On this episode of Triggered: It's May 20th, 2022, and it's International Clinical Trials Day. We talk about the latest court case involving Tamera Leach and her supporters in the truckers' court case, and why she should be sent to jail. We also hear from Paige McCann-Saunter and Shauna Pilip-Chuck, two members of the Alberta Disability Workers Association, and Franco Teresano.
00:10:07.660So he's going to be premier for the future.
00:10:12.380Anyways, our Mike Thomas has got a column up there on a fun column
00:10:17.260and how the left and the right in the province dance to different tunes.
00:10:23.140Kenny held his first cabinet meeting today since his shocking resignation announcement.
00:10:28.560Our Rob Ward went along and videotaped that, so you can see Kenny's entire remarks.
00:10:35.100And Amanda Brown, a reporter, was also there,
00:10:37.460and her story is up on what Kenny had to say about from his first meeting.
00:10:42.660And we've got Premier Scott Moe next door in Saskatchewan praising Kenny to the high heavens and saying that we're going to miss him and we don't think he's done for good.
00:10:53.900Other stories we've got up, Corey, include our wacky environmental minister, Stephen Gilbeau, saying they're a bit behind on their plan to plant billions of trees because they really couldn't find any, believe it or not.
00:11:08.020uh i can just look outside our window and see a few and uh federal employees down in ottawa have
00:11:14.740racked up twenty thousand dollars worth of tickets uh by uh and just illegally parking so
00:11:20.900now you know if they can't even park right we know they can't run the country right so
00:11:25.620uh that's what we're doing we're getting prepared for the long weekend cory gonna be lots of stuff
00:11:30.340uh coming out saturday through monday so i urge everybody to check back uh even though it's a
00:11:36.420holiday just to see what's going on and our linda slobodian is writing about uh uh tamara leach
00:11:43.220as we speak that'll be up shortly and uh yeah she's the same as you corey just calls it vindictive
00:11:48.500action by uh the government just trying to shut her up so you have a great long weekend have a
00:11:55.700great trip hopefully you reach uh the united states before the flames game tonight and the
00:12:00.900ridiculous starting hour of 8 30 and uh i want to hear some go flames go chance from the united
00:12:06.100States from you. Yeah, I'll be representing in northern Idaho, and hopefully I don't bully you
00:12:11.280over as I do my sprint from the office on my way out the door for my three-day escape there.
00:12:17.460All right, buddy. You deserve it. Have a good one. All right. Thanks, Dave.
00:12:21.360That was our news editor, Dave Naylor. And yes, lots, always lots going on, guys,
00:12:27.800particularly on that provincial front. As we said, we sent Rob and Amanda down there to,
00:12:32.900We're just a few blocks away from the McDougal Center, which is the Alberta provincial government building.
00:12:38.920So if there's going to be anything going on outside of the legislature and it's in Calgary, they do it there.
00:12:43.600And Kenny's back for yet another caucus meeting.
00:12:47.440Yesterday's strange caucus meeting, you know, got delayed.
00:12:51.280But I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.
00:12:53.140But let's first, you know, I want to remind everybody, this is how we can get those reporters out there.
00:12:56.940This is how we can cover this news and how we do these things is thanks to subscribers, guys.
00:13:02.560as you can see on the screen. We got a lot of good deals up there for it for less than $10 a
00:13:07.740month. You know, when you take advantage of the incentives using the coupon code triggered,
00:13:12.000take it out for a year at a time, well under $10 a month for full unfettered access to the
00:13:17.480Western Standard, to all of our columns, all of our newsprint as it breaks, things like that.
00:13:23.480And that's how we can stay independent. I mean, you look at all the garbage on the federal
00:13:26.700government news. I'll call it federal government news. I mean, they're reliant on subsidies.
