Shaun Newman Podcast - #716 - Kris Sims

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

She is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We discuss the carbon tax, what can trigger a federal election, political theatre and Trudeau has officially doubled the national debt. Clothing Link: ⁠⁠⁠https://snp-8.creator-spring.com/listing/the-mashup-collection⁠⁠ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Tom Romago. This is Alex Craneer. This is Lila Micklewaite. Hi, this is David Collum. Hey, this is Gordon McGill. This is Kirk Libdemo. This is Chris Sims. This is James Lindsay and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. How's everybody doing today? Silver Gold Bolt, my favorite precious metals dealer here in Alberta with their complete in-house solutions, whether buying, selling, storing, or adding precious metals to your retirement accounts. I think we can all agree. the price of gold is a measure of trust in the government. I think we can all agree on that.

And as you're going to hear today with Chris Sims, I would say trust in government is not surprisingly at all-time lows. And Silver Gold Bowl has an exclusive offer for you, the SNP listener, on quarter-ounce gold coins from the Royal Canadian Mint, for anyone looking to protect their savings with physical gold, these low-cost, fractional coins are a great buy. Go down on the show notes, text or email Graham for more details. Of course, you can just head on over to silvergoldbull.ca and Canada.com in the States,

look at their entire lineup of what they got. And if you're buying anything off of them, make sure you reference the podcast. It'll help me. It'll help you. It's a win-win, win. McKell Thorup, the world's largest offshore event is taking place entirely online, October 7th to 11th. And McKell Thorup, I don't know why I said that to start. But he is, obviously he was on stage at the Cornerstone Forum here in Lloyd Minster.

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complimentary ticket at expatmoneysummit.com. Expatmoneysummit.com. Caleb Tave's Renegade Acres. Shout out to Caleb. He's should be, I assume, getting close to finishing harvest. And we've been talking a lot about a few different events. happening, hopefully in the near future. The Cornerstone Forum being right at the forefront of that.

We're working on finalizing some things. This trip to Florida really has been at the forefront of my thinking in the last five days. I'm not going to lie. It's kind of been a whirlwind experience, folks. And if you want to get more info on Cornerstone, you want to see the original recording of the one that happened in Lloyd Minster. You want to hear about Florida. The place to go is Substack, that is where the community, that's where all of you are congregate. We release an email every Sunday, 5 p.m.

And we're on to, I think we've done six of them in a row now, of a week in review. So you can get caught up on everything, every guest the podcast has on it every week by week. And you can just kind of tune in, oh, get a feel for how they speak, what they're talking about. And maybe that's a way to pick and choose which ones you want to do. Some of you are awesome, listening to everything. Others are, you know, are busy, and you've got to pick and choose which ones out of the five you want to listen to. Well, the week in review is a great way. It's another thing with today's conversation, being independent media means I'm not, you know,

don't get any government subsidies by any stric to imagination. So if you want to support what I do, substack, you can become a paid subscriber and get, we're starting to add a few things in there that are, you know, hopefully value ad for you, so you can do that as well. The deer and steer butchery. It is hunting season is upon us, and if you have any animals needing to get butchered after, hopefully you knock one down. Look no further than the deer and steer. Give Amber a call 780870-8700.

She is the butcheress from, originally from Wadena, Saskatchewan. So a small town Saskatchewan girl, she's been now there for, well, it's not quite a year, but regardless, it's been a few months now. And would love to hear from you. She can get you situated with any of your animals. You knock down during hunting season. Once again, 780 870-8700. Okay. A couple other things.

SMP Christmas party on Friday November 29th. We are down to, I want to say, 14 tables left. I can't remember if that's the final number. Saturday's completely sold out. I think there's 14 left. So if you are a business in the area, looking for something for a Christmas party, or the other thing that got told to me is,

well, what if I just want to take some clients out? You could do that too. Dueling pianos, Friday, November 29th. Look forward to hearing you all. Just shoot me a text down in the show notes. And finally, five legacy interviews is what I was saying. I was going to do towards complete from here to the end of the year. I think we have two.

And I say I think because I'm waiting on confirmation on the third, but for sure I have one come into studio. I have one that's going to be a drive-out-to-carat River of all places. So I showed up to Carrot River. And so I believe now we're down to two. But as I sit here this morning, I guess I can put it at three. I don't know. I'm jibber-jabbering about it.

Regardless, there's a couple spots left. I'm only doing five. So once they're done, I'm going to stop talking about it for this year. And it'll be something, hopefully, that I can do year after. year. So if you're wanting to get a legacy interview for a loved one, a family member, maybe yourself, who knows, just reach out via text. Okay, let's get on to that. Tale of the Tape. She is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. I'm talking about Chris Sims. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Shawneumann podcast. I am joined today by Chris Sims.

Chris, thanks for hopping on. Thanks for having me. I feel like there's a lot to talk about. Where would you like to start? Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to talk about CTV to start. Shall we start with journalism? And I don't know, you can run with this wherever you want. This is why I turned off the mainstream narrative for a very long time now. Yeah, we might as well start there because it's newsy, so to speak. So this is as far as we know. None of this has been proven, blah, blah, blah, blah. The CRTC has not ruled. All that understood. What looks like happened is very recently Pierre Pollyev, the leader, of the opposition, the conservative party leader, was scrumming in the foyer of the House of Commons.

Scrumming, of course, means getting together and putting mics in his face. And that's where he's answering questions. I'm paraphrasing carefully, he was saying something to the effect of bringing forward a motion of non-confidence based around the carpet tax. Can I read it? Can I read it for you? That way, okay, so this is this is what Pierre Paulyov said on September 18th, 2024 from a raw scrum, and I'll just read it verbatim. After nine years of this, NDP liberal government. They've doubled the debt, double housing costs, caused the worst inflation in 40 years, sent 2 million people to the food bank, unleashed crime and chaos in our communities. That's why it's time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election.

