Western Standard - Why hold byelections when you can just buy elections？ (with @Martyupnorth)

00:00:00.000 all right welcome back folks uh happy thursday to everyone uh i think we're gonna have a good

00:00:13.920 show today i think you guys are gonna want to talk about what we're gonna talk about today but

00:00:17.840 before i go too deep in the show um just want to wish a happy birthday to my good buddy george who

00:00:23.080 turns 48 today george so i hope you're watching right now and and i also want to just uh mention

00:00:30.140 that it's been overshadowed there's a lot of things in the news today but it's been overshadowed

00:00:35.420 today is vimy ridge day uh that's and perhaps it's a good segue into what's happening today but

00:00:42.220 you know vimy ridge was an important battle in uh world war one um it's pierre burton wrote about

00:00:50.340 But Pierre Burton was a Canadian historian.

00:00:53.760 He wrote several books.

00:00:55.080 And Pierre was up from the Yukon.

00:00:56.700 And he wrote a book probably in the 1980s, 84, 85.

00:01:00.520 And I remember reading that book when I was in high school.

00:01:03.200 We had to read it.

00:01:05.080 And, you know, Pierre described the battle in detail and from a historical point of view.

00:01:11.520 And Pierre thought of the battle as a major turning point in Canadian history at that point.

00:01:16.960 you know we had been fighting under the british as the canadian expeditionary force but we were

00:01:21.760 sort of under the direction of the british all the time and the british were kind of treating us as

00:01:26.000 colonials and you know sending us as cannon fodder to be slaughtered basically and and then but at

00:01:32.160 one point they had no choice you know there was this big ridge overlooking vimy and and they had

00:01:37.200 and the british needed to take it as part of a major offensive and they turned to the canadians

00:01:41.440 and they said okay you take it under your own command and so it's really the first time that

00:01:46.560 that the canadians came together unified all the regiments that were there in europe came under one

00:01:51.300 proper control under canadian control and and the canadian generals of the time they wanted to show

00:01:58.100 what canadians can do and they had a different philosophy right they didn't they weren't they

00:02:01.760 weren't nearly uh they they respected our troops and and they wanted and they had a system a very

00:02:07.300 different system in the book that burton describes which is um the the canadians were forward

00:02:13.680 thinking which is everybody knew what everybody else was trying to do right instead of just sending

00:02:18.320 people without telling them the objectives the canadians that explained to the corporal or to

00:02:23.440 the to the to the corporal who explained it to the sergeant who explained it to the the trooper and

00:02:29.280 all the way up the chain of command everybody knew what they had to do and then everybody was

00:02:32.720 prepared so that when somebody fell somebody else could take over anyways long story short um we

00:02:38.480 took the ridge it was a historic win for us you can see on the screen uh you know a decade later

00:02:44.320 after world war one ended in france there's an amazing uh monument to uh to vimy ridge and um

00:02:52.960 and and and some people said we came of age at that time and a lot of people have you know

00:02:58.480 canada's been claimed to have come of age many times and i'd say canada's glorious age to me

00:03:04.320 was in the 1960s and 70s, just before I was born, that period after World War II.

00:03:11.220 And I think when we look back in the future, in 100 years from now,

00:03:15.100 because Vimy was like 110 years from now,

00:03:16.900 I think when we look back at 110 years from now at Canada

00:03:21.180 or what will remain of Canada,

00:03:24.040 I think we'll look back at this period as one of the most bizarre periods

00:03:27.020 where a country like Canada that had such an amazing opportunity,

00:03:30.420 so many amazing resources, just blew it.

00:03:33.020 We just blew it.

00:03:33.780 like the country just blew apart and just blew it.

00:03:36.900 And I think that's the theme of today, right?

00:03:41.240 I don't know if, can the viewers see the theme

00:03:44.000 or am I the only one who can see the theme?

00:03:47.000 So that when John asked me

00:03:49.120 what I wanted to talk about today,

00:03:50.720 I said, you know, the title that came to mind for me

00:03:53.200 is why have by elections when you can buy elections, right?

00:03:58.800 And so yesterday morning,

00:04:02.500 I did not expect to wake up yesterday morning and to learn that another person that crossed the floor, never mind a conservative, like long ago, you know, three, four months ago, actually longer than that, after the election, I knew that Carney would try to get people to cross the floor, but I seriously thought he was going to try and get NDP MPs to vote the floor.

00:04:24.020 I was surprised that he managed to get two, never mind three, now never mind four, conservative MPs to cross the floor.

00:04:33.380 And the latest one yesterday was an even bigger shocker because she might not be entirely famous out west, but Marilyn Gladue has been an MP for 10 years.

00:04:46.580 like she's not a rookie uh she had a front row seat in the on the conservative side in the

00:04:53.260 opposition and you know she's she's not what we would call a she's not a backbencher she's not a

00:04:59.260 minister but she's a shadow minister she shadows you know the lib the liberals and she featured

00:05:04.380 prominently in a lot of uh chats in the house of commons and until very recently she was extremely

00:05:13.100 critical of the ind of the liberals right she was critical of carny right up till the end i mean she

00:05:19.200 was she was attacking him like a mere two three weeks ago on you know high food prices and uh the

00:05:27.140 um how how inefficient or uh ineffective the uh gst rebates were and things like that like and

00:05:34.200 not little attacks like she was almost vicious and and then and then more importantly she was

00:05:40.260 on the record as, you know, when others were crossing the floor, she was one of the more

00:05:45.080 vocal opponents to this whole concept of crossing the floor, going as far as proposing that there

00:05:50.440 be laws to prevent crossing the floor. And then for her, for us to wake up yesterday to have her

00:05:57.060 cross the floor was a big shocker. And yeah, no, let's stay on that. I mean, I was going to go to

00:06:03.980 something else because I had other expectations yesterday morning. When I woke up yesterday

00:06:07.720 morning and maybe i'll come back to this later but when i expect woke up yesterday morning i

00:06:11.900 expected iran to be have been obliterated off the face of the earth because that was what was

00:06:16.640 happening at the beginning of the week but we'll come back to that so um so i i want you guys and

00:06:23.000 again this is your show so don't be shy call in and let's chat about this floor crossing so i want

00:06:27.700 to i want to hear your thoughts on on floor crossing in general i want to hear your thoughts

00:06:31.960 on whether they should be allowed or whatnot.

00:06:35.900 But I'm also curious as to the timing, right?

00:06:39.600 Well, I got a bunch of questions

00:06:41.120 that I don't have answers to.

00:06:43.240 First of all, the first question for me is,

00:06:45.480 is why, just why?

00:06:48.860 Why would Gladue cross the floor right now?

00:06:51.700 I mean, she's been an MP for 10 years.

00:06:55.460 Her pension is secure.

00:06:57.540 No matter what, in her current role,

00:06:59.440 she'll be an MP for the next three years

00:07:01.080 or until there's an election.

00:07:03.140 I don't think she's planning to run again.

00:07:05.100 She's of that age where she can retire nicely.

00:07:08.840 So why cross the floor now?

