Make some space in Canada's hospitals
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about the need for mental health facilities and the lack of them in our current mental health care system, and how we need to change the way we care for people with mental health issues.
Transcript
00:05:03.980
community living system we've set up. And they either end up in the streets, in jail, dead,
00:05:09.080
or in hospitals. If somebody needs mental health treatment, I mean, if you haven't had to encounter
00:05:13.280
it, you never really think of it until the time comes. But if you hit a crisis, what happens?
00:05:18.040
Well, hospitals, they're the only entry point for mental health care. So if somebody's had a mental
00:05:23.540
health, you know, a breakdown or an episode, they're forced to head to an emergency room to
00:05:26.900
await help. That's assuming somebody will take them there. Last year, my father had a mental
00:05:31.320
collapse. He was paranoid, delusional, prone to wandering. Couldn't just leave him. He couldn't
00:05:36.320
help himself. He came on suddenly, and for his safety, we needed to get him into care. It took
00:05:41.320
rotating shifts of family members to stay with him in the emergency room for 23 hours before he was
00:05:46.380
admitted. Then he was medicated, placed on a gurney in a hallway for two days before they could get a
00:05:51.660
bed in the psychiatric unit. He spent 40 days in that unit. It's a sparsely equipped wing in the
00:05:57.140
hospital. Staff were excellent, and they did what they could with him. And with the rest of the
00:06:00.760
challenging patients, of course, within that unit. But it's clear that the space is transitional and
00:06:04.500
couldn't offer long-term care, which most of the people there actually needed. They were committed
00:06:08.820
there. They usually end up getting discharged, though, within days. And if they don't have family
00:06:13.200
to help, they often end up on the streets. Even if they do have family to help out, sometimes they
00:06:17.400
end up on the streets. Most mentally ill people who go to the hospital, they never even get to the
00:06:21.520
psychiatric ward. They're given a prescription and a brochure listing community supports and, you know,
00:06:28.260
hope that things work well for you. Good luck. And it's not that the doctors are heartless. They just
00:06:33.460
have nowhere else to put people. It's unfair, expensive, and ineffective pushing psychiatric
00:06:38.840
patients through general hospitals. The doctor who can set a broken arm likely isn't well-trained to
00:06:43.540
deal with a schizophrenic, but that's what they're tasked with. For people awaiting care for injuries,
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it's not pleasant spending hours in a waiting room with a person who's melting down with a bipolar
00:06:51.460
disorder. An emergency room setting, of course, isn't very comfortable for a person suffering from a
00:06:56.640
mental health issue either. We need mental health facilities separate from general hospitals, both
00:07:01.080
for the intake and the long-term care. Yes, we need to expand our psychiatric institutions rather than
00:07:06.920
closing them as we have been. And I know we don't like to think of having people confined, but I
00:07:11.760
assure you it's more humane than having them in jail, homeless shelters, or in the general hospitals.
00:07:17.040
And of course, it's going to take pressure away from those emergency rooms. Likewise, we need fast and
00:07:21.600
separate inpatient care for addicts. They're showing up in emergency rooms and they can't be
00:07:25.540
effectively treated there, but they don't know where else to go. Hospitals are often being used
00:07:30.220
as well as nursing homes when seniors without family advocates find themselves in need of care,
00:07:35.160
but hadn't planned for long-term care homes. It's a very expensive and unpleasant way for a senior to
00:07:39.620
spend their final years. And then again, we can look into things, expand options for practical nurses
00:07:44.420
and general practitioners so we can reduce these emergency room loads. Many people with minor ailments
00:07:49.440
head to the emergency rooms when they can be better treated elsewhere, but they don't necessarily know
00:07:53.000
where to go. Creating new facilities and options, it sounds expensive, but let's not pretend we aren't
00:07:57.760
already paying for it. The addicted, the mentally unsound, they're already in our facilities, but they
00:08:02.380
aren't getting the best treatment we could. Dedicated long-term facilities can house and treat people with
00:08:07.260
mental health, addiction, and age-related issues much more effectively and at a lower cost than general
00:08:12.320
hospitals can. We don't need to reinvent the wheel to take the pressure from our emergency rooms.
