Western Standard - The Pipeline： Repealing Calgary’s insane anti-bag, straw, napkin policy

00:00:00.000 good evening this is the pipeline i'm your host this evening james finkbeiner i'm joined by

00:00:29.920 Nigel Hannaford our opinion editor. Great to see you here doing this James. Thanks for joining me

00:00:35.440 I like doing this with friends and not by myself and our copy editor and reporter Mike Thomas. Hello

00:00:41.660 thank you guys very much for joining me tonight. On tonight's show first up we have

00:00:48.780 Repealing Calgary's insane anti-bag bylaw. Well Mike why don't you explain this one to me. It's

00:00:56.700 ridiculous oh um basically what happened in council on uh tuesday afternoon was it was taken

00:01:05.620 to a vote to consider repealing the uh bylaw and it was a 10 to 5 voted yes we will uh repeal it

00:01:18.280 so what happens now is that it will go to council again on march 31st for a public hearing

00:01:25.940 which the public can participate in and you do need to register you go to calgary.ca if you want

00:01:32.940 to be in council chambers and give them your thoughts on on the bylaw and at the end of the

00:01:42.280 public hearing it will be voted on and I'm assuming if if this vote is correct it will be

00:01:47.620 voted down and it will disappear oh that would be nice yes it's uh it's interesting so a couple of

00:01:53.960 councillors had to switch their votes here. Nigel, what do you think got them to change their minds?

00:02:00.020 Oh, I think a massive public rejection of the whole concept. I mean, Mike here is talking about

00:02:08.420 if you want to be there in the council chambers, you'd better register. How about

00:02:13.700 if you want to be there in the TELUS Convention Centre, you'd better register because that's the

00:02:19.880 level of discontent and dismay about this and i think that people just well they perceive two

00:02:27.320 things one is that uh here's somebody else interfering in my life over something that's 0.97

00:02:34.360 pretty both petty and important at the same thing like there's not a big deal in itself but darn it 0.68

00:02:40.200 you know you can't even you can't even have a plastic bag for your past steps right so you take

00:02:48.120 one out of your pocket that's still still usable from three weeks ago when they were legal you

00:02:53.000 know people don't want to be reduced to doing that and the other thing and i heartily concur

00:02:57.720 with this is this is just not something that any city council this one especially should be

00:03:05.000 concerning themselves with i mean this is just aren't we good peoples caring about the earth

00:03:11.160 i'm glad you care about the earth but this is not the way to do it fix the roads get that done right

00:03:18.120 take care of the sewers, look after the parks,

00:03:21.760 make sure there's somebody to cut the grass,

00:03:24.280 and, you know, handle police and fire.

00:03:27.740 Well, totally.

00:03:28.200 And then leave it alone.

00:03:29.140 It's just more bureaucratic bungling.

00:03:31.780 Yes.

00:03:33.300 It makes no sense to drive up to a McDonald's or wherever

00:03:38.020 and ask for your order, and then you ask for a bag,

00:03:41.740 and they charge you 15 cents for that.

00:03:43.600 And I think the thinking is, well, if you're going to pay for the bag,

00:03:47.480 you won't throw it in the garbage or it won't end up on the street or something like that.

00:03:51.340 Of course, that's not true. Not true. But we were talking in the newsroom yesterday and

00:03:55.980 we have a very efficient bottle return system that nobody complains about. You get your bottles,

00:04:04.140 you take them back, you get your money and off you go. And so why can't we set up something like

00:04:09.240 that in terms of the ketchup packets or bags? How it would be structured? I don't know.

00:04:16.580 that takes some thought but why not just add an extra nickel or whatever it is to the bag the

00:04:22.800 ketchup pallet and then you take them to the we have the depots in place uh take them to the

00:04:29.200 depot they weigh them or count them or whatever they do and they give you some money back and

00:04:34.380 now they've got these uh bags and things like that that they can engineer to put into uh waste

00:04:41.740 removal properly. But you know, I don't usually give a shout out to other groups, but I've got

00:04:49.420 to say the Canadian Taxpayers Federation made a very good point in their comment on this

00:04:55.540 when they just said, look, it starts small and it gets bigger. It's

00:05:04.600 strap this tax before it balloons into wackier items,

00:05:11.560 wackier plans like the city of Vancouver had to abandon.

00:05:16.220 Well, this I did not know.

00:05:17.280 I missed this completely when it happened,

00:05:21.000 but the city of Vancouver had a policy on paper cups.

00:05:27.060 Yes.

00:05:28.080 Do you know about it?

00:05:28.820 I do.

00:05:29.400 Yeah, well, they've abandoned it.

00:05:30.660 Anyway, sometimes reality and practicality just runs smack into ideology, and as this is an ideology that it's somebody's job, but it's not city council's, then I'm very glad to see this development.

00:05:45.860 Well, like Dave and I were talking about earlier on the Corgan Morgan show this afternoon, we were talking about the bike lanes and how the bike lanes are immediately cleared of snow.

00:05:56.620 But we have bylaw officers and essentially the sidewalk enforcement for sidewalk shoveling is done by bylaw, but it's done when they are requested to enforce.

00:06:06.700 So how would this law have even been enforceable?

00:06:09.340 Are we going to put Calgary bylaw officers in McDonald's and make sure they're charging 15 cents for a bag?

00:06:15.860 So it's only been in place for, I think, a week, maybe a week and a half. But I will tell you that there has been very few times I've actually been charged for a bag. And I know that because after the order has been completed and I have paid, I have then been offered a bag.

