Western Standard - Triggered： Effective protests need to have reasonable goals

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's May 16th, 2022. Happy Monday and welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:40.220 And yes, for a lot of people, I'm sure they're bleary-eyed and tired today, waiting last night

00:00:45.780 to see if that goalie with Dallas is indestructible or not. But it finally happened. Calgary got

00:00:51.120 through and we are looking forward to the Battle of Alberta for the first time in 30 years. That's

00:00:56.600 going to be quite something to Toronto fans out there. Well, Toronto's Toronto. Maybe another

00:01:01.660 50 years you'll get in there yet. For the time being, we've got Calgary and Edmonton are going

00:01:06.480 to clash. It's going to be a lot of fun coming up. We're going to have some guests going on in that.

00:01:09.700 We're not a sports show, but hey, this is huge. Getting a playoff run with those two teams going

00:01:15.000 at each other is going to be a lot of fun to watch for even casual viewers. And yeah, last night was

00:01:19.760 a late one for a lot of people, but it went. It's also International Pickle Day. Just so you know,

00:01:26.940 this is important to remember. You wouldn't want to forget this one. There's nothing more

00:01:30.380 embarrassing than getting through May and realizing you've missed your observance

00:01:34.040 for International Pickle Day. So make sure to send your loved ones their Pickle Day card or

00:01:39.240 whatever it goes with that sort of holiday in particular today. So good to see you guys all

00:01:43.960 checking in from all over the place, Tabor and Ernie and Roundabouts. I see some Flames fans

00:01:50.140 already coming in. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of dispute going on, you know, between those

00:01:54.080 two teams as things move along, but it will be a fun series and we'll have some fun with it here

00:01:58.600 too. I got a couple of good guests on today. Columnist Lee Harding. I got him back. I know

00:02:03.920 we had a hiccup last time. He is coming on this time for sure. He assures me. We're going to talk

00:02:08.440 about that new Sask, uh, Sask United party in Saskatchewan. So yeah, they got a new provincial

00:02:14.460 party. They've got a independent MLA, I believe, who is sitting on with that and Jerry Ritz. So

00:02:20.440 they got some names. We're going to see what's going on with that. And then Spencer Fernando

00:02:25.080 is going to come on and people might recognize that name. He's quite a prolific columnist and

00:02:30.900 writer and of, uh, he's been involved with the National Citizens Coalition as well. We're going

00:02:35.120 to talk about a couple of his columns on authoritarianism, on the media and the slant

00:02:40.160 of it these days. It's always a good chat with Mr. Fernando. So before we get on to everything

00:02:46.200 else, I'm going to start off with my rant and I'm going to kick it off with one of my favorite

00:02:49.880 subjects, that being myself. Or at least I'm going to use a personal example of an effective

00:02:54.960 protest because we've seen a lot of things going on. The Jagmeet Singh thing, a lot of confusion

00:02:59.640 about whether we support protests, not protests, what's inappropriate to a protest.

00:03:05.040 How do you do it right? How do you do it wrong?

00:03:06.600 Well, I feel that there's, you know, we're doing it the wrong way quite often.

00:03:11.680 I'll offer some of my life experience of protests and perhaps how to help things be effective.

00:03:17.420 As well, I want to clear the air on some misinformation going on about the land of social media.

00:03:22.620 That being the one, somebody was tweeting about that the other day, that I drove into a bunch of protesters with a pickup truck.

00:03:29.520 Now, in light of the horrific murder of protesters by a lunatic driving into protesters in Charlottesville years ago, I'd better clarify what I did in 2011 anyways. And rest assured, it was nothing dangerous or threatening.

00:03:41.180 So, some people might remember the series of protests across North America called Occupy back in 2011. There were copycat protests of Occupy Wall Street, where leftist protesters took over a park in New York City and set up camp in a general protest against capitalism.

00:03:57.260 and support protests and marches were held across North America and held in cities, and that's fine.

00:04:02.800 The problem came when groups of people set up encampments in city parks all over North America.

00:04:07.980 Now, cities tolerated the encampments for a couple of weeks, but as they dragged on,

00:04:12.240 it was evident there was no realistic endgame for these protests, and something had to be done.

00:04:16.760 Their demands were disparate and impossible to fulfill,

00:04:19.380 and that's one of the problems I'm going to get to with ineffective protesting.

00:04:22.560 So some of their demands were things like,

00:04:24.160 We want a Canada where the debt per capita does not double in the next decade.

00:04:28.720 Okay, sounds nice, but how do you negotiate that?

00:04:31.860 We want a Canada where our system of exchange no longer embodies the logic of a cancer cell.

00:04:37.440 These were literal demands made by people squatting in Calgary's park and protesting. 0.75

00:04:43.740 And this list of demands would change daily, too, as they changed leaders almost daily in these squatter camps.

00:04:48.500 So as the weeks of squatting in parks dragged into months,

00:04:52.020 cities across North America were forced to get injunctions and have police remove these protesters.

00:04:56.700 The camps had become filthy, overdoses were becoming common, and sexual assaults were even happening. 0.70

00:05:01.460 It sounded much like the CHAZ zone in Seattle during the BLM protests. 0.90

00:05:05.240 The mess just couldn't continue. 0.98

00:05:07.360 Now, while most of the cities in North America had gotten rid of their Occupy squatters,

00:05:10.540 you know, getting into November and such, Calgary's mayor was reticent.

00:05:13.900 He didn't want to have those protesters removed, despite damage being caused to Olympic Plaza and legitimate events being canceled and the safety issues that were going on.

00:05:22.340 You see, these lefties were part of his support base, and he was relatively recently elected at that time.

00:05:27.320 He was hoping the cold weather would take care of them before he had to act.

00:05:30.140 Well, he was wrong. They weren't going anywhere.

00:05:32.440 So I started a petition demanding City Hall Act, and in the petition it noted in the preamble that

00:05:37.000 and taxpayers will be fined if they don't shovel their sidewalk within 24 hours of a snowfall,

00:05:41.600 but you can apparently squat in perpetuity in a city park.

00:05:44.960 The petition gained some steam, and soon it had thousands of signatures.

00:05:48.140 It was going to be presented to city council by my then-city councillor

00:05:51.580 to the rest of them in city hall the next Monday morning.

00:05:55.540 On that Friday, though, Mayor Nitsche told the press that my petition was a waste of time.

00:06:00.480 He said that the charter prevented the squatters from any enforcement,

00:06:04.100 and it was impossible to physically remove somebody

00:06:06.520 based on a bylaw violation anyway.

00:06:08.280 So he said I was basically pissing in the wind

00:06:10.320 and the case was closed

00:06:11.480 and we just have to let these guys tire out

00:06:13.440 and leave on their own.

00:06:15.060 So, huh, I decided, well, let's put this to the test.

00:06:19.420 So I went and checked out the park

00:06:20.480 and I noticed a service road that entered the park.

00:06:22.720 It was designed for maintenance

00:06:23.780 and it was easy to access and wide open.

00:06:25.400 So on the Sunday morning, I took my pickup truck,

00:06:28.620 drove down the service road into the park

00:06:30.140 and put my truck in the park, poured a coffee.

00:06:33.920 I was nowhere near any of the tents as they'd set up out in the grass,

00:06:36.500 and I remembered, I mean, on the pavement, you know, over the service area.

00:06:39.040 So again, you know, that rumor that I was driving into or putting protesters at risk,

00:06:43.380 nothing of the sort.

00:06:44.540 And few of those squatters were even out of bed yet.

00:06:47.140 Now, I'd prepared some signs with ludicrous demands

00:06:49.640 and screwed them to the box liner of my truck.

00:06:51.620 I demanded an end to marmot tickling.

00:06:54.300 And the return of the TV series Arrested Development, 0.95

00:06:56.380 that one actually came true, and unfortunately the return sucked. 0.53

00:06:58.820 But either way, it was a ridiculous demand at the time.

00:07:01.040 and I demanded that two-ply toilet paper be put in all public washrooms. 1.00

00:07:05.520 My demands were stupid, but they were no more dumb than those of the squatters. 0.99

00:07:09.200 Now, the squatters claimed their tents were a form of expression, thus they were protected by the charter. 1.00

00:07:14.460 Well, I claimed my truck was my form of expression.

00:07:16.980 So, of course, before long, by-law officers approached and asked me to move.

00:07:21.220 I politely refused and explained I was exercising my charter rights, and I wouldn't move until my demands were met.

00:07:26.200 Needless to say, they were flummoxed.

00:07:28.000 So, soon, more senior officers approached and told me I was breaking a bylaw by parking in the park.

00:07:33.080 They asked if I could park on the street.

00:07:34.660 I said, sure.

00:07:35.740 As soon as you make all those squatters in the tents, move to a campground.

00:07:38.520 And then roll out my window.

00:07:40.060 Eventually, the bylaw officers turned into police officers.

00:07:42.440 My truck was surrounded by annoyed squatters, along with frustrated police and bylaw officers.

00:07:47.080 And the press was building up as well.

00:07:48.460 So this standoff lasted for a few hours.

00:07:51.180 Mayor Ninchy and City Hall were stuck with two choices. 0.96

00:07:53.920 They could have me removed and prove themselves as hypocrites, 0.96

00:07:56.780 or leave me there and let the gong show become worse in this park. 0.87

00:08:00.040 So eventually, Nenshi made his choice.

00:08:02.140 The police came by, and I was informed that a tow truck was coming.

00:08:05.320 I'd have to leave my truck when it got there, and I was going to be fined.

00:08:08.760 I asked what would happen if I refused to leave my truck.

00:08:10.940 They told me I'd be physically removed and charged with criminal obstruction.

00:08:13.740 I told them that won't be needed.

00:08:15.060 I'm going to leave willingly when the tow truck got there.

00:08:16.740 I'd made my point. No need to make them wrestle me out.

00:08:19.080 I'm not going to be like one of those crazed lefty protesters and make them drag me out of there.

00:08:22.440 So the tow truck arrived, I left my truck, and was issued with $400 in fines.

00:08:28.240 I got those knocked down to $100 later on, by the way.

00:08:31.120 So, the headlines the day after were fantastic.

00:08:34.060 The Calgary Sun cover said in big bold print,

00:08:36.180 Stupefy Calgary, oh, it was beautiful.

00:08:38.320 And inside there was a big two-page spread with a big headline that said,

00:08:41.520 Hippocrites.

00:08:42.480 And the mayor and city hall had no excuses left.

00:08:44.840 So that Monday, they sought an injunction, and the squatters were removed within a week.

00:08:49.720 Now, what Ninchy said was impossible on Friday was accomplished the follow Monday,

00:08:55.780 only because of the protest.

00:08:57.900 I'm going to pat my own back a bit there.

00:08:59.480 It would take some credit.

00:09:00.400 Protests can make a difference, but you see, they've got to be targeted,

00:09:03.360 and they have to have a goal.

00:09:05.280 That's the difference between what I did and some other protests.

00:09:08.320 I mean, I was prepared to spend no more than 24 hours out there.

00:09:10.700 I wasn't going to entrench myself for a long time.

00:09:13.420 When protests go awry, it's when they settle in,

00:09:16.040 and there isn't a reasonably negotiated end to them.

00:09:18.860 You've got to have terms that can be met.

00:09:21.180 And that was the case with the squatters and arguably later on with the Ottawa protests later.

00:09:26.480 And I mean, the Ottawa protests demanded the end of vaccine mandates, but they're also confused through some side demands by a minority.

00:09:32.600 But all the same, they're demanding the prime minister step down and some other unreasonable demands.

00:09:36.940 Now, as soon as the demands get unreasonable, the protest becomes untenable.

00:09:41.200 I still completely oppose the imposition of the Emergencies Act and the treatment of the truckers' convoy protesters.

