Western Standard - Shrinking Population, Stalled Economy and Alberta’s Next Move

00:00:00.000 All right, we're back.

00:00:28.660 uh i'm not gonna lie to you when i just watching that intro and some of those clips uh they're

00:00:34.180 from my own personal collection some of those clips are from you know you guys know this about

00:00:37.840 me i love to hike i spend a lifetime almost a lifetime started hiking when i was 18 but that

00:00:43.380 was like 30 years ago 40 years ago i love the rockies love the mountains crave them and when

00:00:49.500 i see that video intro it makes me think about uh the fact that hiking season is just around the

00:00:54.860 corner thankfully in fact uh what's today today's the 19th which means we got what one more day of

00:01:01.580 this miserable winter and then we can uh finally enter spring let's see uh let's hope for a good

00:01:07.180 spring um lots to talk about this week what an interesting week right this is something i uh

00:01:13.260 like i said i i totally look forward to this show it is your show somebody just asked me this right

00:01:17.980 now they said uh are you prepared for the show and i'm like i do prepare for the show i you know i

00:01:23.900 I mean, I'm online most days and I'm looking at headlines and what the stories are.

00:01:29.180 But when somebody said, are you prepared for the show?

00:01:31.520 I'm like, I don't need to really prepare because it's up to you guys, right?

00:01:35.120 It's what you want to talk about and what you call in.

00:01:38.320 And then that's the topic for the day.

00:01:40.180 But that said, there have been some interesting topics this week.

00:01:45.500 The headline right now, the one I'm most fascinated about is I do want to talk about the state of the economy

00:01:50.860 and some of the reports that have been coming out.

00:01:53.600 because, you know, the year ended, the year ends on, you know, December 31st, but it takes like

00:01:59.800 several months for all the data to come in. And so finally, Stats Canada starts to release

00:02:04.440 a lot of data in February, March, that that reflects how 2025 was. And so for me, one of

00:02:12.300 the most interesting parts of that for 2025 was the fact that Canada's population went down.

00:02:17.540 and not a lot. It went down about 100,000 people year over year. We've had three quarters in a row

00:02:27.600 of decreasing population, but a full year over year. So on December 31st, the population of

00:02:34.120 Canada, December 31st, 2025 was less than it was in 2024. And that's after a couple of years

00:02:43.520 following covet of increased growth but significantly it's the first time our population

00:02:48.560 has gone down ever ever ever ever we've never recorded a year-over-year population decrease so

00:02:54.720 why is that and well when you dig into the numbers there's one real fundamental reason and that is

00:03:00.240 that ottawa has basically stopped issuing temporary work visas and temporary student visas and it's

00:03:07.280 the student visa category that's really making up that hundred thousand people uh difference so uh

00:03:13.520 people who were here on on all sorts of visas the visas didn't get renewed and those people are

00:03:19.360 going back to their home countries and um and personally i think that's that's good news i mean 1.00

00:03:25.760 i i would like to you know i i'm not happy with the canada at 40 million people i prefer the

00:03:30.480 canada we had at 30 35 million but i also think that not think i know i know that the increase in

00:03:38.480 population in the last couple years was a failed it was a liberal attempt to solve a problem that

00:03:45.200 is a bigger problem we have a really really big problem in this country and that is that our

00:03:51.040 productivity has gone down our our you know we we were fundamentally a resource extraction nation

00:03:57.280 And then somewhere along the way, we decided that we needed to diversify a way into other industries like finance and banking and services and the movie industries and other things like that.

00:04:11.560 We tried to diversify, but we diversified into industries that are not really productive.

00:04:19.880 And consequently, our GDP was suffering.

00:04:25.080 but while we were becoming less productive we continue to lavish ourselves some really nice

00:04:29.640 benefits we've been doing that since the 1960s right so it's it's sure it's great to have a

00:04:34.680 canada pension plan old age security child tax uh support uh uh cheaper um education health care

00:04:43.480 all those things but we are at the point where we really can't afford those things

00:04:48.360 and our and and we keep paying for those things by debt by borrowing a lot of money so canada is

00:04:53.720 famous for borrowing a lot of money in fact we're one of the we're one of the most resource blessed

00:04:59.080 nations on earth but we borrow and borrow and borrow and the debt load of our government and

00:05:05.300 individual citizens is like top of the chart worldwide i mean there's hardly a nation on earth

00:05:10.980 and the people on earth more indebted than us so we're fundamentally living beyond our means

00:05:16.000 we're giving ourselves things we can't really afford and and and and then we have this compounding

00:05:23.140 problem that um that our cost of living is going up and we are taxed to death and we're not having

00:05:29.800 children and our population is decreasing naturally by naturally i mean that the number

00:05:35.160 of people born versus the number of people dying is is is uh is less or more and so we the the

00:05:43.660 liberals thought that they could solve part of that problem by importing a lot of people and

00:05:48.020 when you bring in a lot of people sure in principle those people are going to come here and they're

00:05:52.040 to work they're going to start industries start jobs start businesses but that didn't happen

00:05:58.040 and so the people we brought in we brought them in too rapidly they were unproductive and they

00:06:03.160 created other problems such as those people need to be housed and our housing didn't keep up with

00:06:08.920 that so and and i'm pretty sure most of you folks know all of that but so this is a this is a you

00:06:16.520 know the decrease in population is a reversal of a one of the worst policies that the government of

00:06:21.720 canada has implemented in the last couple of years which was this out of control immigration and and

00:06:28.360 now cost and and and we're going to see things are going to get a little bit worse for for the short

00:06:34.520 term right we got uh all these problems that this out of control immigration caused like the the 1.00

00:06:39.640 housing bubble and stuff like that and the inflation are here to stay with us so we have

00:06:45.240 you know this week we saw the bank of canada again announced that inflation is 1.8 percent they're

00:06:50.200 they're they're happy with it they're trying to claim that it's in their target range their target

00:06:54.680 range is is one to three percent so their target inflation is two so 1.8 is okay but um inflation

00:07:02.840 is not coming down because of things that the government is doing inflation is simply coming

00:07:07.320 down because canadians are have no more uh discretionary income i mean for every you know

00:07:13.800 if you earn a hundred thousand dollars you're paying fifty thousand dollars in taxes and then

00:07:17.960 you're paying your mortgage and your utilities and everything else and you're left with hardly

00:07:22.120 anything so people are not going on vacation they're not buying new shoes they're not they're

00:07:27.000 putting off changing the tires on their car and all those things and consequently it appears that

00:07:32.840 inflation is coming down but that's just the supply and demand side balancing itself out

00:07:38.440 and uh and and and so we we got this you know we we got this long-term problem i mean inflation's

00:07:46.200 high. And then this week, yesterday, Tiff Macklin, the governor of the Bank of Canada,

00:07:51.320 decided to keep interest rate at 2.25%. And that's good. And that's bad news. I mean,

00:07:59.020 it's good news if you're thinking of renewing your mortgage, but fundamentally for the economy

00:08:04.520 with inflation as hot as it is, what the bank would normally do is increase that interest rate

00:08:12.600 and take out some of the money supply in in the economy and then hopefully the inflation comes

00:08:19.100 down but tiff is between a rock and a hard place it's been that way for about a decade now

00:08:23.420 you know the the the relationship between the bank of canada and the government is supposed

00:08:27.880 to be an arm's length relationship but they're supposed to help each other and work cooperatively

00:08:32.300 and and tiff is trying to control the economy but he needs help from the government and then

00:08:38.020 a fundamental help that he needs from the government is for the government to stop this

