Corey rants about medical checkups, play in the sand day, and Elon Musk's takeover of Tesla. Plus, the usual nonsense. Subscribe to Triggered to get immediate access to all the latest Western Standard news and commentary.
00:00:30.000Good morning. It's Thursday, August 11th, 2022. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.
00:00:38.780This is the Western Standards daily live news, opinion, ranting, interview, show we cover a
00:00:46.120little bit of everything, even some weird and bizarre things at times. It's live. That means
00:00:51.060let's keep it interactive. Good to see you guys in the comments, scroll, checking in there. Ian,
00:00:55.120tyler and colleen already make use of that you know let's let's make use of the like live is
00:01:00.060really tough to pull off guys we got a schedule folks we got to keep it going recorded is so much
00:01:04.600easier we don't want to do that the reason for it though is because we can have that interaction i
00:01:08.780don't necessarily read out every uh comment i do see them all it does help prompt the conversation
00:01:15.860and keep things rolling you know and talk with each other as well throw questions my way or to
00:01:19.660each other just again keep it fairly civil though we can we can get upset and worked up but we don't
00:01:24.400have to really get into those big fights. It's amazing how many fights can break out on the
00:01:28.920internet. I guess it's not that amazing anymore, but we don't need to. Let's just keep her good
00:01:32.860and have that conversation, folks, all the way from Newfoundland to, I imagine, the West Coast
00:01:36.460today. So that's excellent. All right, let's look at the daily observations while people are
00:01:40.280settling in for the show. We have the annual medical checkup day. This is kind of pretty boring,
00:01:47.120but still, it's an important one. So guys, you know, swallow your modesty, lighten things up
00:01:53.380in the back there if you're over 50 yeah here you're gonna have to get that little poke around
00:01:58.060in there but it can save you a lot of grief and catch something ahead of when it needs to be
00:02:03.100be polite to your doctor don't eat anything spicy the night before or anything like that I'm certain
00:02:07.420they're not enjoying that examination any more than you are just try to get the thing go through
00:02:12.640as quickly and effectively as possible and for the ladies well you guys have always had your
00:02:18.520checkups as well and today's the day to think about it hey we've got a medical system it's
00:02:22.420backed up as it is. The earlier you want to check things out, the better you might catch something
00:02:27.420that you might need to take care of. On a lighter note, it's play in the sand day. A lot of these
00:02:31.820summer ones that are coming up, you know, it seems actually the summer observances seem to be less
00:02:35.160than a lot of the others, but a lot of them at least are heat focused. And why not? If you've
00:02:40.020got a beach nearby, you've got a spot, you've got a sandbox in the back even, grab a beer and sit
00:02:44.220with the kids in the back and make a sandcastle or something. I mean, sometimes the simple things,
00:02:48.120right? Just play with some dirt. There's no toy older or more traditional than laying or playing
00:02:53.420in the sand. So today is the day to do it. All right. I'm going to get on with what I'm
00:02:59.480ranting about. Well, actually, I always remind you the guests I got to. Yes, I've got Marcel
00:03:02.940Latouche coming on. He's been on regularly. He used to be on, you know, you'd hear him on talk
00:03:06.920radio a lot in the past back when talk radio was good. He's written a couple of books. He talks a
00:03:12.580lot about policy, see, you know, bureaucrats. It used to be the Public Sector Institute for
00:03:18.100Public Sector Accountability, I believe it was. So it's always a good conversation with Marcel,
00:03:22.220though lots of common sense. And Western Standard columnist Dave Makachuk's going to pop on. We're
00:03:26.960going to talk about a few of his recent columns and some of the stuff going on. All right, let's
00:03:31.840talk about some of the other stuff. So whether we like it or not, alternative media outlets like
00:03:36.000ours are heavily dependent upon the social media giants. It's just the way it is. It's pretty tough
00:03:40.620to share news stories and gain subscribers without being on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
00:03:45.080Instagram, and other sites like that. When those prime social media platforms decide to take a
00:03:50.700political slant, though, as they have, it impacts the sharing of information and public thinking
00:03:55.360on a large scale. It has to be taken seriously. Now, Elon Musk saw this and really shook up
00:04:00.480Twitter when he made his takeover bid. Twitter was heavily left-leaning and been using tools
00:04:05.220such as shadow banning or even simply banning accounts in order to suppress conservative views.
