Western Standard - May 22, 2021


The Cory Morgan Show. May 21. Authors of "Life after COVID" & constitutional talk


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 48 minutes

Words per minute

175.93343

Word count

19,112

Sentence count

717

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:01:30.000 Thank you.
00:02:00.000 Thank you.
00:02:30.000 good morning welcome to the cory morgan show for this friday may 21st last one before the
00:02:43.520 may long weekend we can tell it's the may long weekend because there's snow on our lawns this
00:02:47.680 morning that global warming is really doing something else but you know a snowy long weekend
00:02:52.260 doesn't really mean that much anyways when we're not allowed to do anything so i guess if we're
00:02:56.600 going to sit around our homes, it would be twice as painful to look outside and see beautiful
00:03:01.600 spring weather during this weekend. This way we can look outside and say, ah, it was miserable
00:03:06.580 anyways. Very, very cold comfort in that case. I got a great show today. I got, there's a new book
00:03:12.840 that's been put out. It's an ebook. It's free. It's called Life After COVID. I'll go into details
00:03:17.440 and where to find it, or perhaps if you Google it out. It was a collaborative effort between a whole
00:03:21.960 number of authors including the justice center for uh constitutional freedoms you know john carpe
00:03:27.400 has been doing a lot of the the great work uh helping people who've been charged with covid
00:03:31.780 restrictions uh franco terrazzano and aaron woodrick of the canadian taxpayers federation
00:03:36.560 contributed we've got crystal with a vangal i'm just slaughtering her name but she's from the
00:03:42.720 montreal economic institute and they wrote on what we got to do with our health care to uh
00:03:47.620 recover from this. I mean, we've really seen some challenges and shortcomings with our health
00:03:52.340 system throughout this. SecondStreet.org, Colin Craig contributed. He's been on the show before.
00:03:57.720 He was always great to chat with. He won't be on today, but he's one of the authors.
00:04:01.200 Anthony Fury was also a part of this collaborative effort. So it's quite a book. And, you know,
00:04:06.360 we really do need to start talking about what's going to happen the day after this nightmare ends,
00:04:10.780 whatever that might be, because we were too busy being reactive and looking at our immediate
00:04:16.100 circumstances and we aren't looking further beyond. And if we don't start planning now,
00:04:20.640 we're going to see even more challenges and problems coming farther along. After that,
00:04:26.460 I'm going to have Derek Fromm on. He's a lawyer who's worked a fair amount on constitutional
00:04:30.700 issues. Just want to talk again about this apparent right that Quebec now has to amend
00:04:35.580 our constitution unilaterally. It's really almost kind of bizarre. There's just so many levels of
00:04:41.380 oddness in this, and apparently Justin Trudeau and Aaron O'Toole are both fine with this.
00:04:46.900 I'd just like to break that down a little bit. How does that work? Do we actually have a
00:04:50.160 constitutional amendment formula? And people are saying, well, because Quebec never signed,
00:04:53.360 they can amend it. Well, if they didn't sign, are they a part of it? It's just a mess.
00:04:57.760 But as usual, we pander to Quebec and their every whim and wish, and we'll let them, I guess, 0.98
00:05:03.120 set the rules as we go forward. But a question a lot of people are asking is if Quebec can do it,
00:05:07.260 well, why can't Alberta? And I think that's a very valid and good question. So today's show,
00:05:14.560 by the way, we do have a sponsor here. It was brought to us by the Canadian Coalition for
00:05:21.000 Firearms Rights. One of these acronyms I like tripping myself up on. There's so many with the
00:05:25.500 JCCF and now this is the CCFR, the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights. Nobody works as
00:05:30.620 hard as a CCFR for your ability to use and own firearms. Check out what the CCFR is doing by
00:05:37.080 going to firearms, in plural, rights.ca and click Y join us. I don't want to spell that out
00:05:46.080 incorrectly and send people in the wrong direction, but they've been sponsoring us.
00:05:49.440 They're doing great work. They're looking after your property rights. Again, so many rights are
00:05:53.360 a threat and at risk these days. That's one of them, your ability to own property and to utilize
00:05:59.800 and enjoy it. So be sure to give them a look. Okay. I'll just go over a few more things to
00:06:05.700 get things warmed up. Where are we here? I see my overlays. All right. Well, so I'm having overlay
00:06:17.380 issues, but we have been having a provincially, let's talk about with Jason Kennedy, the UCP
00:06:23.320 government. They cheekily called it weekly leaks. We're basically getting live streaming and have
00:06:30.680 been from the caucus meetings of the UCP. You know, this is part of a bigger thing is people
00:06:39.220 are getting frustrated without doubt. And I'm certain that a number of staffers and the premier
00:06:44.080 are out for blood right now. I mean, they can't get privacy within their caucus meetings. Jason
00:06:48.700 Kenny kicked two people out of caucus, you know, last week, as we all know, I had them on Monday's
00:06:52.900 show. And still, whenever he holds a caucus meeting, the Western Standard is getting info
00:06:58.040 in real time as the meeting progresses, which makes it difficult for them to plan when they're
00:07:02.660 all afraid to speak. You know, I'm kind of mixed on this. I mean, it's an indication that definitely
00:07:10.180 of how dysfunctional caucus is right now. And there's a lack of loyalty. There's a lack of
00:07:15.960 comfort right now in the UCP. You know, they can eject all the members they want. The remaining
00:07:21.320 members are obviously discontent, a number of them, and they're leaking inside information
00:07:25.020 as fast as it comes out. Jason Kenney just has so many problems going on right now. And
00:07:30.660 unfortunately, this is yet another one of them. I, you know, we report on things, we expose them,
00:07:38.620 and it's great. I don't, they've got to get it under control, though. I mean, this isn't good
00:07:44.320 necessarily as we see it, because we don't need caucus members afraid to speak because it's going
00:07:48.480 to appear online so shortly afterwards. But then again, that lands on the leadership that lands on
00:07:54.380 Jason Kenney that lands on that tight premier's office that apparently really shuts out the other
00:08:01.060 participants in caucus. I mean, that's part of what leaves them frustrated, leaves them
00:08:04.660 doing things like leaking information and stuff from caucus meetings as fast as it comes out.
00:08:11.220 So keep an eye on it though. I mean, we basically are the fly on the wall of the United Conservative
00:08:17.820 Party caucus meetings and activities and actions. Getting bouncing around a bit here. Let's go
00:08:24.360 a federal here's something that's been sliding under the radar a lot this is bill c19 uh speaking
00:08:30.040 of rights that we're setting aside and risks we're taking uh in response to the pandemic
00:08:35.400 that c19 has a bunch of measures uh that would be implemented in the case of an election held
00:08:42.280 during the pandemic now i do think in a sense it's responsible to have a plan i mean maybe things
00:08:47.880 will still be raging and crazy well the election could be called tomorrow for all we know it's
00:08:52.360 it's pretty unlikely. But even if it's this fall, if things aren't under control and an election
00:08:56.800 does hit, we need some sort of plan. We can't have people not coming out to vote because they're
00:09:01.180 afraid to for infection risks or things such as that. But it's looking more and more unlikely
00:09:07.100 that it's going to be a big problem. I mean, the infections in general are going down. Vaccines
00:09:12.220 are going out. It appears to be effective. Hospitalizations are going down. So if we're
00:09:17.660 looking at a fall election, chances are we shouldn't bring any of this in. But we have to
00:09:22.540 watch for this. And one of the big things with this is really adding to the ease of mail-in ballots.
00:09:27.240 And in looking at the gong show south of the border with the mail-in ballots over the
00:09:33.020 election, I mean, it slows the counting. It lends a pile of credence to conspiracy theories.
00:09:39.960 Yeah, there's room for abuse. I don't think typically with mail-in ballots, they've always
00:09:44.740 been there is special ballots. It's just that they want to ease it a lot. And I don't think
00:09:48.820 they would be abused to a point where it would actually impact the election. But that's just
00:09:53.440 speculation on my part. But what it would do is undercut trust. I mean, people who don't like the
00:09:58.840 election outcome will point to the mail-in ballots and say that that's what changed it. That's what
00:10:03.320 caused the problems. We've got a whole pile and layer on layer of distrust with government right
00:10:08.680 now as it is. And I don't think it'd be really wise dipping into freaking everybody over mail-in
00:10:15.360 ballots. Another thing it adds is giving a three-day election period rather than a single day
00:10:22.040 for people to come in and vote. Assuming it's run responsibly, but that's a big ask of the
00:10:27.200 government. I guess that isn't necessarily a problem. Those who really want to come out will
00:10:32.160 come out and vote. I mean, to stand in line and vote is really no more dangerous than standing
00:10:37.360 in line in Walmart or Costco these days. But the crazed inconsistency of our restrictions or rules
00:10:44.140 and our laws, it does make it difficult to know what's considered safe or acceptable day by day.
00:10:50.580 We saw that with the government responses with drive-in movies where they burned. I mean,
00:10:57.000 they shut down drive-in movies all over Alberta until the Soutina First Nation said, no, we're
00:11:03.280 going to hold ours. Whether you like it or not, what are you going to do about it? And then the
00:11:06.900 government suddenly backed off and said, you know what, we're going to allow drive-ins because they 0.77
00:11:10.000 would much rather back off on their own policy than get into a scrap with First Nations right
00:11:15.980 now. I understand that from the sake of the government's self-preservation instinct, but
00:11:20.640 then it starts to make you question, well, was there ever a health basis then for banning these?
00:11:26.820 Or are you actually putting us at more risk because you're afraid of getting into a pitched 0.92
00:11:31.720 battle with First Nations. You know, both answers are pretty ugly here, guys. So political optics
00:11:37.780 are actually more important than the actual health aspect of it. I mean, I think most of us know
00:11:41.940 it was stupid to ban the drive-ins in the first place. I mean, this was a move of a some pointy
00:11:48.360 headed bureaucrat who thought they had a bright idea. You know, it's no worse to sit in your car
00:11:53.720 waiting for a red light than to sit in your vehicle and watch a movie. But some clown and,
00:12:00.020 the government thought that it would be a good idea to ban these. But again, these things just
00:12:05.380 keep eroding our trust. I mean, we're wondering how arbitrary are the health measures? Each and
00:12:09.640 every one of them, you start questioning, well, is this just something they came about with a whim
00:12:13.960 or not? And again, questions of whether the government's in control of itself or not. I
00:12:18.840 wrote a column on that recently with the brilliant idea of using drones to spy on people
00:12:25.860 while they're camping, uh, in, in, in provincial parks and government areas. That really was an
00:12:32.400 idea. Some nitwit really thought that we should get drones and have them fly out. And it laid out
00:12:39.260 the whole description of what they're going to look for. You know, we've got to make sure there's
00:12:41.540 not more than 10 people gathered in a spot and things like that. You can't even escape
00:12:46.400 to go out camping without potentially having a drone hover over your campsite and having some
00:12:52.100 dork in a car doing a headcount and how many people you got sitting around the campfire
00:12:55.660 so you could be fined down the road. It's insane. And of course, the government backed down on that
00:13:00.680 as soon as that got exposed. I don't think they backed down because it's a bad idea. They backed
00:13:05.420 down because they realized they stepped in it. But again, who's in control? Who's running these
00:13:11.660 things? What are you guys thinking? I mean, have you read 1984? Do you remember the, you know,
00:13:17.040 the big brother is watching you thing. The reason it was considered so odious, because people don't
00:13:22.560 want to be walked around, don't want to walk around and be watched by state officials and
00:13:27.600 government at all times. It's just not tolerable. So the drone idea went down. But again, you know,
00:13:36.660 why did they even try it in the first place? You guys are just nuts, I swear. The government is
00:13:43.020 just out of control. They can't seem to figure out if they're coming or going. They've reversed
00:13:47.360 on more policies than they've implemented, but they seem to be churning out more foolish ones,
00:13:51.100 you know, as fast as they can get burned and get rid of the old ones. So again, I mean, people can,
00:13:58.340 it's debatable on vaccines and such. I'm not going to get into that discussion. The bottom line is
00:14:04.180 the infections are going down. Hospitalizations are flatlined. Our system's not being overwhelmed.
00:14:09.660 we are moving towards the end of this pandemic nightmare. I mean, it's still going to drag on.
