00:09:36.140So, yeah, we'll see what's happened. I mean, it's very disturbing. I mean, we don't have the facts yet on what's happened down there with that truck that apparently had a number of firearms, body armor, things such as that.
00:11:43.980I can speculate and that's what I'm doing. But we have no other facts aside from what is put out at this point. Something that's interesting though, if there were 11 people arrested, I hope we can find out who they were and what they were up to as soon as possible.
00:12:00.920then. I mean, this would certainly give some indications of what these people are about. I
00:12:07.800mean, what was their motivation? Were they unheard of? Were they outside of the province initially?
00:12:12.840Were they part of a crazy group? I hate to admit it, but you know, there are some actually fringe
00:12:17.640crazy groups out there. We had nutcases way back, thankfully this stuff's almost gone,
00:12:23.560but in Provo's tour actually burning crosses. There was an Aryan Nations compound in the early 90s1.00
00:12:28.920up in the sundry area. And again, tiny minorities of lunatics and losers, but they do exist and1.00
00:12:37.500they can cause a lot of damage. So we will report on and find out what this is and as we can, but0.97
00:12:43.740it's serious no matter what the cause of it. And you can bet we're going to hear a heck of a lot
00:12:49.260more of it. If I'm standing, and I'd never want to stand in Trudeau's clown shoes, but if I were
00:12:53.780standing in them right now, I would certainly, of course, be using this right now. I would say
00:12:57.280this is now justified because we have people showing up with firearms at these things. This
00:13:03.500is very, very disturbing because otherwise the narrative the government had for invoking the
00:13:10.040emergency act was bunk. It was nothing. It was an inconvenience. People were not getting harmed.
00:13:15.760You know, property damage was minimal. Financial damage was real. You know, that was happening.
00:13:22.240They were blocking trade. I mean, it's not stuff to be completely dismissed. There were people
00:13:26.560living down there who are having a hard time just from the noise during the day or whatever. But
00:13:30.200to the point of invoking the Emergencies Act, no, no. Or as it's really known in the past was the
00:13:35.540War Measures Act. So things are developing fast and we're going to cover it as quickly as we can.
00:13:42.420And as Nico's been popping up on the comments, yeah, go to the, for the, you know, check out
00:13:46.160everything Dave's been writing, westernstandardonline.com. Oh, and I should mention
00:13:49.640Derek Fildebrand, I meant to say that earlier in the show, is going to be coming in, joining me in
00:13:53.080studio too. And we're going to talk about a column he wrote on the potential invocation of the
00:13:57.020Emergencies Act and his thoughts on it and how we can push back perhaps. Yes, go to the western
00:14:02.900standard online.com and you will get a free trial, full access, all the stories, all of the columns.
00:14:08.800As you can see, we've got a newsroom dialing up the phones like crazy, doing what they can,
00:14:13.080trying to get these facts. And as soon as we have them, they will go up on that site. And
00:14:17.520if you have a subscription, you get full free on a full unfettered access for $10 a month.
00:14:22.260you get a free trial for two weeks you can try it out and uh you know most people it was at 95
00:14:28.960we got our conversion rate people when they sign up for the two-week trial at the end of it say
00:14:32.000yeah we're going to keep on with this we'll keep our subscription keep going and that's how we stay
00:14:35.320independent we aren't paid by the government we get no tax dollars and that's why we can report
00:14:39.600on these things without any pressures from any other direction so thank you all who have already
00:14:44.120subscribed to the western standard and if you haven't already by all means you know please
00:14:48.860take out a subscription. I should be getting on speaking of firearms. Let's talk about the
00:14:53.540responsible ones. I can talk about our sponsor before I get on to Reid from BC there. And one
00:14:59.400of our good sponsors is the Canada Shooting Sports Association. These guys are their name says it all
00:15:05.400they're a shooting sports association. They're full of resources for people who want to responsibly
00:15:10.060safely and legally use firearms which is most of us. I mean you know yes we aren't trucking down
00:15:14.160to any protests or anything like that. Their website is cssa-cila.org. And they've got all
00:15:22.900kinds of resources for target shooters, collectors, you know, buy-in cells, all of those kinds of
00:15:29.160things, hunters, all those good uses of firearms that most of us enjoy. They have all that there,
00:15:36.040but plus they're also advocating for firearms owners. They have legal challenges on behalf
00:15:40.580of firearms owners out there, at least three of them, against the Liberal government, because
00:15:44.580the Liberals, you know, I mean, as you can see today, they love stepping on our rights whenever
00:15:48.700possible. They're pushing against our rights, taking them away. Well, property and firearm
00:15:53.460ownership has been one that they've been going after for a long, long time. These guys are
00:15:57.360helping stand up for your right to keep enjoying those firearms. So please, you know, check them
00:16:02.460out, help them support you, take out a membership with them, and they will make sure you still get
00:16:08.040to enjoy that, because if we don't stand up for ourselves, we will lose those rights. We're
00:16:10.980certainly seeing that. Now, Reid should be joining me pretty shortly here. In the meantime, let's see,
00:16:16.740let's talk about some other things. I got to scroll down. When guests are late, I get backed up.
00:16:21.760So let's talk about, I'm going to show a video, actually. See, here's where a lot of discussion
00:16:25.620was on the weekend. You know, there's been a lot of back and forth on the type of people attending
00:16:29.800these protests, but something that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention was the presence of
00:16:33.980outright communist flags among protesters. So yeah, I'll get Nico to queue up that video and
00:16:40.380oh wait, we got Reid. Okay, we're going to talk about that video a little later though. So hold
00:16:43.340your ire for the communists for a little while. I'm certain I'll be talking about them a little
00:16:49.100later. I never have used for communists. We have Reid Small coming in from BC. He's been
00:16:53.560checking things out, reporting on news out there and checking in on some of the protests out that
00:16:58.800way. So let's pop him in and see what he's got to say. Hey Reid, how are you doing there?
00:17:03.980Okay. Good. Good. Good. Yeah. These live ones. It's always difficult to tell. Thanks
00:17:11.520for joining us today. Can you hear me? Yeah. They're just a bit of a lag going on, I think.
