Western Standard - Trump warns Canada’s immigration problems are ‘TOO BIG TO HANDLE’

00:00:00.000 all right we're live welcome back

00:00:28.560 where do I start actually if I talk fast today and I'll try and slow it down because if I talk

00:00:40.200 fast in my mind I'm trying to get this show over and done with quickly not that I don't love doing

00:00:45.900 this show but as soon as I'm done this show I'm jumping in my truck and I'm starting a

00:00:50.880 seven-hour journey I'm heading up north to Edson Alberta as a starter hook up with some buddies

00:00:57.480 And then first thing tomorrow morning, we're heading into our hunting camp.

00:01:00.420 So this is the start of my annual hunting trip.

00:01:05.000 Moose season starts on Saturday in the area where I hunt.

00:01:09.480 And I'm fortunate.

00:01:10.380 I've been hunting in the same area for about 30 years now, going on 30 years with the same great bunch of guys.

00:01:17.240 And this year, man, we have, I personally have a moose draw for a cow.

00:01:22.380 So I have a cow moose tag.

00:01:23.780 Two of my buddies have bull moose tags.

00:01:26.280 And then we have a cow elk tag and there's six of us.

00:01:30.620 So I'm going to be honest, we're usually pretty successful, right?

00:01:37.740 Hunting is one of those things where you go through sort of stages, a lot of hobbies and go through stages, photography, bird watching, hunting, running, whatever.

00:01:48.120 Hobbies go through stages, right?

00:01:49.860 When you start hunting, you go through the I just want to kill something stage.

00:01:54.220 and then you'll go through the trophy stage

00:01:57.680 and then you'll go to the whatever.

00:02:02.780 I'm at the stage of I just want to hang around buddies,

00:02:07.640 sit by the campfire, away from civilization,

00:02:10.980 tell stories, have a couple of beers,

00:02:13.160 have a coffee in Baileys in the morning.

00:02:15.300 And if I get something, it's not that bad.

00:02:17.460 But if I don't, it's okay.

00:02:19.360 Or if I do, it's great.

00:02:20.680 and and we're also at the stage where um when i was younger and we'd go hunting like that

00:02:26.740 the nights would be long right you'd sit around the campfire and you'd be talking until two in

00:02:30.720 the morning and then when seven in the morning came up and you're trying to get up for the early

00:02:34.680 uh you know for the early hunt you weren't always crawling out of bed now i'm older i'll look around

00:02:41.540 the fire some nights and then you'll notice two or three guys are already gone and it's like 9 30

00:02:46.220 and they're in bed in the tent so uh and i'm in that boat right there's a lot of nights where i'll

00:02:51.100 go to bed at nine ten o'clock which makes getting up in the morning to go hunting easy and uh okay

00:02:57.580 so um yeah excited about that all right thanks for joining uh as usual the phone number is on

00:03:05.180 the screen there don't be shy uh let's make it about whatever you guys want to talk before i come

00:03:11.260 in here i always send a quick email to the producer about topics and then we have a quick

00:03:16.060 chat of what people want to talk about or what he thinks would be a good subject because you got to

00:03:21.820 remember i got other we got co-hosts here i got other people at the western standard that cover

00:03:26.660 a lot of topics right i definitely had um the uh snap election in bc on my list of things but i

00:03:35.660 won't make it a high priority and maybe i'll i'll come back to it later i wanted to talk about that

00:03:39.940 But apparently, Corey and some of the others are discussing that at length and maybe people want to go on to another topic.

00:03:48.600 So, John, the producer here, definitely suggested, as you can see in the topic, Trump warns Carney about immigration.

00:03:55.820 And so I'm going to I'm going to dive into that one.

00:03:59.480 Definitely want to talk a little bit about I'll give an update on independence in general.

00:04:06.740 In fact, I just finished doing a walk around Calgary with a journalist from, yeah, I'll admit it.

00:04:13.680 I'd walked around with a journalist from the CBC who interviewed me while we're walking around, grabbing some sound bites.

00:04:20.300 Don't worry, I've met lots of journalists from the CBC and I've learned their tricks, right?

00:04:24.520 When they ask you a question, do like you're in the House of Commons.

00:04:27.820 Don't answer the question.

00:04:29.080 Just tell them what you want, just get your message across.

00:04:32.500 So we'll see if that comes out.

00:04:36.740 But, yeah, I want to talk about, I'll give an update on the referendum.

00:04:39.900 I want to talk a little bit about Smith pausing the gasoline tax, the UN Assembly that went on this week, and other topics.

00:04:51.560 So let's dive into this one.

00:04:54.760 So Trump put out a tweet.

00:04:59.120 John, do we have that tweet or that comment?

00:05:01.820 I should read it there.

00:05:03.400 It's a bit hard for me to read, but he basically says Canada is destroying.

00:05:08.460 Can you zoom in? There you go.

00:05:10.220 Canada is destroying itself by allowing millions and millions of people into the country, 1.00

00:05:14.400 essentially unchecked and unvetted, and who are causing problems that will soon be too big to handle.

00:05:21.400 It is a liberal takeover that will end very badly.

00:05:26.540 I can almost hear that very bad.

00:05:28.300 I'm not good at doing a Trump imitation, but I can almost hear Trump saying that.

00:05:32.280 and already showing up in their numbers,

00:05:35.080 big unemployment, O Canada, President Donald J. Trump.

00:05:38.800 By the way, do you guys think that Donald writes his own tweets

00:05:42.360 or is he like most politicians and does he have a staff that does it for him?

00:05:46.400 Because if he has a staff, they're very good at imitating his style.

00:05:50.780 If he has a staff, I'm pretty sure that Donald reads them before they go out.

00:05:57.380 But he has a style of – actually, that's not a tweet.

00:06:01.040 I need to be corrected. There's no tweets anymore. You're either on X or you're on something else.

00:06:06.400 And Donald Trump has his own platform called Truth Social.

00:06:10.220 And so he tweets on on that platform and then that's picked up by others.

00:06:16.480 So let's unpack that. Right. Because and actually I found the timing of that post interesting because I've told you guys this before.

00:06:27.120 I start my day by going through a couple of sources.

00:06:30.720 I have a couple of places that I go and look every day to see what's going on.

00:06:35.420 And one of the places I like to check every day is Stats Canada.

00:06:38.780 Stats Canada has a portal.

00:06:41.260 And you can go in there and you can see all this.

00:06:43.260 Like our government, one thing I like about our government and our army of bureaucrats and clerks

00:06:51.060 is that they collect a lot of information.

00:06:53.540 and they just produce report after report every week.

00:06:57.700 And some of that information is actually quite valuable to me as a commentator, right?

00:07:01.780 So I go to Stats Canada and there's like a schedule, a release schedule,

00:07:05.620 and certain data comes out quarterly.

00:07:08.840 Some of it comes out monthly.

00:07:10.200 Some of it comes out annually.

