Western Standard - October 02, 2025


The Sixties Scoop saved lives


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

201.40494

Word Count

9,299

Sentence Count

486

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the first episode of the new year, Cory talks about The 60s Scoop and how the government's obsession with keeping Indigenous kids in foster care may be to blame for the deaths of thousands of Indigenous children taken from their families.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 good day and welcome to the cory morgan show first one of october
00:00:26.860 I just can't stand winter, so I just see this as winter moving its way in.
00:00:30.740 But whatever, I guess I should set aside the dread.
00:00:32.600 On the bright side, it's the political season ramping up to lots of stuff going on,
00:00:37.540 lots of stories for weenies and wonks and nerds like me,
00:00:40.820 and I'm sure many of you in the audience.
00:00:42.260 This is the prime time for it.
00:00:43.560 The legislature should be sitting soon.
00:00:45.100 The federal government's already sitting.
00:00:46.920 We've got a municipal election happening in Alberta.
00:00:48.960 I'm going to have one of the candidates for mayor on shortly, Sonia Sharp.
00:00:53.600 We're going to talk about her campaign a little bit.
00:00:56.160 and uh we'll cover a lot more of the other news going on out there so for those who took part in
00:01:01.680 it or noticed it or whatever you might have noticed every radio station was unlistenable
00:01:05.520 all day yesterday it was orange shirt day or truth and reconciliation day the uh fabricated
00:01:12.400 holiday by justin trudeau to uh try and pacify people over uh the hoax of bodies having allegedly
00:01:18.800 been found in kamloops either way i got to listen to a lot of that mythology going on out there and
00:01:24.320 and revisionism and it just inspired me to write about the 60s scoop let's talk about the 60s scoop
00:01:30.800 refers to a period when the government through social services agencies took thousands of
00:01:35.120 indigenous children from households over the period of a couple of decades and put them into
00:01:39.440 foster care many of those children ended up permanently adopted now as has been the trend
00:01:44.000 lately every government action has been retroactively declared to be genocidal and
00:01:48.480 compensation of course has been demanded kids taken in the 60s scoop are now referred to as
00:01:52.960 survivors and those kids are survivors indeed but not of the government action they're survivors
00:01:58.320 thanks to the government action the government just didn't randomly snatch children from a
00:02:02.400 household they're only taken from situations where they were in danger the problem is there are and
00:02:07.520 were thousands of households in dire conditions and the government had to intervene indian reserves
00:02:13.520 are and were socio-economic disasters across canada thousands of children live in squalor
00:02:19.760 neglect, and abuse in these racial enclaves we call reserves. In the 60s, as with now, addiction
00:02:25.320 and dysfunction overwhelms thousands of families living on these reserves. Children are dying from
00:02:30.040 neglect, abuse, and even house fires as parents are lost and busy with their addictions. The most
00:02:34.880 inhumane action that could have been taken in the 60s would have been to leave the children in the
00:02:38.560 circumstances they were in. The government, of course, then would have been blamed for the harm
00:02:41.960 coming to the kids if it hadn't stepped in. In the spirit of revisionism, the government's been
00:02:46.900 portrayed as some evil institution determined to snatch kids at every opportunity and put them
00:02:51.520 into state care whether they needed it or not. And look, I'm far from a fan of the government
00:02:55.640 and I often question its motivations, but let's not pretend the government was eager to intervene
00:03:00.020 into the catastrophe occurring on Indian reserves across the nation. There were many other priorities
00:03:04.740 they would have preferred to work on rather than mire themselves in the contentious issue of
00:03:09.220 intervention. They had no choice. Rather than stand up for its options though, of course the
00:03:14.520 government's bent over and apologized. Settlements have followed and demands for more funds are going
00:03:19.640 to continue for generations. Even worse than the apology has been the changes to child welfare
00:03:24.740 policies made in response to the issue. Child welfare services have bent over backwards to keep
00:03:30.520 children in Indigenous houses even when it harms the child. Some of the cases due to this have been
00:03:34.520 horrific. Senator Paula Simons wrote on the tragic case of baby Serenity who was a toddler taken from
00:03:39.800 her parents and given to other caregivers in the family. Serenity was abused and died a terrible
00:03:45.140 death under the care of these relations. Would she have been worse off in a foster home outside
00:03:49.780 the reserve? That family, by the way, tried to sue Simons for writing about it. Getting more money
00:03:54.200 and covering up the problem tends to be the path activists take rather than seeking solutions,
00:03:57.760 just as the Siksika band has tried charging me for trespassing after I exposed the squalor on
00:04:02.520 their reserve, despite their recently receiving $1.2 billion. More recently, Sonia Pasqua and
00:04:08.680 Michael Sinclair had their child taken from them due to their abuse of it. They lobbied, had the
00:04:14.140 child returned to them. According to court documents, the couple referred to their child as a paycheck
00:04:18.240 before they scalded the toddler to death. They're only sentenced to a few years, by the way. This
00:04:23.280 was just recently in Alberta, and likely thanks to Gladue principals, they'll be free to breed and
00:04:29.720 murder again. Children have died terrible deaths due to an obsession keeping kids with Indigenous
00:04:35.040 families no matter how unfit the families may be. There's a huge blind spot in Canadian policy with
00:04:40.940 Indigenous people. It's an utter refusal to admit the reserve system is a complete catastrophe no
00:04:45.920 matter how much money is thrown at it. I mean look at Newfoundland. People were horrified when
00:04:49.160 images of children huffing gasoline and living in terrible conditions were released from Davis
00:04:53.320 Inlet in the 1990s. The town was so run down the government actually built an entirely new town a
00:04:59.280 few miles away down the coast and moved everybody there. They couldn't even fix the mess that was
00:05:02.820 there. Follow up a decade or two later, the new town's in shambles and kids were found left alone
00:05:09.000 in a house huffing gasoline surrounded by loaded shotguns and they were there for days. Would it
00:05:13.700 be a scoop to remove the children from this situation? Do we have to wait for more to die?
00:05:18.940 With Davis and let the government dodge the underlying issue and of course they got the
00:05:22.640 same outcome. Governments do things wrong all the time. The treatment of Indigenous people in Canada
00:05:27.140 is rife with abuse and race-based laws were terrible. The government has one primary role
00:05:31.680 though, and that's to care for those who are being harmed by others, like stop the harm.
