Western Standard - Triggered： Conservative Party Leadership Debate Fireworks

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00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's May 6th, 2022. Welcome to this episode of Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:39.920 We got a lot of observances to get through today and cover. It's National Beverage Day.

00:00:45.880 Yes, in case you'd forgotten about that, I know you probably had it marked on your calendars,

00:00:50.020 but you might have missed it. Thankfully, it falls on a Friday. I think that not every beverage

00:00:55.720 necessarily needs to be alcoholic in nature, but I'm certain that's where most people would assume

00:00:59.520 and go with it. And it's also National Crepe Suzette Day. I know everybody already knew about

00:01:04.540 that and they've made plans for it. Yeah, I don't know where the central authority is that it comes

00:01:09.260 up with these days and what they're about, but I might as well announce some happy things, you know,

00:01:13.020 on these days as we get into them. So we all know what's going on and what you have to celebrate

00:01:17.540 and observe today. I mean, could you imagine a world where we didn't have a National Crepe Suzette

00:01:22.340 Day? On another side note, last night was taco night in my local bar and I took heavy advantage

00:01:28.900 of it. So if you do hear a sound, it sounds as if a producer is screaming, running out of the

00:01:33.820 studio. Well, sorry about that. We'll try and avoid that eventuality anyways. So let's see on

00:01:40.040 a more serious stuff today. We do have a couple of great guests coming on. I'm talking about,

00:01:44.140 you know, some, some broader issues, a community activist, Gar Gar. If you follow Alberta politics,

00:01:50.220 Calgary politics, he was with the Alberta party and he's, he's active on social media and he does

00:01:54.800 some great work on the ground out in Forest Lawn where he's at, working with youth and doing things

00:02:00.340 to just help keep them on the straight and narrow, you know, good causes and working on the ground

00:02:04.980 because we've got some very serious gang and crime problems going on in Calgary. And we go on a lot

00:02:10.300 here. I mean, it's happening in every city. We go on a lot about the addiction issues, the mental

00:02:14.240 health aspects, you know, policing, things like that. But we do have to get a little more on the

00:02:19.700 preventative, you know, well, a lot of these people getting involved in the gangs are involved

00:02:23.160 crime or youth, and how can we head that off? How can we stop it before it becomes a problem?

00:02:27.940 So I'm really looking forward to talking to Gar about that. And then from the Canadian Shooting

00:02:32.080 Sports Association, the head of them, Tony Bernardo, is going to come on a little later,

00:02:35.780 and we'll talk about our arm legislation, of course, and that's always an issue of popularity

00:02:40.960 around here with myself and a lot of our viewers. So I'm going to start off, though. Last night,

00:02:46.620 Dave and I were here for quite some time in the afternoon and in the evening. You can find it,

00:02:51.100 by the way, on our YouTube and Rumble channels. It's archived out there. I strongly recommend

00:02:56.280 Rumble if you're going to look at it. But we did broadcast the entire Conservative Party of Canada

00:03:00.780 leadership debate out of Ottawa last night, and it was a lively one. So I'm going to give my review

00:03:06.740 here, kind of. And that was, well, the first CPC leadership debate with the at least final party

00:03:13.520 approved list of candidates. It was held last night, and it was a lively one. I can't remember

00:03:18.020 seeing this kind of fireworks during an internal party campaign and debate before. And while it

00:03:23.880 was entertaining, I'm not totally sure if it was all a good thing. And there's little doubt that

00:03:29.160 the campaign's fast developing into a two-person race. It's between Jean Charest and Pierre Polyev.

00:03:34.040 The jabs and exchanges between those two dominated the debate while the remaining candidates are

00:03:38.420 actually struggling to be noticed. And the animosity between Charest and Polyev was evident

00:03:43.240 right off the bat when they declined to shake each other's hands at the start of the debate. And then

00:03:47.020 it only kind of went downhill from there. The debate was well moderated. Candidate statements

00:03:52.760 were kept relatively short, and when you get five candidates, things can become a drag if each has

00:03:57.380 too much time to speak. The downside, though, is that when they tried to allow open debate between

00:04:01.660 the candidates, it was almost always quickly taken over by Sheree and Polyev shooting at each other.

00:04:08.000 I'll break down my impressions of the other candidates before I share my full conclusions

00:04:12.260 here. So, Leslyn Lewis, she was very solid on policy, and she came off well. She did appear a 0.86

00:04:18.240 bit stiff and restrained, though. I mean, her statements always appeared and sounded almost,

00:04:22.180 you know, rehearsed and written, which I don't know what they were. And preparing for debate,

00:04:26.140 I mean, it's not a bad thing. But one wants to see how a candidate can act on their feet and

00:04:30.600 respond to those fluid changes in topic and circumstances. Now, again, I don't want to

00:04:35.760 discount Lewis. I mean, she did excellently in the last leadership race. She also took Polyev to task

00:04:40.960 over his waiting too long to support the trucker's convoy

00:04:43.720 or not necessarily supporting him strongly enough.

00:04:45.380 And she got on Polyev's case for his not being clear

00:04:48.380 on where he stands on abortion.

00:04:50.340 Lewis is one of the most outspoken of the candidates

00:04:52.620 when it comes to abortion,

00:04:53.580 and it's certainly going to garner her a solid segment of support

00:04:56.260 among the social conservatives set, you know,

00:04:58.340 beyond the debate of performances.

00:05:00.620 So she put in a solid performance at the debate,

00:05:04.100 but it still seemed a little inflexible, as I said.

00:05:08.080 And, you know, that could be excused.

00:05:10.160 a couple of years ago in the last leadership.

00:05:12.460 Now she's had some time in the House of Commons.

00:05:14.580 She's been out there a little more. 0.95

00:05:15.800 We kind of expected a little more loosening up,

00:05:18.020 but we'll see.

00:05:18.560 It's going to be a long race.

00:05:20.220 Scott Aitchison, then, he came from the outside.

00:05:23.060 A lot of us out west here haven't heard of him.

00:05:24.980 He worked to come as the candidate for unity nationally,

00:05:28.820 kind of, and unity within the party.

00:05:30.720 He did come across as a calm voice of reason

00:05:32.980 when the other candidates were at each other's throats.

00:05:35.540 And it was almost a refreshing break from the vitriol 1.00

00:05:37.460 when Aitchison would take the microphone.

00:05:40.160 He did take a shot at Lewis for what he said is almost promoting conspiracy theories with the World Health Organization.

00:05:47.660 And he did stand out when he defended keeping the CBC, which certainly wasn't popular in that room.

00:05:54.060 His appearance was solid, though.

00:05:55.220 I don't think it moved him anywhere, though, within the top two in support or anything.

00:05:59.500 He just came across as a controlled, solid member of Parliament, I guess you could say.

00:06:04.980 Not bad, not good.

00:06:05.780 uh roman uh babber now he he's a little known outside of ontario where he's a member of

00:06:11.420 provincial parliament he used to be within ford's government he got kicked out for uh speaking out

00:06:15.720 too strongly against uh provincial uh vaccine mandates and restrictions and things such as

00:06:20.440 that we've seen that in pretty much every provincial government somewhere he came across

00:06:24.800 actually very well he was calm thoughtful and unapologetically conservative i i don't think

00:06:30.840 And Babber is a likely contender in this race, but he's establishing himself well, and he's going to be positioning himself effectively for the leap to federal politics in the next general election.

00:06:41.240 I was actually quite impressed by Roman with how he was in there.

00:06:45.580 Patrick Brown, now, he was absent.

00:06:48.340 He didn't even show up.

00:06:49.700 The moderators, you could tell they were thrilled with it, I think, the organizers and such, because they did this odd move of giving all of the candidates, basically, they lined it up and said,

00:06:56.960 well, Mr. Brown isn't here right now, but you all get 30 seconds to speak what you think of him

00:07:02.720 or what you'd like to send to him, and basically called him out for his absence. And most of those

00:07:07.800 candidates, though, took that moment again to shoot further at each other and didn't say much

00:07:11.500 about Brown. I think they don't see Brown as a threat, and I can't blame them. I mean, Brown's

00:07:15.940 campaign's been an odd one, to say the least. He's pretty much an unknown outside of Ontario,

00:07:20.440 and he's avoiding all press conferences and debates. I mean, this campaign's going to be a

00:07:24.880 long one. And I can only guess there's some kind of strategy here, but he's going to have a long

00:07:29.420 way to catch up when he decides to start publicly taking part in this race. So I would say that the 0.98

00:07:35.640 debate was a success and that it did definitely attract national attention. And, you know,

00:07:41.860 leadership debates often don't do that. They can quite often slide under the radar.

00:07:45.660 They're often pretty darn boring, too. I mean, it was very engaging to watch.

00:07:49.680 uh it can we can't let ourselves forget though these candidates they have to win two races not

00:07:55.740 just one and winning the conservative leadership is certainly step one on becoming prime minister

00:08:01.240 eventually if they sour the rest of the public on themselves along the way they won't win the

00:08:06.380 general election it's a delicate balance for these guys to to have i mean conservatives in

00:08:11.540 canada have been plagued with internal division for years now in alberta the ucp might be right

00:08:16.380 on the brink of tearing Kenny out of his leadership, and federally, the last two conservative leaders

00:08:21.720 were tossed to the wayside by their own members. Those actions may have been necessary, but it

00:08:26.740 doesn't project a sense of stability or control to non-partisan Canadians, and most Canadians

00:08:31.600 aren't taking part in these parties, so they're watching this infighting from afar. Now, seeing

00:08:35.920 candidates rip each other to pieces in leadership races makes for great theater, but it could also

00:08:40.820 damage the party's reputation in the broader sense. Now, and again, I'm not saying I want to

00:08:44.760 see a bunch of pussycats up there, you know, saying nothing but canned statements and being 0.97

00:08:49.100 dull and not getting on each other's cases. I want to see Terudo eviscerated by a seasoned 1.00

00:08:54.600 conservative leader whenever we do have another federal debate in the future in a general election.

00:08:59.660 But we just got to find that balance. The party's going to have to hold itself together solidly in

00:09:03.720 order to contest that next election effectively. And that's not going to happen if they rip

00:09:07.700 themselves to tatters during this leadership race. This is just the first debate of many in the coming

00:09:12.280 months. The campaigns are going to evolve, and so will the tone of them. They just got to remember

00:09:15.940 to keep the eye on the prize, and that prize is taking the Liberal Party out of power. Otherwise,

00:09:20.040 they're just fighting for the role of being the leader of the opposition in this race, and we

00:09:24.840 don't want to see that. All right, well, that's kind of what I caught out of the race last night,

00:09:30.600 as I said, or the debate, I should say. And as I also said, you know, go to our Western Standard

00:09:35.520 Rumble channel. You can see the entire debate for yourself on there, if you like. It was, again,

00:09:39.380 very engaging. It was entertaining. I'm just not 100% sure if it was productive. But again,

00:09:44.820 it's just one of many. And hey, people will forget about it. I mean, if we get a whole series

00:09:48.920 and a whole summer of debates like this, it might have a difficult impact upon viewers again from

00:09:55.740 outside. And those are the ones who are going to have to vote when the general election comes.

