Western Standard - The Pipeline, March 3, 2021

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00:01:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:30.000 Welcome to the March 3rd episode of The Pipeline. I'm columnist and podcast editor Corey Morgan and I'm with our news editor Dave Naylor today. Derek Fildebrand is usually with us for these but he couldn't make it today so you're stuck with just the two of us. How you doing Dave?

00:02:51.720 I'm good. I'm actually looking forward to getting in a word edgewise with

00:02:56.280 you need not live in terror of what may happen if there's a ping on your

00:03:02.120 computer. Hopefully he doesn't tune in later and watch it. We'll hear about it

00:03:07.720 later. He'll get over it. This is the show though where we cover weekly issues,

00:03:14.900 what's been outstanding in the news and uh we have a sponsor that's uh care i don't know is

00:03:23.060 that karen's way or kyron's way i'm so terrible this way uh kyron ah there we go i know i talked

00:03:30.820 to her yesterday and named after a greek god so ah okay there we go i appreciate the correction i

00:03:38.420 mean the text is most important so you get to the right place for it and she offers a good made in

00:03:43.460 Alberta business she helps counsel people who are dealing with stress anxiety issues past trauma

00:03:49.940 things such as that consultations are free if you're looking for hopefully you know drug-free

00:03:55.940 ways to deal with stress and anxiety things such as that Penny may be offering just the sort of

00:04:01.300 service to help you along and her sponsorship is greatly appreciated so consider popping by the

00:04:06.820 website and and seeing if uh penny can offer you what you need these are stressful times

00:04:13.780 so moving on one of the big stories today i really never thought we'd come to this but i guess we

00:04:21.140 shouldn't be that terribly surprised dr seuss is uh under attack by cancel culture uh if he's

00:04:30.420 what you would have thought the most beloved and innocuous of children's authors

00:04:34.260 and now apparently he is a hate monger. Can you expand on that a bit, Dave?

00:04:41.620 Well, apparently woke readers would not, could not force themselves to read these Dr.

00:04:47.700 Seuss classics. I think this is the most beloved children's author out there. We all grew up with

00:04:54.820 with the Grinch and the cat in the hat, but the foundation that looks after his publishing

00:05:04.140 enterprise has decided they are not going to publish six titles because they portray

00:05:11.120 people in a way that are, quote, hurtful and wrong.

00:05:16.060 So he wrote 60 books, six of them will no longer be available.

00:05:23.020 six are and to think i saw it on mulberry street if i ran the zoo mcellington's pool long to be

00:05:31.580 on a zebra scrambled egg super and the cat's quizzer so if you had those books from your

00:05:38.780 childhood i suggest you pack them away because they could become valuable they said the oriental

00:05:49.020 characters in his books were caricatures with yellow faces and and slanted eyes and 0.95

00:06:00.140 the few black characters uh were again portrayed uh with uh characteristics unbecoming and they

00:06:09.260 basically said it was basically a format of a form of white supremacy believe it or not for

00:06:15.180 his story. Even Dr. Seuss is getting in trouble beyond the grave.

00:06:21.340 And it's just so frustrating. I mean, those were books. The reason they were so popular was kids

00:06:26.460 enjoyed them. They were fun reads and they always had a good moral and a lesson within them. I mean,

00:06:32.600 they were all about getting along, loving your neighbor, being nice. I mean, thankfully they

00:06:37.560 haven't canceled the Grinch yet. There doesn't seem to be a green race that's standing up and 1.00

00:06:41.840 and being offended. I mean, things change with time. I know there's a number of old cartoons

00:06:47.700 from back in the 30s and 40s where you would see some black people dancing around a kettle,

00:06:53.640 you know, caricatured in a way that's certainly not acceptable today. I mean, the measure of what

00:06:59.520 can be done now versus back then is something altogether different. But I looked at those

00:07:04.720 Dr. Seuss pictures and said, I can see if you're really squinting. Okay, yeah, it's a bit of an

00:07:10.160 old school. There were some, I guess, apparently with Inuit people that were demonstrated that

00:07:15.300 had furred hoods around themselves and in kayaks, but this wasn't insulting. The intent wasn't to

