Western Standard - Triggered： Can the UCP maintain unity？

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's Monday, August 15th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. This is the Western

00:00:38.720 Standards daily live news, opinion, comment, rant, guest interview show. We hold Monday

00:00:46.660 to Friday, 1130 a.m. till about 1 p.m. usually. And yes, this is the final week of the show.

00:00:53.820 There's going to be more stuff coming, lots of digital content and things going on. But

00:00:56.740 this particular show. We'll be wrapping up this Friday. Still lots of good stuff to get through

00:01:01.860 this week and cover though, guys. And we'll have a good time as we get through these final five days.

00:01:08.080 So let's see. We'll start though with some of the daily observations. I see you all coming in in

00:01:11.860 the comments. Scroll there. It's good to see you popping in from all over. Being live again. I love

00:01:16.260 that. It makes it so much more fluid and interactive. It's really important. And use that

00:01:21.440 comment, scroll, talk to each other, talk to me. And yes, let's have some interaction. Just keep

00:01:28.600 it civil. We can do that. So let's see the daily observances. You know, they're really getting a

00:01:33.200 little thin in August, as I said there last week there. It's hard to find some interesting ones.

00:01:37.080 I think people save them mostly for the later days. So let's see here. We got it's National

00:01:42.700 Failures Day. That's a day I think we can all relate with. We've all had failures. This is the

00:01:47.580 day to celebrate those failures or maybe not celebrate them but at least observe them I mean

00:01:52.400 you know with the failure it's not necessarily all that bad it's it's uh failures are just finding

00:01:57.560 ways not to do things it's only a problem if you keep repeating the same failure over and over and

00:02:02.280 over again and uh well today's the day maybe to dwell on a few of those failures and just make

00:02:07.180 sure you don't do them a second time it's also lemon meringue pie day that's an odd one and you

00:02:13.920 You know, myself, I can't stand meringue.

00:02:16.240 It's kind of gross.

00:02:17.060 I don't know.

00:02:17.360 It seems like old frothed up saliva

00:02:18.900 that's been speed cooked or something,

00:02:21.480 but each their own.

00:02:22.500 I like the lemon part, you know,

00:02:23.680 but I kind of scrape that stuff off to the side

00:02:25.520 and dine on it.

00:02:26.220 But some people do feel that it's an important enough pie

00:02:29.300 to have a day to observe it and recognize it.

00:02:31.780 So if you're a lemon meringue pie person,

00:02:33.980 well, today's your day, guys.

00:02:36.540 This is the day to go out and froth it up and get it.

00:02:38.960 And don't bother sending any over here, though.

00:02:41.320 All right, it's going to be a pretty political show today,

00:02:42.920 as usual, anyways.

00:02:43.760 I've got a couple of good guests on who have political viewpoints, of course.

00:02:48.260 I've got Jay Hill.

00:02:49.020 He's going to be coming on a little later.

00:02:50.780 We'll talk about some federal issues.

00:02:52.240 He was, of course, a member of parliament for, I believe, 17 years.

00:02:55.440 That's a long time hanging around with all those clowns in Ottawa,

00:02:58.440 and he still managed to maintain a good degree of sanity

00:03:01.100 and has a lot of good stuff to share.

00:03:03.440 And then later on, we'll have Drew Barnes coming on,

00:03:06.080 independent MLA for Cyprus Medicine Hat,

00:03:09.180 and we'll talk about provincial issues,

00:03:10.520 and there's a lot to talk about with what's going on in Alberta right now.

00:03:13.760 the UCP leadership race and things like that. So that's where I'm going to kick it off with

00:03:18.600 yeah, let's talk some of that UCP stuff. So I mean, most Albertans, we shudder at the prospect

00:03:24.660 of a return to four more years of living under an NDP government. A number of factors led to

00:03:29.400 that disastrous election in 2015. I mean, there was mistrust, bad campaigns, and of course a

00:03:35.140 divided conservative movement. But the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservatives battling

00:03:39.700 each other throughout the campaign that allowed the NDP to slide up the middle and win a majority

00:03:44.500 government. So, I mean, it took a lot of compromise and a lot of work, but the factionalized

00:03:49.520 conservatives of Alberta managed to pull it together under a united banner with the UCP in

00:03:53.580 time for the 2019 election. And with a single conservative option to look at, voters happily

00:03:58.520 tossed the NDP to the curb and gave the UCP a solid majority. And Jason Kenney deserves full

00:04:04.260 credit for pulling all of that off. He was integral. He had the vision and he got it together.

00:04:09.280 Now, though, Jason Kenney could be the one who fractures the movement all over again

00:04:13.040 as he wades into the leadership race for the UCP.

00:04:16.540 It was unprecedented for Kenney to remain on as a party leader as the race was held.

00:04:24.480 I mean, that was already odd.

00:04:25.540 Party leaders have been known to stay on after announcing their resignations,

00:04:28.440 but that's usually when the leader's willingly choosing to resign, you know, on their own terms.

00:04:32.640 When the leader's been tossed out by their own members as Kenney had been,

00:04:35.460 they tend to move on into the background after that.

00:04:38.080 Well, whether it's an interim leader or an upcoming incumbent,

00:04:40.580 it's usually recognized that the leader stays out of the leadership race.

00:04:44.600 They certainly hold their views, but they keep it to themselves.

00:04:48.000 Kenny has broken that convention now, though,

00:04:50.340 as he went on a tirade about Daniel Smith's proposed Sovereignty Act.

00:04:54.660 Kenny did this on a weekly radio show where he's supposed to be speaking as the premier.

00:04:58.400 If it's going to turn into a platform for the leadership race,

00:05:00.560 maybe it's time for that show to come to an end as well.

00:05:03.280 The Sovereignty Act now, I mean, that's the main plank of Smith's campaign.

00:05:07.160 And in light of her apparent status as the frontrunner of the race, I'd save to say the proposal appeals to many, if not most, of the members at this point.

00:05:15.560 And whether or not it's workable or desirable will be determined by the members.

00:05:21.060 If they select Smith, it would then head to the legislature for debate.

00:05:25.100 Then it could be embraced, demanded, or scrapped by our elected officials.

00:05:28.700 Kenny still doesn't understand that his tough talk and weak actions when it came to dealing with Ottawa is what led to his ouster from the party in the first place.

00:05:37.160 Members have had it with limp-wristed reactions to federal overreach, and Smith has offered them

00:05:41.820 a lifeline. Members wanted to see something, anything, that the province can do to stand up

00:05:47.540 to Ottawa. They're frustrated to the point where it doesn't matter if it's legally viable.

00:05:51.320 They're ready to go on the offensive with a hostile federal government after years of failed

00:05:55.160 defensive actions, and the Sovereignty Act offers a possible tool for that. If the Sovereignty Act

00:06:00.620 fails, well, true secessionism is really going to rise as people are going to feel they're out of

00:06:04.860 options. Maybe Smith's proposals were irresponsible. Maybe other candidates have better

00:06:09.380 plans. Whatever the case may be, though, having the outgoing premier weighing in right now is

00:06:14.580 fostering new divisions in a party that desperately needs to maintain unity. Leadership races can

00:06:19.720 usually be heated and divisive. If they're held responsibly, though, they don't need to lead to

00:06:24.140 the fracturing of the party. It was no secret that Kenny and the establishment in the party

00:06:28.320 support Travis Taves in the leadership. Again, though, Kenny should have been keeping it to

00:06:32.580 himself. With such heated rhetoric coming from any outgoing leaders, supporters of Taves and

00:06:37.180 Smith are going to be more deeply entrenched in their views and taking them more personally than

00:06:41.120 ever. Now, no matter what candidate wins, it's going to be all the more difficult for them to

00:06:45.020 consolidate their leadership and unite the members in time for a general election that's less than a

00:06:49.760 year away. The UCP right now is lucky. There's no alternative conservative parties well-established

00:06:55.400 right now. The Wildrose Independence Party is ripping themselves apart with infighting and

00:06:58.880 won't be in any position to seriously contest the next election, and the other registered

00:07:03.120 conservative-leaning parties really are unheard of. This can't be taken for granted, though. Seven

00:07:08.060 months is an eternity in politics, and a lot can change by election time. I can't see a new entity

00:07:12.840 winning the next election, but one could manage to cause enough division to lead to another notly

00:07:16.320 term in office. Kenney's no novice political operator. He knew how serious it would be if he

00:07:21.360 stepped into the leadership race. One has to start wondering at this point, is Kenney have the best

00:07:25.340 interests of the province and the party in mind right now? Or is he just hoping that nobody will

00:07:29.060 succeed where he failed? We're heading for some hard economic times. The last thing Alberta needs

00:07:33.360 is to sink into another four years of high spending socialism under Notley. I'd hoped Kenny could go

00:07:38.500 out with dignity. It doesn't look that way and that hope's fading and we all could be paying the price

00:07:43.000 for it. And it really is disappointing. All right, well that's what's got me going today. And yeah,

00:07:49.480 it's just a bad thing. So let's bring Dave Naylor in and talk about some other news items to go on

00:07:54.700 about today before we go further. Hey Dave, how's it going? Yeah, it's going well, Corey. How was

00:07:58.880 your weekend? I hear you were high. I was, yeah, all the way up to High Prairie, Alberta, hitting

00:08:05.340 the north for a quick road trip there and back. That was good. You used to work up there, right?

00:08:10.820 I've done work up there before. I had some contracts up that way when I was in the oil

00:08:14.060 field. Yeah, it's quite a part of the world, that. And I hear it was another exciting weekend

00:08:20.560 for Duke the Wonder Dog.

00:08:22.640 He finally was able to do something.

00:08:25.100 Yeah, there's that picture.

00:08:27.000 Duke had, after many months of effort,

00:08:29.060 actually figured out how to catch his tail

00:08:31.320 and then started doing cartwheels

00:08:33.640 all over the patio with the tail in his mouth,

00:08:35.280 trying to figure out what the hell to do with it.

00:08:36.680 I do think he's got some form of brain damage.

00:08:40.200 That's, you know what, for a dog,

00:08:41.680 that's a great achievement.

00:08:43.400 I also understand that you were having

00:08:44.820 some fun with your bees again.

00:08:46.740 We saw the video last Sunday

00:08:48.360 They have them all attached to your posterior.

00:08:52.040 And I understand this weekend they all got attached to your face in terms of like a new beard.

00:08:57.540 Well, you know, I am terrible at growing facial hair.

00:09:00.040 I never could grow a good beard, so I might as well use some sort of prosthetic out of the hobbies.

00:09:04.980 I mean, now that your hair just grows out of the top of my ears and my nose, it gets thinner on my head.

00:09:08.740 So a beard of bees isn't all that out of line.

00:09:11.120 You know what?

00:09:11.780 You might get in a bit of trouble, though, walking into the Prudis pub with that all in on your face.

00:09:16.680 Wouldn't be the first time they kicked me out of there.

00:09:18.360 Oh, and probably not the last.

00:09:21.100 So, yeah, we've got a lot of stuff already on the website, Corey.

00:09:24.480 It's been a busy Monday morning.

00:09:26.200 Top story at the moment is some really good video of an enraged cyclist.

00:09:31.400 He got in a bit of road rage.

00:09:33.060 He thought a female driver had honked at him. 0.94

00:09:37.140 In fact, she hadn't.

00:09:38.740 But the cyclist took it the wrong way and literally smashed out her passenger window with his fist. 0.66

00:09:45.880 And there's some very good video, as I said, on that terrifying incident in Calgary at a Northwest superstore.

00:09:55.960 Following along lines of what the Premier did this weekend,

00:09:59.820 Ryan Jean has called on Daniel Smith to release her entire Sovereignty Act

00:10:05.780 and says all the candidates should read it and then be critical or supportive.

00:10:12.160 And that's basically what Danielle Smith said after the premier spoke, saying, you know, it was too early.

00:10:18.300 You've got to read the entire thing and go from there.

00:10:22.700 We've got a column from our David Marsden on the Athabasca University situation.

00:10:27.920 This is a funny story that, you know, the staff in Athabasca basically doesn't want to work there.

