Corey has a morning rant about Elon Musk's purchase of the internet giant, a look at food production facilities in the wake of the drought, and a discussion on the growing need for food production in the face of climate change.
00:03:37.060So we got modern means of production, transportation advances, of course, the combustion engine.
00:03:42.160it led to a number of other technological advances, and we suddenly had an explosive
00:03:45.980improvement in the standard of living all around the world and expanded our life
00:03:49.900expectancies. So world life expectancy rose from 34 in 1913
00:03:53.820to 46 by 1950, and it sits around 73 worldwide
00:03:57.980today. And in developed nations like our own, it's well over 80 years of age.
00:04:02.600Now, one of the main causes of early mortality historically used to be
00:04:05.820starvation and malnutrition. Food nutrition, or food production and
00:04:09.900preservation and distribution couldn't keep up with growing populations. So we'd have starvation,
00:04:13.440you know, up and down in times of drought, war, and the actions of dictatorships like Stalin.
00:04:18.140It was relatively common until only just a few days ago. Now the world's population,
00:04:22.800and I'm going somewhere with all this, was around 1.5 billion in 1870. And even then we couldn't
00:04:28.400feed much of it. The world population now is around 8 billion. And famine is actually barely
00:04:34.000a factor in mortality. I mean, when we look at the stats, almost 18 out of 100,000 people die
00:04:39.500annually from heart disease. 0.3 out of 100,000 die of starvation. This is a nice development.
00:04:47.120Now, we can't sustain human population growth in perpetuity, but we've learned that well-fed,
00:04:52.180prosperous nations tend to have the least amount of children. In most of the wealthiest cities in
00:04:56.400the world, population through local childbirth is actually going down. People who can afford to
00:05:00.800only have one, two, or perhaps even no children tend to do so. Developing nations, though, having
00:05:06.040large families is essential with so many children dying young unfortunately due to disease malnutrition
00:05:10.900such couples produce a large number of kids to make up the difference and then some of the poorer
00:05:14.800nations it's essential to have a large family to ensure the parents are cared for by children in
00:05:19.460their older years because they don't have luxuries like pension plans now if we're indeed concerned
00:05:24.900with slowing the growth of human population you know for the sake of the year the past pretty
00:05:28.880clear we need to modernize nations as much as possible and ensure they're well fed i mean while
00:05:33.580starvation itself is rarely a killer any longer malnutrition still contributes to many premature
00:05:38.980deaths it's a factor and we have a lot of room to improve on food security and access around the
00:05:43.240world so here's where we get to canada climate obsessed including canada's own government are
00:05:49.500fixated on attacking just about every advancement that human humanity has made in the last century
00:05:54.120energy impacts the cost of everything and the green lunacy has contributed to shooting the
00:05:58.740cost of energy up at every opportunity as they work to shut down affordable means of energy
00:06:03.080generation in favor of impractical ones such as wind and solar world energy prices are harming us
00:06:08.760and in developed nations they're outright devastating you know it's just they can't
00:06:13.520afford these hikes and things so not consent though not content the green federal level
00:06:17.580government with just raising the food costs through spikes in energy costs the canadian
00:06:21.760government's now under the guidance the un setting their sights on attacking canadian grain farmers
00:06:25.840yes a new discussion document released by agriculture and agri-food canada titled
00:06:32.060reducing emissions arising from the application of fertilizer in Canada's ag sector targets grain
00:06:37.260producers for emission reductions. And they've set massive targets, of course, just like they
00:06:41.620have with everything else, to cut it down. The government wants to crack down on fertilizer use
00:06:46.260among farmers. Now, modern fertilizers are a massive component in the mix of technological
00:06:52.300advances that have led to the world's virtual elimination of famine. Smaller plots of land can
00:06:57.340produce food more intensively and efficiently than ever imaginable. If we get rid of modern
00:07:02.380chemical means of fertilizer, crop yields are going to dramatically drop and immediately drop.
00:07:07.900Composting and using livestock dung, hey, that's all fine and dandy for home and hobby farm
00:07:12.340operations. We need modern, controlled, and broadly applied fertilizers in order to get
00:07:16.980viable returns in a commercial farm operation. Of all the types of crops that contribute to
00:07:22.520feeding the world, cereals top the list. They can be produced en masse. They have strong
00:07:26.740nutritional value. They keep well for cost-efficient shipping and storage. If you want to starve the
00:07:32.320world, the best place to begin would be hindering grain production. Canada is the third largest
00:07:36.640weed exporter in the world, and we rank among the top producers of many other grains as well.
00:07:40.780If we attack our own grain production, the impact's not only going to crush our local domestic farmers
00:07:45.640and put pressure on local food prices, it's going to impact food supply around the world.