00:08:17.160
We just need to rethink the centralized model that packs everybody into one place for treatment. It just doesn't
00:08:23.900
work. So, you know, I'm going to go a little further. It ties in. It was coincidental. So this documentary just
00:08:31.320
got released this morning. And Canada's health care system, it's broken. Thousands are dying before getting the care
00:08:36.980
they needed. Millions are on waiting lists and it's getting worse. So how do we fix it?
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SecondStreet.org has a brand new documentary out called Health Reform Now and it has the answers.
00:08:47.300
Check them out. Head to HealthReformNow.ca and you can watch the entire documentary for free.
00:08:54.060
HealthReformNow.ca. And yeah, they talk in that documentary. I just watched it, as I said, this
00:08:59.080
morning. And it covers a lot more into the whole systematic change that we have to make as opposed
00:09:04.140
to, you know, the more immediate things I was talking about with changing who goes into the hospitals.
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It's a very good documentary. We're going to speak to them next week. Actually, they're going to be on
00:09:12.960
as a guest as well. What's this paradox? You're saying Smith said a revived OD is about 6,000 per
00:09:19.500
OD. I can believe it, you know, with people who are addicted. I noticed another commenter mentioning
00:09:26.120
that, yes, Smith is separating AHS from mental health. That's in the administration. So Alberta Health
00:09:31.220
Services had had everything stuffed together and she's breaking it up into different categories.
00:09:36.460
So it's good. It'll help with reforms and so on. But I'm talking about actually, we've got to split
00:09:41.500
up into separate facilities. When this person's got an addiction issue, there should be a space
00:09:46.860
available for them to get treatment right away outside of a general hospital. Likewise, if they
00:09:51.480
have a mental health issue, they shouldn't be sitting in a general hospital waiting room. They
00:09:56.260
should be at a mental health facility. So, I mean, we're moving in the right direction and hopefully
00:10:00.020
that's where Premier Smith is going to go. All right, well, let's get on. I've already been eating up
00:10:04.100
time a lot and get on to Jen Hodgson. She's going to be checking in with some news updates
00:10:08.500
on what else is going on out there in the big, bad world. How's it going, Jen?
00:10:11.520
Hey, Corey. Going pretty good. How are you doing?
00:10:20.100
Okay, so we have the Paris Olympics coming up this week. So we have a couple of stories
00:10:25.760
already coming out of there. This morning, in the early hours, it was announced that Canada's
00:10:31.920
female soccer team was actually caught spying on the New Zealand team. So by sending drones over
00:10:40.240
their practice area, the New Zealand team actually reported that they saw these drones from an
00:10:46.320
unauthorized Canadian team representative, filed a formal complaint with the International Olympic
00:10:52.160
Committee, and now there's going to be an investigation. The Canadian Olympic team made an
00:10:58.720
apology, and they called their own apology, I think, heartfelt. So I don't know. You can take
00:11:05.980
that for what it is. But this is how we've started off the Olympic Games, representing Canada. So that
00:11:13.780
is pretty disappointing to see. Now, with the torch going around. So this year's 2024 Paris Olympics
00:11:22.400
has a big emphasis on diversity, of course, right? So there have actually been three drag queens that
00:11:29.880
have relayed the Olympic torch. So these are prominent drag queens in the French media world, and also the
00:11:39.780
RuPaul drag queen show. So there's a number of these drag queen shows that these performers are part of. And so they've been much
00:11:50.400
celebrated by those from the left perspective, like the mayor of Paris, for example, but has really garnered
00:11:59.440
a lot of widespread criticism online. So that's what we have for the Olympics. Keeping in that continental zone,
00:12:08.240
though, in the UK, top on our website right now is a video of UK police really stomping on the head
00:12:17.840
of some Muslim men kicking them in the head. And the men were already detained on the floor.
00:12:26.080
And so that is also a deeply concerning video that we have up on our page right now.
00:12:33.600
Speaking, continuing with the international relations theme, we have our foreign affairs minister,
00:12:39.520
Melanie Jolie, who went to visit China late last week. She was actually summoned by her counterpart in
00:12:47.280
Beijing to discuss the relationships between the two countries. And when she came back,
00:12:53.680
she told the Globe and Mail that she really was very firm with her Chinese counterpart. However,
00:13:01.280
she did admit that no ground was no inroads were really made. They didn't really make any progress.
