00:00:30.000well greetings friends welcome to another edition of the danielle smith report
00:00:42.240i'm danielle smith it gives me no pleasure to talk about this today honestly like i i know that
00:00:49.600the this issue was discovered a couple of weeks ago but when you see a new investigation going
00:00:57.760into potential violations of elections law, once again, on the cusp of a vote, it just makes you
00:01:05.140wonder, how is this going to end? How is this going to have any credibility? I think that
00:01:12.280politicians, and I wrote about this in my newsletter on Sunday, politicians have so eroded
00:01:17.420our confidence in our voting systems, and then they get mad when we say, gosh, I don't have
00:01:23.760confidence in the voting system anymore. So I had a couple of solutions for how we're going to solve
00:01:28.660that problem. But if you don't know what I'm talking to or talking about, let me share some
00:01:34.300of this background with you. I'm going to try to share my screen a little bit differently today.
00:01:38.340I don't know if this is going to work out particularly well. I'm still working out the
00:01:42.840technical details, my friends. I'll get this nailed pretty soon. But the person that you should be
00:01:48.420watching, I think, is Dwayne Bratt. Because look, Dwayne Bratt, when he does his tweets,
00:01:55.320he gets sort of right to the nub of the matter. And one of the things that he pointed out is this
00:02:02.020story that appeared on the weekend, Elections Alberta. So let me see here where it goes.
00:02:08.020Elections Alberta is investigating the allegation of bulk UCP membership purchases,
00:02:14.940allegations that the Kenny team was cheating with the UCP leadership review are not new. What is new
00:02:21.560is that the allegations are serious enough for Elections Alberta to investigate and look at as
00:02:26.340well what Dwayne Brad has to say. He says, so the person who cheated during the 2017 UCP leadership
00:02:31.700race passed Bill 81 in the middle of the night to make it easier to cheat in internal party politics
00:02:37.160is now being investigated for cheating in the 2022 UCP leadership review. Let me show you the story
00:02:43.260so that you can see where it's at. And I'll see if I can explain a little bit about what is going
00:02:48.200on here. Because Brian Jean had a team member, Vitor Marciano. Some of you may know him. He's
00:02:54.480been a political operative and strategist for a very long time. He was my chief of staff for a
00:02:58.840period of time. Obviously, Brian Jean's chief of staff. He's working really closely on Brian Jean's
00:03:04.100campaign. So what he did is he discovered that he had the ability as a member to go and audit the
00:03:11.400list. And so sure enough, he decided to go and audit the list. He went into the party headquarters
00:03:17.680and managed to, and he spent a number of days at this where he went through and what he was
00:03:24.000checking, because this is how the party leadership process works or party membership process is
00:03:28.700supposed to work. The UCP says that you are supposed to buy your own membership with your
00:03:35.040own money. You have the ability to buy for close family members as well. So no problems, right?
00:03:40.420everything's good now here is the problem there is um the way that gets checked is that you are
00:03:49.460supposed to most of our membership purchases now happen online so the way it gets checked is that
00:03:53.860the address that you sign up under is the same as the address on your credit card great so how do
00:04:00.260you find out if somebody is buying a membership for someone not at their address very simple you
00:04:05.060you would end up with a large number of transactions to a single credit card with multiple
00:04:10.080addresses associated with it. And that is exactly what Vitra discovered. So over 4,000, I'm hearing
00:04:16.920the numbers 4,200. So 4,200 memberships were processed, the CBC News story says, on six credit
00:04:25.900cards. So just do a little bit of math on that. You'll see, that would be a pretty darn big
00:04:30.940household. Now, the plot gets a little thicker here, and the whole situation gets a little
00:04:37.160murkier, because as it happens, in the dead of night, at three o'clock in the morning, Bill 81
00:04:44.800was passed in the legislature on, call it the evening of December 7th, going into the morning
00:04:51.400of December 8th, and there were five MLAs who were in the legislature at the time, arguing against
00:04:57.080the changes. So I know there's a bunch of people, when I tell this story, you're going to say,
00:05:03.360well, why didn't all of the MLAs vote against that terrible piece of legislation? And here's
00:05:08.700the problem that you have. One of the tricks that politicians like to do if they're trying to pass
00:05:15.240a piece of legislation that is, how shall we say, unplatical, then what they would do is they would
00:05:22.160sticking in in an omnibus bill that is designed to to revise a bunch of statutes at once it's called
00:05:27.920it's called an omnibus piece of legislation and that's precisely what bill 81 was it it changed a
00:05:34.000lot of statutes at once and some of the changes needed to be made and so you stick this extra
00:05:40.400little clause in there and so then a politician has to ask the question do we hold up all of the
00:05:47.760changes because I was not able to get an amendment on one thing. And so five MLAs made that decision.
