Western Standard - Triggered： Fossil fuels aren’t going away any time soon

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. Happy Monday. It's June 20th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:39.620 This is the Western Standards daily live show. We do this 1130 Mountain Standard Time in the

00:00:45.300 morning until about one o'clock. I have a number of guests on, cover a number of issues. I get my

00:00:49.920 ranting out of my system and we tend to have a good time. There's the comment scroll over there.

00:00:55.400 I like seeing people take advantage of it. You know, make sure to get on there,

00:00:59.860 chat, interact with each other, send questions, comments my way. I don't necessarily read them

00:01:04.280 all on the air, but I see them all and it just helps to keep that interactive feel going on

00:01:09.020 and help remind me and realize there's a, you know, I'm not just talking to the air out there.

00:01:13.240 There's actually people tuning in and watching what we're up to and hopefully enjoying it.

00:01:17.900 Good to see you, Randy and CL in Sherwood Park. So yeah, let's start with the,

00:01:23.500 little Ben, good to see you there. Observances for the day. You know, we always get these weird

00:01:29.220 daily observances while everybody's getting in and tuning in and getting set. We'll talk about

00:01:33.040 those lesser important, but sometimes critical observances. And today is National Hike with a

00:01:38.380 Geek Day. Yes, so find that dork or wiener or nerd or geek, if you want to call them that, 0.99

00:01:45.220 drag them out of that basement, put a little sunscreen on them and take them out for a hike. 0.98

00:01:49.300 It's good for them to get some fresh air, find their way out. I don't know where they come up

00:01:53.060 this but today is the day you should take your geek out for a hike uh don't lose them out there

00:01:58.100 they're not great survivalists typically but it might do them some good all around it's also

00:02:03.140 plain yogurt day why we would observe it hey don't ask me i don't come up with these things

00:02:07.860 i just read them out as these days come along so if you like plain yogurt i don't know it's kind of

00:02:12.260 like eating a bowl of sour cream as far as i'm concerned hey today's the day to chow down this

00:02:16.900 This is the day the world recognizes just how brilliant plain yogurt is.

00:02:23.020 I like yogurt if you mix it with some stuff, but straight up, I don't know,

00:02:25.740 that's a little gnarly to my taste.

00:02:27.280 But today's the day to celebrate it, if that's your thing.

00:02:30.480 Okay, I got three guests packed on today, actually.

00:02:32.960 So I'm going to, the first guest that will come up in a little while

00:02:34.820 is going to be UCP leadership candidate, former Cabinet Minister Rebecca Schultz.

00:02:40.260 She's going to talk to us about her campaign and why she feels she should be

00:02:43.540 the next leader of the UCP and, of course, our premier.

00:02:46.060 here. And I'm going to check in with our columnist, Chris Oldcorn, and we'll see what's going on out

00:02:53.560 there in Saskatchewan and talk about a couple of other stories he's posted up there. Always a good

00:02:57.980 conversation with Chris. And then I'll finally round out the show with Canadian Taxpayers

00:03:02.300 Federation Ontario Director Jay Goldberg, because they put out a release on C-11. We got these bills

00:03:07.520 that are sliding under the radar and they really are threatening and infringing upon our freedoms.

00:03:12.600 and we've got to keep an eye open on these things, and C-11 is most definitely one of them.

00:03:16.780 All right, let's see what I'm going to get going on today.

00:03:19.220 Let's talk some energy. Let's talk hypocrisy.

00:03:22.100 So, for years, Germany was held up as an example of how green a nation could be.

00:03:28.100 They had ambitious plans, and they were investing massive amounts of money

00:03:31.280 into renewable energy forms such as solar, wind, and biofuels.

00:03:36.160 Germany was apparently well-placed to reach the still-mythical status

00:03:39.680 of being a net-zero nation with their emissions. 0.75

00:03:43.080 We were told we have to follow Germany's example if we wanted to save the world from dreaded climate change.

00:03:48.140 I mean, otherwise oceans would rise, polar bears would die, and the world would run out of fluffy bunnies.

00:03:53.000 If one was to question Germany's energy path, of course, they'd be labeled as climate heretics, 0.86

00:03:57.260 and surely these are people who want the world to burn. 0.53

00:04:00.540 Well, Germany just quietly and pretty sheepishly announced their returning-to-coal-fired electricity generation.

00:04:08.140 Coal is arguably the most emissions-incentive form of electricity generation of them all.

00:04:13.780 When the only alternative, though, is to bankrupt your nation while citizens freeze in the dark,

00:04:17.640 coal suddenly doesn't look so bad anymore.

00:04:20.260 Now, this hasn't stopped German Formula One driver Sebastian Vettel from committing an astounding act of hypocrisy

00:04:27.440 as he arrived in Canada after having shipped an entire race car here along with his crew,

00:04:31.860 only to wear a shirt criticizing Canadian oil production.

00:04:34.600 production. Climate change cultists like him live in a world of denial. Vettel was just one of the

00:04:40.220 most visible and hypocritical of those examples. The world is dependent upon fossil fuels, and

00:04:45.260 they're going to remain so for many decades to come, no matter how loudly green activists scream

00:04:49.780 or how much governments pump into unrealistic renewable energy projects. Germany can't blame

00:04:55.920 Russia, the Russia-Ukraine war for their woes, by the way. Their energy crisis was coming to a peak

00:05:00.380 months before that broke out. They'd shut down too many forms of energy generation, and renewable

00:05:05.620 sources couldn't keep up with the demand. Simple as that. Ideology is dandy, but reality will

00:05:10.780 trump it every time. Germany wasn't alone. The UK had been hitting energy shortages, and in California 0.96

00:05:16.400 there have been brownouts in power provision for years, despite them being awash with oil and gas.

00:05:22.460 Now, Canada's been trying to move down the same path. We've shut down and regulated countless

00:05:26.420 energy projects to death. New oil and gas infrastructure projects are impossible to

00:05:31.080 complete, even if they manage to somehow get approved. We indulge in endless delays caused

00:05:36.780 by extreme environmentalists, as we've been watching with the CGL line in BC.

00:05:41.020 Speaking of the most ethical, clean-burning natural gas on Earth, by the way, Canada has

00:05:44.720 deposits of it that could last centuries. The world's screaming for it, yet we won't let

00:05:48.720 ourselves produce it. Quebec has shut down a pending LNG terminal that was slated for export

00:05:54.720 and has banned development of gas fields in their province.

00:05:57.560 Canada's Arctic has huge natural gas deposits

00:05:59.960 and thousands of capped wells just waiting to come into production.

00:06:03.420 We regulated the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline to death, though,

00:06:06.280 so we can't get the gas to market,

00:06:08.080 while government handouts remain the prime form of income in communities

00:06:11.040 such as Tuktuk and Nuvik.

00:06:13.420 Canada's drained billions of conventional energy companies

00:06:16.240 through fees and taxes over the years

00:06:17.720 and has been pouring that money into electric cars for over a decade.

00:06:20.800 And how's that worked out?

00:06:22.200 Fewer than 5% of Canadians drive electric vehicles.

00:06:24.720 So all this for what? So countries can return to burning coal? Let's not forget the countries that

00:06:30.960 never stop burning coal, and have always been expanding the use of it, by the way. China,

00:06:34.400 Russia, India, they don't care about our climate virtue signaling over here. If we do want China

00:06:39.240 and India to consider switching to better forms of energy, we'd best start sending them natural gas. 0.72

00:06:43.300 Windmills aren't going to cut it. The world needs to cut back on the irrational climate idealism

00:06:48.840 and embrace practical realism. We can mitigate emissions through cleaner production of existing

00:06:53.880 petrochemical products. The oil and gas sector has made huge strides in emission reduction if

00:06:58.520 they get little to no credit for it. Love or hate natural gas, it's abundant, reliable, and cleaner

00:07:03.480 than other forms of generation. Let's expand it. I mean, maybe breakthroughs are going to happen

00:07:07.440 that are going to allow us to wean ourselves from fossil fuels one day, but we're nowhere close to

00:07:11.280 that point yet. Windmills are expensive, limited in what they can generate, and they're unreliable.

00:07:16.580 Solar, it's expensive, takes up huge tracts of land, uses loads of rare metals, and is unreliable

00:07:21.920 as well. If the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, you're shit out of luck. The world 0.95

00:07:26.300 is trying to put the cart before the horse, but trying to shut down viable energy sources until

00:07:31.520 the alternative is here. Trying to force the issue is only leading to world energy insecurity,

00:07:36.400 human suffering, and is contributing to inflation. Germany can still serve as an example for the 1.00

00:07:42.280 world, not as a nation saving us from climate change though, but as an example of what happens

00:07:46.300 when a nation lets hopes and dreams overtake their sense of reality. Let's learn from them

00:07:51.020 rather than emulate them. Canada can power the world, but we have to stop indulging the climate

00:07:56.140 extremists first. Well, that's what's got me going today on those issues. I still can't believe that.

00:08:03.460 An F1 driver flies everything, a whole pit crew here, the whole works, and then starts virtue

00:08:07.480 signaling talking about how green he is and how bad Canadian oil is. It's just galling.

00:08:12.140 All right. Well, enough of that guy's ugly mug. Let's bring Dave Naylor on to pretty things up 0.98

00:08:16.620 on the screen and see what's happening in the newsroom. Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:08:19.600 Good. My ugly mug is now dominating the screen.

00:08:24.480 Oh, it looks great.

00:08:26.720 I thought I had a cunning plan on the weekend, Corey, to deal with my chickadee problem.

00:08:31.880 I was going to defoliate the tree in front of my house.

00:08:35.300 So I went to the army surplus store.

00:08:38.020 They don't sell Agent Orange anymore.

00:08:41.320 What's the world coming to?

00:08:42.740 What's the world coming to? 0.89

00:08:43.940 I hear you had a queen on your property this weekend.

00:08:46.660 I did.

00:08:47.260 so tell us how that's going yes well the beekeeping is going well i haven't been stung

00:08:53.180 yet yeah there's some pictures from my hive inspection the first one since i brought them in

00:08:57.320 and i actually found the queen in the midst of all those those crawling moving bees which is a

00:09:03.100 victory that's the big thing when you first check you want to make sure your queen's surviving and 0.96

00:09:06.300 moving along and uh my cowardly ass didn't manage to get stung uh though as you can see i was fully 0.98

00:09:12.420 suited. Jane, on the other hand, was taking pictures in her tank top and flip-flops showing 0.99

00:09:17.620 which one of us is the coward. How can you tell which one's the queen? It's got a big long butt,

00:09:23.980 actually, a butt that's longer than her wings. And once you see her amidst the others and the bees 0.99

00:09:28.240 all kind of move differently around her, it's actually pretty easy to pick out at that point.

00:09:33.140 But it took a while, though, to first get her. Well, she's the only female bee there. She's

00:09:38.020 going to be busy, busy as a bee. Well, the only one laying, yes, and hopefully she carries on with

00:09:42.720 it. So as I said, I've got an excuse not to mow all those dandelions now. Yes, indeed. Oh, I got

00:09:48.160 some good stuff on the website already this morning, Corey. We've got Anita Anand's just

00:09:53.160 announced $5 billion in new spending to help our NATO, sorry, NORAD commitments. So that story is

00:10:00.700 going to be up momentarily. We've got University of Ottawa professor Adiran. He's been in the news

00:10:07.980 fair amount in the last couple of years. He's got some interesting views, shall we say. He's

00:10:14.440 did his best for international relations this weekend, Twitter shaming a United Airlines flight

00:10:21.820 attendant. And then to carry on, he Twitter shamed anybody that's ever worked at McDonald's,

00:10:28.260 which is probably a huge chunk of the Canadian population. So he's doing his best to improve

00:10:34.120 relations there. We've got a Karen Selick column on the George Jonas Freedom Awards that were given

00:10:41.280 out last week to Tamara Litch in a ceremony in Toronto. She was obviously claimed to fame as

00:10:50.400 being one of the blockade organizers. An interesting story from Scotiabank, one of the

00:10:55.560 biggest banks in Canada, has written a report slamming Trudeau and his government's actions

00:11:01.540 basically saying they're making ordinary Canadians

00:11:05.660 fight all this inflation on their backs.

