Western Standard - LIVE - Triggered： Welcome back to the cold war

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's February 25th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. This is the

00:00:38.320 Western Standards Live Daily Show. We come to you Monday to Friday at 11.30 Mountain

00:00:43.580 Standard Time, usually for an hour and a half or so. We have a couple of guests on.

00:00:48.820 We have interaction. We talk. I rant about current issues, of course. It's a good daily

00:00:54.960 dose for a lot of Albertans to catch up and Westerners in general, as we see from Peter

00:00:59.500 Petrovsky commenting from Ontario, Canada. It's the great thing with these new media these days,

00:01:03.920 you know, when we could set up and create a broadcast that can get right across the country

00:01:07.440 like this, as opposed to the old days when you had to have some giant government institution like the

00:01:12.360 nasty old CBC in order to deal with these things. So those comments are great. Keep them coming,

00:01:18.480 keep them civil. Something we got to watch for us, you know, hey, real Canadian girl in Leftbridge 0.85

00:01:24.240 there, is we do want to avoid some spamming. Some people have really been blasting a lot of links up

00:01:28.300 on the comments, stretching, things like that.

00:01:30.460 And, you know, we want some discourse.

00:01:31.780 We don't mind sharing some information.

00:01:32.960 But if links keep getting plastered up there,

00:01:35.520 it'll trip the algorithm and you'll get shut off from commenting.

00:01:37.920 So just to keep that in mind.

00:01:39.420 But, I mean, you know, throw forward questions to myself,

00:01:41.900 to my guests, statements, tell us how we're doing.

00:01:44.740 And we'll see if we can get them up on there.

00:01:46.580 I got a packed show today.

00:01:47.680 I got Franco Tarzano.

00:01:48.680 He's on quite often in the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:01:51.720 We got Edith in Nova Scotia.

00:01:53.760 And he's going to be talking about the BC budget

00:01:56.820 and some of the crazy stuff going on, members of parliament are getting raises, they're getting

00:02:00.840 richer while we're all suffering. Then there's going to be an interview I did have. We could

00:02:06.160 only capture them just before, but this morning I spoke with our Alberta finance minister,

00:02:10.200 Travis Tays, about the budget. We've balanced the budget in Alberta for the very first time

00:02:14.660 since 2008. That's a long time, but it's certainly good news. But of course, if people remember the

00:02:21.360 old bumper sticker that used to go around with Alberta saying, oh God, please let me get another

00:02:25.900 oil boom. I promise not to piss it away this time. Well, we do that every time.

00:02:30.760 We'll see if the government is responsible with this boom right now, and hopefully we'll all pay

00:02:35.440 off with it later. And we've got people from across the country today. Sarnia, great. Sarnia

00:02:40.420 is dealing with line five, you know, speaking of energy security and fighting with the governor down

00:02:46.600 in, it's Minnesota, isn't it? Yes. Either way, they're trying to shut down Canadian oil,

00:02:53.140 getting across into there. There's a lot of threats going on. St. John, New Brunswick. Wow,

00:02:56.540 we're all over today. Thanks guys for tuning in. So I'm going to get on with things I also have

00:03:00.340 after the finance minister, BC tax and wealth strategist, Mike Sidhu, and he's going to talk

00:03:04.640 in on inflation and its impact. So it's a big financial PAC show today, but I mean, these are

00:03:09.100 important. Michigan. Thank you, Shirley. I don't know why I was slipping on that. I've written

00:03:12.980 enough columns on it. I should know better. So I count on you guys to help me out here.

00:03:17.140 So let's talk about some other news besides the financial stuff though, that has got me

00:03:21.460 triggered concern worked up today. Basically, welcome back to the Cold War. I grew up in the

00:03:28.040 tail end of that prolonged, tense international standoff, but I remembered very well. My parents,

00:03:33.300 of course, could relate to the terror of living under the constant threat of nuclear attack.

00:03:37.440 Most of us have seen the imagery of those drills with schoolchildren having to crouch under their

00:03:41.280 desks in case Russia was about to launch a nuclear missile strike. I think even a kindergartner

00:03:46.980 would know just how little protection a school desk would provide if there was to be a nuclear

00:03:50.880 War, but I guess they had to try to do something. It must have been terrifying. The risk of nuclear

00:03:55.300 war wasn't as acute in the 70s and 80s, but we always knew it was there. It was a favorite 1.00

00:03:59.540 subject of high-tension drama movies, and there was no end to the novels set in dystopian post-nuclear

00:04:05.500 war world scenarios. Every town had an air raid siren, for those of us my age, you remember. We

00:04:10.400 always had them. They were always there, and it wasn't the top of your mind, but you could never

00:04:14.700 forget at any time as well, you could suddenly be vaporized if those missiles launch. Cooler mines

00:04:20.040 are prevailing right now. And while the world's enraged and horrified with Russia's invasion of 0.96

00:04:23.920 Ukraine, no leaders or nations, thankfully, are threatening or planning to enter a direct war

00:04:29.120 with Russia over it. So while sanctions have a limited impact at best on Putin's plans,

00:04:34.760 they're still preferable to entering in what would quickly turn into a third world war.

00:04:38.720 We just don't want to see that. As horrible as it is in Ukraine, we do not want to see a big 1.00

00:04:43.980 world ground war going on. So now we're entering the long game, and it's going to be reminiscent 0.97

00:04:48.940 into the Cold War. We have multiple world superpowers, all in tense conflict, and all

00:04:55.000 capable of nuclear war. Now, while I doubt the threat of a nuclear strike is imminent,

00:04:59.060 we're now closer to that kind of mutually assured destruction than we've been in over 30 years.

00:05:04.040 What we're likely going to be seeing is an increase in espionage-related incidents and

00:05:07.680 cyber attacks between nations, border skirmishes perhaps in Eastern Europe, along with heated

00:05:12.240 exchanges and ongoing tensions between world leaders. Proxy battles are probably going to

00:05:17.280 develop again as the superpowers use smaller nations in order to fight their battles for them.

00:05:21.360 That's what they did in the Cold War. What would have been smaller civil battles, civil wars,

00:05:26.120 would turn into lasting civil wars as foreign powers pump arms, funds, and training towards

00:05:31.160 the faction of their preference. I had the opportunity to see this firsthand in Guatemala

00:05:34.820 in 1989. That country was wracked in a civil war that lasted from 1960 until 1996. The Americans

00:05:42.020 supported the government, while the communist nations supported the guerrilla forces. The

00:05:46.060 Government used death squads to keep civilians compliant while rebels slaughtered anybody

00:05:50.660 thought to be complicit with the state. It was such a beautiful country with fantastic people

00:05:55.060 and abundant resources when I went there. But what I also saw, of course, was rampant poverty,

00:06:00.260 fear, and dysfunction. Couldn't even go to a bank without an armed guard, and the bank had a machine

00:06:04.380 gun nest outside of it. It's unlikely that that war would have lasted the nearly 50 years it did

00:06:10.120 without the Cold War feeding it, and it's no coincidence that that war ended within a few

00:06:14.320 years of the collapse of the Soviet empire. This situation was repeated throughout Central America

00:06:18.900 and around the world as superpowers used developing nations as their pawns rather than putting their

00:06:23.360 own troops at risk. Now while the Soviet Union and the United States never formally engaged in a war

00:06:28.500 their cold war caused death and misery for millions of people for decades. Now thankfully again there's 0.84

00:06:34.540 no appetite for open pitched battle between western nations and Russia. I do fear though that we might 0.99

00:06:38.980 sink yet again into another cold war as these nations try to battle in other ways. In fact

00:06:43.980 I don't know how we're going to avoid it. As Russia settles into Ukraine, nations won't quickly 0.99

00:06:49.260 accept this status and just let it go. They're going to seek indirect ways of retaliation to 0.63

00:06:53.240 put pressure upon Russia. It all sounds chillingly familiar. After two miserable years of the

00:06:58.240 pandemic, I've been looking forward to a world recovery and hopefully, you know, returning some

00:07:03.160 sort of normalcy again. Now it appears we're moving out of one long crisis and right into

00:07:08.200 another one. That makes it really hard to maintain faith in humanity at times. I swear,

00:07:12.500 it just seems that we don't like living unless we're at each other's throats.

00:07:16.920 Time will tell. Let's try and maintain some optimism, but I got a feeling we're in for

00:07:21.100 a long, very different world coming up ahead of us now that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

00:07:26.260 Now, let's check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor, and see what's happening a little closer

00:07:31.660 to home or perhaps in Ukraine. How's it going, Dave? Just going to get your sound up there.

00:07:39.500 it's just going to take a second. No, I'm afraid I don't. I can hear you through the wall. I can

00:07:47.520 read your lips a little, but we don't seem to have sound going on quite yet. Sorry about that.

00:07:51.720 It was on my end, my fault. No worries. Happy Friday, Corey. Yes, thank you. It's been a long

00:07:58.420 week. Hey, did you happen to catch John Kerry on BBC yesterday? No, I didn't actually. Well,

00:08:06.300 He's the former U.S. Secretary of State and now in charge of climate change for Joe Biden.

00:08:12.620 And he was interviewed on BBC about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

00:08:17.580 And you know what he answered?

00:08:19.240 He was worried about what it's going to do to climate emissions.

00:08:22.540 I guess these big heavy tanks spew up a lot of fumes.

00:08:27.240 So he's worried about that instead of the countless lives that are being lost

00:08:32.820 and a sovereign country being invaded.

00:08:35.640 So our columnist, Mike Thomas, tears them up a little bit on that one.

00:08:42.840 That's on the website right now.

00:08:45.680 Speaking of the Ukraine, we have astonishing video of a poor guy driving along the streets in Kiev.

00:08:54.400 And he's run over by a tank, literally squashed underneath the belly of a tank.

00:09:00.140 And he survives.

00:09:01.960 They cut to it and he's being cut out of the wreckage.

00:09:04.840 It'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.

00:09:19.240 Other stuff that we've got on the go at the moment.

00:09:24.000 Edmonton 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.

00:09:35.520 A story about bureaucracy gone wild.

00:09:40.380 There was a TV station in Kitchener, Ontario that did a story on a residential school.

00:09:47.200 And the anchor slipped up, and instead of calling it residential school, he called it a residential camp.

