The Pipeline December 16, 2020
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Summary
A carbon tax increase of more than 570%, and no one in the mainstream media is talking about it. Why? Why not? And why is the rest of the media completely silent on this? We talk to Western Standard editor-in-chief, Dave Naylor, and our new Ottawa bureau chief, Ken Grafton.
Transcript
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Good day. I am Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. You're watching The Pipeline.
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Joining me today is Corey Morgan, podcast editor and columnist extraordinaire. How are you doing,
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Corey? Good, good. Dave Naylor, news editor of the Western Standard, joining us today from
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vancouver british columbia g'day dave g'day i just want to make it clear that the the background is
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a bit of a fraud it is not nice out here on the wet coast it's gloomy and rainy but uh yeah good
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to be with you guys and you're not three kilometers in the air no no exactly not i'm not in a not in
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a special hot air balloon yeah and joining us uh our new ottawa bureau chief uh joining us from
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close to parliament hill uh on the quebec side of the river is ken grafton welcome to the team ken
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just downwind from parliament hill there thanks so much good to be here
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downwind that makes good sense well uh thank you very much for joining us here today
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uh we're pleased to have you remember if uh if you're a western standard member we thank you
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very much for your support if you're not yet a member please go to westernstandardonline.com
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click on membership and support the work we're doing to support bailout free,
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genuinely independent media for Western Canada. Okay, well, we're going to get straight into it.
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Today, we're going to be covering if a carbon tax gets increased by 570% and no one hears it,
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did the carbon tax get increased? Yes, it did. You're still going to pay for it,
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but the media are ignoring it. So we're going to talk about the, well, first,
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the economics and political impact of the 570 percent increase in the carbon tax and why the
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hell the mainstream media is utterly ignoring this we're going to be talking about uh an extraordinary
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open letter written by a dr dennis modry one of the most renowned and experienced and qualified
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doctors in alberta who has written an open letter to alberta premier jason kenney uh taking him to
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task for the lockdowns and mask mandates uh that's had this letter's had an extraordinary impact
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we're going to talk about that. As well, we'll talk about Calgary and Edmonton who have extended
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their mandatory mask mandates for an entire year. Yes, you heard that. Calgary and Edmonton bylaws
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require that you're going to wear a mask almost anywhere you go outside your home until December
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2021. Well, I don't even know what we can say about that. That's some wild stuff, but we're
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going to take it on. So we're going to start with the 570% carbon tax increase. The federal
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liberal government uh announced this when justin trudeau was making an address to the uh un's uh
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paris climate accord they were having a bit of an online powwow finally they figured that uh if
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you're going to talk about global warming maybe you shouldn't fly thousands of people around the
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world to get together for uh for uh for hors d'oeuvres um so they finally had one of these uh
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climate confabs online they finally figured out zoom is appropriate for these things if you're
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you're trying to save the planet. And in Justin Trudeau's statement, he just kind of slipped in
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there. Oh, yeah. And I'm increasing the price, so-called, they call it price on carbon. I don't
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call it carbon taxes. The price on carbon to, I think, $270 per metric ton, if I'm not mistaken.
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That works out to a 570% increase from where it currently is. It was already scheduled to get to
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$50 a ton. Justin Trudeau and then Environment Minister Catherine McKenna swore to the gods.
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They put their hands on the manifesto and swore that the carbon tax would never increase beyond $50 a ton.
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And without consulting Parliament or anybody, let alone Canadians, they increased the carbon tax to 570%.
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So it's not like there was nothing else to talk about.
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But the media have been utterly devoid of any kind of comment on this.
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Brian Lilly had a spot in the Sunpaper chain calling out most of his colleagues, I think, quite rightfully on this.
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But in press conferences that Trudeau's been at, the media don't ask a single question about it.
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So I'd like to, we're going to get some more information from our Ottawa Bureau Chief, Ken Grafton.
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And Ken, why don't you tell us about how this was announced and really how is the rest of
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the media outside of the Western standard and the odd little bright light out there
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like Brian Lilly of the Sun, what do you think explains the complete silence for most media
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around a utterly one of the largest tax, single tax increases in Canadian history?
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I guess there's a few factors that I see here. One of them, of course, is the liberal bias in media, which is generally acknowledged now. Globally, the United States and Canada, 80% figure that I've read for liberal bias in media, print and other online news media.
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I think that's part of it, which is, you know, not wanting to really criticize the government.
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There are certain topics you can take on and criticize the government, but there are others you can't.
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This one has been covered somewhat in Ottawa, but not as much as you would expect, given the import of this topic and the price that Canadians are going to have to pay for it.
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Obviously the way Prime Minister Trudeau introduced this was in connection with the UN summit
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that occurred just recently, and that received very little advance notice.
