Western Standard - The Cory Morgan Show. April 12, 2021

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00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Good morning.

00:02:19.620 Welcome to the Courtney Morgan show for Monday, April 12th.

00:02:24.140 Our live broadcasts are coming along on the Western Standard.

00:02:29.520 we'll cover some of the pressing news which unfortunately is going to be mostly covet based

00:02:34.640 again you know we're all sick and tired of covet sick of talking about it i'm looking forward to

00:02:40.400 whenever the time comes down the road when we can be reporting on and discussing political things

00:02:44.880 that aren't code related but unfortunately this thing really is actually dominating our lives

00:02:50.880 and we've got to keep going on about it uh but let's we hopefully we're working our way out to

00:02:57.120 of it. So today I've got a panel coming up in a little while of some individuals who've been

00:03:01.960 impacted by COVID. I mean, we all are, but it's not the COVID itself, it's the restrictions. And

00:03:06.980 all we hear about on the media end of things, of course, is about the damage that the virus and the

00:03:12.660 pandemic itself causes. Fair enough, but they are not showing the other side. Like this whole thing

00:03:17.860 in business, everywhere else, in your own life, even if you're doing it unconsciously, you do

00:03:22.420 cost-benefit analysis on when you're going to do something, when you're going to take an action

00:03:26.840 you've got to think of the reaction. Is what you're doing worth it? Is it going to be better

00:03:31.720 for it? Or are you causing more damage than what you're hoping to do? And we only see one side.

00:03:38.940 We're only hearing about the negative of the COVID, but we're not hearing about the negatives

00:03:43.560 of what these restrictions are doing. And not just businesses, but on mental health with people

00:03:48.460 and so many other levels. So I'm going to talk to some people about that. We really need to hear

00:03:54.000 more of it i mean i was listening to the media all weekend yesterday the big report oh my lord oh my

00:03:59.440 lord the variants are coming the big very very boogeyman that the latest thing is they keep

00:04:03.800 moving the goal posts and there's new things to keep coming up to tell us why we can't lift

00:04:08.260 restrictions why we can't start letting people live their lives again the the flavor of the month

00:04:12.920 is is variants so we are indeed seeing some more people in hospital a few more in icu but uh again

00:04:19.420 were nowhere close to overwhelming them. I remember they were setting up field hospitals

00:04:23.760 a year ago from now. We were supposed to be able to have hundreds and hundreds of people

00:04:26.960 in ICU if we needed to, and we never needed to. This isn't the plague. This isn't the

00:04:30.940 Spanish flu, contrary to what they're saying. And the thing that the news didn't report

00:04:34.680 on, it's funny, dead silent. One person passed away, and I know a lot of people like to debate

00:04:40.260 that with or of COVID, but one person yesterday out of 4.4 million people in Alberta, one

00:04:45.200 person died and that's tragic for the one person but I don't know how old that person was really

00:04:49.780 how long were they gonna be here we want to extend life as much as possible I'm not trying to be

00:04:54.700 glib but we've got to look at the cost benefit here 4.4 million people one passed away this is

00:05:01.700 not a huge thing it's good news but they don't report the good news let's talk about that people

00:05:06.940 aren't dying as much it's great not hearing about it it's also been a big weekend of protests people

00:05:13.940 are getting tired of this. They're finally starting to stand up, push back a bit, and

00:05:19.180 speak up on things. And so at the Greatest Life church site, I mean, the fences were set up by

00:05:27.820 the police. They bound it right in. They knew that this is going to be a problem. So they try

00:05:33.360 to be proactive. But of course, all it did was infuriate people. I mean, we're already infringing

00:05:38.680 on free association, infringing on free religion. And then to put up these fences and say, you can't

00:05:43.620 even get close to that church. Well, the protesters came out in the hundreds. We saw, you know, mixed

00:05:49.740 behavior. Some just wanted to quietly protest. Some actually came and started ripping some of

00:05:53.920 the fences down. In Quebec, I mean, there are outright riots. They've had people in the street

00:06:02.840 smashing things, which again, this isn't a good outcome. This is not good at all. I don't want to

00:06:06.280 see that. This is damaging. We're not the left, guys. We don't rip stuff apart. There were some

00:06:11.700 other anti-mask activists I guess in Calgary who were it was a bizarre video I don't know they're

00:06:16.240 trying to force their way into a Whole Foods outlet without masks and they're screaming at

00:06:20.640 security and stuff okay guys I know you're frustrated but this isn't the way we're gonna

00:06:25.340 do it by the way I see somebody's uh Sarah's been posting links in the comment section to the

00:06:30.360 angry Albertan I think probably that's the video uh he had a uh Dr. Moldry and another doctor on

00:06:36.900 this live this morning they were talking about the the COVID uh lockdowns and impacts from a

00:06:41.500 doctor's point of view those are the ones also that were on with Danielle

00:06:45.220 Smith when she had a series of specials here with the Western Standard talking

00:06:49.080 about those things and they give a great common-sense point of view and I did

00:06:53.000 catch a little bit of that live show one of the things the doctor brought up

00:06:56.740 with the Great Barrington Declaration and not enough talk has been going on

00:07:00.400 about that I mean people like to shut down debate and they say you're not an

00:07:04.220 epidemiologist you're not an MD you can't talk about but we'll go to the

00:07:07.820 bearing to declaration this came out last fall and it's signed by thousands of doctors epidemiologists

00:07:15.020 these experts and they're saying that the restrictions they aren't helping i mean you're

00:07:21.420 trying to bottle something that isn't working we're seeing we can look around we see the news texas is

00:07:26.620 still doing just fine you know they predicted doom and gloom for them a month ago when they opened up

00:07:30.700 they said we're opening up and i know they got more vaccinations than us but they didn't have

00:07:33.740 more than this when they opened a month ago and all the experts were screaming they were saying

00:07:39.740 texas is doing these guys are suicidal it's going to be horrible well the experts as usual

00:07:43.820 again were wrong texas is doing okay hey the cobit is still rampaging to a degree down there there's

00:07:49.500 still some folks dying but not nearly and it's going down it's declining it's coming towards

00:07:54.460 its end we need to come towards an end so with all these protests quebec i mean again you know

00:07:59.980 you know, there's one of those examples, Quebec said, far more restrictive things than us, far

00:08:04.540 more, they have curfews, curfews, think about that, you are literally not allowed outside of your

00:08:08.660 house, past a certain hour, it's only ever been imposed at wartime, and this isn't, this isn't

00:08:16.100 like a war, guys, I mean, think of how dangerous this is, to give the government the power to lock

00:08:21.140 you in your house, literally, at night, arrest you for going outside, and that's what's going on,

00:08:26.240 Or what? As I said, in Alberta, 4.4 million people, one died yesterday. One. And I don't think lockdowns would have saved that person. But we're not talking about that. We've got to. So the pushbacks are coming, though. And I mean, we're seeing it. Premier Kenney's, yeah, he's having a hard time because people have had enough and they are pushing back.

00:08:47.240 So I went last weekend, I put a video special up as well, by the way, to, um, uh, on our

00:08:53.740 YouTube channel, cause I, I'd heard about this rodeo coming up and it's a, it's hosted

00:08:59.060 by, uh, Ty Northcott and it's a family that's been in the rodeo business for generations.

00:09:05.500 Literally they're going broke.

00:09:07.020 I mean, they're sitting on rodeo stock.

00:09:08.600 They're spending a fortune trying to maintain it.

00:09:10.720 They haven't been able to have, uh, uh, events it's costing them.

00:09:15.020 They're about to go bankrupt.

00:09:15.880 a family that's been at for generations they're out and and in agriculture and rodeo we're seeing

00:09:20.760 that all over so he said you know what i'm holding rodeo at the end of the month i don't care what

00:09:24.460 alberta health services is and they're already threatening them they're already getting on his

00:09:27.940 case he's got it scheduled though for uh april 30th may 1st and may 2nd it's a friday saturday

00:09:34.120 sunday uh you can get the tickets at rodeo.rally at gmail.com and there will be uh tickets available

00:09:42.820 on site too. There'll be camping. It's a great way to get out and push back. It's not screaming

00:09:48.640 protests. It's not rioting. It's not any of that kind of craziness. This is just people getting up

00:09:54.040 and saying, we've had enough. We're going to get together. We're going to support this local

00:09:59.020 business. We're going to gather. We're not going to be told what to do any longer on this sort of

00:10:04.300 thing. We can't. We can't afford it. So that was really refreshing. We're going to be following up

00:10:07.940 on that i'm definitely going to be going to that rodeo myself uh now i do have to mention our

00:10:14.920 sponsor who is penny at kyrensway.com and she has been sponsoring our live shows for quite

00:10:23.420 some time now just a reminder to everybody you know we don't get tax dollars to run the western

00:10:29.020 standard we rely on direct subscribers to our publication advertisers uh things like that

00:10:35.260 But that allows us to report on these things.

00:10:37.640 It's funny with the mainstream media.

00:10:38.880 Why do you think part of the reason is that they don't touch anything else?

00:10:41.480 Why are they so scared all the time?

00:10:42.800 Well, they're dependent on government funding.

00:10:45.520 They don't want to rock the boat.

00:10:47.940 So people like Penny at Kyrensway.com have sponsored us, and it really helps.

00:10:51.900 She offers for people who have stress, anxiety issues, things such as that,

00:10:56.900 counseling, dietary counseling, changes that you can do in your lifestyle,

00:11:00.500 non-pharmaceutical ways to cope with the stress and challenges

00:11:03.420 and things that are going on today.

00:11:04.560 and uh please you know give her consideration she's supporting us we'll certainly uh support

00:11:10.720 her and it's it's really appreciated and consider subscribing to the western standard subscribe to

00:11:15.280 the youtube channel uh subscribe to uh facebook you know like on it so you don't miss any of these

00:11:21.180 specials it's really appreciated and it keeps us rolling so uh what shall i get on to our panel is

00:11:28.400 starting to come together here oh yeah i digress tonight when we're finished with the panel i am

00:11:32.620 going to have an interview with Jeremy Farkas

00:11:35.120 who's running for the mayor of Calgary. It's a good

00:11:37.000 long one. Since

00:11:38.540 Mayor Ninchy is not running again, it's

00:11:40.780 definitely going to be a turning point

00:11:43.220 mayoral race. 0.97

00:11:45.420 We're going to have a new mayor at the end of it 1.00

00:11:46.940 one way or another. Who it is,

00:11:49.100 well, time will tell. But Jeremy, I

00:11:51.020 would personally feel is so

00:11:53.060 far the front runner. Of course, he was the first out of the gate.

00:11:56.140 And

00:11:56.320 we'll see where he goes.

00:12:00.120 Let's see. So

00:12:01.020 yeah, we have, I'm just going to show some of the headlines from the weekend with the Grace Life

00:12:06.300 Church, the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms. It's John Carpe running that. He's been

00:12:10.980 doing excellently in, you know, legally standing up for the people who are making a stand. We also

00:12:16.600 saw the Whistle Stop Diner and Red Deer, by the way, and some businesses were trying to open up

00:12:21.540 on the weekend in defiance of the lockdown. AHS were on them like nobody's business. They didn't

00:12:28.900 weight they don't want to let things slide again and it's too bad it's getting out of control

00:12:34.180 people have had enough and i i think as much as they try to quash all this they're playing whack-a-mole

00:12:38.660 frustrated people are going to get up and people like john carpe thankfully and his organization

00:12:43.540 are um if you want to look it up you know i think it's jccf.ca they're standing up for for uh alberton's

00:12:49.620 rights on this and they're taking it to the courts and i believe the state is afraid of going to the

00:12:53.060 courts because you know we saw the charges dropped against coats they didn't want to go to discovery

00:12:57.940 They didn't want to see all this happen. The same thing with the Whistle Stop restaurant. You know, they threaten, they push, they corner them. But when push comes to shove in the end, they tend to back off. And that's because they don't want to actually see the scrutiny of their policies in front of a judge in detail.

00:13:14.160 So here's another beauty coming up from, yeah, Stephen Gobolt.

00:13:19.420 I'm sorry, I'm slaughtering the French pronunciation.

00:13:21.720 Either way, he's our heritage minister.

00:13:23.600 And the liberals have really been working hard on trying to shut down, basically, free speech on the Internet.

00:13:30.860 They want to control it.

00:13:31.720 They want to control information.

00:13:33.160 They want publications like this where, yeah, we speak outside of the mainstream.

00:13:37.680 They don't want to see it anymore.

00:13:39.260 They're looking at pulling the pin.

00:13:40.740 And that's literally what they're talking about.

00:13:42.420 that's what he said on a podcast. They might have an area where you can actually have a kill switch

00:13:47.540 for the internet, cut people off so they can't hear and see contrary information. People, we are

00:13:52.220 in a dangerous time. There's nothing, an authoritarian government, one of the first

00:13:57.400 things they will always do is try to control information, try to cork the bottle, don't let

00:14:02.140 people discuss things, then they can control what's going on. So please stand up, keep an eye on this.