00:05:36.100 The government must step in to take care of those who can't take care of themselves.
00:05:40.700 Because of the revisionist PAP coming from the 60s scoop, children are dying. We must look at
00:05:45.760 the root of the issue, and that's the utter and complete failure of the reserve system. In the
00:05:49.620 meantime, children are at risk, and they must be removed from dangerous households, no matter which
00:05:54.480 race they happen to be. All right, well, let's see what else is going on in the news out there
00:05:59.560 post-Truth and Reconciliation Day.
00:06:02.160 What's happening, Dave?
00:06:02.900 Good.
00:06:03.200 How was your day?
00:06:04.160 Did you do a land acknowledgement?
00:06:05.980 I didn't do another one today.
00:06:07.200 I know.
00:06:07.400 I've got to get into the habit of that chant,
00:06:08.860 you know, reminding everybody that I own my land
00:06:10.560 and it was permanently ceded in Treaty 7.
00:06:12.920 Exactly.
00:06:13.740 Exactly.
00:06:14.340 So there you go.
00:06:15.320 Very busy morning.
00:06:16.620 Some great Alberta news today.
00:06:18.440 Looks like we're going to be proposing a new pipeline.
00:06:22.280 Premier Smith will be having a press conference at 1.30.
00:06:26.320 But the Globe and Mail has got a leak on it.
00:06:28.960 And they're saying it's going to be a Alberta to BC pipeline, and it's all going to be planned out with the help of Enbridge, South Pole Corporation, and Trans Mountain.
00:06:40.960 Trans Mountain has a bit of experience in building pipelines, Corey.
00:06:45.740 So more details coming up, but obviously this is going to be a huge announcement for Alberta and the oil patch.
00:06:54.080 It's over to you, Mr. Carney, and over to you, Mr. Eby, to see what they have to say about it.
00:07:02.200 In B.C., the Conservative leader, Rustad, our Jared Yager, got an exclusive interview with him,
00:07:08.780 and he is thrilled and excited and promises that he will do all he can do to get the pipeline going.
00:07:16.960 uh several provinces raised their minimum wage today now leaving alberta as the lowest minimum
00:07:23.600 wage in in the country and our chris old corn has got a column on arguing not to raise it because of
00:07:31.040 the economic problems that it will bring including layoffs of younger people and in those minimum
00:07:38.000 wage jobs uh the alberta prosperity project is back from another visit to washington
00:07:45.820 Their spokesman, Jeff Rath, while not revealing who he met, said it was pretty senior guys,
00:07:51.500 one degree away from the White House, apparently.
00:07:54.100 And they were very interested in listening to Alberta.
00:08:01.200 And a member of the Lawrence Bishnois, I don't know how to pronounce it, Lawrence Bishnois gang.
00:08:07.000 Anyways, they're a Southeast Asian gang.
00:08:09.920 He's been jailed in Vancouver Island for many years for shooting into a house and setting a car on fire.
00:08:16.920 So one of them was caught.
00:08:18.020 He's been sentenced.
00:08:19.240 And one of them is on the run.
00:08:21.600 And we've got a picture of him on the website.
00:08:24.860 And now the biggest problem of the day, Corey, my parents are arriving tomorrow for a visit.
00:08:31.520 I haven't even done my spring cleaning yet.
00:08:33.800 So do you mind coming over after work and giving me a hand?
00:08:36.880 You haven't seen my place, have you?
00:08:38.420 No, I haven't, because you've never invited me.
00:08:40.780 No, there's a reason for that.
00:08:42.400 You know, it's a clean freak.
00:08:45.220 Well, it's not unhealthy, but it's not spick and span over there.
00:08:49.780 We hire people for the suite.
00:08:51.560 Oh, yeah.
00:08:52.020 I was going to say, you don't have an Airbnb to keep clean?
00:08:55.060 Oh, yes.
00:08:55.380 Jane keeps that area immaculate.
00:08:56.840 Okay.
00:08:57.640 So your answer is no.
00:08:59.140 I'm afraid I wouldn't be of much help.
00:09:00.940 But, I mean, it's great to see the parents coming out for a visit.
00:09:03.280 Oh, yeah, they do.
00:09:04.060 And in her younger days, my mom literally used to bring three vacuums and she would get started like 10 minutes after arriving.
00:09:11.760 And how can you live like this type stuff?
00:09:15.020 So, yeah, I guess I'm going to have a late night cleaning that up.
00:09:18.200 Ah, well, you need that motivation to get around to it.
00:09:21.300 Exactly.
00:09:21.960 Spring cleaning in autumn.
00:09:23.220 Yeah, we should have a big party at our place and then I'll be motivated to do an end-to-end on it.
00:09:27.980 There you go.
00:09:29.040 There you go.
00:09:29.660 I look forward to it.
00:09:30.480 All right.
00:09:30.900 Well, thanks, Dave.
00:09:31.760 And I guess we'll see you on the pipeline a little later.
00:09:33.740 yes i'm filling in for derek who's gallivanting again somewhere so yeah yeah we'll we'll talk
00:09:39.020 then right on all right thank you thank you that is our news editor dave nailer lots of stories
00:09:43.900 going on lots breaking i know there's some press conferences going on today and things too so keep
00:09:47.900 an eye on the western standard site there's going to be stuff coming up as that news breaks and as
00:09:52.300 it goes and this is the time again i like to remind everybody this is the way we pay the bills this is
00:09:57.820 how we can have dave out there doing that news editing and curating things having those reporters
00:10:02.620 on the ground is you guys have subscribed. So check it out. Westernstandard.news slash
00:10:06.860 subscription. It's 10 bucks a month, a hundred dollars for a year. So even less than that when
00:10:11.980 it comes up to just like a newspaper subscription and it keeps us rolling. It keeps us independent.
00:10:16.260 It keeps us accountable to you. So if you've already subscribed, thank you very much. And
00:10:21.120 if you haven't subscribed yet, come on guys, get on with it. It's well worth it. It's an investment
00:10:26.560 in your personal growth. All right, before I get to the guest, I'll talk a little bit about
00:10:32.660 something else. You've probably seen that going on in the news last night. And that was more the
00:10:36.720 night before last, the final Alberta Next meeting. And boy, it looked like it turned into quite a
00:10:42.180 scene there, didn't it? And Bruce McAllister, who was moderating that event, he messed up.