00:04:09.520The indignance displayed, you know, by the senior Twitter staff when Musk was doing his purchase and it was pending proved just how bad it had gotten, how entitled those people in Twitter felt their organization was to be a gatekeeper of information.
00:04:24.360Now, Musk wasn't calling for swinging Twitter to the right.
00:04:26.720He just wanted to open it up as a free speech platform.
00:04:29.760Twitter started backing off as it looked like Musk's purchase was going to go through.
00:04:33.240Suddenly, notable conservative Twitter account holders saw spikes in follower growth as the shadow banning ended.
00:04:39.520And some unfairly banned accounts actually were reinstated.
00:06:25.460Twitter took issue, I guess, with any coverage of those stories and suspended our account.
00:06:29.020The suspension's been appealed, but to date, there's been no action.
00:06:32.640we're not back on there yet. So we reached to over, I believe it was 15,000 people.
00:06:38.400YouTube suspended us from my having an interview with one of our reporters, Matthew Horwood.
00:06:42.380He'd been doing a story on vaccine injuries. Again, it wasn't opinion. He was just reporting
00:06:45.900news. The good news is that when YouTube suspended us, the interview I'd had with Matthew Horwood
00:06:51.520went viral on Facebook, and I think it had over 100,000 views. We wouldn't have gotten that many
00:06:55.860had YouTube not suspended us in the first place. So it's a bit of a backwards effect with that.
00:06:59.740And likewise, our Twitter suspension has led to those two stories that we were booted off for being the top stories on our site for the last couple of days.
00:07:06.920The censorship's having the opposite effect.
00:07:09.420That said, though, we can't celebrate this.
00:07:11.280Segments of our audience now don't know or understand why we suddenly stopped posting and we're losing some of our reach.
00:07:17.000We could also find ourselves arbitrarily suspended from other platforms at any time.
00:07:21.820Independent media is so important today.
00:07:24.120And mainstream outlets have been compromised through government subsidies and efforts to censor their competition.
00:07:29.740If social media platforms keep banning alternative media outlets, we can be in some serious trouble.
00:10:25.140We've got the Alberta NDP are holding a press conference as we speak to demand the resignation of the status of women's minister and secretary.
00:10:36.080You remember they, for some reason, selected a winning essay from an Alberta would-be politician that was quote-unquote fascist.
00:10:46.800And they are demanding heads rule there.
00:10:50.480And the health boss in Ontario says she will not rule out using some form of privatization in a bid to get the hospital crisis in Ontario under some control.
00:11:03.660And the council culture has turned their sights on Alexander Graham Bell.
00:11:09.360They are looking at all the nice things and monuments that we have previously honoured Mr. Bell for.
00:11:19.180And they're looking at renaming them, removing them, all sorts of things that the woke culture does.
00:11:26.020And I'm not going to give away details too much, Corey,
00:11:28.880but our Jonathan Bradley has a national exclusive
00:11:32.340that'll be coming up around two o'clock Mountain Standard Time.
00:24:57.080On the provincial level, I'm going to go on a limb because I have known Danielle Smith for over two decades. She was the editor of my first book, Take Back City Hall. I have known her as a columnist for The Herald, and I have contributed on a show as the former president and CEO of the Institute for Public Sector Accountability for all the time she was.
00:25:27.080on QR. Many people are saying oh well you know she made a mistake and I
00:25:36.680disagreed with her when she went from Wildrose to support Prentice. But we
00:25:42.760must understand that she had some principles and she stood by it and she
00:25:48.560moved. The problem that I have is they accuse her of giving away the government
00:25:56.480of alberta to notley let me remind people that it was the prentice policies that led us to a notley
00:26:07.280government so daniel smith did shift from wire rose to the conservative party sure let me give
00:26:16.880you an example people have shifted in politics their allegiances all the time churchill was
00:26:24.480a liberal before he became a conservative. Ronald Reagan and Trump were Democrats before they became
00:26:32.800Republicans. So let's forget about that. She made a mistake. We all make mistakes. He who is without
00:26:41.840sin should fall the first stone. There's the problem we have today. We cannot go with an
00:26:48.720establishment person in the leader of the alberta government i respect some of the people who are
00:26:58.800running for instance i have worked with rebecca schultz and she's done a marvelous job as the
00:27:05.840child advocate and minister i have a problem with travis toes because rebecca got me and madu and
00:27:16.400Taves into a conversation about one of the most regressive taxes in this province. It is the
00:27:24.800property taxes issue. We got into a conference, the three of us, and they asked me as the institute
00:27:33.660president to produce a paper on taxation. I did so, we produced it, we sent it to them.
