In this week's episode, we're joined by Erica Barutti, Department Head of Applied Politics at Macamie College, and Nigel Hannaford, editor-in-chief of the Western Standard Alberta Column, to discuss Alberta's push to get out of the supply management system.
00:17:26.200And his opening was going to be at a Parks Canada site in Halifax.
00:17:31.460And what happened was that people objected, say, not to the fact that he was a Christian evangelist, per se, but that his views did not reflect the core values of Parks Canada, of inclusion and a safe place, and so forth.
00:17:58.940Some people obviously don't agree with what Mr. Foyt is all about.
00:18:04.540On the other hand, I have a suspicion that a lot of people do.
00:18:07.320And so, is Parks Canada only for the people who see things the government's way, or is it for whoever comes along who's got the money and, in good faith, puts it down, and then they go and do their event?
00:18:24.940Now, for those following the case, I believe that Mr. Foyt has found an alternative location.
00:18:28.640But you can now see the stories starting to pop up where the city of Charlottetown, where he is to do as if it's any of their business, say, well, you know, we're not supportive of this.
00:18:40.840And that's typical of the kind of response because he's an American conservative, you know.
00:18:46.000So, we have a thing with the Americans at the moment, but actually, it's at the government level, at our level.
00:18:53.160If you're a Christian and you like that kind of music, then you should be able to go to it.
00:18:57.800And it's kind of irritating that the government is taking these sides in this way.
00:19:04.060Well, yeah, and, I mean, it's a public space, kind of by view, but I understand you don't want to host a Klan march, or I suspect if it was an anti-Israel march, they probably wouldn't say a thing.
00:19:14.160They had an LBGT event there at this very site last week, apparently, so clearly they favor certain points of view and not others.
00:19:23.400I mean, you either have all or nothing.
00:19:24.820I mean, you can't pretend it's not politicized.
00:19:26.600I'm sure if you had good old Jan Arden up there pissing and moaning, she'd be up and making her political views on the stage, and nobody would say a peep.
00:19:34.320You know, it's, do we have public venues or not?
00:19:38.500I mean, I'm not a big fan of, you know, Christian Rock, those sorts of things.
00:19:41.820So, you know what, I would just choose not to go.
00:19:44.780But our cancelers seem to always find a way through it.
00:19:48.360Like, Erica, what do you think the obligations should be then on public?
00:19:52.500I mean, I understand they do have to have a degree of vetting of who they have in those spaces, but it does seem to be kind of an unfair tilt.
00:20:03.600Like, I'm just, who in Parks Canada has nothing to do that they're serving where a religious group is playing concerts?
00:20:13.340Like, obviously, you could be doing more things like reviewing forestry and wildfire management instead of looking at who's performing where.
00:20:22.720So, yeah, I think you guys are saying the exact same thing I am, that, okay, like, either make it for everyone or not.
00:20:30.700Listen, I just Googled it when you guys are saying, like, Jan Arden is actually performing at the Badlands Amphitheater in Drumheller, which is part of the Alberta Badlands.
00:20:39.140So, if that's okay, why, which I believe is provincial, but either way, like, the province of Alberta is not saying, oh, we don't like your values and beliefs.
00:20:47.640Also, who the hell knows what the values and beliefs and brand of the national parks is and how does it not relate to a organization that is very community and collaborative focused to bring entertainment?
00:21:03.520Like, to me, I'm like, where do they not align?
00:21:06.340And so, I think it's just a bunch of BS.
00:21:08.360I think it's picking a fight that doesn't need to be picked.
00:21:11.220I think it is totally, to your point, politicizing something that is actually just, like, you don't have to be Christian to like Christian rock.
00:21:19.540You could just, like, you know, you don't have to be from the country to like country music.
00:21:23.020I think it's absolutely an infringement on freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of all of those things, which I think would probably be on brand for a national park.
00:21:34.860I think this is, like, a bureaucrat or a department that doesn't know their damn job.
00:22:23.700I looked at what the federal government has been doing under the Trudeau administration and subsequently continuing under Mr. Carney and how they are actually using government ministries to try and change the way that Canadians think.
00:22:42.760I mean, you know, the high school civics, of course, says, well, everybody thinks what they think and they choose the politicians they like best and then the politicians go and govern.
00:22:51.660That's sort of the grade 11 idea of what politics is about.
00:22:57.960And I think, broadly speaking, that described things until Trudeau Jr. came on the scene in 2015.
00:23:04.680But since that time, there has been a very deliberate attempt and intentional, they even talk about it, to actually make Canadians into a better, kinder, gentler, woker, more accepting, more everything.
00:23:18.500You know, all the words that they use, people, and that's not what they were elected to do, but they quietly do it.
00:23:24.780And the way they do it, there's a lot of ways.
00:23:28.180Parks Canada, for example, has been given a mandate to tell Canadian history in a certain way, not the way you were taught.
00:23:36.040So that's why you see the placards around the statues changing, if in fact the statues even stay.
00:23:42.820The CRTC has been empowered to take over the internet in Canada.
