Western Standard - Triggered： No doctors？ It’s the system stupid!

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00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's May 30th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. You wouldn't know it's the end of

00:00:37.980 May. I don't know around my place. The leaves are just starting to come out. This global warming has

00:00:41.740 led to one of the coolest springs I can remember in decades. Either way, it is getting better. It

00:00:46.280 was kind of a nice weekend. Maybe eventually we'll get into some livable temperatures out here.

00:00:52.440 The weekend behind me for our American cousins. Hopefully the weather's good down there. This is

00:00:57.640 Memorial Day for our American friends down there. They're having a long weekend. It's a big one.

00:01:03.760 They don't quite match their May long weekend with our Victoria Day sort of thing. But it's

00:01:08.120 the good spring one when people get out. Everything starts opening up. You start opening campgrounds

00:01:13.140 and summer facilities and things like that. I always look forward to it. I got to say,

00:01:16.760 a whole lifetime in Canada, four years working in the Arctic, and I still hate winter with every

00:01:21.220 essence of my being. But what can you do? All right, getting on to the less serious observations,

00:01:28.480 but they're still important ones. It's International Hug Your Cat Day. So you don't

00:01:32.560 want to forget that. If you've got a cat that is unlike the one that miserable beast I have

00:01:36.980 in my house that would rip my eyes out if I tried to hug it, give yours a hug. Show your

00:01:41.260 appreciation for whatever the hell cats do for you. A lot of people like those things. That one

00:01:45.740 in my place, whatever, lives there. But it is International Hug Your Cat Day. Don't forget that.

00:01:50.300 and it's National Hamburger Day. That's one I can embrace. So get out there, enjoy that incredible

00:01:56.720 fine sandwich. I mean, there's not too much to call Canadian or American or North American foods,

00:02:02.980 but hamburgers are kind of a real thing of ours in the West. We certainly have enough

00:02:06.760 fast food places and restaurants supplying them. All right, on to the other stuff. This is a live

00:02:11.720 show. Just reminding everybody, you know, the comments are welcome. I see a few coming in

00:02:15.300 already. Good to see all you guys there checking in. And the interactivity is something I really

00:02:20.780 enjoy on this show. Get in there, get those questions in, chat with each other, send things

00:02:24.860 my way. I might not read them all out, as I said, but I do see them all and it does help frame the

00:02:29.940 discussion. That's what makes being live worthwhile. And I got a couple of, you know, we've just got

00:02:33.880 to keep it somewhat civil. Don't have to agree with every guest or agree with me for that matter,

00:02:38.020 but let's try to be somewhat nice to each other because you know how grouchy I get when the

00:02:41.460 comments tick me off either way so we got a couple of good guests on jay hill i believe he's going to

00:02:45.960 come in person he's going to be on the show today he was a member of parliament for 17 years with

00:02:51.160 reform and then the canadian alliance and all those things he was the interim leader of the

00:02:55.260 maverick party for some time and now he's out of that so he's officially retired and can come in

00:03:00.140 and talk to us about federal issues in general so that'll be a good conversation because there's a

00:03:04.020 lot going on and i'm going to have our western standard bc reporter reed small coming in with

00:03:09.220 some updates from BC on a number of stories. He always gets a lot of these good ones, you know,

00:03:15.120 like, well, because BC is just the land of woke lunacy. So, I mean, I want to talk to him about

00:03:18.780 a few, like Vancouver gas stations, sounds like they're going to be punished and have to be fined

00:03:22.700 essentially 10,000 a year if they don't install the extremely expensive electric charging stations

00:03:27.860 that nobody's going to use on their place or a large meth bust from an Albertan heading out that

00:03:32.820 way. So we'll talk to Reid about a bit of that stuff and catch up on the BC issues. As I said,

00:03:37.340 with Western Standard. We cover across the West, actually across the country, but Reid is our

00:03:42.220 person on the ground in BC. All right, let's see what's got me going today. I often get my

00:03:48.700 inspiration as I drive in. So as I tormented myself with local talk radio during my morning

00:03:54.600 commute to the office today, I heard an ever so familiar story. The Alberta Medical Association

00:04:00.060 is sounding the alarm bells due to a shortage of doctors in the province. Yes, the emergency rooms

00:04:04.600 are filling up with patients with minor ailments due to a lack of family doctors in many areas.

00:04:10.680 Of course, throughout the story, it was implied that the hostile UCP policies have caused doctors

00:04:15.160 to flee the province for other jurisdictions, and we have to spend more money. They use the

00:04:19.720 term invest, of course, but it's spend, and we have to spend it right away if we're going to

00:04:23.720 stop this problem. And the lack of doctors is indeed a concern. Healthcare is always the top

00:04:28.680 issue in provincial elections, and it appears that things are getting worse. Is it really because

00:04:33.080 the ucp though now so in doing a short search of the term doctor shortage province by province

00:04:39.240 news stories in every province sounded exactly the same every province in canada is running low on

00:04:45.160 on doctors in fact in health professionals in general if alberta's ucp is indeed driving

00:04:50.360 medical professionals out of the province they apparently aren't going to the other provinces

00:04:54.440 i mean it is believable that many of them are leaving the country for greener pastures though

00:04:58.680 The world market for medical professionals is competitive.

00:05:02.260 Many countries with less restrictive health care systems than ours have been actively headhunting for medical professionals here.

00:05:08.980 So can we pay enough, though, to keep medical professionals from leaving?

00:05:13.480 I mean, labor makes up the majority of health care spending, a lion's share of it.

00:05:17.280 Even small salary increases across the board can blow up a health care budget.

00:05:22.240 And while there still might be room to compensate health care professionals more, we can only spend so much.

00:05:27.000 are we spending enough on health care though in general well if you listen to unions and public

00:05:32.320 health care advocates you know you think we're not no it sounds like we're starving them but

00:05:36.200 the budget statistics tell a different tale health care spending has been steadily increasing in

00:05:40.820 every province in canada for years spending spiked in the last two years due to the pandemic of

00:05:46.160 course in 2021 the national per capita amount being spent on health care was 8,019 that's in

00:05:54.280 2021. 10 years prior to that in 2011, it was 5,806. It's almost a 40% increase over 10 years. We can't

00:06:02.800 sustain that spending trajectory. We can't pretend that we aren't spending enough on health care.

00:06:08.000 And spending that much per capita, Canada spends more on health care than most countries in the

00:06:11.680 developed world. Yet our outcomes are lagging by just about every measure. Access is abysmal and

00:06:16.840 people are literally dying on waiting lists. Medical specialists in particular are in short

00:06:21.600 supply everywhere. So if we can't spend our way out of the problem, maybe it's time we stop trying to

00:06:26.640 and examine the system itself. See, there's where the problem comes in. Canada's created a mythology

00:06:32.340 around its health care system and spent decades tirelessly telling us we have the best system on

00:06:37.540 earth. The CBC dedicated an entire game show to determining who the best Canadian ever was,

00:06:42.700 and it was handily won by Tommy Douglas for founding our health care system. Whenever anybody

00:06:47.340 he dares to question the system in Canada. They're labeled as a blasphemer and horror stories of the

00:06:52.100 heartless American system are sure to follow. What the stalwarts defending the status quo with

00:06:57.180 Canada's health care system refuse to acknowledge is there's hundreds of health care systems on

00:07:01.400 earth and dozens of them offer universal coverage better than we do and for less money. We can't

00:07:07.920 let people keep shouting down any discussion of systemic reform if we want to see improvements.

00:07:13.840 Anybody who's been in a position of employing people knows that while good compensation levels

00:07:17.320 are essential in retaining good staff the work environment itself is critical as well if people

00:07:22.360 are stressed underappreciated or overwhelmed they're going to leave and this is happening

00:07:26.680 in health care and since spending more money won't fix it we need to change how we do it

00:07:31.640 it only makes sense it's hard to say though how bad it's going to have to get before people are

00:07:35.960 ready to pursue changes to the system but when we double health spending when our waiting lists

00:07:41.080 truly become the longest on earth we're on a trajectory to meet both of those metrics right now

00:07:46.200 sustainability is a popular buzzword these days well let's apply it to our health care system and

00:07:50.600 add a dose of reality our system right now is rigid inefficient and unsustainable and we need

00:07:56.200 to make radical changes to it until we do those health care headlines that look the same across

00:08:02.680 the country about the shortages won't be going away anytime soon so that's what's got me going

00:08:08.360 today let's see what else is going out there in the news with our news editor dave naylor hey dave

00:08:14.120 how's it going good morning cory how was your weekend i was pretty good actually got a lot of

00:08:18.680 stuff done around the house the yard always busy i hear you had some more nocturnal visitors i did

00:08:24.440 we got a little black bear hanging around the place now and a bobcat walking back there so

00:08:28.920 yeah the game cam has been busy this week yeah so you got what have we seen now cougars bears

00:08:35.080 bobcats it's uh you got a veritable zoo in your backyard yeah it's been busy this year you know

00:08:41.480 You know, it was kind of quiet through the winter.

00:08:42.800 We usually see a few cougars and there was nothing for months.

00:08:45.360 And then this last month and a half, everything's on the move.

00:08:48.120 They're coming around.

00:08:48.800 Not causing any problems so far anyways.

00:08:50.460 We still have all our house pets, except even that bloody cat of mine.

00:08:54.260 Yeah, well, I'm sure Duke the Wonder Dog will keep you well protected from those things.

00:08:58.920 I'm certain he will, or at least he'll give us warning as he's running through the dog

00:09:02.500 door away from whatever's back there.

00:09:04.960 There you go.

00:09:05.760 Well, let's take a look at what's going on in the news.

00:09:08.400 the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, was defaced this morning by a climate change

00:09:15.300 lunatic who came into the Louvre dressed as an elderly woman and in a wheelchair and got up and

00:09:22.220 screamed and threw cream pie at the Mona Lisa. So fortunately, it's behind glass. So no damage done

00:09:31.880 to Da Vinci's masterpiece.

00:09:34.900 Other stuff, we've got B.C. hospitals forced to close over the weekend

00:09:39.000 due to staff shortages, and Reid Smalls got that story,

00:09:43.740 and I'm sure he can fill you in more when he's on the show.

00:09:47.180 We've got Trudeau's chief of staff, Katie Telford,

00:09:50.960 was hosted by a federal contractor, Reuters Thompson,

00:09:56.560 down in the social event of the year in Washington, D.C.,

00:10:00.360 the White House Correspondents Dinner.

00:10:02.620 We've got a report showing drug dealers

00:10:05.060 are making a ton of money

00:10:06.920 ever since the government privatized cannabis.

00:10:13.200 They're basically selling way more stuff

00:10:15.220 than the government is.

00:10:16.900 I guess they can sell it cheaper.

00:10:18.780 More fallout continues

00:10:20.200 over the Supreme Court ruling on Friday

00:10:22.640 that multiple murders

00:10:24.260 basically get the same 25 years

00:10:26.760 as even people that kill only one person.

00:10:29.240 And so we've got some political reaction, the Tories and the NDP teaming up,

00:10:34.460 unusually for this one, and they're venting their anger.

00:10:37.780 Our Mike Thomas, real estate expert, has got a column saying Bank of Canada

00:10:42.480 is going to raise their interest rates on Wednesday, no doubt about it.

00:10:46.780 A panel of 30 experts all agreed there was not a single dissenting voice

00:10:51.280 that said they weren't going to.

00:10:53.320 We've got more big news to come this afternoon.

00:10:55.600 Cory out of Ottawa. The report into sexual misconduct within the military has been released

00:11:02.960 and it's very damning to say the least. And we've got the big story at 2.30 Mountain Standard Time.

00:11:10.040 The Trudeau Liberals are bringing back their new gun laws. So we'll see what's in that for us.