00:13:08.800
Now, at the same time, Chinese media reporting on Weixin, which is WeChat, QQ, is actually reporting that
00:13:18.800
Jolie was severely reprimanded and given a stern talking to by Beijing because of what they referred to as
00:13:29.760
dirty Westerner political tricks. So Jolie has one story coming back, but then we see more than one
00:13:39.360
story in the Chinese media. And of course, we know that the Chinese media is run by the Chinese state.
00:13:46.480
So this is the general perspective that China is wanting to show its citizens of Canada. So it actually
00:13:53.760
makes Canada look pretty weak from that foreign relations perspective. And so I guess time will
00:14:01.440
tell how things will transpire between those two countries, especially as Canada is looking at the
00:14:08.320
whole foreign interference scandal and still in the wake. Let's not forget, it was only last month in
00:14:14.880
June, though it might seem like a long time ago now, that spies were revealed on Parliament Hill.
00:14:20.240
So there's a lot to that meeting and not too much was disclosed to the public, but we do have that
00:14:26.240
perspective from China. And finally, Corey, it's quite smoky here in Calgary. So up in Jasper, which isn't
00:14:34.080
too far away, there have been 25,000 people evacuated and it's a small town, a small region. There's actually
00:14:42.880
only 10,000 or so residents and 1500 visitors that were all evacuated from that area. So I'd want to
00:14:51.920
encourage our listeners and viewers to stay tuned. Jonathan Bradley, who is our current Edmonton
00:14:58.080
reporter is going to be following that closely and will be giving us an update soon. Great. Well,
00:15:04.400
thank you for all those updates. Yeah, let's really hope for the best for those folks out in Jasper.
00:15:08.960
If for people not familiar with the area, it was pretty terrifying. There's really it's a mountain
00:15:12.400
town. There's one way, well, two ways in and out and one of them was blocked by fire. So everybody
00:15:17.680
had to make their way to the west to get around there and then north and south. I can't imagine.
00:15:24.560
It's got to be terrifying leaving your home like that. And I just hope this gets results.
00:15:28.160
Yeah, me too, of course. All right. Well, thanks for the updates, Jen. I'll let you get back to that
00:15:34.160
news and watching those unfortunately terribly violent videos that get posted on the website
00:15:38.960
sometimes. But I guess that drives home just how bad things get sometimes. Yeah, that's right. You
00:15:43.440
never know what's going to come across our desk, Corey. I'm afraid not. All right. Well, thank you,
00:15:47.600
Jen. And I'll see you after the show. Sounds great. Thank you, Corey. All right. Now,
00:15:52.960
as our reporter, Jen Hodgson, as she was pointing out, yes, Jonathan is working hard up in Edmonton,
00:15:57.120
trying to cover the fire and other political goings on and things like that. So I like to
00:16:00.560
remind everybody the reason we stay independent, we do not take any tax dollars. We won't. And we,
00:16:05.920
you know, we stay independent. We rely on advertisers and subscribers. So if you've subscribed
00:16:11.280
already, thank you very much. We really do appreciate it. And if you haven't yet,
00:16:14.880
get on there to westernstandard.news slash subscription. Take one out. It's only 10 bucks a
00:16:19.440
month, 100 bucks a year. If you take that bulk buy, it's like a newspaper subscription to get past the
00:16:23.600
paywall. And it helps us keep all of those reporters going and keep this show going and
00:16:28.400
all the rest of the resources there. So yeah, get on it, guys. What are you waiting for? All right,
00:16:32.880
let's bring our guest in. You know, what are we waiting for there? I've been looking forward to this.
00:16:35.760
I haven't, he came on a while back. He's known as the food professor. He's Dr. Sylvain Charlebois,
00:16:41.520
and he's just been covering an issue that's really big. He's got quite a specialty and it's really
00:16:47.360
appreciated. So thank you for taking the time to come on to join us today, Dr. Charlebois.
