00:01:18.800Live has all sorts of challenges, but the great thing is seeing people there,
00:01:22.740responding directly to the show and what's going on. And you can also have interactions with each
00:01:26.920other, chat with each other, throw questions towards me, the guests. I don't necessarily
00:01:31.460get to them all, but I see them all. And it just keeps things interesting and moving along. So good
00:01:36.900to see you, Brian and Deidre and the rest coming in out there. Okay. So today for guests, I do have
00:01:42.740the Western Standards, Reid Small. He's our BC reporter and he covers a lot of stuff out there.
00:01:49.700He's going to give us an update on all things B.C. happening out there on the wet coast.
00:01:54.000And Colin Craig, he's been on before. He's of 2nd Street.
00:01:56.560And they put out a great thing. I think it was through a FOIP request.
00:01:59.700But they found out that municipal politicians all across Canada,
00:02:02.480even though they're always telling us to ride bikes, take transit, all that,
00:02:06.040well, they all get free parking passes.
00:02:07.780In fact, a lot of municipal employees do as well.
00:02:10.780And he's also been doing his Survivors of Socialism series.
00:02:15.040So we get to talk to him, get an update, and see how those things are going as well.
00:02:19.260For those who were, you know, listening to the show yesterday,
00:02:21.620I announced I was going to have another UCP leadership candidate, Rajan Sani, on today.
00:02:27.540Apparently, there was some confusion in the communication,
00:02:30.200and she's not going to be able to make it on to the show today.
00:02:33.340I can't get details because their campaign team is apparently incapable
00:02:36.400of responding to emails in anything less than two hours.
00:02:39.380So as much as I'd like to share what her leadership campaign is about,
00:02:43.140all I could share is their communication sucks.0.92
00:02:45.440Perhaps we shall reschedule her at another time.
00:02:48.900all right so the couple of observances we have for today here is uh i think we always get the
00:02:54.340odd ones it's national dog party day don't ever want to forget that one your dogs my dogs they're
00:03:00.500a pain in the butt they act up i'm not every day is a party day for them but either way today is
00:03:04.980the day where it is the formal observance national dog party day i don't know put little hats on get0.71
00:03:10.260them some treats have some fun throw the ball an extra couple times for those dogs they deserve it
00:03:14.580even if they can be a pain in the butt at times. It's also the National Day of the Gong. I'm not
00:03:20.000sure. I mean, while we do have a gong here in the office, we bang it on special occasions here,
00:03:24.820big sales, readership numbers, things like that. Well, today's the day where we celebrate the gong
00:03:29.700in and of itself. I don't know where we'd be without these regular observations, but make
00:03:34.820sure you don't get through a day missing any of these important things. Okay, let's get on to
00:03:39.980what's got me wound up today. I've ranted about this before, and I'll rant about it again. I'm
00:03:45.040going to keep exposing this subject, though, no matter how much squeamish city officials and
00:03:49.320legacy media outlets want to pretend that it isn't happening. Calgary's entire transit system
00:03:55.020has devolved into a drug and violence-laden dystopian nightmare, and something has to be
00:04:00.960done about it. As the addiction epidemic continues to grow across North America, every city's
00:04:05.580grappling with these issues. I can't find one, though, with the dubious honor of actually having
00:04:10.100closed down their train stations to the public rather than deal with the issue as Calgary did.