00:17:20.500Yeah. Happy to be here. Okay. So I'll just start. I mean, you've been writing a lot of
00:17:25.880things on a number of issues. You're our BC man out there, but you went out to Surrey
00:17:30.720and checked in on some of the other protests
00:17:32.520that have been kind of springing up out in BC there?
00:17:39.060Okay, maybe we'll get back to that video on the communists
00:17:57.980and we have had protests going on in Surrey.
00:18:00.720we're hearing about coots all the time we're hearing about ottawa let's try reed one more time
00:18:04.040and uh see if his connection has his is improved there hey reed how you doing good good hopefully
00:18:11.080uh hopefully we got that sorted out now okay great as i said live you know it's great you know we
00:18:15.900catch things as they develop and as they go uh as nico says you got bc blockages developing down
00:18:20.920there right now but of course we can always get some technical uh hiccups so uh thanks for joining
00:18:25.300and you attended a couple of protest sites on the weekend did you yeah yeah there was a massive
00:18:30.620protest at the 176 and 8th Avenue truck crossing in Surrey. And that's been going on since
00:18:37.560last Monday. And, you know, what started with a very small group of demonstrators
00:18:43.880had been cycling in and out in shifts throughout the week, ensuring that there was a round-the-clock
00:18:50.860presence there. And word started to pick up. And on Saturday, things really, really popped off and
00:18:58.180massive police presence, massive convoy stretching all the way from Chilliwack. It was pretty
00:19:07.000incredible and very peaceful for the most part. I didn't see anything bad going on, no violence,
00:19:15.200no aggression, despite what some people were saying. The RCMP did confirm that four people
00:19:21.660were arrested uh for mischief uh however uh they didn't provide any more detail um i know on on
00:19:28.460sunday they uh set up a perimeter and uh anyone who passed that perimeter was uh was a would was
00:19:36.220told that they would be arrested so i'm assuming uh from what i've heard uh is that those uh four
00:19:41.420arrests were people that were just testing that boundary and uh trying to push their way through
00:19:46.300there but no assaults or anything like that yeah and that's something i saw in protests that i've
00:19:51.540gone to and of course in a lot of videos we see i mean the the atmosphere of a peaceful sort of
00:19:56.760positive thing i mean very serious protests and they're blocking borders it can't be understated
00:20:00.980but they've always been very carefully peaceful and and respectful in general were you seeing
00:20:06.100similarly then out there in bc yeah i mean people uh people have set up hockey nets there were kids
00:20:12.160playing street hockey um it was it was really incredible and you know people of all races and
00:20:18.000backgrounds were there and i feel like it's it's almost silly to have to uh mention that at this
00:20:23.100point but given the the situation we're in where a lot of these demonstrators are portrayed by uh
00:20:28.580one of one of our leaders as misogynistic and uh racist uh i certainly didn't see that when i was
00:20:36.100there. No, no. There's a lot of diversity. You know, it seems, I think, that some of that line
00:20:42.480has been dropping a little bit because they're realizing, I mean, people are seeing through it,
00:20:45.300and if anything, it's just ticking people off further and making them look petty. They're
00:20:49.520still trying to portray the protesters and demonstrators as extreme and violent and
00:20:53.240dangerous, but they seem to be easing off a bit on the racist thing because there's just too many
00:20:57.740images showing that it's not a racial thing. You can disagree with it, but it's never had anything
00:21:02.220to do with race that was only brought in by people who were opposed to it yeah well i think this is
00:21:07.980a relevant point with uh the emergency act uh being brought in or the you know the revised uh
00:21:13.740war measures act um if if you can successfully portray a group of people as something that is
00:21:22.300collectively regarded as bad then you can justify tyrannizing them um so if if enough people think
00:21:31.740And they're, you know, while it is a minority, there are a lot of people out there that, you know, you can see on social media are demonizing these protesters across the country and, you know, calling them all sorts of things.
00:21:43.280And, you know, if if that's the narrative, then you can justify tyrannizing them and shutting them down in a potentially violent way.
00:21:53.420And obviously, we haven't seen that yet.
00:21:55.720But I mean, things are certainly escalating.
00:21:58.040so in bc at that crossing is that blockade then still currently set up right now
00:22:02.660it is still set up there's uh far less people in attendance uh as there was on the weekend
00:22:09.320but the block is still there and they don't have any intentions of leaving
00:22:14.360so are they letting any traffic through with that one or is it just being in the area
00:22:18.600um they they've been they've been traffic's been black backed up but they have been letting uh
00:22:24.260letting it through although it's it's there's certainly been delays and uh a few a few truckers
00:22:29.920uh that have been making the trip have expressed their frustration um again uh from what i saw the
00:22:38.580vast majority of people even the truckers on the weekend that were uh backlogged and were not
00:22:43.520participating in the protests were supportive um but there's definitely there's definitely some that
00:22:49.540are uh voicing concerns about delays yeah well and that's something i guess that has the federal
00:22:56.120government concerned it had me feeling kind of happy and seeing it spreading i mean we see it
00:23:00.120bc now alberta i haven't seen anything in saskatchewan manitoba had protests in winnipeg
00:23:04.580quebec said protests i mean people aren't giving up on this and they haven't been to date violent
00:23:09.700uh that's been really remarkable all things considered for somebody who watches a lot of
00:23:14.880protests over the years yeah yeah no violence again no one's going to want to bring their
00:23:21.140young children to uh to a protest that is that they believe is going to get violent and there
00:23:27.360was a ton of kids there on the weekend and it was all just you know good vibes all around kids
00:23:33.600playing hockey people playing music um you know no violence at all i talked to a bunch of rcmp
00:23:41.760officers and they had, they had no complaints. Um, the ones that I spoke to, um, so yeah.
