Sheila Gunn-Reid interviews Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who praises Alberta’s $360M surplus budget but slams delayed tax cuts (10% to 8% bracket pushed to 2027) and fuel tax hikes (9¢ to 13¢/L), aligning with federal carbon tax increases. Sims calls the Online Harms Act "censorship" and a "Ponzi scheme," citing $900 net family costs in 2024 despite rebates, while mocking NDP’s Charlie Angus for targeting oil speech. The CTF urges petitions against tax hikes and media regulation, framing their fight as nonpartisan advocacy for affordability and free expression amid Ottawa’s ideological push. [Automatically generated summary]
Today we're going through the good and the bad of Alberta's most recent budget.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
This interview with my guest is a long one, but it's an interesting one.
So I'm going to cut my intro short and sweet so you can hear what she has to say.
Joining me today is my good friend Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
We're talking about a lot.
We're talking about the federal carbon tax and some of the crazy, vindictive things that Federal Environment Minister Stephen Gilbeau was saying about Saskatchewan as the premier there takes a stand for his residents.
We're talking about the Alberta budget, what's good in it, what's bad in it, what's a promise kept and what's a promise broken.
And then we're talking about the Online Harms Act.
Why?
Because Chris is also a former journalist and the Online Harms Act from Justin Trudeau is one of the largest pieces of censorship legislation in the free world.
And it also makes government less accountable, which is part of her work at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
So I'll zip it.
Let's go to the interview.
Joining me now is my good friend Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I want to have Chris on because I need a breakdown of the good and the bad in the most recent Alberta budget.
If you got all your news from the mainstream media, it would be all bad.
And if you got your news from, I guess, the United Conservative Party and their press releases, they would say it's all good.
Tell us what you think.
Since you are an advocate for the people, what do you think, Chris?
It's good and bad.
Do you want to start with the good or do you want to start with the bad?
Let's start with the good.
Okay, there's a lot of good here.
Spending Spree: Groceries and Diesel00:15:32
So number one, the budget is balanced, which is a great thing to hear.
So we're hearing that there's going to be a deficit next door in Saskatchewan.
We see a gimongous deficit, like billions of dollars next door in British Columbia.
I don't know what they're doing over there.
Like they've lost the plot.
So they've gone banana pans in British Columbia when it comes to finances.
So the good news is the budget is balanced.
It's a little teeny weenie surplus.
Like it's a little baby surplus.
It's like 360 million with an M dollars.
So, but it is.
It's balanced and we're really happy to see that.
There's a big element that I'm super keen about and all of CTF is that gets lost a lot of time.
They're keeping spending reigned in, which is an excellent thing.
And they're not just keeping it reined in based on their own parameters.
They passed a law so that they must keep spending increases below the rate of inflation plus population growth.
Now, what that means in normal people talk is, you know how the price of groceries goes up, price of gas goes up, that's inflation.
You know how there's more people moving here.
That's your population increase.
So it is common sense then for them to turn to the government and say, okay, keep your spending increases apace.
Don't go crazy.
Don't go too far the other way.
Just keep it apace with the rate of inflation plus population growth.
They're doing that.
And that is really good because I went back and did the math and I did this report where if they had started doing this, Sheila, back in the mid 90s.
So imagine like spice girls are topping the charts, right?
I'm just finishing high school.
If they had implemented this rule back then and stuck to it all this time, they'd have around $300 billion in the bank just from that little teeny rule.
I'm not talking resource windfalls, no lottery wins, nothing like that, just this little teeny spending rule.
So this is why we're praising them a lot for keeping this rule.
It's just the first year that they're doing it, but they have to keep doing it.
So there's that.
They also put billions of dollars down on the debt.
Thunk.
Nice payment there.
And they put, I think it was $2 billion into the Heritage Savings Fund.
So they've balanced the budget.
They're keeping spending restrained.
They're paying the debt as best we can right now.
And we're saving for a rainy day.
Those are all excellent.
Tax cut being phased in in a couple of years.
This is the bad part.
Okay.
