Western Standard - Triggered： Private hospitals on First Nations reserves？ Excellent!

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's June 3rd, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. This is the

00:00:39.340 Western Standard's daily live show. We run Monday to Friday, 1130 a.m. Mountain Standard

00:00:44.560 until usually about one o'clock in the afternoon. Being live, again, I invite those comments.

00:00:50.240 I see Claudette and Gary already out there and others joining in. Let's interact, make

00:00:55.040 this, you know, a more fun experience. Keeps things fluid and keeps things moving. Send

00:00:59.260 me your thoughts, chat with each other, send questions to the guests. I might not read them

00:01:03.540 all in the air, but I do see them all out there, and it helps keep the show flowing. Again,

00:01:09.080 you've always got to remember to remain a little civil with each other. It's so easy to get into

00:01:12.100 fights online. It's funny, getting into beekeeping, Nico was asking me about that earlier.

00:01:18.340 I bought the hive. I got it all set up. I got the gear. I've been doing YouTube University,

00:01:22.580 but my bees have been delayed. I'm just waiting and waiting. Canada's had a real problem with

00:01:26.260 bees this year. They should be here within 10 days or so. But so of course, I'm studying as

00:01:31.540 much as I can. And I follow online discussions. And there's a beginners beekeeping group on

00:01:35.720 Facebook. And my God, these guys fight like cats and dogs on there. I mean, it's supposed to be

00:01:40.100 just a group where beginners are sharing advice and things on how to beekeep. And still they're

00:01:44.160 calling each other names and getting on each other's case. So you really got to watch that

00:01:47.720 whole internet thing somehow try to stay. You can't even talk about beekeeping without getting

00:01:52.080 into a scrap. Hey, I had nothing to do with that. I just, I don't participate. Either way, let's see

00:01:57.700 what the other stuff is going on today and stuff to talk about. Got a couple of strange observances

00:02:02.020 for today on the things to watch around the world. It is National Itch Day. Yes, so for all of your

00:02:08.260 allergies, scratching, hives, whatever issues you've got going on, today's the day I guess you

00:02:13.920 can openly scratch them, enjoy them, dislike them, whatever you do. I don't know how these things get

00:02:18.540 declared. I suspect Claritin or Calamine Lotion Manufacturer or something like that has come up

00:02:25.420 with this one. But all the same, you know, to your favorite itchy friend, go to the Hallmark store

00:02:29.320 and get a National Itch Day card and celebrate. It's also National Clubfoot Day. Not a turn you

00:02:35.500 hear all that often anymore. As we see, actually, yes, it's World Clubfoot Day. But I mean, it's

00:02:40.340 serious for some other people and they do have to concern themselves with it. So I guess, you know,

00:02:44.680 once a year, we want to point out and remember that there's a lot of people with club feet out

00:02:48.620 there that are having a rough day. On a brighter side, I think it's also supposed to be National

00:02:52.540 Donut Day or something else like that, so you don't have to look at nothing but negative,

00:02:57.080 itchy club foot stuff for the afternoon. It is Friday, and that's a good day for most people.

00:03:02.080 All right, I got a few guests today, three spots, actually. So we got Dave Makachek.

00:03:06.160 It's not so long ago since he was here. He's with the Western Standard, but he wrote a piece on

00:03:10.280 And the Canadian military and some crazy stuff going on with Chinese pilots have been buzzing Canadians' planes out there on the seas and really kind of illustrating just how far our military has fallen in equipment and gear, at least anyways.

00:03:25.340 So we're going to talk a bit about that.

00:03:26.580 Then we're going to have the panel back that I had yesterday, Jonathan Bradley and Matthew Horwood.

00:03:30.340 We'll just kind of break down what happened with the Ontario election last night.

00:03:33.820 it kind of went to a large degree as predicted. And both opposition leaders, it sounds like,

00:03:38.360 resigned in light of the results now. And we'll just talk about what that means for Ontario and

00:03:44.140 what they got to do going forward. And we're going to have Peter McCaffrey with Common Sense

00:03:47.440 Calgary on. He's just going to round out the show. He'll be here in person. And we're going to chat

00:03:51.760 about that, just that, again, insanely large $87 billion climate plan put out by the city of

00:04:00.160 Calgary that I just, I'm still floored by that number. Maybe Mr. McCaffrey can, you know, shed

00:04:05.580 some light on whether this is really even going to happen or how we could possibly pay for something

00:04:09.840 like that. All right, so I'm going to get on to some news and some good news, something optimistic

00:04:15.280 of it to me. It's been a good week for Alberta First Nations. To start with, a long-standing

00:04:20.860 land claim with the Siksika First Nation east of Calgary has been settled, and the Enoch First

00:04:26.080 nation west of Edmonton has announced the construction of a charter surgical facility

00:04:30.140 on their land. Both good news things. Starting with the Siksika settlement, while many modern

00:04:35.360 interpretations of treaty obligations have been dubious, one thing that has been crystal clear

00:04:39.760 within all treaties has been the delineation of borders within the reserves. Treaties are usually

00:04:44.500 pretty simple documents and they're all online to be seen. Canada changed the terms after the fact

00:04:49.960 with the Siksika reserve and took a large chunk of their land away from them. Hopefully this 1.00

00:04:53.820 settlement announced will lead to some final resolution so folks can start looking forward

00:04:57.800 instead of back. And in fact, one of the Siksika elders said precisely that during the press event

00:05:02.680 on the reserve yesterday. And it was heartening to hear. Now, on to the fantastic new venture

00:05:08.400 announced by the Enoch Cree First Nation. Chief Billy Moran has been heading the Enoch Cree since

00:05:15.040 2015 and he hit the ground running. He's a pragmatic young leader and he intends to diversify the

00:05:19.760 economy on his reserve, predominantly through healthcare services. So Moran has spoken in the

00:05:24.480 past of setting things up from birthing centers to research facilities for diabetes. He sees

00:05:28.840 an opportunity for his people in the field of health due to the rigid regulations hindering

00:05:33.600 development of private facilities off of reserve land. It's a real creative idea. The first big

00:05:38.300 healthcare facility on his reserve is now set to be built next year. The Enoch Cree Nation has

00:05:43.460 partnered with Surgical Centers Incorporated to open up a surgical center that's going to offer

00:05:47.720 up to 3,000, publicly funded, still in the health system, people aren't paying out of pocket,

00:05:52.420 knee and hip replacements a year. This would work in conjunction with Alberta Health Services,

00:05:56.800 and the provincial government appears eager to help the project along. Now, waiting lists for

00:06:01.060 healthcare in Canada's socialized healthcare system are terrible, and they've been growing.

00:06:05.500 In Alberta, it takes an average of 26 weeks just to get a surgical consultation for a knee or hip

00:06:10.800 replacement. After that, it takes nearly a year on average to actually get the surgical procedure

00:06:16.080 you're done. So you're talking a year and change from pain to treatment in this system. Meanwhile,

00:06:21.680 patients are in a painful, debilitated condition. They're often out of work while waiting for

00:06:25.580 surgery and they're taking a lot of painkillers. We got to shorten these times. The new center

00:06:30.100 on the Enoch Cree Reserve will be a godsend for thousands of Albertans. Facilities providing

00:06:34.740 private care within the public system are vulnerable to Canada's ideologically driven

00:06:38.780 environment. While the Canby Clinic in BC was a great success, it's under constant legal attack

00:06:43.860 from the NDP government that opposes all private care, even if it benefits patients and taxpayers

00:06:48.160 alike. It makes Canada a difficult and risky place for healthcare investments. With Canadian

00:06:53.440 First Nations getting in on the private provision of healthcare, though, we could be seeing a game

00:06:56.860 changer. First Nations exist in a semi-autonomous state within Canada. Reserves are largely

00:07:02.320 self-governing and they're exempt from many local laws. That's why you can still smoke indoors at a

00:07:06.720 First Nations casino, for example. If a First Nations healthcare facility faces legal challenges

00:07:11.260 from leftist governments, the challenges will probably lose. And even if the challenge wins,

00:07:16.040 a reserve can be inclined to tell the courts to get stuffed, and there won't be much repercussion.

00:07:20.540 But the left would rather have people die on waiting lists than reform the health care system.

00:07:24.800 They'd also rather walk on hot coals barefoot before getting into a battle with First Nations.

00:07:29.320 How would it look if Rachel Notley became premier again? It would look bad in a number of ways.

00:07:33.060 But then she tried to shut down the health care facility on the Enoch Cree Reserve.

00:07:37.120 How many people on reserves would she be willing to put out of work?

00:07:40.640 Most major cities in Western Canada have First Nation Reserves,

00:07:44.340 either near or bounding upon them.

00:07:45.820 I imagine the Sutina Nation west of Calgary is watching the Enoch Cree Project with interest,

00:07:50.240 and the Siksika Reserve could be considering healthcare centres as a place to invest their $1.3 billion that they just recently got.

00:07:56.440 A private imaging clinic offering MRI and CT services owned by the James Smith Cree Nation

00:08:03.080 actually has been operating successfully in Saskatoon since 2020, and they might plan on expanding as well.

00:08:08.980 Medical centers on First Nations land are win-win-win.

00:08:12.500 Revenue and skilled jobs are brought to First Nations reserves. 0.97

00:08:16.040 Waiting lists for medical procedures in the public system will be reduced,

00:08:19.600 and the system will likely save money in the process.

00:08:22.360 Let's hope the Enoch Cree Surgical Center is just the first among dozens we're going to see

00:08:26.280 on First Nations reserves across Canada.

00:08:29.580 All right, that's what I got.

00:08:31.120 Let's check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:08:34.360 Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:08:35.900 bad cory uh you did it again yesterday didn't you what did i did again yesterday albert einstein

00:08:42.540 cory said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and over again and

00:08:47.660 expecting the result to be different so why do you do it why do you leave your sandwiches out

00:08:54.220 on the side oh well that's it's not over and over it's every couple of weeks i forget and then the 0.99

00:08:59.820 dog snatches and teaches i don't know if it's insanity i'll admit it's just more like idiocy 0.78

00:09:03.900 But I'm just not wide awake in the morning when I'm making those sandwiches. 0.93

00:09:06.520 But the dogs are up and ready to roll.

00:09:08.120 So, yeah, I got a half a lunch yesterday again.

00:09:10.420 But you can't blame Duke the Wonder Dog.

00:09:12.920 Here's a pro tip for you, Corey.

00:09:14.700 Make your sandwiches the night before.

00:09:17.500 Oh, I don't have that kind of foresight.

00:09:20.320 I'll see what I can do.

00:09:22.360 Anyways, I'm sure Duke the Wonder Dog's growing up nice, big, and fat with your sandwiches.

00:09:26.360 Oh, he's well fed.

00:09:28.100 So here's what we got on the side at the moment.

00:09:29.940 Our publisher, Derek Fildebrand, has written a column saying the Prime Minister and many of the premiers across Canada owe the public an apology for the way they've been treated during the COVID vaccination lockdown.

00:09:44.460 So that's a very good read and leading off our website at the moment.

00:09:48.440 Speaking of National Itching Day, monkeypox has arrived in Alberta.

00:09:53.700 The very first case was confirmed by Dr. Dina Hinshaw Thursday night,

00:09:59.760 so our Amanda Brown has got a story up on that, and it does look horribly itchy.

00:10:06.320 Our Linda Slobodin's got a very sad story developing in Winnipeg,

00:10:11.440 where a young Indigenous woman was murdered mid-last month.

00:10:17.240 They only found her partial remains,

00:10:19.720 And they started today searching the Winnipeg area dump for the rest of the woman's remains.

00:10:26.380 And they're not ruling out the possibility that there may be other victims of the same killer in there.

00:10:32.400 So that's something we'll be keeping an eye out on.

00:10:37.000 Calgary is soon set to be home to the world's tallest mural festival coming up shortly.

00:10:44.040 And they're working on putting a huge mural on some big building in Calgary.

