Western Standard - The Pipeline： Who's telling your pension plan what to buy？

00:00:00.000 good evening welcome to the pipeline i am western standard columnist cory morgan and i'll be

00:00:19.280 hosting the show this eve we got a bit of a different panel as we go into 2024 first one

00:00:25.020 of the new year and looking forward to it. We've got lots to discuss, of course, as always and chew

00:00:31.160 up and dissect for you. Before I get to that and I'll introduce who I'm sitting with and who we're

00:00:37.260 speaking to tonight, I should speak though to our sponsor to kick off the new year as well. They've

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00:01:36.640 Okay, let's get on with who's with us today.

00:01:38.720 I'll start with the special guest we have, and that is the communications director,

00:01:43.480 communications manager from Friends of Science, Michelle Sterling.

00:01:46.760 She's been on my show a number of times.

00:01:48.140 She's very present on social media and in media in general, and she's going to be here to talk with us tonight.

00:01:54.140 So thanks for joining us, Michelle.

00:01:56.120 My pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show, you guys.

00:01:59.000 Oh, glad to.

00:02:00.320 And, of course, somebody who's more of our regular standby stalwart, Nigel Hannaford, our opinion editor with the Western Standard.

00:02:07.640 Yeah, two bits, and you get my opinion and a cup of coffee.

00:02:11.100 But hello, Michelle. Nice to have you on the show.

00:02:13.720 Thank you, Nigel. Hello.

00:02:15.080 Yeah. So, boy, where to begin? Well, we know where to begin. We will get started with a fantastic column that just went up in the Western Standard by Ms. Sterling there. Yes, of course. And I'm not used to looking at the remote guests. So, I mean, it's fantastic. And talking about, well, who's telling your pension plan what to buy? Perhaps in a nutshell, Michelle, kind of let us know what this is about.

00:02:41.900 well there's an organization called the office of the superintendent of financial institutes

00:02:48.380 and most people never even really hear about it or know about it but it supervises and regulates

00:02:54.800 all the banks financial institutes and even the pension funds in canada and just before christmas

00:03:01.500 they closed the consultation period where they had created what they call a standardized climate

00:03:09.580 climate science scenario, which was intended for banks and financial institutes to use

00:03:16.040 this very complex mathematical formula to determine what climate risk their investment

00:03:23.060 portfolio and clients have.

00:03:26.320 The only problem is that they're using a totally implausible scenario as the baseline, which

00:03:33.780 is known in the climate biz as rcp 8.5 it's implausible for a number of reasons one it has

00:03:43.460 three to six billion more people on earth by 2100 than even the un estimates it would use

00:03:50.740 more coal than exists on the planet and it would also use more oil than is presently deemed to be

00:03:58.020 even recoverable not to mention it's very unlikely that it could be recovered within that time frame

00:04:06.420 you know the investment market isn't there for it the infrastructure isn't there for it

00:04:11.140 so by doing that it really distorts the future meaning that it gives a presentation of extremely

00:04:17.940 hot you know this is where the climate emergency comes from so this should definitely not be the

00:04:24.580 baseline for climate modeling scenarios for all of the financial institutes in canada and pension

00:04:31.620 funds you know because by doing this of course it's going to sway investment away from um

00:04:40.580 fossil fuels which are the income earning um elements in the markets these days and always

00:04:48.260 have been right so it's going to try now the other there are two other complications one is that

00:04:53.780 there's a bill that senator rosa galvez has pushed forward which is called bill 2 s 243

00:05:02.500 and it's being lobbied with her by all a huge bevy of green groups you know engos they're all

00:05:10.820 on board with it and they want to literally like choke off financing to the fossil fuel industry

00:05:16.580 and they want a dedicated climate risk expert to be put on all boards and anyone who's been

00:05:23.300 active in the fossil fuel or energy industries in the past five years would not be permitted

00:05:30.260 to be on a board of directors so you know imagine you're getting somebody

00:05:34.740 like a stephen gilbo character who would be put on a board in place of someone um like um

00:05:44.820 you know brett wilson let's say you know someone who actually knows the energy markets

00:05:50.820 right so that's insane and and then um the the other factor is that three big environmental

00:05:59.700 groups have been consulting with the office of the superintendent of financial institutes and

00:06:05.940 trying to push them into this mandatory climate risk reporting and they are shift tensions which

00:06:11.940 is an offshoot of tides make way and tides of course was very connected to the funding of the

00:06:18.420 tar sands campaign um and lots of foreign money had poured into their um perhaps not now but it

00:06:26.020 was uh very clear that there's lots of foreign money pouring in there before um environmental

00:06:32.980 defense uh which at some points has been funded for 30 of their revenue by the government of

00:06:39.940 canada actually but also has received significant foreign funding and ecojustice the uh enviro legal

00:06:47.460 firm which has shut down a number of pipelines in canada and continues to be really a lawfare

00:06:54.980 nuisance organization and tried to have us thrown in jail at one point why because we put up billboards

00:07:04.340 michelle if i understood you correctly in your column uh this this office of superintends the

00:07:11.140 financial funds reports to uh reports to the federal government through the minister of finance

00:07:17.060 So there's, you know, they'll probably say, no, no, we never get told exactly what to do or say, but there is a connection there that's clearly linked.