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I found out about it two days after the fact through a piece in CBC, but basically the
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line that our prime minister has taken is in line with the u.n agenda 2030 and that's climate change
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and what amounts to a wealth distribution globally an improvement of conditions for
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developing countries and a host of other people the problem with the carbon tax of course is the
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magnet our economy is in ruins as a result of liberal spending during covid and the the response
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to COVID in Canada and other countries. So, you know, a lot of people are looking at this and
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wondering how they're going to pay an extra, I think it's 37 cents a gallon on gasoline, for
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example. So, you know, I think that the reason it's not being reported more than it is, is
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it's an unpopular topic, and most of the mainstream news in Canada is not inclined to do that.
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Thanks, Ken. Corey, maybe you can add to that. Do you think the reason they're essentially
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ignoring this is because primarily just that most of the media believe that if we don't
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increase the price of driving your car and heating your home and whatnot that the world
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is essentially that most of the journalists out there for the mainstream media agree with the
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government, but they know that by and large, at least a large segment of Canadians will be angered
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by this. Is that why they're not talking about it? Or what do you think explains it?
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I think they might think that a large segment of Canadians aren't interested in it.
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This comes back to an east-west issue because this is going to disproportionately slap down the west because it really hits agricultural producers and it really hits conventional energy producers.
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So, I mean, it will catch your average citizen, as was recently mentioned, it's going to catch a pump with up to 40 cents a liter on your fuel.
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I was looking at a receipt that a farmer had tweeted from Saskatchewan because, again, people in the east don't understand a lot of this.
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I mean, it's a different business to them, large-scale farming.
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And it was for their irrigation, it takes a lot.
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This farm collective, with a number of farmers together on it, getting irrigation, were paying
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$18,000 a month in carbon tax bills, just carbon tax.
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And they pay GST on top of that, so tax on tax.
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And that's going to go up now to 84,000 and change for that farm collective.
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And they're exempt with gasoline, but not with diesel, which is most of what they use.
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And then it goes on trains, which have to pay the fuel as well.
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This is going to shoot the cost of food up into the year.
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The people have better understand it, but I don't think people are, and I think some
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of the Eastern media might think it's just not worth noting at this time, but it sure
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Uh, Dave, I think Corey's got a point. There might be a bit of an east west divide here.
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Uh, you know, there are many in the east that oppose the carbon tax. Uh, and you know, the east
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is not a monolith. I mean, we're in a rural Ontario is pretty radically different from Toronto.
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Rural Ontario, I've said before, it's got more in common culturally and politically with, uh,
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with Alberta than it does with Toronto. It just, it doesn't have that regional dynamic, but in many
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respects, it shares a lot of the same values. But there is still an east-west divide in the
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aggregate, at least. Dave, do you think that the mainstream media, because this is a federal issue
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and the vast majority of the mainstream media is owned and mostly operated out of central
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eastern canada do you think that is the reason that they're by and large ignoring this uh is
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it ideological or is it just that because voters in the east are more willing to accept this kind
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of tax increase um than they are in the west and because these reporters are in and of the east
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uh that's why they're accepting it well i i think cory hit the nail on the head and that nobody's
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been hit in the pocketbook yet by these the the current carbon tax you know sure you may have to
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pay a few pennies to uh on a liter of gasoline but it's not it's not a huge deal for most people
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at the moment agriculture people uh is the are the exception of course but you know and everybody
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says all the polls show that people want climate change and action for it but again while it's not
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hitting them in the pocketbook so while it's costing them a few extra bucks to fill up their
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car people are thinking that they're doing their bit for to save mother earth but when it goes up
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570 percent and you're now filling uh your car is going to cost you 20 or 30 bucks more then we're
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going to see whether or not people still want uh to make that sort of sacrifice for climate change
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and it may fall down the uh their priority list a bit lower as the economy goes in the toilet
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fair enough uh did you have anything to add before we move on
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is that to me derek you're ken yeah i didn't hear the first part um yeah i think the i agree with
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what David Cora said. I think you know another factor in the coverage of this is the overwhelming
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preponderance of COVID-19 coverage in the media this year has really taken a lot of bandwidth out
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of other topics being covered by the media and that's certainly still the case here.
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So if you're not talking about COVID-19 you're not getting as much as many column inches.
