The Pipeline - The Tale of Two Cities
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Summary
Join us as we discuss the latest news items in the Western Standard, including the return of a woman who left her job in Toronto to return to Alberta, and why she should have stayed in Canada. Western Standard Weekly Panel Show is presented by Corey Morgan and Nigel Hannaford.
Transcript
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This is the Western Standards Weekly Panel Show
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things of interest, dissect them among each other,
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And yes, we're going to be talking about some stories
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If you don't have a subscription yet, guys, what are you waiting for?
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Come on, you used to pay that much for a newspaper subscription.
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And this way you don't even have to get rid of all those newspapers afterwards.
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And that way we can critically talk about the issues that are important to you
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rather than what's important to say, Prime Minister Trudeau.
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since we had that extra opening i'll kind of move from the outside to in everybody already knows
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nigel but we got jonathan bradley our intrepid alberta reporter here at the table today welcome
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to the show jonathan thank you for having me great and of course nigel hannaford our opinion editor
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in his usual spot in the middle you haven't moved an inch always good to be here yes that's me i'm
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just known to be a centrist okay well centrist there you're the one all right so we're going
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going to get into some stuff and dive right in right away. We should, the other way I should
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remind you that we pay our bills is through sponsorships and we have a great sponsor with
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the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Have a quick look at this video, check it out and make
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importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people
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to become a member. It's absolutely worth every penny. Canadian shooting support. Okay, so if you
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didn't catch that before, it's the Canadian Shooting Association, CSSA-CILA.org. We've got
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a government that's coming for your property. They want to take it away. These guys are standing up
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stand up for your neighbor, check them out, take out a membership. It's well worth it and invest
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in your own rights, guys. Okay, let's get into it. Something, you know, this is nothing new.
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We've got that, that's Central Canadian vanity, I guess, you know, I mean, we get people come out,
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they move out here. They don't necessarily like it. They move back, whatever it happens.
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But in Canada, it makes a story. They've written a long piece. A person who came out to Alberta,
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She spent three months, the horrors, the travesties she had to put up.
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She was too far from local nightclubs and things such as that.
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And now I guess it's made news in the Toronto life.
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You come from another place, you come to Canada, or you come to Alberta, come to Edmonton, and you find it's different.
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You expected it to be different, but it's not different the way you wanted it to be.
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So you take the boat back, and you go back where you started, and you say, no, it was the right thing to leave when I left the first time.
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All you've done is spend a bunch of money, a $1,000 cure.
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So I don't know what this lady's airfare is going to be, but my guess is that once she's been back in Toronto for a while,
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she's going to say, yep, the reasons that I maybe want to go to Alberta in the first place were entirely valid.
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I'm going to get my plane ticket and I'm on my way back here,
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Well, she may have learned that lesson with part of it.
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I mean, I just noticed a story that came up that the average commute in Toronto
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Part of what this lady's choice, she didn't just move to Edmonton.
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She moved to actually to a bedroom community outside of Edmonton.
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Maybe she didn't research her homes well enough because I guess one of her
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complaints was it was a really long drive to get to the Cactus Club.
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Well, according to the article, it was 30 minutes.
