Western Standard - The mess in municipalities is our own fault

00:00:00.000 Good day

00:00:29.980 Hey, welcome to The Cory Morgan Show. As you can probably tell, it's cowboy cosplay season,

00:00:35.780 so once a year when I throw on a hat and a western shirt and pretend to be something akin to a cowboy.

00:00:41.340 I grew up in Banff. I'm a mountain boy at best, but I do live rural and I have livestock,

00:00:45.620 even though they are, you know, bees. But, oh, well, I think I dress up better than some of the

00:00:50.160 folks you see down on the grounds anyways, but I know I'm not that much of a convincing cowboy.

00:00:54.040 But it's a fun time in the city of Calgary. I mean, the whole city gets going on it.

00:00:57.120 We're lucky to have such an internationally renowned annual festival like that

00:01:02.040 that's so distinct from so many others,

00:01:03.580 even though the downtown hipsters and municipal politicians like decrying it

00:01:07.840 and trying to move us away from that image.

00:01:10.500 Most people enjoy it and have a heck of a time.

00:01:12.520 The show is live. Use that comment scroll.

00:01:14.440 Good to see you there, Waniska and E-Sharp.

00:01:17.360 Just keep things civil with each other.

00:01:19.060 I got a good one coming up. I got Andy Crooks coming on.

00:01:21.240 He's going to be in studio in a little bit.

00:01:23.440 And you might remember him.

00:01:24.580 He was one of the signatories to the Alberta agenda.

00:01:27.080 It's been 24 years.

00:01:28.520 Him, along with Stephen Harper and some others,

00:01:30.780 signed that letter trying to get Ralph Klein to bring in some provincial changes

00:01:33.820 and fight Ottawa.

00:01:35.560 It's been 21 years.

00:01:36.820 Kind of got to ask, well, has anything changed?

00:01:39.220 Seems to be the same questions happening.

00:01:40.800 I'll have a news check-in with Jen Hodgson in a short bit here, too.

00:01:44.320 But first, I'm going to get off on my rant of the day.

00:01:48.320 Bike lanes, always one of my favorites. 0.98

00:01:50.260 And tracks.

00:01:51.140 They're a scourge on the roads of Canadian cities.

00:01:53.320 They tie up traffic, steal parking from suffering urban businesses and are barely used for half of the year.

00:01:59.960 The underlying reason for expanding bicycle infrastructure has nothing to do with bicycle commuters.

00:02:05.200 Years of studies have shown that despite the addition of countless kilometres of new bike lanes,

00:02:09.260 the number of people who commute daily by bicycle remains a tiny minority of citizens.

00:02:13.280 So why are bike lanes expanding so much when there's no real demand for them?

00:02:16.780 Well, it's due to density-obsessed urban planners who have infested city bureaucracies.

00:02:21.340 They tend to be downtown living hipsters who feel that if they can live without a personal automobile, everybody else should live without one, too.

00:02:28.020 They're ideologues who are opposed to personal automobiles for environmental, social, and economic reasons based on a twisted worldview.

00:02:35.500 They understand people won't give up the personal freedom and comfort of owning an automobile willingly.

00:02:40.720 So they've been on a crusade to make auto ownership as inexpensive and inconvenient as possible.

00:02:45.500 They fight against private developers who want to include parking in garages for multiple vehicles in new communities.

00:02:51.000 They expand sidewalks out into the roads and close lanes for traffic under the guise of traffic calming for safety.

00:02:57.300 They throttled the downtown parking despite the cost.

00:02:59.820 At one point, Calgary was second only to Manhattan for parking prices.

00:03:03.220 But the favorite tool for city planning zealots is the bicycle track.

00:03:06.480 It takes entire lanes from the road system, adds a whole bunch of traffic lights to every intersection to snarl traffic further.

00:03:13.220 The lanes get a priority for snow clearance for bicyclists who don't exist in winter.

00:03:17.100 while residential streets deal with glaciers, while citizens must pray for warm weather to

00:03:21.500 clear their roads. Emergency services vehicles are stranded in traffic jams, while downtown

00:03:26.200 overdoses continue to do the permissive policies with addicts. The addicts in the city insist on

00:03:31.180 enabling congregate in transit zones and on trains, and ironically keep people in their

00:03:35.140 personal vehicles, despite the city-induced expenses and inconvenience. Despite all those

00:03:40.360 efforts, citizens won't give up their cars. Instead, they're moving deeper into the suburbs

00:03:43.680 and businesses are following them. New business campuses are springing up in the outlying areas

00:03:47.780 and people are shunning the downtown cores. Commercial vacancies remain stubbornly high

00:03:51.900 while city planners dump millions of dollars into office conversions in hopes that people

00:03:57.080 will migrate to live in high density downtown. The efforts of these fanatical city planners

00:04:02.120 and the city councillors who support them have been a total failure. They've cost in productivity,

00:04:07.120 reduced safety, and are bringing more people downtown. Their constant shortcomings though

00:04:11.260 just seemed to spur them to double down despite citizens and businesses begging for mercy.

00:04:16.180 And despite all that, I oppose Provincial Transportation Minister Devin Drieschen's

00:04:20.580 threats to intervene in Alberta's cities and block the ridiculous rise in bicycle lanes.

00:04:25.100 So why after a rant like that would I oppose a minister bringing the expansion of those

00:04:29.200 absurd lanes to a halt? Well, because it's not his job. It's ours. And I know that's what nobody

00:04:34.240 ever likes to hear. The reason city planners are overrun with zealots is because the mayor's chair 0.99

00:04:38.820 in the seats of city council have been dominated by zealots as well. Hiring has reflected the

00:04:43.100 ideology of the mayor and council, and now the bureaucracy is outright infested. But whose fault

00:04:47.380 is that? Voter turnout in Alberta's civic elections is traditionally pathetic. Rarely does it reach 0.98

00:04:53.120 50%, and in Calgary it even dropped near 20% on some years. If more than half the citizens won't

00:04:58.380 get off their asses to cast a vote, why should we be surprised when the city management becomes 0.99

00:05:02.300 dominated by extremists and incompetence? Incumbent city council candidates know they 1.00

