Western Standard - Triggered： Exposing the abhorrent mainstream media coverage of the trucker convoy.

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Hey there, it's January 26 2022 and welcome to Triggered. I'm Cory Morgan. This is going to be a live daily show that's going to be coming to you Monday to Friday, every day except on holidays at 1130 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. Comments are welcome. I mean that's one of the great things about a live show. We've got challenges with a live show and we've got some fantastic things with doing a live show.

00:00:56.560 So, I mean, I invite the comments in there, comment to me, comment to our guests, comment with each other, just try to keep things polite and civil.

00:01:04.780 You know, the internet's got enough vitriol on it, we don't need to add to it, we can still get worked up and wound up without being too cruel with each other.

00:01:12.660 I got a good show lined up today, we got a couple of guests coming on, one of our colonists, Dave Makachuk, is going to be on at 11.50, I believe,

00:01:22.140 And he's going to be speaking on a call written on the Russia, China, Russia and Ukraine situation going on over there.

00:01:32.900 And yeah, it's quite a potential thing going on.

00:01:36.200 Later on, I'm going to have a former progressive conservative cabinet minister, Donna Kennedy Glanzon.

00:01:41.100 She's going to be on at, I believe, 1220.

00:01:45.480 And she's going to speak to us on something she'd written about, you know, some of the challenges on public-private partnerships

00:01:50.320 and wondering why is this such a challenging thing.

00:01:53.780 So yeah, we've got a good show to look forward to

00:01:55.860 and a lot of interaction.

00:01:58.540 First though, I should start out

00:02:00.380 with what has me triggered today.

00:02:03.820 And there's always something.

00:02:05.100 And it's the mainstream media that is in full attack mode

00:02:08.020 against the trucker's convoy.

00:02:10.300 My expectations for the mainstream media are low

00:02:12.520 and they rarely fail to meet those expectations.

00:02:15.340 I mean, bias among legacy media is hardly new

00:02:17.460 and I really don't think they'd be supportive.

00:02:19.440 never thought they'd be supportive of the Truckers for Freedom Convoy.

00:02:22.360 This full-court press attack, though, the style by the media,

00:02:26.280 along with their spreading of misinformation, has still managed to shock me.

00:02:29.060 I mean, they've managed to hit new lows.

00:02:31.220 One of the most striking measures of how explosively popular, for example,

00:02:35.040 that the convoy has been has been the amazing fundraising numbers.

00:02:38.340 Alberta activist Tamara Leach has set up a GoFundMe account.

00:02:41.080 She had the modest hope of raising a few thousand dollars

00:02:43.180 to help the truckers traveling in the convoy.

00:02:45.500 Now, this fundraiser went viral, and so far has amassed a staggering number.

00:02:48.620 Donations are over $5.3 million.

00:02:53.720 Yes.

00:02:54.960 So the reality is, though, that the average donor contributed $75 each,

00:03:00.340 and there were 68,000 of them.

00:03:01.760 I mean, this is amazing and newsworthy in itself.

00:03:04.760 But the mainstream media wants to undercut this amazing story any way they can.

00:03:08.660 So next, the media moved on to trying to imply that the GoFundMe account had been frozen in the funds.

00:03:12.660 You know, this was a half-truth, and they continue to spread this story.

00:03:16.000 See, GoFundMe has a requirement in their terms.

00:03:19.140 It says they're going to hold the funds until they can see a plan

00:03:22.260 and evidence on how the funds are going to be tracked and spent.

00:03:24.320 It's fair enough. It's a stopgap.

00:03:25.840 And this group has been scrambling, and they're getting it together.

00:03:29.000 But the media chose to imply that the funds are frozen,

00:03:31.260 as if they've done something wrong.

00:03:32.960 And no, they haven't.

00:03:33.860 I mean, this is a tactic to keep people from donating to it,

00:03:36.680 and it isn't working.

00:03:37.740 The funds are still growing, and the organizer leash has repeatedly confirmed

00:03:41.200 that they've met the requirements to draw them.

00:03:43.400 All the funds are being tracked.

00:03:44.460 Truckers are going to have to submit receipts, and any leftover balance is going to go to a veterans group.

00:03:48.560 Nobody's getting ripped off, and no funds are frozen.

00:03:50.800 The mainstream media wants Canadians to feel otherwise, though.

00:03:53.580 Now, GoFundMe has shut down fundraisers before, and when they do, the entire page disappears.

00:03:57.500 People can no longer donate.

00:03:58.780 They're still taking donations right now on the Truckers Convoy site,

00:04:02.680 and we'll release them when the dispersal documents are in order.

00:04:06.320 Now, maybe it's the fact that the group's out fundraising the media's Liberal Party benefactors by a country mile

00:04:12.020 that's raising the ire of the legacy media on this so much.

00:04:15.320 I mean, since their effort to foster mistrust among donors has failed,

00:04:18.480 they've then moved on to the old standby of trying to imply

00:04:20.900 the movement was dominated by extremists and violent people 0.51

00:04:24.060 or even possibly white nationalists.

00:04:26.260 There was a story put out by Global on this, 0.99

00:04:28.020 and it was utter trash reporting.

00:04:29.680 It was based on anonymous postings lifted from a Facebook group. 0.96

00:04:33.280 First, they entitled the story by trying to imply

00:04:34.920 people wanted to turn the convoy into some sort of Canadian version

00:04:37.320 of the January 6th riots from last year in Washington.

00:04:41.200 And this turd of a story begins by framing the convoy as being hundreds of people.

00:04:45.420 I think it's rather evident now the number is in the thousands,

00:04:49.360 and tens of thousands of people are supporting it.

00:04:52.000 The Facebook group alone has over 600,000 members, and that's just one group.

00:04:56.740 I mean, I know it's easy to click like on a Facebook group and support something,

00:05:00.420 but it's very indicative of something large going on.

00:05:02.700 You don't gather 600,000 people in one online group in less than two weeks

00:05:07.380 without something very significant happening.

00:05:10.320 Now, that group got shut down, actually, this late last night.

00:05:13.760 For whatever reason, it's under every possible attack.

00:05:16.440 The group is back up yet again.

00:05:18.460 But boy, the opposition to this convoy is something else.

00:05:21.620 The story then cherry-picks some comments they managed to find in the bowels of the internet

00:05:25.320 to try and imply that these people reflect the movement.

00:05:28.440 One such, here's a quote, you know,

00:05:30.100 F-ing A, guys, let's get pumped for this.

00:05:32.660 Let's go to F-ing Ottawa. 0.54

00:05:34.020 I said one supporter described by anti-hate activists as a far-right vlogger in a recent YouTube clip.

00:05:39.100 They didn't say who this person is, and I don't really care.

00:05:42.800 But why was it reported?

00:05:44.340 So some guy in the corner of an internet said some extreme things.

00:05:47.320 Boy, that's newsworthy, isn't it?

00:05:48.620 But they go further.

00:05:49.760 You know, on another Facebook group, which apparently is connected to the convoy,

00:05:53.440 they didn't say how, and apparently it has 35,000 members.

00:05:56.240 I can't tell because they didn't say which group.

00:05:58.280 But they did pull a quote saying,

00:05:59.400 what would happen if the military stood behind us and not Trudeau?

00:06:02.060 So yes, perhaps they're looking to start a coup.

00:06:05.140 I doubt it.

00:06:06.160 On the Zello app, which I have no idea what that is, 0.99

00:06:08.820 A user apparently said, if anything, we should grab Trudeau by the G-damn neck and kick the crap out of him for what he's done, said the user, who was immediately reminded by others, to keep things peaceful. 0.99

00:06:19.060 I mean, so what? This is the chattering of a few nutcases, but this is what the media is focused on. 0.99

00:06:24.120 And with hundreds of thousands of people talking about this protest on social media, it's not that hard to dig in and find a few of those nuts.

00:06:29.180 The reality, though, is the majority of the people behind the movement are simply concerned Canadians who want pandemic restrictions to come to an end.

00:06:35.640 I mean, you have to think pretty lowly of Canadians if you think that a movement of extremists will motivate tens of thousands of them to donate to it in a matter of days.

00:06:44.400 Are we really so overrun with violent radicals?

00:06:47.140 I mean, bias I understand and expect, but what we're witnessing here is the mainstream media actually working to undercut the credibility and fundraising ability of what's turning out to be one of the largest grassroots protests in Canadian history.

00:06:58.440 They don't have to like it, but they should at least make an attempt to cover it fairly.

00:07:02.340 This convoy is unprecedented.

00:07:03.760 We're seeing history in the making, and it's exposing two things.

00:07:06.820 One is that there are clearly far more people ready to support protests against the pandemic restrictions than we ever imagined.

00:07:12.740 And the other is that the mainstream media is sick beyond repair.

00:07:16.960 So, you know, again, it's frustrating watching this going on.

00:07:21.160 Like, what is it with you guys?

00:07:22.060 What is your issue?

00:07:23.260 Again, you know, you can be a bit slanted, but this is just an outright organized push.

00:07:27.940 Some of the stuff, Gerald Butz, of course, we expect that of him, was talking about it being a separatist movement.

00:07:32.000 We're seeing trucks coming from every corner of the country, so I don't think that's the case.

00:07:36.800 So before I get in with a newsroom check-in with Mel Rizdin, I do want to speak to our sponsor, and that is Bitcoin Well.

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00:08:45.500 so let's bring Melanie in there. I see her in the lobby and let's see what's going on in the 0.92

00:08:49.460 newsroom today. Hey, Mel, how you doing? Good. Good. It's busy in here today. We're working on

00:08:55.900 uh, quite a few, quite a few different things. Uh, one we just put out recently is, uh, looks

00:09:01.560 like, uh, mainstream media, a lot of the, uh, a lot of the publications that, uh, needed and

00:09:07.240 received the, uh, mainstream media bailout money, uh, from the feds to help stay afloat

00:09:15.240 are asking for more. They need more money now. So, uh, we've got a story on that on

00:09:22.040 website. We also have a cute cartoon on today's website. And we are covering all sorts of stories

00:09:34.040 right now. We'll have one coming up right away here. Premier Scott Moe from Saskatchewan was in

00:09:40.040 an interview this morning on a Saskatchewan radio station talk show. And he was speaking towards

00:09:47.400 the fact that um saskatchewan there the government there will be looking to get rid of more of the

00:09:53.480 restrictions uh as they move forward and he has basically called uh the vaccine mandates

00:09:59.720 sort of they've run their course um so we'll have that up on the website here within moments

00:10:07.480 we have our reporter eva who is looking into more stories around the trucker convoy that's um

00:10:16.440 that's on its way to Ottawa right now. Looks like we've got US truckers joining in and quite a few

00:10:23.560 people are sort of jumping on the support bandwagon for this, including Donald Trump Jr. So

00:10:31.080 we'll have a story on that. Also some media reaction to the convoy, as you were mentioning,

00:10:37.720 a lot of people, you know, kind of slamming the convoy and the, you know, some of the comments

00:10:45.160 that have been made about their intentions and whatnot. So we're going to be looking into some

00:10:50.700 of that diverse media coverage that's happened for the convoy. We also are looking at kind of

00:10:57.600 an interesting story. Jamie Oliver, do you know the famous chef? Yes, Liberty Chef. Yes. Yes.

