Shaun Newman Podcast - #322 - Brian Peckford

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

Former premiere of Newfoundland. You may know him by his blog Peckford42 – He is the  last Living First Minister Who Helped Craft The Constitution Act In Which the Charter Is Located. He doesn't think we are out of this and we discuss.  November 5th SNP Presents: QDM & 2's.   Get your tickets here: https://snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-qdm--222-minutes Let me know what you think   Text me 587-217-8500

This is Brian Gitt. My name is Patrick Moore. This is Dr. William Macchus. This is Bruce Party. This is Tom Ovalongo. This is Steve Barber, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Yeah, that was Steve Barber, upstream data.

If you notice each month, I'm going to be trying to change out the starting of the podcast. That way it kind of is a little bit of a throwback to the month before of the guests that have come and gone, so to speak. the ghost of Christmas pass. I don't know why that came to mind. But anyways, I'm going to have a little bit of fun with it. So each month we're going to try and change out. I know people were all over me about the latest news

about Jeremy McKenzie and some of the things he said and this and that and trying to get me to change things. And I don't know, my mind is kind of made up that it's a throwback to the month before and that way you know who's been on. At times I've gone and tried putting the biggest names there and that type of thing. But, you know, when you've interviewed, I don't know, that's like Don Cherry and it's going on probably two years ago now. Does it have much relevance to where I am at today?

And the answer is probably not. So try and pick out some people from the month previous and put them in the start of the show. That way, if you hear a name or you're wondering who that is, it's pretty fresh. You know, in the last 20-so episodes, you can go back. and see exactly who's been on the podcast and hear from them. I deliberated on the Western Standard Groundtable last night for a long time, and I was pretty uneasy to release it. I wanted more of a full-rounded discussion.

I don't know how you get to that. I've got to be honest. I've deliberated it for a while, and if you listen to it, then you know there's a part one and there's going to be a part two. and so I'm hoping that the more we put together, the more voices we bring to that conversation, it'll help round it out some more. And I don't mean that solves anything.

It just means I'm trying to give as balanced a look at truth and reconciliation as I possibly can. And I don't know if I'm doing it a good job or not, but either way, if you've tuned in for a while, you kind of get where I'm at. So I'm just trying to open up discussion on different things that are pretty contentious either way. Always look forward to your guys' feedback.

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For more information, visit them at Hancock, Petroleum.comptoleum.C.A. He's a former Premier of Newfoundland. You may know him by his blog, Pekford 42. He's the last living first minister who helped craft the Constitution Act in which the charter is located. I'm talking about Brian Pekford. So buckle up. Here we go. My name is Brian Pekford, and you are listening to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the Sean Numa podcast. Today, I'm joined by Mr. Brian Pekford. So, sir, thanks for hopping on again. Not a problem, sir. My pleasure. Anytime. You know, I believe it's episode 236. A listener can fact check me on that one. But I think it's 236 the last time you're on here. And this will be like 323, something like that. So you can kind of get a sense for how long ago me and you talked.

And I remember one of the things that really stuck out in my mind is I was asking, how do we get out of this? And I mean, this is before Ottawa. This is right before Ottawa. actually if I'm really thinking about it. And you said, you know, people got a protest, a big protest, and I want to say it was five weekends in a row. And I remember thinking,

Jesus, is it that simple? And so that weekend, I went up to a protest in Emmington for the first time in my life. And I want to say two weeks after that was when the Freedom Convoy went. And then, well, as we, I mean, the rest is kind of history, and we're kind of where we're at.

Either way, Brian, a lot has changed since we first sat down and you, sir, probably can fill about 10 manuscripts at this point and your life since then. Oh, yeah. It's just been absolutely crazy since then, Sean. I mean, every day is a new day in another interview or another piece of work that I, an essay that I performed. Last night I was going to go to bed early.

I got back here in my office and I spun off. another essay that I put on my blog this morning. Just, you know, it never stops. The head is always spinning and it's always something new. And as we see, Sean, since we last spoke, there's been some ups and there's been some downs. But, you know, realistically speaking, there's been more downs than ups.

And we've just got to acknowledge that as the reality of where we are. People talk a good line, but when it comes down to actually putting rubber to the rest, road to actually getting out there and doing things, it's a different story. And, you know, I look back on my 50 years. By the way, I had a birthday since I talked to you. I just turned 80. And, you know, I've got 50 years into this business, over 50 years. In 1971, I was the first time I campaigned for a mainstream political party, for example. And so I've been around this game a long while through this system, Canada. And I've done work overseas and part of my consulting company. But the long and short of it

is, so all of that is that I've learned the one great lesson is that democracy is only as good as the last day's civic engagement, right? People have to be involved, both at the school board level, municipal level, provincial level, and federal level. That's what it takes to have a healthy democracy because we elect people to represent us in the parliament. That doesn't mean we don't be engaged with them almost every month through that period that they're in parliament. They're representing us and we must keep them informed as to how we want them to represent us. What is what I think Canadians have lost in the last 40 or 50 years is almost like when a Christian talks about going to church on Sunday,

and when I grew up, and the great story was, you can't be a Christian, a Sunday Christian, you've got to be a Christian all the days of the week, and Sunday is just a culmination on you coming together to practice your Christianity together. The rest of the week you're supposed to practice your Christianity with everybody else who's not in that church.