00:09:55.380 A single viewer didn't like that and complained to the Broadcasting Standards people who launched an investigation.

00:10:02.560 And yes, the TV network has been censored for their slip-up, saying if journalists can't be getting to trust their words, then no one can.

00:10:13.860 Because words is our business, Corey, as you know.

00:10:18.480 Freedom Convoy, if you had a bank account frozen because you donated 20 bucks to it, chances of are it still may be frozen.

00:10:27.220 The Senate heard that yesterday from a federal regulator.

00:10:35.020 Canadian lawmakers.

00:10:36.360 Canada 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.

00:10:49.320 And 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.

00:10:59.920 And we've got a column from one of Franco's colleagues, Chris Sims, out at the British

00:11:06.540 Columbia Taxpayers Foundation.

00:11:09.360 Interesting story about an Alberta man that has been slapped with a very unfair BC tax

00:11:15.080 bill.

00:11:15.860 That's a very interesting read.

00:11:18.520 Dave Makachuk has also got a column on the heartbreaking scenes across the Ukraine.

00:11:26.300 So that's what's up there at the moment, Corey.

00:11:28.580 Our reporter, Amber, is working on a very interesting story at the moment on a couple in Ontario.

00:11:36.360 Mother didn't want the kid vaccinated.

00:11:39.080 Dad did.

00:11:41.000 A court justice in Ontario has ruled on the side of the mother.

00:11:46.220 Unusual.

00:11:46.840 Most court rulings have gone on the side of the parent who wanted the child to get vaccinated.

00:11:51.600 And the judge has some very, very interesting comments.

00:11:53.960 So that will be coming up shortly.

00:11:56.060 So people can look for that on the site, Corey.

00:11:58.580 Great. Well, we'll look forward to those news updates and seeing them as they're coming up. Dave, thank you very much.

00:12:04.200 You bet. Have a good show.

00:12:05.680 Great. Thanks.

00:12:06.900 So 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.

00:12:13.840 So be sure and remember, take out a subscription. This is how we can do it.

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00:13:06.380 because they realize it's the best $10 they could possibly spend. I'm going to run a quick ad from

00:13:12.100 one of our sponsors here, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about the news

00:13:15.680 before Franco comes in here. Algodex is owned by Algonata. This is great new technology just

00:13:23.700 coming online now in the digital currency world algodex is a great way for you to use the digital

00:13:30.580 currency algorand in your day-to-day transactions can you imagine a world where you don't have to

00:13:36.900 buy a cup of coffee using the federal dollar and you don't even have to use the american federal

00:13:40.980 dollar you don't have to use the euro or the pounds sterling you can use real money digital

00:13:46.900 currencies that are not at the beck and call of governments and inflation the algodex is making

00:13:52.180 digital currencies usable in a day-to-day basis. Yes, digital currencies, we talk about those a

00:14:01.380 lot and you know we're talking about a lot of financial issues today. As Dave was talking about

00:14:05.620 the people still have their bank accounts seized right now. I mean look at the absurdity of this.

00:14:11.780 I'm certain the courts are going to be going over this for, unfortunately, the speed they go for

00:14:16.100 years. But I mean if you made a $20, a $50 donation and suddenly you're going to have your accounts

00:14:21.380 frozen for an interminable amount of time. Look at the damage that's doing to some of these people.

00:14:26.660 How do you pay your mortgage? How do you make your car payments? If you've been separated,

00:14:30.380 how do you pay your child support? This is huge punitive measures against somebody who

00:14:34.680 just innocently donated to a protest. I mean, despite what some others are saying,

00:14:40.380 it was definitely a peaceful protest. There was civil disobedience. They broke the law being

00:14:45.860 parked there and things like that. People weren't donating to a terrorist movement or an insurrection

00:14:50.500 to take over the government. It's crazy. And now that that precedent's been set, this is when,

00:14:55.920 well, you might want to start making sure that not all your eggs are in one basket and you consider

00:15:00.440 things like digital currencies to hedge yourself against those sort of incursions from the federal

00:15:05.540 government. And boy, they're getting bold with what they take. You know, I read that court ruling

00:15:10.400 that Dave was talking about, and it was unusual. And what was really interesting, and Amber's going

00:15:15.020 to have that on the site pretty soon, was this judge, he didn't just rule in favor of the parent

00:15:19.500 who chose not to vaccinate the child, but he ripped into it. I mean, the text from his ruling

00:15:26.400 was fantastic. It was almost a column on its own. This judge was very upset with people basically

00:15:32.600 being pushed around for their political differences and views. It wasn't going into the health issues.

00:15:37.020 The bottom line is it's, you know, parental choice, their ideas. And I guess it sounds like some of

00:15:41.940 the stuff came up in the courts that, you know, one of them might be politically supporting the

00:15:45.840 wrong party. And this infuriated the judge. So do watch for that story because it's refreshing

00:15:50.240 to see a justice stand up and break from the ranks and say, hey, hey, hey, this isn't the

00:15:55.240 sort of thing we're supposed to rule on. And this isn't what we get in the middle of. It's going to

00:15:59.300 be a very good story there. Yeah, that residential school thing, you know, talking about independent

00:16:04.900 media, that one's already up on the Western Standard. I went and looked at that story

00:16:08.160 just before the show started here. And it's crazy. I mean, this is how bad it's getting. And again,

00:16:14.400 this is why independent media is so important. We're not part of the CRTC. We don't get spanked

00:16:18.240 and slapped by these regulatory groups. Well, the government wants to come after us. Don't forget

00:16:22.240 C11. That's the next big battle. They want to take publications like the Western Standard and

00:16:27.520 either shut us down or tell us what to say. We're not going to do that. Just that reminder for

00:16:32.120 people, if you're watching us on YouTube or Facebook, that's great. But I do suggest people

00:16:36.300 get over to Rumble. We're on there as well. We streamed all of them at the same time.

00:16:40.400 And that way, if Facebook, you know, we can't rely on these guys necessarily, or one of the others

00:16:44.860 decides to punt us, you can still catch these shows. And yeah, some little slip of the tongue

00:16:49.940 to refer to a residential school as a residential camp. Big friggin deal. Well, this caused one 0.98

00:16:57.040 single complaint, and that's all it took. And the Broadcast Standards Council gave them a slap on

00:17:02.840 the butt for it said it demonstrated the lack of necessary respect. Really? I mean, this is, 0.97

00:17:09.740 you know, just ridiculous. How are you supposed to move as a broadcaster if that's what you're 0.88

00:17:16.540 stuck by? But that's what we're talking about. That's part of why we put this show together.

00:17:19.560 I grew up on talk radio. I grew up on some nice edgy hosts getting in there and digging into

00:17:25.480 tough issues and not being afraid of being a little controversial, not being afraid of

00:17:30.240 breaking away from the mainstream view and now you listen to talk radio it's boring it's dull

00:17:37.280 as dishwater because those who remain in it they might be might be good hosts or were at one time

00:17:42.700 they're terrified they make sure their show is as vanilla as possible so that they can don't end up

00:17:49.140 getting canceled or shut down like so many other hosts and shows out there have already it's just

00:17:53.860 trash so it's not even the bias you're talking about we're just talking about the boredom they

00:17:57.920 won't rant. They won't, uh, you know, cut in on an issue, put out a point of view. And if that's

00:18:03.600 the case, then I might as well just read press releases, you know, just, just, just follow the

00:18:09.040 party line. And that's where we're at right now with these things. And it's not a good place for

00:18:14.780 media. So let's see what else we've got going on the news. Franco should be here any moment now.

00:18:19.940 Yeah. Oh yes. Uh, you know, that's interesting when, uh, John Kerry was the one that Dave was

00:18:23.580 talking about who's up and worried about climate change rather than actual damage on the ground

00:18:29.760 and wars. If you do recall, John Kerry got his start as, I believe, an anti-Vietnam protester.

00:18:35.300 I could be wrong. This is going before my time, but I think he was one of those veterans. He did

00:18:40.200 serve his time in Vietnam, but then came back and protested against the war itself. So this is a man

00:18:44.080 who should understand that the bigger issue with this war isn't the climate change, the increase

00:18:52.040 of diesel from the tanks or the explosions, it's people getting killed. It's homes getting

00:18:57.440 blown up. It's a country getting taken over by an authoritarian regime. I see some of that

00:19:02.960 discussion going on with people saying, you know, it's kind of gross seeing some people parroting

00:19:06.780 Putin's line, but whatever. He's not liberating Ukraine. They don't want to be liberated. Yes,

00:19:12.300 I've seen some, I guess you could say Putin fart catchers out there saying, you know, there was

00:19:16.840 corruption going on in the Ukraine. Well, welcome to Eastern Europe. That's every country there, 0.99

00:19:20.540 but they still have a great deal more independence than they ever had under the Soviet bloc. That was

00:19:24.500 a sick, sick regime. And there was corruption then. I talked earlier about my having traveled 0.99

00:19:29.600 to Guatemala. I also went to the Soviet Union in 1987. And I tell you, that's not a world you want

00:19:34.540 to live in. Russia is a grand, giant, fantastic country with some unique people is the best way

00:19:40.780 to put it. They're tough. They're strange. But to get that empire going again, that authoritarianism

00:19:46.860 in Eastern Europe to those independent states is wrong. It's wrong on every level. You're

00:19:51.220 concerned about corruption within Ukraine, report on it, talk about it, take it to other

00:19:57.560 international groups and commissions, but you don't invade them. There's no excuses for that.

