, my

00:13:24.480 cargo got to the border, it's blocked, I'm going to light it on fire and burn it and leave it here.

00:13:27.540 It doesn't work that way, guys. There was not billions lost, not even close. Either way,

00:13:34.120 Tamara had nothing to do with any of that. And it's not like she was a main leader standing on

00:13:38.700 a soapbox and haranguing the crowd and yelling at them and getting them worked up. 1.00

00:13:43.660 That wasn't the sort of thing she was doing. She started a fundraiser. You know, Rex Murphy wrote 0.81

00:13:49.080 a column on it just recently. He said he looked back on her Twitter school. This was a calm,

00:13:53.100 rational person talking. She wasn't trying to incite anybody into anything extreme, violent,

00:13:58.060 or anything of the sort. And she's locked up. She's in solitary, in remand. This is an abomination.

00:14:07.360 This is a person that does not present any threat to anybody.

00:14:10.560 It's a separate discussion altogether,

00:14:12.960 whether she should be convicted of those things or whatever.

00:14:15.680 That's fine. 0.89

00:14:16.060 We'll let the courts deal with that and the lawyers deal with that.

00:14:18.480 But in the meantime, she shouldn't be locked up.

00:14:21.280 It's ridiculous. 0.81

00:14:23.540 Some of the other ones got released already,

00:14:25.720 but that's what I mean.

00:14:26.420 They want to make an example.

00:14:28.380 They want it to seem as absurd as possible in some ways, I think.

00:14:31.240 They want to take the woman who is running it,

00:14:33.140 just to make sure everybody knows. 0.85

00:14:34.300 See, it doesn't matter who you are.

00:14:36.700 If you support these things, we will lock you up.

00:14:40.080 We will ruin your life.

00:14:41.680 Not to mention, further, we'll seize your bank accounts.

00:14:43.820 We will shame you. 0.97

00:14:44.680 We will divide you.

00:14:45.600 I mean, the strategy to deal with the protesters has just been disgusting in Canada.

00:14:51.900 Dividing this nation.

00:14:53.780 So taking her and shoving her in there, and something I didn't go into because it's a 1.00

00:14:57.120 mixed thing.

00:14:58.300 Lots of people have talked about it. 0.77

00:14:59.460 The first bail denial that Tamara Leach got, though, was from a judge who did run for the 0.66

00:15:04.520 Liberal Party and lose recently.

00:15:06.700 Now, we're reading into it. Some people are saying she was ordered not to. I don't know. I won't go that far. Definitely had some impact. You have sympathy for your boss. And Trudeau is the one who appointed her there. It was randomly chosen. She wasn't directly put onto that case, apparently. It just happened to be. I mean, most of the judges have been appointed by liberals. And that's what happens in politics a lot.

00:15:30.220 If it was a conservative prime minister, you know what, they do that too.

00:15:33.120 Failed candidates, things like that, get appointments into things.

00:15:35.980 If they're lawyers, often they end up as judges.

00:15:38.260 If they're others, they might get ambassadorships or even end up in the Senate.

00:15:42.360 Either way, though, it's hard to pretend that her being that close with Trudeau

00:15:46.040 might not have influenced her decision to say that, yes, though, this is Tamara Leach,

00:15:49.740 this woman who's in here, who's charged with the grand, grand crime of mischief.

00:15:55.620 Yeah, it's as benign as it sounds. 1.00

00:15:58.100 should be kept locked up for weeks because she's such a threat to society. 1.00

00:16:03.440 As I said earlier, I mean, we've got examples of violent criminals, you know, robbing with long 0.90

00:16:10.200 histories, criminal histories, and they get released and they harm people. Like that space,

00:16:14.480 you got to think of that. The space that Leach is taking up is space that could be filled by an

00:16:18.840 actual violent criminal. Like, you know, as I said, bail is like a triage form. You figure out

00:16:23.300 which risks, you know, do the cost benefits, which people do we really need to keep incarcerated

00:16:27.520 right now, which ones don't, because they've only got so much room. So as long as Tamara's

00:16:31.460 languishing in there, some other violent people are probably walking the streets because they 1.00

00:16:35.800 didn't have somewhere to stick them. This is actually the irony. She's putting more people,

00:16:41.260 the judge is putting more people at risk by taking up resources on this mischief case, 0.99

00:16:45.020 by keeping somebody locked up for weeks on end. And then the cowardice, as I said, of reserving

00:16:49.840 decision, you know, just won't even, seven hours on a bail hearing, it's unheard of.

00:16:54.880 And then at the end of it, say, gee, I can't make up my mind.

00:16:57.280 You know, you wonder why judges, people accuse them of being overpaid.

00:16:59.940 Come on, that's your job.

00:17:01.860 Make a decision.

00:17:03.160 You don't need a week to come up with that.

00:17:04.500 She's already been there for weeks.

00:17:05.860 But again, the point was to drag it out. 0.98

00:17:07.380 They want to keep her in.

00:17:08.720 And not because they think anybody's at risk.

00:17:10.480 They bloody well know she won't hurt anybody.

00:17:12.640 It's a sick, sick aspect of our system, and it's an embarrassment.

00:17:17.320 Something else in the news.

00:17:18.460 There's this joint operation between the RCP and Canada,

00:17:21.300 New Zealand's digital child exploitation team,

00:17:23.280 led to the arrest of 47 Canadians for online child exploitation and the release of 12 children from

00:17:30.760 abusive settings. So this is good news, bad news. I mean, it's horrifying, but at least it sounds

00:17:35.900 like they've caught these guys and they've got some kids out of those situations. And the global

00:17:40.740 operation is ongoing. They've been doing that since 2019. Some people have asked, and I honestly

00:17:45.540 don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked if a number of the guys charged in that are out on bail right

00:17:48.920 now. They're free. They're loose. They might be charged, convicted, and do some time later. But

00:17:53.200 in the meantime, they're probably free. If they'd done mischief in a protest, they'd still be locked

00:17:58.360 up, perhaps. Even then, I doubt they would. I mean, most of the organizers got released as well. As

00:18:03.460 I said, they've really got their sights set on Tamara, I think because she inspired the most

00:18:07.460 people in some ways. Because she was, you know, not a career activist. She wasn't one of those

00:18:11.580 names you see all the time. She didn't have a big, long history. And a lot of people just donated

00:18:18.360 to that fund she set up and they don't like that. They're scared of that. So yes, let's

00:18:22.260 step on her. Let's crush that down. Let's make sure that people realize that this is just not 1.00

00:18:27.440 going to be accepted by this government and we will violate your individual rights in order to

00:18:32.640 make sure it doesn't happen again. Okay. I guess should be coming on pretty soon here. I'm going

00:18:37.360 to speak again to one of our sponsors. It's not just subscribers that keep us rolling, but it is

00:18:40.840 our sponsors and that is Bitcoin. Well, or no, no, today we're doing, we're doing Algonx. I'm

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00:19:38.020 Great. So yeah, speaking of government coming for your funds, coming for your

00:19:42.140 hard-earned money and basically stealing it, seizing it, taking it out of your accounts.

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00:19:59.100 and they can help you along with those things. We're still waiting for our guest here. I'm not

00:20:02.880 two days in a row being stood up by guests. I hope that would really suck. But yes, Joseph

00:20:08.260 canals should be in and on deck pretty soon. So let's see what else we got going on the news.

00:20:12.960 I'm just scrolling down and where were we? Ah, yes. The cabinet federally speaking of,

00:20:18.840 you know, here's something interesting. I mean, the government dug their heels in on the cross

00:20:22.400 border. The whole thing with the truckers started with requiring vaccinations for truckers to cross

00:20:27.080 the border and do their job. A ridiculous requirement. They were never, you know,

00:20:32.320 shown to be a super spreader or a high risk to anybody or anything of the sort.

00:20:36.260 and they just wouldn't back off on it.

00:20:40.340 They refused.

00:20:41.500 I mean, some of the excuses people made was,

00:20:43.020 well, Biden's got the same program down south,

00:20:45.100 so it wouldn't matter.

00:20:45.640 Well, you got to start somewhere.

00:20:47.900 We can't do anything about Bidens,

00:20:49.280 but you take away that requirement on domestic truckers

00:20:51.460 and there's going to be a lot more pressure put on Biden

00:20:53.540 to lift that pressure down there as well.

00:20:56.140 So you can't just say, well, two wrongs make a right.

00:20:57.580 We're just not going to do it.

00:20:58.660 Well, either way, something they talked about

00:20:59.820 during the protest too is they're even thinking

00:21:01.560 of making an interprovincial thing.

00:21:03.540 So you're going to stop all the truckers

00:21:05.360 who drive across provincial borders and check them for vaccination that you wouldn't allow

00:21:09.460 them to cross the borders of the vaccination. That's how absurd and ridiculous this government's

00:21:12.940 gotten. They actually shelved it. I'll give them that. They figured that out. They said, you know

00:21:17.720 what? No, we're not going to do that. Same as O'Reagan, the labor minister said, you know,

00:21:24.220 public health changes, science changes, lots of things. So we're going to put that one off to the

00:21:28.200 side for now. And that's good. I mean, I don't care for O'Reagan by any means. And I don't think

00:21:34.200 there. He's good in government, but at least they backed off on that. And they won't admit it had

00:21:38.620 anything to do with the protests. They won't admit it had anything to do with the outside pressures.