00:09:47.680 I mean, the Occupy squatters stayed for months.

00:09:50.440 Well, the Ottawa protesters were removed in a couple of weeks.

00:09:52.480 So you can't compare those two protests.

00:09:54.720 Still, there's things to be learned.

00:09:56.780 If one wants to hold an effective demonstration, there has to be a way out at the end.

00:10:00.580 There has to be reasonably negotiable terms.

00:10:03.160 And there has to be somebody who can speak on behalf of the protest.

00:10:06.020 I mean, saying it's decentralized is a good idea.

00:10:07.860 But in the end, it makes it very difficult because you get different messaging and you get things from all over.

00:10:13.000 And it's all easier said than done.

00:10:14.220 But protests can backfire and actually reduce public support for a cause if they're done wrong.

00:10:18.740 In fact, they often do.

00:10:20.480 Some come out and say, I don't care what the public thinks.

00:10:22.640 Well, you better, because it's fine if you don't care.

00:10:25.140 But the politicians do, and they're the ones who will send the police if they feel the public supports that approach.

00:10:30.480 And the right to protest, I mean, it's essential in democracy, integral.

00:10:34.580 We can't allow it to be eroded.

00:10:36.020 And that's what we're getting worried about with the whole Jagmeet Singh thing last week,

00:10:39.320 where they're trying to talk about cracking down on expression.

00:10:41.740 Hey, the approach to Singh was tasteless and nasty.

00:10:47.140 That just comes with the turf. 0.93

00:10:48.460 It sucks, but, you know, I don't think it was a good idea to go out and do it.

00:10:50.920 It doesn't help public support, but they have every right to do it. 0.97

00:10:53.920 Protesting, though, has to be done with care and planning.

00:10:56.380 Impulse demonstrations that last a day or so were fine.

00:10:59.040 When things entrench, you'd better have a plan.

00:11:01.340 So we might have more restrictions come from the government in the future.

00:11:03.800 They love control, and they've proven they like to exercise it.

00:11:06.320 And in that case, the citizens are going to need to protest again.

00:11:08.760 We're not done.

00:11:09.760 So let's learn from past protests.

00:11:11.740 we can be successful with them but you have to do them right all right that's where i'm at now

00:11:18.900 let's get in and talk to our news editor mr naylor hey dave how's it going uh you know cory i'm

00:11:25.380 jubilant that the flames won but it still has not lifted my anger from the weekend and let me tell

00:11:31.720 you why as you know calgary's in a bit of a problem at the moment we've got single mothers being shot

00:11:38.240 as they drive down the streets of Forest Law and we've got a downtown zone that's looking more and

00:11:44.880 more like an episode of The Walking Dead every single day. But our city leaders, God bless them,

00:11:52.180 have the foresight to name an official bird. Yes, as of the weekend, it's official, the chickadee.

00:11:59.120 There it is. That filthy flying thing that I'm in a battle of wills with is our city bird.

00:12:07.280 As you will remember, Corey, this is the same bird that has been chirping out my window at 4.45 a.m. for more than two weeks now. 0.86

00:12:16.640 And it was back this morning, chirping, no doubt, in victory that he is now the official bird and probably protected from me grabbing a shotgun and blasting him to smithereens.

00:12:28.540 So, all right, bird, you enjoy your day.

00:12:31.180 My day is coming.

00:12:33.120 Well, I mean, you know, you've lost the battle.

00:12:36.120 I thought, shouldn't you have been out there lobbying for the magpie?

00:12:39.060 Because that was the second-place finisher, wasn't it?

00:12:40.840 The magpie was the second-place finisher.

00:12:43.760 And, you know, they're no different than seagulls.

00:12:46.780 They're just, you know, flying human.

00:12:48.620 They're just flying garbage receptacles, in my opinion. 0.75

00:12:52.060 I mean, look at it.

00:12:53.080 I mean, what's wrong with the mighty hawk or the peregrine falcon?

00:12:56.840 I mean, that's not even a bird, Corey, for goodness sake. 0.96

00:13:00.680 Ridiculous. 0.77

00:13:01.700 Anyways, my rant is done. 0.93

00:13:05.420 Let's get on with the news this morning.

00:13:07.560 Battle of Alberta.

00:13:08.800 We've got a battle of columnists already this morning.

00:13:11.880 We've got some lunatic by the name of Lee Harding who is predicting that the Oilers will win, believe it or not.

00:13:19.100 I don't know what he's on this morning. 0.66

00:13:21.880 The more sane Arthur Green is correctly predicting a Flames victory, and I'll agree with him.

00:13:28.680 I think it's going to be over in five.

00:13:30.240 I think if the Flames play as well as they did against Dallas, I think they'll steamroll poor old Mike Smith.

00:13:38.540 Linda, our Mel Rizdin's got a column up on Jason Stephan, a Red Deer MLA.

00:13:45.060 He's questioning why does Alberta always have to subsidize Quebec's energy prices?

00:13:52.360 So that's up there, and there's a video to go along with that.

00:13:56.120 The aforementioned Mr. Harding, when he's not pontificating on the Oilers, wrote a story about Lesley Lewis today and what she thinks of Patrick Brown's attempt to attract social conservatives.

00:14:09.680 And my favorite story of the morning, Russian oligarch number seven has croaked from toad poisoning.

00:14:17.360 You can't make this stuff up, Corey, and our Amanda Brown has got a great story up there about how he was injected with toad vemon over the weekend.

00:14:28.520 And he's the seventh Russian billionaire to suffer a horrible fate since they invaded Ukraine.

00:14:37.700 Other stuff, it was a more weekend of rain and flooding in Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba.

00:14:45.040 and our Chris Oldcorn has got a story on that.

00:14:49.100 And some good stuff, Corey, I'd like to point out from the weekend.

00:14:53.960 You'll remember former fan favorite of the Flames, Mark Giordano,

00:14:59.120 went to Seattle and now he's with Toronto.

00:15:03.240 His house is up for sale in Calgary.

00:15:05.800 So if you've got two and a half million bucks,

00:15:07.960 you can move into Gio's old home in Altidore.

00:15:11.760 700 bottle wine room.

00:15:14.080 So I guess Gio was a fan of the Tibble.

00:15:18.600 Our Dave Makachuk's got a very interesting column on James Bond,

00:15:22.540 one of the big people out of there, Miss Moneypenny, you'll remember,

00:15:26.380 turned out after the war came to Calgary.

00:15:28.800 And she lived in Calgary, and the whole Miss Moneypenny character

00:15:33.020 was based on her.

00:15:34.760 And her son, General John de Chastelaine,

00:15:38.560 went through the ranks to become Chief of Defence Staff.

00:15:41.880 So quite a family there.

00:15:44.080 Arlinda Slobodian has got a column on Premier Jason Kenney and what kind of margin he's going to need to carry on as UCP leader.

00:15:55.800 And David Milgaard, 23 years of his life, thrown in jail at 17, served 23 years of sentence for murder that he did not commit.

00:16:07.000 Sadly passed away in Calgary at the age of 69 on Sunday.

00:16:13.060 So we've got a story on that.

00:16:15.220 And bigger news coming up later on this afternoon.

00:16:18.340 Our own Rachel Emanuel is the only journalist traveled from Canada with Premier Kenny.

00:16:24.600 He's down in Washington today meeting with any energy official he can talk to about trying to get more Alberta oil into the States and how they're going to do that.

00:16:36.200 And our Rachel is the only traveling reporter with him.

00:16:39.160 So hopefully we'll be getting some good exclusives out of that.

00:16:42.420 Corey?

00:16:43.060 Yeah, that would be very interesting.

00:16:45.400 Yeah, very interesting.

00:16:46.680 So that's all that I've got.

00:16:48.920 And I'm now leaving to figure out my next step in the battle against the chickadee.

00:16:54.360 Well, I had a commenter give some advice there.

00:16:57.220 Mr. Thomas has said you should borrow Makachuk's cat. 0.95

00:17:00.980 And that may help you deal with that nefarious bird. 0.98

00:17:05.900 That's all right.

00:17:07.640 I'll ask Dave.

00:17:08.340 I'll ask Dave after the show if I could borrow the cat.

00:17:11.900 Right on.

00:17:12.620 Thanks, Dave. We'll see you after the show.

00:17:15.340 Take care.

00:17:17.360 Speaking for myself, though, I do like chickadees.

00:17:20.440 Of course, I sleep more deeply.

00:17:22.740 Actually, my hearing is terrible anyway, so I'll take those over magpies in my view.

00:17:28.100 But the chickadee seems to be driving poor Dave over the edge.

00:17:31.960 But we'll see if that gets resolved.

00:17:34.040 And a lot of other serious news stories, you know, going on out there, of course, too, and everything.

00:17:38.140 So that reminder, I mean, boy, that's something else.

00:17:40.480 So, yeah, Rachel is out there in Washington with Premier Kenney right now.

00:17:44.460 She's got some exclusive time with him.

00:17:46.020 She'll be talking with him, see what kind of things she gets.

00:17:48.820 You know, Mr. Kenney's got a busy week, Premier Kenney.

00:17:51.800 The review is coming out on Wednesday.

00:17:53.360 We're going to be doing a special Wednesday night, by the way.

00:17:55.480 Tune in at 3.45 Wednesday afternoon, and we'll start covering for whenever those leadership ballot results come out.

00:18:01.460 We'll have a number of guests, and we'll be talking about the implications of the ballot and whatever happens after that.

00:18:07.460 It's a really bizarre time.

00:18:09.080 And that'll segue in well to talk to my next guest, Lee Harding, who we will put on the spot for his terrible taste in hockey teams tomorrow.

00:18:15.540 But today we'll stick to more news type issues with that party in Saskatchewan and these new parties that spring up all over.

00:18:22.440 But I just like to remind everybody to get out there.

00:18:24.760 And that's how we have these stories.

00:18:26.000 That's how we have Rachel out in Washington.

00:18:27.880 That's how we have Lee out in Saskatchewan.

00:18:29.840 People all over contributing because you guys have been subscribing.

00:18:34.380 So, hey, get on there.

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00:19:00.360 wins. And you get good independent media that talks about those stories that the mainstream

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00:20:10.580 check them out and take control of your money. Okay, let's bring Lee Harding into the room here

00:20:16.520 today. He's coming in from out in Saskatchewan there where we've got a brand new political

00:20:21.280 party to talk about. Hey, Lee, how's it going? Hey, I'm doing all right. Glad we get to talk

00:20:25.140 today. Yeah, right on. And we'll talk again tomorrow. This is one of those rare two in a

00:20:29.720 things but i don't want to sidetrack too much before we get to that um yeah it's a big deal

00:20:36.340 battle of alberta coming back and what we've waited 31 years for this yeah that's a long haul

00:20:42.340 how many flames and oilers fans have never seen a battle of alberta staggering pretty much anybody

00:20:49.200 under 40 is gonna have a hard time remembering it so uh it's gonna be a wild few weeks uh that's

00:20:55.940 for sure but uh getting on to the political front then i mean yeah that was the first thing to pull

00:21:00.780 you in on so there's a the saskatchewan united party yeah maybe you can kind of lay out a bit

00:21:05.920 of the background and what's going on there well there's been a backlash to some of the

00:21:10.480 covid responses and people didn't think the nep was necessarily

00:21:14.400 buffalo party was kind of muted during all of this and the pcs didn't have much to say

00:21:22.100 either. So basically, out of this groundswell, people were like, well, maybe we need a different

00:21:28.100 political party. And it was my understanding that some of the people behind this, they tried to use

00:21:33.820 the avenue of the existing parties, they wanted to see a merger between the Buffalo and the PCs.

