Western Standard - The Mullet Economy - The Pipeline, Episode 14

00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Pipeline, the Western Standards National Affairs Program, recording

00:00:15.180 this Sunday, April 19th, 2020.

00:00:18.840 Each week we break down the issues, discuss them in depth, and examine some of the broader

00:00:22.680 implications for Western Canada and beyond.

00:00:26.680 Featuring from Calgary, the Western Standards Publisher, Derek Fildebrandt.

00:00:31.640 Good day, Derek.

00:00:32.920 How are you?

00:00:33.920 Fine.

00:00:34.920 Fine.

00:00:35.920 Okay.

00:00:36.920 Fine.

00:00:37.920 It's not freezing, so that's nice.

00:00:41.920 Excellent.

00:00:42.920 Featuring also Dave Naylor, also from Calgary, the news editor of the Western Standard.

00:00:48.520 How are you doing today, Dave?

00:00:50.520 I'm doing great, Paul.

00:00:51.920 Thank you.

00:00:52.920 Would you say better than Derek?

00:00:55.920 No.

00:00:56.920 Not better than Derek.

00:00:58.920 Okay.

00:00:59.920 And also featuring from Strathmore, Deirdre Mitchell-McClain, our senior reporter at the Western Standard.

00:01:08.240 How are you, Deirdre?

00:01:09.240 Fabulous.

00:01:10.240 Better than Dave and Derek, by the sounds of it.

00:01:14.160 Mm-hmm.

00:01:15.160 Outstanding.

00:01:16.160 Sunshine.

00:01:17.160 Now you're just showing off.

00:01:19.480 And I'm your host, Paul Holmes, digital editor here.

00:01:22.760 And without further ado, we'll get underway.

00:01:23.760 Some of the topics we'll be talking about on the pipeline today are Keystone XL, the very

00:01:30.360 latest news on that.

00:01:33.040 The tendency of people to rally around the leader in times of crisis.

00:01:39.720 When is the economy going to open again?

00:01:42.560 And are leaders bound by the same rules that the rest of us are bound by in a crisis?

00:01:48.860 And finally, hairstyles for the apocalypse.

00:01:53.360 But we'll begin with Keystone XL.

00:01:56.640 Who broke the story?

00:01:57.600 Was that Dave or Deirdre that broke that one?

00:02:00.640 I didn't catch the title.

00:02:02.860 Which part of it?

00:02:04.360 Depends.

00:02:05.360 The part you're talking about, Paul.

00:02:07.360 All right.

00:02:08.360 Well, why don't we go around the horn then?

00:02:09.980 Who wants to go first?

00:02:10.980 I'll go first.

00:02:11.980 I'll jump in first.

00:02:12.980 Okay.

00:02:13.980 There was much public ballyhoo a couple of weeks ago when Jason Kennedy announced a multi-billion

00:02:21.960 dollar infusion into the Keystone XL.

00:02:26.880 And things were going along merrily for a couple of days until it got into the courtroom

00:02:31.080 in Montana where a judge put up his hand and put the whole thing on hold.

00:02:35.980 He's told the Army Corps of Engineers that they've got to stop digging the big ditch and go back

00:02:42.240 and redo a study on wildlife in jeopardy or something like that.

00:02:47.160 So all the money in the world doesn't get you a completed pipeline at the moment.

00:02:53.740 Deirdre, what can you tell us?

00:02:57.240 So yeah, that was on Wednesday.

00:03:01.800 That was the 31st.

00:03:03.360 No, that was on April, goodness, the day before Kenny's one year.

00:03:10.840 So yes, April 15th and they actually, TC Energy actually had a hearing scheduled with the federal

00:03:19.620 court in Montana about a 2018 order actually from the same judge.

00:03:27.660 So this is a new order that I'm not sure if they can discuss that at the hearing or not.

00:03:35.140 Or if it was, I guess you could say, yet another stall tactic that's going to hold them up for

00:03:41.860 another couple of years while they wait to get in front of a federal judge on this new order.

00:03:47.140 Well, it seems like even in a pandemic, we can't seem to build a pipeline in North America.

00:03:54.620 There's certainly this side of the border connecting with the other side of the border.

00:03:58.620 Derek, what are your thoughts?

00:04:00.620 Well, a lot of the commentary around this has been the usual hypocrisy.

00:04:07.580 You know, conservatives are supposed to be against corporate welfare, except for when

00:04:12.160 it's industries that they like, like oil.

00:04:14.100 I think pretty broadly, it's fair to say the Western standard is about as pro oil as you

00:04:19.100 can get.

00:04:20.100 But, you know, we've, we've gotten to this strange point in Canada where certain industries

00:04:25.120 are left wing and certain other industries are right wing.

00:04:28.060 Oil is a right wing thing.

00:04:30.060 Solar panels and airplanes are a left wing thing.

00:04:36.200 So conservatives always throw their, ring their hands when Bombardier gets government money,

00:04:43.020 rightfully so, because we're throwing good money after bad government picking winners and

00:04:46.840 losers in the private sector.

00:04:48.520 But when we start throwing billions of taxpayers dollars into industries that are traditionally 0.75

00:04:53.740 associated with conservatives, there's no problem.

00:04:56.620 And then the left all of a sudden, which has no problem with subsidies for GM, Chrysler, Bombardier,

00:05:02.960 they scream bloody murder when subsidies go to an industry that they don't look like.

00:05:08.000 But the economics are no different in either case.

00:05:10.540 It's a case of government taking taxpayers money out of profitable businesses in the private

00:05:15.060 sector and investing it into businesses that they see fit.

00:05:18.280 Now, Keystone needs to get built.

00:05:21.500 It's actually, even though it gets far less attention in the press than Trans Mountain,

00:05:26.040 it's more important than Trans Mountain.

00:05:27.580 It's taking us not just to foreign markets, but to heavy oil refining capacity, which is

00:05:33.500 far below capacity right now on the U.S. Gulf Coast, especially since Venezuela, despite having

00:05:39.380 the second largest reserve in the world, can't seem to produce oil very well.

00:05:44.600 And that'll eventually get us to international markets once that oil is refined there. 0.87

00:05:48.520 So this is actually the most important pipeline to get built.

00:05:51.440 But it doesn't need taxpayers money.

00:05:54.660 Once Trump was elected and Obama's veto was gone and Clinton's promised veto was out of

00:06:01.320 the way, the political hurdles were really gone.

00:06:04.660 It's going to run into court battles as it is now.

00:06:07.660 But I think having from America's perspective, a foreign government taking a large ownership 0.90

00:06:14.800 portion of this changes the political dynamics.

00:06:18.440 This is no longer in the American debate, a debate around private businesses versus some

00:06:24.760 of the more radical environmental movement.

00:06:26.880 It's it's now we've made the Alberta government, from their perspective, a foreign government,

00:06:33.220 a direct player in this.

00:06:35.520 A lot of legal experts think that this actually hurts a lot of the cases in court because this

00:06:39.440 is not American citizens via corporations they're dealing with now.