00:06:32.540 Now, I'm not going to rat those businesses out. They're awesome people. They're great places. I go there frequently, but I have not had to ask for a napkin, ask for a fork, or pay for a bag outside of the grocery store.

00:06:46.580 but you know james i'll tell you how these things get out of hand there will be some person who has

00:06:52.900 decided that this is their cause all the things on god's green earth that they're going to care

00:06:58.800 about they're going to care about paper bags and plastic forks and they will go to fast food

00:07:04.980 restaurants and they will be given one and then they will turn around and rat out the and then

00:07:10.200 the bylaw officer will show up and you get two or three prosecutions and then suddenly everybody

00:07:14.620 starts to do it. That's how these things get. And that's actually a really vicious

00:07:18.340 anti-citizenry, just a real bad form thing to do, but that's what happens.

00:07:24.620 Well, and if the goal is to...

00:07:26.140 What happened during COVID, by the way?

00:07:27.700 Oh, exactly.

00:07:28.340 If somebody sees somebody having a good time in their front room, call the police.

00:07:31.940 Call the police. Bastards. 1.00

00:07:33.180 If the overall goal is to actually reduce waste and reduce what's going into the landfill and 0.99

00:07:39.300 deal with the plastic crisis, which I have a hard time with this plastic crisis, I don't

00:07:43.860 believe there is a crisis. You know, we have plastic pollution. I think it's dirty. I think

00:07:48.000 we could all clean up our act a little bit. But why would they go after the compostable bags for

00:07:54.480 one? And why wouldn't they be encouraging that? These bags go into the municipal compost facility.

00:08:01.120 They were designed with the municipal compost facility. This could be a solution to the plastic

00:08:07.720 problem completely because not only do they work in the environment as compost, but they work in

00:08:13.300 the municipal facilities.

00:08:15.240 Now they're saying they were trying to stop the compost

00:08:19.220 or the waste from getting to the facility in the first place.

00:08:21.800 Well, what's the point of having a compost facility

00:08:23.660 if we're not gonna compost?

00:08:26.320 Fair point, and if it's not gonna go,

00:08:28.520 the waste is going to be generated anyway,

00:08:31.260 so if it's not gonna go in a compostable bag,

00:08:33.740 what is it gonna go in?

00:08:35.780 Interesting point.

00:08:37.140 So, yes.

00:08:39.160 Like, we're not gonna stop using bags for our convenience.

00:08:42.260 And the paper bags are one thing, but the cloth reusable bags or the reusable bags that they call them, they only last for so long.

00:08:50.940 They're not recyclable.

00:08:51.860 They're not compostable.

00:08:52.760 So why wouldn't be, they're going to become part of the plastic problem or they're going to be part of the waste problem.

00:08:59.200 So why wouldn't we be encouraging compost and building up that compost facility to be able to handle the additional compost if we're moving away from plastic and paper and other type stuff?

00:09:09.380 you know, it's definitely been frustrating. It's one of those things where, you know,

00:09:14.840 it probably looked great on paper. And when they've seen it in practice, or they got handed

00:09:19.580 their McDonald's burger and their fries and whatever just through the window, and all of a

00:09:23.580 sudden there's kids with dumping pop all over the vehicle, and there's fries in the cup holder.

00:09:28.920 You know, I bet these counselors got a lot of very angry phone calls. But, you know, more to that,

00:09:33.580 it's affordability. And right now, no one in Canada is having a great time. Groceries, gas,

00:09:40.320 home heating, absolutely every aspect of our life. The costs have gone up. I actually did

00:09:45.300 some quick math. So I've been using HelloFresh for a while. That is seven meal kits delivered

00:09:51.380 to my house once a week. That would be 15 cents per bag. Essentially, that's going to work out

00:09:56.900 to $50 a year. $50 a year in the grand scheme of things isn't a ton of money, but realistically,

00:10:03.580 if I have kids, a family, a mortgage, fuel,

00:10:07.580 and everything else has gone up,

00:10:09.100 that $50 for some people comes down to being able to eat

00:10:13.380 or being able to heat their homes.

00:10:15.700 50 bucks a year, you spend 50 bucks a week on cigars, come on.

00:10:19.740 I actually spend about $116 a week,

00:10:22.840 actually I think it's 160 now.

00:10:25.960 I don't let them tell me how much I'm actually paying

00:10:28.500 because it's 75 or 80% taxes

00:10:33.240 on those as well.

00:10:34.260 So I just feel so frustrated that my weakness

00:10:38.080 is just giving Trudeau more money to blow.

00:10:41.720 Yeah, so I'm glad to see that-

00:10:43.560 You need counseling for them.

00:10:45.680 Well, yeah, actually the Alberta government is actually,

00:10:49.960 well, all of the governments in Canada

00:10:51.340 are actually stepping up their addictions treatment

00:10:54.220 for smoking, which is good.

00:10:56.280 I wish they would treat meth and crack the same way though.

00:10:58.360 Yes.

00:10:59.120 Especially with the warning labels

00:11:00.700 that they put on cigarettes.

00:11:02.160 Um, but that actually brings us to, uh, to our next point here. They are going to delay MAID for the mentally ill. Now, I, this, this, this to me has been disgusting. Um, I, I, I support the MAID program. I do. 0.91

00:11:20.140 I don't think somebody who has ALS, cancer, where their death is imminent and there's no way out of it, they should be able to die with dignity.