00:08:41.540 reckless out of control spending and and there's no end to that in sight so it's it's i wanted to

00:08:48.420 talk about that um it's it's a big problem that uh that to me the uh all our governments of the

00:08:56.340 last decade in fact further back even harper i think failed to address the fundamental problem

00:09:02.340 of canada which is we are an unproductive society at this point um you know we got we got way too

00:09:08.180 too many people working for the government and sectors that don't really contribute to the

00:09:12.620 economy all right we got a caller on the line just a reminder um yeah uh so we don't have a

00:09:19.380 switchboard so please call ask your question sometimes if i i'm not sounding rude if i say

00:09:25.600 i hope i don't sound rude if i say you know thanks for the question then please hang up the

00:09:29.080 reason i say please hang up is that that way somebody else can call in because we don't have

00:09:32.380 a switchboard per se um and if you don't call in uh well you can't see it right now but the

00:09:38.620 producers put a tablet on my desk so if i'm looking down once in a while it's because i'm

00:09:42.000 looking at my tablet because some questions can come in on the tablet all right caller on the line

00:09:47.240 name please where are you calling from and what's on your mind hi marty such a pleasure uh this is

00:09:54.160 sonia from redmonton and there are still a few of us good ones living in the den of vipers here

00:09:59.360 I have a comment and a couple questions go for it okay so first off I just want

00:10:06.140 to say how much I appreciate what you do especially for all the independent

00:10:09.920 stuff and keeping us in the know it's just pretty awesome and I also want to 0.94

00:10:15.980 thank you for articulating that why I don't give a shit about Canada and it 0.85

00:10:22.320 just kind of sunk in when you kind of said that you know it's kind of the 0.96

00:10:27.700 system and we just can't get past that and it's not for our benefit. Anytime a

00:10:34.360 politician comes from the West, they get Ontario washed as soon as they kind of

00:10:39.160 leave the borders. But anyway, just like I said, just thanks for everything. And my

00:10:45.000 first question is about the Alberta referendum vote. Is there any way to

00:10:50.740 limit the votes to a maximum three questions? The first question, of course,

00:10:55.600 independence the second one perhaps the time change because that's really

00:11:00.160 annoying and then the third one may be a pension but we don't even need that one

00:11:05.440 because Smith she can change it all she doesn't even have to put that on and my 0.99

00:11:11.500 big fear is that they're going to water down the independence vote so that it

00:11:19.000 can be challenged in court because it wasn't clear because of all these other 0.92

00:11:22.480 bullshit questions that they put on there so I'm drafting a letter now but

00:11:27.720 what is it that we can kind of do with that and my second question is has 0.99

00:11:34.180 anything become of that crazy old batshit lady that attacked you I'm 0.99

00:11:39.700 betting the RCMP dropped it so yeah I was just wondering if anything came of

00:11:44.980 any of these harassment yeah yeah great question so thanks and I'll ask you to

00:11:51.240 to hang up and i'll answer all all your questions and your comments so first to your comment yes i

00:11:57.000 do make fun of thanks yeah you mentioned it it's redmonton i make fun of edmonton i feel bad when

00:12:02.920 i make fun of edmonton because i know i have some of my best friends live in edmonton i'm from

00:12:07.320 northern alberta and i used to hang out edmonton i have a kid who lives there so take it all with

00:12:12.120 a grain of salt i i love people and i recognize that there are some great people in edmonton but

00:12:17.560 you got to admit with me that generally speaking, Edmonton is pretty left-leaning, I guess, because

00:12:25.220 I think one of the fundamental reasons, it's a government town and an academic town.

00:12:30.460 To the referendum question, I think we talked a little bit about this last week. Personally,

00:12:35.540 I don't know what we can do. I think there should only be one question on the referendum in October,

00:12:39.740 And that's either the APP's question or a variation thereof, because there are two groups that want a discussion on independence.

00:12:49.420 Thomas Lukasik's group raised 400,000 signatures, and I think our group will raise 400,000 or 500,000 signatures.

00:12:55.500 So a million Albertans want to talk about independence in one way or another.

00:13:00.240 So I think that should be the only question.

00:13:01.700 everything else um can either be addressed directly through legislation because i think

00:13:08.140 danielle has the mandate to do that and and anything where danielle is contemplating opening 0.98

00:13:13.880 the constitution that's nonsense and and uh shouldn't be on there is there something we can

00:13:20.140 do no there isn't i mean she's you know they're moving the goalpost danielle has a mandate and 0.99

00:13:25.660 she told us that if we want some a referendum question the citizens should request it and i

00:13:30.720 agree i think a referendum should only come from the citizens it should never be proposed by the

00:13:36.000 government so i think she's breaking her own rule by by by doing that and i think she should stick 1.00

00:13:41.840 to what you know the initial plan which is uh citizens initiatives are where uh referendums

00:13:48.800 come from in fact she gave a great example last week right somebody talked about um the you know

00:13:54.000 should should alberta have a sales tax or something like that and danielle literally turned and said 1.00

00:13:58.720 if Albertans want a sales tax, then they should petition the government. So I think she's breaking

00:14:03.880 her own rules there. And that's the short answer to that is there's nothing we can do except to

00:14:09.140 keep pleading with her that we only want one question. I don't have an update on the crazy

00:14:14.260 lady. I'm not going to, you know, I filed my report. No, I didn't file a report. I filed a

00:14:20.420 statement. I didn't lay a charge or anything like that. I simply filed a statement of what happened.

00:14:26.980 And then my statement was taken by State Free Alberta, and they did what they want with it.

00:14:33.180 As far as I know, that lady, you know, the cops chased her down the highway after she left us, and they turned on the sirens. 1.00

00:14:38.780 And talking to people, once the sirens are turned off, you're going to get charged with something, either, you know, a road violation of some sort.

00:14:47.620 But I don't know what happened.

00:14:49.620 Coincidentally, I'm not canvassing on the side of the road today because I'm here.

00:14:54.680 but uh the you know i've got a group of volunteers now that sit where we normally sit and one of

00:15:01.800 them sent me two really unusual pictures so you know maybe we're getting a little bit paranoid

00:15:06.640 but you can never be too uh safe these days so one of the guys who's canvassing at my spot sent

00:15:11.700 me two pictures of two unusual vans parked within about 500 yards and and and his words are they

00:15:18.660 have eyes on us so that kind of means that he's under the impression that somebody is sitting in

00:15:22.820 van just looking at us uh we're under we're under scrutiny by the way this is an interesting

00:15:28.420 maybe a good segue for this uh i wasn't going and i was going to talk a little bit about this

00:15:33.380 john can you bring up the um the national post headline this was in the national post yesterday

00:15:39.460 and i don't read the whole story i don't care because i'm not a subscriber but you know right

00:15:42.980 there it says canadians opened the negotiation with western separatists as data shows under

00:15:48.020 representation in parliament my god and and look at the line underneath there uh recent data shows

00:15:53.220 alberta remains underrepresented in the house of commons we on a per capita basis folks

00:15:59.700 two two three things about this article first of all uh it it shows that perhaps internal polling

00:16:05.860 in ottawa and other places are showing that the movement is maybe a little bit bigger because now

00:16:10.340 we're seeing these kinds of pieces right there's there's always um you know kind of like the five

00:16:15.780 stages of grief kind of thing of this five you know at first they said the movement was fringed

00:16:20.820 then they attacked us and then they mocked us and now maybe they're starting to realize oh there is

00:16:25.060 some truth to that so the fact that there's pieces like this coming out saying ottawa is perhaps

00:16:30.180 interested in some conversation shows that their internal polling um proves that the movement is