00:06:44.340 They're now dealing effectively with a foreign government.

00:06:48.080 So this is this really blew back in our faces here.

00:06:50.760 It's a it's a massive amount of money.

00:06:53.380 And we're really now getting very comfortable with government owning the means of production.

00:06:57.860 This is something that should scare anyone who is supposed to theoretically support free

00:07:02.820 enterprise.

00:07:03.980 But we're now perfectly OK with Ottawa owning in its entirety the Trans Mountain pipeline and

00:07:11.540 the Alberta government owning in large measure the Keystone pipeline.

00:07:15.120 And this is it's nothing less than government owning the means of production.

00:07:18.400 And if anyone else besides conservatives does it, you call that socialism.

00:07:21.700 Yeah, there's definitely a principle to be stated, you know, either you believe in corporate

00:07:29.800 welfare or state owned enterprises or you don't it's it's it's striking to me.

00:07:35.440 And certainly maybe, you know, even in a time like this, there's there's going to be exceptions,

00:07:40.800 but they should be exceptions, not the rule if you believe in the principle.

00:07:44.520 And so, you know, I've I've always found that, you know, amongst amongst the tribalist world

00:07:50.680 that we live in today, you know, that, you know, it's OK if if my side does it, but not

00:07:56.000 OK if your side does it really loses any any weight in the argument, in my opinion.

00:08:04.460 Any further thoughts on Keystone XL, Dave or Deirdre, I think there's also it's also important

00:08:11.440 to mention what's going on in the states with their with their oil production right now.

00:08:17.620 And recently, the Trump administration lost a they lost a Senate vote to be able to get

00:08:25.260 three billion dollars to purchase more of American produced oil for their reserves.

00:08:32.240 And so now they're looking at a package, so to speak, to be able to pay their shale oil

00:08:39.740 producers in the U.S. to actually leave it in the ground to effectively stop it from accruing

00:08:48.560 additional supply because that's going to keep, of course, the price down.

00:08:53.400 So with this also going on and yes, Canadian crude is not the same as U.S. shale oil.

00:08:59.420 It's completely different weight, yada, yada.

00:09:02.980 But line three also will be completed this year.

00:09:05.940 The American leg of it, the last court hurdle that they had was they managed through that

00:09:12.280 in February.

00:09:13.280 So that will also come online this year.

00:09:16.800 You know, the Keystone, the Keystone leg that they're looking at right now.

00:09:22.920 It's effectively a shortcut to the existing Keystone pipeline.

00:09:28.320 So the existing one goes from Alberta over to Montana and then comes down south.

00:09:34.640 This one just kind of cuts across diagonally.

00:09:37.400 So, you know, is this beneficial?

00:09:40.020 Yes.

00:09:40.460 Is it like are they in desperate need for it in the current environment?

00:09:48.980 I'm not sure that they are.

00:09:50.480 Well, that's I guess that really underlines.

00:09:53.680 I was reading.

00:09:54.680 I don't know.

00:09:55.680 This was a couple weeks ago now, but I was reading that oil reserves were increasing rapidly

00:10:01.860 all around the world as consumption has gone down and they're going to run out of places

00:10:05.760 to store it all if the consumption doesn't resume.

00:10:10.120 So I don't know.

00:10:11.080 I don't know how much that changes week to week or how accurate that is.

00:10:15.080 Jerry cans.

00:10:16.080 The answer is more Jerry.

00:10:17.080 Jerry cans.

00:10:18.080 Hey, quick trivia question.

00:10:21.980 How many how many gallons in a barrel of oil?

00:10:28.960 You guys, come on.

00:10:30.260 You're from Alberta.

00:10:31.260 You don't know this.

00:10:32.260 Actually, I don't buy it by the gallon.

00:10:35.580 All right.

00:10:36.580 I'm sorry, by the barrel.

00:10:37.580 How many leaders then?

00:10:38.580 Nobody?

00:10:39.580 All right.

00:10:40.580 You can put your comments about us not knowing that in the in the comments below.

00:10:45.580 Shame on you, Paul, for asking a question that sounds like we should know the answer

00:10:50.080 to.

00:10:51.080 We're supposed to discuss this in advance so we can prep it and look smart and Google

00:10:54.580 it.

00:10:55.580 Oh, no way.

00:10:56.580 What is the answer?

00:10:57.580 Oh, I can't remember.

00:10:58.580 It's like 44 or something.

00:11:00.580 Oh, BC folks.

00:11:01.580 All right.

00:11:02.580 Good times.

00:11:03.580 So, um, how many leaders then?

00:11:04.580 All right.

00:11:05.580 Good times.

00:11:06.580 So, um, one of the phenomenons and, you know, it's funny.

00:11:10.580 I get, you know, I kind of have my, you know, I have my political bent as we all do.

00:11:15.580 And, um, and so, you know, there's certain certain politicians I like better than other

00:11:21.260 certain politicians.

00:11:22.260 So I can go on to Twitter and talk about how the popularity of the politicians that I like

00:11:27.340 is way up.

00:11:28.340 And, uh, and then I hear about the popularity of politicians I don't like also being way

00:11:33.640 up and I realized actually they're all up pretty much with a couple of notable exceptions.

00:11:39.640 Um, one of which is Jason Kenney in Alberta, um, which we talked about before the show may

00:11:46.540 well have just been on the way down anyway, but, um, you know, as the honeymoon, I guess

00:11:52.640 expired and reality set in, but, uh, why don't we talk about Jason first?

00:11:57.140 Why is he, uh, the outlier in terms of popularity?

00:12:00.740 And then let's talk about this general trend in the world of, uh, people rallying around

00:12:07.000 leaders in a time of crisis.

00:12:08.520 So, um, who wants to talk about Jason Kenney first?

00:12:11.140 I want to hear what Derek has to say.

00:12:13.140 All right, Derek, we're going to start off with you.

00:12:16.140 Well, I think it's just human nature that in times of crisis, you look to, to leaders,

00:12:22.140 whoever's in place, um, to provide comfort and reassurance, people don't know what to

00:12:27.140 do.

00:12:28.140 Uh, maybe even more so today in an age where there's so much information out there and so

00:12:32.140 little of it, uh, and so, so much of it can't be, be trusted or verified.

00:12:37.140 Um, but this will happen in wartime and pandemics and natural disaster in almost every big disaster.

00:12:44.140 The local leader, if they're following the script will go up in popularity.

00:12:48.140 Uh, Nahid Nenshi's popularity went from decent to through the roof during the 2013 floods

00:12:54.140 in Calgary, came back down significantly afterwards, but, uh, but it gave him a huge bump.

00:12:59.140 Even Alison Redford.

00:13:00.140 I remember progressive conservatives going around at the time saying Alison Redford was

00:13:04.140 going to govern as queen forever.

00:13:06.140 And, uh, one year later she's gone.

00:13:09.140 But, um, so it's, it's a natural phenomenon across Canada.