00:05:54.400They said that this was so important that they were prepared to vote the entire 320-page bill
00:06:00.160down. And those MLAs were Dave Hansen, Richard Gottfried, Lila Ahir, and then our two independents,
00:06:07.120Drew Barnes and Todd Lowen. So what was the change that was made? The change that was made
00:06:11.600was that instead of in law, you have to buy your own membership with your own money,
00:06:17.680They have changed the legislation to say that you can buy memberships on behalf of somebody else.
00:06:24.300And if you do, it is considered a contribution because this particular clause was amending the Elections Contribution Act, which is a different act, Elections Contributions and Financing Act.
00:06:36.760So now you have to go to another clause and say, OK, well, if this buying of memberships is going to be subject to the contributions limit, what is that limit?
00:06:47.680that limit is $4,000. So just do some math on this. If you've got a $10 membership and you're
00:06:53.680able to buy memberships on behalf of other people, up to a maximum of 4,000 memberships or $4,000,
00:07:00.520then you can buy 400 memberships. That's what everybody was objecting to. There's a few of you
00:07:04.880who said, whoa, why didn't I hear more about this? And that was, I think, by design. But
00:07:10.320the fact that it got debated is the very last thing going deep into the night in December
00:07:16.300on the last day of session shows that this is something that the party really, really wanted,
00:07:21.760or the legislated team, the executive council putting it forward is something that they really,
00:07:28.080really wanted. So what has happened now? So what has happened now, if you take those numbers that
00:07:34.520I was just saying, is that if you have six credit cards that have processed 4,000 memberships,
00:07:41.500the numbers don't quite add up do they if you had six credit cards that were processing 400 each so
00:07:47.500they could get their maximum four thousand dollar contribution then you'd only have 2400 memberships
00:07:53.820that's one problem so the numbers don't work so one of those credit cards was being overused
00:07:59.020the at least one and maybe all six of them the second level problem that we have is that this
00:08:04.540portion of the legislation didn't come into effect until march 31st so rules are broken
00:08:10.540it looks like under the letter of the law anyway but the fact of the matter is that the rules
00:08:15.740you weren't allowed to do this until after march the 31st and so then the third problem is
00:08:21.180that the membership cutoff to participate in the leadership review was march the 19th so none of
00:08:27.260this looks good my friends and i just i have to wonder at what point people say enough is enough
00:08:36.780here i don't quite understand why we are not hearing from the executive council of the party
00:08:43.900don't quite understand why we're not hearing from more mlas on this because the left is having a
00:08:48.700field day on this the thing the reason i like watching duane brad is because you have to
00:08:54.540realize he is one of the most quoted political pundits in the province and so if this is the
00:09:02.300thing if this is the commentary that he is making this is the commentary that's going out to the
00:09:07.580mainstream media if this is the commentary going out to the mainstream media then this is what
00:09:12.140most people are going to read in the newspaper and this is what most people are going to to
00:09:15.500be talking about is how fishy all of this looks none of it looks good for for the party and so
00:09:22.220now now we're in a sort of another bind that within the next what is it two two more days
00:09:28.220by May the 11th, 5 o'clock p.m., all of the membership votes have to be in to Deloitte.
00:09:35.620So how is Deloitte going to be looking at this, right? So they're an independent auditing firm
00:09:42.600whose job it is to make sure that the votes are calculated appropriately. So now we have this
00:09:50.240Elections Alberta investigation casting some doubt on 4,000 of those votes. What do they do?
