Western Standard - Triggered： Back to school! Talking about masking and kids!

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 It's January 7th, 2022, year three, the year of our plague.

00:00:41.160 Welcome to Triggered.

00:00:42.000 I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:43.400 This show is going to be coming to you every day at 1130 a.m.

00:00:46.920 Mountain Standard Time, Monday to Wednesday, for those who haven't been here before.

00:00:51.120 It's a live format.

00:00:52.680 We're going to be covering the issues that the mainstream media doesn't want to cover

00:00:56.360 or won't cover or just doesn't bother covering.

00:00:58.940 We're here for that.

00:00:59.520 the Western standards here for that. Comments are welcoming. I mean, that's what's great about

00:01:03.360 this being a live show. I want it to be interactive. I want to talk with you, get from you which

00:01:08.240 subjects we're to be covering, what you want to hear about, get your ideas on it. You don't always

00:01:12.320 have to agree with me. You can put your comments out disagreeing. In fact, that's sometimes more

00:01:16.560 fun. Just keep them civil. And when you're debating with each other on the comment scroll, you know,

00:01:21.300 keep that civil as well. I got a great show today. It's really packed. I got guests,

00:01:25.400 an Alberta school teacher, Robin Valeski. She's going to talk about her concerns. She wrote a

00:01:29.180 blog posting recently about the masking of children in her class. I mean, she's worried

00:01:33.920 about this and the cost benefit again with so many things when it comes to pandemic measures is

00:01:38.360 difficult to determine. So it's going to be a good talk with somebody who's in there in schools,

00:01:43.020 dealing with children, dealing with school administrations and such. Then I'm going to

00:01:47.080 be talking to Shane Wenzel. He's from Shane Homes. If you're familiar with me, he's very active on

00:01:52.060 social media. We want to talk about, I mean, housing affordability. We keep talking, talking,

00:01:56.360 talking about affordability. But the government seems to do everything it can to make it more

00:02:00.180 expensive. And now they're talking about even putting an equity tax on the houses of people

00:02:04.320 who they own. And they're claiming that's going to make houses more affordable. That sounds like

00:02:07.320 government logic if we've ever heard it. Shane will certainly be able to lend some insight into

00:02:11.700 that and some of the other things that have raised the cost of housing, whether it's

00:02:14.660 municipal zoning or other taxes and regulations as well. Now, before I get to my rant, I want to

00:02:21.500 talk about our sponsor, Bitcoin Well. These guys are, they're really a cool site, Bitcoinwell.com.

00:02:28.780 It's a cryptocurrency and this is where things are going. You know, I mean, the world is turned

00:02:32.860 upside down. We know that. It's been two bizarre years of unusual economic turmoil. Our central

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00:03:11.060 you'll like what you see. For those of us wondering what the heck it's all about, that's the place to

00:03:14.340 go to see what it's all about and why it's good. So I'm going to rant about one of those popular

00:03:18.900 things, the weather. I mean, when the thermometer goes below minus 30, you know, our thoughts of

00:03:23.240 climate emergencies and green energy generation flee, and they turn into thoughts of survival.

00:03:28.160 You know, now we're just trying to keep alive, and it doesn't matter what we're generating our

00:03:32.180 energy with, whether it's lighting fires or nuclear, but technological advancements, you know,

00:03:37.880 they've allowed humanity to reside in relatively comfortably in regions of cold climates.

00:03:43.040 Since the advent of petrochemical-based fuel sources, our lifespans have more than doubled,

00:03:47.420 and we enjoy luxuries such as avocado toast that can be consumed all year round even in the most

00:03:53.460 chilly and isolated of northern locations i'll just be uh a moment have we got sound

00:03:58.680 okay uh we have been spoiled and at times forget all of our comforts we take for granted

00:04:06.620 and are completely dependent upon the plentiful and uh abundant of affordable energy that we got

00:04:11.880 us i've lost my stream there i am sorry about that but we're getting there we haven't seen

00:04:15.620 to the population anyways. They're protesting. They're saying we shouldn't be using these energy

00:04:20.660 sources that are keeping us alive in winter. Yeah, talk about self-destructive. That's what they

00:04:24.360 are doing. I mean, it used to be only hippies in backwood shacks that thought, you know, that

00:04:28.740 Canada could be able to live through winter and Canadians could live through winter without having

00:04:33.120 fossil fuels warming our houses and creating our electricity. Well, now we're getting people like

00:04:38.660 the mayor of Calgary, Jody Gondek, who's saying it's a climate emergency. We've got to get away

00:04:42.520 from fossil fuels but we can't look outside it's it's brutal winter took a while to reach the west

00:04:48.240 this year but as the christmas holidays began i mean it showed up with a vengeance we've been

00:04:52.480 in those minus 20 minus 30 ranges now for weeks and temperatures have been remaining there it

00:04:57.600 sounds like it's going to be breaking pretty soon which is good we've had enough but you only have

00:05:01.680 to walk outside for a few minutes to be reminded our species you know we're ill-equipped to survive

00:05:06.100 in this weather i mean evolution deprived us of the fur we used to have covering our bodies to

00:05:11.740 keep us warm out there. We had to get clothing. We had to learn how to make fire. We had to learn

00:05:15.340 how to build shelters and do things to beat mother nature. And we did. But part of that is fossil

00:05:21.700 fuels. Now we haven't grown our winter fur back to keep us warm in winter. But some of us really

00:05:27.800 want to shut down the advancements that allow us to live without that fur. I mean, some of us

00:05:31.080 are kind of furry, I guess, you know, a lot of Greek guys and things, but either way, it's not 1.00

00:05:34.380 enough to keep us all warm. But our intellectual ability, it seems to be an evolutionary reversal

00:05:39.380 because not enough of us are dying of stupidity anymore.

00:05:42.680 I mean, some do, but they tend to hit breeding age before they get there.

00:05:45.780 And instead of passing away from walking on thin ice or eating random mushrooms

00:05:49.040 or drinking bleach or something, the simple-minded among us are getting government jobs

00:05:52.160 where they can exist in a world devoid of human common sense or immediate consequences.

00:05:55.980 And now they're drafting government energy policies.

00:05:58.580 Now, despite Canada being an energy capital,

00:06:01.140 Alberta's energy system provider had to issue an energy emergency alert just a couple of weeks ago.

00:06:05.780 The cold weather was putting such a draw on our power sources

00:06:08.580 that we're at risk of blackouts or brownouts.

00:06:10.780 And this isn't minor. 0.55

00:06:11.620 I mean, think about that.

00:06:12.740 If your house is heated by natural gas,

00:06:14.280 it doesn't matter if your furnace

00:06:15.320 doesn't have a fan kicking onto it.

00:06:16.820 So you're not going to get heat.

00:06:18.060 And what happens after a few hours?

00:06:19.300 Your pipes start bursting,

00:06:20.340 your house floods,

00:06:21.200 and you're living in non-survivable conditions.

00:06:23.780 This is the energy reality in Canada in winter.

00:06:28.120 And people think that we can live without that.

00:06:30.400 I mean, we don't have the other sources.

00:06:32.100 We have decades.

00:06:32.640 We've spent billions subsidizing,

00:06:34.160 studying, building alternative projects,

00:06:36.580 solar and wind.

00:06:37.480 and where are we at? Well, fossil fuels, I checked into it. They're providing 91% of our energy

00:06:44.420 generation in Alberta right now. Solar is providing zero when I checked in on that and wind at 4.7.

00:06:51.120 It's actually a bit breezy out. That's a little higher. So, I mean, we still have 91% of our

00:06:55.300 energy is coming from fossil fuels and there are idiots out there who think we should get rid of

00:06:59.400 it. I get that, by the way, from a fantastic Twitter account. If you're on Twitter, it's called

00:07:03.120 reliable AB energy and they keep showing updates on where your power is coming from. That's the

00:07:08.040 energy reality. Wind and solar, they're not reliable enough. They don't give us nearly

00:07:14.120 enough energy when we need it most. They're just supplemental. We need to face these realities.

00:07:19.280 Now think about the electrical grid. If we try to charge a couple million electric cars and

00:07:23.120 electrically heat a whole pile of houses, because that's what they're saying. We're going to go all

00:07:26.060 electric. We're going to go that route. What's going to happen? We can't even keep up with the

00:07:29.320 current load right now when millions of cars are powered by gasoline, when our homes are heated by

00:07:33.580 natural gas. How on earth is the electrical grid going to keep up when electricity is powering

00:07:38.320 all these things and somehow not being generated with natural gas and coal? It's not. I don't see

00:07:44.100 any nuclear reactors coming on stream because apparently that's bad too. So where are we

00:07:48.860 supposed to go? Look, we've got to get past this senseless and it's fanatical push towards renewable

00:07:53.660 resources. I mean, let's examine it, try supplemental things, experiment, but we aren't ready to move.

00:07:58.480 So Mother Nature gave us an energy reality check this last couple of weeks.

00:08:02.680 She does it every year.

00:08:03.500 Go outside, feel that wind on your face.

00:08:05.700 It reminds you of how unsurvivable it is out there without fossil fuels.

00:08:10.000 And then in summertime, when you're thinking you might be able to live without it,

00:08:13.600 when you've turned off your furnace, when your car doesn't need to heat up that long,

00:08:16.220 don't forget how that felt on your face.

00:08:17.700 It's going to come back every winter.

00:08:19.060 Nature's offering a free lesson.

00:08:21.140 Ignore it at your peril.

00:08:23.240 Okay, so we're going to check into the newsroom here with Melanie Risden right away.

00:08:27.420 and see what is breaking out there in the Alberta news world. Hey, Melanie, how are you doing?

00:08:33.360 Good. How are you? It sounds like I heard a little bit about your rant there.

00:08:37.660 Yes. I get crabby when I'm cold.

00:08:40.540 Yeah, that's okay. But I thought I would sort of add to that. It looks like

00:08:44.280 we just published a story about the feds spending $1.4 million for solar panels up in the north,

00:08:53.860 where at times there's only four hours of sunlight a day.

00:08:59.280 Yeah, I worked actually,

00:09:00.580 we talked about that in the newsroom earlier today.

00:09:02.360 I spent four winters in the Arctic

00:09:03.980 and when you get past the Arctic Circle

00:09:05.440 up in Inuvik, Tuk-tuk-tuk, where I was at,

00:09:07.680 you get zero hours of sunlight a day

00:09:09.560 for a matter of months, actually.

00:09:12.100 Yeah, so some good climate initiatives there,

00:09:15.480 1.4 million for solar panels.

00:09:18.440 What else have we got today?

00:09:20.240 We are just working on a breaking story right now,

00:09:23.460 actually, the health minister, the federal health minister, says provinces could be looking to make

00:09:29.500 COVID vaccines mandatory. He does confirm that it will be up to provinces to make those decisions,

00:09:37.620 likely not going to be a federal directive, but that is breaking news. We're just getting some

00:09:44.160 more information from the press conference that was held today. So yeah, I will have more of that

00:09:50.980 on the website here um coming up we also have uh let's see here it looks like uh keurig has um

00:09:59.540 made some false claims and have been caught and potentially fined uh for saying that their pods

00:10:06.500 the coffee pods are recyclable when in many provinces they aren't so they are facing i think

00:10:13.620 i don't know that it's necessarily a four million dollar fine but it's um a sort of a they're they're

00:10:19.460 being billed $4 million to put towards different programs and whatnot for what happened with that

00:10:26.340 claim. Let's see here. We've got a couple of things that we're working on. Yeah. Greenwashing.