00:13:13.140 Uh, the, the leader making, uh, I think, I think getting the biggest pat on the back is,

00:13:19.140 uh, Doug Ford, who's really emerged.

00:13:22.140 Uh, you know, I'm watching, uh, old liberal friends of mine in Ontario who, you know,

00:13:28.140 considered him just, uh, literally Hitler, uh, months ago.

00:13:33.140 Uh, even they are, many of them are grudgingly saying he's doing a good job.

00:13:36.140 I've seen that.

00:13:37.140 Yeah.

00:13:38.140 Um, yeah, it's, it's been something so virtually almost all the premiers are up across the polls

00:13:42.140 and, uh, in their own approval.

00:13:44.140 Uh, the exception is here in Alberta, but as, as was alluded to, uh, and I think Dave said

00:13:49.140 before we got on the air here, I think this is just actually his honeymoon coming down.

00:13:53.140 I think he's actually handled this crisis reasonably well.

00:13:56.140 One thing most people don't understand is in a crisis.

00:13:59.140 If you're not Donald Trump, the bureaucrats are actually in charge.

00:14:03.140 Most of the politicians, they're just doing what the bureaucrats tell them to do.

00:14:07.140 And they follow a script.

00:14:08.140 And if they do that, things normally go mostly well.

00:14:10.140 Uh, Rachel Notley during the, the Fort McMurray fires, her popularity went up.

00:14:15.140 She was, you know, considered to do reasonably well, but in most cases they're just following

00:14:20.140 the orders of these pre-written plans as the bureaucrats are in charge.

00:14:24.140 Uh, I, I think Kenny's handled it at least, uh, no worse than the average Canadian premier.

00:14:29.140 But, uh, I think this, we're just kind of seeing that, uh, the, uh, the honeymoon is over.

00:14:35.140 I think he was running into some difficulty on other fronts and, uh, all this fair deal stuff,

00:14:40.140 uh, not getting, we haven't had any results whatsoever yet.

00:14:44.140 And so a lot of this, this stuff I think is just the shine coming off the government,

00:14:48.140 not necessarily related to the pandemic.

00:14:52.140 And leaving Deirdre to last because we're all interested in what, uh, what she's got to say.

00:14:57.140 It doesn't help Kenny.

00:14:58.140 And I agree with Derek that, uh, I think Kenny's done as well as, uh, any premier, uh, across the country.

00:15:04.140 It doesn't help Kenny, uh, when he's getting daily, uh, tweets, uh, from the opposition, from, uh, uh, Rachel Notley.

00:15:12.140 Uh, and it's just, it's just negative, repeated, you know, repeatedly over and over and over again,

00:15:19.140 day after day after day on what a crappy job, uh, Kenny's doing.

00:15:23.140 He also made the mistake of, uh, taking on doctors before he knew a pandemic was going to hit.

00:15:28.140 Uh, so the opposition is now, uh, using that on him.

00:15:32.140 I mean, what, what sort of premier would take on heroic doctors when they're, they're, they're saving us, uh, from the pandemic.

00:15:39.140 So it's, uh, I haven't seen opposition in other provinces act up as much as the NDP is here in Alberta.

00:15:49.140 Uh, but that's obviously one of the reasons Kenny's popularity is sinking.

00:15:53.140 Yeah.

00:15:54.140 But before Deirdre jumps in, uh, I think Dave was, uh, bang on there.

00:15:59.140 I, I, I didn't mention the doctors.

00:16:01.140 They had been already entering a labor dispute with doctors before this hit.

00:16:06.140 It was really crappy political timing and they can't, they can't be blamed.

00:16:11.140 I think they were actually making some reasonable and very modest changes with, uh, with some of the pay scale around doctors.

00:16:18.140 But, uh, it hit at a pretty poor time when doctors moved to the front of everyone's mind.

00:16:24.140 And that gave them massive leverage, uh, forcing them to back down.

00:16:27.140 And at the same time, while in most provinces and federally, the oppositions have been much more careful and measured in their criticisms of government.

00:16:36.140 The NDP are still acting like it's question period every day here.

00:16:40.140 And while that it might be a bit crass, um, they, they've continued hammering on.

00:16:46.140 And, uh, I guess among their supporters and some middle voters, uh, that's, that's chipping away.

00:16:51.140 Deirdre.

00:16:52.140 I'm just allowing the apologists to wash over me here.

00:16:55.140 Um, sorry, are you, I'm a Jason Kenney apologist?

00:16:58.140 Apparently.

00:16:59.140 Uh, I'm a rational critic as opposed to the crazy critics.

00:17:02.140 Uh, you know, despite the poor Jason Kenney's honeymoon is over and, and poor Jason Kenney getting hammered by the opposition.

00:17:06.140 And that's just tearing him down in conservative Alberta.

00:17:23.140 My, um, I, I would, I would honestly say that it's simpler than that.

00:17:30.140 Simplest explanation, which is, uh, Jason Kenney was elected.

00:17:35.140 Yeah.

00:17:36.140 So it's our%, uh, Mr.

00:17:41.420 Speaker Moen from the Force is excellent.

00:17:46.140 Ourications and our patients are still to bring in jobs, economy and pipelines.

00:17:49.760 Uh, none of that is happening right now.

00:17:51.860 And, and we've got a health pandemic and well,

00:17:56.700 while as Derek may say, you Know it.

00:17:58.780 It's perfectly reasonable to, uh, cut doctors, uh, billing amounts

00:18:03.220 and things like that.

00:18:04.260 private companies like tell us you know it this this isn't why he was elected he

00:18:11.660 wasn't elected to do this to handle this and you know whether you can say I think

00:18:17.520 he's done as reasonably well sure but that's not what anyone wanted from him

00:18:23.160 and I don't think he's a I don't think he's the trusted individual that that

00:18:29.040 people are looking to for information in this in this pandemic and I will say as

00:18:35.460 well Doug Ford absolutely has done you know some he has he's been the the

00:18:43.440 surprise leader throughout all of this and I think one of the reasons why is

00:18:50.400 because Doug Ford is no longer cutting services for vulnerable people so

00:18:58.740 you know he's actually changed his tune Jason Kenny is still providing economic

00:19:04.500 updates during our cobit updates so you know there's there's no change in the

00:19:10.020 tune there what you know I can't take credit for this thought but I read an

00:19:13.960 interesting piece about a week or two ago about different leadership styles and

00:19:18.840 there are there are your managerial peacetime leaders who are sort of a

00:19:24.960 steady-as-she-goes type leader and then there are your break glass in case of

00:19:29.100 emergency wartime style leaders there's a reason that no one really wanted

00:19:33.480 Winston Churchill to be the prime minister of Britain in peacetime but

00:19:37.460 everybody knew he was the right guy in wartime and what we're finding is maybe

00:19:40.980 this is the application of different leadership styles Doug Ford is a rock the

00:19:45.060 boat anti-establishment kind of guy and those people have a very difficult time in 0.98

00:19:50.160 normalcy and peacetime but when shit hits the fan they're the guy and so Doug 0.94

