Shaun Newman Podcast - #762 - Shane Getson & Jennifer Johnson

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Shane Getson is a Canadian politician who serves as MLA for Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland in Alberta. He holds roles both as Chief Government Whip and Parliamentary Secretary for Economic Corridor Development. Jennifer Johnson is a Canadian politician and MLA for Lacombe-Ponoka in Alberta. She spent 17 months as an independent after being expelled from the UCP because of comments she made about transgender kids in school. In October 2024 she was brought back into the UCP caucus. We discuss Jennifer’s journey back into the UCP and the passing of Bill’s 26,27 & 29 that effectively protect healthcare, education and women’s sports from gender ideology. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ 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]

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subscribe. Make sure to leave a review. If you're watching on X, yes, you, make sure to give it a retweet so that we can break through some of the echo chambers and get it out to more viewers. All right. Let's get on to that tale of the tape. Both are members of the United Conservative Party here in Alberta. First is an MLA for Lax St. Anne Parkland, the second in an MLA for Lacombe, Pinocca.

I'm talking about Shane Getson and Jennifer Johnson. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Jennifer Johnson and Shane Getson. So, folks, thanks for hopping in. Thanks for having us, Sean. It's great to be here.

Well, you're the newbie. You know, like I mean, like the audience has come to know Shane for the many times. He's been in the studio going back to 2021. Yeah. I think it was 20, it's been a couple of years now, I guess, bouncing back and forth. Yeah, I guess it has been. It's almost 2020, 2020.

It's going on three years. Yes. Well, it's 2024. It's end of 2024. Coming up 25, that's crazy. Yeah. So, Jennifer, you got to give, uh, to the audience. You got to give them a little bit of backstory.

A little bit of who you are, why you got into politics. And, uh, and then we'll jump off on. So is the short form or long form, which, which story am I giving long or quick? Well, it's a podcast. It's a podcast. It's a podcast. It's a podcast. It's a podcast.

Take as much time as we need. Correct. Well, I'm a born and bred farm girl in Alberta. I grew up actually in a little town called Carbon. And not many people have heard of that little place. It's close to Drumhiller. Carbon is in the periodic table. Okay.

It's a cold town. And that's why it was named Carbon. It was a town about 450 people when I was growing up. It's a great place to be from. And I went eventually into nursing school, got my bachelor science in nursing, became a nurse. And I was, I thought I was heading somewhere. warm but then my husband came around he smiled and I was done so I figured he'd have to keep me warm at night instead of this it was this he's got a pretty good smile and a lot more so uh stuck

around went into nursing and for a little bit well he's got a pretty good smile and a lot more I mean he's blushing somewhere because that's probably that every husband would like that set up on the window so much more to it though you know what his name is Dwayne Johnson for real I'm married up That's what I always say. I'm married up. And he truly is. That's got to be an interesting, like, I mean, you know, Paul Newman being on the front of salad dressing things,

I've been asked about that all my life, you know, you're related to Paul Newman, et cetera. But having the same name as Duane, well, I mean, having the name Dwayne Johnson, he probably gets some funny jokes said, I'm assuming. Oh, all the time. And we have received phone calls from even New York City looking for Dwayne Johnson.

And I said, I know who you're looking for. and believe me, he's not here. So it's, you never tried playing into it? I haven't. Not on that one. Yeah, sure. Who am I speaking with, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Probably, I have three boys. They probably would have, and they would have taken a little bit farther and had some fun with it, but I didn't. Fair enough. Apologies. Dwayne, Dwayne Johnson. Anyways, shout out to the rock. Yeah, that's right.

Shout out to the rock, to my rock. So we had four kids, and I had decided. contrary to what I thought I would ever do when I said I will never homeschool my kids and thought it should be against the law, I actually did a 180 and decided that that was the route for us to take and ended up homeschooling all four of them. And I would say from birth all the way through.

So that was, I was very convicted about it or very passionate about it, that this was the right choice for us for lots of reasons and we can go into them later if you want to. But it was a tough job and one that I wanted to see protected. And so I think part of that is getting to know your elected officials, your county councilor, your MLA and your MP. And we did that. And in a way that was encouraging and walking alongside them, what can we do to make your job easier?

How can we help you? What's important to you? What's going on in your life? And how can we walk alongside you the very best way? What year did you do all this? Like, how long ago are we talking? Well, our first son was born 98. So that's when I started homeschooling.

Was Ray was way back then? Yeah. Yeah. And so. What was it about homeschooling? I find that interesting because, you know, like a full 180 on homeschooling. What was it that you thought you knew that you didn't know? I was coming home from a late night shift one time.

This is, it happened in 10 seconds and this is the truth. I was listening to the news or a radio show, I guess, on the way home. And it was on the benefits of. homeschooling. And I didn't realize that when I turned the radio on, that this program was on. And I was somewhere in the road where I could not turn the radio off. I had to have both hands on the wheel. And so I heard in that 10 second clip, here's all the great reasons that you can homeschool. And they went through the list. They're more likely to vote. They're more likely to finish school, to go on to secondary school, to get their masters, to get their PhD, to have intact families.

they make more money per capita. It just went on and on. And I just thought, that's exactly what I want for my kids someday. I want to be a mom someday. I was single at the time. And I thought, whoever would have thought, I'm a homeschooling mom and I never knew it. So I thought, I'm going to have to find a guy who is okay with this. And I did.

And he works long hours every day. And he said to me right up front, you know, even when we were dating, we're starting to talk about marriage. And he said, Jen, I totally support you. but you've got to know right up front. This is going to be 100% you, not me, because I just don't have the time for it. And that's how it was. He was always supportive.

Did I catch in there in that story? If you would have had the ability to turn the radio, you would have? Yeah, for sure. I was against it. Right. I mean, triggered by the word homeschooling, I'm going to train it, but nope, I'm in a snowstorm.

I'm not getting into. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And it really changed the trajectory of my life. And so to go back to the officials, then we started walking, alongside them and then our county counselor had kind of come to me. He was not a lot older than me, probably now at the time and said, you know, would you ever think about running for politics?

And I said, well, not really. I don't think that's my thing at all. And then I just kept getting involved in one step leads to another and got to be friends with Jason Nixon. And I was blame him for this because he came to me. It would have been probably 2018-ish when, and the UCP was just forming. They had their interim joint board, and they were looking for their permanent board of directors. And they needed two from every region of the province. They had one, because it was going to be done at the AGM elected, essentially.

And he said, you know, he called me up. We've got one person that's put their name forward, and she's a friend of mine. And he said, but we need another one. We're sitting here with J.K., with Jason Kenney, and we're tossing names wrong. We want you to put your name forward. I thought, oh, man, I don't know if I want to do this. was sitting on probably four different boards at the time. My kids were getting older by then. I

probably only had two left in school and thought, you know, I'd have to get off of these other boards because if I want to do something, I'm going to do it well. So I phoned my husband really quick and he said, yeah, do it, Jen. So got off these other boards and went for it. And I think the rest is history was on the board for four years. And I'm really grateful for that experience to be on that board. It's really good training. Well, when you say it's really good training, what did it, I don't know, enlighten you to. Well, I was on the policy and governance committee for the entire time. And so to be able to look inside how policy is developed and how governance is developed is

developed is really critical, especially if you're coming into a government that is producing legislation that changes the landscape of your province or your country, that's really, really important. And how to work as a team? How do you get things done? I think that's really important. And I love that for, I'm on the best team. in the country, best team on the continent, I think. The UCP in Alberta is extraordinary. It

truly is. They're great people. They're so talented. They're so smart. They're so skilled. I could go on and on about them. And so being a part of a team is really important. And you don't always agree. And to be able to work forward towards an end goal is the end goal for that, for sure. Yeah. And the process is interesting. So I get to sit in the role I'm in right now as, as non-elect or non-voting director on the on the provincial board. And when Jen's talking about the policies, like if someone's ever being at an AGM, by the time it gets distilled down to that point, there's probably 6,000 policy submissions up to that point.

