Western Standard - Monkeypox fearmongering is irresponsible

00:00:01.000 Good day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. It's my weekly platform to rant and rave and

00:00:07.460 turn your ear on what's got me worked up day by day. Plus, of course, I don't expose you

00:00:12.920 to just a 45-minute run of me going on. I have interesting guests and others to pitch

00:00:18.320 in along with news updates and other such goodies. This is a live show for a lot of

00:00:22.940 you anyways. If you're watching live, hey, use that comment scroll. I see Mr. Stanley

00:00:26.680 and Paradoxia already in there. You know, send questions my way, the guests' way. Chat

00:00:31.600 with each other. I appreciate it. I like seeing that moving in there. I won't necessarily read

00:00:34.760 them all out, but I do see them all and it helps keep the discussion long. Just stay somewhat

00:00:38.860 civil, guys. You don't have to go too far off the handle. We've got X for that. So today

00:00:43.560 I'm going to have Councillor from Calgary, Dan McLean, on. We've got some big things to talk

00:00:47.540 about. I mean, I understand there's a lot of listeners and viewers outside of Alberta,

00:00:51.580 but municipal issues are, you know, big across the country. We're all paying big prices for them.

00:00:59.280 I see one of the blunt comments and I'll address it and it's a good one. I was talking about that

00:01:02.480 before the show from Mr. Stanley saying, what the hell did you do to your hair, Corey? And you're

00:01:06.000 right. I kept putting off getting it cut. I tried gel on it today and it didn't work out with a crap.

00:01:10.240 So yes, I'll get the bloody haircut next week. I hate getting my hair cut. It's a pain in the butt. 0.99

00:01:14.240 Either way, deal with it. It's what's coming out of my mouth rather than what's coming out of my head 0.98

00:01:17.860 that's important today. So let's get on with what's got me worked up. And yeah, where, you know,

00:01:22.560 as you saw in the title, we're talking about monkey pox. Yeah. Or m-pox, as they like to say.

00:01:28.700 Authoritarians, they're eager to return to the heady days of national emergencies with

00:01:32.400 some sort of infectious disease to keep everybody afraid. They've been desperately seeking a new

00:01:37.160 pandemic for a couple of years and so far they've been out of luck. I mean, the bird flu failed to

00:01:41.380 captivate the developed world despite the best efforts of legacy media. And now the establishment's

00:01:46.120 trying again, and this is the second round of it, to convince the world that monkey pox is indeed

00:01:50.840 going to surge and threaten us all. We can't go a day without seeing a news item on monkey pox

00:01:56.720 and the threat that it allegedly presents. But the statistics just don't justify the attention

00:02:02.160 it's gathering. I mean, monkey pox came and went a couple of years ago, but it had very little impact.

00:02:06.800 There's now apparently a new strain we must watch for. Yes, of course, doesn't sound familiar,

00:02:10.460 the new strain. Currently, the number of people diagnosed in this Canada with this new strain

00:02:14.080 is zero. Whether you're looking at the old strain or the new strain, the death count in Canada

00:02:18.920 for both strains remains consistent at zero. You have as much chance of dying of monkey pox in Canada

00:02:24.760 as you do of leprosy, but you wouldn't know it from watching the news. Oh, you know, like I said,

00:02:29.460 we're supposed to call it M-pox since monkey pox is apparently insensitive to monkeys or something.

00:02:34.080 I'm going to keep simple and keep to the term monkey pox. I don't think too many monkeys read my

00:02:38.220 columns. Anyways, all that said, monkey pox does exist. It does sound like a nasty disease to catch,

00:02:43.260 even if it isn't fatal. It's going to make you pretty sick and your body could be covered with

00:02:46.960 oozing lesions that might scar like chicken pox. The news is also warning us that monkey pox could

00:02:52.080 come without symptoms. So how they know that remains a mystery because people without symptoms don't get

00:02:56.980 tested for monkey pox. But I guess that's somehow the experts know. Sounds familiar again, doesn't it

00:03:02.400 though? Asymptomatic COVID. I mean, that swept the world as well. Diseases have become so sneaky. We can't

00:03:07.380 even tell that we have many more. A part of the issue with monkey pox is that it's being predominantly 0.93

00:03:11.620 spread among the gay male community. That adds a political sensitivity element to the whole issue,

00:03:17.840 which tempts folks to try and claim this disease threatens everybody because we don't want to offend

00:03:21.800 anybody. But that's a dangerous and stupid approach to take with an infectious disease. That approach to 1.00

00:03:27.860 a novel disease was done before and it came at a cost of untold lives. You've got to remember for those of

00:03:32.580 us old enough, when AIDS first came upon the scene in the early 80s, the first reports were blunt and it was

00:03:36.280 pretty frightening. A new disease was sweeping the gay male community, predominantly in California, 1.00

00:03:40.320 and it was fatal. It was called gay acquired immune deficiency initially. Yeah, AIDS. And it was also 0.88

00:03:47.100 referred to as the gay cancer. I'm pretty insensitive, but it really got to the point, 0.94

00:03:50.540 didn't it? Now the word was gay, gay was dropped. And the term AIDS came from from there on in. But

00:03:55.480 as it became evident how horrible and dangerous this disease was, the strategy became one of trying

00:04:00.260 to tell everybody that they were at risk for it. When I was in high school in the 80s, we were told that

00:04:04.740 it would sweep the heterosexual community. Within years, we'd all know somebody with AIDS. It was a

00:04:08.800 frightening scenario for those of us entering our 20s and we were peachy approaching our peak

00:04:13.160 promiscuity. Thankfully, the warnings of the transmissibility of the HIV virus were greatly

00:04:18.100 exaggerated. The disease wasn't that easy to transmit through conventional sex. And while the spread was

00:04:24.320 devastating to those impacted, it certainly was. You can't understate that. It remained predominantly 1.00

00:04:28.580 within the gay male and IV drug using communities. That said, again, we can't understate it. It killed 1.00

00:04:33.960 millions of people and is still killing people today. But what if instead of pretending the disease was

00:04:38.160 hitting everybody equally, we'd set aside political correctness and targeted prevention and treatment

00:04:41.800 toward the communities that were hit worst. The lives have been saved if more outreach was directed

00:04:46.420 to the gay male and IV drug using communities rather than pretending it was a risk for everybody.

00:04:51.520 Resources for diagnosis, prevention and treatment surely could have been better utilized and more

00:04:55.900 effective if they've been directed to the areas where they were needed most. Instead, our medical experts

00:05:00.140 and social services were running around trying to tell heterosexual high school kids that they were at high

00:05:04.260 risk when they weren't. The disease never spread as they said it would, but the fear sure did.

