Speaker 1: 0:00

Whether we agree or agree to disagree, everybody's got an opinion, and I'm about to give you mine. So sit back, relax, buckle up and try not to get offended. Welcome to This Canadian Thinks. Welcome to the first ever episode of This Canadian Thinks. I'm your host, Shaman, and I'd like to take a few moments to introduce myself and let you know what you can expect from this podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:25

First, a little bit about myself. Since a very young age, I had a tendency to question authority. I was once told not to come back to Sunday school when I was a boy because I asked too many questions and it was disrupting the class for the other students. He said you're the beast!" a voracious reader. From early on, i'd often dig into a topic I found interesting in order to learn more. I still do this to this very day.

Speaker 1: 0:45

I'm at home with a reference book or an instruction pr efer the substance of the article over the headline above, and I never accept anything at face value. If you tell me to do something, I'm going to need to know the why and the how before I'm going to fall in line, and that's only after I've entertained enough information to make the decision for myself. You can imagine what that was like for the last couple of years. Truth is, I've been a rebel most of my life. I didn't really fit in and I didn't really care to, still don't. It also never really bothered me what people thought of me, and that hasn't changed either. I've had a plethora of jobs and occupations. I've been a musician, a journalist, a beat reporter. I've worked in the oil patch, had labor-intensive jobs, desk jobs, service jobs, you name it. I even operate a small farm in Central Alberta where I raise livestock. Despite all this, I've just never had the desire to trade my life and freedom for the slavery of economics.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Every time that you put effort into work and you're making a little bit of money, you better have a very good plan of what you're going to do with that money, because you're using up your life. We're not prisoners. We should not be prisoners of the economic system that we live in. We should be free, free people.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Unfortunately, one of the greatest threats to free living is the government, a most contemptible creature indeed.

Speaker 1: 2:09

By escalating your cost of living and negating your income through taxation, among many, many other things, the government tends not to act in the best intention of the population, but instead mostly in a manner which is best for the government and allows them to maintain power for as long as possible. Problem is, in Canada, people seem to be more worried about what's going on in the United States, which to some degree makes sense, because what happens there often migrates north, but they seem oblivious to the issues in their own country. This is likely due in no small part to the fact that the legacy media in Canada has been fully bought and paid for by the political class. The CBC has been rendered as nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Liberal Party. As a result, long gone are the days of investigative journalism or breaking exclusives. These days, it's much easier to regurgitate whatever the government seems to dish out. There's no more who, what, when, why or where. The line is thoroughly towed lest they lose the billions of dollars in funding the government has allocated to them.

Speaker 1: 3:05

"A great deal of money has been invested in this project and we can't allow it to So, it is this situation from which This Canadian Thinks was born. Canadians need more political content and not the kind they've been getting. There needs to be an alternative to the US news cycle that allows Canadians to become more knowledgeable in regards to the affairs and political goings-on in their own country.

Speaker 1: 3:25

It was with great dismay that I saw so many taking to Facebook during the Freedom Convoy, spreading the most inaccurate of information, like statements about Mary Simon saying she needed X amount of signatures to remove Trudeau, which is fully untrue. For if they had spoken to the Governor General which is also highly unlikely she would have explained to them that she has no power whatsoever to unseat a sitting Prime Minister. Her role is very much one of ceremony. Regardless, it proved to me that most Canadians have zero understanding of the politics in Canada actually work. The constant interaction with US content literally has the result of some Canadians thinking that their laws translate into our own, which is also not the case. Shows like Tucker Carlson are highly popular with many Canadians, so much so the Carlson often featured Canadian content prior to his leaving Fox News.

Speaker 3: 4:12

So we've been covering this truck strike in Canada all week. This afternoon, the Prime Minister of Canada, who clearly is Fidel Castro's illegitimate son, came out from hiding to threaten the protesters directly. Watch this.

Speaker 4: 4:25

If you joined the protests because you're tired of COVID, you now need to understand that you're breaking laws.

Speaker 3: 4:34

You could be breaking laws.