00:31:04.160We are very, how should I say, we are quiesced to many things.
00:31:10.840So much so, as I said to you earlier, we've gone in a way where we've taken freedom for granted.
00:31:18.920Sure, the government can sometimes control freedom and how much freedom we have based on certain issues and the circumstances.
00:31:27.520But today we are losing many of our freedom without even the judiciary supporting the kind of freedom that we are given under the Constitution.
00:31:40.200Conservatives have got to stand up for their principles.
00:31:44.300Stop messing around with social ideas.
00:31:48.040We've got to worry about what's happening in the world.
00:31:56.120The WEF is a failed organization run by elites and not by conservatives.
00:32:03.960Look, Johnson lost his seat in England.
00:32:07.860Why? He ran as a conservative and he governed as a liberal.
00:32:12.700Where was Brexit? He promised Brexit and then he didn't deliver.
00:32:16.580We must have conservatives who are going to stand for this. Compromise is not the word in 2022 for conservatives. And we must elect two leaders. I believe that this idea that Sovereignty Act is not going to work, if we get Poiliev in power, we get Smith with the Sovereignty Act working together, we don't even use it.
00:32:42.800We don't have to use it if we stick to our conservative principles.
00:32:47.620The Sovereignty Act is a good paper to start saying that we in Alberta are not going to be a doormat anymore.
00:32:59.080So the other aspect of all of this, no matter who wins each race, is, I mean, conservatives are our own worst enemy.
00:33:06.760The first thing we do is we rip ourselves apart and there's going to be segments.
00:33:11.560They're always well in every leadership race.
00:33:13.180Some people say, well, I've had it and they stomp out and they leave the room.
00:33:16.240I mean, the new leader of each party, again, whoever it is, is really going to have to reach out fast and try and pull people together before they start splitting themselves up.
00:33:24.720What sort of strategies could they do to prevent that from happening?
00:33:33.860The first thing that people look at is their pocket, and their pocket is being picked by every single government.
00:33:43.520We've got to cut subsidies to government when we want to increase the economy.
00:33:49.200Stop the subsidies, give tax credit for a number of years, and remove the idea that subsidies are going to give us better economies.
00:33:59.820If you give an incentive not to pay taxes for, say, let's take a new company, especially in the high-tech industry, why give them a subsidy?
00:34:13.620If you think they are going to be viable, give them a tax break for the first five years of their existence.
00:34:20.140If they move away from you within five years, they've got to repay all the taxes back.
00:34:26.720that's the sort of incentives you give because you see if you have a company and you if you
00:34:34.220don't have a company you don't get taxes but if you have a company and you say okay i'll forfeit
00:34:40.040the taxes in the first five years you don't need subsidies you didn't have anything in the first
00:34:45.920place so you're not taking anything away from the people because where do you get taxes to pay for
00:34:52.540subsidies it's from taxes you don't need taxpayer to pay for subsidies for a growing company you
00:35:00.060give them a tax break these are the sort of things we've got to look at from an economic point of
00:35:06.560view this is the first thing we've got to do we've got to allow industries to work we've got to allow
00:35:12.860industries to expand without the help of in front money subsidies from the government
00:35:20.700well absolutely and maybe before i let you go we'll pivot to something you used to comment on
00:35:25.820a lot of course too and that's the municipal government because we have calgary economic
00:35:29.180development they've had a hundred million dollar slush fund for years that they've been subsidizing
00:35:33.340businesses to try and build things up and i mean let's be blunt it's been a catastrophic failure
00:35:38.460calgary's downtown has record vacancies businesses are setting up shop just outside of the city of
00:35:43.500calgary rather than within it even though the city's handing out money left right and center
00:49:37.500But progressivism and common sense are not things that tend to go together very often.