Because when the UCP campaigned in 2023, this was a big promise.
And in fact, I think their little tagline thing they used was tax cuts for all Albertans.
They didn't say little tiny tax cuts if we think we can afford them like three and a half years from now.
On the first 60,000.
Exactly.
So what this is for folks who weren't following the election breathlessly, when the UCP were in the middle of their fight against the NDP and Rachel Notley, they promised to create a new lower income tax bracket in Alberta.
That can sound boring, but it shouldn't because it'll save you money if they ever actually do this.
So right now, if you move, folks, maybe some people who have moved to the province of Alberta might have noticed this affect their paychecks.
If you move from British Columbia, for example, and you make around 100 grand, say you're a police officer or a plumber, you're going to notice that your chunk taken out of your paycheck is bigger, actually, in Alberta than it is in BC.
And you're going to be like, what the heck?
I thought that Alberta was the land of low taxes.
Not when it comes to income tax.
So the first tax bracket starts from, I think it's $20,000 or whatever it is for your personal exemption.
It goes all the way up to $140,000 a year and change.
That's a pretty wide lower tax bracket.
And it's at 10%.
Like, it's not a 5%.
It's not at 8%.
Like, it's a smack in the nose 10%.
So what almost called her Danielle.
What Premier Smith promised was that she was going to reduce that down to 8% for those making up to $60,000 a year.
On average, that would save an average person around $700 per year times two per household, two-person working household.
You're closing in on $60.
Yeah, exactly.
Nothing to sneeze at.
You're clocking in on about $1,500 a year.
So I haven't yet found when they answered this question or when they said they were going to implement this buy, but I'm going to because I'm going through all of the old tapes.
But all of the indicators were this is happening imminently, like soon, now.
But now there's two things.
One, they're saying that it's only going to start at 9% and it's going to happen two years from now, 2026.
And we're going to have to wait till 2027 to see it brought down to eight.
And here's the kicker.
As far as I can tell from these budget documents, and I will stand corrected if I'm wrong.
I've looked across where you look at their projected spending.
They haven't factored this in in the next few years.
I know.
This is a problem.
Right.
So if you go to the revenue column where they're expecting, you know, how much money are we taking from people or businesses?
And you look at personal income tax and you follow along, it's just going up based on population growth.
There's no dip there.
And if they were really going to do this, there should be a dip there.
And I don't see one.
So this is the bad.
This is the problem.
And they need to not screw around with this.
They need to put this tax hit.
We've got some borrowing happening too in this budget.
Yeah, this was the weird thing.
And I'm still, I'm going to have to sit down and like buy Franco a beer and get him to explain this in economics brain terms because I do not have an economics degree.
Franco has two.
I have zero.
But they borrowed money from last quarter, as far as I can understand, which is the fourth quarter.
So when they did their budget update back in November, when they announced the five and a half billion dollar surplus, they borrowed during that quarter to cover off spending for what lands as this budget.
Really, what the budget is is like a massive quarterly update.
So it's just kind of a reset button each time.
So yeah, there is some spending going on.
And that is why you will see some outlets say that, oh, it's an accounting surplus.
They put like a little asterisk glitter thing next to the word surplus.
I didn't because I think it just confuses people and it jumps up your language.
But to your point, yeah, they were still borrowing money to cover off some expenses, which is also why we're still seeing the debt charge so that we pay an interest charge on our debt the same way anybody you does if you borrow money.
And I think that's costing us around three and a half-ish billion dollars per year.
That's a lot of hospitals.
Sure is.
That's three hospitals.
That is a lot of money.
And so this is why it's good that they're saying verbally that they're taking the debt seriously and they want to pay it down, that they want to save money for a rainy day through the Heritage Fund, so they want to keep spending in check.
Those are all good things, but they really need to do them.
And one thing they said they were going to do is cut taxes for all Albertans.
And they haven't done that.
They have partially reinstated the fuel tax.
So it's now 9 cents a liter instead of zero.
Also, oh, I don't think I've mentioned this in another interview.