00:07:19.820 be. And what I wonder, were there any people of Asian origin who were really upset about this or

00:07:25.400 Inuit people upset about this? Or is this, I suspect, the white liberal woke crowd who got

00:07:32.200 upset about this? Well, I mean, at some point, every book that was ever written, every cartoon

00:07:39.940 that was ever done uh you know in the 60s and earlier is going to be declared you know bad

00:07:48.260 uh didn't doctor didn't the grin kick his poor dog max at one point i mean isn't that teaching

00:07:55.300 animal abuse uh you know never mind teaching you to be a bad guy but as you said they taught

00:08:02.020 lessons they talk you know they taught uh kids the uh the wrong behavior to do and and the fact

00:08:09.860 that there could be penalties to uh uh to doing it so uh yeah it's you know i i called it the

00:08:16.580 baying mob of twitter and uh yeah they've taken down dr seuss and uh who are they gonna aim for

00:08:22.980 next maybe us cory yeah who knows i mean i just uh christ so somebody did lend a comment here

00:08:29.140 If you're on Facebook, you can see it.

00:08:30.800 It is a very long one, though.

00:08:31.940 So if you want comments to pop up, and I'll pull them up.

00:08:34.160 But if they're too long, they'll cover our whole screen.

00:08:36.120 But he made some points.

00:08:37.200 It's from Charles Lynch.

00:08:37.960 He said, the books haven't been banned, but the company's not going to publish any more

00:08:40.880 editions of them.

00:08:43.540 And that they'll no longer be portraying those six titles.

00:08:46.620 But they weren't canceled because they were voluntarily withdrawn.

00:08:49.580 Well, OK, I get the point.

00:08:52.160 But it's yes and no.

00:08:53.220 I mean, when a company is bullied by the Twitter mob into pulling something off its

00:08:57.540 shelves, that's canceled.

00:08:59.140 I mean, sure, you weren't legally obligated to tear it down, but they knew that they just don't want to deal with this battle, having the mob screaming at them, accusing them of everything.

00:09:10.360 I mean, because, again, it is a publisher that just wants to put out family-friendly publications.

00:09:15.640 There's so many other classics now, though, if we start going through them with the magnifying glass, what else is coming?

00:09:22.440 Surely they're doing the magnifying glass treatment on Winnie the Pooh now, I bet you.

00:09:26.800 Oh, boy. Yes, the abuse of Eeyore. I mean, they went and pinned a tail on that poor thing.

00:09:34.960 But the world's gone mad. I just hope at some point people start pushing back a little. Come

00:09:39.280 on, guys. We can talk to our kids about context. I mean, we could read these stories, or in our

00:09:45.040 case, maybe it'll be grandkids. But still, it's a, we don't depict people from up north that way

00:09:50.060 anymore. But this was how it is. I mean, it doesn't have to be just totally wiped out of

00:09:54.460 oblivion i guess universal uh in orlando has some dr seuss things they're going to be pulling as

00:09:59.180 well from their display because of this i mean what sort of vanilla milk toast world are we

00:10:04.380 going to have if we let the the mobs control everything we're allowed to show or see anymore

00:10:09.420 it's just uh as long as long as they stay away from the hardy boys oh yes you know that's when

00:10:16.460 the line will be crossed oh i remember devouring those blue hardcover books back in the my younger

00:10:22.620 years. So let's get a little closer to home. So we did have some lifting of the restrictions from

00:10:32.660 COVID-19 this week. It was a lot of fanfare. Premier Kenny himself came out. It wasn't just

00:10:39.440 the handoff to Dr. Dina Hinshaw for the announcement. So we expected a lot. And I think a lot of people

00:10:47.300 were kind of underwhelmed with what step two turned out to be.

00:10:52.480 What have you got to expand on that with, Dave?

00:10:55.820 I agree, Corey.

00:10:57.660 Everybody I know has gathered around their computer

00:11:01.000 watching the press conference, hoping for a lot more.

00:11:04.920 But basically what they've done is they've opened up libraries

00:11:08.300 to a 15% capacity, and they've given some gems,

00:11:14.160 some ability to reopen.

