Western Standard - May 27, 2022


Triggered: The world will freeze in the dark under the WEF environmental plans


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 24 minutes

Words per minute

189.50578

Word count

16,032

Sentence count

961

Harmful content

Misogyny

21

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

It's World Redhead Day, and the World Economic Forum in Davos is a hotbed of conspiracy theories. Plus, a new party is born in Alberta, and a Canadian government is trying to get rid of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's May 26, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan. This is the
00:00:38.340 Western Standards daily news, opinion, ranting sort of show. We get a number of guests,
00:00:44.760 we get a number of subjects, and we cover what's up. It's a live show, which means you
00:00:49.880 guys can comment, and I appreciate those comments. Keep them going in the comment scroll. Put
00:00:54.340 your thoughts out there, your questions out there. Just, of course, try to keep things
00:00:57.620 civil. We don't need to be at each other's throats. We get enough of that from our politicians and
00:01:02.740 others on the federal front, but that interaction is really what makes this different and makes it
00:01:07.320 worth doing and setting up like this. So good to see all there, Susan, Carrie Ann, Maida, all the
00:01:13.720 rest of them from Ontario. I like seeing those ones from across the country. I know most of our
00:01:16.840 audience is out here in the West. Even the name of the Western Standard makes it sound that way,
00:01:20.720 but we can't forget we have a lot of readers and listeners all across the country, and we really
00:01:25.420 appreciate them. So let's go into today's observances. We've got to make sure we don't
00:01:31.140 miss anything that's important. Apparently, it's World Dracula Day. So even if you're outside of
00:01:36.120 Romania or Transylvania area, it is the day that you should recognize Dracula, admire him, put in
00:01:42.840 your fake teeth, bite somebody relatively safely, I would hope. It's also World Redhead Day. So 1.00
00:01:49.340 speaking, you know, it's kind of related. I mean, those poor gingers have no souls, nor does Dracula, 1.00
00:01:54.280 but all the same they're people too and they need recognition and today is the day you recognize
00:01:59.940 redheads so offer them uh that ginger a good supportive uh hug or something for their their
00:02:05.380 status out here and uh maybe give them some sunscreen or something okay so i've got a couple
00:02:11.280 of good guests as always on today uh this one's interesting i got john molberg he's the leader of
00:02:16.420 the new buffalo party of alberta turns out that party actually achieved registration back in
00:02:21.040 February, which is quite a task. In Alberta, it's not easy to get a provincial party registered. So
00:02:26.780 we have yet another one, and Alberta has a whole whack of them. We've got a lot of alternative
00:02:31.860 parties on the right. Now here's yet another one. We'll talk to Mr. Mulberg about why they feel
00:02:37.980 there's the need for another party and what they plan on doing with it. Then I'm going to talk to
00:02:42.900 Professor Michael Geist. People might be familiar with him. He's the Canada Research Chair in
00:02:47.700 internet and e-commerce law at the university of ottawa and he's always been very outspoken
00:02:54.020 his area of specialty of course as it says is internet law and he's worried about free speech
00:02:59.380 he's worried about bills c11 and c18 how those can impact online streaming how it can impact
00:03:05.860 online discussion of issues things such as that because it's constantly under threat and this
00:03:10.180 government's going after it he's been speaking to government committees on these things and
00:03:14.740 He'll come on and speak with us a little bit about that fairly soon here.
00:03:19.720 So, let's see what we will get on to first, though.
00:03:23.160 We should get on to what I'm going to get on about today.
00:03:26.040 And it is something that's been in the news a lot lately.
00:03:28.900 So, many of the most influential people on Earth have been in Davos this week
00:03:33.420 for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, known as the WEF.
00:03:37.580 Many people roll their eyes at the very mention of the WEF
00:03:40.340 and dismiss any critique of the organization's actions as being conspiracy theories.
00:03:45.380 But it's not hard to see why the WF is the subject of many conspiracy theories.
00:03:49.760 I mean, when you research the organization, they sound like something out of a spy novel.
00:03:53.160 I mean, the group was founded by Klaus Schwab back in 1971 with an agenda to influence world policies,
00:03:59.540 world economic policies in particular.
00:04:01.600 Powerful business leaders and political figures would come out to attend the annual meetings in Switzerland.
00:04:06.260 And in the pre-internet days, the agenda of those meetings wasn't really known by many,
00:04:10.840 so it was really open to a lot of speculation.
00:04:13.040 I mean, hell, Schwab even looks a little bit like a James Bond villain,
00:04:16.240 and with a Swiss mountain lair, what else would people assume, you know?
00:04:20.240 He's this secretive man off in the mountains there talking to influential people.
00:04:25.780 The thing, though, the thing is, nothing with a WS is actually secret.
00:04:29.900 Their agenda and guest list are as public as can be.
00:04:32.720 Videos of speakers and their participation are easy to find all over the Internet.
00:04:36.920 I mean, just because the organization is transparent, though, it doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.
00:04:42.460 The WF influences political and public figures, particularly the weak ones.
00:04:47.480 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a prime example.
00:04:50.380 Trudeau is not exactly what one would label as a cerebral type of leader.
00:04:53.840 He relies on a cult of personality and photo opportunities to maintain his electoral popularity
00:04:59.120 rather than try to develop any deep sort of policies.
00:05:02.820 Trudeau is also driven by vanity, so he was rather tickled when he delivered a keynote address to the WF in Davos in 2018.
00:05:10.020 When he can follow a script, he can do quite well.
00:05:12.260 That's what drama teachers do.
00:05:13.820 Trudeau then consumed the WEF policies on the Great Reset, though,
00:05:17.620 and regurgitated them in later interviews.
00:05:20.420 Now, the Great Reset, like many other things related to the WEF,
00:05:23.280 is often brushed off as being some sort of conspiracy theory as well.
00:05:27.600 It's right there in the open like the other things on the WEF website for all to read, though.
00:05:31.680 It's an odious plan to take advantage of world disasters, such as pandemics,
00:05:36.620 in order to implement massive economic changes.
00:05:38.900 Those changes invariably involve centralizing government and imposing socialism.
00:05:44.320 The Great Reset wants to use disasters to implement policies that people would never vote for in a democracy.
00:05:50.000 If the Great Reset was just a notion on a website, we could ignore it.
00:05:53.560 But when we hear political leaders parroting it, as Justin Trudeau did, we have to start taking it seriously.
00:05:59.840 And the WEF uses climate change as a potential disaster to justify extreme policies as well.
00:06:04.560 I mean, despite the world being in the midst of an energy crisis causing economic distress to billions,
00:06:10.440 the World Economic Forum is solidly maintaining its stance on pushing for a transition from hydrocarbon fuel sources.
00:06:17.020 In a speech to The Gathering this year, just last week, Norwegian finance CEO Kirsten Brathen says,
00:06:23.040 energy transition will create energy shortages and inflationary pressures, but this pain is worth it.
00:06:30.020 Yeah, that's what she said.
00:06:31.900 The WF and its adherents know their policies are going to cause human misery.
00:06:36.020 But in their ideological bubbles, they feel it's worthwhile.
00:06:38.960 It's a worthwhile price to pay.
00:06:40.640 Of course, the elites themselves who were in Davos won't feel any of that pain.
00:06:44.880 Indeed, many of them have actually prospered during the pandemic.
00:06:47.300 It's served them well.
00:06:48.740 A posting on the WF website showed a picture of empty roads during pandemic lockdowns.
00:06:53.280 And stated, emissions fell during lockdowns.
00:06:56.320 Let's keep it that way.
00:06:58.220 Never mind the misery and economic damage of the pandemic.
00:07:00.940 The WF feels that that pain is worth it, and they want to maintain it.
00:07:05.400 And again, this agenda is no secret.
00:07:07.360 It's hiding right in the open.
00:07:09.120 Folks often attribute way more power to the WF than it actually wields as well, though.
00:07:14.220 I mean, sure, they want to influence and control as many leaders as possible.
00:07:17.820 They make no bones about that.
00:07:19.460 It doesn't mean they're succeeding in every case, though, so we've got to be careful there.
00:07:22.700 Many people have attended WF gatherings in Davos and have dismissed their agenda.
00:07:26.880 Their minds aren't controlled through sitting through a week of presentations and shoulder-rubbing with other elites.
00:07:32.200 We see people labeling every politician they don't like as being some sort of patsy for the WEF.
00:07:36.360 Hell, I've even been accused of it by some occasionally on social media, even though I've never even been to Switzerland.
00:07:41.660 I hope to get there someday. Not necessarily do a WEF function, though.
00:07:46.180 The WEF does have influence, though, and many people in positions of power share the WEF agenda.
00:07:51.940 The agenda right now will exacerbate the world energy crisis,
00:07:55.100 and it's ignoring the building-impending world food crisis.
00:07:58.780 As economies crumble and people starve, political instability will follow.
00:08:03.300 And this is just the sort of environment the WF wants to see
00:08:06.160 in order to foster the policies they can't sell democratically.
00:08:09.640 It's a sick agenda, and it will come with immeasurable human cost.
00:08:13.640 If we allow it to happen, we can't pretend we didn't see it coming.
00:08:16.680 The WF has been saying it over and over again already.
00:08:19.520 They want the world to freeze in the dark.
00:08:23.640 Can't say I didn't warn you guys.
00:08:25.640 Okay, enough of that stuff on there.
00:08:28.400 Let's get on to the news here with Melanie Risden in the newsroom and see what else is going to say.
00:08:34.380 Hey, Melanie, are you wearing the same colors today?
00:08:38.340 Yes, I have not worn this jersey in a long time.
00:08:41.160 So my thoughts are they had better win.
00:08:43.520 yes well it's looking a little uh look like a leg maybe a bit of a tight match tonight but
00:08:50.440 people are hoping maybe they wake up and can pull it off hey stranger things have happened in play
00:08:54.100 off time well yeah for sure i mean it was a tight battle in 04 right i mean we didn't make it all
00:09:00.640 the way but uh there were some kind of edgier seats we came back and you know kind of as the
00:09:07.240 underdog in many cases so i think uh i think i'm gonna i'm gonna say that we can do it well the
00:09:12.940 province will be tuned in for the Battle of Alberta. I see a couple of our commenters in a
00:09:16.700 row there, Cheryl and Clannett saying, go Oilers, go. So the province is divided, but I think for
00:09:21.840 the most part, it's friendly. We've got enough vitriolic division to feed us all. Some friendly
00:09:26.600 sports rivalry is good for all of us, I think. So we'll watch that with interest tonight. So what
00:09:32.820 else is making the news today? Well, and in speaking of the Flames, the red lot tickets
00:09:39.160 that they are, they're not selling them, but they are sort of making them available for people to
00:09:44.900 secure. Red lot tickets sold out were basically distributed this morning in seconds. They go out
00:09:53.100 for people to go down to the stampede grounds and sort of rebel outside watching the game on a big
00:09:59.640 screen. And so again, the Flames are advising everyone, if you do not have a ticket to the
00:10:05.460 red lot do not come down, there will be no exceptions to letting additional people into
00:10:10.360 the grounds. So we've got a couple of updates on the website right now with regard to the horrible,
00:10:19.020 terrible shooting that transpired in Texas on Tuesday, killing 19 students and two teachers.