00:21:42.140 And I don't care what they admit, just as long as you do the right thing. So now get up there and

00:21:46.620 drop the bloody federal mandates in general. I mean, this is just going on and on. You know,

00:21:52.700 we've got to learn to live with the pandemic. It's not going away. And it's endemic. It's just what

00:22:00.100 we have to do. And that's where things go from there. Let's see the CRTC. Yeah, they wouldn't

00:22:06.360 comment on access to information records, suggesting a CEO, you know, speaking of corrupt

00:22:10.800 government, personally arranged a meeting with a telecom lobbyist in an Ottawa bar room. Ian Scott,

00:22:16.100 there are pictures of it too on that, that story. Told all the MPs, he told MPs all his meetings

00:22:24.040 were recorded uh tech savvy solutions of chatham detailed access to information files and they found

00:22:30.360 what it was they described as an odd meeting uh december 19th and they said they obtained the

00:22:35.720 photo from meeting of the passerby see this is a little nuanced and complicated but the reality is

00:22:40.280 what you've got are senior government people sitting down with broadcasters we got these

00:22:45.240 these bills coming to try and control broadcasters and platforms and things like that and you've got

00:22:50.440 somebody who's high up with Bell Canada Enterprises, drinking beer with the CEO of the CRTC.

00:22:58.280 You've got to wonder about these things. I mean, they could be just buddies, but this is a person

00:23:02.120 in a position of influence that could very directly be impacting that business. And well,

00:23:07.560 welcome to Ottawa, right? Okay, we've got our guest on deck there. It's Joseph

00:23:11.640 uh cannell there and uh yes where are we hey i'm sorry i'm just trying to find your intro there i

00:23:22.520 kind of got my email bumped uh yes so you're a senior resource search associate with frontier

00:23:27.560 center for public policy and you specialize in indigenous issues so welcome to the show joseph

00:23:35.240 thank you thanks for inviting me i appreciate it great so yeah you wrote a column that went

00:23:40.040 into the frontier center and and it was talking about um you know from another person who had

00:23:46.280 experienced a residential school as well and it's just such a delicate issue but it was kind of

00:23:50.680 pleading to say let's let's stop with looking at it as a black and white issue let's stop dividing

00:23:55.640 so much based on this and try to have more of a nuanced conversation i guess you could say about

00:24:00.760 the whole thing yeah uh so at the frontier center for public policy uh we had been writing about the

00:24:07.480 residential schools for quite a while and we actually we produced a book from just from truth

00:24:14.680 comes reconciliation and assessment of the schools trying to give more of a you know a nuanced look

00:24:20.120 at this it's not you know it's not a denier account or anything like that it's just trying

00:24:26.780 to provide some of the complexity about this and one of the ideas that we had had was we we were

00:24:32.140 producing a series of residential school attendees

00:24:36.440 that had either been to the schools

00:24:39.980 or just were indigenous people, prominent people usually,

00:24:42.840 who just had a different view on them.

00:24:44.900 And the first one, I guess, that you're referencing

00:24:47.000 was Robert Joseph, who was a hereditary chief

00:24:50.080 out in British Columbia.

00:24:51.520 And he's actually part of an organization now

00:24:54.080 called Reconciliation Canada.

00:24:56.020 And he got into a little bit of controversy

00:24:58.900 That during the Senator Bayek controversy, if you remember that in the Senate back, I think in 2010, where she was trying to give more of a nuanced view and collecting, dare I say, positive experiences from the residential schools, she got into hot water.

00:25:14.820 But anyways, Chief Joseph was someone who said that, you know, we should speak to Senator Lynn Bayek.

00:25:21.560 We should not be automatically casting stones at her and see what she has to say.

00:25:26.180 And, you know, he's not saying that the residential schools didn't have, wasn't a tainted legacy, didn't have the wards, but he was saying that, you know, there are a lot of stories that need to be told.

00:25:38.740 and uh so one of the one of the one of the things that that really we want to show in this

00:25:44.940 in this uh this series is that it's um despite the tainted legacy and this fact that this is

00:25:52.840 a part negative part of our history um we don't want to overdo it because it matters right the

00:25:58.300 language that we use to describe it even look at the language we talk about it uh residential

00:26:03.680 school survivor like i use the term attendee which is a little bit more neutral because you

00:26:09.280 know there are uh and that's in the the truth and reconciliation report itself they they quoted

00:26:14.880 from people who had very good experiences at the school uh they did not experience the abuse

00:26:21.040 a lot of schools uh they they actually went out of their way to try to make sure that

00:26:25.680 need that students were able to use their indigenous language were able to learn it a lot

00:26:30.640 of them they some of the uh the uh the members of religious orders so so you know um that's what

00:26:37.200 we're trying to do with this series is just not to deny anything but to just show that this is

00:26:42.800 this is complicated history you know so uh we shouldn't be talking about residential schools

00:26:47.920 as if uh in many cases they're auschwitz right like that matters it matters how indigenous 0.83

00:26:54.240 people view their country it matters how canadians view their country you know are we a genocidal

00:26:58.640 regime or is this just complicated history that needs to be evaluated in context i think few

00:27:05.460 people who you know read up and studied or talked to anybody who attended those schools there's

00:27:09.880 nobody rational saying that the schools were a good idea in hindsight i mean it was a it was a

00:27:14.560 terrible policy it did a great deal of damage to a lot of people that they're still recovering from

00:27:19.160 today but we've brought about this closed rhetoric about it this heated rhetoric to say that we

00:27:24.620 aren't a lot essentially are not allowed to say anything except negative things about those schools

00:27:29.260 and and it's not helping us study to learn what happened or what went on it's not serving us well

00:27:33.980 to try and get so vitriolic no no exactly i i think um when what happens is that anyone even

00:27:45.340 indigenous people although they're more insulated from it when you say anything that that that uh

00:27:51.180 that challenges that narrative you're lumped in with deniers right like you're put into that camp

00:27:58.380 and so you're easily vilified and maligned and ignored right so even though you have you know

00:28:05.020 we have a we have a um a profile of a famous chief from uh from from uh from the northwest

00:28:11.900 territories that uh she she recalls that at the time uh that um it was either for her community

00:28:20.460 it was either the residential schools or face poverty so for a lot of students you'll hear a

00:28:25.420 quote where they said that this was their choice that that if they did not uh if a lot of times

00:28:31.900 uh tribal elders and parents said you know they wanted first they wanted the schools to have their

00:28:37.900 kids uh because you know they couldn't handle them at the time there were there was uh uh

00:28:43.740 you know economic issues at home so you know and the the treaties themselves uh have provisions

00:28:51.580 allowing for schools especially considering how many uh many first nations communities were so

00:28:57.980 isolated the landmass of canada especially out west it made sense that they would have a school

00:29:02.860 outside of the community so obviously the residential school kind of like the boarding

00:29:06.220 school idea so um like so one of the things that i'd like to come up with this series is you know

00:29:13.100 You know, we have First Nations people that, you know, that they're frustrated, a lot of them.

00:29:18.400 And they felt that they were squelched at the time during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission period.

00:29:23.280 They felt that they wanted to say they wanted to say how, you know, they wanted to talk about how a teacher touched their life.

00:29:30.260 They want to talk about how a member of a religious order who ran the order snuck food for them in the middle of the night.

00:29:37.240 Like they want to tell those stories, but they felt that there was a momentum that was created during that period because of the lawsuits that no one wanted to say anything positive because they felt that like, I support the apology, I support the restitution.

00:29:51.380 But I think that we have to know that, you know, I'm not too malign lawyers, but there is a motive there, an incentive.

00:30:01.340 And some First Nation people had said this, that there was an incentive for people to give a bad account as much as they could because of the settlement.

00:30:10.540 And we have documentation from the Globe and Mail that came out later that said that there were lawyers, there were law firms that really milked these things.

00:30:20.060 and they made millions right and so they were kind of suffering you know they were kind of uh

00:30:24.540 living off the suffering of these people right yeah unfortunately there's some self-interest in

00:30:30.220 some of the lawyers to to make it sound as bad as possible especially when you're after a damage

00:30:34.780 suit and i mean we have to look at it was a policy that went on for a long long time there were a

00:30:39.020 great number of schools there were a great number of people running them i mean some were abusive

00:30:43.340 some might not have been they were quite different across the region and we you know if we're really

00:30:48.460 going to look into this we should be looking into every aspect of it yeah and like for me like it's

00:30:55.660 not about like it's people don't understand why people look at the legacy like for me it's not

00:31:01.020 about nitpicking it's not about trying to discredit those who had the the the really bad accounts

00:31:06.940 it's to give the complete picture and say that uh it's important that we know that uh you know that

00:31:12.780 canada was not trying to systematically engage in genocide they want to use those kind of trigger

00:31:18.220 words uh you know so it's important how we how we view our country right uh if um if we're thinking

00:31:26.780 that you know we um for a long time you know canada was allowing these things to happen

00:31:33.260 and was ignoring it you know even during the time there were people that were that were looking into

00:31:37.820 the conditions at the schools which were pretty common in some respects and they are called for

00:31:42.220 reform so the problem was that that it didn't happen um like right now the the big trigger

00:31:48.960 event that happened recently was the discovery of the unmarked graves that right away and i i

00:31:56.080 noticed this uh so i come from a small town called spanish ontario which has a residential school in

00:32:01.360 it and um so i'm familiar with this it was eventually torn down because it wasn't safe

00:32:06.100 It was a long, it was opened in, it's been open for a while.

