Western Standard - The Cory Morgan Show - July 27, 2021

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome to the Cory Morgan Show. Another episode going in the bank during this

00:00:11.640 smoky July in Alberta. The reopening's carried on. We're all still alive. The infections are up,

00:00:17.100 but the hospitalizations and deaths are down. I think the world might be coming a little closer

00:00:20.980 to normal, which means we still got all the other problems to deal with that we've been putting off

00:00:24.960 since this pandemic began. But we've got a good platform for it, and it is coming along.

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00:03:13.800 causes that are supporting your rights, and these guys help support us. The other ones that are

00:03:18.640 sponsoring us on this show is the CCFR, which is the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.

00:03:24.500 And their site is firearmrights.ca. And these guys are out there doing the battle on the ground to make

00:03:30.580 sure you can retain your property, you can enjoy your firearms, you can use them however you please,

00:03:35.780 within reason, of course, which is what most of us do. We're law-abiding people. But the state's

00:03:40.680 trying to take those things away from you, and that battle is real. They've been trying for a long

00:03:44.400 time. Incrementally, orders in council, they're doing things to take away your right and ability

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00:03:55.080 behalf. So if you go to firearmrights.ca, and if you click why join us, and they'll lay out all the

00:04:01.180 reasons, and what they're working on in order to stand up for you. So a little later now, getting

00:04:06.720 on to the show, I'm going to have Franco Tarizano on from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He's moved

00:04:11.280 out to Ottawa. He's the federal director now. It's a gain for him, a loss for Alberta, but there's lots

00:04:16.740 to talk about. Of course, he's into a much bigger spending cesspool to have to deal with out there.

00:04:20.920 And we're going to talk a little while on the federal debt, and just how insanely large it's getting,

00:04:26.180 and how long it's going to take to pay off. Getting closer to home, though. We've had

00:04:31.320 municipal issues going on. So Alberta, you know, one of the fixed election dates we have is municipal

00:04:35.520 elections. We got one coming up this fall. I believe it's October 18th that it's going to happen,

00:04:40.000 and it's been heating up. You know, and in Calgary in particular, we're going to have a new mayor no

00:04:45.440 matter what. Nenshi has said he's not running again. So we're all relieved with that. We know we're not

00:04:49.220 rid of the guy altogether. He's going to go somewhere else, but either way, at least he won't be our mayor

00:04:53.380 anymore. But now we got 20 people so far registered to run for mayor. Now, a handful of them are

00:05:00.400 complete lunatics. We don't really have to worry about them. They'll be lucky to bring in a half a 1.00

00:05:04.200 percent. A few others just aren't terribly serious, and they're not going to be up there. But there's

00:05:07.980 about half a dozen serious contenders, and that's a lot to dig through, and as a voter, to figure out

00:05:13.080 who you want to put in there. Plus, due to the number of councillors who are going for mayoral seats,

00:05:18.900 or other ones who are just stepping aside, we're going to get nine new councillors coming in out of 15

00:05:23.340 at least nine. I mean, if some of the incumbents get knocked off, it could be more. This is going

00:05:27.460 to be a turnover in the municipal government like we haven't seen in a generation. So it's really

00:05:31.980 important that we get the right people in. I mean, this can either go really, really well for us,

00:05:36.100 and we'll finally get a good municipal government in Calgary. God knows we needed one. Or we could

00:05:41.100 really get a bad gang of jokers in there. So I'm going to help you along. Out of all those 20,

00:05:45.940 I'm not going to list them and go through. I've interviewed a number of them, though, in the past. If you look on

00:05:49.740 the YouTube archives, you can see I've talked to Jeremy Farkas and Brad Field and Zane Novak.

00:05:54.820 I'm going to talk about a couple, though, that I'll tell you not to vote for. And I'll give you

00:05:58.820 the reasons for it. And they're pretty clear. Now, one that's standing out is Jeff Davison. Now,

00:06:04.900 Jeff was a municipal councillor. I can't remember which ward he was in. It's funny, he jumped back

00:06:10.540 and forth for months. You know, I'm going to run from air. I'm not going to run from air. I'm going to run

00:06:13.480 from air. I'm not going to run from air. The main thing was, it was because Nenshi was playing coy

00:06:16.740 as to whether or not he was going to run again. And finally, Nenshi said he wasn't going to,

00:06:21.380 Jeff jumped in. You know, the other part of the rumor was that Jeff's beady-eyed little buddy there,

00:06:26.840 Ward Sutherland, was going to step off and not run in for council again as well, because he would

00:06:33.200 hope to be Jeff's chief of staff in the city of Calgary, assuming Jeff becomes the mayor. So it was

00:06:39.680 an opportunity for Ward, and lo and behold, that rumor turned out to be true. I didn't really believe

00:06:43.080 that one so much. I didn't think they could be so foolish, but why should I keep overestimating 0.99

00:06:48.960 these politicians, particularly the municipal ones? So Ward and Jeff are on their way. 0.99

00:06:53.440 Now, what Jeff is, what he represents, you know, we've got problems that are coming into City Hall.

00:06:58.520 Jeff's of the old PC establishment, okay? The old gang, the old boys club. It truly is.

