Western Standard - MARTY UP NORTH： Plane Tragedy in New York and Ottawa’s Bilingualism Obsession

00:00:00.000 all right welcome back um actually i hope you got

00:00:29.760 I'll tell you a quick thing. I've been on the road for three days now. I was going to say, I hope you guys appreciate that I'm here today. But there's a story there. I've been on the road. I joined the Jason Levine show just temporarily going on the road with Jason and a few other great speakers, Tanya Clemens and Angela Tabak.

00:00:51.060 Like we, I went to Drumheller on Monday,

00:00:56.660 Leduc on Tuesday, last night was Red Deer

00:01:00.200 and I rushed back to Calgary to do the show.

00:01:03.360 So hope you appreciate that.

00:01:04.500 And let me tell you, it was a white knuckle drive last night.

00:01:07.540 Maybe I should have stayed overnight in Red Deer

00:01:09.180 and come back this morning, but it was a white knuckle drive.

00:01:13.400 Question for you guys.

00:01:14.680 You know, I used to trust

00:01:16.200 what we call professional drivers right here in Alberta.

00:01:21.060 see guys on the roads all the time like professional drivers the guys driving the big rigs right we

00:01:25.300 it's it's a tradition in alberta lots of guys drive trucks we need them to deliver equipment

00:01:29.700 up in the field uh big halls big loads and stuff like that but am i the only one now who feels a

00:01:34.660 little nervous around some of these big trucks these days something's not right and i think we

00:01:39.700 all know what it is right i mean i got yesterday there was trucks driving with their blinkers on

00:01:44.180 and then you have the other extreme you have trucks that are driving at full speed in the

00:01:47.540 blizzard and there's like the the in-between is missing and i'm i'm like staying away from the

00:01:52.580 big trucks maybe it's me but uh i don't feel good about around being what used to be called

00:01:57.860 professional drivers uh you know you saw the show here uh today you know before before i come here

00:02:04.260 in studio john always uh asked me what i kind of want to talk about so he can prepare the title

00:02:09.620 the the thumbnail and i and i wanted to talk about uh bilingualism i like the uh i like the title

00:02:16.100 how he said that Ottawa's bilingualism obsession it's a much nicer title than what I had suggested

00:02:22.500 so let's get into that you know I while I was on the road I heard about this horrible accident

00:02:29.580 that happened in New York the plane that hit the the emergency vehicle on the runway at LaGuardia

00:02:36.940 I mean absolutely terrible I don't even know how that can happen luckily it only happens you know

00:02:43.120 extremely rarely like every 30 or 40 years so it's not there might have been near misses but

00:02:48.560 an actual impact between a vehicle and a plane is extremely rare um we don't know much about

00:02:54.560 the what led to the tragedy they're gonna investigate it uh and and we'll learn about

00:02:59.440 it eventually but i want to just start the show with this clip from mark carney and we're going

00:03:04.960 to play the whole clip at first we're going to we thought we'd only play 30 seconds of it the

00:03:08.560 one that really annoyed me but let's play the whole clip first i i want to repeat my sincere

00:03:16.320 condolences uh to the families to the friends to the work colleagues uh of the uh two young pilots

00:03:25.440 mr foray mr gunter uh their canada of air canada who whose actions save lives we proudly live in a

00:03:34.000 bilingual country and companies like air canada particularly have a responsibility to always

00:03:40.640 communicate in both official languages regardless of the situation i'm very disappointed in as others

00:03:48.800 are rightly so in this unilingual message of of the ceo of air canada in it doesn't matter the

00:03:59.120 the circumstance, but particularly in these circumstances, a lack of judgment, a lack of

00:04:03.960 compassion, lack of compassion.

00:04:07.100 So, you know, I don't know how you guys feel about that, but there's a couple of things

00:04:11.500 to unpack on there, but I'm, that upsets me, right?

00:04:14.500 So let's think about this, right?

00:04:16.140 The country is struggling right now.

00:04:18.160 We got all sorts of issues.

00:04:20.400 There's a, there's, there's a conflict going on in the Middle East.

00:04:24.120 We got prices of gasoline soaring, prices of food soaring.

00:04:28.000 people have no disposable no uh discretionary income traveling is down so forth and then

00:04:34.700 somewhere in this whole mess you got a president of a company who's dealing with the fact that one

00:04:39.660 of his planes hit somebody a vehicle on a runway and two of his pilots got killed and a bunch of

00:04:47.400 passengers got injured and the poor president of air canada who is like i can't i i've been in

00:04:53.340 almost similar not not no i can't even say i've been in similar situations i've been in stressful

00:04:57.440 situations as the president of a company i can't imagine what this guy's facing the president of

00:05:01.760 air canada because he's on the national stage right everybody's noticing this and and the poor

00:05:08.160 guy comes on uh radio or television does a press conference and the guy is naturally anglophone

00:05:15.680 unilingual right and he makes his statement in english and then and and so on top of his strategy

00:05:23.600 tragedy and everything that's going on in this poor guy's life carney and the liberals decide

00:05:30.700 that now's the time to make an example of that guy and they're bringing him into a committee

00:05:35.800 they want him in front of a committee to explain to the committee why he didn't make a statement

00:05:41.760 in both official languages and so and and and i just want to unpack that a little bit right so

00:05:47.420 and then you hear carney say we live in a bilingual country yeah we live in an officially

00:05:52.840 bilingual country but let's be real here right and i'm a francophone i speak french it's my native

00:05:58.040 tongue and i'm a franco ontarian who moved to alberta and now i consider myself uh an albertan

00:06:04.740 and i have francophone roots and i know there's a lot of albertans who speak french right

00:06:08.340 but is the country really bilingual no i mean there's like 15 million quebecers that speak

00:06:15.040 french and english and then the rest of us speak english mostly so the country and and and we have

00:06:21.700 this official bilingual country and then we have all these crazy rules because of it right so the

00:06:27.280 house of commons every day even though quebecers represent about 15 of the population if that

00:06:33.920 almost half the business in the house of commons is done in french right they always almost always

00:06:39.360 open their comments with french uh we spend an in an incredible amount of money by translating

00:06:45.320 everything and and the federal government offering services in french across the board doesn't matter

00:06:51.340 where you live right so if you live in in drayton valley somebody at the post if you go to the post

00:06:57.480 office in drayton valley you will see that there will be little signs you know you go to the drayton

00:07:01.420 valley office to pick up a passport application and you'll see that they're there in english and

00:07:06.000 in french and then the signs explaining things and the prices and everything it's all bilingual

00:07:11.320 but you're in drayton valley alberta where there might be you know a handful of people that speak

00:07:15.680 French. But it goes beyond that, right? And this bilingualism costs us a lot of money,

00:07:22.800 definitely has an impact on our productivity, but it goes beyond that, right? So why did Carney

00:07:27.920 say that he expected the president of Air Canada to speak in French? Well, Air Canada is a private

00:07:34.160 company. It started out as a crown corporation, but in 1989 or somewhere around there, it went

00:07:39.200 full private. It's a full private company. You can buy Air Canada on the Toronto Stock

00:07:45.520 exchange it's it is not a public company or sorry it's a public company it's not private

00:07:50.400 but it's not a government corporation but it falls under federal jurisdiction rules because

00:07:59.040 it's a transportation company then it has to follow transportation rules that are managed by

00:08:04.800 the government right so that's why when you get on the plane they do the safety briefing they

00:08:08.400 do it in both languages french and english so companies like air canada fall under those rules

00:08:13.920 west jet via rail but what other kinds of companies fall under those kinds of rules

00:08:18.960 the banking industry is regulated federally which means that banks in this country have to offer

00:08:24.400 services in both languages the communications industry is uh federally regulated in fact i'm

00:08:30.880 wondering uh do we here at the western standard have to provide services in both languages i don't

00:08:37.600 think so because we're sort of uh maybe we do i don't know but i guarantee you that rogers and

00:08:42.800 and other big companies like that that are federally regulated have to provide services

00:08:48.360 in both languages, as do banks.

