Western Standard - July 24, 2024


Make some space in Canada's hospitals


Episode Stats


Length

51 minutes

Words per minute

159.33391

Word count

8,216

Sentence count

516

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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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 0.86
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,
00:06:47.920 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?
00:08:40.420 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.
00:09:08.100 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 1.00
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 1.00
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?
00:10:13.840 I'm all right. I like the heat.
00:10:18.480 So what do we got?
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 1.00
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 0.91
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
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00:16:14.880 get on there to westernstandard.news slash subscription. Take one out. It's only 10 bucks a
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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.
00:19:56.080 and you can think of the majority of people.
00:20:26.080 Thank you.
00:20:56.080 Thank you.
00:21:26.080 Thank you.
00:21:56.080 Thank you.
00:22:26.080 Thank you.
00:22:56.080 Thank you.
00:23:26.080 Thank you.
00:23:56.080 Thank you.
00:24:26.060 Thank you.
00:24:56.060 Thank you.
00:25:26.060 Thank you.
00:25:56.060 Thank you.
00:26:26.060 Thank you.
00:26:56.060 Thank you.
00:27:26.060 Thank you.
00:27:56.060 Thank you.
00:28:26.060 Thank you.
00:28:28.060 Thank you.
00:28:30.060 Thank you.
00:29:00.060 Thank you.
00:29:02.060 Thank you.
00:29:04.060 Thank you.
00:29:06.060 Thank you.
00:29:08.060 Thank you.
00:29:10.060 Thank you.
00:29:40.060 Thank you.
00:30:10.060 Thank you.
00:30:12.060 Thank you.
00:30:14.060 Thank you.
00:30:44.060 Thank you.
00:31:14.060 Thank you.
00:31:44.060 Thank you.
00:32:14.060 Thank you.
00:32:44.060 Thank you.
00:32:46.060 Thank you.
00:33:16.060 Thank you.
00:33:18.060 Thank you.
00:33:20.060 Thank you.
00:33:22.060 Thank you.
00:33:24.060 Thank you.
00:33:26.060 Thank you.
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?
00:33:44.360 I have no idea.
00:33:45.920 And so that's a low-hanging fruit.
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.
00:34:10.560 All that money is going to Ottawa.
00:34:12.000 It's not going to businesses.
00:34:14.840 Yeah, so you touched on that quickly.
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.
00:34:27.200 If it's below this size, it must be a snack.
00:34:29.200 Thus, it's eligible for taxes.
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.
00:34:40.840 And, yeah, they're getting punished for it.
00:34:42.880 It's something to make it better.
00:34:44.580 Exactly, and a lot of people don't know 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.
00:35:03.000 It's the same product.
00:35:04.420 It's ridiculous.
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.
00:35:13.600 No, and I hadn't thought about it myself.
00:35:15.500 I appreciate you bringing it up.
00:35:18.320 That's increasing the cost of food. 0.60
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.
00:35:51.600 They don't look at their receipts.
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.
00:36:08.820 You're not going to blame Justin Trudeau.
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.
00:36:36.160 I would say so.
00:36:37.440 Now, I think we're actually close to the end of this ridiculous campaign against grocers.
00:36:42.080 I actually think, are they blameless?
00:36:44.160 No.
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.
00:36:56.360 And frankly, corporate bonuses, $22 million.
00:37:00.900 I don't know.
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.
00:38:18.940 I'm sorry.
00:38:20.560 No, well, and I appreciate you coming on and being out there on social media to break that down.
00:38:25.640 As I said, I learned something new yet again.
00:38:27.460 I hadn't really thought of that with the new taxes we're getting out of the strigflation.
00:38:31.400 We've got something breaking here.
00:38:32.420 And I won't charge you tuition, Corey.
00:38:34.920 Don't worry.
00:38:35.660 It's all free.
00:38:38.160 Thanks.
00:38:38.880 Typically, I'm a terrible student.
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.
00:38:49.660 Yes, bravo.
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?
00:38:58.860 Yeah, absolutely.
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.
00:39:30.720 Excellent.
00:39:31.500 Well, thank you very much.
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.
00:39:43.780 So thank you again for coming on.
00:39:46.220 I hope we can have you on again soon.
00:39:47.940 Before I forget, my thoughts are with the people of Jasper.
00:39:52.020 I know it's been tough over the last few days.
00:39:54.340 So all the best to them.
00:39:56.480 Great.
00:39:56.820 Thank you.
00:39:57.260 Yeah, we're all hoping for the best out there.
00:39:59.400 Absolutely.
00:40:00.700 All right.
00:40:01.260 Take care.
00:40:01.640 Mark Ganson.
00:40:03.340 So, again, he's always great when he comes on.
00:40:05.560 He's on radio all the time.
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.
00:40:19.080 We all got to buy food.
00:40:20.080 There's no getting away from that one.
00:40:21.900 All right.
00:40:22.240 Well, let's get on to our business and energy fella here in the studio.
00:40:26.720 There shouldn't be any technical issues.
00:40:28.280 I don't have far between you and myself.
00:40:30.020 Sean Polzer, how's it going?
00:40:32.060 It's going well.
00:40:32.940 Thank you.
00:40:33.520 Good.
00:40:34.340 So you just came in from a presser, did you?
00:40:36.620 Yeah.