00:05:10.040 Now, monkeypox isn't the threat that the panic porn pushers are trying to make it into, but it still

00:05:14.960 can be terrible for those affected. But let's not repeat the errors in the 80s and succumb to political

00:05:19.920 correctness rather than being guided by medical reality. Again, this is being predominantly spread in

00:05:24.700 the gay male community. If we want to prevent it from spreading and harming people, let's target 1.00

00:05:28.440 prevention, diagnosis and treatment to the communities most likely to be hit. It's not a slight

00:05:32.540 against the LGBTQ community to do this. If you really wanted to harm the community, I can't think

00:05:36.440 of a better way than to pretend this was a widespread problem outside of the community and spread the

00:05:40.780 resources too thin all over again. The left loves to how we'll follow the science when talking about

00:05:45.600 policy issues. Well, it's time we set political correctness aside and follow the science when it

00:05:50.940 comes to dealing with infectious diseases. Okay, that's what's got me going. Monkeypox kick off for

00:05:55.820 today. Let's see what else is happening in the news outside of infectious diseases. We've got our news

00:05:59.660 editor Dave Naylor in studio. How's it going, Dave? It's going well, Corey. I was watching TV last

00:06:04.460 night and the commercial came on for the world's most interesting guy. You know what I'm talking

00:06:08.520 about? That old series? Yeah. It was for a viewer or something. Yeah. I'm thinking, no, no. Corey

00:06:13.900 Morgan is the world's most interesting guy. A lot of people don't know before you became a world famous

00:06:19.620 media superstar, you had a series of other interesting careers, including that as a gold prospector.

00:06:27.840 And I understand you went back to your roots a few weeks ago. I did. We went out. We hit the,

00:06:32.780 yeah, here's the pictures. We went out by Kamloops there and dug some gravel and moved some,

00:06:38.100 some, and we found a few tiny flakes of gold. With a few hours work, I got almost like $20 worth of

00:06:43.080 gold out of there. I used to have claims. It was quite fun. I never made much money out of it.

00:06:46.320 I was going to say, what's the biggest nugget you ever found? Oh, I don't know. It was barely

00:06:49.340 measurable. We're talking a tenth of a gram sort of thing going on, but it was enough to make me

00:06:53.080 excited to see that literal flash in a pan anyway. Yeah, exactly. And then your beekeeping

00:06:57.340 is producing award-winning results already. It is now officially award-winning. Yes,

00:07:01.620 it was on a whim. It was Jane said, you know, we should, because they produced so much honey this

00:07:04.840 year. So you should put some of that into the county fair. I mean, the, the, the Millerville

00:07:08.840 Printis Fair is actually a very big one and we entered it. So what the hell? I could give him a

00:07:12.040 jar and we came in third out of, it turns out it was like nine entries. So yes, that was

00:07:16.100 award-winning honey. So we're going to, of course, have to triple the price.

00:07:19.220 Does it have an official name? No, just honey from the Morgan house right now. I, I, that's why

00:07:24.120 the marketing is more Jane's department. Okay. Well, yeah, you, you, uh, kindly gave me some,

00:07:28.800 I've got on my desk. I'm looking forward to that. And not only that, Corey, but you're even leading

00:07:33.300 off the website at the moment with, uh, your column on, uh, sort of a warning for BC, BC conservatives,

00:07:39.940 not to make the same mistake that we did in Alberta, which led to the election of, uh, uh, the NDP

00:07:46.220 government and they, they, they need to get together and not split the vote. I assume

00:07:50.720 is the point of your column. I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

00:07:53.700 Or even along the lines of, I mean, I know they're not going to merge at this point,

00:07:57.060 but the supporters have just got to understand there's only one that's got a realistic chance

00:08:00.740 of winning this move on to the other guys. Cause otherwise you're just getting four more

00:08:04.580 years of NDP. We figured it out the hard way.

00:08:06.440 And we actually had a poll yesterday showing rust ads, uh, three points up now.

00:08:10.940 Yeah.

00:08:11.340 It was utterly amazing to me. Uh, also is a story on roadkill, Corey roadkill, provincial

00:08:17.520 roadkill. And the stat that, uh, stood out to Sean Polzer was snakes. I hate snakes.

00:08:23.260 A good snake is a dead snake. So a couple of years ago, there were only two reported, uh, roadkill

00:08:29.380 snake deaths. Last year there was eight. This year we've got 400 already. So who can explain

00:08:36.420 that? Uh, we've got a story on crazy Fred Hahn. He's the, uh, uh, national QP leader and rabid,

00:08:43.420 uh, uh, anti-Israelite. Uh, he had a run in with Ontario labor minister, uh, uh, yesterday

00:08:50.420 and, uh, the labor minister put him straight and they got into a finger pointing, uh, argument.

00:08:55.920 And you can see that excitement on the website. Now, speaking of John Rustad, he's got a, uh,

00:09:02.420 uh, response to the, uh, opposition parties putting out a, uh, uh, uh, a tweet attacking

00:09:07.420 some of the statements that if, uh, his candidates have made and, uh, John Rustad points out his

00:09:13.420 free speech. You're still allowed that in this country. Uh, Ford has become the latest automaker

00:09:18.420 to hit, uh, to have, uh, hit the wall, I guess, with EV manufacturing. They've taken a $2 billion

00:09:24.420 hit on it and they're scaling back a whole bunch of, uh, production. Uh, we've got Premier

00:09:30.420 Smith firing back at that University of Alberta professor who mocked her for touring, quote,

00:09:35.420 white only, uh, Alberta. And, uh, your columnist colleague, uh, Linda Slobodin has got a good 0.55

00:09:42.420 piece on Nenshi and his, uh, what he called a gut punch reaction to reading about Daniel Smith's,

00:09:49.420 uh, looming imposition of, uh, pronoun policy in the, in the province. So.

00:09:54.420 Well, Linda's stuff's always great. Linda's stuff is always good. I think she's one of the best in the country

00:09:59.420 and we're very lucky to have her. And, uh, yeah, so that's, uh, that's what's going on now.

00:10:03.420 Great. Diverse mix of stories going on out there.

00:10:06.420 Oh, yeah. From roadkill to politics. I mean, we get, get everything, Corey.

00:10:10.420 Well, I'll let you back into digging. I hope you don't run into any of those snakes between here and your desk.

00:10:14.420 Well, you'll hear the, uh, sharp screen and then the thud of my body hitting the ground from a heart attack.

00:10:21.420 Well, we haven't seen any in the office yet, so.

00:10:23.420 No, thank goodness.

00:10:24.420 All right. Well, thanks, Dave. I'll see you after the show.

00:10:26.420 Thanks for it.

00:10:27.420 All right. And as you see, yes, lots going on, lots breaking. And I mean, this stuff's coming out.

00:10:32.420 We are a news organization. Those stories are coming, being posted as fast as they are breaking.

00:10:37.420 We've got a great crew in there in the newsroom and across the country.

00:10:40.420 The reason we can do that, guys, though, is because you've subscribed and this is where I got to nag you and remind you, though, 0.89

00:10:45.420 the reason the things that pay to keep Dave going on these things, making sure those snakes are kept up to date,

00:10:50.420 is folks paying $9.99 a month, a hundred bucks for a year, get past that paywall, keeps us going, keeps us independent.

00:10:56.420 So we aren't reliant on the government and we can report on what's important or even what's whimsical,

00:11:01.420 whether the snakes are important or not. There's a lot of other important things.

00:11:04.420 I mean, where else are you going to find an organization with the knackers to call out the idiocy with the monkeypox news lately? 0.99

00:11:12.420 Impox, whatever you call it. So, hey, check it out. 0.99

00:11:14.420 Westernstandard.news slash subscription. Take one out. It helps support us.

00:11:18.420 We appreciate it. And if you already have, thank you very much.

00:11:20.420 Spread the word. Get other people on board.