00:09:56.500Do they set them aside? Because they'd have to do that on May 11th and afterwards, because part of
00:10:03.920the process they're doing is they're taking the ballot out of the verification envelope. It would
00:10:09.120be at that point that they would know whether the person bought their membership themselves or not.
00:10:13.880And so are they supposed to put them aside? If they count them, and then the leader wins by
00:10:20.500a tiny share of the vote, call it less than 4,000 votes, does it then cast the entire process into
00:10:29.600doubt? How do you then claim that you've got a strong mandate if 4,000 of the ballots shouldn't
00:10:35.580have been tallied in the first place because 4,000 of those ballots might not exist if somebody
00:10:41.180didn't pay for them and you weren't allowed to pay for them under the legislation? It is no way
00:10:46.560other to describe it, my friends, it is a bit of a mess. And so I was writing about this on the
00:10:51.680weekend. And one of the things that I said was that this is not the only time that we have seen
00:10:58.840the machinations of the political class and their operatives cast doubt about the outcome of a vote.
00:11:07.980I went through a whole tally of things that have occurred in Alberta politics, and strangely,
00:11:13.580a lot of them happening in Calgary, that I think has caused people to question every type of
00:11:19.200balloting that we do. So if you remember, the first time I noticed that the voting system
00:11:24.720was coming under some pressure was in 2005. That's when we saw that hundreds of mail-in ballots were
00:11:31.140being ordered from two computers to a post office box where they were all filled out in the same
00:11:38.960handwriting. Important tip, I guess, if you're going to be voting on behalf of somebody else,
00:11:43.240at least use a different pen. And that was what alerted them that these hundreds of votes had
00:11:50.400come in. They did an investigation, major investigation, 25 police officers involved.
00:11:55.000Five people ended up being charged and two went to jail. Some of them ended up playing away on
00:12:01.180fines and pleading down their penalties to lesser charges, but still people went to jail.
00:12:08.340In 2017 in Calgary, you may recall that polling stations kept running out of ballots, some of
00:12:14.500them more than once. And when they did an audit review afterwards, they found that more than
00:12:18.980half of the polling stations in Calgary had run short of ballots and some stations had to wait
00:12:24.660six hours to be resupplied. Come on, that was a pretty hotly contested race. And so people say,
00:12:30.960Hmm. Wonder how that happened. What happened in 2021 is there was one controversial candidate.
00:12:39.120And so they made the decision not to provide a voting list. Isn't that strange? Like you would
00:12:44.340think what I don't understand is why can't we have Elections Canada share the voting list with each
00:12:51.500of the provinces and then share the voting list with each of the municipalities? I mean, I don't
00:12:56.100about you but i check off on my tax form every year do you want to be added to elections canada
00:13:02.180list i say yes it's just simpler to do that why is it if we're doing that every year why is it so
00:13:07.700impossible for all of that information to be shared just add an extra box just say do you agree
00:13:12.980that you want it shared with elections canada elections alberta and your local municipal
00:13:16.980elections office tick the box and then all of a sudden you've got a list because if you don't
00:13:20.820have a list how are you supposed to know that people haven't double voted how are you supposed
00:13:25.300know that a person is entitled to vote well you swear an affidavit so once again that creates
00:13:30.420accusations that there might be people who are voting who shouldn't be voting uh then also oh
00:13:36.100boy do i even get into the u.s situation uh let me just put put the positive spin on it
00:13:42.740positive spin on it is that ron de santis in florida he's at least discovered the way that
00:13:48.260you can give credibility to an advanced poll and mail-in ballot process is you count them first
00:13:54.740You say, if you want to vote this way, it's up to you to make sure that you have them so that we can count them first so that on election night we can give a result.
00:14:04.220So Florida had all kinds of problems in all kinds of previous elections.
00:14:08.300And so finally they came up with the answer.
00:14:13.640And then, oh, my goodness, in Georgia, two counties, the elections machines went offline in the middle of the night and elections officials weren't able to say why that happened.
00:14:25.660There were they said, oh, no, these aren't these machines aren't connected to the Internet.
00:14:29.920They can't be hacked. Turns out many of the machines were.
00:14:32.660So now all of a sudden we've got a lack of trust in the in the voting machines as well.