00:11:09.140 And it's interesting that such a prominent bank

00:11:12.100 would give the Liberals a negative review.

00:11:15.080 Courtesy of our social media guru, Rob,

00:11:19.180 we've got a really cool video of a white grizzly bear

00:11:22.620 spotted in Lake Louise.

00:11:24.660 So that's always cool.

00:11:27.560 And we've got a longtime blood donor in Scotland

00:11:30.640 and has basically had enough.

00:11:32.660 He went and tried to donate blood

00:11:35.240 and was asked whether or not he'd been pregnant

00:11:38.120 in the last two years.

00:11:39.520 So he said, all right, that's enough of that

00:11:41.640 and refused to donate.

00:11:44.960 Speaking of which, we'll soon have a story

00:11:47.820 from our Arthur Green up, 0.99

00:11:49.760 followed to the banning of transgendered athletes

00:11:54.120 by the World Swimming Organization on the weekend.

00:11:57.840 We've heard from perhaps the most famous transgendered person in the world,

00:12:02.380 Caitlyn Jenner, and she's all for it. 1.00

00:12:04.500 She says good on the swimming people to ban transgender 1.00

00:12:08.520 because they get an unfair advantage. 1.00

00:12:10.980 So that'll be coming up shortly along with lots of other good stuff, Corey.

00:12:14.900 Great.

00:12:15.540 Well, thanks for the check-in

00:12:17.600 and looking forward to seeing those stories as they break.

00:12:20.580 Thanks, Corey.

00:12:21.540 All right.

00:12:21.820 Thanks, Dave.

00:12:22.600 That is our news.

00:12:23.380 editor Dave Naylor in there and he's always busy and running hard with all those reporters all

00:12:28.600 across the country, bringing that stuff up, new content, new stories, as he said, from

00:12:32.820 all over the place in Canada. And this is where I start to remind everybody and nag them. It's 0.83

00:12:37.660 only due to you guys subscribing that we can do this. That's why we have these new reporters

00:12:43.560 spreading out while we have this original content and all these events going on and this show. So

00:12:48.480 hey, if you haven't subscribed already, guys, get on board. It's 10 bucks a month, 99 bucks if you

00:12:54.060 take it out for a year. And this is how we can stay independent. We don't take tax funding, not

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00:14:06.520 All right, let's look at some of these comments.

00:14:09.560 Where was that?

00:14:12.480 Todd Lohan for Premier of Alberta.

00:14:15.880 Well, that's interesting.

00:14:17.000 I'm going to have Todd on later on in the week, actually.

00:14:19.080 We're going to try and get every one of them up there.

00:14:22.380 And, yeah, I see Colby's Bee saying, yeah, I'm a beekeeper as well.

00:14:26.800 I don't know if I can even take that title yet.

00:14:28.320 I'm a week into my first hive, about nine days in now, I guess.

00:14:32.300 But I'm looking forward to it.

00:14:33.400 I've been enjoying it so far.

00:14:34.980 And as I said, I've got some cowardice I have to get over to properly do it.

00:14:38.760 I've actually had a lifetime phobia of all stinging insects, and I think this is a good way to get

00:14:44.080 through it. Jane, you know, really shows me for the wimp I am when I get out there messing with

00:14:48.460 it. Ben pointing out, yeah, that Vettel is sponsored by Aramco. You know, so Saudi oil

00:14:54.120 sponsored companies, and that tells you a lot about what's behind a lot of the green movement.

00:14:58.780 Think about it. If they can keep knocking down the competition like Canada, then of course they

00:15:04.100 can get a better premium on their oil. That's all it comes down to. Do you think the Saudis really

00:15:07.720 care about global warming. They know how to deal with heat. They got their slave labor to wave fans

00:15:12.600 at them. Plus they got loads and loads of oil to burn for their air conditioning. So, but if they

00:15:17.840 can shut down Canadian oil, cause Canadians are stupid enough to do so, Hey, they're not going to 1.00

00:15:22.020 stop from that. So they sponsor race car hypocrites like Vettel to come out and take 1.00

00:15:26.480 shots at Canadian oil and gas. It says unbelievable. You know, I mean, how much does one of those 0.94

00:15:31.300 things burn in an hour? How much does it cost to ship it over? What is it made of? I doubt it's

00:15:36.420 made out of hemp. It doesn't matter though. It's like I was saying earlier, these climate

00:15:41.120 extremists, there's no place for reality in their world. You're fighting to reason with these people.

00:15:46.700 They just don't understand. They can't see past the end of their noses on these things.

00:15:51.440 And well, all we can do is keep pushing back because the reality that hits, you see the

00:15:55.480 reality does catch up. As I pointed out with Germany, like it or not, how embarrassing must 0.99

00:16:00.780 that be for their environment minister, for the people who've said all this time, we've got to

00:16:04.100 shut down this. We've got to shut down that. We're going to shut down this. Don't worry. We got it

00:16:07.280 in hand. We'll make the world greener. And I was like, oh, yeah, we're going to burn coal for a

00:16:12.200 while. We're going to go back and reopen the coal generating plants. Because as I said, freezing in

00:16:19.180 the dark isn't an option. So that'll happen in Canada too. We can't go without the form of

00:16:25.820 electricity and energy and the gas and oil. We can't. So quit trying to shut it down. Come up

00:16:31.600 with an alternative. I watched the news the other night, and they're showing an interesting thing.

00:16:35.300 It was a tidal generating unit, and it was set up off the east coast, and it catches the tide

00:16:41.460 coming and going, generates power. It looks really cool and interesting, but there was only one of

00:16:45.000 them out there so far. It's still in the trial stages, and it powers 150 homes. Okay, but we

00:16:51.120 have millions and millions and millions of homes. Now, maybe that will get scalable to a point where

00:16:56.780 it's usable, but how many thousands and thousands of these big floating units do you want just off

00:17:01.080 the coast. Like, we've got to get realistic. And maybe, again, maybe they'll find a big breakthrough

00:17:05.780 and get efficient, but it's not there yet. Research all these alternative means of power,

00:17:11.060 by all means, of course, that's how we advance, that's how we get better. But quit trying to shut

00:17:15.180 down what we have, not until we have the alternative. They just can't understand this,

00:17:20.540 and it's maddening sometimes. Speaking of maddening, yeah, that came up in the news. A

00:17:25.460 crazy Amir Adoran, people on social media might be familiar with him. He's made the news

00:17:30.520 a number of times before.

00:17:33.780 He's a professor of law

00:17:35.020 and a number of things

00:17:35.700 at University of Ottawa.

00:17:36.980 I think he's been on some committees

00:17:38.140 and some tax-funded crap before too,

00:17:39.700 which is not all that surprising. 0.94

00:17:42.020 And he's been on the internet.

00:17:44.160 Yeah, you know,

00:17:44.900 he went on Twitter,

00:17:46.200 as Dave said,

00:17:46.880 and you can see the story

00:17:47.520 of the Western Standard online

00:17:48.640 or westernstandard.news.

00:17:50.660 And he was flying to the States

00:17:52.160 and he cornered an airline attendant,

00:17:56.080 a flight attendant,

00:17:56.720 took pictures of her

00:17:57.600 while she was in the kind of,

00:17:58.620 it looks like the little 0.99

00:17:59.160 flight attendant space there.

00:18:00.160 and tweeted it out and tagged United Airlines.

00:18:03.280 He said, look at this, look at this. 1.00

00:18:04.060 She's breaking the law. 1.00

00:18:04.860 She's putting people at risk. 0.97

00:18:06.060 You know, I want action on this 0.86

00:18:07.360 and basically tried to shame her. 1.00

00:18:09.540 Maybe it'll cost her her job. 0.51

00:18:10.860 Who knows?

00:18:12.120 And he's just an angry, I'm angry,

00:18:16.760 but I'm not as vindictive and nasty as Adoran is.

00:18:21.520 You know, people are swarming him on Twitter right now

00:18:24.480 and they're just sick and tired of this guy.

00:18:26.720 And I noticed Melissa Embarkey,

00:18:28.760 she's been on the show a number of times.

00:18:30.160 Uh, he'd gone after her, calling her lazy and a number of things. Like he's just a, a vile little man. He, he, uh, called for, I believe the vaccines to be held off in Alberta because we weren't walking down hard enough. Yeah. So here's, that shows what, that's the mark of a psychopath. He was getting really upset, you know, about a year ago, I think it was. And, uh, we were, Alberta was the, one of the lesser locked down provinces. 0.95

00:18:54.100 and he came out and said, well, if they're not going to lock down enough,

00:18:57.140 we should just stop the vaccines from going to Alberta.

00:19:01.000 Now, if he really believes the vaccines save lives,

00:19:03.660 then he's basically saying Albertans should die on a point of principle. 0.97

00:19:07.580 That's how nutty this guy is. 0.99

00:19:09.520 And, you know, we could dismiss him if he's just a random run-of-the-mill nutcase on Twitter. 0.89

00:19:13.600 Lord knows those are a dime a dozen.

00:19:15.260 They're all over the place.

00:19:16.780 The problem is he's a professor.

00:19:18.880 He's teaching at U of Ottawa.

00:19:20.860 He's got students.

00:19:22.120 He has an influence on young people, and that has to be taken seriously.

00:19:27.760 If he's going to behave like that on social media, how is this man behaving when he's lecturing up-and-coming students on how they're going to behave in life going forward?

00:19:38.000 So, yes, you know, it's easy to dismiss somebody like Adoran, but the guy has to be taken seriously to the degree that he does have a degree of influence and reach.

00:19:47.640 And when he pulls stunts like that, he should be called out.

00:19:50.600 He really should.

00:19:51.360 and we have. You know, social media is pretty unforgiving when you misstep. Who knows? I've

00:19:55.980 been swarmed enough times when I cross the line and I get on other people's cases when they do

00:20:00.540 as well. All right, let's get on to our first guest of the day. And that is one of the UCP

00:20:06.560 leadership contenders. She's running to be the head of the UCP and then our premier. And that's 0.98

00:20:11.540 Rebecca Schultz, a former Children's Services Minister and MLA for Qadri Shah. Hey, Ms. Schultz,

00:20:16.740 how are you doing? I'm doing really well. How are you? Very good. Thanks. Just doing my Monday

00:20:21.340 rant, you know, it's therapeutic, gets it out of my system. It's a good way to start the week.

00:20:26.860 Yeah. I like it. So there, and there's always lots to get me worked up, but I'll try and keep

00:20:31.920 things calm for when we talk here. So your campaign's just kind of kicking off. You've

00:20:36.720 put your foot forward for the UCP leadership. I guess one of the first areas you kind of went

00:20:42.460 into, and it's a big area that, you know, that I'm asking every candidate about is the party

00:20:45.920 unity, internal unity, keeping things together. Because of course, winning the leadership's one

00:20:50.560 thing, winning the general election is another. And if the party still looks like everybody's at

00:20:54.420 each other's throats, people probably aren't going to vote for them. Yeah, and you know, that's really

00:20:59.220 my first and foremost focus is keeping our party united so that we can really make sure we're in a

00:21:05.360 good position to take on Rachel Notley in 2023. And one of the things I've been saying

00:21:09.760 is that, you know, it's been a tough couple of years. I know that. But it is time as Conservatives

00:21:15.620 to come together to stop vilifying each other and focus on who our opponent really is. And that is

00:21:20.260 Rachel Notley and the NDP. So there's some contentious policy points that are kind of

00:21:26.500 coming up or things where people are taking different stances. I've seen from candidates

00:21:29.920 addressing Ottawa, alienation, things such as that. It's definitely a top issue. People are

00:21:35.980 concerned. Where do you land on that? How can this government defend Alberta against a federal

00:21:41.920 government that's not always favorable to us, I guess you could say? Yeah, we do have to stand up

00:21:46.420 and continue to fight for our constitutional rights.

