00:04:34.480Public figures were subjected to ridicule and humiliation on the taxpayers' dime.
00:04:39.080The agenda of the production wasn't entertainment or parody, though they may have claimed it was such.
00:04:43.600Apologists have compared the production to Borat, where Sacha Baron Cohen ambushed guests, but it's nothing like that.
00:04:49.180Cohen's agenda was entertainment rather than political, and his work was actually funny.
00:04:53.400There's nothing funny about what this Forge media group did.
00:04:56.300Most importantly, Cohen's work wasn't tax-funded.
00:04:59.460The state broadcaster has an ostensible mandate to promote Canadian pride and unity.
00:05:05.300It's managing neither, as it funds productions that attack prominent Canadians
00:05:08.740and perpetuate the narrative that Canada is a genocidal nation that must be ashamed of itself.
00:05:13.400Their targets are icons of Canadian pride, such as the RCMP and the country's founder, Sir John A. MacDonald.
00:05:19.500Critical commentary is certainly fair, and it's been applied liberal to the RCMP and past political figures.
00:05:25.620This ongoing campaign to villainize them, though, is abhorrent.
00:05:28.480The CBC has announced it's tapped the brakes on the Forge media production now, but that's too little, too late.
00:05:34.120Independence movements are blossoming across this country, and can anybody really be shocked when the CBC gets $1.5 billion a year to attack the history, pride, and foundation of the nation?
00:05:43.040The best time to defund the CBC was decades ago.
00:11:55.780So that is our news editor, Dave Naylor.
00:11:58.580And yeah, lots on the go, political, non-political.
00:12:01.360It's good to see a bunch of drugs gone.
00:12:03.240I know interdiction seems to be a lost cause, but still, I mean, getting rid of some of it can't hurt.
00:12:08.580I mean, when you think of the volumes of that, we're talking, you know, hundreds and hundreds of kilograms.
00:12:12.980I mean, they talk about the potency of things like meth and fentanyl, where it's just the tiniest of pinch can kill a person or addict them.
00:12:21.880Interesting to see those gang names involved, too, though, right?
00:12:24.940Either way, all that news copy, all that stuff.
00:12:26.840And as we cover things, when the break is due to you guys who have subscribed, this is where I got to renege and remind you, please, guys, check it out.
00:17:37.020often when I talk on this show and I go on forever.
00:17:38.880I don't know what's going to happen. We are in such strange, uncharted waters right now.
00:17:45.520But the premier is in a very tough position because State Free Alberta and their leaders have been making it very clear that they're going to push to try and have a leadership election and push her out of office if she doesn't give them the referendum they want.
00:18:01.500that could lead to a crazy sort of summer and year in Alberta. So that's where I'm suspecting
00:18:07.680some sort of referendum is going to be called by her, though maybe it's not the one they want.
00:18:12.980And then where do things go from there? The other thing is
00:18:16.960the opponents to Smith, she can't win on either direction. I mean, they're going wild on social
00:18:25.680media. They're calling her a separatist. A Toronto Star article said Smith has a separatist.
00:18:31.500effortist agenda. And it just keeps going and going and going. Then she's just jumping up and
00:18:35.720down. He's even got a new comb over going on and everything. He's ready for the season.
00:18:40.600And again, just that S word over and over and over again, they're trying to make it stick to
00:18:45.920Smith. And no matter what she does, she's going to get called that. So that again, tells me more of,
00:18:50.560well, you might as well schedule the referendum. You're going to get labeled either way,
00:18:54.660no matter how many times she says she's not necessarily supporting a yes vote in it.
00:18:59.940she's been quite clear that she wouldn't support such. What an interesting time to be alive.