00:14:07.280 this is an election year and this is a very, very distressing trend. Another thing we got to look

00:14:13.300 forward to before I get to our panel here. Inflation is starting to come along. We're

00:14:18.000 finally starting to hear economists and others talk about it. People have mentioned it for a

00:14:23.200 while, but it hasn't been talked about nearly enough because you see, we're borrowing. We're

00:14:28.200 borrowing on every level of government. We're just printing money like nobody's business. The

00:14:32.460 whole world is doing it. Inflation is inevitable. I mean, I'm surprised it hasn't hit yet. And if

00:14:38.280 you think times are tough now, just wait until your purchasing power goes down to a quarter of

00:14:42.660 what it was. And they're starting to actually discuss it, you know, and saying the Bank of

00:14:46.420 Canada needs to manage inflation expectations. Well, yeah, but there's only one way they can

00:14:51.540 really manage it. And that'll be by raising interest rates. And for people who are living

00:14:55.180 on the edge right now, you know, suddenly having to pay more interest on the debt they've already

00:14:59.500 taken on personally is going to be catastrophic if we want to work on the economy we want to work on

00:15:05.820 inflation we need to open up that's all there is to it we've got to stop throttling the movement

00:15:10.700 of our people and our businesses and our commerce or inflation and a great many things are going to

00:15:17.980 bring us down so that's enough of my starting rant for now like you said i've got a panel of

00:15:23.580 a few individuals it'll be refreshing it's something different with not me with a bunch

00:15:28.860 of political wonks as I usually am. It's lost my screen there. This is a great thing of a one man

00:15:39.580 show. So these are people impacted in the pandemic though. And that's what we need to hear more of

00:15:47.780 and in ways that people don't necessarily always think of. And we want to hear from what people

00:15:53.200 are going through. I mean, as I said, with that cost benefit analysis, we've got to think of the

00:15:57.880 other side even if it doesn't impact you think a little longer whose isn't it impacting your

00:16:02.860 neighbor how is it impacting them what's happening there so I'm gonna bring in these folks into the

00:16:07.460 feed here we've got Christopher Charlotte and Tennille so thank you all for joining me today

00:16:16.720 on this somewhat chilly spring Monday in spring but we're getting there and you know I mean I

00:16:26.680 only bring on so many because there's such a diverse amount of people impacted in so many

00:16:30.520 different ways by restrictions lockdowns and and so on uh but with three i really appreciate you

00:16:36.520 taking the time to come on and chat about this because uh it adds some broadens perspective for

00:16:41.640 people and listeners as to what's been happening so i'll begin with christopher um and i'll go

00:16:47.000 through each year to start with here so christopher an area we dealt with in in the uh pandemic and

00:16:53.960 the lockdowns and restrictions and such has been, people have had their healthcare deferred. I mean,

00:16:59.480 we've had surgeries deferred, things that they call elective, well, they can still really impact

00:17:04.200 somebody's functioning and their living. You've dealt with this in a terribly dangerous way.

00:17:12.360 Can you expand a bit on how the restrictions have impacted your healthcare?

00:17:15.480 Sure. At the end of November, I had a fairly serious heart attack,

00:17:21.960 and I was lucky enough to be close to the Mazinkowski, which is, I can't say enough 0.99

00:17:28.880 good things about them. They saved my life. And I was determined after that to do whatever it took

00:17:36.020 to recover fully and be as healthy as possible after that. And, you know, getting to the hospital

00:17:43.360 and having them do what they do right then and there is not the complete picture. Recovery from

00:17:50.100 a heart attack is a long process and it involves a lot of people. We're very lucky in Alberta to

00:17:55.480 have a coronary cardiac rehab program that's excellent. The problem is it's been shut down.

00:18:03.640 And so for me, I've not been able to do any of the things that'll

00:18:11.120 take me through the rest of this process to get my heart healthy and, you know, give me the years

00:18:20.080 that going through that process can give you. People that complete this program have longer

00:18:27.580 lifespans than heart attack victims who do not. And I want that. I want to live. I want to be

00:18:33.460 healthy. And I've not been able to go to this program. Now, some of the parts of it have gone

00:18:42.320 virtual, but you can't do the exercises and the physical cardiac rehab, you know, through Zoom or

00:18:50.520 whatever. And so in my case, I live in, in order for us to live near my wife's work, we were in a

00:18:58.280 neighborhood where we can only afford a very small place. So we don't have room for, you know,

00:19:02.120 exercise equipment and whatnot. I was counting on being able to go to that, that rehab center and

00:19:07.860 use the facilities that are there that that our taxes pay for and so I'm not alone in this I mean

00:19:15.360 how many I don't know how many people but I've talked to and I don't want to put anybody in the

00:19:19.840 spot but I've talked to the the some of the staff at the Mazinkowski and then the the rehab program

00:19:27.460 and they're frustrated as well because they know that you know there's ways we could screen this

00:19:33.220 and make this safe and get the people that need to get there, there.

00:19:36.820 But when we have politicians and administrators making decisions on policy about lockdowns

00:19:42.540 instead of at the battlefront doctors and scientists, then this is what happens.

00:19:51.360 You get policies that hurt people.

00:19:53.660 So that's kind of my story, I guess, as far as that goes.

00:19:57.800 I understand and I appreciate that because, again, it's just something we don't consider necessarily.

00:20:02.100 And if a person is harmed or dies because of having withheld health care and health care, as you said, it's farther down the line and we've got some fantastic facilities.

00:20:11.720 We've got some fantastic health experts, but access to it has always been a challenge for us.

00:20:17.460 And now that we're choking it, it's dangerous.

00:20:19.940 We see that with a lot of other aspects, too.

00:20:22.120 I mean, people are putting off getting checked up when they get a strange lump because they're worried about going to the hospital right now.

00:20:27.480 we've got uh other wings and treatment things that again are being deferred you know surgeries that

00:20:33.280 are right now are are considered elective but might turn into something very acute if you put

00:20:38.400 it off too much longer and and uh it's it's just all got to be considered when we put it together

00:20:43.420 so we'll come back to you and i'll move on to the next person here with with charlotte so charlotte's

00:20:49.360 uh i believe been laid off for the third time now you're in the hospitality industry uh this is an

00:20:55.200 area that we do hear about the most because it's really just completely does get slammed in business

00:20:59.840 if uh if we have restrictions come in and uh you know the people working within it the people who

00:21:06.960 own those businesses i owned a pub for five years that's where my hair got so gray i aged about 15

00:21:11.440 years during that period i wouldn't take one again for free but it is a workout and bless those who

00:21:17.440 can who love that lifestyle and want to run it and it's important to us they provide social benefit

00:21:22.480 they provide gathering they provide food and of course they provide employment to a great many

00:21:27.760 people so what is your experience been charlotte well let me see okay so so really like we we

00:21:36.720 locked down last year it's hard to believe it was a year now um the end of march and at that point

00:21:42.560 we were locked down for i think uh three months and then we go back to work and then we went back

00:21:46.640 to work for the summer about three or four months or something like that then we locked down again

00:21:51.280 over christmas and then this time we went back to work for two months so the the the spaces that

00:21:57.040 we're able to work like for my my case i'm a server bartender in a restaurant in the west end of

00:22:02.320 edmonton um they're becoming smaller you know these little plots in between lockdowns that we

00:22:08.400 can work becoming smaller and smaller and smaller and that's very alarming um like what's what's the

00:22:14.000 plan there where i'm not really sure but yeah obviously it's it's really it's quite the sensation

00:22:20.320 knowing that your your job is just hanging in the balance of you know what the the government has

00:22:26.560 decided they're gonna do with you you know it's like they just get they can they've proven or

00:22:31.280 they've done for three times they can just take it whenever they deem appropriate which is as far as

00:22:38.080 i know like that's not a thing the government just taking illegally taking your job away your right

00:22:43.840 to earn an income um and then you know it's okay we have ei for you and obviously that's nowhere

00:22:50.480 near what i make when i go to work you know and it's just honestly it's very very very confusing

00:22:57.120 it's very confusing um there have been no no large huge outbreaks in in typical dine-in settings okay

00:23:03.040 nightclubs are a different issue but i don't know that's that's not my case particularly i work in

00:23:07.920 a typical dine-in family restaurant setting there have been no major outbreaks as far as i know

00:23:13.840 We have done everything. We have spent money. We have done everything right, everything they tell us to do so we can stay open. And that time and time again, now three times has, or I guess twice, has become, it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter how much money you spend. You know, then now they're saying you need to build, you need to build an inside outside because you can't have indoor dining. In my case, specifically, we don't actually have a patio. So we don't have that option.

00:23:40.960 um it's so it's just uh shut down again you know it's just it's it's completely it's completely

00:23:47.520 bizarre to me it's completely bizarre situation where you just kind of sit around you're sitting

00:23:53.760 duck i guess that's what it is you're sitting duck waiting for the government to tell you that

00:23:58.400 your job is no longer essential and i do remember jason kenney saying in november that it's not his

00:24:04.080 position to decide what job you know if you feed your family then that is essential and now we're

00:24:09.120 going back to dine-in not being essential you know I would I would disagree I do think dine-in

00:24:14.920 is essential you know you get to go meet out with friends you get to discuss things you get to meet

00:24:20.080 people you get to talk to your different servers and I do I absolutely do believe it is an essential

00:24:25.080 part of the social aspect humans are social beings and you know just the other day me and my boyfriend

00:24:31.080 are like why don't we go for supper oh we can't do that you know because it's illegal it's just

00:24:34.940 madness. It's just utter madness to me to wrap it up, I guess.

00:24:38.580 Yeah. Well, in the arbitrary nature of it is just frustrating and maddening. I mean, it's an industry and people have to understand just how sensitive it is to it. You know, it's a narrow, narrow margin industry because you get some people to say, okay, you can do takeout and it's okay. You can do a patio patio is a tiny fraction of your business.

00:24:57.020 if you have one as you said you don't and the weather doesn't always cooperate with your patio

00:25:01.580 uh take out the food the reality in a restaurant you're going to make a tiny amount of money on

00:25:06.540 the food most of your income's on the liquor you you've got to sell some drinks some profit

00:25:13.900 as well not every restaurant is well geared for takeout if you're a steakhouse do you ever order

00:25:18.460 a steak to get delivered of course not it doesn't keep well if you know if you had a pizza place or

00:25:23.580 fish and chips but well you're you're fortunate you're in it sort of a kind of a good spot for

00:25:26.860 delivery sort of thing well even the fish will get a little soggy but not every restaurant's well

00:25:31.660 equipped to deal with that as well and as you said is you know the social aspect this is what's

00:25:37.900 really crushing people and this gets back to almost like what christopher was talking about

00:25:41.980 too this is health this is mental health every developed society even non-developed society on

00:25:47.500 the planet it's our human nature we gather to eat we meet our neighbors we meet our friends we chat

00:25:53.180 with each other we socialize it's good for us it's healthy for us and to withhold that from us

00:25:59.740 for this long is harming us it's causing harm that again we're not talking about we're not

00:26:05.900 measuring when we just shut these places down on a whim we're not looking at the damage perhaps

00:26:10.940 that it's causing not just to the staff not just the owners but people who need to get out it's

00:26:14.780 our mental health and mental health is real it's funny they talked so much about mental health

00:26:18.380 prior you know you know we were getting there we were realizing how important it is because the

00:26:23.820 mental health affects your physical health mental health leads if it's untreated with it with

00:26:28.140 challenges can lead to addiction it can lead to suicides it can lead to depression it just

00:26:34.780 and one of the healthiest things we can do is to get out and just be with other people and uh

00:26:40.300 and and to work out and get and get physical so now into a business i'm going to move on to

00:26:45.260 Tennille here because what grasped me with that, and there's so many businesses again being impacted

00:26:51.260 right now, but Tennille's is a little different as well. I mean, there's just hundreds of types

00:26:56.140 of businesses that are just getting impacted by these restrictions and lockdowns all around.

00:27:00.140 So I believe you run a pet hotel, Tennille? Yes. And so the restrictions have impacted your

00:27:08.860 your trade as well directly yes uh in in a much bigger way than i think people think about because

00:27:16.300 um if you're not going on holidays then you're not boarding your your pets if you're not going to

00:27:22.700 um sports tournaments like children's sports tournaments um then we don't get their pets

00:27:27.900 for those weekends uh you know when people go on any any kind of holiday sports tournament yeah

00:27:33.500 um even even recently when you couldn't even go to someone else's home so a lot of our customers

00:27:39.340 have family that are in you know the surrounding areas and they'll board their dog here when they

00:27:44.140 go and visit their their mother or their father in a nursing home so we haven't had uh basically

00:27:50.380 next to next to no business it's been just people that that work up north primarily and uh and we

00:27:57.420 don't have curbside anything to offer we don't have takeout we don't have outdoor because the

00:28:02.620 the only product we sell is a service so it's um it's really impacted us in a big way i've been

00:28:09.260 hearing stories and i do know of other kennels that have uh closed in saskatchewan because they

00:28:14.540 just couldn't make it a whole year with um well my revenue has dropped by 90 percent and and so yes

00:28:22.460 i'd rather be working than on serb is there's no doubt about that uh and um yeah and so i i don't

00:28:29.740 know i i'm really struggling to understand why the people who are the most afraid of this can't

00:28:35.820 stay home and be safe while the rest of us go about our business because i don't know how my

00:28:42.620 running a pet hotel is going to affect them or kill their grandma because i'm sure not going to

00:28:47.420 go and visit their grandma in the nursing home and if they're not well they probably shouldn't

00:28:52.380 have ever gone to visit grandma in the nursing home when you're sick you know it's just uh i mean

00:28:57.020 i am glad though that we have better shopping infrastructure now for people that are immune

00:29:04.060 compromised uh that was something i hadn't thought about anybody who has any kind of autoimmune

00:29:09.900 disease or is on chemotherapy so i mean there has been you know there has been some benefits

00:29:14.700 in that respect but what a shame that we had to resort to um this type of uh crisis uh reaction

00:29:24.060 in order to implement these things uh it's it's been very hurtful and in our community i've when

00:29:30.220 i've had friends that have lost their jobs um and now they're getting an eviction notice i've been

00:29:36.300 able to give them part-time employment to help them through until such time as they get back on

00:29:42.620 their feet and they get another job uh i mean my business isn't big enough that i can hire people

00:29:47.020 full-time but i've been able to help help people out in those kind of interim hardships uh i've

00:29:53.180 also given to organizations like Salvation Army, the Lokahabad, the Shir Hadash, the SPCA,

00:30:02.140 in addition to the Indian and Métis Center, several adoption centers for pets. This year,

00:30:08.300 I haven't been able to give, or last year, anything. In fact, now I'm the one that needs the charity.