00:08:50.240 You see where I'm going, right?

00:08:51.980 And so there's one thing to be federally regulated to offer services in both languages.

00:08:59.100 I think it's going a little too far to expect that the president of one of those companies

00:09:03.580 has to be perfectly bilingual and offer his condolences in a tragedy in both languages.

00:09:09.300 And I'm sure he was going to do it, and I'm sure there were press releases and statements

00:09:12.680 in both languages but as he spoke it wasn't done in both languages but lastly the thing i want to

00:09:17.680 talk about is the hypocrisy of somebody like carney uh criticizing somebody else because did

00:09:24.800 you see in the clip what carney does right he opens his statement in english but then he switches

00:09:30.400 to french and what did he switch to french he mentioned the names of the pilots and he you know

00:09:34.420 and they'll they'll use token words merci or beaucoup or whatever they'll they'll they'll

00:09:39.900 throw a little tidbit in French. Trust me, Mark Carney is not bilingual. And I mean, he can barely

00:09:46.420 read something that's given to him in French and he'll do it and he butchers it, but you're not

00:09:51.240 going to have a conversation one-on-one with Mark Carney in French. You're certainly not going to

00:09:55.920 have a conversation with the governor general of Canada and a whole bunch of other dignitaries and

00:10:00.640 politicians, right? So there's a double standard there that was there today that I don't like

00:10:05.720 in in that video and lastly i want to i want to talk about this one other thing so i'm so i'm a

00:10:11.420 francophone and and but i'm being very blunt here i think that bilingualism in this country has gone

00:10:17.320 too far and i think today that was an example of that or yesterday you know this is more pandering

00:10:23.000 to quebec maybe maybe it might even lead to the fact that uh they'll appoint somebody they'll

00:10:28.600 force the guy from air canada to resign only so they can appoint somebody else who's uh more

00:10:33.160 bilingual, which is my last point I want to talk about on this, is that that is one of the other

00:10:38.840 constraints of having a bilingual country that annoys me, which is a lot of positions, whether

00:10:44.920 they're in senior government or in the courts or, you know, deputy ministers, the army, the RCMP,

00:10:50.840 crown corporations, stuff like that. There's a bilingualism, bilingual requirement that I think

00:10:57.020 is unfair and and as an example you will not climb the ranks in this organization in in the

00:11:03.380 canadian military if you're not bilingual if you're if you if you go to uh saint jean you do

00:11:09.100 your uh you go to the military college there and uh you graduate you'll if you're anglophone they'll

00:11:14.560 make you take enough french to just pass but if you don't progress and your french really doesn't

00:11:20.380 improve you've limited yourself so it's another form of discrimination i think in this country

00:11:25.980 forcing everybody to be bilingual anyways call in let me know what your thoughts are on that

00:11:31.880 I've spoken a lot but again as I've said before this is your show right so call in you see the

00:11:38.980 number there on the screen we don't have a I'll repeat it again we don't have a switchboard so

00:11:44.820 if you call let me know your name where you're calling from what you want to talk about in some

00:11:49.220 instances I'll keep you on the line in other instances I'll ask you to please hang up so we

00:11:53.480 can take another caller but while we're waiting for a call i will uh if you want to put that

00:11:57.960 uh post on the screen please john i got a comment from somebody says uh my main issue or so it's a

00:12:05.780 from prairie kozak um says my main issue with bilingualism is that it forces the federal

00:12:11.440 government to operate on barely 20 of the available talent pool exactly that's that's what i just said

00:12:16.220 right uh whether it's the military senior jobs senior jobs right you're not going to get a you're

00:12:21.360 going to job you won't get a job as a deputy minister in canada federally if you're not fluent

00:12:27.760 in both languages which is which is a shame and i and i guess your reference there to 20 is about

00:12:33.280 the the distribution of people who are bilingual in this country hey they could make it they could

00:12:38.320 say you need to speak multiple languages in order to get a senior role i'd be okay with that right

00:12:43.120 if you're gonna be uh working at um i don't know foreign affairs and you want to roll as a diplomat

00:12:48.640 then sure, it's appropriate to, you know, you want to be posted in Poland, you might as well

00:12:53.440 put a requirement that you need to speak Polish and English, but to automatically make every job

00:12:59.040 past a certain level be bilingual. I think that's, I agree that restricts, it shrinks the talent pool,

00:13:06.640 especially in the military. In the military and in the RCMP, it really, really, really,

00:13:11.600 really shrinks the talent pool. All our senior commanders and senior officers have to be bilingual.

00:13:18.640 um any other so yeah don't be shy folks give me a call uh and then and then we'll go from there

00:13:24.940 but thanks for that comment um so uh what else happened while I was gone which is an interesting

00:13:31.820 thing so I I've been on the road like I said doing these speaking engagements they take about

00:13:36.280 three hours every night they've been well attended uh um I but it you know I get a little bit

00:13:43.440 disconnected while I was there. One of the cool things that happened while I was when I was on

00:13:50.260 the road is Keith Wilson came to one of our events. Always a pleasure chatting with Keith Wilson.

00:13:57.040 You guys know Keith, right? He's an Alberta lawyer from up in the Edmonton area, became popular

00:14:04.740 during the trucking convoy.

00:14:08.180 You often see him alongside Tamara Litch.

00:14:11.460 And he's kind of, I think he's officially counseled

00:14:15.060 for the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:14:16.880 So he'll be one of the people strategizing

00:14:21.600 on how to deal with this injunction

00:14:23.500 that's approaching here on April 7th.

00:14:26.140 But the more interesting news that I learned this week

00:14:28.840 is that Keith is going to debate Jason Kenney

00:14:34.140 in the coming weeks and uh that's gonna be awesome there's gonna be so good on jason for

00:14:39.460 agreeing to do this uh and good on keith for agreeing to do this uh and they're going to

00:14:45.780 debate in edmonton and they're going to debate down here in calgary so i don't have the specifics

00:14:50.300 maybe john can find something while i'm talking on that but that's going to be definitely an

00:14:55.280 interesting thing uh keith came to one of my events one of our events he was there in leduc

00:15:02.340 on uh tuesday night and uh we put him on the spot and we had keith we asked keith to come up and

00:15:09.320 talk and keith brought up some really interesting uh perspective that i hadn't thought of uh

00:15:17.420 focused around the conflict in uh in iran right now and the problems with the strait of hormuz

00:15:23.840 right so that's still ongoing over there um and you know the the the full flow of oil hasn't

00:15:31.480 resumed yet. So we're all seeing that. We're seeing the problems here in Alberta. I paid as

00:15:37.580 much as $1.79 for gas this week, which is crazy. But then we were talking, I guess right now,

00:15:49.060 New Zealand is almost to the point of having to ration fuels like gasoline and diesel and jet

00:15:55.160 fuel. And so is New Zealand. And so is a few other countries, right? A few other countries

00:15:58.480 that did this weird transition to green and went too fast on it and shut down some of

00:16:03.740 their industries or slowed them down, similar to what we were trying to do here in our country.

00:16:09.860 Those places are hurting.

00:16:12.380 Luckily, we still have five refineries here in Alberta, so there won't be any shortage

00:16:19.420 of the fuels, but we're paying a higher price because the commodity is traded on the free

00:16:27.000 markets. But then Keith also brought up that now the rest of the world is starting to panic because

00:16:32.720 the other thing that travels through the Strait of Hormuz are things like fertilizer. And I hadn't

00:16:39.740 really paused to think about that. Again, we're blessed here in Canada with a ton of good

00:16:45.100 fertilizers, right? We have potash in Saskatchewan. And then here in Alberta, in the process of

00:16:52.080 producing our natural gas. Maybe you've heard the term sour natural gas. We refer to it as sweet

00:16:58.900 and sour natural gas. And the sour natural gas is the gas that has hydrogen sulfide and carbon

00:17:03.780 dioxide in it in large quantities, but it mostly refers to hydrogen sulfide. And here in Alberta,

00:17:09.780 we take out that sour component, that toxic hydrogen sulfide, and then we turned it into

00:17:14.760 sulfur, elemental sulfur. Some of you who are old enough remember driving by Crossfield,

00:17:19.960 north of calgary maybe 20 years ago when you'd see the big yellow piles uh along the highway there

00:17:25.480 well that was sulfur we used to produce too much sulfur more than the markets needed so we would

00:17:31.080 actually uh just pour it in blocks and and stockpile it there and there's some big stockpiles

00:17:36.360 in vancouver and places like that but over time the world caught up and and sulfur became a

00:17:42.440 of a commodity that became rarer and rarer.

