Western Standard - Premier Smith’s role is secure as UCP leader as review looms

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 You know, Justin, while he's our problem today, doesn't have much between his ears.

00:01:54.520 His father, unfortunately, was smart and caused a lot of problems we're still dealing with right now.

00:01:59.740 Okay, according to a lot of folks, my sound wasn't on for the first part, but it must be going by now.

00:02:04.460 So welcome to the show and good to see you all there.

00:02:08.400 Be sure to use that comment, scroll to send me questions, suggestions, and even let me know if the sound happens to pop off so we don't miss anything on there.

00:02:16.500 So again, welcome, use it, thanks for coming on, and let's get on with things.

00:02:22.100 So I'm going to talk about we've got a big weekend coming up in Alberta, and it's the United Conservative Party annual general meeting.

00:02:30.600 The registrations for that UCP AGM, all these acronyms, is just shy of 6,000 delegates.

00:02:37.440 It's going to be the largest political convention in Canadian history.

00:02:41.160 And for fans like me, we're fans of grassroots political participation.

00:02:44.420 I mean, this is a fantastic development.

00:02:46.280 Having that many engaged members taking the time and spending the money to take part in a convention.

00:02:50.700 and this is between elections, indicates these members feel they can make an impact on the

00:02:54.720 direction of the party. Now, the question remains whether the impact is going to be a positive one

00:02:59.120 or not. Internal squabbles and division, those are hallmarks of conservative movements. I mean,

00:03:04.780 when partisans aren't going to battle with opponents in other parties, they have this

00:03:07.600 habit of turning their guns and firing at each other. Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmack, Alison Redford,

00:03:13.100 and Jason Kenney, they all left the premiership due to a collapse of support not around the

00:03:17.380 province, but within their own parties. Only Rachel Notley and Jim Prentice left the roles

00:03:21.560 due to electoral losses. The threat to conservative leaders from within their parties is quite real.

00:03:27.800 But is Daniel Smith facing an ouster this weekend as she stands up in front of the members for

00:03:33.740 a leadership review? I really doubt it. We've got factions making noise, trying to fan the flames

00:03:39.240 of internal division within the party, and they're trying to create the impression that Smith faces

00:03:43.700 is a real threat of losing or at least getting a low level of support at the leadership review.

00:03:48.600 None of these factions have the interests of the UCP or probably the province at heart.

00:03:52.740 They don't think they're aiding the party by pushing Smith from the leadership. In fact,

00:03:56.240 they're hoping the leadership is destabilized and the party will become weaker. Disgruntled and

00:04:01.300 unemployed political leftists like Thomas Lukasik have been, yeah, you remember Fabio? Yeah,

00:04:06.880 they've been trying to create issues through buying memberships in the party and then he was

00:04:10.100 playing victim when he found himself declined for his membership. Look, guys like him have no

00:04:14.120 interest in supporting the party and they never did. There's no benefit allowing these trolls to 0.89

00:04:18.100 enter and work to disrupt things from within the organization. Parties are private entities and

00:04:23.100 they can limit membership to whoever they please. Yes, being grassroots focused, they should

00:04:27.180 embrace as many members as reasonably possible, but to bring in somebody like Lukasik is just 0.99

00:04:33.000 foolish. I mean, he's telegraphed quite clearly his only intention is to cause damage. If someone 0.93

00:04:36.880 told you they plan to come into your house and purposely plug your toilet, would you still open

00:04:41.240 the door and let me use your bathroom? The lukastics out there are vocal, but are few and far between. 0.99

00:04:46.540 While folks are spreading rumors of organized groups of leftists flooding the convention floor

00:04:50.400 to unseat Smith, there's little evidence of any real organization happening, and they won't have,

00:04:54.980 if there are a few, they won't have a measurable impact on the review. Again, thousands of people.

00:04:59.360 If anything, it's inspiring supporters of Smith to get out there, attend the meeting, and cast

00:05:03.420 their ballot. Legacy media, of course, is working their hardest to give the impression that are

00:05:06.640 rebellions forming within the UCP. Some of that's inspired by the hard left tilt that most legacy

00:05:11.840 outlets have embraced since becoming beholden to Trudeau's subsidies to pay their bills.

00:05:16.720 Another reason for fostering division, of course, is simple. It's just they want to build excitement

00:05:20.040 and draw readers and viewers. I mean, blowouts are boring in both sports and politics, and it's

00:05:25.000 only the close races that make for excitement. The next group trying to stir things up are the

00:05:30.540 conservative faction I've recently referred to as the chronic malcontents. They just exist to

00:05:35.740 oppose, and nothing any leader can do will keep them happy for long. They join parties and purport

00:05:40.840 to support them, and maybe they initially do. But then they draw lines in the sand and create

00:05:44.780 policy hills for themselves to die upon. As soon as the party leader crosses one of these lines,

00:05:49.140 and there's many of them, the mercurial malcontents shift into opposition mode and put all their 0.99

00:05:53.720 efforts into deposing the leader. If you've been in conservative politics long enough, you'll notice

00:05:57.400 it's actually usually the same names that keep showing up and trying to tear things down.

00:06:02.080 But grumpy conservative members can be organized and galvanized to take down leaders. We've seen

00:06:06.140 it many times. The work by Take Back Alberta to remove Kenny from the party leadership was

00:06:10.260 effective and striking. Take Back Alberta now, though, is a little more than a shell of what

00:06:14.460 it used to be. And the atmosphere of discontent just isn't in the air as it was a couple of years

00:06:18.640 ago. New groups have been emerging with new policy demands and threats to unseat the leader if they

00:06:23.740 don't get their way. These groups have every right to do so and working to influence policies

00:06:28.100 while at AGMs. Oh, that's how the democratic game works. The threat to Smith's leadership

00:06:33.140 is hollow though. With nearly 6,000 members dedicating hundreds of dollars crossing the

00:06:37.980 province to take part in an AGM, it would take a very visible and well-organized machine to swing

00:06:42.740 even a significant number of these people to vote against the leader in her second year in the role.

00:06:47.580 The AGM is going to be an interesting event, but the battles to watch are going to be over the

00:06:50.960 proposed policy amendments, not the leadership review. So I'm making my prediction now. Smith's

00:06:55.100 going to garner over 85% from the members in support. I could eat crow on that, I guess.

