Western Standard - Mountain Standard Time - Episode 45.5 The Epilogue

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to mountain standard time i'm your host nathan guida and today i'm joined by

00:00:12.220 aaron ackman for our final show before hiatus we're going to speak a little bit of the bc

00:00:17.180 wildfire situation and a few other odds and ends that are going to come up of course the federal

00:00:21.020 election is looming and we'll comment on that uh stewart parker sends his regrets he could not be

00:00:25.840 here today uh and he's traveling in the midst while but we are going to have aaron on and it's

00:00:31.060 going to be a grand old time for this last show before hiatus my final statement for the mountain

00:00:37.460 standard time platform before we go on our little break here is the following so technically this

00:00:43.480 episode would have been the 46th but i figured 45 numbered shows with an epilogue was more poetic

00:00:49.620 i want to begin by saying that i'm very thankful to all of our friends and our fans and for that

00:00:54.940 matter our foes and our commenters as well as detractors uh your contributions comments and

00:01:00.800 corrections were actually the most important part of this uh and rewarding rewarding part of this

00:01:05.640 uh role uh on the western standard and i'm also very thankful to western standard for the opportunity

00:01:10.600 i i had on this platform not saying that that's the end of that i'm saying that hey

00:01:15.000 we're going on a bit of a break here maybe we'll have an entirely different show format when we come

00:01:21.060 back uh i want to be clear that uh one of the things that's interesting to stay tuned for when

00:01:27.340 it does come to what the western standard is doing is it's going to try and make things smoother on

00:01:30.800 this stuff so they're going to get a bit of videography in there they're going to do some

00:01:34.120 editing in there they're going to try and do fade in fade outs it's going to be a lot of fun so

00:01:37.780 do stay tuned for how things are going to change you're trying to kick it up a notch so

00:01:41.300 stay invested stay tuned to what's happening and uh let us know what you think send comments

00:01:47.340 questions concerns our way via email but before i do take this break where i get to go off and

00:01:52.200 get married have a honeymoon and come back to you guys after all that bliss i'd like to make a few

00:01:57.720 last declarations so the first thing i have to say is that i truly believe that when it came to

00:02:03.300 covid the pandemic and the lockdowns we had a fundamental change in this country and it was a

00:02:08.160 really interesting position to be in media when that happened so again i'm thankful for that

00:02:12.460 position i was afforded that vantage point and i'm hopeful that the comments i made during that

00:02:18.640 time were more help than harm more of an aid than a hindrance i do fundamentally believe that

00:02:24.040 the lockdowns as well as the restrictions took more lives than they saved i do fundamentally believe

00:02:30.020 that we know enough now to know how to do this better and if we don't do it better we are now in a

00:02:36.640 state of of of criminal neglect uh and all but willful criminal neglect we can't we can't allow

00:02:44.720 another lockdown say in the fall to be like the lockdowns were the last two times so people need

00:02:50.280 to be given more freedoms need to isolate those who are most vulnerable and let people make their

00:02:54.880 own decisions about everything from vaccinations to masking uh we know enough now people need to be

00:02:59.880 able to move forward uh and it really displayed the fault lines uh inside of this country and i really

00:03:05.220 believe the sovereignty is a manifestation of this to a point it's not that there was no argument of

00:03:09.220 sovereignty before covid but i think that's something that needs to be thought about uh another point that

00:03:14.780 i'd make here is that uh the social contract in this country probably needs to be radically altered

00:03:20.280 which which again ties into sovereignty if it's to be saved this is something that i don't think we

00:03:26.940 hear a whole lot on the right we hear it more on the left and and admittedly it's it's you know this

00:03:31.880 opinion of mine's been greatly influenced by people like stewart like aaron who are helping me kind of

00:03:36.600 see things from from a different perspective but i do fundamentally believe from even a conservative

00:03:41.000 perspective the way we're doing things right now doesn't work uh one of the things i'm always

00:03:46.240 reminded of by uh by a certain member of my church group is that it actually takes capitalism to get to

00:03:51.840 communism uh so for even us on the right uh perhaps free markets perhaps a non-centralized system

00:03:58.980 perhaps people being able to bid what they will bid and and barter and trade all of that conforms to

00:04:04.580 our belief system but the idea that things must be inherently capitalistic and central banks and

00:04:09.220 interest rates and all the rest of it that's not that's not necessarily always the best thing for us

00:04:14.820 on the right and uh it doesn't necessarily always spell the best thing for people and if you want the

00:04:19.080 revolution to come you need capitalism first so not saying that we're going to reject that but i am

00:04:23.940 saying that we we do need to rethink about the the social contract uh what we have right now in this

00:04:30.720 country isn't working that's why there's so much outrage and if we don't fix it we're going to have

00:04:36.140 a fundamental split uh somewhere along the line and that could get violent so that's just that's just to

00:04:41.540 be noted in fact i think it is getting violent go and take a look at all the churches that have been

00:04:45.000 burned to the ground and so lastly on the question of sovereignty itself i still can't give my final

00:04:50.340 ascent to the west leaving the rest of canada uh but i do think such threats might be worthwhile to

00:04:56.440 earn ottawa's ear i just don't know if we left tomorrow if we'd be in a better economic or political

00:05:02.580 position because quite frankly some people who are agitating for such things don't have the west best

00:05:09.080 interest at heart and second of all foreign powers always like it when countries split up because it

00:05:14.140 makes them easier to divide and conquer they're doing half the work for them what i can say of much of

00:05:19.100 canada's problems in every quarter is largely due to having the wrong borders and the wrong kind of

00:05:23.800 constitutional makeup we have a lot of frustrations if we were to redraw our constitutional boundaries

00:05:29.060 and our internal boundaries i truly believe that we'd have a huge improvement in the way things run

00:05:34.380 around here however uh i'm not sure if the oligarchs would agree with that but i think even they would

00:05:39.700 have to agree that our system as it currently stands doesn't run very well right now and we would

00:05:45.120 require some politicians of true grit which ironically is what the liberal party used to say of their

00:05:49.960 members that's who they wanted in their party men of true grit uh to stand up and be counted as well

00:05:55.240 as populations to stop voting for people who bribe them with their own money we can only pray that

00:06:00.880 manifest but will it manifest i'm not sure well we're going to bring on aaron here and we're going to get

00:06:06.320 rolling uh with a few different things when it comes to what's still happening uh in bc with the

00:06:11.400 wildfires and so here we have aaron ekman we are ready to roll good morning good morning or good

00:06:18.640 whatever uh could be good afternoon depending on when you're watching this i suppose absolutely um

00:06:23.820 where where are we starting aaron well i like the the uh we start with the comment from your friend in

00:06:29.840 the church group about meeting uh capitalism before you get to socialism and that's a it's a it's a good

00:06:35.660 insight and leads to one of the major contradictions that was identified even within the

00:06:41.160 communist movement back during the early stages of chinese and and soviet communism and that there

00:06:46.580 was really no developed working class in either of those countries they were largely agrarian mostly

00:06:51.620 peasant class uh and it's the reason why karl marx never predicted that socialism would start in either

00:06:58.660 of those two countries of course he was writing in germany and thought it would would happen there

00:07:02.440 and you know without going too far down this rabbit hole it's part of the reason why i think both of

00:07:08.480 those countries had so much difficulty in trying to create a working class given that they were

00:07:13.280 uh they were espousing an ideology that sort of was predicated on the existence of an advanced

00:07:18.580 working class which has within it the most revolutionary potential because if they stop working

00:07:23.920 everything shuts down which uh so whether they're revolutionary and desire or aspiration or not

00:07:30.840 doesn't take away from the potential of their revolutionary component because uh again you can't run a

00:07:37.020 capitalist economy if workers aren't working and so this is this is merely the the observation of marx

00:07:42.780 and then you had these two countries that tried to embark on that project before uh the revolutionary

00:07:49.560 class or the working class had really been developed um and and all marx really did was sort of talk about

00:07:54.920 the contradictions there anyway you probably didn't think you'd get uh uh a lecture on communism this

00:08:00.980 morning but but the comment uh sort of set me off and we're doing this pre-recorded now so it's easy

00:08:05.920 to edit this stuff out very good very good i'm not doing the editing either so we'll see what the

00:08:13.340 videographer has to say yeah so it was it's been a as we've said a few times it's been a hot week

00:08:19.880 in uh british columbia been a fiery week i guess one could say if if you'll you'll uh forgive me a

00:08:26.520 couple of puns um and weirdly to me uh maybe not maybe i shouldn't i shouldn't be surprised by this

00:08:35.520 stuff i guess but we see there was a lot of talk in british columbia this week about declaring a state

00:08:41.800 of emergency and you know this kind of caught my interest because there was a lot of this debate

00:08:46.880 back in early 2020 if you recall uh there were two states of emergency people don't really realize

00:08:54.080 this nuance but there's there's actually at least two pieces of legislation in british columbia in

00:08:58.700 which we can the government or a health official can declare a state of emergency and so back march

00:09:04.580 2020 the first state of emergency was declared under the public health act by the chief medical officer

00:09:10.260 uh bonnie henry uh and that state uh it's it's a legislative um trigger and it allows it affords

00:09:19.200 all sorts of additional powers to the provincial government as you know and so it enabled the

00:09:23.300 lockdown this was this was repeated across the country as well as uh federally as well but uh

00:09:29.400 provincially in particular it's it's the piece of legislation that allows the provincial government

00:09:33.340 uh via the the health officer to be able to enact all sorts of sweeping author authoritarian uh moves

00:09:41.260 and i i would argue despite the frustrations that people had had in british columbia over this having

00:09:46.660 happened um there was actually a fair bit of reluctance on the part of the provincial government

00:09:51.520 comparative to other jurisdictions to really lock things down hard and really what i witnessed in

00:09:56.940 british columbia and and of course everybody will perceive things differently depending on

00:10:00.580 what their social media feed looks like i what i perceived in british columbia was a large group of

00:10:07.980 the what i like to call the professional managerial class really urging the government to enact more

00:10:13.600 restrictions uh to lock things down harder similar things happen in alberta but you know bizarrely the

00:10:21.140 conservative government the the ucp uh i mean they actually took took the public the pmc up on their

00:10:28.120 on their offer to to lock things down and you saw pastors getting jailed and all sorts of stuff

00:10:33.040 churches were certainly restricted as you talked about a lot here in bc i don't think anybody was

00:10:37.440 arrested um for continuing although i don't know if we had the same kind of pastors who who who sort

00:10:44.120 of violated the the restrictions and so you know it's debatable whether whether the provincial

00:10:49.980 government in british columbia sort of resisted the lockdown as uh as much as they did in alberta or not

00:10:55.860 but in any case what i observed was like if you looked at twitter where the pmc likes to hang out

00:11:01.420 and communicate with each other uh they were taught all the and still today all they do is talk about

00:11:06.420 more restrictions locking things down harder and their frustration about how the provincial government

00:11:10.800 is not enacting mandatory mask legislation etc uh and then the the day after that it was march 17th

00:11:19.440 that bonnie henry did that the day after that march 18th in 2020 uh a second state of emergency 1.00

00:11:24.900 sort of a parallel state of emergency under the emergency programs act was enacted by the

00:11:29.960 province of british columbia and so that's that second state of emergency legislation is what was

