Western Standard - Triggered With Cory Morgan

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 hey there it's january 4th 2022 welcome to the maiden episode of triggered i'm cory morrigan

00:00:49.220 this show is going to be coming to you every day live at 11 30 mountain standard time we've done

00:00:55.200 this before but we're now we're rebooting we got new gear new graphics a new producer a new format

00:01:00.680 and have some new guests gonna have some older guests and you've still got my pretty face to

00:01:04.860 look at you throughout the shows that hasn't changed very much a little grayer on ready for

00:01:10.040 the next new year comments are always welcome you know as we get this show going i want to interact

00:01:15.460 with people we want to go back and forth we want to chat that's why we're doing it live of course

00:01:20.400 we do want to keep things civil we want to keep them productive but let me know who you want to

00:01:24.400 see on here, what you want to talk about, what we can do better. This is how we'll develop this

00:01:29.280 show and keep it fresh and moving along for you. So today I got two great guests coming on. I got

00:01:35.300 Franco Terrazzano. He is the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I've had him

00:01:40.180 on as a guest a number of times in the past. The reason being, he's always got a lot of good stuff

00:01:44.460 to talk about, and he's going to be talking to us about the new taxes we have to look forward to

00:01:50.040 in 2022. Now it's only going to be a 10 to 15 minute segment, so he might not be able to list

00:01:54.460 all the new taxes that are going to hit us during that period, but he's going to do his

00:01:57.800 very best. After that, I'm going to be speaking to Terry Wong. He's a Calgary city councillor.

00:02:05.200 He was just elected last fall in Ward 7. For people not familiar with Ward 7, that was held

00:02:11.240 by councillor Drew Farrell for, I believe, almost 20 years. It was probably the most left-wing

00:02:17.720 councillor in recent history, and she held that spot through vote splitting for a long, long time.

00:02:23.300 She finally stepped aside. Terry won it, though with a small percentage. There were a lot of

00:02:27.620 candidates running for that, and Terry is a good, solid, conservative sort of guy, though. It'll be

00:02:32.720 interesting to chat with him, though, as a conservative leading person on a very progressive

00:02:38.140 leading council, how he plans to achieve change in the next four years as councillor. So before I get

00:02:44.780 we're going to do a newsroom check-in, but I got to talk about our sponsor, one of our prime ones,

00:02:49.260 and that's Bitcoin Well. These guys, they've been a fantastic sponsor for us for some time.

00:02:55.320 And the reason is, is because people are going there and they're finding out that this service

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00:03:04.040 because I mean, it is a confusing, complex thing, but I mean, we're seeing it's a growing industry.

00:03:08.840 It's huge. And, you know, government currencies are not stable. They're not what they used to be.

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00:03:36.420 coming along.

00:03:38.560 So next, we are going to check in with our newsroom.

00:03:42.420 We're going to do this every day. The Western Standard, I mean, this is part of this show.

00:03:46.200 We're integrated with a newsroom. We do breaking stories, live stories, and of course, we've got

00:03:52.320 columnists and we're covering things all over. So I've got Melanie Risden from the newsroom

00:03:56.580 checking in with me today. How are you doing, Melanie? Good, good. How about you?

00:04:01.660 Oh, very good. A fun new show to kick off. I've got a whole new audience to reach out to.

00:04:05.760 If I'm not triggered, I will trigger them. You will. You're good at that.

00:04:11.340 Yes. So yeah, you want to do a little bit of a touch on what's happening in the news right now.

00:04:18.140 One of the stories that has been getting a lot of clicks is, and it's been trending now for four

00:04:25.180 days, it's the story about Justin Trudeau calling unvaccinated people racist and misogynistic

00:04:34.140 extremists uh we covered that story a few days ago um and it looks like we also have us we have

00:04:43.740 a letter uh that was written uh sort of a letter to the editor that was written in response to uh

00:04:49.900 to trudeau sort of shaming him for for what he's calling racist and misogynistic um but yeah that

00:04:57.100 seems to be that seems to have I would say ticked off quite a few of our readers for sure. One of

00:05:07.100 the other stories that is getting a lot of traction right now is from one of our columnists Linda

00:05:12.620 Slobodian. She did a column on a CBC reporter that recently quit the CBC and you know discusses

00:05:22.060 at length why why she decided to leave and and the things that this reporter was was experiencing at

00:05:29.820 CBC and and uh how the stories were sort of moving away from uh what was important to Canadians and

00:05:38.380 um yeah that was uh that was a pretty interesting turn of events I think and probably didn't uh

00:05:46.060 bode very well for CBC's audience for sure. Yeah, go ahead. Carry on. No, I'm going to be talking

00:05:55.780 at length and I'm sure our listeners, if we want to talk about triggered, I mean, Trudeau has

00:06:00.000 certainly triggered people. I mean, you can have different opinions, you know, you can differ on

00:06:04.620 these things. You can even get emotional about them, but that gross blanket layering of calling

00:06:08.880 them misogynists and racists and extremists is just beyond the pale. It's no wonder that story

00:06:14.500 has stayed at the top with us for some time. Well, yeah, it's really, it really creates

00:06:19.460 divisive nature, right? Within, especially coming from our top leader in the country. It seems

00:06:26.580 an interesting choice of words, certainly. We're also looking at a story that just developed out

00:06:35.060 of Kelowna, BC. Of course, we know a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Bonnie Henry and the BC government

00:06:40.720 did bring in some new restrictions and sort of further locked things down.

00:06:46.300 One of the things that they brought in was the restriction for gyms to close.

00:06:50.600 However, we have a story up right now out of Kelowna where there is a BC gym called,

00:06:55.780 I believe it's Iron Energy, and they are staying open.

00:07:00.160 They're bucking the calls to have gyms close.

00:07:05.000 Their argument is we're here to help our our patrons and our customers deal with, you know, mental health and stress issues.

00:07:14.660 You know, I think a lot of people can argue that that working out and staying physically active is is good for the mind, not only the body.

00:07:24.500 So they're pushing back very hard.

00:07:26.880 They've actually asked their, based on the story, they've asked their gym users to come with their phones and make sure that if anything's happening, if there seems to be, you know, any kind of law enforcement outside or whatever, they really want to make sure that they have all sorts of means to document what's happening and make sure they're encouraging their participants and their users to record anything that comes up while they're at the gym or coming to the gym or

00:07:56.880 what they're seeing happening. So that's another one. And then of course, this afternoon, we've

00:08:03.140 got a couple of health updates coming from not only the BC government, which we'll be covering,

00:08:08.800 that's happening at 2.30 our time. And we'll have an update from our provincial government,

00:08:13.840 from Kenny and Dr. Hinshaw. That one is scheduled for 3.30 and we will have the watch

00:08:19.680 on our website for that one as well. Great. Well, just to remind everybody with those stories that

00:08:25.020 Melanie touched on and I'm certain others that'll be breaking as they come along, Dave and

00:08:29.500 Eva and the rest are all working in the newsroom. Go to westernstandardonline.com and you can see

00:08:35.600 these things in detail as they break are the ones that have come up. So thanks for joining me and

00:08:39.560 I'm certain we'll be talking again soon as more things break, Melanie. Sounds great.

00:08:45.840 Great. And yeah, Cheryl pointed out one of the commenters, Cheryl Dawn, with Trudeau's statements,

00:08:50.660 He said, Trudeau said it in French, hoping there'd be no bilinguals in Canada.

00:08:54.720 Yeah, there are more people speaking French than they'd like to admit outside of Quebec.

00:08:59.240 Bridget's asking about something with Quebec's Indian lockdowns and bringing in 300 Canadian forces to help with booster rollouts.

00:09:06.220 I'll have to look into that.

00:09:07.200 That one I'm not familiar with.

00:09:08.900 And that's what I appreciate with the comments.

00:09:10.240 You know, we can find some things.

00:09:12.600 Something I want to get to, of course, is what's got me triggered today, too.

00:09:15.460 You know, one of the things that's been happening is overlooked.

00:09:17.860 I've written a column on this and I just want to summarize it.

00:09:20.400 And it's the damage that's being done to our youth right now with the cancellation of things.

00:09:24.600 You know, we're taking years and events and opportunities away from them that are never going to be coming back.

00:09:29.760 So with the World Junior Hockey Tournament, you know, that got cancelled suddenly a week ago.

00:09:35.460 Young people from all over the world were coming out for this.

00:09:38.500 A once in a lifetime opportunity.

00:09:41.060 Been training for most of their young life.

00:09:42.640 This was the culmination.

00:09:44.060 The chance is gone.

00:09:45.360 It got cancelled.

00:09:46.020 They're flying back home.

00:09:47.300 I mean, many of those players,

00:09:48.480 they're going to be too old to qualify

00:09:49.480 when the next tournament's held.

00:09:50.520 It's the juniors.

00:09:51.020 They have to be 20 or under.

00:09:52.140 The same thing is for the Max Midget AAA tournament.

00:09:55.040 It's a world invitational.

00:09:55.980 It's a huge one that was in Calgary every year.

00:09:58.480 Cancelled.

00:09:59.100 Those players, if they turn 18,

00:10:01.120 they can't come back to play it again.

00:10:02.680 So again, these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities

00:10:04.800 for these young people, gone.

00:10:06.580 We've got to remember these lockdowns

00:10:08.260 are doing terrific long-term damage to them.

00:10:11.560 It's not just high-level hockey tournaments being cancelled.

00:10:13.380 We're seeing everything from spelling bees

00:10:14.700 to dance recitals have been canceled in the last two years and these age-specific gatherings and

00:10:18.540 events once the kids go grow out of them again they can't go back and the years are passing

00:10:23.260 these competitive and demonstrative events are crucial for the social development of our children

00:10:26.860 they can't you can't substitute for them with zoom meetings i mean the kids learn essential skills

00:10:31.020 from strategy team building uh communication and interaction with their peers and they're losing

00:10:37.340 these experiences right now and we can't turn the clock back i mean education from kindergarten to

00:10:41.820 to post-secondary has been stunted and inconsistent for two years now due to these COVID-19 restrictions.

00:10:46.700 Youth don't know if they're coming or going. I mean, right now, we don't know what the next

00:10:49.820 announcement from Kennedy will be when the schools are going to open. It seems more they're interested

00:10:53.420 in pandering to the teachers' union than they are for the needs of the children. They're being

00:10:56.940 trained to spend time with their peers through social media now rather than in person. I mean,

00:11:00.220 that was already bad enough for the kids staring at their phones all the time, but they aren't

00:11:03.260 getting that in-person interaction at schools or in social and sports gatherings, and this is doing

00:11:09.460 real damage. We're creating a fearful introverted generation. It's going to take decades to undo

00:11:15.200 this damage. I mean, you know, we know that those are the formative years when things happen when

00:11:19.060 you're young in life, they imprint on you for the rest of your life. And two or three years might

00:11:22.820 not sound that substantial to those of us like me, who've got a few decades under my belt already.

00:11:27.800 When you think of when you're 12 or 14 years old, that's a huge percentage of your life that's been

00:11:33.200 living in this bizarre up and down COVID world. And they're getting a broken worldview out of it.

00:11:38.600 I mean, they can't even see people smile due to masking.

00:11:41.340 I mean, what's this doing to you?

00:11:42.920 We're being periodically told not to even leave your home.

00:11:45.940 I can't imagine if there's going to be a growth industry coming,

00:11:48.160 it's going to be for counseling and psychologists and psychiatrists 0.82

00:11:51.580 for this generation that's growing up in this messed up generation.