00:11:17.300 but that's all very confusing they have to offer exercises where you don't huff and puff you know

00:11:26.920 you can walk on the treadmill but you can't jog you know because we might start breathing heavily

00:11:33.380 and you might you know you can only do some training with a manager or a personal trainer

00:11:41.140 right next to you. So very little, very, very little lowering of other regulations like

00:11:51.480 restaurants and retail, which it came as a bit of a surprise to me, Corey, because

00:11:57.820 all the benchmarks that were needed for a full reopening, we had reached. We were well below

00:12:03.360 the hospitalization levels and the case numbers and ICU levels to actually go on to step three.

00:12:12.320 But instead they didn't even act really on step two. They said there may be some worrying signs

00:12:18.640 and I think certainly the number of variants that are being uncovered are worrying signs.

00:12:24.240 They found 35 more cases yesterday, bringing a total of 500 cases of the variant in the province, which, if I'm not mistaken, I think is the highest total of any province in the country.

00:12:40.780 I think, like you, everybody else was looking for more.

00:12:46.200 It came on the heels of a story that we had on the Western Standard about ICU admissions.

00:12:54.240 ICU admissions has always been a top government benchmark for restrictions.

00:13:00.480 They say the restrictions had to come in to keep hospitalizations down and the healthcare system from collapsing.

00:13:08.760 But we obtained internal Alberta healthcare documents that show ICU admissions have actually dropped in the last year than they were in 2019.

00:13:23.320 Throughout all of 2020, only two hospital jurisdictions in the province had slight

00:13:30.440 increases in ICU admissions. All of the Calgary hospitals were less. All of the Edmonton hospitals

00:13:37.640 were less, except for the University of Alberta Hospital. Right now, we've only got 50-some people

00:13:45.160 in ICU. So it seems to me like Albertans were almost misled on these figures because they're

00:13:56.280 well below any sort of being overwhelmed whatsoever, Corey. Yeah, well, and so much of it just seems so

00:14:03.880 arbitrary. I mean, they laid out this plan that showed a number of things potentially opening,

00:14:08.440 and they used the word potentially. Okay, fair enough. You want to couch your words and perhaps

00:14:15.080 like if we'd have been five or six hospitalizations below the benchmark you know really close to the

00:14:20.860 borderline that's where you could see okay we're gonna utilize potential we said potentially but

00:14:24.280 we're really close to you know a possible overwhelming here we got to back off a little

00:14:29.380 bit but I mean we didn't just meet the the 450 hospitalization benchmark we blew it out of the

00:14:34.860 water I mean there were only 250 people in which is you know 250 people it shouldn't be dismissed

00:14:40.260 but if we're going to set benchmarks we were well within it and then not only did they just toss

00:14:46.180 aside all of those things that were potentially going to be reopened or eased a bit they jumped

00:14:51.220 ahead with libraries which were actually part of step three and said we're going to allow some

00:14:56.900 openings there so they actually went past uh one of their benchmarks like it just makes no sense

00:15:02.980 they don't seem to have any consistency uh but you know they aren't expanding on what why one

00:15:08.660 is more dangerous than another uh gymnasiums you know it's it's turned uh controversial i mean

00:15:14.900 very few people could argue i i know i could use some more gym time but you know gymnasium use is

00:15:20.740 healthy for people it's good for your mental well-being it's good for your physical well-being

00:15:25.220 uh if i don't work out nearly as much as i should but i always feel better after a good bit of

00:15:29.220 exercise uh mayor ninchy came out and dismissed it as saying it's unimportant and that really

00:15:34.260 stirred up a lot of people but brought a lot of discussion like when are we gonna start allowing

00:15:38.260 some more healthy activities for Albertans to get out yeah I'm not aware of a single case of

00:15:44.020 transmission within the gym uh you know it's you know granted they don't know where a lot of the

00:15:51.060 transmissions are coming from but I don't think there's been a single confirmed case uh you know

00:15:56.820 so I think what he what Kenny has done with just such slight regulate regulation loosening is he

00:16:04.020 made more people angry again uh there's already mla or mla drew barnes has come out today to say