00:07:10.840 I don't know what's in it for her.

00:07:13.080 I know what's in it for Carney,

00:07:15.020 but I'll even come back to that

00:07:16.520 because even for Carney, the timing is unusual.

00:07:19.300 So why did Gladue cross the floor this week?

00:07:24.780 There's theories that it's purely,

00:07:27.900 that it could be legitimate,

00:07:29.180 that it could be based on a philosophy, on the liberal stance on freedom of choice and things like that,

00:07:36.440 that maybe she's been described as a more socially progressive conservative.

00:07:42.440 So there could be a real personal values reason for crossing, but why now?

00:07:50.640 And so that's that.

00:07:52.120 There's definitely a camp that says that Carney has something on her.

00:07:56.320 I find that to be a bit of a stretch, although I have learned, you know, lots of people have told me that in Ottawa, blackmail is a form of currency.

00:08:07.600 Everybody in Ottawa knows something about somebody else.

00:08:10.760 Everybody, all the MPs, all the parties, everybody knows who's hanging out with who, who's sleeping with who, who's having affairs, who's going on trips that are paid by what organizations, and all the dirty little secrets.

00:08:23.180 And the dirty little secrets are traded as currency in Ottawa.

00:08:26.100 And I don't doubt that. And I'm sure it happens elsewhere. But so does somebody have a dirty little secret on her? That's a possibility. But then I flip it to I flip it to Carney's side of the equation. So, you know, Carney is close to having a majority. He was like one or two seats shy. And and he's about to find out if he has a majority in literally four days from now.

00:08:49.460 So, you know, there's the advanced voting for three by-elections is already underway.

00:08:55.180 And the actual the final day of the by-elections is on Monday, the 13th.

00:09:00.020 So by the end of the day next week, like in four days from now, we'll know whether Carney has an actual majority or not.

00:09:06.940 He could win three more seats.

00:09:09.240 I think he's going to win.

00:09:10.540 Actually, prior to this week, I thought he was going to win all three by-elections, the two in Ontario and the one in Quebec.

00:09:15.780 After this week, I'm not sure he's going to win the one in Quebec.

00:09:18.100 But so why risk pissing off Canadians with this floor crossing when he probably has a majority coming in a couple of days?

00:09:29.320 So I'm curious about people's thoughts on that because I don't know the announcement today, the crossing seems suspect to me.

00:09:38.700 Like, is it just opportunistic?

00:09:40.020 um and and and i know and a lot of people and then the polls you know i don't i don't 100 trust the

00:09:47.660 polls but the polls do trend in a certain direction and and uh and the polls right now

00:09:52.740 show clearly that if carney was to hold an election tomorrow he could conceivably win

00:09:59.040 the majority i mean he's got about a seven point lead on the uh conservatives right now

00:10:03.720 so he could hold an election now i talked about this last week they've been testing the waters

00:10:10.500 right i mean the um the the the rumor about prorogation the rumor the weird story that

00:10:16.940 came out last week where suddenly everybody was interested in the cost of the by-election

00:10:20.340 in uh in battle river crowfoot a year ago the pierre's by-election you know all those stories

00:10:27.060 were being tested and i think that was the liberals testing the waters to see the appetite

00:10:30.960 of Canadians for a general election, and maybe Carney has figured out, maybe his internal polling

00:10:36.700 tells them that there really is no appetite for a general election. We're all a little bit tired

00:10:42.720 of elections. We're all a little election fatigue, and they've been costly. So maybe his polling

00:10:48.180 tells him that. But again, if his polling tells him that, why not wait until a week from now to

00:10:54.720 see what the results of the by-election are going to be before she crosses the floor?

00:10:58.760 now I was surprised just just before we sat down and started the show we were watching I was while

00:11:05.760 the people here in the office at the Western Standard we're watching the press conference of

00:11:09.100 Pierre so finally Pierre had a press conference to talk about um the floor crossing and and I was

00:11:15.860 I was a little bit nervous because I I just saw the the tagline at the bottom and it says another

00:11:20.960 defection and I literally asked the guys is this new is there another defector and no he was simply

00:11:26.360 talking about yesterday but uh okay so we got a caller on the line just a quick reminder we

00:11:31.480 don't have a formal switchboard right now so uh when i'm talking to somebody the line will sound

00:11:37.320 like it's uh it's busy so uh wait until that person hangs up before you call again and if

00:11:43.400 you're chatting with me i'll often ask you to hang around but sometimes i'll ask you to just hang up

00:11:47.880 after your question so that somebody else can call in and again please let me know where you're

00:11:52.120 you're calling from and uh and let's have a chat so go ahead whoever's on the line

00:11:55.780 hi marty it's diane from devon hi diane how are you i'm good how are you today good hey quick

00:12:05.000 question diane uh did i hear that somewhere around edmonton you guys had a mini earthquake earlier

00:12:09.820 this week um i did not hear that okay so maybe somebody else will call in with that one but you

00:12:17.460 were not you the world didn't shake around you this week no no no go ahead all right go ahead

00:12:24.060 first of all i want to i i want to thank you first of all for all your effort in the independence

00:12:31.520 movement thank you it's very it's very much appreciated i'm sorry secondly i want to just

00:12:40.560 say I went to Vimy Ridge 11 years ago. It's so Canadian. It would make your heart swell

00:12:49.680 how proud I was to be a Canadian when I walked around there and saw that monument. I don't

00:12:58.000 know if you've ever been, but definitely a destination for a Canadian if there's any

00:13:05.420 of us left um as far as the floor crossing I was so disappointed to see her do that

00:13:11.960 she is the same age as me she was like by every sense a conservative with um just so many of the

00:13:22.800 issues that she supported were true true blue conservative she bothered me more than those

00:13:29.240 other guys did who just seemed like they were flippant and not as serious. And I apologize

00:13:35.180 if they are more serious, but that really bothered me with her yesterday. And I sent

00:13:40.940 her an email and just very nice and said, I'm very disappointed that this is where Canada

00:13:47.280 is. People are struggling. Like, what are you thinking? Can't you see? And I like you

00:13:54.340 because i watch you with clyde all the time i too canada like anything any resemblance of canada

00:14:01.960 that we once had that is gone my my my father he would be 103 this year he would be so broken

00:14:11.400 hearted because he always had a flag on his front porch a canadian flag and his heart would be broken

00:14:22.080 to see what it has become wow i'm sorry i don't mean to get about i don't mean to get emotional

00:14:28.760 but it's hard to watch this you're you're definitely hard to watch you're not alone

00:14:35.120 you're you're diane you're not alone let's let's break that down just a little bit and let's

00:14:40.120 let's bring you let's cheer you up a bit or maybe not but but uh yeah well let's stay on the sad

00:14:47.540 side so um i i so people to people who accuse us of of disrespecting our fallen by having an

00:14:56.080 independence movement i often say that our fallen have been disrespected by ottawa long for a long

00:15:02.580 time so what's your thoughts on that like what are we disrespecting the fallen when when with

00:15:07.820 what we're doing right now not even close my son served in afghanistan my son is a ppcli

00:15:16.240 so i know that i know the whole drill about the military so we are not being disrespectful

00:15:24.240 we are saving any resemblance of insanity that is left in people because we can't keep this

00:15:34.940 trajectory it won't it's not gonna work it's getting it's it's getting worse instead of better

00:15:42.060 yeah you're giving me chills so thank you for that so so then let's get back to the really

00:15:46.800 serious side so why do you think uh maryland left uh cross floors you think it's just personal

00:15:53.780 gains is it a change of heart or is it something more nefarious either i think it's personal gain

00:16:02.200 And I think if you look at all the floor crossings, and I've watched a lot in the last 24 hours, every time there's been a floor crossing, there's been some other issue happening.