00:05:06.680 have a plum job, and they count on voter apathy to maintain their seats. Many Calgarians don't

00:05:11.200 even know who their local councillor is, much less what they politically stand for. It makes

00:05:15.740 it tough for up-and-comers to dethrone the incumbents at election time. The only way to

00:05:19.640 deal with these terrible municipal governments is to fire them, and it is possible, but it takes a

00:05:24.040 little time and effort. Alberta's fighting against a federal government that insists on infringing on

00:05:28.260 provincial jurisdiction. We understand the need for local governance to reflect the diversity of

00:05:32.780 needs of regions and zones, we abhor centralized government. So why would we want more centralized

00:05:37.260 power in the provincial government? The provincial government already has enough to do and more than

00:05:41.780 enough local power. They don't need to be grabbing more authority due to citizens abdicating their

00:05:45.600 democratic duty in municipal elections. I like Minister Drieschen, and I'm typically supportive

00:05:50.040 of the UCP government. I don't support them dipping into municipal issues, however. It's a

00:05:55.220 municipal election year in Alberta right now, and if citizens get off their butts, they can wipe out 0.96

00:05:59.980 most of the worthless municipal politicians in one swoop or they could stay home and we're going to 1.00

00:06:04.480 get more of it. As the saying says, in a democracy, you get the government you deserve. So get out 0.76

00:06:10.060 there, guys. This is the year. Vote. Get those clowns out of there. All right, let's see what

00:06:13.460 else is going on. Check in with Jen. How are you doing? Hey, Corey. You're doing good. Thanks for

00:06:16.940 having me on. Oh, glad to. So lots on the news burner. I mean, the news is packed with people

00:06:20.900 today. Yeah, lots in the news. It may be Calgary Stampede. It may be summertime, but actually the

00:06:26.120 news hasn't taken a break there's lots going on here so we'll start with up in edmonton edmonton

00:06:32.420 has a new official bird guess what that could be i can't imagine i didn't see that story yet

00:06:38.340 it's been named as the magpie the annoying the annoying trash hound thing that that disturbs

00:06:44.920 people's pets and gets into our garbage the same yep so that now represents the city of edmonton

00:06:49.900 oh well good choice guys yeah yeah good choice so that story speaks for itself

00:06:55.980 in extremely disturbing news up in crossfield a teacher has been charged with 16 sex offenses

00:07:04.220 against eight separate students so we'll be watching to see how that all unfolds 47 year

00:07:11.180 old mathematics teacher so he'll need at least a 50 year sentence to be realistic and keep this from

00:07:17.580 happening, but he'll probably be out in a few weeks, I imagine. Yeah, that's a good point. So

00:07:21.820 we'll be following that closely to see if this teacher actually gets the consequences that he

00:07:27.260 deserves for this abhorrent behavior. So that was the Airdrie RCMP that made those arrests.

00:07:34.620 Now, speaking of the RCMP, an RCMP officer went on CBC last night and documented the rise in

00:07:43.420 extremism and she flagged extremist behavior can sometimes be based on traditional value she said

00:07:52.540 so she warned if your family and friends start uh maybe one day they support you know quote

00:07:59.740 gender rights and now they are going to more quote traditional family values then watch out 1.00

00:08:07.420 because they may be extremists so yeah it just stands to reason you know you're wondering why

00:08:13.100 we want a provincial police force when let's see you might be a terrorist if you think that

00:08:18.620 a man shouldn't compete in women's sports that's pretty much what they're getting at 1.00

00:08:21.900 essentially yeah meanwhile we have terrorists actually protesting outside of jewish neighborhoods

00:08:26.300 across the country but that's not prior different standard though of course corey okay well

00:08:30.780 Okay. Yeah. So, and keep in mind that that was on CBC. So the publicly funded broadcaster as well. State broadcaster. That's right. So next we have the fluoride rally. So in Calgary on June 30th, the city, based on a vote, mind you, implemented the fluoride process into the public water supply.

00:08:57.340 so uh the there's a group of activists gathered down at the courthouse steps today for a protest

00:09:03.360 where at two o'clock there will be an injunction against uh the fluoride being added to the water

00:09:09.480 so our reporter leah mushet is heading down there she's our intern so she's going down there to get 0.91

00:09:15.640 some boots on the ground and find out what people are saying about this fluoride situation well that

00:09:20.180 just goes back and forth right we have plebisites we get rid of it we hold plebisite we bring it 1.00

00:09:24.300 back. It gets tiresome. You know, I'm mixed on it. I mean, I think maybe fluoride itself isn't

00:09:29.680 all that bad, but it's not the rule of the government to put it in the water if you want

00:09:32.460 to go get it in your toothpaste or something. Right. It's mass medication, right? And it's

00:09:37.020 also interesting that as the U.S. in several states are now making moves to ban fluoride in

00:09:42.940 the water, Calgary is now going ahead to implement it. So apparently this new, sorry, apparently

00:09:49.760 this group of activists has new evidence that is actually harmful and i think that it's a

00:09:56.560 proportionate um warning so if there's a certain amount of fluoride in the water then that's going

00:10:03.360 to um have potentially dangerous effects whereas a very small trace amount maybe not so much but

00:10:12.240 it's still like an ongoing discussion so people are concerned you've got a monopoly you've got

00:10:17.120 no choice but to consume local water it's difficult i mean i have water well so i've got lucky that

00:10:21.520 way oh nice we're gonna medicate the water we should have fun with it you know put viagra in

00:10:25.360 let's see what happens in the city they won't know who's trans and who's not because it's 0.98

00:10:28.480 going to be outstanding yeah gonna get some uh weird outcomes if it was something like that i

00:10:32.880 think these are the kind of thoughts that kept me out of all the good schools yeah maybe so

00:10:38.400 so someone's doing something down at city hall so we'll see if this injunction

00:10:42.320 if there's anything to it. And finally, the Alberta Next panel, which is a panel launched by

00:10:49.520 Smith's government to gauge Albertans' interests and concerns in what might need to go on that

00:10:57.520 referendum ballot that we're seeing next year. The main question, of course, is going to be a

00:11:02.560 question of independence. However, they're looking at adding more questions to the ballot, which in

