Western Standard - The Pipeline - The Tale of Two Cities

00:00:00.000 Good evening, it's Wednesday, December 14th.

00:00:29.300 Welcome to The Pipeline.

00:00:31.180 I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:32.020 This is the Western Standards Weekly Panel Show

00:00:34.600 where we cover some news items, articles,

00:00:38.540 things of interest, dissect them among each other,

00:00:41.920 interpret things like that.

00:00:43.640 This is when I want to start out.

00:00:45.520 Derek Fildebrand is usually with us.

00:00:47.840 He could make it today so you're stuck with me

00:00:49.620 hosting this sort of thing.

00:00:51.440 And yes, we're going to be talking about some stories

00:00:53.780 that are in the Western Standard.

00:00:55.420 And that means if you have a subscription,

00:00:58.360 You've probably already read them.

00:00:59.520 If you don't have a subscription yet, guys, what are you waiting for?

00:01:02.200 $9.99 a month, $99 a year.

00:01:05.120 It's well worth it.

00:01:05.780 Come on, you used to pay that much for a newspaper subscription.

00:01:08.280 And this way you don't even have to get rid of all those newspapers afterwards.

00:01:10.720 And it helps us stay independent.

00:01:12.260 We refuse to take any government tax dollars.

00:01:14.460 That's just not the way we operate.

00:01:16.520 And that way we can critically talk about the issues that are important to you

00:01:20.740 rather than what's important to say, Prime Minister Trudeau.

00:01:24.060 So I'm joined today on the panel.

00:01:26.180 since we had that extra opening i'll kind of move from the outside to in everybody already knows

00:01:30.820 nigel but we got jonathan bradley our intrepid alberta reporter here at the table today welcome

00:01:35.620 to the show jonathan thank you for having me great and of course nigel hannaford our opinion editor

00:01:42.500 in his usual spot in the middle you haven't moved an inch always good to be here yes that's me i'm

00:01:47.700 just known to be a centrist okay well centrist there you're the one all right so we're going

00:01:54.980 going to get into some stuff and dive right in right away. We should, the other way I should

00:01:58.220 remind you that we pay our bills is through sponsorships and we have a great sponsor with

00:02:02.840 the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Have a quick look at this video, check it out and make

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00:02:29.460 to become a member. It's absolutely worth every penny. Canadian shooting support. Okay, so if you

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00:02:51.980 stand up for your neighbor, check them out, take out a membership. It's well worth it and invest

00:02:56.960 in your own rights, guys. Okay, let's get into it. Something, you know, this is nothing new.

00:03:04.140 We've got that, that's Central Canadian vanity, I guess, you know, I mean, we get people come out, 1.00

00:03:09.100 they move out here. They don't necessarily like it. They move back, whatever it happens.

00:03:12.860 But in Canada, it makes a story. They've written a long piece. A person who came out to Alberta,

00:03:20.500 She didn't enjoy it.

00:03:21.640 She spent three months, the horrors, the travesties she had to put up.

00:03:25.080 She was too far from local nightclubs and things such as that.

00:03:29.240 And now I guess it's made news in the Toronto life.

00:03:32.740 Did you read that piece, Nigel?

00:03:34.960 I did not read it.

00:03:36.860 I do not normally read Toronto life.

00:03:39.260 I understand.

00:03:40.160 But I'll tell you something about this lady.

00:03:44.260 She'll be back.

00:03:45.920 So this is what's going on here.

00:03:47.840 You come from another place, you come to Canada, or you come to Alberta, come to Edmonton, and you find it's different.

00:03:57.320 You expected it to be different, but it's not different the way you wanted it to be.

00:04:02.780 Brits used to do this all the time.

00:04:04.860 It was called the $1,000 cure.

00:04:06.780 You would emigrate from Britain to Canada.

00:04:09.980 Winters are too cold.

00:04:11.640 It's a long way from home.

00:04:13.300 Mom writes complaining letters.

00:04:14.660 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.

00:04:25.840 And so you ship back again.

00:04:27.380 All you've done is spend a bunch of money, a $1,000 cure.