00:10:33.960 And even the president of the university is living in Edmonton.

00:10:38.800 So David opines about that strange situation.

00:10:44.900 We've got a Wenzel column, Shane Wenzel, talking about the fact that Calgary does not have a sprawl problem, despite everything you hear from environmentalists and whatnot.

00:10:58.100 And we've got a story out of Ottawa by Matthew Horwood on a coalition of unions and publishers who say the CRTC has way too much power in Canada and it needs to be drawn back.

00:11:11.840 So that's what we've got this morning, Corey.

00:11:14.900 There's a lot more stuff that's up there that we won't have time to talk about.

00:11:19.380 But yeah, busy morning and I'm sure it'll continue into the hot afternoon.

00:11:24.940 It's going to be a lively, warm week, that's for sure.

00:11:27.340 Well, thanks for the update, and we'll look forward to the stories as they come out, Dave.

00:11:31.780 Thanks, Corey.

00:11:33.620 That is our news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:11:35.560 And as always, yes, lots going up there, all sorts of opinion and news copy going on.

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00:12:38.600 And I'll get back and talk about some news after that.

00:12:41.340 On Thursday, August 25th, the Alberta Prosperity Project and Rebel News are hosting a special UCP leadership dinner and forum at the Edmonton Convention Center.

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00:13:13.020 There you go, guys. There's an event coming at the end of the month.

00:13:15.360 you can meet some of those UCP leadership candidates

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00:13:27.080 and what's happening up there at the end of this month.

00:13:30.320 Real good political times if you're a political weenie like me.

00:13:32.960 All sorts of things happening.

00:13:34.820 Speaking on a more depressing note for politics,

00:13:37.640 we've got the Liberal Party of Alberta.

00:13:40.120 Yes, they still exist.

00:13:41.360 I don't know if you guys remember them.

00:13:42.680 But, you know, it's a sad and, well, not that sad.

00:13:47.460 I guess they're liberals.

00:13:48.360 But the Liberal Party, I mean, they were the very first party Alberta had, you know, with Alexander Rutherford, I believe it was, our first premier in 1905.

00:13:57.920 That was the Alberta Liberal Party.

00:14:00.020 And, you know, when we first came into Confederation, the only reason we had a liberal to start with, of course, because we had a federal liberal government.

00:14:05.160 And they sort of rigged it, essentially, to make sure we had a liberal government to start.

00:14:10.880 And that didn't last terribly long.

00:14:12.060 they got kicked out and replaced by the Alberta Farm Association, I believe is the next one after

00:14:17.000 that UFA came in. But either way, you know, they were always there as an official opposition. They

00:14:21.620 were always a contender. All the way till the 90s, Lawrence DeCore brought it really close to

00:14:26.020 actually winning until Ralph Klein kind of came along and pushed them aside. One of the lessons

00:14:31.860 to learn from that too, the reason the liberals were actually close to winning in the 90s,

00:14:35.420 they were actually campaigning from the right. They were talking about getting spending under

00:14:38.700 control, reducing the deficit. Lo and behold, you know, and Getty, meanwhile, was spending like a

00:14:44.520 madman. Running as a conservative, running on an unapologetic conservative platform,

00:14:54.300 at least fiscally, Ralph Klein managed to pull it back. And that's that reminder to a lot of people.

00:14:57.460 If you are unapologetically conservative, you can still win. Do it for a change, guys. Do it.

00:15:03.580 Either way, the Liberal Party now, I mean, it's just been on a slow decline, fading and fading.

00:15:07.700 David Kahn managed to lose their last remaining seat.

00:15:10.680 He's a bit of a douchebag.

00:15:11.920 It's not that shocking.

00:15:13.140 But all the same, they're down to nothing.

00:15:15.560 So they finally held a leadership race.

00:15:17.500 They've been leaderless for a year in some, or tried to.

00:15:20.020 And they opened up the nominations for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Alberta.

00:15:23.300 And they just closed the nominations on last Friday, I believe it was.

00:15:28.360 And not a single person applied to the job.

00:15:30.420 Nobody even wants to lead what's left of the Liberal Party of Alberta.

00:15:34.080 of the very first governing party of the province can't even beg somebody to manage to come in and

00:15:39.240 lead them. So I got a feeling it's going to be the end. And you know, it does impact our politics.

00:15:44.420 And we shouldn't rely on things like this, I guess, in the sense in order to win things. But

00:15:50.580 part of the reason as well, the conservatives were always so strongly entrenched was when you had the

00:15:55.040 liberals and NDP splitting that left vote out there, it made it a lot easier for conservatives

00:15:59.760 to get in. And with the Liberal Party collapsing as they did, you know, under Khan, and even prior

00:16:06.380 to him, it did allow the NDP to become the natural, I guess, left of center or even far left

00:16:12.140 alternative for people to come in. So we shouldn't dance on the grave of the Liberal Party too much

00:16:16.780 because coming up into this general election, you know, next year in spring, I'm guessing unless

00:16:22.300 the Conservatives split themselves up or something, it's going to be a two-party race. And it's going

00:16:27.100 to be UCP versus NDP. The Liberals are toast, so the NDP will be able to consolidate that.

00:16:31.900 Waldo's Independence Party, they blew themselves up. I mean, they might recover, but I don't think

00:16:35.860 they're going to recover in time to really put up a strong front in this race. The other thing

00:16:40.080 to look at that might be interesting is the Alberta Party. They always talk big and finish

00:16:44.820 poorly. They're overrated in a lot of ways. And the Alberta Party, they pretend to be conservative,

00:16:54.700 but always act liberal, and that's part of what always toasted them. Stephen Carter actually

00:16:58.860 helped blow those guys up when he jammed Stephen Mandel in there and replaced their once popular

00:17:03.900 leader, and they lost their only seat. But still, we're going to see a bunch of the Progressive

00:17:08.280 Conservatives, the ones who had gone into the PC party, or the UCP party, UCP party,

00:17:13.620 all that dress gene, that's when people say that, and tried to pull them left and pull them into 1.00

00:17:19.700 establishment. And that's part of why the internal turmoil is still going on within that party right

00:17:23.300 now. And if Taves wins it, it won't be that bad necessarily as far as that goes, but there's

00:17:29.020 going to be a lot of tantrums if, say, Smith or Gene wins it because the party will be actually

00:17:35.060 conservative. So, and not that Taves is not conservative as well. Actually he is, but he's

00:17:39.840 establishment and more of the PCs. Now I could see them making a leap towards the Alberta party

00:17:45.760 and trying to get that thing up and running again too. I don't know how much impact that could or

00:17:50.980 would have on the election. But that's what I'm saying to you. You can't take for granted

00:17:54.560 the political scene, you know, in avoiding having a split vote or just a possibility that will bring

00:18:04.300 the NDP in. That's the thing we're all most terrified of. So seeing them ripping themselves

00:18:08.920 up in this leadership race is a serious, serious concern. You have to worry about that.

00:18:15.020 Let's see some of the comments there. North Gun Raider, why are you providing free advertising

00:18:18.140 and promoting Twitter. We don't provide free advertising, but if you want to buy ad space,

00:18:22.980 we're more than happy to help fix you up with it. And promoting Twitter, I'm not even sure what

00:18:27.280 you're talking about. To be honest, we're not promoting Twitter. In fact, the Western Standard

00:18:30.620 got kicked off of Twitter for posting news stories. Our suspension ends in a couple of days.

00:18:36.580 We appealed, but it didn't win in that. Ken Coop asking, are you a politician? I don't know if

00:18:42.960 you're asking me or if you're asking somebody else. I'm not one anyways. I've run before,

00:18:47.040 but I'm not running again. So we will see what happens here. So Lone Warrior asking,

00:18:53.840 is the Maverick Party just a federal party then? Yes, the Maverick Party is federal. That's what

00:18:58.100 I'm assuming he's going to get here. He's never been late before, but you never know with downtown

00:19:04.740 things. Jay Hill should be in studio in a little bit. He was the first leader of the Maverick

00:19:09.060 Party. It came from Wexit. And as I said, he was a federal member of parliament for quite some time.

00:19:13.880 and he got that party kind of running

00:19:16.260 and then it's a new leader has come in now

00:19:18.120 and they're running on the federal front.

00:19:20.080 There is no provincial version of it.

00:19:21.920 Provincially, there's really not much on the go.

00:19:23.680 It really shows a lot.

00:19:25.640 I'll expand more on that.

00:19:26.680 I mean, I've always been a person,

00:19:28.540 you know, supportive of independence.

00:19:29.900 I mean, I founded the Alberta Independence Party,

00:19:31.960 what, 22 years ago?

00:19:33.360 I was depressing.

00:19:35.560 With some others, of course.

00:19:37.780 And, you know, we blew up

00:19:39.420 and the separation party of Alberta came and went

00:19:42.320 and it blew up

00:19:42.920 and the Alberta Independence Party was kind of revitalized

00:19:45.860 and it came and went and blew up.

00:19:47.400 And then they changed it to the Independence Party of Alberta,

00:19:49.800 which has quickly become forgotten.

00:19:51.840 Now we've got the Wildrose Independence Party

00:19:53.300 ripping itself to shreds.

00:19:55.980 There's nothing tougher to try to do

00:19:59.840 than get a bunch of independence-minded individualists

00:20:02.180 to walk together in the same room in a party environment.

00:20:06.820 And, you know, my feelings on that,

00:20:09.240 even though I'm saying it now

00:20:11.060 because I've got the benefit of hindsight having learned.

00:20:13.660 If you're looking for independence,

00:20:14.660 if you want a party to go, you can't have it.

00:20:17.880 You can't have an overtly independence mandated party.

00:20:23.320 It won't work.

00:20:24.060 It doesn't mean you don't pursue independence,

00:20:25.580 but if that's right in the party's name,

00:20:26.880 if that's right in the party's mandate,

00:20:28.060 if that's where it's going to go, it's not going to work.

00:20:31.080 You're going to narrow your base too much.

00:20:33.500 You're going to be basically inclined

00:20:35.060 to splitting right off the bat.

00:20:36.380 And I'm talking splitting with yourself.

00:20:38.100 And it just leads to failure.

00:20:40.540 it hasn't worked yet. I mean, if you look at the Quebecois, I mean, at least in the past,

00:20:45.140 their independence movement was a hell of a lot stronger than ours. I don't think it is anymore.

00:20:49.060 But their parties, you know, again, it was Bloc Quebecois, it was not Separation Party of Quebecois.

00:20:54.100 It's, you know, the Parti Quebecois, not the Quebecois Independence Party. And they didn't

00:21:00.420 wear it on their sleeve, even though they certainly were pursuing independence. They didn't embrace

00:21:05.360 that as their whole being as a party. So, uh, anybody hoping for an independence party coming

00:21:11.640 up? I've heard some rumors of some people might be running for the independence party of Alberta

00:21:15.480 that they were, cause they got all upset. It was the Alberta independence party. And then they

00:21:19.060 changed their name to the independence party of Alberta. And, uh, nobody noticed or really cared.