00:11:08.240 itself is, I've heard, a bit of a controversial issue for some people. Some people believe that

00:11:14.080 on that ballot should just be the one question. So today the Alberta Next Panel released a video

00:11:20.080 suggesting that perhaps on the referendum there should be a question about how willing people are

00:11:27.280 to work with other provinces for Alberta to be a leader in making amendments to Canada's

00:11:32.720 constitution and that would at the end of the day give more power to provinces it would eliminate

00:11:38.640 or at least um really substantially minimize the overreach that ottawa has in provinces so

00:11:46.320 when it comes to provincial jurisdictions like health care and also um federal judges

00:11:53.280 that it should be more fairly represented by all the provinces especially western provinces

00:11:58.720 Well, it's the same old stuff. I mean, I'll be talking to Andrew Cooks about that, you know,

00:12:03.600 all sounds good, but the constitutional formula, I think we need seven provinces and, you know,

00:12:09.280 50% of the countries are supporting those changes. So yeah, it definitely would take some cooperation

00:12:14.800 from some of the other provinces. Well, it'd be interesting to watch anyways,

00:12:18.160 it's going to be quite a referendum period coming up. That'll be something, I mean, whether it's

00:12:21.200 one question or a whole bunch, probably by the looks of it, but well, the campaign years keep

00:12:25.440 going. All right. Anything else on the go? Those are our top stories today, Corey. All right. Well,

00:12:31.200 I appreciate the updates on them. I'll let you get back out to the newsroom and get ready for

00:12:36.000 more stampeding. Yeah. Okay. Looking forward to that for sure. All right. Thanks for having me

00:12:40.560 on Corey. All right. That is our own Jen Hodgson. Yes. Very prolifically writing on many of those

00:12:46.880 stories that matter. And this is why I got to remind you of the reason we can pay such great

00:12:51.360 folks as Jen and others to come in here and do this for us is subscribers. So guys, it's $9.99

00:12:57.960 in a month, $100 for a year. Come on, get on board. If you haven't subscribed yet, get on

00:13:02.140 there, westernstandard.news slash subscription, take one out. And if you have already, I really

00:13:07.180 do appreciate it. I really do. This is the way independent media can carry on. This is how we

00:13:12.200 stay ahead of things and report on those things that the legacy outlets won't touch. So yeah,

00:13:19.060 Thanks for the subscriptions, guys.

00:13:21.280 Yeah, what else have we got going on there?

00:13:23.320 Before we get to our next guest, here's an interesting one.

00:13:25.420 You know, I like watching Argentina.

00:13:27.400 You know, South America, the South End, these are areas you just don't hear about that often.

00:13:31.360 And yet they're great, well-developed countries, good economies.

00:13:35.520 And Mille, I'm probably mispronouncing it, though.

00:13:37.880 He's been that interesting fellow with the hair and the rest.

00:13:39.820 Very libertarian, taking over Argentina.

00:13:42.120 But now he's changed their firearms policy.

00:13:44.440 And he's letting citizens buy and possess semi-automatic firearms,

00:13:47.120 which shows a government confident, I guess, in having the faith of citizens.

00:13:52.180 And he's also lowered the minimum age for firearm ownership from 21 to 18.

00:13:56.860 So that rescinds a 1995 prohibition on pretty much everything out there.

00:14:01.780 And it's just going to be interesting.

00:14:04.020 You know, I'd like to see the real numbers on it.

00:14:06.880 It's going to take some time.

00:14:08.220 But is this going to lead to some sort of crazy spike in firearm use down there?

00:14:13.260 a lot of his, he's coming at it from a perspective too, where his self-defense actually is a right.

00:14:18.320 Maybe a firearm is an appropriate tool. So keep an eye on Argentina in the next year or two. I mean, 0.89

00:14:23.440 keep an eye on it in general. It's a, if nothing else, very interesting politics. We've got an

00:14:27.960 interesting president down south of the border, but go a little farther. And I think Miele is

00:14:31.860 even more interesting in a lot of ways. So put your eyes down there. All right. So getting back

00:14:37.640 closer to home in studio. We do have Andy Crooks, a retired lawyer. Well, we'll hold that against

00:14:44.400 you. And you were the chair of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a lot of alumni around here

00:14:50.040 from there. And now you're with the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

00:14:53.600 I am. And with Simon House Recovery Center here in Calgary. So busy, busy guy.

00:14:59.580 Well, yes. So you don't take retirement into that, just lay around.

00:15:03.560 No, I describe it as being a lawyer in recovery. We have a 12-step program that we run.

00:15:10.260 Oh, yes. That first step is admitting the problem, is that?

00:15:13.900 Admitting the problem. That's right.

00:15:15.460 I really appreciate you coming in. And, you know, I just, a sense of deja vu I've been feeling lately.

00:15:22.920 I remember way back, actually, when Alberta Report did a big photo shoot and they had yourself and the other signatories of the Alberta agenda back in 2001.

00:15:32.460 yeah i think it was the next page over they had me and i was leading the albert independence party

00:15:35.980 at that time is this this deer in the headlights 29 year old didn't know what the hell i was doing 0.51

00:15:41.660 and uh you know the issues were the same uh a lot of the proposed solutions are similar

00:15:48.220 but we just can't seem to get things over the finish line like do you think we're closer now

00:15:51.980 to getting some of those things into place yeah there is that's a good way of framing it you know

00:15:57.980 the problems are the same and the solutions are the same are we closer to getting them are we

00:16:03.820 getting i think of it as in terms of we're getting close to the tipping point um i think yes back in

00:16:11.580 the day when we wrote the firewall letter we actually had meetings with ralph klein and his

00:16:16.780 advisors and some of the ministers and and they were quite clear that the polling at the time

00:16:24.220 did not support the ideas like the Alberta pension or a no-brainer that I thought of,

00:16:29.740 which was the Alberta police presence. Ideas that seemed to make a lot of sense to me were

00:16:36.220 not resonating in the public agenda. And Ralph said, listen, I think they're good ideas,

00:16:42.300 but there's no support for them. And Ralph's leadership style was very much,

00:16:47.580 I don't know, he often quoted himself as saying how he leads is to look for a parade,

00:16:54.620 run like hell to get out in front of it and then keep checking over his shoulder to make sure the

00:16:59.820 parade is still behind him. It's a lot easier than trying to start a new one, that's for sure.