00:11:56.380 Forced masking is creating an entire generation of children

00:11:58.400 who consider it natural to comply with government-imposed dress codes.

00:12:01.540 I mean, when you think about it, that's being imprinted on them.

00:12:03.880 Dress as your government tells you.

00:12:05.320 If there's any silver lining to be found in the COVID pandemic, anything,

00:12:09.320 Kids seem to be nearly unaffected by it. We've got those numbers. It's been two years. I know

00:12:13.240 we got fear-mongering politicians and broadcasters who'll scour the world and find that incredibly

00:12:17.640 rare case of a child somewhere that had been harmed by COVID-19, but the numbers show clearly

00:12:21.640 kids don't tend to get hurt from this. They don't have much to fear. I mean, the government of

00:12:26.760 Alberta touted the death of a 14-year-old boy last summer as evidence that COVID-19 kills the young,

00:12:30.920 and they had to backtrack it because the kid's family got up and said, no, he died of brain

00:12:35.880 cancer. He happened to have COVID. And you guys took advantage of that to try and spread more

00:12:40.780 fear. Plus they doubled down on the trauma for that family who was dealing with the loss of a

00:12:45.440 young man. It doesn't hurt kids. And we're lucky for that. So we should be comforting the kids

00:12:51.200 with those facts rather than terrorizing them with forced masking and segregation over an

00:12:57.200 infection that's statistically less likely to kill them than their commute to school is. I mean,

00:13:00.880 they've got a better chance of getting hit up by a car than dying of COVID. We've got to put those

00:13:05.600 facts out there, or a bolt of lightning in summertime, if they're playing outdoors, they

00:13:08.460 should avoid the storm. And I mean, again, that speaks to it. Preventative measures are a good

00:13:13.120 idea. Avoid infection realistically, do things, but the risk of actual harm is so low, we've got

00:13:19.180 to start working our policy based on that, because we're hurting these kids. Cost-benefit analysis

00:13:23.160 has been lacking with our COVID-19 restrictions right from the start. The economic costs are

00:13:27.980 staggering, as well as the social costs, with things such as the opioid epidemic and the

00:13:31.980 addiction. These waves of infection are coming and going. It's becoming more and more difficult

00:13:37.000 to determine whether the lockdowns have any significant effect on the spread of COVID-19

00:13:40.340 or not anyway. Government leaders are going to start asking themselves whether the ends are

00:13:43.560 justifying the means of these pandemic restrictions. When it comes to restricting the lives and

00:13:47.460 development of our children, there shouldn't even be any more discussion. The risk that COVID-19

00:13:51.880 presents to them is almost non-existent. Well, the damage for social restrictions is high, very high.

00:13:57.340 We need to end all of these school closures. They damage our kids and they don't reduce the spread

00:14:00.700 of COVID-19 anyway. The same applies to other social events, whether it's theater productions

00:14:04.800 or soccer games. Young minds, they're only going to get the chance to develop once and we're

00:14:09.620 needlessly disrupting that development. We need to return to sanity on all levels for people of

00:14:13.960 all ages. The path to that has to begin with our youth who are taking the brunt of the damage from

00:14:17.820 these restrictions and have the least risk. We can't buy the time back later. We've been doing

00:14:22.200 a lot of foolish things as a society in this last few years due to mass panic over COVID-19.

00:14:27.380 Disrupting the development of our youth during their most vulnerable period of life has been 0.98

00:14:30.480 the dumbest and most destructive action to date. We can't start working soon enough to start undoing

00:14:36.920 that damage however we can. That's what's got me triggered today. You know, as we see that

00:14:42.020 discussion all over the place of where are we going to keep schools open? Are they coming back?

00:14:47.120 Can the kids go? Can they play in sports? This is a tragedy. I mean, COVID, I'm not one of those

00:14:53.280 that denies that there's a pandemic or that it's harming people. I mean, that's well established

00:14:57.080 as well. But these kids, they're not the ones getting harmed by the pandemic. They're getting

00:15:01.760 harmed by all the government response to it. And it's carrying on. And I'm getting really worried.

00:15:06.420 I mean, it's going to take a long time to sort out. And yeah, you know, as Nikki's pointing out,

00:15:13.560 more have to rise up. You know, we got to push back. I mean, I'm going to have a little discussion

00:15:18.660 later about what rational pushing back is and isn't. I know people are very frustrated.

00:15:23.540 it feels like whatever we try, we're failing anyways. And yeah, I know. And that does lead

00:15:27.740 to people escalating their actions, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those actions are going to

00:15:32.160 be productive in pushing back against excessive government restrictions. Most government

00:15:38.240 restrictions on pretty much anything are excessive. Those who aren't familiar with me, yeah, I'm

00:15:41.660 pretty libertarian. The less government I have in my life on every aspect, as far as I'm concerned,

00:15:46.060 is better government. But right now, it's horrific. I mean, government is, our world revolves around

00:15:51.500 the restrictions, the regulations, telling us where we can go, who we can meet, where we can

00:15:55.540 eat, whether you can open a business, whether you can do commerce. This is brutal. And as somebody

00:16:01.520 else was pointing out, cases, cases, cases. I mean, we've got a media and a government just

00:16:06.040 addicted to fear porn. They just want to keep scaring us. They just want to keep making this

00:16:12.180 pandemic out to be something to keep us locked up and cloistered at home. And it's causing

00:16:17.680 terrific damage. So I'm going to have my guest popping on here pretty soon, Franco Terrazzano.

00:16:23.480 Before I get to that, though, I do want to speak to another one of our sponsors. You know,

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00:17:40.520 So without further ado, I'm going to pull my first guest in

00:17:45.520 on the rebooted, triggered Corey Morgan show.

00:17:48.380 We got Franco Teresano.

00:17:50.220 He's the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:17:53.220 which means he's triggered as much or more than me just about all the time.

00:17:56.900 How are you doing, Franco?

00:17:58.040 Hey, man, I'm doing good.

00:17:59.160 Happy New Year's to you and your viewers.

00:18:02.060 Yes, thanks.

00:18:03.080 Yeah, we try to be, well, I mean, I like to rant and rave,

00:18:05.260 but I find it therapeutic.

00:18:06.180 I know it sounds negative and so on.

00:18:09.340 And sure, I go on in the negative things, but I feel better.

00:18:11.380 You know, I mean, some people at Snowflakes like to have a good cry and they feel better

00:18:15.040 afterwards.

00:18:15.560 Well, I have a good rant and I feel better afterwards.

00:18:18.580 So it is productive, if only for my own soul.

00:18:21.900 And I'll rant on other people's behalf.

00:18:23.960 So you wanted to talk to us about some of the things we do have to look forward to in

00:18:28.160 2022 as taxpayers, though.

00:18:30.580 Yeah, I wanted to rant about all the tax increases that are happening in the new year.

00:18:35.920 Here's the takeaway for us taxpayers.

00:18:38.080 If you're making $40,000 or more, get ready to be paying higher federal income taxes.

00:18:44.340 And that's because payroll taxes are going up.

00:18:47.160 The CPP tax is increasing.

00:18:48.740 The EI tax is increasing.

00:18:50.460 But Corey, it doesn't stop there.

00:18:52.500 Unfortunately, there's really a raft of new tax increases happening this year.

00:18:56.980 You got a higher carbon tax federally.

00:18:58.980 You have higher alcohol taxes.

00:19:00.880 Many big cities are hiking their property taxes.

00:19:03.640 And I couldn't think of a worse possible time to be raising taxes than right now.

00:19:09.220 You have many Canadians that are worried about the rising cost of living while higher taxes are only going to raise prices.

00:19:16.200 And also, let's not forget about the pandemic and what it's done to the private sector.

00:19:20.680 So many Canadians, I mean, especially so many Albertans, lost their job, maybe took a pay cut.

00:19:26.520 Many people may have even lost their business.

00:19:29.060 So we should be seeing the opposite of what's happening right now.

00:19:32.020 we should be seeing taxes going down, but here we have our politician raising our taxes.

00:19:38.080 Yeah, it's getting ever bigger and bigger. One that's a big looming one out there for us

00:19:42.880 is the carbon tax that's coming in April. You guys have done some work on how that's going

00:19:48.080 to impact us. We know it's not going to impact the environment, but how is it going to impact

00:19:51.260 our wallets? Yeah, I mean, look, let me just pick off of what you just said there, right?

00:19:56.680 this carbon tax has always been a tax plan. It's not an environmental plan. Let's just look

00:20:02.920 west to your neighbors out there in British Columbia. They've had the highest carbon tax

00:20:06.960 in Canada for a while now, but emissions continue to go up. So the carbon tax, it leaves taxpayers

00:20:12.420 with lighter wallets, but it doesn't solve the emissions that continue to go up as it was shown

00:20:17.740 in British Columbia. Of course, Canada only makes up 1.5% of global emissions. So even if the Trudeau

00:20:23.360 government brought all of our industries to a screeching halt, it still wouldn't do anything

00:20:28.720 for the global environment. Now, April 1 jokes on taxpayers because the carbon tax is rising to

00:20:34.480 $50 per ton. Once that happens, it's going to increase the cost of gasoline by about 11 cents

00:20:40.820 per liter. So if you're fueling up your family's Dodge Caravan, well, that carbon tax alone is

00:20:46.920 going to cost you about $8.40. But unfortunately, Corey, I have been put into the position now as

00:20:53.860 the federal director as being the bearer of bad news because those carbon tax hikes don't stop

00:20:59.580 there. We're going to see the introduction of a second carbon tax this year through fuel

00:21:04.460 regulations. By 2030, that'll end up costing another 11 cents per liter. And of course,

00:21:09.360 the Trudeau government wants to continue raising its carbon tax all the way up to 2030 when that

00:21:14.800 carbon tax, the original carbon tax, will end up costing nearly 40 cents per liter of gasoline.

00:21:21.560 Yeah, and I'm certain they had said at one point that it was going to stop at 50, but it was

00:21:25.160 government blowing sunshine up our keisters, which is hardly a new thing, no matter which

00:21:29.700 party's in power, unfortunately. As Alan, Diana Scott, our commenter, said, you know, a tax on a

00:21:35.280 tax, is that legal? I think we have a number of situations where we have taxes on taxes. There's

00:21:39.020 not much we can do, unfortunately. Gas taxes. Gas taxes. We see taxes on taxes because of the

00:21:45.720 federal government sales tax. And this also happens in some provinces that have a sales tax. So what

00:21:51.180 the tax on tax essentially is, is that you have all these per liter fuel taxes, whether those are

00:21:55.880 the gas tax, those excise taxes, or you have the federal carbon tax. And then what the federal

00:22:00.740 government does is that it adds up all of those per liter fuel taxes and then slaps its sales tax

00:22:06.420 on top of those per litre fuel taxes.

00:22:08.500 So you're essentially paying a tax on tax.

00:22:11.280 It's completely unfair.

00:22:12.680 But Corey, let me just pick up on something that you said.

00:22:14.880 Yeah, remember then Environment Minister Catherine McKenna,

00:22:18.420 that was before the 2019 election.

00:22:20.100 She said the federal government had no intention

00:22:22.800 of raising its carbon tax beyond 11 cents per litre.

00:22:26.740 Of course, we found that out to not be true.

00:22:29.820 But also, the Conservative Party leader, Aaron O'Toole,

00:22:33.000 has been a complete flip-flopper on this issue.