00:11:03.820 Apparently he's gone woke. So we are going to look into how that happened and why. We'll have

00:11:10.760 a story on that coming up. And yeah, we're just monitoring a few other things. We've got some

00:11:17.940 great columns coming out today. So we will be plugging away in here. If anything breaks while

00:11:24.860 you're at it, I will for sure let you know. Yeah, that Jamie Oliver story, I know it's going to be

00:11:30.900 up at westernstandardonline.com soon, by the way. And those things keep getting posted. And that's

00:11:35.680 a reminder. That's why we do the newsroom check-in because we constantly, we are a news organization.

00:11:40.040 we write and break and follow up on things.

00:11:43.500 This Jamie Oliver ones, it's a bit fun.

00:11:45.160 It's a bit depressing.

00:11:46.180 You know, I don't want to give away your whole story.

00:11:47.620 There'll be more details to fill.

00:11:48.580 But I believe he's bringing in people

00:11:50.700 to make sure there's no cultural appropriation

00:11:53.020 in his recipe book.

00:11:54.880 Mm-hmm.

00:11:55.880 Like, he's English, is he not?

00:11:58.660 Yes.

00:11:59.300 So, I mean, I won't go into too much detail of the past,

00:12:01.640 but I was at one point married to an English woman.

00:12:04.320 And, you know, the English aren't exactly known

00:12:06.360 for their fine cuisine.

00:12:07.380 So if he takes out every recipe from his book, aside from English stuff, what's left?

00:12:13.520 I mean, is it just going to be mushy peas and fish and chips?

00:12:16.020 I mean, all the great Chinese and Indian food are going to be gone.

00:12:18.880 We're not allowed to create these anymore. 1.00

00:12:20.560 I don't, you know, I don't know.

00:12:22.140 I don't know what it means to culturally appropriate your recipes.

00:12:25.860 So I guess we'll have to see what that looks like.

00:12:29.540 I was also going to mention to you too, I've got a story from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:12:37.380 They're going to be calling on Canadians to take pictures of your utility bills and specifically kind of highlight the carbon tax section.

00:12:47.380 And they're suggesting we send those to our MPs and, you know, in sort of protest to the carbon tax,

00:12:57.360 just to show what we're paying, what it's costing the average Canadian on their bills.

00:13:02.820 So we'll have that story coming out here pretty quickly, too.

00:13:05.200 Great. And I know you're watching the provincial scenes pretty closely. It's pretty significant watching, you know, everything ties into this trucker protest right now. But it's interesting to see Jason Kenney talking about how the vaccine mandates might not be fair or effective. But it has to be noted, they haven't lifted any of the provincial ones that they have the authority to cover. I mean, I still have to show, you know, my QR code before going into a restaurant for a bite to eat if I should choose to and things like that.

00:13:30.300 I wonder if hopefully they'll be inspired to start considering changing some of their own

00:13:34.660 mandates in light of supporting the, bringing down the federal ones. Well, yeah. And it, you know,

00:13:39.500 it, as far as Premier Mo is speaking, yeah, he's, he's looking, he's saying within the next few

00:13:46.760 days, Saskatchewan residents can be expecting some communication around further dropping

00:13:54.160 restrictions in the province. And again, yeah, highlights the fact that he, he believes those

00:13:59.820 have been vaccinated those who have chosen to when they put those vaccine mandates in place

00:14:04.620 it was successful at encouraging more people to get vaccinated but he his comments are basically

00:14:11.980 you know those who've been vaccinated i think those who haven't will not be so we need to we

00:14:17.820 need to start getting back to normal we need to you know learn to live with covid and the vaccine

00:14:22.700 mandates have kind of served their purpose great well thanks for joining me and i'll let you get

00:14:28.300 get back to work. You got a whole lot to cover there. I appreciate it. And I'll talk to you

00:14:32.080 after the show, I'm sure. Okay. Have a good one. Great. Thanks, Melanie. So it's that reminder to

00:14:36.440 everybody. Yeah. Go to the westernstandardonline.com to get the full stories of these.

00:14:41.080 We got a lot of great columnists. We've got news as it's breaking. We're based on subscriptions.

00:14:46.620 You know, as usual, I give myself serving tirades against the mainstream media. But I mean, part of

00:14:51.500 it is because we are building an alternative to it. And we don't get government funding at all

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00:15:21.140 some great sponsors.

00:15:22.600 So, I mean, you know,

00:15:23.720 just counter to the crazed

00:15:26.040 media narrative saying we have another January 6th coming up in Ottawa with this collection of

00:15:31.000 truckers heading out there. Canadians are, for the most part, pretty peaceful people and law-abiding

00:15:35.620 people, and they don't want to hurt each other. And one of the things that we get falsely accused

00:15:38.880 of, too, is firearm owners. You know, they talk as if it's something that we shouldn't have the

00:15:43.500 ability to use or possess or, you know, collect even firearms. Well, the Canada Shooting Sports

00:15:50.700 Association, these guys, they're standing up for your right and ability to responsibly and safely

00:15:56.000 use firearms, of course, you know, not criminally. We got no use for criminals. Nobody does.

00:16:00.560 These guys are out there. Their website is cssa-cila.org. And what they do, they provide

00:16:07.500 a lot of resources on how events, whether it's for shooting sports, as their name implies,

00:16:12.860 target shooting. I mean, some kids go to the Olympics on, you know, target shooting events,

00:16:18.140 things such as that. They also have resources for hunting, finding out where firearms shows are,

00:16:23.660 things like that that are going on. It's just loaded with resources. As well, they're actively

00:16:27.880 standing up on behalf of firearm owners. They've got a number of legal challenges against those

00:16:33.020 constant liberal bills that are coming out that are taking away the types of property you're

00:16:37.680 allowed to possess, use, own, hand down, any of those things. So check them out. Canada Shooting

00:16:43.340 Sports Association. Consider taking out a membership for them because that's how they can stand up for

00:16:47.820 you. I mean, this is great. We're watching people stand up for themselves. And that's what I've been

00:16:52.120 inspired by with this, this convoy and the rest. We, I mean, we can peacefully make our case when

00:16:58.620 we are upset with the government. I'm always upset with the government, but I've got a good platform

00:17:02.960 for it. So back to that convoy. Yeah. You know, it's interesting just on that subject, like in

00:17:08.340 Winnipeg, I saw some footage, thousands of people came out along the street. So you see, it's not

00:17:12.480 just the people taking part within the convoy. It's not just the truckers who were involved in

00:17:17.540 this, it is supporters of all kinds. It's gone well beyond just dealing with the vaccination

00:17:23.120 mandate. But something that was really cool was, I guess, there were a whole bunch of members from

00:17:26.860 local Hutterite colonies, of which there's a lot in Manitoba, of course, had come out and they

00:17:31.240 brought food for all of the travelers, for the people in the convoy. They had sandwiches and

00:17:36.420 I guess they'd dedicated something like 20 pigs towards it, you know, so a lot of pork for the

00:17:41.440 drivers. But I mean, again, these are, if you want to talk about peaceful people, at least,

00:17:46.840 You know, Hutterites, that's part of their faith. They are not up on, if they thought this was a violent movement whatsoever, they would not be out there supporting it. But they are business people, they are farmers, a lot of them are truckers. They're concerned about these mandates and things. I believe there was another Hutterite who was quoted who said 80% of the people on his colony were vaccinated. They're not fully in this anti-vaccination mode either. They're just concerned about being told what to do, all like the rest of us.

00:18:12.940 So as we keep seeing this convoy being so mischaracterized by the media and demonized,

00:18:20.200 let's remember we're not really seeing that happening out there.

00:18:23.560 And, you know, they're going to get to Ottawa.

00:18:25.900 There's going to be a lot of high-strung people going on.

00:18:29.620 And, yeah, you know what?

00:18:30.460 When you've got thousands of people, unfortunately, you're going to get a few nuts within there.

00:18:33.320 Let's hope they stay restrained or let's hope the people within the convoy keep them restrained.

00:18:37.040 That's all I can do.

00:18:38.140 This is a great decentralized movement.

00:18:40.980 I mean, it's interesting to see.

00:18:42.080 There's no real central leadership, which can be good and bad.

00:18:45.580 You know, if things start to go poorly, how do you get it back on the rails?

00:18:49.620 So all I can do is reach out to them and tell everybody, you know, you've got to self-govern when you're on Parliament Hill and you're there and you're making your statements.

00:18:56.980 If somebody's doing something stupid, somebody's doing something embarrassing, it's up to you guys to put them back in order.

00:19:02.020 We're talking about personal responsibility. 0.98

00:19:03.720 That's what the whole nature of this protest is, right?

00:19:06.860 Well, that's a big element of it is showing that you can take care of yourself and be a responsible citizen out there.

00:19:14.240 So I'm really looking forward to see what happens in this convoy.

00:19:18.120 And I'm looking forward to see if they help spawn some positive change.

00:19:22.220 But that will be up to those guys out there. 0.86

00:19:23.980 If they do go out and we have a mass movement of a bunch of jackasses on the hill, it's not going to help things.

00:19:29.800 It's going to set them back.

00:19:30.900 I'm pretty excited, though.

00:19:31.960 I mean, from people I've communicated with, by far and large, the majority of them are rational, good people who are just tired of where these restrictions have gone, and they want a means to push back.

00:19:45.740 It's gone beyond the trucker basis that started it, and it's on to a large group of Canadians who just want to express themselves and say that they want to see some changes here.

00:19:55.680 So my first guest I see is in the lobby there now, and that's Dave Makachuk.

00:19:59.600 And Dave, if you follow westernstandardonline.com, you see his columns very frequently.