00:17:03.420 Well, that's right. In fact, it may be impossible to start new ones. You know,

00:17:08.780 Preston Manning, another political hero in the West, used to talk about waiting for the wave.

00:17:14.700 where politicians are like surfers. They're just waiting, paddling around, waiting for the right

00:17:20.620 wave. And when it hits, then they can move the agenda. Yeah. So alienation, I think in general,

00:17:26.060 you know, is at a high like we haven't seen probably since 2000. Yeah. Yeah. Alienation is,

00:17:32.700 of course, a good Marxist term, but it is a presence in Canada. And I've been thinking a

00:17:39.820 lot about this, thinking about, do I really want to separate? And I think, well, I don't,

00:17:46.860 but the gap between me and the rest of Canada is growing. I explain it this way. We Albertans,

00:17:54.780 I think, are more Canadian than the rest of Canada. We Albertans are industrious,

00:18:00.540 we're ambitious, we're actually proud of our heritage. We're in Stampede as we tape this show,

00:18:06.220 and Stampede is a celebration of Alberta's agricultural heritage.

00:18:12.140 We celebrate our oil heritage.

00:18:14.160 We celebrate the Indian culture within Alberta.

00:18:17.340 We celebrate these things.

00:18:18.740 The rest of Canada seems sometimes mildly

00:18:21.700 and sometimes very strongly ashamed of their heritage.

00:18:25.120 We don't.

00:18:25.720 And we're industrious and we're bright, we're capable.

00:18:29.780 I liken us to the beaver, the Canadian symbol, the Canadian icon.

00:18:34.940 And all Canadians used to be like the beaver, really industrious. They worked hard. They would change the environment. They'd bend a hard environment to allow them to grow and nurture families and create a life for themselves. We were like good beavers. We did a lot.

00:18:55.020 And Albertans have persisted on this path, whereas the rest of Canada seems to have wandered off.

00:19:02.060 So that sense of a gap growing, they use the word alienation, that sense of alienation or a gap is growing.

00:19:10.360 But I'm not sure we're striving for independence.

00:19:14.440 It looks like the rest of Canada is not pushing us out.

00:19:17.540 They're just going a different way.

00:19:19.020 Yeah, well, as you described it, one of those waves seems to be kind of coming.

00:19:23.400 And Premier Smith has been putting herself in front of it to a degree anyways, and really wearing the issue, I guess, of regionalism or standing up to Ottawa or trying to at least isolate us a little bit policy-wise from the rest of the country.

00:19:35.920 Yeah, I don't like the words isolation.

00:19:40.000 It's a negative connotation.

00:19:40.620 It is. It is very negative. And that's not certainly the groups that I hang out in my own personal views.

00:19:47.080 Insulate is a better way to.

00:19:48.220 Insulate, which in fact, the firewall letter, Stephen Harper coined the phrase firewall letter.

00:19:56.960 And what he had in mind was a firewall in a computer.

00:20:00.520 You let the good stuff in, but you keep the bad stuff out.

00:20:03.720 And that was his vision.

00:20:04.840 It wasn't to be separate.

00:20:06.440 It wasn't to create a fire break.

00:20:08.300 And I'm from northern Ontario.

00:20:10.020 I know what a fire break is.

00:20:11.660 It's a rude slash through the forest to break a fire.

00:20:17.560 This was a firewall, softer, gentler.

00:20:21.160 Defensive.

00:20:21.940 You're trying to be on a good side rather than that.

00:20:24.920 Again, not so much defensive as protecting the integrity of the computer itself.

00:20:29.700 It's not defending.

00:20:30.780 It's standing up for itself.

00:20:32.220 Yeah.

00:20:32.740 So I think a lot with the independence-minded people, and I think it's a growing number,

00:20:37.640 but we're a long ways from a 50% vote, I believe, in Alberta.

00:20:41.280 But a lot of people say the same sort of thing.

00:20:42.460 We want to try everything else first.

00:20:44.440 they understand there's problems, but they want to run through every other effort.

00:20:48.920 How long can we keep trying? We want a new deal. We want a new deal. We want a new arrangement

00:20:54.360 with the rest of Canada. And I came to this realization decades ago. I heard Lucienne

00:20:58.920 Bouchard interviewed on the radio and they said, why are you such a champion for separatism? And

00:21:06.440 his reply was, I'm not so much a separatist, but I want a new deal, a new arrangement. I thought,

00:21:11.240 That's it. That's what I want. Separatism and independence may be on the table, but they're just on the table. I don't want to talk about them. And if I'm negotiating with Mark Carney or anyone in Ottawa, I don't want them talking about it either. It's just there on the table. It's a presence. It's a fact. It's a reality. It's the far end of the spectrum.

00:21:33.360 In the meantime, I want to talk about how we can be better Albertans and better Canadians and build and thrive in our own environment.

00:21:42.840 That includes having our own police force, collecting our own taxes, managing our own pension money.

00:21:49.540 So those are the things we could do as a province without constitutional change.

00:21:53.280 And the new Alberta Next panel that Premier Smith has launched recently released.

00:21:58.840 I think now they're exploring a bunch of possible constitutional initiatives and kind of inviting other provinces to get together to try and make constitutional change.

00:22:07.940 But our formula in Canada is pretty darn difficult to make significant.

00:22:11.700 Well, except your point is right.

00:22:14.740 These are changes that we can make on our own.

00:22:17.300 We don't need the rest of Canada to make them.

00:22:20.440 And, you know, this next panel that Danielle is moving forward with, it's reminiscent of Jason's initiative, which is reminiscent of something Ralph Klein did when Ralph took office.

00:22:33.020 That's what I'm meaning with this deja vu.

00:22:34.400 Yeah, when Ralph Klein took office, the first thing he did was commission what he called the Blue Ribbon Commission.

00:22:40.660 And they did a roving brief around Alberta to identify the problems with Alberta finances.

00:22:46.360 This is an old habit in Alberta, to consult around the province.