00:07:04.520 These are the ones that are always the insiders. They get the big contracts. They do the backroom

00:07:08.800 dealings. I mean, in his one term, Jeff Davison, his claim to fame was he was a part, an integral part,

00:07:16.480 of the arena deal, which was rushed through behind closed doors, very secretively, very hurriedly,

00:07:22.100 and now we're getting word a year later that they haven't even broken ground on it, and they're at

00:07:26.960 least $60 million over budget on this thing. That's his claim to fame, but you see, that's the kind of

00:07:31.980 backroom dealings the old boys like doing. There's a lot of contracts. There's a lot of lucre, and there's a lot 0.52

00:07:36.100 of great stuff that can be done out there if you can get the right people in power. Local government

00:07:40.340 is one of the ones that gets overlooked by us as voters way too much. These guys have a lot of

00:07:46.020 authority over our dollars and where they're going to go and how they're going to be spent and what

00:07:50.320 happens with them, and you look at the names that start coming up around Jeff Davison, and you start

00:07:55.480 to see what I'm talking about with the old guard. The very first person who endorsed Davison when he

00:08:00.220 came out was Steve Allen. That name you might have heard because he was given the Steve Allen

00:08:06.560 committee or whatever to make the Steve Allen report on foreign interference and such in the

00:08:12.020 energy sector in Alberta that he keeps putting off and putting off and putting off. I think he's

00:08:15.860 supposed to put it out again yet at the end of this month, but I'm not holding my breath anymore.

00:08:20.300 I don't know how much he's been paid to do this. Allen's name also popped up with the

00:08:25.080 Calgary Economic Development, which has that $100 million slush fund to try and draw businesses to

00:08:32.440 come in and compete with the struggling Calgary businesses that are already here. Because when

00:08:35.700 Mary Moran took leave to push for an Olympic bid that we couldn't afford, Steve Allen filled the

00:08:42.260 void. You see these names just keep circling and popping up. These are these connected people that

00:08:45.960 get these $200,000, $300,000 a year salaries for these wonderful government committees and jobs and

00:08:50.680 things to head up like that. Well, Allen endorsed Davison because again, it's that same

00:08:54.760 old collective group of old boys going on there. Now, Davison got in some trouble recently, or it

00:09:01.440 looks like it anyway. So something that's happened is unions and corporations can't donate to

00:09:06.920 municipal candidates anymore. Now, personally, I think they should be allowed to donate. Just, I

00:09:10.900 believe there should be transparency laws, but the bottom line is they are not allowed to do so.

00:09:14.580 So what happens is unions and corporations find other ways to do it. Unions are advertising all

00:09:20.660 over the place. Turn on the radio for five minutes. You're going to hear one ad or another from

00:09:23.440 unions. You're going to see those signs all over the lawn talking about saving public services and

00:09:27.280 all sorts of other things because they're just taking those dollars that they would have given

00:09:29.980 to candidates before and they're just advertising on their behalf in an outside way. Well, the other

00:09:34.700 thing that can be done is forming PACs, which are political action committees, which campaign kind of

00:09:40.500 on behalf of candidates, but they're supposed to be arm's length. Now, something that happened with

00:09:45.960 Davidson, it was a golf tournament was scheduled at the Heritage Point Golf Club. And this, this had

00:09:51.220 some pretty, you know, big entry fees. Well, it's a fundraiser. Fair enough. You know, 500, I think,

00:09:57.800 to enter in a thousand for a couple or some bloody thing. The main thing was though, this was supposed

00:10:03.200 to be for a third party advertising group, which was registered as a PAC, but didn't say who is behind

00:10:08.180 them. The email that went out promoting it or one of them came from Davidson's interim campaign manager,

00:10:14.800 Catherine Brownlee. And it spoke about things like if you put in a $10,000 title sponsorship

00:10:21.420 for the, and a $5,000 breakfast sponsorship, and according to the invitation, you get the

00:10:26.800 opportunity to emcee the event and ask Davidson questions. And at the format, or you could even

00:10:32.500 join them for breakfast. Like these are things where you can buy access to the candidate. And the email

00:10:37.400 said clearly that this money is to go towards advertising for Jeff Davidson's campaign,

00:10:41.400 but he can't do that. You're not supposed to have something that boldly involved with your campaign,

00:10:48.500 or it is just part of the campaign. Like that degree of separation has really blurred, if not

00:10:53.140 vanished there. And there's been a number of complaints go through now on this, but what really

00:10:57.700 gets me is Davidson denies that he knows anything about it. He said he hasn't been in touch with this

00:11:03.060 group. He hasn't talked with them and he didn't know about it. Wow. They're pretty bold. They even

00:11:06.680 scheduled you to be there and join people for paid breakfasts and have one-on-one time with them.

00:11:11.640 But apparently you didn't even know about this. Come on. I mean, this is a guy running for mayor and

00:11:16.240 he's already feeding us BS. He got caught playing. If not, you know, this isn't necessarily against

00:11:22.860 the law, but they're really, really pressing the spirit of it. It's a backdoor way to raise funds

00:11:27.780 for a guy. And you got to wonder why did Jeff Davidson think he had a shot at mayor? I mean,

00:11:31.860 this was a low profile, single term Calgary councillor. Well, it's because he's in that

00:11:36.040 in crowd. He's with the old boys and he thinks he can do it. The other telling thing that came up,

00:11:40.420 so they threw their interim campaign manager under the bus when this golf tournament small scandal 0.59

00:11:46.660 came about, was they exposed their main campaign manager and his name is Kelly Charlebois.