00:14:15.840 The thing that gives me fear is the zero risk cult. And I swear they are a cult. There are
00:14:20.440 people who will fight the relaxation of every restriction, no matter what we do. I mean,
00:14:26.020 we're seeing it in the States. Everything is always premature in their minds. Well,
00:14:29.960 let's bear in mind, they went crazy when Texas opened. Like crazy. That was months ago. Oh my
00:14:34.840 God. Even Stephen King was online. There's an authority on health. And he was talking about
00:14:38.760 how Texas was being irresponsible. You know, Gavin out in California was saying Texas was
00:14:43.460 being irresponsible. Well, guess what? Their infections went down, their deaths went down,
00:14:46.440 they're perfectly fine. Now, 14% of them had had a single vaccination at that point. That's it.
00:14:52.540 Alberta's over 50% vaccinated at that first vaccination point right now. So again, don't
00:14:58.900 just keep pointing at vaccinations as an excuse not to open. I mean, again, it shows that the
00:15:04.380 restrictions have a very limited impact on the actual infection rates, regardless of what some
00:15:10.980 people seem to think. We can't legislate the bug away. We're trying, and we're certainly hurting
00:15:15.240 ourselves and trying. So, I mean, I'm seeing that with this weekend in Banff, where they're down to
00:15:20.000 12 cases. Banff's my hometown. I grew up there. I was a very fortunate kid. I got to grow up in
00:15:24.860 the mountains. Had a great time, finished at Banff Community High School. And the Banff mayor right
00:15:31.140 now Karen Sorensen has gone on. So we've got the May long weekend coming up. Banff has been just
00:15:36.740 completely decimated by restrictions this last year and a half. I mean, they're just
00:15:41.040 total. I mean, it's pure hospitality and service industry. And they've been shut down
00:15:45.780 repeatedly over and over again. The restaurants are hurting. The bars are hurting. Everything is
00:15:51.460 in disarray. And the mayor of Banff gets up and says, well, yes, we've only got 12 cases out of
00:15:55.720 the 8,000 people here, but we want to recommend that nobody come to Banff this weekend. That's
00:16:00.200 what the mayor is doing. I can't imagine how it must feel to be a business owner hoping to get a
00:16:05.520 little bit of a boost to pay some of your lease rates, pay some of your taxes this weekend, this
00:16:09.060 May long weekend, particularly since the weather's crap. So at least there'd be some shoppers coming
00:16:13.520 out, possibly, you know, helping you survive. And the mayor gets up and says, because we've got 12
00:16:18.560 out of 8,000 people have COVID, we are recommending nobody come to our town this weekend. It's insane.
00:16:25.220 They have really brought it to the zero risk point. She will not back down unless there is
00:16:29.600 not a single known case in that town. And when you get people like that, what's going to happen
00:16:33.740 the next time a bug comes down the road? The next time a more active than another flu comes out? I
00:16:38.960 mean, we've got to start pushing back. I mean, reopening is not a given. There are people who
00:16:45.100 like this level of control and we won't get out of it until we push these people aside and our work
00:16:50.580 is cut out for us. Either way, enough bitching out of me. I'll get on to some people who have 0.95
00:16:54.120 been putting out some more proactive stuff. As I said at the start of the show, this has been an
00:16:59.320 ebook, a free one called Life After COVID. It's a collaboration with a number of contributors on
00:17:04.400 a number of levels. And I'm really happy to see some proactive work being done because we do have
00:17:09.180 to start planning now on how we are going to dig ourselves out of the mire we brought in. So I'll
00:17:16.400 bring everybody into the stream here. I've got three guests who were co-authors in this book here.
00:17:22.000 Uh, so, uh, let me see here.
00:17:25.840 I will start with Crystal Whittever-Ungel.
00:17:31.040 I'm sorry.
00:17:31.400 I think I just slaughtered it when I, when I opened up there, but if you
00:17:34.000 can correct me, I'm more than happy to get your name correctly with the
00:17:36.840 Montreal Economic Institute.
00:17:38.640 You did a great job actually, Corey.
00:17:40.240 That was quite perfect.
00:17:42.200 Okay.
00:17:42.880 Thanks.
00:17:43.480 I'll just still keep sticking to crystal from here on in, but thank you
00:17:46.480 very much for joining me today.
00:17:48.240 and we have uh franco terrazzano of the canadian taxpayers federation and i believe you were
00:17:54.240 working with aaron woodrick on this collaboration as well franco yeah that's right we were i was
00:17:58.720 working with our former federal director aaron uh to get our chapter on what the government
00:18:03.120 can do to tackle this huge debt problem it has yes and i know you're the new federal director
00:18:09.200 now i believe yeah that's right we've got jay cameron from the justice center for constitutional
00:18:15.440 freedoms. I remember you were on with Danielle during one of our shows and the specials in the
00:18:19.960 past, and you guys have been working, well, busier than all get out because our constitutional
00:18:23.920 freedoms are in a whole lot of trouble right now. So thank you very much for joining me today.
00:18:28.740 My pleasure.
00:18:30.340 So maybe I'll just kind of start and get back to Franco quickly, just to kind of lay out,
00:18:35.800 perhaps, Franco, what this book is, what it's going into and who's behind it. And then we'll
00:18:40.180 just kind of move along through folks and see what you guys have put forward here.
00:18:43.800 Well, Corey, first, thanks so much for having us on. We really appreciate the ability to kind of get this important message out. So the ebook, it's free, and it's available on our websites. Taxpayer.com is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation one. So it's called Life After COVID. And really, the focus is how can governments tackle some of these huge obstacles that we're facing after COVID-19, right?
00:19:04.760 So many of the big problems are our government finances are absolutely in the dumps.
00:19:09.680 We've had so many people who have lost their jobs, so many businesses whose life savings have just evaporated before their very eyes.
00:19:17.620 So many Canadians are also rightly concerned about our health care system and obviously all of the legal issues that are at play here.
00:19:24.700 So we decided, our groups, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Montreal Economic Institute, the JCCF, we have the Canadian Constitution Foundation, SecondStreet.org, and also post-media columnist Anthony Fury.
00:19:38.020 We all got together and we figured out, well, how can we address some of these huge issues moving forward without calling for more government spending, without calling for more government debt and government borrowing?
00:19:48.800 so this book is kind of a collaboration we all come together to solve some of the big issues
00:19:53.360 but really in a taxpayer friendly way great well i'll start moving around here one area that
00:20:01.280 we haven't heard nearly enough about and is from our health care system i think something that's
00:20:04.960 really been exposed is just how vulnerable we are in our current system as it's laid out i mean
00:20:09.520 a lot of people are asking well if these these icu numbers and these hospitalization numbers is
00:20:13.760 a relative part of our population are so low, why does it sound like we're always on the brink of
00:20:19.200 being overwhelmed? I mean, how bad was our system to begin with? So Crystal, you've written a large
00:20:24.880 portion of the book on what we need to do with our health system in light of all of this. Can
00:20:29.280 you expand a bit on that? Absolutely. So for years we've been underperforming. This isn't new. This
00:20:37.360 is something that has existed. What COVID-19 has really done has magnified some of these
00:20:43.360 insufficiencies in the current system what we've dealt with has been massive capacity issues so
00:20:49.520 wait times for medically necessary surgeries we've been dealing with those for years those are huge
00:20:54.160 problems hospitals are constantly overcrowded this is not a new issue this is this is something that
00:20:59.760 we've been dealing with and throwing more money at and so through the years governments have been
00:21:06.800 dumping money into these systems um both canada-wide as a percent of gdp and provincial
00:21:13.280 governments as a percentage of provincial budgets and so we have to come to the point where we ask
00:21:19.200 okay well why do we still have these massive capacity issues with all of this extra funding
00:21:25.120 people are starting to wake up to this uh we commissioned a poll through ipsos back in november
00:21:31.120 where 53% of Canadians had said that over the past decade, the money that's been injected
00:21:36.720 into the system, they don't see it having any impact or they feel that the system is actually
00:21:41.360 worse. So people are starting to wise up to this. And what COVID did was, like I said,
00:21:46.160 it really just magnified some of these issues. Yeah, absolutely. So getting onto the solution
00:21:54.160 end though, which gets much more sticky because I mean, Canada, we've really turned our whole
00:21:57.920 health institutions into a sacred cow. I mean, the only politically acceptable solution to any
00:22:02.880 problems is to throw more money at. As you said, we've been doing that at a great pace for some
00:22:07.640 years now, and it doesn't seem to be improving things. So what do we need to do with our system
00:22:12.580 going forward once this pandemic starts to ease off? Well, moving forward, there are a few reform
00:22:19.480 options that would really inject some of that capacity without having to call on additional
00:22:24.920 funds from taxpayers or from governments and so one of the ways to do this is currently hospitals
00:22:32.360 are budgeted on global budgets which means they're funded based on previous years volume of patients
00:22:39.400 and services so there's really no incentive there to innovate or do things better because it's not
00:22:45.400 based on current numbers or current trends switching to something like activity-based
00:22:49.800 funding where they are funded based on the actual number of patients and services being rendered
00:22:55.560 would tie things a little closer to the actual patient as well as you know open up the door for
00:23:02.280 a little bit more efficiency to be injected into the way things are being done additionally we see 0.98
00:23:08.280 that restrictive licensing of nurses and physicians for example or sorry nurses and pharmacists they
00:23:16.040 are highly educated they are highly trained in a lot of countries they actually have a broader
00:23:22.280 scope of practice where they're able to diagnose and prescribe for minor ailments and so we can see
00:23:28.680 in our current vaccination campaign just how useful this would be to be able to mobilize these
00:23:34.440 personnel um another reform option would be to allow entrepreneurs to begin to provide some of
00:23:42.920 the publicly funded services so this would just unlock a whole bunch of resources overnight
00:23:49.640 from the private sector um what we see with this is that also canadians are getting more
00:23:55.480 aligned with this way of thinking in that same poll 63 percent of canadians had said
00:24:01.480 that if the services were still funded under our universal medicare system they're open to
00:24:07.080 the idea of entrepreneurs being involved so the thought of of not offloading some of this
00:24:13.400 onto entrepreneurs who are willing to pick up that slack is ludicrous really these options
00:24:19.000 exist and they're they're very easily mobilized great well i'm glad to see people starting to
00:24:25.160 think outside the box a little and and getting so i'll kind of pivot back to franco for a moment then
00:24:30.760 because we got the financial aspect no matter what we do and getting more efficiencies in
00:24:34.120 health is fantastic but we still have to pay for it and we are still very low on money so
00:24:40.360 uh from the fiscal end where you guys were uh writing and digging in as well as i think calling
00:24:45.720 craig uh what uh proposals have you got going ahead here for post-covid well corey uh first i
00:24:52.520 just want to add that crystal's chapter on on health care reform i mean it really made something
00:24:57.000 completely obvious to to me and that was that more tax dollars isn't the answer here right
00:25:01.720 And, you know, this is something that we're all we know all too well here in Alberta, where we are one of the biggest per person spenders in all of Canada when it comes to health care.
00:25:10.680 And we don't get the best results.
00:25:11.820 So clearly more taxpayers at this government health care system isn't the answer.
00:25:16.220 We should be looking to more entrepreneurs to be helping in the health care system.
00:25:19.980 We saw that done in Saskatchewan, right, where you had publicly funded, but you had private clinics deliver some of the the day operations and it's significantly reduced costs.
00:25:30.380 And that is what the government is trying to do here, little by little.
00:25:34.700 You know, one of the big issues in Alberta is over who should be pouring the coffee, who should be doing the laundry in in in hospitals.
00:25:42.620 And certainly we don't need government government employees to be doing that.
00:25:46.260 Of course, the private sector could help share the burden there.
00:25:50.100 Another thing I just want to point out in health care is that, well, we've seen all over the world where there's industrialized countries who allow their entrepreneurs and businesses to play a bigger part in delivering health care services.
00:26:03.640 Now, when we look at the bigger picture of government debt, it's one thing is clear is that we have so many governments across the country who are up in their eyeballs in debt.
00:26:12.520 The federal government just released its budget and within a few short years, it is going to be doubling, doubling the pre-pandemic debt.
00:26:21.400 And the first, before we can really provide solutions, it's important to understand why we're in this big mess.
00:26:28.560 And I think, Corey, to you and to most of your viewers here, it's going to come as no surprise that a big reason we're in this huge debt problem is because of the overspending.