00:13:31.100They're reliant on bailouts. So once you're dependent, you're afraid to shake the, you know,
00:13:36.200rock the boat, shake the tree. So our mainstream outlets basically parrot the government line. We
00:13:40.740saw that. We're seeing that with the coverage of leech. What coverage of leech? Yeah, that's what
00:13:44.220I'm talking about. Nobody's talking about this. This is a woman in court being put through the
00:13:49.440ringer on a bail hearing. It's ridiculous. But we're not hearing anything from the mainstream,
00:13:54.300are we? No, no, because they don't want to tick off Trudeau and perhaps lose their money. Well,
00:13:59.020we don't take that money. We rely on you guys. So yeah, if we take enough subscribers off,
00:14:04.740well, I guess we'll have to reevaluate our plan. So far, obviously, a lot of you guys like our
00:14:09.200coverage. You're staying on and it's been great. And if you haven't already, take out a subscription,
00:14:13.100guys. That's how we can keep doing these things. So yeah, as we said, we sent it. It was pretty
00:14:18.220chilly out there. Amanda and Rob went down with a camera to try and catch the conference. They
00:14:22.780didn't really say too much of note. Unfortunately, you know, we thought maybe a couple nights ago
00:14:26.860that this chapter of Jason Kinney's time was kind of over.
00:14:30.420I mean, I understand it takes more than a few hours
00:30:09.360And with that skill set comes a professional wage, comes a professional expectations and professional responsibilities.
00:30:17.120And that was one of the reasons why ADWA started in 2010 was to be a voice for that workforce and to try to see what has been eroded since the 80s to come back to where it needed to be.
00:30:31.840And so we want to see a level of skilled workers who choose this as a career and are committed and stay in it.
00:30:42.180And that the post-secondary institutions are able to have those programs available to them to provide the skill set and the workforce that's needed for Albertans.
00:30:55.480I would imagine reducing turnover is very important in this too.
00:30:58.460like workers have developed relationships quite often with the people they're caring for
00:31:02.620working with and it's not good some people with developmental disabilities to have a number of
00:31:07.260changes and and changing faces and things like that with their individual needs so again i mean
00:31:12.460if there's better compensation you're going to reduce the chances of people constantly changing
00:31:16.700jobs right absolutely and relationships are key right relationships are one of the reasons why
00:31:24.060people who are currently working in the sector don't want to leave right so they are struggling
00:31:30.060the stories that we hear on a daily basis are the struggle and the dilemma that they're facing that
00:31:35.580they're they're passionate about what they do they're committed to what they're doing they're
00:31:39.900committed to the people that they work with and yet they find they can't afford to stay
00:31:45.420and if they can't afford to stay they they're making a choice now to leave and and that's
00:31:52.300the crisis and then when they leave we don't have somebody else with that skill set to come in there
00:31:59.420isn't that recruitment to replace the person who chooses to leave so that's that emptiness
00:32:05.020and that puts people with disabilities with fewer staff that are available to provide the services
00:32:12.700as well as the unpredictability of who's going to be working who's going to be with me tonight
00:32:19.740in the evening, who's going to be with me tomorrow morning, right? So that inconsistency of the
00:32:24.940staffing for individuals is really, it just, it really isn't fair to them.