00:21:39.760 And I thought that that was actually a done deal. And then someone somewhere didn't like it,

00:21:46.620 and it all fell through. And power is a hard thing to give up. You've really got to be motivated to do

00:21:53.420 that. So they dismissed the True North as being a viable option to join. There's a True North party

00:22:00.940 in Saskatchewan that's trying to get enough signatures to get into existence. And so their

00:22:06.540 hope is that they can spearhead the alternative and maybe have some of these other parties fold

00:22:13.100 into them or to capture their supporters to be sort of the go-to alternative in this province.

00:22:21.460 Yeah, well, and it seems almost like Saskatchewan's taken a page out of Alberta's playbook. I mean,

00:22:27.280 some of the irony of calling it, you know, the SaskUnited party, when you're starting down that

00:22:32.000 road of perhaps being less united and having a number of parties, what is their response to the

00:22:37.440 fear, like, you know, with what we did to ourselves in Alberta, when you split the Conservatives up

00:22:41.200 too much, you can end up with an NDP default government later on. Well, that's a very real

00:22:47.220 possibility. And I know from my time having campaigned in the past for the PPC that they

00:22:52.100 are guaranteed to hear that at the doors. You're going to split the vote, the NDP are going to get

00:22:56.100 back in, and that's all. So I think it is a very real possibility, but they really felt sincere

00:23:01.940 that there was no choice. I had asked at one of their meetings, why not just try and invade the

00:23:08.640 sass party and overwhelm their membership and bring some changes and they thought looking at

00:23:13.360 their constitution that that wasn't necessarily possible and i find it ironic one of the main

00:23:19.440 organizers said look we don't we got to win this next election we don't have 10 years well the

00:23:24.840 problem is that it does take 10 years to get a party into power from scratch even the saskatchewan

00:23:30.020 party that was a merger of progressive conservative and liberal sitting mlas to form a new entity

00:23:37.460 it took them 10 years before they could get into power. So I don't like their chances of even

00:23:45.400 becoming official opposition in this next election. And if they made it the one after that,

00:23:50.320 I would be quite surprised. Yeah. So, well, this one does have, I guess, some advantages in that

00:23:55.840 there's an incumbent MLA, Nadine Wilson, involved. Yep, that's right. And the contingency that they

00:24:02.740 are appealing to, likes her, appreciates that she was stepping out on this issue and seems to

00:24:10.020 understand where they're coming from. I know some Saskatchewan party MLAs, well, I don't think any

00:24:16.340 of them liked her decision, but I know one of them said you have far more influence from the inside

00:24:22.420 than you do being on Twitter and being an independent on the outside. But between the

00:24:30.200 media management the Saskatchewan party has had and trying to insulate themselves from Dr. Ryan

00:24:36.060 Miley who was the head of the NDP they've taken a side that is a little too silent a little too

00:24:42.520 cautious on the concerns of people who didn't like the direction that it was going with lockdowns

00:24:49.400 with vaccination being mandatory and this sort of thing so the Saskatchewan Unified grassroots which

00:24:58.160 just not this political party, but a grassroots movement,

00:25:01.320 they really made room for the premier to be more soft in his stance,

00:25:07.620 to remind people that these are our friends and neighbors.

00:25:11.000 And even though they were stridently encouraging people to get vaccinated

00:25:15.420 and denying some services to them,

00:25:18.540 he couldn't get liquor or certain things unless he were vaccinated.

00:25:23.160 They didn't really want it to be some kind of lasting social division in the province.

00:25:27.900 So I would hope that this political party doesn't become too conflated with that, because I think it's very helpful to have a movement that speaks to government no matter who's in power and is not seen as being partisan.

00:25:41.860 Just like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, there were people in the past who said, why don't you form a political party?

00:25:47.160 And they said, well, if we do that, we're going to cease to be what we have intended to be.

00:25:51.840 We'd rather just be an influence no matter who's in power to be standing for the same things.

00:25:55.960 So hopefully that entity, if we want to call it that, can remain no matter what becomes of this party.

00:26:04.500 Yeah, well, that's one of the challenges I think, you know, that the PPC endured as well.

00:26:10.320 And other alternative parties, I guess you could say, is that there's a lot of very motivated people.

00:26:16.160 They're very strongly against mandates.

00:26:18.160 They're very upset with governments over vaccine passports or lockdowns or any of those things.

00:26:23.860 and they're a strong basis of support to get, but they seem to have a hard ceiling.

00:26:29.720 So you can get that 10% that'll get out there and they'll donate and they'll work hard and

00:26:34.040 they'll get involved. But moving beyond that, you've got to get a little more broad if you

00:26:38.280 actually want to win seats. So they're going to have to find that balance.

00:26:42.100 Oh, absolutely. And I think they wouldn't have any chance at any of the urban ridings

00:26:47.240 and even the rural ones. I mean, if they can get second, that's great.

00:26:51.020 Ken Rutherford's involved and Ken Rutherford actually got third in the riding Battleford's

00:26:57.680 Lloyd Minster where Jerry Ritz used to be the MP and was the agriculture minister under Harper and

00:27:04.260 actually Jerry Ritz I don't think he's getting you know he's no intentions to run as a candidate or

00:27:08.940 anything but he's lent at least his voice to what's going on here because he senses there is a

00:27:14.160 legitimate dissatisfaction with the way things have been handled the curious thing will be what

00:27:19.140 happens if COVID really becomes a nothing? Is there enough here to really organize around?

00:27:25.060 And another question I have is what policy space they're going to have, because once you get beyond

00:27:30.100 that issue, you will get to some of the regular left-right divides, and you may not even fight

00:27:36.780 amongst this constituency that you're united. So I don't want to dismiss what they're doing and

00:27:41.780 really pour cold water on it or anything, but I think it is a very difficult uphill battle

00:27:47.840 to bring a party like this into the mainstream.

00:27:53.700 It's a lot of work, but I mean, it can happen.

00:27:56.680 Again, you know, looking at our history in Alberta,

00:27:58.660 we started with the Alberta Alliance.

00:28:00.180 It had one seat, took a couple of election cycles.

00:28:03.360 As you said, it's like a 10-year process

00:28:04.820 to really get it viable.

00:28:06.640 Went through a leadership change,

00:28:08.120 got Daniel Smith in, became opposition,

00:28:09.900 and then a whole bizarre, you know,

00:28:11.880 history of falling apart and merging into the UCP,

00:28:14.740 kind of full circle there.

00:28:15.840 but it can be done and it does have a serious impact on the politics so that this could be

00:28:20.580 the seeds of something that grows into something much larger too if they put it together the right

00:28:24.260 way well that is true and i think that there was enough of a of a neglect of one side of the

00:28:30.760 argument here by the saskatchewan party that there was a political price to be paid and they are

00:28:35.680 going to pay it and we're just going to have to see how big of a price that is you know the funny

00:28:40.160 thing with people is they're very dedicated to the party that they have it is almost like a hockey

00:28:45.960 team or a religion for them to switch allegiances is very difficult and that's why we see probably

00:28:52.960 our current federal government in there is because you have certain people that will never switch the

00:28:57.520 best you can get them to do is to not vote if they're dissatisfied they will never can't bring

00:29:03.600 themselves to vote for Team B, whoever that is. And there's some of that that's going to go on

00:29:10.460 here as well. So I really don't know how they're going to do. I think they could lay out a whole

00:29:15.200 policy platform and say, yeah, I think that looks good, but you guys are new. You're not ready to

00:29:20.340 govern. And they're certainly not going to form the next government. So where are they

00:29:26.220 organizationally right now, though? They're not quite registered as a party yet. No, my understanding

00:29:31.580 is they've begun the process. And so the clock is ticking for them to get the 2,500 signatures

00:29:36.360 and they need to have a hundred signatures in 10 different ridings. So that needs to

00:29:44.300 take place. And they have laid the groundwork for that in the meetings where they were kind of

00:29:50.380 talking about what they were hoping to do, intending to do. They did get a group of people

00:29:55.480 that they thought when it comes time, we can call upon them. They will sign and we'll get it under

00:30:00.660 the deadline so I don't doubt that they will become Saskatchewan's seventh registered party

00:30:06.600 but how far it will go is an open question um Buffalo's just got a new leader and they've sort

00:30:13.860 of spent two years in internal turmoil we've had uh as well the the PCs that have um they basically

00:30:23.140 clean house after Ken Gray resigned as leader and as one person said to me they've got one foot in

00:30:29.720 the past and one foot in the future. So they have a fund of multiple millions that's from their days

00:30:35.520 as a mainstream party, but that the guard, that old guard that holds the purse strings to that

00:30:41.240 doesn't necessarily want to lend those resources to some of the newer things that would be more

00:30:47.240 responsive in the 21st century. So I really don't know how this is going to shake out, but well,

00:30:54.220 I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Yeah, well, they'll have to stake out some ground where

00:30:58.560 they feel, I guess, the Saskatchewan voters feel the SAS party hasn't been, you know, fully

00:31:03.380 representing them or doing well. One area that the Wilder's Independence Party led by Paul

00:31:07.820 Hinman in Alberta is doing, for example, is at least pushing towards that, well, the independence

00:31:13.500 aspect or autonomy or Ottawa versus Alberta issues. But I think Saskatchewan's premier has

00:31:19.660 actually been pretty, Scott Moe has been pretty strong against Ottawa somewhat when it comes to

00:31:23.900 those clashes. So is there quite the discontent, do you think, or an appetite for that kind of

00:31:28.460 more autonomy-leading sort of party where Buffalo failed? Well, there's no lack of

00:31:33.580 displeasure with Trudeau, that's for sure. I mean, if you listen to the Buffalo party leader,

00:31:40.020 he'll say that Mo was actually weak, that he talked a big talk, but then would just fold when

00:31:44.660 it came to Trudeau. So it really depends on who you ask. There's some people that would

00:31:49.660 are happy to stake their flag on a party that is explicitly for more independents. And I think

00:31:55.340 the Buffalo Party will always have that corner, that constituency. That doesn't seem to be much

00:32:00.700 of the groundswell here, although as much as in some way getting out from under the thumb of the

00:32:07.840 federal government would allow more freedom in certain aspects of COVID, I think they would

00:32:12.320 welcome that. I don't really see an anti-Ottawa sentiment as being a big part of it. There might

00:32:18.580 be an anti-World Economic Forum and that kind of control mechanism going on that you might have

00:32:25.260 some opposition to and maybe exercising through Ottawa, but it doesn't really seem to be

00:32:30.100 coming from a Western independence kind of mindset. So I think Buffalo is going to have

00:32:35.800 that cornered. And so this is the problem I see with the party. It says, according to some

00:32:43.540 surveys that were done, that the pandemic, most people had the same political opinion as they did

00:32:48.740 before, except for about a quarter of people. And of that quarter of people, 70% said they moved

00:32:54.300 more to the right. And 30% said they moved more to the left. So there is some political ground to

00:33:01.560 be gained, but it is marginal. And so it really depends on what kind of candidates that they can

00:33:07.880 attract and how hard they're willing to work and if they're really willing to work over the long

00:33:12.100 haul. But I think for it to become any kind of viable alternative, you'd probably need to fold

00:33:17.540 the other marginal options into one kind of political entity. I'm not sure there's the will

00:33:22.840 to do that. Okay, but I mean, one co-hold that they do have that's kind of strong in there is

00:33:28.220 having an incumbent MLA, though, sitting in the legislature, even if it's an independent role

00:33:32.860 right now. Do you think, like, again, I just keep drawing the parallels to the Alberta one.