00:07:26.700 Now, two questions for you.

00:07:28.920 One is, if the pension plan says, you know, we don't particularly care for your advice, we're going to ignore it.

00:07:36.720 what happens to them and secondly overall is this not like somebody coming along and telling the

00:07:47.200 pension funds that they need to assume that two and two equals five and make their plans on that

00:07:54.720 basis is that kind of where this this lands uh yes and i would say that probably the pressure

00:08:02.560 is not coming so much from the government although i'm sure it's a factor but probably more from the

00:08:07.520 international banking community because um a long time ago mark carney and michael bloomberg set up

00:08:14.480 uh well a long time ago i guess it was around 2017 after the paris agreement of 2015 they set

00:08:20.720 up the task force for financial disclosures and bloomberg became the chair of that which is kind

00:08:27.920 of ironic because he's also part his philanthropy is also part of climate works which is one of the

00:08:34.960 funders of things like tar sands campaign and they're constantly pushing all the so-called

00:08:41.520 cleantech wind solar carbon trading and electric vehicles so you know there's huge conflicts of

00:08:49.200 interest there um and i want to point out that we have written both to the bank of canada and

00:08:55.200 to the office of the superintendent of financial institutes a number of times in the past year

00:09:01.040 and informed them of these things so it's not that they don't know that this is a surprise

00:09:06.320 anyway the the task force formed another group called the network for greening the financial

00:09:12.400 institutes uh the financial system and they uh they're all using these models and even the bank

00:09:20.000 for international settlements is using this rcp 8.5 implausible model well that's kind of outrageous

00:09:28.400 but look i was wondering where i had heard of this ties foundation before and of course it was in 2015

00:09:35.360 during the federal election that stephen harper lost the ties foundation was funding a canadian

00:09:44.560 a number of canadian activist organizations to fight the harper government during that

00:09:52.560 election in fact i i thanks to the mr google i have this uh in 2015 tides foundation donated 1.5

00:10:03.120 million dollars of american money to canadian third parties in that election year now this was

00:10:12.800 looked at by elections canada and everybody thought well maybe they shouldn't have done that

00:10:16.160 but nobody actually did anything about it but so you've got american money affecting our our

00:10:22.000 elections and apparently by your account they are also influencing the regulator for our financial

00:10:30.480 industries and getting them to to use a sort of a two plus two equals five formula when they're

00:10:35.680 assessing their risk of their their investments from the environmental perspective am i oversimplifying

00:10:42.720 that or is this what we've got here well I think you're understating it

00:10:46.260 actually because well the tides has been in Canada since around 1990 and they

00:10:54.540 were big funders of forest ethics and in 2012 Andrew Frank was an employee of

00:11:01.800 forest ethics and that was about the time that the Harper government was

00:11:05.340 about to do the charities audits. And so he signed an affidavit that Tides was funding

00:11:13.700 the Forest Essex Tar Sands Campaign and Sacred Headwaters, I think. And if you recall, the

00:11:20.100 Northern Gateway pipeline had been approved by the Harper government. And one of Justin

00:11:25.860 Trudeau's tweets is that he will, if I'm elected, I'll cancel Northern Gateway. So we have a

00:11:33.400 report called manufacturing a climate crisis which gives some of the

00:11:38.860 background on that and another organization the oak foundation which is

00:11:45.400 out of Switzerland has funded a number of these environmental groups and they

00:11:52.240 funded West Coast environmental law but if you look at our green group our green

00:11:59.080 reports we have four green reports money matters dark green money big green money and the green

00:12:07.480 titanic and this is what's happening the green titanic is sinking canada if you look at these

00:12:13.800 green reports that we have you'll see this staggering amount of money that has come into

00:12:20.040 these groups and most of them are registered charities and many of the people who donate do so

00:12:26.440 you know because they love birds and bees and trees and and the kermode bear you know whatever

00:12:34.200 sacred animal comes to mind people love them and want to support them but in fact these groups are

00:12:40.520 actively blocking resource development in canada and also turning a lot of canada into a park

00:12:49.240 um so yeah there's there's a lot of unseen interference there i'm not sure that it's

00:12:57.160 illegal i don't think so you know this is i think they found all the loopholes

00:13:02.200 but it's definitely very detrimental to our economy well i don't think it is illegal maybe

00:13:08.120 it should be but i think you're right about that but i so many people are totally unaware

00:13:14.040 that it is so easy for foreign foreigners with a lot of money to come and say well let's play

00:13:20.120 with the canadian election let's see if we can alter their their environmental policy maybe it'll

00:13:25.800 be good for our own extraction industries you know i mean there's there are a plethora of reasons why

00:13:31.400 people choose to do this but these reports that you're speaking of michelle where would where

00:13:36.280 Where would a person find them?

00:13:38.220 They're on our blog.

00:13:40.300 And if you look under ENGO Charities,

00:13:43.560 you'll probably have that come up in the search.