00:14:38.240Now, also, did you see this story? In the most recent Canadian federal election, we found out 205,000 mail-in ballots went uncounted. And then, of course, notwithstanding the Elections Alberta investigation I just mentioned, there is also an RCMP investigation into what happened in the previous leadership contest, where it is alleged by MLA Prabgill.
00:15:02.500and I have all the links to these stories as well because many MLAs, ministers even, have been
00:15:08.740interviewed on this. Brian Jean's been interviewed by the RCMP on this. The premier acknowledged he's
00:15:13.860been interviewed by the RCMP on this, but the allegation is that there was, again, sort of a
00:15:23.120vote harvesting process that took place where ballots went to made up email addresses allegedly
00:15:30.960and then pins were allegedly used to vote in that race. And so that is still an ongoing
00:15:36.320investigation. So look, if you have a lack of trust in the voting system, after watching this
00:15:44.280series of missteps and fiascos, I don't blame you one bit. But here's the problem with if we can't
00:15:51.780restore faith in the democratic vote and the democratic process, what have we got? I went
00:15:57.040through and found all of the different types of political systems that various societies have
00:16:03.300lived under over the years. There's a reason why Winston Churchill says that, what is his quote,
00:16:08.880the democracy is the worst system we got except for all the others or something along those lines.
00:16:15.220It's not a perfect system. But would you rather have a monarchy? I mean, that's where you end up
00:16:19.460with your rulers chosen by bloodline. If you look at a theocracy, we've had theocratic regimes
00:16:25.080where the ruler is chosen by the top cleric or top religious leader. We've had military
00:16:30.960dictatorships most recently. So that's when generals end up scrapping with each other over
00:16:36.700who should lead. You have aristocracies or colonialism. So whether you've got a wealthy
00:16:43.880class of elites or a colonial foreign power that is ruling, none of these are better systems.
00:16:50.640The best system that we've got is democracy, which is why it is important that we restore
00:16:56.220some confidence and faith in our different political processes.
00:17:00.640So one of the things that I had been trying to educate you all on, as you know, is this
00:17:07.720idea that we can vote in a different way.
00:17:10.520I'm going to try to do this one more time to share with you, I think, another example
00:17:15.100of how we can use a different voting system,
00:17:18.280hopefully to restore some of the confidence.
00:17:20.280It says how blockchain technology can prevent voter fraud.
00:17:26.880And one of the things that I've been trying to bring to the fore
00:17:31.400is that this new type of digital technology,
00:17:33.880I know the World Economic Forum and China0.99
00:17:36.240have absolutely destroyed your confidence0.88
00:17:39.680in any kind of digital mechanism to vote
00:17:44.100or to have digital ID because you're worried about tracking. But here's how I think blockchain
00:17:50.620can solve this problem that we have. Because if you look at what blockchain is, it basically is
00:17:57.580just one big giant ledger that records peer-to-peer transactions for all the world to see.
00:18:04.400And you cut out the middleman. That's the point. So you cut out the person who's receiving the
00:18:08.840ballots. You cut out the person counting the ballots. You cut out the accounting firm. You
00:18:12.280cut out the voting machine. It's essentially what it does is it gives you a private key and a
00:18:19.620private token, and then you cast your ballot into a public ledger for all the world to see. And then
00:18:25.080you have access to it. Yeah, you don't have a middleman that you have to worry about validating
00:18:30.500it wrong. You get pre-validated so everybody knows that you're entitled to vote. If you want
00:18:35.080to go and check and see that your vote was counted, you can. If you want to go and check and
00:18:38.040it was put forward for the right person you can and so there are mechanisms that we could use and
00:18:42.840the other part about using an electronic voting system like i described that is peer-to-peer and
00:18:49.800that is um again an individual decentralized process as opposed to a centralized process
00:18:56.360is that it allows for us to do way more voting on way more issues i have been so frustrated over the
00:19:03.080last two years in particular but it's gone on longer where we see voting or we see decision
00:19:08.520making on politicians by public opinion poll so they they send out a pollster to interview
00:19:16.360a thousand people in an online panel and then they come back with an answer and say oh well
00:19:21.720i guess this is what people want us to do i would rather see if we have important policy public