00:10:26.120 We have a couple of updates today. A little bit more information has come in on a timeline,
00:10:31.740 how things played out. And there has been a lot of questions surrounding how long it took officers
00:10:39.840 to not only apprehend the shooter, but to actually get into the school. Apparently,
00:10:47.300 a lot of witnesses on scene were screaming and yelling for the officers to enter and do what
00:10:54.120 they could. So that is part of the ongoing investigation that is happening. It has come
00:10:59.640 out as well that the shooter has no known criminal activity no known mental issues so that as well
00:11:08.180 is part of the investigation another story we have of uh one of the grade four students that
00:11:14.880 did survive uh thankfully found cover under a table and the table had a tablecloth so he and
00:11:21.920 four of his friends were were sort of concealed under this area and we have a story on some of
00:11:28.320 his recollection and recount of some of the terrifying things that happened in that classroom
00:11:34.800 as it was sort of taken over by the gunman so that's on the website now and we do have
00:11:40.560 other stories that are coming very quickly here uh our reporter out of ottawa matthew horwood is
00:11:46.400 working on a story on pfizer profits uh from 2021 they had over 81 billion in profit first quarter
00:11:54.880 profits for 2022 are looking very fruitful for the company. So it sounds as though Pfizer is now
00:12:02.700 saying they are going to sell their drugs, the vaccines at cost to countries in need. So he'll
00:12:10.400 have that up here shortly. He's also working on a story about how the world is down to one week,
00:12:16.820 one week, or sorry, 10 weeks supply of wheat at the moment. That's due to supply chain issues for
00:12:24.640 um poor 2021 global harvest as well as the uh the war that is continuing in ukraine
00:12:32.880 uh and our uh columnist linda sublodian is out with a story right now on human rights watchdog
00:12:40.240 that says children are being spied on in our schools when it comes to some of the educational
00:12:46.480 software and platforms that are being approved and used within countries including canada
00:12:52.560 Apparently, CBC Kids' website has been accused of harvesting children's internet activity with things such as location data and other personal details that could be used to put children at risk.
00:13:09.200 So, Linda, we'll have that story coming up here fairly quickly.
00:13:12.020 Our BC reporter, Reid, is working on a story. He's looking into a pile of manure that was dumped in front of BC Premier John Horgan's constituency office yesterday.
00:13:25.040 So that's a bit of a stinky pile there.
00:13:28.340 He's also looking into and is going to do a bit of a breakdown on the $800 million museum renovation that is happening in BC.
00:13:37.680 and Jonathan Yanov found guilty for assaulting a former rebel journalist.
00:13:44.800 So he's going to have more details on that.
00:13:47.360 And our Edmonton reporter, Rachel Emanuel, she will be hitting a noon presser today.
00:13:52.600 And it looks like the legislature is likely going to be wrapping up its agenda
00:13:57.660 heading into the warmer months.
00:13:59.920 So we'll hear from her fairly soon.
00:14:02.880 Great. Well, lots on the go and lots coming.
00:14:05.220 I guess, you know, some light stories and some terrible stories, but we cover them all and
00:14:11.000 that's what's to be done. Well, I appreciate the update. I'll let you get back into that newsroom.
00:14:16.620 I know Dave had to step out today, so I appreciate you filling his large shoes today for the news
00:14:22.760 check-in and in the newsroom to keep that stuff coming up there. Mel, I'll talk to you later.
00:14:27.300 Always my pleasure.
00:14:28.720 Great. Thanks. So that's Melanie Risden, one of our main news people. A lot of those stories,
00:14:33.160 when you go to the westernstandard.news,
00:14:35.040 you see will be from Mel,
00:14:36.720 and there is a lot up there,
00:14:38.740 and this is the time of the show.
00:14:40.000 And I do remind you guys,
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00:14:43.400 Hey, this is how we can do this.
00:14:45.060 This is how we can pay our bills.
00:14:46.500 This is how we can stay independent.
00:14:48.160 You know, when I talk in a little while
00:14:49.440 with my second guest, Mr. Geist,
00:14:53.120 we're going to illustrate a lot of the threat
00:14:56.200 to independent media
00:14:57.240 and the way the government is trying to shut down
00:14:59.360 and control it.
00:14:59.920 And the best way we can stay free of that,
00:15:02.680 of course, is to stay subsidy free, which we always will, and to stay beholden to the viewers
00:15:07.000 and listeners. And the way we do that is through memberships. So hey, guys, those who have already
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00:15:15.440 there for $99 a year. It's a great deal. You can go month by month for $10 a month as well. I mean,
00:15:21.100 people think, I'm not used to paying for these things. I know, but this is how we can do this.
00:15:24.700 It's a service we're providing. You know, we're not asking for charity. We will give you something
00:15:28.380 for your $10. And with every subscriber, it helps us build our budget and we can get more reporters
00:15:33.180 on the ground and just keep going. And it's been fantastic so far. So again, westernstandard.news
00:15:39.060 slash membership. All right. Well, before we get to the guests, let's look at a couple more
00:15:43.440 news stories. I mean, something I want to talk about briefly was I sat through the French debates
00:15:48.820 for the Conservative Party of Canada last night. It was in Laval, Quebec. And boy, it just,
00:15:54.460 it was really repugnant to behold it was i mean these debates all the way along have been sort of
00:16:00.880 up and down you know the first one uh was at the canada strong and free conference and it was all
00:16:05.840 right but you know very vitriolic between polyev and charay the second one was just kind of bizarre
00:16:10.720 with strange sound effects and and paddles and things so this one was well moderated i'll give
00:16:17.000 it that but the lineup i mean there was really only three people participating uh because the
00:16:23.900 The French was too weak for Aitchison and Lewis and Babber to really participate terribly much.
00:16:31.340 They read from prepared statements.
00:16:32.640 They knew certain subjects, so they would read that.
00:16:34.780 But when it came to the back and forth, they didn't take part.
00:16:36.900 And that left it to Brown, Patrick Brown, and Pierre Polyev, and Jean Charest.
00:16:43.140 But what we saw was just a barrage of attacks from Brown on Polyev.
00:16:49.780 That was his whole thing.
00:16:51.200 any question, whether related or not, he would turn it into an attack on Polyev. And almost
00:16:57.800 always, either directly or through implying, was trying to say Polyev and his supporters are
00:17:02.840 racists. This is brutal, and it's divisive, and I'm sick as hell of it. Sick as hell of it. I'm
00:17:10.140 sick of this leftist means to battle any opposition by just throwing the term racist blindly and over
00:17:17.360 and over again at their opponents. It doesn't matter if there's any basis for it. They know
00:17:20.700 that. They know that. They don't care. They think if they just say it enough times, people will start
00:17:25.480 to believe it. You know what? It seems to be working. That's why they keep doing it. But bad
00:17:30.040 enough to see liberals doing it, the people we expect it of, but now they're in the conservative
00:17:34.180 party doing it to each other. So basically, Brown is laying out the groundwork for Trudeau for when
00:17:42.080 the general election comes, if Polyev wins it. It's not over yet. But they'll have already started
00:17:47.200 the smearing. Look at that. Their own party was calling him a racist. Oh, clearly he's a racist.
00:17:51.200 I know there's no evidence, but hey, we said it a lot of times, so it must be true. That was the
00:17:55.160 theme of the whole bloody debate. Brown's campaign has been weird right off the bat.
00:18:00.560 And I mean, he's not doing any media. He doesn't show up anywhere. People familiar with a tactic
00:18:05.840 called stalking horse in leadership races, I'm pretty sure that's what we got going on here.
00:18:09.720 Because, you know, the person who did look good in last night's debate was Sheree,
00:18:12.540 because he was in his area of strength.
00:18:15.320 He got booed in Calgary,
00:18:16.900 or not in Calgary, in Edmonton
00:18:18.760 at some of the events and things like that.
00:18:21.460 He was very well-received in Laval,
00:18:23.940 well-organized.
00:18:25.020 He could stick to his policies. 0.94
00:18:26.260 He threw the odd shot at Polyev, 0.66
00:18:27.920 but he didn't go into the mire very much.
00:18:29.460 Why?
00:18:30.120 Because he had Brown to do it.
00:18:31.900 Brown just did all of the dirty work
00:18:34.400 on behalf of Shere on the stage
00:18:36.880 while Polyev couldn't get much of his message out
00:18:40.720 because he was constantly on the defensive.
00:18:42.540 because he had that Clown Brown over from him calling him a racist every five minutes.
00:18:46.140 It was just a spectacle.
00:18:47.740 And I mean, it's bad enough to see this in a general election,
00:18:50.120 but to see it in an internal party race.
00:18:53.080 Talk about division.
00:18:54.900 Talk about ripping it apart. 0.83
00:18:56.340 They're going to be a mess whenever this race is over, no matter who wins.
00:18:59.340 When you bring it to this level,
00:19:00.340 they're going to be going all the way until September 10th on this.
00:19:03.340 I can't imagine how vitriolic and bad it's going to be.
00:19:06.380 And the only person who's smiling out of all of this will be Justin Trudeau.
00:19:12.080 So it was just a spectacle, and I was really, really repulsed.
00:19:17.660 So there's my review of last night's French debate.
00:19:20.720 See, I sacrificed things for you guys.
00:19:22.860 There were better things I could have watched.
00:19:24.460 I would have rather watched reruns of Ren and Stimpy or something
00:19:27.660 than watch that French debate.
00:19:29.360 But I took it in so I could share it with you today.
00:19:31.860 Unfortunately, I didn't have much good to share about it.
00:19:34.180 But we'll watch the race as it unfolds.
00:19:35.920 I've talked to every one of the leadership candidates so far,
00:19:38.400 except for Brown, of course, because he doesn't do.
00:19:41.380 media. Probably because he doesn't care if he wins or not. His goal is just to make sure somebody
00:19:45.840 else loses. And that's not a good goal. All right, I'm going to come to our guest really
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00:21:02.560 Alright, as I said earlier, we've got a new political party on the provincial scene, and that is the Buffalo Party of Alberta, and their leader is John Mulberg. As I said, they kind of slipped under the radar. I only found out a couple weeks ago that, holy cow, they've been registered actually for a couple of months now. So a quiet organization, but here they are. They are registered, and that's quite a bar to reach, so it's not to be dismissed. So let's bring John in and talk about what this is about. Hey, John, how are you doing?
00:21:28.700 Hey, Corey, doing well. Thank you.
00:21:30.060 Good, good. I don't think I've seen you since way back in our, might have been Alberta
00:21:34.920 Alliance days when we were in the same party together.
00:21:36.960 That was a long time ago. That's good to see you again.