00:11:52.520 Now, if that name rings a bell for you, he's been around in progressive conservative politics in

00:11:56.680 Alberta for decades. And again, not usually in a good way. So he was Gary Marr's executive assistants

00:12:03.060 in the nineties. And when he left that, Marr was the health minister. And somehow Kelly Charlebois

00:12:11.380 got $390,000 in untendered contracts afterwards from Alberta health and wellness, which was headed by

00:12:19.300 his former boss. And that was a big scandal. Plus, even when the auditor general went through it,

00:12:25.380 he found that there wasn't even documentation of what the tasks were. So he got $390,000 for doing,

00:12:31.600 I don't know, playing cards or something. There was no documentation about it. This is again,

00:12:36.460 you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, old boy internal network. And he is the campaign manager

00:12:42.800 for Jeff Davison. And Kelly Charlebois moved on later on. Where was he? He was the executive director

00:12:48.920 of the progressive conservative party during the Redford period. These guys just won't go away.

00:12:54.820 You know, we fire them at the polls, but those backroom boys just slither back into positions of

00:12:59.980 power, and they tend to abuse it. So that's who Jeff Davison has surrounded himself with. And this

00:13:07.880 is a person not to vote for. If you want to change things in Calgary, even if they're talking to be

00:13:12.300 pro-business and somewhat ostensibly conservative, what you got going on there isn't really conservatism.

00:13:18.300 It's not free market, it's crony capitalism, which in my view is even more odious than socialism.

00:13:24.080 At least socialism's honest about coming out to rip you off. Crony capitalism pretends to be free

00:13:29.820 market, pretends to be supportive of you. But in reality, it's a bunch of backroom boys slushing

00:13:34.420 their money around into different contracts for themselves. And you as the taxpayer always end up

00:13:39.320 footing the bill. So I just wanted to speak on that. Jeff Davison, this man is throwing a wrench

00:13:45.200 into the mayoral race. If you want the old boys network to still be running Calgary, you don't

00:13:49.400 want to see substantive change. You don't want to be spending improvement. By the way, Davison also

00:13:53.920 voted to defund the police. So if you want to see the crime keep rising, you know, as our police get

00:13:57.560 defunded while city council and mayor virtue signal, Davison is your man. So there's a number of other

00:14:05.160 candidates to consider when running for mayor. Just remember, Davison is not one to consider at all.

00:14:10.840 This is not an improvement. Getting on to the other end of it, the left side of it, we got Jody

00:14:16.540 Gondek. This is Ninchy's heir apparent. The bottom line is, if you want to swing left, you want to be

00:14:22.860 Ninchy even more exaggerated. I mean, if you thought Ninchy liked playing the race card and identity politics,

00:14:28.360 don't worry, Jody's already put him to shame. And if she became mayor, boy, would she ever do so. But it's

00:14:34.080 another city councilor who wants to climb that ladder and get in there. Speaking of the old school,

00:14:39.080 Stephen Carter is her campaign manager. Things are not going to get better with Jody Gondek as our

00:14:44.320 mayor. But not so much because of the old boys network like Davison, but just because she's a

00:14:49.720 virtue signaling shallow vapid lefty. So do not vote for Gondek. Pick among the other 18 candidates in

00:14:56.740 the mix. One of the things Gondek did that I want to go into and gets to the problem with municipal

00:15:03.560 governments too. They are close to us. They are a large part of our lives, but they also have very

00:15:08.860 limited scope. So they should have very limited scopes on what they stand for, what their authority

00:15:13.100 is, what their jurisdiction is. During these campaigns, a lot of these candidates reach outside

00:15:18.100 of what they should, outside of their jurisdiction, and they promise things. And either they're going

00:15:24.720 to spend a horrific amount of money duplicating a service that another level of government is supposed

00:15:28.680 to do, or they're just giving us false promises. Both are unacceptable. You know, neither is what

00:15:35.140 you want to see out of somebody saying they're going to run their place. So Jody Gondek went on a big

00:15:38.320 thing about how the city of Calgary is going to take on responsibility for child care for parents.

00:15:43.820 Hang on, it's bad enough. In fact, I don't even think the federal government or the provincial

00:15:46.520 government should be in on the child care of our children anyways. But Gondek's jumped in on this.

00:15:52.000 Municipal politics. You want the city to run state-funded daycares for you? And again, she knows 0.97

00:15:58.460 this is not even close to in your ballpark of what you're supposed to be responsible for.

00:16:03.240 But she's jumped feet first into it, and she's virtue signaling on it. It's just shallow campaigning

00:16:08.160 and tactics to, well, try and get the woman's vote. I mean, for people who are single parents, 0.98

00:16:12.900 who are predominantly women, child care is a big expense. It's a challenge, and it's something we need 1.00

00:16:17.400 to address. But it's not something a mayor needs to address. It's not their turf. And this isn't

00:16:22.060 unique to Calgary. In Medicine Hat, for example, we've got a mayoral, hopeful guy named Tony Leahy,

00:16:28.160 who he wants to create a mental health division in Medicine Hat with 24-hour services. He's got this

00:16:34.720 great grand plan, practically a private mental hospital or facility or support services.

00:16:40.360 This is so deeply into provincial health care, you've got to ask him what the hell he's doing.

