00:09:01.960They cut to it and he's being cut out of the wreckage.
00:09:04.840It's a bit unclear who the tank belonged to at the moment or whether it was deliberate or slid into the vehicle, but really incredible, incredible footage, and I urge everybody to go and take a look at that.
00:09:19.240Other stuff that we've got on the go at the moment.
00:09:24.000Edmonton police have released a sketch of a knife maniac who stabbed a father as he was walking with his two young children along Jasper Avenue up in Edmonton.
00:10:36.360Canada has got the third biggest Ukraine population outside of the Ukraine and there's a lot of MPs and senators who are descendants from Ukrainian immigrants.
00:10:49.320And we've got a story on their emotional comments yesterday in the Senate and the House of Commons on how it's important not to let Putin win.
00:10:59.920And we've got a column from one of Franco's colleagues, Chris Sims, out at the British
00:12:06.900So as a reminder, yes, a lot of news stories, they're breaking everywhere from Russia to Ontario with that court ruling too here in Alberta.
00:12:13.840So be sure and remember, take out a subscription. This is how we can do it.
00:12:17.560This is how we can stay independent. This is how we make sure we do not, well, we will never take government dollars.
00:12:25.040That's been well established here. Derek's always been clear about that.
00:24:27.680Corey, and I just want to circle back to the BC government's budget just for a quick second,
00:24:31.920because you kind of asked like, well, where are the problems are? And I want to really talk about
00:24:36.860the overspending. Now, I've been getting a lot of questions from many different people saying,
00:24:42.180well, hold on a second there, Franco. I mean, pandemic, there was flooding in British Columbia.
00:24:47.540So maybe a deficit is warranted in 2021. But again, we have to go back to the fact that if
00:24:54.740the BC government just stuck with its own budget plans, there would be no deficit in 2021. And
00:25:00.780that should have been doable because even under those spending plans, Corey, they were still
00:25:05.780spending about $10 billion more than normal years. Now, if we look down the road to about 2024,
00:25:14.060they're going to be spending $15 billion more than normal years of budgeting. So what that tells
00:25:21.640us, Corey, is that they have no plans to balance the budget because they want to use the fog of
00:25:27.480COVID-19 to go on a debt-fueled spending binge. Well, I mean, most places are starting to realize
00:25:34.020that, you know, that this is endemic. It's not going away. We've got to start looking at the
00:25:37.640long plan. COVID-19, the pandemic may indeed keep costing us extra money, costing extra health care
00:25:43.820expenditures, but we got a budget for that, not use it as an excuse just to go wild and talk about
00:25:48.480this is a crisis that's going to rise and drop sometime soon. That's absolutely correct. That's
00:25:54.140absolutely correct. It's one thing to focus your resources on an issue that is really pressing,
00:26:00.680but it's another thing, and it's completely wrong to just budget like you want to spend more money
00:26:06.120on everything forever, right? That's not really budgeting. Families, businesses, they know that's
00:26:11.200not sustainable, but not only are we seeing that in British Columbia, of course, we're seeing that
00:26:16.340federal government as well. Now let's talk about one of the good provinces that we're seeing
00:26:21.120fiscally, New Brunswick. We're actually seeing New Brunswick starting to reduce its debt because
00:26:26.540it's accumulating larger surpluses. And what did New Brunswick do? Well, New Brunswick did prioritize
00:26:33.160spending on the pandemic, but it held the line on other areas of the budget. And that's something
00:26:40.380that we should be seeing across Canada, similar to that, right? I think families understand that
00:26:45.460if you have a leaky roof, fix the roof, but don't go blow money with your credit card on a flat
00:26:52.040screen, a few ATVs and a couple of BMWs, right? Well, that's exactly what the federal government
00:26:57.920is doing. And that's similar to what's happening in British Columbia. Yeah. So are you still out
00:27:02.600there right now? No, I'm back in Ottawa. Okay. I was just wondering, so what are the gas prices
00:27:07.220looking like at the pump over there right now? Did you get a chance to see any of those? I know
00:27:11.000it was like a close to a dollar 80 a dollar 80 yeah it was absolutely crazy i i was talking to
00:27:18.280a cab driver about that and uh it was really unimaginable you know i'm in ottawa right now
00:27:23.400it's it's around a dollar 50 i believe last i can remember uh which even there is quite high
00:27:29.800cory i mean we've been dealing with these uh sky high gas prices what since about thanksgiving
00:27:35.000weekend. So it's absolutely crazy how people are getting soaked at the pumps. And what's so
00:27:41.360unfortunate is that Ottawa is making these tough times tougher. We got a carbon tax hike right
00:27:47.140around the corner, April 1, the federal carbon tax is going up. And while Ottawa is raising taxes,
00:27:52.420you have a number of other countries that are providing relief. You have South Korea just
00:27:58.020reduced gas taxes by 20%. India cut gas taxes as well. You have countries like Spain, like France
00:28:06.200that are reducing their electricity taxes as well. Yeah, I'm seeing quite something when Italy and
00:28:14.520Spain are the ones leading us in responsibility and tax reduction. Maybe Greece will be passing
00:28:19.560us pretty soon on that front. So pivoting onto the federal front, you'd written a column recently on
00:28:25.920that and uh we've got uh they seem to be doing okay through this crisis uh federal employees
00:28:30.680members of parliament and such yeah yeah that's absolutely correct i mean over the last two years
00:28:36.160uh the the decisions made by those in power have been full of pain right tax increases revolving
00:28:43.380government lockdowns but i think we need to call a spade a spade here it's pretty clear that those
00:28:48.800who've been making those decisions that have been that have been causing a ton of pain have shielded
00:28:53.380themselves from that pain, right? Our wallets are getting lighter because taxes are going up,
00:28:59.960because inflation is going up. Well, it seems like people in Ottawa are doing pretty good right now.
