Dr. Grant Havers joins us to talk about the crisis in Toryism, and why it's happening in Canada and around the world. In the second half of the show, Jordan Steidl of Stop the Sprays joins the show to discuss forestry.
00:04:16.560This is Canada, and there are rules. Dating all the way back to 1867 and the British North America Act, languages in Canada, that is to say French and English, enjoy equal protections under the law, and it is a legal requirement that people be able to receive services as well as conduct business in either official language of Canada.
00:04:34.880That's the bedrock of federalism, along with travel, which is an interesting point. With COVID, because of travel restrictions, you've just ruined federalism, let alone religious freedom, which was another bedrock of federalism.
00:04:45.260I can't really blame the Pepsis for pulling this stunt.
00:04:49.820Premier Legault, a kind of center-right populist character who helped found Air Transat,
00:04:54.800this Trumpian move was right up his alley.
00:05:40.980We in the West might enjoy changing the Constitution
00:05:43.000as we see fit, discarding equalization and making the Senate equal come to mind.
00:05:47.360But we are also believers in law and order.
00:05:49.920St. Thomas Morewell said, it does us no good to remove every law to get at the devil for
00:05:55.020what laws would hold him back from trying to get me if they were all gone.
00:05:58.980Peace order and good government are as Canadian as maple syrup.
00:06:01.980What Quebec is proposing is fundamentally unjust as well as anti-democratic.
00:06:06.540Our leaders need to call it what it is.
00:06:08.340Unfortunately, courage is in short supply.
00:06:11.200So to comment on that a little bit and tell us what's going on when it comes to both Canadian Toryism and Toryism around the world, we're bringing on Dr. Grant Havers.
00:06:21.240Dr. Grant Havers, it's good to have you on the program.
00:06:23.720What is going wrong with Toryism in Canada?
00:06:29.280Well, the Quebec question has always been perhaps a thorn in the side of the Conservative Party, at least since the time in which the Tories hanged Louis Riel.
00:06:47.180And, of course, there are a lot of historical details to that event.
00:06:51.380But the Tories have rarely been able to make a breakthrough into Quebec.
00:07:18.080But Quebec is a real challenge to the Tories and obviously to anybody who believes in federalism the way you appropriately described it.
00:07:31.500Let me put it this way. Canada is a liberal democracy or a constitutional self-government, whatever term you want to use.
00:07:42.380And one of the most basic principles to that kind of regime is equality before the law.
00:07:48.640that all human beings at least all rational adult human beings are supposed to be equal before the
00:07:56.320law so what that means uh regarding federal provincial relations is that one province
00:08:03.760cannot have more power than the other or the citizens of one province cannot have
00:08:09.680more rights than the other so i would think from a traditional conservative perspective
00:08:18.560it's very hard to reconcile equality before the law as a principle with the principle that
00:08:25.840some groups or some provinces have more rights than others uh i i don't see how that uh that
00:08:33.280contradiction can be addressed by any political party uh so that's always been a challenge in
00:08:40.320the history of canada and and certainly a challenge to the the conservative party
00:08:46.160and and going all the way back to the founding of canada and and the negotiations and the horse
00:08:51.120trading that was happening to to get this nation off the ground something something that needs to
00:08:57.200be highlighted here too is that while it was always acknowledged that quebec was going to
00:09:01.360be different and of course it was a catholic and french nation inside of the rest of canada that
00:09:07.120was understood from the very beginning as this populace would be a nucleus and it would be
00:09:11.600different and it was never going to be completely amalgamated into anglo canada and certainly anglo
00:09:17.120protestant canada orangeman canada which was pretty strong in certain parts of of toronto what's now
00:09:22.480known as toronto today um the the problem though is that it's one thing to acknowledge those things
00:09:28.880it's another thing for either side to put their thumb on the scale what do you think is is happening
00:09:33.520here why is legoe making this move does he just see an opportunity or has has has quebec really
00:09:40.080gotten to the point where it's so arrogant it thinks no i can just get away whatever i want
00:09:43.680no one no one's going to stop me well legoe's move is just the latest chapter in the history
00:09:50.720of Quebec, or at least governments in Quebec, acting on their own or acting as if they are
00:09:59.380already a nation state. And I don't mean that as a criticism. I can understand why many Quebecers
00:10:08.220feel that way. I mean, this goes as far back as Duplessis, who certainly believed in federalism
00:10:17.500more so than his many of his successors but uh even duplicy thought that quebec
00:10:25.420uh was separate separate but equal but separate nonetheless and uh and acted uh as if the federal
00:10:34.700government was secondary to the decisions that quebec um ought to make uh so uh this is just the
00:10:43.260the latest uh development in a history of quebec uh going its own way uh i should add
00:10:50.460too that i i don't think the liberals have any magic solutions uh to this problem uh i mean
00:10:57.500pierre trudeau trudeau the elder uh thought of course that if the country became officially
00:11:04.460bilingual or if there was equal protection of both uh languages both french and english across
00:11:12.700canada then somehow that would neutralize uh the separatist threat in quebec but also reassure
00:11:20.140quebec about its place uh in the rest of canada and it seems to me that most quebecers certainly
00:11:28.140those who lean towards sovereignty or sovereignty association could care less about bilingualism
00:11:34.300that that was an irrelevant answer to this problem so i just think that whoever's in power
00:11:44.820in ottawa whether liberal or or conservative quebec will continue to go its own way
00:11:52.480yeah absolutely i understand something something that's kind of needs to be clarified
00:12:00.780is particularly I think the issue of the Tory response to this so we had so the obvious players
00:12:09.640played into what Legault was doing I mean Trudeau was never going to counter Legault he needs those
00:12:14.380seats in the coming election neither neither was Jagmeet going to counter Trudeau at least as far
00:12:19.320as I know his statement hasn't counted him nobody is going to counter him and then it came down to
00:12:23.580the Tories so the Tories why why did they not do what they've done many times before I mean they
00:12:30.420were kind of the conscience of the nation for all those years they were shut out between
00:12:34.560Diefenbaker and finally Mulroney and even from Mulroney to Harper the Tories the right side the
00:12:40.240right wing parties of this country kind of developed their their understanding around hey
00:12:45.460we are going to we we are at least if we can't have power then we're going to be a loyal opposition
00:12:50.540that at least points out that there are things about this country that need to be protected and
00:12:55.000We're not going to allow them to be trespassed.
00:12:56.600And now Aaron O'Toole has betrayed that legacy by saying, no, these equal protections don't matter to me.
00:13:02.740So apparently he's vote buying as well.
00:13:05.640Right. And that's a very dangerous tactic because, of course, the rest of Canada or what many Quebecers call the rock are not happy about that unequal treatment.
00:13:17.420But, yeah, I think there are two reasons, one of which you've already hit upon.
00:13:20.720And the Tories are just afraid to alienate Quebec or to be portrayed as bigoted or xenophobic or just insensitive.
00:13:31.520But I think the other reason, which is equally political, is that the Tories historically have sometimes enjoyed or benefited from kind of the conservative populist vote that often springs up in rural Quebec.
00:13:51.640So obviously I'm not talking about the island of Montreal. That is Tory-free. They'll never put a dent into capturing Montreal. But the Tories occasionally, certainly under Mulroney and to some extent Harper, have benefited from that populist right-wing vote.
00:14:11.920Of course, that vote is kind of a mixed blessing because sometimes populist right-wingers in Quebec, I shouldn't say sometimes, I'd say most of the time, lean towards more powers for Quebec or a greater measure of sovereignty for Quebec.
00:14:34.540So it's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the Tories have been able to harvest votes from that bloc. On the other hand, at some point, they have to make a choice about whether they believe in federalism for everyone or whether they're going to accommodate this populist vote in Quebec. So they're in a bit of a pickle.