00:07:00.240 Politics are a crazy business, but I'm feeling pretty confident on this one. Either way, guys,

00:07:04.500 I will see you at the AGM. It's going to be a fun one. And the Western Standard will

00:07:09.000 have a hospitality booth. I got our news editor, Dave Naylor in here. I'm sure you'll be partaking

00:07:13.860 at the hospitality room. No, sadly, I've got to stay here and mind the store.

00:07:17.900 Oh, really? Yeah. I thought you were coming out.

00:07:19.700 No.

00:07:20.380 Oh, jeez.

00:07:20.760 No, I've got to work from here.

00:07:22.260 Oh, you've been robbed.

00:07:22.920 Well, I hope you're getting some hospitality booze while you're here.

00:07:24.860 Well, I hope you bring me some down.

00:07:26.420 I'll see what I can do.

00:07:27.140 I won't be drinking it.

00:07:27.500 You stole my prediction, though.

00:07:28.580 I was going to say 85% to 90%.

00:07:30.400 Okay, well, yours is on the higher side of 85%, so we'll throw the prediction into that.

00:07:33.980 Yeah, just back from a nice weekend in Fort McMurray.

00:07:37.720 How did that go?

00:07:39.080 Well, Fort Mac is Fort Mac.

00:07:41.300 I mean, it's not a bad city.

00:07:43.600 Well, how did you spend your time?

00:07:45.620 Well, Jane has a barn quilt painting business and then she was teaching a course up there.

00:07:51.620 So I was there to assist.

00:07:52.620 I was the official driver in helping Jane set up.

00:07:54.920 She's busy as all get out.

00:07:56.460 I'm enjoying my role as a kept man and driver.

00:07:58.600 So as I sat in the hotel room, I just wrote my columns for the week and then waited for my wife to earn the money so I could have a good dinner. 0.99

00:08:05.700 So Fort Mac last weekend, Red Deer this weekend, man, you're living the life.

00:08:08.980 I'm covering the province, I tell you.

00:08:10.700 Awesome.

00:08:11.520 Speaking of covering the province, we have a rare Western Standard documentary leading the website right now.

00:08:18.460 It's called Coal Culture and Conflict, and it's about the debate whether or not to allow coal mining again in the Crow's Nest Pass.

00:08:26.980 It was done by a documentarian extraordinaire, Heidi McKillop, helped by our business expert, Sean Polzer,

00:08:35.560 and put together masterfully by Nico Abuto, our production guy.

00:08:41.080 And last mining was done down there in 1983.

00:08:46.000 And it tells us, you know, they're trying to, they only survive right now on tourism.

00:08:51.000 And the mine is arguing, look, we can bring jobs, we can bring economic benefits.

00:08:55.020 And the opponents are saying environmental damage and concern.

00:09:00.840 So they've got a vote on that next month.

00:09:03.460 And it's really interesting.

00:09:04.580 I urge everybody to watch it.

00:09:06.540 It's very well done.

00:09:07.920 Other news leading the site this morning.

00:09:09.880 a former liberal mp by the name and i've got to read her name uh selena caesar shevens she was an 1.00

00:09:17.080 ontario mp for a term or two and she writes about her uh or she talks to jordan peterson about her

00:09:24.200 interactions with prime minister trudeau and it's quite eye-opening and uh he's a piece of work for

00:09:30.040 sure a couple of crime stories we had a guy who uh randomly stabbed a customer and tim hortons

00:09:38.360 three years ago. He got three years in the slammer. He was released after two. And you're

00:09:43.280 not going to believe this, Corey, but he's being re-arrested again for committing crimes.

00:09:47.660 Wouldn't have seen that coming.

00:09:48.360 Wouldn't have seen that coming. A disturbing case in Saskatchewan where four teenagers have

00:09:53.780 been arrested for assault, the youngest being 11. And obviously you can't charge an 11-year-old,

00:10:01.240 so they're walking free. But you've got these gang of kids, you know, you figure they'd

00:10:06.560 home working on their halloween costumes uh we've got a privy council study out today showing that

00:10:13.360 people think that other canadians who take vacations are wealthy they're in the upper

00:10:18.320 class because they can't afford to go on vacation with all the economic pressures so

00:10:23.120 if you're going to arizona for the winter you are lifted to the uh the wealthy of canada the elite

00:10:30.400 yeah i'll be living in a fifth wheel and it's a working trip but aside from that it's hey that

00:10:34.640 That elitism taste good.

00:10:36.140 At least it's warm.

00:10:37.460 And still leading the site at the moment is crazy Stephen Gilbo's attack on cats.

00:10:44.860 And he's got cats in his target because they kill birds.

00:10:50.600 Well, so our own cat lady, Linda Slobodian, has got a great column dissecting Mr. Gilbo.

00:10:57.840 So it's fun.

00:10:59.240 It's up there.

00:10:59.860 I urge you to read it.

00:11:01.180 And before I let you go, I'm going to put you on the spot.

00:11:03.160 quick U.S. election prediction.

00:11:06.060 I think Trump's going to squeak it through.

00:11:08.320 Yeah, I agree too.

00:11:09.400 You stole my answer there.

00:11:10.460 Oh, well, we're just on the same page, right?

00:11:12.960 Same page.

00:11:13.560 It's going to be a fun Tuesday night

00:11:14.940 and we're going to be here broadcasting

00:11:17.980 and yeah, it's going to be historic

00:11:21.580 one way or the other.

00:11:22.740 Absolutely.

00:11:23.640 And yeah, at least, you know,

00:11:25.720 when our politics feel a little insane,

00:11:27.140 at least we can look south of the border

00:11:28.060 and think, well, it could be worse.

00:11:29.580 It could always be worse.

00:11:30.740 Right on.

00:11:31.320 All right.

00:11:31.580 Well, thanks, Dave.

00:11:32.400 and sorry to discover here that you won't be at the AGM there,

00:11:35.440 though I've got a feeling you're not missing too much in some ways.

00:11:38.120 You know, raise a drink to me.

00:11:40.200 Well, my Diet Coke, it will be.

00:11:41.900 Your Diet Coke.

00:11:42.560 Yes. All right. Thanks, Dave.

00:11:43.980 All right.

00:11:44.840 So, yes, and as you can hear, lots going on.

00:11:47.420 A fantastic documentary, you know, and it is.

00:11:49.500 It's a nuanced issue down there in Blairmore, Coleman,

00:11:52.380 that coal hub down there between, you know,

00:11:54.860 people supporting coal mining, people opposing it.

00:11:57.320 It's not this dusty open pit thing people might think it might be,

00:12:00.940 but at the same time, people are concerned.