00:19:56.340 Ford's leadership style shines through at a time like this but when the crisis is

00:20:01.200 over there's a good chance that people will not like his leadership style anymore

00:20:05.160 because he is a rock the boat emergency style leader Kenny I think is very much the

00:20:11.540 opposite of Doug Ford in a style he is a methodical calculating long-term thinking

00:20:19.920 leader who really doesn't know what to do in a crisis he doesn't inspire people in

00:20:27.140 these kinds of times and so it's different kinds of leadership styles

00:20:30.660 coming forward at different times I'm not sure what kind of leader Justin Trudeau is

00:20:35.480 I think he's I I won't even speculate I haven't seen him shine in either time I

00:20:43.160 think Justin Trudeau just is the is the talking head for the smarter people in

00:20:49.400 the room but that's just one guy yes that's the third style there's the

00:20:52.600 puppet leader you know just to Deirdre's point Deirdre you mentioned you

00:20:58.180 know and I don't want to misquote your paraphrase too wrongly but you know he

00:21:04.040 wasn't essentially wasn't elected you know to be the guy to lead us in a

00:21:09.500 pandemic but neither was there was anybody else and yet still we see a very

00:21:15.500 different result you know people when they elected their leaders elsewhere had

00:21:18.760 high expectations about a very different agenda than leading through a pandemic

00:21:23.060 and yet you know everywhere else we're seeing most everywhere else we're seeing

00:21:27.200 this trend where people are rallying around leaders but it's really not

00:21:29.660 happening do you think there's some merit to what Derek saying around maybe just the

00:21:33.680 leadership style or is there something unique about Alberta it could also be

00:21:38.540 that that Jason Kenny is he's sticking to his pre pandemic message right he's

00:21:46.580 still talking about jobs economy pipelines and that's fantastic it's it's

00:21:52.940 still important but more and more people like I'm starting to see on my Facebook my

00:21:58.740 Facebook is very conservative because I grew up in rural Alberta that's that's

00:22:03.740 the groups that I really have on Facebook so probably why I don't spend much time on

00:22:08.760 there but I'm starting to see a lot more in my feeds of people getting really

00:22:14.040 annoyed they don't want to hear Jason Kenny's economic update when they tune in

00:22:18.780 for dr. Hinshaw's COVID update so and I mean I like I get right I rate because I'm ready for the

00:22:24.420 COVID update right I'm not prepped to oh Jason Kenny's talking about the economy too that's a

00:22:30.780 totally different story and doesn't belong in the same it's it I don't know and so

00:22:37.320 maybe it's his maybe it's his refusal to change message maybe this is a good

00:22:41.880 transition because we're talking about reopening in the economy now well if you

00:22:46.660 don't mind it was a good transition it is a good transition but I did I did want to just

00:22:50.820 bring up one other quick thing talking about leaders and that is this cult sort

00:22:57.360 of leadership around because Derek you had mentioned bureaucrats really being in

00:23:01.580 charge and we're seeing this kind of almost cult like reaction to the public

00:23:06.360 health officials and their role we're seeing you know murals of dr. Tam and dr.

00:23:14.480 Henry here in British Columbia and people just you know heaping praise upon these

00:23:18.600 people in a much bigger way than we're seeing for the politicians and I'm

00:23:23.760 wondering if that's part of the same phenomenon or is there something something

00:23:28.380 more to that if anybody else has any other thoughts it's just an observation of

00:23:31.780 mine I think it's a good it's a good point here he's become a bit of a folk an

00:23:46.980 emergent folk hero no one had heard of her outside of maybe one square block around the

00:23:53.400 headquarters of AHS and Alberta no one had heard of her before she's become a bit of a 0.97

00:23:57.840 folk here and yeah now her and she's got stylized billboards of people putting up her 1.00

00:24:04.080 image around she's really done well there wasn't quite a bit of blowback against Jason Kenny when he

00:24:09.360 gave uh when we did our he disclosed the provinces modeling uh he was clearly out of his he's a guy who

00:24:16.780 reads his briefs he's not a dummy uh but clearly modeling around a pandemic as far outside of his

00:24:23.260 depth it's even outside of the depth of an experienced health minister it's clearly the

00:24:26.920 dot uh the job of public health officials like dr. Hinshaw to go through and he did it himself

00:24:32.500 some would say maybe just to get more airtime and look like that leader uh when people were like

00:24:37.820 well put the doctor on who actually understands this stuff isn't just reading the script so there

00:24:42.240 was some blowback there I think that is probably his biggest misstep through this so far uh Doug

00:24:48.100 Ford to the best of my knowledge hasn't bothered with doing that kind of thing uh where he he's been

00:24:53.540 different is out there physically doing things for the camera showing that kind of you know hands-on

00:25:01.300 every man kind of leadership that you'd expect from him uh but yeah these these public health officials

00:25:07.160 uh across the country been uh really become the uh the folk here's of this except for dr. Tam I think

00:25:13.780 there's a big difference there uh maybe Dave can expand on it but I think she's been viewed very

00:25:20.240 differently than say um uh public health officials provincially in Alberta BC I was I was just going to

00:25:27.180 bring that up Derek uh uh dr. Tam started well uh you know she seemed to get that sort of cult following 0.92

00:25:34.160 and then it's just been one blunder after another blunder after another blunder you know from okay

00:25:39.860 don't wear face masks okay go ahead wear face masks uh she doesn't seem to have the trust anymore that

00:25:46.160 uh dr. Dina would have or a BC doctor would have and I think it's mainly because it's almost like she's

00:25:53.240 being linked with the Trudeau government she's almost an official spokesperson for the for the Trudeau

00:25:58.280 government and uh uh doesn't have our own best interests uh at heart well and I I wonder and

00:26:04.820 and I've wondered this from the very beginning and and maybe I just don't understand it but

00:26:09.400 you know my thought what my sort of what I thought a public health official is supposed to do

00:26:15.600 is that they're supposed to be as tuned in to public health threats as possible you know they should

00:26:21.180 be doctors and scientists and epidemiologists and all the all the like and that their job is to take

00:26:29.280 the best information they can and then make recommendations to the politicians not worrying

00:26:36.720 about all of the other political concerns that could exist and then it was the job of the politicians

00:26:43.560 then to take that advice from the public health officials and then come up with the official public policy

00:26:49.680 and and I thought that's how that was supposed to work and my big complaint right from several

00:26:56.600 weeks ago frankly and I think it's gotten better but um you know I remember uh dr. Henry here in the

00:27:03.040 province of british columbia I'm locked I'm locked at home already because I've just I've seen I saw what

00:27:08.820 was coming and I'm like no way I'm not going anywhere and she's on television telling people to go out to

00:27:16.680 restaurants and go to whistler for the weekend and I'm thinking to myself why is a public health

00:27:22.380 official in on the on the the eve of a potentially devastating pandemic suggesting to people to go

00:27:30.680 to whistler or to go out to restaurants and the best I can come up with is that she was evaluating it