So for Jen being on policy and working with the likes probably a race drama and those type of folks out there, this stuff is like everybody dreams it up from each one of those boards that's submitted, it gets ground down and by the time it gets to us as elected officials for ideas, it's been through the ringer. Yeah. And as a regional director, which was my title on the board, I was working with, I think, 13 different CAs or constituency associations in central Alberta, you know, as far south as Innesvale, Silver Lake, and as far north as wrapping around Edmonton to the east and to the west.

So working with those boards all the time, you get a lot of experience dealing with people and dealing with those policies and different personalities. And actually, that was really, really fun. people. I probably couldn't tell that, but I really like people. I love people. And to be able to meet some really interesting friends along the way is a great reward and it was very rewarding position to be in. Well, I met you for the first time at the injection of truth. And if you didn't notice then, I was, when I get hosting any event, my brain is not exactly functioning well on meeting people and everything. And so, you know, you fast forward to when, when, you're going to, when

you made worldwide news, right? And I remember thinking, man, is that the, like I can't remember, right? Until we bumped into each other again at the UCP AGM. Yeah. But I thought, you know, before we can get to like the big news of, you know, I got it sitting on the screen, Bill's 26, 27, and 29, if everybody serves, correct. Because I really want to get into that. I mean, to skip over the controversy getting out of the UCP or getting removed from the

UCP getting back in the UCP. There's a whole chunk of story there. I don't know how deep we can go into it. But well, honestly, you know, and the other elephant in the room is why in the hell am I here? So I'm sure that twos and a number of guys would be asking that. What I kind of looked at when Jen was talking about Sean Nome. So we always have to do this, right?

There's whoever's reaching out for media and the role that I'm in, we always kind to test that to make sure that we're good. And obviously this is a good friendly environment. The interaction we've had over the years has been great. We've talked about that. But because of who Jen is and what happened and some of those nuances, there's things that she could talk about. There's other things that she can't and there's a lot of things that I can. So that way, what I wanted to do here, rightly or wrongly, was to have an open conversation.

You ask if she can't answer, at least I can answer from what happened the other side. And then that'll get us up to the point where I think we're probably heading here. Sean is on that legislation, what we've managed to pull off here in the province. So with that, again, open to you and all the things. Everyone else will ask the questions you need to and we'll navigate through that as needed. Put all the pressure on this side down. You know, I see what you're doing. No, having Shane in the room is, well, we go back, we were saying, before we started,

2021 is when you first came on. And, you know, you think, oh, that's yesterday, but I mean, that's three years ago now. You've been on, you've been on, I don't know, awful lot in the podcasting world. It isn't actually like every week, like twos. It's, you know, sporadically, but you have been on through some of the major events. that Alberta has seen. And so I go back to the comments on, that got you all in the hot water,

which I didn't think were, I understood what you're meaning. It was the poop in the cookies comment, right? And so you fast forward to the video, though, because that, to me, I'll read Solgenitin, because I like this, maybe this can frame it the right way, okay? So Solgenitin wrote an essay called

Live Not by Lies. and he said, And part of it, and therein we find neglected by us the simplest, most accessible key to our liberation, a personal non-participation in lies. Even if all is covered by lies,

even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way, let their rule not hold through me. And I watched the video of you just say, I just can't agree to, you know, trans women and are women. Or I think that's how it was said, trans women are we not,

agree to it. And I'm like, by going through everything and that video exploding, because it did, I called Shane, I'm like, it J.K. Rowling just tweeted this. Right? Like this is, and it was the simplest thing. And I think back to soldier innocent, just live not by lies. Right. Right?

Like, I can say a lot of things that politicians probably can't. I can see you both looking at me. Not in your eyes. This is interesting. But, you know, for me, you know, we've all been watching Jordan Peterson, another fellow while Burton go to war with his college and everything else. And Jordanin is a sharp as attack person. But what you did in like two sentences, literally, you know, it gets to the bills and everything.

We can get to that. But like was lived not by life. I guess Soljinnitsyn, I've read him in the middle of COVID. And then I read his essay afterwards because it's not that long. People should go read it. It's very interesting. I'm talking over the experience. I guess I'm curious, you know, because I wanted you to come on to talk.

about that. I was like, what is happening here? Maybe your perspective on it. My side is, you know, like you did what most couldn't do and that was just say, yeah, I can't agree to that. That's basically all you said and then the world exploded. Well, interesting. I actually didn't say that. I actually just asked a question back and it was shut down, but we can come back to that. Oh, no, no, forgive me. Put it the right way. Yeah. Yeah. I know people think, And they think that I said that too. Oh, what you said was I've never been asked that before. Can we disagree and still respect each other?

And my kids, I raise them with logic and how to think. And I hate to use the word critically because I feel like that word is being twisted today. But I did. I teach them, you know, according to their true definition of critically, I teach them or taught them to think critically. And so I think one of our keys to think and critically, questions. What are the parameters of our conversation? And so when that came up, and actually, if we can go back, the whole context of that viral video was 34 minutes long, minus eight seconds.

And so there's a lot more to that conversation. And I've got, I've got the entire transcript of it. We still got the audio for it. So we've got the evidence for it. I didn't say much in that entire 34 minutes because it started out and they would ask questions and I would kind of go to talk and they kept talking or I'd go to answer and they would keep talking and then I did that again and I just thought oh this isn't about a question and answer period this is about me being scolded so I just sat back and and let it happen and then when when I was finally asked am I a real woman I did sit there and pause but the pause was because I was I thought she was going to keep on talking it didn't happen it's like okay now I'm going to have to answer and

you know my my kids was say my inner Frank Turrick. I don't know if you follow him. My inner Frank Turrick came out. And it's where you ask your questions, right? So I thought, well, let's let, we need to define the parameters of this first. Are we allowed to disagree and still have that respect? And so when I threw that out there, it was, it was put down immediately. No, we're not allowed to respect each other. You must agree. So that's, that was the context of what happened. And that was it. And then it was over. Yeah, but that's where it begins, right?

Like, I mean, you think about it. I've been doing this show for five years. I've been having the Linda Blades, you know, the April Hutchinson's, all these different people on. You watch Riley Gaines and what she's been through and on and on and on. That little clip, think about it. Like completely, you know, we can all agree that, oh, the world was probably heading in a certain direction. but it sped it up into lightning pace, right? And they just, boof.