00:19:04.960Meanwhile, things are ramping up in Saskatchewan too, you know, the support there is sitting at
00:19:08.760about a third or more, just about as strong, or maybe even a little stronger than in Alberta for
00:19:12.360the independence concept. They just don't have a petitioning mechanism on the go. Now, could they
00:19:19.640get one started? Probably not until, you know, well, for one, they need the legislation and they
00:19:25.980would need it to, you know, be able to pass those bars of consultation, which if Alberta couldn't,
00:19:34.860presumably Saskatchewan couldn't either. So either way, we'll get into it. I see the guest in the
00:19:38.920lobby there. There was an MOU, I don't know, second signing or performative action last week
00:19:46.340going on on the possible maybe outlying possibility that a pipeline could possibly be
00:19:52.300constructed in a year and a half. But in the meantime, Alberta is going to accept an ever
00:19:56.820growing carbon tax on its federal or not its federal, but on its industrial capacity, which
00:20:03.480doesn't sound like a good concession to me. Franco Tarazano from the Canadian Taxpayers
00:20:07.000Federation, I'm certain would have some more to add on that. So let's bring him in. Hey, Franco,
00:20:10.960how's it going? Corey, it's going great, man. Thanks for having me on the show.
00:20:14.980Oh, always a pleasure. Especially, you know, when it comes to tax issues, maybe if you could just
00:20:21.720give a little background because it's kind of coming up you know some people didn't realize
00:20:25.800or under the impression okay the carbon tax is gone carney got rid of the carbon tax
00:20:30.440but that he only got rid of one carbon tax we've still got another one don't we yeah that's right
00:20:35.400so when trudeau brought in that carbon tax there's really two parts of it right there was that
00:20:40.520consumer facing carbon tax the one you paid uh essentially directly on your natural gas bill
00:20:45.960or at the pumps right the visible carbon tax that you could see so carney cancelled that one but
00:20:52.040the other part of the trudeau era carbon taxes was this hidden carbon tax on canadian business
00:20:57.800right you often hear the media politicians pundits call it the industrial carbon tax
00:21:03.000uh but really it's just a hidden carbon tax on canadian businesses like steel like fertilizer
00:21:08.520plants like electricity generation um but also on oil and gas projects as well right and what
00:21:15.320What I always like to say is a carbon tax is a carbon tax is a carbon tax.
00:21:18.760It doesn't matter what type of lipstick politicians put on their carbon tax pig.
00:21:23.740All carbon taxes make life more expensive.
00:21:26.460All carbon taxes hurt Canadian businesses and their workers.
00:21:29.460And carbon taxes, too, quite frankly, don't work towards these politicians' stated intentions.
00:21:35.740No, emissions don't get reduced by them.
00:21:39.580So with the big press conference last week, though, we saw Premier Smith and Prime Minister Carney celebrating that they're only going to increase it to 130 by a certain date.
00:21:54.480No. Are you kidding? It's a carbon tax hike. What are we talking about, right?
00:21:58.820Like, Corey, you're making me miss home. You're making me miss Alberta, right?
00:22:03.560I think of Alberta, and I think Alberta should be carbon tax free.
00:22:07.540I don't care what they call their type of carbon tax.
00:22:10.360Albertans shouldn't be paying any carbon tax.
00:22:12.400By the way, for a while now, Saskatchewan has been carbon tax free, right?
00:22:16.920We're starting to see Scott Moe wobble a little bit right now.
00:22:20.560But previously, Scott Moe just said he's not playing that game.
00:22:24.240And he said the industrial carbon tax to zero.
00:22:26.880That's what should be happening in Alberta.
00:22:29.980Now, Corey, let me just give you the facts.
00:22:32.280And then we can kind of talk about the politics of it, okay?
00:22:34.740So you just got to listen to what Carney said on the technicalities. Before negotiating with Alberta, right, before that original MOU was signed, the effective industrial carbon tax rate, so the actual carbon tax, was about $20 a ton. Now it's about $40 a ton. By 2040, under this agreement, it's going to be $130 a ton.
00:22:58.360okay to quote carney directly it's a six and a half times increase to the industrial carbon tax
00:23:05.820okay does that sound like a victory to you cory come on no and i was just floored by it i mean
00:23:13.120how over a barrel is our provincial government to try and get a project done that's the concession
00:23:19.360you have to give to the federal government a massively increasing carbon tax i i would
00:23:24.440And I know it's politics and Premier Smith has to project some positivity, but how can, you know, definitely somebody who we know as a fiscal conservative, as a person, how can you smile and say this was a victory to see this thing rising just because it's not rising as quickly or as high as some people might have projected earlier?