00:12:03.260 There's a lot of ranchers down there,

00:12:04.240 a lot of conservative supporters

00:12:05.140 who have a problem with this.

00:12:06.020 It's not just your usual craze, it's greenies. 1.00

00:12:08.140 So check that documentary out, guys.

00:12:10.180 It's good stuff.

00:12:11.000 And yes, Linda Slobodian, boy, she loves to rip them up 1.00

00:12:14.000 and you don't want to get in her crosshairs.

00:12:15.540 And Gilbo provides a ready target with going after cats.

00:12:21.480 Man, there's nothing we're allowed to do anymore.

00:12:23.560 So yes, this is what I like to remind you folks though,

00:12:25.760 the reason you can see those things,

00:12:27.280 the reason we can produce them,

00:12:28.240 the reason it's happening is because you've subscribed.

00:12:30.420 we don't take any subsidies no tax dollars here at the western standard and we aren't asking for

00:12:36.360 them but we rely on you guys 9.99 a month 100 for a year you've been coming through that's why we've

00:12:41.940 got reporters all over the place that's why we're putting out these documentaries and that's why we

00:12:45.920 can do the show like we do today so get on there guys westernstandard.news slash subscription take

00:12:50.860 out a subscription and you know if you have already again thank you very much we really do

00:12:55.700 appreciate it. If you haven't, come on, get on there, spread the word, buy a subscription for

00:13:00.620 a liberal friend for Christmas, get them worked up. It's, it's, it's, uh, the gift that just keeps

00:13:05.180 on giving. So yeah, lots going on. Like I said, with the AGM coming up this weekend, it's going

00:13:10.340 to be busy and interesting, uh, you know, statement from Jordan, uh, uh, the commenter

00:13:14.940 is Smith's greatest threat, internal party division or her own impulsive tendencies. Yeah. 0.93

00:13:19.020 So, I mean, I, I, again, I've known Premier Smith for, for quite some time. I mean, we're,

00:13:24.020 We're not close compatriots, but I certainly dealt with her a lot over the years.

00:13:27.320 And I mean, it's her impulsiveness I kind of find endearing.

00:13:31.280 She's not the careful, you know, methodical politician that you would expect out of a lot of people.

00:13:38.540 But of course, it leads to a lot of danger, too, because she speaks her mind and she jumps right in on things, perhaps not necessarily being too well prepared.

00:13:46.460 but I get tired of the politicians being hyper careful, spinning their wheels, afraid to make

00:13:53.000 any big decisions and shake things up. As far as it being, as I said though in my opening monologue,

00:13:58.080 I don't think there's much threat of internal party division at this time. It's only year two.

00:14:02.900 It's the usual suspects making all the noise. I don't think there's a realistic threat against

00:14:08.040 her role. Now give it a year or two, that can certainly change. And as I said, the big threat

00:14:13.640 for conservative leaders usually comes from within. Conservatives are a grumpy bunch. They

00:14:17.980 really like tearing down their own quite often in a self-destructive manner. So we'll watch.

00:14:24.160 And boy, what a year for elections, right? So yeah, we'll be doing live coverage on Tuesday

00:14:27.980 night of the American election as it comes in. Hopefully it doesn't run us until the wee wee

00:14:32.380 hours as so many elections have these days. It's funny, you know, with elections and vote counting

00:14:37.420 and so on. And again, I've been over this online and, you know, our great reporter out in BC

00:14:43.580 Jared Yeager has put out a story on that, saying we got results denialism coming up. It's a trend

00:14:50.740 that's been happening of people, they don't like the results of an election and they jump on every

00:14:56.580 conspiracy they can think of as to why it was rigged. Look, I've worked on a lot of elections

00:15:01.000 from the ground volunteer to managing campaigns to running in them. And I've been in there as a

00:15:09.080 volunteer scrutineering. Look, the process is very difficult to rig. It really is. It's pretty

00:15:15.340 good. I worry about changes being made to it. I think they're making it more inefficient. They

00:15:19.360 bring in these ridiculous counting machines that somehow make the counts take even longer

00:15:24.160 than they did prior when it was just simple paper ballots. And that's what fosters a lot of the

00:15:29.080 mistrust. That's what fosters people to make theories as to why an election went one way or

00:15:33.120 another. But no, even the campaign manager, you know, for Rustad and BC's came out and said,

00:15:37.240 know that we lost. You know, it was tight. It was close, but they lost. Likewise, in Saskatchewan,

00:15:42.240 Scott Moe won, but it was close. These elections are really, really close. We'll talk a little

00:15:46.200 more about that later. I'm not a big fan of Trump, I got to admit. You know, if I was in the States,

00:15:50.400 I'd probably vote Republican all the same, but I'm not big on him. And one of the reasons is

00:15:54.580 that baloney over the last election being rigged. I'm sorry, he lost that one too. I know we'll get

00:15:59.600 all the comments people thinking otherwise, but I just don't feel that's the way things have been

00:16:04.320 going, okay, let's turn the page and get on to something more domestic. I've been looking forward

00:16:07.540 to this. And his name is Andrew Spence. He's worked in the banking industry and he's put out a book

00:16:13.180 called Fleeced Canadians versus their banks. And I did read it and it was, you know, it's a good 1.00

00:16:18.160 read. It covers a lot up, it covers a lot up, doesn't cover it up, it exposes it. And banking

00:16:24.240 is one of those things where you have no choice. You have to use banks. It's part of life. Thus,

00:16:28.800 you should hope to get a reasonable rate or reasonable competition within the industry.

00:16:33.020 And we're kind of lacking that in Canada.

00:16:34.920 So thank you very much for joining me today to discuss your book, Mr. Spence.

00:16:39.440 I appreciate it.

00:16:40.460 Thank you, Corey.

00:16:41.040 It's a pleasure to be here with you today.

00:16:42.880 Thanks.

00:16:43.240 So I guess I'll just kind of begin at the beginning, you know, because people, even when you travel, you don't think going to another country to look into their banking systems or see differences.

00:16:51.860 So it never really occurs to us to compare for other comparable markets such as the UK or Australia or areas like that, you know, their banking systems, which might be similar to ours.

00:17:02.840 but looking that they're certainly not paying nearly as much to bank as we are, are they?

