Western Standard - The Cory Morgan Show： A Climate Crisis and the future of Alberta

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Cory Morgan Show. First one now, post-equalization referendum, municipal

00:00:05.080 elections across the province, Senate election, all that good stuff. I'm going to be talking to

00:00:11.740 Kevin Lacey from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He's the Alberta Director. He's going to come on

00:00:16.200 a little bit and talk about their campaign on the equalization referendum and how things look with

00:00:21.220 our new governments in Edmonton and Calgary and throughout the province. To start with,

00:00:26.860 I do always have to start with this.

00:00:28.460 I've got to thank our members.

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00:01:02.920 you know, help spread the word, like, share,

00:01:05.660 all those things they say on the social media giants.

00:01:07.600 It's important.

00:01:08.260 We can spread the word.

00:01:09.760 We don't have to rely on the mainstream

00:01:11.740 government-funded media anymore.

00:01:13.640 The Western Standard is filling that void for you,

00:01:16.360 giving you good content without all that BS

00:01:18.460 that's beholden to the government for handouts

00:01:21.380 in order to pay their bills.

00:01:24.040 So I'll move on.

00:01:24.940 I'm not going to go into every detail.

00:01:26.640 We covered a lot in the pipeline, by the way.

00:01:28.340 Look at our archive stuff on YouTube and such,

00:01:30.600 and you can see how Dave and Derek and I all discuss that.

00:01:34.540 I want to speak on Alberta's oil field, our energy sector,

00:01:39.140 that has an opportunity being lost as we speak.

00:01:43.720 And now that we've got the double blow of two anti-energy mayors

00:01:47.380 in our major cities in Alberta,

00:01:49.140 it's already been tough to draw investment into Calgary and Edmonton,

00:01:53.480 as we've got a hostile federal government

00:01:56.140 trying to shut down our industries,

00:01:57.820 and now we've got hostile provincial leaders

00:02:01.280 in Edmonton and Calgary doing it.

00:02:02.720 So he was now the mayor of Edmonton.

00:02:04.340 You have to remember, he was the federal energy minister

00:02:06.720 for the liberals who brought in the C-69,

00:02:09.560 which was the No More Pipelines bill,

00:02:11.320 and the tanker ban, and the rest of it.

00:02:13.360 So he's not gonna be our friend in Edmonton.

00:02:15.660 And then we've got Nenshi's replacement,

00:02:20.660 replacement, you know, Jody Gondek, she was the one that in the head wanted to replace him. 0.71

00:02:25.940 She won it decisively. The voters came out on us. But the very first thing, very first interview,

00:02:30.980 Jody Gondek gets out and does, says she wants to declare a climate emergency. That is job one. You

00:02:37.060 know, a whole month of campaigning, we never heard about that. But now it's job one to declare a

00:02:42.120 climate emergency. And she says, we've got to move past oil and gas. Okay. So she's right into

00:02:49.260 of virtue signaling bullshit right off the bat. 0.99

00:02:51.600 This is not a good sign. 0.99

00:02:53.800 This is not at all.

00:02:55.660 Again, we can see those investment dollars

00:02:57.500 just flying away from the city.

00:02:59.820 Calgary's downtown, we've probably heard about it before,

00:03:02.080 is officially over 30% vacant.

00:03:04.240 That's due to 10 years in NCI's policies.

00:03:06.120 Oh, there's some energy things and other factors coming in.

00:03:09.000 But this municipal government

00:03:11.380 has mismanaged the city for a decade,

00:03:13.320 and Gondek was a part of that.

00:03:14.580 Gondek is the one that NCI has passed the torch to,

00:03:17.320 and we can see already how bad it's gonna be.

00:03:20.140 You don't chase away your bread and butter.

00:03:22.400 Those 70% that are occupied right now,

00:03:24.560 probably another 20% of that downtown is actually empty.

00:03:27.920 It's just that it's being held by long-term leases,

00:03:29.880 so these companies can't escape quite yet.