00:22:35.320 When he was running for Conservative Party leadership, he promised us he would fight carbon taxes.

00:22:39.880 He promised us he wouldn't put a carbon tax in of his own.

00:22:43.900 But then he did a complete 180 just before the last election and decided one day that he would, in fact, hammer Canadians with a Conservative Party carbon tax.

00:22:53.580 Well, there's that reminder that as much as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is speaking on taxes and small government, you're nonpartisan.

00:22:59.480 you will call them out no matter what party it is if they're abusing taxpayers and not keeping

00:23:05.240 true to their word. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Now, let's talk about another politician

00:23:10.500 who hasn't exactly been true to his word a little bit closer to home for you, Corey,

00:23:15.160 and that's Premier Jason Kenney. Remember when he was riding that blue Dodge pickup truck from

00:23:21.800 provinces north to the province of south? What was he promising? Essentially, he said that he

00:23:27.580 would balance the budget or fix the province's finances without raising taxes. He also doubled

00:23:33.560 down on that just before his first budget. But in his first budget, he did in fact increase taxes

00:23:39.940 through a sneaky form of income tax hike known as bracket creep. Now, bracket creep happens when

00:23:45.420 governments stop moving their tax brackets with inflation, and then inflation can automatically

00:23:50.700 bump taxpayers into paying a higher tax bracket, even though what they can actually afford to buy

00:23:56.260 hasn't increased. Now bracket creep again is going to cost Alberta taxpayers more money in 2022. It'll

00:24:03.120 cost you anywhere between about 40 bucks all the way up to $141 this year alone. But the problem

00:24:09.620 with bracket creep is that it adds up over time, over time. So if you go back to 2020, the total

00:24:15.840 cost of bracket creep for each Alberta taxpayers is about $105 all the way up to $300. It's such

00:24:23.820 a sneaky form of income tax hike. Yeah, I believe actually the Klein government relied on bracket

00:24:29.020 creep. It was a big thing in the 90s, as well as the Chrétien government. You're perhaps a little

00:24:34.160 young for those, but it is a sneaky way to get in. People don't realize the tax numbers at a

00:24:39.000 glance look the same, but the amount coming out of your pocket is going up. I did hear an idea

00:24:45.800 balloon, I think it was at that point, dropped, though, that Kenny might be considering a provincial

00:24:50.080 flat tax again. Do you think he's going to perhaps be looking and following through on that? What are

00:24:55.240 your thoughts on flat taxes when it comes to income? Yeah, I mean, look, we certainly support

00:25:00.140 lower income taxes, Corey. I mean, we would welcome a flat tax that sees income taxes going

00:25:06.800 down. I mean, you would think Kenny would also just start by removing his own income tax hike

00:25:12.900 of bracket creep. You mentioned the 90s. You mentioned the Chrétien government in Ottawa

00:25:18.540 back then well guess who was maybe the best spokesperson bashing bracket creep during those

00:25:25.040 days jason well well yes um dr milky has done some great stuff but but but kenny as a reform

00:25:34.540 party member of parliament i think back in 97 wrote a scathing column in the calgary herald

00:25:41.100 bashing bracket creep he called it uh paraphrasing but a a regressive and hidden tax grab so where

00:25:48.520 is that Jason Kenney when it comes to income taxes? So long story short, Corey, of course,

00:25:54.340 we would support income tax reductions. And we've been pushing Kenny to remove his sneaky bracket

00:25:59.600 creep income tax hype for years now. Yeah. So you're here and you were talking all things

00:26:05.340 tax. Here's a bit of a confusing one or a complicated one. A commenter, Tony Hoffer,

00:26:10.540 pointed out, he says, speaking along imported oil being carbon tax exempt. I think that one's a

00:26:15.200 little trickier. I mean, once it's consumed here, it'll definitely, whatever that final product is

00:26:19.460 still going to be hit with those taxes when it gets to the consumer and the retailer. But I think

00:26:24.540 there were some downstream exemptions and things like that when it came to producers from outside

00:26:28.440 of the country, like our oil sands are certainly getting a good deal of emission caps and carbon

00:26:32.420 taxes and things applied. But if it's coming up a tanker up in St. Lawrence, I think they skipped

00:26:36.720 some of those taxes. Yeah. You know, Corey, I don't have all of the technical details on that

00:26:41.520 for use. But one thing that we have heard politicians discuss federally are the potential

00:26:48.260 for these carbon tax tariffs, right? Charging carbon taxes on products that come from places

00:26:55.520 that don't have the same type of carbon tax that Canada does. The problem is, is who ends up paying

00:27:00.820 for that tax at the end of the day? Canadian consumers, right? So in a sense, you're definitely

00:27:06.140 shooting yourself in the foot there. And I mean, look, I think maybe the key economic issue facing

00:27:13.280 Canadian families is inflation, the rising cost of living. And the last thing that we should be

00:27:19.200 seeing from our politicians is making life less affordable through these higher taxes. You know,

00:27:24.280 when are we going to hear politicians talk about actually reducing the tax burden and leaving a

00:27:28.640 little bit more of our own money in our pockets? Well, we'll get on to that question I always lead

00:27:33.880 to when we get to this, we know all the taxes we don't want to see anymore. But people, the question

00:27:39.040 they hit you with all the time, of course, is where are we going to cut the spending? Because

00:27:41.760 the government has to spend less. I mean, if we're going to take in less, we have to spend less.

00:27:46.680 Where are you proposing we start to take away some of the government spending?

00:27:50.940 Well, look, I know that's a big question. Yeah, I mean, it'd be easier, it'd be easier for me to

00:27:56.400 say where not to reduce spending. But all kidding aside, let me just provide a little bit of context,

00:28:01.920 which I think will shine a light on this overspending problem that we've seen

00:28:05.520 by the federal government. Now, we've heard of this massive amounts of pandemic spending come

00:28:10.980 from the federal government, but there's a first thing that you have to remember is that even in

00:28:15.960 2020, the majority of the federal government's spending was not related to COVID-19. But then

00:28:21.960 also before the pandemic, the federal government was already spending all-time highs, even adjusted

00:28:28.420 for inflation and population, which means that before the pandemic, Trudeau was spending more

00:28:33.400 than the federal government did during any single year during World War II. So when you think of

00:28:39.000 that context, I mean, certainly we should be able to find savings every single area of the budget.

00:28:45.580 Yeah, no, and a valid point that this isn't something new. You know, you're absolutely

00:28:51.920 right. This was going on well before the pandemic hit. The pandemic just massively exacerbated it.

00:28:57.220 So, I mean, I hope that, you know, when maybe when the time comes, we've got to start backing off on the pandemic measures eventually.

00:29:05.240 I mean, it's just a physical impossibility to keep going the way we have.

00:29:09.560 Maybe they'll they'll shave some of the areas on us at that point.

00:29:14.000 Well, let me give it. So, so, Corey, I mean, essentially, we need to see our governments and really it's all levels of government and many different governments across Canada take a two prong attached or approach to finding savings.

00:29:25.680 Number one, as I mentioned, we should be seeing savings across the board.

00:29:29.720 But number two, I mean, here's some specifics.

00:29:32.120 First, you got to start with labor costs, right?

00:29:34.300 Let's talk about our politicians.

00:29:36.060 Every member of parliament has received not one, but two pay raises during the pandemic.

00:29:41.960 So while you, your family have been struggling, your supposed representative in Ottawa has gobbled up two pay raises during COVID-19.

00:29:49.220 They're scheduled for another wage increase in April of 2022.

00:29:54.080 two. But then let's also talk about the bureaucracy. And really, that's where you're

00:29:58.240 going to need to find a large amount of savings for each government. Federally, we have seen 312,000

00:30:06.760 federal government employees receive at least one pay raise during the pandemic. The federal

00:30:12.200 government has no records of its employees ever receiving a pay cut. So this whole pandemic,

00:30:18.260 we have really seen a tale of two downturns, massive pain for so many workers, so many

00:30:23.780 businesses in the private sector, while our bureaucrats and our politicians have largely

00:30:29.280 been shielded from these economic realities. Yeah, well, and another area to take a shot at,

00:30:36.060 as Angela Williams pointed out, I'm going to be going on a bit about some of their stunts

00:30:39.180 recently too, is the CBC. We don't need a state broadcaster any longer. Okay, if you don't like

00:30:44.640 the state broadcaster term, I like using it just to poke at them because it drives their reporters

00:30:48.180 wild when I do it. But the national broadcaster, I mean, that's a big chunk of savings rate on its

00:30:53.360 own and allows more into the private media markets. Lots of areas where we can start

00:30:57.660 cherry picking. I guess we just we have to start that exercise of examining what can we do without

00:31:02.180 and how are we going to get out of it? Yeah, that's that's exactly right. We need to see

00:31:06.420 some type of steps here. Look, I think what we have to see first and foremost is you have to

00:31:12.380 see politicians showing some leadership, right? Because they have to have the moral authority to

00:31:17.780 be able to go back to their bureaucracy and push the bureaucracy and the departments to find some

00:31:23.180 savings? And if the politicians, if they continue to get pay raises, why would the bureaucrats be 0.99

00:31:28.640 motivated to find savings within their departments? So we really do need to see some leadership at

00:31:34.600 the top. Unfortunately, we haven't really seen that in Canada at all at the federal level,

00:31:39.080 but we have seen that in other places across the world. Corey, we've talked about this,

00:31:43.920 but New Zealand almost immediately, the prime minister, the minister and top bureaucrats all

00:31:48.720 came together and took a 20% pay cut to show solidarity with the struggling taxpayers that

00:31:53.540 are paying the bills. Corey, one more thing I want to point on this. Not only do we need to see

00:31:58.440 politicians showing leadership to find some savings by taking pay cuts, but also I think

00:32:03.820 we would actually get some better policies and some decisions coming from Ottawa if they weren't

00:32:09.140 so detached from the financial realities facing canadians right one like i said one of the issues

00:32:14.420 that we're facing is inflation but how can these politicians in ottawa really understand the

00:32:19.860 hardships of inflation when they continue to pocket pay raise after pay raise after pay raise

00:32:26.580 well yeah i mean if you want to have that moral high ground i mean when you cut no matter what

00:32:30.420 you do it's going to impact some people who are making a living off of it chances are they were

00:32:34.660 in a organized labor of some form or another when we're talking civil service and and it's

00:32:39.460 a difficult negotiation and i mean if at least you've taken a shave yourself you look a heck of

00:32:43.700 a lot more uh credible when you're asking them to do it on your behalf but when they keep taking

00:32:47.620 raises it's kind of hard to make cuts somewhere else yeah and corey let's also not forget that

00:32:54.340 um look eventually financial reality is going to hit our government square in the face and

00:33:00.020 it's going to hit them hard and this is what we've been saying for so long is that you have to make

00:33:03.700 some tough decisions now before tougher decisions are forced on you right let's go back to the 80s

00:33:08.820 when you have these big spending politicians kick the deficit can down the road kick the

00:33:12.580 can down the road what happened in the 90s well in the 90s you saw governments uh across canada

00:33:18.660 all different political stripes forced to actually roll their sleeves and find some savings uh in

00:33:24.020 saskatchewan they closed what 50 hospitals across the prairie province in the 90s alberta there were

00:33:29.860 savings there. We just talked about government labor costs in Alberta. Well, the last broad-based

00:33:34.700 government pay cut was all the way back in 1994. It was a 5% cut. And Corey, here's the truth of

00:33:41.020 the matter. I mean, what Kenny should be doing is similar to what Klein did in the 90s and put the

00:33:48.440 onus on the government union bosses. Either everybody takes a 5% cut or we're going to have

00:33:54.400 to lay off more and more government bureaucrats. Great. Well, I appreciate the work you're doing 0.84

00:34:00.480 and you're coming on to tell us about it. Where can we find more information on what you're up to

00:34:05.580 and how can people help you out in scouring the bowels of government spending to figure out where

00:34:10.600 you can clean some things out of there? Well, first of all, please go check out taxpayer.com.

