Sheila Gunn-Reid highlights Alberta’s $10.3B surplus, driven by oil and gas, with half earmarked for debt repayment like Ralph Klein’s 1990s reforms, while criticizing the NDP’s past spending and credit downgrades. She contrasts local firearms autonomy (Bill 8) with Trudeau’s failed $1B gun registry and federal pipeline delays forcing a $31B taxpayer-funded Trans Mountain expansion. Gunn-Reid also warns about Commonwealth Games costs without referendums, ties CBC funding to propaganda, and defends protests like drag queen story hours against media backlash, framing dissent as radical in today’s climate. [Automatically generated summary]
Alberta has just posted a $10.3 billion budgetary surplus and wouldn't you know it?
The official opposition, the NDP, are the hardest hit.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
I've lived in Alberta my entire life, and friends, everything is cyclical.
Everything repeats itself.
Boom, bust, boom, bust.
And as it turns out, boom in Alberta again.
The oil patch has picked right up and it is showing on the province's bottom line with a $10.3 billion budget surplus.
Half of that is committed to paying down the debt, which reminds me of what it was like under the leadership of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.
But also, all things repeating themselves and there being nothing new under the sun, wouldn't you know it, we got another gun grab from the federal government.
Another Trudeau, another liberal government, which always leads to another gun grab.
And another fight back by the province of Alberta against the liberal government's attempts to grab the lawfully acquired firearms of law-abiding Canadian gun owners through Bill 8 here in Alberta.
So joining me today to talk about these issues, the budget, the gun grab, and also another boondoggle on the horizon that I don't think enough of us are paying attention to is my friend Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Take a listen.
So joining me now is my fellow mid-century modernism enthusiast, Chris Sims, from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
And there's so much to talk about.
I haven't had you on since Alberta posted an enormous budgetary surplus.
And there are some safeguards built into that budgetary surplus for Alberta taxpayers, which is exciting.
It seems to be a return to how things used to be here in Alberta.
Then we can talk about the gun grab and how politicians have made me dislike minor sports competitions altogether by being just absolutely money grubbing.
But Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Tell me about the Alberta budget.
Like I said, I haven't had you on since we posted a $10 billion plus budget surplus.
What does that mean?
How did we get it?
And what are we going to do with it?
It was pretty great.
So as folks know, I like to call myself an economic and many other reasons refugee from British Columbia.
This is the first time I remember as in the advocacy world being happy about a budget.
I was like covering going, that's great.
So we got the surplus.
Alberta got the surplus largely because of our oil and gas revenue.
So there's a structure that's set up within the province of Alberta where some of those profits and that revenue goes directly to the people.
So that's really nice to see.
So you're right.
We had billions of dollars.
Now, our concern at the Taxpayers Federation is that, okay, folks, you've won the lottery.
Don't blow it.
So there's this bumper sticker that is so rare, it's almost mythical, but it does exist in time and space because I've seen a picture of it.
It goes something like this.
Please, God, let there be another oil boom.
We promise not to piss it away all again.
Pardon my language, but the saltiness is good seasoning, right?
So that's kind of our attack on that.
Okay, folks, we know you have a big surplus.
Please don't blow all of it and save it for a rainy day.
Turns around, the Daniel Smith government did just that.
So they put in some major budget reforms.
Number one, they're going to table legislation to create balanced budget law.
What that means is, is that the province will have to return a balanced budget outside of emergencies.
Now, what did they mean by emergencies?
We don't know.
We're going to have to wait and see what they say in the law.
It could be, you know, aliens invading.
It could be a tsunami that reaches all the way over the Rockies.
Who knows?
Or it could just be a blip.
We're going to try to make sure that it's going to have to be a really serious emergency for them to have to break their balanced budget promise.
So that's a big one.
Balanced budget legislation.
Number two, they've also said that debt repayment is going to be a huge dedication going forward.
So anytime they have surplus cash, so not including the actual physical objects that we have in the ownership of government, 50% of surplus cash must go down onto the debt plunk.
The other 50%, and this is what's pretty cool, either has to also go into debt repayment, or it has to go into the Alberta Heritage Savings Fund, which is basically our rainy day fund for the future, or it has to go to one-time spending that doesn't increase year-to-year spending.
