00:13:51.900It ballooned into like a $30-35 billion project.
00:13:55.800So an example of our government's inability to execute large projects efficiently.
00:14:03.180And the other thing that's always interesting about Trans Mountain, I often hear comments about, weirdly I hear comments about this from Quebecers.
00:14:12.400You know, whenever I bring up equalization payments and how Alberta is, there's a wealth transfer and we're sending money to Ottawa that is then being redistributed.
00:14:22.820the argument for what we receive from ottawa is often the the oil and gas subsidies and people
00:14:33.020use trans mountain as an example of an oil and gas subsidy i don't think it fits the definition
00:14:38.340of an oil and gas subsidy because it is a uh crown asset it's something that the government of
00:14:44.540uh that ottawa owns so it wasn't given to anyone it's owned by ottawa so to declare that as a
00:14:51.460subsidy is pretty um that's twisting the definition of a subsidy as far as i'm concerned a subsidy to
00:14:58.640the oil industry would be um you know loans or or or actual money invested or given as part of a
00:15:07.660grant or something like that and you won't find a lot of that there's not i mean sure ottawa will
00:15:12.300there's small little oil and gas companies in alberta that will take advantage of certain
00:15:16.440subsidies, certain tax credits for doing research and things like that. But generally speaking,
00:15:22.460there's not a lot of subsidies received by the oil industry. Another one that's commonly listed
00:15:28.240is that oil industry will have tax credits and capital gains exemptions and things like that.
00:15:33.080And I'm like, again, those are not subsidies. Those are taxes and credits available to any
00:15:39.740industry to anybody deploying capital. So I don't like that argument. Just a reminder, folks. So
00:15:47.860yeah, please call. I mean, you don't have to ask me questions about LNG or the gun grab, which is
00:15:55.160the other topic we'll get to. But just hit me with any question. We don't have a sort of a proper
00:16:03.680functioning switchboard right now. So if you call and it's busy, that's because I'm calling to I'm
00:16:09.440talking to one person right now but right now there's no there's nobody on the line so go ahead
00:16:13.480and uh and give me a call otherwise you keep making me uh do my little monologues trying to
00:16:20.320sorry something went down the wrong way here i should all i got a coffee which is not quite
00:16:25.440a substitute for a bottle of water i should have a bottle of water um yeah so all right well well
00:16:37.260Well, in that case, let's move on then to – I do want to move on to the gun grab because of the two stories this week that were bugging me the most, the first one was the LNG one, but the other one is the gun grab.
00:16:51.140Now, if you're an Albertan and you're watching this show, I think there's probably a pretty high likelihood that you're a firearm owner.
00:16:57.860and uh we all know that about uh you know four years five years ago ottawa uh implemented a ban
00:17:06.980on what it calls assault style not even assault anymore it's assault style firearms and um the
00:17:16.080ban was to um lower crime which i don't see how that we'll get to that so they implemented the
00:17:24.200ban. Now, the ban, in effect, is an expropriation of property. And if you're going to, and in this
00:17:30.840country, if you expropriate property from people, then you need to compensate them. Now, the ban
00:17:37.080went into effect in 2021. But ever since then, the government, all they've been able to tell us is
00:17:44.900hold on to your firearms, keep them stored downstairs, and don't use them. And you also
00:17:52.740can't transfer them you can't pass them down to your kids you can't sell them you can't do anything
00:17:57.380they're banned just hold on to them we don't know what we're going to do with them so now they're
00:18:02.580trying to develop this program where finally they would buy back the firearms from us and that's
00:18:08.260what they're calling it they're calling it a buyback program and while they were preparing
00:18:13.860that program they just kept extending an amnesty because technically as soon as that order and
00:18:19.940council came in in 2021 saying these firearms were um banned anybody in possession of them
00:18:26.900was breaking the law but there's an amnesty that goes on until the end of this year until october
00:18:32.4202026. that amnesty has been extended time and time and time again because the liberals created
00:18:38.420a problem with this ban so now they're finally getting into the stage where they're trying to