A carbon tax election needed because the NDP liberals plan to hike the carbon tax by 300% all the way to 61 cents a leader, which would cripple our economy, put hundreds of thousands of people out of jobs mean empty shelves of the grocery stores. We need a carbon tax election so Canadians can vote to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budgets, and stop the crime with a common sense conservative government. And what they put out was that's why we need to put forward a motion. And what the article or what the, what the, uh, the letter is saying is that after I read all that, they took three different parts and spliced it together to say, that's why we need to put forward a motion. And so he did say to put forward a motion. He did say

that's why. And he did say we need, but they come from different chunks. Like it's really, you would have to really go out of your way, Chris, to do that. Yeah. For folks who are familiar with editing, and I know you are now, Sean having done your show, to do this, you would have to snip out all of those individual words on your audio track, save them, redo a brand new audio track, put them in the order you want, Frankenstein style, stitch them together, and then find visuals to cover over your stitching edits. Like, if this is what went down... And I should point out, sorry to interrupt, I should point out the way the CTV Nationals, September 22nd report, the reason they said, that's why we need to put forward a motion,

What they were linking it to right before that was dental care. That's what they were talking about. They were taking all the carbon tax out of there and moving that away, and they were framing it as, and I guess I could read that too. A week after Singh Nixed, his pact with the Liberals, this is how CTV news read. But the Canadian government released ads noting that close to 650,000 Canadians have already received care. While the continuation of the plan is safe for now, the events of last week have raised new questions over the plan's future and they immediately cut to that's why we need to put forward a motion

and left out everything carbon tax. Sorry, now I'll like Chris, now everybody's got the full picture here of what the mainstream narrative is trying to pull over your eyes. Yeah, exactly. So again, I wasn't there. I wasn't even watching that newscast

right, because I don't really watch evening news anymore like most of Canadians. So if this is what actually went down and then they rearranged the words and stitched them together and covered it with visuals and then presented it as an authentic clip on the news. And then it's not even about the same topic. Like even if this were about the same topic, Sean, this would still be a gigantic no-no. Like, you know why I started podcasting,

Chris? Yeah. Like, I mean, there's several reasons, but the reasons why I don't touch anything in the interview and people laugh at me because, you know, if I get up and I'm walking around, they're like, why don't you just edit that? I'm like, I don't know. I just, I tune into the CTV or whatever news station that I used to, and I'm like, they just feed in yet. You can just go watch it. They take two minutes, and I've sat and watched guys get interviewed for 15 minutes, and I realize they can't take the full 15 minutes. But as soon as you cut out 13 minutes or 14 minutes or whatever it is and piece together,

heck, five words or whatever that sentence is, you're feeding a narrative, something that you're trying to do. This is new, though. This is a whole new level. This is, as far as I know. like this wouldn't have crossed anyone's mind in my old newsrooms including like I've literally worked in that particular newsroom. I've sat in those edit suites. No way.

Like no way. It doesn't matter which party it is. It doesn't matter what, you know, opinion you may have yourself as a journalist or a video editor or shooter or whatever for a camera person. Like, no. You do not take little words and rearrange them together. stitching it to say a sentence that wasn't said. And again, this, the reason, okay, I'm really upset about this because I was a journalist for most of my life. I still consider myself a journalist. I'm an activist journalist. I'm an advocate journalist now, but I still consider myself a

journalist. And I've worked in that shop. And there is no way on God's Green Earth that that would have ever even been tolerated or thought of. And so this is why I'm really puzzled, truly. I'm scratching my head saying, okay, this is not spin. This is not a certain take on something. This is not flavored a certain way. If this is what happened, what is going on? And so my only thing that I can come back to coming full circle now as a taxpayers federation is that trust in journalism, mainstream journalism, is like plummeting. I think the last survey I saw, which was a deep survey on trust that they do every year. It's a private group that does it in Canada. I think it's more than 60 percent, more than 60 percent now of Canadians believe that journalists are deliberately saying

things which they know to be false in order to mislead people. That's horrible. And so there's the trust thing. And then we start getting into the why. Why are people distrusting? Well, from the taxpayer's perspective, at least you start at the root, the obvious problem. And so there's and that is journalists should not be paid by the government. And right now, the majority of mainstream media journalists are getting paid by the government. It's not just the CBC that gets more than a billion dollars now per year from the government. There are hundreds of millions of dollars rolling out the door, Sean, in taxpayers' money going through these mainstream media corporations. And they're asking for more. They're asking for more

taxpayers' money. They're asking for more regulations. They're asking for more online censorship that they think would benefit them. And this is the antithesis of journalism. Again, I don't care if you're a hardcore left-wing journalist that's trying to, you know, bring down a big company. Like, okay, but there are ethics and standards and don't take money from the government. Fundraise yourself, sell subscriptions, sell advertisements, do a go-fund me, pass the hat. We don't care. Just don't take it from taxpayers. And this, this is a key problem. Because now it looks like, so for example, if you're in a basketball game, right, and the ref is getting paid by one team member, by one side of the, you know, the court, is that

ref going to be able to call it straight? Well, he or she might try. But it's the perception of corruption, right? It's the perception of bias. And, like, this is pretty wild. I think this is a whole other level. been talking with some of my older journalism friends who've worked in various shops, both CBC and non-CBC and upstart and non-upstart legacy media. Everybody I know is like shocked

about this. Well, it's one of the reasons we like having you on this side, Chris, and why we've had you on the stage multiple times, because I like that it didn't dawn in your your brain to do anything like that. But we both know there are people that would think like that. I feel like I've ran into these people. So to say it's never happened, I go, this idea didn't come out of nowhere. But I will agree with you on the money thing. As soon as there is a very large incentive to paint a picture a certain way,

which certainly there is right now, you're just starting to see it bleed out more and more. I just, you know, every once in a while I do this, you know, like, I should maybe just, I'll just turn it on. Just see what they're saying, right? Just glance. And anytime, you know, like, I personally think when it's usually like local news talking about, you know, obviously, I don't know, the weather, although me entoo's with, I mean, the colors they're using now is pretty fun or fantastical or hyperbolic or all the words. But like there's certain things I think, oh yeah, that's not that big a deal.

But as soon as they get into any realm where it's a controversial issue, I could just see the slant they put on it, like all the time. and you talk about the, you know, Trudeau and Pulliev, or, yeah, Trudeau and Pulliav, I mean, the cat's out of that. It's a sinking ship. Like, everybody's jumping. All of Trudeau's ministers are jumping. Everybody's getting out of the way of this thing.

They're like, I'm out, I'm out. And then mainstream comes on. They're like, there's nothing wrong at all. It's a great. We've got a great country. Great things are going on. Trudeau's the best. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm being a little tongue-and-cheek here, folks. No, no. But you're seeing it when they chop this up, even if, you know, like once again, this is the way it reads. We don't know if this is 100% bang on. It certainly stinks. And it falls in line with what they've been doing now for the last how many years, right? So it's like, when the shoe fits, you know, it probably leads you to a foregone conclusion. Interesting, you brought up ministers jumping.