00:04:14.600They've been closed for months. A picture was shared with me yesterday by a commuter as he
00:04:19.080passed by the Chinook LRT station in Calgary. The shelter was full of addicts in all states. One was
00:04:24.660in the midst of counting money from a drug exchange, another was preparing to consume his
00:04:29.220newly purchased drugs, and another was, well, I would say hopefully simply unconscious. Overdoses
00:04:35.060have become a daily occurrence at those stations. I was assured by the commuter that this scene was
00:04:39.520common and it's often actually worse there. I can believe it. I drive by LRT stations regularly and
00:04:44.860see the people laid out along with the ambulances and fire trucks constantly there and parked as
00:04:49.820the overdoses happen and they're called in. It's a typical scene. I used to take the train to our
00:04:55.420downtown office from the Westbrook station in Calgary and syringes and aggressive attics just
00:05:00.360became too much for me. I didn't want to deal with it and I accepted paying to park downtown
00:05:04.140rather than immerse myself daily in a rolling drug consumption center that reeked of piss
00:05:08.700and felt unsafe ridership on calgary transits is 64 of what it was a couple of years ago
00:05:14.620anybody who can avoid riding those trains right now does not everybody has a choice to simply jump
00:05:19.660in a car like i did however many commuters have no other way to get around rather than use city
00:05:23.980transit and they have to endure fearful rides every day just to get to work and back multiple
00:05:29.260random assaults have been happening on train platforms and in transit facilities the fear of
00:05:33.420of the addicts is not misplaced. They can often be aggressive and dangerous. You know, to one
00:05:38.520legacy media outlet, to their credit, a CBC reporter went out and took a ride on Calgary's
00:05:42.780LRT just a couple weeks ago. She reported what she saw. She witnessed three overdoses and numerous
00:05:47.740aggressive actions. Reporting on that, by the way, and that was just on one trip. Reporting on it,
00:05:52.880many on social media, of course, got on her case and accused her of shaming addicts. Look, we can't
00:05:58.140let addicts continue to take over the transit system for a city of over a million people for
00:06:02.440fear of shaming them. We can be compassionate while putting our foot down. It doesn't mean
00:06:07.500we don't care if we take an initiative to remove addicts from city transit facilities
00:06:11.780and vehicles. It just means that we're accepting that that's not where they belong. The bigger
00:06:16.720issue of how to deal with addicts once they're removed from transit will remain. We can't
00:06:20.860refuse, though, to take action on one issue in hopes of avoiding to have to deal with
00:06:24.660the other issue. Calgary's downtown has nearly a third of its office buildings remaining
00:06:29.200vacant. Bike lanes have taken out almost all the street parking, while other parking lots charge a
00:06:34.160fortune. If the city really wants people to come downtown, they need to take transit. And it has
00:06:40.340to be safe, and it's nowhere close to that right now. The downtown itself actually is loaded with
00:06:44.940attics, feces, and discarded syringes as well, but I just want to mostly stick to the transit issue
00:06:49.940for today. The first full Calgary stampede in years is approaching, and Calgary's hospitality
00:06:55.080sector is desperate to see an influx of tourists. How many people, though, are going to make it
00:06:58.980their last visit to Calgary after riding on the city's horrific transit system and seeing the
00:07:02.740urban decay around them. Would you really want to take your kids out into that? Mayor Gondek and
00:07:07.820many of her city council counterparts are trying to bring in an insane $87 billion climate change
00:07:13.420plan. One aspect of their nutty plan, though, is to have over 60% of Calgarians using transit to
00:07:19.660get around. Well, I can tell you right now that sure as hell isn't going to happen as long as
00:07:23.280transit's unsafe, no matter how much they try to punish automobile owners. They're just going to
00:07:27.340continue to drive more people out of the city altogether. The mayor and the council want to
00:07:31.420pretend that transit is fine. Maybe if they can be convinced that dealing with a problem will help
00:07:36.320with their fictional climate emergency, we can see some action. I mean, Calgary is in a state
00:07:40.500of emergency right now. It just isn't climate related. I bet if they took their elitist asses
00:07:44.960out for a day in road city transit, as the commoners have to, we would finally see some
00:07:48.920action as well. But I won't hold my breath on that. All right. So that's what's got me up and
00:07:55.060wound up today. So let's see here if we've got her waiting. Let's check in with Eva Sudik in our0.99
00:08:02.220newsroom and see what other news stories are breaking out there across the country today.
00:08:07.120Hey, Eva, how's it going? Good. How are you, Corey? I'm all right. I don't have to ride the
00:08:10.900train. Yeah, me neither. I started parking downtown and it has made my life exponentially
00:08:15.720better. Yes, it's expensive. Yeah, very expensive. But actually with the fees on the transit, my $10
00:08:22.220early bird is almost the same price as transit anyway there and back so okay yeah so today in
00:08:30.800the news uh we got ucp leadership election committee has granted federal mp michelle
00:08:36.420rempel garner an exemption allowing her to run in the conservative leadership race after she
00:08:41.560didn't meet all requirements uh that's an exclusive story from our edmonton reporter
00:08:46.400Rachel Emanuel. She has another story up about another UCP candidate. Alberta former Liberal
00:08:54.260leader Raj Sherman, his bid for leadership has been rejected by the UCP election committee.
