Sheila Gunn Reid critiques Justin Trudeau’s $534K King’s Coronation trip and $6,000/night Middle East hotel stays amid Alberta’s mortgage and inflation crises, while 102-person delegations dined on beef Wellington. She dismisses Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act as conservative posturing but concedes federal clean electricity rules violate provincial rights under Section 92A, despite Alberta’s past $12B–$30B renewable energy investment losses. Gunn Reid calls Ottawa’s carbon tax a "rip-off" ignored by courts, mocking Trudeau’s global emissions claims while Albertans face higher costs. The episode ties wasteful spending to public backlash against federal policies, framing it as a clash between political optics and economic pragmatism. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Alberta's Premier Daniel Smith uses the nuclear button on the feds.
Then, wouldn't you know it, Justin Trudeau's trip to the King's Coronation came with a half a million dollar price tag and the total bill's not in yet.
It's November 28th, 2023.
I'm Sheila Gunreed, but you're watching the Ezra Levant show.
Well, I bet you're all kinds of surprised to see me hosting the show here and also see the old digital studio, but I don't live or work near Toronto and Ezra's on a very special mission today.
so here I am filling in from my studio in the basement in the wilds of Alberta.
So thank you in advance for bearing with me.
Now, speaking of very special missions, Alberta's Premier Daniel Smith is on one of her own on behalf of all of us.
That mission is to exert Alberta's rights and authority within the Confederation of Canada and strike fear in the hearts of the stupidest man in all of politics.
Yes, I'm talking about Justin Trudeau.
These measures are not something that we want to do.
They are a plan to counteract the absurd, illogical, unscientific, and unconstitutional interference in Alberta's electrical grid by a federal government that simply doesn't care what happens to our province so long as they have a good virtue signaling story to tell their leftist friends and special interests.
We would much rather work with Ottawa on meaningful ways to reduce emissions while continuing to generate reliable, affordable electricity.
That's better for all Albertans and Canadians.
But we refuse to meekly accept actions which are so plainly destructive to Alberta's economy and to the very safety and security of Alberta citizens.
We will do whatever we must to stand up and protect the people of this province.
In doing so, Daniel Smith is also forcing the NDP to oppose NDP ideology in a bit of a strange way.
The NDP socialist concept of the government being big and doing everything better than the private sector has been a cornerstone of the party since its inception.
But right now, they are crying the blues about the potential for a new crown corporation here in Alberta.
And I love, I love, I love watching them twist themselves in knots, but we'll get to that in a second.
First, let's talk about what my premier has done, this time to the feds.
Alberta's Premier Daniel Smith invoked her Sovereignty Act, something that we were told just couldn't be done, and it was a big theatrical threat, conservative showboating, if you will.
We were all told by our moral and intellectual superiors in the mainstream media that Daniel Smith would never use her flagship piece of legislation, which mandates her to fight with the feds every time the feds overstep into provincial jurisdiction.
We were told the Sovereignty Act was just right-wing virtue signaling and that things wouldn't change and Albertans would be happy, just so happy, to be the doormat under the feds' feet the way we've always been.
Because why do anything different in politics ever?
However, however, bright and early Monday morning, Daniel Smith uses Sovereignty Act to make life more affordable for Albertans.
Ottawa persists in trying to regulate and remake Alberta's electrical system from generation to transmission to distribution, which will make life more expensive for families and put the reliability of our grid at risk.
And they're pushing ahead with their plan, even though Section 92A of the Constitution of Canada is clear that legislating and regulating the development of electricity falls within the jurisdiction of the provinces.
Alberta's government is committed to protecting Albertans from federal overreach.
That is why this afternoon I intend to table a resolution in the chamber under the Alberta sovereignty within a United Canada Act.
We developed this legislation to shield the province from federal intrusions.
And we're using it now because the consequences of this particular overreach would be so severe.
And the feds, of course, they're scared, so scared, and they don't like it.
But isn't that truly the point?