00:29:06.120You've had members of parliament that have taken two pay raises during the pandemic. They're
00:29:10.960scheduled to take their third pay raise in about a month. You have more than 300,000 federal
00:29:16.800government employees that received at least one raise during the pandemic. If you add provincial
00:29:21.600employees on top of that. The number goes up to over 500,000 government employees that received
00:29:27.060at least one raise. And Corey, not a single federal or provincial government bureaucrat has
00:29:32.780received a pay cut during this downturn. So you have the people who are in power making the tough
00:29:38.360times tougher for the private sector. But I mean, hey, they're not really being impacted at all from
00:29:43.820any of this. And what was it in your column? I'm sorry, I'm just going on memory here. I read it
00:29:48.400earlier this morning. Something about CERB payments potentially going to businesses in Ottawa or
00:29:52.540something like that? So that wasn't in the column, but this is something that you and I have been
00:29:56.320talking about offline. So Ottawa announced that there was about what, about $20 million an ounce
00:30:03.140for the businesses that decided to shut down during the trucker convoy. And there was another
00:30:08.520group, one from Vancouver, who I debated on radio, who's calling for CERB payments for the workers
00:30:15.460of those businesses that shut down and and cory i mean we really feel for the many workers and the
00:30:22.720many businesses that have been taking it on the chin over the last two years as governments have
00:30:27.860forced them to lock down but we don't think that taxpayers should be paying any more money for
00:30:32.580these serb like programs to the businesses that decided to close down in ottawa right i live right
00:30:40.040on rideau street i work right by parliament hill so i was right in the middle of the trucker convoy
00:30:46.360and i can tell you that there were many businesses that decided to stay open and as i could see it
00:30:52.060looked like many were very busy and they shouldn't have to pay a higher tax bill so businesses like
00:30:58.300the rideau center could choose to close down yeah well there's some of an irony there there was one
00:31:04.480business that was getting in trouble because they had been serving some of the protesters they had
00:31:07.860been open for business and trying to pay their bills. And then that was considered supporting
00:31:11.920the protesters. What a crazy time we're in. I mean, yeah, so we're looking at turning CERB. I
00:31:17.860mean, it's a different approach. I mean, if people start looking at this as something you
00:31:22.180can turn off again and on again and use in different areas, we're getting closer to a
00:31:26.200universal basic income idea, which is kind of scary. Oh, it's very scary. And it's going to
00:31:30.740come with a huge price tag for taxpayers. And that's one of our key points that we were trying
00:31:34.460to make during this debate is, hey, look, we can't just have the government shovel a ton of
00:31:38.980money that it doesn't have every time something bad happens, right? Every time something bad
00:31:44.400happens, we can't just expect the taxpayer down the road, our own neighbor to pick up the tab.
00:31:48.960And that's why we have been speaking against those types of announcements and against the
00:31:54.340other groups have been pushing for more taxpayer money. And of course, Corey, we need to remember
00:32:00.700really the high level amount of spending that has been happening here. Already during the pandemic,
00:32:06.440the federal government has spent about $511 billion, nearly half a trillion dollars,
00:32:13.940just on these lockdown subsidies alone. So we can't just have the Trudeau government continuing
00:32:18.940to throw out a bunch of our cash every time something bad happens. Well, and speaking of
00:32:24.340that giant debt that's building up, there's been a lot of rumblings and talk. It sounds like we're
00:32:28.300We're finally going to start seeing some degree of interest rates, the prime rates rising from
00:32:31.780the central bank. And it doesn't sound like they're going to do a huge one, but it could
00:32:36.020be ongoing and constantly. And that changes the whole perspective for people holding any kind of
00:32:39.680debt, including our government. That's correct. I mean, interest charges are already north of
00:32:44.840$20 billion annually for the federal government. Corey, we've talked about this in the past,
00:32:50.120but under the status quo, the federal government wouldn't balance the budget until 2070.
00:32:55.240And if those five decades of deficits come to fruition, taxpayers over that time would lose about $3.8 trillion. And even those estimates are really under relatively low interest rates. So of course, I mean, what happens if interest rates tick up?
00:33:12.500what happens if Canada stumbles into another economic downturn? Of course, what we've been
00:33:18.980saying is that this low interest rate or easy money policy overspending by the federal government
00:33:23.840has really put itself between a rock and a hard place. And what we want to see from the federal
00:33:28.180government is one, I mean, just first and foremost, you have to rein in the unprecedented amount of
00:33:33.660spending in the massive government borrowing. And number two, provide some relief to taxpayers who
00:33:38.580need it. And that, of course, means tax relief. Yeah, well, there's nothing worse than watching
00:33:42.540hard-earned tax dollars getting thrown away on interest payments. It's just money flushed down
00:33:46.540the toilet. And I mean, back in the 80s and 90s, it was just unbearable. And that's what kind of
00:33:50.440prompted us to balance our budgets for a while, but we slid right back into the high spending
00:33:54.880ways all over again. We just can't let people know enough how important this is and how awful
00:34:01.320it's going to get as interest rates rise and the debt builds up. Well, that's exactly to your
00:34:06.480point, what happened, right? 80s, you had these big spending politicians that kicked the deficit
00:34:11.020can down the road, down the road, down the road. What happened in the 90s? You even had places in
00:34:16.480Saskatchewan, what, closing down about 50 hospitals across the Prairie province. So this is what we've
00:34:21.680been saying all along is you have to make some tough choices now before tougher choices are
00:34:27.780forced on you. And Corey, I just want to circle back to the budgets very quickly. The federal
00:34:33.120government under the status quo won't balance its budget until 2070. Corey, between me and you,
00:34:39.100looking at Trudeau's track record, I don't think the Liberal government is ever going to balance
00:34:43.160the budget. Now, we know at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that that is unacceptable. So we put in
00:34:49.540a in-depth budget report, budget submission. I spoke to the Finance Committee on it,
00:34:55.340but we showed how the federal government could return to a balanced budget in 2023-24
00:35:00.960just by returning spending to pre-pandemic levels,
00:35:58.800they've been sponsoring our show and it's really important and it's helpful. Not just the
00:36:02.520subscribers that help keep us producing this independent unfettered content. Subscribers
00:36:08.480also give more viewers and more viewers means we can sell advertising. And these guys are great.