00:11:36.280 being talked about this week in relation to the wildfires and the biggest uh advocates for declaring

00:11:43.520 a state of emergency ended up being pretty much the entire bc liberal party and i won't show you all

00:11:49.840 the different tweets but uh it was pretty much universal if you were a bc liberal mla shirley

00:11:55.360 bond todd stone dan ash dan ashton i mean is right in the okanagan where some of the evacuations

00:12:00.480 the soyuz etc are taking place so it's understandable that he would be very concerned

00:12:03.760 but you also saw the interesting to me and this is a flashback to our our discussion last week

00:12:10.660 the union of bc indian chiefs and if you'll recall we reported on their statement last week when

00:12:15.520 they came out in favor of in support of harshawalia's comments uh in relation to burn it all down in

00:12:21.760 terms of the churches and you know whether you agree with uh the ubc i see you know sorry the unit

00:12:29.040 the union of bc indian chiefs uh support for harshawalia i was delighted to see somebody at least speak up

00:12:36.480 for somebody's right to free speech and just to preempt uh a number of things people probably also heard

00:12:44.380 that harshawalia has since stepped down from her position uh and i suspect that i read the statement

00:12:51.180 from the board uh and it looks like she was basically pushed out as a result which is something

00:12:57.100 that we probably won't get into today maybe we can talk about it later but very concerning to me that

00:13:01.420 irrespective of what what whether you agree with what she said or not that the head of this bc civil

00:13:05.980 liberties association the organization that is really the only outfit in british columbia that

00:13:11.180 actually advocates for free speech rights there's other organizations in other jurisdictions but in

00:13:16.460 bc it's really the bc civil liberties association the head of that organization being pressured by its

00:13:21.420 own board to step down because of statements that she made i mean that it's in its in and of itself

00:13:27.660 divorced from the context whether you agree with what she said or not is a frightening prospect to me

00:13:32.620 anyway that happened um so this week flash forward this week and the same organization that defended

00:13:39.020 harshawalia the union of bc indian chiefs put another statement out urging the provincial

00:13:44.860 government to declare a state of emergency related to the wildfires which just uh to me was very

00:13:50.940 contradictory uh given how many sweeping powers how many sweeping authority how much sweeping authority

00:13:59.340 these these these legislative triggers give the provincial government and i think if we're a people

00:14:05.260 in in in this province of british columbia who value freedom we should be very hesitant to to provide

00:14:13.660 those kind of sweeping authorities to the provincial government it should be a last resort move uh and

00:14:21.660 this is you know i mean it the irony is not lost on me that the communist is the one saying this

00:14:27.180 and every bc liberal mla to the person pretty much was screaming to the rafters all week

00:14:34.140 about how incompetent the provincial government was for not having declared a state of emergency

00:14:40.940 um so i jump in any time but that that's sort of the framework and i can get into what what the

00:14:46.300 what powers are actually uh triggered in this case yeah i i guess for me it is an interesting

00:14:52.380 contradiction in terms certainly in ideologies and competing ends uh competing goals it the the

00:14:58.540 thing in my mind was on a purely like hey things are going bad right now maybe somebody should turn

00:15:04.060 on a siren like that sort of understanding of the state of american i can sympathize with that even

00:15:21.900 empathize that perhaps even support it to a certain extent but i don't disagree with you that asking for

00:15:27.260 a state of emergency not that there isn't bad things going on right now but the sweeping powers

00:15:32.380 especially after we've just witnessed what happened in covet and now literally there are questions

00:15:37.100 around vaccination what happens if people aren't vaccinated when they go into these uh these school

00:15:41.740 gyms and that sort of thing when they're evacuated and put on cots on rows uh in school gyms that's

00:15:47.340 that's an entirely other sort of situation um and perhaps the first thing that should have been states

00:15:53.580 of the emergency if anything should have been at the municipal level uh before before asking the

00:15:58.620 provincial government to get involved but i can't understand why people would reach that quickly to

00:16:03.100 that to that particular uh apparatus yeah i think i mean i i agree with you there i can i can understand

00:16:11.020 sort of the panic that some people are feeling uh and some organizations are feeling if they can

00:16:15.980 actually see the fires coming towards them you know they're probably like why haven't you declared a

00:16:20.140 state of emergency it's clearly an emergency there's a fire literally coming over the mountain towards my

00:16:25.020 my home i can understand that but let's let's just pop over to the to the presentation i have here

00:16:32.300 um i've got a quote from brendan ralphs who from the emergency management bc embc which is the or the

00:16:39.740 agency the government agency uh which advises the provincial government on whether or not they deem

00:16:46.060 it necessary they think they need the additional authorities afforded through a state of emergency and

00:16:50.540 here's what he says when he was asked last week a state of emergency is primarily a legislative tool

00:16:55.420 and during this current event a provincial declaration of a state of emergency has not

00:16:59.900 been necessary to provide assistance to people to access funding or coordinate or obtain additional

00:17:05.020 resources including federal assets to support both response efforts and people who are affected or

00:17:10.620 impacted by the event so here's this is the guy i mean and this is the thing that that the bc liberal

00:17:15.820 mlas they understand this but when they complain about it to try to try to rile people up as an 0.51

00:17:21.500 opposition will try to do this is the part that they leave out and that it's not even really a

00:17:25.820 decision made by politicians it's formalized by politicians it's uh it's declared by cabinet and

00:17:33.100 usually and as as was the case two days ago by the public safety minister um in this case it was mike

00:17:39.980 farmworth but here you got the guy who's responsible for giving the advice to government

00:17:45.900 who has absolutely no reason no incentive to not ask for a state of emergency if he deems it necessary

00:17:54.220 and he's saying look we're fully mobilized we've got all of the resources at this point that we need

00:18:00.060 allocated around the province and as we'll see in a couple of minutes through this press conference that

00:18:05.340 the premier did there's already you know firefighters coming in not just from other provinces but from

00:18:11.020 literally around the world and they're saying they they didn't need to do it and so you have

00:18:17.660 to wonder like why is it that the bc liberals are calling for this so hard and it's just purely

00:18:23.500 performative but if you're a conservative this is the part that i think like the bigger political

00:18:29.260 issue here is this growing divide between the bc liberals and basically you know the sizable

00:18:36.620 conservative contingent of voters in the province the bc liberals have always had a difficult time

00:18:42.380 holding this coalition together and when they make uh performative when they when they make

00:18:48.300 performances like this basically conservatives i think look at this and they think you know how

00:18:53.500 could i ever vote for these guys they're so eager to restrict uh certain freedoms let's go through

00:18:59.020 what it means when you actually invoke and declare a state of emergency into the emergency programs act

00:19:06.220 so first of all the important thing you know not section 991 of the act it's what a lot it's what

00:19:13.980 authorizes cabinet to declare the state of emergency but the important thing is is that it doesn't have

00:19:18.860 to cover the whole province it can be declared just for certain areas so it's entirely possible for

00:19:25.100 for the province to declare a state of emergency in a soyuz it doesn't have to extend it across the

00:19:29.580 province and so we're now in this position where you know i guess they've basically uh folded to to

00:19:35.420 the opposition pressure on this and the opposition is doing a victory lap on it for what reason i don't

00:19:40.700 know um i guess just because they can demonstrate that they're not entirely useless uh although um i mean this

00:19:48.460 like there's really no anyway um they they have extended it across the province so here's what

00:19:55.420 what happens so section the next section uh 10 1d the the we're going to start to get into the kind

00:20:03.100 of things the the special authorities now that a government can uh can carry out as a result of the

00:20:08.700 state of emergency like so it allows the government to acquire or use any land or personal property

00:20:14.060 considered necessary to prevent respond to or alleviate the effects of an emergency or disaster

00:20:19.260 so uh i mean you know this doesn't happen very often but they it's now entirely legal for them

00:20:26.060 to basically just come to your farm and and commandeer all your equipment for instance uh or you know take

00:20:32.540 your truck as you're driving down the street so if you end up going through a roadblock they can just

00:20:35.740 say well oh you got a pickup truck we've got a shortage of pickup trucks in the province which is

00:20:40.300 actually usually a thing i remember back and i think it was when were the big fires that raged

00:20:46.220 through colonna and all through the oklahoma it's going back as far as i think 2005 yeah yeah right

00:20:51.420 i remember i was 16 years ago yeah i i still have this vivid memory i was moving from colonna to

00:20:57.260 vancouver at the time and i didn't have a pickup truck like i do now so i had to go rent one and i

00:21:02.780 couldn't get a pickup truck anywhere in the province because they'd all been common basically

00:21:07.820 commandeered by the by bc wildfire to fight these fires uh fair enough i mean i wasn't complaining it

00:21:14.380 it was more important for them to put the fires out with the with the rental pickup trucks than it was

00:21:18.460 me to move my stuff from colonna to vancouver uh but that's the this is the authority that allows that

00:21:24.380 to happen and they can they can just do it uh to to individuals as well not just a rental companies

00:21:30.780 what else do we have here so authorizer require uh example conscript any person to render a

00:21:37.500 assistance of a type that the person is qualified to provide or that otherwise is or may be required

00:21:42.380 to prevent respond to or alleviate the effects of an emergency or disaster so this there's another

00:21:47.740 piece of legislation as well and i think it's called the wildfire emergency act or something like that

00:21:53.340 where there's sort of a duplicate uh clause in here this is the legislation that historically

00:21:59.660 is the reason why when a wildfire started the pubs would be empty in most small towns because people

00:22:06.700 knew that what used to happen was the fire chief would walk into a pub and just conscript every

00:22:11.820 all the men in the pub to come out and fight the fires that's that's how we used to do it in british

00:22:15.740 columbia uh and so you know when you saw smoke you stayed out of the pubs because you didn't want you

00:22:21.340 know you wanted to go protect your own stuff you didn't want to get constrict conscripted by the by

00:22:26.460 the province to have to go fight the fire somewhere else and they have i met somebody once where this who

00:22:31.740 who this happened to and they were just traveling through they were just like 18 or whatever they'd just

00:22:35.820 gotten out of school like they were they they were in hope or something i guess they decided they

00:22:40.460 wanted to be rambo they were hitchhiking through hope and they and and they got uh there you know

00:22:46.140 some flashing lights turned on the truck pulled the ue this must have been in the 70s or whatever they

00:22:51.180 pulled up next and it was like where are you boys going so well we're all heading up north to go

00:22:55.340 go work in a mine or something we're we're gonna go make money in a mine it's like yeah yeah you were

00:22:59.500 headed up there get in the truck and they were and they were conscripted they were paid they were

00:23:04.700 paid they were given their check at the end but they but they were put through you know fire

00:23:09.260 training which was hold the hose and don't die and then uh told to fight the fire that was how it was

00:23:14.540 well that's the thing is that it says you have to be qualified but holding a hose you know they can

00:23:19.260 deem you qualified after you've received 30 seconds worth of instruction right hold the hose like this

00:23:23.820 down like this and point it this way point it at the flame so yeah no this this is uh and i i don't even

00:23:31.020 necessarily disagree with this stuff but like are we in this spot where we have to start conscripting

00:23:35.740 people like you know as we go through this you start to realize that the people that were they

00:23:39.900 were screaming to the rafters for a state of emergency to be declared they don't even know what