Like immediately, people saw what they wanted you to agree to. And I guess I can't applaud you enough is what I'm trying to get across. Don't know if I'm doing that well, folks. Because we witnessed it. It was like, you know, it's just right there evident. And to be in our backyard in Alberta, again, you know, is, well, my hat's off to you. Right. My hat's off to the UCP for, I'm going to say, finally bringing you.

her back into the fold, but for making the right choice to bring her back in the fold. Because there probably would have been an opportunity there to be like, oh, it's a little hot. We're just going to back away from this one all over again. I don't know, Shane. Maybe I'm wrong on that. Well, yeah, no, that public perception is, is part of this too. I mean, we've had that conversation before, right?

So politics tends to be a lagger and a leader at the same time, depending on where perception is. That's, you pick us in the polls of who's going to represent you. And that's based on something. At that point in time, we had been. in working all of us on trying to put this legislation forward, looking for the right things, the right balance, that stakeholder engagement. You know, just one of the things, too, with Jen, we never kicked her out.

She was never in. Like, that was the timing on the election, right? So she was a UCP member, and then all of a sudden that other stuff blew up, and Jen wasn't, she was elected as an independent member, but caucus wasn't formed at that time. We weren't a government. So we were literally working through this legislation, working through this, And when I first met Jen was literally on a call, we would do a team's call, so to speak, while you're during the campaign. I hadn't even heard about the story because my constituency was literally burning.

Like we had forest fires, all that stuff going on, and we're running an election at the same time. And what I saw was a lady that you see in front of you here today that was honest, true, genuine, taking a ton of heat and expressing her side and being completely humble and open and honest about it. And I thought, you know, I hope this lady wins because she's got something. There's some moral fiber there. So working through some of the things with Jen, there was a path. She worked through this. She met with the people. She did the work, as the Premier said, and a number of us had said.

And then really where it came down to the way we operated, it's a caucus decision. So we literally, we had a vote as caucus. This item where Jen got to see on public display of you're not even allowed to have your own opinion and be respected. anymore. That was kind of the catalyst for a number of us, Sean. So our members, the ones that, you know, didn't get no gen as well as they could have during that period, they saw that and they're looking at it going, holy crow, this could have happened to any one of us. We're trying to do all this work with these bills and do the right things. And that's never going to be good enough. You're going to have another group that is absolutely so fixated on tearing and burning everybody

down that it won't matter anyway. So it was at that point where, okay, here's, here's the right thing or the wrong thing and then you're outweighing against the potential of not being able to get that legislation through because that was the bigger, broader perspective. So good Lord or serendipity, I think, I honestly, I think things worked out as they should at the right time to be able to get her on board and officially bring her back home. Can I ask you the, uh, the, um, now that you guys have been like today's world is different than, I don't know, 20 years ago, whatever, just in media standpoint. You were talking about recording the audio and everything.

Is that like standard procedure now because it's like in case one little snippet blows up you have like the well let's go back to this you and I had three or four different podcasts during the last election the opposition went back and found a snippet then you and I were talking about public health two years prior they literally took that snippet and said I was trying to tear down the public health care system during the campaign so have things changed yeah immensely so if we didn't have that recording that audio even in so much as the the, you know, the media people we have. So what you're saying is the NDP is listening to me somewhere. Hello, NDP. Absolutely. Hello, Naheed, Nenshi. Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly it.

So I literally did a little town hall at my area about the pension plan. We're talking about that. Two and a half hour meaning of open mic answering questions like you've seen me do before in the town hall's wide open, right? Rachel Notley's guy who sits there, her coordinator, record that whole thing and took a 10 second thing and said I was tearing down health care again. Like they literally do this nonstop. It's terrorism radio when it comes to them as how they deal their politics. So, yeah, we're cautious.

We have to be. And at the same time, you want to be able to make sure that we can be open, honest, transparent, all those things. So, yeah, we have to be guarded sometimes to make sure that out of two and a half hours, 15 seconds could sink the ship. I'm pretty, every day I think I get less naive. But then I also think at times I'm like, I'm still the same kid who in 2019 just flicked on a couple mics and started talking, right? So like I hear all that, I'm like, man, that's weird, right? Because like, you know, and yet you watch social media and you, my instant thought of a clip. But you saw it happen right here with her.

Well, that's what I mean. So I watched the video with you and, uh, uh, Victoria, I'm going to butcher it. Buckles. Buckles. Yeah. Buckles. Yeah. And, and when I watched it, the first thought I had is what the heck, what the heck is this all about, right?

And maybe this is a good skill I have. I eventually got down to your original, I just kept searching and searching and searching and searching, found the original recording of what got you in the hot water in the first place and went and listened to it. And I told you this. I'm like, yeah,

it's a poor choice of words, but I think everybody gets exactly the thought process of what you're talking about. And so then once you have that, then you can work your way back to this video that went viral. And then the next thing is like, I hate, one of the reasons I do long form is I really hate a minute clip. It's like,

you know, Daniel Smith came on. this show beginning of this year and it was a conversation around immigration. I may have disagreed with her, but how the clip got framed on social media, I'm like, she literally talked about it for three minutes. Why don't we just show the full three minutes? Right? It got, it got shown that immigration, pro, whatever, and you can disagree with how she said it. But I do find it interesting when things get framed in a certain way. I don't know. You know, some of it, and it took a while for me to get used to it and Jen for being new to politics, that was some pretty sad. work and I think again it's because it was open and honest and genuine she was

doing the work but yeah it's literally like when you go in front of those mics it's like a ransom note they will take and clip and cut pieces and put that together as a ransom letter for you so yeah you have to be guarded so there's only so many outlets that we feel very comfortable and safe to talk to and you know our guys my guys back in the comms group are literally gonna scrub this and make sure if there's a story out there that we're on top of it and we've already got our counter message and well hello to the comms group as well.

That video that went viral, actually, I asked to be recorded. We were about maybe 30, 60 seconds into the call, and I said, is it okay if we record this call? And it took them about a minute, honestly, to kind of figure out how to, oh, I guess so. So they figured out how to record it and they did. But I did that for my protection. Yeah. Because, and I recorded it on my end.

So we have the recording as well. And I think that's a really important thing to do as well. What was the experience like? I've talked to lots of different people about you go from being Jennifer Johnson, the homeschooling mom, a part of the UCP, maybe getting elected, a relatively unknown name. I think I can say that, not be demeaning. And then all of a sudden, a couple mornings later, and you got J.K. Rowling tweeting about, you're like, what the heck is going on?

Oh, it was surreal. It was surreal. The meeting was on a Monday. and the next Tuesday I came into work and it was about 11 in the morning and I got a text from a friend who said, hey, did you see J.K. Rawlings post? And I got this anxiety right away and thought, oh, no, is this going south? Because after the meeting it happened, my first thought was, because it was recorded, I came out and we had debriefed about it with my staff and said, how did you think it went? Because they were on the call as well. And is this going to hurt the premier? Is this going to hurt the party? you know, going, just hashing it through, did I, you know, I didn't say too much on there,

but did I say enough? Did I say too much or the right thing? And, you know, it is anxious, especially after what I had been through, you know, taken out a context year and a half earlier. So we were going through that. So when I saw J.K. Rowling, I thought, oh, no, she coming against me too. And I don't know a lot about her. So I didn't, I just really didn't know. And then I said, is this good or bad. Oh, no, this is good. J.K. Rowling's been getting roasted for probably four years. I mean, like, they had their, they had their forgive me folks am i right on this they had their anniversary of harry potter and either she wasn't invited because the the actors didn't want her there or vice versa and you go and

it's all because of her stance on this issue yeah and so yeah no i mean um when she's tweeting about it you're you're talking about millions upon millions of people who are fired up about this this specific issue right yeah You know, if it had been, I don't know, Tucker Carlson or something, right, tweeting about it, it would be big. Yeah. But Tucker covers a large spectrum of issues. Right. She covers, you know, not only is she like an insanely successful author.

