Western Standard - Triggered： Government is the problem, not the solution

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's May 18th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. Well, we got a

00:00:38.760 busy, busy day around here for news, for sports, you name it. Right until the wee hours of tonight,

00:00:44.500 there's going to be a lot of stuff going on in Alberta and we'll be covering as much as we can

00:00:50.040 and as, you know, clearly as we can. So let's start with the important stuff though. What are

00:00:55.860 the other observances today. What's burning a hole in your calendar to see what you've got to

00:01:01.060 make sure to pay attention to? Well, it is National Cheese Soufflé Day. I know, you already knew that.

00:01:07.180 Nobody forgets that one. It's also the National No Dirty Dishes Day. I don't know where they come

00:01:12.440 up with this stuff, but it gives me some stuff to talk about. Ramble on, let you guys know what's

00:01:17.620 happening while we get more of the viewers popping in there and filling in our scroll as well. Good

00:01:21.560 to see you Claudette and Brad and Joan in New Brunswick. People all over starting to fill a

00:01:26.600 scroll. Lots of news to cover today. I got a couple of interesting guests as always. So I

00:01:30.680 got Lydia Perovic. She's a, well, I shouldn't say young, but it was about my age, I guess,

00:01:37.100 a middle-aged lady who came over from the former Yugoslavia and has been writing and involved in

00:01:43.820 the arts community and things in Canada for quite some years. And she wrote a book recently though

00:01:47.720 called Lost in Canada, An Immigrant's Second Thoughts. She's sort of critical on the vision

00:01:53.320 of what she thought Canada was going to be or what it was supposed to be when she got here.

00:01:57.420 And it's quite a book. I got a copy of it and read it. We'll discuss some of which her conclusions

00:02:01.860 were there on here. Then I've got Calgary City Councillor Dan McLean. And this is an issue. It's,

00:02:08.720 you know, he's a Calgary Councillor, but this is happening everywhere. And that's, of course, crime

00:02:13.000 or as they like to put it with the politically correct, social disorder.

00:02:19.380 But transit in general, urban areas have got some very serious problems going on.

00:02:23.840 And Mr. McLean really stirred everybody up and pissed them off

00:02:26.980 when he dared to go out onto some Calgary transit facilities

00:02:31.400 onto a train on a ride-along and took pictures and posted them on Twitter

00:02:35.080 of a gentleman having an episode, an overdose or a freakout or whatever it might have been.

00:02:40.520 Well, you didn't take the guy's face in the picture or things like that, but it really

00:02:44.540 illustrated a lot on how people, particularly progressives and particularly on these city

00:02:50.700 councils, they just want to bury their heads in the sand.

00:02:53.560 They don't want to discuss these issues.

00:02:55.260 They got upset with him.

00:02:57.280 Oh, they got worked up that he dared even address this.

00:02:59.900 And it's important because people, if you are not riding city transit, if you aren't

00:03:03.300 going downtown in urban centers, you're not realizing how bad it's getting.

00:03:07.440 So I thought it was a great action on Mr. McLean's part to get out there and at least expose it.

00:03:12.360 It's not judging. It's not the risk.

00:03:13.760 It's just saying, this is what I see out there.

00:03:16.120 This is what's going on, and I want people to know it.

00:03:18.740 So he's going to come on today a little later in the show to talk about that.

00:03:22.260 And it'll be a good conversation. It always is.

00:03:25.640 So let's talk about the thing that's been top in the news as I drove in today.

00:03:29.420 And there's going to be a lot to cover as well.

00:03:30.940 I'll get into that a little later with the leadership review for Kenny, the Battle of Alberta.

00:03:35.620 The other top news item was inflation.

00:03:37.340 More numbers are coming out.

00:03:38.560 It's shooting up.

00:03:39.400 It's high.

00:03:40.420 People's standard of living is being pressured.

00:03:42.640 We're having a lot of problems.

00:03:44.960 And they're on the top of the news today.

00:03:46.520 Well, you know what?

00:03:47.200 Get used to it.

00:03:48.380 Because they're going to get a lot worse before they get better.

00:03:50.960 So until enough people realize, and here's where the whole base of it is,

00:03:54.600 is that the government is the problem rather than the solution.

00:03:58.220 So until we realize that, until you start your thought there,

00:04:02.720 we're going to keep sliding down the economic hole.

00:04:05.600 Now, I don't want to travel down the whole rabbit holes of economic theory too far.

00:04:09.880 It's a big, complicated area.

00:04:11.360 But all one really needs to know when it comes to inflation

00:04:13.600 is the simple and inviolate rule of supply and demand.

00:04:18.400 When demand for a product exceeds the supply, the cost of the product rises.

00:04:22.320 It's as simple as that.

00:04:23.660 More people want it, they will bid on it, and the cost of it will go up.

00:04:27.680 If you flood a market with a product, the value of the product will go down.

00:04:31.620 We're seeing that right now with currencies,

00:04:33.000 as governments use their central banking ability to create more money

00:04:35.940 while borrowing to get by while they keep spending.

00:04:39.080 The money creation devalues the currency, thus the inflation.

00:04:42.800 You're flooding it, the dollars aren't worth what they were,

00:04:45.380 you devalue them, and the cost of everything else goes up relative to it.

00:04:49.240 So while borrowing temporarily kicks that can of the consequences down the road,

00:04:52.380 we still always pay for it.

00:04:54.800 On the supply side, the government creates nothing.

00:04:57.220 Never forget that.

00:04:58.380 Government creates nothing.

00:05:00.140 it only takes. It only costs. The government impacts supply through regulation. And this is

00:05:07.620 where we see government interference causing inflation. Energy is the number one area in

00:05:12.100 Canada where there's a problem. I mean, the cost of it going through the roof. And where are we

00:05:16.940 sitting? Well, through shutting down coal generation, pipelines, oil sand expansions,

00:05:21.200 delaying every other project from nuclear to hydroelectric with loads of red tape and

00:05:25.460 regulations, the government has choked off growth in energy supplies. Since we can't live without

00:05:30.920 energy, and since the cost of energy impacts the price of every consumer good we have, inflation,

00:05:36.380 of course, quickly follows as energy gets squeezed, and as we're seeing right now.

00:05:41.120 So when the government intervenes in energy production, we pay more. Demand can't go down.

00:05:45.960 Turning on the lights, or turning off your lights, you know, and wearing a sweater won't cut it. We

00:05:50.120 need energy. Housing, it's another need, and it's becoming less affordable all the time as well.

00:05:55.460 and again the government's the prime culprit and again it's through interference and supply

00:06:00.100 municipal governments have built such onerous regulations around new housing developments

00:06:04.020 it's become impossible for builders and developers to keep up with the supply

00:06:08.420 in calgary for example it takes eight years for a housing development to go from concept

00:06:13.700 to completion and that's assuming it's even approved calgary city councilors were patting

00:06:18.260 themselves on the back and crowing in pride in the fall of 2020 when they rejected applications

00:06:23.060 to develop 11 new communities in the suburbs now they're scratching their heads wondering why houses

00:06:28.100 have become unaffordable food costs as well they're spiking much of that's due to the russia

00:06:33.300 ukraine war but bear in mind it's governments who start wars not individuals government again

00:06:38.980 is at the root of the inflation it's at the root of this rise in your cost of living and putting

00:06:44.500 you under pressure so with energy being a big contributor to the cost of food production though

00:06:50.100 from everything from growing it to transporting produce, that ties in together. Did I mention

00:06:54.340 Canada's government's hindering energy development? Fertilizer, another big factor in food production

00:06:59.220 costs. Canada is looking at raising taxes on fertilizers in order to fight climate change.

00:07:05.940 Yeah. So again, we're going broke. We can't make the bills and our government's working

00:07:10.340 its hardest to make everything more expensive. I mean, there's supply chain interruptions and

00:07:14.260 they've contributed heavily to inflation too, because products are available, they're not

00:07:18.180 available demand gets stunted and the price goes up but let's not forget it was the government that

00:07:23.300 caused those interruptions with everything from vaccine mandates on truckers to outright lockdowns

00:07:28.180 and shutting down businesses the government caused the supply chain disruption that we're still

00:07:32.420 working through today it's a whiplash effect it's going to take years to get out of this and some

00:07:37.460 people may or may not as a separate discussion felt whether or not lockdowns were justified in

00:07:40.980 fighting the pandemic i don't feel they were justified by the way that's fine but let's not

00:07:45.220 forget it was the government and nobody else who imposed those lockdowns government can't run

00:07:50.660 businesses nor can they create products as i said they're just parasites they're horrifically

00:07:55.620 inefficient when they try i mean despite countless world examples of failure we still hear a constant 0.99

00:08:00.980 chorus of fools calling for the government to do such things as get into the housing market or even 0.86

00:08:06.020 nationalize oil ask some people from cuba or venezuela how well that all worked out for them 0.99

00:08:12.580 the government can and does try pouring money through subsidies into areas in order to ease

00:08:17.140 the cost of living as well of course that only increases demand on something while the supply

00:08:21.860 is still missing so it just leads to more inflation and of course tax increases and

00:08:26.100 your cost of living goes up regulation another area another tool of the government such as rent

00:08:32.100 control is always a failure as well all that does is drives private money out of the rental industry

00:08:38.100 and creates a shortage of supply getting back to those basic rules again the government tries to

00:08:42.740 fill the supply directly you know government built houses oh then we get slums then we get

00:08:46.260 scandal then we get scams check out some of the housing projects in the northeastern united states

00:08:50.900 if you've ever been out there to see how well government housing works out it's quite something

00:08:55.140 using more government to fight inflation is the same as pouring gasoline on a fire and attempt to

00:08:59.700 put it out i mean look at the trans mountain pipeline expansion project years of applications

00:09:05.300 billions spent by Kinder Morgan, and that was just to expand a pipeline that already existed

00:09:10.340 and has been operating safely for over 60 years. Like, this all we want to do is put one right next

00:09:14.340 to one that was already there. We're not even breaking new grout. Kinder Morgan finally threw

00:09:19.140 up their hands and told Canada to go to hell. They pulled out. The government bought the line 0.99

00:09:23.620 since then. Costs have gone from $7 billion to over $20 billion, while the construction remains

00:09:28.900 hopelessly delayed. Some people are questioning if it'll ever get done, and I'm one of the people

00:09:32.660 among them. If the government had just gotten out of the bloody way years ago, that line would be

00:09:36.740 in production today. Just think of how well the ability to export an extra 900,000 barrels a day

00:09:43.800 of oil would be serving the economy right now in Canada in light of world oil prices. Instead,

00:09:49.140 we're sitting on the third largest oil deposits on earth and can't effectively get it out to market.

00:09:53.860 That's 100% due to the government, guys. Keystone XL, it was killed altogether. Biden, now he's

00:09:59.660 groveling and begging Middle Eastern oil producers to increase production on the USA's behalf while

00:10:05.580 he shunned and shut down a line capable of carrying 800,000 barrels a day from Canada

00:10:09.520 into his country. Most of that line was built. The money was put in. It would be near production,

00:10:14.360 if not in production, if it hadn't been for years of interference from Obama and later Biden.

00:10:19.740 This is why the cost of everything's going up, people. It's government every time. There's no

00:10:25.380 quick solution to the rising cost of living, but the longer term solution is simple. We need less

00:10:29.640 government. Get government out of the damn way. Cut regulations, open markets, and let creative 1.00

00:10:35.800 people fill the voids. Until though we're willing to face that reality, we're not going anywhere.

00:10:41.120 Quit looking to the government to solve your problems. Government is the problem. That's the

00:10:46.980 note I want to start today on. All right, well, let's check in on the news and see what else the

00:10:51.240 government's doing around the world with our news editor, Dave Naylor. Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:10:54.960 It's going good, Corey. How are you? Very good, very good. Just, you know, getting crabby when

00:10:59.100 I look at the cost of everything I got to try and pay the bills with. I mean, I know we're

00:11:02.500 exceedingly well paid here at the standard, but still, you know, some things start getting a

00:11:06.200 little tight sometimes. Yeah. Inflation is not a worry for us. High paid newspaper executives

00:11:10.580 or media executives, I guess. We're not a newspaper anymore. Anyways, Corey, I've got a

00:11:15.820 plea to the UCP, right? The government, UCP party and the government are two different things.