00:11:23.420 Something else I want to talk about.

00:11:25.420 And this is getting into the history of our publication.

00:11:27.420 If the name Ted Byfield brings back fond memories, well, we've got a party coming up for you guys.

00:11:32.420 On September 25th, Toasting Ted is what it's called.

00:11:35.420 It's going to honor a great conservative who published Alberta Report news magazine.

00:11:39.420 It's going to be bagpipes, singing, live auction stakes, speeches by Premier Smith, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper.

00:11:45.420 Quite a lineup.

00:11:46.420 And, you know, again, this, the Western standard is the final incarnation or the latest incarnation of Alberta Report that Ted Byfield founded.

00:11:56.420 And, I mean, he was a great Albertan.

00:11:58.420 He really made his mark on this province.

00:12:00.420 And this, this evening of celebration for him is really going to be outstanding.

00:12:03.420 It's an opportunity.

00:12:04.420 Get there.

00:12:05.420 ToastingTed.ca.

00:12:06.420 That's the website.

00:12:07.420 You can get your tickets.

00:12:08.420 This one's going to sell out.

00:12:09.420 I mean, again, if you want to see Smith, Manning, Harper, all in one spot, one night.

00:12:14.420 Be sure to get there.

00:12:15.420 ToastingTed.ca, guys.

00:12:16.420 And, yeah, celebrate the life of Ted Byfield.

00:12:19.420 And this whole family, Link and Vince.

00:12:21.420 I mean, they contributed for years in Alberta.

00:12:25.420 So, yeah, all sorts of stuff going on out there.

00:12:29.420 What are we looking at here?

00:12:32.420 You know, speaking of the constant fear porn, of the constant things making us afraid.

00:12:37.420 Here's a beauty out of CTV I read today.

00:12:40.420 It says, regularly eating red meats in particular is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

00:12:47.420 Yes, they're going after your meat consumption.

00:12:49.420 Again, this isn't new either.

00:12:50.420 You know, that legacy media.

00:12:51.420 And they've got to keep you afraid.

00:12:53.420 And they've got to keep you just against everything you might possibly take pleasure in in life.

00:12:57.420 Red meat, they're saying, could be associated.

00:13:00.420 Could be.

00:13:01.420 You see, you've got to watch these stories when they say could be.

00:13:04.420 But that doesn't seem to matter.

00:13:06.420 The headline's what matters.

00:13:07.420 You read into the story.

00:13:08.420 You get further.

00:13:09.420 Here's a sentence from that story.

00:13:11.420 The study was observational.

00:13:13.420 So the researchers couldn't conclude that the consumption of meat was the direct cause of the diabetes.

00:13:19.420 So in other words, they're guessing we kind of sort of might think that red meat is leading to more type 2 diabetes.

00:13:25.420 I mean, the reality is, I think with a lot of health issues, I'm not a doctor.

00:13:30.420 I'm going to limit the amount of health advice I give.

00:13:32.420 God knows I'm not going to give hairstyling advice.

00:13:34.420 It's, you know, being within reason, keeping your consumption within reason.

00:13:40.420 And if you have too much of anything, it's not good for you.

00:13:44.420 If you eat too much red meat or pretty much too much of anything you eat, too many donuts, you have too much salt, you have too much liquor, it's going to harm you.

00:13:51.420 It's going to make you sick.

00:13:52.420 It's going to make you unhealthy.

00:13:54.420 But it doesn't mean that any of those particular substances in and of themselves were terribly bad for you.

00:14:00.420 You just have to take them in moderation.

00:14:02.420 But that's no fun.

00:14:03.420 You know, dining in moderation, that headline doesn't get you anything going on, does it?

00:14:07.420 We've got to scare people.

00:14:09.420 No, red meat, guys, it's going to put you into the grave. 1.00

00:14:11.420 The grave is going to give you type 2 diabetes, we think.

00:14:14.420 Maybe.

00:14:15.420 Possibly.

00:14:16.420 And that's what they found headline-worthy there.

00:14:19.420 Let's see what else we've got.

00:14:20.420 A rail strike coming up.

00:14:22.420 That's a beauty on it.

00:14:23.420 Sean Polser is going to come in in a little while.

00:14:24.420 I suspect he'll have a little bit to say about that.

00:14:26.420 And that's something we've got to be concerned about.

00:14:29.420 Not that you might be that worried about rail lines in general, but it moves a lot of goods and people don't realize it.

00:14:36.420 The unions know what they're doing.

00:14:38.420 It's just like teachers love to go on strike either right at the end of the school year when the kids are all going to suffer because they won't be able to write their final exams.

00:14:48.420 Or they go on strike right at the end of summer when, you know, parents are trying to figure out what to do and getting their kids back into school.

00:14:56.420 And they hold the kids hostage and then they get very well compensated for it.

00:14:59.420 So the rail lines are doing this in harvest season.

00:15:01.420 They know exactly what they're doing and the unions are, I should say.

00:15:04.420 And this will be settled fairly fast.

00:15:06.420 It's going to cost us a lot, but we just can't afford to have that down for much longer.

00:15:11.420 All right.

00:15:12.420 Well, we've got our guest in the lobby and I've been looking forward to talking to him.

00:15:14.420 I haven't had him on in a while.

00:15:15.420 It's Calgary City Councillor Dan McLean.

00:15:18.420 And we're going to talk about a big infrastructure project.

00:15:20.420 Sounds dull, but you know, when you see your tax bill, these are pretty important things to talk about and cover.

00:15:25.420 And Councillor McLean's been very outspoken.

00:15:28.420 So thank you very much for joining us today, Dan.

00:15:31.420 Well, thanks for having me again, Corey.

00:15:33.420 I was waiting with, just sit by the phone.

00:15:36.420 When's he going to call me again?

00:15:37.420 Oh yeah, I'm certain that was the case.

00:15:40.420 Most people have my number on block actually, but I appreciate you're still being willing to indulge here.

00:15:45.420 And boy, you certainly, you know, often, I mean, summertime is a lot of things.

00:15:49.420 And I mean, summertime is kind of a dull time for municipal politics.

00:15:53.420 You know, I mean, a lot of you guys, you're busy.

00:15:55.420 You're hitting the communities.

00:15:56.420 You're hitting barbecues.

00:15:57.420 You're talking to people.

00:15:58.420 You're doing town hall meetings.

00:15:59.420 But you know, the news isn't that big, but this year has been different.

00:16:02.420 I want to start with, I guess, the green line that came out a report.

00:16:08.420 We were kind of waiting a long time.

00:16:09.420 It was kind of as people expected.

00:16:11.420 And for people not familiar with it who were watching from outside of Calgary, this is an extension of the light rail transit system,

00:16:18.420 the train system that just keeps getting more expensive and never seems to be getting built.

00:16:24.420 Can you kind of let us know what the status is going on with that, Dan?

00:16:27.420 So it came to council and we voted on it.

00:16:31.420 And I think the vote was nine to six to continue with the project.

00:16:36.420 But it's something I've been listening and been interested in since I got elected three years ago.

00:16:41.420 You talked to some of the city builders and the smart people in town like Steve Allen and Jim Gray, who have been.

00:16:48.420 You'll see different articles and op-eds, how they talk about how terrible this is, how this could bankrupt the city going underground.