00:11:31.080 But that's not what this is.

00:11:32.760 People with mental health and addictions issues, those can be treated.

00:11:36.400 So how did we get here?

00:11:39.880 Very good question.

00:11:41.300 Yeah, really.

00:11:41.780 And I think that we got to this point the same way we got to quite a lot of other issues that divide us these days in society.

00:11:50.420 There's a certain worldview, a certain mindset that makes human beings expendables.

00:11:58.040 And when you remove the certainties, certainties, for instance, that come from religious belief,

00:12:05.680 Well, when anything goes, and if you're going to argue that human beings are essentially commodities or they're like animals, just a sort of a more intelligent animal, that in itself is perhaps a debatable point.

00:12:18.640 But anyway, you know, you ask how we get here?

00:12:22.080 That's how we get there.

00:12:23.060 I actually like the way that you put it just then, that people who are in an extremity, I think that is their choice.

00:12:35.680 I hope that I would not make it myself because that doesn't square with who I say I am.

00:12:43.320 But also, I've never experienced the kind of pain that somebody who is a week away from dying with ALS, for example, will experience or the worst forms of cancer.

00:12:54.760 where the problem comes in and you you said this is that when we expand it

00:13:02.780 to people who aren't just about to die but who are going to die at some time in the next year

00:13:12.100 which is where we have got to at the moment and the plan was to make it possible for people who

00:13:17.720 are just not having a good time they're mentally ill 0.93

00:13:21.420 somebody who is so mentally ill that they can't even drive their car should probably not be 1.00

00:13:29.280 making a life and death decision about themselves so is the government looking at them as a burden 0.99

00:13:35.020 on society and let's just get rid of them and i hate to use that language um you know mike

00:13:40.880 a lot of people say that and it's like a lot of these things there is some truth to it 0.98

00:13:45.900 There was a report put out two years ago that made at that particular point

00:13:51.900 was saving, I think, the province of Ontario about $90 million a year.

00:13:57.260 Well, $90 million is a lot of money to the ordinary citizen,

00:14:03.720 but for a health system, for a province, it's peanuts.

00:14:07.420 So I don't really think that's what's driving it.

00:14:09.480 I honestly think that it's a misguided sense of human rights.

00:14:14.240 but it is misguided

00:14:16.100 and let me tell you a story

00:14:17.320 we have a columnist, Linda Slobodian

00:14:20.420 very popular, very well read

00:14:22.900 and about a year ago

00:14:25.000 she got tipped off

00:14:26.360 about a young man

00:14:27.940 and this by the way is before these

00:14:29.640 laws that have now just been delayed

00:14:32.720 were even being

00:14:34.820 talked about

00:14:35.380 a young man, 23 years old

00:14:38.020 had diabetes

00:14:40.800 he was losing his sight

00:14:42.780 and we think he was depressed.

00:14:47.080 He found a doctor in Ontario

00:14:51.500 who agreed to give him medical assistance in dying.

00:14:54.920 The date was set.

00:14:56.420 Linda researched the story.

00:14:59.100 She had plenty of help from the anguished mother 1.00

00:15:01.560 and created enough of a stink about it

00:15:05.960 that the operation didn't go through.

00:15:09.880 This was all in our back files

00:15:11.220 for anybody who's really interested.

00:15:12.780 a second story about three months later talked about how this young man was now

00:15:18.300 living with his grandparents which was I guess a for him you know a good good

00:15:23.400 place to be he was busy and he had a girlfriend he wasn't talking about made 0.89

00:15:30.660 anymore so you know people who are mentally ill it can change oh yes yes

00:15:38.280 People have been in deep depressions, and then they've come out of them.

00:15:43.600 Sometimes it's with medication.

00:15:45.020 Sometimes it's with the gospel.

00:15:47.000 Sometimes it's just, you know, good medical treatment.

00:15:50.680 Whatever it is, mental illness is not the end.

00:15:53.660 And to have somebody take their own lives while they're in that condition is just unconscionable.

00:15:58.840 It shouldn't happen.

00:15:59.780 I think one of the most detrimental things you can do to somebody who's struggling with mental illness, depression, anxiety,

00:16:06.540 is to say you've given up on them.

00:16:09.800 And I think that the message this sends by saying,

00:16:13.340 oh, well, you can get made,

00:16:14.860 is that society has given up on them,

00:16:17.160 that there is no treatment for mental illness,

00:16:19.280 that the way you feel right now

00:16:21.760 is the way you're going to feel forever.

00:16:23.240 And that's not true.

00:16:24.620 We have decades of science that says mental illness can be treated.

00:16:29.300 And like you said, there's many different ways to treat it.

00:16:31.540 It can be a doctor.

00:16:32.640 It can be medication.

00:16:33.680 It can be talk therapy.

00:16:34.860 It can be religion.

00:16:35.720 It could be a new job. You can ask your barber, you can ask your hairdresser. A haircut can cure depression, at least for a few hours. But it's shocking to me that the medical community, and especially this is being driven by people on the left, that, you know, they're the ones that say we need to do a better job of protecting the vulnerable in society.

00:16:56.480 We need to have better social supports. We need to have better social security and we need better health care and treatment for these people.

00:17:03.600 And then at the same time saying, but if that doesn't work, you know, just die. 0.87

00:17:08.260 Yeah. And I I I can't I can't square that circle. 0.96

00:17:12.540 No, and that's because you're a sane individual. There were 13,421 people, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, who received medical assistance in dying during the year 2022.

