Western Standard - The Pipeline November 25, 2020

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00:05:02.980 30th. Kids in the younger classes will still be allowed to attend school in person. The

00:05:09.540 Premier says, you know, the younger kids are being good. It's just the teenagers who think

00:05:14.900 they're immortal who are going around spreading the virus. And as mentioned, the winter break

00:05:20.480 is being extended for a week and classes won't resume until January 11th. Restaurants and bars,

00:05:28.020 they can stay open, but a whole bunch of new rules and regulations that will affect their

00:05:34.180 operations. Only six people are allowed from the same family to sit at a table. You're not allowed

00:05:40.500 to sit with other families. So a couple of couples cannot go out on a double date. Myself, I'm single,

00:05:49.320 so I'm not going to go sit by myself, but apparently I'm allowed to have two named cohorts that I'm

00:05:57.400 allowed to go to pubs with. Who collects these names? Who do I give them to? How do I make that

00:06:04.180 selection? Nobody knows. Amateur sports banned. Nine outbreaks recently linked to recreation hockey

00:06:12.840 games in the province. Churches allowed to stay open, but only one third capacity. Kenny said some

00:06:20.320 churches have been flagrantly violating the rules. Businesses, some have to shut. Some are only

00:06:27.380 allowed to operate on a per appointment basis. Banquet halls, conference rooms, they're closed.

00:06:33.280 Personal services are closed. Retail stores can only operate at 25% capacity. So that's going to put

00:06:41.100 a large dent in their Christmas shopping budgets and estimates. Kenny did say one interesting thing.

00:06:48.940 He said during the first lockdown, the UCP, quote, made a grave mistake in allowing places like Walmart

00:06:56.780 to stay open because they sell groceries, but they shut down thousands of other businesses. And Kenny

00:07:03.080 actually apologized for that yesterday. You can go get your hair cut, but you have to have an appointment.

00:07:09.320 All workers are being asked to work from home and they're going to increase enforcement. You can get

00:07:16.360 up to a $1,000 fine if you have somebody over to your house and they're going to try and enable peace

00:07:23.080 officers to legally be able to hand out tickets. I guess the good thing is, Kenny says there's no plan

00:07:30.040 to set up a snitch line for Albertans to call their neighbors or to call police on their neighbors who

00:07:35.960 may have a Christmas gathering. But as I said, Derek, this is sure ruined plans for the Western

00:07:42.360 Standard annual Christmas party.

00:07:43.800 Shame that Dave, you and I won't have to blow a bunch of our huge bank account on a lavish Christmas

00:07:53.080 party this year. Thank you for the update. Reaction to this is being very mixed. We'll discuss reaction,

00:08:02.840 I think, pretty soon. But some of this is quite bizarre. Some of it was encouraging. I think it

00:08:08.040 was encouraging that the Premier apologized for the earlier move to shut down most small businesses

00:08:14.760 and retailers while the big box stores, the Costcos, the Walmarts could remain open. I thought that was,

00:08:23.720 I'm not sure I can ever recall Jason Kenny apologizing for anything, actually.

00:08:26.840 Absolutely. That was actually a refreshing move, I think, on the Premier's part. It showed a bit of

00:08:33.240 maturity. I think they received, you know, small business owners are really one of the bedrock

00:08:37.080 constituencies of the UCP's base in Alberta. I think they received a ton of blowback from a lot of their

00:08:44.680 core supporters on that. So in addition to it being probably a bad policy move, I think it was also a bad

00:08:50.440 political move on their part. And they recognized it and made sure not to shut down those small

00:08:56.120 businesses right now. So I think that was a positive move. But it was, I think he's, a lot of these

00:09:04.360 measures, it seems impossible to enforce. When the original lockdown took place, the full lockdown,

00:09:10.440 that was in roughly March last year or so. And there was nearly universal buy-in for it. The,

00:09:17.000 you know, there hadn't been enough time to test the data. The reports being given to people were

00:09:23.000 showing that this is going to be as bad as the Spanish flu, that we're going to have massive 1.00

00:09:27.400 death tolls, that the healthcare system was going to be swamped. We didn't have the capacity for it.

00:09:32.040 We had to flatten the curve, two weeks to flatten the curve. We all remember that.

00:09:34.680 And, but that was required universal buy-in or near universal. Now, I think you're at best 50-50. It's

00:09:44.200 going to be, I don't think there is the, to boil over a term from the left, the social license to do

00:09:50.760 this kind of thing. I don't think there is the public buy-in for a mass shutdown of the economy.

00:09:57.160 I don't know how the government's going to enforce not allowing you to have,

00:10:00.680 your kid to have a sleepover at your house. The government requires a warrant to enter your house

00:10:06.280 unless there's a crime in progress. These are, fall under provincial statute. These are not crimes.

00:10:12.120 If you're having, if you're having, if you're having your best friend over for dinner at your house,

00:10:16.600 that's not a crime. That's a provincial fine and statute. It's not in the Criminal Code of Canada.

00:10:22.520 So I don't think the police have the right to enter your house without a warrant. I'm not sure many

00:10:26.520 people will, I'm considering printing off a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and taping it

00:10:31.720 to my front door with a little subheading on it, get a warrant. But it'll be very difficult to enforce

00:10:41.000 this kind of thing and also have requirements of, are we going to now require identification of

00:10:47.160 people sitting down for dinner to make sure you're living in the same household? Again, quite bizarre.

00:10:51.640 I know in my case, I keep a very small social bubble, just three other couples and, you know,

00:10:59.720 we've had them over for dinner. I go hunting with the guys, the girls get together for drinks at a

00:11:04.280 house or something. We keep ourselves pretty close, but that's now even potentially illegal.

00:11:09.000 I don't know how the government intends to enforce this. I think a lot of this is going to be virtue

00:11:12.840 signaling. We'll see how rigorously they enforce this kind of thing, particularly when it comes to

00:11:18.120 people's homes. I think it's pretty bad press for a conservative government to have the police

00:11:23.160 barging, knocking down doors to people's houses without warrants. I don't think that's going to

00:11:27.320 fly very well. Corey, do you think that the government's going to have any ability to enforce this

00:11:34.520 on the one hand? And then second of all, maybe you can speak to the political pressures here.