00:21:39.660 Yeah. So as I said, I was kind of surprised to see this surface on the radar. And as I
00:21:46.020 know, I mean, I've worked in alternative parties a lot. Getting registered, I mean, that's
00:21:50.860 a big task. It takes a lot of signatures, a lot of work, a lot of organization. You've
00:21:56.100 got a limited timeline to do it with and and you guys did so uh to be blunt without basically being
00:22:02.580 noticed uh how did you guys uh manage to organize that yeah it was exacerbated by covid too right
00:22:08.100 there's really no no public gatherings where you can kind of do mass sort of uh signups and so on
00:22:13.380 but yeah our volunteers just did terrific work um you know we're a the big reason why we've flown
00:22:18.660 under the radar is we're a party created by everyday albertans we're not a party that's
00:22:22.900 been created by politicians or mlas trying to find a job it's regular everyday albertans who are
00:22:28.980 trying to create a party to vote for rather than just seeking something to vote against and so our
00:22:34.340 volunteers collected 14 000 signatures over the course of a year we went through the process to
00:22:39.220 get certified with elections alberta and of course that happened at the beginning of this year but
00:22:43.300 it's a long process it's not something that we we undertook uh looking for a quick fix this was a
00:22:49.620 long-term principle-based party and we and we think it's where most albertans are so i guess
00:22:55.540 we'll start with some clarity yours is the buffalo party of alberta is there any relation whatsoever
00:22:59.780 with the buffalo party of saskatchewan no there's no legal uh legal association with the saskatchewan
00:23:05.940 party we're um we're uh i think we arrive from some similar values uh but no we're completely
00:23:12.260 distinct party um we we are a party that believes in in less governance uh you know less is more
00:23:19.140 government doesn't generally do a great job of the things that they uh they stick their fingers into
00:23:24.740 and we feel that they could probably do better if they do less we believe in more localized
00:23:29.380 decision making rather than centralized decision making you know for me personally i i've always
00:23:33.780 wondered why people who spend their entire year their careers in business uh their life in their
00:23:39.220 communities uh they run for elected office and then they're given no authority right our sitting
00:23:45.460 MLAs have really no authority in our parliamentary system. It all goes up to the leader. And
00:23:49.940 we believe in more distributed control, whether that's at the government level,
00:23:54.180 or whether that's at the public servant level. Better decisions are made more local to an issue.
00:23:59.460 So there's a number of, I guess you could say right of center type provincial parties that
00:24:04.980 are registered that are on the block there. Most of them are independence leaning, it seems,
00:24:10.660 but there's the independence party. There's another one, what is it, Alberta agenda party
00:24:13.940 or something like that, that there's getting, it's kind of getting to be a bit of a crowded
00:24:16.840 field over there. Why did you feel though, that it was, you wouldn't be able to take part in one
00:24:21.960 of any of those other alternative parties, even perhaps change them to your needs and you felt
00:24:26.060 you needed a fresh one? Well, there's a few things there is, you know, I think if you talk to most
00:24:30.420 Albertans and you ask them who they're going to vote for, it's sort of a none of the above
00:24:35.340 situation. There's not a party that, that we feel that most Albertans are aligned with. And we,
00:24:40.180 that's sort of where we arrive from is we want to give people something to vote for and not just the
00:24:44.740 same old song and dance that's been there before. Again, we're created by regular Albertans who
00:24:49.740 care about Alberta, who care about, you know, not just the traditional values of Alberta,
00:24:55.720 but a lot of the new Albertans, new immigrants to Canada. You know, people come here for a reason
00:25:01.020 and they want to be aligned with something that is true to their values as well. And we feel that
00:25:05.480 there's sort of a new union there between new Canadians who believe in sort of less governments
00:25:10.560 more more focus on family more focus on localized decision making you know that it's you know it's
00:25:18.740 been a bit of a sideshow in Alberta with respect to all the political parties you know my personally
00:25:23.940 for me I'm looking to raise some of the decorum around discussing about issues that matter rather
00:25:29.080 than about the political gamesmanship that's going on in Alberta and we didn't feel that
00:25:34.020 there was a place for most Albertans and where they're at on the, in the political parties that
00:25:39.340 are here today. So at some point or another, though, you're going to have to get out there
00:25:43.580 and be noticed. Well, and you're trying now, you're doing media and you're getting out.
00:25:47.720 I mean, you've still got a mountain of work ahead of you if you're, if you're looking to stand out
00:25:51.740 from the pack and the crowd. Is there an event being planned, I guess, in the future, some sort
00:25:56.460 of policy convention, general meeting, that sort of thing for other people to get involved? Because
00:26:00.920 I've looked on your site there's a lot of you know broad statements as you said but I mean
00:26:04.820 eventually you do have to have the the battles to try and come up with some more specific policies
00:26:09.120 and sort of fill out what you are yeah so in the beginning we focused on building principles right
00:26:14.440 and so those principles are built right into the fabric of the party so it's it's not like a leader
00:26:18.760 can just come with a pen change what the party stands for so right off the bat we wanted to build
00:26:22.720 a party that could stand the test of time we are planning on doing our first inaugural annual
00:26:28.460 general meeting it'll be later this year likely this fall for now we're just focused on building
00:26:33.340 up our local constituency associations uh memberships donations you can find us at
00:26:38.220 buffalopartyab.ca and see some of the things that we stand for but it's it's really about focusing
00:26:44.540 on the core principles first if you don't know what you stand for it's really hard to assess
00:26:50.700 where you want to land on certain issues and and so we wanted to build a broad consensus amongst
00:26:56.540 Albertans and our membership about what it is that we stand for and then and stick to that and use
00:27:01.500 those rules and use those tests when it comes time to do candidate selection policy development and
00:27:09.100 those principles have to be have to be enforced and they have to stand for something so you have
00:27:14.780 some broad principles when it comes to provincial autonomy but you make it quite clear that the
00:27:19.820 party has no interest in actual full-out secession or independence or anything of that sort correct
00:27:25.020 we're not a separatist party you know albertans have federalist parties to vote for they have
00:27:28.940 socialist parties to vote for and they have separatist parties to vote for and we feel that
00:27:33.420 most albertans are are not in any of those camps we're uh we care about alberta we care about being
00:27:39.100 canadian as well i'm a proud canadian you know at the end i think we all are separatism is a club
00:27:44.700 that we've seen other parts of confederation use uh to their advantage and i know i know where the
00:27:51.100 i know where the heart is for those people who believe that that's the only way you know i'm
00:27:55.900 frustrated too we're all frustrated and uh it's been it's been a hard you know most of the last
00:28:01.020 decade for alberta um but that's it's not a weapon that we're going to use uh we feel that collaboration
00:28:07.180 works better whether it's with the federal government or with uh uh you know provincial
00:28:12.060 employees uh government agencies and so on or even with other political parties so i got a commenter
00:28:18.300 Gregory Brunette, because there's other movements that have been taking off a lot, which aren't
00:28:21.440 necessarily political parties, but they're definitely very political in nature. And he
00:28:25.560 was asking what your take is on the Alberta Prosperity Project. They've been doing a lot
00:28:29.380 of organizing lately. Has there been communications with them or any similar Ragus policy fronts?
00:28:36.340 Yeah, no, not to my knowledge, personally. You know, everybody cares, right? We're all in this
00:28:42.740 to make a difference. And I think there's an opportunity to work with different groups.
00:28:46.460 we want to share ideas like you know we don't have a um we don't own all the ideas right we're
00:28:51.960 happy to share ideas we're happy to work with other other groups to put forth policy ideas i
00:28:56.580 mean that's what our policy convention is going to be about this fall in our annual general meeting
00:28:59.660 um we need to develop this in concert with other albertans um you know whether you're a sitting
00:29:06.060 mla uh whether you're involved with other political parties you're doing this because you care
00:29:10.120 and you know i'm never going to sit here and sort of bash someone who puts their life's work
00:29:14.620 into those type of institutions, but you need to have a leadership and need to have foundational
00:29:19.200 principles that value contribution, that value diversity, value acceptance, and ultimately
00:29:25.820 value the self-reliance of the individual, which is something we feel is missing in the
00:29:30.960 governments of the day, frankly. Yeah. So, so kind of getting back a little,
00:29:35.940 like, I mean, I'm not asking you to shoot, but another question commenter asking, you know,
00:29:39.060 like, so what is differentiating the Buffalo party from, for example, the Albert Advantage
00:29:42.920 party then? Because it is kind of a small shell of a party in that sense. There's a lot of room
00:29:47.760 for broad interpretation of where their policies are. So what does... Yeah. Well, I can't sit here
00:29:53.320 and tell you what other parties are standing for and necessarily where we contrast. I can tell you
00:29:57.100 what we stand for, right? So, you know, we care about the rule of law. We care about ethically
00:30:03.320 being represented by our MLAs. We care about universal healthcare and access to education
00:30:10.080 and looking for opportunities to improve upon that. We do care about diversity and acceptance
00:30:15.920 for all, just non-stop right there, like completely. We believe in families,
00:30:21.760 a foundational building block of society, and that's where cultural values come from.
00:30:26.000 And as I also mentioned, fiscal prudence, local decision-making, and economic freedom. You know,
00:30:31.440 if you look at most of the problems that are occurring in the world,
00:30:35.360 is economic growth is often a solution for all of them and that should be the foundational
00:30:42.640 function of government first is security and safety of its people followed by economic
00:30:47.520 development and prosperity right so i mean as i said you know i was involved in a lot of parties
00:30:52.640 in the past and one of our hardest times we always had as an alternative party was whenever
00:30:56.480 the provincial party went into a leadership race because suddenly all eyes focus there
00:31:00.480 everybody says oh we don't need all that work on a new party we can fix it with
00:31:04.160 candidate a b or c or whichever it may be and it just makes it exceedingly difficult to organize
00:31:09.980 and and get people on board so it's it's beyond your control but it's a challenge you're going
00:31:15.020 to have to face so what sort of a have you got events planned this summer and uh things that
00:31:19.980 to grab that attention and bring people's eyes to you during this period when there's so much
00:31:24.140 else going on on the larger front yeah like i said we're going to be building local constituency
00:31:28.600 associations we're going to be having policy conventions we're going to doing public events
00:31:33.340 You know, this is a bottom-up movement from Albertans.
00:31:36.720 It's not just about stealing the spotlight and stealing the cameras.
00:31:40.320 We're not going to be distracted by what's going on with the Jason Kennedy party right now.
00:31:44.000 You know, they're going to do what they're going to do.
00:31:46.300 But this is for Albertans who are just saying, you know, none of the above.
00:31:49.340 There's got to be something different.
00:31:50.840 And we propose that we're it.
00:31:53.400 And Jackie Burton, a commenter, just asking, what about oil and gas from Alberta?
00:31:57.540 You know, it is the center of our economy.
00:31:59.600 It's our biggest thing.
00:32:00.380 uh where does the party stand i guess on further development of it uh protecting it are you looking
00:32:07.020 towards transitions as the federal front is looking to do things such as that so we don't
00:32:11.740 have specific policies yet again i don't i don't hold the pen here um ultimately this is a member
00:32:16.780 driven party and member driven policy so you know and i go that that's that's a bit of a cop-out so
00:32:22.300 what i will say is economic development is important uh economic uh exploitation of our
00:32:27.460 resources is important. We believe in full support of the oil and gas industry in Alberta.
00:32:33.980 We're not a party that's going to say that we should ignore environmental issues. That's one
00:32:38.200 of our 12 founding principles is the environment matters. And it doesn't matter. It does matter
00:32:42.200 to Albertans. And so it's not something that we want to ignore. But as I said, most problems get
00:32:47.220 better with proper economic development. I work in innovation. I've been in engineering for 20
00:32:52.900 years, I work in aerospace and defense. And so I see what technology can do to completely
00:32:57.680 transform an industry, in that case, aerospace. And technology will also transform energy.
00:33:04.960 And Alberta is becoming a leader in that regard. And so rather than just looking at oil and gas,
00:33:10.020 we're a believer in the development of energy products and export to the world.