00:32:33.020Yeah. And it's a competitive work market. I mean, if a person has to choose between paying the rent
00:32:38.380and keeping the job they like, well, they still might have to just take that other job that pays
00:32:42.700better and move on. And again, it's putting a very vulnerable sector, even more vulnerable. So
00:32:48.620that's why i wanted to have you guys on to speak to it because it's kind of sliding under the radar
00:32:52.380you don't have uh you're not a union so you don't have that that uh strength in in quite the the
00:32:57.580making noise or lobbying government so directly and uh you know we just don't want people to
00:33:02.540forget about that so with your initiatives out there you've got a petition and some other things
00:33:06.620how can people uh support your your efforts um our website is um atma.ca and we have uh yeah there it
00:33:15.420is and the button the essential but forgotten so one of the things like you said because we're not
00:33:19.740a union and we're a professional association our role is really about advocating for the workforce
00:33:26.300for people who do this work across albert alberta but we also feel very strongly about empowering
00:33:33.420our membership and the people who do this work to advocate for themselves and so what you what
00:33:39.180we're seeing is support from families we have support from self-advocates we have support from
00:33:45.740members all across alberta who are doing writing letters having meetings with their mlas who are
00:33:52.060doing everything that they can in order to get this message heard and you know being on a show
00:33:58.780like this we appreciate it because you're right having the the misunderstanding of who it is and
00:34:04.700what this workforce is, is something that is a challenge for us. But I mean, a lot of people
00:34:12.940are talking about it and that's a great thing. Great. Well, Paige and Sean, I appreciate you
00:34:19.340coming on to talk to us today about it and the work you do. Is there anything else you'd like
00:34:22.940to add before I let you go? No, I just think go to our website and we provide it different
00:34:31.260examples we give sample letters of how you can connect with your mla and we're going to continue
00:34:37.020doing that and posting we have a lot of stories and just kind of remembering um who it is that
00:34:43.500we're talking about we're talking about people albertans with disabilities who require support
00:34:48.460and we're talking about the people who are employed by community-based organizations that
00:34:53.900are providing that service so it's really about people um and and not about the money and the
00:35:00.780statistics great well uh thank you again and and i hope somebody uh starts paying attention out
00:35:07.100there and we can resolve this before there's any more damage done so again thank you for coming on
00:35:12.060today guys and uh perhaps we'll talk again in the future on a more positive note great thanks very
00:35:16.300much thank you very much thank you so as i said that's the alberta disability workers association
00:35:22.780And as we said, you know, it's different than some of the other things I noticed in some of the comment scroll, you know, people saying, are they a union?
00:35:29.860No, they're not a union. Are they part of AHS? No, it's not part of AHS.
00:35:33.720And these are things I had to learn as well.
00:35:35.720Like it's so it's a and perhaps that's why I asked about systemic reform, though I understand they can only talk so much to that.
00:35:43.100But it could be a bit convoluted if you've got a number of organizations getting those services down to the individuals.
00:35:48.680but it's hard to have a centralized organization that can do things correctly as well because I
00:35:53.240mean there's different types and levels of care different individuals as they were saying to us
00:35:58.160some need 24-7 semi-medical sort of care and facilities other people might just need a few
00:36:04.480hours a day of some help some might be just a little bit of family support so you have different
00:36:10.060organizations that are supporting the different people it's different training and as some others
00:36:15.940are pointing out who have encountered the work that these people are doing is that they are
00:36:19.920getting paid terribly. We're looking at about $18 an hour. And in Alberta today, that is not a heck
00:36:25.300of a lot of money. That's not a lot of money for a job that is that difficult and that important.
