It's Asparagus day, and it's a day to celebrate! Today's guest is our Western Standard reporter and columnist Chris Oldcorn. We talk about his weekend in Idaho, and how he spent his long weekend.
00:08:15.040Pierre Polyev has written a letter to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
00:08:19.940calling for an end to the carbon tax on gasoline he says in his uh travels in the conservative
00:08:26.660leadership race uh everybody from uh from british columbia to newfoundland is uh complaining that
00:08:32.980the gas rates or the gas costs are too high and uh yeah he's quite right it cost me 73 dollars
00:08:39.060this weekend to fill up my little honda civic imagine that uh we got the latest on the monkey
00:08:45.140pox vaccine which is going around the world now. Belgium has introduced compulsory
00:08:52.900quarantines for sufferers of monkey pox. Apparently there was some big raves in
00:08:59.940Europe over the weekend and there's a lot of new cases developing from those. Our Oilers fan Lee
00:09:08.600Harding has got a story up on why Connor McDavid is the greatest ever and he's certainly playing
00:09:14.260like it against the flames. They were, I don't know if you watched the game from Idaho, but
00:09:18.400they were truly atrocious on Sunday. We've got a good story on CRA, the tax man. Apparently they've
00:09:26.480got so little to do. A lot of them have second jobs during the day at work. While they're
00:09:32.000busy auditing me, they're also busy doing other work. So nice work if you can get it, I guess.
00:09:38.140And the head of Via Rail has suddenly quit her $300,000 a year job because, well, she's not saying why, and the Liberals won't tell us why, but she had two years to go on a contract, so it must have been some sort of problem.
00:09:53.600So I've got more than a dozen stories up already this morning, Corey.
00:09:56.980Those are just some of the highlights, and there'll be more to come this afternoon.
00:10:00.760Our Mel Rizdin and Matthew Horwood are monitoring World Economic Forum events,
00:10:06.580and we'll have no doubt lots of stories out of there.
00:18:55.780No, with Saskatchewan, you're writing news and you're staying on bus.
00:18:58.860But, I mean, hey, everybody's got an opinion and a view, of course.
00:19:01.560As long as you're fair about saying when it's opinion and when it's news, then it's a good balance.
00:19:06.480So let's talk about last weekend's opinion column.
00:19:09.580It's one of the ones that tends to ruffle a lot of feathers.
00:19:11.820It's a sensitive issue, and that's on the transgender language battle, basically.
00:19:16.540Yes, there's a lot going on, obviously, with transgenderism in schools.
00:19:20.900as you can see, not just in Canada, but in the U.S., and DeSantis' bill in Florida,
00:19:27.120preventing sex from being talked about in kindergarten classes. I don't know how this
00:19:31.520is really a thing, since when I was in school, I think we didn't have sex ed until grade seven,
00:19:35.900and parents had to sign a permission form. Now you can give a kid life-altering hormone drugs
00:19:43.560and not have to tell the parents because it's the privacy of the kid. It makes no sense.
00:19:47.500um but what i talked about this past weekend is i call it the transgender mob
00:19:52.360uh and that is basically you know there's a group of individuals that are pushing an ideology
00:19:57.460that doesn't actually affect that many people i mean i actually have a psychology degree and when
00:20:02.280i and i graduated in 2008 back then transgenderism was called gender dysphoria it still is to today
00:20:10.080as a technical medical term but it was it was treated as as a mental illness back then um
00:20:16.260And just to give you an example, people with gender dysphoria have 10 times higher chance of committing suicide than someone in the regular population.
00:20:24.320And the way that people are dealing with this now is to transition the person from male to female or from female to male.
00:20:31.960And as we know, biology says, no, that's not exactly how it works.
00:20:37.620And because of that, you're now seeing a huge backlash against it.
00:20:41.200We've seen the thing with Disney, for example.
