Western Standard - Triggered： Self-defeating politics of envy are killing us

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's May 27th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. It's Friday.

00:00:40.440 There's a lot of dejection in Calgary today. The Battle of Alberta has finished. It looks like

00:00:45.300 Edmonton pulled it off. Those nasty Northerners in the other half of our province, they elect 0.95

00:00:51.540 Liberals, they elect NDP, and unfortunately, they appear to win hockey playoff games. Oh, well,

00:00:57.000 I guess the cliche is just, there's always next year, right?

00:01:01.440 I know, too soon.

00:01:03.160 It's going to be sensitive for a while.

00:01:05.040 But that's the way it goes.

00:01:05.900 At least we had a Battle of Alberta, first one in 30 years.

00:01:08.760 And it's good to see, it was good to see people packing those arenas on both ends,

00:01:13.000 at Edmonton and in Calgary.

00:01:14.480 And I'm not terribly thrilled in watching Edmonton have a long run,

00:01:19.040 but still, I am happy for the Edmonton fans having a good time and enjoying that

00:01:23.340 and hope there's lots of good games to follow.

00:01:25.980 So let's see as we go into the day and see the other things that have to be observed today.

00:01:30.780 It is National Cellophane Tape Day.

00:01:33.500 Yes, it is.

00:01:34.400 I don't know where these things come from, but that is what we've got going on.

00:01:37.640 So celebrate cellophane tape.

00:01:39.280 Could you imagine life without it?

00:01:41.100 It's also National Grape Popsicle Day.

00:01:44.360 Yes, yes, these things are brilliant.

00:01:45.980 You know, they get me things going while you viewers get on.

00:01:48.500 But I mean, you wouldn't want to miss out on Grape Popsicle Day as well.

00:01:51.860 I mean, not just any popsicle, but grape ones.

00:01:53.900 I don't even know if I've had a grape one before.

00:01:55.980 It was Mr. Freezy's and everything.

00:01:57.820 It hasn't been warm enough really to get too big into the popsicles yet.

00:02:00.260 But those are the things today, you know, so go to the store, get your card,

00:02:03.420 make sure to send it out and wish everybody a happy cellophane tape day

00:02:06.680 and National Grape Popsicle Day.

00:02:08.600 I got some good guests on.

00:02:09.840 It'll be, you know, less light than the popsicle talk.

00:02:13.840 Andrew Ruland of Integrated Wealth Management is going to come on.

00:02:16.240 We've had Andrew on before, and we will talk about some financial things,

00:02:20.840 financial planning.

00:02:22.140 They've got an upcoming webinar and some stuff because, hey,

00:02:25.440 all want to retire. We all want to take care of our money, but we kind of need to leave that to

00:02:29.100 the experts sometimes. As we self-govern with our financial management, yet we wouldn't dare,

00:02:35.260 well, some people can, but don't try to fix your own car. You take it to a mechanic. So it'll be

00:02:39.060 good to chat with Andrew. He's a good conservative. Doris Kaufman of Positive Match is going to come

00:02:43.560 on Rescue Foundation. As some people know, I like to foster and adopt and rescue dogs. I really like

00:02:49.320 animals, often much more than I like

00:02:51.680 people. And they've got

00:02:53.680 all of these rescue organizations

00:02:55.760 are overloaded right now with

00:02:57.100 pets and surrenders, and they really

00:02:59.420 need people to step up and take care of these

00:03:01.580 animals. It's another side effect of

00:03:03.740 the

00:03:04.100 pandemic. People went and

00:03:07.300 adopted a bunch of pets while

00:03:09.060 things were locked down, and then they got inconvenient when

00:03:11.600 they went back to work and they dumped them in rescue. So

00:03:13.400 it'll be a good conversation with her. Plus, we're

00:03:15.520 going to have Western Standards Rachel 1.00

00:03:17.480 Emmanuel will pop in to finish off the show at the end and talk about that bizarre episode of

00:03:21.700 what's going on with Brian Jean in caucus, that story that broke last night, that exclusive we

00:03:27.760 had with the Western Standard. Sounds like he was out challenging people to fist to cuffs in the

00:03:32.660 caucus. I guess more lively than normal, but you know, these are the people we're entrusting with

00:03:37.100 our policy. It is of concern. All right, let me see. Let's talk about some idiocy as well. I'll

00:03:42.360 it into my rant. So way back in the late 1980s, the North American issue cause celeb for the hard

00:03:48.040 left protectionist was the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA, in other words. I mean,

00:03:55.020 in lacking a solid economic case for opposing deregulated trade, activists moved on to their

00:04:00.400 usual tactic of playing on fear and emotion. They created the myth, this is what they did in Canada,

00:04:06.040 created the myth that corporations were going to buy all the world's water and they were going to

00:04:10.840 drain us dry. The Council of Canadians was formed and managed by noteworthy leftists such as David

00:04:17.020 Suzuki and Maude Barlow. Yes, those names have been coming up for 30-some years now. The whole

00:04:22.380 point of that organization really was to try and halt free trade, and they focused on the message

00:04:26.860 that the big bad Americans would come up and take Canada's water if we allowed free trade, and we

00:04:31.100 wouldn't be able to do anything to stop. Their message was simplistic. They always began by

00:04:35.540 pointing out how desperately dry California is and how abundant Canada's fresh water supplies

00:04:40.480 were. They made the case that the Americans would move water from Canada's western lakes and rivers

00:04:44.560 into California for irrigation and drinking while paying pennies, if anything, for it.

00:04:50.380 These myths were often accompanied by pictures of dry farm fields and depleted water reservoirs. It

00:04:56.160 was a real frightening scenario indeed. Free trade was implemented despite the hysteric opposition

00:05:01.420 from Canada's left. People who believed the mythology of the Council of Canadians must have

00:05:06.400 lived in terror with the knowledge that desertification of Canada was impending. So

00:05:10.760 30 years later, what's happened to Canada's water? Well, nothing, not a thing. What the Council of

00:05:16.220 Canadians and other advocates always glossed over in their fear-mongering was the rather important

00:05:19.980 question of how this grand theft of water would actually happen. Water is actually notoriously

00:05:25.380 difficult to move over long distances. It's heavy, it doesn't compress, and it needs to be moved in

00:05:30.060 very large volumes to have any real impact anywhere. In BC, water would have to be moved

00:05:35.840 over mountain ranges in order to get it down to California and through a few river valleys. 0.69

00:05:41.120 From the prairies, it would have to go through multiple large river valleys, including even the

00:05:44.600 Grand Canyon, you know, which are already ironically carrying American water to coastal

00:05:49.840 outlets. It would take a project thousands of times larger than the Panama Canal in order to

00:05:54.840 move the equivalent of a small river from Canadian provinces to California. It just isn't in the

00:05:59.840 cards, but that didn't stop them from claiming they would, and people from falling for it.

00:06:04.320 Years of lobbying against any form of private water sales still has an impact on people. In B.C.,

00:06:09.140 Nestle experienced fierce opposition for a bottled water facility in the Fraser Valley.

00:06:14.300 Never mind that the Fraser River dumps more fresh water into the ocean in an hour

00:06:17.720 than a hundred bottled water plants could consume in a week. The principle of selling water has

00:06:23.700 been entrenched into the minds of many as being evil. A bottled water makes up a tiny fraction

00:06:29.320 of human water consumption.

00:06:30.520 It garners the most criticism

00:06:31.900 because it's our most visible form of consumption.

00:06:35.140 To be fair, using bottled water is a bit wasteful

00:06:38.380 due to the packaging involved

00:06:39.540 and the presence of safely drinkable water from the tap

00:06:42.380 in at least most communities.

00:06:44.520 It really isn't a big deal though

00:06:45.800 in the environmental or economic scheme of things.

00:06:48.880 Most of the human use of water

00:06:50.100 comes in the forms of irrigation and industrial uses.

00:06:53.340 It should be remembered water used by humans

00:06:54.780 will eventually go back into the system one way or another.

00:06:57.280 Contaminated water, it's a real issue.

00:06:59.200 Well, let's not pretend that the water simply vanishes from the world ecosystem

00:07:02.400 the moment it is sprayed on a field or used in a factory.

00:07:05.260 It goes back in the system, guys.

00:07:07.180 Now, California still faces a crisis in water supply, 1.00

00:07:10.100 and this is getting to where the stupidity really is getting big. 0.99

00:07:12.740 They're draining lakes and rivers dry as the population grows, 1.00

00:07:15.600 and an ongoing drought continues.

00:07:17.860 I mean, California is a dry state for the most part.

00:07:19.780 The Mojave Desert isn't a result of global warming.

00:07:22.400 It's thousands of years old.

00:07:23.720 And as long as that state holds a large population,

00:07:26.240 it's going to have challenges with water supply.

00:07:27.980 In most of the world, desalination has been developed in nations with coastal access in order to tap the oceans for supply.

00:07:36.300 Israel, Australia, and North Africa, they're all benefiting from these projects.

00:07:40.940 Desalination is expensive and energy-intensive, but it's getting cheaper,

00:07:44.620 and it beats the hell out of dying of thirst or associated hunger when crops fail due to drought.

00:07:50.160 California has a massive coastline along the largest ocean on Earth.

00:07:53.360 The state's a natural candidate for large-scale desalination projects.

00:07:58.620 Some plants are already in operation, and they're providing water to urban areas.

00:08:02.320 In light of recent developments, though, it looks unlikely that desalination facilities will be developed further in California.

00:08:08.700 Boy, there's a lot of tongue twisters in that one, though.

00:08:10.800 A large project in Orange County, California, called Poseidon, would have provided 50 million gallons a day to the parched Huntington Beach area.

00:08:19.420 Due to environmental and anti-capitalist lobbying, the project application was rejected. 0.98

00:08:24.680 Millions of dehydrated citizens just turned their backs on an abundant supply of water in an act of pure idiocy. 0.76

00:08:31.300 The environmental case against the plant was weak. 0.73

00:08:33.740 The impact of such a plant on a massive water body like the Pacific Ocean is negligible, a literal drop in the bucket.

00:08:40.980 Modern facilities dispose of brine effectively, and the ocean level certainly won't be dropping due to the minuscule removal of water in desalination plants.

00:08:48.820 The reason opposition to the project was successful was due to the demonization of private involvement in utility provision.

00:08:55.080 Much like the Council of Canadians did in the 80s, American leftists created a myth that corporations would gain control of water and would bleed consumers dry.

00:09:03.880 Indeed, it was projected that water bills might raise in California as much as $6 a month for some consumers due to this plant.

00:09:10.680 Oh, unthinkable.

00:09:12.800 They shout, water's a need. We should never allow it to be sold for profit.

00:09:16.680 Well, food and shelter are needs as well.

00:09:19.240 So who provides either of those better?

00:09:21.020 How good is state-funded housing, guys?

00:09:24.160 How well did the state control of agriculture work for the Soviet Union?

00:09:27.900 Just because it's a need doesn't mean the government should run it.

00:09:30.660 In fact, they should be less likely to run it.

00:09:32.800 If people want treated water provided efficiently and affordably,

00:09:35.740 they need to let the private market provide it.

00:09:37.780 Apparently, in California, they'd rather die of thirst.

00:09:41.520 Populations are growing, and we need to embrace new technologies in order to sustain them.

00:09:45.960 Nobody can pivot to suit the changing of needs for consumers better than private businesses,

00:09:51.240 yet we continue to shun them. We're in a battle of ideologies and we're losing.