00:26:36.720 the overspending that is occurring now and the overspending that has occurred for years and
00:26:40.880 years across governments in canada okay well so where i know this is a big question for you where
00:26:49.760 do we start cutting uh we've covered this in some other chats that's the hardest part though that's
00:26:54.000 where you know that the usual suspects are gonna light their hair on fire uh where do we go to get
00:26:58.560 that spending under control okay yeah i mean fantastic question i mean first we we have to
00:27:03.360 understand that there is areas to actually find savings and there was a significant areas before
00:27:08.320 COVID-19 right so even just talking about non-COVID-19 budget items well we were running
00:27:14.640 massive deficits before 2019 and that's when the federal government was spending at all-time highs
00:27:21.040 so clearly there's a room for cuts now specifics well you got to start at the top right you have
00:27:26.720 to start with politicians you've got to start with our members of parliament who by the way
00:27:30.720 have received not one but two pay raises during COVID-19 while so many people have taken huge
00:27:36.480 cuts while so many and I should say private sector people have taken huge cuts while so many people
00:27:41.600 have lost their job and while so many businesses have have shut down we've still seen our members
00:27:46.240 of parliament take pay raises now the big area excuse me for governments is the bureaucrats
00:27:52.880 right in Alberta more than half of the Alberta government's operating budget goes to bureaucrats
00:27:58.160 And we've talked about this before, but thousands of provincial government bureaucrats saw pay raises.
00:28:04.320 At the federal level, they have no records of their unionized employees ever taking a pay cut.
00:28:10.100 So clearly, we need our government bureaucrats to share in the burden.
00:28:13.840 And a third option is you got to cut the corporate welfare.
00:28:16.800 One, it's a bad way to grow the economy.
00:28:18.800 We don't need politicians picking winners and losers, right?
00:28:21.520 When you let politicians pick which businesses should succeed, you might as well just send them to the casino because they have absolutely no incentive to get it right. 0.88
00:28:31.500 So the corporate welfare needs to be cut.
00:28:34.040 And instead of using that to grow the economy or try to grow the economy, politicians should just be lowering taxes and letting us keep more of our own money in our own pockets.
00:28:43.320 Yeah, that would be a refreshing change.
00:28:45.220 I think we do know how to manage our own money.
00:28:46.680 And with times like today, we've been forced to most of us outside of the public sector have really had to learn how to manage our finances more carefully than ever.
00:28:55.640 I'll come over now to getting to managing our rights, which is another tremendous and difficult area.
00:29:03.660 So, Jay, you wrote the portion on circumventing our democratic institutions.
00:29:08.140 Like we've stepped on so many different types of rights and abilities over the course of this pandemic and using it to justify.
00:29:17.260 But we do know that when the state takes control, they don't care to relinquish it very easily.
00:29:22.560 And I think a lot of us don't feel terribly confident that they're going to let go on a lot of these things, even once the pandemic passes, or at least it sets a precedent where they can step on these very quickly and very easily with little justification.
00:29:34.260 So can you explain a little on what you wrote on there?
00:29:37.120 Sure. So Canada is supposed to be a free and democratic society. And right now, Canada is neither free, nor is it democratic. And so really, there has been a coup to overthrow the Constitution. You have power delegated to health officials and cabinet ministers, and no democratic accountability.
00:29:58.260 So the reason you have democracy is so that you have representative government, you have the representatives of people deciding and debating and amending the laws that govern those people.
00:30:10.900 And right now that's not happening at all. When was the last time you heard a legislature debate the health orders? It hasn't happened.
00:30:18.080 The reason it hasn't happened is because power has been delegated to health dictators, which is what they have become, and they are not democratically accountable.
00:30:28.600 They are not required to provide the science to the legislature.
00:30:31.440 There is no requirement for them to provide any reviews of the data or developing information out there in the medical and scientific community.
00:30:40.940 And there's no requirement for the legislatures to debate and review that material.
00:30:45.980 The legislatures are not doctors.
00:30:48.080 So you have one doctor who is making laws for millions of people, and the legislature is not
00:30:53.280 involved at all. And so that is the essence of a dictatorship. And that is what is going on in
00:30:57.900 Canada. So that's, that's the first problem. The second problem is, is that politicians have a
00:31:02.420 twisted, and of course, it's very self-serving. They have a very twisted definition of the rule
00:31:07.620 of law. We heard Jason Kenney in Alberta just a couple nights ago say, well, everybody is subject
00:31:13.120 to the rule of law. That's true. Everybody has to follow the law. That's true. Nobody's exempt.
00:31:19.580 That's also true. Not even premiers. That's true. And then he says the health orders are the law,
00:31:23.460 therefore you have to follow them because that's what the rule of law says. I think not. That's
00:31:27.840 not how the rule of law works at all. Now, health orders are sort of laws. They are kind of laws,
00:31:33.740 but they're basically peon laws compared to the constitution, which is the supreme law of Canada.
00:31:38.180 and the supreme law of canada says that you have fundamental rights and freedoms and and the reason
00:31:43.500 it does that is to protect society from would-be dictators like some of the premiers in the country
00:31:48.260 and the health officials and you know who don't consider constitutional rights at all in their
00:31:52.340 analysis they don't think about domestic tranquility or commerce commerce and trade or
00:31:57.080 or uh you know uh civil liberties right they're only concerned about one thing and nobody's allowed
00:32:03.100 to have a second opinion and that's why canada is fundamentally broken right now and so the the
00:32:07.860 chapter in the book is about those issues yeah it has been distressing and it's it's funny we've
00:32:13.900 seen that used in province after province we see leaders actually kind of playing ping pong with
00:32:18.940 uh if they're putting something out you know at times the premier will say well it's my authority
00:32:23.640 to do this and at other times no no we're doing this because our chief medical officer said to do
00:32:28.340 this but it's sort of a way that they can just keep bouncing back and forth on legislation or
00:32:32.960 rules and laws, and it really confuses a lot of us on who's really running things and who's
00:32:38.160 in charge.
00:32:39.160 Yeah, these people are politicians, and you can never forget that when you analyze what
00:32:43.020 they're doing.
00:32:44.300 And the medical officers of health are a very convenient buffer, a scapegoat, if you will,
00:32:49.480 between the politicians who are accountable to the electorate and the health officials
00:32:54.120 who are not.
00:32:55.180 And so, of course, when anything unpopular happens, it's easy to point the finger at
00:32:59.240 the doctor and tell the public, well, it's not my fault.
00:33:01.920 doctor said we have to shut your your uh your churches down and close your businesses and
00:33:06.640 prevent you from working out and you know by the way have as much liquor as you want because that's
00:33:11.440 all that's open um you know it's the doctor that did that it's not me right don't hold me accountable
00:33:16.960 and that's what i mean that's what people like jason kenny are doing yeah it's been frustrating
00:33:22.560 to watch kenny and others so we'll get back to health care um on that so i mean we've got such
00:33:29.520 a large and difficult institution to work with uh something franco had pointed out too is you know
00:33:34.800 we're fighting over who's providing laundry and such and i mean in looking at other models um
00:33:40.560 you know european models things such as that we have a great deal more private provision of care
00:33:45.760 even under universal systems but one of the big uh things holding it back tends to be uh public
00:33:52.240 service unions uh how can we deal with organized labor and make people feel comfortable with health
00:33:58.400 reforms uh you know without getting into a giant general strike i guess you know that's a really
00:34:07.120 really great question and i don't think i have the answer for it um i think that we we need the public
00:34:15.200 to really understand and and i mean as i mentioned we're starting to get there where people are
00:34:19.760 starting to not equate private with america which is the big problem you hear any sort of private
00:34:25.280 provision and people immediately think of you know people dying in hallways in the states and that's
00:34:30.560 not at all what we're talking about here and like you had just mentioned um tons of countries
00:34:36.640 OECD countries in Europe are providing a mix of public and private care under their universal
00:34:42.800 systems and so getting people aligned in this thinking and realizing that okay this isn't
00:34:48.080 America can start to help you know with that public discourse but as for the unions themselves
00:34:54.240 I don't have an answer for that. And I'm hoping that with more public involvement and more public
00:35:00.000 acceptance of some of these ideas of reform, especially when they see the massive savings
00:35:04.160 that can result and the increased efficiency in the system and better levels of care,
00:35:09.360 that they'll get on board and then the unions will have to follow suit on some level,
00:35:14.000 is what I'm hoping for. Sure, yeah, I threw a bit of an organized labor curveball at you there,
00:35:19.680 but you know just it's a given that they will be the the most vocal uh in in trying to avoid
00:35:25.680 change uh and as you you rightly said though i mean if if enough of the public are on board with
00:35:30.800 the changes uh the labor will follow uh if only grudgingly um and yeah that that frustration
00:35:38.080 that people act as if again the defenders of our current system as if there's only two systems on
00:35:41.520 the planet the canadian one and the american one and ours is perfect and theirs is hell on earth
00:35:46.080 And, you know, I guess in helping educate public that universal care doesn't mean it has to be
00:35:53.360 universally provided by, you know, the state. I mean, there's many provision options out there.
00:35:59.920 Absolutely. And what we see in Europe is great efficiency when there comes a mix of the two.
00:36:06.080 So in France, for example, there are some hospitals that are privately managed,
00:36:12.240 but they are still publicly funded hospitals they tend to do better they compete better we forget
00:36:18.080 that healthcare is in itself a sort of business where if you're doing better and you are better
00:36:25.040 quality you will increase your your customer base so for a hospital you want to provide the best
00:36:31.600 care that you can and if you're then associated with budgets that reward you reward in the sense
00:36:37.680 of you know based on your activity rather than previous years funding it just makes sense they
00:36:44.720 just kind of go hand in hand and we see this in all over europe um also in some of those systems
00:36:51.360 are the ability for doctors to practice in both the public and a private sphere whereas in canada
00:36:58.720 especially here in alberta this is prohibited um and so it really makes them have to decide
00:37:05.360 one way or the other. Whereas in Europe, there's a little bit more flexibility and these systems
00:37:09.680 tend to do better. They have better outcomes, lower wait times, they cost less and they also
00:37:16.560 have more medical equipment and innovations. So like you said, there's more than two systems.
00:37:23.680 Yeah. Well, in capacity has been an issue and as well, I think diversity of care.
00:37:27.840 One of the things that people forget is that mental health is a part of health care and
00:37:32.320 And, you know, pharmaceuticals are a large part of our health care, and neither of those are covered in our universal system.
00:37:36.780 So we may get some of the best care on earth once we get through the waiting line into our facilities,
00:37:42.080 but find out that we can't afford the medications they've prescribed or perhaps the therapy that one might need if they've got other challenges.
00:37:49.860 We're certainly seeing a lot of mental health stresses and challenges throughout the course of this pandemic right now.
00:37:55.340 Absolutely. And they're only expected to increase along with a bunch of other conditions.
00:38:00.020 I mean, we've seen with lung, renal, cardiac and neurologic conditions that are complications of COVID, we're expecting to see massive, massive costs associated with that down the line, just related to the virus itself.
00:38:15.280 in addition to these extra costs that are coming on with COVID-19.
00:38:20.100 So we're piling that on top of our already backlogged systems.
00:38:25.160 We have to make up for over 350,000 postponed surgeries
00:38:29.640 that have come up over the course of COVID
00:38:31.740 or been slogged off over the course of COVID rather.
00:38:35.380 And so where is this going to come from?
00:38:37.400 You know, people are always screaming about
00:38:40.360 there needs to be more and better, but where is it coming from?
00:38:44.180 it doesn't materialize out of thin air, which is why we need to do something different and do
00:38:47.880 something better. Absolutely. Well, and we've got a lot of, you know, smart, motivated individuals
00:38:53.820 out there who, you know, and ambitious, if just given the opportunity, they will do things for
00:38:59.480 the betterment of us. But, you know, individuals are people that apparently are not valued in
00:39:04.620 society these days, particularly if they differ from the conventional wisdom on lockdowns and
00:39:10.500 rules and regulations and where we're sitting just getting back to that rule of law uh jay you know
00:39:16.260 like so we were talking about movement innovation business uh right now everything is so strangled
00:39:22.260 like how can we open ourselves up i mean health care business just in general like we were in
00:39:27.940 such a quagmire right now where do we begin to dig ourselves out here well there's a couple things
00:39:34.260 that have to happen number one politicians need to start having some integrity and recognizing
00:39:39.220 that their power is not unlimited and that they are constrained by the constitution and the checks
00:39:43.960 and balances on their use of power. The constitution establishes two lawmaking central
00:39:51.920 bodies by which laws are made, parliament and the legislatures, and they're both democratic
00:39:56.460 institutions. And so in order for things to return to proper functionality, things need to be debated
00:40:04.660 and reviewed in the legislatures and politicians who are at the top of the totem pole need to stop
00:40:11.180 hogging the power and trying to centralize power within their cabinet, which is a very tempting
00:40:15.980 thing to do, but it's not constitutional. The other thing that has to happen is that
00:40:21.320 you have to have accountability in the courts because governments are out of line. They're
00:40:27.460 not just a little bit out of line, they're way out of line. And they are exercising arbitrary power
00:40:33.960 in the textbook definition of what an autocratic or an authoritarian society looks like.
