00:18:08.020And there's rumors that he's going to, one way he can exempt himself from, get around the free trade agreement is he's, there's a rumor that he's going to tell American government agencies that they cannot procure Canadian products.
00:18:27.440So that's not against, that doesn't prevent products from coming into the US, but I guess the American government's a big buyer, right?
00:18:34.220So that'd be like saying to the American army, you can't buy skidoos for your winter gear.
00:18:42.020You can't buy, you know, if you're, if you're whatever, some agency that needs, I don't know, hockey equipment or something like that.
00:20:21.080And I talked to Lucy on the phone yesterday
00:20:23.340about the impacts of a tariff and I thought I was pretty smart on tariffs and and Lucy gave me a
00:20:31.800really amazing lesson and maybe I'll bring her on the show in the coming days or coming weeks or
00:20:37.620something like that but she so they're in Nova Scotia they they have a patent for this thing
00:20:45.120they had to source somebody to make a mold making a mold is not easy anymore nobody makes molds it's
00:20:50.920not like you just show up and get somebody to make a mold they got somebody to make the mold
00:20:54.160and found somebody who still had the technology to inject this thing and so they they they make
00:20:59.600the this this this object this this thing and um 90 of their market is in the u.s okay and that's
00:21:10.900just a reality in canada so she's a small business in canada she's got a product and her product
00:21:16.960sells okay in canada but the market is small and plus people don't clean their gutters in this
00:21:22.960country for call it uh seven months out of the year eight months nine months out of the year
00:21:28.800so you know you buy one of these and it's okay but if but in the us there's places that have
00:21:34.880a year-round need for these things and she sells 90 of her product in the us
00:21:39.680well the the tariffs have demolished her business because uh i don't want to get into it too too much
00:21:46.640it's it's but the 50% tariff that she that the US imposed on her means that her supplier let's call
00:21:55.040it let's say let's say Home Depot USA used to buy a thousand of these from her every month now Home
00:22:00.640Depot has to pay 50% more for these things Home Depot is not willing to order them in advance
00:22:09.600and pay 50% and risk being stuck with the stock so now Home Depot will say well maybe I'll do 10
00:22:15.840or 20 or something like that and then it becomes unprofitable then i asked her if she could find
00:22:20.480her own distributor in the u.s she's like if i do i lose control can she can you find uh well
00:22:25.760actually before i get on tariffs so the americans are tariffing her and canada's tariffing her
00:22:30.320because some of the components that she uses to make this come from the u.s the resin or the
00:22:36.320coloring or the sticky labels or whatever not everything is sourced in canada so now she's
00:22:41.040getting so the cost to make her product is going up and then and then the cost of because the cost
00:22:47.040of her product goes up when the invoice she sends to the us is higher and the us are putting an0.63
00:22:51.680invoice a 50 invoice on there she's out of business okay in a nutshell she's like i don't i i was
00:22:59.360i was upset talking to her and i don't even know how you can like the frustration in her voice
00:23:05.600was incredible and and this is canada we're already in canada being an entrepreneur and a
00:23:11.440small business owner is already difficult enough like this is not a country that is friendly to
00:23:16.960entrepreneurs you know she gave me horror stories i won't go into the horror stories um but but i
00:23:24.320just i just wanted to make that make people understand that the these things are impacting
00:23:29.760lives so it's her livelihood that's affected and it's uh and it's the people that she hires and
00:23:35.980the machinists and the injection molders and so forth so there's a cascading event there but
00:23:40.520there's also another cascading event which is she sells to the u.s and she explained this brilliantly
00:23:47.720she's selling to the u.s and then therefore she's bringing in american money to canada right so if
00:23:54.260She sells one of these and she brings in 10 US dollars to Canada.0.87
00:23:58.040That's $10 that Canada did not have before.
00:24:01.560And then with that $10, she can go to her neighbor who sells chickens or makes picnic tables or sews clothes or washes windows, whatever, and use some of that money.0.93
00:24:16.340And it's having a cascading spill on effect to others in her community.