00:34:14.840 We've got some petitions for you to sign there. Check out our newsroom. That's where you can see

00:34:18.380 all the articles, all the news releases that we're continuing to pump out. Always, always,

00:34:23.860 always always if you if there's something that's really boiling your blood pick up the phone right

00:34:27.860 uh write up an email to your member of parliament and tell them to change one thing that's really

00:34:31.700 frustrating me is all these mp pay raises so it would be a huge help uh if you could email your

00:34:37.220 member of parliament and tell them to get off their butts and stop taking these pay raises

00:34:43.620 that's it i mean the squeaky wheel there's some truth to it you know as frustrating as it feels 0.98

00:34:48.020 and as futile as it feels if we make enough noise they do sometimes pay attention but if we don't

00:34:52.660 don't make noise, we know they won't for sure. So thanks for bringing that to our attention.

00:34:57.480 Thanks for coming on yet again, Franco. I'm certain we'll have you back in the future and

00:35:02.260 have a happy new year. Hey, you too, man. Thanks for having me on.

00:35:06.120 All right. Thanks, Franco. So yeah, always a great chat with Franco and the Taxpayers

00:35:10.880 Federation. I just, you know, somebody's got to track these things. Part of people ask why I have,

00:35:15.420 you know, Chris Sims and some of the others as well from the taxpayers all the time. Well,

00:35:19.800 it's refreshing to have somebody on who's not asking for more money somewhere or more government.

00:35:23.980 I mean, I do have people on, they might have a good cause, they're doing something,

00:35:27.240 but they're always asking for a little more. I'm just going to back up too and catch with the

00:35:31.340 people who are just joining us right now too. So this is the new show, Triggered. I'm going to be

00:35:35.160 on every day through the week from 1130 till one o'clock. We're going to have guests, we're going

00:35:40.720 to have chat, we're going to have interaction. I see Shane Wenzel commenting saying he likes the

00:35:45.260 name Triggered. Good, you know, because yeah, that old Cory Morgan show is just kind of dry,

00:35:48.940 but we just couldn't seem to come up with something.

00:35:50.640 And I don't drink,

00:35:52.320 but I think we were sitting around at drinks

00:35:53.400 when that one popped up and that sort of worked.

00:35:55.360 You know, triggered usually is a thing for the left,

00:35:57.800 but yeah, when my hair is all puffed up

00:35:59.420 and I'm going off on a rant and a tangent

00:36:02.240 and going on about some sort of public issue,

00:36:05.860 I'm about as triggered as any of them, aren't I?

00:36:07.520 So I might as well turn that into a productive thing

00:36:09.860 and we have made a show of it.

00:36:12.820 So thank you for those who have joined us so far

00:36:15.720 and keep watching.

00:36:18.580 We got a lot more coming. This is going to keep going. I am just getting on my schedule here.

00:36:24.780 We should speak actually to our other sponsor, which is the Canada Shooting Sports Association.

00:36:30.460 This is a good conservative sort of sponsor, if you could ever think of one, of course, a shooting sports association.

00:36:37.500 Their website is cssa-cila.org. So that one's a little hard to remember.

00:36:43.940 I mean, if you just Google Canada Shooting Sports Association, you'll find their website.

00:36:48.580 And they got a whole bunch of resources there.

00:36:51.260 They're working for, of course,

00:36:52.400 the safe, responsible use of firearms.

00:36:56.060 You know, people always demonize them

00:36:57.840 as being irresponsible things to have or use.

00:37:01.560 No, that's up to the person

00:37:02.920 whether they're going to utilize them that way.

00:37:04.740 The Canadian Shooting Sports Association

00:37:06.300 promotes the responsible, safe use of these firearms,

00:37:09.520 which are fantastic for sports, for young people,

00:37:13.120 whether you hunt, whether you like shooting targets,

00:37:14.900 or even if you collect.

00:37:16.320 And they're standing up for your right

00:37:17.180 to be able to keep doing that and they've got they're helping with legal challenges out there

00:37:21.240 on behalf of firearm owners because we know that the liberal government is trying its hardest to

00:37:24.940 take away your ability and right to enjoy responsibly firearms and and uh we've got to

00:37:32.020 push back just as franco was saying with the firearms or i mean with the taxpayers association

00:37:35.860 if we don't speak up they will take it away so check them out they uh except members you know

00:37:42.400 take out a membership with them uh they will stand up for your firearm rights because again

00:37:47.080 nobody else is going to do it unless you do it for yourself. What else have we going? Well,

00:37:54.280 we're going to have our next guest, Terry, in a little while here, but we've got some time to

00:37:57.960 talk and there's always stuff to talk about. So an interesting story that we saw coming up

00:38:05.200 actually was cannabis poisonings. That's on the westernstandardonline.com site as well.

00:38:11.720 You know, cannabis has been legalized and so on. And what has happened is we've had a great number

00:38:16.460 of people showing up at hospital with cannabis poisoning.

00:38:19.380 Now, some of the headlines seem a little hysteric on that one

00:38:22.940 because, you know, the same with children,

00:38:24.240 it's outdone opioids.

00:38:25.880 And that's true when it comes to sheer volume.

00:38:28.280 But the reality is that people go in,

00:38:31.660 they're freaked out, they're feeling bad,

00:38:32.880 and they come out and they're perfectly fine, thankfully.

00:38:36.000 Cannabis, you know, you're not going to die of an overdose.

00:38:37.700 It's not like the fentanyl

00:38:38.580 and some of those horrible things

00:38:39.520 that people have been taking lately.

00:38:41.700 But there is a great deal more of it out there.

00:38:44.160 And for those unfamiliar with it,

00:38:45.280 I mean, I tried smoking weed a bit when I was younger.

00:38:47.840 It's not some moral thing that stopped me

00:38:49.220 from carrying on with it.

00:38:50.060 It freaks me out and I feel all sick.

00:38:51.520 And as you can see, I'm already freaked out enough.

00:38:53.660 I don't need more of it.

00:38:55.000 But for those who want to responsibly enjoy it, go for it.

00:38:57.360 I got no problems with the legalization.

00:38:59.200 But people have to be responsible with it.

00:39:01.300 And the edibles, that's the scary area.

00:39:03.060 And that's where a lot of these,

00:39:05.920 I don't want to call it an overdose,

00:39:07.340 but just definitely took too much

00:39:09.900 or somebody who shouldn't have taken it,

00:39:11.000 whether it's a pet, a lot of pets go in as well.

00:39:12.820 don't let your kids get near those gummies keep those out of reach I mean it's just like anything 0.77

00:39:17.320 else you know if it was a doctor's prescription painkiller a large thing you're not going to let

00:39:20.700 your toddler anywhere near it you're going to have that locked in a bottle in the deep cabinets

00:39:25.100 of your you know your medicine cabinet or wherever you're at and if you're an adult taking

00:39:30.220 edibles for the first time something to pass along they come on slowly so this is what lands a lot

00:39:37.360 of people in the hospital all the time too because they freak right out because they take a couple

00:39:40.640 this is pretty weak. It's not doing much to me. I'll take a couple more. Ah, there's nothing to

00:39:45.000 this stuff. Slight buzz. I'll eat a few more. And then all of a sudden it hits them like a freight

00:39:48.600 train. Then they freak out. Then they fill their pants. Then they call the ambulance. They go to

00:39:53.000 the hospital, take up a bed and lead to headlines like this. And then they go home the next day

00:39:57.820 feeling foolish and hopefully have learned a lesson from it. But it's a semi-humorous and 0.95

00:40:03.400 semi-serious story in this world of legalized cannabis. Keep these things in mind

00:40:08.680 as we're going along new things in the household and it gets back to firearms and things like that

00:40:13.640 as a libertarian you're responsible for yourself you have now got the legal ability to have these

00:40:18.940 things it also means you've got to use them wisely don't feed it to your pet don't let your pet get

00:40:24.940 near it you know you could kill your pet letting it eat a bunch of chocolate bars you probably put

00:40:28.520 those out of sight why would you leave a bag of weed on the table or a bunch of gummy bears or

00:40:33.100 whatever else. Same thing with the little kids. So either way, you know, those headlines just

00:40:38.040 keep me rolling. Let's talk about fads. You know, I mean, here's something that seems to be coming

00:40:43.440 along in my view with COVID-19 is fads. And a fad we're in right now, I mean, we had an earlier fad

00:40:48.560 with the start of it where everybody was running out and screaming, buying toilet paper. The

00:40:54.160 pandemic was coming along. We thought it might be the end times. It could be the second coming of

00:40:58.080 plague. This could be the Spanish flu all over again. We didn't know. I mean, people, it was 1.00

00:41:03.780 understandable for them to be scared, actually. And I could see people stocking up to make sure

00:41:09.480 to be able to hide in their home for an extended period while this wave passed. I mean, we at that

00:41:13.240 time, we thought it was two weeks to flatten the curve, right? So people were being negative. They

00:41:16.180 thought, no, it could be as long as a month. Here we are two years later. But they rushed out and

00:41:20.920 bought bloody toilet paper. And that led to a trend and more people bought toilet paper. And suddenly

00:41:25.520 we actually ran out of toilet paper. This really depresses me on how stupid society is getting. 1.00

00:41:33.040 I mean, if you're really going to be that scared of it, that's fine. Get rice, get matches, 1.00

00:41:38.160 get blankets, get canned goods, get flour. Toilet paper? I mean, it's important. Oh yeah,

00:41:46.160 I don't want to live a month without toilet paper. No, I'm with you there. But I mean,

00:41:49.200 if you're gonna panic buy, there's better items, aren't there? So what are we on to now? It's

00:41:56.860 testing, because I say it comes in these media and fed and social media fed waves, COVID testing,

00:42:02.880 everybody's going wild for testing, we got to get these tests. Well, why? How is this helping us all

00:42:09.760 these home tests, if anything, it's just spreading the panic, it's, it's throwing these cases through

00:42:13.460 the roof, in a way that doesn't necessarily reflect the actual cases on the ground. It's

00:42:18.460 funny anecdotally. And I mean, something, some people like to point out, I like driving Uber

00:42:21.160 now and then I'll point that, you know, I'll get that or while I'm talking to it, I go on a Friday

00:42:24.900 night, I went on a new year's Eve. I don't drink anymore and things. Hey, I make a few extra bucks

00:42:28.420 and I like getting out and talking to people. And that's a really good opportunity when you're in

00:42:31.460 a car together for a while and the amount of people it's, it's a conversation subject of

00:42:36.660 choice these days to, uh, talk about your friends who tested positive and whether they actually

00:42:43.200 told anybody about it or did anything about it. It's just that they got the home test and they

00:42:46.520 tried it. Holy cow, I tested positive. Oh, wow. And they, for the most part, didn't do anything

00:42:50.100 about it. And thankfully, again, that's because these symptoms of this latest outbreak, this

00:42:53.820 Omicron, for most people have been very mild. So they've been okay, and they've come out of it

00:43:00.060 all right. So, I mean, and that's a good thing. But why the testing? I mean, people are all

00:43:03.920 screaming, and that's the opposition thing. There's not enough tests available for everybody.