00:21:49.220 We're not really asking for anything special necessarily.

00:21:52.340 What we're asking for is the constitution of our country

00:21:54.560 to be followed and respected.

00:21:56.340 I think one of the things that I want to be clear on

00:21:58.980 is I'm not going to make promises we can't keep.

00:22:01.220 I think we need to continue to team up

00:22:03.660 with like-minded provinces

00:22:05.340 because there are other provinces

00:22:06.620 looking for the same things largely that we are.

00:22:09.880 I think we've got to recognize

00:22:11.000 that a lot of good work has happened,

00:22:13.040 like appointing our own chief firearms officer.

00:22:15.160 I mean, that's obviously important as we see Justin Trudeau trying to weigh in on firearms laws and really rule abiding firearms owners in this country.

00:22:25.200 We've also got good news on Bill C-69 with the Alberta Court of Appeal saying that that's unconstitutional.

00:22:32.040 That is good news in our fight for a fair deal.

00:22:34.900 But I'm going to be focused not on headlines, but on results for Albertans.

00:22:39.220 You know, the child care deal that we signed with the federal government, I did not sign on the dotted line.

00:22:43.800 I didn't accept the first deal that they pushed across the table our way. And, you know, I fought

00:22:50.040 for what made sense for Albertans. And I can tell you that what would really hurt Alberta,

00:22:54.680 especially when it comes to the federal government and making sure that Albertans are getting a fair

00:23:00.200 deal is having an NDP government next year. Yeah, absolutely. Having the NDP in would be

00:23:06.040 horrific. We already had a four-year taste of that. Absolutely. Dealing with the federal

00:23:10.340 government. I mean, that is one of those difficult ones. And you saw as Children's Services Minister,

00:23:13.540 though. They take our money, and then they offer a program back and say, well, if you don't embrace

00:23:17.560 the program, we're just going to take your money and spend it somewhere else. So you're basically

00:23:20.740 throwing away your own money if you don't take part. It's kind of a backhand way of pigeonholing

00:23:25.860 us into federal policy, but how can we push back to make sure those policies reflect our needs

00:23:30.280 rather than what the federal government's imposing? Well, and here's what I always say,

00:23:33.820 is that we need unwavering conservative values to be at the forefront of our platform and what

00:23:39.540 our party stands for that said we've also got to use common sense of making decisions so when i

00:23:44.260 would hear from alberta families and yes even conservative supporters they said look we're not

00:23:48.780 we're not okay with leaving almost four billion dollars of our hard-earned tax money in ottawa

00:23:53.060 to pay for child care in every other province across the country except for here they see that 1.00

00:23:57.720 as an economic advantage uh for us to make sure that parents yes women but you know men women 0.99

00:24:03.720 like parents can take part in uh the labor market right that they can take part in these new jobs

00:24:09.720 that are being created every single day here in alberta child care is very expensive and it is

00:24:14.760 in fact a barrier for many when they're looking to go back to school or get into the workforce so

00:24:18.680 that's where you know we had to use some common sense we did fight very hard especially on making

00:24:24.120 sure that private operators entrepreneurs were included in this system last week i got a call

00:24:28.920 from a reporter out of Ontario saying, look, I've got operators in three other provinces saying they

00:24:35.100 wish that they had the deal Alberta had. So for us, it was the behind the scenes work, the hard

00:24:39.800 work to make sure that we're listening to what Albertans want us to focus on, but making sure

00:24:43.820 we don't have a made in Ottawa or made in Quebec, anything here in Alberta, we had to focus on

00:24:49.780 what is going to work for Albertans. Okay. Well, and speaking of big budgetary

00:24:54.600 numbers in that. Recently, the budget had come into balance, but there's still a large debt

00:24:59.960 there. What policies would you be putting forth to work towards, you know, if we're looking at

00:25:04.900 fiscal responsibility, hopefully maybe some debt retirement? You know, and I would say even back

00:25:09.720 when I was door knocking in 2019, I had people say, you need to balance the budget. And I said,

00:25:14.620 absolutely. I agree with you wholeheartedly, fiscal conservative. But just so you know,

00:25:19.460 we're going to make decisions that are difficult. Some of them you're probably not going to like.

00:25:22.720 and in me you're gonna have someone who will continue to show up take your phone call stand

00:25:26.400 on your doorstep and hear your perspectives on that um we have done a lot of hard work over the

00:25:31.840 last couple of years that has to continue uh we hear a lot of people saying you know the heritage

00:25:37.200 savings trust fund we've got to save uh for future generations we have to continue um to keep

00:25:42.800 government spending down and when i look at that as a parent of two young kids my kids are three

00:25:47.520 and seven um it is an imperative because when you know they are in our positions making decisions i

00:25:54.480 don't want them to be paying off our debt i want them to have the flexibility to meet the demands

00:25:59.440 of their generation and their time um you know it is important but i would also say that we have to

00:26:05.520 continue to invest in things that people rely on i mean rural health care is important having

00:26:10.640 family docs is important having a good education system for our kids you know what that's important

00:26:15.760 to. But I think that we can show that we've got compassion, common sense, but can also balance

00:26:21.400 the budget and keep us on a good fiscal trajectory. Great. So we're still in the, you know, things

00:26:28.400 seem to be recovering. We're getting better and the world's winding down, but COVID still exists.

00:26:32.500 There's always the warnings. It has its ups and downs. Are there different ways if COVID starts

00:26:37.960 surging again in the future, how would you look to address that as premier? You know, I think we

00:26:43.500 still obviously we have all become very aware of some of the capacity issues within uh the hospital

00:26:50.140 system ahs um you know that reform is going to take some time but i think people know that there

00:26:55.500 is some very real urgency to addressing some of those issues because um well both we saw that

00:27:02.540 health restrictions uh especially in these last few waves didn't stop transmission or it maybe

00:27:09.100 slowed down but we also have to recognize that it didn't have um the outcomes really and that it had

00:27:16.940 a significant impact on people's overall mental health and well-being and so you know that's what

00:27:23.020 i hear from people all the time it's important for my kids to be able to play sports it's important

00:27:27.900 for them to have school be as normal as possible uh so i can tell you that i've heard that feedback

00:27:33.660 um you know i really have and i think we need to continue to listen to our frontline healthcare

00:27:38.460 workers because they have some really great ideas on how we can create capacity within the system

00:27:43.640 and do a better job on that front so that we can keep people's lives normal. Great and since you

00:27:49.460 brought up health care capacity and this is a question I've been asking every candidate so far

00:27:53.400 it's kind of issue specific but it's something I've been writing on for a long time and frustrated

00:27:56.720 with is our ambulance services. I mean we had that recent tragedy with the elderly lady

00:28:00.940 passing away with an ambulance that took over 30 minutes to get there and we'd heard that

00:28:05.760 there were 18 ambulances at that time sitting in hospitals trying to offload yet all we get in

00:28:12.700 response is well we'll strike a committee and wait four months like we just we're to be honest

00:28:17.420 one of the frustrations I think with the UCP people have had is a lot of talk and not a lot

00:28:21.660 of action we don't want more committees we want to see something solved how would you address that

00:28:25.820 you know I've heard exactly that almost word for word is we don't need panels and committees we

00:28:32.140 need action and so my style is this and I think anybody who's worked with me in children's services

00:28:37.980 you know in my previous role would know this that you know I'm not about getting necessarily the

00:28:42.860 perfect policy let's roll something out um let's move quickly you know child care deal a good

00:28:48.580 example we were not the first to sign but we were one of the first two provinces to roll out those

00:28:53.100 savings to parents which was a big deal um we need to take action and then we need to you know take

00:28:58.880 look at where things are working or not and when you mention you know i i had ems uh frontline

00:29:05.040 paramedics say it's a whole monitor policy is what they called it where they're essentially

00:29:09.680 you know stuck waiting to offload patients instead of being able to go and address um you know

00:29:16.720 ambulance calls um that's important and so i i know that that committee is working really really hard

00:29:23.920 um to make some fast changes in that area and i would say my colleagues you know rj sigurdson

00:29:29.520 tracy allard they have been meeting with my frontline um paramedics but also managers you

00:29:36.000 know in ems who have very real um examples and changes that they want to see made they said look

00:29:42.720 i don't need 10 point plans or 42 point plans we just need to make some changes now we also added

00:29:48.960 a number of new ambulances to the system pretty quickly there um which will help reduce some of

00:29:53.840 the pressure but you're right those things are urgent and we need to to work on them right now

00:29:58.960 okay um another contentious area with government it seems to happen well this has been ever since

00:30:04.000 i was old enough to read newspapers but curriculum battles they go back and forth with children in

00:30:08.000 schools uh people feel it's been politicized on on the part of the ndp or on the part of the ucp

00:30:13.840 do you think we could find some resolution where parents might be content and happy with where

00:30:17.760 the curriculum sitting you know i think there are some areas of the curriculum that people like

00:30:23.600 financial literacy that is important it's you know again as a mom of a seven-year-old i mean i get

00:30:28.560 that those are important things for my kids to know the math curriculum the focus on language

00:30:33.680 arts reading you know i don't hear a lot of opposition to those areas i do think you know

00:30:40.240 we have to make sure that when we say we're taking ideology out um that you know we're not

00:30:45.280 put it you know we're not putting in a different type um i think you know really what i hear about

00:30:51.440 that is sometimes the concern isn't exactly the decision that's made it's how like how uh did we

00:30:58.720 come to that how are we communicating it and i think you know it's sometimes conservatives i

00:31:04.640 mean we have really great ideas um and you know i believe that we don't win when we run on liberal

00:31:10.400 light platforms we we do well when we stick to our conservative values but i do think um that we have

00:31:17.440 to be able to communicate that very well and people need trust in the process and i think that comes

00:31:23.440 from clear communications um being straight up with albertans i think that can help to create

00:31:29.040 that trust in the process people make sure or people really feel like their voices are heard

00:31:35.320 Great. And then I guess kind of a final question with municipal relations. The federal or the

00:31:40.480 provincial government's had some pretty rough relationships, I guess you could say, with the

00:31:44.240 Edmonton Calgary mayors over the years. I mean, some ups and downs. Can we streamline some of

00:31:49.280 that so it's not a constant battle? Or is it just, I know there's some ideological differences that

00:31:53.680 are always going to lead to some degree of sparks. You know, I think there's always going to be

00:31:58.820 relationships amongst different levels of government. We're always going to have different

00:32:02.620 priorities so there's always going to be differing opinions at different levels i do think we have to

00:32:07.820 work to um refresh and renew our relationships there um they obviously need some improvement

00:32:13.980 in some areas and i know our current minister of municipal affairs is working really hard on that

00:32:19.180 uh i think whether we're working on issues in some of the major urban centers or you know

00:32:24.380 addressing issues like rural crime we need those relationships to be strong so that we

00:32:28.700 we can solve some of those problems together. Great. Okay. Well, just kind of in wrapping up

00:32:35.240 then, I appreciate you coming on, talking to us. And of course, the main goal though, is to

00:32:39.200 ensure that we have a good government. I mean, next election, we're looking a year from now,

00:32:43.820 you're going to, you know, whoever is the winner is going to have to move really fast.