00:30:14.940 It's very difficult to go from being completely independent

00:30:19.740 to helpless and very dependent on the government and throughout this um i yes talk about mental

00:30:27.780 health because of the financial strain and the and the and the emotional strain i did end up in

00:30:35.100 emergency this summer and i have to say i unlike a lot of other people i wasn't afraid to go to

00:30:41.020 emergency because of covid i went because i have um gastrointestinal problems and of course as soon

00:30:47.560 as you get, I get upset, you know, then it then it acts up. So I ended up in emergency. And I have

00:30:53.940 to tell you, it was like a ghost town in there. And it was almost horrifying. I was the only person

00:30:59.840 that was checking in at the time. And, you know, there were two nurses there, and they were doing

00:31:05.120 the best they could, based on the information that they were given the policies, procedures,

00:31:10.480 but it was almost frightening to have them bark at me to stand on this spot i mean it wasn't just

00:31:19.520 a request and i was the only person in there so it was actually quite horrifying emotionally but

00:31:26.400 you know we got past that they had they had their procedure set up and and it went well um as far

00:31:32.660 as that goes i they they treated me i left i felt better but uh but throughout all this i've had to

00:31:39.500 literally withdraw half of my retirement savings to make it through this. And I'm 63. I don't know

00:31:50.140 how I'm going to make that money back at this point in life. No, and it's almost, I'll put it

00:31:56.660 to be blunt. It's terrifying when you look at, and we got thousands and thousands and thousands

00:32:01.400 of small business owners. These aren't people with guaranteed pensions and, you know, things

00:32:06.540 such as, you know, a tweet I put out the other day that went 12,000 likes, a new record for me.

00:32:11.760 When I put it out that every single person who voted and decided on increased restrictions in

00:32:17.420 government had a guaranteed income. They aren't thinking about all of us who do not. And we don't

00:32:24.020 have guaranteed pensions. These businesses are our investment. This is our future. This is our hope.

00:32:29.260 We've put everything into it. The CFIB, I believe, put out a thing talking about your average small

00:32:35.480 business has gone more than six figures into debt just in this year. This is crushing. They can't

00:32:41.900 just crawl out of this. You don't come from a dead start. And we are going to, even when the

00:32:46.060 restrictions finally end, we're going to lose a lot of businesses because what's going to come

00:32:49.920 at the end of the restrictions? A lot of the aid programs for businesses are going to come to an

00:32:53.340 end. And that's what a lot of them have been hanging by a thread with. And unless we get a

00:32:57.740 sudden strong turnaround and it just, we haven't seen the impacts of these restrictions. And what

00:33:04.280 I appreciate to Neal at you is it's a business again that people don't think about you weren't

00:33:08.760 directly locked down there's no restriction on it but because of the restrictions on everything else

00:33:13.220 it moves down and it has impacted you and again there's so many other enterprises businesses

00:33:19.800 individuals we just don't think of and it is happening and we need to let people know

00:33:23.720 when you choose to bring in these restrictions like this there's going to be an impact somewhere else

00:33:29.660 but I'll bring Christopher on because and to answer those something that Tenila brought up

00:33:38.340 you know something that gets forgotten as well and you know when I mentioned the Great Barrington

00:33:42.360 Declaration and things like that is we should be isolating the vulnerable I mean it really is there

00:33:48.520 you know and in your case you would be a person I imagine it could be terribly dangerous if you got

00:33:53.540 infected with with COVID-19 right now I mean you're still recovering from a hard episode

00:33:58.360 you're vulnerable. I mean, we don't want somebody to come around and start coughing on you or even

00:34:04.160 give you a conventional flu at this time as you recover. And there's a lot of people who are

00:34:07.780 immunocompromised and in different conditions, and we should have always been focusing on them.

00:34:12.080 But we keep coming back to this, let's lock up the healthy to try and save the vulnerable.

00:34:18.560 What are your thoughts on that? I know it doesn't feel like I want to pick on and lock up the

00:34:23.260 vulnerable, but they are important people, of course. Yeah, and that's kind of been something

00:34:27.300 I've been frustrated with because, you know, you look at, we've been told, you know, you

00:34:34.060 got to do, listen to the science, listen to the, you know, the politicians and the professionals

00:34:39.780 and they're telling us we got to do this and we got to do that.

00:34:42.620 And yet they're not protecting the vulnerable.

00:34:46.420 We have an example of what they want.

00:34:49.240 Okay.

00:34:49.700 If you were to do like a scientific experiment and have a control group where everything

00:34:53.720 was how they want it.

00:34:54.840 everybody's obeying all the rules everybody's being completely under the government's thumb

00:34:59.800 and that is long-term care facilities and yet that's where 95% of Canadian COVID deaths have

00:35:06.640 happened so it makes you question you know do these people really know what they're talking

00:35:11.620 about are they able to implement these rules effectively are they protecting the vulnerable

00:35:17.400 and why are the people who are healthy being locked down in a way that's unprecedented through 0.99

00:35:25.320 the rest of history we've never uh locked up how you know locked down healthy asymptomatic people

00:35:32.360 before and it was never policy before uh this in past things if you remember you know i'm on the

00:35:38.460 hold you have to be to remember the SARS thing but i mean we weren't you know it was wash your

00:35:44.580 hands cover your cough and you know and if you have symptoms then go uh deal with the the extra

00:35:51.260 measures but the rest of us we're just you know able to uh live our life and you know to to watch

00:35:59.060 as the people who are actually vulnerable are the most affected and and yet under all the rules and

00:36:05.980 scrutiny of the government that they're telling us the rest of us need it's hard to swallow and

00:36:11.620 And, you know, it makes you question a lot of things, and in particular, their information that they're giving you and their reasoning for these extreme lockdowns.

00:36:27.720 And that's especially disheartening when you're watching all of these great local businesses fall.

00:36:33.720 Every time we go out, you know, we drive around, you see another sign closed or boarded up or whatever.

00:36:39.780 And it's these great little businesses that make the community, you know, where they know you and you know them.

00:36:46.560 And, you know, you're left with these big box stores that somehow, again, talking about ineffectiveness and weird implementation of the rules, you know, these little businesses have been shut down until they go out of business, but I can go in the big box store the whole time.

00:37:02.540 So, you know, who's deciding this and why?

00:37:07.760 Yeah, and there's absurdities.

00:37:09.220 I mean, we saw that in Ontario.

00:37:10.840 We've seen other areas.

00:37:11.680 I think Manitoba did a bit of that where they, okay, we could open the big box store, but

00:37:14.900 we see we're being smart.

00:37:15.900 We're keeping people home.

00:37:16.640 We're going to tape off all the stuff we determined you don't need.

00:37:20.580 And that way you won't shop.

00:37:22.920 Well, you're still going to go to get your food.

00:37:24.440 You're still going to go to get your toilet paper.

00:37:26.840 So you're still there.

00:37:28.140 So taping off the underwear section isn't going to stop you from going out. 1.00

00:37:32.740 It's just, again, more arbitrary idiocy. 0.90

00:37:35.300 um and and it's not doesn't appear to be doing anything to actually protect anybody that's the 0.95

00:37:41.840 main thing where are we actually protecting people and i'll get back to charlotte here because

00:37:46.800 i mean restaurants they just i i think it's just because it's visible because people could see it

00:37:51.800 it's where people see each other coming together they've always been sort of targeted on this whole

00:37:56.760 thing but restaurants because of that have been very responsible for the most part they they are

00:38:02.040 separating people. They have sanitation at the front. They're masking them when strangers are 0.64

00:38:07.020 coming together. And again, we've seen breakouts from the odd restaurant, but immediately the

00:38:10.560 restaurant responds by contact tracing and shutting it down. For the most part, this isn't

00:38:15.800 where the heart of the infections are coming from. Yeah. I don't know where they do. Where

00:38:23.900 are these infections coming from is the question. It's the long-term care facilities, right? Like

00:38:29.480 This is where I'm coming from. I don't know where they come from, but where they were where the problem tends to be.

00:38:34.900 But I do want to I do want to mention with a dining setting, the people that are afraid, the people that are in immunocompromised, the people that are in a position where if they did get COVID, it would be very, very dangerous for them.

00:38:45.780 Those people aren't going out to eat. Let me stress that we still have very much takeout.

00:38:51.900 So it's again goes like so we're locking down people that are healthy, that have every every reason to go out and eat.

00:38:58.520 we don't they don't have to be locked down so we're locking down healthy to protect the people

00:39:02.200 that are already staying home so it just goes that people shockingly can make judgments for

00:39:09.160 themselves that suit themselves so the thing is what we're dealing with is that people are making

00:39:14.360 judgments for themselves as well as people being locked down against their will so all we're really

00:39:19.800 doing to answer to i guess give you my opinion on on are we really are we really um lowering the

00:39:26.120 case count and stuff like i don't know if that's the case because nothing's really changing other

00:39:31.160 than people being forced to do things that that go completely against what's beneficial to them

00:39:37.480 it just makes absolutely no sense it's none of it is is sensical um i did have another thought

00:39:45.560 that i've lost it going off of what christopher said yeah so it like we still have so much take

00:39:51.720 out but the people that come in they they want to be out you know they're not concerned about

00:39:55.720 that they want to talk to people so we're just we're we're keeping people situated where it's

00:40:01.960 like the bottom line is we have to make our own judgments for the government to to find you to

00:40:07.880 threaten you to to take away your livelihood to put you in this position and and condescending

00:40:14.280 you to a point where you can't make those judgments for yourself nobody knows your situation more than

00:40:18.440 you as far as the government's looking at these case numbers and looking at where these are coming

00:40:22.520 for moral numbers to them they don't realize that these are people these are businesses these are

00:40:26.680 jobs these are families that were just numbers to them we've lost the whole system is a system it's

00:40:33.240 not it's not people anymore it's become too large it's just the whole thing is just an absolute

00:40:38.520 fiasco yeah well and and people put the the negative onus on on others when we talk about

00:40:45.400 restrictions and lockdowns i don't know if people have seen it before there's a great little simpsons

00:40:50.120 clip there's a million great little simpsons clips yeah but there's one with lisa simpson

00:40:55.080 and she's talking to homer with an analogy about this you know trying to explain to him about uh

00:41:00.920 causation and and uh you know actions and she says this rock homer this rock repels tigers

00:41:07.480 really how does it do so well look around do you see any tigers oh tell me the rock you know like

00:41:13.720 the thing is so as soon as infections go down or anything like that as soon as we see positive

00:41:18.600 numbers they keep coming out and saying well that's because of the lockdown so we can't stop

00:41:22.120 restrictions because those numbers are coming down well can you prove those numbers are coming down

00:41:25.400 yeah shut up and stay locked down yeah that's not good enough and again we are seeing jurisdictions

00:41:31.400 putting lie to that they said the numbers would go up in texas they said they go up in mississippi 0.84

00:41:35.240 they said they go up to florida they haven't california uh you know new york areas where

00:41:41.560 they've kept the restrictions quebec and canada some of the strongest restrictions around

00:41:46.280 and the infections are at their worst so what's going on guys we should see some very direct

00:41:50.840 correlation if these restrictions are effective and they don't seem to be we're not talking about

00:41:55.720 taking vulnerable people and throwing them into the infected but we've got to start looking at

00:41:59.400 how much impact these restrictions are even having on the infection spread yes so another aspect of

00:42:07.080 something humans like doing you know is this aside from gathering is traveling and that's where

00:42:11.720 uh to neil's been been harmed with her business and trying to get going because people aren't 0.67

00:42:16.280 getting out hotels too we can't forget that i mean they they are getting crushed right now

00:42:21.960 uh people just aren't on the move and again that has a consequence right like people want to get

00:42:27.560 out they got to stretch their legs a bit they need to move around and they can do so safely but

00:42:32.280 what's not happening and you gotta look downstream to all the people harmed who serve it even

00:42:36.680 including dog boarding. What would you suggest, Danila, to help keep things rolling for smaller

00:42:47.960 business such as your own? Well, for businesses like mine, some of my customers have realized

00:42:55.960 the dilemma that this has caused financially. And I have a few customers, I have a handful of them,

00:43:02.600 that if they're working a midnight shift on a weekend they'll board their dog just because

00:43:09.240 it's inconvenient to look after the dog when they're working night shift and they know that

00:43:15.320 this business is hurting they know that and and some of those customers really do want to make

00:43:20.280 sure that that my kennel my pet hotel is still here when when we come out the other side of this