00:17:06.860 No, they're not. And there's a very good reason for that. And I don't want to get too wonkish

00:17:10.460 from the very beginning here. But in those jurisdictions, here in Canada, we pride ourselves

00:17:17.060 on good and close regulation of the banking system because safety matters, right? The matter is

00:17:22.400 stability isn't everything, but without stability, everything is nothing. Well,

00:17:26.820 in the UK, they have tight regulation too, but the regulator also has a competition mandate,

00:17:33.340 which means that they not only keep their banking system safe, but they also make sure they're fair.

00:17:41.100 And in Canada, we don't have until recently a well-empowered competition bureau to ensure

00:17:48.860 that we're getting good value for our money. Yes. And so, I mean, a lot of it, and you kind

00:17:54.720 of cover at the start and you cover more at the end of the book though that the I mean the high

00:17:59.080 horse Canada got on was in 2008 when the bank runs happened in the states things were you know went

00:18:03.920 badly and that's where a lot of people said well we've got our hyper regulated market we didn't

00:18:08.140 suffer through those things thus it justifies having such strict controls on our banking system

00:18:13.060 so I mean there's some degree of rationale behind protecting but if you over protect then your

00:18:18.700 consumers are going to lose yeah there's no question but I mean I think there's a degree

00:18:22.520 misunderstanding here right we can have and we should have tightly regulated banks banks are like

00:18:29.240 unlike any other industry we have right we it's but it's not just the choice between hyper safety

00:18:35.240 and a casino and a free-for-all with the advent of financial technology we can now make our banking

00:18:41.640 market what we call contestable right we can contest it and that means that these um these

00:18:47.640 fintechs or financial technology companies are able to come in if they were given access to the

00:18:51.960 the payment system in Canada, which they're not, not across the board and not in the sense

00:18:57.420 that really creates a degree of competition that would give the banks a run for their

00:19:00.600 money.

00:19:01.400 So if you go to Europe, for instance, everybody wanders around Europe with an app called Revolut.

00:19:05.820 And then Revolut, you can figure out, if you want to do a foreign exchange transaction,

00:19:09.600 you just look at your phone and you see the best rate at the lowest possible cost.

00:19:14.800 And the transaction is done instantaneously.

00:19:18.220 We don't have that option in Canada, and we should have that option in Canada.

00:19:22.500 And the banks know that this is coming, but they're dragging their feet.

00:19:26.980 They're slowing the process down with the complicit shelter of the federal government, which means we don't see open banking in this country until 2026 at the earliest.

00:19:38.000 And we don't even have an instantaneous real time transactions payment system.

00:19:44.900 And over 50 countries have this in place.

00:19:47.820 And we don't even have a beta testing instantaneous payment system ready until 2026.

00:19:55.420 It's shameful. 0.95

00:19:56.560 It is ridiculous. 0.97

00:19:57.960 I'll throw an anecdote that just recently happened in our household.

00:20:00.840 Actually, we've done some changes in our finances and things.

00:20:03.680 We had a loan combined.

00:20:05.520 And then one major bank was to pay off a loan with another major bank.

00:20:09.520 But apparently the only way they would accept it is with a bank draft.

00:20:12.540 A physical bank draft had to be sent from one major bank to the next major bank.

00:20:17.820 and of course they sent it to the wrong branch and now it's stuck in limbo but why on earth when i

00:20:23.340 could tap to make a payment in seconds anywhere i go can two major banks not do a transaction

00:20:28.700 on my behalf without charging a fortune and getting it wrong because they don't have to

00:20:34.220 because there's no competition right so necessity is the mother of invention so if we had a degree

00:20:39.660 of competition in the canadian banking system and i can assure you that the performance of the banks

00:20:45.180 and the price at which we transact would improve very very quickly we've seen this in the past

00:20:50.300 when in the mortgage market uh 20 odd years ago 25 years ago you know you'd go and apply for a

00:20:56.380 mortgage at the bank it would take you two weeks to know whether or not you were given the mortgage

00:20:59.900 and it was kind of a painful nail-biting exercise for many many aspiring homeowners and there was

00:21:05.580 a degree of competition at the time for non-bank providers of of mortgages and once that group

00:21:12.780 began to get a decent critical mass all of a sudden banks could process your mortgage overnight

00:21:18.780 and so we know that if they're given the incentive to respond they will the question the key question

00:21:23.660 we have to ask ourselves i think as as citizens and as electors is why is the federal government

00:21:29.980 sheltering the banks um to persist with these practices that keep competition at bay and the

00:21:36.940 answer is they can because for some reason the federal government does not want to take it on

00:21:41.660 now we brought up the financial crisis right sure the banks didn't go under here and we should all

00:21:46.460 be extremely grateful for that and regulation was a big part of that um but that doesn't mean

00:21:52.060 to say that the banks should be free of competition because of it what people don't understand is that

00:21:58.300 the banks did receive substantial help in terms of liquidity provision from the bank of canada

00:22:03.580 the federal finance department department freed up a lot of liquidity in the system by buying

00:22:08.620 mortgages from the bank's balance sheets and um if the financial crisis that had happened another

00:22:14.300 12 months later i think you would have found that some of the canadian banks have will have

00:22:18.060 would have got themselves into some similar trouble it's just that because um more than

00:22:24.620 or about half of their income comes from fees rather than from providing financial transactions

00:22:30.460 they didn't have to reach out into the risky stuff to to retain uh high profitability targets because

00:22:36.140 they didn't have to. Yeah, so when the government's reticence in going into this, and it's funny

00:22:42.580 because, I mean, they really dedicated a lot of time and energy going after the retail grocer

00:22:46.800 oligopoly that we're dealing with and dragging the CEOs in front of committees and demanding 0.95

00:22:51.680 that they explain their 4% profit margins, you know, and demonizing these guys. And I don't

00:22:58.180 think they should drag bank heads in and demonize them. But boy, if you really want to show an area

00:23:02.440 where Canadians are kind of being taken to the cleaners.

00:23:05.300 Look at the margins on financial institutions right now,

00:23:08.380 and it makes the grocers look like pikers in comparison.

00:23:13.760 I think this is fair comment, Corey.

