Western Standard - The Pipeline. December 2, 2020

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00:02:26.000 Welcome to the Western Standard's Pipeline, our weekly public affairs broadcast.

00:02:41.260 I'm publisher of the Western Standard, Derek Fildebrandt.

00:02:43.840 Joining me today is Western Standard News Editor, Dave Naylor.

00:02:47.820 Good day, Dave.

00:02:48.520 Hello, Derek.

00:02:49.620 And Western Standard Podcast Editor and columnist extraordinaire, Corey Morgan.

00:02:54.860 How are you doing?

00:02:55.500 Good.

00:02:56.480 Well, today we're going to be going through a number of issues.

00:03:00.520 The main one you see on the banner is the anti-lockdown protests erupting across Canada

00:03:04.760 and the record federal deficit approaching $1 trillion.

00:03:08.520 But we'll also be diving into how this is broken down across the West,

00:03:13.600 particularly comments made by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney as it relates to COVID in the South Asian community.

00:03:20.520 And the Calgary City Council, bizarrely, trying to put in place new rules that would restrict any sitting city councillors who are running for mayor from campaigning in...

00:03:34.500 How many councillors are there?

00:03:36.140 How many councillors are there?

00:03:36.160 Fourteen.

00:03:37.140 Fourteen.

00:03:37.540 From campaigning in 13 out of 14 wards in the city, making it pretty much impossible unless you're only campaigning by Facebook.

00:03:45.820 So, interesting things coming to us today.

00:03:49.560 We're going to begin with the anti-lockdown protests erupting across Canada.

00:03:56.100 They've come hard and fast here.

00:03:58.160 Many of the mainstream media are outraged, absolutely outraged, that these are not BLM protests.

00:04:04.800 I think that's what the outrage is about, right?

00:04:07.900 Yeah.

00:04:08.660 But Dave, why don't you run us through what we've been seeing with these anti-lockdown protests,

00:04:13.080 the different forms they've been taking, not just the gatherings.

00:04:15.340 We'll talk about the gatherings.

00:04:16.780 We could talk about, you know, Ontario MP Randy Hillier, his arrest.

00:04:20.960 We could talk about businesses refusing to close down, and then, of course, protests that are not BLM taking place across Canada,

00:04:29.120 particularly here in the West.

00:04:30.220 Why don't you run us through?

00:04:32.340 Sure.

00:04:33.120 Well, in Calgary on the weekend, there were two days of protests on Saturday and Sunday down at the Municipal Plaza,

00:04:39.260 which saw hundreds and hundreds of people gather without masks to protest the crackdown.

00:04:45.360 Rallies also took place across the West, including Edmonton and Red Deer.

00:04:50.240 Interestingly, though, Derek, police were on hand, and even though the Justice Minister Madhu the day before deputized 700 bylaw officers

00:04:59.560 to start handing out tickets, not a single ticket was given out.

00:05:02.780 Not a single warning was given.

00:05:06.020 Police just stood by and watched.

00:05:08.380 I find it strange, going way back to the days when Calgary hosted the G8 Summit,

00:05:14.880 Calgary police were set to arrest hundreds and hundreds of people at a time.

00:05:18.640 They had mobile process centers set up.

00:05:22.520 They had buses set up.

00:05:24.200 So they've been through this mass protest stuff before, yet they didn't make a single arrest.

00:05:29.980 Police say they're still investigating.

00:05:32.120 They took video of everybody, and people may expect to get tickets in the mail.

00:05:37.300 Other people are outraged.

00:05:39.840 They say they should have been all ticketed and fined.

00:05:45.420 And this sort of stuff is going on now across Canada.

00:05:49.580 You see the big barbecue protest in Etobicoke, where Adam Skelly, a barbecue joint owner,

00:05:57.660 was hauled away at handcuffs and charged with breaking their public health act by breaking into his already locked restaurant and reopening again.

00:06:08.060 Apparently, they serve some of the best ribs in the Toronto area.

00:06:11.680 That monster.

00:06:12.480 Yeah.

00:06:12.840 So he had to spend the night in jail.

00:06:15.320 So quickly, the 2020 thing to do is set up a GoFundMe to pay for his legal bills.

00:06:22.800 And he's going to be able to hire some pretty good lawyers.

00:06:25.080 Because I think last time I checked, it was sitting at over $200,000 money raised.

00:06:31.080 So it's – Alberta's had more than 10, 11 straight days of numbers, over 1,000 people.

00:06:40.680 Both sides seem to be digging in for a fight.

00:06:43.900 So it's going to be interesting to see where the authorities take it from here.

00:06:48.800 Yeah.

00:06:50.900 In Calgary, there were no arrests made.

00:06:52.860 Although, when we're comparing to some other ones before, I think police were arresting violent rioters in most cases,

00:06:59.280 people who are attacking police or trying to destroy property, it's pretty bad press, I think,

00:07:04.760 for police to arrest people who are protesting government doing something to them.

00:07:10.640 You're going to – I think masks are, well, probably a lot less useful than the government's now saying.

00:07:17.000 They said they were entirely not useful.

00:07:18.580 It's probably somewhere in the middle.

00:07:20.040 But people are protesting against their businesses being closed.

00:07:22.680 They're protesting against not being allowed to have people into your own private homes.

00:07:26.500 I've never heard of the government ever restricting that you can't have people in your own home on your private property.

00:07:32.300 These were passive protesters.

00:07:33.880 They weren't rioting.

00:07:35.020 They weren't destroying property.

00:07:36.620 They weren't asking actually for anything.

00:07:37.900 They were asking the government not to do something.

00:07:40.080 So it would look pretty bad.

00:07:41.960 It would be a pretty bad look, I think, for the government to start throwing these people in jail.

00:07:45.280 But technically, they're breaking the law.

00:07:46.940 They are.

00:07:47.220 You are not allowed to have an outside demonstration or an outside gathering of more than 10 people.

00:07:51.900 Oh, I think their point was quite deliberate, though.

00:07:55.160 They intentionally broke the law.

00:07:56.540 They weren't doing it passively.

00:07:58.060 They were intentionally breaking it because they don't believe that should be the law.

00:08:00.960 Because that law was never passed by a legislature.

00:08:03.060 It was decreed by the cabinet without any debate in the legislature, without any debate in the public.

00:08:07.980 It was just done.