00:09:00.320He requested an exemption but for not being a member of the Conservative Party for more than
00:09:05.100six months it was denied. There's more news on the follow-up after Freedom Convoy crackdown that
00:09:12.500stop the protests as the use of the emergencies act is investigated the house of commons finance
00:09:19.780committee is saying it should be not a template for dealing with the public mps from all political
00:09:26.180parties have stepped up saying that the use of the emergencies act was needless harsh and sets
00:09:32.500dangerous precedent for our government we have a story out of massachusetts a school has lost its
00:09:39.940catholic status after refusing to remove pride and blm flags from the property
00:09:46.900the nativity school of worcester received a request from a local bishop to take down its
00:09:52.740flags but the privately funded school stood their ground and the bishop has received
00:09:57.380criticism from the school's human rights commission another story we have is hockey canada
00:10:04.180It has come out that Hockey Canada took a large sexual assault suit very lightly by not requiring the accused player to take part in the investigation.
00:10:13.980A three and a half million dollar settlement went to the victim of the group assault, which included four eight players and one victim.
00:10:24.120Only four to six players reportedly took part in the investigation, according to NPs.
00:10:28.460The eight players were not revealed and the investigations halted in 2020.
00:10:36.460Manitoba boy committed suicide after being the victim of an online blackmail scam.
00:10:40.460Daniel Lintz sent explicit images of himself to a supposedly attractive female on Snapchat.
00:10:49.460Within minutes there was a blackmail attempt threatening for the image to go viral
00:10:54.460and three hours later Daniel committed suicide.
00:10:57.460His father explains the events and family recoil in Linda Slobodian's story up on our site.
00:11:05.220Just a horrific story. My prayers go out to the family.
00:11:11.620Also a cautionary tale for kids of these days and what can go on on the internet and also
00:11:17.540what's not a big deal and the mental health issues around it.
00:11:21.380a saskatchewan rcmp are on lookout for two individuals who were involved in a shootout
00:11:28.940with rcmp on sunday both both the men have previous charges including one attempt murder
00:11:34.920using a firearm both the men's names and descriptions are up in our story and rcmp
00:11:40.040are looking for anyone with information to come forwards and report it and you may be eligible for
00:11:44.500a reward city news reporter calls ndp candidate transphobic for saying you can't change your
00:11:52.260entire biological makeup what the ndp candidate was stating as a fact back in 2015 has been
00:12:01.380pulled up by the reporter and ndp nominate sharif hajj is now issuing an apology
00:12:08.100and what just came out on our site is the bc government released a new climate preparedness
00:12:14.900and adaptation strategy they want to prevent flooding wildfires and other natural events
00:12:20.520this plan will cost the province approximately 500 million dollars
00:12:25.420our reporter reed small who will be on your show later on today just came out with that story
00:12:31.320and that was our latest and our live on the site right on well thank you very much lots coming up
00:12:40.680and lots on the go and i imagine lots to work on in the newsroom we're down a couple people today
00:12:44.780so i won't hold you up too much longer i know you've got a lot to keep up with so thanks for
00:12:49.040the update there eva and we'll talk to you later thanks for having me on cory great thanks so yes
00:12:53.860lots and lots breaking and uh going on out there guys is where i like to remind everybody all those
00:12:58.660stories, all those columns, all these things, all of this unique content is thanks to you who have
00:13:03.880subscribed. So if you haven't already, it's 10 bucks a month, 99 bucks a year if you take it out
00:13:09.480for a full year. Again, there's people who pay more than that to play video games for a subscription
00:13:13.900for a month, and you get a lot more than that out of it for your service. This is how we stay
00:13:17.860independent. We do not take any tax dollars. We refuse to, and we're going to continue to go that
00:13:24.520way. So hey, subscriptions have been great. We're spreading, we're expanding. But if you haven't
00:13:28.640already subscribed, get on there, guys. We're not asking for charity. We're selling a service
00:13:32.100and our subscribers find it to be worthwhile. They come on, they take out a subscription and
00:13:36.440they stay on. So check it out, westernstandard.news slash membership and help us carry on with this
00:13:43.360independent news. All right. Yeah, lots going on. You know, some interesting things that I ever
00:13:48.600spoke of. The suicide of that poor kid, you know, and that's just a reminder. I guess when you
00:13:54.440can. I know it's hard, but try and keep up, I guess, with what your kids are getting onto and
00:13:59.580what they're doing. So the deal was with that, and I guess this is an ongoing scam, is some fake
00:14:04.800girl will find young guys online or whatever and manage to fool them, talk them into thinking1.00
00:14:11.800they're speaking to a girl. And then when you're young and overladen with hormones, you can do0.72
00:14:15.980foolish things. And he sent pictures of himself that were pretty embarrassing, I guess, out there.