00:19:27.000policy decisions being made wouldn't it be better if you could essentially just send out a
00:19:32.120a notification. Maybe you have referendum day every week where an important question of public
00:19:38.240policy is put to the people. And so then you can shoot out the question on this app. If you want
00:19:44.460to participate, you can participate. It'd be a heck of a lot better than a polling system. You'd
00:19:49.120actually be able to get more of a voting system and you'd be able to do direct democracy. We now
00:19:54.500have the means to do it. Maybe the only reason politicians aren't talking about these types of
00:20:00.040approaches is they kind of like the system the way it is because it works for them. That's what
00:20:05.120I always worry about. So I'm just going to let you know that I recognize the concerns that everybody
00:20:12.100has about a digital voting system. And I think that what I'm attempting to do is I'm attempting
00:20:19.940to show you that there really is two different paths that we can take forward. We could take
00:20:25.580forward a path where we have centralized control, centralized decision-making, and decisions being
00:20:32.900moved further and further away from the people. Or we can take an approach where we have individual
00:20:38.680sovereignty, local sovereignty, provincial sovereignty, and we bring decisions closer to
00:20:44.380the people. That, I think, is the big battle that's going on right now. It's not, do we have
00:20:49.240digital ID or don't we? Or do we have digital voting or don't we? Or do we have digital
00:20:53.280currency or don't we? It's do we have centralized all those things or do we have decentralized all
00:21:01.300of those things? And so that's where I'm trying to take the conversation to. I'm not sure that
00:21:04.900I'm succeeding. I'm doing my best to convince you that these are actually the solutions, but
00:21:11.620it's a bit of a hard leap, I understand. And politicians are doing a terrible job of trying
00:21:16.180to convince you themselves. And as a result, it just makes my job that much harder. But look,
00:21:21.320So one more thing I want to share with you, because this is sadly going to be our future if we do not solve this problem of lack of trust in the electoral process.
00:21:34.660Let me see if I can scroll through my screens here. I'm going to talk to you about a few of these things in just a minute.
00:21:38.780But one of the things that I did notice is this, a new Saskatchewan political party is starting up to, as they say, give a voice back to the people.
00:21:52.020So what is going on here? A new provincial party in Saskatchewan has been announced.
00:21:58.060The party came out of, quote, the political, economic, and social crisis taking place in Saskatchewan.
00:22:07.880Maverick Party candidate, Ken Rutherford, former federal agriculture minister, Jerry Ritz. Now,
00:22:15.020that's a pretty heavy hitter to be involved in this new party process. And independent MLA,
00:22:20.200Nadine Wilson, founded the Saskatchewan United Party. Isn't that interesting? So you have the
00:22:28.180Saskatchewan Party and the Saskatchewan United Party. So the party started building with its
00:22:33.420first event in March in Saskatoon's Prairieland Park with 1,200 people in attendance. Guys,
00:22:41.980I've been to a lot of political events, a lot of founding events. That's a very big number,
00:22:46.7401,200 people in attendance, followed by an event in Regina with 300 people. And press release says
00:22:51.620the party formed with the aim of bringing the province back together and healing the many
00:22:56.020divides that have existed as a result of the mismanagement, incompetence, and in some cases,
00:23:01.160perceived malfeasance of various levels of the current government of saskatchewan you know i
00:23:06.440kind of thought that scott moe was doing pretty well in saskatchewan but here's the real problem
00:23:12.600right so nadine got kicked out of caucus for being unvaccinated and so look what's happened is that
00:23:19.640we've got these cleavage lines that are being formed around these various of freedom issues
00:23:26.120and so in saskatchewan now it already looks like that has blown the uh the traditional coalition
00:23:33.160apart saskatchewan's coalition is a little bit different than alberta's because the saskatchewan
00:23:38.920party came together with a few mlas from the liberals and some mlas from the conservatives
00:23:44.120deciding to come together and form a party and drop the political labeling was the interesting
00:23:49.960move about the saskatchewan party is that it's not they didn't feel it was uh adding to the brand
00:23:56.200to have conservative or liberal in the name now look what's also happening in british columbia
00:24:00.760british columbia also came together conservatives and liberals but they called themselves the bc
00:24:06.200liberal party they've got a new leader kevin falcon what does he want to do wants to change