00:43:06.780 Well, what do you need them for? I mean, we really should only be testing people if they're

00:43:11.140 starting to feel really, really sick. This goes back to the common sense rules we used to have

00:43:15.100 in the past. Even if, you know, the days before COVID, I mean, if you worked in a closed tight

00:43:19.600 office, you woke up in the morning, all congested with a sore throat. If you didn't have to go in

00:43:24.040 and share it with all your coworkers, you didn't do it. You stayed home, you drank some fluids.

00:43:28.800 You again, getting back to that thing that gets lost on so many people, personal responsibility,

00:43:33.260 look out for your neighbor. Don't spread it unnecessarily and let it pass. And of course,

00:43:38.660 in the case of COVID, if you're starting to have breathing problems and all that terrible

00:43:41.760 potential things that happen to some very small amount of people, by all means, get medical

00:43:47.040 attention. I mean, it can be very, very serious for some people. I never want to understate how

00:43:52.520 dangerous some of this can be. But we're also overreacting to those who are not at risk. And

00:43:57.820 it's not doing anybody any favors. And it's just this mad rush on testing, testing, testing, testing.

00:44:02.920 It's ridiculous. And I see it again as a fad. It's a trend. It's just like the toilet paper thing.

00:44:07.540 and it's pointless. And it's just not helping whatsoever with this entire thing. Okay, so I'm

00:44:16.500 going to move on to my next guest pretty soon. And that's Terry Wong. And as I said, for those who

00:44:21.800 didn't catch the earliest part of the program, now Terry Wong ran in Ward 7. And I want to frame it

00:44:26.640 without having to make Terry go through it all. Ward 7 is a Calgary ward. It was held by an

00:44:31.500 incumbent, Drew Farrell, for those who know her, for a very long time. To be polite, Drew is a very,

00:44:36.460 very progressive politician. She was the subject of many of my past columns and rants for some of

00:44:42.460 her very left-leaning ways. And it's a semi-urban constituency just north of downtown, Kensington,

00:44:51.760 sort of trendy. Finally, Drew stepped aside, and it was a very hotly contested race. And Terry Wong

00:44:58.840 came through. You know, everybody kind of, it's funny, I'd heard some discussions, you know,

00:45:01.700 where they're saying, oh, well, it's going to be definitely another progressive or left-wing

00:45:04.440 person in there. And no, instead, actually, for the most part of the council, we've got a lot of

00:45:09.340 progressive people. But Terry's actually been a good, solid conservative for quite some time. I've

00:45:13.720 known him through past political campaigns and things. When I lived in North Calgary, he's got

00:45:20.000 a good, responsible head in his shoulders. I'm sure he'll do some things in council that I'm

00:45:23.160 going to get on his case for as the years go by, because I don't accept anybody from that. But for

00:45:26.900 now, I'm looking forward to his term with optimism. So without more introduction, I'll bring Terry in

00:45:33.660 here. There you go. How am I coming in, Terry? Doing well, Corey. How are you doing? Good,

00:45:39.260 good. Great to see you. Thank you very much for coming on today and a happy new year to you.

00:45:43.400 Happy New Year. So yeah, as you might have heard me in a bit of the intro, you are

00:45:48.280 the new councillor for Ward 7. You're kind of in a unique council in a sense. I mean,

00:45:54.380 we've got a huge turnover. There's only a few incumbents still there. And we have,

00:46:00.700 I guess, if you're going to talk about political philosophy, there's a much more progressive

00:46:04.640 dominance in that council than there used to be. Yourself tend not to be on the farther

00:46:09.920 progressive side. So how have you found that first couple of months working with the new council and

00:46:13.800 mayor? Well, a good side of the equation is that you're right, we've got four new incumbents,

00:46:18.460 sorry, four incumbents and nine new people, and two in between that have got city experience.

00:46:24.760 What it's been for the last, what, eight weeks or so has been very collaborative,

00:46:29.380 albeit you're right, we do have people who are very progressive and those that are conservative-minded.

00:46:36.580 Yeah, so that first couple of months, I would imagine it takes some adjustment.

00:46:41.140 I mean, something that sort of surprised me.

00:46:42.940 I think most council members are kind of, you're going to ease into your role.

00:46:45.700 You're going to get the feel of the city administration, your office, your abilities, touch base with your constituents.

00:46:53.760 But the mayor really seems to have hit ground running. 0.97

00:46:55.740 I mean, I understand she was an incumbent councillor to begin with, but boy, she's just skating into the corners with her elbows up.

00:47:02.400 You know, she's kind of gotten into it with the police and the arena deal is going on now.

00:47:06.960 And it's been a very aggressive initial beginning, I guess, as a new mayor.

00:47:14.240 How has it been working?

00:47:16.820 I mean, are you starting to get into or did you feel a routine coming, I guess, for when the council gets moving forward?

00:47:22.360 Because it seemed a little chaotic for that first part of your term.

00:47:25.320 Yeah, so first off, for myself, I was very comfortable to return back to City Hall after spending 30 years as manager.

00:47:31.720 Dealing with members of council has been relatively good.

00:47:35.340 As you know, sitting in the horseshoe there, I sit next to the mayor and quite often would lean against each other and have a chit-chat.

00:47:41.660 She's been very responsible in terms of respectful dealing with council members,

00:47:46.640 but she also has a very definite frame of mind as to what she thinks a great county can be.

00:47:52.300 as you referred to earlier, the event center, the climate change emergency, and a few other things

00:47:58.600 are established sort of foundations of what she's all about. And hopefully from her perspective,

00:48:04.620 hopefully we need to get other council members on board. Great. So what are your priorities? I mean, 0.80

00:48:11.100 you're at the start of a four-year term. You entered the run for political office clearly

00:48:16.900 with some goals in mind. What would you like to accomplish and see done in your four years

00:48:22.140 in office uh this first time so let me start by saying our campaign was three fundamental things

00:48:27.740 safe communities an affordable city and lastly a vibrant calgary with regards to safe communities

00:48:34.140 as you know and we've seen all around we've got a lot of social disturbances happening throughout

00:48:39.420 the downtown core riding on the lrt stations in our communities and we've got a number of different

00:48:44.780 criminal sort of activities that we want to arrest so that is one of my very first focuses is to get

00:48:51.020 calgary feeling safe again to you to you know you go to their backyards to their schools to work you

00:48:56.860 want to make sure that the businesses also feel safe so that they can operate accordingly without

00:49:01.660 that you know we've got that chip over our shoulder as to again are we are we ever going to be

00:49:06.780 successful that second part of the equation to make it an affordable city we want to make sure

00:49:11.340 that whether it be our fees or taxes or the the cost of services it is you know kept within our

00:49:17.980 ways that we can manage manage our costs without increasing taxes or budgets according and that's

00:49:22.700 what we try to do with the 22 2022 budget adjustments and we'll do again for 2023 to

00:49:28.540 2026 four-year plan and lastly the the vibrant calgary it's all about making sure we've got a

00:49:34.700 strong economy great jobs we've got people who want to look at invest back in calgary but it's

00:49:40.300 also about the arts and culture and making sure that communities feel like the area they're a

00:49:44.940 a great place to raise a family. Yeah, well, and we've seen a bit of, I guess you could say conflict.

00:49:50.300 I mean, something that everybody agrees on is we've got a really big problem downtown. I mean,

00:49:54.060 a massive vacancy rate and a number of factors contributing to that. I mean, some of it's

00:49:59.260 somewhat beyond control. It was a very big slump in resource prices with a very resource dependent

00:50:04.300 downtown. But other aspects, we're trying to draw a new enterprise in, as you said, public safety.

00:50:10.700 I mean, our offices are downtown and in this last couple of years, just seeing it ties in with the addiction epidemic.

00:50:16.800 I mean, we've got a lot of troubled homeless people in bad circumstances and we're not sure what to do with them.

00:50:25.020 I see Jody Gundak's chief of staff has gotten into trouble for speaking a little frankly on it.

00:50:30.460 But I mean, we don't need to be all fighting about this. We need to find some bloody solutions somewhere.

00:50:34.800 I mean, I find myself torn.

00:50:37.280 There was a news clip that you probably saw recently with some safety officers ejecting some homeless people from an LRT station in cold weather.

00:50:45.900 And everybody felt terrible because, yeah, you step outside in your driveway, you know how cold that is.

00:50:49.260 You don't want to be tossed out and you don't want to think of somebody else there.

00:50:51.560 But at the same time, they are LRT stations and commuters and people feel very uncomfortable and they're having some crimes committed.

00:50:58.500 They're not appropriate for people to be as a warming space or living space. 1.00

00:51:02.200 So what do we do with those displaced persons? 0.99

00:51:04.500 and that's where the discussion is right now i guess is it oh exactly that i mean it's it's it's

00:51:09.380 you know how to say very disconcerting to see something get thrown out on you know minus 30

00:51:14.500 degrees so it's just the same uh we had 297 apartments uh frozen out as a result people

00:51:20.420 on the on the streets we had to quickly get into hotels and that so it's never good to see that

00:51:24.660 situation but the flip side of the equation as a city we have a responsibility to do it right and

00:51:30.100 that's the thing that i've been trying to do especially during christmas time do the right

00:51:33.540 things do it the right way and that really means getting all the different partners all the

00:51:38.660 services and all the different uh law enforcement groups to work together with one common objective

00:51:44.660 and number one let's be human about how we do things but secondly let's whatever we do let's

00:51:49.780 make sure it's a situation doesn't repeat itself again and that's uh that's going to be one of my

00:51:54.180 focuses going on 2022 is how do we bring the different agencies the different services and

00:51:59.780 and the different law enforcement groups together with a common outcome and a common sort of focus

00:52:04.780 on how to get there without making it repeatedly hard for everybody.

00:52:09.900 Yeah, well, and there's been some conflict already, and I got a feeling we're going to unfortunately

00:52:14.320 see more of it. I believe there was a column out there about that today. Between the police

00:52:18.860 service and the mayor, I guess some of it's philosophical almost. I mean, I understand.

00:52:23.940 We don't want to see the police going out with truncheons and going after homeless people, 1.00

00:52:28.720 And we worry again about the racial aspects, but at the same time, we do need police, especially when we have this many troubled people. 1.00

00:52:37.400 You need that for people to feel safe.

00:52:38.780 You do need it to de-escalate dangerous situations. 0.99

00:52:41.760 We know that, you know, sometimes it'd be better to have a trained counselor than a police officer, but sometimes you need that darn police officer. 0.75

00:52:49.580 And we're hearing that morale is terribly low on the force right now, which I think could lead to more dangerous situations if you have an officer who's not feeling very good about themselves or their jobs. 0.76

00:52:58.980 So, I mean, going forward, that atmosphere you're going to have in council, because I mean, this is just speculative on my part, but I got a feeling you're going to have another kind of defund push coming into there sometime in the next year or so.

00:53:10.220 And how will you be able to productively respond to that?

00:53:13.180 Well, I think what we're going to try to do is head it off at the past, meaning that yesterday I had a good meeting with Ward 8 Counselor Corey Wolcott, similarly with Ward 9 Counselor Jean-Carlo Crawl.

00:53:25.200 And the fundamental is we want, as I say, to be in a humanistic sort of way that however we treat our people, that we do it in a way that's not repeatable.