00:14:20.660And then suddenly they come back with a blackmail request saying, all right, you give us money or
00:14:24.260or we're going to, you know, send these pictures to your family and post it on Facebook and YouTube
00:14:28.900and whatnot. It's horrible. And then this poor kid, you know, and kids react strongly. He killed
00:14:33.080himself out of fear and horror out of it. It's just awful. It's an awful end. And just, you know,
00:14:38.260talk to kids, make sure they're aware of these things or whatever. Hey, you know, being caught
00:14:41.980in a compromising picture still isn't worth losing your life over, even if it might feel like it when
00:14:45.720you're 14 or 15. And just watch out for these scams. It's just what an awful thing. There's
00:14:50.780There's horrible, horrible people out there.
00:20:37.060Yeah, the BC government just released its new climate preparedness and adaptation strategy,
00:20:46.280which is supported by more than $500 million, $513 to be exact.
00:20:52.540Most of that funding has already been announced over the last year,
00:20:56.020But they've released the strategy now to more or less show where it's going to be allocated.
00:21:02.080And that's going to be various actions to reduce the future impact of wildfire, flooding impacts.
00:21:13.320They mentioned the heat dome that supposedly killed more than 600 people last summer.
00:21:18.540uh so yeah i mean we all remember uh the fall of of 2021 when you know there was the abbotsford
00:21:25.760merits uh you know more than 45 000 people uh evacuated uh as a result of these uh weather
00:21:33.560events uh over the last year and uh yeah the new plan basically just uh it aims to tackle all of
00:21:41.460that but it uh it focuses on um i guess what you could call anthropogenic climate change
00:21:47.500So the idea that, you know, carbon emissions are impacting these weather events in some way.
00:21:55.380And so, like, for example, last week, the federal government just announced it was going to give Lytton $77 million, most of which is going to go towards building net zero buildings.
00:22:09.220So yeah, there's a big focus from the province in agreement with the federal government on
00:22:16.660sort of these net zero policies to address wildfire flooding, that kind of thing.
00:22:25.440Well, you guys are getting a good deal.
00:22:26.780I mean, with a province the size of BC, it's only $500 million.
00:22:29.760In Calgary alone, we're going at $87 billion with Gondek's plan here.
00:22:34.880So you guys really got to catch up on the climate change race.
00:22:37.140yeah yeah no kidding it's uh yeah it's it's it there's a lot of the like a lot of people are
00:22:46.580raising concerns particularly towards uh you know the wildfire situation they're saying that
00:22:51.380uh you know there are more obvious things that can be done um to prevent uh like things that
00:22:59.520happened in in places like Lytton uh without you know this focus on the need to you know have x
00:23:07.600amount of you know zero emission vehicles by 2030 or something like that you know people will focus
00:23:13.080on they'll say well look at the forest management system you know they'll say uh you know we're
00:23:19.220cutting down all this deciduous growth which is naturally fire resistant we're we're planting
00:23:23.820pine which is highly flammable um and we're wondering why wildfires are getting worse
00:23:30.040uh each year uh but there's no there's been a no there's been no addressing of uh of anything
00:23:37.080regarding uh the forest management industry it's all about uh anthropogenic climate change
00:23:42.900um and the need to uh reduce carbon emissions yeah it's it's uh they're always hung up on that
00:23:50.180But we'll just watch them continue. Hopefully we get some realism. And yeah, forest management, I talked about that last week. I mean, we've got to get realistic. And there's a lot of people in forestry who are pointing that out and they're trying to tell them that, but they're focused on climate change. So I guess we've got to see a little more burn yet. Let's see some other stuff you had going on. The BC Liberals have called on BC to suspend vaccine mandates.
