Western Standard - Triggered： Will the government protect energy projects from extremists？

00:00:00.000 You

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's April 13th, 2022. It feels a lot more like it's mid-January right now.

00:00:39.380 Either way, we are halfway through April. Welcome to Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:44.960 This is the Western Standards Daily Show. We come at you live every day from 11.30 a.m. Mountain

00:00:50.280 Standard Time until usually around 1 o'clock, Monday to Friday. We run interesting guests.

00:00:56.460 get my rants out and we have some interaction. It's always a good time. I do like to constantly

00:01:02.680 remind everybody it is being live. You know, let's take advantage of that. Use the comment scroll,

00:01:07.080 send comments my way, send questions towards the guests, or even have discussions with each other

00:01:11.740 on the comment scroll. We just do have to, of course, keep it fairly civil in there. I mean,

00:01:16.480 we don't always have to agree with each other. Echo chambers are boring, but watching a bunch

00:01:20.740 of people screaming at each other and calling each other names is not terribly exciting either.

00:01:25.180 And if you really want to get into that, follow me on Twitter at Corey B. Morgan.

00:01:28.220 That's where we can really get into the cesspool of the more negative discussion.

00:01:32.720 Here, we're going to try and be a little more productive with these things.

00:01:35.440 So good to see you all there.

00:01:36.920 David, Randy, Scott, Ashley, Dash, lots of people.

00:01:39.920 It's chilly at Edmonton as well.

00:01:41.460 Northern BC with Sheila.

00:01:42.980 I just love seeing how we're getting people coming from all across the country.

00:01:45.880 We had a good contingent from the Maritimes out there for one of those earlier shows.

00:01:50.280 I love watching you all checking in and seeing where everybody is coming in from.

00:01:54.400 We're the Western Standard, but we speak to issues all over.

00:01:57.520 And my first guest will be talking about Canadian issues.

00:02:00.000 It's Western Standards Parliamentary Bureau Chief Matthew Horwood.

00:02:03.820 And he has been writing a number of stories, of course, on federal politics and international politics and things such as that.

00:02:09.800 We'll discuss what he wrote on this week.

00:02:12.240 Then I've got Dr. Monty Ghosh.

00:02:14.240 She's from the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine.

00:02:17.640 And we're going to talk about addiction treatment, harm mitigation, things like that.

00:02:21.580 The opioid crisis, I mean, it's huge.

00:02:23.340 It's impacting everybody. It's big. There's a lot of misconceptions. There's a lot of anger.

00:02:28.040 There's a lot of different points of view on how we can address this growing issue that's really

00:02:33.460 turning into a massive problem. I'd like to speak to, and I'm looking forward to speaking to a guy

00:02:37.600 who works directly in it, working on how we can treat people, get them back into society, get

00:02:42.040 them better. It's better for all of us. So that'll be a great conversation. Now, in the meantime,

00:02:46.400 time. Let's see what's got me wound up today. Well, the protest season is coming. Again,

00:02:53.240 it doesn't seem like it outside, but we're getting into spring. Things are getting warm.

00:02:57.960 So wet's a wetton was a trending term in social media last week as anti-energy protesters backed

00:03:03.120 by various vacuous Hollywood celebrities did their spring warm-ups for the protest season.

00:03:08.840 David Suzuki, of course, attended anti-energy protests as usual, but he did manage to keep

00:03:13.680 himself from calling for the bombing of pipelines this time. So I guess we can give him a little

00:03:17.020 credit there. A handful of idiots glued themselves to the doors of an RBC branch in Nanaimo. They 1.00

00:03:23.160 were demanding the bank divests in all investment from the coastal gas link project. They did cut

00:03:29.340 them loose and I don't know, give them tickets and let them go. I think they should have left

00:03:33.140 them glued there and fed them a bunch of laxatives and had a live feed camera on them. Let's make an

00:03:37.340 example of these guys. They really want to hang out there. Let's give them what they want. But

00:03:40.940 But of course, in our society, we don't do such things.

00:03:43.380 They are lucky that all I can do is talk about things I'm not actually in charge.

00:03:47.240 Now, the flakes out there, they've been cooped up for two years,

00:03:50.240 and they're chafing to get out protesting in force.

00:03:52.380 That's why I'm saying they're just warming up right now.

00:03:54.920 Thanks to Canada's wretched regulatory environment,

00:03:57.860 construction on the CGL line and the Trans Mountain expansion have been agonizingly slow.

00:04:02.660 And this leaves plenty of time for these extremists to continue in their efforts

00:04:06.440 to hinder the progress of these projects.

00:04:09.220 While we still have some of the peaceful protesters from the truckers' convoy protests in jail without bail,

00:04:14.280 even now, our governments can't seem to find the will to follow through with serious charges

00:04:18.460 against the chronic and often violent protesters who repeatedly attack energy projects.

00:04:23.320 It's been months since the eco-terrorists attacked a pipeline site with firebombs and axes in northern BC.

00:04:29.000 So far, we've heard no updates on the progress of the investigation, if indeed there has been any.

00:04:33.080 How they've misplaced 20 terrorists in an isolated northern BC community, I don't know,

00:04:38.320 but apparently they can't seem to find them.

00:04:40.240 There have been no arrests and no warrants issued yet.

00:04:43.160 Do we have to wait until they actually kill somebody?

00:04:45.320 Is it the way these terrorists have been escalating their efforts? 0.58

00:04:47.300 It will be just a matter of time.

00:04:49.640 Now, if the government put half the effort into quelling illegal protests

00:04:52.520 against energy projects that they did in banning bouncy castles from Ottawa,

00:04:57.420 most of our pipeline projects would probably already be done by now.

00:05:00.520 In a recent CBC story, yes, the state broadcaster,

00:05:03.720 a B.C. Supreme Court judge actually asked prosecutors

00:05:06.880 to consider contempt of court charges against 27 people who were arrested last fall

00:05:11.840 while illegally and dangerously setting up blockades on roads in northern BC.

00:05:16.420 Consider charges? Six months later, no less?

00:05:19.020 Like, what the hell does it take?

00:05:20.520 Why does a judge have to ask them to act?

00:05:23.160 It's no wonder the protesters feel they can assault workers on projects with impunity

00:05:27.020 as they did in February. They're right.

00:05:29.200 A group of extreme protesters calling themselves the Tiny House Warriors,

00:05:32.720 they've set up a semi-permanent camp near Blue River, BC,

00:05:35.780 from which they've been staging an ongoing harassment campaign

00:05:38.780 against Trans Mountain Pipeline workers for a couple of years now.

00:05:42.040 The leader of that group is an extremist named Amanda Soper. 0.55

00:05:45.620 She likes to go by her alias, Canoas Manuel, 0.97

00:05:49.340 and she's got an arrest record that's just too long to list

00:05:51.640 that includes some pretty violent actions.

00:05:54.240 They continue to catch and release Soper.

00:05:56.500 Thus, the illegal actions continue.

00:05:58.940 What's lacking, though, in this whole issue, this whole scenario,

00:06:01.840 is the will to act.

00:06:03.400 I mean, Trudeau has proven the ability of the government to quell even a massive protest

00:06:07.120 supported by a large segment of the population,

00:06:09.060 and he was even willing to invoke a version of the War Measures Act in order to do so.

00:06:13.880 The federal government actions against the truckers' convoy were a gross overreach

00:06:17.020 by the government against peaceful protesters.

00:06:19.280 I'm not saying I want to see more gross overreach,

00:06:21.680 but what the government did prove, though, is they no longer have any excuse to sit on their hands

00:06:25.560 while small groups of increasingly violent criminals continue to attack legal energy projects in B.C.

00:06:31.620 Clearly, the government has the means and resources to shut down these protests.

00:06:35.100 It just has to be concluded they don't want to.

00:06:37.560 So as the weather warms and with the pandemic restrictions, for the most part, being lifted right now,

00:06:42.760 we can look forward to large-scale actions being taken against these energy projects in B.C.

00:06:47.680 The time to shut down that mess is right now.

00:06:50.220 We even have, like I said, judges asking for contempt charges.

00:06:53.080 It's not like we don't know who the bad actors are and that there's not really that many of them.

00:06:58.100 Still, the government won't act, and our economy and energy sector will pay the price.

00:07:02.040 This price may even be in human lives if these protests are allowed to keep escalating in their violent nature.

00:07:07.640 If only the protesters in B.C. would erect a bouncy castle or honk some horns or build a hot tub,

00:07:12.240 maybe then the government would take their crime seriously.

00:07:15.560 In the meantime, we just have to hope for the best and, I guess, thoughts and prayers for the workers on those pipelines.

00:07:21.160 Maybe one day we'll actually get coastal access increased for our products out here in the West.

00:07:26.240 That's what's got me triggered going into this Easter, Passover, holy long weekend.

00:07:31.800 Let's bring our news editor, Dave Naylor, in to talk about the other news.

00:07:35.460 He's been really churning out the stories up there today on Western Standard.

00:07:39.960 So let's see. Here we go. Hey, Dave, how's it going?

00:07:43.240 Well, it's been a busy, crazy morning, Corey.

00:07:45.260 Hey, one of my sources, who shall remain nameless but sometimes goes by the name of Eva,

00:07:51.060 It says you and Jane are considering a nude Easter egg hunt out in the compound this weekend.

00:07:57.760 I know we all know you're a nudist at heart.

00:08:01.600 Well, yes, I like to go out, you know, alfresco when I can and being pretty, you know, in a rural area.

00:08:06.960 It really helps, you know, just kind of freshen up and greet the spring.

00:08:10.680 But with this weather coming in, you know, there's not going to be much to be seen anyways.

00:08:15.320 Not that I was ever exceptionally gifted anyhow, but most things I'm certain will be tucked away for the weekend.

00:08:21.060 but we've got to get our spring romp out of the way before I get those new bees into the yard,

00:08:25.800 so we'll see what happens there. I'm glad Eva was interested, though.

00:08:28.980 Yeah, well, you've got to be careful this weekend for shrinkage, Corey, because it is going to be chilly.

00:08:34.000 Well, that's what I mean, you know, and when you had a small stack of coins to start with,

00:08:37.160 you can't afford to spend much.

00:08:39.040 All right, well, that's enough of that.

00:08:41.600 As you said, very busy morning this morning.

00:08:44.160 The aforementioned Eva's got a story up on Pat King,

00:08:47.720 one of the main organizers or spokespeople of the trucker convoy protest in ottawa has been

00:08:53.680 denied bail once again he's been behind bars since february 18th and has even got some new

00:08:59.800 charges late today including uh including perjury uh our chris in uh regina's got an update on the

00:09:07.060 hospital situation there it's not looking good uh being treated in the hallways in the waiting room

00:09:13.700 is now the new normal practice in Saskatchewan

00:09:18.300 as they are being swamped with hospitalizations.

00:09:21.880 Canadian Forces troops are in the air being deployed again overseas.

00:09:26.460 They're off to Poland to help with the resettlement of Ukraine refugees in that country.