That was a really big dedication.
This is the third and key one, and it's super nerdy and we love it.
Future spending.
Any future spending increases must be tied to inflation and population growth from the year previous.
We've been asking for that since the 90s, like since before the internet was a thing.
So to have Premier Smith promise that was really encouraging.
So all in all, a very good budget.
And, you know, frankly, it's not all that unusual here in Alberta to see something like this.
If you've been around for a long time, and unfortunately, I have been.
This goes back to the day, like 19, I think 1995, when Alberta first brought in our balanced budget and debt repayment act under former Premier Ralph Klein.
And it took nine years to pay off the debt.
I think it was July 2004 when Ralph Klein is pictured holding up that famous paid in full.
That's how long it took for us to eliminate our debt.
This is a return to that.
And it should be noted that it was subsequent progressive conservative governments who ignored the previous legislation and then started debt spending.
So this is just a return to Kleinism, I think.
I hope.
It really is.
The language that was being used in the presentation and in the budget itself is very much keeping with the late, great Premier Ralph Klein.
And I know I heard Premier Smith say very nice things about the late Premier Klein.
You know, she really admires him.
I've heard her talk personally about him lots of times.
And so I know that's what she was aiming for.
And you're right.
Premier Klein had said that 75% of the surplus cash had to go on to paying down the debt.
So this time it's 50.
But what's interesting is that the other 50% also has strings attached.
Whereas before it was 75% all on the debt and the other 25% had no strings.
What's better?
Who knows?
It probably comes out in the wash either way.
But to hear serious dedication and language put into paying down the debt is really heartening because of course we all pay the interest.
It's just like a big nasty credit card bill.
And so here's a point.
So before this big debt repayment and stuff during the budget presentation, the debt was around mid-90s, mid-90s billion dollars.
Now that they've put a whole bunch of money down on the debt, it's in the mid-70s.
So I think it's around 73, 74 billion.
That's a big difference.
But what's interesting is that unfortunately, because the interest rate has gone up, thanks so much, Prime Minister Trudeau, our debt payments, our interest payments are still about the same.
So that's a big flashing light of, hey, bucko, make sure you're putting down on the principal as fast and hard as you can, because you're still out money.
So it's really good to see them take this very seriously.
We're just now recovering from having the NDP in power here in Alberta.
They acted as a scarecrow to oil field investment, just standing in the field being scary and chasing investors to West Texas and North Dakota.
But they also dropped the credit rating here in Alberta multiple times.
I think it was six times, which caused the costs of repaying their already out of control spending to be that much higher.
And we're just now seeing a recovery in Alberta's credit rating.
So eventually those costs will come down, but we're paying more than we should because of that overspending back then.
Yeah, it's true.
And what you just said there is a great point because this is bearing fruit.
So Moody's, which is this big, fancy international investment and financial group, before the budget, I think it was about six weeks out, they upgraded Alberta's credit rating.
And why did they upgrade it?
Well, they mentioned many reasons, but three of the main reasons were exactly what we were just saying, because they were saving for a rainy day.
They were putting money down on the debt big time.
And we don't have a sales tax.
They mentioned that specifically, which I was quite impressed by, because of course, Alberta has an advantage.
We don't have a PST.
But if you walk outside of these studios and you start talking to the pointy heads who work in universities and mainstream media, you'd think that the PST is just a no-brainer and everybody goes along with it and everybody smart has one.
That narrative, by the way, is really strong within the bureaucracy in Edmonton.
Doesn't matter that we're in Alberta.
A lot of the bureaucrats are leaning hard on ministers saying, hey, we need to get with the cool kids and have a PST.
So it was pretty great to see Moody say, nu-uh, you know what's great?
Paying down the debt, saving for a rainy day and not having bloody high taxes.
They listed all of those things when they upgraded our credit rating.
And then we went into this good news budget.
So hopefully these good times keep on rolling, but we don't blow it all at once.
And so hearing all of this discipline come out of the ministry and out of the premier's office is really good because, you know, that's like counting on winning the lottery to pay for your mortgage, right?
It's just not a good idea.
You know, winning the lottery is super fun, but you have to save for the future.
And so far, we're hearing a lot of prudence.