00:09:59.900 So let's check in with the newsroom with Melanie Reston-Risden. Mel, how's it going?

00:10:06.180 I'm good. How are you? I agree with you on what you were saying about the debate. I agree that

00:10:16.720 it is, you know, if things continue that way, I don't think it's going to be great for viewers

00:10:23.340 to feel any kind of cohesion. So agreed. And I also agree on the National Beverage Day that we

00:10:31.960 need to celebrate that here at the Western Standard. So at some point, uh, hoping, hoping we

00:10:38.540 will. Yeah, I'm certain we will. I mean, uh, Derek's still away in Ottawa. So I suspect the, uh,

00:10:44.480 the newsroom bar fridge might fill up a little bit and empty again at some point tonight.

00:10:49.040 Uh, might. Yeah. Uh, we're working on some news right now. Uh, we've got a couple of stories out

00:10:54.740 this morning. Uh, Canada's environment minister, uh, Stephen Gillot, uh, is advising Canadian

00:11:00.640 oil companies to start diverting some of those massive profits that they've been seeing as of

00:11:06.920 late and put them towards investments in projects that will cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

00:11:14.400 We've got the Conservative Party slamming the Feds on their horrible customer service 0.99

00:11:20.020 when it comes to the endless delays for Canadians to access Service Canada. So that's people looking

00:11:26.580 to get their passports, employment insurance issues, immigration, trying to even just reach

00:11:33.580 CRA apparently is hours and hours of a wait.

00:11:38.360 Kaylin Ford, former UCP candidate who says false claims and a smear campaign that was

00:11:44.640 launched against her destroyed her candidacy in 2019 and she says has ruined her reputation.

00:11:51.520 She has come out with legal action against the CBC, Toronto Star, the NDP, and she has started a GoFundMe page.

00:12:02.500 She's hoping people will support her legal battle to fight the cancel culture and hopes that she can work to prevent others from having, you know, smear campaigns and whatnot against them.

00:12:17.480 And we've got a couple other stories that we're working on right now.

00:12:19.860 I'm just looking into a baby food shortage. It's actually the baby formula. It seems to be a

00:12:26.840 shortage that is causing a lot of panic in families in the U.S. So digging into that right

00:12:33.740 now, seeing if we are finding a similar situation here in Canada. So we'll have that story up on the

00:12:39.440 news site here fairly quickly. We've got more coverage of food processing plant fires that

00:12:46.520 have happened in the last week. Now, there are a lot of fact checkers sites and mainstream media

00:12:51.700 sites that are debunking the theory that these fires are happening nefariously. So we have

00:12:58.440 another story coming out that will also highlight the two newest fires. And Amanda's working on a

00:13:05.260 story how bird flu has been detected in BC. And the BC branch of the SPCA is asking people with

00:13:13.980 bird feeders to take them in, take them down, people with the bird baths to empty them because

00:13:19.300 those are two of the sort of super spreader areas for this bird flu. So that's some of the stuff

00:13:26.540 we've got going on right now. Great. Well, lots on the cooker and a big weekend coming up. The new

00:13:33.700 site we have up and running for some people, I should remind them all, it's looking a little

00:13:37.480 different this last couple of days. There might have been some log-in hiccups. I know James has

00:13:41.500 been running like crazy, helping council people to show what's changed, what's up, but it's all

00:13:46.100 coming out for the better. So yeah, I think so. And we've had a few comments from viewers and

00:13:51.700 readers who are saying they're, you know, they're not able to sort of find certain things, but you

00:13:57.500 just have to have a look. We have more navigation now, so you can specifically read BC news. You

00:14:04.880 can specifically read Alberta news, you know, Ontario out east. So there is a little bit more

00:14:10.500 to the navigation, but yeah, just get on the website, check it out. We feel like it's going

00:14:15.020 to be really great to bring more news, news that people are interested in in their area,

00:14:23.440 will be more easily accessible. So yeah, I think people just need to go in and surf around a bit.

00:14:30.400 Great. Well, we'll see how it develops and eventually we'll get back to a nice fluid

00:14:35.680 posting as we've already been getting there. So thanks for the check-in, Melanie. I'll let

00:14:39.600 you get back at her and we'll talk to you later. Okay. Thanks, Corey. Thank you. So just that

00:14:44.480 reminder to everybody that the reason we can do this, the reason we have so many reporters,

00:14:48.540 the reason we're updating our website and doing all that is because you guys have been fantastic

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00:15:41.980 And if you haven't already, please do so.

00:15:44.500 I'm going to speak, and I spread it out.

00:15:46.440 You know, I talk, I like bringing them up

00:15:48.500 because they're a fantastic group

00:15:49.640 of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association

00:15:52.440 because I have the head of them coming on

00:15:54.660 as a guest a little later in the show today.

00:15:56.760 He's my second guest today.

00:15:58.320 But also, they've been a fantastic sponsor

00:16:00.320 because there's a lot of things to be covered today.

00:16:04.120 And I'll shift that ad to the early part there

00:16:06.340 because we just got to get only so much firearm talk in one segment at a time.

00:16:10.800 Though, I mean, a lot of us like Tony and myself love talking about it at length.

00:16:14.260 We got to break it up a bit.

00:16:15.580 Now, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, their name says what they are.

00:16:19.560 I mean, if you are involved in shooting sports in any sort of way,

00:16:23.200 if you are a target shooter, if you're a hunter, if you just want to collect,

00:16:27.160 it doesn't really matter.

00:16:27.980 It's nobody's business but your own.

00:16:29.100 But of course, you want to have resources.

00:16:31.240 You want to network.

00:16:32.280 It's just like any other thing that you're passionate about.

00:16:35.160 this is what it sounds like it's an association of other people involved in shooting sports it

00:16:39.380 has all sorts of resources on there for you videos on safe firearm use links to firearm trade shows

00:16:45.600 things such as that and uh all sorts of other you know it's you can find ways to network with other

00:16:51.260 safe responsible law-abiding firearm owners like the rest of us are furthermore they are standing

00:16:57.200 up for your right to continue to own use transfer the whole works of firearms they are

00:17:04.120 watching the news. They are lobbying that liberal government. They are making sure

00:17:08.000 your rights are protected because they're always out there. They're always out to take away your

00:17:12.080 property, take away your right and ability to do these things. And if we don't stand up for

00:17:16.240 ourselves, you're going to lose. That's the way it works. We've got to stand up for ourselves.

00:17:20.140 Nobody's going to do it for you. So check them out. They need your membership. It's well

00:17:24.260 worthwhile. Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Their

00:17:28.100 URL is cssa-cila.org. Take out

00:17:32.260 a membership with them guys if you own a firearm you should be on with them that's just the way

00:17:35.600 it goes it comes with it so check those guys out it's a fantastic organization okay yeah so some

00:17:42.420 of the stuff we were talking about uh uh let's see a little bit before uh gar comes on there and

00:17:48.220 some folks coming in from all over somebody's mentioning yeah with that bird feeder thing

00:17:51.820 so this is the latest thing we got to be afraid of i guess the avian flu is going to come get us

00:17:55.920 all or come get our birds if you are a poultry producer though it is concerning i mean that this

00:18:00.680 could really damage things. I mean, just like the mad cow disease, you know, that never really hurt

00:18:06.000 any people, but boy, it decimated cattle producers and caused some real problems. Somebody was saying,

00:18:10.700 you know, what difference with a bird feeder would it spread it in that? And I was looking into that

00:18:13.620 because I was kind of curious too. Like, how does that make a difference if I'm feeding birds that

00:18:16.840 it would spread it? I guess, and I'm no expert in this, it's something of concern. I'm not going to

00:18:22.500 lose sleep at night. You know, the media is always trying to make us afraid of something. If you get

00:18:27.520 a feeder, though, you get a lot of different species of birds that tend to congregate in one

00:18:31.100 spot that they typically wouldn't do so and get into close quarters, you know, when normally they

00:18:36.740 would be spread apart and they're getting their different food sources and things like that. So

00:18:39.880 there's a better chance that those birds could transmit to each other and then, of course, spread

00:18:45.740 the avian flu further, which could lead to other problems. And as I said, I don't think anybody

00:18:50.720 needs to be afraid of going on, you know, going outside during the day or throw a mask on whenever

00:18:56.020 they see a bird coming nearby or anything like that. But, you know, keep an eye on these things.

00:19:01.120 They are in the news. We don't want to see, I mean, we've got enough problems. Our agricultural

00:19:05.820 producers have enough of a hard time. We don't need something like a new disease coming through

00:19:11.080 and damaging the production of poultry. I mean, we're paying enough for food and everything else

00:19:17.900 right now in these crazy times as it is. Danny, commenter Godard, saying bird feeders, the new

00:19:24.760 Walmart virus super spreaders. Yeah, everything's a super spreader nowadays. I don't know. It's

00:19:29.360 living in fear, but that's one of the things hitting the news today. What else have we got

00:19:35.980 here? Gar should be coming in pretty quickly. He was in the lobby a moment ago. This is something

00:19:41.840 interesting on the federal front. Ah, there we go. Before I start babbling off into a news

00:19:47.100 digression, we'll get to my first guest because I've been looking forward to this. So this is

00:19:51.080 Gargar. Hey, how are you doing? Oh, we seem to perhaps have you muted there, Gar?

00:19:58.600 Yes. Yeah. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I'll kind of frame

00:20:06.120 this up a little. I mean, maybe we introduce yourself a bit here. You're kind of a community

00:20:10.140 activist. You've got the Youth Empowerment and Skills Center set up in Forest Lawn.

00:20:15.480 You've got initiatives, you know, making a safe activity-based space with things, you know,

00:20:20.320 youth empowerment, self-confidence, mental health. I guess that's a bit of the background. And I know

00:20:25.340 you do a whole lot of things, but that's where I kind of want to focus. And I've talked a lot on

00:20:29.380 this show and it's been big on the news with a lot of issues with crime rates are getting high,

00:20:34.140 gang violence, things are turning problematic. And as I said earlier in the show, we're always

00:20:39.020 talking about things such as, again, controlling firearms or increasing policing or looking at the

00:20:45.640 court system. But what I like with what you're doing is you're looking preventative. I mean,

00:20:49.760 let's try to find, you know, young people and keep them in a, you know, on a good path before

00:20:53.920 they can get into a difficulty and trouble, because that's always our best potential approach

00:21:00.120 to things, I guess you could say, if I'm kind of framing up what you work on correctly.

