Veterans advocate Mark Meinke exposes Veterans Affairs Canada’s alleged predatory push into Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), citing leaked apology calls referencing "compassion" for families post-MAID and implicating case managers across BC, Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta. He highlights Christine Gauthier, a paraplegic veteran denied basic support like an elevator for five years, who was publicly dismissed by Minister Macaulay despite proof of her pleas. Meinke’s investigation reveals systemic failures, including MAID eligibility expansions (removed 10-day waiting period) and bureaucratic neglect of PTSD as a neurological injury, worsening recruitment crises while exploiting trauma. Alberta’s Sovereignty Act backlash signals cultural resistance to federal overreach, contrasting with other provinces’ tolerance of veterans’ mistreatment, as Meinke urges whistleblowers to contact his podcast, Operation Tango Romeo, or the petition at helpnothomicide.com. [Automatically generated summary]
Exactly how many Veterans Affairs caseworkers in the course of their duties are advising Canada's veterans to kill themselves.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
A couple of days ago on my regular daily video, I had on Mark Meinke.
He's a podcaster and a veteran who struggles with PTSD.
Mark's podcast is called Operation Tango Romeo, the Trauma Recovery Podcast.
Please do subscribe to it.
And he is really the touch point for a lot of veterans to come forward to tell the stories of their mistreatment at the hands of Veterans Affairs Canada.
He was the first guy that the very first veteran who said that Veterans Affairs Canada had offered him what's called made medical assistance in dying to help treat his acute PTSD episode.
And Mark continues to be a soft landing for Canadian veterans.
And it seems as though every single day a new story comes out about how Veterans Affairs is mistreating Canadian veterans and advising Canadian veterans to take their own lives instead of just giving the help they deserve and that our nation promised them.
So I thought, though our interview I thought was great the other day, I thought I would give Mark more time because this is such a big issue and it's such an important issue.
So joining me now in an interview we recorded Tuesday morning is my friend, Veterans Advocate, veteran and podcaster and the host of Operation Tango Romeo, Mark Meinke.
So joining me now is my friend, Mark Meinke.
He's a veterans advocate and a podcaster, and he's really been the guy who ripped the band-aid off the scandal unfolding at Veterans Affairs Canada.
And he's been a safe landing spot, I think, for a lot of veterans who have experienced some of the horrors of Veterans Affairs to tell their story to someone who would understand.
And so even though I interviewed Mark earlier, well, a few days ago, I wanted to give Mark more of an opportunity to tell us about the challenges facing veterans in this country and what is happening at Veterans Affairs,
particularly because as we record this on Tuesday morning, Monday, they were back at committee and they were doing the liberals, they were doing a bit of a song and a dance and an obfuscation of their responsibilities of the catastrophe at Veterans Affairs.
So Mark, thanks so much for joining me once again.
And thanks so much for your hard work on this file and for your peers and friends in the veterans community as they've been failed by the federal government.
Why don't you walk us back to the very beginning of the scandal unfolding at Veterans Affairs?
For people who don't know, why don't you take us back to the very beginning to that very first veteran?
Perfect.
That's where I wanted to start.
So we're thinking alike here.
All the credit doesn't go to me, not at all.
It goes to the first picture that came forward.
So before this broke on Global News with Mercedes Stevenson, it almost broke with you.
It was this close.
You know what?
Like I said in the last interview, we wanted to respect the veteran.
wasn't ready for it to be a national story, although Global didn't think so.
And I just thought, you know, this man is experiencing an acute mental health care issue.
It's being made worse by veterans affairs.
And so I need to make sure that I don't do anything to make that worse.
Well, I just wanted to make sure that he gets the credit for starting all this.
So he went through an intermediary through a friend of his who knew Mercedes personally.
And that's how the story was broke.
So I still think she only broke it that morning because you and I were talking.
But either way, I don't care.
It was broke.
That's all that his story's out there.
That's what matters.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the initial response when that story got out there through the global story in the veteran community, most people weren't shocked, which is shocking in itself.
Yeah.
You know, there's so much disappointment and lack of trust with VAC.