00:10:48.940 So that'll be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.

00:10:54.120 Believe it or not, the Liberals are complaining that there's a shortage of oil field workers in Canada.

00:11:00.580 And I wonder why that is, Corey.

00:11:01.880 Perhaps it's because the Liberals are trying to drive their profession.

00:11:05.600 You know, they're trying to shutter their profession and drive them all out of jobs.

00:11:09.100 So is it any wonder people aren't lining up to get into the oil field industry?

00:11:14.720 The most interesting man on earth, Elon Musk, says he's very worried about the economy,

00:11:20.500 and he's going to lay off 10% of all his staff at Tesla.

00:11:24.600 So when he's worried about the economy, you know, things could be heading down south.

00:11:29.620 And our Mike Thomas has got the latest housing stats out of Toronto and Vancouver,

00:11:35.420 the two hottest places in the country.

00:11:37.580 And the Bank of Canada increases in their interest rates seem to be working.

00:11:42.460 So those two markets are cooling off just a little bit.

00:11:46.780 And our Matthew Horwood has got an interesting development in the Tory leadership race.

00:11:51.500 Alberta Senator Scott Tannis, a well-respected senator, has thrown his lot in with Sheree

00:11:59.100 and will be supporting him for the leadership.

00:12:02.120 So that's interesting.

00:12:03.460 And we're working on lots more interesting stuff for not only this afternoon, Corey,

00:12:07.960 but all through the weekend to keep our website up to date and current.

00:12:13.680 So I wish a good weekend to you and Duke the Wonder Dog.

00:12:17.500 Well, right on. Thanks.

00:12:19.020 Well, lots of news coming and lots of news up.

00:12:21.520 I appreciate the update, Dave.

00:12:23.240 I'll see you after the show.

00:12:24.900 Thanks, Corey.

00:12:27.180 Yeah, I'm going to have to bring that dog into the standard headquarters

00:12:32.000 at some point or another, but he is so terribly behaved,

00:12:34.280 you'd probably just make a complete havoc here.

00:12:36.800 So whenever I have decided it'll be my last day of the standard, if that happens, you know, perhaps I'll go out with a big bang and bring Duke in to really show everybody just how big and insane that critter I've adopted is.

00:12:48.580 All the same.

00:12:49.460 Okay, as we said, lots and lots of news out there, lots of things covered.

00:12:53.800 This is the time I like to remind you all we can do that because of you and because of subscriptions.

00:13:00.040 We're a privately based company.

00:13:01.860 We don't want charity and we don't want tax funding.

00:13:04.320 We won't take it.

00:13:05.280 though we qualify for the tax funding, we just, we're providing a service and we would like people

00:13:10.480 to pay for it. In this case, it's subscriptions for $99 for a year, $10. If you want to go month

00:13:16.280 by month, you get full unfettered access to all of our stories, our columns, all of the opinion,

00:13:23.520 all of those things. And we get stuff. I mean, we get unique stories that break from our reporters

00:13:28.060 that are all across the country. I'm going to have a couple from Ontario on a little today.

00:13:31.020 and again we can only do it because you guys subscribe so thank you guys who've already

00:13:36.200 subscribed maybe you haven't already hey get on there and take a subscription out it's well worth

00:13:40.360 it you get your money's worth and it helps us just keep expanding and covering more news nag

00:13:44.680 other people get them on board buy a subscription for that loony left left uncle larry who drives 0.90

00:13:49.400 you nuts at thanksgiving dinner do it for fun maybe just something will grow on them so let's

00:13:54.180 see there drew asking if i got my bees uh when i comment is yeah i mentioned that earlier no

00:13:57.640 my bees are now, it looks like they should be June 14th. They've confirmed, they said it.

00:14:01.760 I've got an appointment set to pick the darn things up very late in the season. Beekeepers 0.97

00:14:06.000 in Canada have had a very exceptionally bad year due to the late spring. And then there's been a

00:14:11.860 lot of overwintering. The bees haven't survived. A lot of beekeepers have been opening their hives,

00:14:16.560 finding 70, 80% losses this year, unfortunately. And there's a varroa mite infestation that's

00:14:22.360 really messing with them. I'm looking forward to it though. Hopefully mine goes with

00:14:25.560 too many issues going on. You know, it's interesting, Dave mentioned, and I saw that

00:14:32.580 tweet as well from O'Regan talking about that saying, oh, the reason we can't catch up with

00:14:38.220 energy and oil is because we don't have enough employees right now. You know, it is ridiculous. 0.95

00:14:43.360 It's a slap in the face from a government that has been driving people out of the industry for 0.98

00:14:48.580 years. It's been telling them, learn to code, telling them, find a green job and shutting down

00:14:54.940 projects, shutting down pipelines, saying there's no future in the industry when clearly there is,

00:15:01.480 you know, saying we're done, saying we have to transition. And now those dim bulbs are stuck

00:15:06.500 with a labor shortage when we're sitting on some of the biggest energy reserves on earth

00:15:10.820 and they're acting like surprised. Holy cow, we don't have anybody trained in extracting this

00:15:16.600 stuff and getting it to market. Yeah, go figure, you imbeciles. You put us in this place. Don't 1.00

00:15:21.380 act like this was a shock. Any economist worth half their salt could have, well, he did tell you

00:15:25.680 this years ago. You ignored it. Ideologically driven lunatics, thinking that we could shut

00:15:31.280 down our conventional energy generation and then just turn it back on if we had to and that there

00:15:38.260 wouldn't be problems with it. It takes a while. You know, I mean, they live under that myth too,

00:15:42.660 though, and that would get frustrating when times were good because they would piss and moan about,

00:15:48.800 oh, some guy can just pick up and go and make 100,000 a year and buy a big pickup truck without

00:15:54.280 skill. You know, it's an ignorant, rude statement, and it shows that they know absolutely nothing 0.96

00:15:59.280 about the energy sector or what's involved with it. So no, they won't have to have a degree in 0.94

00:16:04.200 humanities to work in the oil field. They won't have to have that quite post-secondary. But what

00:16:10.720 they do have to do is have a lot of experience, on-the-ground experience. They have to learn.

00:16:14.680 you don't just walk into a six-figure position. You never did. You had to put your time in out

00:16:19.320 there. Plus, working in the energy sector is different. I was in the field for 20 years.

00:16:23.560 When you go out to the field, you're gone. You're out for 10 hours a day, but you're staying in a

00:16:29.480 hotel room or a camp, things like that. It's a lot of sacrifice for the money you're chasing.

00:16:35.240 And people who love it, love it. But to try and apply, and as we're seeing now,

00:16:39.840 you can't just fill those voids now with employees now that we suddenly need it as

00:16:45.340 Oregon's realizing when you've driven away all the experienced, skilled workers, and they are

00:16:50.140 skilled workers in the energy sector. You can't turn it back on that quickly. It takes a while

00:16:54.780 to train them. It takes a while to set them up. So now here we are hanging in an energy crisis,

00:17:01.680 sitting on some of the biggest energy reserves on the planet, and we can't get them to market.

00:17:05.380 Not to mention, they've shut down or delayed every bloody pipeline we've ever had.

00:17:11.320 So we can't fill those world markets as well as we'd like to.

00:17:16.200 Let's see, before I get on to my guest here, we'll talk about one of our sponsors as well, of course, getting private market.

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00:18:35.120 All right, let's get to Mr. Makachuk.

00:18:37.640 I see him sitting there in the lobby, and he's been a regular guest on the show.

00:18:40.980 He's a columnist for the Western Standard, a long-experienced journalist in Canada here.

00:18:47.020 How are you doing, Dave?

00:18:48.500 I'm good. I'm good today. It's a beautiful day in Calgary.

00:18:51.380 God, it's supposed to be going up to 20. It's just gorgeous.

00:18:54.920 it's just really a nice day

00:18:56.760 yeah it makes it a little hard to sit here in the studio

00:18:59.120 sometimes I can kind of see through those windows

00:19:00.940 out there a few things I'd rather be doing

00:19:02.580 pay the bills

00:19:04.460 so I know it's been recent but I just love that

00:19:06.960 the story you put out well not loved in a sense

00:19:09.120 it's kind of some bad news but it also

00:19:11.100 ties into kind of current

00:19:13.060 events that are happening I mean it was almost like

00:19:15.020 a sad sack version

00:19:17.060 of the old Top Gun scene since Top Gun

00:19:18.820 the sequel is now making the rounds

00:19:21.200 on public

00:19:23.120 view I guess you could say

00:19:24.780 But where, you know, in the past one, what, Tom Cruise flipped up to die down and gave a finger to another pilot and took the picture.

00:19:31.120 But in this case, it's really kind of happening, and it's Chinese pilots making fun of Canadian ones.

00:19:35.480 Yeah, it's part of this operation, this United Nations operation, I believe it's called NEON, Operation NEON, which involves monitoring North Korea for sanctions violations.

00:19:53.660 And we've sent a Aurora, one of our big Auroras over there with a rotating crew to take part in this operation.

00:20:03.080 And it's the only thing really that we're doing as part of that.

00:20:07.340 And basically, we're on the turf of, you know, in that area of the South China Sea.

00:20:16.160 And China is apparently not really happy about that, about this whole operation.

00:20:20.900 And they've been buzzing our pilots, this aircraft, I should say.

00:20:26.480 Oh, by the way, this is Bert, my cat.

00:20:30.140 He's helping me out here, but he's going to take a better position here.

00:20:36.380 Anyway, he's obviously not impressed with my discussion.

00:20:40.700 But anyway, yeah, so they're buzzing us.

00:20:45.700 They're giving us the finger, not treating us with any respect.

00:20:49.720 It's terrible.

00:20:50.900 i mean it's just i mean uh we've got this big lumbering old 30 plus year old i mean these

00:20:58.740 things came in came in when when trudeau pure trudeau was still around and the uh you know

00:21:05.540 back in the 80s for god's sake we should have replaced them but instead we upgraded them kept

00:21:11.140 them and uh so anyway we got this one aircraft there and the chinese apparently according to

00:21:17.300 one media report which probably a lot of people saw was that they they're coming as close as 10

00:21:23.860 feet away from our aircraft between 10 and a 100 feet and this has happened dozens of times

00:21:32.420 since christmas but the only reason the canadian government and trudeau have said anything is

00:21:39.940 because it was reported we've been tolerating it all along uh since christmas i can't remember

00:21:46.100 something dozens of uh of uh of uh interceptions and some of them dangerous and of course the

00:21:53.060 trudeau government say this is you know uh very concerning and so on and we've sent uh

00:22:00.980 messages of disapproval to the chinese and they haven't even responded uh you know diplomatic 0.97

00:22:08.100 uh messages of of concern like you know and but i mean they obviously don't give a damn and they

00:22:15.780 know they can get away with it and we're not going to do anything because you know our prime minister

00:22:20.500 basically has no backbone you know we're not going to really do anything and and to be honest i don't

00:22:27.220 even know why we're there it's a token effort i mean our that aircraft should be guarding the

00:22:33.540 arctic and our shores it's why why are we even there uh i i mean and they don't even want us

00:22:39.700 there, which was part of the argument I was making in the article, was that we've sort

00:22:46.060 of become the odd man out when it comes to Asia-Pacific treaties, not treaties, sorry,

00:22:53.880 deals and agreements.

00:22:56.980 We've been left out.

00:22:58.860 And it's, you know, we've lost a lot of luster, cachet on the international scene.

00:23:08.640 Well, that's it.

00:23:09.660 I mean, you know, on the whole international, not just the Asia-Pacific area, and this is something we've seen for a while.

00:23:15.440 I mean, Canada used to sort of punch above its weight diplomatically and militarily.

00:23:20.120 I mean, we were respected peacekeepers.

00:23:22.280 Of course, we certainly put our part in during the big wars and, you know, did a lot of peacekeeping and had some strong diplomatic presence on the world stage.

00:23:31.100 But unfortunately, again, I lay a lot of it.