00:13:48.160 But I wanted to say there's, for instance,

00:13:51.000 Parker Gallant has done a lot of work on this.

00:13:53.580 And he's found that there's a network of these organizations,

00:13:57.580 probably the top 14.

00:13:59.680 They call themselves the Strathmere Group.

00:14:02.280 And they all met and set up their messaging with media influencers prior to the election, the 2015 election.

00:14:13.260 And they basically set a media campaign in motion.

00:14:17.820 And they said that they have something like 358,000 members in their organizations combined.

00:14:25.420 At that time, they had $50 million in the kitty.

00:14:28.040 um and uh you know that's very very influential so well i guess what they did in back in 2015

00:14:36.840 they would just uh set up a a campaign office and they would phone everybody and just ask if you

00:14:43.560 were planning to vote ndp would you consider voting liberal for just for this election if

00:14:49.340 that would be enough to unseat the conservative and i think that they were successful in that

00:14:53.860 endeavor in about two dozen ridings across the country. Sorry, Corey, I don't mean to take over

00:14:58.980 there. It was quite all right. No, I was just moving along. There's a lot to unpack in there

00:15:04.940 and still a lot to unpack tonight. I mean, again, getting back to that basis of when they're putting,

00:15:09.940 you know, ESG type principles and things like that ahead of getting a return on our pensions.

00:15:14.640 I mean, that's what should wake up Canadians. I mean, a lot of it seems sort of distant to them

00:15:19.240 or you know out of sight well bear in mind this is going to directly impact the viability of your

00:15:24.600 retirement plan if if we allow this to dominate their investment choices rather than getting a

00:15:30.680 return which i think most canadians would rather have a return i think it was a very powerful and

00:15:35.240 important article that she published this morning very much so yeah so uh really thank you oh pleasure

00:15:41.400 You know, in 2015, I think it was, there's a law firm out of Toronto, Kosky Minsky, they issued a report saying that climate denial is no longer an option. And that was issued to all the pension fund beneficiaries in Canada, or sorry, all the pension fund trustees in Canada.

00:16:00.420 and we did two reports at the time rebutting this report because exactly that point that

00:16:08.720 you know you want to have your pension fund invested in what will make you money over the

00:16:14.300 long term consistently make you money well wind and solar for instance is made from oil gas and

00:16:20.680 coal so if you're invested in energy stocks in oil gas and coal no matter if the renewables market

00:16:27.540 is up or down, you're still going to make money because it's needed for that. The reverse is not

00:16:32.700 true. And now we see that the renewables market is collapsing. And ironically, in 2018, the CEO

00:16:39.820 of Iberdrola out of Spain said that the global renewables industry is heading for a global Enron

00:16:47.920 style meltdown. And we're seeing that now. We're seeing that because the price of energy has gone

00:16:54.440 up plus the materials prices like copper have really skyrocketed why partly because everyone

00:17:01.080 in the world is rushing to meet net zero so you know now they can't afford to produce these even

00:17:07.000 though they keep claiming oh it's the cheapest form of power it's not and that market is collapsing

00:17:12.840 they they just can't make them anymore well that column and many others i'll segue up uh further

00:17:20.040 under kind of our next subject are up on the westernstandard.news. By the way, guys, be sure

00:17:24.740 to take out a subscription to get your unfettered access to all of those up there. And you can also

00:17:29.740 look in past columns and articles as well online, which is what we'll talk a little bit about. We

00:17:34.260 had a whole raft of year-end review columns that came out and some really fantastic ones. Nigel,

00:17:40.620 as the opinion editor, you got to curate. I got to cheer for my writers. Yeah, you know,

00:17:46.120 it is so easy and and michelle i think you would probably agree it is very easy to go out and damn

00:17:51.560 the darkness and just complain but you know some of our writers were able to look into the uh into

00:17:59.080 the 12 months that had just gone by and see some signs of hope that the things that irritated us

00:18:04.760 most at the end of 2022 are actually you know they were taking some hits there were a few

00:18:11.240 torpedoes in the side and um linda for example linda slobodin she's uh she writes out of manitoba

00:18:19.880 but she's right on top of the uh the the issues right across western canada and she i won't read

00:18:27.400 them all because there's too many but she's got one two three four probably about ten pieces of

00:18:33.640 good news that she was able to put together in the uh in one article things like uh how

00:18:41.240 Canadian parents are taking on the gender bullies at schools.

00:18:46.400 They're not just taking it anymore.

00:18:47.940 They're fighting back.

00:18:50.280 And then, of course, there was Dr. Barry Cooper at the University of Calgary

00:18:53.480 talking about the great change that's come over Danielle Smith.

00:18:57.080 I was a bit...

00:18:58.100 I tried to do the Conrad Black thing and make a big word out of it, Corey.

00:19:02.020 Transmogrification. 0.86

00:19:02.560 Yes, I saw that.

00:19:03.380 It's a real word, and it just means a total and absolute change from the inside out.

00:19:07.680 But basically, he was saying that Smith has learned a lot of politics since the days when she famously crossed the floor, and now she's much more about, you know, about loyalty to the, well, I guess, loyalty, first of all, to Alberta, he wrote, and to what Canada is, could be at its best.