00:16:37.380 big but the funny part was whoever did that article like come on do your research man we've

00:16:42.020 been underrepresented in the house of commons since 1905 like by design right um yeah alberta

00:16:50.260 has like 37 seats no i'm not alberta yeah anyways i'm you know the number of seats we have and and

00:16:58.900 saskatchewan the last two provinces uh compared to our population compared to uh uh ontario and

00:17:06.020 quebec we're completely underrepresented but even if we were properly represented we it still

00:17:12.340 doesn't matter because we're outnumbered um you know ottawa or not ottawa ontario and quebec

00:17:18.260 outnumber us like three four to one so we'll never we'll never get our way interesting article just

00:17:23.540 shows that we're uh we're hitting on the on um on some spots there i i mean i i just staying on the

00:17:30.660 topic. I did some math this weekend. I finally got my hands on the statistics for our little

00:17:36.660 writing. And I know in our writing, we collected just over 4,600 signatures so far. And that's

00:17:43.420 between 120 people. If you do the math, if our writing is typical of all the other writings in

00:17:48.540 Alberta, there's 87 writings. If all 87 writings got 4,000 signatures, that's 320,000 signatures

00:17:55.360 plus 350 so i think we're already in the 500 range four to 500 range the weather outside's

00:18:02.240 absolutely gorgeous uh i mean this is all i wore coming out here today so i think we're going to

00:18:08.160 see a big um push on petitions uh going forward this weekend um all right folks don't be shy like

00:18:17.040 i said bring uh hit the hit that line and give me a buzz i'm trying to go through the comments here

00:18:22.240 see uh i'm just going to pick one a couple out here uh alberta whoops how did that work alberta's 1.00

00:18:31.600 population is estimated to be over 5 million as of 2025 specifically statistics canada yeah um

00:18:39.440 boy like the alberta that i came to when um uh okay john sorry how do i remove okay it does itself it

00:18:47.840 removes yeah when i um full disclosure right you guys know this i'm not an alberton by birth

00:18:54.240 uh i was born in ontario but i came here looking for work in came here as a student

00:19:02.320 with a temporary work term in 1988 was the first time then i came a second time a little bit later

00:19:07.600 to work so i'm living in ontario at the time i was naively when i was younger i thought i might

00:19:13.360 go into the pulp and paper industry or perhaps the auto industry like everybody else does in

00:19:17.280 that province but while i was in school i was open to the idea of uh exploring my options and

00:19:23.680 you know i went to a school where there's there there were um what we did i did a co-op program

00:19:28.960 it's called so employers would come on campus and try and recruit and i'm looking at these job

00:19:33.680 postings in like slave lake and places like that and none of my buddies would apply and so i thought

00:19:38.080 not what the heck i'll apply ended up in a small town uh alberta loved it and finished my studies

00:19:44.640 and then came here permanently so um so i was you know i wasn't born here but i married a

00:19:51.440 fifth generation gal from here and i have four adult children that were born here so i'd say

00:19:55.520 i'm pretty much as albertan as they get been here more than half of my life and i do miss the alberta

00:20:01.840 of uh of when i was younger of the 19 late 80s and early 90s the alberta that had about two and

00:20:08.320 and a half million people the alberta where um i could go uh golfing anytime i wanted to without

00:20:15.680 having to book a tea time uh curling was fun restaurants didn't need reservations um camping

00:20:23.520 permits that didn't exist that you know you just showed up in the parks and you went camping pretty

00:20:28.240 much anywhere you wanted and uh fishing everything i i i just missed those days i i'm one i am of the

00:20:36.560 opinion i do not believe in growth for the sake of growth whether it's a business or whether it's

00:20:41.840 the size of a country or anything i think canada should try and find that comfortable spot that

00:20:46.960 you know maybe it's 30 40 million people and then just try and sustain ourselves stay at that level

00:20:53.040 and if at any time uh the the the benefits we give ourselves uh are become too expensive and we feel

00:21:02.400 that we the solution is not to bring in more people i think the solution at that point is to

00:21:07.120 either um find efficiencies or maybe cut back the benefits i know that's not a popular thing but uh

00:21:15.520 we do it in the real world right at home if i can't afford a second trip to if i can't afford

00:21:21.040 one trip to mexico in the winter then i don't go to mexico i don't keep piling it on my credit card

00:21:25.920 and i don't know why we accept that from our government it's just a problem that we're pushing

00:21:29.760 uh kicking down the the you know kicking the can down the road by constantly borrowing money and

00:21:36.640 and doing those things um all right well let's talk about a few other things then uh actually

00:21:42.580 it's uh um i'll maybe i'll i'll pose some questions for you guys just to see if i can solicit a little

00:21:50.200 bit of of debate um what does everybody feel so one of the things that dominated the airwaves

00:21:56.140 yesterday on x in particular was uh pierre poiliev going down to texas which was good right he had a

00:22:02.940 trip uh he went and talked to uh people in uh west virginia i believe or some other place and then

00:22:09.080 they ended up in texas talking to the governor of texas about oil and stuff like that and um and

00:22:15.160 then and then he ended up on the joe rogan podcast joe's based out of austin texas and that seemed to

00:22:21.960 to me to me um i'm at this point i mean i i'm i'm pretty much disengaged from the federal

00:22:30.900 politics like i'm focused on alberta independence i still keep an eye do i would i like carney to

00:22:37.200 be replaced by somebody like paul yep absolutely uh do i think it's going to happen not in the

00:22:42.880 near term so i find the fact that joe or not joe that pierre went down to texas now to do this

00:22:48.220 podcast the timing is interesting to be honest i wanted him to do something like this last year

00:22:53.660 during the campaign i find that he was a little bit um too uh nervous about doing it during the

00:23:00.700 campaign i got to be careful when i say this i don't think i don't think pierre like a lot of

00:23:05.420 politicians actually makes his own decisions right which is kind of alarming right you would think

00:23:10.460 that the like you would think that the the the premier or the or the leader of a group or the

00:23:18.140 prime minister would make his own decisions just like i always expect the um you know ceo of a

00:23:24.860 company to make all the decisions but i find that in political world a lot of times leaders don't

00:23:30.460 necessarily lead they rely on too much on the team of advisors and campaign managers and pr managers

00:23:37.740 and people like that and they also rely on polls and uh and i don't like that i mean uh but that's

00:23:44.700 politics so i so i think last year we wanted a lot of people wanted pierre to be more out there

00:23:49.900 more personable get off the main script and go do podcasts because you know we we we know that

00:23:56.860 a lot of elections um are won by by winning over that middle ground people and in this day and age

00:24:04.540 it's it's younger people who are watching social media and so people wanted joe not joe uh pierre

00:24:10.780 to go on podcast last year he didn't do it i think he didn't do it because he was poorly advised but

00:24:15.500 i also think he didn't do it because he was a little bit scared of being associated too closely

00:24:19.500 with the americans and and i think that was a misstep that the fact that he's doing it now

00:24:24.700 is interesting but let me know your thoughts on that um but more interesting to me i haven't seen

00:24:31.500 the podcast so the podcast is going to come out uh probably in full length in the coming days

00:24:36.700 i know they leak not leaked out but i know they've released little bits of the podcast right now a

00:24:42.060 little teasers i haven't seen anything in the teasers that's that's too shocking or too revealing

00:24:48.620 um i look forward to the full length podcasting what that does but what what i'm more interested

00:24:53.420 in is not our side's reaction to it but i'm really interested in the left's reaction to it if they

00:24:59.580 have a complete meltdown well then that will have been a success i hope that uh so so i look forward