00:43:27.960 and so i do have some customers that are very thoughtful and and trying to keep things um open

00:43:34.360 and you know if if people even just uh i don't know we're painting their house or cleaning up

00:43:40.760 their yard if they even uh brought their pets to to their pet hotel for the weekend and they did

00:43:47.640 this periodically even if they didn't need to use us and that's the problem if they don't need us

00:43:52.520 most people don't use us and they don't think about it but i have had some people when they

00:43:56.600 call will say oh are you still open uh you know that that obviously they are thinking about that

00:44:02.940 but they aren't thinking about what most of them aren't thinking about what they could do to support

00:44:07.440 the industry even if it's just people boarding their their pets every you know like not every

00:44:12.480 weekend but if different customers of mine boarded every weekend uh i could have the place full on

00:44:17.760 the weekends just for two days it would still help it would it would help a lot more than people

00:44:21.980 realize because um right now my my business partner um it's a family-run operation and so

00:44:28.600 it's my adult son he's only working 10 hours a week and i'm actually i'm working well right now

00:44:34.540 i work i work 84 hours a week now but when we were busy i was working 112 hours a week now the

00:44:41.820 business is only open 49 hours a week but i have a lot of work to do outside of business hours you

00:44:47.080 when the customers aren't walking through the door uh there's a lot of cleanup there's baths

00:44:51.880 to do for dogs and you know nails um even just clean lots of cleaning and lots of maintenance

00:44:58.040 in this particular industry uh but yeah if they just supported us even just for a couple of days

00:45:03.320 here a couple of days there i don't i mean it was nice when we had people going on holidays for two

00:45:08.600 or three weeks at a time but even a couple of days a week would have made a big difference but most

00:45:14.920 people just aren't thinking about that it's if they don't need it they don't

00:45:18.220 use it and and you know I think it is true if you don't use it you lose it

00:45:22.880 there's there's there's been places that have already shut down because you just

00:45:26.380 can't afford to survive on fresh air and scenery it doesn't pay the bills you

00:45:32.040 know so yeah if if people just boarded their their pets on the weekend even if

00:45:37.000 they don't need these places just to help keep us open so that we can pay

00:45:42.340 some of the basic bills uh I've been working for the whole year for free because that's what it's

00:45:48.600 taking for me to keep my place open so that my my son and like I say business partner can take what

00:45:54.160 little we're earning because he has a family of six so you know that that's important uh I I had

00:46:01.360 savings so I still do but I was able to draw on some of that but but my son is young he hasn't

00:46:07.640 he hasn't established that kind of a financial stronghold yet in life he's just he's just not

00:46:13.640 old enough to have put away all that money but yeah if people just used us on weekends that

00:46:19.320 would be enough to keep most places open until we come out the other side of this and i don't know

00:46:25.240 who decided that my job isn't essential because it sure is for me yeah i've said something of

00:46:32.040 the sort before the people who talk about you know some businesses that are aren't essential

00:46:36.360 those businesses are essential to every person who works within them and owns them uh you know

00:46:40.920 don't dismiss the the interest and necessity of those those businesses and it brings a thought

00:46:46.840 that i think almost everybody should do as a mental exercise is if all the restrictions were

00:46:51.880 lifted tomorrow and you're going to get back to doing all the things you've been putting off for

00:46:55.160 the last year for for whatever reasons and everything else think of all the businesses

00:46:59.240 and services that you're going to use are they still there and will they still be there in a

00:47:04.920 a month or two maybe sit and think about that for a little bit because some of

00:47:07.620 them are hanging by a thread right now and you hadn't thought of them for the

00:47:10.000 last year and I can't blame people I mean they've been restricted they've

00:47:12.420 been locked down but think about it for a minute because that's part of what I

00:47:15.000 want to get on this this show today is think about the other aspects that just

00:47:17.760 didn't cross our minds I'm not blaming people for not thinking of it we can

00:47:21.000 only think of so many things but a lot of suffering and consequences are

00:47:25.220 happening happening that we just haven't been considering so I'll go around one

00:47:30.000 more time with everybody here and I'll get back to the Christopher and thanks

00:47:33.120 that comment over there yes it was the correlation is not a great causation thing i was stumbling on

00:47:37.040 the words for which is an important one um something we're hearing a lot about and it ties

00:47:42.480 into kind of where you're at too uh with the mental health and the physical health gyms of course have

00:47:47.680 been as bad as with restaurants shut down lockdown restricted uh those are other areas where people

00:47:55.440 as you said in a small household limited budget if you want a variety of areas to work on your

00:48:00.320 physical health and again a good workout you feel better afterwards you know it's good for your

00:48:05.120 mental health and the works um so i mean health facilities you you feel they could be done in a

00:48:10.960 safe manner and open in in such a way uh sure i mean you know i think um like you've said we've

00:48:20.720 kind of uh amplified the the panic and um in a lot of cases unnecessarily and you know that these

00:48:28.720 businesses have done some of them have done an excellent job of making the places safe and

00:48:35.360 it's just that there's no one saying okay let's take these on an individual basis and think about

00:48:41.120 you know who it affects and there's it can it be done safe but they're just doing these blanket

00:48:44.560 edicts um and honestly a lot of times it's just i don't know if it's government laziness or

00:48:51.840 power hunger but that may be a combination of both but it's easier for them to just say you

00:48:56.080 You know, I think you're just everybody shut and we can't, you know, exceptions are too much work and whatever.

00:49:01.860 But I think, you know, by not doing that, we're in a situation we're here to discuss today where a lot of things falling through the cracks.

00:49:12.900 In my case, to give an example, without the availability of the rehab center and the equipment there, the only option I've had is to walk.

00:49:23.880 and so that was I was very lucky in that December was a very mild winter month and I was able to

00:49:32.100 walk through December but we got into that cold spell in January and I literally can't go out in

00:49:40.080 some of the lower temperatures you know it'll it'll cost me to have a heart attack when it's

00:49:46.640 so cold it can you know it causes a problem anyway and we were in the you know minus 20 was the warm

00:49:52.780 days in that stretch we had there we were down as far as minus 40 i think at one day one day and i

00:49:57.980 i there's nothing i could do for three four weeks really um safely and that's the time i would have

00:50:05.340 really been able to use um you know a uh a workout facility or you know whatever and even even a pool

00:50:14.220 it's like you know close pools i mean a pool is literally a big bucket of chlorine you know

00:50:20.780 The the best antiseptic there is and yet, you know can't go in the pool

00:50:24.080 You know, you can make the entry and exit area safe

00:50:27.480 You can have you know, whatever places for people to take a mask as they get out of the pool or whatever

00:50:32.700 I mean, you know, we've got smart people out there put them to work solve that problem and get the get the pools going get something going and

00:50:40.800 You know, we're we're we're killing people and in the case and I'm not gonna say myself, but people in this situation like me

00:50:48.900 um who aren't able to do you know medical appointments or their rehab or whatever it is

00:50:54.840 i guarantee there are literally people dying because of these restrictions and i could be

00:51:02.380 one of them and that that's what occurred to me even before you posted about this but you know

00:51:08.420 when you were asking about people who are affected by this i thought yeah i mean this could in theory

00:51:13.940 literally kill me or cause me to die x years younger than i would have if i'd had this and

00:51:22.580 you know that's awful i mean i think about my wife you know and and what what that would do to her

00:51:30.420 and uh it's hard yeah well absolutely and then we've we've become so hyper focused on one aspect

00:51:39.620 of you know trying to stop preventable deaths absolutely fine and with covid but we're forgetting

00:51:44.740 that the the efforts to do it are causing again not potentially causing they are causing other

00:51:51.140 preventable deaths and we aren't talking about those we aren't looking at those again let's look

00:51:57.220 at that cost benefit and and it's being missed and it's put people like you at risk i i and again i

00:52:03.700 really appreciate you coming out to speak of it though because we you know there's so many every

00:52:08.100 person every family every individual has a different circumstance some people are getting

00:52:12.020 through this just fine some people are fine living in isolation some people are lucky enough to have

00:52:16.900 been healthy enough that it doesn't matter or they have a home gym but those are a minority i mean

00:52:21.540 these these uh restrictions are impacting everybody and in all sorts of ways that we're not hearing

00:52:27.940 about we're not talking about and uh again i just can't uh express enough appreciation that you came

00:52:34.500 on to share that with us today because it's personal i mean this is your health uh you're

00:52:38.980 talking about but i i want it to be personal i want people to see see a face these are real

00:52:43.620 people you know i mean i know as some uh the occasional ucp mla still talk to me they watch

00:52:49.300 this stuff it's these are the people that get impacted when you've done your zoom meeting and

00:52:54.660 you've decided to bring in further restrictions they're really there and it really does things

00:52:59.860 to them and it really can kill them even if inadvertently i mean an inadvertent death is

00:53:04.420 just as dead as one that's on purpose so let's look at the whole picture here so i i'll move on

00:53:12.020 and is there anything else you'd like to say before i move on to uh charlotte here i just

00:53:16.420 quickly you talked about cost benefit analysis and one thing that i see that doesn't seem to be

00:53:21.060 considered in that is the vast majority of the covid deaths and i've been looking at the

00:53:25.540 government's own statistics because i don't have anything else to do these days but sit around and

00:53:29.220 be a the number crunching geek that i am um is most of these deaths the vast majority have two

00:53:36.100 three or more comorbidities so you know it's easy to to sort out who needs protected and who doesn't

00:53:43.860 and you know we're not doing it and we're doing it and we're not doing it to the cost of

00:53:48.340 the general population and and i really feel like we're doing more harm than good

00:53:52.660 yes absolutely doing this and for getting the the word out that it is affecting ordinary people in

00:54:01.300 ways we didn't take into account absolutely and i mean it's um you know in putting out those

00:54:08.260 comorbidities in in a sense we've been fortunate if you would want to call it that if we're gonna

00:54:13.060 have a pandemic this one seems to really almost exclusively focus on the people who are already

00:54:18.740 kind of got one foot out the door i'm not trying to be cold about it but that's the reality and

00:54:23.300 i'll give a bit of an analogy though like i used to work a lot internationally and work in the

00:54:27.220 eastern states and i i got a thing for cemeteries i always love them i just like walking around them

00:54:31.380 they're peaceful i tour them i i read the stones my wife jane's the same way we had our wedding

00:54:35.860 pictures taken in one call it morbid or whatever you like but what they are is they're pieces of

00:54:39.940 history and what i would see in the eastern states which was very big in the older areas are family

00:54:44.820 plots and you would find whole zones though of 1917 1918 of entire families wiped out you would

00:54:51.860 see over the course of four months all of these children and younger people the spanish flu

00:54:56.900 because people compare that to this today there was nothing like this it killed everybody in

00:55:02.420 fact if you look it up and you want to look that up it killed the young and actually spared quite

00:55:06.740 a few of the older people totally different than what we've got going on right now and if you're

00:55:11.620 going to choose something that's going to sweep through i would kind of rather it was going to

00:55:15.940 hit those who were you know we want to protect those vulnerable but it's not wiping out children

00:55:21.060 and and the people who have decades and decades ahead of them and you know just to add a little

00:55:26.020 more quickly i've got a grandmother who's 101 years old she's in a care center in calgary doing

00:55:31.860 great she's pretty close to deaf and blind but her mind's all there but her final year or i don't

00:55:37.460 I don't know if it's her final year, but I doubt she's got a decade left in her. 0.98

00:55:40.480 Hopefully she does.

00:55:41.840 But she's been in isolation.

00:55:43.240 She can meet with my father and a couple of other individuals.

00:55:46.400 She can't do Zoom meetings.

00:55:47.820 She's not going to do email.

00:55:49.880 And she would risk, she would take the chance, you know, to let the great-grandchildren and the grandchildren in face-to-face just one more time.

00:55:59.760 Is this really saving her?

00:56:01.720 Is this doing her a favor?

00:56:03.480 Is this making her life better, that she's spending the last year or years of it as a virtual prisoner?

00:56:10.040 And how many thousands of other seniors are in that same situation?

00:56:13.380 And again, it's not saying we want to irresponsibly expose them to the virus,

00:56:16.860 but we've got to look at the whole picture and the damage that's being done with these restrictions.

00:56:20.460 These seniors are suffering.

00:56:22.720 And as well, so Charlotte, they can't come out to eat or dine these days either, which was another aspect.

00:56:27.540 A lot of, I know working in the service industry to get those regular seniors who would come in

00:56:31.860 and sip a coffee for four hours and tip 30 cents they'd be frustrating but they were very regular

00:56:36.460 customers and the social aspect was really important to them yes absolutely um you know like

00:56:42.980 uh it's it's a lot easier for me to talk about um financial strains uh like obviously financial

00:56:51.100 strains are extremely difficult and are very dangerous to my way of life but the the part

00:56:58.780 that really keeps me up at night is the absolute imprisonment of seniors. And actually, most

00:57:08.020 of all, in my case, I have a two-year-old son and the absolute lack of social settings

00:57:18.780 that he is able to play with other children is heartbreaking for me. He's two years old.