Billionaire. The only billionaire author we know of in history, right? Like, how insane is that? Yeah. Did you ever get to any chance you ever got to talk to JK? Probably not. Well, I tried, actually. I don't know if you know this.

But oddly enough, that so. after that happened, I said to my, I said to my staff there, J.K. Rowling just tweeted this. And so she started Googling. She goes, Jen, she's got 14 and a half followers. You should probably go home. And she said, there's a good chance media might be coming to the office. You better get home. So I did. And oddly enough, I flew out the next day to take my daughter over to the UK for school. This is a flight that had been booked for five months. And Scotland and England were in the trip. And so I did send her a quick email and said, hey, I'm actually coming to your neck of the words. I'm the one in that video.

Would you have a chance to get together or just, if not, thank you? And her comms team, I guess, got back to me and said thanks, but no. So I actually did try. Somebody told me to. And I thought that's a good idea. If nothing else, just to say thank you in person. So she's listening. Thank you, J.K. Rowling.

Yeah, well, I got a big audience. I don't know if I got that big audience just yet. You never know. You never know connection, six degrees of separation, five degrees separation. Well, let's talk about, I think, the big news of today, unless there's something I missed. I'm sure that, I'm sure there's lots that I miss, folks. But, I mean, the big news of today is Bill 26, Bill 27, Bill 29, all pass through, walk me through this. I'm a moron, and I want, you know, like, let's skip over any details on the, because this is big news, is it not?

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think a lot of us, I don't want to presuppose it, but there was the usual noise and rhetoric, but we were potentially anticipating more. And it was crickets out there. Like I think what you saw with this legislation taking place, it was common sense. Once we got in front of it and engaged, tons of engagement on it, you know, from our side. And obviously Jen's work was was instrumental to this to where we were coming from. And the opposition was on the same. speaking points they've had for a number of years, but the world has moved on. So when you're talking about folks, um, making decisions like kids making decisions before they're able to, like really adult decisions, making sure that sports, we saw that 20, 24 Olympics here. I mean, just look at the boxing highlights and see how weird this has become. Oh, or volleyball in the States, right? Volleyball in the States, swimming. I mean, you pick a sport weight lifting.

29 different sports now. Yeah. And then, and then the last one was the education piece. So when you look at, having parents back in control, able to opt in versus opt out, looking at the curriculum that we have, making sure the participation, the silent majority was there. And we didn't see a ton of opposition in there. And then it was paramount for us to make sure that Jen had her opportunity and moment to speak to this in the house, on record, recorded for everyone to see, whether they wanted to see it or not or use it or not. but to be there as that legislative representative speaking for her constituents and speaking

this that was to me that was a personal victory it was seeing her do that and stand up and speak to this piece of legislation like like it should have been without all the noise and rhetoric which was it was good so that was my perspective but this is this is literally a you thing just wanted to frame that of how how I saw it as a team member you want more yes what else do you want well yeah i mean Shane's created the scenario. I don't know. Well, I tell you what, what I'll do is for the people who don't, forgive me if I go a little long-winded here, folks, I want to make sure that I get it. But Bill 26 is the Health Statutes Amendment Act. Yes.

The changes, and forgive me if I don't get this exactly right, but there's a whole bunch in here. Some of the big ones I thought were prohibited regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors. prohibit regulated health professionals for prescribing hormone replacement therapy. Holy man, I do this for a living, you know. Yeah, I know, we do too, but it still happens. Reading is one thing. Replace. Try to do with cameras rolling on, you know, and stopping people yelling at you while you're doing it.

And using my left hand to run the mouse. I'm like this is. Amidextrious. This is good. Yeah. Prohibit regulated health professionals from prescribing hormone replacement therapies, including puberty blockers to minors for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender, incongruence, except in accordance with the exceptions set out by the Minister of

Health. Exceptions would be made for minors aged 16 and 17 with parental physician and psychological, psychologist approval, that is, and for minors who have already been prescribed home-on replacement therapies to treat gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, provide additional definitions to that act. I don't think that part needs to worry about. That's all correct. Then Bill 27 is the Education Amendment Act.

And it said schools to notify parents when their 16 or 17-year-old student requests their teachers, principals, and other schools staff refer to them by a new gender identity related preferred name or pronouns. Schools to notify and obtain consent from parents, from teachers, principals, and other school staff to use the new preferred name or pronouns where the request is made by their student, age 15 and under. School authorities to ensure students are provided with counseling or other assistance prior to parental notification if the above notification is. is expected a result in psychological or emotional harm to the student or their students request, or at the student's request, school authorities to notify parents and provide the opportunity to opt their child in rather than opt out where courses, programs, or study, or instructional materials, instruction, or exercise include subjects matter that deals primarily and explicitly with gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality. And then the final one, if I'm not

skipping over anything. The Minister of Education to approve learning and teaching resources as well as external parties and the resources for topics primarily and explicitly related to gender, identity, sexual orientation, or human sexuality. And then the final one, am I skipping over anything? You're good. No, those are the high points. And again, if you look at the two, right, and some people have asked why you'd want to break them into three acts. Well, they, they're under three different ministries that kind of touch on similar items relating to this and you want to get them succinct. And then to do this as an omnibus, I think, would have been a disservice to allow the correct debate to take place in the house. So there was some decisions made on that.

And then when you look at it, there's, there's a theme behind it, but there's literally those three major pillars of areas of responsibilities. So you've got health, science, or, you know, sports and along those signs, and then education. So those are the three big things. And the final one, Bill 29 Fairness and Safety and Sport Act, require and scope organizations to create athlete eligibility policies and identify processes to ensure eligibility require regular reporting on complaints and concerns regarding athlete eligibility

ensure transgender athletes are able to meet to meaningful participation in the sports of their choice by creating and expanding co-ed divisions for athletic competitions where numbers warrant. And basically what I took out of this was keeping female sports female. Biological females.

Thank you, pilot. Yes. Yes. Correct. Yeah, because there is a difference. I mean, Jen's walked this more than I have. So, you know, God bless her for doing it. But yeah, like there's people there, they believe, they believe honestly that they're in the wrong body. You know, I've had conversations with parents and those things and you meet, you know, these folks are great folks. And you can tell like the ones that are genuinely they are who they are and I can see where they're at. But again, when it comes down to the realities of sport, if Mike Tyson thought one day, you know, that he was a lady, despite what the Jake Paul fight look like, I mean, you just can't. And again, I come back to the 2024 Olympics. So you have to make sure that girls, and I've got three of them, that they've got a safe place to go to, to participate in the sport when it gets to that level. And no different than hockey, right? Like when do you stop body checking? All of a sudden,

boys start getting to be a certain size or certain characteristics. That's nature. So you have to make sure there's a safe place for those sports to take place. And expanding the co-ed portion is paramount as well. Lots of sports, depending. on the ages, then you can commingle, do those things. There's no harm, no foul. But to make sure that everyone's rights are respected, yeah, that's, I think this one got a really good balance is where my thoughts are about what do you think from the folks you talk to?