00:21:04.560 Absolutely, Corey. And I think you have actually summed it up very well, because let's face it,

00:21:11.240 when this is all the community and everybody could agree that this is an issue,

00:21:16.680 and it's spreading out so fast and it's not only just the gun violence youth is the amount of

00:21:23.180 how many youth that are also losing their life and how that ages has gone too closer and when

00:21:30.740 we talk about crimes is how involvement those younger kids becoming involved not only over 18

00:21:37.500 that you see as simple as 13 years old 14 and 16 so that becomes uh all uh one of the worst

00:21:46.780 aspects of it and if we don't maintain it at that level uh it starts going out of hands and as what

00:21:52.700 i said sometimes it started with the one shell case and soon it just becomes a sea of gunfires

00:21:58.860 and through that it becomes late while you're trying to maintain it it becomes a public health

00:22:04.700 but also a threat to our community whether that simple belief in every family that wanted to see

00:22:11.260 their kids just walking on the street but feeling that there's something could happen i believe a

00:22:16.380 lot of people choose an opportunity where to live in a community that is safe for their kids and

00:22:22.620 that have hope that their kids can just cross the street without fearing any issues or coming in

00:22:28.780 mind that even if the tire just explode then the first thing to come in mind to think that's a

00:22:34.460 gun when you reach that level it becomes too hard to maintain so i usually look into a proactive

00:22:41.980 preventative and also seeing the grassroots and what are the things that the youth

00:22:46.380 can do or what can we do as a community to collaborate and have those partnerships

00:22:51.340 that builds on the the youth and becoming who they are in the future yeah and i mean kids

00:22:57.900 you know we we remember perhaps from our youth and so on we we got a lot of energy we're

00:23:03.100 experimenting things you know we're sometimes getting into trouble a lot of it is just if

00:23:07.420 you're left on your own sometimes you can go the wrong way i noticed one of our commenters said his

00:23:12.140 school when he grew up used to be open for a couple hours in the evenings for kids to have a place to

00:23:15.660 come in and play gym sports and board games like so you're providing just safe and uh healthy

00:23:21.340 activities i guess for for youth to gather and and uh spend time together again absolutely and i i

00:23:30.540 take it from where i started you know when i came to canada i just had that window of opportunities

00:23:36.300 but also i came at 17 and also within five months i turned 18 and it looks like i was just given

00:23:42.620 these freedoms that i didn't know of whether getting your yeah you know getting an id finally

00:23:48.060 getting opportunity to go to clubs uh riding getting your first driver license but we come

00:23:55.020 from a certain areas that you don't understand the laws you're trying to maintain and get those

00:24:01.660 new life but then also learning how to speak english but one of the things that struck me

00:24:07.180 the most it was the only place that we used to hang out back then it was marlboro station because

00:24:13.500 there weren't any youth spaces in the community that you can go in so you will always come and

00:24:20.700 move all the way to bedline back in downtown that's only open back then thursday and friday

00:24:27.100 and that's the only place but then through that by the time you wanted to get into bedline

00:24:32.540 a lot of kids end up getting into issues whether in the franklin station waiting for a c train

00:24:38.140 or whether changing their mind instead of going to leisure center just entering the mall and that's

00:24:43.900 where all those uh life situation choices get made whether you're joining a crew that you never

00:24:50.860 intend to join because of a smile laughter and uh just being uh left out so when we look at the east

00:24:58.460 calgary we noticed that there were a lot of uh social activities especially for the kids where

00:25:03.740 they can come socialize building that community that a safe place for the kids so the youth center

00:25:11.900 stems from uh off 36 and 26 there's the team hortons and we noticed that every time kids will

00:25:19.740 come in and one day a lot of kids came in when it was raining and they start hitting the balls on

00:25:25.020 the ground and we saw a lot of issues so uh we i went to them and asked them what happened so they

00:25:31.980 said they were just waiting for the rain to finish to stop and then they could go back to the school

00:25:38.780 basketball court to go play again but they couldn't maintain themselves to stop playing so

00:25:44.140 they started dribbling inside the team board and so we said what about the school by itself are we

00:25:49.820 able maybe to talk to a school to open the doors after school and see that combination but also

00:25:55.980 stems from where i came from uh you know back in camps refugees you notice that the school becomes

00:26:02.540 a second home in the morning is where you learn your education but at night uh you know in evenings

00:26:08.620 where you go back also and you find your teacher become your mentor there you find the community

00:26:14.460 become your mentors where through basketball through football soccer and you name a lot of

00:26:21.020 and even fist balls back then so you see a lot of community interactions so if we and

00:26:26.940 that comment is right on the dot if we are able to maintain that recreation back to open the schools

00:26:33.660 for uh students that will actually bring them closer but also avoiding them to in to get

00:26:40.140 involved because most of recruitment happen uh not the kids don't go there but also the

00:26:46.940 if somebody wants to come they'll see kids just playing basketball or say hey can i give you a

00:26:51.660 right and that's where the starts uh of those uh kids getting the wrong choices and wrong decisions

00:26:59.420 Yeah. And it's so, I mean, any kid can get into trouble, unfortunately, at a young age,

00:27:03.440 if they go down the wrong path. But in recent, you know, new Canadian children are particularly

00:27:09.420 vulnerable, I imagine, to a degree. I mean, it's a scary thing. You've crossed a world,

00:27:13.580 you're in a new place. And, you know, you'll socially gather with other people you're familiar

00:27:18.600 with, but it kind of can cause some introversion. I lived in Forest Lawn about 30 years ago.

00:27:24.320 and I remember then though

00:27:26.540 there was a lot of Lebanese

00:27:28.960 immigrants who lived in the area and a lot of Vietnamese

00:27:30.880 but you'd see the kids outside even

00:27:32.780 in the high school and they would be gathered in their groups

00:27:34.780 and they wouldn't integrate

00:27:36.520 and I imagine your programs at least help

00:27:38.620 they can network

00:27:40.640 with each other and communicate and you don't feel

00:27:42.800 as afraid of reaching out to wider

00:27:44.740 groups of people

00:27:46.160 Absolutely, I think

00:27:48.280 stepping out of your comfortable zone is the

00:27:50.840 best option to challenge the world

00:27:52.860 and issues and how we do it so the yes center is done for youth empowerment and skill center

00:27:58.380 and it's open for all the kids especially in east calgary and you see a lot of different skills a

00:28:05.180 lot of different backgrounds a lot of different life skills and i think that builds the community

00:28:10.540 we always say when you look into the diversity that it represents uh it's within the first line

00:28:16.540 and you highlight especially you see different groups from different world but we look on the

00:28:23.180 common grounds and that's finding hope finding home and finding a best place to live so but we

00:28:29.900 can do that we don't have to wait for it and the way we do it in the yes center it's also trying

00:28:35.580 to find activities that builds on that and collaborate to bring people together and

00:28:41.420 collaborate to solve the problems together and when we succeed in one we look back and we say

00:28:46.860 okay look at that i think we can do more and for the youth especially from different backgrounds

00:28:52.780 uh immigrant youth born here born here uh anybody i think it builds that community and it's

00:28:58.940 transforming from like those corners because uh even when we look into the youth crimes we say

00:29:05.580 like this is corner that corner and i think every time you bring a division perspective

00:29:10.940 it builds on that and it just divides more every time you bring collaboration and it succeed it

00:29:16.380 brings hope and i think fear bring the division and what we did in the youth center is trying to

00:29:21.740 look for that hope but look for practicum so one of the best example is when we did the yyc kids

00:29:28.940 ride it started with two bikes and it snowballed to like 200 bikes then 290 then 400 but also it

00:29:38.060 looking into the community that was involved and the youth that came from all walk of life

00:29:43.180 and when you see that you see also those youth or families asking back and they're saying how

00:29:49.020 can i give back to uh to the community how can i get involved now to say thank you to this community

00:29:56.780 and we usually tell them you know the way you do it just do it where you are as simple as getting

00:30:01.900 involved and help your neighbor who is senior help maintain that community talk to your youth

00:30:07.980 back so that message goes not onto one demographic it goes into more than that

00:30:13.420 when we saw also issues with the kids when they went back to online schooling i think it came

00:30:20.380 back to snowball to become a problem but also we looked into the opportunity and everybody that 0.93

00:30:26.300 actually made it happen it's all this uh you know calgarians that came up and they said you know i

00:30:32.220 have an extra computer i had an extra this so that belief in grassroots and belief in the community

00:30:38.460 it brings us back to that sense of it takes a village to raise a child we don't know whose child 0.96

00:30:43.820 it is but let's agree all is our children and that's what the calgarians did and that's what 0.97

00:30:50.380 actually took those kids from different backgrounds when they look at each other they will maintain 0.86

00:30:55.900 that coming out of the pandemic and now they have the obligation to come back to say you know what

00:31:01.260 i how can i say thank you and we always say we you might not know who give you the computer

00:31:06.860 uh where they're from where the the original from which community uh from calgary but one thing for

00:31:13.660 clear is that they believe in you and that brings a lot of youth we start even communicating with

00:31:18.940 them until now building their trust when they have issues they come in and they drop all the

00:31:25.100 safeguards whether you know from where they came originally from or the problem they focus only

00:31:31.980 into how do i become a better person and also even start sharing their stories what they wanted to

00:31:37.580 become and why did they made a different choice back then or what are they scared from right now

00:31:44.380 and why they're alone and the mental health so that's a big step for a youth you know to give

00:31:50.780 you their trust and uh a lot of people i went what you said exactly because i i was a youth uh

00:32:00.460 i volunteer in uh youth uh remand center uh and one kids ask where's gargar from and that's what

00:32:09.580 i was asked first but that topic changed later when i met that kid and we started to become

00:32:17.100 uh build that relationship into the mentorship he started echoing what got him there into that

00:32:23.660 point and he hoped to even get a degree even though he's in jail uh saying you know i wanted

00:32:28.860 to do better but it's the community i sometimes feel like i'm failing already and somebody said

00:32:35.100 that you're not a failure you are smart and he wants back then to be a car salesperson she said

00:32:41.900 i wanted to go back get my degree so back to the simple concept in short i think it's believing to

00:32:48.220 step beyond our comfortable zone and if we teach those kids to say don't look into one community

00:32:54.780 so if i come from south sudan and i talk with only my south sudanese usually we might focus

00:33:00.940 on the issues from back home and we might focus into the common sense that we face but if you

00:33:06.700 step beyond that comfortable zone and you meet other youth you might talk about what's the common

00:33:12.540 ground toward the schools what your uh what your vision for tomorrow and what you are looking into

00:33:19.260 and all you need between is a mentor and a community that believe in both of you

00:33:24.700 yeah and it's just so important and we see that everywhere uh just like actually a

00:33:28.380 another municipal politician jeremy farkas is raising money for big brothers and sisters that

00:33:32.140 mentorship you know getting youth and making sure they're just they've got somebody to talk to they

00:33:35.980 They've got safe places to go to.