00:22:50.840 Jason did it.

00:22:51.940 The problem with Jason, and I love him dearly, he's a great politician, he's done a lot of good,

00:22:56.540 and he used to work for me at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:23:00.080 But he kept taking independence off the table.

00:23:04.280 He said, we're going to talk.

00:23:05.960 We want a new deal, we want a new arrangement, and I'm taking this off the table.

00:23:09.640 And then it's like, okay, so why would the other side talk?

00:23:13.580 I just want it on.

00:23:14.540 And this is the genius of Danielle.

00:23:16.820 She's saying, no, I don't want to talk about it.

00:23:18.940 I'm not going to talk about it.

00:23:20.320 But it's on the table.

00:23:21.480 I'm not taking it off.

00:23:22.780 It's there.

00:23:23.440 It's a fact.

00:23:24.260 It's a reality.

00:23:25.260 Well, it's part of keeping it as a citizen's initiative.

00:23:27.700 It's not the premier spotting.

00:23:29.420 It's just if the citizens decide that that's where they want to go.

00:23:32.340 And I note with interest that she's actually going to be deeply involved in the panel.

00:23:36.800 She's chairing it.

00:23:37.400 Yeah.

00:23:37.520 Yeah, so attending and giving, you know, listening to the people directly.

00:23:43.240 This is Klein-esque, is that?

00:23:46.140 Yeah, so something that's a little different this time is Premier Smith seems to really like the referenda idea,

00:23:51.500 the notion of it, putting a number of questions perhaps on a referenda.

00:23:56.060 And again, Premier Kennedy did that as well on the equalization,

00:23:59.820 but it really was just a poll of Albertans, nothing really became of it.

00:24:02.920 And the idea of a multiple question referendum is really a good one.

00:24:07.140 she's channeling Ernest Manning. Ted Morton writes about this. Ernest Manning, back in the day,

00:24:12.020 had a real problem. It was a party-splitting problem. It had to do with the, I think it was

00:24:18.500 the gas transmission or electrical transmission systems. Anyway, his party was divided on it,

00:24:25.300 and the people in the province was divided on it. He knew that if he didn't handle it well,

00:24:31.380 he was going to be in trouble. The party would disintegrate, split apart, much like Wild Rose

00:24:36.980 and the Conservatives did in the day, right? Yeah. So we're all familiar with that. Those of us in

00:24:42.340 Alberta. So what he did was conceived of the idea of putting the question of the people,

00:24:46.740 but it was a series of questions. So we could put questions to Alberta, have a referendum.

00:24:53.060 Are you happy with the current state of affairs and arrangement?

00:25:00.820 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And would you like to see major change? Start to break the questions down.

00:25:06.980 And again, much like the firewall letter, instead of a massive revolution, start to break the idea of Alberta standing on its own in little parts, a pension, a police force, collecting our taxes, maybe looking after our own health care, which is a provincial response, doing what provinces should be doing.

00:25:27.440 Yeah, well, that's what a lot of people have said over the years. A lot of these challenges we have are things we can do. There's a lot we can do within the system. We're not a unitary form of government in Canada.

00:25:36.980 no we're a federation have a lot of uh potential autonomy right but there's just an endless battle

00:25:44.340 of infringements going on well and it's infringements that a lot of the provincial

00:25:48.820 politicians like quite frankly it was good fodder i mean well they like it because ottawa says i'll

00:25:55.140 collect the taxes and then give you money so the politician i've you know a politician sitting in

00:26:00.340 alberta says oh great i don't have to justify any of the tax bills ottawa will look after that for

00:26:06.340 me. I just get receipts from Ottawa. So Ottawa edges its way into the provincial agendas using

00:26:14.420 its taxing powers and ability to distribute money amongst the provinces. And the provincial

00:26:19.940 politicians, God love their souls, but they like this because they don't have to stand the heat 0.99

00:26:25.620 of saying to the citizens, this is going to cost you and this is how much and here's why.

00:26:32.260 they can hive that off to Ottawa and and then Ottawa says well we just have to collect for

00:26:37.700 everybody and including you and so it distributes the load and as we get entangled though we could

00:26:42.980 end up with worse policies I mean I oh yeah the appeal for some provincial politicians let's say

00:26:47.540 for example ten dollar daycare way outside of the federal realm but the provincial people look like

00:26:53.860 bad guys if you try to say no to it because then you're saying oh you want the single mom yeah

00:26:58.260 starve and they're kind of on the hook if they don't support the Ottawa initiative, they look bad.

00:27:04.500 If they do support it though, they're going quite contrary to any policy initiative.

00:27:07.460 So we end up with this creeping federalism. It's poisoned even at the highest levels of

00:27:15.460 judicial thinking in Canada. The Como case in New Brunswick where we challenged the right of

00:27:20.980 New Brunswick to prohibit the importation of beer, Quebec beer in particular, into New Brunswick.

00:27:30.900 It was the first time in decades that the court had ever considered Section 92 of the Constitution,

00:27:38.020 where it says there shall be no impediment to trade between provinces. First time that they

00:27:44.100 considered this in decades. It just doesn't come up that often, but it came up. And the court kind

00:27:50.500 of wobbled and waffled and said oh and what they were you could see reading between the lines they

00:27:55.780 were really afraid of dismantling this complex structure that has evolved over the last 50 or 60

00:28:03.060 years isn't that when they kind of acknowledged that yes this is contrary to the constitution

00:28:08.260 and the spirit of it for that free trade but they felt it was a justifiable violation because they

00:28:13.940 Because they never did rule in his favor.

00:28:15.820 No, no, they didn't say it's a justifiable, interesting use of the word.

00:28:21.380 They just weren't prepared to dismantle the whole thing.

00:28:24.220 If our judges at that level won't do it, who's going to?

00:28:28.060 Exactly, exactly.

00:28:29.060 Now, coincidentally, that case next came up about two months later in an Alberta case

00:28:34.820 against Abbott Beer, and the court used the reasoning that they arrived at for Como to

00:28:40.760 arrive at the right result in the Alberta case. So these things tend to work out, but we do,

00:28:46.360 your point is, I think, we do have to restore Canada to the balance of federal provincial powers

00:28:53.480 and responsibilities that our founders had in mind and that, quite frankly, I want to see restored.