00:16:10.900 he's not happy um he's you know he's calling for a regional uh approach because his area

00:16:18.340 down in medicine hat doesn't have very many cases at all you know so why is he being punished uh

00:16:23.700 just like the same area that may be overwhelmed with cases uh he says it doesn't make sense to

00:16:28.740 him and uh his uh his constituents are very angry yeah well and as was mentioned you know with the

00:16:35.300 icu usage i mean that's the big fearful benchmark i mean that's the nightmare scenario that's we're

00:16:40.820 thinking of thousands people coming to hospital in terrible respiratory distress that need

00:16:46.740 ventilators that need constant care so i mean we've paid for and set up field hospitals we've

00:16:52.260 been prepared we've been ready and it looks like aside from there there was some pressure when

00:16:56.980 things did spike in december there our icus were never even close to being under threat

00:17:03.940 again you know how many times do they have to predict doom and gloom and be wrong

00:17:09.620 before they'll start backing off exactly and you'll remember uh uh jason kenny in a quote that

00:17:16.740 he probably regrets now talking about uh body bags filling mcmahon stadium uh of all things

00:17:24.420 We had a story this week on the Western Standard about our old friends at SNC-Lavalin getting a $150 million contract to build field hospitals that nobody had asked for.

00:17:37.420 I think certainly the province had to plan for these things.

00:17:43.420 They had to make sure because we would be the first ones jumping on them if they hadn't, but it quickly became obvious that they weren't going to be needed.

00:17:52.420 And nobody seems to have been able to figure that out and what to do with these declining numbers.

00:18:01.800 Yeah, well, and they keep moving the goalposts and changing what we're supposed to be watching for.

00:18:06.400 I mean, first it was deaths.

00:18:07.760 Yes, that's a big concern.

00:18:08.920 Well, then it went to hospitalizations.

00:18:10.440 Then it went to cases, you know, all the way through fall and winter.

00:18:13.440 It was cases, cases, cases, cases.

00:18:15.020 Now the cases are going down.

00:18:16.060 The deaths are going down.

00:18:16.780 The ICU is going down.

00:18:17.580 Oh, now we've got to talk about our values.

00:18:19.120 Well, where does this stop? 0.79

00:18:22.420 And, you know, we've seen some horrendous bad modeling.

00:18:27.720 I mean, we saw that last spring where they predicted as many as 30,000 Albertans dead.

00:18:31.680 But perhaps they could be a little forgiven because we didn't know a lot about it a year ago.

00:18:35.540 We were erring on the side of safety.

00:18:37.720 There was a lot of concerns.

00:18:39.340 But with this variant thing coming out now, and again, it feels like they're crying wolf again.

00:18:45.080 The Alberta government put out again these projections showing the variants and a big, giant swooping graph.

00:18:50.580 And within weeks, we're going to be overloading our hospitals.

00:18:53.540 It didn't happen.

00:18:54.340 Not even close.

00:18:55.380 I mean, that was over a month ago when they predicted the variants were going to slam us.

00:18:59.140 They still keep talking about finding variants, but it hasn't led to this giant load of cases and hospitalizations.

00:19:05.480 Yet they use that to stop these openings.

00:19:08.560 And trust is being lost.

00:19:09.840 You know, how much longer businesses can have that carrot on a stick in front of them?

00:19:13.640 Exactly.

00:19:14.040 And now the big issue is inoculations and the fiasco the Trudeau government has turned that into.

00:19:22.060 And, you know, when Prime Minister Trudeau sees President Joe Biden promising everyone in America is going to have their inoculations by the end of May.

00:19:33.220 And we're sitting here with, what, 4% of our population done.

00:19:38.920 In Israel, it's 80%. 0.95

00:19:41.040 80%. I've got elderly parents in British Columbia. They're just under 80, just by a year, but

00:19:48.440 they have no idea when they're getting their inoculation. The inoculation will bring an

00:19:58.660 end to everything in theory, and it will get the world back on track. But we, Canada, just

00:20:04.700 hasn't figured it out yet.

00:20:06.360 No, I mean, and that's one of the areas where, you know, we like to get on Premier Kenney's case about a number of things, but his hands have been kind of tied because that was kind of a federal program.