00:10:50.000 He messed up. But looking at the framing of it, what I strongly suggest people do is check online,
00:10:54.740 mind, look around, look at X. I posted that video on my X account, just a couple of minutes of it
00:11:00.400 to see exactly what happened. Cause I was listening to radio coverage. And this is why I want to
00:11:04.240 remind you folks why independent media is important. And the radio coverage went and clipped
00:11:08.480 the audio from what happened there from the point of where a young fella asked a question
00:11:14.040 to straight to where Bruce unwisely said that the kid should be put over his parents knee.
00:11:20.620 but what was missed was the minute in between. If you watch the whole video, you kind of see what's
00:11:25.380 going on. Part of the problem was, and maybe part of why I've got more sympathy for this is because
00:11:31.140 I have moderated meetings and I have had to chair things and deal with this. They'd said repeatedly
00:11:36.960 at this meeting, everybody has to stay on topic. It's an Alberta next meeting. It's not open mic.
00:11:41.620 It's not bring up every pet issue. The kid got up there with a phone in front of his face, reading
00:11:46.000 clearly from a script, the union talking points of the teacher's union. He got a good 30 seconds
00:11:52.580 into it. You're only supposed to get 45 seconds before the mic was cut off. And then you can see
00:11:57.260 with the visual of it, the kid went bananas when the mic was cut off and started screaming and
00:12:01.620 shouting. This is what led, and again, still unwisely to have Bruce lose his composure and
00:12:08.400 talk about how the kid should be put over his knee. But you got to remember these meetings,
00:12:12.020 there's been 10 of them. This is the way the game's played. Guys, the union groups get in
00:12:15.860 there. They try to stack it. They stack the mics. They disrupt the meetings. Listen to the crowd in
00:12:19.420 the background and all the people screaming and shouting back there too. Guess who they were?
00:12:23.920 Teachers Union. You go to enough meetings, you see how these games are played, unfortunately.
00:12:28.760 I think, again, McAllister made a terribly unfortunate decision. He, you know, apologized
00:12:34.320 for that shortly afterwards, but people are framing it as if it was some affront to free speech or he
00:12:39.000 never should have cut off the mic. What are you supposed to do at these meetings then? Let everybody
00:12:43.000 just bring up every subject they please. And then the hundreds of people who came out to hear about
00:12:46.840 the five subjects of the year was six or whatever it is, the Alberta next panel, don't hear anything
00:12:50.940 on those subjects because people just took it wherever they pleased. The kid came to abuse the
00:12:55.420 process and he got his mic cut off as he should have. Unfortunately, they won. There was a person
00:13:02.620 online described it best in that they drew a penalty because in finally getting under the skin
00:13:07.620 of the moderator long enough, everything else that was discussed at the meeting was lost and
00:13:11.660 forgotten in the public realm while everybody went on about how Big Bad Bruce cut off the
00:13:15.520 microphone on a kid and talked about having him being spanked. Either way, just be more careful
00:13:20.540 out there, Mr. McAllister. And other folks, look at the whole video before freaking too much out
00:13:25.180 about this. This was just political posturing on both sides and both playing, I think, a bit of an
00:13:29.240 ugly game. All right, let's get to my guest. Got somebody in person in studio, Sonia Sharp,
00:13:33.600 candidate for mayor in Calgary. How's the campaign going? Great. I have 18 days. Yes,
00:13:39.700 it's going fast all of a sudden yeah it's great it's been really good great well i appreciate you
00:13:43.780 you coming in today thanks for having me lots to cover it's been an interesting one coming up this
00:13:48.580 time normally to be honest a campaign with an incumbent mayor tends to be dull because they
00:13:53.940 get re-elected with you know a massive showing of support but it's not looking very likely in
00:13:58.500 this particular circumstance i guess we'll start with just to get you to start with a clip of why
00:14:04.660 then you should be the person who would replace mayor gondek and why she needs to be replaced i
00:14:08.740 know you want to speak more on the positives yeah but why then is it time now to change out a mayor
00:14:13.620 when she's only been for one term i think what's important is certain people are suited for the
00:14:19.940 right positions to lead and you can see a bit of a lack of leadership the last four years calgarians
00:14:25.140 are not happy i mean i'm on a council that is the most disliked council ever and so if there were
00:14:32.740 better options out there i wouldn't be running for mayor but there isn't in my mind and i don't think
00:14:37.140 in calgarians mind so i'm running to you know make this a safe and affordable city that works for
00:14:41.860 everyone and the biggest thing that we've lost over the four years is trust and so i want to
00:14:47.300 regain that trust back from you and the calgarians and trusting city hall and myself great so another
00:14:54.180 dynamic that's new in this election is the party element this is the first time it's around
00:14:58.260 i mean to be honest i've always wanted to see this sort of thing evolve i'm watching it evolve
00:15:02.340 now it looks a little shaky i think perhaps in the long run it's going to be a better development
00:15:07.140 I want to ask about one of the risks like let's say presumably and it's a fair question for people
00:15:10.900 with parties that you became the next mayor and a number of fellow party members were in council
00:15:16.660 with you how do you maintain the independence of yourself or the council members if you have
00:15:22.020 disparities of views on certain policies and issues when you have as well a party that you're
00:15:26.260 supposed to stay somewhat close to? Yeah and I think what's interesting about this whole system
00:15:32.500 is the province put forward this bill just to legitimize what was already there for four years
00:15:37.220 ago and so when we're elected we're elected as individuals we're elected with the title either
00:15:42.820 independent or communities first under us and we're a i call us a team like this is we didn't
00:15:48.100 come with any party benefits we didn't come with money there's no party whip we created the name
00:15:52.740 and so we're like-minded individuals that are pushing you know for the same sort of policies
00:15:57.060 repealing blanket rezoning you know adding more police officers and we'll talk more about that
00:16:01.540 but really what happens is the day after the election i think is a conversation with you know
00:16:07.460 myself and all the the the members of communities first i get elected and say you know how does this
00:16:12.580 go moving forward because there there's so much gray to this policy and so we're we have committed
00:16:19.620 to seven principles but there are things that pop up in individual communities that i would say if
00:16:25.300 you're a counselor to that community and you feel a certain way about something your colleagues
00:16:30.740 should support you and that doesn't take a party to do that that's a that's a counselor-based
00:16:36.420 leadership role and we should be listening to our constituents in our communities
00:16:41.380 not you know voting on aspirational things that obviously are never going to come to fruition
00:16:47.300 so you mentioned uh policing let me get to that i mean one of the top issues this time around is
00:16:51.940 most certainly crime disorder things on the street it gets frustrating as a person who comes walking
00:16:57.380 downtown when you listen to some people in the administration say it's a perception problem no i
00:17:01.700 walk down the streets i didn't perceive this going on seven years ago something has gone drastically
00:17:06.580 much worse than it used to be so how can city council deal with that though i mean more police
00:17:11.540 is one thing but it's a big issue it is a big issue and people perception is reality though
00:17:17.540 right like when you're walking down the street and you feel unsafe you feel unsafe when you're
00:17:21.620 getting on the train and you know you're a mom or a woman even a man like i hear from some of the
00:17:26.820 the dads that I know in hockey that they don't feel safe on the train. They would put their
00:17:30.880 daughters on the train. When we hear our own operators being attacked, how is this safe? How
00:17:35.680 am I going to convince you to take a train or a bus if our own operators are being attacked?