00:20:04.880 He's a good, prolific writer and fantastic columns.

00:20:07.220 He's been in media for a long time.

00:20:09.020 So let's bring Dave in.

00:20:09.780 He wrote a couple of columns recently that I'd like to talk about.

00:20:12.300 How you doing, Dave?

00:20:13.380 Good, good.

00:20:14.220 Thank you for the kind words.

00:20:15.520 Appreciate that.

00:20:16.700 Oh, I appreciate it as well.

00:20:18.260 It's good to see you.

00:20:18.840 And, you know, you're covering an area of news that's complicated, it's concerning,

00:20:24.780 And it's almost kind of sliding under the radar a little bit.

00:20:27.380 I mean, it's definitely being covered, but people, I think, aren't sure what to make of it.

00:20:31.820 I'll start with, though, going back two columns.

00:20:33.860 You wrote on the Russia-Ukrainian situation.

00:20:36.640 Like, this is something pretty concerning that's building up on that border over there.

00:20:42.120 You know what?

00:20:42.980 I'll tell you something.

00:20:44.480 If you want to know what's going on, go to YouTube, punch in the, what is it?

00:20:56.780 I just listened to it.

00:20:58.860 It's My Way or the Highway.

00:21:01.280 There's this band, that fantastic band.

00:21:03.740 Hang on just a second.

00:21:09.120 Limp Bizkit.

00:21:10.780 Ah, yes.

00:21:12.580 Limp Bizkit, My Way or the Highway.

00:21:14.480 OK, I just listen to that full blast just to get ready for the interview.

00:21:18.400 But I'm telling you, this is Putin. It's it's his way or the highway.

00:21:23.380 This is man. He's in so deep now. He's got to go in.

00:21:27.640 And even the former MI6 head of MI6 just said today, Putin's got to go in.

00:21:34.480 But the thing is that Biden has just messed it all up. It's a disaster.

00:21:40.500 he should have just shut up instead he literally handed it to putin i mean he literally by saying

00:21:48.700 well putin has to go in and he has to do it that's like handing him the keys to the city

00:21:56.320 putin now is got no fear and sanctions like slap on the wrist sanctions have failed it it fell on

00:22:05.200 deaf ears completely. And now, what is Biden doing? 8,500 soldiers on alert? On alert.

00:22:17.860 They're not even in Europe. They're not in Poland. They're not in Romania. And the House 0.93

00:22:23.900 Foreign Affairs Committee, Senate, sorry, Senate Foreign Affairs Committee is drawing up

00:22:32.080 supposedly the sanctions, mother of all sanctions. Well, look at it this way. If you're a criminal,

00:22:41.920 if you're a criminal, and nobody says what you're going to suffer if you do this crime,

00:22:49.420 what's a criminal going to do? He's not going to be afraid. Putin's not afraid.

00:22:53.420 And I honestly feel, because NATO is fracturing already, Germany is refusing to send arms.

00:23:03.040 They're blocking arms to Ukraine.

00:23:05.180 They have a new government in Germany.

00:23:07.420 They are kind of friendly to the Russians.

00:23:12.280 They're saying that this Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is very important, is not involved.

00:23:18.980 That's not involved in anything.

00:23:20.820 And I honestly think, I mean, I've heard both sides.

00:23:25.960 I've heard that, oh, it's going to be Vietnam or Chechnya for Russia.

00:23:33.640 You know what?

00:23:34.580 I fear, and it's because we are so weak. 0.51

00:23:37.720 We are so damn weak.

00:23:40.100 The last three presidential administrations had the same foreign policy, literally the same foreign policy.

00:23:46.760 And you know what?

00:23:48.060 We are so weak.

00:23:48.920 I fear we're going to abandon Ukraine.

00:23:54.300 That's my fear. That's my greatest fear.

00:23:56.780 And that's just tragic.

00:23:58.620 I mean, the country that suffered so badly historically under the Soviet rule with Russia,

00:24:04.340 I mean, you know, they were literally starved.

00:24:06.940 They suffered due to rotten Soviet technology with the nuclear reactor.

00:24:11.440 And then to potentially come back under, even though it wouldn't be communist, I guess, technically, 0.90

00:24:16.080 but another russian regime i mean you know that the ukrainian population that doesn't deserve

00:24:21.200 something like that but i mean it is difficult to say what does the world do to stop them and we

00:24:25.040 don't want to see a giant war in europe i don't think anybody really wants to see that what are

00:24:29.440 they going to do what are they going to do they i mean the us is talking about they're sending them

00:24:34.640 um uh uh it's called um lethal aid it's called lethal aid and the americans are pouring it in

00:24:42.880 the baltic countries are pouring it in uh to their credit canada has some troops in there

00:24:48.400 some special forces which kind of shocked me but then again they may be involved in getting our

00:24:54.160 embassy people out safely like they did in afghanistan so i think that's that's about i

00:24:59.520 hardly think canadian troops will be fighting russian forces but i mean it's god you know

00:25:06.560 You know, this is bad. This is really bad. And do you think, again, let me ask you this question. Do you think Ronald Reagan would put up with this? Do you think Ronald Reagan for a minute would put up with this?

00:25:22.520 8,500 troops on alert? Why aren't they there already? Why aren't they in Poland now? Why aren't they in Romania now? Those poor countries are looking on.

00:25:34.520 And all those Russian forces in the north and in the east are poised to, and also from, there's train loads.

00:25:47.540 There's train loads, apparently 20 plus train loads of Russian troops have gone into Belarus in the last 48 hours.

00:25:56.940 20 train loads.

00:25:58.760 They're not there to have fun.

00:26:01.080 They're going to go in and people are going to die. And what are we doing about it? What is Biden doing? Sanctions are pointless. And, you know, those troops should be there already. Those troops should at least, for God's sake, for God's sake, send in the troops.

00:26:20.200 I mean, what else? I don't know. I think Biden really screwed up. And of course, the West Wing tried to cover up for everything he said. But again, the last three presidencies have been pretty consistent on foreign policy. Even Trump was fairly consistent. And this, I think, gave Putin the green light. And I think he's a smart fellow.

00:26:48.200 I really think it is. Now, mind you, we shall see what happens after. If they go in, we shall see what happens after. Will these sanctions, will the sanctions mentioned was the, you know, Nord Stream 2 and the SWIFT interbank system, taking them off the SWIFT interbank system, which would really hurt them.

00:27:16.860 I just don't see that happening.

00:27:18.380 And Biden sing signaled that if they go in a limited amount, he kind of

00:27:24.500 signal to them that, you know, yeah, they're going to do it.

00:27:26.700 I mean, my God.

00:27:28.880 And of course the wet thing, his, his handlers just came in there and said, no,

00:27:33.080 no, no, no, he didn't mean this.

00:27:36.620 Well, to be somewhat fair, as you said, it's been a number of administrations.

00:27:40.500 I mean, times have changed a lot.

00:27:41.660 Like we're of a vintage where we remember the cold war.

00:27:44.940 and how Reagan would have reacted at that time.

00:27:48.020 But at that time, I mean, they were already there.

00:27:50.880 NATO was big.

00:27:52.140 I mean, there was a lot of nations.

00:27:53.480 So you had a lot of moral authority as well.

00:27:55.680 I mean, you had all of Western Europe and you had Canada

00:27:57.880 and you had, you know, these taking part

00:28:00.140 and set up in Germany and countries throughout.

00:28:02.460 But, you know, over the years, that's atrophied.

00:28:04.700 As you said, Putin's whatever he is, he's no fool.

00:28:07.500 And even if Biden wanted to make a show of force,

00:28:10.700 it would take a lot of time to mobilize something

00:28:14.560 that could even make them think twice

00:28:16.700 with the number of Russian troops there.

00:28:18.460 Absolutely, absolutely.

00:28:19.500 Too little, too late.

00:28:20.780 And there's a bigger picture.

00:28:22.600 There's a bigger picture to all this,

00:28:24.300 which is rather frightening. 0.92

00:28:26.420 Russia and China are on the same page. 0.68

00:28:30.180 They're on the same page.

00:28:31.600 And they don't like the fact

00:28:33.000 that the U.S. has this hegemonic power

00:28:35.600 and they're doing everything they can

00:28:37.940 to limit and diminish U.S. power around the world.

00:28:43.320 now if he goes in there if he goes in there and we do nothing i mean we've got the u.s not us

00:28:51.400 the u.s has a carrier group sitting in the med and they've got f-35s they got f-18s

00:28:57.720 you know what they could do what those planes can do they're incredible and there's and and there's

00:29:03.840 and there's nothing else that can touch them now but they can't do anything it's all posturing

00:29:09.520 It's all posturing. And Putin knows that. But the bigger picture is that China, which is not involved in Ukraine, fair enough, but they're on the same page.

00:29:21.300 They're on the same page as Russia. And they want to seek a global, how should I say this, the reset of a global balance of power.

00:29:38.360 And China's economy is almost as big as the United States now, 1.5 billion people.

00:29:44.500 And all they got to do is bring it up a notch more and notch more and notch more.

00:29:48.940 And they're spending, well, they're not spending like crazy like the Americans, but they are gradually, gradually, gradually getting stronger in every sector of the military, in every sector.

00:30:00.080 And as you know, they're ahead of us, the United States, in hypersonic weapons.

00:30:07.800 way ahead so there's that there that's the big picture russia and china 0.95

00:30:15.240 want to and and and this is the scary part scary scenario

00:30:21.800 if if russia goes in it will make it easier for china to take taiwan

00:30:29.320 because they will know america is weak yeah i wanted we wanted to pivot to

00:30:35.400 that. Yeah, because you'd written also on the Chinese issue in a more recent column. And China

00:30:40.780 is starting to do some posturing around Taiwan. Again, it seems these large, you know, communist

00:30:45.440 and or former communist states want to go back to their expansionism and take back those states

00:30:49.080 they lost in past years. But I mean, with the Olympics coming up, we got so many factors that

00:30:55.280 come in on this. Does that perhaps buy short reprieve? I don't think China is going to want

00:31:01.160 to make a move, or perhaps even Russia, to distract from, ironically, something as in

00:31:06.740 some sense as petty as the Olympic Games, but at the same time, it's a big world event.

00:31:11.720 It is a big world event, and I've heard people say, well, they'll wait until after that's

00:31:18.800 over.

00:31:19.500 And even the Russians might wait until after that's over, because they don't want to steal

00:31:24.420 the show from Beijing.

00:31:26.740 But yes, it's a very big concern.