00:07:51.700You can't be stressed enough just how dangerous this government plan to metal in grain production
00:07:55.960could be. Now, Russia and Ukraine are also top grain producers in the world, and due to the
00:08:01.180ongoing war there, exports from both nations, of course, are dropping. Not that the Trudeau's
00:08:06.880government plan to crack down on Canadian grain farmers will ever be a good one, but it's hard
00:08:10.280to imagine a worse time to do it than right now. If we really do care about the environment, we
00:08:14.520need to be increasing food production and security. We need to be bringing developed nations into
00:08:19.140energy and food security so they can take on environmental initiatives of their own.
00:08:23.900Nobody cares about global warming when they're starving or freezing to death.
00:08:27.880Crunching food supplies is going to lead to famine, and it's going to lead to other forms of unrest.
00:08:32.540Unfortunately, privileged climate crusaders such as Justin Trudeau and David Suzuki rarely look beyond their own comfortable, affluent worlds.
00:08:39.580They want to make their personal mark on the world through battling climate change and don't really care what the human cost will come with it.
00:10:29.840RCMP considered charging Justin Trudeau with fraud
00:10:34.300for his trip to the Aga Khan's island back in 2016.
00:10:39.640They've decided not to go ahead and charge him, but kind of interesting to see that that was something they were considering doing.
00:10:49.660There are reports, as you mentioned a little bit earlier, Corey, reports that Elon Musk's bid to take over Twitter is a go.
00:10:57.380We are watching that story very closely.
00:11:00.140Eva's in here with her eyes peeled on Twitter, keeping an eye on what comes from that.
00:11:05.980uh the bid sits at 43 billion to take over that company so um kind of wish i invested in twitter
00:11:14.780a few weeks ago maybe uh we've also got a story out roger stone an american uh political operative
00:11:21.760who worked with the likes of president richard nixon uh ronald reagan and donald trump uh is
00:11:28.340going to be working with the ontario party as a senior strategic advisor so that's an interesting
00:11:34.700story we've got up. We've got a great column up from Linda Slobodian, one of our columnists,
00:11:39.860on the confusion that's been happening around the UCP's postal code debacle, where hundreds,
00:11:47.760if not perhaps thousands, of the leadership vote ballots had the wrong postal codes on them.
00:11:55.280So whether that's going to affect whether they land properly or arrive or whatnot,
00:12:00.360There's a lot of confusion around that, and it's causing a lot of frustration as well.
00:12:07.540Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has kind of revealed a little bit of an oops with her stay at the climate change conference that was in Glasgow.
00:12:18.180Apparently, she stayed at a place that was nowhere near Glasgow.
00:12:23.000It was about a 45-minute drive to get to the conference each day.
00:12:27.760And so she is billing taxpayers $3,000 for her limo service for her and her, I guess, co-workers or associates that were traveling with her to go to and from where they stayed in Edinburgh to the Glasgow Conference.
00:12:48.620We've got a story up on a rally that is set for Ottawa come next weekend.
00:12:54.700It's the Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Rally, and it's planned to be in Ottawa.
00:13:00.560However, one of the organizers from the group says that they've been informed their vehicles, motorcycles, will not be permitted to be in the downtown core for next weekend.
00:13:13.640Our Canadian Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, says that we still need to be masking, especially for air travel.
00:13:24.700Uh, we've got a story about CBC broke its ethics code by accepting a contract with Canada's governor general. And it looks like Saskatchewan leads Canada in retail growth.
00:13:39.100Well, that's, uh, good to see how to Saskatchewan retail of all things. But, uh, I mean, I get that ties in a little bit with the worrisome, I guess, over the whole agriculture. I mean, that's a large part of Saskatchewan's economy. If, uh, we, we suddenly start having difficulties in there.
00:13:53.580I got a feeling that retail spike might be short-lived.
00:13:57.320Yeah, I think the gist of it all is there seems to be a real shortage in all sorts of different supply chains right now.
00:14:10.520And so just working on stories about how that's going to affect us here in Canada.
00:14:15.740You know, where I'm actually digging through some additional stories of food processing facilities around the world that have been affected by fire or explosions or other things that have damaged the facility.
00:14:34.500So looking to dig up some more worldwide.
00:14:40.140Interesting. Yeah, this story has really been taking off.
00:14:44.120just a bizarre week we kind of got on the roll here and then you uh your your own uh story of
00:14:50.180your uh experience with with uh coveted and such on the weekend kind of a more personal
00:14:54.860opinion sort of thing there that was a appreciated in sharing that uh i just hope you're recovering
00:15:00.680well uh yeah i seem to be recovering well and hopefully i will have no lingering side effects
00:15:08.160as I did for my first round with COVID.
00:15:11.720But yeah, it was nice to kind of share that
00:15:15.300and a little perspective on dealing with COVID illness
00:15:20.200and some sort of recovery options and treatment options
00:15:24.980that are seeming to be very effective.