00:09:32.140 4.7 million people have now fled to Ukraine ahead of Putin's thugs.

00:09:38.520 And it's good to see Canada pitch in and offer a helping hand.

00:09:42.660 Our Mel Rizdin has got a story on the Calgary Police Service, looking to hire a few good men and women.

00:09:51.880 They're very short staffed right now, and we've talked to some officers who are frustrated about staffing levels and being overworked,

00:09:59.740 and the force is now trying to do everything they can to hire 135 new officers this year.

00:10:07.300 Speaking of the Wet'suwet'en protest, Corey, you remember Amber Bracken,

00:10:12.480 a journalist from the Narwhal, being arrested inside the protest site.

00:10:20.320 She's been given all sorts of awards, even though the RCMP have questioned what exactly happened

00:10:26.360 and said she didn't even tell them that she was a journalist until after the cuffs were slapped on.

00:10:33.900 Bill Gates is in Vancouver today at a TED Talk greeted by the usual vaccine protesters.

00:10:41.220 He's kind of calling them all a little strange and a little weird.

00:10:44.340 He doesn't quite get what they're talking about.

00:10:48.820 Our Dave Makachuk takes a look at the Pierre Poliev campaign and his thoughts on how well that's going.

00:10:56.880 And our Mike Thomas has got a story on Elon Musk making a kazillion dollar offer to buy all of Twitter and take it private.

00:11:06.320 Actually, $43 billion he's offering.

00:11:09.640 The Twitter board is in an emergency meeting as we speak, trying to decide what the heck they're going to do.

00:11:15.560 So maybe if we're quick enough, Corey, we could pool our money and put in a counter bid.

00:11:20.340 What do you think?

00:11:21.780 Well, like I said, I've changes in demand around with me as much as I've got to spare,

00:11:28.000 but we'll see what we total around here. Maybe we could get a piece of that.

00:11:31.740 Yeah, at least a share or two anyways. So yeah, our staff's been busy little bunnies.

00:11:38.740 We've got tons of stuff scheduled out over the next three days. So I wish all your viewers and

00:11:44.960 yourself a happy Easter and there'll be lots to read on the website over the long weekend.

00:11:50.120 Hey, thanks.

00:11:50.540 Yeah, there actually was a live rabbit

00:11:52.360 scampering around our newsroom this morning.

00:11:54.700 I saw that.

00:11:55.180 I thought it was like some sort of Easter practical joke.

00:11:58.020 Yeah, well, I didn't know we had an open animal policy.

00:12:01.340 So I'll see what I can capture out in Prittis

00:12:03.020 to bring in to share with everybody next week.

00:12:05.180 Yeah, as my mom says, those rabbits make good eating.

00:12:07.980 They can.

00:12:08.960 All right, thanks, Dave.

00:12:10.680 We'll talk to you later.

00:12:12.560 So yes, lots of stories on the go, as always.

00:12:16.080 So that reminder to everybody,

00:12:17.480 as we can see that the content is getting up there.

00:12:19.480 We have a number of reporters across the country and here in Calgary,

00:12:23.540 and we are doing that because you guys have subscribed.

00:12:26.160 Subscriptions have been fantastic.

00:12:28.160 Those stories, as we were talking about with the Wetsu West, 0.98

00:12:30.460 and the media, and they're looking to give an award to these clowns. 0.99

00:12:34.760 It's just gotten sick. 0.99

00:12:36.040 It really has, the mainstream media.

00:12:37.580 They were embedded with the protesters in the ground, on the ground, in a cabin,

00:12:42.880 pretending to be protesters, pretending to be reporters.

00:12:45.260 I don't know what they were, but that's the state of media now, 0.99

00:12:47.560 and these guys get an award for this crap. 0.98

00:12:49.480 well, we respond only not to the government. We don't respond to the government. We respond to 0.99

00:12:55.620 you guys, subscribers. That's who we answer to. And so far, it's been fantastic. You guys have

00:13:00.560 been coming out. And those who haven't subscribed already, hey, now's the time to get on. Go

00:13:04.040 westernstandardonline.com slash membership and take out a subscription. You know, for

00:13:08.840 10 bucks a month, best money you'll spend all month. And if you take it out for a year,

00:13:14.460 it's $99 for a whole year. It gets to be even less. And if you use that coupon code triggered

00:13:18.360 that you see right there, you'll save even another $10. That helps us keep rolling. That

00:13:23.420 shows those numbers for us and allows us to keep getting more and more reporters, get more gear so

00:13:28.220 we can try and make me look a little prettier here in the studio, all that good stuff. Take

00:13:33.560 out a subscription if you haven't already. Guys, it's important for us and it's good for you. It

00:13:38.580 allows us, you know, the more the merrier. We make a better product, the more people who get

00:13:43.080 involved with it. So yeah, looking at some of these things, you know, Mel's reporting on

00:13:47.260 the Calgary Police Service, they're trying to hire, but who would want to work for them?

00:13:52.720 You know, I mean, that's the problem they've got. Constantly abused by the police commission,

00:13:57.820 crazed city councillors, and the RCMP, you know, this is a national thing, actually. Police in

00:14:02.440 general can't find anybody who wants to do that job. I mean, they are just scrambling, but they're

00:14:10.340 constantly getting crapped on. RCMP can't win. Local police can't win. I don't defend them with

00:14:15.240 every action they do, but they get between a rock and a hard place. I mean, you're directed by your

00:14:19.220 bosses to enforce the law. I'm not one of the ones who gets as upset with police when they're pushing

00:14:24.720 in on protests as some people do. I'm more upset with the officials who guide them. I mean, when

00:14:30.220 they've made that technically the law, the police are bound to act. And I don't want to go into the

00:14:36.100 long discussion of that, but you know, if they don't act and things go out of control, the police 0.98

00:14:39.960 catch the crap. If they do act and it goes out of control, the police catch the crap. They don't 0.98

00:14:44.540 make a lot of money. And then I get, as I said, they get clowns calling for the defunding of them 0.88

00:14:49.060 and things such as that. So it shouldn't be really much of a shocker that police forces are having

00:14:53.720 trouble finding people who work for them. Again, I'm more of the libertarian point of view. You

00:14:59.200 know, if we really want to go without police, I'm okay with that, but let's bring in some good

00:15:04.260 stand your ground laws, open carry laws. Let me take care of myself. Let my neighborhood, perhaps,

00:15:10.060 you know, we get all our neighbors down prettiest way to pitch in and we'll, I mean, we got 40

00:15:13.900 minute police time at response times down there anyways. And we could hire our own private police

00:15:18.580 force to take care of the area. Hey, you defunders, don't worry, we can take care of this. And I'll

00:15:22.800 take care of my own property. Just leave me alone. If that's really where you want to go. But it 1.00

00:15:26.900 isn't. They just talk to me. Ongoing, as we saw from from Chris Oldcorn, our Saskatchewan reporter

00:15:33.500 has been writing and yeah, there's quite something going on in Saskatchewan. Their healthcare system

00:15:37.620 again, and we're seeing this across the country. We're seeing this everywhere. And I've talked

00:15:40.580 about this at length. There's hospitals are overwhelmed. It's not even just COVID. It's

00:15:44.900 just the fact that the system can't keep up. The system's broken and people have to start

00:15:49.520 realizing this. They got to admit this. So they got people getting hallway care in Saskatchewan

00:15:54.720 right now. If COVID really does resurge hard and really starts hospitalizing a large number of

00:16:00.140 people, they're really up the creek in Saskatchewan. Two years into this and every province in the

00:16:05.660 country has been incapable of expanding, you know, at least reasonably expanding their health care

00:16:11.020 capacity. That's why we got to start actually looking at the system, guys, because we've spent

00:16:15.180 more money. Heaven knows we've spent more money. We've massively increased spending and still we're

00:16:20.200 as vulnerable as we've ever been. We've got to set aside the ideology and embrace the reality

00:16:26.880 that despite what we've been told for many, many years, our health care system isn't the best in

00:16:32.880 the world. It's actually a very vulnerable one that leaves us hanging when we need it most. And

00:16:38.540 it's a terrible situation to be in. Let's hope not too many people have to die in hallways before

00:16:43.740 they figure that out. So just to go further before I get on to Matthew, I just a story I was looking

00:16:49.580 at too. There's groups fearing a partisan inquiry. There's 15 civil liberties groups petitioned

00:16:54.320 cabinet for an open and independent inquiry to the prime minister's use of the emergency

00:16:57.980 police powers during the freedom convoy. And I don't like the way that was phrased in there.

00:17:02.540 Again, as I like to put it, it was Trudeau using a version of the War Measures Act, because that's

00:17:06.860 what it is. It was, I mean, the old War Measures Act was repealed, and it was replaced by this with

00:17:11.500 some different phrasing, but that's what it was. It's an act for extreme circumstances where you

00:17:15.800 can suspend the civil liberties of individuals to deal with an emergency. One of the clauses,

00:17:21.900 at least, the people writing the act said they have to, you know, that they put into it, they

00:17:26.360 said there has to be an inquiry within 60 days. So by April 24th, there has to be an inquiry into

00:17:31.540 this thing and see if it was justified. We know it wasn't justified. But these civil liberties

00:17:36.360 groups, they don't feel very confident that the inquiry is not, you know, going to be partisan

00:17:42.300 and slanted one way or another and not lead to good outcomes, productive outcomes, learning from

00:17:46.940 what was clearly a mistake. And I don't blame them. I don't hold a lot of confidence

00:17:52.140 at that cabinet meeting and that inquiry is going to come to any good outcomes. But who knows?

00:17:57.480 Who knows?

00:17:58.000 You know, sometimes politicians will suddenly find principles

00:18:01.480 and things happen that we didn't anticipate.

00:18:05.020 Okay, so before I bring my next guest in,

00:18:07.340 who, as I said, is from Ottawa, Matthew Horwood,

00:18:09.600 our parliamentary bureau chief,

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00:19:51.980 Okay, let's bring Matthew in. I see him in the lobby there and I know he's going to be just

00:19:56.080 bursting with a lot of stuff to talk about because it's been another exciting week in

00:20:00.100 Ottawa Review. So hey there, Matthew, how's it going? Pretty good. How's it going, Corey?

00:20:04.760 It's been all right. I'm getting ready for something of a long weekend, I guess.

00:20:08.400 Oh yeah, yeah, same here. Right on. So is the weather a little better for you guys out there?

00:20:12.500 I know Manitoba and Saskatchewan are getting hammered and we're in the midst of the second

00:20:15.820 winter right now. How are things as far east as you are? Oh yeah, no snow here, just a lot of rain,

00:20:20.740 very dreary today, but we're definitely getting into the summertime. Leaves will come out

00:20:26.140 eventually for us. So yeah, with your top stories, I guess where to start? We are officially in the

00:20:32.640 sixth wave. That's something you wrote recently on. Dr. Tam has informed us all that it is now

00:20:38.040 time. We've hit the sixth one. Yeah, we are officially in the sixth wave, apparently.