00:33:15.800 Great. Well, I appreciate your coming on and your effort. I know it's a tough road you're
00:33:20.800 taken and uh long run we'll see how it develops over time and perhaps we'll talk again down the
00:33:25.940 road where just a reminder to everybody then where can people who are interested find more
00:33:29.060 information about you and uh where you know whether they want to get involved or send ideas
00:33:33.880 yeah buffalopartyab.ca again we're uh we're working towards building local constituency
00:33:39.440 associations we're looking for members we have different tiers of membership for
00:33:43.480 people who want to participate at different levels and and ultimately again we are a member
00:33:47.920 driven party. Your opinions matter. And, you know, we would care to hear from you.
00:33:53.280 Great. Well, thanks, John. Good to see you again. And well, good luck going ahead. We'll see how it
00:33:58.340 all develops there. Yeah, let's do this again sometime. Thanks, Corey. Great. So that was
00:34:02.400 John Mulberg, the new leader of the Alberta Buffalo Party. And that's a new party on the
00:34:06.860 scene. As I said, it's a crowded field and they've got their work cut out. But well, that's the
00:34:10.980 democratic way. You keep bringing them out. And if they've got some merit, they'll take off. And
00:34:14.940 if they don't, they won't. I don't, I won't argue with those things. I mean, I'm somebody who went
00:34:20.540 and beat my head on the wall starting a new party and then getting involved with new parties in the
00:34:23.920 past too. And they can have influence and eventually sometimes they can morph into the
00:34:27.960 party of power or sometimes they can fall apart. We'll see how it develops. But I mean, as I said,
00:34:33.340 I was pretty impressed though with them managing to get registered. It can't be understated how
00:34:37.980 actually challenging and difficult that is. It's not a minor thing. Anybody who thinks that the
00:34:43.100 petitioning, getting 10,000, 14,000 signatures on a petition is easy. It's somebody who's never
00:34:47.620 actually petitioned for anything before. It's not like an online petition. You can't just get
00:34:51.960 somebody's, you know, clicking on a button and putting a signature and you need a physical
00:34:56.940 signature proving who that person is, what constituents they live in. And not everybody
00:35:01.540 is willing to sign on those. Even if they're supportive, they're worried about sharing
00:35:04.240 information. It's a lot of work. So we'll see if they got the get up and go to get registered.
00:35:10.280 well, then they might be going forward and doing some more. We'll see. And we're certainly happy to
00:35:16.740 speak to more people out there making initiatives like that. All right, let's go through some news
00:35:22.060 items and see what else we got going out there. Yes, it's getting back to a common thing we're
00:35:27.900 seeing in committee on the federal front. And that's, actually, I'm just going to clarify one
00:35:34.940 of these things. Sorry. So I see a commenter. I like the comments. I like responding to them.
00:35:37.960 So I believe in Jesus. I'm suspecting that's an anonymous name, but all the same. So didn't Michelle Rempel start this party? Now she supports Patrick Brown. No, that was the Buffalo Project. And there's where there's areas of confusion, though. And it's worth mentioning, which was a federal initiative that Michelle Rempel was a part of.
00:35:53.600 Michelle's been strange lately. I'm not sure what she's up to, but she has hitched her wagon 0.54
00:35:59.000 to Patrick Brown. And she did put out a ridiculous screen snap of a stupid email set up again, 0.99
00:36:05.560 back to the Patrick Brown campaign policy of trying to smear Polyev as a racist. But either
00:36:10.980 way, that's not related to the Buffalo Party, to my knowledge whatsoever. That's a separate
00:36:14.380 initiative. Uh, we got a lot of, uh, Buffalo things out there. Um, and then, uh, yes. So,
00:36:22.540 uh, yeah, there's Sanico also saying, yeah, Rampol's attached to the Buffalo project. So
00:36:26.400 different altogether. So yeah, we're, we're still getting the fallout. Like I said, in committee,
00:36:30.300 you know, committee is where the federal government sneaks a lot of things through.
00:36:33.180 Uh, when I get my next guest and we start talking about, uh, their efforts on internet control and
00:36:38.000 things such as that with Michael Geist, that's part of it. He's been talking to committees
00:36:41.320 because that's where these bills are going through.
00:36:43.240 The media doesn't watch them closely enough sometimes,
00:36:45.200 but there's a lot of gems
00:36:46.660 and we really see what the government is.
00:36:47.920 And the government's been using cabinet confidentiality
00:36:53.020 constantly, just shutting things down.
00:36:54.980 They're afraid of scrutiny.
00:36:56.640 This government has run terribly federally
00:36:58.580 and the Afghanistan debacle of last year
00:37:01.940 when the ambassador fled Afghanistan
00:37:05.940 like a coward in a part empty plane
00:37:08.100 while leaving a lot of Canadian allies and citizens behind
00:37:10.500 when everything was hit in the fan.
00:37:12.420 Well, we're looking back to see
00:37:13.240 just what the heck happened there.
00:37:15.300 But now the Kabul files are secret.
00:37:18.020 Liberal MPs invoked national security in this case.
00:37:20.620 No, no, we can't talk about this anymore
00:37:22.780 because it involves national security.
00:37:27.040 Yeah, because the ambassador, like a coward,
00:37:30.220 got on a half-empty military plane with his staffers
00:37:32.360 and took off, fled the coop, left people behind.
00:37:35.260 These are the people we pay to represent us.
00:37:36.800 These are the people we put in those countries.
00:37:38.960 You know, I don't expect them to go down with the ship if things got dangerously and die on the posting.
00:37:44.520 But there's a reason these guys make high six-figure incomes.
00:37:47.260 It's not supposed to be an easy job.
00:37:49.040 And if you're going to be stationed somewhere like Afghanistan, there's a degree of risk.
00:37:52.400 So at least sticking around to make sure you save as many people as possible when there's a mass exodus.
00:37:59.160 Not to mention, what was your ear to the ground as an ambassador when it seems Canada was one of the only countries in the world
00:38:06.460 that didn't know that the Taliban was moving in and it was going to hit the fan,
00:38:10.320 somehow got caught with their pants down.
00:38:12.900 So, you know, we've got to investigate these.
00:38:16.640 What went wrong?
00:38:17.320 But now we can't find out because they've shut down the committee and says,
00:38:20.500 no, it has to do with national security.
00:38:22.880 We can't talk about it.
00:38:24.560 So they're covering their asses, is basically the bottom line.
00:38:28.240 And they'll be concealing the reports.
00:38:30.460 And they adjourn the committee hearings without a vote on the motion now,
00:38:33.180 where there's a motion to try and get documents
00:38:36.480 and find out what happened.
00:38:38.220 So basically, yeah,
00:38:39.060 this is the liberal case thing.
00:38:43.220 We just need to take the government officials
00:38:44.840 at their word.
00:38:46.600 Oh, really?
00:38:48.580 Come on, guys.
00:38:50.560 This is a government very prone to aligning.
00:38:52.240 Our public safety minister,
00:38:53.840 how many lies was he caught in?
00:38:55.140 I mean, 11 lies alone from that minister
00:38:57.700 just on whether or not the police
00:39:02.480 wanted the Emergencies Act invoked. He lied about arsonists. And these liberal MPs are telling us
00:39:08.580 we're supposed to take the government's and their officials' words when it comes to something like
00:39:13.020 the gross abandonment of Canadian allies and individuals in Afghanistan. No, no, we shouldn't
00:39:19.960 be doing that at all. We should be digging in there. We should be finding out what's going on.
00:39:24.660 And yeah, Conservative Member of Parliament, Michael Chong, was critical. But again,
00:39:29.480 there's not much you can do when the government has that power when the government has uh even
00:39:34.080 with a minority if they've got the ndp backing them up and they dominate those committees
00:39:37.620 there is no accountability there's no digging in they'll just shut it down they'll use things like
00:39:43.400 security or cabinet confidentiality and and uh shut down debate on it uh here's another story
00:39:50.680 this was something i've seen some mockery on social media about it and that's that uh
00:39:56.620 A federally subsidized report complained that media are subject to online abuse from Canadian social media users and Convoy sympathizers.
00:40:06.780 And authors stopped short of endorsing federal censorship of Twitter and Facebook.
00:40:12.320 Well, they're laying the groundwork.
00:40:16.220 And, you know, they're holding this event on Parliament Hill, a place where so many journalists have been exposed to trauma and harassment,
00:40:25.240 said uh this associate director alan thompson of carlton university and uh let's see thompson is
00:40:31.500 also a toronto star reporter you know the red star and uh he joined it with cbc staff in publishing
00:40:37.120 this garbage uh that they put out and i mean this is even before the pandemic media workers were
00:40:42.160 already encountering a rise in harassment confrontation and online abuse guess what guys
00:40:47.060 there's mean people on the internet i hate to break that to you i hate to throw that out to
00:40:52.480 I know, I know. I'm shattering some illusions. I'm being cruel. I might even hurt your feelings.
00:40:57.780 I'm sorry. Actually, I'm not. I'm with any media. Mainstream media, legacy media, alternative media.
00:41:06.740 You should see some of the stuff I get in my inbox. You should see some of the tweets I get sent my way.
00:41:11.000 I choose that. I choose to immerse myself in that public social media world and to get on here.
00:41:16.800 And you know what I can do? If it's really beyond the pale, and I do a lot, some people argue with it, fine.
00:41:21.100 they don't have to agree with me, but I block. I block like hell. Every social media platform
00:41:26.100 gives you the ability to block somebody. This person's being abusive on Twitter,
00:41:31.280 I block them. I don't care. I don't have time for them. I don't debate with them. If I want
00:41:35.460 to debate with them, I'll debate with them then. But I'm not going to have my feelings hurt and
00:41:38.640 whine and piss and moan. Because that's what this report's about on the mental health being
00:41:42.600 and well-being and trauma among Canadian media workers. That's the terms these guys are using.
00:41:47.140 What kind of pussies have we got in our mainstream media?
00:41:50.540 Guys, buck up.
00:41:52.500 I mean, there's differences if you're talking harassment in the street.
00:41:54.660 And I did see a bit of that.
00:41:56.340 I did see that at protests.
00:41:58.140 They are not well received.
00:42:00.060 Nobody should be physically assaulting a reporter, no matter how much you don't like them.
00:42:03.900 You shouldn't get into their face too terribly much, even if you despise them.
00:42:07.880 They're doing their job.
00:42:09.160 Leave them be.
00:42:09.620 They're not doing it well, for the most part.
00:42:11.760 They're going to be putting out biased crap, for the most part.
00:42:14.040 We know that.
00:42:15.380 But assaulting them or pressuring them on the streets isn't called for.
00:42:19.100 All the same, that's not what most of these guys are talking about.
00:42:21.360 They're talking about online abuse. 0.90
00:42:22.780 Oh, you poor darlings, get over it. 0.99
00:42:25.720 Get over it.
00:42:27.160 It's the new world.
00:42:28.300 I mean, yes, there's a lot of abusive, nasty people, sins, and things on social media.
00:42:33.820 They hide behind the cloak of anonymity, and they throw things out there that are thoughtless,
00:42:39.280 sometimes hurtful, whatever they might be.
00:42:41.560 Again, freedom comes with responsibilities,
00:42:43.200 and it comes with hearing and seeing things you don't want to hear and see.
00:42:47.120 If you are such a snowflake that you can't handle this,
00:42:50.260 this traumatizes you, maybe you shouldn't be in media.
00:42:54.980 If it's somebody who's actually threatening you,
00:42:57.840 that's a different thing.
00:42:58.960 That's a problem.
00:43:00.120 Call the police.
00:43:01.860 I mean, I know it's not perfect, but that's what you do.