00:40:42.280 And when judges see that, they have to have the courage to push back on the government and say,
00:40:49.760 this is as far as you're coming, and this over here, that's too far.
00:40:54.200 And one of the reasons why Canada is so far behind the reopenings of so many other countries
00:41:02.840 is because judges thus far in Canada have allowed government to get away with far too much.
00:41:08.660 And I do believe that the accountability is coming.
00:41:11.940 But, you know, there's nobody to protect the Constitution except for the judiciary.
00:41:17.020 You have a combination of lawmaking power and the executive centralized in some of these governments right now.
00:41:23.560 And so it must be the judiciary who steps up and says, this is illegal.
00:41:28.320 It's unconstitutional. It's hurting society.
00:41:30.320 here's the evidence uh you know you guys are out of line and uh so that's what we're waiting to
00:41:35.960 happen yeah you bet um well and it's has there been an opportunity to get in and dissect some
00:41:44.140 of these i know we keep having some court hearings now and then a lot of charges seem to be laid and
00:41:48.000 then they're dropped before a person really gets to get into court uh i know you guys have been
00:41:52.060 working with uh you know some of the the free religion aspects and with the pastors who've
00:41:56.040 been charged. And well, there's just so many examples, whether it's restaurant owners, rodeo
00:42:00.440 goers, you name it. But has there been any good cases to point at where somebody's been able to
00:42:06.460 take some time, lay out the cost benefit of restrictions or even the feasibility or legality
00:42:13.620 of them? Yeah. So sorry for the phone ringing in the background here. The Justice Center was in
00:42:22.960 court in Manitoba for a two-week trial just now. And when we got to the subject of the cost-benefit
00:42:27.160 analysis, it came out in open court that there hadn't been a cost-benefit analysis done.
00:42:32.000 There isn't one in the record. And so, you know, that was evidence that the Chief Justice of the
00:42:37.060 Court of the Court of Queen's Bench in Manitoba heard loud and clear. And so, I mean, there's
00:42:42.340 going to be a decision on that case and comprehensive medical evidence was put before the
00:42:46.260 court. World-class experts, former chief medical officers of health, you know, the government's
00:42:52.800 microbiologist is criticizing what government is doing with pcr tests and using them as a diagnostic
00:42:59.840 tool as opposed to a supportive measure to figure out who's actually contagious
00:43:05.520 so all of that evidence is in front of the court in manitoba and then in bc of course you probably
00:43:10.320 read that the court overthrew the restrictions on protesting they kept the restrictions on
00:43:16.400 religious gatherings but overthrew the restrictions on protesting which is a step in the right
00:43:21.280 direction. But I mean, really, what we need courts to do is
00:43:25.480 recognize that these are laws of general application, they apply
00:43:28.960 to millions of people in very, very different circumstances.
00:43:32.760 And the people who are making them are not equipped, they are
00:43:35.720 not trained in public governance, and they're making a mess of
00:43:39.280 society, and it needs to stop.
00:43:42.840 Yeah, it's a mess is definitely the right term. So maybe to try
00:43:48.080 and put a little bit of positive, so I'll put the toughest
00:43:50.280 question to you franco uh anthony fury contributed to this he's a well-known columnist in canada and
00:43:55.560 he's written for a long time uh and his chapter was on you know what government got right what
00:44:00.360 they got wrong uh maybe just somewhere to break things up what are a few areas it sounds like
00:44:04.920 perhaps they did correctly yeah and let me just tie this into growing the economy right and this
00:44:10.600 was actually also a part of the chapter from from colin craig with secondstreet.org so so one of the
00:44:15.560 things that we saw the government actually do well some governments that is is is make it easier for
00:44:20.760 some entrepreneurs to sell some of their products i mean of course of course so many businesses have
00:44:25.960 been struggling with these restrictions with lockdowns one after another but there have been
00:44:30.440 some instances where governments have cut some red tape um so for example during during this
00:44:36.520 covet 19 some governments actually started allowing businesses to sell alcohol uh during
00:44:42.760 take out delivery now this is something that should happen all the time so it's
00:44:46.440 it's good that finally governments are reducing red tape in that area um another thing is that
00:44:52.280 some cities uh including calgary before this last round of lockdowns allowed businesses to expand
00:44:58.200 their patios so that they couldn't uh they could serve more people outside so at least
00:45:03.000 there there is some additional flexibility for these businesses um another one is that the feds
00:45:08.120 made it easier for distilleries to then produce hand and and sell hand sanitizer so here are some
00:45:14.840 instances where governments are starting to reduce some red tape for businesses now arguably i would
00:45:20.280 argue that this should have already been the case beforehand now one of the things that we need to
00:45:24.840 talk about going forward is is allowing for a more flexible economy right when you go through a
00:45:30.280 downturn one of the keys is that your economy is flexible so if someone loses their job if someone
00:45:35.160 loses their certain business they're able to transition into another line of work and a big
00:45:40.760 thing that holds that process up is additional red tape is additional and onerous regulations
00:45:50.360 yeah so uh we're getting additional regulations and it's been a problem uh getting into
00:45:57.880 broader issues then i mean uh here's an area and maybe that it goes more into the legal as well
00:46:03.800 but we've really turned into national introverts. An area of enterprise that's really been hurting
00:46:10.920 actually are people going from province to province, whether it's labor mobility or products
00:46:16.760 and things. We've seen provinces locking down movement between each other. I mean,
00:46:21.880 to be functional as a nation in general, you think we need to move our goods and people as
00:46:26.680 much as possible uh do you think there's going to be a an appetite to broaden our collaborative
00:46:33.880 work between provinces going ahead well that's that's difficult to say corey you know i don't
00:46:38.760 have the the crystal ball or anything like that but what i will say is that we're we're going to
00:46:43.080 have to try to find new ways to grow our economy and grow our economy in a way that doesn't put
00:46:47.640 taxpayers on the hook for more and more debt right we're already a trillion dollars in debt at the
00:46:51.960 federal level so we need to figure out a way to help grow the economy without piling on more
00:46:56.200 and more borrowed spending and one of the ways to do that is simply by reducing interprovincial
00:47:01.480 trade barriers right or allowing for more labor mobility within the provinces now maybe jay can
00:47:06.360 talk about the legal angle on this one but the constitution at least when you read it in plain
00:47:11.560 english seems to make it clear that trade should be free within canada however trade is not free
00:47:17.960 within the canadian market so some businesses in british columbia have a hard time selling
00:47:22.600 to customers in Ontario, for example. Now, these interprovincial trade barriers are costing us
00:47:28.100 billions and billions of dollars. Removing these, having an actual free market in Canada
00:47:33.460 would be an easy taxpayer-friendly way to help grow the economy. The second one, Corey, which I
00:47:38.100 know you're all too familiar with with your past career, is all of these strangling regulations on
00:47:44.220 our resource development, right? Our political system chased away the Kinder Morgan company
00:47:48.500 when it wanted to spend billions of its own dollars to build or to expand the Trans Mountain
00:47:53.580 Pipeline. We saw the feds reject Northern Gateway. We saw the feds move the regulatory goalposts on
00:47:58.440 Energy East. Now, one of our co-authors, Colin Craig with SecondStreet.org, he's been tallying
00:48:04.580 all of these delayed or stalled natural resource projects in Canada, and the cost is absolutely
00:48:10.660 staggering. So we have lost about $215 billion over the last five or six years because of
00:48:19.220 governments getting in the way of natural resource projects. Yeah, and that's frustrating. I mean,
00:48:25.080 again, we're in tough economic times. We are seeing actually world demand for petrochemical
00:48:30.380 products growing. And we're sitting on some of the best resources in the planet, ethically sourced
00:48:37.120 as far as that goes and we're busy shutting them in we are fighting ourselves in in trying to
00:48:43.040 develop this i mean people want these these social programs they want this spending but they they're
00:48:47.440 also the same people are quite often determined to shut down every possible means we have
00:48:51.440 of generating that revenue uh it's one of those areas we really need to get to work on deregulating
00:48:56.800 for sure and unfortunately not to be the bearer of even more bad news it seems like things are
00:49:02.080 getting worse right we saw bill c69 the no more pipelines law bill c48 the discriminatory tanker
00:49:08.720 ban on top of that we have trudeau piling on higher and higher carbon taxes right it's supposed
00:49:14.560 to get up to 170 dollars per ton by 2030 guess what that's going to cost more than 180 000 jobs
00:49:22.240 across the country on top of his first carbon tax he's also getting ready to hammer canadians with
00:49:27.520 a second carbon tax through fuel regulations so when it comes to economic development we're seeing
00:49:33.600 the government move in the absolute wrong direction when it comes to these additional
00:49:37.840 regulations on a resource development and i've already talked about
00:49:40.800 all the other tax increases that have happened even during covet 19.
00:49:46.640 yeah it's a an ugly picture all over the place uh we'll get to health you know something to look at
00:49:53.280 i mean if we could reform so i i imagine crystal that you're looking at uh actually changing
00:49:58.880 reforming the the canadian health act because that's what really has us as uh constricted
00:50:03.520 right now and limited what we can do right no um actually it's uh well the canada health act is
00:50:11.440 kind of the overarching legislation um that dictates really how um governments must operate
00:50:19.120 to be able to access federal funds so the federal government's kind of movement or
00:50:26.880 involvement with our health care systems is really as a funder in that sense and so it's
00:50:31.760 up to the provinces they are the ones that actually are responsible for the the legislation
00:50:36.800 kind of governing their own systems so in our in here in Alberta for example there's legislation
00:50:44.480 and I can't remember the exact acts, but that really limit what doctors can do in what ways
00:50:50.240 and in what systems. So it's actually the way forward would be moving towards those smaller
00:50:56.800 pieces of legislation. It's not towards the Canada Health Act. And if the federal government were to
00:51:01.680 disagree with some of these moves, the penalization is really monetary. They can withdraw some of the
00:51:08.480 funds they can penalize uh provinces by um financial means more so than legislation means
00:51:16.560 okay yeah i guess that gets back to i mean something people forget from way back with
00:51:19.840 the alberta agenda or firewall there actually one of the things that was proposed in that way back
00:51:24.240 with stephen harper and the others uh was that alberta should just run its own course in health
00:51:28.880 reform and we could afford at least at that time to tell ottawa to get stuff because they would
00:51:34.000 cut our health transfers and and some of the discussion at that time i believe when the
00:51:37.920 Canada Health Act was first brought in, it was supposed to be 50-50 in funding between the
00:51:41.440 province and the federal government. And it is nowhere even vaguely close to that now. I think
00:51:45.680 the federal government at best is maybe 15% of our health funding. So, but I mean, can we afford
00:51:51.840 such a battle? Even 15% in a loss could harm our provision abilities. It really could at this stage,
00:52:01.360 but if we were accessing other options or increasing other sources of revenue that
00:52:06.960 could come out of it in terms of entrepreneurial activity that could also help in that regard as
00:52:12.320 well um and i think it was october november might even have been more recent than that but the
00:52:20.160 premiers a number of them have actually gone together and said hey we need more from this
00:52:24.160 this uh canada health transfer our our health costs for our provinces are massive they've been
00:52:29.920 lobbying with federal government to increase the the canada health transfer um in terms of where
00:52:36.000 we sit as a province, yeah, we're not looking too good financially. Franco can speak to that a lot
00:52:42.640 better than I can, but opening up to other sorts of funding coming in into the healthcare system
00:52:49.560 might be an option as well. Well, absolutely. For economic growth, I mean, it's something that
00:52:56.560 people almost always say is once they get into Canadian facilities and to our professionals,
00:53:01.820 They're some of the best professionals on earth.
00:53:04.020 I mean, we've got fantastic skilled people and resources, but our system makes it impossible
00:53:09.820 to say, as they call it, medical tourism.
00:53:12.440 We could bring people in from outside to pay and help subsidize us in a sense, if we could
00:53:17.400 just decentralize that system a little.