So let's talk about the Alberta Sovereignty Act, and we'll go back to questions about official languages after.
Like, this is a massive distraction from the real preoccupations of Albertans, which are housing, growing an economy that works for everybody, getting the renewables moratorium reduced, and actually building up an economy that works for everybody.
I said this when the act came out.
It's a dubious piece of legislation.
This is theater to distract people from what's really going on, which is the fact that Danielle Smith has made some bad calls.
She scared away at least $12 billion on renewables already.
That could go as high as $30 billion.
When I met with her a couple of weeks ago, I said, can this end soon?
And she didn't have a clear answer on that.
She's actually put in a piece of legislation that would stop regulations that don't plan to go in place until 2035.
And there's a working table in place to actually talk about if 2035 is even the right date.
So this is political theater.
It's a political spat.
It's another opportunity for the province to try to pick a fight with the feds that, quite frankly, Albertans don't need.
And if the Premier or her ministers want to reach out to the federal government, they can just pick up the phone.
They don't have to impose the Sovereignty Act.
Contrary to many of the claims that, well, all of the claims that the Premier is making on this, we have, in fact, signed agreements with provinces like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, who are still very dependent on fossil fuel to produce their electricity and who've agreed to work with us to have a carbon-neutral grid by 2035.
So it is possible to do so in Canada.
It is possible to do so in jurisdictions that are still very dependent on fossil fuel.
But it means that we have to work together, not against each other.
And that's what I find unacceptable with the position that Premier Smith is taking, because it's bad for Albertans.
It's bad for workers in Albertans.
bad for the economy of Alberta and obviously we know that as far as Pierre Poliev is concerned nothing would happen on this because he doesn't even the official position of his party is that they don't believe in climate change let alone measures that we we should put in place to fight climate change So we will continue moving ahead with this.
There is no legal basis for what Alberta is doing.
And we feel that we're on very solid ground.
And the fact that we already have some provinces who are on board with us, as well as a number of private companies and investors who say that this is the way to the future, we will continue working on this.
But here's the thing.
Premier Smith told the feds she was going to do this.
She warned them over and over and over again.
How are the talks going between Alberta and the feds with regards to the clean electricity regulations?
Because of course the clock is ticking on this whole file.
Well, we're getting pretty frustrated because they've had a Supreme Court loss now that says that they cannot use their federal power as a pretext to invade provincial jurisdiction.
And they're acting like that Supreme Court case didn't happen.
They had another loss on the issue of plastics, which was also an unconstitutional overreach and unreasonable.
And instead of accepting the court's judgment, they're going to drag it out again.
So we've got a lawless federal government.
And when you have a lawless federal government, then you've got to assert that the Constitution matters.
We've got the Supreme Court behind us.
We're continuing to press that matter.
They haven't dropped it yet.
But I can tell you we are just like Premier Mo, getting increasingly frustrated at the way they're behaving on this.
We think that there is a resolution as to a line to get to 2050 on emissions reductions targets.
That's the position that we continue to put forward.
And that's what we're going to do in Alberta, quite frankly.
We know that that's achievable.
We know we have the constitutional jurisdiction.
And we know that they're acting in a way that's outside of their boundaries.
I guess Justin Trudeau is just not used to dealing with a woman he can't grope, bully, fire, or otherwise put in her place.
Danielle Smith is smarter than Justin Trudeau, and Justin Trudeau knows it.
But back here in Alberta, it is fascinating to watch the NDP try, try to understand business after being anti-business since forever and ultimately get it all wrong.
The NDP leader and former Premier Rachel Notley, who previously acted as some sort of scarecrow for oil patch investment, scaring it off to North Dakota and Texas for four years through her anti-oil policies, has suddenly become an expert in attracting business, you know, after she oversaw some of the most catastrophic job losses in Alberta's existence.
This Premier is determined to hold us back.
Invoking the so-called Sovereignty Act is either illegal or a dishonest stunt to claim it is.