00:09:55.560 The politics of fear and envy are winning and we're all paying that price. 1.00

00:09:59.240 Don't think that we're immune from this idiotic ideology here in Canada. Far from it. 1.00

00:10:03.720 People in Canada would apparently rather die on a waiting list than let private involvement

00:10:07.400 in healthcare expand. Turning away private medical investment while our system crumbles

00:10:11.560 is no more idiotic than turning away a glass of water while you're dying of thirst. 0.95

00:10:15.640 we're not any better and we got to start thinking harder that's what's got me wound up today let's 0.99

00:10:21.080 bring in our news editor dave naylor and see what he's got uh to keep me with my vein pulsing there

00:10:26.760 hey dave how's it going all right i figured i'd give you one more look at this glorious beard

00:10:33.080 shaved off tomorrow i'd forgotten we're certainly going to miss that around here yeah i know you

00:10:38.360 are hey i hear jane's not happy with duke the wonder dog i don't know if it was duke or volstag

00:10:43.800 but yes they're probably the two of them she just gotten some new shoes on a recent visit to

00:10:47.480 vancouver and the dogs consumed them today she sent me the picture she's not impressed no and

00:10:54.520 i hear they had some fun in the bathtub the other day yes you know these are what a 90 pound dog

00:11:00.680 and a 50 pound dog pretending to be purex kittens and got into the toilet paper roll so i spent

00:11:05.400 yesterday morning picking up toilet paper from throughout the house and this isn't making it

00:11:08.760 easier i've got a guest coming on from an animal rescue guys it's a bit of work taking these

00:11:13.560 dogs in but it's worth it in the end but yeah you got to protect your shoes and toilet paper

00:11:17.800 you know what you can't beat the love of a of a dog and you have to treat new dogs just like

00:11:22.440 babies you have to dog proof your house and make it clear i mean how many sandwiches do you have

00:11:27.240 to lose corey before you figure out that's don't leave them on the side i only lost one no two two

00:11:33.080 okay two times it's happened but it hasn't happened a night you know every day so i'm getting better

00:11:36.920 they're training me yes exactly as you say it's worth it to have an animal in your life they're

00:11:41.480 they're just unbelievable so uh leading off our website at the moment is a column from our

00:11:47.480 ottawa political watcher david creighton talking about the world economic forum and how

00:11:53.800 that organization has stiffed prime minister trudeau at davos uh after criticizing his

00:11:59.800 authoritarian ways so that's going gangbusters on our website right now corey uh labats people

00:12:06.280 are celebrating a quarter million dollar grant from the government to fix up a boiler in their

00:12:12.540 brewery in Newfoundland. Keep in mind, this is Labatt's, a company, you know, their overall

00:12:18.460 company is Anheuser-Busch in the States. But they get, you know, they earn billions and

00:12:25.900 billions of dollars selling beer. I consume a lot of it. But they're getting some of our

00:12:32.200 taxpayers' dollars to fix up a boiler. Controversial ruling, or what will be a

00:12:38.880 controversial ruling out of the Supreme Court of Canada this morning, Corey. If you remember the

00:12:44.440 guy with the gun who shot up the Quebec mosque, killed six people. Well, he was sentenced to 40

00:12:51.260 years after Stephen Harper's government brought in the fact that you could not kill for free.

00:12:58.120 If you kill one person, you're going to get 25 years, and if you get killed two, you're going to get 25 years added on for a possible 50-year sentence.

00:13:07.120 The judge in Quebec sentenced this guy to 40 years, and the judge says, no, no, no, that's unconstitutional.

00:13:14.120 He must have a review after 25 years.

00:13:17.220 So law and order people in Canada will not be happy with that one.

00:13:21.860 Our Christopher Oldcorn is at the Western Premier's Conference today in Regina.

00:13:27.020 He'll be filing several stories out of that.

00:13:29.900 Our Lee Harding, the biggest Oilers fan that I know, has gleefully written a column basically bragging about how good Edmonton is and how bad the Flames are, I suggest.

00:13:40.980 Readers, don't even go there.

00:13:42.960 Don't look.

00:13:43.440 Don't bother.

00:13:45.180 If you're a Flames, if you're an Oilers fan, you might like it.

00:13:48.180 Our Mel Rizdin's done a story on 18 major U.S. airlines are being sued and the FAA in the States is being sued over COVID mandates down there.

00:13:59.500 So that'll be interesting to follow.

00:14:01.720 And our Mike Thomas has done a nice community piece on the Wenzel family.

00:14:06.100 Now we're donating up to $20 million to the Cumming School of Medicine at University of Calgary.

00:14:13.400 So we'll end on that.

00:14:14.780 Happy note, Corey.

00:14:16.420 And plugging away more this weekend, the Amber Heard jury is about to go out.

00:14:22.780 So our Mike Thomas has done a piece on the French, large French property that Depp used to own.

00:14:30.580 That he suggested a jury might want to be sequestered in as opposed to a downtown Los Angeles hotel.

00:14:37.420 So that'll be upcoming. And it's a fun read, Corey.

00:14:40.780 This gets more bizarre and interesting as it goes.

00:14:43.080 I guess it can't all be politics, but it'll watch the freak shows of Hollywood at times.

00:14:47.300 Exactly.

00:14:48.200 All right.

00:14:48.660 Well, thanks for the update, Dave.

00:14:50.200 And we'll talk to you later and admire your beard for one more time.

00:14:54.440 Yeah, I'll let you rub your hands through it if you want.

00:14:57.240 We'll see.

00:14:58.480 All right.

00:14:58.980 It's on the table for you.

00:15:00.360 Okay.

00:15:01.000 Thanks, Dave.

00:15:01.780 Thanks, Rory.

00:15:03.200 So, you know, that's just a reminder to everybody.

00:15:06.660 The reason we have so many stories, so many reporters, so much stuff going on is because

00:15:10.100 you guys have been fantastic and subscribing. And subscriptions are what drive us. We don't

00:15:15.320 take tax funding. You know, we qualify for it. If you look up that article, Derek applied just to

00:15:19.360 see. And yes, not that we needed their permission, but the government said, yeah, we do think you're

00:15:24.440 an official media outlet. Well, that's kind of them. But we could qualify for subsidies. We

00:15:28.540 won't take them. But the reason we can get away with not taking them is because you guys subscribe

00:15:32.700 and it helps fund us so that we can keep expanding. We can get this bigger studio.

00:15:37.800 We can get those reporters all over the place

00:15:39.660 and have those as news coverage

00:15:42.920 so you don't have to rely on that legacy media

00:15:44.980 that's been serving you so poorly for so long.

00:15:47.800 So hey, check it out, westernstandard.news

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00:15:54.240 Guys, it's less than newspaper subscriptions

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00:15:59.280 Like I said, we're not asking for charity.

00:16:00.600 We're just asking for you to help pay for a service,

00:16:02.680 and we'll keep providing it.

00:16:03.900 I just want to reply to a commenter

00:16:05.420 because it talks right into what I was talking about.

00:16:06.840 Jennifer Schofield saying, you know, corporations are controlling water. Nestle gets BC water for

00:16:10.840 free and then bottle it and sell it back to us. So what? You know, so what? They're pulling it,

00:16:16.000 as I said, over by the Fraser River, where it's all just going to flow into the ocean anyways.

00:16:19.880 The amount they pull is negligible and you don't have to buy it. Don't buy it then. You know,

00:16:25.640 and they employ people. Those people pay taxes. They distribute it. You see, it's not just pulling

00:16:30.100 water and selling water back to you and they don't control it. You can go to the river and drink all

00:16:34.200 water you want. They don't own it. They're just taking from it and they're making a product from

00:16:39.000 it. It's clean water that's delivered and it's convenient for you to put in your fridge or take

00:16:42.260 hiking or whatever. And hey, if you don't want it, don't do it. Bottle your own water, put it in a

00:16:46.560 reusable bottle and take it hiking or drink from the sink or drink from the toilet for all I care.

00:16:50.560 But don't knock companies. It's a myth that it's causing a problem. It's not. So hey, if people

00:16:56.740 want to buy bottled water, I don't. I find it wasteful, especially, you know, brand names like

00:17:00.340 Nestle. I mean, I imagine it's probably some brand name that makes those President's Choice ones I

00:17:03.700 buy anyways. But all the same, if you want to buy bottled water, go ahead. But it's just,

00:17:07.880 it's not a big issue, despite what some people like to make of it. And then when they tie it

00:17:12.080 into things like opposing free trade, then we get bigger consequences to smaller myths.

00:17:16.340 But either way, I appreciate the comments. You know, they're usually going to get a cranky

00:17:18.980 response out of me, though. That's what I do. So I'll speak one more time before we get to our

00:17:23.060 guest about a sponsor as well. It's not just memberships that keep us going, but it is those

00:17:27.280 advertisers. And that's Bitcoin Well, a good Alberta company. If you're interested in digital

00:17:33.260 currencies. This is the way to at least find out what they're about. See if you want to get into

00:17:38.580 it. Educate yourself. They're a Western Canadian company. They're publicly traded. I mean, part of

00:17:42.740 it is if you're going to get into those sorts of things, you want to make sure you're getting good

00:17:46.860 advice. You want to make sure you're dealing with a reputable establishment to do that. And Bitcoin

00:17:51.220 Well is that. They will give you, I think that's their biggest selling point, personalized one-on-one

00:17:55.580 service. You know, I don't trust things when I go online and I see a little pop-up window on the

00:17:58.700 bottom right with a chat box there. Or if I have to talk to somebody who, hey, I don't want to

00:18:03.600 knock people in foreign call centers. They're working their butts off, but they can't talk 1.00

00:18:06.460 one-on-one with me about an Alberta issue. These are local people who will meet with you one-on-one

00:18:11.220 and discuss your investments just like anything else. So it's important. And maybe it's not for

00:18:14.980 you. That's the thing. The bottom line is educating yourself, knowing your options,

00:18:19.240 checking them out, and being wise with your money. And that kind of segues well into my next guest

00:18:25.220 that I'll be talking to pretty quickly here.

00:18:27.820 That's Andrew Ruland.

00:18:28.680 He's been on before,

00:18:29.620 and this isn't about digital currencies.

00:18:30.940 This is about the currencies

00:18:31.800 you're already dealing with,

00:18:32.800 and he's with Integrated Wealth Management.

00:18:34.260 Andrew's been on the show before

00:18:35.660 and will help.

00:18:37.640 Well, as I was saying earlier,

00:18:39.460 people like me, I'm terrible with my money.

00:18:41.160 I'm lucky. 0.67

00:18:41.560 My wife's a bookkeeper. 0.84

00:18:42.460 She manages things carefully, 0.60

00:18:43.560 but still, I use the analogy,

00:18:46.540 I can't trust myself to work on my car.

00:18:48.600 I'll take it to a mechanic,

00:18:49.560 and not enough people are doing it with their money.

00:18:51.660 If you should take it to a specialist.

00:18:53.580 Absolutely.

00:18:53.940 That's one of the great things about our economy is that we have so much specialization that we can basically delegate anything that we're not good at, you know, including the car or working on your own teeth, as an example, right?

00:19:05.240 Yeah, home dentistry.

00:19:07.120 There was an old SATB skit about that, actually, that was quite funny for greater folks like us who might remember it.

00:19:13.400 Just to bring up a side note, so you brought up and you sent me a link to an Adam Carolla podcast, and it was talking on the gun control thing.

00:19:19.040 I just thought that's funny because I went to Idaho and back last weekend with my wife.

00:19:22.320 And when I drive, I download and Corolla is my favorite go-to. So it was just spooky timing on

00:19:26.560 that. I shouldn't be plugging other podcasts so much, but if you want a good lesson and he's

00:19:31.200 funny and he's conservative, actually, Adam Corolla is fantastic for that. So good common

00:19:36.560 sense there. All right. So where do we begin? I mean, it's a lot of the issues you've talked about.

00:19:42.320 You've got a webinar coming up to help people through financial things. I mean,

00:19:46.400 the things that are scary right now, we've got this volatility, we've got inflation,

00:19:50.800 interest rates, they're starting to creep up. That's going to change the picture on things.

00:19:55.760 People are kind of worried, they're scared, they would work in decades, and they're maybe nearing

00:19:59.200 retirement, and now they're not sure what to do. Well, the first four, four and a half months of

00:20:03.840 2022 has been basically one of the worst starts to the year for equity markets in a very, very

00:20:10.400 long time. Nasdaq's, you know, from peak to trough was down about 32, 33% intraday. TSX has held up

00:20:18.240 pretty well, better than, say, the Dow and the S&P 500. But the only reason that TSX has actually

00:20:24.960 held up is because of energy stocks. And it was interesting, your earlier story on the desalination

00:20:32.080 plant, this Orange County, and actually the lead guy was actually on Adam Carolla as well,

00:20:38.320 a few weeks back talking about that and basically that's another example of of how ideologically

00:20:45.520 driven policy decisions get us into trouble really really quickly and we're seeing that

00:20:50.720 here in canada we're seeing it as a result of the sanctions on ukraine different things like that

00:20:56.240 and so in any situation where you know there's basically some type of volatility or a crisis

00:21:02.000 that's created. There's danger, but there's also opportunity. And so, you know, starting like 14

00:21:08.060 months ago, we started investing very heavily in commodities, as an example, for a portion

00:21:12.660 of client portfolios, because we could see coming the things that have been happening in the last

00:21:19.280 year as a direct result of policy decisions. So there's another example of it. But I mean,

00:21:26.320 so far this year has been pretty terrible for people who are just passively investing,

00:21:30.440 or if they're with like a generic broker or in mutual funds or anything like that,

00:21:35.080 because they don't have downside risk control. And so that's a key part of what we're going to

00:21:40.120 talk about on the webinar tomorrow at noon, is actually stocks you can tolerate managing

00:21:45.400 downward volatility in stocks. But of course, everybody's also talking about inflation,

00:21:50.360 which is eroding the purchasing power of their capital. And then of course, there's this big

00:21:56.840 problem with bonds. And this is a secular bear market for bonds, because we are now in a secular

00:22:03.880 bull market for interest rates going up. And of course, the two are negatively correlated.