00:03:31.560 And those are empty offices.

00:03:32.820 I know that, I come down here every week.

00:03:34.360 I never have to share an elevator with anybody around here.

00:03:37.640 The other 50%, the bulk of them are still energy companies.

00:03:41.100 And they're sitting there teetering.

00:03:42.640 They're wondering, do we go to Houston?

00:03:44.400 Do we go to Dubai?

00:03:45.800 Where do we put our investments?

00:03:47.120 Where are we going to go?

00:03:47.920 Where are we going to move our head offices?

00:03:49.120 Well, when they hear a mayor like that,

00:03:51.980 she's helping them make up their mind a lot more clearly.

00:03:55.080 It's an international market.

00:03:56.980 Meanwhile, the world is in an energy crisis.

00:03:59.920 In Germany, they're literally,

00:04:01.140 we're talking about training citizens

00:04:03.360 to cook over candlelight

00:04:04.820 and putting tinfoil over the windows

00:04:06.200 to stay warm this winter 1.00

00:04:07.500 because like imbeciles, 1.00

00:04:08.920 they did stuff like Gondek, 1.00

00:04:10.280 declared a climate emergency,

00:04:12.060 shut down their coal and nuclear generating capacity,

00:04:14.340 and now they don't have enough energy

00:04:15.840 to get through the winter.

00:04:17.120 this is what it leads to. And what's it led to? Massive spikes in the price of coal, oil,

00:04:22.560 and natural gas, which in some ways can be good for Alberta because we have all of those things.

00:04:27.960 But guess what? We can't get it to market. And we can't get investors to come in and invest and

00:04:33.100 develop it because they don't know if they're going to be shut down at any given time or taxed 0.97

00:04:36.900 to death by some lunatic like Gondek. But Gondek does have a plan. Oh, she wants to fix downtown. 0.95

00:04:42.080 And if you haven't been downtown lately, I tell you, it's something. It really is. I think every

00:04:45.400 Calgarian really, I think they should have come down to have a look before they voted in the

00:04:49.060 election. But there's still time to get down there and have a look at just how bad it's getting down

00:04:53.500 here. And she says she's going to partner with the arts community and the creative community to fix

00:04:58.840 up the downtown. Oh, that's wonderful. That's what we need more hipsters. They're going to pay the

00:05:02.540 bills. They're going to fill those office towers with art galleries. And people are going to come

00:05:07.460 down here and move down here. And look at all the creative stuff that they're going to be drawn to

00:05:11.420 come and see. These hipster artists can go down the streets and make dioramas and wind chimes out

00:05:16.820 of the discarded syringes. They're laying on the sidewalks. They can finger paint with the human

00:05:20.500 feces that's in the alleys. There's some things that are keeping downtown empty and Gondek won't

00:05:25.820 talk about them. It's a dystopian nightmare right now. It's overrun with addicts. It's a mess. It

00:05:31.160 smells of human discharge down there. And she thinks that the arts community is going to fix

00:05:36.740 this? Hey, we want to welcome every injection of creative ideas. I mean, the oil companies aren't

00:05:41.100 going to fill all these buildings up again. We do know that. But they're going to fill the bulk of

00:05:44.800 it. They always have, or at least they could. But if you're not going to look to that, you're not

00:05:49.120 going to look to the asset you already have, you're done. We can only have so many coffee shops,

00:05:54.300 craft breweries, and little antique shops to sell typewriters to hipsters to sit in the coffee shop 0.91

00:05:59.800 and pretend to write something for a blog that nobody reads. Gondek is not going to recharge

00:06:04.600 downtown, and we've got to give her a reality check on this. The world is passing us by. We

00:06:10.280 could be paying off our debt. We could be employing all our Albertans. You talk about economic

00:06:14.580 diversity. The best way to do that, you want to bring in more business. It's not public art that

00:06:20.300 brings them in. It's affordability and tax rates. I mean, standard living is important too when

00:06:24.820 you're going to bring a head office in. And the standard living is not good when you've got to