00:14:55.940i understand um it i think i think that there's another piece to this as well is that
00:15:04.700as they as the tories kind of wrestle with their identity on this and as as quebec asserts itself
00:15:10.400now the west might have some questions of its own like why can't they unilaterally change their
00:15:16.160constitutions i mean i'm sure they'd love to do something about equalization i'm sure they'd like
00:15:20.660do something about the senate uh why can't the west just totally decouple itself from from the
00:15:27.220consensus of 1867 or even 1982 and be like no you know what like we run the show now and we're going
00:15:33.860to do whatever we want to do well that's right that's a danger facing uh all political parties
00:15:41.860in in canada uh namely the the danger of a domino effect uh in which some provinces probably the
00:15:49.620western ones will say look why can't we uh enjoy a measure of sovereignty uh or or something even
00:15:58.340uh more more dramatic uh like the separation uh the way that quebec uh has sometimes acted and
00:16:07.300and that's a real question i i don't think uh the federal liberals have an answer to that
00:16:13.460at all uh they as you know they they have a pretty poor record of understanding the west
00:16:20.020this goes at least as far back as uh pierre trudeau so uh yeah i i think in a liberal democracy one
00:16:30.660that is officially committed to equality before the law any kind of double standard especially
00:16:36.820in a time of stress and instability uh will just not be tolerated uh indefinitely and uh
00:16:47.460again the liberals don't have an answer to that i i don't think the tories do either i'm not sure
00:16:52.820that mr o'toole really understands the west i mean you mentioned the the carbon tax the new carbon
00:17:00.100tax measure that um he has proposed so uh yeah growing western alienation is a a real thing
00:17:10.660and uh unless both major federal parties can answer the question uh what exactly unites us
00:17:19.860as a country i think we're going to be uh be facing some real turbulence and instability down
00:17:27.380the road i completely agree the question though becomes what would that new political arrangement
00:17:34.420look like i never thought i'd be the guy on a show that was based on western sovereignty again
00:17:40.420i've as i've said many times on this show uh i'm i ambivalent about the question of federalism i i
00:17:46.740prefer the external borders of canada i think the internal borders need to change but to that end
00:17:52.020like i just said i never thought i'd be the guy on a show somewhere explaining that i wanted to
00:17:56.180become yugoslavia but some kind of loosely confederated entity that is more like an empire
00:18:03.220with its various stretched out arms than a then than a tightly federalized system that we've
00:18:08.740attempted for 150 years but it's falling apart now i i don't i don't know how to advocate for
00:18:14.260that without sounding insane but i think we might need an austro-hungarian empire and not what we
00:18:20.100have today yeah and of course that empire had its own problems uh leading up to world war one but we
00:18:28.420we don't have to get into that but uh yeah i think you're right and uh canadians especially canadians
00:18:34.340in government need to understand the original uh raison d'etre of canada i mean unlike the united
00:18:41.300states uh we're not a country based on uh high principle or propositions that were immortalized
00:18:51.860like propositional truths that were immortalized through the declaration of independence
00:18:56.820nor are we like european countries that have a very homogeneous ethnic identity that has a shared
00:19:05.140history and language that keeps the country together we don't fit into either the european
00:19:09.780or american model i mean what really has historically been the basis of canada is
00:19:16.500sound economic policy and i think john a mcdonald understood this very well that uh
00:19:23.540it wasn't about uh political philosophy as in the united states and it wasn't about
00:19:29.380homogeneous identities it was about making sure that all regions of the country benefited
00:19:36.660economically and that's really the glue that is supposed to keep the country together but
00:19:42.740if certain regions of the country don't feel that confederation benefits them in any economic sense
00:19:51.940then we're in trouble and again the absence of a national narrative just adds to that uncertainty
00:20:01.620and disdain over confederation so again i i i think the question of economics uh
00:20:11.460uh has to be addressed here i completely agree i completely agree and and that i think is it's
00:20:19.460pretty clear that when there are economic shocks in this country that's when there are even when
00:20:24.180it's economic prosperity too but like because i mean there was a lot of separatist sentiment
00:20:28.340during the first world war and obviously quebec was benefiting from the first world war they were
00:20:32.660getting a lot of pay out of out of that situation but but unrest uh with economic uncertainty in
00:20:39.300this country is a very real thing and covid has not helped this and neither has the trudeau government
00:20:46.580well no that's right i mean in the best of times all political parties
00:20:50.500are kept together or hang together because of loose coalitions. I mean, that's true of the
00:20:59.120Liberal Party. It's true of the Conservative Party. And those coalitions, which often have
00:21:05.960different agenda or the people making up the coalitions may have different agenda or different
00:21:13.180concerns. They only hang together if times are prosperous or if times are peaceful.
00:21:24.180But coalitions can break apart in times of anxiety and instability. So I mentioned that
00:21:31.380because the Conservative Party of Canada has always been kind of a loose coalition of small
00:21:37.540business, Western populists, obviously voting blocs in Ontario and Quebec, to some extent,
00:21:47.380all of whom have different interests or may even understand conservatism differently.
00:21:53.080And again, in times of prosperity, those differences may not matter.
00:21:57.620It may not matter that there can be these differences.
00:22:03.840But in a time of instability, these coalitions are very fragile and can be vulnerable to things like separatism or just a province going its own way.
00:22:18.480Maybe let's pivot a little bit now to what's happening in the United States.
00:22:22.480So we are now six months out from, well, the end of the Trump presidency and so far that that was when the election was called.
00:22:31.580So we're getting towards that point now.
00:22:33.840the election having been called for biden about a week after the uh five five to seven days after
00:22:40.000the initial voting um the and of course there was the stop to steal campaign and then there was the
00:22:45.840january 6 riots and all that stuff that's all starting to feel like ancient history now as we
00:22:49.680get into the end of may and into june but but within the republican party it's only yesterday
00:22:55.600so the conserved party of the united states the right-wing party of the united states is is
00:22:59.440struggling to find its identity is it going to stick with its former president now at the winter
00:23:05.460white house in mar-a-lago taking meetings talking with people starting his own social media company
00:23:11.260supposedly making statements and pronouncements almost like an opposition leader against
00:23:15.620president biden which of course is different for american politics today they don't have a
00:23:21.560parliamentary system they have a congressional system so the idea of there being a leader of
00:23:24.980opposition it's a very different sort of understanding there what what's going to
00:23:29.140happen to the republican party is it going to remain the party of donald trump or are they
00:23:33.300going to move on uh yeah the quick answer is who knows but my best guess is that uh
00:23:43.620eventually they will they will have to move beyond uh i i guess the the trump personality cult
00:23:53.060uh for for different reasons but uh i i i think the republican party cannot move beyond
00:24:01.780uh the kind of populist base that was built up during the trump era they cannot afford to lose
00:24:10.020that base which is uh largely made up of not just small business people but also work
00:24:16.500yeah working people people who are working and uh class america until the rise of trump
00:24:27.140uh so i mean there'll always be a wing of the republican party that uh wants to get beyond not
00:24:36.020just trump but also populism but i i think uh they'll be increasingly marginalized and now
00:24:41.700there's talk that these more liberal Republicans or anti-Trump Republicans might even form their
00:24:48.640own party. I would say good luck with that, because there is no voting bloc in the United
00:24:53.680States that will support a breakaway anti-populist Republican Party. That idea is just pure fantasy.
00:25:03.500So I think the Republicans, just for the sake of re-energizing themselves, have to get beyond Trump, although they have to be careful about how they do that.
00:25:14.760But they have to hang on to that populist vote.
00:25:17.120They've got to hang on to the working class that voted Republican in the time of Trump.
00:25:26.900Hopefully they'll do that if they're smart.
00:25:30.020yeah if and if they can politically strategize how to do that but the thing is
00:25:34.660i think that's kind of the bargain they have to make they have to stick with the greatest showman
00:25:40.020the man the man who managed to bring in these reagan democrats back into the party uh people
00:25:46.060who felt alienated people who you know it's funny because we we watched we watch uh roseanne that's
00:25:51.640always one of my favorite references right there's roseanne right and you're watching roseanne you've
00:25:55.540got some you know i guess it could have been reagan democrats or definitely clinton working
00:25:59.640class voters right like they wanted you know third way policies or working class people they
00:26:04.160want to help their children they want their schools to be open and then somehow both establishments
00:26:10.160democrat and republican bought so hard into neoliberalism and shipping jobs overseas and
00:26:15.640defunding uh the public services that people need that that it took trump to come in and and and
00:26:21.340question that. It's kind of incredible. Even after a socialist was supposedly president,
00:26:27.440though I think that's a bit of a mischaracterization of Obama, they needed to bring in a reality TV
00:26:34.400show star to try and bring back the forgotten man speech. How did that happen, Dr. Hayward?
