00:00:53.600Well, the reason Alex is here is because we're going to be talking about the B.C. Conservative Party heading into the last weeks of its leadership race.
00:01:02.940There was a debate just last night. Land acknowledgements at a B.C. Conservative leadership debate. Interesting stuff.
00:01:12.760We're going to talk about the state of that race. Maybe we can handicap it at this point. Who are the most likely guys to win?
00:01:23.600We're going to talk about the University of Lethbridge
00:06:21.000There does not appear to be any such protections and firewalls here.
00:06:27.320In fact, this seems to be very specifically designed to reinvest back into the Canadian economy, which sounds nice, but seems to be a recipe for corruption.
00:06:36.920Yeah, well, if you want to de-risk projects, get the government out of the damn way.
00:12:38.280But do you think he gets away with it here?
00:12:40.440Yes and no. I think the perception is reality. And if people think that he looks like a banker and acts like a banker, then to them, he's a banker. I'm going to get in trouble with with Dave and probably a lot of the viewers. I actually was a financial advisor. I did that for the better part of the last decade. And this sovereign wealth fund story reminds me of two stories, if you'll forgive me for telling them. The first one, I'll leave out some of the details because I don't want to give away who the individual is. But I worked in a retirement community. So I dealt with all kinds of weird financial situations involving people who were
00:13:10.420doing estate planning so a woman came in and she wanted to add her daughter onto the line of credit
00:13:15.940that was affixed to her home because the daughter was a co-owner of the home no problem i invite the
00:13:20.660daughter in i said i just have to create a banking profile for you pull your credit bureau ask you
00:13:24.980some questions what do you do for work and she said well i'm a phd in economics and i'm a top
00:13:29.540leading advisor to the government of canada on economic issues i said wow that's amazing i look
00:13:34.100at the bureau she's from ottawa everything checks out she has no credit score so i said well you
00:13:40.500have a zero credit score she says yes i'm i'm borrowing a verse i've never borrowed money
00:13:44.820before in my life and this is a leading advisor to the government of canada and she can't access
00:13:53.140credit as an individual i would never be as audacious as pierre polyev he got in a lot of
00:13:57.860trouble recently for accusing carney of being somewhat financially illiterate um i think this
00:14:03.060is actually a really illustrative example of how sometimes a degree, and even in the case of
00:14:08.260experience, Carney was a central banker. Well, central banker, it sounds like an important
00:14:12.020position, but your decisions are typically binary. You're either increasing interest rates or you're
00:14:15.940lowering them. And if you're in a time of economic crisis, you're always lowering them. So the
00:14:20.100decision is made for you. So it doesn't require a particularly intelligent person to do it.
00:14:25.380And the sovereign wealth fund reminds me of my second story, which is in a retirement community,
00:14:30.260you often had people that came in very well-intentioned people who said i really love
00:14:33.940my grandchildren i want to leave a legacy to them can i create a trust fund but then you would look
00:14:38.680at their financial situation and there was no wealth to put in the fund so you it just didn't
00:14:45.400make any sense and this both of these stories remind me of what the carny government is doing
00:14:49.300it seems like financial illiteracy personified to some extent i i think this is uh this is an
00:14:57.440excellent example of just the canadian and in particular laurentian or eastern central canadian
00:15:03.640but the canadian deference to authority and credentialism you know um this person has a
00:15:11.680resume you know dave how often we gone through found someone with a great resume who couldn't
00:15:17.940write a new story for shit yeah and they usually had pronouns yeah well but now we know to filter
00:15:24.160them out if they have pronouns their resume straight to garbage don't even make it to my
00:15:28.000desk at this point uh i'm talking about your application jessica um charge number seven um
00:15:36.400so you know but canadians are have just such a deference to authority i i think it comes from
00:15:44.300kind of the uh the upper canadian loyalist tory tradition i think it comes from that but they just
00:15:51.300you know uh credentials institutions resumes these things count for so much more in the in
00:15:59.880the east and i think in canada overall but in the east in particular um you know uh the media
00:16:06.040says that this guy is competent and therefore and then it just becomes an article of faith it's why
00:16:11.220you know you have you know the canadian bar association issue statements condemning a
00:16:17.340newspaper for criticizing the decision of a judge as if that undermines confidence in
00:16:22.500the justice system, not the justice system making ridiculous decisions to put criminals
00:16:27.420back on the streets because they have a certain race or they're not a citizen or something
00:16:48.880Could we not have more of them who actually don't launch their campaign saying, well, we're going to come off a balanced budget, go straight into four years of deficits, then we'll think about it, and instead double the amount of money that they said they were going to borrow and take the national debt from $600 billion to $1.2 billion in five years?