00:07:12.340 And yesterday, coincidentally, there was a release of the latest population estimates,

00:07:19.520 the latest number of which the population estimates includes things like immigration

00:07:25.440 natural birth uh temporary foreign workers student visas and stuff like that so there was that number

00:07:31.820 that came out there was a number that came out uh that was really interesting to me which was

00:07:37.900 the uh fertility rate and and the unemployment numbers didn't come out yesterday but they came

00:07:44.080 out today and so all together they tell the picture and donald trump is not wrong so let's

00:07:49.580 start with one quick uh stat that came out yesterday which i think explains a lot of what's

00:07:54.440 going on and that's the john's going to enlarge the one well actually you can see it there but

00:08:00.520 you can enlarge that so the one he's pointing at right there 1.26 that's uh canada's national

00:08:08.900 fertility rate and if you could just zoom in on that graph john and just show it right so the

00:08:14.540 fertility rate is right down there at 1.26 1.26 so let me explain what 1.26 means what 1.26 means

00:08:25.460 is that the average woman that that average number of children born per women in all across canada

00:08:35.560 women of of childbearing age the average is 1.26 child per woman okay so that means that if you

00:08:44.060 have four women in a room among them they will have five kids so four women in a room among them 0.89

00:08:52.560 they'll have five kids and that could be now you have to dig into the stats to see how that's

00:08:57.140 distributed but one one four women in a room five kids what it currently means in canada is that 0.94

00:09:03.960 Two of those women have zero kids. 0.99

00:09:07.260 Two women have zero kids. 1.00

00:09:09.300 One woman has one kid and one woman has four. 0.93

00:09:14.880 So five divided by four, 1.26, 1.25, but that's how you get to that.

00:09:19.560 A healthy population to keep growing, for a population to keep growing, 0.97

00:09:25.980 you need a fertility rate of 2.2.

00:09:29.840 And the math for 2.2 is that a couple gets married 1.00

00:09:32.840 and that couple that woman needs to have 2.2 kids one kid to replace herself one kid to replace her

00:09:40.880 husband and the 0.2 is to account for accidental deaths over the course of the next 80 years

00:09:47.820 so 2.2 is a population that will barely grow three or four is the number that you see in a lot of

00:09:56.720 less developed countries. And it's pretty natural. It's been observed that most nations, 0.72

00:10:03.540 when they start to develop economically, I'm going to be a little bit crude here, but

00:10:09.080 humans are just like other animals, right? And so 50 years ago, more than 50 years ago,

00:10:16.480 let's say 100 years ago, you lived on a farm here and you couldn't depend on other people.

00:10:21.080 You needed to have a lot of kids. You needed to have kids to grow up, to work on the farm,

00:10:26.720 to look after you when you got older. You had to account for a lot of fatality, right? 100 years

00:10:31.600 ago, life was harder in our country. And so as the country's economy improves and standard of

00:10:40.140 living improves, the fertility rate starts to go down. It's been observed across the world. But at

00:10:44.160 1.26, Canada is among the lowest of the low. And that report says, and the news picked up on it,

00:10:52.500 1.26 is the lowest it's ever been.

00:10:54.460 It's historically the lowest.

00:10:56.620 And very few countries have a birth rate that's that low.

00:11:01.240 I think South Korea might have a lower one than us.

00:11:05.440 Otherwise, everybody else is higher,

00:11:06.860 including the Americans next door and stuff like that.

00:11:09.920 And what caused that decline?

00:11:13.960 I'm not a sociologist, but I mean, there's a lot.

00:11:18.500 The fundamental reason that the birth rate has gone down

00:11:21.340 is our standard of living is good.

00:11:23.600 You can have one kid

00:11:24.680 and the odds of that kid surviving into adulthood

00:11:27.200 is pretty good. 1.00

00:11:30.660 Women are empowered, want to go work. 1.00

00:11:34.720 Staying home is less appealing to some. 1.00

00:11:38.540 You could argue, I think a lot of people go work

00:11:40.960 because they have to, which is another problem, right?

00:11:43.440 The cost of living in this country

00:11:44.960 and the tax rates and everything else

00:11:46.840 have made it so that children are unaffordable.

00:11:49.820 So call in, let me know that, right?

00:11:51.240 me know your thoughts right why do you think why do you think the birth rate has gone down is it

00:11:55.560 just because we're affluent or is it because the cost of living is a little too high and and and 0.95

00:12:00.200 people um let me read that question it's because the government wanted women in the workplace 0.99

00:12:06.520 rather than raising a family it's a good argument right it's a great argument that that by making 0.98

00:12:11.400 women in the workplace they will um pay taxes and and and so forth so we we have a declining birth 1.00

00:12:19.400 rate which is a problem so if you have uh mathematically if the birth rate is 1.26 0.99

00:12:26.440 and you don't bring in immigrants okay let's say you don't bring in immigrants you just don't bring

00:12:30.120 in immigrants and you stay like this at 1.26 the reality is that the population starts to go down

00:12:37.160 especially now because the baby boom is over right the baby boomers are the people that were born 0.70

00:12:42.840 like this this anomaly this huge chunk of our population born between 1946 and 1965 like the

00:12:52.120 youngest baby boomers are the one born in 1965 they're gonna be i'm trying to do the math here

00:12:58.360 if you're born in 1965 you will be uh 65 years old in about four years from now right five years so 0.58

00:13:06.120 the last of the baby boomers are going to start retiring and they're starting to die baby boomers 0.84

00:13:11.400 born in 1946 they're already 80 years old so they're starting to die so there's this big uh 0.99

00:13:17.080 change in our population the older people which was a huge cohort like a lot of baby boomers

00:13:22.600 they're starting to die and the fertility rate of the people that followed is low so if you do the 0.70

00:13:27.240 math and you forecast forward at this rate without immigration the population uh in 2060 2070 starts

00:13:35.960 to go down and then by 2090 i did the math and i asked the i did the math if you don't bring in

00:13:42.360 immigrants by 2090 canada's population goes back down to about 28 million and then it starts to

00:13:47.800 decline there's an irreversible decline so we created a problem and i'm sure this was identifiable 1.00

00:13:55.720 But we created a problem and we needed to bring in extra workers, immigrants to replace the people that are not being replaced by childbirth. 1.00

00:14:09.360 And why? For the same reasons that I described, the future generations like we live in a society where we need people to pay tax dollars because we become dependent on the government and the government provides all sorts of benefits. 1.00

00:14:25.380 And I will argue that we lavish upon ourselves benefits that we can't afford.

00:14:29.760 I know we can't afford them because we're $3 trillion in debt.

00:14:32.880 So we lavish on ourselves these benefits that we can't afford.

00:14:36.520 And now we have a declining population. 1.00

00:14:38.360 So we have to bring in a schwack of immigrants. 1.00

00:14:42.540 And I wish there was a chart on this. 1.00

00:14:44.780 I'm not going to make John look for it, or maybe he can find one.

00:14:48.440 But the population of Canada went up like this in the last couple of years

00:14:54.480 because as donald pointed out these problems are real and the liberals thought that one of the

00:15:00.320 solutions to this problem was just to bring in a whole bunch of people and so in the years since

00:15:05.760 covid our population has exploded and we've brought in not like millions of new people

00:15:12.560 millions of new people and and so much so that it's caused us problems and i don't want to

00:15:18.560 I'm an immigrant, practically speaking.

00:15:24.300 I mean, my family's been on this continent for a darn long time,

00:15:27.180 like since the 1600s.

00:15:28.780 But okay, I'll bite and I'll say I'm an immigrant.