00:26:41.280Well, I think it happened because the Republican Party blazed a trail for Donald Trump. And I know
00:26:46.940the Republican establishment doesn't want to admit that. They don't want to admit that they're
00:26:51.540partly responsible for the rise of Trump. But like you mentioned, the Republican Party,
00:26:57.520but also the Democrats, have endorsed so-called free trade policies that didn't do much good for
00:27:05.300working class Americans. And then both parties, I'm thinking of the second Iraq war in particular,
00:27:14.200have supported imperial adventurism in foreign policy or endless wars for democracy,
00:27:23.160which have failed. We just have to look at Afghanistan today. And of course, none of that
00:27:30.360helped to attract working class voters to the Republican Party. So Trump came in
00:27:37.920And as you mentioned, he denounced neoliberal or free trade policies.
00:27:42.980But he's also proud of the fact that he never got America involved in another war that is costly in terms of blood and treasure.
00:27:54.060I think in one of his last speeches before he left the White House, he proudly said that he hadn't got America involved in another destructive war.
00:28:04.620So I think that's why Trump was able to perpetrate this hostile takeover against the Republican Party, because the Republican establishment, I think to this day, still doesn't understand its own base.
00:28:21.960And I just find that mind boggling. At least the Democratic establishment understands its base, which is probably why it's more successful.
00:28:29.360But the Republican establishment still seems to think that most voters want free trade policies and there should be more intervention around the world to spread democracy.
00:28:44.040I mean, some of that sentiment has been chastened because of the Trump era, but Trump understood the base so well.
00:28:54.120And if anybody's going to replace Trump, it's got to be another populist who has his appeal, but also his animal cunning in terms of understanding what working class and small business Americans want.
00:29:11.700and i i'm not sure that a replacement is in the offing it's it is a difficult task ahead my own
00:29:20.340my own personal bet and this is calling it way out i mean i called i mean i actually called it
00:29:25.860what was it this is the it was 2016 this five years ago this may i called trump's election in
00:29:31.380may of 2016 um and i was proven right there uh obviously my call for it this coming this this
00:29:37.460last election cycle though i do have some questions about where some of these votes came from
00:29:42.260uh was wrong or prove it proved forced to be wrong by somebody somewhere but i think that i think that
00:29:48.020my call now would be what's going to happen with this sec with this other run perhaps by trump or
00:29:53.460not i think the trumpian candidate is going to be blessed by president trump i think it might be
00:29:58.500de santis the governor of florida who of course with his anti-lockdown mentality has kind of saved
00:30:03.780his state between him and maybe christy noma as his vice presidential pick as kind of this bizarre
00:30:09.700pivot where all of a sudden florida's the new california cal i mean you you would remember
00:30:14.820better than i not to mention your age dr avers but you would remember better than i what happened
00:30:20.340california used to be a republican state it used to be a strong republican state and then something
00:30:24.820happened to it is the story of california kind of the story maybe of what's gone wrong in the
00:30:29.620in the United States generally. Yeah, well, Californication sweep the nation. Yeah, that's
00:30:37.180interesting. You're right. I am old enough to remember when California was reliably Republican,
00:30:42.640had a very strong economy rooted in the manufacturing sector, which was able to lift
00:30:48.580so many working class people into the middle class. Now, as you know, it's strongly Democratic.
00:30:54.160the middle class is shrinking in California, and big tech, the big tech companies have replaced
00:31:01.820the manufacturing sector. And of course, big tech certainly makes a lot of money for itself,
00:31:10.000but doesn't produce a middle class. And in fact, it's quite happy to survive on a proletariat or
00:31:18.560a precariat of workers who are not in the middle class. So, yeah, I think many Republicans fear
00:31:27.360that California is kind of a bellwether for the rest of the country. They should also be worried
00:31:34.180about Texas. I mean, Texas may be moving into the Democratic column, partly because of the
00:31:43.620immigration issue. And of course, most immigrants from the developing world generally vote Democrat.
00:31:51.220I don't think there's anything controversial about that. If the Republicans lose Texas,
00:31:57.460it's over. They will never be able to win a federal victory or a presidential victory again.
00:32:06.400so i i think the more enlightened republicans uh understand this and certainly trump did
00:32:14.040uh but that's right uh all it takes are are a few states to go the way of of california
00:32:21.660and uh the republican party will be finished yeah that purpling that purpling georgia is
00:32:28.360purpled as i think mark stein put it once they're purpling in texas they're purpling in
00:32:32.420in georgia what's going to happen next i maybe maybe kind of pulling back from all of it for
00:32:38.280just a moment is what we've been here since 2016 we're now five years into the the disruption uh
00:32:46.880the the politics of disruption as people said that the discourses that have been disrupted
00:32:51.020whatever projects were underway come 2015 into 2016 one way or another things have kind of gone
00:32:57.160sideways for those ruling elites in that way for a long time, half a decade now. Brexit was that
00:33:06.000signal. So was the Trump presidency and the Trump election. Before that, we saw the unrest, the
00:33:11.460popular unrest when it came to the austerity, both in England, but also throughout Europe after the
00:33:17.120Euro crisis and the financial crisis in the United States. Why is there such a disconnect between
00:33:24.240those who are in charge and the people on the ground and particularly if we even look at canada
00:33:29.340it seems to be like particularly right-wing premiers are the most disconnected from their
00:33:34.420populace somehow ford is more hated than than john horgan is same with kenny that and pallister for
00:33:42.060that matter that somehow on the right this this disruption of discourse has has gotten worse what
00:33:48.240what happened globally and then maybe more locally why isn't there why is there this disconnect
00:33:53.260well i i think this disconnect goes back to the failure of of some leaders on the right to
00:34:03.200understand their own voting base so i i mentioned uh the working class and uh small business people
00:34:10.100and unfortunately this is a pattern uh in the history of the of the right at least recent
00:34:16.460history, with a few exceptions, that the establishment right, as I would call it,
00:34:24.240has trouble relating to the working class. Now, in fairness, I would say the federal liberals and
00:34:32.100the NDP have that problem too, which is embarrassing for the NDP because they're
00:34:37.160supposed to be the party of the working class. And the Democrats have seemed to lost touch with
00:34:43.780their uh their uh traditional constituency the working class so this is a problem that applies
00:34:50.660to all uh political parties but i think in general uh elites across the world i don't just mean
00:34:56.900government elites or political ones but also corporate elites no longer really believe in
00:35:02.740the nation state or no longer really have local loyalties or attachments they certainly prize
00:35:10.340social mobility. They certainly love the fact that they can move their money around the world
00:35:18.340with just a flick of the button on the keyboard. That's very different from the elites of the old
00:35:25.800days. I don't want to romanticize those days, but the wealthiest people that tended to govern
00:35:34.380candidate in the United States in the late 19th, early 20th century, I think were more attached
00:35:40.560to their countries, largely because they weren't as mobile. They couldn't just move their money
00:35:47.980around. They couldn't just live wherever they liked. And so they had to demonstrate a commitment
00:35:54.640to their nations, sometimes through philanthropy or other ventures. But the elites in our own time,
00:36:03.620uh the managerial elites uh they see themselves not as citizens but as uh participants in the
00:36:11.780global village and uh and therefore they they see nationalism as kind of a dangerous
00:36:19.300and uh archaic threat that should just go away so i i think in general you you you do have this kind
00:36:27.620of cosmopolitan attitude that uh we we should represent the world we we should not represent
00:36:36.180uh our national loyalties and of course they profit uh from that attitude as well but in
00:36:42.660the process they they ignore uh the the concerns of the working classes in their countries
00:36:50.580it's interesting because again we we've been through a gilded age before
00:36:55.140We named it such. It looks like we're headed towards another one, especially with the disparity in wealth that's growing. The last Gilded Age, it didn't end in the same kind of destruction as previous ones did or previous moments of disparity. I'm thinking of the French Revolution. I'm thinking of other moments in history.