00:32:47.740 Just in a nutshell, then make your pitch on why you're the best person to give us a good

00:32:51.480 government in the next election. Yeah, I think, you know, we need a leader,

00:32:55.040 not just for the next election or the next two years we need one for the next generation

00:32:59.120 of our conservative movement and that is absolutely in the best interest of our party but of course

00:33:04.160 for alberta we need somebody who will continue on our path of economic growth somebody who will

00:33:09.040 continue to defend alberta's constitutional rights and make sure that we remain a leader

00:33:13.520 in this country but also working on unity and one of the first commitments i made was to get

00:33:18.960 out there to doorknock and every single one of the 87 ridings right across this uh province

00:33:23.760 meet with our grassroots constituency association boards their board presidents make sure that our

00:33:30.080 members and all albertans really feel like they have a voice at the decision-making table and i

00:33:35.840 think what this comes down to is we have an amazing team we have excellent representatives

00:33:41.600 right across alberta they are talented they are smart they are hard-working and i think you know

00:33:46.800 it's important for me to to explain a little bit about my style is that it's not all about me it

00:33:52.400 is about all of the people who stand alongside me who do um this important work every single day

00:33:58.480 and making sure that our team can come back together and focus on defeating the ndp next year

00:34:04.240 great and where can people find more information about your campaign if they want to learn more

00:34:08.080 or take part yeah of course it's rebeccaforleader.ca great well thank you very much for coming on to

00:34:14.000 talk to us today uh there's still a good few months of campaigning to go i hope we get a

00:34:17.680 chance to talk again before the campaign's over and see how things are developing

00:34:20.880 yeah absolutely that sounds great all right thanks i'll let you get back on the campaign trail there

00:34:25.680 thank you so yes that was rebecca shells uh as i said uh mla for calgary shaw former children's

00:34:33.200 services minister and she's thrown her hat into the ring for the leadership so well it's another

00:34:38.800 one uh down we've got uh i'll be speaking to pretty much all of them i'm sure by the end of

00:34:43.520 the race and i i just i see some of the commenters saying you know uh it sounded a bit dry or not

00:34:50.480 not digging hard enough. Fair enough. I mean, again, this early stage in particular, similar

00:34:54.040 with the federal race where I spoke to the candidates. I'm not here to cut into them that

00:34:58.920 hard, at least at this point. I want to get the platforms out there, let people decide what they

00:35:02.880 will and see where the campaigns are going to develop. I just want to inform. These are names

00:35:08.440 that, you know, she was in cabinet, but you didn't hear a lot. I think that was one of the problems

00:35:12.780 with the Kennedy government. You know, aside from his really close inner circle, you didn't hear a

00:35:17.120 heck of a lot from, definitely not from the backbenchers, and even some cabinet ministers who

00:35:20.700 really got stuck in the background somehow. And that's hopefully going to change no matter who

00:35:26.740 might be the next winner. I'll just have a look at the, some of the comments here.

00:35:34.920 Need today is get rid of the gatekeepers. As Paulyev said, what we need to do is change these

00:35:38.400 gatekeepers. I'm not sure which ones you're speaking of, Kimmers, but I think, I'd just

00:35:42.900 like to respond to some of the comments if somebody's listening on the audio. Sorry about

00:35:45.640 that. But I mean, one of the things you're gatekeepers or others, I think part of the

00:35:49.080 problem too is the civil service. This is something on every level of government people

00:35:52.580 miss out on. The elected ones are the ones the front line we talk to and you hear from. What

00:35:56.480 you need is somebody who's got the courage to take on the entrenched bureaucrats. They're where

00:36:01.720 the problem is. They remain. I was speaking to somebody in one of my interviews the other day

00:36:06.240 talking about that. They get into office. They talk to the deputy minister. You see,

00:36:12.780 it's the minister you hear of. The deputy minister is an entrenched bureaucrat. They

00:36:15.400 often make more than the ministers themselves. They control things in there and they can string

00:36:19.860 a minister along. They can, you know, drag their feet, feed them all sorts of different types of 0.92

00:36:25.060 information and nothing changes. You really got to flush the bureaucrats from the system if you're 1.00

00:36:30.020 going to fix it. You see that municipally too in the city of Calgary. I mean, they're terrible.

00:36:33.820 City administration and Nenshi was really bad for feeding that. You know, they would come forward

00:36:38.020 and Nenshi would actually get on the case of any counselor who questioned city administration when

00:36:41.760 they come before council. Well, no, actually, that's what the council is supposed to do. You're

00:36:45.500 supposed to rip into those city administrators, well, politely and say, what are you doing? You

00:36:49.180 answer to us, not the other way around. Give us reports. Instead, you get city councillors,

00:36:54.520 and you see that in every level of government. You get federal ones, provincial ones on pet

00:36:57.140 projects and micromanaging, doing little things and ignoring what the civil service and the

00:37:02.180 bureaucrats are doing beneath them. That's where they got to dig in. That's where things have got

00:37:06.720 to change. But they're terrified. I mean, they're abjectly terrified of taking on the bureaucracy

00:37:11.440 in the civil service, particularly when you get farther down into the union levels of it.

00:37:15.880 So we'll see. Hopefully somebody's going to shake some things up as they go forward. I do want to

00:37:22.240 mention as well, there's a debate coming. Nico put that up on the side there and it's going to

00:37:28.560 be July 8th. We're holding that at the Petroleum Club in Calgary for the federal leadership.

00:37:32.580 Four of the candidates are going to be attending it and you can be there live. You can meet those

00:37:37.120 four, see them there. It's a $25 a ticket. Hey, it's an opportunity to get into the Peak Club.

00:37:42.000 Have a look around that place. It's a nice facility. You know, you got to remember the

00:37:44.680 old days, you couldn't step foot into that place. It's pretty tough. It's a pretty exclusive spot.

00:37:49.680 So hey, 25 bucks, you can catch the leaders, have a look around in their network. All of us from the

00:37:54.660 Western Standard, of course, be there. It's a Western Standard function. And you can get a

00:37:58.280 better idea face to face with some of those candidates as they're out here. It's a Friday

00:38:01.220 afternoon. Check it out. Take a, you know, grab a ticket, 25 bucks head on down there, guys, and

00:38:07.680 see what they've got going on. Okay, I'm going to speak about another one of our sponsors before I

00:38:13.440 move along too, and that is the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. These guys, again, have been

00:38:19.140 a very good sponsor for us for a long time. They're a very good organization. They're good for anybody

00:38:24.540 who owns or wants to own firearms, you know, responsibly, safely, legally, like all of us do.

00:38:32.140 I mean, yeah, there's a handful of crazy criminals out there who were committing some god-awful 0.97

00:38:35.940 crimes. And, you know, we've got the gangs, we've got the smuggled weapons. But for all the people 0.92

00:38:40.020 who are responsibly hunting, target shooting, collecting all of that, we're the ones that

00:38:44.160 the government is targeting. We're the ones they're coming down on. We've got to stand up for

00:38:47.380 ourselves. The Canadian Shooting Sports Association does just that. It's an association of other

00:38:51.780 firearm owners so you can get together and stand up for yourself, put out those court challenges.

00:38:57.260 There's lots of other resources too, you know, things on where there's events going on, where

00:39:01.860 there's different types of firearm activities you can do and things such as that. They're an

00:39:06.660 association like any other. So if you own firearms, guys, you got to get there, stand up for yourself,

00:39:11.240 use those resources, take out a membership with them, Canadian Shooting Sports Association,

00:39:16.420 Their website is cssa-cila.org.

00:39:20.340 And yeah, hang on to your guns, guys.

00:39:23.040 They're coming for them.

00:39:24.400 All right, Tracy Totten asking if I've had Brian Jean on yet.

00:39:26.960 I had Brian on, I'm going to guess, maybe a month ago.

00:39:30.840 And I imagine we'll have him on again.

00:39:32.800 I've got Sonny on tomorrow.

00:39:36.860 She'll be on another former cabinet minister.

00:39:39.000 She's going to be on a little later in the week.

00:39:40.680 I think it's Thursday.

00:39:41.420 I should keep my schedule more handy.

00:39:43.440 I'm going to have Todd Lowen on.

00:39:45.060 And of course, I've reached out to the other candidates and I have, of course, had Daniel

00:39:49.200 Smith on last week and we've talked to Bill Rock.

00:39:52.080 So we will cover them all, assuming they're all willing to come on.

00:39:56.540 And so far, so good.

00:39:58.300 And I imagine we haven't arranged anything yet.

00:40:00.140 The Western side will probably be doing some sort of debate with these leadership candidates.

00:40:03.520 But that's outside of my organizational realm there.

00:40:05.840 So we can look forward to that.

00:40:06.660 I'll certainly let you know as soon as it's going.

00:40:08.520 I mean, whether you like these guys or you don't, I mean, I know some people get frustrated,

00:40:11.560 but whoever ends up winning that race is going to be our premier.

00:40:15.060 Now, whether it only lasts until the next general election or not, you know, might only be a six month term as premier, who knows, but it's still an important race, whether you like it to be or not, that person is going to have an impact on us. And whoever does win it, I can only guess is going to hit the ground hard and running because you do only have six months from taking the leadership until you're into a general election.

00:40:38.580 so you better make a mark you better show i'm different than the last one i'm different than 0.83

00:40:42.340 the premier that just got kicked out on his butt and uh and so they're gonna have to come in with 0.75

00:40:47.480 some pretty solid policy stances whatever ones those might be so uh i would just say you know 0.73

00:40:52.260 again if you're frustrated or or cynical or whatnot and i understand why uh but you got to

00:40:57.460 watch these races because they're going to impact you whether you like them too or not

00:41:02.220 So let's see some of the news before I get to Chris. 0.92

00:41:07.320 So let's see, we'd left to work, foreign work cap. 0.56

00:41:11.540 Yeah, so we'll get to the labor crisis.

00:41:13.380 Department of Immigration is wondering whether or not to permit a third of a million foreign students to work full-time in Canada.

00:41:20.520 And MPs recommended the change, even though the jobless rate for school-aged Canadians is 10%.

00:41:24.580 These are tough areas.

00:41:27.880 We've got a lot of unemployed students, but guys, I don't know.

00:41:30.160 I mean, maybe different parts of the country, it's different. But I mean, we've also got a

00:41:32.960 massive labor shortage here in Alberta, I know for sure. There's no reason a student, if they

00:41:38.200 want some work, can't find it right now, they just aren't coming out. So we've got that shortage,

00:41:43.720 and we do have immigrants who want to come in full time on it. I say, why not get in there and 0.65

00:41:47.580 do it? We're, it's a balance, you know, it's a balance. I'm not one of those libertarian minded,

00:41:53.360 I mean, I'm libertarian, but I'm not full open border minded libertarian. I think you got to

00:41:58.180 control, uh, try to, I believe in immigration, bring folks in, uh, whether there's some that 1.00

00:42:02.880 are refugees or whether some that are highly skilled, but you've got to have some degree

00:42:05.760 of control on it. You got to have some planning. I mean, one of the biggest disasters I remember 0.99

00:42:10.860 seeing in my own life. And I remember it all too well when I used to work in the oil field in the

00:42:15.200 nineties. Uh, if you know Brooks, Alberta, it's East of Calgary, it's got a huge meat packing

00:42:19.580 plant there. And they've always, of course, cause again, I, whether you like it or not,

00:42:24.700 a lot of born Canadians don't want to work in those places. It's hard work. It's stinky.

00:42:30.160 It's long hours. It's rough conditions. They pay fairly well, but it's tough. So they bring a lot 0.95

00:42:35.240 of immigrants in. And in Brooks, they took back in the early nineties, a whole load of Somalian 1.00

00:42:40.220 immigrants and dumped them out there in that town. Basically dumped them. They had jobs, 1.00

00:42:45.200 they had houses, but these poor guys, they crossed the whole world. And again, they came 1.00

00:42:49.720 from Somalia in the nineties. So they were certainly moving to a safer environment,

00:42:53.320 Oh, what a difficult environment to suddenly drop into. 1.00

00:42:56.100 Brooks, I mean, land of the oil-filled, you know, rednecks and ranchers, 1.00

00:42:59.120 and hey, nothing against them. 1.00

00:43:00.120 I fall right into that category.

00:43:01.800 But they weren't welcomed with open arms by a lot of the local residents there.