And I say this as a guy who receives VAC benefits, but getting those benefits, it was a five-year meat grinder.
I'd rather go back into a war zone than go through that again.
And I mean that sincerely.
Going through VAC is not a good time.
And most people either don't start because they've heard the stories or they don't make it through the meat grinder.
I mean, it takes some kind of resolve to not give up and to stick it out.
And it shouldn't be like that.
It's freaking so predatory.
And that's why in the veteran community, you constantly hear deny, deny, deny until they die.
And that is our impression of VAC.
Now, I don't know, Sheila, if it's just the bureaucracy or if it's on purpose, or maybe a little bit of both.
But the amount of people, if you think paying for us is expensive now, I would guess maybe 20% of the people that should be getting benefits are getting benefits.
About 20%.
That's my best guess from the years that I've been in this community.
And I know this because of all the people that just, they tap out because it's too much.
I mean, I personally have claims that should go in that are totally valid, but I look at the mountain of paperwork and the five-year fight ahead of me.
And I just like, oh, God, I don't know if it's worth it.
I'm entitled to it and they're genuine, but I don't have the fight in me.
You know, I was sorry to interrupt you, but I was talking to our mutual friend, Mike Mayer, and he was telling me just the humiliating things that veterans have to do to prove that they are still injured.
Like you have to prove that your blown-off legs haven't grown back.
Yeah, Tommy Anderson, Tommy Anderson lost his legs on our tour way back in 94.
So this is a long time ago.
And since 1994, every year he's got, I almost swore there.
Every year, he's got to prove his legs hadn't grown back.
Now, I've heard this in the House of Commons being brought up.
And, oh, well, you know, like you're just not getting an answer.
You have people just sugarcoating it or skipping over it.
Like, how do you skip over this?
Stop it.
Stop making people prove, you know?
I mean, it's fine to do a checkup and say, hey, has anything got better?
Has anything got worse?
But your legs aren't going back.
Your eyeball isn't growing back in your head.
So maybe have those off the checklist.
And it's a good example of VAC acting like an insurance company, right?
It's on us to prove everything.
So they're treating every single veteran is being treated like a scammer.
So we're all being treated like a scammer.
We have private detectives following us around.
You know, I've known several people have had this.
And with our hypervigilance, we can usually pick the creepy person, right?
My wife is always mystified.
She's like, how did you see this?
And how did you hear that?
It's like, I can't not see it.
I can't hear it.
Yeah, war does it.
But this is what we're going through all the time.
And it's wrong.
I mean, Trudeau can spend billions of dollars sending it to North Africa for gender studies for cantaloupe, but he can't look after veterans.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
And really, mental health in general, it's not just the veteran community, the first responder community.
It's all completely not looked after.
And people are dying and suffering.
And the funny thing, or it's not funny, the ironic thing is that if these things were looked after, it would be cheaper.
Because if you could actually help people and support them and get them back on their feet, it's going to cost less to the community.
It's going to cost less taxpayer dollars because there's going to be less downtime, less sick days, and less turnover, less recruiting costs, whether it be for in the first responder world or the military.
So it actually costs less money to look after us.
And again, sorry to interrupt you, but as a fiscal conservative who thinks the government wastes money on absolutely everything, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any fiscal conservative who says we need to spend less on veterans.
Of all the things we spend money on, as I said the other day, we have a sacred covenant to our veterans to take care of them.
And just out of curiosity, as you're talking there, do you think the treatment of veterans after the fact is part of the crisis in recruitment now?
It's that it's not dealt with in service.
So with PTSD, it's a neurological injury.
It's not a disease.
It's not a disorder.
It's a neurological injury where the wiring to your fight-flight freeze response gets hardwired.
So you're always in that mode.
And that's why it's hypervigilance.
God, I suffered for five years was brutal hypervigilance.
And it's absolutely exhausting before it started to settle down for me.
And that's normal.
And it's still higher than most.
But understanding that it's a neurological injury, okay?
Now, if you break your arm, do you wait six weeks or 10 years before you put it in a cast?
No, you put it in a cast like right now.