00:17:46.760 And so sulfur is used to make fertilizer

00:17:50.200 and it's also used to make sulfuric acid,

00:17:52.120 which is one of the most important

00:17:54.240 inorganic chemicals in the world.

00:17:55.720 Anyway, so we have an abundance of sulfur

00:17:58.080 and we have an abundance of potash and ammonia, right?

00:18:01.820 Ammonia is pretty simple to make.

00:18:03.400 It's nitrogen and hydrogen combined in the right way.

00:18:06.420 So, three things that the world needs in big quantities,

00:18:11.420 Natural gas, oil, and fertilizers.

00:18:13.720 They make the world go round, and now they're all becoming in quick, short supply.

00:18:18.860 And guess who has all of those things?

00:18:21.720 And we have so much of it that we could produce even more, and we could supply some to the rest of the world.

00:18:27.780 So it's very, Keith brought up a good point, but it's very frustrating to see that we've been unprepared for some of these events.

00:18:40.200 I said that the election of Donald Trump should have been a wake-up call.

00:18:44.600 What's happening in the Gulf should be another wake-up call.

00:18:49.260 And I hope that we will take that wake-up call seriously and keep, and I'll come back to that, keep promoting our industries.

00:19:00.860 I'm just going to go through a couple of comments here.

00:19:07.240 What have we got here?

00:19:10.200 I'm a senior that relies on Canada Post for communications over the miles and provinces with family, a friend.

00:19:18.200 Could you suggest an alternative for my or our letters and cards, please?

00:19:26.600 Well, the Internet, you can email things.

00:19:29.500 I mean, that's a question that's a question that comes up a lot when people are, you know, with Canada Post going on strike several times in the last couple of years is, well, yeah, I think I answered the question.

00:19:46.680 I mean, the alternative is the alternatives are all there.

00:19:50.280 It's the Internet or it's alternatives like Purolator and whatnot.

00:19:55.180 And I think in the short term, Canada Post has to realize that the services they're offering are a little bit too expensive.

00:20:02.400 And I'm not saying go away completely Canada Post, but maybe once a week instead of daily delivery.

00:20:09.360 We do have a call on the line. All right, let's let's go to the caller name and where are you calling from, please?

00:20:17.640 Hello Marty, it's Randy from Phony Flames.

00:20:19.600 Hi Randy, how's it going?

00:20:21.600 Good.

00:20:22.600 Great podcast, intelligent discussion, there's no waste of words and no fluff, I love it.

00:20:29.120 So a few years ago I visited my brother-in-law, a business owner in Peace River, he's a lifelong

00:20:35.320 grandson, Rachel Nottingham, so we're walking across the pedestrian path on the new vehicle

00:20:41.680 bridge across the Mady Peace River.

00:20:44.160 He had an interesting comment.

00:20:45.160 He said that conservatives have been talking about building this bridge for two decades, and the NDP got it done during this term in power.

00:20:53.780 They've also shut down the coal plants, even the new low-emission key bills through.

00:20:59.660 They began the carbon tax, even without running on it during the election.

00:21:04.980 And Justin Trudeau said that that gave him the courage and emphasis to introduce the federal carbon tax.

00:21:11.280 So my blood-in-law says the NDP gets things done.

00:21:13.440 and we're paying dearly for this debt and here we are in 2026 we can't even get a beneficial

00:21:20.340 Alberta pension tax even though the premier ran on it or twice been given membership mandate

00:21:27.640 as per our Western system plus last year she got positive feedback with the Alberta next panel

00:21:33.540 I also believe uh like I know she's really interested in referendums but uh a referendum

00:21:40.040 on the APP while being noble, I don't think it will work out because legacy media will

00:21:44.840 control its own outcomes.

00:21:46.940 It feels like the NDP is steering the bus.

00:21:50.340 Yeah, no, I, no, great comment.

00:21:54.040 And I, I, I agree.

00:21:59.800 I don't agree with the policies a lot of times of the NDP or the liberals or the socialists,

00:22:05.560 But I do agree that the NDP in some instances act pretty quickly. And it is a warning that I've made to maybe we're leading to that. Right. It's a warning that it's a part that I don't like of, say, Danielle Smith, who's over constantly studying a problem and saying, I'm doing my due diligence, I'm doing my due diligence and never progressing somewhere.

00:22:25.920 and i think she's genuine in that approach she's she's trying to do the the right thing because she

00:22:31.040 knows she's going to criticize if she doesn't check off all the boxes but on the other side

00:22:35.600 yes if if uh if nenshi gets re-elected he's not going to do that due diligence he's going to fly

00:22:42.000 with his mandate and we're going to see changes quickly is that kind of where you were heading

00:22:45.920 with your comments or yeah yeah okay cool um no appreciate the call randy um anything else or

00:22:55.920 No, no, that's good. Thank you.

00:22:58.040 Yeah, yeah, thank you.

00:23:00.080 I'm just going to, you know, while we wait for another call,

00:23:02.680 I'm just going to go to one comment there.

00:23:05.640 You know, somebody said, Marty, I think the best thing for Canada can do

00:23:08.380 is to go to a single operating language.

00:23:12.140 Listen, that's not what I was advocating for in terms of bilingualism, right?

00:23:16.300 Okay, I do agree that there should, that I'm not going to dispute the fact

00:23:21.060 that the country is bilingual, and I'm not going to dispute the fact

00:23:23.740 that we need to offer certain services in both languages.

00:23:27.480 As frustrating as it is, I think the House of Commons,

00:23:31.500 the proceedings of the House of Commons

00:23:32.700 will continue to be in both languages.

00:23:34.920 Laws will be translated and I can read the laws

00:23:37.160 in both languages and so forth and so forth.

00:23:39.020 I agree with that.

00:23:40.080 But I think we need to get reasonable

00:23:41.820 and reduce the requirements.

00:23:44.360 As an example, I don't think it should be a requirement

00:23:46.660 to be perfectly bilingual,

00:23:47.920 to become a senior officer in the Canadian Army.

00:23:50.360 I don't think it should be an absolute requirement

00:23:52.660 that every post office across the country have somebody on staff

00:23:55.860 who can speak French, right?

00:23:57.200 I think we need to apply it in a much more reasonable way

00:24:01.720 because it's getting out of hand on us, which is one thing.

00:24:05.780 But I also think that it is being used, like we saw it this week,

00:24:11.260 I think it is being used often as a disguised way

00:24:15.960 to transfer benefits to Quebec.