00:32:10.260 So yeah, like it's, it's, it's tragic how, how the, how the, you know, the, the rhetoric

00:32:20.160 prevents us from looking at our history objectively and we have to, and we feel that we have to

00:32:26.500 go into either camps when that's not what it is.

00:32:31.280 Yeah.

00:32:31.760 Well, and I'm glad you brought up the treaties because that's something that a lot of people

00:32:34.700 like tossing out treaties talking about treaties but not many people actually read them uh i

00:32:38.960 actually posted them a while back on my blog years ago because they're typically actually fairly short

00:32:43.460 to the point documents they're mostly focused on actually defining land boundaries but almost all

00:32:48.300 of them at least out west did call for an educational element and a lot of that was actually

00:32:52.640 asked for by the first nations people at the time because i mean that it was clear that the transition

00:32:57.500 from a hunting gathering culture was was moving away and you needed education if you wanted to

00:33:02.480 take part in a new economy uh i mean i i believe to a lot of extent the intentions were good but

00:33:09.320 the follow-through was terrible i mean the schools also should have been properly funded then they

00:33:13.340 should have taken more sensitive approach on keeping families united uh things such as that

00:33:18.360 but i mean the people to frame it as if oh john a mcdonald and others really actually wanted to

00:33:22.900 slaughter and wipe out the first nations people is is ridiculous and we've got to stop that sort

00:33:27.120 rhetoric yeah i think it's just it's it's it's looking at to what extent something that you could

00:33:32.800 see as a top-down you know a dictate like a lot of people quote people don't you know kill the

00:33:38.240 indian in the child and all those things which were horrible and and to a certain extent some

00:33:43.040 of the policy justification back when this this regime was introduced by a liberal government 0.99

00:33:48.240 uh that uh it was like that you know uh but like i was saying before if we talk if we look at

00:33:55.440 individual examples though it's like you know i hate to use it it's like someone didn't get the

00:34:00.720 memo right you had religious orders uh you had secular authorities running the schools and a lot

00:34:06.480 of them um it wasn't about that uh like i was saying a lot of times uh they looked at it as

00:34:12.400 schools away from uh from the first nation communities and off the reserve where they

00:34:17.520 could teach them skills to survive and a lot of them they were actually sensitive about culture

00:34:23.280 like i remember one account they were talking about how you know they play hockey uh the teams

00:34:29.280 and it would be the cree versus the ashinaabe uh you know and versus the metis like so you know

00:34:35.200 there was this aspect uh to the schools that uh where it's not all horrific you know and and it's

00:34:42.560 not about uh it wasn't about an aggressive assimilation now for some schools obviously

00:34:48.160 you have the stories where you know boys had their hair cut because of the indigenous thing we had

00:34:52.800 where people were punished for speaking their language but at the same time you had schools

00:34:58.880 where languages flourished and you have first nation people now and this is what the series

00:35:03.360 that we're producing shows is you have people that that that credit their survival of their

00:35:08.320 language our chief robert as chief robert joseph is one of the few speakers of the indigenous

00:35:13.520 language in his community and he credits that that that desire for survival all that through

00:35:18.640 the residential school experience so um it's just it's simply not fair uh to to paint this brush

00:35:26.320 that that and act like it is it was a completely top-down aggressive assimilatory regime yeah well

00:35:33.280 and if we want to learn from this if we want to find out what happened i mean we just have to

00:35:36.800 have an unvarnished look back on the history of it and and look at the good and the bad and and

00:35:41.600 get an accurate accounting and yes so the rhetoric hasn't allowed for much of that so i appreciate

00:35:46.240 the work you guys are doing and documenting that and digging in and talking to people who who did

00:35:51.120 uh endure time in those schools again some suffered awfully some didn't let's let's hear from

00:35:55.120 everybody i mean it's not like anybody wants to go back to that or ever considering recreating such

00:36:00.160 a system so where can we find more information on the the work you guys are doing and as that

00:36:04.320 information is coming out your your documentation well the the um the our our website is uh fcpp.org

00:36:15.040 so you can look on that under publications and you can find a lot of what i've written in about

00:36:19.360 residential schools and just indigenous policy in general trying to give a good look

00:36:23.520 our book is called from truth comes reconciliation an assessment of the truth and reconciliation

00:36:28.400 commission report we published it in 2020 and that'd be great you know uh that's something

00:36:33.280 people can access but uh yeah so and you know go ahead oh no no just letting you go we're just

00:36:41.440 kind of wrapping up a bit here uh so i mean you know just to let people know where to find more

00:36:45.120 i mean 15 20 minutes just isn't enough time to cover something as as big as this but getting a

00:36:49.600 a taste of what you guys have been doing so people can follow up is really important because uh

00:36:53.440 there's just so much to be learned here yeah no exactly um we've been writing about

00:37:02.240 indigenous issues uh we were one of the few at the time back in 2006 i believe

00:37:08.240 we had started a project called the Aboriginal Governance Index, which at the time, I believe,

00:37:14.560 was the only Canada-wide assessment of how First Nations felt about the quality of their governance

00:37:20.040 and services. And we ran that for a couple of years, started in Manitoba, went to Saskatchewan,

00:37:25.920 and then Alberta. We never got to BC or anywhere, but prairies was enough. And we were able to kind

00:37:32.300 of look at governance, look at what's good about First Nation governance, despite the Indian Act. 1.00

00:37:37.620 You know, the Indian Act is, of course, often maligned, and rightfully so. 1.00

00:37:42.920 It's very anachronistic. 1.00

00:37:44.740 You know, it's paternalistic.

00:37:46.540 There's a lot of ists of what it is.

00:37:50.280 But despite that, there are a lot of First Nations that are kind of overcoming that by adopting good policies, separating politics from administration, good leadership, and those kinds of things.

00:38:03.880 So, yeah, they can take a look.

00:38:05.880 fcpp.org. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for coming on to talk to us a bit about today. I hope

00:38:11.860 we can talk again down the road. Excellent. Thanks again, Corey, for inviting me. Great. Thank you.

00:38:17.240 So yes, that was, as you saw, Joseph Connell from the Frontier Centre of Public Policy and just

00:38:22.540 getting some good detailed discussion on what is an issue that a lot of Canadians are concerned

00:38:27.080 about, First Nations and otherwise. And, you know, we can't solve things until we're willing to look

00:38:32.060 and discuss and debate them as he said that the term he used is not black and white there's there's

00:38:37.560 a heck of a lot of gray in that issue so uh you know check that out follow up on it and uh i'm

00:38:44.180 glad they're showing the courage to get into this because people get shutted down for even addressing

00:38:47.700 that issue they get demonized and and villainized at times and it's just not right so uh by all

00:38:53.860 means look them up and if you google it to uh joseph cannell at the frontier center for public

00:39:00.180 policy you can find his papers and his work. So getting on to another nuanced issue and a

00:39:05.780 complicated one, we've got our own Eva Siddick coming in and we're going to talk about Eastern

00:39:10.820 Europe and Eastern European culture because boy, it's coming up a lot these days right now, of

00:39:15.300 course, with the whole mess going on between Russia and Ukraine. So we'll just run a quick ad

00:39:19.620 and get Eva in studio here and have a chat. Algonax is owned by Algonax. This is great new technology

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00:40:05.000 Okay, welcome back. 0.95

00:40:06.380 So yes, we've pulled Eva out of the newsroom for a break 0.66

00:40:09.420 and put her on the hot seat in the studio here today.

00:40:13.100 And we're going to talk, I mean, as you know,

00:40:14.960 yeah, that's what's dominating the news today, of course,

00:40:16.980 is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

00:40:19.060 There's a lot of debate.