00:20:04.360 There's no reasoning. So sorry, Putin is on the wrong side of history here, guys,

00:20:08.540 and there's no defending what he's doing over there right now. And as Dave said, there's some

00:20:12.060 interesting videos out there. The one that was posted, he talked about is good because the

00:20:16.760 person came out of it unharmed. There's also, uh, uh, you know, going to be some awful videos

00:20:23.380 out there too. So, so that one had a good ending. Be careful though, when you're looking, we're

00:20:26.880 getting live streamed war, like we've never seen before. And, and, uh, you know, there's going to

00:20:30.420 be some pretty traumatic scenes out there. So moving away from that, let's get to some domestic

00:20:34.700 talk and bring Franco Tarizano. He's the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on,

00:20:39.920 uh, he's been on the phone or on the phone, on the show a number of times before, because

00:20:44.100 there's always money things to talk about. How's it going Franco? Hey man I'm doing well thanks

00:20:47.800 again for having me on. No problem so we've got budgets dropping all over the place it's that

00:20:53.080 time of year I guess. Alberta's got theirs I'll be talking about that later. Federal government

00:20:59.280 will have one I imagine sometime soon and BC just went through theirs that's where we'd like to

00:21:03.540 begin here though eh? Yeah that's right I was actually shipped out to back out west to Victoria

00:21:08.780 had to cover the BC budget, which just came out on Tuesday. Corey, all in all, a failing grade

00:21:15.700 from the Taxpayers Federation. That's what we're giving the government of BC an F. And we're doing

00:21:20.580 that for two reasons, Corey. Number one, there's absolutely zero plan to balance the budget. No

00:21:26.520 timeline, nothing like that that was in the budget. And number two, they could have balanced

00:21:32.240 the budget in 2021 if they just stuck with their own spending plans that they had in their last

00:21:37.900 budget, but they couldn't even do that. They went over budget. And that's why you still see a

00:21:42.360 deficit in British Columbia in 2021. And of course, another deficit means more money that has to be

00:21:47.340 borrowed, which means more money wasted on interest payments. Yeah, well, it's something

00:21:51.500 we've pointed to a lot in the past. It was BC quite often used to spend less per capita than

00:21:55.660 Alberta, at least. Yeah, significantly less. Big time less. They have more revenue challenges,

00:22:01.180 I guess, to a degree. So it still leads to problems balancing their budget at that point.

00:22:04.760 Well, the biggest issue right now that we're seeing from the British Columbia government

00:22:09.740 is really just a lack of prioritization across the board, right? Like I said, if they just stuck

00:22:16.760 with their own spending plans that they created for themselves in their last budget, it wasn't

00:22:21.220 like it was the CTF's budget plan. If they just stuck with their own spending, they would have

00:22:25.920 balanced the budget in 2021. So we did see a smaller deficit than expected in 2021 in BC.

00:22:32.660 So I guess, hey, a smaller deficit is better than a bigger deficit, right?

00:22:36.700 But there shouldn't be a deficit at all.

00:22:38.680 If they just stuck with their own plans, they would have balanced their budget.

00:22:43.020 Yeah, well, and one of the areas that BC has had for quite a long time has been their carbon tax.

00:22:47.340 We've been critical of them for quite some time on that.

00:22:51.660 There's no indications of tax relief coming in BC anytime in the near future or anything like that either.

00:22:56.160 No, no broad-based tax relief.

00:22:58.900 And Corey, you're right when you talk about BC's carbon tax.

00:23:02.660 I know in Alberta, one of the big issues is the federal carbon tax.

00:23:07.840 Well, the birthplace of the federal carbon tax isn't Ottawa, it's Victoria, it's British

00:23:13.000 Columbia.

00:23:13.560 That's really the model that the federal government has been using.

00:23:18.580 Now, in British Columbia, though, we have seen that their carbon tax has been the highest

00:23:23.180 in Canada for years.

00:23:24.580 But despite having that high carbon tax, we see emissions continue to go up in British

00:23:30.040 Columbia, right?

00:23:31.260 So that really just goes back to this whole point that the carbon tax is really a tax plan.

00:23:35.420 It's not an environmental plan.

00:23:37.240 Of course, we saw during the first year of the federal carbon tax, emissions went up

00:23:41.520 across Canada as well.

00:23:42.960 And Corey, as you know all too well, when we talk about the environment, we have to

00:23:47.960 take a global approach.

00:23:49.900 And Canada only makes up about 1.5% of global emissions.

00:23:53.860 So even if the federal government brought all of our industries to a screeching halt,

00:23:58.400 it would cause a bunch of pain.

00:23:59.980 But even then, it still wouldn't do much for the environment. 0.79

00:24:03.340 No, but the federal government does sometimes seem determined to bring all our industries to a screeching halt anyways.

00:24:08.340 I mean, that's the main point that it has to keep going.

00:24:10.500 We can't pretend that a carbon tax hasn't been tried.

00:24:12.440 We can't pretend that it's just come in.

00:24:14.300 It's been in place for years in B.C.

00:24:15.880 And if that basis for having one, if that justification for it was real, they would have had lowered emissions by now.

00:24:23.560 Yeah, emissions continue to go up, though, Corey.

00:24:25.580 Lighter wallets, higher emissions.

00:24:27.680 Corey, and I just want to circle back to the BC government's budget just for a quick second,

00:24:31.920 because you kind of asked like, well, where are the problems are? And I want to really talk about

00:24:36.860 the overspending. Now, I've been getting a lot of questions from many different people saying,

00:24:42.180 well, hold on a second there, Franco. I mean, pandemic, there was flooding in British Columbia.

00:24:47.540 So maybe a deficit is warranted in 2021. But again, we have to go back to the fact that if

00:24:54.740 the BC government just stuck with its own budget plans, there would be no deficit in 2021. And

00:25:00.780 that should have been doable because even under those spending plans, Corey, they were still

00:25:05.780 spending about $10 billion more than normal years. Now, if we look down the road to about 2024,

00:25:14.060 they're going to be spending $15 billion more than normal years of budgeting. So what that tells

00:25:21.640 us, Corey, is that they have no plans to balance the budget because they want to use the fog of

00:25:27.480 COVID-19 to go on a debt-fueled spending binge. Well, I mean, most places are starting to realize

00:25:34.020 that, you know, that this is endemic. It's not going away. We've got to start looking at the

00:25:37.640 long plan. COVID-19, the pandemic may indeed keep costing us extra money, costing extra health care

00:25:43.820 expenditures, but we got a budget for that, not use it as an excuse just to go wild and talk about

00:25:48.480 this is a crisis that's going to rise and drop sometime soon. That's absolutely correct. That's

00:25:54.140 absolutely correct. It's one thing to focus your resources on an issue that is really pressing,

00:26:00.680 but it's another thing, and it's completely wrong to just budget like you want to spend more money

00:26:06.120 on everything forever, right? That's not really budgeting. Families, businesses, they know that's

00:26:11.200 not sustainable, but not only are we seeing that in British Columbia, of course, we're seeing that

00:26:16.340 federal government as well. Now let's talk about one of the good provinces that we're seeing

00:26:21.120 fiscally, New Brunswick. We're actually seeing New Brunswick starting to reduce its debt because

00:26:26.540 it's accumulating larger surpluses. And what did New Brunswick do? Well, New Brunswick did prioritize

00:26:33.160 spending on the pandemic, but it held the line on other areas of the budget. And that's something

00:26:40.380 that we should be seeing across Canada, similar to that, right? I think families understand that

00:26:45.460 if you have a leaky roof, fix the roof, but don't go blow money with your credit card on a flat

00:26:52.040 screen, a few ATVs and a couple of BMWs, right? Well, that's exactly what the federal government

00:26:57.920 is doing. And that's similar to what's happening in British Columbia. Yeah. So are you still out

00:27:02.600 there right now? No, I'm back in Ottawa. Okay. I was just wondering, so what are the gas prices

00:27:07.220 looking like at the pump over there right now? Did you get a chance to see any of those? I know

00:27:11.000 it was like a close to a dollar 80 a dollar 80 yeah it was absolutely crazy i i was talking to

00:27:18.280 a cab driver about that and uh it was really unimaginable you know i'm in ottawa right now

00:27:23.400 it's it's around a dollar 50 i believe last i can remember uh which even there is quite high

00:27:29.800 cory i mean we've been dealing with these uh sky high gas prices what since about thanksgiving

00:27:35.000 weekend. So it's absolutely crazy how people are getting soaked at the pumps. And what's so

00:27:41.360 unfortunate is that Ottawa is making these tough times tougher. We got a carbon tax hike right

00:27:47.140 around the corner, April 1, the federal carbon tax is going up. And while Ottawa is raising taxes,

00:27:52.420 you have a number of other countries that are providing relief. You have South Korea just

00:27:58.020 reduced gas taxes by 20%. India cut gas taxes as well. You have countries like Spain, like France

00:28:06.200 that are reducing their electricity taxes as well. Yeah, I'm seeing quite something when Italy and

00:28:14.520 Spain are the ones leading us in responsibility and tax reduction. Maybe Greece will be passing

00:28:19.560 us pretty soon on that front. So pivoting onto the federal front, you'd written a column recently on

00:28:25.920 that and uh we've got uh they seem to be doing okay through this crisis uh federal employees

00:28:30.680 members of parliament and such yeah yeah that's absolutely correct i mean over the last two years

00:28:36.160 uh the the decisions made by those in power have been full of pain right tax increases revolving

00:28:43.380 government lockdowns but i think we need to call a spade a spade here it's pretty clear that those

00:28:48.800 who've been making those decisions that have been that have been causing a ton of pain have shielded

00:28:53.380 themselves from that pain, right? Our wallets are getting lighter because taxes are going up,

00:28:59.960 because inflation is going up. Well, it seems like people in Ottawa are doing pretty good right now.