00:16:44.940 We wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing. We tried to schedule him on so I could talk to him,

00:16:48.940 but he's found scheduling conflicts and excuses and won't be able to come out. It sounds like a

00:16:52.500 serious campaign to me if you can't speak to alternative media to at least defend why you're

00:16:57.400 leaping into mental health services when it's not even within the realm of your municipal government.

00:17:03.200 So will he, as a mayor, I wish I could ask him, but he's too chicken to come on,

00:17:08.420 would you form this mental health unit? Where would you get the money? Would you just do a

00:17:13.540 parallel one with the provincial services? Why don't you guys run for MLA? Why don't you run

00:17:18.180 for MP where the jurisdiction is? Well, I think it's because you can irresponsibly promise these

00:17:22.220 things and maybe use your jurisdiction as an excuse when you don't actually follow through with it

00:17:26.040 later. Stick to where you're at. Stick to the property taxes. Stick to fixing the roads. That's

00:17:32.160 your turf. Don't go outside of that. Government's too big and bloated already. We don't need other

00:17:36.400 levels taking on more responsibilities that they can't pay for and do responsibly as it is.

00:17:42.940 So yeah, Tony, you know, just come on, explain it to us. Come on to the show. We can chat about

00:17:49.960 this because I want to know how you're going to turn it, what you're going to make a little

00:17:52.500 city state down there perhaps with the private hospitals and things like that. Hey, if we're

00:17:57.140 going to talk private hospitals, maybe we've got some common ground we can get onto. But

00:18:00.100 I'm just tired of this in municipal politics, you know? And I mean, you see some of that with the

00:18:04.360 virtue signaling from cities and so on saying we're a nuclear free zone, things like that,

00:18:09.900 which really don't mean anything. They're virtue signaling. They're just outside of what they can

00:18:13.580 do. But it feels good to these politicians. But we've got some very serious issues that need to

00:18:17.800 be addressed. We've got some very large spending issues, large infrastructure issues, things like

00:18:23.360 that, that municipal governments are responsible for. We need to make sure these candidates stick to

00:18:28.460 what they are responsible for and what they can do so that hopefully this fall, when we get this big

00:18:32.720 turnover of new politicians in there, we get a crop of good ones for a change. That's my rant for

00:18:39.000 today. I'm going to get on to, again, back to the bigger subject at hand. I'm going to talk with Franco

00:18:43.780 Terrizano, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and we're going to talk about some federal debt issues. Nice,

00:18:49.200 lighter subject, nicer matter.

00:18:52.840 All right, Franco, thanks for joining me. It's always great getting you on. Easy interview when I'm talking with

00:18:58.360 somebody who's like mine for the most part. How are things doing out in Ottawa now that you're in

00:19:02.580 the middle of the center of the universe there?

00:19:05.820 Well, hey, Corey, thanks so much for having me on. And thanks so much for continuing to have me on

00:19:09.960 now that I'm in Ottawa. I think this is my first full week in Ottawa in the office here. So,

00:19:16.640 I mean, lots of targets to go after for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation at the federal level,

00:19:22.160 that's for sure. Yeah, well, you had no shortage here in Calgary and Alberta, and now you're in

00:19:27.840 the big playpen out there. So this will be the first time we're really hit on federal issues since

00:19:32.060 I've had you on, though, and it is a massive amount of dollars and debt we're talking about. So the

00:19:38.280 Taxpayers Federation has really been speaking on that and looking at the, if you can even call it a plan

00:19:42.820 for balancing the budget coming from the Liberals and from the Conservative Party. Maybe you can lay out

00:19:48.540 with the landscapes like with what they're talking about for ever getting a balanced budget.

00:19:52.160 Well, it's absolutely mind-boggling, Corey. So we dove into some parliamentary budget officer

00:19:58.200 data. They had some spreadsheets out that kind of looks at the landscape of federal spending and

00:20:02.920 federal debt. And under the status quo, if things don't change, we're not going to see a balanced

00:20:09.880 budget federally until 2070, right? So about 50 more years of deficit spending. And if that is the

00:20:17.540 case, if the status quo continues, it's going to be trillions of dollars more in debt,

00:20:21.460 trillions of dollars more in interest payments, which really just means no value for taxpayers'

00:20:26.560 bucks when we're looking at all that debt servicing costs.

00:20:30.000 Yeah, well, it's just unimaginable. I mean, so by that projection, more than likely, I'm not going

00:20:35.380 to live to see a balanced budget. That's frightening. And as you put it, I mean, some people, I heard some

00:20:42.540 polling today, I believe it was from Angus Reid, and the deficit spending, that's actually low on a

00:20:49.100 lot of voters' priorities. Like, people don't understand that interest payments are money flushed

00:20:54.340 down the toilet? 0.59

00:20:55.600 Well, there's a lot to unpack there. First, I think, Corey, you bring up a really good point about

00:20:59.180 interest costs, right? So under the status quo, the federal government isn't going to balance the budget

00:21:04.160 until 2070. So if that continues, we're going to rack up about $3.8 trillion worth of interest

00:21:12.020 charges by 2070. $3.8 trillion, that's money that can't go to healthcare, that's money that can't go

00:21:18.400 to building roads, that's money that can't go back into our pockets through lower taxes, because that

00:21:23.460 money would have to go to the bond fund managers on Bay Street. So that's trillions and trillions of

00:21:28.680 dollars in interest charges under the current status quo, that sees about 50 more years of

00:21:34.400 deficit spending. But Corey, you mentioned a poll in terms of where Canadians are right now in public

00:21:40.220 opinion. One thing that I saw in a recent poll, maybe it's the same poll, but I did see it today is

00:21:45.700 that an issue that Canadians are rightly worried about is cost of living. And where I think all of

00:21:51.440 this debt and deficit spending really matters for Canadians in terms of day to day is cost of living.