So Pablo Rodriguez, long-time minister, long-time liberal. is now jumping because he wants to go run for provincial politics or whatever. He was one of the ministers that was helping shovel money out the door to mainstream media. So it's amazing how all of this fits together, right? It's like links in a chain. So I don't know if this can, if this ship can be righted. But to any of my people who are still in the game of mainstream journalism who are listening to this, my former colleagues, like, guys, guys, this is way past hemorrhaging, okay? You absolutely must stop taking a nickel from the government.

Like this, that was your first problem. And it's not just, you know, the Taxpayers Federation that are sounding the alarm over this, right? Like Andrew Coyne, very mainstream journalist, okay, I disagree with him on lots of stuff, okay? He goes on the CBC, all understood. He has said consistently, this is an obvious conflict of interest. We cannot take money from the government. And cover the government. It's almost embarrassing to say that out loud because it's so obvious. It's a bribe. It's childish. Pardon me? It's a bribe. It's like, duh. I mean, it's crazy. If Chris Sims and the Taxpayers' Federation gave me a million dollars, how do you think I would talk about them? This is it. Right? This is it. So for folks who are struggling to understand this,

put the shoe on the other foot, okay? Imagine rewind it, okay? Back in the old Sun News Network days, if anybody used to watch that. I worked there for four years. Imagine Harper being Prime Minister, right? This right-wing guy. Imagine that government funding us. That would not have been okay. Like, not okay.

Journalists should not take money from the government. They should not be paid by the government. Because it is their job to hold the powerful to account. And they can't do that if they're counting on the powerful for their paychecks. This is this, you bring this close to home. This is Alberta right now. because a lot of us like Danielle Smith. I don't know how many, you know, I'm probably oozing it out.

Like, I helped. Like, I don't know if I helped. I certainly brought her on here a lot and enjoyed having her on this thing. Now she's the prime, uh, the prime minister, the premier. And there's some things going on that suck. And so you got to talk about them. And if I was being funded by them, I would assume it would be very difficult. Because if I, think about it, if my paycheck came from,

Daniel Smith or so you'd be like well I can't really say anything bad so I'm going to talk about anything but Alberta politics and yet I sit in Alberta and when you don't have that conflict of interest you get to talk about it an awful lot and life goes on because they can't pull your funding so I to me it just it makes complete sense you know we're talking about I'm going to put on your journalist hat for just two seconds because I need to understand this Chris right uh when when And Jagmeet Singh came out, we're tearing up the agreement. I was like, oh my God, I'd had Tom Korski on like a week before. And Tom had said everything shows that we're going to have an election by the end of the year.

And everyone went, what is Tom smoking? Right? Jagmeet comes out, tearing up the agreement. I'm like, oh, my God, it's happening. Oh, naive Sean. I think you found me. I'm like, here we go. All right, we're having an election.

And then the block comes out and says, well, we're going to do its best for Quebec. I'm like, oh my God, we're not getting an election. This is so painful. Walk me through how on earth we're going to get an election here for, you know, like, I'm just like, oh, no politician. By the time Sean is in the ground in hopefully 40 years, no politician is going to pull the wool over my eyes anymore. I'm going to be like, nah, pardon the French, but bullshit.

Until you actually call an election, don't tell me you're ripping up some fictional agreement. God, I'm so choking. right now, walk me through this so I can actually understand what is going on on the federal government. I don't know. Chris Sims is laughing at me right now. Chris, please enlighten me. I'm just, it's out of affection. My favorite Sean is the Sean that phones me hot after an interview with a politician where you've got them on the record and then they double cross it, right? I know. So with the drug meat thing with him tearing up the agreement, that was mostly political theater, right? As we now know. But, but I did want to, it's not,

okay, number one, we should be able to believe these people. Okay, straight up. I am not laughing at people who believe them. I am not that bloody cynical yet. When they do say things like this, it gets me excited to. And it's important from an advocacy perspective to take advantage of these cracks in the hull because to me what that signaled him tearing up the agreement and blah blah blah blah shows that at least he's getting internal pressure either from his caucus or from his constituents or from his party brass it's coming from somewhere okay so that is an indicator that all is not well in you know shezda nDP okay so that's still important as far as when an election is called of course what has to happen there is either the prime minister has to take a walk in the snow

the way the former premier prime minister pierre trudeau did and you go to the governor general which is the representative of now his majesty the king to say i can no longer govern basically dissolve parliament we'll call a general election that's how that functions so in this case with a minority parliament what has to happen is all like None of the parties can prop up the liberals now. So in order to call an election, there would have to be a vote of non-confidence coming from some opposition party. It doesn't matter which one. And all of them need to vote in favor of that motion, saying, you stink.

We're done here. We're voting non-confidence. But if any one party says, oh, no, no, no, wait, we still can get some blood out of this stone. Hey, wait, this one-arm bandit at this casino is still spitting out money. Let's stand here. right? If that happens, they can just continue. So what's happened now is for dance partners, the NDP is out for now, and the block is in. Now, this has happened previously in minority parliaments, but I haven't seen it dragging on this long before and this obviously before. My hunch,

this is, I'm terrible of predictions, I'm both 50-50. I think that after February and after March, we're going to have a federal budget. A lot of extraneous elements will have been taken care of by then in Parliament. And I think it'll be spring of 2025. Now, that said, a lot can happen. So the reason why we were excited about Jugnit Singh tearing up the agreement was that around the same time, not exactly the same time, he came out of his caucus retreat in Montreal and said, you know what, paraphrasing here, maybe it's time. to stop putting the burden of the carbon tax onto the backs of working people. That's huge. That is an enormous blank, an enormous lane change on the NDP with the carbon tax. And that is why the CTF jumped into motion and say, okay, who else is jumping on board, this NDP reversal on the carbon tax? And to see the British Columbia NDP Premier David Evey,

who had loved the carbon tax, his whole whole life, say, you know what, we're going to scrap it to. as soon as the backstop, as soon as the mandatory federal one is gone, we'll get rid of the provincial one here too. To see the NDP reversing on this means that the pressure is working, Sean. It means that normal people who listen to your show, who are emailing their MP, who are phoning them saying, scrap this stupid thing, means it's getting to them. So I do see some hope here. And in that sense, something could still happen this fall. You never know. Trudeau could say no to the block. They could get super ticked off about something. They could all pile in and say no. But as we know,

there's a, I actually don't remember the date. I think it's around February of 2025. There's a lot of members of parliament, not just Mr. Singh. There's a lot of members of parliament who will qualify for their pensions. And I believe it's February of 2025. When you do such a shitty job, I don't think any taxpayer gives a real rats anything about a pension. That's my thoughts. I know that's, it doesn't matter. I just,

I'm having a hard time understanding. Now, maybe you can walk me through this too. They've been back in parliament for how many days now? About a week and a half or so. Week and a half. Yeah. Why not day one make a motion?