00:15:31.520 I'm not against immigration, especially not here in Alberta. 0.97

00:15:34.800 Alberta was founded by people coming here to work.

00:15:38.360 So I'm absolutely okay with immigration. 0.99

00:15:40.900 I mean, at the end of the day, I prefer that we had a high birth rate.

00:15:43.360 I have four kids, so I think I did my part.

00:15:45.220 I prefer that the conditions were ripe so that we could, you know, have kids and maintain perhaps a stable population.

00:15:55.640 I don't need one growing or going down.

00:15:57.300 I'd like to have one sort of stable.

00:15:59.440 And so I wish the conditions were there for that. 0.87

00:16:01.620 But since they're not, then I'm definitely pro-immigration.

00:16:05.380 But when I'm critical of immigration, it is because it has been out of control in the last little while.

00:16:11.960 when you bring in people way too fast they don't have time to integrate they don't have time to 0.99

00:16:18.580 learn our norms they cause there's some friction that that happens because of that and our

00:16:23.440 infrastructure is lagging um you know our schools we our schools aren't keeping up our housing is

00:16:31.120 absolutely not keeping up right i mean just do the math in your head uh we we've talked on previous

00:16:36.120 shows canada's star is has about 200 000 housing unit starts a year okay 200 000 housing units

00:16:44.120 each housing unit can hold two or three people so we build enough housing units to accommodate 600

00:16:50.440 000 people new people a year well if we're growing by one or two million dollars a million people a

00:16:56.280 year we can't accommodate so um i was looking at this data now the rest of john maybe put that

00:17:05.240 quote back up for uh for a second that uh you don't need to i mean donald trump put it back

00:17:10.840 up put it back up i want to just reread the rest of it right um who are causing problems that will

00:17:17.480 soon be too big to handle that's the part where liberals and others got upset yesterday i mean

00:17:25.080 nobody's denying that immigration has been fast and rapid but is it causing problems that are

00:17:31.560 could become irreversible that i'm not willing to go there just yet but the problems are they are

00:17:41.340 real there are problems right we are seeing stories every day of of these problems it's not

00:17:46.380 just uh it's not just housing there is there is sort of a clash is happening like i said because

00:17:51.840 people aren't having we're they're not having a chance to integrate properly right like the the

00:17:57.020 story last week of the guy like somebody went up hiking in banff and they got to the devil's thumb

00:18:02.080 which is like a popular hike and then they get there and there's this graffiti that's been painted

00:18:06.780 on the rock by by somebody uh and you know i'll yeah i'll be blunt there was a visible minority i

00:18:14.120 mean it's it's somebody and um that's unacceptable and that's because they haven't had a chance to

00:18:19.920 integrate with the way we do things so yeah uh thanks and i i mean some people don't like donald

00:18:28.140 because donald trump is kind of like he's blunt right he's blunt he definitely put the liberals on

00:18:33.700 the on the defense yesterday they were they were they were having to quickly point out that uh that

00:18:39.280 they've reversed immigration and things like that and um and i'm glad i mean again donald is a wake

00:18:46.520 up call for a lot of people and um and i'll finish it by by by the last part of his um his comment

00:18:56.900 there which is the unemployment that those numbers came out this morning unemployment numbers

00:19:03.020 employment numbers i would say employment's more important than unemployment employment numbers

00:19:07.520 came out uh for the last quarter and i like 20 000 jobs added like in a country of 40 million

00:19:15.380 people in one quarter or in one month we're adding 20 000 jobs and again sure it's it's it's minuscule

00:19:22.160 positive growth but 20 000 jobs added when you're increasing the population by a million that's a

00:19:28.060 problem because you know that's we're we're we're not we're bringing in too many people and we're

00:19:34.260 not adding creating the jobs for those people so let's pivot just ever so slightly because this

00:19:41.400 ties in nicely with uh with a couple of other things so this this whole concept of immigration

00:19:47.620 ties in nicely with uh the referendum okay and the alberta referendum because

00:19:56.020 uh i think it's four out of the five maybe or sorry four out of the nine maybe five out of the

00:20:03.240 nine questions reference uh immigration on the referendum and some people say that that uh

00:20:10.300 immigrants are being scapegoated for a problem.

00:20:14.360 Yeah, perhaps a little bit of scapegoating is going on there,

00:20:17.660 but I fundamentally agree that the data reveals 1.00

00:20:21.060 that the out-of-control immigration has caused some problems. 1.00

00:20:24.960 And on the upcoming referendum,

00:20:26.860 Smith put some questions around immigration,

00:20:30.320 you know, regarding slowing it down,

00:20:33.460 taking more control of it and imposing some guidelines

00:20:40.160 and some minimum fees on immigrants who come to Alberta.

00:20:45.640 And that's not, I mean, I don't think it should be on the referendum, to be honest.

00:20:48.700 I don't think it should be on the referendum.

00:20:49.980 The problems are known and it's completely within any government's purview

00:20:54.780 to deal with these problems.

00:20:56.280 I don't think she needs to do the referendum to go get the mandate to deal with that.

00:21:00.660 she's fundamentally asking for powers that provinces like Quebec already have right

00:21:06.200 I mean the problem with immigration overall is that it is a federal matter Ottawa decides who

00:21:12.400 comes in and who doesn't Ottawa controls the border and when somebody comes in to most people

00:21:18.960 will fly into Canada and they'll land in whatever Toronto Montreal Vancouver and then once they're

00:21:24.080 in the country then they're free to go wherever they want and statistically a lot of them are

00:21:29.460 coming to alberta i don't know is that a is that the image you had up there ready to go john was

00:21:33.700 uh what is this one what is uh oh that's one of the immigration questions yeah um we don't what

00:21:42.060 the the questions are there and we we don't need to go to the questions specifically but they are

00:21:47.240 they are i again i don't think smith necessarily needed a referendum it's in her power

00:21:53.100 to adjust some of the things.

00:21:56.500 I mean, well, let's stay on this.

00:21:59.480 We don't control immigration in Alberta specifically.

00:22:02.280 Like I said, Ottawa decides who comes in.

00:22:04.940 But once you come to Alberta, then we have some controls.

00:22:10.360 And that coincidentally came out this week. 0.97

00:22:14.460 Danielle Smith is bouncing the idea of charging a health care fee for new arrivals, right?

00:22:24.100 Because she's on the record now.

00:22:25.980 She said it, I think, two or three times publicly in different press conferences.

00:22:30.240 She talks about the imbalance, right?

00:22:33.620 That the new arrivals are contributing something like $150 million in taxes,

00:22:40.780 but taking out a billion dollars in services and so there's an imbalance there and she wants to

00:22:47.020 charge a fee to new arrivals um i didn't see the details i mean a fee makes sense period right i

00:22:55.260 i'm old enough to remember when um in alberta we all paid a health care premium like right up until

00:23:03.260 about uh i think it was stalmac in 2009 who took that away but when i was you know when i was 35

00:23:10.300 years old and I, well, yeah, I was going to pull my healthcare cards. I don't need to show you my

00:23:16.240 healthcare cards, but my paper card. In Alberta, you know, I'd get my, if we all had to pay a

00:23:25.140 premium, right? I think it was like $40, $50 a month and we paid an Alberta premium. Now, most of

00:23:31.740 us didn't know that we were paying the premium because if you were employed by the government

00:23:35.940 or a union or even the new oil sector, like my employer at the time,

00:23:39.740 you know, I worked for Talisman Energy.