00:16:57.420 We always have problems.

00:16:58.420 We could have flooding issues.

00:17:00.420 So I was well aware that there was some issues for the scope of the project.

00:17:06.420 Can we do it with the five and a half billion dollars that we've got for three levels of government?

00:17:10.420 And then over the last three years, we would get updates from the Green Line board.

00:17:15.420 And they never wanted to make anything public.

00:17:18.420 And they kept a lot of this stuff, even from council saying, yeah, we're on track, we're on budget.

00:17:22.420 There's been no accidents until as their deadline came close just a few months ago.

00:17:27.420 Then, boom, we had to make a decision right now that we're a billion and a half short.

00:17:32.420 And it's going to be a fraction of the size that we originally wanted it to be.

00:17:37.420 And then we had to go hustle up and see if we go find money from other levels of government, which I have a lot of friends in the provincial government.

00:17:45.420 But as you know, the UCP wasn't willing to throw any more money at what they call the Nenshi nightmare.

00:17:50.420 And the feds didn't either.

00:17:52.420 So what the city now has to do is we've drained our piggy banks from all sorts of different reserves.

00:17:58.420 We're going to increase our borrowing.

00:17:59.420 And again, we're not going to get hardly the near the line that we want.

00:18:04.420 So I'm really frustrated and disappointed.

00:18:06.420 I would hope to get a little bit more of a rethink on this and maybe a little bit of an audit on what more could go over budget,

00:18:14.420 because this is serious implications for what we can provide for services for the city if we spend all of our money on this.

00:18:21.420 Well, yeah.

00:18:22.420 And, you know, I guess just to play a bit of devil's advocate, there's some people just saying, pull the pin on this.

00:18:27.420 You know, there's no sense throwing good money after bad.

00:18:30.420 But then there's the people who put out point out the sunk cost case.

00:18:34.420 I mean, there's already been, I believe, one and a half billion spent on this.

00:18:37.420 The city's downtown has been ripped up for years as I guess they're rearranging underground utilities on it.

00:18:42.420 If they pull the pin on this thing, that would be all for nothing.

00:18:48.420 But at the same time, at the rate we're going, I don't know if there's ever going to be anything.

00:18:52.420 What sort of compromise might be found, though?

00:18:55.420 Well, there's the old saying, my dad told me don't throw good money after bad.

00:18:59.420 So, yes, we put a lot of money.

00:19:01.420 A lot of that money is put into land acquisition, which, again, we could sell or maintain.

00:19:06.420 That's an asset that isn't just thrown out the window.

00:19:09.420 Moving utility lines, that's an upgraded infrastructure, which, as we've seen with the water pipe, we're probably going to talk about later.

00:19:15.420 Maybe this needed to be done anyways.

00:19:18.420 You mentioned the downtown, and that's the biggest problem I had with it, and many others do as well, is why we focus so much on starting downtown.

00:19:27.420 Because that's where all the money goes as to the tunneling and the cost overruns could happen.

00:19:33.420 My suggestion was always to go with a BRT, a bus rapid transit.

00:19:39.420 The whole idea for this green line is just to move people around or vast transit.

00:19:43.420 And where are the people? Down in the deep southeast by the hospital and all the growth with the residents and commercial.

00:19:49.420 And we're not even coming close to that right now.

00:19:52.420 We're starting at going from downtown to Ogden and Milliken.

00:19:57.420 It's just a stub of a line.

00:19:58.420 So my compromise would be, Corey, to stop right now.

00:20:03.420 Let's do BRT from Seton all the way down to City Hall or at least to the Stampede Grounds.

00:20:10.420 Then you can hop on other trains, the red line or the blue line or different BRTs that go up Center Street.

00:20:15.420 And we could accomplish probably all of this within budget.

00:20:19.420 And that's usually the way we do things is you start off with a bus and then you increase ridership.

00:20:24.420 Then you go to a bus rapid transit and then you go to light rail.

00:20:27.420 So I think we're skipping a step here.

00:20:29.420 And again, it's going to cost a lot of taxpayers dollars.

00:20:32.420 So for big infrastructure, long term planning to cities have changed.

00:20:37.420 They've changed dramatically this last decade.

00:20:40.420 COVID sort of taught us that a lot of people have learned they can work from home and they've stayed working at home.

00:20:46.420 Like downtowns aren't what they used to be. Downtown Calgary isn't. No downtown is.

00:20:50.420 We don't necessarily really have that need to pile such a large population into a populated center as we used to.

00:20:58.420 And getting to the outlying areas like maybe we might want to start looking at designing cities to accommodate more complete communities in the suburbs rather than focusing all the time on downtown.

00:21:07.420 I completely agree. There's an ideology that's present around this city council.

00:21:14.420 The majority who are all against suburbs and growth, you know, out in our growing areas where people want to live, where we have new communities, we build it with density and amenities and everything you need there, right there.

00:21:26.420 And they've just really focused on this mass transit is you've got to go transit, transit, transit.

00:21:32.420 We're going to increase the residences downtown, which we are doing with office conversions.

00:21:37.420 Well, they don't, they're already living down here.

00:21:39.420 And not only are more people staying at home, in 10 years, by the time this thing is built, technologies are going to change where maybe this is outdated.

00:21:48.420 We have self-driving cars on the market already, you know, a robot van is going to come by and pick you up and run you across the whole city.

00:21:56.420 Who knows, maybe we'll have flying cars by then. That's what I've always been waiting for.

00:22:00.420 Well, and a BRT, a kind of a rapid bus route sort of thing can move people fast, it can be set up without nearly as much infrastructure investment.

00:22:08.420 And you can flex that later on if demand or need changed. One of the commenters, Paradoxa, you did say, is the ridership high enough to support a BRT going into from South Calgary into downtown?

00:22:20.420 Well, I believe so. The numbers they've given us so far, just for the Ogden Millican to downtown Eau Claire, which again would require going underground, was 33,000 riders per day.

00:22:32.420 But to achieve that, you'd have to send buses from all over where the people are to that point. So it's kind of a redundancy.

00:22:38.420 The Deep South, I think if we, again, this is what we have to look at our return on our investment, or to justify spending this much money, we'd have to have the ridership up.

00:22:48.420 And so you start with the BRT. We own the land, it's just going to be, they're successfully done down 14th Street, down on 17th Ave, going out to Chestermere, up Center Street.

00:22:58.420 They're very successful, and that does the job, and much less expensive. So that would be my preference, is if we could somehow pause this and do that instead.

00:23:08.420 Okay, so let's pivot, as you kind of mentioned before, into the other big issue of this year. And it's a big infrastructure project, though, and I think they're kind of tied together, because they cost a heck of a lot of money.

00:23:18.420 It's very essential. And that's the waterline catastrophe in Calgary this year, with the failing of that main line out in Bowness.

00:23:25.420 People had to have rationed water supplies for months, it looks like they're going to endure a bit more, as more upgrades go.

00:23:31.420 Just aside from this line itself, it's obvious, I mean, things wear out, they need to be replaced, they need to be upgraded.

00:23:39.420 But where's the money going to come from? I mean, you know, it's going to be a huge cost.

00:23:43.420 And I guess that's where we talk about prioritizing. Are you going to invest in a green line or maybe, maybe fix some water lines?