00:24:18.660 so that you know and and that's that that's kind of the angle i was going with that i mean

00:24:23.860 the fact that um back to the jobs right most of the senior jobs go to quebecers and i think it's

00:24:29.700 a form of discrimination that benefits quebec a lot more than anybody else so i that's what i

00:24:36.060 was advocating for i'm not advocating for a unilingual country could be worse you got

00:24:40.800 countries like uh i think switzerland has four official language actually that'd be an interesting

00:24:45.100 comment i don't know if somebody knows that how many countries in the world operate in two languages

00:24:49.700 um i i don't know how many actually interestingly enough um the the the pilots that uh that flow

00:25:00.920 that flew one of them was a quebecer but he had to learn english because in the airline industry

00:25:05.800 that's an example where uh around the world english is the official language of uh of of

00:25:12.480 air traffic right every pilot in the world has to learn to speak english to be able to communicate

00:25:18.480 with the towers and places like that i mean that's a real problem right you're traveling all

00:25:22.260 you're crossing borders you're going all around the world so if you want to be an international

00:25:27.040 pilot you have to speak both languages if you're just gonna i guess if you're uh fly for chinese

00:25:31.940 airlines and you just fly domestically then i imagine they just talk to each other in chinese

00:25:36.580 on those flights but uh um yeah who knows um well let's stay um let's stay on let's stay on uh on

00:25:45.780 uh paul or not on politics let's stay on energy a little bit uh i saw yesterday uh press release

00:25:54.100 coming out that uh let me get the wording exactly here or maybe john can find the press release on

00:26:01.300 on Danielle Smith and Ottawa,

00:26:06.600 an agreement in principle on methane emissions.

00:26:13.060 Another one of those things that I want to unpack, right?

00:26:17.340 So what's that agreement in principle?

00:26:22.500 Again, it's apparently we are expected to reduce

00:26:27.760 our methane emissions in Canada,

00:26:30.720 But be careful when you look at that. Right. First, they started with carbon dioxide emissions. Right. So everybody had to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, by the way. And that's to me, that's bogus science. Right. Carbon dioxide is a trace element, almost inert. It's it's in very small quantities in the atmosphere.

00:26:50.720 and they accused it of being the culprit behind climate change,

00:26:55.740 even though it's a minuscule amount.

00:26:57.360 So then they passed the carbon tax

00:26:58.800 and the carbon tax became immensely unpopular

00:27:01.520 and Carney had to reverse the carbon tax, right?

00:27:05.620 He used almost those exact words.

00:27:07.580 It's an unpopular tax and we're reversing it.

00:27:10.140 The reason is it was unpopular

00:27:12.160 is because they couldn't achieve

00:27:13.660 what they were going to do with the carbon tax.

00:27:16.000 And at first they thought it was convenient.

00:27:18.560 We're just going to charge the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide a tax, which happens to be Alberta, right?

00:27:25.100 Hey, how convenient that the biggest producers of carbon dioxide emission is Alberta.

00:27:29.660 And so let's pass a carbon tax across the country, but we're mostly going to collect it from Alberta.

00:27:35.700 Turns out it's an unpopular thing, so they reverse it.

00:27:38.440 So we're positively affected by that.

00:27:41.780 they're addicted to the revenues and to the money and to this this insane narrative that they're

00:27:47.260 going to lower uh that they're going to control climate so they need some other boogeyman so now

00:27:52.660 they're turning their attention to methane so now they're going to try and make us believe that

00:27:57.140 methane and and methane by the way is just natural gas right and most natural gas we burn it into a

00:28:02.840 furnace and then and then it becomes carbon dioxide and water vapor but some methane also

00:28:07.880 escapes you know as an example when you're fueling your car in california they've been doing this for

00:28:13.700 a long time right when you go to fuel your car with gasoline in california you have this little

00:28:19.360 vacuum pump there that's making sure that when you open your cap there's not a leakage of vapors

00:28:25.780 going up into atmosphere that's what they're doing there they're trying to capture methane and other

00:28:30.120 volatile compounds.

00:28:32.900 So yesterday, Kearney and Smith announced this understanding.

00:28:37.280 So a month, you know, six months ago, their carbon tax is back on, is off the table.

00:28:42.640 But now we're replacing it with this methane equivalent, which again, conveniently is mostly

00:28:50.580 a problem in Alberta.

00:28:51.660 So they're mostly going to try and get money out of Alberta.

00:28:54.460 And I'll tell you this, the one I'll tell you very pragmatically, the thing that scares

00:28:58.220 me about this is that they want to go they want to reduce methane back to like pre-2013 levels by

00:29:08.000 some year in the future right well this isn't new okay we've been trying to reduce methane in

00:29:14.340 Alberta forever for as long as I remember it's always been something that in my line of work we

00:29:19.820 had to do remember in the good old days when you drive around in Alberta especially at night and

00:29:25.860 you'd see flares everywhere. That's because we had pump jacks all over the countryside. And every

00:29:30.440 time there's a pump jack, the pump jack's also making a little bit of methane, right? A little

00:29:33.880 bit of natural gas. And we used to use the natural gas to run the engines that ran the pump jacks.

00:29:39.080 If you ever went by there, you'd see those aero engines just chugging along. And then somebody

00:29:43.080 said, well, we got to capture that methane. Instead of just burning it, we got to capture it. So we

00:29:47.060 went through all sorts of efforts, right? We built pipelines. I mean, and the methane we were burning

00:29:51.100 was uneconomic and trust me if ever it's economic to get to to preserve a resource the industry will

00:29:57.640 do it like you don't have to tell an industry to do it if it's if something's worth something they

00:30:02.480 will capture it if it's not worth anything they will dispose of it as a waste so this flaring that

00:30:08.560 was going on everywhere we reduced it drive around the countryside right now you barely see any

00:30:12.720 flares uh because we've found new technologies and and and we've gotten the emissions so low

00:30:20.340 that um i don't know how they're going to keep lowering them at some point you lower them so

00:30:25.600 much that it becomes uh uh diminishing returns we call it so i i just saw that note that that

00:30:32.980 announcement i still don't understand why danielle is so set in collaborating with

00:30:40.960 Carney. I mean, she's convinced that she can get us a better deal. And so they made that

00:30:47.460 announcement yesterday, which hides the fact that the MOU and the MOU that was signed,

00:30:53.720 you know, just before the new year there, the MOU that was signed in October,

00:30:58.300 parts of that MOU come into effect on April 1st. On April 1st, the industrial carbon tax in Alberta

00:31:04.640 goes up. And it doesn't matter if it's an industrial carbon tax or a commercial or a

00:31:09.940 private citizens' commercial carbon tax.

00:31:13.080 It taxes, it taxes, it taxes, and somebody's going to pass it on to us.

00:31:16.360 So if industry has to pay an increased carbon tax starting on April 1st,

00:31:20.440 somehow or other, it's going to trickle its way down to us.

00:31:23.720 And we're already, I mean, we're paying $1.70 for a liter of gasoline at the pump,

00:31:29.500 and now the cost is going to go up on April 1st.

00:31:32.700 That makes no sense to me.

00:31:34.060 I have no idea.

00:31:34.660 So the MOU was a nothing burger.

00:31:37.800 It resulted in us suddenly getting suckered into increasing our commercial carbon tax.

00:31:45.100 And now we got this additional, whatever, statement of understanding that we're going to reduce our methane emission.

00:31:53.040 And meanwhile, we're no closer to getting a pipeline.

00:31:55.660 I haven't seen anybody step up and start building a pipeline anywhere, anytime soon.

00:32:01.600 Because it's a victim.

00:32:02.420 We'll come back to the pipeline.

00:32:03.880 All right.

00:32:04.100 Got another call on the line.

00:32:05.600 Name, where are you calling from, please?

00:32:06.980 Okay.

00:32:07.800 Hi, Marty. It's Pete from Sturgeon County.

00:32:10.500 Hi, Pete. Sturgeon County. Close to your refinery or not?

00:32:15.500 Very close to the refinery. I live in the country, so really close to there.

00:32:20.300 I'm funny because I got a question for you.

00:32:22.920 And the question is, do you really trust Danielle?

00:32:25.420 Let me preface that. I like Danielle.

00:32:28.120 I think she's done a lot of good for Alberta.

00:32:30.540 But I'm not so sure I trust where she's going in the direction that she's going.