00:11:23.500 obviously. The UCP government has never been able to hold a press conference on time in their entire

00:11:30.120 existence of running Alberta. So I make a plea today to the UCP. You've promised the results of

00:11:36.740 the Kenny Leadership Review between four o'clock and six o'clock. If you miss that deadline, you

00:11:42.560 will have an entire province pissed off at you because you're keeping them from the hockey game.

00:11:49.020 Right?

00:11:49.480 So I'm guessing if it's going to be positive for the Premier,

00:11:53.580 it'll come out early so everybody can get to the bars in the game.

00:11:57.520 If it's negative for the Premier, they'll miss that 6 o'clock deadline

00:12:01.120 and they'll hope that they'll lose all their viewership to go watch hockey.

00:12:06.480 Right?

00:12:06.900 But at least we'll still be working, Corey.

00:12:08.800 We'll be putting it out.

00:12:10.980 So that's my plea to the UCP.

00:12:13.220 For God's sake, get it out as soon as you can tonight.

00:12:16.340 Well, that's it.

00:12:16.760 You know, the idea of putting it off in hopes that people will forget about it and not pay attention.

00:12:21.780 Remember, this is the Battle of Alberta.

00:12:24.000 On this first game, no matter what happens, half of Alberta is going to be in a bad mood tomorrow morning.

00:12:29.000 So, I mean, you're not going to ease any feelings.

00:12:30.920 They're just going to be crabby and waiting.

00:12:32.500 So, you know, pull that Band-Aid off and get it done.

00:12:35.160 I agree. I agree. Sooner the better.

00:12:37.120 Speaking of which, our Rachel Emanuel has got an exclusive with the Premier at the moment.

00:12:42.540 She's talked to him just hours before the votes released, admits that he's going to have two speeches ready to go tonight,

00:12:52.420 one for winning and one for losing, but he is confident that he'll win.

00:12:58.080 So keep an eye out and have a read of that from Rachel, a good exclusive there.

00:13:04.320 We've got the MPs on the Heritage Committee have voted to ask the government to kill the proposed merger

00:13:11.160 of Rogers and Shaw, they say it's no good for Canadians. So that's interesting, a $26 billion

00:13:18.880 merger that still needs government approval. We've got a story on the feds seeing the dead,

00:13:25.200 more than $2.2 million has been given out to dead people in the last year. So maybe that's what you

00:13:32.420 and I can do, Corey, we can fake our own deaths and try and get some money that way to help us

00:13:37.880 deal with inflation. Our mill residents got a story on trained sniffer dogs could soon be used

00:13:43.760 to smell out COVID patients before they fly. You know, you've got the bomb detecting dogs and

00:13:50.380 the drug detecting dogs. Now you could have the COVID detecting dogs at an airport near you.

00:13:57.180 On the website, if you missed it this morning, we've got the Rachel, not Rachel, the Daniel

00:14:02.900 Smith show. Excuse me. That's up there for your listening pleasure. The Ontario NDP has unveiled

00:14:10.000 their pharma care plan if they ever get elected. And of course, it doesn't look like there's any

00:14:15.020 chance of that, according to the polls. And your own producer, Nico, has written an opinion column

00:14:20.600 on the film and art sector in Alberta, getting lots of government money spent in there. And

00:14:28.740 And Nico's very bullish about the art sector, lights, camera, action, you know, away we go.

00:14:37.260 So good for Nico on that.

00:14:39.760 I'm sure he's rigging the system to make it the most red thing of the day, and good for him.

00:14:45.700 Coming up, the city's just announced what's going to be happening on the Red Mile tonight.

00:14:50.640 Everything from the Stampede show ban to all sorts of fun and games.

00:14:55.880 So our male resident is working on that story as, uh, as we speak.

00:15:00.200 And, uh, yeah, right now, uh, Hey, UCP, if you need any, need any help

00:15:04.260 counting those ballots, uh, you know, I'll volunteer for a few hours.

00:15:08.640 Right on.

00:15:09.440 Yeah.

00:15:09.760 The sooner, the better we're in for a long, long day, but, uh, oh, well,

00:15:13.860 if we wanted normal jobs, we go apply at seven 11, I guess.

00:15:16.940 That's right.

00:15:17.420 Do, uh, do you have a full lunch today after the show? 1.00

00:15:21.480 I've learned to keep it out of reach of that damn dog. 0.99

00:15:23.740 So I got both sandwiches today. 1.00

00:15:25.440 duke the wonder dog stole your lunch yesterday but cory you can't blame duke right if you're 0.99

00:15:30.620 silly enough to leave it out where this young dog can get it it's your fault man it's your fault 0.98

00:15:36.080 it's not duke's fault if you can see the counters i've got with that giant long beast and how far 0.96

00:15:41.460 he got back to get that sandwich i mean okay if he does it to me again it's my fault but i nobody's

00:15:46.660 seen would have thought a dog could get where he got isn't this isn't the first sandwich he's taken

00:15:51.060 though, Corey. No, no, it's not. So it's your fault, man. Just a minute. Man up. Yes, it is.

00:15:57.380 Oh, well, he's happy for it. He needs his treats. There you go. Right on. Thanks, Dave. I'll talk

00:16:03.080 to you a little later. Take care. Right on. That's our news editor, Dave Naylor. Lots on the go,

00:16:09.020 as we said. And yeah, Joan saying, yeah, COVID detecting dogs for a flu. Well, as Dave pointed

00:16:16.440 out, I got a dog that's sandwich detecting and he has a propensity for stealing my lunches. So

00:16:20.700 you wonder part of why I get crabby on this show at times. It's hangriness because the dogs are

00:16:25.240 stealing my food. Though I do have excess meat on me, I can get by. It's probably not put too much

00:16:30.820 harm. So all of those news stories, all of those columns, all that opinion stuff, it's all thanks

00:16:36.700 to you guys because you've been taking out subscriptions and you've been members. So

00:16:40.380 this is where I remind everybody, you know, get on there, check it out, westernstandard.news.

00:16:45.000 that's that new website, not that great big long URL anymore, slash membership. And look at all

00:16:50.840 those different deals you can do there. You create an account for free, get that unlimited digital

00:16:55.300 access. I mean, there's a number of incentives and deals. If you use the coupon code TRIGGERED,

00:16:59.520 you get 10 bucks off. It's, you know, over the course of a year, $99 for a year.

00:17:05.360 Less than $10 a month, you get full access to our columnists, our news copy, all of that sort of

00:17:10.160 thing. And again, it helps support us so we can keep bringing you independent news without being

00:17:15.580 told what to say, what to do, or any of that by the government. And I'll move on as well to our

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00:18:31.520 before we get to our guest spot again just that reminder guys tonight yes we've got a lot of

00:18:37.080 specials going on the coverage will start at 3 45 we're going to be going on live and as dave said

00:18:43.840 so what the ucp has told us is we're going to get the results of the review sometime between

00:18:48.140 four o'clock and six o'clock and as dave said nine times out of ten premier kenny is always

00:18:53.360 late with things but hopefully today will be the exception but tune in we've got a whole bunch of

00:18:58.260 guests we will be discussing for a long time prior to the release of the results, of course, and

00:19:03.620 after the release. So, I mean, the better part will be afterwards because we'll know what we're

00:19:08.200 talking about. For the first part, we'll be bloviating at length, you know, the usual wind

00:19:12.260 bags that we are, but all the same, we can lay things out. And as I said, there's a number of

00:19:17.580 guests to cover things and talk about because it's an unprecedented event in Alberta. I mean,

00:19:21.900 when have we had such an odd leadership review a year before a general election like this?

00:19:28.260 can't help but be interesting, at least for political weenies like us. Plus, with the Flames

00:19:31.400 and Oilers playing tonight, we will want to get that all out of the way before the game starts,

00:19:35.680 but we'll see. It is out of our hands. One thing that is in our hands, though, is bringing our

00:19:39.840 guests in, and I've been looking forward to this. So this, as I said, this is Canadian author Lydia

00:19:44.560 Perovic. I hope I'm not ruining her name. She recently wrote Lost in Canada, An Immigrant's

00:19:50.240 Second Thoughts, and I read the copy just recently, and it's an interesting read. So let's bring

00:19:55.520 lead you in and uh have a conversation hey how are you doing out there hello not too badly

00:20:02.340 great well i appreciate you coming on to talk about this it's uh uh it was an interesting book

00:20:08.900 something different i mean i i read a lot of you know of course just do the nature of the show

00:20:12.520 political things or fantasy novels but this was a different and and it was um i i guess it was

00:20:19.060 very personal uh a book on your part very first person relating a lot of your um experiences as

00:20:25.120 as an immigrant to Canada. I believe it was in 1999. And I guess your vision of what you thought

00:20:31.100 Canada would be has sort of changed over the years, or perhaps Canada has changed over the years. Can

00:20:35.160 you kind of expand a bit on that? Yes, I'm finding out that Canadians are losing interest in their

00:20:41.420 own country. And I'll explain what I mean. There's no thinking about the future. I think we've become

00:20:47.840 very inward looking. And we've become obsessed with the past. We are not entirely sure we are

00:20:54.380 one country and one nation. As I mentioned in the book, I use the Ernest Renan definition of the

00:21:01.540 nation as this great solidarity of all of us in the past, people who will live in the future and

00:21:08.020 ourselves across all our differences. And our differences have become so acute and some argue

00:21:15.480 irreconcilable. And this is new for me. I grew up in the Balkans and I know about balkanization.

00:21:22.920 I know what happens when differences become sub-fundamental, essential, non-negotiable.

00:21:29.940 I know what happens when people say we are not a we.

00:21:33.060 We are all these different kind of groups that cannot see eye to eye.

00:21:37.560 And I know that there have been historical injustices.

00:21:41.000 That's in every nation, in every region of the world.

00:21:44.360 But the idea is, can we have a conversation and then perhaps look to the future and find a way to become a we again?

00:21:52.260 So that's been preoccupying me lately.

00:21:55.500 Yeah, well, and the perspective you bring is fantastic for that.

00:21:58.300 As you said, I mean, the whole term balkanization came from where you came out of, you know, you refer to it as Montenegro.

00:22:04.680 It was all considered the one whole area of Yugoslavia at one time.

00:22:08.860 It shattered with what people, what we thought in the West actually was we thought it was a relatively unified area.

00:22:15.100 But we didn't understand the subtleties and differences and things that were going on.

00:22:18.540 and when they become too acute, the breakup can end up violent in the worst sort of ways between

00:22:24.220 people who are compatriots not too long before that. Yes, and the dangerous thing is when you

00:22:30.220 start questioning the laws and start deciding, oh, for this kind of event, people like us

00:22:38.620 are not going to obey the law, and that's going to last, let's say, for three weeks,

00:22:43.420 or for this kind of historical injustice we'd have to be breaking the law

00:22:49.020 somewhere in this particular region so that these issues could be redressed and there's more and

00:22:53.900 more of that now of course we've we've we've imported a lot of the american culture war stuff

00:23:00.060 and for the last couple of years and longer a lot of people in the u.s have been questioning

00:23:05.260 that they are one polity that a lot of a lot of groups have been saying no we don't this is not

00:23:10.940 our country this is these are not our laws both on on both sides of the spectrum both left a lot

00:23:16.300 on the left and and a lot on the right as well so uh that's that's a very strange strange point to

00:23:23.500 find yourself in when you're questioning you're questioning the laws you're like we're all live

00:23:29.420 now in some unseated territories we're all permanently reconciling in the u.s there's a

00:23:35.740 there's a similar argument that you should be redressing and repaying the debts to the formerly

00:23:45.100 enslaved population. So it's conversations that are ripping apart to the point of almost

00:23:52.700 no reconciliation. So it's getting a bit strange. Maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe

00:23:58.220 because I did grow up in the Balkans, I get a little too sensitive when it comes to these things.