00:43:04.080 But most of this is just people being arseholes online.
00:43:06.780 So what?
00:43:07.860 So what? 0.97
00:43:08.480 Jerks will always exist. 0.99
00:43:10.100 and they will be more than happy to share their jerkiness, 0.98
00:43:13.760 but you don't actually have to listen to it.
00:43:16.000 So yes, 50% of Canadian media workers
00:43:18.000 reported being harassed or threatened on social media.
00:43:20.780 See, it's always social media they're talking about.
00:43:22.260 They're not even talking about stuff on the street.
00:43:24.500 So what? Get over it.
00:43:26.660 Block.
00:43:28.040 Don't take part.
00:43:29.040 There's a lot of them,
00:43:29.680 just don't take part in Twitter whatsoever.
00:43:32.180 That's if you can't handle it.
00:43:34.540 No, this is where we're going.
00:43:35.720 And why?
00:43:36.080 Because this all segues into trying to control the internet.
00:43:41.520 That's what this is about.
00:43:42.880 That's what it always keeps coming down to.
00:43:45.500 That's what I'm going to be talking to Michael Geist about.
00:43:47.840 These guys are laying the groundwork for it.
00:43:50.620 These committees, these commissions.
00:43:52.240 It's just like with the Liberal Commissions too,
00:43:53.780 constantly talking about ways to increase or tax your primary residence.
00:44:02.980 You see, this is the way the government does things.
00:44:04.440 They constantly commission these kinds of studies and reports and studies and reports, and then they'll deny they want to do it, but they're building the ground, the foundation for what they want to do, and that's why they give the money to this crap.
00:44:16.740 But they're moving along with it, all those poor darlings.
00:44:19.020 You know, Dave Siglin's a CBC radio host and co-leader of the research products, and hurtful media criticism is growing.
00:44:24.800 There's a rise of social media trolling, political polarization, anger directed at the so-called fake news.
00:44:30.340 Well, you guys actually, CBC, you retracted a whole lot of stuff.
00:44:33.420 So there's no so-called about it.
00:44:34.500 You put out a lot of fake news.
00:44:37.180 Growing hate and harassment that's been targeting mainstream media online and in the field.
00:44:41.260 Again, there's two things you can do with it.
00:44:43.680 You can hit block.
00:44:45.080 Not that hard.
00:44:47.760 Or just get off social media.
00:44:50.960 Do something else.
00:44:52.320 You took a public position.
00:44:53.740 That's the way it goes.
00:44:55.880 But if they weren't listening to me, they're going to lobby the government.
00:44:58.620 The government will indulge them, guys.
00:45:00.340 the bought and paid media. Let's look at this government. Here's another beauty. Mary Ng,
00:45:05.560 this is a person, let's see, a campaign aid, conservative MP, uncovered a sole source contract.
00:45:14.780 So this was, she's a small business minister, a liberal minister. So many ministries. I didn't
00:45:20.160 know we had a small business minister. But yeah, she gave a sole source contact. And that means, 0.98
00:45:25.380 again, it didn't go out to bid. She just straight out said, here, here's your contract.
00:45:30.340 And to a former campaign aide in CBC, again, it keeps tying back to them, isn't it?
00:45:34.280 CBC pundit.
00:45:35.660 So, hey, give us good press.
00:45:37.120 We'll give you some lucre on the side.
00:45:38.820 Don't worry about that.
00:45:39.520 Plus, you know, help with my campaign and we'll help you out a little later. 0.97
00:45:42.560 This is an inbred government. 0.94
00:45:44.020 This is a corrupted government.
00:45:45.740 And this is not a minor deal.
00:45:49.360 And as was said by James Bezin, you know, just another installment in the long-running saga
00:45:54.180 of members of the liberal government making a mockery of both the letter and spirit of ethical laws.
00:45:59.460 It is.
00:46:00.620 And so, I mean, yeah, it was, as some would say, only $16,950 payment to Minister Ng's friend.
00:46:10.700 So, I don't care if it's $5.
00:46:12.860 If it's inappropriate, it's not your money.
00:46:15.060 You're giving our money to your friend.
00:46:17.980 It's a political payoff, and it stinks.
00:46:20.760 So, yeah, we need an investigation.
00:46:22.980 And you know what?
00:46:24.040 $17,000?
00:46:26.240 That's a lot of money to a lot of us.
00:46:27.740 I know it's a lot of money to me.
00:46:29.800 So yes, follow up on this.
00:46:31.460 We got to start taking these guys to task.
00:46:33.420 And I'm talking about charging them.
00:46:35.760 Let's get further.
00:46:36.740 Again, we've got this liberal government that fought and shot down an effort to,
00:46:42.720 they wanted to raise the maximum fine for an ethics breach in parliament right now is $500.
00:46:49.460 $500.
00:46:50.200 These clowns in parliament make that before lunchtime.
00:46:52.700 That's the fine for the ethics breach.
00:46:54.480 And they tried to raise that and it got shot down.
00:46:57.740 These guys are completely unaccountable.
00:47:00.520 They have no respect for our funds.
00:47:02.800 They have a gross sense of entitlement.
00:47:04.540 I don't know how we can unseat them.
00:47:07.260 But these guys, right in our face.
00:47:11.840 It says, it's pointing out that, you know, they found out some of this,
00:47:14.860 so it's Pomp and Circumstances PR was the company that her friend runs.
00:47:19.020 Kind of an appropriate name, isn't it?
00:47:21.260 And it's operated by Amanda Alvaro, again, a former pundit on CBC Power and Politics.
00:47:26.880 You can make a lot of really good relationships with politicians that way for later business deals, can't you?
00:47:32.580 And a long-time associate of minister.
00:47:35.540 This is a cursory Google search found.
00:47:37.280 You know, you can see pictures of Minister Ng and Alvaro posing together at a luxury department store's party in 2012.
00:47:44.660 Yeah, yeah, just common folks getting together, you know.
00:47:47.700 Everybody goes to those luxury department store parties.
00:47:50.800 And, of course, they were at a Trudeau fundraiser together.
00:47:54.820 And they're very close people.
00:47:56.880 So what do they do? Take somebody else's tax dollars, give it to them. And there will not
00:48:01.740 be any really accountability. We'll keep complaining. We'll keep exposing it on here
00:48:05.920 as much as we can. You know, the CBC won't report on this, but it's getting uglier and uglier. And
00:48:10.280 the longer the government's in, the more corrupt they'll get. I'm going to talk about a sponsor
00:48:14.580 before we get to the next guest when he gets here. And that is the Canadian Shooting Sports
00:48:19.320 Association. These guys are, well, as their name says it, they're an association for people who
00:48:24.500 want to safely, legally enjoy shooting sports, whether it's collecting firearms or target
00:48:30.180 shooting, skeet shooting, hunting, any of those things, it's nobody's business. As long as you're
00:48:33.480 not hurting anybody else, as long as you're a law-abiding citizen, and I know you are,
00:48:37.240 that's what we're about. Conservatives are law-abiding citizens, but we need to work
00:48:41.160 together. We need to share resources. We need to make sure we stay safe. We make sure the right
00:48:46.100 people have firearms and lobby, make sure the wrong ones don't have them anymore. That's part
00:48:50.920 what the Canadian Shooting Sports Association does.
00:48:53.560 They lobby on your behalf to protect your rights
00:48:55.400 to continue to use firearms.
00:48:58.080 And they offer a lot of resources
00:48:59.500 to help you continue to safely use them.
00:49:01.740 All sorts of videos, links to trade shows, events, news items.
00:49:05.600 So check them out, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association,
00:49:08.340 because you need to take out a membership with them
00:49:09.880 so they can stand up for you,
00:49:11.380 because they can't do it alone.
00:49:12.940 And they are well worth it.
00:49:14.660 C-S-S-A-C-I-L-A.org is their website. 0.75
00:49:18.920 All right. Where are we now? Okay. So we've got more new stuff going. The guests should be here
00:49:27.440 soon, hopefully. And we will talk about more things. I think he's coming into the lobby right
00:49:32.340 there quite quickly. And once we finish with that interview, yeah, the Indian Taxpayers Federation
00:49:37.900 had their Teddy Awards yesterday. I'm going to break down some of those where our political
00:49:44.680 betters, unfortunately, have had a habit of misappropriating our funds sometimes, and
00:49:49.760 they earn the dubious honors of the Teddy Awards. It's been going on for some time with the
00:49:55.360 Taxpayers Federation and exposing some of the more egregious uses of our tax dollars on occasion.
00:50:01.940 But before we get to that, we will get to our guest. I've been looking forward to this. As I
00:50:06.000 said, this is a professor from the University of Ottawa, Michael Geist, and I've really always
00:50:10.020 appreciated what he's been writing when it comes to free communication, internet freedoms, and he's
00:50:16.680 willing to go to those committees and speak to those people and dig through those long, dry,
00:50:23.000 odious documents to expose what's hidden within them and just help stand up for what's right.
00:50:29.280 So let's bring Professor Geist in and have a conversation. Hello, Mr. Geist. Thank you for
00:50:34.400 joining us today. Oh, hi. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
00:50:38.900 But I guess, you know, the two main things I want to talk about, and it's very familiar ground for you.
00:50:45.060 You've been outspoken and writing on it lately, and there's two bills, C-11 and C-18.
00:50:50.220 Particularly as an independent media outlet, we're, of course, very concerned about C-18.
00:50:54.700 But I guess in a nutshell, could you kind of give some short definitions of what those bills are and what they entail?
00:51:00.080 Yeah, absolutely.
00:51:00.880 And I'm glad you raised both because I think they're both really important as part of this discussion.
00:51:04.540 C-11 is probably better known to certainly some of your audience as C-10 because it was C-10 in an earlier life.
00:51:13.000 That was last year. It died and is returned as Bill C-11.
00:51:16.520 It is reformed to the Broadcasting Act.
00:51:20.560 And while it started, I think, somewhat uncontroversially when people looked at it and thought,
00:51:25.860 well, this is a bill that tries to bring companies like Netflix and Disney into the Canadian broadcast system,
00:51:30.740 became much more controversial once government removed some safeguards
00:51:35.940 that then brought in user-generated content within its ambit
00:51:39.740 and I think caused a fair amount of concern.
00:51:42.120 We can get into some of those details if you like in a moment.
00:51:44.740 C-18 quickly involves, is called the Online News Act,
00:51:49.360 and it is designed to provide support, the government says, for Canada's media.
00:51:54.120 That includes not only a conventional print, but also any number of radio, of the CBC even.
00:52:03.440 And the idea that they've got is that that should all be paid for by the large internet platforms such as Google and Facebook.
00:52:14.540 Okay, so yeah, I guess starting with the C11 and that's talking about the regulation of user content.
00:52:21.440 I mean, they kind of deny that, but that's essentially what it's about.
00:52:24.580 And they use the CanCon basis for feeling that they're going to do it.
00:52:29.580 One of the things you'd spoken on was that it wouldn't even necessarily protect Canadian content all that better anyhow,
00:52:36.780 and it might not be the route to go.