Now, of course, after the election, if these folks are still in government, if they start wobbling on these promises, like I'll chew their leg off because I have them on record now saying that they're going to stick to all of these promises.
Well, it's even scarier, the NDP looking at this budget and saying, well, that's, you know, $10.3 billion that could have gone back into spending.
You know, that was one of the things that I was seeing coming out of the NDP saying, oh, this budgetary surplus is a bad thing.
Now, they said it was bad for a different reason than I would say it was bad.
I look at that and I'm like, you taxed me too much.
Yes, exactly.
You know, how'd you get all that money?
Damn it.
Yeah.
But for them, they're saying that's money that we should have been just dumping back into programs that we can't afford.
Yeah.
So if you do a case-by-case comparison, I forget how my wonderful nerdy friend, our federal director Franco Terrazano, had put it.
I think it was Western peers or something like that.
Basically, if you compare per job spending for things like doctors, nurses, bureaucrats, middle management of healthcare oligopolies, compared to other provinces, Alberta's always been higher.
Right.
We've always had a higher rate of pay for pretty much all of those different jobs.
And so they've done a little bit of work to try to pull that back into line so we're closer-ish to say British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
We're still a touch higher.
And so the idea is just to continuously spray money around without any plan for the future.
We just think that would have been reckless.
It's great that they have the surplus right now.
They need to make sure that they hang on to it for leaner days in the future.
Well, and spraying money around.
doesn't always get you better results.
All we have to do is look at healthcare spending in Saskatchewan versus healthcare spending in Alberta versus wait times in Saskatchewan versus wait times in Alberta.
They spend less per capita on healthcare than we do, and they see better results, better access to specialists and surgery and wait times than we do because they allow some innovation in their healthcare system that we are just apprehensive to do here in Alberta.
I'm looking forward to the report.
I forget the gentleman's name.
He was a longtime doctor and he's ferreting out, hopefully, waste and redundancy and all that jazz within Alberta Health Services.
And he's been assigned to do that.
So we're really looking forward to getting those metrics from him.
Now, moving on to another topic that's near and dear to both of my our hearts, yours and mine, firearms rights.
And from a Canadian taxpayer's perspective, just how expensive Justin Trudeau's latest gun grab is.
And Alberta seems to be leading the way in Canada in standing up for firearms rights, for property rights, and to defend taxpayers all across the country.
Because really, if you are trying to buy back guns en masse from people who didn't do anything with them, it's going to start costing people in other parts of the country non-gun owners.
It's going to hit them in the pocketbook too.
So this is why they should be concerned.
And Alberta is standing up with Bill 8 and saying, no, no, you might get away with that in Ontario, but not around here, mister.
Yeah, it was really heartening to see.
Like I said, this is the first time in a long time.
News releases saying taxpayers federation applauds and then fill in blank.
Like it's really nice to be able to give credit where it's due.
And so what's happening is that the Justice Minister, Tyler Chandrow, has basically, like you said, come out with Bill 8 and he's calling it the Alberta Firearms Act.
And so far, it's more of like a paint by numbers, but the paint isn't all filled in yet, but the framework is there.
And so what they're trying to do is push as firmly and decisively back against Ottawa to have our own Provincial Firearms Act and separate from the state, separate from the state in Ottawa.
So what they're trying to do is take back some of that regulatory power.
Now, that might sound boring, but it really matters on the ground.
So what they would ideally like to do, if I could predict what I think this government would like to do, they would like to have more authority put through our own chief firearms officer.
And right now, that is a lady by the name of Terry Bryant.
What's good is that she knows her stuff.
Like she's a gunny.
I can tell by the way she talks because she She uses language that is even a little bit beyond me.
I don't know if she's a collector herself or something, but she's right into it.
So she knows enthusiast, I would say.
That's a good term.
Yeah.
Enthusiast is a better term than gunny, I'm sure.
And so right into it.
And so they want more power put into that office.
So the chief firearms officer, the CFO here in Alberta would have more authority for licensing, regulation, and whether or not, I think in the future, they would be able to dissuade or recommend law enforcement within the province of Alberta to carry out the wishes of the feds to say,
Dealing with Local Firearms Issues00:04:07
seize a firearm from a legally licensed firearms owner who has not committed any crime.