00:23:49.540So what's BC government reaction been to that? Like a lot of this, it's a federal thing,
00:23:53.720but it's also provincial. A lot of the pressure from the convoy in Alberta has been directed
00:23:57.680towards premier Jason Kenney here. Uh, what is the response from the provincial government in BC
00:24:02.340been towards the local blockades there? Are they planning any actions or speaking of any threats
00:24:07.400or anything like that? They haven't spoken of any threats yet. They just keep saying we're
00:24:12.500monitoring the situation, we're working on it. And this is coming from the RCMP. As far as,
00:24:17.000you know, Premier John Horgan goes, he made a comment last week after
00:24:23.020BC announced a new set of vaccine mandates to encompass all healthcare workers,
00:24:29.800as opposed to community care, acute care, long-term care. That mandate was previously
00:24:36.080instituted. But now there's a new one. And he said that he won't be easing any restrictions
00:24:42.300in, you know, as a result of a few honks, is what he said. But since then, he hasn't commented.
00:24:49.780There will be a release today, a government release on, you know, COVID statistics, testing,
00:24:54.800vaccination rates, that sort of thing. But the BC officials, John Horgan, Bonnie Henry,
00:25:00.700Adrian Dix won't be appearing in front of the camera until until tomorrow. So I assume that
00:25:06.140they'll they'll have something to say about it then. Okay, aside from convoy things, you've had
00:25:12.020a number of articles, of course, you're always working out there in BC and reporting out there
00:25:15.260for us. What are your other top stories you put out recently? And what are you working on?
00:25:21.100Well, most of most of the top stories are usually COVID related. Like I said,
00:25:26.460there was a new vaccine mandates to encompass all healthcare workers and private practices.
00:25:33.680You know, this includes acupuncturists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, any private
00:25:43.200healthcare practices, you now have until March 24th to get vaccinated against COVID, or you will be
00:25:51.000basically fired, let go without pay, as what happened to the nearly 3,000 other healthcare
00:25:58.720workers in the previously instituted mandate. The chief coroner released a report last week
00:26:04.760on the overdose situation in BC. We saw well over 2,200 fatal drug overdoses in the province
00:26:13.320in uh sorry in 2021 uh compared to to 2020 which is a roughly a 26 percent increase um and despite
00:26:22.020the fact that most people assume that this uh drug crisis is is affecting people in back alleys
00:26:27.480you know overdosing on the street uh that's actually not the case uh most most of the fatal
00:26:33.300drug overdoses happened uh inside of residences um and uh yeah none of the officials have mentioned
00:26:40.500anything about how um lockdowns and and you know locking people down in their homes may have uh
00:26:47.220impacted uh the the dramatic increase that set the record yet again uh consecutively each year
00:26:53.460since 2016. um so that's that's pretty big news right now um again as far as solutions go uh for
00:27:02.900for the drug crisis, officials are talking about decriminalizing, picking up new safe injection
00:27:14.300sites, things like that. And that's about as far as the conversation goes.
00:27:20.160Yeah, the opioid crisis is massive. I'm glad you pointed that out. I had an incident last fall
00:27:26.720that I wrote on and in our offices downtown here in Calgary, there are a lot of addicts all over
00:27:31.620place and those are the visible ones that we see those are the ones on the streets the homeless
00:27:35.860people the ones in rough condition but yeah i found that stat too when i was looking stuff up
00:27:40.580the majority of the overdoses actually aren't happening out in the streets necessarily or at
00:27:44.740the bus shelters as as you see they're people at home they're people with jobs um i i know three
00:27:50.900people now personally one was more distant a while back but who've lost actually sons
00:27:56.020to drug overdoses. It's not just a street person thing. This is a huge, huge problem,
00:28:03.260and we really need to be addressing it, but it's getting overwhelmed with all the COVID mess right
00:28:06.680now. Yeah, it's absolutely tragic. And in BC, one of the findings was that I believe it was 83%
00:28:14.840was of the fatal overdoses, fentanyl and its analogs were detected.
00:28:23.220fentanyl is becoming a real problem it's been it's been an increasing problem since 2016 as
00:28:29.540these black market organizations are figuring out that they can ship it into the country and
00:28:37.920a package about the size of an envelope as opposed to you know smuggling in large quantities of
00:28:43.320of heroin for example from Southeast Asia which is a common place it comes from so this this
00:28:50.580whole fentanyl thing is a real problem and we're seeing it in a lot of pressed pills being sold
00:28:55.500as as uh illegally as pharmaceutical drugs uh specifically benzos um ton of people think they're
00:29:03.020they're buying xanax and uh and they're they're just they're getting fentanyl and they're dying
00:29:08.860alone in their in their homes as a result um it's really just awful uh you know i several people i
00:29:14.140know um have been tragically impacted uh by the the fentanyl uh crisis yeah that fentanyl is just
00:29:22.540so horrifically potent and and and addictive i mean it's just it's a you can't compare it to
00:29:29.420anything else and as you said a tiny amount can be shipped out and then cut up and spread a long
00:29:33.840way so of course it just brings the eye of opportunistic drug dealers you know straight
00:29:38.440to it i mean the money that can be made for those those dealers and crap uh is just overwhelming
00:29:43.420And another thing too is a lot of the time addicts will hear of an overdose from a specific
00:29:51.940dealer or a specific line and they will actually, more users will flock to that source because
00:29:58.220it's a stronger, it's a, it's a stronger supply.