00:23:33.860 I mean, this has gone on for a long time.

00:23:35.100 some of these planes, I mean, there's past governments that could have upgraded or replaced

00:23:38.120 these as well. But when it comes to respect on the world stage, I mean, you always see those

00:23:42.160 pictures of any world gatherings, aside from the selfies and showing off the socks, when you see

00:23:46.740 the serious leaders clustered and talking about things, Trudeau is literally always on the outside

00:23:50.560 looking in, they don't have any time for him. No, no, I think, I think they kind of sense he's,

00:23:57.040 to put it nicely, a lightweight. He's kind of a lightweight. And they realized that this guy is

00:24:05.720 just, you know, he's not quite all there. And they left us out of AUKUS, which is the Australia,

00:24:16.400 UK, United States submarine deal, which is a huge, huge deal, multi-billion dollar deal.

00:24:24.760 it totally took Ottawa by surprise. Ottawa had no idea that this was happening and they were

00:24:31.520 clearly embarrassed by it and they played it down. And then just a few months later,

00:24:36.620 we got left out of another AUKUS deal. That's A-U-K-A-S. It's kind of an odd named 0.94

00:24:43.560 grouping. But again, the same group has signed a deal to create the latest in hypersonic missiles.

00:24:51.520 And that technology is very valuable. And again, we were left out of that. And then strike three, the Quad Summit in Tokyo, which included Australia, the United States, Japan, and India.

00:25:11.160 And India, for God's sake, has not even joined us in condemning what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

00:25:21.280 We need them.

00:25:23.000 I mean, obviously, that grouping needs India.

00:25:25.040 India is a huge, a foremost economy, and it's growing quickly, and they're adding a lot of military equipment, and they're a valuable customer for the United States.

00:25:37.640 But again, one, two, three.

00:25:40.100 And as the old intelligence, surveillance intelligence axiom goes, once you can excuse, twice is a coincidence.

00:25:53.880 Three times is not coincidence.

00:25:56.040 We are definitely being left out.

00:25:58.300 We are the odd man out.

00:26:00.060 They don't trust us.

00:26:02.060 They don't trust us.

00:26:03.700 And why would they?

00:26:05.320 And it's unfortunate.

00:26:06.260 I mean, that kind of crosses over to the economic as well.

00:26:08.540 I mean, as you said, India is really an emerging power in the world in a number of levels and an

00:26:13.820 economic powerhouse. I mean, we really want to do some trade with those guys. I mean,

00:26:17.340 it's a fantastic market, you know, bilaterally. But I mean, nobody can forget Trudeau's disastrous

00:26:22.700 Indian trip. I mean, he embarrassed our nation over there. And, you know, Modi didn't even greet

00:26:27.420 him at the airport when he would greet even typically a junior minister if they showed up.

00:26:32.140 He was always a very welcoming host. And that's distressing. I mean, that's personal. And we

00:26:38.140 we should be paying attention to this. Yeah. For some reason, I mean, Trudeau, just this,

00:26:42.920 you know, that whole Ottawa trip was just an absolute disaster. And, and maybe that

00:26:51.640 reverberated around diplomatic circles and it probably hurt us. And again, you know, our

00:27:00.720 reputation uh invoking the emergency uh measures when it wasn't necessary hurt our reputation

00:27:08.600 abroad and i think it's it's it's a cumulative thing it's a cumulative cumulative thing and

00:27:15.520 i just have to laugh when i see uh the foreign affairs minister uh joe jolie i think her name is

00:27:22.140 saying oh we're we're very concerned about this and we're going to say something

00:27:26.440 And, well, I mean, come on.

00:27:28.560 You know, they're buzzing us.

00:27:29.740 They're treating us with no respect.

00:27:31.360 They're giving us the finger, for God's sake. 0.97

00:27:34.640 And putting other pilots in.

00:27:36.380 We don't have any effort teams to defend our boys.

00:27:39.080 It's too far away.

00:27:40.360 It's too far away.

00:27:41.320 We don't, you know, we can't, you know.

00:27:42.980 So those guys are just going to have to sit there and take it, right?

00:27:46.500 Yeah, and it's got to be humiliating for the military, I mean, for the members serving.

00:27:50.260 And they've got a tough job as it is.

00:27:51.420 And as I said, it's dangerous.

00:27:52.400 I mean, I am no expert.

00:27:53.440 when you get planes within 10 feet of each other, though, no matter how skilled both pilots may be,

00:27:58.340 I mean, a terrible accident could happen. And, you know, this can't shouldn't be taken lightly.

00:28:04.380 But I mean, I envision, you know, with Canada, we're not a militarized country, and, and we don't

00:28:08.480 have a large force. And that's fine. But you would think in that sort of situation, then you'd want

00:28:12.560 a smaller but high tech and up to date specialized force. Then I mean, what we have is a small force

00:28:18.400 that's all trying to work with antiques. I mean, their sidearms are World War Two era for crying

00:28:23.140 out loud and the government can't even figure out how to replace those well and that's that's a very

00:28:27.140 good point all our military equipment is old and outdated our destroyers for example uh can't go

00:28:33.700 into ice ice ice filled waters they can't they they their halls can't handle it uh you know and

00:28:40.580 our auroras are old and yes they've uh the government has put in 252 million uh towards uh

00:28:48.420 arctic and norad uh uh you know uh security but that's that's a drop in the bucket that's nothing

00:28:54.980 and we are so far behind on that we simply cannot defend our north i mean even the rangers are not

00:29:01.620 trained i found out that the rangers are not trained uh in tactical uh uh uh you know uh

00:29:09.460 training i was so shocked to find that out that they're they're i mean our troops our troops our

00:29:15.060 our armed forces are world class. Our pilots are world class. We stack up against the best

00:29:23.020 in the world. Absolutely. No question. And yet we're not supporting them. And it's always

00:29:29.720 been like that. And especially the Liberals. The Liberals have always been just, they hate

00:29:35.340 to give any money to the military. And we need these new aircraft to replace, you know, the

00:29:43.920 auroras the poseidon which is basically a 737 converted into a uh you know a survey long a long

00:29:52.160 range uh uh uh marine maritime uh uh surveillance aircraft which with multiple capabilities and only

00:30:01.520 now have we only now uh april one was the deadline for info for information to submit against uh you

00:30:09.920 know in the competition but the poseidon pretty much will probably be the one which we choose

00:30:16.400 because there's hundreds of offsets hundreds of industrial offsets which our economy needs and

00:30:24.720 also getting back to the quad summit and also AUKUS those countries Australia UK all these

00:30:34.960 countries have set up all these high-tech sectors for for for uh technology for uh which will

00:30:43.520 benefit all those countries india japan it'll benefit all of them uh high-tech sectors and we

00:30:49.840 are being left out of it which is just terrible and on the heels on the heels of mr morneau's

00:30:57.360 comments yesterday about how canada is losing its competition you know we're not we're not

00:31:02.960 we're tech you know technologically in our our you know economical competition we're falling by

00:31:09.840 the wayside and this is a and and and i think he's right i think he's i think he's totally right

00:31:16.080 and and and i never liked marno i never did but on this one i think he's right and and and we are

00:31:22.000 falling behind and we we have a lot to catch up on we haven't even signed the f-35 deal that deal is

00:31:29.360 going to be signed in we're still negotiating that for 88 jets supposed to be signed in in

00:31:37.120 in uh the fall we still haven't and there are like uh 14 countries that are already

00:31:44.240 ordered it and flying it we are the last the last you know we're the laggard we're always the

00:31:52.480 laggard and i just don't understand why why we don't think that's important do we always just

00:31:58.000 depend on the americans the american defensive umbrella don't we i mean are we not you know it

00:32:04.640 just doesn't make any sense no and it's frustrating you know especially with a country as large as

00:32:09.600 ours and with as much border to have to deal with and and uh you know the potential insecurity we

00:32:14.480 have in a lot of ways as i said even if we could have enough out there that we command respect

00:32:18.960 it translates to more than military i mean when you have these foreign summits trade deals can

00:32:23.200 be arranged or uh other bilateral actions when you when your prime minister is shut out by every

00:32:29.520 serious leader in the country in the world you just can't make those bigger deals it costs us

00:32:33.680 on a lot more levels than just militarily and people don't realize that it's a major setback

00:32:38.560 these are major setbacks and uh we should have we should have jumped into the f-35 sooner i mean uh

00:32:45.040 And that there's the whole question of interoperability with our with our allies is super important. I mean, all you got to do is look at what's happening in Ukraine. Is Putin going to turn his eyes on the Arctic? What's he going to do next?

00:33:02.280 you know we we got to jump on it before it it gets out of hand and um i i i i could say the 252

00:33:11.500 million it's just a drop in a bucket that's nothing that's absolutely nothing it's just

00:33:16.860 but it's what our governments what the liberal government is ready to uh do that's it see what

00:33:24.120 happens i guess speaking of international trade though before i let you go so i hear you're going

00:33:28.100 to be making quite a trip to a pretty unique show in Paris pretty soon yes yes I'm going to a show

00:33:34.560 called Euro Satori and it's the biggest arm show in the world and they haven't had one for two

00:33:41.560 years because of COVID but they're relaunching it this year and I'm really looking forward to it

00:33:47.620 everybody everybody except the Russians will be there I understand a few companies from China

00:33:53.220 will also be there, but not very many. And it's because of COVID, this COVID situation in China.

00:33:59.360 It's nothing to do with Ukraine, but the Russians will not be allowed. But everybody else will be, 0.98

00:34:05.740 and it is a massive, massive show with all the latest weaponry, drones, helicopters,

00:34:14.760 tanks, you name it, it's going to be there. And I'm really excited to see this. And I hope to

00:34:22.480 to maybe we can do a segment from Paris for your show.

00:34:28.160 Hopefully we can tell the listeners here what your Satori is about

00:34:34.540 and some of the cool things that are happening in that world of, you know,

00:34:42.320 the military industrial world.

00:34:45.660 Yeah, I'm hoping we can set something up.

00:34:47.760 It sounds like it'll be very interesting for sure.

00:34:49.760 I mean, I'm going to try and get you while you're there.

00:34:52.260 and if not we'll talk when you get back but uh it's good to know there will be at least one

00:34:56.180 responsible canadian presence at the show if nobody else i'll be there i'll hold the fort

00:35:03.780 okay well thanks for checking in and you know thanks for keeping us uh up to date on these

00:35:08.580 things with those columns dave and uh i hope we didn't distress you pat too much this time around

00:35:14.100 and okay and one more thing one more thing go see top gun it's fabulous it's a new one it's

00:35:21.620 fabulous i've never seen anything like it go see it and go see it on the imax it's fabulous okay

00:35:28.580 well i'll keep that one i gotta admit i'm usually pretty leery of sequels especially that far after

00:35:33.060 but sometimes they can do a good one so i appreciate the heads up on it okay right on

00:35:37.540 good talk to dave okay take care thanks bye bye so that's our dave makachuk yes he's always he

00:35:44.180 writes a lot on our international issues and military and things like that and i mean i didn't

00:35:48.260 even know about that you know i can only watch so many things at once but uh you know the and i the

00:35:52.980 stories were about but not so much like just realizing they're actually mocking us in the

00:35:57.540 air they're making fun of us and dangerously i mean our military personnel and i mean hey come

00:36:02.740 on it's not an easy or well-paying job working out in the military you're putting things at risk but

00:36:06.980 they shouldn't be put unduly at risk particularly because they're flying antiques around out there

00:36:12.500 on an exercise when you know they and just not commanding any respect i mean the other aspect

00:36:16.660 too, is even if they had an older piece of equipment on one of these exercises, if it was

00:36:21.500 a country that was respected, they still wouldn't pull that sort of thing with them. But if Canada

00:36:25.720 has Canada, come on, those guys elect idiots. They have old ancient military hardware. It doesn't 1.00

00:36:32.700 matter if we can have some fun with them. I mean, what's going to happen? And they're right. So

00:36:37.020 got to bring these things to light. And maybe at some point, we'll turn over that goofball we have 0.68

00:36:43.100 for a prime minister. I'm not sure what it's going to take. I just hope that the impetus for change 0.86

00:36:47.240 up there doesn't come when a Canadian, you know, pilot or a number of service members end up getting

00:36:54.060 hurt or killed in one of these incidents or something like that. It would be tragic. It

00:36:58.020 seems with so many things in life, we wait until things really hit the fan, though, before we change

00:37:01.680 anything. Okay, let's look back at some of the comments here. I see Kenny Benson said most people

00:37:06.900 don't want to work in the oil patch, just kind of going back to the past subjects, for two reasons,

00:37:10.740 the cyclical ups and downs and the government's been threatening for years to kill the patch.