00:57:26.340 has he's not in school um if he could go to school he doesn't have uh groups of friends um one huge

00:57:32.900 huge thing over the winter season that was really hard for us was the lack of play jams for him um

00:57:38.820 i worry about his social development um just being just talking to me and his dad all day long he

00:57:44.740 doesn't have any siblings yet hopefully in the future one day he will um it's it's i don't want

00:57:50.180 him and well for us we don't we don't put a mask on our child at all so but i know there's there's

00:57:55.300 children in school that are forced to and they can't they can't smile at each other they can't

00:57:59.220 speak to each other they can't be be children basically and that is very very very very alarming

00:58:05.380 for me because anything that happens to you before the age of five will stick with you forever if

00:58:10.420 it's traumatic and of course before after that as well but it will stick in your subconscious

00:58:15.140 and it it it it's going to be a problem before depending on how long this goes on for and going

00:58:21.540 off of what you said with seniors um it has any did anybody ask did anybody ask any seniors do

00:58:29.060 you want to lock down and destroy the lives of those young to give you another two or three years

00:58:34.500 if you're if you're in an old age and you're like you said you already have your foot out the door

00:58:39.700 obviously it's horrible i'm not gonna say um these lives are more important than those i have

00:58:45.220 grandparents too trust me it's horrible this isn't a conversation i want to be having but

00:58:51.220 did anybody ask these seniors you know when i go to co-op in a small small town in alberta

00:58:56.660 before the mask mandates were were threatened with fines on people you know what the seniors

00:59:01.380 there were not wearing masks they were smiling at me they're asking they're walking right by me

00:59:06.260 you know nobody asked them nobody no senior would say yeah lock up all my kids and all my grandkids

00:59:11.780 to keep me safe this is a narrative that we're being told that is actually not true you know it's

00:59:17.220 you can say you can look at the facts, you can look at the headlines, you can read the stories

00:59:21.540 all day long. All you have to do is open your eyes and talk to people and be aware of your

00:59:26.620 surroundings. I feel like critical thinking has been completely lost. The damages, like Christopher

00:59:32.840 and Janiel have said, stemming from this, what do they call them, the secondary damages? I don't

00:59:39.420 know, I'm at a loss for words most of the time. But it's just, yeah, the secondary damages will

00:59:46.200 just long, long, for long, long, long, many years outweigh what we're trying to improve. And I

00:59:51.840 honestly, I'm at a point where I honestly don't know if these measures are actually trying to

00:59:58.280 help people because the damages coming from them are just so, from what I can see, outweighing

01:00:03.580 what they're trying to fix. I'm just confused. I'm eternally and endlessly confused at these

01:00:10.260 measures. Yeah. And another cause questions and something Chris mentioned earlier. I mean,

01:00:15.700 they're dehumanizing us in the masks as he put in private chat was they've stolen our smiles.

01:00:20.820 And he mentioned something else we don't think about are deaf people. And a lot of them 1.00

01:00:26.600 on lip reading. You can't lip read when a person has a mask on. It's impossible. So these are,

01:00:36.820 uh you know masks have impacts more than people imagine imagine living in the world of being

01:00:42.180 somebody who's deaf your main means of communications with others was lip reading

01:00:46.100 now you can't do that i guess you're handing them a pad and paper with a sterilized pen or something

01:00:51.380 i don't know what you have to do to keep that communication going but again the consequences

01:00:56.020 just pile up and pile up and the people impact and things we just don't think of half of our

01:01:00.980 communication is our facial expressions and our mouths are a huge part of that and we've stolen

01:01:06.180 that from ourselves. We've stolen it from each other and it is hurting us. It's hurting us all

01:01:11.560 the way along and down the line. So thanks for joining me, Charlotte. I'll move on to Tennille

01:01:17.060 to close up. And I, again, I really appreciate the perspective from you today. Thank you.

01:01:24.880 Okay. And I'm hearing those happy hounds in the background there, Tennille.

01:01:30.180 I, you know, pets have become, I think to a lot of people, especially when they have been housebound,

01:01:35.360 uh you know more important than ever that they're fantastic companions and and uh just great fun uh

01:01:41.200 my wife and i have fostered and raised bulldogs for a long time now those those goofy overbred

01:01:46.480 animals but uh you know sometimes you need that break and and you need to to put them up somewhere

01:01:52.080 safe and loving when when you go away and and uh you know it's just uh here another small business

01:01:58.080 it's just taking us such a beating out of this whole horrible period so is there anything else

01:02:03.120 you'd like to add today uh well there's a couple things one i maybe i'm too too vested in my

01:02:10.720 business but i found that a lot of my emotional well-being hinges on all the four-legged guests

01:02:18.240 that i have here um it's so easy to please them you know you scratch their chin and they wag their

01:02:25.120 tails uh you know you can't please people that easily so i i found a lot of my my my like i said

01:02:34.080 my emotional well-being really does hinge on on boarding the animals and and i like it when my

01:02:40.000 customers say things to me like they can't they couldn't go on a holiday and use another place

01:02:45.920 because they just feel that comfortable with our facility and it's so nice to know they can

01:02:52.080 they they can go away and they have that peace of mind um we use a number of different methods

01:02:57.600 for people to contact us including things like whatsapp in case you know they don't want to pay

01:03:02.480 texting fees or or if they even want to phone or you know like message and find out get uh like

01:03:07.200 progress reports on their on their animals because we want people to have that peace of mind but the

01:03:13.200 other thing that bothers me i think that's really a hard pill to swallow is when you know i hear

01:03:19.280 about people like christopher with his heart problems and and i look at i look at well how

01:03:24.000 how do they decide that my job is not essential because it is for me but how do they decide what

01:03:28.800 surgeries aren't essential i mean we've got elective surgeries so they they've they've

01:03:34.400 shuttered my business uh based on all these um compromised people and they've shuttered uh

01:03:41.600 like how how do you stop doing pacemakers I mean it's not like people

01:03:48.560 are getting moles removed for Pete's sake how is a pacemaker an elective

01:03:54.200 surgery so these people aren't able to get pacemakers and I've read a couple of

01:03:58.760 stories where men with with young children have died because they didn't

01:04:03.160 get a pacemaker so they don't get a pacemaker and they're doing this to my

01:04:06.960 business while not providing medical help for people that need it i i have issues with that

01:04:15.120 at least if they're going to do this to me i don't think things like pacemaker should be considered

01:04:20.000 elective i think that's pretty i think that's a pretty essential surgery to have because uh yeah

01:04:26.320 it's your heart for pete's sake so yeah that that's it like i say it's a tough pill to swallow

01:04:31.920 when they when they do this to to my industry and then they aren't even providing essential

01:04:38.320 surgeries because they're elective and i don't know how that is like i say it's not like they're

01:04:43.760 getting moles removed no and as christopher put in the other comments you know colonoscopies uh

01:04:50.000 mammograms things like that i mean these are preventative uh procedures that are getting put

01:04:54.640 off and deferred which could lead to much bigger things down the road also i mean we have a health

01:05:00.720 system which is a much bigger discussion you know with the whole system in itself but that is always

01:05:05.760 seems to be on the brink and always seems to be holding back on on the ability to provide i mean

01:05:10.160 we have some great great facilities and great professionals but we're always rationing care

01:05:14.320 all of this stuff that's being deferred when this ends whenever it bloody well ends

01:05:19.600 everybody's going to be coming in to get it done even deferred vasectomies have to get done at some

01:05:25.200 point they're going to be coming in they're going to be pressuring the clinics the doctors the

01:05:28.400 the hospitals and then trust me if you put your vasectomy off too long it's got some other

01:05:32.020 consequences for you potentially that could last you a lifetime as well though it could be a good

01:05:36.760 consequence too i don't want to knock all of those things but i i want to thank you guys all very

01:05:42.080 much again you know it's just so important to to put faces to the people behind there not those

01:05:49.540 cold clinical news conferences where we see dr hinshaw and the others talking you're looking at

01:05:55.920 camera and you're talking on a script. These are people on the other end. This is who you're

01:06:01.140 impacting. These are the impacts. You know, again, I don't think necessarily everybody in government

01:06:06.140 and every bureaucrat's evil or that they, you know, intend harm, but they, I think, often lose touch

01:06:11.020 and forget about what the consequences of what their actions are. And we have a government with

01:06:18.800 actions that are dominated by health professionals like Hinshaw and so on. I think somebody else said

01:06:23.580 before if it was all dominated by economists uh they would let the black plague go through the

01:06:28.140 place as long as it didn't cost anything in the economy because that's what they're focused on so

01:06:32.700 we've got to have some balance we've got to look at the whole picture and so far we we haven't so

01:06:38.700 thank you all again uh hopefully all of this uh all this nightmare ends for all of us soon but i

01:06:44.700 really appreciate this coming on today it was a great chat and uh perhaps we'll talk again

01:06:49.820 down the road on some other issues here. Thank you. Thank you, Corey.

01:06:55.900 Yes. Thank you. This was great.

01:07:01.820 Okay. So I'm going to move on now onto some purely political things. Jeremy Farkas. I interviewed him

01:07:11.500 last week, actually on Friday. It's difficult. He's running for mayor. He's working in city

01:07:18.300 council. So I couldn't get them on live as much as I'd like to. Mondays are very busy for city

01:07:23.340 councillors. As I said, Mayor Nehenichi has announced he's not going to be running for

01:07:28.760 re-election. So it's a wide open field. It's going to be a very competitive race. Jody Gondek has

01:07:35.480 entered the race. She's just another version of Nehenichi. And he's quite happy to endorse her 1.00

01:07:41.140 and hope that she, he hasn't formally endorsed her, but rest assured that's his chosen replacement.

01:07:46.480 so i think that's where the real municipal battleground and visions we're going to see

01:07:50.560 is going to be between jeremy and uh uh don dick though there are a number of other entrants we'll

01:07:56.400 be covering that as we lead closer to the end in the municipal race difficult to campaign when uh

01:08:03.600 in lockdowns and and such to the old conventional means of door knocking

01:08:07.920 are not available to you so i will play that recording and you know i haven't done this

01:08:12.160 before on this broadcasting software i think it's on my end but seems like the sound comes in

01:08:16.480 perfectly but the picture might not be uh the greatest we'll see how this goes but you can

01:08:22.240 hear everything jeremy's said and it's a great 40 minutes of of how his campaign's going and of course

01:08:26.880 the live chat's still going to be going i'll be here and we can converse and uh we we uh

01:08:32.400 you can hear what jeremy's been up to he was the first out of the gate in the election

01:08:35.280 and uh the campaign's been going well so far but it's a long road yet so let me fire up this video

01:08:44.820 file and get it rolling all right thank you very much for joining me jeremy i know it's a very busy

01:08:56.520 time for you with city council with your campaign uh or just like the rest of calgarians just trying

01:09:03.300 to live through these crazy pandemic restricted politically volatile times so

01:09:12.420 I guess I'll just start with the easy stuff for you how's the campaigning been

01:09:18.360 going for you so far well I just want to say thanks Cory when we announced back

01:09:23.300 in September it feels like a year ago but we announced you were the first guy

01:09:27.080 reached out for an interview so really appreciated the podcast and the chance

01:09:30.900 to be able to weigh in there but it's been going great uh we have a tremendous team of volunteers

01:09:36.740 who are out there knocking on doors delivering lawn signs dropping off flyers you know when

01:09:42.020 you get started you never know to what extent is it going to snowball but uh i think calgarians

01:09:47.300 out there right now they're desperate for a change they're really hungry to to see calgary city

01:09:52.820 council move in a much more financially responsible direction they're looking for change at the top

01:09:57.620 change in leadership, change in tone and not taking anything for granted.

01:10:01.700 But I'd say the campaign's going good so far, but still a lot of Calgarians struggling out there.

01:10:06.660 The economy is in very poor shape.

01:10:09.940 But I think that we have what it takes to be able to turn this ship around and hopefully bring back Calgary bigger and better than ever.

01:10:18.260 Very well. And you began this.

01:10:20.100 I mean, under, you know, you've been campaigning for quite some time.

01:10:22.420 You were the first out of the gate.

01:10:24.040 You didn't do it under the presumption that the mayor may or may not run again in the next election.

01:10:29.700 That's changed.

01:10:30.800 Mayor Nenshi has formally announced that he won't be running.

01:10:35.500 So that is going to change your field, though, I imagine.

01:10:39.180 I mean, the reality is incumbents are terribly difficult to campaign against in municipal politics.

01:10:45.820 So that didn't dissuade you.

01:10:48.000 You were going to run incumbent or no.

01:10:50.040 but now a number of other names, I suspect you're suddenly going to spring into the mix,

01:10:54.920 which is great. That's democracy. That's the way it goes, but it can also dilute the messaging

01:11:01.320 or such. So what can you put out to show that you're standing out when we start looking at

01:11:06.760 a ballot with 12 people on it? What are your key points should you become mayor?

01:11:11.640 Well, first up, I want to thank Mayor Nancy for his service. He's served us through good

01:11:17.800 in bad times over the past 10 or 11 years and definitely thank him for his service but i think

01:11:23.000 now is the time for change i think calgarians as i mentioned they're looking for a different

01:11:27.240 direction they're wanting to see a focus on financial responsibility on getting calgarians

01:11:32.200 back to work and much less uh secrecy at city hall so i think now is our opportunity looking forward

01:11:39.240 to be able to really chart a better direction for the city so while i think the mayor i think that

01:11:44.680 now is the time that we look to the future for my part though and running for mayor i knew that

01:11:51.560 i had to be in it for the right reasons i knew that i had to give calgarians something to vote

01:11:56.120 for rather than against so for me it was never about reading the political tea leaves or being

01:12:02.120 opportunistic or seeing what would be best for me the way that the rules work you can't run for both

01:12:07.560 councillor and mayor it's pretty much loser leaves town so i knew that if i was in i was going to be

01:12:12.760 all in, regardless of what the incumbent chose to do.