00:17:39.700 So we've talked about, you know, increasing the number of police officers just to get us up to
00:17:43.700 the national standard. And the issue is, though, is it hasn't been a priority for the last council
00:17:49.800 or the council before. Two of my opponents voted to defund the police. And it's interesting because
00:17:55.080 they'll rebuttal that and say well we gave money back at budget time and and my I guess rebuttal
00:18:00.200 to that is it doesn't matter you sent a clear signal when you defunded the police during your
00:18:05.360 term that you didn't care about the police and you didn't care about the front line and those that
00:18:10.260 keep your city safe so we talked about the police officers we want to do a 24 hour station downtown
00:18:16.980 I've talked a lot about the belt line injection site and how we get that clean and work with the
00:18:21.200 province on what this looks like we talked a little bit about decentralizing the some of the
00:18:26.680 programs the drop-in center these are things happening outside those buildings that city
00:18:31.060 council doesn't have control over but we have control over what happens in our streets yeah and
00:18:36.920 you're segwaying excellently for me because i wanted to ask about that one of the roles as mayor
00:18:40.680 i mean people speak often it's true you're just one vote on council but a mayor also stands out
00:18:45.300 as a representative as almost an ambassador of the city or the the negotiator when it comes to the
00:18:50.360 other levels of government at least. And the relationship between the city and the provincial
00:18:55.020 government has been pretty acrimonious for quite some time now. For example, when the sheriffs
00:19:00.720 were deployed to help downtown and it seemed that the city wanted to do nothing more than get them
00:19:05.300 out of here as fast as possible. So you'd be looking at a more cooperative attitude with the
00:19:10.360 provincial government, I would hope? Yeah, I mean, it's really important. The Calgarians always come
00:19:14.040 first, right? For us that sit in these roles, but specifically myself with being in running for mayor.
00:19:18.980 but your job is to advocate for your constituents the provincial government and relationships are
00:19:24.640 key and we may not always agree on things and that's okay because that's democracy but the
00:19:29.080 respect you have to have for those in you know at the provincial government is really critical
00:19:33.320 and then together you know if the provincial government and the cities are working well
00:19:37.360 you can be quite um i would say successful in getting what you need from the federal government
00:19:42.180 you know we have infrastructure dollars we need to unlock obviously from the federal government
00:19:45.960 and so my my role as mayor is to work with the provincial government regardless who's in power
00:19:52.620 and focus on delivering what we need for Calgarians and getting money right like money makes things
00:19:59.040 happen in your cities and so fighting for that is really important but there's a respect level there
00:20:03.960 you can't be having these conversations on social media you can't be calling each other out because
00:20:09.580 you don't agree on something that has to come to a stop because also is the public looks at that
00:20:14.120 and thinks you're dysfunctional. So you mentioned getting infrastructure dollars unlocked. That's
00:20:18.540 been a problem as well with multiple levels of government in that the federal and the province
00:20:23.180 is guilty of it too. They'll say, hey, we're going to fund this, but we got strings attached to it.
00:20:27.780 And of course, the city looks terrible if you say no, and the province gets that from the federal
00:20:31.760 government. You know, we don't want to go down that line. They say, oh, well, you're just throwing
00:20:34.800 those dollars away. How would you be able to advocate to make sure then to continue to get
00:20:39.460 those transfers, but perhaps standing up for the city's autonomy and being able to control
00:20:44.060 its own affairs i think what's important is a clear business case when you go to a bank and you
00:20:47.740 need to borrow money they want to see a business case from you if you're a business owner that's
00:20:50.940 how this works and understanding with those federal dollars when you're going to the province
00:20:55.020 saying we need this sort of funding for xyz they want to understand what does xyz look like and do
00:21:00.940 they have a role to play in the success of that that's really another thing is making sure that
00:21:05.260 everybody understands where is you know what's it for me type thing and that's fine because we all
00:21:10.700 serve the same people but it's relationships it's understanding what you're asking for and
00:21:14.940 the return on investment back to your own constituents if you can't show a proper business
00:21:19.580 case if i was someone that was lending money i wouldn't give you any money either so it's also
00:21:24.460 being able to deliver and so i'll give you an example when we talked about you know getting
00:21:28.540 the green line back and you know having those conversations counselor mclean and i brought the
00:21:32.620 province back to the table we had a clear direction on how we wanted to do that and it was relationship
00:21:38.140 building and here's our business case. And now can we unlock the dollars to move forward? And so
00:21:42.740 we know we're moving forward on projects like that. The event center, same thing. This is what
00:21:47.260 we need support with $330 million, better than the last deal. And they unlocked the money for
00:21:52.200 us to deliver on a project that we know we needed. So it's relationship building and it's really
00:21:56.700 being able to justify why you need that money. So another issue that not many, I guess that people
00:22:03.520 don't pay too close attention to, but those of us who are weenies enough to watch council meetings,
00:22:07.200 is the dynamic between the mayor and council and city administration, which I'll give my own view
00:22:12.920 on it. I think it got really badly skewed, particularly more prior to your time with
00:22:16.480 the head and inchie. But whereas it seems almost like the mayor and council answer to the
00:22:21.140 administration rather than the council providing oversight to the administration, would you be
00:22:28.020 able to change some of that dynamic? I know you don't want to be fighting with administration.