00:11:40.600 We've discussed this before. I think to Kenny's credit, he has not seen lockdowns and masks as the

00:11:45.880 kind of virtue signaling, civic religious virtue signaling that most liberal politicians have,

00:11:52.520 or in the case of Doug Ford and Brian Palliser on the conservative side, if you can call them that.

00:11:58.280 I don't think he's seen this as a virtuous kind of civic religion, but he has been under tremendous

00:12:05.800 pressure in the media and from other political sources in Alberta to bring in a full lockdown.

00:12:10.920 So if you can speak maybe to, how do you think, how well do you think the enforcement's going to

00:12:15.160 work first and then maybe speak to the political pressures that are kind of shaping what's happening

00:12:19.240 right now? Yeah. Well, he's trying to be surgical. I mean, rather than doing a full lockdown

00:12:23.480 or appearing to do nothing, he's going by, well, this is where we have identified transmission.

00:12:28.440 So we're going to target those areas and try to reduce that. So they feel it's been happening more

00:12:33.800 in households, whether through school associations, bringing that home and then spreading it further,

00:12:39.080 or social gatherings. A lot of people think a lot of this spike might've come from a lot of

00:12:43.080 Thanksgiving dinners where you had outside household people coming into close quarters,

00:12:46.760 drinking, laughing, potentially spreading it. I don't think he's eager to, and I doubt again,

00:12:53.160 especially when we're talking about the political pressures that he's going to have

00:12:58.040 police coming in and cracking down on people at least anymore than they have to. The optics and

00:13:02.520 everything are just horrible. I mean, all of us are tired. I've been one of the ones most

00:13:07.640 reluctant and pushing back against restrictions, but you know, some of it all grudgingly tick.

00:13:11.240 You know, we were going to have Christmas at our place this year. We're going to have the family

00:13:14.200 members come over and everything. We've decided, you know what, we'll defer. Maybe if things are

00:13:18.840 sane in February, we'll have the family all come by and we'll do something then. It's not for fear of

00:13:24.280 the police coming in. You know, when I want to make a standout, I'll give them the middle finger and go

00:13:27.880 for it, but fine. If this is potentially going to help, it's a small sacrifice because I don't want to see the full

00:13:35.640 lockdown and people are pushing for it. People really want to do this. What'll be kind of interesting

00:13:42.200 is watching Ontario, Manitoba, where they have cracked down to see whether it helps. That's the

00:13:47.480 big question as well. Is it going to do a bloody bit of good? Is it going to be any better than with

00:13:52.040 this partial thing? I mean, yeah, the enforceability in restaurants is going to be very difficult.

00:13:56.200 Again, I think a lot of people will voluntarily not do it though. I mean, are you going to call a friend

00:13:59.720 and say, Hey, do you want to bring your wife out? Let's go have supper. You know, do you want to get those 0.66

00:14:03.320 side long stairs from the other people or whatnot? So I think a degree of it will

00:14:09.560 reduce contact, whether that makes a difference in the case numbers. I don't know, but he's under

00:14:16.200 pressure. He's trying to walk in the middle. He's getting it from both sides. So it tells me

00:14:20.440 he found balance. It seems whether it's a good balance or not, it remains to be seen.

00:14:25.080 Yeah. We've seen in the media, I mean, you know, Don Braid writes a smart column most of the time,

00:14:29.880 and he gets wrong sometimes, but he writes an interesting column that people on the left and

00:14:33.800 the right can take. But, you know, even Don Braid took a very specific ideological position on this.

00:14:40.040 The media have been broadly saying if Jason Kenney doesn't impose a full lockdown,

00:14:45.000 he is responsible for these deaths, that blood will be on his hands. And so there's been tremendous

00:14:51.640 political pressure from the media. The media have been singing, at least the mainstream media have been

00:14:55.160 singing almost uniformly from the same songbook with a few skeptical exceptions. And, you know,

00:15:06.520 so I think it's been largely political pressure. I think most UCP voters are a combination of either

00:15:14.600 believing that this is all bullshit, and I don't think we fall into that camp. But, oh, I think we're 0.99

00:15:21.400 frozen. Great. You know, we don't fall into the, this is all a hoax camp. But I think many people,

00:15:30.440 especially on the right side of the spectrum, are skeptical of the effectiveness of these things.

00:15:35.720 They're very skeptical of government period right now, because what they were told at the beginning

00:15:40.120 of this has turned out to be so wildly wrong with the modeling. We are so many times below,

00:15:47.320 even the least worst case scenario of COVID. It's bad. But, you know, and then we've got funny,

00:15:54.360 funny statistical anomalies, if we can call it that, of there are zero influenza cases this year.

00:16:01.080 I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is the first year in the history of Alberta that there are

00:16:05.000 zero influenza cases. So, I mean, it's, I suppose it's technically possible, but I'm willing to give

00:16:11.880 people pretty good odds on a bet that that's not correct, that there are influenza cases,

00:16:16.280 and they're just being misclassified as something else now. So, I think he's between a rock and a

00:16:21.640 hard place politically. I don't think they actually want to be doing this in the way that other

00:16:25.960 governments across Canada have gleefully done it. I don't, I think in their heart of hearts,

00:16:31.080 they might even think that this is kind of nonsense and won't really do very much in the long term.

00:16:36.680 But I think it's politically, they're giving into pressure on one side, at least partially giving

00:16:44.680 into pressure on one side that wants draconian measures. And they're trying to have the best of

00:16:48.120 both worlds here. But from everything I've seen, the lockdown Karen crowd, they're not satisfied with

00:16:54.840 this. And then the anti-lockdown crowd, they're not satisfied with this. And that's often a very

00:17:01.000 dangerous place to be politically. And don't forget, Kenny left us all with a dire warning yesterday

00:17:11.000 that these restrictions will be reviewed in three weeks. And if things aren't any better, he says,

00:17:16.840 it's going to get worse and the harsher lockdown will come.