Why not day two make a motion? Why not day three make a motion? Day four make a motion. Day five make a motion. and just continue to go, nope, oh look, the block is going to prop it up. And show it that message. Block's going to pop it up, Quebec. Is that what you want?

And then, and just keep pointing, it probably isn't that easy to make a motion. Maybe it is. I don't know. I'm just like, you've got to walk me through. Why do you're not doing that? Because has a motion even been made yet? Yeah. Now, again, I would say this, if it was the NDP doing it or the liberals, if they were in opposition,

this is not a party thing, not a blue team, red team thing. I don't care. But as far as I understand, the conservatives, the official opposition are doing that. They are bringing forward motions. In fact, that's actually where when we started talking about that clip that was mashed Frankenstein together. That was the motion. I believe that's what Pahliav was talking about there, was bringing forward a motion based on the garbage. I hear him talking about it a lot, but have you seen anything that suggests he's been bringing in a motion every day

and it's been getting voted down by the liberals and the block? So usually based on the way the parliament works and all the other stuff they have to do, they can't do that every day. So there are certain days that are supply days for the opposition. There are certain days that are government, no really for government legislation. No, I know. I'm rolling my eyes on this side, folks, because I'm like, you know, it's just I get it. When somebody says, you know, I go back to Julie Panasi, I talk about this, you know, every four months because I just think, man, I was so stupid. You know, I had her on.

I said, you know, Julie, how long are we going to be in this? We're talking COVID now. And I was like, you know, three months, six months. And look, does that look right there? The raise of the eyes like, strong. And I was like, she's like, I don't know, a decade. I'm like, what do you mean a decade? And here we sit with the carbon tax, right?

It's like, or the election. It's like, to me, I'm like, all right, they've ripped up the agreement, walk in, boom, day one, boom, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's throw it out. Nope, block's going to throw it out. And you're like, we're going right to the wire. Everybody keeps saying, well, maybe spraying because Jagmeat's got his pension. All these people got their pension.

But the block are going to melt this right to the end, as long as they can go. And Justin Trudeau's in no hurry. You know, it's just like, everyone in any political analyst nerd that I've talked to, and I have the utmost respect for nerds in their respective forms, says like, well, you know, the math would say, like, they should have called an election two years ago. Or you got to wait until these things happen. Or you've got to wait until it gets so bad for the liberals. They're just like, we've got to call election.

But I don't know how much worse it can get at this point. Like, I mean, certainly it can get a little worse. But, I mean, we got so many scandals running right now. It's almost like nobody cares about the next one. It's like, oh, whatever. He's going down. It's the Titanic. It's already sinking.

It's upside down. And Trudel is just having a glass of Chardonnay as it's going down. And everyone's just clapping. Oh, yeah, we'll just see you in a year. It's not that big a deal. Meanwhile, people are, like, stressed. We've gotten an affordability crisis. This carbon tax sucks.

And on and on and on and on it goes. And once again, I'm not trying to be fired up. I'm just irritated at how slow this thing moves when everybody can see the corset's on. It's like it's going right there. That's where it's going. If it makes you feel any better, this is the worst I've seen it. I don't know. Is that supposed to, I don't know, does that make this guy feel better?

Meaning, it hasn't been this bad year over year, like going decades past when other governments are clearly cooked, okay? There's other moments, you know, you know, the late, you see the end stages of a government usually gets pretty ugly because people are, you know, patting their resumes and they're jumping ship and they're signing deals that are really stinky. taxes taxpayers lots of money, but I've never seen it happen exactly like this before. And that's because we're in kind of a unique situation. I'll tell a little tale if I can. So way back in ancient history, back when Jack Layton was still with us

and he was the leader of the NDP, he actually was opposed to the carbon tax and said so repeatedly out loud with his face because he didn't think it was fair to working people and he thought it was wrong to punish people for heating their home. Imagine that. That was the NDP stance back then. The BCNDP, their election slogan that year was acts the tax. I kid you not. So imagine that time. Okay. So a little bit before that is when there is this power play within the liberals. Prime Minister Jean-Cretchen was prime minister. Okay. Things were getting a little heated over what is often referred to as ad scam or the sponsorship scandal. That's where many millions of tax. taxpayer dollars were going out the door for pretty questionable advertising that was largely

happening in the province of Quebec. There was allegations of being connected to Liberal Party insiders, blah, blah, blah. People can Google it. So, but at that time, there was an up-and-comer. There were a lot of adults in the room within the liberal cabinet. Okay. There were people like Paul Martin, who the Taxpayers Federation gave a tax fighter award to because he balanced the budget and he killed the deficit. Okay. There was also someone like John Manley, okay? super smart dude talks about economics quite a bit understands manufacturing as far as i can tell lots of adults boring adults in the room who even if i disagreed with their politics generally knew how to do things okay so when things started getting heated over ad scam or the sponsorship scandal there were

obvious other people to look to in that stable at one moment during one press conference then finance Minister Paul Martin kind of blinked when he was asked if he had full confidence in the prime minister in prime minister, Kretchen. He's like, well, and that's all that was needed. Like, press gallery jumped, everybody divided, camp split within the party. Boom, they're off to the races, okay? And he became leader and then de facto prime minister of the liberal party. Right now, I don't see those players anymore, not the specific people, obviously, but I don't see contenders for the throne within the Liberal Party who are in the

cabinet right now who could actually say, okay, Prime Minister, time's up, time to go. Like I've got my war chest built, I've got a whole bunch of people behind me, I'm going to take over the leadership, I just don't see that happening. And so this is why we have this sort of lame duck situation

of this boat just drifting on down the river. From a taxpayers perspective, this is really difficult because we're all the ones paying the tab On this yacht that is drifting down the river, rudderless, we're paying the full freight on that thing right now. And so this is why it is really urgent for people to really pay attention, email their member of parliament, tell them to scrap the carbon taxes, tell them that you want an election if you want to hold the government at that level of account. Yeah, the thing is, is the conservative side of things already knows all this, right?