00:24:03.260 Well, I mean, the trend, and it has definitely changed. I mean, recognizing that we have a history, recognizing that things were done wrong and done incorrectly is fine. But as you put it, it's become obsessive. And one of the things you called out that is a risky territory to even question or talk about, but a lot of people, you got a bit, they quietly talk about it. They say, boy, these land acknowledgements. I mean, everywhere I go, I've got to constantly sort of bow my head in shame over what happened here a hundred years ago.

00:24:31.840 So, and it divides us.

00:24:34.480 It doesn't bring us together.

00:24:35.960 I mean, the goal should be unity and understanding.

00:24:38.900 But in reality, it's making people feel guilty about their own self-worth.

00:24:42.740 It's dividing unity across the country.

00:24:45.140 And I don't think it's reconciling the people who really were harmed with the past injustices.

00:24:49.980 Absolutely.

00:24:50.540 It doesn't improve a single Indigenous life, actually. 1.00

00:24:52.920 It's a grand gesture. 0.97

00:24:54.680 Oh, I can't tell you.

00:24:55.540 I don't know the situation in Alberta, but, oh, my God, all the arts events and culture events here start with elaborate.

00:25:01.840 land acknowledgments. And it's really bizarre. No, it doesn't help actual Indigenous people.

00:25:09.600 It doesn't change anything. Rather than, I mean, we can talk about the percent, the over-representation 0.97

00:25:16.360 of Indigenous people and imprisoned population in crime and femicide. And that's a pretty 0.99

00:25:23.600 serious topic that we can discuss. We can discuss, I don't know, we can do specific

00:25:27.640 things like supply of clean water to reserves uh things like that um economic success but land

00:25:35.800 acknowledgments like they're like saying grace they're like saying grace before an event and

00:25:42.920 it's kind of telling to immigrants like the people like us who've come here for all kind of all parts

00:25:48.600 of the world it's kind of saying to them you are inheriting this sin and so i'm not sure that we

00:25:56.840 inherits sins. I'm not sure. And who's reconciling? Which blob? Which blob? I think reconciliation

00:26:03.240 is something you do on a personal level. I had an interesting conversation with somebody from

00:26:08.040 South Africa recently who told me the reconciliation there was meant to be a time-limited process.

00:26:15.400 It took place and the point was for the country to feel better about itself so it can start looking

00:26:22.760 to the future again whereas i feel here i don't know the reconciliation it's it's it's a bit of a

00:26:31.400 vague thing that we all have to now start doing somehow yeah i mean i i don't know as you said

00:26:39.000 it's a personal thing the only people who could really reconcile would be the the aggressors

00:26:43.160 and the victims of times gone by but you know as you said you're kind of referencing that sins of

00:26:47.800 of the father or sins of the past sort of attitude,

00:26:51.220 which is a non-productive way to look at things.

00:26:54.160 You know, we don't want to repeat any bad histories,

00:26:57.960 but it's just good to see a different perspective

00:27:00.300 from somebody coming from outside.

00:27:01.560 Cause we get raised into this all the way,

00:27:03.160 you know, I think we're of similar age,

00:27:04.940 but we see more of a slower progression on what's happening

00:27:07.660 and you're getting a better perspective

00:27:09.740 of what's being done.

00:27:10.640 And these acknowledgements, while again,

00:27:12.840 I think well-meaning all the time,

00:27:14.780 they just, even on radio stations,

00:27:17.140 I see them take breaks between songs sometimes

00:27:18.920 and they'll spend two minutes to acknowledge

00:27:20.360 everybody who was here before me.

00:27:22.140 Well, what purpose does this serve?

00:27:24.100 It is very odd.

00:27:25.740 It's very odd.

00:27:26.480 And again, it undermines the idea that we are one country.

00:27:29.720 We actually have a lot of problems in common.

00:27:31.800 As I mentioned in the book,

00:27:33.340 and the Quillette excerpted second chapter, I believe,

00:27:37.080 which is about land acknowledgement.

00:27:38.920 We have so much in common.

00:27:40.620 We share so many problems.

00:27:41.980 We have enough problems in common

00:27:43.680 that we really don't have to insist that there are certain problems in which we are irreconcilable.

00:27:50.880 So I believe we do, as a humanity, we have much more in common than we want to believe.

00:27:55.960 But somehow, I don't know, I guess some people profit from this insistence on irreconcilable differences.

00:28:03.500 Yeah, I quote that article, actually, because it's good for people if they want to see what the book's about and get an excerpt.

00:28:09.180 It's called Canada's Racial Balkanization.

00:28:11.560 So you can get a taste of what's in the book and see, because there's much, much more in it.

00:28:16.660 And that's part of the subject.

00:28:17.760 So that's one of the most divisive areas.

00:28:19.440 And as I said, what you wrote was very personal.

00:28:22.080 And you talked about, I guess, as being a young person, you left your family, you came here, established yourself.

00:28:28.120 And now you're starting to, my interpretation is this question whether you're settled, whether you have an identity here.

00:28:35.840 You know, your mother passed away.

00:28:37.340 You write at length about that, but you haven't quite bonded necessarily within Canada and feeling comfortable here.

00:28:44.300 And that's supposed to be what our whole intent is, as a nation drawing people in, is to have people come in and make a home and feel happy with their decision.

00:28:52.120 And unfortunately, you're sort of second thinking here.

00:28:54.880 Yes.

00:28:56.500 Thank you for reading all those parts, the personal parts as well.

00:29:00.160 I read the whole thing.

00:29:01.560 Thank you.

00:29:02.000 um well especially it's probably different in small towns but especially in large towns in

00:29:09.760 canada and north america i think we tend to hunker down within our within our own ethnic group if

00:29:16.600 you're a member of a big large ethnic group and that's kind of makes sense because that's the easy

00:29:21.920 way into the country you have your own schools you have your own social events you have your own

00:29:25.620 churches but it's not ideal for people who come on their own without a large family or like like 0.73

00:29:34.740 i did so i was i was a total immigration jock jock i i was like 25 and i thought well i can just up

00:29:41.460 and leave on my own i don't have to know anybody i mean that was the promise of north america and

00:29:45.940 canada right you can come in and start from scratch and recreate your life and reinvent yourself

00:29:51.860 doesn't matter what ethnicity you are it doesn't matter if you're not wealthy i know that immigration

00:29:58.260 systems especially when it comes to highly qualified immigrants favor well-off immigrants

00:30:02.980 because you have to have a bit of money but even even with that people like me who are never have

00:30:08.100 never been a high income or even stable middle income have come and managed to survive and now

00:30:14.340 i'm on my third book and not not a lot of people not a lot of countries have this kind of thing

00:30:19.940 happening where anybody from anywhere can come and settle and thrive in many ways then of course

00:30:28.420 when you come to middle age if you if you haven't brought your family over like my family had no 1.00

00:30:33.660 interest in coming over there all there were older people and they don't speak english and

00:30:37.640 it just wasn't something they were thinking about um when you come to middle age you kind of wonder

00:30:43.140 as we all are, did I do all the right choices? Was there a way that I could have stayed

00:30:49.560 more closely connected with my family? I mean, when you're young, it's all about freedom,

00:30:55.500 right? You just want to leave. And then later when your parents age and die, then you realize,

00:31:00.700 ah, perhaps I should have spent more time with them.

00:31:05.420 Yeah. Well, that was that personal aspect. When you've left a lot behind and then you

00:31:09.840 re-evaluate boy there were a lot of years when when mom was on the other side of the ocean and

00:31:13.560 and i could have spent that time there and but i mean it's natural for people to rethink uh but

00:31:18.580 if we have a lot of people who are have immigrated and spent decades here like that and still don't

00:31:22.420 feel settled or not sure if their decision then we've got to rework our experience for people who

00:31:27.180 are coming here because you know people should by then be saying this is where home is i i made the

00:31:31.700 right choice and and you know evaluate the smaller life decisions rather than that at this point

00:31:35.800 i agree i wonder if having a more nationalistic or more cohesive culture would have helped like

00:31:44.820 americans when you have an immigrant coming over and the french as well and various other countries

00:31:49.560 they have all kinds of narratives ready for you this is about the country this is the history

00:31:54.100 after this is the movies this as you as you've seen in the book i have my list of works of art

00:31:59.500 and novels and all that that helped me understand canada better so something like that would be

00:32:04.380 fabulous but in canada when you come in you really have to look for it because there's so

00:32:08.540 much american culture and there's no i mean there's no indoctrination chance for for us who come

00:32:15.500 in our 20s and 30s uh but i think i think because americans are so globally present

00:32:21.580 they're more easily integrate uh people into their culture so yes maybe maybe this is my plea for a

00:32:27.980 a bit more cultural pride,

00:32:31.600 but in the Canadian way, not obnoxious.

00:32:33.840 We don't do obnoxious pride, yes.

00:32:36.080 Yeah, you don't wanna see jingoism or nationalism

00:32:39.100 or some of the destructive types

00:32:41.480 of people gathering together.

00:32:43.520 Just trying to accept a bit more though of some unity.

00:32:47.680 I mean, unifying isn't necessarily a bad thing,

00:32:49.800 but people fear a melting pot or things such as that,

00:32:53.140 and then they shy away at times.

00:32:55.020 But I'll pivot a little more,

00:32:56.460 some of the stuff you covered, and it's interesting to me as well. So you made a living,

00:33:01.280 you bounced around quite a bit, as you said, with a lot of writing and a lot of involvement in the

00:33:06.180 arts, whether from volunteering or to being employed in different spots. But some of the

00:33:11.440 fate of changing media. So this is quite a bit different from what you started with, but you

00:33:14.520 wrote on it because it is something we're interested in as an alternative media outlet.

00:33:18.640 You know, we cover particularly news and politics, but the arts, with new media not making money like

00:33:24.440 it used to they can't dedicate to have somebody write things as you do like with an opera review

00:33:28.740 or uh you know local galleries or arts writing uh how do you think is media going to adjust and

00:33:35.880 adapt so those sectors can still be represented and get out there or or how do you address that

00:33:41.140 crisis i so hope i so hope this is going to adjust because the only daily paper in canada that's

00:33:47.580 still covering arts to a certain degree not significant degree but there is something

00:33:52.760 happening is the globe everybody else has given up um i think the post has a film critic the star

00:34:00.680 doesn't have anything they they just take from wire and this is what i'm this is one illustration

00:34:07.560 of how we're not really interested in our own culture we really should have conversations

00:34:11.880 about what's going on i mean we we produce some incredible stuff incredible stuff internationally

00:34:17.880 recognized we train some of the best opera singers in the world we have incredible choreographers

00:34:23.880 robert lepage's world world renowned quebec cinema world renowned uh and a lot of people don't know

00:34:31.560 about that and especially now they won't know about it because the media is are not covering

00:34:37.320 so i do hope this changes i mean globe the globe is bra is bragging they have 200 000 subscribers

00:34:43.320 well then they can afford to hire some more arts writers and and critics i mean you look at you

00:34:49.000 look at the bb look at the british media for example they've increased arts coverage over the

00:34:54.120 last however years 10 years since the internet has been rumbling the journalism uh not to mention

00:35:01.320 france i mean the new york times is covering the arts all around the globe they want to be the hub

00:35:07.000 of arts coverage among other kind of coverage for arts in many countries in and there have been

00:35:13.400 years when the new york new york new york times has covered more opera in canada than our canadian

00:35:18.840 paper so some absurd things i think it's something we should really i mean i don't know who decides

00:35:24.520 this i guess the media honchos the the owners of the company the the upstairs people in the media

00:35:30.920 what and what to say about the cbc i mean compare the cbc compare the cbc with the bbc for example

00:35:39.240 and i know i know the money is much lower in the cbc but it's not all about the money it's

00:35:44.440 a lot about the programming it's a lot about what managers decide to show and and there's a lot of