00:40:20.260 I mean, people talk about the secessionist movements

00:40:22.640 and eastern eastern ukraine is where the bulk of those are and then western ukraine there's

00:40:28.240 i mean it's a big big country that's something that can't be forgotten as well and and it's been

00:40:32.320 a long time since i've been there but eastern europe is a special part of europe too it's not

00:40:35.840 quite like the rest of europe so maybe we give a bit of your background your familiarity uh with

00:40:39.600 with uh eastern europe in general yeah so people forget that ukraine is the biggest country in

00:40:45.600 Europe other than Russia and I'm Ukrainian both my parents are immigrants to Canada actually from

00:40:52.960 Poland but we're all of Ukrainian descent before all the borders moved around and whatnot so yeah

00:41:01.040 so I still have family there the majority of my family is in Poland and Ukraine in the same

00:41:06.160 western region there and so I've been in contact with them and talking with them about everything

00:41:11.040 that's going on there yeah well and something that's the complexity as you said if there's any

00:41:16.000 part of europe well europe in general since the middle ages the borders have been fluid they've

00:41:19.600 moved around a lot and people are one population one generation is part of this country the next

00:41:23.680 generation is part of another so uh i mean and that's where a lot of the discussion gets upset

00:41:29.600 i mean there's not a uniform thought throughout ukraine on everybody opposing russia necessarily

00:41:33.840 i mean i'm gonna throw out a guess that most of ukraine is not happy with this invasion but they

00:41:38.080 they do have elements within Ukraine who do want to join Russia. Yeah, I've, I've been reading and

00:41:43.760 also my family in Lviv on the west side even said that there are Russian separatist people with

00:41:50.720 those kinds of opinions even there on the west side, which is less common than on the eastern

00:41:54.900 border and that side. So yeah, definitely a lot of mixed opinion. But at the end of the day,

00:42:01.300 it's a lot of innocent people being impacted and are scared. So that's kind of what I've been

00:42:09.500 listening to and focusing on. It's just... The citizens on the ground are the ones who always

00:42:15.940 suffer in the end. And whatever people might want to read into the motivations of Putin or

00:42:21.420 disagreeing with the Ukrainian leadership, the reality we have though right now is almost a 1.00

00:42:25.840 million Ukrainian refugees are trying to get the heck out of there. They're just family people,

00:42:29.820 just working people they didn't take part in any political movements or anything they just want to

00:42:33.980 make sure they don't get blown up right now and we've got quite a crisis going on yeah um my family

00:42:38.860 in poland are saying that the they're changing uh university dorms and they have high school dorms

00:42:45.500 there too into refugee camps basically right now setting up beds setting up more border crossings

00:42:52.140 because the border crossing the main one from western ukraine to poland has a two-day wait of

00:42:57.740 cars and people are even walking 10 kilometers to try to get to the border on foot instead of

00:43:02.840 waiting in the car line for two days while they're kind of unknown of what's going to happen and what

00:43:08.360 danger they're going to be in. Yeah well and it's got to be tough to climb it over there right now

00:43:12.000 I mean it's not you know down in the Black Sea area and such it's quite warm but getting up

00:43:17.300 towards Poland it's still pretty chilly it's not a good time to be waiting outside a border for a

00:43:20.960 couple of days with your family. No especially with kids and people are even walking dropping

00:43:25.420 off their kids at the border and going back to fight like a lot of people there have kids younger

00:43:32.220 so a lot of younger parents with really young children are trying to escape and move so so a

00:43:38.620 lot is fluid this is kind of a curveball but in a sense a lot of you create people of ukrainian

00:43:44.060 descent are living in poland do you think there's much of people though perhaps coming from other

00:43:48.060 eastern european states and coming into now i know that that crosses a big line they're doing

00:43:52.060 as individuals the countries aren't sending people over but would there be people leaving

00:43:55.260 Poland to join the Ukrainians to fight against the Russians or even otherwise? I haven't heard

00:44:01.100 personal stories but I've read online that some people are choosing to go back to fight some

00:44:07.660 Ukrainian citizens either with dual citizenship or permanent residency in different countries

00:44:12.460 but I don't think that's as common as people trying to leave as refugees. Okay yeah I was just

00:44:17.740 wondering because for example a lot of the Middle Eastern wars we had a lot of issues with people

00:44:21.740 leaving canada the united states even flying over they were joining one side or another in those

00:44:25.340 wars or in syria and things like that we have a of course an immense number of people of ukrainian

00:44:30.780 descent in canada we're not hearing about any canadian ukrainians saying well i'm gonna uh you

00:44:35.340 know put on the old boots and head to to take part in the war at this point no i think more of a

00:44:40.300 canadian outlook is um doing donations sending supplies um at saint vladimir's ukrainian church

00:44:48.220 this PLOS Ukrainian Scouts organization had a huge fundraiser and people were dropping off

00:44:53.740 lots of supplies and they actually have to say like oh we have too much stuff we can't send it

00:44:57.840 all like stop bringing so that's more the outlook for Canadian Ukrainians. Yeah so what about the

00:45:04.540 relationship with Russian people of Russian descent out here I mean a lot of Russian citizens wanted

00:45:08.980 no part of this whole thing either that's what I mean the people on the ground are the ones you

00:45:12.000 know this is the leadership it always is that's human history right Russian people on the ground

00:45:17.120 I mean, Eastern European community, I remember as well, is tight in Canada, and there was a lot of overlap.

00:45:21.620 They'd hang out together, there's things, but is some of that, do you think, leaking over into here now that they've got this dispute going on over there?

00:45:27.600 Well, I have seen, like, the Russian Orthodox Church downtown Calgary, it got vandalized over the weekend.

00:45:37.180 But, like, I have Russian friends, and I don't think that they are accountable for any of this.

00:45:43.180 so i don't think that's very common but there are going to be those hostile and aggression

00:45:49.980 kind of sometimes so yeah it just leads to concerns i mean we we don't know what the

00:45:54.700 tensions are when you know the former yugoslavia broke up i think none of us in the western world

00:45:59.340 realized just how divided that nation was when the whole bosnia herzegovania we didn't even

00:46:04.460 realize there was such a split among the citizenry and i read some accounts actually i was reading

00:46:08.300 and some of the PJ O'Rourke when he was over there who passed away recently I got a note one

00:46:12.960 of my favorite writers but uh talking about when it comes to a civil thing like that uh and talking

00:46:19.360 some of the citizens on the ground like they never imagined they'd be out there fighting their

00:46:22.120 neighbors and but once it starts we're off to the races these are kids we went to school with

00:46:25.720 10 years ago and now we're shooting at each other today yeah I think it is um more hostile over

00:46:31.420 there because people are very separated and they have very strong political opinions and there's a

00:46:35.920 religious uh aspect with that too there was an islamic thing but still i mean when you get

00:46:39.900 something closer to a civil war i mean these aren't uh that's part of what makes this complicated

00:46:43.900 with ukraine and russia is that they aren't exceedingly separate countries that don't have

00:46:48.540 a lot of tight ties and connections there's a whole bunch of overlap a whole bunch of relationships

00:46:52.500 which can lead to in a sense closer to a civil war which is one of the worst kinds we can ever

00:46:57.140 imagine it's a lot more escalated there but even when my parents were growing up in poland

00:47:03.040 And right on the Ukrainian border, they had a lot of aggression from Polish people

00:47:09.380 who were living in the same villages in the same region.

00:47:11.740 Like, oh, you're Ukrainian. 1.00

00:47:13.460 Like, you're not one of us. 1.00

00:47:14.800 We don't want you in our schools and whatnot.

00:47:17.780 But that was a unified country.

00:47:20.660 Yeah.

00:47:20.980 I mean, in general, I think the world's starting to get better with their prejudices and so on.

00:47:24.220 But we've obviously got a lot of work to do yet.

00:47:27.100 And, you know, there's a whole lot of armchair quarterbacks when we're talking about the circumstances and the situation out there.

00:47:34.960 And a lot of things are getting forgotten, you know, about the people who are actually just trying to maintain relationships down there and have a life that that's all they ever wanted like anybody else.

00:47:44.880 And they're who's suffering.

00:47:46.840 People are still working.

00:47:48.560 People are still taking the bus.

00:47:50.220 Buses are running.

00:47:51.660 Businesses are open where they can be.

00:47:54.500 people still need food and groceries but I think that is going to be really impacted again we're

00:48:00.400 only a week into this war attack so it's going to escalate a lot and develop yeah I mean we won't

00:48:08.820 see where it goes I mean a lot of us I even again it shows I don't know a heck of a lot about

00:48:12.280 military operations when we saw everything starting a week and some ago I thought well this is going to

00:48:15.880 be at least the initial you know invasion part is going to be done within a few days and then we're

00:48:21.300 going to deal with the diplomatic and political follow-up from there, but this is still nowhere

00:48:25.700 even close to being finished as a military operation, and people are trying to live at

00:48:29.300 the same time as it's happening. It's kind of a surreal thing as we see the footage out there.

00:48:35.060 Yeah, and it's a country of 44 million, and they're, like, the UN is saying that a million

00:48:41.780 have fled, or a little bit less than a million, but we don't really know what the real numbers are,

00:48:47.140 and how many people are actually moving

00:48:50.160 or how many are actually staying.

00:48:52.000 When you have chaos like that,

00:48:53.820 and as you said, Poland is taking in a great deal

00:48:56.920 of refugees and Canada is going to take some in.

00:48:59.960 We also know historically, though,

00:49:01.320 refugees aren't always, you know,

00:49:02.880 okay, we're going to save you from getting killed, 1.00

00:49:04.200 but we don't want you settling in.

00:49:05.220 You're not necessarily welcome here in the long run.

00:49:06.640 It's not a pretty situation to live

00:49:08.260 in that sort of circumstance.

00:49:10.340 I mean, even Canada wasn't that great.