00:36:32.160I've said it before and I said it again. I mean, the term for it is compassionate conservatism,
00:36:35.820right? I'm a libertarian leaning person, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a classical liberal. I'm not
00:36:41.140a hardcore anarchist, just let's let, you know, society go to the wolves. I strongly believe in
00:36:46.700taking care of those who can't take care of themselves, you know, as opposed to those who
00:36:50.800won't take care of themselves. And it can be difficult to distinguish. But when it comes to
00:36:54.940a lot of citizens with developmental disabilities, it's not that difficult to determine. These are
00:36:59.380people that need some help. They need help taking care of themselves. Their families need help
00:37:03.920taking care of them. I mean, you know, this is how we prevent people from ending up in
00:37:09.460institutions or in healthcare facilities or being harmed or homeless or on the streets
00:37:14.280if they have disabilities. And, you know, we can keep them around family longer and have them in
00:37:20.080more stable environment longer and living better longer. But I mean, look at the work. I mean,
00:37:23.700I'm sure everybody's encountered disability workers. You've seen them. They're trying to
00:37:27.680keep a number of challenged people safely occupied and entertained and productive. I mean,
00:37:34.220they're taking them out for field trips. I've noticed even in Superstore, I've watched groups
00:37:38.120taking groups out shopping, but sometimes an individual will have, you know, for lack of a
00:37:42.800better term, a meltdown. Well, it takes incredible patience to be able to calm the challenged person
00:37:49.100down and get them stabilized again and carry on with the day. Like this is not minimum wage sort
00:37:54.720of work. It really shouldn't be. And as I said, I can only guess that you really have to get to
00:38:00.100know the individuals you're caring for so you know how to respond to them. So this isn't a job you're
00:38:04.940to do well if you're new to it all the time or if you've got turnover. So as somebody's responding
00:38:11.500to Al Rourke, yeah, it's contracted services and they're on all sorts of levels. I know there was
00:38:15.640some questions about the vaccination. I'm not going to go into it because it's a number of
00:38:18.360different organizations. It's not like AHS. And that's sort of a side issue with it. It's an
00:38:24.160important issue, but it's a side one. So at this point, though, again, we've got a lot of people
00:38:30.560in need. I mean, try to put yourself in the shoes of the families who have, you know, a family
00:38:35.120member who has serious disabilities. How much resources, how much time can you put in? I mean,
00:38:40.880you still want to work. You still want to have a bit of a life. You want your family member with
00:38:44.980the challenges to be as well guided and cared for as possible. And you can't get workers. You can't
00:38:50.260get necessarily properly trained workers. You can't maintain them, especially right now when
00:38:55.320they haven't had a raise in seven years. And right now the cost of living, everything is going
00:39:00.380through the roof. So I'm glad these guys are speaking up. And as I said, as for the confusion,
00:39:04.840they're not a union. And I don't want to see a union. As we know on this show, I'm not a big
00:39:08.340fan of unions by any stretch. They're an association and they're speaking up for that
00:39:13.520group in that area. And I'm glad they are. And they got a bigger challenge in speaking up for
00:39:18.740it as a non-union organization than others would. So check them out, guys, because I think it's one
00:39:23.920of those areas where the government shouldn't be. I mean, hey, we always get to watch our dollars.
00:39:27.180we want to make sure they go where they belong. But this is an area that we can most definitely
00:39:31.600increase some funding, guys. We've got the budgetary room. Lord knows that I point out
00:39:39.160waste and bad spending all the time on things the government's doing. And I'll point out a few more
00:39:42.960today as we go through some news items. And I have Franco from the Taxpayers Federation on.
00:39:48.580But this is an area where they need our help. They need our money. And because we're taking
00:39:54.360care of each other's guys. We're not that heartless. I'm a scowling, crabby old conservative,
00:39:58.640but I know which people need to be cared for and which don't. And the people with disabilities are1.00
00:40:03.300people that do. So let's see, before I move on, Frank will be on in a little bit. Let's talk,
00:40:09.540I'm going to get my other sponsor out of the way. Speaking of individual rights, speaking of
00:40:12.920associations, and that's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Same sort of thing. See,
00:40:17.800that's not the Canadian Shooting Sports Union. It's an association. It's an organization of
00:40:22.620like-minded people with something they have in common that they want to support, and that is
00:40:27.260shooting sports. All sorts of resources, guys. They got things on, you know, videos on how to
00:40:33.020safely operate firearms, different things you can do with them. Target shooting, trap shooting,
00:40:37.480black powder shooting, all those different things for those hobbies. A lot of people really love it.
00:40:41.680Links to trade shows, links to regulations, so you know how to legally stay within the right bounds.