00:17:29.000 That's about a third more than it was in 2021, which is about half as much again as it was in 2020.

00:17:35.160 And it is going up exponentially.

00:17:37.500 So much for the idea that we're waiting for people in extremis to do this.

00:17:42.520 It is becoming a choice.

00:17:44.780 Now, they don't actually list medical assistance in dying as a cause of death in Statistics Canada.

00:17:52.620 But you can find the numbers with the Public Health Agency of Canada,

00:17:57.900 which does have a silo office dealing with this and nothing else.

00:18:02.180 So there's the number.

00:18:03.160 Let me take that 13,421 and move it over to the Statistics Canada table,

00:18:11.820 and it works out as the seventh largest cause of death in Canada.

00:18:18.340 You'll never see it in Statistics Canada.

00:18:20.620 If you had cancer and you took MAID, you're just a cancer victim.

00:18:23.580 But over here in PHAC, they know who you are, and they list it separately.

00:18:28.660 But that's how prevalent this is becoming.

00:18:31.820 Ordinary suicides, when people just finish themselves off, less than 4,000.

00:18:36.600 Medical, 13,000.

00:18:39.100 It's astonishing how it's growing.

00:18:41.040 Yeah, that's a shocking number.

00:18:44.180 There's been exponential growth on this, but we've even seen stories.

00:18:48.020 I think the one story came out of Ontario where someone was experiencing homelessness,

00:18:52.560 or their rent had gone up, they were going to become homeless.

00:18:56.580 And one of the options that was presented to them was MAID.

00:18:59.040 And it feels like this has become the backup default of we don't know.

00:19:04.840 And they throw their hands up in the air and it's tough.

00:19:08.240 It's a hard problem to solve.

00:19:10.860 And they say, well, how about MAID? 0.99

00:19:12.500 Yeah.

00:19:13.280 Well, you'll never get anybody in officials to confirm this,

00:19:16.700 but the anecdotal experience of people who are in hospital,

00:19:21.440 if they're in tough shape and, you know, things are not looking good,

00:19:26.140 they're very quick to mention that made is a possibility.

00:19:29.440 Like, they really market this.

00:19:31.920 Why? Why?

00:19:34.160 Well, I honestly think that some people believe they're doing a good thing.

00:19:40.060 You know, most people actually do think that they're doing what's right in their own eyes.

00:19:45.260 They don't do what's wrong in their own eyes.

00:19:47.760 It might be what's wrong in your eyes and my eyes and Mike's eyes.

00:19:51.440 But they honestly think they're doing a good thing.

00:19:54.560 I think as a society, maybe we should take a little bit

00:19:57.420 of time to reflect, take a look in the mirror

00:19:59.320 and really ask ourselves what we should be doing

00:20:02.640 to help people and how we should help people.

00:20:04.820 But let's move on to something less depressing

00:20:08.240 and equally as tragic.

00:20:10.500 The CBC bosses say that they are protecting us

00:20:15.300 from misinformation.

00:20:18.400 Yes, they are.

00:20:19.320 Look at that here.

00:20:20.880 This is, I got this from Nigel's, 10 pages of corrections that the CBC has made on its own

00:20:29.220 broadcast, right here. This is off its website, Mike. Right off the CBC website. So people,

00:20:34.760 you can go have a look at it. It's just, it's unbelievable. We said this, whoops,

00:20:39.480 that was wrong. We said this, whoops, that was wrong. And so they're the defenders of

00:20:45.120 misinformation? I mean, they're the providers of misinformation. I hate that everything goes

00:20:54.260 back to COVID all the time, but we have to with this one, we go back to COVID and first we talk

00:21:00.300 about the fear. And the fear that was propelled out of the mainstream media was crazy. And we go

00:21:06.040 all the way down to the trucker protest and then look at story after story after story of the

00:21:12.040 misinformation and the fear that they drove around the convoy. So. Those things aren't in here.

00:21:19.820 No? No, this is, these are kind of reporter errors where it's a, mostly it's a reporter

00:21:25.180 error as a matter of fact. I mean, look, let's be fair. Let's give the CBC their due. This is what

00:21:31.220 they say. This is on their website. As part of their commitment to transparency, they're publicly

00:21:37.380 tracking significant corrections. So these are the, you know, these are the multiple significant

00:21:43.620 corrections or clarifications. At least they do that. I will give them that. But when you go

00:21:49.780 through it, you do get a little weary sometimes. And there are some things which, you know,

00:21:59.120 you mentioned the trucker's convoy. I don't see that in here. I don't see them saying, well,

00:22:03.000 Well, actually, we kind of got that wrong.

00:22:06.660 And if we're going to be talking about misinformation and disinformation,

00:22:10.300 what about the CBC's refusal to call people who murder and brutalize other people terrorists?

00:22:22.180 You know, obviously, I'm talking about the Gaza situation and the incident that stopped it.

00:22:26.720 I mean, I don't want to even talk about some of the things they did

00:22:29.500 when they jumped the border and started killing people at that rave.

00:22:32.580 And it goes far, far beyond a quick bullet in the head or anything like that.

00:22:38.860 And that's plenty bad enough.

00:22:41.060 They won't call that terrorism.

00:22:44.160 Now, to me, that is an act of disinformation in itself, not misinformation.

00:22:49.500 This is an attempt to deceive.

00:22:51.140 Yeah, absolutely.

00:22:52.320 Absolutely.

00:22:54.640 They want to control the narrative.