00:30:11.200you know, I just like talking to and reminding folks, we have reporters on the ground, you know,
00:30:15.360throughout the West, all over in major areas. And you're our main BC man, you've been putting some
00:30:20.000great stuff out there on the site. So I'll let you get back to work on it. And we'll check in
00:30:24.740again with you again down the road here. Awesome. Thanks, Corey. Great. Thanks. So yeah, that's
00:30:30.740Reed Small. He's our, here's our BC senior reporter out there covering things down in
00:30:35.480vancouver and he went to the protests themselves and uh yeah this this drug overdose overdose the
00:30:42.460you know they're saying poisoning uh the other term that i think should be used more often though
00:30:46.760is most definitely epidemic i mean it just goes on and on and uh it's just causing horrific damage
00:30:53.100we we can't express enough and you know it is a symptom of everything that's been going on
00:30:58.640with this pandemic with the stress put on people people put out of work you know we can't pretend
00:31:05.060that this explosion of the addictions hasn't been at least somewhat correlated with the
00:31:10.220restrictions, with the lockdowns, with the depression that it's causing. And not enough
00:31:14.420people talk about it. For people who haven't been to Vancouver a lot, it's partly because of the
00:31:18.420warm climate. It's because it's on a port area. It's been known since the 60s as an area with a
00:31:23.020lot of addiction, whether it was heroin back then and crack later on. So with what you see in your
00:31:28.220cities out here in the West, you can multiply it by a few orders when you look as far as Vancouver
00:31:33.760actually for addiction, because it tends to get much, much worse out there. So I'm glad Reid
00:31:37.640mentioned that. And we're going to get on now onto what's more breaking and pressing. And
00:31:43.120that's with this potential declaration, I guess, of the Emergencies Act. And our publisher,
00:31:48.560Derek Fildebrandt is going to join me. And we're going to talk at length about some of the reaction
00:31:51.400to that, because this is just huge. And I don't think enough people understand the implications
00:31:56.320of what this move is and what this means in Canadian history and contemporary. We're talking
00:32:01.020today. So we're going to run a quick ad from one of our sponsors and through VideoMagic and Nico,
00:32:06.520you're going to see Derek Fildebrand next to me. And we're going to talk about that right away.
00:32:12.440Algodex is owned by Algonaut. This is great new technology just coming online now in the
00:32:18.720digital currency world. Algodex is a great way for you to use the digital currency Algorand
00:32:25.060in your day-to-day transactions. Can you imagine a world where we don't have to
00:32:30.040buy a cup of coffee using the federal dollar and you don't even have to use the American federal
00:32:34.220dollar. You don't have to use the euro or the pound sterling. You can use real money digital
00:32:40.180currencies that are not at the beck and call of governments and inflation. Algodex is making
00:32:45.220digital currencies usable in a day-to-day basis. Okay, as you can see, joining me here now is our
00:32:55.300publisher, Derek Fildebrand. Boy, he was full of a head of steam when he came into the office this
00:32:59.980morning so was I because again I mean we're all gobsmacked I mean as anybody who reads history
00:33:04.820knows about government powers and authorities and the seriousness of this I mean this is
00:33:09.020an incredible and troubling development so thanks for joining me and maybe we'll get you to lay out
00:33:13.860why you felt compelled to come on the show to talk about it well it's just even though I'm the boss
00:33:17.940you get to cut this interview off when it's done so I don't get to talk as long as I want to no no
00:33:22.960we have another guest in a while but we got a fair amount of time to talk about this right now
00:33:26.380Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. I came in this morning just gobsmacked. I didn't know, what do we make of this? I mean, we've been living under various degrees of authoritarianism for two years now as governments arbitrarily take away our rights, give them back, take away even more the next time, and we just keep going through that.
00:33:45.480But it never dawned on me that we would see the War Measures Act, now renamed in the 80s, the Emergencies Act.
00:33:56.920As you said on your show this morning, it was used in the First and Second World War and during the FLQ terrorism crisis.
00:34:02.600I think even invoking it during the FLQ crisis was overkill.
00:34:06.080But, I mean, at least there were bombs and assassinations and actual serious violence taking place.
00:34:13.840And even then it was probably an overreaction.
00:34:15.280It could be defined, at least at that time, as an attempted insurrection. I mean, there was no doubt about it. The FLQ wanted through force, and they proved it to separate Quebec. They didn't want a referenda. They were saying, we're going to shoot you until you let us go. So, I mean, it'll be debatable forever in history whether the act was certainly more justified then, though, than what we're looking at today.
00:34:34.300But, you know, but some and I get it that people, a few people who live in downtown Ottawa, most of them are actually politicians, bureaucrats and media.
00:34:42.180So they're very frustrated. And, you know, I guess it gets into a little further other than that.
00:34:47.120I get that it's disturbing. But, you know, some honking and bouncy castles does not constitute domestic violent insurrection.
00:34:55.620and you know we've had we had Occupy Wall Street uh actually I worked in Ottawa during that and
00:35:03.000these guys camped all over the place and they were there for months and months and months you
00:35:07.300know you had experience with Occupy Wall Street yeah uh and they were allowed to stay there for
00:35:11.740the most part for quite a long time you had months yeah you had I don't know more and anti-pipeline
00:35:16.700protesters who had blocked railways and bridges and they were allowed to do it they were not cleared
00:35:22.300out by force. So, you know, even if these guys are breaking the law, and at least in some respects
00:35:28.680they are, if the law is not enforced on one group, you can't enforce it on another. And no one even
00:35:34.000thought for a second about going down the road of the Emergencies or War Measures Act. This is,
00:35:40.420as I wrote my column this morning, it's an act of war. This is an act of war. And we got to be
00:35:49.080careful not to fall into hyperbole here. I like to preface things by saying let's not be hyperbolic
00:35:54.540and then I might say something hyperbolic. I'm gonna probably break that here but I do I think
00:36:00.080this is an act of war as Trudeau has declared effective war on a group of protesters that he
00:36:06.640deems to be domestic violent insurrectionists. And the thing is questionable too as we said
00:36:13.120we've seen our rights eroded for two solid years now and they've utilized section one of the
00:36:17.220charter to keep doing it they say the public health is so important we can stop you from
00:36:21.960traveling we can put you out of work we can stop you from visiting families we can do all of these
00:36:25.660things because section one makes it so important that the charter rights for the time being won't
00:36:30.060apply now even with the implication of section one they didn't feel that was giving them enough
00:36:35.140opportunity to get rid of the protesters so that makes me wonder again how big an action does he
00:36:42.120have in mind, and that's when the word army starts coming to mind, is he going to look to tap the
00:36:47.200military? Because he already has the access to the police. He already has the law technically on his
00:36:51.800side to remove these guys. Why would he feel compelled to pull this trigger unless he's got
00:36:59.520something big in mind? And that's what worries me. If this is going to end peacefully, we need
00:37:04.920goodwill on both sides. We need de-escalation on both sides. A small example of that was Ottawa