00:37:13.980 Why go to a dying industry? And he's right. Like that's part of why I left. I was in the patch from

00:37:18.680 the start of the nineties all the way until, well, close to, yeah, about 2014. And yeah,

00:37:27.320 it was 2014. And the ups and downs I went through in 97, and people seem to forget that

00:37:31.680 oil prices went all the way down to under $10 a barrel at that point. We had a real bad slowdown,

00:37:36.420 97, 98. Um, and then it happened again, 2008, everything went in the toilet and then 2014

00:37:42.600 things went in the toilet. So then I thought I'll really punish myself and bought a bar and I never

00:37:45.700 went back to the oil industry again. So those cycles, I mean, it's hard. It's a hard living

00:37:49.380 to make, uh, you're in and out, you know, it's, it's hard on families, it's hard on relationships.

00:37:53.560 It's not a bad industry altogether. I mean, I, I didn't do it for over 20 years cause I hated it,

00:37:57.320 but it's not for everybody. And just getting back to, again, with our, our foolish government 0.92

00:38:02.480 I'm thinking people, oh, it's an unskilled thing or people can just come and go. Not at all the 0.91

00:38:06.940 case, of course. So let's see here. What else do we got in the comments section here? Of course,

00:38:14.840 not much love for Trudeau, but that doesn't really surprise anybody around here. And yeah,

00:38:24.000 Trudeau showed the world. I mean, that's a lot of it, just a lot. It doesn't have to cost a lot

00:38:31.120 to earn respect. It doesn't. You know, Harper didn't spend a whole pile extra, you know,

00:38:37.820 where more than the liberals did. I don't think he got spending as much as I wish he could have.

00:38:42.120 But he was respectable. He didn't shudder when Stephen Harper flew overseas to meet with foreign

00:38:46.820 leaders or when he was welcoming them here. You know, you weren't worried about awkward moments

00:38:51.320 like Trudeau with his little weird three-way handshake he tried to do years ago with Obama

00:38:56.640 and some others. Like everything for Justin is just a photo op. He's all hair, socks, and

00:39:00.460 idiocy. And the foreign leaders know it. They know it. So sure, they'll party it up with them 1.00

00:39:07.960 at times, but when it comes to serious talk, when it comes to leading countries, when it comes to

00:39:11.660 military actions, we're on the outside looking in because you can't take a country seriously

00:39:16.340 who has a leader that can't be taken seriously. And it's riding all the way down to every level.

00:39:22.060 as I said, you know, it's not just the military. When we are shut out of those international

00:39:26.360 meetings, when we aren't taken seriously at them, we lose out on all sorts of other trade and

00:39:30.000 business opportunities. And we're out of the mix. As, you know, McEachuk told me there, it was

00:39:35.360 a surprise when we found out we were shut out of some of those deals. They didn't even know

00:39:39.520 they were going on. Yeah, they don't even talk to us. How embarrassing. It's just embarrassing

00:39:44.820 and it's sad. It really is. We don't have to be that way. But then, you know, again, we look at

00:39:50.000 We got a government also that not only is inept and, you know, vacuous like Trudeau, it lies to us chronically. 0.95

00:39:57.660 And the main minister of liars is safety minister, Marco Mendocino. 0.93

00:40:03.300 So, yeah, here's another story popping up.

00:40:05.200 Yet another police force has said, no, we did not ask you to use the Emergency Powers Act.

00:40:12.200 Well, who did?

00:40:14.380 I mean, so 11 times that minister has claimed over and over.

00:40:18.360 we did it because the police needed us to. We stepped on Canadian individual rights because

00:40:22.740 the police demanded it of us. We invoked a modern day version of the War Measures Act because there

00:40:27.000 was no other way to take care of this because the police said otherwise. 11 times he said that.

00:40:31.080 He lied to our faces 11 times. And now another one's come up. Another one testifying at a House

00:40:37.460 Affairs Committee. This was a former police chief said, no, they never recommended the use of the

00:40:41.560 act. Never. Simple words. And it was straight to a straight up question. Did you, yourself,

00:40:46.340 or anyone in the Ottawa Police Service request it.

00:40:48.660 He said, I did not make the request.

00:40:49.940 I'm not aware of anybody else in the service making the request.

00:40:53.540 This government doesn't care what we think.

00:40:56.900 They'll lie to our faces and they get away with it.

00:40:59.360 That's the problem.

00:41:00.860 We let them get away with it.

00:41:02.960 So I don't know what it's going to take to fix it.

00:41:08.020 I mean, they still love him in Montreal, Toronto,

00:41:11.400 some parts of Lower Mainland and Vancouver,

00:41:12.680 and that's enough.

00:41:13.240 That's enough to win.

00:41:13.880 But we're on a bad train, you know.

00:41:17.620 So, I mean, again, speaking of respect, the government doesn't respect us.

00:41:21.040 You know, they don't trust us with the truth.

00:41:25.060 They won't respect our individual rights.

00:41:28.800 This country is broken.

00:41:31.040 Getting through the news a little further, you know,

00:41:32.840 cabinet hides $240 million.

00:41:35.380 So this is a report that the cabinet is concealing the cost of a landmark bill,

00:41:39.560 landmark, that would extend bilingualism to the private sector.

00:41:43.880 This is from the Parliamentary Budget Office.

00:41:46.820 So they say the costs were more than a quarter billion.

00:41:50.680 We can't tell because they're hiding it.

00:41:52.180 It's our money.

00:41:53.760 You know, it's our money.

00:41:55.220 The default should be open data,

00:41:57.600 and then they have to justify

00:41:59.760 if they have to hide anything from us.

00:42:01.420 It's our money.

00:42:02.400 Instead, they obfuscate, they hide things,

00:42:05.020 they lie to us,

00:42:05.880 and then we've got to battle through committees.

00:42:07.800 We've got to get corridors.

00:42:08.900 We've got to use freedom of information requests

00:42:10.800 to find out these things.

00:42:11.600 and uh so they here's some of the stuff anyways from the budget report saying they expect private

00:42:17.080 compliance costs to implement these rights it's not a freaking right be 240 million in one time

00:42:22.460 costs and 20 million a year uh-huh i mean again remember this is the government will go back to

00:42:27.140 the gun industry in the 90s when they said that was going to cost uh i think 100 or 200 million

00:42:31.980 it cost over 2 billion by the time they were done with it what they want to do and that you know

00:42:36.700 it's not just the money they're spending it's the problem but it's an indication of their arrogance

00:42:41.440 it's an indifference that they won't share it with us,

00:42:43.080 you know, or tell us what it's about or how much it is.

00:42:46.620 But they want to force bilingualism in private businesses. 1.00

00:42:49.360 Think about this, you guys, this is stupid. 1.00

00:42:52.260 This is ridiculous on the top level. 1.00

00:42:54.220 So they want to force private businesses, 0.91

00:42:56.500 airports, banks, grain mills, shippers, railways,

00:42:59.420 trucking companies. 1.00

00:43:01.180 They'll all have to have Frenchmen on board 1.00

00:43:05.020 or women, French speakers. 1.00

00:43:07.400 Why, why, why does a trucker 1.00

00:43:09.820 between Alberta and Saskatchewan need to speak French?

00:43:13.500 Why does a person working in a bank in Northern BC

00:43:16.960 need to speak French? 1.00

00:43:19.300 This pandering at great expense to Quebec

00:43:21.760 and their personal insecurities as a culture

00:43:24.940 is costing us a fortune.

00:43:26.660 And now they're going after the private market.

00:43:27.960 It's bad enough that they forced postees

00:43:30.700 and other federal branches of the government to do this,

00:43:33.740 but now they're going after the private market.

00:43:36.320 And it's absurd.

00:43:37.560 And again, if we're gonna have multiple languages,

00:43:39.140 fun. I can respect those. Let's have them respect the reality. And I tell you what, French in

00:43:43.700 Calgary for unilingual speakers is so far down, there's probably 25 other languages ahead of it.

00:43:49.220 I'd rather see Cantonese or Hindi or, you know, Punjabi. There's many, many languages spoken

00:43:57.060 around here far before French. But because of this federal government, they're going to intrude

00:44:03.520 further. And you see what this does. This is this broken country, this Laurentian elitist country

00:44:08.440 that keeps shoving everything into the center.

00:44:10.800 This will take it outside of the political realm

00:44:12.860 and into the private one.

00:44:13.860 It gets you more beholden to the center,

00:44:15.860 even in the private industries now.

00:44:18.040 You can't escape these guys.

00:44:20.720 And what an advantage it puts it at, of course, right?

00:44:24.320 I mean, there's no advantage to be an English speaker

00:44:26.960 wanting to work in central Canada.

00:44:28.680 And now there's not gonna be much advantage

00:44:29.960 of being an English speaker working in Western Canada,

00:44:31.840 because if you're looking at any of these industries

00:44:33.940 that are private, that they wanna regulate,

00:44:36.020 you're gonna be lower on the line

00:44:37.840 for hiring lower on the line for promotions because you don't speak French. Stupid. And this 1.00

00:44:44.480 is where they're going, guys. This is what's happening. And not only that, again, of course,

00:44:48.380 it's going to cost a quarter billion dollars. That's their estimates. We know damn well it'll

00:44:52.680 cost a hell of a lot more than that. There's nothing this government does that comes within

00:44:56.460 budget. Again, they're run by morons. But yeah, you know, getting again back to that statement. 1.00

00:45:03.520 And so here it was from Labour Minister, yes, O'Reagan, remarks following a report that the

00:45:09.080 Cabinet's climate change plan threatens 170,000 energy jobs. He says, we're not transitioning

00:45:14.660 jobs out of the sector. That's what he said. So this has been his focus since he's taken on the

00:45:20.740 role of labour workers. He says the biggest problem is we don't have enough workers. I mean,

00:45:23.060 he's just lying. He's lying. Of course, they've been pushing everybody out. They've been telling

00:45:27.620 everybody, get out of it. You're going to go get a job at a windmill. You'll be all right.

00:45:30.720 you don't need that rig training anymore. You don't need those welders. You'll weld solar

00:45:35.060 panels somewhere or you'll train unicorns because those are the new green jobs that are available

00:45:41.560 for you. But now he's talking out of both sides of his mouth saying, okay, the oil and gas sector

00:45:46.600 is short of labor. Yes, it's because you idiots drove them out of there. Don't try and blame 1.00

00:45:51.520 someone else, you clown. And they still don't really want people in. I mean, in 2015, they put 0.98

00:45:56.320 in legislation for their just transition that we're supposed to give these new jobs to oil and

00:46:01.740 gas workers. Well, what happened to it? Where's the jobs, Mr. O'Regan? They're not there. But

00:46:08.820 what we've also got now, so we don't have this green shift, this great transition, but we have

00:46:13.960 an energy sector that's short of skilled labor while the world's in an energy crisis. We're

00:46:18.740 paying $2 a liter for gas in Canada while we sit on the third most generous oil and gas reserves

00:46:23.760 in the world. It's ridiculous, but they just, they will not face reality. You know, getting

00:46:29.900 back to respect and getting back to people, Trudeau's cabinet, unfortunately, very much

00:46:35.800 reflects Trudeau. They're stupid. And I mean, the thing is, he surrounds himself with his peers, 1.00

00:46:41.500 and that's what he's been doing. This has not been a cabinet full of luminaries here, guys.