00:36:13.000These are somebody you should join for your own sake. If you are a firearms user, owner, collector,
00:36:19.020you're a hunter, target shooting, any of those things, you need support. You've got to make sure
00:36:23.000you can maintain those rights. So if you go to these guys, they're an association as their name
00:36:27.500makes it sound. Canada Shooting Sports Association. They have resources, everything from where there
00:36:31.920might be trade shows happening nearby to how to safely operate firearms on a target range. It's
00:36:39.280a great resource, a great spot. They need members. You got to take out a membership because also what
00:36:43.580they're doing is they have multiple court challenges out on behalf of you and they are
00:36:49.880standing up for your rights for your firearms, but they need your help. You got to get in there.
00:36:52.760You got to take out a membership so they can keep pushing that because the Liberals are trying to
00:36:55.840take your firearms away. They're trying to take away your right to have and enjoy those legally
00:36:59.660and responsibly as you already have been. So getting on with that, I had the opportunity
00:37:04.020this morning, just before the show, I interviewed Alberta Finance Minister Travis Tays, and we've
00:37:09.640had a lot of bleak financial talk so far, but something at least out of this is Alberta has
00:37:13.620actually returned to a balanced budget for the very first time in 12 years. So we're going to
00:37:18.400play that interview for you guys and have a little bit of an upbeat discussion for a change on here.
00:37:24.700Well, Minister Tays, thank you very much for joining us today. And it's for the first time in a long time we've seen a balanced budget. We've really needed some good news over this last couple of years. So I imagine it must have been nice to be able to present that yesterday.
00:37:40.660It was a real pleasure. It was a privilege to present a balanced budget on behalf of Albertans.
00:37:45.780It's been, I believe, Doug Horner was the last finance minister that ultimately balanced the
00:37:51.240budget in this province. And that's been too long. It was a real privilege to get to balance.
00:37:57.720Great. So, I mean, it still, of course, raises a lot more questions now that we look in the
00:38:02.100longer term. Part of why the budget was balanced, of course, was some very high commodity prices
00:38:08.120these days, and we know those tend to go up and down. Is there plans, though, to moving? I mean,
00:38:13.520there are spending increases. We understand it's been a challenging few years, but moves towards
00:38:18.100fiscal restraint in coming years, so we can maintain these balanced budgets?
00:38:22.760Well, absolutely, Corey. In fact, a big part of the reason why we're balanced in this upcoming
00:38:28.800budget is because of fiscal restraint. We inherited a government that was spending $10
00:38:33.240billion more than compared to provinces. The cost trajectory was going up 4% per year. Had we stayed
00:38:40.720on that trajectory, we would have been showing a $6 billion deficit in the upcoming year. It was
00:38:47.840only because we've turned spending down. We've flattened spending, brought our cost up per capita
00:38:52.960of delivering government services down. We've aligned it now with other provinces, which was
00:38:57.020a key fiscal anchor. And that's, again, a big part of the balanced budget story. I mean, you talk
00:39:03.560about higher energy prices and, you know, we're benefiting from those higher prices, but we're
00:39:08.940using, I would say, very modest energy price assumptions in this budget. We're using $70 for
00:39:14.6602022, $69 for $23, and $66 for $24. So we're not, you know, this isn't a balanced budget on $80 and
00:39:21.760$90 oil. This is a balanced budget on very cautious, but credible energy price assumptions.
00:39:28.020Yeah. And with those cautious assumptions and assuming things stay though, as most people feel
00:39:32.340they will in the commodity world, there's probably going to be more surpluses to come in future
00:39:37.400budgets. What about debt retirement? I mean, we still have the debt now hanging there and we're
00:39:42.240lucky that interest rates are low right now, but that won't last forever. Is there going to be a
00:39:45.920longer plan to start knocking that net debt away on us? Well, you know, Corey, we will develop a
00:39:51.640very comprehensive plan to deal with unexpected surpluses. Right now, we're projecting very
00:39:56.700modest surpluses. And I will say this, what we will do with a modest surplus is just reinvest
00:40:02.940that into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. As you probably know, over the last number of years,
00:40:07.900governments have been pulling Heritage Savings Trust Fund investment income into general revenue.
00:40:13.500And the first thing we're going to do is stop robbing that Heritage Savings Trust Fund.
00:40:17.580Once we are reinvesting those earnings into the fund, at that point in time, we will consider our options and either debt retirement or further trust fund investments.
00:40:28.340One of the two are a combination of both.
00:40:30.340Obviously, we're going to have to consider our cost of capital, the time of debt maturity and inflation rates and a number of other factors.
00:40:37.400And I will be very interested in hearing from Albertans around that question.