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that beats 56 by 26 minutes i would think and i mean presumably the uber driver is going to do it
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but we go to you uh jonathan i mean you're uh you've chosen to move out to alberta you're still
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on your first crack at it i believe you're you're still here yes i am uh so you you came from out
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in that toronto sort of area have the trials and tribulations really been wearing you down
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well alberta's been amazing to me i'm really happy i moved out here it's more affordable
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people are friendlier um one thing I will note though uh with my experience is I actually have
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a few friends who are thinking about moving out here from uh Toronto just because they don't see
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a future for themselves in Toronto I mean this lady she was making six figures she even admitted
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that in the article so you know she kind of has she could probably survive in Toronto and you know
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do well whereas a young person like myself or someone else you know just graduated from school
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and isn't making six figures or like you know making a whole bunch of money comes out uh to
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alberta and you know it's more affordable here you know rent prices are lower one thing that i
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was kind of confused about with her is why was she living in beaumont if she's like a party girl
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like i haven't been to beaumont but i've heard that it's like a bedroom community and there's
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not really much to do so like why would she want to buy a place in rent rent or buy a place in
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downtown edmonton given that average rents in edmonton according to rentals.ca are about
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1100 a month so you don't miss your field no not at all well i mean a part of it's just researching
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your destination. I mean, if parties are the important part to you, then by all means move
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where they are. You know, we like the inter-regional play though. I mean, I would dare to say Toronto's
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got a livelier downtown than any Alberta cities. Montreal actually could claim that as well. We're
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not the most big party towns, but we have plenty of nightclubs and bars. If you're coming to Calgary,
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we do have a cactus club on 3rd and 8th. So if she decides on her second move to come here,
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perhaps get near that. And what's weird about this lady was she was complaining about how,
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oh like uh she's like couldn't find a shisha lounge to go to like when i asked people they're
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like what's a lounge but like all she had to do was just go on google maps like i i went on google
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maps prior to going on my show to search for shisha lines in edmonton and there was four
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so i don't know why she was complaining about having some official lounges there
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okay for people like me who watch our program what is a shisha shisha is hookah it's a persian
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uh pipe smoking lounge where you go water pipes yeah water pipes so like
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like the one that cory goes to on friday afternoons yeah i think so yeah that's that's pot
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once you've done the show yes yes this is my post show you who you know the water pipe smooths it
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out but yeah little things like that if these are important it's just it's kind of a funny piece and
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i mean still what's striking okay somebody moved they didn't like it but was this worthy of writing
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up in a large toronto piece i guess if you're looking for clicks because you know it's going to
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Is it Five Reasons Why Edmonton Didn't Suck?
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Well, yeah, and if she wants to play that,
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and calgary always talks about why edmonton sucks anyway so you could do that locally
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and still be in alberta but what about those five reasons since we got you going so
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the five reasons why edmonton doesn't suck were uh the edmonton valley zoo is cheaper than the
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calgary zoo uh funny drug addicts uh calmer vibes green onion cakes and west end of him all funny
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drug addicts yes that's some dark humor you're getting into here when i went to edmonton uh
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I was walking in the downtown core, and there was one
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dramatic I saw, and she was walking down the street,
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sorry, sir, I smoke too much weed. And I was like,
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maybe you smoke some other stuff other than weed.
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Well, it's cheaper than a movie, that's for sure.
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We'll talk a little bit about the Edmonton streets actually in our third segment.
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So maybe we'll move along from our regional battles and run a quick spot in an ad to help cover some of our bills before we get on to the next subject here as well.
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Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken
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long, long ago. These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent
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firearms regulations and legislation in Canada. And more importantly, educating the public about
00:10:05.860
how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people. We've become a member. It's absolutely
00:10:10.360
worth every penny. Okay, so let's move on to some politics. That's more of our meat and potatoes
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around here anyways. And federally, we have, it took quite a while to go through it, but it usually
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does. The ethics commissioner has ruled on Liberal Cabinet Minister Mary Ng, who was found in a breach
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of the Conflict of Interest Act when she sole sourced a contract, actually I should have written
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it down I believe it was for $29,000 to a close personal friend of hers from her office which
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I mean again anybody you don't need to be told when you hold a senior position in government
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you can't give direct jobs and contracts to your friends or you shouldn't but what's striking about
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this is aside from being told that yes you were in breach there doesn't appear to be any consequences
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but what do you make of that and I just well I first of all I think a great departure from
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tradition and secondly they take their cue from the top. Unfortunately the
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Prime Minister himself has been has been guilty of ethics breaches on more
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than one occasion but he's still the Prime Minister and that sets the
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standard of accountability for everybody who works in government. When it's
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clear that it's enough to just say you're sorry and move on you don't resign but it never used
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to be that way and you know 50 60 years ago you'd have to resign if you got divorced i mean
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maybe we don't want to go back to that but there is a certain standard of ethical behavior that we
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expect from our our leaders from our politicians and one of the things that i've noticed over the
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the past few years is how much that has become stretched. Take, for example, the Supreme
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Court Chief Justice, Richard Wagner. Basically, you hope that your justices are going to be
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Regardless of whether you agree with them or not,
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Some people may think that he's right on, even though we don't. I don't.