00:08:08.640 So, yeah, it is breaking the law.

00:08:09.880 But I think I would put this in the same category as how many people would view marijuana prohibition until very recently.

00:08:16.460 Yeah, it's the law, but it shouldn't be against the law.

00:08:18.260 So I'm going to do it anyway.

00:08:19.660 But, you know, I suppose there are a number of people who think that even bad laws should be followed.

00:08:24.860 I'm not necessarily in that category, but people have different views on it.

00:08:30.640 Corey, do you think the reason there haven't, at least in Alberta, been what we've seen in, say, Ontario, where the Ford government has been just positively gleeful to just hammer people for any disobeying of the government's, I won't call them laws here because they won't have to pass by the legislature.

00:08:52.540 I'll call them cabinet orders, orders in council, technically.

00:08:56.880 Why do you think we haven't seen the same level of crackdown, both in terms of the, I think Alberta does have a lockdown. 0.96

00:09:07.080 It's just not as extreme as the one before.

00:09:09.120 And it's not as extreme as we see in some other provinces like Ontario.

00:09:13.400 So two questions.

00:09:14.680 Why do you think Alberta's not had as extreme a lockdown as other provinces?

00:09:19.720 And secondly, why do you think there hasn't been, you know, say, arrests of people at these protests?

00:09:25.640 Yeah, well, I mean, part of it's just the attitude of the premier in each province.

00:09:30.180 I mean, there's something, I think, to a degree with people who are inherently very much more concerned or even afraid of the virus versus those who aren't.

00:09:38.580 And it's clear Doug Ford is terrified of this thing.

00:09:40.920 I mean, he, right from the bat of the whole pandemic, he's been very strong on enforcement and pushing and trying to clamp down on this.

00:09:48.000 I mean, we could call it almost an individual ideology.

00:09:50.720 It's not right or left.

00:09:51.500 It's just how people feel about that virus.

00:09:53.480 Whereas Jason Kenney's been more reticent.

00:09:55.420 It's almost reluctantly bringing in restrictions.

00:09:59.780 And there still are restrictions coming in.

00:10:01.580 But the feel going out to Albertans, at least, is that he's a little bit on your side, at least the ones who don't feel we should have more restrictions.

00:10:06.880 Like he's cornered, he's forced to do it.

00:10:08.920 So you're not getting that broader range of the public feeling that they've been cracked down on.

00:10:14.040 I went down to the Calgary demonstration on Saturday for a little while.

00:10:19.160 And there were a few hundred people there.

00:10:20.520 There's a few things I observed.

00:10:21.760 I mean, for one, well, we want to talk about double standards, too.

00:10:25.540 I mean, we had the same people who were saying we should leave protesters who block rail lines alone.

00:10:29.940 We shouldn't have the police wade into potentially dangerous situations.

00:10:33.560 And these are people saying that police should have waded into 500 people and start ticketing

00:10:37.420 and trying to break up the crowd, which could take a very peaceful situation and potentially turn it.

00:10:43.340 Well, they should have just had the anti-lockdown protest on the rail line a few hundred meters away.

00:10:47.400 But the politics do show that, you know, the differences in enforcement or who's calling for what.

00:10:51.580 We've seen some double standards from a number of people.

00:10:54.400 And as you said, that group was very peaceful.

00:10:56.140 These people weren't bothered.

00:10:56.840 There was a large police presence, but they stayed around the periphery.

00:11:00.600 What I didn't see a lot of was mainstream people in the protest, I guess I'd say, to be polite. 0.92

00:11:06.560 I met a lot of crazy people down there. 0.52

00:11:08.640 There were people who said they were going to chip us with vaccines and control our minds. 0.98

00:11:12.520 And there were lizard people controlling the world. 0.87

00:11:15.360 There were just people protesting everything from Trump again.

00:11:19.020 It was just very disparate.

00:11:20.380 It was just malcontents in general getting together in one spot.

00:11:23.260 There were a lot of genuinely concerned people who came out, too, who were concerned about the lockdowns, about the mass legislation.

00:11:28.500 But I think almost once they got to the core of that group, they got a little put off and they just kind of wandered back home.

00:11:33.400 If we get larger lockdowns that impact people more directly in Alberta, I think we'll see more of those mainstream people getting off their butts and saying, we've got to push back.

00:11:44.220 That's enough.

00:11:44.740 If we see the optics of things like that business owner in Ontario dragged out of his business like that physically.

00:11:50.920 If we do actually start getting examples of neighbors calling because we had Uncle Phil over for a drink one night, then we're going to start seeing bigger protests.

00:12:00.640 But, you know, also what could bring about bigger protests is had the police marched into that crowd and really started hammering down on these people.

00:12:10.120 Then that is what's going to bring up more people.

00:12:12.280 That's not going to calm it.

00:12:13.240 That's going to inflame it.

00:12:14.080 Obviously, guys like Don Braid of the Calgary Herald, who said that all the COVID deaths that take place, if there's no lockdown now, will be, I think I'm giving an exact quote.

00:12:25.880 I could be wrong, but saying was, we'd be blood on Kenny's hands, essentially accusing him of murder or at least public manslaughter, if we can call him a term.

00:12:33.500 But, you know, they're calling for just mass arrests of these people.

00:12:39.520 I think Kenny is smart enough to know if you do that in Alberta, the way Albertans are, you're going to make it a lot worse.

00:12:46.760 I'm not going down to it because I know it's going to have, I largely agree with the broad reason that they were there, but I know it's going to have a bunch of disparate conspiracy theorists and people who think it's all hoax or something.

00:12:59.420 But as soon as you start, you know, sending 100 cops on horseback to raid a barbecue joint, haul the guy out, arrest them, I think the reaction in Alberta would be terrible towards the government.

00:13:13.560 And we'll push back.

00:13:15.120 Yeah, people will push back.

00:13:17.080 People in Ontario are pushing back against us because it's harder.

00:13:20.060 But I think the character of Albertans would be pushing back even harder and you would see even less compliance.

00:13:24.940 Right now, I think you've got roughly half of Albertans who comply because they think it's necessary and proper. 0.95

00:13:32.760 You've got probably a quarter who think it's all bullshit and they're not complying whatsoever. 0.67

00:13:38.560 And then there's probably the third, the fourth quarter there, another 25%, roughly, who would, they think it's maybe overblown. 0.97

00:13:47.880 They think this is draconian.