00:19:30.780 A really insightful argument.

00:19:35.720 Anyway, I could go on. 0.99

00:19:37.080 I mean, Michelle, you had a great piece then on greenwashing, which is just, can you just in a few words summarize this stupid, trivial campaign? 0.97

00:19:48.260 I don't want to prejudice your thoughts on this, but the stupid, trivial campaign that Ottawa has got going to try and make us more green friendly. 0.98

00:19:59.440 What are they doing? 0.97

00:20:00.780 are they thinking oh well it's called raise the bar and they're trying to nudge people into

00:20:06.860 climate compliance with things like you know hanging your clothes on the laundry

00:20:11.020 online instead of putting them in your dryer as if you're going to save the planet if you do that

00:20:16.860 and you're going to save money but you know it's not that trivial actually because they're funding

00:20:22.860 this huge psychological research project out of the ubc where all they're doing is studying how to

00:20:31.580 get uh people to comply um through various means and one of the means that they come down to is

00:20:39.420 that when there are outliers like people who are refuseniks say like premier scott mo or or daniel

00:20:45.980 smith then you actually have to threaten them um you know with some kind of legal or criminal action

00:20:52.300 but everything before that of course is like nudging people like you know turn down your

00:20:57.020 thermostat and some of these things of course make sense some of them like if you want to save a bit

00:21:02.460 of money fine do that but in fact i just got a note from one of my insurance companies saying

00:21:07.980 that you know you should keep your thermostat at 18 degrees otherwise you might have broken

00:21:14.300 pipes your pipes might freeze up well so much for turning down the thermostat at night who's

00:21:19.420 going to be responsible for that you know michelle 70 years ago i remember my mother hanging the 0.93

00:21:24.380 clothes out on a line just as the government of canada is now recommending it's not a new idea

00:21:29.340 but the point is the reason that she did it was she did not have an in-house dryer and if she had

00:21:34.060 had an in-house dryer that's the way she would have dried the clothes because it was a this is

00:21:38.940 what you do when you don't have much money that's right uh it it did wow go home

00:21:45.660 tips on all kinds of nonsensical things like that take the bus twice a week blah blah blah

00:21:53.100 then of course they paid an ad agency to do all these ads as well as some millions of dollars 0.96

00:21:59.740 you know to tell you stupid things meantime china emits in one month what canada the whole country 0.99

00:22:07.100 emits in a year and a half so your little laundry uh hanging outside is not going to save the planet 0.99

00:22:14.380 now there's a lot of rose-colored glasses about the past and romanticized notions of the amount

00:22:19.500 of work that was done i mean it you know not everything that was done for a long time was

00:22:23.500 necessarily a good thing now that we have better means i mean they used to drill holes in your

00:22:26.940 head to let the demons out yes we you know we've got better treatment well just reverting to the

00:22:31.900 the laundry thing there was a big cast iron mangle and you had to put your clothes through

00:22:37.260 and squeeze all the water out you try to make sure you didn't put your fingers in there with

00:22:40.540 I was going to say, I probably would have put my brother through it or something, but I was a brother.

00:22:45.620 Okay, well, we'll move on from that.

00:22:47.480 But yeah, there are, again, a lot of upbeat and excellent columns.

00:22:51.120 It's just kind of a plethora of them came out, scheduled for the end of the year.

00:22:54.800 Great work, everybody.

00:22:55.820 It was.

00:22:56.080 There was some great reading through the holidays and still there.

00:22:59.140 That's where we remind everybody you can get in there and find these things.

00:23:02.060 So let's get on to other foolishness, though, a little less so into the world of academia.

00:23:06.980 Yes, one of our top educational institutions in the world, Harvard University.

00:23:14.900 The president of it, Ms. Gay, resigned over plagiarism.

00:23:22.100 And I mean, I think she resigned with a boot against her butt. 0.99

00:23:24.900 They just couldn't run cover for her anymore on this whole issue. 0.92

00:23:28.320 But what I want to talk a little more about is how the media is running cover for her now.

00:23:32.680 And that Associated Press headline that's been picked up by some Canadian outlets now, and I'll read it verbatim, Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleagues, plagiarism.

00:23:47.120 So apparently plagiarism is not actually a problem unless a conservative points it out.

00:23:51.200 Yeah, well, so it's like fiddling the petty cash, isn't it? You know, if a conservative finds you've been fiddling the petty cash, well, harumph, you shouldn't be going after people over inconsequential things like that, except that plagiarism is not inconsequential, is it?

00:24:05.480 Like it's the theft of somebody else's hard work, somebody else's intellectual property that you have taken, made it your own, and leveraged it into the presidency of Harvard, which until recently was one of the great universities in the world.

00:24:24.980 They probably think they still are, but quite frankly, you know, if this is the kind of thing they tolerate.

00:24:29.980 But let's not forget why this woman found herself in the crosshairs in the first place.

00:24:35.480 When pro-Hamas groups on the campus at Harvard University were condemning Israel and making the board, the Senate of Harvard University look weak and silent, by comparison, she was finally called to testify at a congressional hearing.

