In this episode of The Corey Morgan Show, host Corey Morgan talks with law professor Bruce Pippin about the proposed ban on pornography in Alberta schools, and why it's a bad idea. Plus, a look at the smoky smokestacks that are coming in with a vengeance this fall.
00:11:45.640They've ordered a whopping 67 new airplanes from Boeing, including a whole schwack of new Dreamliners.
00:11:55.440So that's going to solidify their air force, so to speak, for the next several years.
00:12:02.940Temporary foreign workers also dominating the news this morning.
00:12:07.360Conservative leader Pierre Polyev held a press conference to say if elected, the Conservatives would completely dismantle the program, end it.
00:12:16.220And he was asked about naming and shaming the corporations that use them.
00:12:25.360Obviously, the big one, I think, that's on social media all the time is Tim Hortons.
00:12:30.200But there's lots of others out there that will be broadcast.
00:12:35.260And our Derek Fildebrandt filling in as a reporter this week, I guess.
00:12:39.580He uncovered a good story yesterday out of Sylvan Lake, where the defensive coach of the high school football team was given the boot, was sacked, so to speak, because he spoke out about transgender and how there seems to be a link between trans people and all the recent mass shootings in the States.
00:13:04.180It was definitely a link in the most recent one.
00:13:06.800and the principal of the Sylvan Lake High School didn't like it and fired him.
00:13:12.840And that has caused a whole mess of protests, students writing letters,
00:13:19.940fellow coaches resigning, other teachers supporting him.
00:13:25.360So Derek's going to have a lot more on that this afternoon.
00:13:28.320If you want to see his first story, it's on the site now.
00:15:53.040Yeah, well, it's, you know, as I said, I've watched your stuff for quite some time.
00:15:57.240it's been outstanding it's unusual to see uh somebody outspoken in the way you are from
00:16:01.520academia it's kind of a rare thing any longer so uh that's appreciated in itself well i think
00:16:07.020i well great i thought i i i think uh amongst university colleagues i might be regarded as
00:16:14.640something of a barbarian well as long as you embrace it rather than shut up over it it works
00:16:20.360out uh so i mean there's so much i'd like to cover with you and there's so much that can be
00:16:25.360but I kind of I want to talk about just what came up recently on social media because it's been
00:16:28.740interesting you've you've spoken a lot well you you specialize kind of in talking about freedoms
00:16:33.720legislation that sort of thing how we could take care of it the issue of digital identification
00:16:40.760came up which people are very concerned about and how government could abuse that which I fully
00:16:45.320agree government could abuse it and I mean I feel that the the current move with Alberta's thing
00:16:51.460might be innocuous, but still it brings up the discussion with our freedoms. And you've talked
00:16:56.140a lot about independence. We've got these holes in our freedoms and we might have an opportunity
00:17:02.220coming if a province becomes independent. Where do we begin though then to enshrine and protect
00:17:08.400those rights? Like this is more your specialty. If we become independent and just flip into the
00:17:12.000same system we just left, we aren't bringing ourselves forward at all. And we really need
00:17:16.040to start having those discussions. A hundred percent. You're right on the money with this,
00:17:20.200cory and the danger is that what we'll get with independence even if a referendum passes
00:17:26.920is we will get basically business as usual but without ottawa and you know that might be a
00:17:34.600an improvement but it's not different in in in kind what we really need is a a new kind of
00:17:42.840governing system for a new country because after all people in alberta are recognizing
00:17:48.360that canada doesn't work very well and yet there's an awful lot of canada inside alberta too
00:17:53.400so if you just escape the canada that is outside alberta and you don't purge the canada that is
00:17:59.480inside alberta you end up with a little canada inside alberta and that's not that doesn't get
00:18:04.440you to where you want to go so you we need to embrace the idea that an independent alberta is
00:18:10.280going to start from scratch you clear the table and you think fresh about how you want your country
00:18:17.000to be governed what kind of constitution you want you do not adopt the canadian constitution
00:18:22.840you you instead my preference would be to take some elements of the american constitution but
00:18:28.120then make your own because even the american one's not perfect um but you have an opportunity
00:18:34.200here to to to do nation building in a way that only comes around like once in a lifetime if that
00:18:41.320so it's a moment in time and i hope alberta will embrace it and start fresh with new thinking
00:18:48.580and uh and a clean slate excellent yeah and that's exactly it i mean uh i think of it in
00:18:55.660the sense of you know everybody kind of knows that one guy or girl that keeps going through
00:18:59.040relationships and splitting and then going right back to a relationship with somebody just like
00:19:02.400the last one you haven't learned what you had to leave the last time but as you said like what are
00:19:07.340the models we can look at we'd want to start with something fresh that's the great opportunity
00:19:10.860but you still want a structure and a basis you said the american system i kind of like aspects
00:19:15.660of the swiss system a whole new hybrid could be built with presumably the best of a bunch of
00:19:21.160systems but it would be tough to assemble it as well into a functional way i mean the timeline
00:19:26.240makes it tough to do it quickly well yes so here's my first suggestion though and i've got lots of
00:19:31.940suggestions to offer but my first suggestion is this so we are used to a system in which a
00:19:36.860constitution if you're lucky lists a whole bunch of rights you know in the canadian charter we have
00:19:42.140the right to free expression and the right of association and religion and so on and so forth
00:19:47.300but that approach is it's itself flawed so if you if you simply try to list all the things the
00:19:55.960government can't do here's the system you set up the constitution in effect gives the state
00:20:01.600unlimited power. Unlimited. So if you think of the legislature and the executive and the courts
00:20:07.840all together, they have unlimited power. And then your list of rights in your Bill of Rights or
00:20:15.000Charter of Rights tries to limit that unlimited grant of power. So my suggestion is flip it.