00:23:45.820 it means they just sort of want attention like they have no idea what it what it they just say oh it

00:23:50.940 means you can get more resources from where what other resources that we don't ever already have like

00:23:56.620 why do we need a state of emergency to invite uh firefighters from alberta mexico all over the

00:24:02.700 the world actually to come in and help us out we don't we've already done that you don't require

00:24:07.740 a state of emergency to do it and like i said if we go back to the original slide you know brendan

00:24:12.700 we're also saying we've we've been fighting these fires early uh all summer and we have you know we

00:24:18.940 don't need to restrict your freedoms at this point to do it we'll let you know if that changes

00:24:23.020 you know so what else authorize the entry into any building or any land without warrant by this

00:24:29.260 is this stuff gets scary by any person in the course of implementing an emergency plan or program

00:24:34.700 or if otherwise considered by the minister to be necessary to prevent respond to or alleviate the

00:24:39.100 effects of an emergency or disaster so i actually don't have any concerns that the current bc ndp

00:24:46.460 government is going to abuse this stuff and part of the reason why i'm not concerned about that

00:24:51.980 is because they seem so reluctant to to invoke a state of emergency even when the opposition

00:24:58.460 the the so-called free market coalition the center-right coalition is lighting pardon the pun

00:25:05.580 lighting their hair on fire because the province hasn't yet restricted our freedoms uh and invoked

00:25:10.140 this state of emergency but you know they cannot like if you had somebody in government that had a

00:25:16.140 bit of an authoritarian bent like the kind of the kind of politicians that cry for this stuff even

00:25:21.900 though they don't really know what it means you can see all sorts of entry points for abuse and and

00:25:28.300 it's important for people to actually take a look at the legislation to see what the stuff means before

00:25:33.180 they start calling for this which is why it's so confusing to me that the union of bc indian chiefs

00:25:38.700 of all organizations who has a long history of justifiably being concerned about authoritarian

00:25:44.700 overreach by the provincial government given the history of treaty negotiations and betrayals would be that

00:25:50.380 would be joining the bc liberals at the top of the fray calling for this state of emergency it just

00:25:55.020 baffles the mind it does baffle the mind i i mean as as somebody who has lived on a farm for a decent

00:26:02.380 chunk of his life i i also am not super interested in the government having a warrantless way of getting

00:26:09.500 onto my property to come and see what i've been up to for the last couple of years i i already have a

00:26:14.380 problem with bc assessment coming on there and trying to up my taxes for no good reason i have a problem

00:26:19.740 with the alr and bc assessment not understanding that a piece of land that has no buildings on it

00:26:24.380 no hydro no access to public roads is not lakeside residential it's a farmer's field and having to

00:26:30.700 fight them on that and then finally i have no time for you know again even my regional district who

00:26:35.420 decides that my secondary dwelling just because it happens to not be an ugly trailer somehow doesn't

00:26:40.060 qualify as a permitted structure when they kind of told me it did and then it didn't that i don't know

00:26:44.220 what's happening and they got bill c52 like i mean farmers got enough problems as it is

00:26:49.340 and well the funny thing gonna help no not at all i mean i what would be a beautiful scenario from my

00:26:55.980 perspective on in your individual case is if they did come onto your land as a result of uh this and

00:27:02.860 decided that this building that the regional district or whoever won't permit uh actually ends up

00:27:08.140 being a perfect structure to help them fight the fire house because it actually is so wouldn't that

00:27:15.100 be funny and i wonder you know if you could then use that example to argue that it should be permitted

00:27:20.220 uh probably not uh because most of these agencies don't talk to each other or or or do anything that

00:27:25.820 makes any sense but again this is you know this is the kind of over overreaching powers that they

00:27:31.100 award themselves um let's see what else we have here because it gets worse like it actually gets worse

00:27:37.660 so the you know the next section says it enables government to procure fixed prices for or ration

00:27:43.420 food clothing fuel equipment medical supplies or other essential supplies and the use of any property

00:27:50.140 services resources or equipment within any part of british columbia for the duration of the state of

00:27:54.620 emergency so why hasn't somebody done this and fixed our gas prices yet like i mean really you know

00:28:01.420 a back gas is gas is you know a buck a liter and uh smokes are five bucks a pack and uh you know i

00:28:09.740 mean burgers we're going back to the dollar menu at mcdonald's like i don't this is great i

00:28:15.260 buck a liter it's buck 45 a liter and down in vancouver it's like almost two bucks like a buck and three

00:28:20.540 quarters yeah no this has got to be this has got to be stopped yeah so if now you got a state of

00:28:27.980 emergency do something with it i guess we could say yeah price price fixes let's do it um so i i mean

00:28:34.540 you can even if you're not concerned about like you can look at this and go you know whoa this is

00:28:40.300 concerning but it also gives you a sense of why we have this legislation and the kind of situations in

00:28:45.980 which it's useful so if you're like what kind of scenario do you have to be in where government

00:28:51.020 has to fix prices and ration food and clothing and fuel for the populace yeah yeah it's exactly

00:29:00.380 what it is it's wartime right and so like why is the so-called right-wing government the the government

00:29:08.060 that's supposed to be for or sorry not government but uh opposition party the right the the so-called

00:29:13.500 center-right right-wing party in british columbia that is supposed to be the home for conservatives

00:29:19.100 calling for this the these kind of uh restrictions lockdowns and powers for for government in this

00:29:25.980 scenario when you know when brendan ralphs from emerging emergency management bc is saying we're good

00:29:32.380 like we don't we don't need this additional authority that's what's that's what i think all

00:29:37.260 conservatives should be asking themselves um and it goes on it's also similar to the

00:29:43.180 public health act that can be used to control or prohibit travel to or from any area of british

00:29:48.300 columbia um and that's the end so uh so we can probably take that down so this is um uh this is

00:29:57.980 what the bc liberals have been calling for for the better part of a week and are now doing a victory

00:30:01.660 lap because the public safety minister uh the day before yesterday finally got on the air and said okay

00:30:07.020 well you asked for it so now we're under a state of emergency what they should do is press all of them

00:30:12.300 who were calling for it into service to fight the forest fires that would be so poetic you know so

00:30:17.660 they have this paddy wagon going around and it's playing fortunate son really really loud and they

00:30:22.940 and they're just they have press gang so just pressing people into the paddy wagon who all have their

00:30:27.900 lapels from uh from being in legislature it'd be brilliant i would love here in prince george to see

00:30:33.340 it roll up to shirley bond's office and uh okay surely get in get in loser we're gonna go fight 1.00

00:30:40.540 some fires exactly i don't think i'm qualified don't worry about it we'll got you covered we'll

00:30:44.940 give you five seconds at home's training there you go there you go just look very surly look very

00:30:51.340 surly and you'll do fine wait a minute wait a minute so then so there was this there was this weird

00:30:57.740 sort of press conference yesterday somewhere in the east kootenays which is the

00:31:00.860 you know they got a number of fires down in the east kootenays uh which they always do it's a hot

00:31:05.820 climate in the winter they're sorry in the summer and um and but they did this bizarre press conference

00:31:12.780 where basically like you know the forest minister who's already been under pardon the pun a lot of fire

00:31:18.380 uh prior to the wildfires because uh basically she hasn't done despite whatever criticisms the bc ndp

00:31:26.620 launched against the previous bc bc liberal government over mismanagement of our of our forests

00:31:33.500 nothing substantially different has come from the bc ndp government now into their second term

00:31:39.980 uh you know they've been here now since 2017 and none of the tenure uh programs have changed in the

00:31:47.900 province uh as our good friend uh uh friend of the show james steidel uh will tell us you know they're

00:31:55.580 still uh allowing the spray of mono crops and the destruction of all the biodiversity in the forest

00:32:01.660 which is one of the major contributors to these kind of wildfires which is and i didn't grab the clip

00:32:06.380 but if you you know if you watch any youtube now from british columbia you get this targeted ad at you

00:32:11.420 from the bc government basically chastising you for having cigarettes uh basically making the case

00:32:17.980 that while the reason we have so many fires in british columbia is because everybody's smoking

00:32:22.220 and nobody's being careful now you know they are i mean it probably i mean i think they actually had

00:32:29.500 quantified a couple of weeks ago that upwards of 50 of the fires in the province were human started

00:32:36.140 right like they had but it doesn't mean they were all started by cigarettes like i don't think there's

00:32:40.540 really that many people even smoking anymore i don't i don't know i mean about 15 of the population

00:32:46.300 at most yeah so so you know if we're to believe the bc government and and their ad campaign now

00:32:54.300 that percentage of the province that low percentage of the province is out in the woods like throwing

00:32:58.300 their their butts in into the driving around just tossing cigarette butts and being hardcore campers

00:33:04.060 that's all they do they just yeah all the time yeah because people that like to go camping i mean

00:33:08.220 they're big smokers they just like to sit around like it's not like they go hiking and kayaking and

00:33:13.020 need their lung capacity or anything they just tend to be you know they just go and they basically

00:33:17.100 you know smoke a pack and they're just chucking them out into the woods uh that's what they do

00:33:21.020 that's that's that's what i used to do when i smoked not that long ago that's what i did

00:33:25.100 that's how i that's how i smoked yeah it's the middle of july seems like a good idea like i just

00:33:31.580 think british columbians are a bit smarter than that but the bc government they have an incentive to

00:33:36.940 lead us to believe that we're the ones starting all these fires because what they don't want you

00:33:41.020 to do and this isn't just the bc ndp this is all this stuff happened during the bc liberal government

00:33:45.580 as well what they don't want you to do is pay any attention to how they manage our forests they don't

00:33:50.460 want you to pay any attention to the fact that we've just got these basically pine monocrops with

00:33:55.500 no aspen no no biodiversity at all we actually spray them to kill the other uh the other life in the

00:34:01.740 forest because we treat them like farms like tree farms like christmas tree farms and that's what

00:34:07.580 makes them so flammable and then they also say oh well we got to send people out to clear the brush

00:34:12.460 off the forest floor because that's flammable well yeah sure it's flammable but it's a lot less

00:34:20.460 like you need that brush because it has to biodegrade onto the forest floor to create the diversity and

00:34:25.180 the nutrients to regenerate the forest and we're wondering why we can't grow the kind of wood that we used

00:34:30.460 to we're wondering why all of the mills are shutting down citing shortages of fiber we wonder why you

00:34:36.460 know when fires do get started they just rip through these forests like never before and it gives

00:34:44.300 yeah my cat's going to jump in on this as well i hope that's okay that's fine uh and it gives a lot

00:34:50.140 of meat well i shouldn't say meat because they're mostly vegans but it gives a lot of uh substance to

00:34:55.660 the arguments from the environmentalists that well this is all the result of climate change and

00:35:00.300 and that's you know that's the message that we're hearing from all quarters now that

00:35:05.820 they almost seem gleeful that you know here's the evidence that we've been warning you about for so

00:35:10.220 long and blah blah blah well yeah i mean we had a hot year we had a heat dome um and you can say that's

00:35:18.780 a result of climate change etc that's fine i'm not disputing that i'm not disputing that there's some

00:35:22.940 changes in the in the climate uh i'm not going to you know make the cases because of human activity

00:35:29.420 it could be because of human activity but there's a lot more human activity going towards starting