00:11:18.200 All the people that legally own guns, I'm sure it'll be a bit, lots of problems.

00:11:24.560 So, yeah, those two major ones coming this afternoon, Corey.

00:11:28.040 Great.

00:11:28.540 Yes, lots on the go and lots coming.

00:11:30.920 It looks like, you know, we're getting to that season where legislatively they're going to start mashing everything in before their session ends.

00:11:36.580 So we can probably see a few beauties coming down the line in the next couple of weeks. 0.54

00:11:40.720 Yeah, well, politicians have to get their holidays in.

00:11:43.020 So, yeah, it's going to be fun and games.

00:11:46.000 All right.

00:11:46.480 Well, thanks for the check-in.

00:11:48.260 We'll check in with you again after the show.

00:11:50.380 Thanks, Dave.

00:11:51.120 Thanks, Corey.

00:11:52.240 That's our news editor, Dave Naylor, with, yes, quite a rundown.

00:11:55.260 As we said, there's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of stories that are going up on the site.

00:11:59.500 And we are busy.

00:12:00.940 We watch things as they break and get them up there.

00:12:03.600 So just that reminder to everybody.

00:12:05.800 Well, first, I want to thank everybody who's already subscribed.

00:12:08.160 That's how we can do this.

00:12:09.040 That's how we keep a great news editor like Dave out there.

00:12:11.960 I don't want to let his head get too big, but he does a hell of a job in there.

00:12:15.180 And, of course, that whole raft of reporters that he has to manage to make sure we're putting out good content.

00:12:19.660 And the reason we can do that is because you guys are subscribing, and you guys have been doing great coming in for us.

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00:12:59.560 with the Western Standard.

00:13:02.840 Again, so yeah, we got some crazy stuff going on up there.

00:13:06.920 Interest rates going up again.

00:13:08.240 You know, there's one that's gonna be interesting

00:13:10.020 to watch coming on Wednesday.

00:13:11.520 But we did, as Dave said,

00:13:12.640 the experts are constantly coming up

00:13:14.200 and saying it's gonna happen.

00:13:15.420 I mean, we know this is gonna happen.

00:13:16.600 And when inflation goes mad, that's the only tool the central bank really has to try and get it under control.

00:13:22.220 For those of us gray enough in the muzzle, and I'll be getting to another one in a moment,

00:13:26.060 to remember the 80s and 90s as they tried to do inflation control through nothing but interest rates,

00:13:31.860 we ended up in some terrible recessions thanks to double-digit interest.

00:13:35.460 We're going to be into a seesaw cycle of some economic misery for a while right now.

00:13:39.540 I'm going to speak about one of our advertisers before I get to our guest quickly, I guess,

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00:14:06.300 I mean, that's the thing.

00:14:07.040 You want to make sure that you are talking to somebody.

00:14:10.160 I mean, it seems like everybody is trying to rip you off.

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00:14:20.540 They're a good Western Canadian company. They'll sit down, personalized one-on-one service to talk

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00:14:37.800 guys out. I mean, it's supporting local, it's supporting yourself, and it may be getting your

00:14:41.620 money out of the reach of those dastardly federal politicians who seem to be always out to take it

00:14:46.460 away from you. Bitcoinwell.com and take control of your money. So let's get on to some federal

00:14:55.060 issues we've got. Mr. Jay Hill now of no kind of formal title anymore for the first time in a long

00:15:01.280 time. How are you doing? I'm great, Corey, and yourself? Very good, thanks. As I said at the

00:15:05.900 start of the show, I mean, you've had a long history. You're a member of parliament for, I

00:15:11.600 party incarnations. You were the party whip as well in there. Then you were the interim leader

00:15:16.820 at the Maverick Party, but now you're kind of a statesman, I think is the best term I could put

00:15:21.160 for it. Well, I guess some people are calling me the founder. I guess that's better than flounder.

00:15:27.540 But yeah, I mean, myself and a small group, as you know, got Maverick Party started about two

00:15:34.300 years ago. We morphed, if I can call it that, out of the old Wexit Canada party. We completely

00:15:40.860 changed the philosophy and the mission statement and the principles and the policies and pretty

00:15:48.160 much everything else. And when we formed the Maverick Party about, I don't know, 20 months

00:15:53.100 ago, something like that, less than two years ago. So it's been quite a journey and I've enjoyed it,

00:15:58.520 but now we've handed it over to our new elected leader that the members elected on the 14th,

00:16:04.040 Colin Krieger. And thank you for coming to our event.

00:16:07.200 Well, no problem. No, I was there to cover it. And I've had Colin on the show to talk with him. It'll be interesting to see how that party develops. And I want to talk a bit about that. I mean, you were involved in, you know, grassroots party development way back from the reform days. I was a young, long haired guy knocking on doors for Art Hanger way back then. But it's a lot of work and it's difficult and it's hard to gain traction. Right now, like in provincially, I've mentioned that before, too, because now provincially, we're into a federal or a leadership race here. We got two leadership races going on.

00:16:36.700 Those really suck the oxygen out of any alternative movements.

00:16:40.460 You know, that's the potential period of renewal for either of those parties.

00:16:43.640 People think they could be reformed, think they could be fixed.

00:16:46.580 And sometimes it does fix the party, sometimes it doesn't.

00:16:49.980 But boy, it really drains the market dry, I guess, for those alternative movements.

00:16:54.140 Yeah, it certainly, you know, sucks the oxygen out of the room, as they like to say.

00:16:59.620 Yeah, we've got the CPC, the Canadian Conservative Party of Canada.

00:17:06.700 running theirs. Of course, that's been underway for a bit of time now. Personally, I was very

00:17:13.500 dismayed, I guess, by the fact that they disqualified a number of candidates. I thought

00:17:19.200 it would have been a better open race with more alternatives for Conservative members.

00:17:24.500 Hopefully that doesn't happen. The UCP race, which is not yet underway, but my understanding is this

00:17:30.420 week. They're striking a committee to decide on the rules to replace Mr. Kenney, Premier Kenney.

00:17:37.340 So we'll have to see how that goes. I mean, from my point of view, and it'd be interesting

00:17:42.020 discussion, because you used the word renewal. And I think that both the Conservative Party of

00:17:48.380 Canada and the United Conservative Party of Alberta have quite a task ahead of them in trying

00:17:54.540 to not only win the support and unify their own parties and the membership of those parties,

00:18:00.520 which are incredibly fractured at both levels, but also to attract and unify, in the case of

00:18:07.200 the UCP, Albertans. And my personal belief, Corey, for that to happen is going to take someone with

00:18:13.100 outside, not a recycled politician, not somebody from within the current cabinet or the current

00:18:20.120 conservative structure, but it's going to take somebody from what I used to call the real world.

00:18:24.540 somebody outside of mainstream United Conservatives,

00:18:28.140 because we have to look beyond winning the United Conservative leadership race.

00:18:32.580 I think we have to look towards winning the, you know, that overused phrase,

00:18:37.540 the hearts and minds of Albertans.

00:18:39.880 Everybody that's a non-socialist should be looking at preventing the return of Rachel Notley.

00:18:46.100 Well, that's the worst thing that we can see happening from an economic and a number of standpoints.

00:18:50.360 I think David Price, I don't know if you know him, but he's going to be chairing that committee.

00:18:54.980 He's a young fellow.

00:18:55.440 He was involved quite a bit in the Wild Rose in the past and a very good principled young man.

00:18:59.600 So it's a good sign, you know, because he really sticks to the rules on things that they will come up.

00:19:04.180 Because they had so many questions with the last leadership race.

00:19:07.600 The mistrust starts even before you get out of the gates.

00:19:09.620 If you have just even questions, whether fair or not, coming out of your process.

00:19:13.180 So hopefully, you know, David and the others will really make sure they've got a bulletproof process.

00:19:17.500 As you said, make sure they let in a broad selection of candidates.

00:19:19.900 It doesn't look like an inside game, because if it looks gamed or rigged, members and voters alike are just going to say, 0.97

00:19:26.420 ah, you guys, it's more of the same crap, and they'll reject it. 0.89

00:19:29.080 Well, and you certainly drew attention to that as the party went through all the machinations towards voting, 0.98

00:19:35.500 the reveal of the vote, the mail-in vote for Jason Kenney's support or lack of.

00:19:41.220 And you in particular and Western Standard were at the forefront of drawing attention to all the potential problems that resonated from that.

00:19:49.100 and the fact that if it wasn't done properly

00:19:52.020 with a proper believable result,

00:19:55.020 then you've only reinforced the distrust of Albertans

00:19:59.700 and in particular United Conservative members.

00:20:02.200 Yeah, well, and trust is everything.

00:20:03.620 And I think some of that was lost with Premier Kenney.

00:20:06.340 And personally, I still think

00:20:07.720 they were in a no-win situation.

00:20:09.460 You know, he came in just over 50%.

00:20:11.520 He'd said 50% plus one,

00:20:12.800 but I'm sure in his mind he had a different number.

00:20:14.740 You just have to say that.

00:20:16.100 Clearly that wasn't enough

00:20:17.100 to feel comfortable with a mandate.

00:20:19.100 But as others had said, well, what if he came in with 75%?

00:20:22.140 Well, people say, well, I won't believe it.

00:20:23.520 Well, then he wasn't, there was no winning, you know, that party was unfortunately irrevocably

00:20:28.540 ruptured, but it's the trust thing.

00:20:29.940 So they've got to do this exercise and keep trust this time.

00:20:33.480 Well, and I think that most of us that have been part of politics, Corey, for many, many

00:20:38.460 years, more years than you and I probably care to admit, recognize that probably what

00:20:44.420 should have happened is Jason should have resigned prior to that prior to going through that because

00:20:49.580 as you say it was a no-win situation for him anyway because the trust had been broken for

00:20:55.020 whatever reason multiple reasons it had been broken and so you can't win because as you say

00:21:00.300 if you had a higher number higher than Joe Clark's two-thirds or whatever it was in the day

00:21:05.180 that he decided wasn't sufficient so if he would have had a higher number it wouldn't have been

00:21:09.900 believable. And if he came in lower than that, then he was forced to resign anyway. So he probably

00:21:15.860 should have just resigned and started the process two or three months ago. The party would have had

00:21:21.080 more time before the next election to get a new leader in place and start to build momentum and

00:21:26.920 hopefully unity amongst non-socialist Albertans. Yeah, well, that unity thing. And so, I mean,

00:21:32.780 I'll pivot a bit to the federal front. We got a race going on there. And as you said, I mean,

00:21:37.560 one of the things we never really did find exactly why a couple of those candidates apparently came

00:21:40.960 up with the signatures came up with the deposits but the committee just still said no we'd rather

00:21:46.520 you weren't taking part in the race and they disqualified them right off the bat again that

00:21:49.980 it just makes it sound like an inside game and that really particularly i think with conservatives

00:21:54.420 frustrates them pretty fast absolutely and it should i mean it leaves a bad taste in all our

00:21:59.340 mouths uh when you see you know who i mean a small little group that forms the committee to run the

00:22:06.320 leadership race of a party, it doesn't matter what party it is. And if they're the ones making

00:22:10.660 the decision of who gets to run and who doesn't, who gets to take their message, their vision

00:22:15.580 to the membership and who doesn't, it doesn't sit well with your rank and file membership.