00:46:45.780 Well, Reagan, everybody's known he's been something of a twit. And then, you know, 0.96

00:46:49.260 Makachuk brought up, you know, Jolie, she's our foreign affairs minister. Holy cow. I mean,

00:46:55.620 who can forget, of course, Catherine McKenna, you know, when she was in there, he brings,

00:47:01.200 you're supposed to try and bring in the best and brightest in cabinet because they're taking on

00:47:05.080 important roles. And these are guys that I wouldn't trust to be a middle manager in a

00:47:10.300 bloody Walmart. But I think it's because of the insecurity of the prime minister. I mean,

00:47:15.440 the thing is, you don't want to be outdone. You know, it's like the vain, shallow girl going to 1.00

00:47:20.100 the bar would want to make sure she had a couple unattractive friends with her all the time, 1.00

00:47:23.500 hoping she'll look a little better. Well, Trudeau keeps himself surrounded by idiots, 1.00

00:47:28.720 hoping that maybe it'll mask his own vacuous lack of ability when it comes to any kind of 1.00

00:47:33.980 nuanced policy discussions. And that's what his cabinet is. Ah, man, we've got a grim future

00:47:40.740 looking ahead of us. All right, I see our panel coming in. We'll get me off of rant mode for a

00:47:44.540 bit. And let's talk and see what they've been doing over in Ontario there. The election is

00:47:49.920 done, boards back in stronger than ever. Let's have a chat with Matthew Horwood and Jonathan

00:47:56.880 Bradley about what that means and what's what's going on out there. So let's bring them on in

00:48:01.800 here. And hey, guys, how you doing out there in the east? Pretty good. Maybe I guess I'll just

00:48:10.640 get right into it. I'll start first with Jonathan. You guys were obviously watching it. I got to

00:48:14.900 admit I didn't. How did the results go when they were coming in? A lot of elections lately have

00:48:18.540 always had hiccups and slow results and things hanging there. Did this actually go pretty

00:48:24.240 smoothly? The results came in fast. I was at the Ontario PC election results party and within 10

00:48:32.100 minutes it was confirmed that Ford won and then within 30 minutes it was confirmed that Ford won

00:48:39.840 a majority. Okay. So pretty quick. I mean, that's a refreshing, I mean, I know we'd been kind of

00:48:45.220 discussing doing a live special on it, but we just didn't get it quite together on it for here. But

00:48:48.860 that's that fear we've had with past live things with elections that at times they dragged on for

00:48:53.980 hours and we actually ran out of things to babble about. So it got a little painful. So it's good

00:48:58.780 to see that they got that part through smoothly, at least anyways. So Matthew, I can't, I didn't

00:49:03.680 write down the predictions from yesterday, but did everything kind of line up as you expected it

00:49:07.280 would. Yeah, my predictions pretty much all came true. Ford, he's the man. We thought he was going

00:49:16.080 to win. He was looking ahead in the polls, but I don't think I predicted just how badly the

00:49:20.660 Liberals and Del Duca were going to do in this election. I mean, as Jonathan said, it was pretty

00:49:24.720 clear early on in the night where this was going. We could see that Del Duca was not doing well in

00:49:30.300 his riding. He was down by about 18 points, which is the same margin that he lost the riding back

00:49:35.520 in 2018. And it was just very clear that the liberals were not going to have a good night

00:49:40.600 from the get go. So I'm not surprised that he lost. I'm not surprised that he has stepped down

00:49:45.740 as leader. It's I feel bad for the guy, you know, even though I made some jokes last night that he

00:49:50.000 looks like Dr. Evil. And I think I did a poll and the vast majority agree that he's sort of is a

00:49:55.520 uncanny resemblance to that, that man, but I do really feel bad for him. He seemed genuine.

00:50:00.080 And, you know, he ran a good campaign, but he just, I think the Liberals, you know, people, Ontarians don't have that short of memories.

00:50:07.440 And they remember the debt that they were put in under Kathleen Wynne, and they just weren't ready to make the switch back to them.

00:50:13.880 So Del Duca, you know, I mean, he just got slaughtered in his own constituency, actually.

00:50:18.680 It wasn't even close in the end.

00:50:20.300 And that was sort of predicted.

00:50:21.880 But I see that Horwath has resigned.

00:50:24.820 Matthew or Jonathan, did you kind of expect or see that coming?

00:50:28.040 I expected to see that coming because it's her fourth election as NDP leader and eventually you kind of have to know when to step aside. And since she lost seats this election, it seems like a reasonable time to do so. I think that the next leader for the Ontario NDP will be Peter Tabbins. He's the NDP MPP for Toronto Danforth. I suspect that he'll be the next NDP leader because he ran in the previous leadership race.

00:50:58.040 Okay. So, yeah, there's going to be a couple of leadership races on the go. I wonder, maybe I'll start with Matthew, like something that might happen. I'm looking at the numbers, though. It was like 41%, which still gave Ford a very strong majority. That's what happens in our first past the post system when we have more than two parties going on.

00:51:14.180 But I mean, do you think when it comes to left and center left, you might see a bit of a unity movement like that's what happened in Alberta, you know, when we split the right and Notley got in, but maybe a couple of there might be leadership candidates with the NDP or Liberals saying, look, we've got to unify under one of these or we're never going to get forward out of there.

00:51:30.960 Anticipate maybe some of that might go on.

00:51:33.840 For sure. I'm not really in the prediction game, but you could see them, the Liberals and the NDP working together at this point.

00:51:39.560 would make more sense than going after each other and and being at each other's throats when ford is

00:51:44.120 just kind of staying in the background being very quiet and that's kind of how he uh slided the

00:51:49.000 victory you know he didn't go out there um and do a lot of press conferences his handlers were very

00:51:54.200 cautious about having him do interviews and say anything more than he needed to say so um i think

00:51:59.640 that was a good strategy for him was just to lay low you know to to talk about his legacy and what

00:52:04.040 he's going to do to build highways and get it you know get it done as he said build infrastructure

00:52:08.440 that was the right move. But going back to your question, I do think it would be wise for the

00:52:12.520 Liberals and the NDP to try and do something similar to what has been going on on the federal

00:52:17.180 level and have an alliance. But again, we got a long time before the next election and who knows

00:52:23.460 what can happen between then and there, you know? Oh, yeah. And I mean, it's just and there's always

00:52:28.460 going to be I don't think they'll ever merge or come formally together even as parties. But when

00:52:33.200 you got parallel leadership races going on, I could see that as a time when individual candidates

00:52:37.300 might push that. I mean, people with party allegiances, like in Alberta, the Liberal Party

00:52:41.280 here under their last leader, I think they got something like 1% or something. It was that much

00:52:45.680 of a slaughter. And they've had opportunities to merge with other center-left parties in Alberta,

00:52:49.760 and they still said, no, we can't do it. We got to hold on to our brand. And that shows how stubborn

00:52:54.400 some people can be with party brand. But at least, you know, the bottom line is the members and the

00:52:59.440 supporters fled the party because they wouldn't be pragmatic. So, you know, I'm just thinking as

00:53:03.940 as these leadership races emerge, as Jonathan, you said, there's already an NDP kind of contender,

00:53:09.360 but maybe others will come out along the lines of just trying to talk about more of a unity on the

00:53:13.320 left. Yeah, that could be possible. With the Ontario Liberals, their leadership race, I'm not

00:53:19.340 I have a feeling that the next Ontario Liberal leader will be Bonnie Crombie, the Mississauga

00:53:25.100 mayor. I have a friend of mine who is pretty involved in Ontario politics. And he was telling

00:53:29.640 me that Bonnie Crombie has been already fundraising for a potential run to become the next Ontario

00:53:35.040 Liberal leader, so I wouldn't be surprised if she entered. Okay, and then the Green Party, of course,

00:53:40.320 they maintained their one seat comfortably, but there was another one, I don't have that on hand,

00:53:43.740 I think where they came really perilously close to winning another seat out there.

00:53:47.760 The Greens just aren't a factor again out here at all, well, until you get to BC.

00:53:51.940 Do you think, you know, Matthew, like, have they got room to grow as a presence,

00:53:55.940 or will they just kind of stay with their one or two seats?

00:53:59.640 I don't think they're going to become a very large force on the provincial stage.

00:54:04.060 The problem with the Greens that I've seen is that a lot of their policies are very forward thinking,

00:54:08.820 but they kind of get stolen or co-opted by the NDP and the Liberals.

00:54:13.900 And they're also, of course, you know, basically a one issue party for the most part of the environment,

00:54:18.360 which just doesn't it's not as as as sexy as some of the other issues that were talked about during the campaign.

00:54:24.500 And we saw, you know, the talk of the highway that was going to be built.

00:54:27.300 the big the NDPs and liberals were saying well it's going to go through this green space and

00:54:32.480 it's going to destroy a lot of habitat but then for I think for the average Ontario voter they

00:54:37.060 don't like being in traffic they want more infrastructure they want to be able to get

00:54:40.580 from point a to point b a lot quicker so caring about the environment is just secondary to bigger

00:54:45.920 issues of quality of life affordability of you know just living good lives and that's the problem

00:54:51.540 with the greens and why I don't think that they're going to become a really big force

00:54:54.120 in Ontario. Yeah, well, it's hard to worry that much about the birds and the bees if you can't

00:55:00.240 pay the rent. So many times you can get those luxuries of voting for things like that. But

00:55:05.720 times like now, it's a little more difficult and on a fringe. So maybe, Jonathan, the other thing,

00:55:10.780 speaking of alternative parties, or if you'd want to call them fringe or whatnot,

00:55:14.500 the other two newcomers on the right didn't really make any inroads last night, did they?

00:55:18.620 no uh new blue and the ontario party didn't pick up any seats um for new blue uh belinda

00:55:26.480 carahelios lost her seat in cambridge it went to the pcmp pc candidate and jim carahelios didn't

00:55:34.620 win his seat in kitchener conestoga it went to the pc mpp and then with the ontario party same

00:55:42.660 thing uh derek sloan didn't win a seat in hastings lennox and eyington and rick nichols didn't win

00:55:47.800 his seat in Chatham, Looney, and Tim Kent. There was an independent candidate, though. This was

00:55:52.040 kind of surprising to me. Her name's Bobbie N. Brady. She won the seat in Haldeman, Norfolk. 0.94

00:55:58.240 She worked as the executive assistant to the former PCMPP, Toby Barrett. I hadn't even heard

00:56:04.660 of her until election day, but it was interesting seeing that area on the map go gray because

00:56:09.520 typically Haldeman, Norfolk is a conservative stronghold. So Matthew, I mean, in that case

00:56:14.700 the independent too i mean that that must have been a heck of a campaign i mean if it came in

00:56:17.900 under the radar you know you it's rare for an independent to win anywhere anytime in our system

00:56:23.340 and to have somebody do it quietly you know whereas people didn't see it coming even uh

00:56:27.260 you know what happened there how did this do you know much about that anomaly absolutely that was

00:56:31.660 totally out of left field i certainly didn't know that that was going to happen but uh you look at

00:56:35.980 her history and it makes sense i mean she was the executive assistant to conservative mpp tony barrett

00:56:41.340 for 23 years she was a provincial and national gold medalist and kickboxing um you read on her

00:56:46.700 website she was really presented herself as an outsider candidate and outside of traditional

00:56:51.900 uh political spheres so i i think she had a must have run a very interesting campaign i'm going to

00:56:57.820 be speaking with her at three o'clock this afternoon and i'm going to ask her about how

00:57:01.660 she managed to pull that off because that was that's really something i really want to know

00:57:05.100 what uh how she managed that yeah well it's those outliers are certainly more interesting than seeing

00:57:09.900 you know, others who kind of slid in with the party bunch. I mean, something else, you know,

00:57:15.400 I noted yesterday, I think you guys weren't on at the time, but there's that trend Ontario tends to

00:57:19.720 have, which seems that they elect a party that whatever is the opposite of the federal government,

00:57:25.360 they're going to put in provincially. It's like they want to hedge their bets, you know, when

00:57:28.680 the Conservatives were in, they put a Liberal into the legislature. And when the Liberals are in,

00:57:33.900 they'll put the Conservatives in. Is this a conscious thing, Jonathan, or is it just the

00:57:39.480 way it kind of happens you think well i was actually listening back to what you said earlier

00:57:44.900 and i was like oh i'm like cory is like i don't think cory's accurate and the one i actually went

00:57:48.320 and looked i was like oh cory was right um one interesting point to build on that um when i was

00:57:53.480 at the the ontario pc watch party uh when ford came on space to give his victory speech he talked

00:58:00.120 about how if you voted for the federal liberals there's room for you in our party which was

00:58:04.540 interesting to hear because it's like oh wow like you're really trying to make like a big tent and

00:58:07.600 include people who might not see themselves in the Ontario PC party. Yeah, and I guess, I mean,

00:58:13.420 a federal government always just provides a convenient foil for somebody to campaign against.