00:43:07.460 And I just felt sorry for everybody involved.

00:43:10.140 It was not a good integration.

00:43:11.420 It wasn't well planned.

00:43:12.820 It led to a lot of clashes.

00:43:13.960 And something that had happened, if people remember way back,

00:43:16.140 there was a bar called Ezzies in Brooks.

00:43:18.120 And it was kind of the nightclub in the hotel there.

00:43:20.220 I think it was in the Heritage.

00:43:20.900 and they had a race riot break out in the parking lot.

00:43:24.100 Like they had a problem where a bunch of the young people

00:43:27.080 actually got into such a big fight and battle

00:43:29.420 and small riot in the parking lot.

00:43:30.560 They had to call MPs from CFB Suffield.

00:43:34.000 So foreign ones, it was British ones that showed up 0.99

00:43:35.900 because they didn't know what else to do

00:43:37.140 to come out and break up the fight.

00:43:39.360 They had a war going on in the parking lot.

00:43:42.020 And that's how bad the tensions had gotten

00:43:45.860 in Brooks at that time back then, almost 30 years ago.

00:43:48.700 but that was a consequence of poorly planned immigration.

00:43:54.540 I mean, you gotta do more.

00:43:56.480 You gotta make sure people are integrated.

00:43:58.140 You've gotta make sure that they're settled in. 0.98

00:44:01.620 And Kim's saying enough with immigration for now. 1.00

00:44:03.540 Well, no, Kim, we got a labor shortage. 0.64

00:44:05.180 We have to have immigration, but we aren't full, 0.75

00:44:08.160 not even close, but we've gotta do it carefully. 1.00

00:44:13.400 That's the problem.

00:44:14.600 We can't just open the doors and let everybody flood in

00:44:17.120 or you can't just let them settle in all predominantly one area and not in another.

00:44:21.440 It's hard on the immigrants. It's hard on the people who are in those areas already.

00:44:26.140 You want to make sure it's targeted. You don't want to put a bunch of people who

00:44:30.060 aren't well-skilled for a certain type of work and you put them into the wrong part of the

00:44:35.640 country. It's not going to do well. I had a good discussion with Gargar. We talk as well

00:44:41.800 about problems with a lot of people when they're new immigrants and they get in trouble and you

00:44:45.540 get some crime issues and things like that. And that's where he's working with youth and

00:44:48.520 in Forest Lawn and East Calgary to help them settle in. Because again, if they're feeling

00:44:52.000 unsettled and they're feeling insecure, that's how gangs do gain members. And that's how things

00:44:56.140 do get dangerous. But we just need intelligent conversations. I know that's always a big ask,

00:45:01.860 right? So easier said than done. But so that's a government initiative. I'm just kind of mixed on.

00:45:07.060 I'm watching the trepidation because government usually isn't very good at doing things,

00:45:11.080 even if they have, I like to think, often the best of intentions with things.

00:45:15.720 So hopefully they carefully model their policy

00:45:19.140 if they're going to expand the ability for immigration and youth and such.

00:45:26.460 But what's Sylvia saying?

00:45:27.560 What labor shortage? 0.99

00:45:29.080 Ask some businesses. 1.00

00:45:30.360 There's a labor shortage, Sylvia. 1.00

00:45:31.700 There are places having a hell of a time getting staff.

00:45:34.440 And it's a difficult thing.

00:45:37.220 It's difficult because you can only raise your salaries so much with your margins and then you raise prices.

00:45:42.600 And this is how we get on to this endless cycle of inflation.

00:45:45.420 It contributes towards that and everything else, too.

00:45:47.520 But there is a labor shortage.

00:45:48.580 There is a big one.

00:45:49.580 And companies are having a very hard time getting decent staff.

00:45:52.400 Oh, you can always find some clown with two legs and a heartbeat, but you don't necessarily get a person worth having in your place.

00:45:59.080 So, and yeah, Lorna's saying intelligent conversation and government in the same sentence and laughing. 0.92

00:46:04.400 Yeah, I know.

00:46:04.820 It's a rare thing.

00:46:05.380 All right. Well, let's bring somebody intelligent in. I'm going to move on to my next guest here,

00:46:09.340 Chris Oldcourt. I see him sitting in the lobby and we'll talk about a few things here that he's

00:46:14.520 been writing on. Hey, Chris, how's it going out there in Saskatchewan? Pretty good. I thought I

00:46:18.760 was the clown with the heartbeat that you're bringing on. No, not in this case. No, not in 0.97

00:46:22.820 this case. I was going to use another term for it, but I thought I don't want too much bleeping

00:46:26.900 going on or, or messing with the algorithms, but all this is going to Facebook jail. Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:33.980 we don't need to get knocked off anymore. We've been doing pretty good for that lately. So

00:46:36.980 you've been writing on some good wild stuff, though. I want to start with that story that

00:46:41.860 just came out today. Dave mentioned it in the news check-in. A blood donor has now refused

00:46:47.880 to answer whether or not he's pregnant. What the hell's going on? Well, that's a very fantastic

00:46:56.040 a question and it's a fairly easy one to answer. They have created a new blood donor form and they

00:47:06.120 ask you if you've been pregnant in the last six months or are you pregnant right now? You can see

00:47:11.680 that up on your screen there. And an individual went in to donate blood. He's 66 years old. Now

00:47:19.120 this individual has been donating blood since he was 18 and he actually has kept track on how

00:47:26.020 much blood he's actually donated he has donated 125 pints of blood since he was 18. so to put

00:47:35.540 that into perspective think about going to the bar asking for a pint of beer multiply that out

00:47:39.620 125 of those glasses and that's how much blood this guy has donated so when he got to this

00:47:46.020 question about whether he was pregnant or not he went and said um i can't answer this question

00:47:52.500 because it's not possible for me to be pregnant or have been pregnant in the last six months.

00:47:58.080 And they told him he has to answer the question or he can't donate blood.

00:48:01.860 So he said, well, then I'm not answering this question. 0.97

00:48:05.820 It's completely ridiculous. 0.77

00:48:08.120 Obviously, I have not been pregnant. 0.91

00:48:09.820 I'm 66 years old.

00:48:10.860 There's been no pregnant ladies who are 66 years old ever.

00:48:13.540 So why are you asking a senior male if he's pregnant or not in the last six months?

00:48:19.560 And so he said, look, I'm not going to donate blood anymore if I have to answer this question. 0.97

00:48:23.900 It's ridiculous.

00:48:24.700 They said, if you don't answer it, then we're not taking your blood. 0.97

00:48:28.300 He then went public with the story.

00:48:30.460 And the head of blood services came out and basically thanked him for his donations.

00:48:35.340 But if he refuses to answer the question, they don't want his blood.

00:48:39.200 It's just this absurdity, you know, where we've gotten to a point of wokeness where we're denying physiological reality.

00:48:47.000 like i i'm very liberal i think you and i debate on some of those points i'm all for you know if

00:48:51.400 you want to be trans and identify such i'll certainly refer to you as you know whatever uh

00:48:56.920 pronoun you prefer and hope you live and be happy and so on and you want to transition good for you

00:49:01.800 but we can't deny like it or not take it up with the creator or whatever it might be

00:49:06.760 we've we've got some people with x chromosomes and y chromosomes and when it comes to physiological

00:49:10.760 things medical things such as giving blood or many others or sports even there's just

00:49:14.840 differences whether you like it or not we can't change that yeah and this individual i mean he has

00:49:21.160 donated a lot of blood and on top of that someone actually just sent me an article a couple minutes

00:49:25.880 ago and they're short of blood donors in the uk right now and they're having a big blood drive

00:49:32.120 because covid scared a bunch of the donors away and they're not coming back to donate blood yet

00:49:37.400 so they're actually short blood and this guy's still coming out willing to give his blood

00:49:42.920 and they're like well if you don't answer the question we don't want your blood and this is

00:49:47.080 an example of uh woke ideology in the real world and how it doesn't work might sound great in a

00:49:54.360 class at university but in the real world someone could die because they're not getting blood and

00:50:00.520 he even said that he actually has a quote uh and he says it is nonsensical and it makes me angry

00:50:07.560 because there are vulnerable people waiting for blood, including children and in desperate need

00:50:12.740 of help. But they've been denied my blood because of the obligation to answer a question that I

00:50:18.180 can't possibly answer. And he's right. He can't answer that question. And it's this whole thing

00:50:24.160 about pregnant men, which is a recent biological phenomenon that we have seen. It historically has

00:50:32.520 not happened many times until a recent Calvin Klein ad. But this is an example of something

00:50:40.360 might sound great in a paper in university and make you sound inclusive or something. But in the

00:50:44.900 real world, it's true. They're short of blood. They need the blood and they're refusing his

00:50:49.400 blood unless he agrees to something that he can't possibly agree to. And quite frankly, I think he's

00:50:54.360 in the right here. At some point, you got to stand up and say, this is ridiculous. I'm not a 0.98

00:50:59.400 pregnant man. This could be easily enough rectified without shaming or embarrassing anybody. I mean,

00:51:06.340 I've filled out forms when I've donated blood. It's pretty, a lot of questions. Sure, that's fine.

00:51:10.800 And a lot of them are important. I mean, they're asking, you know, did you get a tattoo in a back

00:51:14.780 alley place recently? You know, have you had unprotected sex? Look, this is for everybody's 0.93

00:51:19.000 protection. Or do you have other physical conditions that you might not even know but

00:51:22.440 realize donating blood might be dangerous to you? Pregnancy is one of those. It's important for them

00:51:26.980 know that, but it's simple enough that you could start the form. Nobody else is looking over your

00:51:30.860 shoulder. They don't have to see what you've checked off. So you can present as a woman,

00:51:35.060 but when it says at the top, you know, physiologically, whatever term you want to use 0.67

00:51:38.620 for it, what is your status? And then the questions will follow from there. And you don't have to then

00:51:42.940 ask a physiological man if they're pregnant, because you damn well know they aren't. 0.94

00:51:46.780 Yes. And he actually said, I'm used to filling these forms out. I have to fill them out every 0.93

00:51:51.220 time before i give blood since i was 18 years old and he's right he and so are you he you have to

00:51:58.980 fill those questions up because there's certain things that disqualify you from being able to

00:52:02.740 give blood you know certain uh pharmaceuticals in your system and preclude you from being able

00:52:08.420 to donate blood you know i take a medication for my heart that actually precludes me from being

00:52:13.540 able to donate blood because it could adversely reflect uh i'm sorry affect someone else um

00:52:21.300 negatively yeah and so there's a reason we ask these questions but asking a 66 year old man if

00:52:26.820 he is pregnant um it's a little on the ridiculous side yeah no well keeps us with writing stuff but

00:52:35.380 again the biggest tragedy of it all is again as you pointed out there's a blood shortage we need 0.67

00:52:39.460 it. This is a man who donated regularly all the time and to have lost that regular donor over

00:52:47.240 something as ridiculous and stupid as this is just so pointless on trying to be woke in ridiculous 1.00

00:52:52.200 ways in a medical field. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So let's go on to some politics. You got 1.00

00:52:58.920 the NDP is making some demands out there in Saskatchewan, one of your recent stories there.

00:53:03.740 Yes, there has been quite a bit of controversy recently with the because the budget gets announced every year.

00:53:10.420 And then the school boards have until the end of June to finalize their spending.

00:53:15.880 And they have most of the boards have come out and said we don't have enough money because they're only given about a two and a half percent increase,

00:53:24.100 even though some of the things built into that increase were actually increases in teachers' salaries that the government funded directly

00:53:29.700 so that school boards don't have to move money around to pay the teachers more money

00:53:35.340 because they had a collective bargaining thing that happened during COVID.