00:23:41.580 I'm pretty sure it was one of my benefits, right?

00:23:46.680 Talisman Energy paid that $44 on my behalf.

00:23:49.660 I mean, they were the ones that were supposed to collect it anyways.

00:23:52.180 The health premiums were collected by your employer,

00:23:55.140 but they paid it on my behalf.

00:23:58.600 If you were self-employed or if your employer didn't pay it,

00:24:02.040 then somehow or other you got a bill and you had to pay your premium.

00:24:05.160 So the concept of paying a premium is not new, and I think Ontario still pays a health premium, and I think Quebec might still.

00:24:13.580 But Stelmac put an end to all of that and then made the financing of Alberta Health entirely from the government, none of it coming from the public.

00:24:25.500 By the way, if the government's paying for it, you and I are still paying for it, right?

00:24:30.200 Whether the premium is on your card or comes out of your pocket directly as a premium or whether it comes out of your taxes, you're still paying for it.

00:24:38.400 So anyways, I'm not entirely against the idea of charging somebody who's new to the province or who's here on a temporary basis.

00:24:47.780 I'm not against charging them a premium for health care.

00:24:53.220 And so, you know, I'll just leave it at that.

00:24:55.980 I mean, it's not crazy.

00:24:59.160 What other image you got up on there, John?

00:25:02.400 You're trying to get some pictures ready.

00:25:04.840 What are you going with?

00:25:08.640 You don't.

00:25:09.400 All right.

00:25:10.080 Okay, folks.

00:25:11.440 Again, don't be shy.

00:25:12.620 Like 866-479-WEST and extension 711.

00:25:19.560 And John will patch you through.

00:25:21.720 And let's have a chat.

00:25:22.800 I mean, it's a talk.

00:25:23.760 We're trying to make it a talk show.

00:25:25.100 So maybe I'm just so, what's the word?

00:25:28.940 So verbose, you guys just like hearing me?

00:25:32.300 Did I tell you I just finished?

00:25:33.680 Yeah, I told you I finished a chat with the CBC.

00:25:36.920 Oh, what I didn't tell you though, it was CBC French.

00:25:39.680 So I was walking around Calgary with a guy,

00:25:42.880 all mic'd up, and he was asking me a bunch of questions

00:25:45.580 on independence.

00:25:48.440 And there's something going on in the country, right?

00:25:53.520 I experienced it.

00:25:54.860 I know what's going on in Quebec.

00:25:57.380 Quebec had a leader's debate yesterday.

00:25:59.540 Quebec has their provincial election next week,

00:26:02.740 or two weeks from now.

00:26:04.420 The 5th of October is the Quebec provincial election.

00:26:08.140 And right now, the separatist party in Quebec

00:26:10.840 is leading in the poll by a huge margin.

00:26:13.900 All efforts, everything Carney's done

00:26:15.780 to support the current incumbent.

00:26:18.460 The incumbent is a lady named,

00:26:20.220 I think it's Christine Frechette.

00:26:23.140 and she didn't get elected right per se in a general election the the previous leader of the

00:26:29.740 the the current party in power in quebec is called coalition avenir quebec and they've been in power

00:26:37.840 for about six or seven years their leader stepped down somebody else stepped in so now this will be

00:26:44.160 her first chance at truly getting elected as the leader this is common uh carney's trying to help

00:26:51.180 right he went over there and he's announcing that alto high-speed power uh train line he's announced

00:26:56.700 the icebreaker deals he's announced the power he's announced all sorts of things and then standing

00:27:02.460 arm in arm with her rah rah rah but um i don't think she's going to get re-elected not according

00:27:07.900 to the polls and not according to what i saw yesterday um in their debate they had their

00:27:13.820 leaders debate by the way i wish all you guys could more of you could understand french and

00:27:18.380 watch that debate that debate i guess in let me let me say this i'm i'm french right you see me

00:27:25.580 when i talk i move my hands and i'm and i get the my voice gets louder and i'm agitated and

00:27:32.380 i'm passionate about it i'm passionate about politics in quebec politics is a blood sport

00:27:37.900 like way more than anywhere else right it's like they live it and they like they they have lots of

00:27:43.500 parties they have um they're well organized they have like every party has a young branch right the

00:27:49.900 young liberals the young conservatives the young everything they really love their politics it's

00:27:54.780 in their blood and i say so much so that it's almost a blood sport but it's a pleasure to watch

00:28:00.540 it so that debate last night was an ex an absolute excellent debate and um like i said i wish

00:28:07.900 everybody could watch it and that new that girl that that that current leader who's running she's

00:28:15.020 basically running against trump right this is funny like uh carney did the same thing she's

00:28:20.060 doing the same thing like i'm the one who can uh better get us a better deal and defend us against

00:28:25.820 trump i think eb is going to try and run that the angle for a while there and all her opponents are

00:28:32.540 like what makes you think you can get us a deal right you haven't got us a deal your party's been

00:28:38.540 in power for this long but more importantly like one of the best questions somebody asked yesterday

00:28:43.020 was how did you prepare for trump your party's been in power for six or seven years how did you

00:28:50.060 prepare for trump and not specifically trump but you should have prepared for a trump or a or a

00:28:57.500 trade disruption or you know a pivot ai whatever you should have prepared for a disruption

00:29:04.460 and you can you are completely unprepared i thought that was the knockout blow to that poor

00:29:08.940 lady like you you have no credibility i hope and if conservatives are i mean i know i want to talk

00:29:16.780 about it just a little bit i i i you know john said don't talk too much about uh bc politics

00:29:22.780 We've got to talk about B.C. politics ever so slightly.

00:29:31.960 What happened a couple of days ago with E.B. calling a snap election,

00:29:36.600 I think that's dirty politics.

00:29:38.560 I don't like that.

00:29:39.580 I just don't.

00:29:40.700 I mean, he's in year two of a four-year mandate,

00:29:44.540 and B.C. has fixed election dates like Alberta and a lot of other places.

00:29:48.860 So he's in year two.

00:29:50.800 He didn't get defeated by a voter or anything like that.

00:29:53.000 He's just being opportunistic, and he's calling an election

00:29:56.420 while the other side is in disarray.

00:30:00.000 I don't care what anybody says.

00:30:01.380 He's on stage saying, no, it's existential.

00:30:04.280 I need to call an election to get a mandate to deal with Trump.

00:30:08.420 Really?

00:30:09.060 Nobody else is doing that anymore, right?

00:30:11.020 If Trump was that existential of a threat,

00:30:14.580 every province would use the same excuse.

00:30:16.620 But no other province is using that excuse except you, John.

00:30:19.560 So David, you're using that excuse. I think it's crap. Let's admit it. You're witnessing disarray in your opposition. And I don't like that. But all right, it is legal. Sure. Constitutional. Sure. Go for it. I hope that the British Columbian voters wake up. 1.00

00:30:43.300 Now, that said, one quick word of advice, if I can, to the British Columbians, you guys need to unite, man. Don't think of it like at this point, it's not David Eby versus conservatives or whatever. It's David Eby versus non David Eby. You know what I mean? Like you guys on the and Alberta was in the same boat. Remember a couple of years ago, not more than a couple of years ago, six years ago, five years ago, when we were trying to get rid of Rachel Notley.