00:27:37.920 politically thinking oh well they they're gonna damage to the economy she shouldn't be concerned

00:27:43.260 about the economy she should be concerned about public health let the politicians be concerned 0.99

00:27:48.120 about the balancing act between the economy and public health that's what I think and that's why

00:27:54.180 Tam has suffered a reputation relative to the other provincial public health officials she's been an

00:28:00.540 apologist for the Chinese government which is very much parroting the political line of the Trudeau

00:28:05.640 liberal government which is very very close with China and you know so today now you've got France

00:28:12.400 Germany UK are now launching potential class action lawsuits against China for its absolute bungling this

00:28:19.700 from start to finish and Tam is sitting there as an apologist for it which sounds very political so

00:28:24.700 so she has now become a polarizing figure right down there with the politicians whereas the 0.98

00:28:29.740 provincial health officials at least the ones that I've seen have seen to be above this and up in the

00:28:34.800 state goods telling giving people what at least appears to be relatively honest information hmm Deirdre you've

00:28:41.560 been cautiously silent unusually yeah I would you know I I think it depends on what end of the country that

00:28:55.560 you live on because she seems to still have maintained support in other areas of the country

00:29:04.320 it you know it's been very difficult to watch a lot of this unfold to listen to the public health officials

00:29:12.280 the politicians and to see to see the blowback especially that are that our public health officials are

00:29:19.560 getting for things like no a mask isn't going to help you to find wear a mask understand though it really

00:29:27.360 doesn't help you if you are healthy you know that was it wasn't really a it wasn't really a 180 on sure

00:29:35.880 wear a mask it was it came with the caveat of if you're sick that can help you know protect other people

00:29:43.020 but if you're healthy the type of masks that you can buy in your local store isn't it isn't going to

00:29:49.860 be the proper mask that you need to you know to keep particles out so I think there's I think there's

00:29:57.780 been a lot of I think there's been a lot of blowback during the learning portion and and the thing is we're

00:30:06.720 we're we're not going to know everything about this virus for a while yet and the thing is that you

00:30:13.500 know even Deborah Birx out of the States she was saying that looking at China's numbers before it got

00:30:21.780 out she said that that it wasn't a worry for them either they weren't worried about it why because it

00:30:27.420 it looked kind of like SARS did I mean SARS got into Canada was in Toronto and they contained it right it 0.70

00:30:35.220 was they were able to work with that so I think it's evolving information it's just evolving

00:30:43.780 information it is changing it's changing because they're learning more about it you know the fact

00:30:49.680 that we're getting different information the one thing we knew from the very beginning is it came from

00:30:54.720 China and and on her recommendation that they have they barely even restricted travel from China for 0.97

00:31:03.160 people who are at risk like I mean it's absolutely mind-boggling that we were too chicken shit to put in 0.92

00:31:09.480 and it's because Trump put the travel restrictions in place Trump put his travel restrictions in place 0.97

00:31:15.240 the blowback was oh you're just being a racist as usual where did Americans did Americans get dropped

00:31:23.040 off in Canada instead and then cross the border by car I'm just curious because I have a feeling those

00:31:29.100 Americans still got back home that was the big reason why people is one thing but bringing in 1.00

00:31:35.420 uh national visitors other countries is a is a big difference and yeah that was the right there from the

00:31:41.580 beginning saying China did you know didn't do anything wrong here it was their response was reasonable

00:31:47.100 and and I think just a lot of this is this government's very close relationship with the con with the Chinese I mean we're kind of reliant on them right now 0.98

00:31:57.100 and China is no doubt the bullier the the bad guy in this whole thing don't forget Justin Trudeau just

00:32:05.500 three weeks ago gave that same lab in Wuhan more than eight hundred thousand dollars no no no

00:32:11.340 they're part of a party party part of a group but yes part of a group of the exact same lab that let this

00:32:19.180 fire us out okay that hasn't been proven oh Deirdre come on come on

00:32:27.580 Dave I thought you were a hard news guy all the intelligence allegedly okay I'll use the word

00:32:35.660 allegedly thank you good journalist it was being dealt with in this lab and a lab worker took it out

00:32:43.580 they gave it to her boyfriend and then they went for dinner at the bat house down in where they ate 0.99

00:32:49.180 anteaters where where that that's where it started she's patient zero and uh I just hope Trump follows 1.00

00:32:57.740 up on his vow that uh if China doesn't clean up their act that uh he's gonna come down hard on them 0.51

00:33:03.980 well I'm glad we can all agree that China's at fault for Deirdre we we do we do to the commies 1.00

00:33:11.500 oh dear god uh anyways um the thing is China China will very likely we've been on this topic for a

00:33:21.100 while so maybe Deirdre you wrap up but we have to I think move on move along here so once you wrap up

00:33:27.660 Deirdre holy crap um okay so the Chinese stop talking if everyone else stops talking I can wrap 1.00

00:33:35.500 it up so China will very likely receive sanctions I think that's been a really interesting conversation 0.93

00:33:40.940 to see uh I don't think anyone's going to go to war with China but if you look at some of the

00:33:45.740 information that's coming out financially Japan is paying uh their multinationals or multinational

00:33:51.660 corporations to uh find other places to set up their factories and get them out of China

00:33:57.900 u.s companies are starting to get out of China so they're going to receive sanctions um but I think

00:34:04.460 economic sanctions are the safest thing I can uh I have the power in this program to mute everybody

00:34:11.580 the power excellent uh all right let's go like this I'll go like this and then you know

00:34:26.620 all right so moving along um of course we've talked about politicians we've talked about bureaucrats

00:34:33.420 now let's talk about the economy when on earth is the Canadian economy going to open up and maybe we

00:34:38.700 should start um by looking at some of the examples around the world we've talked before the show

00:34:44.460 about the very different approach that's being taken right now in Sweden um might be successful we're

00:34:53.420 not I I guess we don't really know yet but I don't know thoughts news real news I think the uh the jury's

00:35:02.380 still out on Sweden uh you know they're still getting a lot of infections a lot of deaths

00:35:07.100 uh uh beginning or late last week uh on friday thursday or so most of the western european uh

00:35:13.740 countries said lockdown continues for another three weeks uh so that'll put them into

00:35:20.940 end of may early june and uh i think canada and the united states are about two weeks behind

00:35:26.860 where the uh the europe is so i think we're looking into uh we're looking into late june before

00:35:33.020 and then it gets opening up over here uh deirdre your thoughts um yes sweden is interesting they've

00:35:40.780 had more deaths than canada um the number of cases is you know it's it's close i think they're a little

00:35:48.140 bit less than us case wise yeah they've only had 14 000 cases so actually their death toll is higher than

00:35:54.700 canada's um and they have a smaller population they do um so right now it's you know the

00:36:05.580 i guess you can look at that and say whether or not it was it was a success or not um singapore is

00:36:11.100 another place that that had had uh not imposed restrictions but in the last week here they actually