00:24:21.360And then I said, well, I heard that Carney is offering assistance to businesses, right? That Carney said he's going to take the money he collects as tariffs and use it to offset some of the hurt of these businesses. And she laughed. And as soon as I asked the question and she was laughing, I was almost apologetic going, I'm sorry I even asked that question. What a silly question on my part to ask.
00:24:43.960how does a small business like hers take advantage of the the the relief offered by the federal
00:24:51.180government right the relief offered by the quote-unquote relief offered by the federal
00:24:56.580government that's for bombardiers that's for uh virgin mobile or telus or whatever the big
00:25:02.460companies and and that have big departments that can apply for this it would cost her so much money
00:25:09.140just to apply to get this assistance that it's hardly worth it and the assistance is a pittance
00:25:15.060and then she explained some of the assistance and the assistance would be basically to help her
00:25:20.040you know build a website so she could attract more business in Canada and she's like I've been
00:25:25.200doing this for 15 years do you not think I've already done that I'm like I get it get it get
00:25:30.780it and then on top of that she talked about you know the the so it sounds good to say buy canadian
00:25:38.760it's impractical but not only is it impractical she almost went as far as saying that most of
00:25:44.880her canadian neighbors all of us in general were kind of hypocrites and i'm like i agree i understand
00:25:52.040where you're going to go next because we say we're going to buy canadian but if you can find this
00:25:57.340item in the store for a fraction of the cost because it was made in china which one are you
00:26:04.420going to buy you're going to buy chinese don't don't lie to me you're going to buy chinese so
00:26:08.960anyways i just i wanted to bring up that example just that story quickly as an example that these
00:26:15.900these tariffs and this war that we're in is um oh i should have
00:26:20.800sorry about that folks i usually turn off my phone here and i don't know why i forgot to do
00:26:27.320that today um anyways i i that let me let me just backtrack so the tariffs affect people and folks
00:26:36.680like park the rhetoric for a while and ignore what carnies and others are doing and and do pay
00:26:45.000attention to this like don't don't don't fall for all this noise don't change your don't change your
00:26:51.680behavior because there are unintended consequences this by canadian sounds good but it's not it's not
00:26:58.520always good it's not always practical and there's a lot of really good reasons to keep supporting
00:27:04.980people who do business with the americans and supporting our american neighbors and person to
00:27:11.180person let's let's not let's continue the relationships we have person to person and
00:27:16.660let's not get wrapped up in what the politicians are doing that's kind of that's kind of my plea
00:27:21.120on that one so um all right folks come on 479-9378 i got my usual guys that usually call
00:27:30.520just from uh from grand prairie and uh and uh spencer and others but uh maybe you guys just
00:27:37.540want to hear me talk i'm happy to keep talking all right where do i go from here um
00:27:42.760do i talk about zelinski or do i talk about let me talk about okay let me let me
00:27:50.820Let me talk about, let me talk about the meeting with Danielle Smith on, on Tuesday, because it was a good meeting. It was a good meeting. So it's summer, right? And Danielle Smith goes around and does her town hall meetings across the province. And first of all, kudos for her doing that.
00:28:13.080okay politicians are elected to be our representatives and a lot of them say that
00:28:22.440they talk to canadians you hear that all the time right and then she was like i talk to canadians
00:28:26.120and this is what they've told me but i've never seen him in an event where he's actually talking
00:28:30.200to people and so when danielle says i talked to albertans she does okay so on tuesday she's in
00:28:36.840cochran and um small meeting like about 120 uh constituents uh ucp members and it was by invitation
00:28:46.440only though although it's by invitation only the invitation can leak out right so i get a i get an
00:28:51.960email as a ucp member in that constituency association so marty come on out for that
00:28:57.400but these things aren't secret so i could have leaked it out or somebody could have leaked it
00:29:01.880out and almost anybody could show up at one of these events show up there's about 125 of us
00:29:08.280and it's danielle smith and um the the mla for airdrie not the mla for cochran i'll come back
00:29:18.200to that go ahead caller uh as usual where are you calling from and uh what's on your mind
00:32:03.760I had a buddy where at the where I was working at that time, I had a fellow engineer who was a Canadian citizen with a German passport and a an Arab last name because his his father was Arabic and his mother was German.