00:53:19.760 Another area where we got crunched in our health system with capacity was that our hospitals,
00:53:25.800 of course, I mean, if you've got an infectious problem, you can be closing off entire wings
00:53:30.060 of hospitals or having staff quarantined. And that's where you're putting off a lot
00:53:33.820 of procedures, as you said, you know, hundreds of thousands of procedures. I think Jay was
00:53:38.240 mentioning it too. If we could have facilities outside of hospitals, I mean, knee surgery
00:53:44.880 clinics, you know, hernia surgery clinics, things like that. And there's been a lot of
00:53:49.120 constitutional battles over the one in Quebec, the one in BC. Are those areas that we should
00:53:53.420 be looking at examining more into as well i imagine well saskatchewan back in 2016 i believe
00:54:00.700 it is um they kind of opened up to this as well with the saskatchewan surgical initiative
00:54:06.620 their wait lists went down magically uh with this as well but it did take a lot of money
00:54:12.620 um it wasn't just opening up the delivery of some of these services it was also increased funding
00:54:17.820 uh i believe it was in december it was either 2019 or 2020 here where um alberta is starting
00:54:25.060 to expand a little bit in this area as well into having more private delivery of these publicly
00:54:30.720 funded surgeries so i i believe it was um kind of on the orthopedic side as well knee and and that
00:54:37.240 sort of thing um which is great it's definitely a step forward but it's not the solution in the
00:54:44.380 sense of longevity, I don't think, because again, it's taking more and more money.
00:54:50.120 So we need to find ways to kind of unlock some of the other resources or efficiencies
00:54:55.360 that don't cost us more money.
00:54:57.940 So yeah, getting people off these wait lists, I'm all for it.
00:55:00.560 And I love the idea.
00:55:02.120 I just think we need a little bit deeper of a reform to allow there to be other
00:55:06.760 options engaged as well.
00:55:09.580 Well, yeah.
00:55:09.940 And even keeping some of our domestic money here in the system, I know
00:55:14.260 of a number of people, including a very close relative of mine. I won't go into who she is,
00:55:18.580 but she's going to Mexico to get a bunch of dental work done because it's just, it's far
00:55:22.760 more cost efficient down there. And I noticed other people have gone to Montana to get MRIs
00:55:28.360 and diagnostics done because they just don't want to wait. I mean, if they're going to spend the
00:55:32.400 money, let's spend it here. Let's pay our local professionals, but we need to diversify our
00:55:37.440 system in order to be able to accommodate that. I mean, and then everybody benefits, but that's
00:55:40.880 a real big case that has to be explained to the public as they get fearful about losing
00:55:44.980 universal care. Absolutely. And I think that almost anybody in a position where if they had
00:55:52.960 the funds available to them, some people don't, and that's one thing, but some people are able
00:55:56.820 to mobilize, you know, savings or whatever. And if it gets you one, two years of better quality of
00:56:02.980 life, rather than sitting on this wait list, waiting for a knee replacement. So your whole
00:56:07.520 mobility and quality of life is just, you know, down the drain. I think that most people would
00:56:12.960 take that option. I know I would. I speak for myself and I most definitely would. And if it
00:56:18.220 involved me having to go to another country to do it, to get a year or two years back of my life,
00:56:23.220 I would do that. We do see that. I believe Second Street had found that there was over $200,000
00:56:30.200 or surgery. They'd looked into this in any regard and saw that this is a much larger
00:56:36.680 widespread issue. There's tons of people doing medical tourism as they call it in other countries
00:56:42.060 because you can't do it here. You can't get the surgeries even if you are able to put yourself
00:56:48.980 in a position to do so. Yeah and again as we've established we've got the ability we've got the
00:56:54.380 professionals just it seems we don't have a system that just allows for it so I'm glad to see voices
00:56:58.860 are coming out to start examining you know different ways of doing this. So I'll get back
00:57:04.640 to to jay here uh because there's been a number of challenges i don't think you guys have dipped
00:57:09.200 into the health one so much in the past have you or but i i know with uh canby clinic in bc and i
00:57:14.400 believe there's a hernia clinic in quebec there's been a lot of legal challenges when it comes to
00:57:19.360 private provision of care and uh they've been losing in court i believe to a degree
00:57:24.480 we did take a case to the alberta court of appeal uh and it uh and appeal uh leave to appeal was
00:57:30.400 refused at the Supreme Court of Canada over a dentist in Alberta who had been in a hockey
00:57:35.720 accident. And he was told that he would have to wait two and a half years for surgery in Alberta.
00:57:42.920 He couldn't work. He couldn't play with his kids. He just laid in pain in his bed. And so he went
00:57:49.440 to Montana and had some sort of disc surgery and came back and gave the bill to Alberta Health
00:57:58.040 care, Alberta Health Services. And they said, we're not paying for this. You could have had
00:58:01.480 health care in Alberta. And he's like, well, yeah, I mean, but I have no quality of life for
00:58:06.160 two and a half years. Right. And so, I mean, we lost that we lost the case. But there are cases
00:58:13.100 in Canada, which talk about, you know, that that there that there has to be alternative treatment
00:58:20.740 options. There's the the Carter case, which talks about how, you know, suffering and things like
00:58:26.740 that involves Section 7 security interests under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
00:58:35.260 And so there are cases out there. But I mean, the bottom line is, Corey, is that universal
00:58:40.160 health care in Canada is a misnomer. The lockdowns have proven that. The lockdowns are ostensibly
00:58:48.000 justified because they want to preserve capacity. Well, capacity for who? Everybody's had all their
00:58:53.360 procedures canceled, right? You can't get your diagnostic stuff done. People are dying from
00:58:57.960 cancer now because they couldn't get treatment. They couldn't get diagnostics and they're finding
00:59:02.180 it way too late. We've been contacted by a host of people who have had loved ones not able to get
00:59:10.680 procedures and they've died. And then you have the whole situation with, you know, you have people
00:59:15.200 in hospitals and, you know, they're dying and you want to go see them because they're your loved
00:59:21.260 ones and the state is saying well you can't because you know because of covid where you know
00:59:25.980 the person who's dying wants to see their loved ones and the person who is outside the hospital
00:59:29.660 wants to see their loved ones and so i mean universal health care is is it's a it's a
00:59:34.620 misnomer it's so broken i we need to come up with a different name for it yeah well and being alive
00:59:41.460 isn't living uh it's uh i've got a grandmother who's 101 years old she might make it to 102
00:59:47.040 two this august you know they look she's she's going a bit deaf and blind but she's she's all
00:59:52.240 there mentally and and uh but you know i i we can't nobody's seen her aside from my father and
00:59:57.360 my uncle for over a year now like she's in prison and and what are we buying her for this you know 0.96
01:00:04.080 we're robbing her of her visiting her great grandchildren and her grandchildren in her 0.98
01:00:08.160 final couple of years of her life it's not like she's going to get 10 more years if we take the 0.93
01:00:12.320 chance, you know, and lock her up like this. That's just one of so many examples of the pain 0.91
01:00:17.420 we're causing through this system, ostensibly to protect everybody else. Again, it gets back to
01:00:23.440 that cost-benefit that's just not being done, as well with the diagnostics that are being deferred.
01:00:29.300 And that gets back to those early battles in healthcare we were talking about. The big battles
01:00:33.220 in Alberta and Saskatchewan were MRIs back then because they were kind of the new tool on the
01:00:36.960 block. And we found if we can find these cancers and these conditions earlier or things for
01:00:41.700 osteosurgeries we can get people well either save their lives or get them up and running a lot faster
01:00:47.940 and you know it's it's it's not anything medically controversial to say the sooner we find things out
01:00:53.220 with people the better chance we have of a positive outcome but all this stuff's getting
01:00:57.460 kicked down the road and we're going to see see health costs that may outweigh the the benefits
01:01:02.020 of these lockdowns yeah there's no doubt about that and how society treats its its elderly is
01:01:08.900 is a mark of what kind of a society that is.
01:01:12.740 The elderly are the silent sufferers in Canada.
01:01:16.820 And we sued the Ontario government
01:01:19.480 over the inability of families
01:01:21.620 to get in to see their loved ones in care homes.
01:01:24.520 And eventually the foreign government relented
01:01:27.080 and allowed them to come in.
01:01:28.580 But that's the situation that has repeated itself
01:01:31.640 across the country over and over and over,
01:01:33.780 and it gets very little coverage in the media.
01:01:35.700 But just because you get old doesn't mean
01:01:38.000 that you don't have constitutional rights
01:01:39.740 and freedoms in this country.
01:01:41.760 You still have section seven rights,
01:01:43.360 even though you're 80 or 90 years old.
01:01:45.360 And so you don't deserve to be locked in a facility,
01:01:49.100 locked in a room.
01:01:50.020 You have people who are married.
01:01:52.060 They can't go to see their spouse
01:01:53.660 who is in the same building
01:01:54.880 because the health officials are saying,
01:01:57.380 no, you can't go because of COVID.
01:02:00.000 And I mean, it's just, it's broken.
01:02:04.560 It is.
01:02:05.400 You know, as we kind of do the final round of chat here, somebody had asked in one of the questions in the comments, too, though, it sounded like you had some optimism or things are going to be coming ahead in court that hopefully will be positive or at least a good examination you're looking forward to.
01:02:19.040 Yeah, I mean, the Justice Center exists to sue the government and represent civil liberties for Canadians, and we're not going to stop.
01:02:29.620 We're not going to stop with the lawsuits that we have.
01:02:32.480 We're going to advance them.
01:02:33.580 If we lose, we're going to appeal.
01:02:35.400 The experts were meticulously gathered. It took months to do it. We didn't want to go off half
01:02:40.720 cocked. Some people brought lawsuits and didn't have experts. Their lawsuits were not well
01:02:46.140 constructed. And consequently, they haven't gone anywhere. You have to have the scientific
01:02:54.480 experts to fight what is going on. We've got excellent experts. We expect to have progress
01:02:59.600 here as in the months ahead and we we ultimately expect the supreme court of canada to weigh in
01:03:05.520 and say this is unprecedented it's unacceptable it's unconstitutional and mistakes were made i
01:03:12.400 think that governments are are perpetrating an illusion it's really it's a deception
01:03:18.160 right they're saying on the one hand this is unprecedented and so we have to because it's an
01:03:22.000 emergency do these things to you but on the other hand they're refusing to acknowledge that they've
01:03:26.560 made any mistakes and we all know that they've made tons of mistakes but because of politics
01:03:30.560 they're refusing to acknowledge them and it's just it's disingenuous yeah well and i really
01:03:35.920 appreciate the work you guys are doing because a lot of the people who are uh being charged and
01:03:40.720 so on they aren't legal experts these are just individuals who are standing up for themselves or
01:03:44.720 whether it's religious wise or business wise or movement wise and they need somebody to
01:03:49.360 stand up for them and as things wind down we got to remember we can't just forget about what has
01:03:55.280 happened here i mean if we don't uh get up and have some legal precedent set then the next time
01:04:00.480 something infectious comes around we could be snapped right back into this in a heartbeat we
01:04:04.480 won't have learned anything so i mean we can't forget you know and say oh well we don't need
01:04:08.480 those challenges anymore the pandemic's gone down well no we need them more than ever because we
01:04:12.640 we know what can happen so you guys are a a non-profit organization it's jccf.ca i think
01:04:20.320 that's correct yeah and uh for for people who might want to support you or people who might
01:04:24.640 need help in in uh challenges and things like that going forward uh where else uh i guess as we kind
01:04:30.720 of close off with you can people find out information on what you guys are up to or how
01:04:33.920 can they help you out uh the president of the justice center uh john carpe publishes regular
01:04:40.480 columns in the post-millennial and in the epoch times uh irregular i suppose i should say but uh
01:04:46.160 often uh in the national post sometimes and so those articles available are available but the
01:04:51.200 justice center has crunched an enormous amount of data and it is on our website we have an on
01:04:57.760 a regularly updated analysis of covid cases fatalities statistics from other years
01:05:04.400 uh you know we have uh we have a paper coming out from one of the principal authors of the
01:05:10.560 great barrington declaration who is a world-renowned scientist from stanford and who testified in the
01:05:15.680 manitoba litigation and so if you go to the website there's an enormous amount of resources
01:05:20.720 And of course, you can you can stay tuned for announcements regarding the litigation.