And so what they're trying to do is explore how we can alter a relationship with municipal police forces like Calgary Police, Edmonton Police.
What is that language going to look like?
Could we maybe encourage them to not act upon said orders coming from on high in Ottawa to go to people's homes and take their property?
So it's all those big questions.
And then if you get into the cost, like you said, boy, oh boy, you know, back in the 90s, I feel like we're having like, you know, resurgence of 1990s.
We're like fighting the debt.
You know, we got the debt clock rolling and we've got a gun grab.
So in the night, you know, in the 90s, they had the long gun registry.
And the silly, you know, government at the time said, oh, it's going to cost a couple million.
Well, no, at the end of the day, it cost around $2 billion and it didn't make anybody any safer.
And that was just a registry.
That was just writing them down.
That wasn't stumping out to Brooks to take Brian's guns from his house and then go to the next guys and the next gals.
Like the logistics of that makes my head want to fall off.
So SFU, a criminologist at SFU, guesstimated this could cost another billion.
Give or take.
So we don't have that to spend.
We are in negative money.
We are more than a trillion dollars in debt federally.
So we don't have that dough.
And we've been told by the police who are on the front lines, this won't make anybody any safer.
Like criminals, newsflash, they don't register their guns and they don't go legally purchase them from stores.
I know everybody's surprised.
So this is not going to help gang violence.
You're just going after ranchers and collectors and sports shooters.
Like stop.
So this is where we're at.
And that's why the Taxpayers Federation is involved because it's going to cost you a ton of money and it won't make people any safer.
And we've seen this movie before.
So it's just not going to work.
And so that is why we're really applauding the Alberta government.
Anything they can do that trips up and pushes back on the federal government when it comes to this stuff is a good thing to do.
Yeah.
And somebody like me who is also interested in local autonomy, the decisions that affect your life are best made closer to home.
Of course, I reject the idea of some centralized bureaucrat somewhere in an office in Ottawa telling me what's best and what's safest for my community way out here in the middle of nowheresville.
I love the idea of a chief firearms officer that is beholden to the province in which that person works, dealing with the unique challenges of that location.
There are different firearms issues out here in Alberta than there are in Toronto.
Toronto's dealing with gang violence and I'm dealing with the availability of ammo issues out here.
Completely different.
Yes.
Exactly.
And then like so many places are so different, right?
Like, for example, if you're a rancher and you've got long guns or whatever to keep down pests, also known as like coyotes and things like that, where can you store your firearm where it's closest to your livestock, right?
Does it have to be trigger locked and in a safety box?
Does it have to be near you?
Like all these different parameters that would work really well rurally, but don't work so well if you're, you know, an urban, you know, firearms enthusiast and legally own some.
So all of those things are different.
And so that's why it's always better, you're right, to go more local, because the person on the scene always knows more.
And even if it can, if I can appeal to journalists watching this, you know, folks, you know, that it's the journalist in the field that always knows way more what's going on than the folks who are back on the desk.
It's the same thing when it comes to these sorts of issues.
Now, speaking of another local issue that, you know, we just lived through this thing coming threatened at us.
And that is one of these major international sports competitions.
Pipeline Costs and Controversy00:11:34
We just lived through Calgary residents fighting back against a mayor who is trying to build a legacy by having the Olympics return to Calgary.
Residents push back against that.
Taxpayers organizations push back against that.
But now they're threatening to bring the Commonwealth Games to Alberta again.
Please tell us what could be the potential cost for that.
You know what?
I used to love minor sports, but now I find myself watching professional sports because at least they're honest about the hustle.
These minor sports organizations, it's like, gimme, from the government.
And then, you know, everybody else's hands get involved in the middle.
Very little of it trickles down to the athlete.
At least professional sports organizations are honest that this is a money-making venture and everybody along the way is going to get money in their pocket.
These big, major international amateur sport competitions, it's not like that, but they're so darn expensive.
And it's us footing the bill.
Oh, I almost, there's almost a, there's almost a parallel there to like arts, right?
Like if you're going to some big budget mega movie that's put out by, you know, the latest Marvel, right?
You know, this is a massive billion dollar thing and you know you're going to be forking out money.