00:16:15.400 And it's like, so what's everybody talking about today?

00:16:18.680 Are we talking about champagne and his wife and the economy or the price of fees that nobody can afford or gas or anything?

00:16:28.180 Are we talking about anything?

00:16:29.520 No.

00:16:29.940 What are we talking about?

00:16:30.960 The Liberals got a conservative to walk over.

00:16:34.540 I think it's all subversion.

00:16:36.720 It's all smoke and mirrors.

00:16:38.340 And it's just, to them, it's so disgusting because it's a game.

00:16:43.120 And it's our life.

00:16:44.960 It's our life.

00:16:46.120 It's our children's life.

00:16:48.180 It's our grandchildren's life.

00:16:51.100 That's what's being taken down here.

00:16:54.200 And it's hard, you're saying, to cheer me up?

00:16:57.680 here here probably i can't even fix this this that ship has sailed wow that ship has sailed

00:17:06.760 who how can this be fixed there's so much wrong well i'm with you on that one so we can't fix

00:17:14.080 the country but we can definitely um we can definitely go our own way and and make our own

00:17:20.300 little corner of the world a better place so uh thanks for calling diane and uh i don't know

00:17:25.720 thanks cheer up somehow i don't know what to say but thanks for calling yeah i'm gonna go for a

00:17:31.620 walk with my dog god bless you marty all right thank you cheers um i that that was wonderful

00:17:39.500 and and actually you know she she touched on a couple of things that i want to touch on and i

00:17:45.040 and i gotta try and stretch the show here or all my my chat but uh you know she said one bit there

00:17:52.820 pierre can't save us and and that's the other thing that i want to talk about today i mean i'm

00:17:57.780 gonna maybe i'm gonna piss off a bunch of people but pierre is blowing this like i i don't know

00:18:04.100 what else to say pierre is blowing this and um like sure the sure that the the you know the

00:18:14.420 mainstream media is on the other side sure he won the popular vote but he didn't win the overall

00:18:20.100 number of seats and all those things but i gotta i i keep saying that strategically whatever they're

00:18:27.180 doing is not working and and i and i get it they've pivoted a couple of times quickly but they

00:18:32.680 don't need to they need a dramatic and by they i mean the conservatives they need a dramatic pivot

00:18:38.340 and i'm i'm at the point now where i'm thinking it is they need a change of leadership and i know

00:18:44.640 that's not a popular opinion but i think that unfortunately the conservatives need a change

00:18:48.760 of leadership because i've been saying this for months and months now on on purely on paper if you

00:18:56.460 if if we turn this into a popularity contest of resumes and i hold up mark carney's resume and i

00:19:03.580 hold up pierre poiliev's resume on a resume basis carney looks better and and we've we've seen that

00:19:11.840 before i mean the guy was the governor of the bank of canada the governor of the bank of england he

00:19:16.880 he he's a captain of industry he's held some powerful titles and so and that resonates with

00:19:23.460 people i know i know i know that you know academics and credentials are not everything but bear

00:19:28.060 hear me out right on paper the guy looks good and i'm also beginning to see that in practicality

00:19:35.640 the guy is pretty good like lots of people say politics and business aren't the same and everybody

00:19:40.700 said that the way he ran businesses wasn't going to work in politics and i'm beginning to think

00:19:44.940 that maybe it does run because he's running a pretty tight ship and and i'll finish my line

00:19:49.360 of thought but i mean like pierre is carney's wiping the floor with pierre right now no pun

00:19:55.660 intended and he's winning on a lot of fronts so let's come back to that but we've got a caller

00:19:59.740 on the line and uh that's what this show's all about so go ahead please where are you calling

00:20:03.600 from and name hey jesse and gp first time caller long time listener i love that sentence yeah how's

00:20:11.400 it going jesse thanks yeah thanks for calling uh i think uh in regards to the floor crosser

00:20:18.520 we had a new pbo uh appointed right in the old one left march 2nd whatever his name was jacques

00:20:24.500 so maybe there's a lot of scrutiny yeah perhaps and uh that would be another reason why that

00:20:30.880 somebody perhaps could allegedly line their pockets you never know right um oh i see what

00:20:39.240 you're saying so somebody's jumping ships right now they're a little bit worried about uh some

00:20:43.540 new scrutiny coming uh some new um yeah okay yeah interesting i i sure go with that yeah well you

00:20:53.360 never know right because the pbo um is in uh flux right now right so uh maybe and the new appointee

00:21:00.640 may not be as watchdoggy as the last person right i think it's obviously a liberal appointee right

00:21:06.480 um so maybe there's some going to be some blind eye turning who knows right yeah just one theory

00:21:13.100 okay no no interesting one um it yeah and that's also um uh what was the point i was going to make

00:21:20.300 um i'll have to come back but uh hey let me ask you the same question i asked diane or maybe

00:21:26.080 somebody will answer so there was no earthquakes anywhere in northern alberta that's a rumor was

00:21:30.500 there an earthquake by grand prairie no i didn't feel one we usually have one where i'm always

00:21:36.040 situated at the husky road but i haven't felt one lately or didn't see any news breaking okay

00:21:41.180 and while we were talking i just remember the point i wanted to ask you that i was

00:21:45.280 mentioning right so um you know crossing the floor and maybe maybe some shady business maybe

00:21:51.520 some bad dealings whatever but but you reminded me that one of the ways that this um the floor

00:21:58.720 crossings in general and i think this is a good example of the one of this one they reflect poorly

00:22:03.580 on both parties right i mean this makes this makes the conservatives look a little bit bad

00:22:08.520 because how are you vetting these candidates that are suddenly flipping you know are the

00:22:12.560 you know were they truly conservative to start with and and and how are you vetting the candidates

00:22:17.800 but i think it also makes carney look bad right because look at carney in this picture right now

00:22:21.980 he's shaking hands with somebody who like a mere two weeks ago was basically calling him every name

00:22:26.600 in the book and saying he was grossly incompetent and everything else so how do they how do they

00:22:31.680 square those pegs but i guess i guess that's politics right their their level of uh their

00:22:36.940 moral compass is not maybe the same as yours and mine yeah two-faced uh practices seem to be uh

00:22:45.200 commonplace in the political world right yeah yeah and and and i'll ask and i'll and i'll ask