00:17:05.840We're on top of it, guys. We've got a newsroom full of people. We're putting that stuff out there. So if you haven't taken out a subscription already, again, I'd just like to remind you all and thank you all if you have already. Please do.
00:17:17.460Yeah, some of those stories, you know, Trudeau with the RCMP talking about, you know, his trip that it was given to him, you know, to the Aga Khan's island or whatever.
00:17:29.280They're basically, the RCMP are saying, if you look at that story deeply, that, yeah, no, we're pretty sure he broke the law and he should have been charged.
00:17:36.900But we had to weigh, this is the way they looked at it, whether charging him would do more damage than good.
00:17:42.160Like it would be too disruptive to charge a sitting prime minister with a crime.
00:17:46.340that's scary stuff that's getting above the law stuff that that goes beyond every bit of our
00:17:52.680principles as a democracy i mean theoretically nobody should be viewed any differently in the
00:17:58.640eyes of the law than anybody else we know in reality that's not always the case for for all
00:18:03.140sorts of reasons but uh when the prime minister if he's broken a law he should bloody well be
00:18:09.200charged i don't care i don't think it's a matter that it would shake up the country i don't think
00:18:12.700it's a matter that it would be too impractical for Canadians. I think the problem is it'd be
00:18:17.420too impractical for the Liberals. This gets back to the Royal Canadian amount of police who are
00:18:21.480run by the federal government. You know, this is part of why I talk about provincial police
00:18:27.460forces. That's not perfect either. You've got to make sure they've got a good mandate and a charter
00:18:30.480or you could just have a provincial level government abusing them. But, you know, justice
00:18:36.200should be blind and it should come pretty blind when it comes to our prime minister. But it seems
00:18:41.060no they they won't charge him so i mean how far does that go i guess you know if it's just for
00:18:46.500luxury trips with friends you know that uh are trying to influence the person who's running the
00:18:51.420country that's okay but would it go farther if trudeau assaulted somebody would they just look
00:18:57.720the other way on charges with that too or uh if he directly robbed somebody i mean this is a
00:19:02.700a disturbing precedent it's really a problematic thing and uh again not enough people are paying
00:19:10.880attention to it. That gets back to our mainstream media though, right? This doesn't make a lot of
00:19:14.200mainstream news. Why is that? Well, because the mainstream media needs those tax dollars
00:19:19.000transferred to them to keep going. They're scared of shaking the tree. There's some great columnists,
00:19:23.940journalists, reporters, all sorts out there still in the legacy media outlets, but they are now
00:19:28.600beholden to the government. They don't want to get themselves in trouble. So they're less inclined
00:19:34.360to start scraping and digging around on government things. And that's a really sad outcome of what's
00:19:40.580happened with this system, with the government bailing out media on a regular basis. So before
00:19:44.980we get to that, I'm my next guest. I see him in the lobby. I'm going to speak to one of our
00:19:48.360sponsors. That's the other thing that keeps us going. You guys who are subscribing and those
00:19:52.280who sponsor us. And I'm going to talk about Bitcoin. Well, if people caught the Danielle
00:19:56.500Smith show this morning at nine o'clock, she's really been on digital currencies all week. I
00:20:00.880think she'll be getting into broader issues as she goes and her shows develop. But Bitcoin. Well,
00:20:06.400These guys are a sponsor of ours. They have been for quite some time. They are an Alberta-based
00:20:10.780company, but they provide services all across Canada. And what's great with them, I mean,
00:20:15.080they're there. They're a brick-and-mortar company. They got people on the ground.
00:20:18.840They will do one-on-one service, like real, face-to-face, in-person, white-glove service
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00:20:57.280okay let's bring in david clement he uh is with the consumer choice center and he wrote us a
00:21:03.240recent column and he was talking to melanie on another story recently there's lots we can babble
00:21:07.480about here on consumer issues for a while here and uh he's been on the show before so uh hey
00:21:13.060there david how's it going it's going well thank you for having me back oh i appreciate it um so
00:21:18.520yeah lots of as i said you know consumer based i mean well with inflation with everybody's feeling
00:21:22.300the pinch cost of living it's getting tight uh and it seems to be coming at us from a number
00:21:27.240of directions. But your recent column, just to start with, I guess, is on everybody's biggest
00:21:32.880ticket item, and that's housing and affordable housing. And, you know, government efforts,
00:21:38.980I guess, to try and bring it under control. And they've got something called a blind bidding ban.