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The fact is, he's already declared his predisposition, so he can't really hear these people honestly.
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Here in Alberta, we have got a lieutenant governor who has passed judgment on legislation that had not even been written,
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I'm speaking of the Alberta Sovereignty Act, obviously,
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and what her role was if there was a constitutional crisis.
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She would have been so much better to leave that to a constitutional expert
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that the news media could have found easily enough.
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But again, that's the kind of thing that just never used to be done.
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We had a liberal cabinet minister here. Who was it? Dominic Leblanc. I guess this was a few years ago. Got himself into trouble over something. He's still a minister. And so where's the accountability?
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And that's something that we need to start teaching the principles of honor and doing the right thing, knowing when you're called out and it's time for you to take time in the penalty box.
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We need to start teaching that much earlier in life, schools even.
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Well, yeah, well, folks like ourselves have been around a little longer.
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Remember, sometimes at the very least, you know, a minister would have sort of shuffled off to the back bench or the justice would have at least said, you know what?
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I have to recuse myself from anything having to do with this particular item.
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I remember hearing at that time that Trudeau was the first Prime Minister to break federal
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ethics law because I remember he was doing the Prime Minister's town halls at the time
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and one lady asked him how do you feel knowing that you're doing the first Prime Minister
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to be convicted of breaking ethics law and it is kind of disturbing because not only
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did he break it once he broke it a second time with the SNC-Lavalin scandal and then
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he's had some close calls with the Bowie Charity scandal but the thing with the Bowie Charity
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scandal was at least with Bill Morneau he resigned with being implicated in that scandal
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during the SNC-Lavalin scandal, they resigned so there is some integrity
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but Trudeau just seems to have complete disregard for integrity
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With all due respect, Jonathan, there's a difference between
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I would like to think that it was integrity, but I remain unconvinced.
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Well, political staffers, they fall on the sword for who they work for all the time.
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That's why they always sign up for those huge severance packages, because they know in that line of work,
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your chances of making it the full term for whatever minister or whatnot you're working for can often...
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Well, unfortunately, because they always seem to get immersed in a scandal,
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you know there's going to be a problem down the road.
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in Washington. But I mean, part of the accountability
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too should come from the electorate. As Jonathan pointed out,
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of these. But guess what? He's getting re-elected
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But it seems to me that in 2019, there were about a half a million people less who voted Liberal.
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I'm throwing that all on your lap, Jonathan.
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Do some outreach and get them out there and start firing the guy with the pretty hair.
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Well, I think that with Poliette, we're starting to see that.
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like I meet in my friend group at least, you know, Polly has really heard from all the issues
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for my generation, us particularly with, well one of them in particular is housing, like I'm from
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Toronto and average rent in Toronto for a one bedroom apartment is about $2,400 a month, which
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is like if you're a new graduate or even someone who, even like someone who had like graduated a few
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years ago, like that's unaffordable. Like I know people who are living in Toronto who have like
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strange living arrangements where you're like living with a distant family member or they have
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a whole bunch of roommates you're living with just so they can afford a place whereas like in some
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some areas of canada you know it's affordable to live on your own like say calgary edmonton
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or montreal places like that but toronto is like toronto vancouver like i'd really feel
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about polyam if he appeals to like that the housing issue he'll be able to win over some
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young people possibly veto true we'll see there's certainly cracks in the trudeau armor if somebody
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can just figure them out and maybe Paulian will be the one. So let's spin things a little bit
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closer back to home again and get it to Edmonton. Again, that dire city of Edmonton that Jackie
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Thomas was so terribly done by. All the same, there are some problems in Edmonton, social
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disorder. Every city is dealing with that actually. And the UCP is just recently, I guess, on their
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announcement of forming a social disorder task force within Edmonton. It's got quite a remarkable
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number of people within it, actually, though that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get anything done.
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But Mayor Sohi is pretty upset with that. He didn't like this task force at all.