00:22:08.520 And so people have typically relied on bonds for 30%, 40% of their investment portfolio to be their

00:22:16.280 quote unquote, safe money. And that money is basically guaranteed to go down in value,

00:22:22.440 because when interest rates go up, the value of their bonds go down. And so a lot of people find

00:22:26.680 themselves between a rock and a hard place on that one. Well, yeah, and that's hard too. I

00:22:30.360 imagine though, I mean, if your money's in something and inflation goes up, the value of

00:22:34.200 it in a sense goes down as well. If you don't have an interest rates building the equity within it

00:22:38.760 to counter that. So it's always a balancing act with those types of savings.

00:22:43.160 And longer term, we know that, you know, things like real estate and stocks are great ways to

00:22:47.960 outpace inflation, but that doesn't mean there can't be downward volatility in the short term,

00:22:53.480 right? And we think that interest rates going up are going to actually be a bit of a headwind for

00:22:57.880 real estate because with super low interest rates, payments become more and more affordable. So the

00:23:04.080 prices of homes can go up. But when the price of money goes up, when the payment or when the

00:23:09.720 interest rate goes up, people don't qualify for quite as big a mortgage. So the price of homes

00:23:15.140 is going to moderate a little bit as well. And so there's that dynamic. But stocks are

00:23:22.560 stocks are the best long-term hedge against inflation, but a lot of people get pushed

00:23:27.900 past their financial pain threshold. And as you said, right now, you were pushing

00:23:33.360 recently on commodities because you saw them coming and they went up. But a couple of years

00:23:37.680 ago, boy, they were in the toilet. They were terrible. So, I mean, you want to make sure

00:23:40.880 you're in and out at the correct times with investments. And that takes some skills to

00:23:45.320 try and navigate. Yeah, it's funny because a lot of the investment community says, well,

00:23:49.940 you can't time the market. We might not be able to time it perfectly, but it's really important

00:23:55.300 to understand that the lower the price you buy something at and the higher the price you sell

00:23:59.520 it at, the better your return is. And those transactions, when you're buying or selling,

00:24:04.620 they take place in the medium of time. So for someone to say the timing doesn't matter

00:24:09.880 means that they don't really understand how time works.

00:24:14.540 But some things, I guess, I mean, you're talking about a diversified portfolio. You're going to

00:24:17.760 have some things you're going to put money in and you want to sit on that and just leave it alone

00:24:20.920 for a longer term. But there'll be other things perhaps that you would want to go into and out

00:24:25.320 of throughout the course. Like these things I honestly don't understand a lot about. You want

00:24:29.440 stability and part of that savings, but you also want some opportunity for growth, I guess.

00:24:33.640 That's correct. Now, when it comes to how our managers manage portfolios, it's based on the

00:24:39.460 idea of setting up an asset mix that will suit their long-term objectives, but also their risk

00:24:47.620 tolerance. But then within each of those categories, within the asset mix, our managers are actively

00:24:54.480 managing them. So they're overweighting into certain areas, underweighting in certain areas,

00:24:58.980 and taking advantage of trends in the market. Okay. And I imagine another variable in that

00:25:04.320 is where that person is in their working life. I mean, you would have a different sort of

00:25:08.580 portfolio you would put together for somebody who's, say, just getting into their early 30s,

00:25:13.100 and they've got a lot of working years ahead of them, or somebody like me in my 50s, and I'm

00:25:16.640 starting to think about retirement and things down the road. Yeah, absolutely. Every client

00:25:22.020 portfolio is built on a custom basis. So it's all, you know, very customized to individual client

00:25:29.500 needs, to their time horizon, income needs, and sleep at night factor is a big one.

00:25:35.760 Yeah. So where, you know, maybe that's the magic question. We've got so many things we never could

00:25:41.120 have imagined before coming out recently. I mean, the war with Russia and Ukraine and

00:25:45.240 the pandemic, of course, and now we know that these things can continue to potentially happen

00:25:49.320 in the future. Like there's going to be impacts that we can't avoid and things that we can't see

00:25:53.780 coming, but where can you secure the future? Where can you feel at least a portion of your

00:25:57.740 investment is going to still be there down the road for yourself? Well, if you're talking about

00:26:02.440 kind of a safer part of a portfolio, I would go with the diversified basket of private alternatives.

00:26:07.620 That's a combination of private debt and private real estate. But if you're thinking more on the

00:26:12.300 stock side or the opportunity-seeking side, where you're going to have to put up with some more

00:26:16.340 volatility, but you're going to get a higher return to outpace inflation, I would say that

00:26:20.400 the commodity markets and the companies that produce them are probably the best bet. I'll

00:26:25.320 use an example right now. Here in Calgary, we have what I would call basically a perfect storm.

00:26:32.020 And the perfect storm has been created by the ESG movement, right? Basically, there have been

00:26:38.000 supply constraints that have been created by regulation in Canada, by cancellation of pipelines

00:26:44.380 in the States, by cancelling leases and the sort, and then creating basically over-reliance

00:26:53.320 on one type of power over another. And it's basically destroyed a lot of supply. But as

00:26:59.820 demand has rebounded post-COVID, basically price is going to go up. So invest in the things that

00:27:06.120 benefit from terrible policy decisions. Well, that's it. So you've got to watch policy decisions

00:27:10.960 too, though. You got to watch the politics. Like people and decision makers do counterintuitive

00:27:15.720 things. As for my earlier rant, I mean, California, you're parched, you're running out of water.

00:27:20.320 Here's this proposal for a plant that's going to provide you with stable, secure water supplies,

00:27:26.420 and you shut it down. It just makes utterly no sense. But again, if a person was investing in

00:27:31.780 that proposal and in that plant. You want to see the political climate and know the risk you're

00:27:37.500 taking on, even if it seems like a no-brainer from an economic point of view. It wasn't a safe

00:27:43.240 investment, obviously, from a political point of view. Right. And another ideologically driven

00:27:48.700 decision. And I mean, I didn't think it was possible, but there's a dumber politician than 1.00

00:27:53.380 Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden, and that's Gavin Newsom. Oh, my God, he's an empty suit. 0.99

00:27:59.420 But it was just painful. It just floored me. Actually, the first hint I got of it was when

00:28:06.460 I was driving back with Jane because Carolla was talking about that. He lives in California.

00:28:09.580 It's like, oh, man, what are these doing there? But again, it makes it difficult to figure out

00:28:15.260 what's safe or what's not. Okay, the world wants a bunch of oil, but we got a local company that's

00:28:19.500 about to be shut in by a ridiculous domestic policy. Well, then you still don't want to invest

00:28:23.260 in that company necessarily. You guys have got to be pretty busy all the time watching all those

00:28:27.020 variables and juggling those balls.

00:28:29.260 Absolutely. It's a completely fluid situation. And because risk is dynamic, portfolios have

00:28:35.580 to be dynamic, right? If they are ever shifting, ever changing, you need to kind of adjust in real

00:28:40.940 time to all that.

00:28:41.740 Well, that's it. And as you said, I guess seeing those things, if you can have the

00:28:45.580 people doing it on your behalf, and if you know what's coming, you can make out well. I mean,

00:28:48.860 when you know that the bottom of something in value and get in at the right time, you're doing

00:28:53.900 great. I even talked about Bitcoin earlier, okay, that's a questionable area, but a lot of people

00:28:58.980 lost a lot of money on Bitcoin in the last while because it's dropped dramatically. Timing is

00:29:02.960 everything actually. Yes. Right. So there's an example of people who I think perhaps might

00:29:09.720 concentrate a lot of belief in one asset class or one sector. You could think of it as big tech,

00:29:16.800 just as another example, or if somebody was all in on real estate or all in on gold stocks,

00:29:24.740 right? And things don't always work out the way that you think. So it's better to be

00:29:29.500 approximately right rather than risk being precisely wrong. And then, so when it comes

00:29:34.680 to say international or investing in things that are outside of the borders, is that a way I guess

00:29:40.020 like currencies vary? You know, you could have a value in something in Canada by Canadian dollars,

00:29:45.280 but perhaps the other country's currency didn't move in the same sort of way.

00:29:48.920 How does that impact investments when you're coming from Canada to another?

00:29:52.520 It actually has a very, very significant effect on client portfolios.

00:29:57.320 And in fact, diversification outside of the Canadian dollar

00:29:59.960 has been one of the things that has kept our client portfolios so stable.

00:30:04.200 Because when the U.S. dollar, when equity markets decline,

00:30:08.420 typically the U.S. dollar strengthens.

00:30:10.740 And so even our U.S. dollar-based investments

00:30:13.220 don't fall as much as they appear to be in pure price when you adjust for local currency.

00:30:18.580 And that's why our client portfolios are down by, you know, 40 or 50% of what the markets are,

00:30:23.060 as opposed to being down the whole amount. So when getting somebody involved, and I imagine

00:30:29.060 that's a lot will be covered in the webinar. I mean, what sort of sizes are you talking for

00:30:34.180 portfolios to? I mean, you know, I got to admit, my early years in the working world,

00:30:37.620 I wouldn't even consider these things because, hey, I'm just paying a hand amount of rent and

00:30:41.300 and so on. But later in life, you start saving up. At what point is it important to start getting

00:30:45.220 somebody involved in managing your finances? Well, even before you have somebody involved

00:30:50.380 in actually helping you to manage your finances, the first thing you have to do is save,

00:30:53.980 because you can hire somebody else to manage your money. You can't hire somebody else to save it.

00:30:58.320 So you start there. Well, if there's nothing to manage, then there's no point. Exactly,

00:31:01.440 right. So investor behavior is the first and most important thing. But we work with clients

00:31:07.860 It's typically over the age of 50, often, not necessarily, but we base our minimum portfolios

00:31:14.120 on clients' age because we can't expect someone under the age of, say, 50 to have the same

00:31:19.800 amount as someone, say, who's 60 or 65.

00:31:22.640 We do work a lot with business owners and ranchers and farmers because they understand

00:31:30.060 risk and they understand the cycles of nature and how you have to, you know, have some grain

00:31:37.060 set aside in the barn for the bad years, quite literally.

00:31:40.080 Yeah, I mean, the agricultural sector, again, is the top of a volatile, and they'll have

00:31:45.680 a lot of capital assets, but if they get a few bad years, their cash flow can be horrifically

00:31:50.160 bad.

00:31:50.660 You don't want to be selling off acres all the time to make your bills, so you can find

00:31:53.780 ways to balance that.

00:31:54.920 Yeah, certainly farming is an equity building enterprise.

00:31:58.700 It's not an income generating enterprise for most people.

00:32:03.080 Yeah, I remember that from Pritt.

00:32:04.600 It's one of my regular customers who owns a lot of ranch land out there and everything else.

00:32:08.220 And he's doing quite fine.

00:32:09.300 But all the same, he also likes driving his 85 pickup truck when he comes out to the coffee shop.

00:32:13.940 He's not living the high life.

00:32:16.400 He's got to be careful with his money.

00:32:19.380 So, yeah, one of the things I like about talking to you, too, though, and seeing your emails and such.

00:32:23.820 But you're unapologetically conservative.

00:32:25.160 I guess that helps with your relationship with ranchers and such.

00:32:29.380 Though you don't mix your politics with your investment advice.

00:32:32.340 We don't mix the politics with the investment advice, but it's important to have, I would say, a similar worldview for the advisor that you're working with.

00:32:40.260 Because if I show up with ear gauges, a beard, and a Vote Liberal sticker on my car, well, we're probably not going to see eye to eye.

00:32:52.680 Well, it's part of it. It's a relationship. I mean, the goal is long-term investment.