00:23:44.180Well, and look, look, you almost got to disregard the headline price, right?
00:23:49.340Because that's what Premier Smith and their office, a couple, you know, I've had even one person in Premier Smith's office come after me on Twitter, but they're just incorrect when they're looking at the headline price.
00:24:00.000What you have to look at is the effective tax, right?
00:24:11.380It's going up to $130 a ton by 2040, sorry.
00:24:15.560So, look, that is a huge carbon tax increase.
00:24:18.320But Corey, I think the key takeaway for all of your listeners and for all Albertans and really all Canadians, the key takeaway from this agreement is this.
00:24:27.900Carbon tax hikes are a certainty. A pipeline is a maybe, right?
00:24:33.280So when I see this agreement, like I understand why the premier of Alberta and quite frankly, why any premier of Alberta should be pushing for pipelines.
00:24:42.760But what we should be seeing these provincial politicians be doing is to tell Ottawa to stop roadblocking development, scrap all carbon taxes, and let businesses build pipelines with their own money, not with taxpayers' dollars.
00:24:56.140And that's something that we don't have the details on, but it's something, of course, that we're very worried about.
00:25:01.940And, you know, Corey, when I see this agreement, you know what I think about?
00:25:05.120Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football, right?
00:25:07.520You know, how many times have we been told, oh, just pay your carbon taxes and don't worry, a pipeline will come about this?
00:25:13.560Well, I remember when that was the argument that Rachel Notley made, right, way back in the day when her government was in power.
00:25:20.520And, you know, despite bringing in a provincial consumer carbon tax, you had Canada's political system chase away the private company that wanted to spend billions of its own dollars to twin its own pipeline.
00:25:32.240right but the political system chased that away even though Albertans were paying a consumer
00:25:37.580carbon tax from the Notley government well now with this industrial carbon tax just so people
00:25:42.380understand the kind of damage this sort of thing causes it reduces it basically takes a shave out
00:25:48.420of whatever they produce and they have it ensures they must have a very high resource price to be
00:25:53.780able to make a profit because they're not going to be able to make as much as they typically could
00:25:57.880without that tax which means they invest in other jurisdictions or they tap the brakes on capital
00:26:02.820investments or as we've seen and heard so many times even rbc saying canada is not a good place
00:26:08.820to invest we've lost up to uh possibly a trillion dollars in investment so i mean yeah we don't see
00:26:13.640it directly on our consumer prices but we see it as an economic hit that hits everybody in the long
00:26:18.180run well look i i say the and and cory i was actually just in the environment committee
00:26:22.720in parliament right testifying against the industrial carbon tax and the two thing that
00:26:27.180the point I was trying to make is like the industrial carbon tax, this hidden carbon tax
00:26:31.140on Canadian business is the worst of all worlds, higher prices and fewer Canadian jobs, right?
00:26:37.000Let's talk about the higher prices. I mean, you don't need a PhD in economics to understand that
00:26:41.740when the government imposes carbon taxes on refineries, that makes driving more expensive.
00:26:46.240When the government imposes carbon taxes on fertilizer plants, that makes food more expensive.
00:26:51.460And when the government imposes carbon taxes on electricity, that makes it more expensive to live.
00:26:56.960Okay, but now let's look at the other side of the coin, right?
00:26:59.860Because this is an industrial carbon tax on Canadian business.
00:27:03.080Hey, guess what jurisdiction is not imposing national carbon taxes, regardless of who is
00:27:23.800So when the government imposes an industrial carbon tax, right, that doesn't reduce emissions, right? It just pushes that oil and gas project out of Alberta to Texas, okay? When the government imposes an industrial carbon tax on fertilizer plants, again, that does not cut emissions. It just pushes that fertilizer plant out of Manitoba across the border into North Dakota.