00:49:11.560 In World War II, Mackenzie King was talking along the lines, 0.99

00:49:13.840 oh, we'll take in some of those Jewish children, 1.00

00:49:15.600 But don't worry, we'll make sure to get them out of here before they can pollute the bloodlines. 1.00

00:49:18.580 Our history isn't all that clean when it comes to refugees if we dig far enough back either. 1.00

00:49:24.460 So, I mean, again, the people, I mean, it's glad Poland's opened their doors for people who are in trouble and other nations nearby.

00:49:30.380 But it's a long-term solution to anything that doesn't, a good circumstance for people.

00:49:35.040 Yeah, Canada was announcing today.

00:49:37.580 I had reached out to them a couple days ago to Minister of Health and Minister of Immigration.

00:49:43.640 and now they have a plan of taking in refugees either permanently

00:49:49.520 or just for a two-year kind of time before we figure out what's actually happening.

00:49:57.440 So I think the refugee program in Canada is quite good.

00:50:00.620 Like my dad came as a refugee, and they set you up with work.

00:50:05.120 They set you up with a home if you need education, and they set you up for success here. 0.97

00:50:09.480 so yeah and some of the people coming as refugees might be temporary as well i mean perhaps once

00:50:14.680 things stabilize over there whatever may come they may want to go back once it's finished we

00:50:18.840 just don't know it depends on the circumstance well i appreciate you coming in i just want to

00:50:22.600 get a perspective somebody you know who's been there who's uh been in touch with people there

00:50:26.040 as part of the community you know the eastern union community out here because again for those

00:50:30.600 of us who've been north america all our lives and some who might not have traveled so much don't

00:50:33.960 realize just how complicated that whole part of the world is i mean it's a whole lot of countries

00:50:38.360 mashed close together that have very close relationships but at the same time they're

00:50:42.280 quite distinct uh yeah you know there's there's no fight more vehement than a family one uh you know

00:50:47.880 with a cousin or a brother or sister sometimes so unfortunately that's what we've done over there

00:50:52.360 yeah well thanks for having me all right well we'll send you back to the newsroom and i'm

00:50:55.960 certain you'll you'll carry on writing on everything else as you have been and uh keeping

00:50:59.480 us up to date on what's happening yeah great little break here thanks thanks eva

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00:51:41.720 basis. Okay, and going ahead, we have our next guest on deck. Again, I just wanted to talk about

00:51:50.060 the, well, we're coming into a whole bunch of that. We've got big circumstances, things that

00:51:54.500 the world are concerned about, things that Canadians are concerned about, but they're

00:51:57.160 complicated situations so in having joseph on earlier to talk about the residential schools to

00:52:02.040 help realize it's a big conversation with a lot of different views and a lot of complex factors

00:52:06.840 involved with it same with what's going on in eastern europe right now in ukraine and russia

00:52:11.240 and eva you know is in our newsroom and she's been concerned she's been over there she's got

00:52:15.560 you know family members over that way and uh there's also a community over here that could

00:52:20.680 have a degree of division and and different viewpoints on what's happening and how we

00:52:24.440 should respond to it so now i'm going to bring in alex mccall and alex has been writing columns for

00:52:29.560 uh the western standard for quite some time and typically on military issues and things

00:52:33.000 and that's something i really don't know a heck a lot about so uh hey alex good to see you nice

00:52:37.800 to be here corey great so you wrote a column recently and it's funny because it was just

00:52:42.120 shortly after we posted that column it sounds like the government sort of did what you were

00:52:45.320 recommending i don't know if our defense minister read that column or not but i imagine it's it's

00:52:50.440 also more reflection that you're just tapped into what we have as military ability and how we could

00:52:54.760 lend aid uh perhaps in this conflict so maybe if you could lay out a little bit of what you wrote

00:52:59.080 in that column uh yes so in my column i highlighted that ukraine needs everything and i also highlighted

00:53:07.000 how some of uh the other nato members had done a better job than canada supplying those arms

00:53:11.800 I spoke about how the British sent over 2,000 state-of-the-art Saab-N-Law guided anti-tank rocket launchers, and the photo of the column included it.

00:53:26.120 And since then, we've actually increased our arms shipments.

00:53:29.900 So like you said, after the column was posted, the government announced that they were going to be sending $25 million worth of additional arms to Ukraine.

00:53:38.840 and that includes 100 of our older Saab Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons and over 2,000 rounds

00:53:50.040 of ammunition. So this is pretty much what I suggested, but it's still only a start. We can

00:53:57.820 do a lot more. And by comparison, last week the Swedish government also announced that they were

00:54:04.740 going to be sending 5,000 of their Saab 84 anti-tank weapons. So there's a lot more to be

00:54:12.200 done and a lot more that we could send the people of Ukraine. Yeah, we were talking a little bit 1.00

00:54:17.780 about that in the pipeline the other night, like with these anti-tank weapons. So these are for

00:54:21.160 ground infantry and this gives somebody though the ability to take out a large

00:54:25.540 armored vehicle potentially. That really can be a game changer when you start getting into almost

00:54:31.100 more of a guerrilla warfare sort of circumstance. I mean, Russia has some large tanks and things

00:54:36.960 coming in, but if Ukrainian resistance has the ability to fight back on those, that changes a

00:54:42.300 lot of the circumstances. Well, yeah, and the British contribution was really important because

00:54:48.140 the N-laws, there were 2,000 of them. That is an easy to use, single use guided anti-tank weapon 1.00

00:54:55.160 with a range of over 800 meters. And we've already seen footage from Ukraine of Ukrainian

00:55:02.400 soldiers using them. Some of the other weapons that are flowing in, they're more shorter-ranged

00:55:08.220 line-of-sight weapons like the AT-4s and the Carl Gustavs. So they're still useful. The Carl

00:55:15.460 Gustavs we have, like I mentioned in the article, are a little older, and they are unlikely to be

00:55:21.280 effective against the best Russian tanks, but they will be more than a match for the light

00:55:27.280 armored vehicles that the Russians are using for troop transports. So getting them in the hands

00:55:33.520 of Ukrainian reservists and Ukrainian soldiers so that they have something that can take out

00:55:39.040 an armored vehicle is very important. So this is going to go for a while. I'm just wondering,

00:55:44.220 though, Canada does have limited military resources at this time. So this is not that we

00:55:48.960 have a pressing need for them at the moment anyhow, but that

00:55:51.700 leaves us pretty depleted with our own resources at this point,

00:55:54.580 I guess I mean, we just look at now how are we going to fill

00:55:56.640 those voids, right?

00:55:58.680 Well, as I've been writing and others have written, we should

00:56:02.400 be, we should have already replaced a lot of these systems

00:56:05.560 already. So for example, we're, it's unclear if we're sending

00:56:08.920 our old M2 version Carl Gustafs or our newer M3s, but even the

00:56:13.620 M3s date back to the last, last millennium. The

00:56:18.960 most of our allies in NATO, including the Americans, have already upgraded to the latest

00:56:23.900 M4 standard. So I even highlighted at the end of my article, look, Canadian procurement is

00:56:30.920 less dysfunctional when it's buying more of what we already have. So if we use this as an excuse

00:56:36.920 to fast track the adoption of the latest M4 Carl Gustavs for our own troops, that could be 0.55

00:56:43.420 considered a benefit. But you're absolutely right. Our stocks are quite limited. And

00:56:48.640 case in point, the Canadian military doesn't even have a vehicle surface terror weapon system at all.

00:56:56.060 That capability was cut from the budget during the Harper government when they wanted to balance

00:57:01.700 the budget and they cut defense to do it. Yeah, I think you referenced, I'm not sure,

00:57:06.740 I believe you did a Matt Gurney article that he was talking about the sidearms for Canadian

00:57:11.680 military forces and they've been utilizing and they've wasted millions going out shopping and

00:57:16.160 And it's just to try and upgrade.

00:57:18.000 They're using World War II vintage sidearms right now for our military.

00:57:22.280 And it's just sort of embarrassing.

00:57:24.220 That is correct.

00:57:25.160 Our standard issue handgun for the military dates back to World War II.

00:57:30.340 It's almost impossible to find parts.

00:57:32.980 They are considered one of the least reliable weapons in the Canadian Forces inventory.

00:57:37.380 And it's been a national procurement embarrassment that we just haven't been able to get it done.

00:57:42.120 And, you know, this is a bipartisan tradition of dysfunction.