Either way, the Premier's actions will jeopardize investment certainty, weaken the nation, ignore the rule of law, breach treaty rights across the country and here in Alberta, and declare that we're on the wrong side of fighting climate change.
To the Premier, why is she putting her own extremist politics ahead of economic common sense?
Now, here's where the NDP turned into absolute hypocrites.
Part of yesterday's announcement by Smith was that the groundwork would be laid for the creation of a Crown Corporation energy generator, which would be a last resort stopgap against the feds.
You see, Saskatchewan right now, they're not collecting the carbon tax on the electricity that it sells through a provincial Crown corporation, Sask Power.
In Alberta, that's not a thing that we can do in our fight with the feds.
Our provincial government cannot ask our privately owned energy retailers to not collect the carbon tax or to breach Justin Trudeau's clean energy standards.
This new Crown Corporation would be an end run around all of that.
This new energy generator would adhere to Alberta's electricity generation standards and not those of the feds.
And yet, the NDP, who are so pro putting everything under the jurisdiction of government, including businesses, are suddenly against the creation of this government-run business because the NDP aren't really for Albertans, are they?
My Premier has them pegged.
We know where they get their marching orders from.
Well, I see the Leader of the Opposition is true to form opposing something she hasn't even read and still has apparently not read the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act.
It will do none of those things.
In fact, what it is going to do is it's going to push back against a lawless federal government that incidentally is supported by her federal leader.
She should actually stand with us in making sure that we have affordable, reliable electricity for Albertans, because that's what this motion is all about.
And I would invite the Leader of the Opposition to read the Constitution, Section 92A, which gives the province exclusive jurisdiction to develop policy and law around electricity generation, transmission, and conservation.
In fact, is the federal government acting in a lawless way?
We are standing up for the law.
If she had any influence on her federal leader, then she should ask them to abide by what the Constitution says and support us in a target of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
Stay with us, Franco Terrazano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins us after the break to discuss the ballooning costs of Justin Trudeau's coronation vacation.
The saga of the federal government's trip, entourage, junket to the king's coronation really is the gift that keeps on giving to the conservatives.
The only problem is that it is the taxpayers who keep giving the gift to the liberals and their government in the form of these incredibly large, expensive junkets.
And joining me now is Franco Terrazano with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The King's coronation junket, we're close to getting a final number pegged on just how enormous this thing was.
Tell us about this.
Well, look, taxpayers are on the hook for what?
$534,000 for the federal government's trip to England for the King's coronation.
Now, look, I understand the King's coronation is a big event, but that does not give the government of Canada a blank check to spend more than half a million dollars.
So 102 delegates can go to England for three days.
Folks, you hear that?
$534,000 is the bill to taxpayers.
That doesn't even include airfare for 102 delegates.
So let's break down the math even more.
That is a cost per traveler of about $5,200 for three days.
That's outrageous.
And that doesn't even include the airfare yet.
You know, the CTF first broke the story of the $6,000 hotel room that they wouldn't tell us who stayed in it, even though we definitely all knew.
It took a very long time for you to just wring that little bit of information out of them.
Well, so we're the ones in that story.
If I'm not mistaken, the Toronto Sun, I think Brian Lilly might have broke the original one.
Good digging for him.
But what the Canadian Taxpayers Federation did is we launched a legal challenge.
Why did we launch a legal challenge?
Because we filed an access to information request to see who stayed in the room.
Now, look, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that it was always Mr. Justin Trudeau who stayed in that room, but we wanted to set a precedent.
You waste taxpayers' money.
You got to be honest about it.
You got to face the crowd.
So what did the government do?
They wrote down Justin Trudeau's name and then they blacked it out.
They sent us a redacted ATIP.
So we launched a legal challenge.
We forced them to fess up.
And Trudeau, he knew he was going to lose that legal challenge.
So he finally admitted that it was him who stayed in the $6,000 per night hotel room.
But when did he admit it?
The day that President Joe Biden was coming to town, folks.
That's called a cover-up.