00:23:51.680There were three landmark bills in the last couple of years to facilitate that.
00:23:57.940One of them, the Online Harms Act, didn't get passed.
00:24:20.680CRTC, the, well, the Privy Council Office, there's a number of these things.
00:24:27.340But here's the one that really grabbed me.
00:24:29.140Just last week it emerged, thanks to Black Locks, that the Privy Council Office has a section that is specifically tasked to change the way people think, to change opinions.
00:24:43.480That's the top of the food chain in the federal government.
00:24:48.120The Privy Council Office is the, you know, geographically it's, you exit the Langevin block back door and you walk into the PCO.
00:25:27.720I do, I do get the newsletters though.
00:25:29.820So, but I would love it right after the show.
00:25:32.160You know, just remind people, it's the time to, if you want to catch those columns, those news, everything else, you got to make the plug for this show.
00:26:35.220She shut down a cadet camp that had been operating north of Banff for like 40 years.
00:26:39.760Every year they would come out, they'd do rock climbing and things like that because it's a good environment for it.
00:26:43.740And of course, being typical tequila Sheila, it was mostly beaking on about how the militarization and such shouldn't be encouraged and other things.
00:26:52.340So it wasn't just a matter of an inappropriate venue.
00:26:54.340She just felt that the political messaging was incorrect.
00:26:58.680You know, it tells you something about the general caliber of liberal representation is that after she retired from politics, even conservatives who were trying to interact with the federal government might seek her out.
00:27:13.380And you get a little anecdote saying, well, actually, she was one of the better ones.
00:27:37.200Mrs. Copps decided that that was much too sophisticated and ordered it to be returned to the natural state with native plants, such as the Icelandic poppy.
00:27:51.940And now what you see when you go out there is the weed bed infested by gophers and ravens pecking at them.
00:28:00.220It's really sad how that was destroyed.
00:28:04.960Well, they've micromanaged the parks in some terrible ways with personal agendas, and it hasn't stopped, unfortunately.
00:28:11.120Well, let's get on with personal agendas, vendettas.
00:28:13.660The longest mischief trial in Canadian history has reached its final phase now with sentencing.
00:28:22.000I think nobody was shocked that they found Tamera Leach and Chris Barber guilty.
00:28:26.120But now we're at what would be the conclusion of this, I guess, with a sentence.
00:28:30.300Well, you know, this is sort of over tight with what we were speaking about just a moment ago about how the government is trying to manage people rather than govern.
00:28:39.760Yeah, the sentencing hearing for Tamera Leach and Chris Barber got started earlier today.
00:28:43.840And I'm going to say that how their case turns out is going to be one of those situations where, in the rearview mirror, everything you need to know about who runs Canada and how it is run will be there to see.
00:29:00.660A few months ago, Leach and Barber were found guilty of mischief on charges arising from their activities at the time of the convoy in 2022.
00:29:09.120And the Crown is seeking a prison sentence of seven years for Leach and eight years for Barber.
00:29:25.400And I guess the law permits sentences of this size.
00:29:30.040And Barber was also convicted of counseling others to disobey a court order, which is why they're looking for higher sentences from him.
00:29:38.340This, of course, is a little outrageous when you actually know and feel the issue.
00:29:43.940When people get half, people don't get seven years for killing each other.
00:29:47.680You know, you had a story just in the last week about somebody who attacked his girlfriend, stabbed her three times, hit her over the head with a lead pipe in three years.
00:29:57.880You know, I mean, if the government likes your point of view, you can cause all the mischief you like and you won't get charged.
00:30:05.440So, really, what happened here was that the convoy and all those activities exposed the intellectual nudity of the Trudeau regime.
00:30:14.880And governments hate to be exposed like that.
00:31:11.120And they were advised cross-border truckers very late in the pandemic.
00:31:14.180But suddenly, they had to be vaccinated.
00:31:18.180Well, they knew that there was no difference between a virus on the American side of the border and on the virus on the Canadian side.
00:31:26.200And they knew what we all suspected, that the vaccine didn't do anything for you.
00:31:31.400So, in short, the truckers knew that the Trudeau government's vaccine mandate for them had nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.
00:33:11.620But that says a lot about how they're viewing this particular offense versus, you know, some of the stuff I think that is almost universally people could say is horrible and deserves the full extent of the law.
00:33:25.360So the other part is, is this, they want to make an example, but what a harsher sentence be preventative.
00:33:33.000Does it look like Barber or Leach are going to start another convoy?
00:33:35.860Does it look like they're at risk of putting the public at risk any longer?
00:33:38.740I haven't seen any indication of that.
00:33:41.580Erica, I would think the judge would take those things into account.
00:33:44.500But again, I mean, he's found them guilty, but I don't think he'll be inspired to give them an excessive incarceration or anything.
00:33:53.660I think the challenge we're facing right now is that this is political and this is, you know, I haven't been tracking, unfortunately, but the appointment of the judges is federal.
00:34:05.240And so we've seen a big surgence of the judicial being influenced by appointments by the federal government over the last decade, even the Supreme Court, because Harper hadn't filled many of those vacancies.