00:32:24.260And boy, in the years after 9-11, his life, you know, he told me horror stories.
00:32:32.020I mean, going through the border after that with, like I said, Canadian dual citizenship, passport, German, Arabic, all those things.
00:32:39.220Poor guy. Going through customs was a nightmare for him.
00:32:43.060So back to the town hall, Daniel Smith and the MLA for Airdrie.
00:32:49.620I'm having a memory blank, but just two people.
00:32:52.440and the reason the MLA for Airdrie was there
00:32:56.300because Cochrane right now does not have a UCP MLA
00:33:18.620I'm drawing a complete memory blank0.99
00:33:20.260It's a blonde lady is the lady who's who's the MLA for Airdrie.
00:33:27.780Anyways, and Danielle did a very quick chat, a very quick update, like not much.
00:33:33.160Her opening statements were not much more than about five or six minutes, you know, talked about things that she's done.
00:33:39.360You know, I'm proud that Alberta is having its sixth or seventh surplus in a row because of oil prices.
00:33:45.600Talked about some of the progress, some of the changes she's made on on on recent bills like Bill 25, taking politics out of the school, some progress that they've made on infrastructure, the fact that there's so many schools being built and stuff like that.
00:34:01.740So she gave it. And then she highlighted statistics like most of the jobs created in Canada in the last year are in Alberta.
00:34:10.380We lead the country in GDP per capita, GDP trade to the U.S., stuff like that.
00:34:16.260So very, very high level, good stuff. And I agree with all of it.
00:34:20.480It's all stuff I've commented on many times. And then she opened up the floor to questions.
00:34:26.120And it was such a small crowd. And I managed to go right to the front and be the first person to ask her a question. She's got her PR team standing there. And I know some of her PR team. And I told, you know, Peter is like sort of reluctantly putting the mic in my face. And I said, I'm going to be nice. I'm going to be nice. And I was nice, right? I opened up my comment by thanking Danielle and telling her, you know, I'm willing to be super critical of anybody, any politicians.
00:34:55.260I don't care. I've told you guys this. I don't care if you're political stripes. Just because you're conservative, you don't get a break from me. I'm critical of everyone. But at the same time, I'm also willing to give credit when credit is due. So that's what I said to her. I said, credit. You're taking the province in the right direction. And I applaud you for that.
00:35:14.180and then I joked I said I wish you were moving faster and then I joked one last joke and I said
00:35:22.140I wish you were more on board with us as an independent as a separatist and then I asked
00:35:29.240her a real question and my question had to do with something I've talked on here earlier this
00:35:34.180year about our tax bills that came in last year and how the bills had gone up and specifically
00:35:39.060the education component of our tax bill, of our municipal tax bill, right? So I get a municipal
00:35:45.360tax bill, but it's gone up. And when I look at it closely, it's not the city or the county that's
00:35:50.680increasing costs. It was the province passing on this school levy to the cities and making them
00:36:01.120take the public relations hit. So I brought that up. She gave me a satisfactory answer. She said
00:42:22.760Like her telling us to vote for the first nine yes
00:42:26.160and no on independence i thought no you got it around backwards if you want leverage don't worry
00:42:32.080about the other things vote for independence and then and then the the discussion came around she
00:42:38.800she talked about how in her mind uh she's voting to stay she repeated that she believes in a
00:42:46.480stronger alberta a sovereign alberta within a united canada she repeated that and i've often
00:42:51.440thought that she was naive on that but she gave she really talked about her reasons i mean she said
00:42:57.280that in her opinion there's only two options canada within or alberta within canada or alberta within
00:43:04.320the united states like she's just said that the sphere of influence of the two countries are too
00:43:09.120big and alberta is like orbiting one or the other and and she said that she thinks that alberta
00:43:15.200within canada is better than alberta within the united states and and and then she gave the
00:43:21.920example that confederation has worked in the last 159 years confederation has worked when
00:43:30.560conservatives were in power i had the opportunity to say my god conservatives have been in power
00:43:36.560for what like 30 of the last hundred uh of of the of the time so we have a system that only works
00:43:44.32030 percent of the time when one group is in power and then it doesn't work the other 70 percent of
00:43:49.100the time i'm like and she specifically mentioned you know mulrooney and harper saying the
00:43:53.860confederation worked for them i'm like wow so like that's a pretty flawed system if it only works 30
00:44:00.080percent of the time and on top of that i don't think conservatives will ever run rule in ottawa
00:44:04.960ever again so on that theory she's off and then and then she repeated that she doesn't think that
00:44:12.380an independent Alberta has its chance on its own and again almost the booze and the and the pushback
00:44:19.480from the crowd like I was trying to watch her body language and and she got an earful right like
00:44:24.660people said what about Norway what about the fact you know she's like well you we're landlocked and0.92
00:44:29.080everybody like three people yelled so are 50 percent of the countries in Europe and she's you
00:44:34.740know yeah but they have different cultures and they corroborate with each other I'm like okay
00:44:39.520So her arguments fall on their face all the time.