Speaker 1: 4:37

What we need is a similar style of show aimed specifically for Canadians. That's hopefully where This Canadian Thinks comes in, at least in terms of format. I'm not talking about being a carbon copy of the Tucker Carlson show. The views and opinions represented by Carlson are his and his alone. I have my own take on things. As you will come to know, I'm a pretty opinionated person and I don't have trouble telling people what I think. For me, This Canadian Thinks serves as my own personal opinion editorial. I'll start out each episode with a rundown of the episode subject matter and offer my opinion.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Now, it's important to note here that I've been known to be a bit of a devil's advocate. Take a position aside from my own for the purpose of exploring dialogue or understanding. That'll likely happen here as well. Sometimes you may agree with me and sometimes you won't, and that's okay, or at least it should be. After all, I was taught throughout my school days that Canada is a melting pot of cultures and that it is the resulting diversity which is our strength. Therefore, it is incumbent on all of us to respect the opinions and beliefs of our fellow citizens, even if we don't agree with each other on every topic all the time.

Speaker 1: 5:45

Whenever possible, should there be an available guest that has something to offer in terms of the subject matter, and regardless if they are in agreement with my position or not, I will have a conversation with them during the second half of the show, not unlike the format Carlson's show once followed. So if you'd like to appear as a guest, feel free to reach out. So you might be asking yourself why. Now? Why do Canadians need a podcast like This Canadian Thinks? Well, for starters, maybe you've noticed that a lot of things just don't make sense anymore. In fact, it almost seems as though governments around the world are working in disregard of the expectations of their citizens, to the point of gaslighting them into going along with the agendas that underpin the government's operations. If you don't agree or follow along, then you can't expect any sort of consideration, like during the pandemic, when certain politicians were touting the idea of forced vaccinations and threatening restrictions and travel and social support should an individual decide against getting vaccinated.

Speaker 4: 6:37

That is something that we're also applying to everyone who gets on a plane or a train in the coming months in Canada. That's a decision that we're making in order to keep Canadians safe, in order to put an end to this pandemic crisis in Canada. If anyone chooses to not get vaccinated, there will be consequences.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Now they're doing their best to articulate that they never forced anyone to get vaccinated. No, perhaps not, But they certainly didn't make it very easy not to get vaccinated either. I mean, you sure weren't going to get back to the country if you left without any hassle unless you were fully vaccinated.

Speaker 4: 7:15

If anyone chooses to not get vaccinated, there will be consequences.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Now, right now, I'd like to fully articulate that I don't care what side of the vaccination line you are on. For me, it's about the freedom and right to choose over and, above all else, You do what's good for you and I'll do what's good for me. If the government want me to do something, it's incumbent on them to give me enough tangible and verifiable information that it'll make sense that I do what they might recommend. But there'll be no forcing, mandates, restrictions or otherwise.

Speaker 5: 7:44

We know things are bad, worse than bad, they're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy. So we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller and all we say is please at least leave us alone in our living rooms, let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel built-in radios, and I won't say anything, just leave us alone. Well, I'm not gooding to leave you alone. I want you to get mad.

Speaker 1: 8:08

So, naturally, the next obvious question is why me? Well, why not? Like yourself, I'm just a regular Joe. I don't have any political background or training in the field. What I do have is my opinion, in my own unique perspective on the matters that we face as Canadians. Perhaps by offering my viewpoint, it will encourage you to share yours as well, which can only serve to better the national conversation. Being from Alberta lends a bit of a different perspective regarding Canada. Tied to the whipping post of Confederation, Alberta is often at odds with the federal government, which might make it a bit easier to eye the feds with suspicion. Our resource sector is a huge contributor to the Canadian economy, yet the federal government seems to relish in strangling our ability to contribute at every turn, establishing regulations and legislation that all but cripples the Alberta economy, even though we contribute handsomely to equalization, which benefits the whole of the nation.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Can you spell Alberta? I'm like I'll try. Here you go, here's cash.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Meanwhile, most Canadians don't have the first idea about how politics work in this country. It's a recipe for disaster That has been brewing for quite some time. We suffer for it and the government benefits from our combined ignorance. It's time to do something to change that. The hope is, by offering my opinion and personal take on things, that it will create capacity and dialogue, resulting in more awareness regarding the issues we face in general. By giving you my take on certain issues, it might help contribute to some capacity for the understanding of the political system we find ourselves subject to. "Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there's some things you should know. After all, it doesn't matter what political party you vote for.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Canada is still on track to a predefined destination. The powers that be exist behind the curtain in front of which the politically elected enact their theatrics. The only difference is in how fast we're gonna get there. If you vote for the left, you'll get there in what seems like moments, and if you vote for the right, we'll still end up at the same place. It'll just take eight to ten years.

