The Supreme Court of Canada is set to rule tomorrow on whether the federal government's carbon tax is constitutional. We talk about what that means for Alberta and what it could mean for the rest of the country. We also hear about Pastor Coates being released from jail, and Jason Kenney backing off of his phased reopening plan.
00:07:14.060So what the court is going to rule tomorrow is anybody's guess, Derek,
00:07:17.520but a lot of people keeping their fingers crossed.
00:07:21.900Corey, we know that the Supreme Court of Canada has an excellent record
00:07:25.960at protecting provincial jurisdiction and personal freedoms.
00:07:30.220You're a constitutional lawyer, Corey.
00:07:32.100Why don't you tell us what you think is going to happen?
00:07:36.280Yeah, I wish I was a constitutional lawyer
00:07:39.460because there's certainly enough to keep them busy these days on on these sorts of things
00:07:44.500i really you know it's a roll of the dice it's been split coming up all the way through the
00:07:48.420courts they're going to be hearing the similar arguments to it and uh it's really anybody's
00:07:54.260guess which way they're going to land because i think there's there's valid arguments both ways
00:07:58.020i mean this will be a crushing tax particularly as dave mentioned with those massive increases
00:08:03.060they've got planned and it's not just per per liter on your fuel like this will raise the cost
00:08:07.860of living on everything. An energy tax is like a GST. I mean, every bit of goods that are
00:08:14.600transported, farms. I mean, they talk about a rebate system, but a rebate system is never
00:08:18.800efficient. So I think, you know, typically the federal government can get away with a lot under
00:08:25.600the constitution and the Supreme Court will take that into consideration. But whether or not they'll
00:08:31.240take into consideration the actual impacts of the tax, that's, I guess, not necessarily their role,
00:08:34.960but I hope they keep that in mind. Yeah, it's, this is obviously going to be one of the most
00:08:42.540watched Supreme Court rulings, probably since the same-sex marriage rulings approaching 20 years
00:08:49.980ago. This is going to have a profound impact on not just the tax structure of Canada, but federal
00:08:56.520provincial relations. Jason Kenney and some of the other premiers who have fought against
00:09:03.260at least portions of the federal carbon tax have been pitting all of their hopes on this court
00:09:09.460decision. They're not fighting the entire carbon tax. The provincial government in Alberta and
00:09:19.580in Saskatchewan and elsewhere, they have already accepted the federal carbon tax on industry. So
00:09:24.580there is the carbon tax on the oil sands and oil extraction, things like that. We already have a
00:09:30.200carbon tax there. Where we have right now is the federal carbon tax imposed directly on consumer
00:09:37.440goods in Alberta, in Saskatchewan, in Ontario. There we have the federal carbon tax directly
00:09:43.100being imposed. I don't recall ever seeing a rebate myself, but frankly, I don't want a
00:09:49.120rebate on an unjust tax. I just don't want the tax period. But this is going to have a profound
00:09:53.420impact, I think, on federal-provincial relations. Dave, how would you expect
00:10:01.900both Premier Kenney and Premier Moe to react in the event that they're not successful and
00:10:07.740the Supreme Court reaffirms the federal government's right to impose a strangely
00:10:13.900structured tax like this? That's a good question, Derek, and anybody's guess, really.
00:10:19.340You know, this is the court of last appeal, so to say, and if Alberta loses and, you know, they're in the same boat as Saskatchewan, there's nowhere else to appeal to.
00:10:34.540As to what Kenny will do, you know, jump up and down, stamp his feet maybe, blast the government some more.
00:10:41.640You know, what it will do if the Supreme Court upholds the carbon taxes, it will add more fuel to the fire of the Wildrose Independence Party and other independence-minded groups, because they'll point it out and say, look, we can't deal with this.
00:10:59.520We've got to, we cannot get a fair deal.
00:11:03.220So that's, yeah, what Kenny's going to do.
00:11:07.500I'm sure they're huddled talking about it as we speak.