Like, that's why we're all tromping at the bit out here. Like, it's time to go. Like, you know, this is, when you talk about it. about the yacht, it's like a yacht that's sinking, throwing the biggest party ever with money they don't have, and, you know, I don't know, the mafia is just waiting to take the lame duck off the, off the, at the end. They're just like, they're just like, you know, sitting there having a cigar, like, it sounds like a good movie. It does. It kind of does. But we're paying for this one, so it's kind of a nightmare. Well, talking about pain about it. I read Franco's latest

article talking about the federal debt has officially doubled. Yeah. Can we talk about that for a few minutes? I mean, my brain has a hard time with these like absolutely giant numbers. It almost puts me in a realm of like, do the numbers

even matter? Chris, explain the numbers to me and make them matter. Okay. I know. When you start really thinking about it, you can kind of become Carl Sagan. Billions and billions of galaxies. Okay. So the federal debt has officially doubled. Okay. So it is now more than $1.2 trillion something something something dollars. To give you an

idea of how humongous a trillion is, a thousand billion, if you started counting loonies right now, it would take you 30,000 years to count to one trillion. The ice age, was literally more recent. Like, you know, with the mammoths and stuff, and the glaciers, that was more recent than how long it would take you to account to a trillion. That's the trouble we're in.

Not to be depressing, but a better visualization even than that, as far as doubling goes. So think back your grade eight social studies or whenever you were taught, whatever is called Canadian history or civics nowadays, think back to all the other prime ministers and their administrations.

So I'm not going to list all of them, like, you know, Stephen Harper and Jean-Cretchen and Brian Mulroney and the first Trudeau, Defe in Baker, McKenzie King, you know, Lurier, all the way back down that railroad to Sir John A. McDonald. Okay. Picture those times in history. So world wars, you know, like serious disease, mass depression, okay, financial crashes, add up all their debts, double it. that's what this one government has done in less than 10 years. It is heroin. So this is why Frank was one of my best friends talk all the time.

I'm seeing him tomorrow, picking him in Edmonton. This is why this keeps Franco up at night. And this is why he's sounding the alarm so much. This is why the Taxpayers Federation has a debt clock with a jumbo screen trying to beg people to pay attention to this. Because this is all money we owe. all of us. You, me, are great, great

grandchildren. Like, it's all on their tab. And what's interesting is it's not this like sometime thing that we can just forget about. No, we're paying interest on the damn thing right now. What we're paying, the interest we're paying, Sean, is

exactly what we all pay in the GST every year. It's mind-blowing. Yeah. You okay? I don't know. I'm just like... I think I broke Sean.

I mean, it's hard to like put it in contact, right? You're just like, man, okay. The question I guess I got is actually more maybe of a philosophical one. Is you've been in the world of news for quite some time. Have people ever cared about the debt of a government? Do they even like, you know, you're like, you're running around with a debt clock. Chris, trying to get people to pay attention to this. I'm like, they're not going to pay attention to this.

I don't know what's going to make them pay attention, right? Like, eventually, our money shall be worth and nada. Nothing. And you look at this and you go, well, was there ever a time we're talking about the finances of a government where people were like, oh, that sounds interesting. Because, you know, like, I get when you're like, oh, it's kind of boring stuff. I'm like, yeah, but the boring stuff really matters. It really, really, really matters.

You roll into any place that you're going to right now, you know, and you go, why doesn't $20 get you anything anymore? Well, there's a whole bunch of reasons, folks, and this is just another one of the reasons and a long list of crap that, I don't know, maybe it isn't just Trudeau, right? Maybe there's a couple other bad ones in there. But in less than 10 years, he's doubled the debt. That seems pretty, I don't know, damning. had people in Canada, specifically Canada,

cared about the debt before, or has this always been the case? Nobody, oh, yeah, it's $1.2 trillion. Oh, yeah, Papa Ballas, champagne, who cares? It doesn't matter anyways. Yes, the short answer is yes, and I hope I'm bringing some hope with it by telling this story.

So remember that Paul Martin guy I was talking about? So the reason why we gave him, I think it was the tax fighter or tax slayer, we had a neat term for it, the tax fighter award is because under the late stages of the former late Prime Minister Brian Mulroney stages, they were way into deficit if things were going crazy pants. And then John Kretchen became Prime Minister. And there was all sorts of stuff he can go back and forth where he was saying, you know, he isn't going to have NAFTA and then they went into NAFTA. Sure, that's all different parts

of the history books. But one of the elements was they were dealing with a lot of deficit, which is, of course, the annual debt. Okay. The annual debt from a budget all adds up to the national debt, the federal debt. But those annual deficits, those annual debts that we were racking up was costing us big time. Okay. It was costing us several million dollars per year in interest. Things were racking up. Back then, our debt clock was a converted horse trailer that we pulled around with an F-150. It had digital numbers plugged into the back of it like a clock radio. Okay. And then Paul Martin was finance minister. And back then, there was a distinguished gentleman who was leader of the opposition in the Reform Party named Preston Manning.

Preston Manning comes from a long line of what I would describe as fiscal conservatives. They're very clear about pinching their pennies or pinching their nickels, as his dad was. And he used to stand there, very dignified during question period. Mr. Speaker, when is this government going to be? to slay this deficit, and he had his big stack of books. To Paul Martin's credit, liberal government, Paul Martin's credit, they did. It caused a lot of pain. They had to reduce funding for health care and restructure a whole bunch of stuff, but they killed the deficit, meaning they started balancing the books and surpluses started rolling in. So I believe then the debt clock would have started going

in reverse, okay? Wouldn't that be something? Right. And a little hope? Right? Look at her dad. It's going down. So this is right around the same time. The CTS, so Taxpayers Federation, we started back in 1990. This is all around the same time as a reform party movement, people getting freaked out about the deficit, too high a taxes, government overspending, all that stuff. What I'm saying is, what is it?

The quote, there's nothing new under the sun. This is happening again. So hopefully Pierre Pollyov is saying he's going to take this very serious. Seriously, he says he does think about fiscal policy and monetary policy. So this is why we are urging them through our supporters, make sure you balance the budget. Yes, we know you have a lot to do. You have to scrap the gun grab, you have to defund the CBC, you've got to scrap the carbon tax, but make sure you guys are balancing this budget because it is way out of hand.

And if it's any hope, that's the school that he's from. So he knows Preston Manning very well. He's still with us. I assume they talk. That crowd, I would describe them as the Calgary School. They're all still talking about this stuff, about fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. It may not sound sexy to have a balanced budget, but when you look at that debt clock and the thing is doubled now because of these deficits year over year, it gets pretty darn important, pretty fast. I don't know if the carbon tax was ever sexy.

it certainly gets billed as like life or earth saving but I think most of us know the shiny object if that's if we could ever call it that Chris I don't know if that's anyways gets built in a certain way yeah isn't what it is right so no I mean no the shine has come off that thing yeah and this is a great thing so can I can I babble about the carbon tax for just a second so again I need to stress with people if you are feeling like nothing's working email your MP, especially if they're an NDP member of parliament, same thing goes for your provincial levels, your MLAs.