00:53:39.140 But basically, a lot of the boards are now putting in lunchtime supervision fees,

00:53:45.280 basically meaning if your eight-year-old doesn't go home for lunch,

00:53:48.880 you now got to pay $100 a year or $70 a year,

00:53:51.160 depending on where you are located in the province, for lunchtime supervision

00:53:55.820 because they don't have the money and the budget to pay a teacher to stand out in the yard for

00:54:01.020 lunchtime supervision anymore. And this is the first time that multiple school boards have

00:54:06.800 introduced this. It's actually been normal practice in the Regina Public Schools since

00:54:10.480 I think it was 2016 or 2018. Sorry, I can't remember which year, but it's been regular for

00:54:16.160 four to six years now already that if you have a kid who needs to be supervised, you are already

00:54:21.620 paying for it in the system now if you go to school in Regina, in the public school board,

00:54:27.460 not the Catholic one. But now both Catholic and public school boards, about half of them across

00:54:34.320 the province have now introduced lunchtime fees and other fees as well. So the NDP called on them

00:54:39.120 to insert about $50 million. And that's actually a reasonable number for what they need in terms

00:54:46.940 of the shortfall, when you look at how high inflation is, they're also like just this past

00:54:56.100 school year, the four largest boards spent 30 million on gas. And look how much higher gas is

00:55:05.840 now and what's it going to be in September. But in the government's defense, the education

00:55:12.200 Minister Dustin Duncan has said, we are monitoring the situation and if inflation is high enough and

00:55:19.520 there is enough money to put gas, for example, into the school buses, we will add in additional

00:55:24.420 funding. So it's not like the government has closed the door on this. They have said from

00:55:28.420 the very beginning, this is the projected budget we have for the schools. And it's the requirement

00:55:33.940 of the schools to come back and say, if they can meet that budgetary number, if they can't,

00:55:38.920 and they can justify a reason why, then the government would give them more money.

00:55:42.600 So this is really just kind of a little bit of a political football that the NDP and the

00:55:47.020 SAS party are throwing back and forth right now.

00:55:49.800 And we'll see what happens with it.

00:55:51.860 But I think that you will see that the SAS party is going to throw more money in at some

00:55:57.980 point.

00:55:58.940 I think they came in with a low number just because it's going to look good if they come

00:56:02.960 back and be like, oh, we're putting another 30 million into the education system to help

00:56:06.340 this next year.

00:56:07.060 because it's a good positive story for them down the road

00:56:10.920 and gives them some positive publicity

00:56:13.520 going into the next school year.

00:56:15.240 So I do think that they're going to throw money in.

00:56:18.740 I've had conversations with people inside of education,

00:56:21.860 inside the government,

00:56:22.820 and they are actually watching this very closely.

00:56:25.240 It's not like they've said, this is the number

00:56:26.840 and if you can't meet it, go figure it out yourself

00:56:29.760 because they're not saying that.

00:56:32.240 So we'll see what happens.

00:56:34.160 NDP conservative battles sound the same

00:56:36.080 no matter which province you go.

00:56:37.120 Yeah, it's the same thing.

00:56:39.180 So, you know, I just like to focus this is Saskatchewan.

00:56:42.000 We're developing a good Saskatchewan audience

00:56:43.600 and you got some good regular readers.

00:56:45.340 And these issues hit us in all these provinces.

00:56:47.560 You know, the politicians watch each other

00:56:48.720 over their borders to see who can get away

00:56:50.620 with what or not as well.

00:56:52.220 Yeah, and Saskatchewan used to be an NDP province.

00:56:54.280 It's only recently switched to the right.

00:56:56.160 I mean, it's like, just like, kind of like Alberta,

00:57:00.800 you know, the NDP and a conservative party of some kind

00:57:02.980 basically battled out for the beginning of time,

00:57:06.360 and the Liberals are kind of non-existent.

00:57:08.380 So it's just kind of how it works out here in the West

00:57:10.660 because the Liberal brand, let's just say,

00:57:14.380 in the West isn't very strong other than B.C.

00:57:17.700 Yeah, so going further, your courts have been active.

00:57:20.940 There was a mask mandate that got shot down by a Saskatchewan court?

00:57:25.320 Yes.

00:57:26.240 The first conviction here in Saskatchewan

00:57:29.700 of a guy who refused to wear a mask at a co-op store, a food store, on four different occasions.

00:57:38.900 The police ticketed him and the last two times he went he also got charged with trespassing

00:57:44.740 because they banned him from the property. He went to court. They argued that it violated

00:57:51.380 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically his freedom to disagree with COVID-19 and what

00:57:58.900 what the government was putting out. It was his freedom to not have to wear a mask and not,

00:58:03.100 because it was basically the government forcing an opinion on him that COVID-19 was a serious

00:58:07.120 situation that required a mask to go anywhere in public. He disagreed with that and felt that

00:58:13.200 the government was pushing that opinion onto him and making him believe it by wearing a mask.

00:58:18.500 He lost. Now, in the actual judgment, trespassing is up to $5,000 each time. So he could have been

00:58:27.880 fine up to $10,000 there. However, violating the Public Health Act, the first offense is $75,000,

00:58:35.380 or I should say up to $75,000. The second, third, and fourth offense that he was convicted for,

00:58:41.220 the fine is up to $100,000. The judge did not disclose how much she actually fined him. So we

00:58:48.340 don't know if he got fined $1 for each offense, which would be $6, or did he get fined for all

00:58:54.400 of them, which would account for $485,000 fine. So we'll have to see what happens there. I'm sure

00:59:01.760 he's probably going to appeal it. If I was him, I would. I think his lawyer could come up with

00:59:09.220 some better arguments than what was presented. Because reading it and reading the judge's

00:59:16.700 decision, it was a bit of a stretch to say wearing a mask is forcing me to believe something I don't

00:59:26.220 believe. There's definitely better arguments against it. You know, you can pull up scientific

00:59:31.900 studies, for example, that we have seen that show that masking does next to nothing. And why are we

00:59:37.860 doing it? I mean, there's a reason why we don't use cloth masks in operating rooms and haven't

00:59:41.880 for like over 100 years, because it doesn't work. So why would it all of a sudden work against

00:59:45.540 um a virus um that's going around like it was yeah so anyways i think he's going to appeal it

00:59:52.960 i would if i was him uh but i would get a new lawyer well we'll see the court battles all

00:59:57.760 across the country going for years the first one convicted in saskatchewan like um bernie got his

01:00:02.860 tickets thrown out and some other people had their tickets thrown out for the exact same thing

01:00:06.400 he's the only one that's actually been convicted and quite frankly a lot of comments on the actual

01:00:10.440 story are he needs a better lawyer and quite frankly i agree with the comments because

01:00:14.180 there's better arguments than what he chose well we'll see what what comes out of it i'll close

01:00:21.320 up just something you've been writing a lot about anyways and that's something that goes province

01:00:24.720 to province in a way if you're a football fan you've been doing regular writers stories and

01:00:28.400 keeping us appraised on your your green team out there i know even you know stamps fans or 0.97

01:00:34.480 edmonton fans still want to watch that just like i watch those darn dirty cleveland browns and see 0.91

01:00:39.560 what they're up to because i'm a steelers fan and i want to know what they're doing so what's that 0.98

01:00:43.740 Working town versus working town.

01:00:45.780 Yeah.

01:00:46.260 So what's going on with your riders out there?

01:00:48.900 They're 2-0, and they are doing interesting ways to win.

01:00:54.000 They like to keep it close, regardless of whether or not they're playing a good team like the Ticats,

01:00:58.700 or they're playing the Edmonton Elves who didn't even win a home game last year.

01:01:03.320 They have the number one running back in the league,

01:01:07.000 and their quarterback is also the number one running quarterback in the league.

01:01:10.500 So in the CFL, where it's mainly an air game, they're doing very well on the ground as well.

01:01:17.040 It would be nice, though, if they could start scoring points sooner in a game and not make it so tight on themselves.

01:01:23.300 Because even in the early part of the Edmonton game, Edmonton actually was winning at one point.

01:01:30.060 But they have a very good team.

01:01:33.020 Everybody who does the sort of the power rankings has the riders at either first or second with the Bombers, depending on who you look at.

01:01:41.640 But I do think Cody is going to be probably the number one quarterback this season.

01:01:49.020 Once he gets warmed up, he is on fire.

01:01:52.860 Now, he didn't throw for over 300 yards in this last game like he did in the first game.

01:01:56.520 um but he he definitely was helping them move the ball down the field very successfully um not that

01:02:05.340 the Elks had exactly the greatest defense in the world uh but they do have their coach is considered

01:02:11.160 one of the best defensive coaches not only in the CFL but even in the NFL where he was also

01:02:16.140 a defensive coordinator before he came back to the Elks um there was a bit of controversy in

01:02:21.940 the offseason when the Edmonds coach Jones actually said that he didn't think Pajardo was a top five

01:02:27.500 quarterback in the CFL. He then walked back those comments going into this game, probably wise on

01:02:35.780 his part, since he's definitely a top five quarterback, to say the least. So the Riders

01:02:44.940 actually are 2-0, so that's a good start for them. They started hot last year, though,

01:02:51.000 where they went on a pretty good win streak

01:02:53.480 before they kind of cooled out in the middle of the season.

01:02:55.680 And at the end of the season, they went on another win streak.

01:02:58.440 So we'll see if they can keep this win streak going.

01:03:01.560 But yeah, it's going to be an interesting season.

01:03:03.480 And I'm having fun doing it.

01:03:04.600 So I hope that the audience can connect with the funness of the CFL.

01:03:10.040 Good. Yeah.

01:03:10.580 No, I mean, I just wanted to touch upon that and remind people

01:03:13.800 that we're not a sports paper, but we cover some other stuff.

01:03:16.180 And hey, the CFL is some of the best sports value for dollar

01:03:19.020 you can get out there to get out for a game.

01:03:21.000 Not many people might realize the season started earlier this year, so it's already kind of fully underway.

01:03:26.340 And, you know, you want to catch some summer games while you can and enjoy some of that rivalry going on out there.

01:03:32.280 So I got one other story I'd just like to mention that I just wrote up.

01:03:36.240 There was a multiple shooting arrest that just happened in northern Saskatchewan over the weekend.

01:03:43.420 There it is. Actually, the guy on the screen is that you're seeing there.

01:03:46.720 He is still wanted. They don't know who he is and they're trying to find him.

01:03:49.920 you're in northern Saskatchewan, they're suggesting you don't pick up hitchhikers right now.

01:03:55.020 So two people were already arrested for shooting at police yesterday. And it took them about five

01:04:01.620 hours to find them after the original shootout happened, but they did. But they are still

01:04:06.420 looking for that individual there. And if this was a, there was luckily no injuries in the shootings,

01:04:17.420 because at the same time in this town, there was a children's fair going on at the same time.

01:04:21.700 So it was it was very lucky that the shootings where they did take place were actually away from where the children's fair was taking place.

01:04:28.880 But they obviously had to shut it down and they had everybody shelter in place where they were in the city for about five hours before they released people.

01:04:35.420 And so they could come back out onto the streets again. But very scary situation in northern Saskatchewan.

01:04:40.460 And they still have a suspect at large, which you can see on the screen there.

01:04:43.660 He's wearing a black top, black pants, black shoes, and there's gold stars on the arm of his T-shirt.

01:04:51.340 He's got short black hair, and they would very much like to find this individual.

01:04:55.240 As you can see, he has a gun in his hand, and that was taken by someone near the scene.

01:05:00.660 So if you recognize the guy, Crime Stoppers would love to talk with you.

01:05:05.380 Yes, absolutely. What a terribly dangerous, potentially dangerous situation.

01:05:09.040 Thankfully, no children were hurt.

01:05:10.520 And obviously, this is a person we want to see caught and restrained.

01:05:15.100 In a very small town as well.

01:05:16.820 Yeah, as soon as possible.

01:05:18.420 So again, just that reminder to folks, you know, check it out, westernstandard.news.

01:05:22.620 And you can see that picture and those details from Chris.