00:13:49.120 They think this is all just kind of political posturing on the part of the government, but they don't want a lot of trouble.

00:13:54.380 So they'll just comply anyway.

00:13:56.060 I'm somewhere in between two of those two other quarters.

00:14:00.380 And I think a lot of people are.

00:14:02.180 But if you start, if I saw, you know, a barbecue joint owner here hauled out and arrested for trying to make a living and not lose his home and lose his business, you know what?

00:14:13.000 I'll be out there, too.

00:14:15.040 Well, I've said before, I kind of got a lot of people wound up with me.

00:14:17.900 There's some very dedicated anti-vaccination folks out there, whatever.

00:14:22.180 But when it comes to a vaccine coming out, I'm in that line of I'll wait my turn.

00:14:27.460 I'm not highly vulnerable.

00:14:28.880 I imagine it'll take a while to get to me.

00:14:30.260 But when the time comes, I'll get vaccinated.

00:14:32.240 If you ask.

00:14:33.080 If you legislate me to get vaccinated, you tell me you put a gun to my head.

00:14:38.400 Now we're going to have a problem.

00:14:40.060 Yeah.

00:14:40.460 And now I'm going to get my back up.

00:14:42.200 And now I might actually just on a point of principle, not get vaccinated.

00:14:46.300 You got to watch that nuanced approach with people.

00:14:48.780 Treat us like adults.

00:14:50.060 Work with us.

00:14:50.780 The majority of us will do what's best for the problem.

00:14:54.140 Well, yeah, you're seeing this from a lot broadly on the left.

00:14:57.140 The NDP have been careful not to go into 100 percent mandatory vaccine territory.

00:15:01.300 But they they generally fall into the territory of fine.

00:15:04.060 We won't pin you down and vaccinate you.

00:15:06.520 But if you don't have a vaccine, you're not allowed to leave your house kind of thing.

00:15:11.000 The NDP are known for their strong pro-choice, my body, my choice philosophy, which applies to things beyond abortion, surely.

00:15:19.600 But, yeah, I think a lot of people, myself included, would be where you are.

00:15:24.180 I'm broadly pro-vaccination.

00:15:26.400 They're not all perfect.

00:15:27.100 Someone can go wrong like anything in medicine.

00:15:28.980 But I would like to have a vaccination once it's available and once it gets to someone.

00:15:33.800 I'd be a pretty low priority.

00:15:35.380 But when it gets to me, I have every intention of taking it.

00:15:38.340 But as soon as the government says you have to take it or if you don't take or a form of mandatory vaccination, which would be you don't we're not going to pin you down.

00:15:45.880 But if you don't take it, you're not allowed to leave your house or something.

00:15:48.200 If you do that, I'm not going to take it on principle.

00:15:50.520 I'd want to take it.

00:15:51.620 I'm pro-vaccination.

00:15:52.740 I know some of our viewers are probably going to disagree with me on that, but that's your choice.

00:15:57.420 But as soon as the government takes away my choice, I feel obligated to do the opposite.

00:16:01.000 That's it.

00:16:01.660 It may not be government that's going to make the choice for you.

00:16:04.860 I think what the future is going to see is places like Ticketmaster have already said you're not getting a ticket unless you can show you've been vaccinated.

00:16:12.380 But that's private and airlines are not going to let you fly.

00:16:17.020 And so they may be sort of forcing people that way to to to get yourself vaccinated.

00:16:23.160 I could see some court challenges coming up with that because that's asking for personal medical information.

00:16:28.860 Though, again, I mean, it could turn into quite a battle.

00:16:30.900 But I do see what you're saying.

00:16:31.680 Absolutely.

00:16:32.220 With private companies.

00:16:33.280 I think it's too far.

00:16:34.240 If a private company does that asking for your vaccination records, they might just make it as simple as like click this box.

00:16:39.800 And it's maybe if it's that, but there's a difference between when private does something and when government does something.

00:16:45.280 I'm a bit of a radical in that I think you should be allowed to deny service.

00:16:49.080 If you're a business, you should be allowed to deny service to anybody for any reason, including bad reasons.

00:16:53.780 I know that's not a popular position, but you should be allowed to deny service for someone because you don't like gingers. 1.00

00:16:59.140 You don't like gingers. 1.00

00:16:59.960 They can't come in.

00:17:00.920 Of course, very bad things can happen with that.

00:17:02.720 But you could the public can punish a business by boycotting it, by calling it out.

00:17:06.900 But they should have a right to do it.

00:17:08.120 And if they don't want to serve someone who's not vaccinated, I think they should have a right to do it.

00:17:11.860 But it's very different when the government is doing something because you don't have a choice to use the government.

00:17:16.800 If you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail.

00:17:19.140 You go to prison.

00:17:19.880 Men with guns come to your house.

00:17:21.480 You're forced to participate in government.

00:17:23.120 So I think there's a big difference between governments mandating vaccination or semi-mandating it and private businesses or homes.

00:17:30.380 The other interesting angle this week, gentlemen, is the finger pointing that has started to go towards northeast Calgary.

00:17:38.340 They're the hotbed of COVID cases in the city.

00:17:41.880 And Premier Kenney took to the airwaves this week to, they went on an ethnic radio station.

00:17:50.400 And he basically told the southeast Asian community to smarten up and start following the rules. 1.00

00:17:56.220 He noted that the southeast Asian community in northeast Calgary only make up 11% of the population, but they're accounting for 20% of the cases.

00:18:07.500 So it's the first time I think we've had somebody point their fingers at an ethnic community for spreading the virus.

00:18:16.900 Caused immediate backlash, of course, and Kenney being called every racist name under the book.

00:18:23.960 But it's a different twist on something that a single community is now being singled out.

00:18:31.940 I was surprised to see it.

00:18:34.100 I mean, it is based on the data.

00:18:35.960 You know, I was on Ryan Jesperson's kind of independent radio program earlier in the week, Monday, or maybe it was late last week.

00:18:45.460 And there was someone on, she used the word intersectional about twice every sentence.

00:18:50.780 But she was going on about the need for race-based data in COVID and whatnot.

00:18:54.240 I'm like, well, this is the race-based data you wanted, isn't it?

00:18:56.860 Like, it's not just going to show things that support some strange academic intersectional argument.

00:19:02.260 It's going to show different groups are going to have different rates of infection.