00:29:06.120 You've had members of parliament that have taken two pay raises during the pandemic. They're

00:29:10.960 scheduled to take their third pay raise in about a month. You have more than 300,000 federal

00:29:16.800 government employees that received at least one raise during the pandemic. If you add provincial

00:29:21.600 employees on top of that. The number goes up to over 500,000 government employees that received

00:29:27.060 at least one raise. And Corey, not a single federal or provincial government bureaucrat has

00:29:32.780 received a pay cut during this downturn. So you have the people who are in power making the tough

00:29:38.360 times tougher for the private sector. But I mean, hey, they're not really being impacted at all from

00:29:43.820 any of this. And what was it in your column? I'm sorry, I'm just going on memory here. I read it

00:29:48.400 earlier this morning. Something about CERB payments potentially going to businesses in Ottawa or

00:29:52.540 something like that? So that wasn't in the column, but this is something that you and I have been

00:29:56.320 talking about offline. So Ottawa announced that there was about what, about $20 million an ounce

00:30:03.140 for the businesses that decided to shut down during the trucker convoy. And there was another

00:30:08.520 group, one from Vancouver, who I debated on radio, who's calling for CERB payments for the workers

00:30:15.460 of those businesses that shut down and and cory i mean we really feel for the many workers and the

00:30:22.720 many businesses that have been taking it on the chin over the last two years as governments have

00:30:27.860 forced them to lock down but we don't think that taxpayers should be paying any more money for

00:30:32.580 these serb like programs to the businesses that decided to close down in ottawa right i live right

00:30:40.040 on rideau street i work right by parliament hill so i was right in the middle of the trucker convoy

00:30:46.360 and i can tell you that there were many businesses that decided to stay open and as i could see it

00:30:52.060 looked like many were very busy and they shouldn't have to pay a higher tax bill so businesses like

00:30:58.300 the rideau center could choose to close down yeah well there's some of an irony there there was one

00:31:04.480 business that was getting in trouble because they had been serving some of the protesters they had

00:31:07.860 been open for business and trying to pay their bills. And then that was considered supporting

00:31:11.920 the protesters. What a crazy time we're in. I mean, yeah, so we're looking at turning CERB. I

00:31:17.860 mean, it's a different approach. I mean, if people start looking at this as something you

00:31:22.180 can turn off again and on again and use in different areas, we're getting closer to a

00:31:26.200 universal basic income idea, which is kind of scary. Oh, it's very scary. And it's going to

00:31:30.740 come with a huge price tag for taxpayers. And that's one of our key points that we were trying

00:31:34.460 to make during this debate is, hey, look, we can't just have the government shovel a ton of

00:31:38.980 money that it doesn't have every time something bad happens, right? Every time something bad

00:31:44.400 happens, we can't just expect the taxpayer down the road, our own neighbor to pick up the tab.

00:31:48.960 And that's why we have been speaking against those types of announcements and against the

00:31:54.340 other groups have been pushing for more taxpayer money. And of course, Corey, we need to remember

00:32:00.700 really the high level amount of spending that has been happening here. Already during the pandemic,

00:32:06.440 the federal government has spent about $511 billion, nearly half a trillion dollars,

00:32:13.940 just on these lockdown subsidies alone. So we can't just have the Trudeau government continuing

00:32:18.940 to throw out a bunch of our cash every time something bad happens. Well, and speaking of

00:32:24.340 that giant debt that's building up, there's been a lot of rumblings and talk. It sounds like we're

00:32:28.300 We're finally going to start seeing some degree of interest rates, the prime rates rising from

00:32:31.780 the central bank. And it doesn't sound like they're going to do a huge one, but it could

00:32:36.020 be ongoing and constantly. And that changes the whole perspective for people holding any kind of

00:32:39.680 debt, 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,

00:32:50.120 but under the status quo, the federal government wouldn't balance the budget until 2070.

00:32:55.240 And 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?

00:33:12.500 what happens if Canada stumbles into another economic downturn? Of course, what we've been

00:33:18.980 saying is that this low interest rate or easy money policy overspending by the federal government

00:33:23.840 has really put itself between a rock and a hard place. And what we want to see from the federal

00:33:28.180 government is one, I mean, just first and foremost, you have to rein in the unprecedented amount of

00:33:33.660 spending in the massive government borrowing. And number two, provide some relief to taxpayers who

00:33:38.580 need it. And that, of course, means tax relief. Yeah, well, there's nothing worse than watching

00:33:42.540 hard-earned tax dollars getting thrown away on interest payments. It's just money flushed down

00:33:46.540 the toilet. And I mean, back in the 80s and 90s, it was just unbearable. And that's what kind of

00:33:50.440 prompted us to balance our budgets for a while, but we slid right back into the high spending

00:33:54.880 ways all over again. We just can't let people know enough how important this is and how awful

00:34:01.320 it's going to get as interest rates rise and the debt builds up. Well, that's exactly to your

00:34:06.480 point, what happened, right? 80s, you had these big spending politicians that kicked the deficit

00:34:11.020 can down the road, down the road, down the road. What happened in the 90s? You even had places in

00:34:16.480 Saskatchewan, what, closing down about 50 hospitals across the Prairie province. So this is what we've

00:34:21.680 been saying all along is you have to make some tough choices now before tougher choices are

00:34:27.780 forced on you. And Corey, I just want to circle back to the budgets very quickly. The federal

00:34:33.120 government under the status quo won't balance its budget until 2070. Corey, between me and you,

00:34:39.100 looking at Trudeau's track record, I don't think the Liberal government is ever going to balance

00:34:43.160 the budget. Now, we know at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that that is unacceptable. So we put in

00:34:49.540 a in-depth budget report, budget submission. I spoke to the Finance Committee on it,

00:34:55.340 but we showed how the federal government could return to a balanced budget in 2023-24

00:35:00.960 just by returning spending to pre-pandemic levels,

00:35:04.800 which were already all-time highs.

00:35:08.280 Well, yeah, that's something I appreciate

00:35:09.940 is at least when we don't have time to go into it,

00:35:12.620 I usually corner you on that where to cut,

00:35:14.560 what can you do?

00:35:15.780 I mean, you guys propose solutions

00:35:16.960 as well as pointing out how you're going down the bad road.

00:35:19.520 So I appreciate you coming on yet again

00:35:21.820 to talk to me today, Franco. 0.70

00:35:23.700 Where can people follow up

00:35:25.120 and find more information on what you guys are doing?

00:35:27.380 Well, Corey, it was my pleasure as always.

00:35:28.860 and please head over to taxpayer.com.

00:35:31.960 Great.

00:35:32.440 Okay.

00:35:33.160 Well, thanks and keep fighting that good fight

00:35:35.140 and I'm certain we'll be talking again soon.

00:35:37.020 All right.

00:35:37.400 Sounds good.

00:35:37.840 Until next time, Corey.

00:35:39.180 All right.

00:35:39.700 Later, Franco.

00:35:41.560 So yeah, the Taxpayers Federation

00:35:42.680 never has a shortage of things to work on,

00:35:44.780 that's for sure,

00:35:45.340 with the way our governments

00:35:46.980 just like to spend, spend, spend.

00:35:49.800 I'm going to talk about a sponsor

00:35:51.180 before we put on the recording

00:35:52.280 of my next guest first

00:35:53.420 and that is the

00:35:54.640 Canada Shooting Sports Association.

00:35:57.580 These guys have been spending

00:35:58.800 they've been sponsoring our show and it's really important and it's helpful. Not just the

00:36:02.520 subscribers that help keep us producing this independent unfettered content. Subscribers

00:36:08.480 also give more viewers and more viewers means we can sell advertising. And these guys are great.

00:36:13.000 These are somebody you should join for your own sake. If you are a firearms user, owner, collector,

00:36:19.020 you're a hunter, target shooting, any of those things, you need support. You've got to make sure

00:36:23.000 you can maintain those rights. So if you go to these guys, they're an association as their name

00:36:27.500 makes it sound. Canada Shooting Sports Association. They have resources, everything from where there

00:36:31.920 might be trade shows happening nearby to how to safely operate firearms on a target range. It's

00:36:39.280 a great resource, a great spot. They need members. You got to take out a membership because also what

00:36:43.580 they're doing is they have multiple court challenges out on behalf of you and they are

00:36:49.880 standing up for your rights for your firearms, but they need your help. You got to get in there.

00:36:52.760 You got to take out a membership so they can keep pushing that because the Liberals are trying to

00:36:55.840 take your firearms away. They're trying to take away your right to have and enjoy those legally

00:36:59.660 and responsibly as you already have been. So getting on with that, I had the opportunity

00:37:04.020 this morning, just before the show, I interviewed Alberta Finance Minister Travis Tays, and we've

00:37:09.640 had a lot of bleak financial talk so far, but something at least out of this is Alberta has

00:37:13.620 actually returned to a balanced budget for the very first time in 12 years. So we're going to

00:37:18.400 play that interview for you guys and have a little bit of an upbeat discussion for a change on here.

00:37:24.700 Well, 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.

00:37:40.660 It was a real pleasure. It was a privilege to present a balanced budget on behalf of Albertans.

00:37:45.780 It's been, I believe, Doug Horner was the last finance minister that ultimately balanced the

00:37:51.240 budget in this province. And that's been too long. It was a real privilege to get to balance.

00:37:57.720 Great. So, I mean, it still, of course, raises a lot more questions now that we look in the

00:38:02.100 longer term. Part of why the budget was balanced, of course, was some very high commodity prices

00:38:08.120 these days, and we know those tend to go up and down. Is there plans, though, to moving? I mean,

00:38:13.520 there are spending increases. We understand it's been a challenging few years, but moves towards

00:38:18.100 fiscal restraint in coming years, so we can maintain these balanced budgets?

00:38:22.760 Well, absolutely, Corey. In fact, a big part of the reason why we're balanced in this upcoming

00:38:28.800 budget is because of fiscal restraint. We inherited a government that was spending $10

00:38:33.240 billion more than compared to provinces. The cost trajectory was going up 4% per year. Had we stayed

00:38:40.720 on that trajectory, we would have been showing a $6 billion deficit in the upcoming year. It was

00:38:47.840 only because we've turned spending down. We've flattened spending, brought our cost up per capita

00:38:52.960 of delivering government services down. We've aligned it now with other provinces, which was

00:38:57.020 a key fiscal anchor. And that's, again, a big part of the balanced budget story. I mean, you talk

00:39:03.560 about higher energy prices and, you know, we're benefiting from those higher prices, but we're

00:39:08.940 using, I would say, very modest energy price assumptions in this budget. We're using $70 for

00:39:14.660 2022, $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.

00:39:28.020 Yeah. And with those cautious assumptions and assuming things stay though, as most people feel

00:39:32.340 they will in the commodity world, there's probably going to be more surpluses to come in future

00:39:37.400 budgets. What about debt retirement? I mean, we still have the debt now hanging there and we're

00:39:42.240 lucky that interest rates are low right now, but that won't last forever. Is there going to be a

00:39:45.920 longer plan to start knocking that net debt away on us? Well, you know, Corey, we will develop a

00:39:51.640 very comprehensive plan to deal with unexpected surpluses. Right now, we're projecting very

00:39:56.700 modest surpluses. And I will say this, what we will do with a modest surplus is just reinvest

00:40:02.940 that into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. As you probably know, over the last number of years,

00:40:07.900 governments have been pulling Heritage Savings Trust Fund investment income into general revenue.