00:10:32.900 I just like that term when it comes to, you know, those companies that try to make you feel green

00:10:36.500 about stuff, but they aren't really when they do it. So it's good to see it biting some of them in

00:10:40.820 the butt, you know, same sort of thing. Oh, we power Calgary's LRTs on renewable energy. No,

00:10:46.340 No, you actually you don't. You just pay a premium to some of those windmills out there and still end up getting it from natural gas.

00:10:52.140 But sorry to interrupt. I just have to interject with my rants.

00:10:55.000 For sure. And, you know, speaking of that, it looks like taxpayers are also going to be on the hook for close to three billion dollars when it comes to cleaning up old abandoned mines,

00:11:06.900 tailing ponds, old ex-military sites, places all up in the northern territories in Canada.

00:11:15.500 Looks like we could have about three billion on the books for those cleanup and decontamination

00:11:21.360 of a lot of those sites. So that is yet another environmental initiative that is going to be

00:11:29.720 quite costly for sure uh let's see here and we've got uh we've got o'toole actually uh having a few

00:11:39.960 terse words for the trudeau government for continuing to bring in um supplies from china

00:11:47.160 when uh we can be sourcing them there's there's actually uh uh a chance for us to source them

00:11:52.120 local you know uh within the country uh and we're still spending hundreds of millions of dollars

00:11:58.280 uh, hearing these PPE supplies, masks, gloves, uh, things like that from China. So O'Toole's,

00:12:06.200 uh, uh, kind of blasting Trudeau about that. Uh, we'll have that story up here fairly quickly.

00:12:12.520 Well, it's refreshing to see O'Toole blasting Trudeau about something, but usually what O'Toole's

00:12:16.520 upset about today turns into his policy next week. I, I hope he holds his ground on being a

00:12:21.800 non-liberal for an afternoon and carries it on for a little while. It'll be interesting to watch

00:12:25.800 that one developed yeah but uh yeah and so for people i mean that i think i suspect my news

00:12:31.660 note says it's going to become the story of the day when we have a federal health minister saying

00:12:35.420 the only way we're going to get out of the pandemic is mandatory vaccinations i mean that's

00:12:39.920 that language we're seeing in austria other countries where they're forcing people they're

00:12:45.340 forcing people to take a medication they're forcing a needle into their arms they're making

00:12:49.580 it illegal for you not to take the medication the government tells you to take think about that

00:12:55.480 people think of how serious this is how distressing this is and he's uh saying what the the province

00:13:01.720 is that'll be their responsibility but that's kind of the federal warning shot saying okay

00:13:05.480 we're gonna let you guys shove those needles into people's arms uh by force or perhaps you know

00:13:11.000 there's always that if in the background uh we we might take it over and do it on your behalf if you

00:13:16.020 don't later did you see about that burger joint it was just on the the uh site there did you see

00:13:22.700 the story about the burger joint in Winnipeg kind of doing the little loop around the QR code?

00:13:28.920 Yeah, it was interesting. You know, we're seeing kind of a gray market, I guess you could almost

00:13:32.580 say. You know, it's not totally illegal, but they're kind of, you know, when you get government

00:13:39.320 infringing too much, people find ways around. The Soviet Union used to be great for their

00:13:43.160 measures of commerce and so on. And these guys, yeah, what was it? They have the scanner for your

00:13:49.240 a vaccine passport, but they're kind of using an honor system saying, well, we're not going to take

00:13:52.880 the responsibility of determining it, but the customers, please utilize it before you come in

00:13:56.320 and we'll take your word for it. Yeah, that's right. So they, so, and they've got it posted

00:14:01.460 for their patrons that come in. You just scan yourself. It's a self-scanner. You scan, come

00:14:06.840 sit down. And like you said, honor system. So, so they are still scanning QR codes within the

00:14:14.580 facility but the little sign that they have posted says do not ask our staff

00:14:19.380 for help we are not government officials we are not you know qualified we do not

00:14:23.760 want to take the liability for this and then they post the phone number for the

00:14:28.660 Ministry of Health in Winnipeg or in Manitoba as well as the phone number

00:14:33.660 for the chief medical officer so you have any questions those are who you

00:14:38.220 call otherwise you sit down and enjoy a what looks like a really good burger

00:14:43.380 Okay. Well, I mean, you know, people are pushing back how they can as these mandates come in. They're trying to keep their businesses running. They're trying to keep life livable and human for others. So we'll watch as these businesses, you know, there's a gym in Kelowna that's been trying as well.

00:14:58.080 Well, I have an update on that for you if you want. Sounds like that, Jim. So we broke the story. Our reporter NBC Reid broke the story and brought it to us a couple of days ago.

00:15:12.320 Now, since that story has gone public, it sounds like the West Kelowna, the city of West Kelowna has pulled their business license.

00:15:20.780 They have now published an open letter to the mayor, you know, demanding sort of proof of how the decisions that they're making are leading to a safer environment and whatnot.

00:15:35.660 So Reid is actually digging into that a little bit more today.

00:15:39.160 And so we're hoping to have an update on that coming up this afternoon.

00:15:42.320 Yeah, it's just outright thuggery. Well, we'll be watching. So make sure to go to westernstandardonline.com and see what Melanie and Dave and Eva and all the rest are doing for breaking stories. They're coming out all the time. We get them up there as fast as we can get them. So thanks for joining me today. And we'll check in again on Monday with you.

00:16:00.360 You bet. All right. Thanks, Melanie. And yeah, always lots going on. Cheryl, just responding a

00:16:06.500 bit to the rant earlier, pointing out that we should thank our oil and gas workers who are

00:16:11.720 working out in this awful weather. And that's absolutely true. Common Sense, you know, says

00:16:15.720 if you live in a cold climate, Pat saying this, you know, you burn fossil fuel in order to stay

00:16:19.860 warm. But Common Sense is just terribly hard to find these days. Before I get on to my next guest,

00:16:25.760 I'm going to talk about a sponsor in a moment, but also point out, I didn't catch that in the early part.

00:16:32.160 I'm going to be talking in the later part of the show with Linda Slobodian about, she put out a column and she's following up on it.

00:16:38.360 We have some CBC journalists, if I want to call it that.

00:16:43.980 They've been getting funded by the CBC to do a documentary, yet it turns out they are actually radical activists who are not just covering illegal barricades and protests.

00:16:54.280 they are uh taking part in them they're one of the protesters they just seem to throw up that

00:17:00.080 journalist shield when they're about to get arrested which they did the charges got dropped

00:17:03.440 but uh it's gross seeing our tax dollars being spent on initiatives such as that i mean if we're

00:17:09.000 going to have a state broadcaster they should at least be making a little bit of effort to be

00:17:13.500 impartial and these guys are crazy they're not even close so we'll be talking to linda about

00:17:17.040 that in the later part of the show at about 12 40 i believe and i'll have shane wenzel on later

00:17:21.420 I'm going to speak to our sponsor quickly here though and then I'm going to get on to Robin

00:17:26.720 Bolesky who is a teacher in Alberta quite concerned about his students. So the Canada

00:17:32.240 Shooting Sports Association is our sponsor to speak of here. These guys are at, this is a URL

00:17:38.220 it's a little difficult, cssa-cila.org or again just just google Canada Shooting Sports Association.

00:17:46.760 These guys they're, well the name kind of says it all, they're an association that stands up

00:17:51.360 for the responsible, legal, safe use of firearms,

00:17:54.200 whether it's for sport shooting at targets and for fun

00:17:57.220 or for hunting, or just to collect them even.

00:18:00.600 Because all of these rights, unfortunately,

00:18:02.400 are under threat from the federal government.

00:18:03.840 They want to take your property away.

00:18:05.060 They want to illegalize the property

00:18:06.800 that you've been legally and safely using for this long,

00:18:10.300 and they want to take it out of your hands.

00:18:12.000 So these guys are promoting safe utilization of firearms,

00:18:15.840 because that's what most of us do.

00:18:17.120 They're good, fun things,

00:18:19.060 and we can use them for a number of safe uses.

00:18:21.740 And they've got some court challenges.

00:18:23.320 They're standing up for firearms owners as well

00:18:25.360 to make sure we can maintain those rights to keep doing that.

00:18:27.700 So check them out, Canada Shooting Sports Association.

00:18:31.680 Look them up online, join them, help them help you.

00:18:35.620 Okay, so I'm gonna get on to our guest here,

00:18:38.060 Robin Bolesky.

00:18:40.600 Hey there, Robin, how you doing?

00:18:41.940 I'm doing well, sir.

00:18:42.820 Thank you, can you hear me?

00:18:44.040 I do, I do indeed.

00:18:45.680 So I appreciate getting another voice

00:18:48.240 a lot of us get upset you know this is a big issue and as i mentioned earlier in this robin is a

00:18:52.640 a teacher in alberta who has put up a blog posting talking and expressing concerns about these these

00:18:58.000 masking mandates as we return to school and the past ones and how those are impacting kids so

00:19:02.960 thank you for coming on to talk with me about that today yeah it's my pleasure uh first thing i'd like

00:19:07.360 to ask you though is how is that climate emergency in calgary is it uh is it an apocalyptic apocalyptic

00:19:14.720 seen on the streets of Calgary and sort of frantic people running everywhere and things of

00:19:19.600 this nature. Not quite yet, but it's supposed to warm up in a couple of days. So we might all start

00:19:23.920 frying like ants under a magnifying glass, but in the meantime, so far so good. So yeah, very good.

00:19:32.400 Okay. So maybe we'll, we'll summarize a little bit of, yeah, what, what inspired you, I guess,

00:19:35.840 to write that posting? I mean, I know it's difficult in areas of medical or educational

00:19:40.640 areas because they don't like people talking outside of the administration or the union line

00:19:46.680 sometimes. But that's why I appreciate somebody speaking up. So what did you go to there?

00:19:51.140 Okay, well, thank you very much. And yes, I do have to walk a fine line here. You know,

00:19:54.500 we have a code of conduct that says we must maintain the honor and the dignity of the

00:19:58.660 profession. I believe the steps I'm taking are perfectly in line with that right now.

00:20:04.120 We've also got some documentation in our union that entails sort of adhering to the

00:20:09.940 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And so essentially, I don't believe that section one of the charter

00:20:14.560 has been just, you know, justifiably been justified by the government. Now, you mentioned sort of I'm

00:20:21.180 on the surface, I'm out of my sort of realm in that I'm not a, you know, an epidemiologist or

00:20:27.920 a virologist or an immunologist or an infectious disease expert or what have you. But I did some

00:20:34.120 digging and, you know, you got the Becky Pringle of the National Education Association, huge union

00:20:39.820 in the united states who has phone call privileges to rochelle walensky the cdc director right so 0.99

00:20:47.180 her credentials are a middle school science teacher okay so she's allowed to dictate policy 1.00

00:20:53.100 from that perspective you've also got kelly troutner another prominent union head she's

00:21:00.780 the senior director of health i want to say for the aft american federation of teachers 0.89

00:21:05.820 she was allowed to go so far as to revise the CDC documents verbatim from her suggestions.

00:21:16.060 And so Troutner's qualifications are a background of law, which is impressive, granted, yes,

00:21:23.000 and political studies, I believe. So, you know, none of these characters are infectious disease

00:21:29.540 experts um brandy ray the the lady who is the president of the alberta let's see if i get this

00:21:36.900 right school councils association um you know i don't think she's an infectious disease expert

00:21:42.420 and again i need to be careful i can't disparage my colleagues here so look i'm a lay person and

00:21:47.860 i'm not any of the above uh credentials just listed but you know i've done a lot of reading

00:21:53.940 and so you know and i'm concerned about the influence of politics behind these mandates

00:22:01.700 and as far as i can tell using the gold standard of research for masking there is scant evidence

00:22:09.060 to suggest that it's going to mitigate the spread of you know a respiratory virus in this case so

00:22:16.340 Oh, and I understand. Yeah, no, I was just letting you go there to see if you're because

00:22:23.380 that, I mean, that's part of it. I mean, aside from, you know, your research as well as you can

00:22:28.200 on the, uh, uh, the back, you know, the epidemiologists and the experts in that end of the

00:22:33.160 field, the end that you're at though, is at the end of the line when it comes to the regulation.