00:22:57.800 And they think that their job is to control the narrative countrywide.

00:23:04.220 And that's just simply not true.

00:23:06.200 That's why we have so many different independent news agencies popping up.

00:23:09.820 Most of them, like, well, The Rebel, for example, part of their mission statement, they say, is to counteract the CBC.

00:23:17.220 And, you know, you see the CBC take activist stances on things all the time, particularly around the terrorist attacks in Israel and the ongoing war there now.

00:23:27.800 And, like, they're sending everything to the managers to approve before it goes out.

00:23:34.440 And, you know, it'll take you three seconds to Google CBC Alberta,

00:23:38.240 and you can find Kaylin Ford and the outright lies that they published about her.

00:23:43.420 That case is still ongoing.

00:23:45.520 But even our own premier had to settle with the CBC just not long ago

00:23:49.960 over a lawsuit, over their misinformation.

00:23:53.380 Well, actually, they do make reference to this here.

00:23:56.200 They do.

00:23:56.460 They're kind to themselves.

00:23:57.800 So is that internal policy or is that coming from outside the organization, do you think?

00:24:06.340 I think it's coming from inside the organization.

00:24:09.020 I think it's coming straight from the top.

00:24:10.740 You look at the CEO and the bonuses right now, and she has been on a media tour being absolutely unapologetic about laying people off and taking her $100,000 bonus. 1.00

00:24:22.400 I could not imagine how they measure success in their business then, because if you look, I actually looked at this. So when I was looking at an article that you guys sent me, the articles that come up referencing CBC, CTF calls for CBC head to cut executive bonuses after layoffs.

00:24:41.700 CBC CEO misled with Indigenous language services claim.

00:24:46.000 CBC faces TV ad revenue crash.

00:24:49.200 Heritage Minister tells CBC to justify executive bonuses.

00:24:52.860 So where's the good job?

00:24:56.380 There was two misinformation articles right there, and then followed up with, well, you take a billion dollars of tax dollars.

00:25:05.660 You make an aggressive salary to start with.

00:25:08.660 Your ad revenue is crashing.

00:25:09.980 You had to lay off employees, but you did such a good job.

00:25:13.360 You're going to get a $100,000 bonus.

00:25:16.640 I think the bonus structure around here, Derek, and I are going to have to have a talk.

00:25:20.520 I was going to bring that up.

00:25:21.900 Yeah.

00:25:22.320 Apparently, I need to nosedive the advertising department, and then I'll get a bonus.

00:25:28.260 You know, this business is about where does the direction come from.

00:25:33.020 I know a lot of people who are very concerned about the CBC think that it flows from the top.

00:25:44.300 I don't. I'm with you on this.

00:25:46.840 I am convinced that within the CBC, there is a hiring method that excludes people who don't follow the basic prescription.

00:25:58.140 There may be some difference of points of view at the margins, and some people are a little more conservatively inclined than others.

00:26:08.940 But fundamentally, if you don't fit the left-wing progressive mold, you're not going to get hired.

00:26:17.380 And the other thing, many people like to imagine a situation where there's a call from the PMO to the CBC.

00:26:25.920 okay we'll take care of it. I don't believe that happens. Nobody needs to be told because they're

00:26:32.700 all those kinds of people in the first place. They wouldn't have got the damn job if they 0.98

00:26:36.920 weren't that kind of person. That's a very good point. That's a very good point. So when it comes 0.99

00:26:43.620 to defunding the CBC, fine if that's what it takes. What it really is going to take is a

00:26:51.800 wholesale sacking day in the upper echelons where these decisions are made and a new cadre of people

00:26:58.180 who have a different approach to journalism where they go back to the old way which is what we

00:27:03.720 practice here by the way whereas you take both sides and let the reader make up their own mind

00:27:09.660 or the viewer make up their own mind you don't adopt the new ethic in journalism and this is

00:27:15.700 what they're teaching in journalism schools today whereas you the journalist have an obligation

00:27:20.380 to place a certain point of view in front of the public

00:27:23.820 so that the public understands what's right.

00:27:26.360 And everything else is misinformation and disinformation. 1.00

00:27:28.980 People are too stupid to be able to figure it out. 1.00

00:27:31.280 Oh, exactly. 1.00

00:27:31.740 A great example of this is just in the last week.

00:27:35.500 I believe the CBC article that came out that said

00:27:38.340 taking the GST off the carbon tax would cost the tax dollars a billion dollars.

00:27:44.980 But I believe our headline was taking the GST off the carbon tax

00:27:48.580 would save taxpayers a billion dollars so neither one is misinformation or disinformation but

00:27:55.520 obviously they're trying to push a narrative which i don't understand why a media organization

00:28:00.020 would ever purposely push the government's narrative the whole way there's there's some

00:28:05.680 critical things here that that they need to like take a look at uh but you know they they do it

00:28:11.140 and they do it unapologetically and i i agree with you i don't think there's a phone call coming from

00:28:15.620 the PMO to the CEO of the CBC, but that doesn't need to happen. She knows her job. She knows where

00:28:23.100 who cuts the checks, who writes the dollars, who pays her paycheck. And when you are taking those

00:28:28.640 government dollars, you're suddenly accountable to where those government dollars come from,

00:28:32.360 which is why we don't take government dollars. And, you know, that's why we're accountable to

00:28:38.100 our membership. And, you know, we've made mistakes. We've definitely made mistakes.

00:28:42.380 And when our subscribers, our members, our editors, anybody catches them, we fix them.