00:17:20.360 Yeah. So speaking of dangerous places politically, maybe we'll talk about the reaction to this,

00:17:30.120 or I guess we've already been talking a bit about the reaction. Just this morning on Danielle Smith's

00:17:36.520 show on 770 CHQR, she was interviewing Rachel Notley. It was a very interesting way she opened up

00:17:44.360 her show today saying she's there's a bit of a movement to get her off the air. And she's not

00:17:51.560 even going to give any of her own perspectives today. She's just going to host and not not say

00:17:55.400 any of her own views. And to start that off, she had Rachel Notley on NDP leader and opposition leader.

00:18:02.360 And Rachel, she was asked, asked Rachel Notley point blank, because she was kind of beating around

00:18:08.760 the bushes about what she wants to see. She says, do you believe that all bars and restaurants should be

00:18:13.720 closed? And Rachel Notley said, and at least she gave a straight answer. Yes. Period. Said a bit after

00:18:21.000 that, but nothing to alter it. I can't give an exact quote. But Rachel Notley says she wants all bars

00:18:26.600 and restaurants closed in Alberta. Now, even if you think that this, you know, that we should have

00:18:33.880 extreme lockdown measures, if you close all bars and restaurants, and you make it illegal to gather in

00:18:38.920 people's homes, you know what's going to happen? People are just going to gather in homes.

00:18:42.360 So, you know, this is kind of like, like a water balloon, you're going to squeeze one side, it's

00:18:47.640 going to come out somewhere else. Humans are social creatures. We don't, most of us are not hermits

00:18:52.920 living in the woods, we want to see other human beings, even if it's just Cory. And, you know, we,

00:19:00.520 you have to do something. I think the trick should be how do we do it in the most responsible and

00:19:06.360 cautious manner, we reasonably can. And closing down bars and restaurants. So when, you know,

00:19:12.200 bars and restaurants were closed down in the first lockdown, the first full lockdown,

00:19:17.640 people gathered in homes. And if you're saying you can't gather in homes, and you can't gather in

00:19:22.120 restaurants, well, restaurants will just be closed. Most of them are not going to be like

00:19:25.800 that barbecue joint in Ontario that openly defy the law. These places don't want to receive fines for

00:19:30.520 doing it. It's just not profitable. So then people will just gather in their homes. But that's the

00:19:35.880 position of Rachel Notley. I'm not sure if it's because everybody working in these places is

00:19:40.280 ununionized or not. But it does seem to be that the only people who don't, who are protected from

00:19:47.880 losing their jobs and lockdowns are unionized workers, primarily public sector, but even private

00:19:53.560 sector are tend to be more protected from this kind of thing. Everybody in the private sector,

00:19:57.800 not in a union is much more susceptible to this kind of thing, particularly small business owners.

00:20:04.200 Well, yeah, as a former restaurant owner, I mean, that's a tough business at the best of times. And

00:20:08.920 then the people working there, I mean, they're very reliant on its servers and cooks, people in the

00:20:15.720 kitchen, and then places servicing these restaurants. I mean, there's a lot downstream,

00:20:19.240 there's truckers supplying us, there's tradesmen keeping that place going, like they are a big part of

00:20:23.800 the economy, the hospitality sector, in general. And the transmissions, again, she's making a giant

00:20:30.200 leap that these transmissions are happening in restaurants, and there isn't any evidence of it.

00:20:34.120 And you can see why I can actually see, you know, when you think about it, why it's happening more in

00:20:38.760 households than restaurants. In a restaurant, they are following rules, they are getting people to

00:20:43.160 sanitize their hands on the way in, they aren't socializing from table to table, they're staying

00:20:48.040 limited to their small group, they are masked when in transit, I mean, you got to wear a mask to go to

00:20:53.640 the bathroom, you're not as much measures as we could do to prevent transmission are happening in

00:20:59.640 restaurants where they aren't happening. As you said, when you squeeze that balloon, and suddenly

00:21:03.240 you've got 20 people in a household, who all hug and kiss each other on the cheek on the way in,

00:21:08.040 who perhaps share the odd wine glass, who have absolutely no controls going on, then transmission is

00:21:15.080 going to be higher. So when we're looking logically, it's not coming out of restaurants, so don't shut

00:21:20.360 them down. But Notley, again, she's a socialist, there's no economic reality in her mind. I mean,

00:21:25.960 there isn't, members will face that, they aren't looking at that, they just feel we can borrow,

00:21:29.320 borrow, borrow until everything gets better. And it's not realistic. So for her to whimsically say,

00:21:34.440 just close restaurants and bars, it means nothing to her. And it shows.

00:21:38.600 There's no doubt that a full lockdown, that will be the end, that will be the death knell for

00:21:43.480 for many establishment that are just sort of barely holding on at the moment. I don't know about you

00:21:48.840 guys, but I feel quite safe when I go to my neighborhood bar. They've had more visits from

00:21:53.560 health inspectors than than any place I know. They're in there at least once a week. I only sit with

00:22:00.840 my group of friends that I know are all practicing, you know, being safe. And as Corey said, masks on when

00:22:08.840 you go to the bathroom, masks on when you get up to leave. And the staffer, if you accidentally

00:22:14.920 forget the staffer, are always reminding you. And they're in a tough position this time of season

00:22:20.600 anyways, they're going to lose all of their Christmas party business. That's a devastating blow for some

00:22:28.360 some places that they will not recover from. And while still being able to operate,

00:22:34.120 these new restrictions are certainly going to put a lot of people off from even going there because

00:22:39.960 they can't socialize the way they even can now.

00:22:43.000 Yeah. Well, I guess this takes us to Manitoba. Maybe, Dave, why don't you bring us up to speed on

00:22:55.480 great sins committed by churches in Manitoba? It's a weird COVID world we live in, isn't it, Derek?