00:24:12.920yeah yeah they are uh they're suggesting that the province follows the uh federal government's lead
00:24:19.980uh by uh suspending uh vaccine mandates they didn't say they wanted the vaccine mandates to
00:24:25.420end they were very careful to to repeatedly use the word suspend uh much like uh the federal
00:24:31.600government um and so yeah kevin falcon um the bc liberals uh have have openly supported uh
00:24:40.360mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers, provincial workers in the past. But now that
00:24:46.560they're saying that those were supposed to be temporary, and, and therefore, it's time to lift
00:24:51.740them. And of course, people are kind of rolling their eyes and going, well, you know, what did
00:24:56.380you expect to happen? When you, you know, you brought these in, in the first place? Did you
00:25:00.440really think that they were going to, you know, easily just, just let them go? But yeah, Kevin
00:25:07.320falcon is now uh speaking out uh in contrast to his uh previous stance on the vaccine requirements
00:25:13.360well i guess the suspend is getting closer to getting rid of but everybody's covering their
00:25:17.940butts it's unfortunate we can't see much courage politically that often but take what we can get
00:25:22.880i guess uh let's see what else we got in your story scroll uh a crazy machete attack going on
00:25:27.500in vancouver yeah that's actually the second uh machete attack to happen in east vancouver uh the
00:25:34.000last one was only 19 days ago um this this one in particular uh a police officer was waved over to
00:25:42.600the emperor's hotel on uh main and hasting near main and hasting streets uh and he saw a guy uh
00:25:47.880waving a machete around um that's why he was called over uh and then as it turned out uh two
00:25:54.540people that were loading their luggage into a vehicle were just randomly uh and unexpectedly
00:25:59.580slashed by this guy with the machete. Both of them ended up in hospital with pretty serious
00:26:06.580injuries to the head and neck, but they're expected to make a full recovery. And the one
00:26:13.420that happened only 19 days prior to this one was also a man had to be hospitalized due to head and
00:26:19.700neck injuries. He was also stabbed in the back with the machete. And this was just one incident
00:26:26.280uh in vancouver over the weekend it was a particularly violent uh father's day weekend
00:26:31.280we're still seeing an average of according to the vancouver police uh four uh random assaults
00:26:37.780every day on average and uh yeah there was a few other stabbings uh someone was bear maced uh
00:26:45.120someone had a an airsoft gun held to their face um just a bunch of random things popping up here
00:26:55.140and there as far as violent crime goes so is this mostly gathered though you know east hastings
00:26:59.900king's way you know the areas we kind of anticipate this to happen or is there issues
00:27:03.660kind of popping up all over the city it's all over the city um uh for example they there was uh the
00:27:11.260guy with uh the airsoft gun incident that was held to him the guy was pretending it was a real gun
00:27:15.800uh that happened uh i believe it was near stanley park like right by the seawall there in the west
00:27:21.380end which is supposed to be uh you know a nicer neighborhood i lived in the west end for a while
00:27:26.100and uh i remember after the first uh lockdown during that first wave i remember going
00:27:32.560up to the shoppers drug mart it was around midnight and uh you could just feel there
00:27:38.600was a different vibe all the small businesses were closed and just kind of some of the characters
00:27:42.840that were hanging around uh nearby it just had a different vibe and sure enough the security
00:27:49.260guard at that shoppers was uh was stabbed about 20 minutes after i left that night i remember reading
00:27:54.620the news the next day and being like wow wow i would i missed that by you know 20 minutes um
00:28:01.980and uh and then the stats reflect that there's been more than a seven percent increase in violent
00:28:06.540crime in vancouver uh compared to to pre-covid levels yeah the world's getting a little crazy
00:28:13.500i mean a lot of it without we're seeing in calgary as i was talking earlier about our transit system
00:28:17.660And Linda Slavodian put out a story on how well decriminalization of drugs worked in Oregon.
00:28:22.900It sounds like they've had a 700% increase in overdoses.
00:28:26.060Unfortunately, we're just going to see a lot more mayhem until we can figure out how to get this addiction epidemic under control.
00:31:41.040And unfortunately, two of those people were US servicemen
00:31:45.960and they died as a result of taking the fentanyl.
00:31:48.400yeah so it's uh just just awful stuff and and we're all tied together it's integrated
00:31:54.520as i say such tiny amounts can be so potent so i mean it's difficult to stop the smuggling of it
00:31:59.140because a small package is pretty easy to hide and get across a border that big uh yeah and
00:32:05.680unfortunately too uh in vancouver um when someone dies of a of a drug overdose uh users will uh as
00:32:14.600one drug dealer put it when I was talking to him, a former drug dealer, will flock to the source
00:32:21.140because it indicates a strong supply. Obviously, this isn't the case with wealthier college kids
00:32:28.820that are partying, doing cocaine, that kind of thing. But the street users that are addicted
00:32:34.860to opioids, if they hear someone dies, they're going for that supply. It's really a sad situation.
00:32:44.600Yeah, well, we get on something, I guess, a little more frustrating, but a little lighter. The BC Museum, that's a big issue we hear about here and now. And then, I mean, on a couple of fronts. For one, the old museum apparently was too offensive to the woke. So they just had to tear it down. There was no fixing it. But the new one is going to cost a fortune. And it doesn't sound like BC citizens are all that thrilled with the idea.