00:40:13.500 And the first thing we're going to do is stop robbing that Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

00:40:17.580 Once 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.

00:40:28.340 One of the two are a combination of both.

00:40:30.340 Obviously, 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.

00:40:37.400 And I will be very interested in hearing from Albertans around that question.

00:40:41.940 Great. Actually, you got ahead of me there.

00:40:43.360 I was going to ask if you were going to start putting money back into that Heritage Fund.

00:40:46.120 Is 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?

00:40:56.460 Well, 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.

00:41:06.440 So 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.

00:41:16.120 We're going to consider fiscal rules for unexpected surpluses in the future.

00:41:21.160 And again, right now, we would anticipate a combination of debt retirement and further investments into that Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

00:41:28.660 One thing we will not do is open up the wallet and start spending irresponsibly.

00:41:35.640 Okay. And then on the other aspect, you get some more breathing space for perhaps some tax relief.

00:41:40.520 a large part of the budget was balanced on uh revenue from from personal income taxes which is

00:41:45.080 a good sign of a strong economy but uh we do have that ongoing bracket creep going on is there plans

00:41:50.360 to address that now that we're going into the future uh the the answer is yes we we made a

00:41:55.400 commitment to albertans that uh we were going to pause indexation until we until basically we got

00:42:01.240 to balance till we got to a firm uh fiscal footing and right now we're projecting a balanced budget

00:42:06.680 we're not there yet as as we work through the year and as our price assumptions economic

00:42:12.440 assumptions as as we determine they're going to hold true we will consider re-indexing for for 2023

00:42:21.080 okay and then uh you know it's an ongoing question getting away from commodity dependency i mean

00:42:27.240 again it's it's not the whole basis of balancing the budget but it's a large part of it and we've

00:42:31.720 we've been overly reliant, in my view, on it for a long time. So what sort of plans are there? It's

00:42:36.780 always the economic diversity, I guess, that people are always chasing. Are there, what sort

00:42:41.760 of plans have you got to get us so that we can start balancing these budgets without higher oil

00:42:44.960 prices? Well, I mean, there's two things to look at there. I mean, realistically, there's your

00:42:50.320 revenue structure as a jurisdiction. We have a very definitive taxation royalty structure in

00:42:56.500 this province that ultimately generates revenues. And at some point in time, we've committed to a

00:43:00.920 point a revenue panel that would evaluate the appropriateness and structure and efficiency of

00:43:06.800 our revenue system here in Alberta. We will do that before the end of the term. But the other way to

00:43:11.520 create less volatility, Corey, and I think you're alluding to this, for government revenues is to

00:43:16.920 see more diversification in our economy. And from day one, we've been working to position the

00:43:22.420 province for disproportionate investment attraction and economic growth. And that's happening. We've

00:43:28.660 taken a broad-based approach. In other words, an approach that doesn't pick winners and losers so

00:43:33.860 much, but provides a level playing field, which I believe will result in sustainable economic

00:43:40.020 diversification. And we're seeing the investment pour into this province. We can look at the tech

00:43:45.220 sector, the growth in that sector over the last few years. We can take a look at agriculture and

00:43:51.080 agri-food manufacturing. Certainly the aerospace and aviation sector is growing. The manufacturing

00:43:56.700 sector is growing significantly in the province. Certainly, we're seeing lots of announcements,

00:44:02.400 multi-billion dollar announcements around petrochemical manufacturing and hydrogen.

00:44:07.580 So all of this is leading to a more diverse, less volatile revenue base for the province.

00:44:13.180 So that has to be part of the plan, and it will continue to be a key plank in improving

00:44:19.040 our fiscal sustainability. Great. So I can assume there's no plans to raise the corporate tax

00:44:24.240 rate or anything like that, I imagine. Listen, Corey, we reduced, we intentionally reduced our

00:44:30.340 business tax rate from 12% to 8%. That's been a key ingredient in ensuring we have the most

00:44:35.840 competitive business environment possible. We committed to that. We're going to stay with it.

00:44:41.660 Excellent. Just one area as we close up, there was some increased spending, and I think people

00:44:46.200 kind of expected it, though it was in healthcare. We're looking at, you know, hopefully broadening

00:44:51.220 our provision abilities so that we aren't as vulnerable when incidents such as this

00:44:55.020 pandemic happen. Is that going to be targeted spending then to ensure we reduce the pressures

00:45:01.340 on ICU and hospital capacities? Absolutely. We're making further investment in healthcare.

00:45:07.440 We're increasing healthcare's base budget this year by 600 million. And no doubt there

00:45:11.540 are pressures in the system. But the real focus is around expanded capacity. COVID has

00:45:18.020 has really demonstrated the lack of margin that we have in our healthcare system, the lack of

00:45:22.520 surge capacity that we have in our ICUs, for instance. And so a lot of this investment is

00:45:27.900 going to be targeted to strategic increased capacity in healthcare, including expanded ICU

00:45:34.180 capacity. Great. Well, thank you very much for your time today, Minister Taze. And I hope we can

00:45:39.880 look forward to talking about balanced budgets for some time to come yet. So do I, Corey. Thank you.

00:45:44.340 okay so that i mean that was a nice uh opportunity i mean we beat on the provincial government we

00:45:51.040 beat on the federal government we we criticize them quite a bit uh so it was nice to get them

00:45:55.980 on and kind of give a thumbs up for a change like i i understand it was still the boon of high

00:46:02.100 oil prices that made balancing that budget that much easier but we also know that it doesn't

00:46:07.400 matter how high the oil prices are if you're gonna if you're going to be irresponsible in

00:46:11.360 government management you still won't balance that budget it won't happen i mean if oil prices

00:46:16.320 alone are what lead to prosperity venezuela would still be a very wealthy nation today rather than

00:46:22.160 the basket case they they are that we see unfortunately i mean they've still got no

00:46:26.720 shortage of oil over there and and a lot of the world wants it but of course their system is just

00:46:31.360 such a catastrophe that they can't take proper advantage of it so i i you know it was nice

00:46:37.040 talking to the uh uh finance minister of alberta there mr taze and him giving us time you know one

00:46:43.440 of the commenters pointing out like it is good seeing government senior members like that giving

00:46:47.440 alternative media some time and and uh the kidney government seems to be getting more forthcoming

00:46:51.920 i'm sure we're still going to be on their case on on a lot of things of days going forward but

00:46:56.160 he answered a few good questions i mean i was wondering about the heritage uh trust fund you

00:47:00.800 know that was a a real large part of the budgets in the past we put a whole bunch of money into

00:47:04.720 of there. It was actually giving a source of annual government revenue that they could draw

00:47:09.440 from that wasn't a taxation of the people on the ground source. And it helped them with their

00:47:14.220 budgets. They couldn't resist themselves. They kept draining it and stopped putting into it.

00:47:17.540 And it turned into a pretty small fund. But if they're talking about refunding that or putting

00:47:22.120 money back into it, that's a good area, I think. I mean, Alaska, we've seen that. They set a lot of

00:47:27.600 non-renewable resource revenues and set them aside for the citizens for later. Norway did the same

00:47:34.260 thing. We need to save a little bit of that money. You do it at home. If you're making more money

00:47:37.460 than you're spending, you don't want to just keep spending it as fast as you're getting. You want to

00:47:40.980 set some aside. At the same time though, you want to knock down the debt and he didn't give a good

00:47:45.880 solid, you know, plan on, on where they're going to go and throwing money at the debt yet. But I

00:47:50.560 would hope if we keep getting those surpluses, that is indeed where they're going to go. Cause

00:47:53.840 the debts, the, the real big long term, scary item that we have sitting there. So just that

00:48:02.380 reminder as well as you know he said at the end and I wanted to ask I didn't anticipate him saying

00:48:07.160 anything else but they're not going to raise the corporate tax rate again and if you remember the

00:48:12.000 first two and a half years basically once the UCP got in opposition leader Rachel Notley

00:48:16.800 couldn't go a sentence without going on about her quote unquote four and a half billion dollar tax

00:48:22.740 giveaway four and a half billion dollar giveaway to corporate buddies for just on and on it was

00:48:26.840 like a broken record. Look, taxes that aren't taken, that's not money given away. See, she

00:48:33.180 lives under that assumption that it's the government's money to begin with. It wasn't 0.85

00:48:36.360 theirs to begin with. So the government taking less doesn't mean they're giving anybody anything.

00:48:41.140 They're just giving themselves a little less. And there's no dumber way to try and spur economic 0.87

00:48:47.720 recovery than to go after and attack businesses and corporations. Raising those taxes on those, 0.63

00:48:53.520 that low-hanging fruit because you don't have a face you can attach to them necessarily

00:48:57.020 and such only hurts you. That means they lay people off. It means they drop their investment.

00:49:02.500 It means they move out of the area and of the jurisdiction. If not, they'd been in and still

00:49:06.780 hiking those corporate taxes. We know darn well the budget wouldn't be balanced today.