00:21:44.500Can you kind of expand on what that is? Yeah. So the way in which homes are sold,
00:21:50.020bids are done blind so the the seller or the buyers or prospective buyers don't know what
00:21:58.580the other bids are and they put their bid in and the seller agrees and the house sells
00:22:05.120some in ottawa have been really pushing to ban blind bidding and so to make everything an open
00:22:15.160auction. And while I can understand the frustration in terms of the prices that we're seeing,
00:22:22.920and I'm sure we'll get more into that, the problem here is that it does nothing to address
00:22:30.260the fundamental issue, which is feeding the housing crisis, and that is a lack of supply.
00:22:37.260And so it really just presents itself as window dressing, symbolically looking like an attempt
00:22:45.140to try and wrangle in demand. But when you dig into it, and you ask people much smarter and
00:22:52.760wiser than I am, the housing economists who look at this, they basically say in a seller's market
00:22:58.620like this, it doesn't really matter what type of auction, whether you do open auction,
00:23:03.900where everyone sees each other, each other's bids, or you see blind auctions, it doesn't
00:23:10.280really make a difference. And so our point of view is, why is Ottawa focusing on these silly
00:23:17.880policies that the experts in the field are saying really isn't going to do anything to bring down
00:23:25.160prices, while at the same time, not really or not adequately addressing the issue of lack of
00:23:32.500supply? Now, we've seen some comments from Pierre Polyev and Scott Aitchison on this,
00:23:37.220on addressing supply. So that's certainly appreciated, but they're doing so as prospective
00:23:44.540leaders of the opposition party. And so that leaves a lot of people waiting for, a lot of
00:23:50.440young people like myself, waiting for these policy changes that are going to increase supply,
00:23:55.760the yes in my backyard approach to housing. So from our point of view, it's a silly policy,
00:24:04.440so long as there's nothing limiting the seller determining how they want to sell the home they
00:24:09.640should be free to do it in an open way or blind way but at the end of the day it's not going to
00:24:14.800bring down prices like the liberal government is saying it will yeah i mean even if it does
00:24:20.040apparently you know have some impact it would be minimal and still when houses in general are going
00:24:25.440up i mean the i read the the budget document they did address they know that they need to
00:24:30.880address supply, but then they don't really go into anything about how they're going to.
00:24:34.800Yeah, I mean, they proposed an earmark program, I believe it's about $4 billion. And that's to
00:24:43.620essentially help or reward communities that grow it larger than the historical average. And their
00:24:51.340estimate says that that's going to build 100,000 new homes. Now, that might sound like a lot to
00:24:58.640someone who doesn't, who isn't really in the weeds on the numbers,
00:25:04.680Bondurial alone needs more than 150,000 homes just to get to the Canadian average. And the
00:25:12.640Canadian average is the worst in the G7. And so we're looking at just a fraction of the supply
00:25:20.720and they've largely missed the boat on exclusionary zoning, which are the rules that
00:25:26.100mandate, you can only have a single family unit on a particular plot of land. And so
00:25:31.080even the supply side proposal that they've put forward really leaves a lot to be desired.
00:25:39.420Well, and part of the problem, and I see that addressed a bit in the municipal, or I mean,
00:25:44.000in the federal budget, and Mr. Polly, I've talked about it, but the most direct level of government
00:25:50.780that can deal with supply and the one that's having the most impact is on the municipal level.
00:25:56.100And I guess a person has to choose, well, how much intrusion do you want with the federal government or municipal governance?
00:26:01.760Yeah, and I'm sympathetic to that argument.
00:26:04.320But the federal government and the provincial government both transfer a considerable amount of funds into these large city budgets, whether it's road expansion or a variety of different infrastructure projects.
00:26:17.780And so, I mean, you could argue that that transfer of funds is as equally problematic or equally offensive as the federal government saying, hey, we have a housing crisis, you have to meet these density targets or you have to end exclusionary zoning so that these cities can be affordable.
00:26:36.880And I mean, just to put into perspective, Vancouver, which everyone knows is particularly bad, the average home in January rose 23% to just over a million dollars.
00:26:53.460The average rent on a two-bedroom apartment is $2,983 a month.
00:27:00.360In order to be able to afford that, according to the CMHC, you need an income of $128,000 a year.
00:27:09.060But the problem is, is that the average family in Vancouver has an income of $61,000.
00:27:19.520The average family in many of these major cities cannot afford to buy or rent the average home.
00:27:27.500And so I think it's appropriate for the federal government to say, hey, we're going to keep footing the bill for a lot of these things, especially on the public transit side. We see that all the time. But you have to uphold some end of the bargain here on policy change.