00:35:50.760 american culture on c on the cbc right now and there's no need why are you chasing clicks you

00:35:56.920 are cbs you don't need the clicks but it's there's all these weird things that i i only i only managed

00:36:02.600 to address a fraction in that little chapter well it's just an interesting evolution and we're

00:36:07.880 seeing things go by the wayside like it's changing we can't turn back the clock there's not money in

00:36:12.440 in newspapers like there used to be you don't have a whole bunch of classified ads and obituaries to

00:36:16.120 pay the bills so you could keep a a writer on arts or even sports just having the same challenge as

00:36:21.480 well niche areas uh i i like to think human creativity if we leave it alone we'll come up

00:36:26.600 with things you know maybe arts coverage could be syndicated and somebody could get it out into a

00:36:31.080 number of publications like we couldn't afford to keep an arts writer but if there was a number of

00:36:35.080 publications that would share on syndicated pieces perhaps that coverage could still get out there

00:36:39.880 and and in an affordable manner for the writer but we aren't there yet yes yes and then local stuff

00:36:45.480 i mean you would have let's say you have in the post media you have a book review or a film review

00:36:51.080 that'll appear in all the journals around the edmonton journal and this journal and this and

00:36:55.720 that and it's just that one person in toronto for example so if again that's another another

00:37:02.360 issue is becoming centralized so there'll be only coverage for really the biggest players like the

00:37:07.400 coc or the toronto film festival and there's maybe a handful of other companies that suck up all the

00:37:13.080 all the uh arts coverage and the rest but it's all this uh smaller to medium ecosystem that's

00:37:20.040 kind of r d sector of arts where you get small projects really enthusiastic people doing

00:37:25.640 interesting things uh with not million dollar budgets this is this is where the big things

00:37:31.240 start that's that's that's really r d of of the arts sector yeah well and then just you know kind

00:37:36.840 of pivoting back to where you were talking about if you're talking about national identity or unity

00:37:41.400 nothing stands out more than the artistic creations of an area as their local culture and things that

00:37:46.520 are coming up and it changes over time it changes with different contributors or different

00:37:51.240 environments but uh you know we don't want to lose these things there's more importance to the arts

00:37:56.280 than some people recognize sometimes absolutely absolutely and the kids growing up when there's

00:38:01.880 lots of coverage in the media it's it it becomes obvious it's a viable way of life it's a viable

00:38:07.960 profession you can live your compatriots are interested in what you're doing as an artist

00:38:12.920 i mean i think we can learn a lot from quebec who have a different clearly have a different

00:38:18.280 attitude to their own culture and for example in the last two years when the performing arts

00:38:22.760 completely shut down with some minor breaks in ontario uh quebec theater scene insisted

00:38:28.760 that they go on and they fought and fought and fought they want to be seen as a serious essential

00:38:34.520 sector and they whereas in ontario we had film industry interestingly a lobbying somebody

00:38:40.600 successful in the forward government and getting the designation of an essential industry so they

00:38:45.800 continued working through the pandemic the film industry and the performing arts no we weren't

00:38:51.240 even they weren't even allowed to rehearse no i i understand i have a daughter is in theater with

00:38:56.200 her post-secondary and the pandemic of course of the worst possible time i mean there's some stuff

00:39:00.280 you can learn through youtube lectures uh theater is not one of them you need that interaction you

00:39:06.440 need that stage time you need all of those things absolutely um and developing our local talent

00:39:11.720 well yeah i appreciate you coming on to talk about these there's lots more things packed into that

00:39:15.640 book and i just like to remind everybody there's a paper copy and i believe you have an online

00:39:19.480 version as well out there uh speaking of the arts i mean we're supporting our local authors you know

00:39:24.440 old i i'm still old-fashioned i love books i love getting them on the shelf i love reading in bed

00:39:30.040 not from a pad but from a paper coffee but it's falling by the wayside we're getting all of our

00:39:35.560 information little bites right now and and on twitter and and little things so i appreciate

00:39:40.760 people getting out there and writing and and uh it's not an easy route to uh to making money or

00:39:46.040 getting a message out but it's it's still uh happening so it's it's wonderful that you're

00:39:50.200 taking interest in books that's just wonderful great well thank you for coming on to talk about

00:39:54.520 that today and your experiences and and for putting it into a book where can people find

00:39:57.640 more information about yourself and and uh this book and past books that you've written

00:40:01.480 uh just uh google my name and uh things will pop up i as of recently i have a wikipedia page as

00:40:07.660 well which was uh which was great news so that's things will pop up just just put my uh name in

00:40:13.480 the search engine great and i'll just kind of spell that out then because some people uh listen

00:40:17.260 just to the audio sometimes on the podcast version so it's lydia perovic l-y-d-i-a-p-e-r-o-v-i-c

00:40:25.220 and great well thank you very much and i hope the book sells well and uh you we can find a way to

00:40:31.960 make yourself and others feeling more comfortable with settling out here in this country oh thank

00:40:36.540 you so much i am one of i am one of us yes of course thank you bye-bye

00:40:42.420 so yes guys that was lydia perovic as i said with the recent book and it's a bit different you know

00:40:49.760 and a bit different than the types i type to tend to read so it was refreshing and you read things

00:40:54.460 like that, it helps you look at things a little differently, think of things. That's what I like

00:40:58.380 first person writing, you know, listening to somebody else who's had a different experience,

00:41:02.100 a different perspective. I mean, I was born, raised Alberta, never had to move in my adult

00:41:07.300 life more than 100 kilometers from where I lived. You know, I didn't have to experience those

00:41:12.320 things. I was fortunate here as it is. And you can't get a broad view. I mean, I traveled a lot

00:41:18.580 and I was fortunate for that. And that's helped me a lot over the years. But immigration and things

00:41:23.900 I've never had to do. And it's important. A tremendous amount of our Canadians are,

00:41:27.620 you know, came from somewhere else. And of course, their parents did and things like that. We've got

00:41:31.720 serious problems. What I was interested in as well, as I said, with Lydia, she's not, you know, 0.75

00:41:36.620 of our usual hard right wingers out here. This is a person who's taking part in the arts community

00:41:41.920 and things like that. But she's starting to question and some of those questions need to

00:41:46.420 be asked some of the orthodoxy it's almost become with things like land acknowledgements, you know,

00:41:51.300 this, as she said, it was almost like an opening prayer or something to start off events or

00:41:57.200 anything going. It's not good for us. It's not healthy. I mean, we're dividing ourselves with

00:42:03.640 every action we do. We're constantly, you know, identity politics. It's a term we didn't go into,

00:42:08.380 but that's what it's all about. And we're always breaking each other up. We can retain cultural

00:42:14.740 history without having to split away from each other all over the place. It seems to be that,

00:42:23.140 you know, this and that. We're doing the opposite of what it used to be. I remember a while back,

00:42:28.340 and that was some years ago, that there was a big celebration because there was a charter school or

00:42:32.940 something of the sort that opened in Toronto, and it was all black. It was black for black students 0.91

00:42:40.740 only. Well, finally, I understand that the black community is, you know, a lot of challenges and

00:42:46.500 integration and different cultural needs and things. But, well, this is the opposite of what 1.00

00:42:52.820 American black people had to fight for for decades. This is when the water cannons were

00:42:57.660 hitting them on the streets. This is what Martin Luther King was fighting for, was the ability to

00:43:02.820 go in and have everybody being educated together and socialized together and work together.

00:43:08.180 And now we're celebrating separating each other again. I can't help but think he was rolling over in his grave, Martin Luther King, at the thought that we've come full circle and we're actually trying to break up schools by race again. It's not good for us. It's not healthy. But anybody who calls it out, ironically, gets sidelined as being racist or intolerant. Well, hang on, we can do both.

00:43:35.800 And I don't like when, you know, speaking of before,

00:43:38.080 when I'm talking about the government getting involved in the economy, for example,

00:43:40.500 I mean, it never ends well.

00:43:41.980 Government is not good at doing very many things.

00:43:44.380 And when they get involved in our lives and get involved in our culture

00:43:46.980 and get involved in our heritage,

00:43:48.200 they don't do much better there than anywhere else either.

00:43:51.220 So I get worried when you see such efforts for cultural preservation,

00:43:56.100 when if you leave communities alone, they can do a very good job.

00:43:58.620 Just leave them be. 1.00

00:44:00.660 The Chinese are a fantastic example. 1.00

00:44:02.540 Look at the horrific abuse they had to endure in the early days of Canada when they were brought in as Chinese immigrants were brought in as cheap labor.

00:44:11.300 They were put into horrific conditions when the railroads were done and we didn't find need for them, that some were packed back onto boats and shipped back across the ocean.

00:44:20.020 It was horrible. Or later on with the Japanese, they were interred, you know, in camps because of World War Two and they had their property stolen.

00:44:28.400 they were stuck out in strange areas, but they endured and they maintained their culture. Go to

00:44:35.180 a Chinatown. And it's great. I mean, you get a little snapshot and there's Chinatowns all over

00:44:40.660 North America. Every large city will have one. And you get a little taste of China. A lot of people

00:44:47.600 there practicing local cultures and traditions, things like that, practices, foods, you name it,

00:44:54.280 arts. It didn't need government help to do that. Unfortunately, I, I, this isn't the way I'd want

00:44:59.180 to go. I think part of the reason that happened as well is because they had to deal with so much

00:45:02.840 government abuse. So they naturally gathered together and that would lead to maintaining

00:45:06.780 more culture. But what I'm saying is that we're not sacrificing everything. You can do both.

00:45:12.640 You can take full part in North American culture and activities and arts and interact with everybody

00:45:18.260 else and still value and enjoy your heritage on your parental side, whatever that might be,

00:45:24.700 you know, whatever past countries, practices, dances, clothing, I mean, all those things,

00:45:29.140 it never ends. And it's fantastic. It's great. I mean, I love seeing even if it's second or

00:45:34.140 third generation people celebrating their heritage, you know, seeing kids out at a

00:45:39.460 Ukrainian event doing their dancing or Irish or the Chinese festivals or Indian. I mean,

00:45:46.080 I remember living in Northeast Calgary when I was younger. Some of the cultural practices with

00:45:51.240 kids, again, born in Canada and everything, but they're still taking part in those events and

00:45:55.520 those foods and all those great things. Just leave the government out. We'll take the good

00:46:00.900 parts from every culture and we'll learn to get rid of the other ones because once government gets 1.00

00:46:04.780 in, chances are we aren't going to be getting a better outcome. Okay. Let me talk about another 0.99

00:46:11.400 thing with government getting into your face and that's your firearms. And I got to talk about one

00:46:14.460 of our sponsors, and that's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. These guys, again, have a

00:46:20.760 sponsor for us for a long time. You know, they've been warning everybody. Everybody's been warning

00:46:24.760 everybody. The government is coming for your firearms, guys. They always are. They've started

00:46:28.720 a backdoor registry. They want to know where your long guns are because their intention later is to

00:46:35.000 take them away from you. They want to steal your property, and I'll call it stealing. I call it

00:46:40.020 that every time. If they're taking it away from you without your permission, even if they compensate

00:46:44.260 state you for it. It's still theft. Now, so the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, they lobby,

00:46:49.780 they stand out, they report on those sorts of news and put it out there so that you as a firearm

00:46:56.120 owner can see what's happening. And they stand up for you, as I said, protecting against these

00:46:59.900 incursions. And also like any other association, they have all sorts of other resources for you

00:47:04.660 there, whether it's, as you can see, Ladies' Day at the shooting range or trap shooting or target

00:47:09.540 shooting, any of those things. It's an association to share those resources with you. But again,

00:47:14.260 like everything else, they're not get tax funded. This is something where you've got to help

00:47:19.180 yourself. You got to help them stand up for you. Just like with us with independent media,

00:47:23.300 you got to go there, take out a membership so they can keep helping you as a firearm owner,

00:47:28.560 even a prospective firearm owner. So check them out. Canadian Shooting Sports Association,

00:47:34.880 cssa-cila.org. All right. Well, let's talk about a few other things while we go. So Mr. McLean,

00:47:42.360 like I said, I'm looking forward to talking to him. He's been on the show before. I should say

00:47:45.920 Councillor McLean. But he's going to be on a little later because he's busy with City Hall

00:47:50.500 business. So you're stuck with just you and me for a little while. How about a few things? Let's

00:47:54.420 talk about the big news that's going to be happening today. And that is the, as I said,

00:47:59.160 we're going to be doing a special at 345 and running kind of as long as we have to live with

00:48:03.180 a panel and a number of guests. But let's see some predictions in the comment scrolls, guys.