So having these immediate action drills for critical incident, stress debriefing, that sort of thing, and looking after that is going to save so much money because the quicker you get on it, the quicker you put that arm in a cast, the less problem there's going to be down the road.
And also what most people don't realize, and every recruiting center should, is that the people that go into these trades, into military and first responder trades, their ACEs score is through the roof, like right across the board.
And especially if they're going into the more high speed, low drag trades like infantry.
And then from there, they have the intent of going into the special forces to be an operator.
These people have the higher childhood trauma score.
So ACEs is adverse childhood events.
Childhood trauma is what your ACEs score is.
So there's something about that that when you've had a real rough childhood, you want to be the hero.
You want to be the person that beats up the bully.
So, you go into these different types of trades because you want to be the helper, the protector.
And if you can stop at the recruiting, check that ACES score, if it's off, because the higher it is, the more likely you are to have PTSD because you only have so much room in the cup.
Right.
And if your cup is already three-quarters full at the recruiting center, well, there's not much room to go.
The health, average, healthy person, their trauma cup is about a third full because life happens.
Life is tragic.
It's just how it is.
And but if it's two-thirds full at the recruiting center when you're 18 years old, deal with it there.
Say, okay, you're accepted under the condition that we get all this sort of get that two-thirds or three-quarters full down to a half.
Office vs. Court00:08:45
You know, so let's work on that first.
Then we'll push you through the recruiting process.
And as critical, like if you're going to be working in a trauma-rich environment, as big traumatic events happen, we'll deal with them immediately.
Right.
And through all the different resources that I find on my show, not just through the official resources offered by VAC that have a very, very low efficacy rate between 12 and 16 percent.
We can do better than 12 to 16 percent.
So take us back to where we started on that very first veteran.
No, this is very fascinating to me.
I often wonder how all of this definitely, you know, as an outside observer, when you see the treatment of veterans when they're harmed in the course of their duty, as a mom of a young man and a young daughter and another young daughter, I would not be happy to see them enter the military knowing that if they are injured after the fact, that they've got to fight for everything.
So I wonder if that affects recruitment numbers.
But again, take us back to this very first veteran because you were instrumental in getting this story out to the world.
So the first one came forward to a bunch of different contacts.
I was just one of them.
And he gave a lot of us the audio files of calls that he recorded with Veterans Affairs Canada.
These audio files were the apology calls from VAC.
And that was the proof that unfortunately he never gave us the green light to bring forward.
But a lot of people have heard these audio files because he gave it to them.
And I keep finding out more people just the other day of people that have heard these audio files.
And basically, in these audio files, the following things were confirmed by VAC themselves.
One, we've done this before and we can do it for you.
In other words, they've killed at least one veteran.
Now, the big line that they keep saying is that we have nothing to do with MAID.
We don't offer MAID and we don't have any relationship with MAID.
Then what's with the dead veteran?
Right.
How did that veteran get dead?
And how do you even know about it?
If you have no relationship with MAID, how would you know about it?
Yeah.
And yet, VAC is admitting, and the minister admitted, yeah, one veteran is dead for sure, at least one.
Now, that same conversation through different veterans that I've spoken to, including the one that goes by Bruce, it was the same conversation.
A bit of a twist, though.
With Bruce, he says, well, once we won in court, where we were fighting for this veteran to have the right to use MAID, after the court decision, then we killed him at his request.
So that's a heck of a thing for a caseworker to just make up to pull out of the ethers.
So there's got to be something to it.
So right now, people are looking into like, what court case?
Where's this?
And trying to do the digging.
I mean, because that's going to be a public record.
You can't go to court and not have some sort of record of VAC versus.
So who is VAC fighting exactly in order to have the right to kill this veteran to complete MAID for this person?
The other thing that was said is: yeah, so we've already killed one guy.
And yeah, and it's great because we're supporting his wife and two kids because we're so kind and compassionate.
I would love to have that family come forward.
Yeah, me too.
But these are the things that they have admitted to.
And yet they keep saying it's only one case manager.
So let's take that claim.
It can't be one case manager.