00:33:37.800 They sort of changed. We had one person in the legislature here, and then he managed to coax

00:33:42.020 three others to cross the floor and join him, which gave official party status, really shook

00:33:46.260 things up, and gave a lot more juice to the party. Do you think there's perhaps some discontented

00:33:51.160 legislators out there who might be considering a move if the right structure was there for them

00:33:56.700 to move towards? Yeah, maybe it has to do with the Alberta ethic being different from the

00:34:02.040 Saskatchewan one. I think it's a little bit more conciliatory here, and I don't know if they view

00:34:07.580 Nadine Wilson as being someone who's going to rally them all onto another side. Kenny came in

00:34:14.460 as an outsider, and it's been a difficult time for him, partly because of the unions and other

00:34:20.780 people making it difficult for him. But I don't really see that there's that same kind of

00:34:27.040 groundswell against Mo. He's been a loyal part of the SAS party from the beginning of his

00:34:34.040 involvement. Nadine Wilson has been in office since 2007. So it'll be interesting to see if

00:34:40.800 she can hold her seat. And we think of the PPC example in Quebec, where Bernier still can't get

00:34:46.900 his seat back, and he was a longtime MP. So it really depends on whether people see this as being

00:34:52.980 a hill they want to die on or a statement they want to make. Of course, when you're not in the

00:34:59.080 government party, you don't necessarily get all the money flowing to your constituency you might

00:35:04.400 otherwise, much as no provincial government would admit it. That may be in the back of their minds.

00:35:10.360 We did see an example in the Maritimes, I think it was in Nova Scotia, where there was a candidate

00:35:16.040 who spoke out against her party, ran as an independent, and won that election. So, you know,

00:35:21.080 it'll be interesting to see how strong the convictions are and how loyal the people up

00:35:26.260 there are to her. It's a tough go for a new party, but I mean, it's interesting to see one springing

00:35:32.400 up. It still should, you know, raise some eyebrows, at least with the incumbents, to make them

00:35:36.620 realize, well, you better watch your flank. I mean, things are small now, but they can grow.

00:35:42.280 Where is Saskatchewan right now in the electoral cycle?

00:35:46.040 Oh, it's going to be a while yet. I mean, there was an election in fall of 2020, and it was only after that that we saw more lockdowns and more stricter things.

00:35:55.780 I think that it was still always the province that probably had the lightest hand in terms of, I don't want to call it COVID oppression, but in terms of the measures that were put here.

00:36:06.080 So it always did tend more towards the freedom side in a relative sense.

00:36:11.300 But yeah, it's going to be a while.

00:36:13.040 There's enough time for them to certainly get as many candidates.

00:36:17.460 You know, there's no reason they couldn't have a full set of candidates.

00:36:20.140 I don't know. Again, I think in the rural areas, that kind of constituency would be strong enough.

00:36:26.580 They could do something, maybe have, you know, finish third or even second if they did really well.

00:36:32.780 in the last election, the Buffalo Party had hardly begun and they had four candidates

00:36:38.960 that took second place. So that was seen as more than what a lot of political observers thought

00:36:46.080 they were going to have. And we'll just see how much remnant of a vote there is left. But

00:36:51.380 there's a lot that the SAS party would have to lose before they would lose power. And some of

00:36:57.900 us would like to see more conviction on certain issues, given the amount of slack that they really

00:37:02.600 have. But what you tend to see is that political management always tends towards the safest course

00:37:08.220 of action. And so whatever they can navigate to have the highest share of the vote, they'll just

00:37:14.160 keep doing. And that's why you have parties like this that are built more on conviction.

00:37:19.820 Oh, we'll watch and see with interest as it unfolds in the coming years. So yeah,

00:37:24.040 there's a long stretch now then between the next general election. So it's always interesting to

00:37:29.080 watch uh political play though so uh thanks for coming in to check in and inform us a little more

00:37:34.760 on that today we don't uh get nearly enough news out of our neighboring province there even though

00:37:39.260 we're so close in reality i mean you know geographically and culturally i think uh except

00:37:45.220 of course you guys have got some some uh hockey challenges when it comes to your fandom apparently

00:37:49.420 but we'll address that tomorrow when you uh come on later on with uh arthur then great to talk to

00:37:55.520 then sorry for making the viewers wait till the second week but uh be back in action uh doing a

00:38:00.260 double header and talk again tomorrow right on thanks lee good talking to you all right thanks

00:38:05.380 cory that was lee harding and he writes uh for us out there in saskatchewan a lot of good news copy

00:38:10.500 watches those stories out there in some columns and things such as that you can look them up like

00:38:15.200 i said just search it out on our site and elsewhere with lee harding and uh yes we'll be talking some

00:38:20.380 hockey stuff tomorrow too it doesn't always have to be dry politics and party stuff and everything

00:38:24.220 we can have a little fun now and then, and we're in for some fun and interesting times coming up

00:38:29.960 in the hockey world, that's for sure. So let's see, let's get on to some news stories before we

00:38:35.360 get on to the next guest here will be on a little bit. This one's interesting. You know, how do you

00:38:40.380 manage to lose money on an oil pipeline when the whole world is desperate for oil? Well, you let

00:38:45.560 the government run it. So, you know, the Trans Mountain saga, I guess, is the better way to put

00:38:51.720 You're just seeing stories coming out now that the government's always confidently said, don't worry, we're going to sell it.

00:38:57.720 We'll make profit, everything else. It'll be fine.

00:39:00.160 And now they're kind of tuning down their rhetoric on it and saying, well, we'll likely recover the billions spent on the Trans Mountain line.

00:39:08.020 That's what Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said in committee recently.

00:39:13.020 So cabinet assurances used to be that it was going to have a profit.

00:39:15.860 But now, I guess it was in a Senate tabling, she says, well, it's likely going to allow the government to recoup their expenses.

00:39:23.240 I mean, the bottom line is they won't.

00:39:24.540 When government gets into business, they screw it up every time.

00:39:26.800 That's the nature of government.

00:39:28.100 Government and businesses do not mesh well. 0.62

00:39:31.660 We had private dollars who wanted to run that bloody line.

00:39:35.560 I mean, they wanted to do it.

00:39:37.380 It wouldn't have had to cost us a cent.

00:39:39.120 But what did we have to do? 0.70

00:39:40.160 We had to get the bloody government out of the way. 1.00

00:39:41.780 and those ideological fools 1.00

00:39:44.160 with the Liberal Party of Canada 1.00

00:39:46.300 under Trudeau, you know

00:39:47.940 you could see that they did bite off more

00:39:50.240 and they could chew. They shut down the Northern Gateway

00:39:52.340 they regulated Energy East

00:39:54.260 to death. That was all intentional. They wanted

00:39:56.160 to see that happen.

00:39:58.100 They still thought though, well, Trans Mountain

00:40:00.160 so far along that Kinder Morgan

00:40:02.140 will stay in and they'll finish that up anyways 0.95

00:40:04.300 no matter how bad we beat on them. But no, Kinder Morgan

00:40:06.340 said, you know what, we've had it with you guys. We can't make

00:40:08.220 money in this country. You guys are insane. 1.00

00:40:10.100 we're out. And then the government realized they've overplayed their hand way too far. Now 0.99

00:40:13.960 we got this partially done pipeline. What the hell are we going to do? And in a panic, they bought

00:40:18.520 it. You know, all they had to do was get out of the way. But no, they bought it. And look at it

00:40:24.560 creeping along. I don't know if they're using hand shovels on that or what. But we've got

00:40:29.900 thousands of permits that are required. I mean, I know the workers are working on it and they get

00:40:34.260 on my case every time I talk about how slow that thing's going. And I know they say it's going to

00:40:38.040 get done. It's going to get done. I won't believe it until I see oil going through one end and

00:40:42.140 coming out the other. This is a government capable of doing something as stupid as shutting this 1.00

00:40:49.440 thing down before it's constructed. So I know there's camps and there's companies working and 1.00

00:40:56.940 there's workers and they're digging and they've buried some line, but I'm having a hard time

00:41:01.040 believing this thing's going to get done. And when we're in this world where they're desperate for

00:41:05.100 oil, they're desperate for gas, and we can't get anything finished. Is it a wonder, you know,

00:41:11.360 that we can't get investment into this country? Of course not. We're a terrible place to do

00:41:14.780 business. Terrible. And so this thing was, let's see, got 46% over budget so far. So far. I mean,

00:41:24.740 it was going to be 7.4 billion under Kinder Morgan. That was their estimates on this thing

00:41:30.840 years ago. Now it's up to $21.4 billion is what they're talking about. Just constantly putting

00:41:38.840 up and up and up. How on earth are they managing to piss away that much money on this thing and

00:41:45.020 it's still not in the ground? It's still not being, you know, it's not flowing. Like Gary

00:41:48.600 is saying, a commenter, it's never going to be done. I'm starting to come a long line with you,

00:41:51.980 Gary. I'm starting to believe it. They're just going to waste more money and pour more money

00:41:55.360 and they'll finally say, ah, we can't make it work. Meanwhile, oil is over $100 a barrel. The

00:41:59.880 world is short of oil. We're sitting on one of the biggest deposits on the planet, and we can't

00:42:04.660 expand our capacity to the coast. What a joke. But we'll watch as this goes. They're still creeping

00:42:11.900 along. They're still burying it little by little. Maybe I'll be wrong. I hope to be wrong. I would

00:42:15.960 like to be wrong on this. I want to see that thing finished. I want the federal government to

00:42:20.920 actually be correct for a change and have sold it to a private interest. I don't care if it's a

00:42:27.340 first nations coalition or a private company as long as the government bloody well gets out of it

00:42:33.860 but i'm at a point where i'll only believe it when i see it and this government if they got

00:42:39.840 the will to do something they'll get it done that's the thing they had the will to get people

00:42:47.120 out of ottawa they were willing to impose the war measures act to do it at least a form of it i'll

00:42:52.440 keep calling it that i know that upsets some people to get over it when you want to suspend

00:42:56.180 the civil liberties of individuals

00:42:57.900 to try and take care of something.

00:43:00.140 Look up what the War Measures Act is. 0.53

00:43:02.260 Look up what martial law is.

00:43:04.360 When you're willing to do that

00:43:05.740 to get some protesters out of a city,

00:43:08.820 you're a government that's basically

00:43:10.200 willing to pull all the stops

00:43:12.060 to get something done. So if they wanted this pipeline done,

00:43:13.980 it would already be flowing, guys.

00:43:16.180 It'd already be out to the coast.

00:43:18.100 They're not in a hurry. This is not a priority for them.

00:43:20.740 But it sure is for us out here.

00:43:22.020 We're getting screwed financially on this thing.

00:43:24.900 And it just keeps going up.

00:43:26.180 we'll see what happens. Cause I mean, again, Ottawa, still Toronto and Montreal and lower

00:43:31.900 mainland BC still love Trudeau. So I don't know if we're ever going to get anything out of this

00:43:35.680 thing. Here's some other beautiful money spent. You know, again, here's an example of how you

00:43:41.220 can see how a government can take a $7 billion pipeline, turn it up to a $21 billion pipeline

00:43:46.040 and still not have it done yet. So here was a, Dave mentioned it, I think, or no, I'm not sure,

00:43:50.360 but a federal agency paid a pollster. I should look it up, whether that was ecos or not, you

00:43:55.380 crazy Frank Graves. But they paid almost $47,000 for a poll on financial illiteracy. Okay, polls

00:44:04.400 are expensive, you know, $47,000. That's a pretty big poll. But it's conceivable if you're looking

00:44:09.980 for big numbers, you're looking for something really strong. So they must have for $47,000

00:44:14.340 must have interviewed 1000s and 1000s of people on this poll, right? No, 49 people. 49 people

00:44:22.460 got interviewed for $47,000 on this poll on financial literacy.

00:44:29.900 You know who's financially illiterate?