01:12:16.640 So I think that there's going to be a lot of people out there.

01:12:20.840 Obviously, it's a free country.

01:12:22.080 Anybody can run.

01:12:23.280 But I think that the choice ahead of us is between that same old tired status quo,

01:12:30.040 that establishment thinking that's got us into this mess that we're in now.

01:12:34.600 Or we can path a new or chart a new path forward and try to embrace, again,

01:12:40.360 financial responsibility and transparency and i know for my part i'm just hoping it gives calgarians

01:12:46.200 something about four rather than against and hopefully uh some very needed change and then

01:12:52.760 lastly with six or seven new faces around the table many incumbents not running again we have

01:12:59.080 a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to actually chart a new course and uh i think

01:13:05.080 change is on the ballot and it's going to be up to calgarians to decide where we go from there

01:13:09.080 Yeah, there's definitely going to be a very large turnover and renewal, no matter who wins,

01:13:14.740 which seats on council with a number of people stepping aside. Something that's been frustrating

01:13:19.640 for Calgarians in general for the last quite some years now, it's just been, it's been such a

01:13:25.220 volatile council and chamber in general. One of the biggest roles as mayor is holding it together.

01:13:34.420 It's keeping the cooperation. It's, you know, I mean, council members don't all have to agree,

01:13:38.740 but it's just keeping order and being productive and things like that and it's really been short

01:13:43.860 on that front and a lot of it you know has been with you uh fighting with them quite often because

01:13:48.660 you're putting forward things outside of the status quo i mean i understand why they're getting

01:13:52.100 upset but there's going to be a number of people on council of course presuming you won as mayor

01:13:58.260 that still wouldn't necessarily be moving in the same direction as you how could you ease

01:14:03.220 that pressure or make a more cooperative environment in calgary city council so we

01:14:06.900 don't always tune in to see the live feed and see a crazed gong show and part of it is the uh

01:14:12.900 dearth of traditional media and thanks for the incredible uh coverage that your outlet is doing

01:14:17.940 the the media tends to only cover us when they when there's fights or big disagreements and they

01:14:22.980 don't actually do a good job of uh demonstrating when we are working together i know for my part

01:14:28.500 when i wake up i'm not smarting for a fight but there's certain things that my constituents

01:14:34.500 elected me on in terms of financial responsibility controlling our budget keeping taxes reasonable

01:14:40.820 that i know that i need to do what it takes to stand up for them and i do have a proven record

01:14:46.340 of being able to work with other councillors to be able to get things done say working with

01:14:51.860 councillor feral to ensure that calgarians had a voice at the table with the olympic debate

01:14:58.260 working even with the mayor to be able to restore the summer student program at the city as a way to

01:15:04.180 safe costs as well as to offer opportunity for young people. There's a lot of things that we do

01:15:09.780 behind the scenes working together but when it comes to those big picture pieces like keeping

01:15:15.540 Calgarians at work, controlling our costs, these are things that I'm going to advocate strongly for

01:15:22.180 and even say last year during the first COVID lockdown it was a seven and a half percent

01:15:27.700 increase that council voted on and you know what i had to speak my conscience i could not support

01:15:33.940 a seven and a half percent increase while businesses were being forced to close

01:15:37.940 while calgarians were unemployed i thought that it was just so disconnected from reality

01:15:42.580 so while i want to work together on the issues where there are common grounds i want to make

01:15:47.220 sure that calgarians know that they have somebody standing up for them in terms of again that

01:15:52.420 financial responsibility piece and with a new council and potentially a majority new faces

01:15:58.500 around the table this just never happens in calgary politics i think it's a once in a

01:16:04.820 generation opportunity where hopefully we do have other like-minded counselors who are elected

01:16:11.140 based on those financial responsibility and transparency based platforms that we can set

01:16:18.900 a new direction and have a much better alignment uh going forward yeah so i'm going to go to a bit

01:16:25.380 of uh an issue that's more self-interested of me i live actually just outside of the city in prittis

01:16:30.740 you know a short distance from city boundary but uh we being that close i mean i work in the city

01:16:37.220 uh we we you know most of prittis does and then those bedroom communities we're very integrated

01:16:42.500 uh have a lot of common issues and now uh you know a role of mayors is is as an ambassador

01:16:48.980 almost of the city to other levels of government or other areas we've got a big clash really warming

01:16:54.260 up in foothills right now with the uh regional plan going on and the the panel that's been set

01:17:00.500 up which is set up in such a way that well the higher populations will dominate the lower

01:17:06.260 populations and we feel we could be seeing some of the city regulations and density standards being

01:17:11.940 imposed on neighboring municipalities we're very concerned about and it's also leading to some

01:17:19.860 hostility and issues of how would you approach dealing with neighboring i mean you're going to

01:17:24.340 grow you have to try to plan and and be in communication with neighboring counties and mds

01:17:30.020 and such but at the same time if you start trying to bully them that they're going to get really

01:17:34.020 crabby yeah i when i think of say edmonton obviously you can't learn everything from them

01:17:39.380 in terms of what they do let alone hockey teams but in Edmonton they have a great relationship

01:17:45.360 with their local municipalities and when it comes to economic development really they hunt as a pack

01:17:50.720 and they try to make sure that what they do ensures that everybody is their head whether

01:17:57.020 it's Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Edmonton proper and so on whereas at the city of Calgary it seems

01:18:03.240 like given our high costs high taxes massive amount of regulations and red tape we're seeing

01:18:09.400 a lot of the investment go to say balls act go to the satin nation and so on and the approach

01:18:15.400 unfortunately with this council has been kind of thinking in what ways can we kneecap our

01:18:20.840 competitors how can we stop them from developing rather than looking inward and getting our own

01:18:26.280 house in order so i happen to think that we need to collaborate much better with our regional

01:18:30.840 partners we can't be

01:19:00.840 .

01:19:30.840 .

01:20:00.840 plan for what people want or are you trying to pigeonhole people into what you would want and

01:20:13.000 i think that's where a lot of the battle comes and right now the city is out of balance i mean the

01:20:16.760 downtown is turning into a ghost town people are pushing outwards and there's a trend of it that

01:20:23.000 seems to be accelerating i mean there's that crazed real estate thing happening single value

01:20:28.120 family dwellings are being snapped up on the market like the hot cakes while the downtown

01:20:32.440 again is getting emptier which it bodes poorly for all of us i mean nobody wants to live in a

01:20:36.840 city that's a donut uh but that that guidebook for communities i don't think perhaps might be

01:20:43.640 what was required as a as a planning document uh how can the city uh look ahead and plan better

01:20:50.760 and what what can or should be done with that guidebook yeah so now not a lot of people know

01:20:55.640 about this but the city is pushing ahead with this pretty revolutionary new planning document

01:21:01.240 called the guidebook and that it's a legally binding plan that seeks to reform existing

01:21:07.560 communities and to basically change them to a new vision for how the city should grow

01:21:12.920 and unfortunately we're seeing a lot more of that top driven social engineering approach where it's

01:21:18.840 a high density auto or an anti-automobile kind of lifestyle that the city hall planners or the

01:21:25.880 politicians have essentially decided for you and i happen to think that choice is good not everyone

01:21:32.120 wants to live in a high density neighborhood and and that's okay some people will say younger

01:21:37.080 urban professionals like the hustle and bustle of the downtown and they want to live close to

01:21:42.440 amenities but say some are younger families who would like a single family home and some room for

01:21:48.440 their kids to be able to play and grow I think that's fine too but the problem is when you have

01:21:53.400 city hall bureaucrats or politicians dictating to you how you should live your life and this guide

01:21:59.320 book I think swings the pendulum much farther in one direction than it should it's telling people

01:22:05.800 how they should live their lives and how they will live their lives rather than actually listening

01:22:10.440 to them and to meet that demand and as we're looking to the market single-family homes aren't

01:22:15.480 going out of business anytime soon if anything it's super hot right now and that's a type of

01:22:21.240 lifestyle that many calgarians if if not all uh still appreciate and enjoy for themselves

01:22:28.440 so i think this guidebook it really misses the mark and it's frankly disingenuous for council

01:22:34.280 to be trying to ram it through at a time when calgarians are distracted with the pandemic

01:22:40.200 they're focused on making it through the day focused on their health and their families

01:22:43.800 and the last piece is I did support Council Chu's push to have this discussed after the election

01:22:51.120 so the candidates can go out there they can canvas they can ask Calgarians hey what are

01:22:56.540 you looking for in your neighborhood how do you want your community to change and grow and once

01:23:01.480 the candidates have actually listened and campaigned on their views then they would have a

01:23:06.240 mandate but I just I don't find it legitimate to have a council with potentially a majority of them

01:23:11.280 not running again, wanting to get this done in just the last few months before the election.

01:23:16.100 It's just, it's very disingenuous. Yeah, well, the ultimate consultation with the citizens is

01:23:21.600 a general election, but we only get one of those every four years. So when it comes to something

01:23:26.900 this large, yeah, I can't think of a better time to put it forward than that. This is when the

01:23:31.060 whole city's engaged. This is when everybody gets a chance and a voice. Consultation, that's been a

01:23:37.300 loaded word again particularly in the last 10 years i i've seen it personally i feel it's been

01:23:43.300 more of a a tool to get the way you want rather than an exercise to actually find out what the

01:23:48.420 citizens want i've seen stacked consultation meetings where they're trying to push you to an

01:23:52.980 outcome rather than try to work collaboratively at least towards one i mean there might be

01:23:58.020 challenges that citizens don't understand development it's a good time to collaborate

01:24:01.620 and talk and say well yes i know this is what you'd like but the city's changing uh with the

01:24:06.580 it's sort of like the the city's asking you uh what kind of pizza do you want and if you don't

01:24:11.860 want a pizza they say well we still asked you what kind of pizza you wanted so you're being

01:24:15.940 consulted but it seems often there's a bit of a predetermined outcome that they're trying to fish

01:24:21.460 for or look for and it's not a genuine listening and the tone at the top really matters as well

01:24:26.740 this is a council that's been very reluctant to allow calgarians to vote on important issues that

01:24:32.020 that impact every single Calgarian.

01:24:34.780 Remember, it was the provincial government

01:24:36.600 that forced the council to conduct a plebiscite

01:24:39.900 on the Olympics.

01:24:40.860 That was not the council's first choice

01:24:43.180 to have Calgarians vote in the matter.

01:24:45.320 Council recently voted against allowing Calgarians

01:24:48.840 to decide through a plebiscite,

01:24:51.820 say the speed limit changes,

01:24:53.420 despite the fact that they're gonna punt

01:24:54.960 the fluoride question to a plebiscite.

01:24:57.040 So I guess they're basically saying Calgarians

01:24:59.020 aren't smart enough to figure out speed limits,

01:25:01.480 but you are smart enough to be able to navigate the science of fluoride in the

01:25:04.860 water. So go figure.

01:25:07.780 My great grandchildren are going to be participating in fluoridation plebiscites.

01:25:12.140 I mean, that one's just never going to end.

01:25:14.720 I didn't want to dip into that one,

01:25:17.700 but it just keeps coming and going and coming and going. But I mean,

01:25:21.500 and again, you know, just engaging the citizens.

01:25:24.960 I'm glad it goes to a plebiscite anyways.

01:25:26.520 If it's that much of a flashpoint,

01:25:28.860 then there's no better way than to put it to Calgarians themselves. 0.74

01:25:32.540 Another big one, and here's a monster, is the green line. This has been in discussion for years

01:25:39.500 and years. Budgets come, go. The scope of it now is incredibly shrunken. Again, I see a little of

01:25:47.020 the disingenuous nature of some things where some folks say, oh, we didn't blow the budget.

01:25:52.380 Yeah, well, you cut the project in half. I mean, that's blowing the budget as far as I'm concerned

01:25:58.140 because you're spending the same amount of money so it's just another way yeah if you hire somebody

01:26:02.860 to do renovations under a certain price tag but they come back and say okay we can only do the

01:26:07.100 budget or rather only we can only do the basement they're still over budget regardless of how they

01:26:12.540 massage the terms yeah exactly but i mean something to be fair for proponents of it too

01:26:17.820 they can say look the reason the budget's getting out of control is because we spent so much darn

01:26:21.340 time dithering over this thing and talking about it and studying it never actually breaking ground

01:26:25.900 I mean, prices of everything goes up. So all we can do is shrink it. It's in question now,

01:26:31.740 though, whether the province wants to take part in it at all. There are people questioning,

01:26:35.980 especially with the downtown being as empty as it is these days. Is it something you need

01:26:39.980 or need in the near future? Where are you landing with the green line right now?