00:18:42.660figure out they think they have an idea of how they're going to buy back the guns from the people
00:18:46.900who own them and so they want us to register our guns but i'll come back to that because i just see
00:18:52.660i got a call so remember i'll remember this point so go ahead whoever's on the line uh name and
00:18:59.060where are you calling from please my name is mac and i'm calling from calvary how are you doing max
00:19:07.860i'm doing well thank you and i'll i'll stay on your topic that you're talking about right now
00:19:12.180marty okay but from what i've seen in world history if they're coming to take away your guns
00:19:17.780and they're not going after criminals that should tell you everything yes i mean that's straight
00:19:24.320pat down to communism yeah i know you're there you have no way to defend yours it it never yeah
00:19:31.200any any civil any uh society that's given up their guns the chinese did it in uh whatever the 1930s
00:19:37.900and 40s i'm sure cambodians uh wish that they had kept their guns uh before the pol pot regime uh
00:19:44.800yeah you're you're absolutely right so is that is that your premise then
00:19:49.140go ahead yeah my premise is that you're never they're never the good guys if they're coming
00:19:56.760to take away your guns and they're censoring your speech yeah i mean that's pure evil
00:20:01.380in Carney. That's showing you their face. That's showing you their cards. I mean, and Carney's
00:20:08.220talking about building back faster than ever been seen before. He hasn't built a thing, but he's
00:20:12.920concentrated on taking away guns and censoring speech. That makes no sense. Yeah, yeah. No, no,
00:20:18.340100%. So appreciate that comment. So yeah, let me let me finish on that, expand on that. So
00:20:24.360they're they're they're trying to take away guns um from law-abiding citizens and and right now
00:20:31.360they're asking law-abiding citizens to self-declare that they might have firearms on this list
00:20:36.340and uh john if you could just put up the the screen so there's uh there's an amnesty there's
00:20:42.240a period right now so there's a there's a screenshot there's a period right now uh for
00:20:46.140the next month where people are asked to submit uh or to self-register for this compensation
00:20:51.960program and it's backfiring on the liberals right now that's a map of the of canada all told there's
00:20:57.640about uh 30 000 people that have self-declared on that list um by all estimates there's like over a
00:21:04.280million firearms that would be on that list so it's it's an example of a policy that is absolutely
00:21:08.920backfiring on the liberals and uh and there's going to be mass non-compliance to this policy
00:21:14.840which i think is going to be which i'm happy to see i mean i i i don't advocate breaking the law
00:21:20.680but once in a while you have to do some civil disobedience and and i've been definitely
00:21:25.720advising people that there's an amnesty period that goes on until october this year so why would
00:21:30.760you voluntarily submit yourself to this this is an example of coercion along with this right now
00:21:36.280anybody who's a firearm owner in canada and has a possession and acquisition license is getting an
00:21:42.120email uh they they sent out mass emails and last few days you know ramping up the coercion they're
00:21:49.880going to scare you into thinking that you need to turn in your firearm otherwise you know this
00:21:54.680will happen so just just wanted to bring that up and i agree with uh max that you know it's it's
00:22:01.800pretty um it's pretty telling when your government is coming after a measure that is completely
00:22:09.400unnecessary i actually let me add this to this this is an this is another kind of an interesting
00:22:15.400point with this whole program the minister in charge of this i never i always forget his name
00:22:20.120garyanna sandys and whatever whatever like the long the long name uh minister he's telling people
00:22:27.240that he expects canadians to abide by the law which we do but at the same time he's being a
00:22:34.520hypocrite because when i i wish i had it i i have it in my pocket here i have my gun permit but when
00:22:40.600When I accepted my original gun permit, I accepted it with conditions and I accepted to follow the law.
00:22:46.500So my gun permit says, use your gun in a responsible way at a gun range, doing this, don't shoot people with it, use it for whatever.
00:22:56.640You know what I mean? Store it this way.
00:22:58.000So we as Canadians, almost, not almost, all Canadians that I know who are firearm owners respected the law.