00:40:41.940Great. Actually, you got ahead of me there.
00:40:43.360I was going to ask if you were going to start putting money back into that Heritage Fund.
00:40:46.120Is there legislative controls or ways, though, that we could perhaps assure that, you know, yourself or even future governments have to go through a bit more of a process before rating it, as we've seen in the past?
00:40:56.460Well, absolutely. Right now, there is a fiscal rule, I think a very, very good baseline fiscal rule that requires reinvestment in the Heritage Savings Trust Fund up to inflation or CPI.
00:41:06.440So we've, of course, been following that and the fund has been growing, but not, you know, not growing in real terms. It's just been keeping up with with inflation.
00:41:16.120We're going to consider fiscal rules for unexpected surpluses in the future.
00:41:21.160And again, right now, we would anticipate a combination of debt retirement and further investments into that Heritage Savings Trust Fund.
00:41:28.660One thing we will not do is open up the wallet and start spending irresponsibly.
00:41:35.640Okay. And then on the other aspect, you get some more breathing space for perhaps some tax relief.
00:41:40.520a large part of the budget was balanced on uh revenue from from personal income taxes which is
00:41:45.080a good sign of a strong economy but uh we do have that ongoing bracket creep going on is there plans
00:41:50.360to address that now that we're going into the future uh the the answer is yes we we made a
00:41:55.400commitment to albertans that uh we were going to pause indexation until we until basically we got
00:42:01.240to balance till we got to a firm uh fiscal footing and right now we're projecting a balanced budget
00:42:06.680we're not there yet as as we work through the year and as our price assumptions economic
00:42:12.440assumptions as as we determine they're going to hold true we will consider re-indexing for for 2023
00:42:21.080okay and then uh you know it's an ongoing question getting away from commodity dependency i mean
00:42:27.240again it's it's not the whole basis of balancing the budget but it's a large part of it and we've
00:42:31.720we've been overly reliant, in my view, on it for a long time. So what sort of plans are there? It's
00:42:36.780always the economic diversity, I guess, that people are always chasing. Are there, what sort
00:42:41.760of plans have you got to get us so that we can start balancing these budgets without higher oil
00:42:44.960prices? Well, I mean, there's two things to look at there. I mean, realistically, there's your
00:42:50.320revenue structure as a jurisdiction. We have a very definitive taxation royalty structure in
00:42:56.500this province that ultimately generates revenues. And at some point in time, we've committed to a
00:43:00.920point a revenue panel that would evaluate the appropriateness and structure and efficiency of
00:43:06.800our revenue system here in Alberta. We will do that before the end of the term. But the other way to
00:43:11.520create less volatility, Corey, and I think you're alluding to this, for government revenues is to
00:43:16.920see more diversification in our economy. And from day one, we've been working to position the
00:43:22.420province for disproportionate investment attraction and economic growth. And that's happening. We've
00:43:28.660taken a broad-based approach. In other words, an approach that doesn't pick winners and losers so
00:43:33.860much, but provides a level playing field, which I believe will result in sustainable economic
00:43:40.020diversification. And we're seeing the investment pour into this province. We can look at the tech
00:43:45.220sector, the growth in that sector over the last few years. We can take a look at agriculture and
00:43:51.080agri-food manufacturing. Certainly the aerospace and aviation sector is growing. The manufacturing
00:43:56.700sector is growing significantly in the province. Certainly, we're seeing lots of announcements,
00:44:02.400multi-billion dollar announcements around petrochemical manufacturing and hydrogen.
00:44:07.580So all of this is leading to a more diverse, less volatile revenue base for the province.
00:44:13.180So that has to be part of the plan, and it will continue to be a key plank in improving
00:44:19.040our fiscal sustainability. Great. So I can assume there's no plans to raise the corporate tax
00:44:24.240rate or anything like that, I imagine. Listen, Corey, we reduced, we intentionally reduced our
00:44:30.340business tax rate from 12% to 8%. That's been a key ingredient in ensuring we have the most
00:44:35.840competitive business environment possible. We committed to that. We're going to stay with it.
00:44:41.660Excellent. Just one area as we close up, there was some increased spending, and I think people
00:44:46.200kind of expected it, though it was in healthcare. We're looking at, you know, hopefully broadening
00:44:51.220our provision abilities so that we aren't as vulnerable when incidents such as this
00:44:55.020pandemic happen. Is that going to be targeted spending then to ensure we reduce the pressures
00:45:01.340on ICU and hospital capacities? Absolutely. We're making further investment in healthcare.
00:45:07.440We're increasing healthcare's base budget this year by 600 million. And no doubt there
00:45:11.540are pressures in the system. But the real focus is around expanded capacity. COVID has
00:45:18.020has really demonstrated the lack of margin that we have in our healthcare system, the lack of
00:45:22.520surge capacity that we have in our ICUs, for instance. And so a lot of this investment is
00:45:27.900going to be targeted to strategic increased capacity in healthcare, including expanded ICU
00:45:34.180capacity. Great. Well, thank you very much for your time today, Minister Taze. And I hope we can
00:45:39.880look forward to talking about balanced budgets for some time to come yet. So do I, Corey. Thank you.