My count is four, probably five.
So just from the ones that we know, the very first person that came forward, his case manager was out of the Vancouver office.
And the person that did the apology call, her immediate supervisor, was from the Vancouver office.
Now, it's my understanding that these VAC agents are given regions.
They're given geographical regions, and that's how they operate.
So this one was in BC because the veteran's house is in BC.
So he got somebody from the Vancouver office.
So that's one.
The second one, Bruce, he's in Ontario.
So that's another service agent.
And then the third one, Christine Gauche, who testified at the Standing Committee at Veterans Affairs, she's in Quebec.
So that's another one.
Oh, wait.
She also had a second case manager offer her VAID.
So two different case managers offered her MAID.
One was male.
So now we're at four case managers.
And on top of that, I'm trying to get somebody to come forward who I'm in contact with in Alberta who also had a male case manager offer her maid.
I haven't been able to get her to come forward yet.
I'm hoping and pleading that she does because we need more whistleblowers.
So to your audience, if you know anybody or know of anybody that was offered medical assistance in dying, come forward to me.
As you can tell, I'll keep your name quiet if that's what you want.
No problem.
I've been doing it for everybody else.
I'll do it for you too.
The second whistleblower that we desperately need is whistleblower from VAC itself.
Somebody that's, it's a meat grinder in there.
They don't last very long.
It's a very short position because it's also a trauma-rich environment because they're dealing with us and when we're most frustrated.
And I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
But any VAC employees that know about this stuff, come forward.
Come forward to me.
I won't use your name.
And let me be the center point.
And if there's somebody else that you're comfortable with, do that.
Or come forward to Sheila, whoever you're comfortable with.
We need these whistleblowers because they are in a mad scramble to bury all this.
And at committee, I'm, Sheila, I'm so upset.
At committee yesterday, we watched Minister Macaulay absolutely lie and worse, call Christine Gauche, the paraplegic veteran who's a Paralympian, called her a liar.
Not in those words, but that's what he said with his words.
That was the message.
She must be lying.
I was never told of any of this a year prior.
And yet she's got the physical letter with the received receipt, like the tracking code.
She has all of it.
And the letter was replied to by the minister's office and by the prime minister's office.
Wow.
So the prime minister and the minister knew because they had the letter in their damn hand.
I think I emailed them to you yesterday.
Yes.
So, and I have them, I can make them public.
These I can make public.
She said, just let her rip so we can publish the hell out of them.
And that was in 2021.
2021 in July.
She told them.
So a year and a half ago, the veterans minister and the prime minister's office had knowledge and replied to the letters from Christine Gauthier, Paralympian, who is good enough to be used in all of their advertising, by the way.
The federal government used her to promote the Invictus Games and the Paralympic Games, except when she needed some help from these people.
And then get out of our face.
By the way, here's medical assistance in dying.
And then, and they're calling her a liar.
Her credibility was fine when she was able to promote the government.
Yeah, I was on the phone with Christine for about an hour yesterday.
And right now, I'm working on getting her that damn elevator.
I'm not waiting for back.
You know what?
Tell people about this because I think this is really great because you are one man, one veteran who is also experiencing PTSD.
And so, like I said to you the other day, I worry immensely about the burden this has on you, telling the stories of these other veterans who are suffering.
But you're one guy and you were able to do, or at least you're in the process of doing what an entire federal bureaucracy couldn't be bothered to do and instead offered Christine Gauthier made.
Hey Minister Macaulay00:02:58
Tell people what you're doing.
So they say that there's an investigation.
I think that the way you just put it kind of proves there is no investigation.
Because if I'm able to be a center point, if I'm able to put to get it out there and have people come to me and find all these people and have them come forward, but the entire Department of Veterans Affairs, that's like what, a billion dollars a year, they can't do it.
And I'm just one dude.
So with Christine, after I heard her story on my show, absolutely heartbreaking.
You know, in her words, for five years, every winter, she had to crawl through the snow like a worm, she said, like a worm with her wheelchair up and down these eight stairs because she couldn't get a lift for a wheelchair.