00:37:15.040that gilded age while in europe certainly the returns to fascism and totalitarianism
00:37:19.980it didn't happen everywhere and it didn't happen in the anglosphere which is interesting
00:37:24.760do you predict that we'll survive this gilded age the same way we did last time or is there
00:37:30.400going to be a fundamental pivot to a more totalitarian style of government even in anglo
00:37:34.880america yeah i'm reluctant to uh make predictions but uh here's a maybe a best guess i i would think
00:37:44.960the real authoritarian threat today tends to come from the left. And I wouldn't call this
00:37:55.140a left-wing version of fascism necessarily, but I think many people on the left, in forgetting
00:38:03.020their movements, historic commitment to the working class, are very comfortable with giving
00:38:11.200governments and big tech enormous surveillance powers to spy on the population and de-platform
00:38:20.900people who oppose their ideology. So I think we have a different left today that is not just cut
00:38:30.620off from the working class, but it's quite comfortable with a Leviathan state that likes
00:38:37.820to monitor people and uses big tech to censor people as well. So I think that's where the
00:38:43.600authoritarianism is coming from. I mean, when was the last time that cancel culture applied to0.99
00:38:49.240somebody on the left? I guess it happens occasionally, but as you know, overwhelmingly
00:38:54.540cancel culture applies to the right. So I would think the right in some parts of Europe or perhaps0.83
00:39:05.260the United States has some authoritarian elements, but they're not the predominant elements of the
00:39:11.280right. I think the right is fighting a defensive war. The right is trying to preserve what is left
00:39:19.200of traditional liberties and traditional constitutional government, and they have a
00:39:24.780real uphill battle that they're fighting in the process. So the right is trying to fight for
00:39:30.500survival uh i i don't think that they're in a position even if they wanted to be to uh recreate
00:39:38.340the kind of mass fascist movements that uh characterize the 1920s and 30s so i i think the
00:39:46.980danger of uh of abuse of power uh in an authoritarian direction is is more so on the left
00:39:56.020so there won't be an english-speaking franco is what you're saying
00:40:03.280let's talk a little bit about what is a little what is closer to home with with in particular
00:40:11.240the disconnect between the three the three kind of most well-known right-wing premiers that we have
00:40:16.640uh two in the west and one in ontario ford pallister and kenny most most recently kenny
00:40:22.180appearing to lose control of his caucus it appears that kenny may very well be on his way out
00:40:28.180it each of these people made different decisions they resulted in different problems maybe the
00:40:34.580press is scrutinizing right-wing uh premiers more than it would left-wing or conservative
00:40:39.300premiers more than it would liberal ones or progressive ones or ndp ones but but nonetheless
00:40:44.820even even i you know when i'm cross-examined by my friends who live in these areas of course we're
00:40:49.780in british columbia both of us speaking for british columbia today but when i talk to people
00:40:54.100who live in alberta manitoba or ontario they even if they're sympathetic to say a conservative or pc
00:41:02.260candidate they they hate what they're living under and i have to admit that i wouldn't have a lot of
00:41:08.980mercy on my particular leader as well if i happen to live in those districts what has happened here
00:41:14.580Why on the right has there been this complete disconnect with their base and ultimately a betrayal of their base?
00:41:21.440We've seen this federally already, but now through COVID, even the idea of maybe trying to use some more freedom-loving sort of methods or individual sort of solutions to these problems,
00:41:32.120they've completely caved and they've lost both the people that were never going to vote for them and the people who already voted for them.
00:41:39.980Yeah, and sad to say, this is a pattern in the history of the right.
00:41:44.580uh on both sides of the border uh a famous american conservative thinker wilmore kendall
00:41:51.220once said that the right uh never retrieves its wounded which is a depressing thought to
00:41:58.740contemplate but for a long time uh the right in a way has been its own enemy because once uh right
00:42:07.060wing parties uh get into power they they generally abandon uh the uh ideology that um attracted
00:42:17.380voters in the in the first place uh you can see that in the history uh of the american right uh
00:42:24.660that uh once upon a time the american right was uh quite opposed to uh interventionist foreign
00:42:32.020policies. And as we said, Trump benefited from that voting bloc. But there are many establishment
00:42:42.740conservatives who get into power and embrace interventionism. I'm sorry if I'm going back
00:42:52.200to the American context, but I remember when George W. Bush was debating Al Gore, he said
00:42:58.660America should not be a nation building nation or something like that. We should avoid that sort of
00:43:05.260thing. And then, of course, the second Iraq war came along. So you see parallels in Canada, too,
00:43:13.260that often Tories or conservatives that get elected do not realize or forget about why they
00:43:22.520got elected in the first place. I mean, most people who vote on the right are sick and tired
00:43:28.760of the surveillance state. They're tired of being monitored and spied on and being de-platformed.
00:43:39.000I'm encouraged by the fact that O'Toole is making an issue out of C-10, that internet bill that the
00:43:47.240liberals are proposing that has some implications for uh free speech on the internet i think they
00:43:54.200need to do more of that uh and and uh if i had any advice for conservative parties especially
00:44:01.720the federal one it is to present themselves as the freedom party in which it's okay to have the
00:44:09.160freedom to disagree with each other it's okay uh to question the government it's okay uh to uh
00:44:18.760cherish one's liberties um i i think that would be effective propaganda against the left
00:44:25.800right now but uh tories uh at least uh tories in our governments have not done enough of that
00:44:34.760and they need to do more and and it's a communications issue as well it's that that
00:44:42.200for some reason they'll communicate and and campaign as populist and as the freedom party
00:44:47.160as you just mentioned that they'll campaign in that respect but where where is the meat of the
00:44:53.320issue even with harper the further we get away from harper's legacy like god god bless him and
00:44:57.880everything and i mean it's it's it's a sin to complain against harper and toryism but but the
00:45:03.000The further we get away from it, the redder, the more red Tory his legacy gets.
00:45:07.960It wasn't actually the populist thing that everybody remembers.
00:45:11.940We still have gun legislation that he promised to get rid of.
00:45:15.700We still have a Senate that's not equal.
00:45:18.980We still have taxation that's still exorbitant.
00:45:22.580Boutique tax credits weren't going to do enough.
00:45:24.980We needed to literally cut taxes to the point where raising them again to the same rates as before would have caused a rebellion.
00:45:32.200People would have been marching in the street.
00:45:46.940I think, I mean, to go back to what we earlier discussed, the federal Tories are afraid of alienating Quebec.
00:45:56.300They're afraid of alienating the 905 district in southern Ontario.
00:46:02.200both of which tend to be more comfortable with an interventionist state or with a state
00:46:10.520that the federal liberals have built up over time. And that leads to the strategy of being
00:46:17.960a Me Too liberal. I mean, there are many Tories who think that they should just abandon
00:46:23.880right-wing rhetoric altogether or conservative policies because they think these policies are
00:46:34.880doomed or they're not going to get any traction in certain parts of Canada. And that's partly true.
00:46:43.720But they're not going to win if they're just a faint echo of the Liberal Party. That is even more of a losing strategy.
00:46:57.080So, again, I would think that Tories, especially electorate Tories, have to build some backbone and realize that many Canadians, maybe not all, maybe just a plurality, but many Canadians want more freedom.
00:47:17.560They want the freedom to be able to disagree without losing their careers or their reputations.
00:47:26.440And again, I think Tories have to push back on the absolute intolerance that parties on the left in Canada have been manifesting for a long time.
00:47:37.820I mean, for all the talk about tolerance and diversity, generally left-leaning parties could care less about those things.