00:32:55.960 It means they're theoretically going to be dealing with you guys for a while.

00:32:58.120 And plus, you want similar goals.

00:33:01.600 I mean, some people are willing to take a lower return if they go into, they feel, I guess, investments that are more woke-based, I guess you could say.

00:33:10.260 Yeah, and it's interesting because that whole ESG idea has actually started to be, I'll say it's becoming more obvious that ESG is a bit of a, I'll call it a scam.

00:33:21.620 It's basically just like a social credit score for companies, and while it's been popular, it's not necessarily effective, and frankly, I think it's a fad that is quickly passing by, and ultimately what you need to do is you just need to be a little bit agnostic and apolitical, and certainly our portfolio managers,

00:33:48.440 they're far less concerned about the carbon footprint of a company

00:33:55.000 than they are about their financial performance, right?

00:33:58.620 Basically, as long as they're not doing obvious damage to the environment

00:34:03.400 and getting in the news, then it's really a moot point.

00:34:06.320 I mean, the goal is a return.

00:34:07.820 And I mean, even, hey, if you got into Beyond Burger at the right time,

00:34:11.960 that meat, that took off like a rocket,

00:34:15.340 even if some people got upset because they say it's this vegan push. Well, I mean,

00:34:19.100 from an investment point of view, it doesn't matter. If you got into that on the ground level,

00:34:22.060 you could have done really well for yourself. Yeah. And you have to have to have pulled out

00:34:25.900 in order to have not gone downhill with it. But it's an example where somebody might miss

00:34:32.460 an opportunity just because their own personal ideologies or prejudices can color that. And you

00:34:37.020 don't want to do that in your investment portfolio. It's important. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing to

00:34:41.420 remember is that if you miss out on an opportunity, just like buses, there's another one coming along.

00:34:47.260 Yeah, there's always more companies coming and going. And again, it's finding the right ones,

00:34:51.820 and you don't want to get on the bus, it's going to crash. So yeah, definitely. That's why you want

00:34:56.460 a driver. Yes. So I mean, you guys provide all sorts of information. As I said, there's so many

00:35:00.460 variables, so many questions. I've got my areas of expertise. So you know, ranting, raving, annoying

00:35:05.100 people, and I focus on those, but you know, finances aren't so much mine. That's why I like

00:35:08.540 talking to others. So you've got a webinar coming up, though. That's the big thing that's coming

00:35:13.880 up. That's a lot of what you guys have driven your business with is giving those extended,

00:35:18.480 I guess, educational sort of things. So perhaps let us know a little more about the webinar and

00:35:26.300 where they can get involved. Exactly. So the webinar is tomorrow at noon mountain time,

00:35:30.980 and it's called Forward-Looking Investments. We're Forward-Looking Investing for Independent

00:35:36.060 thinkers. And that pretty much encapsulates the type of people that we like to work with

00:35:40.280 and the type of people that we are, right? So, you know, you have to skate to where the puck is

00:35:45.380 going to be as opposed to where it is, as Wayne Gretzky famously said, and you have to do the

00:35:51.360 same thing in investments. So it'll run about 50 minutes or so, and we'll give an overview of kind

00:35:56.860 of who we are, but the risks and the opportunities that we see out there right now, and explain a

00:36:02.400 bit about the structure of how we work and basically how we deliver the results that we do,

00:36:07.760 which are, you know, very solid long-term returns without the night terrors.

00:36:13.440 Yeah. So they have to sign up in advance or can it be?

00:36:17.120 Yes. So they can go to the opinion section on Western Standard. We have an article there linked,

00:36:24.960 you'll see the green model there, which describes our business model. And also you could just go to

00:36:31.440 i-wealth at i-wealth.ca. And you can sign up there as well.

00:36:38.400 Great. I know that 99% of our viewers today are paid subscribers for the Western Standard,

00:36:43.600 but for that one in a hundred who aren't, that one's actually not behind the paywall. So you

00:36:47.520 can get to that piece on the Western Standard. It's in the opinion section. It's in the feature

00:36:51.280 section and get the link to that seminar and see what it's all about. So I would suggest people

00:36:56.800 check it out. And like I said, I mean, as you say, it's a longer term thing. You're building

00:37:00.080 a relationship. That's what I see is similar to what I was talking about with another, but just

00:37:03.720 that local is trustworthy. I mean, this is a big deal to people and this is very important. They've

00:37:08.740 worked very hard for their money and they want to make sure it's always in the best hands they can.

00:37:12.940 Definitely. I'll mention one last thing and that is oftentimes people are busy, especially on

00:37:17.680 weekends, right? A lot of family time or just get caught up in other things other than work.

00:37:22.560 So if they can't attend live at noon tomorrow, if they register, they will get a link to a

00:37:29.120 recording of the webinar as well. Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for coming in to join

00:37:34.320 us again today, Andrew, and keep those links to those other podcasts coming to me too. Yeah,

00:37:39.020 lots of fun. All right. Thanks, Corey. All right, guys. So yes, that's Andrew Rulon of Integrated

00:37:43.480 Wealth Management. As I said, he's been on before, and as you can hear, he's got a lot of good

00:37:48.080 common sense to share and some, well, financially educated knowledge to share. I mean, everybody's

00:37:54.920 got advice on the internet about what you should be doing with your dollars, but not all of them

00:37:58.840 have good advice. That's the important part. As I say, you work hard for that money. You want to

00:38:03.420 make sure that it is as well taken care of as possible. So check those guys out online. Brad

00:38:10.640 saying maybe if you won the lotto, you would invest. Yeah, I know. It's not all of us have as

00:38:14.180 much liquid means to take care of these things as others, but it's important to have it properly

00:38:21.240 taken care of out there if you can. So yes, we're going to have our next guest in a little bit here.

00:38:26.400 I'll talk about another sponsor before we get there.

00:38:28.620 And that is the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:38:33.180 Speaking of people building relationships with and being reasonable with.

00:38:39.740 If you have firearms, enjoy firearms, want to get involved in firearms,

00:38:43.840 you want to do it safe, you want to do it legally, you want to do it responsibly.

00:38:47.300 And that's getting involved in association, building a network,

00:38:52.040 and looking at the resources.

00:38:53.520 That's all there.

00:38:54.300 That's what it is.

00:38:54.920 It's an association.

00:38:55.900 Check them out. They stand up for your rights to legally own firearms. We've seen some terrible

00:39:00.700 uses of firearms recently, but that's not the legal use of it. We want to make sure that line

00:39:04.300 is always drawn between those of us, you know, who would never commit a crime and unfortunately

00:39:08.620 those people who do. So these guys lobby on your behalf. They provide a lot of resources. And again,

00:39:13.420 if you're in, you know, you want to get involved in firearms, you know, for target shooting or

00:39:18.520 hunting or collecting, whatever, this is the place to go. Canadian Shooting Sports Association. It's

00:39:24.120 cssa-cila.org, or just Google them up and you will find them. So going a little further,

00:39:32.640 let's talk about a few news items before we have a guest on in a little while here.

00:39:37.420 And yeah, here's an interesting story, and it's got a bit of a personal aspect, and it kind of

00:39:41.840 ties in with what Dave was talking about with one of the stories that's breaking. There's a fellow

00:39:47.140 named Hunter Van McElberg. People might have heard me relate a few times on how my bar got

00:39:51.580 repeatedly robbed a couple of years ago when I owned it by a gang of, it turns out, pretty chronic

00:39:57.480 and dangerous criminals. And Hunter Van Mackleburg, after he'd robbed my bar when he was released

00:40:04.320 on bail, went out and it was a horrible crime, took out a young man who he felt was coming on

00:40:12.120 to his girlfriend, let him out into a field and shot him in the head. So he got sentenced to life

00:40:18.100 in prison with no parole for 12 years, McElberg is only 21. And with the time he served in remand,

00:40:25.140 which is usually double, triple time, and then two thirds mandatory release and things like that,

00:40:30.560 Mr. McElberg is going to be quite young and out of there before very long. I can only hope that

00:40:37.500 maybe he's learned and he's reformed himself. But this is really distressing. We're getting this

00:40:42.580 trend. It's like the story I wrote about last week, where we've had three Albertan mothers who,

00:40:47.480 who unfortunately were murdered just in Alberta in less than a year,

00:40:52.740 all three cases were repeat dangerous offenders.

00:40:55.440 And now we've got the Supreme Court just ruled that you can't have concurrent sentencing.

00:41:00.960 What that means is if you, even if it's a car theft,

00:41:04.580 if you stole 10 cars and you got a year for each car theft,

00:41:08.880 it doesn't matter.

00:41:10.020 You're only going to be sentenced to the one year.

00:41:11.740 You get 10 for one.

00:41:12.940 That even applies to murders.

00:41:14.800 I don't think lunatic murderers would think about that when they're committing a crime, 0.81

00:41:18.660 that, okay, once I've shot one, it's going to be the same price for the next 10 I shoot.

00:41:22.500 But I do think, you know, a repeated crime, a multiple crime calls for some degree of a higher penalty than others.

00:41:28.620 I mean, can we not use some reason?

00:41:30.200 I don't want to see a person who's convicted of 25 shoplifting crimes doing 20 years in prison.

00:41:36.480 That's unreasonable as well.

00:41:38.280 But to say that you can't have concurrent sentencing with multiple crimes,

00:41:42.180 We've got a problem there, too, particularly with dangerous offenders.

00:41:46.080 And we seem to be going the wrong way.

00:41:48.220 We're having a lot of serious crimes going on right now.

00:41:51.360 So that comes up to the case of that horrible man who killed six people in a mosque.

00:41:55.500 I mean, that's a hateful, very disturbed person.

00:41:58.460 Six innocent people who are just worshipping.

00:42:01.080 And now he's only convicted of one because they don't do concurrent sentencing.

00:42:06.800 So he could be out in some years.

00:42:08.340 It'll be a while yet, but he could be out.

00:42:10.540 I don't want people like that out.

00:42:12.120 So, I mean, our court system really has some serious things to address.

00:42:17.000 Okay, we've got our guest in, though, and I'm looking forward to speaking to her.

00:42:22.320 And this is Doris Kaufman of Positive Match, right?

00:42:26.080 Good to meet you.

00:42:27.180 I appreciate you coming in.

00:42:28.660 Well, thank you.

00:42:29.060 We appreciate the invite.

00:42:30.080 Yeah, so, I mean, viewers of our show know anyways, and Dave and I do the banter all the time.

00:42:34.560 My wife and I have been involved in fostering and dog rescue and of course a number of foster

00:42:41.360 fails and we live on an acreage so we can keep a number of animals, but we're maxed out right now

00:42:46.460 too in fostering and turning over and we're noticing, of course, all of the agencies are

00:42:50.460 doing the same thing. There's a number of factors behind it right now, but I just want to get the

00:42:54.880 word out to people because a lot of people don't understand how it works necessarily even as well.

00:42:58.480 Like perhaps you can't commit to adopting, but you can foster or again, just such as donating.

00:43:03.920 So perhaps if you could just give a start with a nutshell about your organization.

00:43:06.920 Sure, yeah.

00:43:07.740 So Positive Match is a 100% volunteer-run organization.

00:43:11.080 Many of the rescues, of course, are.

00:43:13.000 And we focus our time in Alberta, really trying to get the dogs and cats that need homes right here locally with a permanent family.

00:43:22.700 Along the route, it also means that we do require foster families like you spoke of.

00:43:27.760 And so for those that aren't necessarily in a position where they're ready to adopt

00:43:31.680 just yet, pardon me, or maybe just can't do the time commitment or what have you,

00:43:36.320 they feel that, you know what, they can contribute at least by fostering.

00:43:39.440 And that's a really significant help for us as well.

00:43:41.920 Yeah. And that's part of why I wanted to talk,

00:43:43.600 because we've taken in as much as we can for now and then we deal with a different group,

00:43:47.360 but I mean, they're maxed out and we wish we could take more.

00:43:49.760 So, I mean, I just want to get the word out.

00:43:52.000 Some of the pressure can be taken off right now.

00:43:54.000 And this is a way that you could do it.

00:43:56.400 but I mean, not everybody's suited as well.

00:43:58.060 No, but you know what,

00:43:58.940 particularly heading into the summer months,

00:44:00.600 because we do have anywhere in the neighborhood

00:44:02.600 of 300 or so foster families,

00:44:04.560 but some of those families take, you know,

00:44:06.900 just fosters year round at any given time.