00:31:29.340 I'm not sure if you heard, but this week, the People's Liberation Air Force sent in dozens and dozens and dozens of planes into Taiwan's defense zone, essentially, you know, forcing Taiwan.

00:31:49.860 And they've been doing this all year, just pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. 0.54

00:31:54.260 And there's nothing to stop them.

00:31:56.660 There's absolutely nothing to stop them.

00:31:57.880 But let me say this about that. It doesn't take a hero pilot to get up and get in his plane and harass a small democratic island. As far as I'm concerned, that's total cowardice. That's complete cowardice.

00:32:14.780 That pilot from the PLAF, whatever he's flying, he knows that evening he will be in a nice place having his dinner.

00:32:28.560 Maybe he'll go to his family.

00:32:30.280 Maybe he'll be in a barracks and he'll be in a nice comfy bed.

00:32:33.440 No one's going to shoot at him.

00:32:35.360 No one's going to shoot at him.

00:32:36.760 It doesn't take a hero to buzz a small democratic island.

00:32:41.500 That's total BS.

00:32:43.000 during the Vietnam War, those Navy pilots, when they took off from the carrier and had to go on

00:32:50.700 their missions, they had one fear. They had their biggest fear. And it wasn't the fear of being shot

00:32:56.320 down. It was the fear of having to land back on the carrier at night in a rainstorm, in any kind

00:33:04.300 storm with a pitching carrier which and it's a dangerous thing uh uh one one f-35 pilot got

00:33:14.600 injured this week uh on the uh ss carl vincent trying to land trying to land so many people so

00:33:22.660 you know what as far as i'm concerned you know what this is total cowardice it's total cowardice 0.75

00:33:28.900 on the part of china you know buzzing buzzing but you know like they're teaching them they're 0.97

00:33:35.680 teaching them to be to be cowards and i know that's that's a strong statement but that's how 1.00

00:33:41.820 i feel about it i'm just really i'm just you know i'm so fed up with that with with with the way 0.96

00:33:47.160 china is treating uh taiwan but again that's that's another you know and then something else

00:33:54.100 to look at i mean it is a big complicated area and that's why i just wanted to kind of touch

00:33:57.860 on international there's always so much to to see uh your most recent column though i mean maybe

00:34:02.600 there's some little bits of active rebellion within uh china because one of their rocket

00:34:06.300 scientists uh just defected on them right yes yes thanks to mi6 thanks to mi6 uh this is a fairly

00:34:13.480 important uh rocket scientist who was involved in the df-17 uh uh uh rocket and uh or the uh what

00:34:23.400 it's a hypersonic missile. But the big thing is he was involved in the big project of that

00:34:31.580 hypersonic missile, which shocked the world. I mean, it stunned the world because they've come

00:34:40.400 up with a hypersonic missile that circled the entire world. And it launched another weapon,

00:34:47.420 which scientists say is impossible they don't know how the chinese did it if this guy can help 0.86

00:34:55.680 the west to solve that it could be one of the biggest coups coups in intelligence history 0.95

00:35:03.100 and thanks to mi6 and they operated those guys operated right in hong kong's back china's 0.90

00:35:09.460 backyard they operated right in china's backyard they sent a team of guys and the cia sent a team

00:35:16.040 of guys. And somehow, through secrecy and spy tradecraft, you have the credit for getting 0.79

00:35:27.020 them out. Him, his child, and his wife, they got them all out. And like I say, that's a

00:35:33.340 huge coup because uh if if the chinese are extremely proud of their hypersonic uh accomplishments 1.00

00:35:45.900 so this is a big setback no question and nothing the global times which is china's mouthpiece of 0.99

00:35:51.660 course nothing they say is going to change that they're going to run this guy down but we know 0.90

00:35:57.900 he's legit he's legit and as they say this the the mi6 copper bottomed this guy they get they 0.62

00:36:06.220 pretty much guaranteed he knows what he's talking about so anyway it could set china back a couple

00:36:12.380 years yeah well i just you know as i said i'm not eager to go back to the the cold war days i mean

00:36:18.860 it's still obviously going to a degree but it's escalating and and that's just not a good

00:36:23.020 development in a world that's already you know in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic and

00:36:28.220 everything else going on the last thing we need is to see that going on I mean I remember that

00:36:32.540 from my youth I went to Guatemala back in 87 to watch the proxy war between the United States

00:36:38.460 and the Soviets as they would supply arms to other countries to shoot each other and send out the

00:36:43.180 death squads I mean that's how these things escalate and get worse and worse even if they 0.66

00:36:46.700 won't fight on their own soil they'll use everybody else and boy what a terrifying thing to think that

00:36:51.180 we might be returning to those days well it is terrifying well we just you know uh i think putin

00:36:57.740 has kind of backed himself into a corner he almost has to now you know what i mean i think he's kind

00:37:04.060 of backed himself into a corner i mean it would have been great if after uh the uh sorry after the

00:37:10.940 minsk accords if uh if some kind of peace was settled between kiev and and um the donbass

00:37:20.620 because that was the big thing uh and and i uh i have to uh declare that i have friends in ukraine

00:37:29.260 who are uh very pro-russian uh uh they're very pro-russian they're pro-putin and but that's the

00:37:36.700 east so what do you do the the thing with ukraine like i can sit here and simplify it into a simple

00:37:45.100 issue well it's not a simple issue russia and ukraine their history goes back a thousand years

00:37:53.020 it goes back a thousand years it's a complicated culture it's it's multi uh uh you know a

00:38:01.340 a multicultural uh situation and and complicated it involves several cultures and the history

00:38:09.500 between i mean god you can take a history you know history course between russia and ukraine

00:38:14.300 and everything that's gone on but i think you know uh russia sees ukraine as part of its empire

00:38:22.140 and it just doesn't want to let go and and and the thing which putin did which i don't understand

00:38:28.860 is he kind of set it up talks the the the talks in switzerland to fail he asked for too much

00:38:36.540 you know things that america is not gonna and america is now drafting as we speak

00:38:41.500 week, drafting a letter to Russia explaining, okay, this is our response. But Blinken has already said

00:38:51.520 that it's going to just reflect what we've already said. So all this does is buy time.

00:38:57.540 I think it just buys time to get more weapons in there. And from what I've heard from, you know,

00:39:04.700 the Green Berets are in there, the Canadian Special Forces are in there, the CIA is in there,

00:39:09.660 They're training them for a guerrilla war, which will be terrible.

00:39:15.000 I mean, I just, I can't imagine, you know, the whole global, I mean, this is going to affect the whole world.

00:39:23.920 It's going to affect the world.

00:39:25.940 And I just don't, I don't know.

00:39:29.200 I don't know if NATO will hold together and really hit them with hard sanctions.

00:39:37.640 Will they?

00:39:39.660 It's almost more important to keep the peace, better to keep the peace.

00:39:44.140 You know what I mean?

00:39:44.880 So I think the West, and we've shown it, and we've shown it, and he knows it.

00:39:51.000 He knows it.

00:39:52.660 Well, we'll watch and wait with apprehension as observers.

00:39:56.180 So I know you're going to be keeping an eye on it, and you'll continue to write and report on what's happening over there.

00:40:01.860 Like I said, we're just almost overwhelmed with news, and it's easy to forget that there's a big world out there with a lot of other challenges happening.

00:40:08.060 So thanks for bringing us up to date on there, Dave.

00:40:11.140 And we can find your stuff on westernstandardonline.com.

00:40:14.600 And I look forward to talking to you again soon.

00:40:17.720 Okay, great.

00:40:18.540 Great.

00:40:18.960 All right.

00:40:19.660 Enjoyed.

00:40:20.320 I hope I was able to give the readers a little bit of an idea of what's going on currently.

00:40:28.480 Yeah, you most certainly did.

00:40:29.980 It's such a huge issue.

00:40:30.920 You can only cover so much in 20 minutes.

00:40:32.940 Yeah, I mean, and just one more thing I wanted to add.

00:40:36.560 The big concern in the United States is that, and this is terrible to end the conversation this way, but Putin may have moved tactical nuclear weapons to the border, and that's very bad.

00:40:49.700 U.S. spy planes are trying to sniff them out right now, and that's very bad.

00:40:54.080 So God help us.

00:40:55.700 God help us, and pray for Ukraine.

00:40:59.400 Yeah, absolutely.

00:41:00.960 Well, let's hope, I don't know, sometimes in these matches somebody finally backs off.

00:41:05.360 So thanks again, Dave, and we will be in touch.

00:41:08.740 Okay.

00:41:10.820 So yeah, it is a frightening scenario, you know, and as Dave said, it's very complicated.

00:41:15.740 And then the worst things you can see are, in my view, civil wars, internal wars.

00:41:20.480 I mean, those are always the ugliest.

00:41:21.780 I mean, if we remember Bosnia, Herzegovina, you know, a population we thought was somewhat stable. 1.00

00:41:27.160 But when the Soviet Union that was kind of holding them together by force backed off,

00:41:30.640 they were at each other's throats in the most horrific of ways for years. 0.64

00:41:34.060 As I said, I got to do a fair amount of travel as a young person, and some of the horrors that were done in Guatemala and El Salvador and some of those countries when the Cold War was feeding civil wars with them, it was just awful, and I just can't, I don't like to envision that we're heading back to that sort of thing.

00:41:52.300 So let's keep an eye on it, you know, and that's part of it.

00:41:54.820 I mean, if we keep speaking up for what it's worth,

00:41:57.220 we're, I think, a more advanced and civilized world.

00:42:00.080 Maybe we can head some of these conflicts off,

00:42:02.820 or at least, you know, as Dave said, let's just hope for peace,

00:42:05.480 because we just don't want to see a war,

00:42:07.600 and nobody does better out of it, aside from arms dealers.

00:42:10.420 But that's a whole separate show altogether. 1.00

00:42:14.380 I'm going to have Donna getting a little closer to home here 1.00

00:42:17.040 in a few minutes. 1.00

00:42:18.800 Donna Kennedy-Glans is going to come on.

00:42:20.520 we're going to talk about some things with public and private partnerships. I do want to hit on one

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00:43:35.200 You know, I've got a few minutes here to fill

00:43:37.380 and I want to talk about a bit of news and things

00:43:39.080 and change the pace a little.

00:43:41.300 Let's lighten things up a little bit.

00:43:42.700 I don't know if that came up earlier.

00:43:43.900 There was a cartoon.