00:29:01.080 Yeah, well, that's another tougher one when we're talking about interprovincial infrastructure.

00:29:05.160 that's actually federal jurisdiction in a sense, or at least they have the ability to

00:29:10.540 approve or not approve. As well, a province shouldn't be able to, we can't stop a highway

00:29:14.980 or a railroad from crossing, but they give an authority to provinces to hinder and stop pipeline.

00:29:20.180 Well, except we're a federation again. And part of the price of being a federation is you surrender

00:29:27.400 some of these decisions. So you're right. We couldn't stop the Trans-Canada Highway from

00:29:32.140 going through Alberta. The government of Canada says this is a national project of national

00:29:37.220 interest. We want it. In the same way that they would say the pipeline to the East Coast to ship

00:29:43.940 oil and gas is in the national interest. It's a national project. We want it. So just as Alberta

00:29:50.680 can't stop the Trans-Canada Highway from going across Alberta, Quebec should not be able to stop

00:29:56.440 a national pipeline from going across Quebec.

00:30:01.620 That's the term, should not, but realistically.

00:30:04.000 That's part of the deal of being in a confederation.

00:30:07.200 And if you're not prepared to accept that part of the deal,

00:30:10.320 then what the hell are you doing in the confederation?

00:30:13.060 Leave. 0.99

00:30:13.760 That's where a lot of our discussions end up leading to.

00:30:16.580 Exactly.

00:30:17.060 I mean, it's been interesting out of Prime Minister Carney.

00:30:19.920 He knows how to say the right things.

00:30:21.480 He's certainly talking a good game,

00:30:23.960 but we're going to have to see some action pretty darn soon, I think. Patience is wearing fit.

00:30:29.400 Yeah, and there's some pundits who say, you know what, he can't do it.

00:30:33.320 He just, never mind his promises. Particularly, it's a bit like Alberta saying, okay, we want to

00:30:40.920 rearrange things in Canada, but separation's off the table. And he says, well, we want national

00:30:46.840 infrastructure, national projects, but a provincial veto is not off the table. It's, you know,

00:30:52.360 that's still on it yeah it's still there or just years yeah okay so where's this gonna go meanwhile

00:30:58.440 investment please well i mean it seems to be coming to a head though i mean i i haven't seen

00:31:03.400 such a an active provincial government at least pushing that and scott moat has been pretty uh

00:31:07.720 interestingly we have partners now we have partners uh as as we uh trudge our road towards

00:31:14.120 happy destiny yes we might see some change i don't know and even while as i said we're getting pretty

00:31:19.720 great. We've got Scott Moe and Wab Canoe in Manitoba, a strange alliance of conservative

00:31:27.340 and dippers, but there you go. Well, yeah, Wab's a pragmatist, I think, in some ways, anyways,

00:31:32.960 and Manitoba can certainly use resource revenue. So we'll see what develops. Well, I appreciate

00:31:39.340 you coming in to talk about it. Like I said, it just seems to be kind of rehashing a lot of stuff,

00:31:43.000 but maybe we can bring the experience from 20-some years ago and apply it today and maybe come to

00:31:47.180 more productive conclusions than we did last time that's all we can hope for we're albertans we live

00:31:52.000 in hope oh yeah and we're stubborn all right well thank you very much for joining us today i really

00:31:57.880 appreciate it and i hope you get to talk again soon where can people find your work by the way

00:32:01.500 with the constitution uh committee and such well actually the ccf.org is the website google

00:32:10.360 canadian constitution foundation and google simon house resident society yes and i should add i'm

00:32:16.080 speaking for myself, not any of these organizations.

00:32:18.540 No, and Simon has this good work. I'm a friend of Bill myself. I've never...

00:32:22.420 Oh, are you? Yeah, there you go.

00:32:24.740 Yeah, I really appreciate the effort on those parts. It makes us all better people.

00:32:28.780 I knew I liked you for a lot of reasons. I just got one more.

00:32:31.820 Great. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Corey.

00:32:33.660 I'll talk soon.

00:32:35.500 So again, guys, yes, Andy Crooks. And well, you know, the issues just keep coming up. But I mean,

00:32:42.660 if we can learn from our past efforts, maybe we can come to a different outcome. But the frustration

00:32:48.320 of feeling like we're just going in circles sometimes can be overwhelming. And then again,

00:32:53.520 the independence, I mean, as I said, you can't take it off the table. You've got to have something

00:32:58.380 in the background to say, well, look, if this isn't going to work, this is the way we're going

00:33:03.140 to go. This is the way we have to go. I mean, I'm always been pretty straightforward on the

00:33:09.860 independence front I have been for a long long time I feel the system's irreparably broken

00:33:14.260 I feel the mechanisms to try to change it won't work constitutional change things like that

00:33:18.580 but I I meet so many people I've been doing so many speaking events as I said earlier I

00:33:24.160 I think the appetite's stronger than I've ever seen but a whole lot of people still

00:33:31.140 want to try everything else first that's perhaps a little bit of what I see

00:33:35.460 happening with with premier smith is she's throwing it all out there okay well here's all the the

00:33:43.140 things we're going to try first here's the constitutional reform here's the pension plan

00:33:46.360 here's the other things pardon me and uh well once those fail or if they fail well there's also we've

00:33:53.840 given citizens initiatives so uh perhaps we can we're going to have a referendum on independence

00:33:57.880 and that's what i think some people need to think about if they're opposing the initiatives coming

00:34:03.920 from the provincial government on these things then well if you stop the province from doing

00:34:09.160 any of these reforms or getting things done more and more people are going to be saying well that's

00:34:13.140 it I've had enough I'm going to be independence option and I'm going to be one standing out there

00:34:16.780 trying to uh pull people to that independence option as much as I can I don't want to see a

00:34:23.200 failure I'm not an accelerationist I don't want to you know see Smith splat against the wall I just

00:34:29.940 don't feel confident that it's going to change anything. Jacqueline Littler, a commenter,

00:34:35.560 saying, how long do we have to keep trying? Has it been long enough with no change? Yeah, that's

00:34:38.600 kind of what I'm getting at. Andy Crooks, myself, we've been at this 20 some years,

00:34:44.960 and we just got a provincial police force. That was part of the Alberta agenda. A lot of the

00:34:49.260 things that Premier Smith is pushing now are basically the parts of the Alberta agenda,

00:34:54.100 though we're seeing more will to actually do them. She's just saying we're going to do it anyways.