00:23:03.400 This is a case involving an organization called The Church of God. And they had a service on the weekend

00:23:12.520 that it was just southeast of Winnipeg in a place called Hanover. And they had more than 100 worshipers,

00:23:20.040 sorry, 100 worshipers show up for the service. And people saw all the cars in the parking lot

00:23:28.520 and saw all the activities and notified the proper authorities in Manitoba. Churches are only allowed to

00:23:36.040 hold services for five people maximum. So obviously, this church was flagrantly violating the law,

00:23:44.600 they knew it, and they didn't care. In fact, Tobias Thiessen, the minister of the Church of God seems

00:23:54.680 somewhat proud that he got $2,600 worth of tickets. He said, quote, I feel honored to get these and

00:24:01.800 receive them for doing something God wants me to do. So he doesn't sound repentant for his sins.

00:24:09.320 And I imagine coming Sunday, his parking lot will be full again.

00:24:13.400 Yeah, well, I guess I mentioned it in passing earlier. You're seeing more and more open,

00:24:21.160 almost civil disobedience type actions taking place against lockdowns in Ontario, where Doug Ford

00:24:30.120 has kind of bought into the religion of this thing. You know, you've got this barbecue joint owner,

00:24:35.880 I think he's kind of north of Toronto somewhere, or on the northern side of Toronto,

00:24:40.200 something in that area. He owns a barbecue shop. He's not allowed to open at all. And

00:24:48.440 and he did anyway. He said, too bad. So that wasn't COVID. Probably not. No guarantees.

00:24:59.000 You know, he opened anyway, and the place was so full that the police couldn't even stop it. And

00:25:03.320 and he's going to do it again. And it's not just it's not just people kind of scoff lying. This is

00:25:11.480 very open and in your face. It's publicized. And and they're taking it on almost as an act of civil

00:25:17.960 disobedience. You didn't see that in the March lockdown. But I think at that time, what else could

00:25:23.560 we do? I'm not a virologist. None of almost nobody is, except for a very select number of people,

00:25:30.280 a select number of even doctors. And we were told that this is how serious this is. And virtually

00:25:36.920 everybody bought in and went with it. That consensus has been smashed since March. That does not exist

00:25:44.200 anymore. So you just don't have the mass social buy in. So I just don't think these these lockdowns

00:25:50.680 are going to be are going to be particularly effective. Especially as you know, we squeeze

00:25:57.160 the balloon, it's going to come out somewhere else. You know, I bet you, you know, my church

00:26:03.080 attendance has been poor in recent years. But, you know, I can tell you when I used to be a very

00:26:09.000 more regular church church goer, if we were told we couldn't meet in church, we would just have a

00:26:14.200 service in somebody's home. You do that already for Bible studies. So this stuff is going to happen.

00:26:20.840 I think the the smarter thing to do would be where we were a couple of weeks ago, is just have

00:26:26.520 reasonable measures in place, asking people to be responsible, and be truthful about the data. And

00:26:33.400 in Alberta, at least, actually, the data has been relatively truthful. I think they're still over

00:26:38.040 reporting COVID cases, because if there are zero influenza, I got a feeling some people are getting

00:26:42.360 in there. What they're calling COVID deaths is often not a COVID death. These are people who are already

00:26:47.640 had very serious conditions, but they happen to have COVID. But at least Alberta is publishing

00:26:54.520 the data regularly, it's fairly verifiable, you can go through it, and you can parse the data.

00:27:00.680 And I think that's the best things people can do, because governments that have been more secretive

00:27:04.520 than, say, Alberta's. People lose faith in it. People don't trust it. And then that consensus

00:27:11.080 around reasonable measures we can take breaks down still further.

00:27:15.240 A bit of a side note, but still on the religious angle, gentlemen. I did a story this morning on the

00:27:21.080 website about the Archbishop of Vancouver, our Archbishop Miller. And he is, you know, confused,

00:27:29.080 he's baffled about BC's provincial laws when it comes to houses of worship. They have to close

00:27:36.760 as of November 19th. They're shut, no services allowed. And the Archbishop says that's unfair.

00:27:43.640 He's got a flock of 475,000 Catholics in Vancouver that he's in charge of, and he's no longer allowed

00:27:51.960 to minister to them. One of the puzzling things is his church is allowed to remain open for

00:28:00.520 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the basement, which he says is a good thing, but he's not allowed

00:28:05.960 to have worshippers inside. Very confusing for churches and worshippers across Western Canada.

00:28:13.880 Every province has their own individual rules.

00:28:17.080 Well, and if you close down the bars, then the alcoholics have to drink at home. That's a great

00:28:21.160 idea. We, as usual, we go through all your questions and comments.

00:28:28.200 Pardon? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, just since you're starting, I was just wondering what Calvin brought

00:28:32.440 something up. Does the state of emergency put Hinshaw in charge? Because Notley this morning

00:28:37.880 actually was, and I know that Premier Kenny has been playing a bit of a lot of politics over a while.

00:28:43.240 They kind of bat it back and forth. Well, we're listening to the medical experts, and then at times

00:28:46.600 when the medical experts don't say what they want, then they're kind of quiet. But is

00:28:51.160 Dr. Hinshaw now in charge due to the state of emergency?