00:44:31.880 Anybody who would vote for the Liberal government when they're screwing us like this.

00:44:34.960 Okay, here it is farther down the story.

00:44:36.280 It wasn't Ecos, it was Leger Marketing.

00:44:39.260 But yeah, they were paid, the Financial Consumer Agency paid $46,637

00:44:47.360 to interview 49 Canadians on financial literacy.

00:44:51.440 Guys, this isn't just incompetence. This is fraud. This is beyond the pale. Come on. We're getting ripped off. They're asked how much time they spend in a month on their household's finances and a bunch of nice fluffy stuff. And they put out this report, you know, with a final report. There should be an investigation following up on this, you guys.

00:45:13.700 and and this agency appointed in 2014 a financial literacy leader for 127 000 a year yeah this is

00:45:21.520 the person leading the charge on this that's actually kind of a lower salary than i would 0.98

00:45:25.600 expect out of our overpaid civil service with some of their crap positions and their bs 0.64

00:45:30.860 the consumers association can describe the work as patronizing but i mean it's not a matter of 0.96

00:45:37.400 the patronizing work it's the matter on how on earth you spend that much money to talk to that

00:45:43.260 few people what the hell is the matter with you guys but uh man we got another story this one

00:45:51.400 gets a little different uh here's a human rights you know we don't hear about the human rights

00:45:56.640 commissions as much as we used to but they're still there and uh there's still problems so

00:46:01.300 imperial oil actually at least they got some resources and they're in a big battle right now

00:46:05.960 because uh what had happened now this is a difficult one but they'd asked in part of their

00:46:11.380 applications they wanted to know if a person was eligible to work permanently in Canada.

00:46:17.440 And a fellow looking for a work permit, applying for a job with Imperial said, yes, he was. But

00:46:24.400 it turns out he wasn't. And when they found out that he wasn't, they withdrew a job offer. So

00:46:31.360 he got taken to the Human Rights Tribunal, Ontario, and they upheld the claim against

00:46:36.040 them from the applicant and awarded him $120,000. Now, it's not beyond reason. I mean, if you're

00:46:45.660 looking for a permanent long-term job to ask if the person's qualified to actually sit in the job

00:46:50.520 for the longer term, where are we at? At what point with employers are we going to get where

00:46:54.800 questions are considered too intrusive? I mean, you got to watch it when you're hiring people.

00:47:00.800 So, I mean, if somebody's only here on a two-year visa, that is of concern.

00:47:06.080 And it's not like they had a problem with this gentleman being an immigrant.

00:47:09.620 They just wanted to make sure he was a permanent one, not temporary.

00:47:14.400 Apparently, you're not allowed to ask.

00:47:15.940 Well, where does that leave you as an employer?

00:47:18.300 If you have, and you know, the backfiring thing, the thing that's bad about this and it's wrong,

00:47:22.820 if you're not allowed to ask about these things, you can see prejudice.

00:47:26.460 You can see people turned away from jobs that normally would have qualified because an employment person who's afraid to ask, they're not allowed to ask, actually, as per that ruling, whether or not this person is able to work permanently or is going to be here in the long run, will just actually go through the interview and not hire the person just to be on the safe side.

00:47:47.120 And they could miss out on a fantastic applicant.

00:47:50.420 Another person could lose their job because they do appear to be an immigrant, but they're not sure if it's permanent, so they just won't hire them. 0.88

00:47:56.100 That's what these ridiculous kinds of rulings do. 1.00

00:47:58.600 They backfire and they make it worse for the employer 0.97

00:48:01.040 and for the prospective employees and for the immigrants. 0.97

00:48:05.000 So, I mean, at what point, you know, it's a private business.

00:48:08.020 You've got to be able to ask these questions.

00:48:09.480 You've got to know if they're going to be with you or not.

00:48:11.780 That's not an unreasonable thing.

00:48:13.360 It's not a prejudice thing to ask.

00:48:17.040 You know, you just got to know.

00:48:19.820 But as it stands, you will get charged.

00:48:23.360 So let's see.

00:48:26.180 Oh, sorry.

00:48:27.360 I was just looking at a different comment there.

00:48:29.380 We're going to get on to our next guest with Spencer Fernando pretty quickly here.

00:48:33.300 So I'm looking forward to that.

00:48:34.460 I should speak to our sponsor quickly, though, our next sponsor,

00:48:37.980 and that is the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:48:40.500 These guys are a great organization.

00:48:43.020 I've talked about them many a times.

00:48:44.500 They've been a great sponsor for us, but they're also with what they do.

00:48:47.300 You own firearms.

00:48:49.060 You like, you know, enjoy firearms, even if you're considering firearms.

00:48:51.660 They're an association of firearm owners.

00:48:53.720 They've got the resources there to help you safely utilize your firearms.

00:48:58.400 All sorts of videos on things, whether shooting sports, as their name implies, whether target shooting, skeet shooting, black powder, all sorts of things.

00:49:06.240 Most of all, they are lobbying on your behalf.

00:49:09.380 We've got a government that, of course, is constantly trying to take away your right and ability to use and enjoy firearms.

00:49:16.160 And you need to stand up for yourself.

00:49:18.580 And, of course, how do you do it as an individual?

00:49:19.940 You can't.

00:49:20.520 You have to have an association.

00:49:21.660 you have to get together. You have to do it. That's what these guys are about. And they need

00:49:26.300 your help though. You know, the government's going to take, as we've seen, they brought in

00:49:29.360 a backdoor registry. The only reason they're registering your firearms is because they plan

00:49:33.140 to take them. It's the only reason they want to know where they all are. That's just step one.

00:49:37.340 Find out where they are. Step two, steal them. So the Canadian Shooting Sports Association is

00:49:42.660 out there. They're watching these news items. They're standing up for you. They've put out

00:49:46.140 court challenges. I'm sure they got more to come, but you got to take out a membership with them

00:49:49.940 so they can help you.

00:49:51.340 So check them out.

00:49:52.620 Google them, Canadian Shooting Sports Association,

00:49:54.820 or their website is cssa-cila.org.

00:50:00.300 Again, take out a membership with them.

00:50:03.960 That's the way they can help you

00:50:05.560 because if you don't stand up for yourself,

00:50:06.760 you will lose those rights.

00:50:08.000 The government is always eager to take them away.

00:50:10.880 All right, well, let's get ready for Spencer Fernando.

00:50:13.040 It's been a while since I've had Spencer on.

00:50:14.740 As I said, he's a very prolific columnist.

00:50:16.740 He's got stuff out there all over the place,

00:50:19.240 Particularly the one that recently caught my eye was the one with the National Citizens Coalition,

00:50:23.780 which he's involved with.

00:50:25.840 And that is, where am I here?

00:50:28.660 Well, I see Spencer there.

00:50:29.700 I'm just trying to find the story.

00:50:31.700 Hey, Spencer, how's it going?

00:50:33.100 Not bad.

00:50:33.520 Yourself?

00:50:34.320 Good, good.

00:50:34.900 Good to see you.

00:50:35.480 There we go.

00:50:36.380 The authoritarian arrogance of the liberal elites.

00:50:39.560 I mean, how could I not be drawn to a title like that?

00:50:45.040 And you only expanded further from there.

00:50:47.280 Can you kind of start off in a nutshell what that column was about, Spencer?

00:50:51.120 Yeah, the idea was, you know, we're seeing how angry, you know, the, I guess you could call it the establishment media and many people in the government get when, you know, Pierre Polyev says, oh, he's going to, you know, fire the Bank of Canada governor, you know, anyone who even criticizes the Bank of Canada, even before he said that people were losing their minds over that.

00:51:11.040 And, you know, it's kind of the attitude of, you know, here's a group of people who have a lot of power.

00:51:15.060 You know, the Bank of Canada has tremendous power to influence, you know, our economy or way of life.

00:51:19.660 They can devalue our currency, which means they can make the money you earn worth less.

00:51:24.380 And so that's a massive impact. That's tremendous power for more than really anyone else in this country has.

00:51:29.840 And so the idea that somehow they should be protected from criticism or protected from accountability is really antithetical to democracy.

00:51:37.400 And I think it's that's what I mean by the authoritarian attitude where it's, you know, in authoritarian countries like China,

00:51:44.360 And no one would dare question the government because, oh, the government is above you.

00:51:47.120 The government is better than you.

00:51:48.060 Now, the people in the Communist Party, they're the elites and they control, you know, how your life is going to be.

00:51:53.720 And you should know your place and you shouldn't question them.

00:51:56.280 Now, we're not supposed to be an authoritarian country.

00:51:58.580 We're supposed to be a place where people are allowed to question authority, where we encourage people to question authority because we're supposed to believe that authority is accountable to the people and can be influenced and controlled by the people.

00:52:10.100 And so it's very concerning to see a lot of people in the media and in the political establishment who seem to somehow think that certain institutions should be just free from credit, from being accountable and free from criticism.

00:52:23.120 Well, yeah, and that was something that was really quite something to see them line up.

00:52:27.280 And again, I'll get you because you had another column on your own side, Spencer Fernando, about the media, because, I mean, that's part of the establishment as well.

00:52:34.180 And they were horrified that somebody dared criticize the head of the Bank of Canada.

00:52:38.920 I mean, you could disagree with whether or not the critique was accurate or founded, but it was the ability to even criticize that they were so mortified about, and that's distressing.

00:52:49.180 I mean, no position in this country is above critique, or should be.

00:52:53.520 Yeah, I mean, you'd like to think it's that way, but it seems that a lot of people in the establishment don't believe that, and that's quite concerning to see.

00:53:00.800 And I think it's interesting you're seeing, it's not just the liberals and the media, but within the conservative leadership race itself.

00:53:06.480 Jean Charest, Patrick Brown, they've echoed a lot of those criticisms of Pierre Paulyev.

00:53:11.360 So I think that's an attitude that some within the conservative party have as well, which should be quite concerning to people.

00:53:16.120 You know, we're not going to be a free and democratic country for long.

00:53:20.080 You know, for some people, obviously, we're not a free country.

00:53:22.520 But, you know, we're not going to maintain any freedom or democracy for long if we kind of accept that kind of attitude,

00:53:27.340 that here's the people who are in a higher class than you.

00:53:30.120 They run the country. They get to control how things are and you don't get to criticize.

00:53:33.260 And that's the opposite of what Canada is supposed to be.

00:53:37.300 Yeah, well, there shouldn't be any sacred cows.

00:53:39.540 I mean, the people appointed to some of these very high positions within the country, and they're appointed.

00:53:45.060 That's one of the areas where we have difficulties with the democratic ability.

00:53:48.560 We should at least then be able to openly critique them or support them.

00:53:52.620 But, I mean, when you say it's beyond that, then we start to get worried, you know.

00:53:56.020 And how are we supposed to hold them to account if we can't even mention them?

00:54:00.560 Yeah, there's obviously a double standard.

00:54:02.620 I mean, Justin Trudeau has been undermining confidence in institutions for quite some time, obviously, with the SNC-Lavalin controversy.

00:54:09.280 You know, he's had no problem interfering with the justice system.

00:54:11.880 We saw what he did to Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:54:14.000 So, you know, much of the media was fine to give him mostly a free pass for that.

00:54:16.940 But all of a sudden, Pierre Polyev talks about the Bank of Canada.

00:54:19.560 People go crazy.

00:54:20.840 I think part of it might be that much of the media doesn't really understand how the monetary system works.

00:54:25.160 They don't understand how inflation and money printing are linked.

00:54:28.400 So to them, it's just all incomprehensible.