Yeah, that's burying the lead a little bit.
Now, you guys broke down some of the numbers here, and it's outrageous.
It makes you wonder if there was anybody actually left in Ottawa.
So as you said, Canada's delegation was 102 people, 87 people traveling with Justin Trudeau, and 15 more traveling with Governor General Mary Simon.
Fancy Hotels and Cover-Ups00:03:20
And you know, she's got a taste for luxury, don't you?
Oh, she sure does.
Now, folks, that joke is in reference to another access to information request this Canadian Taxpayers Federation dug up when we found that the Governor General and her entourage in a separate trip to the Middle East spent almost $100,000 on fancy airplane food, right?
They were dining on beef Wellington, beef carpaccio, stuffed pork tenderline.
I get hungry just thinking about the fancy feast that they had.
Now, folks, if you've traveled on Air Canada or WestJet, you can't even get Beef Wellington flavored chips.
But I guess if you're the governor general and you're spending other people's money, you can afford to dine on Beef Wellington at the taxpayer expense.
Now, I want to kind of come back to the real key issue here, right?
Because, number one, $530,000 of taxpayers' money to go to a three-day trip with over 100 people, that's that's ludicrous, right?
That's ludicrous.
But also, just factor in what was going on in Canada when that happened.
How many people worried about losing their mortgage?
How many people just worried about the ground turkey that they want to pick up for taco night to feed their families?
Or how many people just are worried that they can't afford to fuel up their car on the way to work?
Okay, but there's one other important issue here, and it's the fact that this is not the exception.
It's become the rule in Ottawa to make taxpayers pay for your fancy trips, right?
It almost seems like this government is going out of its way to bring as many people as possible to stay in the fanciest of hotels and to take the sweetest rides.
And that is chilling for somebody like me because we're coming up to the annual climate change conference this year.
It's in Dubai in the UAE.
So, you know that the federal government is going to take a massive entourage, as they tend to do.
They tend to be some of the largest, like the feds, the liberals, their entourage is usually much larger than, let's say, the Americans, a country 10 times our size.
And it's Dubai.
I just went there for work.
We were exploring the Abraham Accords.
If you're looking for luxury, you can find it there.
And I'm worried that the feds are really, really going to find it while they're there.
Oh, I am too.
And we're going to keep an eye on it.
And I'm sure Sheila, you and your team are going to as well.
We certainly are.
Because let's not forget, folks, what was it?
I don't know.
I can't remember the number.
Maybe COP26, the one in Glasgow, Scotland.
When the Canadian delegation, we sent the largest delegation out of any G7 country, including the host country, the United Kingdom.
So we sent more people to their conference than they did.
Not only that, our dear finance minister, Christia Freeland, what did she do?
Well, she booked a hotel in the wrong city, Edinburgh, 86 kilometers away from Glasgow.
Okay, then what did she do in her infinite wisdom?
Well, she decided to book taxpayers or bill taxpayers for thousands of dollars on a chauffeur service.
So look, first of all, why are we sending the biggest delegation out of any G7 country?
But second of all, do you not have Google Maps on your phone?
Couldn't Google the fact that Edinburgh is not in the same place as Glasgow?
Debt And Interest Charges00:06:34
I mean, this is crazy.
Yeah.
And also very frightening that that is the woman in charge of the entire Canadian economy.
And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show today is because of the fiscal update from the federal government.
And brutal.
And you had a great op-ed about a week ago about how the budget proves that Trudeau is not serious about federal finances.
I don't think you could be if you put Christie Freeland in charge of them.
But just the escalating debt and what that really means for Canadians.
I mean, it's causing an inflationary crisis, the attack on the carb, the escalating carbon tax on top of that.
And Canadians are in for a lot of trouble.
And I don't think the feds have a plan to get us out of this.
Oh, they couldn't balance the budget of a lemonade stand, right?
But look, the debt, the debt is directly related to your high cost of living.
Here's what happened during the pandemic, right?