I also noticed in their budget, Sheila, that they're planning on hiking the provincial fuel tax back up all the way to 13 cents on April 1st.
So same day that Trudeau nails us with a two by four of his carbon tax hike.
The Alberta government is planning on bringing that all the way back up.
So they're going to add an extra four cents per liter of gasoline and diesel back up.
Yeah.
So again, mixed, I'm trying to be positive with the spending stuff, which they are doing and we need to praise them for it.
But there's some like tax increase stuff that we're not happy about here.
No, I'm glad you touched on the carbon tax because I think Canadians need to be aware that the clock is ticking on their attempts at affordability and saving money because the government, the federal government is about to pick our pockets really hard come April 1st, April Fool's Day.
Carbon tax is going up.
What does that mean for Canadians?
So it means in a nutshell that everything gets more expensive.
And I just want to pause for a moment.
I know that's hard for people to hear.
It's terrible out there for a lot of people.
And we hear you.
Okay.
We are lucky enough to be able to be commentators and journalists and be able to cover these things.
A lot of folks aren't and they don't have that voice.
We hear you.
So, if you ever hear me laughing about this, it's because I'd otherwise cry.
So, we have to mock these people.
Otherwise, they're going to take themselves too seriously and they're going to think they can get away with it.
So, unless there's a miracle, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon tax is going up on April 1st.
Now, the reason why that happens on April 1st, people ask me, is because that's when the first year of fiscal starts.
That's the beginning of a new fiscal year.
So, it's going to go up to 17 cents per liter of gasoline, 21 cents per liter of diesel.
And I think it's going up to 15 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.
That means it's going to cost you more to drive your kids to school.
It's going to cost you more to go grab groceries because, of course, there's the cascade of gasoline plus diesel plus farm fuels, all that stuff.
And it's going to cost you more to heat your home.
And for folks who are thinking, oh, well, I just drive a little lady bitty car, the diesel factor here is a big one.
Yeah.
So, every time you eat or when you fill up your coffee cup or any of those things, all of those supplies were brought to you on a truck.
That truck is using diesel.
The next time you're in a parking lot or at a truck stop, look at that massive cylinder under the driver's side door.
They've got two tanks on them.
These massive cylinders, they hold like more than a thousand liters.
Times that by 21 cents every single time.
And that is why we're seeing the knock-on effect on our groceries and all of our supplies.
And he's not listening, he being Prime Minister Trudeau.
But we commissioned a poll, I think it was through Leger, and it found 69% of Canadians oppose a carbon tax increase.
And so Trudeau voters, by the way, not just conservatives.
Those are Trudeau voters.
Those are NDP voters as well.
Correct.
And this is what I found really interesting.
I don't have the exact granular data, but I was chatting with Franco because I talked to him several times a day every day.
And he pointed out that I think it found that women are more opposed to this carbon tax.
We buy the groceries.
Bing.
Exactly.
By and large, there's exceptions, of course.
But by and large, we're the ones literally holding the purse strings because it's our purse.
And we're the ones buying the kids new winter boots.
We're the ones, you know, trying to afford the groceries.
We're the ones filling up the minivan.
We're the ones idling, waiting for soccer when it's minus 20 or outside basketball or something.
I know my son plays basketball and I'm going to be ferrying him around all day.
Then my daughter has a place.
So I'm going to be mom taxi.
And it's minus 20 here.
And we're not going to die.
So the vehicle stays idling.
That's all money.
And so as a mom, I know how much that is costing.
And so I find this really interesting that women are opposed to this carbon tax increase more.
So maybe he'll listen to that element.
We'll see.
Yeah.
I mean, he's always relied on suburban women to carry him through, but this is an issue that hits at the hearts of suburban women.
Still on the carbon tax topic.
Let's talk a little bit about what's happening in Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan, you know, I'm not one to argue in favor of Crown corporations.
Did I know this one time?
But Saskatchewan has a Crown Corporation.
It's their energy retailer.
And they are able to not collect the carbon tax.