00:23:16.760 If you look at the performance of the domestic commercial

00:23:23.700 and personal lending and payments provision

00:23:27.560 within the domestic market itself,

00:23:29.840 the bank's return on equity until recently

00:23:31.720 was in the high 30 percent which is absolutely staggeringly high and luckily for us both TD 0.70

00:23:39.200 Bank and Bank of Montreal have similar businesses in parts of the U.S. banking market that are

00:23:46.440 that are much more competitive and what you find is that their return on equity in those markets

00:23:53.280 is about half of what it is at home so you know you can you can see that they're extremely well

00:23:59.000 protected. And whenever you bring this up with cabinet ministers and others in the federal

00:24:04.160 bureaucracy, they say, oh, but the crisis, you know, we did so well. Well, the banks are expensive,

00:24:10.140 but we say they're safe. But we've had a couple of recent scandals where we can begin to question

00:24:15.840 that narrative. Are they as safe as they say they are? And are they as safe as we have been led to

00:24:22.360 believe? I'm not entirely convinced. So another area, I mean, the banks have really spread out

00:24:26.700 into all sorts of side industries, I guess you could say,

00:24:29.700 and you sort of speak a bit to that,

00:24:30.880 like areas where if we were going to sort of break up

00:24:33.040 some of the areas that banks get into

00:24:34.800 and allow some more competition,

00:24:36.420 financial advising, investment products, 0.99

00:24:39.020 things like that, where the banks really try to suck,

00:24:40.900 you know, customers into further, I guess,

00:24:43.600 being entrenched into their financial lives.

00:24:46.040 Those are areas that other businesses can set up

00:24:49.380 and provide those services

00:24:50.400 without putting your banking structure at risk.

00:24:53.780 Yeah, I think that's right.

00:24:54.500 I mean, I'm often asked, okay, so fintechs would be good.

00:24:58.040 Let's get on and get that done.

00:24:59.960 And, you know, we sit and whistle in the wind and wait for that to happen.

00:25:04.380 I think one of the things that we could do with the stroke of the ministerial pen, if

00:25:10.520 we were so inclined, or our political leaders were so inclined, is to demand transparency

00:25:16.720 from the banking system, right?

00:25:18.520 I mean, if I have a stock trading account at a discount brokerage at the arms of one

00:25:25.300 of the banks, they will probably charge me about $10 to do a transaction, right?

00:25:30.660 Buy a stock, sell a stock, buy a mutual fund, sell a mutual fund, buy an ETF, sell an ETF.

00:25:36.600 I'd like to know what the cost of them is of facilitating that transaction.

00:25:40.800 I'm willing to bet you, Corey, and your listeners and your viewers that it's a couple of cents.

00:25:45.400 So why am I being charged $9.99 or $10 for it?

00:25:50.140 It's the same with credit cards, right?

00:25:51.760 I mean, the interest rate on credit cards has barely budged over the foremost 40 years,

00:25:55.980 and yet inflation is significantly lower.

00:25:58.940 The funding rates, the deposit rates that fund those things are very much lower.

00:26:03.600 We're told that there's a lot of fraud in credit cards

00:26:06.520 and that there is potentially high losses because borrowers are more marginal.

00:26:11.380 And yet, when banks securitize those credit card receivables into trusts, S&P have to rate them.

00:26:22.100 And they say, well, you know, a third of all the borrowers are super prime, so you don't lose money on them.

00:26:28.100 The charge-off rates are 3%, and fraud may well be high.

00:26:32.220 But again, we don't know because we can't see it, right?

00:26:35.620 So I think there is a general sense amongst the population that it's expensive, they're dissatisfied, the lack of choice, the frictions that are put in the way to just do simple payments, five-day holds on checks.

00:26:49.240 I mean, seriously, in a world where countries like Brazil have instantaneous payment systems available for people, why don't we have it here?

00:27:00.200 let's see um uh and then we can see whether or not you're justified in charging what you do

00:27:05.960 for access to the banking system my guess is we'd be pretty shocked well they yeah they haven't

00:27:11.600 adjusted their rates for the realities of today i mean if it was the days of you know 40 years ago

00:27:16.860 and if you were going to transfer funds from one account to another you'd have to have conversations

00:27:20.820 between real people paper documents would have been brought up and amended and changed and it's

00:27:25.720 going to be cost, you know, time takes up time and cost. But I mean, we're talking a digital

00:27:31.080 transaction, as you said, pennies, if that, and still, though, the rates stay the same. Same with

00:27:35.560 credit cards. You point out in the book, I mean, yeah, we suffered through double digit interest

00:27:40.160 rates in the 80s and into the early 90s for even mortgages. Those have come down, but the credit

00:27:45.920 card rates haven't changed a bit. And people carrying high credit card balances on unsecured

00:27:51.180 debt, that's a lot of actually what's pushing a lot of people to some financial distress more

00:27:55.600 than mortgages or other borrowing tools yeah there's no question and i want to come back to

00:28:01.520 the point i made right at the beginning corey if you don't mind which is to to you know osfi

00:28:06.720 um osfi does a good job of regulation right ensuring safety no question about that and i

00:28:13.580 think they're an important agency and they need to be free to do their job but they don't pay any

00:28:18.200 attention to the competition here issues right so in the united kingdom for instance the financial

00:28:24.340 conduct authority actually has responsibility for competition as well and so there are many charges

00:28:31.860 that the people who are financially marginal usually the poor who find themselves in difficulty

00:28:39.780 will find themselves over drawing their accounts where they will be charged a simple fee every

00:28:44.980 time they are overdrawn uh will be charged interest on the money that they've essentially

00:28:49.860 borrowed from the bank that tolerates that they'll be charged 50 bucks for an nsf check

00:28:54.500 non-sufficient funds to bounce a check um and uh this is allowed to go on so in the uk the financial

00:29:03.140 conduct authority looked at these various charges and said sorry you no can do you're not allowed to

00:29:09.780 do that moreover you have a duty to of care if you can program your system to assign a charge

00:29:17.140 and a fee every time someone's overdrawn you can identify given the profile of the customer whether

00:29:22.980 or not that person is marginal or not or maybe in some difficulty and now uk banks have a duty of

00:29:29.620 care they have to find out what's going on in that person's life to ensure that the banks don't

00:29:35.380 essentially levy a port act and meanwhile there's no agency here in canada that's charged with that

00:29:42.180 responsibility so we have some gaps in our regulatory structure if we're not going to

00:29:47.060 allow competition regardless of where you are on the political divide all of us need a degree of

00:29:52.260 protection if we cannot look to competition to protect us and the reason we like competition

00:29:57.700 is because um it prevents the most egregious of these of these charges emerging and it also

00:30:05.060 forces incumbents to become more efficient um and so to my mind we've known this in economics

00:30:12.180 well over 100 years, why aren't we doing something about it?