00:24:58.540 They asked her why she didn't speak up, and she couldn't find it in herself to actually condemn Hamas, and importantly, she couldn't find it in herself to say that people calling for genocide against the Jews fell outside the protective umbrella of free speech at Harvard University.

00:25:21.800 It was absurd. Everybody should search that clip out. They really should, because it's almost too much to believe until you watch, because it wasn't just her. There were a couple of others among them, and it was just bizarre.

00:25:32.420 Well, I mean, what's happened to the universities across this continent, it's not new.

00:25:38.760 Back in 1989, a commentator by the name of Chester Finn said that he called them islands of oppression,

00:25:48.780 universities, campuses, islands of oppression in a sea of freedom.

00:25:54.560 And when you listen to your kids and their friends coming back home for the holidays,

00:26:00.480 and how's it going and they lament how it's going but they can't actually say what they think they

00:26:07.980 just have to parrot the lines that the left gives out during the lectures in order to pass the mark

00:26:14.360 and then they can go leave them with a degree i mean this this is what we're this is what we're

00:26:19.200 paying a lot of money for and it fosters mistrust and it's a bad example you know when you're reading

00:26:24.520 anything i mean i look at michelle's background of books going on you know and you're a prolific

00:26:29.640 writer and you put out the pieces as well on and contribute to them on Friends of Science.

00:26:34.520 And I mean, using other people's work as a basis, if you give it a citation, I mean,

00:26:39.320 that that's proper research. There's nothing wrong with that. It's when you just take it as

00:26:44.340 if it was your own that we have an issue. And I mean, your organization wouldn't put up with

00:26:50.520 you putting something like that up for very long, I imagine. Well, no, but you know, the greater

00:26:57.400 problem with her testimony was, you know, in the context of the United States, they don't have

00:27:03.660 a hate speech rule, like their freedom of speech is much freer than here. But she was being questioned

00:27:10.760 about the policy on campus, you know, and this is a campus that until recently had been, well,

00:27:17.920 it probably still is, protecting people for pronouns and microaggressions. But when you

00:27:23.840 actually have Jewish students being harassed, physically harassed, and their lives endangered,

00:27:29.600 and being confronted and bullied by the pro-Hamas demonstrators, that's not kosher,

00:27:40.400 shall we say, on any campus. That's complete violation of the whole theory of academic

00:27:47.600 freedom, because the whole principle of academic freedom is to have open civil debate. You know,

00:27:53.120 that's one of the things that we stand for friends of science as well open civil debate which means

00:27:58.560 if you have these very strong opposing views very emotional issues you still have to debate them

00:28:05.920 in an open and civil manner and not bully harass or endanger other people and that's what she was

00:28:13.840 not standing up for in her testimony she was talking about well it depends on the context

00:28:19.200 Well, no, it doesn't, because you've got rules and values and mission statements at Harvard, and they're all about academic freedom and the necessity for respectful research and integrity in research.

00:28:38.860 So big fail on her part.

00:28:41.120 I don't know. Maybe Harvard needs to look around for a university that adheres to the old standards and then plagiarize their rules.

00:28:50.040 Code of conduct, yeah.

00:28:53.060 I mean, you've got to wonder, though, too, that, unfortunately, you know, this is, people get their information from the media.

00:29:00.340 They get their interpretations from the media.

00:29:03.260 Is the headline writer for the Associated Press a Harvard graduate, perchance?

00:29:06.680 Why is the media running cover for this?

00:29:09.980 This is, I mean, there's rarely actually issues that are kind of black and white with somebody who did something wrong.

00:29:15.740 I mean, we can, you know, the degree of punishment is debatable and things like that.

00:29:19.340 But most people can agree plagiarism is wrong and refusing to condemn the harassment of people based on their ethnicity is wrong.

00:29:27.460 So those we've got established, yet we've got a media sort of bending over backwards to say, well, maybe almost like her, maybe it's the context.

00:29:34.520 Yeah, you know, I think you've got other examples relatively recently where the CBC just can't bring itself, to use the word terrorist, to describe people who descend on a peaceful rock conflict and, you know, kill, rape, murder, torture, you know, and bring terror.

00:29:55.620 They find some other fighters or this.

00:29:59.100 So you've got a media that has a very selective view of the truth.

00:30:04.760 And I think that where it goes back, there may be other sources.

00:30:08.580 And if somebody else has got a different idea, Corey, and they want to write in, I'm happy to hear.

00:30:14.720 But this is, I think this is what's going on in the journalism schools today.