00:58:18.300 I mean, it gives you a boogeyman you can point at, whether it's liberal on one end or conservative

00:58:24.300 on the other. I imagine we're going to see a lot of that in Alberta. Of course, it's always an

00:58:28.340 open game to campaign against the federal liberal government more effectively than campaigning

00:58:33.940 against even your local opponents sometimes.

00:58:36.160 So perhaps, I mean, a bit of that was in play.

00:58:38.740 I mean, how's Matthew, like, what's the relationship

00:58:41.560 between Ford and the Liberals these days federally?

00:58:48.280 Sorry, can you repeat that question?

00:58:49.960 Sure, I was just kind of threw that out,

00:58:51.560 but I was just wondering, I mean,

00:58:52.720 what kind of relationship is there

00:58:54.080 between the Ford government and the Federal Liberals?

00:58:56.980 Like, I know they have their ups and downs

00:58:58.440 and it's a Liberal and a Conservative,

00:58:59.900 but still, it doesn't mean they're totally

00:59:01.560 at each other's throats.

00:59:02.460 I mean, does it seem to be productive going forward?

00:59:07.020 Yeah, it's certainly a productive relationship.

00:59:08.940 I would argue it's not been as bad as Jason Kenney and the Liberals.

00:59:14.300 There's not as much of a disagreement there.

00:59:17.920 But I mean, certainly they're working together.

00:59:19.780 They're seeing paths through political differences and they're getting things done.

00:59:23.020 I mean, Ontario is the most populous, most economically important province.

00:59:28.500 So the Trudeau is going to have to, you know, get along, you know, that's my take on that issue.

00:59:36.800 Yeah, absolutely. Well, and Doug Ford certainly, I mean, he has a strong mandate now.

00:59:40.820 You can't deny that, you know, people have spoken electorally as far as that goes.

00:59:44.720 So I guess as I wrap things up, you know, Jonathan, what do you think we got to look forward to?

00:59:49.400 Do you think there's any big cabinet changes or new initiatives or anything like that coming out of this government?

00:59:54.540 Well, one big change to watch is who's going to become the deputy premier. So Christine Elliott, who was the deputy premier under Ford in the last term, she didn't seek re-election. I suspect that the new deputy premier will be Paul Calandra, who's the long-term care minister right now. And I think it'll be him because he has some cabinet experience.

01:00:17.260 Another big change that I'm really looking forward to watching

01:00:19.680 is if they keep Stephen Lecce on as education minister.

01:00:23.400 He took a ton of flack from teachers unions

01:00:25.780 during the teacher strikes in 2020.

01:00:29.080 I'm not too sure who they would replace him with.

01:00:30.780 Maybe Ross Romano.

01:00:32.180 He's a strong cabinet minister.

01:00:33.760 He's in, I think he's in infrastructure now.

01:00:37.920 I'm not 100% sure though.

01:00:39.100 But I think he might replace Lecce in education.

01:00:42.480 Great.

01:00:42.800 And Matthew, just kind of closing things up.

01:00:45.160 What do you think we can look forward to in the next couple of months from this governor?

01:00:48.180 I guess probably won't do much till fall, but all the same, what mandates are you going to go ahead with?

01:00:53.080 Yeah, I think it'll be pretty quiet.

01:00:54.600 I mean, he's going to go forward with the spending on infrastructure, a little bit towards hospitals and schools, not a whole lot.

01:01:01.540 I think it's going to happen.

01:01:02.620 The question will be how he responds to the growing crises, you know, of rising food costs, inflation, you know, potential of another pandemic.

01:01:12.080 if monkeypox ends up being a big thing.

01:01:14.060 I know some of the attention has gone away from that,

01:01:16.040 but there's always seems to be this talk

01:01:17.440 of another pandemic lurking.

01:01:19.160 So I think Ford's going to have a lot more issues

01:01:21.520 to really deal with,

01:01:22.280 and he might just be on the defensive

01:01:23.380 for a lot of these things.

01:01:25.000 And so he's definitely going to have his work cut out for him.

01:01:27.840 Great.

01:01:28.240 Well, we'll be watching with interest from out here,

01:01:30.280 and I appreciate you guys being out there to report

01:01:32.480 and keep us up to date on it.

01:01:34.080 So thanks for joining me again today.

01:01:36.060 I'll let you get back to following up.

01:01:37.680 Sounds like that interview is going to be

01:01:38.580 pretty interesting, Matthew, with that independent.

01:01:40.180 and we'll talk again soon.

01:01:43.180 Thank you, Corey.

01:01:43.900 Sure, thanks, Corey.

01:01:45.240 Thanks.

01:01:45.880 So that was Jonathan Bradley and Matthew Horwood,

01:01:48.400 both writers for the Western Standard Online,

01:01:51.640 our Ontario crew out there.

01:01:53.540 I just like to remind everybody

01:01:54.500 we're not purely Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan,

01:01:57.720 that sort of thing.

01:01:58.500 I mean, hey, Ontario's important too,

01:02:00.640 even if we get pissed off at them all the time.

01:02:03.020 All right, so let's see.

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01:03:27.360 All right, we've got a guest in studio.

01:03:30.140 As I said, it's a pretty packed day today.

01:03:32.180 And that's Peter McCaffrey

01:03:33.460 with Common Sense Calgary, and we're going to talk about the way I framed it is just insanity.

01:03:39.060 This climate plan, I mean, I expected bad, but I thought it had to be a typo. $87 billion?

01:03:45.300 Yeah. I mean, insanity could probably explain most of what happens at City Hall, but in this case,

01:03:49.620 it's particularly apt. $87 billion on climate. I also thought it was a typo. I thought it was $87

01:03:57.380 million dollars um basically the the city administration the bureaucrats working at city

01:04:03.060 hall um have gone down the rabbit hole of climate change come up with every single possible thing

01:04:08.820 they could think of put it all on their wish list and said to council gimme right and the bill comes

01:04:14.820 to 87 billion dollars that's what they think it will cost to get calgary to net zero by 2050 which

01:04:20.820 which is the in vogue thing at the moment. And to be clear, $87 billion is about $175,000

01:04:30.580 per Calgary household. So that's why this is just, I mean, even if it was $17,500, even

01:04:36.600 if it was $1,750, that's ridiculous. $175,000 per household.

01:04:43.100 And a number of council members are saying, this is fantastic. Let's get going. Let's

01:04:46.980 get rolling. I mean, they aren't floored by this. I just can't believe this. I mean, not only that,

01:04:53.300 that's the cost of implementing, but they aren't measuring the cost of the commerce and people

01:04:58.140 they're going to drive out of this city if they really actually move forward. Right. Well, I think

01:05:01.660 this is the, perhaps the problem at City Hall. It's something that we've been talking about for

01:05:06.220 a long time. It's just the complete lack of understanding about economics, about how you

01:05:10.700 calculate the costs of things, about cost-benefit analyses, any kind of like rational analysis of

01:05:17.920 the pros and cons of projects, right? In theory, what you should be doing when a plan is proposed,

01:05:22.680 you should be figuring out, well, what are the benefits of the project? What are the costs of

01:05:26.280 the project? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Ideally, you'd do that with a whole bunch of

01:05:31.200 different alternatives. So you're not just testing whether the benefits outweigh the costs, but is

01:05:36.520 this actually the best use of this money or these resources? And then you go ahead with the best

01:05:40.580 option. What these guys seem to do is just figure out what the benefits are and then

01:05:45.240 ask people to pay for it. There's nothing, right? It's insane.

01:05:49.880 Well, and again, I worry because, I mean, we've got, you know, a flight of capital from this city.

01:05:54.320 This has been happening for a while. We've got a hollowed out downtown. And they do seem to

01:05:58.000 recognize it's a problem, but with the usual approach of my favorite little organization,

01:06:01.700 Calgary Economic Development, and their slush fund that brought in such great things as Rocket

01:06:06.300 space and other failed ventures. And we're also seeing a trend of businesses just sitting

01:06:12.240 up on the outskirts of Calgary. I mean, the MD of Rocky View has been the recipient of

01:06:16.460 a lot of business as well. I don't know what happened with that Amazon data center or something

01:06:22.200 like that. They announced it being this giant venture and it's going to bring in jobs, but

01:06:25.760 they never would say exactly where it's going to be. And from what I can suspect, it's not

01:06:28.620 going to be in the city.

01:06:30.380 Yeah, we've been trying to figure that one out as well. And they've been very tight-lipped

01:06:33.840 on that. And I suspect the reason they don't want to say where it's going to be is because it's not

01:06:37.600 going to be in the city limits. And so that defeats all of their arguments about how amazing

01:06:42.240 it is for the city of Calgary. It's obviously good for Alberta, but there's a good reason why

01:06:46.700 it's not going in Calgary. And that's because of the cost of doing business in Calgary. But

01:06:49.760 again, it's just yet another example of where they add up the benefits of everything you want to do,

01:06:57.800 and then they minimize the costs as much as possible, and then go, look, see, this is a

01:07:01.880 great idea we should do it you saw in the newspaper uh the day after the announcement about this well

01:07:06.180 the city bureaucrats are wondering well if you don't do this it could cost more i mean yeah i

01:07:11.100 mean maybe like if you but but this is the problem right they they're willing to count the direct

01:07:16.260 costs and the direct benefits and then they throw in all these ridiculous ancillary potential

01:07:21.240 hypothetical benefits to society which some may be fair enough some might not be that you can

01:07:26.320 basically make a cost-benefit analysis say whatever you want now with all of those things oh yeah but

01:07:30.800 you're going to include all those ancillary sort of indirect benefits you have to also include the

01:07:34.800 indirect costs which is as you say hey if we take 175 000 from every family that's 175 000 that they

01:07:42.240 can't spend in the city and city businesses and growing the economy in calgary there's no

01:07:46.640 there's no free money the money that the city spends isn't magical new money that they've

01:07:52.160 invented out of nowhere that's what the federal government does um the city of calgary can't do

01:07:56.880 that they they have to take the money from taxpayers first before they spend it so every

01:08:01.520 dollar they spend and every benefit that they get from spending that money has a an equal if not

01:08:08.720 worse cost on the other end when they take the money in the first place and they just ignore that

01:08:12.720 yeah and it seems that in my view i mean they're fabricating the cost of not doing something i mean

01:08:17.200 fine people are concerned you want to do some things but uh well two things for for example i

01:08:21.680 mean for one what on earth is going to happen in the next decade and some that's going to cost us

01:08:26.080 87 billion and changes. I mean, the sea levels that never did rise are suddenly going to start

01:08:30.600 become rising and crest the Rocky Mountains and actually flood Calgary or, you know, well,

01:08:35.040 the sun gets so darn hot in the next few years that we'll have complete desertification because

01:08:39.860 that's what it'll take to get to those levels of what they're talking about. I mean, the thing is

01:08:44.560 some of the things they're proposing aren't even necessarily bad ideas, right? Like no one in

01:08:50.300 theory is opposed to the idea of more efficient buildings that require less electricity. Why?