00:22:36.700 So what you're seeing firsthand though, are the mandates and the impacts that they have on those

00:22:41.140 students in your room. And we are seeing a lot of evidence that whether it's well-meaning or not

00:22:45.780 masking is as a very little or negligible impact on on preventing spread of this i mean they're

00:22:51.200 talking now saying that we shouldn't use cloth masks anymore you've been forcing us to wear

00:22:55.160 those things for a year and a half what have we been doing it for what was the point uh you know

00:23:00.360 we're gonna have scuba gear pretty soon if they actually want to get realistic and stopping this

00:23:04.900 but what i'm interested in is how does the wearing of the mask because some people say well it's just

00:23:09.120 a mask who cares even if it doesn't help which is stupid but even if it doesn't help much just wear

00:23:12.780 it. But does it impact kids? Does it have an effect on them? I mean, how does that impact

00:23:18.060 your classroom? Well, this is purely speculation, but my conjecture is it's the face of the

00:23:26.880 pandemic. So it's the advertisement of the pandemic. But just to get back to kind of

00:23:34.020 what you were saying there, on the ground roots level in the classroom, and I got to be careful

00:23:38.360 how i state this but i put in writing to the ministry my employers my association and i

00:23:46.280 essentially said look can somebody sit down with me please and work walk me through this

00:23:51.320 if i'm expected to be a compliance officer for ahs diktat then sell this to me why and the response

00:23:59.720 that you get is ad hominem labels anti-masker right uh you know conservative alt-right um you

00:24:07.720 You know, Trudeau with the massage, you're a misogynist, you're a racist, right?

00:24:13.320 Things of this nature.

00:24:14.400 So, and so I made that very clear and I risked being disciplined.

00:24:22.060 And I said, look, I am not going to be an enthusiastic compliance officer for AHS unless I believe this is true.

00:24:30.220 Show me the gold standard randomized controlled trials that this stuff will be effective.

00:24:35.060 Now, you're right about the part about the cloth masks. Now I take that as a tacit admission that the original mandate was bogus. And, you know, I see all over social media, this revelation from people that, oh, COVID is airborne, like it trends on Twitter.

00:24:51.620 Well, yeah, Professor Runcourt, who my site in my blog there has been all over that from day one, which is he argues, well, not him.

00:25:02.100 It's the science argues that's the explicit purpose that a cloth mask doesn't work.

00:25:07.040 It's suspended in the aerosol particles.

00:25:09.560 COVID is indeed airborne.

00:25:11.080 Yes.

00:25:12.360 And to further that, I mean, I've got a list of, and these are great papers.

00:25:16.200 These ones I linked on my blog.

00:25:18.220 You know, Rancour and the Ontario Civil Liberties Association sites, I can count one, two, three, four, five, six.

00:25:27.080 And these are N95 studies in a health care setting where these people are not just going expected to kind of be honest, word of mouth sort of data gathering like, oh, yeah, I wore my mask all day.

00:25:39.540 like these are healthcare workers who had them on all day and you had a control group who did not,

00:25:44.700 which is how a proper gold standard study should be sort of undertaken. And again, all these,

00:25:51.240 all these studies say, you know, no significant difference in infection, right? So what's going

00:25:59.020 on here? Am I, my wife, God bless her. She's, she's, she's, she works in the capacity of

00:26:05.260 government and she's kind of sort of, you know, lower key.

00:26:07.840 And I ask her all the time.

00:26:09.020 It's like, am I, am I, you know, going goofy here?

00:26:12.880 What's like, so she kind of tries to even me out, but I honestly, you know,

00:26:17.380 this is, this troubles me and it has from day one.

00:26:20.120 And I've, I put myself in a position to be disciplined.

00:26:22.940 I might be doing that right now, you know?

00:26:25.160 Well, it's just important to talk about the whole thing.

00:26:27.840 And as you've laid out, you know, the, the amount of benefit from this masking

00:26:30.620 is, is clearly pretty negligible if, if, if any, at this point.

00:26:35.080 And then the other thing nobody seems to talk about or not nearly enough is that, I mean, these masks have an impact.

00:26:40.240 We are expressive beings. Our faces transmit our emotions to each other.

00:26:45.140 And we're taking a quarter to a half of our face away.

00:26:48.000 These kids are growing up, learning not to be able to smile or scowl at each other.

00:26:51.940 I mean, how would I have got my knuckles wrapped if the teacher didn't see me scowling at them when I disagreed?

00:26:57.060 And we're creating this culture of fear.

00:26:59.540 I mean, part of growing up and going to school is the socializing, the getting, you know, interaction.

00:27:05.000 And if you're told, well, you always got to stay six feet from each other and you got to be scared of each other.

00:27:09.020 This has a long term impact. Like we can't pretend that putting these masks on them has zero impact.

00:27:15.000 I mean, it definitely has an impact. And so people aren't just being whiners when we're concerned about wearing them.

00:27:19.780 We're worried about how it's going to impact them. And as a teacher, you witness that every day and you're concerned for your kids.

00:27:26.360 Yeah.

00:27:26.760 Well, Corey, but you are being a whiner, though.

00:27:28.740 That's the thing, right?

00:27:29.640 You're this, you know, because it gets turned, it gets flipped into this sort of name-calling

00:27:35.620 political game.

00:27:36.500 So, Corey, you're, you know, you're a member of the white male patriarchy and you're part

00:27:41.540 of the oppressor group and your opinion doesn't matter and you're an anti-masker and you're

00:27:45.060 a conservative, right?

00:27:46.620 And this political game gets sort of played too, which is all, it's all part and parcel.

00:27:51.620 And then, you know, you got Rachel Notley essentially claiming that the UCP is playing ideological games, you know, when what I see from their side is the exact same thing.

00:28:03.020 So to get back to your business about the psychological effects, I must concede that I haven't, you know, delved into that too deeply.

00:28:12.460 A colleague of mine, Russell Hillier, out of Calgary.

00:28:16.300 I know Russell.

00:28:16.740 yeah so he covered that um you know i want to say i don't know how long ago that was about in

00:28:22.480 september too when we had rumblings like okay you know what this optional masking business

00:28:26.300 is not going to last so he saw that coming down the line so he stepped out in front

00:28:30.400 and got in front of this too publicly as well so you know my realm i'm a math i'm a high school

00:28:35.880 math nerd and i like to sit down i'm kind of you know i've got some introverted quality so

00:28:40.120 i can sit down with a study and i can read it and i can sort of go over it a few times and what

00:28:44.960 have you, but yeah, like I tried to say at the beginning,

00:28:47.540 this has been spun into a sort of like we're nutcases.

00:28:51.520 I'm an all right nutcase, even though I've been a centrist my whole life and I've,

00:28:55.240 I've, I've valued liberal, you know, um, democracy sort of values.

00:29:01.340 And, um, and so it's not unreasonable to question, you know,

00:29:06.340 what's going on, on, on behalf of, of the kids you've been entrusted with.

00:29:10.760 I mean, uh, we don't know if masks, uh, well, the bottom line is if we could see some evidence,

00:29:17.180 if we saw, Hey, this school had masking, this one didn't, this school, a whole bunch of kids

00:29:20.520 were armed because they didn't have the masking. Thus the masking is good. I'd be all over it and

00:29:24.640 say, well, geez, we've got a safety device. That's definitely helping children. Let's impose it. But

00:29:29.460 we're not seeing that. We're not seeing good evidence of what this, this is doing. So why are

00:29:35.880 we carrying on or why are we at least not even allowing the discussion of it? That's the concern.

00:29:40.760 well that's kind of that's kind of where again this is speculation as well but that's kind of

00:29:44.360 my argument where this is sort of spun into this sort of and this is the way the left's going man

00:29:49.000 you don't don't ask questions and don't don't you know like that say hey let's censor this person

00:29:54.360 you know you got silicon valley getting rid of twitter accounts of doctors who question this so

00:29:59.320 you know um uh so yeah it's interesting and that great point you brought up there

00:30:04.520 um you know we have no means whatsoever to evaluate this mandate do we know this works

00:30:12.760 and what evidence do we have what kind of a study has been done they don't even allow a control

00:30:17.560 group right so that's it i mean you might be wrong who knows but let's have the discussion

00:30:22.920 let's talk about it and i mean yeah i i get tired of that and i get it on social media all the time

00:30:28.040 well where's your doctorate from mr morton you know i i don't need to be a chef to know when

00:30:32.760 I've eaten a crappy meal. I can't necessarily produce the good meal, but I can speak to the

00:30:37.940 food and, and I can look at statistics. I can look at other things. I can anecdotally look at life

00:30:43.660 events and affairs and apply that to things. I mean, I wouldn't jump up and give people direct

00:30:49.420 health advice, but I've got the right and ability to question some of the advice we're getting from

00:30:53.260 these guys. Yes, for sure. And on top of that too, um, you know, they try to disparage professor

00:30:58.560 rancour by saying oh he's a climate deniest and he's you know he got in trouble at the university

00:31:04.000 of ottawa and stuff but it's like okay well i don't see dr hinshaw sitting down in a debate

00:31:09.280 i mean at the very least down south um what's his name for the cdc fauci he gets to get grilled

00:31:15.040 under congress a little bit and he gets to get sweat under the collar here what kind of debate

00:31:19.600 has uh have these hs i call them dictators i'm sorry what kind of debate have they engaged in

00:31:25.760 this is a democracy this is a you know we are a liberal democracy and we're not acting like it

00:31:31.280 we're just being ruled over by press conference and it's time the albertans parents ask questions

00:31:37.760 now the i dug up this information through a watchdog group called americans for public trust

00:31:43.040 they had to go and get a freedom of information request to garner these emails to determine the

00:31:48.960 communication amongst the unions and the cdc well what kind of communication is going on here i mean

00:31:55.520 again, I gotta be careful. This is my association, but I'm also a parent too, right? I've got a

00:32:01.860 five-year-old and an eight-year-old. No, and I appreciate that. And again, not only just with

00:32:06.760 the kids of your own, but I mean, there's a role that teachers have. We're entrusting our children

00:32:11.220 to their care and I don't expect teachers to make policy, but I want them to observe what they think

00:32:17.080 is good and bad in the classrooms and be able to speak to it to make a better environment overall

00:32:21.840 all with our kids. And, and when people are afraid to speak up,

00:32:24.660 we're not going to get better policy and we all lose for it.

00:32:27.760 So I do appreciate you, you speaking up on it. I guess, before we go,

00:32:31.680 where can we get more information? Like where is the,

00:32:34.460 where's the URL for your blog post so other people can see it in full with the

00:32:37.380 work you've done and perhaps future updates that you're going to be putting up

00:32:40.220 there. Yeah, yeah, no, that's sure. I can link it to,

00:32:42.880 I've just got a Twitter account and again, I'm just,

00:32:46.060 I've been on Twitter since the summer and I've got a mere 50 followers.

00:32:49.800 I'm not out to look for followers.

00:32:51.220 I've never had social media.

00:32:52.940 I dabbled in Facebook when it first started in about 06 or 07.

00:32:56.720 But, you know, I'm not in this for a notoriety.

00:33:00.220 I'm in this because I want my kids to not wear masks and I don't want to be an

00:33:04.120 HS compliance officer.