00:23:48.420 Yeah, priorities, maybe they should have thought of this years ago, we probably knew this was coming.

00:23:54.420 We're waiting on a report. I want an in depth report and an audit on that as well to see, when did we know this line was going to fail?

00:24:02.420 Do we have any warning signs? Who knew or what could have been done to prevent this?

00:24:08.420 Because I just feel terrible with, I have so many people in my ward and across the city that, you know, not only their own yards can't, their lawns are dying or their plants can't be watered.

00:24:17.420 But think of the businesses, the garden centers and the landscapers.

00:24:20.420 I was on the phone this morning with the sod father, you know, sod guy, one of the big, he's one of the little guys, there's big ones.

00:24:27.420 But they're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, after they already got shut down by COVID.

00:24:32.420 Now that we're doing this to them, so the city is not providing that one basic essential service, we should be focusing on those things on your police and your fire and your central services.

00:24:43.420 This is what we should be doing in some of these big vanity projects sometimes.

00:24:47.420 So, yes, we should be, we know it's coming, and I don't want to raise taxes enough.

00:24:54.420 We just have to find the money from probably efficiencies or maybe reducing the bureaucracy of the city administration would be awesome.

00:25:03.420 But this is definitely a problem, and we have to get on top of this before it gets worse.

00:25:08.420 Yeah, so getting into savings, actually, I'm glad you mentioned that.

00:25:11.420 I saw a posting of yours on X, I believe just today, talking about reducing bureaucracy.

00:25:17.420 Are you speaking then to a degree of potentially reducing the amount of people working for the city?

00:25:22.420 I mean, there could be, it is most definitely probably a demand for it, but that's a pretty touchy area for politicians to get into when you worry about organized labor.

00:25:31.420 Yeah, you know what, Corey? Yes, I did that this morning.

00:25:35.420 I've been saying this since day one.

00:25:37.420 You know, City Hall is just in all levels of government, but I've seen City Hall just increase its size.

00:25:43.420 Each department, the planning department, the parks department, you name it.

00:25:47.420 We hired over a thousand people last year alone.

00:25:51.420 And if you multiply, they're getting paid more than you or me are getting paid, you know, these guys.

00:25:56.420 So you're talking hundreds of millions or $100, $150, $200 million, that pays for a lot of infrastructure.

00:26:01.420 And when it does, I just, I would like to get inside that as well with an audit and see, do we need to add 50 people?

00:26:08.420 There used to be 10 people running this department.

00:26:10.420 Do we need managers upon managers upon managers?

00:26:13.420 This is what we seem to have when you talk to the people on the street.

00:26:16.420 You know, you talk about the unions that, you know, our police and our fire and the guys in the ditches and delivering, you know, the city services.

00:26:23.420 Yes, those are essential. Those people are doing their job.

00:26:26.420 It's still that they have 10 managers above them.

00:26:29.420 That's the problem. And I guarantee you, we can find all sorts of fat to cut. 0.97

00:26:32.420 Yeah. So bloated bureaucracies.

00:26:34.420 I mean, they are an issue at every level of government or even businesses.

00:26:37.420 If they get too big once in a while, they kind of got to get in there and root out the pipes a bit to get efficient again.

00:26:42.420 So, you know, there's going to be, I guess, if any time a city hall is receptive, it's in an election year and we're kind of approaching one.

00:26:51.420 You know, that's always the one year when Calgary won't raise property taxes.

00:26:54.420 They always defer at the one year before election.

00:26:56.420 And then usually there's a nice big hike the year after.

00:26:58.420 But, you know, it's an interesting council.

00:27:01.420 I mean, you can only speak for where you are with Ward 13, but still the feel of it.

00:27:04.420 What do you think in this coming year we can look forward to out of Calgary City Hall?

00:27:09.420 Well, already, mainly because of this water pipe and because of the Green Line is the biggest ticket item.

00:27:16.420 Like I said, we're talking to one and a half billion dollars coming out of our reserves or future spending that could put other capital projects on hold,

00:27:24.420 whether it's a fire department station or police services or even, you know, field houses, all sorts of things that we can do that people need.

00:27:33.420 And you can't even do that with our existing budget.

00:27:36.420 The only way to do that is by raising taxes.

00:27:38.420 So you're correct.

00:27:40.420 Most people, the will is now all of a sudden the first three years when I've been saying this is, you know,

00:27:45.420 we have three successive tax increases in a row, large ones, and they're compounded.

00:27:50.420 So now they're talking about, you know, dumping other some projects that are on the books, almost every project on the book and trying to keep taxes low, which I hope people see through that.

00:28:02.420 And just watch how people vote, who voted for these tax increases, who voted for all these different subsidies to so many different committees.

00:28:09.420 We have committees and subcommittees and all these different civic partners.

00:28:14.420 We're pretty free spending.

00:28:16.420 And that's just got to stop, not just in election years, but every year.

00:28:19.420 Yeah, well, I'm certainly hoping that some of that attitude gets out to among your colleagues and we can work towards some changes.

00:28:26.420 Because, I mean, the tax increases, just the cost of living is pressuring everybody terribly these days.

00:28:31.420 It's just been something else.

00:28:33.420 I'll throw one last one at you. 0.98

00:28:35.420 I didn't warn you on it.

00:28:36.420 But still, the arena.

00:28:37.420 I mean, that's a big one.

00:28:38.420 It's controversial.

00:28:39.420 It's kind of the gears are turning on it.

00:28:41.420 That's fine.

00:28:42.420 I just, the only question I have is, do we have controls to make sure that doesn't blow the budget or ways to watch as it develops?

00:28:48.420 Because it's going to be a big project and take in a while.

00:28:50.420 Yeah, there's two ways of looking at that.

00:28:53.420 And I kind of toss out the people saying we're just giving money to billionaires.

00:28:57.420 And it's not millionaire hockey players.

00:28:59.420 In this case, I don't believe that.

00:29:01.420 As far as cost overruns, no, I'm reassured.

00:29:05.420 I've been through this whole process, was on the committee.

00:29:08.420 I'm pretty confident that we're going to stay within budget.

00:29:10.420 The province chipped in $350 million for infrastructure around, which we got to, which lowers our cost around, say, $800 million.

00:29:19.420 And then CSEC is paying a lease payment of $17 million of flames ownership per year, plus $40 million up front.

00:29:26.420 And that covers most of that bill as a tenant.

00:29:28.420 There's going to be other revenues as well.

00:29:30.420 And then there's a tax lift.

00:29:32.420 There'll be a lot of property development and new entertainment district and a lot of different buildings that go in and they call it a community revitalization levy.

00:29:40.420 So they pay a levy on the growth there, which will go into that.

00:29:43.420 And just the fact that if we don't have a hockey team in a major city, I mean, you don't have to drive to Edmonton to watch the orders all the time.

00:29:52.420 You can't watch the flames or track good concerts or Disney on ice.

00:29:56.420 We've got four other sports teams that are playing out of there as well.

00:29:59.420 So it had to be done.

00:30:01.420 Was it the best deal? Hell no.

00:30:03.420 The first deal was a lot better for the city.

00:30:06.420 But, you know, the mayor and council blew that one all the hell.

00:30:09.420 So we had to start over again.