01:05:27.200 Great. Well, thank you again. And, you know, keep up that good work. It really is appreciated. I'm
01:05:31.440 sure it feels a little thankless at times lawyers get their share of abuse, but you do provide some
01:05:36.720 valuable services for us as well. I still won't stop on making lawyer jokes, though I enjoy them
01:05:42.800 quite well. So Crystal with the Montreal Economic Institute, what are you guys got going on going
01:05:49.440 forward and what do you does your institute in general do actually i didn't introduce you
01:05:53.200 terribly well to start with um well yes montreal economic institute but it's not just based in
01:05:59.360 montreal as i am here in lovely calgary um and we focus on a number of public policy issues
01:06:07.360 ranging over resources health finances kind of everything everything's a public policy issue and
01:06:14.480 we look at it we dissect it um there's great studies constantly being produced by the institute
01:06:22.240 iedm.org we actually when franco was talking about interprovincial free trade i was getting
01:06:28.640 very excited because we had put out a study in march uh looking at some of the benefits that
01:06:33.920 could come out of interprovincial free trade if we were to liberalize it and how um now is as good
01:06:40.240 of a time as any to do that it's insane it's easier to trade with other countries in some
01:06:45.440 instances than it is between our own provinces uh that's a study i would recommend for anybody
01:06:50.560 to read it's incredibly interesting um and yeah we just we really want to bring awareness to
01:06:57.040 all sides of issues great well thank you very much for the work you're doing we always need more
01:07:03.440 you know digging in and and think tank sort of uh institutions it really brings some balance that
01:07:08.560 your average user isn't necessarily going to do. So I'm looking forward to seeing more what comes
01:07:13.360 out and again on things like that, inter-provincial trade issues and things such as that, because
01:07:16.880 they're huge ones that slide under the radar and we're all paying a price for it. So thanks again
01:07:21.040 for joining me today and I'm certain we'll probably talk again soon. Yes, thank you for
01:07:24.800 having me on. It's been wonderful. Great. I'll finish with you here, Franco. Maybe if you could
01:07:31.600 give a little more, you know, breakdown of the book and where people can find this, like this
01:07:35.520 is where it's all packed in it's a free book i think most of the the contributors have got links
01:07:40.880 to it on their sites uh where can they get into it and read this in whole yeah so please do check
01:07:46.080 out life after covid uh we have so many obstacles that we need to face and and we need the good
01:07:50.480 solutions right we can't have solutions that pile on more and more debt we're already a trillion
01:07:55.280 dollars in debt at the federal level that breaks down to 28 000 plus for each canadian i can't
01:08:01.120 afford that i know many canadians don't have that pile of money laying around so this book really
01:08:06.480 does go into the details on how we can solve some of these challenging issues that me and my co-authors
01:08:11.840 just talked about during the show and one place that you can find it is at taxpayer.com again
01:08:16.880 it's a free ebook and if you have any issues finding it please reach out to me and i'd be
01:08:20.800 happy to send you the link right on and uh you're moving out to ottawa fairly soon uh you mentioned
01:08:27.200 earlier yep just before canada i'll be uh saying goodbye to calgary and moving to ottawa well let
01:08:34.000 me express my condolences but i there's a good deal of work that needs to be done over there
01:08:38.080 and i do appreciate i'm sure we'll still be chatting even when you're out that way if not
01:08:41.680 more that's uh ottawa's impacting us all whether we like it or not it is a beautiful city
01:08:48.000 yeah well hey corey please keep me in uh in mind for future shows oh of course okay well
01:08:53.600 thank you all very much again uh it was a good informative talk you know and part of what i
01:09:00.800 wanted to you know get into is yes just just some planning some positive i mean there's a whole lot
01:09:06.160 of negative we spoke on a whole lot of negative things have been happening but we do need to plan
01:09:11.920 on making them positive farther down we we need foresight we need planning we need policy changes
01:09:17.680 so the book lays out about that a bunch of that you know that this pandemic's not over just with
01:09:22.640 uh the end of the infections we've got all the bills to pay we've got the policies to examine
01:09:28.960 and this group of people has put together you know again a really good online publication
01:09:33.840 it's free it's out there give it a read and uh you know it can help you plan for the future so
01:09:40.720 i'm going to take a a short break here um i taught uh nathan guida who does our show uh
01:09:49.040 on uh tuesdays wednesdays and thursdays between 10 and noon has taught me uh how this works because
01:09:54.000 in radio you get commercial breaks where you can escape we do have sponsors but i don't quite have
01:09:57.920 those so i'm going to take a one minute break here and step away and then we'll chat and as i said
01:10:03.120 i'm going to have derek from on we're going to be talking about that quebec's apparent ability to
01:10:07.840 amend our constitution at will and uh well maybe why not uh if they can perhaps alberta can so just
01:10:15.360 hang in there and I will be back shortly.
01:10:45.360 Thank you.
01:11:15.360 All right, I made it. Thanks for hanging in there, guys. I love my morning coffees. They
01:11:25.620 are fantastic, but it makes it hard for a one to two hour show to make it all the way
01:11:31.720 through. So yeah, and again, just to frame it up quickly, I see he's getting into the
01:11:40.340 queue there. So it's just great. Pretty much everybody's heard about it. It sounds like
01:11:46.740 Quebec has declared that they can change the constitution for their own benefit,
01:11:53.060 which again, wasn't that surprising. If there's anything to be admired out of Quebec,
01:11:56.580 they stand up for themselves. You know what? They don't care what the rest of us think.
01:11:59.540 And I think it's time we start taking on a little of that attitude ourself,
01:12:03.460 past time for that actually. But the thing was a little more surprising though, I guess it shouldn't
01:12:07.540 be too much but justin trudeau said yeah well if that's what you want to do we're all right with it
01:12:13.460 wow okay but then an erin o'toole who has just been a giant deep well of disappointment
01:12:18.500 jumped in and pretty much said the same thing too so this appears to be unavoidable in the usual 0.55
01:12:24.900 kissing of quebec but we will allow them to do whatever they like with impunity and not a single
01:12:30.420 federal leader is going to do a damn thing about it but can a province do things like that i'm not
01:12:36.660 Sure. So I've brought in another lawyer to talk about things. Two lawyers in one day. This is Derek Fromm. He's been on before, and I'm sure if you're a Twitter sort of people and such, you've seen Derek out there or on Facebook. Thanks a lot for joining me to talk a bit about this today, Derek.
01:12:55.760 Thanks for the opportunity.
01:12:56.720 Right. So maybe if you could break down what exactly happened here, like there's a constitutional amending formula. I had to live through watching them try to utilize it in Meech Lake in Charlottetown and it failed. It's a difficult formula to accomplish. I mean, the Constitution is something that shouldn't be easily changed. I mean, it should be beautiful, but not necessarily, you know, easily changed. It makes sense. But does it turn out there's a way to completely bypass the formula and just do it in your own?
01:13:25.960 i didn't realize that existed well it's it's actually kind of interesting to geeks like
01:13:31.320 myself who like this type of stuff but if you go back to 1867 when we really received our first
01:13:37.800 constitutional document from the imperial parliament that was just an ordinary statute
01:13:42.920 from the imperial parliament imperial parliament in london and it could be amended at any time
01:13:49.320 by that parliament and so our local government did not have the power to do it so it was
01:13:55.560 entrenched in a way right now the conventions developed about how that could be changed
01:14:01.320 but what really happened is in 1931 there was a statute from the imperial parliament
01:14:07.400 that gave canadian governments the ability to either repeal or amend uk law which was
01:14:14.520 governing us at the time but it explicitly excluded the british north america act which
01:14:21.000 is our constitution act 1867 so that at that moment became still or persisted as kind of an
01:14:29.000 untouchable document and it was only in 1982 with um senior trudeau's constitution act 1982
01:14:38.440 that that was patriated into canada and now canadian governments are permitted to amend that
01:14:46.120 constitution under certain circumstances and so there's actually five amending formulas
01:14:53.160 in the constitution and the one that everyone's most familiar with requires a resolution from
01:14:59.320 the house of parliament or a house of commons and the senate and then i believe it's two-thirds
01:15:04.920 majority in the provinces and there's a referendum standard but that's that's not the one we're
01:15:09.880 talking about that's what everyone's familiar with um there's two others that are kind of
01:15:14.360 at play here with what's going on in quebec the first one is section 45 which says that a province
01:15:22.680 can amend its own its own constitution unilaterally and section 43 which allows
01:15:32.680 a province that is uniquely affected or solely affected to go through a special procedure
01:15:39.720 that is less onerous than the general amending procedure and i believe that as long as the
01:15:46.920 province and the federal government agree there may be a referendum required in that as well i
01:15:51.560 can't remember off the top of my head um but a province is able to bring an amendment forward
01:15:57.000 long as it doesn't affect other provinces that way it directly affect them then then an amendment
01:16:03.800 can be made that is particular to that province so for instance something that might be might fall
01:16:08.600 underneath that is um the alberta act the alberta act 1905 brought alberta into confederation
01:16:17.080 i believe there's provisions in there about separate schools and so separate schools in
01:16:23.560 this province enjoy constitutional protection and so you can see that in the alberta act the
01:16:30.280 separate schools are particular to this province so that section 43 amending procedure would
01:16:37.560 probably be the one that gets applied to a future alberta where perhaps that alberta act is amended
01:16:43.320 so that separate school the the constitutional protection changes but section 45 is the one
01:16:52.200 that quebec is trying to use and this is puzzling to me because section 45 permits
01:17:01.000 provinces to amend their own constitutions now that might sound strange to people because in
01:17:08.840 canada we really don't have many provincial constitutions there are some but i should say
01:17:14.720 we don't have many written provincial constitutions british columbia actually does have a written
01:17:20.800 constitution and it does not contain a bill of rights so it might be a little bit different than
01:17:26.860 what people expect the constitution to be but alberta doesn't does not have a written constitution
01:17:34.060 and quebec arguably does or does not i'm not sure how they would consider their quebec charter
01:17:42.540 that it could be a constitutional document and this is the reason i think there may be some
01:17:47.100 ambiguity is because traditionally in the westminster system it is not permitted
01:17:56.860 to bind future parliaments, and that's exactly what a constitution does.
01:18:02.000 So if you try to entrench a statute and say there's a very onerous amending procedure
01:18:10.380 for this ordinary statute and try to elevate it to the level of a constitution, under the
01:18:15.920 traditional rules of the Westminster system, that's not permitted.
01:18:19.860 so our constitution is kind of a unique thing in canada because uh we weren't able to amend it and
01:18:29.700 in 1982 then once we became able to amend it there are very onerous rules and i'm not sure i've ever
01:18:37.060 heard a really good explanation for how that was allowed at the time but it was and it's it is the
01:18:42.580 law uh so i'm not sure how a provincial constitution would be in that in that sense how how it could be
01:18:51.620 uh enacted or enforced or amended but there is a procedure from the 1982 constitution act that
01:18:58.340 says provinces can do this but we do have unwritten constitutions as well and uh alberta for example
01:19:06.020 has been asked um what's the unwritten constitution so things like the uh uh i think the the alberta
01:19:13.780 bill of rights might be included in there some of the um the independent officers of the government
01:19:21.220 uh their acts were included there like the auditor general other such thing so we do have some sort
01:19:26.900 of quasi constitution in this province but we do not have a bill of rights and when i hear people
01:19:32.020 ask for a constitution it is perfectly permitted for alberta to enact its own constitution including
01:19:37.620 the bill of rights but it has to you know the interplay between it and the federal government
01:19:42.100 will be important now back to quebec so what quebec has done here is they brought two amendments
01:19:48.980 forward and under their power in the constitution act 1982 to amend their own constitution but
01:19:59.220 using that power they're trying to slip new provisions into the canadian constitution
01:20:06.260 which is kind of a an interesting sleight of hand they're using the power in section 45
01:20:12.100 apparently to add sections 90 and let me look at it here because it's a very strange
01:20:19.300 singular 90 q1 and 90 q2 to the constitution act 1867 now that's just in front of the provisions
01:20:29.940 that divvy up power between the feds and the provinces that's sections 91 and 92. so just
01:20:36.020 before that quebec is trying to slip in uh quebeckers form a nation i'm not sure what nation
01:20:44.500 is that that's interesting well i mean imagine if we put that in there that's going to open a whole 0.94
01:20:50.500 giant can of worms on yeah i think it will yeah agreed and the second one is quebec shall be the
01:20:58.420 only or sorry uh french shall be the only official language of quebec and then it goes on from there
01:21:05.460 but slipping those two things in just before section 91 92 in a federal constitutional document
01:21:12.820 is fascinating to me because as you pointed out nation i'm not sure how we're supposed to
01:21:18.500 understand that word it it seems vague ambiguous but what i think it means is that quebec's trying
01:21:26.980 to claw some power to itself arrogate power to itself that it doesn't otherwise have currently
01:21:34.900 and to me that seems very strange that they'd be using an amending formula
01:21:41.140 where they're amending their own constitution which they are not they're amending the federal
01:21:46.580 constitution and then changing it in a way that recognizes them somehow is unique before the
01:21:53.300 divisions of power which to me very clearly signals that they want to be treated differently
01:22:00.980 within the, you know, amongst the other provincial governments.
01:22:07.640 Well, they always have been.
01:22:09.380 Yeah.
01:22:09.760 So it's their, if they were a carpenter,
01:22:14.460 they required the use of a hammer and they grabbed the saw
01:22:18.920 and they're going to, you know,
01:22:21.000 try to accomplish their job with the wrong tool.