00:11:09.980that's an interesting point that um you know kenny's kenny used to have kind of the right
00:11:17.940flank in the arguments in alberta where the ndp were the staunch federal party kenny was the guy
00:11:22.540who was going to fight ottawa so far the fight back strategy hasn't appeared to work at all
00:11:27.580uh what would we've got if this supreme court decision does not go the province's way it will
00:11:34.840allow sophomores to say that working with Ottawa or even fighting Ottawa within confederation
00:11:40.280simply doesn't work. The NDP's approach in Alberta was to work with Ottawa and hope it
00:11:45.000would work out well. I think most people would say it didn't. Kenny's approach is to yell at
00:11:50.660Ottawa and fight it in the courts. So far it hasn't yielded anything. Equalization has been
00:11:55.620renewed for another term. The Supreme Court is now going to decide tomorrow with the future
00:12:00.780uh of the fight on that front uh then we've got uh well we actually we've got an interesting
00:12:07.900question from uh chris uh leave them i probably said that wrong chris leave them can the provinces
00:12:15.660not use the not can the provinces use the notwithstanding clause in this circumstance
00:12:20.140uh no they can't because the notwithstanding clause applies only to the right of the federal
00:12:25.660government of provinces to overturn a Supreme Court ruling as it involves the Charter of Rights,
00:12:33.180which is one part of the Constitution, but just that single part of the Constitution,
00:12:38.140the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it doesn't apply to the broader British North America Act,
00:12:43.820which was replaced by the Constitution Act 1982, or parts of the Constitution Act 1982.
00:12:49.340So, for instance, you know, the provinces can't overturn federal jurisdiction over the military.
00:12:58.700You know, Alberta can't, unfortunately, Alberta can't use the notwithstanding clause and say, nope, the army is under Alberta's jurisdiction.
00:13:05.480So that's something that we're not able to do.
00:13:08.240So the notwithstanding clause is not applicable in this case.
00:13:13.600In this case, if the federal government, if the Supreme Court of Canada rules in favor of the federal carbon tax provinces, there are really only a few choices.
00:13:23.920One is accept it, campaign for a party to come to power to change the policy you don't like, or as some would say, just leave Canada and then not be subject to the Supreme Court's decision any longer.
00:13:36.800So really not many easy options in that case.
00:13:40.340Corey, maybe you can elaborate on this. This is, I think, a key pillar of Jason Kenney's
00:13:47.960fight back strategy, as he's called it, against what he says is unfair treatment from Ottawa.
00:13:56.000If the Supreme Court ruling doesn't go his way, what do you think the fallout will be? And then
00:14:00.940maybe if you can comment on the flip side of that, if he is victorious in court here,
00:14:05.580what will that mean for Kenny's political strategy going forward?
00:14:12.600Yeah, well, this is kind of a battle between the federalist approach and some people who have
00:14:17.280already given up hope on the system and are examining things such as secession and independence
00:14:22.280for the West. If the Supreme Court rules that it's perfectly constitutional for the federal
00:14:27.700government to impose such a serious tax, that's definitely regionally targeted. I mean, it's going
00:14:33.500to impact the prairie provinces way more disproportionately than in the east then that
00:14:39.340indicates that as far as a lot of people are concerned the system is broken and we can't win
00:14:43.580by playing through the rules which are the supreme court so it's time to start looking outside of the
00:14:48.220rules if it is a win though uh jason kenney will be able to really point to the regionalists and
00:14:54.220say you see we can if we keep battling we keep struggling and keep fighting the the system will
00:14:59.260work for us eventually and we can win it through the courts. We can protect our provincial
00:15:04.560jurisdiction. So a lot is really riding on this case because Kenny's been a very dedicated
00:15:10.900federalist. So he's not going to have much defense if the Supreme Court rules against the
00:15:16.540province in this case. A lot is riding here. And I think Kenny really had better hope for a favorable
00:15:22.560ruling. I'm interested in the federal political ramifications of this. Aaron O'Toole campaigned
00:15:30.880vigorously against the carbon tax when he ran for the conservative leadership.