00:33:04.920yeah yeah the uh the majority of uh bc citizens according to the angus reed poll are uh opposed
00:33:12.380to that museum which is going to cost uh as most people know by now uh nearly 800 million dollars
00:33:19.080um so we'll we'll see uh if if they're going to proceed with it it seems like
00:33:24.620the government will um and as we talked about last time uh kevin falcon initially said he was
00:33:30.020going to scrap the plan if elected. But according to the timelines set forth in the business case
00:33:37.340for the museum, demolition will begin before the next provincial election. So it looks like it's
00:33:45.260going to go forward, regardless of whether British Columbians support it or not, they're going to be
00:33:50.280paying for it. And that's about that. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, when they move with these
00:33:55.960things, it seems to work though, right? Ignore the people. It doesn't matter. They get upset,
00:34:01.240but election time, how they get back in. So we'll see what happens. I guess I hope they stay somewhat
00:34:05.600within budget. These things rarely do, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, yeah, they claim that
00:34:10.520the price of tearing it down and rebuilding is actually substantially more affordable than
00:34:19.780renovating the current museum um which also we have talked about before uh so i won't get too
00:34:26.200uh deep into that but uh yeah i mean there's there's a bunch of schools that need upgrading
00:34:32.240this is kind of what people are pointing to they're like look our health care system's broken
00:34:35.820we've got schools that need to be seismically upgraded uh of course the the ndp government
00:34:41.600is saying that that's one of the main reasons they want to rebuild the museum is because that
00:34:45.420it's seismically unsafe uh so yeah oh we'll see what happens before i let you go you got anything
00:34:52.800else uh coming up to look forward to in the news the next day or so yeah i'm gonna be putting out
00:34:57.920a story later today on uh concerns of uh price gouging in uh in uh at various gas stations in
00:35:04.520bc okay well you guys are paying your share of prices as it goes out there it'll be interesting
00:35:10.060to see the root of all that. As a truck driver, as a truck driver, it's been, it's been a rough
00:35:15.640couple of months. Yeah. Well, it cuts right into your, your, your profit margin. All right. Well,
00:35:21.460thanks for coming in to check in with us today, Reid. And thanks for keeping up all that good news
00:35:26.140content out there in BC for us. Right on. Thanks very much, Corey. All right. Thank you. So that
00:35:31.720is our BC reporter, Reid Small. As you can see, he's constantly writing, you know, good, unique
00:35:37.260content coming out of BC. Just that reminder, subscribe guys. We've got news. He writes it as
00:35:41.300it's breaking and he follows up. Another thing I want to make sure to mention today while I'm at
00:35:45.840it, we've got a debate coming up on July 8th in Calgary. It'll be in the afternoon at the Petroleum
00:35:52.980Club. $25 to get there. You can see, well, four of the Conservative Party of Canada leadership
00:35:59.280candidates and it's a good intimate atmosphere. You know, there's just going to be a few hundred
00:36:02.560people there. You can really get perhaps some one-on-one time with them. There's going to be
00:36:06.520some cocktail time afterwards and see in person how they interact. You know, it's like sporting
00:36:10.960events, things like that. When you go in person, it really is actually kind of more fun and
00:36:16.000interesting than when you watch it on TV. I mean, TV is good. Being there in person is better. So
00:36:20.240check it out. There it is, you know, July 8th, 25 bucks a ticket and you get into the Peak Club,
00:36:24.540a neat old building there and a facility and take in that debate on a Friday afternoon. So go to
00:36:29.920westernstandard.news and you'll be able to find out how you can take part in all of that. So it's
00:36:35.800going to be quite an event for us. Let's see here. I just want to go on some of the stuff
00:36:40.480covered. I noticed Johnny Arabian, where to go? I've scrolled down, lost it in the comments,1.00
00:36:46.780talking about with the drugs starting with doctors. This whole addiction issue is complicated. It's
00:36:54.300big. And it starts in a number of areas. And a big part in the opioids, yes, was not so much
00:37:01.760fentanyl, though that's come out of prescription drugs to begin with as well. But of course,
00:37:05.380oxy and things like that, which were effective painkillers. Now that gets to, there was a story
00:37:10.680of a gentleman, he was an addiction, a recovered man in San Francisco, I read a while back, and he
00:37:16.220was on the streets, he'd hit rock bottom. He started with a sports injury, but then he got
00:37:20.820onto the pills. He was a stable guy, a professional, got onto the prescriptions from his doctor.