00:31:12.660 we're in the same boat we had a divided side on the right um that was you know we were staunchly

00:31:20.880 independent and and it was hard to bring us under a big tent i will give credit to kenny for

00:31:26.400 accomplishing this kenny not my favorite politician especially not these days but

00:31:30.340 one thing kenny did is he did come around and he united the right against rachel notley and so and

00:31:39.880 And I remember at the time saying, what do we call ourselves, right?

00:31:42.440 Like people said, we're going to call ourselves our United Conservative Party.

00:31:45.280 I mean, it was barely that because it was such a mishmash of people.

00:31:49.380 It was just literally the party against the NDP.

00:31:52.760 So I think what somebody's saying there,

00:31:57.800 our Conservatives aren't Conservatives only Quebec?

00:32:03.420 Or only 1BC. Sorry, I was reading that as Quebec.

00:32:06.000 No, I agree.

00:32:07.020 So don't call yourselves Conservatives.

00:32:09.480 Just call yourself the other side of David Eby.

00:32:12.440 And Eby, by the way, is so far that way that almost everybody is on the other side of him.

00:32:17.520 So don't nuance it with colors of like conservative, liberal, whatever, labor.

00:32:23.340 Just get united.

00:32:25.000 So I don't know who's going to come out and do that for British Columbia.

00:32:28.000 Who's your Jason Kenney?

00:32:30.640 I don't know.

00:32:31.520 Is it going to be Aaron Gunn?

00:32:32.820 Is it going to be somebody else?

00:32:34.040 I don't know, but I just hope that somebody comes out and unites the other side.

00:32:41.180 Call it the right.

00:32:41.960 Don't call it conservatives.

00:32:43.120 If you want to, just call it the right.

00:32:45.920 Or call it the common sense, man.

00:32:48.040 Like, you might as well, like, literally just call it a common sense party at this point.

00:32:52.680 And then take a slice or take a slide and a page out of what happened in Quebec.

00:33:01.520 do not whatever group uh is against eb let eb fight trump you the other side should not do that

00:33:15.260 do your own thing do your own thing so explain to voters how you will diversify the economy

00:33:23.760 and bring things you know uh help help things don't just be we're not trump or we're gonna

00:33:31.000 attack trump do your own thing anyways i think i spoke enough about uh bc elections and elections

00:33:36.840 in general well i'll come back before i end the show i will talk about independence here but

00:33:40.960 uh boy i i definitely did not have that on my um i gotta say one more thing about bc uh election

00:33:49.420 that I think it'll backfire on him, okay?

00:33:53.580 I'll just say that.

00:33:54.400 I think it'll backfire on him.

00:33:56.280 Again, the parallels between what happened in Alberta

00:33:58.700 and what's happening in BC are pretty interesting, right?

00:34:02.520 Remember, how did Rachel Notley get in?

00:34:05.780 It was a backlash vote, right? 1.00

00:34:09.120 We had the Lions or the Wild Rose Party

00:34:13.060 and the Conservatives formed an alliance, right? 0.96

00:34:15.140 Danielle Smith walked across the floor.

00:34:17.160 um Prentice saw an opportunity Jim Prentice dropped the writ did a snap election and the

00:34:25.060 Alberta voters got really pissed off about the shenanigans and uh gave the NDP this huge majority

00:34:33.680 and so sometimes the voter can see right through I'm glad that once in a while the voters do see

00:34:39.620 through the shenanigans played by a leader and I think in this case David Eby might regret um

00:34:46.740 dropping the red and calling this snap election but time will tell um and that's pretty quick

00:34:53.120 right it's interesting that his election boy what a what an interesting fall we're going to have

00:34:57.440 right we have a referendum in alberta well what do we have an election in quebec on october 5th

00:35:02.540 a referendum on october 19th in alberta an election in bc on october 27th wow it's going

00:35:07.820 be an interesting uh interesting um fall um where do i go from here any interesting comments make

00:35:16.780 uh catch your eye john you got the maybe not okay um what else happened this week oh okay well let's

00:35:29.180 let's stick on trump right so uh the trump trump caught me off guard with a move this week caught

00:35:36.380 Caught me off guard. Caught me off guard.

00:35:39.820 So let me reiterate, right?

00:35:44.980 Canada does a lot of trade with the U.S., like $700 billion worth of trade.

00:35:51.180 And Alberta alone does about $179 billion with the U.S.

00:35:58.120 Saskatchewan does about $30 billion or $40 billion.

00:36:00.620 And then the rest is Ontario, Quebec, and B.C.

00:36:03.060 So we do a good chunk.

00:36:05.140 and trump when you look at the map of what trump needs trump doesn't need ontario's milk

00:36:15.440 or cars or quebec's milk he doesn't need a booze he doesn't need our softwood lumber he doesn't

00:36:22.240 need our coal he doesn't need any of those things what are the fundamental things that trump

00:36:26.820 needs from canada he needs our oil he needs our potash he needs our sulfur he needs our uranium

00:36:36.940 and a few other things right so the real things that he needs are those things everything else he

00:36:42.580 can he can source elsewhere and i was a bit cocky in the last few months thinking alberta's safe

00:36:50.280 because our oil supply can't easily be displaced by Venezuela.

00:36:56.340 And I was a little cocky.

00:36:57.980 I thought our potash from Saskatchewan can't easily be replaced by other sources.

00:37:05.440 Well, Trump is the master of the deal.

00:37:09.240 And he announced a couple of weeks ago that he had done a deal with New Zealand.

00:37:13.720 Sorry, I keep saying New Zealand. 0.53

00:37:15.280 Venezuela.

00:37:16.340 And so he's sourcing.

00:37:17.180 He's going to source some oil from Venezuela, which is OK, good for him, bad for Alberta.

00:37:22.940 I still think that I still think that by the time he gets that oil from Venezuela, his country's demand will have gone up and he will still need.

00:37:32.400 You know what I mean? Like he's taken four from us, but their economy is firing so hard.

00:37:36.700 He needs everything we can give him and everything Venezuela.

00:37:40.580 So I wasn't too worried. But well played, Mr. Trump. Well played.

00:37:43.860 I mean, he's doing a deal with Belarus, you know, there's three big producers of potash in the world, Belarus, Canada, and Australia.

00:37:53.440 Australia does Asia Pacific, Belarus provides Europe, and we were providing Trump, and now Trump does a deal or is working on a deal.

00:38:02.680 So he's just whittling away at us, right?

00:38:05.420 And what that shows is a couple of things, which we've said before.

00:38:11.060 they're way less dependent on us than we are on them and and trump is demonstrating that he's

00:38:17.380 demonstrating that and he's also demonstrating that if we're not willing to put up and do a

00:38:22.520 deal like we can stand up and say the deal was poor we're not taking it that's fine that's our

00:38:28.200 choice but when we refuse a deal there are plenty of countries that are lined up to do deals with

00:38:34.680 the US, including Mexico, including even China this week. So that was an interesting development.

00:38:43.400 Well played, Mr. Trump. Personally, again, I think it's in the same kind of situation as our oil.