00:47:46.160they think in monolithic terms they don't tolerate the freedom to to disagree etc so i i think the
00:47:53.440tories could do a lot more but this will take courage uh and they have to realize they're
00:47:59.360going to lose some votes uh in the process but uh so be it and and kind of find new ones i mean
00:48:08.320that was the other thing that got well we're looking at that we saw turnout for the brexit
00:48:13.280vote that that we'd never seen before and then we saw when the tories became the party of brexit
00:48:18.800that they were taking labor strongholds things that hadn't changed color since since uh the
00:48:24.960gilded age since the 20s and the 30s and the founding of the labor party in britain we saw
00:48:31.040the same thing happened with trump the blue wall was broken uh even this last time whatever one
00:48:36.400wants to say about integrity lack thereof of the election uh that was extremely close in in all of
00:48:44.400those places and could have well well gone the other way it this is the reality this is the
00:48:50.620reality there is another voting block out there there's a huge amount of people out there i mean
00:48:56.000trump has increased his votes by the most incumbent president of all time instead of going down he
00:49:01.580went up by something like 11 million votes and so there really is an entire other group of people
00:49:08.260out there that somehow conservatives are just not talking to why why aren't they why aren't they
00:49:13.740reaching out why aren't they evangelizing why aren't they spreading the ideas of toryism of
00:49:18.480of whether you are more on the throne and altar side whether it is more of a the commons and and
00:49:23.880the common good side or even if you are on the more uh classical liberal and and the free market
00:49:28.860side there's a real story and a compelling narrative but conservatives just seem to be
00:49:33.420incapable of communicating it yeah i think it's because on both sides of the border let's say
00:49:39.900tories and republicans uh they're just afraid they they think the the left is on the right side
00:49:47.340of history at least the winning side of history and uh i think some tory and republican strategists
00:49:54.220think that they had that by appealing to the left uh somehow that will gain them power and i i think
00:50:02.300that's pure fantasy because generally people on the left will always vote on the left and uh tories
00:50:10.220and republicans uh like the establishment uh versions need to understand that so uh for you
00:50:19.660mentioned uh britain and and uh how labor is losing the working class vote
00:50:25.180um i mean there are politicians in britain who believe that
00:50:29.660uh critical race theory is is perhaps a vote gutter
00:50:33.740uh that by encouraging the perception that britain is fundamentally racist
00:50:39.580that all of its institutions are racist that it needs to be rebuilt
00:50:43.740from the ground up that somehow that's a vote gutter and it's not
00:50:47.580uh the english working class or the the working class of the uk uh generally can't stand uh
00:50:55.100ideologies like critical race theory so there's i mean in purely political terms there's no point
00:51:02.460in endorsing an ideology like that in the hope uh hopes of uh gaining votes uh but again as you
00:51:12.140mentioned there's this disconnect between leaders and and the populist base and i again i i give
00:51:19.340credit to trump uh for understanding that uh the base doesn't uh dig ideologies like uh critical
00:51:29.260race theory it's not that we should deny the history of racism in uh western democracies but
00:51:37.500But the radicalism of something like critical race theory, to say the least, is not a vote
00:52:02.580and and i believe that a coalition there can be built um maybe that's the that's kind of the
00:52:11.520final point to bring up here is with with canada again you know a loosely confederated entity what
00:52:18.260that might look like or how to how to appeal to all corners of that country with with with the
00:52:25.060tory ideal i really do believe there is a way to get maybe it can't be done in toronto proper but
00:52:32.300But throughout the rest of Canada, there is a real possibility of building a coalition of 51% and taking parliament and trying to reform this country.
00:52:42.600If that 51% is out there somewhere, what are the principles that you believe, Dr. Havers, that need to be put forward in order to bring them into the big blue tent and make Canada a better place?
00:52:55.360Well, I think one principle would be to win back or at least keep that working class populist
00:53:08.560vote. And again, I fear that many elected Tories will lose that vote, partly because they'll
00:53:18.660endorse economic policies, like tax cuts for the very wealthy, that will not please that working
00:53:29.500class base. So I think they have to promote themselves more as a populist party, not in any
00:53:39.320ethno-racialist sense. I mean, that would be a disaster. But a populist party that is
00:53:47.200more conducive or more beneficial to the working class and small business vote.
00:53:59.620They need to expand their appeal on that.
00:54:04.240And I think focusing on economic issues is always a good start, developing economic policies
00:54:12.140that will actually grow the middle class, that will bring working class people into the middle
00:54:19.420class, and at the same time hit the liberals and the NDP hard on their ideological intolerance,
00:54:27.600on their unwillingness to tolerate the freedom to disagree. I think if you
00:54:35.120combined those principles together, you probably could get a winning coalition.
00:54:42.140well amen i mean it's we can't we can't go on like this with one and a half parties and we
00:54:49.000certainly can't go on with the consensus that we've had these last hundred and well that's what
00:54:53.920it feels like anyways the 88 of the of the 110 years as uh conrad black lord conrad black likes
00:55:00.400to uh reference all the time in his column the the liberal consensus and the laurentian consensus
00:55:05.140in canada is is killing canada to the point where even its traditional strongholds like as we're
00:55:10.140noting now with Quebec are rebelling. They're doing whatever they want, and they're doing it
00:55:15.340with impunity. Maybe as a final point, Dr. Havers, do you think that the Canada that we know today,
00:55:24.600do you think that will be here in 50 years? I have no idea, but I would think that it's0.73
00:55:33.160It's entirely probable that conflicts that are not just regional, but perhaps even tribalistic
00:55:44.100will engulf Canada and certainly engulf the United States.
00:55:50.000I think the big question that conservatives on both sides of the border need to answer
00:55:55.320is what exactly unites us or what exactly unites a a majority of americans or canadians if they
00:56:05.440can't answer that question not that other parties can necessarily answer it uh then we're in trouble
00:56:11.280uh because it's always been difficult for canadians to uh address that question what
00:56:17.820actually keeps the country together and i i think among other things a a sound economy that benefits
00:56:24.120all regions uh keeps the the country together but i i also think that if we abandon equality before
00:56:31.320the law or the rule of law then uh we're not going to have a country where we're going to have
00:56:46.520i think uh dr havers has frozen there for a moment he might come back it was came back a
00:56:52.360a moment later but uh we are going to be pivoting pretty quick here so if that's uh goodbye to dr
00:56:58.360havers uh that that that will happen while we wait just a moment for either uh either there we go
00:57:07.560hold on looks like you're back you're back sorry i'll have to let you i'll tell you repeat your
00:57:14.520point there because we lost you for a moment yeah i think the possibility of canada and the united
00:57:21.880States splitting apart is there, as long as the economy, certainly in Canada, does not benefit
00:57:32.760all regions, or as long as economic policies do not benefit all regions, and as long as
00:57:39.500equality before the law is no longer taken seriously, as long as that situation persists,
00:57:49.140I think many Canadians will ask themselves, well, what are we?
00:57:59.560I think these are real dangers that could lead to the splitting up of Canada.
00:58:07.680Well, hopefully it doesn't come to that, but it may very well.
00:58:11.880And of course, this channel is dedicated to some of those questions, and we're thankful to have opinions thereof.