00:33:37.540 They've got people they can speak with because, as you say,

00:33:40.340 building that self-confidence, you know, I mean,

00:33:42.160 none of us have that when we're in our youth.

00:33:43.680 We don't know what's going on.

00:33:44.720 The hormones are overwhelming us.

00:33:46.740 We're growing strangely.

00:33:48.780 And, you know, that is when we're terribly vulnerable, though,

00:33:51.240 on perhaps taking the wrong path.

00:33:53.400 So if we could guide people together, build that confidence,

00:33:56.300 it could move towards something productive.

00:33:57.980 I just really like that approach, you know,

00:33:59.760 dealing with a problem before it becomes one rather than afterwards.

00:34:03.720 Absolutely.

00:34:04.160 So you, you have a bike program you had on the go there.

00:34:08.520 I'm just looking at something that came up recently.

00:34:10.320 Did you want to expand on that?

00:34:11.720 Oh yeah.

00:34:12.260 So, uh, during COVID, uh, we started something called YYC Kids Ride.

00:34:18.060 And it stems basically from, uh, uh, family activities.

00:34:21.920 So during COVID, we also used to have a pizza.

00:34:24.560 We start cooking every Friday pizza and, uh, we deliver it to our neighborhood.

00:34:29.420 and all of a sudden we noticed kids playing with one bike five kids joining playing with one bike

00:34:36.260 and when we went to talk to the parents they said you know we are paying bills we're trying to

00:34:41.960 uh even ask for help but uh we are thankful that our neighbor is letting our kids play

00:34:47.720 with their kids so we came back and we did uh a post and a snowball again into just a generous

00:34:54.960 calgarian saying that i have a bike please come take it and give it to this family and

00:35:02.400 the first one happened in july 1st in canada day where we had around 190 bikes all donated by

00:35:10.320 calgarians fixed by volunteers and given away to our risk kits all over calgary that applied

00:35:17.280 and basically their kids their families weren't able to afford bikes and i think the best symbolic

00:35:23.760 about it it's also just looking back and we thought it was one time but we thought if we

00:35:29.600 wanted to do it maybe just doing it in canada day bring that memories into those kids life

00:35:34.880 when every canada day comes not only celebrating being canadian but also looking back and reminding

00:35:41.280 themselves that community is what made them come through this covet so it just worked out that time

00:35:47.520 and sooner or later we discovered another uh also donation coming in but also more families asking

00:35:55.200 so we did the second one on august and then it becomes a yearly uh initiatives then so every

00:36:02.240 year we start giving away around 290 to 300 bikes uh this year we have around 245 uh kids to 255

00:36:12.960 kits on our waiting list and we're right now taking donated bikes at forestland community hall

00:36:19.920 so every saturday sunday a donor can drop off bikes and we also have four volunteers mechanics

00:36:28.240 that work and tune up the bikes and make sure that we count down we hope that there is no kid

00:36:35.120 will be left behind from the list and that we will get enough uh donated bikes that we can do

00:36:42.960 the last year one of the best collaboration also is uh we uh we came across one of the family

00:36:50.400 friends they start helping us uh we saw also a collaboration calgary police came and introduced

00:36:56.640 the bike index program uh some officers even came and tune up some bikes and uh also uh during that

00:37:05.120 time the i think it's the when the third uh giveaway came in we started to see also kids

00:37:12.000 getting not only getting a bike but uh getting it registered under their name uh through the

00:37:18.480 bike index program and it becomes a collaboration and every time you start building more and more

00:37:24.320 uh also we saw calgary police youth foundation they came and uh sponsored a helmet because we

00:37:32.800 noticed the kids especially four years old until five not knowing how to ride bikes so that was a

00:37:40.080 big collaboration we saw rotary house i think a calgary rotary house donated 5 000 toward helmets

00:37:47.440 on the last one but the simple concept of it it's also just having such one bike and feeling the

00:37:55.200 freedom of riding one uh it stems also personally because my first bike that i had was from my

00:38:02.560 neighbor i two days to canada this tall guy walking with the suit and the second day my

00:38:09.280 neighbor just called me and said hey can you come look at this and it was a smaller bike i can't

00:38:14.160 even sit on it but i was riding it but for me it was more like a lamborghini because that was my

00:38:20.320 first time you know owning a bike and i would ride it all the way as you can remember from forest

00:38:26.480 land to erinwood to dover and that's the one that i ride to go play soccer so that means a whole a

00:38:34.800 lot for me and i think that's where we see that when the first kids walk in and see this uh you

00:38:42.480 know wonderland of bikes and they get that chance to choose their own bike i i think that builds the

00:38:48.400 community that we want to see and i just want to say thank you to all the calgarians that

00:38:54.560 took the time and actually believe in this program and donated their bikes

00:38:58.320 and uh we are taking the actual giveaway date for this year will be june the 4th

00:39:04.880 and it will take place on forestland community hall and also we are getting the bikes there

00:39:10.800 great well that's i really appreciate the work you're doing gargar and and uh for joining us

00:39:17.860 today to talk about it uh just before we close off then uh i see we've got the url down there

00:39:22.280 uh www.yescenters.com uh where uh where else can we find information about uh what your your work

00:39:30.520 is doing and how can people help out absolutely so we have a facebook page that's called yyc kids

00:39:37.160 right so if they go there they can join that group page or they can also just uh send us a poster

00:39:44.600 there and that's where we have all the information excellent well thank you very much for joining me

00:39:50.920 on this Friday. And again, I really appreciate what you're doing. I hope we can find some time

00:39:55.180 to talk again down the road there, Gargar. Absolutely. Pleasure is mine, Corey. 0.99

00:40:01.220 So yeah, that was a great talk. And as our commenter, you know, Cheryl and Carrie and

00:40:05.780 Marilyn Sania, this is a good feel-good story for the week. Because yeah, I rant and rave and

00:40:09.620 go on about, you know, a lot of negative stuff all the time. And it's good to get somebody on

00:40:14.560 showing, okay, he's not just, you know, like me, who's going on about issues. I like to write and

00:40:18.940 talk about solutions. I really do. But he's on the ground out there working at it. He sees

00:40:22.780 an issue and he's out there taking care of it. You know, that gets back to more of how we like,

00:40:28.540 you know, those of us who are older with the rose colored glasses, having a sense of community,

00:40:32.440 right? Like getting to know your neighbors, meeting your neighbors, interacting, like

00:40:36.380 getting that community going again. And that's lacking in some areas. And I guess

00:40:40.840 it's more challenging in areas where you have a large number of new Canadians there. I mean,

00:40:45.520 As well with forest lawn and area, they're not necessarily new Canadians, but they could be

00:40:49.860 kids in a lower income environment or things like that. Or it's a bit more of a transient

00:40:53.640 neighborhood. You move around homes a fair amount sometimes. It's really important. I mean,

00:40:59.880 I'm still concerned, you know, the problem with crime we've got going on, the problem with

00:41:04.600 shootings in the city, there's clearly some gang issues going on in this city right now. It's

00:41:09.480 complicated. It's tied to a lot of things. It's tied to the opioid epidemic. I mean, there's a

00:41:13.900 big market for selling drugs. And that always draws organized crime and things go that way.

00:41:19.980 And not, you know, I got some people upset when I pointed to some of that out on pointing it that

00:41:24.920 it was often ethnic gangs that are in trouble with this. And I wasn't trying to target minorities.

00:41:31.220 It's just that the reality we got to face with the more vulnerable segments and groups, if we're

00:41:35.680 going to try and prevent, if we got, we got to look where the chances are higher, where you're

00:41:40.260 going to have an outbreak or problems with that. And that's, again, where I love what Gar's doing

00:41:44.760 is he recognizes that. And, you know, it's a lot easier, hopefully, to keep the youth on a good

00:41:50.640 forward path before they get into trouble. And even afterwards, as he said, he was meeting with

00:41:56.660 a young fellow who's in remand already, but then, you know, just with some confidence and some

00:42:00.420 discussion, get some positive plans before you end up with somebody who gets again into a lot

00:42:05.140 bigger trouble down the road. So it was a nice conversation. And I just really appreciate what

00:42:10.440 Gargar is working on. You know, we've got to look ahead. It's a big, complicated problem. And it

00:42:16.020 takes solutions from a number of directions. There's something else he spoke on that was

00:42:20.000 interesting. He spoke briefly with the police interaction. You know, there's a lot. I mean,

00:42:25.100 we've been seeing a lot of that all around. I'd heard that in the news today, Calgary police,

00:42:28.500 you know, with the grief they're going through, we've got the crime going mad.

00:42:30.880 They can't get police officers joining the force.

00:42:34.920 They're shorthanded.

00:42:36.440 I mean, who would want to? 0.95

00:42:37.360 We've got a city council that's on their case all the time.

00:42:42.480 You know, they're always talking about defunding,

00:42:44.260 or they're talking about taking away their thin blue line patches

00:42:46.380 and things like that.

00:42:47.060 Nobody wants to do it.

00:42:48.920 They're, you know, they're being demoralized.

00:42:52.840 And likewise, though, I mean, there are things that police have done wrong,

00:42:55.760 and there's mistrust within some communities,

00:42:57.600 particularly immigrant communities.

00:42:58.920 It's not every police officer. And the best way to stop that mistrust is to interact, get to know each other for both on the end of the officers and the people in the other communities. You know, you get face to face and realize they are people. They're just people doing jobs. Likewise with the police. Hey, not every person in one of these communities in these parts of town where they've got some crime problems is committing crimes. Not everyone's looking for trouble. The more you can interact, the more you can, you know, reduce the amount of, you know,

00:43:28.920 negative interactions, I guess you could say, as far as that goes. So yeah, we've got a lot of

00:43:33.740 stuff to work on, but we've got big problems. I mean, I saw that on Twitter, which just posted

00:43:38.400 this afternoon with a couple of guys on the LRT platform fighting and attacking each other. This

00:43:43.340 wasn't a youth thing. It looked like addicts. Again, the crime problems we have are big and

00:43:47.340 widespread. One had actually taken a broom handle from one of the guys working on the platform and

00:43:51.520 was attacking the other with it. This is day-to-day stuff we're seeing in Calgary these

00:43:55.420 days. We, we never used to see that stuff. It's frustrating. And so again, let's just keep

00:44:02.760 pushing and try and reverse this big problem. It's tied into a lot of issues.