00:21:23.680 And, uh, I got a bunch of crappy emails for not paying attention to it, but you know, guys,

00:21:26.840 you got to send press releases. We, we, we are not going to go out of our way to dig into every

00:21:30.500 little thing you're doing with all 12 of you. And there, Sarah's saying it sounds like Arthur

00:21:36.060 Pawlowski might be running to lead the Independence Party of Alberta. So, you know, Mr. Pawlowski can,

00:21:42.160 if he takes the leadership of it, he's certainly got some degree of base of supporters and he can

00:21:46.480 go out there and push things, but come on, he's not going to have that much impact on the election

00:21:51.260 in general. But I mean, again, it's a democracy. He can certainly do what he will. But if we're

00:21:56.960 looking for theocratic leadership. That's not really where Alberta these days is. Doug Shaver

00:22:02.940 thinking, so you think Todd Lowen has no chance of winning? The polls are taken from the general

00:22:07.260 public, not the UCP membership. Okay, Doug. Yeah, the last poll, and I don't think anybody said he

00:22:13.600 has no chance of winning, not here anyways. There's still people got their nose out of joint

00:22:18.040 and they've been having a temper tantrum because we only had three people at the Frontrunners

00:22:24.240 forum the other week, which went very, very well. It's still online. You can watch that with

00:22:28.660 a debate with Daniel Smith and Brian Jean and Travis Taves up there. But the polls we based

00:22:37.560 it on were based on people who identified as UCP voters, which isn't the same as members. I

00:22:41.300 understand that. But I mean, we're talking numbers that were, it gives you an idea. Okay. So the top

00:22:48.000 three were eating up 85% of what people were looking at in there. And then the remaining

00:22:53.700 four candidates were split all amongst that remaining 15%. It is exceedingly unlikely

00:23:00.300 that he was going to win. And we had to pick three. That's just the way it had to go. We had

00:23:05.060 to pick and that's where it stood and it stood out. It wasn't a matter of thinking over one point

00:23:09.420 or five points here or there. And it's not, we're very supportive of Todd here. I know I've known

00:23:14.980 him a long time and I think very highly of him. And I look forward to seeing him doing more in

00:23:19.160 politics and doing a good job. But guys, get over it. You're not wanting any more friends still

00:23:23.060 just going on about how that happened in the leadership race. There was a reason we picked

00:23:27.060 it that way. It doesn't make everybody happy, but we've seen from the party-managed leadership

00:23:32.120 debates, when you have seven candidates up there, it's difficult to try and keep it

00:23:38.180 interesting, to say the least. And we had to pick three, and that's where it landed. It wasn't meant

00:23:44.940 as a snub to Todd or anything like that, even if some didn't go along. Wendy Robinson said,

00:23:52.200 it didn't go well. You had two of the worst candidates. Well, whatever. Okay. I mean,

00:23:55.300 you wanted Raj and Sonny. We didn't have time to get her on the stage, Wendy, but, uh, for most

00:24:00.320 reviews anyways, from, uh, the people who viewed that, and you can, again, you can see it on our

00:24:04.200 YouTube channel. You can see it on Facebook. Uh, the debate was very, very well received. And for

00:24:08.200 the hundreds of people who were there in person, they also, uh, again, very much, uh, enjoyed the

00:24:13.380 debate and had, uh, found it to be pretty productive and helping them make their mind up

00:24:16.780 there. The membership, you know, that race is changing now. The phase of membership sales 0.79

00:24:22.680 has ended. The cutoff's done. So now it's just a matter of these candidates, I guess, trying to

00:24:29.740 convert other members, you know, from the sales that were sold by other candidates to pull them

00:24:36.820 all to themselves. And they are often, I believe with this party, be the same as the others. Now

00:24:40.780 they all get access to the shared membership list. So if you guys are members, get ready for a real

00:24:45.340 barrage. I'm sure you've already been getting it, but you're going to get a heck of a lot more

00:24:49.600 contact and communications from the party volunteers with every campaign. And it's a

00:24:57.980 tougher role. That's when it starts to get, we still got to worry a little bit more because

00:25:03.840 it's really tough to convert somebody's other supporter. Like if this candidate B has sold

00:25:09.340 memberships, now you've got access to the people they sold memberships to, and you've got to try

00:25:13.320 and coax them to come your way, your odds of conversion are really low unless that other

00:25:16.980 candidate implodes. So some of the more desperate candidates, as it seems like they probably aren't

00:25:22.200 going to win it, are going to get a bit desperate and they might start lobbing some pretty nasty

00:25:28.840 bombs. And that's what I worry about. That's what I worry about the party really ripping itself

00:25:32.320 apart with as the ones who are on the outside try their hardest to change the others. So

00:25:39.880 we still got a month and change going on with this race, you know, and then the federal one's

00:25:43.800 coming to a close quite soon. Uh, just for everybody's happiness, I know they'll be

00:25:47.220 thrilled. I'll say it now. I'm going to have Jean Charest on the show tomorrow. Uh, everybody loves

00:25:51.020 to hear from him, but all the same, uh, you know, speaking of people who are in the top two or three

00:25:56.760 in contention for a race, well, Charest is at least in that top three. And, uh, we'll have one

00:26:00.640 more conversation before their race comes to an end. Um, let's see what else we got going on.

00:26:07.640 Yeah, a good column.

00:26:09.740 I like pushing some of our own stuff too.

00:26:11.520 So Shane Wenzel did submit a column.

00:26:13.880 He's been putting one out about once a month now.

00:26:16.140 And I like it.

00:26:17.100 He took on urban sprawl.

00:26:18.960 That's that term they love using,

00:26:20.320 that derogatory term for what is basically

00:26:23.760 just natural growth within cities.

00:26:25.620 We see it in every municipality.

00:26:26.960 There is, and he calls them, you know,

00:26:29.880 I believe he was calling them urban sprawl extremists

00:26:32.500 within that column.

00:26:33.280 And it's true. 0.56

00:26:34.400 There's this fascination with demonizing outward growth in a city.

00:26:41.300 And they think that if we could just build these high-density, big towering city centers and cores,

00:26:46.880 everybody would be happy, we'll save energy, cost of living come down.

00:26:49.660 Aside from the fact that it's completely untrue on every possible aspect, they're really hung up on it.

00:26:55.000 Usually the environmentalists in the hard left and say,

00:26:56.840 I live in my apartment downtown, and I ride my bicycle to the coffee shop and back every day.

00:27:01.520 The rest of the world should be able to, too.

00:27:02.940 but it doesn't work that way. And Shane also debunks the myth that downtown Calgary is somehow

00:27:10.440 subsidizing the people living in those suburbs. It's just not true at all. Those new developments

00:27:15.320 have to pay their own way. They pay their own taxes and all of that stuff there gets paid.

00:27:20.560 There's no subsidy going on for the ones out there. So a column well worth reading.

00:27:26.760 Looks like, you know, they chat about the weather. We're just looking at things. It has been a good

00:27:31.620 august so far and uh it's pretty roasting and things are getting pretty dry i think they put

00:27:37.260 the fire bands on in my area finally uh because the yeah the grass is browning up and the trees

00:27:42.720 are getting brown i'm not lighting the the alarms you know setting the alarms off about oh this is

00:27:47.960 going to be the end of the world and climate change and blah blah blah we're having a heat

00:27:51.480 wave it happens we're having a bit of a drought but still do have to be a bit careful with some

00:27:56.860 of these things watch it out there guys we don't need any forest fires unfortunately due to bad

00:28:01.280 forestry management, there is a lot of deadwood and tinderboxes out there. So in this next week,

00:28:07.640 well, let's hope there's no fires get lit. And if they do, they're going to have a hell of a time

00:28:11.400 getting them out. But let's preemptively remind everybody, it's not climate change causing it.

00:28:17.260 It's a heat wave. It's always happened. You know, the hysteria, the alarmism, it's been coming out

00:28:23.900 on the news with so many of these stories. I mean, that picture has just been fantastic showing,

00:28:30.280 Yeah, weather broadcasters from only six years ago, and weather forecasts for weather just like today, and it shows the map with levels of green and blue and so on.

00:28:39.360 Now it's searing red and deeper, deeper red, and the world is on fire in its usual crap.

00:28:44.820 Everybody be scared, scared, scared.

00:28:46.340 It's a heat wave.

00:28:47.880 When it rains really hard, it's a hard rainstorm.

00:28:50.380 No, it's a weather event.

00:28:51.500 It's a climate event.

00:28:53.280 Ugh, guys, I'm getting exhausted

00:28:56.500 with this constant instilling of fear

00:29:00.980 from the part of the mainstream media,

00:29:03.260 the legacy media.

00:29:05.060 And just to look at something else,

00:29:08.020 Kevin Peterson saying,

00:29:08.900 please put on Drew.

00:29:10.820 Okay, I do have Drew on today.

00:29:12.560 I'm sorry, I'm kind of rambling.

00:29:13.540 I'm supposed to have Jay Hill first.

00:29:14.700 I'm afraid Jay isn't here

00:29:16.120 for some reason at this point.

00:29:17.600 So that's why I'm going to talk about

00:29:18.420 news items and things like that.

00:29:19.620 And even weather, I'm sorry.

00:29:21.420 But Drew will be coming on a little later on the show too.

00:29:24.900 Sarah Linkquist saying,

00:29:25.760 I hope you start a Instagram account to continue to rant.

00:29:29.380 I do have an Instagram account.

00:29:30.520 I just don't use it very much.

00:29:31.420 I'm not really good at it.

00:29:32.040 You know, I typically use Twitter

00:29:33.940 for a hell of a lot of the stuff I do.

00:29:35.400 A lot of my ramblings on there.

00:29:36.980 I don't know what I'll do afterwards.

00:29:38.760 You know, I'm looking at a lot of things.

00:29:40.440 I'm still gonna be writing columns for the Standard.

00:29:42.160 I'll still show up in the pipeline.

00:29:43.500 I might do a podcast down the road.

00:29:45.020 I don't know.

00:29:45.480 I'm gonna take a breather and see what I wanna do.

00:29:48.760 Take it easy for a little bit after this.

00:29:50.700 And, you know, it kind of ties back to when I was talking about how things are getting so hysteric and such a, Brad Hagen saying, yeah, as well, the negative news is exhausting. That's part of what wore me out here as well. I mean, this is what I do in here every day. And in preparation for this, what I have to do is I'm constantly reading news.

00:30:14.300 I watch the evening news at night. I finish the night off by seeing what's happening out there

00:30:19.300 on TV, in the papers, the works. And it's almost like I've overdosed on the news content. It

00:30:26.960 exhausts me. There's so much of it. And it's so negative. It's so fear-mongering. And it really

00:30:32.960 has tired me out. Cliff's saying a midlife crisis. Oh, I don't know. You know, as I mentioned the

00:30:38.740 other day, my grandmother just turned 103. So I'm not, if we follow the family trend, I'm not even

00:30:43.380 halfway through yet, guys. So you've got a ways before you manage to get rid of me here. So

00:30:48.600 Shelly's saying, who's taking my place? Well, we've got some great staff coming in. You know,

00:30:54.480 we're going to be taking care of the opinion editing and so on. And Melanie's going to continue

00:30:58.760 with her shows. And there's going to be other specials and things like that. Linda Slobodian

00:31:03.280 doing her things. A lot of our reporters are going to be doing digital content. As for a live

00:31:07.820 ongoing show, I'm not too, too sure what might come out of things. But I mean, things are far

00:31:11.900 from gone. I'm not done, and the Western Standard's not done. We're just changing, I guess, some of the

00:31:16.100 aspects, and I'm stepping away from some of the full-time stuff. So, yeah, I've got to take a

00:31:22.560 breather, though, if only for my own sanity. I know, it's a tenuous thing at the best of times

00:31:26.760 anyways, and, you know, you wouldn't want to see me go totally over the edge, honest, I promise.

00:31:32.440 It wouldn't be worth it for anybody here. So, yeah, Jay's in studio. We're just getting set up

00:31:37.300 with them and we'll start to chat on some federal issues in a moment and uh we're ready to roll okay

00:31:45.160 well hello mr hell how's it going well until i heard that you're leaving and departing it was

00:31:52.060 going very well yeah well you know sorry to hear that things change and you know it's been going

00:31:57.520 great it's been a good ride and we've established a lot this show has come a long long ways from

00:32:02.140 where it was when we first started this thing going uh well the first attempts at live were a

00:32:06.260 year and some ago and they were horrific. And then we got going. Don't be too hard on yourself.

00:32:11.220 Oh, as long as I know we're on an upward trajectory and we got to this point and it's

00:32:15.320 just kind of at a point where we need another change though. Yeah. Well, I know I heard a

00:32:20.300 little bit of your explanation on Friday and I could relate to it. I was born and raised on a

00:32:27.220 farm and I never did get used to a nine to five job. And I mean, that's fine for the millions

00:32:32.660 of Canadians that are only too happy to have a job nine to five and get up and go to the same

00:32:39.520 place day after day, but it's never been for me. And obviously you struggle with that a little bit

00:32:46.000 as well, Corey. A little bit. Yeah. I just, well, and I commute from Predis every day. I mean,

00:32:50.520 it's not a huge drive, but it's a sizable one and it makes for a long one. And yeah, just,

00:32:55.040 you know, it was oil field. I was traveling. I own my own business and hectic. I like the hectic.