00:25:04.860 to seeing that uh if you guys have seen something and you want to mention it uh let me know let me

00:25:11.980 check a couple of comments here john do you see any comments worth highlighting um right now i'm i'm

00:25:19.660 it's interesting because we can both move up on the thing at the same time

00:25:23.340 Marty you make so much sense yeah don't I do yeah how much taxpayer dollars are they spending on

00:25:35.100 those surveillances yeah I actually I turned off my phone while I'm here because I don't want my

00:25:41.340 phone ringing but I did reach out to a couple of people and I got some people driving by those

00:25:46.560 vans to go see what's going on isn't it crazy though that I would have that I would feel that

00:25:51.720 way in this day and age that I'm simply a citizen with no access to the levers of power. I don't

00:25:57.400 make policy and I'm being spied on. And I don't think that's a coincidence. And I don't think

00:26:03.240 I'm being, that I'm exaggerating. I've had too many weird incidences in the last little while

00:26:09.160 to attribute them just to coincidence. I think I am being surveilled. I'm sure if you ask people

00:26:16.620 here, if I ask Corey or if I ask Derek and others here, they feel the same way. In fact, I know

00:26:21.320 cory feels the same way and cory's also uh one step further people have threatened cory um that's

00:26:28.040 that's not cool i mean you know the crazy lady coming to yell at me i'm okay with that but uh 1.00

00:26:32.920 it's when you go to that next step that um that uh that that i draw the line um all right well

00:26:41.480 let's keep talking about a couple of things that are on my mind that made the news this week uh

00:26:46.600 So actually, let's talk about oil and Pierre's trip to the US. You know, again, oil is everybody who's tried to ignore oil in the last 25 years, right? Whether it's the Liberals or the NDP or Greta Thunberg, everybody who's tried to ignore oil.

00:27:09.960 I never worried about people that were trying to ignore oil and tell me that oil was done

00:27:15.200 because I'm a pragmatic and I know how much oil the world consumes.

00:27:23.140 I mean, I've been sitting on the side of the road for the last three weeks collecting signatures

00:27:27.980 and I'm sitting literally inside a highway and I see the cars going by all day.

00:27:31.680 So I know how much oil the world consumes.

00:27:35.120 And then you have an event like just happened in the Gulf.

00:27:38.280 You got the US attacking Iran and Iran putting up more of a fight than I thought they would. And suddenly the Strait of Hormuz is shut down. John, do we have a quick picture of where the Strait of Hormuz is, if you get a chance?

00:27:57.100 I think most people understand this, but let's let's put some context to this about, you know, about a third to 25 percent of the world's oil comes from those Gulf states where the war is occurring.

00:28:13.520 Right. So you got you got a Gulf there. And on one side is Iran and Iraq. 0.51

00:28:18.460 And on the other side, you got Saudi Arabia and you got Kuwait and you got Qatar.

00:28:23.600 And there's so much. There's the picture there. Right.

00:28:26.020 So you've got Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, all those countries, Kuwait, Iraq, they all produce oil.

00:28:34.700 And the bulk of that oil there isn't shipped by pipelines.

00:28:39.500 It's shipped by vessels that have to go through that Strait of Hormuz.

00:28:43.440 And so the Strait is just a narrow spot in the Persian Gulf.

00:28:48.040 It's barely like 20 miles wide.

00:28:50.120 So every boat has to go through there.

00:28:51.840 And the Iranians on their side can reach all the boats that are trying to go through with with missiles and then they can mine the strait. 1.00

00:29:00.180 Anyways, it's a mess over there.

00:29:01.660 I think the Americans underestimated the willingness of the or the resilience of the Iranians and their willingness to keep on fighting and not the Iranians, but the Iranian regime and the Iranian army.

00:29:15.140 And so consequently, the straight is pretty much shut down right now, which is having a huge impact on the price of oil all around the world.

00:29:22.880 I drove by the gas station here on the way by. It's $1.62 for gasoline in Alberta.

00:29:28.800 It's $2 plus in B.C. And the Americans are now complaining that they're going to hit whatever, $3, $4 a gallon.

00:29:36.800 And so suddenly everybody that hated oil is back on board loving oil.

00:29:41.500 and that's going to be like that for a long time there's just no replacement for oil in a modern

00:29:46.240 society like ours uh even even other sources of energy like nuclear and whatnot which produce

00:29:51.680 huge quantities of nuclear they're just not mobile and so the energy we're interested in

00:29:56.500 is the energy that literally goes into a vehicle and allows you to drive around so the fact that

00:30:01.540 um that uh joe or not joe i keep saying joe i gotta remember it's pierre the fact that pierre

00:30:07.540 chose to go down to texas right now is not a coincidence um you know the americans everybody's

00:30:15.540 going to look to us now to provide oil and and provide some relief in the short term which was

00:30:22.260 another interesting thing that i saw this week so carney and several of his uh ministers all went on

00:30:28.580 interviews and i and i laughed at all of the ones who talked about carney specifically i think uh

00:30:34.500 use the word strategic reserves so carney said something like canada is going to increase you

00:30:39.380 know dump some oil from our strategic reserves into the world market to help ease the problem

00:30:45.460 we don't have any strategic reserves folks like there's no such thing the americans have some

00:30:49.380 strategic reserves but even theirs aren't that big closer to home here uh cory hogan who's the only

00:30:56.740 uh liberal mp in calgary was on uh on the national talking and rosemary barton and he said the same

00:31:03.780 kind of things you know we're gonna we're gonna in corey's uh mind there's this magic tap is

00:31:09.780 somewhere in alberta where we just increase the tap and all of a sudden we start producing more

00:31:13.700 oil there's no such thing there's no tap like that if we want to increase more oil we'd have to do

00:31:18.500 it but again the the bigger picture here is this week is that this just shows the um the failure

00:31:25.940 of the liberal policies of the last decade to anticipate this to me a government in power

00:31:31.460 should be able to anticipate this there should be no shock when there's a gulf that gets shut down

00:31:38.500 like this and the price of oil goes up and everybody wants our oil there should be no

00:31:42.820 shock at that but some a lot of people are suddenly acting as if that is a big revelation um um

00:31:52.260 all right so come on folks give me uh let me um so i'm gonna go through a couple of comments here

00:31:58.900 let's see what we got marty don't waste your time on pierre polyev he and the federal conservatives

00:32:07.140 are just a boat anchor designed to keep alberta tied forever to confederation um yeah i mean

00:32:17.060 thank you for reminding me of that i i i i i perhaps spoke about pierre and carney a little

00:32:23.060 too much i still talk about them but like i said i i want to focus mostly on uh on stuff that's here

00:32:29.300 closer to home but i but i as much as i want to avoid talking about ottawa i still have to talk

00:32:37.300 about ottawa unfortunately until we separate and even after we separate i'm still going to talk

00:32:41.700 about ottawa so on the topic of ottawa there was another big story this week that broke in ottawa

00:32:48.180 that i think is worth mentioning and that's the fact that um we all know what happened during the

00:32:55.540 trucking convoy right so the trucking convoy occurred there was protests in ottawa they went

00:33:00.020 on for three weeks and finally after three weeks trudeau invoked the emergency measures act and

00:33:05.940 then they managed to clear everybody out of ottawa and coots and other places well and that that 0.98

00:33:12.260 uh emergency measures enactment was challenged and and deemed not once but already twice it

00:33:20.100 was deemed by two different courts to have been uh that trudeau acted incorrectly illegally

00:33:27.300 whatever there's there's all sorts of terminology around it but he didn't have the he shouldn't