00:36:18.940 had to shut everything down closed schools uh because it because they were losing control of it

00:36:23.660 so um well that's a city-state too right it was always exceptional because they had you know everybody's

00:36:30.060 well connected they've got technology this one city not you know not a country like canada that's spread

00:36:36.940 out like crazy so it's just always a different animal than the rest of the world too right uh but yeah so

00:36:43.980 it's like it's it's really it's really interesting to watch because bc is starting to talk about uh

00:36:51.580 they've they've passed their peak now the thing too is that the first case in bc was january the 29th

00:36:58.140 and alberta's first case wasn't identified till march 6th so they are a full month ahead of of where

00:37:04.380 we're going to be but this came up actually at dr dina's press conference um or sorry the economic

00:37:12.060 update oil and gas what is ottawa giving us how are we spending our money and then covet update uh during

00:37:17.900 that portion uh someone had asked uh dr hinshaw whether or not um you know how it would it might

00:37:24.620 affect alberta if bc starts to lessen their restrictions and have you heard anything paul being in bc

00:37:32.220 because i'm actually not watching the bc press conferences uh but are you hearing anything about

00:37:38.620 potential closing of the border not allowing people to go back and forth because that's that's

00:37:44.140 apparently a worry like we are we're not expected to peak until the end of may so our cases are still

00:37:49.820 spreading pretty easily in alberta bc doesn't want us running back and forth across the border i'm sure

00:37:58.860 so have you heard anything about that dr dina kind of said like we'll keep in contact with other

00:38:04.060 health professionals and we'll make decisions as this as other provinces make decisions you know

00:38:09.740 but but i i foresee most traffic in canada is north south right i you know there's communities

00:38:16.940 obviously along the border of um alberta and british columbia you know like we're not going to stop

00:38:23.180 somebody from going from golden to uh bamf or something right i hope no not not from bc to alberta

00:38:30.940 constitutional i mean like one of the less recognized part of the charter is the guarantee uh guaranteed

00:38:38.060 right between provinces to take away that right you require the enactment of the emergencies act right

00:38:44.460 especially the renamed war measures act so unless the war measures act in place they can't stop you from

00:38:49.500 crossing provincial boundaries and and it would just make no sense especially i guess the most densely

00:38:55.980 populated provincial border is the the greater capital area ottawa hall ulmer uh that that's a huge

00:39:02.060 area and although it'd be kind of nice if you stopped it because then the federal government would

00:39:05.660 effectively shut down the um japan also went back to uh more of a lockdown situation and they had they had

00:39:16.620 appeared to have mostly dodged it and they had another sort of spike up as well over the last

00:39:21.180 week what's funny british columbia closes or british columbia opens up and alberta doesn't you're going to

00:39:28.140 have thousands of infected albertans driving to bc just so they can play golf sure right and that's

00:39:34.380 going to be happening everywhere well and i think we need to be realistic about what opening up means

00:39:40.220 right i i don't think any jurisdiction including for that matter if donald trump has his way the united

00:39:45.260 states i don't think any jurisdiction is just going to well maybe florida is going to just

00:39:51.420 beaches are open turn everything back on tomorrow i think i think there and even donald trump's plan

00:39:57.820 included a staged reintroduction reintroduction of things within the economy with all the double checks

00:40:04.460 and every everything happening at every stage just in case that stage was a step too far they can take a

00:40:10.700 step back and um and so i think uh i don't think i don't think we're going to get back to normal

00:40:16.780 anytime in the next six months but we may get back to a more normal you know uh economy where you know

00:40:25.260 there's more activity and that's i think that's i think the bigger question is you know how does that

00:40:30.460 happen you know is it going to be golf course i mean there are golf courses open in british columbia

00:40:35.500 um yeah they didn't shut them all down no they didn't and and but what they did do was they made

00:40:40.380 it so that the tea offs were every 45 minutes or something so basically instead of every 10 minutes

00:40:45.500 yeah and so you know like are are they spreading disease probably not right not in that scenario but

00:40:53.180 i mean who knows anyway the um um i i think what's the to me the most interesting and derek will turn it

00:41:01.020 over to you is people are you know we're we've we've now been on lockdown for three four weeks

00:41:08.620 you know north america and people are starting to go back to their left right tribes and

00:41:15.580 they're broken the tribes aren't aren't working anyway i mean sweden was the darling of the left

00:41:23.740 and yet most people on the quote left are all in favor of locking things down i they must be their

00:41:29.980 heads must be exploding thinking that sweden is you know keeping things wide open so you know um i i

00:41:36.700 feel like this pandemic more than anything is really distorted um you know any notion of tribalism in this

00:41:44.700 sort of left-right paradigm we used to have um but derek you haven't commented on the reopening so i'll

00:41:50.700 turn it over to you on that note well if you look at if if you if you look at a good apples apples to

00:41:58.380 apples comparisons across countries uh the big thing that we see that's flattened the curve has not been

00:42:05.100 total lockdowns of societies but effect effective lockdowns of borders early on so uh in terms of

00:42:13.260 high numbers of cases germany spain united states iran france they've actually all gone to roughly the

00:42:19.100 same amount the question is uh the point is uh the us spain germany they all flattened the curb much

00:42:26.380 quicker than italy or iran did uh you know the us has not flattened their curve no no oh sorry yeah

00:42:33.980 i should leave america out of that they have not yet they're still growing actually quite quite quickly

00:42:39.180 exponentially but but those who have flattened the curve and done so at a very low level are japan

00:42:44.620 singapore hong kong and this is obviously not done yet uh and uh to a lesser extent south korea and they've

00:42:50.780 done it by effectively locking down their borders to at-risk countries coming in very quickly now 0.99

00:42:56.940 uh as paul said singapore is essentially a city-state so it's got small borders but it is a

00:43:03.340 wildly highly densely populated city-state so is hong kong and they just had to shut down yeah they just

00:43:10.300 did but even though they did their numbers are half of what our numbers are they are very very low and

00:43:16.380 their and their curve has been pretty flat um but they hong kong and singapore are extremely

00:43:22.700 concentrated populations i think hong kong if i'm not mistaken is the most densely populated country on

00:43:27.500 the planet perhaps taiwan but it's um so if it gets into those places uh it's game over everybody's got

00:43:35.900 it uh but they like south korea they lock their borders fast hong kong lock their border fast even

00:43:41.980 though they've they're obviously very close to china not i guess we won't mention north korea

00:43:46.380 since they're always locked down but have no cases yeah yeah so yeah dave had a great story on that

00:43:53.340 dave's story that was that was epic north korea the uh lockdown world champions but uh it's primarily

00:44:01.420 been locking down your international borders to at-risk countries that's that that's kept the numbers down

00:44:06.540 uh so far there hasn't been and we'll probably get a better idea in a few weeks here

00:44:11.740 maybe sooner but uh locking down the entire economy does not seem to be the big difference

00:44:16.860 between this it's been controlling uh incoming people from at-risk areas that that's been the

00:44:23.100 big difference so far and when this all settles down i mean what i do love about this is karen