01:08:55.160 because that gets your costs down right if if you're a business owner and you're building

01:08:59.160 some kind of facility or some kind of building you want to do so in a way that that can keep

01:09:03.240 your costs down but if you ignore the cost of actually upgrading the building which is what

01:09:08.520 they're trying to do right um well then that doesn't that doesn't start to look very good

01:09:12.920 right so you know uh that what what else they also want all 60 of all uh trips in the city

01:09:19.000 to be done by walking, wheeling, or transit by 2050, which, you know, again, it's just this

01:09:25.560 top-down culture of, well, we're going to tell you how you're going to live your life and what's

01:09:29.400 best for you, and we're going to make you pay for it as well. Well, they're saying, I mean,

01:09:34.120 it's a term I wish would come back more because it was a big term in the past, it's social

01:09:37.080 engineering. They feel that it's their role as elitists to tell us how to behave ourselves,

01:09:42.040 how we lead our lives, what we'll do, and they want two-thirds of this city to not own personal

01:09:46.280 vehicles that's their ideological bent and they want to use policy in order to force that well

01:09:52.640 and the great irony is that the the fact that they need to propose these ideas is proof that

01:10:00.480 their ideas don't work because in theory we're supposed to have a carbon tax and the carbon tax

01:10:05.960 is supposed to incentivize people to do the right thing according to the environment right so with

01:10:11.080 a carbon tax, that should be using a price mechanism, as their argument goes, encouraging

01:10:16.860 people to do the right thing in the first place. It should be encouraging people to walk or buy

01:10:20.920 consent of drive. It should be encouraging people to upgrade their facilities and their buildings to

01:10:25.380 be more energy efficient. The fact that they're going to have to come in and have the government

01:10:28.940 mandate and pay for this through taxes just proves that the incentive scheme that they implemented

01:10:34.460 through the carbon tax doesn't actually work. So we've got one policy of theirs that doesn't work,

01:10:40.000 And then because it doesn't work, they're going to propose another policy.

01:10:42.320 And I predict this one won't work either.

01:10:44.080 And then they're going to come up with another one. 0.98

01:10:45.880 And all that's happening is Calgarian taxpayers are paying over and over and over again for more and more failed policies. 0.85

01:10:51.420 Well, that's it. 0.99

01:10:51.860 I mean, BC has been a good example.

01:10:53.060 They've had a carbon tax for a long time out there now.

01:10:55.500 And the numbers year after year after year, it has not impacted the emissions.

01:10:59.860 And that's part of the other thing as well.

01:11:02.400 I mean, even if they managed to blow this $87 billion and, you know, common sense doesn't somehow come into them by that point, and even if all of those policies come into being and they really have that much transit and that many people, the impact it will actually have on the climate is going to be pretty negligible.

01:11:20.420 Yeah, and I think it's also important to remember that it will probably end up being more than $175,000 because it's – so their argument is that they're going to try and get the province and the federal government to pay

01:11:32.380 for some of this, which, okay, fine. And on first glance, that might sound like a good idea. We can

01:11:37.860 have somebody else pay for it. But exactly. Yeah. If you're a Calgary taxpayer, guess what? You pay

01:11:42.960 provincial and federal taxes. Now, if you're a Montreal taxpayer, and you get the provincial or

01:11:48.080 the federal government to pay for something, especially the federal government, that's actually

01:11:51.400 a benefit to you. Because what that means is Alberta taxpayers are subsidizing whatever it

01:11:55.800 is that the federal government is paying for a Montreal taxpayer. But if the provincial and

01:12:00.520 federal government are subsidizing something for the Calgary municipality, well, you can bet that

01:12:05.760 they're going to do the same thing for all the other cities around the country as well.

01:12:09.020 And Alberta and Calgary taxpayers subsidize taxpayers in the rest of the country. So we're

01:12:13.500 not only going to be paying the $87 billion to do this in Calgary, we're going to be paying more

01:12:17.880 through our federal taxes to help other cities do this as well. The economic horror cycle just

01:12:21.800 kind of continues. So I mean, is there any chance of heading this off? I mean, right now, it's just

01:12:26.180 a policy proposal uh it's being embraced by gondek and a few of the members of council but it doesn't

01:12:31.220 mean it's been passed or implemented i mean can opposition start rising and amend this thing or

01:12:36.360 scrap it or anything of this sort i mean yes um we we have a petition on the common sense calgary

01:12:42.500 website commonsensecalgary.com where we're encouraging people to get involved and just

01:12:46.440 uh you know like you said organize uh we don't want to learn any policies lessons from the the

01:12:51.620 left-wingers but we can definitely learn some organizing lessons and that's what we're trying

01:12:55.480 do on this issue and the more people we can get to sign that petition the more people we get to

01:12:58.840 realize that this is just a completely insane idea the more that will help um but we also have to

01:13:03.960 recognize that you know this is a long ongoing battle they did exactly the same thing with the

01:13:08.520 green line you know uh first the green line was just a policy proposal and it was just a hypothetical

01:13:13.480 and there were just some random costings and and uh you know and then eventually through the levers

01:13:19.480 of government, the wheels churn and churn over time. And it's just this, you know, just

01:13:26.080 has its own momentum, right? So we really need not just to be opposing one off things

01:13:31.260 like this, but really getting the average Calgarian to have a better understanding of

01:13:34.980 what's happening at City Hall, and how we can stop some of these things in the long

01:13:38.620 run.

01:13:39.620 Well, we have to engage as voters more with our municipal politics. That was something

01:13:42.380 I was a little getting a bit chiding yesterday when I ranted about this, or maybe the day

01:13:46.020 before, but part of the issue is we have terrible voter turnouts when it comes to municipal

01:13:50.080 elections. It's not just Calgary, it's across the world. We pay close attention to the federal

01:13:55.060 and provincial actions and we overlook the government that's actually closest to us and

01:13:59.120 we don't pay close attention. And that's how we get elect some people that, you know, after

01:14:03.140 they've been in for a while you scratch his hat, how the heck did they get in there?

01:14:06.340 I think part of the problem is a lot of people look at municipal government and they think,

01:14:09.720 well, you know, it's fixing potholes and it's collecting the garbage and stuff like that.

01:14:14.900 And you're right. That's what they're supposed to do. The reality of municipal governments now is

01:14:18.840 they do social welfare and housing and climate change, and they've become massive, ginormous

01:14:24.460 entities that collect huge amounts of taxes. And people are still acting as if they're these tiny

01:14:29.680 little organizations that have barely any impact on their lives, when actually, hey, guess what?

01:14:34.200 They can propose something tomorrow that costs you $175,000 per household. And theoretically,

01:14:39.960 there's no reason there's there's no legislative uh mechanism to stop them from doing that it's

01:14:45.400 just the the will of the voters and the the activity and the energy of people to get out

01:14:49.620 there and and make their voices heard that's the only thing that can stop them from doing that

01:14:52.960 yeah and this ridiculous plan i mean it's supposed to happen over the next 28 years so i mean it'll

01:14:57.160 be very costly right off the bat but i mean at time i i guess it doesn't have it's not a done

01:15:02.040 deal no matter what the even this administration says it doesn't have to be a done deal uh things

01:15:06.580 I mean, they put out stuff like Imagine Calgary, that thing I waded through that horrific document years ago.

01:15:12.700 And I mean, it was, well, basically it was laying out what this plan is today in a lot of ways.

01:15:16.540 There were crazy pie in the sky ideas and things.

01:15:19.520 And people forgot that Ninchy actually said he's going to model his plans after that.

01:15:23.360 Well, and you're right.

01:15:24.620 It's over a long period of time.

01:15:25.900 I think 28 years, you know, by 2050 is what they're trying to achieve.

01:15:29.860 But let's not forget that that still works out to more than like $20,000 per household per year, right?

01:15:34.600 it's just insane. Sorry, I don't think it's 20,000. I haven't got the number in front of me,

01:15:39.560 but it's tens of thousands of dollars per household per year, even if you stretch it

01:15:44.320 out over the year. So it's just fanciful, the idea. But what you said there, the Imagine Calgary

01:15:49.700 and all the other strategies and documents, that is how they do it. They start very, very high

01:15:54.260 level. This is all hypothetical. We're just proposing some ideas. And then they come up

01:15:59.640 with some plans. And then they get counsel to vote for a policy. It's just guiding policy.

01:16:04.240 It's no specifics. But then when they propose specifics, anybody who tries to oppose it,

01:16:10.600 they then say, well, why would you be opposed to this? We've already got a policy. We've already

01:16:14.840 got a strategy. We already agreed to that. You've already committed to this. You have to do this

01:16:18.720 because this is what we already committed to. And so it's that ratchet effect just little by little

01:16:22.700 by little by little. They say, don't worry. This isn't going to be anything too dramatic. You're

01:16:27.000 not committing anything. You're not committing to anything long term here. And then they flip

01:16:31.380 the switch and they say, well, you've already committed. You've already committed to this.

01:16:33.940 you've already agreed to this, you've already spent all this money, you know, we've already

01:16:36.880 committed to this plan, why would we turn back now, right? That's when it gets me too, yeah,

01:16:40.920 with the frog in water and the sunk money. That's part of how they did a bit of the green line too,

01:16:45.260 well look, we spent all this already, we have to finish this thing now. Right, right. I mean,

01:16:49.740 it's the sunk cost fallacy, except it is the city administration deliberately using the sunk cost

01:16:56.420 fallacy as a strategy to get buy-in for their plans. Well, and they use these things too,

01:17:01.260 especially if suddenly we get that the federal government comes in you know justin truett wouldn't

01:17:04.780 shock me he's gonna come and say yeah you know i'll kick in 10 billion on that and i know what

01:17:09.420 exactly what city council do they'll come back and say look if anybody opposes this now you're

01:17:13.020 throwing away 10 billion dollars right here you're going to be just burning it up and throwing it in

01:17:16.620 the garbage so we have to impose this or we won't get that one and the federal government do the

01:17:20.540 same to the province as well right that's how we ended up with the child care deal right the 0.96

01:17:24.140 the federal government took over child care last year barely anybody noticed because if the

01:17:28.780 provincial government had opposed the plan they would have been giving up billions of dollars

01:17:31.820 right but but that's another thing we have to start explaining to calgarians to albertans that

01:17:36.700 all of these like matching funds deals from the federal government are actually a bad deal for us

01:17:41.660 because it's not like they're only giving calgary or only giving alberta the money they're doing for

01:17:45.580 everyone else as well and we subsidize everyone else we so we should be trying to get rid of all

01:17:49.660 those matching things and you know calgary taxpayers can pay for calgary stuff and edmonton

01:17:54.620 taxpayers can pay for edmonton stuff and alberta can pay for alberta everyone else can pay for

01:17:58.460 for everyone else. Yeah, it's just bad policy. And you know, as a leader, if you go dangling that,

01:18:03.140 you know, it's like a household, it's one of the kids there, you got to give it to the other ones

01:18:05.940 too, or you're gonna have some problems, particularly if those kids are as loud as

01:18:08.740 Montreal. Okay, well, so much to go into. Since I've got you here, maybe explain a little bit

01:18:15.680 about what Common Sense Calvary is. I didn't really introduce you very well. And I know there's a lot

01:18:19.700 more you're working on than just this, this climate plan. It's just that this one just really brought

01:18:23.800 the municipal thing to bear because it's just so, so over the top. Yeah. Well, I mean, as I alluded

01:18:28.480 to before, Common Sense Calgary follows what's happening at City Hall and tries to bring

01:18:33.380 attention to it for Calgarians so that Calgarians can be more informed about what is going on in

01:18:39.000 our municipal government, right? And what we've been talking about today about the climate plan

01:18:43.360 is how they operate on almost every issue, right? They add up all the benefits, they ignore all the

01:18:48.320 costs, and then they talk about how amazing all their plans will be and anybody who opposes it

01:18:52.500 would be crazy. And we're there to point out, well, hang on, that's not always how it works.