00:30:15.840 Yeah, well, and in Canada, the government pressured, actually, and, you know, they didn't

00:30:19.880 impose, but they really twist the arms hard and brought about a grocer's code of conduct that they

00:30:24.700 have to abide by now for, depending on how they deal with suppliers and pricing and things like

00:30:28.820 that. I guess before I let you go, the main thing is getting the political will, because there

00:30:33.280 doesn't seem to be interest or will on the parts of our government. But right now, we're going into

00:30:37.180 election year now is a good time to get the pressure on the folks running for election saying

00:30:42.360 hey can you speak up on this and of course the best way to do that is to get the public informed

00:30:46.280 because they don't realize how they are being fleeced as your book puts it so I mean before

00:30:50.640 I let you go you know where can people find a copy of this to find out for themselves and see

00:30:55.140 how well you've broken down you know how badly we're kind of getting it in the Canadian system

00:30:58.460 and and how we can work towards solving this you can get it on Amazon you can get it directly from

00:31:03.020 publisher sutherland house books my wife encouraged me to record it so you can lull yourself to sleep

00:31:09.260 with my voice if uh if you so desire i think at the end of the day corey with this book we've

00:31:15.100 deliberately written it for a general readership and we want people to have the ideas have the

00:31:21.980 knowledge um and have the language to understand their predicament and to ask for more and to demand

00:31:29.100 better. Democracy is not about showing up every four years to cast a vote. It's about engaging

00:31:34.600 with your MPs, engaging with your representatives every day. Because if we don't, then we get what

00:31:42.180 we deserve. Well, absolutely. And if we can arm ourselves with information, it makes it harder for

00:31:46.600 them to baffle us with BS when we try to ask them why things are the way they are. So I really

00:31:51.880 appreciate you writing this and coming on today to talk about it. And I hope we can talk again

00:31:56.640 down the road after the banking system's been fixed up for us. Well, we will see. Thank you

00:32:01.140 very much, Corey. It's been a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you. So that is author and he's

00:32:05.660 worked in the banking industry as well. Our Andrew Spence, he wrote fleeced Canadians versus their

00:32:11.460 banks. And yes, as you say, if you Google it, you can find it. It's a good read. As he said,

00:32:15.760 he wrote it for people. It's, it's not, you know, it's a bit wonky, but not too terribly. I mean,

00:32:19.200 we can understand all of these things. Anybody who does a household budget, you see all of these

00:32:23.300 things, whether it's your mortgage, your credit card bills, your investment tools, if you're,

00:32:28.820 you know, saving for retirement and things like that. It's not terribly complicated. And what I

00:32:33.620 really appreciate though, especially because it's early in the book too, is the comparisons. We

00:32:37.860 don't just compare it to the American system where there are dozens and dozens and dozens of

00:32:41.660 competitors. Let's look then at others like the UK, like Australia. And as he said, we don't have to

00:32:46.060 embrace that system or throw things open as he used the casino comparison, but we could

00:32:52.280 better regulate and add transparency. Transparency in so many levels with so many things

00:32:57.360 makes things better for us. If we don't know what's going on, how can we solve them? And

00:33:01.940 again, that's just where I was stumped. As I said, I keep, because I've just been watching while

00:33:06.760 the country's been beating on grocers for quite some time and fine, you know, and they say it's

00:33:12.600 because it's a need. You can't afford, avoid buying groceries. Well, that's true, but you can't avoid

00:33:16.860 banking either. So you're kind of stuck in that same sort of thing. So check it out, guys. I like

00:33:21.320 these things. You know, even if they seem a little dry, they're important and we're all into them.

00:33:25.500 All right, let's look at some of the comments here and things such as that. You know, we're

00:33:32.680 talking again about election fixing and so on. You know, a couple of people saying no one would

00:33:37.080 ever cheat on an election or, you know, can't trust human nature not to cheat an election. No,

00:33:41.860 people have tried to cheat on elections. They have. And that's why there are so many checks

00:33:46.720 and balances right now for the elections. And we still have to always be on guard. Absolutely,

00:33:51.760 we have to be vigilant. And we got to make sure that these things aren't being rigged. We got to

00:33:55.740 make sure that there's not funny business because there are people willing to, but just because

00:33:59.220 people are willing to do it doesn't mean they've been getting away with it. I mean, it's not that

00:34:05.660 easy. It really isn't. If you've worked as a scrutineer, I'm just going to put you through

00:34:09.500 the process of what you can do. I threw that out on the X as well, as boring as it might be.

00:34:13.180 anybody can go in. You can swear in at a polling station. You can be there from before the polling

00:34:19.120 station opens. It's like a magician with their tricks. They will open the boxes, show you that

00:34:23.440 they're empty. They're not pre-stacked with ballots. Those boxes then get taped up. They get

00:34:27.720 sealed. You can watch them being sealed. You can stay all day and watch every ballot going into

00:34:33.600 those boxes. Then you can stay in the evening and watch the envelopes being ripped open as far as

00:34:39.800 Scrutineering, you can be at every part of it and plus into the boxes and watching the count.

00:34:45.140 It's very, very hard. Now, the tabulating machines, those aren't networked. I know people

00:34:51.060 start going on with Dominion and the rest of that. Okay, that's fine, but we weren't using that here.

00:34:54.600 And they're just for counting the votes. They aren't networked. And again, the scrutiners are

00:34:58.800 there watching it all the time. I don't like them. I don't think we need them. There's chances for

00:35:02.980 them breaking down. And they also add to the mistrust. But just because they're there doesn't

00:35:07.440 mean somebody's rigging it. The reason I get worried is that the bureaucrats keep changing it.

00:35:15.520 You know, I fall back to the old statement about it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The system

00:35:20.860 works. We can count the votes. We can get the results into the evening sometimes because people

00:35:25.760 are saying, oh, wow, it took so long in BC to get those. And it did. It took too long. Absolutely.

00:35:29.920 But by the same token, it's always been the case. If there were any elections where the results were

00:35:34.980 under 100 and there had to be recounts, it's going to take a few days before they recount that.