00:48:07.620 Jason Kenney's got his leadership review going on right now. People voted by mail. They changed

00:48:11.880 the rules partway through. There's a lot of discontent going on in the party. I'd heard

00:48:17.200 different numbers, but it sounds like of the 60,000 eligible to vote, there was perhaps 30,000,

00:48:21.300 35,000 came in. What do you think the outcome is going to be? Where do you think the numbers are,

00:48:26.660 guys? Like, is he going to win by a landslide and come in with a strong mandate of 80, 85% and

00:48:32.100 move ahead into the next election, you know, and then whip people in his line? Will he win in a

00:48:36.340 squeaker with 52% or is he going to lose with, you know, 49.9 or, or 45%. What are we going to be

00:48:45.080 looking forward to? Jamie Dickey saying, and I talked about that the other day too, saying Kenny

00:48:49.480 did well in Washington and it's true. And then, you know, that's unfortunate. Like it's just

00:48:54.660 unfortunately his brand is in such trouble right now. I don't know if the good deeds now are

00:48:59.840 going to make up for the past internal turmoil going on with that party. It's difficult. John

00:49:09.180 Williams thinks he's going to win with 65%. And of course, Calvin Bill A. Jones, I mean,

00:49:13.960 bringing up another aspect that we're going to hear from people a lot, no matter what the outcome

00:49:17.580 is, is that people don't trust the vote legitimacy. And Calvin thinks Kenny's going to take it at 65%

00:49:26.560 to 35%. And see, if people don't trust the legitimacy, it won't matter what it is. They're

00:49:32.600 not going to accept it. The unity is going to be a problem. Premier Kenney has a lot of issues

00:49:40.660 going on. I can only speculate. I've talked to a lot of his caucus members on this show,

00:49:45.140 off the show, I've known some politicians. There's the big difference. I've always respected

00:49:49.940 Jason Kenney. I thought he was good in federal politics. I thought he was great in the Reform

00:49:53.980 party all the way up until he got into cabinet and in immigration. He was great there. But there's

00:50:00.720 a big, big difference. And this happens a lot in politics between being very effective at their job

00:50:06.380 on the way up. But once they get to leadership, that's a whole different art form. It's a whole

00:50:11.760 different thing. Now you've got to still look at all the policies and the issues and the things

00:50:16.680 like that. But you've also got to lead a whole bunch of other people underneath you who are

00:50:24.940 a bunch more type A personalities, a bunch more ambitious politicians, and you've got to keep

00:50:30.260 them settled. And of course, you've got to keep the public settled because if you don't get a

00:50:33.880 reelected, you're out. And I don't think Kenny has that royal jelly. It's a very rare person

00:50:40.220 who actually has all of those things who can pull it off. Premier Klein was one of those.

00:50:45.500 He had all sorts of opposition and things, but not too much from within his party.

00:50:49.700 And then, of course, the unions of the left went ballistic on him, but he knew how to win the public.

00:50:54.740 I mean, half of it, it goes both ways, too.

00:50:56.500 If you want support within your caucus, you have to make them confident that they're going to win the next election under your leadership.

00:51:06.240 And the sagging general support numbers for the UCP are terrible.

00:51:10.120 there are a lot of UCP MLAs, or even ones who might want to run for office, particularly in

00:51:15.720 urban areas, that understand that if something doesn't change dramatically, there is no way

00:51:21.100 they're going to win the next election. They're not going to win their seat. Maybe the UCP will

00:51:25.140 win, but they won't win their seat. So where do these MLAs sit? Some are going to vote on things

00:51:33.460 or support or not support based on principle. Some are just even, I'm just looking at the

00:51:37.200 self-serving aspect. If you want to keep your job for another four years, it's not looking really

00:51:42.420 good to do it under Kenny. But we'll see. I mean, after the review, he's got a year to work on it.

00:51:47.440 I do think that, yeah, as Laurie Carter's saying, so tired of their circus show. And we're seeing

00:51:54.640 that everywhere too. This is a thing we do as conservatives. That's not unique to Kenny.

00:51:59.360 You know, a new party formed in Saskatchewan. Here we go again, right? We've got another

00:52:04.940 political party out there. Ontario's got a new conservative party out there. Uh, BC, it seems

00:52:10.480 might be splitting because the, the BC liberals, which are different than other liberals, they're

00:52:14.160 kind of their conservatives, uh, really shut out particular candidates like Aaron Gunn. And there

00:52:18.800 might be a more splits going on there. We don't sit together really well, but, uh, as Pamela Jones

00:52:26.360 Kennedy saying, if he wins, he'd be well-advised to reconcile with those in his cabinet. Yeah.

00:52:30.440 Cause it, cause people are tired of looking at it from outside and seeing the infighting that,

00:52:33.820 there's few things that would reduce your confidence in a group or a party or a government

00:52:38.680 more than seeing them fight with each other. How well are they going to manage everything else if

00:52:43.100 they can't even manage themselves? And as I said, Kenny can't seem to figure out how to manage

00:52:47.080 the people below him in his own party, whether it's cabinet or the MLA level. And if he hasn't

00:52:52.960 figured it out by now, I'm not very confident that he will. Now, even if he wins narrowly,

00:52:59.220 let's say 55 percent uh boy as far as a leadership review goes that's 55 percent of the members not

00:53:07.840 the public in general that's not good leadership reviews with popular leaders internal party

00:53:13.780 reviews they're usually anywhere between 70 and 90 percent so that's pretty weak though he has

00:53:20.840 said that'll be enough for him to carry on but will it is then i see party members saying no i'm

00:53:26.380 out. I'm gone. And they're going to cross the floor. There's going to be some MLAs, I suspect,

00:53:30.940 who are going to take off. Though some other people are going to pull together as well. They're

00:53:35.720 going to say, okay, that's it. We don't have time for any more shenanigans. The general election is

00:53:39.440 a year from now. We've got to just bite back our criticism. That's definitely what the approach

00:53:46.260 is going to be, assuming he's in anyways, saying, okay, that's it. We don't have time for any more

00:53:49.880 internal looks, reviews, dissension. You got to prepare to make sure Rachel Notley doesn't win 1.00

00:53:57.160 a year from now, we get four more years of NDP. That's where they're going to push. They're going 0.95

00:54:00.700 to say, pull it together, get together, let's make this work. And it might work for some. I mean,

00:54:06.120 the fear of four more years of Notley is a serious fear. A lot of us would be pretty afraid of that.

00:54:10.520 We don't want to see that again. But will it be enough to choke back the frustration with the

00:54:16.660 party right now, the frustration with the leadership. I know a while back, there's a

00:54:22.120 senior cabinet member that I know, and I spoke, and I was told he hadn't spoken to Kenny in weeks.

00:54:31.040 Well, like your own cabinet, you should, these are people you should be in touch with. I understand

00:54:36.340 that you can't make a phone call to every caucus member every day, or even every cabinet member,

00:54:40.940 but there should be a lot of direct one-on-one interaction. But instead, there's an inner circle,

00:54:44.680 an inner circle of staffers and a handful of cabinet members. And that's this government.

00:54:49.420 And it's leaving others feeling that they're on the outside and it's breaking apart because of it.

00:54:53.620 So we're going to see tonight what's going on. As Dave said, Rachel Emanuel, that should be up soon,

00:55:00.140 had an exclusive interview with Premier Kenney for a little while in Washington there. And she

00:55:04.280 is now over in, she's going to be, I guess, directly attending the Kenney event. There's

00:55:12.140 going to be something going on down south where they're going to watch the results coming in and

00:55:16.340 there'll be some sort of little speech perhaps or something. It's not a public event, but she'll be

00:55:20.940 dialing into us and giving us updates. Of course, as soon as it comes in, we should be able to stream

00:55:24.940 that coverage. And well, we'll just stay tuned tonight for that stuff. Again, hopefully before

00:55:34.420 the game, because I know if the game comes on, as Dave said, it depends. I mean, some people don't

00:55:39.200 care about sports, but for the most part, I think our viewers are going to drop off and worry about

00:55:44.360 seeing what happened to Kenny later, because we've got Edmonton versus Calgary going on up in the

00:55:48.080 North. I'll list a bit of the people we're going to have coming on here too. Just so you know,

00:55:54.080 there are we, here we go. So yeah, Andrew Lawton is going to come on for a bit from True North

00:55:58.180 Centre. You know, these are alternative media sources. We bring others on. I got Janet Brown

00:56:02.520 coming in, or she's going to be coming on the show anyway. She does opinion research and polling and 0.99

00:56:07.640 things like that in politics. Daniel Smith's going to chat with us for a bit. I got Paul

00:56:11.340 Hinman, MLA Peter Guthrie from up in Cochrane, Josh Andrus from the Alberta Institute, Drew

00:56:17.780 Barnes, of course, he's going to come on for a bit and talk with us. He's out in Cypress

00:56:22.260 Medicine Hat, the MLA out there, independent one. David Parker from Take Back Alberta and

00:56:28.620 perhaps some more. So it's going to be quite the production today at 345. All right, let's

00:56:35.740 move on and have a look at a little more new stuff while we get ready for our next guest.

00:56:40.500 Something Dave mentioned. Yeah. So Receiver General, you know, again, getting back to

00:56:44.820 government, right? Getting back to the lost cause of it. Paid $24 million to the dead.

00:56:53.280 Yeah. You know, pension payments and payments to dormant bank accounts, things like that.

00:56:59.820 $23.6 million over six years with write-offs as high as 20%. Of course, you're going to write

00:57:04.540 off a lot of it. They're dead. You might be able to collect from some widows or if it's an account

00:57:10.260 that was untouched because the person left nobody behind. But can this government do anything right

00:57:15.580 now? And people say, oh, it's $24 million out of billions. Well, it's $24 million. You got to look

00:57:19.820 at every bit of it. If it's private industry, there's no company that's going to throw $24

00:57:24.980 million here, or very few of them anyways, or $24 million even over a few years without accounting

00:57:31.960 and figure out what the hell's going on with it.

00:57:33.540 They're not going to be in business long.

00:57:35.180 The difference with the government you see

00:57:36.200 is they don't go out of business.

00:57:38.400 They don't have that fear hanging over their head.

00:57:40.420 That's why they're incompetent in running businesses.

00:57:43.040 They always are, 0.95

00:57:43.980 is they don't put themselves on the line.

00:57:46.080 They aren't like people who put money into a business

00:57:48.840 and tried to make it roll.

00:57:51.000 This doesn't matter if it fails.

00:57:52.560 Oh, well, shrug your shoulders,

00:57:54.040 get some more tax dollars,

00:57:55.280 try it again a different way.