00:35:34.380 these fires in our forest practices which can be reversed quite easily and you don't have to like

00:35:41.020 cut emissions to do it um you can just be smarter with the with you can stop killing all of the

00:35:48.380 biodiversity and stop creating these monocrops of pine uh and weak spindly trees like it's it's almost

00:35:55.660 like the whole we used to make fun of the island for having such toothpick you know we used to call

00:35:59.900 them well i won't say what we used to call them but tiny little poles right uh compared to the rest 1.00

00:36:04.060 of the province where the where the wood was more substantial it's like the whole province is island

00:36:07.980 wood now uh and this and and when the fire comes it just rips right through it so anyway there

00:36:13.740 was this we could probably jump over the video and i'll scrub through it a bit um but we'll do

00:36:19.420 right across the the kootenays and the interior yeah just to open this up so this is that press

00:36:25.180 conference i was telling you about i just got a few clips from this and we'll parse it and sort of

00:36:28.780 dissect it um but this is basically this was uh yesterday and this was basically right after the

00:36:36.220 public safety minister mike farnworth had declared a state of emergency finally uh and you know i mean the bc

00:36:43.100 liberals are going to say well you know it's because of all of our pressure it probably isn't

00:36:47.180 it's probably just that you know the emergency management bc finally decided okay sure uh yeah

00:36:53.580 we can use the additional uh powers now and so then the joke becomes well if it was so if it if we didn't

00:36:59.260 need it last week why do we now need it this week it's it's it's obviously because of all the pressure

00:37:02.860 relaunched well maybe there's more fires this week than last week like maybe it's a more dangerous

00:37:07.340 situation uh and maybe the the experts that monitor this stuff and advise politicians like

00:37:12.940 our premier finally decided okay well we need it or maybe they did just buckle to the to the pressure

00:37:18.540 because like who in their right mind if they're being offered all of this additional authoritarian

00:37:23.180 power is going to turn it down i mean people are going to take it and this is sort of what happened

00:37:27.660 so this first uh clip is just it gives you a sense of how many different uh firefighters are being

00:37:34.060 brought in and from and from how far here and here in the south uh our our thoughts are with you

00:37:39.180 our resources are behind you minister farnworth yesterday uh declared a provincial state of

00:37:44.300 emergency we have all of the resources we need on the ground of course if we had more

00:37:50.460 we would take them that being firefighters from other jurisdictions we have quebec firefighters on the

00:37:55.420 ground now new brunswick on the way 100 mexican firefighters who we depend on annually are on their

00:38:03.180 way they'll be here in a number of days and we are also working with our other international partners the

00:38:08.300 united states uh australia uh to make sure as this season continues that we have the resources that

00:38:14.300 we need so so like there's i didn't even realize this but we're bringing people in from even mexico

00:38:20.940 um which is interesting because you know there's all this talk about shutting the borders down and

00:38:25.980 and there's some additional questions about uh the federal decision to close the extend the border

00:38:30.940 closure with the us and to require double vaccines but throughout this entire time there's really been no

00:38:37.020 restrictions on bringing in uh firefighters from from other countries but also there's been a constant

00:38:44.300 flow of temporary foreign workers coming into the into the province uh irrespective of the wildfires so

00:38:50.620 you know most of these people are you know being brought in to pick fruit etc um so it's just

00:38:55.820 interesting that like we'll go through all these efforts to restrict the freedom of british colombians

00:39:00.380 to travel to and from uh the u.s and other jurisdictions in in canada uh but don't ever

00:39:07.020 put any restrictions on the flow of cheap foreign labor coming into the into the province that has

00:39:12.540 never been restricted uh going right back to last year um and we'll get into this a bit more

00:39:20.380 i think that one of the things we need to realize when it comes to temporary foreign workers and that sort

00:39:25.340 of thing is that they really are they really are everywhere they're more more present than people

00:39:29.820 think uh and and i think that something that's a real failing on the right is kind of the willful

00:39:35.500 blindness that we put ourselves through about it uh we don't we talk often about somehow uh immigrants

00:39:41.340 coming and and i mean in the united states immigrants coming and taking your jobs are are much more uh

00:39:47.260 common rhetoric in canada it's a little bit softer around well i mean can't we grow the domestic

00:39:52.060 population in such a way as to as to you know meet the economic needs of canada and i am sympathetic

00:39:57.100 to that argument insofar that i think if you have more pro-family policies and you make it easier

00:40:01.900 to have larger families and you make it more advantageous to get married stay married and all the

00:40:06.220 tax breaks that come thereof i i think that's a great way to grow your domestic population and i do

00:40:11.580 believe that a domestic population having already been you know inculcated with the culture and having

00:40:16.620 uh access to the language etc that's that is your best resource for growing your own country but that

00:40:24.140 being said i think when it comes to temporary foreign workers question canadians don't realize

00:40:29.100 that it's it's both a push and a shove it's it's it's a double whammy they take you coming and going

00:40:34.460 those jobs should be well paid enough that canadians would be able to do them and support

00:40:39.660 other families or do them as a summer job and at the same time for the workers who are coming in

00:40:44.780 there their condition should be the concern of canadians and they we shouldn't just abuse

00:40:48.620 ourselves and think to ourselves well obviously the americans abuse their foreign workers but we're

00:40:53.100 or or they're and they're illegal uh uh immigrants as well as as non non well non-regularized workers 0.91

00:41:00.140 but the can but the canadians don't do that and i think that's something that's very clearly not true

00:41:04.700 in canada was something that needs to change yeah and what you're going to see in in some of these

00:41:09.900 clips is sort of the hypocrisy of the media who had previously joined the bc liberals

00:41:14.540 in lighting their hair on fire over the what they perceive to be a delay in calling the state of

00:41:20.460 emergency and then once it's been called they start asking all these questions that are worried

00:41:26.140 you know expressing concern over the economic impacts of the state of emergency which there

00:41:31.100 are some or there can be right because you're it's additional lockdowns and and placing restrictions

00:41:36.540 on businesses etc so we'll see some of that hypocrisy in a sec but this first clip i think is just

00:41:41.500 talking about some of the evacuations and some of the powers that are being that we're seeing on the

00:41:46.620 horizon we all have to hang together as british colombians and and follow the lead of of emergency

00:41:53.260 personnel uh take guidance take direction if there's an evacuation order uh it doesn't is not made lightly

00:41:59.900 and for those who believe that they should stay on their property and and uh fight the good fight a

00:42:05.980 better course of action is to take direction from those who are watching the fires not from their

00:42:10.940 fence line but from above and using technologies and and personnel to protect people so that there's

00:42:18.380 a i mean that's interesting to me the reason i wanted to show that was because he starts out

00:42:25.260 in a way that i can kind of support in the sense that he's saying look we don't declare a state of

00:42:31.100 emergency unless we absolutely have to that's basically what he's trying to say there and from

00:42:34.780 my perspective i mean they've already declared it probably too early but i mean i think i'd like to

00:42:39.900 think that we could actually get through a fire season without declaring a state of emergency

00:42:43.580 um it just seems to be this annual thing we do now and the pro the danger in that is the public

00:42:48.060 becomes so accustomed to it that we we start to see what we're seeing now and that the public is

00:42:52.460 not the public but the professional managerial class is is calling for it and part of the you know

00:42:58.700 we've been talking about this tendency throughout the duration of the show knowing that the professional

00:43:04.780 managerial class really really likes lockdowns because they can exert a lot of authority uh through

00:43:11.580 through that kind of a legislative framework uh even more so than you know what i would refer to

00:43:16.940 as sort of the oligarchy or the or the traditional ruling class and so you start to see this

00:43:21.500 fight emerge between the professional managerial class and the oligarchs at the top

00:43:25.420 uh with workers just sort of suffering uh as we usually do um but he starts out by saying you

00:43:32.380 know like we're kind of reluctant to do this and and we're only going to do it if we absolutely need

00:43:36.300 to but then he makes this statement that has always kind of bothered me it's not just from him it's it's

00:43:41.260 kind of the philosophy of our approach to fire in british columbia and probably canada which i

00:43:45.740 understand is a little bit different in places like australia which also have uh significant challenges

00:43:50.940 with fires every year and that we have this total sort of paternalistic attitude to to especially

00:43:57.660 rural landowners uh it's particularly in the agricultural sector who i believe have always been

00:44:04.060 well suited and well equipped to help defend their land against fire why because a they understand the

00:44:13.020 land better than anybody because they work it uh b they have a hell of a lot of irrigation equipment

00:44:18.540 which means they can move a lot more water around um and they can kind of soak the fields etc and see

00:44:26.140 depending on what they're growing it's probably if there's large fields surrounding their uh their

00:44:31.660 home or any structures that could burn they're probably not that flammable because they're full of water

00:44:37.340 green and not you know large and dead like a lot of our forests are now uh and yet we have and in

00:44:44.380 australia i understand i'm not an expert here but i understand that there's more freedom afforded like

00:44:49.420 there's it's it's more difficult for the state to come in and forcibly remove somebody particularly

00:44:54.540 in rural areas from their property and there's this belief that you know farmers generally are pretty

00:45:00.620 good at fighting fires uh and or at least preventing the the destruction of their crop and livestock and

00:45:07.260 that's the other thing there's a lot of animal lives that are just sort of left during evacuations they're

00:45:12.220 not fed or you know i mean it's a real it can be very difficult uh disastrous for farmers whereas in bc

00:45:19.340 uh not only does the do the authorities have the power to physically remove people and sort of arrest

00:45:25.340 them and remove them from their property but it's just culturally uh approved it's it's like

00:45:32.940 we shame people who want to exercise their freedom to defend their own land and use their own equipment to

00:45:38.300 try to fight fires which to me has always been counterproductive in a re something that i've

00:45:42.780 never liked about our own culture here in british columbia i think i think in british columbia too

00:45:48.060 there's a definite bond between the farmers that that goes deeper than just orders coming in from

00:45:53.900 overhead from the government and the bond between farmers is that you know you help you don't you don't

00:46:00.540 have to be you don't have to be perfect you know perfect friends with everybody but you have to be

00:46:05.740 neighborly right and and so if you're if your neighbor needs help you go and help because the

00:46:11.100 next time it's going to be you that needs help and that that bond runs very deeply inside of the

00:46:15.900 farming world and farming culture even today even between different kinds of farming as much as some

00:46:20.700 might grumble at well i'm not in a protected industry like the dairy guy is i still believe that

00:46:25.660 i need to help if his place is threatened just like he's going to help me if my place is threatened

00:46:29.900 and finally one of the things that actually comes up very spawn spontaneously inside of the

00:46:34.300 farming world is that when there was that big evacuation two or three years ago now in the

00:46:39.260 central interior around williams lake and that sort of thing people were taking their animal

00:46:44.300 trailers from up north ripping down there and loading up the animals of people's farms and

00:46:49.580 bringing them back to their own farms and feeding them on their behalf there was an evacuation of

00:46:54.140 animals as well and to your point like people's like they're still cattle wrestling let's put it

00:47:00.540 that way like there are actually still cattle rustlers and hog rustlers that this still happens

00:47:04.540 people still steal animals why because they have value so to that same end you could imagine that

00:47:10.220 one like there were people definitely tried to get away with stealing some stuff not when they were