00:44:31.020 the the meme of karen you know this well somebody think of the children woman uh who's this busy body 0.96

00:44:37.180 always up in everybody's business she's now become a mainstream figure that people have started to hear

00:44:41.020 about she's no longer this kind of uh mean character of the fringe libertarian movement

00:44:46.620 everyone's has everyone now heard of karen karen from the internet that's where i get she's actually

00:44:52.300 my favorite scientist until a few weeks ago she was essentially a a character of the hard libertarian 1.00

00:45:00.460 internet movement and that and that was it and now everybody's heard of karen um so as you know the

00:45:06.460 karens of the world say uh you want people to die if you don't believe in totally locking down the

00:45:13.100 economy if we go on much longer the lockdown will result in deaths it's going to exacerbate a lot of

00:45:19.660 mental health issues addictions issues uh in the longer term it's going to hurt the economy and people

00:45:25.580 will lose homes when people start losing jobs and losing homes suicide rates go up uh health health

00:45:32.780 problems develop and so there's going to be a lot of issues in the longer term here that we will not

00:45:37.740 be able to directly tie to this but uh we've got to be very um we've got to be open to accepting that

00:45:46.220 uh some deaths are going to be inevitable in reopening the economy and we can't simply stay shut down

00:45:53.020 for six months or a year because many more people will die indirectly from that it's uh it's definitely

00:46:01.660 a balancing act and um yeah nobody wants anybody to die from from this horrible virus but you're right

00:46:10.620 you're right there is uh there's other considerations and uh and that's i think the tough thing for

00:46:17.580 politicians is you know trying to strike that balance so we'll see how that don't forget there's a

00:46:22.940 a second wave coming oh a second maybe a third we don't know what the how the antibodies work we

00:46:28.300 don't know you know if a vaccine's even possible you know like there's just more unknowns than there's

00:46:33.900 it they don't even know check the cdc website the other day because i thought maybe i did a karen 0.89

00:46:38.460 move by suggesting that maybe the maybe warm weather might be a factor and somebody called me a very bad

00:46:45.980 name on twitter as a result of insinuating that and so i went and checked the cdc website and sure enough

00:46:51.660 they said they don't know whether or not warm weather they still don't know they had no idea

00:46:57.980 yeah they so you know because somebody was on twitter was comparing uh los angeles to new york and of

00:47:03.980 course los angeles has had a much lower infection rate i'd suggested that maybe they also locked down

00:47:08.860 well they locked down which was which was obviously a key factor um and uh but could it all my point was

00:47:15.900 could it also be in part whether could it also be in part um the uh population density could it also be

00:47:22.700 in part the um car culture there versus uh public transit and taxi cabs in new york right you know

00:47:30.700 there's there's all these factors but yet the karens of the internet want to just focus you know like

00:47:36.780 you know this is the dogma you know and it's if it's if if the numbers go down it's exclusively because

00:47:42.860 of lockdown there's no other purposes whatsoever and i think there's any kind of karen

00:47:51.100 anyway um speaking of rules and lockdowns should our leaders be bound to abide by

00:47:59.500 all the same rules as the rest of us folk us little guys uh derek what do you think

00:48:06.860 no they're better we must trust them and defer to their authority all right then that's the show

00:48:12.940 for today thanks sorry that's all folks that's all yeah no i mean it's um

00:48:22.780 i mean it's it's a tough spot for any leader they're they're trying to say what people should do but and

00:48:27.820 then they're expected to be the perfect reflection of that but i think we we have some expectation that

00:48:33.580 they'll they'll live up to it somewhat um i think there was a lot of controversy around uh after

00:48:40.620 trudeau's uh don't speak moistly speech um in breaking a lot of uh the recommendations and rulings

00:48:49.660 he was making um about not traveling and and whatnot uh if you saw pictures even of their press conferences

00:48:57.100 all that even remotely related to speaking moistly i said after his speaking moistly press conference

00:49:04.060 yeah speaking moistly by the way best song ever i think of 20 yeah um so but you know you even had

00:49:13.900 the press all gathered together in these tiny little uh little tents there whereas most world leaders

00:49:18.140 have had the press all spread out across uh you know doing their own social distancing um but my

00:49:23.580 favorite case was a governor in the united states i don't want to miss say but michigan rings a bell

00:49:28.140 where there was a governor saying uh that you can't even go out for haircuts and whatnot and then uh

00:49:34.060 she looked she had a particularly uh nice uh haircut that day and the press asked her if she had gotten

00:49:40.300 a haircut and she meekly admitted that she did but she did so responsibly uh essentially saying that

00:49:46.780 government's able to do things responsibly but nobody else um but the on a bit of a tangential

00:49:55.020 topic i'm predicting when this all ends there's going to be a big comeback of the mullet because

00:49:59.740 the mullet is essentially the natural state of your hair if you just try to trim the sides and nothing

00:50:04.300 else so there's gonna be a big there's gonna be a big mullet comeback when this is done uh so i think

00:50:11.340 that's the big trend for 2020 to watch if we want to make 2020 any worse it's going to be the comeback

00:50:16.620 of the mullet that'll do it i agree with the mullet i'm just looking at future options uh for

00:50:25.420 derek and the way he's dressed now if you just put a white collar on him wouldn't he be the perfect

00:50:30.140 miami vice tv priest guy i'm failing that his beard is getting so long now it could be an extra in vikings

00:50:38.300 you know if i wear more black i'd be zz top yes yes there we go there was a uh i can't remember

00:50:46.700 i think it was andrew coin but it might have been somebody else wrote a opinion piece in the national

00:50:52.300 post this week about essentially how the um the government shouldn't treat people like children

00:51:00.220 and i think i think when we talk about the masks you know part of the issue i think in the beginning was

00:51:06.300 you know they were afraid people would go out and think that they're safe because they put a mask

00:51:10.780 on or that they'd go out and buy up all the masks that the medical community needed to buy you know

00:51:17.500 and and other you know people who use them properly and people can't use them properly and you know

00:51:23.580 there's a lot of that from government where it's like the infantilization of of the populace and i think

00:51:30.540 people are not um are you know don't like to be treated that way we like to be treated you know

00:51:36.780 whether we're we are or not we like to be treated as somewhat intelligent and capable of making you

00:51:42.860 know rational decisions and learning things um and i wonder sort of how much this whole a lot of these a

00:51:50.140 lot of these things that we're kind of faced with is just because the government can't trust us to be

00:51:55.020 smart about doing things in this situation have you seen the people of florida yeah well like there's

00:52:02.140 there's there's a really good reason yeah yeah there's there's a really good reason why uh people

00:52:09.180 are like and and the thing is you're only as strong as your weakest link right um you know my my whole

00:52:15.820 thing with that collectivist society versus individual society or um uh individualist society

00:52:21.820 is that you know what what happened do you remember uh i don't remember what basketball player that was

00:52:28.060 but the guy who was apparently tested uh positive for covet he was giving a press conference and what