00:20:44.040 You know, I think I have the same view of you as you, Corey, where I'm a little bit more

00:20:47.880 libertarian about the restrictions you know if people want to mask if they want to get vaccines

00:20:52.160 if they want to lock down they can do that but um not about mandating those things for everybody

00:20:56.860 enforcing them so that's that's really my big big fear is that and my hope is that we don't go back

00:21:01.720 to these more restrictive measures that we've seen over the the past couple months um so yeah

00:21:07.260 obviously don't want anybody to uh be harmed by covid want to take all the measures we can to

00:21:12.700 keep them safe, but don't want to impact people's quality of lives and, you know, take away from

00:21:17.600 their freedoms, their ability to make a living, and their mental and physical health. So we'll

00:21:22.980 see what happens with it. Seems to be evidence that the wastewater levels are already going down

00:21:26.920 a bit, but we'll just have to wait and see. Yeah, well, I mean, I think some things are

00:21:31.140 changing, perhaps. Like, we're not seeing it, say, as we were working towards the fourth wave

00:21:35.840 when the warnings were coming, or even the fifth. I mean, there's still some of the usual suspects

00:21:39.680 screaming, you know, the doomsayers and the chicken littles. But for the most part, people

00:21:45.580 are at a point of, oh, okay, well, it's the sixth one. Like there's more of a, it's not really

00:21:50.460 getting the country on edge like it used to. I think we're starting to accept that this isn't

00:21:53.520 going away. Yeah, exactly. The fear around it is definitely going down. People have acclimated to

00:21:57.800 the warnings and all of the, you know, as you say, the sky is falling type people. And we also

00:22:03.840 have the seasonality of viruses. You know, it's never going to be as many people dying from any

00:22:09.020 kind of respiratory disease as we get into the spring and summer months. So I think the messaging

00:22:13.520 in some cases, the fear mongering around it doesn't match the reality on the ground.

00:22:19.300 Yeah. And I mean, again, we don't, I guess, necessarily want to be too complacent,

00:22:24.000 but for people who are vulnerable people, I mean, hopefully we're learning, you know,

00:22:27.220 if we can isolate the people who are truly vulnerable, we can mitigate the harm this

00:22:31.540 could cause and just let everybody else get on with their lives. At least that's my hopes.

00:22:34.700 Oh, for sure. There's definitely a way to protect people who are vulnerable without,

00:22:37.280 you know, impacting negatively the rest of the population. I think there's a way to balance that.

00:22:42.980 We're finding that way. Yeah. So we've got a federal race going on for the Conservative Party,

00:22:47.640 Canada leadership. We've been covering, of course, Polyev was out here with massive rallies he's been

00:22:52.500 holding and a lot of turnout and interest and excitement. Jean Charest is campaigning hard as

00:22:57.840 well out there. I mean, a lot of people would consider him at least the second contender in

00:23:01.160 this, and certainly a different political take than Polyev. You wrote that he's looking to

00:23:07.900 expand the liberal child care program? He is, yeah. He supports keeping the liberals

00:23:13.180 $30 billion daycare plan, but he would also go further on that and add a rebate of up to 75%

00:23:20.100 of child care expenses for lower income families. Patrick Brown on the same day actually came out

00:23:25.580 and said the same thing, that he would keep the provincial child care agreements the federal

00:23:29.700 government made. So yeah, I think we're really seeing Sheree and Brown set themselves apart from

00:23:34.580 Pierre Polyev on the political spectrum. Pierre, as I'm sure you've seen, has said that the liberals

00:23:39.120 childcare program has made childcare more expensive than ever, has a very different view

00:23:43.460 on these large government spending programs. So yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's been unusual. We'll

00:23:52.560 see how voters accept it. I guess the strategy is, Sheree's point of view is, look, the liberal

00:23:58.420 policies are what Canadians want, and we just need to change the face on who's running those

00:24:04.460 policies. So he's going to campaign on essentially what the Trudeau Liberals are doing, and hope the

00:24:09.660 Canadians are just kind of sick of the Liberal brand itself and switch over. Yeah, essentially,

00:24:14.500 he seems to be kind of mirroring the Liberals' talking points, especially as you saw last week

00:24:19.520 when he was talking about Pierre's supporting of the Freedom Convoy and how, you know, the laws of

00:24:24.680 this country aren't just a buffet you can't pick and choose which ones you want to follow um

00:24:28.300 sure said so he's really uh trying to set himself apart from Pierre Polyev in as many ways as

00:24:33.320 possible at least that's where the way I see it yeah well it'll be an interesting race I mean as

00:24:38.000 we were talking about too it's such a long one we got all the way till September 10th so a lot of

00:24:42.480 developments can happen between now and then in popularity and and momentum but uh at least we

00:24:48.140 got polarity you know give voters a choice you're not looking at all the same thing up there quite

00:24:51.280 difference between Mr. Sheree and Mr. Paulio. For sure. Certainly not going to be a dull race.

00:24:56.000 No. And then, so Lewis, you had an article, she's taken on the World Health Organization

00:25:02.960 Pandemic Treaty? Yeah, this one's quite interesting. So the treaty

00:25:07.920 set to be signed in May of 2024, it would include 190 countries would be legally binding. And what

00:25:14.480 she says is that it would be essentially, Canada would be surrendering itself to the World Health

00:25:18.880 organization when it comes to its response to pandemics and its sovereignty. So it's really

00:25:26.640 interesting for me to see members of the Conservative Party calling out these larger,

00:25:31.120 someone called globalist organizations, like the World Economic Forum, the World Health

00:25:35.120 Organization. Question remains whether they have enough power to really do anything about it and

00:25:40.560 whether they pull the strings on these sorts of matters. Yeah, I mean, those organizations only

00:25:47.680 have as much power as the local government wants to give them. I think there's almost a bit too

00:25:52.880 much paranoia when it comes to the World Economic Forum. I mean, their goals are very expressly

00:25:58.480 stated. It's no conspiracy. Schwab wants kind of world socialism. There's no doubt about that.

00:26:03.240 And there's no denying it. And it's still something to be worried about. But unless

00:26:08.440 governments actually embrace what he wants to do, he really doesn't have much power in and of

00:26:13.000 himself. But then when you see something right out of left field like that with Lewis of all

00:26:17.320 candidates, you wouldn't have anticipated saying, well, we're going to let those guys kind of take

00:26:20.920 over that aspect of our governance. And that kind of puts a lot of people on edge.

00:26:26.320 Yeah, for sure. It's definitely very interesting to see Lewis go down that route. And yeah, I agree

00:26:31.780 with you that there is a lot of paranoia, conspiracy theories around the World Economic Forum and some

00:26:38.000 of these large organizations, but they are very open with what their plans are. You know, you read

00:26:42.420 Klaus Schwab's book, The Great Reset, which was released shortly after the pandemic began,

00:26:48.300 he lays it all out there. So it's not as if they're these shadowy organizations operating

00:26:52.520 behind the scenes. They're very open about what their plans are. It's just a question of whether

00:26:56.460 Canadians really want to go for that. Yeah. And it does get concerning when we do here. I mean,

00:27:00.740 Prime Minister Trudeau did parrot the language of talking about going for a great reset and things

00:27:06.560 like that. And he actually has addressed the forum. So I can see why people are concerned if

00:27:10.020 that's what his reading material is and that's who's advising him, then there's a chance he

00:27:14.340 would be moving in that direction. But I mean, we also see some people labeling anybody and

00:27:18.860 everybody as a WEF patsy and so on. And I don't think their reach is quite as far as some people

00:27:24.420 are concerned about. Nothing to be dismissed, but not necessarily as insidious as some would think

00:27:29.480 as well. Oh, for sure. I don't think they have their fingers in all the pies per se, but it is

00:27:33.980 interesting to see politicians and global leaders parroting the language about building back better

00:27:39.300 and the Great Reset.

00:27:41.240 But yeah, very interesting.

00:27:42.680 We'll see.

00:27:43.740 Yeah, absolutely.

00:27:44.920 I mean, they do want their fingers 1.00

00:27:45.980 in all the pies.

00:27:46.600 They just haven't gotten there yet.

00:27:47.540 But again, I wouldn't have anticipated

00:27:48.900 Lewis taking that front.

00:27:50.020 She's come from more of a smaller government.

00:27:52.520 Well, she's really trying to corner 1.00

00:27:53.520 a social conservative contingency. 0.96

00:27:55.780 So it's good to see that the race developing

00:27:57.160 though some different perspectives

00:27:59.060 that we hadn't anticipated.

00:28:01.260 Then you wrote another one, of course,

00:28:02.820 when we want to see authoritarianism

00:28:04.560 right to its extreme

00:28:05.780 and we're hearing about it,

00:28:06.760 but I think not enough about it.

00:28:08.000 And that's that zero COVID strategy leading to the mess in Shanghai and the disaster.

00:28:13.480 I mean, what it's doing to their citizens over there.

00:28:15.680 Oh, it's just horrific, the footage we've seen.

00:28:17.520 I mean, we've got people locked in their apartments for weeks on end that are screaming from their balconies,

00:28:22.860 bags filled with pets that have been murdered by the government for possibly carrying COVID,

00:28:27.520 people being hurted in the quarantine camps.

00:28:30.120 And then, of course, you have the supply chains breaking down and the food shortages.

00:28:33.160 And now the latest that I've heard is that fresh fruits and vegetables aren't being delivered to people out of fears that they might have the COVID virus on them.

00:28:40.980 So it's just, yeah, you see, once again, the zero COVID strategy, how harmful it is to people.

00:28:46.140 And while China's strategy has been much more extreme than what we've done in the West, it just, again, perfectly showcases how, in a lot of cases, the restrictions meant to curb COVID end up being more harmful than the virus could ever be itself.

00:28:58.660 Yeah, that's it.

00:29:00.020 And it's just bizarre and horrible to watch.

00:29:02.080 I mean, China has been an authoritarian state for a long, long time with some terrible policies, especially when it comes to animal rights in general.

00:29:11.460 If you look farther back, I don't know if, you know, just a trivia tidbit in a sense, but Mao Zedong, when he was running China, he concluded that sparrows were part of what was causing hunger in China because they were eating too many seeds and green stuff.

00:29:23.340 And he actually had the population slaughtering, chasing down, and just killing millions and millions of sparrows around the country, which again, with the diversion of resources and everything, actually led to more hunger and more starvation.

00:29:36.180 But that's how bizarre an authoritarian state can get, and a populace willing to listen to them.

00:29:42.140 Yeah, I have heard of that story. And because there were no birds to eat all the bugs, they ended up being the ones that were destroying the food supply and it made the situation worse. So it just goes to show how some of China's policies don't really make that much sense, but they have such a large population that if they lose 10 million people, 20 million people, it's unfortunately, morbidly to say, not much of a dent in their global power.