00:27:47.640Yeah, so it's just the opposite of what Carney said he is going to be doing.
00:27:53.200It's certainly making the orange man south of the border succeed in what he was saying,
00:27:56.520which is pulling everything down into them.
00:27:59.080For an economic wizard, Mark Carney's tactics seem questionable at best.
00:28:04.400But I'll let you off on the carbon tax.
00:28:06.260I just wanted that laid out because it's just, I've been having a hard time.
00:28:09.740I'm typically supportive of the Smith government.
00:28:12.040But when you trumpet that as a victory, I'm sorry, but I've got to call some BS guys.
00:28:16.020this was not a victory this was a a gross concession that's going to harm all of us
00:28:20.580uh but you've got plenty of other to work uh things to work on in there in ottawa since i've
00:28:25.040got you what else is the taxpayers federation up to i mean they tax us many many ways over there
00:28:29.780well we've been breaking some big uh some big big waste stories right so we got a i mean you
00:28:35.660know our investigative journalist quite well jen hodgson she's been doing great work for us and i
00:28:39.240know the western standard has been reporting on this so so thanks to you but um let me just give
00:28:44.040you a couple crazy stories right so you might remember folks when uh the former cbc uh head
00:28:50.280was in committee you know bragging about its gem streaming service right well this uh founder of
00:28:56.360open by default the transparency group sent in this access to information request saying okay
00:29:01.060well how many subscribers do you have to gem now the cbc refused to disclose the records the
00:29:07.200information commissioner then said cbc disclosed the records but instead of being transparent with
00:29:12.720with canadians instead of listening to the information commissioner uh we got records
00:29:16.960showing that the cbc is now spending 59 000 bucks going to court to keep those numbers hidden
00:29:24.160right corey now you know what i'm thinking right when i've got good numbers to share i might brag
00:29:28.640i'm definitely not going to court to try to keep something hidden so i wonder what type of bad uh
00:29:33.600bad news bad news numbers uh the cbc might be trying to hide but you know what really grinds
00:29:38.960my gears is that they take more than a billion dollars from taxpayers a year right at the very
00:29:44.540least they owe us transparency but now they're spending tens of thousands of dollars going to
00:29:49.820court to keep taxpayers in the dark gross we just know anecdotally i mean come on who on earth is
00:29:56.580gonna pay for streaming services from uh cbc we we all pay already those who like watching streaming
00:30:03.460services you got your netflix you got prime you got crave all these different ones you can only
00:30:07.060afford to pick so many a month i just can't see too many saying you know what i'm just going to
00:30:11.460reach in my pocket for this company i already pay one and a half billion a year to and toss in a
00:30:16.740little more to see that content those numbers have got to be dismal hey hey let me uh speaking of
00:30:21.960dismal numbers let's talk about the budget right the federal budget because hey we've got another
00:30:26.960great story that that we broke in western standard thanks guys for you know covering this taxpayer
00:30:31.600news uh so the finance minister right what's a key responsibility of a finance minister i don't know
00:30:37.020write and deliver their own budget speech? Well, it turns out federal finance minister
00:30:42.020Champagne spent 12,000 bucks on outside contractors to get a speech writer for his
00:30:48.680own budget speech, right? So not to mention, right, that taxpayers are already paying like
00:30:54.820a couple million dollars a year for the army of communications bureaucrats in the finance
00:30:59.020department. But now we're also spending 12 grand to get some outside contractor to do their
00:31:04.320homework. And, you know, Corey, what I like to say is, you know, if Winston Churchill can find
00:31:09.920some time to write his own speeches while fighting the Nazis, I'm pretty sure Champagne can find some
00:31:15.500time to write his own budget speech. One last point here, folks, in the actual budget that
00:31:21.580Champagne delivered, the government said it would cut spending on consultants. Yet Champagne spent
00:31:27.20012 grand on an outside contract to get help writing his own budget speech. It's embarrassing,