00:54:29.620 comprehensible and they hear poly of talking about it's well i don't understand this so i guess it

00:54:33.340 must be something dangerous and terrible so they they kind of go crazy in that way so you know i

00:54:39.140 think i think we need to always maintain the spirit of questioning institutions criticizing

00:54:43.480 those in power and not not putting people on a pedestal just because they have a temporary

00:54:48.320 position in government yeah so i'll kind of pivot to your own piece uh you know in your on your own

00:54:54.140 uh site there that you've written and that's where the media holds the opposition accountable

00:54:58.280 and politicians are blaming the public for anger division you know one of the roles even if you

00:55:04.160 didn't have an effective necessarily of elected opposition or if there's problems the media used

00:55:09.020 to always be there to at least you know dig in on stories look into things but they do seem to spend

00:55:14.340 more time going after the front runners in the conservative party race than they looking at the

00:55:19.260 government or or the the agreement between them and jagmeet singh right now yeah i think much of

00:55:25.160 that was really inevitable when it got to the point where the government subsidizes much of

00:55:29.820 the media. I mean, you're going to be influenced by whoever pays your bills. There's no real way

00:55:33.780 around that. So if the government's paying your bills as a media institution, well, you're probably

00:55:38.500 going to want to keep that government in power. And it's not just government versus critics of

00:55:44.100 the government. It's the fact that the Conservative Party is much less likely in government to give

00:55:48.140 that kind of money to the media. The media knows that. So they have a financial interest in keeping

00:55:52.440 the conservatives out of power and keeping the liberal you know ndp coalition or pact whatever

00:55:56.360 you want to call it in power and then of course the way you know there was the response to you

00:56:01.560 know people yelling at jagmeet singh i don't think that was appropriate behavior i don't think

00:56:05.240 you know acting towards someone like that is acceptable i'm not a fan of jagmeet singh but

00:56:09.400 it's still important to remember if you're talking about a human being you know husband and a father

00:56:13.560 so you know trying to trying to say some of the things people said about it screaming at somebody

00:56:17.240 you're not going to influence anybody by screaming at them but the way the media coverage is is they

00:56:21.640 act as if none of that has any underlying cause or reason, right? Politicians are allowed to say

00:56:27.480 anything they want about unvaccinated people, about people in the freedom convoy. They can

00:56:31.800 demonize people, you know, call them Nazis and racists and bigots. But then when people get

00:56:35.720 angry at politicians, it's, oh, we have to draw the line there. That's unacceptable. So I think

00:56:40.600 we need to have a more holistic view of things and realize people don't just get angry at politicians

00:56:46.280 for no reason. Someone doesn't just wake up and say, I'm angry at politicians today,

00:56:49.880 just randomly right if people are struggling financially that's a big reason if people have

00:56:54.840 been demonized by politicians in the government that's a big reason so i think it's disingenuous

00:56:59.240 to just act as if it's just the only issue is the anger of politicians without asking where a lot of

00:57:03.640 that anger comes from and the responsibility politicians have in generating the conditions

00:57:07.960 that led to that anger yeah they've been doing a lot of i mean you know if you want to look for

00:57:13.160 the source of division you should be looking at the top rather than the bottom but we got it

00:57:17.640 backwards. Another piece I see you called out our public safety minister, which was great because

00:57:22.640 as you pointed out, I mean, these are things that media needs to be looking at. I mean,

00:57:26.740 you've got to record this. Your average citizen doesn't necessarily watch all these committee

00:57:30.160 meetings or these things that they're saying. But this fellow, as you said, he keeps spreading

00:57:34.020 misinformation and purposely and blatantly and repeatedly, but he's not getting held accountable

00:57:39.940 for this. I mean, where do you stop these guys from spreading BS like this?

00:57:45.160 Yeah, I think it's a good reason, you know, why people are so concerned about the government trying to control social media and the Internet, because they're not going to use that to objectively censor disinformation.

00:57:55.400 They're just going to use it to censor their critics, because Marco Medellino, he goes to the committee and says, oh, well, we had Freedom Convoy supporters and members who were, you know, setting fire to buildings.

00:58:04.580 Well, no, the police have said twice now that those incidents had nothing to do with Freedom Convoy supporters.

00:58:09.760 even some of the media the government likes i mean cbc even had to report and kind of edit one

00:58:15.500 of their reports and say oh you know we were wrong and nothing to do with the freedom convoy

00:58:19.240 whatsoever and then marco mendicino obviously knowing that he knows that it's been it's been

00:58:24.680 you know debunked you could say he goes there and says it anyway i guess because he thought it would

00:58:29.620 get him a good soundbiter because he thought it'll be politically beneficial and that's spreading

00:58:33.780 disinformation that's misinformation you know so where's his ban where's his censorship of course

00:58:39.000 it's not going to be used against him because he's in the government, not a critic of the

00:58:42.700 government. So I think it also shows why independent media is so important, why what

00:58:46.900 we're doing is so important, because much of the media, they don't want to call the government

00:58:50.800 to liars. They don't want to point out that Mendocino is spreading disinformation. And so

00:58:54.940 they'll just, you know, they'll just give it a pass. They'll either not cover it or kind of,

00:58:57.960 you know, give it a nice spin. So we need people doing what we're doing, which is actually exposing

00:59:02.040 the truth. Yeah, well, and that's it. I mean, if any conservative politician had misrepresented

00:59:08.500 the tragedy of the mark lapine slaughter of women you know for political points that conservative

00:59:15.220 politician rightly would be just you know hillary by the media and other politicians yet the public

00:59:21.220 safety minister used that completely off base and wrong and and again aside from you know andrew 0.97

00:59:27.460 lawton and yourself and some other alternative media he got away with it yeah and again that's

00:59:33.780 the double standard that i think a lot of people are upset about and you know to go back to the

00:59:37.700 the conservative leadership race, you know, you're seeing in response to, you know, the horrific

00:59:42.360 event that happened in the United States in Buffalo, you're seeing people trying to score

00:59:46.220 political points against Pierre Polyev now, you know, people tweeting things out about, you know,

00:59:50.800 oh, well, Pat King expressed a similar view as to the gunman in the United States. And Pat King

00:59:57.480 had a link to the Freedom Convoy. And didn't Pierre Polyev say he supported the Freedom Convoy?

01:00:01.960 Ergo, you know, Pierre Polyev is the same as the Buffalo shooter or something like that, right?

01:00:06.260 maybe not going that far, but that's the link they're trying to make in people's minds, right? 0.53

01:00:09.580 They're trying to take a very tragic and terrible event to the United States and attack the front

01:00:14.980 runner of the conservative leadership race. So I think we all really need to be aware of the

01:00:20.060 damage that does. And of course, they're going to keep calling Polyev the divisive candidate,

01:00:24.140 even though he's not the one accusing his opponents of being linked to mass murders.

01:00:30.120 So I think that double standard, it never gets applied to say, someone who does something and

01:00:35.960 may have more of a liberal ideology, right? It never gets linked to, you know, the rhetoric of

01:00:39.860 Justin Trudeau or anybody. It's only one side. It's only conservatives who get linked to these

01:00:44.240 things when something happens. So I think that's another reason a lot of people have lost trust in

01:00:48.740 the establishment media, because the narrative is so obvious. Some terrible event happens. There's

01:00:52.940 a shooting somewhere. How can we use this terrible event to attack conservatives? And it just gets

01:00:57.540 done over and over and over again. And it just divides us even more. And it's the opposite of

01:01:02.040 what people who claim to be in support of unity should be doing.

01:01:05.800 Yeah, so I'm going to pivot a little bit, just a little farther back to one of the things you

01:01:09.180 wrote on as well. And speaking of divistic, at least in a regional sense, was the Alberta

01:01:14.020 challenge against Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines bill. It was successful. It got quashed. But then

01:01:19.800 the challenge in Alberta against the carbon tax was successful too. Now it's going to go to the

01:01:24.360 federal Supreme Court. I mean, it's a very hot item out here in Alberta. Do you think that

01:01:30.560 there's going to be any success on the federal front, though, when that challenge goes forward

01:01:34.300 to there against the No More Pipelines bill? Yeah, I mean, you know, past history would show

01:01:39.260 there's not too much of a chance. What was interesting about the ruling was it did talk

01:01:42.960 about the division of powers between different levels of government, provincial and federal.

01:01:48.120 So that's something where it may not be much of an ideological issue, you know, because people say

01:01:53.900 the Supreme Court's not motivated by ideology. Everybody is. Everybody has an ideology and it

01:01:58.500 influences them so no institution is fully free from that but if it becomes more of a you know

01:02:03.660 a procedural or you know division of powers argument then there is possibly a chance but

01:02:08.620 you know even if that happened i expect the liberals would just reintroduce slightly tweaked

01:02:12.460 version of the legislation and impose it again because they're interacting in a very ideological

01:02:16.760 way i mean we saw when you know many countries in europe were saying hey you know we would prefer

01:02:21.140 not to be getting our oil and gas from russia you know maybe canada could be a country that

01:02:26.240 could help us out. And Trudeau basically straight up said, yeah, you know, we'll do a little bit,

01:02:30.260 but we're not going to, you know, alter our climate goals to, you know, produce more oil and gas. So

01:02:34.700 it's a very deep ideology that he and his government have. And the only way I think to

01:02:40.160 change that is to get them out of office because, you know, whatever ruling, even if it goes against

01:02:44.140 them, they'll just introduce similar legislation again. Yeah. And I mean, the courts are, you know,

01:02:49.160 slow enough that if even if you took that to court again, they could have years of imposed

01:02:53.400 legislation but boy we're a long ways it seems from from replacing them i mean the conservatives

01:02:58.440 seem to be gaining a little bit of ground i guess in a sense right now but uh i think some people

01:03:02.840 seem to prefer the conservatives without a leader than as opposed to their past leader they had

01:03:06.840 but a lot will depend on who wins i guess and and how uh things go in the next year so with

01:03:11.640 the minority government we just never know when we're going to go into an election now

01:03:16.200 yeah you know it has been interesting though because the media keeps saying oh the conservatives

01:03:20.600 committed political suicide by you know having you know prominent members support the freedom

01:03:24.440 convoy oh they're really in trouble now you know talking about inflation in the bank of canada well

01:03:28.760 they're in big trouble and they continue to lead in the polls you know amid that situation and uh

01:03:34.600 so it shows again a lot of immediate disconnect from the general public and i think the the

01:03:39.080 underlying anger and discontent in the country i mean inflation everywhere in the world produces

01:03:43.160 you know a lot of angry look at countries where it's really gotten out of control sri lanka for

01:03:48.040 example having food shortages it's descending into chaos in large parts of that country

01:03:52.920 so i don't think we'll get to the same point here in canada obviously but inflation makes

01:03:56.520 people angry and it discredits the people in power now justin trio it's easy to forget but

01:04:00.600 he came to power largely on the idea that he was going to make life more affordable

01:04:05.160 he did the escalator ad you know in the 2015 campaign where he's walking up an escalator

01:04:10.600 going down saying oh a lot of comedians feel like it's tough to get ahead and that was an

01:04:15.400 an effective campaign for him you know you don't hear him talking too much about affordability now

01:04:19.460 because that wouldn't really bode well for him and so i think that's that's one reason paul i

01:04:23.560 was talking about the bank again and talking about inflation and money uh the monetary system money

01:04:28.140 printing he's linking that together in people's minds and so if the election does come down to

01:04:33.800 affordability then that's not good for the liberals and strangely enough the ndp the ndp used

01:04:38.100 to be a very much the party of working class people you know making life more affordable

01:04:42.320 So Jake made things where they jumped on to the Trudeau bandwagon.

01:04:45.720 He's linked himself to Trudeau, and Trudeau was the one in power during massive inflation.

01:04:49.660 So that's not going to help the NDP either.

01:04:51.980 So I think that's going to be the issue, whether things are a lot different in three years' time.