Now it is a big lift.
Now that I've seen a bit more of their project, I go, oh, that's a lift.
So it's more of an elevator.
But what I don't give a shit.
Yeah, who cares?
Give her what she needs.
Give her what she needs.
I don't care if it's a $200,000 elevator, which it probably is.
Who cares?
But I promised her that there's no more BS.
I'm going to fix it.
And it's not hard to do.
First, you find the provider that can go and then you raise the money.
That's all there is to it.
So I've got a few people that are being lined up right now.
And once it gets going, I'll open up the GoFundMe and it might be 200K, but because it's, but she can't go to a different house.
There's a lot of things going on here, but I'm going to get it done.
And once it's done, I can't wait to have some sort of grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony for her to use the damn thing and say, hey, Minister Macaulay.
It's okay, Mark, you're doing.
Doing what they couldn't, what they wouldn't.
Hey, minister Macaulay, this is how it's done.
Yeah, the heartless bastard yeah, the way he um, when he was asked by uh uh, Luc Desalet, um and committee, can you at least just, can you at least just commit to this one thing, this one project for this one veteran, can you just commit to this?
And he couldn't wouldn't, he totally sidestepped.
Doing What They Wouldn't00:03:23
It goes well, we don't even know that that's what she needs right now.
Just give her the goddamn elevator.
Yeah, just give it to her.
You know, like you, piece of, I can't believe it.
Yeah, you know, I don't know what it is like liberals are so happy to spend money on everything else under the sun.
Yeah, you know uh, spending money like drunken sailors, as I think Rachel Danko said.
But um, somebody needs an elevator lift for five years.
They're dragging themselves with their wheelchair, and you know what she said.
Well, down the stairs isn't so bad.
This is what a tough girl this is.
I don't.
You know, I don't mind worming my way down the stairs so much with the wheelchair, that's not so bad.
But getting back up those stairs with my wheelchair now that's tough.
Yeah, how how does this not light a fire under somebody's butt to get this done.
I mean, how can you allow her to live like this?
And she has been suicidal because of it because, out of desperation, she's quite open about talking about that.
It's the most heartbreaking damn thing.
And um, I mean, nobody should have to go through this.
But this girl has paid her price.
Yeah, you know, she has served her country, then represented our country in the Invictus Games and um, and and she gets treated like mud.
Yeah is horrible, you know.
So we're gonna get this done and i've i'm I got a veterans group uh, I forget the name of it, it's written down somewhere here, but it's a renovation group of veterans and um, we're all tapping into our resources to see how we're going to get this done.
And um, once we have the price tag and we have a plan uh, we'll open up the gofundme.
Hopefully, you can help promote that.
You better believe it will fill those coffers, you better believe it.
You are proof that one man is more powerful than a government bureaucracy.
And I think it's disgusting that Christine's mental health, which led to her being suicidal, was like her suicidal ideations were in part created by the government's failure to help her.
And so the government gets to take the easy way out and say, well, why?
why don't you?
Just, why don't you?
And then none of us have to deal with this anymore.
Well, and it gets worse.
I mean, the only reason that she's in a wheelchair is because she had an injury from an obstacle course that she did in training that got worse and until she's eventually in a chair and she's going to need like in like home care soon.
So they couldn't fix it during the process of degeneration.
She shouldn't even be in a wheelchair in the first place.
And her husband served 25 years in the military as well.
It's an absolute disgrace, an absolute disgrace.
Mark, you told me that Minister Macaulay was just basically lying yesterday.
Again, we're filming this on Tuesday.
Changes in MAID System00:04:49
I will go out on Wednesday.
So he was lying through his teeth in committee on Monday.
I also know that David LaMetty, our justice minister, was approached.
Basically, he was asked, we're seeing what's happening with veterans affairs and MAID.
And a real problem there, and we haven't gotten to the bottom of it.
Maybe you should pump the brakes on the changes you're bringing into the MAID system, wherein you can just be mentally ill and just ask for it and get it on the very same day.
And he said, no, no, we're proceeding with these things.
It's fine.