00:22:31.160 That's the worst thing that could be happening, but it just seems that the relationship's skewed
00:22:35.820 right now the relationships the other way around um when i worked in administration i reported to
00:22:41.780 council and that really did change during this last four years and one of the pillars of my you
00:22:48.200 know let's say to-do list uh is getting city back on the right track when it comes to who's in
00:22:53.000 charge so you know administration reports to council or senior administration reports to
00:22:57.660 council and we report to the people and so we have got to take control of what's happening at city
00:23:03.960 hall. We need to set direction. And when you see all these taxes going up and the budget being
00:23:08.580 inflated, a lot of that comes from things that administration would like to see, not always
00:23:12.720 council direction. And so that needs to change. You know, I'm ready to take things in a different
00:23:18.340 direction and make sure that, you know, everyone understands kind of the governance structure of
00:23:23.720 what council does and how senior administration reports and how administration like we have great
00:23:29.280 people doing great work on the front line they are outstanding employees they're also feeling
00:23:34.440 a little bit I would say not valued by their own leaders and I know that I see it and we hear it
00:23:40.400 and so things do need to change and in order for anything to happen at the city right now any
00:23:45.120 promise you're hearing from my opponents or myself if you don't get control of that senior
00:23:51.660 administration to know that council's in charge nothing is going to change well yes and that
00:23:57.800 applies with other levels of government too. I talk about that provincially. People can never
00:24:01.180 name who the deputy minister of any ministry is. And if you really want to know who tends to hold
00:24:04.900 the power, that's where it is. And if they foot drag, no elected politicians are getting anything
00:24:09.700 done. Nope. And it doesn't matter if you've got a team, a slate, anything. And so we've got to,
00:24:14.020 you know, it's, it's not, it's, it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about. Right.
00:24:17.600 And, and, and I, and I don't think it gets put off. That's why. And I talk about it because I'm
00:24:21.180 running for that reason. I want to set the governance straight. And I pledged a little
00:24:26.000 bit about more senior leadership reporting directly to council. Things did change eight
00:24:30.160 years ago and not for the better. And then the last four years, we had really seen a shift in
00:24:35.060 administration bringing forward things in the budget. And we're looking at tax increases.
00:24:39.400 That all needs to change. It needs to be run lean. It needs to be focused. And we need to
00:24:43.960 deliver on the core services Calgaryens are asking for. But a governance kind of overview
00:24:49.180 needs to happen. What about with revenue? You know, spending is always an issue. I mean, every
00:24:55.140 politician, every government just likes to have more to spend. It's just easier to get things
00:24:59.120 done. Municipalities are very limited in Alberta. It's a fair case where they're kind of locked in
00:25:03.280 with property taxes as a primary area of revenue source. Are you looking at perhaps diversifying
00:25:09.720 some of the abilities or that's something that's going on it's never really been anyways been
00:25:13.260 successful with but they've been trying to find other means of taxation I guess. I don't want to
00:25:17.360 see more taxes but I could support different ways of collecting perhaps. Yeah I think what's
00:25:21.520 important is you have to focus on what you have right now. So the tax rate and how we reduce that,
00:25:25.540 how we reduce the 22% that was increased over four years, looking for efficiencies on things
00:25:30.660 that wouldn't affect your frontline or your everyday services. And then looking at opportunities
00:25:35.180 to work with the provincial government and changing some of the rules around the Municipal
00:25:38.320 Government Act. Do we look at different subclasses and things like that? But right now, when you walk
00:25:44.220 in and look at the budget, your first, one of your most important decisions as a new elected
00:25:48.560 Council is to, is to, you know, approve the budget for 2026. And right now we're sitting at 5.4%.
00:25:55.880 That is, that's too high. And we've increased taxes for, you know, the last four years. And
00:26:00.620 we have to look at that 5.4% and say, what are we getting out of this? And what are we delivering?
00:26:05.840 And so that has to happen first. And I've also pledged with my colleagues on Communities First
00:26:10.140 to bring back a finance, a finance oversight committee where, you know, senior leadership
00:26:15.460 is coming to this committee quarterly and opening up their books publicly. And when you do that
00:26:21.180 publicly, it's, you start to be accountable. And so there needs to be accountable and we need to
00:26:26.200 be transparent about where our dollars are going line item by line item in every business unit.
00:26:31.520 Well, and getting some of that and following through, like something I'd like to see
00:26:35.240 investigated. And I think a lot of Calgarians were, you cannot find three blocks stretch in
00:26:39.620 the city where there isn't construction going on. They've ripped up half the city, but it seems like
00:26:43.300 they can't finish anything. The Poor Souls and Marta Loop are going bankrupt with an absurdly
00:26:48.660 long construction project going on there. What's going on? Are the city workers dropping the ball
00:26:53.940 or contractors dropping the ball? I mean, it's ridiculous how long it takes to get something
00:26:57.540 done now. Yeah. And I think what's happening is, I would say, Cumberland infrastructure that has
00:27:05.280 just caught up with us. We were 10 years behind. The unfortunate thing, though, the businesses and
00:27:09.900 their residents are now paying the price. And so I've, a week ago, I pledged for the infrastructure
00:27:15.460 planning office out of the mayor's office, which not just has a segment of the, you know, city
00:27:21.500 builders and developers at the table, but also the business community at the table and understanding
00:27:25.840 the impacts to infrastructure in our city. So before a project, during a project and after a
00:27:29.640 project. And if a business or a group of businesses end up suing the city, you have failed as a city.
00:27:37.580 you should never be the reason they cannot operate and you know if you look at 17th avenue
00:27:42.480 construction that happened years ago i was the manager of business local economy at the time
00:27:46.060 i worked with administration they did a fantastic job the the the team that were kind of part of
00:27:51.000 that 17th avenue revitalization it really worked they did it by phase by phase but this has the
00:27:56.000 not just the martyr loop but even stephen avenue and other the areas you go down at west hillhurst
00:27:59.740 the ball has been dropped and we can't continue like this because time is money not only for
00:28:06.060 the industry to deliver there's a sense of uncertainty but also the businesses are impacted
00:28:10.780 there are many businesses in model loop that have closed their doors and residents are feeling like
00:28:17.340 it's just now bleeding into their community and if you go down even in hillhurst now you can see
00:28:22.140 it's one way in certain directions we're about to hit winter so what does that look like steven
00:28:27.580 avenue is under construction uh you know they've talked a little bit about mission being next so
00:28:31.980 there's got to be better oversight and transparency and allowing certainty to our project and our
00:28:36.540 builders on how to deliver this quickly. We're getting to the end. I should have asked a little
00:28:41.020 earlier. It's a big one, but is the blanket rezoning? Oh, right. Where are we going?