00:33:05.320 So, but yeah, to answer your question, I just have a Twitter account under my

00:33:09.060 name, full name, and I can, I'll have it pinned there.

00:33:11.960 And, um, uh, and I encourage you to check out professor Denny Rancour's, um,

00:33:16.780 he's got a website and he, that guy is, is a, like, he's a, I don't,

00:33:21.780 he's been all over this stuff from day one. And, and you know what, again,

00:33:24.840 he just gets dismissed as a, Hey, he's a wacko. He's a, Oh, you know, 0.99

00:33:29.820 one of those guys. And that's the, that's the trick.

00:33:32.580 That's the trick of the,

00:33:33.880 and it's this left wing sort of censorship business of, Hey,

00:33:37.380 don't ask questions, you know?

00:33:39.260 Yeah. The dismissiveness. So no, I, and I appreciate that.

00:33:41.960 So I'll just give the URL for people too. And if you're listening,

00:33:44.100 it's robinbolewski.blogspot.com and you can find the posting there with what Robin wrote up

00:33:51.240 and I imagine as I said perhaps some future postings and Robin Bolewski if you're looking

00:33:56.280 for it on Twitter is where you'll see what Robin's been up to so I really appreciate you at least

00:34:00.980 speaking up and speaking out on these things and coming on the show to talk about it because

00:34:04.100 we're in this bizarre culture of fear where people are afraid to come out and speak we get all sorts

00:34:08.640 of people talking on the pandemic issues in their workplaces everywhere from the oil field to

00:34:12.800 healthcare to teaching, and they're afraid to speak and we should never have that environment.

00:34:17.560 No. Well, look, again, my profession purports to value the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

00:34:22.860 What is section two? It's freedom of speech, right? And we are a liberal democracy. So

00:34:28.240 we need the silent majority to stop being silent because we're in a bit of a culture

00:34:33.000 struggle here too. I mean, it's all intertwined and it's an interesting time to be alive, boy.

00:34:37.720 I'll tell you that right now. It is that, if nothing else. All right. Well, thanks for joining

00:34:41.460 me, Robin. Perhaps we'll touch base on the show again down the road, and hopefully it'll be in

00:34:44.880 better times. We'll talk about it when all the masks have come off. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank

00:34:48.680 you, sir. Great. Thanks, Robin. You too. Okay, and it's an interesting and ongoing discussion.

00:34:54.460 I'll look at some of the comments here. You know, Rowan Robertson says, Western Standard

00:34:57.160 are a year behind on this issue. Please catch up. Well, Robin, we were writing about this a year

00:35:02.700 ago, and the thing is, it's still an issue, so we're still talking about it. And that's all we

00:35:08.680 could do as a media organization, of course, is bring things up, bring them to light and hope

00:35:12.140 other people talk about it and move and get active. So, I mean, it was good to get a teacher

00:35:16.640 break ranks and talk to these things and speak directly to it because, I mean, he was very

00:35:21.860 careful with things. You can see he doesn't want to present himself as a medical expert. He doesn't

00:35:25.060 want to tell people how to take care of the kids. He's just, he's concerned and feels he should be

00:35:29.760 able to have the discussion to speak up. And his point is very valid. When you've got somebody

00:35:35.040 saying you're not allowed to talk about that my alarm bells go off that's that's how we get into

00:35:39.640 trouble as a society when you have no go zones to speak on things and perhaps the person's wrong but

00:35:45.420 you know a statement I always like is we have the right to be wrong get out there discuss it

00:35:50.220 debate it and but if you say you can't talk about it well then I get concerned then the person might

00:35:57.440 be right and we're going to lose it because we've shut down debate so hopefully more teachers and

00:36:01.520 you know, we've been seeing healthcare workers coming up. Melanie Riston did a fantastic show

00:36:05.600 a while back with a nurse and a doctor and some others on these sorts of things. And they're

00:36:11.540 speaking up. They had to come in under conditions of anonymity though, because they fear they're

00:36:15.780 going to lose their jobs for speaking up. Look, those people, and I do believe the doctors who

00:36:20.440 support the lockdowns even do care about their patients, whether they're right or wrong. You

00:36:25.000 know, we could discuss that. They have the right to say it, but the ones who don't support it

00:36:28.560 should have that right to say that as well. We need a broad medical discussion. We need broad

00:36:32.500 educational discussions. We need to cover these issues in full and everybody's got to talk about

00:36:36.840 it. So I'm glad Robin came on. And as I said, hopefully the next time I have him on, if I do,

00:36:43.980 it's going to be when we're talking about the end of this thing. So before I get to the next guest,

00:36:48.560 let's see, I do want to talk one more time about our sponsor, Bitcoin Well. By the way,

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00:37:36.060 one. So check them out, bitcoinwell.com. Okay. I want to talk about one of my favorite subjects,

00:37:43.300 Air Jody Gondek. You know, it's come up now that she, you know, we've had the Olympic,

00:37:49.400 or not the Olympic, I'm going to get onto the Olympics. The arena deal has fallen apart. It

00:37:54.320 did when she kept throwing costs at it and changing the deal and pushing it along. And

00:37:59.500 they finally said, we're out of here. We're done. The deal is finished. And everybody's been

00:38:04.260 pointing fingers and blaming everybody for this deal falling apart. And it's been interesting to

00:38:09.460 watch. Now, I don't think that arenas and private organizations should be partnering with the

00:38:15.040 taxpayers through City Hall or any of those things in the first place. But the bottom line is a deal

00:38:19.360 was signed. They were supposed to break ground

00:38:21.320 like right now. That's when they're supposed to be starting on this

00:38:23.400 thing, and it's done. It's toast.

00:38:26.160 But now all of a sudden,

00:38:27.980 well, a couple of things. I'll start

00:38:29.060 Gondek's getting into a fight with her own

00:38:31.320 chief of staff, Stephen Carter.

00:38:33.920 For people not familiar with

00:38:35.340 Stephen Carter, he's like a political rash.

00:38:37.700 He's the herpes of Alberta politics.

00:38:39.460 He just surfaces over and over.

00:38:41.500 He might subside for a while and disappear, but don't worry,

00:38:43.420 that sore is going to come up when you least want to see

00:38:45.540 it and meddle with your life again.

00:38:47.440 He's been the face behind such political luminaries as Sandra Janssen, if you recall her, or Alison Redford, of course, Nahed Ninchy, and now he is behind Mayor Gondek.

00:39:00.560 Well, and it's this picture here of Chief of Stiff.

00:39:03.260 This was from 10 years ago when he was Redford's Chief of Staff, because during one of his business ventures, it seems his company had left some investors and other people on the hook for $600,000 and left them with the bill.

00:39:16.780 This is the character of this man who is Madam Gondex, or sorry, her worship's top advisor.

00:39:26.000 This is the man behind the throne.

00:39:28.600 I got a feeling their relationship is going to break up soon.

00:39:31.520 His chief of staff relationships rarely last very long at all.

00:39:35.820 He gets them into power, and then once they realize they got a weasel in their bedroom,

00:39:38.960 they get them the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

00:39:42.020 So they've gotten into a dispute already, though, where Carter was blaming Ninchy, who remember, Carter used to work for Ninchy for the arena deal falling apart.

00:39:51.520 And then Gondek's contradicting him and saying, no, no, that wasn't Ninchy and he's wrong.

00:39:55.220 So you're fighting with your own chief of staff already.

00:39:57.740 I got a feeling Mr. Carter's days are numbered.

00:39:59.840 But one of these things to think of with these chief of staff positions, too, they always get a great severance package when they get fired from their jobs.

00:40:06.680 And that's provincial, federal and municipal.

00:40:08.980 polls. So Mr. Carter will do just fine if and when Gondek fires him, which I suspect is just

00:40:14.440 going to be a matter of time. Now, Mayor Gondek's been talking now, though, about sitting down to

00:40:20.520 getting an arena deal going again. She wants to start all over again. And this is where it gets

00:40:25.680 interesting. I think, and you know, this is what we see with every one of these particularly

00:40:28.820 municipal politicians. A lot of their goal, a lot of their mandate is to build their own legacy.

00:40:33.640 They want to have the thing to say, when I was in power, I did this. When I was in power,

00:40:37.760 I did that. I clipped the ribbon on this. I started the initiative on that. We saw it with

00:40:42.860 Shane Keating. His whole thing was the green line, green line, green line, green line. And then once

00:40:46.500 it was in, he said, okay, I'm done. In fact, I think even before his term was up, he'd moved off

00:40:50.260 to retire in Saskatchewan, an unusual retirement place, but hey, Saskatchewan's beautiful. Good on

00:40:54.460 you. But that's it. That was his thing. He wants to be the man who brought the green line. Now,

00:40:59.980 Ralph Klein, I mean, there was a few things that were his legacy, but one of which was the 88

00:41:03.600 Olympics. And the head of Ninchy really wanted that. He wanted to be the mayor who brought the

00:41:08.540 Winter Olympics back to Calgary. He was pushing for that. He was giving it all a go. And I think

00:41:15.800 Carter was pro-Olympic too, but I can't, don't necessarily quote me on that. He brought in Mary

00:41:19.720 Moran from Calgary Economic Development to help push for this Olympic bid in 2026. And one thing

00:41:27.600 I'll give Rachel Notley credit for, she says, hey, if the city of Calgary wants to really go into

00:41:33.320 this, this thing that could turn into a boondoggle that'll cost billions. We want to hear from those

00:41:37.620 taxpayers first. It's kind of covering Rachel's own butt. Good honor. So you're going to have to 1.00

00:41:41.200 put it to a plebiscite. We're not, the province is not getting behind this unless we see a clear

00:41:44.760 indication that Calgarians want it. So forced into a plebiscite campaign, Ninchy still thought

00:41:54.120 he could win the hearts and minds of Albertans. And they spent millions and millions of dollars

00:41:56.720 pushing it on. I campaigned back. You know, I understand. I love winter sports. I was

00:42:01.900 aspiring to be an Olympian. I was a ski jumper. I grew up in Banff. Now, here's my picture there

00:42:07.740 from when I was advocating against the Olympic bid. I dug out my old ski jumping things because

00:42:13.760 I had some neat opportunities. I didn't make the Olympic cut, unfortunately, but I did get the

00:42:17.960 opportunity. We would ride down into the bowl and be the first runners there during the Olympic

00:42:22.380 Games at the ski jumps just before the events and Eddie the Eagle and all those guys in 88 started

00:42:26.640 up. So I got myself my little Olympic bib there and I got my old Olympic jumping ski. Well, it

00:42:32.420 wasn't Olympic, but it was the one I wore when I was there at the Olympics doing that. And I threw

00:42:36.820 it on for a picture to say no to the Olympic bid. It was kind of fun. Funny, as you can see, I don't

00:42:41.960 quite have the physical build that I did when I was a youthful ski jumper. And Jane has always

00:42:47.040 been happy that I never, in my drinking days, drunkenly took the skis down and said, oh, maybe

00:42:51.680 I could ski jump just one more time, I don't think I would survive a wipeout. But either way,

00:42:57.320 I am a supporter of Winter Games. I love them, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily a good

00:43:03.340 prospect to go into these things. And legacies. Now, we've got Jody Gondek. So, Ninchy, I mean,

00:43:10.280 the voters stood up. Our campaign was successful. And they said, you know what, Ninchy, take your

00:43:14.200 Olympic dreams and jam them somewhere deep and dark. We can't afford it. We don't want it. Ninchy

00:43:18.500 never ran for mayor again after that. So I guess he'll point to some of the public art things like

00:43:22.240 that big blue ring up in the north end of Calgary or those rocks on sticks over on the west side.