00:37:26.500By the time he recovered from his injury, he was hopelessly addicted to the pills. It got to the
00:37:30.540point that his life fell apart. He ended up on the street. So a full-out street person, full-out
00:37:35.640addict, in a lot of trouble, finally ended up in jail and did recover and clean up. But it started
00:37:40.600with a prescription. And prescriptions are where a lot of these drugs begin. I mean, people who
00:37:45.360left them in the medicine cabinet and the kids get a hold of it and, you know, maybe you weren't
00:37:49.360watching. Or another aspect that people don't like talking about, but Canada's screwed up
00:37:53.920healthcare system where you'd wait on waiting lists. We're talking, you know, a hip replacement,
00:37:57.780over a year waiting, a knee replacement, what do you think the doctor's going to do?
00:38:01.660They're going to give you a whole bunch of painkillers. And some of those opioids are
00:38:05.380very addictive. And you might come out of these things very addicted after the fact.
00:38:09.840There's also unprincipled doctors. I'm going to give one of my anecdotal stories here.
00:38:13.400But it's from back when I worked in Ohio. I was working on a survey job out there
00:38:17.960some years back. And I was trying to cut some brush. And I had the chainsaw going. I was in
00:38:24.840a t-shirt. It gets really hot out there in summer, and this branch with a bunch of thorns went right
00:38:28.040into my forearm, and the thorn, I could see it disappear out of my flesh. It was horrible. Big,
00:38:31.420long thing, and it stuck down there, and it started to infect. My arm was getting pretty
00:38:35.460hot after a day or so, you know, and swelling and red around there, so I went across the river.
00:38:39.280The nearest convenient town was just over West Virginia, and I hit a walk-in clinic, and while
00:38:45.200I'm waiting in this clinic, I'm seeing, you know, people coming and going, and eventually, I get my
00:38:50.480spot with a doctor, and it's, boy, it's a busy clinic. A lot of people coming. I get to the back.
00:38:54.200I sit in the, you know, it's like any other clinic, a waiting room. A doctor comes in.
00:38:57.740How are you doing? And I said, yeah, I got this thorn, you know, I want it taken care of. He says,
00:39:01.160what's your pain level? One to 10. I don't know, two or three or something. It's not that bad. I
00:39:06.940just need this thorn out of here. He looks at it. It's beyond, you got to go see an orthopedic
00:39:13.720surgeon or something like that or go to a hospital. I can't help you with that. Is it really? It's
00:39:17.460just a thorn that's in a bit. I just need to put, no, no, I can't deal with that. Okay, fine.
00:39:22.020you know, and then he says again, what's your pain level? It's fine. And it didn't strike me
00:39:27.340what's going on. And then I went out and I filled out the things. I had insurance because I was
00:39:30.580working down there and I made sure, you know, you don't want to get stuck in the States with a bad
00:39:33.340injury. And I'm filling out the paperwork. And then I'm realizing again, with these people coming
00:39:37.240and going, this doctor's office was a pill pusher. That's all he was. Of course, West Virginia,
00:39:42.060they got their challenges out there. But that's why these people could come in and go that fast
00:39:45.860because he could come get these patients in and out of there, write them scripts. As long as they
00:39:50.420fill out their thing to say, oh, my pain is up at nine. And he was given a moxie. He was dumping0.85
00:39:54.420that stuff through that clinic like nobody's business. And that's where a lot of these addicts
00:40:00.220start. I mean, at least over there in the Eastern States and it happens all over. And then of course,
00:40:03.400if they run out of the money or the means to go to a doctor's office to get these kinds of pills,
00:40:06.960well, then they move on to other things. And then they move on to street drugs and things go bad.
00:40:10.860This whole addiction thing is a giant, complicated, convoluted problem, but it's huge.