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What did you make of this mess, Nigel? Well, okay, so again, with all due respect to Mr. Sohi,
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he is a former Liberal cabinet minister who lost his seat. And so I would expect him to be
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flexibly against anything that came out of the provincial government provincial government
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um it would be off message if he wasn't but i think the um the idea of actual
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actually getting a bunch of people who care together to look at the problem and see
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Let's be honest about it, let's not mince words.
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bonded with a drug, you're not really a free agent anymore. So maybe there's a case to be
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made for intervention. Now I'm starting to sound like somebody who actually does have a solution.
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No, that could be a facet anyways, and that disorder and that addiction. And Jonathan,
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you sort of referenced it, I mean, in kind of your first real trip to Edmonton. So I mean,
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it says a lot that the only thing that struck you was an experience with a person on the streets who
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was impaired and uh you know it's becoming you know ubiquitous i mean you go to a downtown and
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i mean you can't help but see the disorder going on i mean i've seen it all across canada like i
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was in uh ottawa earlier this year for the stronger network national conference um and i remember i
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was walking through a byword market which is very kind of like that where all the shops are in
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ottawa it's like this nice neighborhood and there were all these homeless people just walking around
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I think it may be kind of like 10 within 20 minutes, something like that.
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One point to note about the Alberta government implementing this is I think
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that Daniel Smith's chief of staff is Marshall Smith who used to work in
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Alberta Mental Health and Addictions and is a recovered drug addict himself.
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So I think it will be good to hear his insights on the issue because he'll
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probably have some, he'll probably be behind steering the committee a little.
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if you look it up and it's in the story on the Western Standard online too,
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it's quite a panel that's put together I mean there's a couple of First Nations chiefs involved
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because again another sensitive aspect of it but it's the Indigenous communities are quite
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overrepresented when it comes to the people troubled on the streets and with addiction so
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having some insight from people from those communities helps without doubt you know they're
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taking it seriously a couple of Edmonton City councillors not Mayor Sohi himself apparently
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but addiction specialists like it does have the appearance of a panel of somebody who really wants
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to get something accomplished I would hope anyways I'm trying to maintain optimism as Nigel said it's a
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complicated issue and it's going to cost money and uh there's part of the issue too and mentioned
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you know maybe so he certainly loves spending money uh when it's other issues like bike lanes
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for example I mean the homeless can put their shopping carts up and down those nice clear
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bike lanes but he doesn't seem to have the funds to help them with the addition well that
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But, you know, we should certainly be concerned about the needs of people who are homeless and who are in the grip of drugs.
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But there is another population which isn't addicted, which pays the bills, they get up, they go to work, they pay taxes, and they expect their common areas to be available to them.
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They don't expect to find, oh, let's just say there's plenty of evidence when homeless people have occupied a telephone booth or a small area or whatever.
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And, you know, it's pretty tough if you can't take your sandwich to the park at lunchtime for fear of just making, don't make eye contact.
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So at some point, that interest has to be met as well.
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You build something nice and then you find you can't use it.
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So the matter of the allocation of funds in the city of Edmonton,
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the expenditure of money on bike lanes is suspect to begin with.
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and seems like an anti-car measure more than a pro-bike measure.