00:43:28.080 Those are Ninchy's legacy. Somebody put a banner on those in the last provincial or civic election

00:43:32.540 or two elections ago said Ninchy towers on them. It was brilliant. I got accused of doing that and

00:43:37.300 it's right up my alley. It's the sort of thing I would do. I wish I could take credit for it. 1.00

00:43:41.300 I didn't do it. But hats off to whoever did. If you're one of the listeners out there, I thought

00:43:45.680 it was brilliant. But you see, now we've got Gondek suddenly wanting to go into the arena again.

00:43:51.700 What I think, she wants to make that her legacy. I mean, she's hit the ground running, but what she

00:43:55.340 wants to do is put a match to everything in the past council did, burn it to the ground, 1.00

00:43:59.700 and then start her own legacy. So she wants to be the one. I was the one who brought the arena

00:44:05.160 to Calgary. I brought the event center. I developed what we look at now north of the saddle dome

00:44:11.300 is a wasteland. I mean, it's just a bunch of parking lots, just sitting there waiting for

00:44:16.580 some sort of develop to come along. And the last city council now with the new mayor, Gondik,

00:44:22.740 has wiped out the development plans for it. She wants to build the mayor Jody Gondik arena. I

00:44:30.760 think that's what she's working towards. She wants to have her thing that she can tell her children 0.97

00:44:35.400 and grandchildren and whatnot. I was the one behind that. So she's starting the process for,

00:44:40.680 You know, she's bringing it back up, saying, we can do this.

00:44:43.000 We can put it together.

00:44:43.920 You know what?

00:44:45.260 Get out of the way, Mayor Gondek.

00:44:47.640 Don't.

00:44:48.180 You know, we can use an arena.

00:44:49.960 Let's learn from our mistakes rather than just trying to embrace this legacy for yourself.

00:44:54.860 Let the Flames organization and the rest build it on their own.

00:44:57.880 Private enterprise can do this.

00:44:58.980 Other cities have done this.

00:45:00.600 I mean, you want to facilitate.

00:45:02.020 Perhaps you can give some free land or have some deals.

00:45:05.120 I mean, we want to make it as easy as possible.

00:45:07.000 That means not dumping a bunch of conditions on them, things like that.

00:45:09.700 we don't need the taxpayers partnered on it. Partnerships are difficult between a couple of

00:45:13.580 people in private enterprise. They were with a city of Calgary and a private organization. Of

00:45:19.020 course, it's going to fall apart. So if you cut another deal like that, it's just going to fall

00:45:22.940 apart too. Or even worse, it will hold, but it'll come in at triple the costs as usual as you guys

00:45:27.600 do whenever you get a big project. You never stay on budget. Stay out of it. If anything, just again,

00:45:33.920 just say, we're welcome to it. Here's the chunk of land you can use. Let's talk about it, but we're

00:45:38.240 not going to be partners on this thing. But you see, you won't be able to hang the Jodi Gondek

00:45:43.080 Memorial Arena sign in front of it if she wasn't totally bought into this thing. So I think,

00:45:49.560 unfortunately, that Mayor Gondek is going to want to take a very direct role in this. And that is,

00:45:56.600 we're just going to burn. It's just frustrating. I see I've got our next guest, Shane Winslow on

00:46:03.360 deck there. So I'm going to bring him in pretty soon here. And that Shane deals, he's had more

00:46:08.760 frustrating deals with civic governments than anybody else. He's from Shane Holmes. You know,

00:46:13.300 people are familiar with that brand name and they've been a very involved. I mean,

00:46:19.380 they're home builders, they're not developers, but within Calgary, I mean, you see it sponsoring

00:46:25.280 football games, things like that. They've been, his father Cal has been a striking, you know,

00:46:30.620 participant in the economy and in charities and things like that. But also they've had some

00:46:34.720 noteworthy battles with city hall and, and trying to, uh, I just facilitate, you know, market driven

00:46:40.900 home growth. And, and right now, uh, it's a big issue. So thank you very much for joining me

00:46:45.560 today, Shane. Oh, thanks for having me, Corey. Yeah. So, I mean, interesting times as always,

00:46:51.140 we never have to worry about getting bored. You know, that's not going to happen. If there's

00:46:54.680 one thing that I've noticed in life, it's never boring. Oh, uh, so, I mean, I, I just want to get

00:47:00.260 to, as I talked about, I think in the earlier part of the show, you know, affordable housing,

00:47:03.620 it's a big issue right now. I mean, we've got inflation, we've got people trying to get in on

00:47:07.540 the housing market, get their first home and things like that. And it's tough. It's not necessarily

00:47:11.300 easy to get that start. But we've got some pretty bizarre approaches coming from our federal

00:47:16.300 government on what they think might make homes affordable with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing

00:47:21.200 Corporation, pitching a home equity tax. So you all start with there, but what do you think of

00:47:27.980 how would that impact the housing market and what people are thinking of things?

00:47:31.980 Well, you know what? I mean, I know where the report came from and, you know, to be honest, Corey, I mean, maybe it started off with good intentions, but, you know, I fear, you know, that the outcome was almost predetermined.

00:47:43.000 And, you know, when I see reports like that where we talk about, you know, well, let's add a tax on the homes, even now over a million dollars.

00:47:54.320 Why does anybody believe that that will actually reduce the cost of housing in this country is totally, totally beyond me.

00:48:01.940 In my 31 years, I've never seen it.

00:48:04.640 Usually when you attack on a tax or an additional cost, it runs the cost of housing up.

00:48:10.520 Yes. The GST didn't bring any of our consumer costs down, if I recall. Raising income tax

00:48:18.260 doesn't reduce the cost of labor. Carbon taxes haven't reduced the cost of gasoline. But this

00:48:23.860 report says that putting taxes on home equity are going to bring down the cost of houses.

00:48:28.740 That's pure government tease, if I've ever heard it.

00:48:31.300 Well, it is an absolute tease. I mean, imagine if you purchased this million dollar home for

00:48:36.720 half a million dollars you know 10 years ago are you obligated to pay the government you know 50

00:48:42.640 50 000 or 100 000 in tax on it well all the consumer is going to do is they're going to add

00:48:48.000 another hundred thousand dollars onto that sale price and it's it's all relative it's going to

00:48:52.720 work its way up from half million dollar houses to 750 000 houses they'll just increase their

00:48:57.680 costs as well and you know we'll be no better off than we are now no and it puts a chill on it i

00:49:03.680 I mean, a lot of us look at it as a home.

00:49:05.080 It's the biggest purchase of our lives.

00:49:07.060 It's an investment.

00:49:08.020 And we look at it in a 30-year span if we're buying when we're young and things like that.

00:49:12.780 And, well, if I'm feeling that the government's going to take a bite out of everything it

00:49:16.900 grows by the time I get there, I might not consider buying one at all.

00:49:19.360 But maybe that's kind of what some of the incentives, some of the ideologues are moving

00:49:22.420 towards.

00:49:23.540 Well, that's certainly one of the ideologies I've heard is that, you know, you should

00:49:27.740 owe nothing and be happy.

00:49:30.000 Where's that term coming from?

00:49:32.200 Yeah, well, I had the good fortune to travel to the Soviet Union, actually, back in 87, it was.

00:49:39.560 And we did some touring in Moscow, what was then Leningrad, and through to Ukraine in some spots.

00:49:45.440 And something that was interesting back then was the Horeau housing.

00:49:49.300 Moscow is a massive city, and these apartment buildings, drab and dull and boring,

00:49:53.600 and they just went on for miles and miles and miles.

00:49:56.840 Nobody had to worry about a mortgage.

00:49:58.760 But boy, is that living?

00:50:01.220 I mean, that's what we get when government takes over our housing for us.

00:50:05.980 Well, and I think that's the biggest concern.

00:50:07.680 Why should government be involved in housing?

00:50:10.900 You know, and really they're the ones causing the problem at every level.

00:50:13.540 And that's the biggest concern.

00:50:15.300 So, I mean, irrespective of the report, I mean, if I go back to, you know, how we got to this point,

00:50:21.660 it's a lot of government intervention that has caused these issues of, you know, the rising housing costs.

00:50:29.060 yeah well another thing that's happening is i mean we give government you know the old term for it

00:50:34.940 i'm going to swivel a little more away from the equity tax but into social engineering they want

00:50:39.380 to just kind of nudge the consumer or nudge the citizen this way or that with a plans for a better

00:50:45.280 utopia down the road and and something that's been going on for a long time of course it's been the

00:50:49.640 villainization of people who want to live in a single detached home in the suburbs you know

00:50:53.760 they're causing that they love the pejorative term urban sprawl and keep saying we've got to

00:50:59.160 force people to keep you know stuffing themselves downtown and live highly densely and and more

00:51:03.860 it'll be more environmentally friendly and and blah blah blah but the consumers haven't been

00:51:08.580 doing it they're still going out we got a donut right now in this city we got a hollowed out

00:51:11.720 downtown and and properties are actually raising in value on on the outskirts I guess that's been

00:51:18.500 an area of challenge for you though because you're trying to build in newer districts and we've got

00:51:21.620 the city administration is sometimes just doesn't want to facilitate that.

00:51:25.160 Well, I mean, I think we've, uh, we've, we've watched that kind of develop over the last,

00:51:28.820 uh, 11, 12 years, Corey, uh, you know, and I mean, it, it, it's a direct reflection of

00:51:33.140 this report, even, uh, you know, when you start tacking on costs and in the form of

00:51:38.500 lot levies and a bunch of other policies and a bunch of other fees, you watch naturally

00:51:44.660 watch new homes climb, you know, upwards of $80,000, $90,000. If you, if you, if you squash

00:51:51.100 the growth, you know, raw land prices tripled over that timeframe. So there's a lot of happy

00:51:57.320 farmers out there and I'm, I'm glad for them, but you know, the end purchaser is the one who's

00:52:03.560 paying for all of this. So, I mean, when you look at the disparity, I mean, the quickest way of

00:52:08.000 doing that is, you know, with all those increases and comparing Calgary to Edmonton and, you know,

00:52:12.620 there's a $60,000, $70,000 price swing between the two cities for virtually the same product.

00:52:19.140 Yeah, why would that happen?

00:52:21.400 Yeah, I think we can think of one big factor, but we'll leave him go.

00:52:25.760 He's in the past now, but the same attitude in administration does exist to a degree.

00:52:31.380 There's one councillor, for example, I don't expect you to go after individual councillors.

00:52:35.000 That's my job, but Giancarlo Carra, him and I had a good battle a few years ago

00:52:39.520 because I wrote a piece and I went and studied and I looked at housing costs

00:52:42.400 in all of the density paradises that move towards what he felt was the ideal utopia versus all those sprawling ones.

00:52:50.320 Because they always say they care for the little guy and rents and so on.

00:52:53.480 Well, I tell you, the trend is very distinct.

00:52:56.440 If you want to facilitate home ownership or even low cost of living for renting, you want to go to Phoenix.

00:53:02.040 You want to go to Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, even because they allowed outward growth.

00:53:07.220 Ironically, even Portland allows a lot of outward growth.

00:53:10.360 People don't realize that.

00:53:11.360 It's just the core where they're insane.

00:53:13.320 But the high-density area, San Francisco, New York City, even Philadelphia, spots like that, the costs are astronomical.

00:53:21.860 I mean, you can't get in on those housing markets.

00:53:24.220 They're out of control.

00:53:25.540 So this myth that higher density leads to lower costs is quite starkly wrong.

00:53:32.040 Well, and that's been the experience, Corey.

00:53:34.520 You know, of course, that would fit their true definition of urban sprawl with what's happening in states like Texas or even California when you get out into Riverside.