00:17:13.080i mean i actually kind of like the idea of somebody who has an aversion to debt
00:17:17.960being in government the last year canada ran a circle was it like 2009 what year was the financial
00:17:23.480crisis well 2007 2008 and okay so it'd be it'd be circa 2007 or eight would be the last time canada
00:17:31.480ran a surplus surplus harper had pretty much eliminated the deficit by the time he left
00:17:36.840office yeah but it was still it's still technically in deficit and then trudeau
00:17:42.120ramped it up massively and well you know you gotta remember if you're thinking about why things are
00:17:47.800the way they are in canada people voted for that he actually said when we had a balanced budget
00:17:54.120we've been talking about balanced budgets and overspending since the early 90s
00:17:58.760finally we make it and he said oh i think we'll we'll run we'll run deficits for four years and
00:18:03.880the result what a good idea we should do that and voted them in so um you know the canadian
00:18:09.480people unfortunately have a certain amount to answer for in this as well you know when you
00:18:14.360look at the statistics on personal debt yep they voted for a government that does things the way
00:18:19.960they do them okay i think we back to the girl who uh has no credit score i i could be she should be
00:18:25.960interviewed if i'm wrong left put in the comments section as a correction but uh i i think i'm
00:18:30.120correct it canadians are have the highest personal debt on the planet right now it's
00:18:34.760it is crazy and i i suppose you know if canadians are all massively personally indebted
00:18:40.360then this stands to reason that they'd say well i i guess the government needs to do it as well
00:18:45.480all right if i get to dad the the story about the um the young lady i find is interesting because
00:18:53.640it's indicative of a certain level of financial illiteracy amongst the populace and that's
00:18:59.080bleeding into the bureaucracy this person has never paid off an overdraft and they're advising
00:19:04.500the government on how to clear a one trillion dollar plus deficit they don't even have a personal
00:19:10.080credit score so i find that i found it just so incredible okay we're gonna switch it up now uh
00:19:17.380bring it a little closer to home here uh cory i know you're you're regularly in trouble with the
00:19:23.500authorities for uh you know making documentaries you know about regularly but yes i'm uh just it
00:19:30.200just feels like it some days he's saying charges now so francis widowson uh so she was a professor
00:19:36.340at the at mount royal university in calgary calgary's other university uh they hate getting
00:19:43.380told that um but uh she she was a professor there i i think she was fired uh and won a wrongful
00:19:50.400this missile suit, I think, because she was
00:28:04.520If I was in high school, I remember those days, if I'd have gone off on somebody visiting the high school,
00:28:08.580that principal would have had my ass kicked out of that school faster than any.
00:28:11.520Isn't it an established fact that the people protesting were students?
00:28:15.580No, and that's the question I was just going to ask.
00:28:17.660They brought a bunch off the blood reserve, but there were students there too, some of them.
00:28:22.300they had a bunch of tokens they brought in for uh yeah which they did which they did when they
00:28:27.420when she was in uh in ubc and a couple other universities across british columbia it was
00:28:33.660like to rent a demonstrator yeah okay uh we're gonna go to alex in bc here uh i think it was
00:28:42.380just yesterday there was a uh debate for the leadership race heading into the final strokes
00:28:50.540here uh but before we get into you know who you think won who you think lost you know we'll get
00:28:56.300you kind of handicap the race here uh before that though let's let's talk about the very weird uh
00:29:01.660opening ceremonies of this debate that would seem to be a little ill-fitted for a party that
00:29:07.100i think everyone's kind of agreeing at this point drippa and land acknowledgements uh the white guilt
00:29:13.820and shame industry it's got to go yeah as the old joke goes i showed up to a debate and a land
00:29:20.640acknowledgement broke out it was it was quite bizarre so the whole thing began with a land
00:29:28.140acknowledgement which is extremely ironic given that in the last bc conservative leadership
00:29:32.140debate which was only days earlier there was a bit of a race to the bottom on this issue of who
00:29:38.120hated land acknowledgements the most and then nobody contested when the land acknowledgement
00:29:43.560opened to the next debate which i think speaks to the fact that the candidates might not have
00:29:48.680as much gumption as maybe their campaigns pretend that they do yeah it seemed like a missed
00:29:54.100opportunity that you know maybe you know when they're talking about land acknowledgements yes
00:29:58.580i'm the most conservative i'm against this stuff this stuff is just you know a part of uh guilt
00:30:04.280and shame culture or the cult of shame that we're all supposed to have in european countries
00:30:09.960because we're all colonial genocidal maniacs um but but this seemed like a missed opportunity
00:30:16.380for someone to stand up at least at their first speaking opportunity not necessarily interrupt
00:30:21.160them but be like hey i just want to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of
00:30:26.860british columbia i mean i i will render i will offer some forgiveness to them in the sense that
00:30:33.100in bc these things are so baked into the cake socio-culturally and politically you hear land
00:30:38.420acknowledgments so often especially if you're working even in the private sector in the finance
00:30:42.500world that you really you really become oblivious to it i had barely noticed the land acknowledgment
00:30:47.040until others started ranting about it online it's it's it's quite um shame on you we're gonna have
00:30:52.800to disturbing splash some cold water on you well i mean i've never done one and i don't intend to
00:30:57.840and i don't understand why they happen but i'll know you're trying to quit if you do
00:31:01.760yeah it's just like anything else right I mean you you can you can acclimatize
00:31:06.260yourself to just about anything yeah okay well kind of give us just kind of a
00:31:11.060high level you don't have to go through each of the each of them but you know
00:31:14.180what tell us what were some of the big highlights who do you think came out on
00:31:18.500top and maybe improved their position from this debate there really were no
00:31:23.000big highlights it was quite a mundane event so the highlight was the land
00:31:27.440acknowledgement and then that von palmer went on like a bit of a miss uh grandpa simpson rant at
00:31:33.040the end that a lot of people thought was a waste of time i thought it was kind of interesting
00:31:36.560personally it's nice to hear somebody's history in bc politics um i imagine it's a minority opinion
00:31:43.280uh in terms of who i thought was the best or the worst everybody kind of held their ground
00:31:49.600this has really never been when you ask for a high level uh look at this this has never been
00:31:54.960a particularly high level race in the sense that all of the candidates agree on all of the major
00:31:59.360issues so it really is just a matter of personality and likability almost at this point
00:32:03.440it's uh what is the one of the i don't know how to put it um one of the debates uh maybe fault
00:32:13.440lines i i've noticed in the race is you know some are saying some of the candidates are saying we
00:32:18.980need to talk less about culture war issues more about you know fiscal management market issues
00:32:24.660More of the kind of the think of the older B.C. liberals, you know, late Gordon Campbell, where it was just about fiscal probity.