00:32:59.180 And then this stability almost has started kind of grating on me a bit.

00:33:03.320 I know I'm the weird one, but, you know.

00:33:05.200 No, I don't think so.

00:33:06.120 I think, you know, that every entrepreneur is like that.

00:33:09.600 They like to be their own boss.

00:33:11.680 Yes, there's the uncertainty.

00:33:14.720 There's the lack of security.

00:33:16.960 It comes with, hopefully, with a nine-to-five job.

00:33:19.740 There's some security to that, at least.

00:33:22.720 And so I don't think that you're an oddball by any stretch, but it is a minority. 0.99

00:33:28.400 I think the majority of people are only too happy to get into their career track and stay there.

00:33:34.960 Yeah, and good on them.

00:33:36.020 It's important.

00:33:36.980 It is, and it's just different things.

00:33:38.500 So either way, I've been finding I just hadn't been quite enjoying things as much.

00:33:41.580 And hey, if you're not enjoying it, what's the point?

00:33:43.420 Exactly.

00:33:44.020 Life is short, as they say.

00:33:45.320 Yeah, so on and again, I'm still a political addict and news watcher.

00:33:49.220 As others, you know, as I said, I kind of overdose on it a bit with this show,

00:33:51.920 but it's the point of show.

00:33:53.420 So I'm always glad to bring you in.

00:33:55.600 I'm glad you get in this final part of the show this week.

00:33:59.040 And federally, you know, that's your area of skill.

00:34:01.460 You were in parliament for, I believe it was 17 years.

00:34:03.600 That's right.

00:34:04.100 And you got the Maverick party going.

00:34:06.260 I was talking a bit about that earlier.

00:34:08.840 What are we looking at in the federal scene?

00:34:10.660 Like we've got a leadership race going on right now.

00:34:13.740 It's looking very likely like Mr. Poliev is going to win it.

00:34:17.720 But could he win the federal election?

00:34:19.520 Will the party split if he does win it?

00:34:21.320 I mean, there's a lot of questions going on.

00:34:22.820 We're kind of in a period of flux.

00:34:25.040 Well, my sense, and I'd actually like to pick up on what you were just talking about before I came on your set, because it does tie in with both, I believe, Danielle Smith in Alberta and Pierre Polyev federally.

00:34:39.940 And that is that there seems to be, and you touched on it, there seems to be this new culture in our society that in order to be noticed, you have to be abrasive.

00:34:53.940 I'll put it that way.

00:34:55.140 And I think part of it, I was just discussing this with a good friend of mine, Dave Rutherford, last night.

00:34:59.880 And I think part of that is a byproduct, if you will, of social media.

00:35:04.660 You know, it used to be back when we were young, or certainly when I was young, that these national protests were virtually all peaceable.

00:35:13.960 There wasn't riots, there wasn't looting, there wasn't people harmed, you know.

00:35:20.520 But now anymore, it seems like that's where it starts off on social media.

00:35:25.560 But then at some point to be noticed for society, the citizens to pay attention to it, they have to escalate it.

00:35:36.240 And unfortunately, I see at least that creeping into politics where it seems like the people that are, you know, right on the edge as far as aggressiveness are the ones that get noticed.

00:35:49.840 Yeah, well, and we're so, I mean, we see it at the left and right.

00:35:52.280 We see a lot of pundits talk about we're polarized.

00:35:54.060 We really are in a way that we haven't been so much before.

00:35:57.820 I mean, such factions, I'm over here, you're over there.

00:36:00.780 I don't like you because you're over there.

00:36:02.520 Well, you're an arsehole because you're over here. 0.92

00:36:04.500 I mean, there's always been a bit of that.

00:36:05.720 That's nothing new.

00:36:06.400 But this just seems so cut and dry now.

00:36:09.860 There isn't much of a mushy middle and not much room for people to move to one side or another.

00:36:14.560 They're too busy firing at each other.

00:36:16.260 And I've noticed it escalating, quite honestly, in the latter part of my career.

00:36:21.480 You know, I left Parliament in 2010, just before Stephen Harper won his majority government.

00:36:27.720 And I noticed it then, being involved in the House of Commons in the question period, that it was getting extremely antagonistic.

00:36:36.180 It was getting in-your-face politics.

00:36:38.440 There was a lack of respect, not only for people from another party and their point of view, completely dismissing it.

00:36:47.200 But even within the individual parties themselves, and certainly there was a growing disrespect for Parliament, for the institution itself, and there's a multitude of reasons for that, I believe, Corey, but it seems to me that since then, so in the next decade, say, from the time I left, 2010 to what are we at, 2022, so a dozen years now, it's only gotten worse and worse and worse.

00:37:13.900 And some of that, I think, is attributable to the rise of Donald Trump south of the border.

00:37:19.720 You know, he was right in your face politics.

00:37:23.100 He either agreed with me or you're the enemy.

00:37:25.960 And there was no room left for what I would call respectful debate.

00:37:31.440 Yeah, I mean, it really brought it up in that.

00:37:33.500 Again, as you said, he was one who could really grab the attention and it worked and it got him in as the president.

00:37:38.900 But I mean, for those who opposed them, they became so mortified.

00:37:41.900 fortified. And then the tone in pushing back, I mean, it snowballed. Yeah. It became, you know,

00:37:47.680 just, it seems like an ongoing madness. And I look back to example for the truckers convoy,

00:37:52.220 for example. I mean, never, never we've seen a sitting government when there's some sort of

00:37:56.800 large protest, just immediately dismiss it, call them extreme, call them racists, call them

00:38:01.640 every name in the book without any basis. I mean, this is, you know, again, you can disagree with

00:38:06.440 that protest. Absolutely. There was no racial component to that thing. There was no, you know,

00:38:11.740 seditionists among them. I mean, some clown wrote something on a Facebook post or whatever,

00:38:16.240 but that's the way the tone immediately goes. Yeah. And the media fed that and each side just

00:38:21.660 kind of, well, if you push me, I'm going to push back. And we're all losing, I think.

00:38:25.740 Well, as all too often happens, some controversial issues, and let's face it,

00:38:29.860 it was controversial. The whole intent for the convoy was to push back against government policy.

00:38:36.340 They were opposed to the continuation of the mandates. They thought they'd outlived their

00:38:40.640 usefulness, especially when it was applied to truckers, that let's face it, you know, I noticed

00:38:46.340 on Friday was International Truckers Day, and you made reference to it, and good on you for doing

00:38:51.860 that. But let's face it, a trucker spends probably 99% of his or her time alone. Like, what is the

00:39:00.020 risk there of being a carrier of something like COVID? You know, so, you know, you really, when

00:39:06.520 you look at this, the situation, you have to ask, what was the government trying to prove

00:39:11.340 by, you know, imposing this new mandate on the truckers? And so, you know, people rose up and

00:39:17.900 they said, this makes no sense. And, and, and as you say, they were vilified by our very own

00:39:23.620 prime minister, instead of him saying, you know what, I disagree with these people, but they have

00:39:28.160 a right to disagree with their government. They have a constitutional right. So they're coming

00:39:33.940 to Ottawa. I'm happy to meet with them. I'll give them 15 minutes of my valuable time when I'm not

00:39:39.200 surfing. And I'll listen to their concerns. Well, and you show some respect. You get out. I mean,

00:39:45.100 I understand you don't have to agree with them. You don't have to capitulate, but you still have

00:39:48.880 respect. I mean, even the worst of polls showed that perhaps 20% of Canadians supported that.

00:39:53.280 Well, if you've got that many, that's millions and millions of Canadians that you are dismissing

00:39:58.400 in the worst of terms. At least, you know, if you'd gone, you'd met with them or a couple of

00:40:03.700 leaders. I understand you're not going to walk amongst them. Yeah, fair enough. But then you

00:40:07.820 can turn around and say, yeah, they're crazy. But I tried sitting down with them. And we can't

00:40:11.780 reason any longer. Now we have to move. But when you dismiss them right from the first moment.

00:40:15.760 Well, even before they got there. And you said, as you said, I mean, call them the most vile names.

00:40:20.780 I mean, one of the leaders that's since been honored, I was pleased to be at a Calgary chapter

00:40:26.620 of the Justice Center honoring Tamara Leash the other night, I believe it was Thursday evening.

00:40:32.740 And, I mean, her and her colleagues that organized that convoy were called misogynists.

00:40:41.680 I mean, here's a female mother, grandmother, and a Métis, of Métis heritage, you know, and so they were calling them racist.

00:40:52.380 I mean, think about this.

00:40:53.960 It's absolutely ludicrous.

00:40:56.060 And yet that's our prime minister doing that, and he gets away with it.

00:41:00.220 That's what really annoys people, especially people like you and I that have an option of speaking out.

00:41:06.760 Well, yeah, it frustrates people, though, and it can drive people on the other side to other extremes.

00:41:11.760 And I mean, we've seen very vitriolic protests going after the prime minister at times or Jagmeet Singh, you know, pebbles are thrown.

00:41:19.840 I know people say it's minor, but no, when you're throwing things at an elected official, that's major, right?

00:41:23.320 Even if it's just pebbles, but that frustration keeps building.

00:41:27.840 And then it drives people to feel that they're out of options and they take more extreme or at least more threatening poses sometimes.

00:41:36.120 And it doesn't lead to a good democratic end.

00:41:38.300 And, well, where does it end up?

00:41:40.140 It ends up with something like what happened to a Salman Rushdie the other day.

00:41:45.560 Nobody advocates for that type of solution to an expression of your disagreement.

00:41:51.600 and it gets full circle back

00:41:53.840 and that's why I wanted to talk about this

00:41:55.640 and obviously you did as well

00:41:56.960 because you mentioned it in advance

00:41:58.940 is this new sense of aggressiveness

00:42:02.860 on the part of political debate and rhetoric

00:42:06.640 and like you say, it's always been there

00:42:09.940 I mean, I participated in that

00:42:11.560 but there was an underlying respect before

00:42:14.440 that people were allowed to hold a differing opinion

00:42:18.720 and I don't see that anymore from either side

00:42:20.980 You've got the extremes on the right and on the left, Corey, and those extremes are driving the debate, and they have absolutely no willingness to even listen to what the other side's point of view is.

00:42:34.240 Well, that's it. And I see we got a federal election might happen sometime, any moment now, or perhaps in three years. I mean, minority governance, that's our nature.

00:42:41.440 But if either Liberals or Conservative win a majority, I can't see the losing side accepting it.

00:42:48.100 I see mass protests coming.

00:42:50.260 I see, you know, similar to what we saw in the States.

00:42:52.760 And it just, I don't want to sound too dejected.

00:42:56.380 I'm hoping this goes circle and we come out of this mess somehow.

00:42:59.660 But I don't know, maybe we can't do that without systematic change.

00:43:03.040 Well, of course, that's what I was advocating, continue to advocate for Western Canada.

00:43:07.320 you know, when I founded the Maverick Party, along with another small group of supporters,

00:43:13.300 I've since done like you are about to do. And I stepped back in mid-May and turned the party over

00:43:19.040 to its new leader and the group around him. So I too, I guess you run a certain course with a

00:43:26.800 certain initiative, just as you have with Triggered. And then you need to reevaluate, you know, how

00:43:31.960 much you're gaining, how much you're progressing. And so I took that step back. But I still

00:43:36.860 fundamentally believe, I say I'm a slow learner, I've admitted to that. I admitted that, you know,

00:43:43.680 my 17 years in Ottawa, if it didn't teach me anything else, it taught me that the parliamentary

00:43:50.240 system and the system of government and indeed Canada's constitution is rigged against Western 0.91

00:43:56.080 Canada. So I'm a big advocate, as I know you are, in systematic change. Can that ever happen?

00:44:03.580 That's up to the scholars to debate.

00:44:06.160 It certainly hasn't happened in the last 150 years.

00:44:09.160 So I guess we'll have to see what Canada looks like going forward.