00:28:55.800 No, this doesn't put Hinshaw in charge as if she becomes the Premier. The government didn't 0.56

00:29:02.840 break a glass on the wall and Hinshaw comes out with an axe. It's not like that. But I think she

00:29:09.080 is given greater measures. The big thing is that Cabinet is given greater control and it suspends,

00:29:17.560 at least in theory, some of the rules around habeas corpus and the right of government to

00:29:25.320 search your property without a warrant. Again, I'd still say anybody, just for disclosure,

00:29:31.800 don't have large gatherings at your home. That's probably a bad idea. But if you're going to have,

00:29:39.000 you know, one or two people over and you're having a responsible gathering, despite what the government

00:29:43.560 says, and the police come to your door, demand a warrant, they'll say they don't need a warrant,

00:29:48.040 but they do. If they enter your property without a warrant, it is unconstitutional,

00:29:53.080 because these are not crimes. These are provincial statute. And that does not qualify as criminal

00:29:57.400 activity, even if it's breaking a law. There is a significant difference in that,

00:30:01.080 that a lot of people, I don't think, understand. So if men in boots come to your house and demand to

00:30:09.960 be let in, you demand a warrant and do not allow them in under any circumstances. You don't have to

00:30:14.760 answer questions about what you're doing in your house if it's not criminal activity taking place

00:30:19.400 at that time. So the big thing is that the cabinet has more, more power. Hinshaw does have, Hinshaw,

00:30:26.200 so Kelvin Gula Jones says, yes, Hinshaw can do things without legislation. It's true. But generally,

00:30:33.160 these things happen with the consent of the cabinet. The cabinet, the executive council can order,

00:30:40.440 can make essentially laws through something called order and cancel, which is essentially a cabinet decree.

00:30:45.320 And now the government has greater latitude to do just that without passing legislation. So it is

00:30:51.400 significantly more authoritarian, but it isn't all the power necessarily in the hands of just

00:30:57.640 Dr. Hina Hinshaw. As I was saying earlier, we will come through your comments and questions

00:31:03.880 at the end normally, but every once in a while, if we're on the topic as we see it, we'll go to it.

00:31:08.440 Justin Coleman says, one wonders if all the politicians lost their wages, if this all of a sudden went poof.

00:31:15.320 Yes, the ECP took wage cuts, and rightly so, the feds gave themselves raises.

00:31:20.360 Yeah, I mean, it's no wonder that you got, you know, Gil McGowan and the Alberta Federation of Labor

00:31:25.800 representing unionized employees, many in the government. They're calling for total complete

00:31:32.200 lockdowns. Well, what's that going to do? It's going to bleed the private sector and increase the relative

00:31:36.760 strength of the public sector and unions. Politicians have, in many ways, actually, their job is easier.

00:31:44.680 I could tell you, serving the legislature for four years, going up, no events to Edmonton, 0.99

00:31:49.320 but leaving your family and going to Edmonton is a real pain in the ass when you can, and I imagine 0.99

00:31:53.720 all the more pain in the ass if you're going all the way to Ottawa. If you can be a legislator and 0.99

00:31:57.720 work from your living room, certainly it's not as prestigious and nice, but no one pays attention to

00:32:01.640 you anyway unless you're a senior cabinet minister or the leader of the opposition. So there really has been

00:32:06.360 no hit to the politicians. If they were feeling the pinch even half as much as people in the private

00:32:11.880 sector or small business owners, I have a feeling we'd be taking a very different approach right now.

00:32:16.200 Oh, absolutely. You know, Gil can sit in the comfort

00:32:19.240 of his place and tell other people to sit at home and go bankrupt. That's an easy luxury to have when

00:32:24.680 you siphon your money off of the other workers to pay your bills, but for people in the real world,

00:32:29.000 it's devastating, and I'm getting sick, actually, of people who were financially secure telling other

00:32:34.840 people to sacrifice on their behalf. Cut your own wages first. Western Standard, we mostly work from

00:32:39.800 home most of the week right now. We come into the office on Wednesdays and the other day for meetings,

00:32:45.320 but this is, for lack of a better term, a white-collar job. We can do this from computers, from the comfort

00:32:51.160 of our living room, unless you open for us where you have no internet, but most of these kinds of jobs,

00:32:58.280 we are fortunate. We are privileged that we can work from home. We don't have to go to a storefront,

00:33:04.120 bricks and mortar, and actually be there on the job. So for us, you know, we've taken an advertising

00:33:09.160 hit, but we're still able to continue doing our job, largely because our members have stepped up.

00:33:13.880 We've had a lot of new members join the Western Standard actually during this time. People make

00:33:18.040 donations that have helped keep us float. That's made up for a large part of our advertising hit that

00:33:23.000 we've taken, but a lot of people are not in this position. You're out in the oil field. You're flipping

00:33:27.720 burgers. You're waiting tables. You own a retail store. These people are losing their livelihoods.

00:33:35.000 And, you know, as terrible as this all, as the virus is, I would rather take a 0.02% chance with

00:33:42.040 my life than a 100% chance of potentially losing my house and my business on that kind of trade-off.

00:33:48.200 And economics is all about trade-offs, but we're not talking about trade-offs enough right now.

00:33:53.880 In the trade-off, I mean, a very small chance of contracting and then potentially dying from COVID,

00:34:02.040 which is terrible, but contrast with a near certainty of losing your business or your house,

00:34:07.960 I'm going to take the risk on COVID if that's the binary choice I'm faced with. We're not faced with it

00:34:14.200 in this job in media. We can work from home. And I can tell you, all the other media that are out there,

00:34:19.560 calling for lockdowns, they're working from home right now. Their jobs are safe. They're fine. And

00:34:24.840 they're taking checks from Ottawa to pay for it in most cases. But they're working from home. Their

00:34:29.240 jobs are not at risk. But they're lecturing everybody about the need to put other people

00:34:34.120 out of work whose jobs are at risk. End of rant. Well, let's go to something of a smellier variety.