00:57:46.160 the harper government couldn't get it done the liberals haven't been able to get it done

00:57:49.680 and they're now reports coming out that the the new goal is to get new pistols in 2023 so it's

00:57:58.000 it's an ongoing procurement uh problem yeah it's sort of like their payroll system they can't just

00:58:03.840 seem to get things straight um something came up in the newsroom apparently i mean we're working

00:58:08.080 on a lot of you know rumor and things that come from people over there one of the shortcomings

00:58:11.680 the Russian military has is they don't have a lot of night vision capability. And that hinders them

00:58:17.680 greatly, of course, for the amount of times you can operate actively. That was some of the stuff

00:58:22.880 I believe we sent as Canadians as well with some night vision type of technology for the Ukrainian

00:58:27.840 resistance over there. Do you know anything about that though, or whether there's a shortcoming on

00:58:32.560 that end? It's kind of in the realm of rumor though. Well, yes. So we certainly are sending

00:58:37.840 night vision goggles that's a valuable technology we should be sending more of them we should and

00:58:42.800 we should be buying more for our own troops uh the russians seem to be lacking a lot of equipment

00:58:48.480 but it's scattered and unreliable reporting coming from the field uh it suggests that the bulk of the

00:58:55.760 russian army is not as well equipped as russian propaganda has made it out to be and that you

00:59:02.000 know that makes sense and jives with what we've seen uh in the past whereas the russians will

00:59:07.600 have a well-equipped small group of special forces or paratroopers that they'll parade out uh you

00:59:14.240 know during their military parades but the bulk of their army are you know conscripts who have

00:59:20.080 inadequate training and equipment that's significantly variant in its uh in its abilities

00:59:27.760 so it's but that being said we're we're only a week into the conflict so and the russians are

00:59:35.360 throwing uh reinforcements in through belarus so it's uh it's highly likely that we'll see

00:59:42.160 uh changes and uh to russian strategy going forward yeah well and and uh the thing is with

00:59:50.160 the russian army i mean traditionally as well it's just their sheer volume the numbers of them

00:59:54.560 i mean we've we've seen that in in past wars and conflicts that they not so much necessarily rely

01:00:00.240 on broad high technology or training, but the sheer numbers of them, they can still manage to

01:00:06.000 pull it off in conflicts. Somebody's saying, you know, if Russia wanted to run roughshod over the

01:00:10.480 Ukraine, why are they not attacking civilian infrastructure? Well, here's the conspiracy

01:00:16.040 start coming up, but the bottom line is they want to take the place. They want to occupy it. If you

01:00:19.360 blow it flat into nothing but rubble, you don't have a place to take. So yeah, they do have the

01:00:24.260 capability, I'm sure, to level the place, but they don't want to do that at this point, but

01:00:29.080 that only makes sense. You're absolutely right. So this isn't the kind of indiscriminate

01:00:35.560 bombardment that we've seen from Russia in other conflicts like in Syria. And this is not the kind

01:00:43.000 of World War II flattening of Germany that the Russians employed. That being said, though,

01:00:48.660 things can change. One of the shortcomings of the Russian military that's largely been talked about

01:00:54.300 is a lack of precision guided weapons. We saw them use precision guided weapons in the opening

01:01:00.900 hours of the conflict. But since then, reports of them using precision guided weapons for targeted

01:01:06.840 strikes have been kind of few and far between. And we've seen a lot of attacks using traditional

01:01:12.620 bombs or unguided rockets, or just mass artillery barrages. So this could, if victory is not

01:01:21.860 forthcoming, become a very gruesome, slow slog with unguided Russian weapons being unleashed

01:01:31.320 on civilian populations. And earlier this morning, we already saw some reports of civilians being

01:01:37.460 killed in indiscriminate artillery barrages. Yeah. And if they get frustrated and it takes

01:01:42.040 too long, you know, things just tend to escalate and getting, you know, more recently than World

01:01:46.020 War II. But wasn't it great enough at the muzzle like myself to remember the Afghan conflict that

01:01:50.700 just went on and on and again it was similar i mean when russia moved into afghanistan people

01:01:55.200 thought well that's it they're gonna take this place and hold it in a matter of days but they

01:01:59.780 lost in the long run i mean they uh got uh you know slowly but i mean they took the place over

01:02:05.520 quickly which as other countries have learned throughout the entire history of afghanistan you 0.99

01:02:09.600 can't hold that country they're gonna pick you to death from the sidelines and it's even if the

01:02:14.300 conflict uh sort of calms down in ukraine i don't think it's gonna be over by a long shot

01:02:18.260 in a short period of time? Well, yeah, so there are a few key differences there.

01:02:24.960 Like you already mentioned, the Russians are far less concerned about civilian casualties

01:02:30.260 in Afghanistan than they are currently in Ukraine, but that could also change.

01:02:36.520 But the other thing to remember is that the Russians did roll into Afghanistan

01:02:41.100 very effectively at the beginning, but they lost in no small part because of the CIA

01:02:47.780 funneling up to a billion dollars worth of modern weapons to the Mujahideen, which I mentioned in my

01:02:55.800 call. And once the Afghan fighters had access to high caliber weapons, to anti-tank weapons,

01:03:04.080 to mines, to improvised explosive devices, and also later in the conflict, they were even

01:03:10.740 receiving shipments of state-of-the-art American Stinger surface-to-air missiles, so the manned

01:03:16.260 portable air defense systems. And those really turn the tides because a low-flying Russian attack

01:03:23.880 helicopter can shrug off bullets from an AK-47, but it cannot shrug off a Stinger missile. 0.80

01:03:32.060 Well, that's where we get back to a Cold War sort of scenario, you know, which is the thing I grew

01:03:36.160 up with. And as you mentioned earlier too, though, I mean, Sweden even and Canada and

01:03:40.360 and Greek Britain are all pumping arms into this. It turns into one of those proxy wars

01:03:44.920 where a nation that wasn't previously that well armed is suddenly quite well armed. I mean,

01:03:50.200 the other backfiring in arming the Afghans, of course, throughout all of that is when Russia

01:03:53.660 finally did pull out those arms returned against the Americans just as quickly because they didn't

01:03:57.840 have much more use for Americans than they did with Russians. But that's a different element

01:04:01.400 altogether, too. There was a religious portion to it and other things. But these circumstances

01:04:06.340 has become really complicated really fast absolutely right it's uh it's an ongoing conflict

01:04:13.140 there's a lot of uh information coming out that's informal but we have to be mindful that some of it

01:04:20.100 might be ukrainian propaganda that's designed to bolster morale and exaggerate their accomplishments

01:04:26.340 but there's also a lot of russian propaganda coming out to try to limit their losses and make

01:04:31.380 it look like this is uh everything's going according to plan so everything coming out of

01:04:36.100 ukraine right now the good stories and the bad stories should be taken with a grain of salt

01:04:40.660 yeah i mean it's an old cliche and i don't know who first said it but what the first casualty in

01:04:44.020 any war is always the truth uh and and both sides are going to of course try to spin things as as

01:04:49.380 heavily as they can in their own favor and that's why we need as much discussion as possible on

01:04:54.100 these to to hopefully uh cut through and get some degree of of the truth and what's happening out

01:04:59.380 there um what about the possibility of i mean we've got some canadians already serving in europe

01:05:04.660 and things is you think there's much chance that more forces might be there not not to put into

01:05:08.340 ukraine but to bolster uh nato presence in other neighboring countries uh yes so first of all

01:05:15.540 there was a recent announcement that the it looks like canada will mobilize around 3 400 troops

01:05:21.220 and sailors and airmen as part of our nato rapid reaction force that's not to actually directly

01:05:27.620 intervene in ukraine but that would be kind of expanding our presence to defend nato countries

01:05:34.580 if any of them were threatened so that would be like defending the the baltics and likely deploying

01:05:40.900 to poland we've already seen some russian escalations in europe not against nato per se

01:05:48.020 yet but against some of the european union members uh sweden for example just the other day reported

01:05:54.900 that two russian su-27 fighters and two su-24 fighter bombers violated swedish airspace

01:06:03.940 they were intercepted by swedish sob grip and fighter jets and they were

01:06:11.140 encouraged to leave swedish airspace without any weapons being fired but it's uh it's one

01:06:16.740 of those things where russia is is definitely saber rattling around the edges of the alliance

01:06:21.940 and while uh sweden and finland are not nato members they are both european union members

01:06:28.340 and are thus uh part of the european union's mutual defense agreement so a war with finland

01:06:35.300 or sweden would trigger a war with the rest of the eu which in you know france germany italy which

01:06:42.500 then could trigger a war with nato so it's uh it's definitely an ongoing situation that uh

01:06:49.220 everyone needs to be paying attention to and the canadians will contribute will likely be

01:06:53.780 contributing more to yeah and then finland's never been a fan of russian incursion on their uh borders

01:06:59.380 as well i mean we get these conflicts and you see more of that sort of i just said saber rattling

01:07:03.620 and pushing limits and seeing what you can get away with uh a big thing that's been coming up

01:07:08.740 of course is is the ukrainians are trying to get a an airspace ban uh from other countries but

01:07:13.860 they're not jumping in on that because that would escalate things dramatically if they did do that

01:07:18.340 though that would sort of start obligating other countries to getting into a an outside air war

01:07:22.340 which would could turn very bad quickly i imagine uh yes so i think it's unlikely that nato will

01:07:31.460 agree to do to enforce a no-fly zone simply because the only way to enforce it is to be

01:07:37.780 willing to shoot down russian aircraft uh the other aspect is um there's a lot of friendly fire

01:07:45.860 risks in any kind of joint operation like that so any remaining uh ukrainian air defenses might

01:07:53.300 potentially accidentally shoot down a nato aircraft or a nato aircraft might accidentally

01:07:58.420 shoot down a ukrainian aircraft because remember ukraine uses migs just like the russians did so

01:08:04.980 it's uh uh we don't want it's part of friendly fire is definitely a concern in this conflict