They ran these massive deficits, sometimes into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
And then they had their Bank of Canada print up hundreds of billions of new dollars, largely purchasing the government debt.
That is literally, ladies and gentlemen, the inflation tax, okay?
But let's even move past that.
Another huge concern are the interest charges on the government credit card.
This year alone, the interest charges on the government debt will cost taxpayers about $4 billion every single month.
Billions of dollars every month that isn't improving services, isn't lowering taxes because it's going to the bond fund managers on Bay Street just to service the government's debt.
But listen to this, folks.
Next year, interest charges on the federal debt will surpass the amount of money the federal government sends to the provinces for health transfers.
Okay.
In a couple of years, a handful of years, interest charges on the government debt will equal the entire revenue of the GST, the government sales tax.
So every penny the government brings in through the GST in 2028 will be going to interest charges on the government debt.
Let that sink in, folks.
And then, you know, when you throw the carbon tax right on top of that, we saw Tiff Macklam, head of the Bank of Canada.
Usually these people are not, you know, political types, but even he is coming out and saying one of the single largest drivers of inflation on top of out-of-control government spending is the carbon tax.
And I'm reliably informed by liberals who don't know how to balance a budget that we would get more back in government bursaries and payments than we would pay for the carbon tax, which if you said something like that in the private sector, you would be investigated for running a Ponzi scheme.
But since the federal government said it, it's perfectly reasonable.
And that's just how money works.
Well, Sheila, if you think that the government can raise taxes, skim some off the top and still make everyone better off with rebates, then I've got some Ocean View property in Lethbridge, Alberta to sell you.
I mean, of course, nobody believes it.
Of course, nobody believes it.
And the parliamentary budget officer, right, the non-partisan independent budget watchdog here in Ottawa has called out the federal government for using magic math because guess what, folks?
The carbon tax is costing the average family this year up to $710 more than what they get back in rebates.
And that's just this year alone.
And the carbon tax, according to Trudeau, will continue to go up and up and up and up.
But here's the thing.
The whole point of the carbon tax is to make the necessities of life more expensive.
That's the whole point for the Trudeau government's carbon tax.
All right.
So they can pretend they can host these press conferences saying, we're making life more affordable for you.
But in reality, I think every time Mr. Trudeau passes a gas station and sees those high pump prices, I think he's patting himself on the back.
Right.
And then it's interesting because when the carbon tax does what it is intended to do, and that is drive up the costs of everyday necessities so that you don't use everyday necessities as though you have a choice.
Like the root word is necessary, right?
But when that happens, the liberals freak out only when it drives up the cost of living in places that might be politically precarious for the liberals like Atlantic Canada when they are risking a revolt from their own MPs out there.
Then they have a carve-out for carbon taxes, which I mean, if they're supposed to change the weather and save the world, why are we carving out the least clean version of home heating?
Are you suggesting that that carbon tax was purely political?
No way.
No way was it purely political.
I mean, of course, everyone knows that it indeed was purely political, rank regional favoritism.
But here's the thing, right?
Let's get back to the main issue here.
And it's the fact, it's just a simple fact.
Making it more expensive for someone in Canada to fuel up their minivan or to fill up their grocery cart does absolutely nothing to reduce emissions in places like China or India or Russia or the United States.
And Canadians, in large numbers, are waking up to that obvious fact, right?
That the carbon tax is a ripoff, that the carbon tax is making your life more expensive, that the carbon tax does not help the environment.
So it's good to see that Canadians are starting to wake up to that fact.
And I really do think that the Trudeau government is on their back foot now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, a government can only punish you for being alive for so long before you end up having enough of the punishment.
And I think that's showing up at the polls.
Now, Franco, you guys do some great work at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and you don't even allow yourself to take advantage of any sort of specialty tax treatment.
How do people support the very important work you do to hold all levels of government to account and to force them to hopefully be a little smaller and a little less greedy?
Well, thank you for saying that.
And we never have, never will take a penny from the government.