00:32:34.420 and the reason why I say that is because I'm originally from Quebec and I was born and raised

00:32:40.460 there I voted in the first referendum I lived through a lot of this garbage I was glad to leave

00:32:46.000 there because I grew up English in Quebec we had the French police come around and uh not a good

00:32:51.860 time I joined the service I ended up in Alberta fell in love with Alberta and I I chose to stay

00:32:58.640 here and so right now i think alberta i made a mistake in 1980 i don't plan on repeating that

00:33:04.580 mistake and uh yeah right now i just think it's time for us to get out of dodge stay on the line

00:33:12.660 uh pete so just clarify what was the mistake you made in 1980 how do you was it that you voted the

00:33:20.020 wrong way or you didn't fight harder or what do you think well i voted the wrong way i should

00:33:26.220 listen to some friends and vote yes to leave i voted no because when you get in that referendum

00:33:30.620 ballot that that referendum box or whatever you want to call the poll yeah you you stand there

00:33:36.140 for a little extra longer and then you start to think holy cow i have an effect here that could

00:33:42.540 create such huge like a like an earthquake within canada and the federation that you know you you

00:33:50.460 sit there an extra minute to wonder what you're going to do well i voted no then now

00:33:56.220 I would most definitely go, for sure.

00:33:58.800 And thanks for that comment.

00:34:00.180 I mean, I just got a bit of a goosebump because you're saying something that I've been warning people about, right?

00:34:04.840 You've heard me say on the show that collecting signatures right now to trigger a referendum, I think that's the easy part.

00:34:11.000 And we got a lot of people.

00:34:12.600 I think getting around the fear that you just mentioned exactly, when you're in that box, that ballot room, and you're going to check off, that's a bigger decision.

00:34:23.140 So thanks for confirming that, that some people had cold feet.

00:34:26.180 And I'm glad you've changed your mind.

00:34:30.080 So back to your original question.

00:34:33.400 My answer regarding Danielle Smith really changes from almost from day to day to day.

00:34:38.220 You can ask me how I feel about her one day and I'll say I love her and I love the direction she's taking us.

00:34:43.380 Then she'll do something and then you ask me the same question the next day and my answer is different, right?

00:34:49.340 I'm having a hard time figuring out where she stands.

00:34:52.980 I'll tell you a couple of things.

00:34:54.060 I mean, I'm disappointed in her from a as a fellow, as a conservative.

00:34:59.320 Some days I really don't think she's being very conservative and with some very specific things.

00:35:04.400 Right. Our government is still too big and she's struggling to bring it under control and shrink it.

00:35:09.300 The fact that we run these big deficits, that the spending seems out of control, that part upsets me.

00:35:16.240 um but i understand that but then she'll do something like she did yesterday where um you

00:35:24.140 know she uh she she does move the the province in the right direction generally speaking right

00:35:31.260 uh so yesterday she she passed a law that uh if you're a criminal and a repeat offender or

00:35:37.180 whatever and you have a bracelet or an ankle bracelet or something and then you get closer

00:35:41.060 to somebody else there's going to be an app and an alarm and and and you know i haven't gotten into

00:35:46.740 the detail but she's getting tougher on crime let's say so i like that she's getting tougher

00:35:50.900 on immigration she's getting tougher she's protecting the children right i absolutely

00:35:55.380 love that she's protecting our children by by making it harder for parents to transition their

00:36:01.540 kids and do things like that so you know what i'm saying so on a lot of things she's going in the

00:36:06.180 right path and i definitely do not want to slow her down when she's doing that because it's all

00:36:09.780 useful i wish she was more conservative and taking control of the of of the finances and stuff like

00:36:17.780 that but ultimately to your last question to your actual question do i trust her at this point i

00:36:24.340 don't trust too many politicians so um so i i and i and i i put more weight in a politician's actions

00:36:34.740 than i do in their words which is why i love donald trump so does that answer your question

00:36:38.500 Let me add, so do you trust her or what's your thought on it?

00:36:42.520 Well, my first impression of Danielle was she was a fantastic premier.

00:36:47.140 And I still think she is.

00:36:48.620 And I agree with what you're saying, but she's flip-flopping a lot.

00:36:52.200 And I really believe that originally what happened was she created all these lines in the sand that she gave to Kearney.

00:36:59.620 You know, you cross this line and we're going to do this.

00:37:01.600 There'll be a price to pay.

00:37:02.460 We never knew what that price was.

00:37:04.040 And she did that, what, about three times, I think.

00:37:06.280 I think she cornered herself with the AGM in November, and she had to come up with something.

00:37:12.320 It was either that or a really challenged carny.

00:37:15.700 And they both came up with the MOU thing, which we all know is absolute garbage.

00:37:21.620 It'll never happen.

00:37:22.740 And all it's going to do is raise our taxes further and increase inflation.

00:37:27.160 So, no, right now, it's not only that.

00:37:30.500 She's trying to do the same thing that, like, did, which was with the Parts Quebecois.

00:37:36.280 which is the nation within a nation it doesn't work and what happens there because i lived through

00:37:41.740 this is they'll make concessions and as soon as the party leaves so once the public was gone

00:37:47.740 then they they go back and reboot back to their normal ways of doing business and it just doesn't

00:37:53.480 work and if that's the road that danielle's going to go it's in for a surprise and so are a lot of

00:37:57.840 albertans yes and it's sad because early think alberta has massive opportunity to do something

00:38:04.360 good here why not take a maiden voyage you know yeah yeah no stay on the line because i i want to

00:38:10.560 ask you a couple of questions but um you know back to danielle i there is one good thing that i really

00:38:16.340 like that she gave us in the last little while though and then and that is this citizens initiative

00:38:20.940 act right so um she gave us the tool to do this petition and i and that'll be a big that'll be a

00:38:28.700 big test for me for her if if she totally respects the law that she passed the way she said she will

00:38:35.300 recently you know if we collect 177 or whatever you know 200 000 signatures and she's like yeah

00:38:41.160 i'll give you the referendum that'll be that'll be a step in the right direction but uh i just

00:38:47.260 want to go back i i noticed the way you say partie quebecois so you do speak french and i just want

00:38:51.420 to ask you we started the show talking about bilingualism um a couple of questions did you

00:38:58.020 Do you still speak French?

00:38:59.620 So you kept your French.

00:39:00.820 If you kept your French, was it a choice or was it because you felt

00:39:04.540 or because the government made you do it?

00:39:07.320 Why did you keep your French?

00:39:09.660 Oh, I think that was more of a choice.

00:39:11.540 It was also beaten into us.

00:39:15.440 Not to mention, I was a kid then.

00:39:17.840 So, yeah, if you wanted to go out with some French girls,

00:39:19.960 whatever, you had to learn the language.

00:39:22.040 Right.

00:39:22.380 So you're pragmatic about it.

00:39:25.720 Yeah.

00:39:26.120 Getting back to what you were saying earlier with regards to the hypocrites, because I'm going to call them what they are.

00:39:32.180 They are hypocrites.

00:39:33.800 When we were growing up, oh, there's another interesting one, too.

00:39:37.460 You're probably going to hear soon a lot of stuff that there's going to be a lot of businesses that are going to be anxious to want to leave Alberta and so on.

00:39:43.780 And that this is what happened in Quebec and so on and so forth.

00:39:46.700 But the reality is in Quebec at the time was there were a lot of head offices in Montreal.

00:39:52.280 all and they came up with bill 101 and it was bill 101 which was the language stuff that actually

00:39:59.340 caused a lot of the head offices to move to toronto it wasn't so much the referendum so i i

00:40:05.420 don't buy that that logic that's uh at that time they shoved us all into like the english people

00:40:11.760 into like one or two schools that was it and even when you wanted correspondence in english

00:40:17.540 they would send you everything in French.

00:40:19.340 So you would have to do two tax forms in Quebec.

00:40:22.180 You would have to do the federal tax and the Quebec tax,

00:40:24.700 and it was all in French.

00:40:26.680 And so, yeah, even though you would ask for it in English,

00:40:29.280 you wouldn't get it in English half the time.

00:40:32.420 Yeah, no, thank you.

00:40:33.460 Okay, well, that's awesome.

00:40:34.500 Yeah, great point on the language.