00:34:17.520And so we're in a situation where the judicial system, I think, is trying to set an example by these individuals.
00:34:22.800But I mean, if you're comparing and contrasting their crime, which they've already been found guilty of, especially on the mischief file, it's like, well, what happened to all those people that ruined statues and violated public property and decided to light churches on fire?
00:34:55.620The second part is kind of coming back to what I was talking about with Parks Canada.
00:35:00.640It's like, does the judicial system not realize the huge impact we have on human trafficking right now or domestic abuse?
00:35:08.580I mean, every day, even on LinkedIn, I'm seeing stories of women across Canada being killed because of the fact that we don't have harsh punishment for those dealing with domestic violence.
00:35:21.500And we don't have the right services to protect those women and children and men in some cases or even elder abuse.
00:35:28.140Right. Like, I think that this is one where it's just so political that my job will not drop if this sentence is higher than we think it should be.
00:35:37.060But that is completely inappropriate and completely, you know, unfounded that it's comparing these to cases that are far like the one you use that are far more consequential to society.
00:35:52.200Like, I don't think they're going to get out and be the first thing they're going to do is go start another protester convoy.
00:35:57.880Like, I think they've learned their lesson.
00:35:59.620They've served copious amounts of time and hopefully that gets taken into consideration.
00:36:04.420But I wouldn't be surprised if this was to politicize and make an example out of these individuals.
00:36:13.760I unfortunately don't have confidence in the judicial process, given the the penetration by the government and political values being jammed down their throats.
00:36:24.400So hopefully this judge has a better conscience than the liberal government.
00:36:28.860You know, you've brought that to the right point in the discussion, Erica.
00:36:36.040You're talking about the politicization of the judiciary.
00:36:38.960I had the papers put in my hands a few years ago about people who wanted to be judges.
00:36:45.900I always thought that, you know, to be a judge, somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said, you know, you fit.
00:36:52.460But no, you just put an application in if you're qualified at all.
00:36:57.260And so what's on the qualification form?
00:37:30.360It's probably similar to the Senate application.
00:37:32.840You just need a different prime minister, I think.
00:37:35.900But anyway, so that's so the system is stacked.
00:37:38.900But it harks back to what we were talking about a little earlier about the way that the government is trying to influence Canadians, who they are, what they think, what they can do.
00:37:49.060And the convoy was a challenge to that whole way of thinking.
00:37:54.640So they are absolutely going to focus their hatred.
00:38:01.960Well, let's let's let's not beat around the bush.
00:39:01.540And I just think if the judge is looking from that perspective, too, everybody's just kind of better off by getting this thing finished and into the history books rather than a current problem.
00:39:12.500Nothing surprises in this country anymore.
00:39:14.360I wouldn't bet money on any of the outcomes.
00:39:16.160No, I think that that is a really good point, Corey, though, on the Balance Act that Carney's administration now has to look at because he doesn't wear any of those things.
00:39:25.080The Emergency Act and the usage upon that has been criticized.
00:39:29.280And so, yeah, I would almost think it would be in the prime minister's best interest, not obviously calling the judge, but in the fact that this sets a tone that he's going to have to carry this forward.
00:39:41.740And like you said, it might spark up additional protests, which would be I think he'd handled maybe very differently than Trudeau.
00:39:50.180And so, yeah, it's probably a dumpster fire he doesn't want to deal with.
00:39:53.120So the best tactic for everyone would just to be, you know, recognize what happened.
00:39:59.500Give them a minimal sentence and move on because we can't afford in this time of desire for unity to have more divisive things, especially between the West and the East.
00:40:09.820You know, Erica, it's interesting what you the way you put that, that there will never be a phone call between a politician and a judge on this matter, not because that would be illegal, but because there is no necessity.
00:40:27.260The everybody around government understands what is necessary.
00:40:32.580If they didn't understand, they wouldn't have been hired.
00:40:37.020So it's any so-called arm's length agency that you care to think of, that's the way it goes.
00:40:45.700So between that and the thoughtful editorial in the Globe and Mail or something, they get the word around to each other what's needed.
00:40:55.980So we had a few big issues to hit today, so we're really running the clock.
00:41:00.300So we have to hit her quick here with this.
00:41:02.660The First Nations, unsurprisingly, in B.C. are opposed to a pipeline coming through.
00:41:10.400Well, yeah, more land ceded to them for their exclusive administration.
00:41:17.720But the story we're talking about here, Erica, is one that came out yesterday where the Coastal First Nations in British Columbia sent a strongly worded open letter to Mark Carney, prime minister, asking him to reject the new pipeline proposal that is being advanced by Premier Smith.
00:41:37.820It's the northern route, and it's the one that David Eby said, well, she doesn't have a sponsor, and she doesn't have a bid.
00:41:47.580So, well, the Indians think that there's a project, and they've asked Mr. Carney to deep-sex it.
00:41:53.820Now, I would personally, because I'm old and cynical, interpret that as just the sort of first move in the negotiations to see where this thing is going to land and who gets paid what for doing it.