00:23:06.660so they expect us to follow the this law but why did they not recognize the fact that we followed
00:23:12.560the law when they gave us the gun permits so what that tells me is in this country if you follow the
00:23:18.060law but they but they but they still want to do something like take away your guns or taking away
00:23:22.740your speech following the law is irrelevant because they'll just move the goalposts so that's
00:23:27.060what they're doing on this they're just they're just moving the goalposts i mean firearm owners
00:23:31.280as far as i know are some of the most law-abiding people there's so many steps necessary to acquire
00:23:37.840a firearm in this country and people keep going through those steps so um you know
00:23:43.920in common sense marty marty said i think common sense says that a hundred percent of the canadian
00:23:49.820population never mind a hundred percent of the alberta future nation population would totally
00:23:54.800agree with confiscating guns belonging to criminals but to go after legal gun
00:24:00.840orders that makes no sense but the really the thing I wanted to talk to you
00:24:04.700about you can go back to the guns later after we're done this call but I was
00:24:08.840hoping you would be able to speak to this because one of the things that I'm
00:24:12.620kind of getting mixed messages on when it comes to Alberta as an independent
00:24:16.520nation and I'm very optimistic that we can do this and that we will do this but
00:24:22.280But would it be the next day after the vote that we would start using the U.S. currency as a transition currency?
00:24:29.600Or would it be have to live with a depleted Canadian dollar or until a new constitution is wrote?
00:26:47.960And I was hoping I could speak with, in regards to the firearm regs,
00:26:51.200there's one thing that I think people don't understand quite often
00:26:55.820is that we are checked daily by the RCMP automatically
00:27:00.880for any kind of criminal offenses, activity, investigations, et cetera.
00:27:07.080If we are flagged, and it's an automated system, if we are flagged by our names with our RPAL or PAL, and I'll explain to the viewers or if you want to what the difference is, they come for our guns, right?
00:41:30.560Yeah, and Newfoundlanders, we all know, right?
00:41:34.540You guys get, you get the short end of the stick on a really bad deal for selling your
00:41:40.220hydropower through Labrador and down into the, I don't know the specific details of
00:41:44.780that one, but I know there's a lot of bad blood between Newfoundland and Quebec when
00:41:48.520comes to hydro production oh yeah i'm aware of that one but that contract that uh that ran years
00:41:56.680ago so i mean uh that has no say in what we produce for energy anymore they just they don't
00:42:03.960own that contract as far as i know they didn't even renew it yeah yeah awesome appreciate it
00:42:11.000labrador selling their electricity down to new york as far as i know
00:42:14.200uh through through quebec though right that's that's my understanding there's no direct line
00:42:21.580yeah yeah yeah excellent okay well thank you they're probably using the problem they're using
00:42:26.900transmission fees and stuff to get a little money but that has no say of what the muslim
00:42:33.080government's doing with their energy right perfect awesome all right thanks for the call
00:42:37.740thank you yeah um yeah you know and and all these things bring up um you know the
00:42:47.580this reminds me again that you know we came together as a like one of the reasons we came
00:42:53.580together as provinces to form this thing called confederation was to facilitate trade among
00:42:58.700ourselves and like that's that was the number one thing we were sold on right come together
00:43:04.860different provinces different regions come together under the umbrella of ottawa and and
00:43:09.340they'll facilitate facilitate trade and and 150 years later i find that that's that's the most uh
00:43:18.140that that's the worst aspect of our country is that we actually block each other's uh efforts
00:43:24.860you know i mean i can't buy wine from bc without uh jumping through hoops and you can get in trouble
00:43:30.860for buying beer in nova scotia and crossing the border into quebec and and quebec is not buying
00:43:35.580alberta oil but and and you know what i mean so it it's uh one more reason where why i personally
00:43:41.820don't think that confederation the way it was designed is is working very well i think it's
00:43:46.060more of a failed experiment but that's uh that's my opinion uh go ahead on the line uh name and
00:43:52.620where you're calling from please uh yes i'm steve you know me as canadian spider-man with clyde
00:43:59.660i'm calling from uh yeah hello marty good to hear you i'm calling from just outside of vernon
00:44:04.940in the woods here in dc but i i i'm calling because i grew up in new brunswick i spent 27
00:44:10.060years there and i think that there are a lot of hard-working people in new brunswick i know that
00:44:16.700but there's a lot of people that take advantage of the system and i work in construction there