00:44:07.760 Let's see what else we got here before we get to Mr. Bernardo. Actually, this is something,

00:44:14.640 you know, to help frame up with what I want to talk to Tony about in a moment here.

00:44:18.760 uh yes so agent says some numbers that came up agent seized uh 1113 firearms uh crossing the

00:44:28.180 border uh it's not giving me the time frame i'm guessing that's over a year or something

00:44:33.960 uh 1107 of them were owned by americans this gets back to again where we got a government

00:44:39.680 that's constantly coming after uh law-abiding firearm owners you know they're trying to get

00:44:44.060 us to register long guns with long guns aren't a problem and they're cracking down on people who

00:44:48.740 own handguns, who have followed all the rules, people who registered, people who do all the

00:44:53.920 things, right? It doesn't matter. They're looking at handgun bans. They're talking about

00:44:57.860 banning handgun ownership across the entire country. But when you look at this, it's not

00:45:03.940 going to do a thing for the criminal element. The crooks aren't going to Cabela's to buy a handgun

00:45:09.700 or to a firearm range or dealer. They're getting it smuggled across the border. They're getting

00:45:14.560 stolen firearms. This is where we have to look. I don't know how much evidence we have to see of it.

00:45:19.540 We saw that in the news the other day. What was it? A drone that was carrying 11 guns crashed.

00:45:25.400 I guess the smugglers got too greedy and overloaded the thing. If they just wanted to

00:45:30.200 smuggle 10, perhaps they would have got away with it. And you know, how many of those things are

00:45:33.980 flying back and forth across the border that aren't getting caught? This is where we got the

00:45:38.380 problems. But that's a lot of work. That's difficult. That's dealing with border crossings

00:45:42.940 and law enforcement, and even possibly, I said that the other day too, sometimes there's First

00:45:47.600 Nations involved or other gangs that they just don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole.

00:45:51.300 So it's a lot easier to look like you're doing something by cracking down on the law-abiding

00:45:54.960 firearmers because they're law-abiding. They cooperate. They won't make a fuss. Well,

00:46:00.480 we're making a fuss, but it's an easier target for the government to go after. But if your

00:46:04.880 goal is to reduce crime, well, then they're barking up the totally wrong tree and it just

00:46:10.700 doesn't stop. It shows like cabinets on inquiry cited RCMP figures said that they'd seized 428

00:46:18.060 handguns last year that were identified as smuggled. So again, what difference would that

00:46:24.020 428 handguns, you know, what difference would it make cracking down on the people who have been

00:46:28.180 legally acquiring theirs and using them correctly, as the vast majority of Canadians are? But no,

00:46:34.120 this is where they're talking about national handgun bans. Would that have stopped those 428?

00:46:37.820 No, in fact, it probably would have doubled them because when you take it and you legalize it, guess what happens?

00:46:42.260 The demand only goes up and the demand will go up from people who are irresponsible from the criminal element.

00:46:47.460 I mean, how many times have we got to go over this?

00:46:50.120 But we do have to keep going over it.

00:46:51.980 And that's part of why this issue is ongoing and we keep pushing back.

00:46:56.380 As I was talking with CSSA and other groups, you got to keep standing up for yourselves because this government does not have our best interests in mind.

00:47:03.960 And they are constantly attacking our rights.

00:47:05.740 I see Tony in the lobby there.

00:47:06.920 Maybe I'll pop him in a couple of minutes early if he's ready to roll.

00:47:10.480 He's nodding.

00:47:11.180 There we go.

00:47:11.760 Hey, Tony, how's it going there?

00:47:13.440 Hey, Corey, how are you?

00:47:15.040 Good, good.

00:47:15.720 I was just going through my news scroll.

00:47:17.300 I cover a lot of things.

00:47:18.240 And then I saw that, you know, we have a firearm one to help frame things up before I bring you in, you know, just to get my blood pumping up a little bit.

00:47:27.340 But maybe we'll just kind of introduce you.

00:47:29.360 Tony Bernardo, and you're the head of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:47:32.440 I mean, you know, describe your role and what your organization does.

00:47:35.960 I know when I do the ads, I cover some stuff every time, but I'm certain there's more that could be covered there, too.

00:47:41.960 Well, for sure.

00:47:43.520 We are the largest firearms group in Canada.

00:47:48.200 We've been around 62 years.

00:47:50.180 I'm the executive director and I've been doing my job for about 25 years.

00:47:54.680 We've got some huge and notable successes with being behind the cessation of the long gun registry and the elimination of certain authorizations to transport by making them electronic, all kinds of other things.

00:48:09.400 I always tell people that lobbying is a prophylactic exercise and you measure your success by the things that don't happen.

00:48:18.240 And so far, we've been able to make an awful lot of things not happen over the years past.

00:48:22.760 We also do training courses, sports organization stuff, many, many, many things, insurance for all types of firearms owners.

00:48:33.760 And we're out there fighting every day, long, long hours every week for the benefit of the gun owners of Canada.

00:48:42.260 Great. And, you know, we've well, you and I are both great enough at the muzzle to remember the registry from the 90s and efforts like that.

00:48:49.120 That sort of backed off, but we know it's not gone.

00:48:51.660 But they kind of moved their focus from the long guns they used to have.

00:48:55.220 Well, the recategorization, we could talk about that shortly.

00:48:58.400 But they really got their eyes on the handguns right now.

00:49:01.000 And there's that C-21 that is looking to allow municipalities to ban handguns.

00:49:07.500 And, I mean, I just see a legislative nightmare going on here if they try to do that.

00:49:12.940 Oh, for sure.

00:49:13.540 I mean, one of the only decent things about the Canadian firearms control system is it's universal coast to coast.

00:49:22.520 As soon as you start making it a patchwork quilt of laws, then nobody knows what in the hell is going on.

00:49:29.040 And you're going to have the worst mess you've ever seen in your life.

00:49:32.900 And even the anti-gun groups agree with us on this.

00:49:36.540 This is not the way to do anything.

00:49:38.180 You know, if the government doesn't have the ability to sell this gun ban to all the provinces, then they don't have the ability to do it.

00:49:47.480 And taking one province or one municipality and making it gun-free, that is just absolute wishful thinking, virtue signaling.

00:49:56.800 That's it.

00:49:58.180 Yeah, well, and again, I mean, if we're going to look at results-based actions, it's not going to impact crime.

00:50:05.320 I mean, that's what they're claiming is going to happen.

00:50:06.960 And perhaps statistically, you know, how many registered legal handguns typically have been found to be used in crimes?

00:50:15.420 Do we have those kind of numbers?

00:50:17.320 No, because they're so insignificant that they're hardly worth collecting.

00:50:22.540 I don't know if you remember back, must be at least 10 years ago now, there was a shooting in Toronto by a lawful handgun owner who decided to suddenly become unlawful.

00:50:35.440 And it was such a major event. It was front page of the news for a week because it was so rare. It was the man bites dog story. It just almost never happens. I mean, really what we're dealing with now is with this Trudeau government.

00:50:51.400 Every single year since they've been elected

00:50:54.340 Seven consecutive years

00:50:56.120 The gang crime rate has gone up

00:50:59.140 The murders and shootings by gangs have gone up

00:51:02.680 The average person out there is not scared of a legal firearms owner

00:51:06.620 They're scared of a crime gang

00:51:08.340 They're scared of the drug dealers

00:51:09.720 And for good reason

00:51:11.080 And yet you see the Trudeau government now

00:51:14.160 They've lowered the penalties on a bunch of gun crimes

00:51:18.160 That should have people doing a hard time

00:51:20.080 Yeah, that was something that was bizarre. I read that recently. They're looking to lower penalties on some of them, like a commission of rape with a firearm and holding hostages. Like, what the heck? You guys are lowering the sentences on these most horrific of dangerous crimes. And again, you're chasing down the law abiding owners. I never will understand that mental disconnect that these progressives have.

00:51:41.900 Yeah, I don't get it either. I mean, other than to say categorically when they tell you they're doing this for your safety, they're lying. That's not why they're doing it. They go and they reduce the things that will keep you safe at the same time as they're stepping up their attacks on lawful firearms owners. Let's call a spade a spade here.

00:52:02.720 The real purpose of this is to disarm the public of Canada completely.

00:52:08.240 Okay, I'm not being alarmist.

00:52:09.740 We've got a 30-year track record here of this kind of silliness.

00:52:14.460 And did the crimes go down?

00:52:16.480 No.

00:52:17.460 No, they didn't go down.

00:52:18.900 They went up.

00:52:20.440 The only time through this whole period that the crimes have gone down

00:52:23.960 is when the Harper government was there,

00:52:26.000 and the Harper government was hard on criminals.

00:52:29.040 So crimes went down.

00:52:30.680 But for the rest of it, crimes just keep rising.

00:52:34.540 And their gun control programs, despite billions of dollars, many billions of dollars being pumped into gun control programs, they don't work.

00:52:44.320 And they don't work because they're directed at the wrong people.

00:52:48.040 Yeah, and I mean, you know, going back to, I mean, if they're concerned about crimes, I see the irony in learning respect for firearms and using them right.

00:52:54.820 Like way back when I went to school, I went to a boarding school in Vancouver Island for a while, but they actually had a firing range.

00:53:00.780 And that was part of us as students was learning how to safely handle and utilize a firearm and recognizing it as a safe tool to be handled if you do it correctly.

00:53:10.560 And you build that in your youth.

00:53:12.200 I was speaking with a prior guest, just talking about this is the ways you avoid crimes.

00:53:15.940 This is the way you avoid misuse of items is education and prior rather than trying to ban it after the fact.

00:53:22.380 That's right.

00:53:23.020 And I might be a little longer in the tooth than you, Corey, but I can remember when most high schools had shooting ranges in their basements, and it was only in the 70s they started to remove those.

00:53:36.920 Prior to that, they all had them, and the reason was because of a program that the government had where they wanted to train young people in the use and skills of firearms.

00:53:49.100 Remember, we'd just come out of two world wars, and having an able-bodied citizenry that was fit to be able to defend the country was an important thing.

00:54:00.980 I think, though, that we can clearly see from the present government that the ability to defend the country isn't even a small priority.

00:54:09.240 And I think all these things are just part and parcel of the same gigantic problem.