00:37:10.940Mayor Jim Watson. He is a partisan liberal. He was a liberal minister in the Dalton McGuinty
00:37:15.220government. This is no right-wing freedom, libertarian-loving conservative here. He is
00:37:22.520as liberal as it gets. He's an Ottawa liberal born through and through. And they negotiated to get to
00:37:27.100get the truckers out of some of the more residential areas where it's spelled into to
00:37:31.060get it probably where it should be concentrated, which is directly around Parliament Hill. It's a
00:37:35.040political protest, so it should be around a political symbol. That was goodwill, and that
00:37:39.040was de-escalation that's probably a better way that you're going to end this kind of thing
00:37:43.920um and uh i apologize for that yeah gee you're always the one that gets on us oh i would have
00:37:50.680slapped you up for that one don't worry i'm making a note of it oh yeah carry on um but instead this
00:37:56.140is being ratcheted up to the point where they're you know the government and the government-funded
00:37:59.680media are calling these people domestic terrorists uh violent the only violence that has been
00:38:06.080committed to date uh has been from counter protesters and from the police on government
00:38:12.480orders not a single one of these protesters has a recorded uh example yet of violence which is
00:38:19.840actually shocking i mean you'd think that this many you would think just there's always going
00:38:23.500to be a few wingnuts that are gonna and this is astoundingly peaceful actually and i would yeah
00:38:28.060i would have thought there would have been at least a little bit from a couple of nexts and
00:38:30.680any big group is going to have a couple of people like that and no doubt there's going to probably
00:38:34.660is almost certainly some wing nuts in these groups. But it hasn't been violent yet. So what's
00:38:41.940going to happen now is the cabinet has to put forward this declaration. The declaration then
00:38:48.240goes to the House of Commons. It looks like Jagmeet Singh, Dave Naylor mentioned this on the
00:38:53.200news update earlier, Jagmeet Singh's NDP are likely to provide the votes necessary to the
00:39:00.060liberals to pass this. But we don't know much about what's going to happen, because this is a
00:39:05.820very vaguely worded act. It's just the government now has, through cabinet decree, the power to do
00:39:11.840really whatever's necessary to combat whatever emergency this is.
00:39:18.820Yeah, I mean, it's unprecedented. And that's kind of what leaves that that hanging in the air with
00:39:22.740us. And I mean, what gets me is this should be an act of last resort, last resort. And I haven't
00:39:27.380seen any acts of the first resort yet. Like there hasn't even, and people say, well, he shouldn't
00:39:31.980negotiate. No, you always negotiate first. It doesn't mean you capitulate. It doesn't mean you
00:39:36.200agree, but at least gain that moral high ground and say, look, we tried, we tried talking to them.
00:39:40.880They kept throwing eggs in my face, whatever. We made five efforts. It came to a failure. Now we're
00:39:45.300out of options. We've got to move to plan B, but he skipped all that. He's never even made a slight
00:39:50.000effort to even acknowledge that these guys might have a valid concern. And he's moving straight
00:39:54.800to force we haven't seen, as I said, look at the gray hair I got. This hasn't happened in my
00:39:59.800lifetime. This was prior to me being born was the last time this was invoked. Like people have got
00:40:03.820to understand how serious this is. Yeah. And we have to now think about, well, what are we going
00:40:08.520to do about this? Again, we have to see what start, what kind of decrees they start publishing.
00:40:12.860I wouldn't be terribly surprised, but we don't know for sure yet. I wouldn't be terribly surprised
00:40:16.560if they start banning media and anyone from publishing anything that encourages these people.
00:40:21.700um you know the use of civil disobedience should be very sparing i mean uh the other side of things
00:40:28.040you know the blm guys i don't know more all these occupy wall street anything you don't like about
00:40:34.020the government policies is a case for civil disobedience for those guys i disagree and i
00:40:38.120you know there's a degree of uh hypocrisy on all sides here you're fine with civil disobedience
00:40:43.120if it's your side you're against civil disobedience if it's the other side so
00:40:45.720you know which level do you like and which do you not yeah yeah so let's take everything with
00:40:50.560grain of salt here, but these are people who have probably for the most part never protested in
00:40:54.840their lives. They're not asking the government for anything. They're asking the government to
00:40:58.860stop doing something to them, essentially to legalize them going back to their jobs.1.00
00:41:04.560That's a pretty reasonable thing. And they also have a pretty damn good argument that0.74
00:41:08.900while they might be breaking some noise bylaws and have some parking infractions, the real law
00:41:13.460breakers are the governments, federal and provincial across Canada, which are breaking
00:41:17.320at least the spirit of the constitution, our fundamental, our charter of fundamental rights
00:41:22.500and freedoms, that the real lawbreakers here are the politicians, not them. And if they're breaking
00:41:26.300it, well, it's just tit for tat. And, you know, a parking infraction is not, not as serious as
00:41:31.080taking away your fundamental rights. So now we have to look at, you know, how are we going to
00:41:34.220respond to this? So at least, you know, I think we should see, I would encourage a level of
00:41:42.040non-violent civil disobedience. And for our part, the Western Standard, our news division,
00:41:48.040Dave and Melanie and all those guys, they're not changing anything they're going to do
00:41:52.060because they need to do their job professionally, fairly, neutrally. But as an organization,
00:41:57.100the Western Standard, we're going to do what we did in the earlier 2000s when the government said
00:42:03.140we weren't allowed to publish cartoons of Mohammed. Well, we're going to do the same thing now. We0.73
00:42:06.820are going to intentionally poke the government in the eye. We're going to break every single
00:42:11.120order that comes out under martial law that we believe is unjust. And we're going to break it
00:42:17.140in a nonviolent way. Yeah. And I mean, to give examples of that, because I was thinking about
00:42:20.760that, how would that apply to a media organization? Editorial ones like you and I, not the standard
00:42:25.460itself, but we would stand up. You think of wartime measures when it comes to press. If you
00:42:30.320read things, even from the Gulf War, press members who could get into the site of the Gulf War had
00:42:36.060to run every story through a censor before it was allowed to get back to the public and that's what
00:42:42.100the steps on the huge freedom of the press rights but they say it's an emergency it's an act of war
00:42:46.840thus we will step in the way i could see the government saying press are not going to be
00:42:51.020allowed to attend actions to take down this protest we're going to get in there and bloody
00:42:56.220cover it we're going no matter what and get me don't you think for a second we will not cover
00:43:00.240that we will go in there don't your warnings are going to fall flat uh it's going to be more vital
00:43:05.800than ever that the public get to see what's happening in there then. But that's the first
00:43:09.400thing I think they tend to do when they do that. I mean, we worry about the police. We worry about
00:43:12.620stuff. But as a press organization, this is very concerning. This is when they can say,
00:43:17.020we could shut you down. We could fine you. If you write on this or if you write positively about
00:43:20.760this, I mean, if you wrote positively about the other side in a war in the past, you find yourself
00:43:25.560locked up. And that's the War Measures Act. That's the Emergencies Act.