00:44:22.860you know part of your job is to go on on the dole for all winter and so i think that if they were
00:44:28.860proposed if the equalization payments were cut they would be forced to be more industrious they
00:44:36.140do have resources there and i think people would really get off their ass and and produce they have
00:44:41.820that ability that was that was my only question what's your thoughts on that if yeah if you don't
00:44:48.300mind hanging up steve uh appreciate the call and then let somebody else uh call in but no i i sure
00:44:54.060lots of people yeah yeah thanks steve lots of people agree with you i agree with you i think
00:44:59.420equalization might have started out as a good idea to uh you know it was kind of an insurance policy
00:45:06.940when some province experienced a little bit of a downturn sure it got help
00:45:11.820and and equalization started about whatever 50 plus years ago right in the 1960s it's become
00:45:18.460a program now and it's created a welfare mentality i 100 agree that uh we should just eliminate the
00:45:26.220whole equalization program and rethink it we you know we should just have an insurance policy in
00:45:32.700the background but not automatic right maybe we all throw in money and keep it for a rainy day
00:45:38.700fund when the province needs it in fact we don't need an equalization i mean we we can help each
00:45:43.340other out in times of need without having an equalization program so i no i 100 agree that
00:45:49.420if we cancel the equalization program some people would uh and it's not just new brunswick it's
00:45:54.860across the board right i i'm on the record as saying that uh not just saying it i i can
00:46:00.220demonstrate it i can demonstrate by many measures that canines have become unproductive in the last
00:46:07.82030 years like we've we are our our our gdp per capita productivity per hour is just is just
00:46:16.780stagnating and going down we and and there's a lot of reasons for that and a lot of them i think are
00:46:22.140bad policies that you know i mean steve mentioned the dole like it it it's become uh part of the
00:46:28.460system where you work six months or whatever and then you you you go and collect the welfare and
00:46:33.740then somebody else works i mean that that's institutionalized welfare and it's not working
00:46:38.540speaking of statistics that was another one that was interesting that came out uh this morning uh
00:46:45.100not unemployment employment numbers for december came out and uh turns out that in december um i
00:46:53.420got on a sheet of paper uh we lost about 23 000 jobs in december which means that for the entire
00:47:00.220year, on a year-over-year basis, Canada lost 35,000 jobs in 2025. So we're not creating
00:47:09.520jobs anymore. It's been like that now. The economy stalled. The Canadian economy is stalled,
00:47:16.240right? By every metric that matters, GDP, GDP per capita, productivity, jobs created,
00:47:23.680uh revenue all sorts of things by by every measure the economy is stalling which i again i find it so
00:47:31.980fascinating how people are still uh apparently carny is trending positively in the in the polls
00:47:39.620and i and i fail to see how people aren't can't can't put one and one together that their lives
00:47:45.880are tougher now than they were in 2014 but uh somehow or other they're still uh willing to um
00:47:52.300to to to give a pass to the liberals in fact did you guys see um it might be difficult for john to
00:47:58.780bring it up but i'll i'll tell you to go look for it i mean there was a there was a um an exchange
00:48:03.900in the house of commons yesterday where um uh pierre poiliev said something about you know
00:48:12.700the economy being stalled and blaming the liberals and carney said well you can't blame me i've only
00:48:20.620been here for a year and he got this huge applause from his back bench and then he followed it up by
00:48:27.400saying the member opposite Pierre has been here for 11 years as if he was blaming Pierre Poiliev
00:48:33.420for the woes of the country because Pierre happens to have been like does he not understand that
00:48:40.320Pierre was an opposition uh member of parliament and not designing the policies like I mean it's
00:48:47.500a pure example of of really ugly gaslighting you know i i wasn't here i only showed up this year
00:48:54.360by the way and and we all know this right carney plays that game that he's only been here for
00:48:59.980for whatever a year which by the way in the last year what has he actually accomplished it's nothing
00:49:04.220but we all know he was advising trudeau behind the scenes as far back as like 2020 so carney cannot
00:49:12.320simply say he's new to the scene he's he's been around for uh for a while and he has a
00:49:18.160he he's one of the reasons the country is so messed up right now um yeah call in with that
00:49:23.280one folks like what's your thoughts on on the economy what's your thoughts on on danielle so
00:49:27.680am i am i off base on this one where danielle is doing uh just this referendum to confuse us