So again, this is a separate government minister saying, what's happening to our veterans?
It's not anything the rest of us need to worry about.
I don't know why they're in such a rush.
We are the most, we have the least barrier to entry in MAID than any other country in the world.
And it's, and that, and what little barrier that is there is going to be completely gone in March.
Like this is not, most people still think that MAID is for the critically ill, terminally ill that only have like another month to live and why suffer?
Right.
And I'm kind of down with that.
Like it's like, sure, you know, you do it for a horse or a dog, you know, so okay.
But that's not what it is.
No.
Like you're taking people that are vulnerable and instead of helping them when help is available, because I go and find this help.
That's what I've done.
Veterans Affairs was not too interested in finding help and doing what I've done in my 260 episodes.
I mean, it wasn't that hard.
You just start calling people and you have conversations with them and then you put up their contact information.
You know, that's what I did.
But all of Veterans Affairs is like, no, we'll just use a registered psychologist and this one set little program.
And that's all that we're going to cover.
That's that.
Well, there's other help out there.
And people are looking to MAID.
Well, right now, because they don't want to be homeless, homeless or die with MAID.
Oh, okay.
Or they're having their doctors pushed on them.
It's like, you know, you cost $1,500 a day.
You're really expensive.
You should just die.
You know, we can do it for you.
I'll do the mangela injection for you.
It's absolutely hideous.
What's wrong with helping people, with looking after people?
Sheila, for three years, I lived in a respite home looking after two men who were developmentally challenged, right?
So low IQ dudes.
They could cook for themselves, but they were basically like nine-year-olds mentality-wise.
So they just needed somebody there to make sure that they were okay and to take their medications.
And sometimes they get scared or upset and just to be there to comfort them.
And I did that for three years.
If you would have given either of them the MAID option at different points when they weren't thinking straight, they would have taken it.
Sure.
They would have taken it.
And these are the most beautiful human beings, like they were angels on earth.
And they have value.
Sure, they're not contributing to the economy, but so what?
Like these are good people that made me a better man.
And everybody that knew them made them better people.
And I just buried one three weeks ago.
It's terrible.
But if MAID was offered, they would have taken it.
And that's predatory.
It's horrible.
It's ghoulish.
It's wrong.
And where I don't know where people's hearts are.
Where's your heart?
Well, and I think people, you know, I've had people approach me saying, Sheila, your story is inaccurate.
That's not, that wasn't my experience five years ago when my dad or brother got made.
And I don't think people realize that so much has changed since MAID was first introduced.
As you say, it was for terminally ill, people whose death was imminent and their suffering was great.
But now you don't have to be terminally ill.
You just have to be chronically ill.
And you have to say that you're dissatisfied with the level of care that you're getting.
Well, this is Canada.
Our healthcare system is brutal.
Everybody is dissatisfied with the level of care that they're getting.
They've removed the 10-day wait period.
So you can get it on the day that you're experiencing an acute mental health crisis.
And it doesn't have to be administered by your doctor that knows you anymore.
It can be a pharmacist or a nurse.
It's just somebody willing to do it for you.
And it's going to get worse because then in March, it's just going to be if you're mentally ill.
Power Corrupts Perception00:04:20
So not even of sound mind sometimes.
You can make these decisions that you can't take back.
And I just, as you say, where's the compassion?
Where's the kindness as a society?
The liberals keep telling me they care about the vulnerable.
Then why are they killing them?
Yeah, killing people isn't compassion.
I think what we're seeing too, it's such a horrible circumstance that we're dealing with, Sheila, that we're really seeing some serious cognitive dissonance, which is the resistance to anything new.
Like once you have your worldview, anything that challenges that, that's the cognitive dissonance.
That's the pushback against this idea.
So if you have it in your head that I think most people paternalize and maternalize their government, you know, they see the government, not consciously, but subconsciously as mommy and daddy.
So if you go to somebody and say, hey, I saw your mom turning tricks on the corner of 97th Street, they'd punch you in the face.
Right.
Right.
Because that's my mom you're talking about.
How dare you talk about my mom that way?
Right.