And politics and democracies, very, very much like that. And we don't practice it every day in between elections with our school board people, our municipal people, our provincial people, and our federal people, then they get lost. And then they find their own power and their own way. And you become detached and think that's the way things are supposed to be.

And then they're representing you incorrectly and misrepresenting your, point of view in that legislative assembly, in that council office, or in that federal parliament. And that's the crux of the matter. And as we try to fight our way out of this malaise of misinformation, abuse of our charter of rights and freedoms, we've got to be mindful of that. And if we do make some successes in the next several months in the next year, we must not sit on that.

we must move on to another success and to sustain that success. Success doesn't, once you reach it and get it, stay unless you keep nurturing it. That success will fall by the wayside in any democracy. And in reading history and in looking back on my life now, 30 years or 50 in politics, one way or another, and in public life, that's what I've learned. And so when I look back over the last, since we talked last, it becomes clear to me that as the government, I don't matter how bad they were, provincially and federally, in implementing these unbelievably unnecessary, unscientific mandates and lockdowns, people have short memories. and all of a sudden they're talking positively again about the government or this is wonderful, this is done, not realizing the damage.

In this case, in death, in injury, in psychological hardship. I mean, we see it every day, not only in my friends and family, I get emails every day for people who just lost a job again. There's a doctor in Port Alburnie. which is not very far from where I live, who one of my friends and supporters over there just emailed me. They only have two child sort of doctors over there, and now this doctor has been told, originally from Alberta, by the way,

who's been told that unless he gets vaccinated, he had all of his privileges at the little hospital, and Alberta are gone, so they'll just be down to one doctor for children over there. because of his medical status. And this is the kind of stuff that's still going on. And, you know, children and people are dying and are being hurt because they can't get to see the medical practitioner that they knew

for the last seven or eight years in that little hospital. So this is an ongoing issue that we have right now. And it isn't going away because some of those travel mandates are being taken away, primarily because they've been forced. The government of Canada has been forced, and a lot of the provinces have been forced to relieve the people of this burden because they sense that the people are no longer as willing to go along as sheep with all of this stuff as they were before.

So you say more downs than ups in the last eight months, give or take, since me and you last talked. But a ton of it's been removed. Isn't that a positive? Or you see it differently? I see it differently because that's the whole point. People then get court relieved and therefore don't. The democracy was still lost and is still lost.

The China rights of freedoms were abused. That has not been corrected. My court case just here we have a federal government trying to stop a citizen of Canada from exercising their rights as an individual. challenge the government of Canada in court. And what did they do? They bring in another case trying to stop the one that I've got, and other citizens with me, are taking against the government to try to challenge whether, in fact, what they did was constitutional as those travel mandates. And here they are trying to, I mean, there's only a North Korea or China or a Venezuela or

some of you will hear of that, where a government is going out of its way to prevent a citizen so exercising their constitutional rights as described in the Constitution. This is what they dissident over in Moscow, and Russia is putting up with, right? He can't get a fair trial. And here, it's happening right here in Canada, where myself, Maxim Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada, the only one who stood up for the Charter of Rights and Freedom through all of this and a bunch of other citizens named in the lawsuit, we can't get justice. We can't get our rights upheld without the government that we're taking the court,

resisting and trying to stop us from giving our point of view in a court of law. And so this is why I say, all of these are very shallow victory to take off these things out, only taking them off because they can't have, they haven't got the wherewithal to continue to argue with any degree of science behind them or any degree of support. And so they're forced to take them off. And sadly, you know, that's where it is. And they, quite wouldn't they, I will put them back on again, these unconstitutional measures. These measures which were never tested by a cost-benefit analysis before you put them in, we'll put them back on if this fictitious flu or some other kind of thing comes around. And we can,

through a number of doctors, persuade them to come on our side and perpetrates you with all this stuff again. So, no, I'm an angry young man at 80 because I see the threads of a lot of this going away because we'll get lazy again and so our democracy, you know, so it's like water in a you know during the dry season and it never gets back

to where it was before, right? So we're losing something through all of this and we're not getting back to where we were before. And people you know and what was it? There was a recent book or video about

in Germany and we thought everything was just fine. I forget the name, the title now, and we thought everything was fine. And meanwhile, through the 1930s, the rights and freedoms of the German people were gradually taken away until Nazism erupted in 1938 and 39. And so that's what's happening in the Western world right now. This lady in Italy is a wonderful shining personification of identifying of identifying. you know, in just a couple of phrases, I am a woman. Forget this LBGT stuff. I am a woman.

I am a Christian, whether it be a Christian or whatever her faith happens to be, and I stand for this. I stand for the nation state. Because, of course, they're being swamped by the EU and the Germans and the French. And the Italians are losing their identity. So she's speaking now for a lot of people across the world. The big issue she has now facing her, as does the new leader in Alberta, there's absolutely no difference in its principle.

That if Daniel Smith, for example, becomes premier of Alberta, the first thing she's going to have to do is one of a hell of an onslaught of the people who are going to try to put her down so that she mellows and does not advance the principles that she's been arguing for in the campaign. same way with the new Prime Minister of Italy. She's going to have, you know, the first day she goes into office, she's going to have hundreds of people with briefing notes telling her all the things she cannot do.