00:33:31.380 have invoked the emergency measures act we all know that he should have just come out and talked

00:33:35.220 to the truckers and and and uh settled it properly but uh his ego got the better of it the thing went

00:33:41.780 on forever and then finally he enacted the emergency measures act and two courts have said

00:33:46.580 that he did it uh wrongly and and now yesterday was the deadline for the for ottawa to appeal

00:33:55.380 the last decision and they waited waited waited waited waited and finally yesterday they decided

00:34:01.780 that they were going to appeal the decision uh which is normal they wait until the last minute

00:34:06.740 so ottawa is appealing emergency measures uh act decision all the way to the supreme court now so

00:34:13.860 now we're going to let the supreme court decide and i'm okay with that i mean it's it's kind of a

00:34:18.900 it is a waste of taxpayer dollars but it is unfortunately the way our system works

00:34:23.780 and so it has i'm not surprised that this is happening the courts will have to adjudicate

00:34:29.620 and and then um we'll know once and for all if he was right or wrong i'm still not comfortable i'm

00:34:35.860 i'm still not confident that anybody will ever be held accountable but the interesting part of this

00:34:39.940 story is uh that the supreme court has nine judges right now and uh there's always nine but one of

00:34:49.140 them in particular uh justice uh wagner i can't remember uh justice wagner's first name but

00:34:54.260 justice wagner immediately he was very vocal so he was a he was not he was a judge during the

00:35:02.260 protest and he was on the record before before even the the emergency measures act was enacted

00:35:08.340 he was on the record of saying that we should kick these guys out of there we should throw

00:35:12.420 the book at all of them they're seditious what they're doing is wrong and so he was very biased

00:35:17.860 he made some very uh biased ugly comments about the protesters and now he's a supreme court judge

00:35:26.420 so he's the one who's going to have to rule on this do you think he's biased i mean by all

00:35:32.100 definition his comments passed the test so there's already a lot of people asking that he recluse

00:35:37.940 himself that he step away from uh from that court hearing and um because he's impartial but he hasn't

00:35:45.540 said anything yet we haven't heard i don't think you know that's another problem with uh with our

00:35:50.900 confederation i mean we the the judges are appointed by trudeau or the or the government

00:35:57.140 but in this case, mostly by Trudeau. Judges are appointed. Senior bureaucrats are appointed.

00:36:02.880 The presidents of crown corporations are appointed. Senators are appointed. Like, of all the people

00:36:09.280 in senior roles in government and in the courts, 90% of them have been appointed by Trudeau.

00:36:17.900 So is this guy going to do his job impartially? I don't think so. And that's one of the overall

00:36:23.780 problems with confederation and and one of the reasons so many of us in alberta want to um want

00:36:29.460 to separate so we'll see how that goes um all right let's go through a couple of comments here

00:36:36.740 derek voice out voice out your comment call the number oh no that's derek saying that yeah yeah

00:36:42.420 please folks come on folks like seriously the number is down on the line there 866-479 what

00:36:49.380 What does Wes spell out, John?

00:36:51.620 I don't have a phone in front of me, but yeah, call that number, please.

00:36:57.400 It's not long distance.

00:36:58.660 Don't do like Linda did a couple of weeks ago.

00:37:00.580 Don't feel like you have to build up the courage to call me.

00:37:04.740 I'm just a guy.

00:37:06.920 All right, I'm just going to throw a comment up here then.

00:37:09.540 Don't blame the American for not wanting to do business with Canada.

00:37:13.380 Who would like to do business with the tyrannical socialist regime that allows communist countries 0.90

00:37:18.100 and sleeper cells in okay um luckily luckily americans do do business with us right so i i

00:37:30.660 i posted a tweet about that the other day because it's a common question actually that um one of the

00:37:36.900 one of the questions one of the no none of the questions one of the uh fears that get brought up

00:37:43.060 all the time about an independent alberta is the fact that we will be landlocked and by the way

00:37:48.740 cory did a great video on this cory morgan did a little video from his house the other day where he

00:37:53.460 uh listed out his five uh concerns that he hears while he's been touring doing uh his uh talk on

00:37:59.940 independence and um oh and so go watch cory's video and i will come back to that one i will

00:38:06.740 come back to um okay i've already lost i was gonna come trade with the us okay trade with the us i'll

00:38:12.020 I'll come back to it, but I've got a caller on the line.

00:38:13.740 So go ahead, caller.

00:38:14.440 Where are you calling from and name, please?

00:38:17.720 Hey, Marty, it's Dwight from Calgary.

00:38:19.780 How are you doing?

00:38:20.320 Good, Dwight.

00:38:20.900 Thanks for being brave.

00:38:25.380 No problem.

00:38:26.840 Listen, Chief Justice Wagner was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

00:38:31.100 when he made those comments about the trucker convoy.

00:38:34.240 So it's probably worse than you thought.

00:38:37.600 I don't have a lot of faith in the justice system of this country to treat those of us that want to get rid of the federal government very well.

00:38:51.140 But anyway, my question or my comment is, I talked to a lot of people, you know, one of my first questions is, have you signed the petition yet?

00:39:01.000 And I'm getting, I got some feedback that kind of shocked me and maybe shocks you a little bit. Maybe you got this comment somewhere, but they don't, they want to sign, but they're afraid.

00:39:14.820 They're afraid that the government's going to get the list and use it against us at some point in the future.

00:39:24.780 You know, if we don't separate or whatever, that people that sign the petition are going to be, you know, have something bad targeted.

00:39:36.920 Yeah, exactly. Something like that.

00:39:38.520 I didn't really have a good response to that other than that's exactly why you shouldn't.

00:39:44.260 Thanks, Dwight. So stay on the line for a second. But that's a great response. I've actually had that question only about a handful of times. One lady came and would not sign a Canadian lady would not sign no matter how I tried to convince her that, you know, the answer, the classic answer is, we collect, we're going to count. And as soon as we're done counting, they're destroyed, and nobody's allowed to gather information from there.

00:40:10.160 she wasn't satisfied uh i tried to say almost along the lines of you who went i'm like which

00:40:17.020 government are you afraid of right and she's like well ottawa look at what they did to the truckers 0.99

00:40:21.200 when they froze their bank accounts and then i'm like precisely so we're trying to separate from

00:40:26.980 ottawa and alberta wouldn't do the same thing i couldn't win her over uh but but you know one out

00:40:33.420 whatever 499 people so that's so uh it is a concern then i had uh but but i had it about three times

00:40:41.500 from foreigners people are new newly landed immigrants who two from brazil i i remember very

00:40:48.060 clearly and they said they would never do they they didn't want to sign they came over to to

00:40:52.380 as a show of support but they said you know back home in brazil if we signed this we would be

00:40:57.020 targeted so um yeah there's no there's no perfect answer there's the there's the technical one

00:41:02.780 which says they're not allowed to do it but you know how many things are governments not allowed

00:41:07.900 to do that they still do um the non-technical answer is an independent alberta would hopefully

00:41:15.820 not do what ottawa did yeah thanks dwight um yeah yeah so any uh so you've signed are you

00:41:23.980 a canvasser yourself or no i'm not a canvasser but i did sign i signed actually over where you

00:41:31.740 sit but it was on a thursday when you first started coming out thursdays and you weren't

00:41:36.160 there so cool but yeah i signed yeah appreciate that all right thanks can't wait hopefully take

00:41:42.640 care marty bye-bye take care um i was gonna go somewhere with dwight's comments but uh all right

00:41:49.140 well thanks dwight uh so let me just go back to uh cory's uh video which is awesome right cory