00:24:10.680the name of the party i don't know if it's gone through yet but i remember being on a a call with
00:24:15.000canada strong and free and they talked about naming it to beat the bc party maybe it'll be
00:24:19.960the bc united party so i'm just gonna put it to you that if things do not coalesce how shall i put
00:24:30.040this delicately on may the 18th so the party can start the ucp can start a renewal process i think
00:24:38.760that this we should be watching what's happening in saskatchewan because i suspect that's what's
00:24:44.280going to happen here so call it a alberta united party so you've got united conservative party
00:24:52.520alberta united party it would be in sync with what's happening in saskatchewan you take out
00:24:58.120the labels the conservative or liberal label one of the problems wild rose has now is that they
00:25:05.560have called themselves the wild rose independence party and while i believe in as much autonomy as
00:25:10.120necessary. I think independence is probably a step too far for most people. So what happens
00:25:17.720May 18th? Let's map this out a little bit. So if it is the case that the Premier wins on May 18th,
00:25:25.160does anyone think that Brian Jean, having just filed, having been the victim of what happened
00:25:33.240in the 2017 race and seeing this same kind of investigation now happening in the 2022 race,
00:25:41.020do you think he's just going to say, ah, all's forgiven, no problem, just going to roll in?
00:25:44.740I highly doubt it. Do you think Todd Lowen is? And Drew Barnes, having voted against so many
00:25:50.800of the pieces of legislation and spoken so publicly about the misdirection they think
00:25:56.260the UCP is going, do you think they're just going to roll in? Don't think so. Do you think Paul
00:26:00.020him and his? Nope. What about the MLAs have spoken out? Are they going to be able to stay
00:26:04.900in the caucus? I don't know. So I suspect based on what I've heard the premier say that he's going
00:26:11.540to be kicking them out. So now you've got at least four and maybe more. All you need is four
00:26:18.160to have official party status. This is important because if you have four MLAs and have official
00:26:23.940party status in the legislature, then you are able to parlay that into running a full
00:26:30.340slate of candidates in the next election. Normally, when you're trying to create a new
00:26:33.940party from scratch, you have to go around and get 100 signatures from 87 ridings. I hope they
00:26:38.860haven't changed that. That's the way it used to be. So you had to get 8,700 signatures, but
00:26:42.440you can do a shortcut on that process if you've got a parliamentary caucus.
00:26:48.580So if it's already happening in Saskatchewan, I suspect we're just looking at the future for Alberta, is that we're likely going to see this movement split apart again, sigh. And then what happens? Oh, gosh, there's also another political party I found out that has been on the stage.
00:27:07.760I've been wondering what's happening with the Buffalo party. I always mention the different
00:27:12.200permutations of what could happen post May 18th. And so I think this is what it's shaping up. So
00:27:20.320you end up with the UCP party, maybe call it the Alberta United party. We're going to use
00:27:26.620that language, maybe led by Brian Jean. Then you end up with Paul Hemans, Wildrose Independence,
00:27:32.520whatever party Drew Barnes creates, whatever party Todd Lowen creates and the Buffalo party.
00:27:36.360now we've got six parties that are all vying for the same vote and up against a united rachel
00:27:42.120notley ndp uh party how do you think that's going to turn out this is what this is why i am no i'm
00:27:48.520not keen to see this uh this party split apart really i think my conclusion that i've come to
00:27:54.520and you know my timing is always off but the conclusion i have come to is that parties can be
00:27:59.800changed from within. If you get enough MLAs with particular persuasion, they can put pressure on
00:28:07.000the party and the leadership to go in a different direction. And so we're about to, whatever happens
00:28:11.280May 18th, May 19th, we're about to start into a series of local candidate nominations. And there's
00:28:18.440going to be a lot to choose from. So I just want you to be aware of the developments that are
00:28:23.760happening in, in just to our east. And I'll probably want to interview them because I need
00:28:29.540to understand all the factors behind that. There's no one more surprised than me that Scott Moe is
00:28:34.880under this kind of pressure. Even though he did follow kind of in lockstep with every other
00:28:39.360province, it does, it seemed to me that he had found a bit of a better balance. He certainly
00:28:45.240was polling higher in public opinion polling than the premier here was. Our Alberta premier was,
00:28:51.420was pulling at the either bottom one or two almost for almost the entire last two years.