00:06:27.980 walk down meth land to get to your office. You got to clean that up. You got to keep the tax rates

00:06:33.120 low. And we do have a great skilled workforce. We got the mountains on our doorstep. We got all

00:06:37.100 these offices here, we do have opportunity. Alberta used to have what was called the Alberta

00:06:41.040 Advantage, but that wasn't just oil and gas. What it was was a business-friendly climate. We were

00:06:46.440 saying, hey, take your investment here, bring your employees here, and they're going to make a great

00:06:51.500 life for themselves. They're going to be prosperous, and we're going to do okay, and it worked,

00:06:54.820 and it worked, and we were far more diversified from oil and gas now than we were 20, 30 years ago

00:06:59.800 because other companies came in, but the oil and gas provided an anchor, a stable revenue source,

00:07:06.300 and the world wants our product.

00:07:08.720 But they're not going to come here

00:07:10.140 when we have hostile civic governments.

00:07:13.100 I mean, why would you possibly invest in,

00:07:16.040 expand your business or locate it in a city

00:07:19.000 where it's clear that the mayor and council

00:07:20.700 don't even like you?

00:07:21.440 It's bad enough that the prime minister doesn't.

00:07:23.660 So no, this municipal election went poorly for Calgary

00:07:27.020 in a big way.

00:07:28.120 And we're going to find out in the long run here.

00:07:30.800 She won at Fair and Square.

00:07:32.500 She's got four years. 0.91

00:07:33.760 So we'll see what happens with it.

00:07:35.840 But I mean, all I can say is speak up now.

00:07:37.540 She's got a new council. 1.00

00:07:38.480 They're all a bunch of union lackeys for the most part,

00:07:41.100 but maybe they'll listen to reason.

00:07:42.260 I mean, when the pot goes dry,

00:07:44.360 you've got to come up with new ideas

00:07:45.880 and these are new councillors.

00:07:47.580 So speak to your councillors.

00:07:48.800 I mean, there might be some common sense hiding among them

00:07:51.360 because we've got some real big challenges coming up.

00:07:54.100 You know, COVID-19 has thrown everything for a loop.

00:07:57.340 We're massively in debt.

00:07:58.580 Our economy's reeling.

00:07:59.660 Inflation is hitting us.

00:08:01.940 Push, you know, we've got to talk to them

00:08:04.180 between elections.

00:08:04.920 That's important too.

00:08:05.840 and it's going to be a long four years under Mayor Gondek.

00:08:10.700 Either way, I'll move on to Kevin Lacey,

00:08:13.440 the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:08:16.000 He'll be a little friendlier than me on the subject,

00:08:18.240 though I imagine his conclusions have got to be pretty similar.

00:08:20.400 Nobody with a little bit of fiscal common sense

00:08:22.180 can look at this picture right now and think it's a good outcome.

00:08:26.360 Well, thank you for joining me today, Kevin.

00:08:28.700 You've gotten your rest after a couple of days of interpreting and digging

00:08:32.340 and miring through what electoral data we have at this point or don't have after the big

00:08:37.660 Alberta municipal elections. So thanks for coming in to lend your interpretations here.

00:08:43.380 No, thanks for having me. I still have some signs to pick up though yet too, so it's not all over

00:08:47.220 yet. Yes. Well, you guys, I guess I'll start with that. You campaigned very hard. We had a number

00:08:52.300 of advocates, you know, speaking out a referendum on equalization. This was something pretty unique

00:08:57.380 for Albertans. Perhaps you could speak to what you felt was the outcome. Was it what you were

00:09:01.980 hoping to see? Yeah, it was. Look, our organization for the last 25 years has been campaigning for

00:09:08.580 changing this equalization formula. And so when the referendum came up, we really thought after,

00:09:13.480 you know, mouthing off about the equalization program for so many years, it was time to put

00:09:18.460 our money where our mouths were and really jump in with both feet. And as a result, we ran a full

00:09:23.200 campaign with signs and voter contact and advertising and all that to try to persuade