00:38:49.280 I think we were about, Saskatchewan's about to increase its potash production, putting a new

00:38:54.560 mine on production. And the world, the population keeps growing, agriculture's growing, the world

00:39:01.020 needs more potash the u.s needs more potash i don't think trump sourcing potash from belarus

00:39:07.740 will necessarily means he buys less from saskatchewan but time will tell but again it's

00:39:12.840 an important it just sends that message right in in in this trade war and um i uh carney was

00:39:20.680 awful quiet this week awful quiet anybody did anybody watch the uh the u.n national assembly

00:39:27.420 Like, am I the only weirdo who watches that kind of stuff?

00:39:31.300 I mean, there was some interesting moment.

00:39:33.860 I don't know.

00:39:34.880 We probably can't replay it here, but Trump's address.

00:39:39.380 And when the camera would pan from Donald Trump to the, I don't know, is it a president or who's the leader of Iran?

00:39:46.060 They have multiple, they have the, whatever they call it, the religious leader, the Ayatollah, and they have other leaders.

00:39:51.360 I think it's the president of Iran.

00:39:52.560 But when Trump was basically saying, I will annihilate you if we don't get a deal, like he said that in he said that in other instances.

00:40:03.480 But this was kind of the first time they were almost face to face.

00:40:06.940 You know what I mean?

00:40:08.180 That guy looked a little bit uncomfortable.

00:40:14.400 Where to go next?

00:40:15.780 All right.

00:40:18.060 Can we do a funny story, John?

00:40:20.320 Sorry, I didn't prepare you for this one.

00:40:22.560 Maybe I should have, but let's pick on BC a little bit.

00:40:27.280 Did you guys see the story of Simon Fraser University rebranding itself?

00:40:33.400 I'll give you a second, John.

00:40:34.960 You can find the, this has been going on, right?

00:40:37.900 This is one of those things that I find absolutely funny.

00:40:44.460 This idea, you know, everybody got upset that Donald Trump was renaming Lake America.

00:40:51.740 remember we talked about that and then and then and then almost in the same breath a week later

00:40:57.100 uh simon fraser university rebrands itself and uses um they they changed the the big sign at

00:41:05.560 the front of the university and it's now in that i don't even know how to pronounce that language

00:41:10.140 it's in uh to wassin or whatever it's one of the one of the oh okay is that one of our own stories

00:41:16.860 yeah the western standard did a story on it right so uh maybe zoom in on that but how do you

00:41:21.940 pronounce that like zoom in on that what what like i don't even know how to look at that like that's

00:41:28.260 the name of the of simon fraser university now like what are you guys thinking well what are

00:41:34.520 they thinking what do you like i can't even pronounce that so if if somebody says to me

00:41:40.680 where's your kid going to school i'm going to say well he's going to simon fraser university do you

00:41:44.240 me to do you want me to say that i i but i just want to point it like i just see i just see this

00:41:51.280 as silly right as as this weird um weird acknowledgement that that really accomplishes

00:41:59.600 nothing and i made a joke about this but in in the end it's not really a joke this is a made-up

00:42:05.040 language at this point sorry the language is not made up the language is sure there's some speakers

00:42:10.560 who speak whatever this was to wasan or whatever but there's no dictionary of this language i

00:42:17.440 looked online there's no dictionary of this language the translations are done by they go and

00:42:21.920 find um whatever elders who say oh this is how you should pronounce this word and then and then we had

00:42:29.600 to give them an alphabet this is this is a greek alphabet that's been adapted to this this is not

00:42:35.360 a Tawasin or whatever language. This is an alphabet because these guys did not have

00:42:42.720 a written language. So this is going a little bit too far for me in terms of truth and

00:42:54.320 reconciliation. This is not reconciliation. Renaming modern institutions based on something

00:43:02.660 that happened a thousand years ago that's not reconciliation okay if they want to build a new

00:43:07.220 university and call it them whatever they want that's fine but i'm i don't like this and i made

00:43:12.420 a joke about this you might as well do this in klingon right now right in the star trek universe

00:43:17.780 the language of klingon there are more people who speak klingon than speak that language

00:43:22.740 klingon has an association klingon has a national convention every year where people come together

00:43:28.740 and practice speaking Klingon.

00:43:30.700 The Bible's been translated into Klingon, all right?

00:43:34.220 Tolkien, when he wrote Lord of the Rings,

00:43:37.400 developed a whole language around Elvish and stuff like that.

00:43:41.080 So, like, come on, folks, stop mocking us and stop.

00:43:45.560 You're actually mocking the culture when you do something like that, I think.

00:43:50.360 That's just me.

00:43:51.300 Maybe I'm being a little bit harsh, but that's the way I think.

00:43:56.020 all right um i okay well maybe you guys wanted to you guys are testing me you wanted me to just

00:44:02.160 talk talk talk like i said i'm talking fast because i want to go hunting um all right well

00:44:08.840 i got a i'm running out of subjects folks i got i got one or two more that i can talk about i mean

00:44:15.020 so uh somebody my somebody call i i hate sounding like i'm begging if you guys don't want to call

00:44:21.680 that's cool i will i will keep talking so i got two subjects left to chat about uh one is that

00:44:30.800 uh danielle smith paused the gasoline tax i'm glad she finally did that unfortunately it doesn't take

00:44:38.880 effect until october 1st so i guess when i come back from hunting i can fuel up at hopefully 13

00:44:44.800 cents cheaper than when i'm going up but that's something i don't look forward to right now uh

00:44:49.680 right after this i'm gonna go jump in the truck i got a 132 liter tank and uh it's gonna cost me

00:44:56.800 a pretty penny to fill that up and uh right now the price of gasoline locally is disconnected

00:45:03.920 from the price of oil thank you somebody's calling all right go ahead where are you calling from

00:45:07.920 what's your name please well marty it's randy calling from chilliwack whoa chilliwack randy

00:45:14.700 How are things?

00:45:16.720 Oh, yeah.

00:45:17.960 So, so here in BC, I really enjoy your show.

00:45:20.900 I've been listening to it since you started.

00:45:23.680 And I enjoy listening to you in quiet.

00:45:26.700 A couple things.

00:45:27.720 My 29-year-old son just packed up and left BC a couple months ago.

00:45:32.340 He's a Red Seal electrician.

00:45:34.100 Went to Evansburg, just left of Edmonton.

00:45:36.760 Yep.

00:45:37.600 Just didn't do it out here anymore.

00:45:39.780 Couldn't afford a house.

00:45:41.000 And he just bought a house with him and his wife and child.

00:45:43.760 and, yeah, just starting young and fresh out there

00:45:47.580 and got a good job as an electrician.

00:45:50.440 That's part of the brain drain from B.C.

00:45:52.660 and, yeah, got a future out there

00:45:55.080 and he's going to be voting for the referendum to separate.

00:45:59.720 Wish I could follow as well.

00:46:03.540 Another thing, it was pretty disgusting a couple weeks ago 0.92

00:46:07.480 that Connie couldn't take the time to go to the 9-11 ceremony there

00:46:13.500 It's just absolutely disgusting.

00:46:17.420 And what you guys should be doing with your third-party advertising

00:46:22.940 is have a kind of a tongue-in-cheek advertisement saying that,

00:46:26.840 like on the Canadian side, that you really enjoy Alberta

00:46:29.700 spending out $50 billion to Ottawa every year

00:46:33.060 and all the good stuff that Alberta does in a kind of a tongue-in-cheek way

00:46:37.200 so that people kind of see where all the money is going.