00:30:08.440 No, and it's hard to, you know, I just look to them, I guess, as a beacon of warning for us

00:30:13.240 to see how hard it is to break free from an authoritarian state. I mean, they're suffering,

00:30:17.220 they're having a hard time. We saw, you know, you look a little too young to remember,

00:30:20.880 but with Tiananmen Square, when that was really a pushback by a lot of students and young people, 0.94

00:30:26.180 and it got crushed just terribly violently by the Chinese. There are some people trying to push

00:30:31.420 back, but once you're in that hole of an authoritarian state, it is extremely difficult

00:30:36.200 to break back out of it. And it's incremental. You know, they keep taking your rights little

00:30:39.900 by little and suddenly you realize you've lost them. Absolutely. It's definitely a slippery

00:30:44.800 slope. And some people who, you know, might see the things people complain about and are concerned

00:30:51.820 by as not being that big of a deal. But once those things are locked in, it's very hard to get rid

00:30:56.600 of them and authoritarian measures stick around. Saw that after the 9-11, you know, the war on

00:31:02.020 terror always continued because there's always a threat of terrorism. There's always going to be

00:31:05.440 threat of pandemics, so we could see the COVID measures and restrictions continue in some form.

00:31:10.720 Yeah, those things, you definitely don't want them to get locked in, or else you can't get rid of

00:31:14.940 them. No, so going further, I guess, you know, Parliament wasn't in session this week, what,

00:31:20.280 maybe some committee stuff, but when are they reopening and coming back in?

00:31:25.220 Next week at some point. I'm not exactly sure on the dates, but we'll be back soon.

00:31:29.920 Okay, so are there any things you're anticipating, pressing bills, debates,

00:31:34.740 things like that, that I expect will be coming up in the next session as they sit down?

00:31:39.500 Well, I have a few stories coming up in the next week. I have a New Brunswick professor,

00:31:46.080 Rod Cumberland. He was let go from his university position for questioning the use of the herbicide

00:31:51.520 glyphosate and its impacts on deer populations in New Brunswick, but also its impacts on human health

00:31:56.900 can be quite bad for that.

00:31:59.980 I also have a story on Canada.

00:32:03.900 I don't know if you're aware of this,

00:32:05.280 but Canada has zero gold reserves.

00:32:07.660 We sold them all in 2016.

00:32:09.340 We are now alongside Nicaragua, Armenia, and Azerbaijan

00:32:12.900 in having zero ounces of the world's most precious metal.

00:32:17.760 So I would like to, in the context of the economic volatility

00:32:21.000 and in context of Russia making moves to peg its currency to gold,

00:32:25.520 I'd like to speak with some economic experts and maybe some MPs and see what they think of,

00:32:30.960 you know, getting rid of all of our precious metals. It's quite, it's an interesting move.

00:32:36.080 Yeah. Well, I mean, our currencies are all around the world. I mean, we've just shaken the economies

00:32:41.600 around the entire globe. I mean, under the basis of the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine,

00:32:46.560 having, I don't know, it's a complicated area, you know, the economic policy, but you move away from

00:32:52.000 some sort of physical basis of it, such as a precious metal. And it seems that your

00:32:57.040 fiat currency can become that much more volatile. Yeah, exactly. You'd think you'd want to have at

00:33:03.440 least some gold bars in reserve for rainier days on the economic stage. But I'm not an economist,

00:33:10.880 that's why I want to speak to the people who really know what they're talking about and see

00:33:14.080 what this means. Because I think it's very interesting, but I don't know the full economic

00:33:17.520 implications and, and why they would have decided to do that. So, yeah, well, I mean, there's, you

00:33:22.920 know, when, when it comes to economists, you get three economists come into the room and they'll

00:33:26.160 give you three completely different perspectives. It's certainly a science that lands with a lot

00:33:30.680 of opinion. So there's a lot of basis in reality in it too. Exactly. Hard to have a crystal ball

00:33:36.120 too, when you're looking at larger economic trends. Absolutely. Any other events, leadership

00:33:42.120 race related or anything like that you're watching out there right now? Or I'm closely

00:33:46.100 watching for when Jean Charest is going to have a political event in Ottawa. As with any other

00:33:52.200 candidates, I'd really like to get down there and do some more live tweeting and live reporting on

00:33:57.060 what they have to say. Great. And since you're out there, I wanted to ask before I let you go too.

00:34:03.700 I've heard from a couple others, like, are there still any remnants of the truckers' convoy

00:34:07.260 protesters out there? Like some of them, when they disbanded, they'd moved to different parks

00:34:10.680 or areas outside. They were kind of camping and staying, and there's still been the odd

00:34:13.980 protests coming out. Does it look like it's kind of wound up now or there's still a little

00:34:18.980 remnant to that going on? It's definitely not wound up. There are some very small groups still

00:34:23.780 out there. Last weekend on Saturday, there was a group of, I'd say no more than 30 that went on a

00:34:28.480 little march down in downtown Ottawa. Now I have heard, I mentioned before about a biker rally

00:34:33.920 that's supposed to show up in Ottawa at the end of this month. And I heard rumors, you know, this

00:34:38.200 isn't official reporting. This is just something I heard, but that a group of people who have been

00:34:42.700 injured by COVID vaccines are planning some sort of a gathering in Ottawa during the summertime.

00:34:47.900 So whether that turns into anything, whether that becomes a huge movement remains to be seen,

00:34:52.700 but definitely not winding up this point. There's just small groups of people. It's really wound

00:34:58.300 down. Yeah, well, we'll see what happens. I mean, there's still federal mandates going on,

00:35:03.260 but for the most part, provinces have backed off on theirs. And I think a lot of people protesting

00:35:07.920 have kind of, in Calgary, we had those ones going on for a while too, but they've wound down now to

00:35:12.020 a smaller one that goes on in a park every weekend, but I got a feeling they're all waiting.

00:35:16.880 I mean, if the mandates come back, if people do panic and they, with this sixth wave or seventh

00:35:21.760 wave or 12th wave, the people who protested before are probably going to come out and force

00:35:25.620 very quickly this time. Oh yeah. It's all contingent on what happens with the mandates

00:35:29.440 and the restrictions and everything. And now that they've protested before, they'll be gung-ho to go

00:35:33.520 out and do it again. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for keeping an eye on things out there

00:35:38.900 in the center of the hornet's nest for us

00:35:41.120 and checking in with us.

00:35:42.480 I appreciate that.

00:35:43.740 Hope we get to talk again soon.

00:35:45.840 For sure.

00:35:46.340 Thanks, Corey.

00:35:46.760 Have a good one.

00:35:47.440 All right, thanks.

00:35:48.940 So yes, that was Matthew Horwood,

00:35:50.120 our parliamentary bureau chief,

00:35:51.560 who, as we said,

00:35:52.580 he's in the middle of Ottawa

00:35:54.240 having to deal with that.

00:35:55.420 If you haven't been there,

00:35:56.260 actually, Ottawa is a beautiful city,

00:35:57.920 some great buildings

00:35:58.620 and a nice landscape

00:36:00.660 and things out there,

00:36:01.520 some great restaurants.

00:36:02.360 But unfortunately,

00:36:02.800 it's also got a whole load

00:36:04.360 of bureaucrats and staffers

00:36:06.180 and other assorted people in ill-fitting suits

00:36:09.440 that really can get under your skin pretty quickly.

00:36:12.240 So I find Ottawa nice to visit,

00:36:13.600 but I appreciate people like Matthew

00:36:15.860 who will live there on our behalf

00:36:17.480 and then report from there for us.

00:36:19.560 So likewise, Rachel's got a deal with downtown Edmonton

00:36:22.520 and every capital gets similar sorts of issues.

00:36:25.800 So keep an eye on there, guys, though.

00:36:27.420 I mean, we've really been upping our game.

00:36:29.000 It's been great and having that coverage coming,

00:36:31.220 you know, it's hard to believe only two and a half years ago,

00:36:33.800 this publication was just getting going again

00:36:35.940 and we were just dealing with local coverage

00:36:38.380 and what Derek and Dave could put together.

00:36:40.320 And now we are spread across this country

00:36:42.080 with all sorts of original content,

00:36:44.520 people reporting and doing that.

00:36:46.800 It's good to check in.

00:36:48.120 What was the question Cher was asking? 0.99

00:36:50.200 Yeah, about that truck tax, 0.63

00:36:51.700 whether or not it's monthly or annually

00:36:54.060 or if it just comes at time or point of sale.

00:36:57.860 I'm not sure.

00:36:58.960 You know, there's different points of view.

00:37:00.220 Gilbo came out and denied on Twitter.

00:37:01.740 And that was kind of funny saying that

00:37:02.780 there is no such tax, it's not happening.

00:37:05.280 And then Chris Sims from the Taxpayers Federation called him out and said, 0.99

00:37:08.620 it's read in your policies from your ministry, so you're either mistaken or you're full of crap. 0.99

00:37:13.660 I think with Gilbo, the chances of him being full of crap are on the higher side. 0.99

00:37:17.120 But I think they talked along the lines because one of the questions was people paying even on used vehicles this tax. 0.94

00:37:22.320 I think the tax would be applied at time of sale, at point of sale, though I'm not 100% sure.

00:37:27.180 But yeah, they want to punish you for having a large vehicle. 0.89

00:37:30.020 And it's interesting watching the discussions, you know, watching some of the ivory tower hammerheads out there

00:37:33.860 saying things. I saw one of those on Twitter. Of course, there's got lots of those hammerheads

00:37:37.220 out there along the lines of, you know, nobody needs pickup trucks. We don't really need those

00:37:41.700 anyways. And the people who do have them are just, you know, rednecks and such. Yeah, well, 1.00

00:37:46.280 okay, those rednecks are building your homes and fixing your plumbing and growing your food and 1.00

00:37:50.100 finding your energy. Those rednecks, you know, are kind of important to you. They're your city 1.00

00:37:56.060 workers keeping the roads from falling apart on you. They're the landscapers keeping your lawns

00:38:00.500 from overgrowing. But it shows the class war almost that's going on within Canada, right?

00:38:05.600 Hey, you're a second class citizen if you're somebody who has a pickup truck. And you know

00:38:11.860 what? If you want one just because you like pickup trucks, that's good enough. It's nobody else's

00:38:16.520 business why you have one. You shouldn't have to justify it. But to see those clowns, and that's a

00:38:21.420 lot of that attitude. That's a lot of it. And that crosses lines politically all over the place. It's 0.98

00:38:25.280 Part of our problems as humans.

00:38:27.240 Well, if I don't need it, nobody else does.

00:38:29.600 It doesn't work that way.

00:38:31.360 You don't want one, you don't need one?

00:38:32.640 Good for you. 0.76

00:38:34.300 Leave me alone.

00:38:35.580 Cut it out.

00:38:36.840 And we see that again when it comes to firearms.

00:38:38.880 And I'll speak to our next sponsor in a moment on that.

00:38:40.740 You know, because a lot of those people, they don't hunt.

00:38:42.880 They don't like firearms.

00:38:43.980 They don't collect them.

00:38:44.580 They're not interested.

00:38:45.660 Fine.

00:38:46.140 Good for them.

00:38:47.240 But then they want to take it away from everybody else.

00:38:48.760 They say, well, if I don't need one, why does anybody else need one?

