Western Standard - MARTY UP NORTH： Corus moves news production out of Alberta

00:00:00.000 hey welcome back to uh to my show marty up north show here on western standard uh we're

00:00:29.440 back. I got confused today. I was almost in a panic. If you remember last week, we ran the show

00:00:35.020 at noon. We did that because shortly after the show, the staff here had to head on over to get

00:00:42.540 set up for Derek Fildebrand and his debate with Dwayne Bratt. So last week we did the show at

00:00:49.300 noon. Now we're back to one o'clock. And please don't do what you did to me last week. I don't

00:00:55.800 know i think maybe we got you guys off guard with the show at one at noon and i didn't get a lot of

00:01:01.180 calls so you kind of put me on the spot and made me uh do a pretty long monologue um and and that's

00:01:08.080 not the purpose of the show right i mean this is we're trying to make this into a current event

00:01:12.080 show call-in format where we get to chat about things that are on your mind as much as things

00:01:18.220 that are on my mind uh and and gladly i see already a lot of people are already logged in

00:01:23.900 And so I think the back to the change in time last week was maybe part of the problem.

00:01:29.180 And the shout out, I already see a couple of regulars logged in and making comments.

00:01:33.740 I got the Canadian Spider-Man. I get comments from him all the time.

00:01:37.880 Spencer Ford, just I want to do a quick shout out to Spencer.

00:01:41.620 I met Spencer in person. He came to see me when I was I had my pop up set up for collecting signatures on the side of the road there.

00:01:50.260 And Spencer came over and he brought me a pretty cool Alberta 3D printed plaque along with some photography.

00:02:00.680 OK, so he brought me this amazing photo and then he showed me a photo album.

00:02:03.980 So it turns out Spencer's a retired, I think, electrician or millwright or something like that.

00:02:08.660 Took up photography, amazing photography.

00:02:10.980 And he showed me a book that he had prepared for Danielle Smith of some like a one of a kind book of pictures.

00:02:18.240 and he had been trying to reach out to Danielle's staff

00:02:21.560 and he didn't know how.

00:02:22.460 So I was very happy to be able to put him in touch

00:02:24.600 with her staff.

00:02:26.960 And he got to attend one of her recent town hall meetings

00:02:31.140 in June and he presented the book to her.

00:02:33.260 So thanks for joining in, Spencer and others.

00:02:37.640 So because it's a call-in show, I do chat.

00:02:41.020 I want to chat with you guys,

00:02:41.940 but I'm going to give you the quick rundown

00:02:43.640 of the topics that are on my list right now.

00:02:45.880 And maybe, actually, I'll give you another reason

00:02:48.080 why you should call me. I'll give you another really, really good reason why you should call

00:02:51.480 me. Where's my birthday on Tuesday? Yeah, I turned 59 on Tuesday. And here I am in the studio now

00:02:58.560 doing this. So call and wish me a happy birthday if that's all you get to do.

00:03:03.300 But here's the topics we got, right? So other than the main one that the producer put up on

00:03:07.980 the screen there, we'll talk a little bit about Chorus Corporation shutting down their operations

00:03:14.380 here in alberta they're uh they're a mainstream media as far as i'm concerned i want to talk

00:03:19.340 about the bank canada's interest rate announcement uh carney appointing a ceo uh justin trudeau's 0.83

00:03:27.100 tick tocks last week the one where he's bouncing around like a like a silly bunny on his girlfriend's

00:03:32.540 uh recent video um jeff rath assets being frozen by the courts um tim houston the premier of nova

00:03:43.100 scotia being quote unquote attack so so those are some of the kinds of things i want to talk so again

00:03:47.820 the phone number is down there on the screen 479-9378 extension 711 and then john will put

00:03:56.860 you on hold and and um and then we'll have a chat when when the time presents itself all right so

00:04:03.660 let's talk oh actually and i wanted to talk about um the fact that ontario it's ontario's turn this

00:04:09.740 year to burn yeah and uh alberta right now is relatively smoke-free so is bc and it's ontario

00:04:17.420 there's the one and there's some crazy videos coming out of ontario all right so let's lead

00:04:21.820 off with uh chorus and uh another great example of uh the fact that the mainstream media is not

00:04:31.980 figuring out how to pivot and how to uh stay relevant in these changing times right so

00:04:39.740 Chorus is the home of global news.

00:04:44.420 And they just announced this week, actually, they didn't announce it.

00:04:48.640 This is an example of the competition between the mainstream media and the private sector.

00:04:54.800 Western Standard broke a story about this before anybody else.

00:04:58.440 And the story is that Chorus, whose stock has been absolutely taking a nosedive in recent years

00:05:05.860 And is having to constantly lay off staff, shut down smaller shows within their corporation.

00:05:15.600 And what they announced yesterday is that they're shutting down the remaining offices that they had here in Alberta, in Edmonton and Calgary.

00:05:24.660 So they had offices, they still had a little bit of staff that were covering stories.

00:05:27.940 But now if you go to, I guess, Global in the coming months and you click on, let's say, an Alberta story regarding Danielle Smith or whatever, that story will have been researched by somebody in Toronto.

00:05:43.480 And so, again, expect the content regarding Alberta to deteriorate and then Global will be just focused on Ontario and Quebec and out east.

00:05:54.340 And so it's and the staff at Global found out about their layoffs by reading the story by the Western standards.

00:06:04.140 So how would that make you feel if you're a mainstream media person and you're finding out about the loss of your employment through a third party, not a third party, an independent party?

00:06:15.720 right and and i see somebody in the comments somebody made a a sort of a semi-joking comment

00:06:22.440 saying that um you know it's that many less uh federally subsidized employees here in alberta

00:06:29.720 as a result of that i mean i'm not happy like i'm not celebrating that somebody lost their job

00:06:34.760 although i kind of say if you work for the government are you really contributing you

00:06:39.880 know to the to society yeah i'm gonna take for that one that's fine but but you know the the

00:06:46.520 fact remains that the government of canada the federal government subsidizes mainstream media

00:06:52.840 a lot right like the cbc gets something like 1.6 billion dollars a year in direct subsidies because

00:07:00.040 it's a crown corporation right the cbc is owned by the government by the taxpayers but in addition

00:07:05.800 um the the federal government subsidizes global and ctv and others to the tune of about 600 million

00:07:14.120 dollars per year actually i wish i'd kind of prepared for this one but i didn't

00:07:19.000 um it reminds me it always reminds me of a clip it's i think it might be hard to find so don't

00:07:25.560 don't try and find it john but there there used to be a clip there was a clip years ago

00:07:29.240 it was filmed at uh it was recorded at the press gallery dinner right so ottawa washington all the

00:07:37.940 all the governments do this right they they hold an annual press gallery dinner and at those dinners

00:07:45.000 it's an opportunity usually for the prime minister or the president to poke fun at the press gallery

00:07:52.060 and and the premise of that is that in the good old days our institutions like our media would

00:07:58.580 really hold governments accountable hold them so accountable that it made life tough for the

00:08:03.960 politicians because they're under constant scrutiny so once a year they had the opportunity

00:08:07.860 to turn the spotlight against their um critics and make fun of their critics a little bit

00:08:15.000 and in this clip from a few years ago i'll never forget it because trudeau makes a joke about