00:21:56.780 Let me tell you, as I moved out here to Ottawa, just the rent is extraordinary. It is extremely

00:22:03.800 expensive here. And life is only going to get more expensive with more deficit spending, because,

00:22:09.500 you know, at the end of the day, how are we going to pay for all this, right? And if politicians don't

00:22:13.760 rein in their spending, they're going to be hammering us with higher taxes. So I do think that is the cost

00:22:20.000 of living on why all this debt and deficit spending really matters for Canadian taxpayers.

00:22:25.520 Yeah, well, and if they don't do tax increases to make up for it, it means they'll have to borrow

00:22:30.380 more to make up with it. And that leads to inflationary problems. And it still raises

00:22:34.960 your cost of living. But how do we translate that to your average voter then for them to

00:22:38.880 realize that these are one in the same? Ottawa borrowing like this is going to kick you in the

00:22:44.120 butt, because I think people seem to not realize that it's their money. 0.99

00:22:49.240 Well, Corey, you're right. I mean, there is no way to avoid paying the piper,

00:22:52.900 right? At the end of the day, all of this money has to come from taxpayers one way or another,

00:22:58.000 whether that's through taxes today, taxes tomorrow with interest, or through a reduction

00:23:03.040 in our purchasing power because of inflation, right? So one way or another, unless these

00:23:08.120 politicians don't actually reduce their spending, we're going to get hammered. And Corey, I think

00:23:13.360 the most important thing for us average Canadians to remember is that it's really going to be average

00:23:18.080 Canadians who are left paying the piper. We've heard politicians in Ottawa muse about these so-called

00:23:25.200 wealth taxes, even this one-time wealth tax or tax on extreme wealth. Well, you know, we crunched the

00:23:31.520 numbers. The latest proposal for a wealth tax, Trudeau's deficit spending is so big that he would

00:23:37.700 burn through that wealth tax, his deficit spending, in about a month. So who's going to be left picking up

00:23:43.980 the tab for the other 11 months of Trudeau's deficit spending? Well, it's going to be you,

00:23:48.520 it's going to be me, it's going to be average Canadians. And Corey, I really want to underscore

00:23:53.200 the point. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we put out a Canada Day debt report to show Canadians

00:23:59.860 what each of our share is in terms of federal and provincial government debt. On average, by the end

00:24:06.540 of this year, each Canadian will owe $57,000 in government debt. And Corey, I don't know too many

00:24:13.800 people who have tens of thousands of dollars just lying around to be paying these huge government

00:24:19.580 credit card bills. No, and what little equity we have and things is typically in our households or

00:24:25.820 other savings that we want to pass on. I'm hearing rumblings of home equity taxes and inheritance taxes,

00:24:31.920 like there's some scary balloons being floated. If they want to come after what little money we've got

00:24:35.600 left for ourselves right now. Oh, a home equity tax would just be so devastating for so many Canadians

00:24:42.120 who work so hard their whole lives, put some money away to buy the house, their home, and who are

00:24:48.580 hoping and planning to use their home if they sell it as a part of their nest egg, right, for their

00:24:54.540 golden year. So a home equity tax would just be absolutely devastating for so many Canadians. And I

00:25:00.540 think really, this is the whole point of why this deficits and debt matter. Yes, we talked about the

00:25:06.060 interest payments, which is just tax dollars essentially lost. But another issue is the cost

00:25:13.920 and how all of this will impact taxpayers if these politicians don't actually take some air out of their 0.72

00:25:19.720 bloated budgets. And Corey, I think this is the big thing that we have to remember here as Canadians,

00:25:24.520 especially at the federal level, is that this is a bloated budget. We had a bloated federal budget

00:25:30.040 long before COVID-19. Remember, when he was running for prime minister, Justin Trudeau told us that he

00:25:37.080 would balance the budget in 2019. Well, he missed that target by a country mile, right? Big deficit 2019,

00:25:44.020 a huge deficit with COVID-19 in 2020, looks like another big deficit this year. And we're going to be

00:25:50.560 seeing deficits for about 50 more years under the status quo. Well, and the one thing that seems

00:25:56.120 that people don't want to face and politicians don't have the courage to say it, but somebody's

00:26:01.000 got to cut spending somewhere. Is anybody even talking about cuts, any restraint, any reduction

00:26:05.700 from any party or any leadership right now? Well, federally, we heard the Conservative Party. The last

00:26:12.560 I heard is that they're going to, I don't know, erase the deficit in a decade, within a decade. But a plan

00:26:18.020 to do something in 10 years isn't really a plan to do anything, right? That's, what, two terms? Two political

00:26:24.040 terms, at least, is a decade from now? I mean, okay, we do have to give kudos where kudos is due. At least

00:26:30.840 the Conservative Party is talking about deficits and why deficits are important to be taking serious. So at least

00:26:37.540 the Conservative Party is talking about it. So we should give them some credit there. But 10 years is far too long.