00:30:11.420 And I think, yeah, see, flames ownership got a much better deal this time because they had our backs against the wall.

00:30:16.420 So I'm not happy the way it went down, but I am happy that it's we're going to have a new facility and I will be keeping an eye out on the cost overruns.

00:30:25.420 Well, great. Well, I appreciate you keeping an eye on things and coming on to talk to us today, Dan.

00:30:30.420 I'll let you get back to that tail end of August.

00:30:32.420 I know you've got a heck of a year to look forward to.

00:30:34.420 Before I let you go, I guess, where could people, you know, reach you or see what's going on out there?

00:30:40.420 You just go to my web page, Dan McLean, on the Calgary web page.

00:30:44.420 And then you dial in to Dan McLean.

00:30:46.420 You'll see I'm the only councillor that publishes my voting record on my city page.

00:30:50.420 I think everybody should do that.

00:30:52.420 We do have an election coming up, like you said, and there will be a whole different aspect with political parties.

00:30:57.420 We'll see how that unfolds.

00:30:58.420 But I just really encourage everybody to look into the research and what your councillor and local area councillor stands for,

00:31:04.420 what their platform is and make sure that they hold them accountable.

00:31:08.420 So we get a little bit more fiscal responsibility and some more common sense down here at City Hall.

00:31:13.420 I do appreciate that.

00:31:14.420 Yeah. And those putting in those voting records has always been a great thing.

00:31:17.420 So thank you very much for joining me.

00:31:18.420 I hope we can talk again soon because, as I said, I think it's going to be a pretty busy year in your spectrum of politics.

00:31:24.420 And we appreciate your voice on it.

00:31:26.420 I appreciate that.

00:31:27.420 Your work you do as well, Corey.

00:31:28.420 Great. Thanks, Dan.

00:31:29.420 Okay. Bye now.

00:31:30.420 So again, that was Dan McLean.

00:31:32.420 He's the Ward 13 councillor and he stands out in a council of individuals, I guess you could say.

00:31:38.420 I'm going to be polite here on the show, you know, that I've been very critical of online and I think for a lot of good reason.

00:31:44.420 And Councillor McLean's added a lot of common sense and he just says it like it is, which is rare.

00:31:49.420 He doesn't hide, you know, with word salads and, you know, avoid the issues like others do.

00:31:55.420 And they're tough issues.

00:31:56.420 They're difficult ones.

00:31:57.420 People get worked up.

00:31:58.420 The entertainment district, Mr. Stanley's pointing out, how does this play into 15-minute cities?

00:32:05.420 Who's going to be able to use it?

00:32:06.420 Well, that's a mixed thing.

00:32:08.420 See, that's one of the ones I see is controversial.

00:32:10.420 I have issues.

00:32:11.420 The bottom line is we're into it.

00:32:13.420 But I mean, some people can say, well, you still feel you could pull out of a green line, but you can't pull out of an arena.

00:32:17.420 Well, there's a bit of a different partnership with a private interest going on now.

00:32:21.420 This is where I think I'm offside with most Calgarians. 0.97

00:32:24.420 This is where conservatives can sometimes have some double standards going on, I find.

00:32:29.420 And it's not unique to Calgary by any means.

00:32:31.420 We want to stay out of the private sector.

00:32:33.420 We don't want tax dollars going into it.

00:32:35.420 But, oh, my home team needs an arena.

00:32:36.420 Well, you know, suddenly maybe I could afford to have someone like, well, you know, we have a bit of a double standard there.

00:32:42.420 On a bigger issue, supply management is one I love going on about.

00:32:45.420 We're conservative.

00:32:46.420 We're conservative.

00:32:47.420 We're conservative.

00:32:48.420 Oh, well, what about that Soviet-style supply dairy management system?

00:32:51.420 Oh, well, we don't want to talk about that right now.

00:32:53.420 Well, we got to get a little more consistent.

00:32:57.420 In the past, in the last council, we had Jeremy Farkas who was on there.

00:33:02.420 One of the things that Jeremy did that Dan does, as he pointed out, is he keeps his voting records public.

00:33:08.420 I believe that's what Farkas did with the Manning Institute.

00:33:10.420 And the Manning Institute used to really put it to City Hall when it was niche because they would publish those.

00:33:15.420 Because it's weird, you know, provincially, federally, you've got Hansard.

00:33:19.420 You can see where the MPs and MLAs voted and what they did.

00:33:22.420 But City Hall tries to keep that information as tight as possible.

00:33:26.420 And that way, the less principled members sometimes can just hide from their own history and avoid it.

00:33:33.420 And, you know, you should wear what your votes were.

00:33:35.420 You should keep them down the road.

00:33:37.420 And McLean's been doing that.

00:33:38.420 And it's good because that puts pressure on the other ones.

00:33:40.420 Because, hey, if the other ones won't do it, it's a pretty simple question.

00:33:43.420 Well, if he can, why can't you?

00:33:45.420 And then you can research and see what you may or may want, may not want to vote for as things go.

00:33:51.420 So speaking, I'm glad he approached the bureaucracy, too, and the bureaucrats, the people, the inefficiency, the problems.

00:33:57.420 And again, we have that on every level.

00:33:59.420 This was an interesting one that came out on Black Locks with the federal bureaucrats.

00:34:03.420 It's federal buildings, the office buildings, even before the pandemic.

00:34:07.420 Because right now we've got all those civil service fighting, returning to work for more than two days a week, as it is.

00:34:11.420 Or returning the office.

00:34:13.420 They work very hard from home, you know.

00:34:15.420 Yeah.

00:34:16.420 Try calling one.

00:34:17.420 Those offices were 40% empty before the pandemic.

00:34:21.420 These guys weren't even going there before the pandemic happened.

00:34:25.420 The pandemic just gave them an excuse.

00:34:27.420 We've got room.

00:34:28.420 I mean, this is some numbers.

00:34:30.420 According to a briefing note, 50% of the office space was vacant in the national capital region.

00:34:35.420 And prior to the pandemic, it was underutilized by 40%.

00:34:39.420 This is our money going.

00:34:41.420 Meanwhile, even though Trudeau hired 40% more civil servants in his period in office.

00:34:47.420 Yeah, it's bloated by 40% more.

00:34:49.420 They still had 40% vacancy going on in those offices.

00:34:53.420 They're just giving checks to people to sit around home, play Minecraft and self abuse.

00:34:57.420 You can read into that whatever you like.

00:34:59.420 But it gets tiresome.

00:35:01.420 And you look at most of the big bills.

00:35:03.420 When you look at big bills for tax dollars, it's usually salaries.

00:35:06.420 That's a huge, huge part of it.

00:35:08.420 We're paying a whole heck of a lot of people to do not very much at all.

00:35:14.420 And Paradox, he's saying Black Locks is doing amazing work.

00:35:18.420 And he's right.

00:35:19.420 You know, they're fantastic.

00:35:20.420 They're a new service.

00:35:21.420 We get a lot of our stuff from there.

00:35:22.420 They dig through those records.

00:35:24.420 They dig through the committee notes, through the meetings.

00:35:26.420 All that stuff's there.

00:35:27.420 You know, what the government does is, you know, I never could get that word obfuscate.

00:35:32.420 Either way, they bury their info, baffle with BS.

00:35:35.420 They stuff it in there, in reports, in long, boring things.