And I think the purpose of it is that it's going to be safe and inclusive for everyone. Yeah. This is not excluding anyone is just protecting biological women in biological women's sports. So anyone is going to be able to opt into this co-ed division that Shane referenced. anybody can do this, whether you're a transgender man, transgender woman, or if I was just a woman, or Shane is a man could just say, I want to go in there, you can. So it is inclusive to everybody in there. And that is, that's what we want. We want it to be fair. And when we look at cases like

Leah Thomas and Riley Gaines in the States, that's not fair. When he, and, you know, I think the NDP even touched on this a little bit. If you remember, they even said, you're not developed until you're 25. Your brain doesn't stop developing until you're 25. And so they even agreed with us on this point that there is a certain time frame. And we want to make sure that even to go back to the other bills, that children are allowed to successfully grow into adulthood to make adult decisions. And that's what we want them to do. And I think even the NDP agreed with us on that point that there's a season and that we want to get them to the right season to make those choices. And on these sensitive issues, too, and again, we all, we're all just trying to do our best and stumble through it.

You know, I've had a number of parents and other folks approached me too, not in the same context as Jen has, but quietly, right? And people that are just absolute strangers come up and see you talking. And they're only getting sound bites, too. They're only getting those 30-second ransom clips. But when you come up and you walk through the items and the ideas, I would say 98% of the folks that when we started out that we thought were on the wrong side or that we were on the the wrong side of this, saw it from our perspective. We've shared numbers. They've kept in touch. And they've also given us or given me unvarnished advice in retrospective. So to be able to go both ways back to their communities and into ours to make sure that we're getting it right.

So I think we struck a balance. And I think honestly, that's why you haven't seen this blow up and tons of protests and everything else. Because most people understand rationally and that hard. Kids are one thing. Adults are another. And then you literally see the biology. taking place. And if you're doing it with thoughtful intent and making sure those communication lines are open, I think this is something other jurisdictions should be following and we'll be following going forward. Well, I want to get Ashley to that thought. But before I go there, I'm like, one of the things that the quiet majority saw, right? And it's like, oh, when it's, you know, Riley Gaines, you're like, okay, whatever. It's kind of, I don't mean to make light of it. It's a huge,

huge deal. But it's in the states, talking from a Canadian and Albertan's perspective, it's far off and far off land. And but it's, but it's a point. And it adds and it adds and you get all these different things. You get Jordan Peterson. You get all these different things starting adding. You're like, yeah, this is getting strange. And what it culminates in is your, your video that came out. Yep. And everyone went, holy crap. This is a professor of Mount Royal. Yeah. We need some common sense. So when I read these bills, you, you, you guys, guys use all the fancy terms and everything and I just go just feels common sense nobody wants to say you can't be who you are we just go why the heck are we even talking to kids about this that's

insane it's it's insane from a from a father of young kids it's insane we can I can say what it is I know the government has to have different ways of saying it I look at it it's insane when I read these bills I go this is make sense right I don't I'm definitely not a woman and I look at it and I go how long have women fought to get, I look at women's hockey in particular, to where it is, where it's like actually, you know,

you can love or hate women's sports, you can love or hate women's hockey, but like it's becoming a national thing where it's on television, it's on and on and all of a sudden, you know, you get things happening in there, and I'm not so sure about hockey,

but we'll go back to Riley Gaines where you're like, it undermines everything. And people just want common sense back. Like, why are we worried about? this and your video my applaud to you again you know fan-boying over over Jen here I guess Shane is like it's live not by lies it was it was a simple thing you know it was having a conversation before I walked in here and we got talking about soldier nits and you know

it's the live not by lies because at times you're like what is happening and one little thing happens and it just it just gets to this point where I don't know about the rest of Alberta but everything I just read I'm like just makes sense right you know you want to be a trans anything have at her I don't think anyone's saying you can't no and let's not teach kids about all these complexities of this we you know like there's a lot there well there's there's lots of things there and again it comes back to freedom responsibility and choices and again when we're elected you walk a different mile we've already talked about being exposed in public for whatever might be there

and what might be taken out of context or otherwise but when you're making these decisions you're literally looking at what's relevant today and what will be relevant down the road and you can't have the pendulum swinging from one side to the next without it coming back to center I think this brings it back to center despite all the conjecture and everything else love who you love be who you are but you got to put some things in place and you got to make sure to Jen's point that that people make decisions life-changing altering decisions at the right age and with the right supports that they have that's what we're trying to do here Can we talk about the fact that I think I could be wrong on this.

Forgive me. I don't think anywhere else in Canada has done this. Am I wrong on that? No, there's been part measures down east. I think it was New Brunswick. Yeah, New Brunswick tried. They did something similar, but I don't know that they got the balance. There was some folks that were pressuring us not.

I'll let Jen, obviously, she's, you know, right dialed into this. But from our side, when we were going through this, because again, at that point, Jen wasn't in the caucus tents. what happens in caucus and what happens in cabinet. I can't talk specifics. So obviously you know that with confidence, but a lot of conversation was taking place and looking what was happening south of the border

or what was happening down east. And we weren't satisfied. We didn't want to rush this. We wanted to take that time to get it right. And we're under a lot of pressure. A lot of folks were just, they were honest like you wouldn't believe. But we took the time to get it right, I believe.

And I think you can see the results down there of it wasn't as fulsome. They didn't break it into three bills like, we did. So I'm hoping that because they were the leaders, we had the opportunity to look at what somebody else was kind of doing, do a lithmus test on what we were doing in Alberta. And then I think what you'll see as other jurisdictions will look now at ours and probably either go there or enhance or improve from there. So I'll throw it over to Jen. Your thoughts. I understand too that we're the first in Canada, but I think New Brunswick had tried to go there a little bit and I don't know

that that was successful. But I also understand we have the largest sweeping legislation on this. Like, because we did put it into three different bills. We addressed it under health and under education and under sport. And even in the United States, I understand, like, I might be wrong on this, but I think it is the largest sweeping legislation in the world. And there are other jurisdictions in the world that have taken parts of this, but not on the ground scale that we did to cover three areas like that.

Tennessee, if you're watching in the news right now, it's going to the Supreme Court, they took one piece and it's going to the Supreme Court, so we're watching that pretty close. And but I think Alberta has taken the time to do this correctly and to do it in the right way to ensure that children have that time to grow into adulthood successfully, to make that transition well and to keep women in sports. And to come back to your point about, yeah, Riley Gaines is American, I talked about three different examples when I rose to speak on Bill 29. Three of them, And you had one of those people, I think, on here, April Hutchinson, who has just a remarkable story. She's Canadian.