01:22:24.520 And so I don't think this can work legally and constitutionally.
01:22:29.760 but then you know as as you pointed out we have some very puzzling remarks from our politicians
01:22:35.580 it could be that they're generally unfamiliar with our constitution which i think recent times
01:22:42.300 probably indicates is the case but the other thing is um constitutional documents like this
01:22:50.900 are really a reflection of the people and in times in this last year and a half i think it's been
01:22:58.980 very clearly demonstrated that that politicians have viewed the Constitution very differently
01:23:07.000 than constitutional lawyers and and Bill of Rights advocates have where we view it as a stop
01:23:16.240 gap and you know a circumscribing government authority putting a line in the sand beyond
01:23:23.560 which government authority cannot tread what they viewed it as it seems to me is more of a
01:23:34.680 rules of engagement that when times are good we'll follow this and when times are bad we'll do what
01:23:41.640 we want and that's a concern to me and you know quebec's uh you know good on them they're asking
01:23:49.880 for what they want alberto doesn't even ask for what it wants and that drives me nuts and so
01:23:57.560 i don't think that if this goes to court and gets appealed all the way to the supreme court
01:24:04.920 that quebec's gonna win i think it'll be um i know you can't do that decision
01:24:12.120 but then what happens is because there's a dialogue between the supreme court and the
01:24:16.520 governments in canada this dialogue that decision will be used as a road map for how they can
01:24:22.360 accomplish it and maybe that's their strategy is they're playing the long game to get what they
01:24:27.720 want for their people and uh you know hate to keep turning it back to alberta but as was recently
01:24:34.440 told me five generations of albertans have constantly kicked at the goads and tried to
01:24:40.840 find a place within confederation that is tolerable to to us five generations and what are we doing
01:24:49.160 about it now we have to learn how to play the long game like quebec is ask for what we want and find
01:24:55.720 a way to get it in the end and so my impression is quebec there's many good lawyers there they
01:25:03.160 they understand the constitution they know that uh in in uh to some degree this is probably just
01:25:10.440 a game that's being played and they're signaling to their base the politicians are signaling to
01:25:16.520 their base but in the end quebec will probably find a better more tolerable place in confederation
01:25:23.080 because of it and alberta doesn't even seem to be willing to ask and so we are going to
01:25:30.920 languish for a sixth generation unless we do something. Yeah, well, something I've long said
01:25:36.880 is we got to stop bitching about Quebec and start emulating them. Yeah, they annoy us, but it's
01:25:42.460 only because they wouldn't take it. They made no bones about it. We're here for Quebec. We're going
01:25:47.380 to do what we feel is best for Quebec, and we don't really care what the rest of the country thinks.
01:25:52.060 And unfortunately, when it comes to a stance like that, Jason Kenney, that's been one of his
01:25:56.540 largest areas of disappointment is that he won't stand up to Ottawa in Alberta's interest
01:26:03.140 if the province was burning to the ground. We've gotten pretty clear on that.
01:26:07.260 But an interesting tactic then, if indeed that's a tactic, because I can see this going,
01:26:12.480 well, it's going to be divisive either way you look at it. If you do manage to insert
01:26:16.160 nation into the constitution, if they do get away with it, that's a very loaded word. I mean,
01:26:21.180 for every move in the future, that's when they can take it to the court and say, well, no,
01:26:24.740 because we're a nation we can do that that's right yeah and if it does fail well then of course the
01:26:31.380 the people who are independence-minded in quebec are gonna be quite upset and and worked up and
01:26:36.900 that might be setting the uh grounds for a future referendum then like they've really thrown uh
01:26:41.780 quite a turn into the punch punch bowl here yeah and you know i i didn't do my homework on this
01:26:47.380 and it occurs to me that the term nation might actually what we call a term of art which means
01:26:53.060 that it's defined someplace and it means something relatively specific it could very well be from
01:26:58.420 international law for all i know i'm not familiar with it um from my reading of constitutional
01:27:04.100 documents in canada but it could be a term that they've chosen very specifically because it does
01:27:10.100 have a meaning outside of outside of the dominion of canada now about that term nation though what
01:27:16.500 i found interesting is that the way that confederation works is we have a federal government
01:27:23.140 and various provincial and territorial governments there's not one level of government that's over
01:27:28.740 the other uh provincial governments have are just as they're not they're not the little brothers or
01:27:35.460 little sisters of the feds i guess is the best way to say it they're fully independent governments
01:27:40.340 on their own and the feds are just an equal partner with provincial governments now where
01:27:47.060 the the actual interplay happens is in those section 91 92 uh provisions in the constitution
01:27:54.340 act 1867 where different matters of legislative authority different jurisdiction is given to the
01:28:02.420 federal and provincial governments but a provincial government is not subservient to the federal
01:28:08.420 government so when quebec says we we form a nation well their government is already as independent as
01:28:17.300 it can be so it seems to me that when they use a term like that if it's not from elsewhere in law
01:28:26.340 like international law they must be arguing for a reduction in federal authority within the province
01:28:33.540 of quebec which is exactly what we want here in alberta we want to have the the yoke of federalism
01:28:40.500 at least relieved the our burden needs to be lightened we uh as your last segment pointed out
01:28:47.300 we have a tanker ban that's impeding our our resources we have a no pipelines law brought
01:28:54.420 in by the feds what we need to do is have greater autonomy for alberta maybe albertans should follow
01:29:02.420 quebec's lead and say alberta is a nation we you know we do have a unique place in confederation
01:29:09.540 we're the people that fund it and uh we need to start recognizing our contribution and defending
01:29:18.020 ourselves against being taken advantage of well absolutely and again i mean the the amount of
01:29:24.900 federal authority or things i mean i can see more internal constitutional conflicts coming what if
01:29:30.580 if Quebec says, well, as a nation, we do now want to actually set up borders and control
01:29:34.340 immigration from other provinces to our province. Well, that's going to really clash with the
01:29:40.120 charter with our ability to move or trade goods as well. It's just going to be an interesting
01:29:46.340 endeavor as it goes along. I mean, how far and how deep does this definition of nationhood go?
01:29:53.600 Yeah. Yeah. And that was, if I remember correctly, immigration was one of the five
01:29:59.180 things that quebec really wanted to have control over in the um when the original uh discussions
01:30:08.700 were going on for the constitution act 1982 so that's been a long time concern i believe that
01:30:13.740 was also brought up again in meech lake i mean this is this is a little bit beyond what i can
01:30:18.460 remember is i was a child at the time these things were going on but um that's my recollection and
01:30:25.500 that's probably a very good example and they probably are going to assert some authority over
01:30:29.980 that that's beyond what they currently have yeah yeah well and i i was in my yeah late teens during
01:30:37.500 all that but uh i was a dork so i was following it pretty closely and yeah terms like distinct
01:30:41.820 society and then you know they evolved into a sovereignty association you know all of these
01:30:46.300 different things to say that we are uh a nation within a nation but now it seems to be getting a
01:30:50.540 a little more defined of just saying, you know what, we're a nation, whether you like it or not.
01:30:55.580 But so, yeah, I appreciate you coming on to add some clarity and also add some muddying to the
01:31:00.020 waters to the whole thing. Constitutional law is, well, it's forever open to interpretation.
01:31:07.300 And that's why we have the courts and the never ending battles, which is dry and painful as they
01:31:13.380 can be are pretty important to us. So thank you for going further into that. And I share the
01:31:20.440 view, again, we shouldn't be cursing about this. We should be watching it, examining it,
01:31:24.720 and seeing how we can utilize the same moves for ourselves. I mean, it's time. We're not getting
01:31:29.980 any favors out of Ottawa. So what mechanisms can we use to defend ourselves? And perhaps Quebec's
01:31:35.700 really struck upon something that we can all benefit from, though I don't think that's what
01:31:40.520 Trudeau and O'Toole had in mind when they said, you know, you guys go to town.
01:31:44.920 uh well we'll keep the years interesting a new project to work on once the pandemic is finished
01:31:52.560 so i'll let you get back to your uh work there and and uh where can we find more information
01:31:59.080 on what you're up to these days there well i do uh write occasionally for a western standard
01:32:03.800 and i you know there's there's an issue that's been been bugging me for a long time um and i'm
01:32:11.240 going to write about it soon, I promise. And it's about how the role of the Supreme Court was
01:32:15.800 originally envisioned in Canada. And I'm trying to find a way to say it politely and politically
01:32:23.860 and still maintain some credibility as a lawyer. So watch for that. Western Standard is a great
01:32:30.940 place to get honest and good coverage of daily events, but also editorial comment that is outside
01:32:39.140 the mainstream but still uh extremely thorough and based in in the facts yeah no we always appreciate
01:32:48.580 your pieces and yeah going into areas that just other publications aren't so uh no i'm looking
01:32:53.380 forward to that and uh i'm sure we'll be talking again soon okay thank you corey all right thanks
01:33:02.740 so that's interesting you know that that did change my outlook on it because i didn't quite
01:33:07.700 understand it, you know, that helped broaden out a little more of what's going on there. I still
01:33:12.680 can't pretend to fully understand it, but the general notions of it are there, and it's going
01:33:17.700 to be something interesting to watch. And again, it's something Derek and I certainly agreed upon
01:33:23.520 was that Alberta should be learning from this, you know, Saskatchewan should be learning from
01:33:27.940 this, like Confederation is failing us, this system of Ottawa governance on a country that's
01:33:33.880 as large and diverse and different as Canada,
01:33:37.860 it's not a working model.
01:33:41.160 We either need to massively decentralize our government,
01:33:43.640 which again, Ottawa has no interest in doing,
01:33:45.300 aside from with Quebec,
01:33:47.640 or again, I come to the conclusion
01:33:49.720 that one of the other provinces has to tear out.
01:33:51.540 You know, we've talked about that.
01:33:55.000 Meach Lake and Charlottetown,
01:33:56.220 for those of us old enough to remember,
01:33:57.640 for those who read up on it,
01:33:58.640 I mean, those were some attempts with Mulroney
01:34:01.380 to make constitutional reforms in Canada, to change the deal.
01:34:05.340 Might have been better, might have been worse.
01:34:06.700 That's arguable.
01:34:07.500 We can look back on it.
01:34:08.360 But the bottom line is they failed.
01:34:10.680 And our constitution, as I said earlier, shouldn't be easily changed,
01:34:15.660 but we should be capable of changing it as well.
01:34:18.360 Like we've got to, you know, examine this.
01:34:21.580 I mean, look how old that document is.
01:34:23.600 If we're talking the original foundation of it, you know, 1867,
01:34:26.360 a lot of things have changed since then.
01:34:28.100 Why are we presuming that these agreements, these deals, these documents are still fully valid today?
01:34:35.540 Why are they considered sacred by some?
01:34:38.700 It's not serving us well.
01:34:41.140 And maybe Quebec's found a way to change that for province by province.
01:34:45.160 It might be a piecemeal, ugly way, but if we keep inserting different things, distinct things within our province by province within the constitution, it'll make a big bloated constitution.
01:34:55.260 but we'll get that provincial autonomy that we need, and it'd be better for the whole country.
01:35:01.220 I've gone on about that before. The country, the model I love so much is Switzerland. It's an
01:35:06.620 ancient democracy, and it's so decentralized. Such a small country, multiple official languages,
01:35:12.260 26 different little states they call cantons, a lot of direct democracy. I mean, they're not
01:35:17.460 perfect, but they're doing a hell of a lot better than we are. Could you imagine us trying with 26
01:35:22.140 provinces and we got all this space but they're pulling it off and the reason is is because they
01:35:26.940 devolve so much authority to those local governments they're not trying to run it all
01:35:33.500 out of a central government and that's why we're chiefing in canada i mean how absurd is it to think
01:35:39.660 that one law can apply and be effective and and proper for the people of newfoundland that you
01:35:45.980 know as with bc as with the yukon territories as with saskatchewan as with ontario i mean every one
01:35:51.660 of these provinces are distinct, very different. I mean, culturally, economically, mindset. I mean,
01:35:57.460 the only thing that really stands out with Quebec is they got language to really make such a
01:36:00.940 distinction. But aside from that, we're very different. People have traveled across this
01:36:04.680 country. No, we're different. We have different resources. We have different interests, different
01:36:08.580 goals. We're bound together. We're considered a nation of Canada. That's fine. But we've got to
01:36:15.060 have a system that can account for the differences regionally. And we don't. I mean, there's some
01:36:19.920 degree of it. As Derek said, the provinces have a great deal of authority, but it seems over the
01:36:23.780 years, we've given up on pushing for it, for our own autonomy, for doing it, aside from Quebec.