00:43:44.740 We have a cartoonist who put stuff up now

00:43:46.340 And then there it is with Trudeau running with his shopping cart in front of the Freedom Rally.

00:43:50.860 And it's funny, some people might get upset and say, oh, you're trying to run down the Prime Minister.

00:43:53.600 Okay, let's just get within reality, guys.

00:43:55.160 We're not promoting violence.

00:43:56.140 We're not saying run Trudeau over.

00:43:57.860 Nobody realistic is saying that.

00:44:01.140 It's funny, though, on how this convoy is shaking the establishment.

00:44:05.160 They're just not sure how to deal with it.

00:44:06.620 I don't know how they should deal with it.

00:44:08.120 This is unprecedented.

00:44:08.980 We've never seen anything like this before.

00:44:11.180 We don't know what's going to happen this weekend, this Monday.

00:44:13.440 Trudeau I think perhaps to a degree

00:44:16.380 has been somewhat wisely quiet on this

00:44:17.960 he's inflamed people enough by saying that

00:44:20.060 people who have chosen not to be vaccinated are

00:44:22.120 racists and extremists and

00:44:24.200 other such things

00:44:26.020 it doesn't help

00:44:27.080 please don't get on your pulpit

00:44:30.260 Justin and inflame the people

00:44:32.240 coming out to Ottawa further

00:44:34.000 because it's not going to make things any better this weekend

00:44:36.480 but we can look at some things and chuckle

00:44:37.800 let's see what else we've got

00:44:40.300 going on in the news, something that came up and I've done a number of

00:44:42.240 columns on it

00:44:43.440 We've had, of course, challenges with the ambulance services.

00:44:46.220 I mean, people have been finding themselves vulnerable, particularly in rural areas.

00:44:50.580 Like I live in Prittis just outside of Calgary.

00:44:52.620 Our ambulance is constantly in Calgary servicing Calgary needs.

00:44:57.700 If we have any needs down in Prittis, they end up dispatching sometimes as far south as Nanton because it just keeps going outward and outward.

00:45:03.760 One of the problems, one, and there's many with it, have been that ambulances, when they come in, they come to the hospital, they deliver the patient.

00:45:11.520 And if the patient isn't, you know, completely critical and needs immediately, you know, to be triaged into emergency care, quite often the paramedics are put into what's called hallway care.

00:45:21.280 The hospital staff and nurses won't sign off and take the patients and the paramedics are obligated to sit there and care for them.

00:45:28.760 And that can last for hours.

00:45:30.620 And I took pictures when I went and wrote on this.

00:45:32.560 Like there was eight to nine ambulances sitting parked out in the parking lot outside of Rocky View Hospital just at a random time.

00:45:39.560 And that's typical because they're all in there caring for patients in the hallways.

00:45:42.880 Meanwhile, we get red alerts throughout the city because there's no ambulances available.

00:45:46.620 And it's been going on for a long time.

00:45:49.360 And it's a very troublesome situation.

00:45:51.440 Now, in the health update yesterday with Dina Hinshaw and Jason Kenney, it looks like they're going to be at least working on this.

00:45:59.140 And one of the things they said is they're going to make it so immediately they have to take those patients when they come into the hospital.

00:46:04.100 That is a positive change.

00:46:06.680 This is good news.

00:46:07.460 This is something at least to get those back out on the road.

00:46:10.200 Now, that still means already pressured hospitals are going to have these patients on their

00:46:14.240 hands quickly, and they're going to have to adapt to this.

00:46:17.580 I mean, you can't just sign off and leave them in the hallway without somebody there.

00:46:21.400 Hospital staff are going to have to adapt and figure out how to deal with that.

00:46:24.860 But at least we can get our emergency workers back out there on the streets.

00:46:28.540 I mean, you don't have to be a medical expert to know time is everything.

00:46:32.040 If you have an accident, if somebody's having a heart attack, if somebody's overdosed,

00:46:36.520 there the chances of that person surviving or at least coming through it without large adverse you

00:46:42.480 know long-term injuries is greatly reduced with the faster you can get professional medical help

00:46:47.380 to those people it is so critical to get those paramedics to these scenes as fast as humanly

00:46:52.880 possible and we've made a great stride on something that's been going wrong in the system for a long

00:46:57.640 time and in at least getting these guys out of the hospital so they can get back out on the road

00:47:01.600 to do that initial emergency care for people when accidents happen.

00:47:06.420 It's very important.

00:47:07.440 So I just like to say, sometimes the government at least is moving in the right direction.

00:47:10.980 There's still a whole lot of work to do.

00:47:12.220 So people are pointing out the AHS is a mess. 0.99

00:47:14.800 I mean, the administration's a pile of garbage. 0.99

00:47:18.480 It's hardly worth it. 1.00

00:47:19.500 It's a whole show in itself.

00:47:21.240 But little by little, we're getting some better things.

00:47:22.900 That was a better development.

00:47:23.880 And I think they also set up a review for the dispatching because, yeah, they centralized it all.

00:47:28.380 and that seems to have turned into a real mess as well.

00:47:32.660 It used to be regionally dispatched,

00:47:35.400 then it got centralized.

00:47:36.440 And of course, when you have any sort of centralized system,

00:47:39.400 resources get pulled into the center.

00:47:41.020 That's what happens.

00:47:42.120 And that's why Edmonton and Calgary

00:47:43.560 drained all those resources into them

00:47:46.100 when they had emergencies,

00:47:46.780 but left all the outlying areas underserved,

00:47:49.540 which is a terrible, dangerous circumstance.

00:47:51.620 And we saw that situation in Airdrie

00:47:53.180 with a paramedic who died

00:47:54.380 and it was pretty well established.

00:47:56.420 Nothing was going to save that poor man.

00:47:57.860 but it also drove home that there was no ambulance available they had to dispatch one from something

00:48:03.900 like i believe 40 minutes away i mean had there been any slight chance of saving him

00:48:07.440 it was lost because that that ambulance wasn't going to be able to get to airdrie and he was a

00:48:12.540 paramedic in a health center at the time that's how stretched and inefficient that system was and

00:48:18.320 that's just uh not tolerable and we we can't do that so they made a stride for that okay enough

00:48:23.820 rambling out of me i'll bring somebody new in to ramble on to some other things and if we're

00:48:27.560 going to talk about bureaucracy and efficiency, and that can tie in perhaps with health. Let's

00:48:32.040 talk to Donna Kennedy-Glans. I see you're patiently waiting in the lobby there. Hi, Donna, how are you 1.00

00:48:36.700 doing? I'm good, Corey. Good to see you. Yeah, thanks. So, I mean, I'll let you frame it because

00:48:42.980 it was a long piece you wrote, and basically it was entitled, it shouldn't be this complicated.

00:48:47.320 You know, this is something we've talked about for a long time when it comes to public and private

00:48:51.680 interactions and partnerships. So what was your piece all about there? Well, it was a bit of a

00:48:56.940 rant, Corey, which I think you're familiar with, and it's kind of fun from time to time.

00:49:02.320 We saw during COVID that, you know, private companies and governments and even nonprofits

00:49:07.720 had to come together. They had to work together. You know, we're used to the lines being really

00:49:13.660 firm and you do this and I do that. And, you know, that's the way it is. But during COVID,

00:49:18.440 we had to come up with vaccines. We had to roll out PPE. We had to respond to a crisis.

00:49:23.620 and it worked. And what I'm seeing is an opportunity. I see an opportunity where

00:49:33.140 if we could figure out how to bring private and non-profit and government sectors together to do

00:49:39.460 a better job with education, to do a better job with just about everything we do, including

00:49:44.060 healthcare, and I'm not getting into the privatization of healthcare question, but just

00:49:48.080 the whole idea of collaborating. When I was in MLA here in Varsity, one of the most frustrating

00:49:54.760 things I had was people who would say, we had Vakova, which is a non-profit, and they needed

00:50:00.680 a new swimming pool facility because the one they've got there, it was leaking. We had a new

00:50:05.880 school being built, like a kilometer away, that was for special needs kids. It was a very

00:50:11.200 significant school, and it needed a pool. And then down the road, we had the Alberta Children's

00:50:16.420 hospital, which had a very small pool in its basement for treatment for kids. So I said to

00:50:21.660 them, I'm looking at the three of them, and I said, you guys all need the same thing. You're almost

00:50:26.040 on top of each other. Why don't we collaborate? And they all looked at me and said, no, we don't

00:50:32.480 have to do that. We get money from different places. We can control it. If we build our own

00:50:41.220 pool maintain it we can control it and that's that's that was the result it's impossible for us

00:50:49.860 in my opinion cory to continue to deliver the best care the best education the best electricity

00:50:58.920 if we don't figure out how to come together in the private and the public and even the non-profit

00:51:04.720 sectors so i'm writing this book right now it's coming out very very soon it's called teaching

00:51:09.500 the dinosaur to dance and it's about how do we do things differently so I'm looking at things around

00:51:16.140 me and I'm getting a lot of calls from people especially after that situation I experienced

00:51:22.060 in Banff with the Banff Centre and being very unceremoniously dumped off the board

00:51:28.220 because I was questioning these kinds of things and people are coming forward and saying to me

00:51:33.740 all the time this looks like cozy capitalism this looks like crony capitalism people don't

00:51:40.380 like crony socialism either but people are just uncomfortable with those kinds of things and how

00:51:46.860 we bring together different groups and who gets what money from government and why did they get

00:51:51.900 that money and what do they do with it are they really making decisions in the public interest so

00:51:58.140 it's messy corey but we've got to figure this out and figure out how to talk about it more

00:52:03.180 in alberta because we sort of we back away if you know i worked in 35 countries you've traveled lots

00:52:11.660 people ask better questions in other places we've just kind of gotten used to this

00:52:16.700 and so we're afraid to say well well why did the why did the guy who's on the board of invest

00:52:23.820 alberta get his project funded like that seems a little odd um i think we've we're asking those

00:52:30.940 questions but we're doing it quietly we need to turn up the volume we need to ask those questions

00:52:38.540 but what's happening to our public money when it goes into the private sector in order to make it

00:52:45.820 possible for us to be able to do these collaborations in the future so that's what i'm on about yeah

00:52:52.780 well and if we could i mean as we've seen there there are collaborations that could work really

00:52:56.940 well. I mean, there's a lot of private companies that, well, they provide services that there's

00:53:02.140 just no way that could be properly and efficiently done with a public service.