00:19:05.940 Some of it might not be very politically correct to say.

00:19:08.300 Some of it can be used for racist arguments.

00:19:10.740 I mean, I'm sure racists will point to some of this data and say, hey, look at those people.

00:19:14.940 I'm sure there will be some of that.

00:19:16.140 But it's not necessarily racist to point to raw facts.

00:19:19.480 I was surprised to see Jason Kenney do it.

00:19:21.560 I mean, he's spent most of his political career harvesting ethnic votes for Stephen Harper.

00:19:26.320 So he knows how to deal with this stuff.

00:19:28.420 He's actually pretty strong with the South Asian community.

00:19:30.860 At least he has been.

00:19:31.660 He's starting to break down the lead up to the last election.

00:19:33.800 There was a lot of controversy around there.

00:19:35.340 But I thought it was brave, actually.

00:19:40.800 I thought it was correct, if not impolitic.

00:19:44.820 He did it on Red FM with Rishi Negar, who's – he was actually a Wild Rose constituency president.

00:19:51.040 And he's – you know, he's definitely on the right side of the South Asian community in Calgary.

00:19:58.180 He – it was – it was an odd move.

00:20:05.420 And the media are now calling him out for it.

00:20:07.580 But many of the media are calling him out for singling out, fairly or unfairly, the South Asian community.

00:20:14.000 They're calling out churches.

00:20:15.300 I mean, like Manitoba, we just had a church that was going to have an outdoor drive-in service.

00:20:20.180 And the cops blocked it.

00:20:22.520 I think they even arrested people.

00:20:24.300 It was wild stuff.

00:20:25.660 So it's okay to pick on Christians. 1.00

00:20:28.000 It's not okay to pick on others.

00:20:28.940 No, no.

00:20:30.220 Everyone's fair to be picked on. 0.73

00:20:31.400 New York hasn't hesitated to pick on Jews.

00:20:34.180 Yeah, de Blasio – although that was a huge gathering.

00:20:37.980 They practically filled a stadium.

00:20:40.420 I mean – and I'm on the anti-lockdown side.

00:20:43.600 But even I was like, come on, guys.

00:20:45.800 That was a bit much.

00:20:46.700 They pretty much filled a stadium for a giant Orthodox wedding.

00:20:50.180 It's become almost politically trendy, though, to scold from the leader's pulpit.

00:20:55.080 Not just, you know, Kenny telling people to knock it off or Ford telling people or Trudeau telling people.

00:20:59.800 Taking that strong stance of, you know, a wagon to figure.

00:21:01.980 That always gets on my nerves.

00:21:02.920 I don't care which leader is that tone.

00:21:04.520 People are looking right now – like what we're seeing right now, I think, is the desire – everybody says, oh, if I was around the 1930s, I would be against the fascists.

00:21:14.460 But what you're seeing now is actually most people have, at least to some degree, a desire for the paternalistic father figure, the strong man of government.

00:21:24.340 Ford's popularity went through the roof when he was the strong man commanding things and scolding people.

00:21:30.260 And that's it.

00:21:30.960 But it was a poor choice to use that strategy and term when you were talking about a specific ethnic community because it could be spun and taken in just the way it was spun and taken by people that don't like him.

00:21:43.160 If I go a bit further, since then, I talked to a friend of mine that was ideal to talk to about this, Dr. Anmal Kapoor.

00:21:48.740 He's a cardiologist in Calgary.

00:21:51.280 He's very involved, of course, with the South Asian community.

00:21:53.800 He runs an annual thing called Dilwak, which is regarding heart disease and diabetes, which is actually much higher in the South Asian community as well due to dietary – you know, that Indian food's fantastic, but it's not really great for your heart and veins.

00:22:11.420 So he can speak directly, because there's a lot of communication challenges.

00:22:14.800 There's differences.

00:22:15.320 I mean, it's got some very different cultural values and beliefs and asked him about it.

00:22:19.980 And part of what Dr. Kapoor said was, well, yeah, he said, yes, he could have used a different set of words to get that point across.

00:22:28.520 But there is a real issue going on.

00:22:30.180 We have a community where it has an outsized amount of infections going on.

00:22:34.840 So how do we target that community?

00:22:36.720 You do got to worry about the racists saying we'll target it by building a wall around the northeast.

00:22:39.800 Okay, no, that's not an appropriate approach to take.

00:22:43.540 But he said some interesting things.

00:22:44.880 He said, like, in the Punjabi region of India, it's huge over there for them to say, I guess, the word that they're calling home to friends and family over here saying, the pandemic's over.

00:22:55.400 You don't have to do it.

00:22:56.020 Everything else is just a hoax.

00:22:57.060 Don't do it.

00:22:57.500 Like, it's a cultural thing, a rumor going through the community, which is stronger there, and it's keeping them from socially distancing.

00:23:03.000 Or he said, as well, poorly communicated things with mask use.

00:23:08.460 It's difficult for Sikh men because they have that large beard going on. 1.00

00:23:12.240 They have the other things.

00:23:13.260 But they were also...

00:23:13.800 I can tell you, I don't have exactly a Sikh level beard, but the modest beard I've got, it's hard for me to wear a mask.

00:23:20.760 It's difficult.

00:23:21.680 There's challenges that are more unique to that community.

00:23:24.720 They're new Canadians. 0.97

00:23:25.580 They tend to live in more tightly packed households.

00:23:27.740 They need, there's language challenges sometimes.

00:23:32.240 So, sure, Dr. Hinshaw is pointing out a lot of great things.

00:23:36.060 And some of the, you know, Omni and some of the other channels are reaching out as well.

00:23:38.660 But it takes almost, it's more outreach is required for these communities.

00:23:42.420 And there are often people who work multiple jobs and in the front line, they're driving taxis.

00:23:46.580 They're running storefronts.

00:23:49.120 Some of them are small business owners.

00:23:50.440 They don't have somebody to come in while they self-isolate.

00:23:52.700 Well, the South Asian community, particularly in Alberta, but I think across Canada, and like many immigrant populations, they have public-facing jobs.

00:24:01.860 These are not jobs, you know, like comfortable white liberals who can almost universally work from home.

00:24:08.040 Exactly.

00:24:08.560 They have to go to their store.

00:24:11.240 They have to go to the garage.

00:24:12.640 They've got to go to the convenience store.