00:53:33.620 In other words, that instead of pushing them out of a tent into a street, we find a place to take care of them.

00:53:40.620 uh and so they don't go back on the street when you talk about defunding the police i think a lot

00:53:45.420 of people who are i say again um whether it be mental health issues or drug addiction issues

00:53:51.020 or whatever case may be they want police support just as just the same as you and i they want to

00:53:56.180 make sure that you know that uh people are not preying on them and god knows in our encampment

00:54:01.360 areas and even our drop-in centers there are predators out there who want to prey on the

00:54:05.940 vulnerable vulnerable people and try to get them addicted on drugs and get them you know be uh

00:54:10.380 human trafficking, whatever the case may be.

00:54:12.320 So they need police there just as much as you and I.

00:54:15.220 The question is, how do we get, again,

00:54:17.480 our agencies and services and our law enforcement

00:54:20.640 to do it the right way?

00:54:22.100 Oh, that's a very valid point.

00:54:23.260 I appreciate that.

00:54:24.100 I hadn't even really thought of that aspect of it,

00:54:25.900 but it's very true.

00:54:26.740 I mean, you're as vulnerable as it gets living on the street

00:54:28.520 and you don't wanna be robbed or beaten

00:54:30.240 or sexually assaulted any more than anybody else,

00:54:32.140 especially if you're gonna try to recover.

00:54:33.460 I mean, that's not going to help you move forward.

00:54:37.240 So getting back, I guess, to spending taxation,

00:54:40.380 We had a recent tax increase yet again.

00:54:42.700 We've come to expect that from City Hall.

00:54:45.780 An area though, I wanna talk directly

00:54:48.620 from the downtown thing plus with spending,

00:54:50.760 Calgary Economic Development.

00:54:52.760 That's had its fund for, I believe, six or seven years now.

00:54:55.560 They were given a hundred million dollars.

00:54:56.820 I think there's about 60 million left.

00:54:59.980 Their success track record is pretty mixed.

00:55:02.260 If you look at Rocket Space and Mob Squad

00:55:05.220 and some of these things they promoted that just vanished.

00:55:08.780 Is there something that can be done with that?

00:55:10.420 I mean, if we're trying to draw a new enterprise downtown,

00:55:12.880 is Calgary economic development the best tool for it?

00:55:15.640 Is it just being used wrong?

00:55:17.280 Or should we get rid of that and, or at least let them finish with their funding, I guess,

00:55:21.780 and move on?

00:55:22.220 They're an arm's length enterprise, but, and find other ways to try and revitalize this

00:55:27.080 downtown because it just doesn't seem to be drawing anybody in right now.

00:55:30.460 Yeah.

00:55:31.040 So what you're referring to is the Occupational, sorry, Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund,

00:55:35.920 OSIF as we call it.

00:55:36.920 and and uh when we came on council this whole new council came on in october we were assigned to

00:55:43.300 different committees to you know to take a look at you know how calgary's uh both spending its

00:55:47.840 money and achieving our programs we have a osif uh uh committee and we have one of our council

00:55:53.080 members assigned to it and their focus is to do exactly what you just said make sure that the

00:55:57.980 the remaining 60 million dollars that are out there is allocated in the right sort of way to

00:56:02.460 to have the the not only the benefits we want but also that they are going to be successful

00:56:07.900 so um you know we are looking at that through the osa funding i sit on the calgary convention board

00:56:13.500 we are taking a look at the calgary convention board in light of the new bmo convention center

00:56:18.140 and making sure that you know there is no wastage but rather we opportunity opportunize

00:56:23.100 and take advantage of every single asset we've got out there making it to make it done right

00:56:27.580 i think what you're going to find with this council is nothing is status quo anymore we are

00:56:32.780 definitely taking a look at you know what's out there and do they fit together and if they fit

00:56:37.020 together are they operating correctly and if not then we will you know turn it over and fix it i

00:56:42.220 i know i've got a commitment from mayor gondack and my council members to uh to ensure we we do

00:56:47.100 it the right way okay i'm gonna bounce over again a little bit here just two uh jurisdictional

00:56:52.700 issues this somewhere i've had some concern uh i mean there's been a lot of discussion bill 21

00:56:56.540 in Quebec, it's an odious bill. It's a discriminatory bill. The only thing that

00:57:01.080 keeps them from having that completely thrown out in court is the fact that the notwithstanding

00:57:05.100 clause protects them from charter challenges. I guess there's other legal challenges that

00:57:08.740 potentially can be done. And I know it's been deferred without necessarily spending on,

00:57:14.380 so it's gone to a committee or a group to look at it at this point. Initially, Mayor Gondek had

00:57:19.480 proposed spending $100,000 for a legal challenge on that. I think most people understand,

00:57:25.500 And, you know, city mayor and council condemning actions outside of their jurisdiction and making motions to take a stance.

00:57:32.200 But to get directly involved in legal challenges, you know, completely out of our jurisdiction like that, is that appropriate?

00:57:37.720 And how are we going to stop more of these going forward?

00:57:40.200 Because you guys got a heck of a lot of stuff to do without fighting over what's going on in Quebec.

00:57:43.800 Well, I think, you know, I think most people are going to agree, as just said, Bill 21 in Quebec is not the right sort of society that we want in Alberta here.

00:57:54.500 as a result people are you know fighting against it however the question gets back to you know how

00:58:01.060 much can we actually control versus influence versus uh keep your hands off of and i think

00:58:06.260 from our perspective we can only influence the ideas we can't control what's going on out there

00:58:11.700 so the the notion of of putting a statement out there outcry that's fine the notion of dedicating

00:58:18.580 city resources and city dollars to it that's where we're hearing back from a lot of constituents that

00:58:23.380 No, $100,000 may be a drop in a bucket, but that's a bucket that could be used somewhere else.

00:58:29.680 And so the idea of spending $100,000 of city money is likely something that will not be found favorable when it comes back to council.

00:58:39.720 No, and I appreciate that attitude.

00:58:41.740 I tell you, if you want to get one of the things that gets me triggered, as per the name of the show,

00:58:45.280 it's when we hear any elected official try to dismiss an amount of money and just saying, oh, it's just a little bit.

00:58:49.480 I know that, you know, there's no sense bringing them up too often, but our past mayor used to love saying, oh, it's just a cup of coffee a day for every Calgarian.

00:58:56.520 Well, yeah, I know, but this still adds up to millions of dollars at times and even $100,000 to those of us out there in the working world.

00:59:04.380 That's a lot of money.

00:59:05.500 And we could see some very practical things from that, even if it feels like a drop in a bucket in something as large as a city the size of Calgary.

00:59:12.960 You know, I hope that more of our elected officials would always watch and realize there's no amount that's too small to be watching on our behalf.

00:59:19.960 So getting to that, there was something that during Mayor Gondek's year end interview, one of them, she had spoken of potentially tying property taxes to a progressive model so people would pay based on income.

00:59:37.960 I think she was just floating an idea balloon.

00:59:40.180 I don't know if that's come across to you guys or anything like that yet.

00:59:43.680 But it just sounded like, for one, a complicated potential scheme,

00:59:48.360 as well as one that's moving into an ideology sort of area of wealth redistribution rather than tax raising.

00:59:56.160 Have you heard about that?

00:59:57.180 And what are your thoughts on that?

00:59:58.900 Yeah, as a matter of fact, I have heard.

01:00:00.580 And something that came up during my campaign in one of the maritime provinces there,

01:00:05.600 They struggle to save property tax issues that everybody else does, and that is why we tax people on the wealth of their assets as opposed to whether it be the services they utilize or their capacity to pay.

01:00:19.020 And in the Maritime province, and I believe it's in New Brunswick, what they've done is to cap the property tax at one particular level and start shifting their focus on a provincial income tax approach.

01:00:32.640 meaning that if the provincial income tax let's say was 10 percent the municipality would make

01:00:38.120 a requisition to tackle one percent on the provincial income tax and that one percent

01:00:43.060 would come back directly to the municipality now by doing that it gets focused on those that can

01:00:49.140 have the income have the affordability to pay pay for the one percent they pay more those that are

01:00:54.340 unable to whether it be low incomes or seniors on fixed incomes and that that that they're not

01:01:00.680 bearing the increases of cost of service or inflation uh but rather they're bearing the

01:01:05.800 cost of what they can afford so that is just a another way of looking at it uh the whole world

01:01:12.360 of municipal taxation is is um quite a quandary because from a provincial perspective there's

01:01:18.760 only so much the provincial legislation allows us to do and and from a i say being an innovative

01:01:25.320 approach and as you as you know i spent you know 12 years in assessment taxation area at the city

01:01:30.680 There are other approaches to look at, and if we take a look at what model fits both their capacity to pay and the services that you receive, that I think is the approach that most people would like to consider.

01:01:47.620 But it'll take a lot of study and a lot of work before we get to that stage.

01:01:52.360 Yeah, well, and that's something that, I mean, mayors for a generation, I mean, the property tax system is a limited and rigid one.

01:02:01.080 And it's one of the only ones available to municipalities, along with perhaps service charges and fees as revenue generators.

01:02:07.600 But I think part of the problem is there's a lack of trust.

01:02:09.740 We don't open the door to giving a mayor and council the ability to implement a sales tax or, you know, get unrestrained access to income for income taxes because we fear they're really going to hit us hard with it.

01:02:23.160 Part of it, too, is if we shifted the means of collecting, that's fine.

01:02:26.440 But would it come with an increase?

01:02:28.180 So, I mean, it's a big issue.

01:02:30.780 Actually, you know, the fundamental question in municipal finances, people will always say, you know, what's the best way to calculate the taxes and distribute it equally across, you know, across the, whether it be the tax base.

01:02:45.720 And the difficult question is, once again, is it the tax, is it the rate, or is it what we assess?

01:02:55.300 And I often say, you know what, it's neither of those three things.

01:02:58.020 The most important thing that any municipal government needs to do, and counselors especially, is manage your spending.

01:03:05.040 If we take a look at a $4.5 billion corporation and we can keep our costs at $4.5 billion over the next 10 years, I think people would realize, okay, that's fine.

01:03:15.680 You're managing spending.

01:03:17.140 How you collect it, who you collect it from is a different cutoff fish.

01:03:22.060 So the focus I think we need to look at 2023, 2026 is a continued focus on our spending and making sure that we're not adding 10% spending increases or another $500 million on top of what we've got.

01:03:40.360 Great. Well, I mean, our time is up for you joining me today. I really appreciate you coming in.

01:03:45.620 We'll be looking forward to how things go in City Hall.

01:03:48.280 As I said in the intro too, I'll be on your case,

01:03:50.920 pushing for smaller government and reduced taxes as much as realistic.

01:03:55.240 Is there more you'd like to let our listeners know about what you're up to

01:03:58.660 and how to contact you before you go, Terry?

01:04:00.820 Sure.

01:04:01.340 If anybody wants to reach our office, it's at ward7atcalgary.ca.

01:04:06.540 And our focus is much different than previous ward councillor,

01:04:09.920 not to put her down, but our focus is on community constituencies

01:04:13.920 constituencies and communication, the three C's fundamentally. So again, every call will be

01:04:19.560 answered and taken care of. Great. Well, happy new year again, Terry. And we'll talk again soon.