00:44:14.100 But certainly I've been advocating very strongly, and that's why I put together the Maverick Party,

00:44:19.220 is to try to give Westerners their own voice, similar to what the Bloc Quebec law does in Quebec.

00:44:25.500 Well, that's it. And getting a voice, getting respect.

00:44:27.120 I mean, I think what makes people feel they have to get a little extreme, too, is if they feel they're out of options.

00:44:32.120 They feel there's no other means to express themselves or any way they do express themselves, they get belittled or dismissed.

00:44:38.100 And the media play a large part in this, too.

00:44:40.240 Absolutely.

00:44:40.980 And, you know, where I see other stuff like bureaucratic leaders, and this is, I was seeing it just when you were coming in, this ongoing fear and fear and stress and pressure.

00:44:49.440 I saw one that Dave mentioned, I believe, on the news check-in with Tam now saying, well, you know, we should be paying people who quarantine with monkeypox.

00:44:59.240 Now, why are we quarantining people with monkeypox?

00:45:04.500 We've pretty much established this doesn't transmit like COVID, you know, by breathing on a person or whatever.

00:45:09.120 It takes some closer contact and other things.

00:45:12.340 Where has this gone to where we immediately react to everything then by quarantining and having the government fill it in?

00:45:17.060 But why is monkeypox?

00:45:18.500 I think it said on that we got 38 people in hospital across the whole country or historically on this.

00:45:23.900 And we're calling it an emergency.

00:45:24.960 but the government's banging the emergency drum, the civil servants are, and the media,

00:45:29.100 of course, just follows along. Everybody's scared and stressed.

00:45:32.020 Yeah, exactly. And it's most unfortunate. And, you know, I think the big difficulty,

00:45:39.180 certainly for myself, and I think for any thinking Canadian, is reflecting back over

00:45:45.060 the last nearly three years now, coming up this winter, of COVID, is, did we do the right things?

00:45:52.300 you know certainly government and health officials were reacting as best they could I don't think

00:45:58.240 you know there was nefarious intent in any of the actions that were taken but with the ability of

00:46:05.000 hindsight 2020 hindsight to look back and say okay almost three years later we still don't know I

00:46:11.160 still you know I'm quadruple vaxxed I don't know whether that was the right decision and you know

00:46:16.560 I just noticed today that the CEO and president of Pfizer was just diagnosed with COVID.

00:46:24.780 He's quadruple vaxxed.

00:46:26.520 So obviously, he came in contact and he caught it and he tested positive.

00:46:30.020 And he's probably got the, you know, the equivalent of a serious flu, because that's

00:46:34.740 what I understand the symptoms are most of the time, unless you really are immune deficient.

00:46:40.760 So three years later, Corey, we still don't know where this is.

00:46:45.220 And, you know, so is it wrong that Canadians question this and that there's a debate even amongst families, even amongst couples?

00:46:53.600 No, of course not, because nobody has all the answers.

00:46:57.060 Well, and a lot of the pressure that's been coming on is just belittling people who have questions like the infringement on individual rights.

00:47:05.920 I mean, this is where I know I was well, I haven't gotten boosters or anything, but I got the first two vaccinations fine.

00:47:14.340 But my problem was the coercion.

00:47:16.060 That's my problem.

00:47:16.740 Let people choose.

00:47:17.620 If somebody chooses not to leave them.

00:47:19.280 And respect their right to choose.

00:47:20.980 Yeah, and I think I read a column recently where the Toronto Star had a headline from somebody saying, you know, I don't care if they catch it and die then if they choose not to get immunized, they're fools.

00:47:32.140 Whoa, these are, again, we're talking about millions of people who, whether you agree with them or not, deserve some respect and personally autonomy of body.

00:47:40.240 Yeah. Well, as soon as someone makes a statement like that, it elicits the exact same statement from the extreme on the other side that says, well, you know, if people choose to take the vaccine and they die from it, well, that's their choice.

00:47:55.180 You know, and so as we've been discussing, that ends up in sort of a them versus us.

00:48:02.040 You know, that type of a debate instead of a respectful debate, which, by the way, the Maverick Party, there was some confusion about it throughout the three years, almost three years now.

00:48:14.960 Our position all along was respect for choice.

00:48:19.340 OK. And it always struck me odd that some of the most virulent people opposed to that position are the people that are pro-choice when it comes to the abortion issue.

00:48:30.700 Yeah. So how can how can you pick and choose which ones you uphold your right to choose and then say for those when it comes to the vaccination?

00:48:41.600 Well, no, no. You have to go with the way I believe, whether it's opposed to the vaccine or in favor of it.

00:48:48.000 Well, and supporting the coercion again, too, right?

00:48:50.200 You were never forced.

00:48:51.500 Okay, come on, guys.

00:48:52.360 That's what gets me.

00:48:53.360 If you took a woman and said, okay, we're not going to force you to do anything,

00:48:58.060 but if you choose to get an abortion, we will fire you from your job.

00:49:00.880 We'll stop you from traveling.

00:49:02.060 We'll stop you from visiting family members.

00:49:04.320 We won't let you into certain businesses.

00:49:07.240 You can't get on an airplane.

00:49:08.540 That would be in court so fast.

00:49:10.760 It wouldn't even be conceivable.

00:49:12.920 I mean, the coercion would be well beyond the pale of even acceptable.

00:49:16.280 But when it came to something as personal as medication, apparently that was acceptable.

00:49:21.640 And the people who chose not to, for whatever their reasons were, were not respected.

00:49:26.260 Well, you have to, again, you have to go back to the beginning and look at the arguments

00:49:30.060 why the government supposedly brought this very forceful process into place,

00:49:37.800 where they were effectively going to force people.

00:49:40.880 They can call it whatever they want.

00:49:42.240 And it was supposedly to protect the most vulnerable in society.

00:49:46.760 Well, that's very admirable.

00:49:48.020 I think it's something that all of us would agree with.

00:49:49.840 We don't want to see grandma and grandpa put unnecessarily at risk.

00:49:54.180 But did it accomplish that?

00:49:55.760 I've never seen the evidence of that.

00:49:57.720 Or could there have been a better way than shutting down society, costing the Canadian economy billions and billions upon dollars?

00:50:06.580 Was there a better way to protect the vulnerable?

00:50:09.180 That's the question.

00:50:10.560 Let's hope we manage to learn something from this.

00:50:13.000 And that's the biggest sort of kind of ran out of time fast.

00:50:15.160 It always does when you come in and I appreciate it.

00:50:18.380 You know, I'm glad you could come in in this final week of the show.

00:50:20.560 I'm kind of running through a lot of our regulars.

00:50:22.400 I'll be talking to Drew as well and many others as we wrap things up here.

00:50:27.820 So, well, I've enjoyed every appearance on your show, Corey.

00:50:31.080 I enjoy the debate.

00:50:32.940 It's always respectful, even when we differ.

00:50:34.980 And you bring so much experience to the table.

00:50:37.560 I do appreciate that, you know, having been in there.

00:50:39.680 So we'll be talking again and I'll be doing other stuff.

00:50:42.420 We'll be doing shows, I'm sure.

00:50:43.740 Sounds good.

00:50:44.460 Well, good luck with whatever you undertake in the future.

00:50:47.760 I'm sure you'll do a bang-up job as you have of Triggered.

00:50:50.780 Thanks.

00:50:51.360 All right.

00:50:52.100 So that was, guys, Jay Hill for, I don't know, it must be Jay's fourth or fifth time on the show, I'm sure of it.

00:50:58.880 And that's the part I'm going to miss with this show, though.

00:51:01.560 A lot of these excuses to sit down with folks like Jay and others, though I'm sure I'm going to see them in other spots.

00:51:07.020 and we'll keep solving all the problems of the world one step at a time, damn it.

00:51:11.520 So, yes, and just a reminder to keep an eye out there, Jay,

00:51:15.260 as, you know, vocal on social media and other areas and things such as that.

00:51:20.900 Now we'll get on to another guest.

00:51:23.000 We're coming back to back today,

00:51:24.960 and this is one who's still masochistic enough to be in elected office.

00:51:29.240 Jay at least ran for it, and that's Drew Barnes.

00:51:31.940 He's been on a number of times too, and it's always a good conversation there too.

00:51:35.080 So thanks for joining me today, Drew.

00:51:37.020 Corey, good afternoon. Thanks for talking to me. It'll be enjoyable.

00:51:41.800 Yeah. So, I mean, I kind of got a good political theme show. Well, it's not that unusual for me

00:51:46.840 here. But, you know, Jay and I spoke a bit on the federal issues and the federal front. And of

00:51:51.420 course, with yourself, you're on the provincial front and you're uniquely placed, you know,

00:51:55.560 in that independent status. And while it can be frustrating in some ways, you fully have,

00:52:00.580 you can speak for your constituents and speak openly. And we've got a really volatile

00:52:04.600 out provincial scene going on right now? Oh, did we ever. And Corey, I'm grateful to represent

00:52:09.900 Cypress Medicine Hat for 10 years, the full extent of that masochism you were talking about.

00:52:15.740 And I bet you 30 or 40% of my constituents now stop me and thank me and ask me to strongly

00:52:22.160 consider running as an independent again. And I'm certainly weighing all the options and looking at

00:52:27.660 that. Yeah, I've had the great opportunity to speak up and highlight some important things.

00:52:33.240 Yeah, and I'm looking forward for the opportunity to continue to do that.

00:52:38.440 You know, Corey, as we look at the UCP leadership race right now, many of my constituents are telling me, you know, that they're disappointed that it's underachieved so far.

00:52:49.080 They're looking for more taxes or more talk about lower taxes, more talk about smaller government that spends less.

00:52:56.400 I mean, how often did Jason Kenney promise, you know, a referendum on putting property rights in the Constitution?

00:53:04.140 I mean, large parts of Alberta are rural.

00:53:06.660 And, you know, Corey, maybe the thing I've heard the most about the last little while is rural Alberta feels more disadvantaged than ever.

00:53:13.700 I'm hearing time and time again about Alberta Works not being there to provide adequate, timely support.

00:53:21.240 You know, as land titles, 11 weeks to get something transferred.

00:53:25.020 and, you know, the vast majority of these emergency room closures, temporary and more

00:53:31.400 permanent, have been in rural Alberta. It's a time for change. Yeah, and then, you know,

00:53:39.440 some of the tone and things like that, and we're seeing some unprecedented stuff. It's kind of what

00:53:43.480 I was talking a bit with Jay about, too, with the federal race, and then this provincial race. I

00:53:47.540 mean, you can kind of speak from watching from the outside, and, you know, you've been involved

00:53:50.640 in politics for quite some time as well. When have we ever seen a sitting leader, even though

00:53:56.440 outgoing, whether it's an interim leader or a finishing up leader, directly weighed into a

00:54:00.960 leadership race that's active like we had with Jason Kenney just the other day?

00:54:04.540 Yeah, that's appalling. That's so short-sighted. I mean, I stood on the steps the day after

00:54:10.320 he lost his leadership review and decided to resign, calling for his immediate resignation.

00:54:17.520 I was so surprised that cabinet and caucus let him continue as the interim leader.

00:54:23.620 That was the opportunity for whoever the interim leader, you know, chosen could have been to start to rebuild unity, to start to reach out to Albertans, to start to repair, you know, all these areas where Jason Kenney hasn't met expectations.

00:54:39.300 And then now for him to come out on the weekend and question, you know, one of the contenders' ideas.

00:54:46.960 First of all, to me, it shows, you know, how timid he's been in office.

00:54:51.200 What is he so scared of? You know, try something.

00:54:54.600 You know, Albertans every day are telling me that it's time to fight hard for a fair deal with Ottawa.

00:55:01.520 Secondly, you know, it's not the Crown representative's job to overturn, you know, or to decide on what is provincial jurisdiction and what is federal jurisdiction.

00:55:12.780 That's up to the courts.

00:55:14.480 And, Corey, if a Supreme Court made a political decision again, like the carbon tax against Alberta, it only grows independence and separation anxiety.

00:55:23.360 It only grows the strength of Albertans' willingness to fight for a fair deal.