00:47:13.500 evacuating people but other people took advantage of farmers having to leave their animals behind

00:47:18.140 but another thing we have to realize is imagine a fire did rip through your cattle herd and and killed

00:47:23.260 half your cattle that's that could be millions of dollars millions of dollars right this is this is

00:47:27.980 walking money right that's what it is that's why i have to take really good care of it because it's

00:47:31.100 money that walks right you you gotta you gotta know where it is you gotta have dogs to take

00:47:34.860 care of you ride your quad around you got a gun to make sure the bears don't get at it like this

00:47:39.100 is very important stuff and and bc isn't the cattle country of alberta sure but it still has plenty

00:47:44.620 of diversified farming that happens here that's worth a lot of money and if we just let fires take it

00:47:50.620 all like that's that's people's livelihoods gone forever yeah and and the the culturally the way we

00:47:57.580 approach it is we prioritize your immediate safety over your future safety and so because

00:48:03.500 there's this threat that your your family can be killed in a fire you can be killed in a fire 0.76

00:48:08.860 you know the state has now the authority to physically remove you from your home which is just

00:48:13.900 backwards i mean it totally removes uh the uh expertise that that farmers have or anybody in

00:48:23.820 rural areas to operate their equipment that they have to protect their own things but like why

00:48:28.700 wouldn't i mean if we have this is what's so contradictory we have this legislation that allows

00:48:32.860 us to run around and pick up trucks and go into a pub and empty the pub out and drag everybody into the

00:48:37.820 forest to go fight fires and yet we so we trust british columbians enough that we can exercise that

00:48:42.780 authority but we don't trust landowners in rural areas enough to defend their own bloody land so like

00:48:48.300 i mean if you just sort of play this out to its logical conclusion you get these ridiculous possible

00:48:53.100 scenarios where you remove the person from their own land who actually knows how to operate the

00:48:57.660 irrigation equipment knows what to do with their animals to keep them safe has a pretty good idea of 0.92

00:49:02.860 the lay of the land beyond their own borders because um because they live there and they work the area

00:49:08.860 but um uh we're going to remove them from their land and then we're going to go to the pub and get

00:49:13.260 a bunch of people and come in and have them fight the fire on the farmer's land like it's just stupid 0.87

00:49:17.580 and and we do so because we hide behind this uh requirement of the state this responsibility we

00:49:25.260 say of the state to stop you from getting killed but freedom means the freedom to put yourself in harm's

00:49:32.460 way that's what it's always meant uh and that's you know i mean the same concept extends to feminists 1.00

00:49:40.460 who i actually tend to really like like camille palia who say things like the whole point of feminism 1.00

00:49:47.420 for us was to fight against imposed curfews at universities etc uh knowing that if we were to step

00:49:53.980 outside at night by ourselves and we're wearing skimpy clothes for instance uh we may increase our chances of

00:50:00.860 getting attacked by male predators but we demand the freedom to put ourselves in that kind of danger

00:50:07.340 that's that's what we demand uh yes we might get raped as a result of uh where we go or what we do 0.82

00:50:14.060 but the freedom to go do that is more important to us than uh than not having that freedom because

00:50:21.740 the state or the administration or whoever the authority the direct authority is thinks they're going

00:50:26.700 to take our safety in their hands and make decisions for us so that's always that's a piece of legislation

00:50:32.220 i think that has to be revisited and yes it does mean that you might get more cases where you know

00:50:37.260 farmers who are staying on their land and not following the evacuation order perish in a fire but

00:50:43.180 they have to you know like they if you want to live in a free and democratic society you have to give

00:50:49.100 those people the freedom to make that decision i think that's that's my argument on it anyway

00:50:53.020 well i i agree with you but but we're getting into a funny moment not unlike the one we had with a

00:50:58.860 with a certain with a certain tall left-wing guy uh some some weeks ago now i guess it would almost

00:51:04.700 be months ago now where uh he was on the show with me and he said that when you increase the supply of

00:51:09.580 something that doesn't decrease its demand and we know this from basic economics and that's why we

00:51:13.740 should prevent the the further exploitation of fossil fuels and i turned to him and said well we social

00:51:18.540 conservatives been saying that about pornography for years and nobody's backing us up and he's like

00:51:22.860 well i know i'm making a very socially conservative argument but that's the point and i'm like well

00:51:26.860 kind of the same point here you're making a very freedom-based argument aaron but that's the point

00:51:31.500 of those of us who are pretty skeptical about the pandemic skeptical about the lockdowns and of the

00:51:36.460 vaccine especially now that now that there's enough people dosed and they've kind of tricked everybody

00:51:40.780 into getting it they're like oh yeah by the way it we might still have a third fourth eighth wave i

00:51:45.180 don't know what way we're on anymore they're like oh yeah no like i mean we promised you that this would fix

00:51:49.340 everything but it isn't going to but also still take it but also still wear masks and also there

00:51:53.500 might be another lockdown in september enjoy your summer it's like you know i think at this point

00:51:59.180 we know enough to know that it's it like don't don't hug your grandma don't lick the doorknob and

00:52:04.540 don't be a jerk and maybe move on with life i don't know we'll keep the old folks safe and we'll move on

00:52:09.660 with life but but for some reason it's always that baiting it's always that baiting so to your point i

00:52:15.020 completely agree with you i want people to have freedom and exercise their freedom but the people

00:52:19.260 who are running this thing don't seem to want that very much well and what's so surprising to me is

00:52:25.020 that like the bc ndp government is the one that's more reluctant to go down this road than the so-called

00:52:29.820 free market uh coalition of the bc liberals so who's like i mean i i think if there was actually a

00:52:37.500 a legitimate sort of conservative party in opposition or in the legislature in british columbia

00:52:43.820 i you know i'd like to think that you you'd have some voice in the legislature that would be

00:52:48.220 saying whoa hang on maybe we should uh examine whether or not we actually need to gift ourselves

00:52:54.700 this kind of authority this this draconian authoritarian power just because the the province

00:53:01.020 is burning we've been here before uh but but the bc liberals who are supposed to be representing

00:53:06.140 conservatives in this province they're shouting louder than the bc ndp is for these kind of

00:53:11.020 lockdowns and restrictions they certainly did the same thing uh during the pandemic there was no

00:53:17.100 uh criticism from from the opposition of the the lockdowns and restrictions that existed uh that

00:53:23.740 were enacted by the bc ndp government and by the public health officer so which party is it in british

00:53:28.940 columbia that raises the banner of freedom uh it like there doesn't seem to be one at least not one

00:53:35.980 that uh is reflected in the legislature at all and this is the kind of thing i think the conservatives

00:53:41.020 that are concerned about this stuff especially coming out of the pandemic especially if they were

00:53:45.580 small business owners etc that their business was essentially uh demolished or or greatly hampered

00:53:51.820 because of the restrictions they're they got to watch this stuff and go like nobody's nobody's

00:53:56.380 speaking for us certainly the bc liberals are not speaking for us i'd be curious to know aaron

00:54:00.860 gunn's position on some of this stuff actually because he is the closest thing that i can see

00:54:05.660 in that in that crop of candidates to someone who's got sort of these traditional kind of uh freedom

00:54:12.780 uh based uh uh conservative politics but he hasn't said anything either that i can see

00:54:19.020 i think i think that's something to kind of jump off here especially especially as we're on our our last

00:54:23.660 show here before hiatus i i think this is actually a crux of an argument when it comes to canada in

00:54:29.660 general and and definitely bc specifically and even our local municipality of prince roger and other

00:54:35.020 places that that question of freedom freedom and freedom versus not just versus responsibility but

00:54:39.740 at what of what level does the government have a right to kind of influence that and my my response

00:54:44.620 ideologically or at least methodologically would be the reason why freedom doesn't sell anymore

00:54:50.780 there's a lot of people agitating for it there's probably about anywhere from 25 to 30 to 40 percent of

00:54:54.940 the population somewhere that that would vote for the freedom candidate or the freedom party

00:55:01.180 the reason that that doesn't buy that doesn't get the votes it needs to is that it's that it also it's

00:55:06.300 not just about the responsibility it comes with but freedom isn't an ideology freedom is a poise

00:55:12.460 right it's a it's a it's a pretense it's a frame it's a paradigm it's not it's not an ideology so you

00:55:17.900 tell people no i i really believe that you should be able to make your own choices and take responsibility

00:55:21.980 for them they're like well what's your program it's like well no i'm i'm saying that you are going

00:55:26.380 to figure out your own program it's like but what are you going to do for us what are you going

00:55:29.500 to give us how are you going to save us where's my monorail no it's just but this is it where's my

00:55:34.380 sky train damn it like but this is exactly it and i'm not saying the government shouldn't have

00:55:39.900 some kind of programming around how to keep society ordered right we're canadian conservatives

00:55:44.940 we're not libertarians those of us who are on the right in canada those who are libertarians in canada

00:55:49.100 i don't really know what you're doing here the only thing that you kind of get away with in canada

00:55:53.180 is that it's so big if you go to its reaches its furthest reaches there's no enforcement because

00:55:58.060 there's no cops and there's no tax police because they just can't get there because they don't care

00:56:02.540 but the point being that that canadian conservatism has always had a bit of a marriage with the idea

00:56:08.220 of big programming starting right from this from the canadian pacific railway but but nonetheless like

00:56:13.580 freedom and freedom like yes i believe in the freedom idea and a freedom party a freedom

00:56:18.540 candidate but it does not sell in the sense that you can't you can't program it so you're always

00:56:25.420 disorganized you're disorganized you know freedom people disorganized not anarchists but we'll say

00:56:32.300 that it's a disorganized non-violent anarchists versus organized status well you always lose to

00:56:38.940 the status and you know that as well as i do and freedom really should be something that i i like your

00:56:45.340 characterization of is something that's non-partisan it's it should be advocated by people on the left

00:56:50.140 and the right uh because the left and the right exists in a in a both has authoritarian tendencies

00:56:56.940 as well so you have to have that bulwark against authoritarianism on both sides of the political

00:57:01.900 spectrum and you know i've been concerned because you know i understand enough about the history of the

00:57:07.980 left to know that um for instance uh you know one of the the main reason for the everett massacre

00:57:14.860 just south of the border was was because uh the state moved against the the assertion by the left

00:57:21.500 and in particular the trade union movement to their right of freedom of speech to be able to to go

00:57:25.740 down to free speech corner right downtown and get on a soapbox and and talk about things i haven't

00:57:32.060 seen any example from the left that demonstrates that they they put this since then that they put

00:57:38.220 the same emphasis on protecting freedom unfortunately we've had to sort of look to the right for for that

00:57:43.420 emphasis uh until recently and in british columbia there that's my concern is not even the right

00:57:49.180 anymore is is making these arguments and in fact quite the opposite it's the right uh in the legislature

00:57:56.780 that is calling for additional restrictions uh and and there's no criticism whatsoever and media in bc

00:58:03.020 has been completely complicit in this as well that's what's also so frustrating they're so fickle

00:58:07.980 and they just sort of like i mean it's so contradictory you listen to some of their questions

00:58:11.980 and you just laugh at them because you know what they were asking yesterday and they just contradict

00:58:16.300 themselves for anybody that pays attention for more than a goldfish's memory um and so here's