00:20:42.940and there was a professor that did a report and the reason she did this report on this sort of0.99
00:20:51.880rise and it's been since 2010 that there's been this massive rise in females wanting to transition
00:20:57.220to males well it turns out she called it rapid onset gender dysphoria turned out she studied
00:21:05.220you know what happens when one person in a school decides that they're transgender
00:21:10.040all of a sudden it catches on in the school. I know when I was in journalism school in the UK
00:21:16.480there was one grade school with kids up to the age of 12 where 20% of the students were medically
00:21:23.080transitioning in a single school. Now she called it a social contagion, basically means it's being
00:21:29.160passed not genetically. There's no way the human beings would have changed that much genetically
00:21:33.880that all of a sudden this rapid rise in transgenderism would happen.1.00
00:21:39.440It's just, there's no way for it to genetically happen that fast1.00
00:21:42.200without some sort of huge change in humans genetically.
00:21:45.680And we would notice that in some way, shape, or form.
00:21:49.160So she released her study and said it's based on entirely, it's a social thing.
00:21:55.540First, a kid will see something on TikTok, and then that kid will want to transition.
00:21:59.980And then the next thing you know, it's a peer group thing.
00:25:15.360Yeah. And but the difference now, it seems that the trans activist sentiment, I know a lot of, you know, one trans adult, she's very well adjusted and knows what she wants and knows what she did. But that's, she's not out there with the screaming activist element who's on the front line. And we're not indulging, we shouldn't be indulging the extreme fringe. Yet here we are.
00:25:34.620Unfortunately, I mean, the definition of democracy is mob rule, but right now it's not.
00:25:40.140And I don't mean mob in my kill-em sense of a mob, but I mean, that's the definition of democracy.
00:25:46.640The largest group gets to kind of decide the rules.
00:25:49.580And we're seeing a change in that, where a small minority group is making the rules for everybody else
00:25:55.060and then trying to do the same thing on to them.
00:28:42.620Well, no, I just want to have a discussion about this.
00:28:45.000I'm not saying that some people shouldn't transition.
00:28:49.600What I'm saying is there needs to be a conversation,
00:28:51.860particularly with minors, you know, like that as a parent,
00:28:56.360I want any decision medically about my daughter to be involved in that.
00:28:59.900So here's where it gets a little more dicey too, though.
00:29:02.240I mean, some kids might genuinely be, you know,0.95
00:29:04.200I mean, trans or so on moving towards it.
00:29:06.360When the gay-straight alliances were a big issue in Alberta for a while,
00:29:09.520But there was a valid point put out that, unfortunately, there are some intolerant or abusive parents out there.
00:29:15.340And if some parents might have found out that their child was gay, they could potentially abuse or be abusive or just not respond well to it.
00:29:24.920So the kid would only feel safe in the school environment to start coming into their being and realizing who they are and so on.
00:29:32.220It's just a complicated area, is all I'm saying.
00:29:34.140I mean, the parental involvement is critical, as you say, especially when there's medical involvement.
00:29:38.400and what we're talking about. And it's life alternating. Yes. Life alternating. Like we're not talking about like, you know, deciding to wear a different color t-shirt or something. We're talking about things that medically speaking, like once you do something, you can't go back.
00:29:54.820No, and that's part of, well, and that's where I debated a bit when I did a podcast interview with Tiffany, who I've spoken with, and she's trans, but she felt that the gender, you know, blocking is doesn't necessarily as permanent.
00:30:10.080I mean, part of the goal, though, is to get it as fast as you can so you can stop things from developing because it makes it for a more complete transition later.
00:30:20.400But again, that shows that it's irreversible.
00:30:21.940And we're talking, you know, with a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, are they really sure yet?
00:30:28.200Yeah, and I'm doing a story on Jazz Jennings.
00:30:31.700She was interviewed in 2007 by Barbara Walters, her and her family, and she decided to transition at a very young age, about five.
00:30:40.400And she's now in her 20s, and she had a reality show for seven or eight years about her living her trans life through school and stuff like that.
00:30:51.220And now she has had multiple surgeries to try and fix certain issues, including at one point,
00:30:58.220she was told not to look between her legs by both her doctor and her parents.
00:31:02.920She's gained 100 pounds, she's depressed, and she's come out publicly now talking about this
00:31:07.920and being like, you know, like, they took part of her colon to make a female body part.
00:31:14.080Originally, she was male, but she was raised as a female that whole time.