But if you go to the independent arts community in these little film fests, guess what?
You're still forking out money, but it's through all these layers of government.
It's like a big octopus.
I think we're back to our theme, she love, just, you know, government should be small, like fit in a teacup.
Yeah, a teacup.
I'm foam booth.
There you go.
We've got a lot of moving in between us.
And so, yeah, you're, you're right.
So when you mentioned the Olympics, I can't help but think if it was one of Franco Terrazano's first things he did as Alberta director is he pushed back hard on the Olympics and they won the no vote.
So he did a team Sweden because of course Sweden was in the running and he like ate meatballs in front of IKEA and he had the Swedish flag on as a cape.
I don't know what I'm going to do for a stunt yet, but I'm going to do one.
So what's happening is the Commonwealth, of course, the Commonwealth, you know, Great Britain, Canada, you know, New Zealand, all those folks, they actually have their own little sports circuit thing.
And so it's kind of like the Olympics, but in a much smaller scale.
It's mostly track and field events.
Okay.
They want to come to Canada for their track meet in the year 2030.
Okay.
So like seven years from now.
The problem is it, like you said, costs mega bucks, like eye-watering amounts of money.
So much so that according to the newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, the city of Hamilton said, you know what?
No thanks.
We're going to pass.
We're not going to host this because it could cost around $500 million.
Like, I'm sorry, what?
Half a billion dollars on a track meet?
No, no, no, no.
We can't do this.
And so what really got me going is that not only are Calgary, Edmonton, and the province all, oh, okay, that sounds great.
Let's explore that and think about it and spend taxpayers' money while we think about it.
Not only are they doing that, they are wondering aloud if we need a vote.
Like, do we need to have a referendum and ask the commoners if they want to host this track meet and pay for this track meet?
So Calgary mayor, Mayor Gondick, said, well, I'm not so sure if we need to ask this in a referendum.
Yeah, you do.
The answer is yes.
You need to hold a referendum and you have to ask us, right?
You can't just assume people's consent on this sort of thing when it comes to spending their money.
And so they definitely need to host or hold a referendum.
So that's where we are right now.
We have the province, meaning provincial taxpayers.
They're kicking in $2 million.
The taxpayers of Edmonton are spending $1 million and the taxpayers of Calgary are all spending $1 million.
This is while we've seen municipal tax rates go up, of course, from, you know, Brooks to Edmonton.
We've seen tax rates go up property value-wise.
So we need to have a referendum on whether or not we want to host these things.
And we've got, it's not up yet.
It should be up in a few days.
You've got a petition going.
We're all cylinders firing saying we need a vote.
Yeah, we're $4 million into this just to talk about whether or not we're going to consider holding this thing.
And they have the audacity to say, as you say, should we let the commoners have a say in all of this?
You know what?
They're going to push back so hard against the giving people a say because they know they're going to lose again.
So I say, let's rumble.
No, yeah, they can try.
You know, so this reminds me, I forget what her name was.
She was a supermodel back in the 90s.
I forget which one it was.
Remember when supermodels were a big thing?
Yeah.
And she said, I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000.
Was it Naomi Campbell?
I want to say it was Naomi Campbell.
And I was just like, wow, that's got some serious flex.
Like, that's, you know, I don't want to get out of bed.
It reminds me, bureaucrats.
It's like, I can't sit and think about something for less than a million dollars.
Like, how much does this cost?
Just thinking about it.
They're already on the hook for it.
Folks, we got to, you know, fire up the trucks.
We need to vote on this thing.
Yeah, they're, I forget what the city of Franco would probably know a little better, what just the exploratory examination of whether or not the city of Calgary could host these thing, the Olympics or consider hosting this thing.
It was like in the tens of millions of dollars.
Like tens.
Like this is four just to say, maybe should we?
We're at four.
By the time they actually convene panels of bureaucrats and experts to also say maybe should we, you're looking at like 27, 30 million dollars.
Yep.
It's and we all pay for it.
This is again, I can't believe how many times I need to explain to people, the government doesn't pay for things.
You pay for things.
There's no such thing as government funding.
It's taxpayers funding.
It reminds me actually, there was a couple of months ago.
If you have another second, I've got a beat in my bonnet.