00:58:19.140uh dr havers thank you so much for coming on and uh sharing your wisdom with us today we'll have
00:58:23.940you on again soon i'm sure to talk more to us about what's what's going right and mostly wrong
00:58:29.460in toryism thanks for having me absolutely thank you dr havers well we're going to uh spend a few
00:58:38.580minutes here kind of dwelling on what went sideways there with quebec and some of the
00:58:42.900things thereof and of course we could also bring up maybe any of the other well any of the news
00:58:49.220items that are around uh those fines that people are having to pay uh and and supposedly they're
00:58:55.140not going to get their their driver's license back if they don't pay their fine i don't really
00:58:59.380understand how that works but while we're while we're waiting for uh jordan's title of uh stop
00:59:04.260the spray to come on he'll be on in a minute or two he was sent his link and uh he did promise
00:59:09.300for 10 a.m. so we're hopeful we're hopeful but i think in the erstwhile we need to think
00:59:15.920just loud and clear here for a moment out loud and clear that it it really doesn't make sense
00:59:24.000that you can prevent people from exercising their basic liberties due to covid laws which of course
00:59:30.120aren't laws they were written into regulations and health health care mandates by unelected
00:59:36.780bureaucrats uh i guess with the permission of their minister perhaps their deputy minister but
00:59:41.500nonetheless it's it's it's hard to understand actually how how anyone could think to themselves
00:59:47.020yeah you know you not wearing a mask uh means that not only should i fine you but now i need
00:59:53.740to garnish your wages i i don't know what to say to that i don't know what they i don't know how
01:00:01.340to respond to that it i i can't i can't even articulate an argument what's that line from i
01:00:07.880don't know is that from is that from like happy gilmore or something it's not happy gilmore it0.55
01:00:11.280feels like an adam sadler movie or something you know what you've just said is so stupid it has0.70
01:00:16.940lowered the iq of everybody in the room you know i reject your hypothesis i think i think that you0.81
01:00:23.220are an abomination and may god have mercy on your soul like i mean i don't know whatever happened to
01:00:28.520the shaming that that needs to happen of leadership i don't know why none of our leaders seem to have
01:00:33.940grumpy uncles or grand grandpas who could tell them how it is and kind of maybe chastise them
01:00:40.200a bit and give them a bit of a something slap you know um we won't say that word here on on on tv but
01:00:47.060the point is that what where is the conviction like where where did where did people fall off
01:00:55.160the wagon when it came to a basic sense of conscience and it's like no you don't actually
01:00:59.780get to fine people for not wearing a mask and even if you do you don't get to withhold their wages
01:01:05.700from them i'm sorry like you don't you don't this is nonsense you can't take away their driver's
01:01:12.120licenses and you can't take away their wages this is slavery it's a mask it's a mask like
01:01:19.580they say well then just wear it no you just wear it you you back off i don't understand why i'm
01:01:26.380having to articulate an argument where i'm supposed to be the subservient one i'm the
01:01:30.580citizen i'm a free-born citizen in a democracy you're the public servant not me get out of my
01:01:36.880way i don't don't really understand how this is even an argument but it is it is there are people
01:01:43.600who are being fined and if you don't pay your fine you could have your services suspended
01:01:49.900things that you have a right to i just don't understand it at all well right on time we have
01:01:55.300james title he is going to be on with us to tell us about stop the spray bc he's been on with us
01:02:00.700before and he's going to tell us a little bit more about a recent report that came out that spraying
01:02:06.040after logging is really bad for all of us and for the forest and actually it's super toxic so james
01:02:11.860welcome to the show hey thanks for having me nathan uh hopefully the reception here is a
01:02:16.480little better than last week or the other week for sure it's good to have you it's good to have
01:02:22.280you why don't you walk us through what this report was saying what what we need to understand about
01:02:27.900it sure so the report builds on uh some previous research that was conducted out of umbc here in
01:02:33.940prince george by lisa wood uh that was published actually over a year ago uh the first part of the
01:02:40.440report that basically said that the glyphosate it goes into the roots of
01:02:45.720these herbaceous pardial plants like blueberries and raspberries and pretty
01:02:49.680much everything else that isn't killed by the glyphosate spray and the next year
01:02:55.620that glyphosate will flush back out into the foliage and the berries that you
01:03:02.340will be consuming when you eat them and so they found that out that was that
01:03:07.080published but the new part that just came out was how long this stuff is persisting for and I think
01:03:14.280also a little bit more detail on the levels so a year after spraying blueberries and raspberries
01:03:23.160have been found about a quarter of them that they sampled had glyphosate levels that were higher
01:03:27.640than the default limit allowed in grocery stores so these are berries you know you're out in the
01:03:32.440bush picking blueberries and they wouldn't even be allowed to be sold on the grocery store shelves
01:03:39.800and i think that's that's just shocking and i think it really opened the eyes of a lot of people
01:03:44.680who may have not taken the spray issue that seriously because let's be honest for
01:03:50.120for decades we've been told that the glyphosate persists for just uh you know at the most maybe
01:03:55.400a couple months and the signs that they post at these places where they spray all they say is uh
01:04:01.400avoid the pluck block for two days you know so and i've i've been in these places and i've picked
01:04:08.440berries i've eaten berries from these blocks you know the year after spring so i'm like oh yeah i
01:04:13.480believe the science i believe what the sign said actually and i've always kind of looked at this
01:04:18.040more of well they're killing food for wildlife i didn't really think that it was a contamination
01:04:23.800issue uh you know having said that i've always noticed that the aspen trees years after spraying
01:04:31.720look like they're still impacted so i always suspected there was something going on with
01:04:37.400with uh long-term impacts on the health of a lot of these these species and i think one of the
01:04:44.200interesting things was the fireweed you know fireweed roots can actually be pretty old i didn't
01:04:50.200i didn't quite know that um and they had the longest levels of glyphosate residue so 12 years
01:04:55.880after spraying the fireweed still had glyphosate in them 12 years so it's yeah that's no that's that's
01:05:08.040why why are we doing this this is a terrible idea oh man just uh inertia momentum ego
01:05:21.720pride you know i'd probably say like not to nothing to do with with rationality or logic
01:05:28.200i can guarantee you that i mean they just like we talked about the last show and i don't know
01:05:33.800i don't want to get into all this stuff again but or maybe we do you know they just um they've got
01:05:40.680a simplified view of the forest and it's just like a farm and and you got to get rid of the
01:05:45.080competition and that's still the guiding principle and actually since we talked last
01:05:49.400there's been some interesting uh things i've discovered as far as what the industry believes
01:05:54.040and you know we've got the top so the top forester for a major company here in essential interior
01:05:59.960kind of saying the exact same thing we're saying so we can talk about that later if you want or
01:06:05.400no i i'm happy to bring that up now i'm happy to happy to wander around these questions a little
01:06:11.600bit here there and everywhere one thing that actually just comes to mind here james i mean
01:06:15.680my parents got a farm out uh out west here towards nest lake uh it's actually on heron lake which is
01:06:21.700that little heart shaped thing right underneath the lung shapes of of nest lake but the point is
01:06:26.540uh they they have this spot there and i think of like what how the the the wild like our own
01:06:32.540wildlife that is to say the domesticated animals the the pigs and especially when they clear out
01:06:37.100the underbrush and that sort of thing like i mean all they're doing is leaving behind fertilizer
01:06:41.260they're not toxifying it why didn't why didn't people just put the animals on it to clean up
01:06:47.420afterwards if you wanted to give the saplings a fresh start or whatever like what's wrong with
01:06:51.500that wouldn't that just put the organic material back into the forest well then there there was a
01:06:56.620huge industry back in the 90s because a lot of this glyphosate spraying stuff i mean none of this is
01:07:01.180new like the controversy about it i think we're learning more about it now but back in the 90s
01:07:05.740there was a fair bit of opposition to uh spraying around prince george and the ndp government of the
01:07:12.300day i think they made an effort to kind of reduce chemical use and and use sheep so there was a huge
01:07:19.260industry of sheep grazing these cup blocks uh to kind of clear out some of the herbaceous
01:07:25.500vegetation without you know contaminating it or poisoning it and then i like you say fertilizing
01:07:30.940it and and it was a great method you know i think we had 30 000 sheep in uh bc i think between the
01:07:39.100peace and the prince george area uh dedicated to this program and and they they were doing huge
01:07:44.860areas uh and i i know i know a couple of the grazers that are still trying to get it back on
01:07:51.820its legs one of them is dennis loxton and he actually had some contracts out in alberta last
01:07:58.060year so hopefully he can pick it up again he's here in prince george so they had this huge
01:08:03.020industry and then around the early 2000s it just got shut down and all sorts of terrible things
01:08:09.100happened in the early 2000s to forestry in this province and I think it was a
01:08:14.200lot of it had to do with this kind of knee-jerk reaction to the pine beetle
01:08:17.200and a lot of regulations were eliminated makes you a lot of this you know I don't
01:08:22.180know if you want to talk about Kevin Falcon at all on the show here but he's
01:08:24.480running for a leader of the BC Liberals and you know he ran this deregulation
01:08:31.720ministry back in 2002 2003 and you know there's no minutes of a lot of these
01:08:38.140meetings where they talked about getting rid of the regulations so we don't know what actually
01:08:43.820you know who's responsible for what but let's just say a whole bunch of regulations were
01:08:48.460eliminated in the early 2000s that just destroyed our forests and the forest industry
01:08:53.340right the appurtency was gotten rid of the requirement to cut local logs at local mills
01:08:57.900that went through the window and then all of a sudden you had these big super mills a lot of
01:09:02.140the smaller family mills you know their days were numbered we're still seeing them die off
01:09:05.980and they made uh they basically made it way easier to herbicide spray right so there was there used
01:09:12.700to be a requirement that uh you had to get a registered professional biologist to sign off
01:09:17.300on spray plants and there were some more restrictions around spraying um wet areas and
01:09:23.020uh a lot of this is kind of documented in this uh the frog watch director pernima givindarish
01:09:29.320Wu's report back in 2008 talking about the impact to amphibians from forestry spraying and you know
01:09:38.340they all of these easements and cutting of red tape and restrictions just made it easier and
01:09:45.560more sense for everybody just to spray with helicopters so the sheep industry just died
01:09:50.380like all these guys went bankrupt you know she whole herds of sheep had to be liquidated like
01:09:59.120the amount of sheep grazing went from thousands of hectares a year to like nothing and yeah i mean
01:10:07.320that's our own fault it's the government's fault that you allowed this to happen there was no
01:10:11.500when you when you do these kind of programs you got to provide these these people with um
01:10:16.960you know security and knowledge that they're going to have work for 10 years like you can't
01:10:21.960just build up and then liquidate a whole herds of sheep for this purpose right you gotta you gotta
01:10:27.440you got to provide some certainty in that and the government never ensured that happened and all the
01:10:32.080companies just did the cheapest thing so we all went back to glyphosate sprain throughout the
01:10:38.1602000s and we're slowly seeing that those ideas come back again um i mean i really want to see
01:10:45.520that happen north of town so can4 is going to be spraying a whole bunch again this year northeast
01:10:51.600to town and uh thereafter the herbaceous uh threat you know the fireweed all of these this huge rich
01:11:01.360complex of herbaceous plants a lot of like rubis you know raspberry and thimbleberry species and
01:11:06.700ferns and twinberry elderberry a whole bunch of really cool important plants are just going to
01:11:12.740wipe out with glyphosate and that's where these sheep should be going and i've talked to can for
01:11:18.180I'm like, listen, you guys need to, you guys made half a billion dollars in profit this first quarter.