00:16:51.120
My pleasure, Corey. I think last time we chatted was probably a year ago or something. So I'm
00:16:58.160
looking forward to this one. Yeah, well, I think it was last January, not too long,
00:17:01.280
but it's been too long, I guess, in some senses, especially as this keeps unfolding. I mean,
00:17:05.280
it's surprising, you know, this field, I guess you could say you are the specialist in it,
00:17:10.080
has been in the news so much in this last year due to inflation price increases and people feeling
00:17:15.200
pressured. So you've been keeping us up to date on the why and then perhaps what we can do about it.
00:17:19.920
Yeah, absolutely. Now, things have changed dramatically since the last time we spoke.
00:17:25.760
Food inflation is way down. It's at around 2.6 percent, which is really within the sweet spot.
00:17:32.640
We all want 1.5 to 2.5 percent. I mean, inflation has been so demonized in the news or by politicians,
00:17:42.240
you tend to feel that inflation is a bad thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing. You do want
00:17:47.120
some inflation. Problem is that inflation was actually quite high. And so we're down to what I
00:17:54.640
would believe to be the sweet spot. And of course, that allows the food industry to do its job to
00:18:00.800
provide us with high quality, safe foods. And on the other hand, it actually gives a chance to consumers
00:18:05.600
to adapt their budget based on what's going on with the economy. Now, today, we actually learned
00:18:11.440
that the Bank of Canada was actually reducing its benchmark rate by 0.25 points. So now the benchmark
00:18:19.680
is down to 4.5 percent. Corey, that is really, in my view, the big problem when it comes to food
00:18:26.880
affordability. People just had no money to spend at the grocery store. So they traded down. So this news
00:18:33.280
today will give some relief to a whole lot of people out there carrying a mortgage, debt,
00:18:40.880
people with kids, people who are economically involved quite a bit. They've been suffering with
00:18:48.800
these hikes in recent years. So today, I think, was good news for them.
00:18:53.200
Yeah. Well, it's nice we could use some good news now and then. And food is unlike other consumer items.
00:18:59.440
You know, we can put off a vacation if times get tight, or we can get some off-brand clothing or
00:19:05.440
put off some shopping. But I mean, food is a need. You can't avoid purchasing it. So if the price of
00:19:11.280
food goes up, you're going to feel it no matter what you do. It's not like you can wait until the
00:19:15.280
prices come down later on. So a lot of where the vitriol is in the politics, both right and wrong,
00:19:21.600
I guess, have really gone after the grocers a lot. Maybe it's because it's frontline. That's where
00:19:26.080
people see the price increase. That's where most of the most of it comes.
00:33:28.060
But a low-hanging fruit for you, Corey, for the CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency, we are taxing right now 4,600 different food products.
00:33:40.220
Why the hell are we taxing food in Canada retail?
00:33:48.060
You can overnight change all that and stop taxing food so people can have access to salads and sandwiches at the grocery store.
00:33:55.860
But right now, because of shrinkflation, more and more food is being taxed because they are considered snacks due to a smaller size than before.
00:34:06.960
So just changing that could actually make food more affordable in Canada.
00:34:17.460
Because of the bizarre, well, welcome to tax codes and bureaucracy and rules, they've set their, some could say, arbitrary or realistic.
00:34:23.840
Okay, if it's over this size, it means it's a food item.
00:34:31.620
The reality is, though, people are sometimes buying smaller commodities and maybe shopping more often just because they feel that, you know, that's the way they can manage their budget rather than bulk buying it.
00:34:46.380
Like, so, for example, if you buy granola bars and there's six granola bars in the box, that's not taxable.
00:34:52.860
If you go down to five, and most of them have gone down to five, that's taxable.
00:34:57.940
Your ice cream jar, if it's under 500 mil, it's taxable.
00:35:05.200
All that money is going to Ottawa, not at Loblaw, not at the Loblaw, going to Ottawa, but no politicians will want to talk about that.
00:35:21.080
Yes, and then there's a lot of the political discussion that's been going on.
00:35:24.600
We certainly don't have time to go into the carbon tax, but areas where Ottawa really could bring down some food prices to people if they backed off.
00:35:33.780
But, I mean, one of the quick responses a person will always give is, well, if Ottawa backed off, the grocers just won't drop the prices anyways, and they'll pocket the difference.
00:35:41.060
But, again, that comes down to if it's a competitive market, that won't happen.