00:58:22.460 here's them after a couple of weeks of them joining the course of the bc liberal opposition in decrying

00:58:29.740 the the provincial government for not having declared a state of emergency here they are asking

00:58:33.660 all sorts of questions about the kind of economic impact this new state of emergency is going to have

00:58:38.300 on the province certainly uh the forest sector is going to be slowed down by the fires no question about

00:58:45.260 that you will know that lumber prices have been at historic highs and and that's not a couple of

00:58:52.220 percent above normal it's massively above normal so can for and and other forest companies have done

00:58:59.260 very well in the past number of months and a break now to give relief on the land base uh to provide

00:59:06.540 the resources that we need potentially uh equipment from those companies to put to the fire

00:59:12.220 is what happens uh almost annually when we have difficult seasons so i'm not surprised that can for

00:59:17.900 us uh decided to shut down will that have an impact in the short term of course it will but again these

00:59:23.660 are quarterly businesses that table their profits and you would have seen record high profits by major bc

00:59:30.220 forest companies in the first quarter i suspect we'll see that in the second quarter we need to make

00:59:34.620 sure that those benefits to those companies flow down to workers to communities and of course also

00:59:40.460 uh to the province so that we can provide the services that we need critically right now to put

00:59:45.820 out fires so these are cyclical events and there goes a helicopter

00:59:53.020 this is the other thing that's kind of funny about horgan he's so easily distracted

00:59:57.420 like he's just if you watch this whole thing in its entirety there's he's uh he's sort of distracted

01:00:02.140 from his message a few times as helicopters fly over and people walk around him it's it's kind of funny

01:00:07.260 you know he's like he's like a more friendly you know uh doug ford you know it's just he's

01:00:13.100 it's just a slightly less aggressive doug ford he's just a good old boy just wandering around

01:00:17.420 happens to be premier it's like oh hi how you doing i'm in charge now i guess all right i don't know

01:00:23.020 if he's less aggressive than uh than doug ford i mean he can get pretty aggressive too he's he's put a

01:00:27.340 lot of work i think and his communications team has put a lot of work into trying to tone him down but

01:00:32.140 he you know he can get pretty he can get pretty fiery but uh but the similarities i think are spot

01:00:37.180 on um but yeah i mean this is an interesting development so i mean can forest shut down but

01:00:42.060 they um uh the interesting bit is like government can go in and sort of commandeer a bunch of their

01:00:48.060 equipment as well and apply it to the fire which i mean that's actually that's good that's the way it

01:00:54.060 should be um whether we've got to that point yet that they need to do it or not that's that's another

01:00:59.420 question um and then there's another question here again about uh so that was an answer in

01:01:05.820 response to a question about the negative effects it's going to have on the economy and

01:01:09.740 then they keep going with this line of questions summer are you concerned that the declaration of

01:01:14.620 a state of emergency uh will keep visitors um out of areas that are even not impacted by the fire

01:01:22.860 because of this idea that bc is now under a state of emergency well we were under a state of

01:01:27.900 an emergency for a year and a couple of months and we still had people coming uh you'll recall

01:01:33.900 that i was urging people to not come but they came anyway um which is i mean the question itself

01:01:40.380 is just so hypocritical to me because it's like i mean i guess they got to ask the questions but just

01:01:44.700 like two days ago i think that was richard zussman from ctv and uh i mean these people spilled a

01:01:50.540 lot of ink complaining about the fact that they hadn't declared the state of emergency and then they

01:01:55.660 turn around right away and they're like well what about the economy i mean you know did you consider

01:01:59.500 this it's like and and i mean you can you can sort of criticize them for this like i do but this is

01:02:06.460 what the opposition is doing as well now too so if you if you jump on the twitter accounts of all the

01:02:10.140 bc liberal mlas that's what they're talking about now is oh like they've gone back to the the mid

01:02:15.420 pandemic uh attack on on this government that they're not providing enough supports for small

01:02:21.980 business and in particular uh funding so here you have the free market coalition which has been

01:02:28.060 calling for more authoritarianism this whole you know for the last two years and now as soon as we

01:02:32.300 get into a fire situation that are also their biggest point of attack on the government is that

01:02:36.780 they're not funneling enough money to private business they're not funneling enough free taxpayer

01:02:42.140 dollars to private business owners that's basically what they're saying and the media just picks up on

01:02:47.340 this and kind of repeats it because i mean they don't really have the sophistication to to come

01:02:52.780 up with their own questions right and and this is this is the frustration it just keeps going on and

01:02:57.020 on so then um so yeah i mean that's i don't know if i should stop to let you jump in anytime you like

01:03:03.020 here but i i think that i think that you kind of hit it spot on i mean ultimately this is the other

01:03:08.140 problem with what's wrong with on the right like i mean i think there's a place to not be an austerity

01:03:12.460 conservative i don't think cutting cutting cutting the front line stuff always results in bad electoral

01:03:17.180 results later you know cut cut the managers don't cut the front line it's a waste of time

01:03:21.500 but but i think simultaneously the issue is that for conservatives like even if they are kind of big

01:03:27.580 state conservatives or whatever status conservatives i don't really count myself as one of those but

01:03:32.060 you know people are like that it's interesting because people are always interested in getting that

01:03:36.620 that free money to private industry i think a lot of run-of-the-mill conservatives are not okay with that i think

01:03:41.820 the average care is like no i don't get free money for my business or my my whatever i don't i don't

01:03:46.300 like that if i don't get it they don't get it and and why are these big businesses getting subsidized

01:03:50.700 again you know if they were if they're so good at business they wouldn't need to be subsidized

01:03:54.860 and i think that's a sentiment that right or left i think there's plenty of british colombians who could

01:03:58.700 completely say like no we shouldn't be handing out more money to people like just run your business

01:04:03.580 better or you might have to fold up shop and change some things well the the contradiction is squarely with

01:04:10.620 the opposition on this question because they cry to the rooftops for weeks over the need to declare

01:04:17.340 a state of emergency and then as soon as it's declared they start saying oh this is so difficult

01:04:21.500 on businesses and it was the government that declared the state of emergency so it's the government

01:04:26.860 that should give them taxpayer dollars to help keep them afloat but the problem with these businesses

01:04:32.060 isn't really one over demand uh as we'll we'll get into some of these questions uh in a couple of

01:04:38.460 other clips here the biggest problem faced by businesses right now across the board is a lack

01:04:43.660 of labor a shortage of labor and that's not just in bc that's happening all over the country and so in

01:04:50.940 the state and it's also happening in the us and if you watch sort of conservative media in the us who

01:04:55.740 generally sides with businesses on these kind of questions they're really criticized the reason they're

01:05:01.660 so the reason why republicans were so pro opposed to affording the same financial supports that are given

01:05:08.300 to businesses to regular working folks is because they're terrified that if you give some stimulus

01:05:13.980 money or some some support money to working folks that they're not going to go to work which is

01:05:21.100 a backwards argument if you sort of understand how the economy works in that like the american

01:05:27.740 government certainly didn't give anybody who wasn't a business or a rich business owner or a corporate

01:05:34.620 executive anywhere close to the amount of money that you would need to survive for more than like

01:05:38.700 a couple of weeks right so the argument that people aren't working because um because they're able to

01:05:46.780 just sit at home and get money doesn't make any sense at all what's happening is that like you know

01:05:52.540 you look in new york for instance where it probably endured the worst lockdown that hit the restaurant

01:05:58.220 sector and the the direct service sector the hardest uh there's a guy on the on youtube called uh louis

01:06:04.620 rossman who runs around new york with a camera just showing how dead everything closed everything is

01:06:10.060 i mean it's just sort of a ghost town in so many areas and so what happens to the workforce when that

01:06:14.860 happens well they go find work somewhere else they they often leave the city or they leave the state

01:06:19.500 we saw this in the caribou over the last we've seen it over the last three or four years as there's been

01:06:25.500 i think at least two evacuations over over that period of time where you get all these restaurants

01:06:30.380 they have to close down because the town gets evacuated and they don't reopen again when the

01:06:34.460 evacuation is lifted because those workers have moved on somewhere else and they've found work

01:06:39.740 somewhere else most of them probably went down to vancouver where there's a there's more jobs

01:06:44.300 and more job growth than in the interior there's virtually no job growth in the interior so you can't

01:06:49.740 so then the supply of labor goes down and what happens when the supply of something goes down

01:06:54.700 the price goes up and you know i got almost no time for joe biden uh i mean i think he's i think

01:07:04.060 he's everything he he exemplifies everything that is wrong with the democratic party and politics in

01:07:10.220 the u.s but a few weeks ago probably because he was i don't know um a little bit delusional at the

01:07:16.940 time or or office meds or who who knows what he sort of slipped up and said the only thing that i've ever

01:07:23.020 agreed with uh and he said that he was talking with a bunch of business owners who were complaining

01:07:28.300 to him these are the big companies like you know even amazon etc although amazon's doing quite well

01:07:33.180 we're saying look we're having real difficulties in this labor shortage issue and you know i quote

01:07:39.180 him directly biden said and i think he whispered it i should have got the clip he said yeah because

01:07:43.980 you're not paying them enough right and it was like this moment of sort of a this lucid realization

01:07:51.500 he sort of said what everybody should be saying which is when the when the supply of labor goes

01:07:57.020 down the price of labor goes up if you're a free marketeer you have to understand this

01:08:03.180 if you if you if you want to enact government policies that refuse to acknowledge that market

01:08:10.220 reality you're not actually a free marketeer what you want is an artificial cap and ceiling placed on

01:08:18.380 wages and then somehow force workers to come work for those low wages again when the market demands

01:08:24.300 a much higher amount and when you of course you can't you can't really force people to come work

01:08:28.620 for lower wages but what you can do and what we are doing is you can bring in more temporary foreign

01:08:34.380 workers to work for less and so instead of the market taking care of wages like so many libertarians

01:08:42.300 and free market fundamentalists say that it should when the when the rubber hits the road and workers

01:08:48.140 actually go well you know you're just not paying me enough to go work in that dangerous environment

01:08:54.140 or it's just easier for me to get a better paying job in some other jurisdiction instead of paying

01:08:59.180 more which is what the market would would demand that they do they opt for temporary foreign workers

01:09:05.180 and they go crying to the provincial government for for more funding which is not free market uh at all

01:09:12.140 and that's the big contradiction i i i don't have any caveats to that i mean again we'll see what

01:09:18.940 people have to say about the show later when it's actually broadcasted but i the fact of the matter is

01:09:23.180 that i think the conservatives really need to pull up their socks and in this area we we need the working

01:09:29.340 class not just as a voting block but we need them also as the bedrock of our society and people deserve

01:09:36.140 to be paid and they certainly deserve to be paid something that doesn't just keep them in poverty

01:09:41.580 um that's not rocket science i i do i do probably differ from you on a couple of accounts of the

01:09:47.820 methodologies that might be used so that we could we would differ all day on taxation and and a few other

01:09:53.580 areas but i but i think that we still are united on that one point which is that

01:09:58.300 uh poverty wages aren't wages they're just subsidized slavery and i think that we need

01:10:03.340 to do something about that fundamentally especially if we want this country to move from kind of its

01:10:08.380 backwater status of being somewhat a third world nation with nicer cars and faster internet uh to a