00:08:20.960 shining or or uh favorable headlines and he and he says you know favorable headlines don't come

00:08:29.200 cheaply they come at the cost of 600 million dollars and and it it it wasn't a joke he was

00:08:36.820 telling the truth and in fact he wasn't poking fun in that moment i think he truly was reminding

00:08:43.060 the people in the room the mainstream journalists that he pays their salary and that's always been

00:08:50.000 an issue of mine and that's why you know uh i'll repeat this actually wow you guys got me thinking

00:08:55.920 now i didn't think i'd be able to talk about chorus for so long but i let me you know this

00:09:01.920 is my theory this is sort of one of my thoughts in life that there are five pillars in a democracy

00:09:07.040 like ours right we live in an in a democracy and the first pillar is the vote um and the vote relies

00:09:13.680 on uh somebody people being educated so the second pillar of the of our democracy is the government

00:09:21.680 the the party that the side of the house of commons that forms government the third pillar

00:09:26.280 is the side of the house of commons that forms the opposition so the government makes policies

00:09:30.940 the vote the voters vote elect the government the government makes policies the opposition

00:09:36.460 holds the government accountable then you're supposed to have the mainstream media or the

00:09:40.680 media. Let's just call them the media. Historically, you have the media, the fifth estate

00:09:44.120 that reports on what's happening, helps educate the voters and helps balance everything out.

00:09:50.700 And then the fifth pillar used to be the expert class, the lawyers, the engineers, the academics

00:09:58.980 who advise government and also provided the criticism for policies. And in the last two,

00:10:05.760 three decades that that pillar that media pillar uh has completely failed us because they've stopped

00:10:15.520 being um impartial i mean it's okay it's okay for a media organization to have a bias everybody has

00:10:22.800 a bias right for a media organization to maybe lean a little bit to the left or to the right or

00:10:27.360 something like that it's okay to have a bias but when a media organization is directly paid by the

00:10:33.280 government that's pat that's no longer a bias that's a conflict of interest that's the definition

00:10:38.880 of conflict of interest in the private sector and in a lot of industries right so what somebody

00:10:43.840 when somebody pays you you are loyal to that person and you're not going to be able to adequately

00:10:50.160 fulfill your obligation of holding them accountable and so that's been a problem in the last several

00:10:54.960 decades in this country that you have medias like global and ctv that are getting huge amounts of

00:11:01.760 money from the government, which I don't think, I believe it puts them in a conflict of interest

00:11:08.960 with the government. So yeah, that's one of the breaking stories this week. Chorus Media

00:11:15.440 is going to be moving out of Alberta. We'll see what that leads to. Let me scroll through

00:11:24.440 a couple of comments. People saying happy birthday, Marty. CTV will be next. CBC will

00:11:30.680 get there yeah ctv's got um from uh from a financial point of view ctv's on a bit of a

00:11:38.280 better footing um you know i i think they're they're going to be able to stay in business

00:11:45.940 for a little bit longer cbc cbc is already there right if you if cbc was a private corporation

00:11:52.800 and you look at their financial assets they've they've lost they're losing money year after year

00:11:57.220 They're an absolute money losing business.

00:12:00.340 And so CTV would have gone bankrupt a long time if it wasn't a crown corporation.

00:12:06.320 I remember that Poiliev made that a campaign promise.

00:12:10.920 I hope he follows up on that.

00:12:12.460 I think CBC should be sold.

00:12:15.940 I don't think we should have a national broadcaster in this day and age.

00:12:21.140 All right.

00:12:21.480 Any other comments? 1.00

00:12:22.540 Alberta won't.

00:12:24.920 How do you inform liberal voters?

00:12:26.720 There is no offense, but they are watching, they aren't watching conservative shows.

00:12:31.240 Yeah, that's an interesting point, but it's not a valid reason to, actually, if liberal voters were, it's an oxymoron.

00:12:44.720 I mean, I think an informed liberal voter is perhaps an oxymoron.

00:12:49.040 I don't think there is such a thing.

00:12:50.320 And even if there is an informed Liberal voter, I find most Liberals to be really diehard, set in their ways and constantly vote Liberals.

00:12:59.620 I'm proud of the fact that I've changed who I vote for over the years.

00:13:05.120 And I'm also capable of admitting when there were Liberal governments that were good and Conservative governments that were bad.

00:13:12.420 Like I've often said that I didn't entirely mind the Chrétien Liberals.

00:13:20.320 Because, you know, Chrétien was a bit of a statesman.

00:13:23.800 He was moving the country forward at a decent pace.

00:13:26.600 But more importantly, Chrétien had a really solid finance minister in Paul Martin.

00:13:32.180 So I'll admit that I did well and that I approve of the Chrétien Liberals.

00:13:38.240 And I'll also admit that not everything about the Harper era was peachy rosy.

00:13:42.900 Harper, I worked in the oil patch and Harper's finance minister, back to finance ministers, was Jim Flaherty.

00:13:50.140 And Jim Flaherty is the one who put an end to energy trust, which had a huge negative impact for our for the for the primary industry here in this province.

00:13:59.260 So I think that's what sets a lot of conservative conservative or maybe not conservative, but that's something that sets a lot of Albertans and independent minded people aside from others is that we're able to look at issues critically and and offer credit where credit is due and criticism where criticism is due.

00:14:18.880 so um that that's what i'll that's where we'll stay all right don't be shy folks give me a call

00:14:28.080 uh i've said this before like i actually if you could see me right now if you could see me right

00:14:32.900 now i'm wearing uh i'm wearing this golf shirt uh you've probably seen me wear it on the show

00:14:38.400 in the past i'm not one of those guys who has an endless closet i don't have staff you know you're

00:14:43.980 going to see uh something at the bottom screen saying wardrobe marty's wardrobe provided by

00:14:49.260 whatever the bay another great institution that stopped existing so i don't have a wardrobe

00:14:54.860 budget there it's not that generous and uh i don't think anybody here has a wardrobe budget so you'll

00:15:00.380 see me wearing the same clothes once in a while but but just to point out that i'm an average joe

00:15:05.100 i'm wearing a golf shirt right now and i'm wearing shorts in the studio and a pair of running shoes

00:15:09.660 because it is extremely hot out there today not as hot though as it is in Ontario so I guess it

00:15:19.540 is Ontario's turn to have major forest fires and I'm gonna and you know this is how do I start on

00:15:30.280 this one I'm I think most of you who live in Alberta have like okay let me compare it to

00:15:37.380 alberta right so alberta right now a couple years ago we were we we had our major forest fires we

00:15:43.760 had the one in jasper which was an absolute disaster and then years earlier we had the one

00:15:48.960 in fort mcmurray and then the one in slave lake and in and i'll i'll go on a limb and i'll make

00:15:55.300 this bet this wager with anybody who's watching there won't be another major forest fire around

00:16:02.000 the jasper area in the next 35 years and i think i'm going to win that wager and i can make that

00:16:08.640 wager confidently because once there's a forest fire the forest burns and then it takes 30 years

00:16:14.400 for it to come back up before we have that next fire so um and and i think most of the no i don't

00:16:21.920 think i've had some guests uh on other shows talk about this especially in in uh in the aftermath

00:16:28.880 of jasper jasper was a pure example of a mismanaged forest and it was just a problem waiting to happen