And yes, Prime Minister, and yes, bringing her. I was very nice for to say that on the campaign, and we understand, but now you must mellow. Well, I hope this Prime Minister, like the Prime Minister of Hungary, Obeck stands up to the European Union and re what shall I say, reorganizes that European Union to be an economic union, not a political union. It started off as an economic union and they gradually persuaded everybody with money, you know, the piece, the 30 pieces of silver, to get involved more and more and get bought off,

so that suddenly Italy is no longer Italy. You've got to talk of them just being a European now or Hungarian or Spaniard or Portuguese. That's what will happen in the Western world if we allow the globalists to take over. And, of course, they have such a foothold in banks. They have such a foothold in a lot of governments. So that's what's happening. And so I see to answer your question directly with the courts in our country, which amangled the charter, which I helped write,

then we're not advancing democratically. We're advancing in having certain things lifted for now, but our democracy has not returned. Well, Georgia Maloney is the lady in Italy that you're talking about, and she has a wonderful speech that you can pretty much find anywhere. And basically she goes, you know, they're attacking everything that makes us, we are. You know, and she breaks it down from woman to family, you know, gender, all these different

things. Christianity, she brings up. But it's a lovely little speech that they call far right, but you're like, far right, man. Like all she's saying is what pretty much a huge chunk of society, probably more than a huge chunk is all saying. They're like, listen, just butt out and let us be who we are. Stop trying to break us down to ones and twos and gender this and gender that and just Like just let's go back to some common sense and get back to a point. And yeah, it's fantastic. And you bring up Hungary and you go, you can just imagine, Brian, you talk about pressure and different things. Imagine the pressure they're under right now, Italy, Hungary, any other country that tries going against the EU and pulling away from what they're trying to push.

Because you think it's difficult over here, which it certainly is. But over there, it cannot be easy. No, no, not at all, not at all. And, you know, they're already threatening Hungary with drawing certain monies that were. Yeah, restrictions and everything else. And that's what's happening in Canada. See, we're a little bit more sophisticated about it and we're less, you know, so I will be styled because of what I'm saying. Well, I've said for 50 years as being, what shall I call it, almost outrageous or extreme.

in what I say when it's not extreme at all. Because here's what we've done, different from the, or even what the Italian by minister is doing now. We have something called the Canada Health Act, okay? Canada Health Care came in back in the 60s 70s, where Canadians and the provinces and the federal government agreed that as we move forward, the pressures of costs on the health care system because we had advocated a universal health care system together.

Therefore, the federal government who was exercising more and more of its taxing power under the Constitution, even though health was provincial, exclusively provincial, the provinces bowed to the money. Okay? And so the Canada Health Care came in and it said the federal government will provide health health health transfers to the provinces. They were modest at first, and now they've grown to over $40 billion a year to the provinces from the federal government. Okay. Health is exclusively provincial under the Constitution. Provinces had to agree to this. They did agree. Now we're at the point where the four principles that under

Gerdy Canada Health Act universality, comprehensiveness, public, right? Those were conditions under which this money was supposed to be sent to the provinces. Those conditions are not being met right now. 20% of British Columbians don't have a family doctor.

That's not universality. So the first principle and that money is supposed to be withheld until British Columbia has everybody with the family doctors, the universality. And the comprehensiveness is not there anymore, right? And the public administration is not there anymore because there's 20% without the public administration without a family doctor under the Medicare system. And so we're breaking our own laws right now.

But here's what's happening. Because we have another formula called legalization, have and have not provinces, half of the provinces are had not. And they're more dependent upon all of this money from Ottawa. They cannot afford to oppose Ottawa now and say, we have exclusive jurisdiction over health, and therefore I don't want your money because they can't afford to do it because they can't replace it anymore with their own

or will not put up their taxes to replace it. Okay. And so insidiously, surreptitiously, we have a federal government that can threaten more than half the provinces or half the provinces. To change the constitution, you need seven provinces and 50% of the population. So there's no way you can get now seven provinces on side to do to change the constitution. People say to me all the time, why don't we just go back, Brian, like you guys did in 81, 82, and we'll just amend this part and that part to make it more certain, to make it clear,

even though I know what you're saying, it's pretty clear, but the judges are trying to, you know, wiggle and wiggle and wiggle and wiggle. Because you can't open the Constitution anymore right now, because we don't have the numbers to meet the amending formula that's necessary to open it. So what we have in Canada today, like the European Union doing to Hungary, is we have a government that very nicely, some minister in Ottawa will call up the minister in B.C. seems, well, can you replace that $4, $5 billion a year, or in case of Manitoba, or Quebec, or P.E.I. or New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, they can't come close replacing it. And so they're at the hands of the central government, notwithstanding that we're supposed to be a federation. Same thing is now happening in the European Union, where they move from being an economic union to a political Union. They've got a European Parliament, for example. And that's going to be gradually,

and gradually get more and more power. So now Obin is in the corner now because he stood up for his country, doesn't want to see this homogeneous thing happen, but is now trapped as it relates to the money situation. And, you know, we'll see how that works out. Hopefully he'll get more on his side so that they can change the European Constitution to be just an economic union and not a political one, but good luck with that. And here we are in. Canada in the same thing. So we always make these comparisons either with the United States or with Europe. These are democracy, but they're not as good of democracy as we are.