01:10:15.260 to supposedly a true g7 nation that actually has some mastery of its own its own borders and some

01:10:20.860 and masters in its own house yeah and remember like i'm not even articulating my own position on

01:10:26.060 this right like i you know i'm not a free marketeer i i i don't necessarily believe that the market

01:10:32.220 should dictate wages um i don't necessarily think that labor should be treated in our economy as a

01:10:38.300 as a commodity that is subject to the laws of supply and demand uh but i'm not the ones that i'm not the

01:10:45.420 one running around complaining about the labor shortage it's the free marketeers who are and so all

01:10:50.220 i'm doing is is is like shining some light on this contradiction you're either in favor of the free

01:10:57.180 market or you're not right and if you run around calling yourself a free marketeer um especially if

01:11:04.860 you are part of a party that brands itself as the free market coalition of british columbia

01:11:09.740 and you're running around complaining about a shortage of labor because you're not willing to

01:11:13.420 subject yourself to the free market uh when the supply of labor is low enough that the price is

01:11:19.420 high and you don't want to pay the market price for labor and you then turn to the state and say

01:11:25.020 i can't stay afloat because the workers are demanding too much money for the for what i used

01:11:29.500 to be able to pay them have to do i need public dollars to keep my business afloat instead of being

01:11:35.420 a real free marketeer and concluding that well if i can't afford to pay the market rate on labor

01:11:41.100 and stay in business then clearly i have a business model that's not working and the free market

01:11:45.180 dictates that my business should essentially evaporate and get out of the way so that another

01:11:50.620 better business model can come and provide the same service within the within the the market

01:11:54.780 conditions that exist you're not a free marketeer you're a socialist you're asking the state to bail

01:11:59.740 you out because you're not willing to subject yourself uh to the free market when it comes to the

01:12:04.140 commodity of labor that and it's a contradiction that's that's the only point i'm making which is that

01:12:09.100 there is absolutely no freak uh free market party uh in british columbia that's mainstream and has any

01:12:15.260 representation in in the legislature when the rubber hits the road so you have to stop listening to what

01:12:19.420 these not you personally but people have to stop listening to what these politicians say and watch

01:12:23.900 what they actually do when we get into these kind of situations it's very telling i i completely agree and

01:12:29.740 i but i mean this is also a problem even at the the federal level obviously we the tories have

01:12:35.660 failed to kind of articulate an alternative vision uh compared to the grits compared to the liberals

01:12:39.980 compared to the ndp uh and the greens for that matter and and and even the block they just don't

01:12:45.900 have an alternative vision that would say no we're going to try and decouple we're trying to couple big

01:12:50.940 business from subsidy we're going to try and let the market stand on its own two legs we're going to

01:12:56.540 try and let people bid bid their way up the chain and we're going to afford protections to workers that

01:13:03.420 ensure that as they gain more rights and privileges for themselves and wages those are those are not in

01:13:09.740 not enshrined constitutionally say but they are protected they can't just be withered away

01:13:14.300 by by fancy you know marketing rhetoric and by you know consultants who fly in and out of places

01:13:20.780 uh with their cheap suits and their terrible hotel bills uh you know we can we can move on from that

01:13:26.780 we can we can move on to some some to to uh well we are still a kingdom we're called the dominion but

01:13:31.260 we're actually we're going to be called the kingdom of cat we could move on to being a kingdom of

01:13:34.460 conscience and not just uh you know a rentier state yeah yeah i agree the um so the there's three more

01:13:43.340 clips here and there to do with um discussion about the border uh and we've we've had discussions about

01:13:49.500 this previously in at the beginning of the pandemic when the province uh uh was being pressured by the

01:13:56.380 same sort of professional managerial class types um to shut the border down between to stop americans

01:14:03.340 from coming into the country and uh and vice versa and you know i had been critical of the premier

01:14:09.020 because he basically said well you know it's federal jurisdiction we don't control the borders now i

01:14:13.420 wasn't critical of him because he was wrong he's right um but just because that's happens to be the

01:14:18.780 case doesn't mean that i think that uh bc premier uh shouldn't take a more proactive position in

01:14:25.260 patrolling our own borders uh but having said that i mean sort of the nuance of that argument you'll

01:14:30.060 recall at the time was that uh and i think you agreed with me was it we did just like i'm sort

01:14:34.940 of skeptical that we need to be in a state of emergency right now i was a little skeptical that

01:14:38.460 we needed to shut the borders down with the us i was more interested in shutting the borders down 0.64

01:14:43.100 between us and ontario um but uh they were ahead of us on vaccinations at that time in the us and

01:14:51.500 there just wasn't any evidence that a lot of uh what was being contracted in bc was coming from

01:14:58.540 people from seattle and oregon etc it was generally coming from people coming in from out of the country

01:15:03.340 on on planes etc uh anyway um now that we're back into the situation where you know we probably should

01:15:11.020 be rolling back some of these restrictions related to the pandemic this the wildfire has emerged as this

01:15:16.860 beautiful excuse for the professional managerial class to start calling about restrictions again

01:15:21.580 and so the majority of questions uh from this point on were about the border closures and here he goes

01:15:27.020 some time now the federal government is responsible for our borders we have had input certainly at the

01:15:33.100 front end urging closures and we've had input uh throughout this time engaging uh as provincial

01:15:39.180 leaders with the federal government on how best to restart our integration with the rest of the world

01:15:45.980 the federal government made a decision to open to u.s citizens on the 9th doubly vaccinated citizens on

01:15:52.620 the 9th of august and i can't predict or control what the u.s does i will say that i do know that

01:15:59.100 canadians have there are some more vaccinations in canada than there is in the united states

01:16:04.700 and based on my experience talking to people looking at opinion research i rather doubt that people will be

01:16:11.820 lining up in large numbers to travel south until they feel confident that the pandemic is well and truly

01:16:17.340 behind us um so he probably just jumped to the next one as well because he he mentions a couple times

01:16:24.220 here uh this new requirement now that you have for americans that they have to be double vaccinated

01:16:32.460 in order to come across let me just play this because it's kind of the same have a whole host of other

01:16:36.300 ways for americans to come into british columbia up and down the coast so we want to be there with

01:16:41.500 the federal government to manage that to protect people and if you haven't had two doses uh if i

01:16:47.900 heard the prime minister correctly and i'm confident that i did you're not allowed in the country and we

01:16:52.540 need to make sure that we're enforcing that and the province stands ready to help the federal government in

01:16:56.620 that regard that's very concerning to me um i don't know how you feel about that but i i i mean the

01:17:04.620 the problem i can see right at the outset in us really firmly getting behind this decision the

01:17:09.260 americans have made to require two doses it was probably and there's probably a response to us we

01:17:13.740 probably requested it at the federal level but that goes both ways and here's here's the obvious problem

01:17:19.340 like you know people will recall i think sometime last month bruce springsteen played uh sort of the

01:17:25.260 first post-pandemic concert in new york and anybody who had only received the astrazeneca vaccine was

01:17:31.340 barred entry uh because the americans the americans don't recognize that as a as as a legitimate

01:17:37.980 vaccine so this is a problem so we get behind uh you know he he here's our premier saying we should

01:17:45.820 be enforcing this two vaccine requirement double vaccine requirement in order for people to come 0.98

01:17:50.860 across the border well what if the americans decide that they're not going to admit anybody who's

01:17:55.420 only been vaccinated with the astrazeneca vaccine which is the entire millennial population basically

01:18:01.180 and pretty much my i mean it's pretty much my entire generation as well uh all the gen x etc the

01:18:08.140 only reason i didn't get i mean i've been vaccinated once i haven't got my second one yet uh and the only

01:18:12.860 reason i didn't get astrazeneca is because i waited so much longer than everybody my age did and so the the

01:18:18.380 supply was already gone from the private sector that was distributing it i went through the regular vaccine

01:18:22.620 center and got i think it was that moderna one and i suspect that'll be the second dose they give me

01:18:27.820 uh so wouldn't it be funny if after you know we so fervently get behind this decision the us has made

01:18:34.860 to in to help them enforce uh the two vaccine requirement for americans to come across the

01:18:40.380 border if in response the americans come out and say uh yeah well we also require two vaccines but if

01:18:46.780 any of those vaccines were astrazeneca you can't come that's an entire generation of people that won't be

01:18:51.500 able they're going to have to go get vaccinated a third or fourth time i guess just to meet this

01:18:55.580 stupid requirement um and so this is really a problem i think i i think that uh the joke's 0.63

01:19:06.140 going to be on anybody who thinks the vaccine passport's going to work i mean i already know

01:19:09.820 people who have obtained paperwork that says they're vaccinated without having ever been vaccinated

01:19:15.260 and uh good for them uh cheers to you i i plan on procuring myself some someday if that's necessary

01:19:21.740 but the the issue that even gets further than that is is quite frankly that it is just another way to

01:19:29.180 kind of divide up the class of people uh and to try and reclassify people as you know as degenerates

01:19:37.180 of human deplorables whatever it's it's just another methodology of power regardless of one's fears

01:19:42.060 about the virus or one's belief in the efficacy of the vaccines it i don't understand how they're

01:19:49.740 going to be able to really get this done i i don't think it's going to happen and even if they do manage

01:19:54.940 to get the vaccine passport thing rolling for a short amount of time i guess for those of us who remain

01:19:59.340 unvaccinated and have no plans to get vaccinated we just don't get to go on international trips for a

01:20:04.700 while i'm sure that that'll dissipate at some point uh but no i mean it makes it for a little bit

01:20:09.500 cheap well not for traveling in Canada cheap but you know i guess we just get to stay home and explore

01:20:21.100 yeah it's um it's a it's a big problem uh from my perspective i think like it's not a new thing that

01:20:31.180 countries will require certain vaccines in order to travel to them and in fact like you know i

01:20:36.140 remember traveling to venezuela a few years ago and there was a whole list of different vaccines that

01:20:40.060 that were recommended i'm not sure if any were necessarily required by the

01:20:43.660 by the venezuelan government but i went and got them because there's uh there's maladies and

01:20:49.260 different viruses and diseases uh in in other areas of the world that i don't necessarily have

01:20:55.020 resistance to because i live uh in a in a comparatively uh virus-free uh portion of the world

01:21:03.900 because it can be so cold up here right so a lot of a lot of what exists in sort of you know southern

01:21:09.420 north america central america and even south america just doesn't exist up here in prince george which

01:21:14.460 means we're we're a bit more uh we're a bit less we gotta get you a microphone mute yeah i know i got

01:21:21.180 one over here don't worry it's all pre-recorded we can edit that stuff out there it is so so it's not new

01:21:27.340 that people might might require or or even be well advised to get some vaccines for very like you

01:21:33.740 definitely want to get malaria shots and you want to get dengue fever shots and those kind of things

01:21:38.140 when you go traveling around in south america um so i'm not as i'm not necessarily as worried about

01:21:44.140 that but i am worried about vaccine passports absolutely and and i disagree with you in the

01:21:50.380 sense that you have any skepticism that they'll be able to enforce this thing they will absolutely be

01:21:55.180 able to enforce it that's what's so frightening is if they decide to do what they've done in some

01:22:00.140 other countries like i mean the worst videos that i saw were coming out of australia when they decided