00:26:42.700 If we look provincially, Corey, where you live and where I'm from, we do see the Kenney government

00:26:51.040 making some good strides to reduce spending where spending is most needed to be reduced.

00:26:57.860 And that's labour costs. That's the bureaucracy. When you look at Alberta government or many governments

00:27:03.000 across Canada, it's really the bureaucracy that is the big cost driver. So I think Premier Jason Kenney

00:27:08.680 in Alberta is absolutely right to be asking the government bureaucracy, government employees to

00:27:14.400 help share in the burden of this downturn. Because it's been the private sector, families, workers,

00:27:19.760 small businesses, who've been taking it on the chin all throughout COVID over the last five plus years

00:27:24.820 in Alberta. And it is time for our government employees to also share the burden.

00:27:30.060 Yeah, well, in a larger part of just about every level of governance expenditure,

00:27:33.520 if not the largest, is always on labour and bureaucracy and government employees in general.

00:27:39.440 So where in Ottawa could they cut, though? I mean, of course, people always say,

00:27:43.020 well, that's going to impact your services. And I know that's kind of questionable. But

00:27:46.320 where can we do some cuts without causing more damage throughout the rest of the country then?

00:27:50.700 Well, let's talk about government labour, right? And if we're going to talk about government labour,

00:27:54.980 we have to start at the top. Members of Parliament, at the very least, they need to take a pay cut,

00:28:00.220 right? What we've seen is year after year, members of Parliament pay has gone up and up,

00:28:07.180 including during COVID-19. So while millions of Canadians struggled through COVID-19, we've seen

00:28:13.800 our members of Parliament pocket not one, Corey, but two pay raises. Two pay raises our members of

00:28:20.220 Parliament have pocketed. And, you know, when we're talking about at the top, we should also talk about

00:28:24.780 the Governor General. And the Governor General's pay should have been reined in long ago. We just saw

00:28:30.200 the appointment of our new Governor General, Mary Simon. Well, let's talk about these perks.

00:28:36.040 These are some of the most outrageous perks that we have ever covered. And Corey, you know, that's

00:28:40.560 saying a lot since that we've been talking about double and triple pensions at the Alberta municipal

00:28:46.460 level for quite some time. But let's just go through these Governor General perks. You have these

00:28:52.400 pensions that are about $150,000 per year, regardless of how long a Governor General serves.

00:28:58.880 You had Julie Payette, our former Governor General who resigned in disgrace after serving for a little

00:29:05.160 more than three years, who will now pocket more than $4 million through her pension if she continues

00:29:12.360 to collect it to age 90. Isn't that just absolutely absurd from the taxpayer point of view?

00:29:18.080 Well, it's a slap in the face for those of us who are working a lifetime for what's going to be the

00:29:23.200 paltry CPP perhaps waiting for us at the end of it. And again, as I said, we've got some governments

00:29:29.420 seem to be salivating over what little savings we've got in our home equity and other savings.

00:29:35.120 I mean, leading by example is definitely a way to go. If not only for the amount of savings,

00:29:39.720 even if it feels like a drop in the bucket, it will give the government the moral authority to start

00:29:43.180 cutting on the bigger civil service below them when the time comes and they have to do it, I would

00:29:47.080 think. They have to do it. And Corey, we haven't seen that from the federal government. You know,

00:29:52.440 the think tank, secondstreet.org. I know, you know, Colin Craig quite well. He's doing some

00:29:56.260 great work with that organization. They asked, I think every level of government, when was the last

00:30:02.640 time that their employees have taken a pay cut? And the federal government has no records of its

00:30:08.420 employees ever receiving a pay cut. No records. So you look at the private sector. I mean, often,

00:30:16.820 unfortunately, small businesses have to make tough decisions. They have to let people go. They have to

00:30:21.340 hand out pay reductions when the tough times, when there are tough times. We haven't seen the same

00:30:26.860 restraint from our governments and we haven't seen that type of restraint at the federal government.

00:30:31.160 So we do need to see federal government bureaucrats being willing to share in the tough times and take a 0.94

00:30:36.580 pay cut here. Well, now we've got a lot of contracts and so on. Does that mean reopening contracts or

00:30:43.480 drafting new ones? I mean, some of it is difficult to back out of some of the spending commitments that

00:30:47.920 past governments made. Sure, sure. Yeah. But why have we never seen a federal government ever give its

00:30:55.940 employees a pay reduction, right? Why haven't we? So, yeah, I mean, maybe there are some very tough

00:31:02.280 conversations that need to happen between government employees and politicians who are supposed to be

00:31:07.340 watching over our tax dollars. And we certainly shouldn't be seeing new contracts being negotiated

00:31:14.040 with pay raises. We should be seeing the reverse, right? Let me just go back to the Alberta government,

00:31:20.240 Corey, because I know that's very relevant for you and your listeners. Now we're seeing the

00:31:25.760 penny government ask its government employees to take what, a three or 4% wage reduction. And Corey,

00:31:31.700 let's be honest, if you are an Albertan and you only received a 3% cut over the last five, six years,

00:31:40.560 you're one of the fortunate ones. And, you know, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we went through

00:31:45.980 union agreements between the government and government union bosses over the last five years.