00:57:56.400 so everything they run tends to be terrible uh so yeah it looks like uh checks to the dead

00:58:06.360 declined from a peak of 7 million in 2017 so after staff became cross-checking with federal

00:58:12.800 death records how how hard is it with record keeping these days i don't understand some of

00:58:18.040 this you've got all our tax info you've got our info 100 ways from sunday you know my my phone in

00:58:24.040 my pocket has the calculating power of supercomputers from 30 years ago. And you guys can't cross

00:58:30.700 reference between, hey, this is a dead person and this is a live one. I just, again, if it was a

00:58:36.400 private industry and they're losing that kind of money, they would find the database ability in

00:58:39.860 order to do that sort of thing and figure it out. As government, eh, we'll just write off a bunch

00:58:45.200 of it. Keep throwing that money out there. Of course, once they find out if you have taken money

00:58:49.300 that you shouldn't from the government, then they're on you like a pack of jackals. Then

00:58:52.800 they're all over your case, then you can look forward to account seizures and all sorts of good

00:58:56.480 stuff. Let's see that they acknowledge that in one case payments totaled more than a third of a

00:59:02.040 million before the error was discovered. Yeah, there's an account and they wrote it off. So

00:59:06.300 they gave $382,000 to a dead person. Good work. They claim that there was attempts to recover

00:59:15.280 from calls to ex-employees, bankers, morticians. What are you going to get for the mortician? What

00:59:20.640 dig it back up and steal the wedding ring off the body or something? You idiots. You gave money to 1.00

00:59:27.020 a dead person for years and it disappeared. Good work. Our government in action. Why do I get

00:59:34.280 crabby whenever I have to pay my taxes when I see what those idiots do with it? Getting back to news, 1.00

00:59:40.280 we've covered a lot of times as well, and it just keeps coming as the committees keep meeting,

00:59:45.120 as they keep talking. Trudeau built his stacked report that's going to be built on the invocation

00:59:54.280 of the Emergencies Act, only because it's the law. He has to. So he put a liberal judge in

00:59:57.920 charge of that. They'll come out and say that good old Justin was smart and he did it right.

01:00:02.660 But we know in reality that he stepped on Canadians' rights in a horrific way and he

01:00:07.800 can't justify it. He can't. And one of the big things that keeps coming up over and over

01:00:13.060 was they claimed that the police asked them to invoke the Emergencies Act.

01:00:17.560 And every level of policing is coming back and saying, no, we didn't.

01:00:22.440 So yes, even the Ottawa interim police chief, Steve Bell,

01:00:25.440 and again, this was not a guy who was a friend of the trucker's convoy.

01:00:29.060 This was not somebody who liked them.

01:00:30.760 This was not somebody who wanted them there for a minute longer than they were in Ottawa.

01:00:36.180 But he said, no, we did not tell you guys to invoke the Emergencies Act.

01:00:41.600 Never said it.

01:00:42.640 Never happened.

01:00:43.320 The RCMP has said this now.

01:00:45.540 The chief of police in Ottawa said it.

01:00:47.260 I'm sure the OPP will probably say the same thing.

01:00:50.440 No police asked for this.

01:00:52.360 But the government just keeps lying and lying and lying

01:00:55.640 and saying, we did it because the police asked.

01:01:00.660 How many times have they got to be shown?

01:01:02.060 But I don't know.

01:01:03.700 It doesn't seem to make news.

01:01:04.820 People just keep voting for them.

01:01:06.280 They keep bringing them back.

01:01:07.800 So yeah, Ottawa police.

01:01:10.160 this was Andrew Scheer. Hey, good on him. He's still in office. You know, there's one of those

01:01:14.380 things to give a bit of credit when you're a former leader. We saw that with Stockwell Day as well.

01:01:18.240 If you're no longer leading the party, it doesn't mean you have to be done. You know, maybe you did

01:01:21.820 your time, you go back and you can still be effective. Well, as an opposition MP, Andrew Scheer

01:01:26.140 was questioning. He said, did the, you know, because you got to ask these guys directly on

01:01:29.640 these things. He said, did Ottawa police request the federal government to invoke the emergencies

01:01:33.900 act? There, nice, simple question. And the nice, simple answer from the chief was we did not make

01:01:39.200 a direct request for the Emergencies Act. Brenda Lucky, same thing, Special Joint Committee

01:01:45.260 was asked, did you ask the government for the invocation of the Emergencies Act? This was from

01:01:51.140 a senator in Ontario. No, she said. Meanwhile, Liar-in-Chief, Public Safety Minister Marco

01:01:57.980 Mendocino, 11 times, 11 times told the Commons and committees that they invoked the act on police

01:02:05.980 request. No wonder this government was afraid of raising the fine for unethical behavior beyond

01:02:14.000 $500, which is what it is. Because I mean, when we got a senior cabinet minister just keeps lying

01:02:18.000 in our face, even when the evidence says otherwise over and over and over again, how else do we hold 0.98

01:02:23.240 these clowns accountable? This is what leads and fosters to large protests. This is what leads to 0.86

01:02:28.960 violence. This is what leads to people feeling there's just no recourse through the proper

01:02:33.480 channels. How do you get accountability out of this government? They just lie to you and they

01:02:37.680 carry on. They lie to you and they take your money. They lie to you and they step on your civil rights.

01:02:43.520 I can understand the frustration. I can see why people want to swarm Ottawa rather than put up

01:02:48.860 with it any longer. I mean, unfortunately, the only way we can go is to, uh, uh, where was I

01:02:57.340 there a second? Oh yeah. So to get them knocked out in an election, that's, that's the only way

01:03:01.700 to do it. Frustrating. Well, we got to change the system. That goes full circle back to a lot of

01:03:07.340 stuff I talk about. And that's where the only way the system is going to change, the only way we're

01:03:12.040 going to get, you know, anything different out of these guys is to have a province separate.

01:03:18.860 We need to tear down this engine and rebuild it as best. I believe Daniel Smith was talking about,

01:03:24.500 and I've talked about a number of times, I've written on it, a refederation. That's a concept

01:03:28.660 that the Byfields, Ted Byfield used to talk a lot about way back in the 90s. And then, you know,

01:03:33.000 when I led the Alberta Independence Party, it's one of the things I remember going, he had a radio

01:03:36.060 show with SunFM, and I went on there, and he talked about that at length. And it's saying,

01:03:41.460 confederation doesn't have to end with secession, but this is where you can rebuild it. Refederation,

01:03:46.860 change the deal, rewrite it. Something I've asked people a lot of times, and it's a good 0.98

01:03:53.400 conversation piece for the people say secession shouldn't happen. Well, okay, if you were an

01:03:58.580 Alberta or Saskatchewan or any of the provinces in the West right now. And let's say they were

01:04:02.760 all independent states already. They were just humming along, doing their thing. And Canada came

01:04:07.160 to the doorstep and said, let's join, let's make a confederation. Let's all come together in one

01:04:10.800 big nation and all be a big happy family. I said, okay, that's interesting. What's the deal? And

01:04:15.440 they offer you this constitution. They offer you this charter. They offer you this balance of power.

01:04:21.660 They say to you, we're going to have a appointed Senate that's hopelessly balanced towards central

01:04:26.040 in Eastern Canada. We're going to have a prime minister who appoints the entire Supreme Court

01:04:30.300 along with the senators. We're going to have seats, you know, weighted. We're going to have

01:04:35.660 equalization that's going to drain you regularly and funnel it into central Canada. We're going

01:04:42.040 to have the RCMP that acts again on the behest of the prime minister and does things such as gun

01:04:47.940 seizures on you. Sign on the dotted line. Would you sign up for that? Of course not. Nobody would

01:04:54.180 sign into the current deal. So if you aren't willing to sign on to the current, sign on to

01:05:00.880 that deal in that hypothetical situation, why are you tolerating the deal as it sits today then?

01:05:05.320 We should be trying to change it. We tried to change it before. As Denis Chouinard is saying,

01:05:10.420 a constitutional crisis is the only thing that can save Canada. Yeah, Alberta voting to secede

01:05:15.280 would do that. Or Quebec. I don't care which province. It needs the trigger. Because we tried

01:05:20.720 patchwork. We tried Charlottetown. We tried Beach Lake. These were constitutional reform

01:05:25.640 bills. They didn't work. They failed. Our system is too complicated to tweak or reform the

01:05:31.960 constitution. So the only thing we can do is tear it apart and draft it again, if we're willing to

01:05:38.760 draft it again at that point. Again, we wouldn't sign back into the same thing all over again.

01:05:43.840 That's just not going to happen. But until then, we're also stuck with, I mean, we got to get

01:05:49.280 realistic with a lot of other things too. And there's a lot of, as people are pointing out,

01:05:52.560 the Alberta Prosperity Project's moving around out there, the Paul Heyman with the Wildrose

01:05:55.920 Independence Party is out there, the Maverick Party, a lot of autonomous, autonomy-pushing

01:05:59.880 sorts of organizations, parties, groups. But the support's not there yet, guys. It's not there yet.

01:06:06.860 So we've got to keep working out. You've got to work on two fronts. One, building that base of

01:06:11.160 support for independence and autonomy. Do you want the reality? You'd be lucky to get 25% in

01:06:17.280 a referendum tomorrow. That's reality on that. I know I've run, I've knocked doors on that platform

01:06:23.040 before. And we had back then polls showing 10, 15, 20% support for, for independence. And when

01:06:29.880 push comes to shove, when a person actually votes on a ballot for a party that has that written on

01:06:34.200 their sleeve, 1%, 2%, they don't want to go yet. So you've got to build that basis. And that might

01:06:42.300 take a couple of years, that still might take a couple of decades. So in the meantime, that's part

01:06:46.500 of why we're here. That's part of why we got politicians. It's part of why we do the show.

01:06:49.800 We still got to work with what we've got, do what the hell ever we can with the system we're stuck

01:06:55.220 with. It's tough. It's going to be challenging. It's going to take time. So again, I mean, you

01:07:00.500 can't just throw your hands up and say, we won't do anything until we're independent. Well, the

01:07:04.240 world's going to go on without you and you're still going to be getting screwed. So you might 0.97

01:07:07.980 as well fight as you can within the system, but keep working as well on the one and only way to

01:07:13.260 change the system, and that is to invoke a constitutional crisis of some sort, or we can

01:07:17.160 bring ourselves to the point of actually redrafting it. Yes, either way. So I'm going to keep watching

01:07:23.240 Ottawa and reporting on it as futile as it might feel. And Minister Mendoncino, yes, he said,

01:07:32.020 we had robust exchanges with law enforcement, including the RCMP. I was getting back to that

01:07:36.300 story. And Scheer asked him which police agency asked for the act. Mendoncino said there was

01:07:41.340 consultation. He didn't say who or which because he can't, at least for a change, I guess he dodged

01:07:45.920 rather than outright lied like he had been before. Getting back to Klein, you know, speaking of

01:07:51.240 popular leaders, then it's ones who can lead and do things. So he didn't do everything right.

01:07:54.660 Sylvia saying Klein didn't spend money foolishly. That was his strength.

01:07:58.400 That was part of it. But you know, and that's the thing, if you watch with Premier Klein,

01:08:03.140 one of the things I think people should study more with him is his rise and drop in power.

01:08:10.840 So he came in on a fiscally conservative platform, very heavily so.

01:08:16.360 He ran against Nancy McBeath, who was the favorite. 0.83

01:08:19.340 She was a very red Tory. 0.94

01:08:20.800 It was, you know, in the early 90s to replace Premier Getty.

01:08:25.860 And at that time, Lawrence Decor was the liberal leader.

01:08:28.680 The liberals were coming in on a conservative platform.

01:08:31.400 They were, because the PCs had spent so badly that we were so far in debt

01:08:36.760 and they'd put money into a bunch of scandalous rip-off ventures

01:08:40.640 like MagCan and Novotel and a few other things back then.

01:08:45.540 And the interest rates were through the roof.

01:08:47.140 So financial accountability was in.

01:08:49.560 People were into it.

01:08:50.600 And the Liberals were actually placed to win the election in Alberta.

01:08:53.200 Klein turned it around because he came from the right

01:08:55.760 and he said, we're going to cut.

01:08:57.260 We're going to get the books back in order.

01:09:00.160 We're going to get things together.

01:09:01.540 And he won.

01:09:02.720 And of course, as soon as he got in, he actually did.

01:09:04.560 there's one of those strange things out of a politician. He actually did what he said he was

01:09:08.260 going to, and he started the cuts. And of course, the usual suspects, and I tell you what, if you

01:09:12.840 want to see another factor on everything that's going wrong in government today, there's one word,

01:09:17.380 unions. Yes, particularly public sector ones. They fight every positive change we could possibly do.