00:35:45.580
Exactly, and the other thing, the reason why I think that argument is weak is that people don't know.
00:35:53.740
When you actually go to a grocery store, you don't look at your receipt.
00:35:57.500
So that tax is kind of hidden, but you still have to pay for it.
00:36:01.900
So when you go home and you look at the bottom line, that total, you're going to blame Galen Wesson.
00:36:11.520
No, and that's part of the problem when you're on the front line.
00:36:13.900
I used to own a pub and a cafe, and it's another narrow margin food-related business.
00:36:17.920
And you're the one who hear it from the consumer, though, when the price goes up, whether I had to raise the price of my beer or my coffee or anything.
00:36:25.640
It's just because you're the face that they deal with when they open their wallet.
00:36:30.020
So that's where the retailers have kind of, to a degree, unfairly gotten beaten on over this whole affair.
00:36:37.440
Now, I think we're actually close to the end of this ridiculous campaign against grocers.
00:36:44.380
I mean, they've done some, well, let's face it, they've done some stupid things.
00:36:49.560
And I'm thinking about the bread price-fixing scandal, for example, and there are some rumors about other things.
00:37:01.700
You may want to work on your PR, Loblaw trying to end their expiring food discount, for example, while food inflation was at 10%.
00:37:14.380
They've done some ridiculous thing, and so they do deserve some criticism.
00:37:21.060
But at the end of the day, food inflation is way more complicated than that.
00:37:25.100
And what I find quite dishonest from some politicians is to point fingers at industry when, in reality, a lot of inflation has been policy-driven, really.
00:37:38.280
And so you need to look yourself in the mirror and see what else you can do to make food more affordable instead of blaming and getting COs to Ottawa and accusing them of making too much money.
00:37:52.620
Yeah, they certainly haven't done themselves any favors on the public front sometimes with their practice.
00:37:59.780
Their PR strategy has been a disaster for grocers.
00:38:02.460
I mean, it's just been – it hasn't been good.
00:38:04.980
I mean, you want to be careful when you – like, Loblaw's approach has always been, let's do it, don't tell anyone, people won't notice.
00:38:15.920
Well, with social media, you can't get away with that anymore.
00:38:20.560
No, well, and I appreciate you coming on and being out there on social media to break that down.
00:38:27.460
I hadn't really thought of that with the new taxes we're getting out of the strigflation.
00:38:42.400
So before I let you go, and I appreciate, again, your patience with the internet outage.
00:38:46.980
We need more competition and providers there, too, but that's a difference.
00:38:50.760
So where can people see your work and, you know, keep track of what's going on out there with us, Mr. Charlemont?
00:38:59.700
You can either – I mean, on social media, we're pretty active.
00:39:03.460
We have our own account, the Agri-Food Analyst Lab at Dalhousie University.
00:39:07.820
You can follow me at the Food Professor on Axe and on LinkedIn.
00:39:14.680
And we also, of course, have our own website on the Dalhousie University website.
00:39:20.080
Just Google Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, and you'll find all of our research.
00:39:26.020
And our research is free, of course, in both English and French.
00:39:32.600
And it was good to have some good news, too, with, you know, the price rises getting into a manageable position where they should be right now.
00:39:38.880
And with the grocery code of conduct, hopefully stabilizing things further.
00:39:47.940
Before I forget, my thoughts are with the people of Jasper.
00:40:07.140
Very prolific and shares such fantastic information with us.
00:40:11.140
So, again, it's Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, and he's known as the food professor and really, you know, gets to the root of things on an important issue.
00:40:22.240
Well, let's get on to our business and energy fella here in the studio.
00:40:40.900
Well, you know, being a fire truck, I just hope it doesn't fail.
00:40:49.960
Well, this one is, so basically it's a testing program for the manufacturer, and they're trying to get some data to inform real world conditions, so that would be like minus 40.
00:41:02.520
So there's no upfront cost to taxpayers on it, and it's just, they're going to gather some data, and they're going to assure it's a five-year thing.
00:41:10.720
Well, you know, don't get your backup if you're getting a free one for the time being.
00:41:16.420
As long as you have a good truck behind it to deal with it, if it doesn't have.