00:53:06.700 But when we see examples of, you know, crony capitalism, when we see the back scratching,

00:53:12.380 we see the SNC Lavalins and, or even some of the Alberta investments, I don't know if it was so

00:53:17.020 much crony capitalism, but why the heck did we get into a pipeline? Boy, we burned there.

00:53:21.900 Then the public gets a pretty strong aversion to exploring further relationships in the future. So

00:53:26.700 how can we bring in controls maybe if public could be assured that the money will go

00:53:31.020 as it should i think they'd be more receptive oh i think transparency is part of the solution here

00:53:37.020 for sure um but it's also just as it's a cultural thing it's a you know if we're going to move into

00:53:44.460 the future and do things differently and do things with more resiliency i think we've realized that

00:53:49.580 we've got to be more resilient not just efficient but resilient we're going to need to have sectors

00:53:54.620 working together more so that's that's just the the way the world is unfolding and if we want to

00:54:00.460 compete in that space and be more effective we're gonna have to figure out how to do this in a way

00:54:05.380 where we actually trust the system but i don't think people trust the system right now so

00:54:10.940 atco like atco is one of those companies that's held up you know like but the gold star ron southern

00:54:18.180 and his wife. I mean, they were, people trusted them. They built this incredible facility at

00:54:25.380 Spruce Meadow. They didn't ask for public money for that. They built it themselves.

00:54:30.240 And now we've got ACCO accused by the regulator, by the Alberta Utilities Commission. That's

00:54:37.400 pretty remarkable for the AUC to be saying, hey, what are you doing over there? You're rolling in

00:54:44.760 costs that you're not allowed to roll into to your costs you've been doing this for a while

00:54:51.400 and it you know it violates the rules and they're charging those costs to rate payers

00:54:57.400 who are also burdened right now especially in rural communities in alberta with some really

00:55:02.920 really high transmission costs and distribution costs so i look at that and then you know

00:55:10.600 I love the Southern family. I respect them. They're iconic in this province, but

00:55:15.960 Nancy Southern to come out after that charge and that investigation, and then to say,

00:55:22.920 oh, we've got an ESG, you know, we're going to go net zero, as if that band-aid kind of placates

00:55:31.800 all of us i i worry about that i think there are lots of companies who do things beyond compliance

00:55:40.280 with law nancy southern's parents did that but they did it they did it with honesty we trusted

00:55:48.200 that they were going to do it if you just put up a you know i'm going net zero in the future

00:55:53.800 um in response to an AUC allegation that you you know was stealing from rate payers i have

00:56:01.480 a problem with that like we've got to start to build some confidence in our own systems so

00:56:07.880 how are we going to do it and what about the company that is really doing that is really going

00:56:12.120 to net zero versus the companies that aren't how do we figure out those differences and make sure

00:56:17.800 that we reward the players who are actually doing the work instead of saying you know none of them

00:56:23.240 can do it well that's not true some companies can do it and they do it but how are we going to

00:56:28.440 figure out who to trust so that's why i'm really encouraging people to speak up a little bit more

00:56:34.680 just stop hitting the mute button stop worrying about retribution somebody's gonna you know make

00:56:41.880 life miserable for you if you speak up if we don't speak up we're gonna make life miserable for our

00:56:49.480 kids and grandchildren because they're gonna have to pay the price for this and i just i don't know

00:56:54.600 when we hit the mute button in Alberta, but I really think we need to dial it up.

00:56:59.720 Well, you know, I think this energy deregulation and all that in Alberta, I mean, that was going

00:57:03.720 on since Ralph Klein's days when we worked into it. It was very controversial then. And unfortunately,

00:57:08.360 I got to admit, even as a political weenie as I am, often when that subject would come up,

00:57:12.600 my eyes would start to glaze over because it is a bit of a complicated, dry. I mean,

00:57:17.800 it's critical and it's essential to all of us, but it's so easy to tune out and just kind of

00:57:21.880 not want to follow up on it. I mean, we need to encapsulate that, I guess, so Albertans perhaps

00:57:25.800 can understand better what's going on, because I don't think that initiative, and as I was

00:57:29.400 optimistic about it, it hasn't worked, at least not yet. Oh, it's a very big question. I had that

00:57:36.120 portfolio for a while, and I understood energy very well, because I'd worked in this, in that

00:57:40.760 space for decades, but I really had to bone up on electricity and very, I'm a nerd, so I was very,

00:57:48.040 you know i understand it which is saying something i'm intrigued by it but what i find frustrating

00:57:54.840 is this assertion in alberta because we've got a very unusual system it's a market-based system and

00:57:59.880 it's highly unusual but it's it's you know if somebody's taking costs and and you know acco

00:58:08.360 took costs um and rolled them into the rate base that they weren't allowed to roll into the rate

00:58:14.200 base. That's pretty darn simple, Corey. Like you just don't get to do that. If you're going to

00:58:20.440 charge a cost to rate payers or the public or taxpayers or citizens, and you're not allowed to

00:58:26.620 do that, that's not too hard to understand. So I think sometimes with electricity, we're very

00:58:34.880 glib about it. And I get the complexity, but I also think some things are pretty simple. And

00:58:41.200 And frankly, if this was happening in the United States,

00:58:45.080 I think this would be all over the front pages of the newspaper.

00:58:49.800 And I can't understand why people aren't talking about it more.

00:58:53.480 It's buried.

00:58:55.420 Well, and then there's another aspect to me when we're looking at collaborations

00:58:58.780 or private involvement.

00:58:59.700 It is almost a bit Canadian cultural.

00:59:02.380 There's an aversion to profit.

00:59:03.980 As soon as that part comes in, because a private company, yes,

00:59:07.740 they're there to make some money.

00:59:08.880 uh there's a programmed instinct to say well they're going to gouge people or they're going

00:59:13.440 to take advantage of people or or they shouldn't be involved whatsoever and unfortunately they i

00:59:17.900 mean i saw that going back to that ambulance situation because it used to be municipalities

00:59:21.920 actually contracted their own and they were often private providers and i was at some town hall

00:59:25.840 meetings and some people though as soon as there was even talk and i know we don't want to go into

00:59:29.500 the whole private health care now that's a whole separate ball of wax but the reality is there's

00:59:33.460 some degree of private provision and there had been uh people's backs were up and that's just

00:59:38.040 discussion just comes right off the table before you can even actually explore it I think that's

00:59:42.460 hindering us isn't it I agree totally and I think that's part of what are what we've learned from

00:59:48.480 COVID is that it can work when it really has to work it can work it's not perfect but it can work

00:59:54.720 but what does it require it requires transparency it requires a clarity about values and it requires

01:00:02.080 some account of people have to be accountable but it also requires us as citizens to say hey that

01:00:10.080 feels really squishy to me i don't have a problem with somebody in the oil sands making money i

01:00:16.320 don't frankly you know if you invest that's it's it's a legal investment that's as long as you're

01:00:22.000 not compromising all of our reputations by the way that you manage those assets and that's up

01:00:27.440 to us to to enforce as well in the public sector but if you are at the same time trying you know

01:00:35.040 going around sitting on committees and getting public money diverted to your pet projects

01:00:41.360 I've got a problem with that. I didn't see Marg Southern asking the government of Alberta for

01:00:47.120 money to fund Spruce Meadow. Marg Southern and Ron figured out that that was a really important

01:00:52.880 thing that they cared about they invested in it the community benefits but they didn't come to

01:00:58.240 the government asking for money i have a problem with that and i think we need a lot more transparency

01:01:03.840 around how we give away money to um build up investment build up entrepreneurship

01:01:12.560 build up big infrastructure projects i get it there has to be public money in these things

01:01:18.000 but who's driving that bus who's making the decisions and who's benefiting because these

01:01:23.840 are issues of public interest they're not private interest those are public interest questions and

01:01:30.480 you know i think i've got to look my granddaughter in the eyes and say one day

01:01:34.400 yep i supported that decision or no i didn't and and this is why and we're just kind of meek about

01:01:42.160 you're right about you know being uncomfortable with people making money we've got a bit of a

01:01:46.640 funny thing around that although i think it's it's less severe in alberta and certainly less

01:01:51.840 severe in quebec but we also have this funny thing about you know not wanting to speak out

01:01:58.880 not wanting to you know be that tall poppy i guess that gets his head taken off but we really have to

01:02:06.720 we're the ones who will hold governments and companies accountable that's part of all of

01:02:14.240 our job as citizens and i don't think that's a bad thing i think we just need to have confidence

01:02:20.080 in doing it when people speak up we need to listen and say what's behind that sometimes

01:02:25.120 the facts are wrong but if they are we need to clarify and i just i think it's a cultural issue

01:02:31.920 for us i have heard from i've heard from dozens and dozens and dozens of people in the last six

01:02:39.920 months about this boards all over the place where things aren't really being done in a way that makes

01:02:47.680 people comfortable that's not okay that's that's on all of us and it's hurting all of us because

01:02:53.840 it means that public money that should be fueling things and making things better isn't and that's

01:03:00.320 a problem we don't have enough money to do all these things like we used to we have to be smarter

01:03:05.120 and I think we can be. Yeah well and Laurie Carter is a commenter on here and said transparency and

01:03:10.560 accountability is is for sure needed like the the path to trust I think with the public is if we

01:03:14.960 could have some transparency we see what's going on I understand government contracting something

01:03:20.640 from the private sector but I get upset when I see sole source contracting going on when I see that

01:03:25.760 it just popped out and more often than not we seem to find somebody well connected might happen to

01:03:30.640 own it not I mean maybe the sole source might have been the best one but I want to see

01:03:34.080 what you went through to make that decision to choose that contractor. And when we don't get

01:03:39.160 to see that, we immediately start to think something funny is going on. With good reason.

01:03:44.680 Absolutely. With good reason. Again, I've worked in lots and lots of countries where we paid a lot

01:03:50.620 of attention to those kinds of things when we were bidding out contracts. And even if it wasn't

01:03:56.100 something that was normal in that jurisdiction, we had to do that because we have to respect the

01:04:01.760 values of the organization wherever you're operating you've got the same values at your core

01:04:07.080 so it's it's not like we don't know how to do this it's almost like we've um we've kind of just

01:04:14.720 we've condoned it that's probably the right word and they call it gray corruption um it's kind of

01:04:22.260 a fuzzy space where it's not black and white and i have this blog called beyond polarity so i kind

01:04:28.000 of like things that aren't black and white all the time too and and and i in the the piece that

01:04:34.840 you the blog that you were mentioning we we went to a lot of we spent a lot of time trying to figure

01:04:40.880 out what the pathways are forward and and it's hard it's actually really really hard work to not

01:04:48.080 pick a side and not say well it should be private or it should be public and actually bring it

01:04:52.260 together and and come up with something that's more creative we did it during covid we did it

01:04:57.620 because we had to and I guess with the economy really being shaken up right now and and your

01:05:04.460 earlier guests talking about what's going on more you know globally and Russia and China coming

01:05:08.940 together and I'm going to throw in the Arctic I think we're just we've got to keep our eyes on

01:05:14.180 things that are close to home too and the Arctic is for us a really big deal in Canada and we're

01:05:19.400 just we're gonna have to get smarter and that's part of part of that part of that equation means

01:05:26.960 we have to be clear about what we expect when those kinds of collaborations happen.