00:16:36.800 in fact that had been written and talked about in numerous reports but i'll come back to that

00:16:41.280 we got a caller on the line so again please share your name and where you're calling from and what's

00:16:46.000 on your mind oh good afternoon marty my name is gordon i'm calling from edmonton hey gordon

00:16:53.920 you've called before i think haven't you i sure have yes i have cool comment you know what's going

00:17:01.280 on well i just want to comment on what's going on you know uh it's beginning the scrutiny is

00:17:08.240 beginning now you know i don't know how serious is the full eccentric but now it's coming live

00:17:13.840 about jeff and his problems now they're starting to talk about scrutinizing mitch

00:17:18.880 dr rudery you know all the prominent people who are who are working hard on the independent uh

00:17:26.560 issue they're all gonna get the hammer and this is this is orchestrated uh and um there's no other

00:17:32.960 way to look at it and we we who know better we just gotta stick to our guns and not be swayed by

00:17:38.000 this because it's coming and this should be no surprise to anyone yeah stay on the line so uh

00:17:46.080 That was something, yeah, yeah, I mentioned it.

00:17:48.300 That's something I wanted to talk about.

00:17:51.660 Let's give, let me give a quick comment on Jeff, right?

00:17:55.360 So the story about Jeff, I think,

00:17:58.220 it falls in the category that you just described.

00:18:00.700 To me, it's lawfare.

00:18:02.060 They're going after Jeff, right?

00:18:03.640 Stories are going to break.

00:18:05.740 To me, what's happening to Jeff right now

00:18:07.840 is pretty much a nothing burger.

00:18:09.340 In a nutshell, he helped First Nation win a big case.

00:18:13.880 He's a lawyer on retainer.

00:18:15.320 And this is common. So when your client wins a big case, the lawyer on retainer gets a share.

00:18:21.920 And pre-trial, Jeff had quoted, you know, my cut will be 20 percent of whatever I win for you guys.

00:18:29.640 And then after winning the case, the party he represents said 20 percent is too much.

00:18:35.900 And now they're fighting with him. And it's another and now they're in court.

00:18:39.600 So so this is a this is a purely civil matter between two parties that are disagreeing on the fee.

00:18:46.040 Right. And so and and but to your point, why does a story like that and stories like this go on all the time, all the time, all the time.

00:18:54.700 Why is it breaking now when it relates to Jeff?

00:18:58.300 It's a rhetorical question, but but you know the answer, Gord, right?

00:19:01.540 What's your thought?

00:19:04.400 Well, it's the beginning of the smear campaign.

00:19:09.600 As I, as I mentioned, there's Jeff and there's the whole list of others who are going to start having this happen to them.

00:19:17.140 Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:19:18.980 It's part of the smear campaign.

00:19:20.820 It's part of the smear campaign.

00:19:22.040 And it brings back to a point that I've talked about on the past.

00:19:25.360 And I'll ask you your opinion on this.

00:19:28.560 Do you think, are you okay?

00:19:32.060 Do you, let me word this properly.

00:19:33.560 Do you think that the independence movement needs a single point of a single leader like some people propose?

00:19:40.960 Or are you in the camp that thinks that we should keep it as grassroots as possible without quote-unquote official leaders?

00:19:47.300 Where do you stand on that?

00:19:49.940 I stand this way.

00:19:51.740 As it sits right now, until we have the vote, we will probably continue to be grassroots.

00:19:58.480 But when we have the referendum and it's supposed to go ahead, you have your cause, you have the numbers, go ahead with your cause, then I do believe we need to have some front people who are much more leading the charge.

00:20:17.280 I think it might be a little bit early for that right now.

00:20:20.620 We're on the same page then.

00:20:22.220 You and I are on the same page because, and I predicted this, right?

00:20:27.220 I said that one of the reasons grassroot is good because it doesn't give a single target.

00:20:32.680 And I was always worried about that, that if there was a single person identified as

00:20:36.260 the leader, the attacks on that person would be relentless because, I mean, look at, like

00:20:41.240 you said, they're going sporadically, right?

00:20:44.160 And maybe not completely orchestrated, but they're going after Mitch.

00:20:46.920 They're going after Jeff.

00:20:48.000 They've come after me a little bit.

00:20:49.520 They're going after David Parker.

00:20:51.100 They go after Chris Scott, Tamara Litch.

00:20:53.120 They go after everybody.

00:20:54.120 everybody sort of takes their turn and uh imagine if there was only one person

00:20:59.380 so i yeah so i i i semi um semi joke about this this week is jeff's turn right jeff he'll take

00:21:07.660 it on the chin jeff's a big boy literally speaking and pragmatically speaking and metaphorically

00:21:12.760 speaking he's been in battles his whole life this is no big deal for jeff he can handle himself but

00:21:17.760 it's still sad what's saddest to see about all this though is not the attacks that come from

00:21:23.180 the media or it or or the other side is the attacks that come from within have you witnessed

00:21:28.000 any people attacking jeff in particular and you don't need to give names but do you know

00:21:32.820 what i'm talking about well no i i you know i haven't really anybody in particular okay

00:21:42.280 but uh but you know it's just coming you just know that it's coming on that and uh you know

00:21:48.740 And I also wondered, why do they have the opportunity always being detaching?

00:21:54.180 But we always play so nice.

00:21:56.140 We don't attack back.

00:21:57.300 How come we can't get McCazic to answer some of the questions as to where his funding is coming from?

00:22:03.780 I'm sure he's not pocketing this initiative.

00:22:06.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:07.100 Fair enough, Gordon.

00:22:07.860 Listen, I'll let you go in case there's somebody else on the line.

00:22:10.440 Appreciate the call.

00:22:11.520 I'll follow up a little bit on your comments.

00:22:13.280 But thanks for calling today.

00:22:16.380 You bet.

00:22:17.140 Thanks again for taking my call.

00:22:18.360 see you later you bet happy birthday thank you um yeah he actually brings up several good points uh

00:22:24.360 so he okay so first of all he gord says he didn't witness any attacks that's cool i'm i'm glad uh

00:22:31.240 me i might have a larger social media presence so i saw i saw a little bit of you know people

00:22:37.960 using this story about jeff's assets being frozen and trying and and making it bigger than it

00:22:45.400 actually is and trying to use it as a bit of an opportunity to discredit jeff and i didn't like

00:22:50.440 that i don't like that so um you know i i'm on the record as saying yes jeff is not everybody's

00:22:57.240 cup of tea i get that he's a little bit you know he he's opinionated and he's very fast on his feet

00:23:03.200 he's been a lawyer his whole life so he can think like that right and and i've and i've have i've

00:23:10.120 had conversations with people who just don't like jeff and i've said that's great but not great

00:23:14.680 that's fine i respect that but trust me there are i've seen jeff at events like in cremona or in

00:23:20.920 water valley or in okotoks with a crowd that's a little bit different and i see him in his element

00:23:25.960 and people like him so anyways i i think the bigger the bigger story here is uh as gore brought

00:23:32.360 up be you know the coincidence of these events there's no such thing when when i mean the fact

00:23:38.520 that a story like this breaks which normally would never break and and then and then he brought up

00:23:42.840 another point um it the our side the independent side is being definitely held to a higher level