00:28:44.540 Okay. So I am committing to repealing it. It's got to go back to the way it was prior to that
00:28:50.620 public hearing that we all sat through and didn't listen to anybody. I mean, my colleagues and I did,
00:28:55.420 but majority of council did not. They went forward with it. So it needs to be repealed.
00:28:59.660 we need to go back to the way it was and we can look for efficiency in the planning process to
00:29:04.700 make sure that you know builders and developers um have some certainty and we're getting shovels
00:29:09.660 in the ground faster but blanket rezoning itself is not working so it needs to be repealed excellent
00:29:15.180 well thank you very much for coming in today uh before you go where can people find information
00:29:19.500 on your campaign whether to send you an email and complain or send an email of support or whatever
00:29:24.220 Yeah, sharpformayor.ca. And the most important thing for everyone to know at this point is
00:29:30.460 advanced polls start on Monday and it runs the 11th and then election day is October 20th. But
00:29:34.460 please get out to vote. It is so important. This is one of the biggest elections Calgary is going
00:29:37.820 to see. And it's all about you. So if you want to see change, get out to vote. And I look forward to
00:29:45.420 hearing from you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Looking forward to the end of the campaign.
00:29:48.380 See what's happening. Thanks so much. Great. So there you go, guys, Sonia Sharp. And yes,
00:29:53.180 we do have a competitive municipal election going on for uh the first time in a while i mean they're
00:29:58.220 all kind of competitive in their little races but this is a big one this is different than the
00:30:02.060 others we're looking at a very possible large turnover of our municipal government in calgary
00:30:08.460 and that applies to other cities you know we overlook our municipal governments we're terrible
00:30:14.460 for that our turnouts are low for this and these guys spend a heck of a lot of our money these
00:30:19.740 guys have policies that come very directly into our lives and impact us those are the ones that
00:30:24.780 are right outside your front door literally and we need to watch these things um cbcb fixes all
00:30:31.580 says quit finding idiotic sculptures and paintings and stupid things yeah i know i mean i could have
00:30:35.180 talked to miss sharp on a lot more things um and uh you know covered those i mean yes just stupid
00:30:42.220 spending in general we need them to speak up and stop some of those things dan mclean's been pretty
00:30:47.340 good and in talking about some of those things too and others but it's always been talk it's always
00:30:51.980 been talk i mean the public art is a good example even though the people keep poo-pooing and
00:30:55.900 dismissing you know it's only a few million here a few million there but it's it's a symbol and i
00:31:01.020 guess that's what art's supposed to be for when you go into a city and you see something as stupid
00:31:05.980 as a blue ring on an old overpass and find out that german artists not even local ones got half
00:31:10.700 a million dollars to make that stupid blue ring on an overpass or other artists put rocks on
00:31:17.100 sticks out in West Calgary. I can't remember what that one cost, another half million or more
00:31:21.580 on a side of a road. Most people thought it was construction waste. They really did. That's still
00:31:25.500 what it looks like. But this just keeps going on and on and on and on. I mean, it's one thing
00:31:31.660 to have one or two stupid art pieces, but everybody gets mad about it, but they never stop.
00:31:36.160 They keep giving out this abstract, ugly junk. I mean, public art can look great. Get downtown
00:31:42.020 in chicago and have a look you know check out some other areas and and and uh uh it's uh
00:31:50.180 you know worth taking the time to tour these things we see here i've got a commenter says
00:31:54.260 that things oh you're talking about public art which is the point of the art is it is it really
00:31:58.740 i mean it should catch the eye and be worth discussing but is it really the point of it to
00:32:02.660 have everybody discussing it and talk about how freaking stupid it was how ripped off we got to
00:32:07.780 who haven't built it?
00:32:09.340 No, we should be talking about,
00:32:10.460 wow, that was an amazing installation.
00:32:13.440 Wow, that's something I wanna tell other people about.
00:32:15.860 And I wanna encourage them to go have a look at it
00:32:17.900 if they come to visit my city.
00:32:19.920 You know, this is the sort of thing I wanna foster.
00:32:22.340 I really wanna celebrate the person who created this piece
00:32:25.640 that gets people thinking and talking about things.
00:32:28.180 But if the thing is only a talking point because it's stupid,
00:32:33.220 well, then it's wasting our money.
00:32:35.120 Spend your own bloody money on it then.
00:32:37.160 Either way, no, they should leave that to public tender.
00:32:41.080 We're the ones who pay the bill.
00:32:42.440 We're the ones who have to look at it.
00:32:44.380 We should be the ones who actually get the say
00:32:46.080 on what's going to be built out there,
00:32:47.780 not a bunch of inbred hipsters
00:32:49.960 who are tied in with city administration
00:32:52.220 who managed to get those grants to build that junk
00:32:55.240 and rip you off, because that's what it is.
00:33:00.040 Guys, it is a racket.
00:33:01.920 I mean, the poet laureate, there's another beauty, right?
00:33:05.060 Is it really the city's role to keep a full-time poet on staff?
00:33:08.560 Apparently.
00:33:09.740 Have you ever heard of the Poet Laureate, who it is?
00:33:12.120 Read any of their work?
00:33:14.180 No, but you're paying for it.
00:33:17.360 All right, what else we got going?
00:33:18.780 Speaking of entitled people ripping you off,
00:33:21.160 it's the month of the strike, isn't it?
00:33:23.440 Canada Post workers with the dumbest strike on earth,
00:33:26.140 they're still at it.
00:33:27.620 You know, it's funny, this time they've gone on strike
00:33:29.820 and it just seems like nobody's really noticed
00:33:31.460 because they did it so recently.