I got news for you, Canada. Yes, they are. Both on health care, we're near the bottom of the list right now. Do you know that the World Bank came out with a study? And I mentioned it all the time and it gets lost because it hits home too hard. 120 second in the world in how long it takes to get an electrical permit in Canada.

In other words, there's 121 countries better than us. We're second at the top. We're second in how much we spend for capital health care. We're at second last in the outcomes, positive outcomes of health care. How do you like that for those?

How do you like those potatoes? right so we this Canadian notion that we have in our heads about us having all this wonderful stuff one time we did but over the last 40 or 50 years we've lost it gradually we've lost it we've increased their debt we've spent more and more money on health care getting worse and worse outcomes how come how come wait times have gone up as we spent more money explain that to me can somebody explain that to me How come our wait times go up as we spend more and more billions of dollars on health care? There's something wrong with the system.

As Shakespeare would say, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. So the dilemma we face as a Western society, Europe and North America, is that our democracy and our institutions and our framework needs major revision. we cannot have a prime minister break the law five times and be able to sit in the parliament. I put that in what I call my Magna Carta. I put it on my blog. I've announced it down on the steps of the legislature building in Victoria, and that's one of the first things.

We've got to bring integrity and honesty back to our system before we can then go on to move into amending our Senate, amending our House of Commons. We've got to become true and honest with ourselves. until we do. And I'm part of the system, as I said in my blog this morning. I know the system. I know the system. I was part of it. I was the first minister. I helped write part of the Constitution for God's sake, and I'm still alive. I know the system. I went out of consulting my wife and I and we consulted for a number of years after I retired from politics, helping corporations

interact with governments all throughout Canada, all the three territories, all 10 of the provinces, United States of America, in Norway, in Scandinavia, and in the United Kingdom and the United States. We operated our company for over 10 years, doing that kind of stuff. So we know the system from the outside. I know the system from the inside. I started with nothing. I wasn't supposed to get elected. I wasn't supposed to win the leadership.

And so I know the system and the best contribution I can make as a citizen of Canada today who's come out the other side is to say that the system has deteriorated, that the system is corrupt. While we've changed in Ottawa now with the leader, if the Conservatives win the next election, will be the lobbyists.

That's all we've changed. And the faces, you know, you're reading the paper today, Pahliav is now bringing in his own team, right? The faces are changing. They've been all around before in one incarnation or another,

and they'll all be around again. But nothing has changed. I mean, Paul here talks about eliminating the CBC. The party that he represents as leader says, no, we're not going to get rid of the CBC. We're going to try to do some reform to it. That's what the party platform says. So here you have a leader just elected primarily on an anti-trudeau, anti-liberal ticket, really. It's not for what he stands for.

what he allegedly stands against. So here we have a party with a leader who's saying one thing, and the party is saying another. You know, why doesn't he walk in the House of Commons tomorrow and amend that conflict of Intersect to ensure that no MP can sit in the House of Commons if they broken the law of the country? He hasn't done it. He hasn't done it when he was a minister. He wasn't done it when he was a minister in Harvest Cabinet. So my point is that the greatest contribution I can make is now to be an outsider to the system and make commentary upon the system, some of which sadly and tragically I helped create, which is now no longer operating the best interests of the citizens of the nation.

So this is where we've come to, and it's now manifest because the last two years have made it clear. I mean, from that point of view, the pandemic policies of the 14 governments of Canada have assisted me in highlighting how much we need to change our system in order for it to sustain its democracy, sustain the citizens. citizens' responsibility and so on. And so that perhaps that's the best thing I can do. But we need to recognize. I think, you know, introspection, self-criticism, looking at ourselves is perhaps what we need to do more than anything else right now. I'm jotting here.

This is a really, really complex problem. This isn't like, you know, you talk about over a course of your lifetime, Brian, you're part of the system you probably thought you're like wow charter rights wow all these things wow and then you know you talk about it you're 80 happy belated by the way August 27th if memory serves me correct exactly thank you don't know why I know that folks anyways we're we do that's fantastic but

you're 80 and you've gone from being a young man implementing the helping implement the charter rights and freedoms to now where you talk about it being abused and everything else. This isn't like stroke a pen and everything is fixed. This is like a giant cultural shift you're talking about. And I wish I could say it was like, you know, the start of COVID, I think one of the best analogies was is like the snowballs running down the hell

and we can't catch it fast enough. I feel like what you're talking about is the complete opposite. We're at the bottom of the mountain and we're trying and roll this thing all the way up. And if at any point, the will to do that goes away because, oh, everything's good and everything's grand, it just rolls back down and you're at the bottom again. And I don't know. That's what I hear from you. And I don't know if I have anything to add to you, Brian. I don't know, I start to understand how big of a juggernaut this is.

You know, with the day this is released, it'll be Truth and Reconciliation Day with First Nations, the statutory holiday, I think for government and schools and anything else. And, you know, that's a, you know, First Nations and what they've endured at the hands of the Canadian government. And I mean, I always bungle this up because I don't never know how to totally talk about it. But it's just as complex as a problem. and everything the Canadian government tries to do, they always seem to bungle it up more. And I look at this problem, and I don't mean to make light of either situation, I just mean to bring up complex problems. How on earth do you solve something like that?