00:09:29.740 voters to vote yes. And the reason why we did that is because the federal government does not

00:09:35.580 listen to Alberta. And to kind of expect that if we were going to keep doing the things we were

00:09:39.820 doing, then we were probably going to keep getting what we were getting. And we needed at least a 50

00:09:44.460 percent vote on this equalization referendum to try to make a real difference and to try to force

00:09:51.100 the federal government to listen to Alberta no matter who's in the premier's chair. And so that's

00:09:58.300 why I think the results were actually positive. I think we are going to see a majority of Albertans

00:10:04.460 who've gone to the polls, who have voted for constitutional, that they believe equalization

00:10:10.340 should be removed from the constitution. This is the most significant vote on the constitution

00:10:15.740 in English Canada since the Charlottetown Accord. And I think as a result now, the federal government

00:10:20.680 has a duty to hear Alberta out. And as we head into negotiations on equalization in 2024,

00:10:27.500 they'll finally have to listen to what Alberta says rather than try to sweep it under the rug 0.86

00:10:32.640 yeah well and people have to or they should like understand and take this poll seriously like this

00:10:38.020 isn't like even a pollster running something or a media outlet or an internet poll I mean I could

00:10:42.720 run a Twitter poll and probably get 10,000 people vote yes to shaving Justin's head or something

00:10:47.140 like that this this went out to Albertans hundreds of thousands of voters took part in it

00:10:52.040 this is now a serious outcome that people can go to Ottawa and say we have a mandate to change the

00:10:58.600 status quo. And one of the things I'll say, too, is that the question was serious. And I know I

00:11:03.580 certainly heard from a lot of our supporters, and Corey, I'm sure you heard it from a lot of

00:11:08.460 your listeners as well, that were concerned with opening up the Constitution. But the fact that

00:11:13.060 the question had so much gravity to it, I think adds to the fact that this was a serious exercise

00:11:21.500 by the government in order to try to bring about change.

00:11:24.560 Sure, and to your point, they could have asked simply a question like,

00:11:27.500 do you think Alberta is getting the same money they're putting in as they're getting back?

00:11:31.120 I mean, we get 90% of people saying no.

00:11:33.980 But this question had a lot of gravity, and Albertans deserve a lot of credit.

00:11:39.820 I know a lot of academics don't think a lot of average Albertans in the way they think,

00:11:44.160 and certainly they didn't in the way they framed this referendum.

00:11:48.400 But Albertans deserve a lot of credit for thinking through the issue,

00:11:51.500 for coming to a consensus and then getting in their car and voting yes to see change.

00:11:57.940 Look, Alberta is not going to get changed simply by sending its premier to Ottawa

00:12:02.160 and sending out press releases.

00:12:03.860 That's not going to happen.

00:12:05.060 The last time there was a significant change in the way the federal,

00:12:09.880 the provincial and federal fiscal imbalance was with the Atlantic Accords.

00:12:14.520 And the only reason why that was done was Danny Williams, the premier of the day,

00:12:18.460 wanted to change the way natural resources were calculated in the equalization formula. So he did

00:12:24.700 things like fly the flag upside down. He ran a campaign against Stephen Harper, you know,

00:12:30.540 never vote conservative. It takes this kind of pressure in order to bring about change. And

00:12:36.380 that's why what really this referendum was all about. It was a political tactic in order to

00:12:41.700 bring Justin Trudeau to the table. And the reason the government had to do that was the last time

00:12:46.720 the equalization formula expired um in 2018 the federal government didn't do any negotiation

00:12:52.560 despite requests by um the provincial governments in alberta of different political stripes

00:12:59.120 um so if we didn't do something like this now we're going to keep getting what we're getting

00:13:04.240 and so now at least we've handed the premier um a bat which he can use for negotiations and really

00:13:10.560 the ball's kind of in his court to kind of take it now and run with it and make sure that the will

00:13:15.440 of Albertans and the people that wanted to bring about change, that that is acted upon