00:22:20.800 That's going to hurt membership growth, hurt retention of members as they move towards the

00:22:25.940 September voting day. I think, you know, there's going to be members, memberships, obviously,

00:22:31.040 that will expire between now and September. And when you start to sow those seeds of distrust,

00:22:36.880 it's incredibly hard to build it back. Oh yeah. And people will keep bringing it

00:22:40.400 up over and over. And I mean, the other thing is I'm worried about this. It's such a long campaign

00:22:44.560 period they got going and it's already such a vitriolic campaign. You end up with a solid

00:22:50.960 winner, but you have a lot of people marching out of the room where you've had such a hostile

00:22:54.880 and personal sort of campaign and they've still got months to go. I'm really worried about what's

00:23:00.160 going to be left to that party no matter who wins it at the end of this. It's a real concern.

00:23:04.160 And that's an excellent point. And as we head into the UCP leadership race to get back to the

00:23:09.020 provincial side of things, Corey, I hope that they learn a bit of a lesson from the federal party

00:23:14.920 and say, like, we don't want to behave like that. Because as I said, the challenge and the timelines

00:23:20.600 are much, much shorter. And people need to understand that the timeline to get a leader

00:23:25.900 in place for the UCP and hopefully coalesce that non-socialist Albertan vote behind whoever he or

00:23:34.420 she is, is very short. As you know, the election is scheduled for about a year from now. By the

00:23:40.040 time we get the new leader in place and, you know, promote that person, promote that person's vision,

00:23:47.360 hopefully to reunite non-socialist Albertans, it's going to be a very short timeline. Hopefully,

00:23:54.460 unlike what the federal conservative leader will face after September. There will hopefully be more

00:24:00.680 time for them to get established and get their profile known and get hopefully convinced Canadians

00:24:06.720 to support them. So it's interesting the juxtaposition between the two races. Can one

00:24:11.940 learn some lessons from the other? Hopefully. Certainly this vitriolic adversity that we're

00:24:20.140 seeing between the supposed front runners at the federal level, hopefully will not be transmitted

00:24:26.340 to the provincial race once it kicks off. Well, yeah, provincially and federally. I see somebody

00:24:31.280 else, you know, mentioned the PPC and then of course there's Maverick as well. Like they can't

00:24:35.760 forget there are others waiting the wing. So if you've got 20% of your membership disgruntled or

00:24:41.500 more after such a personal race, they will go somewhere else and it's going to cost you. And

00:24:46.960 And likewise, in Alberta, we have the UCP, but Paul Himman, of course, is a very credible

00:24:51.420 person with the Wilder's Independence Party out there.

00:24:53.600 He'll welcome frustrated UCP members if they should come about, as with some of those newer

00:24:59.260 parties on the scene.

00:25:00.480 So they're not forced together for a lack of alternatives.

00:25:04.440 These guys have got to make sure.

00:25:05.200 Especially at the provincial level, as you're saying.

00:25:06.980 I mean, I've lost count of how many parties there are that are vying for provincial votes.

00:25:12.920 That's why I say that I think as someone that really worries for my grandchildren about the potential for a Rachel Notley socialist return to Alberta.

00:25:23.900 I mean, that's why I came out of retirement to start Maverick a couple of years ago.

00:25:28.140 That's why now I'm in, I'm actually supportive of a sort of a non-traditional conservative candidate for the UCP race once it kicks off.

00:25:38.360 And I'm doing everything I can to encourage Tarek El-Naga, who was one of our leadership candidates for the Maverick Party.

00:25:46.160 And he certainly won a lot of hearts and minds.

00:25:48.880 Because what we need, I believe, Corey, is someone that can unite the non-socialist Albertan vote behind the UCP.

00:26:00.200 I mean, whoever wins that is by extension going to be the premier, at least for a short period of time until the next election campaign.

00:26:07.380 And so what we need is someone that projects beyond conservatives, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, red Tories, progressives, whatever.

00:26:17.020 Elusive Big Ten.

00:26:17.800 Exactly.

00:26:18.880 And because a lot of folks out there that vote do not vote along party lines.

00:26:23.880 They're looking for someone new, someone that can bridge the gap between rural and urban,

00:26:28.380 someone that can expand the UCP appeal way beyond the conservative base to include libertarians and others.

00:26:37.380 that might be attracted to a new face, a fresh face with some fresh ideas for Alberta.

00:26:43.700 Well, that's what I'm seeing.

00:26:44.600 Like I see Sarah Lynn Quist, you know, some of the names we're seeing already,

00:26:47.620 say Peter Guthrie, Todd Lowen, or Danielle Smith are the best bets.

00:26:50.640 And there's a number of other names coming up.

00:26:52.100 So far, it's just been Danielle Smith and Brian Jean who have formally declared.

00:26:57.860 We're looking at perhaps some cabinet members coming out.

00:27:00.520 As you said, we're always saying we want a fresh face.

00:27:03.500 But boy, it's tough if you don't have the network and the party mechanisms

00:27:06.540 and the connections and the money and the money, of course, to crawl through that. 0.96

00:27:11.560 But I mean, I also see that same appetite with all we're seeing right now is retreads. 0.58

00:27:15.360 And I don't like to knock. 0.92

00:27:16.620 I love Danielle.

00:27:17.500 I think she's fantastic, but I'm not sure if she's going to be able to win that.

00:27:20.980 And, you know, Jean's been and gone.

00:27:23.160 And I said, how would say somebody like Tarek or another like that?

00:27:27.220 Right.

00:27:27.820 How do you break through that wall and climb the ranks?

00:27:30.920 You know, people want that.

00:27:31.820 But at the same time, it's very difficult to win.

00:27:33.980 It is.

00:27:34.440 although I do believe, and I'm by far not a digital guru by any stretch, Corey. I don't

00:27:42.160 know how proficient you are with social media, but I'm told, and I think some heart from

00:27:46.460 the Freedom Convoy. They raised $10 million twice, and they reached tens of thousands of people

00:27:54.340 with a very simple message, and they stayed on message, my good friend Tamara Leach.

00:27:59.320 uh you know so i think there is hopes in today's day and age that wasn't there when you and i were

00:28:05.520 building parties well that's part of it too absolutely like uh way back with reform for

00:28:10.360 example i mean you had to work the ground you had to literally phone people and nag them if you

00:28:14.760 caught them at home they didn't have a cell with them all the time so you had to bug them during

00:28:17.740 dinner wasn't invented yet you were at least not for affordably and then and you were uh you know

00:28:23.300 you'd have to door knack you you'd have to do mail outs they were expensive they were time

00:28:27.240 consumer. I remember volunteer nights, you know, sitting there burning the cigarettes and drinking

00:28:30.500 the beer and stuffing envelopes all night. There's a lot more opportunity now, though. As you said,

00:28:35.400 a person, if they can, with social media on a relatively low budget, if they can gain that

00:28:40.620 grassroots steam and get things rolling, as you said, like the convoy, you know, Tamara's no

00:28:44.940 master organizer by any means. She just wanted to start a fundraiser for a cause she thought was 1.00

00:28:49.780 important. And it went viral. And that can happen with a leadership candidate. But maybe that's part

00:28:53.820 why the establishment's kind of pushing those alternative candidates to the wayside.

00:28:58.300 Yeah, that could be.

00:28:59.620 I mean, nobody really knows because the Conservative Party of Canada

00:29:03.320 hasn't really explained to Canadians and Conservative members

00:29:07.100 why they excluded these gentlemen.

00:29:10.160 And to their credit, they didn't want to tear the party apart.

00:29:13.360 So, you know, they didn't launch a legal appeal or whatever.

00:29:16.320 There was talk of that at one point in time.

00:29:18.500 So as they say, hopefully the provincial UCP,

00:29:21.500 which of course we need to, you know, clearly state that they're not directly affiliated,

00:29:27.200 nor is Maverick affiliated with any other party. The reason why I'm pushing Tarek is because I

00:29:32.060 think we need that new blood. We need a vision for all of Alberta, not just for Conservatives.

00:29:39.040 And yeah, that's a terrific base to work from. But my fear is, is that if the party after whatever

00:29:46.100 date they set for electing the new leader. If the party remains as fractured as it is today,

00:29:52.740 both in the caucus, in the party mechanics behind the scene, the governance of the party,

00:29:58.700 and more broadly with the membership, if it remains as fractured and some people, as you

00:30:03.140 suggest, Corey, all of a sudden say, well, I don't like the new leader. I think they run

00:30:07.780 one by hook or crook or whatever. And so they're going to take their ball and go to a different

00:30:13.360 party or they're going to start a new party or they're going to splinter and you know a big part

00:30:18.660 of the old wild rose will join the new wild rose independence like we don't know we got to keep

00:30:24.340 everybody inside the tent to take on rachel notley well that's it we keep repeating history i mean

00:30:29.480 you were in the caucus back with the with the whole conservative reform alliance party split

00:30:33.940 and the things going on federally and a lot of and that that soured a lot of electors you know

00:30:38.500 for those of us okay if we're tiled in and we kind of see what's going on we understand why

00:30:42.360 people are upset. You see what happened. We're playing the political games within the parties,

00:30:46.340 but you've got to remember the vast majority of the voters are not members of political parties,

00:30:50.000 and all they see is what they see is ugly play, and they reject that. So hopefully they can start

00:30:56.280 learning from something. And the key there, and I've said this already on the program,

00:31:01.520 is that with the Conservative Party of Canada, I suspect with the unbridled love between Jagmeet

00:31:08.580 Singh and Justin Trudeau, it appears as though Parliament's going to continue to stumble along

00:31:13.460 for a while yet. So they may have time to try to heal those wounds that they're inflicting on

00:31:19.540 each other and on themselves during the race. My fear for the UCP is that if it unfolds the same

00:31:27.000 way, where the front runners are sniping at each other all the time, as you say, then there isn't

00:31:34.880 adequate time because we're looking at an election a year from now oh yeah i mean whoever wins is

00:31:39.120 going to have two battles to do i mean they're going to have to unify the party end within there

00:31:43.360 and then they've got six months to convince albertans we're what you need we're the best

00:31:49.120 option for you that's going to go fast i mean i'll give them a better part of one legislative session

00:31:54.400 uh get some policy out i guess depending on who it is and what they were going at yeah and it's

00:31:58.000 over the christmas break and the calendar year end and you've got all these other challenges

00:32:03.360 where people's attention is distracted from politics rightly so family things like that

00:32:09.040 and so that's a pretty short period of time for people like you and i that have been involved in

00:32:14.480 politics or whoever that new leader is to to do that outreach uh and to set in place a platform

00:32:23.920 that is going to appeal to a broad range of albertans uh and uh and and really um detract

00:32:31.440 from the popularity, or at least what appears to be the popularity of Rachel Notley right now.

00:32:36.380 Well, and they'll have to keep their flank covered. I mean, part of why I think Kenny

00:32:38.980 couldn't campaign effectively on the provincial front is because he's constantly fighting with

00:32:42.560 his own party underneath. And so it'll have to be somebody who can manage.