And you know, you're one of the first when I came that little tirade a few minutes ago. You're one of the first to interview me to actually say, you know what? This is a big, big problem. Most people try to skirt it off, right? And make some comment back, which demeans what I say or diminishes the size of the problem that I described.

Thankfully, I appreciate 1,000% your response. And what I said this morning on my blog was the first thing we have to do is people have to recognize that they will make the democracy and the first thing you have to do is recognize that we have a problem here and that you're dead right, it's cultural, it's huge

and your metaphor is as good as any we're now rolling uphill and any little touch at all and the ball rolls back down again to the bottom we're going to start all over. It's a huge issue. It's Donald Saguay. I always quote them when I did this morning.

I always quote them in all my speeches I give, democracy in Canada, the disintegration of our institutions. And people that they're really, really interested in knowing what you just said is true, that this is a monumental problem. That's what they will first. do is read this book. This is a scholar. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put a link in the show notes so that people can just

scroll down. They don't got to do what I'm trying to do. But certainly, Brian, if they want to take a deep dive, carry on. Sorry, it's just going to be on the show notes. They will then understand that what we're saying here this morning has some real reason and evidence behind it. This is not an old man knowing that mistakes have been made and now trying to correct them before he dies. This is an alive 80-year-old who appreciates his country.

I was seven years old, by the way, when I became a Canadian. We joined Canada in 1949. I was born in 1942. I wasn't born a Canadian, but I'm perhaps as much a Canadian as anybody else who's a live today in the country and says they're Canadian. But here is a person who worked with the federal government. Mr. Donald Savoy is a professor at University of Moncton and who was part of the system as well.

And who's a scholar. He isn't, not a politician. So he's not pushing any particular dogma. Somebody could say, well, I'm pushing conservatism. I'm pushing these values and somebody else to push something else. Here is a person who I rely on because he's more objective than me. And he's really saying what I'm saying through the eyes of somebody who has no political agenda. And he's been part of the system and have been studying and writing about this for decades.

And he's now at the University of Monkham, and this is a scholar. And this is his seminal sort of epic book. He's written others. but this is like his epic book, his statement about his life. Have you talked to him? No, I have not. Geez, you wonder, just sitting in this side, I go, well, I know what I'm going to try and do, Brian. I'm going to try and read the sucker, and then I'm going to try and get him on to talk about it.

Yeah, exactly. I wish you would. I had not deliberately, a few years ago, and he wrote the book, this came out three years ago, four years ago, I think. I wrote him just to compliment him on the book, okay? And that was it. 2019. It ain't that old. It's a new book.

And since then, because you're asked a really good question, I deliberately not. Because I want to be able to say to you, I don't want to be tainted now. You know what I mean? I don't want to talk to him at all. He did this independent of me. I did, but I'm doing independent of him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But guess what? It comes together. It comes together. So, and other scholars, he's not the only one, but he's the most sort of, what shall I say, the clearest, clear cut. And where we fell off the rails, who's very early on as he talks about it, because the Senate thing wasn't going to last. One of the biggest issues he makes in this book is that our democracy, institutionally failed in the sense that we waited the Senate in favor of Central Canada.

At the time, fine. But as Canada grew and provinces were created, we needed to adopt to the new reality, and we did it. In the United States, they were much better at it. As each state came on, they had two senators, elected. So today, in the United States, this is how they equal. equalize the political system. There are two senators in a little tiny Maine, the state of Maine, a million people or whatever, two senators from the huge state of California with 35, 40 million people.

So the power in the upper chamber of the parliament of the United States gets equalized, as does through their electoral college, which a lot of people in Canada always abused. but it tends to balance out so that the small don't get lost, so that there isn't a tyranny of the majority. Everybody talks about majority government, absolutely. But then the fathers of the United States Constitution saw that over time, that could be a problem itself, a tyranny of the majority. That's why the parliamentary committee that Judy Raibo Wilson, Judy Wilson-Wilson wanted to appear before, And they didn't allow her because it was the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the liberals on the committee and the NDP.

That should not be. A parliamentary committee should not be possible to be closed down for illegitimate reasons. She wasn't allowed former Minister of Justice trying to present evidence about obstruction of justice by the Prime Minister's office in the conduct of the Justice Department when she was minister. and she was unable to finish her testimony before that parliamentary committee. That would never happen in the United States of America. And so what Savoy does is show that over time, our institutions were incapable of providing the governance necessary for us to continue to operate as a true democracy. And that's where we are today. Prime Minister's office is almost as powerful without a shot being fired, without a lobbying change, as is the President of the United States.

And he got it by the Constitution. We've got it by gradual evolution without lobbying chains. The MP become weaker. The parliamentary committee is becoming weaker. The cabinet becoming stronger. And finally, it ends up in the prime minister's office. There's over 1,500 people working for the prime minister directly today. every day, besides the 7,000 DMs that he appoints, and ADMs he appoints in all the departments and agencies of the federal government.

So when he wakes up in the morning, the Prime Minister of Canada now, he can spread his wings and say, pick up the phone and he can call 7,000 plus 1,500 people who work for him, who he's either appointed or work directly in his office. amazing amount of power. And today now nothing happens unless you check with the prime minister's office. It's not whether it's a cabinet order or not. It's whether it's the prime minister goes along with it or not. And this wink and a nod, this seemingly, what shall I call it, surreptitious system, has been allowed to be perpetrated.