00:20:16.840 But Canada's languished way behind third world countries in the acquisition and distribution of vaccinations.

00:20:23.540 We're seeing other countries talking about, you know, achieving herd immunity and opening up and moving along.

00:20:28.120 I think Texas has 20% of the population vaccinated and they said, you know what, we're opening the doors, we're done with this, we're moving ahead. 0.59

00:20:34.020 I know there's people, henny pennies running around or chicken littles, you know, oh, Texas, they're all going to die.

00:20:39.760 I don't think that's going to happen.

00:20:41.900 We certainly want to protect our vulnerable.

00:20:44.300 We want to get them vaccinated, those of us.

00:20:45.920 I understand some people don't believe in vaccinations, but as long as the majority do, we'll deal with that.

00:20:51.080 I certainly would never want to see it mandatory.

00:20:54.940 In fairness, nobody has said it's got to be mandatory.

00:20:59.340 Certainly, Premier Kenney has said he's against mandatory vaccinations.

00:21:03.180 I guess the next thing for discussion, Corey, is going to be pandemic passports where you might not be allowed to buy concert tickets or travel on airplanes unless you can prove you've had the inoculation.

00:21:18.720 You know, I guess that's when they become almost mandatory.

00:21:22.760 Yeah, and I could see, well, I could see a lot of lawyers rubbing their hands together and I could see our courts spending a lot of time on that.

00:21:29.580 you know, when it comes to a private business, perhaps if that's what they want is the standard

00:21:33.040 to allow people to utilize their services, maybe that's okay. But now we do have some charter

00:21:39.000 protected rights of travel. We can't use section one forever. And if an airline is preventing

00:21:45.440 somebody from getting on it and traveling because they won't have the passport, we start getting

00:21:50.740 into some very dicey territory. So I could see this going on for quite a long time yet,

00:21:55.760 even if the pandemic passes exactly so moving on to things that also have been illegalized is

00:22:07.280 having religious services so pastor uh coats is uh still in jail and uh he was due to have

00:22:16.160 a hearing today it looks like it's been deferred what's up with that dave yeah the uh the justice

00:22:22.080 Center for Constitutional Freedom was going to be representing Coates in court today. It's been

00:22:28.560 bumped for one day, it'll take place tomorrow. We all know the story of Coates arrested last month

00:22:37.360 for refusing to stop preaching and breaking COVID requirements of having only 15% capacity in his

00:22:46.560 church he was had hundreds and hundreds of people uh two bail hearings so far he has recruit refused

00:22:53.680 uh to commit to stop preaching uh so he uh he stays in uh stays in jail his wife says he's

00:23:00.800 he's lost weight uh he's suffering from neck problems now uh he's only allowed out of his

00:23:07.280 cell twice a day for 15 minutes at a time uh for a shower or or to exercise uh you know it's

00:23:15.760 It's unbelievable the conditions that he's being kept in, but his Grace Life Church is continuing.

00:23:23.860 The last two Sundays since he's been in jail, they proceeded with services.

00:23:29.540 The RCMP and health services attended both of them, publicly said that they've breached the law again.

00:23:39.280 But I don't think the RCMP knows what to do now.

00:23:41.820 both of their

00:23:44.160 press releases say we are

00:23:45.740 discussing about what next steps

00:23:48.120 to take

00:23:48.680 so do they continue throwing

00:23:51.700 a pastor

00:23:53.920 a week from that church into jail

00:23:55.800 surely

00:23:57.980 the RCMP and the government

00:23:59.840 know how bad these

00:24:01.860 optics look

00:24:02.580 and

00:24:03.400 that's why they haven't

00:24:07.900 come up with anything yet

00:24:08.860 all they're doing is holding discussions

00:24:10.960 holding discussions it'll be interesting to see uh tomorrow uh i don't see coats capitulating and

00:24:18.720 and agreeing to stop preaching uh so it'll be interesting to see if uh if a judge does

00:24:25.360 give him bail if not this trial is not scheduled till may so we'll be in there for a while

00:24:32.320 well that's certainly a lot of people are getting put into a lot of hard positions over all of this