00:32:45.680 And that brings up the whole other issue when people are trying to decide whether it's at the

00:32:49.400 federal or at the provincial level, Corey, the issue of leadership. And I've often remarked that

00:32:55.280 those of us that are getting long in the tooth and a lot of gray hair, we understand because

00:33:00.340 we've been through it many, many times. And it's no different in the private sector with a CEO or

00:33:05.720 a chairman of the board or your local supervisor or superintendent or foreman on the job as it is

00:33:12.980 in politics. You never really know what kind of a leader someone is going to make until they are

00:33:18.980 the leader. Well, that's it. And there's no real good guidebook for that thing. Like I've always

00:33:22.680 felt it's inherent. Some people have it in them. It's natural. I mean, look for Ralph Klein for

00:33:29.240 an example. He could pull it together. He really engaged Albertans. He managed to keep his party

00:33:33.720 together. I mean, he has challenges, but he didn't have some sort of formal leadership training or

00:33:39.000 something. He had it within him. I mean, Jason Kenney has been an exceedingly effective politician

00:33:43.460 for years and a fantastic cabinet minister, a great opposition member. But when it came to

00:33:48.060 leading, there's just that whole separate skill set that some have and some don't. He just didn't

00:33:52.960 seem to quite have it. Well, you know, and so many know, because you've taken the time to

00:33:59.080 assess the strengths and weaknesses of leaders, as they say, whether it's private sector or whether

00:34:03.780 it's in politics. And there's so many different necessary facets of leadership. And Jason Kenney

00:34:10.760 might have been great at, by and large, with communicating with the general public, you know,

00:34:16.500 constituents. But was a failure in how he did or didn't keep his caucus united, keep his team

00:34:26.660 together keep the governing uh the members of the governing part uh council or board behind the

00:34:33.140 scenes because you've got all those different entities whether it's the internal mechanics of

00:34:39.060 a party yeah and you've got to be good at all of them you've got to be good at those personal

00:34:43.860 relationships some building that loyalty and that really in the end separates i think out

00:34:50.500 to a large extent a good leader from a poor one is whether you can bring your team along with you

00:34:56.020 and and build that team spirit that they feel part of something that's greater than themselves

00:35:01.540 and then we hope well we'll see what comes out of this race races are opportunities i mean they're 0.96

00:35:05.540 really a do or die for parties so on the federal front i mean something i worry a little about

00:35:09.780 as we co as you said they've got that coalition between trudeau and jagmeet it might as well be

00:35:13.940 a majority in fact a farther left majority than we used to have and uh well right now i mean they're

00:35:21.220 pushing policy they want to push it before i mean while the conservatives are in turmoil

00:35:25.060 It's a great time to get some heavy policies shoved through there because they don't have

00:35:28.120 an effective opposition. They're busy fighting with themselves. We're seeing the firearms

00:35:32.260 legislation coming through today. Probably some major changes in that. We're seeing a lot of other

00:35:37.160 C-18, C-11, those scary ones talk about controlling information, controlling media.

00:35:43.220 I got a feeling on the federal front, that party's going to get away with a whole lot before the

00:35:46.420 conservatives even get their game behind them. Well, we'll have to see. I mean, my hope having

00:35:50.720 been a longtime caucus whip and then house leader responsible for a legislative agenda or

00:35:56.560 resisting a legislative agenda, which is what you're talking about, Corey,

00:36:01.340 is that there's sufficient skilled veteran MPs that are still in that caucus working

00:36:08.440 that will hold this government to account, but remains to be seen. I mean, there are tools there

00:36:16.140 and certainly I'm familiar with them, that they can use parliamentary tools to hold the government

00:36:21.760 in check. We'll see whether they use those when bills come along that are so clearly

00:36:28.680 in opposition to a large section of Canadian citizenry, like gun legislation. Let's have a 0.88

00:36:37.320 look and see what it looks like. What scares me as a legal firearms owner all my life, ever since

00:36:43.620 I was a teenager, which was a few years ago, is that, you know, once again, we have a liberal party

00:36:51.040 supported by a socialist party that intends to ram through, or certainly leaving the impression

00:36:57.220 they intend to ram through more restrictions on legal firearms owners when they have never

00:37:02.980 provide the evidence that those are the firearms that are the problem. And I don't believe for a

00:37:13.600 liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin to provide evidence of the guns that were

00:37:20.000 used in crimes. How many of those were actually legal guns? And how were they stolen? And were

00:37:26.400 they stolen from owners, responsible firearms owners that had them in a gun cabinet? Or

00:37:33.520 exactly how did that gun get in the hands of a criminal?

00:37:37.200 Well, let's get stats. I mean, if it turns out that 90% of bank robberies were being committed

00:37:41.440 by duck hunting guns. Well, then maybe we should crack down on duck hunting, but there's no

00:37:44.760 evidence of any of that. Exactly. And of course, many of us are pretty confident that that's not

00:37:50.480 the case, that the majority of guns that are used in crime are smuggled in from the United States

00:37:57.080 where they are so numerous. Well, and these liberals, I can see kind of a danger and an

00:38:02.220 opportunity, I think. This is a liberal party like we haven't seen in a long time. In the 90s,

00:38:07.500 the liberals, there were still some blue liberals in there. There were some common sense MPs in

00:38:10.820 there. We gag a little to admit it, but guys like Dan McTeague or even David Kilgore who recently

00:38:15.620 passed away, but he was actually a great advocate for Alberta as a Liberal Party member. But those

00:38:21.240 moderate and pragmatic Liberals, you don't see them anymore. This is a hard left party,

00:38:27.260 but I see that as a danger in putting legislation through, but it also could be a force to

00:38:30.980 unite then a common sense conservative movement to unseat these guys.

00:38:36.100 opposition, yeah. One of the best examples I've used, Corey, in the past on that front is someone

00:38:43.260 that became a good friend of mine that was from outside of politics, and that's David Emerson.

00:38:49.580 He had built an incredible career in the private sector as a leader, and he really, I don't believe,

00:38:57.120 really intended to enter politics. He got a phone call one day when he was in Vancouver in his office

00:39:02.600 from the prime minister at the time, Paul Martin, and said, the country needs you. We need someone

00:39:08.620 like you from outside of politics that would only do it, would only get involved in politics

00:39:15.240 because of a desire to serve. So all the right reasons. And so David stepped forward. And as

00:39:21.500 you'll recall, there was a huge controversy after Stephen Harper and myself and others

00:39:26.700 orchestrated the defeat of the Liberal government under Paul Martin. And then Stephen made the

00:39:33.280 offer for David Emerson to cross the floor. And actually, I think it's the only time in Canadian

00:39:38.240 history that's happened, where a sitting cabinet minister, not just a member of parliament,

00:39:43.120 crossed from a defeated government to the new government and went right into cabinet.

00:39:49.440 What a great thing it turned out to be, though. I mean, I was there in that first parliament as

00:39:55.040 Prime Minister Harper's whip. I worked closely with all the cabinet. And I can tell you what

00:40:01.440 an advantage it was for us to have someone of the stature and the skills and experience,

00:40:07.740 private sector experience of David Emerson. And, you know, so it's the right decision,

00:40:13.360 a nonpartisan decision to welcome someone like that into the cabinet. And that's why I'm

00:40:18.360 suggesting someone like Tarek El Nega. I don't know whether Tarek is the be all and end all and

00:40:23.020 we'll be a great leader or not. But we need someone like that that has the reach beyond the

00:40:28.840 Conservative Party in a nonpartisan way to attract Albertans. When there's some of that tough irony

00:40:35.220 to have partisan unity at the same time as somebody who can go beyond those lines. I mean,

00:40:40.040 is it a pragmatic floor crossing or is it an opportunistic floor crossing? Because there's

00:40:45.280 two different kinds altogether. Well, lots to watch and lots to cover. Boy, that went fast.

00:40:49.540 Well, thank you so much as always for having me on the show. I'd love to come back and we can talk more.

00:40:54.660 I hope we can, yeah, because I think there's more to cover. We've got a lot unfolding. I really appreciate that voice of experience from in there, because as I said, we keep running in circles on the hamster wheel here, and one of the ways to try and avoid repeating these same mistakes over and over again is to speak with some other folks who have already made some of them so we can get on to some brand new fresh mistakes instead.

00:41:15.040 Well, I know I've made my share of mistakes.

00:41:17.200 Oh, yeah. And the successes too. Hey, he'll point out what worked. So great. Well, thanks for coming

00:41:22.680 in, Jay. And I'm certain we'll be talking again soon. Thanks, Corey. All right. I enjoyed it.

00:41:27.100 Thanks. So yes, that was Jay Hill. Again, for pretty much everybody who's been in the West in

00:41:33.220 this last few decades know who Jay is. And it's great having him in. Lots to talk about. Lots of

00:41:39.340 party questions, party things to wonder about. Interesting talking about that. Yeah,

00:41:43.380 with a floor crossing being a nonpartisan sort of thing. It's interesting because I talk about

00:41:50.760 the other end of it. If you remember Sandra Janssen, everybody had a lot of love to share

00:41:55.080 with her. And she just sort of ran for the doorway. But Sandra Janssen ran for the progressive

00:42:01.700 conservative. She was a very vitriolic and volatile member of the legislature. She ended up 1.00

00:42:08.800 running for the leadership, but she couldn't get enough signatures and things to get running.

00:42:13.060 She had Stephen Carter trying to manage her short-lived and divisive campaign.

00:42:17.660 So then she went off in a snit and later on joined Notley's NDP because Notley had a majority.

00:42:24.620 And she said, of course, it's not for a cabinet seat.

00:42:26.800 I'm just doing it because I'm principled.

00:42:28.500 But of course, she was put into cabinet not long after that.

00:42:32.260 And when things started looking rough for the NDP, even though Sandra Jansen said all the way through, I love this party.

00:42:38.200 I support this party.

00:42:39.280 Rachel's great.

00:42:40.140 When it looked bad in the polls, what, it was a month before the last general election, 1.00

00:42:44.060 looked like Sandra wasn't actually going to win her seat. 0.98

00:42:46.600 She abandoned the NDP without notice and ran for the hills. 0.99

00:42:49.560 So there's that kind of politician who crosses the floor.

00:42:53.140 And then there's the ones like Emerson, like Jay pointed out, that, you know,

00:42:56.920 could cross perhaps for the right reasons.

00:42:59.680 It's always our job and a difficult one to distinguish between the good and the bad ones, though.

00:43:04.900 And that's why these democratic measures and leaderships just never quite stop.

00:43:09.140 stop. Okay, let's talk about one of our advertisers before I get on some more new stuff.

00:43:14.140 And it cuts into an issue that's very big, of course, in the news these days. By the way,

00:43:18.880 I'm looking to speak to Tony Bernardo from them. Hopefully, I'll get him on the show again soon.

00:43:22.300 And that's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. These guys, I mean, this is a

00:43:26.820 time when we need a rational discussion about firearms, about legal firearm ownership, and about

00:43:31.900 illegal firearm ownership. You know, we need to have the resources for people. That's what the

00:43:35.940 CSSA is about. It's for people who want to responsibly use and enjoy firearms, whether

00:43:40.440 you're target shooting, collecting, hunting, any of those things. It's your business as a law-abiding

00:43:46.120 citizen to utilize these things. And there's lots of videos for safe use, ideas for things you can

00:43:51.440 do with firearms, resources, trade shows, but they also advocate on your behalf as a firearm owner or

00:43:57.820 one who's considering firearm ownership. And they've done legal challenges and things like

00:44:01.820 that I get some of the knee jerk or ideological legislation

00:44:06.020 that comes from the federal government quite often,

00:44:07.680 particularly on something like firearms.

00:44:09.260 And we saw that the horror,

00:44:11.260 the terrible situation in Texas, that tragedy,

00:44:14.400 it was just, it's horrible.

00:44:15.920 And there's a lot of school shootings and that's a big issue.

00:44:18.700 And we do, you know, more so the Americans than us,

00:44:21.000 that there has to be discussions on what's going on.

00:44:23.480 And we've got to make sure up here

00:44:25.420 that we don't lose our rights with knee jerk reactions

00:44:28.160 on the Canadian government's part,

00:44:29.260 taking advantage of American tragedy.

00:44:30.860 I think that's what's going to happen. When people are emotional, when they're upset,

00:44:34.820 and the liberals just don't seem to intent to go after criminal use of firearms. They just want

00:44:39.940 to keep going after the law abiding one. So either way, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association,

00:44:43.700 that's where you're going to find that rational discussion. That's where you can

00:44:46.880 get a good logical talk on these sorts of things. And again, support your own rights. So check them

00:44:52.040 out. CSSA-CILA.org. It's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. You could Google it,

00:44:58.020 take out a membership with them. It's not that much and it's well worth it. And that

00:45:00.740 help support them to keep supporting you. So let's see. Let's talk about, here we go, you know,

00:45:06.320 something a little more positive. And this is something that hit the news the other day.