00:22:51.540 you this question so what are your thoughts your general thoughts on should should our system of

00:22:56.500 parliament allow floor crossing or should there be a mechanism to a different way of doing it what

00:23:01.700 do you think what do you thought on that i think i i'm on board with most canadian thoughts where

00:23:07.560 there should be another election held right um and or when you go to uh want to leave one particular

00:23:13.740 party you should become an independent um and then hold an election at that point right awesome okay

00:23:19.460 perfect that's my thoughts all right jess thanks thanks for calling first time caller okay um so

00:23:26.260 let me all right cool yeah and others let me know i mean i'm i'm of the same opinion uh you know

00:23:31.760 people say that i'm that not just me people say we're conservatives are complaining because

00:23:37.140 we're the ones negatively affected by the floor crossing and no i'm on the record on previous

00:23:43.340 floor crossings uh as being opposed to them notably i was not happy when danielle smith

00:23:48.600 crossed the floor from the wild rose to the conservative party uh you know uh 15 years ago

00:23:54.700 and uh so i i'm i would i'm okay with an with somebody crossing or i'm okay with somebody

00:24:01.440 leaving the party and and staying as an independent 100 okay with that and uh and then

00:24:07.320 after that uh re-nominating uh and trying to you know run back which which brings up a point right

00:24:14.020 like i made a joke this morning the person i feel sorry for the most i can't remember his name but

00:24:20.880 is the liberal candidate that ran against um maryland in the last election because that guy

00:24:27.860 won his uh candidacy fair and square and then and then and then he had it taken away so you know

00:24:37.000 um everybody thinks of the poor voters whose vote didn't count but then there's the poor

00:24:41.600 liberal candidate whose nomination didn't count i know i know i'm being facetious and not a lot

00:24:47.340 of sympathy for sure sorry folks when i when you make me talk too much i get i have to drink water

00:24:54.300 so you got a call and give me a break here all right let's go back to uh so um i'm gonna go back

00:25:03.340 to my my unpopular opinion that i think pierre needs to be replaced and pierre's losing you know

00:25:08.940 uh like i said based on the based on the resumes and and now i'm seeing that uh carney perhaps is

00:25:16.660 running the show in maybe he is running it like a bit of a business and he's pretty good at it and

00:25:22.980 um he's he's winning he's winning everywhere that matters and not like not just because of

00:25:30.400 the fact that he's moving to the center and taking away um you know policies that were near and dear

00:25:36.880 to the conservatives he's he's he he's he seems more credible among the voters and i truly think

00:25:42.980 that if he was to run an election tomorrow morning that would be dangerous because he could get

00:25:48.520 elected now the glass half full side of me says well so what I mean every time he does what he

00:25:54.400 did does it pushes more people to the independent side kind of like Diane who called earlier

00:26:00.620 I was out canvassing yesterday and I've said this before when I'm canvassing I can notice the

00:26:06.500 the ebbs and and tides of of uh sentiment and yesterday i collected a lot of signatures and

00:26:14.400 i had a lot of people come out of their cars where do i sign and they were talking about

00:26:18.780 this floor crossing um so so that was definitely good for us um all right and and actually let's

00:26:26.380 stay let's stay on carney so uh because i said he's he's winning and he's doing uh he's doing

00:26:31.880 the right things um okay well before all right john i'll take this call but and and while i take

00:26:37.460 this call john maybe you can find uh can you find the announcement on uh carney's announcement

00:26:42.460 yesterday the bill community strong fund the 51 billion dollar fund that he announced yesterday

00:26:48.360 all right caller go ahead name please where are you calling from oh hung up all right um well

00:26:55.780 while he tries to could you find did you find that john so that so carney uh and you know again

00:27:01.040 yesterday buried in all the announcement was this new fund called the build community strong fund

00:27:08.000 and it's a 51 billion dollar fund and uh the first project on that so basically it's a big fund

00:27:16.800 and he's offering it to municipalities across the country to dip into this fund to build

00:27:24.080 projects and the first one announced yesterday was a big um uh yeah build community strong the

00:27:32.160 first one announced yesterday was a big project in brampton ontario like 150 million dollar sort

00:27:38.980 of community hall rec complex kind of thing and then he had 12 others announced in there

00:27:43.920 uh if i when i scroll through the list the only one in alberta and i'm sure there'll be more but

00:27:49.140 the one in Alberta was money to the city of St. Albert to upgrade water infrastructure.

00:27:55.500 And I was waiting to see Danielle Smith's reaction to that. Maybe she's been too busy

00:28:00.420 with other things, but that announcement by Kearney is another example, I think, of absolute

00:28:07.380 overreach by Ottawa, because now Ottawa is saying to communities like St. Albert, hey, bypass your

00:28:14.100 provincial government, bypass Edmonton, and just come to us and we'll give you money for your

00:28:18.300 infrastructure projects and i know that's a thorn in danielle's side she doesn't like that

00:28:23.600 uh when ottawa um sends us money back with our with with conditions on it and that's basically

00:28:30.840 what that is we're paying money to ottawa we're paying our taxes and then ottawa doles it back

00:28:34.840 out with conditions uh go ahead caller what's your name where are you calling from

00:28:39.540 uh dale from lethbridge hey dale what's on your mind uh just calling well first of all thanks for

00:28:50.440 all you're doing uh we all appreciate it um i just kind of dispute what you said about carny

00:28:56.960 being a good businessman and doing a good job and pierre not and i really don't uh see where

00:29:06.660 So Carney has done anything other than make a bunch of announcements.

00:29:10.800 You know, in the G7, we got the worst debt numbers.

00:29:14.880 We got the worst housing numbers, worst inflation, food costs.

00:29:20.760 He hasn't made any, he made all kinds of announcements, but hasn't done anything.

00:29:26.180 He didn't stand up to Trump like he said he was going to.

00:29:31.260 He's never enacted the Bill C-5 that was going to get us to get.

00:29:37.540 We're going to be so strong with that.

00:29:39.780 We're now in bed with China.

00:29:42.080 Like, I think his leadership is brutal.

00:29:45.460 He's not an honest guy.

00:29:46.860 He's been caught in a number of lies.

00:29:48.620 So I'm not sure where we give him all the credit, plus the fact he was running our country with Trudeau for five years.

00:29:56.980 So I just kind of dispute what you were saying that he's I know a lot of people from talking to a lot of people, especially seniors, think he's the greatest.

00:30:07.900 But when you look at his track record, I don't think he's got a lot to stand on.

00:30:13.560 I'm smiling, Dale, because I'm 100 percent on board with you.

00:30:17.780 And, you know, you guys know me.

00:30:20.200 I mean, I was kind of baiting seeing where where this would go.

00:30:22.880 You are a common sense Albertan and you see right through Kearney.

00:30:26.400 you completely get that everything he's doing is just smoke and mirrors but unfortunately

00:30:32.980 his smoke and mirror show resonates with a huge chunk of the population right and that's where

00:30:39.420 i mean that he's playing the game well right he's like i agree he's not doing anything significant

00:30:44.300 but he is playing the game well he's a better he's better at playing the game it it it it

00:30:50.380 it validates in the numbers right in the data i mean the fact that he's getting people to do but i

00:30:55.240 appreciate that. How are things

00:30:57.580 otherwise? I was in your

00:30:59.600 neck of the woods there last week.