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um you know that that's a factor as well i think fair enough all right well we're going to switch
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gears uh bring a little closer to home here in the west um friday evening uh we posted an open
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letter from a dr dennis modry uh dr dennis modry performed alberta's first heart transplant i think
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that was back in the 80s uh he's got more letters after his name than most people have in their
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first and last names combined. He is a pretty eminently qualified surgeon and doctor in
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Alberta. And he's a longtime acquaintance of Jason Kenney, but he published an open letter
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on the Western Standard that has completely broken the internet. This is already, even
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though it's only a few days old, it is our most read story of all time. It beats some
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very other big stories that we've uh broken on the western standard but this is already the number
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one uh it's just gone absolutely viral uh around social media and it's had an impact uh dave uh
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why don't you tell us a bit about the contents of the doctors uh doctor's letter and what has been
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the uh political uh response to it derek i remember as a young reporter way back in 1985
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when dr modri performed the first uh heart transplant surgery in alberta at the university
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at the university of alberta and i remember being so excited and and what a what a breakthrough this
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was and he is truly one of alberta's top doctors uh he wrote a scathing letter you can read it on
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the website it's it is a complete repudiation of everything that jason kenny has done everything
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that Dr. Dina Hinshaw has done. He's calling for the immediate stopping of all testing in the
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province. If you're asymptomatic, he's calling for the opening again of hospitals and the end
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of regulations on gatherings. Just a complete opposite of everything that's going on at the
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moment. He says the Great Barrington Declaration is where we should be. And that's the story that
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we've covered extensively that declaration, Derek, as you know, and what they're calling for is the
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world to return to normal. This has been a document signed by thousands and thousands of
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doctors and virologists from around the world who have basically said, look, these lockdowns are not
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working. We're creating a bigger problem than what we have. And the interest in the
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column has, as you said, tremendous, hundreds of thousands of clicks just on this letter.
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And I think it's deepening the divide. You're either on the side of the restrictions or you're
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not. And I think that chasm is getting deeper. I think it was getting deeper before this letter,
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but I think this letter is, you know, is making it a lot deeper. We tried to get through on the
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jenny or the kenny press conference uh yesterday to ask him about this but unfortunately we weren't
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uh we weren't selected so uh certainly at the western standard we're going to keep trying to
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get the premier's uh comments on it but uh holy cow guys talking about stirring up a hornet's nest
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indeed we already had uh one person comment uh tk keslow said uh how long before they start to
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diminish Dr. Modry's career accomplishments and attack his credibility. Well, they've already
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started. The hardline lockdowners have been out trying to discredit this guy. Corey, maybe you
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could talk a bit about some of the campaign that's already been out there to try and say, ah, this
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guy is a quack. He's not credible to try and diminish this guy's letter rather than just being
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want you know there are doctors who support law things there are doctors on both sides
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it's an open debate and there are a lot of doctors on both sides it's not like one side is a friend
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and one side's got it all uh no side can claim to have a monopoly on uh expert opinion here uh
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why don't you tell us a bit about some of the reaction that's been trying to maybe discredit
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dr modry and what do you think the impact this is going to have uh in both alberta and across
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across Canada. I mean, this letter to Alberta, it's addressed to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney,
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but essentially, Kenney is now doing mostly what other provinces are doing right now,
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for the most part, with a couple of small details here and there.
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What do you think is going to be the political fault? So first, maybe talk about the attacks
00:20:12.280
against Dr. Modi, trying to sideline this guy, discredit him. And what do you think is the,
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Do you think his letter is going to have any real political, lasting political ramifications?
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Yeah, well, most of the attacks, because his credentials are so rock solid, he's such a
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respected doctor, he's had so many accomplishments, most of what we're seeing is just a social
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We aren't seeing people in positions of authority daring to take a swipe at Dr. Mogher because
00:20:41.960
You know, so there's been some tasteless stuff said about him, unusual kind of garbage on
0.98
00:20:46.100
But the people who are almost cult-like with the pro-lockdown, lockdown, lockdown,
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And he came out, as with the Barrington Declaration, he's a very credible voice.
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He laid out the reasons why he feels the current moves are inappropriate
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or perhaps ineffective and causing more damage than good.
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This can do a lot of damage. It's been difficult.
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been difficult. I mean, Jason King has been losing on both fronts. They say he didn't lock down
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enough and fast enough. And then there's people on the other side saying he's cracked down too much.
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Now, when we had a rational, respectable voice speaking against the lockdowns, the restrictions
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and the measures, and hundreds of thousands of people were reading that. They were looking for
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a rational voice to come out and say this. This could have some very strong repercussions. It
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might lead to other medical professionals coming out to break ranks as well. I mean,
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one of the favorite things pro lockdown people would always try and dismiss you with on social
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media or one of our columns is, well, you're not a doctor, so you shouldn't even speak to it.
00:21:47.140
Well, Dr. Modery is, and he's a very good one. So you're going to have to change in case.
00:21:52.340
Yeah. Ken, I don't know if your answer might be just complete no to this, but
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as we've said, this letter's had massive readership primarily in the West here.
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Has there, I don't know, has this letter in particular started to make the rounds in the East?
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Is there any equivalent of Dr. Modri in the East of any kind of credible figure like this
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taking on, say, the Ontario or federal governments?
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I don't think that people are generally aware of Dr. Modri's letter,
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and I don't believe there's anything comparable yet here in the East.