Okay, because now, especially because you've got an election happening in British Columbia, now is the time. They are really listening to you because they're scared for their jobs. Funny how that works. Tell them that you want nothing to do with this carbon tax. Scrap the carbon taxes. There's this one guy here. I have a picture

of him. Nahed Nenchi, he's the Alberta NDP leader. He's the one prominent NDP leader who has not yet spoken up on the carbon tax definitively. Every time a journalist tries to nail that guy down, yes or no, should we have a provincial carbon tax in Alberta, he goes poof into a cloud of orange smoke. He disappears.

Somehow I don't think I'm going to have any heat an entry sitting in the studio anytime soon. I could be wrong. Hey, we'll throw that out to the universe, maybe. But Notley never got back to any of my inquiries. So chances are I'm going to assume maybe I'm wrong. folks, but I don't think Naheed is coming in anytime soon. You know what? Keep trying. Just keep trying. I've gotten some surprise interviews, just because I've kept trying and then getting them in studio and getting them on the record

and maybe making a connection with them. They are humans and you can bring them around to certain lines of thinking and they'll listen. They may not act like they're listening, but they'll listen. Like I said, Jack Layton, the late leader of the NDP, he was the OG, as the kids say, against the carbon tax. So back then he was opposed to it. And back then the BC NDP was opposed to it. And back then, I can't imagine the Alberta NDP in whatever situation it was, form it was,

wouldn't have even thought about a provincial carbon tax back then. So things can and do change. The BCNDP used to call the provincial carbon tax lipstick on a pig. So it's really important for everybody to keep pushing. And what's interesting is now, I think a lot of average working people, even those who aren't constantly watching podcasts or big political nerds, I think the average working person agrees with you, Sean, that the shine, whatever it had on the carbon tax is gone. And I think that's because they realize two things.

One, the carbon tax is an enormous drain on their wallet. Huge financial burden. Like big time. Every time you fill up a minivan, it's an extra $13. bucks. Every time you fill up a pickup truck, it's about 20 bucks extra. Here in Alberta, like heating your home with natural gas is going to cost you more than $400 extra, just into carbon tax. You get into truckers, they just had that report that came out, $2 billion with a B. It is costing our Canadian trucking companies. And the question is, where does that cost go, folks?

into government coffers. It goes straight into the federal government. Yeah, but if you're a trucking company and you're going to have to charge extra... Oh, I see the cost. It cascades down. Eventually, we pick up the tab. It's all I'm getting at, right? It bleeds through different things.

All of a sudden, you know, the fertilizer to put in the field and farming, the costs go up. Everything's going up. And people need to find a way to make a living. And you're starting to see things increase all over the place. What the heck is going on? Why is it so expensive? Just start to question why. And you might get down to some very simple answers, to be honest. It's always good to get back to origins, right? And in our modern world, okay, look around you, whatever room you happen to be in, or if you're walking the dog, look at all the houses and what they were constructed out of and stuff, okay? The origin of most of that stuff can be tied back to production. How do we produce things with energy? Okay. How do we deliver things again with energy? If you are taxing the foundations of energy, like natural gas that run our power plants, for example, here in Alberta, home or barn heating,

okay, because farmers have to pay carbon tax to keep their chickens alive. Not kidding. It's so gross. Okay. Trucking. Everything around you was at one point on a trucker six. Okay. Add all that up into a terrible layer cake. Now you understand why everything's so bloody expensive. The carbon tax isn't the only reason printing $400 or $300 billion out of thin air while locking down our economy and our production. That added to it too. So that caused inflation. So you combine the two-headed monster of inflation plus carbon taxes on literally everything.

Then you're going to run into these problems. And I got to stress, like for the shine part, I think some people for a while there had this idea that, oh well, this is helping to reduce emissions and meet our targets and do the right thing. Unfortunately, no. No. Number one, even if we all stopped everything, went to a cave. It wouldn't make a dent in global emissions, because Canada is responsible for about 1.2 to 1.5% of global emissions. Okay? Done. Set that aside. British Columbia has had carbon taxes since 2008. Back then, BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, thought they were coolest things.

Okay? We've had them since 2008 in B.C. Guess what? They missed their targets all the time. All the time. They were supposed to reduce emissions by more than 30 percent between 2007 and 2019, 2020. They actually went up about 2%. So just like, you could drive a tank.

through the hole, right, of how much they miss that target by. So it is not reducing emissions. All it's doing is punishing people. And then our federal government couldn't show how they were helping anything anyways with the money. Yeah. Just to tack on like you're putting money into a giant side pot and you're getting rebates, which if you're giving people money and then they're sending it back to you,

you're not getting it all back, folks. We all know that or we should. And honestly, at this point, I'm like, it was a failed experiment. It was a failed experiment day one, but here we are years later, still talking about it, and it can't die fast enough. It just needs to go tomorrow.

And what gives me a bit of hope is I truly do think when Pierre is elected, assuming he gets elected, the carbon tax is going. I think that's the number one thing he's going to do. After that, I'm like, I don't know, I've been fooled by so many politicians now where I get irate and you have been the brunt of some of that on the phone folks

where I'm just like, you know, I'm tired of being told one thing and getting my expectations up of real high and then it doesn't come or it takes time. It takes, you know, there's a lot of, it takes time, it takes time to get things through. Oh, yeah, time. Okay. You should see them vote for pay raises. It's amazing. It's real fast, isn't it?

It looks like, you know, when Han Solo first finally, you know, got light speed to work in the Falcon. All of a sudden, all the lights come on. But on the rebate thing, if I can, okay, number one, it devised common sense. Anybody with the scrap of common sense knows you can't hand the government a $20 bill and get back a 50 at no cost to you. Okay, they do not have an orchard full of money trees on Parliament Hill.

They are not a wealth generating machine. Okay, that is not how this works. They are a money printing machine. They are a money printing machine. Definitely not a wealth printing machine. Exactly, but that money doesn't hold value anymore because they're printing so much of it, right? So that understood. So people know that that defies common sense, but a lot of people may not realize, and I hate pointing this out because it's so depressing, that we pay GST on top of carbon taxes.