00:44:10.200 Others will take a foster for a little while,

00:44:12.600 take a break, and then maybe in two or three months time,

00:44:15.480 bring in another dog or cat.

00:44:17.300 But of course they take vacations

00:44:19.200 and everything else as well, right?

00:44:20.400 So over the summer months, it's helpful.

00:44:22.300 Even if we have some temporary placement,

00:44:24.320 foster homes are helpful for us as well.

00:44:26.760 So if you find that you've got a little bit of extra time

00:44:29.640 over the summer and you're kind of considering maybe

00:44:32.300 getting an animal yourself, but this is a good trial run

00:44:35.060 for you, we'd love to hear from you.

00:44:36.600 Well, and that's it too.

00:44:37.680 A lot of the problems we have is people impulsively

00:44:39.940 sometimes will get a pet and it turns out it's not for them.

00:44:42.760 And that's how they often end up in rescue or even abandoned

00:44:46.280 in the worst cases or things like that.

00:44:48.340 Even if they meant well to begin with, I mean,

00:44:50.180 fostering is a good opportunity to see if it's right for you,

00:44:52.440 realize the challenges that come with having an animal in your household. And perhaps it's not

00:44:57.340 for you, but then at least you've learned it before committing and having another animal stuck

00:45:02.280 in. Absolutely. And that said, though, you know, one thing that we notice with pretty much most

00:45:07.220 of the animals that we bring in is that they're in various stages of just kind of stress. They're

00:45:11.660 out of sorts, right? And that's not surprising. These are animals that don't have families. And

00:45:16.760 so we're probably strays. They were not being taken care of. Maybe they're malnourished. Maybe

00:45:21.000 they're sick. Maybe they're just scared. And it takes time for them to decompress from that.

00:45:26.600 So even when they come into a foster family, and that's the whole point of the foster family,

00:45:31.800 is that it's one of those steps that help that animal to be prepared so that when they're ready

00:45:37.880 for adoption, that they really are in a good state, both healthy, physically, but also mentally.

00:45:44.280 Yeah. And it's like with children or anything else. I mean, they're going to be problematic

00:45:48.360 when it's coming in and it is more than just taking an animal in and babysitting it and just

00:45:51.800 feeding and keeping it going although that's important i mean you want to hopefully socialize

00:45:56.280 the dog build a trust or a cat or whatever it may be so they understand that because they might have

00:46:00.680 been abused unfortunately there's some hard cases and if you build that it'll make it a lot easier

00:46:04.920 for them to integrate with a family when they find a permanent absolutely and most of those

00:46:08.840 animals are quite resilient when it comes right down to it they need time to decompress and they

00:46:13.720 need all those kind of safety measures that are put in place for them. But once they get to that

00:46:18.760 point where they realize, you know, it's okay, I am healthy again, I am safe, then their personality

00:46:24.360 really starts to shine through and they can be very loving additions to families. Oh yeah,

00:46:28.440 and that's where a lot of the foster fails start happening too. That is exactly where that happens.

00:46:31.720 But you bring them in, you get attached, and you just end up adopting anyways. We've done that.

00:46:36.120 I mean, it can be hard. That's the other thing. If you take an animal in, we turned over a number

00:46:40.040 over the years, and boy, you get really attached, okay, hey, we found an adopter, oh, gee, easy,

00:46:44.680 don't get it, let him go, you know, there was one with, we were at the Alberta Bulldog Rescue

00:46:48.720 years ago, and he came in, and that poor fellow was so covered in mange and in a terrible condition,

00:46:53.440 and he came back up to health and was a beautiful, friendly dog, and I know Jane had a really hard

00:46:57.640 time letting him go, but he went out and had a, you know, still, I don't know if he's still going

00:47:01.840 now, it's been some years, but he had a wonderful life in the place later on, so, you know, you got

00:47:06.380 to remember, okay, it's hard parting with him, but it's satisfying when you know, well, we took him

00:47:09.560 is such a terrible situation. 100%. Now, that said, we need volunteers of every sort, right?

00:47:14.520 Yes, okay, we need to move into that. Exactly. Well, I mean, one thing that surprised me when

00:47:18.600 I started volunteering with this organization is that it really takes a village of people

00:47:23.160 behind the scenes to get just one animal adopted, right? So we need transport volunteers. We need

00:47:28.200 people that are helping out with things that's just paperwork and office kind of related stuff.

00:47:32.440 We have a holding facility where cats and dogs stay until we can find them a foster family.

00:47:38.120 and they of course need to have lots of volunteers go there to walk the dogs to get you know their

00:47:42.600 meals prepared and and to you know change litter boxes for the cats all sorts of things right

00:47:47.560 so but it really takes a lot of people and even if you're not in a position where you necessarily

00:47:52.360 want to foster an animal there's lots of different ways that you can help yeah all sorts and then

00:47:57.480 so something and i haven't i've been researched as much but the adoption fees when somebody

00:48:02.440 chooses to adopt it doesn't matter the specific i remember some people will get upset sometimes

00:48:05.960 with abr and others like well you're trying to adopt dogs that's so high that's a you know

00:48:10.680 unreasonable what are you doing are you greedy like there's a reason for fees and that they're

00:48:15.320 they're not out of bounds but that you have to set that bar somewhere yeah absolutely and and

00:48:19.560 i can appreciate at least initially why people might be a little bit sticker shocked but but

00:48:23.960 there's a few things that are important to remember number one we are a not-for-profit organization

00:48:29.160 as are many of the rescues right so the the fees that we charge for adoption really just offset

00:48:34.440 our operating costs. There's that. But the other important thing is this, when you adopt an animal,

00:48:40.940 you know, I mean, some people will maybe get their dogs or puppies or what have you from Kijiji,

00:48:45.560 and maybe that's a pretty reasonable price, right? What they're not taking into consideration is all 0.96

00:48:50.600 of the behind the scenes things that could be impacting their bottom line and how much money

00:48:56.420 they're putting into that dog. So for example, you know, with our pets, pardon me, our animals,

00:49:02.280 whether cats or dogs, they come microchipped, spayed and neutered, vaccinated, dewormed.

00:49:09.240 And so ultimately, you're getting all of these pieces that do have a dollar value associated

00:49:15.400 with them. The adoption fees are also set a little bit based on, you know, a bit of supply and demand.

00:49:22.740 Puppies, yep, are going to cost you a little bit more than a senior dog, for example. So the

00:49:28.160 the prices vary a little bit right so for cat adoption it's anywhere from 150 to about 225

00:49:35.360 and for dogs again depending on their age etc 225 up to 595 but one way or another they are all

00:49:42.640 health checked vaccinated and and cleared for adoption not just physically but but we also

00:49:49.360 make sure that those animals are prepared um mentally that that you know that they're at a

00:49:53.680 state where they're they're really going to contribute to a family and be a loving part of

00:49:57.040 it. Yeah. Well, and part of being in a position to take on a pet, you have to have a degree. I

00:50:02.260 mean, you don't have to be rich by any means, but you got to have a few bucks and it's kind

00:50:05.140 of sets a bit of a bar. We, some people may be the most well-meaning, but you know, if you can't

00:50:10.520 come up with a few hundred dollars, you won't be able to pay a vet bill if it happens to come up

00:50:13.720 or some of the other issues. So maybe you might want to wait a little longer before it's time to,

00:50:17.140 to, you know, invest in a relationship with an animal. Absolutely. And part of it, it ties into

00:50:22.360 volunteering. What we used to do with ABR was home checks and just actually checking to make

00:50:28.520 sure this is somebody appropriate who can permanently take this dog or even foster

00:50:32.280 it appropriately. We remember one, she was the most well-meaning person and so emotional says,

00:50:36.360 I don't have a lot of money, but I'll make up for it in love. Well, love doesn't pay the vet bill.

00:50:40.040 And particularly in our case, it was bulldogs. Unfortunately, those are beautiful, but overbred

00:50:44.280 animals with a great deal of health issues. You've got to have some room on your credit card if you

00:50:48.760 you're going to have one of those. Yeah. Yeah. And, but you raise a very good point though,

00:50:52.200 right? We, um, and not, not just, um, positive match, but really most rescue organizations

00:50:57.320 want to make sure that if they're going to place an animal, that it's a permanent situation with

00:51:01.480 a loving individual or family. Uh, and that also means that we need to take a look at,

00:51:06.280 you know, what kind of living situation that person has. Do they live in a condo? We then

00:51:10.280 need some sort of a letter indicating that, yep, they are allowed to have a dog or a cat.

00:51:14.200 you know, there's all these different things that are in place so that we can prevent an animal

00:51:19.640 from coming back to us is what the ultimate goal is. Yeah. Well, that's the term that's used by

00:51:23.800 most organizations. You're looking for the forever home. I mean, they've already been bounced

00:51:27.400 a time or two. That's why they're in rescue. And like any, like people or anything else,

00:51:31.960 it's hard on them. I mean, instability, the rejection, abandonment. You want to make sure

00:51:37.240 that the next one is it. Okay. You're going to settle in and have as good an animal life as you

00:51:41.320 that's right but there's so many people that are willing to commit to that though and that's

00:51:44.600 wonderful so the right right pet for the right place is important too i mean uh yeah we're on

00:51:49.580 an acreage so one that we've got right now he was a foster fail but it's a great big giant i don't

00:51:54.040 know what he was he was bred with an elk or something but yeah he has a great time running

00:51:57.780 around our place in a big fenced yard and everything but he would be have a terrible

00:52:01.740 time if it was a person in a small condo in the city who couldn't get him out of course working

00:52:05.140 but at the same time i live in an area with cougars and bears uh a very small dog wouldn't

00:52:10.280 be appropriate in our area because it could actually be used to the animals.

00:52:13.640 Yeah. And maybe it relates a little bit to someone's lifestyle as well. If there's somebody

00:52:17.160 that loves going out hiking every weekend, well then bringing the chihuahua is maybe not the best

00:52:21.080 way to go either. That's with the bulldog rescue as well. People think, oh, I'll get a bulldog

00:52:24.840 for a jogging partner. Don't do that. You can't even walk them more than two blocks and they're

00:52:28.440 tired out. It's done with them. It's just part of what all these organizations do. The goal is

00:52:33.240 always to make sure you match up the right person. Sometimes people don't, it's an impulse thing.

00:52:38.840 oh, that's the cutest thing I ever saw. I have to have it now, but you don't think it's true.

00:52:41.800 So the organization can help you. Yeah. Yeah. And we do. We also, because I mean, you know,

00:52:46.280 sometimes people have never had a pet at all before. And so they don't necessarily know

00:52:50.120 what kinds of things they need to be looking out for themselves. And that's where our volunteers

00:52:54.360 help out too, right? Because they do point out all those things that they need to consider

00:52:58.280 and think about and make plans for, et cetera. Yeah. And I think most people who want to get a

00:53:02.520 pet, they're right. And it will work out and it will be great, but you just want to make sure you've

00:53:07.160 checked off all the boxes to make it as good an experience. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

00:53:12.440 So how are you guys doing for capacity? Like we're reading a lot of stories again. I mean,

00:53:16.760 some of it was kind of the, a lot got turned back after COVID people got went back to work

00:53:22.520 and realized, oh, now this is inconvenient. And you don't want to shame people. That's another

00:53:25.640 thing. Rather they turn them into rescue than neglect or abuse an animal, but there's been a

00:53:32.200 surplus. How's that doing right now? Is it stabilizing a bit or?

00:53:35.640 Well, I mean, so certainly the pandemic brought us a number of different anomalies in our lives,

00:53:39.640 didn't it? But I think it's, if you look at sort of the last few years, we typically have anywhere

00:53:45.800 between a 10 and 15% return rate for the animals. And there's different reasons for that. Mostly

00:53:52.440 it's lifestyle changes. So whether or not the pandemic influenced that, that's possible,

00:53:57.800 rate as far as some job losses or employment status, et cetera. Maybe it's your own personal

00:54:03.960 situation, marriages, divorces, those kinds of things. But by and large, 10 to 15% of the animals

00:54:10.680 do get returned to us. We do, of course, at times where we can, we work with the family to try to

00:54:17.560 turn things around as far as if it's a behavioral issue that is leading to the reason for the

00:54:23.000 return. And then we can suggest trainers that do force-free training with the animals and with

00:54:31.080 their families, those kinds of things. But generally speaking, most of the adoptions that

00:54:37.780 we have every year, which is around 800 to 1,000, are successful, and that makes us happy.