00:35:39.420 And Black Locks gets in there and digs into those. 0.65

00:35:42.420 They get into the Gazette and the Hansard and things like that and find those gems and they share them with us.

00:35:47.420 So this was a briefing note that they found.

00:35:49.420 But, boy, think about that.

00:35:51.420 40% empty.

00:35:52.420 Prior to the pandemic and for years, would any, well, there's some pretty bad private businesses.

00:35:56.420 But most private businesses, would they sit with 40% of their facilities empty for such an extended period of time?

00:36:04.420 Of course they wouldn't. 0.90

00:36:05.420 It's ridiculous. 0.97

00:36:06.420 But you get to pay for that. 0.97

00:36:07.420 You get to pay for those empty offices and those people to sit at home and serve you so well.

00:36:12.420 I mean, try to call the CRA or get a passport renewed and just see how hard they're working indeed.

00:36:18.420 All right.

00:36:19.420 Well, let's talk to somebody who does work hard.

00:36:20.420 And that's our business and energy specialist here.

00:36:24.420 Sean Polzer, he's in studio and you've had a lot going on.

00:36:27.420 Boy, all kinds of things between the rail line and energy news and 7-Eleven.

00:36:32.420 Yeah, there's been tons of, no shortage of business news to go around.

00:36:36.420 It's actually, it's hard to kind of pick out some of the hot dates.

00:36:39.420 Yeah.

00:36:40.420 So, well, what do we got going on?

00:36:41.420 What's burning a hole through your laptop today?

00:36:43.420 Oh, well, you know, we've, the ongoing saga of Harley Davidson.

00:36:46.420 Oh, yeah.

00:36:47.420 And Robbie Starbuck down in the States, the DEI Crusader.

00:36:51.420 I think he was a former Republican candidate there during the midterms.

00:36:55.420 I think it was for Congress anyway.

00:36:57.420 So he has been putting pressure on Harley Davidson.

00:37:00.420 And it coincided with the Sturgis motorcycle rally down in South Dakota.

00:37:05.420 I don't know if you know what Sturgis is.

00:37:06.420 Yeah, I do.

00:37:07.420 Yeah, it's huge.

00:37:08.420 It's like half a million bikers descend on a small little town in the Black Hills.

00:37:13.420 And 90% of them are riding Harleys.

00:37:15.420 And apparently they were none too pleased with Harley Davidson this year.

00:37:20.420 And on the final day of the rally, Harley caved in, wrapped up and put out a statement,

00:37:25.420 said that they are abandoning their DEI policies and inclusion,

00:37:30.420 and will no longer support pride rallies for 12 year olds and the like.

00:37:34.420 Yeah.

00:37:35.420 So, well, it's funny with the whole trend of these companies going into DEI and woke causes.

00:37:39.420 I mean, it's been all companies, kind of.

00:37:41.420 I think what we're seeing though, is where it's crumbling is the misfires where there were companies

00:37:45.420 that most definitely their customer base weren't the woke types.

00:37:49.420 I mean, bud drinkers, John Deere, you know, tractor purchasers, and now Harley Davidson's.

00:37:54.420 These just aren't, these aren't downtown latte lapping hipsters that these guys are annoying.

00:37:59.420 These are bikers, farmers, and beer drinkers.

00:38:02.420 Well, and that's absolutely correct.

00:38:04.420 And, you know, the one thing that they have in column is that they're all Fortune 500 companies.

00:38:08.420 So, you know, Mr. Starbuck, he's only on number three.

00:38:11.420 He's batting three for three now, but he's got like a whole long list to go.

00:38:15.420 And we're all just kind of sitting here waiting on our hands to see what the next one is going to be.

00:38:20.420 I don't know.

00:38:21.420 Like, what do you think?

00:38:22.420 Pepperidge Farms.

00:38:24.420 I mean, I haven't watched that closely.

00:38:26.420 Maybe even some of the smaller companies, but I don't know if you can directly correlate that with the going woke thing.

00:38:31.420 But, you know, Bed Bath and Beyond.

00:38:32.420 I mean, they're up Fiscal, Crap Creek, and a few other large outfits.

00:38:38.420 Though, I mean, that could be related to retail having a hard time and things like that.

00:38:40.420 But they were very woke companies, and they're doing very badly.

00:38:44.420 Well, and they're also kind of targeted to specific demographics.

00:38:47.420 So Bed Bath and Beyond, you could say suburban women, you know, the kind that in the American election right now are, you know, 1.00

00:38:53.420 kind of leaning away from some of these woke things for themselves, right?

00:38:58.420 Yeah.

00:38:59.420 Maybe there's some sub-demographics going on in there.

00:39:01.420 It's interesting to watch.

00:39:03.420 And also whether or not it would happen up here.

00:39:05.420 I can't even think of, like, what would be a great Canadian company that would be.

00:39:09.420 I don't know.

00:39:10.420 It's Tim Hortons.

00:39:11.420 I mean, they've had little things that have happened, but they haven't really gone overboard with the woke that much, or not that we've seen.

00:39:17.420 I mean, they do little things every company does now.

00:39:19.420 Yeah.

00:39:20.420 But that would be an institution to come down if they somehow stepped in it.

00:39:24.420 And then, of course, we've got the pending rail strike.

00:39:26.420 Yes.

00:39:27.420 Midnight tonight, Thursday.

00:39:28.420 I live in Bonass, so the train's come screaming through the river valley there.

00:39:32.420 So I might be able to get some sleep tonight, hopefully.

00:39:35.420 So somebody sees a bright side. 0.98

00:39:38.420 Hey, it's only a billion a day in goods, but damn, I'm going to get a good sleep. 0.98

00:39:42.420 Okay. 0.98

00:39:43.420 Well, that's good.

00:39:44.420 I'll know if they're actually locked up.

00:39:47.420 That's how to find a silver lining.

00:39:48.420 But there's a lot of different angles on that one.

00:39:50.420 So I've got a story just going up right now about propane.

00:39:54.420 So 96%, 97% of all the propane produced in Canada comes from mostly from the Edmonton area, but Alberta and Saskatchewan.

00:40:03.420 And about 85% of it goes down east.

00:40:06.420 And it gets funneled off into Michigan on the Enbridge pipeline on this line five that they want to shut down because Canada's largest supplier of propane into Michigan.

00:40:16.420 Quebec, about eight.

00:40:19.420 Quebec uses a lot of propane, I believe.

00:40:21.420 It's its backup power system because it relies so heavily on hydro, right?

00:40:25.420 So whereas in Alberta, like hospitals can use diesel fuel in Quebec, they're all geared up for propane.

00:40:32.420 And they've only basically got about a week's supply.

00:40:35.420 So it's going to be interesting to see who's going to cave first here, right?

00:40:39.420 If it's going to be like the Western provinces and the agricultural producers, or if it's going to be these propane people down east.

00:40:47.420 Or will the government cave in the sense, I mean, they've been trying to avoid suddenly being stuck in a position of imposing binding arbitration on this.

00:40:54.420 They don't want to get in the middle of it if they can avoid it.

00:40:59.420 But I mean, the pressures are going to come from premiers, from large companies, from producers, from Quebec homeowners.

00:41:06.420 Oh, yeah, absolutely. And they've already caved in on fuel oil in the Maritimes.