00:46:41.060 Yeah.

00:46:41.260 Okay, well, first of all, congratulations on your son.

00:46:46.040 Actually, I'll be driving through Evansburg this afternoon on my way north.

00:46:49.500 So it's a small town, very quiet.

00:46:51.980 I'm sure you got it out.

00:46:52.880 Hopefully you got an acreage.

00:46:54.420 But I want to ask you a quick question, Randy, then.

00:46:56.680 So I said earlier in the show, I think EB's stunt might backfire on him.

00:47:02.460 Am I out in left field on that one, or do you think there's a possibility?

00:47:07.220 I think you're right.

00:47:08.940 because there's, of course, a municipal election happening about a week before,

00:47:12.840 so I think people are really going to be right kicked off with him trying to pull this quick one on us.

00:47:18.040 And every year or every few months, the Conservatives are calling me for money,

00:47:22.720 and this time I'm going to be telling them that if they can't have one Conservative candidate on the ballot

00:47:29.420 or BC1 party by themselves on the ballot, they're not getting any money from me,

00:47:34.140 so they've got to get their act together.

00:47:35.480 Otherwise, if we get another four years of NEP, this province is done.

00:47:39.800 It's already done, but it's only going to be worse.

00:47:42.100 Yeah, thanks for the reminder.

00:47:46.560 I forgot to mention that.

00:47:47.940 Maybe my colleagues, Corey, mentioned it.

00:47:51.200 But, yeah, in B.C., your municipal elections and your provincial elections

00:47:56.900 are completely offset by, like, two years, right?

00:47:59.620 And that's on purpose so that they don't interfere with each other.

00:48:02.720 So this month, you're going to have both because of this snap election.

00:48:09.420 Exactly.

00:48:10.320 And I think people are just, the drip of things is going to be a big thing in this election.

00:48:14.820 And with the NUP naming Simon Fraser University with this Indigenous or Indian name,

00:48:21.440 I think it's just a start. 1.00

00:48:22.700 They'll name it first, and they're starting to take over all the land seconds.

00:48:26.440 So it will be an easy conquer for them, you know?

00:48:29.560 Yeah.

00:48:30.440 Interesting.

00:48:30.920 I don't know.

00:48:32.060 So it's sad what's happening here, and I hope you guys succeed,

00:48:36.640 and I might have to move out there as well myself,

00:48:39.740 because I can't do it anymore.

00:48:41.780 I'm just getting tired of it.

00:48:43.080 Well, at the very least, you can come visit your kids.

00:48:45.600 Awesome.

00:48:46.120 Thanks for calling, Randy.

00:48:48.480 Thanks.

00:48:49.060 Okay, good luck hunting.

00:48:50.420 Thanks.

00:48:52.020 John, was there another call beeping on the line?

00:48:56.340 Hello?

00:48:59.840 Hey, it's Marty there.

00:49:01.480 Yes. Oh, this sounds like Brenda.

00:49:06.700 No, it's Diane.

00:49:08.380 Diane, of course. Diane from Sherwood Park or Edmonton, right?

00:49:13.100 Devin, Devin.

00:49:14.300 Devin.

00:49:14.840 Is this Marty?

00:49:15.420 Yes.

00:49:17.540 Oh, I'm sorry. I was having a hard time getting through to you.

00:49:21.040 I'm calling because you were asking for people to call.

00:49:25.360 Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Diane. You call. You're a regular. What's on your mind?

00:49:28.560 well um i mean you asked me something ask me a question i like to talk i know i i'm i all the

00:49:39.280 topics you're talking about i'm um i'm educated in because i follow everything so you go you ask

00:49:46.920 me something for a change okay i'll ask you something for a change so um is immigration

00:49:54.020 is a sensitive topic because a lot

00:49:56.260 of people as soon as we talk about immigration

00:49:58.180 start to you know accuse us

00:50:00.160 of being racist or whatever

00:50:01.980 um are

00:50:03.820 are we are we simply

00:50:06.220 scapegoating immigrants for

00:50:08.140 some of the problems or is there some 1.00

00:50:09.780 truth to that have you experienced

00:50:12.140 personally in your neck of the woods

00:50:13.660 uh some little problems because of the

00:50:16.140 recent huge growth

00:50:17.520 well

00:50:20.880 the it was the growth

00:50:23.600 is obviously too many people too fast i'm the furthest thing from a racist i have had um i

00:50:31.400 worked with indian people from india that have been here for 30 35 years who have kept their

00:50:39.000 own culture but also assimilated into the canadian culture and had their children here and their

00:50:45.240 children were educated here and i i met their kids one was a pilot one um worked in the automotive

00:50:53.180 of industry and they assimilated to to our culture um the the you can't let three million people in

00:51:02.940 in four or five years uh temporary and refugee and whatever status they want to give everybody 0.88

00:51:10.540 and not put any money into our healthcare system or our education system or anything else that 0.94

00:51:17.980 canadians have had and expect that everything's just going to be going you know swimmingly like

00:51:25.660 it was 20 years ago the the health care system is getting is getting crushed i i mean you know

00:51:32.160 i told you before i'm 65 i really hope i don't get sick and have to um use those facilities

00:51:40.020 because it's there's just too much pressure on it and they don't put money into it um i'm

00:51:46.720 originally from windsor they've been trying to build like i'm not exaggerating they've been

00:51:52.780 trying to build a new hospital in windsor since 2002 when my mother was sick and it's now 24 years

00:52:03.140 later and they just put a shovel in the ground there's two hospitals in windsor ontario that

00:52:09.600 are like one is almost 100 years old i and i kid you not it was the nuns the top of nuns

00:52:16.700 who used to run it and one that was maybe built 70 years ago where i actually had my children so

00:52:23.340 my kids are almost 40. so um yeah so they just are building a hospital now yeah so you you you

00:52:30.940 so now they lack all these extra people in and what what like how how does anybody expect

00:52:38.700 everything to work correctly right and and actually and i think you you helped me answer 0.68

00:52:44.620 the question and you perhaps answered it we should not be scapegoating uh immigrants they just came

00:52:51.820 here because they were invited here and and they came here through the process the pro the the

00:52:58.300 people we the the politicians are using some politicians are using immigration as a scapegoat

00:53:05.500 for their failures i think is probably a better way to say it right it's politicians that open

00:53:11.020 the door and let a whole bunch of people in without thinking of the consequences and they're

00:53:15.720 the ones our anger should be directed at politicians not at the people who just showed up

00:53:20.300 yeah you're you're you're right but it's the the problem with the canada not having enough people

00:53:31.020 and the birth rate this is all going back 30 40 50 years with and a lot of people are not going to

00:53:39.460 agree with me and this may not be very popular but because of feminism it has destroyed 0.77

00:53:48.100 being a mother and womanhood and trying to have a husband and support your husband 0.99

00:53:57.680 and all the wonderful things that women are and it's it's tried to take that down and destroy it

00:54:06.600 And that might not be popular, but now that I'm the age I am and I can look back, 100%, that's what they have tried to do. 1.00

00:54:16.920 And you're right about the extra taxes coming in from that extra person working in that house.