00:24:14.380 They've got to go to the Tim Hortons, wherever they are.

00:24:16.200 They have to work with people.

00:24:17.260 They often have large families living in a single household, sometimes multiple families.

00:24:21.220 And, you know, I've got pretty strong connections with the Northeast myself.

00:24:26.180 We just went through Diwali.

00:24:27.840 And if anybody thinks that Diwali just didn't take place this year, you're kidding yourself.

00:24:33.840 And I don't blame them.

00:24:35.200 Christmas is coming up.

00:24:36.340 I'm not going to not have Christmas.

00:24:37.640 I'm going to have a limited Christmas.

00:24:38.920 I'm going to have a cautious Christmas.

00:24:40.380 I'm not having Christmas.

00:24:41.880 So anybody who believes that Diwali just went away is kidding themselves.

00:24:46.360 So the bottom line in the end is there are special cultural considerations to take into place.

00:24:50.840 So let's see how we can rationally approach it.

00:24:54.280 That's one thing Dr. Kapoor offers that if Kenny wants somebody for outreach to talk to the community about these things, he said he'd be more than happy to work further on that.

00:25:02.060 Just because there are special different things.

00:25:03.500 In the early part of the pandemic, we saw the Filipino community got hit very hard in the meatpacking plants and very similar conditions.

00:25:09.620 Because you have new Canadians, limited English, tight households, multiple jobs. 1.00

00:25:15.020 So Jason Kenney was talking about something we're targeting.

00:25:18.260 He just came at it in a terrible way.

00:25:21.040 Which is surprising for him because he's so used to dealing with ethnic politics.

00:25:25.180 He is the master of ethnic politics in Canada.

00:25:28.120 He is the guy.

00:25:29.800 He's written the modern book on it.

00:25:31.400 Everybody blows it now and then, I guess.

00:25:32.940 Kenny's scheduled to appear with Dr. Hinshaw later on Wednesday afternoon would be his first attempting at the press conference since the new regulations, I guess.

00:25:43.880 And it's going to be interesting.

00:25:45.060 Are we going to get our final warning or new limitations?

00:25:49.880 Stay tuned.

00:25:51.280 You never go full lockdown.

00:25:52.340 Well, let's move on to other distressing news.

00:25:58.540 In Ottawa, we were looking up pictures, actually, of the debt clock.

00:26:05.860 I was going to use one.

00:26:07.020 The main one that came up was actually when I parked the debt clock in front of Parliament Hill, circa 2010, maybe 11.

00:26:14.140 It was 500-something billion.

00:26:16.360 The picture we're showing you now, that clock sits at $628 billion.

00:26:24.260 But that picture has gone out of style very fast.

00:26:30.120 That's a pretty recent picture.

00:26:32.640 Actually, I think it might be just last year.

00:26:35.000 The deficit, sorry, the debt now is about to hit $8 trillion for the first time in Canadian history.

00:26:39.420 It will have nearly doubled in the span of less than two years here.

00:26:43.280 An already sizable federal debt, a deficit that had literally an infinite projection of never balancing.

00:26:51.440 Like the American federal deficit, an infinite projection of continued deficits, not even a theoretical balanced budget date.

00:26:59.160 We're now looking at a deficit of well north of $300 billion, which is, I mean, I stopped voting conservative for a deficit of $30 billion.

00:27:08.220 I mean, I still won't vote for anyone who runs a deficit of $30 billion, but holy hell, $300 billion, you can't understand it.

00:27:18.780 That's the GDP of some countries in a single year that we're borrowing.

00:27:21.900 Dave, why don't you run us through the fiscal update that the federal government put out and the numbers we're looking at.

00:27:27.980 Oh, deficit dorks, actually, $381 billion.

00:27:31.240 Holy hell, that's closer to $400 billion.

00:27:32.900 Well, well north of $300 billion, and that death clock you showed at $600 million is going to double.

00:27:41.140 It is now expected to hit $1.2 trillion.

00:27:44.600 That's a lot of zeros, I think, Corey.

00:27:46.560 I don't know how many, but that's 12 and a lot of zeros.

00:27:50.900 Environment, not Environment Minister, excuse me, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland did her economic update this week in the House of Commons,

00:27:59.140 announced the record deficit, obviously, mainly new COVID programs and support for Canadians there.

00:28:09.040 She also announced another $100 billion of new incentives, and a lot of it is going to be for new green technology,

00:28:18.920 converting gas stations into electronic charging stations, all that sort of good stuff.

00:28:25.920 So not really a lot in there that's going to excite the average Albertan, but yeah.

00:28:33.800 Oh, we got $1 trillion.

00:28:35.580 I'm sorry, we got $1 billion.

00:28:37.400 Yes, not quite what Kenny asked for.

00:28:39.620 Apparently, we're going to get a check for $1 billion through, is it stabilization or equalization?

00:28:45.060 Physical stabilization, which Kenny has kind of, I think, very incorrectly nicknamed or renamed the equalization rebate, which it is not.

00:28:56.140 Kenny has more or less given up on any serious attempt at equalization reform, knowing that there's just no chance to get it.

00:29:01.960 The federal conservatives don't even support equalization reform, so do we expect just Trudeau's liberals?

00:29:06.320 No.

00:29:06.580 So then he's kind of fallen back on this kind of equalization rebate.

00:29:11.420 He is correct in saying, according to the rules, before the liberals unilaterally changed it right as Alberta needed it,

00:29:16.660 we would be entitled to a payout of $6 billion plus.

00:29:22.940 We've got pennies on the dollar of that even.

00:29:26.360 So yeah, decades of fighting against equalization, and we get a one-time check for $1 billion.

00:29:31.280 That was worth the political capital.

00:29:35.120 Oh, yeah.

00:29:37.620 Yeah.

00:29:38.300 So yeah, these are terrifying numbers.

00:29:42.040 Justin would not be a Trudeau unless he managed to saddle at least three subsequent generations with unpayable debts.

00:29:49.040 We are still paying off the debt.

00:29:51.640 We're still paying interest on the debts from pure Trudeau.

00:29:53.920 We're still paying.

00:29:54.700 We're still using the fighter jets from that era, too.

00:29:56.680 But we are still paying off the debts of pure Trudeau.

00:29:59.920 And before those were paid off, Justin Trudeau was now taking on the largest explosion of federal debt by far in Canadian history.