00:53:44.800 But they, you know, again, there's a place for everyone.

00:53:49.360 And I think that's where a lot of the issues come up is, you know, there's a utopia that's perceived in, you know, the core of any city and everything else after that becomes a bit of a black eye.

00:53:59.960 and really if you let the market decide the market will find you know this happy balance that

00:54:05.640 that any city I think would be happy to have because it increases your tax base and it gives

00:54:10.240 people options you know if you want to live well in your case you want to live out in on an acreage

00:54:16.360 then why can't you you know and why should you be shamed for doing that you know so it's it's an

00:54:21.540 ideology that's baffled me all the years that I've been involved in this this business and it's it

00:54:27.260 hasn't changed. It's only grown a lot worse. Well, yeah, I mean, the invisible hand, you know,

00:54:32.500 market forces, it will take the best route possible if we'll just let it. I want to address

00:54:38.080 something we've talked about in the past, and it gets frustrating. It comes back into the

00:54:41.780 villainization of certain areas and certain people. And I liken it to the ever ongoing myth

00:54:47.200 about how much oil and gas is subsidized, even though in reality, what they're talking about is

00:54:51.320 just taxes not taken. I mean, if you live under the assumption that everything is the government's

00:54:55.060 and they allow us to take a portion, then every reduction of tax is considered a subsidy in that

00:54:59.620 bizarro world. But in reality, those subsidies aren't there. The urbanists, I guess, the high

00:55:05.940 density zealots, as I put them sometimes, like to say that they're subsidizing people in new

00:55:11.380 developments and they're the ones footing the bill for all of those new communities. But in reality,

00:55:16.660 again, those new developments have to pay for all that infrastructure. They're not getting

00:55:19.380 subsidized at all there's absolutely nothing that uh that isn't paid for in that in that

00:55:24.420 new subdivision by any of the other taxpayers about the only thing that you would see that's

00:55:29.380 that's needed is an upgrade to uh to services to the electrical grid but i mean to put that

00:55:34.340 in perspective corey if you were to build the uh the same amount of units in the core you're tearing

00:55:40.100 up uh you're tearing up streets sidewalks and roadways and very very old infrastructure you're

00:55:47.220 still paying for that upgrade the only difference is one's in suburbia and one's in the core you

00:55:52.980 know so i guess my argument would be well it's going to cost you two to three times more to

00:55:56.580 build that same density in the core as it is out in suburbia and again not everybody wants to live

00:56:03.140 in the concrete jungle some people as we found through throughout the past year after lockdowns

00:56:10.180 found that they needed more space and they wanted a backyard and they wanted to get back in touch

00:56:14.260 with nature so those are what market forces are telling you right now absolutely and i mean

00:56:22.420 acting as if again that the people in the suburbs are paying for it they act as if once you get

00:56:26.340 there you settle in you don't pay anymore well no there's still going to be property taxpayers

00:56:29.540 going forward and and paying into you know the collective fund for our library parks and all the

00:56:35.460 beautiful public art they love choosing on our behalf and things like that so it's not like they

00:56:39.860 come in but they paint them as parasites and they get really annoyed and frustrated with that

00:56:43.940 sometimes and nothing against those who want the urban living as well i mean good on you

00:56:49.620 but don't act like it's free i you know i've talked about that before you go to those uh

00:56:53.620 inner city areas you know where a lot of infills are coming in and they're really packing the

00:56:56.900 density and then some of that's demand as well people want to live down there if you're going

00:57:00.260 to expand you have to squeeze more houses but you notice if you drive down the road you go over a

00:57:04.660 bump it seems like every 30 feet or so well what that is is because they've had to cut into the

00:57:09.540 new sewer and water lines because they're doubling the houses on that street every time you build a

00:57:13.540 a new infill you've got to cut in eventually those pipes get overloaded they weren't built

00:57:17.300 to handle that much and we saw with 17th avenue with their what is it 50 year project or whatever

00:57:22.900 it felt like it uh just upgrading old old infrastructure it had to be done that's fine

00:57:28.260 but it you know let's not have the illusion that it's easy or inexpensive to upgrade that

00:57:32.660 infrastructure especially compared to greenfield development where you're digging into an open

00:57:37.220 field and you can put in modern uh long-lasting infrastructure while you're at it well and i'm

00:57:41.380 I'm glad you brought that example up.

00:57:42.840 It's probably the best one to use

00:57:44.340 because you've seen a number of the buildings

00:57:46.280 along 17th Avenue be upgraded.

00:57:48.220 And part of the reason they're being upgraded

00:57:50.300 is for the new buildings.

00:57:51.240 And the other reason they're being upgraded

00:57:52.600 is because the services are 80 years old.

00:57:56.680 Yeah, but it doesn't last forever.

00:57:58.140 You have to upgrade the size

00:57:58.980 and you have to take out the old piping

00:58:01.340 to make sure that there's no leaks.

00:58:03.720 Of course, that's why you see

00:58:04.820 the emergency water services machines around there.

00:58:07.180 If you see one of those on the street,

00:58:08.920 that just means that something's failed.

00:58:11.180 Yeah. And you tend to, well, I mean, I am upfront with it. I drive Uber in my spare time. I like

00:58:16.160 doing it. I like getting around. And that's part of what I like is it lets me talk to people

00:58:18.900 and observe things. And I tell you, you see a heck of a lot more of those emergency water

00:58:22.960 services trailers in the inner city areas than you do in the new developments. And the reason

00:58:27.480 is because the infrastructure is just, it's old. It wears out. I mean, and the newer stuff is

00:58:32.500 better. I mean, we've gotten better at these things, but we need to break. And it's sized

00:58:36.580 for the community that's built around it.

00:58:39.800 Whereas you go into an older community,

00:58:42.720 if a block is sized up for 12 old 1950s bungalows

00:58:47.620 and you want to stick up a 300-unit high-rise,

00:58:50.580 the services are inadequate to supply that.

00:58:54.500 It's not as easy as just plunking it in there

00:58:56.600 despite the way they try to frame it.

00:58:58.520 I mean, we got a new administration.

00:59:00.140 I'm hoping some common sense comes in

00:59:01.620 because another thing that was unexpected by everybody

00:59:04.080 was the pandemic.

00:59:04.900 And as you said, people are less inclined to work downtown or live downtown than they've ever been.

00:59:11.540 And a lot have realized that they can or will work from home from here on in.

00:59:15.480 And that means you want a little bit of space.

00:59:17.120 You want a backyard.

00:59:18.180 You want a little more elbow room between yourself and your neighbors.

00:59:21.360 And we're seeing that demand going outwards.

00:59:24.820 What can this council do perhaps just to facilitate, I guess, responsible growth?

00:59:30.260 Well, I mean, you know, there's always that argument about cutting red tape.

00:59:33.920 And, you know, I think that's probably one of the biggest ones is, you know, taking away the barriers to it.

00:59:39.420 Because as the IMF is identified, you know, in Canada's case, we're over a million housing units short of fulfilling what our needs are in this country.

00:59:48.200 I can't imagine what that is in Calgary or Alberta.

00:59:52.040 But, you know, get rid of the damn red tape.

00:59:55.240 I mean, that's what's causing the delays.

00:59:57.480 You know, if you go out and you buy a piece of raw land right now, as an example, it might

01:00:01.560 take you anywhere from six to 12 years before this land is actually brought on.

01:00:08.360 Now, I know there's constraints that the city's working with for funding and for upgrading

01:00:12.340 of services, and they want to utilize their dollars in the best way possible.

01:00:17.180 I completely understand that.

01:00:19.060 But, you know, we got to get back to working within partnerships as well.

01:00:22.640 Yeah, I wrote a column on that.

01:00:24.220 very adverse or more adversity over the last 10 to 12 years than anything.

01:00:29.380 Absolutely. And I think it was last fall when I wrote on that and I broke down. It was a little

01:00:33.400 dry, so it didn't get the most reads as some of my more inflammatory ones. But all of these insane

01:00:38.200 permits and applications that a new development has to go through and the waiting time for

01:00:43.560 approval is months to years. And yeah, eight to 12 years from basically the concept to somebody

01:00:48.880 moving in, that's absurd. And any one of those steps, it could fall apart. So that makes it

01:00:54.660 difficult for investors and people to look into that long term. It should be a relatively easy

01:00:59.500 fix. You're right. Just streamline. It should be. It really should be. But

01:01:03.520 at least on top of that, again, let's work together. I mean, we built this city together

01:01:08.480 with past administrations. We need to continue to do that. And the only way we can do that is if we

01:01:13.840 we share information and we learn to compromise again,

01:01:17.400 as opposed to always being, you know,

01:01:20.020 at each other's throats about, you know,

01:01:21.700 who's got to pay for this, who's got to pay for that.

01:01:23.720 Like, let's come together and let's get it done.

01:01:26.680 Yeah. And I mean, I'm, as we said, responsible development.

01:01:29.500 I want to see a whole city.

01:01:30.520 I don't want to see it built like a donut.

01:01:32.040 I don't want to see,

01:01:32.420 I don't want to see a central desert going on in there.

01:01:35.940 But I think, you know, as people move outwards,

01:01:38.140 if you stop pushing them right out of city,

01:01:39.740 because a lot are going to Okotoks or Prittis.

01:01:41.340 I've seen houses being built around my place all the time.

01:01:43.840 Cochrane. If we keep them in the city, other people will want to move towards the core and

01:01:49.460 it will fill in. I mean, it's just the property values and rents will adjust to balance the

01:01:53.460 demand. But if we keep meddling with it, we just tend to make a mess.

01:01:57.240 And I think that's the issue, Corey. I mean, it's that ideology coming into play again,

01:02:01.200 and it's got to be put aside for the right reasons. This is what Calgarians want. And

01:02:06.520 ultimately, the taxpayer is who's paying the bill at the end of the day. So let's get together.

01:02:13.060 Let's make this happen, you know, and let's do it, you know, for the sake of our kids and our future.

01:02:19.660 Yeah, well, and I mean, I'm glad to get, you know, happy to get you on as well, just to talk, because I've talked to you a number of times.

01:02:25.120 You're a reasonable, soft-spoken person, you know, you're not the haywire ideologue like I am in your face and looking for conflict.

01:02:33.080 But, you know, you speak on behalf of your industry and just, you know, your thoughts in general.

01:02:37.960 So, I mean, as we see, as you said, you want to work together because you have to work together with city administration, with city elected officials.

01:02:45.840 You know, the property developers and builders aren't unreasonable, crazy people.

01:02:50.320 They can be talked with.

01:02:51.600 So don't let some of the ideologues we got downtown paint you guys as intransigent nutcases, at least not on this issue.

01:02:58.840 You might have some other ones you're crazy on, but we'll get another show for that.

01:03:01.320 Oh, probably.

01:03:01.940 but uh either way just just in your approach we're saying as you said we need just cooperation

01:03:09.880 we can talk we can do this and you've got an opportunity because there's so many fresh faces

01:03:14.340 now on council i mean you still got a lot of the old administration in city hall that's fine but

01:03:18.260 council theoretically are going to be the guiding ones on it and maybe you can develop some more

01:03:22.440 productive relationships and they'll recognize just that difference in consumer demand from

01:03:26.240 whatever their ideologies may be well and i think that's the hope cory is that moving forward that

01:03:31.280 you know, that things have improved to some degree on council, that, you know, we'll see

01:03:35.880 less in-camera meetings and more proper debate, you know, for the public to view and participate

01:03:42.500 in. And I think that's got to be the long-term goal. That's the only way this city will succeed.