00:45:44.340okay so that i mean that was a nice uh opportunity i mean we beat on the provincial government we
00:45:51.040beat on the federal government we we criticize them quite a bit uh so it was nice to get them
00:45:55.980on and kind of give a thumbs up for a change like i i understand it was still the boon of high
00:46:02.100oil prices that made balancing that budget that much easier but we also know that it doesn't
00:46:07.400matter how high the oil prices are if you're gonna if you're going to be irresponsible in
00:46:11.360government management you still won't balance that budget it won't happen i mean if oil prices
00:46:16.320alone are what lead to prosperity venezuela would still be a very wealthy nation today rather than
00:46:22.160the basket case they they are that we see unfortunately i mean they've still got no
00:46:26.720shortage of oil over there and and a lot of the world wants it but of course their system is just
00:46:31.360such a catastrophe that they can't take proper advantage of it so i i you know it was nice
00:46:37.040talking to the uh uh finance minister of alberta there mr taze and him giving us time you know one
00:46:43.440of the commenters pointing out like it is good seeing government senior members like that giving
00:46:47.440alternative media some time and and uh the kidney government seems to be getting more forthcoming
00:46:51.920i'm sure we're still going to be on their case on on a lot of things of days going forward but
00:46:56.160he answered a few good questions i mean i was wondering about the heritage uh trust fund you
00:47:00.800know that was a a real large part of the budgets in the past we put a whole bunch of money into
00:47:04.720of there. It was actually giving a source of annual government revenue that they could draw
00:47:09.440from that wasn't a taxation of the people on the ground source. And it helped them with their
00:47:14.220budgets. They couldn't resist themselves. They kept draining it and stopped putting into it.
00:47:17.540And it turned into a pretty small fund. But if they're talking about refunding that or putting
00:47:22.120money back into it, that's a good area, I think. I mean, Alaska, we've seen that. They set a lot of
00:47:27.600non-renewable resource revenues and set them aside for the citizens for later. Norway did the same
00:47:34.260thing. We need to save a little bit of that money. You do it at home. If you're making more money
00:47:37.460than you're spending, you don't want to just keep spending it as fast as you're getting. You want to
00:47:40.980set some aside. At the same time though, you want to knock down the debt and he didn't give a good
00:47:45.880solid, you know, plan on, on where they're going to go and throwing money at the debt yet. But I
00:47:50.560would hope if we keep getting those surpluses, that is indeed where they're going to go. Cause
00:47:53.840the debts, the, the real big long term, scary item that we have sitting there. So just that
00:48:02.380reminder as well as you know he said at the end and I wanted to ask I didn't anticipate him saying
00:48:07.160anything else but they're not going to raise the corporate tax rate again and if you remember the
00:48:12.000first two and a half years basically once the UCP got in opposition leader Rachel Notley
00:48:16.800couldn't go a sentence without going on about her quote unquote four and a half billion dollar tax
00:48:22.740giveaway four and a half billion dollar giveaway to corporate buddies for just on and on it was
00:48:26.840like a broken record. Look, taxes that aren't taken, that's not money given away. See, she
00:48:33.180lives under that assumption that it's the government's money to begin with. It wasn't0.85
00:48:36.360theirs to begin with. So the government taking less doesn't mean they're giving anybody anything.
00:48:41.140They're just giving themselves a little less. And there's no dumber way to try and spur economic
00:48:47.720recovery than to go after and attack businesses and corporations. Raising those taxes on those,
00:48:53.520that low-hanging fruit because you don't have a face you can attach to them necessarily
00:48:57.020and such only hurts you. That means they lay people off. It means they drop their investment.
00:49:02.500It means they move out of the area and of the jurisdiction. If not, they'd been in and still
00:49:06.780hiking those corporate taxes. We know darn well the budget wouldn't be balanced today.
00:49:12.280Part of what's happened, a large chunk of that budget, I looked through it. I mean, again,
00:49:16.420the oil and gas resources were a massive part of it. But the other part was it was personal
00:49:20.240income taxes. Why? Because Albertans have been out there and working and making money and paying
00:49:24.840taxes. And if you go attacking your corporations over and over, like Notley would really like to,
00:49:31.080people aren't going to be working. It's just the dumbest way to balance a budget is to try and
00:49:34.840attack corporate taxes. So getting a confirmation from the finance minister, they have no interest
00:49:39.100in raising those taxes again. That's good. Cheryl saying Edmonton's crying, you got virtually
00:49:44.040nothing from the Alberta budget. Yeah, I know. I mean, but your mayor, unfortunately, is a former
00:49:48.460liberal member of parliament. So it's never going to be enough money for him. Gallery's mayor is no
00:49:52.220better. She's going, she was at least sounding somewhat complimentary on the budget, but was
00:49:58.480talking about more, more, more. Now, you know, the other part is, as I talked about with the
00:50:02.800finance minister, they're increasing spending all over. This isn't a austerity budget. They
00:50:07.660aren't cutting. They increased health, increased education, the works, and still managed to balance
00:50:11.720the budget. So now I'm hoping to see them actually start knocking down the debt. Use that surplus
00:50:17.700wisely as i said at the start of the show you know all of that old alberta advice we got the
00:50:21.700oil boom let's not piss it away this time okay let's go to bc uh we've got mike sidu who is a