Speaker 1: 9:59

We'll dive into that in another episode, but these are the kinds of things I think about. They're the things I think you should be thinking about as well. It's far too easy to bury our head in the sand, giving the endless distractions compounded by the blatant propaganda bombarding us constantly. That's what they're bargaining on, though. They want you meek and compliant and incapable of knowing the truth. Their endless campaign of division and fear is designed to keep you under control. Then you'll beg them to do what they wanted to do all along. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, although it's easy to see how some of these ideas garner traction. I mean, put it this way the government doesn't always do a great job of making them appear any less credible.

Speaker 6: 10:34

That said, if it walks like a duck and quacks. "It was CS Lewis who, in his unforgettable screw tape letters wrote The greatest evil is not done now in those sorted dens of crime that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered, moved, seconded, carried and Minuted in clear carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Well, because these quiet men do not raise their voices? Because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they're always making their final territorial demand. Some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Okay, i think you get the picture. I'll pick something I have an opinion about. We'll build an episode around it. How often episodes will be uploaded will remain to be seen, but I'll try to keep it current. At this point in the program, we'd introduce our guests, should we have one, carry on to have a conversation. Before I wrap things up with my conclusion, which might even change depending on how the visit with our guest goes, I don't plan to only have guests that I agree with either, but, I'm not going to specifically set out to exclude them on the other hand. The important thing is they have something to contribute to the conversation regarding the episode's topic, nothing more.

Speaker 3: 12:36

Prime Minister, you twice Were found guilty of breaking the ethics to act. After those two convictions did you decide to read the act?

Speaker 1: 12:46

You've got 14 seconds, Prime Minister.

Speaker 4: 12:49

Yes, I have read the act a number of times.

Speaker 3: 12:51

Are you aware of section 21?

Speaker 4: 12:54

Yes, since I've read the act, I'm aware of section 21.

Speaker 3: 12:57

What does it say? I can?

Speaker 3: 12:58

pull it up for you, but if you have it in front of you, you're only Well, it says a public office holder, of which you are one, shall recuse himself or herself from any discussion, decision, debate or vote in any matter in which, in respect of which he or she would be in a conflict of interest. Now, what you've admitted today is not just that you were in a conflict of interest, but that you consciously recognized in your May cabinet meeting that such a conflict might exist, that it didn't just slide by your desk, that you were consciously aware that there was a an inappropriate link to your family that would put you in a conflict. Why did you at that moment not call the ethics commissioner and recuse yourself?

Speaker 4: 13:44

That is simply not true, Mr Poilliere, the issue of advancing issues for one's own. By the way, the ethics commissioner is looking into this right now and I fully trust his judgment on on determining it. But at the same time, my concern around recusing myself was a question around perceptions, because I knew full well that this Canada Summer Students Grant program was not going to directly benefit my mother or my brother.

Speaker 3: 14:13

Your 16 seconds are up. Your 16 seconds are up.

Speaker 6: 14:17

I'm gonna ask you again because nobody, nobody believes you.

Speaker 1: 14:28

If you have any idea for future topics or guests, make sure you head over to our website at www. thiscanadianthinks. com and drop us a line. We're also looking for sponsors and advertisers, so if you think This Canadian Thinks would be a good fit, feel free to reach out. This is where my closing monologue will appear, but, being this is the first episode, I'd like to take the time to thank our flagship sponsor, www. trampledundertyranny. com here instead. Pervayers of politically inspired counterculture clothing, they're the best way to get your hands on some of the coolest and funniest t-shirt designs. You know the kind Justin Trudeau and his ilk would be happy to censor. Yeah, those ones. Here, cue the commercial. It sums it up much better than I can.

Speaker 3: 15:09

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Speaker 1: 15:24

All right, that'll wrap it up for the first episode of This Canadian Thinks. I really hope that you'll find the subject matter entertaining. if nothing else, I'm looking forward to having some fun but, more importantly, I'm looking forward to offering an admittedly Albertan viewpoint to the Canadian discourse on a wide variety of topics. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you'll be back again for future episodes of This Canadian Thinks. All right, don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for coming along for the ride.