00:24:37.520 you know um i'm of a mind of pushing for more relaxation of restrictions and allowing these

00:24:43.200 gatherings i mean i haven't seen evidence that has passed uh uh you know uh religious services

00:24:48.960 have caused any widespread infections or deaths or issues but it's difficult if you've got laws

00:24:54.400 that are set the government has to try and follow through with them and again the the optics though

00:25:00.480 of taking preachers off to jail i mean we've got a lot of world history of religious leaders being

00:25:06.080 imprisoned by the state and it brings a lot of triggers to a number of people that's the reason

00:25:11.280 that every democratic state on earth protects free religion uh this is just a disaster uh i mean more

00:25:18.080 churches are going to be standing up and again it's this government's poor policy you know bouncing

00:25:24.720 around with with where they're enforcing where they're not when they're opening when they're not

00:25:29.360 i i see more rebelliousness coming whether from churches whether from businesses because i mean

00:25:33.040 again they get told don't worry in three weeks you'll be able to open because of this oh i don't

00:25:36.080 know that you move the bar again you might change it again in the 11th hour i i don't believe you

00:25:41.360 anymore yeah in fairness corey it's not just alberta that uh barbecue joint owner in ontario

00:25:49.680 uh etobicoke if i remember correctly was slapped with 180 000 worth of fines uh this week um you

00:25:58.640 You know, I'm sure a lot of it will get raised in the GoFundMe by my supporters, but imagine a small business being fined that amount of money and being able to continue.

00:26:11.180 And as you said, the frustration at the moving goalposts is mounting, not just amongst clergy, but amongst businessmen.

00:26:21.280 And, you know, clearly the tipping point is closed.

00:26:24.120 yeah well and getting to a bit of that so uh tomorrow daniel smith's been holding regular

00:26:31.460 specials uh with the western channel or western standard on these these live streaming channels

00:26:36.280 and she will be speaking to uh the wife of pastor coats so i i imagine we'll we'll get some

00:26:41.800 very direct updates on this the status on where things are sitting with james coats and where

00:26:48.080 they're looking to go ahead with uh should be an interesting watch if nothing else i mean make sure

00:26:52.980 to subscribe to the YouTube channel or Facebook and as well, you know, subscribe. So I'll get to

00:26:56.800 some of that stuff too that Derek hits at the start. I'm going to put it towards the middle

00:27:00.240 end of the show here. Sorry, Corey, it would be nice if the pastor does get bail and maybe he can

00:27:07.100 join his wife with Daniel. Absolutely. That would make for a fantastic. You can speak much more

00:27:13.680 directly to it. I mean, it's well worth tuning in to see what's going on there with this issue

00:27:18.520 and to see that these people aren't monsters. They're not crazed criminals. You know,

00:27:22.040 there's some of the irony of the whole thing too. I mean, we've released a great number

00:27:25.620 of offenders from jails for fear of COVID spread within jails. And we're filling those empty jail

00:27:31.680 spots with people who did the terrible crime such as holding a religious service.

00:27:37.560 Boy, the world is in a crazy place. It really is. So yeah, just getting back as well to the

00:27:44.320 Western Standard and coverage of these things, the stories. Some people may have already realized

00:27:48.860 You're limited in the amount of stories you can get to now.

00:27:51.600 There is a paywall, but it's well worth subscribing to be able to see those detailed things that Dave writes,

00:27:58.700 those great stories, and keeping up on local Alberta news that the mainstream media just doesn't touch.

00:28:03.620 I mean, they don't go there.

00:28:05.160 They haven't changed, and that's why the Western Standard is rising up and doing as well as it has so far.

00:28:14.240 So, but what do you think?

00:28:16.200 I mean, we can see that the pastor being released on bail, but I can't see the government backing off on charges, do you?

00:28:27.340 Well, they did with the owner of the whistle stop.

00:28:31.540 You know, they paid for his legal bills and dropped it.

00:28:34.300 He still got public health charges, I guess.

00:28:37.320 But, you know, if they let him go, then the presiding judge is going to have to admit that his predecessors made the wrong decisions, I guess, especially if he vows to continue to preach, you know, the Sunday after he gets out.