Yes, she is. She's from Ontario. And the other one was my- If you can believe it, she's sat in your chair. She's been in studio with Linda Blade. She's a remarkable individual. Such a great woman of courage. And the other one is-

Because she is engaged now, and I believe getting married. Yes, that's correct. Yeah, she just sent me her engagement pictures. That's awesome. Yeah. And so the third one is actually grew up a mile from. where I live. Her name is Peyton Melton and I spoke about her and she got to meet her minister of tourism and sport. They had a really great conversation, but she's a very talented athlete on

scholarship playing basketball at a local post-secondary institution. She's tall, she's strong, extremely talented athlete and was forced to play against a transgender individual. And she didn't back down from it. She thought, you know, let's do this. And she was taken out. She was taken out and got a severe concussion and had to walk away completely from her sport and from school. The administrators didn't stand up for her, the teachers, the coaches, nobody stood up for her and she had to walk away from it all. And is having to go down a different path in life. Now, she's going to be okay because she's a very strong individual. But this is not a United States issue. It is there as well, but this isn't Alberta. This isn't our backyard. This is

very real. And we need to protect, protect women, biological women. And we need to provide that space for them. Well, my hats off again, because that's what you've, you've, like, not only is the UCP done it, right? I want to talk about pace because I'm, you know, I'm a stickler on this. It irritates me when I talk to government. People are like, why can't it be faster? And saying that, like, you look at what, what has been pushed through or passed through, I should say push through, what's been taking the time and vetted through and now has gone through, got past, is like,

really incredible. And I don't mean to make light of what's happening in the United States, just that the human, you know, it's like there's war going on right now in Ukraine. Right? And yet if it was war happening in Alberta, it'd be different. And I don't mean to make light of war. And I don't mean to make light of any of these issues. Just to point to, you know, when it's happening to Riley Gaines, you kind of like,

that's in a far off land, even though it's the United States. When it comes to April Hutchinson, getting a little closer, it's, you know, Ontario power lifter of all of Canada, right? But when it happens to a lady who's in our government in Alberta and you see how it plays out, it brings it home to everyone. So I think, you know, reading through these things, having you guys in here to talk about this happening in Alberta and Alberta being, as far as we know, I think, the first in North America. Yeah.

To, you know, like Donald Trump has this big video out. I don't know if you've seen that, him talking about basically this, you know. We're going to put the family first and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And he rattles off. Sounds familiar. It puts a whole bunch of things in. I'm like, that's great. Like, that's awesome what he said.

This is actually happening right now in Alberta. And Alberta is being, you know, along with all of its members, I think, pushing the ball forward on being the first in, once again, North America, I think. I think we put that on our leader, Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta. She initiated this. She campaigned on this. So it's no surprise. And I really think that we need to give her the credit for this. She is a tremendous leader and she deserves the credit for this one.

She's taken it all the way through. And as I've said to her, you've left a legacy and one that is going to go down in history and on the right side. And that's pretty neat. And I just feel so privileged every day that I get to be on the same team as this leader and of these individuals who have supported this all the way through. it's really something to be part of that. Yeah.

And the interesting thing with, you know, I can speak the two different leadership styles as well. The only was very top down, this is still a very strong leader, but it's a team leader. You know, it's like that it's like that captain on the team that actually skates with everybody else to it practices and puts out and does those things and then looks at how they can improve. She showed up for every vote. It's genuine. Yeah.

It's genuine. It's honest. She listens for input and I can tell you full well at the cabinet table and the caucus table. She has one vote. So she's practicing what she preaches and it's pretty easy to follow behind that. So lead by example, do all those things. Yeah, she's the real deal. And it's good to be part of it, that's for sure.

Why does it take so much time? Oh, frig. It comes down to numbers. So there's states of legislation. So first introduction, second reading can be the whole third reading and then finally you get to Royal Assent. Every member has an opportunity to speak about 10 minutes in there. So you take 87 members times 10 minutes, times it literally comes down to a numbers game. We have a tool in our kit that's time allocation.

So if it appears that the legislation isn't being debated in a proper manner, that it's just literally being tried to be filibustered or dragged out and we're not giving ample opportunity, we have a tool in the toolkit to say, okay, debate at the stage, you've had three days to debate this, an X number of hours, signs, number of people, end this in an hour, get after it. We never had to time allocate once on this. We gave everybody ample opportunities to go through it, to have the debates, to have the discussions, to do those things. The process takes time.

Democracy, if you really like democracy, it's expensive and it takes time. If you want something else that we go over and we throw a lead down range, we usually, when those things get out of control, you don't want that. you want to take the time. I can say that now after being here and seeing it, we're moving things forward at a decent pace, but it does take time because that's the Westminster system. That's the process we have. And if you believe in democracy,

it's going to take time to have those people exchange that information back and forth to have that debate. Would you agree? Yeah, completely. And also I would add to that. We only meet twice a year. We meet in the spring and the fall, five weeks in the fall and nine, ten weeks in the spring.

And so in the meantime, time, legislation is being developed by policy and lawyers. And that takes all of that time. So it's all of that time to develop the legislation and the bills and the policies and the regulations. And then we meet. And so it does. It takes a long time. I love how you say, democracy is the worst form of government unless you don't like any of the other ones, right? That's the best one we got, Churchill. Yeah, Churchill that said that. Yeah.

And I agree with that. Democracy is the best form of government. And so if we want that, we do need to follow the system. Now there's exceptional circumstances and you can see when order and councils take place down in Ottawa as an example. And then you can suspend your democratic rights and freedoms. And then you can just ram it through. So I would rather have it and be on the record of being too lengthy and going through the process rather than getting into that neck of the woods. because I think we've all have a...

What did you think of the pro, I think of as pro-Homas, people taking over the Parliament building? It's asinine. Absolutely assonine. I was over in Germany, October 8th, like wheels up when we were flying over there and landed there.

It gives you a completely different perspective when you march through and look at the topography of terror and see the SS headquarters and you see the monuments and you see all that. To me, there is no middle ground. That is absolute terrorism. I sat in those rooms. and we watched those videos that were coming out.

And the only thing that gave me solace was the video clips that we were seeing that were from Hamas people that were committing these atrocious acts. And this is going to sound harsh maybe for some out there. But the only solace I took is I know that they weren't around anymore because they got the coverage. They got the cameras off those former terrorists. When you see people taking and using our abilities and rights and freedoms and hijacking it and making it something different, this is terrible. If you want to start talking about fairness, look at what peaceful demonstrations did when people fly Canadian flags

and we're all of a sudden being put in a certain light and you have this different crowd hijacking it, it's abhorrent. So people have to stand up, say the right things, and not think that this is normal and nor become accustomed to it. Like to me, this is not Canada. And that stuff has to be stomped out pretty damn quick because the,

more we allow this to linger, the worse it gets. And it'll be the private citizens that fix that. And this is this has got to stop. You know, very, I mean, obviously as a guy who went to Ottawa and have friends who are still on trial for the longest mischief trial in Canadian history. Yeah, mischief used to be throwing toilet paper at your gym teacher's house at Halloween, right? Yes. And, you know, you watched that. And I was like, oh, man, this is, this is pretty wide. Right? Like I and I don't know the word other word to use other than one like watching this. And like and you know to see I could be wrong and somebody can prove me wrong. I think they all got on on you know they got taken away and then released and I'm back into the crowd they go and I'm like that's interesting right because I mean it was only a short time ago. Nobody nobody pulled out the war measures act. I mean the emergency act on that one correct come on enough. So that's where I think Canadians we're going to see a clean sweep. Just please drop the gloves. I think. Kevin O'Leary had it best. We should all just pitch in and package out, uh, jag meat and Justin pay off their pensions,

get them the hell out of there because the damage they're doing to our country. Um, I think when you see in the world stage, people are about done with this administration as well, um, that would be the easiest thing for us to do and get in some common sense. You said it, not me. I'm going to jump on it though. Get some common sense. Get who we are as a nation back together. Get people working together.