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the best source that we can look to for that is the cdc and the world health organization
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and from the outset cdc i think one of their earliest statements on
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covet 19 and i'm going to paraphrase slightly here was everybody is going to get it
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most people will experience mild symptoms and it will affect the elderly most seriously
00:23:00.180
and that has in fact been the case there's been two i think major um divorces from reality since
00:23:10.580
the outset of covid and one is the magnitude of the response compared to the risk involved
00:23:17.220
if you compare that to say influenza which is a similar disease uh 2019 8 500 people in canada
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died from from influenza alone and i think us upper respiratory illness deaths were somewhere
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in the magnitude of 45 000 so if you compare 8 500 influenza deaths to the deaths this year from
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covid uh comparing the traditional response to influenza and this global lockdown from covid
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it seems completely disproportionate and necessary and the other part of it is is masks there was a
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great deal of science out there prior to this year which clearly showed showed clearly that masks are
00:24:07.780
not effective in protecting from the transmission of influenza and the definitive study was done at
00:24:16.500
at the University of New South Wales in 2017, I believe,
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which showed that cloth masks were 97% ineffective
00:24:27.540
and actually increased the likelihood of infection
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through behavioral aspects associated with masks
00:24:44.500
so approximately twice as effective as the cloth masks.
00:25:01.020
The reality is, unless you're using an N95 mask,
00:25:23.320
that would affect you in a room are 2.5 microns.
00:25:26.940
So a pea going through a hockey net, basically.
00:25:36.840
is we're all gonna have to wear hazmat suits outside
00:25:41.760
OK, well, we're going to bring it yet closer and closer, not maybe not to you guys sitting
00:25:48.780
in Vancouver and Ottawa right now, but where we are sitting in Calgary, Calgary and Edmonton
00:25:54.020
City Councils have extended the mandatory mask mandates for an entire year.
00:26:03.780
If you wear a mask virtually anywhere in Calgary and Edmonton outside of your home, we'll see
00:26:08.880
maybe let's stop putting in our homes soon enough. You're going to face now doubled fines. And the
00:26:15.320
extension of this mandatory mask bylaws is now extended for an entire year, all the way to
00:26:23.360
December 2021. Now, theoretically, they could repeal that before. They might, because there's
00:26:32.000
just no way everyone's going to comply with that for a year. This stuff requires near universal
00:26:36.480
compliance and as we discussed last week that social consensus is completely broken down
00:26:41.200
for both lockdowns and masks um but uh dave uh you know you've been the city you were the city hall
00:26:48.240
uh reporter uh or editor for uh almost 20 years at the calgary sun uh so you have a pretty good
00:26:54.800
insight into the city halls here uh why don't you tell us a bit more about this mask mandate
00:26:59.920
uh who was for it who was against it and and what they're really thinking behind it
00:27:06.480
I think a little bit of what you're seeing, Derek, is frustration from the city that Premier Kenney hasn't done more.
00:27:14.000
Alberta, if you remember, was the last province in Canada to introduce a mandatory mask bylaw or mask law, and that was only done a couple of weeks ago.
00:27:23.880
Calgary and Edmonton introduced their own version of it a couple of months ago, and they've now extended it for a full year, doubling the fines, 50 bucks to 100 bucks.
00:27:34.800
I think it's probably more, you know, so they don't have to do it every month.
00:27:46.520
Obviously, we're going to be stuck with it well into next year.
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So instead of having to come forward every single month and get the bylaw to go a little bit further,
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then they're just going to just put a blanket thing out there to cover it for an entire year.
00:28:02.980
Sorry, Derek, I'm going to backtrack just a little bit because I think we missed a key thing when we were talking about what Alberta is doing with the COVID lockdown.
00:28:15.120
Yesterday, Alberta became the first province in the country and one of the few places in the world to massively expand isolation centers.
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And what they're doing is they're going into ethnic areas in both Calgary and Edmonton that are really the hot zones in the province.
00:28:31.440
And they're the hot zones through no fault of their own, as the Premier said, but because they're high-density housing, they're lower income, they've got multi-generations living in the same house, and they've got multi-families living in the same house.
00:28:47.540
And a lot of them in those houses don't understand English.
00:28:51.220
So they haven't been able to understand what's out there for them, and they can't self-isolate it when they have symptoms.
00:29:00.260
So what the province is doing is they're moving in, they're sending in people.
00:29:09.660
Yes, and Premier Kennedy's got in trouble for saying that before.
00:29:15.180
But the fact of the matter is, racist or not, these are where the red zone infections are.
00:29:21.420
The province is being proactive and they're sending in teams on the ground,
00:29:24.520
actual workers on the ground to visit homes in the area.
00:29:30.260
to give them information in their own language to give them care packages with masks and hand
00:29:38.500
sanitizers and to tell them that if there are people in the household that need to be by
00:29:43.860
themselves come with us and we will set you up they're setting up 1300 rooms in the hotel rooms
00:29:51.620
in the province mainly in calgary and edmonton to take these people to when they get them into
00:29:57.780
the hotel rooms are going to be given appropriate culturally appropriate meals and entertainment and
00:30:04.740
transportation and when they've done their 14 days quarantine they will get a 625 dollar
00:30:13.940
bonus cash bonus for doing it uh premier kenny points out that that's no different than what
00:30:21.300
the province would give people who are displaced by fires or floods. But I think it's a bold step
00:30:29.140
to try and do something to get the infection rate under control in these key areas.