00:34:43.000 Frenchman. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a family show. We're going to talk about the

00:34:51.240 fromage. The Bloc Québécois, arch defender of the supply management system, which artificially requires

00:34:58.520 the rest of Canada to buy disproportionately Quebec dairy in particular, but also other supply managed

00:35:06.680 goods. The Bloc Québécois has introduced a bill in the House of Commons that would require, which would

00:35:14.040 essentially ban the federal government from allowing any more importation of supply managed goods,

00:35:19.880 primarily cheese, but others as well in trade agreements. A little bit of background. Canada has

00:35:26.840 a Soviet style supply management system that has government quotas for how much you can produce

00:35:33.320 in a range of agricultural goods. When we have trade agreements, this is the biggest thing stopping us

00:35:38.440 from getting great free trade agreements across the world is everybody wants to buy and sell with Canada,

00:35:42.760 but we won't allow their dairy farmers or their egg farmers, et cetera, poultry to import in Canada

00:35:48.760 without massive, massive tariffs. There's a very small proportion of imported cheeses already allowed

00:35:54.120 without those super tariffs. But the Bloc still thinks that's too much. Dave, why don't you tell us

00:36:00.040 about this Bloc bill, what it is they're proposing, and anything we've heard from any of the other parties

00:36:06.520 in reaction to it? Well, you summed it up very nicely, Derek, calling it a Soviet-style

00:36:12.840 supply management system. But the Bloc has said you've given away too much already. They're obviously

00:36:19.480 defending their base, the Quebec farmers. They say that concessions have been made in the last three

00:36:32.600 free trade deals that Canada has signed, including the withdrawn NAFTA agreement. And they say that

00:36:41.480 things are taken away from their dairy farmers, and there's no compensation given back.

00:36:46.280 So they're bringing in this law, private member's bill, to ban any more concessions. And they're

00:36:54.280 demanding that money owed to the Quebec farmers be paid immediately. They're still waiting for

00:37:02.280 concessions from, or payment because of concessions from the last round. And Bloc leader Blanchet is

00:37:09.800 demanding Finance Minister Christina Freeland bring in immediate measures to give the farmers money.

00:37:17.880 And he's demanding that happen in the economic statement that's coming up on November 30th from

00:37:25.160 Freeland. So, you know, it's the Bloc defending their base, and I'm not sure how much support it's

00:37:31.880 going to get. As with all private members' bills, it will be very rare to see it pass. But we'll see

00:37:38.920 what happens.

00:37:39.400 Well, it is a minority government, so there actually is a chance to pass private members' bills in that

00:37:44.360 case. And, I mean, every single party currently represented in the House of Commons, the Bloc,

00:37:50.520 the Greens, the NDP, the Liberals, and the Conservatives, are all religiously in support of

00:37:56.840 supply management. You know, that was one of the big reasons, the key reason that Maxime Bernier

00:38:04.440 lost the Conservative leadership by a hair and led to a falling out there. And since his departure,

00:38:09.880 there's been no voice really in the Conservatives against supply management. It always just kind of

00:38:17.480 makes me chuggle, half chuckle, half cry, that the party in defense of free markets is defending

00:38:23.080 one of the most draconianly Soviet economic policies. It's even bad almost by many Soviet

00:38:28.680 standards. The Soviets allowed for some free trade in certain goods, so this would actually fall on

00:38:33.160 the more draconian side, even within the Soviet Union's economic policy. But I think there's actually

00:38:39.880 an excellent chance of it passing. If it doesn't pass, the Conservatives' base is very divided on this.

00:38:45.080 The caucus might be almost unanimously in favor of it, at least publicly. The Conservatives might be able

00:38:52.200 to oppose it on the sense that, oh, we support supply management, but we should, you know, we're gonna

00:38:56.600 have to make some concessions in trade deals. The Liberals might even have wiggle room on that. 0.95

00:39:01.800 So it's hard to say, but all it's going to require is the support of the NDP, which will support it,

00:39:07.800 almost certainly. And either the Conservatives or the Liberals, I think, would be enough to pass it.

00:39:14.840 The Greens will probably support it anyway, but their numbers don't add up to a decisive number.

00:39:18.840 So it's potential this thing could pass. Corey, I know you've got some feelings on supply management.

00:39:28.920 How do you think this is going to play out? Do you think there's a chance of the bill passing?

00:39:32.440 In particular, how do you think the Conservatives are going to react to it?

00:39:35.400 Well, I've long railed against supply management. I mean, it is an odious policy. It is.

00:39:40.360 It's Soviet style. It's repugnant. It's market control. It's been in for decades. 0.99

00:39:45.240 You know, I wrote recently just even on the animal welfare aspect of it, because also what supply

00:39:51.400 management does is it forces everything into large-

00:39:53.640 Corey writes animal rights crusader.

00:39:55.160 Yeah. And you can't get small market dairy products or poultry products because it's

00:40:00.920 unfeasible with the quota system. An analogy I like using is my wife, Jane, she grew up on a dairy farm, 0.92

00:40:05.800 a small one, and her father had a quota to sell cream, but he didn't have a quota to sell milk.

00:40:10.840 So literally they'd skim the cream, family consume as much milk as they can,

00:40:15.880 maybe feed some to the pigs. Even the rest goes into the ditch. It's illegal to sell it. Illegal.

00:40:20.360 I mean, that's, it's ridiculous, but the control that the cartels have on the politicians, 0.79

00:40:26.440 they've got them by the short and curlies. I don't know if the Conservatives will support this bill,

00:40:30.600 but you can be sure that they'll be silent in their opposition of it at the most, you know,

00:40:34.840 and I, as far as private member bills go, this one may very well get through because it's

00:40:40.680 following up with that very strong dairy cartel who basically has every political party in their

00:40:45.880 pocket. And I've seen that, seen that as the Achilles heel of the Conservatives. Every one of

00:40:51.320 them should look at their feet in shame when they try to claim to be a Conservative and then claim to

00:40:55.640 support supply management in the same sentence because they, they are complete polar opposite

00:40:59.320 policies and there's no excuse to keep supporting it.

00:41:01.320 Excellent. Well, uh, let's, um, uh, we're going to go to our remaining questions and comments. We'll

00:41:08.760 go to, uh, Eldon Siemens asks, does the Alberta Emergency Measures Act remove our constitutional

00:41:15.640 protections, uh, like, uh, freedom of association? Uh, Dave, do you want to take a crack at it?