00:54:43.220 Now, the one thing that did happen last year, and we're not sure if it is pandemic-related or not,

00:54:48.120 but the number of dogs that we have, the number of dog adoptions was down by about 50%. And we're

00:54:54.440 not sure exactly what that is. So it could be somewhat pandemic related in people's changes

00:55:01.160 in their lives. But at the same time, it could also be that because there was less travel,

00:55:06.520 we also had less dogs being brought in from places like Mexico, the States, Thailand,

00:55:11.640 like we have those rescue organizations that we partner with there. And because of that,

00:55:16.680 it also meant that we didn't have as many small dogs as we typically do. So again, we try for the

00:55:23.000 most part to help out those Alberta dogs. But when we have availability in space, we bring in the

00:55:28.600 small dogs and the smaller dogs oftentimes get adopted first because a lot of families find it

00:55:33.160 easier to work with a smaller dog than the bigger ones. Yeah. Well, and there's, again, different

00:55:38.120 needs for different people and some of the trends are hard to read. I mean, they'll have their ups

00:55:42.440 and downs. Do you deal with other animals besides dogs and cats then? Just dogs and cats. Okay,

00:55:46.520 Because I know some other organizations deal with, I think ferrets are some that they get

00:55:50.280 turned on occasionally. I know many years ago I had an ex who had one. I got to understand that.

00:55:56.200 I didn't abuse it, of course, or anything like that, but I didn't miss the ferret at all when

00:55:59.960 it was gone either. It's just not for everybody. And some people really love their ferrets, so

00:56:04.120 good on them. I'll put it this way. We have a board of directors that really does a great job

00:56:09.160 at, again, all volunteers, but they really do a great job at balancing out the realities,

00:56:15.160 financial and resource about realities of an organization versus how many animals we have

00:56:20.600 in our care and you know where that we'd love to say yes to any more you can't always and uh and

00:56:27.400 so so the concentration is really just on cats and dogs and uh and also maintaining a level of

00:56:32.840 animals within our care at any given point that's manageable so beyond volunteering which of course

00:56:37.400 helps in fostering and adopting uh you guys are are you a registered charity i know not every

00:56:41.960 association. So I mean, of course, donations always help. Donations always help. And I mean,

00:56:46.920 when it comes right down to it, straight financial donations are the biggest help for us because

00:56:51.800 like oftentimes you can have an animal whose medical bills exceed what their adoption fee

00:56:57.720 actually is. Right. I mean, it balances itself out in some regard, but that is our biggest expense,

00:57:02.920 truly when it comes right down to it. So, but rather than, you know, if somebody gives a

00:57:07.880 financial donation directly they get a tax receipt but there's other ways they can donate too because

00:57:12.280 we have fundraisers throughout the year you know you need some hanging baskets for mother's day

00:57:16.440 we've got those for you and of course we tackle a little bit of extra and make some money from it

00:57:20.360 that way but there's another uh you know for those people who like drinking their beers over the

00:57:24.520 summer and have all these extra cans laying around well there's a an app called skip the depot and

00:57:30.200 and you can just log on to that app and you can register whatever your donation is of cans and

00:57:35.720 bottles that go directly to an organization. They keep a small processing fee, but it's,

00:57:41.080 plus they come to your house and they pick it up for you, Corey.

00:57:43.480 It's as trouble-free as it is. I mean, hey, I hate going to the bottle.

00:57:45.720 Right.

00:57:46.280 It's fly-filled and stinky.

00:57:47.640 Skip the dish, not skip the dish, just skip the depot.

00:57:50.440 Let's get to those. Do you have other events coming at any time?

00:57:53.240 No, nothing right away, but you can absolutely look at our website,

00:57:57.160 positivematch.org and any sort of upcoming fundraisers or things like that. Plus there's

00:58:02.040 There's merchandise even on the site that people can buy too.

00:58:05.600 So just something you mentioned, actually, I just thought of as well.

00:58:08.400 I mean, I don't know, different organizations have different resources.

00:58:10.620 So with training and things like that, like at one point we took on a deaf dog

00:58:13.840 and that took a lot of specialized training and they put us in with classes for

00:58:17.800 dog training and the organization to care of those fees for it.

00:58:20.740 But you guys offset some training fees sometimes in dogs if they have more

00:58:24.600 needs than others?

00:58:25.280 Yeah.

00:58:25.500 So, so when we first get animals in, we do right away is an assessment

00:58:30.540 veterinarian and and then if needed we also work with animal behavioralists that's not necessarily

00:58:36.060 true for every animal but those that need extra care and attention we make sure to get that um

00:58:41.500 that you know need fulfilled for the animal because again we don't want to put a dog or cat

00:58:47.900 in a situation where they're probably just going to get returned anyway right we really want to do

00:58:51.420 our absolute best to make sure they are ready and and that includes being physically healthy

00:58:56.540 being mentally healthy, and then they become a positive energy and member of a family.

00:59:04.140 Great. Well, I'm not sure if there's more you'd like to cover before we let you go here. I think

00:59:07.500 we crossed a lot of ground there. And again, I appreciate the work you guys do and you're coming

00:59:11.740 in to talk to us about it. Was there more you'd like to add? No, you know what, just that again,

00:59:15.340 we really would love it for people to consider volunteering, all of it obvious, really. But

00:59:21.420 please take a look at our website. We've got lots more information on there for people and any

00:59:25.660 volunteer is happy to talk to them at any given point so so by all means reach out and we can

00:59:29.740 answer those questions excellent well thank you again and uh let's hope that your your dog

00:59:34.780 population turns over and we just keep hunting we hope so thank you very much thanks so that was

00:59:41.580 doris kaufman of positive match and and there's many many organizations and and they fill different

00:59:47.500 needs though i mean they tend to be the same ones the goal is just to find the best life possible

00:59:52.540 for these animals that find themselves unfortunately between homes and it takes a lot of work and i

00:59:58.140 just wanted to expand on it because not everybody necessarily understands all those steps yeah you

01:00:01.500 can't just take in a rescue dog and put it straight into a household it takes

01:00:05.500 some work it takes some resources likewise for the people fostering for the people adopting

01:00:11.100 there's a lot of steps and not everybody's familiar with it i'm just hoping maybe a few

01:00:15.020 viewers or maybe you know somebody you know who again anywhere from donating a few bucks to one

01:00:19.660 one of these organizations. I didn't want to, I didn't even bring up the one that we deal with

01:00:23.380 because I don't want anything to look like a conflict. There's a number of them and they all

01:00:26.840 do a lot of good work and positive matches is certainly one of them. So if you're considering

01:00:32.060 one or like I said, the fostering thing people don't think of, they don't realize that happens.

01:00:36.100 I think it's a good way to volunteer and put in some services and maybe discover if you should

01:00:43.600 get a dog or a cat. As I said, you know, maybe it's just not for you after two weeks, or maybe

01:00:47.520 again, you, you fall head over heels in the one you foster and suddenly you've got another dog

01:00:52.160 that's adopted or you just like fostering and you keep bringing them in temporarily and turning them

01:00:56.100 over. It all helps guys. Uh, you know, I'm not, uh, uh, the mean and heartless conservative in

01:01:03.680 every way that some people sometimes anticipate. I got a particularly soft spot when it comes to

01:01:08.460 the animals. So check them out, positive match and, uh, yeah, or any of the others. There's many,

01:01:14.340 uh, many different ones out there. Uh, let's see here. Yeah. Puppy mills. That's another, uh,

01:01:20.860 issue altogether. Um, I think it was Brad that brought it up for somebody else. Those things

01:01:26.860 drive me nuts. You know, it's, it's totally unregulated, I believe. And, but it's hard.

01:01:30.360 I'm not, I'm a libertarian minded person. I don't want to see more regulation and more crackdown

01:01:33.760 and more government typically. Uh, but puppy mills, I mean, basically if you got some space

01:01:38.380 and some of them are terrible, they're just breeding factories. And when, you know, the,

01:01:42.560 the reason we found out about rescues and fostering was all through bulldogs way back when.

01:01:46.740 And to buy a purebred bulldog is extremely expensive. You're looking at two or three

01:01:50.500 thousand bucks. So we were shocked, like, why are these ending up in rescue? Why would dogs like that

01:01:54.380 be there? Well, there's a number of reasons. Like I said, they get high vet bills. They aren't dogs

01:01:59.320 for everybody. They can't swim if they're a good pure breed. They might swim a few feet and they

01:02:02.440 tire out with those little legs and that giant body. They aren't good jogging partners. They

01:02:06.080 aren't good guard dogs. People think they're tough dogs. They aren't. They're strong. There's no

01:02:10.340 aggression in them whatsoever. Either way, they end up in rescue. And a lot of them as well come

01:02:15.620 from those bloody puppy mills that raise them because they're $2,000 to $3,000 dogs. Some people

01:02:20.940 just feel that they can just breed the hell out of these things and sell them. And they do.

01:02:24.720 I'm not big on people buying from breeders anymore. And hey, I did it before. I'm not

01:02:27.800 going to shame people who did it. And every dog still needs a home, even if it's a purebred.

01:02:33.520 And not every breeder is on principle. There's some very good ones out there.

01:02:36.540 but we would get a lot into rescue because again, as I said, there was a deaf one we took on because 0.99

01:02:41.360 oh darn, this one's deaf. Well, we're just going to dump it and rescue because we can't get money 1.00

01:02:44.260 selling that. And we had that one that was covered in mange I was talking about. All that one needed

01:02:48.000 was some care and medication. And he was a beautiful dog, show quality bulldog, but the

01:02:51.540 puppy mill was too lazy to deal with it. And, and just, you know, dumped it on us. So, and this

01:02:59.680 happens with every kind of dog out there. And there's lots of, it ended up on reserves. Of

01:03:03.740 course, there's huge problems and a lot of rescues from reserves. There's foreign ones, 1.00

01:03:07.240 one surrendered. They end up with them for all sorts of reasons. So anywhere where you can help 0.99

01:03:11.080 out, you know, pitch in, fostering a few bucks, as she said, some pop cans and bottles. Sylvia

01:03:18.140 saying, did I mix up concurrent and consecutive sentencing? Consecutive is when someone must

01:03:21.920 finish a sentence for one before starting the next. Concurrent is when they're all on together

01:03:26.140 in one. Yeah, I probably might've misspoken at some point. I mean, those two words are similar.

01:03:30.180 And as I'm ranting, I might've got it backwards, but I appreciate the correction. And that's what

01:03:33.540 the deal is exactly, of course. And the problem is they are not letting them, well, they've changed

01:03:40.180 it. So you can basically get all of them packed into one sentence rather than dealing with paying

01:03:44.600 the price for multiple crimes on multiple levels. What's this, Anne saying, puppy mills often operate

01:03:50.060 with stolen dogs as well. Yeah, you know, if you've got breeding dogs, it's not good.

01:03:57.440 What's this, in BC, the owners of the park were live trapping people's cats, even though the

01:04:01.420 SPCA were closed, so they just dropped

01:04:03.900 them off in the middle of nowhere. Yeah,

01:04:05.800 people abandon animals. There's all sorts of things.

01:04:07.960 I mean, literally in Florida,

01:04:09.640 they've got no use for them. They've got a problem

01:04:11.880 with like pythons and

01:04:13.480 anacondas and stuff in the Everglades because

01:04:15.800 people, again, irresponsibly buy a little snake

01:04:17.960 and holy cow, it grows into a big snake. Now I don't

01:04:19.900 want it anymore and they dump it in the swamp.

01:04:22.220 It's a problem. They've got to catch

01:04:23.780 these things now and get them out of there.

01:04:27.520 People 0.99

01:04:27.880 dump animals. It was a very

01:04:29.800 recently i'd heard about yeah well that was in sandpoint when i was down in idaho yes because

01:04:34.200 of course my my uh stepfather there i guess his uh brother works at the waste transfer station

01:04:40.280 somebody dropped a box of kittens at the place and just left him there i guess it's better than

01:04:44.600 drowning him in the old ways the main thing you know fix your dogs fix your cats guys then you

01:04:48.600 won't have to deal with these things there's all sorts of programs all sorts of vets that's another

01:04:52.200 issue too either way not everything's always about politics so i thought i'd bring some rescue people

01:04:57.320 in and talk about that. We're going to have some politics pretty soon when Rachel comes in 1.00

01:05:00.820 and go over some of the stuff that she covered in that weird, weird story with Brian Jean in the

01:05:06.080 caucus meeting. Let's talk about our sponsor another time to get that through, I guess,

01:05:11.040 and that's Bitcoin. Well, I know somebody else and they don't trust Bitcoin. That's fair enough.