00:31:52.500 And we couldn't find a single example of a government union boss in Alberta being willing

00:31:58.680 to take a pay reduction over the last five plus years. Didn't see it. But we did see private sector

00:32:04.800 unions agree to pay cuts. Yeah, well, and the private sector is bound by reality. That makes it a whole

00:32:12.540 different world from the public sector. And even the union bosses realize that. Like, they know if they

00:32:19.080 pluck that golden goose too hard in the private sector, they will kill it. And the jobs will be

00:32:23.980 lost altogether. In the public sector, they don't feel that risk. But maybe it's time for our leaders

00:32:28.300 to phrase it that way. You know, say, look, you've got your two choices. We're going to lay off 10% of

00:32:32.640 the workforce. And you guys are going to figure out how to do it with a minus those people. Or we'll cut

00:32:37.540 your salaries by 4% and everybody keeps a job. But does any politician have the courage to get to take

00:32:42.280 them on like that? Yeah, I mean, I'll say two things to that. So first, that is actually the

00:32:47.680 strategy that we saw in Alberta, what was in 1994, the last broad based Alberta government pay cut,

00:32:53.440 where you had premier client at the time say, Hey, look, either you take 5% pay cuts, or we're going

00:32:59.740 to lay off that amount in employees, right? It's your, it's your decision. So put the onus on the union

00:33:05.920 bosses, do you prefer pay reductions? Or do you prefer job losses? And really, at the end of the day,

00:33:10.660 when you're looking at all this debt, when you're looking at all of the tough situation that our

00:33:15.400 governments are in, that is going to be the question. Do you want a relatively small pay cut?

00:33:20.860 Or do you want to wait till things get even worse? And you're forced to either take a huge pay cut,

00:33:25.880 or you're forced to lay off even more people. And that brings me to my next point, right? We have to

00:33:32.160 remember that these days where we can just escape making tough choices can't last forever.

00:33:38.240 Remember, in the late 80s, and into the early 90s, we had many provinces and the federal government keep

00:33:44.060 kicking the can down the road. And Cory, what happened? Well, eventually, they were forced to

00:33:50.120 make tough decisions, right? We talked about what happened in the 90s, with the Alberta government,

00:33:54.320 we remember what happened federally, in the 90s, with the finance minister, Paul Martin,

00:33:59.120 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, right, they were forced to make tough decisions. What about Saskatchewan in the

00:34:05.240 90s, when they were forced to close down more than 50 hospitals across their prairie province? So

00:34:11.780 either we make tough decisions now, or we're going to have even tougher decisions forced upon us

00:34:16.380 down the road. Well, absolutely. And the governments you're talking about, I mean, Romano was NDP.

00:34:22.080 It was a liberal government under Chrétien. I mean, there was just no choice. You had to make cuts,

00:34:27.360 you had to balance that budget. Part of what drove that, though, was the interest rates. Right now,

00:34:32.280 they're record low levels. And people, I think, have been fortunate, and it allows them to kick

00:34:36.720 that can down the road. But if we start seeing inflation, and we're seeing it already keep

00:34:41.280 cranking up like it does, the central bank's going to respond by raising interest rates. But that's,

00:34:47.420 you know, weenies like us who watch economics know that, but our general populace and voters don't

00:34:52.460 necessarily pay attention to that. I guess we got to let them know what's looming down the road.

00:34:56.700 Hey, Cory, let's get back to that discussion about the balanced budget, and how under the status quo,

00:35:01.960 we might not see a balanced budget federally until 2070. That's just to balance the budget.

00:35:07.940 That would be about 50 more years just to balance the budget. Well, remember, during that time,

00:35:13.320 we would be accumulating about $2.7 trillion in extra debt on top of the already $1 trillion

00:35:20.380 in federal debt that we already have. Right? So we're going to be accumulating trillions of dollars

00:35:25.760 in debt if we don't balance that federal budget by 2070. Which means not only do we have to balance

00:35:31.140 the budget, we also have to pay down the debt after that. And the parliamentary budget officer

00:35:36.660 says that it would take at least two decades after the budget is balanced to finally pay off the debt.

00:35:42.980 Right? So all of that is alarming. All of it is alarming. But here is the scary part.

00:35:49.540 The PBO assumes that the effective interest rate for federal government debt will eventually settle

00:35:55.460 in around 2.84%. Now that is a lower interest rate than the 90s up until 2014. Right? The PBO also assumes

00:36:07.380 that GDP, our economy, will continue to steadily grow. Well, Corey, what happens if Canada stumbles

00:36:14.500 into another downturn? What happens if interest rates spike higher than that? Right? I mean,

00:36:20.820 that would blow even bigger holes into federal government budgets. 0.55

00:36:26.500 Yeah, no, there's a lot of presumptions on even that 2070 number. And that's where it gets so

00:36:32.100 terrifying. But we have an opportunity this fall, hopefully. I mean, we just got to see that coming

00:36:36.900 out in the discussions. You know, nobody's talking about spending restraint. You're spending restraint,

00:36:41.940 I should say. The Conservatives are paying a bit of lip service to it. But as you said, it's a 10-year plan.

00:36:47.940 I hope you guys keep holding their feet to the fire on this as we get into campaign time this year.