00:30:19.700 they don't teach the kids to get both sides of the story and write it up in a

00:30:25.960 fair way and let the reader make up their own mind they tell the kids that

00:30:31.340 they have to present information in context and try and steer the reader to

00:30:38.880 a proper understanding of the truth well who you know defines the truth in

00:30:46.640 that scenario what is the proper context and how does the reader even know that he's getting it so

00:30:53.600 there's a there's a term used in quebec a journaliste engage that's probably a bad

00:30:58.560 pronunciation but it means an activist journalist and that's what we've got in the media overwhelming

00:31:06.160 anybody under the age of 50 check their pulse for for active journalism because that's what's

00:31:12.560 being taught and i think that's how these things happen yes sorry no that's okay you know i i think

00:31:18.560 it also goes back to pension funds believe it or not because the whole source of esg environment

00:31:26.640 social and governance and dei or die um you know diversity equality inclusion these all stem from

00:31:37.120 the united nations principles for responsible uh investment which is a transnational unelected

00:31:44.480 unaccountable body um that is made up of mostly of pension funds and financial uh investment firms

00:31:54.160 and institutional investors i mean and they sit on about a hundred trillion dollars in assets

00:32:01.280 under management these are the guys who are pushing esg and by extension diversity equity

00:32:09.520 and inclusion and so you know they are there it's a voluntary organization but once you sign up one

00:32:18.400 of those six principles is that you must comply or explain so i suspect that a lot of the pension

00:32:25.120 funds of these academic institutions and many of these big news outlets are invested in some mutual

00:32:33.040 fund or such like associated with this organization the unpri and therefore they are being told that

00:32:41.440 this is what you must do you must comply with these rules and so they do and i think that's

00:32:47.680 really skewing public policy we know for sure it's skewing markets and investments around the world

00:32:54.160 and people are completely unaware of it i mean i was at a presentation that i gave once to a group

00:33:00.080 of stock brokers and a couple of guys were there from toronto and big stock firms and they'd never

00:33:07.440 heard of it you know i i felt like wow how did i find out about it but connected to this also

00:33:13.440 is another group called the um carbon disclosure project carbon disclosure project is a rockefeller

00:33:19.840 offshoot and they invite cities and corporations to voluntarily divulge their carbon footprint and

00:33:27.600 their energy use their water use and such like they fill out a big voluntary form then they get

00:33:33.040 all these questionnaires in they give them to accenture or pwc or some other accounting firm

00:33:39.840 which aggregates them they issue reports with literally a black and white list and

00:33:45.760 that report goes to the institutional investors of the unpri who pick and choose what to invest in

00:33:53.440 and so of course clean tech you know apple microsoft facebook they've all been presented

00:34:01.440 as clean tech and not dirty um because they're not fossil fuel industries and they've taken over the

00:34:08.000 top tier of the stock market when in fact none of those could operate without oil gas and coal but

00:34:15.200 that the investment markets have been skewed because of these guys and i'll be quiet now sorry

00:34:21.760 i'm starting to be like cory with all my rants right all right i mean that's what we're here

00:34:27.280 about you know just to kind of finish i mean there's a lot of mistrust growing in media and

00:34:30.960 it's unfortunate uh opinion is an important part of media but it needs to be a clear delineation

00:34:38.160 there's the you're the opinion editor i am an opinion writer we make that clear this show is

00:34:43.360 was an opinion show. It's when it gets into the news copy, and people can't tell the difference.

00:34:48.180 And as I said, with activist reporters, that becomes problematic. I mean, I've seen Dave

00:34:51.540 chew out reporters for when he's seen them insert, and that's our news editor, you know,

00:34:55.200 opinion into their news copy. So, you know, when the time comes, you get to be a columnist,

00:34:59.820 you can do that. Till then, for the facts. And it's when that line gets blurred, people lose

00:35:06.800 trust in all of it. And I think it does a disservice to everybody. They say a columnist

00:35:11.480 it's just a reporter who writes long.

00:35:13.820 That could very well be it.

00:35:15.580 So let's get on to an institution of Canadian content as well

00:35:19.320 that everybody loves to hate, and not just the CBC.

00:35:22.320 No, we're going to talk about Air Canada has seemed to have won an award.

00:35:26.680 They've topped the world rankings in something.

00:35:29.780 Where do we go from there?

00:35:31.500 Well, I think what Air Canada has actually done is that they are the worst

00:35:37.760 in arrival on time, according to this survey.

00:35:40.880 Among the eight major North American air carriers, when it comes to getting you where you're going on time, they're number eight.

00:35:50.080 So, and always have been.

00:35:52.500 But, you know, much as I could enjoy piling on to Air Canada just because it's fun and easy,

00:35:59.460 I have to say that on a number of occasions when I have traveled with Air Canada and I've had a particular problem,

00:36:08.020 i remember once bringing small children back from great britain you know and everybody was worn out

00:36:15.620 after the flight and how they managed to ease our way through uh through immigration you know

00:36:21.720 more than one occasion i've been well looked after by air canada so while i deplore the fact

00:36:28.720 that you can get on the plane in victoria make the connection to vancouver except that that

00:36:35.880 That flight has been canceled, and the next one is not for six hours.

00:36:40.600 And we're only coming to Calgary. 0.99

00:36:42.940 Damn, you're just driving. 0.99

00:36:44.180 Well, you could drive it in less than that. 1.00

00:36:49.000 They've won their title fair and square, but I'm not prepared to join and pile on and say they're terrible people.

00:36:56.340 And I think, weren't you who's telling me that it's a little different on the international flights?

00:37:01.240 Well, I believe so.