00:31:18.460and so there are some people who have a lot of issues with the surgeries and what happens and
00:31:25.020things that just don't work correctly the way they're supposed to it's just a lot to be discussed
00:31:30.520i mean there's a lot of misunderstanding it's like you know some of the commenting we got i i just you
00:31:34.940know in looking though while they're saying homosexual proclivities are a learned behavior
00:31:37.940oh that's a load of baloney buddy they don't choose it and uh you can't choose to i can't0.71
00:31:43.880choose not to be straight i'm sorry nothing i do no amount of movies or instruction or anything
00:31:48.160else is going to change that. And for a gay person, you're not going to make them suddenly
00:31:52.660crave the opposite. It doesn't work. I know there's some people who feel like that. What
00:31:58.440are they called? Conversion therapy camps. All you can really do is mess with somebody. If you've
00:32:03.680got somebody who really is gay and you try and push and you're just going to really make it much1.00
00:32:08.720worse. Well, the guy who ran the biggest conversion therapy camps in the U.S. ended up shutting it0.95
00:32:14.160down because he realized he wasn't helping anyone and he realized he was just fighting his own
00:32:19.600battles inside of him and then went back and said you know what i'm gay and i don't think in any
00:32:24.680amount of this therapy is going to work it hasn't worked in these camps i've done it hasn't worked
00:32:29.060for me it's just biologically the way i'm made up i mean if it gets me to say people who were gay
00:32:34.300in the 70s and 80s it wasn't illegal yet but i mean you got ostracized you went through grief
00:32:38.780you put up with crap with your family that still happens do you really think people chose that i'm
00:32:43.480sure I can't imagine it wasn't there. I was fortunate in the sense that I was always with
00:32:47.440the majority. I didn't have to question myself or where I was going. And but I mean, I'm
00:32:53.300sure a lot a lot when they were coming into it was just why can't I be straight? Why can't
00:32:56.580I? Because they can't because that's not who they are. And one of my friends, his dad threw
00:33:01.000a brick at him when he told him he was gay, like a literal brick. So thinking that that
00:33:06.400would make him straight. And I was like, No, that just hurt your kid. Like, it's just a
00:33:10.800tough area. That's the main goal. And with kids, but again, with somebody coming out or learning
00:33:16.160about themselves becoming gay, it's not the same as starting to get ready for surgery or transitional
00:33:21.480drugs. Okay. We've been on this for a bit though. Let's talk about some of your other stuff. You
00:33:25.020had a story. Well, let's talk about your next column though. Actually, you're already thinking
00:33:30.500a bit about that or looking ahead or? Yeah. Well, I have a story that came out today on,
00:33:34.560there is a repeat sexual offender with child pornography who, it was just released publicly,
00:33:43.820but earlier, like last month, he had his, when you commit certain crimes, in this case,
00:33:52.320child pornography, when you're getting sentenced, you go in front of a certain type of judge
00:33:57.000to see whether or not you should be put on the National Sex Offender Registry List.
00:34:03.820And there's two parts to the list that you can be put on.
00:54:37.940You know, we feel that Western Canada needs a similar type
00:54:42.000of really targeted and specific representation yeah and and your party uh it looks like it might
00:54:52.400have frozen there a little bit that oh did i lose you oh we got you back again okay
00:55:00.400so all right where did i lose you sir anyway i'm not sure you're talking about a specific
00:55:04.960type of representation staying uh uh west of of uh the ontario border i was just about to start
00:55:11.360saying him as well. So the initial interim leader there, Jay Hill, who stepped aside now,
00:55:16.800he was a reformer for 17 years, or at least reformed for the first part, and then the
00:55:20.800Conservatives later. But he saw what happened. I mean, he started with the Reform Party where
00:55:24.400they started in the West and then felt that temptation and had to reach out East and ended
00:55:28.820up watering down and kind of losing everything they had. So he's really applied, I think,
00:55:32.040that thinking to the Mavericks saying, no, we're not going to make that mistake again.
00:55:36.400100%. You know, history is instructive, isn't it? We've learned that, you know, through these different models that we've tried in the past, what doesn't work? And that is certainly one of them. Of course, our platform is and our membership is our backstop, our grassroots membership to make sure that nobody ever changes it, to make sure that we remain regional, that we remain strongly and committed to Western Canadian representation.