00:54:15.200 I'm just going to pivot a little, just things I like to respond to guests, you know, as part of doing it live.

00:54:19.500 And Cheryl Dawn was asking something you might be familiar with.

00:54:21.760 I'm not sure, but he's asking about the Powell approval backlogs in Alberta.

00:54:26.180 I guess your family's been waiting almost a year and everything's bound up.

00:54:31.380 I guess the government cast a check, but they're still waiting for the actual licensee.

00:54:35.260 Do you know much on what's going on in the regulatory end of things there?

00:54:38.380 Oh, sure.

00:54:38.860 The Fireworm Center is backlogged by thousands and thousands of applications.

00:54:47.880 They claim its residual pile-up effect from when they had to take people and send them home to work during COVID.

00:54:57.880 Of course, the big processing computers, you only trust certain people to have terminals to get into those because there's very sensitive information.

00:55:06.120 So perhaps that backlog was due partially to that, but it's due from another thing. And that is that every month there are thousands more Canadians trying to get firearms licenses. This is one of the fastest growing things I've ever seen.

00:55:21.820 and this has been going on now for several years i mean we've seen a 20 increase in the number of

00:55:29.360 restricted firearms that like handguns and all of the gun clubs right across the country most of them

00:55:35.940 are reporting huge waiting times to become a member not just a matter of pay your money anymore

00:55:41.720 now you join a waiting queue and it can be long long times most of the clubs that i know of

00:55:48.400 personally are running two and three hundred people in the queue waiting to become members

00:55:54.000 and join. It's a hugely growing sport. Yeah, and it's difficult to facilitate. I know there's

00:56:00.300 ranges actually down here west of Calgary, some outdoor ones I was looking into, but I said that

00:56:03.700 I live out there, I get to get to an outdoor spot and well, I got to be sponsored by a member and

00:56:07.600 the waiting list is six months to a year, possibly if I get in and that's just to access an outdoor

00:56:13.020 range. Like, wow, there are a lot of people wanting to get into this, but rather than responding to

00:56:17.780 this increase in consumer demand by facilitating it of course seems the government's trying their

00:56:21.780 hardest to to shut it down well absolutely too and you know ranges if you talk about them

00:56:27.500 they're under tremendous stress all the time because the ranges have to comply with this

00:56:33.820 huge litany of federal specifications administered by a chief firearms officer and credit to alberta

00:56:43.020 in saskatchewan they've now taken the official government federal uh chief firearms officer

00:56:49.500 uh punted them to the curb and installed their own civilian firearms officers uh terry bryant

00:56:56.780 in alberta and barbara freeberg in saskatchewan these people uh that they have now actually

00:57:03.100 understand the issues they actually understand what shooting is about and what the the the

00:57:08.220 problems that uh that ranges face all the time to their credit of course they are safety oriented

00:57:15.500 foremost always safety force always but they they are also a lot more practical in the way they

00:57:22.300 administer the existing federal laws it's a huge step forward and congratulations to those

00:57:27.900 governments for thinking that far in advance yeah so another area that our right to you know firearms

00:57:35.180 is under threat, and the government's using that to great effect, is using orders in council to

00:57:38.780 recategorize firearms that used to be legal and with a real arbitrary categorization. They use

00:57:46.060 an assault style. They've used anything they can label as that, and suddenly they feel they can

00:57:51.340 take that away. This trend is going to keep continuing as long as they're getting away with

00:57:55.680 it, I imagine. Yeah, sure. It would be like pizza-style poutine. Yeah, it'd be one of those

00:58:01.820 things and and the use of ordering council to do this stuff is uh really um not that parliamentary

00:58:11.500 it was put into place back in c68 which was uh 1992-93 when prior to that ordering council is

00:58:21.660 very misunderstood it it's um it's something that is for use in something that is very much

00:58:28.720 time expedient, as in we're being invaded, we need a decision right now, or something that is

00:58:34.780 inconsequential, like we're going to change the color of the paper from beige to taupe. Just use

00:58:41.220 an order in council and just make it happen. But C-68 added the ability of an order in council to

00:58:47.460 be used to prohibit or restrict firearms. In the last years of the Harper government, when Stephen

00:58:54.540 Blaney was the public safety minister

00:58:56.500 he added a third

00:58:58.380 category into that

00:59:00.420 so that if the minister had the power to

00:59:02.540 prohibit and restrict they also

00:59:04.640 had the power to unprohibit

00:59:07.020 and unrestrict

00:59:08.040 it could work the other ways

00:59:09.800 the very first thing the liberals did when they took

00:59:12.460 power was remove that third

00:59:14.380 clause so now we're back to where it was

00:59:16.740 and up until C-68

00:59:18.560 they had not used ordering

00:59:20.360 counsel in this manner before

00:59:21.880 this was stuff that would have to go before parliament

00:59:25.000 So now they've got the ability to just make arbitrary decisions,

00:59:28.520 much like they're doing right now with the legislature, right?

00:59:31.700 Where they can just pull a button and shut down for the summer.

00:59:35.580 Yeah.

00:59:37.640 There's not much accountability on the part of government.

00:59:39.880 I didn't realize, and I appreciate that background.

00:59:41.700 I mean, C-68, again, for people who are a bit younger,

00:59:44.940 who didn't watch politics in the 90s, that was the original registry bill.

00:59:47.960 That was Alan Rock's creation.

00:59:49.800 And then now Anne McClellan, back in the real, well, I would say bigger battles on the efforts by the government to take people's firearms away.

00:59:59.920 Now, unfortunately, though, they've gotten more subtle, and I think they're doing a frog in water approach, which is kind of almost more disturbing.

01:00:06.480 Yeah, absolutely.

01:00:07.440 And, I mean, going after handguns right now, the amount of handguns in Canada, legally owned, used in the Commission of Crimes, is almost insignificant.

01:00:18.440 Almost, almost insignificant.

01:00:20.500 What you've got is you've got people that are occasionally targeted by bad guys.

01:00:25.940 But when a bad guy breaks in your home and steals your stuff and uses it improperly, who's the victim here?

01:00:33.340 like the government is saying oh we got to take them away so they won't be stolen how about taking

01:00:38.520 away the crooks that are stealing them maybe that might be a better idea and yet that no efforts at

01:00:45.260 all they just simply don't care the idea is to take away the guns not take away the crime

01:00:50.000 yeah well in a news story somewhere else too we've got so many issues to deal with we've got a lot of

01:00:56.020 violent repeat offenders things that have been happening and our government is just notoriously

01:01:00.160 weak on cracking down and sentencing them. I don't know. I mean, the issue is so huge and

01:01:06.800 frustrating. We had, this is something I've relayed to my viewers a couple of times. I used

01:01:11.380 to own a pub. It got robbed repeatedly by some really nasty characters. And when they finally

01:01:15.180 got arrested, one of them later, well, two of them were charged for two different murders,

01:01:19.380 both of firearms. One of them had, you probably wouldn't have heard so much about this in

01:01:24.620 Ontario, but everybody around Calgary heard about it. One of them shot his friend in the head

01:01:28.140 while they were pissing around in a garage,

01:01:31.320 wrapped him in a carpet and dumped him in a river.

01:01:34.420 He pled it down to say it was accidental

01:01:36.460 and got a six-year sentence.

01:01:37.580 He'll probably be out in a couple of years.

01:01:40.880 This is what we're giving light sentences to,

01:01:43.880 and yet the government's running around

01:01:45.140 chasing duck hunters

01:01:46.260 and people who like to legally target shoot in ranges.

01:01:49.380 It's just so bizarre

01:01:50.200 that they can't seem to prioritize these things.

01:01:52.860 Yeah, we've been advocating very, very strongly too

01:01:55.400 for an enhanced and enforced firearms prohibition system.

01:02:01.180 Because right now, a bad guy gets caught with a gun.

01:02:04.500 They take the bad guy and put him in front of a judge.

01:02:07.720 And since he hasn't done any really bad crime with the firearm yet,

01:02:12.240 all he's done is carry it around.

01:02:14.440 They decide that they're not going to put him in jail,

01:02:16.800 and they give him a firearms prohibition order.

01:02:19.500 Well, three weeks later, he's back out there again,

01:02:22.600 and he's got himself another firearms prohibition order.

01:02:26.040 And that's the only thing that they're really able to do

01:02:28.880 is just keep layering these things on.

01:02:31.320 And we had one bad guy there.

01:02:33.200 We found he has 14 firearms prohibition orders.

01:02:37.680 So what we've proposed to the government

01:02:40.400 is that they create one that's an enforced firearms prohibition order.

01:02:44.820 If you blow your first one, you can be subject to the enforced one

01:02:49.240 and it contains a measure of punishments within that to make sure that you don't do it again.

01:02:58.280 So discretionary up to the judge to administer it and to decide its severity. But this way,

01:03:05.800 I think we're trying to make it so that these gang members are potentially toxic and the gangs

01:03:12.540 won't hang around with them. That's it. I mean, there's some politics of division happens as well

01:03:17.380 and law-abiding firearm owners often get smeared and so on.

01:03:20.200 We're the ones who, least of all, want to see the improper or dangerous

01:03:24.540 or criminal use of firearms.

01:03:26.120 I mean, it hurts people, and it gives us all a bad rap.

01:03:29.740 Like, we want to see the criminal use crack down on heavily.

01:03:33.040 Just leave us alone.

01:03:34.420 Sure.

01:03:34.780 There's been several cases.

01:03:36.260 I do mean several, by the way, in the last decade or so of people

01:03:41.860 who do this straw purchase thing.

01:03:43.720 Now, the government plays this up like it's some gigantic boogeyman. For those that don't know, a straw purchase is when somebody legally acquires a firearm for the purposes of giving it to somebody who shouldn't legally have it.