And by not collecting the carbon tax, they are also not remitting the carbon tax to the federal government.
And all Premier Scott Moe is doing is saying, we just want fair treatment, like our fellow Canadians in Atlantic Canada who are getting a carbon tax break on their home heating oil.
Yeah, I see his point.
I think normal people see his point.
Stephen Gilbo, our environment minister, is revealing himself as not really a normal person because he doesn't see the point.
And in fact, he's going one step further.
He's threatening Saskatchewan now because what else is he going to do?
Take Scott Moe away in handcuffs?
That's not a great look.
So what he's saying is, Scott Moe, if you don't start collecting the carbon tax and sending it to us, we are no longer going to send carbon tax rebates to the residents of Saskatchewan who pay carbon tax on their fuel, on their groceries, because it is a cumulative tax all the way down the supply chain.
He's saying, if you don't give me their money, I'm going to continue to punish them.
And he's even said it's immoral for Saskatchewan to try to fight for fairness for Saskatchewan residents.
What do you think?
It doesn't surprise me.
So, one, good on, Scott Moe.
I don't know where this is going to land legally because I'm not an expert in that field, but out of principle and use the word moral, I mean, he's right.
He's standing up for his people.
And even just on a blanket fairness, so for people who don't know, there is now an exemption, a three-year exemption.
Funny choice of time, right?
There's a three-year exemption on the carbon tax on home heating oil.
So for a long time in the prairies, we used home heating oil here too.
We've largely switched to natural gas.
That happened in the late 80s, early 90s, apparently.
But in Nova Scotia, lots of people in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, but mostly Nova Scotia, lots of people still use home heating oil.
It's delivered to them on a truck and there's a big tank outside.
And so lo and behold, they started paying the actual real carbon tax on July 1st, just this past year.
So 2023, July 1st, folks in Atlantic Canada suddenly got sticker shock.
All this time, they'd had this little exemption thing going on.
So they were in a little bit of a different reality from the rest of us.
Carbon Tax Shock00:02:59
All of a sudden, they went, oh my gosh, look at all of this flaming wreckage.
This is expensive.
And then all of the voters started phoning the constituency office and the constituency office of those liberals, the Atlantic Canadian liberals, hauled Justin Trudeau into a room and said, Hey, Bai, we're not doing this anymore.
You got to give us an exemption.
And I don't know what they did with Minister Guibo at that time, if they like gagged him and muffled him and shoved him in a locker and waited for a minute, but he was not at that press conference.
No.
There was this little press conference where they said, Okay, we're giving you an exemption for three years on home heating oil.
The vast majority of those people, it's available all across Canada, of course, but the vast majority of those homes are principally in that region.
Where liberal polling is plummeting.
Exactly.
Because of the cost of the carbon tax.
So this is why Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said, well, that's not fair.
But very understatedly, he said it so quietly.
He's like, that's not fair.
I'm not going to do that.
And so as of July 1st, January 1st this year, he's not collecting the carbon tax on people's home heating because it's not fair.
And so this is now why we have this fight going on.
And it's so interesting hearing Guibo saying that something is immoral.
So people, politicians' thinking often informs their policy.
That may sound like a well-duh, but actually a lot of people who are super nerdy and into political science and stuff, they start just seeing everything as like a chess game.
And they forget that we're dealing with people who have opinions.
And as far as I can tell, Minister Guibo's opinions are pretty out there when it comes to driving your car, how big your truck is allowed to be, how big your house is allowed to be, what you should be eating, how you should be fueling it to keep it warm in your home.
So, all this is to say, I think his politics and his ideology are really informing his policy here when it comes to the carbon tax.
This is why they think we ought to be punished for using oil and gas.
So, years ago, I was debating one of the architects, one of the draftees of the carbon tax legislation.
He's not a civilian.
He's right in there.
He's part of the policy department with liberals.
And he called this punishment.
It is punishment.
And so, for him, for Guibo to say that, oh, now Scott Moe is being immoral.