01:26:44.620 So I was the only councillor who did not support the current plan. And I still have a lot of

01:26:50.060 concerns around the finances, whether or not we can actually build it for the five and a half

01:26:55.180 billion dollar price tag and then the other pieces around the engineering whether we can

01:26:59.420 actually build it at all given the the number of very serious concerns that members of the community

01:27:05.500 and business leaders have brought forward there's been a group of folks jim gray barry lester brian

01:27:11.820 faleski others with very deep experience in executing mega projects like this and they've

01:27:17.740 highlighted a number of concerns that i think this council needs to take very seriously so that when

01:27:23.820 we start rather so that we don't start something that we can't finish and it's not that i'm opposed

01:27:29.340 to transit infrastructure i think that we need to continue to build our city and build for

01:27:34.540 our next million our next two million but we need to be strategic so i'd be supportive of say lrt

01:27:40.300 extension to the airport i think that that would be really uh an incredible piece to be able to

01:27:45.580 continue to market calgary for conferences for tourism and unlock value for commuters there

01:27:52.220 I would also be in support of building the southeast portion from the South Health Campus

01:27:56.860 down to the new arena. We already have the land assembled, we know how to build it

01:28:00.860 and it would be a fraction of the cost and that would give us some time to be able to ensure that

01:28:05.100 the downtown portion can actually be built as proposed. But I think that the fact that the

01:28:11.020 province is doing their due diligence, it's only appropriate. I'm not going to hammer them for that

01:28:16.060 but at the end of the day, they have a duty to taxpayers to make sure that this project,

01:28:22.060 if it's done, is done responsibly. And for them, I hope that they take as much time as they need

01:28:28.780 in order to make sure that those answers are answered, rather that those questions are answered

01:28:33.500 and that they have what it takes to make sure that this can get done.

01:28:37.900 Yeah. Well, in cooperation with other levels of government, I mean, the province has saved us

01:28:43.340 from ourselves as far as the sea is concerned a couple of times i guess you could say particularly

01:28:47.500 with the olympic file you know credit where due to rachel not we said well we'll get on board with

01:28:52.460 this we'll help out but you know what we're not going to until we can see for sure that calgarians

01:28:57.740 want us to go ahead with this some people say that's a cowardly approach no i thought that

01:29:01.500 was a good democratic one uh you know i've never been a knotley fan but hey they get it right

01:29:06.540 sometimes and when it was put to calgarians and when there was a month to discuss it and debate

01:29:11.260 it and really drill down into it they said no we don't want to go that way um yeah perhaps it wasn't

01:29:17.580 so much a vote against the olympics as against councils overspending council secrecy there are

01:29:22.860 a lot of people who are on board with the concept but just didn't trust this current leadership and

01:29:28.620 this current management to be able to execute and i think that we're seeing a lot more missed

01:29:34.060 opportunities and missed chances like that with the current leadership which really underscores

01:29:38.620 the need to be able to elect a much more financially responsible council going forward so that when

01:29:44.380 opportunities like that do emerge we can actually execute on them yeah well trust is essential and

01:29:50.140 i think there's a lot of there's a big lack of trust again with citizens with government

01:29:54.380 the government might be willing to work with the municipal government, but otherwise wouldn't

01:30:12.020 because of the personalities that are involved. And there's been some issues that are important

01:30:17.200 to me, like defending our police budget, where I have been actually pleased to see Casey

01:30:24.080 Madhu the the municipal or the minister in charge of law enforcement actually saying no he's not

01:30:31.040 going to entertain municipalities endangering their their citizenry so it might be a case

01:30:36.480 occasionally you have provincial government saving the citizens from themselves or rather their

01:30:41.440 their own leadership so at the end of the day I think that we need to be collaborative we need to

01:30:46.160 focus on that common ground and my view of the an effective mayor would be one who

01:30:52.800 can stand up on the issues and get results because former mayor brown kanye he was very

01:31:00.000 effective in supporting the provincial government when he thought they were getting it right he was

01:31:05.440 very effective in opposing them but he was strategic about making sure that it was for the

01:31:11.520 best deal for calgarians at the end of the day yeah well and since you spoke about you know

01:31:16.720 casey maddu and policing and i want to tie that in a little more we'll go further in downtown and

01:31:21.760 dealing with that like i've been going down there regularly i've written on it i mean in being

01:31:26.400 hollowed out something else that's happened is unfortunately you can really see more of and i

01:31:31.600 believe there really are more of people who are addicted people are in distress uh crime is is

01:31:38.480 bad and you hear it from others you see it it's bold i mean vehicle break-ins property crimes

01:31:44.160 other incidents there's general disorder going on uh it's difficult for city council to deal with

01:31:50.640 in a sense that you're in charge of the policing and you got to run the budget for that, but you

01:31:54.640 can't deal with legislation when it comes to laws and things such as that. So you've got to find

01:31:58.960 that balance. But I mean, it's directly the responsibility of city council, at least with

01:32:03.760 the police aspect of it. What initiatives do you think you could do or how can this be managed?

01:32:10.320 Well, it's been a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy or a bit of a death spiral downtown.

01:32:15.360 you see massively failed policies from council things like egregious parking prices 20 or 30

01:32:22.400 40 dollars to to be able to park very confusing infrastructure projects bike lanes where they

01:32:28.240 don't belong making it very difficult for local businesses to survive let alone visitors to commute

01:32:34.640 into the downtown to to purchase or enjoy their services you see other things like budgetary

01:32:41.360 pressures on the police forcing them to close their downtown police station. We're the only

01:32:46.000 major North American city without a permanent brick-and-mortar police station. That happened

01:32:50.960 at the same time as the council supported opening up the the Beltline drug sites. There's a number

01:32:56.560 of different pieces here at play, let alone the the egregious tax increases sometimes 20, 30,

01:33:03.040 40 percent year over year on some of these businesses and the it's very clear the council's

01:33:07.600 plan for downtown has not worked i'd be strongly focusing on that safety and security element it's

01:33:15.360 really important that businesses feel safe to locate downtown and that ultimately their staff

01:33:21.280 are willing to locate downtown a lot of people are speaking to me about just the changes with

01:33:26.800 covid19 with work from home arrangements a lot of employees are asking for the the changes to

01:33:33.360 to stay after the pandemic so that some of these businesses are all too happy to oblige if they can

01:33:40.240 if they can narrow down their say their square footage to maybe a quarter or half of what it

01:33:45.680 was before they're happy to uh to work with that so there's not going to be the i think the focus

01:33:51.360 on downtown like there used to be and the last piece is around flood mitigation our downtown is

01:33:56.240 still not as secure as it should be for the event of a flood like 2013 or worse and a lot of

01:34:02.240 businesses if they're thinking about investing say in the downtown or near the airport or in balzac

01:34:08.240 and so on they're probably going to choose the other options because of the safety and

01:34:11.760 the security elements of our downtown so at the end of the day council needs to make sure that

01:34:18.160 they're actually funding these services adequately that they're focusing on the quality of life in

01:34:24.400 the downtown otherwise it's just going to continue to have that kind of spiral that we're seeing

01:34:30.560 just as recently as last month with the closure of the Eau Claire YMCA.

01:34:36.800 Yeah. And I mean, the world's changed and we're not going to see the petrochemical head offices

01:34:42.160 moving in to fill all that empty space. We just got to face it. Hopefully we get a bit of a rebound

01:34:47.520 and some come back, but there's still going to be a tremendous gap to fill down there. And we've got

01:34:52.880 to get more creative and start doing things differently if we're hoping to bring it down.

01:34:56.640 I mean, at the ground level businesses, the restaurants, the things, I mean, that's great

01:35:00.640 too. And if we could improve the parking, if we could mitigate the crime issues, I mean, families

01:35:06.080 will feel more inclined to come down there. It's a beautiful downtown, there's the river, the

01:35:09.520 buildings, there's some architecture, art is great. But then there's been efforts to try.

01:35:15.440 And through the Calgary economic development, I mean, we've had a large, I'll call it that a slush

01:35:20.880 fund to sit and try and subsidize and draw and bring businesses in to fill

01:35:27.040 those gaps. But it seems to be failing dismally.

01:35:30.840 What are your thoughts on dealing with Calgary economic development and that fund?

01:35:35.240 Well, I think one of the greatest things about Calgary is that your success in

01:35:39.480 this town really depends on what you can do rather than who you know and taxing

01:35:44.240 existing businesses to death, pocketing that money and putting into slush funds

01:35:48.640 to dole out one time grants or various package to select businesses.

01:35:54.240 It just doesn't make sense.

01:35:55.280 It's not fair.

01:35:56.280 And it actually erodes our competitiveness on an international level.

01:35:59.840 When you think about the huge tax increases that Calgary has become known for,

01:36:04.080 unless you have an in with the people who are deciding the grants or the politicians,

01:36:08.800 you get the same egregious tax rate as anybody else.

01:36:11.960 And it just doesn't instill business confidence.

01:36:14.840 So I believe I was the only councillor to vote against that slush fund approach.

01:36:18.640 If we have these huge surpluses and these reserves, it should be offered back to all taxpayers as tax relief so that existing businesses can not just survive, but also thrive and grow.

01:36:30.900 So this current approach, it's obviously failed and government and politicians, we are terrible, terrible at picking winners and losers in private business.

01:36:39.480 Frankly, our business should be getting out of the way of business so that people who want to take a risk in our city can can do so as long as they're able to reap the rewards.

01:36:49.520 So my view for how this should go forward with is reasonable, fair, predictable, and low taxes for everybody, regardless of whether you're a resident or a business owner.

01:37:02.580 You should be able to rely on fair treatment from council rather than necessarily your access to a certain development agency.

01:37:10.580 But we're going to have to make some hard choices to be able to get our budget under control and our taxes under control.

01:37:16.000 Yeah, well, I remember I was owning a pub and my pub, well, you've been to it actually. It was in

01:37:21.280 a bit of a strip mall and it had some empty spaces. I mean, the best analogy I could put out for how

01:37:25.840 insulting it was to business owners and is when they do this is if my landlord said, you know

01:37:30.160 what, I'm going to raise your rent by 30% and I'm going to cut the rent on the vacant one down from

01:37:35.840 you to half of what it normally is to draw in another restaurant because I want to develop

01:37:40.320 the area further. So I want you to take a hit on your already marginal business so I can reach out

01:37:45.920 and try and draw a new one in who's going to compete with you like that's essentially what

01:37:50.000 they've done i mean the businesses right now all they wanted was a break i mean the only time in

01:37:53.680 my life i'd seen it was business owners came out that was it two years ago and actually rallied at

01:37:58.480 city hall begging to to reduce that tax burden that's just crushing them with you know triple

01:38:04.800 digit tax increases but getting to that if you're going plus these businesses are savvy too right

01:38:10.240 Corey, they like any customer or consumer individual, you may sign up for that free trial.

01:38:16.000 And once the special rate is down, you're going to go somewhere else. You might as well work on

01:38:21.440 retaining your existing customers, which is our existing taxpayers. How do we ensure that they

01:38:27.600 have the predictability and the low taxes to be able to survive rather than just betting the farm

01:38:32.720 on some magic bullet, somebody outside to come and save us. But that's been the mentality.

01:38:37.440 it's been trying to go all in on Amazon to come and save us, go all in on the Olympics to come

01:38:42.720 and save us. When the solution and when our best asset is existing Calgarians who are here,

01:38:49.040 who believe in our city and are working every day to try to make ends meet, what can we do to be

01:38:53.280 able to serve them? Because they're here already and they want to grow their business. And how do

01:38:58.480 we make that happen? Yeah, well, a thriving business environment with a favorable climate

01:39:04.480 towards businesses is what would draw others in. I mean, they're going to look around and say,

01:39:07.760 yeah, that's a place I'd like to set up shop. But as you know, yeah, they're not fools. They

01:39:12.000 realize, okay, I'm the shiny new thing. They'll get the grant and move in, but they're going to

01:39:15.600 turn their eyes onto the next shiny new thing once I'm established and I'm just in the same boat as

01:39:19.520 the rest of them. So, I mean, we got to look a little bigger, but as you said, the taxes are

01:39:25.200 high, but that means we've got to cut spending somewhere. Where can the city cut? Where can

01:39:30.480 these efficiencies be found? I mean, we always say it all the time, but it is easier said than done.

01:39:36.480 Where can we reduce spending, especially when we're coming into such tight times for everybody?

01:39:41.920 Well, it's two pieces to that. The first is on the capital budget, which is the infrastructure,

01:39:46.720 everything that the city builds. We need to make sure we have a rock solid understanding

01:39:51.440 of what it's going to cost to be able to maintain that infrastructure going forward.