00:41:54.920 identified five uh common uh fears um canada or alberta's land law the treaties uh the canada

00:42:03.240 pension plan um is it legal and um i can't remember the fourth or the fifth one but uh i and i pretty

00:42:12.120 much agree with cory's assessment i get the same questions and i and i was in the process you know

00:42:16.760 i was reading one of the comments who said that the americans don't want to trade with us

00:42:20.600 luckily they want to trade with alberta more than they want to trade with just about anybody

00:42:24.760 any other province right so we're in good terms with them because we mostly trade oil and and

00:42:30.440 pragmatically speaking it's the easiest other than their own oil the easiest oil they get

00:42:36.280 is ours so i don't think that relationship is um is uh at risk and and the short answer this was

00:42:44.360 really interesting because i looked into it um we do we do about a hundred alberta alberta does

00:42:51.160 about 160 billion dollars worth of trade with the us and does 70 billion dollars worth of trade with

00:42:59.080 other provinces so in terms of being landlocked right there it's irrelevant we we're already

00:43:05.640 landlocked but our number one partner is actually not uh inter-provincial it is with the us we do

00:43:11.240 160 billion dollars worth of trade with the us which is a huge number uh go ahead caller name

00:43:17.560 and where are you calling from hey marty jesse and gp again hey jesse regular yeah yeah good

00:43:25.320 i'll say um i want to just speak to something you mentioned early on in the show i'm actually out on

00:43:32.440 the husky collecting signatures right now so i'm a low spot right now so um uh people need to

00:43:39.320 remember i think that uh and a lot of people don't hopefully you can repeat this as far and

00:43:44.440 and wider as you can, everyone, that the government employees do not contribute to the tax pool.

00:43:50.400 They are net negative on the tax pool.

00:43:52.880 100%.

00:43:53.440 Right.

00:43:54.980 And that's where you had mentioned the resource industry is dwindling and they're basically

00:43:59.380 strangling us when it comes to oil and gas extraction.

00:44:05.080 If we had an extra couple of pipelines, maybe we could get more.

00:44:07.740 But if we have nowhere to put it, then why are we getting more?

00:44:10.740 And if the regulations and the emissions charges and all the royalties, it's not feasible for industry to extract any more oil and gas if it's not going to make them profitable.

00:44:25.620 So, yeah, I just wanted to make that note.

00:44:28.720 And I'll come back to that.

00:44:30.060 But boy, am I glad you called because I had a weird incident on Sunday last week.

00:44:36.100 So Sunday last week, and hopefully you can answer this.

00:44:39.660 Sunday last week I'm sitting on the side of the road canvassing with my buddies and I get a phone

00:44:43.920 call and it's unidentified I don't normally I answer an unidentified number but I answered

00:44:48.500 this one and it was somebody who identified themselves as a chief firearm or not a chief

00:44:53.840 firearms officer somebody who identified themselves as a firearm officer from Grand Prairie so you

00:44:58.720 guys had a Grand Prairie gun show on Friday on sad on Sunday and somebody tried to use a fake

00:45:06.420 pal with a number that coincided with mine and so i got a phone number i got a phone call and i

00:45:12.880 confirmed that uh i wasn't trying to do a purchase that i wasn't there and everything else and um i

00:45:20.820 called back and they and and and the second time an hour later it was the same lady and when i

00:45:27.180 checked her out online she does appear to have been a firearms officer i asked her why she didn't

00:45:32.660 cancel the pal and then she said that that would have impacted me and it's easier to just

00:45:39.860 flag that individual as having attempted fraud so i found that interesting does that

00:45:46.340 is and is it correct in my understanding that she was attending a gun show and that that's regular

00:45:52.500 for for firearms officers to attend gun shows so i've never heard of a firearms officer attending

00:45:58.980 gun show um but you know now with the new laws and regulations that could be a very you know it could

00:46:05.240 be something that they want to do um but there was a gun show here yeah it was put on by you know

00:46:11.100 some of the other uh independent supporters yeah yeah that is very weird marty i i jesse i have so

00:46:18.400 many weird events these days that i went to the rcmp two days ago and i filed a report i i literally

00:46:24.700 said that somebody attempted to commit fraud using my pal with as much information as I could

00:46:31.500 provide. And I put the lady's name out. Anyways, I'm at the point where I'm not taking chances

00:46:36.980 anymore. Cool. Jesse, thanks for the call. And I will, if you don't mind, hang up, but I will

00:46:43.980 address your second half of your comment, which is, or your first comment. What Jesse's referring

00:46:49.940 to i get people get upset when i say this but it's a fact right when i say that a government employee

00:46:55.540 is a non-contributing is a is is a a financial net um non-contributor it's a fact sure you

00:47:07.380 contribute if you work for the government and you're uh if you're a nurse you're doing something

00:47:12.260 useful if you're uh if you're a food inspector you're doing something useful that's great a lot

00:47:18.180 lot of people working for the government as far as I'm concerned are not doing very useful work

00:47:22.480 but but even if you're doing useful work you are not paying taxes in principle because

00:47:29.180 your salary is entirely funded by the government and so let's say you're a nurse and you're paid

00:47:36.160 a hundred thousand dollars a year and you and they say well I pay taxes okay you pay twenty

00:47:41.020 thousand dollars in taxes that means that five people that means that four other people have to

00:47:48.140 work and pay twenty thousand dollars in taxes to cover the salary of the nurse you see where this 1.00

00:47:53.500 goes and and and that's how bad it's getting right we to we need about four or five taxpayers

00:48:00.700 paying a pretty hefty amount of taxes just to cover the cost of one public sector employee

00:48:07.420 and and now that's another problem that's compounding because we have too many public

00:48:13.080 sector employees their salaries are getting out of hand and then the ratio of private sector

00:48:19.100 employees to public sector employees is like below three so for every 10 workers in the province

00:48:25.240 seven work for one form of government or seven work in the private sector three work in the

00:48:29.980 government that's not enough to to to cover the costs and that's why we keep having to borrow

00:48:35.860 money and and i i so people don't like hearing it especially when they work in the public sector

00:48:43.180 they don't like uh hearing that they are not contributing to government you're not contributing

00:48:48.200 to government you are in a sense contributing to society sure if you have a good job that

00:48:52.460 that is useful but um it it it's just a reality and then in some provinces those ratios are

00:48:59.900 over the top crazy i mean the you know people don't like the fraser institute they have all

00:49:04.740 sorts of excuses they'll say they're right leaning but they frazier institute still does some pretty

00:49:09.000 good data analysis and though they have lots of reports on that and some provinces out east like

00:49:14.980 nova scotia new brunswick and pei holy smokes man it's as if almost everybody in those provinces

00:49:20.700 works for the government and uh and that's it so um yeah that's a real problem um am i overreacting

00:49:28.280 on the um on on on all the incidents happening to me in the last little while hopefully uh

00:49:34.720 hopefully i am actually hopefully i am um but uh but i don't think i am all right couple more

00:49:41.180 things um hey john can you uh sorry to put you on the spot but could you find the video of the

00:49:49.360 train hitting the truck in taber i don't know where you would find that uh i was just going

00:49:56.140 to go there but while john searches for that um let's uh i got a couple of things i had a lot of

00:50:02.320 other things i wanted to talk about maybe we'll bring i'll mention them now and then maybe they're

00:50:06.400 food for thought for next week because they're very fresh uh yesterday um danielle smith did

00:50:11.540 a press conference with mickey uh amory where they're talking about uh alberta is going to make