00:04:31.140 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,

00:04:39.060 she's going to say, yep, the reasons that I maybe want to go to Alberta in the first place were entirely valid.

00:04:44.660 I'm going to get my plane ticket and I'm on my way back here,

00:04:48.760 but I'm going to live a little closer to town.

00:04:51.000 Well, she may have learned that lesson with part of it.

00:04:53.320 I mean, I just noticed a story that came up that the average commute in Toronto

00:04:56.540 right now is 56 minutes.

00:04:58.980 Part of what this lady's choice, she didn't just move to Edmonton.

00:05:01.660 She moved to actually to a bedroom community outside of Edmonton.

00:05:04.540 Maybe she didn't research her homes well enough because I guess one of her

00:05:07.060 complaints was it was a really long drive to get to the Cactus Club.

00:05:09.700 I can't imagine being that far.

00:05:11.320 Well, according to the article, it was 30 minutes.

00:05:13.660 that beats 56 by 26 minutes i would think and i mean presumably the uber driver is going to do it

00:05:20.140 but we go to you uh jonathan i mean you're uh you've chosen to move out to alberta you're still

00:05:25.020 on your first crack at it i believe you're you're still here yes i am uh so you you came from out

00:05:30.140 in that toronto sort of area have the trials and tribulations really been wearing you down

00:05:33.980 well alberta's been amazing to me i'm really happy i moved out here it's more affordable

00:05:37.900 people are friendlier um one thing I will note though uh with my experience is I actually have

00:05:44.260 a few friends who are thinking about moving out here from uh Toronto just because they don't see

00:05:47.540 a future for themselves in Toronto I mean this lady she was making six figures she even admitted

00:05:51.840 that in the article so you know she kind of has she could probably survive in Toronto and you know

00:05:56.240 do well whereas a young person like myself or someone else you know just graduated from school

00:06:00.960 and isn't making six figures or like you know making a whole bunch of money comes out uh to

00:06:07.360 alberta and you know it's more affordable here you know rent prices are lower one thing that i

00:06:11.200 was kind of confused about with her is why was she living in beaumont if she's like a party girl

00:06:15.620 like i haven't been to beaumont but i've heard that it's like a bedroom community and there's

00:06:20.220 not really much to do so like why would she want to buy a place in rent rent or buy a place in

00:06:24.440 downtown edmonton given that average rents in edmonton according to rentals.ca are about

00:06:28.240 1100 a month so you don't miss your field no not at all well i mean a part of it's just researching

00:06:35.520 your destination. I mean, if parties are the important part to you, then by all means move

00:06:40.340 where they are. You know, we like the inter-regional play though. I mean, I would dare to say Toronto's

00:06:45.840 got a livelier downtown than any Alberta cities. Montreal actually could claim that as well. We're

00:06:49.640 not the most big party towns, but we have plenty of nightclubs and bars. If you're coming to Calgary,

00:06:53.540 we do have a cactus club on 3rd and 8th. So if she decides on her second move to come here,

00:06:57.800 perhaps get near that. And what's weird about this lady was she was complaining about how,

00:07:01.360 oh like uh she's like couldn't find a shisha lounge to go to like when i asked people they're

00:07:06.240 like what's a lounge but like all she had to do was just go on google maps like i i went on google

00:07:10.080 maps prior to going on my show to search for shisha lines in edmonton and there was four

00:07:13.440 so i don't know why she was complaining about having some official lounges there

00:07:17.440 okay for people like me who watch our program what is a shisha shisha is hookah it's a persian

00:07:25.040 uh pipe smoking lounge where you go water pipes yeah water pipes so like

00:07:30.800 like the one that cory goes to on friday afternoons yeah i think so yeah that's that's pot

00:07:38.640 once you've done the show yes yes this is my post show you who you know the water pipe smooths it

00:07:44.320 out but yeah little things like that if these are important it's just it's kind of a funny piece and

00:07:49.120 i mean still what's striking okay somebody moved they didn't like it but was this worthy of writing

00:07:54.000 up in a large toronto piece i guess if you're looking for clicks because you know it's going to

00:07:57.920 who, while we're talking about it,

00:07:59.660 it's going to inflame us a little

00:08:00.680 and it's going to get the Toronto going

00:08:01.880 and we're going to get at each other's backs.