01:39:54.960 I remember one of my first days as a councillor, we were given a big sheet and a list of capital

01:40:00.000 projects bus improvements things like that and i asked where where was the second piece of paper

01:40:04.960 which and they said well what do you mean and i said well surely we've costed out what it's going

01:40:09.440 to cost in our operating potential to impact every single calgarian taxpayer as well as the operating

01:40:24.880 budget going forward just flicking the lights on to be able to maintain the this new system

01:40:31.760 is going to be a huge tax increase on every single calgarian just to operate the thing

01:40:36.080 so we were always talking about one side of the ledger the capital without the the sense of what

01:40:41.120 it's going to actually cost to keep the lights on so that's the first piece and the second piece is

01:40:45.840 around salaries wages benefits and overtime this is a tricky topic for any politician to touch on

01:40:51.840 and I can see why most councillors are reluctant. But in recent years, I believe rough numbers from

01:40:59.040 about 2010 when this mayor was elected to today, the salaries, wages, benefits and overtime,

01:41:04.800 it's gone from about 42% of the city's overall budget to about 55% or 56%, which is a huge

01:41:12.800 increase. We're seeing even just from 2015 that the city pays on a yearly basis more than $200

01:41:20.160 million dollars per year as a result solely from salary increases not from service increases not

01:41:26.640 from other projects or services but purely from pay raises is 200 million dollars per year and

01:41:34.320 even during covid it was 30 million about 30 million per year that was added to the city's

01:41:40.320 budget from pay raises during the pandemic during the lockdown when there were huge tax increases

01:41:46.880 people bleeding jobs businesses closing so I would say that one of the biggest pieces has to

01:41:52.480 be holding the line on salaries making sure that and as a councillor I've been willing to lead by

01:41:58.080 example I turned down the the generous golden pension that's available to city councillors

01:42:02.720 it's not that I'm opposed to retirement benefits but I think that we need to be taking a look at

01:42:07.680 some of the reforms in the private sector around say defined contribution models

01:42:11.520 so those are probably the two biggest pieces in terms of where the money is going to

01:42:15.920 ill-advised capital projects and salary increases. We can't afford say the three or four percent

01:42:22.880 increases that unions have asked for us in the past year. And frankly, it's going to take

01:42:28.480 political courage from our new mayor and our new council to be able to say, given everything that's

01:42:32.960 happening in the economy, taxpayers can't afford it. Well, and with those important talks coming

01:42:38.880 and those difficult times coming, I'll finish off with asking about something that's been a

01:42:44.000 a pet subject of yours and it's been a deficit in city hall and that's transparency as you'd

01:42:49.540 labeled it the chamber of secrets where council on it just seemed to darn near everything will

01:42:55.340 go into hiding and in my view there's only a handful of issues I mean there's a need for

01:42:59.060 going in camera now and then but for the most part I mean so our last mayoral candidate you

01:43:04.000 know who won campaigned very much on transparency and turned out to be quite the opposite can we be

01:43:10.680 assured that you would i'm pretty confident just with the amount of noise you've made already but

01:43:14.360 still what would you do to make sure that we can maintain an eye on city council and what you guys

01:43:18.900 are up to what you're doing i think it's a fair question and i think i have what no other candidate

01:43:24.400 does in this mayor's race it's credibility not just the talk you actually see my record over

01:43:30.940 the past three three and a half years and you know how i've advocated on behalf of my constituents

01:43:35.960 How I've not just talked the talk, but walked the walk in terms of turning down the pension at great personal and political expense, advocating for my constituents every single day and pushing on serious issues and occasionally actually getting kicked out of city council as a result of it.

01:43:54.760 So more than just talk, you actually see the record.

01:43:57.940 And one of my major commitments was to hold regular town hall meetings where once a month, anybody and everybody could come and meet with me in a community center or something like that, where they can ask me questions directly and I could hold myself accountable.

01:44:12.040 And since being elected, I've conducted upwards of 50 of those meetings, continuing them online and and live through Facebook and so on.

01:44:19.660 But I want to go back to one of the reasons I ran for council is I invented this program called the Council Tracker, and it was a simple and easy to use website where anybody could see how their councillor voted on important issues like spending or the police budget or bike lanes, things like that.

01:44:36.740 And you could actually see how much time council spent in these secret meetings. And it's pretty egregious. It's upwards of a quarter or more of council's time spent in these secret meetings.

01:44:47.900 and like you said it's just the it's very specific topics maybe around legal or land sales

01:44:55.020 identifiable personnel or maybe security concerns that should be kept confidential but there should

01:45:00.860 be very clear bounds around that and in the coming months i'm going to be advocating again for some

01:45:07.500 of the policies that council chose not to go with such as say an open meetings bylaw where any member

01:45:13.820 the public just like in Ontario can have an independent authority to go to to be able to

01:45:18.620 challenge council secret meetings and if they're reviewed and found to be done improperly those

01:45:23.900 records can be released to the public and some of that is also let's say a little bit more low tech

01:45:30.060 so in the council chamber of secrets not everybody knows this but every single council member gets a

01:45:35.500 lazy boy chair that goes all the way back so I would say replace those chairs with something a

01:45:40.620 little less comfortable and uh it's a good reminder that uh every every city councilor

01:45:45.740 works for calgarians and not the other way around yeah well it's those little things there's no sense

01:45:51.580 settling in for a long meeting you'll want to minimize the the requisite time to uh do what

01:45:56.940 you have to do in camera and then get back out to perhaps i might get in trouble for mentioning the

01:46:01.420 the lazy boys but move the lazy boys into the main council chambers and we can see you're

01:46:07.820 utilizing them but we know you're going to be comfortable in your spots to get down to the

01:46:11.100 business in front of uh the electorate uh i'll give them for the people the the people who they

01:46:15.340 are watching our 12-hour meetings there we go uh for all of you guys whether counselors i agree with

01:46:21.340 or don't i the endurance you have to deal with some of those long meetings i i can't imagine

01:46:27.020 but uh well thank you very much for giving me that much time today i know like i said it's a

01:46:31.260 busy time councils the hornet's nest that it always is and you're juggling that with your

01:46:36.140 mayoral campaign so where can we uh keep up with you or where can folks get in touch with you and

01:46:42.700 see how your campaign's going yeah so it's just uh www.jeromy.ca bunch of different uh links there

01:46:52.540 you can see more about me my proposed platform policies if you like what you see you can contact

01:46:57.900 us to learn more happy to follow up with anybody directly but also we rely on grassroots support

01:47:04.380 we're definitely not supported by the establishment or some of the typical big players in calgary

01:47:08.780 politics and if we are successful in the october election it's going to be because of

01:47:13.740 everyday volunteers that have had enough with the current direction and they'd like to see

01:47:18.860 the city embrace a positive change going forward great well thanks um i appreciate it keep fighting

01:47:26.540 the good fight there uh the amount of abuse you've taken and still keep getting up has been something

01:47:31.500 else. And I just, I just like that kind of attitude with people who won't back down.

01:47:37.580 So I'm certain we'll be talking again sometime soon. I'll let you get on with your day and get

01:47:42.620 ready for the weekend. I know you tend to go off to some pretty nice mountain spots and get your,

01:47:48.140 your clear, your mind and body on the weekend. So you can get ready to battle again through the week.

01:47:53.500 So thank you one more time, Jeremy, and we will talk again.

01:47:58.060 Until next time. Thanks again.

01:48:01.500 All right. Well, thank you for your patience with my technical challenges there. We'll

01:48:14.900 get better with our recorded interviews. It's just hard to always get somebody to be able

01:48:18.340 to come on live. So I thought I'd try recording it, playing it through because it is acute

01:48:23.120 and municipal politics are coming up more now that the incumbent Mayor Nanshee has decided

01:48:29.180 step down and you know something i was looking at so it's been breaking just for a great example how

01:48:33.340 screwed up calgary city hall is and it's screwed up and and the waste that goes on there so this

01:48:39.260 story is just broken today a city of calgary employee last year uh between june and october 0.80

01:48:46.460 so in the middle of the pandemic she charged ninety four thousand dollars and eight hundred

01:48:52.060 ninety four thousand eight hundred eighteen dollars in overtime seven hundred and fourteen 0.61

01:48:57.020 hours of overtime between June and October apparently and she fired three other workers 1.00

01:49:03.740 in that office saying there wasn't enough work for them because the pandemic and since then

01:49:09.980 she's gone on sick leave so she's home on a vacation with this is what's going on with

01:49:18.220 Calgary City Hall. I understand not every city worker is pulling off crap like that, but when 0.91

01:49:25.020 you hear Nietzsche getting up there and some of the others saying, there's just no more room to 0.95

01:49:28.060 cut spending. We can't get any more efficient. Oh, spare me that bull crap. Look at that. She

01:49:32.620 took more in overtime in a few months than most people make in a year. And then sitting at home 1.00

01:49:37.740 in full pay on sick leave because they got a repugnant sick leave policy for some of these

01:49:41.820 civil servants. There is room to cut and we're going to have to cut. I mean, post pandemic,

01:49:47.340 something a lot of government workers as they're spending like crazy and bureaucrats and leaders

01:49:51.020 and politicians don't want to talk about but they're going to have to go head to head with

01:49:55.740 those public service unions because one of the things jeremy did say in that interview he didn't

01:50:00.140 go right after them because again they don't want to get into that battle but it's a battle that's

01:50:03.900 going to have to happen wages are going to have to cut that's the largest part of government

01:50:09.740 expenditures and we can't afford it so you're going to cut the wages or we're going to cut

01:50:13.020 the people it's up to the unions you know you got to put that choice on their lap and say fine you

01:50:16.860 talk to your membership. We're going to lay off 20% of them or we're going to cut your wages by

01:50:20.900 20%, but there's your choices because we're too bloated. We don't have the money. We're

01:50:26.880 recovering from the restrictions and this pandemic mess and nightmare. So it's time to get it in

01:50:32.680 order. I hope to see some leadership. When we see the leadership on every front level of

01:50:36.820 government right now, I am not very confident to see them do those necessary battles and make

01:50:41.600 those tough choices in the future. But hopefully, you know, we can keep pressuring and keep pushing.

01:50:46.240 Got a federal election coming up this year. I can't say I've got a lot of hope for that either.

01:50:51.860 By the way, I forget what time it is coming out. There is a rally, I guess, at the Edmonton

01:50:56.260 legislature today. Some people are going to be pushing back against the restrictions. And

01:51:01.100 hopefully that's a good turnout and peaceful and rational. And they won't be talking about

01:51:05.580 lizard people and crazy things, as I've seen at other rallies. I think more, you know, just

01:51:11.160 concerned citizens are starting to come out. They're finally having enough. As I said,

01:51:15.120 these rolling restrictions, these crushing restrictions, this misery that just seems to

01:51:20.560 be interminable. They've had enough. And again, I just want to remind you, there is a rodeo at the

01:51:25.860 end of the month. This will be a fun way to push back. You know, Alberta Health Services is already

01:51:29.100 warning Ty. They're saying, we're going to shut you down. And Ty's saying, good luck. He's got

01:51:35.280 backup plans. If they shut down the first venue, there'll be another one. It's going to be in

01:51:39.180 Bowdoin or Bowdoin area right near there, either way. At the end of the month, three solid days.

01:51:44.100 it'll be fun get out bring the kids there's camping or you can just do a day trip it's only

01:51:48.500 an hour out of calgary and it's uh with rodeo.rally at gmail.com or if you look on facebook

01:51:55.180 there's um uh it's northcott rodeos incorporated so you can keep up with what's going on there

01:52:01.160 i would just love to see a couple thousand people a few thousand whatever it takes

01:52:05.160 get out there for a day it'll be a nice day at the end of april and get out for a couple of days

01:52:09.260 He's got a whole bunch of events, take in something as Western and pure as Alberta rodeo, socialize, get around people, be happy, live normal a little bit again.

01:52:18.860 And I just dare, just dare the government to try and stop it.

01:52:23.260 How will you stop that?

01:52:24.480 I've been up there.

01:52:25.300 I went to his ranch.

01:52:26.200 As I said, that interview is all up on YouTube, on our YouTube channel up there.

01:52:31.080 Have a look.

01:52:32.160 They're not going to be able to stop this.

01:52:33.820 So let's get out and have some fun.

01:52:35.120 Let's show who's really in charge of this province.

01:52:37.300 It's us.

01:52:37.700 They work for us.

01:52:39.260 And, you know, tell us what we can do, what we can't do.

01:52:41.360 It's time.

01:52:41.900 It's stopped.

01:52:43.020 The pandemic is in retreat.

01:52:45.220 We've got to get on with life here.

01:52:47.080 So thank you for tuning in.

01:52:48.960 Thanks to that panel.

01:52:49.800 That was great having those guys on.

01:52:51.200 You know, it was just, it's so important to talk about the whole thing.

01:52:55.600 You know, the impacts of these restrictions, the costs of what's coming down.

01:53:00.000 So if you haven't subscribed already to the Western Standard, you know, get on there.

01:53:04.060 Dave Naylor, we've got a few writers on there.

01:53:08.700 They do some great stuff.

01:53:09.440 The one that's sticking in my mind is Dave because he's been doing that expose on the character assassination of Kalen Ford.

01:53:14.140 Those have been coming out every few days.

01:53:16.140 It's just a horrible, horrible piece of treachery and sickness that happened.

01:53:22.660 And the mainstream media fed it.

01:53:24.580 Kalen's suing CBC, I believe, and the Toronto Star good on her. 0.98

01:53:27.860 And I hope she wins and bleeds those parasites dry. 0.97

01:53:31.400 They ruined her on a shaky basis after some sick stalker took an interest in her. 0.99

01:53:37.480 And she's not taking it lying down. So follow that with Dave Naylor and the rest of the folks putting the stories up. Subscribe. It keeps us rolling. Subscribe to the YouTube, subscribe to the Facebook. I'll be back again on Friday for my show.

01:53:52.620 i'll have a couple of guests to speak on again then tomorrow we've got the the show with nathan

01:53:57.660 uh i don't know how to pronounce his name guide guide and he's out of priss george great young

01:54:03.100 guy he's had some good guests i think he's gonna have uh sloan coming on there as one guest and

01:54:08.460 another i should write notes down for these things but he's he's really great to listen to

01:54:12.460 and it's broadening our reach into bc there uh and covering different issues so be sure to turn into

01:54:17.900 that live tomorrow get your questions into nathan we don't need to listen to the old talk radio

01:54:21.900 anymore we've got something else it's developing it's replacing it we can talk with each other

01:54:26.760 we're not afraid of touching the sticky issues so thanks for tuning in and i will see you guys on

01:54:31.900 friday

Western Standard - April 13, 2021

The Cory Morgan Show. April 12, 2021

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