01:05:24.680 And I know you'll report on that as it develops if this fellow's apprehended and what goes on from there.

01:05:30.480 So, yeah, thanks for bringing that up since it's developing and breaking.

01:05:33.320 And let's hope they round up this guy before he really hurts somebody badly.

01:05:36.480 Yes, yeah.

01:05:37.140 it's very scary situation up there it's a very very small area too in terms of the amount of

01:05:42.420 people that live there too so okay well thanks for joining us again this week chris and uh

01:05:48.440 look forward to seeing more of those saskatchewan news stories as they develop well thank you very

01:05:52.220 much for having me on cory have a great day thanks that's chris old corn he writes opinion as well by

01:05:56.820 the way guys uh one or two columns a week just search them out on westernstandard.news lots of

01:06:01.880 content opinion and news and uh keep up with all things saskatchewan he writes on national stuff

01:06:07.080 to. And as we see, we got stuff that's breaking as it goes with that, that shooting up in northern

01:06:11.760 Saskatchewan. Scary stuff. Okay, I'm just looking at some of the comments. Yeah, somebody's pointing

01:06:16.820 out where we're talking about universities and just some of the insanity, especially when we

01:06:22.600 got Mr. Adoran talking. But somebody brought up God Saad. He's a social media personality,

01:06:28.120 a professor, and he's written books. What was it called again? The Parasitic Mind. If you want a

01:06:33.300 really good read, actually, it's like a green cover with a thread being pulled out of a person

01:06:37.000 skull there that's by God

01:06:39.060 Sod and he really goes into a lot of how

01:06:40.720 academia has gone woke and

01:06:42.920 unfortunately pretty much insane 0.99

01:06:45.280 so yeah I mean I'd kill 1.00

01:06:47.120 to get Mr. Sod on this show 1.00

01:06:49.020 we keep reaching out but 0.99

01:06:50.420 it's hard to corner him if I can get him I will

01:06:53.160 in the meantime though yeah it's a

01:06:54.880 strongly recommended book a very good read

01:06:56.720 on some of those things just how invasive

01:06:59.020 things are and he's got a good twisted sense of humour

01:07:01.100 that I appreciate to

01:07:02.940 make some of the more dry political

01:07:04.940 stuff a little more palatable

01:07:07.100 Before I get to my next guest, I'll just speak one more time to our sponsor, and that is BitcoinWell.com.

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01:08:08.600 going to bring in a third guest today, and that's Jay Goldberg. He's the Ontario and I think acting

01:08:13.140 maritime director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And they just put out a report

01:08:18.200 outlining the problems like we need them outlined. We do actually with Bill C11. It's a very, very

01:08:25.380 dangerous bill. Let's bring Mr. Goldberg in and see what the Taxpayers Federation's got going on.

01:08:30.560 Welcome to the show, Jay. Great to be with you. Great. Thanks. So I looked over your report there.

01:08:36.600 Maybe if you want to lay out, you know, my viewers have, we've talked about C-11 before,

01:08:40.520 but still not everybody's necessarily familiar with it. What is C-11 and what's it all about here?

01:08:45.240 So Bill C-11, in reality, it's all about government power. It's about the Trudeau

01:08:50.240 government wanting more power for themselves and for bureaucrats. So according to the government,

01:08:55.920 they're trying to pass Bill C-11 to make sure that people see more Canadian content and make

01:09:01.920 sure that Canadian content providers succeed in the world. What our report shows is that Canadian

01:09:07.380 content is thriving like never before. We had $6 billion of foreign investment in Canadian film

01:09:14.580 and television in 2020, and that's during the pandemic. So number one, when they're saying

01:09:20.220 that we need uh this bill to try to get canadian content to do better well it's doing really really

01:09:26.140 well and then what's the other side of the coin the other side of the coin is that the government

01:09:31.740 will be controlling through the crtc the canadian radio radio television communications they the

01:09:38.220 government will be controlling what you can say see and share online that's the basic conclusion

01:09:44.300 of the report and the reason for that is that the government's trying to create this new structure

01:09:49.660 run by the crtc where they could prioritize what you do or don't see in your media feeds in your

01:09:56.380 social media feeds in your streaming feeds they say what they're going to do is promote canadian

01:10:02.060 content and therefore uh demote non-canadian content but they're the ones who are going to

01:10:07.660 decide what counts is canadian content and we also have no guarantee that once you create this

01:10:13.180 mechanism now for prioritizing some content over other for cancon that you're not going to use it

01:10:18.940 for some other purpose later like whether or not you support the trudeau government

01:10:24.220 well yeah it gives a whole lot of arbitrary power to some regulatory bodies on what's appropriate

01:10:28.860 what's not and this is a government that just seems fixated on controlling information though

01:10:33.820 i mean it does seem like can con is more a premise it's just a matter of wanting to get in

01:10:38.540 and use that as an excuse to control the cancon thing is a complete excuse we show in the report

01:10:44.940 that Canadian content is doing better than ever before.

01:10:47.560 Netflix has invested hundreds of millions of dollars.

01:10:50.820 It's very easy to find Canadian content online.

01:10:53.400 And as I said, we had a record $6 billion of foreign investment.

01:10:57.240 So I think that needs to be taken off the table.

01:10:59.460 The government's rationale for doing this is completely flawed.

01:11:02.700 And then once you figure that out, then you have to dig into, well,

01:11:05.300 what's actually in the bill and what are they really trying to do?

01:11:09.380 Yeah.

01:11:09.720 And you did that with, as you said, with input from Michael Geist.

01:11:13.200 I had him on the show before and he talked about, you know, some of the things, well, what is CanCon and what isn't?

01:11:18.320 I mean, is it CanCon if it was produced, you know, here in the country and shot here, but it's actually, you know, the set is an American one.

01:11:26.420 So it doesn't look Canadian or does it have to have Canadian elements in it?

01:11:30.060 Or does it have to employ a certain degree of Canadian people?

01:11:33.120 Like it's a very nebulous world when you start talking about what may or may not qualify as CanCon.

01:11:38.640 Well, that's exactly right. And one thing that I mentioned in the report, for example,

01:11:42.640 is that there is a biopic on Donald Trump called Gotta Love Trump. According to the CRTC, that

01:11:49.360 counts as Canadian content because of some of the people who worked on that film. Whereas The

01:11:54.560 Handmaid's Tale, which is based on Margaret Atwood's famous book, a very famous Canadian author,

01:12:00.880 it's not considered Canadian content because it doesn't have producers that are from Canada,

01:12:05.520 other from elsewhere. So it shows you already that the CRTC is very bad at trying to figure

01:12:10.440 out what Canadian content is and what it isn't. And if they're already bad at this now, why are

01:12:16.340 we going to give them 10 times the amount of power to be bad at this at a much bigger scale? So

01:12:21.020 that's a huge concern. Well, and I imagine that the CRTC, the people who are going to be managing

01:12:26.360 that, running that, I mean, they're people who are appointed by the federal government. So

01:12:29.620 the ability for those people to be politicized can be high. It's not to say they necessarily

01:12:34.220 are right now but you never know absolutely so you are giving these bureaucrats at the crtc

01:12:41.020 literally the power to decide what we see in our news feeds and in our streaming feeds online

01:12:47.500 they say it's just going to be for canadian content and you know for example say we're going

01:12:51.820 to take them at their word that's what they're planning to do right now well a year or two from

01:12:55.980 now they might decide you know we've heard minister mendicino who's been under fire for various

01:13:01.100 reasons uh he's suggested for example that in the future the government might have to look into how

01:13:06.620 to promote social cohesion uh is his words if the government's going to try to go after social

01:13:11.900 cohesion a couple years from now well is that going to be another reason or rationale to instruct

01:13:17.980 the crtc to filter what we see because of that so that's the big concern is down the road this could

01:13:24.300 be used for literally any purpose the government wants these bureaucrats are appointed directly by

01:13:29.820 the government and the government gives them instructions about what to do and the final

01:13:34.300 thing that i'll add is that the minister actually hasn't even told us what the instructions are that

01:13:39.580 he's going to give to the crtc he says he wants parliament to pass the bill the governor general

01:13:45.420 to sign it into law and then he's going to figure out exactly what he wants them to do you know

01:13:50.380 that's like signing on to buy a used car before he even did the test drive so he wants to give

01:13:56.060 give them all of the powers, but he won't tell us exactly what the mandate and what those powers

01:13:59.980 will entail. That's exactly right. There is no articulation of the mandate. And Dr. Geis has

01:14:05.280 pointed this out as well. It's a very slippery slope when you give bureaucrats all of this power

01:14:11.320 and literally don't even outline what you want to have done with all these powers.

01:14:17.160 And yeah, these things have a chilling effect. I mean, again, it's hard on independent media,

01:14:22.160 things like that uh our organization we know we're we're uh opinionated in labmos we're not

01:14:28.240 going to back off on the government but we could pay a terrible price and suddenly they could find

01:14:31.440 an excuse oh you guys have infringed on this or that and then we're going to pressure uh providers

01:14:38.000 to to de-platform you because you didn't fall within the crtc regulations it's it's a dangerous

01:14:43.040 area to go and a lot of independent outlets might think you know what we're just gonna

01:14:46.640 not shake the tree too much so we can avoid that happening that's exactly right and the

01:14:51.680 problem is that you have right now uh the government and the crtc able to define what

01:14:57.440 they believe canadian content is and as we said before their definition of what's canadian content

01:15:03.040 is very flawed but one of the questions that will come up of course is what counts as un-canadian

01:15:08.560 content if you are advocate advocating for western separatism or quebec separatism does that count as

01:15:15.040 canadian content if it's somehow un-canadian to suggest that you know you don't want to see the

01:15:20.640 the country stay together? Is that going to fall under content that we shouldn't be promoting? So

01:15:25.560 it's a very slippery slope between Canadian content for the sake of what's actually in it

01:15:31.980 and Canadian content for the sake of what government bureaucrats think should count

01:15:36.220 as Canadian content. That's the huge concern. Yeah. And they use buzzwords that get disturbing

01:15:41.080 or loaded words like social cohesion. I mean, there's a lot of things you could say too. Well,

01:15:45.960 you know, Corey rants too much at the start of his show and he angers people and he's shot at

01:15:49.760 Quebec a couple of times. That's interfering with Canada's social cohesion, thus his show

01:15:54.360 should have the plug pulled. Yeah, I mean, social cohesion is like a very broad and dangerous word,

01:16:01.540 a couple words. That's something you expect to hear in communist China. I mean, that's not 0.50

01:16:05.940 something you expect to hear in Canada, a minister saying we might have to figure out some government

01:16:10.800 regulations to promote social cohesion. That's literally what they're saying in countries like

01:16:15.700 china north korea and i should add that twitter when they were consulted on some of the government's

01:16:21.860 planned bills when they testified they suggested that some of the government's plans are akin to

01:16:27.460 what they're doing in china north korea and to regulate user-generated content which they're

01:16:34.340 proposing to do and we can talk about through broadcast regulations they've said dr geist says

01:16:40.340 it's unprecedented. It's not done in any other democratic country. And also, this is something

01:16:46.720 that is done in non-democratic countries like China and North Korea. Well, that's some scary

01:16:52.740 stuff. Hopefully, I don't know, we can keep shining a light on it. I mean, the minister is pretty

01:16:57.100 embattled right now. The government might want to kind of move him along and back off on some

01:17:01.240 things anyways. We'll see. But this hasn't been a government terribly inclined to give ground when

01:17:05.260 they dig their heels in either. So all we can do is shine a light on it and discuss it and hope that

01:17:09.960 we could pressure them enough to move along. You guys are doing a good job at that. Before I let

01:17:14.900 you go, where can people find more information about what you guys are doing and stuff on these

01:17:18.860 subjects? They can go to taxpayer.com. You can see our new report that's out on Bill C-11, which we

01:17:26.140 did in concert with consulting with Dr. Geist. There's petitions there. There's all kinds of

01:17:31.640 news information there. But I should also add that people should be very concerned about the

01:17:35.780 regulation of user-generated content. There's user-generated content is captured by this

01:17:41.840 bill. The CRTC says so. And that means that your posts on YouTube or TikTok, they could be

01:17:48.100 regulated by the government. So we're not just talking about Netflix. We're not just talking

01:17:51.640 about big companies. The government's going to come after you for your content. That's the danger.