00:08:03.460 So what we need to do is we actually 0.99

00:08:05.380 take it upon ourselves to send this lady

00:08:09.440 a copy of his article,

00:08:12.560 Five Reasons Why...

00:08:14.100 Is it Five Reasons Why Edmonton Didn't Suck?

00:08:16.220 Yeah, Five Reasons Why Edmonton Suck.

00:08:17.580 Obviously she hasn't got it.

00:08:20.940 You know, there are some good things.

00:08:22.700 She needs to get that article.

00:08:24.340 Well, yeah, and if she wants to play that,

00:08:25.600 come to Calgary, move here.

00:08:27.920 and calgary always talks about why edmonton sucks anyway so you could do that locally

00:08:31.680 and still be in alberta but what about those five reasons since we got you going so

00:08:35.760 the five reasons why edmonton doesn't suck were uh the edmonton valley zoo is cheaper than the

00:08:40.000 calgary zoo uh funny drug addicts uh calmer vibes green onion cakes and west end of him all funny

00:08:48.880 drug addicts yes that's some dark humor you're getting into here when i went to edmonton uh

00:08:54.640 Back in August,

00:08:56.740 Western Standard Publisher, Derek Filderbrand,

00:08:58.120 sent me on a workation to go cover the

00:09:00.000 conservative party leadership race debate

00:09:02.700 in Edmonton.

00:09:04.020 I was walking in the downtown core, and there was one

00:09:05.960 dramatic I saw, and she was walking down the street,

00:09:08.240 and she was cackling, like,

00:09:09.220 like that.

00:09:12.580 And then I just looked at her,

00:09:14.300 and I was like, what the heck? And she's like,

00:09:16.100 sorry, sir, I smoke too much weed. And I was like,

00:09:18.800 maybe you smoke some other stuff other than weed.

00:09:22.140 As long as she was laughing, I guess.

00:09:24.640 Well, it's cheaper than a movie, that's for sure.

00:09:30.700 And Arthur Green's no doubt.

00:09:32.680 Yes, and Arthur's been covering that.

00:09:34.200 We'll talk a little bit about the Edmonton streets actually in our third segment.

00:09:37.520 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.

00:09:46.800 Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken

00:09:53.660 long, long ago. These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent

00:09:59.820 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

00:10:19.220 around here anyways. And federally, we have, it took quite a while to go through it, but it usually

00:10:24.660 does. The ethics commissioner has ruled on Liberal Cabinet Minister Mary Ng, who was found in a breach

00:10:32.560 of the Conflict of Interest Act when she sole sourced a contract, actually I should have written

00:10:37.340 it down I believe it was for $29,000 to a close personal friend of hers from her office which

00:10:42.540 I mean again anybody you don't need to be told when you hold a senior position in government

00:10:47.580 you can't give direct jobs and contracts to your friends or you shouldn't but what's striking about

00:10:52.180 this is aside from being told that yes you were in breach there doesn't appear to be any consequences

00:10:57.100 but what do you make of that and I just well I first of all I think a great departure from

00:11:04.060 tradition and secondly they take their cue from the top. Unfortunately the

00:11:09.520 Prime Minister himself has been has been guilty of ethics breaches on more

00:11:17.080 than one occasion but he's still the Prime Minister and that sets the

00:11:23.140 standard of accountability for everybody who works in government. When it's

00:11:30.920 clear that it's enough to just say you're sorry and move on you don't resign but it never used

00:11:35.960 to be that way and you know 50 60 years ago you'd have to resign if you got divorced i mean

00:11:45.400 maybe we don't want to go back to that but there is a certain standard of ethical behavior that we

00:11:52.360 expect from our our leaders from our politicians and one of the things that i've noticed over the

00:11:59.800 the past few years is how much that has become stretched. Take, for example, the Supreme

00:12:11.080 Court Chief Justice, Richard Wagner. Basically, you hope that your justices are going to be

00:12:21.180 neutral on any case

00:12:23.980 that comes before them.