00:50:29.060wealth and taxation strategist and he works in the bc where if you really want to see where
00:50:35.460inflation and cost of living is a real factor that's the place for it so we'll bring him into
00:50:40.820the show here and talk a bit hey how's it going mike hey it's going great cory how are you good
00:50:46.340good to virtually meet you you know past those facebook messages to to set this up so uh yeah
00:50:51.700getting you know i talked to uh franco terrazzano a bit earlier too on the bc budget that you guys
00:50:55.620have had come out and another big deficit uh the carbon tax is remaining out there for you guys
00:51:01.300your cost of living i mean boy it's just uh through the roof out there you know and we've
00:51:06.820got inflation approaching we've got uh the bank looking to raise interest rates i'm looking for
00:51:11.860some insight what do you think we got to look forward to well it's interesting because i think
00:51:18.340uh you're seeing the uh federal uh spending with the liberals going one way and the bank of canada
00:51:26.580trying to go the other way didn't christia freeland say in her budget update whatever that meant
00:51:33.220that she was looking to spend another hundred million dollars on covid relief well in order to
00:51:39.620debt finance all of that the bank of canada is going to have to come to the table and finance0.86
00:51:44.420some of that uh debt now on the same time uh the bank of canada who has uh bought billions hundreds
00:51:52.580of billions of dollars of assets in order to bolster their balance sheet most of that coming
00:51:58.740from federal uh bonds uh how are they going to dump bonds in order to raise rates you know for
00:52:07.380those of you who don't know uh the way that a central bank increases or lowers interest rates
00:52:14.420is to either collect or dump assets uh so you know if they if they're going to spend another
00:52:21.220hundred billion dollars corey um bank of canada is going to have to get pretty busy in their
00:52:27.780balancing act of of buying more a hundred billion dollars worth of canadian government bonds because
00:52:34.420I don't think there's another buyer on the market. And at the same time, dumping a net positive
00:52:42.660amount. So are they going to have to sell $150 billion of their assets and reduce
00:52:50.580bank reserves by that amount? It's going to be an interesting couple of years ahead of us,
00:52:55.940I think for sure. Yeah, I think just it's too abstract for a lot of people and I don't blame
00:53:01.700them you know but they don't want to dwell on it but the reality is going to kick us in the butt i
00:53:04.980was kind of actually surprised with the way the world had hiked spending i mean canada is not
00:53:09.140alone in this they all borrowed they spent they essentially printed money uh that the inflation
00:53:15.060didn't hit harder to be honest or more quickly i mean it's starting to catch up and it's putting
00:53:19.860very real pressure on people but it was slower than i would have thought it would happen to have
00:53:23.860Yeah. Well, we come into the laws of, I'm a fan of Austrian economics myself. I like sound money. I like reserve-backed currency. Obviously, we're far beyond that now.
00:53:39.160But you see the average, and I was reading some statistics, late 2020, mid 2021, I haven't looked at them since probably summer last year, was spending, consumer spending.
00:53:53.700So when we see spending going into the market, the more that consumers spend, the higher and more aggressive price inflation becomes.
00:54:03.480but when people are saving their money, we're staving off price inflation because nobody's
00:54:10.360spending it. They're just waiting. They're just on the sidelines waiting. We've seen price
00:54:15.720inflation in the stock market. There's no reason the stock market should be where it's at today.
00:54:20.660There's no reason that we should see the housing market. But of course, that's a municipal and
00:54:26.800federal problem municipalities uh not bringing more supply onto the market uh and the federal
00:54:35.120uh coffers just the spending that's going on by the federal government and money now in the system
00:54:41.760when i've always said this when you have an increased amount of money chasing a limited
00:54:47.200supply of things what is going to happen to the price of those things as consumers chase
00:54:52.800uh those those items especially real estate something tangible uh we haven't seen it's
00:54:59.840it's interesting we we could talk about silver and gold prices uh of course that's that's in the tank
00:55:06.320uh in in my opinion silver right now and and gold doesn't seem to be reacting to this inflation at
00:55:12.080all but anyway yeah i i agree but i think it's it's it's more a sign of a lack of spending you
00:55:20.240you know, money is made by its volume and its velocity. So velocity, meaning how quickly it
00:55:28.480goes through the system and volume. Well, we'll just refer back to our good friend, Milton Friedman,
00:55:33.980who said inflation is an increase in the monetary supply and deflation is a decrease in the
00:55:39.600monetary supply. Okay. So people are sitting on their assets. I mean, it's been unprecedented.
00:55:45.180It's unusual. People stayed locked in their homes. Disposable income, if you could call it that,
00:55:50.420they typically weren't spending it like they used to. They didn't go out to the theater. They didn't
00:55:53.840go. And those are big items. They add up on people. So in keeping those within the house,
00:55:59.240I guess it helps stave off inflation, but that's a terrible way to do it. I mean,
00:56:02.360we've been living a couple of miserable years. I mean, it's not a financial tool. That was just
00:56:06.620a consequence. Absolutely. So, and I guess that's why, I mean, typically when we get something like
00:56:14.000this, you will see precious metals, you know, as people move towards a hedge, you would see them
00:56:17.640rise and spike. And yeah, they haven't really taken off as you would have thought they would.