01:17:57.700 Yeah. And that is a big danger. We've always got to be on. I mean, again,

01:18:01.480 this government's appetite for control has really been distressing. Well, thanks for coming on and

01:18:06.180 your report on that and expanding on it for us today, Jay. I hope we can talk again sometime

01:18:10.720 soon. Thank you. Great. So that's Jay Goldberg of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I love getting

01:18:17.740 those CTF guys on from all across the country. They speak some good common sense. They're doing

01:18:21.640 a lot of hard work and check them out at taxpayer.com. You can find these reports on this

01:18:27.080 and other issues.

01:18:28.040 I mean, this isn't just straight when it comes to tax.

01:18:30.200 This is more of a individual freedom

01:18:31.840 and communications issue, but it's still important.

01:18:34.300 And having these guys speak on these things is critical.

01:18:37.500 It's a lot won't.

01:18:39.060 Independent outlets, some might be scared to talk about this.

01:18:41.640 The mainstream media sure has been definitely silent

01:18:43.720 on a lot of this, haven't they?

01:18:44.940 That's because they're subsidized.

01:18:46.620 That's because they're paid for by this government.

01:18:49.040 And remember that independent media like us,

01:18:50.760 you will always end up beholden

01:18:52.060 to whoever's paying your bills, at least to a degree.

01:18:53.980 So we're beholden to subscribers.

01:18:55.700 We're here for you guys.

01:18:57.080 And, you know, just that reminder, if you haven't subscribed already, get on there, take out a subscription.

01:19:01.700 That's what lets us keep doing this as well.

01:19:04.120 I want to remind everybody we've got that debate coming up.

01:19:07.040 It's on July 8th, Friday afternoon at the Petroleum Club, 25 bucks.

01:19:12.140 You can go in this, you know, and there'll be a cocktail period afterwards where you can meet and greet,

01:19:16.160 probably meet a few of those conservative leadership candidates in person.

01:19:20.180 And there's one of those opportunities, or at least network with some other Western Standard viewers and followers.

01:19:26.780 And some of us, you know, Western Standard people that work here, of course, will be around there.

01:19:30.580 It'll be all hands on deck to make sure we get that going and have a good debate.

01:19:34.640 Cheryl saying, let's hope this debate has common sense. 0.99

01:19:38.720 Sorry, Cheryl Dawn saying, let's hope the Senate has common sense and doesn't pass this bill.

01:19:42.120 Yeah, you know, I wrote a thing on that a while back, well, just last week, I think it was.

01:19:47.240 I'm just saying I'm surprised the Senate's been waking up.

01:19:49.460 They've been active and they've been cutting into some of these bills and they shot down, at least in committee, a big portion of Senate Bill S-7, which was a real infringement on some freedoms there at border crossings.

01:20:01.020 It was really surprising and good to see.

01:20:03.060 And the senators have really been cutting into ministers and such on the committees.

01:20:08.620 It's like they've had enough.

01:20:09.900 They got tired of being sleeping in the background and said, you know what, we're going to start doing our job for a change.

01:20:13.860 And I'm really happy with it.

01:20:15.200 So I want to keep encouraging it because Parliament won't stop anything.

01:20:19.000 You know, Trudeau and Jagmeet, I mean, they're cozy in bed.

01:20:21.320 They're spooning every night.

01:20:22.580 They're not going to, you know, break ranks and shoot down any of their own bills.

01:20:27.620 But the Senate is outside of their control.

01:20:30.000 And maybe they can keep stopping this government in its tracks, you know, which is a nice thing to see.

01:20:36.540 Let's see what else we got there.

01:20:40.840 Yeah, Carrie Lynn Oldford saying, you know, we're talking about Canada becoming Venezuela.

01:20:44.960 Yeah, well, we could with snow.

01:20:46.740 one of the best memes in the world I've ever seen. It shows that just bad policy, bad government can

01:20:52.380 screw up anything. And there's a meme that showed, you know, the nice rolling hills of Venezuela and

01:20:57.080 the climate and everything and said something along the lines of, you know, skilled work people,

01:21:01.160 loads of natural resources, beautiful climate. Let's just add a little drop of socialism. And

01:21:05.160 of course, bang, and you got all these slums and wild dogs and garbage piled up. And that's the

01:21:10.120 truth of unfortunately what happened in Venezuela. I mean, all of the oil and gas resources in the

01:21:14.620 world and a beautiful, fantastic climate, a nice part, but you know what? They put in socialists

01:21:18.320 and they completely destroyed the economy. People there literally had to eat zoo animals,

01:21:24.020 zoo animals, because you can't drink oil. Even if you got all that oil, it doesn't matter. If your

01:21:29.520 government is inept or corrupt, it doesn't matter how many resources you've got, you're going broke. 0.97

01:21:35.340 And Canada is working its hardest on screwing themselves. I'm going to talk about some of that. 0.93

01:21:39.040 Here's some of the news that came out too. Chargers, federal subsidies, you know, getting

01:21:43.480 back to that idiocy, this mad push for electric vehicles. And now they're $4,000 per driver. 0.98

01:21:51.040 That's how much the subsidies are just for the charging stations. And you know, you don't see a

01:21:55.220 hell of a lot of them yet, but they're building more and more. You can still see them fairly

01:21:58.240 clearly because there's almost never actually a car parked in front of it charging. But the

01:22:02.440 government is spending $4,000 a car so far just to subsidize the bloody charging stations. Like

01:22:09.340 these guys will just will not give up. They're blowing billions on this to no decent end. People

01:22:14.680 aren't switching to these bloody electric cars. Meanwhile, we've got a world that's demanding

01:22:18.820 our oil and gas. They're desperate for it. We're busy shutting it in. We shut down the Northern

01:22:23.460 Gateway. Trudeau twiddled his thumbs while Keystone got shut down. He got his thumb up

01:22:27.600 as pooper when the governor of Michigan was talking about shutting down line five. Trudeau

01:22:32.820 was dead silent on that one. He didn't manage to shut it down. I think it was American courts

01:22:37.920 have saved us on that so far, but this is nuts. This is an ideological lunatic government. Energy 0.99

01:22:42.880 East, they regulated to death. Quebec infringing on talking about pipelines crossing, they indulged

01:22:48.260 them. And what are we getting for it? We can end up down the road to Venezuela, spending thousands

01:22:53.880 and thousands subsidizing chargers for cars that nobody wants. Nobody wants them, guys. It's been

01:23:00.560 a decade of pushing this. It reminds me of the bloody bike lanes in Calgary. It's funny, those

01:23:04.200 stats come out all the time. For one, it's the same anti-automobile gang that pushes this crap. 0.99

01:23:09.860 But year after year, they keep saying, I've been dealing with this in Calgary for 12 years now, 0.98

01:23:14.840 as they keep cutting into roads and taking away lanes and taking away parking, giving more bike

01:23:18.540 infrastructure all the time. And they're saying, it's going to make more bike commuters. It's

01:23:21.660 going to make more bike commuters. Guess what? It doesn't. Bicyclist commuters are still only

01:23:26.500 like 2% of the population. Lots of people ride bikes, but they do it recreationally. 98% of the

01:23:32.640 city doesn't ride a bike to work. But we're taking up 25% to 50% of some of our roads downtown to

01:23:40.380 give them lanes that they aren't using. But it doesn't matter. They keep pushing and keep pushing

01:23:44.760 and the outcome doesn't matter to them. What do we got now? We got a downtown Calgary. It's a mess.

01:23:49.480 It's not just due to the bike lanes, but it's another contributing factor because parking is

01:23:52.780 expensive. People can't park downtown to run in and out of a ground level business. It kills

01:23:56.900 ground level businesses. It doesn't matter. They think if they can hound and harass and push us

01:24:01.840 long enough, they will force us into these things, such as electric vehicles or riding

01:24:05.240 bikes to work. Well, it's not working. All they're doing is making us broke. And they're

01:24:09.820 good at that. You're going to credit there. They're good at taking the money out of our

01:24:13.660 pockets. Let's see what else we got. Yeah. Speaking of, you know, in incapable government,

01:24:18.940 what the, the app they brought in for COVID tracking or whatever the hell that was, only

01:24:24.220 21% of the people used it. 20 million spent on this stupid app and nobody was using it. 1.00

01:24:30.400 It was garbage. 1.00

01:24:31.540 They finally backed off on it. 0.99

01:24:32.680 But there's just another 20 million flushed down the toilet.

01:24:34.900 How much can we keep flushing down the toilet, guys?

01:24:36.780 We're seeing. 1.00

01:24:37.960 And I talk with idiots online. 1.00

01:24:42.160 You know, I said on Twitter the other day, 1.00

01:24:44.380 quit asking for government to fix everything.

01:24:46.040 They can't.

01:24:46.560 They're the problem, not the solution,

01:24:48.200 particularly with inflation.

01:24:50.340 We can't spend ourselves out of inflation, guys.

01:24:53.380 It's pouring, you know, again,

01:24:54.600 it's trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

01:24:57.280 And some guy responded with a tweet showing,

01:24:59.680 oh, somebody's saying, oh, this country's conservative, this country's liberal, this

01:25:02.440 country's conservative, and they all have high inflation too. You see, they're trying to say

01:25:05.520 this is just inflation is like gravity. It just happens. No, it doesn't. It happens because of

01:25:09.500 shitty policy. And it's different to say, well, look at all these governments out. Yes, but how 0.98

01:25:14.220 many cut the size of their government? How many cut spending? No answer on that. He never did

01:25:17.760 answer because none of them did. I don't care if it's conservative or liberal, what they want to

01:25:21.220 call themselves. If you're increasing spending, and if you're running the printing presses and

01:25:25.820 you're borrowing money, you're going to get inflation. So yes, it is the government's fault.

01:25:31.560 Again, they keep acting like it's beyond their control. It's like somebody else saying

01:25:34.320 the problem that Germany's having is because of the war. No, it's not. Their problem with energy

01:25:41.020 happened before the war. Quit looking for excuses. Let's get real. Another problem with inflation is

01:25:46.540 that energy is as expensive as hell. Why is that? Well, because we're shutting it down all over the

01:25:50.920 place. Geez, nothing contributes to inflation better than high energy prices, because every

01:25:56.100 consumer good you get has to be transferred with some form of energy. And we're not seeing solar

01:26:01.180 powered airplanes yet. The ships aren't running on unicorn piss or the laughter of children.

01:26:07.940 It's petroleum products. So as those prices go up, your price of everything goes up.

01:26:12.620 So let's get a realistic discussion on these things, you nutcases.

01:26:15.620 I'm not holding my breath on

01:26:18.180 either way, I'm going to wrap things up

01:26:20.480 tomorrow I got another good show, as I say

01:26:22.080 Rajan Sani is coming on, she is another

01:26:24.300 UCP cabinet minister and she is

01:26:26.360 running for the leadership of the party

01:26:28.260 and I'm going to have Colin Craig

01:26:30.320 from secondstreet.org

01:26:32.020 they got another initiative on the go

01:26:34.260 and Second Street always does some great stuff, digs into

01:26:36.260 some great things, so

01:26:37.240 thanks for tuning in today guys, kicking

01:26:40.320 off the week, we got a lot of good guests coming

01:26:42.340 through the rest of the week, so I look forward to seeing you

01:26:44.200 again tomorrow at 1130 a.m. sharp.

01:27:14.200 You

Western Standard - June 21, 2022

Triggered： Fossil fuels aren’t going away any time soon

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Transcript