00:44:45.040And but I don't I mean, that's that's interesting in and of itself.
00:44:48.580But for me, it was an eye opener. It was an eye opener.
00:44:50.840She really believes that that that Confederation can be fixed.
00:44:56.420She brought up the example of Carney, you know, saying like that, that the last the 10 years under Trudor were terrible and that there's been some noticeable improvements under Carney.
00:45:07.400and even when she mentions that and when she says there's been an improvement under Carney
00:45:11.220she gets like a boo like the whole crowd goes boo like we don't see it that way Danielle we
00:45:17.060don't see it that way premier like an MOU and a promise to build a pipeline that's nothing that
00:45:22.200that that you know and even today Carney threw another carrot our way right like he he modified
00:45:27.700Bill C-69 is a really annoying piece of legislation right that's the one we call the
00:45:32.820No New Pipelines Act that came in under Trudeau.
00:45:36.340And today or yesterday, Carney said that he's limiting the scope of Bill C-69
00:45:41.920and Bill C-69 won't apply to heavy oil projects
00:45:47.180and won't apply to power plants in Alberta in the heavy oil sector.
00:45:51.800Okay, so a very narrow reduction of the scope of Bill C-69.
00:45:57.120But, I mean, Carney has still got the tanker ban.
00:53:28.520So I and so this this this group of conservatives banding together, a first of all, what they're proposing is bizarre.
00:53:36.080But secondly, like the caller said, it does show they're supposed to represent us.
00:53:41.780And I don't have my conservative MP didn't come and ask me, like, how do you feel about independence and this and this and that?
00:53:47.960He just jumped on this bandwagon and his and he published a letter alongside everybody else saying, I'm a federal conservative MP and I'm in favor of Alberta staying.
00:53:58.520uh in confederation so when i see that i see that as self-serving i see that as just representing
00:54:05.640the party lines and i see that as really self-serving because conservatives federally
00:54:11.400know this if alberta leaves there will never be a federal government in ottawa ever again so
00:54:15.800anyways i'll maybe i'll maybe we'll have more to chat on that unfortunately i'm running out of
00:54:19.800time i really wanted to talk about the allison inquiry i'll talk about that next week but i'll
00:54:23.960just you guys know what's going on right oh the clock's running five minutes fast sorry john okay
00:54:29.080all right so i can slow down i don't need to rush um okay let me slow down so let's talk about the
00:54:35.900allison inquiry which is an amazing thing happening in ottawa so allison inquiry uh allison is dean
00:54:42.940allison is an mp and um he called an inquiry now it's not formal uh i think it's being called an
00:54:51.920inquiry but you know it's not really technically an inquiry what dean has done which is great is
00:54:57.860he's given people who were negatively affected by covid and the mandates and specifically the
00:55:05.100vaccine he's giving them an opportunity to come to something like a committee uh you know a house
00:55:11.060of commons committee and they can tell their story and their story is on record right that's one of
00:55:16.140the wonderful things i mean uh when you go to court and you tell your story when you go to a committee
00:55:21.320in Parliament or in the House of Commons