00:12:25.640 Well, Chief Justice

00:12:27.600 Wagner, we now know,

00:12:29.800 will not be neutral

00:12:30.880 if anything to do with the trucking convoy

00:12:33.880 comes his way. In fact,

00:12:35.980 the ethical thing for him to do

00:12:37.400 would be not to sit on that panel

00:12:39.780 because he has

00:12:41.440 already declared

00:12:43.900 his point of view

00:12:45.600 that they're a lawless group.

00:12:47.400 Regardless of whether you agree with them or not,

00:12:49.360 Some people may think that he's right on, even though we don't. I don't.

00:12:56.360 The fact is, he's already declared his predisposition, so he can't really hear these people honestly.

00:13:04.360 Here in Alberta, we have got a lieutenant governor who has passed judgment on legislation that had not even been written,

00:13:13.360 I'm speaking of the Alberta Sovereignty Act, obviously,

00:13:17.120 we started talking about what she wouldn't do

00:13:20.140 and what her role was if there was a constitutional crisis.

00:13:24.060 She would have been so much better to leave that to a constitutional expert

00:13:27.320 that the news media could have found easily enough.

00:13:32.160 But again, that's the kind of thing that just never used to be done.

00:13:38.620 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?

00:13:53.840 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.

00:14:05.760 We need to start teaching that much earlier in life, schools even.

00:14:08.740 Well, yeah, well, folks like ourselves have been around a little longer.

00:14:11.900 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?

00:14:19.120 Okay, I stepped in it.

00:14:20.440 I have to recuse myself from anything having to do with this particular item.

00:14:23.500 But they're unapologetic now.

00:14:25.560 I mean, they offer,

00:14:26.980 being offered a forced apology

00:14:28.240 is you have to

00:14:28.960 when the commissioner

00:14:30.180 comes down at you,

00:14:31.220 but there's no contrition.

00:14:33.200 Like Jonathan,

00:14:33.940 you're of the younger generation.

00:14:35.920 You haven't really seen times

00:14:37.200 when there was much accountability.

00:14:38.700 I mean, it's entrenching

00:14:39.960 a sense that that's

00:14:41.320 how it's always going to be.

00:14:42.240 I think that's a dangerous trend.

00:14:43.440 I guess so.

00:14:43.980 I mean, I remember

00:14:44.460 I was in a first year university

00:14:46.160 when Trudeau was convicted

00:14:47.700 of breaking the,

00:14:50.460 like of his first ethics violation

00:14:51.640 for the Aga Khan vacation.

00:14:53.500 I remember hearing at that time that Trudeau was the first Prime Minister to break federal

00:14:57.440 ethics law because I remember he was doing the Prime Minister's town halls at the time

00:15:00.820 and one lady asked him how do you feel knowing that you're doing the first Prime Minister

00:15:03.360 to be convicted of breaking ethics law and it is kind of disturbing because not only

00:15:07.380 did he break it once he broke it a second time with the SNC-Lavalin scandal and then

00:15:13.140 he's had some close calls with the Bowie Charity scandal but the thing with the Bowie Charity

00:15:17.760 scandal was at least with Bill Morneau he resigned with being implicated in that scandal

00:15:22.880 and also with some of Trudeau's advisors

00:15:25.980 during the SNC-Lavalin scandal, they resigned so there is some integrity

00:15:28.500 but Trudeau just seems to have complete disregard for integrity

00:15:31.600 With all due respect, Jonathan, there's a difference between

00:15:34.780 integrity and taking one for the team

00:15:37.260 Gerald Butts, one of the advisors

00:15:41.740 I think if somebody had to be

00:15:44.640 accountable, let it not be

00:15:47.780 the Prime Minister was the thinking

00:15:50.280 I would like to think that it was integrity, but I remain unconvinced.

00:16:00.280 Okay.

00:16:01.280 Well, political staffers, they fall on the sword for who they work for all the time.