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But if we have this much problem with homeless people, how far up on the priority list
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ought it to be? Maybe not far, and in any case, below caring, trying to find a solution
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for homeless addicted people. Absolutely, and I would guess and imagine
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maybe i mean calgary might have a similar task force coming pretty soon i don't know the ucp
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plans but we have the same problem here like jonathan you've been living downtown so towards
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the core and it's pretty evident visible here as well oh on the weekends especially like i remember
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uh one weekend uh one of my first weekends here i was like oh you know i'm like i just want to see
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like what's open and i remember i searched important to see how many there were in the
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downtown core and i remember just clicking around like every single one of them was closed and i
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was like okay what about starbucks so i kept in every single one of them was closed and there's
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there's times when you walk in the downtown core and it's just like it's dead you feel like you're
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walking like some zombie apocalypse movie where like all the humans have died except for like a
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handful and you're like what is going on here like and you know there's like the homeless people
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walking around obviously you know like you know screaming or like just like comatose lying on the
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ground um i actually i think about two months ago there was a homeless guy who almost had to call
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the ambulance on because he was passed out uh after he took some drugs and i ran up to him you
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I just want to make sure he was fine. And I was about to like call him and he woke up and was
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like, Oh, I took some fentanyl. Yeah, no, it's going, it's all over the place. And our own
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reporter, Arthur Green, he's moved from Bonneville down to Edmonton. He's been there and he's been
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taking some, some very graphic pictures, I guess you say on the transit system of people, you know,
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consuming drugs, people inebriated in bad ways, or even the human waste, literally that they leave
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behind in transit stations. And people got very upset with him for doing that. I mean, there's a,
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there's a large element of people who just don't want to talk about it or you know and then they
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try to shout it down and unfortunately it's become politicized a lot i mean it seems there's almost
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been two lines drawn on this there's just obsession with safe consumption and safe supply and another
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on the other end saying no it all has to be on treatment and i it seems why can't we agree that
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we kind of need both you can't treat them if they're dead so if we can keep them going i
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understand giving clean needles and such but it should be coupled with a path towards treatment
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so that you're just kicking this can down the road forever but again it's hopelessly we let our
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partisan stripes ruin finding solutions sometimes well you know as you say it gets politicized well
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when you're spending big money 160 million dollars is still big money for a municipality yeah that
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should be political that's worth the discussion and that's that's now politics uh to me it seems
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that if there's that much money laying around for for some purpose this would be the the place to
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put it not bike lanes not this year yeah and i think it is a good place if assuming they're
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going to put it into places where it'll fix it so there is no simple path so well i guess we can
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hope for the best and they'll stop sniping long enough on a positive note we entertained a visitor
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from Toronto last year Judy and I and we were driving downtown and there were people going
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this way and that way with their shopping carts full of bags of bottles and the fellow says you
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know they're not like that where I come from even in Calgary even your homeless people are
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entrepreneurial and I just thought well that's there's got to be some good thing somewhere
00:27:40.160
I mean with moving from Toronto one thing I've noticed is that in Toronto many of the
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homeless people panhandle to get their money whereas in calgary many of them collect bottles
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yeah i've maybe only seen a handful of people who panhandle or like bank for money whereas most of
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them are just you know walking around picking up uh beer cans or water bottles things like that
00:27:58.640
yeah well in times they're changing and things change i mean we don't have that street crowd
00:28:02.080
in calgary actually people walking out there as much uh as toronto so it's probably not as lucrative
00:28:06.880
to right panhandle and yes and people don't carry cash anymore so i you know in the panhandling
00:28:11.680
world, that has to be quite a detriment. I mean, it's not like they've got a square that they can
00:28:16.100
take a donation at when you go by, and I don't carry cash anymore. So, well, we can hope for the
00:28:22.560
best, I guess, as I said. I think it's hopefully a positive initiative. I mean, I think most people,
00:28:27.160
you know, the term compassionate conservatism, we want to take care of those who can't take care of
00:28:30.940
themselves, and these people who are addicted need some help. So, hopefully, they can set the politics
00:28:36.700
aside and get some somebody's making an effort that is a good thing it is well we'll applaud
00:28:41.980
them even if it seems to be a chronic oppositional disorder with some of our elements in the media
00:28:46.300
when it comes to premier smith's initiatives in general right now well okay i think we've covered
00:28:52.300
what we wanted to cover today though guys uh always good to get on the pipeline see it's
00:28:57.980
it's a lot shorter we don't have derek here going on we can get straight to the issues
00:29:03.820
uh but it's well it gives our viewers more time to switch to our video content
00:29:07.740
and uh check out what was your rant on this morning that did i rant about this
00:29:14.060
one the treaties that's right he's reading those trees go watch go watch cory morgan's
00:29:19.180
thoughts on d you know oh yes by all means so thank you nigel and jonathan and thank
00:29:26.380
you guys for tuning in be sure to tune in again next week at this time again