00:35:38.800 But again, scrutineers are allowed to be there for the recounts. As for mail-in ballots and special

00:35:44.120 ballots, yeah, there's room for some funny business, but the margin and volume of it in

00:35:49.320 difficulty is very small. I worked in the oil field. I used to, you know, if I knew I was going

00:35:54.560 because I've always been a political weenie, I knew if I was going to be out of town on voting

00:35:58.060 day, I would go into the returning office and get a ballot and do a special ballot. I could also

00:36:02.360 apply for and get a mail-in ballot when I was out in the field. But there's checks and controls on

00:36:07.060 all of that too. And for you to be able to get through that whole process to bring in enough

00:36:11.080 to actually swing an election again, very, very difficult. Very difficult. You're going to have

00:36:18.100 a better chance, for example, in BC, where again, nobody who worked within the election,

00:36:23.360 even on the conservative side, is saying it was rigged. It's people outside of it who are making

00:36:26.700 those claims. They're going to be better served working on how can we win the next one rather

00:36:31.520 than chasing unfounded allegations. Hey, if there's proof or evidence, then bring it forward.

00:36:36.760 But as it is, it's just a lot of speculation. We got to watch our elections carefully. Absolutely.

00:36:42.080 They are integral. And trust in the election is essential. If people don't trust the process,

00:36:49.040 that's where things fall apart and they get into trouble. And that's where people feel helpless.

00:36:55.620 That's one of the bigger areas. Again, you see, as I said, where I am sour on Trump.

00:36:59.340 and again, I suspect he's probably going to nearly win it. I think he'd be better than Harris. If I

00:37:05.900 was an American, I would probably vote for Trump. I was in the standard newsroom that we were here,

00:37:10.520 a bunch of us watching, you know, fascinated when it all broke on January 6th, when that whole mess

00:37:14.320 happened. And the reason these guys felt that they should storm the Capitol was because they

00:37:21.620 were convinced the election had been fixed. And then when Trump finally spoke, he got up and said,

00:37:28.320 you know, people should calm down. They should stop this. Okay, fine. Good. Thank you. It's

00:37:31.980 about time you spoke to them and just told them that. But then he goes back into, I know the

00:37:35.940 election was stolen. So then he just went and poured gasoline on the bloody fire. Irresponsible,

00:37:41.840 ridiculous, and stupid. So I worry about that when a person who's going to be leading the most 1.00

00:37:47.400 powerful country on the planet has those tendencies. Again, I see him as a lesser evil

00:37:52.460 of the two, but I really thought the Republicans could pick somebody better. But we'll see what

00:37:57.220 happens as things move ahead. The bottom line is electoral systems need to be trusted. Absolutely.

00:38:03.220 Will people try to fix them if they can get away with it? Yes, they will. But they aren't that easy

00:38:07.180 to fix. They really aren't. Especially if you've participated in you see the reason these checks

00:38:11.500 and balances are in because all these things have been tried before. That's why they show the box at

00:38:15.940 the start because somewhere 80 years ago in some country, some person duct taped or whatever a

00:38:20.560 bunch of ballots inside a box so that when they opened it, they would all fall in with the rest

00:38:23.740 the votes or things like that. So there are a lot of processes and checks. And there's no better

00:38:27.700 check than having every candidate have the ability to have people in there watching the process from

00:38:32.420 start to end. And that is what we have. So again, it's not perfect, but there are ways. There really

00:38:40.640 are. Let's see what else we got going on. See, here's another one. Old Wolf, if you don't believe

00:38:46.620 there may be cheating in the US elections, then you don't understand human nature. No, my point is

00:38:50.160 people will try. I didn't say they won't, but there hasn't been any good evidence that they

00:38:54.980 got in the way with it. It really isn't. So, I mean, you need better. You need better.

00:39:00.760 So let's see. Oh, here we go. Another commenter saying, hi, Corey, a new article by Reuters just

00:39:06.380 came out. Leader of the NDP says he won't help bring down Justin Trudeau. Please express your

00:39:11.360 shock. I'm going to guess that Ward, the commenter, follows me on X because I've been poking at for a

00:39:16.880 long time in pointing out to people, even though the bloc is rattling their sabers and they're

00:39:22.700 saying we're going to bring it down. Look, as long as Jagmeet the weak is leading the NDP,

00:39:27.800 Trudeau is not going anywhere. The NDP is broke. They're going to get slaughtered in the next

00:39:33.900 election. They have something like 300,000 in the bank. And he's not going to go to the polls.

00:39:41.560 There's just no way. So he'll talk big, but he'll cave every time. The term I keep using when I'm

00:39:47.320 teasing him online, which I do often, is I call him Justin's little parliamentary chihuahua. You

00:39:51.820 know, he's like a little chihuahua. He's yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, but he's got no teeth. He's

00:39:55.140 got no power. He's a coward. He's quivering with rage and quivering with fear. He's a wimp. He's 1.00

00:40:00.480 got no principles. If he had principles, he'd be pushing for what he is. You see, I have more

00:40:05.960 respect. It doesn't mean I like, but I have more respect for honest socialists rather than

00:40:10.660 opportunists. You know, that's where I see, for example, I have more respect for in Alberta,

00:40:15.960 Rachel Notley, who led the NDP, because she's always been true to her ideology as broken and

00:40:22.000 flawed as her ideology is. Her replacement, Nahed Nenshi, he's a political chameleon who will do

00:40:27.780 whatever he has to do and say whatever he thinks he has to say to try and win power. I mean, he

00:40:34.240 campaigned as a conservative when he took the mayoral race in Calgary. He pretended to be

00:40:40.960 conservative. He had groups of people pretending he was conservative. He was anything but. He was

00:40:44.360 spenshy. He bloated the government. He brought everything inside. He ended transparency. Look

00:40:49.620 at him now. This is a man who pretended to be conservative, who is now leading a literal

00:40:54.860 socialist party. I don't trust him. He's deceptive. He will go whatever way the wind blows.

00:41:05.240 So Jagmeet Singh, similar.

00:41:07.760 He's not going to die on a hill of principle.

00:41:10.300 He'll instead drag out this mess at the expense of the country

00:41:13.500 because his stinking leadership, which has been terrible, 0.86

00:41:17.760 has led his party into such dire straits 0.86

00:41:19.540 that he's as afraid of going to an election as Trudeau.

00:41:22.260 So folks thinking and hoping that the Trudeau government

00:41:26.560 is going to be pulled down by a confidence vote in the near future,

00:41:29.840 it's not going to happen.

00:41:31.040 And some people saying the 24 Liberals who anonymously penned the letter asking Justin to step aside,

00:41:36.760 please, please, please, Justin, please step aside.

00:41:39.760 They could come out and vote on a confidence vote and bring it down.

00:41:42.140 Yes, they could, but they would be cutting their own political throats.

00:41:44.320 Look, the Liberal MPs who are concerned, and they're legitimately concerned,

00:41:47.880 they don't want to rush to an election either.