01:11:24.020I think it's time to like spend a little bit of money on not spraying and doing something different.
01:11:30.500So that's, that's what I'd like to see happen.
01:11:32.460And I've, I've talked to him about it and apparently they're going to do a couple little trial, you know, sheep grazing things this year, but it's not enough.
01:11:38.880They, they got to stop spraying completely and forestry.
01:11:43.620And like you say, there's, there's alternatives.
01:11:45.540it's kind of incredible how those alternatives work too like i mean it's you know i was raised
01:11:52.320not quite a city boy my whole life we went hiking we went we were uh we were an outdoor family and
01:11:57.780i was raised in the suburbs of prince george i know it's hard for our some of our viewers who
01:12:01.240are out outside of prince george to believe there are suburbs of prince george but there are
01:12:05.320uh it's a quite a spread out city not as spread out as lake lahash or chilliwack but it's a pretty
01:12:09.960spread out city it's a large geographic area but the point is that that i was raised out of doors
01:12:15.120for sure but but once we got on the land uh which was right after i graduated from university i
01:12:19.880really started to understand that like i knew nothing about that that interrelationality between
01:12:25.400wildlife domestic animals and the forest and and the land in general right and then your own effort
01:12:31.440that has to be put into it it's all it's all over the place it's a lot it's very complicated
01:12:35.520and and it's been this beautiful thing to watch my dad do some kind of heritage both heritage
01:12:40.920animals and then heritage methods the old homesteading methods around clearing land
01:12:45.640putting animals on it first and then they take out the foliage and then that makes it easier to log
01:12:50.600if you were to hand log or select log that was how it was done in in the old days and i don't know
01:12:56.440why i don't know why we had to get away from that entirely it it definitely works and especially
01:13:02.120with this question of reforestation and and making sure that we don't spray and toxify the place
01:13:07.960like with mobile fencing nowadays too with what you can do with with electric fencing like you're
01:13:12.840not gonna have sheep just wandering around like you can keep them in very concentrated areas and
01:13:16.680they can mow down anything uh very quickly yeah well i don't know if fencing out on those cup
01:13:23.080blocks would make uh would be a lot of work but um you know they've got sheep herding dogs that
01:13:28.520can keep them in place and and yeah they would and you can create little um enclosures for them
01:13:33.560at night for sure yeah and it would be easy to to rig those electric fences up um yeah i know it's
01:13:42.040it's very uh it's very interesting all of those things that you just talked about and
01:13:46.760and uh you know close to close to nature forestry and and allowing animals and uh to work with us
01:13:53.800and and help us out and and you know and part of that to go back to the whole reforestation thing
01:13:58.760And I think the other part of that is, okay, sure.
01:14:01.680It might cost a little bit more money to do something that way.
01:26:50.360bad enough for us in northern bc now they're talking about taking some of our seats away
01:26:54.580and now what what voice are we going to have to voice some of these opinions even if you did get
01:26:59.920elected tomorrow i mean you're now you're one of two mlas instead of five like where where is
01:27:06.020well nathan i i think you know we've we've got to we've got to start the rebellion of the north
01:27:13.600i think is what needs to happen you know well uh you you can set your checkpoint up out there in
01:27:18.440beaverly you know we're north of town and we'll start the republic of prince george i think that's
01:27:23.160all there is to it you know we'll uh i'd propose we put an aspen tree on the flag though
01:27:30.580i'm an aspen tree i do like aspen trees i i think i think the thing is that i mean the best name for
01:27:38.800us was already stolen by those silly little islands in the south pacific not to the pacific
01:27:42.760islanders we love you but the the name was taken a new caledonia was taken so we didn't get to be
01:27:48.180um that's what we were supposed to be called uh but instead we became british columbia i do it's
01:27:55.220funny like lately you know i i kind of think we should have stuck with that name you know that
01:28:00.920first nations well it's lately 10a but i don't know lately is kind of a nice simple version i
01:28:06.380don't know that's that's kind of a pretty name yeah it is it is i think i think that it's again
01:28:11.240my my thought on this has evolved over time if i can wax philosophical for a second i used to
01:28:16.100probably have a much more kind of pro-colonial stance on those questions or trying to pivot back
01:28:22.040to an old understanding of the kind of the colonial relationship between First Nations
01:28:27.760and non-Indigenous people, despite being a First Nations person myself. But I've now come around
01:28:33.720to the idea that the fact of the matter is, if Western sovereignty is going to happen at all,
01:28:37.300let alone individual sovereignty or Northern British Columbian assertion of its rights,
01:28:41.840It has to be based in a narrative that the First Nations can agree with and support and feel partnered with.
01:28:48.920So I figure that actually maybe we won't get to have, you know, every little kind of, I don't know, at one point I used the diocesan map of the Catholic Church to redivide Canada because it made a lot more sense and it isolated all the metropolitan areas.
01:29:01.180but nonetheless if i if i have to re you know have to rename every area after the the tribal
01:29:06.760name for it like i'll swing with that as long as it means as i get more autonomy here at home
01:29:11.180because what seems to be going on is that everybody in victoria edmonton winnipeg and
01:29:15.020and ottawa they don't care about us and and that needs to stop oh absolutely well a good example
01:29:21.100is this 10-year contamination of the forest with this glyphosate i uh you know i wrote a pretty
01:29:26.800decent press release i thought and i mean this is a story as far as i'm concerned i i shopped it
01:29:31.760around all the major media guys down in in vancouver i didn't get a single bite um i got the
01:29:39.760rocky mountain goat which is out of valmont they'll be doing a story but actually the scoop on that
01:29:44.960was peter you were here in town with stand up for the north committee and the pg daily news so good
01:29:49.040on them they they published that and peter said that uh i don't have the numbers in front of you
01:29:55.280i think it got 60 over 60 000 shares from their website and he said that's one of the popular
01:30:01.440stories that uh that they've had in a while so it's not that it's an unpopular story it's that uh
01:30:08.320it's that the big media guys down in the lower mainland don't care about us okay so if 99 of
01:30:14.080the sprain that's happens in central interior is in prince george doesn't affect them who cares
01:30:19.760right and also they don't really want to be confronted with the side effect of their domination
01:30:26.380of us economically right i mean if you if you i know stewart likes to talk about these these
01:30:32.340theories and and i'm sure you do too are you familiar with like the hinterland metropolitan
01:30:37.560thesis yeah i call us that all the time i hate i hate that we're just the hinterland to them is
01:30:43.600terrible terrible terrible idea but you know innis that that was a harold innis's uh theory from
01:30:49.260about the development of canada you know from the fur trade to the railroads and
01:30:53.500and basically the the vast north is always kind of a subset of whatever metropolitan area
01:31:01.860is connected to it and i think it's a great explanation for what what happens up here
01:31:07.300um you know like can for their head offices that's not in prince george it's in vancouver
01:31:13.680right all their big big wigs down there you can email them they might not write back to you they
01:31:19.240don't care about us right I mean how do you get through to these guys they have
01:31:23.380some lackeys up here that do what they're told and have no authority and
01:31:28.000they probably feel terrible about themselves but they've got no choice
01:31:32.380right maybe they can't get through to Vancouver and besides that we're just
01:31:37.720one little small part of Canfor's empire they've got you know a far-flung business
01:31:44.560model, you know, from Sweden to the southern US to northern BC. So, yeah, I think it just really
01:31:52.160explains a lot of what's happening. And we got to, you know, Prince George, we have to start being
01:31:56.940more of the metropolis. And I think we kind of were at one point, you know, with all the mill
01:32:00.620jobs we used to have and all the mill owners were in Prince George. That's why we had the most
01:32:05.080millionaires per capita in Canada at one point was because we owned our local resources. And the
01:32:09.900production of those resources was was located in our town and then as those things got bought out
01:32:15.920all of that ownership went elsewhere so if it went one direction you know it can theoretically
01:32:21.680you can go back the other way nathan so we we got to make it happen somehow buddy i don't know how