01:03:58.980 so you'd have somebody who for example might be a firearms license holder they get wired out on

01:04:06.920 drugs and the only way that the dealers will continue to give them drugs is if the person

01:04:12.100 goes out and buys firearms and ammunition for the gang you always get caught always always always

01:04:18.460 okay because these things are all completely registered every which way but sunday and when

01:04:23.820 they find them at a crime scene they automatically trace them back to the owner but we're dealing

01:04:29.520 with tiny numbers of this and yet the government throws this up like it's some gigantic boogeyman

01:04:35.420 but most people aren't so stupid as to fall for this unless they're under control of a pimp or a

01:04:40.840 drug dealer and you know nobody wants to see these people put in jail more than lawful gun owners do

01:04:48.900 and you said it yourself every time something bad like that happens it smears us all yeah well and

01:04:56.000 again you know just to kind of close off that's one of the things you have a lot of great resources

01:04:59.700 on your website and things like that for firearm use there's videos there's all sorts of things

01:05:04.940 because the other thing is improper use i mean somebody might not be criminal but they might be

01:05:08.040 just being an idiot we don't want to see somebody using a high power rifle in an urban backyard or

01:05:12.680 we don't want to see you know people improperly to driving around with it with a unsafely stored

01:05:18.060 and loaded firearm uh again education is the key to it and you guys don't just lobby you help

01:05:22.660 educate so we can all utilize firearms safely right yes we do that's correct okay well that

01:05:28.980 kind of fills it up i really appreciate you coming in to talk to us today uh you know is there anything

01:05:34.040 else you'd like to add in in closing before i uh let you get back to work there yeah well if things

01:05:39.000 get really bad by a drone yeah no doubt thank you gory perfect well thanks it was good talking

01:05:49.720 to you today i'm sure we'll talk again soon tony yeah and and for all you listeners out there come

01:05:53.520 and join the canadian shooting sports association we're doing good work out there and we need all

01:05:58.600 the members we can get right on thanks thank you all right so yes that was tony bernardo and as

01:06:05.700 you can see. See, firearms lobbyists are well-spoken, intelligent people who just want a

01:06:11.680 safer world and want our rights protected. Go figure. You know, you shouldn't think this should

01:06:15.400 be so complicated. But yeah, they really are a great resource there, guys. Check them out. And

01:06:20.940 if you're even considering firearms, I mean, it's a resource. This is where you look into things

01:06:24.420 and see if it's for you and what you might want to get into. There's a lot of uses,

01:06:29.660 things you don't think of. There's the black powder firearms, different types of target

01:06:34.300 shooting, different types of sports. Again, safe, fun things to get involved in. Biathlon, that's a

01:06:39.600 sport that's a really cool one. And out here in Alberta, we've got the range out in Canmore for

01:06:43.920 that. You know, it's based on what I think old Norwegian military, you know, but you got to

01:06:49.100 cross country ski and race and then stop and shoot a number of targets and then keep racing. I mean,

01:06:55.600 when you're heavy breathing and trying to hit a target, it's an incredible skill for that to be

01:06:58.880 done. And I'm sure I've never heard of a biathlete utilizing their firearm incorrectly or hurting

01:07:04.900 anybody. It's just a fun, cool sport. And there's, there's lots and lots of things out there for

01:07:10.080 people. Check them out. I know there was a question from Cheryl about pellet guns, and

01:07:14.780 I didn't quite want to go into that because it's, it could be Alberta law and other things. We don't

01:07:19.040 necessarily want to get too prescriptive or specific with stuff. I would check with your

01:07:22.240 municipal bylaws. I'm not, I live in the country, so I mean, I don't have to worry about using a

01:07:26.660 pellet gun in the backyard or anything like that. But in the cities, I'm not sure what the laws are

01:07:31.280 or if you're in an area with neighbors. The one thing I would suggest, of course, if you're ever

01:07:35.820 going to use something like that and there are people around, is just communicate, right? You get

01:07:39.300 those mistaken incidents sometimes, like if somebody's out with a pellet gun or something

01:07:44.980 like that, they can look very much like a larger, more dangerous firearm. Make sure your neighbor

01:07:49.040 knows it's just that. Don't walk around and make it seem as if it's something more. That's how you

01:07:54.320 it a terrible incident if you just chat with each other and everybody gets along fine and then you

01:07:59.520 can again reduce or avoid incidents before they happen uh tony was saying uh you just actually

01:08:05.880 still popped in the comments there said municipal anti-discharge laws so yeah you'd have to look

01:08:09.900 into your local area and and see what exactly is allowed or isn't allowed but i mean it's

01:08:14.620 certainly something you'd want to research carefully before you could have an incident

01:08:18.120 that could cause some some trouble and and difficulties with yourself or your neighbors

01:08:21.960 or things like that.

01:08:23.880 And hey, don't underestimate, you know, pellet guns.

01:08:27.200 The safe firearm use, of course, applies to those

01:08:29.820 as much as anything else,

01:08:31.420 as much as they always make that joke

01:08:32.660 about the BB gun in the old Christmas movie

01:08:34.540 about putting an eye out with it.

01:08:36.040 You certainly can.

01:08:36.820 You can do a lot of harm to people

01:08:37.940 if you're improperly using one.

01:08:40.280 I mean, they're great for showing young people

01:08:41.520 how to properly start looking at firearms,

01:08:43.660 you know, making sure it's not loaded,

01:08:45.480 making sure you never point it anywhere inappropriately.

01:08:48.680 I got taught by the method of my father backhanding me

01:08:50.900 when I pointed to Chaka in the wrong way once. 0.98

01:08:53.020 And I remember that lesson for a long time. 0.90

01:08:54.600 But I know there's better educational methods

01:08:56.900 than what he did, but it was effective.

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01:10:38.600 a little more new stuff as we close out the week here. This is federal managers, some numbers that

01:10:45.200 came up, dismissed 72% of applications for medical and religious exemptions for mandatory

01:10:51.220 vaccination. No reason was given for the high rates of rejection. This was a treasury board

01:10:58.000 wrote up on this. And, you know, this is where it's just getting so absurd. One of the things

01:11:03.220 we're hearing in the news all the time, we've got so many challenges on so many fronts,

01:11:05.840 economically, all sorts of areas. And we're having real hard problems filling voids. I mean,

01:11:11.400 the police are shorthanded, health care is shorthanded, bars and restaurants are shorthanded,

01:11:15.860 and still we've got all these stupid vaccine mandates going on. We've already learned vaccines

01:11:23.420 don't stop the spread. Anybody who is interested in being vaccinated has been vaccinated. The ones

01:11:30.780 who are still holding out, they're not going to do it. So what's the point of continuing to

01:11:35.600 pressure them? What is the point? It's not going to change their minds. All it is, is making the

01:11:40.180 misery and putting them out of work. And it's hurting the rest of us. So, you know, these vaccine

01:11:47.080 waivers, the bottom line is, you know, they shouldn't even have to apply for the waiver in

01:11:50.860 the first place. They just say, I've chosen not to be vaccinated and I'll carry on working. There

01:11:54.020 you go. It doesn't make your co-worker any less safe than if you were vaccinated. So stop it.

01:12:00.420 But at this point, I mean, it's questionable about what they recognize as a legitimate waiver

01:12:07.000 or not even. So we're looking at some of these federal employees had to show they were taking

01:12:11.860 COVID shots. At least 2,500 were suspended without pay for not complying. And that includes RCMP

01:12:18.900 members, soldiers, sailors, and air crew. So, you know, some people in some pretty important

01:12:23.700 positions lost their jobs because they didn't want to get vaccinated. It didn't make anybody

01:12:28.040 a single bit safer from COVID or anything. So, you know, again, what's the point of this? So

01:12:34.500 we're getting these inquiries. Yeah, 2042 applied for exemptions and 540 were approved out of that.

01:12:42.540 So 26%. And then there was medical exemptions as well that were applied and 30% were approved.

01:12:51.640 Why? Why are you guys? Well, we know why. It's almost turned into a cult or religion. We just

01:12:55.680 got to vax the others. It gets back to that. I can't leave my neighbor alone. I've got to tell

01:13:00.600 them what to do. It's a control thing. And it's wrong. Just get over it. Let that person choose

01:13:06.480 to be vaccinated or not vaccinated or wear a mask or not wear a mask or work from home.

01:13:10.240 I don't care. It's not impacting me. Leave me alone. But there's those people out there who

01:13:16.360 can't handle that. It's just like with the firearms too. So many people, I don't like

01:13:20.120 firearms, so I don't think anybody else should have them. Well, good for you. If you don't want

01:13:24.320 one, don't get one. That's pretty easy. It should be pretty easy, but they don't stop there. It's

01:13:29.100 the same people. It's the same ones who are always calling for more controls, telling us what we can

01:13:33.300 and can't do what we can and can't have. It's not making any of us better off. It's just making them

01:13:37.980 feel better that they're trying to control the actions of others that really are none of their

01:13:41.760 bloody business. So what else do we got on the goodness out here of the new scroll? Oh yeah,

01:13:50.900 so this was the BC government set in motion an investigation into prolific offenders and random

01:13:55.340 violent attacks across the province. This is happening everywhere. I mean, that was hitting

01:14:01.300 the news the other day in Calgary here, again, getting to transit and the problem, the addictions,

01:14:08.500 the homeless people, the mess it's turning into in our urban centers right now. And a couple of

01:14:13.740 guys threw a person off of an LRT platform in downtown Calgary. He injured his head.

01:14:18.280 They've released weeks later, but they finally released CCTV footage of it. And it's terrible.

01:14:25.000 It's blurry and grainy.

01:14:26.240 I mean, Bigfoot had nothing on that. 0.96

01:14:28.080 And it says, you know, watch out for this woman.

01:14:29.720 I guess you can kind of see who the guy is.

01:14:31.180 If you knew him, you could recognize him. 1.00

01:14:32.300 All you've got is the back of a woman's head 0.86

01:14:33.840 and a red jacket with a hood up. 0.90

01:14:35.960 How is it that we got 100 cameras around?

01:14:37.980 You go to those platforms,

01:14:38.700 there's cameras in every direction.

01:14:40.080 How is the best shot you could get 1.00

01:14:41.340 the back of her head with a jacket on? 0.99

01:14:43.140 Why are we having trouble catching criminals? 1.00

01:14:46.440 But we've got lots of good public art.

01:14:48.360 So keep that in mind.

01:14:49.240 The city's spending its money in the right.

01:14:50.620 We've got a poet laureate.

01:14:52.580 Oh yeah.

01:14:52.960 but we can't seem to catch violent criminals on our LRT platforms.

01:14:58.200 Either way, in BC, they're having the same sorts of problems.

01:15:00.560 It looks like they're actually going to look into things.

01:15:03.540 It's a start.

01:15:04.560 They got a lot to do, but they're going to look into things.

01:15:07.840 And this is where it's saying they're looking into the repeat offenses

01:15:12.260 and how they're increasing and areas are having a problem,

01:15:16.340 particularly downtown and with violent crimes.

01:15:20.020 and this gets back to targeting things.

01:15:23.500 You know, I'm big on when it comes to violent crimes

01:15:26.700 and dangerous crimes.

01:15:29.560 Personally, I like the old three strikes law thing.

01:15:31.960 I don't, I'm not big on minimum sentencing,

01:15:33.600 but you know, kind of,

01:15:34.380 I believe people should be given a second chance,

01:15:36.720 maybe even a third one,

01:15:38.080 depending on what the issue is.