00:43:29.580Yeah, like there is, if you're embedded with soldiers, you probably can't be filing stuff
00:43:33.320saying, I'm with, you know, the second platoon of the fourth company. We're about to move on such and
00:43:37.220such. Yeah, because then you're going to get everybody killed, and you're agreeing to certain
00:43:41.280things as an embedded reporter in a war zone. Okay, I can see that. But they also would censor
00:43:46.960if you wrote anything negative, because, oh, we found some discontent among the ranks, or we
00:43:51.760thought we saw some abuse of the citizens while they were moving through, which isn't flattering
00:43:55.940for the army. In both sides of the First World War, you had a lot of peace-oriented people who
00:44:01.040thought this is insane let's stop the killing let's just declare a white peace those people
00:44:06.440on both sides of the first world war were censored um so we don't know we again we haven't seen the
00:44:11.460orders yet but if they say you know you can't send reporters into some of these areas uh we're
00:44:16.560sending reporters i don't care if they say you're not allowed to write anything that encourages
00:44:20.520these encourages these people well you know i've i've been pretty agnostic around some of the
00:44:24.520tactics used so far i'm i'm i'm not sure that blockading is the right way to go but if the
00:44:30.180government tells me, and it tells the Western standard that we're not allowed to, well, then
00:44:33.780I'm going to do it. I'm going to very clearly violate whatever orders they make. Yeah. And
00:44:38.400there's the, and again, we'll talk about like how that could be, I'm just thinking myself,
00:44:41.260because you know me, I get my backup too. So, okay, fine. If you want to get me to do something,
00:44:44.640tell me not to. That's just my nature. Ask my poor suffering mother, or even my wife for that
00:44:49.820matter. Yeah. But I wouldn't say right and say, okay, this is how to go smash windows and get
00:44:56.420attention. No, but I would say, you know what? This is how you can go peacefully join and swell
00:45:02.060the ranks of the protesters. Here's the highway. Here's the people you can meet. I want you to go
00:45:07.080out. In fact, I'll do it myself if I get a weekend off and let's build those numbers up because you
00:45:12.540know, the more citizens get up, the less you guys can push back and hey, again, government, what
00:45:16.720you're going to do about it? I'm going to write about that. I'm going to encourage them. I'm
00:45:18.940going to try and lead more folks there. At the same time, there's things that our premiers can
00:45:23.860do. And I think, you know, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe have been on the side of the authoritarians
00:45:28.600for two years now. They've tried to use some wishy-washy language. A lot of them want to do
00:45:32.860it, but they have been doing it. And I don't think with proper justification, but I think those two
00:45:37.840premiers in particular, and to a lesser extent, some other premiers have an opportunity to redeem
00:45:41.980themselves here, especially the Western premiers, Alberta and Saskatchewan. What we need to see now
00:45:46.960is clear declarations. And I think even legislation coming from both legislatures declaring that any
00:45:53.720application of the Emergencies or War Measures Act in Alberta and Saskatchewan are null and void.
00:45:59.720We are not going to cooperate. We need to have clear publicly communicated orders to all police
00:46:05.480forces in the provinces, both provinces, not to cooperate with any federal officials whatsoever.
00:46:10.680And I think the premiers need to call the military commanders at major bases in both provinces
00:46:15.880and make clear that any military aggression under orders from Ottawa is not acceptable. We will not
00:46:21.880tolerate it on western soil yeah i mean and that's how serious it could be we could see military
00:46:28.280vehicles moving in on canadian citizens on our soil we're spoiled we've been lucky we've been
00:46:33.240happy we haven't seen that we haven't experienced it i've been to other countries when that was going
00:46:37.800on and seen it i was fortunate to get a lot of travel in my younger years we don't deal with
00:46:42.200that atmosphere of fear we see the military as friends we don't get nervous when you see a
00:46:45.640soldier on a corner it's oh cool kind of a soldier out on leave remember the 2000 uh 2004 2006 federal
00:46:51.240election. The Paul Martin liberals ran an ad about guns in our streets. They said, you know,
00:46:56.540Stephen Harper's prime minister, the conservatives are in power. There'll be guns, soldiers with guns
00:47:01.720in the streets. And it was like warning of this fascist future state that Harper clearly had no
00:47:08.280intention of and did not do. Well, now you've got Trudeau. We've had two Trudeau prime ministers.
00:47:13.960The last Trudeau prime minister did have troops with guns in the streets. You can argue if the
00:47:18.020AFLQ crisis warranted that or not. At least it was more than this. We could say that at least.
00:47:24.620But now we're about, Trudeau is now invoking legislation that'll empower him to send troops
00:47:29.640with guns into the streets. And there's been kind of a bit of a side tangent here. I think
00:47:34.840the military's upper brass is very worried about how this is going to play out.