You know, I'm waiting to see what Premier Smith says because I don't think she'll wait too long before throwing her elbow in here.
Yeah, I mean, there's a piece of legislation where they have created this crown corporation that might act as a sort of a holding entity because Alberta's system is completely privatized.
So, how do we get around that without asking our energy creators and energy retailers to break the liberal law?
Phantom Crown Corporation00:03:42
And so, there's this sort of phantom Crown corporation that could come into existence to mimic sort of what's happening in Saskatchewan.
Because I got to give Saskatchewan credit, most of their good ideas we steal here in Alberta, and then we do it with more fanfare.
I mean, we sort of take credit for it.
You know, we did it on the Sovereignty Act, we do it on parents' rights legislation.
Saskatchewan's already doing that, they're doing it quietly and modestly the way people from Saskatchewan are.
And then, so we're sort of the obnoxious Texas sometimes on the table, Texas.
And, you know, it is funny to see Gilbo focus like a laser beam on Saskatchewan because he has cut Atlantic Canada a deal on the carbon tax, and he's also sending them carbon tax rebate checks.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
So, his argument here sort of falls flat on its face, like so many of his arguments, you know, with what he's doing with Saskatchewan.
Yeah, exactly.
And for folks who say you've got a sister-in-law who tells you, Well, we get more back than we pay in.
Okay.
Number one, like, that's really silly.
How do you even know that?
Yeah, like, how do you even know that?
Exactly.
Um, that just on its very surface, that's silly.
Like, to think that you could give a $100 bill to the government and they would somehow, I don't know, plant it under a tomato plant, dust it in gold, hand it back to you.
Like, they do not have a wealth generation machine under center block.
Okay.
They don't like Willy Wonka take that $100 and run it through their chocolate factory and make it taste better and then give it to you worth more.
That is not how government works.
Okay.
That's not how anything works.
If you said that in the private sector, you'd be investigated for running a pyramid scheme, right?
Give me money and I'll give you more money back.
That's like, okay, well, you know, how long have you invested this in a blue chip stock for?
How many years?
It's like, um, zero.
I just ran it through the hands of a thousand bureaucrats before writing you a larger check.
This is it, exactly.
And you nailed it.
It's legit.
Exactly.
So on the surface, the very idea of giving the government money and magically getting more back is silly.
Two, exactly to your point, Sheila, on the practical side, there are humans who have jobs to do in the national capital region.
We pay them.
So for them to administer even your little rebate is costing you money.
Okay?
Exactly.
Millions of dollars.
So on top of that, you also pay the GST on top of your carbon tax.
Okay.
On top of that, we've got the parliamentary budget officer has done the calculations and said, even with the rebates factored in, net, the average Alberta family this year, 2024, this next fiscal, is going to be out more than $900.
That's net with rebates calculated in.
So don't believe me, okay?
Don't believe your own common sense handing over, you know, Robert Borden on a $100 bill.
That's fine.
But you can believe the parliamentary budget officer because they're an independent watchdog.
They've done the math.
You're out about 900 bucks per household here in Alberta with the rebates factored in.
So just a little note, if you're getting together for, I don't know, a St. Patrick's Day fish grill or something like that with your sister-in-law, you tell them that you don't get more back than you pay in.
No, that's crazy.
Literally, if somebody told you that in the private sector, you'd be like, no, take your Ponzi somewhere else, buddy.
You've got my money in your pocket.
Exactly.
Outrageous Pre-Crime Ministry00:05:52
Now, I wanted to ask you while I have you, because not only are you an advocate for smaller, more accountable government through your work with the CTF, but you are also a former journalist.
And I wanted to talk to you about the Online Harms Act.
That's Justin Trudeau's latest piece of censorship legislation.
I think it is probably going to be the single largest piece of censorship legislation in the Western world.
It is going to create basically a ministry of pre-crimes so that if you are considered to be possibly considering committing hate, you can be put under house arrest.