00:40:47.740I mean, we're law-abiding firearm owners. We're not out hurting anybody. And also, like the other
00:40:52.260Association are advocating for their members. And in this case, it's a matter of advocating for
00:40:58.560firearm owners because we have a government that brought back the registry through a back door
00:41:02.620that recategorized hunting rifles as assault style weapons and banned them. Well, we got to stand up
00:41:09.060for ourselves. If you want to maintain your property, if you want to keep enjoying that
00:41:12.940great sports of firearms or collecting them or whatever you want to do, you got to stand up for
00:41:17.360yourself. And that's what the Canadian Shooting Sports Association is all about. Get onto their
00:41:20.920site, check them out, take out a membership. It's not that much. It's well worth it. It's an
00:41:25.020investment in your own rights. CSSA-CILA.org. It's the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
00:41:33.940Okay. So let's see here. Speaking of crazy left, this is a story that came up. Yeah. We got a
00:41:40.240new Democrat lawyer who endorsed decriminalizing heroin, appointed a judge by the federal cabinet.
00:41:49.720So Susan Fraser of Toronto is now an Ontario Superior Court judge.
00:41:55.740You know, there's some discussion about decriminalizing on drugs and some things like that.
00:42:01.740So, I mean, this story I don't see as such a being beyond the pale.
00:42:07.580But if you look deeper into this person who was appointed, like, holy cow, we're talking crazed hard, hard left individual.
00:42:13.540We're not talking center left or a little red.
00:42:16.000this gal is, she's living in a weird blended relationship. And I'm not talking about sexual
00:42:21.680orientation. I'm talking about one of those open things where we'll all just kind of have a
00:42:25.000free for all. And that's her business of consenting adults. But this is the world of the wacky far
00:42:30.020out left really getting out there. And we do have to worry to some degree about the crossing that
00:42:36.160line between enabling addiction and saving lives and having somebody who's that strong and advocate
00:42:42.500on some things and then putting them on the bench. I don't know if that's going to be a good idea,
00:42:49.740but it's too late. This is more of that indication of what's going on. But now that we've got that
00:42:56.860unholy alliance between Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, you know, the liberal NDP line is
00:43:02.660very, very blurry at this point. So this new justice was part of, here's another example,
00:43:11.120a council for the coalition for gun control so she's anti-firearm she wants to bring in more
00:43:16.860laws like this so i mean when you want to bring in a justice i understand it's politicized
00:43:20.740that's the way it goes you would hope and i know the right and the left are both guilty of it but
00:43:27.020still you would hope they try to find somewhat centrist thinking people somewhat ones that
00:43:31.620will actually be a judge you know holding those scales and being blind like the the statue down
00:43:36.460the states and just looking at the facts. But when they have such an activist history like this one,
00:43:41.940you're not going to get a balanced judge at all. She was, yeah, the counsel for the Coalition for
00:43:45.840Gun Control. She contributed almost $2,000 to the NDP. You know, so yeah, she's not just,
00:43:52.680you know, NDP leaning. She's a heavy NDP supporter. Again, that's nothing new with
00:43:58.420judges who are getting in, though a liberal government just appointed an NDP judge.
00:44:55.000for witnesses who testify at committee hearings.
00:44:58.280Yeah, so this is what the government's doing with our money.
00:45:01.000We can't afford to take care of our citizens with disabilities correctly, but we can spend $175 an hour to counsel people because they had to be a witness at a committee hearing.
00:45:12.260Because what? Their feelings might have been hurt? They might have been questioned on something?
00:45:17.400Oh, don't call snowflakes to your committees anymore.
00:45:20.360But either way, $175 an hour on a no-counseling is expensive.
00:45:24.100What obligation do we have? And how bad are these hearings?
00:45:26.920I wish these hearings were so volatile and lively
00:45:31.000that they would actually put people into a place
00:50:30.540It's stopped giving counseling to a bunch of pussies from the civil servants because they had to give a testimony at a Senate committee meeting and give the money to people who are actually working on the ground, doing important things for people who can't do them for themselves.0.99
00:50:46.020That's what we got to do with things.1.00
00:50:48.340So I'm going to talk to somebody who likes getting pissed off about waste of tax money himself as well.