00:40:39.000 So you're saying the language law scared more businesses away

00:40:41.920 than the referendum.

00:40:43.380 I probably agree with that.

00:40:44.760 and and it does bring up an interesting point quebec is almost officially french only and

00:40:52.320 goes out of its way to make life miserable for anglophones over there so they play the card both

00:40:57.780 ways right locally at home uh they promote french and then uh and and then discriminate against the

00:41:04.500 english and then federally they they scream when uh when they don't uh get their way so i appreciate

00:41:11.020 at the call, Pete. Thanks. Hey, is he gone, John? Oh, he's still there?

00:41:16.060 I'm still here.

00:41:17.060 Just lastly, for the other people listening, how's the independence movement in your neck

00:41:21.260 of the woods? Do you see a lot of flags, a lot of pop-up stations? What's the general

00:41:26.160 sense in that part? Because we always hear bad things about Edmonton kind of being lost

00:41:31.620 cause.

00:41:32.620 I think Edmonton's a lost cause. Actually, it's pretty quiet. It seems to be subdued,

00:41:40.780 So it seems to be picking up and yeah, I'm hopeful.

00:41:44.880 I'm really hopeful for Alberta because I think it would be amazing to create

00:41:49.460 your own country.

00:41:50.980 And this is the best province in the country as far as I'm concerned.

00:41:55.520 I got here during Ralph Klein,

00:41:57.520 then I was posted away and I fought to get back and order Ralphie was good.

00:42:01.980 Yeah.

00:42:02.760 So yeah, I think Alberta has a lot of opportunity.

00:42:06.340 Excellent.

00:42:06.720 All right.

00:42:07.060 Thanks for calling Pete.

00:42:08.580 I'm just reading some of the comments.

00:42:10.040 Somebody said I said New Zealand twice.

00:42:12.040 I don't know what that means.

00:42:13.400 Maybe I was referring to New Zealand and Australia,

00:42:15.720 and I said New Zealand twice.

00:42:17.840 Those are the two countries right now that are getting really,

00:42:21.640 really close to having to ration fuel and things like that because of their

00:42:28.020 bad decisions.

00:42:29.640 Hey, just staying on the topic of Danielle,

00:42:32.680 another interesting announcement that came out of the Smith government this

00:42:37.680 week um province plans to close edmonton's remaining safe consumption sites and others

00:42:44.720 uh as it shifts towards recovery focused models so i guess that means that hand they finally

00:42:52.240 realized and somehow it was amazing that governments take so long to realize what

00:42:56.240 most of us take for granted as common sense who thought that handing out hard drugs to people

00:43:03.840 was a good way to help them rehabilitate like i i i i'm just glad they're uh they're slowly

00:43:10.640 reversing uh that that whole bad policy um where well so i got uh all right well let's uh i gotta

00:43:21.280 okay well i still got a couple of topics so uh give me a call folks otherwise you're gonna make

00:43:26.560 me uh you're gonna stretch my ability to uh to talk on point on one topic um a quick update

00:43:33.760 on the gun compensation program.

00:43:36.760 We've talked about this one quite a bit

00:43:38.660 in the last few weeks.

00:43:41.080 And maybe this will be the last time

00:43:43.260 we talk about it in this format.

00:43:46.760 But remember, the minister,

00:43:49.860 I call him the chick monk.

00:43:51.260 I don't even know his name.

00:43:52.200 Actually, I got to be careful.

00:43:53.440 Got to be careful about my statements online now

00:43:55.760 because Bill C-9 passed

00:43:58.420 in the House of Commons this week.

00:44:00.280 So it went through, passed his third reading, right?

00:44:03.000 the uh the supposed anti-hate bill passed so now it's just going to the senate which i think it's

00:44:08.920 just going to be a rubber stamp and that's going to be a very impactful uh bill for people like me

00:44:15.260 for others here at the western standard for me as a private uh account on x or whatever uh i have to

00:44:21.980 start watching what i say because i don't want some cop knocking on my door in the near future

00:44:27.260 because of a post i've made online and uh and and speaking of cops knocking on the door i will

00:44:33.640 i'll come back to that one but i got a caller on the line go ahead name where you're calling from

00:44:38.240 hello mr marty this is gail calling from red deer area from where

00:44:45.240 red deer oh red deer i was just there yesterday

00:44:49.280 yes i'm i'm one of the blessed people who lives in the middle of everywhere

00:44:56.300 right on right on so what's on your mind i need because i know that you are very um um proficient

00:45:08.760 in explaining things in simplistic terms please educate me in why within a 12-hour period gas on

00:45:20.180 the other side of the world has an issue and our gas at the tank go up i know it has something to

00:45:27.840 do with the economic price in futures and gas and all of that but i need a very simplistic

00:45:36.340 engine because i'm very simplistic it's unfortunately it's supply and demand and

00:45:44.180 And the world needs 100 million barrels of oil every day.

00:45:51.060 And because of what's happening in the Gulf right now, the supply is reduced by about 30 million barrels.

00:46:01.600 Like it's a big, big drop.

00:46:06.680 And because there's a big drop, everybody's stepping over each other, trying to buy oil.

00:46:13.760 and the sellers are jacking up their prices so as we just said you got countries like

00:46:19.380 the boats are stopped the oil is not flowing so whoever it's a market right now so some of

00:46:25.580 some guys like i'll offer you 80 bucks and the other guy goes i'll offer you 85 and i'll offer

00:46:30.380 you 90 so the price is just going up and up and up and up and even though we're half a world away

00:46:35.300 and we make more oil than we need here our guys i don't blame them for doing this they are

00:46:42.940 selling their oil at a higher price. So some of the oil that's being produced here now is going to

00:46:48.640 make its way to Houston and make its way to Vancouver and get on boat and go to those buyers

00:46:53.340 who are paying premium for it. And because they're paying a premium for it, our guys locally are

00:46:59.640 having to compete for it. So the refinery that makes our gasoline, it's a competitor. It has to

00:47:05.340 buy oil from CNRL or Synovus or Suncor or whoever. Some refineries have their own oil,

00:47:11.860 But some don't. And so it's just what's happening right now. And we're all, I wish there was a control on it. But at the end of the day, I'm a libertarian. So I take the pros and the cons. I'm happy when competition, I can't be happy when the competition makes things go in my way.

00:47:28.500 So once in a while, when there's – someday we'll go back to having too much oil, and when there's too much oil, one guy will – they'll basically dump the oil, and it'll go down in prices, and I'll benefit.

00:47:40.260 So I don't know if that answers your question, but it's pure supply and demand at this point.

00:47:48.080 Actually, that is very good clarification.

00:47:50.980 So basically, they are bidding on future supply.

00:47:55.880 Yes.

00:47:57.580 Yeah.

00:47:57.980 okay yeah no and and and so and sometimes some people will say well the oil is being produced

00:48:04.040 today will get sold in three you know in three weeks from now sure but yeah they're they're

00:48:09.180 they're anticipating and and vice versa as fast as it can go up it could go down uh i i worked on

00:48:14.940 i think i talked about this on one of the shows uh earlier um you know a barrel of oil that goes

00:48:20.660 into oh you're in red deer but you know if you're closer to hardesty that's where the start of the

00:48:26.020 Keystone Pipeline is, a barrel of oil that goes in the Keystone Pipeline at Hardesty,

00:48:31.220 it takes about 27 days for it to get all the way down to Houston. So somebody in Houston is

00:48:35.380 ordering that barrel of oil like weeks in advance and paying a price, trying to anticipate what

00:48:41.440 they're going to make with that. So it's very complicated. And yeah, it's easy to kind of want

00:48:45.940 to blame them for gouging us and profiteering, which they are. I mean, you know, they are,

00:48:51.620 but we live in a free market and that means sometimes things don't go

00:48:55.360 necessarily our way, but great question. Hope, uh, actually yesterday in Red Deer,

00:48:59.200 I tweeted out about this. I mean,

00:49:01.020 I paid a buck 44 for a gasoline at the Costco.