00:40:37.580 Calgary's got its first EV fire truck.
00:40:40.900 Well, you know, being a fire truck, I just hope it doesn't fail.
00:40:47.580 I mean, you know, it's just so important.
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.
00:41:09.600 They kind of get a loaner.
00:41:10.720 Well, you know, don't get your backup if you're getting a free one for the time being.
00:41:15.000 Well, and if it stalls, I mean.
00:41:16.420 As long as you have a good truck behind it to deal with it, if it doesn't have.
00:41:20.200 I've just got diesel backup.
00:41:21.400 Okay.
00:41:21.800 It just kind of struck me that consumers don't get this opportunity to, you know, try before you buy.
00:41:28.000 No.
00:41:28.540 Well, Everton tried electric buses.
00:41:29.880 How'd that all go?
00:41:30.660 That was a disaster.
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.
00:41:45.120 Well, that's the rush with those.
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.
00:41:55.780 He's been going around.
00:41:56.560 He targeted Tractor Supply and John Deere.
00:41:59.600 He's been nailing all those DEI people. 1.00
00:42:02.320 You like Home Depot.
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.
00:42:26.180 What's the matter with you fools?
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.
00:42:35.940 He's saying he's not attacking anybody.
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.
00:42:48.740 Oh, it's up to the consumers, that's for sure.
00:42:50.600 But now that Mr. Starbucks is exposing it, then I suspect Harley might be re-evaluating some of their considerations.
00:42:57.500 It would probably make sense for them.
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. 1.00
00:43:05.800 But you never know.
00:43:06.600 The world is changing.
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.
00:43:42.060 Well, that's good.
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.
00:43:50.420 The pipelines are buried.
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.
00:43:57.960 Absolutely.
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. 0.57
00:44:18.080 That's just one, yeah.
00:44:19.320 Right.
00:44:19.900 We got anything else while I got you?
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.
00:44:50.200 Oh, no problem.
00:44:50.960 Hoping to work some good stones out of it.
00:44:52.480 Thank you.
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.
00:45:15.360 And there were butlers who would come.
00:45:16.740 They couldn't drink after work at the hotel.
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. 1.00
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.
00:45:46.280 That's just the way it was.
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.
00:46:07.080 I thought it was fantastic, actually.
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.
00:46:31.300 Come on.
00:46:31.840 I mean, look at the picture there on it.
00:46:33.400 Yes, it's, you know, this is bikers.
00:46:37.300 It's just not their thing.
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.
00:46:51.560 That's why we saw it with Bud Light.
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.
00:47:11.400 They're from a cloistered world.
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.
00:47:39.320 One.
00:47:40.360 Make money.
00:47:41.820 That's it.
00:47:42.720 Make a profit for your investors.
00:47:45.940 That's their role.
00:47:47.420 It doesn't mean you have to be a bad citizen.
00:47:50.460 It doesn't mean you have to be cutthroat.
00:47:52.280 It doesn't mean you have to be nasty.
00:47:53.280 In fact, lots of companies market themselves just on being generally good citizens, but still focus on making money
00:48:01.880 because that's what they're supposed to do.
00:48:03.880 We're in this stupid world.
00:48:06.040 Stupid world.
00:48:06.980 It really is.
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?
00:48:32.300 That's their job.
00:48:33.200 Their job isn't to take part in woke things.
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.
00:48:58.980 And that's Diversion, Equity, Inclusion.
00:49:00.840 Because they realized this is stupid.
00:49:03.000 We're burning money.
00:49:04.300 It's garbage.
00:49:05.220 It's not doing us any favors.
00:49:07.340 So they got rid of it.
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.
00:49:27.780 And it needed to be flushed out.
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.
00:49:41.180 And then leave it to them.
00:49:41.880 Leave it to the customers.
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.
00:49:52.440 So let's see.
00:49:55.080 You know, Wildrose saying not profits, excessive profit while food banks are overwhelmed.
00:49:59.220 Well, Wildrose, 4% is an excessive profit.
00:50:02.580 It's not.
00:50:03.060 It's not even close.
00:50:04.640 Food banks are overwhelmed.
00:50:05.660 That's a whole separate issue.
00:50:07.320 That's a whole separate issue altogether, but has nothing to do with the grocers.
00:50:11.320 Nothing.
00:50:11.900 They can't go lower.
00:50:14.020 That's the reality.
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.
00:50:21.300 We really appreciate it.
00:50:22.700 Make sure, again, guys, westernstandard.news slash subscription.
00:50:26.160 Get on there.
00:50:26.820 Get the stuff as it's breaking.
00:50:28.300 Get past the paywall and help support us and our reporters to keep things rolling.
00:50:33.380 Tune into the pipeline tonight.
00:50:34.860 It'll be on with a whole much more issues for us to break down.
00:50:37.800 And come back next week, we'll have our internet backups up.
00:50:41.080 And we'll do another full show all over again.
00:50:43.280 And I appreciate you all.
00:50:45.600 So see you all then.
00:50:47.200 And let's all pull for Jasper, guys.
00:50:50.440 Thanks.
00:50:50.720 Thanks.
00:50:50.800 We'll see you all then.
00:51:20.800 And let's see you all then.
00:51:33.100 Thank you.