01:36:30.040 And you know, I used to curse about Quebec a lot, and I still do now and then. But you know what?
01:36:36.040 You got to admire them. They're not taking the crap. They stand up for themselves. Why are we
01:36:40.380 constantly whining about them? We got to do the same bloody thing. I mean, they're winning if
01:36:46.100 it's something to be won or lost. So yeah, let's examine what can Alberta put into that? What can
01:36:52.700 Saskatchewan put into that? Maybe even BC, but it's going to be something very interesting to
01:36:57.820 watch. And, you know, the thing to keep in mind is, is look how quickly the federal leadership
01:37:03.840 bent over to accommodate Quebec with this move or demand or whatever way you want to make it out to
01:37:09.220 be. Again, O'Toole, man, he's something else. You know, and it was Michelle Ripple, I mean,
01:37:16.340 countered quite well in talking about, well, can Alberta put something in to get out of 0.99
01:37:19.640 equalization? You know, I'm in that part of the constitution. That was her question. But that 0.64
01:37:23.580 got pretty quickly undercut when O'Toole came bumbling on in there to say, yeah, yeah, I'm with
01:37:28.580 Justin. Quebec should be able to do this and it's great and they're a nation. But again, as I said
01:37:35.020 at the end, it's not like O'Toole was saying that because he thinks every province should do it.
01:37:38.580 it's just him hoping he can manage to win some seats out there. It's not doing us any favors in
01:37:43.520 the West. And if provinces won't stand up for themselves, I mean, we look at that. We look at
01:37:47.900 the transfer payments to Quebec. Look at the preferential treatment to Quebec on every level.
01:37:52.640 It's because they're willing to stand up for themselves. And if we don't, they will keep
01:37:55.960 milking us to feed Quebec. But don't blame Quebec. Blame ourselves. We've got to put our foot down
01:38:03.160 and say, no, we're not taking anymore. You're not getting anymore. We're out or we're moving
01:38:08.960 towards being out or we'll throw our constitutional amendments and changes in there to stand up for
01:38:13.340 ourselves because the system is not working and it won't. The system either needs to change or
01:38:19.600 we need to get out of the system. Those are the only two options we've got left. The only question
01:38:23.580 is how long are we going to let go before we hit that point? It seems interminable, but
01:38:30.220 we will eventually get there. And, you know, support, polling, you know, things for independence
01:38:38.240 is flying along and it's growing. So, yeah, I'm not sure about this one. Sorry about that.
01:38:50.040 So, yeah, we've got a few past the independence. Maybe Quebec's provided another one to look at
01:38:54.740 and examine. I talked about that before, you know, we're moving towards the equalization
01:38:58.800 referendum this fall maybe that'll have a little more teeth actually it just struck me you know
01:39:02.920 people say you're just pissing in the wind with this referendum there's nothing you can do well
01:39:06.200 maybe there's a much stronger justification if 80 of Albertans said you know what we've had it
01:39:10.900 with this crap no more equalization they vote that way in the referendum that's when we put forth our
01:39:16.240 provincial modification to the constitution there see we're distinct we did a referendum on it
01:39:21.980 We showed we as a whole want no part of this.
01:39:26.200 So we are putting in our exemption.
01:39:28.920 I could be messing with how Derek was saying it works or how it lays out,
01:39:33.300 but I wish to be lost to throwing it at the wall and see what sticks,
01:39:36.280 you know?
01:39:37.760 Yes.
01:39:38.320 Cheryl was bringing up.
01:39:39.340 I read about that.
01:39:40.220 I didn't look too closely at,
01:39:41.680 but parts of Oregon were voting to secede and be part of Idaho.
01:39:47.060 And that's going to be interesting to watch that and say Alberta take notes
01:39:50.540 because yeah,
01:39:50.820 the American system, you know, well, Texas is always chafing and fighting, but they don't
01:39:54.240 quite have separatist movements like we do. And now we're seeing a partition and getting
01:39:57.600 smaller with parts of Oregon. Oregon's a neat state, you know, interior Oregon, nice and
01:40:03.040 conservative, a lot of agricultural and things like that. Idaho, again, for the most part,
01:40:10.760 a Republican conservative type of area. So you can see why they get along. I mean, aside
01:40:15.320 from my mother up in Sandpoint with her Democrat support and things like that, but that's a
01:40:18.800 separate issue. In Oregon, you get Portland, you know, the land of insanity down there and Eugene
01:40:23.820 and just this collection of knobs. And now parts of Oregon are saying, well, you know, we don't
01:40:28.580 want to be a part of that anymore. And they're breaking off. We're seeing it around the world,
01:40:33.160 perhaps, you know, as time goes on, we're seeing movements to, I mean, Scotland, I think is on the
01:40:40.340 brink of breaking out again in the UK. We're starting to see decentralization of governments.
01:40:46.240 I think it's a good trend.
01:40:48.620 If we can do that, ironically, if we can just embrace our differences,
01:40:53.300 we can actually get along with the outside governments and states better
01:40:57.320 instead of fighting with each other all the time, and we'll all benefit for it.
01:41:02.640 As Rose is saying, it'd be nice if the premiers in the West got together
01:41:06.300 and planned a group separation.
01:41:09.740 Well, that was interesting.
01:41:10.560 some of the polling that the Western Standard did before, support was much, much stronger for
01:41:17.500 Western independence if Saskatchewan was tied in with it, you know, kind of the larger the group.
01:41:23.720 We've got to be careful. I mean, you know, there's differences between Saskatchewan and Alberta,
01:41:27.000 but still the West has got more commonalities, you know, with each other, particularly the
01:41:31.820 Prairie provinces than the East. So, I mean, but there's no appetite for it yet on the elected
01:41:37.960 front you know scott moe it doesn't talk about those things jason kenny is certainly uh demonstrated
01:41:44.040 his his full uh federalism he's not going to bend from that uh barcelona versus madrid uh yeah you
01:41:51.240 know different areas are splitting apart and it doesn't have to be violent it doesn't have to be
01:41:57.720 nasty i mean look at uh the czech republic and slovakia you know they're getting along fine
01:42:03.240 There was a peaceful split between the two once the Soviet influence got out of there.
01:42:08.820 Sweden and Norway were actually one nation at one time, only, you know, a hundred and some years ago.
01:42:15.000 They split through referenda, actually.
01:42:17.720 It can happen.
01:42:18.920 And, you know, those two countries get along perfectly fine.
01:42:22.500 They got a big, long border next to them.
01:42:24.080 I'm sure they have their tiffs and disagreements now and then.
01:42:26.700 But they decided that they're better off independently from each other and seems to be working well.
01:42:33.240 Um, yeah, Cheryl's saying, you know, Alberta, let's not wait for five more generations. Yeah,
01:42:40.020 Derek's pointed out just how long this goes, you know, 1905 till now. We're just going in circles.
01:42:49.100 So the long weekend approaches, guys, do what you can with it. The weather's crappy. That's
01:42:54.700 kind of a tradition for May long weekends. Anyways, that's nothing new. It's Victoria
01:43:00.720 of day to some of the people who are into the monarchist sort of thing. And I find them kind
01:43:04.760 of neat. They're interesting to watch the shows on and everything. I mean, they're a part of
01:43:08.800 history, but they should be also, as far as I'm concerned, legislatively completely a part of
01:43:14.300 history as well. You know, look at the remnants we've got now. I mean, this governor general's
01:43:19.360 office, what a joke that is, you know, it's an embarrassment. But that's what the monarchy has
01:43:27.620 brought us as we devolved into a modern world you know they're just figureheads but we need to
01:43:31.840 fully make them so i mean now it's just turning into a soap opera but either way victoria was a
01:43:37.300 big part of uh history in north america and in the world uh herself as a queen and uh victoria
01:43:42.780 day is the celebration coming up so celebrate observe or as other people call it the me long
01:43:47.060 weekend do what you will crack a beer have a good time before i take off for the weekend uh
01:43:52.560 Just a reminder, don't forget, nobody's working harder for gun owners than the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights.
01:44:02.420 These guys are out there.
01:44:04.240 They're on the ground.
01:44:06.240 They're suing the federal government on behalf of gun owners right now.
01:44:10.180 And if you could become a member or donate to their legal fund, go to firearmrights.ca and click Y Join.
01:44:18.160 Like they're pushing back and we have to.
01:44:20.200 That's another thing the central government, what was it? C-51, I believe, under Ellen Rock back in the 90s. I'm dating myself. I'm a little older. But back then, it was a big battle with the Long Gun Registry, which we discovered in High River. That's fodder for another show. The registry was never deleted. It just stopped updating. But they're not done with this. They're still coming after our firearms.
01:44:42.460 they still don't support our individual rights of property or defense or things such as that.
01:44:47.840 This group, the Canadian Coalition of Firearms Rights, CCFR, they're standing up for it. They're
01:44:53.400 pushing, they're taking the government to court. They're making sure that you can keep and use
01:44:57.960 both, keep and use your firearms. You know, the government finds those little roundabout ways to
01:45:02.620 say, well, you can have it, but it's illegal to use anywhere. Or you can have it, but you can't
01:45:08.660 pass it on, you know, when you're finished with it. Like they're phasing it out. It's still a
01:45:13.660 gross violation of property rights and individual rights. And the main part is they're afraid
01:45:19.860 of people being empowered. I mean, firearms in Canada, realistically, they aren't harming many
01:45:27.100 people. We don't need to have things not harm many people before we legislate to try and stop them.
01:45:31.440 We see that with the pandemic. Armed robberies, things like that, the murders that are happening
01:45:35.980 with firearms are predominantly far and above illegal handguns that came in from out of the
01:45:41.940 country. Not anybody who was out hunting, not anybody who kept something around their households,
01:45:47.160 you know, not a target shooter, not people, a hobbyist or a collector. These are gangsters and
01:45:53.200 thugs who get illegal firearms. And guess what? No matter how many laws you put in there,
01:45:58.640 those gangsters and thugs are going to keep getting them. And we're just going to have
01:46:01.420 less ways to defend ourselves. So there are groups pushing for that. There were a bunch in
01:46:06.340 the past. They remember a law abiding and registered firearms and owners association and
01:46:10.400 a whole number of things. But now, you know, it's, it's gone into this bunch because I believe if
01:46:16.760 Trudeau gets a majority and he very well probably might this fall, he's coming after your guns.
01:46:21.720 So be sure to support our sponsor there, the CCFR, go to firearmrights.ca, click on there,
01:46:30.500 help these guys out uh as well with us thank you all for tuning in uh you know keep an eye on our
01:46:36.820 youtube channel subscribe to it if you haven't already uh nadine has been putting in a fantastic
01:46:42.340 interviews and stories and editorials uh and go to the westernstandardonline.com you can get our
01:46:48.500 stories in full things like derek from was talking about he'll be putting it up there we keep good
01:46:53.180 original content on stories that nobody else is covering we're speaking for the west we are uh
01:46:59.460 more transparent uh you know uh reporters on the ucp caucus than the ucp leadership actually is
01:47:05.380 so you can get that information there but we need to subscribe so we can keep that up there's a
01:47:09.800 number of people need to be paid there's bills need to be paid things like that we can only do
01:47:13.560 it with the support of subscribers and advertisers if you want to advertise your products or services
01:47:18.820 by all means get a hold of me or somebody else we got these shows going we'll be more than happy to
01:47:22.880 support other businesses and it goes both ways uh so get in there like us on facebook do those
01:47:29.040 things, spread the word, independent media is the way to go. You know, the CBC and the rest of that
01:47:33.160 garbage talk radio, it's gone to crap. We're here, we're building an alternative and without a single
01:47:38.780 nickel of federal tax or any tax dollars. And that's a big distinction. People do have to
01:47:43.860 understand that is the second you start taking money from government, you become beholden to
01:47:48.740 them. And then you can't freely report on things. You can't truly represent citizens because you
01:47:55.600 worry about rattling the tree that funds you. You'll be worried that the government will pull
01:48:01.720 your funding away if you poke too hard on them. And Derek's made it very clear that's not going
01:48:07.760 to happen. The Western Standard is never going to be taking tax dollars, but we do rely on then our
01:48:12.160 readers and our users. And of course, we appreciate feedback. Tell us how we can do it better, how we
01:48:16.680 can better serve. By all means, send me tips on people to interview, people to talk to, and we'll
01:48:23.160 keep the freedom going. So thanks for all for joining me. I will see you all on Monday for a
01:48:29.620 Monday morning show. It might be a little shorter because it's a long weekend. We'll see, but there's
01:48:33.060 always more stuff to talk about. So thanks and viva la Western independence.