00:27:44.360yeah well and they would need uh again to to really put some uh build-in incentives or
00:27:51.180disincentives for the governments to make them comply i mean just talking about my local city
00:27:54.860council if they were just handed a blind amount of money and told to address housing supply
00:27:58.440they might spend it on magic beans because they really don't necessarily put money towards the
00:28:04.200most effective things and then just throwing money at the market doesn't mean we're going
00:28:07.220to get more supply anyways. Well, yeah. And the thing is, is why, why spend money when there are
00:28:14.680private businesses, the companies who build homes who are willing to do it with no government money,
00:28:21.540right? They're, they're eager, ready, willing. You see this across, across Canada. It's especially
00:28:28.920bad in British Columbia and Ontario where developers will be ready to build. They'll
00:28:34.900have the land and then they go through years of challenges and and all of this crazy nonsense
00:28:41.040it's happened right where I live with Glen Abbey Golf Course which would have been over 3,000
00:28:46.320additional housing units in one of the most expensive towns to live in in Canada and it
00:28:53.220ended up getting blocked because city council decided that it was a heritage monument and they
00:28:59.620wanted to protect it forever although it's not city council who owns the land it's not um it's
00:29:05.480not anybody else's land except for the company that owned it and so there we go losing a potential
00:29:11.5403 000 additional units and i mean that's one anecdote but that happens virtually everywhere
00:29:17.700um where the where development is blocked regardless of whether it's a a condo building
00:29:25.600or a duplex yeah well and then it hits us all hard and housing is a need we got the same thing
00:29:31.360in calgary it's eight years from plan to development to get a housing development done
00:29:36.380in calgary right now that's the average and that's assuming that they don't get shut down during one
00:29:41.020of those steps along the way which does often actually happen much like what you were talking
00:29:44.820about so yeah that's that's one area that needs addressing getting on to other needs i kind of
00:29:49.520like to go a little broader um with food of course that's spiking all over the place uh we're seeing
00:29:56.100the the essentials going up there's one of the areas that i've been on the case of the conservative
00:29:59.520candidates about because you and i've talked about supply management before we're not really
00:30:02.980big fans of that um as well though i mean we've got other problems like our food production
00:30:08.960facilities you spoke a bit on that but there's a strange trend of them getting a you know whatever
00:30:13.460the basis of that is but a whole lot of them have been taken offline uh now we got supply uh there
00:30:18.480was the story we did the standard recently there was that one got hit by a plane one's been burned
00:30:22.080down uh i don't know if you read the story mel talked to you yeah i mean it's it's yeah it's
00:30:27.740unclear why it's what is actually happening i don't have enough information to know like
00:30:33.300is this something nefarious or coordinated or it's just a it's a bad accident but at the end
00:30:38.980of the day any disruption to the food supply um especially on the processing side where
00:30:47.000essentially shipments aren't getting picked up, is going to limit the supply of the things that
00:30:51.800you buy, whatever they were making there. And what you're going to see is you're going to see
00:30:56.280prices go up or you're going to see shrinkflation, which is where the prices don't go up, but the
00:31:03.000quantity in the bag, let's say of a bag of chips, goes down from 400 grams to 300 grams. So you
00:31:10.840think you're still buying the same product, but there's actually less of whatever it is you
00:31:15.900purchase in it um obviously not great um first because the option is they're having less um
00:31:24.600we're having less and pay more for it and and that's i mean poll after poll shows that that's
00:31:30.480something that canadians are worried about um we're seeing it across different sectors we're
00:31:36.360also seeing it with supply managed sectors which is even more irritating and so um it's not a
00:31:42.900situation where i think we're going to have food shortages or empty shelves because the the food
00:31:48.580system in this country has shown itself to be incredibly resilient um the pandemic has kind
00:31:54.140of shown us that but consumers are going to pay uh in one way or the other if disruptions continue
00:32:00.860or they overlap and compound on each other well that's it like i said yeah i wouldn't expect you
00:32:06.320to try and figure out why these places have hit the upon the problem but the impact is what we
00:32:11.520talk about whatever the cause may be and we're getting disruption in our supply ability the
00:32:16.100costs go up and and consumers yeah they get upset I you know using an analogy from back when I owned
00:32:22.260my bar and the minimum wage hikes kept hitting us while I owned it under the NDP government which
00:32:27.120is whatever you just you know debate whether that's good or bad but I had to respond as a
00:32:31.220business owner and I had a big fight with a customer because well part of what we did was we
00:32:35.580raised some prices on some things and reduced the size of some items so yeah our big plate
00:32:39.760the nachos got a bit smaller and it went up a dollar and uh yep i tell you what consumers are
00:32:44.860sensitive they see it and they know it and this guy ripped into me but he doesn't understand like
00:32:49.820i gotta make money too uh well yeah i mean if you're a business owner you're you're doing it
00:32:54.680so that you can also have a livelihood um that's kind of the point and what we'll end up seeing is
00:33:01.640a lot more of that irritation and frustration on the consumer side and then obviously much more on
00:33:08.700the side of those who sell whether it's goods or services or food or restaurants um and so yeah
00:33:16.760it's a very problematic situation um when whether it's disruption or government policy that drives
00:33:23.580up the inputs for a business labor main goods uh and things like that and the more we see this the
00:33:31.500more that frustration is going to build. And the higher or the bigger the upward push or
00:33:38.920inflationary push is going to be. And right now, that doesn't seem to be something that Ottawa
00:33:46.060is particularly steadfast about in regards to talking about reducing the cost of living.