00:45:10.020 A big announcement from the UCP government under Jason Kenney is that dogs are allowed on patios

00:45:15.260 in Alberta. So yes, pubs and patios, you can have a dog on there now. Ah, whatever. It's a good news

00:45:22.260 thing and why not? You know, I don't, it's not going to save Premier Kenney's butt politically 0.69

00:45:27.100 at this point or anything. It's sort of mixed, though. I've watched some of the discussion,

00:45:31.340 and some people have points on both sides. If you have a, well, for one of you have allergies and

00:45:37.040 such, you might not want to sit next to a dog. Plus, not all dogs are equal. Not all are equally

00:45:42.960 well-behaved. I mean, I've got three at home right now, one that we're fostering and two we've

00:45:46.860 adopted. We've got our big old bulldog. Yeah, she would sit just fine on a patio, wouldn't bother

00:45:51.140 anybody aside from maybe passing wind. We've got Duke, the wonder dog, as Dave likes to keep

00:45:56.260 bringing up. He is a great big beast. He's just a little over a year old. And as much as he would

00:46:00.720 do it with the best of intent, if he was on a bar patio, he would be knocking tables over and

00:46:05.520 jumping on people's laps and being a pain. We haven't trained him into a responsible public

00:46:10.260 dog like that. But the bottom line is, leave it to the private market. That's all. Let them choose

00:46:16.200 like anything else. Hey, we have a patio that allows dogs. Let that pub allow dogs. And you 0.52

00:46:20.320 know, there's a pub that could say, we don't want to allow it. Or you could have a no dog zone.

00:46:24.540 And there's all sorts of things, but it's just not the government's role to ban them.

00:46:27.180 So every little step that allows a little more independent choice, I will always embrace.

00:46:33.560 And I think it's great.

00:46:34.640 So if you've got a responsible dog and you like sitting on a patio, bring your dog.

00:46:40.060 I mean, there's a great website.

00:46:41.640 It's called Dogs in a Pub, I seem to remember, on Facebook or whatever.

00:46:43.860 All sorts of pictures of dogs sidled right up to the bar.

00:46:45.800 I mean, as long as you're not feeding the poor thing liquor, I didn't see a problem with that.

00:46:48.960 I owned a bar for five years.

00:46:50.120 I tell you, I had way more difficulty out of people than I could ever imagine having out of

00:46:55.700 dogs. So I would have rather dealt with the dogs. BC Prairie girl saying, what about cats? Don't

00:47:00.540 discriminate. Yeah, no, but you know, come on cats. So they just want to walk around and hate

00:47:03.800 everybody on the patio. But I mean, fair enough. Bring a cat. I bring your budgie. I mean, you know,

00:47:09.220 as long as it's the choice of the business, you respect their choice and bring it on. So either

00:47:14.600 way, they're little things, but they're still important and they are symbolic. Get government

00:47:18.320 out of our face. I mean, here's a, so meanwhile, the provincial government's getting rid of a law

00:47:22.440 that was just kind of stupid anyways, because it wasn't a problem. They're just allowing dogs on 0.92

00:47:26.780 patios for businesses that choose it. Those businesses can, you know, interact with their

00:47:31.140 own clientele and customers and find out if they like or what they don't. On the other hand,

00:47:34.900 we've got the city of Calgary. Oh yes. Our fine, um, uh, luminaries in Calgary city hall. So many

00:47:42.480 municipal governments are like that. So they're working on smoking and vaping bans in city parks

00:47:47.200 and along pathways. Like this is just ridiculous. Okay. This is a city hall that turns its head 0.68

00:47:55.340 purposely the other way. Anybody going downtown lately, there's another gentleman I want to speak

00:47:59.780 to. I hope I can get him on the show. He's been taking some very fantastic actually pictures of

00:48:03.760 some of the unfortunate human calamity we've got with the addiction going on in downtown Calgary.

00:48:09.780 They want to turn their back on people shooting up in bus shelters. That's literally what they're

00:48:14.600 doing. And people smoking meth on trains, because they are chasing down somebody who would vape

00:48:19.700 in a park where it would dissipate in the air. And I don't vape or smoke. I mean, it doesn't

00:48:25.000 affect me, but it's the freedoms thing. I don't care. I will actually speak up for other people's

00:48:28.640 freedoms to do things. This is stupid. This is a solution looking for a problem. Where is the 1.00

00:48:34.200 issue? You know, I mean, I guess, you know, you want some degree of courtesy. You don't want

00:48:37.980 somebody to blast out a big mouthful of vapor while you're a foot away from them, because it

00:48:42.920 pretty much as close you'll have to get to get a face full of that yourself. Smoking, yeah, it

00:48:46.240 stinks a bit. But we're talking outdoors in parks. This is where the control freaks and city council

00:48:51.540 are going, though. And it's ridiculous. Now, Courtney Penner, and she's a little, yeah, she's 0.98

00:48:59.920 the, we got the two Courtney's. I can't remember which one's which, you know, they're both loony,

00:49:03.060 loony left. Penner is the female one. There's a male one. She says this would help limit the 1.00

00:49:10.040 exposure of these behaviors to children. You know, now we get on to a term that we don't use enough

00:49:15.280 these days, and that's social engineering. City Hall thinks it's their place to worry about what

00:49:21.080 your kids see or don't see. Guys, it's not your freaking business. I don't want to see little 0.98

00:49:28.500 kids starting to smoke or vape either, but it's not the concern you have. Where do you stop with

00:49:33.660 that idiocy? It's not, there's the biggest problem we have in municipal governments all the time. 1.00

00:49:37.860 the self-important clowns who get elected into those municipal governments, they never stay 0.85

00:49:42.860 within their jurisdiction. They never will just stick to what they're elected to do. They always 0.96

00:49:47.940 have to go way out of bounds, just like Jody Gondek wanted to get in on the lawsuit against

00:49:52.760 Bill 21 in Quebec. Hey, Bill 21 is a disgusting bill, but it's not your place, Mayor Gondek.

00:49:59.340 Keep worry about home here. That's not your issue. If you wanted to deal with C-21 or not C-21,

00:50:05.780 but Quebec's Bill 21, run for federal office or even provincial, maybe because you can go to a

00:50:11.940 first minister's meeting. But as a mayor, it's none of your business. Stay out of it. Or prior

00:50:16.500 to that with Ninchy and a bunch of them, they spent months trying to ban fish soup in Chinatown. 0.99

00:50:20.760 Guys, you got better things to do. But no, the big turning point now, again, we're going to let 0.94

00:50:27.040 people overdose all over the streets, but we are worried about somebody vaping in a public park.

00:50:33.840 Yeah, they got their priorities on straight.

00:50:35.900 Okay, well, let's bring Reid Small in.

00:50:37.560 He's the Western Standard BC reporter

00:50:38.740 because he's always got lots of loony things in politics

00:50:41.060 he can talk about as well, of course,

00:50:42.680 because BC is the heartland of crazy politics.

00:50:45.520 How's it going, Reid?

00:50:46.660 It's going very well, thank you.

00:50:48.300 Right on.

00:50:49.480 So, yeah, I appreciate you coming on.

00:50:51.600 You've been putting out a lot of stories

00:50:52.840 where, you know, expanding is the Western Standard,

00:50:54.820 expanding our regional.

00:50:55.580 We're not the Alberta Standard.

00:50:56.980 We got to remind everybody,

00:50:57.920 hey, we got some really good news content coming out of there,

00:51:00.600 and you are the prime person in BC providing it.

00:51:03.600 So thanks for coming in to talk to us

00:51:05.260 a bit about your stories today.

00:51:07.280 Yeah, happy to be here.

00:51:09.180 So I guess, oh, go ahead.

00:51:11.720 No, yeah, I was just gonna start off

00:51:13.040 by starting off with the staffing shortage

00:51:16.620 in BC's healthcare system,

00:51:19.460 which is not an exclusive problem to the province of BC,

00:51:23.400 but rather pretty much the entire country.

00:51:27.240 It's particularly bad in Western provinces

00:51:30.160 the east coast hasn't been as bad but uh bc has been uh particularly bad uh significant shortage

00:51:38.220 of nurses er rooms closing for you know 12 hour periods at a time uh a million british colombians

00:51:45.160 without access to a primary care practitioner uh it's been and again this has been a slow building

00:51:51.420 issue for for many years but uh the last couple years uh have particularly accentuated uh the

00:51:57.620 issue due to the pandemic. Okay. Yeah. You probably didn't catch the opening of the show,

00:52:01.600 but that's what I started with a rant because Alberta has the same headline going on. We're

00:52:04.720 short here. As you said, it's in the Western provinces predominantly. And part of that

00:52:08.800 opening was I searched every province in Canada with doctor shortage and every province shows,

00:52:14.740 I mean, it's just a matter of degree on which ones are suffering more or less, but they're all short

00:52:18.220 and, you know, it's getting acute. So we're not losing them necessarily to other provinces

00:52:23.680 because every province is getting low. So we better start looking a little more carefully

00:52:26.320 and how we're going to deal with this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like the, uh, the hospital in

00:52:31.660 Clearwater BC on Sunday, it closed, uh, for 12 hours and that's the fifth time it's, it's closed,

00:52:37.120 uh, just this month, uh, overnight. And so patients were redirected an hour and 20 minutes

00:52:43.100 drive to Kamloops. Uh, and this is only two days after, uh, uh, a similar 12 hour closure at a

00:52:49.060 hospital in port mcneil uh so it's it's it's really bad and uh the the province is it says

00:52:58.180 it's going to address the issue by bringing in more foreign trained nurses so they're working

00:53:02.020 on a marketing campaign to uh quote uh make the province a more desirable location uh for foreign

00:53:08.420 trained nurses and they've allocated 12 million dollars uh to streamlining the process of bringing

00:53:15.300 in foreign trained nurses because usually it takes a couple years to get licensed and registered to

00:53:20.460 work in BC, but they're streamlining that process. And also they haven't provided a timeline on when

00:53:26.520 they're going to allow the province's unvaccinated nurses to return to work. Yeah, that's another big

00:53:33.220 kind of elephant in the room for a lot of those people. I mean, we've got vaccine mandates hanging

00:53:37.500 in some of the province or some of the health authorities or different facilities even, but I

00:53:42.180 mean, it's getting pretty bad and showing almost the ideological hang up. It seems that some of

00:53:47.300 these facilities have on vaccination when you're in the midst of a staffing crisis, but you still 0.98

00:53:52.260 will not let the unvaccinated employer workers come back to work to ease it. And again, when 0.99

00:53:58.660 it's been shown that at least the vaccination doesn't stop spread. So I mean, it doesn't make

00:54:02.020 a difference at this point, guys, get off the horse and let these guys get back to work. I mean,

00:54:05.820 I don't understand if vaccination stops spread. Okay, that's different. But how bad? Yeah. And

00:54:11.560 there are multiple legal challenges in the courts right now. A few of which I'll be covering this

00:54:16.820 week. And some are a little more promising than others. Some I would expect to be thrown out and

00:54:23.740 not get anywhere. But there are some some legal challenges underway that are being taken very

00:54:29.360 seriously. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah. So getting on to your more recent stories as well.

00:54:35.780 So there was a big meth bust. Unfortunately, we have the dubious honor of being the hosts of this

00:54:40.520 guy in Albertan, looks like was bringing, trying to bring a massive amount of meth into BC there.