00:50:18.500 it harder to uh qualify for made or maybe not harder to qualify for made but there's going to

00:50:25.020 be you're gonna have to wait a little bit longer because remember last week i shared a statistics

00:50:28.640 that was absolutely alarming right something like um it was a report for one city i think it was

00:50:35.420 toronto but something like 20 or 30 percent of requests for made in that one city i think it

00:50:41.200 was toronto were approved and carried out in the same day can you imagine that like you just show

00:50:47.720 up at the hospital and you go hey i want to commit suicide and and you show up at noon and by five 0.80

00:50:52.680 clock it's done i i think that's again i'm i'm a bit on the fence on made um not having experienced

00:50:59.960 it myself not having any family members that are suffering that much so so i you know i find it a

00:51:05.400 little bit hard to completely comment on that but but some parts of made let me let me back step

00:51:14.200 i think that a lot of policies to me should be studied carefully before they're implemented

00:51:20.680 and and then they should be implemented slowly and we should be monitoring for unintended

00:51:25.240 consequences okay so it could be anything it could be giving drugs on the streets as a treatment

00:51:31.160 it could be made it could be uh whatever free daycare i don't care i in my opinion almost

00:51:37.240 every policy no matter how well intentioned can have some unintended consequences or or worse

00:51:44.680 and and to me made fits in that one right this this this government-assisted suicide makes me

00:51:52.840 nervous so i'm and and i'll admit it i'm on the fence i haven't decided exactly where i stand on

00:51:58.820 it but i but i think it's one of those things where we should perhaps move a little bit more

00:52:03.420 slowly instead of fast and from what i understand danielle passed uh edmonton passed a law yesterday

00:52:10.700 or is contemplating a law where um it'll be more difficult to qualify for made or or you'll have to

00:52:18.060 at least wait a little period and so the the idea being that if you're not in uh even if you have a

00:52:24.460 life-threatening disease if you're not an immediate threat if it's not going to end your life in the

00:52:29.180 next you know 48 hours that perhaps you need to wait so maybe maybe comment on that next week

00:52:35.740 and we can see uh uh where you guys stand on that um you know i just i asked john i i don't know

00:52:42.460 how it's going to roll this all into it but i wanted john to i don't know how many of you

00:52:46.220 guys saw this video yesterday or two days ago it was recorded in taber check this out 0.79

00:52:51.260 holy shit yeah okay holy shit full disclosure for youtube and any other platforms nobody was 0.89

00:53:05.700 injured in that uh in that incident it was recorded nobody was injured but it's um 0.98

00:53:10.320 it uh i saw that yesterday and i think my reaction was along the same lines holy

00:53:15.660 crap right and and then uh a couple of people did some investigating and found out that that truck

00:53:22.920 was sitting on the road at the bad spot waiting to make a turn and uh suddenly got blindsided by 0.99

00:53:30.620 that train to me getting hit by a train is probably one of the most ridiculous things in

00:53:35.640 the world i mean they do move fast but it should it to me it should be almost 100% avoidable

00:53:40.740 but uh i'm just gonna um uh relate a story that relates to me i'm an engineer i spent a lifetime

00:53:48.920 solving problems and one of the things i always did as an engineer is you try and take out the

00:53:53.860 the human factor out of your design or you try and think what's the stupidest thing some human's

00:53:59.680 going to try and do and then you try and engineer around that right so you you uh you you have a 0.57

00:54:06.560 certain uh you'll put a guard around a piece of equipment because you're worried that some human

00:54:10.600 will put his hand in there and and wreck his finger so you put a guard and then the guard's

00:54:15.080 not enough anyways uh long story short i learned a long time ago that as much as i spend time uh 0.99

00:54:22.360 designing things for dumb humans they'll be a you know uh though there's always a human dumber than 0.98

00:54:28.760 i anticipated not saying that guy was dumb but a lot of the evidence points to the fact that that 1.00

00:54:34.840 truck really shouldn't have been there and uh there's a lot of that that was completely preventable

00:54:41.080 and the reason i'm bringing that up is we've had too many again this is related to this out

00:54:45.960 of control immigration we've had i'll be blunt i think we have too many there's too many weeks that 0.53

00:54:51.400 you know that go by where there's an incident there was one like that in jasper not too long

00:54:55.640 ago they're all along the cocahalla they're everywhere there's too many incidents of

00:54:59.800 unqualified truck drivers and big trucks and it's becoming an issue that's got to be addressed and

00:55:06.600 that and i think the out of control immigration is part of that these guys are getting their

00:55:10.360 permits i don't know where they're getting their permits but we never have to we never used to

00:55:14.520 have that many incidents and suddenly there's this whole peak of incidents like that and and

00:55:19.960 something else led me to believe that is it maybe perhaps even an insurance scam i don't know um

00:55:25.400 anyways i i found that one uh quite uh quite interesting um all right well uh let's let's

00:55:34.280 let me go through a couple of comments here see what i got um all right

00:55:45.640 good afternoon weirdly 139 good afternoon from tabor alberta says uh uh i don't know if it

00:55:52.760 showed up on the screen there uh good afternoon from taber debbie hey debbie maybe a follow-up

00:55:58.600 comment were you anywhere near that or can you describe uh what happened there what why because

00:56:04.360 that truck was turning into a bean plant of some sort now obviously the truck looks empty by the

00:56:08.920 way they got impacted um yeah maybe uh let me go oh let's go to another one always like uh comments

00:56:19.320 to see who's calling from as far as possible we got somebody grace here from uh down here in

00:56:24.200 arizona i've seen and talked to all kinds of albertan seniors who are signing at the pop-up

00:56:28.680 places audit comes up every time that the federal government would punish us for signing freeze bank

00:56:35.080 accounts take pensions and so on imagine being that afraid it's sad but um that that is uh

00:56:42.520 the fact that canadians canadians have a reason to be afraid of their government let me just put

00:56:46.840 it that way. I mean, I'll be blunt. Our government hasn't been exactly nice to us in the last

00:56:53.400 decade and there's a reason to be that. I mean, getting a bank account frozen is completely

00:56:59.400 debilitating in this day and age. You know, a friend of mine, well, you guys all know her,

00:57:06.280 Eva Chipyak. Eva had an account frozen. I mean, what a scary thing to wake up to that.

00:57:11.960 uh andy lee that many of you guys know andy probably had the bank account frozen it's something

00:57:18.280 that's terribly difficult to recover from um everything is so related i mean think of the

00:57:24.440 think of the inconvenience of just losing your wallet and losing your driver's license and your

00:57:29.320 bank card and having to replace them that's inconvenient but at least it can happen if the

00:57:34.440 government freezes your bank account you're hooped and uh those are all i mean i'll you know what

00:57:41.000 we're running out of time but i'll i'll leave it with this right because i think it is a parting

00:57:45.880 thought um our government wants to control us like there's no ifs ands or buts that our governments

00:57:51.480 are constantly doing things to control us they're doing things to control our speech they want to

00:57:56.120 go to digital currency because that just makes it easier to to to shut you off they want us in

00:58:02.520 electric cars there's nothing easier than if you're driving an electric car and they can just

00:58:07.080 turn off the the you know download some software and take control of your car i mean you're driving

00:58:12.440 your car you didn't make a payment it's on its way back to the dealership they don't want us in the

00:58:17.320 parks oh by the way though geez i never even thought of that one um jeff evely out uh east

00:58:23.480 is right now his remember jeff he's the veteran who um uh walked into the woods last year

00:58:30.440 and got fined $28,000 in Nova Scotia.

00:58:33.920 His case is on trial.