00:49:12.280 Part of what's happened, a large chunk of that budget, I looked through it. I mean, again,

00:49:16.420 the oil and gas resources were a massive part of it. But the other part was it was personal

00:49:20.240 income taxes. Why? Because Albertans have been out there and working and making money and paying

00:49:24.840 taxes. And if you go attacking your corporations over and over, like Notley would really like to,

00:49:31.080 people aren't going to be working. It's just the dumbest way to balance a budget is to try and 0.93

00:49:34.840 attack corporate taxes. So getting a confirmation from the finance minister, they have no interest 0.95

00:49:39.100 in raising those taxes again. That's good. Cheryl saying Edmonton's crying, you got virtually

00:49:44.040 nothing from the Alberta budget. Yeah, I know. I mean, but your mayor, unfortunately, is a former

00:49:48.460 liberal member of parliament. So it's never going to be enough money for him. Gallery's mayor is no

00:49:52.220 better. She's going, she was at least sounding somewhat complimentary on the budget, but was

00:49:58.480 talking about more, more, more. Now, you know, the other part is, as I talked about with the

00:50:02.800 finance minister, they're increasing spending all over. This isn't a austerity budget. They

00:50:07.660 aren't cutting. They increased health, increased education, the works, and still managed to balance

00:50:11.720 the budget. So now I'm hoping to see them actually start knocking down the debt. Use that surplus

00:50:17.700 wisely as i said at the start of the show you know all of that old alberta advice we got the

00:50:21.700 oil boom let's not piss it away this time okay let's go to bc uh we've got mike sidu who is a

00:50:29.060 wealth and taxation strategist and he works in the bc where if you really want to see where

00:50:35.460 inflation and cost of living is a real factor that's the place for it so we'll bring him into

00:50:40.820 the show here and talk a bit hey how's it going mike hey it's going great cory how are you good

00:50:46.340 good to virtually meet you you know past those facebook messages to to set this up so uh yeah

00:50:51.700 getting you know i talked to uh franco terrazzano a bit earlier too on the bc budget that you guys

00:50:55.620 have had come out and another big deficit uh the carbon tax is remaining out there for you guys

00:51:01.300 your cost of living i mean boy it's just uh through the roof out there you know and we've

00:51:06.820 got inflation approaching we've got uh the bank looking to raise interest rates i'm looking for

00:51:11.860 some insight what do you think we got to look forward to well it's interesting because i think

00:51:18.340 uh you're seeing the uh federal uh spending with the liberals going one way and the bank of canada

00:51:26.580 trying to go the other way didn't christia freeland say in her budget update whatever that meant

00:51:33.220 that she was looking to spend another hundred million dollars on covid relief well in order to

00:51:39.620 debt finance all of that the bank of canada is going to have to come to the table and finance 0.86

00:51:44.420 some of that uh debt now on the same time uh the bank of canada who has uh bought billions hundreds

00:51:52.580 of billions of dollars of assets in order to bolster their balance sheet most of that coming

00:51:58.740 from federal uh bonds uh how are they going to dump bonds in order to raise rates you know for

00:52:07.380 those of you who don't know uh the way that a central bank increases or lowers interest rates

00:52:14.420 is to either collect or dump assets uh so you know if they if they're going to spend another

00:52:21.220 hundred billion dollars corey um bank of canada is going to have to get pretty busy in their

00:52:27.780 balancing act of of buying more a hundred billion dollars worth of canadian government bonds because

00:52:34.420 I don't think there's another buyer on the market. And at the same time, dumping a net positive

00:52:42.660 amount. So are they going to have to sell $150 billion of their assets and reduce

00:52:50.580 bank reserves by that amount? It's going to be an interesting couple of years ahead of us,

00:52:55.940 I think for sure. Yeah, I think just it's too abstract for a lot of people and I don't blame

00:53:01.700 them you know but they don't want to dwell on it but the reality is going to kick us in the butt i

00:53:04.980 was kind of actually surprised with the way the world had hiked spending i mean canada is not

00:53:09.140 alone in this they all borrowed they spent they essentially printed money uh that the inflation

00:53:15.060 didn't hit harder to be honest or more quickly i mean it's starting to catch up and it's putting

00:53:19.860 very real pressure on people but it was slower than i would have thought it would happen to have

00:53:23.860 Yeah. 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.

00:53:39.160 But 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.

00:53:53.700 So when we see spending going into the market, the more that consumers spend, the higher and more aggressive price inflation becomes.

00:54:03.480 but when people are saving their money, we're staving off price inflation because nobody's

00:54:10.360 spending it. They're just waiting. They're just on the sidelines waiting. We've seen price

00:54:15.720 inflation in the stock market. There's no reason the stock market should be where it's at today.

00:54:20.660 There's no reason that we should see the housing market. But of course, that's a municipal and

00:54:26.800 federal problem municipalities uh not bringing more supply onto the market uh and the federal

00:54:35.120 uh coffers just the spending that's going on by the federal government and money now in the system

00:54:41.760 when i've always said this when you have an increased amount of money chasing a limited

00:54:47.200 supply of things what is going to happen to the price of those things as consumers chase

00:54:52.800 uh those those items especially real estate something tangible uh we haven't seen it's

00:54:59.840 it's interesting we we could talk about silver and gold prices uh of course that's that's in the tank

00:55:06.320 uh in in my opinion silver right now and and gold doesn't seem to be reacting to this inflation at

00:55:12.080 all but anyway yeah i i agree but i think it's it's it's more a sign of a lack of spending you

00:55:20.240 you know, money is made by its volume and its velocity. So velocity, meaning how quickly it

00:55:28.480 goes through the system and volume. Well, we'll just refer back to our good friend, Milton Friedman,

00:55:33.980 who said inflation is an increase in the monetary supply and deflation is a decrease in the

00:55:39.600 monetary supply. Okay. So people are sitting on their assets. I mean, it's been unprecedented.

00:55:45.180 It's unusual. People stayed locked in their homes. Disposable income, if you could call it that,

00:55:50.420 they typically weren't spending it like they used to. They didn't go out to the theater. They didn't

00:55:53.840 go. And those are big items. They add up on people. So in keeping those within the house,

00:55:59.240 I guess it helps stave off inflation, but that's a terrible way to do it. I mean,

00:56:02.360 we've been living a couple of miserable years. I mean, it's not a financial tool. That was just

00:56:06.620 a consequence. Absolutely. So, and I guess that's why, I mean, typically when we get something like

00:56:14.000 this, you will see precious metals, you know, as people move towards a hedge, you would see them

00:56:17.640 rise and spike. And yeah, they haven't really taken off as you would have thought they would.

00:56:21.780 No, no. And I'm to be clear, I'm not a bullion specialist, but the people who are in the know,

00:56:29.860 I rely on their judgment way more than than me. They're predicting a slingshot effect with silver

00:56:38.860 for sure. But I mean, if you take it like going in back to base inflation, and when you take a look

00:56:44.420 at food, fuel, housing, all those things that are generally excluded out of the general terms of

00:56:51.540 inflation, the best way to avoid inflation is to change the definition of inflation. So the way

00:57:01.580 that we define it today is much different than we have defined it say in 1980 or 1990 or anything

00:57:09.040 like that. Yeah, well, you got back to the bottom line of supply and demand and pivoting back to

00:57:15.320 real estate because you guys have just been, for people with a fixed or lower income, it's pretty

00:57:19.780 difficult to break into that market over there right now. Municipal governments have been a large

00:57:25.540 part of it. It seems to be these ideologues, these city planners, they feel that if they can just

00:57:29.360 squash people into a dense environment, eventually somehow it'll balance itself. And all it really

00:57:34.000 does lead to is a lot of budget, right? Yeah, exactly. It'll balance itself. And, and I mean,

00:57:39.660 in Calgary, though, we've been able to stave off that effect. What happened here is we ended up

00:57:44.320 with a donut. The downtown is darn near empty. Because of all these efforts, what it did is

00:57:47.900 actually make people retreat. And our satellite cities have boomed while local development has

00:57:52.380 actually slowed down in the city of Calgary. Because we have the room, though, to escape and

00:57:56.100 get out with our capital with our feet and move on and actually due to the pandemic people are

00:58:00.500 more inclined to but in the lower mainland you don't quite have that open so much area to spread

00:58:06.140 out and develop into so what's a way though that they could increase supply to help mitigate some

00:58:11.380 of those price spikes well certainly you know there's a big part of me Corey that says

00:58:17.020 are municipal councils uh like what role do they play in uh limiting supply and and the

00:58:27.040 human psychology is very interesting right so we always think about well why do they do why do

00:58:32.380 people act in the way that their environment promotes them to act and i think there's a

00:58:36.480 a almost a monopolist type of uh and i love what you were saying earlier about um you know uh

00:58:45.600 notly that you know it's not her money to begin with and that's the that's the big fallacy with

00:58:52.560 with leftist type governments is that they believe that they are in control that uh

00:58:58.640 government comes before the people not people before the government as it does in common law

00:59:06.800 so on one hand uh vancouver is the the city proper of vancouver has zero building lots left

00:59:15.600 So 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.

00:59:34.420 Not 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.

00:59:51.840 And a lot of the new immigrants are moving to that area, those Surrey, Langley, Fraser Valley areas.

00:59:57.840 so we're seeing an extreme pressure and surrey out of all the municipalities that i have been

01:00:04.960 just observing i'm not a real estate specialist although i i have my fingers in the pot in that

01:00:10.000 industry and just a lot of people that i again rely on for expert advice uh surrey seems to be

01:00:16.480 very pro development uh now of course you know they they also aren't bringing that up with the

01:00:22.800 right infrastructure and where are these people going to drive where are these people going how

01:00:26.960 they going to transport themselves and and that's the struggle i think is you've got either a pro

01:00:32.000 development um you know i'm in victoria today we've got a very pro uh development council here

01:00:40.000 in langford western communities uh and a very uh non-pro development in the core downtown victoria

01:00:47.200 is is feeling the brunt of the donut effect just as much as i think calgary is

01:00:53.040 for sure uh add into that the living conditions downtown you see a lot of for lease uh sales

01:00:59.840 signs of uh sorry for lease signs and for sale signs on commercial space and uh the malls are

01:01:07.840 empty uh the downtown mall we've got the bay center downtown and that's that's maybe half capacity

01:01:15.440 maybe um mayfair mall which is kind of in not in the core but a little bit out further

01:01:21.600 that's not at full capacity we had a half billion dollar um uh investment made in something called

01:01:29.200 uptown center that's it maybe gosh i want to say maybe even 40 capacity that's really empty

01:01:36.640 and and you know you've got one of the major uh leaseholds in there is is walmart and whole foods

01:01:43.120 but then the other major store that people realize is the spirit of halloween so that's only temporary

01:01:49.120 right that's only two months out of the year but otherwise that space is empty anyway so

01:01:55.200 you know from a municipal council side when you limit supply it's almost a protectionism

01:02:01.360 mechanism that keeps the the uh pressure on prices at an equilibrium based on what demand is so you

01:02:09.120 know uh at fault like i was saying earlier municipalities for not encouraging higher density

01:02:17.600 uh for for playing that devil's advocate game they're they're just they're in it they live in

01:02:24.560 those communities they're preserving their wealth just like any government who puts uh protectionist

01:02:31.360 measures in their legislation also has a similar problem on the uh economic side of things and

01:02:38.140 they create monopolies in that way and it was such a crazy irony you know with uh real estate