00:49:32.960because i want to go back i i don't want to repeat too much of this because i know cory and others
00:49:37.520cover this topic in death i mean cory is the you know cory morgan is the expert when it comes to
00:49:45.360separatism and and and and those kinds of things i'm just a guy on the street corner
00:49:50.560collecting signatures but my understanding of the clarity act is exactly that the question asked in
00:49:58.480the referendum has to be brutally clear can't be confusing so to me if danielle has a referendum
00:50:07.120in october and there's an independence question but there's also a quite you know if there's a
00:50:11.440question that says do you want to separate but underneath it there's a question that says uh do
00:50:15.920you want to continue to try and negotiate a better deal on immigration with ottawa and do you want to
00:50:20.320try and negotiate a better deal on uh pensions and you want to do this to me that becomes confusing
00:50:25.920if there's four or five questions on the ballot so i i in the back of my mind um danielle should
00:50:31.920not have muddled the muddied the waters with that she should have left the uh she should have actually
00:50:38.640before she made that announcement she should have just waited another couple of weeks or a couple
00:50:43.360of months in two months we will have the results of the current uh independence petition put forward
00:50:48.720by um uh stay free alberta and mitch sylvester and then we will also have the one from thomas
00:50:56.720lukasic from a while ago so then you know why why muddle the waters now when she could have waited
00:51:02.560a couple of months to see uh what's going on by the way did you guys i at first i was a little bit
00:51:07.760on the i got ahead of myself i i mentioned mitch sylvester i saw the story yesterday of mitch
00:51:14.480sylvester being threatened indirectly in his store somebody walked into mitch's store and apparently
00:51:19.920put a bullet on the counter and said you know this bullet's for you now mitch wasn't there but it
00:51:24.240scared his clerk and um and and then you know there was a search for the individual and then
00:51:30.660some people claimed to know who it was and then there was some backpedaling and people try to
00:51:35.000make it sound like oh it was a misunderstanding it was a wasn't a bullet it was a pen shaped like a
00:51:40.920bullet all sorts of things like that um i i always think that there's two sides to the story but
00:51:47.640based on what i've seen lately i'm i'm i'm fully on board i absolutely believe mitch when he says
00:51:53.100somebody put a bullet on the counter and uttered those words it's on video and i think somebody's
00:51:58.740trying to backpedal after the fact uh claiming oh it was just a joke that's no joke folks that's
00:52:05.020that's a genuine threat um and i've seen that kind of stuff before and and i actually saw it
00:52:12.020recently i mean i'm on the side of the road collecting uh or going door to door and setting
00:52:17.000up pop-ups and collecting signatures and i've seen things that are that are close to threats right
00:52:22.960and and and along those lines like even if it was a fake bullet like if you put a fake bullet you
00:52:28.900know you can have a bullet where that's already you know there's no primer in it or something
00:52:32.860like that it's no different than me walking into a bank with a replica handgun and saying this is
00:52:38.000a stick up give me your money and then i get caught by the police a week later and i go oh it was a
00:52:42.820joke it was just a replica gun it was a joke it was just a replica bullet no no no no it doesn't
00:52:48.380work that way so that guy got caught and I think I think it's it's disturbing that somebody would
00:52:55.960threaten somebody else just for having an opinion and supporting a referendum another caller on the
00:53:05.200line go ahead please name where you from hello hello hello hey Marty how are you good good
00:53:15.640what's your name my name is diane um i'm currently i'm in florida right now
00:53:22.640but i'm from ontario originally from windsor and i live in alberta now thank god
00:53:30.500well you live in florida today but what's on your mind diane today yeah well i am um i'm
00:53:41.680was disappointed in um the situation with danielle and i like her and i think she's a very smart
00:53:51.440person um but i'm disappointed with all of those questions that are going to be i mean hopefully
00:54:01.040not we'll have to see what happens but i don't like the idea of all of those other questions
00:54:06.960those referendum questions i don't really think that's right that they should be on the separation
00:54:12.520with the separation no i appreciate that i agree um stay on the line dan so uh we saw on the news
00:54:20.840lately um a lot of albertans snowbirds tend to go on the western side of the u.s right they go to
00:54:27.720phoenix and they go to yuma and places like that there was yeah there was a fantastic signature
00:54:32.320collection event in yuma have you seen one down in florida in your neck of the woods
00:54:37.020no no um i'm only here for a little while and i'll be heading back to alberta