00:13:20.080 and not just forgotten about in Ottawa. Yeah, well, they've taken our silence as

00:13:27.580 consent and they can't do that anymore. We weren't silent. We spoke up, we spoke against it. So

00:13:31.900 now it's time to talk. Another aspect I think that was valuable in doing this exercise,

00:13:38.380 a lot of defenders of equalization or some academics would say, well, Albertans don't

00:13:41.700 understand it. They don't understand how it actually works. They don't realize the program

00:13:45.500 is actually not so bad. We've had like now a month-long education program for Albertans,

00:13:49.980 or even longer in a sense, to look at it and discuss it. And I don't think people went and

00:13:54.740 voted on this in a misinformed manner. Oh, no, quite the opposite. And you're right. I think

00:13:59.720 most Albertans understood that the money that they're getting in, that they're putting into

00:14:06.140 Ottawa, and then the money that they're getting back isn't the same thing. I mean, to put it in

00:14:10.480 perspective. I mean, on a per capita basis, the numbers Albertans put in is about $650 each into

00:14:17.540 confederation into Ottawa. And then on the other flip side, Quebec gets back about $1,500. So it's

00:14:27.140 a massive disparity that we're talking about. And this has happened at a time, this number has

00:14:33.740 grown at a time when the Alberta economy has shrunk. And so I think that it's critical. And

00:14:40.600 I think one of the learnings should be from this is that, you know, certainly we can have academics

00:14:45.000 and politicians and arguing about these issues, but it really takes average people getting involved

00:14:52.620 before you really put your foot down and it really makes a stand. And I think that's one

00:15:00.140 of the things as we change our politics a little bit is to try to get away from the elites kind of

00:15:05.080 back and forth on on social media and instead get it back into the people because when we trust them

00:15:11.300 they they do the right thing and a lot of people took this really really seriously and they deserve

00:15:16.580 a lot of credit for both going out and participating in the vote but also learning about it yeah well

00:15:21.620 we have another tool in the toolbox now to push back against this and maybe be a catalyst for

00:15:26.340 future change. Maybe now I'll move on to the general election and our major cities, Albertans

00:15:32.180 in that end, didn't vote for smaller government, it appears for the most part. Edmonton and Calgary

00:15:36.540 changed mayors, both of them, but they both seem to be more on a mandate of taxing and spending.

00:15:43.460 What's your, I guess, your views on how the election turned out there? I think on that,

00:15:48.840 we should have a lot of concern. Often with these votes, there's more things at play than simply

00:15:53.120 about policy um so i wouldn't necessarily ascribe uh policy differences to the reasons why certain

00:16:00.480 politicians were elected and certainly ones that weren't i mean if you look at the situation in

00:16:05.040 edmonton um for example um mr sohi was well ahead for a long time in this race um and i'm not sure

00:16:14.320 that it was a policy decision i think it was more of a name recognition um there i think in calgary

00:16:20.480 you saw involvement from a lot of third-party groups who paid a lot of money,

00:16:25.600 contributed a lot of money to that race to try to make a difference, namely labor unions. 0.98

00:16:30.440 I think that those types of things do make a difference. So I think before we get too

00:16:37.440 pessimistic, I think we need to factor in that there's a lot of other issues at play. But having

00:16:42.200 said that, I think that it's incumbent now upon those people and groups like myself at the Canadian

00:16:49.260 Taxpayers Federation to push even harder for these ideas, that we can't simply rely

00:16:54.220 on conservative views to win the day. It's now a battle each and every day for each and every heart

00:17:02.700 and mind. And I hope that this motivates people as we start to look towards the provincial election

00:17:09.580 and polling that Western Standard has done should wake everyone up real quick if this municipal

00:17:15.660 election didn't. Well, that's it. I mean, there's a lot of campaigning on more spending and more

00:17:20.620 taxing, but you know, sometimes you get what was campaigned on, then you get the reality. I mean,

00:17:24.760 these are new councils getting forward. It's hard to tell exactly what the flavor is going to be