00:38:50.900 It doesn't matter why anybody else needs one or wants one.

00:38:53.700 It's none of your business.

00:38:54.520 as long as they aren't harming you, leave them the hell alone. But I mean, people can't do that.

00:38:59.720 They just won't stop looking over the neighbor's fence and getting on their case.

00:39:04.340 So I will speak to our speaking of that. And I'm going to be at the firearms show in Calgary,

00:39:08.680 by the way, I'll remind you at the end of the show, James and I are going to be set up down

00:39:12.560 there with the Western Standard. And it's in Calgary at the Seven Chiefs Sportsplex in the

00:39:17.700 Southwest. And as well, I'm sure they're going to be represented there is going to be the Canadian

00:39:22.080 Shooting Sports Association. These guys have been a great sponsor for us and they are speaking up

00:39:27.160 for your rights and abilities to have, use, trade, whatever with firearms. As long as it's legal and

00:39:33.280 not harming anybody, that's your right. They have all sorts of resources on their site. If you get

00:39:38.780 on there and check it out too, you know, like any association, that's where you can network with

00:39:42.560 other firearm owners. It's where you can get videos for safe use of firearms and things such as that.

00:39:48.080 Check them out.

00:39:49.160 Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:39:50.840 The other thing they got going is a number of legal challenges against the government

00:39:54.260 on your behalf because the government's trying to take away your property.

00:39:57.840 They're trying to take away your right and ability to use firearms,

00:40:00.880 and they keep recategorizing them and stealing them.

00:40:03.660 And again, I keep using that term, but it's the truth.

00:40:05.480 It's stealing.

00:40:05.980 If you don't have a choice, when they say your hunting rifle is now assault style

00:40:10.300 and we've illegalized it and we're going to come take it,

00:40:12.940 even if they're paying you for it, they're saying we're going to compensate you,

00:40:15.200 which is going to be another boondoggle.

00:40:16.500 it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. When you haven't given permission to sell it,

00:40:21.040 it's being stolen. I don't care if they give you some money afterwards. It doesn't work that way.

00:40:25.380 It doesn't work that way, or it shouldn't work that way. So you got to stand up for yourself.

00:40:29.400 Take out a membership with the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, because if you don't stand up

00:40:34.000 for your own rights, they will take them away from you. And that's what's happening. These

00:40:38.600 guys need you so they can help you. Join up and their website is cssa-cila.org. I do want to talk

00:40:47.680 now a little more. I'm going to play a very short video clip, but it really illustrates, it's from

00:40:52.400 England, the pure abject stupidity of environmental anti-oil and gas protesters. So we'll run that 0.99

00:41:00.000 little video clip here for a second, and then I can talk a little more on the brilliance of these

00:41:03.740 guys. What are they achieving? Well, what they're saying is they want maximum disruption to stop

00:41:10.200 the government extracting oil and gas. Yeah, but that's cooking oil. I don't know if you're used

00:41:16.640 to or familiar with accents, and that was somebody's recorded from a television, but 0.98

00:41:19.500 what was happening was somewhere in England, some idiots had been blocking, you know, these 0.98

00:41:24.100 environmental extremists blockading an oil tank, and they figured they're going to stop the 1.00

00:41:28.200 extraction of oil and gas. And as this gentleman pointed out, it's a cooking oil tank. It's from

00:41:33.720 restaurants. It's canola oil. It's deep fryer oil, you idiots. But it doesn't matter to them.

00:41:40.940 These aren't rational people. And we keep indulging them. And we keep bending over for

00:41:46.340 them. And they're costing us. As I said, I mean, in the extremes, they're getting dangerous as we

00:41:50.580 see out on the coastal gas link project. And on the smaller extremes, we have these idiots blocking 1.00

00:41:56.280 tanks of cooking oil. Oil's oil to them. Well, if anything, they should blockade their own hair 1.00

00:42:01.320 because I've been around enough hippies to know that the oil content on their skulls due to lack 0.99

00:42:05.840 of personal hygiene is a health hazard for people in general as well. So if they really got a problem

00:42:10.800 with uncontrolled oil, give them some head and shoulders. So getting further with that,

00:42:16.400 this is a story of the watchdog buried a complaint. This is a press watchdog because

00:42:20.620 I mentioned a little bit of that earlier with these environmental journalists and they got

00:42:25.660 grants from the state broadcaster, the CBC to go out and do this. And they were out at the protests

00:42:30.860 on the coastal gas link line.

00:42:32.160 They got arrested with the protesters

00:42:33.840 because they were the protesters.

00:42:36.320 They were among them.

00:42:37.060 They suddenly turned themselves into media members

00:42:39.180 when they're getting busted.

00:42:40.940 But in the meantime,

00:42:41.700 they're locking themselves in cabins

00:42:43.160 that were built on a roadway,

00:42:44.960 forcing the police to chainsaw their way in,

00:42:47.520 to extract them.

00:42:48.880 And now, oh no, we're media.

00:42:49.880 Leave us alone.

00:42:50.580 Come on, you guys.

00:42:51.360 You can't be both.

00:42:52.840 But the watchdog said

00:42:54.220 they're not going to investigate it.

00:42:55.600 They say it's okay.

00:42:57.340 We're going to let that go.

00:42:58.400 again, our media, you know, we've got a media organization as well that is looking to give

00:43:05.500 these guys a journalistic award. For what? I mean, it's one thing to go and attend and take part

00:43:10.600 at these. I understand. I understand the concept of embedded reporters, of embedded coverage.

00:43:17.260 Of course, get in there, get us some unique content, even have a bit of slant. I mean,

00:43:21.320 people are human. They're not robots. They're going to even unconsciously be leading one way

00:43:25.440 or another. But these clowns with the narwhal, which is just an environmental rag, and, you know, 1.00

00:43:30.920 under with some money from our dollars, our wallets, our tax dollars, went out, and they didn't just 0.99

00:43:35.360 embed themselves. They joined the protest. That's a big difference. It's a big line that's crossed.

00:43:41.240 But as I was saying earlier, we've got a federal government that loves shutting down our oil and

00:43:46.780 gas. They're ideologically driven. They're insane. They're led by Trudeau. I mean, come on, the guy

00:43:50.560 gets his shoes on the wrong feet 50-50 in the morning. You know, he's only got a half and half

00:43:54.500 chance of doing it right if he doesn't have an assistant. So this isn't a guy who's going to

00:43:58.760 look in a cerebral manner on the importance of domestic energy supplies. So, I mean, every

00:44:03.760 little way they can keep undercutting, they will do so. So when we're spending tax dollars to put

00:44:08.520 these protesters cloaked as media members down into these sites, they're more than happy not

00:44:15.640 to follow up on it. So, I mean, it's distressing. I mean, how do we, and that's what I get back to,

00:44:21.720 it's self-serving. This is why though I want to see more independent media. We're responsible to

00:44:25.460 you guys. If we pulled a stunt that far over the top, that foolish and violated that many 0.80

00:44:32.580 journalistic principles, we should be disciplined by it. And we'd be disciplined by you guys. You

00:44:37.320 say, you know what? I'm canceling my subscription. I'm done watching you clowns. You don't deserve

00:44:41.260 my attention any longer because you've abused your position as journalists. So we reward them

00:44:48.240 on the other side with tax dollars with us. Again, we're responsible to you guys. And these guys,

00:44:53.960 again, I can't believe, you know, they're actually been submitted for the Canadian Journalism

00:44:59.600 Foundation's Award for Excellence in Journalism. I don't know. Going out, getting myself arrested,

00:45:05.420 forcing police to drag me out of a spot shouldn't lead to me getting an award for excellence in

00:45:11.100 journalism, I would think. But what do I know about it? So what else are we going to get into

00:45:16.480 before I get to my next guest.

00:45:17.620 And I've really been looking forward to that.

00:45:20.220 Just that reminder, I guess,

00:45:21.540 for a lot of economic pressure,

00:45:22.700 unfortunately, we're going to be seeing

00:45:23.820 Bank of Canada, you know,

00:45:25.660 when we were talking a little bit with Matthew

00:45:26.920 about currencies, things like that,

00:45:28.780 they're raising the key interest rate

00:45:30.220 by the highest amount in more than 20 years

00:45:32.520 in the face of rising inflation again.

00:45:34.420 So they basically doubled it.

00:45:35.640 I mean, it's only half a percentage point to 1%,

00:45:37.680 but when you look at the trend and the acceleration

00:45:40.200 and these things that sound small have a large impact

00:45:43.640 And you've got to be worried.

00:45:46.740 Yet at the same time, that is the only, well, no, that's the prime mechanism that the government

00:45:51.740 uses to battle inflation, which puts a lot of fiscal pressure on a lot of people, particularly

00:45:56.680 with fixed incomes.

00:45:58.620 The other way, of course, would be to try to reduce the borrowing load and stop having

00:46:02.660 the Bank of Canada issuing so much new currency and putting out those bonds.

00:46:06.140 That would reduce inflation too, but that gets a little more abstract and doesn't have

00:46:10.520 as quick an effect as just increasing borrowing rates.

00:46:13.420 But the bottom line is what happens is if you increase the borrowing rates, it slows the economy and people will purchase less.

00:46:21.880 And of course, then our inflation will slow.

00:46:24.300 It does work.

00:46:25.360 That is true.

00:46:26.620 But it comes at a price and it comes with making everything more expensive for a lot of people.

00:46:30.260 And unfortunately, we've got a lot of people very deep in debt these days.

00:46:33.680 And they're only one or two more points away from not being able to make their mortgage payment or their car payment.

00:46:38.140 Or if, unfortunately, they've racked up their credit cards too much.

00:46:42.000 you know, that's a personal issue. But guys, I just say it, if you're in debt, try to get out

00:46:47.440 of it right now, guys, because the interest rates are only going to go up. It's been too tempting.

00:46:50.920 I think we've been spoiled by those low rates for quite some time now and let ourselves really

00:46:55.220 borrow a lot. If you've got the means to get a little out of that debt hole, now is the time to

00:47:01.260 do it. And these are, yeah, just fiscally dangerous and difficult times. One other thing, speaking to

00:47:08.240 somebody who has a lot of liquid cash that was mentioned and it's coming up for the hearings.

00:47:11.900 Before I get to my guest, I will speak to him about that one more time because

00:47:14.640 one of the most interesting people I think in the world is Elon Musk. I don't agree with

00:47:18.840 everything he does, but boy, he certainly is his own person. He's a disruptor and he just likes

00:47:24.220 shaking things up. So not content with having stirred everybody up by buying 9% of Twitter.

00:47:29.980 He's gone out now with a full out takeover attempt with spending $40 billion is unimaginable

00:47:36.840 amount of money. And they're having, I guess, an emergency board meeting and they're considering

00:47:41.400 blocking his attempt. But from what I've heard, now it's a publicly traded company. The shareholders,

00:47:47.280 of course, this made the price of shares go up dramatically. And if the board blocks this sale,

00:47:53.200 those people who could theoretically have made out very well with that purchase and selling

00:47:57.640 their shares to Musk are going to be very, very upset. And they may sue the board or at least

00:48:02.540 Twitter itself. So it's complicated, guys. You can't just simply stop Musk and say no.