00:20:23.900Instead of giving the state unlimited power and then trying to restrict it,
00:20:28.560You start with this proposition. The state can do only those things that a constitution expressly authorizes them to do. It's not a grant of general welfare. It's not a grant of public interest. They cannot do anything that is not expressly listed in the constitution.
00:20:48.900And if you do that, you don't need to list rights because you have freedom, because the government isn't empowered to censor you or to restrict your religion or to, as the case may be.
00:21:03.720So, I mean, the philosophy of that sounds magnificent.
00:21:08.440The reality is, though, I guess in a governing system, we still end up handing at some degree of authority and responsibility to some sort of governing power.
00:21:17.000And, of course, when they overreach, it won't be an if, you know, it's just the nature of them.
00:21:23.380what sort of things could we build in then as a recourse for the citizens to be able to push back
00:21:30.300and say, hey, you've violated our structure. This can't happen. Not just another finger wagging. We
00:21:35.900got to do something to make sure they're accountable. Right. So one other thing that
00:21:38.880we do in our system, as with the Americans and across the Western world, is we have an entrenched
00:21:47.360political class both in our elected chambers like the house of commons and the alberta legislature
00:21:54.380in the bureaucracy which people are calling the deep state understandably and in the courts where
00:21:59.860judges sit for a long long time so you have a vested interest a constituency that has an interest
00:22:06.260in an expansive presence and power for the state so one other thing that you do in combination with
00:22:13.160the first idea is you have severe term limits you'd say nobody can work for the state in any
00:22:20.000capacity for longer than a certain number of years you know you pick something at random let's say
00:22:24.720six six years six years in and then you're out and then there's no reason for you to want an
00:22:30.860expanded state presence because you're not going to be part of it anymore and and so you disempower
00:22:36.480both the institutions and the individuals in the institutions so that you get rid of the dynamic
00:22:42.600of having powerful individuals running what are supposed to be democratic institutions
00:22:47.700so in this kind of a situation you would get rid almost immediately of things like the the the very
00:22:55.020heavy lobbying presence and the regulatory capture people are not going to be there very long and so
00:23:01.160it's not worthwhile trying to influence what they do that's interesting and as you said you know
00:23:07.840that some of the term people use is the deep state some a lot of people forget that you know
00:23:11.800Well, the politicians come and go, but these deputy ministers, senior bureaucrats, ones that you can't name unless you go digging deep into the government books, they're there for a long time.
00:23:21.040They're usually extremely well paid, and they often actually will tell the ministerial office what to do, even though people don't realize it.
00:23:29.660But at the same time, just to play devil's advocate, some of those roles, a bit of continuity and consistency of leadership might help with some of the efficacy of their departments.
00:23:41.460I mean, if you're turning it over too regularly, couldn't that lead to other disruptions?
00:27:25.860If that comes about, like how should Albertans be preparing?
00:27:30.020Or even Quebec, it's starting to building up over there.
00:27:32.500Should there be, even in advance of this,
00:27:35.400some sort of general meetings or something where people can get together and formulate the kind of
00:27:40.160constitution we'd need? I think it might be time for that. I do. So the message at the beginning
00:27:45.580of this path was, well, let's not worry about that just right now. Let's get to the referendum,
00:27:50.460get across that threshold, and then we'll worry about what it looks like over the hill.
00:27:56.220I think you're close enough now that you need to have those conversations at least starting. And
00:28:01.900And at the same time as well, you know, people, certain constituencies, parties have been putting forward visions of what it should look like.
00:28:11.620And so there's there's really no there's no justification now for restraint.
00:28:16.820Let's all talk about what the new Alberta is supposed to look like.
00:28:20.580And there are going to be conflicts and disagreements about that.
00:28:24.020And that's inevitable. We shouldn't try to avoid those.
00:28:27.000Because one thing that will take this over the finish line is if there is an expression of vision, if people understand what kind of a new society they're trying to achieve.
00:28:41.340I've said before that in some ways, Alberta has the opportunity to become the beacon of Western civilization in this adventure.
00:28:51.700And if you don't grab it, it'll be missed.
00:28:54.520And so that's the kind of conversation, the kind of constitutional conversation that I think ought to be starting.
00:29:01.200Yeah, well, I hope you help us out with those.
00:29:03.740I'm hoping that, you know, we get some groups, whether it's the APP or others, starting that sort of discussion.