00:30:38.020
Well, this actually does seem to make a bit more sense than these shotgun,
00:30:43.540
lock down everybody, mask everybody, no matter where they are policies. This does seem to be
00:30:48.260
targeted on actual hot spots where there are problems you know the there are linguistic and
00:30:53.140
cultural barriers here there are people who might not uh listen to english media constantly and
00:30:58.900
i'm getting reasonable warnings not just the scaremongering stuff but reasonable stuff
00:31:02.980
learning to isolate a lot of them might not have the economic means of isolation
00:31:07.220
uh if they are infected so this this does seem to be a bit more targeted um uh so i'd like to
00:31:15.540
get your thoughts uh actually we'll go to ken uh ken give us your thoughts maybe on this targeted
00:31:21.540
new targeted uh response uh we are still keeping these massive shotgun approaches
00:31:26.900
in alberta and across canada um is there anything comparable to this in the east right now with
00:31:33.300
these uh very large and expanded and aggressive isolation centers uh particularly for uh minority
00:31:40.660
communities not that i'm aware of not that's been publicized i i uh i think that it's a good move
00:31:48.500
i agree with dave the uh you know one of the problems with the shotgun approach is that the
00:31:54.740
the data suggests that uh or show that 96 i think of covet fatalities in canada and the u.s are
00:32:05.140
are in senior citizens in extended care facilities and of that percentage 94 have 2.6
00:32:15.540
or more comorbidities um well you know so almost everyone who has died from covet 19 has been a
00:32:23.220
senior citizen in any retirement home of some sort who is already sick with other illnesses
00:32:30.500
however the approach has been to target everyone in the country and it's important to keep in mind
00:32:36.740
also that the UN doesn't support lockdown that's on their website
00:32:41.520
all right thanks a lot uh we're going to go to you uh Corey um we're going to kind of bring it back
00:32:50.680
to uh the um the uh the mask mandates in Calgary and Edmonton extending them for an entire year
00:32:59.720
I don't think, I try to put myself in the shoes of other people that I disagree with and try to
00:33:05.600
at least understand what they're thinking. I don't think any reasonable person thinks that
00:33:09.880
we should just have this for a year. I can think of only two plausible reasons. One is,
00:33:16.120
as they've already said, they don't want the political heat of having to revisit this every
00:33:20.900
month or two. Every time they extend this, it's political follow-up. So this is their way of
00:33:25.160
saying fine we're gonna do this once and we'll repeal it when it's done so that
00:33:30.320
they don't have to do it the political follow it every month the other and
00:33:32.840
these aren't mutually exclusive the other possible reason I think we're
00:33:36.600
explaining for a year is their way of kind of virtue signaling that we are
00:33:43.860
more aggressive we're more lock downy than premier Kenny it's kind of their
00:33:49.500
way of sticking it to him saying we're even stronger than anything he's doing
00:33:54.340
is there any other explanation you can see for this you know is it possible they
00:33:58.980
actually think we should be wearing masks for a year or is it one of these
00:34:02.500
two not mutually exclusive political explanations you covered a bit of it I
00:34:08.280
mean it's definitely that anything you can do we can do better from from the
00:34:12.860
head men she he's been all puffed up over this he was pushing on Kenny saying
00:34:16.380
if Kenny doesn't come in and save Albertans I'll stand up and do it I'll
00:34:19.900
lock Calgary down if he doesn't do it tomorrow and then he did lock Albertan
00:34:23.820
So so now it's what's that she in the end is his collection on council going to do well
00:34:29.340
They say well, we're we're gonna see the Bertans by extending this mass law for a year
00:34:33.720
There was other things rather than just poking a stick in Kenny's eye of course, too
00:34:38.940
Do believe a lot of believe the master effective. It's fine. It's debatable where we are with it
00:34:45.340
You don't want to have to revisit it every month or even two months for a year is
00:34:49.700
is excessive and it's lazy and it's a it shows that their default is actually to infringe on us
00:34:56.420
and have to justify taking the infringements off later it should be the other way around i mean
00:35:01.300
maybe three month periods or something hey you took on the tough job you're gonna have to get
00:35:05.620
in there and re-discuss this damn bad we don't like it quit i'll be more than happy if you do
00:35:10.180
but for the time being if you're going to bring in something like that it's your job to come in and
0.60
00:35:14.340
explain why it needs to be kept i mean we're hearing about a vaccine we're hearing that perhaps
00:35:18.980
all canadian can want the vaccine to be vaccinated by september uh why on earth are we extending
00:35:24.100
restrictions and laws all the way to december there's no reasoning for that they shouldn't
00:35:29.140
have to revisit this regularly yeah uh we've got a comment from uh laurie burnside says how many
00:35:36.980