00:28:57.980Whereas Scott Moe was, was pulling pretty well near the top. So if anyone wants to send me some
00:29:02.800background, cause I know many of you come from Saskatchewan and still have family in Saskatchewan
00:29:06.800to tell me what exactly has caused the reversal of fortunes. I'd be delighted to have you tell me.
00:29:12.780All right. I think I've got one more thing that I want to play for you because it's appearing on
00:29:17.980my locals feed. And I think I'll probably end up doing a much longer segment on this, but I just
00:29:27.060want to give you a few of the, maybe just a few links so that you can go and do some background
00:29:35.540research yourself so that we are able to have a longer conversation about it. But here's what I
00:29:41.480wanted to play for you. It's a YouTube video. Oh my goodness. It's only 22 seconds long. It was
00:29:47.540from a public event. So who knows? YouTube is allowing me to be broadcasting again this week,
00:29:55.060but they have these really strict rules about me, about playing other videos. It seems to me
00:30:00.860this is public information. So I'm going to see if I can play this for you. I wonder if I,
00:30:06.960you know what? I hope you can hear it. This is one of the things when you're sharing screen
00:30:11.980is that I don't know if you're going to be able to hear it, but let's give it a whirl and see if
00:30:16.620you can. Okay, if you didn't hear that, because I don't know if I did that, did that sharing screen,
00:30:42.980right but if you uh if you did if you did hear that um or didn't hear that let me explain to
00:30:48.260you what what he said he said that the un this is on may the fourth the un and the world economic
00:30:54.180forum have announced a joint partner partnership to accelerate the implementation of the agenda
00:31:02.1002030 un sustainable development goals this is what i do not understand you have everybody concerned
00:31:11.140that the world economic forum has outsized influence on our governments and on our global
00:31:17.700institutions and so what do they do they say oh my goodness anyone who says that is crazy
00:31:23.940it's a conspiracy theory and then they go and have a formal announcement like that saying
00:31:29.940how important it is for the world economic forum to be in partnership with the un on achieving
00:31:34.980these goals like you can't have it both ways guys either they're just state why you're involved and
00:31:40.260why the world economic forum is important and why it has the influence it does or stop doing these
00:31:46.180kinds of announcements because it just makes people suspicious now here's the other thing
00:31:50.740i would say and again this goes to the issue of it's a matter of what level of government
00:31:57.140is making these decisions because i you know i i thought i better have a look at these because i
00:32:02.020i've looked at these uh sustainable development goals before and there's nothing really on them
00:32:07.700that freaks me out um if you look at what it is that they're aiming for i think most of us would
00:32:13.220agree that these are good objectives so let me go through so that you can see and then i'll i'll
00:32:18.740try to explain why i think many of you are finding it problematic so if you if you go on online and
00:32:25.140i'll try to include the the link this is what the 2030 agenda for sustainable development is
00:32:31.940transforming our world and there's 17 different sustainable development goals now that you've
00:32:36.740seen this you're going to see it everywhere sustainable development goals you've got different
00:32:40.660levels of government you've got different politicians different political parties
00:32:44.660various large corporations who have all signed on to the sustainable development goals
00:32:48.900and here's what those sustainable development goals are oh they've got them i know it's probably
00:32:53.620light but let me have this up here so that you if you want to squint at the screen you can see them
00:32:57.860so sustainable development goals and targets one and poverty in all its forms everywhere i'm behind
00:33:05.460that. Number two, end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote
00:33:10.720sustainable agriculture. I'd like to know more about what they think sustainable agriculture
00:33:16.600is, but I'm all on board with that as well. Goal three, ensure healthy lives and promote
00:33:22.460well-being for all at all ages. Number four, ensure inclusive and equitable quality education,
00:33:29.500promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Number five, achieve gender equality and empower
00:33:34.800all women and girls number six ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation
00:33:40.720for all number seven ensure access to affordable reliable sustainable and modern energy for all
00:33:46.960there again would like to know what their definition of modern energy is number eight
00:33:52.000promote sustained inclusive sustainable economic growth full and productive employment and decent
00:33:57.360work. Sorry, guys, I just ended up shooting ahead on that one. And decent work for all. Number nine,
00:34:06.240build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster
00:34:10.900innovation. Number 10, reduce inequality within and among countries. Number 11, make cities and
00:34:17.540human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. There's that say sustainable again.