01:04:25.400 You too, Corey. Thank you again. Enjoy. Great. Thanks. So yeah, there's, you know,

01:04:30.560 we're a seven councillor, Terry Wong coming on for a chat. As we said, we've got a new mayor,

01:04:36.480 we got a new council. It's a very progressive leaning council. I'm, well, I think most of us

01:04:41.760 are pretty concerned about where they're going to go with a lot of things. I mean, Terry's got a

01:04:44.960 good history of common sense. I know some people were saying already, oh, he's supported the tax

01:04:50.460 increase and some other things, and they're worth questioning. But I'm just kind of looking at it,

01:04:56.020 we're into just the first couple of months of that administration, he's feeling his feet.

01:05:00.620 I'm more concerned about the ones who came in as progressives, hoping that they embrace a little

01:05:04.480 bit of common sense. They aren't quite as union beholden as they appeared to be on their way in

01:05:09.880 initially when they got elected, because that was an issue with, you know, unions organized,

01:05:14.600 they funded those municipal elections, and the bulk of the candidates they endorsed got in.

01:05:18.480 And let's not pretend for a second that some of those candidates who've been elected, including

01:05:22.800 the mayor, don't feel some degree of obligation towards those who paid their freight, you know,

01:05:27.660 dance with the one that brung you. And if we're looking to get spending under control,

01:05:32.120 it's going to be hard if you've got a city council and mayor who are not going to take on the unions.

01:05:37.880 Police is a bigger issue.

01:05:38.980 And I saw some discussion between the Albertans and Shane about that.

01:05:42.760 Shane pointing out the training of police forces in Canada is more than what it is in the States.

01:05:46.820 And there's always going to be some bad eggs.

01:05:48.260 You know, like part of what happens and actually in a valid point for the Albertans, you know, that there's a lot of different jurisdictions and the police training can be up and down.

01:05:56.500 You don't necessarily want to blanket cover the police there as well.

01:06:01.600 So in both cases, you know, you don't want to cast your net too wide.

01:06:04.280 There's things to be learned from all sorts of jurisdictions.

01:06:06.860 We do have to, you know, every time one police officer goes off, we can't always attribute that

01:06:11.720 to an entire inherent problem within the force. We don't have to condemn the entire force. We don't

01:06:16.460 have to ride in the streets. We don't have to lose trust with all of them. I mean, there are

01:06:20.060 some issues going on. Look at the Lethbridge police force. I don't know what is going on down

01:06:24.140 there, if it's the wind or whatever it might be, but sanity isn't a word that's often attributed

01:06:29.020 to that bunch and it's hugely in need of reform. But then we get cases in Calgary where I've found

01:06:33.600 most police officers, when I've had to deal with them, if you look back on Cory Morgan Occupy,

01:06:36.880 if you want to see some fun, that's where police officers escorted me out of Calgary's Olympic

01:06:42.560 Plaza during the Occupy thing. It was quite fun. They were very polite and controlled and civil

01:06:47.040 and common sense sort of guys. So we understand and appreciate our police. And we know that

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01:07:47.200 bitcoinwell.com. It's a cool site. They even do some training to go with things like that.

01:07:51.900 Gets you clear of the government control things. As Bryce said, it fixes bloated government. 0.82

01:07:56.380 check them out as with our other sponsor, which I'll talk about in a bit. So we've got some time

01:08:02.720 together for a little while now to talk about some other things. And I've got some. Let's talk

01:08:08.860 about the arena. Let's talk about that giant behemoth that is now fallen by the wayside. I

01:08:14.960 believe the stories are saying that what we've got 20 million or 40 million of sunk costs. I'm just

01:08:19.680 kind of on the rant portion, so I don't have the exact numbers. There is a story on westernstandardonline.com

01:08:23.560 about it. There's a number of them. But again, if you haven't subscribed, get on there, have a look

01:08:28.040 at them. But what a mess, you know, tens of millions gone. I mean, my issue is they never

01:08:34.160 should have partnered, you know, with private and public in the first place. Either have the,

01:08:38.760 and I don't think the taxpayers should anyways, but if they did build it as a completely taxpayer

01:08:42.460 to own some facility and lease it out then to hockey teams, trade shows, and all those good

01:08:47.240 things, or preferably just get out of the way, build a good market environment and let private

01:08:54.640 enterprise build that arena. Now, what are we stuck with? Nothing. Money down the tubes,

01:08:59.820 a city council and mayor that have lost the trust with investors. I mean, that's part of the problem

01:09:04.080 what's going on. It's not just that this deal fell apart. It's the way it fell apart. The mayor and

01:09:09.800 other people felt we can just keep throwing expenses at this thing and these guys will

01:09:13.940 keep eating it. Well, eventually they said, no, we're out. I mean, I don't know if she purposely

01:09:18.360 torpedoed that thing and I'm meeting Mayor Gondek, or if she really thought she was going to get away

01:09:23.960 with just keep nickel and diming these guys. Either way, it was a partnership that never

01:09:27.560 should have happened, but it was made official today. The deadlines have passed. It's done.

01:09:31.440 It's not coming. It's not coming back. I mean, there may be a push to start a whole new deal

01:09:37.260 and that's what I get worried about. And that's why we got to talk a little bit about it now.

01:09:40.960 Let's learn from this.

01:09:42.360 I don't think the city should be in on such a deal whatsoever.

01:09:44.740 I mean, it's a big deal.

01:09:46.060 There's got to be some zoning and things like that.

01:09:47.940 But aside from that, get out.

01:09:49.940 This is a private enterprise deal.

01:09:52.340 If they can't function in Calgary, this is something people, go.

01:09:58.020 Go.

01:09:58.520 I don't know if they will.

01:10:00.120 Where are they going to go?

01:10:00.980 Some people said Houston.

01:10:02.400 Seattle's not an option anymore.

01:10:04.060 But either way, we can't be held essentially hostage by them either.

01:10:07.800 I mean, it would suck if the flames left.

01:10:09.340 but I don't think they would. Just give a good business environment, and these guys will fill

01:10:14.600 the void. That's the way it works. But when you couple them up with a bunch of bureaucrats,

01:10:18.460 this is what we get. Tens of millions wasted, plans wasted, disappointment, instability,

01:10:23.160 and the city looks even worse as a place to do business with. Now, here's something that just

01:10:30.160 crossed my mind the other day. COVID testing apps. Speaking of apps, wasn't this the big thing

01:10:37.200 you know, when I was going on about trends and fads and things that are going on a year and some

01:10:42.400 ago, everything was about these apps. They were going to be on our phones and we were, and whatever

01:10:47.780 happened to contact tracers, they were hiring them like crazy. We had hundreds, we had thousands of

01:10:51.560 contact tracers. People were phoning people. Hey, you've encountered somebody who had COVID. Hey,

01:10:56.520 you know, you've tested positive. And they cut deals with our phone services where those things

01:11:00.820 were opting into our phones without our permission. We had to take them out manually or block them.

01:11:04.620 And then they vanished. Where the hell did they go? And I'm kind of curious about some of these

01:11:09.560 things. What about the money that went into them? There was a story, I believe it was on Black Locks

01:11:14.860 Reporter, did cover with those apps that the government had spent millions of dollars, of

01:11:20.260 course, developing them because they never develop anything inexpensively. And in November,

01:11:25.260 the federal contact tracing app was used something like 800 times, like actually utilized by somebody

01:11:31.020 you say, holy cow, I've got it. Let's let other people know and everything. What a total

01:11:34.960 catastrophic waste. But you see, we're doing the same things with this pandemic over and over and

01:11:40.340 over again. And they aren't working. I mean, this one quietly went to the wayside. At least they

01:11:44.140 realized it's not working and they seem to have stopped with it. Why don't we start admitting

01:11:48.020 that some of these responses to this pandemic were ill-conceived. They didn't work. They weren't

01:11:53.440 worth it. Because a lot of them, they won't back down. We're locking down gyms again. Why? When did

01:12:00.500 we ever find out that locking down gyms reduces the spread of COVID-19? We don't have any numbers

01:12:05.660 for that. What we do know is it'll bankrupt gym owners. We do know it takes from people a healthy

01:12:11.500 outlet where they could get out, get some exercise. It's good for the mind. It's good for the body.

01:12:16.780 We know that. Yeah, what do we got? They're locking down the gyms in Ontario. They're locking

01:12:21.860 them down in BC. As Melanie was talking about, there's a gym in Winnipeg, or in Winnipeg,

01:12:26.700 uh, Kelowna. I don't know why I mixed those up. Either way, Kelowna has got a gym and the owner

01:12:32.500 said, no, we're staying open. Do your worst. And, uh, they're allowing members to come in to work

01:12:38.360 out, utilize the gym services. And, uh, we're watching it to see what happens. I imagine the

01:12:43.520 heavy hand of the law will come down because this gym is putting people at risk by letting them

01:12:47.840 exercise. And, uh, we'll definitely have follow-up stories and possibly even talk to the owners

01:12:52.720 about that after things happen, but it's these little businesses, groups like Chris Scott did

01:12:59.180 in Alberta and some others trying to push back against the giant state when it shuts them down,

01:13:03.580 when it puts them out of business, but they're having a heck of a hard time. I don't, it frustrates

01:13:11.080 it. I mean, it's a whole separate triggered rant, but when are we going to apply common sense? A lot

01:13:15.180 of it is just governments doing things to look like they're doing something. That's the bottom

01:13:19.340 line. They know it's not going to work, but it does damage. I mean, it's not a harmless thing

01:13:23.800 they're doing. And that's what I mean by putting off the school reopenings again. You know,

01:13:29.500 shutting down the junior hockey tournament. And let's not forget that put a bunch of people out

01:13:34.160 of work that took a lot of revenue out of people in the entertainment sector and bars and the

01:13:39.340 people who worked in concessions in those places. It's not going anywhere. Are we ever going to

01:13:45.420 return to some form of common sense response. Now Quebec, I mean, those guys have gone right 0.95

01:13:51.600 off their handle. And you know, this is something fun and typical. Quebec banned dog walking past

01:14:00.840 10 o'clock at night. This is great. So you can't take your dog out after 10 o'clock at night. Now 1.00

01:14:05.320 if you've got a good enough dog with bodily control, you can make it through the night.

01:14:10.900 Otherwise it's going to crap or pee on your rug or you're going to get fined. That's what it hit

01:14:14.860 that. I've proposed that people send any dog poop or pee, put it in a Ziploc bag and mail it to the

01:14:22.160 Quebec legislature. Let them know this was of your doing. You can have it. You can deal with it. You

01:14:26.620 can dispose of it. Just a way of protesting and showing how you're feeling. And boy, those

01:14:30.980 legislators who come up with such ridiculous legislation against things deserve to have a bag 1.00

01:14:37.400 of poop show up on their office doorstep. Speaking of protests on doorsteps, now in Alberta, we've had 0.96

01:14:43.560 something hitting the news a lot. And that's protests at the homes of public figures.