01:08:11.300 but it's highly unlikely that nato will will get involved just because uh that could trigger a war 0.68

01:08:19.460 with russia like to enforce a no-fly zone we would have to be willing to shoot down russian plants

01:08:24.500 yeah and once that happens then we are into a world war i mean i don't think there's much

01:08:29.780 appetite on russia's part or or the rest of the world's part to get into that so it's kind of a

01:08:34.180 slowly developing standoff at this point yeah and and that being said though we haven't seen

01:08:40.020 as much activity from the russian air force as we initially uh would have suspected but uh that

01:08:49.140 could like i said that could change but that could also be due to a lack of precision guided

01:08:53.460 munitions uh if the russians are running low on laser guided bombs for example

01:09:00.180 they might not want to put their air force in harm's way so this this war is likely going

01:09:05.380 to be decided on the ground like all wars are ultimately and that's why like i said in my piece

01:09:11.540 we we really need to be giving the ukrainians who want to stay and fight for their freedom

01:09:16.660 the all the tools that they need and that includes you know anti-tank weapons but that

01:09:21.220 also includes you know rifles ammunition uh night vision goggles it and things as simple as boots

01:09:28.420 and winter coats and uh i actually applaud the trudeau government when they announced that

01:09:33.700 they're also sending 400,000 meal packs, because feeding troops in the field is, you know, you can't

01:09:40.740 fight a war on an empty stomach. So everything that we have, we should be sending them. And it

01:09:47.360 seems like the Trudeau government has changed course, and we'll be sending significantly more

01:09:51.960 aid. But I encourage Canadians to call their MPs and encourage them to send more.

01:09:58.880 Yeah, well, we'll see what develops over coming days. This last few years just seems to be moving

01:10:03.420 from one disaster, one conflict to another. You feel almost exhausted. You know, you can't keep

01:10:08.260 up with all of these anymore. And we're just horrified watching what's going on over there.

01:10:11.660 And we just want resolution one way or another in a peaceful way. So we'll be watching it very

01:10:17.960 closely. I appreciate you breaking that down. Because like I said, I don't know a heck of a

01:10:20.660 lot about military hardware and things such as that. I look at the geopolitics quite a bit, but

01:10:24.900 I never served in any sort of military and don't know anything about the ground or anything like

01:10:29.180 or the air. So where can we find more information? You write columns for us. Is there other places

01:10:34.320 where you put things out, Alex? I haven't put out much on the Ukrainian conflict outside of

01:10:39.080 the Western standard. So I say keep checking the Western standard. Okay. Well, thank you very much 0.66

01:10:44.340 for giving us an update and I hope we can talk about it again soon. Thanks. Great. Thanks, Alex.

01:10:51.900 So yeah, it's an ongoing issue going on and it's complicated. And again, for those of us,

01:10:58.380 I appreciate getting that input. There's people who follow that. I don't know much about arms or

01:11:01.980 things like that. I mean, I've got my own personal firearms, but they're not military sort of things

01:11:05.980 or anything like that. And I could be of limited use for that. And as this drags on, I'm hoping

01:11:12.160 we will be talking about it in hindsight pretty soon rather than in wondering what's going to

01:11:17.840 happen. And actually speaking of firearms, I do want to talk about one of our sponsors, actually

01:11:23.760 the CSSA and that's the Canada Shooting Sports Association. These guys, they stand up for your

01:11:31.220 right and ability to own and enjoy responsibly, legally, safely firearms. The name says it all

01:11:37.680 sort of there and they are an association. So you want to get more resources on how to

01:11:43.520 utilize your firearm or where are their trade shows going on or what's going on with firearms

01:11:48.040 in general in Canada. These are the guys to tell you what's going on there and their website is

01:11:52.340 cssa-cila.org. And they have a lot of resources for you out there. And I think most importantly

01:12:00.200 of all, though, is they've got a number of legal challenges on behalf of Canadian firearm owners,

01:12:06.780 because the Liberal government has been trying and trying. They want to take away your firearms.

01:12:10.120 It's been happening since the 90s with the registry. Now the way they're doing it is they're

01:12:13.900 constantly changing the categories of firearms and taking them away from people. And it's wrong.

01:12:19.540 and we've got to push back. If we don't push back, they'll keep taking. We know that this is not

01:12:24.420 a friendly government when it comes to that. So check these guys out, the Canadian Shooting 1.00

01:12:28.320 Sports Association, take out a membership with them, because that's again, how you can help

01:12:32.480 yourself, how you can make sure you can maintain that right and ability to keep safely and

01:12:36.360 responsibly using firearms like I know you have been. Let's see, let's talk about some of the

01:12:41.820 other stuff getting back. I'm going to jump over because the digital ID came up. We wrote an

01:12:46.180 article on that recently. It's in the Western Standard at thewesternstandardonline.com.

01:12:50.880 Take out a membership if you want to see it without the paywall. Free trial. Throw in

01:12:53.800 Triggered. You'll get another 10 bucks off on it. Always got to plug ourselves. You know, again,

01:12:58.100 being independent media, hey, we got to pay those bills and it's important. Things have been great.

01:13:03.100 It's funny with digital IDs. Now we've got what's growing into a healthy, and I think it is healthy,

01:13:08.080 distrust of government. Government is not always looking out for our interests. I think most of us

01:13:13.320 realize that. And I don't know if they're necessarily inherently evil, but they can be

01:13:17.360 completely indifferent to individual rights and what's important. At the same time, we've also

01:13:21.420 got a lot of inefficiency when it comes to identification. Like here in Alberta, I got

01:13:27.600 this rotten, beat up old paper healthcare card with no picture on it or anything else, but that's

01:13:35.420 what I'm supposed to use whenever I want to get any healthcare anywhere. And then I've got my

01:13:38.780 driver's license. And then I got my social insurance card. You know, in a number of

01:13:44.240 government forms of ID, I've got my RPAL, which is, you know, my firearms license.

01:13:49.560 Is it impossible to put those things into some sort of centralized identification that could

01:13:55.720 show that I am indeed licensed to drive and I am indeed, yeah, the WEF pushed for the national ID.

01:14:01.300 So that's what makes us more uncomfortable with it too. You know, like it makes sense to get a

01:14:05.780 singular identification for those sorts of things. But then when we see crap like that tied in with

01:14:11.100 the World Economic Forum, and we see these bankers associations that want this, when we see a

01:14:16.440 government that got the banks to seize and steal the assets of Canadians, and that's what I'll call

01:14:21.980 it, I'll call it stealing, because they dared to support a protest that the government doesn't like.

01:14:26.100 Most of these people donated to those protests even before it was declared illegal. It doesn't

01:14:29.780 matter. Get the banks to seize their money. Yeah, then I'm not too thrilled about the idea

01:14:34.760 of giving them a more centralized means to find me or interfere in my life or shut me down or

01:14:40.360 track me down. I mean, how far do we go? How far does it get to, you know, before you got to show

01:14:45.740 that ID to do anything and everything? Papers, please. Papers, please. This is not new. And

01:14:49.960 it's not paranoia for people to be concerned about moves to push towards more of those kinds of

01:14:55.320 systems. I do differ. I saw some commenters talking about, you know, we're talking about

01:15:00.780 digital currencies and saying this is the way they're going to get us. Well, no, guys. And using

01:15:04.300 the convoy as a reason for that. They didn't take anybody's digital currency. They didn't.

01:15:09.780 They couldn't, if you had a cold wallet with Bitcoin, they couldn't get at it. The government

01:15:13.500 doesn't know how much you've got or what's in there or what you can do with it. They can mess

01:15:17.180 with your regular bank and keep you from having an easy way to convert it. Oh, there's lots of

01:15:21.040 things the government can still do to mess with you. But if you've got digital currency in a cold

01:15:24.920 wallet, that's not a part of the regular banks, they can't get at it. There was a, I keep forgetting

01:15:31.140 the name of it. I should write it down, but there was a beautiful tweet from one of those companies

01:15:33.960 because the government was saying, you give us the information on your customers, this digital

01:15:37.460 currency facilitating company. And they sent a tweet back saying, well, we don't know what our

01:15:41.880 customers have done with it. That's not what we do. We don't hold their money. We don't have their

01:15:44.700 funds. And basically saying, even if we had it, we wouldn't share it with you. And they don't.