00:41:23.160 Uh, that's a good question. Uh, does the constitution, does the charter of rights and freedoms,

00:41:30.600 uh, oversee everything? Um, you know, the short answer is to be blunt. I, I don't

00:41:38.760 really know. Uh, certainly when the elder Trudeau brought in, uh, the war measures act that over,

00:41:46.200 that, uh, you know, uh, overtook everything. It's now called something different, less ominous,

00:41:52.520 but it's still a federal thing. Uh, so yeah, I'm not sure the province is allowed to go, uh, uh,

00:41:59.000 that far. Even, even Kenny yesterday said, uh, you know, some of the restrictions that people want

00:42:04.680 would be against the charter of rights and freedoms and they have to be, uh, they have to be very careful.

00:42:09.000 Uh, yeah, I mean, it, it certainly does, um, it's a very constitutionally sticky issue or, or legally

00:42:19.320 sticky issue here. Uh, the Supreme Court has, I'm not actually sure if the emergency, at least the

00:42:26.600 National Emergencies Act, which is the renamed War Measures Act, uh, I don't think it's been actually

00:42:31.400 used since, uh, pure, uh, Trudeau the first used it, uh, with the FLQ crisis in Quebec. Yeah,

00:42:38.040 the October crisis with the FLQ terrorists in Quebec. Uh, I'm not sure if it's been used by the,

00:42:42.520 uh, since then. And we didn't even have the charter then. So I'm not actually sure this thing has been

00:42:46.200 tested in the courts. Uh, but generally go to courts tend to be sympathetic towards government

00:42:52.520 using powers in this sense. If it can just, as they would say reasonably justified in a free and

00:42:58.360 democratic society, uh, it'd be interesting to see, uh, uh, John Carpe of the Canadian Constitution

00:43:05.960 Foundation has vowed, uh, legal challenges, uh, if Alberta went into a lockdown, uh, I received a

00:43:11.960 call from him this morning. Uh, I expect it to be up, uh, probably sometime this afternoon. Uh, it sounds

00:43:19.000 to me, uh, like John is not satisfied with the, uh, not quite full lockdown measures in Alberta. Uh, it

00:43:25.960 sounds like he'll be making a challenge. So we actually couldn't see constitutional challenges

00:43:29.400 against this, but those things take a very, very long time, unless you're talking about an injunction.

00:43:34.280 Uh, and I think the courts would be loath to grant injunctions against governments at times like this.

00:43:39.720 Uh, but I, I think we could see court challenges about if the, if these emergency powers acts are in

00:43:45.560 fact, uh, constitutional or not. Certainly parts of them are constitutional, uh, the parts that grant

00:43:51.640 power to the executive at the expense of the legislature, essentially allowing the executive to make

00:43:55.880 laws without, uh, without passing an act of a legislature or without passing an act of parliament.

00:44:02.600 Uh, the courts are not going to strike that down. They should, but they're not going to, uh, they've

00:44:08.840 got a long history of upholding that. The bigger issue will be, uh, can violations of things like

00:44:14.920 habeas corpus be, uh, justified to the courts. Uh, you know, the, the ability of the government to enter

00:44:22.120 your home without a warrant, that kind of thing. Uh, that is to be determined. Uh, I think they

00:44:27.240 certainly violate the, the, the spirit and principles of the constitution. Uh, but it's

00:44:33.240 not yet determined if, uh, the courts will support the government in doing that.

00:44:37.240 Well, and the charter gives a huge out right on the beginning with kind of throws it into within

00:44:41.960 reason, you know, the government can infringe on these if they can come up.

00:44:45.080 The Canadian charter is so Canadian. There's no absolute principles in it. It's like, here's our

00:44:49.480 principles, but these are nice to have. But if the government can, uh, can justify taking them

00:44:53.800 away from you, well then. So it leaves a huge hole right off the bat. And then even then,

00:44:57.560 if you found a judge who said, no, you know what? That hole's not big enough. Uh, I'm ruling against

00:45:03.160 you. Well, the next thing down is the notwithstanding clause. Cause this, if this is a provincial thing

00:45:07.240 and it's a charter issue, the province can say, well, the court disagrees with us, but we're invoking

00:45:13.160 the notwithstanding clause. So we're exempt from it anyways. So I'm afraid that we don't have a

00:45:18.200 lot of charter protection if the government wants to go down the road. I mean, we'll see. Carpe is

00:45:23.000 going to give it a crack, but we'll see what happens. The only provincial government or the

00:45:26.600 only government in Canada period, federally and provincially, it's ever used the notwithstanding

00:45:29.640 clauses Quebec. Uh, you know, they use it like it's the morning after pill. Uh, they, they're free. Uh,

00:45:39.000 that might be a too accurate of a night, uh, but like, you know, they'll use it. They're like,

00:45:42.600 Oh, too bad. Uh, we're, uh, we don't really care. They use it generally on French language,

00:45:49.400 culture, ethnic issues. Uh, but I wouldn't be surprised if they use it in something like this. 0.76

00:45:55.240 Uh, but you know, the notwithstanding clause is very much taboo for governments to use. There's

00:46:00.280 a reason no one's used it across Canada, outside of Quebec. Um, so I, I think, you know, if the courts

00:46:06.280 did rule that these things were unconstitutional, I think that the government's would be very hesitant

00:46:11.400 to invoke the notwithstanding clause because it, uh, it is very much the political judicial nuclear

00:46:17.400 option. Okay. Uh, and we've got, uh, Ron Pike covering up the entire screen with his long, uh,

00:46:24.440 comments here. Just, uh, just before we get to Ron, uh, please, uh, keep your comments relatively

00:46:31.400 short. Try not to put URLs in a comment that you would like us to go to, uh, if it covers up the

00:46:36.440 whole screen, we're much less likely to get to it. If it's too wordy, try to keep your questions short

00:46:40.440 and concise. I know you got a lot to say, but please just, uh, try your best, but we're going

00:46:44.120 to go to Ron Pike. Uh, we kind of deal with the gist of it. Why do people not trust their health

00:46:48.600 officials? My opinion is that they are not being transparent with all of us, uh, giving us the case,

00:46:54.200 case, case speech, and then being inundated by Tam on every second commercial. Uh, I haven't,

00:46:59.320 I don't really watch TV, so I haven't seen these Tam commercials, but I'm, I'm told, uh, that they're terrible.