01:04:57.700 That remains to be seen.

01:04:59.960 But of course, future inflation, even if it goes down, is still based on already inflated prices.

01:05:05.300 So it's not like it's going back to where it was and people are going to find life super affordable all of a sudden.

01:05:10.180 And so I think, you know, if it's Paulyev who leads the Conservative Party, he's been out there, you know, for quite some time sharing a message that's very opposite from what the Liberals and NDP are pushing.

01:05:21.200 So if people are looking to really move in a different direction, then I think that benefits Paulyev and the Conservative Party.

01:05:26.620 That's it. I mean, ideals only sell so well when people can't pay their bills.

01:05:30.140 You know, the reality when your mortgage starts coming first or putting food on the shelves and things like that.

01:05:35.840 So the Liberals are going to have to respond to that pretty soon.

01:05:38.760 I mean, or not.

01:05:40.180 I mean, at least we see some light

01:05:42.620 at the end of the governing tunnel anyways.

01:05:45.500 Thank you very much for checking in with us today.

01:05:48.500 Where can we find more information

01:05:49.840 on where you're writing and what you're doing, Spencer?

01:05:51.860 Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Spencer Fernando.

01:05:54.500 My website's spencerfernando.com

01:05:57.300 and I do a lot of writing at nationalcitizens.ca as well.

01:06:00.640 So those are the three places to look.

01:06:03.080 Great. Yeah, and if you search Spencer Fernando,

01:06:05.120 I know you put columns out

01:06:06.700 and a lot of number of other areas around as well

01:06:09.080 and even occasionally here.

01:06:10.260 So lots of good stuff that you're always writing.

01:06:13.140 I always appreciate it when we get a chance to talk to you

01:06:15.640 and seeing what you're putting out there, Spencer.

01:06:17.400 So I'll let you get back to it.

01:06:19.360 And thanks for joining us today.

01:06:20.560 Good morning. Have a good day.

01:06:22.720 So as I said, yes, that was Spencer Fernando.

01:06:24.760 He's with the National Citizens Coalition

01:06:26.840 and he has his own site there, spencerfernando.com.

01:06:29.500 And he's a very prolific columnist and commentator

01:06:32.420 throughout there.

01:06:34.000 And so he's worth a follow and certainly worth reading.

01:06:36.700 his stuff. And it's, it's always a good conversation. As I said, when, when we get

01:06:40.440 them on, I'll go through some more new stuff, but let's talk one more time about our sponsor.

01:06:44.760 And that is Bitcoin. Well, tongue twister there today. It's because I was up so late watching

01:06:52.820 that hockey game last night. Bitcoin. Well, again, that reminder, you know, just to expand a little

01:06:58.800 more what these guys are about, they're there to help educate you. Cause I mean, these digital

01:07:02.600 currencies, they're new, they can be confusing. I know for me, I have difficulty wrapping my head

01:07:07.080 around how that Bitcoin mining works and things like that. Their whole thing is helping teach you

01:07:11.740 as you can see with Bitcoin Academy, they've partnered with Athabasca University, they have

01:07:15.900 online training sessions to show you what it's about Bitcoin for beginners, you know, don't be

01:07:20.440 afraid to be a beginner, we always are with something, news, things like that. They'll show

01:07:25.760 you how it can be practical, you know, not something that's just a theory or something

01:07:29.420 foreign to you. They'll set you up with how you can pay your utility bills, how you can set up

01:07:33.680 savings plans for yourselves, what you can do. Bitcoinwell.com. If you're looking to get into

01:07:39.820 digital currencies, guys, these are the guys to look into. And that is the path to do it. So you

01:07:44.680 can safely decide if it works for you or if it isn't. Yeah, I know, Shelley, you know, some

01:07:50.140 commenters, people saying Bitcoin went down. Well, yes, it did. But no, housing prices crashed once

01:07:54.880 too. It doesn't mean you get out of owning houses. Things like any market, any commodity have their

01:08:00.300 ups and downs. Now, again, I'm not going to give investment advice. It's beyond me. But if you're

01:08:05.420 looking to get in digital currencies, that's why I talk about them as a sponsor. Do it the right

01:08:10.160 way. They're more of the exchange. They're the ones that are going to help you get into it and

01:08:14.140 set your wallet up and do things like that. As to whether it's a good decision for your own finances

01:08:18.120 or not, of course, that's up to you. And perhaps speaking with the representative from Bitcoin

01:08:22.040 well. I mean, you know, you can't look at a snapshot of any investment and try to look at

01:08:28.840 the long term on whether it was a good one or a bad one. I mean, if you'd gotten into Bitcoin

01:08:34.680 15 years ago when it first came out, even if it's down to 10% of what it was, you make out like a

01:08:40.360 bandit. As Cheryl's saying, you know, better to buy low than high. I mean, it's the guess, of

01:08:45.720 course, of when to get in and low. When is it low? Is it going to go lower? Is it going to go higher?

01:08:50.240 You got to look at the longer plan.

01:08:51.840 And again, it's not for everybody.

01:08:53.280 It's not for everybody,

01:08:54.460 but it's certainly for a lot of people.

01:08:56.200 And if you're looking to get involved

01:08:57.860 and dip your toe into the digital currency market,

01:09:01.240 though, that's the route to go for Bitcoin anyways.

01:09:05.740 And they're a good company.

01:09:06.980 At least you got, you know, the Bitcoin itself,

01:09:09.860 I won't speak to that,

01:09:10.700 but at least for a good, solid company

01:09:13.480 to help get you set up with it and involved with it.

01:09:16.360 I mean, because that's half the battle too.

01:09:17.560 Bitcoinwell.com. Those are the guys to help you there. So here's something we got going on into

01:09:24.680 second reading. MPs are giving second reading to a Senate bill to criminalize organ trafficking.

01:09:31.920 This is interesting. They've been trying to banish this for years. Forced organ harvesting

01:09:37.460 that's happening in the third world. This is some bizarre stuff and it's nasty. I can't imagine how

01:09:42.340 bad things they got to get in some third world places and such. But I mean, if somebody's being

01:09:46.280 forced to, you know, murdered or at least to have part of their organs taken away. It's pretty

01:09:52.440 horrible. It's apparently kidneys sell on the black market for as much as $170,000. And you can

01:09:58.380 see there's been some degree of medical tourism, people flying to get kidney transplants and things

01:10:03.560 like that. They don't know how many people have been doing it. It's awful to think. Now, what gets

01:10:09.640 me though with these things is, okay, fine. You know, we never want to see somebody forced and

01:10:13.760 have their organs stolen or coerced into, you know, quote unquote, donating it, especially

01:10:19.640 something like a kidney where, you know, presumably you can donate one and still survive with the

01:10:23.280 other. But it brings about that broader issue that bugs me. It gets me rolling. And I put that

01:10:29.160 out on Twitter because there's one of those other areas with the progressives where they seem to

01:10:33.140 have a bit of a lapse. That's that my body, my choice thing. In Canada, it's pretty much

01:10:38.300 illegal to do anything medical, anything. It's illegal. We can't pay people to give blood.

01:10:44.600 Can't pay sperm donors. Can't pay plasma donors. And we can't pay organ donors. Well, is it my 0.79

01:10:50.560 body or not? Is it my blood or not? Is it my, you know, sperm? I had a vasectomy, so it's not much

01:10:57.060 good for anything anymore, I guess. But all the same, if somebody wanted to buy it, is it not my

01:11:01.340 right to produce it and sell it? Well, not in Canada. And what does it lead to is shortcomings.

01:11:07.500 So what we've got right now, it's so stupid, so stupid in Canada, where it's illegal to pay 1.00

01:11:14.740 somebody to give plasma, which is a bigger donation. It takes more time. It's a bigger 1.00

01:11:19.340 commitment. And they really need it. I mean, plasma is very helpful in a bunch of medical

01:11:23.260 procedures. So what do we do? We buy it from the United States. Yeah, if you look it up,

01:11:29.020 the bulk of the plasma we get in Canada comes from the United States. Why does the United

01:11:34.400 States have a surplus of plasma? Well, because they pay the people to give it down there.

01:11:39.800 Like, this is how mind-bendingly stupid the health zealots are, where we just can't get over that 0.99

01:11:48.300 principle of paying somebody or something in the health business. Get over it. Start paying people 1.00

01:11:55.220 to give the plasma. We'll stop running out because you're still buying it anyway. You're not saving

01:11:59.660 a thing. In fact, you have to ship it up. So we could put more money in Canadians' pockets,

01:12:03.740 It's get more people giving that plasma that we need, plus regular blood, plus sperm, plus eggs, plus all those other things we can donate.

01:12:10.700 And yeah, I even include kidneys, as long as you can always make sure somebody's not being coerced.

01:12:15.760 You know what? If my body, if I wanted to sell one of my eyeballs or my left testicle, it should be my business to do it, as long as I got a buyer.

01:12:24.620 So as it is, we got this going on, this horrible concept of some people who might be well-heeled or desperate,

01:12:31.060 flying across the world to get an organ transplant somewhere else

01:12:34.080 where there might not be good solid human rights

01:12:36.540 and organs have been harvested without somebody's consent.

01:12:42.100 There's so many aspects of why our health care system is broken

01:12:45.700 and behind the times and ineffective,

01:12:48.640 one of which is that big one with this hang-up overpaying people

01:12:52.720 to give blood, plasma, organs, any of those things.

01:12:55.860 It's tragic how many organs are we burying or cremating

01:12:59.200 that we didn't need to, that lives could have been saved.

01:13:01.860 I mean, that's another thing when it just comes to people donating.

01:13:04.080 God, sign your donor card, guys.

01:13:06.000 I mean, hey, it's the easiest charitable donation you can.

01:13:09.420 You know, if you happen to pass on,

01:13:11.320 if somebody can make use of anything I've still got left on this carcass,

01:13:14.840 have at it.

01:13:15.460 I really hope that it can help there.

01:13:17.200 But if it's living donations as well, things like that, blood plasma,

01:13:21.420 let people get paid for it.

01:13:23.600 We're paying anyhow because we're running short of blood all the time,

01:13:26.300 running short of plasma, running short of organs.

01:13:30.100 Let's cut it out.

01:13:31.100 Set aside the squeamishness, get over it,

01:13:33.560 let somebody pay to do it, and we solve a big problem.

01:13:36.140 Because we're paying anyway.

01:13:37.260 That's the part that gets me.

01:13:38.380 You're not winning a point of principle. 0.88

01:13:40.540 You're just paying Americans now to send their plasma 0.74

01:13:43.520 all the way up to here. 1.00

01:13:44.960 What a ridiculous, ridiculous system. 0.99

01:13:48.440 Something Dave mentioned, yeah, and here's another one. 0.99

01:13:50.460 I'm looking to speak to somebody.

01:13:52.080 I'm trying to talk to a guest about that later,

01:13:53.620 but the Association, I think, for the Wrongly Convicted.

01:13:55.480 But David Milgaard passed away, 69 years old.

01:13:59.920 You know, if anybody deserved to live to 100, it was David Milgaard,

01:14:02.960 considering that the justice system robbed him of, what, 23 years of his life, was it?

01:14:08.940 Because he was wrongly convicted of a murder back in Saskatchewan.

01:14:14.020 And either way, he'd been in Calgary with his son and daughter,

01:14:17.440 and he's now passed away, which is sad.

01:14:21.440 And, of course, the other sad part was he had 23 years of his life stolen, and it's just awful.

01:14:29.220 And it's that reminder, you know, I used to be the hardcore conservative.

01:14:32.120 I used to support capital punishment.

01:14:34.220 He's the case that reminded me, no, I cannot and I will not support capital punishment.