00:52:34.620 did he do before he left he rubbed all of the the equipment oh like it was just it was but that like

00:52:44.300 that's your weakest link that guy apparently didn't understand that his uh purposeful you know uh

00:52:54.620 contamination of things could actually kill somebody that's your weakest link so you know why do they

00:53:02.460 have to explain uh you know a mask is not going to keep you safe because the majority of masks you can get

00:53:09.100 won't well i think there's there's a difference between smart inform you know proper information

00:53:15.260 and guidelines for people and i think what where paul is going with this is overkill uh restrictions 0.75

00:53:22.300 meant to deal with the lowest common denominator idiot uh it's the same reason we have syntaxes on 0.87

00:53:27.740 things uh it's the same reason we have warning labels that say do not operate while sleeping 0.99

00:53:31.980 yeah yeah somebody i'm a bit more of a darwinian i i think if you know you operate heavy machinery

00:53:38.300 while you're sleeping i i think the human race might be better for it but you know i i but the problem

00:53:44.380 is when you when you take the you know essentially if we're talking about the hyper nanny state where 0.99

00:53:49.820 the government is going to ban people from doing otherwise safe things because a few idiots might do 0.99

00:53:55.500 something uh it's going to breed some disrespect for these rules in the long term if this goes on 0.99

00:54:01.740 for six months or god forbid longer uh people are going to start questioning if they're being told

00:54:08.300 the truth by the government and people who would otherwise be responsible are going to stop believing

00:54:13.260 in them so i think the importance of having reasonable restrictions and honest straightforward

00:54:19.340 information is important because when everything is catered toward preventing the lowest common denominator 0.95

00:54:25.420 idiot from doing something people who are smarter than that will eventually catch on 0.94

00:54:30.140 and stop listening to what the government's saying and which is smart how pardon how does that make 1.00

00:54:36.860 them because you don't because you don't trust this problem deirdre is you don't trust what they're

00:54:41.980 telling you you don't if if all they're telling you is is you know you have to do follow these 600 rules

00:54:48.700 and you figure out that a few of them actually they're only telling you that because they think you're too much 0.98

00:54:53.740 of an idiot to do that thing properly you're gonna you're gonna know which rules to trust 0.93

00:54:59.180 so like it's all of them so right now even the camping seasons are not planned to be open and there's 1.00

00:55:05.900 not much that's safer to do outside of your house right now than to go camping unless you go to your

00:55:11.900 neighbor and you start rubbing them yeah so you know so what they're doing if with this kind of overkill is a

00:55:18.300 lot of uh otherwise responsible and rational people are going to say that the government's full

00:55:23.660 of and so i think that should be more straightforward with people about what is uh reasonable

00:55:28.780 it needs to be done here rather than draconian measures that people are going to start uh i think

00:55:33.820 very quickly if not already uh not taking seriously because they don't trust what's coming from the

00:55:38.620 governments yeah and and i i should say i should be really clear about this i've been locked in my house

00:55:43.420 for five weeks i'm not going anywhere but i totally understand when the government loses people's

00:55:51.260 trust because they're not treating them respectfully and they're not giving them you know the right

00:55:56.620 information because they're afraid that they're not going to be able to make good decisions i think

00:56:00.460 that's going to i think that's going to create a problem for for people um and and there's going to

00:56:06.060 be blowback and i think that that's in the in the middle of a pandemic that's exactly the opposite outcome

00:56:12.060 that you really want to have happen right that's all i'm saying i think i think i think they need 1.00

00:56:17.340 to be open they need to be honest they need to be transparent and at the end of the day the the idiot 0.99

00:56:22.700 that goes to the beach for spring break in florida he's not watching the hour-long you know broadcasts 0.98

00:56:28.700 from the public health officers every day anyway right so if we had a little more honesty in media

00:56:33.980 and a little more honesty from our from our public officials uh i think i think that would just i

00:56:38.780 think that would build a lot more trust and we could all get over this thing a whole lot faster

00:56:45.660 the best break that canada's got is the weather mainly across the country has been pretty lousy

00:56:51.020 uh for the last month or so but now it's starting to get warm sun's actually out in calgary so

00:56:56.220 it's going to be harder for people to uh to stay inside and and i think too like if you

00:57:02.780 if you look at where we moved from a public health recommendation to this is now a law i mean look

00:57:11.180 at uh i remember when shandro was very specific in his tweet saying this is not a recommendation this

00:57:18.940 is law and that's where we moved from right they put out recommendations they still found that people

00:57:24.700 weren't following them so what did they have to do they had to make greater restrictions and

00:57:29.500 it's like i i i get how it's i get how it's difficult and a lot of people look at it and say

00:57:34.380 well this isn't fair i act responsibly we're only as we're only as strong as our weakest link and

00:57:40.860 unfortunately our weakest links uh they're weak yeah and and i think some of that is some of that is

00:57:47.420 ignorance and some of that is a misunderstanding of individualism right and and you know the collectivists

00:57:55.020 amongst us will say you know clearly we need just stronger government to give us rules because you

00:58:00.940 know in the nanny state and stuff and i think people like derek and to maybe to a lesser degree myself

00:58:06.060 who are more of a libertarian bent um you know we we recognize the importance of individual liberty and

00:58:11.660 and stuff but always always always that has been paired with personal responsibility and you can't

00:58:19.980 have liberty without responsibility and when you're talking about a global pandemic you know should the

00:58:27.500 government take away your liberty no but you as an individual have a responsibility not to spread the

00:58:34.780 pandemic and i think that message has been lost on a lot of selfish people who just haven't stopped 0.96

00:58:41.420 to think about what's going on the answer is to punch everyone who coughs on you with gloves and then 0.99

00:58:48.380 don't forget to wash your hands yes yes punch them with boxing gloves and grow a mullet and uh next week's 0.98

00:58:56.060 show we're gonna have um best mullet contested am i right maybe we could put a filter on here uh you can put 0.77

00:59:01.980 a filter on the on the screen here and we can all have mullets perfect yeah this is a fresh haircut

00:59:07.980 it it's not gonna go mullet did you do it yourself of course i did it myself oh no no it looks very

00:59:14.700 good my wife cut her hair herself and she did a very good job i'm not gonna touch mine because it'll

00:59:19.500 it'll be a mullet i just know it i'm pretty sure my wife is hoarding hair dye but i you know i don't 1.00

00:59:24.700 want to call her out mine just seems to fall out naturally so yeah good job on that paul good job

00:59:31.980 well thanks i don't want to call her out by putting it on the internet

00:59:38.860 all right on that on that note the note of hairstyles thank you for joining us this week

00:59:43.820 uh if you're not a member of the western standard please go to the westernstandardonline.com and become

00:59:48.940 a member today like subscribe and do all those great things with this video as well share it with

00:59:53.740 your friends and we'll see everybody next week thanks guys bye-bye thank you everybody

01:00:08.620 you

Western Standard - April 20, 2020

The Mullet Economy - The Pipeline, Episode 14

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