00:41:49.960 They just want Trudeau out.

00:41:51.200 They're hoping if Trudeau is out, with another year to work on it,

00:41:54.200 they might be able to salvage their seats.

00:41:56.220 They know if they went to an election tomorrow, they're going to lose their seats.

00:41:59.440 So they're not, again, we're getting into self-serving rather than serving the country, but that's the reality of it.

00:42:06.360 They're not going to vote to pull Trudeau out either.

00:42:09.200 The only hope is that Trudeau gets tired of being attacked on all sides from within his party, outside his party.

00:42:15.720 One of the bigger turning points we saw recently was, you know, with Christy Clark and Mark Carney,

00:42:21.920 both coming out in the open, sniffing around, saying, yeah, you know what, I'm gunning for Justin's job.

00:42:27.820 I mean, one of the things people always said to try and defend, well, who's going to replace him

00:42:30.520 if he leaves? Well, here's two people raising their hands saying they will. God, I don't want

00:42:35.740 to see either of them as prime minister, but it takes that question away. Like, you know, and the

00:42:40.300 MPs are, like I said, the sharks are starting to circle under his feet. He's in serious, serious

00:42:44.440 trouble. It was funny seeing some of the things put out. You know, somebody put out a picture of

00:42:50.060 his bawling. Remember when Justin used to, every week he was crying about something? He was crying

00:42:54.640 this apology, crying at that apology, crying at this, crying because the toilet was plugged,

00:42:58.260 whatever it might be. He was always crying. Apparently he'd put the tears on during his

00:43:02.480 caucus meeting last week too. Shows a couple of things. I think he's a drama teacher and

00:43:07.900 his tears are as fake as Anna Nicole Simpson's chest was, but it shows he does feel the pressure.

00:43:15.160 He knows he's desperate. He knows he's trying to do something to save his skin. He's stubborn.

00:43:19.560 and he's foolish. You know, people say, and I was wrong. He proved me wrong. A year ago, I figured 1.00

00:43:25.100 he'd be gone. Obviously, he proved me wrong. I don't know what it's going to take. Some people

00:43:29.520 are saying he's too vain to leave her. Now, I see what you're saying, but with that vanity, I mean,

00:43:35.520 you've got an out, right? You can do the old political. I've, you know, I've done the walk

00:43:40.920 in the snow like my dad, and I've decided that I need to spend more time with my family. It's

00:43:47.380 important to me right now. Our family is at challenges. We're going through a divorce. The

00:43:51.360 pressures of politics have been hard on my kids. I need to leave office so that I can focus on that

00:43:56.460 because what I've been doing right now has been unfair to Canadians and unfair to my children

00:44:00.480 because I've been splitting my time between the two. So thank you for giving me these 10 wonderful

00:44:05.100 years in power and I'll step aside for someone else. See, it can be done. I could be true to a

00:44:09.060 speechwriter, though I would put a bunch of ums and ahs in so he feels comfortable about it.

00:44:12.680 No, he can get out right now and maintain at least a little bit of pride, but to hang and cling all the way to the bitter end so that when you do leave, it's with a boot on your butt, whether it's from the electorate or from your caucus seven months from now or whatever, just getting so desperate that they practically, you know, do a Roman Senate thing on you.

00:44:33.500 as somebody you know old wolf says you know he has mental stability issues yeah i don't know

00:44:38.940 i think he is delusional i mean the only thing i can try and guess is he thinks he can turn it

00:44:44.860 around he really thinks that given another 10 months 11 months to work on this that he could

00:44:51.560 potentially you know win back public support and here's something on x i had some conversations

00:44:57.300 with people on there earlier too they're saying oh well he's going uh you know in in october 2025

00:45:03.000 no matter what, if we could just make it to that. Well, if you read the Constitution, actually,

00:45:06.560 he can go till 2026. So if people say, yeah, but look at the Elections Act, it says it's October

00:45:12.380 2025. Yeah, that's an act. That's legislation. They can change that in a heartbeat. Alberta used

00:45:18.900 to be illegal to run a deficit. That was a day I was sitting in the legislature and I watched we

00:45:22.220 had the Balanced Budget Act. And I'm pretty sure it was the Stelmack government. I was sitting in

00:45:26.940 the gallery there at the legislature. They came in, they tabled a bill to, or a motion to repeal

00:45:34.000 their balanced budget act. Bang, everybody voted. It was repealed. It was gone. And then they tabled

00:45:38.700 a deficit budget. That's how easy it is. And if you've got a majority government sitting there,

00:45:43.400 or if you've got Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau, you can say, we're going to change

00:45:48.100 the elections act and make the date 2026. There's nothing stopping them from doing that. The

00:45:53.320 Constitution is the only hard line, and that gives him five potential years. Do I think that's going

00:45:58.520 to happen? No, probably not. I really don't. I mean, as others are saying, he's on the brink of

00:46:03.380 going down as it is right now. I can't see him surviving two more years in there. I can't see us

00:46:08.720 surviving two more years of him in there. But who knows? Politics are bloody crazy. We're in for a

00:46:14.540 crazy time, a crazy month, a crazy year. By the next time I'm on this show, the American election

00:46:20.220 will have finished. So we'll be able to break that down and see what we're looking forward to.

00:46:25.580 The AGM will have been done from the Wildrose UCP and Red Deer. I'll be able to report on that.

00:46:32.340 We're going to have the pipeline on this evening. Tune in for that, guys. We're going to break down

00:46:35.920 a bit more of these things. We're going to be broadcasting from the AGM floor, by the way. So

00:46:40.540 keep an eye on all those Western Standard channels. You know, we're going to be interviewing some

00:46:44.200 interesting people, covering stuff as it happens down there. This is your source. This is right on

00:46:49.000 the ground this is unfiltered global's going broke no sense watching their stuff anyways but

00:46:53.500 if you really want to watch the dark story watch their stock levels right now guys it's pretty

00:46:58.360 scary out there so either way i've bent your ear long enough thank you very much for tuning in

00:47:04.440 today guys i do appreciate it even if we don't always all agree that's all part of the fun be

00:47:10.700 sure to tune in again to our other shows and to this one next week at this time we'll have a whole

00:47:15.340 bunch of new issues, a new guest, and we'll solve the world's problems. Thanks again. See you then.

00:47:45.340 You

Western Standard - October 31, 2024

Premier Smith’s role is secure as UCP leader as review looms

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