00:56:06.400Yeah, well, there's where I myself find myself almost bipolar politically in the sense that, you know, the Bloc Quebecois and their stunts in the House of Commons can infuriate me and drive me bananas.
00:56:15.380But at the same time, you got to admire them because, you know what? Hey, they're as open as they get.
00:56:19.620They're not apologetic. They're saying we're here for Quebec. We don't care about the rest of the world.
00:56:23.120If it's in our interest, we'll support it. If it's not, we won't. And that's the way it goes.
00:56:27.500And they carry a surprising amount of influence.
00:56:30.860Yeah. During the election, I would often say that I used to be angry with the bloc,
00:56:35.920and now I'm more jealous. And that's really where we got to get to, is we need the types
00:56:42.860of concessions that they've already achieved in order to make sure that the Western Canadian
00:56:48.940is not left out of confederation any longer. Yeah. And then, you know, talking about
00:56:55.100parliaments and how this works. We're not a two-party system in Canada. Minority systems,
00:57:00.900minority governments can be a little unstable, but they can provide opportunity too. The NDP,
00:57:06.540much to our horror, is extremely influential in the current federal government and will be for a
00:57:12.320little while. But then that can remind people, you know, it's not futile to pursue a party
00:57:17.420that won't win a majority. You can still exercise a great deal of influence in the right situation
00:57:23.140anyways. 100% right. Our ideal situation would be to form a government that would unite or not
00:57:33.440unite. That's the wrong word. People will misunderstand that one for sure. But we'll work
00:57:37.440with a conservative government that is based in the East, of course. That would be our goal.0.91
00:57:43.080And in that type of a situation, of course, we'll work together with a conservative government on
00:57:47.780so many different issues, of course. Things like a balanced budget, fiscal matters like that,
00:57:53.140And I believe things like the firearms registry,
00:57:55.820we would probably work together on things like that.
00:57:58.740But when it comes to Western Canadian issues,
00:58:12.020And I mean, your agenda will have to change.
00:58:13.940And in some senses, I mean, I've interviewed most of the leaders,
00:58:17.480candidates for leader of the federal conservatives right now as well.
00:58:20.460And they hate when they get cornered on things like supply management or equalization or things like that because they know they have to juggle Quebec's support in order to win with the party they're with.
00:58:30.840They can't take on those issues very openly, even if they feel a bit that way.
00:58:36.800If you don't win Quebec and Ontario because they're pursuing a majority, you have to have it.
00:58:41.360So we either have to accept that we'll have a federal party that would still put our interests second if they want to keep a majority or look at new alternatives.
00:58:48.820correct i i often say that uh you know any of the federal parties national federal parties are stuck
00:58:57.140you know they really have two different faces that they have to show they have one that they
00:59:01.500will show in the east and they'll have another that they show in the west and uh it puts them
00:59:07.360in a terrible spot i have to feel sorry for them sometimes perhaps but i never have to worry about
00:59:12.500that. I have one employer, and that's the Western Canadian. That's the only people that I have to
00:59:19.580answer to. And frankly, I don't care what anybody else thinks. Well, that's it. I mean, with say
00:59:26.340that recent vote, for example, where they've decided to protect the seat count in Parliament
00:59:31.560for Quebec, no matter what, no matter what the population is, they're going to have a minimum
00:59:34.640amount of seats. I mean, theoretically, Quebec could lose everybody except for 75 people. They'd
00:59:39.120still have 35 seats then. You know, it's ridiculous. And a lot of Conservatives either voted for it
00:59:45.380though, or abstained, which is just about as bad. As a leader with where you are, you'd never,
00:59:51.760what do you care if you're going to say, oh, right, that's stupid. It's unfair. And we're
00:59:54.960not going to support that bill. I mean, you don't have to worry about it.
00:59:58.000Well, democracy is supposed to be fair, I thought, but apparently not, you know,
01:00:03.200especially in the eyes of, you know, what was it, 10, 10 Conservative members of Parliament
01:00:08.320from the west that that voted for quebec to keep that uh you know one of them was from red deer for
01:00:14.480heaven's sakes uh candace bergen actually voted for it for heaven's sakes why why would they do
01:00:20.320this does not democracy matter anymore uh it it's well it's it's i was gonna say disturbing that's
01:00:28.960wrong it's a it's maddening well it it is and the only way to you know i i guess is to to avoid
01:00:35.760having to deal with that kind of, I wouldn't even call it compromise. I just found that one
01:00:38.880ridiculous. I would have thought that at least they would have dug their heels in on that,
01:00:42.720but obviously not. To avoid that though, as if you just, you don't have any incentive to
01:00:48.640bend your principles to pursue seats that you don't want in the first place.