00:55:27.960 So for Premier Kenney to try to interfere on a taxpayer-funded radio show, no, no, a proper interim leader should have been chosen. A proper interim leader would stay out of that and focus on Alberta families and communities instead.

00:55:45.680 Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned the, you know, the radio show that he was on, because, I mean,

00:55:50.420 okay, fine, you're going to do a weekly show at Speak Till Burton, so it's not a bad initiative.

00:55:53.840 You know, Ralph Klein did that a while back, and I think even Notley did a bit.

00:55:58.220 Opportunities for people to hear from the Premier, great. But if you're going to suddenly turn it

00:56:02.360 into something to start meddling within an inter-party leadership race, you're abusing that

00:56:07.700 seat, you know, with that show. I mean, that was supposed to be for the Premier speaking,

00:56:12.300 not a partisan shot. It's somebody running to replace you in the leadership race.

00:56:18.060 Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I'd say at this point, you know, he's obviously a lame duck. I mean,

00:56:23.600 until October 6th, we're less than two months away from that. Why are we doing this? I mean,

00:56:31.420 it, yeah, it's just time to focus on the future. It's time to focus on Alberta families and Alberta

00:56:37.580 communities. And again, Corey, I think at this point in time, the race is underachieved. It

00:56:43.400 hasn't, it's been uninspiring. It hasn't connected Albertans like it needs to in order for the UCP

00:56:49.760 to hold government against the NDP, you know, what, nine or 10 months from now. Albertans are

00:56:56.040 telling me every day, hey, let's talk about the type of culture we want. You know, instead of a

00:57:00.960 premier running around giving 2 million here, 5 million there, let's lower taxes. Let's get back 0.59

00:57:06.860 to our 10% flat tax. Let's raise the personal exemption so Alberta people have an opportunity

00:57:13.300 to have more choice and get further ahead. I mean, what a no-brainer to re-index tax

00:57:19.460 brackets versus inflation. You know, what is the real inflation rate? You know, reported

00:57:24.220 at eight points, but it's much higher than that. And our small business tax. Our small

00:57:30.340 businesses pay 2% tax on top of the 10% they already paid to Albertans. I mean, in most

00:57:36.020 parts of the province, small business is still really struggling. Let's give these people some

00:57:40.380 hope and opportunity to get back on their feet and provide all Albertans competition and choice

00:57:45.260 and better pricing. These things aren't being talked about. I want to see more discussion about

00:57:50.440 utility and insurance rates. We need way more competition in the insurance industry to bring

00:57:56.100 the rates down. That's clear with what's happened with condos and cars and that kind of thing in

00:58:01.280 the last couple of years. Clearly, with utility rates, it's sad, Corey, that you and me in

00:58:10.200 2011, 2012, and many other Wild Rosers clearly put it out there to Albertans that the PC

00:58:16.760 overbuild of the transmission lines was going to come home to haunt us, and now we have

00:58:21.680 seniors that can't afford their utility bills, mostly because of the cost of transmission

00:58:26.140 and and auxiliary charges um you know let's let's come up with a solution for those things

00:58:31.420 well absolutely you're in medicine hat you know speaking of an area that learned to make a benefit

00:58:37.300 of their local resources in that it was the the medicine had gas company that uh was formed and

00:58:42.340 supplied things out there it's kind of unique that way because those natural gas deposits around and

00:58:46.740 when we're talking about utilities and things that we're paying i mean we're an energy powerhouse but

00:58:51.580 if you look at your utility bill it's not the cost of the actual power generation or the

00:58:56.000 source of the power. It's a hundred other little things that they nickel and dime and tax you with

00:59:00.240 that beat you into the ground. And you can't hide from those things. Utilities are a necessity if

00:59:04.240 you don't want to freeze to death. Oh, absolutely. You know, we've got that so far wrong as so many

00:59:09.360 people have put out there. But let's look at the bigger picture for a second. You know, we've got

00:59:14.020 all the candidates for the UCP leadership, particularly the supposed leader talking about

00:59:18.940 net zero emissions. You know, what blows my mind, Corey, is I wasn't elected to help Justin Trudeau

00:59:24.960 and our oil and gas industry.

00:59:27.860 The reports I've seen on net zero emissions mean it could be a job loss

00:59:31.620 of as high as 150,000 to 200,000 for Albertans.

00:59:36.440 You know, we all know that we're a carbon and an agriculture-based economy

00:59:41.080 and thank God for the rest of Canada, we are.

00:59:43.640 We've been carrying the heavy water the last little while.

00:59:47.700 So let's just accept that how good of environmental producers we are.

00:59:54.740 now. And, you know, let's, you know, carbon capture and storage is another thing that in

01:00:00.400 the Wild Rose we used to fight against. And the continuation of that will make electricity rates

01:00:05.740 three times more expensive than they need to be. Corey, I can't afford three times more in my

01:00:10.820 electricity bills and Albertans can't. And why would we? Why wouldn't we try to make things

01:00:16.840 as competitive and as affordable for Albertans as possible? Yeah. And then, you know, we get

01:00:22.400 on to other things as well. As you're saying, it really comes to, you know, rural Canadians in

01:00:27.400 general, I think, aren't properly respected by our government at all. I mean, that's a lot of

01:00:30.680 the split that's been going on. And why aren't we hearing more from our provincial government? I

01:00:34.680 mean, it's not shocking to see Trudeau do something as idiotic as to go after agricultural

01:00:39.480 producers with fertilizer bans, potentially. But you would think our provincial government should

01:00:46.020 be very, you know, vociferously standing up for our rural producers to say, hey, this is not in

01:00:51.700 this is not an option. It's not in the cards. Back off right now. Let's get some commitments

01:00:56.660 from you guys not to be cracking down on our egg producers, but we're not hearing anything about

01:01:00.240 that. We're not hearing anything about it. And it's very, very surprising. I guess the Sovereignty

01:01:06.560 Act, you know, if it comes to pass, may give the opportunity to challenge that. But, you know,

01:01:13.340 clearly, you know, let's start to use a notwithstanding clause. Let's start to build the

01:01:18.980 Alberta agenda items so we can gain leverage with Ottawa. Clearly collecting our own taxes

01:01:28.340 like Quebec does would go a long, long way to show Ottawa and Alberta citizens that we are

01:01:34.860 strong and independent. We can stand on our own. It's one of the reasons, Corey, when I had my

01:01:40.560 dissenting opinion 18 months ago on the fair deal panel, my solution was, hey, let's give Ottawa

01:01:46.520 three years notice. Ottawa, you've got three years to give Alberta a fair deal. Three years

01:01:52.540 from now, we're going to hold an independence referendum and we'll let Albertans evaluate

01:01:57.260 how well you've done with this. It is past time for Ottawa to accept that Alberta is

01:02:08.640 a leader, that Alberta families need every opportunity for maximum individual opportunity

01:02:13.680 and choice and uh i don't know we're just not i'm just not seeing it in the race right now

01:02:18.180 yeah well and i mean uh so something i'm sure you've heard from a number of people lately and

01:02:23.120 then you know it's getting speculative but we asked about that during the debate we held in

01:02:26.720 calgary last week as well was in the in the case of you and uh todd as well i mean would uh any of

01:02:32.600 the leaders welcome you back in a caucus most of them said and i think that's fair enough that

01:02:35.880 if you know put it through a caucus vote and caucus wants to back then by all means but then

01:02:40.060 And the other question is, would you want to come back in the process necessarily?

01:02:44.740 And I can only guess right now your answer might be along the lines of it depends or perhaps you've made up your mind on where you want to go with things.

01:02:53.120 How are things looking for you there, Drew?

01:02:55.020 Yeah, well, thank you, Corey.

01:02:56.580 I'm weighing all my options, talking to my constituents and my family.

01:02:59.980 I'm actually talking to my old UCP board here in the near future.

01:03:05.420 but I'm a little disappointed with that too with with the candidates for running for UCP leadership

01:03:13.080 I would like to see that you know instead of saying Drew you know if you support me I'll

01:03:17.400 work for you to get you back in I think what they need to do is clearly call for me and Todd to be

01:03:22.840 back in the UCP caucus I mean it was the the constituents of Cypress Medicine Hat that voted

01:03:28.080 me in as a UCP. It's clear now that I was ejected for just speaking up on their behalf,

01:03:36.120 for speaking my mind. Others spoke up louder than me after and weren't kicked out. So what I would

01:03:42.500 like to see the leadership contestants do is call now for Drew and Todd to be put back in the UCP

01:03:49.040 caucus. Again, the constituents are the ones that every four years have that right. Let's open the

01:03:55.900 nominations all 87 again uh we've seen you know as Jason Kenney had his thumbs on the scale of

01:04:02.380 everything you know when when the local constituents had the opportunity to hold their

01:04:07.760 MLAs accountable and then they weren't allowed to with with different people being you know not

01:04:13.960 allowed to run and different contests being canceled I mean you know that is this just

01:04:18.980 going to drive voter turnout lower it just it just shows you know it puts more it puts lack

01:04:24.580 of trust in the system because local people can't hold their MLAs accountable. So let's start

01:04:29.460 fresh. Here's where we are. Let's call for me to be back in the UCP caucus and let's open the

01:04:35.740 nominations and let's see who comes forward. That's a fair point. I mean, that's going back

01:04:40.840 to our principles in the past of Wildrose Party. I mean, the constituency level was sacrosanct and

01:04:46.180 we still had meddling coming from the leadership. They just can't seem to resist themselves when it

01:04:51.120 comes to that, but the principles there, leave it to the constituents to determine that. And then

01:04:55.340 that person can speak as an individual on their behalf in the legislature. I think we can return

01:04:59.540 to that, you know, or I shouldn't say we, I'm not a party Amber anymore, but that's part of, I think

01:05:03.700 what's going on with the UCP. I mean, when you get a merger, you know, UCP, it was, it was the

01:05:08.760 Wildrose, it was the PCs. There's still some ideological clashes going on behind closed doors,

01:05:13.380 even if unofficially, and it's making it difficult for that party to function respectfully and,

01:05:17.700 effectively. Yeah, exactly. We need more and more Albertans to be involved. I've been asking

01:05:26.560 them to give us 15 minutes a month, five minutes for your country, five minutes for your province,

01:05:31.000 and five minutes for your municipality. I've advocated that the UCP and any provincial party

01:05:40.080 should just draw as many nominations as they can handle at one time out of the hat, make it as

01:05:45.360 random as possible. So all 87 constituencies have to have strong memberships and stay involved and

01:05:52.400 be ready to go. It allows less, you know, interference from the party. But you know,

01:05:58.520 Corey, what's also interesting is from around the province, I've had at least 15 constituencies

01:06:04.520 approach me and say, hey, why don't we look at running, you know, 10, 15, 20 independents around

01:06:09.780 the province and try to be a loose group of independents that believes in, you know,

01:06:15.480 conservative values, but believes first and foremost in standing up for our constituencies

01:06:20.440 and our local needs. And, you know, there's a real appetite for that right now from Albertans.

01:06:27.700 So I'm looking forward to the next month or two to discuss this and see what happens.

01:06:33.220 Well, right on. We're certainly at a turning point in Alberta in this next few months. And

01:06:37.380 well, this year, I mean, we've got another general election coming. So I appreciate you

01:06:42.200 being a voice for the old common sense and principle out there and Cypress Medicine Hat.

01:06:47.780 And I look forward to seeing, well, where you go with things as they go. So thanks again for coming

01:06:51.920 on to talk to us today, Drew. It's always a good conversation. I'm sure we'll be talking again

01:06:56.640 soon. Just won't be on this show. Thank you, Corey. All the best wishes to you. Take care.