seniors homes have you uh any of you been in uh well i'd say none for very good reason that those
00:35:44.020
are the single most high risk places to be um people my age um even all the way up to you old
00:35:52.260
gentlemen are not particularly at risk uh i mean you could die from covid chances are you're not
00:35:58.980
but you can transmit it if you're even if you're healthy but you're carrying covet and you go into
00:36:03.060
into a senior's home um you can infect people and uh you know the average day age of a covid death
00:36:09.700
in alberta and most of the world is 82. the average life expectancy in alberta uh sorry no
00:36:16.100
it's 80 81.5 and the average life expectancy in alberta is 82. so there's a six month
00:36:22.900
cutting short of people's lives on average here uh that is bad and we need to protect these people
00:36:28.260
but it's it's affecting older people so there's good reason uh i haven't been with seniors home
00:36:33.060
other than that i've got no one in a home right now uh but if i was to go in a senior's home
00:36:38.420
i'd be putting people at risk and this is one of the few risks this is one of those restrictions
0.86
00:36:43.620
that i think makes sense we shouldn't have you know this is isolating seniors but they are
00:36:47.860
genuinely at risk so you know if you've got to see grandma and grandpa in the seniors home uh
00:36:54.500
that is unfortunately genuinely at risk uh you know i think this is actually a good tangent
00:36:58.740
when we go to dave we had a case uh i think it was in calgary we had a man who was knowingly
00:37:04.580
infected, going into a senior's home. Dave, I think that's a good tangent to go to you over.
00:37:09.460
Why don't you tell us about what happened in that story?
00:37:13.140
Can you imagine anything more selfish, anything more despicable than knowing that you have COVID,
00:37:19.940
knowing what they do to old folks' homes, how they spread like wildfire,
00:37:24.260
knowing that you have it and going into one. This happened in Calgary last week where a gentleman
00:37:30.660
who knowingly had the disease went into a uh an old folks home and lied to them they are obviously
00:37:37.460
all visited visitors are asked and he said no he didn't have it that didn't have any symptoms and
00:37:43.220
and lied and visited his family member uh just absolutely disgusting it's being investigated by
00:37:50.740
by health services and uh you know hopefully it gets to the police because i think criminal
00:37:55.300
negligence charges should be laid as to the viewers question i think the the answer is no
1.00
00:38:03.380
we wouldn't be invited we wouldn't want to go into a an old folks home for for their own safety i
0.99
00:38:09.460
know unfortunately i don't have any family members who are in there i know lots of people who do
1.00
00:38:14.500
though and in fact i know a person whose uncle died uh in in one of the outbreaks at a calvary
00:38:21.540
home i've seen the agony of people that cannot visit their relatives that they're they're not
00:38:26.980
allowed to visit them they can't you know just no human contact whatsoever and it's absolutely
00:38:33.060
heartbreaking and i think what has happened to old folks homes not in alberta but across the country
00:38:40.580
is a national disgrace an absolute disgrace and answers need to be found so it doesn't happen
00:38:48.340
again. Yeah, it really is a tough situation. If these are communal living places, transmissions
00:38:57.840
of any kind are very easy, especially for an easily communicable virus like COVID-19.
00:39:04.240
And COVID-19, while it might not be particularly dangerous to me, I'm probably jinxing myself. I'm
00:39:09.800
going to get the Rona now. But, you know, it's not particularly dangerous to people in my age
00:39:18.120
demographic. But it is extremely dangerous to older people. There's a very high fatality rate
00:39:23.080
for older people, particularly if they're already have their health compromised, requiring them to
00:39:28.360
be in a senior's home. But at the same time, it's leaving them devastatingly isolated. These are
00:39:34.660
people who are already pretty isolated. They're very sad not to be living in their own home
00:39:38.960
anymore. They're now playing bingo, you know, half of their day and jeopardy. Like it's not,
00:39:45.500
it's not they're already feeling pretty isolated now they're not able to see any one of their loved
00:39:49.900
ones so it it's extremely tough but i think it is one of the few areas uh that that is necessary
00:39:56.700
if you get a corporate break outbreak in a senior's home there's going to be a lot of deaths
00:40:01.900
uh well uh anything else to add on that or the mask mandates
00:40:11.500
okay well uh we're going to take a little time kind of go through some of the comments and
00:40:14.780
questions that we have uh we're not going to be able to get to uh every single one unfortunately
00:40:20.300
uh we've got quite a few uh the audience is building up quite a bit on the pipeline here
00:40:27.100
so uh it's it's getting more difficult to go through everyone um
00:40:34.620
uh dean elson says uh the media ignores everything except what sock boy i'm guessing
0.91
00:40:39.740
suck boys our prime minister uh tells his masters don't want published um i think insinuating pretty
00:40:47.820
strong pretty strongly uh i wouldn't even say insinuating saying quite strongly that uh you know