00:31:02.280 I was pleasantly

00:31:03.480 surprised. When I walked into the room,

00:31:05.700 I thought that I would have a

00:31:07.540 smaller crowd, but I was very happy

00:31:09.380 with the level of enthusiasm for

00:31:11.460 independence that came out to listen

00:31:13.560 to me when I was in Lethbridge last week.

00:31:15.380 What part of Lethbridge are you in?

00:31:18.680 I'm on the

00:31:19.400 west side. Unfortunately, I missed

00:31:21.500 you when you were here. We were down south.

00:31:23.880 Hadn't got back yet.

00:31:25.240 But I've been talking to a lot of people, and I really find this Kearney thing such a stumbling block.

00:31:36.200 You know, that's the number one pushback I get, that things will be different with Kearney.

00:31:42.660 And I guess I'm just like any good conservative.

00:31:45.900 I find it pretty frustrating, but it is what it is, I guess.

00:31:51.140 Yeah, appreciate it.

00:31:52.080 All right, thanks for calling, Dale.

00:31:53.660 um yeah thank you yeah common sense albertan right there um yeah carney i mean yes carney

00:32:01.300 hasn't done much for for any of us it you know even that list of projects yesterday every time

00:32:06.920 there's a list of projects and you go and you see that alberta gets a little bit of pittance and

00:32:12.720 then everything else the big announcements are you know military spending in nova scotia and and

00:32:17.940 big boats and stuff like that and i think i think he's really really just playing us in alberta in

00:32:24.500 fact there there there's there there is a part of me um you know i think it was sherlock holmes who

00:32:31.980 said it like when when you when you investigate every opportunity or every uh cause and then you

00:32:38.500 run out of ideas and what's left is is the truth like i i definitely am starting to get to the point

00:32:44.760 now where i'm thinking that carney is trying to divide the country and he's going to sacrifice

00:32:49.880 alberta i don't think he cares that alberta is going to leave um sure he loses a cash cow

00:32:56.760 but maybe he'll make it up with something else down the road maybe he'll have tariffs on alberta

00:33:01.480 i don't know but he certainly appears to be sacrificing alberta because we all know that

00:33:08.760 That if Alberta leaves, there'll almost never, ever be a conservative government in Canada ever again.

00:33:15.340 And maybe that's what the Liberals want.

00:33:17.640 Not the Liberals.

00:33:18.680 That's what Liberal politicians want.

00:33:22.580 They just want to stay in power because for them, it's just good.

00:33:26.080 Like, they're not working for the people.

00:33:28.540 Go ahead, caller.

00:33:29.780 Where are you calling from?

00:33:32.460 Hey, this is Mike from Down South Medicine Hat.

00:33:34.780 How are you doing today?

00:33:35.480 Good, Mike.

00:33:36.020 How are you?

00:33:36.360 hey real good uh gonna phone in and talk about the corruption in our political system

00:33:43.000 go for it because it it seems like well nowadays there's no accountability for anything at all

00:33:50.440 um every liberal member of parliament who's had a corruption scandal the last while

00:33:56.160 there's certain people used to get fired for that but there's no accountability

00:34:00.800 i haven't had television in like seven years so i don't know if the mainstream media ever

00:34:05.600 covers anything like that but I think that's one of the biggest problems it's all corrupt it's a

00:34:10.520 bloody fat it's unreal and I totally agree with you that Pierre needs to step aside because what

00:34:18.360 did the liberals do just before the election they got rid of Trudeau and they put Carney in because

00:34:23.920 they knew they weren't going to have a chance yeah yeah and I don't know yeah no I'm with you

00:34:29.960 there and stay on the line I mean that you know and Carney and Pierre or sorry Trudeau and Pierre

00:34:34.380 was sort of like arch enemies and that that was noticeable right when p when trudeau was gone

00:34:40.000 pierre was like well who's my new enemy he didn't know what to do uh i i just want to go back to um

00:34:45.660 you know to corruption and holding politicians accountable it's one of the number one questions

00:34:51.940 that i've been getting you know like as we're collecting signatures for the petition and we're

00:34:56.080 and now that we're like the idea that we're going to have a referendum is becoming real right it's

00:35:00.580 pretty real like people are starting to believe that but now we have to start talking about what

00:35:05.820 the new Alberta would look like and the number one question I get asked is how do we we we don't want

00:35:12.460 Alberta to be just a mini Canada we want to do something different and one of the big things we

00:35:16.680 want to do in the new Alberta is how do we prevent politicians from being corrupt like or or what

00:35:22.860 so what's your thoughts on that any ideas of how we keep politicians quote-unquote honest

00:35:28.140 that is probably the million dollar question um i think keeping government as small as possible

00:35:36.440 um only keeping them tasked with what they actually need to do yeah um because because the

00:35:43.760 more the more they are involved with the harder it is to keep track of them and it's harder to

00:35:48.740 pay attention to everything and there's too many topics but yeah because that's the biggest problem

00:35:53.740 right now with the federal government the federal government feels that they need to incorporate

00:36:01.100 federal municipal and provincial all under their whole jurisdiction it seems like what they're

00:36:07.400 trying to do and it just it just muddles with everything great point i mean uh yeah no i like

00:36:12.820 that idea you know what thank you i mean i'm on i'm on the same page i mean it's like a lot of

00:36:18.280 people over complicate things and come up with too many ideas we could have term limits we can

00:36:22.740 have this we can have that you're right and i and i agree at the end of the day when governments are

00:36:27.360 small it saves a lot of problems like it just you know they're easier to manage the monies are

00:36:32.380 smaller and the temptation for corruption is easier to monitor and i think that solves a lot

00:36:39.380 of problems just to keep things small and and that's one of the things i will always be encouraging

00:36:43.940 is i hope a new alberta will have a smaller government but and back to what you said about

00:36:48.360 i mean that there's i i think if i think if carney has his way like that announcement yesterday is an

00:36:54.660 example of that right it's overreach right he's he's he's meddling into uh infrastructure which

00:37:00.300 is like you know ottawa's supposed to do what uh the border immigration um your your army or

00:37:09.340 whatever yeah yeah they're not supposed to protect your country um yeah they're not supposed to do

00:37:15.080 defense and and infrastructure building or sorry they're not supposed to do uh education and they're

00:37:20.820 not supposed to do health care and stuff like that and they're all into that and i think carny

00:37:24.680 i i've said this i i'll say it again i think we if carny gets a majority next week we're going to

00:37:30.540 see a different carny the carny we're seeing today i it's not even it's a totally different

00:37:34.940 carny right like how how how nasty is he going to be i think if he gets the majority we're screwed

00:37:43.180 yeah he's gonna be a totally different leader um oh shoot I lost my point um that's okay