00:23:51.160 of accountability and is under more scrutiny from groups like elections alberta and the media than

00:23:58.200 the other side is i you know there's been huge efforts this past month to uh to scrutinize uh

00:24:06.760 thomas lukasic's finances and who's backing him like if if if uh you know pick a pick a group uh

00:24:14.920 if if um if cory morgan okay if cory morgan here cory morgan set up a third party advertising

00:24:22.920 and group and he's collecting money and he's being super transparent about it he's filing his weekly

00:24:28.040 report weekly weekly he's filing a report with elections alberta showing all the money he's

00:24:34.520 getting uh and then anybody that's doing donations over a certain threshold i think it's 250 they're

00:24:40.600 listed on there and cory has to set up systems in place to refuse money that doesn't come from

00:24:45.400 alberta so if some if some fan of this channel from saskatchewan went to cory's website and tried

00:24:52.360 to donate twenty dollars cory has to refuse that 20 bucks so so cory and and cory cory will subject

00:24:59.320 himself to the scrutiny and he's okay with it but i'm just saying that he is under a lot of scrutiny

00:25:03.880 and the same scrutiny is not um reciprocated to the lucasics because we've off we've exposed this

00:25:11.240 past couple of weeks many people have looked at lucasics reports online and going

00:25:15.240 you know there's a lot of uh a lot of missing information there a lot of extra funds you don't

00:25:19.960 seem to be reporting where you're blah blah blah you know what i mean so it's it's a double double

00:25:23.960 standard uh go ahead caller where are you calling from name please my name is david and i'm calling

00:25:30.520 to cochran hey cochran right around the corner what's on your mind

00:25:36.120 um i've been following the independence uh movement for a long time and i am

00:25:41.480 very pro-independence um but i'm mainly the options for my family i have read both northern

00:25:48.600 south of the border um i grew up my former viewers in in the u.s and i'm looking at the

00:25:56.760 timeline and the horizon and the work that it's going to take

00:26:00.520 and I'm weighing the future of my son who's preteen

00:26:04.300 and looking, do I just move?

00:26:08.360 And the worth versus the benefit

00:26:12.340 is it going to be worth the outcome for my son

00:26:16.340 if I stay here versus if I take the time

00:26:18.880 and go to the process and move south for better,

00:26:22.560 currently better pay, better opportunity.

00:26:25.260 I'm not negating the opportunity caucus

00:26:28.280 available here through the premise.

00:26:30.520 And it's just a personal thought process I've been struggling with.

00:26:38.160 Yeah.

00:26:42.720 Let me address it.

00:26:44.600 I mean, you know, we each do our own thing.

00:26:47.060 But I'm in the same boat, right?

00:26:49.260 I'm basically in the same boat.

00:26:51.000 I take it your son is in his mid-20s kind of thing, like starting out his career?

00:26:57.620 No, pre-team.

00:26:58.640 he's well oh okay okay well you got oh okay different different story because i mean in

00:27:05.360 my situation i've actually told my sons bluntly you should start looking for work in the u.s

00:27:11.440 because i you know i'm i'm gonna me personally i'm staying here i'm fighting i'm gonna fight

00:27:17.040 for alberta independence uh the vote doesn't go my way it doesn't stop my battle i'm gonna keep

00:27:22.080 fighting but uh and i'm also older i'm basically retired now so my financial situation is different

00:27:28.880 than my kids but me personally when i look i i've been looking at the data forever and ever and ever

00:27:34.320 and the country is on a terrible terrible terrible trajectory and and i am advising some people who

00:27:41.120 have the possibility of doing it to move out of this country uh like and or to put the ball in

00:27:47.520 motion and move out stay if we're if we become independent but uh but to be prepared to move

00:27:53.920 does that does that answer a bit is that your is

00:27:57.840 am i reading this correctly or what what's your thoughts further on that

00:28:02.560 or is it are you just making a comment in general i

00:28:07.440 well as like i've always been i moved back to cannibal and joined them i've always been a

00:28:14.320 patriotic person but when i was disrupting with ex-military friends of mine who were out

00:28:20.000 east like in very frank conversations although this is not the country that i came back to

00:28:26.880 defend and fight for right and i even even family members who are from out east they don't see it

00:28:36.000 they don't understand it no matter the logical conversation or trying to hang out but then my

00:28:41.840 family members who do live in the u.s they're they're looking at me going like how are you still

00:28:47.040 there right but i because i'm not a u.s citizen i don't have a direct very quick community way to go

00:28:53.600 so it it becomes a question of time and effort like i don't care what it costs me

00:29:02.240 it's more about what they're going to cost my fund if i stay versus what they're going to benefit in

00:29:08.640 if i go and i that's been something i've been struggling with because alberta is that the

00:29:14.360 process of that opportunity where we absolutely can make a magnificent country i can take all

00:29:22.720 the information from all the different governments around the world and go okay this is what is going

00:29:28.160 to form the best country in the world yeah no i i um thanks for the comment i mean it you know my

00:29:35.400 my final thought on it is it it is you're you're you're not alone in sharing those thoughts and

00:29:42.180 feelings you're not alone in expressing the fact that you know you're basically saying what i just

00:29:46.720 said which is the country's going in the wrong direction and it's terrible that so many of us

00:29:50.740 have said this over and over and over and it's getting to this point right it's getting to this

00:29:56.020 point like i i don't think these are conversations my father would have had 50 years ago right

00:30:01.020 People weren't talking about, oh, the country's falling apart and we need to move.

00:30:05.580 They were coming here in droves, and the country offered a bright future.

00:30:10.400 And it's sad that within a generation, the future doesn't look so bright.

00:30:15.380 Thanks for the call.

00:30:16.580 I mean, you know, I'm sure upon reflection, you'll do the right thing.

00:30:19.940 I'm sure of it.

00:30:22.780 All right.

00:30:23.320 Thank you very much, sir.

00:30:24.260 Thank you.

00:30:26.080 Yeah.

00:30:26.480 What a, you know, I actually, I got to go.

00:30:30.800 i i had a friend uh you guys i think you guys know this i mean i do a weekly podcast with uh

00:30:37.040 with a guy named clyde do something so clyde has his own youtube channel and and i'm a guest on

00:30:42.480 his show every wednesday and clyde's been in the us now he's a he's a dual citizenship it took him

00:30:47.760 a year to do the paperwork but he finally moved down to the us and and it's been uh our second

00:30:53.200 week now of him broadcasting from the u.s and he's pumped i mean he's happy and and he is described

00:31:01.120 and i and he's in the austin area he's in texas which is uh culturally very similar to what alberta

00:31:07.440 used to be and uh he's he's he's encouraged he's he's already living in a better place

00:31:13.440 his cost of living has already gone down and now he's living his dream which is um he's a mechanic

00:31:20.320 he was a full-time mechanic uh an automotive mechanic but because of the convoy he started

00:31:26.780 a career of podcasting and and super independent like the classic independent you know uh social

00:31:34.160 media uh content creator and he grew his presence but but then here in canada he was he's being uh

00:31:41.880 you know uh hamstrung his his hands are tied i mean the the censorship on the platforms uh the

00:31:49.620 the threat of bill c9 and c22 and things like that so he saw the writing on the wall and and

00:31:54.260 he moved to the us i'll continue to do the weekly show with clyde and then you know i'll bring you

00:31:59.380 some uh time to time updates but for him it was the right thing and i think it is the right thing

00:32:04.260 it's actually um it is it is a it is a reality right the population of i report on this on x and

00:32:11.220 i i wasn't prepared to talk about this but i'll give you some broad numbers canada's population

00:32:16.580 has declined three quarters in a row now so you know all a year basically it's declined and it is

00:32:23.220 sure it's temporary foreign workers that are not returning so even so we put an end to the temporary

00:32:28.100 foreign worker program and they're not returning but hidden in the data you can see that the number

00:32:34.340 of canadian citizens leaving was something like a hundred thousand in the last three quarters a

00:32:40.340 hundred thousand canadians leaving and that's a record number like sure it's a record number

00:32:45.860 because the population is growing, but even as a percentage, it's a huge number.