And that's why people in Alberta, as I wrote in my piece that I said, I understand what Daniel Smith is saying as it relates to the Sovereignty Act. Alberta and people like her have been forced to this position because Canada is not working anymore for a province that becomes wealthy and contributes more than its fair share to the pursuit of Canada as a federation. and has no means by which to get a change in the normal course of events. Once again, this is, you start to understand how complex of an issue this is. Speaking of the Alberta Sovereignty Act, I'm, or just speaking in general, I think so many people, including myself, just let's take Daniel Smith, you know, white knight walks in, slaps down the Alberta Sovereignty Act. Everything goes back.

Ottawa stays in this lane and we're all golden grand. But we both know that isn't exactly the case. That's not exactly how this goes. See, where, to come to your point, see, Alberta, over the years of the premiers, Lahit was during my time, and he fought the National Energy Act. But he could have went on and Getty and Klein

and all the other previous that came since, had the opportunity under the existing constitution, to take over the police, provincial police force? They don't have to do a thing. They can do it tomorrow if they want to. So 21 years ago, roughly, the firewall letter, Harper, all these come out and they say, you know, a multitude of things, but a bunch of the things you're talking about, right?

And I think now, if you follow Alberta politics, you know, Alberta police force pension fund. They can do both of that. tomorrow. So why not? Why? Why? Exactly. Exactly. Now I began in even in poor, Lufeland at the time, to expand the Royal Lufelan Constabulary, which became centered only in the city of St. John's. I still have the name Royal Lufthelan Constabulary because we had gotten that royal name before, right? And so it continued the name. But it was only the city of St. John's. I expanded it to outside of St. John's. I

expanded to corner brook i expanded to labrador so we've got you know we've got more of a provincial police force than alberta has well so so why i mean newfoundland alberta is obviously different provinces different problems different things but my point was alberta was in a better position to expand its police force provincial police force and take over those areas of their existing jurisdiction and not through a contract of the RCMP, then Lufelan wants, right? And so why haven't they done it? So, you know, that's the frustration that I have, and I think that's where Daniel is coming

from and others, is that there's a whole bunch of things that could have been done already to allow Albertans to feel and that exercise some of the jurisdiction they already have under the existing constitution without one change whatsoever. Tension is another one. Quebec does it and we can do exactly that. We can negotiate with the federal government over immigration and how we want to see that immigration occur in Alberta. Quebec doesn't.

So there are a whole bunch of areas. I have a real hard time believing that along the way there wasn't somebody that understood everything you're saying. So it always comes back, Brian, to why haven't they done it? They didn't have the political to do it. They didn't have the political what? Will to do it. I'm going to rephrase.

I'm going to pose a different question to you then here. I sit here as a guy that I bring this up all the time. Two and a half years ago, I was talking gladly about what's over my shoulders. Hockey, sports, from Don Cherry and Rahm McLean and Daryl Sutter. And, you know, I don't need to go, but you get the idea. Very much just to enjoy and talking to some legends and trying to, you know, bust in to some of the young guys in the NHL and blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, as you can imagine, I'm talking to Brian Beckford,

and I mean, it's not the first time, it's the second time, and I've been soaking myself deeply in all of this. And so I go, if you are just an everyday whatever, doesn't matter if you're a welder, stay-at-home mom, school teacher, you get the point. I think I'm proof and putting, you can literally change the course of your direction awfully quick. And I would think

if you're going to be in a democracy, I think what I'm getting from you is the way a democracy works is the citizens have to be engaged, which means there's no quick pill that just all of a sudden snaps and we go back to things.

But if enough people start to get engaged in their communities, start to learn how the system works, then over time you will have a better class of politicians. A better class of more. And which can push the political will through to make things right.

Beautiful. But we're talking probably like 20 years. Am I wrong on that? Well, you could do it and less than that. I would say if they really got mobilized, if they're in a certain region of the province or A problems could get mobilized pretty easily, not easily,

but I mean, in a reasonable period of time they could do. There's a couple out in Cockburn, Alberta, who wanted to get the Charter of Rights and Freedom put up in the town council office. I don't know if they got it done yet or not, but they've really activated the community and people like the people like them

and had meetings with the mayor and so on. And actually, elevated the civic engagement of the people of that community. They were in touch with me and I sent them a letter and so on and explained to them about the charter and so on and was through with my help and writing the council,

so on that they got engaged. and so on. It's a wonderful story. I've got another one like that, where a lady, he went back from Alberta, got married, and her husband had two children, and they wanted to raise their children back in rural Newfoundland. And it happened to be Bonavista. Bonavista is where Newfoundland was discovered, allegedly, by John Cabot and 47, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's got to be, you know, heritage thing there, discovery of Newfoundland and all that.