00:41:21.800
It just kind of struck me that consumers don't get this opportunity to, you know, try before you buy.
00:41:32.260
And Toronto did electric ambulances, and that was a disaster.
00:41:37.200
Vancouver paid straight up front for theirs, and I don't know if it's been a disaster, but I don't think it's really done much of anything, to be honest.
00:41:47.460
What else is going on in our business world out there?
00:41:49.660
Well, we had an interesting story yesterday about Harley-Davidson, so I don't know if you know this fellow, Robbie Starbuck.
00:42:03.140
Anyway, so now he's going after Harley-Davidson, of all people, and there's a very extreme long laundry list of violations, you know.
00:42:12.580
Well, it's just, I mean, we can see it in a trendy industry fashion, or as I said, Starbucks or whatever,
00:42:17.960
but I can't believe the board's thinking with, you know, when you look at the client base, okay, bikers, farmers, Bud Light drinkers.
00:42:27.880
They don't want to look at a bunch of, you know, woke crap.
00:42:32.600
Well, and it's not what their customers want, and that's exactly what he's saying.
00:42:37.340
What he wants to do is force his company to be basically accountable to the people that are spending their money, right?
00:42:43.360
And if they don't like it and they don't buy it, then it's so much the worst for them.
00:42:50.600
But now that Mr. Starbucks is exposing it, then I suspect Harley might be re-evaluating some of their considerations.
00:42:58.960
But I don't know how the A.J. are going to handle those.
00:43:02.720
No, I just can't see a drag queen Hell's Angel.
00:43:08.600
But I think we'll let the organizations choose that for themselves rather than Harley Davidson trying to push it down.
00:43:13.100
And one other story that we're following here is about 10% of Alberta's oil production is wildfires.
00:43:22.660
They're within about 10 kilometers of about 10% of Alberta's oil production.
00:43:27.740
So we're talking about 400, 450,000 barrels a day potentially that could be off-line.
00:43:34.740
Companies have been evacuating non-essential personnel, but to this point, they haven't really had to shut in anything.
00:43:43.460
Yeah, the facilities, and people realize too, if they haven't been up north, typically there's going to be some pretty good buffer areas around the lease sites.
00:43:51.460
The risers have some stuff spread out so that the fire doesn't necessarily impact them as people would think it would.
00:43:58.560
So the last major one was in 2016 when basically Fort McMurray burned to the ground.
00:44:04.080
And so Suncor had to file a disclosure report last year that said if there was a repeat and they had to shut down its main mine, it would cost probably on the order of about $56 million a day.
00:44:16.180
That's some big money, and that's just one outfit.
00:44:21.900
I think that's about all I can really think of off the top of my head.
00:44:25.120
I just wanted to thank you for all the amelite.
00:44:26.840
But Corey likes rocks and stones, and I do too.
00:44:31.400
Yeah, I don't give it free to everybody out there, but I had some access.
00:44:35.660
And somebody else who loves Alberta's official gemstone amelite.
00:44:38.760
Alberta's official gemstone comes from the Bear Paw Formation, which is the fracking formation that they get the oil and gas from near St. Mary's River.
00:44:47.480
And it's beautiful stuff, and I just want to say thank you very much.
00:44:52.740
All right, that is our business and energy writer, Sean Polzer, covering all that stuff, local and afar.
00:44:59.060
You know, it brings to mind, funny, when we think of Harley and we think of Woke, I used to own that pub in Prittis, and you get a diverse crowd of clientele.
00:45:07.640
And down the road from Prittis is the Azaridge Hotel, which is a very, very high-end hotel that used to have actually a butler school.
00:45:18.840
They'd come to our pub to have a drink and some chicken wings or whatever else.
00:45:22.020
And I just remember, because we used to get a really mixed crowd of people, and I got a lot of bikers there.
00:45:27.620
I mean, we're in an area just out in the foothills.
00:45:29.100
We get some, you know, big, scary-looking bikers in their Harleys.
00:45:31.540
They're usually great, good customers, and they'd sit out.
00:45:34.060
But one day on the patio, there were all of our big, burly bikers out there.
00:45:38.900
And here was a couple of the butlers from Azaridge.
00:45:43.080
Just something else to be said is most of the butlers tended to be gay.