Because everything that they've set up with that whole woke wakadoo woke stuff they've been doing and that freaky deaky. socialist mentality is setting it up for exactly what we're seeing here. And if you look back through history, every single time this, this environment has been set up for it, these are the same outcomes that people end up with. Disorder, uh, fractionation between them, people pointing out all everyone's differences and not commonalities. And this is, this is, this has been in the making for nine years.

Civil unrest. Civil unrest. So you have to look at the means to an end. Is this by accident or are they been doing this for a while? And that's why we're getting so. I mean, we've been standing up and using the Sovereignty Act and swinging that thing and doing everything else. If we don't stand up for ourselves and if people don't start seeing us for what it is,

your politics matter. Get those guys out of office and let's get back to building our country again. Well, I don't think anyone at this point, I don't know, maybe there is some people. I don't think anyone thinks that Trudeau can get back in. The problem is is that I'm just, like, so is it get, like, are we going to have an election sooner than October or is it going to October? Everybody keeps pointing at JAG meets, uh, he's got to get past February. It's the pension.

This is how transparent and how bad that the guys are in power right now of hijacked the system. They're so self-centered and focused on their own blessed pension that they'll leave the rest of us hanging out in the wind. Well, and then. Like I just, I'm sorry. And then scold us. The polish is off. I'm tired at this point. Yeah, and scold us for not seeing their vision or the $250, you know, here's money off for your chips at Christmas, but we're going to gouge you for heating your home.

Like, just enough. Do you see it as an October election? I'm curious. You listen to different circles of me. And I know you can't get me. I think it'll be when it'll be. But I think if you if you look at the dates, I think the spring is going to be a nice spring. Spring thaw will come. I did a thing in the house. I'm going to digress a bit. And it was when I was a kid, we had this moose calf came in and died in the pen because it couldn't get underneath. It was a late spring. It couldn't get under the water to get all the ticks off its back and this damn thing died. I think spring thaw is coming pretty soon. We've got to get some ticks off the back of the country. I'm really hoping we have an early spring. I'm getting pretty frustrated. I hope it's early spring too. I just heard a commentator. Oh, you got you pushed the big red button, damn it, Sean. Yeah.

So it's going to be October and it's somebody in Ottawa and I just thought, oh, no, they can't be right. I'm going for spring. Trudeau and sing a moose calf. That's what I took out of that. That's an interesting analogy. I should send you that. I did a member statement on it. I had him real.

Yes, you did. I think you got in trouble for that one. Nah, they called a point of order. Didn't stick. Yeah. What, you know, now that they. This is cemented in, okay? Yeah.

It's all done. If you're talking to the voting public or Alberta, people who are keyed in on politics, what's the things that are coming in the future that are being worked on that you want people to know whether it be, well, I highly doubt you're going to say something bad, but good, bad, indifferent, just some things that are going on behind the scenes that you think people should know about. Well, there's a number of bills that we did as far as what you think we should know about. I think the Premier is doing a really good job. Like part of it is that as Jen put it out, we'll come up with going through the whole process. What the party members come up with as policy kind of gets at the AGM, that gives us a good weather mark of where our own group is going. We look at emerging world events.

Topical, right? If you have your major trading partner and beholdant of 90% of our economy in Alberta is tied to. to the superpower on our doorstep, you know, friends, brothers, relatives, as everything else across the border. You might want to figure out what they're looking for and maybe be that, that person. We've talked corridors for years. You'll see a ton of that tying people together. This comes back to my pace of things, yes.

Tying things together, right? And now you're at that point. So the US wants to solidify their energy resources. They want to make sure that our borders are tightened down. They want to make sure you've got the stop of the flow of the drugs. I think what you'll see is Alberta being again in our country leaders. with our other provinces and dragging whomever it is at the time until spring to the table to make sure that we're in sync with that.

What you'll see is affordability is a huge thing. Everyone is under attack for affordability. I think you'll see a ton of policies from us coming out that's going to address that. We'll talk the economy and then we'll obviously make sure that the common sense things are coming back in. So that's what we've got on there, open for business, working with our neighbor to the south and making sure when we're addressing affordability in a big way. So you'll see a ton of policies coming out on the power of the electricity file. You'll see our outward facing things with our trading partners ratifying and coming to pass

and then making sure things are literally trying to get as much as we can affordable. The United States is our biggest trading partner. And I think one of the bigger focuses that the government has right now is, is like you said, solidifying those trade partnerships and developing those relationships. Trump is the better choice for us in Alberta than the other option that they had down there for sure but when we hear 25% tariffs that strikes terror into the heart of every Albertan and every Canadian probably

and as our premier says do we take him at his word? Probably we should probably take him at his word. You should probably take him out his word. Yeah and we want to do that. We'd be selling not to. Right? Yeah, I think he means what he says and it looks like Mexico already is taking him at his word. I saw yesterday there's 5,000 detainees.

perhaps that Mexico was holding back from coming into the United States. They're taking them out his word. And they're already starting to work on that. Are we going to do the same? I hope so. So I think Alberta is looking at how do we move forward to work with this new president in the United States. Our premier is going down for the inauguration and developing some of those relationships across the border.

Yeah. But what Trump is saying is not new. So I get to lead with the intergovernmental affairs. and so I'm tied to the Premier on that file in our transboundary groups. So I've got myself in a number of MLAs where we're in all these different groups. The same things that we're hearing in the media now

is what our colleagues, representatives and senators from across the Midwest, the South, the East, have been saying for the last couple of years. Like literally I'm down in Madison, Wisconsin this summer and I have a representative from Nebraska asking our ambassador who's in from Chicago down there,

our Canadian ambassador, why aren't we spending our share in NATO? I asked the same thing. I told her and the response was don't let us off. Alberta spends more in our health care than we do it as a country in our national defense program. It's not that we don't have the money. We're not deploying the capital. You're right.

We should be doing this. How many of your guests have been in here in soldiers and had the ghetto things and duct tape it together? And it's not because we don't have the money or the ability or the skill sets to do it. It's our federal policies. So pretty tough for me to wave the team Canada stand up and fight back flag when there are all the things that I agree with. This is what our trading partners have been saying for years. If we don't step up and do it. And if you look at the other one, too, is the actual security council.

Canada was one of the founding members. We're not by default being there, but this is the first time two consecutive back-to-backs that we don't get voted in by our own, you know, colleagues in that environment. That's unheard of. Canada's got to clean their stuff up. The nations have taken notice. Our trading partners are about done with it. Maybe it's just time we actually step up and be Canadian again and do what's right.

Well, yes. And I'll go back to Jen. be the last one. Right? Sure. Yeah, sorry, I'm jumping in. Well, part of it is, we all live through COVID. Me and you have had this out how many times, right?