00:32:49.800 So there is a de facto, there is a real brain drain.

00:32:53.920 There are people with skills and the means leaving the country and going elsewhere,

00:33:00.540 mostly to the U.S. statistically, but that's real.

00:33:04.820 So where was I?

00:33:05.600 So I was talking about the forest fires and my prediction that there won't be a forest fire in Jasper.

00:33:12.540 We know Jasper was mismanaged.

00:33:14.760 I can't talk about Ontario. I don't have the expertise to speak about Ontario. I don't know what the Ontario Forest Management looks like, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that they're in a similar situation, that the forests were mismanaged, and now you have these major fires.

00:33:34.040 And I love, I just love people who immediately claim that this is, you know, climate change, climate change, climate change. Folks, even in Alberta here, we publish fantastic statistics, right? Like 50% of the fires that happen in a given year are started by people.

00:33:54.280 And by that, I mean, it's not necessarily arson. It's people that are careless with their ATVs and no spark arrest on their ATV. Or if a transformer blows for whatever reason, that's considered a man-made fire. And so 50% of the fires are man-made. And I suspect that within that, there's a huge portion that are actually arson.

00:34:16.260 and then the other 50 of the fires are almost all lightning strikes and the number of lightning

00:34:22.120 strikes like there's no correlation between the number of lightning strikes and anything else

00:34:26.480 okay people say our climate's getting worse and there's more lightning strike there isn't it's

00:34:30.420 just there's a constant number of lightning strikes in a given year i walk through the woods all the

00:34:35.860 time and i see when i'm walking through the woods an individual tree that's been hit by lightning

00:34:40.040 and you'll see it it's burnt on one side most fires start that way lightning will hit a tree

00:34:45.440 there'll be a little bit of fire and then it extinguishes itself quickly if the forest is damp

00:34:50.560 uh if it's been raining or it's cold or whatever in fact it's uh try starting a fire um most people

00:34:59.060 have a hard it's crazy most people have a hard time starting a fire with proper tools like if

00:35:03.420 i give you a lighter and some newspaper and a few things most people will actually have a hard time

00:35:09.360 starting a fire so fires are actually it's not like there's a lightning strike and everything

00:35:14.240 goes. But when there's a lightning strike and one tree goes, but the forest has been mismanaged

00:35:20.800 because there's dead trees everywhere and there's underbrush and it hasn't been logged in, you know,

00:35:27.260 it's past its prime. That's when they're ripe for fires. And that's when, you know, one lightning

00:35:32.040 strike will spread quickly. In a healthy forest, lightning strikes can happen and fires don't

00:35:40.780 immediately spread and become huge. And by the way, that's another thing I always like to talk

00:35:45.200 about when I'm on this topic, right? The mainstream has created all these weird narratives

00:35:52.260 that make no sense. And one of my favorite weird narratives is the people's love for what they

00:35:59.280 call old growth forest, right? Ooh, we love old growth forest. Forests are like, are a biological

00:36:06.140 entity they start young and they grow and they get to an age and then they die off that's just

00:36:11.200 it right a forest will always die off and when you're looking at an old growth forest you are

00:36:16.760 literally i don't know why people would romanticize that you're looking at a forest of old trees that

00:36:21.340 are nearly dead that should be harvested because they are a renewable resource but if you don't

00:36:26.700 harvest them you're going to let them die and then they'll just burn and i always compare it to this 0.95

00:36:31.280 like you would never go on the beach and if the beach was full of 75 year old guys and gals you 0.96

00:36:37.600 would never say oh my god what a great old growth beach right so an old growth forest is nothing 0.89

00:36:44.560 sexy it's a dead it's a forest that's near death but we've romanticized it and we will be critical

00:36:50.880 of uh that's one thing i'll uh kudos to the when i went to bc last week and i did that hike

00:36:57.280 they were in the area where i was in they were doing some um some selective logging of bigger

00:37:03.280 trees and i think that's the way to do it i'll have to bring in a guest one day i met a guy named

00:37:07.520 liam parfit in uh in the aftermath of the jasper fire i'll bring liam on the show and we'll talk

00:37:13.760 more about this but uh yeah good luck ontario um you're experiencing something that we've experienced

00:37:20.720 in the past we've had some mismanagement this year right now i checked just before the show

00:37:26.240 started there's only five active fires in all of alberta and they're all listed as under control

00:37:31.840 it's amazing what a little bit of active management will do and it's amazing what having

00:37:36.760 uh firefighters on standby uh dealing with this and what uh having a handful of water bombers does

00:37:44.680 right and uh ontario is like us they've been promised water bombers for a long time but they

00:37:49.980 They don't seem to be coming.

00:37:54.220 John, no, I was going to put John on the spot.

00:37:56.500 For your own information, go look up that video.

00:37:59.240 There was a train in Ontario, in Northern Ontario,

00:38:01.880 a locomotive that somehow or other ended up in the middle of one of the forest fires.

00:38:07.420 And the two guys inside there are videotaping.

00:38:09.920 And literally, the flames are all around that train.

00:38:12.320 I hope that worked out good for those guys.

00:38:14.320 But just to see that was super scary.

00:38:19.980 Just put a question up there on the screen.

00:38:23.580 I think it disappeared here.

00:38:25.500 Let me read it off.

00:38:28.260 Oh, there it is.

00:38:28.920 Please explain to me how he's going to finish the environmental assessment

00:38:32.840 and negotiate with the natives again before next year.

00:38:38.200 Okay, we're jumping ahead on the topic that I had on my list.

00:38:41.020 I will, it's in reference to Kearney.

00:38:45.600 um this week carney had a meeting with he came to alberta again at the end of stampede he got

00:38:54.100 booed at stampede by the way i don't know if you saw that online but uh he came on uh sunday he got

00:38:59.320 booed at stampede and then and then immediately after that he had a meeting with uh some first

00:39:04.860 nations here and then and then the first nations took off and went at their meeting in ottawa right

00:39:10.440 now the assembly of first nations is meeting in Ottawa and doing their big

00:39:14.060 annual meeting.

00:39:15.940 And already they're coming out.

00:39:18.220 Now the chief of the assembly of first nation basically came out and said,

00:39:22.420 uh,

00:39:23.380 what Carney's proposing all this fast tracking of projects ain't going to

00:39:27.960 happen.

00:39:28.800 They're already crying that it's a,

00:39:31.760 it's a violation of the treaty rights and so forth and so forth.