00:33:53.780They've really opened the door, in my opinion, for the Conservatives to kind of make that their
00:33:57.640issue again um and so we'll see whether this uh this NDP liberal agreement lasts and for how long
00:34:04.840and whenever it is um the liberals will have to face the fire in regards to the situation at hand
00:34:12.200well that's it a lot of people like to point out and say well it's all beyond the liberals control
00:34:17.500it's international every country's experiencing inflation right now they kind of like to say
00:34:21.840there's nothing we could do about it but I think there's a you know there's some degree of truth
00:34:25.660in that when world commodities go up, you can only do so much. But when it comes to
00:34:29.480domestic consumer goods, there's certainly some things in general we could do to ease some of that
00:34:33.880pain locally, isn't it? Of course. I mean, you just look at all of the government policies that
00:34:39.040are in place that inflate the price of goods. I mean, you look at the carbon tax, although I
00:34:46.300understand the reasoning and justification and purpose for the carbon tax, you can't argue that
00:34:52.260it doesn't inflate the price of goods. I mean, everything that you eat is shipped on a truck for
00:34:57.280the most part. The goods that are delivered to your house, what you buy at a department store,
00:35:03.160et cetera. I mean, everything is factored into all of that. And so there's a long list of policies
00:35:12.340that inflate the price of those goods just by virtue of making the supply chain more expensive
00:35:19.600So from the time whatever it is is created to the time it arrives at your doorstep.
00:35:25.740And so, yeah, there are global pressures in regards to inflation.
00:35:31.380But that doesn't mean that the government should just sit on its hands.
00:35:34.520I mean, we can deal with global like it's ironic that we we talk about whether or not the government should sit on its hands because it's a global problem.
00:35:46.360That's the liberal critique to, let's say, center right or conservatives on climate policy.
00:35:54.340Conservatives will say, well, it's a global problem, like we can't really do anything.
00:35:57.760And the liberals will take conservatives to task on that.
00:36:01.020And it's like they've kind of forgot that that was their argument in the last election and for the last 10 years or so.
00:36:47.740I mean, you've got your work cut out for you as a consumer advocate with inflation and policy and all that wonderful world that's going on right now.
00:36:56.260Where can we find more information about what you're doing and what your organization's up to?
00:44:38.420we're down this progressive ugly piece of history, you know, we finally get rid of those
00:44:42.360corrupted old PCs and we replaced it with Notley. Now we're in this mess with Jason
00:44:46.460Kenney. I don't know how we as electors are ever going to get better government. It's just painful.
00:44:50.380It seems everything we try, we still manage to elect people who are going to put it to us.
00:44:54.780Wildrose says, is capitalism run amok? No, it's not.
00:44:58.800It's crony capitalism. Don't forget to put that word in front of it.
00:45:02.680Capitalism is perfectly fine until government gets messing around.
00:45:05.640I mean, again, I'll do my flogging, you know, Derek, put the thing up here. This is the Galt studio I'm in right now. For people who have read Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, you know, yes, I think it's a fantastic book. I know a lot of lefties lose their minds over it.
00:45:23.440The bottom line of it, it shows a society, and I tell you, the parallels are getting so strong, where capitalism, yeah, right, these companies are so entrenched with the government and back and forth.
00:45:35.620Lobbying has become such an important trade, much more than actually producing, much more than actually being an efficient company, much more than competing with your competitors.
00:45:43.460You don't try to compete with your competitors anymore.
00:45:45.880You try to get the government to step on your competitor on your behalf.
00:45:49.220You try to get the government to bail you out rather than you earn money to win.
00:46:06.140Any of those corporate welfare whores, and that's what I'll call it, that just constantly rely on and suck the money out of governments in order to operate, that's not capitalism.1.00
00:50:00.540And we just got to kind of work with the hand we're dealt and hopefully improve it, though.
00:50:03.920I mean, it takes ongoing discourse and working on things.
00:50:07.440So getting on to that, we've got an election coming up in Ontario.
00:50:11.920And so for our Ontario viewers, we've got somebody coming on here right away.
00:50:17.420It looks like I see him in the lobby. So that's great.
00:50:19.240I know I appreciated he had some scheduling issues going on.
00:50:22.800They're tight times when you're getting ready for a campaign.
00:50:25.160But Derek Sloan, he is the, people may remember him as a federal conservative party, a Canada member of parliament.
00:50:31.360He ran for the leadership. He ran afoul of the new leadership and got pushed aside.