00:52:39.140 Yeah, well, I think one of, you know, to me, one of the foundational problems with C11,
00:52:44.100 the Broadcasting Act bill, is that it is framed by the government as being there largely to promote,
00:52:51.440 Canadian content. And they often discuss that in terms of saying we want to ensure that Canadian
00:52:57.320 stories get made. But the not so secret reality of the current Canadian system is that it does a
00:53:04.020 really lousy job of doing that. And so it's a bit more of a tick box exercise where if you check the
00:53:11.600 right boxes, you are considered to be Canadian content. And if you don't, you're not. And the
00:53:16.560 problem with that is that there is content that qualifies as being canadian content that most would
00:53:22.240 agree has really nothing to do with uh or even pretend to be about canadian stories in any
00:53:27.840 meaningful way it just ticked the right boxes and then on the other hand you get content that
00:53:33.120 in many respects meets all the standards that we would otherwise consider to be canadian content
00:53:38.640 yet it doesn't qualify just to give you one example i raised it when i appeared before the
00:53:42.560 heritage committee earlier this week one of netflix's productions is a french quebec produced
00:53:48.560 french-based film called just a decline it's a canadian it's got a canadian production company
00:53:53.600 screenwriter director lead performers photography director production designer composer editor
00:53:59.760 quite literally it ticks every box but the fact that it is netflix that financed and produced it
00:54:06.400 means that it does not count as certified canadian content so we've got a system that frankly just
00:54:12.160 isn't fit for purpose if the goal is is truly to promote these so-called canadian stories
00:54:18.240 yeah i mean the goal shouldn't matter which outlet or which media source is doing it like we've have
00:54:22.640 a changing world where it's going to be cooperation with large operators such as netflix and streaming
00:54:28.480 services that are going to be partnered in making canadian content that gets to a broader audience
00:54:33.200 so if we don't recognize what they're producing under that field we're doing ourselves a disservice
00:54:38.720 Yeah, no, I think that, you know, I think we should recognize we've got a hugely successful
00:54:44.200 sector right now and one in which there's record amounts that are coming into the sector.
00:54:50.300 Part of the challenge with this issue is that when people talk about Canadian content, there's real
00:54:55.780 differences in terms of their views about what they're trying to achieve. So sometimes it's
00:54:59.900 about Canadian stories. Sometimes it's about the economic imperative of jobs. And sometimes it's
00:55:05.280 about intellectual property. It's about Canadians owning these productions. Depending on what you're 0.62
00:55:11.160 trying to achieve, you need a policy that kind of moves you in that direction. But it's pretty tough
00:55:15.760 to achieve all three, at least simultaneously, and have a coherent policy. And yet, that's what
00:55:21.760 we have right now, which I think helps explain a little bit why the policy is so incoherent.
00:55:26.720 So, I mean, just to, you know, play a little devil's advocate, at least as far as I'm concerned,
00:55:31.980 is more libertarian-minded of saying,
00:55:33.840 kind of, let it go.
00:55:34.480 I trust our Canadian producers
00:55:35.740 to come up with good quality content and do well.
00:55:38.620 But people are concerned they'll be overwhelmed.
00:55:40.240 We have a neighbor who is very large
00:55:42.140 and can really dominate the media industry.
00:55:44.900 Is there room then for some sort of legislation, though,
00:55:47.040 to protect Canadian content?
00:55:48.500 Or does the current legislation still serve even,
00:55:52.480 or does it need change?
00:55:54.060 Well, that's a great question.
00:55:56.080 I guess I would start by saying,
00:55:58.060 you know, there's a number.
00:55:59.920 Let me unpack a few things there.
00:56:01.500 First, specifically on the question, is there a role for government to support the production of content in Canada, including, of course, Canadian content?
00:56:10.360 I think my view is that the answer is yes, there is.
00:56:13.100 We already certainly provide significant support through tax credits.
00:56:17.840 And we know that without some of that tax credit system, both federally and provincially, that a lot of that economic activity will simply walk away and go elsewhere.
00:56:26.720 And so there is a role.
00:56:28.480 All countries do it.
00:56:29.420 All jurisdictions do it.
00:56:30.480 if you want to have a robust sector, there is a role for the government to play. And I think I'd
00:56:35.200 be willing to go further and say that if you want to ensure that there are certain kinds of stories
00:56:40.080 and productions, that you're not just a so-called branch plant for production, let's say, coming out
00:56:44.880 of the United States, there is also a role for government to incentivize some of that kind of
00:56:49.520 creativity and provide support in that regard. Part of the problem, I would say, is that our
00:56:53.920 current system does a pretty bad job of that, even though it is used as the rationale for the kinds
00:57:00.080 of reforms that we're seeing. In terms of whether or not we need some of these changes, you know,
00:57:04.980 I think you can make an argument that the large curated streaming services, so the Netflix and
00:57:10.920 Disney's of the world, function in many ways like large broadcasters. And so you could try to make
00:57:16.880 the case that, you know, it makes sense to have some kind of regulations associated with those
00:57:23.160 large curated streaming services in the same way that you would with broadcasters. The problem with
00:57:28.860 this bill is that it goes way, way, way beyond that.
00:57:32.160 It covers all streaming services, covers, frankly, all audio visual content
00:57:36.960 anywhere in the world, and then leaves it up to the CRTC to decide what gets
00:57:41.020 exempted, and I think that kind of flips the approach we ought to be taking.
00:57:45.300 We could identify, I think, a narrow group of very large influential streaming
00:57:49.540 services and say, you sure look a lot like a broadcaster.
00:57:52.720 We want to bring in some of those same kinds of rules.
00:57:55.180 That's a far cry, though, from what the government has in mind with Bill C-11.
00:57:59.720 And I had Peter Menzies on as a guest before.
00:58:02.440 I believe he spoke to the same committee that you did, and he was a former head of the CRTC.
00:58:06.500 I mean, he's not fully opposed to a degree of regulation and mandating and broadcast and journalism,
00:58:12.280 but he's quite concerned with what he's seeing coming out, too.
00:58:16.480 Oh, no doubt.
00:58:17.620 I mean, certainly, you know, Peter and I did appear together, and we raised concerns.
00:58:22.540 Notably, I think on that same day, we had some coming from the Digital First creative community.
00:58:28.860 Morgan Forche, for example, who runs a company called Skyship Entertainment, which is Canada's largest YouTube streamer.
00:58:36.700 Frankly, its numbers would be mind-boggling even to some of the very well-established Canadian services.
00:58:42.880 We're talking about tens of millions of subscribers, billions of streams, 97% of which occur outside the country.
00:58:50.940 All of their intellectual property and their creativity created here in Canada, yet you don't hear about them.
00:58:56.840 They don't actively use some of the kind of government granting systems that we've seen.
00:59:01.420 And they're concerned about the bill because they're concerned that when the government oversteps into this area, because they are not one, they're not a Netflix and they're not using those kinds of platforms, they're worried it could have a real negative impact for them.
00:59:15.620 Well, there's a lot of unique ventures and companies and things that didn't exist 20 years ago that exist today.
00:59:20.180 And it's hard to keep legislation to keep up with what's going to develop.
00:59:23.760 So it's good to hear that concern.
00:59:26.040 So to kind of pivot to C18 then, that's a little different, and that's getting more towards independent media a lot, and the big providers, Facebook, Google, and others, it's basically looking for a setup, I kind of see it as putting the screws to them a little, but paying for access and placement. Can you kind of explain how that's working?
00:59:47.040 Yeah, no. So the way it's working or the way it could end up working is that, you know, you've had some of the very large Canadian media organizations, Post Media and Torstar, I suppose most notably, arguing that they would like to see companies like Google and Facebook pay them for sort of the references to their news articles that exist on their sites.
01:00:09.260 And I think that for some people, if what we were talking about was some of these platforms taking full copies of their articles and posting them on those sites and then perhaps selling ads against it, they would say, you know what, that's something that we think you ought to be compensating for.
01:00:23.920 But that's not what we're talking about, in part because those platforms don't copy full text of these articles. They typically just post links to the underlying services themselves. And so it seems to me that that's, as I say, that's not what we're not even talking about full copying.
01:00:39.740 And the legislation is pretty clear that it goes well beyond the notion of compensation for reproduction of works.
01:00:48.040 It talks about facilitating access to the news or any portion thereof.
01:00:54.220 And so when you're talking about facilitating access to news, you're talking about linking to the news.
01:00:59.200 You're talking about creating an index that might include various news services.
01:01:03.740 So, for example, if you include if if someone ran a search on Google for tell me Western based news organizations and your news organization and a bunch of others showed up, the mere fact that they were on that list under this legislation would be viewed as facilitating access to the news and would be viewed as something that Google ought to be compensating the underlying companies for, which I must admit I find baffling because they're actually driving traffic.
01:01:33.740 to these underlying sites and yet the position is that somehow it's google that benefits let's say
01:01:39.340 from the inclusion of this information in their index and thus they ought to be compensating
01:01:45.420 the underlying news organizations that are linked to yeah i find it kind of bizarre i mean for for
01:01:51.500 our organization we are very dependent on that if we are listed in google and facebook and some of
01:01:56.220 those we can't get our message to the broader audience very easily at all i mean we have
01:01:59.820 have newsletters, we do everything we can, if anything, and I'm not proposing that, we should
01:02:05.640 almost be paying them a little bit for how much they promote us outside of that. When we bring
01:02:09.100 traffic in, we bring subscribers, we make our money on the advertising after that. So it's just
01:02:14.140 sort of absurd. But the thing is, this will stack things if they got what they wanted, sort of more
01:02:19.040 heavily for those, the larger, the heavyweights out there, as you said, Taurus, Star, Post Media,
01:02:24.160 and the little independent outlets like ourselves could end up finding ourselves on the outside
01:02:28.180 looking in and that's very troubling for us and I think for people in general. I think the
01:02:33.240 independents find themselves in a very very difficult position you know the government
01:02:37.300 has tried to make the case that no this is this is not not going to hurt the independents that
01:02:43.000 they will have the opportunity to benefit from the negotiations in the same way that the large
01:02:47.960 players would but left unsaid is that there are and I think you've hinted at it here there are
01:02:52.960 many independents that recognize that if anything, the value proposition is one where they're the
01:02:58.540 beneficiaries of this. And those free referrals are worth quite a bit. And we know that, of course,
01:03:04.580 because media organizations pay to advertise on these services all the time to drive links. They
01:03:10.020 literally are paying for those links in many circumstances. And suddenly now they're saying,
01:03:14.760 no, no, you should be paying us for those links. I think the problem for many independents is that
01:03:19.780 they may find themselves in a position where they feel they have no choice but to enter into this
01:03:24.740 process. That if your competitors are doing it, then suddenly you say, well, how can I compete
01:03:29.860 if I've created a digital only news service in a local community and I've got this literally the
01:03:36.340 CBC is my primary competitor already potentially supported by tax dollars suddenly now gaining
01:03:43.080 additional support by participating in a process where they're getting money from Google and
01:03:47.740 Facebook, can I really afford to stay on the sidelines and, you know, and put myself in a
01:03:53.980 less competitive position over time? It puts us at a disadvantage. Wasn't there a battle
01:03:58.960 similar to this in Australia in the past? It was sort of Facebook versus Australia. And how did
01:04:04.260 that all finish out? Actually, I think somebody backed off somewhere. It was. And so, and so the
01:04:09.460 government will tell you that they're using the Australian example as their model. And the
01:04:13.900 Australian approach did involve Facebook for a brief period of time saying they were simply going
01:04:18.140 to remove news links from their service altogether. That the reality for them is that
01:04:25.400 news on their platform just is a relatively trivial part of the overall content world on
01:04:32.340 a Facebook platform. And so if they're facing a world in which they're required to pay for that
01:04:38.100 compensation for links, you know, I think that these companies look at this a little bit as an
01:04:43.500 existential threat because they say, listen, what makes news so special that if I have to pay for
01:04:49.100 links for news, why don't I have to pay for links for a myriad of other content that people happen
01:04:54.100 to post on my site? They might come and say, hey, I want to get paid for that too. And so they did
01:04:59.220 take a strong position and say that they weren't going to include news. They backed off under a
01:05:05.880 clearly enormous political pressure. But we need to understand, of course, that the Australian
01:05:10.380 market is pretty different than the Canadian market, not the least of which is that in some
01:05:14.280 ways it was largely a battle by Rupert Murdoch on the one side and Facebook, Google, Google on the
01:05:20.580 other. And, you know, as a home cooking, so to speak, for Murdoch as an Australian-based media
01:05:26.140 organization, no surprise what the outcome was. We don't have quite the same kind of media
01:05:31.180 environment in Canada, though. Yeah, so I guess kind of in wrapping up, it looks like these bills,
01:05:36.400 though, are sort of getting rammed through. You wrote recently the government moved to end debate
01:05:40.240 and kind of ramrodding, ramrodded through the next step in the legislative process. Is there
01:05:45.640 much chance, do you think, of having these bills amended or perhaps scrapped, or does it look like
01:05:50.100 they're pretty much a done deal? That's a great question. You know, obviously, they've got the
01:05:54.780 government right now has the votes, minority government, but has support from the NDP. And
01:05:59.460 frankly, on this issue, these issues has the support from the bloc as well. So scrapping
01:06:05.060 the bills does not seem like a likely outcome. Is there the prospect for change? In the context
01:06:11.000 of C-11, I think we're about to find out, given that the hearings will continue next week and
01:06:16.840 very soon afterwards, we'll see what amendments are proposed. And so it is possible that the
01:06:22.380 government may be open to some change. On C-18, on the news bill, it's hard to know in part because
01:06:28.820 the government is trying to move this very expeditiously with really no debate at all.