00:56:21.780No, no. And I'm to be clear, I'm not a bullion specialist, but the people who are in the know,
00:56:29.860I rely on their judgment way more than than me. They're predicting a slingshot effect with silver
00:56:38.860for sure. But I mean, if you take it like going in back to base inflation, and when you take a look
00:56:44.420at food, fuel, housing, all those things that are generally excluded out of the general terms of
00:56:51.540inflation, the best way to avoid inflation is to change the definition of inflation. So the way
00:57:01.580that we define it today is much different than we have defined it say in 1980 or 1990 or anything
00:57:09.040like that. Yeah, well, you got back to the bottom line of supply and demand and pivoting back to
00:57:15.320real estate because you guys have just been, for people with a fixed or lower income, it's pretty
00:57:19.780difficult to break into that market over there right now. Municipal governments have been a large
00:57:25.540part of it. It seems to be these ideologues, these city planners, they feel that if they can just
00:57:29.360squash people into a dense environment, eventually somehow it'll balance itself. And all it really
00:57:34.000does lead to is a lot of budget, right? Yeah, exactly. It'll balance itself. And, and I mean,
00:57:39.660in Calgary, though, we've been able to stave off that effect. What happened here is we ended up
00:57:44.320with a donut. The downtown is darn near empty. Because of all these efforts, what it did is
00:57:47.900actually make people retreat. And our satellite cities have boomed while local development has
00:57:52.380actually slowed down in the city of Calgary. Because we have the room, though, to escape and
00:57:56.100get out with our capital with our feet and move on and actually due to the pandemic people are
00:58:00.500more inclined to but in the lower mainland you don't quite have that open so much area to spread
00:58:06.140out and develop into so what's a way though that they could increase supply to help mitigate some
00:58:11.380of those price spikes well certainly you know there's a big part of me Corey that says
00:58:17.020are municipal councils uh like what role do they play in uh limiting supply and and the
00:58:27.040human psychology is very interesting right so we always think about well why do they do why do
00:58:32.380people act in the way that their environment promotes them to act and i think there's a
00:58:36.480a almost a monopolist type of uh and i love what you were saying earlier about um you know uh
00:58:45.600notly that you know it's not her money to begin with and that's the that's the big fallacy with
00:58:52.560with leftist type governments is that they believe that they are in control that uh
00:58:58.640government comes before the people not people before the government as it does in common law
00:59:06.800so on one hand uh vancouver is the the city proper of vancouver has zero building lots left
00:59:15.600So there is the encouragement to talk about increased density, but in the outlying areas, for example, Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford, you know, even going up to Chilliwack, their prices have risen at a faster rate than the downtown core.
00:59:34.420Not because people that don't know the fact that you're speaking about in Calgary, but I think that's where people are generally gravitating to new immigrants, certainly the Indo-Canadian population in that Fraser Valley area is very, very prominent.
00:59:51.840And a lot of the new immigrants are moving to that area, those Surrey, Langley, Fraser Valley areas.
00:59:57.840so we're seeing an extreme pressure and surrey out of all the municipalities that i have been
01:00:04.960just observing i'm not a real estate specialist although i i have my fingers in the pot in that
01:00:10.000industry and just a lot of people that i again rely on for expert advice uh surrey seems to be
01:00:16.480very pro development uh now of course you know they they also aren't bringing that up with the
01:00:22.800right infrastructure and where are these people going to drive where are these people going how
01:00:26.960they going to transport themselves and and that's the struggle i think is you've got either a pro
01:00:32.000development um you know i'm in victoria today we've got a very pro uh development council here
01:00:40.000in langford western communities uh and a very uh non-pro development in the core downtown victoria
01:00:47.200is is feeling the brunt of the donut effect just as much as i think calgary is
01:00:53.040for sure uh add into that the living conditions downtown you see a lot of for lease uh sales
01:00:59.840signs of uh sorry for lease signs and for sale signs on commercial space and uh the malls are
01:01:07.840empty uh the downtown mall we've got the bay center downtown and that's that's maybe half capacity
01:01:15.440maybe um mayfair mall which is kind of in not in the core but a little bit out further
01:01:21.600that's not at full capacity we had a half billion dollar um uh investment made in something called
01:01:29.200uptown center that's it maybe gosh i want to say maybe even 40 capacity that's really empty
01:01:36.640and and you know you've got one of the major uh leaseholds in there is is walmart and whole foods
01:01:43.120but then the other major store that people realize is the spirit of halloween so that's only temporary
01:01:49.120right that's only two months out of the year but otherwise that space is empty anyway so
01:01:55.200you know from a municipal council side when you limit supply it's almost a protectionism
01:02:01.360mechanism that keeps the the uh pressure on prices at an equilibrium based on what demand is so you
01:02:09.120know uh at fault like i was saying earlier municipalities for not encouraging higher density
01:02:17.600uh for for playing that devil's advocate game they're they're just they're in it they live in
01:02:24.560those communities they're preserving their wealth just like any government who puts uh protectionist
01:02:31.360measures in their legislation also has a similar problem on the uh economic side of things and
01:02:38.140they create monopolies in that way and it was such a crazy irony you know with uh real estate
01:02:44.380prices for homes and everything spreading out and getting so terribly expensive yet central
01:02:48.200commercial real estate you can't give away these days it seems we got the same thing going on in
01:02:52.880calgary i mean we've got over a 30 vacancy rate downtown we're in downtown calgary right now
01:02:57.300and these buildings are are it's almost creepy when you go out and see how empty they are i mean
01:03:03.32030 is the official number realistically i'd say it's closer to 50 but a lot of people still have
01:03:08.240long-term leases or companies do and that that's a real crisis in the making i've got a guest on
01:03:13.420next week to talk about that. These municipal governments have to pivot and understand
01:03:17.820that we need to decentralize populations. You know, people don't have to come to these
01:03:22.280dense cores any longer to work. And if they don't have to, they're willing to move out and that's
01:03:26.640what they're doing. Yeah. It's really interesting. The downtown Vancouver story is a little bit of
01:03:31.840an anomaly because you've got Microsoft opening a huge downtown office. Amazon is opening a huge,
01:03:41.440huge center right in downtown Vancouver, uh, not as a distribution center, but as a, uh,
01:03:48.340as an administrative hub. Um, there, there's a huge pressure even on commercial, uh, uh, spaces
01:03:56.100in downtown Vancouver, but that seems to be a bit of an anomaly. You've not seen that certainly here
01:04:00.540in Victoria as far as what I have, have seen and experienced. I, I'm, I'm able to stand corrected
01:04:07.100if somebody's got different statistics on that.
01:04:09.860But certainly Vancouver just seems to be really weird.