00:28:48.240 We apologize.

00:28:49.700 That happens.

00:28:50.900 Anytime you're trying to record what's happening and get all the facts, you know, it's possible to make mistakes.

00:28:57.460 But, you know, some of this goes well beyond that.

00:28:59.800 Some of it is just flat out PR for the Liberal Party, the NDP Liberal Coalition in Ottawa.

00:29:07.680 Thank God for our sponsors, eh?

00:29:09.660 Absolutely.

00:29:10.140 Which reminds me, while we're talking about it, you should become a member of the CSSA.

00:29:15.320 They are fighting for your gun rights, they're fighting for your property rights, and they're taking on the Trudeau Liberals on their gun grabs and their gun buyback plans and absolutely everything.

00:29:25.580 If you're not a member of the CSSA, you can become a member of the CSSA at cssa-cila.org.

00:29:32.500 Now, while we're talking about Trudeau, bad laws, gun grabs, buybacks, let's talk about Trudeau's legal reverses.

00:29:42.080 There has been no shortage of these.

00:29:44.540 Actually, they're just falling out at this point.

00:29:47.900 So, Nigel, why don't you, let's talk about which one should we start with?

00:29:55.340 So, look, here's what we've had.

00:29:58.520 This is just in the last six months.

00:30:00.700 In January, just last week, the federal court ruled that the Trudeau liberals had proceeded in an unreasonable and unjustifiable way when they applied the Emergencies Act to the convoy situation.

00:30:22.500 And the truth of the matter is that existing laws could certainly have taken care of the issue.

00:30:29.100 Here in Alberta, it did not take the Emergencies Act and the powers thereof to clear up the situation.

00:30:35.600 Of course, things could have been done that way in Ottawa.

00:30:39.160 The judge, Judge Wagner, sorry, Judge Mosley, said that when he began the case,

00:30:46.120 he had some reservations about the movement.

00:30:49.820 He says he still has reservations about the movement, but when he heard the quality of the arguments that were presented to defend what they did as opposed to who they were, he had no option but to declare that the government had acted illegally.

00:31:08.420 That takes you back then to, well, let's not go into the plastics ban again, but again, the federal court in November of last year struck down the single-use plastics ban.

00:31:19.820 In October, the Supreme Court of Canada, on a reference case, said that the federal government had proceeded out of their lane, to use Daniel Smith's expression, but at any rate, that Bill C-69, the No Pipelines Act, the Impact Assessment Act, as it's properly known, was unconstitutional in part because the federal government was moving into the provincial area.

00:31:47.560 That's three. In July, it was determined, unfortunately, this is not a binding decision, but there is an organization that reviews military cases, and it decided that Canadian Armed Forces members who had refused the vaccine had actually had their rights violated when they were consequently fired.

00:32:11.780 This is about 400 people, nearly 400 people, who were either fired or quit because they wouldn't take the vaccine.

00:32:19.080 Never mind the, I mean, don't have the vaccine debate, because otherwise you'll keep me here all afternoon.

00:32:26.000 The fact of the matter is they, it is a very personal thing to accept medical treatment or refuse it.

00:32:32.680 And therefore, to say, well, you're in uniform, therefore you've got to do whatever they say,

00:32:39.140 as opposed to whatever we order you to do in the line of duty, three different things.

00:32:46.560 So they lost on that.

00:32:47.720 Then, you know, as you go back through the files, you see SNC-Lavalin, you see the ethics violations,

00:32:55.700 and there is a picture that emerges here of a government that doesn't give a damn about what the law says.

00:33:04.220 If they have something in mind to do, well, let's do it.

00:33:08.100 By the time it's done, it'll be two years before it gets through the courts,

00:33:12.720 and after that, we've achieved our objective, and they have.

00:33:17.180 I mean, with Bill C-69, how many pipelines have we built?

00:33:20.480 Exactly.

00:33:21.120 You know?

00:33:21.780 Even with the plastics ban, that's where all of these things are coming from 0.91

00:33:25.700 at the municipal level now is it was building off of the original plastics ban,

00:33:29.260 and how many restaurants have you seen plastic straws back at?

00:33:32.660 I'll tell you, last night, my favorite bar, my favorite pub, they have plastic straws.

00:33:36.640 I was ecstatic.

00:33:37.980 It's amazing.

00:33:39.360 But let's talk about the former attorney general.

00:33:44.340 Now, he's gone to private industry.

00:33:46.480 He's been hired at a law firm.

00:33:48.820 Mr. Lametti, you must.

00:33:50.240 Yes.

00:33:50.460 So I wonder, if you're an attorney, and we've seen what happened when an attorney general stood up to Justin Trudeau in the past,

00:34:01.980 Jody Wilson-Raybould stood up, said, SNC-Lavalin, this is the Department of Public Prosecutions, there should be no political interference, she wouldn't do what Trudeau said, she was gone.

00:34:12.580 Now, Lamedi was overwhelmingly responsible for these laws, obviously, it would have been his advice that they would have wrote these on.

00:34:21.080 Do we actually think that it was coming off of David Lamedi's advice, or was this directly coming from Trudeau?

00:34:26.420 I would guess Trudeau. I think that he is in a situation where he feels very comfortable with his coalition with the NDP. He basically gives him the majority and dictatorial powers that he is not afraid to use. I think a lot of stuff comes out of the PMO that generates all this stuff.