01:32:25.880i think um i think uh we need to stop looking at the bc liberals and the ndp and i think we need to
01:32:32.140work on our own political our own political establishment up here i think that's why
01:32:37.660Darcy's ideas are so good with the rule the rule party of BC is I think he brings those issues in
01:32:43.740and I don't I don't really know how that's gonna how we can make that effective but uh
01:32:50.300but maybe we can who knows well I mean and uh Stuart has looped all of us uh in on on something
01:32:57.980including Aaron Ackman we'll have him on the show tomorrow morning as well and then then Stuart on
01:33:02.380uh in the second half I'm not sure if Aaron and Stuart will be on at the exact same time they're
01:33:05.820both busy but uh but but stewards definitely looped us all in on this question of trying to
01:33:10.780organize around this especially when it comes to the redistricting of the boundaries is that kind
01:33:14.800of being the touch the touchstone and and the moment to kind of do to come together as a
01:33:20.240coalition because whatever else our values might be the fact of the matter is nobody thinks it's
01:33:24.560okay to have our voices eliminated from the legislature especially when there's more than
01:33:29.100enough seats going into the lower mainland they're going to increase it by six that's that's enough
01:33:34.100if they if that keeps happening every couple of years that's fine but they shouldn't eliminate
01:33:38.300voices from the north it's complete nonsense well i also think that there's we probably
01:33:43.980agree in a lot more than i don't know than twitter or you know a lot of people really
01:33:53.040like to focus in on division right and they they like to divide people and i'm not i don't really
01:33:58.860identify with um the conservative party but i definitely identify with certain values that
01:34:03.560they claim to have you know as far as being a free market believers of the free market and
01:34:10.520competition and you know having those kind of things in our economy i absolutely 100% believe
01:34:17.340that but i don't really think that the bc liberals or the conservatives actually believe that
01:34:20.840okay if you're if you're going to be captured by the biggest corporations that don't stand up for
01:34:27.020the free market that are the exact opposite of the free market then you're not a true conservative
01:34:32.480of in my books but i think we need to find those those kind of unifying ideas and and come together
01:34:38.440on those you know and and we we all believe in a community and being nice to each other and you
01:34:44.720know let's just not be uh let's not be dicks to each other i think that's a fairly simple principle
01:34:49.960that we can all agree on and let's come together as a people and and move forward and all these
01:34:56.680labels and stuff i find i find that they divide people and i think the real the real metric is do
01:35:01.860they look out for the interests of our community or are they looking out for the interests of these
01:35:06.020massive corporations that have nothing to do with our community and you don't have to be a lefty
01:35:12.940or conservative or whatever to to be on the right side of that question no i i completely agree i
01:35:19.560completely agree maybe something we can kind of pivot to then james is to talk a little bit about
01:35:24.320what would that more nationalized economy look like or certainly a more localized economy
01:35:29.760i believe you know there used to be all these mills around prince george before the amalgamation
01:35:36.380that happened in the 60s and ever since then it's only ever gotten tighter and tighter and tighter
01:35:40.900um i i don't know if we're is are we talking about going all the way back to like two-man
01:35:47.520sawmills everywhere or are we talking about trying to do more of a co-op sort of model when it comes
01:35:53.020the local sawmills what would what would a localized nationalized pro pro worker pro family
01:36:00.060forestry economy look like when it comes to those things yeah i i think about i think about this
01:36:05.100stuff a lot because that's my i build like i'm really at the the bottom tier of this of this
01:36:10.940kind of economy i do you know for the last 10 years i've run a woodworking shop and i go to
01:36:15.340craft fairs you know and bring my wares it's almost like medieval type era stuff where you
01:36:20.860load up all your stuff and then haul it to the the crafter in a wagon and and do your
01:36:25.180week cup you know you do a week-long sale there i did that at the convention center in vancouver
01:36:29.500at the circle craft and i went all the way to toronto one year there selling my stuff and
01:36:35.580and you know i make knives i do some steel work i do cutting boards i do furniture and a lot of
01:36:41.580that wood i use is is sourced um entirely locally right so i try to like integrate the whole you
01:36:48.620know vertically integrate the uh the corporate model style of woodworking but uh no it's just
01:36:53.660you know i've yeah me and a sawmill and a couple of logs and mill that up and and dry it out and
01:36:59.500the steel you know i get in sheets from somewhere in europe they won't tell me where of knife steel
01:37:04.540and uh i cheat right i use modern technology so uh water jet cut out the knife profiles and
01:37:10.860and uh and so i think there's like there's ways to really increase our local manufacturing of
01:37:16.780everything using new technologies uh why are all of our tools made and made offshore you know you
01:37:22.700go in a canadian tire like what's made in canada anymore what's made in america like nothing and
01:37:28.540what we were so useless that we can't build our own tools like this should be one of the the most
01:37:33.980basic things that a society should be able to do is produce its own tooling right because if we
01:37:38.220can't produce our own tooling then we then we're screwed for everything else right we can't uh we
01:37:43.180can't develop industrial infrastructure if we don't have the the means to make all that stuff
01:37:47.500so we got to start at a very small level and and build up i mean i buy aluminum for stuff when i
01:37:54.940when i build aluminum why is our aluminum made offshore like how come i never see a made in
01:37:59.900canada uh square tube aluminum product that aluminum probably comes from kitamap right so we
01:38:07.660we refine it and and make the ore or take the ore and make a raw ingot aluminum and kitamat
01:38:13.340then we send that somewhere else and then we buy it back steel how come we don't have a steel
01:38:19.340manufacturer in british columbia we don't even make our own steel like we've got we've got a
01:38:26.620lot of power that we could use we can we could do non-coal steel manufacturing you know with
01:38:32.380electric furnaces and stuff a lot of other countries little countries do that like why
01:38:36.780why don't we do that why are we importing steel and then it gets to the point where if you have
01:38:41.580a shortage it's we don't even we can't even get it because we're you know low man on on the uh if
01:38:48.040if there is a shortage somewhere do you think we're going to get prioritized for that steel
01:38:51.420shipment that's going to be somewhere else so these are the kinds of things that we need to
01:38:55.820we need to develop and i i don't know what let's have a small steel mill in prince george how
01:38:59.840how hard is that uh and if there's cheaper steel from somewhere else and we need to put
01:39:06.180taxes on those imports why are we bending over backwards to make it easier for these imports to
01:39:12.120come in off the boats at the ports you know why why is kevin falcon allowed to brag about that
01:39:17.740was his greatest accomplishment was to make all these imports cheaper like buddy you're screwing
01:39:22.420over canada that's what you did that's what he did by supporting that so i did like we need a
01:39:29.720total paradigm shift in how we look at um policies and and transportation and shipping and and ports
01:39:36.560and and tariffs and all that stuff so i'm a big degree obviously i've got i think all this stuff
01:39:43.060is possible i'm an optimist in that sense you know i'm pessimistic about some things but
01:39:47.040i think the entrepreneurial uh power of of the population of the average person is enormous
01:39:53.620you know and like we always think that we need that we need these big corporations to solve our
01:39:58.000problems like that's ridiculous they don't solve our problems folks like they they make the problems
01:40:02.960they they steal our resources and they and they hoard all the wealth to themselves like jimmy
01:40:07.680pattison is how many billions of dollars are richer as a result of this pandemic and you see
01:40:13.760the big media in vancouver like keith baldree loves jimmy pattison you know you see him on twitter he
01:40:19.520he basically worships the guy that's a whole other question about the independence of the media down
01:40:25.440there um but uh we have to look at things differently we have to put trust and faith
01:40:32.120in the average person to to solve problems and to develop a new economy one of the things that
01:40:40.140occurred to me some time ago i for a time i was interested in in getting a well for a time they
01:40:47.120were called p14 they were of course based off the enfield action but they were a beefed up version