00:54:47.400 Yeah, yeah, a man was hiking on Vancouver Island, or he claims he was hiking,

00:54:53.760 according to American documents. And a man approached him, who he had never met before,

00:55:01.340 offered him $1,000 to drive a boat to Washington, spend the night and then drive it back with what

00:55:10.000 he called luggage and he maintains that he did not know what was in that luggage and so he

00:55:16.660 supposedly and according to to these American documents took the offer stayed in a hotel for

00:55:24.320 the night returned to the boat the next day on his way back he was about half a mile from

00:55:28.720 being back in Canada and he was picked up by American officials and now he's he's being

00:55:35.780 investigated by Homeland Security, because the Americans certainly don't take these issues

00:55:40.900 lightly when it comes to drug trafficking. Yeah, just a side note, since there's a commenter,

00:55:45.900 Gail, asking if I said the vax stops spreading. No, I said vaccination does not, in the case of

00:55:50.900 COVID, just to clarify that, because I get some people, you're a pro-vax, you're a monster,

00:55:54.560 I'm unsubscribing, blah, blah, blah. No, not in this case. I'm still pro-vaccination,

00:55:57.900 but I'm pro-choice. But no, I'm not trying to claim stuff spread. Okay, back to, I like to

00:56:02.520 interact with the commenters is important. I mean, if something's unclear. So, but I mean,

00:56:06.260 that amount of meth, I mean, BC's addiction crisis is even more acute than Alberta's right now.

00:56:12.500 650 kilograms. I mean, aside from this guy's flaky defense or whatever, that's very, very

00:56:18.220 potent drug. I mean, that's a massive amount that unfortunately could and would have killed and

00:56:24.200 addicted a countless number of people, but that's just the one they caught.

00:56:27.860 Yeah.

00:56:28.360 Yeah, that's just the one they caught.

00:56:30.040 I mean, as we all know, BC has a very, very significant drug problem.

00:56:36.940 Lots of meth, mostly opiates, though.

00:56:39.820 I mean, more than 150 people are dying every day in this province.

00:56:45.820 Or sorry, every month, rather.

00:56:47.420 It's about six people a day dying from illicit drugs in BC.

00:56:51.540 So yeah, this is definitely contributing to that problem.

00:56:56.980 Although it is meth, so less people are overdosing on that, but it's still contributing to violent crime and whatnot.

00:57:05.240 The province is working on decriminalizing meth and cocaine and heroin and all of these hard drugs.

00:57:13.860 they want to work on a decriminalization process and create what they call a safe supply. Because

00:57:23.220 in theory, according to the government, that will prevent the demand for the illicit drug trade.

00:57:30.180 Yeah, the government feels that the drug dealers are dangerous. So if the government

00:57:34.900 gets into the drug business, they'll do it better because they've always been

00:57:38.420 I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as safe meth. But what do I know? Thankfully,

00:57:43.140 I don't think that I mean those poor people who get hooked on it it's as you said it's meth isn't

00:57:47.860 the one that's typically causing the overdoses but for those unfamiliar with a lot of addiction

00:57:51.720 meth is the one that kind of slowly eats them alive though when you see somebody so skinny

00:57:56.220 and covered in sores and just sort of a walking zombie or freaking out often that's a matter of

00:58:02.060 somebody's been on meth for a while so it's more slow death than the fentanyl but it's still a

00:58:05.840 horrible death it's a common sight uh in Vancouver it's it's it's all over the place uh on the

00:58:11.460 downtown east side there it's you know people from out of town they'll be walking in gas town

00:58:15.880 uh and they'll just walk the distance of one block and suddenly it's like you know uh like

00:58:22.380 you're in a zombie movie yeah at least hastings in that area has always been notorious i mean

00:58:26.440 yeah into the 80s early 90s when we go out there but i haven't been there in some years now but

00:58:30.740 i've heard it's of course it's gotten much worse even absolutely and i think that would actually

00:58:34.540 be a good transition into uh the uh nearly billion dollar museum project that's going on in bc

00:58:40.600 because liberal opposition Kevin Falcon has been criticizing the government for

00:58:47.640 bringing forth this project while there is such a problem of drugs, violent crime,

00:58:56.780 the nursing shortage, the doctor shortage. I feel like it's relevant to bring up. I've been

00:59:02.860 covering quite a few stories on that since the news was announced earlier this month and more

00:59:08.640 yeah so to frame that a bit from what i know about this one this is the big royal bc museum

00:59:13.280 they basically declared the old one to be so colonial and so tainted and everything else that

00:59:17.520 it just can't be salvaged we got to get rid of it because it's it's inherently evil and they're

00:59:22.240 going to replace it with well they're saying what 800 million dollars but we know with government

00:59:25.760 projects that'll probably come in well over a billion for we will i'm just going to guess to

00:59:30.000 be a monument to wokeness yeah yeah that was sort of the the focal point to begin with was more uh

00:59:36.720 of an identity politic, uh, focus, uh, but that's transitioned, uh, in response to criticism,

00:59:42.140 to a focus on, uh, you know, the seismic danger they're focusing on, uh, that, that it needs to

00:59:47.340 be seismically upgraded, uh, that it's prone to flooding, uh, in that, uh, the, that it's riddled

00:59:53.040 with asbestos. And they're saying that the, the proposal that they've set forth, uh, is actually

00:59:58.460 $3 million, no, actually the number, yeah, $3 million cheaper than, uh, upgrading the existing

01:00:05.080 building so they might as well just tear it all down build a new one uh and kevin falcon said if

01:00:10.120 he's elected as premier he'll scrap the project uh but uh according to the business case uh that the

01:00:16.200 ndp government released last week uh the demolition process will begin in march of 2024 which is seven

01:00:23.800 months prior to the next provincial election so it won't make a difference even if he says he'll

01:00:28.920 he'll scrap it. By the time he gets into office, if he will, the building will already be torn down.

01:00:36.340 Yeah, and that's too bad because a lot can be lost. And as others are pointing out, too,

01:00:39.580 these are times when things are getting tight. I mean, Jennifer Schofield and commenters saying,

01:00:43.620 you know, try free rehab instead of free drugs. Well, you know, you can spend a lot of money

01:00:47.580 with $800 million on rehabilitation facilities. Or there was Cheryl, I think it was brought up, 0.97

01:00:53.560 you know, uh, 800 million could hire a heck of a lot of nurses back as well. Like as you wonder 1.00

01:00:59.660 about the priorities with some things, but, uh, as you said, I mean, I can understand that some

01:01:03.520 old buildings actually can't be rehabilitated or it's expensive that that happened in Calgary,

01:01:07.080 the general hospital, we had to blow it up. And you know, the, the left still goes wild about

01:01:11.480 that. Oh, you blew up a hospital. This thing was so ancient and out of date though, that it,

01:01:15.040 it just wasn't worth fixing. That might be the case of the museum, but a lot of what we heard

01:01:19.560 on shutting down the old one wasn't based on that. They're kind of pivoting. It was more,

01:01:22.780 all while it's a symbol of colonialism and that sort of. Right, right. And yeah, the business

01:01:29.180 case that they released last week was heavily redacted. Much of it was blacked out. So

01:01:34.500 we don't really have a lot of detail on it, just a timeline and a rough cost, which they maintain

01:01:43.160 is still going to be significantly cheaper than seismically upgrading it. But a lot of people

01:01:48.360 have pointed out, a lot of critics have also said that if you're going to be consistent with the

01:01:52.260 need to seismically modernize buildings, then they should address the elementary schools that

01:02:00.040 need to be seismically upgraded. Because there's a bunch of schools in BC that are waiting for

01:02:06.480 their funding to renovate for that exact reason. So that's what critics are saying, at least.

01:02:12.320 Well, again, yeah, it's a matter of priorities. I mean, it'd be horrible to see. But if Vancouver

01:02:16.140 could, every seismologist says it could have a very big earthquake at some point. And I'd rather

01:02:21.580 we deal with a bunch of squashed artifacts in a museum than a bunch of crushed children in a

01:02:25.900 school. So yeah, it's first. So going a little further, I guess, getting onto municipal crazy

01:02:31.700 governments, just seeing down your stories there, it looks like the Vancouver is looking to punish

01:02:35.600 gas stations if they don't have a electric vehicle charging setups. Yeah, by 2025, Vancouver gas

01:02:43.180 stations. Right now, they pay a business license fee of $253 a year. And that will raise to $10,000

01:02:51.840 a year in 2025, unless if they haven't put in one EV charging station of 50 kilowatts,

01:03:02.020 and then commercial parking lots pay a slightly cheaper annual fee. And that will also be raised

01:03:09.440 to $10,000 if they don't put in a minimum of four charging stations with a minimum of

01:03:16.340 26.6 kilowatts per station.

01:03:19.560 I can't imagine these stations are very cheap to install.

01:03:24.520 No, no.

01:03:25.520 The gas stations are looking at a minimum of $100,000.

01:03:30.360 Or sorry, the commercial lots are looking at $100,000.

01:03:33.260 The gas stations are looking at at least $130,000.

01:03:37.320 Yeah, and that really depends on the gas station.

01:03:39.200 I mean, some might have a big parking area where perhaps they could find a couple appropriate spaces.

01:03:43.020 But if you've got a small one, you might not even have room to stick that on your lot.

01:03:47.260 And the other thing, I don't know about Vancouver, but we've got charging stations all over the city of Calgary.

01:03:51.440 You can tell where they are because there's no cars in front of them.

01:03:54.100 Right, right. Yeah, exactly.

01:03:55.400 And I actually I forgot to mention the gas stations, regardless of the size, will have to will have will be subject to this coming policy.

01:04:04.560 But commercial parking lots that have fewer than 60 parking stalls will be exempt.

01:04:09.200 Well, I guess that's a small relief. I mean, you know, it's a big investment for a smaller parking lot, but still, yeah, it's part of Vancouver's climate emergency plan that was set forth in 2020, which aims to reduce the city's carbon emissions by 50% of 2007 levels by 2030.

01:04:32.180 And also by 2030, it wants to ensure that 50% of all kilometers driven in the city of Vancouver are done so in zero emission vehicles.

01:04:44.960 Yeah, good luck with that.

01:04:46.380 But well, I guess if they bankrupt enough people, you know, there'll be a lot of people walking and riding bikes and they won't be able to reach their targets that way.

01:04:53.900 I just, well, you're in the land of the woke, I guess.

01:04:58.040 Yeah, that I am.

01:04:59.700 We're not immune.

01:05:00.220 what we see in vancouver this year is what's coming here in three years so yeah are there

01:05:04.540 any court challenges pushing back on that again i mean this is the sort of thing that honestly

01:05:07.660 for some smaller businesses could actually break them uh pushing back on the ev charges yeah uh

01:05:14.380 not that i'm aware of at this point i haven't seen any uh any court cases pushing back on that

01:05:19.340 uh again you know at least 60 70 of the gas stations already have uh chargers i mean i've

01:05:28.860 it's it's it's become pretty widespread recently so um i don't know the exact number of how many

01:05:35.820 gas stations do not have ev chargers in vancouver right now but uh they're definitely in the

01:05:40.700 minority i mean there's not that many gas stations in the city to begin with i think it i think it's

01:05:46.540 less than 70. oh really okay like most are out towards getting into abbotsford and burnaby and

01:05:52.620 all through there is certainly 66 to be exact okay so people kind of move more to the suburbs to fill

01:05:57.900 up anyways. But still, even a small amount being abused is too many, in my view, as far as

01:06:02.240 businesses go. But okay, we'll wrap up. Let's up a little more light and from the world of the

01:06:07.360 bazaar. And you can see at the bottom of the story there, everybody's favorite transgender

01:06:10.740 activist, Jessica Yaniv, has her court's finished. She's been found guilty of assault.