01:14:38.520 How could I sit every day and show and talk all the time about how incompetent government is, how incompetent judges are, how incompetent sometimes police actions are,

01:14:46.820 and then say, oh, but I want to trust them with the power to execute somebody.

01:14:50.660 I can't do it. My mind doesn't work that way. I cannot trust them with that. People say, oh,

01:14:56.180 only in cases when it's 100%. Look, they always say it's 100%. They say only with cases with DNA.

01:15:01.500 Guys, there's cases in the States where DNA data had been meddled with. Nothing is 100%

01:15:06.640 except as execution. Because once you do that, you never get them back. Now, thankfully, Milgaard,

01:15:13.320 at least as far as that went, his conviction came after capital punishment had just gone away,

01:15:17.980 but it still led to him doing 23 years in prison. They were 100% sure that he was guilty of murdering

01:15:24.640 a young nurse. All he was was a young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if we'd

01:15:30.100 had a strong capital punishment system at that time, he would have been executed. At least even

01:15:35.760 though he was locked up for 23 years, an innocent man. I can't imagine how that must feel. Every

01:15:41.500 night you go to bed in prison knowing you didn't do something and you're stuck there for decades.

01:15:46.440 His mother never gave up.

01:15:47.440 She was a fantastic woman. 0.69

01:15:49.100 Kept pushing.

01:15:50.240 He was finally, you know, exonerated after much of reviews with the Supreme Court and some DNA evidence.

01:15:58.000 But either way, the poor guy has passed away.

01:16:02.240 I hope during that, you know, he had 25 years free since being released.

01:16:09.120 I hope he made the most of it and it was as good as possible.

01:16:12.580 It's just sad to see his passing.

01:16:14.020 and we've always got to remember, you know, I don't ever want to see the courts doing anything

01:16:20.180 irreversible. I don't have pity. I know there's a lot of scumbags, pedophiles, murderers out there

01:16:25.540 and when they're really actually guilty, I'm not going to weep when they die. But I just don't 1.00

01:16:31.540 trust the state to get it right with something as irreversible as an execution. Life sentences,

01:16:37.320 real life sentences, absolutely, absolutely, you know, weld that door shut, get them in there,

01:16:43.700 that you're going to die of old age in this prison.

01:16:46.680 And at least, even if there's some slim chance,

01:16:48.260 when you thought it was 100%,

01:16:49.400 new evidence comes along 10, 20, 30 years later. 0.61

01:16:51.920 Holy crap, well, at least we can let them out for a little bit. 0.90

01:16:53.940 But if you put them in the ground, it's over. 0.96

01:16:57.320 And I just, you know,

01:16:58.520 if you don't trust the government with everything else,

01:17:00.200 I don't know how so many people,

01:17:01.360 and we hear that from a lot of conservatives all the time,

01:17:03.340 I don't trust the government for this,

01:17:04.500 I don't trust them for that, I don't trust them for this.

01:17:06.260 Oh, but I want them to have the power to execute people.

01:17:09.560 No, don't.

01:17:11.380 It's the last power they should ever have.

01:17:13.780 So rest in peace, Mr. Milgaard.

01:17:15.560 As I said, I hope you had as good a life as you could,

01:17:19.820 at least with that time after you were free.

01:17:22.100 Very possibly he did.

01:17:23.420 I mean, I would think of any person

01:17:24.480 who would appreciate your time in life

01:17:26.840 would be somebody who's already had so much of it

01:17:28.880 stolen from him earlier.

01:17:32.200 Awful, awful cases.

01:17:33.940 And yeah, Kenny's saying,

01:17:35.160 what about Bernardo Olson should have had the death penalty?

01:17:37.480 No, no.

01:17:39.200 I mean, did I weep when Olson died?

01:17:40.840 Not a bit. 1.00

01:17:41.660 He was a sick bugger. 1.00

01:17:42.520 Same with Bernardo. He's there. I don't care about him. Yeah, lock them up for life because 1.00

01:17:47.420 there's still a slim, slim chance that one of them might have been innocent. And I would rather just

01:17:51.680 lock them up for life than take that risk that you execute. I'd rather have a hundred Bernardo's

01:17:57.300 in prison and not execute one innocent person for murder. You can't take that chance. It's too

01:18:04.040 big a risk. And we've seen that the system can screw up badly. And we've seen the DNA is not

01:18:11.280 100% foolproof either. Nothing is 100% foolproof. And as I said, the only thing that is 100% is

01:18:17.520 death. So if we allow the state to take somebody's life, you can't turn that clock back. And I don't

01:18:22.620 trust the state. I don't. So how can you trust? How can you say all the time, all the protesters,

01:18:27.280 all the anti-mandate people, all the other ones, get out of my face. I don't trust the government.

01:18:31.920 I hate the government. There's conspiracies. The government should be in my face. Oh, but they

01:18:34.860 should execute people. No, you can't have both guys. You're trusting them with the most strong 0.99

01:18:40.840 power on the planet the ability to kill people yet you don't trust them with other stuff don't 0.96

01:18:47.640 let them have that and uh either way so uh you know dentist thing should have been executed

01:18:57.240 immediately 15 minutes on death row not 15 years uh no i mean just no death row none the government 0.89

01:19:05.980 can't get it right, especially 15 minutes later, executing. Just don't. Life sentences, guys.

01:19:11.980 Either way, let's see. A new study offered a closer look at some of the factors that lead to,

01:19:17.080 oh yeah, this one's great. This is out of CTV. So people, okay, I get sidetracked by comments.

01:19:23.600 Pamela is saying, so taxpayers have to support these criminals in jail. Yes, that's how it works.

01:19:28.800 And if you look to the United States, it costs more in the long process of executing and

01:19:32.940 everything anyways. And again, Pamela, you don't know if they're guilty. You don't. I would rather

01:19:37.360 pay for them and have them in, have them die of old age in there, than execute an innocent person. 1.00

01:19:42.760 And the government screws everything up. So somebody will get executed. So no. Again, I know 0.98

01:19:49.860 I've seen your comments, Pamela. You don't trust the government. You say that all the time. But you

01:19:53.680 want them to kill people. You can't have it both ways. You trust them or not. I don't trust them. 0.99

01:19:58.600 I don't want them killing people. Getting back anyways, this study.

01:20:05.720 Talking about though, this is beautiful. This is a CTV. So they've discovered that up to 9% of

01:20:12.540 people who were hospitalized for COVID have been readmitted within 30 days. Oh wait, Pamela. Okay,

01:20:19.020 one more time with you. You know, Bernardo and Olson were guilty. No, you don't. You don't.

01:20:23.360 Unless you were there, you don't know it. I'm glad you don't have the power to execute people.

01:20:27.580 All right.

01:20:27.960 I'm going to stop looking at comments.

01:20:30.100 So 9% of people who went into the hospital for COVID ended up back in within a month.

01:20:38.660 And so they're talking again.

01:20:40.140 This is where they talk about the long COVID.

01:20:41.920 They start saying we've got to be scared and that we've got to, you know, they're trying to push the fear.

01:20:47.400 CTV, they just, any positive developments, they want to keep us afraid.

01:20:51.080 They constantly push it.

01:20:51.860 So this is the big study.

01:20:52.840 9% of the ones who got into the hospital for COVID in the first place found themselves back

01:20:56.800 in within a month. What they don't mention is almost everybody who got into the hospital with

01:21:01.340 COVID had pre comorbidities. They already had problems. They were often very obese. They had

01:21:07.920 other issues. They were very, very old. I mean, if you have an 85 year old who was in hospital for

01:21:13.900 a while with COVID, yeah, there's a good chance that that 85 year old is going to be in the 0.62

01:21:18.140 hospital again soon. That's called being 85. You know, somebody morbidly obese, somebody with a

01:21:23.480 heart condition, somebody who's fighting with cancer, because that's the people who the COVID

01:21:27.900 was strongly affecting. So this is not a groundbreaking study. You know, this is just

01:21:32.780 meaning people who are unhealthy and sick are still unhealthy and sick after having COVID.

01:21:37.820 But that's the headlines in CTV. Everybody be afraid. Everybody be scared. We've got to

01:21:43.180 constantly worry and talk long COVID because the immediate COVID is going behind. So just

01:21:50.760 the mainstream just doesn't want to let it go. CTV is the worst of them. They're worse,

01:21:55.100 worse even than CBC. The only advantage is CTV doesn't get as directly as massively subsidized

01:22:00.940 as CBC, but I can't stand watching their coverage yet. I torture myself doing it because I got to

01:22:05.620 keep up with stuff. So I watch it at night when I'm eating supper, but it'll always be if they

01:22:10.180 write about anything. Hospitalizations are down. They will always make sure to talk about one thing

01:22:14.520 that's scary, one thing that's bad, one thing that's worse. They never want to have positive

01:22:19.020 news. They won't let it out there. And here's another beauty. You know, yeah, it was in the

01:22:24.000 papers. Three months now it's been since that attack, the BC work camp, you know, apparently,

01:22:30.140 and it's on the CGL pipeline. And there's apparently 40 RCMP investigators on this.

01:22:37.640 And this organized attack, between 20 and 40 people, they think,

01:22:41.560 carrying torches, flare guns, and axes, and they don't even have a lead?

01:22:46.340 This is one of the best conspiracies in the world, guys.

01:22:49.280 How is such an organized eco-terrorist act like this not even got a lead?

01:22:54.620 In an isolated area, they organized, they got up there,

01:22:57.380 they did several million dollars in damage, and they got away spotlessly clean.

01:23:04.040 There's some incompetence going on somewhere, guys.

01:23:06.320 And this is scary stuff.

01:23:08.480 Again, this is part of why we can't get anything done.

01:23:10.460 How do you do business in this country?

01:23:12.020 How would you invest in any large project

01:23:14.120 when we can't even catch our own eco-terrorists?

01:23:17.640 Why would you want to invest your money,

01:23:19.280 start something big like that,

01:23:20.940 and then have an eco-terrorist hold it up?

01:23:26.120 I don't know what's going on up there.

01:23:28.320 We're months later and they haven't even got a bloody lead.

01:23:33.480 Scary stuff.

01:23:34.320 Okay. Well, that's enough rambling and ranting for today. Hey, I got a good show tomorrow. Like I was saying, I've got Arthur Green. He's one of the writers for us. He's going to talk about his support for the Flames. He's cheering for them in the Battle of Alberta that's coming up. And at the same time, we're going to have Lee Harding back who was on earlier and he's going to speak. He's an Oilers fan. Yeah, I know. But I've seen some of the both in the audience there and they're going to duke it out a little bit with a bit of a on the air Battle of Alberta.

01:24:00.740 But I've also got, and again, it's hard with these leader candidates, but Scott Aikenson,

01:24:06.940 one of the leadership candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada, he came in,

01:24:12.780 we had him in studio. I interviewed him. We'll play the recording of it. It was a good conversation.

01:24:16.860 He does stand out. He's at least one of the ones against supply management.

01:24:20.400 And he came across as quite reasonable and controlled in the debates. He's carving his

01:24:25.380 ground. He seems to be a good rational person. So it'll be a good interview to talk to. So

01:24:29.300 thank you all you guys for tuning in today i do appreciate it and uh hey if you missed it earlier

01:24:35.260 too danielle was on danielle smith at 9 30 or 9 o'clock this morning it's up there on rumble for

01:24:40.140 you to see and uh all of our past stuff's up there so check it out the audio recordings are

01:24:45.320 up on pod bean and uh yeah danielle will be back monday wednesday morning i'll be back at 11 30

01:24:50.820 tomorrow so i'll see you then

01:24:52.240 Transcription by CastingWords

01:25:22.240 Thank you.

Western Standard - May 17, 2022

Triggered： Effective protests need to have reasonable goals

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