00:47:40.900The upper brass, the really high guys, the heads of the three commands and the chief of staff,
00:47:46.240those guys are political appointees you could tell their twitter is like woke liberals wearing
00:47:51.600a uniform uh it's it's weird stuff but i grew up in military towns i grew up in army towns cfb
00:47:57.340tretton cfb petawalla that's where i grew up i know the kind of guys the kind of women who joined
00:48:02.720the military these are not people who have any intention of turning guns turning tanks on people
00:48:09.340who are expressing themselves for freedom these most people join the military um because they at
00:48:14.820at least have the idealistic expectation that they're standing for freedom. I think there's
00:48:19.340real concern in the military. They're going after guys now who military... Two JTF2 members. Yeah,
00:48:24.980just for attending a protest. Now, I'm pretty sure there's probably someone in the military who
00:48:28.340attended a Black Lives Matter protest or all these things. And that's just JTF2. That's just0.98
00:48:32.860JTF2. I mean, how many regular soldiers in general? And again, yes, that's not what they
00:48:38.220joined with the vision of turning a rifle on any Canadian citizen. I mean, if they envisioned it
00:48:42.000all it would be again a circumstance of some crazed cult in a in a distant area you know
00:48:46.340they didn't represent the majority not something like this you brought up the premiers and that's
00:48:50.260another interesting point because i don't know how well legoa is going to go with this the bloc
00:48:53.700quebecois are going to not they are not going to like this they were demanding trudeau apologize
00:48:58.060for his father's invocation to the war measures act only the other year quebecers do not like that
00:49:03.260act they don't like and it's the emergencies act i understand i know we've got all these liberals
00:49:07.500attacking me on twitter you're already calling it the right thing it's the same thing they repainted
00:49:11.000it. Scrape it, you got the War Measures Act underneath. And I don't, Legault's going to be
00:49:15.200in a tough spot. I don't see him coming out supporting this. This is too much of a trigger
00:49:18.780for his own constituents in Quebec. You know, he's not been a hardcore secessionist, but he
00:49:23.960understands his voters. But he is a nationalist. Yeah, they want autonomy from Ottawa as much as
00:49:28.920possible, and nothing is less so than having Canadian soldiers on their streets dealing with
00:49:33.040people out there. Yeah, I'm not sure how this is going to go, how is this going to play out,
00:49:38.160But I'd say I think the upper grass of the military and the political oversight of the military is very worried that the military, for lack of a better term, is not politically reliable right now, that they're not going to be, I think there's gonna be a lot of hesitation. I know the kinds of people who do this, and they did not sign up for, you know, beating up civilians who were just protesting nonviolently.
00:50:01.740Well, you know, I showed a picture I put out a while back
00:50:04.280with somebody saying, you know, on how to get out of a date
00:50:05.880or stuff like that or a dinner date you don't want to go to
00:50:07.900and they're taking a red pan and making a COVID test look positive
00:50:10.700so they could send it to the date and say, sorry, I can't make it.
00:50:13.200Jeez, it would be interesting if a lot of soldiers just had positive tests
00:50:16.060every time they were called out to deal with it.
00:58:35.280Yeah, in today's political arena, it seems like everything is being consumed by protests and COVID stories.
00:58:45.600So I figured I'd get a little bit of something else out there.
00:58:49.560um to see if to see if anyone is interested in anything else and and i believe they are and
00:58:56.040these are still very important policies to us and and the universal child care uh promise from the
00:59:01.480federal election appealed to a lot of people i mean if you're a a parent or a pair of parents
00:59:05.800with you know limited income and you've got an option for child care that sounds inexpensive it
00:59:10.120it holds a lot of appeal and and it's a big expense for people but as your column put you
00:59:14.760know there's some side effects that people might not be considering it might not be quite as
00:59:18.440beneficial as people would imagine if such a policy comes about yeah so essentially and and
00:59:23.960to be honest this was one of the the policies in the last election that i didn't really love
00:59:31.400um but i i didn't have any strong opposition to it um if they wanted to make child care more
00:59:39.000affordable okay well this is one way of doing it and it was one of those things that i was
00:59:44.280just kind of lukewarm to but some really powerful research has come out of the united states looking
00:59:51.320at the impact of these pre-k programs these universal pre-pre-k programs and almost all
01:00:00.440the evidence now suggests that any initial benefit of pre-k disappears by the end of kindergarten
01:00:07.320And by grade three and grade six, there's actually a statistically significant negative impact on childhood outcomes.
01:00:20.440And so that raises some big questions in regards to how we roll out a $10 a day daycare system throughout the country, who's deciding what is and isn't daycare that applies for that program, and really should make us sit back and say, okay, well, how do we avoid some of the negative consequences we've seen elsewhere?