00:39:35.320 So this story is going to play out over and over and over and over.

00:39:39.420 And I've said this,

00:39:40.100 right.

00:39:40.280 um carney carney is has been sort of trying to claim that he's gonna fast track projects i'm on

00:39:49.640 the record as saying we none of these projects they're just smoke and mirrors they're net the

00:39:55.960 the the infrastructure the the precedents the veto powers to the first nations is still there

00:40:02.120 carney's done nothing to change that and the way it stands right now first nations in this country

00:40:07.400 have the ability to veto just about any project and i think to me that's a that's something i'd

00:40:13.400 like i think we need to address this i think this is a problem that's almost 200 years old the

00:40:18.760 problem of of the treaties and and the department of indian affairs and other things and i i you

00:40:25.960 know for uh for me we have created uh a two-tier society uh between natives and non-natives

00:40:34.120 especially those who live on reserves and i think it's uh it's a long problem that needs a real

00:40:40.440 solution at some point the way we're going on this one is not um just putting our head in the sand

00:40:47.640 and hoping it goes away it's not going to go away so i think i think that's part of the comment that

00:40:52.680 was there um all right where do i go down from there um actually i wanted to uh let yeah this

00:41:03.240 one let me let me bring up this this quick uh interesting tidbit right so uh we spoke a couple

00:41:08.440 weeks ago july 1st actually to be exact uh danielle smith uh no longer than back in june danielle 0.99

00:41:17.800 smith announced a a hundred dollar energy rebate she called it she you know she made the argument

00:41:25.720 that because of the war in uh between the us and iran the price of oil had gone up and then here

00:41:31.880 locally in Alberta, we benefited from slightly higher prices, and therefore we had a surplus.

00:41:38.000 And she announced this. Now, in hindsight, I would have preferred that if we had a surplus,

00:41:45.800 that she would have just put it against the debt or something else. I at first thought that this

00:41:50.440 $100 rebate was just vote buying. Later on, I went and looked closely at the $100 rebate. I went to

00:41:58.720 see the process of applying for it because they just didn't send it to us automatically. Sorry,

00:42:03.640 my microphone here. So, so it turned out we had to apply for it. And when I went through the

00:42:08.120 first steps of applying for it, I realized, Ooh, I don't like this. Right. So to get the hundred

00:42:13.520 dollar rebate, uh, and Albertan had to, um, set up a, my Alberta account provide if you're married,

00:42:21.980 uh provide your spouse's social insurance number uh do a bunch of things make sure your address

00:42:29.720 was current that the address you use on your tax return was the same as your address on your

00:42:34.000 driver's license and then also provide some banking information because they couldn't just

00:42:39.500 simply write you a check right so i i said no i'm not doing it and then i saw the i saw that as

00:42:47.220 not merely an attempt at buying votes by giving everybody a hundred bucks but i saw it more as an

00:42:52.820 attempt to move us more to uh to social uh or to um digital ids and and uh digital currency and one

00:43:01.760 step closer to that right also doesn't help that right now there's this big push right the

00:43:07.200 advertising hey come on in and renew your driver's license and add your health number on there and

00:43:12.440 your passport and so forth. So I, I gave up trying to do it. I decided that it wasn't worth a hundred

00:43:18.120 bucks to give up all that information. We talked about this last week. I had people say, Marty,

00:43:22.220 you're already there. I get it. I get it. We're already going down that path, but I don't need

00:43:26.760 to make it more or make it easier. And I guess I'm not the only one who feels that way because

00:43:32.860 a statistic came out this morning when Danielle first announced this rebate, she said there was

00:43:37.720 something like 4.3 million Albertans qualified for the rebate, right?

00:43:41.740 Out of the 5 million Albertans, like 4 million qualified.

00:43:45.620 As long as you were over the age of 18, had previously filed a tax return

00:43:49.360 and didn't make more than $250,000, you qualified for this rebate.

00:43:53.820 And yesterday there was an article that broke and I don't have the number.

00:43:58.360 I thought I wrote down the number on here,

00:43:59.800 but something like less than 15% of eligible Albertans have applied for the rebate,

00:44:05.880 even though the period's been open for two weeks.

00:44:08.600 So I think I'm happy about that.

00:44:11.460 I think that shows a couple of things.

00:44:13.140 Well, maybe it shows more than a couple of things.

00:44:15.740 Hopefully it shows that Albertans saw beyond that

00:44:18.680 and they're not just going to be bought by $100.

00:44:22.140 Hopefully that's what it is.

00:44:24.720 Some of it, I think, is people got frustrated with the process

00:44:27.580 and just gave up on it.

00:44:29.360 That's fine.

00:44:31.240 But I'll go with, and some of it is just because people

00:44:34.300 weren't really aware of it.

00:44:35.620 But it turned out to be a bad process, a bad idea, and I hope that Danielle will reconsider what she was trying to do there.

00:44:45.200 Instead of trying to do these $100 rebates, why don't you just put it towards the debt and let that be?

00:44:57.120 Am I the only one who feels that way, that giving all that information to the government is maybe a little bit of overreach?

00:45:02.960 let me uh let me pause here and see what the comments are looking like

00:45:06.800 yeah ralph did the same thing i i see that comment yeah ralph ralph klein did the same

00:45:15.840 thing under almost similar conditions right ralph klein near the end of his last term

00:45:20.960 uh was feeling a bit of uh political pressure and he gave us the ralph bucks his were his were like

00:45:29.340 no conditions tied. I think if I remember correctly, everybody got them, including the

00:45:35.540 kids. Like, you know, if I was a father with a family of two kids, I got like a check for 1200

00:45:39.960 bucks or whatever, and no questions asked. So but but even at the time of Ralph, it was considered

00:45:46.400 a bit of a political stunt to, to go out and do that. All right. Other stories that I had,

00:45:54.120 I had a couple of serious stories.

00:45:59.280 One, you know, it's our job here to talk about, like I said,

00:46:03.300 it's our job here to talk about the things that the mainstream media

00:46:06.080 won't talk about.

00:46:07.600 Call her on the line.

00:46:08.520 Go ahead.

00:46:11.120 Hello, Marty.

00:46:12.020 Mark from Cousins calling.

00:46:13.520 How are you doing today?

00:46:14.380 Good, Mark.

00:46:14.900 How are you?

00:46:16.320 Good.

00:46:16.820 I know you try to remain positive because you cover a lot of topics

00:46:22.020 which doesn't necessarily make a lot of Wilburton feel great all the time.

00:46:26.880 But a few hours ago, headline from, of all places,

00:46:31.600 the Toronto Star op-ed on this race.

00:46:36.340 It's clear that Mark Carney is no Gordie Hall.

00:46:39.620 Toronto Star.

00:46:40.820 Yeah.

00:46:42.660 Give the context, because I think by the sort of the bit of laughter,

00:46:49.380 and you're, it's a play on word, but do you want to give the context of the story?

00:46:54.740 Well, yeah, sure.

00:46:56.180 You know, just briefly, Canada built this bridge going to Windsor or from Windsor to Detroit.

00:47:05.660 Gordie Howe, great, you know, great name for the bridge.

00:47:09.200 You're an iconic guy, Detroit Red Wing, Canadian, you know, beautiful name, everything.