00:34:53.040 Yeah, it would surprise me that, I mean, there's a few attorneys sitting around at the cabinet table, but it would surprise me that the government's lawyers are wrong this much.

00:35:06.320 To me, it feels like this is coming from somebody who, A, doesn't care about the law, doesn't care about the letter of the law, doesn't care about the Constitution, and is saying, I don't care what it says, I want it like this.

00:35:17.640 And that's what it feels like to me. Like, especially the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

00:35:24.580 War Measures Act.

00:35:25.740 Well, yeah, the War Measures Act. Coots was done. There was no more protest at the Ambassador Bridge.

00:35:30.480 And the protesters in Ottawa had begun moving into the areas, working with police for days at that point.

00:35:36.660 And it wasn't needed. And part of it says no other law in the country was available to stop it, except we know that there was.

00:35:46.360 And to me, it feels like Trudeau said, I don't care what the law says.

00:35:52.220 We're going to do this.

00:35:54.760 It's hard to get inside anybody else's head and understand why they do certain things.

00:36:01.800 But there is something about the prime minister's repetitive behavior,

00:36:07.680 which, when put together with things that he has said, makes me think this is just an opinion.

00:36:15.660 Again, this is not a diagnosis, but that he enjoys the feeling of being regarded as a tough, determined prime minister who will make things happen.

00:36:26.860 He said something along those lines 10 years ago, talking about how much he admired the Chinese way of government.

00:36:35.040 And he also has a father who invoked the War Measures Act, who I think overall was applauded for doing so. 0.81

00:36:44.880 There was, not without its controversy back in the 1970s, but generally speaking, people felt, all right, well, there's somebody who takes charge when charge needs to be taken.

00:36:55.480 Did Mr. Trudeau want that kind of talk about him?

00:37:01.200 Perhaps so.

00:37:03.460 Certainly, if that was his idea, it has seriously backfired because this string of, you know, I only went back six months.

00:37:12.460 But this string of government actions that have been declared illegal by various levels of courts and authorities speaks of a government that just says, you know what, we're going to do whatever we want to do, and people can object, but we'll have our way.

00:37:34.520 Yeah, absolutely.

00:37:35.180 I've seen it done in management union situations. Get the person out of here. Yeah, they'll grieve it. But, well, 18 months later, meanwhile, we don't have to work with them. It's a tactic. It's very commonly used. So, doesn't look good on them, frankly.

00:37:52.540 No, I mean, just the amount of investment that they've chased out of Canada, as it is, is mind boggling, mind boggling.

00:38:00.540 You know, like we have a tanker ban off of the West Coast, but we're shipping in dictator oil into Quebec and we can't build pipelines.

00:38:09.540 And like they're they're applying like the Tech Frontier mine was a death that was caused by this Bill C-69.

00:38:18.540 and 50 billion dollars I believe yeah and could you imagine right now without the oil and gas

00:38:25.480 industry Canada would be in a recession for sure and then on top of it we have these shovel ready

00:38:32.220 projects but even after uh because of the way Trudeau has written laws applied the laws and

00:38:38.980 then the courts have struck them down who's going to invest in that market who who's going to go

00:38:43.580 and say you know what let's put tech back on the table but we're got to do it quick before Trudeau

00:38:48.080 notices. You bet. But this is, you know, when we have these discussions, I think there is a

00:38:55.760 tendency to think, well, he didn't know what they were doing. I mean, look at the investment we've

00:38:59.600 lost. They must be so sorry. No, they're not. No, that was the investment they wanted to chase.

00:39:05.500 Exactly. They didn't have to win the court case. They've chased away the investment. 0.70

00:39:10.460 Oh, exactly. Tech's not going to put the money on the table to build that mine, 0.87

00:39:14.240 And even though they're not required to go through that assessment, the original approval from Alberta would still stand.

00:39:21.700 But could you imagine going back to your shareholders and saying, well, we're going to take this extremely risky investment.

00:39:28.140 We're going to invest billions and they could change the law, write a new one or whatever before you even get a shovel in the ground and get started.

00:39:35.820 You know, it takes decades to build up a reputation as a solid place to do business.

00:39:42.120 You can ruin it.

00:39:43.400 in months. Oh, absolutely. That is their single biggest achievement. They've killed

00:39:50.520 investment. And I find it fascinating that Minister Gilbeau, the environment

00:39:54.560 minister, is talking about a federal or a plastics registry, while at the same

00:39:59.280 time coming to Edmonton to announce a new plastics facility. Does the cabinet

00:40:05.160 table sit, do they meet in the same room? Do they know what they're doing? Because

00:40:09.680 here they're investing like hundreds of millions, if not millions of dollars. And on the other side,

00:40:14.780 they're trying to make these exact same businesses struggle. You know, it's, I don't

00:40:20.920 understand. Do they want a good economy or do they want to do useless things to pretend to save the

00:40:25.640 environment? I think the latter. I think there's, you know, to get into conspiracy, the Thomas

00:40:32.460 conspiracy they want to keep fossil fuels in the ground so that at some point in time

00:40:41.580 they own them all and then they can start bringing them out because they go well you know that

00:40:46.220 electric thing didn't work out so well or we don't have enough people but don't worry about it we

00:40:51.100 we have real we control the oil and the gas now and we'll look after getting it out to you and

00:40:57.580 and the power and the wealth that will generate for them for that and again this is the thomas

00:41:03.180 conspiracy uh i think that's their long-term goal um well certainly there are many people

00:41:13.020 who would agree with you and they would they would wonder who uh mr trudeau and the gang were taking

00:41:20.780 their orders from yes and you may be right but i will tell you you it doesn't have to be that

00:41:26.540 in order to explain their behavior now it is possible for these people to be genuinely and

00:41:33.660 sincerely mind-blowingly wrong and to have totally bought into a system of belief

00:41:41.820 that makes all of these things thoroughly logical and if it hurts people well you know all right

00:41:49.660 that's the price we have they have to pay not necessarily us but they will have to pay yeah

00:41:55.020 Well, even, you know, one of the talking points Trudeau always uses is that he's trying to support the middle class and those working hard to join it.