00:34:59.940 Um, I'm just going through the comments, guys. Uh, let's see, uh, Cyril Arnold saying,

00:35:06.780 unfortunately, we don't have time to hold a referendum on questions that a poll will answer

00:35:09.700 when 43% of 18 to 34 year olds want to leave Canada for economic reasons. They're the workforce

00:35:14.360 you can't lose. That's something that's different this time. I don't want to talk about differences

00:35:18.040 from when, you know, like Andy and I saw 20 some years ago and today, uh, you still go to political

00:35:23.240 meetings today. And most of the people there tend to be older, especially in conservative circles.

00:35:28.000 It always has been the nature of it. That was the nature of way back in the Reform Party days,

00:35:32.200 even today. But you're seeing a different ones, because that's just young people don't go out 1.00

00:35:38.000 to those meetings. Look, if I was in my 20s, I wouldn't be going out to political meetings right

00:35:41.540 now. I'd be down at the Stampede grounds partying my head off and having a good time, even though

00:35:45.640 I was still politically active back then. The young people now, though, are the ones supporting

00:35:51.040 independence. This is a different generation. They're feeling more hopeless than anyone else,

00:35:55.160 because they're the ones thinking, well, I can't afford to buy a house. I want to, but I don't have

00:35:59.480 the means. It's not going to happen in my lifetime. Or I want to start a family, but I just don't feel

00:36:04.080 economically secure enough to do it. Those polls are showing a lot. And ironically, it's a lot of

00:36:08.960 the older people who are kind of opposing independence. But as they learn and realize

00:36:14.300 that it's a false security clinging to the federation, if you get the younger demographic

00:36:20.220 and the older demographic both supporting independence, we're going to see something

00:36:23.820 different happening. Yeah, rucking around. Either way, keeping the conversation going is paramount.

00:36:32.040 Alberta independence is the only way to true prosperity and democracy. Okay. And that's what

00:36:35.280 I'm talking about is this is the way Premier Smith really is keeping the conversation on the table

00:36:40.960 though. And I know independence purists, I got to admit, and as I said, I want to see a positive

00:36:47.980 vote for independence, but it's going to be harder if you've got a six or seven question referenda

00:36:53.100 a sheet in front of you. And a few are offering a few of those other options, right? Because some

00:36:58.460 people say, well, I'll vote for the pension plan and these other things. Yes. But then, you know,

00:37:02.640 because if we have all those, I don't need the independence. They might vote no. It's going to

00:37:05.820 dilute the support for the independence vote potentially. Yeah, I could see that. I can see

00:37:11.020 the frustration with it. But, you know, you can't let that stop you. If you want to campaign for

00:37:15.740 independence, campaign for independence. Tell people to vote yes on everything. And we want

00:37:22.440 to get the support levels. You see, a referendum campaign means you're going to have all of these

00:37:27.220 issues in the public discussion for months. An actual campaign, people knocking on doors,

00:37:33.680 people dropping flyers, people talking to the media. This keeps that issue up front, you know,

00:37:38.640 because they love to distract. They love to put it off. And you can't do that when you have a

00:37:45.280 referendum going. You know, election time is just about one of the only times that people seem to

00:37:48.580 pay attention to a lot of the news and things. And a referendum is in the election. It's a campaign.

00:37:55.020 So I'm really looking forward to this. Though, again, it's going to be a complicated one. We

00:37:58.660 don't know how many questions are going to go on a ballot. My suspicion is Premier Smith is going to

00:38:02.660 hold her hearings. Kind of said before, I think the way they're phrasing it, they've already got

00:38:07.940 their foregone conclusions with where they want them to go. And we're going to see a bunch of

00:38:12.760 questions on the ballot. The Alberta Prosperity Project, they've been doing fantastic work. By

00:38:18.020 the way, if you want to check out their website, they put out their costed plan. It answers a lot

00:38:23.360 of questions. You know, they're groups that are working really hard and those guys are doing a

00:38:26.920 good job on it. If you're looking at independence and you want to see details, you want to see the

00:38:30.680 costs of government and what would happen in an independent environment, they have broken it down

00:38:35.140 because a lot of people opposing things are very deep into the whataboutism. Well, a lot of those

00:38:40.320 questions are answered on their site. They're not perfect, of course not, but they are the dominant

00:38:46.420 an independence advocacy group out there working on things. And as I said, I don't know, I doubt

00:38:51.180 they're very happy with seeing a referendum diluted into a bunch of questions, but that's

00:38:55.600 kind of what we're faced with. At least we've got the ability, which we never had before.

00:39:00.000 And then, you know, I've talked about that, Fabio there, Lukasik has got his fake submission for a

00:39:05.880 referendum petition. He's just delaying things and messing around. The APP will petition and

00:39:10.060 there's going to be a referendum. The question is how it's going to land and what people will

00:39:15.120 think about it. Let's see what else we've got going on. Here's one of those reasons,

00:39:23.140 the futility of trying to change things federally. Ann V, a commenter saying,

00:39:29.840 Albertans never had so much attention from the federal parties in my lifetime. I guess they're

00:39:33.680 scared we could leave. Perhaps, perhaps they're certainly, you know, getting out here on the

00:39:37.720 ground, though, whether they're going to change anything, I don't know. But look at this, you

00:39:41.680 the the arrive can okay so let's turn back because this just came out if people remember that was the

00:39:47.120 app that everybody had to stick on their phone to save us all from possible covet because a person

00:39:52.160 coming from the us to canada with the same covet levels was apparently going to make more risk it

00:39:56.720 was just bizarre but it was clearly it stunk to high heaven an app that should have cost 50 or

00:40:02.640 60 000 ended up screwing us out of 63 million tax dollars people should be going to jail over this

00:40:10.000 It was made by what two guys in a garage or something like that. And people were furious

00:40:14.240 and they should be because the app was bloody terrible and useless anyways. But what do we

00:40:18.100 have now? It's been sealed by a federal court. So we don't get to see what happened with the

00:40:23.920 investigation. We don't get to find out just what was going on in there. They're corrupt and they're

00:40:28.900 covering up. And this is when you get worried. Why would a judge help with that? There's a lot 0.99

00:40:36.640 of judges who are principled. There are. But this one, why? Why would the public not have the right

00:40:42.640 to see what these clowns did with our money? Why are you giving a smokescreen to these crooks in 0.98

00:40:48.920 government? And that's where we realize the futility of trying to change things from within.