00:49:44.460all right uh let's see here i'm just gonna pull something up and we're gonna get to our next guest
00:49:51.740which is mr dave makachuk who comes on quite regularly he's a very prolific contributor to
00:49:58.140the western standard in the opinion zone how's it going dave going great it's going awesome right on
00:50:05.100so how's burt doing these days where it's okay he's sleeping at the moment he doesn't want to
00:50:10.060to be disturbed. I thought he was a big part, but no, it's afternoon nap time, apparently.
00:50:18.580Well, they've got an important schedule to keep.
00:50:21.420Yes, yes. But thanks for asking. Thanks for asking.
00:50:24.060Oh, no problem. It's important. I mean, this is the furry fellow that monitors the leadership
00:50:30.120debates and gives the... It's an important...
00:50:32.000He does. He has an interest in politics. I'm quite surprised. For a mackerel tabby, quite1.00
00:50:37.920knowledgeable in Alberta politics. You know, it's quite interesting. So maybe we'll just kind of
00:50:46.300start through some of your more recent columns. You know, this was a quite a headline that you
00:50:50.640had from the one the other day there with destitution, poverty and death on a prairie
00:50:54.960trained to nowhere. Yes. Well, it all started when I went to a family function and had a bit
00:51:01.560too much bourbon and uh i had a a really uh a strong vivid dream about uh alberta and alberta
00:51:11.560of the future where uh there was like this train full of uh uh uh farm implements and tractors and
00:51:20.920and and and uh uh all kinds of you know uh machinery yeah uh you know and and and uh
00:51:28.920And it was a wintry scene. And everywhere I looked on that train, in every nook and cranny, there was someone huddled trying to stay warm. And it was so vivid and so real. And it struck me. It just really struck me that, you know, I know that it's just a dream, but I really wondered where our country was going.
00:51:51.700And in part with that, I have to mention, this week, I went downstairs to our condo to dump our garbage in the dumpster.
00:52:04.900And sitting in the dumpster was what looked to me was like a brand new child seat, car seat, a high-end one, like worth hundreds of dollars.
00:52:17.680and i thought my god uh how could somebody throw this out so i got a broom handle
00:52:24.540from downstairs and i wangled this thing out and i pulled it out and dear god this thing i inspected
00:52:32.200it it was mint condition it even had the uh uh uh you know the manual in english and french two
00:52:40.580manuals and it had the warranty papers and a brand new rain cover in a package which had never been
00:52:48.900used. It was brand new. It still had the original packaging. And I thought, well, I can't, how can
00:52:55.820people, how can someone throw this out? Someone out there, a new immigrant or a new immigrant family
00:53:01.300can have this. And so I went to Goodwill and Goodwill said, nope, sorry, can't take it.
00:53:08.440insurance reasons we can't take a child car seat because we can inspect it it's insurance reasons
00:53:16.340we can't touch it so I thought what am I going to do so I went home I went on Facebook I went on
00:53:21.580Facebook where the where you can sell things I can't yeah yeah marketplace and I placed it on
00:53:30.760marketplace and within five minutes I had takers because I offered it for free and to my pleasure
00:53:38.680absolute pleasure an immigrant family said look we really need this we really need this can we
00:53:44.820please have it and I didn't have the heart to say no so I said if you if you're if you can come here
00:53:51.080in an hour it's yours and they came and the man came and what he said he was new to Canada and
00:53:57.440he really appreciated it and he shook my hand and I thought and that's that that hit me that
00:54:02.540really hit me hard how people are really struggling to get by especially young couples today young
00:54:09.860couples and and and immigrants and how we have to try and help when we can and this whole thing
00:54:17.860just and it all came into one big tornado where I wondered where we were going with the Trudeau
00:54:25.140government and of course it's easy to bash just justin he turned his back on us in the oil patch