And it's the same kind of visceral response for a lot of people when you challenge the government.
If their sense of identity is connected to that idea of government and they see in a subconscious level, the government is mommy or daddy.
They're not aware of it, but that's what they're doing.
That's why there's this visceral response when you say, hey, the government's doing something really, really bad.
Yeah.
No, they're not.
You conspiracy theorists?
No, but they actually are.
Right.
Yeah.
They see the government as benevolent.
They have no skepticism towards the government.
They are looking after us like they looked after us during COVID, like they're going to look after us when people send us mean tweets on the internet or tell us things we don't want to hear on YouTube.
And they're going to look after us.
If we're uncomfortable, instead of helping us, they'll kill us and then they'll pat themselves on the back and say, look how kind we are.
Yeah.
And it's just not the case.
I mean, I know some wonderful, wonderful politicians, like great human beings.
Sure.
But at the end of the day, the old sayings from the Greek times still apply.
You know, power corrupts.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And we see this.
And if you give a power, have a party that's in power for long enough, which we've seen in Alberta, when the conservative government was in power just too damn long for 30 plus years, it did get corrupt with Redford and all that.
Like it was gross, which is why the NDP came in because everybody, even though it's a conservative province, we're like, you know, we won't stand for corruption.
We don't like it.
So the NDP got in.
And then they got in.
We're like, ah, dart it.
What have we done?
We burned the house down because we didn't like the paint in the bathroom.
Yeah, that's what we did.
I saw a spider, so I burned the house down.
And so we were swinging back, but especially in Alberta, I don't know if the other provinces are like us, but we don't like corruption and we do not reward corruption.
And yet our liberal government, the most government, the most corrupt government in my lifetime, by a country mile, the most corrupt prime minister, oh my God, by a country mile, you know, the only prime minister in history that's ever been called guilty by the ethics commissioner.
And it's what's the count?
I think it's three times.
They're given those ethics reports Roman numerals at this point.
Yeah, it's three.
I thought it was actually higher.
It could be higher.
But I thought my count was at four or five.
Could be.
Could be.
But in Alberta, that's why we have these F Trudeau bumper stickers, which I'm actually not that fond of.
I don't think that's the best way to express yourself.
I don't like the F Trudeau flags and all that, but I certainly understand the sentiment.
But you only see that really in Alberta because we don't like corruption.
We don't like liars.
And yet there's still a significant amount of support for the man.
And I don't understand it.
No, as I said on Twitter this morning, there are two Canadas.
And I think I live in one.
And there are people living in another who tolerate the treatment of Canadians at the hands of the federal government.
Sovereignty Act Controversy00:05:28
They're the same people who are perfectly fine with the invocation of the Emergencies Act against peaceful anti-regime protesters.
They're fine with executing our veterans and claiming that it's kindness.
It is, I think, why Albertans are a little bit culturally incompatible with the rest of the country.
And I think the Danielle Smith Sovereignty Act is actually a response to that.
All the Sovereignty Act is to me is it's a no trespassing sign.
Yeah, it's a restraining order against the feds.
I'm fine.
That's all it is.
You know, or as I said to a coin there, you mind your own darn business and I'll mind my own darn business.
Stay in your lane.
I'll stay in mine.
That's all the Sovereignty Act does.
And people are doing backflips over it.
It's like, no, we're not going to let you, no trespassing.
This is our territory.
Don't tell us what to do when it's our jurisdiction.
Don't infringe on our jurisdiction.
That's it.
How is that offensive?
You know, it's ridiculous.
Well, and I think the treatment of our veterans is a great symptom of this problem is, you know, we have people who are saying, no, we need more Ottawa and Ottawa knows what's best for us.
So let's let Ottawa do more.
And I look at the treatment of our veterans and say, there's a perfect example of how Ottawa gets it wrong.
And normal people would like to see something different.
And I think the Sovereignty Act, again, reaction to that as well.
Yeah, I'm with you.
Mark, thanks so much for taking the time this morning and taking so much time on this issue.
How do people see the work that you're doing through your podcast?