00:37:51.300 hey uh yeah yeah appreciate the call and things are good in medicine hat and your neck of the

00:37:57.080 woods how's the uh how's the independence movement out there actually it's pretty strong down here

00:38:03.660 we have uh we have some big major uh local places that are open almost daily for signing and

00:38:10.200 everything but there's a there's a really good culture and uh my employer he's actually uh

00:38:16.040 pretty big on western independence he's been that way for about the last i think 40 years so

00:38:21.240 um the company i work for we have a really good culture as well oh where i was going with part of

00:38:27.640 it is um you talked about government getting involved in stuff well one of the biggest

00:38:32.540 waste of money that's going to cost us a fortune and probably none of us out here will ever benefit

00:38:37.960 from it is that new mass transit they're building there for what 90 billion or something um that

00:38:44.800 should be left up to private entities it's no different than than if they wanted to build it

00:38:49.180 in alberta here too if if there's such a desire to have fast speed transit or whatever you want

00:38:56.880 to call it i would think that the businesses and the industry that are going to benefit from it

00:39:03.080 there should be enough of a demand that all of them would come up with the

00:39:07.420 capital and get it moving forward rather than government.

00:39:10.820 Tell you what, I'll, I'll, I'll, uh, thanks for that, Mike. I'll let you,

00:39:14.760 I'll get you to hang up and I'll keep talking about that.

00:39:16.980 Cause that was on my list of things. We didn't talk about that one much last,

00:39:20.360 this week. So thanks for calling, bud. Oh, you betcha. You take care, man.

00:39:25.200 All right. Thanks. Cheers. Um, yeah, he's talking about, uh, uh,

00:39:30.600 the big this was an announcement that was sort of just before the writ was dropped in the last

00:39:37.160 election the project alto they call it the high-speed rail between quebec city and i think

00:39:42.440 all the way down to toronto like it's it's a it's a 90 billion dollar project and uh i a couple of

00:39:51.000 interesting things on that first of all uh the the maybe john can find the the headline on this one

00:39:57.240 And Philippe Champagne, I never remember his first name, but Minister Champagne had to recuse himself from that project because François-Philippe Champagne had to recuse himself because his wife works for the Crown Corporation that would run this project.

00:40:14.320 OK, so that's like, again, even recusing yourself is not enough. Right. And recusing yourself just means whenever we talk about this project, this 90 billion dollar project, I won't be in the room making the decisions. Really, you're going to recuse yourself and your wife is like the CEO of this corporation that's potentially going to get 90 billion dollars.

00:40:34.080 No, no, no. That's not how it works. But I don't think personally, I don't think that train system will ever get built. And I'll tell you why. And I tweeted about this the other day. Do you guys remember the major rail? Yeah, there's the train. So it's Quebec City all the way down to Toronto. And like the most densely populated corridor in the country, landowners piled onto landowners, piled onto landowners. This will never happen. And I'll tell you why it will never happen.

00:41:02.880 You know, 15 years ago, we had a major incident in Quebec, the Lac-Mégantic derailment. Remember that one? The train was parked at the top of the hill kind of thing. The brakes let loose, the train rolled into town, crashed, caught on fire, was transporting oil, and it killed like 37 or 47 people. Huge disaster, right?

00:41:25.720 And after the disaster, there was an inquiry and the inquiry said that they needed to bypass the town of Champagne. I can't stand that guy. Take his face away, John. I don't like even seeing that guy's face.

00:41:42.460 But maybe bring a picture of Lac-Mégantic or maybe find the Lac-Mégantic Government of Canada website.

00:41:51.400 And I'll talk about that in a second.

00:41:54.180 But so and you can put it up.

00:41:56.020 But so the the major train derailment, big disaster, long inquiry and inquiry says we need to move the rail because the rail was going through Lac-Mégantic, similar to the rail going through Calgary and other cities.

00:42:08.500 right and and the proposal was to create a bypass a 12.5 kilometer bypass around the town after a

00:42:17.620 disaster that killed 40 people let's build a make sense right make sense to you and me let's build

00:42:23.140 a 12 kilometer bypass around town the government's been studying that project doing public consultation

00:42:30.420 land consultation trying to buy the land trying to do the engineering trying to do everything the

00:42:35.220 The government's been doing that for 10 years, 10 years, 10 years after a major disaster, a recommendation that made sense to everybody, but they haven't even put a single meter of new rail in place.

00:42:49.740 They haven't even started construction, 10 years of consultation.

00:42:53.820 And that Lac-Mégantic project was something like it was going to be 80 or 90 million dollars.

00:42:59.160 Makes sense. We're all on board.

00:43:00.660 it's already ballooned to a billion dollar project and they haven't even put a stitch of rail

00:43:05.700 anywhere so do i think project alto all 90 billion dollar 1 000 kilometers through the most heavily

00:43:12.460 populated uh section of canada will ever get built no i i don't think so so uh that's the

00:43:19.620 one good thing about liberals that's the one good thing about um uh you know they they they talk big

00:43:26.220 And like one of the, I think it was Dale said, they talk big, but they're crappy on execution.

00:43:32.360 And that's one of the reasons I'm not too worried about the gun grab, because they really, really suck at executing anything.

00:43:38.300 And so I don't think they'll build anything, and I don't think they'll grab any guns from us or anything like that.

00:43:43.760 All right, let me go down the list there.

00:43:47.980 All right, well, okay, well, let's talk about this a little bit.

00:43:50.480 I said at the beginning of the show that when I went to bed on Monday night and I woke up Tuesday or yesterday, I didn't expect the floor crossing to be the news.

00:44:07.080 the news that i expected the one that was really uh interesting to me this week was donald trump's

00:44:13.140 statement on easter uh where donald trump i don't know john i'm putting you on the spot i'm asking

00:44:19.020 you to find a whole lot of things there but can you find that statement by donald trump the one

00:44:23.380 where he said he was gonna end the iranian civilization like that was that was uh savage

00:44:30.440 for lack of a better word that was absolutely savage right trump that's trump diplomacy for

00:44:36.300 you right like it's it's a negotiation 101 like threaten something or start high and and and find

00:44:43.300 the middle ground eventually but Trump was getting a little frustrated and he put out this tweet or

00:44:48.420 the statement that he was going to end Iranian civilization if they didn't agree to a ceasefire

00:44:53.740 and I thought wow that is a lot of people turned on him I I'm you know I found it a bit comical I

00:45:01.960 I mean, it's there are big words, but the big words were effective because the Iranians agreed to a two week ceasefire.

00:45:11.120 And that's good news. Now, it's good news, but it's not coming fast enough.

00:45:16.500 I drove by here and, you know, gas is still a buck sixty nine, a buck seventy.

00:45:22.280 I think it's two dollars in some parts of the country.

00:45:25.900 And and that's a criticism I have of of Carney and of Smith and others.

00:45:30.980 They're making money hand over fist with these high prices of oil, especially here in Alberta.

00:45:36.880 I think our provincial coffers are getting an extra $60 million a day of revenue from royalties with the higher oil prices.