It's adding additional crimes to the criminal code, penalties for social media companies, for not complying with the law, whatever it might be, allowing people to be dragged before human rights tribunals for things that they have said far before the enactment of the law with $20,000 in penalties to the victim of the hate,
as well as $50,000 in fees to the government.
I mean, it's just outrageous.
But inside this, I mean, just to administer something so sweeping, the liberals have said they're going to create three separate bureaucracies within it.
And I think that might be the saving grace in all of this is that this will work at the speed of government, even though I think it's going to be passed at breakneck speed to staff up and administer bureaucracies.
That'll take us into the next election.
The liberals will surely lose.
And that might save us.
But just from an accountability and size and scope of government viewpoint, this is outrageous.
It is absolutely outrageous.
So I'm of the school of what Grover Norquist had said, and he leads up, I think it's called the American Center for Tax Reform.
It's basically the American version of the Taxpayers Federation, but we're not affiliated.
It's a different group.
But Grover Norquist said government should be small enough so that you can drown it in a bathtub.
Yeah.
And that's because we all need to be able to live our lives individually and raise our kids and earn our money and keep as much of our money as we can and our property and be good law-abiding, nice citizens.
But when you grow the size and scope of government, it takes that away.
So it takes away the accountability of government, okay?
Because the Taxpayers Federation, we stand for lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government.
So what this piece of legislation does as far as I can see it, okay?
And I'm separating out all of the actual obvious harms like child harm, all that stuff, which are already illegal.
Okay.
And I'm focusing in on the stuff that they're inexplicably choosing to keep in this piece of legislation.
And that is dealing with hate speech as they would define it.
This is the kicker.
Who now gets to decide hate speech?
How wide is that parameter going to be?
Are they going to start including things like what they call misinformation or disinformation, right?
Say somebody, you know, really, really feels strongly that climate change is going to become a catastrophe in like the next 18 months.
And I've met people who truly feel this way.
Like they're really frightened and like I have nothing but sympathy for them.
And they think it's happening like now, not like five years from now, not 10 years from now, not 100 years from now, but like they're making plans.
Is it now going to become hate crime to try to counsel those folks and say, you know what, you may want to just tap the brakes here.
We might be okay.
Maybe we can figure out a way to carbon capture and we don't need the carbon tax and we'll figure out this way.
We'll sell natural gas to India.
We'll work it out.
Some folks, when they hear that argument, they get really upset and they start using words like climate denier and stuff.
They have heard that.
And so are they going to like, this is the problem is I don't know.
And is that lack of knowledge now going to chill people's speech?
Right.
This is it.
This is how gag laws and infringements on freedom of expression work.
And I'm paraphrasing Christine Van Guyn from the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who is doing a really good job explaining this.
And she used to work with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which is how I know her.
She's a lawyer.
She did a great book on the pandemic.
So I would encourage everybody to listen to what she's having to say on this because I don't know yet, but I think her organization is going to be challenging this.
They're one of the groups who successfully challenged the Emergencies Act.
Right.
So the big ruling that came out of the federal court, it was that group.
There were two groups, but hers was one of them.
And so all this is to say, we can't hold our governments to account if we can't express ourselves.
So that includes spokespeople like myself, but that also includes, and yourself, exactly, but that also includes your viewers, Sheila, and your listeners, your moms and dads, and the shopkeepers who support us and the farmers who support us.
That means that if they start getting scared to speak, that we're not going to be able to hold government to account.
Right.
And that's a really bad thing.
So I haven't read the entire document of the legislation yet, but this is what this is sounding like.
And I certainly hope that there's a way of separating these bills.
To me, that sounds like the most reasonable solution here.
Separate it.
CTF's Concerns About Internet Regulation00:06:06
Take what the actual, any decent or reasonable person would call a harm that's happening on the internet, separate that.
Okay.
Deal with that quickly and in your own way.
And I'm sure it'll pass quickly.
But take this future and past potential hate speech tribunally stuff out of it.
Hopefully that's what happens.
If somebody smarter has a better idea, then by all means, we're all ears.
But as of right now, the CTF is concerned.
I'll put it that way.