01:03:48.820 Absolutely. And I mean, it's still a great city and there's so much potential, so many good people

01:03:52.700 and, you know, we can keep it that way if we can just keep our heads about us as time comes. So

01:03:58.920 I appreciate you coming on. And as I said, where I started to that home equity taxes really got a

01:04:04.240 lot of us concerned and scared. And I think people need to keep their eyes open. The government always

01:04:07.980 denies it when they keep floating that balloon, but they keep floating it. I mean, how many times

01:04:12.500 are you going to keep testing those waters before we got to think they're not just testing the

01:04:15.600 waters, they plan on jumping in at some time. This has been three or four so far, Corey. And

01:04:19.820 like I said, you know, maybe the intention of it was well, or was well intended rather.

01:04:24.820 I just fear that the outcome was predetermined and it's going to backfire. It is going to do

01:04:32.420 the exact opposite of what it's intended to. Yeah, where there's smoke, there's fire. Well,

01:04:36.740 thanks very much for coming on to talk to me, Shane. It's always good. Where can people follow

01:04:41.620 you and keep track of you to get your thoughts on things in the future? I know you've been doing some

01:04:45.060 great YouTube videos and other things as well that I've been watching over the last few months.

01:04:49.220 It's easy just to look for at Shane Wenzel and from the company's perspective, just at Shane Holmes.

01:04:56.980 Well, right on. I hope we can get you on to talk again sometime soon down the road.

01:05:00.980 And I really appreciate you coming on today, Shane.

01:05:03.220 Perfect. Thank you.

01:05:05.620 Thanks, Shane. So yeah, I've had Shane on before. And as you can see, I mean, he's just a great guy

01:05:10.500 to talk with, with some good common sense, you know, and he's involved in that market.

01:05:14.100 and they're not the crazed mustache tweaking developers or things like that. These are

01:05:19.920 business people, well-established, good Calgarians, multi-generational, and they've had some terrible

01:05:25.580 conflict with our city hall over some of the years with differing views on things. And they,

01:05:30.500 of course, yes, from a business point of view are going to be pretty darn concerned with things like

01:05:34.340 a home equity tax that's going to, even though raise the price of homes, suppress demand for

01:05:39.660 them. I mean, it's just a bad formula all around. We're all going to lose. And perhaps that's what

01:05:45.600 some of these people want to see down the road, as I said, is that Soviet-style world where the

01:05:50.680 government actually does run and manage housing. I mean, again, do you really want, people say,

01:05:56.720 this is a need, so government must manage it. I don't like that. That's the thing I least want

01:06:00.820 government to manage. I mean, the Soviet Union managed food. Ask the Ukrainians how well that 0.56

01:06:05.540 worked out for them. Or when I was there, there were lineups for groceries. They had basic food,

01:06:10.400 they had lots of it. It's just, it was bland, and there was very little variety, and it was

01:06:14.340 miserable. So yeah, they weren't starving. Well, they were in the Ukraine. But when I saw, you

01:06:19.520 know, Moscow and Leningrad back then, they weren't starving. But they weren't exactly eating gourmet

01:06:23.380 food either. I mean, we're talking a bland black bread and potato diet. That's government management

01:06:28.420 of your food. Now, how much do you want government to manage your house? Because that's a need. And 0.86

01:06:34.240 that's what they're getting into. And that's how poorly it goes. That's the row housing, the

01:06:38.060 ghettos, the ugliness. I used to work in Pittsburgh a lot. If you ever drive south of Niagara Falls 1.00

01:06:43.620 and you're headed into states there, have a look to your right when you go through Buffalo 1.00

01:06:46.180 and see all those horrific red brick buildings, those slums, those ghettos. That's government 0.91

01:06:52.340 housing projects. That's what happens when government takes over housing and gets the 0.99

01:06:56.900 free market out of it. We aren't better off for it. So yeah, it was a great chat with Shane.

01:07:02.060 again, you know, he's got a lot of good insight into these things. So before I get on, I'm going

01:07:06.880 to be talking to Linda. I see her on deck. She's just great with exposing the CBC. They've been 0.77

01:07:11.180 taking a beating lately for a number of things that they've been exposed for. Unfortunately,

01:07:14.640 we're still stuck paying for those jerks, but we're getting closer perhaps to getting free of

01:07:18.780 them. I'm going to mention Bitcoin Well one more time. They're our sponsor. They offer services

01:07:23.580 for cryptocurrencies for Bitcoin, bitcoinwell.com. Go online, check these guys out. They offer,

01:07:31.020 again, I mean, it seems like a big, broad, confusing world, these cryptocurrencies. Well,

01:07:35.240 these guys will lead you through it. They'll show you how you can get in. You don't have to be a

01:07:38.120 millionaire to play around with these things. And it's not something you just throw money into and

01:07:41.880 watch and hope it gets better or it's practical currency that you can use. You can use it at an

01:07:47.260 ATM. Bitcoin will has their own ATMs all over Western Canada. There's a map showing where

01:07:50.940 they're at. So you can draw cash on your Bitcoin account. You can set up, you can pay your bills

01:07:54.720 online with Bitcoin. It's just like any other bank account currency, things like that. It's that easy.

01:07:59.860 Bitcoinwell.com. They'll show you how to get into the cryptocurrency game. Now I'm going to start

01:08:06.220 this with Linda Sabodian. If you go to westernstandardonline.com, she put out a great

01:08:11.980 column talking about some very extreme individuals who got a contract to do a documentary from the

01:08:18.960 CBC. They're working for the CBC and they make no bones about the fact that they work for the CBC

01:08:23.760 and a couple of videos they have done so. So they were out there. Some of the terms some people are

01:08:28.800 using his embedded reporters or whatever else.

01:08:32.620 They were taking part in the coastal gas link

01:08:35.440 illegal blockades on the road, the pipeline in BC.

01:08:39.400 I mean, these guys built shacks and houses

01:08:41.160 and illegally blocked the road,

01:08:42.740 blocked in oil and gas workers into a camp,

01:08:44.960 many of whom were First Nations people, by the way,

01:08:47.040 who couldn't get food and water.

01:08:48.300 It was eco-terrorism.

01:08:49.800 There was no choice but for the RCMP to come in

01:08:52.740 and remove these illegal extremists from the road.

01:08:55.600 Well, when they came in,

01:08:56.660 they found these journalists that they arrested

01:08:58.500 and the journalist associations have all gone off.

01:09:00.520 Oh my God, it's infringing on the right of free journalism,

01:09:03.400 which is a thing of concern.

01:09:04.320 We don't want governments infringing on journalism.

01:09:07.240 Boy, we sure don't want that here.

01:09:08.860 But we don't go out as journalists and pretend,

01:09:12.320 like you don't join the protest.

01:09:14.840 You know, you observe it.

01:09:15.780 You can be right there with it, but you aren't a part of it.

01:09:18.200 You aren't an active member of it.

01:09:19.640 Well, these guys are extremists

01:09:20.860 and they were most definitely members of it.

01:09:22.780 And Linda exposed it.

01:09:24.180 So I'm going to frame this before I bring Linda on

01:09:26.280 and show a video of one of them,

01:09:28.240 just you can listen to the attitude of this gentleman. He is one of the journalists as a

01:09:33.380 police officer came to try and seek one of the contacts they have at this illegal camp. And just

01:09:39.820 look at the attitude from this guy. Hey Michael, you're here in journalistic endeavors, aren't you

01:09:48.580 sir? You're required to answer that question. You know that Michael? Are you here as a journalist

01:09:53.940 or as a protester?

01:09:55.800 What do you think?

01:09:56.860 I'm asking you that question.

01:09:58.080 It's not what I think.

01:10:00.180 You're required to answer that question.

01:10:02.180 Madam Justice Church has required you

01:10:04.000 to answer that question.

01:10:04.840 No, she hasn't, actually.

01:10:06.080 Are you here as a journalist or as a protester?

01:10:08.060 I'm here as a journalist.

01:10:09.220 Okay.

01:10:09.700 Is Mrs. Williams here? 0.71

01:10:13.760 Is Mrs. Williams here?

01:10:15.480 I don't know. 0.99

01:10:16.360 Well, she's the matriarch 1.00

01:10:17.460 who we spoke to on Monday. 0.98

01:10:21.480 You don't know she's here?

01:10:23.940 okay

01:10:37.940 Please ensure you abide by your conditions, Mr. Talladano.

01:10:56.340 You should familiarize yourself with my conditions.

01:10:58.720 Oh, I'm very familiar with them.

01:11:00.100 Okay, so I just simply have to appear in court.

01:11:07.940 What a piece of work, eh? That belligerent weenie was there ostensibly to film a documentary and you got to pay for it with your tax dollars because it was through the CBC. That was not a journalist. That was one of the illegal protesters. So let's bring Linda in to talk about this here. I see you're on deck. Hey, Linda, how you doing?

01:11:33.540 Hi, Corey. Thanks for inviting me on.

01:11:37.020 Oh, great to have you on board.

01:11:38.880 Like I said, I loved your column and we really need to expose this sort of thing.

01:11:42.480 So can you run down like who these two guys are and what that whole chain of involvement is between them and the protesters and the CBC?

01:11:50.360 And we're going to bring up for those who are, you know, listening to this in audio podcast, just some of the tweets from these guys that they've been very public about how extreme these guys are that are playing the role of journalists here.

01:12:01.700 And that was a fine example of police brutality, was it not?

01:12:08.500 Oh, he was vicious.

01:12:11.700 Okay, so apparently they are, it's all over their social media sites, and the Canadian Association of Journalists referred to it.

01:12:23.980 doing a documentary. It's called Yinta Land on the issue with the pipeline going through the area.

01:12:39.460 Now, this guy's been embedded with hereditary chiefs and protesters for the past three years.

01:12:49.840 and he's interesting. He's by no means an unbiased reporter. This guy on his social

01:13:00.000 media sites invites people to come down for this or that protest and he's not

01:13:07.540 the most interesting one. Another fellow by the name of Franklin Lopez who is billed as an editor

01:13:17.440 and co-producer of this cbc documentary for the passionate eye he has a long dark history of

01:13:26.640 inciting uh activism um in underground movements his social media sites show scenes of carnage

01:13:35.440 building and vehicle buildings and vehicles burning um he highlighted the fox news christmas

01:13:41.680 tree that was set ablaze just before christmas he celebrates this stuff um and he's not inviting

01:13:50.080 people to attend tea parties so these two uh are making this documentary for cbc that we're paying

01:14:01.280 for and uh they're they shouldn't be no there's no doubt and as you were speaking uh nico was was

01:14:12.640 pulling up some screenshots i'd taken of some of the tweets from these two individuals and

01:14:16.480 and you could just see the the pictures over there with flaming bulldozers and and they

01:14:20.640 celebrate violence i mean uh the there's pictures of riots and uh dangerous actions and these guys

01:14:26.800 from all over the world like these guys get off on riots you can see it you can see that trend

01:14:31.440 in what they're putting out there if anything not only while they're embedded with these protesters

01:14:35.920 i could see guys who like this kind of i'm trying to incite the protesters further to lead to an

01:14:40.960 escalation of that whole situation i mean that is not the role of a journalist whatsoever

01:14:46.080 well uh this lopez character i mean he's connected to antifa um his brands it's going down

01:14:55.440 uh street politics 101 a documentary he did uh that celebrated uh all of this nonsense um you know

01:15:06.400 and he uh he's uh his domains um nciv.com why i presume that's ncivilization.com uh some names

01:15:21.280 that i would not say on air or in my kitchen um submedia there's there's a sweet uh

01:15:31.680 domain that uh has all sorts of stuff um so what concerns me as much as the cbc hooking up with

01:15:44.400 these guys is that the Canadian Association of Journalists leapt to

01:15:50.700 their defense and rallied to have the Mounties back off after they arrested

01:15:59.440 them and Mounties don't just arrest people well maybe maybe church people

01:16:03.600 But they didn't just arrest this Tolandano, and what was the girl's name?