00:54:23.520 And I feel sad when I hear young girls who are 20 years old now saying, I don't want to have kids because they're missing out on the absolute joy of a lifetime.

00:54:36.600 Yeah, no, I, you know, like I said, I'm not a sociologist. I think I agree that the feminist movement and other things has put some pressure and dropped the fertility rate. But then also when I compare, let's say, two countries that are very similar, like Canada and the US, right, have very similar opinions about feminism and women and equality, but their birth rate is a lot higher than ours.

00:55:02.540 So then I got to say that the final difference at the end of the day has got to be an economic one.

00:55:07.360 Right. I mean, we're getting to the point where beyond feminism, it's so expensive here. 0.99

00:55:14.920 I hear that all the time from people like we just can't afford to have kids.

00:55:18.820 That's pretty sad. I hate hearing that.

00:55:22.980 100%. And I agree with you that that's part of it, too.

00:55:26.680 But I think this has been like a slow drip of a lot of different factors that brought us to this point.

00:55:36.780 I really do.

00:55:38.440 I don't think it's just one.

00:55:40.420 I don't think solving it the way the government has tried to solve it,

00:55:46.520 which is bringing in all these people, that really props up our GDP and everything

00:55:51.780 because those people are all buying our consumers and they're all buying stuff and it's making 0.79

00:55:58.820 everything look better but it's i don't i don't see it unless i'm really a dumb person i just don't 0.91

00:56:06.180 see that there's all this success happening now in canada am i dumb no no no i mean like i said 0.73

00:56:14.580 um i talk about this every week like it is shocking how people are people have to you and 0.72

00:56:22.820 i are not dumb and others are not dumb either but a lot of people are i think they're closing

00:56:26.980 their eyes they're putting on the blinders they just don't want to accept it that they're

00:56:30.420 that there's that things aren't working it's it's it's yeah excellent okay well thanks

00:56:38.580 Well, and we've talked about that before.

00:56:43.240 People just don't want to see it, right?

00:56:45.200 People just don't want to see it.

00:56:46.200 But anyway, you take care of yourself.

00:56:48.560 I hope you have a very successful hunt, and take care of yourself.

00:56:53.260 Thank you, Diane.

00:56:54.040 Have a great weekend.

00:56:56.700 Yeah, no, all great points, all great points.

00:57:00.420 Yeah, I mean, just a personal story.

00:57:02.900 Like, my wife is itching to have grandkids.

00:57:06.400 Like, she's just itching, itching, right?

00:57:08.060 We have four adult children.

00:57:10.680 None of them have had kids yet.

00:57:13.780 And my oldest is 33.

00:57:16.700 And I tell my wife, like, statistically, because she comes from a big family.

00:57:21.800 We both do.

00:57:23.000 And, like, I have, I don't know, like, 16 nephews and nieces, right?

00:57:26.600 So all the – I have four kids.

00:57:29.200 My wife comes from – my wife's sister has four kids.

00:57:33.760 My wife's – like, everybody.

00:57:35.320 We all have big families.

00:57:37.080 My parents had like, you know, seven grandkids.

00:57:39.920 My parents-in-laws, my in-laws have like 16 grandkids.

00:57:43.440 And I tell my wife, like, statistically, you're just looking at an engineer.

00:57:47.120 I'm just a statistician.

00:57:48.900 We have four kids.

00:57:50.500 And so statistically, don't expect much more than three grandkids.

00:57:55.440 That's just, it's sad, but that's the way it is. 0.61

00:57:57.940 And my wife is almost depressed at that thought.

00:58:01.140 But that's just the reality.

00:58:02.740 I don't know how we, now, statistically, we're an outlier.

00:58:06.380 and I hope we will be, no, I shouldn't say that.

00:58:10.200 I hope we will end up being a statistical outlier,

00:58:12.860 but I'm not crossing my fingers

00:58:14.140 because over the long term, stats don't lie.

00:58:18.280 Okay, running out of time, which I'm sorry if I was pushing.

00:58:22.980 It sounded like I was pushing the show.

00:58:25.120 I am honestly totally excited.

00:58:27.580 I will, I love disconnecting.

00:58:30.200 The rule in camp, like we have no cell phone.

00:58:32.980 One of the guys said, hey, I can bring my Starlink.

00:58:35.400 We rule that out.

00:58:36.580 We voted it out.

00:58:37.460 There's no Starlink.

00:58:39.640 You won't be seeing a lot of tweets or posts from me.

00:58:42.480 While I'm hunting, I know a couple of hills where if I really want to reach out in an emergency,

00:58:48.560 I know a spot where I can use my ATV, go follow a trail up to the top of a hill and get some signal.

00:58:54.720 But even when I happen to go by there, I might turn on the signal, call home, say,

00:58:58.280 Hi, honey, I'm okay, but I don't spend minutes or hours on the phone.

00:59:01.960 So I will be disconnecting.

00:59:03.780 I think it is so refreshing.

00:59:05.280 I'm lucky. I do this frequently. I disconnect all the time. So I won't be here next week.

00:59:13.880 Somebody else, I imagine Josh or somebody else will do the show next week.

00:59:18.280 As I said, not doing well, if you want to join, if you if you want to get a subscription, you still can.

00:59:26.580 But for the time being, the paywall has been lifted until the referendum is held.

00:59:32.540 So go and look at all the stories that we that the Western Standard brings you.

00:59:38.600 And I guarantee you, once you get to see all the stories, you'll see that you it the ten dollars a month to get this kind of news is nothing.

00:59:47.660 It's one hundred dollars a year. I wanted to talk more about the referendum.

00:59:52.280 I didn't you know, I didn't get to talk about Keith Wilson's Transition Council bringing out their document, which is a fabulous document.

01:00:01.980 I'm sure somebody will talk about it.

01:00:03.780 I will just highlight one thing real quick.

01:00:06.000 I got my referendum checklist from Elections Alberta

01:00:11.660 and confirming that the referendum is on the 19th.

01:00:16.400 Mail-in ballots right now.

01:00:17.960 If you want a mail-in ballot, you have until the 25th, which is tomorrow.

01:00:21.640 If you didn't send in a letter to Elections Alberta to get a mail-in ballot,

01:00:25.620 it's too late, but you can get one, I think, in person tomorrow

01:00:29.500 If you go to one of the regional elections offices, they've already received 600,000 requests for mail-in ballots.

01:00:36.840 I'm not in favor of mail-in ballots, but I understand that a lot of people are getting them because they're worried that there might be lineups on election day.

01:00:44.920 But this also confirms that there is advanced voting on Tuesday the 13th, Wednesday the 14th, 15th, 16th, and even Saturday the 17th.

01:00:55.580 So you have in all six days to go vote in person.

01:00:59.320 So I'm pretty sure you can find the time to go do it.

01:01:01.900 And it probably won't be that long.

01:01:03.660 But anyways, I am totally out of time saying I won't see you next week,

01:01:08.540 but I'll see you in two weeks from now.

01:01:10.260 Hope everybody has a great weekend.

01:01:12.440 And thanks for calling in.

01:01:14.460 Cheers, folks.

01:01:25.580 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - September 24, 2026

Trump warns Canada’s immigration problems are ‘TOO BIG TO HANDLE’

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