00:30:07.960 By my calculations, Justin Trudeau has borrowed in a single year, adjusted for inflation, more money than the federal government borrowed to fight both the first and second world wars.

00:30:20.200 In a single year.

00:30:22.440 I mean, I understand revenues are going to drop off.

00:30:26.080 There's probably going to be new programs.

00:30:27.740 But the scale of this is unconscious, unconscionable.

00:30:32.760 It's, you know, the government was already borrowing through the wazoo before it had not, didn't even have a projection before this happened.

00:30:40.020 The federal government had no projection to even get to a balanced budget.

00:30:42.620 Eventually, it just had infinite projections for deficits.

00:30:45.980 And then this happened.

00:30:46.700 But, of course, when this all passes, I'm sure we're going to need to continue spending in the name of stimulus.

00:30:53.660 Corey, do you think there is – what do you think is going to be the political fallout of this?

00:30:58.980 Do you think there's going to be any kind of political price to pay for the liberals for borrowing?

00:31:04.100 And do you think there's any prospect of the conservatives under Aaron O'Toole being willing to completely shut off the taps and get back to a balanced budget here?

00:31:13.840 I wish there was going to be a bigger political fallout.

00:31:17.440 I don't think people – your average person understands the scope of just what's happening and what's coming down the road.

00:31:25.100 I mean, we're going into this bizarre year of misery for all of us economically, personally.

00:31:31.260 And everybody – that mindset and attitude of government has to do something.

00:31:34.780 It's the government's role to save us.

00:31:36.320 So they're letting it slide with this borrowing.

00:31:38.500 They're not thinking about what – that it's borrowing.

00:31:41.580 They honestly aren't.

00:31:42.740 I think people aren't realizing that this is a looming freight train of misery that's going to be coming.

00:31:47.760 And it's unavoidable.

00:31:50.340 I forget who put it the right way.

00:31:51.780 But, you know, the reason that Bev Oda's orange juice incident was more damaging to a government than any billion or trillion dollar episode.

00:31:58.940 We can't wrap our minds around how huge that number is.

00:32:03.160 Like, when you think of a billion, an analogy I like using just for a billion, you know, is a million dollars if you stacked up thousand dollar bills.

00:32:09.820 We've never seen it.

00:32:10.560 But, you know, if you did it, it would be about six inches tall.

00:32:13.620 A billion would be 500 feet tall.

00:32:16.760 Now, a trillion is a thousand times that.

00:32:20.220 Like, these numbers, we can't catch up on that debt.

00:32:24.140 We can't.

00:32:24.740 So we're going to see a currency correction or something.

00:32:27.800 There's going to be inflation or something is going to have to bring that back into check eventually.

00:32:33.000 And we're going to all pay a price for it.

00:32:34.880 But as far as the near-term future for Justin's political futures or anything O'Toole can do, I don't know what he can do to head that off.

00:32:41.820 It's just darts like us who look at the long-term numbers.

00:32:44.220 When I was at the Taxpayers Federation, you know, we, long before I was there, but it was rebuilt in my time there, is we brought back the debt clock.

00:32:51.000 Like, because it was at least the closest thing we had to help people wrap their mind around it, that they could see it physically, they could see it ticking up in real time.

00:32:59.000 Even then, it's hard for people to wrap their minds around.

00:33:03.380 But now it's moving so fast that even I, like, I've made a career out of trying to help people understand and address deficits.

00:33:12.140 It's beyond even my comprehension.

00:33:14.060 And I'm going to get some numbers on this soon.

00:33:18.700 But did you know that more than half of the Canadian dollars in circulation today, both printed and unprinted, were printed in the last year?

00:33:29.220 We have inflated our currency by 100% in the last year.

00:33:33.660 Now, that's going to hit at some point.

00:33:35.440 Inflation can take a while to work its way through the system, especially when it's not cash printing, when it's not a physical printing press, but when the government just creates it on a balance sheet and releases it through the Bank of Canada into the main chartered banks.

00:33:49.280 That's going to work its way through the system.

00:33:51.420 The chartered banks love inflation.

00:33:53.280 It's free money for them.

00:33:54.480 They get the money when it's still worth something, and they get to loan it out to people when it's worth less.

00:34:00.940 It's the greatest racket in history is when government creates fiat money.

00:34:05.860 The United States government has massively inflated its currency through the Federal Reserve.

00:34:10.060 Central banks across the world have done this.

00:34:11.400 But Canada, if I'm not mistaken, has inflated its currency by a massive margin more than any other comparable advanced industrialized country on the planet.

00:34:21.580 We are looking at serious inflation coming here.

00:34:24.920 And people don't, unless you get to hyperinflation where you're taking wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread, people don't tend to blame the government.

00:34:31.620 It's a way for government to spend freely without political consequence.

00:34:35.560 Governments on the left and the right like to do it because they get to spend the money that people like without taxing people that they don't like.

00:34:43.140 So there are going to be big consequences coming down the line right now, and no one seems to care about it.

00:34:49.700 The federal conservatives, even before COVID, said they weren't even going to balance the budget within one term.

00:34:55.460 Now it is virtually impossible.

00:34:58.300 So we have, in Parliament, not a single party that's committed to actually balancing the budget.

00:35:03.360 Not a single party in the, and I actually have to blame Stephen Harper for this.

00:35:07.480 Stephen Harper, you know, we had the financial crisis of 2008, and then they did all this other stuff.

00:35:13.700 The government was going to run a deficit.

00:35:15.160 He had already significantly increased spending in the years preceding it, and then the financial meltdown, tipped it over.

00:35:20.320 It's going to run a deficit.

00:35:21.440 But they didn't just run a deficit saying this is crappy, we have to do it, but I'm going to get out of it right away.

00:35:26.020 He, you know, in the face of the whole coalition that formed against him, he just essentially took their program of stimulus and bailouts, this Keynesian kind of idea, and he ran with it and adopted it as his own and said, deficits are not just unfortunate, they are necessary.

00:35:42.680 And I don't think they understood at the time, but what they were doing is they broke the consensus in Canada that had developed across all major political parties beginning in the late 80s that deficits are wrong, regardless of if you're on the left or the right.

00:35:55.800 And then Stephen Harper went for, you know, he comes up against Justin Trudeau.

00:35:59.540 Justin Trudeau says, I'm going to run a deficit.