01:15:16.860Yeah, I guess this was, as Dave said, the allegation came in the case of a $65,000 a year assessments officer.
01:15:23.800So, you know, some pencil pusher who assesses your taxes, you know, pokes into your personal life and see how much money we could take away from people.
01:15:33.420It turned out it was fired for attending school meetings during work hours.
01:15:37.040Hey, there's nothing wrong with bettering yourself and doing some extra things in school and taking courses, but you're being paid for doing some of that.
01:15:45.100You know, if I was sitting here in the Western Standard and taking courses while online or, you know, manning a support line for another business, I'm sure Derek would not be terribly amused.
01:15:57.300You know, he's paying me to do things related to the Western Standard.
01:16:00.020What I do after six o'clock is my business.
01:16:02.340These guys are so bored in CRA that they can take on side jobs and go to extra schooling.
01:16:07.940So full-time doesn't mean full-time, I guess, when it comes to them.
01:16:10.420so uh yeah that's a group that has 41 000 employees this is who we're paying for
01:16:16.720and uh there's a complaint so let's see 60 of the disciplinary reports uh employees were
01:16:23.260spending uh on average every day 10 minutes playing sudoku uh using uh sending chain letters
01:16:29.480gaming pools exchanging profanity some of that sounds a little petty i gotta be a little fair
01:16:34.140here you know you gotta lighten up a little bit in the workplace i guess you know somebody wants
01:16:38.020to send a stupid meme to a coworker and take a minute or, you know, get a gaming pool going.
01:16:43.480It's a balance, right? It's a balance. You find a little bit of stuff, you know, you don't have
01:16:47.980to have your nose to the grindstone except for every second, you know, when it comes to break
01:16:51.260time, but you don't want to abuse it either. Somebody showed an employee, one employee spending
01:16:57.160two hours, almost three hours a day browsing inappropriate internet content. We can only
01:17:01.660imagine what that might be. Let's see on the federal front. Here we go. And this will be
01:17:06.960interesting to find out what's going on. Cynthia Garneau of the Via Rail. She was getting, she was
01:17:12.620the CEO of that, you know, it's just a government tax funded, you know, subsidy pile out there.
01:17:17.860That's why you're seeing so much of it in the East and so on, a little in the West.
01:17:21.520She's paying $318,000 a year. Suddenly just quit, up and quit. That's it. You know, there's two1.00
01:17:26.200years left in the contract. And it hasn't really said why. The office won't release the text of
01:17:34.600a resignation letter. It's our money, but they won't tell us why. I mean, that railway lost
01:17:41.460$370 million last year. You know, so there's one aspect of why she should be leaving. In that case,
01:17:49.140she should be fired, not quitting. $300 and some thousand a year for that sort of outcome. But0.95
01:17:52.680it's because these people fixated on rail and it's really actually not a good form of
01:17:56.860transportation anymore. It's not for people. But yeah, the only one questioning, you know,
01:18:03.000again, Pierre Polyev is up there getting on him. Why are we subsidizing these guys?
01:18:09.080Because it's just not paying off and it's not performing. That won't change anytime soon.
01:18:14.640Ah, here was a beauty too. CTV, yes, reporting that Ottawa citizens were complaining about
01:18:19.640generator noise during the blackouts because, you know, they've had some terrible storms out
01:18:22.920there in central Canada. Power is out all over the place, actually. One of our columns, columnist
01:18:28.200David Creighton sent me why he said it was delayed because of, you know, you have an on and off email
01:18:31.660and so on. But, well, the snowflakes of Ottawa are woken by generators. I'm sorry, my mom's
01:18:38.940respirators, generators keeping you awake at night, you whining bugger. Is it really, is this the
01:18:45.340PTSD thing from the horn honking that actually did travel down? Is this what happened?