00:50:38.640He then ran in the federal election, I guess you could say on a point of principle out in Alberta.
00:50:42.880And now he is leading the Ontario party in Ontario.
00:50:45.640And for those out here west in that, Ontario is coming up on what should be a fixed election date that I think has to be held by June 2nd, I believe.
00:50:53.720Perhaps Mr. Sloan can correct me on that.
00:50:56.160So let's bring him in because I know he's had a tight, crazy day here and see what's
00:51:39.920So maybe if you want to give a bit of background on the Ontario party,
00:51:43.160you have one member in the legislature right now who came over
00:51:45.980and you're contesting this election from a conservative approach, obviously.
00:51:49.420Yeah, so the Ontario party was founded in 2018. They actually ran a few candidates in the prior provincial election. I was asked to be leader of the party in the fall of 2021. There was, you know, a variety of parties kind of vying for attention. And there was, you know, a variety of people who wanted to see if we could bring people together. And I agreed to lead the party.
00:52:13.480So we do have a member in the legislature right now. His name is Rick Nichols, and he's been doing a great job holding the progressive conservatives to account. Our party is, again, a conservative sort of values-based party. And we feel that the Ontario government, the provincial conservatives here, have done a very poor job managing COVID and various other things. And we want to make sure there's an option that can really put Ontarians first in this upcoming election.
00:52:39.580Great. Yeah. Speaking as a conservative out West and kind of witnessing it, I mean, we've seen a lot of, I guess, disappointment.
00:52:44.840I mean, among governments, I mean, all over the place, we saw our freedoms infringed upon and a number of levels all over.
00:52:51.320But Ford seemed to be particularly so in Ontario with the COVID crackdowns and is still sort of hung up on that.
00:52:57.720I imagine that's a lot of the base you're working towards is people who are frustrated with that.
00:53:01.580Yeah, there's a lot of broken promises. One thing that Doug Ford actually ran on and had a lot of support over was was scrapping the sex ed curriculum. So there was a liberal age inappropriate sex ed curriculum that was put in by the previous premier. And he got a lot of traction by promising to cancel that. And unfortunately, he didn't.
00:53:21.160So, you know, the COVID situation, of course, is in fact a very dire one.
00:53:27.560We had some of the longest lockdowns, longest school closures in the world here in Ontario.
00:53:32.320But there's been a lot of simmering discontent from broken promises from day one.
00:53:37.760Yeah, so I imagine you're getting candidates in place.
00:53:41.560I've worked on, you know, with the Wildrose Party in the West, and I know how it is building a party from scratch.
00:53:45.420It's a lot of work, and the clock ticks quickly.
00:53:48.860I imagine you're on a constituency tour right now and getting candidates in place.
00:53:52.660Yeah, so we're doing basically a cross-province tour right now.
00:53:56.100We're going to be out for about three weeks.
00:53:58.040We do have a variety of candidates in place right now.
00:54:00.780We have about 70 candidates in place, but we should have at least 100,
00:54:04.080if not a full slate by the time of the election.
00:54:08.480Great. So something that made the news,
00:54:09.960I see that was on the headlines of the Western Standard here too.
00:54:12.160You brought in an interesting addition there with Roger Stone as a campaign chair.
00:54:17.460For those unfamiliar with him, I mean, he's been very well established in American conservative politics all the way from Nixon till Donald Trump.
00:54:25.940And if I recall, I saw a documentary. He's got a tattoo of Nixon on his back.
00:54:30.040He's a colorful character, but he's been very effective in conservative politics as well.
00:54:33.740So that's an interesting person to add to your campaign.
00:54:36.560Yeah. So Roger Stone is well known in American conservative circles.
00:54:39.920I became friends with Roger about a year ago, and we were talking about, you know, different ideas and politics in the States and politics here.
00:54:48.300And we thought that it would be a good idea to bring him on.
00:54:51.020He's got a lot of experience in many countries besides the U.S.
00:54:54.680He's worked in parliamentary democracies around the world, and we thought it would be great to kind of bring a little bit of that expertise into our campaign.
00:55:02.900Great. Well, I mean, it'll bring a new perspective.
00:55:05.180I guess, I mean, if you're trying to take on a party that's been well entrenched in for a long time, maybe it's time to bring some fresh eyes onto the campaign.
00:55:12.140It's going to be interesting to watch that develop.
00:55:14.640Another risk, I haven't looked at the numbers directly, but I mean, you know, that we're seeing parallels to what we did in Alberta when the PCs got too far out of whack with citizens and we've pushed back and we set up an opposition.
00:55:25.360But unfortunately, we had that terrible side effect of four years of NDP governance due to a vote split.
00:55:30.800But how can you address that and, you know, make people comfortable knowing that they won't get a Liberal or an NDP government out of their efforts in supporting the Ontario Party?