01:15:40.280 Try to reform people.

01:15:41.460 That's always our best outcome.

01:15:42.680 If they're getting in trouble,

01:15:43.560 if they've been stealing and so on,

01:15:44.640 but it depends on the crime.

01:15:45.420 If it's horrifically violent,

01:15:46.900 then we lock them away for life.

01:15:48.380 But try to catch them on the way up and reform.

01:15:50.020 them. But if they're continuing to do violent crimes over and over and over again, you got to

01:15:54.560 accept it for the sake of the public and lock these guys up. Quit letting them out. This catch

01:15:58.000 and release isn't working. It's putting people at risk. And as I was saying with those guys who

01:16:03.480 robbed me, I've told that story a few times and you know, you can look it up. The one murderer

01:16:08.400 is a guy named Ian Abercrombie who shot his friend, Shane Smith. And the other one, what was

01:16:15.020 his name, Mackleberg. And he shot a guy who'd been coming on to his girlfriend in the head.

01:16:20.100 And those, those idiots, yeah, had robbed us a couple of times. And they were on a crime spree

01:16:25.440 throughout Alberta, just south of Calgary, hitting rural spots and bars like mine and bars in Brad

01:16:30.800 Creek and areas. Either way, of course, when they were arrested, they had records as long as your

01:16:35.680 arm, a huge history of crimes, particularly that Abercrombie who accidentally shot his friend in

01:16:41.080 the head, accidentally rolled him in a carpet and accidentally threw him in a river.

01:16:45.020 He also had a restricted firearm.

01:16:47.440 So it shows, again, by all measures of the law,

01:16:50.660 he shouldn't even have had that.

01:16:53.060 It didn't stop him.

01:16:54.740 He's a chronic.

01:16:55.840 He's a loser.

01:16:57.040 He's a murderous loser.

01:16:59.220 And he's going to be out in a couple of years.

01:17:01.060 Do you think he's going to be reformed?

01:17:02.880 Do you think he's not going to hurt anybody?

01:17:05.920 Yeah, we've got a problem.

01:17:08.060 All right.

01:17:09.020 What else do we got?

01:17:10.160 Yes, we've got more supply chain issues coming,

01:17:12.640 things to put our prices up,

01:17:13.800 things to make it hard to find things on the shelves because China's lockdowns are really

01:17:18.400 screwing things up at the ports. And in Shanghai, it's got the world's biggest container port. Well,

01:17:24.060 in Shanghai, of course, they've been locking up their citizens and residents. It's been horrific

01:17:27.640 with what's going on over there. The COVID zero cult has won. They are trying to see if we can

01:17:33.160 somehow contain a virus, if we could just step on citizens' rights enough, bolt them into their

01:17:37.720 homes, lock them in there, and somehow stop a virus. It's not working, but it's causing a mess

01:17:42.560 across the entire planet.

01:17:44.360 That's that basic dictatorship

01:17:46.640 that Justin Trudeau does admire.

01:17:49.440 So as he put it in his own words.

01:17:52.020 So we got more problems to look forward to there.

01:17:55.800 There's another story coming up.

01:17:56.960 Lots of polls coming out lately.

01:17:58.880 One in three Canadians are willing to change jobs

01:18:01.100 in order to keep working from home.

01:18:03.580 Now this ties into a lot of things.

01:18:04.900 So I mean, the world has changed.

01:18:06.600 I'm not gonna use that stupid new normal term.

01:18:08.680 I hate that.

01:18:09.080 If you only get a throat punch out of me,

01:18:10.920 use that one around me.

01:18:11.900 it's nothing's normal anymore, but things have changed. And a lot of people over the last couple

01:18:16.880 of years and a lot of companies have learned that, hey, we don't necessarily need everybody

01:18:20.000 gathered in one spot anymore. We can function with people working from home. And some people

01:18:25.500 found it with themselves as well. You know what? I prefer working at home. And now one in three are

01:18:30.620 saying, you know what? In fact, I'll actually change jobs if that's what it takes to do it.

01:18:35.980 So this isn't that terribly surprising. I mean, it's not for everybody. Some people I've talked

01:18:40.960 to others say no I missed going back to the office like working from home isn't for me

01:18:44.560 different things for different people oh the demographic shift on things we've got going on

01:18:51.500 right now again Calgary's downtown like I said it's no wonder they're shooting the last of us

01:18:55.460 down here because they don't have to decorate a lot to show a post-apocalyptic zombie-laden

01:19:00.240 dystopian world they just gotta get some good camera angles they've already got the garbage

01:19:04.400 the broken down cars and the junkies all over the place to point at part of that is it's been

01:19:08.740 the depopulation of downtown though. I mean, commercially, we got over 30% of our downtown

01:19:13.220 office space is empty. And the city council is completely incompetent, but that's nothing new

01:19:17.420 around here. But they are mystified as to why transit's down 54%. Well, there's a couple of

01:19:24.600 reasons. For one, it sucks. It's dangerous. It's filthy. And as I was pointing out, people are

01:19:30.520 getting assaulted on it all the time. We've got some very serious problems there. And no amount

01:19:35.280 of public art is going to make me want to come down in that. As well, you know, people aren't

01:19:40.800 going to ride their bikes down here. Plus, people aren't working down here. They just aren't. So

01:19:44.920 what's our city council do? Let's spend a few billion dollars and put a green line deep into

01:19:49.320 the suburbs so we can have more empty transit running back and forth. At least it does transfer 1.00

01:19:53.520 the, if you look at the crime waves and the lines on all the LRT lines, everywhere within six blocks

01:19:58.620 of an LRT station is a high crime zone. So it does help our criminals get around more and network a

01:20:03.320 little better. Maybe we should start some city planning, urban planning, general planning to

01:20:08.500 reflect what Canadians want. And they want to get out of the city course. They want to get outside. 0.97

01:20:12.900 Let's start looking realistically at what people want to do. That many people, they're willing to

01:20:17.320 quit their job to work from home. And if they're going to work from home and spend all day at home,

01:20:22.220 that means they probably aren't living in a little box of an apartment. They're probably

01:20:25.600 in the suburbs of the yard and wanting some standard, you know, a good standard of living.

01:20:31.040 But we're still trying to mash everybody into urban living

01:20:33.500 and stuff them all downtown.

01:20:34.760 The city's spending millions and millions of dollars

01:20:36.500 to convert empty office buildings into apartment buildings

01:20:38.660 that nobody will want.

01:20:41.060 But, well, we keep asking Canadians what we want

01:20:43.680 and the government keeps doing other things.

01:20:44.980 Maybe we should start changing our governments.

01:20:46.440 That would be something responsibility lads on us.

01:20:49.460 Then it gets back to independence because, hey,

01:20:51.000 we do want to change it here in Alberta,

01:20:52.420 but Toronto and Montreal love the Liberals,

01:20:53.780 so that's not going to change.

01:20:55.180 And here we are.

01:20:58.020 Problematic.

01:20:59.240 I wonder if Derek will let me do this show from home.

01:21:01.380 I won't hold my breath on that one.

01:21:03.760 Let's see.

01:21:04.680 And critics are seeing the federal support for Canadian farmers.

01:21:07.540 The term they're using is putting water on a grease fire.

01:21:10.860 And this isn't just the prairies.

01:21:12.060 Ontario farmers are shouldering record inflation field price hikes for gas,

01:21:16.240 fertilizer, and herbicides.

01:21:18.380 And they say the government needs to act in order to keep afloat.

01:21:21.140 Now, you know, I don't think we need more subsidies.

01:21:23.180 The government, as usual with most things, just needs to get out of the damn way.

01:21:26.460 But they won't.

01:21:26.980 the government made changes, you know, the carbon taxes, they cost down the line. It's not as simple

01:21:33.480 as just getting a rebate and you're consuming fuels all over the place. And then it hits

01:21:36.700 fertilizers. We've got problems in Russia where a lot of the fertilizer came from. That's going

01:21:40.680 through the roof. And we got our ding-dongs in Ottawa saying fertilizer is a climate change

01:21:45.180 causing agent and they want to reduce it even further by taxing it for farmers. So if you're

01:21:51.260 wondering why things are expensive in the grocery store, guys, don't look at the farmer, look at the

01:21:55.560 government and they're just making it worse. They're just making it worse and they're continuing

01:22:01.540 to. So, uh, I don't know, better learn how to garden folks, man, I'm terrible at it. I got to

01:22:06.980 get better at it. But again, that's why I keep the firearms at least, you know, as long as I got

01:22:09.860 stuff to stave off the scurvy, I could always at least shoot something meat wise that I could eat,

01:22:13.900 I guess. All right. I think I've turned to your guys' ears enough for today. Uh, we got, let's

01:22:20.740 see, tune in Monday. I got a really good one coming on. He's an EMS worker. His name's Brian

01:22:24.000 winter. And we've been hearing a lot in Alberta and this is happening everywhere too. Our emergency

01:22:28.720 services, our ambulances, gross, terrible wait times. Some of them are, he was talking to me

01:22:34.500 on the phone the other day. They dispatched one from, I believe from Banff to go to Strathmore

01:22:39.560 or something like that. Like it's gone nuts. And the emergency services union has been showing a

01:22:44.300 lot of great maps showing some of the insane distances that ambulances have been pulled and

01:22:51.880 move because the government's made a mess by centralizing all the services. So he's starting

01:22:56.800 an initiative in Cochrane anyways, though, to try and mitigate harm, slow response times, and

01:23:01.240 having things to deal with, people having heart attacks in the spots, things like that, plus

01:23:05.580 lobbying to get the government to back off on their idiotic centralization of emergency services

01:23:10.400 because it's failing. And I'm going to have Joseph Borgo on, and he was one of the ones who was

01:23:15.920 trying to run for the conservative leadership. He got disqualified. They disallowed him. We haven't

01:23:20.580 found out the full details as to why he did raise the money. Apparently, he says he raised well over

01:23:26.040 $340,000, I believe it was. He only needed $300,000, but they still wouldn't let him run.

01:23:30.980 So we'll talk to Joseph on Monday and see what that's all about. Maybe he'll have some more

01:23:34.620 answers by then. And of course, there'll be lots of other news and things to go over. And don't

01:23:38.100 forget, Daniel Smith will have a show tomorrow morning. It's her long one at 9 a.m., and she'll

01:23:43.380 have a guest on for an extended drill down on some issue or another. Daniel's always great on there.

01:23:49.440 so thank you all for tuning in today guys and i will see you all on monday have a good weekend

01:24:19.440 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - May 07, 2022

Triggered： Conservative Party Leadership Debate Fireworks

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