01:05:33.600 Yeah. So maybe briefly, I mean, a term that's been lost and it was used a lot in the past when

01:05:38.560 we were talking about investing in infrastructure and things was P3s, you know, public private

01:05:42.740 partnerships. And that was being applied to all sorts of infrastructure projects. I'm not sure

01:05:47.460 how many ever actually went through and it worked out necessarily that well, but it was a big

01:05:51.640 concept then. We don't seem to hear much about that now. Do you address a bit of that in your

01:05:55.520 book and what areas do you think though of government expenditure are appropriate for

01:06:01.580 some more collaborations versus, you know, some that we might just want to leave exclusively to

01:06:05.540 the state? That's a great question, Corey. We've seen P3s work in Canada and in Alberta on big

01:06:13.260 ticket infrastructure. And the reason we go to those like the 407 in Ontario, the bridge into 1.00

01:06:21.200 pei big projects the reason we often go to p3s is because it's at times when the private sector 1.00

01:06:30.000 can access capital out of you know who can get access to capital in a more effective way and so 1.00

01:06:36.400 that's the kind of thing we're looking at mixing that up the other time we see p3s and i think 1.00

01:06:42.320 we're going to see it more and more is when you've got political risk so the trans mountain pipeline 1.00

01:06:47.360 expansion uh you know that was a private sector project and now it's it's what would arguably be

01:06:54.160 called a p3 in it's a cloud it will be a collaboration and the reason is because

01:07:00.720 the private sector couldn't bear the political risk so there's different reasons for it

01:07:06.320 those are big big big infrastructure projects i guess what i am also advocating for in this

01:07:13.280 new book of mine is it let's be smarter um again health care services education services um what

01:07:23.600 if we brought more private sector thinking non-profit thinking into some of these we're

01:07:30.160 seeing unroll i mean when you look at um what's happening with post-secondary education in the us

01:07:36.240 i mean we could watch some of what they're doing and maybe leapfrog some of their problems but

01:07:42.240 But we've got, we're spending a lot of money on models that are not as fresh and as current or as effective or as resilient as they could be.

01:07:52.800 And I think there's space for the service sector as well.

01:07:56.620 And I know that's fraught.

01:07:58.480 And I know there are people who are going to be pulling their hair out to hear that.

01:08:02.380 But we're just I mean, like when when the premier of Quebec came out and said, you know, I'll never deny people in Quebec access to health care, but you're going to pay a premium if you don't take precautions.

01:08:17.740 That's that's a hint of where we're going. I mean, we spend a lot of our money, public money on health care.

01:08:25.200 the possibilities of what we can spend money on in health care are endless they just keep

01:08:31.760 getting better and better and better we're doing a better job at that so how are we going to manage

01:08:37.320 that I don't have the answer but I sure think it's something that we start we need to start

01:08:42.420 talking about what's in what's out who does what who does it better and I think these questions

01:08:48.580 about you know outsourcing the cafeteria and outsourcing the laundry these are really tip

01:08:54.720 the iceberg things i i think it's more of the things like med tech med tech and entrepreneurship

01:09:01.520 um the guys down in waterloo are you know they're ready to go with med tech the problem is it's and

01:09:08.400 we find the same thing in alberta it's really hard to commercialize this stuff in our own country it

01:09:15.440 goes to the states and then it's gone so how do we make that all work do we do procurement where

01:09:21.600 the public sector says hey i'm gonna procure from these places in canada these guys doing

01:09:28.480 entrepreneurial work in med tech space i just i think we've got to get smarter so it's i think

01:09:35.760 the possibilities are endless here corey um but we can't do it unless we figure out better ways to

01:09:42.720 build trust in those systems and so we're not constantly going well i don't like the idea of

01:09:48.160 that person having my money and I don't either. And feeling confident that we're spending our

01:09:53.840 money the best way possible to get the best outcomes. Well, that's it. They're getting

01:09:58.800 our money one way or another. So, I mean, the bottom line is we just want to make sure it's

01:10:02.480 getting the best possible use. And I appreciate the approach of saying it isn't just all one or

01:10:07.120 all the others, as much as we seem to like taking our, setting up our teams, our camps,

01:10:11.040 and then we blind ourselves to alternatives, you know, and creativity. So I appreciate your

01:10:16.720 examining that so uh maybe if before you go if you let us know when your book's coming out and

01:10:21.520 uh where to find more information on your blog and other activities thank you very much corey

01:10:26.880 the book's coming out i actually expect hard copies uh to be delivered um very very shortly

01:10:33.200 it's called teaching the dinosaur to dance yeah that's a tutu and i've got a website at

01:10:39.760 teachingthedinosaur.com i also have been blogging for four years with a colleague in edmonton

01:10:46.160 Don Hill at beyondpolarity.blog. It's very controversial. It's very loud and noisy.

01:10:53.280 You know something about that, Corey, here at Western Standard.

01:10:56.160 Oh, I thrive on loud and noisy. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you.

01:11:01.040 Thank you for joining us. And I hope we can talk again soon. Perhaps after your book comes out,

01:11:04.640 we'll get a deeper dive into that. So I appreciate you joining us. Great. We'll talk again later.

01:11:11.280 Thanks. So there we go, Donna Kennedy-Glans, look it up. And you know, very valid points.

01:11:18.140 As I said, I brought up the example of going to a town hall meeting and just people were even

01:11:22.160 discussing having a private ambulance in town. And some people just got immediately, their backs

01:11:27.120 were up. It is just not on the table. It's not to be discussed. Maybe a private ambulance is a bad

01:11:31.380 idea. I don't know. But when you close the door to even talking about it, you're losing a potential

01:11:36.520 solution to an issue or a problem that you didn't have to. You got to look at the whole thing.

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01:12:20.940 If you look it up, there's a map with all these ATMs where you can deposit into your

01:12:23.980 Bitcoin account.

01:12:25.080 It's safe.

01:12:26.080 They make it easy, and they'll help you.

01:12:27.720 They also have corporate plans.

01:12:29.880 Here at the Western Standard, we got that going on.

01:12:31.760 you can take a portion of the payroll voluntarily, of course, on the part of the employees and have

01:12:36.320 part of that pay go in Bitcoin to your employer, to your employees' savings plan. There's all sorts

01:12:41.720 of things you can do with Bitcoin. So check them out, bitcoinwell.com. They're a fantastic sponsor.

01:12:48.020 They're a good group. And yeah, they got some worthwhile stuff for us. You know, I'm going to

01:12:53.400 go on a quick side note. It's something else that Donna brought up that was completely unexpected,

01:12:57.080 but got me thinking, which is true.

01:12:59.700 Among my past experience, I was working,

01:13:02.040 part of why I traveled a lot

01:13:03.040 was because I was a consultant in the oil field

01:13:05.360 and I went all over the place

01:13:06.640 where if there was oil and gas,

01:13:07.860 whether it was down on the Mexican border

01:13:09.000 or even up in the Arctic,

01:13:10.500 I ended up there at one time or another.

01:13:12.520 And I spent four years up in Inuvik

01:13:14.080 on the Mackenzie Delta on exploration projects up there.

01:13:17.260 Always winter, never got a summer gig,

01:13:18.960 but I heard the bugs are terrible,

01:13:20.160 but the cold and dark, I tell you,

01:13:21.760 isn't exactly pleasant either.

01:13:23.020 But there are massive resources sitting up there, massive. 0.86

01:13:26.440 And basically, there's another Alberta hiding up there.

01:13:29.720 There's thousands of capped wells.

01:13:32.260 There is just all sorts of things.

01:13:34.480 And that's just in the Delta area, the high Arctic, even beyond there is something else.

01:13:38.580 But you know what?

01:13:39.940 Canada, the oil companies, we got up there.

01:13:42.700 But the military can't get up there.

01:13:44.640 What you need to get up there are nuclear subs.

01:13:47.300 And we knew damn well while we were working out on the ice on the Beaufort Sea, we had

01:13:50.840 Chinese subs and American subs and Soviet subs.

01:13:53.680 They're all under that ice underneath us.

01:13:55.400 And the country that claims sovereignty over the area where I work in the country I'm supposedly in can't get there that we don't have nuclear subs. You can't go under the ice with a diesel submarine. It's suicide. But a nuclear submarine can get up there. And you know, they're playing games under the ice up there. And we could be challenged for our sovereignty. I mean, we had the little battle with I believe it was Denmark putting a flag on a Canadian island in the Arctic. We don't have the icebreakers. We don't have the means to get up there. We're not protecting our own country. And you know who's on the other side of the Arctic? Russia.

01:14:25.400 So what if Putin decides after he's done with Ukraine, he wants to come down and take a chunk

01:14:30.900 of Canada's Arctic? One of the things to talk about whether a country has claim over land or

01:14:34.960 not is whether they're actually utilizing it, whether they're populating it, whether they're

01:14:39.100 doing anything with it. And we shut down our Arctic oil and gas exploration. People say it's

01:14:45.260 because the market forces wouldn't support it. And that's why the McKinsey Valley pipeline was

01:14:49.840 finally shelved by the investors. Well, no, let's talk realistically about that.