01:05:15.300 There's different types of investments, different sorts of things. That's why I did want to bring

01:05:18.060 it up with Andrew as well that, you know, it's not for everybody. And, you know, I don't think

01:05:25.000 that they're much into digital currencies over at Integrated Wealth Management. I don't know,

01:05:28.320 actually, I didn't ask them directly. They're separate things. But if you're looking into

01:05:32.420 getting into digital currencies, looking to use them, the thing that's interesting with Bitcoin

01:05:35.780 Well is they can make it practical. They bring it home for you, right? You can have your account

01:05:39.580 with it and you can pay your utility bills. You can deposit into ATMs all throughout Western Canada.

01:05:46.600 They make it simple and it makes sense. It's a currency. That's it is what it is. It's a digital

01:05:51.420 one, but it's a complicated thing and not everybody's familiar with those things. So

01:05:56.140 Bitcoin Well are the ones to help lead you through it and see if it's for you. You know,

01:05:59.260 Bitcoin savings plans and they can have automatic, you know, debit from your bank account. So it goes

01:06:04.580 in trouble-free and simple. Check them out, guys. If you're looking to get into digital currencies,

01:06:09.060 bitcoinwell.com. Learn about them from a trustworthy Alberta company and see if it is for you.

01:06:15.760 Okay. Here's an interesting one too. It kind of ties in as well. Sting cites bank misconduct

01:06:21.400 conduct, aggressive sales tactics, and they remain commonplace in major banks. This is one of those

01:06:27.280 things too. So it says auditors posing as customers were routinely oversold products. They never saw

01:06:32.140 neither sought or required. This is sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking about with the $5,000

01:06:41.080 minimum Brad. And for people listening on audio, I do respond to the comments as they come. So Brad

01:06:45.300 was asking to see a $5,000 minimum. I'm not sure what he's referring to. But either way,

01:06:51.180 yeah, you know, just because you're at a big bank, sometimes people think, well, they wouldn't

01:06:54.280 screw me on an investment deal or anything else. Well, no, actually. So again, when we're talking

01:06:58.980 about financial advisors, bank in, oh, Brad was saying for Bitcoin. No, absolutely not, Brad. You

01:07:04.940 can get into it for much less, much, much less than 5,000. Absolutely not. Either way. So looking

01:07:10.260 a little further, yeah, because we definitely don't set the bar that high there with Bitcoin

01:07:15.080 well, or they do. All right, back to those banks. So yes, this is where, again, you don't necessarily

01:07:21.280 trust the bank for managing your finances. That's the thing I was talking about with Ender.

01:07:26.920 Like we trust other people to take care of that for us. And that's some of our most important

01:07:31.120 stuff. I mean, if aside from the asset that might be our house or whatever, you know,

01:07:34.520 it's your retirement savings, it's your pension, it's your RSPs, all those things.

01:07:38.700 We might have a great deal of skills in many, many things, but not really be all that great

01:07:43.940 and figuring out our stuff.

01:07:44.860 And you want to trust whoever is helping you direct it.

01:07:48.060 And unfortunately, banks for a large part

01:07:50.560 aren't the ones that you can trust.

01:07:52.740 So this agency directed 200 mystery shoppers

01:07:55.640 to pose as everyday customers at banks.

01:07:57.800 And they went to 712 branches.

01:08:00.440 You know, of all the heavyweights,

01:08:02.080 Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Nova Scotia, Toronto Dominion,

01:08:06.700 just to see what they sell for financial products.

01:08:09.240 And sales, it says salespeople routinely recommended products that were not appropriate.

01:08:15.560 In 28% of the cases, the mystery shoppers were applying for credit cards,

01:08:18.820 but then they were urged to take on higher cost premium cards,

01:08:21.500 even if their income didn't warrant it.

01:08:23.600 Speaking of the debt crisis we have, you know, a lot of people too far in the hole,

01:08:27.260 paying high interest on items and things like that.

01:08:29.540 Well, credit card debt, some of the worst debt you can get.

01:08:32.740 And geez, the banks, the people you're supposed to trust and ones like that

01:08:35.840 are pushing you into those higher cost premium cards

01:08:39.260 because of course they get a commission, I'll say,

01:08:42.140 rather than kick back to the bank.

01:08:44.420 But how many people are losing money?

01:08:45.960 How many people are losing their investments

01:08:47.100 because of that?

01:08:47.560 If you want to talk,

01:08:48.060 and I don't see profit as an evil thing.

01:08:49.580 I'm a good old conservative capitalist.

01:08:51.640 I don't hit on that sort of stuff,

01:08:54.260 but still, and excess profit,

01:08:58.140 that's a term I despise.

01:09:00.640 But if you've got a sector

01:09:04.440 that's pulling in a much higher amount in net than others, then maybe there's not enough competition

01:09:08.800 or maybe there's something else going wrong in the system. And I tell you what,

01:09:13.080 banking is doing well. A lot of industries are having a hard time in the pandemic and have had

01:09:19.320 a hard time, but the banks were most definitely not one of them. So yeah, the data showed 80%

01:09:26.560 of the shoppers were offered premium credit cards, were not asked about their income.

01:09:31.460 See, that should be, you know, kind of a big thing.

01:09:34.200 Don't try and get somebody into a high-end, you know,

01:09:37.620 when you know, if you're supposedly an advisor

01:09:39.880 who knows and cares about the person

01:09:41.520 you're selling something to,

01:09:43.080 you don't want to get somebody into a credit card

01:09:44.840 that's going to put them beyond their means.

01:09:46.380 But if you're an unprincipled person selling it,

01:09:48.640 as it appears in 80% of the cases,

01:09:50.160 at least where they're not even asking,

01:09:51.860 this is how people are getting in trouble.

01:09:55.460 Other mystery shoppers,

01:09:56.840 they were just applying to open a checking account

01:09:58.740 and they were encouraged to buy overdraft protection or insurance they never asked for.

01:10:03.000 And it's kind of like those car undercoatings and things like that those salesmen always hit you

01:10:06.780 with. Like, you know, you want to pay some massive gross interest? Yeah, have overdraft. Get into

01:10:13.440 that. Overdraw a little bit and see how hard they hit you. You might as well go to the check cashing

01:10:18.420 place down the street as far as those loan sharks go and with what they'll nail you for.

01:10:22.240 it. So, uh, yeah, let's go into some more bad finances. Okay. The Freeland tax, or at least

01:10:28.980 finance minister, Christia Freeland's luxury tax on planes, boats, and automobiles will cost jobs

01:10:34.480 and generate less revenue than expected. Not too shocking. That's when you get frivolous, uh, uh,

01:10:41.280 you know, using tax as a tool, as an ideology, it's the low hanging fruit. You know, we want to

01:10:45.500 tax the rich, tax those people who deserve it, uh, tax those darn people who drive those nice cars, 0.99

01:10:51.280 those private planes, get into those nice boats. They don't deserve those things. Let's hit them 0.99

01:10:55.860 hard. But what does it really turn into? Well, it doesn't bring in the revenue you thought it would. 0.68

01:11:02.140 And it just costs jobs. I mean, this is an industry. This is things. There's people who

01:11:08.000 sell these boats. There's people who maintain these boats. I know they're boats. Set aside

01:11:12.100 the envy and look at the real outcome of the tax. So this is one of her big selling points. Oh,

01:11:17.240 this big 10% tax on these luxury items, them telling you what you should or shouldn't own,

01:11:22.460 what is moral and not a moral. And they think it might, might raise $163 million. That's the thing

01:11:29.520 too, when you get the NDP lines and the tax, the rich and the vacuous, empty politics of envy.

01:11:36.540 In reality, it doesn't bring in the income they think it will. And it just makes people feel good

01:11:41.640 because they're sticking the thumb in the eye as somebody who did better than them.

01:11:44.060 All right. So we've got Rachel in studio, Rachel Emmanuel, and we had a story that was really got

01:11:51.560 some feathers ruffled. It was over an apparent incident in the very long caucus meeting after

01:11:57.060 Premier Kenney had tendered his resignation as UCP leader. And it sounds like things got pretty

01:12:04.020 raucous between Brian Jean and some other caucus members. Yeah, absolutely. So the caucus meeting

01:12:09.020 was six hours, as you know, and I think following the caucus meeting last week, Thursday, so that

01:12:13.880 was May 19th many of us in the media were trying to get as much information as we could about what

01:12:18.220 happened but most of the MLAs that were present in the meeting were being very tight-lipped about

01:12:22.860 what happened so then I got a leak earlier this week that there was a bit of an altercation that

01:12:27.720 had happened I had actually heard about it prior but and then I heard from a second source so I

01:12:32.060 thought you know this is something to pursue so essentially what had happened according to the

01:12:36.340 sources I spoke to which is five MLAs who were present in the room in the caucus meeting was

01:12:41.100 Brian Jean arrived at the meeting and he was very worked up in the words of one source he came in

01:12:45.900 looking for a fight so he came in he was already really worked up just probably maybe about rumors

01:12:50.540 that Kenny might not resign he wanted Kenny to be gone immediately he did not want the premier to

01:12:54.540 stay on in the interim and so he was repeatedly interrupting the proceedings of the meetings and

01:12:59.020 making snipes at his colleagues calling them names and what they told me were saying some pretty

01:13:02.780 outrageous things and it ended with MLA Shane Getzen saying you know Brian Jean I think that

01:13:08.220 that you should stop talking because every time you open your mouth you lose support

01:13:12.060 and Brian Jean did not like that and then asked Shane Getson if he would like to take things

01:13:17.440 outside his exact wording was let's take this outside so he wanted to move the fight elsewhere

01:13:23.100 so and then you know some MLAs said well actually all the MLAs I spoke to said he actually had to

01:13:27.700 be restrained from from getting up and going over to what looked like maybe to attack Shane Getson

01:13:32.880 so definitely pretty crazy time in caucus people did tell me things get very lively in the UCP

01:13:37.560 caucus meetings, but certainly nothing to that extent.

01:13:40.020 No, and I mean, it's unfortunate. Things get heated in caucus meetings. Things get heated in any organization sometimes, but it shows that there's still some serious divisions that the UCP has to deal with. You can't point all fingers at Premier Kenney. Well, now Premier Kenney is out of the picture, or will be, but they're still, they've obviously got some very serious internal issues that they're going to have to sort out.

01:14:02.260 I think so, exactly. But I think, I mean, that's one of the things that's nice about a leadership race is it's an opportunity for someone to come in with a new vision, someone to be unifying. I don't think it's overly surprising that things did get so heated at that caucus meeting. I mean, Brian Jean has been calling on the premier to resign for a very long time. And I think for people that wanted Kenny gone, after he announced that he was resigning, everyone thought, oh, good, this is what we've been hoping for. But then, you know, Kenny decided to stay on in the interim, which is being lauded by the UCB members that supported Kenny.

01:14:30.140 either saying, well, this is so gracious of him and self-sacrificing for him to stay on during the

01:14:33.800 interim period. But then people who wanted him gone think it's self-serving and that he's just

01:14:38.240 trying to fulfill some sort of legacy. So Gene being on the camp of people that wanted Kenny

01:14:42.360 gone was, you know, undoubtedly very ired and irked up about this decision. Yeah. And it's just

01:14:47.260 of, you know, it's problematic. I mean, this is the way we're kicking off a leadership race that

01:14:50.680 hasn't even officially started yet. I mean, I'm looking at the federal conservatives have been

01:14:54.500 critical of that just with how vitriolic and divided they're getting. I mean, you might have

01:14:57.520 a new leader, but you could be irreparably split and broken when the race is finished with it.

01:15:03.360 UCP doesn't have much time. They've got a year before a general election

01:15:06.480 and they seem to be, this race could rip them to pieces.