0.97
00:40:53.340
trudeau uh has some kind of direct control over the media here and that's why they're not publishing
00:40:58.460
about the 570 increase in the carbon tax uh yes there's going to be some uh media probably not
00:41:07.020
an insignificant number of media in ottawa that have some kind they feel some kind of personal
00:41:12.940
obligation to trudeau or an ideological affinity uh which is why they're not doing this but i i
00:41:18.380
don't think he's necessarily making orders i think this is uh self-censorship and that this is not a
00:41:24.060
good story for the liberals uh this is not something that would be popular with a lot of
00:41:28.860
people particularly in the west but many in the east as well um i i don't know i corey do you think
00:41:35.580
this is more, do you think there's anything to this, that this is kind of directly coming from
00:41:40.540
the PMO, or do you think this is more a conspiracy of silence in the sense of they're just kind of
00:41:46.640
running cover for the Prime Minister by not covering this issue? Yeah, I don't think there's
00:41:50.020
anything direct from him or anything. I mean, I wouldn't shock you, perhaps, a bit in the state
00:41:53.880
broadcaster and Mother Corp there, you know, on the CBC that they're in a bit of a different bubble
00:41:58.220
of world. But for the most part, I mean, we just do have a liberal-leaning mainstream media. I mean,
00:42:04.200
whether it's the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail,
00:42:13.400
Yeah, the comment immediately following from Corey Shiplack
00:42:21.320
I think there's a lot to that, that the media now,
00:42:24.160
not just the CBC, which is directly funded by the government,
00:42:26.720
but now the vast majority of the mainstream media
00:42:36.620
the Western Standard refuses to accept government subsidies.
00:42:41.660
this makes a lot of people in our competitor media
00:42:47.060
They say, no, no, no, this is just economic aid.
00:42:55.340
have something to do, I guess, first more broadly,
00:42:59.540
Does the media subsidies from the federal government impact coverage at all in the media
00:43:09.520
And do you think it has any impact on how they're covering, or I should say not covering,
00:43:16.720
Well, Derek, it's not supposed to, obviously, but on the other hand, the federal government
00:43:29.180
how likely are you to criticize someone who is paying your bills? That's really the
00:43:36.460
philosophical difficulty with that practice. I don't think that it's a case of the PMO
00:43:43.660
issuing orders to specific media outlets. But the other part of it too, I think, is access.
00:43:51.740
so if you're a reporter uh looking for uh you know an interview with a minister or perhaps
00:43:59.820
the prime minister um the way that you have reported on that minister may affect your
00:44:07.020
chances of getting the interview so you know that's true in the united states as well it's
00:44:11.900
a question of excess well that's a good that's actually actually a great point in general you
00:44:17.020
know if you're critical of politicians you're less likely to get interviews with them sometimes
00:44:21.020
fairly if you're being unfairly critical of a politician they have a right not to talk to you
00:44:25.980
uh you know when i was in politics there were some reporters that i knew uh would hate me no matter
00:44:30.460
what and i just wouldn't talk to them because you're just not gonna get a fair shake um but
00:44:35.180
they're all you know i think it's fair to say just anyone being critical sometimes some uh you know
00:44:40.940
trudeau the liberals are used to very favorable coverage and if you're critical you're just not
00:44:44.380
going to get the questions uh you know again coming back to brian lily's piece in the sun
00:44:49.660
about uh media coverage mainstream media coverage of the carbon tax increase
00:44:54.540
uh justin trudeau took questions from a student newspaper uh but wouldn't even take questions
00:44:59.340
from brian lily at the sun one of the biggest part of post media the biggest media chain in the
00:45:03.180
country uh dave uh i mean you've been trying to yeah we're often i think i consider us to be of
00:45:11.660
course i would but i think we are fairly considered to be um a fair but critical uh news outlet
00:45:20.460
of governments uh we're probably the only news outlet that sorry someone's got a phone going on
00:45:27.020
in the background uh but if uh you know at least in alberta we're essentially the only news that
00:45:33.980
would criticize uh jason kenny and the ucp from a perspective that is not to their left um you know
00:45:41.020
so we've been critical at least on our opinion side in lockdowns and whatnot dave do you think
00:45:46.780
this is um you know do you think say our coverage of this is a reason that someone like uh you know
00:45:53.980
jason kenney won't take questions from the western standard or or be interviewed by the western
00:45:59.820
standard uh while he talks to most most mainstream outlets that he might be more he's less comfortable
00:46:06.300
with any criticism that would be coming from his right side?
00:46:11.720
I mean, at the Western Standard, we don't care who we piss off as long as we, you know,
00:46:16.800
as long as we get the story right and make it accurate.