00:50:52.220And that's Franco Tarzano. He's going to be on soon. And I'm going to line up with a clip from a video actually from their initiative on the honesty in gas taxes and such. And that'll set the stage for gas tax discussion with Franco. And we'll go on from there. So let's run that video, Nico, and then we'll bring Franco on for a chat there.
00:51:13.600Hey everyone, it's the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's 24th Annual Gas Tax Honesty Day,
00:51:19.000where we shine a light on all the hidden taxes that you pay every time you fuel up.
00:51:23.560Over my shoulder, you can see gas prices in Ottawa is over $2 per liter.
00:51:28.720And here in Canada, taxes can make up to 38% of the pump price,
00:51:34.000which means that on a 64-liter fuel up, you could be paying more than $35 just in taxes.
00:51:39.420But here's where the pain is really coming.
00:51:41.400By 2030, because of the Trudeau government's announced carbon tax hikes, the total tax bill at the pumps could reach 96 cents per liter of gasoline.
00:51:52.120So you know what? It is extremely tone deaf for the Trudeau government to continue raising the carbon tax when Canadians are already struggling to afford to fuel up their cars with gasoline on the way to work.
00:52:03.620We need tax relief and we need tax relief right now.
00:52:06.280great so i've already you know messed up uh franco's messaging and derek corrected me on
00:52:12.920that earlier and i didn't pass it to nico so it's not his fault it says gas tax freedom day but we
00:52:17.340could use a gas tax freedom day anyway so maybe that'll be your next one but it was gas tax
00:52:22.060honesty day and that was my fault for not passing the correction down but all the same they're good
00:52:26.900messages it looks like that was a pretty soggy taxpayers federation guy standing out there
00:52:31.500they're ranting Franco but I appreciate the work so what's that all about expand a little further
00:52:36.780on your latest initiative there yeah well thanks Corey I mean that's it's a part of our 24th annual
00:52:42.860gas tax honesty day so we've been doing this for 24 years and what we do is we're trying to shine
00:52:47.740a light on all the hidden taxes that you pay every time you fuel up your car and I say hidden taxes
00:52:53.100because when you fuel up your gas you get the receipt you see the total amount you're paying
00:52:57.740you see the sales tax. That's the only type of tax that you see on the bill. And in some cities
00:53:02.840like Vancouver or Montreal, you could be paying six different types of taxes every time you fuel
00:53:08.580up. But most Canadians don't know that a big portion of the price up to 38% here in Canada
00:53:14.880is just taxes. So you have governments that are taking a huge chunk of money from us every time
00:53:21.560we fuel up. And it really should be the perfect time right now for every single government,
00:53:25.520provincial or federal to give us some relief and do that by cutting that tax bill oh absolutely i
00:53:31.520mean they've got enough money for crying out loud and yeah this is the good timing we're coming
00:53:35.360before the may long weekend it says i say at the start of the show i'm going to run down to sand
00:53:38.320point idaho this weekend and i looked ahead and uh fuel down there in sand points a dollar 21 a
00:53:44.240liter american so even with conversion though it's well under what i'm paying here in alberta
00:53:48.960and i don't think there's a single gas pump in idaho but they're paying far less for fuel than
00:53:54.640And I am here in the heart of energy in Canada.
00:59:50.580You're paying, I guess it helps Jane more for your bookkeeping and things like that.
00:59:54.160But it's another expense that gets passed down.
00:59:56.260Like, you know, a simple straight tax, then if you're going to tax, it should be transparent and simple.
01:00:02.900You know, I'm so glad you brought that up because it leads me into my next point, which is the second carbon tax that is coming in late this year, just before Christmas.
01:00:13.240Not only are we paying Trudeau's carbon tax hikes all the way to 40 cents per liter by 2030, but the Trudeau government is bringing in a second carbon tax that is buried within fuel regulations.