She's from that area. I know, I knew the surname when I first, she first, she first, She gets back there, but this is a wonderful story, and this is how it can happen. Her husband, because he was an engineer, applied and became the town engineer. They, when the pandemic hit, were not interested in participating in that particular medical procedure and had questions about it because they had questions about earlier vaccines and so on, and so they were not. Well, the time came when our little business herself was getting, people were starting,

to be a trouble for her and her husband has a job at the town and he was going to have to lose his job. Well, they contacted me and I wrote a letter to him that he could present at the council. And to make a long story short, they persisted. And he made a presentation to that council and the six two decision to get rid of became six two decisions to stay. Isn't that cool? You got to hope right there that there's more people that are willing to, you know, it always gets painted as the picture is that everybody's got their blinders on and aren't willing to listen. But it's probably more of the echo chamber theory that they just don't understand there's more to it. At least I hope.

I mean, I'm pretty hopeful. I put a 20-year tag on it because I just go, I haven't seen much in our society. No, no, I understand. Two years in. How things can change. Yes. Well, especially. There was an elected, you know, here was a municipal.

that changed based upon argument, persistence, engagement by two citizens of that community, right, a husband and wife team. And there's a lady in New Brunswick, in New Brunswick, who was part of the council there who contacted me. She finally ended up having to resign. But through that, she became more actively involved as a citizen and is now more cognizantly, you know, more aware of politics and what it takes for democracy to. really worked than she was earlier and I still keep in touch with her all the time.

I do. I have a lady who was in administration at a major university in Ontario, big, big university, who contacted me because she had seen some of my podcasts and stuff with you and others. And I helped her out in writing letters to the administration, pointing out to them what the Charter of Rights and Treating really said, and that they were following the line of the provincial government, which was not an appropriate line to be following, and that at the end of the day, the courts were going to rule against these provisions

that were preventing her having a livelihood under Section 6 of the Charter. And so on, all over Canada, almost in every single problems. One day, one evening, I had a podcast, Zoom with a group in Northwest Territories. And part of that group, and I did this with a group of MLAs in Alberta as well.

And I didn't know an MLA was in on the call. She was at home, but she had herself linked up to the town area that they were having Zoom. So some people were home. Some people were in the town space so that they could listen to me and then ask questions. She spoke of, said who she was after I gave my presentation.

We had a bunch of talks like we're having now. And she said, who she was? And that she was in MLA. And she said this. Brian, what can I do? And I said, have you ever made a presentation to your caucus? She was in her living up. She went speechless.

She said, Mr. Peckert, I've had to come on to this program for you to tell me about my job. It never even came into my mind until you just mentioned it. I said to eight or 10 MLAs in Alberta, have you gone to your caucus and made a presentation to your caucus? Have you forced your leader to make sure that your caucus meets regularly and that legislation before it goes to the whole house? Because you are part of the government, you're going to support that legislation.

Well, hopefully, most of the time, but you need to see it and read it. and understand it, not be taken for granted, use your caucus as a lever to exercise your democratic rights as an MLA. Several of the MLA says, I'm shocked. I'm shocked. We have not done that. So is that a lack of experience from MLAs? I don't mean just a lack of the system in place in the legislative assemblies when they come in to get their inauguration, what do you call it, that week in university,

that inauguration week or whatever you call it, where they're told about the legislature, it's not follow up. It's not follow up. So the party whip and the people in that party, whatever party doesn't mean different. There should be a system whereby they meet regularly, especially when the house is opened

and even when the house is closed. whereby they have a schedule. And all of the ministers know, and the cabinet knows, that when they are going to bring in some new legislation to amend existing legislation or a new act, has to go to the caucus first. And the caucus can force that to happen. Basic, beautiful legislative democracy

that's available to every legislator, in every legislature, including the Parliament of Canada today. And they're not exercising as MLAs, their existing power as an MLA, even before they move into the legislature proper. And that could be done just like that. And they said, and they thank me profusely for pointing these and other light things out to them and read the legislative guidance of how a legislative guidance. operates. There are a number of rules and regulations of how a legislature operates on the British parliamentary system. One is a guy by the name of May, who the speaker will reference from time to time, or Beauches and another. These are two two expert references that are available.

The first thing I did when I became an MLA in Newfoundland was to read Bo Shea and May and go and talk to the House leader, I don't understand that point of order or versus the point of privilege. What's the difference between the point of order and the point of privilege? A very basic thing when you become an MLA. And so our democracy works better, right, when people who become members of it through, for example, a legislature, know instead of being bamboozled by a minister or by a leader and made the feel as if you're inferior, like when you go to a doctor. I mean, we always held the doctors up on the pedestal or lawyers up on a pedestal.

Instead of looking at them straight across, that they're a citizen, I'm a citizen, I have one body of knowledge, they have another body of knowledge, or equal. And we'll consult each other on the body of knowledge that they have more of than the other person has. Okay, that's the way. And so that's like in legislature. And I was amazed when I got elected first. And that's why I moved ahead so fast. It's because I made my business.

That's how I was raised. And so I made it my business to know. So within two or three months in the legislature, I was calling Beauchin. I was quoting May. I got up, Mr. Speaker, on a point of order or a point of privilege, as Bo Shane noted, and as part of our standing orders, right, the honorable member or the honorable minister must answer this question. Always comes back to knowing your stuff, doesn't it? You think of the average citizen, you know, to take it off that. MLAs and the government for a sec.