01:09:25.920 Everything from teacher discipline for teachers who abuse children, to just getting the books in

01:09:30.160 order to getting a reasonable healthcare system. But Klein went up against those unions. They

01:09:36.660 protested like mad for those of us old enough to remember. They were kicking on the doors of the

01:09:41.080 legislature. They were going crazy. And all the usual left-wing writers, oh man, Premier Klein,

01:09:45.900 he's not going to make it past one term. There's no way. People are furious. This cutting is awful.

01:09:50.540 He is going to be knocked out of power before four years are up. He's going to be finished.

01:09:54.540 So what happened? He hit the general election in his first four years and guess what? He increased

01:09:58.900 his majority. Yeah, it went up. Ignore the bloody pundits. Ignore the screaming, whining unions.

01:10:06.580 Just do it. Abertons appreciate it. They will vote for it. Do it confidently. Do it without lying.

01:10:12.980 Do it straightforward. And we can pull it off. Four more years, the cycle was almost just the

01:10:18.600 same. The unions went bananas. There were threats of general strikes. And he was heartless. And oh,

01:10:23.340 he blew up the general hospital. Yeah, that old antique, decrepit, falling apart hospital in

01:10:27.880 downtown Calgary. They got rid of it. They had to. And guess what? He increased his majority again.

01:10:36.200 Look at that. Ignore them. But then, then something changed. And I remember that. I remember that as a

01:10:43.680 viewer, as a watcher. One of the things that kind of changed, Klein was always known as Ralph.

01:10:47.240 He was Ralph. He was Premier Ralph. He was the guy you could go to St. Louis and have a beer with.

01:10:52.060 He was the guy who showed up at events in a denim shirt. But now he was showing up in tailored suits.

01:10:57.700 And now there literally was a thing put down to radio hosts and others.

01:11:00.480 Don't call him Ralph anymore.

01:11:01.800 He's to be called Premier Klein.

01:11:04.440 Fair enough.

01:11:05.040 It's a title of honor and respect.

01:11:06.920 But it showed the change in his attitude he'd been in too long.

01:11:10.080 That gets back to kind of the talk about term limits.

01:11:13.220 But he was turning into the old kind of politician.

01:11:16.680 He was falling into the ruts, sitting with the same sort of people.

01:11:19.480 The spending went up.

01:11:20.820 The spending went up dramatically.

01:11:22.540 The surpluses were shrinking.

01:11:24.320 and he was trying to buy his way out of tough situations like so many politicians do rather

01:11:29.520 than fight. The term he used on his own was fire in the belly. He said you had to have the fire in

01:11:34.520 the belly. And, you know, these guys, they don't want to give up. They rarely do. And I understand

01:11:39.040 that's your life goal. You've hit the apex. Sometimes they got to go with a foot on their

01:11:42.460 butt. That happens with so many of them. It happened through the 90s with Chrétien as well. 0.99

01:11:48.800 He didn't want to go. But his own party finally said, you know, they pressured him out. With

01:11:52.940 Klein, he got, what was it? 55% in the leadership review or 52? And that's where he said, okay,

01:11:57.800 I got to go. And he left. He didn't want to, but he left. And the reason though he left is because

01:12:02.460 he also though, why was he losing popularity? He'd lost track of why he was there. The fire

01:12:08.260 wasn't in the belly anymore. He was spending like mad. And see Ashley saying, and he said to the

01:12:15.720 Easterners, go home bums and scums. Okay. I'll clarify a bit of what happened there. Cause there's 0.99

01:12:20.560 a couple of things, myths from the 80s and 90s. That's from a statement, actually, when Klein was

01:12:26.120 mayor of Calgary, and he referred to Easterners as creeps and bums. Back in the 80s, there was

01:12:32.840 quite an influx of people coming from the East, and some of them were less than savory. I was a 1.00

01:12:38.900 kid in Banff at the time, and they would come out there, live under the bridge, and there was a lot

01:12:43.040 of regionalism. People weren't too happy. The National Energy Program had screwed us pretty

01:12:46.740 deeply very recently. So yeah, that's what he said. And everybody got upset. But of course,

01:12:50.680 all it did was make people love him all the more. The other one is let the Eastern bastards freeze 1.00

01:12:55.700 in the dark. That was not Klein. A lot of people attribute that to him. But it wasn't actually, 1.00

01:13:00.800 that was just a bumper sticker that was very popular. And that kind of came about more before

01:13:06.140 before Klein's time as a premier and more when he was mayor. I think that was during the Lougheed

01:13:12.340 years and more of the big fights. That's when, uh, Doug Christie had the, uh, uh, Western Canada

01:13:18.560 concept on the go. Either way, getting all the way back, you know, it's been a long time since

01:13:22.980 we can look at a leader who seemed to have really galvanized people and got stuff done and did that

01:13:27.380 well. You know, the series that followed, we had Ed Stelmack and then we had Alison Redford

01:13:32.340 and Prentice and, uh, and Rachel. Now we've got Kenny and, uh, I don't know how many we've got

01:13:41.560 to go through to get a leader who can really bring Albertans together like that again.

01:13:47.080 But hopefully we get that soon. And we are at some sort of turning point tonight, you know,

01:13:52.840 as I was kind of leading in on that. I don't know what that turning point is going to be,

01:13:56.600 and I don't know what's going to happen. But well, there are going to be some interesting

01:14:02.140 results to come in on this review. I suspect most leaders would have left after this much

01:14:07.620 opposition from his own caucus. We're going to talk to Danielle tonight. That's interesting.

01:14:10.920 I can't believe she's still, you know, I've talked to her since, but she does her show here regularly that she wants to get back into politics again.

01:14:18.780 You know, I mean, when she did the floor crossing, I mean, I wouldn't talk to her for years, as did a lot of us Wild Rosers, but whatever, you get over things.

01:14:25.880 I didn't think she'd ever get back in. We'll see what happens. See what happens.

01:14:29.500 But one of the things she always said on her radio show as well was that it's when your caucus turns against you that you're done.

01:14:36.320 That's what took Stelmack out.

01:14:37.800 That's what took Redford out.

01:14:39.460 Once the caucus says, we're done with you, you're out.

01:14:41.960 Kenny, though, his caucus, not all of them,

01:14:43.940 but a whole lot of them have been going off

01:14:45.780 like raging squirrels,

01:14:46.940 and he's still just clinging in there.

01:14:49.820 So it seems maybe he's done.

01:14:51.660 He's just the only one who doesn't know it yet.

01:14:54.680 So, I mean, this,

01:14:56.540 he's still going to have to change something dramatically.

01:14:59.180 No matter what the results are tonight,

01:15:01.480 assuming he stays in there,

01:15:02.380 he's got to change something.

01:15:04.200 Because if he thinks, I got this,

01:15:05.760 endorsement in this this review, and then carries on running things as he had the last three years.

01:15:12.640 It's going to be a disaster, you know, so get used to saying Premier Notley again.

01:15:17.680 It's not going to happen. So he'd better really be reevaluating what he's up to.

01:15:23.040 But okay, I see our next guest starting to get ready in there. And that's Dan McLean right on

01:15:27.840 time. Actually, that's good. I know he's pressed for time. That's why we're running

01:15:31.200 a little longer on it. I've been looking forward to talking to Mr. McLean,

01:15:34.160 and Councillor McLean, I should say.

01:15:36.400 And he's on his first term

01:15:38.040 and he's already pissing off that Craze City Council.

01:15:40.400 So I can't help but love that.

01:15:42.320 But doing it in a productive way.

01:15:43.860 He's not just trolling.

01:15:44.760 He's looking out there

01:15:45.580 and talking about things for his constituents.

01:15:47.480 So let's bring Dan in and have a conversation

01:15:49.200 on what he's been up to.

01:15:51.240 I see you're in the obligatory Flames jersey tonight, Dan.

01:15:54.260 You betcha, go Flames.

01:15:56.180 Right on.

01:15:57.180 Well, I appreciate you coming in

01:15:58.620 as I kind of sort of said in the lead up there,

01:16:01.100 you know, and I've covered that on this show

01:16:02.720 a number of times.

01:16:03.380 The term they use is social disorder.

01:16:06.040 The bottom line is, though, our transit system is having a lot of challenges right now,

01:16:11.900 and people aren't wanting to ride it.

01:16:13.940 But it seems almost as if a lot of city council members would just rather not discuss it.

01:16:18.300 And you kind of went out there and brought the issue into the forefront,

01:16:21.440 whether people wanted to or not.

01:16:24.080 Yeah, you know, and that's at first, maybe I looked at that and said,

01:16:27.720 oh, look what I've done.

01:16:29.160 But now I feel like, oh, look what I've done.

01:16:31.560 fantastic because now everybody's talking about it uh you know there'll be some criticism and a

01:16:37.080 lot of praise to be honest especially from the people that ride the c-train all the time

01:16:42.680 or aware of it it's the criticism comes from the people that don't ride the c-train have three cars

01:16:48.920 and live in the suburbs and have nice backyards and they want to tell you to uh um you know live

01:16:54.920 in a 400 square foot apartment and uh ride your bike or the c-train so there's some hypocritical

01:16:59.960 um messaging going on there but uh yeah so i've brought it up we've got a lot it's a live topic

01:17:06.440 now and i couldn't be happier great yeah so i mean part of one of your solutions you talked about and

01:17:11.720 and as i said before too and as you kind of said which is important most people just don't ride

01:17:16.360 the train they didn't understand how bad it's necessarily getting on there or why i've gone on

01:17:20.600 about it so often it's because i did use the train and i do work downtown and i'm seeing this

01:17:24.600 degradation of things so just the first step is just letting people know what's going on in there

01:17:29.640 because even if they don't ride it people are concerned so you you brought that front and

01:17:33.160 center with pictures and twitter and using social media tools but the solution at least one solution

01:17:38.360 i know it's a much bigger problem though you've talked about doing a trial run with something

01:17:43.480 like turnstiles or some sort of controlled access on trains well you know let's back up two seconds

01:17:49.160 there corey because you're right i ride the train as well i'm in the deep south i come downtown i

01:17:54.440 want to pick up a game or go to a restaurant, maybe have a couple of cocktails and then just

01:17:59.960 ride the train home. But it's become increasingly unsafe. And so I see these behaviors more and more

01:18:05.480 all the time. During my campaign, I would talk to a lot of the residents. I went on a ride along with

01:18:11.480 a friend of mine who is a transit officer, showed me lots of nasty pictures. I mean,

01:18:16.840 just stuff that's going on that day. Like I said, nobody wanted to talk about that. It's

01:18:20.600 maybe we're going to work our way out of it so it was a big issue on the front of my mind during the

01:18:25.400 campaign period and then when we went after the election i would bring it up to administration

01:18:30.600 the counselors the mayor's office and the same thing they said no that turnstile thing that's

01:18:35.400 going to cost 400 million dollars we don't need any more transit officers once the pandemic's over

01:18:40.600 this going to be is all going to go away like that you'll pretty much just ignore it and things will

01:18:44.920 take care of itself and i guess to be a little mean a whole bunch of woke terminology these days

01:18:51.320 and you know that we have to and enabling behaviors that we can't do this we can't do that

01:18:56.680 and i want some action i didn't come into this job to sit around and spew platitudes so now

01:19:05.240 we're getting some action so what i want to see getting back to your turnstiles every major city

01:19:09.640 in north america you've traveled we've all traveled you go to new york or boston san francisco

01:19:14.760 vancouver you know more progressive left-leaning cities they have recognized the problem so it's

01:19:21.000 a barrier it's a turnstile and again i don't it number one it would never cost 400 million dollars

01:19:26.120 to do the whole city i mean we don't need platinum coated turnstiles but if you went to chinook

01:19:31.480 center like a pilot project one in each quadrant of the city and save your traveling south from

01:19:37.000 chinook there's a ramp that goes up there and there's just gonna be a little barrier i mean

01:19:40.760 we could do this for a small sum of money have some accessibility we have to make sure people

01:19:45.960 from disabilities or wheelchairs can get through there a lot of new technologies that will enable

01:19:50.920 that uh but it just restricts access from getting on that train and so because i think rick bell

01:19:57.880 said it i called it a criminal distribution system again maybe a little harsh but reality

01:20:03.720 is tough sometimes because this is what happens you get on the train i did the ride along and

01:20:09.320 And they see this, you know, so maybe it's some unsavory characters, you know, doing drugs.