00:36:53.060 Well, of course. I mean, we're going to keep raising awareness about, you know, just where we are in

00:36:58.500 terms of our government budgets and the mess that we're in. And I think, Corey, the most important

00:37:03.540 thing is for all Canadians, when we hear these huge spending announcements, which we have been hearing,

00:37:08.660 it seems like, what, spending announcement after spending announcement from the Trudeau government.

00:37:12.500 Well, we need Canadians, we need all taxpayers to ask a very simple but very serious question.

00:37:18.420 How are you going to pay for all that? Because the truth of the matter is, if these politicians

00:37:22.740 don't actually find ways to reduce spending, it's going to be us average Canadians who end up getting

00:37:27.060 clobbered with a higher tax bill.

00:37:30.180 Yeah, well, and with the older people, they really should take some responsibility.

00:37:33.620 If you think you can keep borrowing and not paying for it, well, you really are literally putting

00:37:36.900 it on the shoulders of your children, your grandchildren, or at the rate we're talking,

00:37:39.780 great-grandchildren, which I think is pretty irresponsible and selfish, to be honest.

00:37:44.660 Well, it is, yeah. It is completely unfair for future generations, because, I mean,

00:37:50.500 it's really going to be many, many political interest groups of today that are going to be

00:37:54.660 benefiting from all of this spending, right? But who's going to have to pay the tab? Well,

00:37:59.060 it's going to be taxpayers eventually, whether that's taxpayers today, taxpayers tomorrow,

00:38:03.620 or as I said, in which we've discussed, whether that's inflation that erodes the purchasing power

00:38:08.900 of all of our money. But the thing that we have to remember is that none of this government spending

00:38:13.860 is free. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The money to pay off this debt isn't going to be

00:38:18.420 falling from the sky. It's not going to be plucked from the trees. If they don't cut spending one way or

00:38:23.620 another, it's going to be coming from our pockets. And Corey, one last thing, you know, to end this rant,

00:38:29.700 I do have to say, yes, this is very gloomy, but those are just projections, right? There is nothing

00:38:36.740 that is actually stopping or preventing politicians from balancing the budget long before 2070,

00:38:43.940 other than just political spine and political will.

00:38:46.740 Yeah, well, I guess there's two ways we can deal with this. It's just a projection. It doesn't mean

00:38:52.500 we can't stop this before it gets here, but it's going to stop one way or another, whether we learn the

00:38:57.620 way the Greeks did, or we learn by getting ourselves under control before it comes to that 0.98

00:39:02.580 point. So I hope you guys keep up fighting the good fight out there in Ottawa. I still,

00:39:07.860 you know, my condolences on your having moved out there, though I imagine it's a promotion in the

00:39:11.460 sense of your career-wise. I still don't envy the spot you're in, but thanks. And I'm sure we'll be

00:39:17.540 talking more in the future as the campaign unfolds and you guys, you know, keep releasing the

00:39:23.380 numbers to let us know what's really going on out there. Well, hey, Corey, thanks so much for having

00:39:27.540 me on. I always really look forward to our conversations. Great. And actually, where can

00:39:31.460 we find more information on what you're working on and where things are going out there?

00:39:35.460 Well, the best place to find is at taxpayer.com. To keep up with everything that we're publishing,

00:39:41.940 op-eds, news releases, check out our newsroom at taxpayer.com. To look at some of the petitions and get

00:39:46.900 involved, please just check out the petition tab. And Corey, I know a lot of your listeners are in

00:39:52.100 Alberta. Well, we have launched the equalization referendum campaign for this October's

00:39:58.660 referendum. And you can find out all the information at fightequalization.ca.

00:40:04.660 Right on. Thanks, Franco. It's always good getting you on and I'm sure we'll be talking again soon.

00:40:09.140 Awesome. Thanks, Corey.

00:40:11.220 All right. So that's a bleak federal picture, but it was good to hear from Franco. I mean, 1.00

00:40:14.500 one thing he did point out, which is important, things are projections. They can change. You know,

00:40:19.460 if we wake up as an electorate, if our politicians wake up, if we get to work on things, if we face

00:40:24.500 some reality, it doesn't have to go till 2070 to get a balanced budget. We can do it sooner. In fact,

00:40:30.660 we probably will have to, but it might be due to a big crash. But we got to start talking about

00:40:34.900 making those tough decisions now. We can't keep kicking that can down the road. So I'm certain we'll be

00:40:39.620 checking in with him again soon. We got a new Alberta director of the Taxpayers Federation. I like those

00:40:43.780 guys because so many groups are always talking about more ways to spend on their causes, more

00:40:48.180 ways to make government bigger. The Taxpayers Federation is always looking at ways to make

00:40:51.620 it smaller. We don't have nearly enough groups who were working from that approach on government.

00:40:57.540 So to close things off again, if you haven't subscribed to the Western Standard already,

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00:42:17.540 good coffee. Our other sponsor, again, is firearmrights.ca. It's the Canadian Coalition for

00:42:24.420 Firearm Rights. So these guys are up. I was in politics in the 90s with the reform and everything.

00:42:29.460 We keep doing these battles over and over again. We had the groups back then, it was the law

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00:42:53.940 back on your behalf. They're taking the federal government to court. They're suing them on your

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Western Standard - July 27, 2021

The Cory Morgan Show - July 27, 2021

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