01:07:00.840 Great. Thanks. So that is independent member for Cypress Medicine Hat, Drew Barnes. And I mean,

01:07:05.420 you know, Drew's been consistent. That's one thing to be given. I mean, he's not bouncing

01:07:08.460 around like a ping pong ball, like so many of our politicians out there. He's always stuck to those

01:07:12.940 original principles he was elected on, whether you agree or disagree with them,

01:07:16.980 it has to be respected. And it's always good to, I can take advantage of his independent status to

01:07:22.060 be able to speak to somebody who's in the legislature on something like a race like this

01:07:26.800 when he doesn't have a horse that's in it. So you can get a more, you know, straightforward

01:07:30.880 forward, uh, interpretation on what's going on and what's happening. So that was good to have

01:07:35.840 drew on. It always is. And it'll be interesting to see where things go in the future. Okay. So

01:07:40.000 I'm running a little behind. I got to get onto one of our sponsors here. And that is resistance

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01:08:50.120 us with another one of our sponsors as well. So check them out, resistancecoffee.com and use

01:08:54.340 slash triggered to get that first 10% off. And I'm going to speak also of the Canadian Shooting 0.76

01:08:58.740 Sports Association. These guys, I've talked about them every show because they're a fantastic

01:09:02.900 sponsor and they are a fantastic group. If you own firearms, you're thinking of owning firearms,

01:09:07.000 or you disrespect other people's rights to own firearms, you should be a member of this group.

01:09:12.460 They offer resources like any other association, whether it's networking with other firearm owners

01:09:17.560 or upcoming events, shooting events, trade shows, things like that.

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01:09:26.000 Videos on safe firearm use, sports, things like that.

01:09:28.740 But most important of all, with Tony Bernardo and the CSSA,

01:09:31.720 they're pushing back on your behalf.

01:09:33.540 They are standing up for your rights because you've got a government

01:09:35.700 that's trying to take away your right and ability to legally,

01:09:38.040 responsibly use firearms, and it is a big problem.

01:09:41.980 You don't get together and stand up for yourself, you will lose.

01:09:44.440 They'll get it.

01:09:44.960 they will get your possessions and they'll steal them from you. And I call it theft. I don't care

01:09:49.340 if the government calls it a buyback. If I'm not offering it for sale, it doesn't matter how much

01:09:52.680 you pay me. If you take it, it's theft. So get on there, guys. Join them. It's not that much and

01:09:56.980 it's well worth it. Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Just Google them or go to their

01:10:01.020 website, cssa-cila.org. Okay, let's see. Jet Corrigan saying, Western Sanctuary, please do a

01:10:09.840 daily show with guest hosts so our group can stay in touch. You know, and again, yeah, the standard

01:10:13.860 far from done with this aspect yet. We're not sure what's going to happen exactly, but the

01:10:18.780 digital is going to keep expanding. Nico's still here doing fantastic stuff. There's a lot of other

01:10:23.160 people in here. There's going to be more productions, how it all settles down in the

01:10:26.520 end. I'm not sure, but triggered. Yes, it's going to be wrapped up by the end of this week, but

01:10:31.880 let's see. If one of the old guards, this is from Edwin Newman. If one of the old guards,

01:10:40.300 including Danielle crosses the floor, Smith gets to be leader. Many with integrity UCP members will

01:10:45.160 stay home, vote day, Todd Lowen walks the talk. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's Daniel Smith's biggest

01:10:50.200 handicap. And I've said that a number of times. And it's a, it's a very valid question. You know,

01:10:53.780 I've, I've watched, uh, there's an activist fellow out there on Facebook who's practically

01:10:57.060 obsessed. I mean, he's just going crazy. Nothing but negative, negative, negative, negative,

01:11:01.260 constantly attacking Daniel Smith. And it's gotten to the point actually, uh, where it's,

01:11:06.320 just white noise, but there's some valid questions to be asked about Danielle.

01:11:14.200 By the way, Jordan, no, it's not the same Nico for one of the commenters there.

01:11:18.620 It's a valid question about her judgment. I've listened to Danielle apologize, whether it's

01:11:25.220 when she was on the radio or whether it was on this show when I've talked to her on interviews

01:11:29.240 or many, many times she's explained what her thinking was when the floor crossing happened

01:11:33.460 and why she did it. 0.99

01:11:35.080 And I do genuinely believe she knows

01:11:37.340 it was a bad decision and is contrite about it.

01:11:40.680 The question people have though is,

01:11:42.280 would she still potentially make another bad decision?

01:11:45.020 I don't think she'd make the same one,

01:11:46.760 but people question judgment.

01:11:50.540 And that's gonna be up for the UCP members

01:11:54.060 to try and figure out.

01:11:54.900 Cause I mean, she's very smart. 0.87

01:11:56.500 She's very ambitious.

01:11:57.400 She's definitely, you know, inspires a lot of people

01:12:00.900 and she's doing really well.

01:12:02.280 But there's that fear that she could still potentially implode on something else.

01:12:10.760 So we'll see.

01:12:11.960 It's up to the members.

01:12:12.860 But we are in for some interesting times.

01:12:15.540 All right.

01:12:17.000 Let's see here.

01:12:18.560 Some other stuff.

01:12:19.120 A little bit positive.

01:12:20.020 You know, this was a report.

01:12:20.720 I talked about this the other day.

01:12:21.660 We still need to completely reform our health care system.

01:12:25.560 That's a given.

01:12:26.180 I mean, it's broken.

01:12:27.880 It's running short across the whole country.

01:12:29.720 It's not working anywhere.

01:12:30.740 but there are innovative ideas this one's surprising and i'm thankful it's it's gone

01:12:36.700 though we could still certainly do better with a different system and allow more things

01:12:39.820 but uh this was a problem a program i guess launched this year a pilot program giving

01:12:45.600 virtual connections between albertans and doctors and i guess 8 000 patients have been assessed over

01:12:50.780 the phone or via video conferencing with ahs uh for uh with a speaking to a nurse anyways with the

01:12:57.380 nurse referring them to a doctor if it's needed. And I think these kinds of things, these innovations,

01:13:03.800 I mean, a lot of the battle, you know where the opposition to this is going to come? Unions. It's

01:13:07.360 always the unions. Because I mean, their whole thing is just about getting more and more union

01:13:11.380 employees. That's all. That's what they're about. Fair enough. But they don't support innovation,

01:13:15.060 no matter what they claim. It's just like teachers union saying, oh, we're going on strike,

01:13:18.980 but it's for the students. No, you're going to strike for yourself. You'll always only go on

01:13:21.940 strike for yourself. Likewise with this, because this might cost some jobs. Though I don't think

01:13:26.400 so because the health services, the system is overwhelmed enough as it is. But if we can start

01:13:30.960 to develop more things where people can check something out, you know, safely through virtual

01:13:37.500 conferencing, I guess we've got to worry a little bit about litigation too. That's part of what

01:13:40.540 frightens some people, you know, you get a misdiagnosis on the phone or somebody says,

01:13:44.320 don't worry about that lump, you're right. And then they know it explodes and kills them the

01:13:47.180 next day and they get sued. There's worries, but still for a lot of minor things, when people are

01:13:51.400 concerned, you could deal with that with a virtual call with a nurse or a health professional of

01:13:56.040 some sort on a screen or on a phone even.

01:14:00.040 And we should be looking into more of those options

01:14:01.620 rather than having somebody come into a hospital

01:14:03.300 or another clinic or an urgent care center

01:14:05.720 when they really didn't need that urgent care.

01:14:08.760 So either, I'm just saying,

01:14:10.020 sometimes there's some good stuff being done

01:14:11.580 and I hope it continues.

01:14:12.820 Because, you know, I go on about the crappy stuff

01:14:15.260 all the time and I'm going to go on about some

01:14:17.380 in a moment here.

01:14:19.660 Here we go with the government knew of short staffing.

01:14:22.320 Dave did mention that, I'm sure, on the check-in.

01:14:24.340 transport minister. And, you know, I like to talk about how stupid Trudeau's cabinet is

01:14:28.280 because they're stupid. And he's another of those brilliant examples, Omar Alcabra.

01:14:35.300 Man, he's just not a sharp knife. But again, Justin keeps himself surrounded by

01:14:39.100 dim folks. I feel he's probably insecure about having, you know, other folks around him who are

01:14:43.700 brighter. So he just keeps that bar low. The analogy I used in the past too is, you know,

01:14:50.240 the good-looking but insecure girl who would make sure to surround herself by people who might not

01:14:55.880 look as good as her before she goes to the bar so she could stand out among the crowd. 0.99

01:15:00.360 So either way, we found out that he knew last spring that the airports were short-staffed by

01:15:06.220 25%. So we're talking five months ago, they knew. They knew this problem was coming. So many of

01:15:12.840 these things we're finding out constantly. The government knew, but they didn't act. They're

01:15:18.320 sitting here acting, we didn't know that the airports were going to get all backed up. Yes,

01:15:21.220 you did, actually. You knew this months ago, but you're too incompetent and inept to fix it.

01:15:27.100 See that other stuff as well. I mean, you know, speaking of governments that knew,

01:15:31.860 that's a big bombshell that hit recently that came out in some court documents.

01:15:36.660 And we talked a little bit about that on Friday. I mean, the government cabinet knew that

01:15:42.240 potentially the city of Ottawa was negotiating a breakthrough with the protesters and the convoy

01:15:47.200 last winter. And they still said, screw it, we're going to impose the Emergencies Act anyway.

01:15:51.880 The Emergencies Act is martial law. Let's not sugarcoat that thing. It's setting aside your

01:15:56.980 individual rights. It's lifting your rights, suspending your rights. It is the nuclear option.

01:16:02.520 It is a last, last, last resort. So if you're going to impose that, that means there's no hope.

01:16:09.920 And that was absolutely clearly not the case. There was a chance. Maybe the negotiations would

01:16:14.140 have blown up. Who knows? But you have to try every other avenue before you suspend individual

01:16:18.520 rights. And Trudeau's government said, nah, screw you guys. We're going to impose it anyway. I think

01:16:22.900 part of it, they didn't want a resolution. They wanted this, just watch me moment. But Trudeau's

01:16:28.000 too stupid and weak, not like his father to turn that into a historical moment where he looked good. 0.79

01:16:32.540 He looked like an imbecile, who I think, you know, as we keep examining the imposition of

01:16:37.200 an emergencies act, realizing this government had absolutely no place in imposing it. So likewise,

01:16:41.680 with this transportation, like this is an incompetent, underperforming government on

01:16:45.740 every level. And we've got this transportation crisis. It is the government's fault. It

01:16:49.900 absolutely is. They knew it. They managed the airports. They're in charge of it. They screwed

01:16:53.600 it up. And likewise with the truckers convoy, we keep hearing these things. Here's an interesting

01:17:00.800 one. So the treasury board reporting federal employees. Okay. Naloxone kits will not be

01:17:05.960 distributed to federal buildings in case of drug overdoses, because federal employees shouldn't

01:17:10.520 be taking drugs in the office. Okay. You know, there's a federal policy I could probably agree

01:17:14.720 with. You should probably lay off the fentanyl and heroin while you're doing whatever the hell

01:17:18.420 you do as a civil servant. But what a bizarre thing. We've got Naloxone here in our office.

01:17:24.980 Not that anybody that I know of in the standard is taking any opioids right now, but we are

01:17:29.360 downtown where there are, unfortunately, overdoses happening all the time. So we want to have it

01:17:34.780 handy in case it just happens to have somebody goes down and we have the ability at us. But this

01:17:39.560 was a big deal for the government to say, well, we've said that you're not allowed to have drugs,

01:17:45.060 you know, and be on drugs while you're in the office. And then, of course, people are upset

01:17:48.340 that they're saying that they're not carrying naloxone. I don't know. There's bizarre stuff

01:17:52.080 going on there. Again, this is what I'm talking about. The system is bloated. The system is

01:17:56.160 broken. At every level of civil service, when you get government running anything, they run it wrong.

01:18:00.920 That's the only consistency they have is they suck. This is an issue that kind of comes. It's

01:18:07.340 complicated. This one's a little different. So, I mean, here's where municipalities can't block

01:18:12.140 federally approved projects. A judge just recently ruled. The decision came in the town of Milton

01:18:17.820 tried to block a railway that was federally approved and the town lost. This is really hard

01:18:26.420 because, I mean, I believe in decentralization of power. I want as much to be locally dropped

01:18:31.620 down as possible. Get the feds out of it. Get the province out of the municipal things. Let's just

01:18:35.780 back off. But then at the same time, when you've got projects that are large in a large scale,

01:18:42.000 if we're talking about things that cover multiple jurisdictions, whether it's an airport,

01:18:45.740 a rail line, a pipeline, then sometimes you might need government to step in on that individual

01:18:51.380 localized municipality or jurisdiction or area and say, no, that's going to happen.