01:06:17.440 Yep. Yep. She has been found guilty of assault. Jessica Yaniv, formerly Jonathan Yaniv, 1.00

01:06:25.540 uh biological male transitions goes by uh uh actually she calls herself jessica simpson now

01:06:32.860 uh she legally changed her name to that striking so i can see people getting that mixed up

01:06:38.200 yeah i actually did genuinely get it messed up at first uh i needed to be corrected um but uh

01:06:44.760 yeah so that court case wrapped up that was a former rebel news uh journalist kian bext uh he

01:06:50.920 He was covering a court case that Yaniv was leaving from regarding weapons charges.

01:06:59.820 So he started asking her questions.

01:07:02.160 She then attacked him and the camera went sideways.

01:07:05.800 But you could see in the video that's embedded there, you could see what looks like punches were being thrown.

01:07:11.140 And yeah, the judge did find Yaniv guilty of assault.

01:07:16.420 um and uh yon will actually be in court again next month uh for uh i don't know if you're

01:07:22.440 familiar with billboard chris uh chris elston um he's uh he travels around the country with a sign

01:07:28.840 saying uh children cannot consent to puberty blockers uh and uh yeah he was also attacked

01:07:35.860 by uh yonav a couple years ago and that that will that hearing will take place next month

01:07:41.560 so i'll be covering that okay well as much as we kind of look at it as a bit of dark comedy 0.97

01:07:45.720 honestly, it appears that Ms. Yanov has some mental issues to be dealt with. I hope actually

01:07:51.920 perhaps in sentencing, they can get her some help because she's actually got some serious problems 0.84

01:07:57.040 going on that one. But it's hard not to turn away from that accident sometimes as you're watching

01:08:01.820 it go. So for her sake and everybody else, hopefully this is a closure and moving on to a

01:08:07.480 better part of her life, I guess. So before I let you go, is there anything you're working on you

01:08:11.900 want to let us know about or things coming up? Yeah, just stay tuned for decisions that will

01:08:17.680 be coming out regarding constitutional challenges to previous COVID related orders. A lot of those

01:08:24.820 are, you know, concluding in a close timeframe right now. So we're going to be expecting a big

01:08:31.740 decision, possibly this week, you know, within a couple weeks at the latest regarding the legality

01:08:39.340 of the vaccine passport system in B.C., Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he'll be releasing

01:08:46.640 his decision on whether it was constitutionally sound in the coming days.

01:08:51.060 Great. Well, we're looking forward to it. So thanks for that extended update on the wet coast

01:08:55.580 there, Reid. Always good to talk to you and keep up the good work.

01:08:58.640 Likewise. Thanks very much, Corey.

01:09:01.280 Thanks, Reid. So yes, that was the Western Standards' Reid Small. He's our B.C. person

01:09:06.080 on the ground. As you can see, he covers a lot of these stories and he digs out some good ones out

01:09:09.480 there. But again, that crazy province does provide for a lot for us all the time. It's the same as

01:09:15.640 well. I saw just getting back, I guess, to a little of that chat with the electric vehicles

01:09:20.080 and charging. Wildrose, there was a commenter asking how much does it cost to charge an electric

01:09:25.980 car? I saw somewhere, somebody tweeting recently that's saying it's costing $7 in electricity.

01:09:30.600 I'm not sure. But you know, something some people got to understand, especially proponents of this

01:09:34.780 all electrifying everything and moving forward. And again, it's the left. So they've always got

01:09:39.240 that mental deficit when it comes to supply and demand. That if you put all of these vehicles

01:09:44.240 electric, if you electrified the world the way they want to, if you, I mean, in Vancouver,

01:09:49.200 they've also been talking about, and we see in other areas, you know, banning natural gas from

01:09:53.440 heating and cooking in houses. So we'd make everything for heat and cooking electric. And

01:09:57.480 we make every vehicle electric. And we put all of that into the mix. You know, we take out all of

01:10:02.780 the hydro, or I mean, all of the petrochemically driven power. So, you know, natural gas and diesel

01:10:10.220 and coal, get rid of all that. What do you think is going to happen to the price of electricity?

01:10:15.200 This is something they just will not acknowledge and do not understand. We don't even have a

01:10:19.600 fraction of the generating and transmission capacity and infrastructure required right now

01:10:25.000 to handle all of this. That's part of what these idiots in Vancouver are trying to do with their 1.00

01:10:31.060 city council, I guess, in the sense that we can force gas stations and parking lots to put the 1.00

01:10:36.200 charging stations in. Okay, that's one of the steps that's keeping people out of electric cars,

01:10:40.220 because it's a real pain in the butt, I would imagine, if you're traveling around in one of

01:10:43.820 those very expensive virtue signaling machines, and you can't find a practical charging place for

01:10:49.900 your vehicle. So the more that are there, perhaps more people will choose electric.

01:10:54.000 But the generating cost is going to go through the roof. And you know, these hipsters who live

01:11:00.400 downtown in an urban area say it doesn't matter to me anyways I walk to work or ride my bike or

01:11:05.820 whatever it might be well you still need to turn your lights on you still need to heat your place

01:11:09.640 even in Vancouver you still need to cook your food all of those things are going to go up

01:11:13.440 everything will go up when the price of power goes up everything goes up it's just about the

01:11:19.360 only commodity we have that the price of it impacts everything so when you want to get your

01:11:27.080 January avocados for your toast, they're going to cost you a whole lot of money because you

01:11:33.300 were getting them up here and you guys have shot down all the efficient power sources around

01:11:37.880 yourself. There's this madness going towards electrifying everything. And that's the only

01:11:43.000 way to put it. I mean, we've got Site C dam up in Northern BC. I see Jennifer just brought it up.

01:11:48.040 Yeah. You know, when she's saying it's more to generate power for China, I don't know, whatever.

01:11:54.240 The bottom line isn't that one, though. It's got massive opposition from left and right.

01:11:59.000 And that's just one dam. You guys are going to need in BC alone, probably 15 more dams like that.

01:12:03.980 If you really want to make everything electric, we want to get every gas powered vehicle off the road.

01:12:07.820 We want to get every natural gas heated home out of there. We want to get rid of every other form of generation.

01:12:13.220 You can barely get site C done. And then what about Alberta, Saskatchewan? 1.00

01:12:17.420 We don't have any giant rivers out here like they have in Quebec or even in Manitoba that we could dam up and make a massive hydroelectric project.

01:12:28.360 Nuclear, people fight that tooth and nail.

01:12:31.680 Where do we go with this?

01:12:32.900 Solar?

01:12:33.460 How many hundreds and hundreds of square miles and how many billions and billions of dollars for something that's going to run out on us if we have a long stretch of cold weather and cloudy days?

01:12:42.660 It's madness.

01:12:44.220 It's madness.

01:12:44.860 And meanwhile, they're punishing these businesses.

01:12:48.000 Again, gas station owners, people got to realize,

01:12:50.000 you know, oh, it's Imperial, who cares?

01:12:51.600 Well, it's a franchise, guys.

01:12:53.300 These are small business owners usually

01:12:54.760 who run those stations.

01:12:56.500 And if you suddenly hit them with an extra expensive,

01:13:00.100 as Reid was saying, you know, $100,000, $130,000

01:13:02.300 just to put a charging port in

01:13:03.580 that people aren't going to use very often.

01:13:05.340 We know that, as I said, I was only half kidding.

01:13:08.320 If you want to find electric charging ports,

01:13:09.760 it's easy to find them

01:13:10.320 because nobody's parked in front of them.

01:13:12.580 Don't need them.

01:13:13.280 then where are we going to go? So something's got to give. They've either got to really allow

01:13:22.940 some realistic, massive infrastructure growth, which means, and I know Wildrose doesn't like it,

01:13:28.720 but too bad, nuclear. It means that. It means hydro, but we don't have enough hydro here for it.

01:13:34.360 Solar is just not reasonable. Wind doesn't blow all the time. And we haven't even started surveying

01:13:40.120 where we're going to put these facilities because they're not coming.

01:13:44.540 So we're shutting down all our stuff and we haven't created the alternative yet. 1.00

01:13:49.140 What a stupid, stupid direction we're going in. 1.00

01:13:51.840 We're all going to pay a terrible, terrible price for this in the long run. 1.00

01:13:55.340 Man, I just fear for the idiocy of what we're doing right now. 0.99

01:13:59.500 But I'll keep ranting about it. 0.98

01:14:00.660 At least it gives me lots of material to get the vein pulsing.

01:14:02.300 Let me talk about one of our sponsors before I get on to some more new stuff.

01:14:05.240 And I got a fair amount to go through today.

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01:14:12.220 I'll talk quickly about that other program

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01:14:25.920 we can choose as voluntary, of course, too.

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01:14:35.200 And again, it's voluntary.

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01:14:39.720 So every month, a little chunk actually goes into a side savings over there in a Bitcoin wallet.

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01:14:47.380 So it's just a different little way to save a few more bucks and then something else outside of the regular currency.

01:14:51.760 They have all sorts of ways to help you set up.

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01:15:24.160 All right.

01:15:25.000 Let's see what else we got me to get worked up in the news.

01:15:27.100 Dave mentioned this earlier.

01:15:29.100 This is odd.

01:15:29.900 Yeah, so the CMHC, that's the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, I do despise when

01:15:36.080 government, it's one of their ways to hide what they're doing.

01:15:40.780 We see it in the city of Calgary too.

01:15:42.100 When they make these arms length, quote unquote, corporations, look, they're arms and branches

01:15:46.160 of the government.

01:15:47.640 And what it does is make it harder to account for what the hell they're doing.

01:15:50.400 The CMHC, I believe, is still, you can still FOIP them and you can still get some information

01:15:55.780 and they still answer to the government a bit.

01:15:57.640 in Calgary, they put together a $100 million slush fund and they called it Calgary Economic

01:16:02.180 Development. You know, you have this nice name. It sounds as if it's some sort of things like a

01:16:05.780 Chamber of Commerce or something. And no, it's a bunch of bureaucrats with a slush fund subsidizing

01:16:10.060 and giving money to buddies to start failing businesses in Calgary and put pressure on

01:16:14.200 existing businesses who are already having a hard time. And because they set this side thing with

01:16:18.800 the Calgary Economic Development with that, even though it was tax dollars, suddenly we can't even

01:16:22.440 find out what exactly they're doing with it. We can't audit them, can't fight them. Either way,

01:16:26.200 the CMHC is an arm of the federal government, the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation.

01:16:31.760 And they deal with our housing things. Now they over and over and over again, keep doing these

01:16:36.920 studies on behalf of the government to try and tax our primary home equity. They want your house,

01:16:44.420 guys. They want to take the money out of your house. And every time they get caught doing it, 0.97

01:16:49.060 they say, no, no, no, we're not doing that yet. They keep spending hundreds and hundreds of

01:16:51.400 thousands of dollars going after it. And now the head of it is saying, we need home prices

01:16:56.020 to stall. This is from an access to information thing from the Taxpayers Federation. The CEO of

01:17:01.380 that group said, welcome tips from the equity tax advocates. Again, these guys, how can we tax these

01:17:06.780 houses to stall the growth of the price? They refused to acknowledge the reality. As I was

01:17:12.860 talking about, loony lefties, mental disconnect guy, there's a little chunk in their brains 1.00

01:17:16.540 somewhere. There's a little piece of meat, gray matter in there. And that's where supply and 1.00

01:17:20.860 demand resides, right? Where you can figure out that concept and how that works. And somehow in

01:17:25.740 the left, it's not there. It's not there. And Hayek, you know, said it best, that fantastic

01:17:31.520 economist, when he said, if socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists. But you

01:17:37.520 see, the socialists are missing that little chunk wherever it is. It was a lobotomized 0.61

01:17:41.320 in vitro or something like that. So either way, they're mystified with the CMHC. How do we get

01:17:47.420 housing prices under control? How do we get it affordable? They think taxing is the way to do

01:17:51.460 it. No, we need more. Isn't that complicated? If you don't have enough houses and you got too many

01:17:56.860 people want them, the price goes up. Supply and demand. Remember that little chunk of meat?