The average citizen myself probably never read the Charter of Rights and Freedoms until the last two years. And let me tell you, I've read it an awful lot since. And I think a lot of people can say that. And a lot of people can say they've been reading an awful lot about an awful lot and getting more informed. And it takes something like this to probably snap

so many of us out of whatever we were in to be like, ooh, maybe it's time we start paying attention again. You know, one of the magic moments in a number of the live public meetings, mainly in churches because elected officials wouldn't allow the people to rent a town space or city space or municipal space.

So I've been forced to, through the group that wants me to speak, rent a church. And I've been in a whole bunch of these churches on Vancouver Island. I'll be in another in a couple of weeks. one again what I was in before and this is the one I'm going to talk about and in Victoria

I've been in the churches in Victoria halfway through my speech two things that I've said where the whole population audience is going

one is when I say there are no two people alike you are unique. Every snowflake is unique. Every person is unique. When you're trying to be pigeonhole, to be just like somebody else or something like that, you must resist. You are unique. And that's why individual rights and freedoms are in most of the democratic constitutions of this world. Individual rights and freedoms. That's one. And there is a gasp or a

dead silence to say, oh yeah. And the other is when I say, by the way, you ask me what you can do when you leave here today, you'll get together with your friends and you say, who is my MLA and who is my MP? And we're going to have a group of more than 100 or 200 in the next few days. Apparently your group right now is three or 400, write a letter to the MLA and say, we live in this community in your writing. We want to have a meeting with you through the time. term of your

election four times a year and we will rent the hall necessary or we will rent the space we want to be engaged with our democracy, engage with our province, engage with our country and we want to meet with

you as a group to ask you what are you doing to represent our views in the legend? You are there to represent us. And I said, if you did that, the MLA and MP has no alternative to otherwise they're going to be embarrassed

to tears once you make that public and I said you will then have a direct link ongoing to that term of that MLA and MP and you will make a difference to policy and program that that MLA and MP

presents to your Parliament in Victoria, Edmonton, or Al-O-Wan. And they gasp. And they come up to me afterwards. I pet me on the back and shake my hands and hugged me to say, never thought of that.

Well, I'll tell you this, Brian. Last time you were on, you got me to protest. Now you're getting me to civically engage with my MLA because I certainly think it is a very smart idea. And some of the takeaways from different, podcasts. Some, they're easy to point out. Some you've got to dig for them. Some you've got to dig for the gold, so to speak. But that's

a really interesting point to make. As time closes in on us, I want to finish with the Crude Master final question. Shout out to Heath and Tracy McDowell, sponsored to the podcast since the very beginning. Heath says, if you're going to stand behind something, then stand behind it.

What's one thing Brian stands behind? Good question. I think I've always stood behind. After I retired from teaching to run for politics and I was asked to come back to my school to speak to the graduating class. And I would say, I'm going to just say three things to you.

They're going to sound pretty simple. And I hear I'm saying I'm now about 45 years later. Number one, when you leave, if you're not, Remember nothing of what I say. Remember just these three things. Just three things. One, be honest always. Not even a white lie.

Encompass that into being yourself, who you are. And with those two, be like Daniel in the Bible. Be a little bit brazen. I use the word brazen. instead of bold, because I know it will trigger more quickly the response. Be honest, be yourself, and be bold in your advancement of what you believe. Well, I really appreciate you coming on, Brian, and giving me some time again, just like the first time the hour has flown by. And I appreciate you doing what you do. And I know I speak for my audience when I think I could echo what they think as well.

and, you know, I always joke, I kind of feel like you're, you know, you bring up David and Goliath. I kind of feel like you're part of the army that shows up to do battle that day. And then Brian Peckford steps up. And then, you know, I was joking with Theo Fleury and then Theo steps up. And you start getting more and more. And the army continues to grow. It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

And certainly yourself has a name, name recognition that goes further than a lot. no different than Theo does, no different than, you know, all these different people. Jordan Peterson sticks out. But I appreciate you being on this side trying to push back on, you know, what we've seen here in the last two years and really appreciate your thoughts. The last trip I took before a pandemic, Carol and I, my wife and I took, was to Israel. And we found a group there that will do educational tours. takes a number of weeks. We were lucky enough to hire as our guide, a scholar,

PhD, archaeologist, theologian, academic, wonderful man. He took us to where he believes David triggered the slingshot against Goliath. that was a fantastic day with sun was shining and there was the plane on which and he went through describing to all of his scholarly research and so on and he's written books and all of us well-known archaeologist in Israel and you know that was a magic moment and when you just mentioned about the David of the Goli thing I guess that's why I mentioned at the beginning when I decided to run for public office, I was a high school teacher. And it was in the writing that had never been conservative in its history. 1832 to 1972.

Every other writing in the province had gone at some point. Conservative. This one had not. And of course, I was running against a sitting minister who was from the writing. And I was. I came there as a teacher. And so everybody thought, You couldn't win.

So I'm a really, really good personal example to those people are part of this program right now. That, yes, like the Americans say, if you really believe in it and you really want to do it,

you can knock down an awful lot of barriers and be successful. Well, thanks, Brian. I don't know what to add in after that. I think you've hit the nail on the head here multiple times throughout our chat. And like I say, I appreciate you doing what you do, and I really appreciate you giving me some time today,

but I don't want to steal your afternoon away from you. I know you're a busy man. So thank you yet again for all you do and for coming back on the show. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.