01:18:57.680 I mean, federally with our constitution, that's one of the things I've said too,

01:19:00.000 as an independent supporter. One of the biggest things in the constitution is that the government

01:19:03.920 and it's supposed to be a little override and say,

01:19:05.280 look, when it's a federal matter,

01:19:07.820 such as an interprovincial pipeline,

01:19:10.100 provinces don't have a choice.

01:19:11.220 So Quebec, you can whine and stomp 1.00

01:19:13.640 and piss and moan all you like, 0.93

01:19:16.080 but that pipeline's going across your province.

01:19:17.960 BC, same thing.

01:19:20.560 You know, or if Alberta wanted to stop a rail line

01:19:22.520 that's coming across, fair enough.

01:19:24.120 No, because it, but now this government as well,

01:19:27.760 this is something that Derek Fromm,

01:19:29.440 a lawyer, likes talking about a lot.

01:19:30.780 He spoke at a function a while ago.

01:19:32.480 interprovincial trade as well. I mean, our constitution says you cannot infringe on

01:19:37.580 interprovincial trade, but the government does. And it was a case of beer going from New Brunswick

01:19:43.740 into Newfoundland, I think it was, or Quebec into New Brunswick. Either way, he was buying it cheap

01:19:48.000 on one side, bring it to the other. And he got arrested and charged for it. And the bottom line

01:19:51.720 is they said, yes, the constitution says that you should be allowed to bring that across all you

01:19:57.080 want as a Canadian citizen, but we're going to look the other way and basically screw you, 0.78

01:20:01.240 the Constitution doesn't matter.

01:20:03.440 If the Constitution doesn't matter, then why the hell does Canada matter?

01:20:06.240 Why are we a confederation? Why are we

01:20:07.940 holding together if we can't even have that federal

01:20:09.940 binding of us working

01:20:11.960 as a unit?

01:20:13.860 I'm starting on a side note, but I'm just saying

01:20:15.980 these issues of jurisdiction

01:20:17.800 get complicated and they get tough.

01:20:20.600 So, you know,

01:20:22.460 with the court telling

01:20:24.020 a municipality they have to allow the railway,

01:20:26.120 I sort of side with the court,

01:20:27.860 but I sort of

01:20:29.280 sigh, you know, feel for the municipality when you want to stand up for yourself as a local

01:20:32.800 jurisdiction. Some aspects of government will never be easy. But anyway, let's look at some

01:20:38.460 other things. Here's an interesting one. You probably saw this one in the news. After 10

01:20:42.780 months, long investigation by multiple Ontario police services resulted in more than 400 charges

01:20:47.300 laid, 22 individuals accused of smuggling guns and drugs over the U.S. border. Yes, police know this.

01:20:54.220 The police in general aren't the ones supporting the gun grab and the handgun bans and all that

01:20:58.060 crap. They know, they know where the guns are coming from. And in this case, they are coming

01:21:01.720 across the border. They're coming from the south. But you know, part of the other reason why the 0.82

01:21:06.500 government's terrified to do anything about this, this had 27 handguns that in this one bust,

01:21:12.560 by the way, that they found in this bust. But the other thing was, it was First Nations Reserve

01:21:22.500 where they were smuggling them across the river. And if you go back another little story, just say

01:21:26.400 from March in Cornwall.

01:21:28.080 So another six individuals were taken in

01:21:29.520 with a whole bunch of 185 charges laid

01:21:31.880 and a bunch of gun-related firearms,

01:21:34.980 illegal firearms that they had as well

01:21:36.300 with this bunch that they busted.

01:21:37.280 And guess what?

01:21:38.820 It was the Akwesasne Reserve

01:21:40.300 smuggling them across.

01:21:42.680 As I've talked about before,

01:21:44.320 the only thing that terrifies bureaucrats

01:21:46.640 and government even more

01:21:47.740 than standing up to unions

01:21:49.460 is doing anything to do with First Nations

01:21:51.440 and getting in on their ground.

01:21:53.060 and they, if it was anybody but First Nations

01:21:56.820 going back and forth with boats and drones

01:21:58.300 and everything and smuggling things

01:21:59.300 across that river out there,

01:22:01.240 the government would be all over it.

01:22:03.180 You notice neither of these busts happened

01:22:05.280 where the smuggling is going on.

01:22:06.960 They did these busts once the product

01:22:09.380 is deep into Ontario

01:22:10.280 because they are terrified of dealing

01:22:12.640 with anything on those reserves.

01:22:14.480 People remember the Aquasasne Reserve

01:22:15.740 has had some pretty volatile happenings on it.

01:22:18.780 The government just doesn't want to touch it.

01:22:21.440 But in the meantime,

01:22:23.060 they will happily stomp on the rights of law-abiding citizens all across the country

01:22:27.480 with a firearm freeze that will do nothing to reduce crime.

01:22:30.300 So they know where the crime is for real,

01:22:31.880 or at least they know where the guns are coming from for real,

01:22:33.760 but their own political cowardice keeps them from doing anything about it.

01:22:37.560 Instead, they'll come after us.

01:22:41.520 Here's an interesting one.

01:22:42.500 Trudeau and Chancellor Schultz of Germany are looking to sign some green energy agreement

01:22:47.400 to build up a hydrogen industry

01:22:51.480 in Newfoundland for exporting.

01:22:54.100 This is supposed to be a zero emission plant.

01:22:56.100 And it's going to use wind energy

01:22:57.100 to produce hydrogen and ammonia for export.

01:22:59.780 I thought ammonia was something

01:23:00.640 we're supposed to be cutting back on as well.

01:23:02.300 Wasn't that one of those things

01:23:03.060 that was causing emissions for,

01:23:04.160 you know, fertilizer and uses

01:23:06.120 in farm applications?

01:23:07.280 So why?

01:23:09.700 Speaking of consistency,

01:23:10.920 this government's not consistent

01:23:11.760 with their things.

01:23:12.760 Plus, if you're doing these things,

01:23:13.760 again, is this going to be tax funded or are you just letting a company set up? Hey, if it's

01:23:21.700 private dollars and they're getting going good on them, let them go. Excellent. But I don't trust

01:23:25.140 this. And again, there's this hydrogen market. If it's feasible, let it go. Just get out of the

01:23:29.980 damn way. But I don't believe it. I don't trust it. And there's a lot of potential hydrogen that

01:23:34.800 can be produced in Alberta too, but we'll never get a pipeline to be able to move it

01:23:37.960 or any means of however you could. Let's see, Canada, there's warnings that the CRTC power

01:23:45.320 is too broad under C11. And yeah, this is just more of the same old news we hear all the time.

01:23:51.540 But there's a coalition saying, you know, that this crackdown on information, this crackdown

01:23:56.360 on news, crackdown on shows like this is going to be problematic for us. Well, yeah, I don't know

01:24:03.600 what it takes, but it's going to get chumped through the government because we got Trudeau

01:24:07.280 and we got his little backdoor man there, Jagmeet Singh,

01:24:10.920 and they're going to push that through.

01:24:12.920 So we're going to have to reverse it

01:24:14.920 and do something about it.

01:24:16.840 Nikki Hurley says, Hudson Bay,

01:24:18.320 I think you're talking about then options for export

01:24:20.960 and getting our product out.

01:24:22.740 I am with you.

01:24:24.720 That's another one of the options that looks good.

01:24:26.640 But I tell you what,

01:24:27.320 it's impossible to get a large project done

01:24:29.140 in this country under the environment it's in.

01:24:33.540 Even Hudson Bay,

01:24:34.920 look, there's going to be some protesters.

01:24:36.140 You know it.

01:24:36.740 They're going to complain, and our federal government will not stand up for that project.

01:24:41.840 And if it crosses provincial lines, it goes into their turf, and they'll mess with it.

01:24:46.180 We need to change the government.

01:24:47.300 We need to change the system.

01:24:48.900 And that always goes back to my independence conclusions, but maybe some people still think we can fix this system from within.

01:24:55.500 And while we're in it, we still have to work with it to a degree and try and make things as good for ourselves as possible.

01:25:01.300 But who knows?

01:25:04.340 Weird story.

01:25:05.220 Again, showing inefficiency of government.

01:25:06.760 There was a car parked.

01:25:08.320 This was in Winnipeg for 10 years on a spot in a park.

01:25:12.180 10 years.

01:25:12.860 People couldn't get this thing.

01:25:16.000 I mean, people complained and moved.

01:25:17.440 And the city of Winnipeg, once it hit the news that this car, I guess it was turning into like a landmark in the area that's been sitting there rotting in the middle of a park.

01:25:25.220 Suddenly, Winnipeg moved it along.

01:25:27.960 Just weird, odd-sided items.

01:25:29.360 I like to report on how incompetent government is in general.

01:25:31.880 It takes them 10 years to move a car.

01:25:32.920 You park in the wrong, no parking zone somewhere else.

01:25:34.940 And it'll be towed away in 15 minutes.

01:25:36.660 But this one took 10 years.

01:25:39.840 There's another one.

01:25:40.540 The federal government quietly updated its rules at the border to allow fully vaccinated travelers entering through a one-time exemption from fines or quarantine requirements if they unknowingly fail to submit the required health documents through ArriveCAN.

01:25:51.680 Oh, come on, you clowns.

01:25:53.180 Just dump it.

01:25:54.300 This is quarantine bullshit.

01:25:55.980 It's bullshit.

01:25:57.100 I'm sick and tired of it.

01:25:59.300 Vaccinated park doesn't make a damn difference. 0.96

01:26:01.380 We know that.

01:26:02.040 That's proven it's not even up for debate anymore.

01:26:06.400 These bloody apps and this quarantine requirements are nothing but harassment and hounding of citizens, tourists, visitors, and it's hurting this country.

01:26:14.540 And this imbecilic, incompetent federal government insists on keeping these regulations pushing us down.

01:26:21.340 It's hurting us. It provides no health benefit to anybody.

01:26:25.200 It's just vindictiveness packed into policy and stubbornness from an imbecile of a prime minister who travels around the world.

01:26:32.500 I think he's still down in Costa Rica right now, hounding the commoners with this arrive can crap with backed up airports as it sits.

01:26:40.940 So they're celebrating. They've allowed one exemption, a one-time exemption for fully vaccinated travelers coming through a land border.

01:26:48.400 Oh, come off it. Get rid of this crap, you guys. Nobody else in the world's doing it. We don't need it anymore.

01:26:52.260 but they celebrate this and they quietly run it through because they're scared to even lighten up

01:26:56.600 a bit all right that's enough rant now to me so yes uh just a few other folks who are joining

01:27:01.900 late yes this is the final week of of triggered again i'm not vanishing i'm still gonna write

01:27:06.820 columns for the standard and i'll make appearances and do things and uh uh i'll be doing other social

01:27:12.840 media stuff and my twitter and everything else uh somebody i got a couple emails from people

01:27:16.580 asking by the way are you going for politics no no no that's not where i'm going i'm just

01:27:21.960 moving off from being full-time here, guys.

01:27:24.500 And we've got four more shows to go,

01:27:26.100 and they're going to be good ones, guys.

01:27:27.500 So tomorrow I've got Jean Charest and Mike Thomas.

01:27:31.140 He's one of our columnists who's on quite often.

01:27:33.320 Like I said, I'm going to run through a lot of our local personalities

01:27:36.280 and my regular guests in this final four days here, guys.

01:27:39.120 And there'll be lots of other stuff to discuss,

01:27:41.120 news and items and rants to do.

01:27:42.940 So thank you all for joining me today, guys,

01:27:45.180 and I will see you all again tomorrow at 11.30 a.m. show.

01:27:51.960 Thank you.

01:28:21.960 Thank you.

Western Standard - August 16, 2022

Triggered： Can the UCP maintain unity？

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