And so you go, why are people disgruntled? Why are they at their wits? Why are they? Well, it's because we live through something that set us all against each other. And part of it was the fomentation of a lie, of things going on that didn't make sense, that didn't add up that, you know, I'd have on. I showed up to Brandy Suva and her son Hudson, but Hudson was the kid who passed out on a bus from wearing a mask and on and on and on and went.

She's like, we weren't allowed to talk to each other anymore. We weren't. And so you fast forward, and the reason I bring you back up is because you did it in such a polite way and just, can we agree, you know, I'll torture your words again, right? Like, can we agree to disagree? No, we can't. Oh, wait.

Most people agree with what Jen just said. And they're not okay with us going down this rabbit hole. anymore. We're done with it. We're going to go back over here. And I think there's a shift. I hope. That's the hopeful side of me that that's happening in more places than just Alberta. Alberta's just the leader of it. And now that it's put through, you wonder how many people are going to take notice of that. Like the BC election was interesting. Well, I didn't want to speak, but I was going to bring you up on that. Yeah, you saw that. You saw blue rise from. Blue rise from nowhere. Right. Right. And, you know, I was telling you before we started. Like, so me and Tuesdays do

election night coverage, right? We did U.S. election night coverage too, which is fun. And I'm really excited. We're like, do we plan a giant party for when Trudeau gets elected out and just have like a giant mashup or I don't know. I'd love to be on. Yeah. I tell you what, we're here's my warning to everyone on that listens to this. We're going to find a way to have as many Canadians on that election night coverage because that's what it's all like we're all frustrated by this and we're starting to see things at least common sense-wise start to come back like we've gone so far but but hats off and I don't want to jump on I know you want to go back to to Jen now I'm getting the coffee and we're starting to wake up again here but hats off to what we're doing today and I think it's been said in the states lots too they didn't count on

mainstream media falling to the wayside not being listened to and you got the Joe Rogan thing right there on the wall nobody counted on that so now you got people that how are doing what we're doing actually having conversations and paying attention and I think because of those events that made it even more CFC irrelevant because until then I don't know who was Sean Newman like who was Shane Getson so we're just people trucking along doing our stuff until it got so messed up that we needed an outlet so that's where we're at and I'm I'm too I'm guardedly optimistic and after being in the States after the election it was a fundamental shift like the wind was back in the sales all of a sudden we were the cool kids

not the ones on the outside and the ones have been working with us we're on the same team so I think this is going the right way this is wood right This is what good. Good old Windsor Plywood. Shout with Windsor Plywood. A short story on the table and then I'm going to get back to Jans. This table, I was actually just talking to Carly about it. My first year of ever podcasting out, I renovated an old storage room of an old house

that had most poo on the floor and you can imagine. So we cleaned it all, ripped it all out, put in a wall like this. And then I approached Windsor Ply and said, could you make me a table? I'll take it in lieu of money and I'll advertise for you. And if I ever quit podcasting, I'll give you the table back and you just sell it. And this is the original table that went in there. No kidding. It's great.

Yeah. I love these river tables. It's beautiful. Yeah. So people on the when I'm not talking, you can see it. Yeah. The common sense thing, people are just ready for it. And on these three bills in particular, speak no lies, right?

And on it goes, it just, boom. It's pure polyev chewing the apple. Right? You know, that video, I'm like, things that got so sad in Canada, all the guy's got to do is just chew an apple, say a few words, and it went absolutely viral. But the words were very simple. Who? Right. What did I say?

I've never said that. And there was nothing. There was no quote. There was no time. There was nothing. So it's got to the point where journalism is, you know, hijacking your words, saying whatever outlandish thing and then waiting for the other person to swing on the end of a rope that they set up. So, yeah, it was brilliant. Just ask the question.

wine and Jen said that up perfectly, I think, to your point as well, on that simple interaction, which to her credit, 30 minutes is a lifetime to be put through that, quite honestly, and being recorded, but just that simple clip of asking if you can have a different opinion and still be respectful of each other. Like that was, it was excellent. Any final thoughts before I let you out here? I think we need to love and respect. And I go back to one of my great mentors, in life, he's no longer with us, but Miles Hogan, he always used to say, you know, people ask, why do you hate and then you fill in the blank? Why do you hate the Jews? Why do you

hate Hamas? Why do you hate Kamala Harris? You know, take that last blank out of there. Why do you hate, question mark? That's where it stops. And so I think that, to go back, I think it's, excuse me, it is a really important question. Can we respect each other? We're all different people and we're all I'm not going to agree with you on everything I'm not going to agree with Shane on everything but I like you both and we have a great conversation and I mean we're all better people when we have great conversations and to have that shut down I think that's why it attracted so much attention it's one of the reasons probably and I think we need to just go back to that that we need to we need to be authentic and and have those concrete

conversations why I when we disagree I I I I agree with you. One of the words in the English dictionary I try and teach the kids about is hate. I'm like, you've got to be very careful with that word, right? Like that means, like, that's hard to come back from, I guess. And, you know, it's funny, we get to have these debates because of where we live. We probably all agree on 95% of things in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You don't go, you don't go, you know, there was just a, I don't know, there was stabbing in Vancouver. And I think most of us agree that's not good, right? Like I don't think there's too many people going, yeah, yeah.

No, most of us are the opposite way. And we get to get to this point in society where we're having debates over really things that most of us would never even think of, honestly. Right? I don't know. I come from the background of farming. I'm like, this is the strangest topic to have permeating our society. But the reason it's allowed is because of where we're at in society here. I think.

Well, I think the Americans, and it's been referenced a few times, and God bless America, like I'm a fan, absolute fan. God bless Canada, because I'm an absolute fan, but put Alberta first, you know, in that one. Because, again, we're wired differently than the rest of the nation. We are no matter where you go. And, you know, I think Rex Murphy said it wonderfully. You know, again, if you don't recognize Alberta is different, you've never lived in Canada. There was something along those lines because we are.

that's okay. But the the first amendment is the freedom of speech. The second amendment is the right to bear arms and that's there to make sure the first ones in place. We don't have that here. We've been nice and we've done a lot of things but folks have to remember to your point Sean and Jen, the only reason why we can disagree is because other people have fought for that. It's it's our time to make sure that we don't give away those freedoms. We don't just squander them. And I've used a couple of things analogies if if I take a laser pointer and there's a bunch of cats in the room and they're all kind of doing things.

I put the laser pointer in the floor. All of a sudden the cats are chasing this light. I've got them fixated and chasing around what I want them to do. I can pretty much do anything I want at that point. So don't allow yourselves to be fighting amongst each other and chasing some light beam or whatever that other group is doing to you because they're up to some no good stuff. It's only when good people stand up with each other, park the emotions, have the conversations, and go into the room knowing you've got two ears and one mouth for a reason.

And what I often do is I go into a room and I've set it in the microphone too. So it should be no surprise. I'm not the smartest person. So when I go into the room, I do that and I remember that. I am not the smartest person in this room. But if I listen and if we work together and get these thoughts out, 15 or 20 or 300 of us, we're pretty darn smart. So let's throw the idea out there, put it out for discourse.

Because guaranteed when it comes out at the end of the sausage maker, we've caught something pretty decent and don't seek perfection. Sometimes getting things done, pulling it out there first is good enough because somebody else can improve on it if we do it right. Thanks for coming in, guys. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having us.