00:54:30.660he turned his now he's turned his back on the agricultural uh uh industry and it all swirled
00:54:38.260into the bonus given to uh uh the the uh alberta's medical chief medical officer
00:54:45.860which i thought was absolutely insane ridiculous outrageous out of touch with what's going on
00:54:54.260with what we're having to do with the cost of living and what we're all struggling with we're
00:54:59.140all struggling to to get by on less and less and less while prices go up and they gave this woman
00:55:07.700a bonus which put her over 500 000 dollars like what what are they thinking what are they thinking
00:55:16.900have they completely lost touch with with with with the voters with the people of alberta after
00:55:23.220all we suffered during covid and so all that's world into one big tornado and that's
00:55:30.420how the column ended up kind of if that makes sense what i appreciate is is a good you know
00:55:36.180personal viewpoint experience i mean you get lots of rage writing out of people like me on
00:55:40.820the western standard or all sorts of political stuff but uh we you know we like to have a
00:55:45.220widespread of a lot of things out there uh to to you know to just to discuss and make
00:55:51.860observations and they can still tie into politics as you said you know it also at the same time when
00:55:56.820you realize there's some people having a really hard time right now and it is odious i mean dr
00:56:00.980hinshaw fine you're a doctor you're in a senior position that's why your base salary was already
00:56:04.980over a quarter million dollars fine but that means you're expected to go a bit above and beyond your
00:56:10.100job's not supposed to be easy so yes she had a hard couple of years oh here let's give you a0.92
00:56:14.740couple hundred thousand dollar bonus a bonus bigger than the vast majority of us even make
00:56:19.860in a year insane insane and i and i had to use that story which my buddy reg uh often tells me
00:56:28.180about punch him like and johnny bauer where johnny bauer had this great night with the leafs
00:56:33.940and he he saved like you know 30 plus saves and he you know brought home the win and a reporter
00:56:40.900of course we're all looking for good quotes right we're all we're all fishing for good quotes so he
00:56:45.700fed this to punch him like he said okay uh would you like to say something about johnny's performance
00:56:51.300tonight and punch him like said yeah i'll say something he's paid to stop the puck
00:56:59.220so the same with our chief medical officer she's paid to do her job she was not an expert in in
00:57:06.020in emergency services or, you know, all these, you know, small business or the power grid or
00:57:16.920all these other areas, sectors. She was no expert in that. And the impact she had with her
00:57:23.720opinions on COVID impacted everybody and everything in the province. And she had no
00:57:30.320expertise in that. And that's why I thought it was insane to give her a bonus because she caused1.00
00:57:38.360more havoc in a good, you know, I mean, she meant well, she absolutely meant well, and I don't have
00:57:43.820any hard feelings against her or anything, but I just thought this was absolutely absurd and out
00:57:49.840of touch. This just shows how out of touch government is with the common man. I mean,
00:57:55.780And I just, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I just don't get it.
01:02:56.660They've spent millions just talking about this and still haven't replaced them.
01:03:00.520And now I don't know where they'd be able to get them because we've banned importing any new sardines into Canada right now.
01:03:06.480Well, I know we've had it in the other direction.
01:03:09.800Well, again, I think they're just the lack of concern and lack of attention that Ottawa is giving the military.
01:03:19.500I think we've reached a new a new low point in our history, I'm afraid to say.
01:03:25.480I don't think Trudeau is really paying it much attention.
01:03:30.520I think he's more interested in his green policies and how these 100,000 six-figure unicorn jobs are going to appear out of nowhere because we're all going to be driving electric cars and making huge money, you know, thousands of middle-class jobs for green technology that doesn't exist.