01:14:49.120 So yeah, Jason Copping's house, Art Pawlowski showed up with his usual gang of people

01:14:54.220 and started protesting outside of there, making noise. And he got arrested. Now,

01:15:02.780 there's a lot to that story. Pawlowski was already under a couple of court orders. He got

01:15:06.760 arrested for a few things, not just happening. People say, well, he just showed up on the

01:15:09.480 sidewalk. Well, it was a little more than that. And I just, I have a problem with this. When you

01:15:14.620 show up at somebody's home, their personal home, that's an intimidation tactic. I know people are

01:15:21.140 furious with the government and I know the governments are impacting our home lives. And

01:15:24.740 these politicians are impacting our ability to live. I do understand that. But a really big line

01:15:30.820 is being crossed when you show up at their homes. The left does it. Somebody else is pointing out,

01:15:35.080 you know, we were furious when the Greenpeace showed up at Ralph Klein's house, Gilboa was 0.99

01:15:39.480 actually one of the ones behind that crap. And we shouldn't have people showing up even, no matter 0.95

01:15:44.340 how furious, not at their house. They got offices, they got a legislature. I know it feels like a

01:15:48.360 waste of time. What you need is more people. But I threw it out to Twitter on a poll because I had

01:15:53.200 a lot of people arguing with me on that one. I threw it out there and I said, well, let's, let's

01:15:57.580 talk. How many of you feel it's appropriate to show up at a person, public affairs, private

01:16:02.780 residents to protest. And I was kind of surprised. So we had, what, over 7,000 people responded.

01:16:08.660 And 66% of them said, yeah, it's fine. They said, yeah, yeah, I put a typo in when I made my poll.

01:16:14.560 You can't edit Twitter once it's gone. So, but I mean, people understood the difference between

01:16:18.000 yeah and no. Maybe just add a little more character to it. And, you know, showing up at a

01:16:25.000 house is saying, somebody saying, don't defend why you got arrested. No, if he shows up at my door,

01:16:28.940 while I live in the country, it might be different. Either way, that when you show up at somebody's

01:16:32.880 door, you're saying, I know where you live. And when we talk about saying, I know where you live,

01:16:37.360 I mean, it's a matter of what you've done with it. You know, when you say something, oh, I know where

01:16:39.740 you live, you see, that's casual. When you say, I know where you live, that's a threat. And when

01:16:43.600 you show up at somebody's doorstep, that's threatening, that's intimidation, and we're

01:16:47.180 better than that. We're frustrated, we're pressured, but we're better than that. And I don't agree with

01:16:53.480 the majority of my Twitter voters on that one. That's fine. I won't agree with every guest. I

01:16:56.900 won't agree with every comment around here that's part of the fun and part of being a debating show

01:17:01.160 we can go back and forth I am offside with the majority of my Twitter followers on that one

01:17:05.200 I don't feel you should show up at somebody's home to protest like that you got to remember too

01:17:09.780 Jason Copping has family members in there he has kids they got neighbors you know this is bothering

01:17:15.100 a heck of a lot more people than just the one individual in office who you are intimidating

01:17:19.640 and that's what it is is intimidating and it doesn't make things better for us we can protest

01:17:24.600 and we should. I want to see more people getting out to these protests. I want to see rational

01:17:30.080 people. I want to see, I mean, I've gone to them repeatedly. I've ranted about that. I've videoed

01:17:34.680 it. I go to these things and they're talking about chemtrails. I go to these things and they're

01:17:38.120 talking about vaccines causing autism and conspiracy theories and crap. Not everybody 0.89

01:17:43.340 there, but the ones at the front at the podium are. And then when your average person who wanted

01:17:48.000 to go back and somebody saying, well, what have peaceful protests accomplished so far? Well,

01:17:52.200 that's what I'm talking about, Jim. Why haven't they accomplished anything? Because Dave and I

01:17:55.680 went to one and all that crazy kookery was going on. And that's what it was. And there was a great

01:17:59.840 number of people around the outside. And you could see them wandering away as the lunacy spread out

01:18:03.880 because they wanted no part of that. We got to get large numbers and rational people. It doesn't

01:18:10.540 mean you kick out the irrational, you just have to outnumber them. And we haven't yet. And I've

01:18:15.360 gone to at least five or six of these things in the last year and a half. And I'm sorry, but they

01:18:18.880 just aren't things that aren't going to call out common Calgarians. And I've worked on political

01:18:22.720 campaigns. I've been a campaign manager for somebody who's a cabinet minister these days.

01:18:26.640 They do listen. If they think they're going to lose their seats, they do listen, but you've got

01:18:29.840 to get out numbers and you've got to come out sane. Showing up on a doorstep of a politician

01:18:33.720 is neither. It's not appropriate. That's where I stand on that one. Again, some people don't agree

01:18:39.700 with me. Obviously the majority of my Twitter followers don't agree with me at that. That's

01:18:42.820 okay. The world won't end if we don't agree. That's some of the things we've got to get over

01:18:45.480 with these things. Now, here's a fun one that came up. A CBC veteran, Tara Henley, she'd been

01:18:51.500 there since I believe it was, I don't know, she's been there 12 or 14 years or something, but she

01:18:56.460 has left the CBC and she's been very public about it. She put out a Substack article on it, which is

01:19:02.100 a, you can look it up online. And she said, due to a lack of journalistic integrity, and she pointed

01:19:10.060 out just how crazy woke the CBC has gotten and it has gone viral and she really has uh triggered

01:19:17.160 you know getting back to triggered a lot of people it's funny because the left have gone wild

01:19:21.240 how dare her it's almost that attitude of you just keep it in you keep it inside you don't uh

01:19:25.660 talk about it but the reality is the CBC which has always been a middling organization they

01:19:30.640 haven't really put much good out there since the beachcombers which was pretty good this time

01:19:33.980 but they've gone woke right over the edge and she talks in her piece so i mean google that one i

01:19:40.540 don't have the link handy for it but she's got a sub stack piece and and look up her uh her name

01:19:46.540 there it's uh tara henley and it's called lean out with tara and give it a read because it really

01:19:52.280 shreds the cbc for the bizarre tax-funded woke organization that it is so the lefties have gone 0.99

01:19:58.540 wild because she exposed just how ugly it is in there and of course people in every other news 0.81

01:20:03.200 organization are going, hey, yes, please, let's speak more on this. And other former CBC people

01:20:08.160 have been speaking up. We had another fellow speaking up just on, I believe he was with Post

01:20:12.740 Media, but he got chased out of his newsroom. He was an editor who'd been there for decades

01:20:16.840 because the woke crowd swarmed him. We got to push back. If we want media that cuts through,

01:20:22.120 we have to leave that media, get away from it. And the CBC is terrible. So that was a great thing

01:20:29.480 she put out. I love seeing the response from it. I mean, you got to think of how bad the CBC has

01:20:33.480 gotten. Wendy Messley got canceled by them. She'd been there for, uh, what, 30 years or something? 0.62

01:20:39.880 And she offended some people at a planning meeting, and that's all it took. 30 years

01:20:44.020 as a progressive person, pretty left-leaning. You're done. You're finished. The woke have spoken.

01:20:50.640 It's nuts. We don't have to worry about that over here. I mean, hey, if I take Derek off enough, 0.99

01:20:54.200 I can get myself fired over something, but it won't be over me not being woke enough or agreeing

01:20:57.600 to a different point of view. It'll be me having crossed some sort of unreasonable line, I guess.

01:21:02.760 But she exposes just how ugly it's gotten in there. Speaking of ugly, speaking of divisive,

01:21:09.220 speaking of hope, let's finish with one of our top stories. Yes, Justin Trudeau calling people

01:21:14.620 who opposed to him misogynists, racists, and extremists. I mean, this is just beyond the pale.

01:21:24.380 This is the prime minister. This is a man leading, a man child really, but he's leading our country,

01:21:30.000 whether we like it or not. He represents us around the world. He speaks to us. He controls policy.

01:21:35.960 And that's just unreal. I mean, you know, the thing that does get to me is there's real racisms

01:21:45.360 out there. There's real misogynists. There's not a hell of a lot. There's not nearly as much as of

01:21:50.100 course, you know, some of these publications would make it out to be. But yeah, there's some real

01:21:53.360 nuts out there. There's some real jerks. There's some real extremists. And when you get this 1.00

01:21:57.240 imbecile, and that's what our prime minister is, an imbecile, labeling people with those heated, 1.00

01:22:02.900 terrible terms, because of something completely unrelated to race, because of vaccination status, 1.00

01:22:08.960 it harms, it's calling wolf. I mean, it's not taking seriously the real racist and misogynist

01:22:15.960 and extremists out there. It infuriates the people who have chosen not to be vaccinated,

01:22:19.720 which is a choice, and it should remain a choice. I chose to. That's another thing that triggers a lot

01:22:24.000 of my listeners, and I still think it's a good idea to do it. I think it reduces the negative

01:22:29.060 outcomes of a COVID-19 infection, which I really believe is going around. But it's got to be a

01:22:33.640 choice. I completely oppose government mandating of it. And having a prime minister segregate and

01:22:39.080 label and call people things like that because they've chosen not to be vaccinated is irresponsible.

01:22:44.280 it's insulting it's to use his word he's used in the past it's disgusting and we shouldn't let

01:22:50.680 that go and that's been a top story with us for a while now and it's going to continue to be we

01:22:55.220 keep on their case with these things you know it's the mainstream media didn't give that a lot of

01:22:59.620 bear if any the western standard covered it and we're going to keep doing it so again i'll make

01:23:03.960 our plugs for ourselves while i'm at it go to the western standard online.com if you haven't

01:23:08.640 subscribed already we really rely on subscribers it's uh cost you less than a newspaper

01:23:13.920 subscription and you get better content, regular content, whether it's columns, live breaking news

01:23:22.500 and reporting on past things. It's great. It's well worth your while. It supports us.

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01:23:45.120 and then we can keep doing more of this. It's very important. So you can help us. I mean,

01:23:48.900 this is interactive. This is the new media. It's really important. And of course, we're getting

01:23:52.960 back to our sponsors. And here's that Algonaut again. These guys, well, Algonaut's the main

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01:24:52.960 So I'm getting near the wrap up of this first show.

01:24:55.700 I really, really appreciate you guys

01:24:57.720 coming in to tune in today.

01:25:00.400 Tomorrow, back at 1130,

01:25:02.380 I've got a couple of great guests again.

01:25:03.760 We've got Melissa M. Barkey.

01:25:05.020 She's from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

01:25:07.860 For those, if you've seen her on social media,

01:25:10.440 she's been very outspoken.

01:25:11.600 She's great to talk to.

01:25:12.520 I've had her on before. 0.97

01:25:13.960 She works in the energy sector,

01:25:15.780 but she's an indigenous person

01:25:18.240 and speaks out very much on the indigenous issues as well.

01:25:21.220 And just a great common sense approach.

01:25:22.980 I really love watching what she's got to say online.

01:25:25.640 And I'm really looking forward to talking to her.

01:25:27.520 After that, I'm going to talk to David Clement.

01:25:28.980 He's of the Consumer Choice Center.

01:25:30.980 He's out in Toronto,

01:25:33.060 but they really talk to, I mean, things like reducing government restrictions on commerce,

01:25:38.160 giving consumer choice, you know, getting rid of monopolies, things like the

01:25:41.140 supply management, dairy quotas, things like that, you know, so it's some good libertarian

01:25:46.420 economic talk, but it's well worth it. And David Clement, I mean, when our cost of living is going

01:25:50.200 through the roof on everything, and it is, he's putting out the ways to get government to get out

01:25:54.280 of our hair so that we can afford to live with or without the government. So the other commenters

01:26:03.040 there. And, uh, well, it's been some interesting discussion there. Please come back tomorrow. Like

01:26:09.160 I said, we're going to be there at eight 30. We can talk some more. Email me at cmorgan at

01:26:13.420 westernstandardonline.com. If you've got ideas or comments, you want to send direct to me

01:26:16.780 and, uh, I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in.

01:26:33.040 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - January 05, 2022

Triggered With Cory Morgan

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