Tommy Robinson Controversy00:04:35
Absolutely not.
I appreciate you having me on today.
But please, folks, if you want to see our work, you can check us out on social media.
Just type in Canadian Taxpayers Federation or head over to our website, taxpayer.com.
Great, Franco.
Thanks so much for being on the show.
We'll have you back on again very, very soon.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
Stay with us.
your letters to Ezra unceremoniously read by me up after the break.
We get your letters every hour of every single day.
Letters, questions, comments, story ideas, emails.
And you know why?
Because we don't close our comment section because unlike the mainstream media, we actually want to hear from you.
They just want your money in the form of bailouts from Justin Trudeau without any of your icky little opinions.
Well, we welcome your opinions.
Now, today's comments come by way of Ezra's interviews the other day on the streets of London in the UK.
He was at a protest against anti-Semitism, wherein controversial activist Tommy Robinson was arrested for, I think, pre-crimes.
I guess they were worried that he might rile up the crowd.
And then instead of arresting the rambunctious people in the crowd, they arrested him instead.
Anyway, make UK policing make sense to anybody because I cannot make sense of it.
Anyway, Buckeye One Patriot writes, so many of the people Ezra interviewed are deluding themselves on immigration and it will be the downfall of their country.
Yeah.
The Western world doesn't do a very good job of vetting new immigrants for extremist ideologies.
And then you couple that with hyper-immigration, just bringing people to the country more and more and more all the time, despite the ability to house the people or to properly integrate them into Western culture.
And you've got a recipe for ghettoization and disaster.
Soaring Eagle writes, can't believe the so-called police were doxing Tommy Robinson's personal information in front of the world.
If you're going to arrest the guy with your unjust and woke rules, just get over it and handle the personal details away from the crowd and news crews.
You know, what a great point.
I'm so glad you caught that.
The police were basically showing the world, hey, this is where Tommy lives.
And in a world where people are told that Tommy Robinson is a dangerous radical akin to a Nazi, and they've also been told, hey, you should punch a Nazi, but the supply of Nazis never quite meets the demand.
Guess what these people are going to do with the information the police just gave them?
Might they turn up at Tommy Robinson's house and punch him out or do something far worse?
I mean, I'm sure Tommy can't go home now that he's been released by the police.
And I bet he's probably going to have to move again for his own safety.
Billy ZZ writes, government hate speech laws only allows the terrorist cancer to grow.
It's like blaming prison guards for the criminals.
You know, there's a real problem that comes from hate speech laws, and it's just not on the policing of speech, which I'm generally opposed to, unless it's, you know, calls for genocide, glorification of terror, and calls for violence.
But when laws, any laws, are applied unfairly, then it causes division and angst in society.
It creates a second class of citizens who will ultimately rise up.
Laws Applied Unfairly00:01:56
Now, hopefully they do it peacefully, the way the Freedom Convoy did.
But it doesn't always happen that way.
And I hate, I hate the idea of seeing violence on the streets.
But when, you know, for example, let's talk about the UK.
When Tommy Robinson is arrested for things he didn't say because the police are convicting him of a pre-crime, you've got a real problem because simultaneously, the police in the UK are also turning a blind eye to chance of genocide and glorification of terror on the streets from these anti-Israel rallies.
You know, if you can say from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, which is, I don't care how you try to justify it or how many years it's been chanted at these protests.
It is indeed a call for genocide.
It is from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, Palestine will be free of Jews.
That's what they mean, that Israel won't exist.
If that can go on on the streets of London, but if you misgender somebody, someone will show up at your door and arrest you.
We've got a real problem in that country.
And I just hope for the sake of the Western world, it doesn't turn into any more violence than we've already seen.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thanks to the big boss for trusting me with the show and everybody, including Olivia, who works behind the scenes to put together the random pile of files I send them into a proper show for you all to watch.
I believe Ezra will be doing the show tomorrow.
If not, I guarantee there will be some sort of show for you, but he's completing a very special mission today.