01:18:56.920 You have to consider both the costs and the benefits. You have to consider the other side

01:19:00.900 of the story. You have to consider other factors and alternatives. And so what we're trying to do

01:19:05.000 is we're trying to bring more attention to what's happening at City Hall, help people have a better

01:19:08.800 understanding of all these proposals that are being brought forward, and make sure that people

01:19:13.420 are aware of what their councillors are doing, what the mayor is doing, what's happening in those

01:19:18.280 meetings, what happens in the committee meetings, what's buried on page 374 of the report that they

01:19:23.180 don't want you to see, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, well, and that's important. I mean, that's

01:19:26.740 part of why, for example, I like Black Locks Reporter, or as we do at the Western Standard.

01:19:30.260 But one of the things that Black Locks does a lot, actually, they follow those committee meetings,

01:19:33.080 they dig into those policy things on our behalf, and then we can get the Coles Note version,

01:19:37.660 because not everybody has the time to mire through that. So, and City Hall loves doing that,

01:19:42.780 too. I mean, obviously, you know, hide something in a big, giant report, and it's buried in the

01:19:46.500 middle and the public can forget about it. So I mean, bringing that to attention at least catches

01:19:50.300 them in the act, I guess you could say. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not futile, you know, I mean,

01:19:54.600 pushing back, it might feel like it sometimes, but I think of things like when Gondek jumped out and

01:19:59.220 said, we're going to spend, it wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, I think 121,000 or

01:20:03.720 something to take part of the challenge, the legal challenge against Bill 21 and come back.

01:20:08.040 Well, it's not a matter that it was only 121,000. It's that it was so far out of your jurisdiction

01:20:15.240 that our calgarians got up and said no you aren't cut it out and she did she backed off i mean and

01:20:20.760 regardless of your opinion on that particular bill it's just not the job of calgary government

01:20:26.120 to be funding lawsuits in other provinces we wouldn't want montreal to be start funding

01:20:31.480 lawsuits against freedom-loving legislation in calgary or alberta right um so no it's it's all

01:20:37.960 about ensuring that people know what's going on but also advocating for common sense ideas and

01:20:42.520 and common sense solutions and solutions to the problems that we have at City Hall and

01:20:46.840 getting the city back to the core role that it should be focused on.

01:20:51.140 People don't mind a municipal government, people don't mind paying taxes to deal with

01:20:56.360 true public good issues like potholes and garbage collection in some cases and things

01:21:01.100 like that, where there's a benefit to having some kind of collective action to come together

01:21:06.420 and do these sorts of things.

01:21:08.420 just when the city gets into all this nonsense that people have problems and and you know i really

01:21:13.300 think one of the main problems we have at city hall now is that they spend so much time focused

01:21:17.940 on stuff that isn't their job not only are they wasting taxpayers money on all that stuff but

01:21:23.140 they're also so distracted with that stuff that they're not even doing a good job at the things

01:21:27.460 that are their job oh yeah right so we're getting hit both sides we're getting all of these crazy

01:21:31.460 policies that we have to pay for that nobody wants and then we're getting really bad service

01:21:36.340 on the things that we should be funding and that most people have no problem paying for.

01:21:39.300 These are managers of billions and billions of dollars, and they can spend an entire day

01:21:43.380 talking about the official bird or who the latest poet laureate is going to be.

01:21:47.620 And meanwhile, major policy issues are being overlooked.

01:21:51.380 Yeah, and we've got issues with crime on the LRT, and we've got issues with safety,

01:21:55.780 and we've got issues with businesses going out of business because they can't afford

01:22:01.620 their property taxes anymore. And, you know, garbage collection and all the kind of basic

01:22:06.660 stuff that the city should be doing isn't working. And yet we've got time, like you said, to deal

01:22:11.200 with a bird or a climate strategy that no one's ever going to be able to pay for or anything like

01:22:16.180 that. No one asked for it. Look, I mean, part of the problem is that politicians who are attracted

01:22:24.660 to power and influence as opposed to ideas are attracted to municipal government because

01:22:32.360 historically there's been, you know, much less scrutiny and because there aren't restraints

01:22:37.860 really on what municipalities can do, right? If you run for provincial government, you

01:22:42.360 can't start creating your own army or negotiating your own trade deals or, you know, any of

01:22:48.360 that kind of, yeah. But, you know, if you're running a provincial government, you can't

01:22:52.380 start doing stuff that the federal government's supposed to be doing. But if you're a municipality

01:22:55.660 and you go off and you start building houses and doing climate plans and all that kind of stuff,

01:23:01.420 the province has let municipalities get away with that. And so it's kind of a really easy way for

01:23:06.760 politicians to get in there, influence and push their ideas in a way that they wouldn't be able

01:23:11.100 to do in a provincial or federal government. And they haven't had any pushback or opposition to

01:23:16.020 that until now. And that's what we're trying to do now. Yeah. Well, that's what we got to do

01:23:19.400 citizens. And that's just why I want to remind everybody, like I said, with that one example

01:23:22.620 with Gonda, because she seems to be very intractable and stubborn sometimes. But you know what?

01:23:26.340 When her finger got burned with that Quebec thing, she backed off. So it can happen. It can work if

01:23:31.320 we speak up, if we, you know. As always, the one thing the politicians are most worried about is

01:23:37.240 getting reelected. So if we can show them that they're really off base with voters and that

01:23:41.180 people really care about an issue and willing to get out there, then they'll back off. So that's

01:23:45.680 that the Calgarians have to get involved and get active and encourage them to do so and get in touch

01:23:50.020 with Common Sense Calgary. And the time starts now. I mean, you know, it's three and a half years

01:23:53.380 till the next municipal election, but hey, why wait until then? You know, if they're always doing

01:23:59.220 internals, they're always watching. If they think, oh my God, I'm going to be unemployed in three and

01:24:02.500 a half years, they're going to reevaluate their path. Yeah. And it also doesn't just have to be

01:24:06.860 the election, right? We can, as you said, we can influence decisions. We can influence what's

01:24:11.300 happening at City Hall. We can get them on a better direction just by having people stand up

01:24:15.300 and say that they care about an issue

01:24:16.620 and they're willing to get involved.

01:24:17.640 It doesn't have to only be elections as well.

01:24:19.860 We can really be advocating on issues every day,

01:24:22.520 not just on election day.

01:24:24.220 All right on.

01:24:24.800 Well, thank you again for coming in to talk to us about it

01:24:27.260 and for the work you guys are doing.

01:24:28.420 Just that reminder, it's Common Sense Calgary.

01:24:30.700 And just get online and check them out, guys.

01:24:33.860 And, you know, helps keep you up to date.

01:24:35.760 And for the listeners and viewers outside of Calgary,

01:24:38.380 I mean, this is a municipal issue everywhere.

01:24:40.300 You know, there's organizations and there's people

01:24:42.420 or activities, you know, to keep pushing back.

01:24:44.560 Well, and there are also Common Sense groups in Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat as well, so you can go check out those groups as well.

01:24:51.520 Excellent. All right, well, good to see you, Peter. Thanks for coming in.

01:24:53.920 Thanks so much, man.

01:24:54.480 I'm sure we'll talk again soon.

01:24:56.900 All right, so just in review, that was, again, Peter McCaffrey with Common Sense Calgary.

01:25:01.920 Check out their site online and, of course, their social media presence and everywhere else.

01:25:06.740 I like, you know, exposing these things, and as I like to keep pointing out, it's not futile.

01:25:11.540 It feels like it.

01:25:12.200 It feels like you're running into a brick wall sometimes.

01:25:14.020 It feels like you're wasting your time.

01:25:16.140 Look, the only assurance you have is if you do nothing, you'll lose.

01:25:19.420 That, you're guaranteed.

01:25:22.040 So we've got nothing to lose in keeping on it.

01:25:23.860 I mean, come on, look what these guys think they can get away with.

01:25:26.660 Dropping a policy that insane upon people.

01:25:30.820 They didn't do it because they didn't think they could get away with it.

01:25:33.520 They think it's going to happen.

01:25:35.420 So, again, we've got to engage.

01:25:38.680 We've got to keep track or we're going to lose.

01:25:41.440 And that's just a big, big issue here in Calgary and everywhere, every city. 0.69

01:25:47.720 So I'm just going through to see if anything else, monkey pox, you know, here we go again, right? 0.97

01:25:53.100 This one I keep seeing. 1.00

01:25:54.360 I don't even know what to say or think about it anymore.

01:25:57.900 They just seem to be desperate to find something else to scare people, desperate to get us on edge.

01:26:03.400 You know, every virologist in headlines, every bit of news.

01:26:05.860 Let's look at the real numbers here.

01:26:08.860 right now that we know of around the world, 643 cases in countries. Well, I guess it's in

01:26:17.860 countries where it's not endemic. I mean, out of billions and billions of people we're talking

01:26:21.300 about, 643 cases. You know, you want to watch for things, you want to nip them in the bud,

01:26:26.280 catch them when they're early. But this thing, you listen to every credible virologist and,

01:26:31.120 you know, scientists, they say it doesn't transmit easily. This thing is not going to

01:26:36.040 spread like wildfire. It is not going to take over cities or put us at risk. You know, if you're in

01:26:42.200 the high risk groups or doing high risk activities, things like that, watch out. We certainly want to

01:26:46.040 keep people aware and have them avoid this if possible. Why is this the bloody headline on

01:26:53.640 every news story then? It's not a big deal because they want us to be scared. They want us to be

01:26:58.260 scared. They always want us to be scared. They can't find something else that they're going to

01:27:01.100 bring up. And that one's scary. Look at that picture of the pox all over you, these things

01:27:04.220 all over your arm. And as somebody else pointed out, yeah, during National Itch Day, but all the

01:27:09.540 same, this is not a headline story yet. Here we go. We keep hearing about it, hearing about it.

01:27:13.000 We're going to keep hearing about it until they can find something new to keep us scared.

01:27:16.060 They use emergencies or perceived emergencies as ways to control us. They've learned during

01:27:22.360 the pandemic that we will allow the government to get away with darn near anything if we think

01:27:27.160 it's for the public safety. So that's when we're going to see gun emergencies. Look what's happening. 0.64

01:27:31.860 Climate emergencies, look what's happening.

01:27:34.380 And of course, new medical emergencies

01:27:36.260 because then they think they can do anything.

01:27:38.880 All right, so I think I'm going to wrap it up

01:27:41.420 and let you guys go for the weekend.

01:27:43.140 Look, tune in on Monday.

01:27:44.200 I got an author, C.T. Jackson.

01:27:46.540 This will be fun.

01:27:48.240 He's down in states.

01:27:48.860 He wrote a book called So You Want to Be a Dictator.

01:27:51.980 And yes, it's a parody book,

01:27:54.520 but it's quite funny and it's out.

01:27:56.840 And just laughing and talking about all sorts of tips

01:27:59.440 and suggestions for aspiring dictators.

01:28:01.980 Perhaps Justin Trudeau might want to tune in that day

01:28:03.880 and things such as that.

01:28:05.960 And I'll have another guest on too.

01:28:07.620 We haven't established exactly who that'll be yet.

01:28:09.380 And of course, there'll be lots to cover at that time as well.

01:28:12.720 Lots of news, lots of ranting.

01:28:14.440 So thank you all for tuning in all of this week.

01:28:17.120 And I'll see you all tomorrow.

01:28:19.480 Well, I'll see you all on Monday at 1130 a.m.

01:28:21.440 Sure.

01:28:29.440 Transcription by CastingWords

01:28:59.440 Thank you.

Western Standard - June 04, 2022

Triggered： Private hospitals on First Nations reserves？ Excellent!

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