00:45:47.400
And one of them was a fantastic young man and very, very flamboyant.
00:45:52.280
And they were all having beer, bikers and these butlers on the patio together, having a good time, laughing, drinking, doing shooters.
00:45:59.800
It was just a surreal scene you wouldn't expect to see now and then.
00:46:03.780
You know, very different cultures just having a good time together.
00:46:08.640
So, yeah, you never know, you know, don't make assumptions with people.
00:46:14.400
There's more tolerance out there than others realize.
00:46:16.200
They were just a bunch of people from different worlds having a drink together and having a good time.
00:46:20.160
But at the same time, yeah, if you're a Harley, if you are a Harley Davidson, you've got to remember,
00:46:25.840
the bulk of your clientele aren't interested in woke stuff.
00:46:39.800
But this DEI, and people have pointed out, you know, the ones who were going,
00:46:44.460
it gets into how woke and foolish our post-secondary is getting.
00:46:48.520
And that's why we're seeing it in the oil field.
00:46:49.720
That's where we're seeing it in Harley Davidson.
00:46:53.020
The ones who went through the school with the woke professors and the fools and so on,
00:46:57.060
indoctrinated with all that crap, graduated, managed to move up the corporate scrotum pole
00:47:02.100
and get themselves into those positions of marketing and communications and so on
00:47:06.840
with these major companies and they don't really know what the hell they're talking about.
00:47:12.780
They didn't come up through the ranks of reality on who they're marketing to and what they're doing.
00:47:17.760
And they feel that their junk marketing that they were taught will apply to the products they're selling.
00:47:25.480
And they're learning very much the hard way right now that, no, it doesn't work.
00:47:30.960
We've seen that with other funds and retirement things and so on.
00:47:35.560
The bottom line, when it comes to a company, there's only one role.
00:47:53.280
In fact, lots of companies market themselves just on being generally good citizens, but still focus on making money
00:48:07.800
Where companies are expected to apologize for making profits.
00:48:10.860
When they're pulled to the carpet for having made money.
00:48:14.520
That gets back to what Dr. Charlebois was talking about.
00:48:16.120
They actually pulled the grocers in to explain themselves because they made, get this, 4% profit.
00:48:21.680
And they got pulled in front of a parliamentary committee and treated like garbage because they made 4%.
00:48:27.140
If anything, they should be pulled before the investors saying, why didn't you make more?
00:48:35.720
Their job isn't to facilitate social engineering.
00:48:38.500
It isn't to change public hearts and minds on social issues.
00:48:42.540
It doesn't mean you can't take part in charities and things like that and everything else.
00:48:45.620
But in the end of it all, the job is to make money for your shareholders and never apologize for it.
00:48:52.080
So these clowns in these DEI departments, I mean, it was beautiful to see Microsoft got rid of the entire department of these DEI.
00:49:08.860
Somebody, you know, the buck eventually does stop.
00:49:11.120
Because you just can't pay these clowns forever.
00:49:13.560
Twitter, X, you know, when Musk bought it, he did fantastic in that he just laid off, what, 75% of the staff.
00:49:21.020
Most of them were in that sort of crap category.
00:49:23.600
The garbage had built like a pipe that hasn't been snaked in too long.
00:49:29.420
You know, these hires that aren't actually doing anything functional.
00:49:32.320
They just fit trying to push for these ridiculous categories and ideas and notions.
00:49:36.360
So that's a good news story, seeing that, you know, Starbucks going after and exposing these companies.
00:49:42.680
Leave it to the shareholders to decide what they want to do.
00:49:44.740
But in the end, the saying of go woke, go broke tends to apply.
00:49:48.440
And a lot of companies are finally starting to learn it.
00:49:55.080
You know, Wildrose saying not profits, excessive profit while food banks are overwhelmed.
00:50:07.320
That's a whole separate issue altogether, but has nothing to do with the grocers.
00:50:15.060
Either way, thank you all for tuning in and hanging in there through that little bit of a hiccup we had with our streaming service.
00:50:22.700
Make sure, again, guys, westernstandard.news slash subscription.
00:50:28.300
Get past the paywall and help support us and our reporters to keep things rolling.
00:50:34.860
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00:50:37.800
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