01:06:33.320 I mean, it's frankly, I think, remarkable to see the government move ahead with this,
01:06:39.960 with the minister responsible, the Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, has quite literally
01:06:44.620 not given a speech on this bill in the House yet. He's never even responded to a question about the
01:06:50.000 bill in the House. And yet the government's already moved to end debate on the bill starting
01:06:55.360 next week. That's quite problematic. I guess all we can do is just keep watching and try to point
01:07:00.440 things out. And I hope perhaps in the Senate, they'll get some more scrutiny. And, you know,
01:07:04.900 sometimes we do get amendments and some good changes in there. So I appreciate your coming
01:07:09.120 on to talk to us about that today and the work you're doing, you know, and bringing attention
01:07:12.680 to this. As I said, kind of some of the viewers, it can be considered somewhat dry content to some,
01:07:16.660 but it's very important. And I appreciate your work on it. So where can people find more
01:07:22.180 information on what you're doing and to keep track of these sorts of issues.
01:07:25.220 Yeah, sure.
01:07:25.720 So I'm online at michaelgeist.ca, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-G-E-I-S-T dot C-A.
01:07:32.280 And I'm on Twitter at mgeist, at M-G-E-I-S-T.
01:07:37.120 Well, great.
01:07:37.520 Well, thank you again for coming on and well, let's hope for the best.
01:07:41.580 And perhaps we'll talk again down the road with some positive developments on this front.
01:07:45.160 That would be great.
01:07:45.860 Thanks so much for having me.
01:07:47.120 Thank you.
01:07:48.560 So it's that reminder that's Professor Michael Geist.
01:07:50.820 and yes michaelgeist.ca and you know those bills those two bills they represent so much more i
01:07:57.800 mean it's this uh fervent push the government has to control all things information to control what
01:08:03.520 gets to you and it's frightening as he said isn't it's bizarre the sponsoring person was the heritage
01:08:08.460 minister pablo rodriguez who hasn't even spoken to the bill they're trying to get this thing pushed
01:08:12.720 through all the way through committee and into legislation soon and the minister in charge hasn't
01:08:17.720 even addressed it. Why is this government so frantic? Well, we know why they want to control
01:08:22.140 information. If they can do so, man, when you control information, you control everything.
01:08:28.220 And this government is really, they see us, they see independent media, they see independent
01:08:33.320 thought, independent communication as a threat. We're a thorn in their butt. We're a pain. They
01:08:38.780 can't control us. They don't like what we're saying. So if they can control us, they will.
01:08:43.860 And again, all the way back to the trucker's convoy,
01:08:46.580 whether people agree with the protests or don't,
01:08:48.440 we've really got a leaning towards authoritarianism
01:08:50.720 in this government right now
01:08:51.680 that is really troubling, you know, really very much.
01:08:54.940 Individual rights, communication, free speech,
01:08:56.980 things like that are falling by the wayside.
01:09:00.120 These two bills are indications of that.
01:09:02.480 And Professor Geist, he's been working on this for years.
01:09:04.540 He was talking about internet regulation years ago as well.
01:09:07.080 I do strongly suggest it.
01:09:08.900 You go into a site for a deep dive,
01:09:10.320 there's a lot of information on things
01:09:12.060 and these subjects that are really, really important.
01:09:15.120 So I'm going to speak one more time to one of our sponsors
01:09:17.140 and I'll get onto those,
01:09:18.900 I think it's from the Taxpayers Federation
01:09:20.200 with those prizes.
01:09:21.220 It's great stuff.
01:09:21.860 I like those awards every year.
01:09:23.600 And that sponsors Bitcoin well.
01:09:25.820 And I mentioned them earlier,
01:09:27.340 you know, if you're looking to get into digital currencies,
01:09:29.060 you're looking to hedge your bets,
01:09:31.460 you know, get out of the government's control on things.
01:09:35.040 These guys are the way to do it.
01:09:36.240 Like the main thing with these digital currencies,
01:09:38.040 they're new, they're foreign to a lot of us.
01:09:39.820 You want to make sure you're dealing
01:09:40.680 with somebody you trust.
01:09:41.520 I mean, this is your money. You worked hard for it. It seems like there's always somebody trying
01:09:44.760 to rip you off, somebody trying to steal from you. Well, this isn't the case. These are a local
01:09:52.080 company. These are a publicly traded company. They will talk to you one-on-one, face-to-face
01:09:56.520 and make sure you're safe. Your money is always safe. And they educate. There's all sorts of
01:10:01.120 courses, seminars, online, information. Again, speaking of deep dives into information, you just
01:10:06.020 go to bitcoinwell.com. You can see Bitcoin Academy, all these things. And like I said,
01:10:10.120 maybe Bitcoin's not for you. But the way to find out is to get in there and get a good honest
01:10:13.460 account on what it's about. Check them out, guys. Bitcoinwell.com and take control of your money.
01:10:21.880 All right. So yes, the Big Teddy Awards, and that is the annual Canadian Taxpayers Federation
01:10:26.680 contest. They always dress somebody up, I believe, like a pig, and they hand those out. We had
01:10:32.260 coverage there in person, actually, the other day when that came out. Right now, they like to remind
01:10:37.660 everybody. Every Canadian's on the hook for $30,000 in federal debt. Every one of you. And
01:10:43.100 it's building. It's growing. And what are they doing with that money? What are they doing? Is
01:10:46.400 it important stuff? No. So this was named, just to give the background on it, after Ted Weatherill.
01:10:53.900 He was $155,000 a year appointed to the Canadian Labor Relations Board. And he was fired after
01:11:00.120 building almost $150,000 in expenses over an eight-year period, including $733 on a lunch
01:11:05.720 for two in Paris. Yes, these guys wasting our money, taking our money for granted, stealing
01:11:10.340 our money. Speaking of that earlier, like I did with our Bitcoin thing, it's legalized theft,
01:11:14.520 I guess you could say, but it's still illegal as far as principle goes. So how did they screw us
01:11:18.760 this year? Well, Lotto Quebec paid 1.9 million in overtime while casinos were closed as a COVID
01:11:26.540 precaution. Well, if the casinos are closed, who the hell's making overtime? It's only 2 million,
01:11:34.720 right that's the thing they always like to say it's only this it's only that it's only a little
01:11:37.760 bit only a little there two million bucks flushed on overtime for casinos that aren't open that's
01:11:43.920 a neat one and then the next award was the national capital commission 750 000 no 735 000
01:11:51.280 in kitchen refits in the prime minister's lake manor yes they did more fixing up trudeau's
01:11:58.720 part-time residents than most people spend on a whole house that's your tax dollars at work
01:12:06.400 here's a beauty with the city of vancouver 645 000 for an outdoor washroom man that's a pretty
01:12:14.160 high price to capture those coilers isn't it that's your money uh let's see british columbia's
01:12:19.520 thompson nicola regional regional district 500 000 expenses for a municipal manager which included
01:12:25.040 liquor and jewelry. And, you know, if I expensed, well, I don't drink, but even if I expensed a
01:12:30.360 bottle to give somebody else to the standard, I've got a feeling Derek could get back to me
01:12:33.820 pretty quickly. If I bought jewelry as well, but apparently they can get away at $500,000 in it.
01:12:40.180 Then the CMHC, I asked these guys who gave the report to try and come after your home equity.
01:12:46.420 Well, they spent $450,000 on that study, your money, spending your money, trying to find more
01:12:52.760 ways to take your money. City of Winnipeg, spent $260,000 for an artificial Christmas tree.
01:13:00.620 Where the hell do you find a tree worth that? And here's a good one. Newfoundland and Labrador
01:13:05.540 tourism, $136,000 on replica Victorian sofas. But I mean, come on, nobody's going to travel
01:13:12.360 to a province if they don't have enough replica Victorian sofas. We've got to give them a break.
01:13:16.440 Sometimes, guys, either way, I do like how the Taxpayers Federation does offer those awards.
01:13:23.780 And there are always many, many contenders well-deserving of that shameful thing.
01:13:29.680 But always, they're out there to take your money and piss it away on things you didn't want to spend them on.
01:13:38.080 So we've got to keep exposing it, keep pushing back.
01:13:39.960 People keep asking what the answer is.
01:13:41.440 I go into that.
01:13:42.180 It's getting a little, oh, here's one.
01:13:44.940 you know alan says quit with the ads already i didn't pay a subscription fee to listen to ads
01:13:50.140 i can go to facebook if i want to listen to ads alan ads pay our bills i appreciate your
01:13:56.140 subscription i do we are a capitalist organization we are not a charity we have bills to pay we have
01:14:02.940 staff we have an office and we advertise get over it you don't like it piss off simple as that we
01:14:11.660 We run ads, get over yourself.
01:14:13.560 We're gonna do so.
01:14:14.480 Unless you want to send a donation
01:14:16.800 for the amount that the ads would cost
01:14:18.980 to the Western Standard,
01:14:20.500 and I'll stop running them, I promise.
01:14:22.600 Aside from that, don't whine about ads, man.
01:14:24.580 What do you wanna go back to?
01:14:26.340 What system do you want?
01:14:27.820 Government funded?
01:14:28.660 Because that's what we are not.
01:14:29.920 We refuse to take government funding.
01:14:31.560 We don't, and we won't.
01:14:34.560 So the way to do that though
01:14:35.900 is through subscriptions and advertising.
01:14:37.540 So yes, in the course of a one and a half hour show,
01:14:41.640 I'll break away three times for about a minute
01:14:44.420 and talk about a sponsor.