01:18:50.840Now, even in the middle of a disaster, you're going to whine about generators? That's how the
01:18:55.920lights come on, peckerhead. We're supposed to live with candles. Guess what? That's what you1.00
01:19:01.640get from a city that's dominated by civil servants. That's what you get from the entitlement class,
01:19:07.540the ones that the world owes them everything, probably blaming the Western Canada and oil
01:19:12.400production for causing the storm in the first place. And they're still whining that their
01:19:16.140lights are out, still whining that the heat's not off, still whining that they can't watch the view.
01:19:21.460But at the same time, ticked off because generators are loud. Yes, they're loud.
01:19:26.200Buy a solar panel for your house. See how well it works out for, oh, it's not feasible.
01:19:29.600Okay. That's making the news. What else we got, Trudeau? Yeah, they got on his case as he was going to a Kamloops memorial. And, well, what do you expect? You know, so I guess they were chanting and pounding drums as he watched. The guy's getting less and less and less popular. But we still can't see him bloody get rid of him. Nobody likes him. It's hard to find anybody anymore who says he likes him, except in Toronto and Montreal.
01:19:54.040all. Got to be able to get rid of that guy somehow. I'm not sure what it'll take. But I mean, he's not
01:19:59.800being greeted with a friendly eye anywhere he goes. So I mean, he's vulnerable. That party's
01:20:06.660vulnerable and change it. Not sure how. Maybe, you know, I'd be a strategist somewhere if that
01:20:11.780was the case. But he's just he's not. This isn't the Trudeau, the sunny ways of seven, eight years
01:20:17.580ago. This isn't being welcomed by rock star crowds and, you know, women throwing their panties at0.65
01:20:22.480and such, or whatever might have been happening back then. Now he's just more of an embarrassment
01:20:26.220who gets jeered at where he goes. So let's keep working with that. We can get rid of that clown.
01:20:31.520It won't fix everything. It won't fix the Canadian system, but man, we got to be able to do better
01:20:35.480than that. Speaking of which, yeah, Schweitzer, he's a cabinet minister in Alberta, and Doug
01:20:44.460Schweitzer, and he ran in the last leadership for the UCP, and he's come out because a lot of people
01:20:49.460we're asking and looking forward to him running for it, perhaps running for the leadership has
01:20:53.240come out quite clearly and decisively saying, no, he's not going to run for the leadership. And
01:20:59.060in fact, he's not even going to run for reelection in 2023. He's done, which is too bad. I mean,
01:21:05.780he was a little on the red Tory side, but I always found it to be quite principled,
01:21:09.480well-spoken, bright enough guy. It's hard to keep principled, well-spoken, bright people in
01:21:14.860politics. It really is. It seems the dumber they are, the longer they last. So yeah, I'm getting
01:21:19.660back to Trudeau again. But I mean, hey, it's his decision. You know, if he's gotten his taste of
01:21:24.340elected office for the last few years and decided that he didn't like it, well, move on. He's got
01:21:30.260a young family, you know, move into something else. It's unfortunate though. So, you know,
01:21:34.660there's still only two declared contenders for that leadership. There's doubtless going to be
01:21:38.060some more. That's still just all stewing and brewing. But Schweitzer is not going to be one of
01:21:43.580them. That was that one I spoke on with that pervert who assaulted a woman after being,
01:21:51.180you know, he's a child rapist. It's just awful. It's just awful. So let's see. It's about good
01:21:58.580enough for today, guys. I think we can wrap things up. Lots to talk about. As I said,
01:22:01.660tomorrow I'm going to talk a little more review on the World Economic Forum and some of the stuff
01:22:05.300that those guys have in mind and some of their plans. I'm going to put that into my
01:22:08.260monologue and we'll discuss a little bit of that. I'm also going to have Michelle Sterling from
01:22:14.200Friends of Science coming on to discuss those things as well as a guest and maybe another
01:22:19.140guest popping into the mix there as well. So thank you all for tuning in today, guys.
01:22:24.400Looking forward to the Battle of Alberta tonight. Try not to drink too much. The hangovers are hard
01:22:28.480to get up with the next morning, but enjoy yourselves. Thank you for tuning in. I'll see