00:47:04.440 Uh, but I, I suppose we shouldn't judge it based on how well they come off, but, uh, I, I think

00:47:10.760 I'm not convinced that governments were lying to, uh, at least the Canadian governments were lying to

00:47:15.480 people when this all became an issue. I think they were just wrong. I think they were mistaken,

00:47:20.040 uh, and that in most cases they did not adequately atone for that. People make mistakes and governments

00:47:25.160 are human. Government's going to make their fair share of mistakes, uh, but they need to atone for them.

00:47:30.280 They need to admit to them and own up to them. And Canadian governments have not really apologized

00:47:35.160 for how wrong the modeling was. Uh, I think their reasoning as well, if we apologize, that means

00:47:40.440 we are wrong and then people won't trust us in the future. I take an opposite perspective. Uh,

00:47:44.920 if you're wrong, people will be more likely to trust you in the future if you fess up to it.

00:47:48.840 So I think Ron's got a, got a good point there that people are not trusting public health officials

00:47:53.480 because they have not fessed up to mistakes that they made. Uh, Tam herself said masks are essentially

00:47:58.840 useless. Don't use them. Uh, we've never heard an apology and retraction for that. They just simply

00:48:05.560 flip positions, uh, like, like she was a politician and said, uh, here's what we think now. And don't 0.98

00:48:11.400 ask questions about why we had 180 degrees different position in the past. Uh, Dave, uh, how do you think,

00:48:20.600 you know, have public health officials, uh, damaged their trust with the public? And, uh, and if you

00:48:28.280 think so, should they, um, uh, how do you think they should best go about, uh, atoning for that to

00:48:34.840 restore trust? Well, the two hardest words in English language seem to be, I'm sorry. Uh, you know,

00:48:42.680 we talked earlier about, uh, Premier Kenny apologizing yesterday, and that was the first time I think,

00:48:48.680 you know, has discussed that we've ever heard, heard him apologize. Uh, Tam, Tam, uh, as you,

00:48:56.040 as you said, has, has flip-flopped and, uh, and not apologized. The, uh, Ontario Auditor General came

00:49:05.160 out with a report today slamming the Ontario government's handling of the, the, the pandemic,

00:49:11.400 and the government's response was, well, you know, we tried our best with the information that we have.

00:49:16.360 So all stuff like that leads to the conspiracy theories, leads to people saying, you know,

00:49:22.200 I don't trust what Hinshaw is telling us. I don't believe what Tam is telling us now because she's

00:49:28.120 changed positions. And it is that sort of flip-flopping and, uh, that, that, that causes these people,

00:49:36.360 or causes conspiracy theories in people's minds. Um, unlike you, Derek, I think the Alberta government

00:49:42.840 has been fairly open and, and transparent with, with their numbers. Uh, there have been some

00:49:49.080 problems in the last week or so with, uh, with testing numbers, but, uh, I think overall they've

00:49:54.200 been, uh, uh, coming pretty clean. Uh, you know, it seems to me to, when, when new information breaks,

00:50:03.800 governments and, and health authorities are slow to react to it. And it's almost like the people get

00:50:08.920 the information and they're reacting to it quicker than the government health authorities

00:50:13.400 are. And I think the mask flip-flop was a perfect example of that.

00:50:17.240 Yeah. Indeed. Uh, well, let's go to one last curious comment from, uh, Calvin, uh,

00:50:24.920 Goulet Jones. I apologize. Uh, Calvin, tell us in the comments, if I'm masquerading your name,

00:50:29.400 it might be French, uh, Goulet or something. I think it's Goulet, but I, I don't know. There's no

00:50:35.000 TTE, but, uh, just let us know if I'm masquerading your name. I can, uh, as a Phil de Brandt, I can

00:50:40.040 appreciate people getting it wrong. Um, but he says, hire Danielle Smith. Uh, as far as I know,

00:50:45.480 she's already got a job, but, uh, if, uh, if she finds herself out of one for expressing

00:50:51.480 controversial opinions, we'll certainly be making a call to her. Uh, I think she'd make,

00:50:55.640 uh, certainly, uh, an interesting addition to the Western standard team, but I, I think she's got, 0.99

00:51:01.800 uh, I think she's got it right. Oh, and, uh, apparently I was wrong. Corey was right. It is Goulet.

00:51:08.840 So my apportion, my apologies, Calvin Goulet Jones. All right. Well, uh, thank you all very much,

00:51:15.880 uh, for joining us today, uh, sharing your time with us, your questions and your comments.

00:51:20.440 Uh, as usual, I want to remind you, if you're not yet a Western standard member,

00:51:23.960 please go to Western standard online.com right now, sign up to become a member for just a few

00:51:28.440 bucks a month. Uh, we do not accept government funding. We do not comply with government media

00:51:33.240 licensing. We're one of the very few, uh, independent media organizations in Canada that do that. And we are the

00:51:38.440 only one in the West, at least that I'm aware of, of, uh, of any kind of size and scope. Uh,

00:51:44.040 but, and if you are a Western standard member, thank you very much for your support. We really

00:51:47.720 appreciate it. Uh, if you thought that this was, uh, an interesting, uh, or at the very least

00:51:53.400 entertaining video you saw today, uh, please share this on your social media networks to, uh, to get

00:51:58.440 the word out and encourage others to become Western standard members. But, uh, thank you very much for

00:52:02.920 your time. Uh, we, uh, we appreciate, uh, you joining us today.

00:52:32.920 Thank you.

00:53:02.920 Thank you.

00:53:32.920 Thank you.

00:54:02.920 Thank you.

00:54:32.920 Thank you.

00:55:02.920 Thank you.

00:55:32.920 Thank you.

00:56:02.920 Thank you.

00:56:32.920 Thank you.

00:57:02.920 Thank you.

00:57:32.920 Thank you.

Western Standard - November 25, 2020

The Pipeline November 25, 2020

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