01:03:59.460and probably won't exist for another 10 20 years and driving our economy into the gutter so i mean
01:04:06.420that's uh that's our situation it's it's it is it is uh and again it goes back to what i was saying
01:04:13.380where we're the canada of the future the canada of the future and will it be able to be strong
01:04:21.380enough economically and offer jobs for your kids and and and the and the and our kids children
01:04:27.780down the road? I don't know. I mean, I sometimes think we should consider all options. As Daniel
01:04:39.360Smith is saying, we should consider all options. And if autonomy is one of those options, well,
01:04:46.200let's pursue it. If we can't get it done with Ottawa, then let's have a look at maybe we can
01:04:52.180get it done ourselves or at least approach some autonomy. Well, let's maybe wrap things up on a
01:04:58.900positive note. There's a column you wrote a few days ago on witnessing a wedding. It was a nice
01:05:04.520story and talking about, again, immigrants with high hopes and ambition and not everything's
01:05:12.080necessarily bad. You know, that was probably the best wedding I've ever been to. My friend,
01:05:16.700Graham who's a marriage counselor asked me this favor can you come and be a witness and he you
01:05:23.520know he does this on a regular basis I said sure and it was just one of the nicest probably the
01:05:28.380nicest wedding I've ever been to because it was only a few of us and we were at this park bench
01:05:34.340down south in Calgary and it was so there was a young couple filled with excitement to be here
01:05:44.080in calgary and to be discovering you know work and their future and everything and it reminded
01:05:49.840me of when i had come to calgary also looking for a future also looking for jobs and hoping that
01:05:55.920maybe i could make something of myself and of course uh you know i met the right lady and we
01:06:01.060got married the same way in a in a park and uh it just it struck me as that geez you know i sure
01:06:07.000hope calgary and alberta can still do this for for the the young kids in our province and and and
01:06:17.880you know again this this is probably one of the most crucial uh uh elections coming up well not
01:06:26.440yet but the ucp uh uh leadership race is very crucial to alberta's future and i would i would
01:06:34.920ask people to really research it and try to make a choice that you think will be the best for
01:06:43.480Alberta. We need somebody strong. We need somebody to go and tackle Ottawa, not to play footsies
01:06:50.160like Notley did. We don't want that. We tried that, it didn't work. We need someone to go and
01:06:56.780take Trudeau on head to head and to play hardball. And that doesn't mean separation or anything
01:07:03.280automatic what we're asking for is a fair deal that's all and and and and uh uh to let our
01:07:10.960industries foster instead of passing legislation that is knocking them into the ground so and
01:07:17.840you know we can't trust this guy we need someone to go in there and play tough to play hardball
01:07:23.840and i think personally okay i'm just speaking for myself i think daniel smith is the only one
01:07:30.720who can do that and uh and i believe bert believes that too he's kind of soft on her
01:07:37.120well yeah well bert's got his soft spots that's for sure all right all right on dave good talking
01:07:42.800to you thanks and uh looking forward to your next columns and we'll talk again soon okay and thank
01:07:49.440you it's been a pleasure working with you corey uh good luck in the future take care of my friend
01:07:54.720all right thanks dave i'll talk to you later all right so that is the western standards dave
01:07:59.360Dave Makachuk, again, a prolific columnist. And as we said, he writes columns on a number of
01:08:04.840things, everything, a lot of military things, a lot of international stuff. You know, we have a
01:08:08.840lot of local focus, but I like also, as he's, you know, as I said, with his personal observations,
01:08:15.240a nice story, it's got a bit of a political tie. It's still talking about looking at the future
01:08:19.420and your attitudes with a wedding in Alberta, or again, tying, finding an old discarded child
01:08:24.800seat with realizing that there's people in need and that we are also just spoiling our civil
01:08:32.300servants and our senior members as well. This country is not functioning the way it should.
01:08:36.620It really isn't. I mean, we get those discussions. We talk about the term I like to use. We don't
01:08:40.620hear as much as we used to as compassionate conservatism. I think we like taking care of
01:08:44.400our neighbors. Conservatives aren't heartless. We want to make sure everybody has a good future.
01:08:49.620We don't mind stepping up and above and beyond. It's just that we want to help people who can't
01:08:53.420help themselves, not those who won't help themselves. There's a big difference between
01:08:56.780those two. And, you know, just blanket government programs being tossed, you know, left and right
01:09:02.100just ends up bleeding us and often gets to people that really didn't need it in the first place.
01:09:06.160So I can speak briefly on another sponsor of ours, and that is the Canadian Shooting Sports
01:09:10.860Association. The other way that we provide this news and stay independent, of course,
01:09:15.960is because we have sponsors. And CSSA, Canadian Shooting Sports Association, it's run by Tony
01:09:21.640Bernardo, and they are fantastic. And they have been sponsoring us for quite some time. Bottom
01:09:27.440line is, I mean, their name kind of says it's an association with people involved in shooting
01:09:30.420sports, whether you're a collector or target shooter, hunter, it doesn't matter. If you own
01:09:34.700firearms, you got to be a member of these guys. Because for one, I mean, they provide resources
01:09:39.160just like any other association. There's links to upcoming firearms shows or, you know, news items