00:46:19.740
But if you're an average consumer of the news and you're sitting at home and you're listening
00:46:26.900
to a Jason Kenney press conference or you're listening to a Prime Minister Trudeau press
00:46:34.260
conference just listen to who they're accepting questions from when they're taking questions over
00:46:40.420
the phone it's not first come first serve and it's not random they pick and choose who gets to ask
00:46:47.540
the questions so of course they're going to choose a cbc reporter every time of course they're going
00:46:53.700
to choose a french cbc reporter every single time of course they're not going to pick brian
00:46:59.860
lily of the toronto sun or perhaps dave nailer of the western standard because they know they may
00:47:06.500
not have the answers to the questions that uh uh that that we're going to ask so it's uh
00:47:14.740
you know you know as ken said if if if you're all young reporters will say that they're not
00:47:21.380
influenced by any of this bailout money and they and they just want to to get the story and for
00:47:27.940
obviously that's correct yeah you know the the warrior so is the higher of the higher levels of
00:47:34.500
the newsroom there are no red phones in publisher's office to the to the to the pmo but surely that
00:47:41.700
they you know once you get to a certain level within the newsroom there must be in the back
00:47:46.900
of their heads and you know again just listen to who the the the politicians are accepting
00:47:52.900
questions from anything that tells you a lot about it
00:47:57.700
uh indeed uh we've got a comment from uh ab free i'm not sure uh from uh
00:48:04.260
youtube we're actually yeah we're now streaming finally on youtube ab free
00:48:10.180
who will respect our liberties as soon as possible
00:48:16.900
corey why don't you try to bite that off there's not much to be said i mean
00:48:20.580
You know, we are as frustrating parts of our democracy, organized on the ground, work with a different party or work within that party.
00:48:30.420
There's an election in a couple of years and you have to convince enough Albertans to move along.
00:48:38.180
I know some people might want to pursue things that are faster, but as far as that goes, that's the only way he's going to be replaced.
00:48:43.660
there is no effective way to replace a sitting premier or prime minister in
00:48:49.420
Canada unless you have a caucus revolt and even then
00:48:52.460
there are questions around it the UCP constitution does not allow
00:48:58.860
even a vote by the members on a leadership review
00:49:02.060
if they're in government there's only ever a vote on leadership reviews
00:49:05.420
if they lose the election now the guy who essentially wrote that
00:49:10.380
constitution might have something uh might have some kind of vested interest in a rule like that
00:49:15.980
but uh you know i've had ucp members contact us who are upset saying hey can we uh why don't you
00:49:21.260
do something on there being a leadership review in the ucp well no it's not allowed there is no
00:49:24.780
leadership reviews in the ucp if if they won the last election and they did win the last election
00:49:30.300
uh so theoretically the only way to get if you're a ucp member and you want to keep the ucp but get
00:49:35.980
rid of jason kenney you have to convince the majority of the caucus to vote him out highly
00:49:41.020
highly highly unlikely uh it does happen but generally it only happens when your polls start
00:49:46.140
to head towards single digits and mlas are worried about losing the election then you get something
00:49:50.620
like what happened with alice and redford where the caucus says okay we're going to lose our seats
00:49:55.740
so you're gone uh otherwise uh your only other option is to support a different party uh i mean
00:50:02.860
but if you're on the right you're obviously not going to support the ndp so that leaves you with
00:50:06.860
one of the smaller newer parties like wild rose independence or i guess there's a there's a whole
00:50:13.980
array of small parties on that side but yeah there's a few of them there but uh really there's
00:50:19.580
not much you can do between elections uh we were promised there'd be recall uh but there is no
00:50:24.860
recall yet that i'm aware so that's that um well i think we'll uh we'll wrap it up there i know
00:50:33.420
there's a bunch of others uh other comments here and questions but uh we try to keep it short not
00:50:38.300
waste your guys time uh but make sure you turn in next week uh if you're remember if you're trying
00:50:43.580
to comment and you like your comments displayed on the uh on the stream you need to keep them
00:50:49.260
short if they're too long or you put links in them we're just not going to put it on because
00:50:52.860
it'll cover half the screen and cover our beautiful faces and we're just not going to do that but we
00:50:57.740
thank you very much for your participation uh we thank our western standard members for your
00:51:02.140
support again if you're not yet a western standard member but like what we're doing you want to support
00:51:06.860
an independent western free press that refuses to accept government subsidies please go to
00:51:12.300
westernstandardonline.com click on the membership section and sign up uh we very much need your
00:51:17.900
support to continue doing what we're doing thank you very much for your time uh we appreciate you
00:51:23.020
tuning in your questions and comments uh cory dave ken thank you very much for joining us and
00:51:27.980
especially ken i guess uh who's appearing for our first time from our new uh our new bureau
00:51:33.820
in ottawa thank you very much for joining us guys thanks jared bye welcome aboard ken thank you