00:55:40.160The good news in Ontario is that the Liberals and the NDP are actually polling very poorly.
00:55:44.880So there's no indication that they're making a resurgence in this coming election.
00:55:49.320The leadership of both of those parties is lacking.
00:55:52.720I don't think that this election is going to swing that way.
00:55:57.120The question is, you know, whether the Ontario Party or the Conservative Party is going to pick up the slack.
00:56:03.320So at least in this scenario, it doesn't look like we would be going that way.
00:56:09.140Okay. So have you got some, as a newer party, it takes a long time to really form the specific policies.
00:56:15.000Like, is there a detailed policy set online for the Ontario Party addressing?
00:56:18.900You know, there's so many aspects from education to budgetary and so on.
00:56:22.620Yeah, so we have some fairly detailed policies on many of those issues. If people go to ontarioparty.ca, they can see what we have. But we've been able to attract a lot of, you know, very, very influential and intelligent people that have been working together with us. And we've been able to accomplish a lot in a short period of time.
00:56:41.520Great. I'm wondering, just say, you're setting your goals. You want to form government. That's
00:56:47.040why you run. What is the legislation in Ontario, though? I know with a lone member, it's difficult
00:56:51.720to get traction. And it's good you've got that one in the legislature. But like, is there a bar
00:56:55.460for party status once you get into the legislature so you get some of those research budgets and
00:56:59.440recognition and such? Yeah, so there is. And I believe it's 10 seats. It may be 12. But we are,
00:57:05.960of course, aiming to get this sort of registered party or official party status. And then, of
00:57:11.640course, like you say, you get a budget and more tools to work with. Okay, well, great. I guess,
00:57:18.060you know, I know you're busy, and I know it was a bit of a rush to get you on. I see you made it
00:57:21.240to the hotel, and I appreciate that. So I'll let you get back on the tour pretty quickly here. Is
00:57:25.320there more you'd like to add before I let you go, though? No, I really appreciate the interview
00:57:29.380today. And, you know, we've been facing similar issues across the country in various provinces.
00:57:34.220And, you know, it's been a shame to see so many, you know, conservative by name premieres that have really been, you know, dropping the ball when it comes to so many important issues.
00:57:45.400And I hope that, you know, our success here in Ontario, I hope our party does well.
00:57:50.080And I hope it really puts, you know, fear into the other, you know, conservative premiers to know that if they don't stay true to their principles, there will be, you know, other options that spring up that hold them to account.
00:58:02.760So I hope we can accomplish something here in Ontario, but I hope it's the effects of it also impact things that are happening in other provinces as well.
00:58:10.360Yeah, well, and I was kind of ranting about that a bit before anyways, if anything, you know, politics needs more competition in the private sector or in politics.
00:58:18.660That's what's going to make people more respondent or paying attention to what the citizens and voters want.
00:58:24.240If you don't have multiple options, then they can be taken for granted.
00:58:26.860So I do appreciate you guys offering Conservatives another alternative out there.
00:58:30.100and I was glad to get you on so our Ontario viewers can see
00:58:33.260that you guys have kicked off the campaign and gotten rolling there.
00:58:36.000Amazing. Thanks a lot for having us, Corey.
00:58:37.940You bet. I hope we can check in again as the campaign progresses
00:58:46.860Okay, so that was Derek Sloan, leader of the Ontario Party.
00:58:50.300They're on the campaign road and they've got their work cut out for them.
00:58:53.540But I think there is an appetite for change going on out there.
00:58:56.400Doug Ford, as a conservative, has been, frankly, appalling. The restrictions, the indifference to individual rights, these core things that we like to say we value as conservatives.
00:59:10.180And I think some of it comes down to some people are just terrified of COVID and some aren't because Ford just seemed to be almost paralyzed with fear when this was unraveling.
00:59:17.940But it's not an excuse to step on the individual rights of citizens.
00:59:22.900And they're being given an option because that's the other thing. We get taken for granted. You've got to breathe down their necks. You've got to have alternatives. You have to have other parties putting those items on the table. So, I mean, I do appreciate Mr. Sloan and the rest of them getting out there. As I was saying, we were worried about, you know, we do worry about it. Everybody has to worry about it. In Alberta, we had an adverse outcome, I guess you could say, if we want to use the terms that are so common these days, with getting Rachel Notley in power for four years.
00:59:50.280but it's still, would we have been a lot better to leave the rotten PCs alone? You know, as bad
00:59:56.600as it got under Alison Redford and Ed Stelmack, I mean, they'd been in too long, too entrenched.
01:00:04.100They were taking voters for granted. And that's part of the problem. We get taken for granted,
01:00:09.540you don't get taken seriously, and policy doesn't reflect what you want it to be. So
01:00:14.200So either way, it was good to get somebody coming from Ontario