00:58:36.220 Closer to home, we just learned last week

00:58:39.300 that this summer we won't be able to do paddle sports

00:58:43.000 in several lakes in Banff,

00:58:45.200 Lake Minnewonka, Moraine Lake, and I think Bow Lake.

00:58:49.620 So the government's controlling us,

00:58:51.180 doesn't want us having fun,

00:58:52.660 doesn't want us in the wilderness.

00:58:55.540 Anyways, I'm ranting a little bit.

00:58:57.840 I got one last chance for one last caller online

00:59:00.360 And go ahead, caller, where are you calling from and what's on your mind?

00:59:05.120 Hey, good to see you or hear you.

00:59:07.700 It's Tommy Temper from the Tommy Temper Show out of Edmonton.

00:59:12.720 By the way, Edmonton is a pretty good place here, you know.

00:59:15.080 I was born here, lived here all my life.

00:59:18.160 And actually, I live in Nenshi's territory here.

00:59:21.500 So he's kind of a helicoptered in guy from Calgary.

00:59:26.060 And of course, he's not going to do us any good.

00:59:28.020 But I'd like to give a shout-out and a thanks to Western Standard

00:59:34.160 for doing such a good job supporting the effort.

00:59:38.000 And I'd like everyone to support the Western Standard, of course.

00:59:41.480 Glad to see that you're on the show there.

00:59:44.280 I kind of was following you on X and one of the other podcasters there.

00:59:48.780 And I really love the stuff that you do on X.

00:59:51.160 I push it out all the time, share it out and stuff like that.

00:59:54.600 And my background is I went on the convoy to Ottawa, was at Milk River, and I'm a big supporter of independence.

01:00:04.280 And I love what's going on here with the whole thing.

01:00:08.920 I have a question for you, though.

01:00:10.440 What's your take?

01:00:11.600 And give us a little bit more of an indication of what's happening with the petition and how the natives got together.

01:00:20.440 And they're usually going to use the court system to try and thwart the petition and, you know, the whole thing. 0.62

01:00:27.640 And what do you think this court system thing is going to happen?

01:00:31.400 And you guys are supposedly putting the votes in for the plebiscite early because you think that they're going to try and thwart it with the court system.

01:00:42.260 So what's going on with that whole thing?

01:00:44.800 Well, thanks for calling, Tommy.

01:00:46.840 um and appreciate your support all these uh last few years um listen i'm not you know i i think

01:00:55.640 people perceive me as an insider to the app but i'm not right i'm i'm a very vocal uh proponent

01:01:01.960 of independence but i don't sit on the board of app or stay free alberta um i don't have you know

01:01:08.280 direct access to what they're thinking i only hear it like you and i um so so so to the original

01:01:15.960 question of whether uh or how the first nations are trying to slow this down they're simply um

01:01:24.520 requesting an injunction they're literally requesting a pause to the signature collection

01:01:30.600 i haven't read their brief i don't know what their what their uh basis of their injunction is

01:01:37.800 other than i'm sure they're claiming it's unconstitutional it has something to do with

01:01:41.880 seeded territories and so forth and so forth um i i my my opinion on that is that i can't see how

01:01:50.360 they would have a leg to stand on because the the petition at this point is done under the citizens

01:01:55.640 initiative act so it so that's that's how it's being uh managed and and all we're doing is

01:02:02.200 collecting signatures we're petitioning we're petitioning the government so i don't know why

01:02:07.080 they you know trying to stop citizens from collecting signatures seems an extreme abuse of

01:02:13.720 of of a democratic uh right right it's almost like trying to stop me from voting so i don't

01:02:19.160 i have no idea how the court will adjudicate on this it's up in april uh coming up here april 6th

01:02:25.080 or 7th my fear is that uh a lot of judges don't want to adjudicate and they'll just uh accept the

01:02:33.880 uh the the the the the request uh impose an injunction and stop the process and then let

01:02:41.080 an appellate court or another court decide so honestly i i don't know how they can do it and

01:02:47.080 even if and and even i find that funny like even if they said okay you can't you can't do uh stay

01:02:52.360 free alberta you can't collect uh signatures i could at that point i could literally take my badge

01:02:58.680 from and and throw it in the garbage and say you know what i'm still going to collect signatures 0.56

01:03:03.080 i'm going to stop i'm going to stay on the side of the road and collect signatures and what's

01:03:07.000 going to happen then is the court is the court going to send an officer to put me in contempt

01:03:10.920 of court you know what i mean like this whole this is going to be interesting because i i don't know

01:03:14.840 how this plays out and i don't know how an injunction would even be enforceable that said

01:03:19.960 i've heard the same rumor that you've heard which is um that stay free alberta or mitch

01:03:26.040 sylvester as the petitioner is potentially thinking of uh of not letting this to even go to trial

01:03:33.640 because or not trial to go to court the hearing is on april 6th so mitch could if he feels that he

01:03:39.400 let's say mitch has 500 000 signatures in his office right now uh and it's uh whatever march

01:03:45.560 31st should he take all 500 000 and say yeah we're done and not and and then submit him to elections

01:03:51.720 off uh alberta before this can even go to court i would agree i would say yeah absolutely do that

01:03:57.640 um so we'll see that it's strategic at this point but i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm not a true insider hope

01:04:03.800 that answers the question there tommy uh thanks for calling in oh he must uh he must okay real

01:04:09.720 good oh yeah yeah yeah okay cool thanks i know i i appreciate the answer yeah yeah no i would

01:04:15.880 have to agree with you because that's what we're hearing is that you're wanting to put the petitions

01:04:19.880 in ahead of time before the deadline everyone is saying hey get out there sign now sign now which

01:04:24.200 i would agree sign now in case that does happen uh we know that the petition itself was thwarted

01:04:29.960 with the court system ahead of time right there was it was a big delay on it and the legislation

01:04:35.720 was changed to prevent that from happening but uh it seems like it's the court system should

01:04:40.840 getting involved again which of course we don't trust those uh liberal uh judges okay thanks a

01:04:47.320 what marty yeah yeah thanks for and i'll just follow up uh i i think that's you know i called

01:04:52.680 it a stunt when i saw them uh the the chiefs with nancy on the steps of the legislature and i think

01:04:58.040 that's done backfired on them because we had a boost of i can only speak from personal experience

01:05:03.000 but last week and the week before i had a huge boost and people coming to sign and and citing

01:05:08.280 that example specifically so uh uh perhaps that backfired on them um listen uh tommy did a pretty

01:05:15.720 good sales pitch for us here at the western standard but i'll repeat it i mean the show's

01:05:20.820 coming to an end here uh uh join me again next week folks uh we'll we'll keep doing this and

01:05:26.880 i'll keep bugging you guys to call in i'll keep refining the whole system i mean either either

01:05:32.180 call in or send me comments beforehand you can you know how to reach me you can reach me here

01:05:36.860 you can reach me on x put your comments on there and uh and and don't be shy we'll we'll get this

01:05:43.080 going um if you're not already a member it's ten dollars a month or it's a hundred dollars a year

01:05:50.260 so again organizations independent media like this uh you know depend on on um on collecting

01:05:58.720 fees from the public like you guys unlike cbc that gets theirs from taxpayers you would do this

01:06:04.720 voluntarily so uh consider joining it's www.westernstandard.news and uh hopefully you'll

01:06:13.240 join me again next week here thursdays at 1 p.m for the marty up north show on the western standard

01:06:18.940 cheers folks

01:06:34.720 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - March 20, 2026

Shrinking Population, Stalled Economy and Alberta’s Next Move

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