01:00:46.880Yeah. And I mean, what, one of the other things, I mean, I'm guessing getting to the root of the
01:00:51.380negative consequences and you, and you allude to it. There's a lot more benefits if we're
01:00:54.860going to spend the money often on just putting the money in the pockets of the parent and they
01:00:58.340can choose whether they want childcare or they want the, if that money allows one parent to
01:01:03.380stay home or for them to spend more time at home and interact with their child. When you give a,
01:01:07.460a $10 a day program, that choice is taken away. You've either got to put your kid into the state
01:01:12.260run or at least state regulated child care facility or or have the full expense of keeping
01:01:17.140them at home which is uh kind of unfair i mean i think most studies find that i mean a child
01:01:21.300especially in those developmental years does the best at home when it's possible yeah and i mean
01:01:26.500the the reason why a cash transfer is the best option um is twofold i mean the pandemic has shown
01:01:35.060really that the government is only good at one thing and that's sending cash to people
01:01:42.260it is not good at very much else and two you then allow for alternatives that fit the lifestyles
01:01:51.380of how diverse canadians are from coast to coast if you want to use the money to let's say aid in
01:01:59.940the retirement of a parent who's going to look after your children you want to use it for a
01:02:05.700smaller setting where there are fewer children you want to maybe stay home one parent takes
01:02:11.860some time off work what about if you have a situation where you have non-traditional work
01:02:19.300hours so you work at ford and you work the night time shift on the press there will probably be no
01:02:27.620government approved vet childcare vendors available for you because it's very unlikely
01:02:35.540that we will have anything under the $10 a day scheme that is beyond your traditional kind of
01:02:41.7007 to 6 p.m. And so there's a variety of reasons why going that route is better. It just allows
01:02:50.420for a lot more flexibility. And from what we can see, at least in the US, it doesn't come with
01:02:56.340some of the baggage of these state-run programs and really the issue here is that if your
01:03:04.020curriculum isn't great and that is that is all that is taught for those in the pre-k system
01:03:13.940well then you really multiply the errors and any mistakes that may exist and so there's also some
01:03:20.900level of security and having a more open and competitive system with cash transfers, because
01:03:26.100then you let parents sort out what works best for them and their kids. Well, and as per the name of
01:03:33.260your organization, you know, the Consumer Choice Center, it's a matter of choice. But unfortunately,
01:03:37.320when it comes to a lot of these government programs, and I think there's a lot of politics
01:03:40.700involved, they want to keep it centralized. They want to keep it to state, if not owned,
01:03:45.620state-managed facilities, and sometimes there's a lot of political play going on. We see that
01:03:51.600the same with school choice quite often. I mean, they don't want to give parents the ability to
01:03:55.640have a voucher system and choose where to put their kids. They just want to say you either
01:03:59.340pick the public system or pay fully private. There's no in between. Yeah, yeah. It will be
01:04:04.800very similar to that, where if you want to do anything outside of the $10 a day system,
01:04:15.620you'll be just paying for it full freight out of your own pocket and really if this is if this is
01:04:23.140supposed to be about making life easier for parents uh both economically and in regards to
01:04:32.420i mean a very important aspect of this is the impact um the impact economically this conversation
01:04:39.860has on women i think we have to that is a legitimate concern in regards to um women in
01:04:47.300our economy and the the roles mostly throughout uh our our national history um have been largely
01:04:57.060gendered um but allowing for some more choice and some some more effective uh child care options
01:05:06.020through cash transfers allows for either parent to figure out what's best for them
01:05:13.940to really just have a more dynamic system overall. And I think that that's just it's
01:05:20.100it's better for children. It's better for parents. It allows more flexibility.
01:05:25.540And you aren't stuck with one only one option.
01:05:29.380Yeah. And that flexibility is so important. I mean, I think we've evolved really well
01:05:33.300from okay it's not necessarily the role that the woman has to be exactly raising the child and if
01:05:38.420you got that cash you can say you know what hey dude you're gonna take six months off from the
01:05:42.900kids because i'm bringing my career forward and there's no shame in that you know we've changed
01:05:47.140it's great and it develops the whole family it's good for the kid absolutely absolutely and it's
01:05:52.900that's one thing where the conversation about this the ten dollar daycare was always very gendered
01:05:59.380about helping moms and specifically working moms. But the benefits of the alternative of cash1.00
01:06:08.040transfers was never discussed in that way. And I think it was a real missed opportunity because
01:06:13.420it does allow for so much more flexibility. And like you said, I mean, for some people who are
01:06:20.440watching, it may sound weird, the idea of the father taking paternal leave or staying at home.
01:06:26.480but in a system where you have funds transferred rather than access to a program if you can find
01:06:33.960space for it those things become much more of a reality uh more egalitarian it really is in my
01:06:41.600mind a far superior option in comparison to the route we're going well and other caregivers as
01:06:47.620well actually was that senior citizens you mentioned that briefly earlier grandparents
01:06:50.620things like that uh you know they need to make some bucks sometimes uh we can keep that cash in
01:06:55.820house to supplement their pension spend more time with the grandchildren it's great for the family
01:07:00.780everybody wins and again but it's outside of that ten dollar system you can't help it with that if
01:07:05.100you're stuck in this this government forced ten dollar system yeah yeah and and and it's one of
01:07:10.300those things where it depends on what the availability is for spots um it's probably
01:07:16.460still going to be a long ways away uh in terms of when these facilities actually open and are
01:07:23.020available for application um in in other provinces beyond quebec and so i mean how quickly did we roll
01:07:32.220out serb in this country and yes it had its headaches and some of its turmoil but generally
01:07:39.820speaking in a matter of weeks the federal government transferred a significant amount
01:07:44.700of money to a lot of canadians all at once somewhat efficiently now they had to do it very rushed
01:07:53.020Obviously, there were instances where people who are no longer living got it and maybe people who are incarcerated, but by and large, the money got to the people whom the government deemed deserving of it.
01:08:06.020And so how long is it going to take for $10 daycare to come to fruition and how much good could be done in the meantime, if we were able to rather just pivot the direction, take the money that we're going to spend and simply start transferring parents that money so that they can make those choices for themselves.
01:08:28.920Well, that's it. Nine times out of 10, the parents know best. Though another area that
01:08:32.920the government is very good at, aside from giving out money, is coming in and taking it too. It's
01:08:36.600amazing how efficient CRA can be when they're coming after a nickel you didn't properly claim.
01:15:19.540And we call it out, and we should, but we're making an exception for communists, and we can't. We shouldn't. A lot of people are suffering today in North Korea. You know, Cuba's still recovering. I got a lot of those discussions online from people, the usual, oh, we never saw real communism yet, that's why it's failed. Guess what? There's no way for it to work. That's why it's never worked yet. It's impossible. And the only way to try and work is to oppress your people. That's why it happens every time.
01:15:48.680What other philosophy in the world always calls for a country to lock in its own citizens?
01:15:55.420The states don't have to keep Americans from fleeing the United States.
01:15:59.500Their problem is people with ambition who want to start a new life are coming from around the world to come into the United States.
01:16:06.160There's too many of them to handle sometimes.
01:16:08.060So that's why they have border issues in Mexico and refugees coming from all over the world, often away from authoritarian states like communism.
01:16:15.560You didn't see anybody leaving Florida on a rickety raft to try and get to Havana so they could live in the workers' paradise down there.
01:16:24.060But you saw thousands and thousands of Cubans risking their life trying to get to the United States.0.99
01:16:29.460They know about communism, not some dumbass political science professor born and raised probably in privilege of Canada comfortably under a lack of communism to be able to say that crap.0.98
01:16:40.220or the other usual cellar-dwelling, self-styled anarchists0.99