So at the pump, and I think on all your heat bills, most heat bills, I know this is so bad. He's like wincing for anybody who's not watching, poor Sean. And it's big time. It's like hundreds of millions of dollars per year, Sean. Because the way the government tax GST onto the end of, say, when you're filling up at the pump, it happens after the carbon tax. So that's a tax on tax. There's no rebates for that. So that is just money out of your pocket.

So this is a major issue. In fact, what's, I'm trying to find it. And I can't find the wording of it. I will send it to you where I'll exit. it. That's what we're calling tweets now. So the federal government pulls in close to $13 billion with a B this year in the carbon tax. And to find it in the budget as a line item, I had to be really creative. And I forget what they called the carbon tax. In every other jurisdiction, every province, if they've got a provincial carbon tax, it says carbon tax revenue or carbon

levy revenue. It's pretty clear. And there's a little line item. In the Trudeau budget, it was something like climate change payments to be reimbursed to Canadians. I'm not kidding. It was something very like that. Like Orwell is rolling in his grave. That is some stellar newspeak going on there. But yeah, about close to 13 billion with a B, just this year.

Do you ever think we'll just get to have a conversation in 10 years, whatever it is, where we're just like, man, Things are great. Things are just fantastic. You know, I just, I can't believe what these governments are doing. They're just putting everything back together. It's just amazing. Do you think that'll happen? You've been in this a lot longer than me. I hope so. I'd rather this not be us sitting in across the prison cafeteria from each other, chatting about what misinformation either of us were convicted of putting out. I laugh because I'll cry. That's a dark joke. But in that dark joke, I'm telling you, folks, I'm going to become a smoker. I'm going to say, that screw it. I'm just going to say, screw it. I'm just going to say, sit across from Chris. I'm just going, how's your day going? I don't know. I got a pack of smoke. I guess I'm doing okay, Chris. You know, I'm going to have this old raspy voice. Nobody ever would be like, why are you smoking? I'm like, the world's gone to hell in a hand

basket. I'm sitting in caged in this. It's a great group of people in here, but we're in cage, you know? That's always my joke. I'll be, I'll be your camp, friend. But the reason when I'm referencing that, of course, is online censorship. So that's the two-headed monster. Again, sorry, these things come in twos and threes. Yes. It's the online censorship issue where they're paying media, mainstream media with one side. And then at the same time, they're trying to crack down on online information sharing. So the government itself is trying to say that, you know, we're going to decide what is misinformation or disinformation. I don't like those terms at all.

And they're also trying to put through Bill C63. Now, a friend of mine, Christine Van Gein, she's a constitutional lawyer, super smart lady. she runs the Canadian or she works with the Canadian Constitution Foundation. That was the group that got the federal court to say that the Emergencies Act was wrong. So that was a huge victory for that group. She does deep dives on this on what kind of an effect Bill C63 could have for free expression. You brought her up multiple times and I feel like we've talked about, I'm having like deja vu because I've reached out to Christine and I'm like, where the heck did that ever go?

Now I'm going to have to go look again. Do, do. Because she's a great interview. She has her own show and stuff. And the reason why I'm bringing it up is because she's better at explaining this than me. And the reason why the taxpayers federation are fighting this or fighting online censorship is because, well, obviously, you and me having this conversation, Sean, is hopefully educating people and rallying the troops and getting them to push their government to change.

And if we can't talk, if I'm labeled misinformation and you're not allowed to talk to me anymore because I call it a carbon tax instead of a climate change rebate levy, like then information dies and we won't be able to get people actually pushing back and holding their government and I guess where I sit on that I'm a little more hopeful even if they go to the extreme of like

you know Chris Sims and Sean Newman cannot talk that double speak we don't like it I just feel like there will be an underground and the underground will be where you go to find all the best stuff and certainly me and Chris will be somewhere in there because I feel like at this point, you know,

my worry with 63 and other things is like, well, I'll just be removed off of everything, right? And then you got to go, well, where do you go? Well, you can't,

I've had too many conversations, Chris, with too many brilliant people where it's like, well, they can't remove you off everything. They'll make you so hard to find, you'll be hard to find.

But, I mean, during COVID, literally, I spent zero, dollars on advertising. And if you had the right guest on, the people do the work. That's what mainstream has forgotten. If you

put out something brilliant, the people do the work for you. They literally are like, holy crap, you've got to listen to this. It still happens now. Joe Rogan puts out a great interview. Tucker Carlson puts out a great interview. Sean Ryan puts out a great interview. I get that sent to me. Chris Sims does a great debate.

I get that sent to me so many times because people do the work. And unless they're going to shut down every phone, from sharing any link. I just, you know, like, I don't know. I, I, it'll get worse for certain if 63 comes in and other things like that. But I have hope that we haven't all lost our complete undermines. It's just a government thing, but I don't know where that goes.

When I look at that, I go, those are some dark years, probably decades ahead, if all that goes through. That gives me hope. It does. It does. It gives me hope. And also, if Pierre Paulyev wins, he has. promise to scrap all this censorship industrial complex crap. So once again, I'll wait to see it. Oh, again, that's, hey, that's my job is to chew on these politicians' legs until they keep their promises.

It's right there. Well, I'm coming, for the listener, I'm coming through the Chris Sims School of Thought, right? I get to, you know, like it when you're like the OGs, I'm like, I know Chris isn't that old and I don't mean to frame it that way. I just mean you've been in it for longer than I have. Another one's Tom Corsky. I was supposed to have Tom Korski on this week, and he's down and out. So best wishes to him, hopefully he's back up on his feet soon.

Canada needs him. And when I listen to you guys talk and there's a whole group of you, I'm like, yeah, one day maybe I'll be there. And it's fun to have these different minds come on because when you've been around it longer, I just don't think you get the wool pulled over your eyes near as fast. I come back to sing ripping it up and I'm like, holy crap, here we go. And here I sit, and now I'm real pissed. Like I'm just irritated. And I'm like, okay, time to go.

I'm going to the UCPA-GM. I'm going to listen to what the membership votes on. Like, this is what we want. And then I assume the next day or that afternoon, I don't know, folks, I'll be better at this in about a month's time when I've been there. Then I'll know, okay, voted with this amount of whatever. Okay. And then from that point on, I was just saying to the Dean Walwood.

I'm just going to be like, okay. So here's your mandate. where are we at it when the mandate? Oh, you want to talk about the others? No, I want to talk about the mandate. I want to see where you're at because I'm tired of playing this little game of 3D chess, 4D chess when it's pretty simple to me.