00:41:10.420 And, you know, here's another thing, like after fuel oil, propane is a primary source of heating, power, cooking fuel in places like Prince Edward Island that don't even actually have direct rail access.

00:41:22.420 They have to ship it by rail to like New Brunswick and then put it over the Confederation Bridge on trucks, right?

00:41:29.420 Well, I don't, so I don't think the strike's going to, I mean, it's going to be costly strike lockout, whatever we want to call it.

00:41:34.420 But I can't imagine it lasting too long because the cost of them not moving those goods is just going to be too high.

00:41:39.420 It's going to be enormous. And then finally, we've got, so we're coming up at the end of the month on global and we've kind of been following this saga too.

00:41:48.420 We have kind of an insider over there who's kind of kept us in the loop on some of the, I don't know what you'd call it, the failings of a mainstream media giant darling that used to be worth about $20 billion.

00:41:59.420 It's now only worth about $250 million.

00:42:02.420 Oh, yeah, it's been a collapse.

00:42:04.420 So long time news anchors like Linda Olson and I think there was Weatherman up in Edmonton, you know, they've been there since CITV days.

00:42:12.420 You know, they're all leaving here at the end of the month, they're getting their packages.

00:42:15.420 And the company is going to be renegotiating its debt covenants with its lenders.

00:42:22.420 And there's a few wrinkles in there because you've got foreign ownership limits on media.

00:42:28.420 It could be a similar situation like you had with Canwest where, as opposed to having direct investment in the company, you had, you know, American hedge funds come up and buy the debt and then basically just milk it for the interest rates and rag it on the way down.

00:42:44.420 It's not a rosy outlook from it.

00:42:46.420 I mean, it's an industry that just, I mean, they need to reevaluate and restructure and reconsider how they do everything.

00:42:52.420 But if they're capable of it at this point.

00:42:54.420 Well, it's not just in Canada either, because the whole cable, the whole cable TV industry in the United States is undergoing this whole shuffle as well.

00:43:03.420 So down in Los Angeles, the big studios are cutting staff and closing things.

00:43:09.420 And it all has to do with the cable network shows that they're producing that are now the enemy at the gate is Netflix, you know, in the streaming services like Disney.

00:43:20.420 And it's hard to compete with.

00:43:21.420 I mean, I got to admit at home, I barely go on a conventional TV anymore.

00:43:24.420 I got prime.

00:43:25.420 I got Netflix.

00:43:26.420 I use Dazzin for my sports fix.

00:43:29.420 I mean, how those networks compete, they're going to have to figure it out.

00:43:33.420 I watch TSN for CFL football.

00:43:35.420 Yeah, I'm an NFL guy.

00:43:39.420 My season's coming in a few weeks.

00:43:41.420 All right.

00:43:42.420 Well, thank you very much for the update then today.

00:43:45.420 And we'll let you get back in there to ghoulishly watch these companies collapsing for DEI, rail stoppages and media revaluing while you get a good sleep because the lack of trades.

00:43:57.420 Well, let's just say that I'm happy to be here.

00:44:00.420 My opportunity to make you look so heartless when I'm usually the one accused.

00:44:03.420 All right.

00:44:04.420 All right.

00:44:05.420 Thanks, Sean.

00:44:06.420 All right.

00:44:07.420 Yes.

00:44:08.420 Again, watch it.

00:44:09.420 I mean, yeah, that global story was topping our traffic for a while because there's an attachment.

00:44:14.420 Things have changed.

00:44:15.420 But we really did attach to our old media personalities.

00:44:18.420 And Linda Olsen, I mean, she was a news reader. 0.97

00:44:20.420 She wasn't getting into the mix and the opinion and all of that.

00:44:23.420 She was just a valued voice for a long time.

00:44:25.420 A lot of them were.

00:44:26.420 I mean, I rip into legacy media all the time, but it doesn't mean there weren't actually and aren't still some very good people in there.

00:44:32.420 Some people who really put in good service for a long time.

00:44:34.420 And I don't want to celebrate their losing their jobs. 0.98

00:44:37.420 I'm celebrating the end of the old legacy media establishment because it's garbage. 1.00

00:44:44.420 It's gone to hell. 0.99

00:44:46.420 But it's still sad to see some of the people disappearing like that.

00:44:50.420 And I guess I'll close out with one person who passed away.

00:44:53.420 People in Calgary and area would know him.

00:44:55.420 Others outside of there wouldn't.

00:44:56.420 But it's kind of an aspect of old school type of TV.

00:44:59.420 His name was Ron Barge.

00:45:00.420 In Calgary, he was known as Buckshot.

00:45:02.420 And when I was a kid at lunchtime, when you get home from school, you'd rush in and you'd watch the Buckshot show.

00:45:07.420 And it was produced in Calgary.

00:45:08.420 If you were lucky, your parents submitted your name on your birthday and you'd have your name read on TV by Buckshot.

00:45:13.420 It was one of your biggest thrills of your young life.

00:45:15.420 Unfortunately, he he passed away the other day.

00:45:18.420 And but it shows those personalities that did build in local TV stations.

00:45:22.420 In those days, every city kind of had their own, you know, children's show host and their news hosts and their personalities.

00:45:29.420 And they were part of the community.

00:45:31.420 And it was a whole big thing.

00:45:32.420 And those days are gone.

00:45:33.420 And it's sad.

00:45:34.420 It's sad that they passed, but we can't turn the clock back.

00:45:36.420 But either way, I just, you know, want to send that hat tip to Buckshot.

00:45:40.420 I see a few of the commenters remembering it.

00:45:42.420 It's a sad passing.

00:45:43.420 I mean, he lives a long, full life.

00:45:45.420 But, you know, it's a lot of nostalgia.

00:45:47.420 And we grew up with him and Benny the Bear and the others on there.

00:45:50.420 So either way, we'll close out on that.

00:45:53.420 The new media is still here.

00:45:54.420 We're still going strong, guys.

00:45:55.420 And it's thanks to you.

00:45:56.420 And we appreciate it.

00:45:57.420 News isn't going away.

00:45:58.420 It's just changing.

00:46:00.420 So thanks for tuning in today, guys.

00:46:02.420 Tune in to the pipeline later on tonight.

00:46:04.420 Check out ToastingTed.ca if you want to get to that event in Edmonton.

00:46:08.420 I'll be up there for that.

00:46:09.420 It's going to be really good about, you know, looking into Ted Byfield

00:46:11.420 and remembering his life and contributions.

00:46:14.420 And, again, share those.

00:46:16.420 Share the links.

00:46:17.420 You know, do all that.

00:46:18.420 Hit the like button.

00:46:19.420 All those things that the influencers talk about.

00:46:21.420 But it is important.

00:46:22.420 This is how we stay on top and keeping up there as an independent media source.

00:46:26.420 So thanks again.

00:46:28.420 We will see you next week at this time.

00:46:30.420 Bye.

00:46:31.420 Bye.

00:46:33.420 Bye.

00:46:35.420 Bye.

00:46:36.420 Bye.

00:46:37.420 Bye.

00:46:38.420 Bye.

00:46:39.420 Bye.

00:46:40.420 Bye.

Western Standard - August 22, 2024

Monkeypox fearmongering is irresponsible

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