00:34:22.280Number 12, ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. That one needs obviously a
00:34:27.020little bit more investigation. Number 13, take urgent action to combat climate change and its
00:34:33.780impacts. And you see there's little asterisks there. That's one that we've got to take a
00:34:37.500closer look at. Goal 14, conserve and sustainably use the ocean, seize marine resources for
00:34:42.520sustainable development. Goal 15, protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial
00:34:47.340ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation
00:34:53.660and halt biodiversity loss. There's two more. Goal 16, promote peaceful, inclusive societies
00:34:58.960for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable,
00:35:04.280and inclusive institutions at all levels. And number 17, strengthen the means of implementation
00:35:09.960and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. So you see, when you
00:35:15.400read those out, those aspirational targets, you can say, yeah, those are great aspirational targets.
00:35:21.520The question always comes in, at what level? Because I think what we have now determined,
00:35:28.000I'm hoping that you're seeing, I'm trying to build the case, that the further you move decision
00:35:32.840making away from the people who are impacted, the more you end up having money eaten up in
00:35:40.300administrative costs. I'm going to see if I can find a Canadian version of that study I shared
00:35:44.740last week by the, I think it was by the Von Mises Institute, and it was a libertarian studies paper.
00:35:51.520that found that 70% of the cost of a central government program goes to administration.
00:35:57.800So you collect $3 billion worth of taxes, $2 billion goes to administration,
00:36:02.000only $1 billion gets to the front line.
00:36:04.000This is the problem with every single one of those goals,
00:36:07.160is that if it's going to be managed centrally through the UN and the World Economic Forum
00:36:13.440and the World Health Organization and World Trade Organization
00:36:18.120and the International Monetary Fund, it's going to be a fiasco and boondoggle. Like we just know
00:36:23.700that. That's just a given. But if it's a matter of everybody working towards these goals at the
00:36:30.560local level, and then just reporting up so that we can share best practices, then why would we
00:36:36.240be opposed to that? That is the big battle that is shaping up right now, is that there are
00:36:40.900obviously those who believe that they know better than anyone else, and that they can centrally
00:36:45.600plan their way through anything especially if they use ai and machine learning they figure that they
00:36:50.640can come up with all of the answers centrally i'm just going to put it to you you cannot you have to
00:36:55.920have more and more decisions locally and if that's if this is where the battle is is we shouldn't be
00:37:01.200battling on whether or not we want to end world poverty of course we do but how do we end world
00:37:07.040poverty do you transfer a bunch of money to the un and the world economic forum and then they say we
00:37:13.840got this or do you in alberta partner with an impoverished country we need more agriculture
00:37:21.200workers this is one of the things that occurred to me how would you address that target well
00:37:25.360we need agriculture workers and we and they need to learn more sustainable agriculture practices
00:37:30.960so why don't we enhance our temporary foreign worker program and choose two or three countries
00:37:36.320in the world where we can do a worker exchange so that we can bring people over have them earn a
00:37:41.760decent wage have them learn our farming practices and then they can return and take those practices
00:37:47.120to their home country and then we can continue fostering a relationship with them that's the
00:37:51.600difference right is that we can achieve the same goals that are there but we can achieve them
00:37:57.360better if we take the lead on it so we will have more conversations about this my friends because
00:38:02.240i know that there are so many of you who are very very worried about the direction that some of these
00:38:08.480international agencies want to go. But I think that the question, if we start saying that we
00:38:14.280don't want to achieve these targets, then we're not going to win over people who do actually want
00:38:19.000to make sure that we all have access to the very best standard of living possible. I just think we
00:38:24.460do it a different way. That's my two bits on it. Anyway, my friends, we're out of time for today.
00:38:28.380We'll be back at this again on Wednesday. Thanks so much for tuning in. This has been