00:15:35.840Well, at least that was the headlines for most of the mainstream media. We reported something
00:15:39.760a bit different. There was a bit more nuance to it. Aaron O'Toole campaigned against the Trudeau
00:15:45.280carbon tax but said that he did favor, quote, carbon pricing and would work with the provinces
00:15:51.120on that uh that actually doesn't sound very different from what justin trudeau said except
00:15:56.400we might just not call it a carbon tax but for the record justin trudeau's carbon tax is not
00:16:00.560actually called a carbon tax it's some more convoluted plan uh rachel notley's carbon tax
00:16:05.280was called the climate leadership action plan uh the clap as i like to call it uh and we know how
00:16:11.920difficult to get rid of that is so uh i'm interested to see how how aaron o'toole would
00:16:18.800respond to this. Surely he would be happy to see a defeat for the Trudeau government in the Supreme
00:16:24.160Court. But he's been very coy around the idea of a carbon tax. The media have started to raise
00:16:30.000questions. They've started to catch on that maybe this guy isn't really against a carbon tax. He's
00:16:35.120just against this particular carbon tax. Let's go back to you, Corey. What do you think the fall
00:16:42.320will be? How do you think Aaron O'Toole is going to handle this? Because he's been promising this
00:16:47.200big vigorous climate change crusade promise to make the Conservative Party more relevant
00:16:55.200in parts of urban and eastern Canada. How do you think this might, in the event, again maybe for
00:17:02.320both scenarios, both for a victory for the carbon tax or a defeat for the carbon tax, what do you
00:17:08.800think those two scenarios pretend for Aaron O'Toole? Well I think he'd prefer to see a defeat
00:17:14.480to the carbon tax, just out of the sense that it's in his favor to see the governing party,
00:17:18.700the Liberals, fail in one of their initiatives. But that was a large controversial element from
00:17:24.780last weekend's convention. I mean, Aaron O'Toole clearly is gearing up for an election campaign to
00:17:30.240say that they're going to take a green plan and carbon initiatives, just like the Liberals.
00:17:35.660They're just saying perhaps we'll be more likable about it, which I don't think is the case
00:17:39.000for the West. And the membership, when it came to that climate change motion, it came before the
00:17:46.200floor, slapped it down. They told O'Toole to jam his motion on climate change. So it's a dicey
00:17:55.140area. I think just on a point of pride, I guess you could say it'll be good for O'Toole if this
00:18:01.880tax gets slapped down. If it doesn't get knocked down by the courts, again, well, where's O'Toole
00:18:08.420going to go with it? What's he going to say that he is doing any different than Justin Trudeau?
00:18:12.560I'd worry if the court slapped it down, O'Toole will come out and campaign in the East saying,
00:18:16.620well, we're going to come up with the carbon tax that the courts will like.
00:18:21.440I hope you're wrong, but I fear you're not. Well, let's bring it a little closer to home here.
00:18:29.720Jason Kenney is backing off the phase three of his reopening plan. We remember in pretty early
00:18:39.860January, right after the big Snowbird scandal, kind of out of nowhere, we had this restaurant
00:18:45.960rebellion. These rogue restaurant owners said, look, I'm going to go out of business if the
00:18:51.620government keeps me closed. And all they're doing, and the government's proposing to fine me or jail
00:18:56.540me, well, I'm going to take my chances going toe-to-toe with the government and reopening
00:19:00.560anyway. And so we had, you know, began with the whistle stop near Mirror, Alberta, and it really
00:19:06.520started to catch on like a prairie fire, exponentially more small businesses, small
00:19:12.640restaurants opening every single day. I think all of them were small independent homes. I don't
00:19:17.580believe any of the chains did it. They tend to be a bit more deferential to the government, but
00:19:22.340this really got out of control for the government here. And with the really just two choices in
00:19:29.400front of him, Jason Kenney could either start throwing these people in jail or he could try
00:19:34.520to appease them somewhat. And so we had this phased reopening plan where if we met certain
00:19:40.680targets by certain dates, there would be a reopening. Last time we had the phase two a few
00:19:47.520weeks ago uh the numbers in alberta already were at the numbers to warrant a phase three reopening
00:19:52.640but they didn't go to phase three they said no we're doing phase two first even though
00:19:56.320the numbers said phase three uh would be applicable um but they didn't even do phase two i think they
00:20:02.480uh they reopened did a partial reopening of libraries or something i don't i don't know who
00:20:07.040like i don't know who still goes to those things uh people without the internet i guess but um
00:20:11.440uh then there was a huge backlash uh from kind of the conservative base in the province
00:20:16.320and then from six MLAs who spoke up publicly, led by Drew Barnes, but joined by some others who were,
00:20:23.200I think, less expected to speak out. So then the government finally did go through with phase two.
00:20:31.760Dave, why don't you tell us what's happened here more with phase three,
00:20:36.080what the plan was for reopening, and what we actually got?
00:20:39.600Derek, I liken it to a football player, a kicker, and on the last play of the game, he's got to kick a 50-yard field goal to seal the victory, and he boots it with all his might, and as it's just approaching the goal line, the officials get up and move the goal posts, and that's exactly what the county government has done.
00:21:04.120They promised us at the very start of this pandemic that once we got in below 300 hospitalizations that we would move on to phase three, which would have seen things like allowing more gatherings of church, openings of casinos, more children, sports, that type of thing.