01:02:44.380 prices for homes and everything spreading out and getting so terribly expensive yet central

01:02:48.200 commercial real estate you can't give away these days it seems we got the same thing going on in

01:02:52.880 calgary i mean we've got over a 30 vacancy rate downtown we're in downtown calgary right now

01:02:57.300 and these buildings are are it's almost creepy when you go out and see how empty they are i mean

01:03:03.320 30 is the official number realistically i'd say it's closer to 50 but a lot of people still have

01:03:08.240 long-term leases or companies do and that that's a real crisis in the making i've got a guest on

01:03:13.420 next week to talk about that. These municipal governments have to pivot and understand

01:03:17.820 that we need to decentralize populations. You know, people don't have to come to these

01:03:22.280 dense cores any longer to work. And if they don't have to, they're willing to move out and that's

01:03:26.640 what they're doing. Yeah. It's really interesting. The downtown Vancouver story is a little bit of

01:03:31.840 an anomaly because you've got Microsoft opening a huge downtown office. Amazon is opening a huge,

01:03:41.440 huge center right in downtown Vancouver, uh, not as a distribution center, but as a, uh,

01:03:48.340 as an administrative hub. Um, there, there's a huge pressure even on commercial, uh, uh, spaces

01:03:56.100 in downtown Vancouver, but that seems to be a bit of an anomaly. You've not seen that certainly here

01:04:00.540 in Victoria as far as what I have, have seen and experienced. I, I'm, I'm able to stand corrected

01:04:07.100 if somebody's got different statistics on that.

01:04:09.860 But certainly Vancouver just seems to be really weird.

01:04:12.540 One of my friends, good friends, is a commercial realtor,

01:04:15.560 specialing in downtown prices.

01:04:17.320 And he said, yeah, prices are probably up about 20%

01:04:20.400 on least per square foot space.

01:04:25.640 Yeah, well, and we're in such unprecedented times.

01:04:29.280 I mean, who would have ever imagined,

01:04:30.460 well, what's going to happen to the economy and demand

01:04:32.040 if we decide to quarantine and lock the population up

01:04:34.640 for two years?

01:04:35.460 Well, now we're seeing what it was,

01:04:36.540 but how could you ever know? I mean, it's just so bizarre still, and we're adapting to it.

01:04:41.840 I believe in our solutions, you and I would be among the same thing. If you're talking

01:04:45.200 Austrian economics, it's just get the government out of the way. People will vote with their feet,

01:04:49.620 they'll vote with their dollars, and they will settle where it's sustainable. Just leave it

01:04:52.920 alone. But when they keep trying to cork the bottle, they're just causing more damage. And

01:04:56.780 it's just leaking out all over in an uncontrolled way anyhow. Well, I would posit this. When was

01:05:02.640 last time we actually had real deflation in our country? I'll wait. Deflation. When was the last

01:05:09.900 time we actually had a deflationary correction economy that was protracted for a period of one

01:05:18.080 to two years? Maybe 1982, but I don't really call that protracted. The problem is that we've had

01:05:28.980 unfettered expansion, loose monetary policy, higher stimulus coming from either lower interest

01:05:38.980 rates, manipulated interest rates, or manipulated monetary supply, which has propped up our,

01:05:46.180 and I would argue since the beginning of the Bank of Canada, who was established as a response to

01:05:53.060 the u.s federal reserve act in 1913 who was established for protecting the economy against

01:06:02.260 really bad uh defaults in the banking system and of course now we understand that the bank of canada

01:06:09.460 is a uh is the backstop not only are they the almost essentially the exchequer like in the

01:06:15.460 british system uh they clear everything on behalf of the banks they provide reserves to the banks

01:06:20.820 And, 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.

01:06:39.540 So, 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.

01:06:57.940 You 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.

01:07:06.520 But the impact of inflation is only there as a response to what the Bank of Canada has done.

01:07:16.200 And it's permanent even after the Bank of Canada decides to do something else.

01:07:20.420 So we've got a sense of permanency.

01:07:22.280 I mean, you could go up, look up M2, M1 monetary supply.

01:07:28.180 Fred is my favorite place to get it.

01:07:30.540 The St. Louis, Fred, Federal Reserve, because they've got the best statistics out there.

01:07:37.120 Doesn't seem like we have really good statistical information or we're trying to, you know,

01:07:43.480 pull the wool over the Canadian consumer's eyes on how much money really is floating

01:07:50.500 around out there, which is all having a spiral effect. Well, then another variable, you know,

01:07:56.700 Rothbard and Hayek could never have predicted it is digital currencies, you know, just to throw

01:08:00.800 kind of a curveball into it, though. I mean, this is something altogether new and different. I mean,

01:08:05.160 it's really not even a decade old as far as a factor, but it's turning into a very large one

01:08:11.040 quickly. And that's going to have some sort of impact, but it's almost a crapshoot to try and

01:08:15.400 guess exactly how that's all going to iron out in the end man if i had a crystal ball

01:08:19.480 we'd be having this interview and instead of my uh my office that i'm in right now in victoria

01:08:26.420 it would be like cayman islands or something else oh yeah i mean if we could buy two dollar

01:08:31.520 bitcoins a decade ago we'd be all sitting well but but i mean aside from bitcoin itself even i

01:08:36.340 mean there's just so many of them some are coming some might go uh but they're they're i mean el

01:08:41.120 Salvador even actually embraced digital currency as their own national currency.

01:08:45.860 But I mean, we've got no precedent.

01:08:48.000 Where do you go here?

01:08:50.260 It's got to cause some distress in the markets, I guess.

01:08:52.940 Yeah, 100%.

01:08:53.920 And where that's going to end up, I would love to pull certain people back from history and say,

01:09:03.500 well, what do you think about this?

01:09:05.180 What 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?

01:09:21.040 uh crypto man that has been the most interesting thing and and you know there's a lot of smarter

01:09:28.900 people than me on this topic that are talking about uh you know what's going to happen or is

01:09:34.280 the u.s federal reserve going to come out with fed coin or is the bank of canada going to move

01:09:39.360 to digital currency and and therefore um a guy that i like watching on youtube from time to time

01:09:45.820 is george gammon who's a economist uh fairly austrian a little bit out there for some people

01:09:53.560 i think but um you know what he predicted was did federal digital currency will be the easiest way

01:10:01.400 to usher in universal basic income right that's what i know for sure is that when you just get a

01:10:08.380 deposit in your bank and if you don't spend it then it's taken back from you how how else can

01:10:16.320 you what better way can you do to grease the wheels of an economy when you have a federally

01:10:21.240 legislated crypto dollar that when you get universal basic income you can't just save it

01:10:27.700 and hold on to it for what the austrian what misa says is the motor of the economy is in saving

01:10:34.880 or kane said the motor of the economy is in spending and even though uh john maynard canes

01:10:40.640 has been refuted time and time again the poll the political goal to be able to create the illusion

01:10:46.880 of wealth the illusion of of of success is to finance your way through uh uh building a higher

01:10:56.640 number on your balance sheet but that doesn't i mean wealth is really production right it's how

01:11:01.200 we how we can produce and use that production to consume rather than just this nefarious amount of

01:11:06.960 dollars that's just floating around just because my dad bought a house for fourteen thousand dollars

01:11:11.920 in 1970 doesn't make that house now worth a million in victoria right the house isn't the

01:11:19.920 wood is not worth that much the the population hasn't expanded all that much it's all comes

01:11:26.560 back to, circles back to spending, government spending, inflationary pressure by loose monetary

01:11:34.000 policy. Yeah. Well, and some of that too, I mean, I grew up in Banff and my father's still out in

01:11:40.200 Canmore. I mean, Canmore has really been kind of the expansion outside of Banff because Banff's

01:11:44.420 a national park. It's capped, but the battles now, every time there's a new district to be built,

01:11:50.200 everybody who's got a place in Canmore, it fights it tooth and nail. They say, absolutely not.

01:11:54.500 we're, I got mine now. I don't want anybody else to get theirs. And that it puts, of course,

01:11:59.620 they don't want to, they know if there's a new development as well, their own property values

01:12:02.460 could potentially at least, if not drop, they won't grow as quickly. So there's unfortunately

01:12:06.740 a consumer incentive for those who are already in to block others from getting in on that market.

01:12:10.680 And that's sort of destructive as well. Absolutely. And that circles back to the

01:12:14.660 municipalities vested interest in, in not expanding or bringing new developments online

01:12:21.760 or fighting it or nimbyism you know not in my backyard mentality yeah and we're all paying

01:12:29.600 the price for it well i'll let you go it was a very interesting conversation you know we're uh

01:12:34.680 i mean there's going to be a lot to study and break down as i said there's just so many things

01:12:38.560 happening now that we've never seen in human history you know you talk about the the austrian

01:12:42.580 greats but they couldn't have foreseen this as you said if we could dig them up and hold a seance

01:12:45.880 they were brilliant people they could probably come up with some things to uh talk about and

01:12:50.760 and examine this sort of thing,

01:12:52.220 but unfortunately we're left to a modern interpretations

01:12:55.860 of what may or may not happen.

01:12:57.660 I'll leave you with this one last thought, Corey.

01:13:00.300 One of my financial mentors, Nelson Nash said,

01:13:04.720 he wrote a book called, well, he wrote a few books,

01:13:06.960 but in one of them, he talks about Willie Sutton.

01:13:10.880 And Willie Sutton was a train robber.

01:13:13.020 And so when he was finally arrested, they said,

01:13:16.400 well, Willie, why are you robbing the banks and the trains

01:13:19.640 and all that sort of stuff?

01:13:20.580 And he said, well, that's because that's where the money's at.

01:13:23.240 So when you talked about Rachel Notley coming after businesses,

01:13:26.960 because that's where the money's at, it just falls under Willie Sutton's law, man.

01:13:31.820 I appreciate ending on that.

01:13:33.260 Where can people find more information about what you're up to and what you're doing?

01:13:36.260 Yeah, social media.

01:13:38.040 I'm on most platforms, Twitter, Facebook, and things like that.

01:13:42.660 But a good website to catch me is ibcanadagroup.ca.