01:16:15.140 What was the other reporter's name?

01:16:16.980 I can't remember it often.

01:16:19.280 Yeah, Brackham.

01:16:20.900 They were in jail for three days.

01:16:23.840 and so the CAJ raced up and was very indignant about the Mounties interfering with freedom of

01:16:36.000 the press and so on and it was signed by 45 journalists or organizations and the BC Civil

01:16:45.340 Liberties Association. How do all these people not know who's involved in what's really going on

01:16:53.820 behind this documentary how do they all not know that well and that concerns one you know the

01:16:59.820 canadian association for journalists i mean they should be speaking up if we see any examples of

01:17:04.140 of the state uh hindering you know legitimate journalism absolutely but they should also be

01:17:09.180 speaking up for the integrity of journalism in general and saying hey we don't represent guys

01:17:14.060 who cloak themselves as journalists while they take an active part in illegal protests i mean

01:17:19.260 that that's beyond the line of the protected journalism i mean that's why the police officer

01:17:22.700 kept asking over and over because they know they know where that lands so they want to make sure

01:17:26.460 you know are you a journalist today or are you a protester today and these guys are trying to

01:17:30.220 cross the lines and the journalism association should be calling it out not defending these guys

01:17:36.060 absolutely absolutely because it hurts legitimate legitimate journalists and uh it's unfair to

01:17:43.420 canadian taxpayers i mean that bloated cbc but it's 1.5 billion dollars and there are some good

01:17:50.300 uh reporters and news people in there and they're they're being crushed and silenced by this this

01:17:57.260 woke crowd and not supported by fraidy cat editors uh who are being pushed around by them and uh

01:18:06.380 that's got to stop it's just got it's it's it's an organization that's just sick to its very core

01:18:12.940 unfortunately and and there were some i mean you know in the older days some incredible cbc

01:18:17.340 journalism and personalities, but we got to go back to the 60s, 70s and 80s to find most of them

01:18:22.020 now. And they did some magnificent work, but now it's just, it's the exception when you see

01:18:26.800 something good out of the CBC rather than the rule and we're paying for it. I mean, I wouldn't

01:18:30.720 care if journalists could put out all the crap they want, if it's privately funded, that's their

01:18:34.300 business, but we've got no choice. We have to pay for these guys. You know, and then another thing,

01:18:40.480 Corey, is the 20 First Nations who signed on to this pipeline deal and will benefit greatly from

01:18:50.480 it. Nobody's talking about them. They're talking and they're saying that these protesters aren't

01:18:58.880 aren't members of the band that they're they're outsiders but everybody's not everybody um cbc

01:19:07.680 it seems um are they're they're leaping to the defense of these embedded protesters and ignoring

01:19:17.360 um the legitimate first nations uh wanting the pipeline to go ahead yeah yeah it's terribly

01:19:25.920 frustrating for First Nations people who want it. I spoke to Melissa Ann Barkey earlier this week,

01:19:30.740 and she's been outspoken on those things. And she's an Indigenous person who grew up on reserve.

01:19:35.400 And she wants to see, as do all 20 of the people on that pipeline that the mainstream media quite

01:19:40.940 often refuses to mention, all supported and made deals for this pipeline to go through. It's just

01:19:46.540 a tiny minority who are holding it up. Yet the many elements of the media, particularly the CBC,

01:19:51.880 are acting as if that small element of extremists represent the whole, and they do not by any means.

01:19:59.440 No, they don't. They don't. And that's not journalism. That's activism.

01:20:06.400 Absolutely. Well, and your journalism has been great and on point. You know, Claudette Lise,

01:20:11.160 one of the commenters said, hey, where can we find this? Again, Linda put that column up a

01:20:15.540 couple of days ago at westernstandardonline.com. Go in there and check it out. You can find it and

01:20:20.620 read it in full. And I think you're going to be following up on this some more, aren't you, Linda?

01:20:27.560 I am. Yes, Corey, I am.

01:20:30.280 Okay, great. Well, I really appreciate you coming on today to expand on that. And I do, I really,

01:20:35.900 you know, like what you're writing. I'm glad you, you've got that. I mean, we should be more people

01:20:40.260 screaming from the rooftops. This is what our state broadcaster is doing with our dollars right

01:20:44.420 now. So at least you're covering it and continue to do so. So thank you very much. And I hope we

01:20:49.600 can talk to you on one of your future calls really soon. Okay, Corey. Thanks so much.

01:20:56.800 All right. Awesome. Linda. Thanks. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's something else. You know, I looked

01:21:02.620 and Linda sent me another link to another video of this guy, one of these clowns put up and it was

01:21:07.580 just too long. You know, it's like a 17 minute video. I'll see if I can put it up on Twitter

01:21:11.240 later or something else. Cause they, what they did was these guys, again, they built this shack

01:21:16.400 in the middle of the road. This is what these protesters do, and they block all traffic. And

01:21:19.820 then they try this baloney, you know, they say, oh, this is now First Nations housing, and it's 0.97

01:21:24.320 a medicine lodge, and every other crackpot trick in the book, you know, so you can't take it down. 0.74

01:21:28.780 And it's just a shack on a road. And eventually, you know, the police were forced to break into

01:21:34.480 it. So what they all did was they huddled into this shack. And this, the police actually had

01:21:39.840 to take chainsaws because they nailed the doors shut on themselves, you know, these protesters

01:21:43.640 and chainsaws and cut their way in.

01:21:46.000 So, of course, now they're all screaming, making their videos.

01:21:47.780 Oh, look, the police are after us with chainsaws.

01:21:49.640 Oh, they're cutting your dumb asses out of there.

01:21:51.860 You could have come out any time you wanted.

01:21:53.900 And they arrested them.

01:21:55.040 But the funny part with this video, these guys posted it as if they're victims,

01:21:58.000 these quote-unquote journalists.

01:22:00.560 And the first thing, he starts screaming over and over,

01:22:03.500 I'm with the CBC, I'm with the CBC,

01:22:05.740 because he's trying to keep his ass from getting arrested.

01:22:08.160 You were locked in there with those lunatics.

01:22:10.880 Don't pretend.

01:22:11.680 I mean, it reminds me of bicyclists, you know, those clowns, you see them prancing around in

01:22:15.720 their spandex downtown. When it's practical, they're pedestrians. When it's practical,

01:22:21.860 they're vehicles, so they should be in the middle of the road, you know, but they want to use the

01:22:25.700 crosswalk when they want to ride on that, and they want to use the bike lane when they want,

01:22:28.760 but they don't when they don't want to. It's just when it's practical for them. Well, these guys,

01:22:32.160 they're journalists when they're about to be arrested, but the rest of the time, they're

01:22:35.360 clearly among and with the protesters. They're not even being a bit supportive of them. They're

01:22:40.340 taking part with them i mean a lot of documentaries will have a leaning and uh you know a bias fine

01:22:47.300 that's it makes it quite often more interesting though i'd again i'd rather not see them getting

01:22:51.080 our tax dollars to do it but you don't get right in and be one of the protesters that's not

01:22:57.960 you're not a a journalist anymore you're just a uh a promoter of the group you're a promoter of the

01:23:05.300 the these uh protesters i mean look at this yeah the cats out of their bag that's where he says

01:23:09.580 right there. Yinta is a CBC production. So there he is seeing himself. We're not speculating. You

01:23:12.980 know, look at his picture showing a bulldozer on fire. That's just not good. Nico, we got a spammer

01:23:21.140 on the comments section. So if you could block that account when you get a chance. Part of the

01:23:25.520 joys of being live, but we have some great commenters. Otherwise, yes, I do like to talk

01:23:30.760 about our spandex aficionados. I do like to work up our cyclists. I'll kind of close off the show

01:23:35.160 with a quick rant about my little buddies on the cycles. I've been taking pictures as I walk to

01:23:39.140 the office because I go by a bunch of these bike tracks on 8th Avenue where they they are it's

01:23:46.380 priority one for street clearing so they plow it as soon as the snowflake falls so that the

01:23:50.420 snowflakes can ride their bicycles on it and even if a little more snow falls I take pictures because

01:23:54.120 there's not even bike tracks nobody's using these things like four or five a day tops and I put a

01:24:00.500 tweet out saying you know you could do something along lines you can hear the screaming of these

01:24:04.560 poor guys getting into their offices trying to chip their frozen scrotums from the inside of

01:24:07.880 their spandex. I mean, really riding bicycles in minus 30 is ridiculous. Hey, if you're crazy

01:24:12.920 enough to do it, it's your thing. You get off on it. Good for you, but we got to, don't make the

01:24:16.860 whole city pay for the infrastructure for this small handful of crazy people downtown. It gets

01:24:21.620 back again to the ideological swing of our city council. Oh, we're going to fill the downtown.

01:24:27.200 Big businesses want to move into an area with clogged up traffic and bike lanes that are empty

01:24:30.740 in minus 30 weather. No, they don't. They want low taxes, a friendly business environment,

01:24:34.720 it's in a nice city to live in and bike tracks downtown don't offer any of those things but

01:24:40.860 they're expanding they're expanding all the time every street you go they seem to be building a

01:24:44.560 new one so that should be enough for today before we get into the weekend but i want to remind

01:24:49.920 everybody go to the westernstandardonline.com and take out a membership if you haven't already

01:24:55.540 this is how we can keep going we're not like the cbc we're not sucking tax dollars out of you like

01:25:00.340 a parasite as the CBC does. We rely on the viewers, the listeners and sponsors to keep us

01:25:05.460 rolling. And you guys have been great. We're growing. We're doing fantastic, but we need

01:25:09.380 more. This is how we can get more reporters. This is how we can get more columnists. This is how we

01:25:12.420 get better gear so I don't get a technical hiccup like we did yesterday. So go to

01:25:15.920 westernstandardonline.com. Take out a membership. It's a free trial at first. I think you'll find

01:25:20.860 it worth your $10 a month. I mean, it's a good deal. Or if you buy it for a year, I think it's

01:25:24.200 a hundred bucks. More than your money's worth. And it helps us. And we can keep doing these things

01:25:29.140 and countering the crap the mainstream media is feeding you so this has been week one of the

01:25:35.960 return of cory morgan show now labeled triggered and i am often triggered about many of things

01:25:40.600 come back on monday 11 30 a.m we're going to be back on live i'm going to have guests linds lindsay

01:25:45.560 seawalt she's with alberta proud and they've been doing some great work online standing up for

01:25:49.440 alberta energy sector things like that i'm going to be talking to author michael wagner and uh

01:25:54.860 He's written a column about Alberta independence, and he's written books about Alberta independence.

01:25:59.780 So this is a man after my own heart.

01:26:01.420 We'll certainly be able to find lots to talk about that we can agree upon, I am sure.

01:26:06.320 So thank you all guys for joining me today.

01:26:09.240 Like and share on Facebook and all those social media majors.

01:26:12.340 If you want to get into a good fight with me where I drop all of the pretenses of being nice or avoid using four-letter words,

01:26:19.160 follow me on Twitter, Corey B. Morgan, and I'll happily berate and insult you in person, online, on Twitter.

01:26:25.160 Y'all have a good weekend.

01:26:26.240 It's supposed to warm up.

01:26:27.520 Hopefully we can kind of enjoy ourselves a little out of this deep freeze.

01:26:30.120 And I'll see you on Monday.

01:26:54.860 You

Western Standard - January 08, 2022

Triggered： Back to school! Talking about masking and kids!

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