Okay.
So a couple of months ago, there was an NDP candidate provincially who's running in the Calgary area.
His name escapes me at this moment.
But I was pointing out that Trudeau is, you know, he's canceled pipelines.
He's put through no more pipeline legislation.
He's banned West Coast tankers, didn't lift a finger on Kinder Morgan, all that stuff.
I was pointing it out online.
And he like tweeted at me and said, hey, you know, we got Prime Minister Trudeau to build us the Trans Mountain Pipeline at government expense.
Ooh yeah.
I'm like, I don't know if you know what that means.
So number one, no such thing as government expense.
Okay.
There's taxpayers' expense, every nickel of it.
Number two, um, the company, the company of Kinder Morgan, wanted to actually pay their own money around seven billion dollars in order to get folks to build and twin the pipeline from Burnaby to Edmonton.
Their own money, the government at the federal level dragged their feet so long, ragged the puck for so long that the company just threw up their hands, Kinder Morgan.
It's like, you know what?
We have to go.
We've been getting green lights for five years, and now you're all of a sudden saying red.
See you later by.
Now, taxpayers are on the hook to twin the darn thing.
They just came out with a new stat.
Bloomberg did last week: $30 billion.
$31.
$31.
$31 is $31 billion.
It's like four times what it would have cost Kinder Morgan and not even not cost the taxpayers.
And all they wanted was to be able to build it.
So just say, okay, well, can we just the hippies can protest, but they can't.
They got to go over there.
Just have them go over there so we can.
Can we please pay people $100,000 to twin this and they're paying income tax and end?
Sure.
Yeah.
No.
All they wanted was for someone to say, okay, just keep the hippies off our job site so we'll work and it's going to be fine.
No, the government couldn't even do that.
Now we're, we've taken a $7 billion private sector project and nationalized it to the tune of $31 billion and the darn thing isn't even built yet.
No, no, I know.
And just scuttlebutt.
So I had to go home due to a family emergency.
So I was in Hope a couple of weeks ago.
We drove along the number three.
And so I was talking to a lot of guys who were there, like in Hope and Chilliwack area, where they're twinning this thing.
Apparently, they're stopping at like every foot of soil and like looking for snails and slugs.
Like this is coming directly from the workers that are on the ground.
Oh, I believe that.
So if you want to know why it's taking so long, they're apparently sifting like pretty much every scoop of ground.
And now, again, I have to stress, there's already a pipeline there.
Okay.
It's already right there.
They're building in the current easement for people.
I don't know what that means.
They didn't have to like expropriate any new land when they built the original pipeline.
It was on the promise that it would be twinned eventually.
Correct.
The existing easement.
They didn't even have to expropriate new land.
Just let them build.
It's literally in my cousin's backyard in Hope.
Like I've seen it.
And like, they're going, oh, they showed me.
They're like, it was all part of the plan all this time.
But yeah, 31.
I didn't know it was 31.
$31 billion.
And so just a news flash for anybody watching, including NDP candidates, forcing the taxpayer to take this big of a bath on something that should have been approved.
No, you know, no questions asked after all the green lights were lit and all the environmental stuff was done.
That is not spiking the football.
That's not a win.
More than tripling the costs for taxpayers after a private company was willing to foot all of it is not a win.
And there's no such thing as government expense.
It's all taxpayers' expense.
It's fascinating how few people actually understand that.
Like they said, Justin Trudeau bought you a pipeline.
First of all, Justin Trudeau didn't buy me anything.
And I, he, we, that's what we wanted.
That's not what we wanted.
We just wanted the company to be allowed to work and do a lawful thing here in Canada.
Instead, they're just building pipelines in other parts of the world instead of here in Canada.
There's even like silly thing here, silly thing.
Same pipeline in Burnaby.
Forget what the stat was.
I'm rough on either side here, but this is generally what it is.
The property taxes paid alone by Kinder Morgan at the time and Burnaby for the actual easement and the refinery and all that stuff pays for their recycling and garbage pickup.
Oh, I believe it.
Like just I live in Strathcona County.
So I understand because we reap the benefit of having Refinery Row and Upgrader Alley.
It keeps our property taxes abnormally low out here because we are.
We're subsidized by the refineries.