00:40:56.660 Well, you know, we got to be careful. We were talking about independence and so on. We can

00:40:59.840 screw up locally just as well as they do federally. If you come in and bring in another bad government

00:41:05.640 provincially, well, then you just double down on it. Every level of government's capable of making

00:41:09.560 mistakes, but man, they covered it up. The government just said, nope, the court said,

00:41:12.800 we're going to seal it up so Canadians can never find out exactly what happened with that.

00:41:17.460 Not good. Here's some other news. This one's interesting. From Blacklock's reporter,

00:41:23.580 those guys do great stuff too. Speaking of independent media, they dig through the things.

00:41:27.360 the cost of keeping an inmate in federal prison, $436 a day. And that's for a male one. Women's 1.00

00:41:36.580 prisons are $780 a day. I'm not sure why it's so much more expensive for a woman's prison than a 1.00

00:41:41.460 men's prison. But I expect things are expensive. I mean, you know, keeping somebody safe behind

00:41:50.640 bars while keeping us safe by keeping these guys behind bars is going to cost money. But

00:41:54.680 does it have to cost that much?

00:41:58.000 Excuse me.

00:41:59.360 I mean, we've got all this

00:42:00.860 beautiful, untamed, wild bush

00:42:03.160 in the northern end of every province.

00:42:06.540 Would it

00:42:07.020 really be that hard to stick a prison up there?

00:42:09.020 How much do you have to spend on security when you

00:42:10.980 got them stuck up there? Yeah, I know. We're talking

00:42:12.800 something like the Russian gulags. Oh, well. 0.99

00:42:14.780 As long as we have due process and everything.

00:42:17.300 We're some of our long-term prisoners.

00:42:19.840 I think we could pretty...

00:42:21.040 You sit in a prison in the middle of a bunch

00:42:22.960 a muskeg and they don't have clothing to go far, they're not going to escape, guys. It's not going 1.00

00:42:28.480 to happen. Paradox is saying with the prisons here, because they're woke country clubs, not

00:42:32.940 prisons, that could be part of the reason. You know, I don't mind spending a lot of money on

00:42:37.920 rehabilitation on first offenders. I really, you know, when a person is just starting down the bad

00:42:45.000 road, perhaps there's a chance that you can knock them back. This is best for everybody, right? If

00:42:48.560 you could rehabilitate a prisoner, even if it's a bit of a serious crime, though, they should be in

00:42:52.460 for a while i'm not talking you know multiple murders or something but if you could actually

00:42:56.740 rehabilitate a person get them out and then they end up working contributing live a decent life

00:43:01.260 hey we all win and if that takes some investment in education and therapy in a less punitive

00:43:07.960 environment in a more rehabilitational environment yeah it's an it's worth trying to spend some money

00:43:14.600 on but we've got a lot that we know we can't fix when they're on their 10th 50th 100th offense

00:43:20.640 or as envy one of the commenters say you know with paul bernardo you know it's sickening he's 0.64

00:43:25.140 in a medium security with the ones we know we're never going to let out we don't have to spend a

00:43:28.960 lot of money on them guys we can stick them somewhere isolated with a heavy heavy security

00:43:35.760 quit wasting the time and money i'm not talking about solitary confinement locked i'm not vengeance

00:43:40.620 just doesn't serve anybody as tempting as it is with some of the sick monsters in prison

00:43:44.600 but they don't need a whole lot, you know, some entertainment, a weight room, books,

00:43:51.760 and moderately decent food. And it shouldn't have to cost, you know, $700 a day to keep people like

00:43:58.500 that. Again, broken system, right? Let's talk about the RCMP. We've got a provincial police

00:44:04.560 force coming. That's great. Well, as Jen pointed out in the news update, yeah, the senior RCMP

00:44:10.600 officer said, moving away from liberal ideas towards traditional values can show the start

00:44:15.380 of violent extremism. Really? These guys are insane. And what she went on about was basically,

00:44:22.500 if you don't embrace the gender vision these people have, which is that there's, what,

00:44:27.540 150 different gender identities you can have or something, then you are walking down the road to

00:44:33.540 extremism. No, extremism is letting men compete in women's sports. Extremism is putting a biological 0.98

00:44:42.100 man in a woman's shelter, which has happened. That's extreme. Women who have been already 1.00

00:44:50.320 having a hard time, who have been assaulted, who are in a shelter, and then they have to share

00:44:55.440 space with a man? This is the absurdity of this weird gender ideology. And listening to some 0.58

00:45:04.480 blue-haired Froot Loop saying that, that's fine. I'm used to that out of those nutcases. 0.52

00:45:08.860 But this is a senior person with the RCMP. This is somebody, again, with some authority. And these

00:45:17.080 are the ones that are rising to the top in this bureaucracy. They're calling us extreme. No,

00:45:20.700 the extremists are getting to the high levels in these bureaucracies. And we're all going to pay

00:45:26.300 a terrible price for it. All right. That's what I've got for today, guys. Be sure to tune into

00:45:31.380 the pipeline tonight that's going to come on and more shows that keep going on. Share, like,

00:45:35.920 do all that good stuff on these. Make sure you take out a subscription with the Western Standard

00:45:40.600 if you already have. We appreciate it. And yes, next week I'll be back in my normal attire and

00:45:47.780 we will review the stories of the day at that time.

00:45:50.680 So thanks for tuning in today, guys,

00:45:52.000 and we'll see you on the next one.

00:46:17.780 You

Western Standard - July 10, 2025

The mess in municipalities is our own fault

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