01:04:12.540One of my friends, good friends, is a commercial realtor,
01:04:36.540but how could you ever know? I mean, it's just so bizarre still, and we're adapting to it.
01:04:41.840I believe in our solutions, you and I would be among the same thing. If you're talking
01:04:45.200Austrian economics, it's just get the government out of the way. People will vote with their feet,
01:04:49.620they'll vote with their dollars, and they will settle where it's sustainable. Just leave it
01:04:52.920alone. But when they keep trying to cork the bottle, they're just causing more damage. And
01:04:56.780it's just leaking out all over in an uncontrolled way anyhow. Well, I would posit this. When was
01:05:02.640last time we actually had real deflation in our country? I'll wait. Deflation. When was the last
01:05:09.900time we actually had a deflationary correction economy that was protracted for a period of one
01:05:18.080to two years? Maybe 1982, but I don't really call that protracted. The problem is that we've had
01:05:28.980unfettered expansion, loose monetary policy, higher stimulus coming from either lower interest
01:05:38.980rates, manipulated interest rates, or manipulated monetary supply, which has propped up our,
01:05:46.180and I would argue since the beginning of the Bank of Canada, who was established as a response to
01:05:53.060the u.s federal reserve act in 1913 who was established for protecting the economy against
01:06:02.260really bad uh defaults in the banking system and of course now we understand that the bank of canada
01:06:09.460is a uh is the backstop not only are they the almost essentially the exchequer like in the
01:06:15.460british system uh they clear everything on behalf of the banks they provide reserves to the banks
01:06:20.820And, you know, speaking of inflating the monetary supply, when the central bank, say, increases their assets by a million dollars, well, what does that allow the banks to do is lend on that reserve and continue to multiply the value.
01:06:39.540So, you know, the Bank of Canada, as we have seen in monetary, you know, expansion of assets and then decreasing the assets of the bank, we've seen the M2 continue to go up independently of where the Bank of Canada assets.
01:06:57.940You know, you're going to have, you know, smaller effects on that when the Bank of Canada sells off assets and reduces the assets on hand.
01:07:06.520But the impact of inflation is only there as a response to what the Bank of Canada has done.
01:07:16.200And it's permanent even after the Bank of Canada decides to do something else.
01:09:05.180What do you think about the effect of the World Economic Forum on the political spectrum for people that aren't around, that never knew, they couldn't even spell Klaus Schwab, let alone know who he was?
01:09:21.040uh crypto man that has been the most interesting thing and and you know there's a lot of smarter
01:09:28.900people than me on this topic that are talking about uh you know what's going to happen or is
01:09:34.280the u.s federal reserve going to come out with fed coin or is the bank of canada going to move
01:09:39.360to digital currency and and therefore um a guy that i like watching on youtube from time to time
01:09:45.820is george gammon who's a economist uh fairly austrian a little bit out there for some people
01:09:53.560i think but um you know what he predicted was did federal digital currency will be the easiest way
01:10:01.400to usher in universal basic income right that's what i know for sure is that when you just get a
01:10:08.380deposit in your bank and if you don't spend it then it's taken back from you how how else can
01:10:16.320you what better way can you do to grease the wheels of an economy when you have a federally
01:10:21.240legislated crypto dollar that when you get universal basic income you can't just save it
01:10:27.700and hold on to it for what the austrian what misa says is the motor of the economy is in saving
01:10:34.880or kane said the motor of the economy is in spending and even though uh john maynard canes
01:10:40.640has been refuted time and time again the poll the political goal to be able to create the illusion
01:10:46.880of wealth the illusion of of of success is to finance your way through uh uh building a higher
01:10:56.640number on your balance sheet but that doesn't i mean wealth is really production right it's how
01:11:01.200we how we can produce and use that production to consume rather than just this nefarious amount of
01:11:06.960dollars that's just floating around just because my dad bought a house for fourteen thousand dollars
01:11:11.920in 1970 doesn't make that house now worth a million in victoria right the house isn't the
01:11:19.920wood is not worth that much the the population hasn't expanded all that much it's all comes
01:11:26.560back to, circles back to spending, government spending, inflationary pressure by loose monetary
01:11:34.000policy. Yeah. Well, and some of that too, I mean, I grew up in Banff and my father's still out in
01:11:40.200Canmore. I mean, Canmore has really been kind of the expansion outside of Banff because Banff's
01:11:44.420a national park. It's capped, but the battles now, every time there's a new district to be built,
01:11:50.200everybody who's got a place in Canmore, it fights it tooth and nail. They say, absolutely not.
01:11:54.500we're, I got mine now. I don't want anybody else to get theirs. And that it puts, of course,
01:11:59.620they don't want to, they know if there's a new development as well, their own property values
01:12:02.460could potentially at least, if not drop, they won't grow as quickly. So there's unfortunately
01:12:06.740a consumer incentive for those who are already in to block others from getting in on that market.
01:12:10.680And that's sort of destructive as well. Absolutely. And that circles back to the
01:12:14.660municipalities vested interest in, in not expanding or bringing new developments online
01:12:21.760or fighting it or nimbyism you know not in my backyard mentality yeah and we're all paying
01:12:29.600the price for it well i'll let you go it was a very interesting conversation you know we're uh
01:12:34.680i mean there's going to be a lot to study and break down as i said there's just so many things
01:12:38.560happening now that we've never seen in human history you know you talk about the the austrian
01:12:42.580greats but they couldn't have foreseen this as you said if we could dig them up and hold a seance
01:12:45.880they were brilliant people they could probably come up with some things to uh talk about and