00:49:05.000 And then as I was driving around and I went to my event and Red Deer,

00:49:08.880 I saw it as high as a hundred as a buck 76.

00:49:11.400 So when there's a gap like that in the one geography,

00:49:14.600 then you know that somebody's trying to gouge somebody else. Right.

00:49:18.020 So, uh, like anything else, shop it around folks. Yeah.

00:49:21.000 thanks for the call great question okay thank you so much yeah unless you have a follow-up

00:49:28.200 well actually very good um okay so i need an education on the difference between sweet gas

00:49:36.040 and solar gas and i have one oil pump on my property and two gas lines okay um i'm just

00:49:44.520 kind of curious as what is flowing through and if there's ever a time that i could take a straw and

00:49:51.480 just slice it out what i need rather than going to town and taking it yeah yeah no never do that

00:49:57.720 um all right i'll let you hang up and i'll answer that question again real quick yeah thank you so

00:50:03.160 yeah we you know so we in alberta we produce a lot of natural gas right and when we refer to

00:50:10.200 natural gas it simply means the gas is coming out of the ground but what's coming out of the ground

00:50:14.440 the natural gas that comes out of the ground for us is a whole mixture of stuff so it's generally

00:50:20.920 speaking it's methane ethane propane butane and some heavier stuff it has uh often has helium

00:50:29.320 nitrogen carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide and sometimes even other things it even has mercury

00:50:36.920 it has also so it's a mixture of usually like 10-15 compounds they're all more or less gaseous

00:50:43.480 at room temperature and atmospheric pressure so that comes out of the ground and then it goes to

00:50:49.480 all the what we call gas plants you see the gas plants north of calgary here the crossfield gas

00:50:54.100 plant is a plant that takes that gas and then separates it into its different components so

00:50:59.340 the methane goes out separately and it's used for burning in your furnace the ethane it's a nice

00:51:06.840 molecule we ship that all up to edmonton and we turn the ethane into ethylene and things like that

00:51:11.700 the propane you guys all know what you use propane for you it's it's used to dry grain it's for your

00:51:17.980 barbecue it's heating homes propane is nice because it can be liquefied and transported by truck

00:51:23.880 then we take out a bunch of butanes and the butanes they also go to edmonton and they make

00:51:28.160 things like uh whatever plastics and butylene and things like that the carbon dioxide we ship that

00:51:35.300 up in the air unfortunately now they're making us try and capture that and put it back into the

00:51:40.880 ground right so there's carbon dioxide that's in the gas we're also gonna and then the last one

00:51:46.720 which we call the sour component it's the hydrogen sulfide and so when you have a gas well on your

00:51:53.180 property and it's got sour gas you'll have a little skull on the sign with the name of the

00:51:58.960 with the location and and the emergency phone number because the h2s what we call the sour

00:52:05.220 component of the natural gas it's toxic and it doesn't take a lot to uh to be uh harmful to people

00:52:13.300 so um be very careful i always liked working around um h2s because it gave us

00:52:22.020 uh a heightened sense of awareness and we were a little more careful i i now i one thing i didn't

00:52:30.740 like is i found a lot of guys that worked around uh sweet gas would get a little complacent and

00:52:37.580 it's like no they're both equally dangerous but so that you know i i like the sourness because

00:52:42.460 it really puts you on your toes um yeah good another good question god we're blessed in this

00:52:49.060 country we are so blessed with uh not this country this province we are and i love that too right

00:52:54.800 carny this week saying again he's repeating something he said last week you know canada

00:52:59.700 can supply the world with oil no no no no no no it's not canada's oil the uh the resource transfer

00:53:05.380 act of like 1930 made sure that it's our oil it's our resources so it's uh it's alberta's oil

00:53:11.140 uh saskatchewan produces quite a bit of oil and uh british columbia not so much but uh

00:53:17.140 i i love when carney talked about canada's oil and it's not um all right so hopefully somebody

00:53:24.020 else calls we got a couple more minutes on the show but i was i was joking about um somebody

00:53:29.140 come in to knock on my door and arrest me for saying something unpopular and I think that's a

00:53:33.380 you know when I look at what's going on in Europe right now that's a reality people are getting

00:53:38.060 arrested for their posts on Facebook and I think with C9 that could potentially come down the path

00:53:44.380 for us right and and then the other thing that could happen down the path in terms of people

00:53:50.700 knocking on our doors is the gun confiscation program but I'm more I'm I'm less worried about

00:53:57.460 that one to be honest so uh just wanted to repeat we all we keep getting those letters i got another

00:54:03.100 one last week it's the third one that i've received in a couple of uh third one i've received from the

00:54:08.840 rcmp in the last month right it's a letter they keep sending to us reminding us that we need to

00:54:14.540 that if you want to take part in the compensation program you need to register before march 31st in

00:54:20.840 other words they don't know they they banned a whole bunch of firearms but they don't know who

00:54:26.400 has those firearms because for the longest time we didn't have to register our firearms so if i

00:54:32.880 bought if somebody bought uh i'm going to pick a model i i know that i know that the ruger mini 14

00:54:39.040 is on the list of banned firearms forever and ever up until 2021 anybody could buy a ruger mini 14

00:54:46.640 it's known as a ranch rifle it's just a short little semi-automatic it was perfect to fit in

00:54:51.200 the pickup truck and when you're driving around the back uh on the on the ranch on the farm if

00:54:55.920 If you saw a coyote over the distance, you grab your mini 14, and then you quickly stop

00:55:00.620 your truck, got out, put a clip in there, shot a couple of times and took care of that

00:55:04.080 coyote.

00:55:04.460 Well, the mini 14 became prohibited in 2021.

00:55:09.640 But the problem is there's thousands of them in the hands of Canadians, and they don't

00:55:14.820 know who owns them.

00:55:16.960 And so they want us to pre-register in this program and tell them that, hey, guess what?

00:55:22.080 I have one of these things.

00:55:23.220 And then in so doing, we register for the compensation program, which is a joke.

00:55:29.440 So everybody, I keep advising this.

00:55:32.820 It's not my legal advice, but I don't think it's a good idea to register for this program.

00:55:39.960 And people seem to be following, thinking along the same lines as me, because only about 20,000 firearms have been registered for this program, which expires on March 31st.

00:55:51.820 So the minister has a problem on his hands because after March 31st, he's going to have to figure out where the other 650,000 banned firearms are.

00:56:01.480 So people are not complying with his rule.

00:56:03.860 And that's why I said I'm not worried about him coming and knocking on my door.

00:56:07.240 If he wants to come and knock on my door and do an inventory of my firearms, that's not going to look good on the news for him.

00:56:12.840 Go ahead, call on the line.

00:56:14.620 Where are you calling from?

00:56:15.360 Name, please.

00:56:17.840 Hey, Marty, my name is Roger.

00:56:19.320 Can you hear me okay?

00:56:20.180 Yeah, yeah, perfectly.

00:56:20.980 Go ahead, Roger.

00:56:21.820 oh nice awesome uh first of all i'm such a big fan of years i've been following you

00:56:26.580 kind of on the different podcasts that you've been on and i think you're speaking a lot of

00:56:29.880 truth like i really believe in what you're saying i think you know the last 10 years have been really

00:56:34.500 tough on every albertan like it's just kind of i i won't swear but it's been really crappy for

00:56:40.300 for all of us i think you know the resource staff and just a through b it's just you know in my

00:56:45.840 opinion is it's just too big a country like i think you know i'm i'm born and raised in alberta

00:56:51.400 And, you know, my parents are East Indian. They came here in 1972. My father started with nothing. That's kind of our story. And, you know, he built himself up. It's the story of a lot of Albertans that have been here. And, you know, I think the more I've thought about separation, especially the last couple of years, that's my opinion. It's just the country's too big. My question to you is, you know, can you speak to the business owners and the people that do business and not just Alberta, the Canada, but in your mind, what does that look like?