00:17:29.380 until they sit down and start proposing some policies and changes. And hopefully citizens

00:17:33.660 can speak up and counsel our councillors to take a responsible approach to governance. I mean,

00:17:39.160 in the pandemic right now, everything's just so upside down and turned around. And now with the

00:17:43.860 new governments coming in in the cities, we have some possibilities for some really good policies

00:17:48.980 or some really bad ones we're going to see very soon. Yeah, and I think maybe it should,

00:17:54.260 it will highlight some of the real choices that people have made. I mean, the new mayor of Calgary,

00:18:00.980 one of the first things she started talking about was the climate emergency, which I think

00:18:04.500 rightfully, if you work in the energy sector, like hundreds of thousands of Albertans do,

00:18:09.940 you have a right you should be concerned um and i think the statements like that when we get away

00:18:16.020 from municipal issues i mean to me one of the issues we have with our municipal governments is

00:18:21.700 they've started talking more about broader issues and forgetting the nuts and bolts which we just

00:18:28.980 want to see things work like we want to see the lights the we want to see the the water and the

00:18:34.740 streets maintained and the transit systems work um those are the things that have kind of fallen

00:18:40.100 by the wayside if you look at edmonton like with the overrun of the of the lrt system um that those

00:18:46.100 issues uh have not been dealt with and until they are i think there's going to be a lot of people

00:18:51.220 who are going to be demanding a lot of things and i thought it was interesting that yesterday

00:18:56.260 a lot of the councillors even those on the left uh on left side of the political equation were

00:19:02.820 talking about fiscal responsibility as the budget was coming up because that's something they quote

00:19:07.140 unquote said they heard on the doors um so yeah let's i think we'll give this a little bit of time

00:19:12.100 to tell um and i think as we especially as we head into the next provincial election a lot of these

00:19:17.860 issues are going to be even bigger absolutely we can't give up hope just because if someone someone

00:19:22.740 was labeled i believe rory romano balanced the budget and he was ndp in saskatchewan so

00:19:27.220 when fiscal reality hits uh no matter what end of the spectrum you're on you you you have to act

00:19:32.420 So you've got signs to pick up and a campaign to wrap up. What are you got ahead of you though?

00:19:39.140 You're still going to be very busy coming ahead. What's the Alberta end of the Canadian

00:19:43.620 Taxpayers Federation going to be doing in the next coming months up to Christmas?

00:19:46.260 I think our big thing is we're going to be looking at the provincial budget coming up.

00:19:50.500 One of the things the government has not outlined yet is a plan to balance the budget.

00:19:55.460 Not sure how you manage your finances when you don't have a plan. I know

00:19:58.500 I try to have one in my own house.

00:20:00.820 I think most people do for their own household budget,

00:20:03.880 yet the government has not aligned one with theirs.

00:20:07.680 And I think the second issue, which is going to be really important

00:20:12.160 and critically important over the next little bit,

00:20:13.880 is as we come out of this pandemic,

00:20:17.080 how are we going to get our labor force working again? 1.00

00:20:20.100 So today we've been talking about the need to start to roll back

00:20:24.880 some of the pandemic supports that have been affecting our labor market in order to get

00:20:30.240 people back to work and getting our businesses moving again so we can create jobs and create

00:20:35.000 good wealth and make sure that when these policies happen, that the people are out

00:20:41.060 and working again and developing a better economy.

00:20:45.740 Great. Well, I look forward to seeing your progress and your lobbying. I do appreciate

00:20:49.580 the work the Taxpayers Federation does. And thanks for joining me today. Where can people

00:20:54.000 We'll find more information on you guys actually.

00:20:56.460 Check out our website at taxpayer.com.

00:20:59.880 Great, well, keep up the good fight

00:21:01.480 and I'm sure we'll be talking again soon, Kevin.

00:21:03.460 Thanks, Mark.

Western Standard - October 21, 2021

The Cory Morgan Show： A Climate Crisis and the future of Alberta

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