And that's why the city of Edmonton would love to expropriate them from our beautiful county.
Chris, oh, I didn't know that part.
Strathcona County Pipelines00:04:07
Oh, yeah.
See, I need to come up and visit and get more, more of the details up that way.
Oh, yeah.
So there's always been friction between Strathcona County and the city of Fort Saskatchewan and the city of Edmonton because a lot of these major projects sit inside county limits and they help keep things abnormally low for the Mick Mansions in Sherwood Park.
No, Chris, I should invite you to tell people not only where they can find the work that you do at the CTF and support the work that you do at the Taxpayers Federation, but you are at an event this weekend.
Yeah.
Oh, great.
Thank you so much for that.
I wasn't sure if I should mention it.
So yes, go to our website.
If you, hey, if you're, it doesn't matter what your thing is, do you want to defund the CBC?
Do you want to cancel the gun grab?
Right.
Present.
All that stuff.
We have dozens of petitions on our website about all of those flavors of ice cream.
And what that does is we have your name and email.
We don't spam you.
We only ever send you like action updates of email the prime minister now or now's the time, you know, strike while it's hot.
Contact your MLA.
It's in order to get critical mass in order to push politicians in different directions.
So any of those topics, just sign up on those petitions and you'll join our standing army.
Two, yeah, thanks for this.
I'm going to be a guest speaker at the Sean Newman podcast.
It's his kind of dinner event that he's having.
It's this Saturday.
So if folks want to go to that, they can just Google, you know, Sean Newman podcast, Edmonton, and it should pop right up there for events.
I don't know if you can stream it or if it's just an in-house thing because I know there's going to be dinner and then I'm going to be speaking on a panel.
The topic is media, why we need to defund the CBC and why it is fundamentally wrong for journalists to be paid by the state.
Government should not pay journalists.
We don't care if it's left-wing, right-wing, or space alien in nature.
The government shouldn't pay for journalists because then you're just going to get propaganda.
So that's going to be the topic of conversation this Saturday in Edmonton.
I'm driving up.
Nice.
Sean invited me to come.
And I'm always interested to hear what other people think about state funding of the media because I'm fundamentally opposed to it.
I think probably everybody in the room is going to be opposed to it.
But, you know, on the off chance that there's someone who says, you know, like, we can't survive without Justin Trudeau.
I can't wait to be here to hear those arguments.
So I'll be in the room just soaking it all in.
And Sheila, as independent media, she's like, really, tell me more.
Tell me more about how I don't exist.
Yeah.
Tell me how hard the hustle is for you.
Yeah.
So even when I'm not working, I'm still deeply interested in these sort of issues.
So I'll just be there as a spectator, but it's going to be fun.
Oh, we have to have a picture together again because that way we can prove that we're different people.
It happened again.
I know.
It happened when I got the budget.
That's true.
So they're like, oh, can I talk to Rebel?
I'm like, I'm not sure if they're here.
Like, aren't you, Sheila?
I'm like, nope.
Glasses.
It's the like, I think it's the glasses and the temperament.
The 50s glasses, the temperament, the dark hair.
Yeah.
I get it.
I'm not, I'm not mad about it.
I've been mistaken.
No, I think it's a compliment, but it was funny.
It happened again.
So awesome.
Okay, well, thanks so much for coming on the show.
We'll have you back on again very, very soon.
I like our standing date every about five weeks.
I think the viewers appreciate it too.
Awesome.
Thanks so much.
Okay, we'll see you this weekend.
Bye.
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show where we invite your viewer feedback.
I say it every week and it's probably getting pretty redundant, but it remains true.
Unlike the mainstream media, we actually care about what you think about the work that we're doing here at Rebel News because without you, there is no Rebel News because we don't have a sugar daddy named Justin Trudeau giving us someone else's money to produce content that nobody cares about and that nobody wants to watch, which is exactly the diagnosis with the mainstream media in this company.
Daily Wire Feedback00:05:50
As long as Justin Trudeau continues to give them money, they are never going to get the market correction they so rightly deserve.
Now, I give you my email address at Sheila at RebelNews.com.
Put gun show letters in the subject line so that it's easy for me to find because, as you know, I probably get a couple hundred emails every single day.