But also maybe if you're willing, give out some contact information where if there are whistleblowers who want to come forward and you, as I said, you're a soft landing for these people.
I am a soft place to land for sure.
So the easiest way to find me is through the podcast, Operation Tango Romeo.
Tango Romeo is the panetic alphabet, stands for trauma recovery.
So Operation Tango Romeo, the Trauma Recovery Podcast.
And you can find me on any of the podcast channels, the big eight anyway, the top eight.
When I live stream, I always double broadcast.
So I first live stream and I don't have the production quality that Sheila has or the knowledge or the ability.
I don't have a team.
It's just me.
So I live stream it out and then I rebroadcast in all the audio podcast channels.
And you can see the live streams and get hold of me through Facebook.
That's where the videos all are.
The YouTube channel is pretty useless, but Facebook and LinkedIn is also useless.
But I do appear there as well.
Great.
Mark, thanks so much.
And please let us know if there's anything we can do to help you in your mission to help veterans, particularly Christine Gauthier, but all veterans, please.
Thank you.
Well, I will.
As soon as we get the bill for what this elevator is going to cost, we'll all be rowing together in the same direction.
We'll get the darn thing done.
You got it.
Thanks, Mark.
Thank you.
Listening to the emotion in Mark's voice as he tells the story of Canada's wounded veterans and their mistreatment at the hands of the very agencies meant to help them has me oscillating between heartbreak and fury.
Now, rest assured, I will do everything I can to give Canada's veterans a platform to tell their stories, and I will think of very creative ways for you at home to show your support for them.
Now, I currently have a petition to the federal government.
It's at helpnothomicide.com, and it calls on the feds to offer some real help to people instead of coercing them into medical assistance and dying, because Canadians are opting for state-sanctioned homicide as a reaction to their suffering, which so often comes at the hands of an inept government agency.
Now, on that depressing note, let's turn our eyes to the gun show letters.
At the end of every show, every week, I give you my email address.
It's sheila at rebelnews.com.
Write me a letter, put gun show letters in the subject line so I know that that's what it's for.
And let me know what you think about the work that we're doing here at Rebel News.
And I just might read your letter on air.
Tonight's gun show letter comes to us from Mark Murray, and he's writing in on last week's gun show with Rick Iggersich from Canada's National Firearms Association about Justin Trudeau's latest gun ban, which amounts to a wide-scale, comprehensive prohibition on almost every single hunting firearm in this country, with the exception of a few.
Mark writes: Hello, Sheila.
I enjoyed your recent show with the National Firearms Association.
I did not realize this organization existed.
Thanks to your show and all the rebels, I am a better informed citizen.
I decided to become a member of the NFA just based on your show.
Well, that's great.
I figure the more voices, the better, strength and numbers.
It especially sparked my interest when you were talking about semi-automatic rifles with a magazine that can hold more than five rounds.
And that's just a gun capable of holding that.
I have a semi-auto 22 that has a detachable magazine that can hold 10 rounds.
I bet it's pinned.
It's a beautiful gun.
I also have a Remington 870 shotgun that I've owned since I was in high school many years ago.
It's a reliable gun.
And I also have an air rifle for target practice.
Sorrow Over Lost Heritage00:01:18
Thank you.
And all the rebels for keeping us informed.
Once again, I oscillate between fury and sorrow.
Fury that law-abiding Canadian gun owners are being scapegoated by their liberal government for the crimes happening in progressive cities and exacerbated by progressive policies.
I'm sad for the attack on this fundamental part of Canadian heritage.
Whether or not you like or use guns, it really doesn't change their intrinsic tie to Canadian culture and their historic value in turning this country from an undiscovered, unlivable place to a real society.
And my sorrow.
My guns, which were my dad's, my grandpa's, cannot be passed along to my children.
I will not be able to teach my grandchildren how to shoot gophers with the same gun that my dad taught me and that his dad used to teach him.
Those guns will instead be turned over to the state upon my death and destroyed along with that history of my family.
My kids won't have that tie to the great men they were never able to meet because Justin Trudeau blames me for what some gangster in Toronto is doing.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.