00:32:33.380But it's kind of a return to kind of traditional Reaganite economic focus as, you know, the fiscal conservative thing.
00:32:42.340And that's all important. But in 2026, that's not really what's animating people.
00:32:47.200But I know there is some kind of split and some candidates saying, no, we should not be emphasizing fight against DRIPA.
00:32:53.540Maybe I'm against DRIPA, but like, on purely economic grounds, I'm not against, I don't want to get into it because I'm sick of white guilt. I'm sick of ritual shaming. I'm only against it because it compromises our economic prosperity. I think I'm seeing that as kind of a fault line emerging in the race.
00:35:30.260Sure. So the Conservative Party would be the right-leaning, right-of-centre party in BC. 1BC would be something to the right of that. It would be the equivalent to the PPC, let's say.
00:35:40.820So in order to not divide the vote on the right and to avoid vote splitting, an agreement was made between Uri Fulmer, who was really the last place candidate at the time, to stand down in five ridings out of, I can't remember off the top of my head, I think it's 93 ridings in BC.
00:35:56.760and that way they would ensure that they could have five 1bc candidates elected that would work
00:36:03.740in tandem with the conservative party you know there's a whole bunch of details about this that
00:36:07.200don't really make sense number one there's no conditions for the supply and confidence
00:36:10.820agreement there's no lines in the sand so why even have two parties at that point secondly we
00:36:16.720haven't identified which five writings would run 1bc candidates and so there are five writing
00:36:21.700associations hypothetically speaking that haven't been told that they need to stand down would they
00:36:26.340agree to that we don't know and if they were told that they wanted they were to stand down and they
00:36:31.640declined then the board of the conservative party would be put into the precarious position of either
00:36:37.560kicking them off the writing association or um or i don't know they're so it the whole thing is
00:36:45.140actually quite dysfunctional when you break it down to its inner mechanics it doesn't actually
00:36:50.380make sense then you also have the issue too where the 1bc party is not actually a party officially
00:36:54.680speaking there's only one mla there was originally two but they had some dysfunction and so they had
00:36:59.000to split up and so it becomes very very uh hard to believe that a one bc party of five candidates
00:37:07.560would act in perfect unity with the bc conservative party when the same political entity couldn't keep
00:37:12.440a caucus of two unified for a particularly long period of time that's why it's two bc
00:37:20.360um all right any of you got anything to say
00:37:24.680I have to say that after living in BC for 25 years and living the politics down there,
00:37:33.000I was sure glad to get to Alberta. People said to me when I arrived in Alberta, get ready for
00:37:39.800a rough ride. Albertans are kind of crazy. You just can't fool them. Things are better here.
00:37:47.000For those of you in BC worrying about your mortgages, get to Alberta.
00:37:52.760yeah my mom says uh finley so there's that all right it's a lesson though i think for
00:37:58.360conservatives in general i mean we can see it eb is handing the government to a new party
00:38:04.760you know on a platter if they can just get their crap together but conservatives are their own
00:38:09.320worst enemies and the only thing that could potentially save evie's hide is conservatives
00:38:15.880ripping themselves apart you know because they've not had a particularly harmonious time since the
00:38:24.440last election and that's not a uniquely bc that's alberta conservatives that's you know we love
00:38:29.400fighting with each other yeah but the bc was particularly it happened particularly remember
00:38:35.080like you had the majority of the caucus had voted the leader out and the leader says i'm not leaving
00:38:40.680and then you had like a showdown in the legislature who gets to sit in the opposition leader's chair
00:39:14.560Or I assume, I don't think there are many, to be frank.
00:39:19.940I think that people are splitting hairs.
00:39:21.960A great example would be land acknowledgments.
00:39:24.300So some individuals think that land acknowledgments should be banned in the public service, something that they should be strongly discouraged.
00:39:30.420Others think that they should be allowed to continue.
00:39:32.800At the end of the day, I mean, if somebody does a land acknowledgment, it takes 15 seconds out of the meeting.