But don't hesitate to leave a comment or what I would call a letter wherever you might be watching us on the censorship platform of YouTube or even over on Rumble.
And actually, today's letter comes from the Rumble comments and it's on last week's show with my friend Kennedy Hall.
He's a journalist over at LifeSight.
And we were talking about the controversy surrounding Daily Wire's Michael Knowles saying the radical ideology of transgenderism should be rooted out of public life.
Now, he didn't call for genocide of transgendered people.
Actually, he called for compassion for them, but that didn't stop the mainstream media of accusing him of genocide in a speech that everybody could watch for themselves, but they lied about it anyway because they're just that confident that they're right and that you're wrong and that you will believe them instead of your own eyes and ears.
Now, Cheryl Lell or Cheryl E.L., right?
Why do we care?
I guess she's talking about radical transgenderism because their actions affect us daily.
It's not just that drag queens read a story in the public library to kids, which is where I have the real problem.
You want to be a drag queen?
Be a drag queen.
You want to do a drag performance, which is an adult burlesque show in a private venue where there's no kids?
Great.
But I don't like the idea of kids being involved and I don't like the idea of this happening in a government-funded place.
That's where I've got a real problem.
Whether or not I agree with how you're behaving or what you're consuming, it's got nothing to do with me if little kids aren't involved and if I'm not paying for it in any way through the use of taxpayer dollars.
Anyways, sorry, I just thought I would make that clear.
It's just not that drag queens read a story.
It's what they're reading.
Those books are all LGBTQ books that come with lessons and activities.
Instead of men and women protesting against them, set up a time for real men and women who can read wholesome and funny books to kids with activities.
Do you think the library would let them?
I'm not sure.
It's worth a try.
I mean, the people who seem fine with drag queens reading LGBT books to other people's kids would probably have a problem with me showing up to teach them how to say the rosary, wouldn't they?
Anyway, let's keep going.
Children are starving for attention.
Fight radicals with wholesome but radical ideas.
It's time to take actions that matter, not protest.
Now, I'm not against protest.
Actually, I think there's great value in being able to speak your mind in the public square on a matter of public interest.
It's the measure of whether you are free or not is can you protest in the public square, even if your ideas are objectionable to the majority of people.
If you can't say them in public, are you truly free?
Are any of us truly free if some of us aren't?
So I think there's value in protest.
I think there's a value in raising awareness and also telling other people that it's okay to object.
and that you're not alone.
That was one of the great things about the trucker convoy was that people who knew something was wrong, who disagreed with how the government was reacting to the coronavirus pandemic, they were in front of a TV or in front of a newspaper or social media that made them feel like they were the only people who felt that way.
But when those trucks started rolling across the country, people started realizing I'm not alone.
I might be alone in my household.
I might be alone in my job place thinking this way, but I am not alone and there are more people like me out there.
And so that's the value in protests.
And you hear that all the time about the trucker convoy, that it was the moment where people realized they weren't alone.
And so, you know, are these protests against drag queen story hours, that thing for some people who realize they're not alone and thinking it is crazy for men in cross-sex burlesque costumes to be reading LGBT books in the public library to other people's children?
Maybe this is their moment in time where they have that sort of light bulb come on.
But with regard to offering an alternative, our show last week was about the Daily Wire's Michael Knowles, but let me talk about the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh.
He wrote a book called Johnny the Walrus, and it was about a little boy who wanted to be a walrus.
And his mom said, yep, okay, fine, then you're a walrus.
Let's go get surgery to turn your hands into flippers.
And it was the best selling children's book.
I think actually it sold out.
It's very difficult to get your hands on Johnny the Walrus.
And it wasn't because of cancel culture.
It was because of demand.
So I do agree with you that there is a demand for the other side of this.
But it is difficult for normal people who want to have a normal life to step in to fill the gap to all of a sudden be, I guess, a best-selling LGBTQ author, as Matt Walsh was initially listed, because they will come for you.
They will cancel you.
They will ruin your life and paint you as a bigot.
Standing Up for Reality00:00:23
So you have to be somebody who's willing to stand up for what you know is right and what is wholesome and good and true to stand up for reality.
It's a radical thing to stand up for reality these days and not be scared.
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.