00:16:05.280 That's why they always sign up for those huge severance packages, because they know in that line of work,

00:16:09.280 your chances of making it the full term for whatever minister or whatnot you're working for can often...

00:16:14.280 Well, unfortunately, because they always seem to get immersed in a scandal,

00:16:17.280 you know there's going to be a problem down the road.

00:16:19.940 It's frustrating

00:16:21.700 in Washington. But I mean, part of the accountability

00:16:23.240 too should come from the electorate. As Jonathan pointed out,

00:16:25.460 Trudeau has been mired in a number

00:16:27.380 of these. But guess what? He's getting re-elected

00:16:29.500 and re-elected and re-elected. I mean,

00:16:31.300 if the voters won't fire him and

00:16:33.380 punish him for it, well, who will?

00:16:35.840 That's certainly true, Corey.

00:16:38.420 I mean, admittedly,

00:16:39.520 I notice his vote count

00:16:41.480 has been coming down with each election.

00:16:43.840 He won well in 2015,

00:16:45.460 but

00:16:46.000 But it seems to me that in 2019, there were about a half a million people less who voted Liberal.

00:16:54.180 But we lost another million in 2021.

00:16:56.820 So some people are starting to catch on.

00:16:58.760 I just wish more would catch on quicker.

00:17:01.000 Well, we'll see.

00:17:01.960 I'm throwing that all on your lap, Jonathan. 0.98

00:17:03.540 You're of that younger generation.

00:17:05.040 Do some outreach and get them out there and start firing the guy with the pretty hair.

00:17:08.520 Well, I think that with Poliette, we're starting to see that.

00:17:11.280 like I meet in my friend group at least, you know, Polly has really heard from all the issues

00:17:14.960 for my generation, us particularly with, well one of them in particular is housing, like I'm from

00:17:20.640 Toronto and average rent in Toronto for a one bedroom apartment is about $2,400 a month, which

00:17:27.280 is like if you're a new graduate or even someone who, even like someone who had like graduated a few

00:17:33.280 years ago, like that's unaffordable. Like I know people who are living in Toronto who have like

00:17:37.520 strange living arrangements where you're like living with a distant family member or they have

00:17:41.600 a whole bunch of roommates you're living with just so they can afford a place whereas like in some

00:17:46.160 some areas of canada you know it's affordable to live on your own like say calgary edmonton

00:17:50.320 or montreal places like that but toronto is like toronto vancouver like i'd really feel

00:17:54.800 about polyam if he appeals to like that the housing issue he'll be able to win over some

00:17:58.400 young people possibly veto true we'll see there's certainly cracks in the trudeau armor if somebody

00:18:04.800 can just figure them out and maybe Paulian will be the one. So let's spin things a little bit

00:18:09.800 closer back to home again and get it to Edmonton. Again, that dire city of Edmonton that Jackie

00:18:17.260 Thomas was so terribly done by. All the same, there are some problems in Edmonton, social

00:18:21.840 disorder. Every city is dealing with that actually. And the UCP is just recently, I guess, on their

00:18:27.800 announcement of forming a social disorder task force within Edmonton. It's got quite a remarkable

00:18:33.280 number of people within it, actually, though that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get anything done.

00:18:37.280 But Mayor Sohi is pretty upset with that. He didn't like this task force at all.

00:18:41.040 What did you make of this mess, Nigel? Well, okay, so again, with all due respect to Mr. Sohi,

00:18:48.880 he is a former Liberal cabinet minister who lost his seat. And so I would expect him to be

00:18:57.600 flexibly against anything that came out of the provincial government provincial government

00:19:08.480 um it would be off message if he wasn't but i think the um the idea of actual

00:19:18.080 actually getting a bunch of people who care together to look at the problem and see

00:19:22.320 if there is something that can be done.

00:19:25.480 And I say if, because

00:19:26.660 it's very

00:19:29.800 difficult.

00:19:31.420 Let's be honest about it, let's not mince words.

00:19:34.320 The common

00:19:34.980 problem among this

00:19:37.720 group of people that they're trying to

00:19:39.680 help is addiction.

00:19:41.760 It's one of the most difficult things to do.