00:47:14.340 and uh uh donald trump has put impediments in into this bridge opening it's it's built it's

00:47:22.100 ready to go and uh so now uh they've announced toll structures and everything and basically

00:47:28.740 canada should have been receiving 100 of the tolls for the bridge that they built and we will be

00:47:34.860 uh 50 of those tolls is not a american yeah yeah no it's typical right i mean and again at the

00:47:43.400 beginning of the show i said i can be critical of of different parties the bridge was started the

00:47:48.860 whole concept of the bridge was started under the harper era and um so somebody along the way

00:47:55.500 unfortunately somebody along the way didn't negotiate a very good deal for us

00:47:59.340 and and and we're getting played a little bit or is that how you see it or do you see it a

00:48:05.100 little bit differently well well i do know that there is uh i'm not sure if you know i'm not from

00:48:11.040 that part of the country but there's also that is it the mackinac that's her there no it's the

00:48:16.940 ambassador bridge the ambassador bridge and that is privately owned as well the fellow the american

00:48:23.620 that owns that paid mr donald trump uh a visit a few months ago and handed him a check i'm sure

00:48:31.380 to stop competition right coming across the border right and and and so donald trump played

00:48:39.040 You know, I mean, he's the president of the United States, you know, not immune to things like that.

00:48:46.140 And so he just said, I can do whatever I want against Canada, you know, and he'll get away with it.

00:48:52.840 Yeah, yeah, that's why. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. That's why the headline's funny, right?

00:48:56.380 So our producer just put the headline on there.

00:48:59.780 So we've said this over and over.

00:49:02.360 Carney got elected because he said, I'm the guy who can stand up to Trump, you know,

00:49:07.140 And he used the elbows up analogy, meaning I can fight dirty kind of thing, and I'll get us the wins.

00:49:13.840 And this is just another example.

00:49:15.740 I mean, he inherited something bad, but he definitely didn't pull a win out of that.

00:49:23.840 I mean, it's a loss for us, and it's a loss under his helm.

00:49:28.380 And I think the headline's appropriate, absolutely.

00:49:31.320 I'm not happy.

00:49:32.160 I mean, I wish he had negotiated a better deal for us.

00:49:34.540 But at the same time, I also like seeing Trump or Kearney fail.

00:49:40.260 Yeah.

00:49:40.980 And as I say, from Toronto Star of all places, and just one final thing, what was Gordie Howe known for?

00:49:48.120 He was actually the original Mr. Elbows Up.

00:49:51.440 Absolutely.

00:49:53.420 So anyway, thanks a lot, Rachel, as always.

00:49:56.880 We appreciate everything you do for independence and carrying on.

00:50:03.100 All right.

00:50:03.760 Thanks for calling, Mark.

00:50:04.540 Yeah, Gordie Howe, number nine, you know, now I've got a bit of goosebumps thinking about it.

00:50:10.340 So Gordie Howe, he didn't invent the term elbows up.

00:50:14.680 He played with his elbows up.

00:50:16.600 So Gordie, like that's a penalty.

00:50:18.200 That's a dirty move in hockey.

00:50:19.940 But Gordie Howe was subtle.

00:50:21.780 He'd go in the corners or whatever, and then he'd have his elbow up and hit the guys.

00:50:26.600 Today, back then, it probably wasn't a penalty.

00:50:31.600 It was part of hockey.

00:50:32.480 subsequently it became a pretty significant penalty you you you elbow somebody in hockey

00:50:38.420 today it's a penalty it's it's it's it's uh equivalent to hitting from behind or whatever

00:50:43.340 it's just something we don't do which is why i even as a former hockey coach and player i found

00:50:49.920 that analogy the fact that the carny would choose elbows up as sort of a battle cry to be really bad

00:50:57.900 because that's so nostalgic that's so old and even when it was happening in the gordy how era

00:51:03.340 nobody really applauded it i mean gordy was considered a bit of a dirty player definitely

00:51:08.140 in the modern era of hockey if somebody was promoting an elbows up attitude like if my kids

00:51:14.300 if i had a kid on my team that played and and got repeatedly got elbows up penalties i would sit that

00:51:20.060 kid and say no no no that's not how you win in this game okay you win by putting points up on

00:51:24.780 the scoreboard you want to impress me puts points up on the scoreboard and so that's an example a

00:51:29.740 perfect example of that mark carney you want to impress me you should have perhaps you inherited

00:51:35.260 a bad deal from your predecessor the bill the bridge was already built somebody had a bad deal

00:51:40.220 and uh and and trump squeezed you but you got you you didn't manage to fight us fight back and get

00:51:47.180 us anything better and so the bridge is going to open we paid for it and somehow or other we're

00:51:52.460 not getting all the tolls back like that's that's a really bad deal uh gonna run out of time but i'm

00:51:58.860 gonna you know i was gonna bring up another sort of uh i guess it ties into this yesterday the

00:52:05.020 bank of canada announced that they're keeping their interest rate uh fixed at 2.25 so it's

00:52:11.340 been fixed at 2.25 now since october of last year um you know the the bank the bank of canada had

00:52:18.380 lowered interest rates like next to next to zero during covid then they came back up after covid

00:52:25.020 all the way up into the five six percent range and then they've been trying to bring them down

00:52:29.820 i'm an i'm a i'm a pro actually before i give too much of my opinion um now i'll give my opinion

00:52:37.900 i think bank i think interest rates need to go up okay i think interest rates need to go up because

00:52:43.340 part of the problem that we have in the country right now is that there's too much money supply

00:52:48.380 And and that's creating inflation and that's devaluing what we can buy with our money and and higher interest or lower interest rate doesn't necessarily equate to more money, but it makes it easier for people to borrow money.

00:53:05.300 And and and when you borrow money, you're basically adding money to the supply, to the demand side and take it away from the supply side.

00:53:15.100 So I'm in favor of, I think interest rates should come up.

00:53:19.180 And the other reason I mentioned this is there's parallels between what's happening now and the last time we had low interest rates in the 1980s after the first Trudeau, right?

00:53:28.160 And in the 1980s, the economy did the same thing.

00:53:30.900 Interest rates went up and they brought them down and everybody's like, oh, everything's under control.

00:53:34.660 And then there was a second wave of inflation that hit that was brutal.

00:53:38.120 So the second wave of inflation in the 80s was brutal.

00:53:40.900 And I think we're kind of almost on the verge of that because last month, inflation in Canada month over month was 3.2. And remember, the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklin is trying to keep interest rates between one and three. Like that's his that's his target range. And it's at 3.2. And it's persistently high.

00:54:00.900 and it's persistently high and he was in a press conference yesterday and i could tell that he was

00:54:06.760 unhappy that he looked like he's stuck between a rock and a hard place somebody is asking him to

00:54:11.920 keep interest rates low i know who that is right i mean it's the it's it's mark carney can you

00:54:17.480 imagine the the conversations between tiff macklin and mark carney they're supposed to be at arm's

00:54:22.260 length from each other right mark carney is the prime minister and tiff macklin is the governor

00:54:26.380 of the bank of canada and tiff is supposed to act independently but now he's got a a counter party

00:54:33.920 he acts independently but they kind of have to dance together the ballet because if if if tiff

00:54:39.260 does something like lower the interest rate then diminish the money supply but carney on the other

00:54:44.640 side keeps his spending out of control then they they're not they're not working together and then

00:54:49.120 they can make problems worse. And I think the governor working with Trudeau was bad enough.