00:48:09.400 And the board will be robbing people of that. And what he would do if he got full control of

00:48:14.300 Twitter? I don't know. I don't know. He's so just brilliantly unpredictable. I got to admit,

00:48:20.700 just as a guy who likes to see a little crazed anarchy, I just love watching Musk in action.

00:48:25.700 He's not a, if we're going to have billionaires, at least let's not have them be boring. And he's

00:48:29.700 certainly not that. So we'll be watching that with interest. I think at one o'clock today or

00:48:34.400 something, they're going to have some sort of meeting. So I'm going to go on to a little more

00:48:38.000 darker stuff, but the stuff I've talked about a lot on this show, it's a subject that's just

00:48:42.140 personal to me as a recovered alcoholic. It's personal in that I ran across a fatal overdose

00:48:49.860 on the way to the office some months ago. I wrote about that. It really shook me up.

00:48:54.260 All of us are seeing it. All of us are impacted by it. And I've had friends who've lost sons

00:48:59.620 it's the opioid crisis and and we really need some nuanced uh try to set the emotions aside

00:49:06.700 try to set the political ideology ideologies aside and have a discussion to figure out how

00:49:11.420 we can help address this and help people get avoid addiction get off addiction once they're there

00:49:17.520 and mitigate the harm until we can get them treated so i've got dr monty goshen he's from

00:49:23.120 the canadian society of addiction medicine to get some discussion just on real treatment options and

00:49:29.200 things we might be able to do. So thank you very much for joining me today, Dr. Ghosh. I've been

00:49:33.680 looking forward to this. Thanks for having me here. So you might have heard me on the introduction.

00:49:38.740 You know, it's a big issue. Everybody's concerned about it. Unfortunately, in a lot of levels,

00:49:42.340 it's become very politicized as we do. It's another human nature thing. But the opioid

00:49:48.940 crisis is just, it just seems to be expanding and completely out of control. And we're getting

00:49:55.120 mixed messaging on how we should be addressing this. Maybe can you give a rundown of where

00:50:00.340 things are sitting right now? Absolutely. So right now at this time, we're about five deaths

00:50:05.200 a day in Alberta. So to put that into perspective, that's about the equivalent or actually more so

00:50:12.020 than heart attacks. People dying from heart attacks today, people dying from car accidents

00:50:15.560 today, people dying from murders, right, as well. So we're having a high rate of overdoses at this

00:50:21.720 moment and it's just rising we haven't been able to quell it uh i think what we need to sort of

00:50:27.000 deal with this is a multi-factorial approach a multi-pronged approach if you may um and it's

00:50:34.200 basically the full spectrum you know you talked about ideology but the truth is we need a full

00:50:38.680 menu of options for our patients uh to help them overcome this and this goes from everything from

00:50:43.960 recovery oriented services which i know our alberta government's pushing forward to harm reduction

00:50:48.200 getting more supervised consumption sites out there using the the virtual options as well

00:50:52.200 getting the locks on kits out there too uh you know we need to throw everything we can

00:50:56.680 at this epidemic and and see how we can best sort of mitigate the rising uh rising overdose deaths

00:51:03.960 yeah one of the controversial areas has been and i've been a bit critical on it i still support

00:51:08.920 some of it like with harm reduction if we're talking supervised consumption sites and things

00:51:12.680 such as that but uh they have limitations i guess i don't want to see an end to them but we can't

00:51:18.040 look at them as a panacea as well. Like I walked to work, I posted pictures of the discarded

00:51:22.280 syringes. I'm only five blocks from a consumption site. Not every addict is going to take advantage

00:51:26.760 of those sites, unfortunately, but some will. And I like to remind people, I mean, they say

00:51:31.320 treatment, treatment, treatment. I agree, but you can't treat them if they're dead. So we've got to

00:51:35.000 keep them safe long enough till they're ready, I guess. A hundred percent. You've got it bang

00:51:39.480 on there. So it's, uh, yes, your best consumption sets are only good for a 500 meter radius around

00:51:43.880 them we really want to sort of put those sites where the need is there so we look at you know

00:51:48.520 overdose rates in certain neighborhoods uh seeing where they're the highest and put those sites

00:51:53.320 there but the vast majority about 60 to 70 percent of albertans are dying in their own homes uh and

00:51:59.480 this is where uh the government of alberta's doors app really comes into place so it's the digital

00:52:04.200 overdose response service that uh that the usb have put into place uh we've got more national

00:52:09.400 products from uh the federal government uh from the liberals which is north the national gross

00:52:13.640 response service very similar names but kind of uh and very similar purposes uh so there's

00:52:18.600 these mitigation opportunities for harm reduction that deliver services to people's homes the way

00:52:23.720 it works basically is either through an app or or through a phone line you get connected

00:52:27.960 uh to someone who can monitor you and has your address so if you do overdose they're

00:52:33.880 able to dispatch services to your home um but yeah again it doesn't stop there like you know we we

00:52:39.240 we support them uh in their use we do harm reduction to make sure that uh that you know

00:52:44.840 they're doing you're using safely because often um they're not going to stop of course right

00:52:50.440 uh but then we also try to provide other supports and resources around them so this is where you

00:52:54.200 try to improve their quality of life through addressing their mental health housing income

00:52:57.880 stability get them to a better place in life then also get them to the path of recovery if you can

00:53:02.920 um again it doesn't work for everyone but uh if we can take care of their trauma

00:53:08.040 uh could take care of uh of their their biopsychosocial needs which often impact their

00:53:13.320 substance use uh that's where we really want to be heading with every one of our clients

00:53:17.800 and i'm glad you brought that up that statistic is what we see on the streets is the most visible to

00:53:22.360 us but we don't understand is this is actually hitting a lot of people who are in homes they

00:53:27.400 might not have hit the level of going to the streets but as as you said the majority actually

00:53:31.560 more than half are passing away at home with these overdoses. As I said, I've had actually

00:53:37.660 now three friends whose sons have died from overdoses. These weren't street people. They 1.00

00:53:43.120 weren't, you know, they might have reached that point, I guess, if they lived long enough. They

00:53:47.260 weren't from a rough environment. Whatever had led them into that bad path, though unfortunately was

00:53:53.200 fatal. So we've got to look at not just the visible options we see on the streets, but in

00:53:58.260 households and a broader sort of

00:54:00.220 resources to provide for people.

00:54:02.880 Yeah, we need to really

00:54:04.440 to permeate the permeate

00:54:06.240 society. So we know that with

00:54:07.980 substance use, there's a lot of

00:54:08.760 stigma and with stigma,

00:54:10.920 people don't want to seek help.

00:54:12.180 They're in there by themselves in

00:54:13.740 their homes. They don't want to go

00:54:14.820 to the substance use because they

00:54:16.020 don't want people to know they

00:54:17.920 don't want their kids to be taken

00:54:19.080 away from them. They don't want

00:54:21.180 other jobs to be taken away from

00:54:22.420 them as well. And so we really need

00:54:24.000 to start addressing this and really

00:54:25.500 need to start

00:54:26.120 showing that people can reach for help, that there aren't any consequences with this.

00:54:32.180 You know, a lot of my patients tell me they're worried about sort of the criminal consequences

00:54:35.880 of this and the criminal consequences aren't really there. And that's the message we need

00:54:40.180 to sort of send to these individuals that we have effectively decriminalized. I think we

00:54:45.640 should move on to decriminalizing in the future. And it should not be a barrier for people to

00:54:53.140 seek help if they want to seek help. And just to distinguish because sometimes people get mixed up

00:54:57.820 decriminalizing isn't the same as legalizing it just means that we're not going to put efforts

00:55:01.520 in to try and chase down everybody who's an addict because they illegally possessed a substance or

00:55:05.620 something like that that's not the top priority and it's not going to have much impact. On the

00:55:09.640 law enforcement end though and that that's an area of contention particularly again when we get around

00:55:14.020 consumption sites things like that I mean that there is a peripheral rise in crime and that's

00:55:19.980 another area to be addressed. I mean, if we can make local residents and citizens in those areas

00:55:23.640 feel more comfortable, they'd be more inclined to welcome a center like that in their neighborhood.

00:55:29.900 100%. So like, actually, there was a forum yesterday with a lot of the chiefs of police

00:55:33.100 throughout Alberta in Calgary, and they discussed sort of their approach to this. And, you know,

00:55:39.940 their approach is actually in favor and in line with a lot of the decrim motions. It's a different

00:55:44.200 form of decrim than uh you know what would be a more liberal perspective on it uh for sure so

00:55:50.120 they're more conservative stance with what they call diversion uh and what this means basically

00:55:55.000 is that instead of when when you do get someone who is using substances you do arrest them quote

00:55:59.720 unquote uh but they they're not necessarily charged uh and they're offered as you had mentioned uh

00:56:05.960 uh they sort of go to a tribunal and look at the portugal model and the tribunal decides whether

00:56:10.360 go to treatment uh whether you need more housing supports income supports etc uh but you're not

00:56:16.040 necessarily just left out right uh uh and so that's kind of the subtle difference here and

00:56:20.680 that's really what the the chiefs of police are pushing towards is that they want more of a a

00:56:25.640 structured approach um so again they're not necessarily uh like not in favor of it i think

00:56:30.680 it's it's a good thing to start looking in that direction uh they're worried about uh public uh

00:56:36.360 public uh disruption uh but you know these things can be mitigated these things can be

00:56:42.120 worked uh worked on uh collectively as a group between uh between provincial officials uh the

00:56:48.840 police and the city and i think that's the way we need to move i've got a question from a viewer

00:56:54.440 maryland walls asking if you've seen the provincial dollars i mean there's been a commitment to adding

00:56:58.280 more treatment facilities and beds have we seen that actually starting to happen are they being

00:57:02.680 set up i mean it's one thing when government talks about doing something and it's quite another by

00:57:06.120 the time it gets there are we finally seeing some more capacity for treatment 100 so most of my

00:57:10.520 clients are able to get into treatment the next day uh which is phenomenal because you can't

00:57:14.760 really see that anywhere else in the country um i i think you know treatment is again a huge

00:57:21.240 important piece of the puzzle so getting into the by the psychosocial piece which treatment

00:57:26.600 takes care of is is is important and also the biological piece of getting people onto

00:57:30.680 opiate agonist treatment such as methadone suboxone that can happen right away at any

00:57:35.320 point in time uh from like basically 8 a.m to 10 p.m or at any emergency department screen for seven

00:57:41.720 uh and that's through efforts like the virtual open dependency program uh we've got numerous

00:57:46.200 programs in in calgary and in edmonton that can help support this population group uh so all of

00:57:50.840 this has already been built and we just need to really tap into it uh what we need to start

00:57:55.560 looking into again a bit more is some of the other harm reduction strategies i think that also needs

00:57:59.240 to expand upon and and further discussion of course around decriminalization uh which we

00:58:03.880 that can definitely help. Great. And going further into, I guess, the tougher realm, but the more