00:19:44.400 I do not,

00:19:45.540 I'm not smart enough to have a

00:19:47.680 quick fix for that problem.

00:19:49.700 But if the

00:19:50.980 at least the government of Alberta

00:19:53.800 has recognized that it is a problem

00:19:55.800 and

00:19:57.260 getting people together to talk about

00:19:59.860 what can be done

00:20:00.560 to me the thing when this

00:20:03.200 went off the rails was probably about 30 years

00:20:05.820 ago

00:20:06.220 when we began to deinstitutionalize

00:20:09.220 people who frankly

00:20:10.220 had a job making it on their own

00:20:13.080 and I know the arguments

00:20:14.060 you know they're free people

00:20:16.680 they should have agency

00:20:17.660 unfortunately when you become

00:20:20.380 bonded with a drug, you're not really a free agent anymore. So maybe there's a case to be

00:20:27.900 made for intervention. Now I'm starting to sound like somebody who actually does have a solution.

00:20:33.340 No, that could be a facet anyways, and that disorder and that addiction. And Jonathan,

00:20:38.420 you sort of referenced it, I mean, in kind of your first real trip to Edmonton. So I mean,

00:20:42.040 it says a lot that the only thing that struck you was an experience with a person on the streets who

00:20:46.400 was impaired and uh you know it's becoming you know ubiquitous i mean you go to a downtown and

00:20:52.620 i mean you can't help but see the disorder going on i mean i've seen it all across canada like i

00:20:56.700 was in uh ottawa earlier this year for the stronger network national conference um and i remember i

00:21:03.800 was walking through a byword market which is very kind of like that where all the shops are in

00:21:08.360 ottawa it's like this nice neighborhood and there were all these homeless people just walking around

00:21:13.540 I think it may be kind of like 10 within 20 minutes, something like that.

00:21:16.860 And I was deeply disturbed by that.

00:21:18.920 One point to note about the Alberta government implementing this is I think

00:21:23.960 that Daniel Smith's chief of staff is Marshall Smith who used to work in

00:21:28.160 Alberta Mental Health and Addictions and is a recovered drug addict himself.

00:21:31.540 So I think it will be good to hear his insights on the issue because he'll

00:21:34.400 probably have some, he'll probably be behind steering the committee a little.

00:21:38.260 Yeah. Well, and getting to that, I mean,

00:21:39.840 if you look it up and it's in the story on the Western Standard online too,

00:21:42.960 it's quite a panel that's put together I mean there's a couple of First Nations chiefs involved

00:21:47.840 because again another sensitive aspect of it but it's the Indigenous communities are quite

00:21:51.820 overrepresented when it comes to the people troubled on the streets and with addiction so

00:21:55.520 having some insight from people from those communities helps without doubt you know they're

00:21:59.480 taking it seriously a couple of Edmonton City councillors not Mayor Sohi himself apparently

00:22:03.640 but addiction specialists like it does have the appearance of a panel of somebody who really wants

00:22:08.980 to get something accomplished I would hope anyways I'm trying to maintain optimism as Nigel said it's a

00:22:14.580 complicated issue and it's going to cost money and uh there's part of the issue too and mentioned

00:22:19.940 you know maybe so he certainly loves spending money uh when it's other issues like bike lanes

00:22:23.860 for example I mean the homeless can put their shopping carts up and down those nice clear

00:22:27.460 bike lanes but he doesn't seem to have the funds to help them with the addition well that

00:22:32.020 But, you know, we should certainly be concerned about the needs of people who are homeless and who are in the grip of drugs.

00:22:45.000 How do we help them?

00:22:46.260 That is a legitimate thing.

00:22:48.500 It's a priority.

00:22:49.360 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.

00:23:07.320 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.

00:23:21.880 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.

00:23:34.500 You know, that's not a comfortable way.

00:23:36.440 So at some point, that interest has to be met as well.

00:23:41.260 It's very legitimate.

00:23:43.280 You build something nice and then you find you can't use it.

00:23:45.960 So the matter of the allocation of funds in the city of Edmonton,

00:23:55.200 to me as a driver who drives to work,

00:24:00.800 the expenditure of money on bike lanes is suspect to begin with.