01:14:46.020 If it's too much for you, that's your problem.
01:14:49.460 So let's see, city police are frustrated in their efforts
01:14:52.200 to prevent a rising tide of shootings by criminals.
01:14:56.040 Yeah, you know, here's where we're getting into things
01:14:58.460 in Calgary, it's getting bad.
01:14:59.760 We got 62 shooting incidents this year.
01:15:02.500 There were a couple more the other day, 18 last month,
01:15:06.100 eight in May, it's 107% increase over last year.
01:15:11.640 again nobody wants to say it we've got a gang war we've got a gang war and uh basically these guys
01:15:19.800 nothing is deterring them i'm not sure how we're going to deal with the first thing though is just
01:15:23.080 to admit what it is and uh you know they're uh i know you don't want to start dividing the city
01:15:31.560 you don't want to start spreading fear but you've got to address it for what it is and one of the
01:15:37.880 quotes in that story is they think they're better to be caught with a gun by police than be without
01:15:41.560 a gun and come across one of their rivals. And that's where it shows to it being a gang-based
01:15:50.080 thing. Your average person, you know, doesn't mind owning a firearm or feels that they want
01:15:54.660 to protect themselves at times, but they don't feel that they would rather illegally carry one
01:15:57.880 and worry that they're going to come across a rival. I mean, if I ran across Ezra Levant from
01:16:02.280 Rebel News, I don't think we'd start beating on each other or need to shoot each other. Well,
01:16:07.980 we're not rivals we're kind of friendly rivals anyways but you know what i mean this is not a
01:16:12.000 normal world where people feel that they want to take the chance to carry a gun because they got
01:16:15.060 rivals on the streets calgary's got a big gang war going on and we've got a federal government
01:16:20.840 that's determined to try and take our duck guns and uh things such as that it's uh we got our
01:16:26.880 priorities wrong either way hopefully they get that sorted out that's all ties to a bigger more
01:16:32.040 complicated issue you know we got the the fentanyl opioid addiction crisis whenever there's things
01:16:37.640 like that. Organized crime follows. Parasites follow. People who want to take advantage of a
01:16:44.100 black market. And that gets into some of the bigger discussions and debates, I guess, about
01:16:48.540 whether you decriminalize drugs. Yeah, but fentanyl, there's another issue. Either way,
01:16:54.120 we've got a big complicated problem going on. It's led to zombies all over the streets and
01:16:58.220 downtown cities and gang wars going on outside for all the scumbags who want to supply the
01:17:02.860 aforementioned zombies with drugs. Speaking of our weak justice system, this one just blew me away.
01:17:08.600 So I don't know why I'm surprised with them anymore. So a woman broke into an Edmonton
01:17:14.060 senior's home and then robbed her and beat her to death. Cynthia Hamelin, 52 years old.
01:17:21.360 She pled it down, by the way. So she's got sentenced to 10 years in prison. She beat an 0.99
01:17:27.240 83-year-old woman to death in her home to rob her. She pulled the rings off of the fingers 0.96
01:17:33.480 of this senior as she was on her robbing. And the worst part of all, though, with this piece
01:17:39.000 of crap, and that's what she is, is a human piece of crap. She has 60 prior convictions dating all 0.86
01:17:45.760 the way back to 87. 60! Do you think now, in Canadian translation of sentencing, they give
01:17:53.100 her a 10-year sentence. Now, you've got to know in Canada, and I don't know why they do this,
01:17:56.460 It's stupid and it's deceptive right off the bat.
01:17:58.540 But there's a two-third mandatory release.
01:18:00.400 So even if she behaves awfully during her time in prison,
01:18:04.380 and I'm sure her time served already in remand will be applied to it,
01:18:09.520 at the most, she's going to be in there for six years.
01:18:14.500 And chances are very good she'll get released even earlier than that.
01:18:18.600 Do you think she might re-offend?
01:18:20.240 There's a senior citizen dead, killed in cold blood by this piece of crap. 0.60
01:18:24.840 because after decades and 60 criminal convictions, 0.99
01:18:29.400 we still couldn't keep her in jail.
01:18:31.120 These are the ones that pissed me off.
01:18:33.120 You know, you get horrible crimes out there, 0.98
01:18:35.040 but there's some nutcase who springs up out of the blue.
01:18:37.700 Nobody saw it coming.
01:18:38.380 It happens.
01:18:38.700 There's only so much we can do.
01:18:40.340 When you have somebody who has committed 60 crimes
01:18:43.580 and then they go out and kill somebody,
01:18:46.120 that's our fault as a society.
01:18:48.120 That's our fault as a justice system.
01:18:49.860 We should have seen that coming.
01:18:51.580 What on earth does it take?
01:18:53.440 And then even after all that,
01:18:54.840 This woman who was murdered in cold blood with the rings pulled off the fingers of her body.
01:19:01.160 She's going to be out in six, maybe seven years. 1.00
01:19:04.620 She'll kill someone else. 1.00
01:19:06.080 She's not going to be reformed. 1.00
01:19:08.840 Lock them up for life. 1.00
01:19:10.620 Put them away for good.
01:19:12.240 This is an embarrassment.
01:19:13.820 Look at the loss of lives.
01:19:15.120 I wrote a column on that the other week.
01:19:19.220 It took off well because we have three Alberta women mothers murdered
01:19:23.880 in the last year, all by repeat offenders, every one of them, repeat offenders, people we had in
01:19:30.600 jail before we let them out and they killed women. Now we've got a woman here killing women, 1.00
01:19:36.160 but it's 60 criminal convictions, and they gave her 10 years, which she won't serve most of.
01:19:41.500 Now, speaking of quote unquote women, Jessica Yan, if yes, I think Dave mentioned that, or it's not
01:19:46.820 Dave, I should say, Melanie, was found guilty of assault. As people might remember, that's the
01:19:51.260 transgender. It was by Jonathan or Jessica. She's out on the West Coast. I believe it was 1.00
01:19:56.020 he and Bextie who she assaulted. So she was found guilty. You know, that's a different,
01:20:04.480 there's one of the areas I have difficulty in the trans issues. I mean, Yaniv's a nut. 1.00
01:20:08.500 You know, the trans part with her is incidental. You know, that just makes it a little different. 1.00
01:20:15.120 But the reality is Yaniv's a con artist, a violent person, and very disturbed. I'm just
01:20:21.040 glad that she was found guilty at least of that we'll see if they've done anything to try and
01:20:26.000 prevent her from getting violent with others in the future uh let's see we got more stuff going
01:20:31.400 on in canada jordan peterson most of i think the viewers and watchers here are familiar with him
01:20:35.860 you know he's a canadian psychologist author a lot of people really respect him it's a clear
01:20:40.000 speaking guy he's had his ups and downs known around the world but looks like he's doing a
01:20:43.960 doing a speech tour and he's going to be in Kitchener, Ontario. Well, the NDP MPP, which is
01:20:51.800 like an MLA in Ontario, says they should be banned. They're calling out the city of Kitchener for
01:20:55.980 daring to let him speak the same. There's no room for hate in Kitchener. Getting back to that
01:21:00.240 constant labeling of everything is racist. She says, Mr. Peterson's racist and transphobic
01:21:05.380 worldview are not welcome here. Oh, kiss my ass. He's not a racist. He's not transphobic. Read his
01:21:10.880 stuff, you twit. You know, it's tiresome, but they shut down the speech and they succeed.
01:21:19.000 And he spoke at the center in the square on Wednesday. The world didn't end.
01:21:23.960 There were some protesters whining. So what? But yeah, they said he preaches Nazi and white
01:21:28.380 supremacist ideology, but he hasn't. Never once. You know, we just start charging some of these
01:21:32.980 nuts with slander. We really should. And libel, defamation. Prove it. Show where he wrote,
01:21:40.120 where he preached anything Nazi, anything
01:21:42.160 white supremacist. And he
01:21:44.100 says he supports racist and transphobic
01:21:46.180 child abuse. We should start
01:21:47.920 charging people when they say things like that about
01:21:50.080 other people's character without a basis.
01:21:52.480 And Peterson is as
01:21:53.980 public as it gets. I mean, he's all over Twitter, he's
01:21:56.100 all over YouTube, he's all over TV.
01:21:58.420 If he said these things, it sure
01:21:59.820 wouldn't be hard to find it, would it?
01:22:01.960 You should be able to pull them out. And if you can't, you should
01:22:04.020 be standing in a court of law for a lawyer
01:22:05.960 representing Peterson who's going to say, you know what?
01:22:08.840 That's enough.
01:22:09.520 you're going to pay him this amount.
01:22:11.700 No more of this. No more of this.
01:22:14.620 Maybe it's time for some of that to happen
01:22:15.840 in politics, too. You see the federal
01:22:17.860 leadership race going on.
01:22:20.580 All right. Let's see.
01:22:22.280 Let's get on to tomorrow.
01:22:23.680 We're going to have another good show, of course.
01:22:25.380 And I'm going to have lots of
01:22:27.400 ranting, lots of opinions, lots of views,
01:22:29.560 lots of news. I'm also going to have
01:22:31.460 a guest, Andrew Ruland. He's been on before.
01:22:33.220 He's been with Integrated Wealth Management
01:22:34.880 and they've got a seminar
01:22:37.220 coming up. Again, I mean,
01:22:39.160 It's such a complicated world.
01:22:40.480 I mean, where do you put your money for retirement?
01:22:42.100 How do you save?
01:22:42.960 What do you invest in?
01:22:43.860 Those sorts of things, that sort of talk.
01:22:45.600 We don't have enough of it.
01:22:46.820 And Ruland is, what I like about their organization,
01:22:49.540 is they're a wealth management company like so many others.
01:22:51.760 They're also unapologetically conservative.
01:22:53.680 Oh, Andrew is one of us, I tell you.
01:22:55.980 So it's always a good chat when we have him in the studio.
01:22:58.220 And I'm looking forward to that.
01:22:59.620 We're going to have Doris Kaufman.
01:23:00.640 And she's with Positive Match Rescue Foundation.
01:23:05.800 It's funny.
01:23:06.440 It took me a while to find one of those organizations
01:23:08.720 to get somebody to come on with me not that they're reticent but they're so busy right now
01:23:12.160 we've got so many surrendered pets surrendered animals uh abandoned animals all sorts of things
01:23:16.460 going on not nearly enough with homes they're stuck in cages because people are hanging on to
01:23:21.100 them they need fosters they need adoptions i wanted i i take part as uh dave likes bringing
01:23:26.600 up all the time we foster failed you know which means we foster the dog and adopted it we do
01:23:30.480 foster ones that we keep for a while and then get back out to new homes i've always been big on that
01:23:35.960 and we've really got a pressure right now.
01:23:38.320 So not everybody understands how fostering
01:23:40.080 and dog adoptions work. 0.76
01:23:41.260 So Doris is going to come in and talk to us 0.97
01:23:42.880 about that in studio.
01:23:44.660 And it's just a good, productive conversation.
01:23:47.780 Doesn't always have to be straight up politics
01:23:49.200 all the time.
01:23:50.280 And of course, lots of all the other good stuff.
01:23:52.240 So tune in tomorrow, guys, at 11.30 a.m. sharp
01:23:55.860 and we will do it all again.
01:23:57.580 Thanks for tuning in today and I'll see you then.
01:24:05.960 Transcription by CastingWords