01:22:04.860 that they were going to start enforcing mandatory masks outside on the street and very early in the

01:22:10.860 pandemic you saw these videos rolling out of police officers like tackling women in the streets 0.89

01:22:17.260 because they weren't wearing masks which it's like what are you trying to accomplish here you're

01:22:21.100 worried about more people contracting the virus and so you go attack somebody who's not wearing

01:22:26.540 a mask outdoors and you rub your body all over them and you and you get like really close and in

01:22:31.420 their face like if they're infected you're now infected and you're going to infect your family

01:22:35.740 it's stupid to ask to require police to do that kind of enforcement but never underestimate the

01:22:41.580 stupidity of these authoritarian loving governments run by the professional managerial class so they can

01:22:47.340 absolutely do that the other problem is is they require businesses to enforce this stuff which is

01:22:51.420 unfair for businesses so that's why you get all these situations where you know business owners and

01:22:56.460 servers and and all you know front counter staff are getting into fights with with the public because

01:23:02.700 the government has just downloaded the uh the enforcement of these stupid measures these this lockdown

01:23:08.860 on to businesses that they're not police they you know they depending on where they might be located

01:23:14.380 they might have to hire a security guard here and there but most small businesses don't have a

01:23:18.300 security guard on staff all the time they can't afford that and now you're putting like you know

01:23:23.340 i remember when i used to work in the service sector one of the biggest things we'd tell people

01:23:27.420 when we were training them is if you encounter a shoplifter or somebody who's potentially being violent

01:23:32.060 it's not your job to go stop them right like it theft and and that kind of thing is sort of a

01:23:39.100 like you can insure against that it's it's it's a cost of doing business for retail and service

01:23:44.380 outlets uh and you and the owner should take uh steps to try to mitigate against that and protect

01:23:49.980 against it but you don't put your own safety at risk as a worker especially if you're making like 0.78

01:23:54.540 minimum wage or not much more than that you don't put your own safety at risk to go you know tackle

01:24:00.220 somebody who is shoplifting from your employer it's not it's not your pocket they're they're picking

01:24:05.580 uh why would you why would you uh put your own flesh at risk you don't know what they're packing

01:24:10.780 right and so and and this is what government is asking small businesses to do and some some business

01:24:16.300 owners i think the more uh enlightened ones some of them have been forced to make uh decisions just

01:24:22.540 to shut things down because they don't want to put themselves and their staff in these dangerous

01:24:26.300 situations where they have to confront these people that simply refuse to put a mask on um and and

01:24:32.140 they shouldn't have to uh and and that's that's essentially what uh what these what these guys

01:24:38.140 are requiring of businesses and so that's that's concerning stuff it is concerning and i'm not

01:24:43.340 saying that it's impossible for the government to enforce such things i also do at the same time

01:24:47.420 believe the government's incompetence often gets in the way of their their grand plans of mice and

01:24:52.620 men as we come kind of to the end of our hour here uh aaron do you got one more clip for us or uh

01:24:58.620 uh just one more example of um how stupid these questions are from and hypocritical they are from

01:25:04.700 media yeah just the one more and then then we're pretty much done here let me just play it challenging

01:25:08.700 period of time lisa do you have a follow-up yes and talking about border reopening and and more

01:25:16.380 americans will be coming up here will there be more support for you know the tourism operators are

01:25:24.060 hurting so hard because they don't have enough staff that that's in so many different areas and

01:25:28.300 because we rely on people coming from other countries to work here and take jobs that we 0.99

01:25:31.820 don't have will there be more assistance for getting people from australia from other countries

01:25:36.380 that come here to work during you know seasons to get them here so that these businesses can

01:25:41.580 be running full speed versus having to turn away clients because they don't have a staff

01:25:45.740 to take care of them well on the agriculture side many uh operators to depend on temporary foreign

01:25:51.980 workers from uh south of us and we have been working with industry with the agriculture sector

01:25:59.180 we've been vaccinating uh incoming uh workers uh so that we can ensure that as they come into

01:26:05.260 into british columbia that they are they are safe and they're and keeping uh the people they work

01:26:10.460 with safe so we put in place programs and protocols to help with the labor shortages we have in some sectors

01:26:17.100 but we are now past the employment rate we had in february of 2020. we have more people working

01:26:23.340 today than we did then and i hear from every sector we have a shortage of labor i've just

01:26:29.180 so this sort of just elucidates what we've been what we've been talking about already and that there's

01:26:33.260 there's a clearly a shortage of labor i when the question was being asked i kind of it it almost

01:26:38.220 achieved the impossible by forcing me to feel sorry for horgan here and that you know they've been

01:26:43.340 the same people who have been yelling at him for weeks to call a state of emergency are now saying

01:26:47.740 are you going to put money into these businesses that are now hurting because of the decision you

01:26:51.020 made to call a state of emergency but then he you know his response is well we're just going to you

01:26:56.940 know there's a shortage of labor so we're just going to bring in more temporary foreign workers and

01:26:59.980 and don't worry we're able to vax like we can require them to get vaccinated and that's the thing is

01:27:04.540 that if you're a temporary foreign worker you have no rights you can't even come into the country

01:27:08.380 unless you get a jab so you definitely they're definitely in this situation where where they're

01:27:12.860 subjected to government mandated vaccinations which if if we want the freedom uh bestowed to us

01:27:18.940 to not get a vaccine we should also expect that temporary foreign workers coming in if they must

01:27:23.740 come in should be extended that same same freedom as us and should be paid the same as us and they're

01:27:29.180 not and that's that's the thing so now you have this situation where the bc nep government which for

01:27:34.380 years was critical of the temporary foreign worker program is now relying on that as a crutch

01:27:38.940 to try to solve this labor shortage which results from workers going in a pandemic or a state of

01:27:45.500 emergency you're not paying me enough to put myself at risk i'm going to go to some other

01:27:49.900 jurisdiction uh because why wouldn't i i'm going to make the best decision for me and so now you've

01:27:54.380 got a bc ndp premier who sounds exactly like a bc liberal premier saying the way out of this mess is

01:28:00.220 more temporary foreign workers and don't worry we can force the injections into them because 0.98

01:28:04.300 they have no rights in this country uh it's just i mean there's so much hypocrisy both from the media

01:28:09.420 and these politicians the british columbians should be you know should be concerned and angry about this

01:28:14.460 stuff i think and so this you know sorry to throw so many clips uh from the from the premier at you

01:28:19.420 here but i thought this interview in particular uh was was a great example and just encapsulated so

01:28:25.580 many of the problems that we're facing here in british columbia right now the other the other

01:28:29.740 interesting piece of course is that you know to his left i guess on this side actually on his left

01:28:35.180 shoulder there is just off camera is the forest minister who through the duration of this interview

01:28:39.900 i think says nothing um and it she's been under fire prior to the wildfire for a long time and now

01:28:46.620 we've got the state of emergency situation and he comes in and sort of eats up all the the spotlight

01:28:51.580 and i don't think it's necessarily because he wants to i think it's because there's this recognition

01:28:55.740 that she is floundering on this file and isn't able to sort of take the tough the tough questions

01:29:01.580 now contrast this to can you imagine if that was the case at during the entire time of the covet

01:29:07.740 pandemic where the health minister adrian dix just didn't do any talking just sort of vanished

01:29:12.060 and the premier had to come in and do this i mean what kind of uh what kind of um uh

01:29:19.660 confidence does that instill amongst british columbians in our forest minister

01:29:23.260 so i wouldn't be surprised uh if a cabinet shuffle comes up soon that you see uh cat conroy shuffled

01:29:29.660 out and then the question is well who would be a great minister of forests and i would say um

01:29:36.220 probably harry harry baines would be good although he's a minister of labor right now but we'll see

01:29:41.420 we'll see what they decide to do i know i i don't think there's any apologies necessary aaron i mean

01:29:47.340 these are important uh concepts that are being brought up and i do think uh if nothing else and to

01:29:51.740 borrow from again our good friends uh vocabulary uh it appears then that everything is captured

01:29:57.500 when an ndp premier of bc which is a wild province a bizarre place of extreme right extreme left kind of

01:30:04.780 strange north islanders and bizarre interiors and then of course the urbanites it's just a bizarre

01:30:09.980 place and yet even there in that diverse land called british columbia we can hear the exact same words

01:30:16.700 come out of the mouth of two different people who supposedly cling to two completely different

01:30:20.460 political philosophies uh who rule us from victoria that that sounds like captured to me

01:30:25.980 and that sounds like we need to do something pretty drastic in order to get out of the narrative we're

01:30:30.620 currently stuck in agreed absolutely i want to say thank you again so much for joining us today aaron

01:30:37.820 again here bricking the show with us uh before we go on hiatus i really appreciate your presence here

01:30:43.100 and i'm very thankful for all the contributions you and all of our other contributors have made over the

01:30:47.580 course of these 15 weeks well if if you can indulge me for a moment i i just want to say um given that

01:30:53.180 we won't be doing this for a little while now how much of a pleasure it has been to to do these shows

01:30:57.500 with you i think you're filling a uh a niche here that needs to be filled in british columbia you just

01:31:02.620 don't see the kind of commentary uh in any other media outlet that you see uh from from this show sort of

01:31:10.300 of criticizing both sides when it when it needs to happen and eschewing sort of partisan allegiance

01:31:15.500 um uh and and and and and i think you know i i look forward to whatever the new format looks like but

01:31:22.540 hopefully it doesn't take too long for you to come back because you're filling an important role in

01:31:25.420 this province thank you aaron well we're gonna call that a day and i'm gonna wave goodbye i'm gonna do

01:31:32.140 a little bit of a close out here and then uh head on out all right thanks man thank you so much aaron

01:31:37.580 well that was mountain standard time uh week 15 and we're here at the end of these things not quite

01:31:46.460 the end of all things necessarily uh but the end of these things and i think that as a concluding

01:31:53.020 point at least on my end uh we're hopeful deeply hopeful of of a better future for this country uh

01:32:01.020 whatever parts of this country continue to be whole or one but i i do believe there's

01:32:07.100 also some real dark nights of the soul ahead of us uh as a culture as a people uh as a land that is

01:32:13.100 wrestling with its very identity its background its history and where to go to from here my only piece

01:32:18.220 of advice on all that count is that certainly things must change and perhaps they even do need to change

01:32:26.780 radically but in the end they need to have buy-in and the buy-in from at least a majority of the

01:32:31.500 population and certainly those elements of the population that feel marginalized and ignored

01:32:36.220 and until that's understood there is going to be a complete disconnect disconnect between those who

01:32:41.820 rule us and those who are ruled and that can't go on forever that will eventually result in violence

01:32:50.460 and will eventually cause some very deep problems in this country

01:32:56.300 there are things that are being said in this country that i never thought i'd hear the things being

01:33:00.140 done in this country i never thought i'd see there are attitudes being taken in this country i never

01:33:05.020 thought people would entertain that is not a recipe for success if we hope to move forward as a nation

01:33:12.060 we will require some very serious renovation in the not-so-distant future thank you for watching

01:33:19.340 that was mountain standard time i'm nathan guida we'll see you after the hiatus

Western Standard - July 23, 2021

Mountain Standard Time - Episode 45.5 The Epilogue

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