00:54:59.160 I got the sense in watching the press conference yesterday that the governor

00:55:02.880 working with Carney is no piece of cake because Carney fancies himself a real economist because

00:55:08.360 he'll be like, well, I was the governor of the Bank of Canada. I had your job. Then I was the

00:55:12.440 governor of the of the royal banks or the bank of england so um interesting move inflation is

00:55:20.120 coming out uh in a couple of days we're going to find or next week we're going to find out what

00:55:24.180 june inflation was like i suspect it's going a little bit higher and then the other thing that's

00:55:29.120 completely interesting about this is that they're blaming oil for uh high inflation and sure it has

00:55:38.080 an impact but we all know right like how much of the money out of your wallet every month are you

00:55:42.620 paying on gasoline versus what you're paying for groceries insurance housing transportation

00:55:47.140 vacations and everything else right so to so inflation in this country is pretty high and

00:55:51.780 to try and blame all of inflation on oil is uh is pretty telling so i'll ask them the question

00:55:59.220 is oil important or not because if it's not important as you seem to claim right that we

00:56:04.560 that we're moving on from oil then why are you blaming it on the inflation on oil otherwise if

00:56:10.080 if oil is still important and and you're blaming inflation on oil well you know what the solution

00:56:16.240 is to that change the regulations and allow us to produce more oil because if we produce more oil

00:56:21.200 in this country guess what will happen the price of oil will go down so i find i find all these

00:56:25.520 debates very interesting because it puts the government in a in a in a bit of a paradox uh

00:56:32.000 What have I got, John, for a couple?

00:56:34.040 I got a couple of minutes.

00:56:35.260 I'd sure like it.

00:56:36.020 I mean, I got a chance for one more call.

00:56:38.500 Maybe somebody else give a call.

00:56:40.160 I got about five more minutes here.

00:56:41.540 If not, I will move on to – I got two other stories I had on here.

00:56:49.800 I'll go – all right, let's go with this one.

00:56:53.680 Mark Carney appointed a COO.

00:56:58.560 So Mark Carney has on his staff, usually Mark Carney in the prime minister's office has a chief of staff, chief secretary, then he has all the senior ministers and so forth.

00:57:12.340 Like the prime minister's office is a huge organization and the chief of staff usually plays a pretty important role in that.

00:57:18.600 And Mark Carney went and appointed a chief operating officer in and of itself, a bit of an unusual move.

00:57:27.060 No prime minister in Canada's history has ever had a chief operating officer before.

00:57:33.120 But Carney, OK, comes maybe more from the private sector than any other group.

00:57:38.200 So he saw, you know, in the private sector, it's common to have the president and then the chief executive officer, the chief financial officer and the chief operating officer as the, you know, as the four heads of the organization with executive powers.

00:57:52.680 So I guess Carney is sort of structuring himself that way.

00:57:55.000 I mean, I would have thought that the chief operating officer at this point would be the second in command, like the deputy prime minister, the most important, you know, like he used to be Freeland or somebody else.

00:58:06.980 He already had that.

00:58:08.580 So the appointing somebody in that role is interesting.

00:58:11.240 But what's really interesting is that he appointed an American named Maya Johnson, an almost complete unknown.

00:58:17.720 Nobody knows anything about her except, again, the Western standard here broke the story.

00:58:22.300 We finally saw who she is.

00:58:23.840 There's very little known about her other than she worked with Kearney in the past.

00:58:28.800 She's an American.

00:58:30.220 She's not bilingual.

00:58:31.360 Remember the chief, the CEO of Air Canada basically had to quit because he wasn't bilingual.

00:58:36.760 So maybe we'll talk more about that story because we're running out of time and I want to take this last call.

00:58:41.480 Go ahead, caller.

00:58:44.460 Hello.

00:58:45.220 How are you?

00:58:46.080 Good, good.

00:58:46.480 How are you?

00:58:47.320 This is Slavika.

00:58:49.040 Yes.

00:58:49.480 Okay, so my message is very brief and to the point.

00:58:56.360 My message is that Canada should be concentrating on getting rid of the government, all government.

00:59:03.180 Liberal, all of them are the same, okay?

00:59:05.900 Alberta is on the right path.

00:59:08.120 They want independence.

00:59:09.700 But they keep on telling us that it's because of the oil and this and that and this and that.

00:59:14.960 What it is, is our constitution.

00:59:16.920 We have a government that, you know, is not a democracy.

00:59:25.460 We have a monarchy, a monarchy that is run by the British king, okay?

00:59:32.540 And we have a monarchy that is disguised as a democracy, but it isn't.

00:59:36.960 We have no democracy.

00:59:38.980 Every time that people go to vote, it's nonsense.

00:59:42.140 It's a waste of time, okay?

00:59:44.420 So we need to get rid of the government and to, you know, for all of us to get together on this, the entire Canada, and to keep on, you know, giving the message to the Canadians, forget about the government, because with the government, we won't, we will still continue in the same vicious cycle.

01:00:04.480 Year after year after year.

01:00:07.060 Yeah, you know what?

01:00:09.040 I wish you'd called a little bit earlier.

01:00:10.880 We could have had a good chat on that.

01:00:12.260 i'm unfortunately so sorry i'm out of time i appreciate your comment is spot on and resonates

01:00:16.980 with me maybe call next week because we're on the same page on this one uh i might not say zero

01:00:23.620 government but i will call next week excellent okay well have a great day thanks for calling

01:00:30.180 okay uh sorry wow get a great i mean that one was uh ripe for for a good discussion there uh

01:00:36.500 I mean, would I go with zero government? No, but I'm definitely in favor of minimal government.

01:00:44.100 The smaller, the better, and then not only small, but structured more as a republic like the Americans.

01:00:50.660 I always say the American constitution, we the people, what a great start to a document.

01:00:55.140 Listen, I was honestly a little nervous coming in here today because I was out hunting or not hunting.

01:01:01.120 I went out to set up the hunting camp.

01:01:02.640 I came out kind of not completely up to speed on events, but it was a great show.

01:01:10.040 Again, consider getting a membership.

01:01:13.060 I've explained numerous times why it's so important to support independent medias like this.

01:01:19.040 And it's $10 a month.

01:01:21.240 The link is on the screen right there, westernstandard.news slash subscription or $100 a year.

01:01:28.900 It goes a long way.

01:01:30.080 i mean i'm so proud of the staff here like this week in particular has been a phenomenal week i

01:01:36.100 could i could break and talk a lot more stories but the group here keeps breaking big stories

01:01:42.180 and they're stories that the mainstream media will not bring to you so if you really want to

01:01:48.320 know what's going on you have to come to an organization like the western standard or a

01:01:54.240 little shout out to some of the you know some of our competitors rebel news or whatever but you

01:01:58.860 you, this is where you come to get the real stories. Appreciate your time, folks. Thanks

01:02:03.600 for calling. We'll see you same time next week, 1pm here on the Western Standard. Cheers, folks.

01:02:28.860 Thank you.

Western Standard - July 20, 2026

MARTY UP NORTH： Corus moves news production out of Alberta

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