00:37:02.140 There's a friend of mine, Terrace, who worked in the same industry as me.

00:37:04.680 And it's funny, because I did a lot of travel.

00:37:06.900 I'd fly through North America, though.

00:37:08.140 So it was always American or Canadian flights, whether it be WestJet Air Canada or even Delta

00:37:13.080 and United and so on, but not off-continent.

00:37:15.640 And my experience with Air Canada was almost always horrific.

00:37:19.460 It was the cattle car feeling, the indifference from the service and things like that.

00:37:26.100 But he insisted that the overseas service was, and he'd flown with a number of airlines,

00:37:30.960 international ones.

00:37:31.900 He said Air Canada is actually quite exceptional and quite good.

00:37:34.040 So I think different people are perhaps are right.

00:37:36.780 They're just, I mean, those are quite different branches of the airline.

00:37:40.280 I mean, I think of the bulk of these late flights are domestic ones.

00:37:42.940 You know, they're Winnipeg to Toronto.

00:37:44.400 They aren't, you know, Hamburg to Montreal or something.

00:37:48.400 So we're getting different experiences of the same airline because we're in different branches.

00:37:52.300 But because I had almost nothing but negative experiences with my time with Air Canada.

00:37:57.780 So I was just thinking, I mean, it's a cruel, it's a cruel and probably undeserved thing.

00:38:03.020 But you know what, Alitalia, the Italian state airline, you know what Alitalia stands for, right?

00:38:08.600 You do?

00:38:10.080 No.

00:38:10.860 Always late in takeoff and always late in landing.

00:38:15.380 Something like that.

00:38:16.460 Anyway, Air Canada's got its problems.

00:38:19.340 I'll give them a pass.

00:38:20.500 And I got to fly with Aeroflot back in 87, I think it was, from Helsinki to Moscow and then Moscow to Leningrad, as it was then.

00:38:29.660 And, okay, if you want no frills and scary creaking airplanes with carpets peeling up and, you know, okay, Aeroflot capped the list, but you expected that of them.

00:38:42.160 And I imagine they've improved since.

00:38:45.160 Perhaps you could weigh in, Michelle, with air travel and, you know, what is going on with these airlines these days?

00:38:52.400 Well, you know, I really feel sorry for the airline industry, because if you think back prior to lockdowns and COVID, this was an amazing industry that ran pretty much like clockwork, like hundreds of thousands of different elements have to be coordinated to get you on the plane with your correct food in the right seat.

00:39:16.560 you know and that the plane checks out that you know the mechanics have gone over it the

00:39:21.540 flight crew is all there at the right time and they're all fresh and ready to go I mean think

00:39:27.660 of the logistics and that was completely destroyed because of lockdowns you know because you know

00:39:35.680 at one point during lockdowns in Europe I think they were and they may still be doing it they

00:39:40.440 they were flying empty planes between airports simply to keep their landing

00:39:45.420 rights because I don't understand all the details behind that but you know

00:39:50.460 there when you have a contract to land then you have to bring a plane in

00:39:54.780 because you've got a service crew waiting there I assume so that crew

00:39:58.440 needs to service the plane and so you can imagine how the financial

00:40:04.500 devastation of it and and some of the things that have happened out of it and

00:40:09.000 and uh kate wand who's on twitter and social media on youtube she did a series of interviews

00:40:16.680 with robert lyman about how the aircraft industry was being forced into becoming part of a carbon

00:40:25.240 trading program in return for financial bailouts because of the lockdowns so they've really been

00:40:34.520 compromised you know and now we see that the world economic forum and uh some of the european

00:40:40.520 governments are really clamping down on air travel at all you know they're saying no more flights

00:40:47.160 under of two hours uh in europe that used to be what a lot of people did for the weekend they just

00:40:53.560 jump in a plane and fly over to another country nope now you've got to take the train so you know

00:40:59.160 these are they're destroying that sort of star network of connections that people used to have

00:41:05.880 where you could jump on an air canada flight and then lufthansa and then

00:41:09.960 alitalia whoever you know but you could always get somewhere now those gaps are huge and and

00:41:16.440 the people who are trying to deal with angry passengers you know you ever got the impression

00:41:25.080 Michelle, that if this whole climate change thing runs its natural course, everybody in the world is going to be doing a whole lot less traveling except the people who are at the very point of the pyramid.

00:41:36.400 Oh, absolutely.

00:41:37.600 You know, Canada has an agreement with the World Economic Forum to introduce the Known Traveller Identity Card.

00:41:44.240 And the Vaxport was probably part of that.

00:41:47.240 And, you know, they even show like a little drop of blood in the video promo for the known traveler.

00:41:56.240 And, of course, the idea of it is good.

00:41:58.740 You know, if we were in a beneficent environment, governance environment,

00:42:05.540 where governing countries or governors of countries were doing things for the best of the citizens,

00:42:14.240 then it would be fabulous to have a known traveler ID

00:42:17.100 where kind of like a Nexus card,

00:42:18.800 you can kind of flash it and just go and get on your flight.

00:42:22.680 But that's not what it's about.

00:42:24.320 It's gonna have all your information there.