We're concerned because this looks like it could affect online expression, which in the American version, they'd be talking about free speech.
We talk about free expression here.
Right.
Well, and I'm skeptical that they would remove the, you know, separate the two aspects of this law, because as you rightly point out, and as we've had lawyers from the Justice Center point out, laws against, you know, what are true online harms already exist.
They need to be in here.
That is put into this censorship law as a poison pill for the liberals to be able to argue.
Look, if you don't let us censor the internet and everything you see and say, writ large, then you don't care about kids being safe on the internet.
I can see that happening.
What I'm curious to see is how both how the media here responds.
That's always a question.
Both, you know, mainstream government-funded and alternative.
I'm curious to see who stands up and who says what.
But I'm also really curious to see the reaction in international media circles.
So I think I saw a headline.
I can't remember.
It was a UK paper and it looked like a mainstream UK paper.
They said something to the effect of Trudeau staffing up his thought police.
Very succinct.
And so again, isn't it interesting how we get right back to the original, right?
When I first saw my first, first time I ever saw a man named Ezra Levant, he was going toe-to-toe with a human rights tribunal.
I can't even remember if it was Alberta or Ontario.
It was Alberta.
There you go.
I was working in Ottawa at the time as a chase producer for mainstream media doing, you know, we were all doing really good work.
We were chasing down sponsorship scandal stuff.
And I remember seeing this kind of semi-grainy handicam footage that he had set up on a tripod.
And it was him arguing.
It was, and I believe it was a free speech issue.
Yes.
So isn't it interesting now we've come how many years later and now they're trying to put this through again and it's for the internet age.
Yeah.
Well, we'll do it all again.
Like I think Ezra's built for this.
I know that we are built for fighting for freedom because we must.
What's the alternative?
Yes.
Chris, tell us how people can support the very important work you do on behalf of all of us at the CTF.
Wonderful.
So if this is sort of your thing, if you're really concerned about things like free expression or the government not funding the media or the government not trying to regulate podcasts through the CRTC for like moose meat recipes and Celine Dion songs or whatever they're trying to do, you can sign a petition against that stuff on our website.
Or if you're just the fiscal stuff, ma'am, thanks very much.
You can sign petitions against things like the PST ever happening here in Alberta or carbon taxes, stuff like that.
You can do all of that.
And by signing our petitions on our website, you then are part of the taxpayer standing army.
And when it comes next time for us to mass email someone, for example, if for some reason the Conservative Party leader loses his way and starts promoting a carbon tax levy after signing a pledge to oppose a carbon tax, there's a tsunami of emails and phone calls that starts happening.
So that's what we do.
We are nonpartisan.
We're not-for-profit.
We don't care what color jersey you're wearing.
Just don't waste our money and you've got to have accountable government and don't hike our taxes.
And so if you go to our website, taxpayer.com, you can sign up there and you can also read our original journalism as well because we have an investigative journalist on staff.
Yeah, you guys do some great work on access to information filing, which I appreciate because I know just exactly how much work and monotony goes into those little fishing expeditions.
And sometimes there's the fish don't bite.
No, you have to start again.
I have to do some clarification emails later this afternoon.
What did you mean by the word the?
Yes.
Also, I know we're supposed to give you these documents in 30 days, but you'll get them in three years.
Happens all the time.
Smiley face.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a whole other kettle of fish.
We need reform in our FOI system.
Oh, yeah.
You know, they'll email me three years later and say, Do you still want these documents?
You're like, well, my child has now graduated high school.
So we're.
The NDP aren't in power anymore in Alberta.
But yes, I do still want those documents about the NDP.
Yes.
To make sure never happens again.
Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thanks so much for the hard work that you do on behalf of families just like mine, just normal everyday families just trying to get by while several layers of government do their best to make you poorer and shut you up when you complain about it.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show wherein I invite your viewer feedback.
I say this every week.
I know it's redundant, but without you, there's no Rebel News.
So I actually want to hear from you.
I'm not like the mainstream media in that I won't take any money from Justin Trudeau.