01:15:10.880 Yeah, absolutely. I think that for any conservative leader in Alberta, they actually

01:15:14.060 have one of the hardest jobs in the country because you have more of like a libertarian

01:15:19.080 and small C conservative movement in Alberta than you have really elsewhere in Canada. Like

01:15:23.020 think about it in Ontario which is where I was living when COVID-19 happened and all you had so

01:15:28.780 many shutdowns and lockdowns it was actually quite a bit worse than it was in Alberta but

01:15:32.560 Ontarians are just a little bit more complacent and so that's why we see Doug Ford doing very

01:15:36.500 well in the polls now whereas many Albertans were out for Premier Kenny's head and now we're having

01:15:40.740 a leadership race as a result of that so it's definitely very hard to unify the Conservative

01:15:45.140 base here in Alberta it's an incredibly difficult job I mean even everyone who was critical of

01:15:50.060 Penny said, you know, he had a hard job.

01:15:52.460 The crown, Heather wears the crown is very heavy.

01:15:54.820 So it's not an easy task.

01:15:57.360 And I mean, I think we've got some good candidates

01:15:59.160 putting their name forwards.

01:16:00.000 We'll see if anyone is able to unify

01:16:01.740 the more progressive conservatives

01:16:03.060 and the libertarians within.

01:16:04.460 And of course, you've got populist,

01:16:05.740 you've got social conservatives.

01:16:07.180 It's hard to hold a big tent together.

01:16:09.180 That's a disadvantage that conservatives have,

01:16:11.540 that there's a few types of conservatives.

01:16:12.920 You know, the NDP, they hold unity easily,

01:16:14.680 but that's because by nature, well, if you're into that,

01:16:17.300 you want centralized leadership.

01:16:18.640 You toe the line.

01:16:19.440 I mean, there's people of ambition, they have challenges, but not like conservatives.

01:16:22.420 And they've also got the mixed thing with, this is a party that was a merger of Wildrose

01:16:26.540 type people and progressive conservatives.

01:16:29.960 And some people still haven't gotten over that, I think.

01:16:32.480 I think it's quite entertaining because conservatives like always kind of are fighting within.

01:16:36.840 And I think it's because they're so principled that people are kind of unwilling to bend

01:16:39.880 to anything.

01:16:40.280 It's like, this is what I believe.

01:16:41.660 This is the right way.

01:16:42.520 Like, I'm not willing to be flexible in my views.

01:16:44.840 Whereas exactly to your point, like, we don't see that with the NDP super often.

01:16:47.720 And even within like the Liberal caucus, we have seen some breaches this year in Justin Trudeau's government, people that didn't agree with his COVID policies, but they were very few and far between nothing like what we see in the conservative movement, whether that's federally, whether that's provincially.

01:17:00.860 And actually, House Leader Jason Nixon even commented on that yesterday when he was announcing the end of the legislature.

01:17:05.780 He said, you know, yeah, we have some internal fighting.

01:17:08.280 The NDP does too.

01:17:09.060 They're just a little better at hiding it than we are.

01:17:11.280 Yeah. 0.61

01:17:11.580 Well, and when I'd heard that, you know, something going on with Brangina, I hadn't heard the details, you know, and challenging somebody to a fight.

01:17:16.600 I know one person I was pretty confident wasn't involved and it would have been Jason Nixon or we would have seen the stretcher taking Mr. Gene out of the legislature or the McDougal Center at that point.

01:17:26.580 But all the same, I mean, yeah, there's this, it's going to be an interesting summer to say the very least.

01:17:31.220 So at least something that is our, you know, Legislative Bureau Chief, it looks like they're closing up their session for the season probably because it's going to be hard to concentrate on anything policy wise when you're in the middle of a leadership race and things like that.

01:17:42.380 But you're going to have lots to keep you busy in following this now.

01:17:45.340 yeah absolutely i'm not complaining we have the ucp leadership race here provincially and the

01:17:49.180 conservative race federally so there will definitely be a lot going on which is often

01:17:52.780 a problem in the summer there's just not a ton of news so certainly won't be an issue this year

01:17:57.020 right on well thanks for coming in to give us the update on it and for writing the story and

01:18:01.500 of course you're following up and seeing if anything more develops out of this and

01:18:04.860 just to throw out to you were that lone oilers fan who went to the game last night so yes and

01:18:09.740 And my team won.

01:18:10.600 So yeah, I should have placed with that.

01:18:12.340 You're heading back to Edmonton.

01:18:13.920 Stay up there.

01:18:14.980 Cover that stuff.

01:18:16.120 All right.

01:18:16.560 Well, that's another battle of Alberta.

01:18:18.200 At least that one's been settled for now.

01:18:19.780 Now it's just the ongoing one in the UCP caucus.

01:18:22.120 So we'll see what happens with that.

01:18:23.380 And look forward to your reports from it.

01:18:24.880 Great.

01:18:25.120 Thanks, Rachel.

01:18:25.700 Thanks, Rachel.

01:18:27.540 All right.

01:18:28.020 So that was Rachel Emanuel.

01:18:29.460 And just that reminder, westernstandard.news. 0.89

01:18:31.600 She writes, she's got that nice little office up there in the Edmonton legislature.

01:18:35.180 I think we displaced McLean's magazine.

01:18:37.660 I guess Jason Markosoff used to reside in there or something. I'm not sure, but we do have a

01:18:43.620 presence. And again, just that reminder of thanking all those subscribers and advertisers. That's how

01:18:47.660 we can do it. Getting out there, getting that news. I know some people, somebody was saying,

01:18:51.520 I didn't know this was the National Enquirer. Now, well, no, but you don't report just always

01:18:55.680 on straight out policy. We talk about events and things that happen. These are personalities.

01:19:00.960 These are people. And some of it might sound a bit gossipy. As was said, if you look at the story

01:19:05.920 too. This was not just a rumor from one person or two in there. This was corroborated by over

01:19:11.340 five elected officials and other people who were there at that time when this eruption occurred.

01:19:17.120 So it really did happen. The basis of it, you know, the full thing, well, that leads it to a

01:19:20.860 bit of speculation, you know, who was the real instigator, you know, what led to Mr. Gene losing

01:19:29.140 control for a period like that. Was he goaded or was he just being too thin-skinned? I don't know.

01:19:34.960 We're going to talk about those things. We're going to cover those things. We talk about, you know, important and bigger issues as well, of course. But hey, these are the people that are going to be leading us. This is the race that's coming up. And character is a part of the race as well, you know, not just policy. And this is indicative of some of the character of the people who want to be in charge there.

01:19:55.080 But let's see a little bit of other news here.

01:19:58.460 Yeah, Dave mentioned that the Beer King gets a nature grant.

01:20:01.160 Environment Minister Stephen Gilball, everybody's favorite jumpsuit-wearing eco-lunatic,

01:20:06.220 he approved a six-figure climate change grant to Labatt's.

01:20:09.840 Yeah, isn't that nice?

01:20:10.940 Small businesses struggle. 0.85

01:20:12.200 Small businesses hurt, and they have a hard time.

01:20:15.140 And again, I'm not opposed to big business.

01:20:16.680 You need big business, too.

01:20:17.720 I don't want government subsidizing any business.

01:20:20.560 But I've said this before.

01:20:21.960 The government puts out billions to these heavyweights all the time.

01:20:24.640 This is only $250,000, but still it's the principle of it.

01:20:27.360 Billions to these great big businesses, and they have a terrible return rate,

01:20:31.300 especially if it's guaranteed loans, things like that, and these businesses go broke,

01:20:33.740 and they piss it away on other things.

01:20:35.100 If you took a billion dollars, that's $1,000 million.

01:20:39.520 Well, you could give $10,000 to 100,000 people as seed money to start small businesses

01:20:47.540 if you broke it up that way, rather than a billion just to Bombardier or something.

01:20:52.120 Out of that, how much more return would we get?

01:20:54.320 how many more creative business ideas, how many need ideas, whether it's from a coffee shop to

01:20:58.540 just a little software place that needed a little Kickstarter, whatever, or 10,000 people getting,

01:21:03.800 what, $100,000. These things could get things going. But giving money to these multi-billion

01:21:09.200 dollar companies, it doesn't seem to be paying off well. Again, I'd rather not give to either.

01:21:12.580 But either way, yeah, this brewery got 250 grand, you know, small amount to some. But to me, when I

01:21:18.120 owned a bar, for example, hey, 250 grand, I could do a lot of upgrades with that. But this was to

01:21:22.420 Labatt, which is part of Anheuser-Busch. This is where our money goes, guys. And Minister Gil

01:21:27.380 Bull says, you know, that's worth it because they're saving the world from climate change

01:21:32.020 because apparently, you know, diesel boilers in breweries are a big part of our problem.

01:21:39.240 Here's another interesting one. This was from the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. It's

01:21:43.120 kind of a bit gossipy too, but the ruling was interesting. Vax status is nobody's business 0.99

01:21:47.780 and is fundamentally private, you know, and that's, so this was a radio announcer, I believe it was,

01:21:55.340 and he outed a listener as being unvaccinated, Lachlan Cross. The choice, let's see, this is

01:22:01.420 what the council wrote, the choice of whether or not to be vaccinated has been hotly debated on

01:22:04.700 all media and has been the subject of public and personal recriminations. However, whether one is

01:22:09.380 vaccinated or not constitutes medical information, and that's fundamentally private. So this cross,

01:22:15.200 This announcer at CKEA Edmonton, an FM station, in a topic of the day broadcast last February, identified an equipment by name as unvaccinated.

01:22:25.880 And he said, I'm Judge Middle.

01:22:27.500 I've avoided him.

01:22:28.420 I've avoided his phone calls.

01:22:29.700 I've avoided his texts.

01:22:32.140 And he said he was upset that his unvaccinated friend would attend a Super Bowl party at a local bar.

01:22:37.160 He says, I don't want to go now. 0.91

01:22:38.960 I still want to follow the rules.

01:22:40.620 He says, I've been a follower through this whole pandemic.

01:22:42.420 Clearly, he is.

01:22:43.840 But that's interesting.

01:22:44.500 So he used his platform to shame somebody he knew.

01:22:50.180 He used his radio seat to publicly name somebody and talk about their medical status.

01:22:55.880 And thankfully, at least the broadcast council ruled the right way and said, no, you crossed a line.

01:23:01.200 This is wrong. Medical information is private and confidential.

01:23:04.040 It's bad enough with our workplaces and vax passports and all that going on. 0.96

01:23:07.040 But to have some arsehole like him read out a friend's name because he's got a chip on his shoulder or I'm going to a Super Bowl party. 1.00

01:23:14.500 Again, that's an abuse of somebody's platform and reach in media. 0.98

01:23:19.020 I mean, I get onto the media, you know, of course,

01:23:21.340 it's social media, Twitter on here,

01:23:23.560 and I'm nasty to some public figures and so on,

01:23:26.220 but I don't call them out on their medical status.

01:23:28.120 I've got beefs with friends or enemies, if you want, over the years,

01:23:31.920 but I don't use my Twitter account to go after them or my show here.

01:23:37.160 So either way, he got slapped for it at least,

01:23:40.020 and maybe that's a good step in the right direction.

01:23:41.940 some regulatory bodies are realizing that, hey, some lines have been crossed.

01:23:48.840 Speaking of broadcasters, I'll finish up with this one. The state broadcaster, the CBC, our

01:23:54.000 one and a half billion dollar monster there is now saying climate change is causing you lost sleep.

01:24:00.800 Yes, yes. There's more hot nights. So you're sweatier and you're rolling more and whatever.

01:24:06.540 So that's yet it's yet one more thing. If you're tired in the morning,

01:24:09.720 the way to fix it's with a carbon tax because we've got to stop climate change and we can tax

01:24:15.340 ourselves out of it. And the reason you're tired is because climate change, everything's climate

01:24:20.740 change, isn't it? Jeez, never stops. But that's our tax dollars at work. All right, guys, I'm

01:24:27.140 going to let you go for the weekend. Make sure to tune in Monday. I'm going to have a former member

01:24:31.520 of parliament, Jay Hill, and he was the interim leader at the Maverick party on. We're just going

01:24:35.400 to talk some federal politics. I mean, Jay is now an unsigned free agent as far as politics goes,

01:24:41.240 and it makes him for a good commentator because with 17 years sitting in parliament as a government

01:24:47.060 whip and a number of other roles, he's got a lot of insight he can lend and share on these issues.

01:24:52.040 So I'm going to talk to him and we'll round up another guest by then as well. So thank you all

01:24:56.580 for tuning in today, guys. We'll see you 1130 a.m. Monday morning.

01:25:05.400 Transcription by CastingWords

Western Standard - May 28, 2022

Triggered： Self-defeating politics of envy are killing us

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