00:58:08.720 important one, in a sense, is the prevention aspect. And I think we're making progress in

00:58:13.360 destigmatizing mental health issues. We've had a lot of great, you know, initiatives and groups

00:58:18.400 that point out, you know, it's just a, it's an illness like anything else. We won't, you know,

00:58:22.880 give anybody grief for being a type one diabetic. We shouldn't give them grief if they've had to

00:58:26.760 suffer from depression or anxiety. But people tend to, as one, a lot of people who end up in

00:58:32.180 addiction situations, it's like they've been self-medicating rather than perhaps seeking

00:58:36.380 the proper help in the first place, and it leads to a bad outcome. So is there more effort on,

00:58:41.540 I guess, mental health support so people have somewhere to go before they end up getting

00:58:44.420 addicted? I know they are investing a lot of money to that, and I agree that's where we really need

00:58:50.020 to focus on. With 211 expansion, I think that's a huge important piece. I know that there's more

00:58:55.320 resources because of the pandemic and how that's impacted people's mental health. So those resources

00:59:00.160 in place too i think the big thing in terms of prevention that we need to focus on uh actually

00:59:04.800 there's several things one is uh what we call adverse childhood experiences uh so these are

00:59:10.160 our emotional physical sexual abuse as a child uh emotional um disruption um so we need to take

00:59:18.080 care of these aspects of things really focus on on child wellness uh second of all is opiate

00:59:23.200 prescribing and i think that government is really uh focused on that both the uh the previous uh

00:59:28.080 NDP and as well as our current UCB government, they really focus on prescribing habits of physicians

00:59:32.640 and then internally within the Alberta Medical Association or College, we've been really focused

00:59:36.800 on making sure that the physicians are well aware of how they prescribe opioids and how much to

00:59:42.160 prescribe and do some stewardship around that because we know that that is sort of precipitate

00:59:46.240 the epidemic as well. But then last one, at least again, be very supportive of the patients who are

00:59:52.000 currently using substances. I think that's the key where we have to be, as you had mentioned,

00:59:56.800 a very supportive and compassionate community towards them uh it being uh not compassionate

01:00:02.480 actually just drives them further away from support and help uh and and we've got uh numerous

01:00:08.720 examples where that's just not uh not the best way to go no no shaming and driving away that just

01:00:14.640 doesn't help with an addict of any sort uh and that applies again to alcoholics and many others

01:00:19.520 circumstances it's not going to aid anybody if you drive them away that they need people there

01:00:24.400 Interesting. Yes, you brought up the prescriptions and that's been talked about a lot. I mean,

01:00:28.640 there was kind of a boom of opioid prescriptions for pain relief. Are there better drugs coming

01:00:33.880 on? Like I know Gavapentin, for example, is a little less addictive, at least potentially,

01:00:38.160 than some of the opioid-based medications. Are we seeing more of a shift towards those types

01:00:43.100 rather than reliance on such addictive means? 100%. I mean, Gavapentin can be addictive as

01:00:48.340 but it's not nearly as lethal less so and and and so uh absolutely so yeah we are seeing a lean

01:00:54.900 towards a gabapentin uh tricyclic antidepressants uh and ssris which are selected serotonin uh

01:01:01.860 reactive inhibitors which are also antidepressants uh so those are sort of the medications that

01:01:06.260 should be our first line and opiates are traditionally second line but we know that

01:01:09.540 opiates don't really work well for chronic pain uh very few studies have looked at the use of

01:01:14.100 opioids beyond a three-month duration which is where you actually get the proper diagnosis of

01:01:18.580 chronic pain um and so we are moving away from that uh cannabis and cannabinoids are being looked

01:01:24.260 at as well more closely uh again some addictive potential but less uh less destructive if you may

01:01:30.580 uh compared to opioids and i think that's really the direction we need to go uh but there's again

01:01:35.460 other aspects of pain i mean to focus on too which i don't you know if you have resources for

01:01:39.140 so some of this is um is a psychosocial aspect so like getting some exercise going getting their

01:01:45.940 wellness going and dealing with their mental health making sure their sleep is okay uh again

01:01:50.500 these all these other factors these lifestyle factors need to be maximized in order to manage

01:01:55.140 chronic pain yeah so uh again i mean it's as we found in this discussion there's just so many

01:02:02.180 facets so many directions what i like to remind people of too if the judgmental thing even if you

01:02:06.420 you want to be selfish. There's no better end for you than if we could get fewer and fewer people

01:02:13.020 addicted. I mean, they could be out of the medical facilities, they could be in the workplace,

01:02:17.240 they can, you know, less pressure on our law enforcement officers. I mean, so some of the

01:02:22.560 responsibility, I know people don't like to think of that, but lands on ourselves as well and how

01:02:26.800 we deal and judge with other addicted people. And even if self-interest is what drives it,

01:02:31.260 as long as it drives it, that they can understand that we're all better off to try and help these

01:02:34.780 So I, I'll just kind of finish up though. Like I said, the harder question is prevention. Where

01:02:42.680 can we work best to try and mitigate these addictions in the first place?

01:02:47.880 You know, it's, it's, it's hard. Again, I think dealing with adverse childhood experiences and

01:02:51.660 making sure we get the, you know, we nip trauma in the butt. As soon as someone experiences trauma,

01:02:56.180 we deal with it and we figure out ways to match that is hugely important. I mean, that's not where

01:03:01.460 where every substance use disorder stems from,

01:03:03.920 but that's where a large majority of them stem from, right?

01:03:06.000 And so that's, you know, dealing with that and mental health,

01:03:07.800 I think are the first big crucial steps we need to take

01:03:11.100 in order to reduce the prevalence

01:03:13.720 of substance use disorders in our community.

01:03:17.920 You know, and I think, again,

01:03:19.260 that's sort of the smartest way to approach this.

01:03:22.720 And then the best way,

01:03:23.660 it has the most long-term effects later on down the line.

01:03:27.260 Other aspects that we can look at

01:03:28.920 as more controlled substance distribution.

01:03:31.680 We've known that that doesn't work either.

01:03:33.780 The more you prohibit substance use,

01:03:36.520 the more harm societal harms are as well.

01:03:39.460 So again, it's not really the best public policy strategy,

01:03:44.100 but it's a very tough question.

01:03:45.520 And if you can see,

01:03:46.380 we sort of have four prongs for our public health strategy.

01:03:48.880 There's prevention, there's criminalization,

01:03:53.200 if you may, or enforcement.

01:03:55.960 There's also harm reduction and there's treatment.

01:03:58.580 We're putting all of our eggs into the treatment,

01:04:02.480 harm reduction and the enforcement aspects of things.

01:04:07.840 But you're right that the prevention aspect

01:04:09.720 isn't as focused on it.

01:04:11.180 It's maybe something that we need to start looking at

01:04:12.740 as a society.

01:04:14.780 Great, well, we've got a lot of work to do.

01:04:16.240 And I think, you know, people are,

01:04:17.840 just because it's starting to impact everybody now,

01:04:20.300 and they're all seeing this happen that, you know,

01:04:22.080 hopefully we'll get more will to examine

01:04:23.780 and try and figure out how to battle and stop this.

01:04:26.640 Where can people find, I mean, I appreciate the work you do.

01:04:28.560 Where can we find more information on what you're doing

01:04:30.520 and where can people find resources further

01:04:32.920 for just these issues in general?

01:04:36.620 So there's a 211, of course.

01:04:38.040 And then if you just log into Alberta Health Services

01:04:39.980 and just Google addiction services,

01:04:42.200 Alberta Health Services, there's tons of resources there.

01:04:44.180 In Calgary, specifically, we have adult addiction services

01:04:48.180 and the HS Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Program,

01:04:50.940 which is located in downtown Calgary,

01:04:52.320 except walk-ins Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

01:04:56.780 So just come on down and there's people there to help you,

01:04:59.520 whether they're counsellors, physicians, nurses,

01:05:02.000 help is there if you need.

01:05:05.120 Great.

01:05:05.620 Well, I really appreciate you coming in to talk to us about it today.

01:05:08.240 Hopefully one day we'll talk about it in hindsight

01:05:10.480 as we found a way to actually bring the trends downwards

01:05:13.180 and just move on to other problems

01:05:16.440 once we've knocked down this growing scourge of addiction right now.

01:05:20.480 So again, thank you very much for joining us, Dr. Gosch,

01:05:23.980 and we will talk again down the road.

01:05:26.340 Thanks for having me see you.

01:05:27.540 Bye.

01:05:27.900 Appreciate it.

01:05:29.500 So, yes, there we go.

01:05:30.660 And I just wanted to have that conversation.

01:05:33.160 It's so important.

01:05:34.480 And as you said, you know, if you've got issues, we've got lots of resources out there.

01:05:38.820 We've got the beds.

01:05:39.860 There's people who aren't judging.

01:05:41.160 Call 211.

01:05:42.360 That's part of it.

01:05:42.960 You know, if somebody's starting the slide down or they know somebody who's starting to or they see it coming,

01:05:48.340 if you can nip that in the bud, potentially get in there and, and, and treat this person or give

01:05:54.620 them, direct them towards resources, we can hopefully head it off. And then we've got to

01:05:58.840 worry about the ones that are addicted as well. And, and, and it's easy to get upset.

01:06:04.240 I've gone on a number of times about, you know, what I went through the other year when my bar

01:06:07.660 was robbed multiple times, and that was a gang of addicts. That was a gang of guys that were

01:06:12.360 wrapped up in that world of, of drugs and ugliness. And when you see the crime aspects that can

01:06:17.500 blossom from some of that. It makes it harder to be sympathetic to the people who are addicted.

01:06:22.880 I know that. I'm certainly not sympathetic towards those guys who robbed me still.

01:06:26.960 But overall, I mean, the ones you see them on the streets, we call them the zombies,

01:06:31.740 the ones in that much rough condition. They could be anybody. They could be your kids. They could be

01:06:37.580 your cousin. They could be your parents. Like they started somewhere and they still, there's still

01:06:42.660 hope. I mean, there's some stories out there of people who've recovered, who've gotten off it,

01:06:48.100 who've gotten their life going. And if we can bring those outcomes out, we're all better for

01:06:53.160 it. I'm a conservative. People call me the heartless whatnot. And I am in a number of levels.

01:06:57.860 As I said, if you want to look at it in a self-serving way, fine. I like the term

01:07:01.020 compassionate conservatism. I mean, our role is to take care of people who can't take care of

01:07:06.240 themselves. Not those who won't take care, but those who can't. And I know for those who've

01:07:10.480 been lucky enough never to have been addicted to anything. They don't know how it feels. That's why

01:07:14.800 support groups are so important. That's why AA, even though I'm a faithless heathen, outside of

01:07:19.700 the spiritual aspect, AA was very important to me to stop drinking because I could get around other

01:07:24.200 people who understood what it's like and what you have to go through. If you haven't been through it,

01:07:28.720 good. That's great. But it makes it harder to understand. It's not so easy as some people just

01:07:32.860 say, oh, just buck up and stop. It's not that simple. It's not that simple for anybody. So

01:07:38.260 getting those resources, getting out there, trying not to judge. That was something Dr.