00:40:16.460it's growing, it's killing people. It's out of control. And again, it's one of those ones where
00:40:22.540a lot of people just don't want to face reality and how to deal with it. But one of the other
00:40:25.860ones is, again, you can be sensitive to the needs of an addict, but also firm. There's certain areas
00:40:33.360they can't go. And if they're committing crimes, we can't keep pretending. We heard that crap
00:40:37.000with safe consumption centers. The left is just frigging over the top, obsessed with safe
00:40:41.520consumption centers. Look, I believe in harm mitigation. I do believe like we can't treat
00:40:47.440addicts if they are dead. If they will go to a safe consumption site and avoid an overdose good,
00:40:53.780there's a better chance we might be able to catch these people and fix them up and get them when
00:40:58.020they're ready. But they have limits and most of the junkies don't use them. How many safe
00:41:04.220consumption centers can we have? That's the problem. They're all over the trains. And you
00:41:07.640also, the Beltline of Calgary, what it did do is those addicts who do use the safe consumption
00:41:13.440centers all, of course, congregate at them. Go outside the Sheldon Schumer Center in Calgary
00:41:18.460and have a look around. It's horrible. Again, speaking of dystopian, they literally set up camp
00:41:23.480all the way around the outside of the building, and they're consuming drugs right outside the
00:41:27.420building. Even if they only have to walk 100 yards to go into the safe, because they just don't want
00:41:30.820to bother with it anymore. It's just now it's just turned into a hangout. And what do you think
00:41:34.620happens. The dealers follow them there. So now you've got these drug dealers all hanging around
00:41:38.720in an area full of residential areas, apartments. Theft is shot through the roof down there.
00:41:44.720These addicts need to feed their habits. And of course, again, when they go on meth and things
00:41:49.080like that, they go out of control. They go wild. They can go dangerously. People don't want to be
00:41:53.120down there. They don't want to work down there. Quit pretending they're harmless. I remember when
00:41:58.100they brought the safe consumption center in, there were the hipsters and the others. Oh no,1.00
00:42:01.160it doesn't hurt the community. We love it. It's not a problem. We're happy with it. Bullshit.
00:42:04.620You are not people who live near there. You're not the people who had to deal with that. You're
00:42:08.560not the people who had to step over human crap on the street. You're not the people who can't
00:42:12.240leave anything outside for more than five seconds without it being stolen. You're not the ones who
00:42:16.560have to watch what used to be a nice neighborhood and seeing drug dealers going on across the street
00:42:20.480or seeing people picking up overdoses all the time. There's big problems that happen when you
00:42:25.640have large amounts of addicts gathering in an area, as we see on city transit right now. And
00:42:31.300Again, it's not saying the addicts are monsters.
00:42:33.300It's not saying they should be shot or locked up.
00:49:58.040and you know, arrested people. They theoretically could have forced labor with tow truck drivers
00:50:04.800and none of it was needed. Not a minor thing. All right, let's see. Well, I'm going to get
00:50:11.380ready to get on to our next guest here. It's getting about time. So I've got in the lobby,
00:50:17.300it's going to be Colin Craig. He's with secondstreet.org. He's been on before. They do
00:50:21.280a lot of good work, put out a lot of good reports and papers. And a recent one is just great. It
00:50:26.040kind of ties into these municipal governments that, speaking of reality, just really need a
00:50:31.800good dose of it and some common sense. So let's bring Colin in when he's ready there and have a
00:50:38.180conversation on that latest report, one of which was on parking passes for municipal employees
00:50:43.520across Canada. Hey, Colin, how's it going? Good, yourself, Corey? Very good, thanks. Yeah, so I just,
00:50:52.020Just I want to talk a little more actually on a couple of things, you know, follow up a little more on your Survivors of Socialism initiative because it's just fantastic.
00:51:00.620But in the more immediate one is that recent release you put out showing the amount of municipal employees who get parking passes.
00:51:07.660I thought they were all green and they're supposed to ride bikes to take the train.
00:51:12.340You know, we saw a lot of cities across Canada declaring climate emergencies and urging the phase out of fossil fuels in different ways.
00:51:21.760In Ontario, a number of cities indicated that they want no more natural gas powered electricity.
00:51:29.540In Manitoba, the city council there, pardon me, in Winnipeg, they passed a motion looking into how they can phase out natural gas in the city.
00:51:38.300And of course, Winnipeg is one of the coldest major cities on the planet.
00:51:42.580So a lot of people there use natural gas to heat their homes.
00:51:45.820A lot of businesses use it and so forth.
00:51:48.160So we saw these different motions happening across Canada.
00:51:51.760And we thought, well, wait a second, let's take a look into how many of these cities are giving their staff and council members free parking passes.
00:51:59.580Because, of course, these cities are trying to get everyone else to stop using oil and gas products.
00:52:04.760What about council? Are they making it easy for councillors to keep driving?
00:52:08.300If you're giving someone a free parking pass, you're certainly making it easy to do so.
00:52:12.220And so we filed freedom of information requests with, I think it was around 20 different cities
00:52:16.780or so in pretty much from Ontario West.
00:52:20.840And we got some pretty interesting responses.