00:29:10.820Because what we're asking Albertans to vote for in a referendum is to basically either have a smaller version of the same state, as we said before, which really isn't an improvement,
00:29:20.320or leaping into a void where, okay, we'll iron out those details the day after the vote.
00:29:25.860And I got a lot of people might just say, well, I'm not ready to vote for either of those yet.
00:29:30.120So we got to get something together, but it's not, you know, and it's going to take a lot of
00:29:34.120debate, as you said, when I led the Alberta Independence Party, boy, depressingly over
00:29:37.80025 years ago, I had to have at least eight or nine constitutions sent to me. And these were
00:29:44.180printed out, you know, and mailed. I mean, email documents weren't that good. People were already
00:29:48.580thinking of that but they're also every person who drafted these ideas for constitutions that
00:29:52.600was a hill for them to die on that was their baby that was their creation and they would turn on1.00
00:29:57.780their heel and stomp out of the room if they didn't get that in whole so i think the organizers
00:30:01.900of this should understand that this is going to be a big large process maybe it's the sort of thing
00:30:06.580they can work on while they're waiting for the courts to deal with whatever's going on on the
00:30:10.140referendum question why not why not that makes sense to me well great we're much on the same
00:30:17.760page. And it's just, as I said, such singular times, you know, as you said, once in a lifetime
00:30:22.960where people in a lot of countries, they'll just never get that opportunity in a lifetime.
00:30:26.300Never. It would never come up. And yeah, so I hope Albertans will seize the day. This is your
00:30:32.540moment, folks. Well, we've got to make the most of it. There's a lot of moving parts, but that's
00:30:37.900one I don't think there's been enough discussion on. I really appreciate what you've added so far.
00:30:42.540I listened to you when you came out to Calgary and spoke as well and stuff on this from a
00:30:47.600surprising source from out of the eastern establishment you've been very helpful for us
00:30:52.440out here and i hope you continue to be uh so before i let you go i know you work with uh you
00:30:57.580know you're the executive director of rights probe and where else can people find your work
00:31:00.960yeah well we have a website rightsprobe.org i also have a sub stack page that people are
00:31:06.260welcome to subscribe to and on x i'm at uh at party bruce excellent well i recommend folks
00:31:13.900check it out. Have a look at Bruce Party. Lots of wisdom to come from. The time wasn't
00:31:18.040long enough on this show segment, but we covered some ground and I really
00:31:22.240appreciate you taking some time to speak to us on that today. I appreciate it, Corey. Thanks for
00:31:26.140having me on. Great. Thanks. Hope we can talk again soon. So yes, you know, and again, so you
00:31:31.900know what? I'm going to get on that a little. I mean, I'm an independent among the independence
00:31:35.660movement. You know, I just kind of do my own thing. People don't have to wonder where I'm
00:31:38.840coming from, but I'm not a member of any group or party or anything else, but I'm going to nag a bit.0.99
00:31:48.900I mean, right now, the APP, for example, has been holding a lot of meetings all over the province and packing houses and rooms and doing quite well.
00:31:56.160But they're all just preparing and preparing and preparing and preparing for this referendum, for the petitioning, which is important.
00:32:02.260But how long can you keep spinning your wheels?
00:32:04.180You've got a few months to spare now while we wait for yet another court ruling.
00:32:07.180Well, let's have these constitutional discussions.
00:32:09.780This is a big undertaking and an important one.
00:32:15.080Let's see some of the comments from Angry Canadian says,
00:32:19.940a new Alberta $10 bill featuring Corey Morgan.
00:35:15.740Now, I understand how that's a smart political move as an opposition leader
00:35:19.520to push because you can say it and you don't have to really deal with it.
00:35:23.280and it's an issue that needs addressing, and it's one that can really get people, you know,
00:35:30.060worked up and realizing how broken it is. Because why, for example, when it comes to areas like
00:35:35.740Tim Hortons or unskilled areas, why are they needing to import people? Why can't we find
00:35:42.680local? There's a bigger discussion to be had. I owned a service company, a food service company.
00:35:48.340The locals don't want to work in it. And people say, well, just pay more. Okay. The consequence
00:35:55.400of that is your cup of coffee is going to double in price. And I tell you what, despite what people
00:35:59.520claim, they piss and moan really quickly when what they pay for suddenly goes up a bit.
00:36:06.300I remember a huge discussion just to go into the anecdotes when minimum wage, when I owned my pub
00:36:10.800and cafe, minimum wage kept getting hiked up on us. So, I mean, it's just natural. I had two options.
00:36:16.560I could either reduce the food costs or increase the price.
00:36:19.660I usually would, you know, try to do it in a combination of both.
00:36:22.780And in one case, because I'd reduced, we used to give out a massive plate of nachos, you know, and they were really popular.
00:36:28.700I mean, you get a giant, it's a good sharing item and it was a good price and you could sit your table and eat.
00:36:34.080But as a restaurant owner, you would see a lot of those plates would come back with a quarter of it uneven, you know, because it was such a large portion and not everybody would eat the whole thing.