00:33:34.060 Most people have already moved on, but after the last strike by Christmas, people finally,
00:33:38.860 the stubborn holdouts moved on to getting electronic payments on things, not being
00:33:45.420 dependent on Canada Post. It's still inconveniencing a few people, but they don't hold people hostage
00:33:50.860 anymore. And why are they striking? They're striking to fight reality. They're losing $10
00:33:56.460 million dollars a day. Letter mail is not coming back ever, ever. And that's, it's down by what,
00:34:06.400 two thirds or 80% over the last 10 years. Like that was the bread and butter. That was the point.
00:34:11.720 That was, you had to in the past send documents, checks, communications, grandma's birthday gift
00:34:17.860 to you. That would be sent in a letter and you kind of needed to get those communications every
00:34:22.580 day and send your payments out every day. And five day a week mail was important and it merited
00:34:26.900 having people walk up and down your block. Those days are gone. Just as gone as the milkman
00:34:32.420 at best. And the federal government finally did the right thing. They really did. They finally
00:34:38.060 just said it like it is. They said, look, we've got to cut it down to a fraction of the delivery.
00:34:42.500 We do not need daily delivery anymore. And, uh, you know, we don't need delivery right to your
00:34:49.020 door anymore. Three quarters of the country already hasn't had delivery to the door. It's
00:34:53.660 just Trudeau managed to actually promise the union something. So they kept mail monkeys walking up
00:34:58.140 and down the streets, delivering flyers to everybody's houses directly for a third of the
00:35:01.400 places. So it's got to stop. So what happened? They went on strike. That's fine. Fine. No pity.
00:35:10.120 No pity. If you're really that dumb, you know, you really should be negotiating on reality,
00:35:13.880 saying, look, how can we ease this transition? How can we soften the blow for the inevitable
00:35:18.560 layoffs that are going to come. Instead, they're infuriating the public. They're giving the
00:35:23.300 government all the ammunition that it needs. So people will not be sympathetic when that ax comes
00:35:28.120 down and it's going to, you guys. It's going to. You guys should have started planning for this
00:35:33.060 when the fax machine came around. You certainly should have started planning for it when email
00:35:38.300 came around. And you're just going to have to adapt. Walking around with picket lines,
00:35:44.500 you look like idiots. Start thinking harder. Speaking of picketing morons, well, I mean,
00:35:49.780 these ones aren't quite as dim, but they're just as entitled. The teachers are going on strike
00:35:53.220 next week. It looks like it's almost inevitable. They turned down a deal that would make them the
00:35:57.900 second highest paid in Western Canada, capping out after five years, I believe it is, at getting up
00:36:03.340 to $114,000. Don't forget you get July off, August off, a break in November off, Christmas break off,
00:36:09.140 spring break off, sick days, benefits, an incredible match pension plan, and they're whining.
00:36:16.460 I know it's not an easy job. That's why I wouldn't want to do it. But I also know that they're bloody
00:36:23.640 well paid well enough. Plus, the government promised to give 3,000 more teachers. You can't
00:36:27.580 just pull them out of the air. It's an addition, but it wasn't enough. Why? I don't know. They're
00:36:31.920 just greedy, to be blunt. That's what it is. Let's talk about who a lot of the teachers are.
00:36:36.600 teaching is a calling we know that all of us who went through school know we had teachers who were
00:36:42.860 incredible some who wholeheartedly embraced what they were doing they loved what they were doing
00:36:48.560 they saw it as a role to take on to make children better functional as they grow to become adults
00:36:56.660 and and live a good life in society and there were some who were just mailing it in and more and more
00:37:03.180 or more of them are mailing it in. I tracked this all the way back down to our post-secondary
00:37:07.760 institutions, shoving kids into all over the place, the liberal arts programs, which fine if
00:37:13.000 you want to take them, but eventually people with liberal arts degrees get tired of making lattes.
00:37:19.440 You know, that philosophy degree just didn't pay off. So then they upgrade to a teaching
00:37:25.000 certificate because they know that they can get all those summer holidays, a good pension and all
00:37:28.580 the rest because it's a short leap to go there and make decent money. The problem again though is
00:37:35.120 they aren't in it because they love it. They're in it because they feel they have to. So then the
00:37:39.700 motivation starts turning into, I just want to get as much out of this as I possibly can while I'm
00:37:43.540 here. That's why they're getting run ragged. Yeah, when you do a job you can't stand, it gets a lot
00:37:51.160 more tiresome. This system needs to change. The teachers union is holding parents hostage.
00:37:57.060 and uh it's interesting i i was listening i i pained myself by listening to uh you know talk
00:38:05.180 radio i still like to keep up on things before i come in to hear the studio in the office
00:38:08.060 i listen to the talk scandulously saying the government had a plan before the strike they
00:38:13.300 already had a plan in place to give money to parents to help pay for child care to carry
00:38:18.320 them over during the strike well yes you should have a plan we've seen this coming down the pipe
00:38:23.180 for months. You know, you guys would have crapped all over the government if they didn't have a
00:38:27.500 plan. But what it is indicating is the government's willing to wait this one out. They're not ready
00:38:32.460 to quickly capitulate. They're making it clear that this sucks, but parents, your kids are going
00:38:36.940 to be home for a while. Their education is going to be stunted because the teacher's got greedy.
00:38:42.280 And they're going to help you a little bit while you wait this out. But I think hopefully,
00:38:47.960 hopefully it's starting the framework for changing the whole system. One of the things we need to
00:38:52.980 the system is the blood of unions. Now the right for organized labor is an important one. We can't
00:38:56.580 get rid of it. I don't believe in illegalizing unions. I do believe in right to work legislation
00:39:00.340 though. Let people choose. I believe in merit pay. And I very much believe in school choice.
00:39:07.300 We should have a true voucher system. And if you're not familiar with that, what that means is
00:39:12.180 let's say there's this amount per child, whatever it might be, call it, I mean,
00:39:15.940 this is just ballpark, call it 10,000 a year per child. That's what it's worth.