01:14:52.840 that pipeline was proposed in 74 and they were still talking about the bloody thing 10 years ago

01:14:59.420 so the costs for it just skyrocketed into the billions and the partnership said that's enough

01:15:05.620 we can't make money on this we're out and that's when the left starts out market forces you see

01:15:09.680 they want to know when the government throttles you to death with regulation that's the opposite

01:15:14.200 of market forces so what we could have had in the arctic by now is what would have come with

01:15:18.480 that pipeline? A land road straight up to Inuvik through Yellowknife and up through the Mackenzie

01:15:24.800 Valley. There is a land route, the Dempster Highway. It's a hell of a drive, by the way,

01:15:27.940 if you're adventurous, but it goes way around through the mountains and off to the west. This

01:15:31.980 would connect them there. It would make a much more direct route to the populations up there,

01:15:36.760 establish that as Canadian land. You start developing the resources up there, and now

01:15:40.980 you've got a Canadian presence. And of course, you need to have, I don't want to see a big military,

01:15:45.580 but you know what? It is ridiculous that an Arctic country as big as Canada doesn't have

01:15:49.700 nuclear submarines. We're giving away our Arctic potentially. So if Russia decides to come around,

01:15:55.540 I mean, it's not that our military could stop them, but if we were going to plead to the world 0.61

01:15:58.660 to say why we should be allowed to keep owning that part of the Arctic, why is that still Canadian

01:16:02.760 land? We have to point to it and say, well, this is how we've been accessing it. This is how we've

01:16:06.540 been developing it. And this is who's living up there. Right now we aren't doing anything. We

01:16:09.740 can't even get to it unless the oil companies are allowed to. Like I said, we got pretty deep into

01:16:13.500 the high Arctic with our exploration, private sector can get up there, but the Canadian military

01:16:17.240 can't. So that's another big, perhaps long-term budding issue we've got to look forward to up

01:16:23.900 there. Let's hope it doesn't explode, but we've got so many things to look at. It's such a crazy,

01:16:29.840 scary world. I'm going to look at something positive for a second. No, let's go back to

01:16:32.940 the convoy. I'm just excited as hell with this thing. And the fundraising that's been going on,

01:16:37.540 the one that people keep, again, falsely accusing of being shut down. Look, if they're shut down,

01:16:41.980 they won't allow people to donate. You can't put it into this. I just refreshed the page. I was

01:16:46.380 doing this yesterday, some check-ins. Let's see how it's going. I refreshed it and it just went

01:16:49.420 up by another hundred thousand. They've raised five and a half million dollars. It's actually

01:16:53.820 five million, five hundred thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars. Let's see, I refreshed it again.

01:16:58.780 There we go. Up now, five million, five hundred and three thousand. That's how fast this is growing.

01:17:04.340 70,000, 70.7 thousand donors. Almost, you know, I got a feeling we're going to get over a hundred

01:17:10.300 thousand Canadians donating to this. This is massive. We've never seen anything like this.

01:17:15.200 This is amazing. And this is Canada standing up. Finally, they found a vehicle to do it. And it's

01:17:21.280 this convoy and people are doing it in the tens of thousands. Now what's going to happen this

01:17:24.900 weekend? I don't know. I, as I said in my early rant, I want to see a positive end to it. I want

01:17:30.060 this to achieve change. And that's what I'm, again, I know a lot of the people on the convoy

01:17:34.220 are people who are going to be going to talk water are listening. They watch our show. They

01:17:37.660 see our stuff. So I'm just pleading. You know, and some people, I saw some commenters misinterpret

01:17:43.180 it. I'm not trying to call the people in the convoy wig nuts by any means. We just know with 0.91

01:17:47.680 a large movement, you're going to get some. You always do. It's inevitable. It's whether or not

01:17:51.600 you can control and sideline them is where the problem comes in. Don't let them dominate your

01:17:56.940 movement. When you've got tens of thousands of people who are hopefully in perhaps on Parliament

01:18:02.000 Hill and, you know, a hundred of them are nut bars, those tens of thousands should be able to 0.99

01:18:07.000 keep them in check. So do it. You got to be self-policing. And that's how you can show

01:18:12.060 we're better. And this is real. This represents the public, not just fringe groups. And it's just

01:18:19.820 been fantastic to watch this develop. You know, I'm just excited as all get out. Speaking of

01:18:25.300 accountability, I don't know what else we got in the news here. Yeah, a Durham police officer got

01:18:28.660 investigated. People might have seen that in the news. She had spoken out in support. This is how

01:18:33.480 crazy we're getting with this opposition and how undemocratic this country is getting. So a police

01:18:38.660 officer, a woman there in Durham, Ontario, did a video saying she likes the trucker's convoy and

01:18:44.120 she is, you know, enthusiastic about it. Then they say they're going to have an investigation.

01:18:50.820 She might end up unemployed. Now, I think part of a mistake she made, she did the video, it was a 0.95

01:18:54.960 YouTube video in uniform. Okay, when you're on duty and in uniform, you do have different

01:18:58.260 expectations. You're supposed to be trying to stay impartial on things. But even if she was

01:19:03.360 out of uniform and if she is identified as a police officer, would they still go after her?

01:19:07.200 Like, why is it so controversial to say as a police officer, you support what is and has been

01:19:12.600 a perfectly legal demonstration by people? It's legal to drive trucks. It's legal to stand and

01:19:18.740 rally at Parliament Hill. It's in fact, it's a right. Yet we have people possibly losing careers

01:19:25.520 because they publicly dared to speak supportive of this?

01:19:30.740 This is very concerning, very concerning.

01:19:34.440 We're going to keep following this.

01:19:35.520 We're constantly writing on it.

01:19:36.540 By the way, I just want to give a shout out.

01:19:37.940 Linda Slobodian is one of our colonists,

01:19:39.680 and she wrote on the Manitoba,

01:19:40.780 she's out in Manitoba,

01:19:41.720 on their response to the convoy when it came to her.

01:19:43.640 The convoy, last we heard,

01:19:45.520 they're up in kind of that stretch of northern Ontario.

01:19:48.300 It's slow going.

01:19:49.100 It's a narrow highway.

01:19:50.240 I feel for any person who was planning to drive east

01:19:53.020 on that highway these next few days,

01:19:54.680 it's going to be a slow haul, but it's worth it. But we're also not going to see much big updates

01:19:59.060 on where this convoy is and how it's coming along through there. But Linda wrote on it

01:20:03.320 at westernstandardonline.com with a great one talking about how the people in Manitoba responded

01:20:09.420 to it, which I will say was overwhelming and positive, just as people are responding to it

01:20:13.500 everywhere. The only ones that are responding negatively are left-wing lunatics, internet bots, 0.96

01:20:18.700 and unfortunately, establishment politicians. 0.93

01:20:20.900 Oh, and of course, our liberal government.

01:20:24.660 Canadians at large clearly are happy with this.

01:20:27.340 I'm not saying the whole country supports it,

01:20:29.900 but this is more than a minor little movement.

01:20:31.700 This isn't a handful of people

01:20:32.700 on the steps of a city hall anymore.

01:20:34.540 This isn't a few people somewhere.

01:20:35.680 This is something that's had nearly 100,000 people

01:20:37.940 donate to it, thousands of people heading to Ottawa.

01:20:41.600 We've never seen anything like it.

01:20:43.580 This is the time that Canadians 1.00

01:20:45.940 are finally showing some backbones, 0.99

01:20:48.000 something we're not really well known for. We're known for our politeness, for our deferral.

01:20:52.080 And finally, it seems that we've stiffened up and gotten some resolve. And, uh, I'm just

01:20:57.180 talked about it. I'm going to keep reporting about it. I'm going to keep ranting about it.

01:20:59.960 I'm going to keep updating you about it. You know, and, and, uh, the, the developments are

01:21:03.920 just more positive. The thing is that this is so hard to measure. We don't know. We've got

01:21:06.680 reports of truckers coming from all sorts of directions. The big convoy is in Northern Ontario.

01:21:11.060 I see a commenter just said that they got caught, uh, uh, with some bad weather. Brenda,

01:21:15.560 said that. So it's going to slow them up a bit, but they'll get there. These guys are determined

01:21:19.640 they're truckers. And again, let's see, what was it? A couple of minutes ago when I did the

01:21:22.620 fundraising update, I'll give it a refresh. It was 5,503,000. Oh, didn't go up this time. Darn.

01:21:28.160 Well, that was anticlimactic. Either way, it's going up fast. If you haven't donated already, 0.99

01:21:31.340 go for it. It's not shut down. It's you look up Freedom Convoy 2022. Tamara Leish has set it up.

01:21:38.220 She's got a now somebody else with her BJ Dictor. So there's a couple on it. She's been involved in

01:21:43.380 out of medicine hat uh in politics and things for a number of years it's a trustworthy person

01:21:48.340 this isn't a scam it's not going to work the political party anything like that this is an

01:21:52.200 honest grassroots effort and uh it's worth supporting so i'm getting towards the end here

01:21:59.160 tomorrow i have a couple of guests coming on i'm gonna have angela grace and she's gonna talk to

01:22:04.560 me about the curriculum development in alberta yeah what a mess she's a psychologist she's got

01:22:08.540 a lot to say on it because it just seems back and forth government by government they insist

01:22:12.660 on meddling with the curriculum, turning it into a political football, and off we go.

01:22:16.980 And then I'm going to be talking to Andrea Lee, or you might know her on Twitter as Andy Lee,

01:22:21.120 like a citizen journalist, activist. She's going to be going out to Ottawa for the

01:22:27.940 trucker convoy when it gets out there. And she's always investigating a lot of things online.

01:22:34.180 Look her up on Twitter. She's going to be coming on to talk to me tomorrow about the convoy and

01:22:38.260 things such as that. So be sure to tune in tomorrow at 1130. Help us along too, you know,

01:22:44.060 share us. I mean, that's the thing. They always say that on all those social media things, but

01:22:47.420 it's true. Hit that like button on Facebook, share it with your friends, you know, share the YouTube

01:22:52.820 link, the rumble link, tweet us out because this is how we can bypass the mainstream media. As we

01:22:57.720 see, the mainstream media is hostile to citizens standing up for themselves. We are clearly not

01:23:02.820 like that. We support citizens initiatives. We want to see democracy. We want to see a free country,

01:23:07.480 but we need your help to do it and that means getting more people on there that gets us more

01:23:11.360 subscribers it gets our voice out there and then the mainstream media can die out all the faster

01:23:16.480 and we'll all be better for it so go to westernstandardonline.com take out a membership

01:23:21.180 share it with your friends and keep tuning into this show you know the more we go the better it's

01:23:25.960 going to get the better guests we're going to get send me feedback feedback send me guest ideas

01:23:30.900 and uh yeah keep tuning in i'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow morning at 11 30 a.m it's

01:23:35.900 going to be another great show. Thanks for joining.

01:24:05.900 Amen.

Western Standard - January 27, 2022

Triggered： Exposing the abhorrent mainstream media coverage of the trucker convoy.

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