01:13:50.100 It stands for the Infinite Banking Canada Group, which I'm a proud member and founder of that

01:13:56.340 organization, which is a independent group of financial advisors from coast to coast that are

01:14:01.960 focused on financial literacy. Great. Well, thanks for joining me. I hope we can have the opportunity

01:14:07.120 to talk again sometime soon down the road. Thanks, Corey. Appreciate your time. Thanks for having me

01:14:11.580 on. Have a good one out there. So that was Mike Sidhu. And yeah, just a lot of economic talk. It's

01:14:17.560 been a whole day packed with it but as I said with Franco it's budget season and if I got the

01:14:21.500 finance minister on the show we might as well stick to that theme for a while uh you know

01:14:26.920 getting back to the government and control I see Cheryl commenting on the government will crack

01:14:30.920 down and regulate digital currency because of money laundering yeah potentially they're going

01:14:34.340 to try I think way back to way it would be the late 90s or so I think it was the CRTC and they

01:14:40.220 put out a study saying we've chosen at this time not to regulate the internet because the internet

01:14:45.440 was just a growing thing. The reality was they didn't know how to, they wanted to control it.

01:14:49.420 Oh, it was driving them bananas. Look at all these people daring to share information. They're

01:14:53.160 actually starting to create marketplaces and trade goods. And we can't get our finger on that. We

01:14:58.240 can't stop it. It's not like a newspaper that we can mandate, you know, or regulate, or it's not

01:15:03.100 like a radio station that we can choke off or force different types of content. And they're

01:15:08.220 still trying today. They want it desperately, but it's, it's, it's like, you know, putting the

01:15:12.820 finger in the dike. It just keeps spilling out all over any other places. And I think C11 is 0.99

01:15:16.840 going to fail the same way, but they're going to put us under a lot of pressure and they're going

01:15:20.540 to, uh, they're going to do a lot of damage in their quest for control, uh, control of individuals

01:15:25.600 and digital currency similar. It's out of their reach and they can't stand that, but it's evolving

01:15:31.320 and it's evolving fast. And for everyone, they might try to come after five more spring up and

01:15:35.960 the people who provide the services for those digital currencies, as they said before, we don't

01:15:40.500 maintain the money for these people. That's not our job. That's their money. We don't have that

01:15:45.140 information. You go find them yourselves. So there's a budding means for people to get out

01:15:50.540 of the reach of the government to a degree on these things. And it's driving them bananas and

01:15:56.540 they're going to try, but I'm not sure how they can stop this. But as I said too, if a lot of

01:16:00.280 people keep fleeing to that, it's going to impact markets in general and a lot of things. So we're

01:16:05.100 in some strange times. I'm not going to counsel anybody on where they should put their money or

01:16:09.500 shouldn't. If I was that sort of a genius, it's kind of like Mike was saying, I'd be wearing

01:16:14.040 tailored suits and some other things. But all the same, we're in some interesting financial times

01:16:19.120 without a doubt. As volatile as they are, we got new options springing up at the same time.

01:16:23.760 And getting back to that, some of the things with control, we're hearing the Senate hearings and

01:16:27.860 they're still talking about things in the House of Commons. So there was a finance committee and

01:16:32.180 they were told that convoy cash was harmless. This is what somebody was telling the finance committee.

01:16:36.640 Millions of donations appear to be an honest outpouring of public support, a federal regulator

01:16:42.140 said yesterday. They said, all right, it wasn't cash that funded terrorism. There we are. There's

01:16:46.980 the story on westernstandardonline.com. I said it was their own money. And this is from Barry

01:16:51.280 McKillop. He's the deputy director of financial transactions and resource reports analysis

01:16:55.280 center. Big mouthful there. Said it wasn't cash that funded terrorism and it wasn't in any way

01:16:59.940 money laundering. There's going to be a lot of bloody lawsuits. There is. This government is

01:17:04.260 not going to be left off the hook for the crap they've pulled. And they froze. Millions held 1.00

01:17:09.660 in accounts that they suspected. You know, Freedom Convoy sympathizers had donated. I mean,

01:17:15.980 they're not just holding the amount that was allegedly donated. They're screwing with people's

01:17:21.220 lives and holding their assets wrongly. And we're starting to hear some very candid discussion.

01:17:26.500 This is part of why I think our imbecile of a prime minister did back off. You know, there's 0.99

01:17:31.100 the grass graphic from Nico, man, he does great work there. And as you can see, you know, we've

01:17:36.440 got senior federal bureaucrats coming to parliament, the finance committees, and hey, this wasn't a

01:17:42.060 problem. This wasn't, you know, illegal. It wasn't funding terrorism. This was wrong. This was wrong.

01:17:48.440 And they're still frozen today. They're still frozen. You know, senators are asking, Senator

01:17:53.820 David Wells in Newfoundland, Labrador asked, and he says, I can't definitively, I can't answer

01:18:01.060 definitively, they've all been unfrozen. I suspect it's probably not the case. I mean,

01:18:05.260 these guys don't even know when they're talking around each other. This is a big problem. We are

01:18:10.260 in a bad period of time with our assets. And the more we can take on individual control,

01:18:16.260 however that might be, it's going to be for the better. Getting the state out of our lives,

01:18:21.680 out of our wallets, out of our investments, out of our real estate. We're going the other

01:18:25.640 direction these days, guys. I don't know. We got things that keep changing for the positive and

01:18:31.600 they keep changing for the worst. You know, the government cracks down on conventional media,

01:18:35.020 the media turns to crap, but guess what? The Western Standard springs up. Other ones like 0.99

01:18:38.840 The Rebel, True North with Candace, Post Millennial, all those different publications

01:18:43.140 are springing up. I was talking about the finger in the dike. So as much as the state keeps trying 0.99

01:18:46.600 to control the information, we find ways around it and we'll continue to. So again, I'm going to

01:18:52.340 throw that reminder out there before we go into the weekend, take out a membership with us, guys.

01:18:55.440 we're going to have coverage of the protests going on. I believe Mel's going to go down there.

01:18:58.920 I'm not sure. Calgary, you know, the protests have thousands out there last week. We attended

01:19:03.600 it. We checked it out. It was amazing. Peaceful, upbeat, thousands of people, and it didn't even

01:19:08.380 get a mention on the mainstream media news. Really, one of the biggest protests in Calgary

01:19:12.940 history, almost, with volume of people, didn't even warrant notice, didn't get coverage. Well,

01:19:17.660 we are not part of the mainstream. We'll cover it. We'll get on the ground. We'll do that.

01:19:21.360 And if you get to the westernstandardonline.com, take out a membership, you'll get those stories

01:19:26.020 that are behind the paywall, the breakdowns, the details on it. And the coupon word is

01:19:30.920 triggered. Yes. Thank you, Lorna. That is the coupon code. So you can get a break trying it

01:19:36.540 out, guys. Plus it's a free trial for two weeks. So get on there, check it out, throw in the word

01:19:41.220 triggered and you will get that discounted membership to see that it's well worth your

01:19:46.520 $10 a month to get that unfettered information. Give the middle finger to the old mainstream

01:19:50.940 media. You don't need to follow those guys anymore. I still torture myself with it because

01:19:54.560 I got to eat supper and I watch the terrible stuff on TV, but just so I can see what they're

01:19:58.960 doing and what's going on in the issues. And then at least we can filter through it and give you

01:20:02.240 guys better coverage. And we've got reporters across the country. We've got a new person in

01:20:05.800 Ottawa. You know, we're not just like some places they basically cut and paste press releases in

01:20:12.420 there and throw them out there and have nothing but opinion content. We've got a newsroom full

01:20:16.660 of professionals, Dave Naylor, decades in the business, Melanie Risden, Eva's been working at

01:20:21.720 it, Amber's in Edmonton. So thank you all who've subscribed. It's really important. And again,

01:20:26.500 subscribe on whatever platform for video viewing you're watching right now. So you can see these

01:20:30.820 updates. They may live stream from the protests in person. We do that now and then. And if you've

01:20:35.920 got, you know, if you've subscribed on YouTube, Facebook, Rumble, you'll get the alert when one

01:20:39.880 of those live streams comes in and we'll get that direct coverage to you. So be sure to do that and

01:20:44.460 share it, you know, nag your friends, get the other people out of the mainstream media and let's talk

01:20:49.840 directly with each other and fix this world up. We need to do it. Next week, it's going to be a big

01:20:54.440 one. I got an interesting guy coming on. His name's Kid Carson. He's a radio host actually in

01:20:59.780 Vancouver. I guess he was quite popular out there on a station, but he spoke the wrong way on

01:21:05.480 the pandemic and he expressed concerns about the government crackdown. So of course, like so many

01:21:09.940 others, he got canceled, he got fired. He's back up and that's what I'm talking about. We're flowing

01:21:14.440 around it. You can't plug that dyke. He's got a podcast and he's talking and he's got his viewer 1.00

01:21:18.420 base and they're leaving the conventional media. So that's going to be a good conversation. That'll

01:21:22.180 be on Wednesday, I think. On Monday, I am going to talk to Dave Makachuk. Of course, there's going

01:21:27.440 to be a lot more to break down on what the heck is going on in Eastern Europe with that terrible,

01:21:30.860 terrible situation in Ukraine with Russia invading. We'll see what's come out of it and

01:21:36.260 we'll break that down and see what we got to look forward to. And it's going to be interesting. I'm

01:21:40.360 talked to Jake Foster. And if you look on the Western Standard site, he's actually basically

01:21:44.500 a sports writer and he's been covering lacrosse and professional lacrosse in Canada has actually

01:21:49.260 been getting bigger and bigger with the Roughnecks and things like that. And he's directly in there

01:21:53.560 and covering those guys. And, you know, we don't need to pay for those top rate NHL teams for

01:22:00.680 entertainment. There's also some fantastic lacrosse games going on, some great athletes out there,

01:22:05.180 some great competition. So, you know, we don't always just talk about politics. It'll be a nice

01:22:09.340 break from that with Jake and that'll be a good conversation. So be sure to tune in on Monday guys

01:22:14.300 we're going to kick off what I'm sure is going to be another crazy busy news week. I thank you all

01:22:19.000 for tuning in today and y'all have a good weekend.

01:22:39.340 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - February 26, 2022

LIVE - Triggered： Welcome back to the cold war

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