00:36:02.260 Well, Stephen Harper's argument essentially boiled down to, well, deficits are bad when you do it, but they're not bad when I do it.

00:36:09.040 And that doesn't mean anything.

00:36:11.840 That's just pure political calculus.

00:36:13.860 And yeah, Justin Trudeau, Stephen Harper almost certainly would run smaller deficits than Justin Trudeau.

00:36:18.240 But once you're breaking the seal, once you've had too many beers and you break that seal, it's open and it's out.

00:36:25.560 And I don't think the public makes much of a distinction between a $1 billion deficit and a $100 billion deficit.

00:36:32.280 It's a deficit or it's a surplus.

00:36:34.160 And the people generally don't give much damn about any nuance in between.

00:36:39.000 So unfortunately, it boils down to, are you a surplus party or are you a deficit party?

00:36:44.060 And there's little in between.

00:36:45.920 I don't think I'm going to worry about going to overdraft in each month anymore.

00:36:50.200 The government's not concerned.

00:36:51.760 Why should I be panicked?

00:36:54.400 Those consequences do apply to you, unfortunately. 1.00

00:36:56.960 Oh, damn. 0.99

00:36:59.020 Okay, well, let's move on closer to home here. 0.99

00:37:03.800 Calgary City Council proposing and voting on some very bizarre set of rules here that would seem to have quite an explicitly political agenda, even if they deny it.

00:37:16.300 Dave, why don't you tee it up?

00:37:18.900 This is actually a bylaw, Derek, that came in in 2016, prior to the last election.

00:37:24.420 It basically says they do not want councillors going into other councillors' areas to hold political events unless you get permission from the sitting councillor in that ward.

00:37:36.940 It was brought forward again this week by administration to a council committee where it was voted down six to four, but it still goes ahead to the full council on Monday.

00:37:50.080 And I think what this will do, Derek, is basically hobble any attempts by Jeremy Farkas to run for mayor.

00:37:57.360 He is council's whipping boy.

00:37:59.600 They absolutely hate him. 0.73

00:38:01.060 They do not get along with him.

00:38:02.900 And I think the feeling is completely mutual.

00:38:06.180 So the thought of him having to go to Ward Sutherland and say, hey, can I hold a rally in your neck of the woods?

00:38:13.560 You know, I think we would all guess what the answer would be.

00:38:19.940 So Corey actually broke the story.

00:38:22.960 And it's going to be interesting to see on Monday what comes out of it.

00:38:28.100 It's, yeah, it's a funny bylaw they're proposing.

00:38:32.240 It only applies to councillors because the mayor doesn't have a ward.

00:38:36.040 He's all over the city.

00:38:36.920 So if Nancy were to run for re-election, Nancy would certainly not be required. 0.88

00:38:41.420 He wouldn't have to ask the permission of Jeremy Farkas to campaign in his ward, Ward 6, or I'm not sure which it is.

00:38:48.840 Ward 6.

00:38:49.320 Yeah, but wherever that is, Mayor Nancy wouldn't need the permission of Jeremy Farkas to go to his ward.

00:38:57.220 But Jeremy Farkas would need the permission of 13 other councillors to get the permission to go to any one of theirs, making it virtually impossible to campaign if he respects the bylaw.

00:39:05.300 As I said before, some laws are meant to be broken.

00:39:07.880 And if the council does break this, I think, you know, Jeremy Farkas would be well advised to raise a GoFundMe campaign and challenge us as unconstitutional.

00:39:17.100 I think it would be unconstitutional.

00:39:20.520 Corey, so this went to the council's committee, not to the full council yet, and it was defeated.

00:39:29.980 But I get the feeling that not everybody voted as they really wanted to vote.

00:39:34.780 Why don't you tell us why you think this failed in committee and what might be the outcome as it goes to the full council?

00:39:42.480 What does it go to full council?

00:39:43.620 Monday.

00:39:44.020 Monday, when it goes to the full council.

00:39:45.120 I think it might be December 14th.

00:39:46.880 But, yeah, it's coming again before full council.

00:39:49.220 A little background on it, too.

00:39:50.440 So, actually, it's a code of conduct policy.

00:39:52.460 So, it's kind of the inner city thing, which makes it even more nebulous, though, because then a councillor who's been accused of breaking, it can be dragged before the integrity commissioner.

00:40:02.740 And then we're starting to get more Kafkaesque with these.

00:40:04.900 Well, then you get a scolding letter for being unethical or something.

00:40:07.580 Well, but then they can do some other things because we've seen Jeremy Farkas kicked out of council meetings.

00:40:11.680 We've seen him shut out of doing his job and being public.

00:40:16.280 They can really make an unholy mess for him through this.

00:40:19.640 And your defense is difficult when it's an internal document like this.

00:40:22.400 This was actually modeled, what they did was they dredged up an old one that had expired, and it was targeted at Sean Chu, who, prior to Jeremy Farkas, was the most hated man on council by the mayor and some of the others, because Ward 4 had boundary changes.

00:40:35.360 And Sean was trying to campaign in what would be Ward 4 in the next election, but that meant he was campaigning in another councillor's ward at that time.

00:40:44.900 So, they built this policy to handicap Sean and his campaigning.

00:40:49.320 So, they dredged it up and realized this is more effective for a sitting councillor mayoral candidate than it ever was for Chu.

00:40:58.080 So, let's adjust it a little bit and bring it back up and throw it through.

00:41:02.100 And I think what happened, though, was, now, again, see, they love saying, oh, this wasn't us, it was administration.

00:41:07.580 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:41:08.420 You know, the administration has got a purple hand on the back of its neck that tells it what to do.

00:41:14.360 And these things come from there.

00:41:16.260 And what a great advantage it gives that incumbent mayor.

00:41:20.000 The problem was it broke before it hit the floor.

00:41:22.520 What would have been a sleepy, quiet council meeting or a committee meeting where they could just shuffle this little document through.

00:41:28.700 Unfortunately, it hit some news.

00:41:32.140 Some jerky columnist wrote a piece and called out Ward Sutherland as an individual who would probably use such a thing as a tool to hinder a certain other council member he didn't like.

00:41:42.420 And it was, it was, I found it humorous almost listening to the live discussion of it because Sutherland was talking in committee saying, well, this has been turned into a political tool now.

00:41:52.200 You know, you know, that could have been good, but I'm forced to just say we should not have it go through.