00:21:23.660But even though there were only 280 people in hospital when the announcement was made on Monday, they did not go ahead with it.
00:21:32.300They say, yeah, we're under 300 now, but by the end of the week, we expect to be over 300.
00:21:40.580They say their big concern now is the variants.
00:21:44.340They're now tracking more than 100 new variant cases a day, which is a growth of between 20 and 25%.
00:21:52.080So I think that was their main excuse in not moving on to phase three.
00:21:58.600But, you know, the average Albertan, again, feels betrayed, lied to almost.
00:22:05.100In our initial story, Drew Barnes was complaining again that, you know, we've done everything everybody's asked and we're not getting the rewards that we were promised.
00:22:16.800So what the new yardstick is, I don't know.
00:22:21.500They're still saying 300, but I guess it's all going to depend on the variants and how they go.
00:22:30.620Yeah, for those of you who didn't see it yet, last night we had a fantastic show with Danielle Uncensored on the Western Standard interviewing deplatformed doctors.
00:22:41.860she had three really intelligent doctors who are at least in large measure de-platformed for their
00:22:48.660dissenting views from the chief medical officers and from the politicians where we they really got
00:22:54.420into this in some detail and why a lot of the metrics governments are using to even track this
00:22:59.060stuff really just does not make sense right now um you know just active cases is is a terrible
00:23:06.740measure to be using uh the way they're measuring who's actually infected is not reliable um the
00:23:13.220data is often old uh it's conflated uh it's far too much to get into right now but if you haven't
00:23:18.660already watched it check out it you can find it on our website westernstandardonline.com we have
00:23:24.180it posted from youtube there you can also watch it directly on the facebook page which might be
00:23:29.300be handy if you're watching us on Facebook right now. Corey, the last time Kenny moved the goal
00:23:37.280posts on phase two, there was a massive backlash and he was forced to climb down again in the face
00:23:43.660of a caucus rebellion. Do you think we have the prospect of that happening again? Or do you think
00:23:49.920the government's going to be in the all clear here? I don't know. You know, I'm getting to be
00:23:55.560blunt, sick and tired of them bowing to the fear mongering crap. And that's what it is. It's crap.
00:24:00.780I mean, I've been throwing it in their face on social media over and over again, and I'm going
00:24:04.100to continue to. They are doing their governing based on models, which have proven to be wrong
00:24:10.040for an entire year. Every model they put out is hysterically exaggerated on what they project to
00:24:16.440actually happen. So when they stand up there and say, we expect these infections to be through the
00:24:20.560roof next week, I call BS. I'm sick of it. You know, you guys put out those projections back
00:24:25.960in January. You said this variant was going to have 3,000 cases by now. We're sitting under 300.
00:24:32.360And yeah, they use the caveat to say, oh, it went up a little. We wanted to see it under 300 and
00:24:37.240going downwards again, you know, inserting the fine print all the time. Well, what if it goes
00:24:41.440down by five tomorrow? Well, you open things up like it's just the reticence on opening up the
00:24:46.180cowardice on the part of the government, but they're also cowardice when citizens push back.
00:24:51.260This is part of why their support is going into the toilet, because they're infuriating everybody.
00:24:54.940The people who want everything locked up, they get mad every time he does back down in the face
00:25:00.100of public opposition, and the public is just getting sick and tired of these constantly moving
00:25:03.760goalposts. You can't plan, you can't expect an Easter dinner or a life or summer vacationing or
00:25:09.560reopening your business, and you can't count on anything the government tells you as their metrics
00:25:13.820for it because they keep moving him as they go.
00:25:15.800So I've just had enough of it, and I think a lot more people have it.
00:25:18.460I think, Corey, you may need to visit Kyron's way.
00:35:19.240And, yeah, shame on me for not plugging your show.
00:35:22.440Corey Morgan has now got his own regular show.
00:35:27.700Corey's done some ad hoc from time to time shows.
00:35:30.700But now every Monday and every Friday, 10 a.m. to 12 Mountain Standard Time, we're going to have the Corey Morgan Show.
00:35:40.840Very soon, we're going to also be announcing another show based in British Columbia on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to go alongside Corey.
00:35:50.500So be sure to check out the Corey Morgan Show every Monday and Friday.
00:35:55.620You can watch it live on Facebook or YouTube.
00:35:59.640and you can always catch it on podcast as well.