Join us this week as we discuss the Saskatchewan election, the great debate in the United States, and the developing Cheesygate scandal. This week's guest: Derek Fildebrand of the Buffalo Party in Saskatchewan.
00:10:15.260But while we like to ignore polls we don't like, we do look at polls we do like.
00:10:21.160Fact is, Trump is losing in a lot of key battleground states right now.
00:10:25.020He's going to have to win some people over.
00:10:27.140He's going to have to, yes, juice his base up.
00:10:29.660We know that, you know, the shy conservative voter is a real thing in many cases, particularly with Trump.
00:10:34.920If you're in polite, fancy society, you know, saying I'm voting for Trump at a cocktail party is like farting in the middle of the room and not even saying excuse me.
00:10:43.740So, yeah, there's a lot of, he's probably better than some of the polls are saying, but he's going to have to make up some ground.
00:10:49.700And a draw is just not good enough for Trump.
00:11:25.660And he also did the same with Biden, let's remember.
00:11:28.340I think, for me, as someone who likes a bit more policy, the most important part of the evening was concerning the Supreme Court and, what is that, the moderator's name again?
00:11:44.300Wallace asked Biden if he was going to, you know, would he categorically say he would not do what some people in his own, in the Democratic Party have said, which is appoint seemingly unconstitutionally more Supreme Court justices on top.
00:11:58.340of the nine, essentially making the Supreme Court useless.
00:12:00.360He may as well appoint a thousand people then, stack it for all time.
00:12:03.320And Biden, you normally want a politician who doesn't want to answer a question, they answer the question they wish they were asked, not the one they were.
00:12:10.660So you give a bullshit answer, answering something different.
00:12:33.280I don't think he was debating, though.
00:12:34.360I think when candidates were not answering the questions, which both of them did at times, you know, Trump was asked, you know, will you condemn white supremacists?
00:12:45.580He did end up condemning him, but it was a bit loopy at first.
00:12:47.900He pressed him on that, but then he did the same thing with Biden on the Supreme, adding bizarre 10th, 11th, 12th Supreme Court justices.
00:12:57.020So I really don't think there was any way a moderator was going to come out of that debate with both sides happy.
00:13:04.200And I don't think, I do think if you're going to have a debate with a guy like Trump there, even if you like him, there needs to be a kill switch on the mics so that they, you know, if it's getting excessive as it did routinely, that they can kill it.
00:13:40.780I mean, if the keystone gets shut down with Biden getting in, it's really going to impact the West in a bad way.
00:13:45.960Trump, at least supportive of things like a rail line to Alaska.
00:13:48.940These are things, if we want to look on a pure economic sense, whoever wins this is going to impact Alberta.
00:13:55.000And it would probably be better for Alberta if Trump wins than not.
00:13:57.480Well, undoubtedly, even though, you know, polls are showing most Albertans would prefer Biden, well, that's always the case.
00:14:04.620Canadians always prefer the Democrat because the Republicans are the more traditionally nationalist party.
00:14:08.620And why would someone not in that nation support the nationalist party?
00:14:11.780But, you know, for our economic interest, of course, having someone who hasn't pledged to kill the Keystone XL pipeline is good for us.
00:14:20.140Well, and as frustrating as it is, Darcy, you see, we endured, we're sitting through an hour and a half of that last night, so we could encapsulate it for you today.
00:14:29.600Just as Justin's taken on debt, so we don't have to.
00:14:32.280So, we will get on to something more domestic, though, and that is Cheesygate.
00:14:38.360So, okay, I guess it came from a town hall meeting, MLA for, like St. Anne, I believe it is, Shane Getson had spoken on a town hall meeting and he referred to some people on CERN potentially eating cheesies and watching cartoons with that money.
00:14:56.540And, of course, it's really stirred up a great deal of people.
00:15:01.720Well, it seems to be dominating provincial news today.
00:15:03.780Of course, the usual demands for apologies, shame, shame, shame, finger-wagging, pearl-clutching, and all the good stuff that comes when somebody dares to speak outside of a dull monologue.
00:15:15.920What are your thoughts on an MLA getting in trouble?
00:15:18.820Well, I mean, the short clip that's been shared by their, you know, UCP opponents, at least on the left, their opponents, and the NDP, it's a very short clip.
00:15:35.040And you can take away from it that he's saying that everybody on CERN is lazy, sitting at home eating cheesies and doing drugs.
00:15:44.040I took it as, if you look at the longer clip and have some context, he's saying that people who already are, who were already unemployed or have substance abuse problems, providing, you know, when they may have been $700 a month before, now they've got $2,000 or more than $2,000 stacked on what they already had before.
00:16:07.060Now, this is something you've written about before.
00:16:08.640I think he actually made a very reasonable point.
00:16:12.960But, you know, one thing you learn in politics is that the tiny little clip, I mean, no one cares about the context, or at least your opponents never care about the context.
00:17:33.180Nobody said that everybody on there is doing that or abusing it.
00:17:37.260And I am supportive of CERB in the sense that it came in with no questions asked.
00:17:41.720Unfortunately, because if the government is going to step in and shut everybody out of work, which is what they did, you've got to do something.
00:18:06.520There's a lot of lazy people out there.
00:18:08.500There are people who will sit on their ass and take it.
00:18:10.640There are people for whom that was a raise or even just at least a small cut.
00:18:13.820A small cut, if you're sitting around and doing whatever you want, you know, with 40 hours extra free a week, is a nice thing for some people, people who lack ambition, to have.
00:18:24.320And to call it out is being realistic and reasonable.
00:18:28.400I mean, it's not insulting everybody, but it's pointing out a real flaw with this program when you're running it in a long run like this.
00:18:34.760So I sold the restaurant I owned about five months ago just in time, but I'm still in touch with other restaurant owners.
00:18:42.100And they're having a real hard time getting staff to come back.
00:18:45.740And one, she's juggling cooks because she can't get them, period.
00:18:49.300But what she could get them to agree to is as long as they make less than $1,000, I'll come in.
00:18:54.080So you've got like 15 people scheduled all with these part-time hours because they just want to make just enough that they don't get their CERB clawed back, but not enough that they lose.
00:19:03.000Well, we wonder why EI is a big problem in the Maritimes where there's different rules for qualifying for EI than there is in the West here.
00:19:09.600And people intentionally want to get laid off at some point.
00:19:11.940At some point, why would you work for less money than you're going to get from the government?
00:20:07.100And not all of them were necessarily that bad either.
00:20:08.460But what would happen is before breakup, a large number of them will have made enough days that they qualified for EI and they would vanish en masse.
00:20:16.000Not all of them, but I would bet at least a half.
00:22:55.340If the government shuts down the economy, CERB is necessary.
00:22:57.820I don't think the shutdown is necessary, but this is what it is.
00:23:01.360So if you're going to have it, you're going to have to have something.
00:23:03.560But let's not pretend that it doesn't have perverse impacts on the labor market.
00:23:10.340And it doesn't have perverse impacts on people who already have substance abuse issues.
00:23:14.380Well, Sid, I don't think anybody wants to shame the people who are stuck on CERB with no choice.
00:23:18.460It's the people who have a choice who are still drawing it that they're ones that, yes, you know what, I do want to rub your noses in a little bit.
00:23:23.400It's hard to distinguish between those sometimes.
00:23:25.400But a lot of people are just screwed and stuck right now.
00:23:27.560It's like the old cliche, the best social program is a job, and we need a strong economy in order to do that.
00:23:33.260So let's find the means to get the people who want to work back to work.
00:23:36.960But let's not be afraid to point out that some are taking advantage of the bloody system.