00:41:57.920 Grudgingly voted against it, apparently.

00:42:00.180 It's a good Sutherland impression.

00:42:01.340 Yeah.

00:42:02.580 I didn't, I won't go there.

00:42:05.700 But either way, it's coming before the full council a little later, though, and we'll see how that goes.

00:42:11.440 Again, with it having broken, it's going to look vindictic.

00:42:14.100 It's an unnecessary policy.

00:42:15.200 They're trying to legislate courtesy.

00:42:17.600 I mean, what they're saying is, and it's true, nobody should go into a neighbor's constituency and try to undercut the incumbent councillor or do anything belligerent like that.

00:42:27.840 But it's not the role of the city to govern these things.

00:42:30.020 It's communications between a candidate.

00:42:31.560 When I was in the legislature, if I went to another constituency, particularly rural ones where the MLA actually might matter, I would make a courtesy call, even if it was NDP, particularly if it was another Wild Rose.

00:42:43.660 But, you know, PCs, well, it wasn't real PC writings.

00:42:46.620 But I would make a call, a courtesy call most of the time, unless it was something like a big event.

00:42:51.760 You know, if there was a convention center holding something where it's not really a constituency event, just happens to be there, I wouldn't do that.

00:42:57.920 But it would be a courtesy thing.

00:42:59.300 But, you know, the NDP, half the time would do so for me.

00:43:02.880 You know, a health minister is coming to my riding to announce funding for the Strathmore Hospital or something.

00:43:08.500 They would half the time let me know, half the time not.

00:43:11.360 But it's a courtesy.

00:43:12.400 You can't write this in a code of ethics, which effectively has the force of sort of law within the council or within a legislature.

00:43:21.000 It's pretty transparent, I think, what this is about.

00:43:23.540 Yes, absolutely.

00:43:24.660 And as I framed it, it was the anti-Farkas bill.

00:43:27.160 I mean, it's purely targeted at him.

00:43:28.820 There was no need for this.

00:43:29.880 There wasn't a problem with this.

00:43:31.600 And part of what they're saying is, well, it's not necessarily permission.

00:43:33.460 There's a lot of things you can do.

00:43:34.160 He just needs to inform the other.

00:43:35.380 Well, yeah, one of those clauses talks about campaigning.

00:43:37.920 And somebody campaigning in another ward has to give basically their whole campaign plan to the incumbent councillor before they do that.

00:43:45.000 Now, there was a past campaign I'd been around once before I'd heard about.

00:43:48.320 And they've gotten a hold of the door knocking schedule of an opponent.

00:43:52.080 So what happened was, of course, they door knocked three hours ahead of the opponent all the time.

00:43:56.380 And it was quite disheartening for the opponent to always show up at a door that's already just been knocked.

00:43:59.960 And the lawn signs are already all placed ahead of them.

00:44:01.760 I did that in 2015 against the PCs.

00:44:03.580 Either way, there's things like that where they give actually quite an advantage to somebody who doesn't care for your campaign if you're going to give out your whole schedule and things like that.

00:44:12.840 It's just not information that should be forced to be given to anybody else.

00:44:16.080 It's not serving a purpose aside from hindering a mayoral candidate that they do not like.

00:44:20.720 It blew up on them yesterday.

00:44:22.660 And hopefully this stays live and blows up on them when they throw up before the whole council and just throw it aside.

00:44:27.100 And holy cow, did Councillor Giancarlo not very happy with our coverage, is he?

00:44:32.140 What was the term he used?

00:44:32.900 He took great umbrage with our coverage.

00:44:34.800 And please go to the website and read the story and come up with your own opinion.

00:44:38.140 But I think he calls it mechanized.

00:44:40.400 No, weaponized.

00:44:41.240 Weaponized.

00:44:41.840 Weaponized news.

00:44:43.460 I don't even know what that means.

00:44:44.720 Well, I don't know.

00:44:45.600 But I think we should make it the new slogan of the Western Standard.

00:44:48.040 Instead of the voice of the New West, independent voice of the New West, I think we're just going to say weaponized news.

00:44:53.800 Absolutely.

00:44:54.380 We'll change our logo, put some crossed rifles on it and something.

00:44:58.580 If exposing what their actions are is weaponizing, then let's carry on with it.

00:45:02.360 You know, it was just reporting.

00:45:04.660 And again, the goal was, no, this was weaponized policy that people at Karah and Sutherland were putting through.

00:45:10.320 And they were hoping it would slide under the radar without anybody noticing.

00:45:13.080 As usual, they would beat down Jeremy in the house.

00:45:15.220 Sounds like a good follow-up column on the way.

00:45:17.220 And then, unfortunately, it became exposed.

00:45:20.760 They would look petty and small if they put it through, so they backed off for now.

00:45:24.040 Well, actually, and on this, we're going to have a column coming out from Alex McCall.

00:45:27.740 We're going to post it probably as soon as we're off the air here.

00:45:30.340 So be sure to check out the Western Standard.

00:45:32.420 Follow our social media channels to be able to see that.

00:45:35.400 We're going to be following this story as it develops, see what the City Council itself does.

00:45:40.060 Dave Naylor will be on the beat.

00:45:43.180 But we want to thank all of you for joining us here today.

00:45:45.740 If you're a Western Standard member, thank you very much for your support.

00:45:48.800 We've had a real outpouring and growth of membership the last few months.

00:45:52.100 If you support the Western Standard, if you support what we're doing, enjoy it, perhaps are even entertained by us from time to time,

00:45:58.460 please consider becoming a member.

00:46:00.080 Go to westernstandardonline.com.

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00:46:03.900 For a couple bucks a month, you can help support having a genuinely independent Western media outlet that refuses to accept any government subsidies.

00:46:12.540 Thank you very much for joining us here today.

00:46:14.420 It's been a real pleasure.

00:46:15.220 I'm Derek Fuldebrandt, publisher, Dave Naylor, news editor, Corey Morgan, podcast columnist.

00:46:21.440 Sorry, podcast editor and columnist.

00:46:23.280 Thank you very much.

00:46:24.160 Have a good day.

00:46:28.460 Thank you.

00:46:58.460 Thank you.

00:47:28.460 Thank you.

00:47:30.460 Thank you.

Western Standard - December 02, 2020

The Pipeline. December 2, 2020

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