And the opinion of the people who watch us actually matters to me.
That's why we keep the comment section open.
It's why I give you my email address right now.
Inviting Your Feedback00:05:13
If you've got something to say about the show today, put gun show letters in the subject line and email me at Sheila at RebelNews.com.
But maybe you're not an email person.
Maybe you're watching the free version of the show on YouTube or Rumble as it comes out towards the weekend.
Thanks for sitting through those ads, by the way.
Every little bit helps.
But if you are watching there, leave a comment in the comment section.
I don't think they limit you on how much or how little you can write.
So if you've got something just burning in the bosom about what I've said on the show, for the good or the bad, put it there.
And I do read those comments because, as I said, I want to know what you have to say about the topics that I cover here.
I try to talk about things that the mainstream media won't touch on or take a different perspective than the mainstream media.
I try to talk about things that normal people care about around the dinner table, you know, affordability, free speech, jobs.
So let's get into today's gun show letter.
And it actually comes from the email inbox and is from a regular viewer of the show, Bruce, up in Radway, Alberta.
And sometimes he signs off the letter, both him and his cat.
And Bruce was watching the show a couple of weeks ago with my former colleague, William Diaz Berteon, who now works for Young Canadians for Resources.
And I couldn't be more proud of the work that he's doing over there.
I like to take some maternity over, training that young fellow to be on camera.
And I think he's doing a great job advocating for oil and gas.
Now, the problem with his advocacy for oil and gas, well, really, there's no problem for people like me or people like you, but for people like NDPs, Charlie Angus, well, he wants to have that speech criminalized.
And he wants to treat oil and gas the same way we treat cigarettes with like the scary warning labels and make sure that you can actually never see oil and gas, even though oil and gas is a net benefit to human life and welfare, particularly here in the Western world, where it's a little bit frostier than some of the more temperate equatorial regions where they can rely on solar and wind for their energy needs.
Not so here when it is, I think it's minus 28 here today.
So warmed up a little from this morning.
Anyway, let's get into the letter from our friend Bruce.
Hi, Sheila.
I guess I'll be in prison too if that lunatic Charlie Angus gets his way.
I've posted on Facebook about how good Alberta oil is.
Yes, Bruce, you can join my prison band.
And, you know, it's one thing to mock Charlie Angus because he's a member of the third party and he's their fringe radicals.
But is what Charlie Angus is what he's proposing any less crazy than what Justin Trudeau wants to do with the Online Harms Act?
You know, imprison you for pre-crimes or things that you said or did before they were crimes at all?
And the crime here being hurting somebody's feelings, making them be uncomfortable or sharing a divergent viewpoint than that of the mainstream media or the governing party.
But I think there's that the Venn diagram there is actually a circle.
Let's keep going.
I also posted on the Rebel News site how oil saved the whales and the trees.
Yes, it did.
It did.
We were, we humans were killing whales for whale oil until we decided that we should maybe burn oil oil in our oil lamps instead of whale oil.
And plastic bags did save the trees.
Now they want us to go back to paper.
Okay.
Imagine having to use whale oil for lamps and cutting down forests just to keep warm.
Fossil fuels have saved both creatures.
Definitely.
They've saved us, Albertans who live in the wilds like I do and Bruce does.
I agree that most folks have never heard the other side of the story and most people are being brainwashed to believe the lies of anti-oil activists.
We need to proclaim the awesome benefits of Alberta oil, gas, and coal.
Since children aren't taught to think things through, we must help adults see the flaws in the hard left propagandist claims.
Yours and Radway, Bruce.
Yes, I think that's why the work of my friend Robbie Picard is so important with Oil Sands Strong and Oil and Gas World magazine.
And of course, my young former colleague William.
It's nice to see him doing well and fully integrating into his new home of Alberta.
We've really made him one of ours.
He left the progressive government hellscape of Ottawa, and he is a fully inculcated Albertan fighting for our way of life.
And it's wonderful to see.
It's the land of opportunity, truly, truly.
Well, friends, 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.