00:42:27.540 It's secret surveillance really of everything about you.

00:42:31.480 And just imagine what that could do to your travel

00:42:36.480 in the future.

00:42:38.180 And of course, the objective is to limit travel completely.

00:42:42.980 They want people to maybe take no more than three flights a year or less.

00:42:49.780 You may have to use your personal carbon ration to buy credits so that you can fly somewhere.

00:42:56.820 Money won't make a difference.

00:42:59.300 I can sense another column coming on, Corey.

00:43:02.100 Michelle, you need to write that.

00:43:03.400 Yeah.

00:43:04.140 I mean, things have kind of come full circle, though.

00:43:05.780 I mean, we expect a lot for very little out of airlines now, too.

00:43:08.140 I mean, the amount that people travel, you know, even when I was young, it was only the rich or you only did it if you had to typically.

00:43:15.540 I mean, people so casually now, hey, I'm just going to pop up to Vancouver for the weekend or I'm going to take the family to Toronto.

00:43:21.540 You didn't do it that casually, but that's why it's also gotten so no frills.

00:43:25.380 Now you've got to pay to check your luggage.

00:43:26.700 Now you're getting, if you're lucky, you're getting a bag of peanuts.

00:43:29.680 You know, the older days of flying Ward Air when you had good silverware and a steak are long gone.

00:43:35.420 That was responding to consumer demand as well.

00:43:37.680 I mean, what do you want? Do you want cost effective flights? Well, they're going to be pretty rigorous experiences, or if you want the luxury style, going business class. Yeah, and you're getting so I mean, the industry has really changed a lot in the last few years and had to adapt to a lot.

00:43:53.860 well also a lot of regulations have been imposed and a lot of you know sort of consumer regulations

00:44:01.120 too like that require that the customer always be satisfied when you know when there are big

00:44:07.360 weather events especially like during Christmas Easter times like that when you know hundreds of

00:44:12.500 thousands of people are flying well you know if there's a big snowstorm and you're all snowed in

00:44:17.560 at the airport i'm sorry but your plane is not leaving because we don't want you to die so you

00:44:24.840 know don't be mad about it don't demand anything you should be thanking us for keeping you safe

00:44:30.440 but no that's you know what do you think air canada up down sideways well it seems to be

00:44:35.960 a mixed reviews on it i i haven't flown with them in years so i can only go in you know recent

00:44:41.240 reviews but my past experiences with them were always thumbs down on my part i see well i'm

00:44:45.960 I'm going to give them a sort of a, like that, you know?

00:44:48.180 Okay.

00:44:49.000 So I guess it depends on which way you fly.

00:44:51.080 Well, we've kind of run out the clock on this one.

00:44:54.860 I was going to give a, you know, I'll just give quick honorable mention,

00:44:57.620 looking up a story on our site with Alberta member of the legislature,

00:45:01.840 Janice Irwin, and her showing a lot of love for Hamas on Twitter.

00:45:07.080 So perhaps check that out.

00:45:08.780 And it just seems, as we said earlier, every province seems to have one like that.

00:45:11.960 There's a nutcase in Ontario.

00:45:13.900 Is Janice Irwin a Harvard graduate?

00:45:15.960 It could very well be.

00:45:17.600 That would explain a few things right there.

00:45:20.340 I have a friend once who went to go to color masters at Harvard.

00:45:22.920 She said, I know what it costs me, but now we'll find out what it's worth.

00:45:25.420 I think it's worth a little less these days.

00:45:27.000 I'm afraid it is, and it's unfortunate.

00:45:29.740 So, well, thank you very much for joining us today, Michelle.

00:45:32.860 It was appreciated to get the perspective.

00:45:35.320 I'll have to get you back on my show sometime again soon,

00:45:37.620 and people can find more of your stuff at the Friends of Science site and elsewhere.

00:45:42.000 Yep.

00:45:42.360 Hello, Michelle.

00:45:43.620 Thank you.

00:45:44.680 Thanks for having me on the show.

00:45:45.960 Yeah, and we'll see you again soon.

00:45:48.060 And, Nigel, well, we covered what was on the list, the first one of the year here.

00:45:53.220 Yeah, well, we'll have to give Derek another day off.

00:45:57.980 What'd you put in this coffee, man?

00:45:59.940 Yeah, there's always a way to bring that up out.

00:46:04.420 We're finding ways to make the newsroom more enjoyable all the time.

00:46:08.640 All right, well, thank you, guys.

00:46:10.740 And thank you, guys, out there for watching us today.

00:46:13.220 again be sure to take out a subscription with the western standard if you haven't already i'm sure

00:46:17.060 most of you already have i hope you're all having a great and happy new year guys and be sure to

00:46:22.900 tune in next week at this time and we'll do it all again with a whole new set of issues to

00:46:27.860 gripe and grouse about or even celebrate and be positive about occasionally so thanks again we'll

00:46:32.420 see you then nadian shooting sports association without the cssa our gun rights would have been

00:46:36.980 taken long long ago these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent

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Western Standard - January 04, 2024

The Pipeline： Who's telling your pension plan what to buy？

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