00:54:44.640um so i'll sign in alberta yeah but i did hear about that and i was surprised i thought that
00:54:51.740was awesome and i do know a lot of albertans go to um arizona and not to florida yeah florida's
00:54:59.160more a uh ontario thing right right right on okay awesome so uh where where in alberta normally are
00:55:06.100you uh just outside of edmonton okay so you're coming back to the cold and there's still it's
00:55:12.200still winter up in edmonton it's nice here in calgary but it's still winter in edmonton
00:55:15.700awesome thanks for calling that i know yeah i don't mind take care of yourself all right thank
00:55:20.300you bye yeah that was quite the uh quite the event in yuma um again it it made the news and
00:55:29.780people again people don't want to people see it with their own eyes but they want to they want
00:55:35.380to blow it off and say it's a non-event i mean i i seen the video actually um wasn't that video
00:55:41.660from yuma i think it came from cory morgan's uh uh relatives or somebody like that if i remember
00:55:47.600correctly and it was a big event right it was uh it was uh 300 signatures were collected in yuma
00:55:53.360i'll give this quick update so i am a canvasser i have been collecting signatures now i saw online
00:55:59.680i'm canvasser number whatever 3600 i saw somebody posted a picture online they're number 5200
00:56:06.560uh i've heard through uh channels that there's upwards of 6 000 canvassers and they're trying
00:56:11.360to get to 10 000 that's amazing uh so we're all over the province right and everybody's collecting
00:56:16.800their own signatures this weekend was the first time that my coordinator the guy who gives me the
00:56:22.320forms and and looks after uh me as a canvasser he has a little group of 30 of us so he collect he
00:56:29.120gathered us all together uh and he collected the forms from us and out of the 30 of us he collected
00:56:36.560we we collected 7200 signatures so you do the math right that's like uh that's 250 signatures
00:56:42.640times 30 gets you to the 7300 or whatever and we're just 30 multiply that by um you know uh
00:56:53.520100 more than 100 multiply that by 200 because that's how many canvassers are out there i think
00:56:58.640we're past the threshold i hope that the um that the stay free alberta group will will finally
00:57:04.480publish a number or an update see where we are with the signature collections if they don't i
00:57:09.120understand that i mean there's two schools of thoughts right the leave leave your opponents
00:57:13.760guessing i guess is one school of thought but the other one to me is as an engineer driven by data
00:57:20.480and and goals i like the idea of of seeing a goal yeah and you could put a reach right i mean the
00:57:27.200goal officially the threshold is 177 000 signatures but the the miss sylvester the petitioner could
00:57:34.560put a goal out there 500 000 and put it as a target and then and then have people driven to
00:57:40.160achieve that goal so i i can see it both ways it's not my decision but i personally i'd like to see
00:57:45.920uh an update on um on where we are with the signatures um all right well we're almost running
00:57:54.240out of time here uh if there's one more person who calls in we got a couple of minutes we could have
00:57:59.920otherwise i'll uh i'll finish it off by saying uh um it's i hope you guys are enjoying the show
00:58:07.800uh i'm i'm getting familiar with the format now i think the the call-ins working the microphone
00:58:13.680the headphones are working for me everything's good i look forward to this show every week
00:58:17.740getting some awesome feedback from folks online folks in person actually somebody came out to
00:58:23.420my canvassing location a couple of days ago and uh said they just wanted to come chat to me so
00:58:30.100you guys have figured it out i like chatting um and so don't be shy uh keep keep calling in uh
00:58:38.080i gotta do the the the little plug here so uh i encourage you guys that probably if you're
00:58:43.680watching right now you're already a member of the western standard but if you're not
00:58:46.780get yourself a subscription it's ten dollars a month or you can get one for the whole year for
00:58:52.780a hundred dollars it's uh you know www.westernstandard.news and um otherwise yeah stay
00:59:02.540tuned uh see you next week make sure you're here again uh same time every week uh 1 p.m on uh oh
00:59:11.100do i take the last call john i'll take that very last call real quick it's got to be quick go ahead
00:59:16.860Hey Marty. It's Caroline in Fort McMurray. I'm a process engineer turned a stay-at-home mom,
00:59:27.000which is the best job move I've ever made. You had a post I think yesterday about how
00:59:32.160lots of women have told your wife over the years that she was missing out big time by
00:59:38.040staying home and raising her family. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on,
00:59:43.020You know, what can we do in an independent Alberta to kind of change some of that mindset and encourage moms to stay home and encourage young families to have more kids?