00:31:32.960quite frankly well i mean yeah our own nigel haniford used to be a speech writer for for
00:31:38.220prime minister harper but he was on staff for that and i bet you because i mean nigel is a
00:31:42.900gifted writer you know for the right price for probably a paltry 6 000 he could have written a
00:31:47.940very good one for uh mr champagne i mean they didn't shop around very much i'd suspect hey i
00:31:53.260like nigel but let's not give any anyone more ideas to take taxpayers money you know what i'm
00:31:57.640saying oh i i doubt he would go in for that he has principles that man all right well i appreciate
00:32:04.020the update laying out what's going on with carbon taxes and a couple of other beauties going on out
00:32:08.800in ottawa since we lost you from alberta here uh before i let you go back into that that fine
00:32:14.140mire that you work within out there uh how can people see your work and uh support you guys if
00:32:19.480they choose to well cory man it's always a pleasure i love coming on your show folks the
00:32:24.340best place to follow our stuff is just at our website taxpayer.com that's taxpayer.com follow
00:32:30.840us on social media type in canadian taxpayers federation follow me on x at franco underscore
00:32:35.560nomics but cory you're awesome man thanks for having me on the show great thanks franco it's
00:32:40.120always good and i really appreciate the work you guys do you give us great stuff to put copy on
00:32:44.200though it's usually unfortunately embarrassing expensive stories so thanks again i'm sure we'll
00:32:49.220talk again soon all right see everyone so check it out guys yes taxpayer.com all these they break
00:32:55.500great stuff as you can see digging into those things and it's the small stuff that i think
00:32:59.320people realize i mean we go everybody likes to talk about the 16 orange juice the reason that
00:33:04.260was such a huge scandal is because that's something we can think about going to a restaurant
00:33:08.860spending that much money things like that the billions are harder to register in our minds
00:33:13.660those of us in the regular world. But when you look at then 17,000 for a speech, like, whoa,
00:33:21.200hang on. I mean, how many hours does it take even, you know, trying to write the best speech
00:33:27.620on earth and something as long and as big as a budget presentation? I mean, none should have
00:33:31.900spent, as Franco pointed out, we already pay an army of communications people. What the heck is
00:33:36.900their job if you're outsourcing it to somebody else out there to do it. But it's just absurdity
00:33:44.460and it's good to see those sorts of things exposed and put into a language we can all understand so
00:33:50.720people realize that and at least try to hold these politicians accountable and watch them for the
00:33:56.700awards they give and the bad spending because every province is bad for it. We had a recent
00:34:00.200column in the Western Standard talk about Alberta has a spending problem too. Provincially, we've
00:34:05.100been bad. I mean, look, the easiest way for a politician to go ever is always to throw money
00:34:09.800at problems. It's the path of least resistance. Conservatives, Liberals, NDP, they're all prone
00:34:16.160to doing it. And we've got to stop asking them to do it. We got to get on their cases more when they
00:34:22.620do do it. And, you know, that's where we drop the ball a little bit ourselves. All right, let's look
00:34:27.660at some other stuff getting done. This was, you know, and I'll tie this into CBC when people,
00:34:32.460you know, pointing out CBC and some of the awful stuff they publish and things they're doing.
00:34:39.040The BBC in England, you know, which is the inspiration for the CBC. And it's their tax
00:34:46.300funded, of course, institution. And they put out a piece, this weepy piece today about a man in
00:34:54.880Afghanistan who's so poor, this poor man, he can't pay his bills, can't pay his rent, can't get his
00:35:01.300food. It's just awful. The conditions are terrible. It showed it literally with a little tear in his
00:35:05.740eye. Because you know what he has to do? He's selling his daughter. He literally is selling
00:35:12.240a little girl. And the BBC is pointing it out as if this is some sob story about a man
00:35:18.900so badly cornered that he's going to sell his little girls. And it says, in fact,
00:35:23.860it's happening all over Afghanistan that these men are selling their daughters.
00:35:31.300But you start with this. No other culture on earth sells their daughters. We've seen famine.