01:20:13.820 The one guy had a knife on them and they say, okay, they're very nice.

01:20:16.920 I must just take my hat off, commend the Calgary transit officers and the police CPS.

01:20:22.380 They're very professional.

01:20:23.760 They do their best to take care and they're not going to write tickets to everybody and lock everybody up.

01:20:28.660 So they just kind of help them and they say, hey, we'll bring in the dope team and we'll take you down and we'll get you some help.

01:20:33.740 But no, they give them the option and they just get off the train and then they go up on the next one.

01:20:38.260 we'd see the same people within an hour of each other. So again, that would restrict people from

01:20:43.380 going out into the suburbs. And again, most of the crime in the burbs or anywhere happens with

01:20:48.640 and around our C train stations. Yeah, well, and I mean, you're not trying to villainize or, you

01:20:56.220 know, shame people who are troubled or the addicts or things like that. You see, that's some of the

01:21:00.240 defensive accusations that got thrown out at you for just daring to even kind of broach it.

01:21:04.800 And I don't think you've ever pretended that putting the turnstiles on are going to address

01:21:08.880 those problems. It's just addressing the one problem that the troubled people are getting

01:21:13.280 on the trains. We know, I mean, let's get used common sense. They aren't paying a fare to get on.

01:21:18.600 That would be enough deterrent to stop a lot of them from getting on the train. Now,

01:21:21.960 they're still going to be off the train. There's still going to be a challenge with those people,

01:21:24.860 but at least for commuters and others, they can feel more comfortable and safe

01:21:28.480 utilizing the train when they get around. And, you know, again, you're right. I do

01:21:34.740 care about all calgarians but safety is at the top and the forefront of what i'm talking about here

01:21:41.460 so the safety of all calgarians mainly like the people that are riding these trains that do not

01:21:46.900 want to get on anymore a young gal coming downtown to go work and she's got a night night ship she's

01:21:51.460 not taking the train anymore she's scared adults myself so number one is just the safety of the

01:21:57.220 people that are you know the average calgarian that's traveling and again it's uh the people

01:22:02.420 that are have some drug mental health and drug addiction problems um we're not doing them a

01:22:08.340 service by letting them sleep in the general train station there's other ways and other avenues that

01:22:12.180 we can take care of this longer-term systemic problem i'm looking for some short-term concrete

01:22:17.860 answers and uh you mentioned uh the not paying your fare fare skipping is very prevalent and

01:22:24.020 that alone not just by uh you know from all walks of life if people know that that's not being a

01:22:30.500 force, and we're losing tens of thousands of dollars a day.

01:22:34.440 Yeah, and that's another aspect of it. I mean, as you said, the number's ridiculous. I mean, 0.72

01:22:39.340 we've got modern technology. We've got a lot of things. There's no reason it would cost $400

01:22:42.340 million to control access to the trains. Plus, part of that would be offset by people who,

01:22:47.740 well, I think two fronts. For one, ridership would increase because those things are nearly

01:22:52.400 empty because people don't want to get on anyways. And as well, whether we like to admit it or not,

01:22:57.280 there's fair dodgers out there i mean there's there's some people who just if they aren't

01:23:01.960 checked upon the honor system is there they don't have honor they're not going to pay the bill so

01:23:06.340 you know you're going to get a bit of return on that well uh the one car alone when the transit

01:23:11.740 officers went by and they can uh because some have an app on their phone and everybody's always

01:23:15.940 trying to gain the system and you can buy your ticket online and they would they would wait

01:23:21.780 saw the transit officer board the train and then actually push purchase but then i get you know

01:23:27.540 they got around that and they figured out that you've only bought that 17 seconds ago the train's

01:23:31.940 been going for 30 seconds so again it's not only just making sure that people pay their fair share

01:23:37.220 because we're spending billions upon billions of dollars on this mass transit taxpayers dollars

01:23:43.140 and so let's make sure that it uh you know it's you know you're hopefully paying for a share of

01:23:47.460 it itself. And like I said, another way of doing that, of course, is not just the turnstiles,

01:23:54.260 but increased transit officers. We have less than 100 for the whole city. One place,

01:23:59.540 when I went on the ride along, there was just two for the entire south

01:24:03.220 quadrant of the city on duty, and they had one van. So administration, the good news is,

01:24:08.500 Cory, that because we brought this up and are making some noise and getting engagement from

01:24:13.300 all sides, the administration, the mayor's office, other councillors, we're all talking. We're

01:24:17.720 talking about increased hiring and training some more transit officers and maybe doing this pilot

01:24:24.520 project. So you're taking some concrete action so I can be more happy about that. Yeah, well,

01:24:29.780 and it's good to see an outcome. I mean, you're not just complaining, you're proposing a potential

01:24:33.280 solution for it. And it's a big problem. I'm surprised, again, that some of the people who

01:24:37.620 have been so pro-transit and, to be frank, anti-automotive aren't seeing the bigger issue

01:24:42.980 here too, that Calgary's got 54% ridership return from two years ago before the pandemic began. I

01:24:49.560 mean, most cities have seen their transit ridership increase close to the comparable levels prior to

01:24:54.720 the pandemic. Almost half of Calgarians haven't returned to the buses and trains. So let's talk

01:25:00.000 about this. I mean, there's a real problem here. Well, not only that, you know, there's this thing

01:25:04.580 called the green line that's going to cost billions of dollars that we're going to build a new one.

01:25:07.920 So let's get this system working.

01:25:10.300 You know, I like mass transit.

01:25:13.200 I mean, there's all sorts of emerging technologies for our transportation.

01:25:17.340 But as far as, like you said, with the C-train itself and the buses, let's make them safe.

01:25:22.860 Again, the core issue to me is the safety of all Calgarians.

01:25:26.880 So let's, you know, people deserve to feel safe when they're riding the train or the bus.

01:25:31.440 Yeah, well, and as you said, I mean, just to kind of tie to a bigger issue, we don't have time to get into,

01:25:35.680 with like the defund the police bunch too and things people saying oh well you know because

01:25:39.520 I pointed out downtown's also off of the trains have got some serious problems to say well you

01:25:43.160 want to criminalize addicts or start arresting homeless people on sites no but as an individual

01:25:47.940 I feel more comfortable if I know there's officers in the area to respond if something goes wrong and

01:25:53.860 I'm a sizable middle-aged guy how must it feel for a small mother with children or a senior citizen

01:26:00.700 or others if you've got that presence you can feel more comfortable in moving around without

01:26:05.820 having an adverse i guess interaction i guess you could say well and again another key point

01:26:10.300 of this whole conversation and again like you said maybe the defund the police group

01:26:14.540 uh had came and you know criticized me and i said uh there are larger systemic issues and that we

01:26:21.980 can address but let's make sure we stay in our lane this is where we have a problem at city hall

01:26:26.620 all the time the city cannot the province is in charge of mental health and addictions minister

01:26:32.140 mike ellis in his office and i've been working and talking with him and his chief of staff marshall

01:26:36.860 smith goes they're doing a lot they're pretty smart characters over there that's their their

01:26:41.100 wheelhouse so i took a handful of counselors over met with them at madugal house a couple months

01:26:47.260 ago so that we can work on common solutions because the city again our responsibility that

01:26:52.460 we have the levers to maneuver our police and transit protection services and um and bylaws and

01:27:01.660 do the turnstiles things like that those are things that we could do from our own budgeting

01:27:06.060 and what are they meant with uh and bylaws so we do have to work with the province in tandem on some

01:27:12.620 of these longer core issues and uh again corey let's be honest some of these people there's some

01:27:17.740 people that are just down on their luck and they maybe just need a little bit of help and then

01:27:21.740 there's the next person that maybe is addicted to drugs and they need a little more help they need

01:27:25.740 to be maybe taken off the streets and re uh detoxed and help them out and get them back on the street

01:27:31.100 get them productive citizens and then there's other ones i guess uh taking uh uh from uh marshall

01:27:36.940 smith's uh we're all g and you'll see in other cities they're starting to do this in san francisco

01:27:42.380 where they're you know unfortunately that uh you know the meth or whatever their life has happened

01:27:48.060 to them they they take longer term care so we need facilities where we can take them off the streets

01:27:53.580 and help these people letting them just roam around on the transit systems and again like

01:27:58.940 said in front of um you know what do you call it busking or asking for money this isn't helping

01:28:05.900 them it's not helping anybody so we have to start addressing some of these uh these problems head on

01:28:10.860 yeah well i appreciate it i mean you're uh what a little more than halfway into your first year

01:28:15.180 your first term here so you're getting into the issues and proposing solutions that's just always

01:28:19.900 it's refreshing you know hey i'm here to complain i'll point out the issues you're the one who got

01:28:23.500 to come up with the solution so uh you're doing that sort of thing so i appreciate that and i

01:28:27.500 appreciate you coming on to talk to us about it today where can people find more information or

01:28:32.460 constituents reach out to you if they have concerns uh just uh any email to word13 calgary.ca

01:28:39.580 and again this is a this is what you know you should get into politics to do just to try to

01:28:45.820 look at some issues and this was a big one and again it's only been a few months that we've been

01:28:49.740 here but we're attacking this issue there's a there's a lot more some other things we've got

01:28:53.980 to do as well but this is a big one if we want to revitalize the downtown and make it a vibrant

01:28:59.180 community come down for games entertainment all these things that's the first thing we've got to

01:29:02.540 do we've got to make it safe great well thank you again for taking the time to talk to us and uh

01:29:07.660 Yes, go Flames go, and I hope we can talk again soon, Dan.

01:29:11.120 Thanks, Corey. You have a good day.

01:29:12.600 All right, thanks.

01:29:13.080 Go Flames.

01:29:14.100 Yeah.

01:29:15.060 So yes, that was Councillor Dan McLean.

01:29:17.000 As I said, he's in his first term there at City Hall,

01:29:21.040 and he's not afraid to get in and do stuff, which is good.

01:29:23.540 We see a lot of, I always used to call them mushrooms.

01:29:25.880 They go into City Hall, and they make a career of it,

01:29:28.000 and they just, if nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

01:29:30.180 And some of them, unfortunately, last for 20, 30 years at a time in those roles,

01:29:34.500 but they don't really accomplish a lot.

01:29:36.060 So it's good to see councillors hitting the ground running because, you know, it should be more than a paycheck.

01:29:42.060 And I appreciate him coming on to talk today.

01:29:44.680 All right, I'm going to go because we've got a whole lot to prepare for the show tonight or this afternoon

01:29:48.900 with the special live coverage of the leadership review as it goes.

01:29:53.900 Tomorrow I am, again, as well, going to be back on at 1130 in the morning as usual.

01:29:59.680 I'm going to have Rachel Emanuel, our reporter, so she can talk about what she saw there at the review

01:30:04.340 And an interview with Jean Charest, I talked to him about actually his policies on crime,

01:30:11.100 which is a good one.

01:30:11.960 And to be honest, I found Mr. Charest is, as far as he's a red Tory and sort of a man 0.51

01:30:16.620 from the past, he had good common sense ideas when it came to justice. 0.63

01:30:20.700 And we always give credit where it's due.

01:30:22.460 So thanks for tuning in, guys.

01:30:23.760 And for those who still are available at that time, watch the Western Standard channels.

01:30:27.820 3.45, we're going to be back on.

01:30:29.840 We will be covering the event with a whole bunch of guests and such.

01:30:33.180 So see you all either this afternoon or tomorrow.

01:31:03.180 Amen.

Western Standard - May 19, 2022

Triggered： Government is the problem, not the solution

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