01:07:42.740 Ghost mentioned a couple of times. It can help. I see Cheryl brought up too, yeah,

01:07:48.040 backlogged surgeries. We've got a lot of other things. That's another contributor to this whole

01:07:52.620 mess that we've seen is people with our whole healthcare system. There's so many facets coming

01:07:58.420 in. And what happens if the doctor says, okay, you need a hip replacement. You're in agony.

01:08:04.040 we're going to schedule that for 18 months from now.

01:08:06.480 Well, they're not going to leave you waddling around in agony

01:08:09.060 with your messed up hip for that long, though.

01:08:10.940 They're going to say, well, here, take these pills to help you get by.

01:08:13.760 And as the doctor said, even the less addictive ones like avipentin

01:08:17.120 are still addictive.

01:08:18.060 And quite often we get people who've waited a long time,

01:08:20.780 knee surgeries or treatments that, you know, in the meantime,

01:08:24.960 leave a person in pain.

01:08:26.240 They get medicated for the pain.

01:08:27.980 They get treated, but it turns out now they're a hopeless addict

01:08:29.920 at the end of it.

01:08:30.580 Or, again, there's no sense pointing a finger to blame,

01:08:33.560 but a person has a house with a lot of painkillers within it, a lot of opioids. And that

01:08:37.060 sometimes is how the kids got access to it. And they got hooked on it because they found it in

01:08:42.160 the medicine cabinet. You know, you try things when you're young, not all of us make smart

01:08:46.180 decisions. And unfortunately, sometimes getting into a couple of those bottles of pills is enough

01:08:52.360 to get a young person addicted and they're down that horrible road. And I think we need to have

01:08:56.820 those frank discussions and quit being as judgmental as we can when it comes to these

01:09:02.160 things because we can at least mitigate things like that. And we get so much judgment with the

01:09:08.200 safe consumption centers. Oh, we're just enabling them. I understand that. But as I said earlier,

01:09:14.920 a lot of them die from overdoses. A lot of them die from infections, from not consuming safely,

01:09:19.040 things like that. Those are people we can't save. If we can keep them alive, we have a chance of

01:09:24.240 saving them. We're all better for that. Investments of dollars, I'm always critical of the government

01:09:28.860 spending, but they're spending on more of those beds. I'm glad that was asked by a viewer, you

01:09:33.880 know, on whether it was actually translating to beds. It sounds like it is. It's good for all of

01:09:37.800 us. You know, it will help. So as we're seeing just in, yeah, so just kind of go away from that

01:09:44.360 subject now, as we were talking earlier with the Elon Musk's bid to try and take over Twitter

01:09:50.480 and the one of their largest shareholders there, Alwaleed bin Tala. Oh, wow. That's a long one.

01:09:57.640 A Saudi owner, he's a Saudi prince, so a lot of those Saudis have a heck of a lot of money,

01:10:01.860 and he's one of Twitter's largest shareholders, and he's rejecting Elon Musk's bids.

01:10:06.680 I'm not sure how hostile takeovers work with publicly traded companies, but to a degree that

01:10:10.880 they can't necessarily stop him. If enough large shareholders refuse to sell, I think that's what

01:10:16.120 could hold it off. But I remember Elon Musk bought 9%, and that made him the largest shareholder as

01:10:22.340 it was already. So it's going to take quite a combination of shareholders to be able to stunt

01:10:27.680 his attempt. So this one who is doing this, I don't know if he can stop the entire thing.

01:10:34.420 I just love watching Musk shake things up. I mean, as Scott Campbell said, pretty sure Musk

01:10:38.460 has enough money to start his own media platform. You know, and Scott, you're right. But at the same

01:10:42.820 time, it's hard, right? We've seen the other ones try to come up and I've tried to be supportive

01:10:47.180 with Parler and Getter and Gab. But you know, when you've got one monolithic big one where

01:10:52.760 everybody's kind of already there, it's hard to spring off to a new one. Now, if anybody could

01:10:56.700 start a new one that's going to evolve into anything, I think it would be Musk. And I suspect

01:11:01.320 that if they shut down his attempt to buy Twitter, that's probably where he's going to go. He's not

01:11:06.440 going to leave it alone and shrug his shoulders. As I said, he's an interesting, volatile character

01:11:12.360 with a hell of a lot of money. And he's just enjoying himself stirring that pot and shaking

01:11:17.080 up this world. And I think for the better. So we'll see what happens and progresses with that.

01:11:22.620 And it's an amazing world we've come into where social media giants are such a large part of the

01:11:28.660 economy and make such an impact on things. So we're certainly watching that with interest.

01:11:36.060 Let's see, where else was I? I should speak to our sponsor one more time. Again,

01:11:39.680 speaking of digital things and so on, and that's digital currencies. And that again is

01:11:43.880 Bitcoinwell.com. I want to expand a little bit further on some of the services these guys provide.

01:11:51.600 We do that at the Western Standard. I talk about that a lot. We've got a plan where I can set

01:11:55.520 aside some of my savings, some of my money. A portion of my check every month goes into my

01:12:00.800 Bitcoin ledger that they helped me set up. Again, one-on-one service because I'm a Luddite. I used

01:12:05.540 to be on top of tech stuff in the 90s. I kind of lost track. These guys walked me right through it.

01:12:10.020 one-on-one service, set up my ledger every month, automatically a portion of my check gets

01:12:14.760 deposited into a Bitcoin ledger. And then the Western Standard actually matches that. So they

01:12:19.180 help the employees with the savings plan. And it's totally optional. Of course, they don't force us

01:12:22.580 to take part in. I chose to. This is a number of other employees. And they set up these kinds of

01:12:27.220 services for savings plans. And it can be corporate. I mean, if you own a company, you want

01:12:32.500 to do that for your employees, go for it. If you want to nag your boss to try and set something 0.75

01:12:36.280 like that up. You know, pass it along. Bitcoinwell.com. They have plans for everything, 1.00

01:12:40.540 whether it's a modest little investment or whether you want to sock away a lot over there. Their

01:12:44.580 other part, aside from the one-on-one personalized service is they're non-custodial. That means they

01:12:50.360 never hold your money. You are in control of it all the time. They just are the middleman. They're

01:12:56.980 the facilitator. They got ATMs all over the West. They do all the services to make Bitcoin practical

01:13:02.260 for you, but they never take it out of your hands. Watch out for those other services. If they say,

01:13:05.920 we're going to hang on to it on your behalf. That's when you can get some danger. That's when

01:13:10.060 some of the ripoffs could happen. Bitcoin Well is not any of those sorts of things. They are

01:13:14.680 a fantastic company and a fantastic sponsor. Check them out, bitcoinwell.com. All right.

01:13:21.500 Let's see. I'm looking further on that old coastal gas link journalist. We've covered that enough.

01:13:27.700 I mean, I like to talk about our superiority as an independent media outlet. And they give us so

01:13:35.580 many options from her, I should say options, examples from the mainstream media to show us

01:13:40.740 why we need these alternative outlets. I'm working on a special, by the way, where I should be sitting

01:13:45.200 down with Sheila Gunn-Reed and Andrew Lawton. So from True North News and from Rebel, and we're all

01:13:50.960 going to talk together, alternative media getting together to talk about some of the pressures and 0.91

01:13:55.020 some of this horse crap going on. It's just tough to schedule with the three of us, but we've got

01:13:59.200 specials coming along. So that's that reminder to people to subscribe, all these social media

01:14:04.140 channels. You got to subscribe when you see these things popping up. Hit that bell that'll give you

01:14:08.340 the alerts, you know, so when we do something, if I do get something together with Sheila and Andrew

01:14:13.320 or with some of the other news reads, editorials, you can see these coming onto the digital media

01:14:18.700 as they come. Follow us on Rumble, follow us on Twitter, all of those things. We never know which

01:14:23.720 one of these sites are going to go down. And this is how we can keep spreading the word, bypassing

01:14:27.900 that odious old CBC and some of those things and keep getting that content out to you guys. So

01:14:33.680 make sure to do that um let's see so here's an interesting little story somebody's saying

01:14:40.320 three months after getting infected with covid in mid-december uh you got infected again because

01:14:45.240 that's what we're starting to see now is you get infected over and over again and uh he's saying

01:14:48.720 well this time uh this was reported that the symptoms were lighter so i mean at least that's

01:14:53.960 a sign that we're going to move towards the end of this thing we've got to let this thing make its

01:14:56.600 rounds but chances are by the end of it it's not going to be hitting us as hard as it uh

01:15:01.680 had been initially. Somewhere COVID is going to come to an end, guys. We're going to get out of

01:15:07.080 this nightmare. So let's see. We'll wrap up here, I think. I just want to remind everybody,

01:15:12.440 so I'm going to be at the, it's the AACCA Easter Arms Show. It's the big arms show of the year in

01:15:18.880 Alberta, in Calgary. It's at the Seven Chiefs Arena at the Sutina Reserve, and it's in Southwest

01:15:23.740 Calgary off the Ring Road down there. We're going to be there for both days at a table. Come on down,

01:15:28.160 say hi. I'll be there all day tomorrow. And hey, if you're into firearms, it's a good spot to see

01:15:33.320 those sorts of things. I think it's the Alberta Arms and Cartridges Collectors Association. I

01:15:37.780 think it is, but it's a big show. On Monday, I'm going to have Western Standard Saskatchewan

01:15:41.720 reporter Christopher Oldcorn on. We're going to get the Saskatchewan rundown. He says he's got

01:15:45.080 some big stories. He's actually coming into Calgary for a visit, so we'll have him here.

01:15:48.600 And we're going to have Mark Milkey, who has written a number of columns, and he wrote another

01:15:51.820 good one, really breaking down that difference between equity and equality. The words sound

01:15:55.900 very similar but they are quite different in meaning and we need to have more of that discussion

01:16:01.260 and of course not to mention danielle smith is going to be kicking off her show at 9 a.m mountain

01:16:06.520 standard time on monday she will start the day so now i'm going to be more pressured than ever to 0.96

01:16:12.040 make good productions because she's going to be a hard act to follow danielle's been fantastic on

01:16:16.240 talk radio in the past i think in my view and i've said it she was the last of the good hosts i mean

01:16:20.900 we've still got Gormley hanging in out there and a couple others, but aside from that,

01:16:24.720 they're gone. So, I mean, it's great to have Danielle here. I'm sure she's going to have

01:16:28.640 lots to say Monday morning. So make sure to, again, that's why I say, follow those alerts.

01:16:31.700 These things are coming up nine o'clock Monday. She's going to be on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays

01:16:35.600 for short shows, and then Saturday for an extended one, sitting with a guest and longer discussions.

01:16:42.160 Thank you all for tuning in today, guys. Have a good Easter weekend, and I will see you on the

01:16:47.080 other side of it.

01:16:50.900 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - April 15, 2022

Triggered： Will the government protect energy projects from extremists？

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