01:18:00.820 Think about it, guys. Not the CMHC. So yeah, this was an email that came out again, the Taxpayers

01:18:06.280 Federation. I love how they dig this stuff out on our behalf a lot. And yeah, this email is by

01:18:11.160 Paul Kershaw, a U of B.C. researcher. He got $450,000 from the CMHC to promote home equity tax.

01:18:18.060 Yeah, the one that they say they don't want,

01:18:19.440 but they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars

01:18:21.700 trying to promote it.

01:18:22.760 Weird.

01:18:24.500 But yes, they think somehow

01:18:27.640 if we can just tax ourselves,

01:18:30.760 we'll all get rich from it

01:18:31.800 and we'll slow down housing costs.

01:18:33.740 Maybe because everybody will be broke eventually

01:18:35.680 and nobody will want to buy a house

01:18:36.680 because they're going to steal your equity from you

01:18:38.540 and then we'll just live in tents

01:18:39.880 down in Vancouver's east side, I guess.

01:18:44.680 Yeah, getting back to what Dave talked a bit

01:18:47.560 about the story too. So yeah, drug dealers are moving online. Black market drug dealers are

01:18:51.720 selling more pot pound for pound than the federally licensed distributors. So, you know,

01:18:56.440 it's been legal. Pot's been legalized for some years now in Canada, but the black market is

01:19:01.920 still outdoing them. A couple of reasons. I mean, most of it is, again, when you get government

01:19:05.920 involved, nothing's efficient. Only government could screw up something as simple as selling

01:19:09.700 some weed to make some money. And they've managed to do it. So, I mean, most of it is that if you

01:19:15.620 want to go the legal route of selling pot, the amount of regulation and licensing and studies

01:19:23.260 and forms and people and infrastructure and crap that you got to do, it's almost impossible to

01:19:28.980 compete with a guy who's was already set up with his basement hydroponic setup who was growing

01:19:33.280 fantastic pot 10 years ago. So again, like just about everything else where we got a problem,

01:19:40.340 government just needs to get out of the damn way get out of the way now it gets back to what reed

01:19:47.980 was talking about because there's that push there to somehow have the government now there's 0.93

01:19:52.480 decriminalization i kind of understand that when it comes to meth heroin and coke i'm not saying

01:19:57.440 that we want to spread it around and but the bottom line is there's no sense charging somebody

01:20:01.160 because they had a gram in their pocket because they're a user you're not solving anything you're

01:20:05.000 just taking up resources try and get the person who sold them the gram of meth i believe you get

01:20:09.440 after those dealers and everything. But if you think the government's going to get in and become

01:20:13.360 a better meth dealer than the existing ones, they can't even sell pot right. Come on, Coke and

01:20:22.040 fentanyl, whatever else. I mean, the problem isn't, well, I mean, there is a problem with bad drugs

01:20:28.120 and unclean drugs and things that are killing people, absolutely. But the bigger problem,

01:20:34.300 we've got to get to the bottom of it, is the addiction in the first place. At best, if the

01:20:38.040 government gets in and provides clean, reliable, safe drugs, as I said, there's no safe meth,

01:20:44.780 at best, you're going to slow the death. I guess that's better if you're going to hope to get them

01:20:48.760 off it. But if you're not treating them, getting it off it, then all you're doing is facilitating

01:20:52.060 a slow suicide. And again, you won't do it any better than the criminal drug dealers anyways,

01:20:57.640 even with the harder drugs. So yeah, I can understand reprioritizing. Like I said, I wouldn't

01:21:02.640 want to see police wasting time, even here in Calgary, sweeping down the street. It's not that

01:21:06.260 hard. You see all the strung out junkies laying around all over the place, the poor buggers. 0.98

01:21:10.040 I mean, you want to go around and pin them down and handcuff them and rifle through their pockets 0.85

01:21:13.920 and find that they're in, because technically it's illegal. So they're probably almost all

01:21:17.540 in possession of some degree of the illegal drugs, but it's not helping anybody going after those

01:21:22.020 guys. That's what decriminalization is about. Just quit wasting time on them, but you can still

01:21:27.600 focus on the illicit dealers and don't focus on the illicit dealers by trying to replace them

01:21:33.580 do it by trying to knock them out of business and getting back to supply and demand. Hey,

01:21:38.420 again, the meat chunk of meat in the head, the demand is there. As long as those guys are

01:21:41.980 addicted, they're going to keep asking for it and somebody is going to provide it. So let's

01:21:45.920 get on to treatment and reduce the demand. If you reduce the demand, the supply takes care of

01:21:50.720 itself. But no easy solutions, there aren't. But you know, we've got a lot of crappy solutions

01:21:59.300 being proposed out there. Yeah, this was an odd one now. So let's see. Yeah, Katie Telford.

01:22:06.440 She's Trudeau's chief of staff. A lot of other rumors about her among things too, but whatever.

01:22:12.800 She got VIP tickets. Dave mentioned that to the White House Correspondents Association dinner.

01:22:18.960 And she was boasting that she could manipulate press coverage. So, oh, wait a minute. Yeah,

01:22:26.440 so a contractor paid to host her. This is how again, you know, entrenched and corrupt and 1.00

01:22:31.920 dirty our government's getting is roundabout ways. So I mean, you can't necessarily though,

01:22:36.320 actually you can, I should see, you know, you can take the prime minister to an island offshore and

01:22:40.940 spend millions of dollars on them or whatever it might have been and get away with it because they

01:22:44.580 will still spank him technically, but it doesn't matter because he'll get reelected and he doesn't

01:22:48.040 actually get charged with anything. So also you can bribe his, sorry, you know, give incentives

01:22:55.000 to his chief of staff and have her attend VIP dinners in Washington. These are the sort of

01:23:03.340 things, as Dave was mentioning, this is the social event of the year in Washington. So yeah,

01:23:08.140 there's people like Drew Barrymore and Arthur Stewart. That's a funny name of the bunch. I mean,

01:23:12.820 she knows about doing time. Brooke Shields, you know, the celebrities, the heavyweights all get

01:23:17.960 going down there. And I mean, if Telford wanted to go to it, fine. If she managed to get an invite,

01:23:21.720 somehow fine. But when you get a business source who's buying that access for her, well, we got a

01:23:27.960 bit of a problem. And who else was down there? Oh, Kim Kardashian. I'm glad we can have our federal

01:23:33.960 people, you know, rubbing shoulders with important ones like this. So when she's whispering in

01:23:38.200 Trudeau's ear after one of their intimate policy discussions, she can talk about how she met Kim

01:23:46.500 Kardashian and Pete Davidson at the red carpet affair down south because God knows we don't

01:23:52.820 want Trudeau thinking about actual policy issues now, do we? That's our government at work. I guess

01:23:58.000 there is a conflict of interest investigation looking into it. So we'll see if anything comes

01:24:02.620 of that. I won't hold my breath. I guess even some new Democrat MPs are condemning the Supreme

01:24:10.340 Court decision. That's where lifetime imprisonment without parole is now considered unconstitutional.

01:24:16.500 original, that's where our Supreme Court has basically decided, you know what, we're going

01:24:20.320 to give volume discounts to mass murderers. That's the reality, right? You know, you only pay a

01:24:25.660 certain price for killing one. And after that, hey, it's a free for all because you'll serve the 0.59

01:24:29.480 time for every one of them after that all at the same time. It'll all be concurrent sentence. So

01:24:34.340 you get sentenced to 10 years per person you killed. But if you killed 20 people, you serve

01:24:38.460 them all at the same time. So, you know, 10 years, two thirds mandatory police, be nice, do some

01:24:42.040 counseling. Yeah, you've got three, four years. Even some of the NDP have figured out this is

01:24:46.720 stupid. But now that's where we're sitting right now. Yes. And this was a nine to nothing court 1.00

01:24:53.880 ruling. It wasn't even there wasn't even dissent. What does it take? How bad? I mean, the thing that

01:24:59.920 the one that people were pointing at the most was, of course, that that monster who murdered those

01:25:03.480 people in a mosque who were just praying. And now that person's got the volume discount on murder.

01:25:08.400 so that he'll probably be out in a little while.

01:25:10.040 I mean, it still might be 25 years.

01:25:11.800 That's still too short. 0.89

01:25:12.620 We're murdering six people.

01:25:15.320 And, you know, we've got others 0.86

01:25:17.200 who really deserve to die of old age in jail.

01:25:20.880 And our judges in Canada,

01:25:22.580 unfortunately, don't think so.

01:25:24.640 So we're busy again.

01:25:25.800 Where are our priorities?

01:25:26.920 Well, we're banning vaping in parks

01:25:28.460 and we're fining gas stations

01:25:30.660 who don't put electric chargers

01:25:31.800 and we're releasing murderers.

01:25:34.940 Let's see, other stuff.

01:25:36.340 we got, I'm hoping to get a guy on from University of Saskatchewan to talk about this one. And that's

01:25:42.300 the wild boars that are coming in in Alberta. Lamont. Now you got to think if you know Alberta,

01:25:47.360 that's getting just over from Elk Island National Park. So just east of Edmonton a little bit like

01:25:52.500 this is getting pretty urban. And they're having a problem with wild boars getting into there.

01:25:57.180 And for people, you know, you're hearing little bits about this. But if you haven't been to the

01:26:00.820 southern states, like I used to do a lot of work down there as a surveyor and oil exploration

01:26:04.160 through Texas and Louisiana, even in New Mexico, I saw some of it. The wild pigs down there, these

01:26:09.500 feral pigs, they are out of control and they do damage. Like when you see a field and those things

01:26:14.140 have been rooting around, they rip it to shreds and they're tough to get. There's traps everywhere.

01:26:18.440 These guys are hunting them everywhere. It doesn't matter. These things are smart. They can eat darn

01:26:22.860 near anything. They breed faster than all get out. And now we've got them up here. So I don't even

01:26:28.780 know if we can get them under control even at this point, but maybe if we got any chance of

01:26:33.000 getting them under control will be now when their population isn't that big. But if they get in and

01:26:36.820 entrenched, guys, you can't get those bloody things out. And they do a lot of damage.

01:26:43.220 Okay, well, let's see. So let's tune in tomorrow. I've got Matt Hadfield. He's from the open media.

01:26:50.860 There was a story a little while that broke about governments been sharing data from online

01:26:57.180 learning on students, the kids, the kids have had their personal data shared with data marketers

01:27:02.700 marketers and things like that. They were forced into online learning through the pandemic and

01:27:06.900 regulations. Now it turns out with the apps they brought in and things like that, basically their

01:27:12.080 data, your kid's data got sold to data marketers. That's going to be a big deal to talk about with

01:27:17.720 us. So we're going to talk to him about online privacy in general and things like that with

01:27:20.600 open media. And oh, and I got Tom Flanagan coming on. Is it tomorrow? Oh, it's Wednesday. Can't

01:27:27.480 remember. I got somebody else good coming on tomorrow too. Geez, I should have brought my

01:27:29.980 schedule in with me. Either way, guys, it'll be good. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope you had

01:27:34.960 a good weekend. Let's have a good week here. Monday has been kicked off. So I will see you

01:27:40.080 all again tomorrow at 1130 AM. And I'll know who my guest is by then.

01:27:59.980 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - May 31, 2022

Triggered： No doctors？ It’s the system stupid!

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