00:57:18.100 How does that relationship change if separation is going to go through?

00:57:21.340 And again, thank you so much for being such a proponent of this.

00:57:24.700 I think you're a wonderful voice, and I really love hearing what you're saying.

00:57:27.560 Thanks so much.

00:57:28.400 Okay, perfect.

00:57:29.260 Thanks for calling, Roger.

00:57:32.880 First things, in the tour this week, I've been sitting down with one of the guys speaking with us,

00:57:39.240 a guy named Fergus Hodgson.

00:57:42.100 And as part of his talk, Fergus brings up a really cool concept,

00:57:45.960 which is the fact that the countries around the world have have come and gone and bigger countries

00:57:52.360 have shrunk into smaller countries and he brings up an interesting statistics that you know sort of

00:57:58.280 up until about the world war one world war ii like in the interwar periods we had something like 60

00:58:05.320 countries around the world so big um big uh what do you call them um kingdoms and and big uh big

00:58:12.920 areas right that england built a big empire and and europe was bigger countries and stuff like

00:58:19.160 that and then today around the world there's something like there's over 200 countries so

00:58:24.600 so in the same in the same surface there's three times more countries than there used to be 50

00:58:29.240 years ago which kind of points to your comment which is uh some areas become too big to manage

00:58:36.360 and just by geography you end up having regions that have really different interests right and

00:58:41.080 And I think we see that clearly in Canada, right?

00:58:43.860 So the local interest of somebody in Atlantic Canada is probably more focused on, you know, I'm going to be very generalist here, but they're more interested, let's say, in fisheries and their aging population.

00:58:59.540 And we're more interested in the fact that we have a younger population and our focus is oil.

00:59:05.200 So it's very different focuses, different geography, different climate, different realities, right? So I have longer distances to travel and I'm doing it on dirt roads or doing it on paved roads. I need guns because I need to control predators and so forth.

00:59:21.040 So the geography automatically leads to cultural differences and automatically leads to different interests and it becomes hard to, to, to, to manage. And I think that's, that's the pure example of what's happening in Canada. We're just too big. We're just too big to, to manage. And so we need to break up.

00:59:40.520 The second part of your question, though, was the businesses.

00:59:45.740 And, you know, we had one caller earlier say that in Quebec, some businesses were scared away because of the language laws and whatnot.

00:59:53.680 I'll say this about, in fact, I won't beat around the bush.

00:59:58.140 I don't think we can scare any more businesses away than we have, right?

01:00:02.100 So here in Alberta, we've scared away the capital.

01:00:06.120 The bad policies of Ottawa have made it such – I've lived it personally, right, as a senior manager in oil and gas.

01:00:15.200 Companies, banks from around the world and investors don't want to invest in Canada in general and not in Alberta.

01:00:21.860 They don't want to build anything here.

01:00:23.480 Daniel Smith says it all the time.

01:00:25.320 We can't even attract somebody to build a power plant here.

01:00:28.340 Nobody wants to build a power plant.

01:00:29.740 So across the country, I don't think we can scare business away more than we have.

01:00:34.980 That's the first part answer to your question. So then after that, businesses invest in areas. When businesses invest, they're only to thinking about two or three things. A business at its core will be, do I have a market? Is there somebody who wants the product that I have? And can I do something profitably? So that's the number one thing.

01:00:59.580 So if I spend a dollar, can I make a dollar 10?

01:01:02.840 So that's the first thing the businesses think.

01:01:04.980 The second thing they think of is how quickly can I do that?

01:01:08.040 Because the value of money, if I invest a dollar today, but it takes three years before

01:01:12.480 I break even on my investment and I even start making a profit, I'm not going to go

01:01:16.620 there.

01:01:16.900 So that's the risk.

01:01:18.020 And the risk is, is they look at risk of, will my customers disappear?

01:01:23.240 Will the laws change?

01:01:24.580 Well, whatever.

01:01:25.400 So if you think of the way a business thinks, they don't want to invest here in Canada and in Alberta because the risk and the timing is scaring them.

01:01:36.320 So an independent Alberta can easily address those problems by saying, come on in and we'll make sure we speed up the timeline so your money starts working for you quickly.

01:01:46.400 And we'll set a framework of rules that you can understand and you can manage your risk.

01:01:51.780 In fact, that's an interesting thing about risk is that companies can generally adjust to a lot of risk as long as they know the rules.

01:02:02.080 I used to do this all the time.

01:02:03.600 I don't really, really care about the rules.

01:02:05.180 If you tell me the rule is I need to do this, as long as I know that the rule is not going to change constantly, I can adjust.

01:02:12.320 I'll decide if I can meet the rules, if it's not too risky and if I can stay profitable.

01:02:17.280 So it's not the rules per se that scare investors.

01:02:20.000 It's the fact that the rules are changing constantly.

01:02:22.020 I don't know if I hope that makes sense.

01:02:23.960 But so Alberta.

01:02:25.620 Oh, it does.

01:02:26.260 Yeah.

01:02:26.520 So Alberta could be a very Alberta.

01:02:30.020 A common sense, Alberta will attract a lot of investors.

01:02:34.260 And Marty, I'll leave you with this.

01:02:36.020 This always blows my mind is that Alberta is like the fourth and fifth in the world in terms of the amount of oil that we have deposited.

01:02:43.420 And look at these countries that we're comparing ourselves to.

01:02:47.180 You look at the UAE, Saudi Arabia.

01:02:49.340 You know, if you're a citizen of those countries, you get meaningful benefits.

01:02:53.360 A good friend of mine is from UAE, and when he gets married, the government gives him $100,000 because they're trying to encourage, you know, citizens to get married.

01:03:01.840 I think, you know, Alberta separation is an unlock to a ton of wealth for the people that live here, and I think that's why Ottawa is here.

01:03:08.760 Marty, thank you so much.

01:03:09.820 I really appreciate you being the voice of this movement.

01:03:12.280 And again, I'm just a big fan.

01:03:13.860 So great to talk to you.

01:03:14.820 Appreciate it.

01:03:15.320 Thanks for calling.

01:03:16.160 All right, folks.

01:03:17.900 Okay.

01:03:18.340 Well, I'm glad a few more of you were brave and called.

01:03:21.760 Maybe the secret is picking a topic that's a little more controversial.

01:03:25.320 I don't know.

01:03:26.760 Definitely I'm happy with today's show and the questions you guys gave me.

01:03:30.420 Awesome questions.

01:03:31.940 Let me know in the comments what I can do differently,

01:03:34.920 what topics you'd like us to cover.

01:03:37.900 I see we're running out of time.

01:03:39.040 I'll do my quick. So thanks to the Western Standard for giving me a platform and allowing me to share my message.

01:03:47.520 And so a shout out to them.

01:03:51.440 Make sure if you, you know, I've said this before, all medias are a little bit biased.

01:03:56.620 That's fine. The Western Standard might be a little more right leaning.

01:03:59.620 I'm definitely more right leaning.

01:04:00.900 all all all medias are biased but a media like this is not in a conflict of interest because

01:04:10.260 it's not getting money from the government and so we're capable of reporting on any issue we want

01:04:16.180 because the money for us here for the western standard comes from you guys and so we work for

01:04:22.840 you guys and we will report what you want to hear whereas the cbc works for the government because

01:04:28.120 that's who pays them. So they're in conflict of interest. And so that said, we can't do this

01:04:33.460 without your support. So if you're not a member of the Western Standard, I encourage you to become

01:04:38.820 a member. Go to www.westernstandard.news. It's $10 a month or it's $100 a year. And hopefully

01:04:48.520 you guys will be back next week. I'm here on Thursdays at one o'clock looking for it. Like

01:04:53.340 I said, it's your show. So make sure you call in. All right. Cheers, folks.

01:04:58.120 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - March 30, 2026

MARTY UP NORTH： Plane Tragedy in New York and Ottawa’s Bilingualism Obsession

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