00:24:06.420 and seems like an anti-car measure more than a pro-bike measure.

00:24:11.460 But if we have this much problem with homeless people, how far up on the priority list

00:24:19.940 ought it to be? Maybe not far, and in any case, below caring, trying to find a solution

00:24:29.540 for homeless addicted people. Absolutely, and I would guess and imagine

00:24:33.940 maybe i mean calgary might have a similar task force coming pretty soon i don't know the ucp

00:24:37.940 plans but we have the same problem here like jonathan you've been living downtown so towards

00:24:42.580 the core and it's pretty evident visible here as well oh on the weekends especially like i remember

00:24:47.620 uh one weekend uh one of my first weekends here i was like oh you know i'm like i just want to see

00:24:51.940 like what's open and i remember i searched important to see how many there were in the

00:24:54.500 downtown core and i remember just clicking around like every single one of them was closed and i

00:24:58.420 was like okay what about starbucks so i kept in every single one of them was closed and there's

00:25:01.700 there's times when you walk in the downtown core and it's just like it's dead you feel like you're

00:25:06.140 walking like some zombie apocalypse movie where like all the humans have died except for like a

00:25:09.600 handful and you're like what is going on here like and you know there's like the homeless people

00:25:13.640 walking around obviously you know like you know screaming or like just like comatose lying on the

00:25:17.780 ground um i actually i think about two months ago there was a homeless guy who almost had to call

00:25:23.140 the ambulance on because he was passed out uh after he took some drugs and i ran up to him you

00:25:28.920 I just want to make sure he was fine. And I was about to like call him and he woke up and was

00:25:32.660 like, Oh, I took some fentanyl. Yeah, no, it's going, it's all over the place. And our own

00:25:38.220 reporter, Arthur Green, he's moved from Bonneville down to Edmonton. He's been there and he's been

00:25:42.360 taking some, some very graphic pictures, I guess you say on the transit system of people, you know,

00:25:47.660 consuming drugs, people inebriated in bad ways, or even the human waste, literally that they leave

00:25:52.660 behind in transit stations. And people got very upset with him for doing that. I mean, there's a,

00:25:56.800 there's a large element of people who just don't want to talk about it or you know and then they

00:26:01.840 try to shout it down and unfortunately it's become politicized a lot i mean it seems there's almost

00:26:06.960 been two lines drawn on this there's just obsession with safe consumption and safe supply and another

00:26:13.600 on the other end saying no it all has to be on treatment and i it seems why can't we agree that

00:26:18.800 we kind of need both you can't treat them if they're dead so if we can keep them going i

00:26:23.120 understand giving clean needles and such but it should be coupled with a path towards treatment

00:26:28.800 so that you're just kicking this can down the road forever but again it's hopelessly we let our

00:26:34.960 partisan stripes ruin finding solutions sometimes well you know as you say it gets politicized well

00:26:40.800 when you're spending big money 160 million dollars is still big money for a municipality yeah that

00:26:46.320 should be political that's worth the discussion and that's that's now politics uh to me it seems

00:26:53.040 that if there's that much money laying around for for some purpose this would be the the place to

00:27:00.000 put it not bike lanes not this year yeah and i think it is a good place if assuming they're

00:27:05.280 going to put it into places where it'll fix it so there is no simple path so well i guess we can

00:27:10.160 hope for the best and they'll stop sniping long enough on a positive note we entertained a visitor

00:27:15.360 from Toronto last year Judy and I and we were driving downtown and there were people going

00:27:21.760 this way and that way with their shopping carts full of bags of bottles and the fellow says you

00:27:27.360 know they're not like that where I come from even in Calgary even your homeless people are

00:27:33.520 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

00:27:44.480 homeless people panhandle to get their money whereas in calgary many of them collect bottles

00:27:48.560 yeah i've maybe only seen a handful of people who panhandle or like bank for money whereas most of

00:27:52.800 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

Western Standard - December 15, 2022

The Pipeline - The Tale of Two Cities

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