00:42:01.860 But almost every piece of economic policy that has come out since he's been the prime minister would be contrary to that.

00:42:10.180 And a lot of these laws have made it worse.

00:42:13.160 You know, if you're trying to get indigenous communities, and I spoke to Robbie Picard, an oil and gas activist from Fort McMurray on the Cory Morgan show this afternoon.

00:42:22.980 Well, how many indigenous communities would have been uplifted from the tech frontier mine? How many jobs? What does that mean for reconciliation? So, you know, I'm glad that the courts are finally saying, okay, that's enough. That's unconstitutional. That's illegal. What you're doing is wrong.

00:42:43.120 But how do we get that changed? Is there a way to, you know, I don't think the Liberals are ever going to start following the law. They're going to keep inventing it. But, you know, what we've seen, Calgarians picked up the phone, they called their city councillors, the bylaws gone.

00:43:02.500 do we think this liberal government would listen to the constituents because we've seen on the east

00:43:09.540 coast that when the pressure got applied to those mps they said all right carbon taxes off home

00:43:14.260 heating oil what can albertans what can saskatchewan what can bc what can manitoba do

00:43:20.440 well vote liberal they would probably tell you maybe that would make a difference i don't know

00:43:25.480 I don't think I could live with myself, but it's, what it's going to take, I'm afraid, is a change of government.

00:43:34.800 Yes.

00:43:34.940 And obviously, you know, that means obviously we're saying it's going to take a conservative government

00:43:41.360 because there isn't anybody else who might do things differently.

00:43:45.320 But, you know, Reeder contacted me recently and said,

00:43:48.680 why do you always refer to the Trudeau liberals as opposed to the government?

00:43:52.000 Well, I think it's important that we recognize that this liberal government is not a typical liberal government.

00:44:02.820 The governments led by Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, you know, didn't have to agree with everything they thought.

00:44:11.540 But they were sensible enough not to do the kinds of things that this liberal government is.

00:44:19.720 And I think the Liberal Party has been hijacked by a faction.

00:44:25.120 It's a faction that's in control that just thinks that what it's doing is necessary and good.

00:44:32.860 And therefore, it will be done over the objections of everybody.

00:44:37.540 I agree. I actually, I'm wondering when...

00:44:41.640 So I stopped short of calling them commies. 0.56

00:44:43.420 Well, I think Trudeau's cabinet is a very tight group, and I think they control everything.

00:44:49.720 And I don't think any of the MPs outside of that circle get a lot of input.

00:44:56.480 I don't think they're listening to them.

00:44:58.740 But I also think some of them are just happy to be there and don't care.

00:45:03.260 I think, you know, I think they're well over getting paid well over $200,000 a year now.

00:45:08.980 You know, they've got the pension.

00:45:10.660 They've got all of these benefits.

00:45:12.300 So what's the point of rocking your own economic boat to go to war with the ideologues that are running your party just to get tossed out?

00:45:19.300 which by the way is a lot smaller than the cabinet i pass on what i've been told

00:45:26.900 with the warning that people sometimes exaggerate but my information is that the decision making

00:45:34.260 in this government is the prime minister his closest non-elected senior officials in other

00:45:41.060 words chief of staff principal secretary and a handful of politicians who do have his confidence

00:45:48.660 but that even quite senior cabinet ministers struggle to get an appointment with the Prime Minister.

00:45:55.000 I would agree with that.

00:45:55.880 Yeah.

00:45:56.220 And when you see people like Mr. Morneau, who actually, again,

00:46:02.020 I don't say that I agree with his politics,

00:46:06.760 but I will admit that the man understood money,

00:46:10.780 couldn't take it any longer,

00:46:12.600 bailed out before his own reputation was brought down amongst the people that he left behind.

00:46:20.660 So I think, actually, James, with all due respect, it's quite possible that the orbit of decision

00:46:28.440 making in that government is very much smaller than the whole cabinet.

00:46:32.060 Well, like you said earlier, Trudeau does admire the basic dictatorship in China,

00:46:36.080 and there's nothing more dictatorship-like than having all of the decisions for an entire nation

00:46:41.160 be made in one room by a very small group of people but that is all the time that we have

00:46:46.960 for this week I'd like to thank Mike and Nigel for joining me Corey will be back next week Derek

00:46:53.300 might be back next week but thank you very much for joining us this evening and we'll catch you

00:46:58.600 later Canadian Shooting Sports Association without the CSSA our gun rights would have been taken

00:47:04.180 long long ago these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms

00:47:11.000 regulations and legislation in Canada and more importantly educating the

00:47:15.560 public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people to become a

00:47:19.640 member it's absolutely worth every penny you can become a Western Center member

00:47:25.880 for just $10 a month or $99 a year

Western Standard - February 01, 2024

The Pipeline： Repealing Calgary’s insane anti-bag, straw, napkin policy

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