00:39:19.220 and the parent chooses a school and they can dedicate that voucher and those dollars will
00:39:25.840 go to that school whether it's homeschooling whether it's a private school whether it's a
00:39:31.140 public school whether it's a charter school whether it's a religious school it doesn't matter
00:39:34.280 and people say oh private tax dollars will go to private institutions so what they always do
00:39:39.760 do you think they buy their stationery from a socialist government-owned corporation we spend
00:39:46.480 tax dollars on private provision of services at times. Yes, that happens in the healthcare system
00:39:50.900 too, and it needs to happen more. Add a competitive element to these schools. People say,
00:39:56.240 it's unfair. The rich kids go to the private schools. Oh, get over it. Get over it. The
00:40:00.660 politics of envy, you can't raise everybody up with the politics of envy. All you can do is drag
00:40:04.860 everybody down to the same level of misery. It's the crabs in the bucket. You don't like that your
00:40:09.860 neighbor can afford to take their kid to a better school? Then work a second job. Climb the corporate
00:40:14.060 scrotum pull, make more money so that you can do that and put your kids in a better spot. If you
00:40:18.600 can't, well, that's the way it goes. But your kid gets the exact same amount of dollars as that kid
00:40:24.940 does. That's true equality. In fact, you, if you were the low-income person complaining, probably
00:40:33.000 paid a heck of a lot less into the system that led to that amount of dollars going into the voucher
00:40:38.040 for your kid than the other person. And then we can get the diversity of schools. I love it when
00:40:44.580 listening to these educators, they don't like being called teachers anymore. They're teachers,
00:40:47.880 get over it. Talk about, well, we have all the diverse kids, all the diverse needs. They're all
00:40:52.040 different. We have to have different setups. And I agree with that. That's absolutely true.
00:40:55.360 All sorts of kids respond to different teaching environments. But then as soon as you actually
00:40:59.400 propose changing it by having a variety of schools and school choices, suddenly the teachers,
00:41:03.620 oh, no, no, no, no, no. We all have to have them in the same standardized schools.
00:41:06.340 we just want more money. That's the reality of what it always comes down to. We want more money.
00:41:13.080 No, I want more schools. And part of it is the schools aren't responding and balancing
00:41:18.260 to where the students need to be because it's too bloody hard to operate or move or shift or
00:41:24.760 adapt to things in a union controlled environment. Inner city schools in the bigger cities are
00:41:30.580 actually underpopulated. Whereas the ones in the suburbs where everybody's moving are overloaded.
00:41:37.520 Well, let's work on rebalancing that. Let's work on changing it. Let's have new schools springing
00:41:42.300 up in areas where there are need through private investment. If the voucher follows the kid,
00:41:46.100 take some of that pressure off, specialized schools. That's the way to go, but that terrifies
00:41:51.100 the unions. Remember the unions, they don't care about the kids, guys. I'm not saying teachers are
00:41:55.120 heartless and hate kids. But when you talk of the union group, guys, they're there for the teachers.
00:42:02.260 They don't, there's no other two ways about it. You know, some of those numbers going on,
00:42:09.180 I believe it's about 50 some thousand teachers in Alberta. If you divide it up, there's like a
00:42:15.300 teacher for every 20 students. So they scream about alleged classes with 40 kids in them. But
00:42:20.520 you know what? They've screamed about that since the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and up to now.
00:42:24.540 They've always screamed about that. Some schools, if you look around because of that imbalance
00:42:29.240 between inner and suburban areas, you will be able to find overcrowded classes. If you look hard
00:42:34.460 enough, you'll find some classes where there's one teacher with 10 kids. So why don't we try
00:42:38.480 to maintain the balance more instead of just tossing more money at them? Well, because that's
00:42:41.820 all they're asking for is more money. They're just pretending it's about the kids and they're
00:42:47.760 playing the nasty games. This gets back to what I was talking about when they're doing things like
00:42:51.560 stacking the microphones at an Alberta Next panel. Remember, the kid came up talking teachers union
00:42:56.140 talking points. These are the tricks they pay. Take a 16-year-old kid, stick him at a microphone
00:43:00.980 with a scripted thing to read. Do you think your average 16-year-old kid happened to know,
00:43:06.380 oh look, half an hour ago, here's the exact number that voted in the strike vote. Amazing. Man,
00:43:10.600 that kid's tuned in, isn't he? Turns out he's a kid who's also organizing a student walkout
00:43:14.740 in support of the teachers union. And it turns out that kid right afterwards went and did a video
00:43:20.460 interview, sit down with Nahed Ninchy, the head of the NDP. This was just a run-of-the-mill
00:43:24.660 student who was concerned with a question or got shut down at an event. No, he wasn't. He was a
00:43:29.040 kid who was trained and put there as a plant by the teachers union to try and sidetrack an event
00:43:32.940 into something completely unrelated to it. So yeah, we've got a big battle coming up, guys.
00:43:38.460 The posties will be the easier one to take on. The teachers are going to be a tougher one.
00:43:41.840 But I think it's time to starve them out a bit. Make them a little hungry. Give them a month or
00:43:46.460 two off. I know the parents are going to have to suffer, but you know what? When the teachers get
00:43:50.380 a couple of months off, which can add up to $20,000 and more, that's going to cut into their
00:43:55.400 summer vacation, isn't it? Maybe they'll start to see a little more reason, won't they? Start
00:44:01.020 pretending to care about the students and get back to work. Next week, we'll see, I've got
00:44:05.840 tentatively booked Frances Widowson. You're probably familiar with her. A professor fired
00:44:12.180 so much for tenure for speaking the truth at Mount Royal University in Calgary. She's been doing
00:44:17.440 speaking things in other venues. And she tried one in Winnipeg. You might have seen the videos
00:44:24.320 online. She was assaulted by a bunch of organized thugs. And, you know, it sounds like the university
00:44:31.640 was probably promoting that and pulled them together because the left responds with violence
00:44:35.900 rather than thought. And this is what it's down to. Violence. Maybe it's time for some more jail
00:44:42.200 time, eh? Longer sentences for violence. She's looking like she's pursuing charges. She should.
00:44:48.220 It's time that we get to discourse. No more violent thuggery. No more crap from the left
00:44:53.120 with their Marxist crap and attacking, shooting, assaulting voices they don't like. The world has
00:44:59.540 moved ahead of that. All right. That's the ranting I got today, guys. Thank you very much for tuning
00:45:06.480 in. Tune into the pipeline. It's going to be on tonight at seven. Keep watching our channels.
00:45:10.260 we're expanding our stuff. There's going to be more shows coming, regional shows. And of course,
00:45:14.920 people like Leah and Dave and Jeremy and the others are putting out broadcasts all the time.
00:45:21.080 So like, subscribe, share all that good stuff. It helps us broaden our base. Thank you very much
00:45:27.440 for tuning in. We'll do this all again next week.
00:45:40.260 We'll be right back.