00:45:47.180 And the least that Danielle could do is take away that $0.13 per litre road tax that we're paying.

00:45:54.160 And then if Ottawa took off their chunk, I think we could see prices go back down, you know, not reasonable, but better than what they're at.

00:46:02.500 I mean, I have a pretty big truck and I don't want to tell you what it cost me to fuel up the truck the other day, but it was no relief at the pump.

00:46:11.100 And we could definitely use some relief at the pump.

00:46:15.500 All right.

00:46:16.260 What else have we got here?

00:46:19.000 Well, I guess I was talking about independence a little bit.

00:46:21.500 let's uh i don't know how many people talked about this i'm i'm i'm taking one for the team

00:46:27.240 and i'm watching the uh injunction and i think well and hopefully uh i'm sure cory will talk

00:46:36.240 about it others will talk about it but i've i've been toying with the idea of bringing guests on

00:46:40.700 the show it's one of the things i want to do and definitely in the coming weeks i want to bring

00:46:44.320 either eva chip yuck or uh jeff wrath or somebody like that to talk about the injunction the

00:46:50.140 So just to step back on the injunction, a handful of First Nations up in the northern Alberta Valley View area mostly have filed an injunction with the courts to try and stop the whole petition.

00:47:05.260 They literally just want to cancel the petition.

00:47:07.420 They don't want us collecting signatures.

00:47:10.380 And the injunction, the hearing for that injunction started on Tuesday on the 7th.

00:47:15.860 Yesterday was day two.

00:47:17.360 I kind of missed today.

00:47:18.480 um and and you can watch it mostly i don't have a link here and i don't know if we'll provide a

00:47:23.660 link but you can there's it's pretty easy to find links to it and you can if you can't go in person

00:47:28.800 in the court you can find the link and you can catch it by zoom and you can sit there and listen

00:47:33.480 i actually encourage people everybody should take a trip to some of the courts once in a while and

00:47:38.480 and go hear some of those big hearings or log in and watch them through the zoom calls so i watched

00:47:44.100 that hearing the other day and um my reactions were up and down up and down uh i don't i i

00:47:53.960 honestly don't see how a judge could uh simply call off the petition i i just don't see it i

00:48:03.640 mean there's you know it's it's it's to me we vote every four years that's our that's one of

00:48:09.180 most basic democratic rights we vote every four years and in between votes if the governments

00:48:14.620 aren't doing exactly we what we want them to do uh instead of waiting for four years we have

00:48:20.380 something called the petition where we can get together as citizens and a bunch of us can sign

00:48:25.820 our name to a piece of paper and and demand some change so i think a petition is sort of

00:48:30.860 of another cornerstone of our democracy and for a court to be considering not allowing us to

00:48:40.040 petition I think is ridiculous so I um I I don't think that petition is going to go anywhere not

00:48:47.580 the petition the injunction to stop the petition and neither does the uh proponent so Mitch

00:48:55.000 Sylvester has been talking at different events and I've I haven't been to one of his events in

00:49:01.280 person in the last week but I've talked to people and Mitch is now saying that we're not going to

00:49:07.040 stop collecting signatures because there were rumors that he was going to stop collecting

00:49:10.860 signatures and hand in the ones he had in advance of the possibility of this injunction it's pedal

00:49:17.400 to the metal we're collecting signatures and no matter what we're not stopping until a judge

00:49:23.100 either orders us or or or not and uh i will uh i'll come back to the petition i'll come back to

00:49:30.160 my my reaction what i've been seeing on the side of the road but uh go ahead caller where are you

00:49:34.940 calling from name please yeah thank you um i would prefer to just address myself by my twitter

00:49:42.240 pseudonym mr nobody and i'm calling from edmonton okay and um i'm just i'm just really great that

00:49:48.740 you're having this call-in show i've been watching for the last you know um a couple of last few

00:49:54.940 weeks i adore it i mean it's nice to have this direct interaction with you because the only time

00:50:01.180 um people ever had that is when they were on twitter spaces with you with either wog pogs

00:50:06.940 or two chicks with politics so i just want to put that out there um it's greatly appreciated

00:50:12.520 I don't want to go recycle what other people have said here in regards to the floor crossing.

00:50:22.060 I just want to add in some additional content.

00:50:25.700 And this, to me, when Michelle Rempel, back on the 41st Parliament back in 2011,

00:50:35.500 she gave this lame speech, in my opinion, in regards to floor crossing.

00:50:42.520 and how it was part of the new Westminster tradition for MPs to cross the floor

00:50:49.720 using this logical fallacy of appeal to tradition, okay?

00:50:56.120 And now it's fighting them in the, well, you know what, okay?

00:51:01.920 And what I just wanted to say in regards to this floor-crossing nonsense,

00:51:07.860 you know, I agree.

00:51:08.980 I think there's blackmail.

00:51:10.180 I think they're doing backroom deals that they're not being transparent about, the way that Carney is poaching MPs and undermining the will of the electorate in certain geographical areas in Canada, right?

00:51:26.540 And to me, depending on the circumstances, like if somebody has to be, you know, either get kicked out or wants to defect, they should not be able to go straight to another party that they should be able to sit as an independent to the rest of their term.

00:51:48.460 And then, you know, either have, you know, whether it be in a general election, go and you have the option to rerun and let the electorate decide for themselves.

00:52:01.640 Because not everybody who leaves the political party is in the wrong.

00:52:07.800 And I just also wanted to point out that many years ago, back in 89, there was an Edmonton MP by the name of David Kilgore, and he was kicked out of the PC caucus during Brian Mulroney because he voted in regards to what his electorate wanted.

00:52:28.420 His electorate did not want the GST. He voted against the GST of the implementation of it, and Mulroney punted him out.

00:52:37.800 Now, what David Kilgore did was a smart thing.

00:52:41.240 He did not cross the floor directly to a political party.

00:52:45.780 He sat as an independent for a number of months.

00:52:50.720 I mean, he did eventually link up to the Liberal Party, and he did run in a general election, and he got re-elected.

00:52:59.560 Okay, but mind you, David Kilgore had an excellent reputation.

00:53:03.220 I mean, he could have run under the banner of the Marijuana Party and get reelected.

00:53:07.900 Yeah, yeah.

00:53:08.340 So, I mean, that's an instance that it wasn't his fault.

00:53:12.080 I mean, he actually was representing his constituents in Edmonton Southeast at the time in regards to that particular vote.

00:53:22.020 Which is –

00:53:22.640 So, I just want –

00:53:23.900 Yeah, yeah, no, stay on the line.

00:53:25.960 Stay on the line.

00:53:27.040 And by the way, I know who you are, right?

00:53:29.320 Mr. Nobody.

00:53:30.060 So, we do interact online.

00:53:33.220 You bring up a couple of good points, right? So one, not nowadays, almost every vote is whipped, right? Like every vote is every every member has to vote along the party lines. And I think that would be one possible solution is if we went back because originally, like 100 years ago, not every vote was whipped only, only confidence vote were whipped.

00:53:58.540 But during the rest of the year or the session, members were more open to more able to free vote, more free votes.