00:35:40.200We've seen issues going on all around the world, countries that have had very, very hard times and
00:35:46.780people who have had to do some terrible things to try and pay the bills. But the Irish potato
00:35:54.160famine, did they sell their daughters into slavery, sex slavery? There's one of the questions
00:35:59.440that was put out to by somebody online or let's follow up cbc bbc what would he be selling his
00:36:05.280daughter towards do i be divorced some pervert who wants a little girl because afghanistan is
00:36:11.840an islamic culture that has absolutely no concept of value to women they see them as chattel they
00:36:17.760see them as property so this man rather than going out i mean most parents would die before letting
00:36:27.120harm come to their children. They would never consider selling them. You notice he's not
00:36:32.320saying he's selling his sons by the way. There's parents who have become desperate and did things
00:36:38.480in times of famine. They're the ones perhaps in an awful situation that would prostitute themselves
00:36:46.160or do all sorts of things just so they could scrape together money to pay for their children.
00:36:49.840I don't doubt things are tough in Afghanistan. You know why things are tough in Afghanistan?
00:36:54.880Because it's run by a medieval group of Islamic lunatics who keep them in the dark ages.
00:38:34.920I mean, they're going to get a civil war over there pretty soon.
00:38:37.860Well, when your state broadcaster is an apologist for crap like that.
00:38:43.060Again, no other culture does this, guys, except, you know, I mean, how ideologically broken and sick do you have to be to overcome the amount of parental instinct that most people have?
00:39:01.460You know, even a mouse will attack you if it's trying to protect its babies.
00:39:07.040you know there's nothing more dangerous than a bear if it's cubs or a threat and somehow these
00:39:14.240guys have overridden that whole instinct and will sell their little girls into sexual slavitude
00:39:20.460to pay the bills and the BBC makes a sympathetic case for them the world is a sick place on so
00:39:33.540many levels when it comes to these things. Let's see some other stuff to have a look at a little
00:39:38.060less negative, but, uh, we got, uh, BC, you know, keep watching Alex Zoltan, man. He's been doing
00:39:44.720such a great job, uh, out in BC. I mean, Jared was great out there too, but Alex is really hitting
00:39:49.600on what's going on in that legislature with their conservative leadership race that I believe is
00:39:54.920ending pretty soon. And it's just getting so wild out there. Their politics are almost nuttier than
00:40:01.520hours. Um, and he said, uh, tensions boiled over in the first sitting day after week long break
00:40:07.000as a clarity repeatedly accused premier David Eby of missing the house before being ordered to leave
00:40:11.860by the speaker. So she was kicked out of the house. The video is up and, uh, uh, you can see
00:40:19.860that affair going on in there. And again, that's that mixed thing. We, we kind of in a dark comedy
00:40:23.900way, sort of see, um, you know, the fun of watching these guys going at each other like this,
00:40:30.300but at the same time these are your elected officials these are the people leading
00:40:33.600your uh your government you wonder why the policies are bad um somebody talking an odd
00:40:41.720question out of the blue asking i don't know if you're asking me there with cb fixes all or not
00:40:45.860saying did you work for veritas geo or equal geo i did work surveying advanced work for
00:40:52.620geophysical work and seismic for 20 years back in the past i talked about that and some other
00:40:57.060things and everything. I did contract to both of those companies before. I worked for survey
00:41:00.500companies that did, but I wasn't with those companies themselves. If that's what you're
00:41:04.620asking me about anyways, just some of my oil field background. Let's see some of the other
00:41:09.280stuff going on. A possible referendum. This is funny. He didn't have to get consultation
00:41:14.080apparently, but we've been watching Cora Blund, you know, a country music singer in Alberta
00:41:18.700has been campaigning hard against allowing coal mining in Southern Alberta. And he's been
00:41:25.240trying to get a referendum petition done, and he's nearing the deadline for that petition
00:41:30.780to ban coal mining in southern Alberta. And why didn't he have to get consultation? Why doesn't
00:41:39.720that apply to him? Wouldn't that have an impact potentially? Where does this stop with these
00:41:43.660things? Either way, I got a feeling he's not going to get his 178,000 signatures.