00:28:55.240 But, you know, in a way, it puts the judges in between a rock and a hard place.

00:29:01.200 Also, they've got to interpret these laws.

00:29:05.680 The RCMP have to interpret the laws.

00:29:08.460 And nobody really seems to know what to do in this case.

00:29:14.320 Yeah, well, I mean, as much as it makes it so difficult to make judgments and choices, I mean, we should be happy.

00:29:20.660 This didn't turn into the plague that a lot of people were warning us it would.

00:29:24.500 We aren't, you know, filling McMahon with body bags.

00:29:27.720 We aren't seeing spiking infections.

00:29:29.340 I mean, I do think a lot of the pushback is still based on common sense.

00:29:31.560 I mean, we're careful.

00:29:32.740 If we saw evidence that people are really being harmed, if this was really transmitting and spreading and hitting a lot of people,

00:29:38.640 I think your average person can say, look, guys, you're just going to have to continue the virtual services for a while.

00:29:42.900 But as we keep, you know, they keep crying wolf and as they keep moving the goalposts,

00:29:48.420 we're going to see more rebelliousness on a number of levels, I think.

00:29:52.100 As those ICU documents that we obtained point out, the average age of death of a COVID victim in Alberta is 82, and 82 is also the average life expectancy in the province.

00:30:07.640 So, you know, certainly every death is tragic, and there have been deaths in, you know, people even as low as their 20s.

00:30:16.320 The majority of them are elderly victims, and again, not to diminish their loss or the family's loss, you know, but it increases the sense that the general population really doesn't have a lot to feel.

00:30:35.060 No, and I mean, the nature of this virus is, you know, I did more reading on the Spanish

00:30:40.760 flu because originally, it's funny, you don't hear people comparing it to that any longer

00:30:44.000 because if you look at it, that one was a pandemic that really was age specific in a

00:30:50.140 lot of ways too, but it hit children and it hit the young very hard and surprisingly,

00:30:54.700 it actually left the elderly alone.

00:30:56.340 This is kind of the opposite.

00:30:58.360 And when I used to work in the Eastern States, I think I talked about that before, I got

00:31:01.140 a thing for cemeteries.

00:31:02.080 I love touring them, looking around. And it was horrific. When you get into areas of 1917, 1918,

00:31:06.920 you'd see entire families over the course of two months that were buried in a plot. Like clearly

00:31:11.240 the flu just decimated them. Thankfully, we're not in anything like that. And it's not robbing

00:31:16.700 six-year-olds, seven-year-olds of a long, long lifetime. And I know it sounds terribly cold,

00:31:23.340 but I mean, yes, it sounds like it is taking people who were kind of on the tail end. I mean,

00:31:28.420 is robbing them of a few months, not a number of decades and years, which is still a robbery

00:31:33.320 of a few months. We want to keep ourselves alive as long as possible, elderly or with pre-existing

00:31:40.160 conditions or not. And we should isolate those people and really try to protect them as much

00:31:45.100 as possible. But realistically, yes, if we're healthy and young, the odds of this getting us,

00:31:49.540 I mean, as people said, you got a better chance of dying on a drive to work than actually dying

00:31:55.120 from this virus at this point it is as you said we live in a different world

00:32:00.760 now a world that can cancel dr. Seuss so yeah crazy times yeah well I'll close it

00:32:08.800 off there I think thank you everybody for tuning in make sure to subscribe to

00:32:12.940 the Western Standard subscribe to the YouTube channel we get those regular

00:32:15.580 specials you know you might miss it it's great to get in live because things that

00:32:18.860 Danielle is doing she just Q&A there's questions it's always gonna be posted for

00:32:22.780 to watch later as with this show but if you want to get in there and get your words in

00:32:27.100 this is best to get it live and uh yeah thanks i'll let dave get back to writing those great

00:32:32.700 stories and uh we'll see what kind of lunacy we've got to talk about next week a few good

00:32:38.060 ones coming up this afternoon core make sure you check the website you bet thanks dave thank you

00:32:52.780 You

Western Standard - March 04, 2021

The Pipeline, March 3, 2021

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