00:54:07.340 So there should be more free votes or routinely free votes.

00:54:11.540 But beyond that, what do you think of the idea?

00:54:14.280 Like, I think it does exist in a few parliaments around the world.

00:54:17.400 The idea of not having parties. Is that something that humans are just not?

00:54:21.380 Is that something we're incapable of doing nowadays? We're too tribal?

00:54:24.340 or could a new Alberta re-institute a system without parties?

00:54:30.800 Well, I mean, I personally myself, I'm good without parties

00:54:34.680 because I don't just look at the party platform.

00:54:38.120 I look at the actual person who's running.

00:54:40.840 Like, I mean, I'm not particularly fond of my member of parliament

00:54:43.780 because she seems to be serving her own selfish, self-centered agenda.

00:54:49.740 But as far as the electorate is concerned,

00:54:52.320 And unfortunately, in my opinion, we do not have, for the most part, I'm not saying everybody, but for the most part, we don't have a very good electorate in this country, whether it's municipal, provincial, or federal.

00:55:09.780 We have low information gathering voters, low resolution of thought, no analytical, critical thinking skills, not willing to do the homework.

00:55:21.220 no no etc etc etc yeah i agree with you i mean like i i did a poll a while back like if if people

00:55:29.740 walked into the voting booth and were faced with a ballot that only had names of candidates and

00:55:34.780 not the party some people wouldn't have a clue who to vote for because they they literally

00:55:38.980 a lot of canadians walk into the ballot room and and just look at the party that's it

00:55:44.440 yeah yeah no you're right and and we so i would agree um with that statement of yours that yeah

00:55:52.700 there is this tribalism that you know um that it's always going to the party because if you

00:55:59.180 were to ask 10 people please name you know your respective um you know representative for for all

00:56:06.820 three different tiers of government majority of those people probably nine out of ten people

00:56:12.780 cannot name them all i mean we are kind of like in the like someone like yourself myself and a

00:56:20.300 number of also a number of other people we're in that top one percent two percent that we are fully

00:56:26.440 cognitive of what's going on in this country with the different tiers of you know within the

00:56:31.800 different tiers of governance there's people who cannot determine what tier of governance

00:56:39.360 in relation to their respective responsibilities and jurisdiction.

00:56:44.660 So you have a lot of these people who don't stay in their lanes,

00:56:48.040 a lot of these politicians, because you're trying to capitalize on identity politics,

00:56:52.400 you're trying to screw voters to vote for them over something they have no jurisdiction on,

00:56:59.160 a particular subject.

00:57:01.080 Yeah, we saw an example of that.

00:57:02.420 I mean, I don't think it's Carney's jurisdiction to do infrastructure projects,

00:57:07.560 but he's appealing to a lot of people.

00:57:09.360 announcing them i appreciate the call uh i'm running a bit on time here so thanks for calling

00:57:13.880 mr nobody cool name yeah not not not i'm not a problem i'll leave you be thank you for the show

00:57:20.520 all right cheers take care um you know i'm i'm the clock is running down but i wanted to talk

00:57:27.580 one last thing real quick here uh you know there so there are three by elections next week uh the

00:57:34.120 advanced voting closes today and then the actual voting is on uh the remaining voting is on monday

00:57:40.260 one two in ontario and one in quebec the leader of the bloc quebecois today was definitely

00:57:46.280 appealing to conservatives um because the the the the polling in so the that that writing is

00:57:53.820 interbund that's the very uh that's the one that was decided by one vote on the recount that's the

00:58:00.100 writing where the one vote was too close. It went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court

00:58:05.000 invalidated that whole election from last time. There was also some monkey business there, right?

00:58:13.040 That's the ones where the mail-in ballots were sent to the wrong address, whatever. So Terrebonne

00:58:18.180 is still closely contested right now. Don't quote me on exact numbers, but the Liberals look like

00:58:24.500 They're at about 50%, and then the bloc's at about 40%, and then the Conservatives are at 20%.

00:58:29.940 And Blanchet is appealing to Conservative voters in that writing not to split the vote and vote with the bloc to make sure that Carney doesn't get that writing, and I would agree.

00:58:42.900 So hopefully that's how that one turns out.

00:58:46.900 Sorry.

00:58:48.360 Hey, let me get a quick sip here.

00:58:50.140 Sorry, folks.

00:58:53.140 All right.

00:58:53.760 I think I'm running kind of out of time here.

00:58:57.360 All right.

00:58:58.100 Well, good show.

00:59:00.240 Thanks.

00:59:00.620 Again, I'm encouraging you folks.

00:59:02.200 Please call in.

00:59:04.200 We had like five or six callers today, which is great.

00:59:07.500 And I want to – it is about you.

00:59:10.560 I want to talk about – you know, I have interests.

00:59:13.040 I have topics that are definitely of interest to me, but I want to make it about what you're interested in.

00:59:17.680 And that only happens if you call in.

00:59:20.400 Like I said, I'm just an average guy.

00:59:22.380 Don't be shy.

00:59:23.760 Let's have a chat.

00:59:25.420 And I am toying with the idea, like I mentioned, bringing in some guests.

00:59:30.340 I want to bring – I'm toying with the idea of bringing everyday people.

00:59:35.940 I'll tell you why.

00:59:36.800 I mean, when I'm sitting on the side of the road collecting signatures, I'm taking time to meet people, right, and have a chat.

00:59:44.940 And, boy, my fellow Albertans, you guys have stories.

00:59:48.460 It's so amazing, right?

00:59:49.620 I mean, I've had I've had I've had a police officer come in, you know, off duty, but come and sign and we were chatting.

00:59:57.400 And I mean, I was like, wow, crazy, cool stories that he was telling me and people who work in, you know, making the infrastructure run like mechanics, whatever.

01:00:07.540 And so I'm thinking of not always bringing the celebrities and the big names, but bringing people that can explain things.

01:00:15.520 Right. Like as an example, I mean, when we're talking about a rail project and how that proceeds, maybe I bring in somebody who's a land man, who's an expert at how you negotiate and how you acquire lands for major projects, that kind of stuff.

01:00:31.600 Right. So I want to I'm toying with that idea. And maybe I'll bring in a guest once in a while and maybe not for the whole show, maybe for 15, 20 minutes in a show or something like that, depending on the topics of the day.

01:00:42.120 anyways uh thanks for joining me uh i'm i'm here every thursday at one o'clock

01:00:48.380 uh thanks for the western standard for lending me their their studio for john the producer doing a

01:00:55.100 great job and and allowing me to have a voice here a broader voice and uh return a favor to

01:01:01.460 them please it's uh it's ten dollars a month they they depend on uh on uh on donations or

01:01:08.640 memberships not donations ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year money well spent

01:01:13.720 and uh the the um the tagline is on the bottom there www.westernstandard.news

01:01:21.160 slash subscription and with that hope to see you next week folks cheers

01:01:38.640 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - April 09, 2026

Why hold byelections when you can just buy elections？ (with @Martyupnorth)

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