Here's the mandate, and I'm going to chew on someone's leg as Chris Sims has coined, and we're going to see where that gets us to because I'm real annoyed right now when they say one thing, oh, that sounds great. And then like a year later, you're like, where did that ever go?

anything happened with that? Nothing happened with that? Great. Great. Nothing happened with it. Now I'm back to square one. And Sean's getting real irritated. And I feel like when I talk to you and Tom and a whole bunch of others, Holly's another great one. Sheila Gunnree has been on recently.

You know, I think of Trish Wood. All these different folks who've come through this system. I'm like, oh, I got so much to learn. So much to learn. Isn't it a fun journey? You know, that's journalism. you're committing journalism, Sean. I'm committing journalism.

You're committing journalism. This is, so people, this is, when I, when I saw this nonsense happen last night that we're talking about off the top here with, you know, alleged splicing of a clip. Like, I didn't think I could be, I'm pretty cynical. I didn't think I could be upset by something anymore. I was upset. Because, um, what you're onto there of getting the powerful butts and chairs sitting across from you, on the record, looking you in the eye, saying stuff with their face, giving you their mandate,

giving you their shopping list of what they're going to do, you being able to hit them with the W-5s, who, what, where I went, like, that's journalism. That is holding the powerful to account on behalf of your listeners. Because not everybody has a platform, not everybody has a microphone, not everybody has the ability to get a premier or a prime minister or whoever it is sitting across from you, answering your questions. And that, that is the spark of journalism, accountability journalism. One of the things I'm going to try and do, Chris, so I'm going to try and get Pierre Pollyev on before he's elected. Oh, give her. Yeah. That's what, I'm like, I need to do that because for me, I want to have him sit across, I mean, whether or not he sits

actually across from me. I'm like, uh, I'm starting, you know, I just told, I just told the leader of the Sask United, I believe I'm having, Think about this, folks. I believe I'm going to get the leader of the Liberal Party from Saskatchewan on. Let's see how that goes. Because I'm like, okay, let's hedge our bets here. Let's have all the leaders on. One of them's getting elected.

And one of them's going to have said things to me that they're going to have to. Oh, well, I can't do that. And give me some time here. I think I'm doing this at a light speed. But at times I feel like I'm kind of slow on the uptick. but we're learning some things on this side, and I'm tired of politicians sitting from me and saying certain things

and then going and doing something, or not just not doing anything with it. And a year later, it's like, well, I mean, it takes time. Or they don't give you a specific date. That is the one that drives me the nuts. Drives me nuts the most. Oh, yeah, soon. Or next year.

It takes time. We got lawyers working on it. We're looking into it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's like Sean saying when the Cornerstone Forum is right now, and I keep going, it's coming.

It's coming, folks. Soonish. Soonish. I think it's next year. We'll see. It's like when your kids ask you if you can do something, you don't want to commit to it to be a liar. You're like, we'll see.

No, I said we'll see. I said we'll see. Isn't that the truth? Parents, we do this all the time. It's like, can we do this day? We'll see. Well, we got lots of things on the go. You got these like so things.

And kids are sticklers. I'm turning into a kid who wants something. Oh, man. You got to keep your receipts, man. And this is part of it. it. So I'm really glad. I hope you get that liberal leader on. And I imagine you probably will have a conversation with Mr. Pollyov sooner rather than later. Well, we're going to work on it anyways. Chris, thanks for coming on and enlighting me as always. Someday, someday, someday, because everybody loves

when you come on. I love when you come on. Someday you're going to have a message of just hope, wow, this is great. We just accomplished X. I really hope for that. Because if you go back through the amount of times you've been on here, and the amount of times you take a large, you're a large, swath of information, compress it down from my little pea brain, and I sit there and go, oh, God, all right. One of these days it's going to switch, and you're going to have like, wow, well, they just reduce the deficit. This is, this is something.

Or you're going to have something. Where's the, you mentioned Franco's coming. Is there anything for people to go see with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation? Are you guys touring or anything like that? Well, I don't know when your show is coming out. Tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow. Okay, great.

Well, there is, I think you have to buy tickets for it. I'm not sure if it's still available. But there's Ted Morton, okay, very famous Albertan, one of the signatories to the so-called firewall letter, okay, which basically was defending the rights of Alberta, okay, against the power of Ottawa for folks who don't know. He's very prominent gentleman within Alberta circles. He has a new book out.

I believe it's even called Strong and Free. And so he is coming to Calgary for his book launch on Thursday. So if you go through Facebook or social media channels, if you just search Ted Morton book, it should have the event there where you can go buy tickets. Sweet. Yeah. It's going to be awesome. And Franco and I are going to do a totally dorky video explaining to people why you should

sign petitions, especially with the Taxpayers Federation. We don't think that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sitting up in bed reading through our petition scroll going, oh, my goodness. Martha Bradley in Red Deer doesn't want me to do this anymore. I'm going to have a change of heart. No, no, no. We know that. What you're doing is you're joining an army.

Okay? So the next time is time for a mass email, mass push, mass pressure, like we're seeing with the carbon tax, that means you're on the list. You're part of the Standing Army. So we're going to do an explainer video. There's going to be T-shirt changes. If I may say, it'll be great. If I may say about the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the emails that I get sent to me,

sometimes I don't open them because I don't want to see any more stupidity from the government. But when I do, and I do 90% of the time, Chris, some days I'm just not in the mood to hear how I'm getting screwed over. It's probably a five-minute read. They're so easy to the point. And between you and Franco, you both have a wonderful way of outlining exactly what's going on. So I don't advocate too much for newsletters and everything else because I can't stand anything more than

getting 20 emails in a seven-day period from somebody. It's like, really? Like, do you have that much to tell me? Probably not. But with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, when I see the emails coming, I've been usually pleasantly surprised in a, you know, in a dark way, right?

Because usually you're not saying, hey, this is great. You have at times. It's very few and far between. Usually it's Trudeau, the recent one, Trudeau's doubled the debt. You know, it's like, oh, okay, that hurts. One of these days, I hope, very soon,

we're going to be able to tell you things like the carbon tax is scrapped. We're defunded the CBC. We've scrapped the gun grab, all that wonderful stuff. I really hope that that happens. And all your note, don't feel bad about wanting stuff in short sentences and keeping it brief. Right. Prime Minister, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, okay, won the Second World War. telling his staff, pray, give me on half a sheet of paper. Half a sheet. If you went more than one sheet,

he wouldn't read it. So you've got to keep things really straight and super smart, dude. Sweet. Cool. Well, that's all I got for you. I'll leave you B. Thank you for coming and doing this, Chris, as always. Great seeing you. Thanks so much, Sean.