01:15:49.600 So that is a way to control your own means. You know, Bernier difference, whatever. You think

01:15:56.060 you got control of it when the government currency has it there? Digital currency puts it in your own

01:16:00.440 wallet. It's a form of a gold brick under your bed. So yeah, somebody can still come in and steal

01:16:04.560 it. Nothing's 100% secure, I guess. Also, I mean, there's risks. If you took one of those digital

01:16:11.300 currencies out and you put your money into it and then it lost a bunch of value. I mean, they do

01:16:14.280 have a lot of seesawing going on and, you know, you could lose money on it. I'm not going to try

01:16:19.240 and counsel people which one's the best one to put your money in or which one's going to last

01:16:22.120 longer or things like that. But I do know confidently if you have your money in nothing

01:16:26.000 but Canadian currency and in nothing but regular banks, you're screwed. They can take it and they

01:16:34.080 just showed how they did it. Digital currency, no, with Wildrose saying the government can make

01:16:39.820 it impossible to cash it in. No, they can't. They can just make it tougher, which they did with the

01:16:43.280 banks. I was down in the States recently. There were Bitcoin ATMs down there. There's businesses

01:16:48.140 where you can go in and you can purchase using digital currencies. You can actually buy a coffee

01:16:54.180 in a meal with a digital currency. The government has no part of that transaction that comes out of

01:16:58.080 your digital account and into the business that you're doing business with. You can get to a point

01:17:02.500 where you're doing business with people on Kijiji and buying and selling items and you and the buyer

01:17:06.400 can do an exchange usually using a digital currency. It's not commonly in use yet,

01:17:11.240 but we're getting there and the government can't touch those things. And again, you see people say

01:17:16.620 it's stored on some server. No, it's a cold wallet. You actually have a thing that it is

01:17:22.300 complicated and, but digitally holds onto your assets that way. And the government doesn't have

01:17:27.960 a reach on it and they can't take it away from you. Well, aside from vice force, like I said,

01:17:31.320 if you've got a gold brick under your bed, they can come underneath and yank it. And yeah,

01:17:36.380 Bitcoin ATM, there's a bunch of them actually out in Western Canada, but you can only deposit

01:17:40.880 those ones so far. You can't draw, but the American ones I saw in truck stops. Yeah. You

01:17:44.560 can actually go both ways down there with it. Like it's expanding. Doesn't mean that there

01:17:49.420 aren't people with the WEF and in government and in banks that want to get these things. Oh,

01:17:54.520 absolutely they do. They don't want you getting independent of their control in any way that they

01:17:59.420 can. But we're limited on options, guys. You know, what else have you got? Cash? Well, that's

01:18:04.940 something. But, you know, that's one type of currency and it's also something that can

01:18:09.220 be taken from you, though it would have to be by force. You can sort of hide it. Think of digital

01:18:15.300 currencies that way, though. It's more like a cash than something that's in a bank. We do know if

01:18:18.940 it's in a bank, the government can get at it. That's a given. They've shown that. They've

01:18:23.020 demonstrated that. And the banks will cooperate right away with that. So we don't have easy

01:18:30.600 answers. But I like digital currencies. I like in that it pulls us out of the centralized system,

01:18:38.440 even if it's imperfect. It's shaking up the establishment. And the establishment needs

01:18:43.520 that shaking. I mean, it's getting sick. That was a rant I did on, yeah, Klaus Schwab and the World

01:18:50.940 Economic Forum, and it needs a bigger discussion. Like, this is not a conspiracy theory. It's right

01:18:55.840 out in the open. That's what's almost the brilliance of it. You can dismiss anybody of

01:19:01.580 saying it's a conspiracy because, no, it's not. It's right there. Well, yes, it is right there.

01:19:06.060 Michelle Rempel wrote a long piece on that because she's been getting it a lot because

01:19:09.360 she attended one of those forums. I kind of believe what she was getting at with it is it is a bunch

01:19:14.760 of high profile and powerful people that have their vanity gatherings over there. And not

01:19:20.220 everybody is necessarily actually bought into or subscribed into what Schwab wants to do.

01:19:27.780 But he does say what he wants to do. And he wants to bring about a centralized world order of

01:19:31.480 socialism. It's not a hidden thing. Go on and read it. Read the Great Reset. It's there in straight

01:19:37.680 out words. And our himbo prime minister, Justin Trudeau, parroted those words and he spoke to 0.57

01:19:43.800 that World Economic Forum. So yeah, there are international players who really want to take

01:19:49.700 away individual rights and control and have bigger government. They're out there, they're

01:19:52.800 right in front of us, and a lot of our political leadership have been playing footsies with these

01:19:57.320 guys. We've got to be concerned about that. But so as far as I'm concerned, though, the more we

01:20:03.580 can break ourselves away from them, whether it's, and I'm not going to talk about which particular

01:20:07.100 digital currency is better or another, it's another means that we can get a little bit out

01:20:10.320 of their reach. And perfect? No, not by a long shot. And I don't think everybody has attended

01:20:15.180 those World Economic Forum things. It isn't necessarily a part of it. I got sponsored,

01:20:18.600 for example, to go to a Canadian Association for Energy Executives conference out in Banff a while

01:20:24.820 back. Oh, it's fantastic. You know, great food and things like that. I couldn't afford to go to that

01:20:28.980 sort of thing, typically, way out of my reach as far as finances go. But there was no controls on

01:20:36.100 my shoulder. It didn't mean that I suddenly was obligated to them by any means or anything of the

01:20:40.120 sort. And I wasn't told how I'm going to report on it later or what I'm going to think of it.

01:20:45.120 And the speeches and things going on, as much as these were, this was a gathering of, yeah,

01:20:50.300 energy executives, there were some very powerful and well-to-do people there.

01:20:55.360 Didn't mean we were all obligated to each other with anything or had a singular agenda or anything

01:21:00.360 like that. And I think some of these World Economic Forum gatherings are like that. They're

01:21:04.320 just trying to get a whole bunch of people together for vanity's sake and they talk their

01:21:07.660 stuff but you look at the people who really actually speak the most about it and follow it

01:21:10.900 morons like Justin Trudeau or Prince Charles for example so I mean again we're not talking about

01:21:15.980 super villain type mindsets here and brilliant people this is a you know a group of people so

01:21:24.120 we've really got stuff going on and at the same time it's not necessarily as much of a threat as

01:21:28.080 some people think it is so we just have to watch those things very closely as Nico's brought up

01:21:33.620 we're getting near the end of the show. If we want to discuss further, uh, at Corey B. Morgan,

01:21:38.780 that's my Twitter account. Uh, among social media giants, that's the one I play around at the most

01:21:44.000 and have the most, uh, I guess you can say unvarnished discussion back and forth with

01:21:47.780 people. Uh, and there's my email address, cmorgan at westernstandardonline.com. I got a couple of

01:21:51.880 emails from people asking about that court ruling and getting the details. I sent that link out. I

01:21:56.100 like the back and forth communication. It's, it's, uh, it's important. It's how we get things going

01:22:01.580 forward, take out a membership. As we said, if you haven't as well at the Western Standard and

01:22:06.160 use Triggered and get that 10 bucks off. And the other thing is follow all of those social media

01:22:11.240 majors. You know, YouTube, we're on Rumble. We broadcast this to Rumble. Unfortunately, it hinders

01:22:15.620 the comments, but otherwise, you know, if we get canceled, we never know when the rug is going to

01:22:19.200 get yanked out from under us. If we're on Rumble, we're bypassing. Speaking of bypassing that central

01:22:24.040 control, right? Again, follow me on Twitter, Facebook. We broadcast those videos and share

01:22:30.220 these things. I mean, the mainstream media is terrible. We know that. And I'm going to be

01:22:33.520 talking to somebody about it tomorrow, by the way. So I'll talk about what we've got coming in before

01:22:36.860 I wrap up here. I got Kid Carson. I'm sure of it this time. He's a Vancouver radio host. There was

01:22:42.420 a confusion on the scheduling yesterday. He didn't make it onto the show, but he was a well-established

01:22:47.600 radio host out in Vancouver, and he just went too far outside of the lines from his employers,

01:22:53.440 what they consider fair discussion for a media member, and they parted ways. And that's part

01:22:57.900 what we've got is a bad chill on discussion in the mainstream outlets. There's still some good

01:23:02.700 people in there. They're trying to pay their bills and some of the family, but they, I've

01:23:06.800 talked about it before. Why has talk radio gotten so bloody boring? Because all of the hosts for

01:23:10.960 those shows are all chickens. They're scared, witless. They don't want to go into anything

01:23:14.940 controversial anymore because they're fearful their station manager is going to push them out.

01:23:18.200 That's why Daniel Smith got canceled and pushed aside. That's why Kid Carson is out there, Shadow

01:23:22.720 Davis, some of those other ones. They just can't operate in that environment anymore and they've

01:23:26.560 left it. So it's going to be a good chat with Kid Carson tomorrow. And I'm going to have David

01:23:30.460 Clementa on as well. He's done a lot of work for talking about consumer liberties, things like

01:23:36.900 that. He's a libertarian sort of guy, but he's got actually, he wrote a column. He's differing

01:23:41.800 in opinion with Ron Paul, which doesn't happen too often in liberty-minded people. So we're

01:23:46.260 going to expand a little more on that and where his stance is and why he doesn't agree with Ron

01:23:49.960 paul on the the russian thing so uh thank all of you guys for tuning in today i do appreciate it

01:23:56.920 even if i bark at some of you commenters when we disagree it's okay we're here to not necessarily

01:24:01.400 always agree we're just going to keep ironing out those issues and chatting about them and

01:24:05.160 see if we can come to some resolutions at times so a good show tomorrow it's going to be packed

01:24:10.120 Tune in 1130 AM. Thanks for tuning in today and I'll see you then.

01:24:40.120 Thank you.

Western Standard - March 04, 2022

LIVE - Triggered： Tamara Lich is a political prisoner in Canada

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