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610 CKTB Moscow Red Soviet Planning in Blue · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: While we're talking about Premier doug Ford a lot today.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: You know, he loves to pitch himself as the ultimate
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: free market, small sea conservative, But is the premier actually
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: running the province like a Soviet styled central planner. Only
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: one person could come up with that sort of a hook,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and it is our friend John Ledke. He's a broadcaster
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: or business owner and he also writes for the blog
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Cavech and Release. And John actually had one of those
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: famous personal phone calls with the Premier himself and we
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show. He's filling in for Adam's EVO today.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Good morning John, Good morning Jane.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Well John, you've just published a piece that's going to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: make a lot of people in the Progressive Conservative Party
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: maybe spit their coffee. You're calling the open for business premier.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: This is going to be a good one. A Soviet
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: style central planner. Now, how do you square his conservative
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: branding and how he actually governs.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Well, you just got to look at the receipts, Gene.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Once you get past the shiny blue open for Business
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: stickers and signs, the reality of how the province is
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: being run is not quite small C conservative, True small
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: C Conservatives believe in getting the government out of the way.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: But doug Ford is operating like he's the regional manager
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: of Ontario, but running the day to day operations of
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: specific stores. He uses taxpayer dollars to pick winners and losers,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: whether with ev subsidies or overriding local municipal autonomy with
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: ministers zoning orders, or taking control of school boards. He
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: isn't shrinking the state. He weaponizes it to benefit his circle.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: The Conservatism. It's just a label that's printed over a
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: different reality. But that makes sense considering the family business.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Okay, Well, you've actually experienced what you call
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a full free market routine firsthand when you were fighting
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: for your cannabis business when it went from legal and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: they changed a lot of the rules around. You actually
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: had a personal call with doug Ford and he gave
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you what you call wink in a nod and told
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you to hold on. But what actually happened when the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: dust settled with here a cannabis lounge.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Well, this is when he was giving out his phone
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: number and not trying to shield the records of his
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: phone calls from the public. But yeah, I learned exactly
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: firsthand when the Smoke Free Ontario Act was suffocating my
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: cannabis lounge. I got the phone call treatment from him.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: It was a private call. I called him and he
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: gave me the populist pitch. He said he was on
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: my side. He said that he told inspectors to be lenient.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: He told me to hold on. Well, he would fix
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: the mess that the liberals caused. He made it clear
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: that he was in my corner. But when the dust settled,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: there was no relief that came. The industry ended up
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: facing a regulatory blood bath. We've talked about that. I
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: realized that his pro business phone calls aren't economic policy.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It's just customer service. It's a script designed to give
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: you that nod and a wink, to keep a centralized
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: grip on the market directly in his hand.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Now, you were running a legal cannabis lounge here too,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and essentially you had to close it down, right.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really frustrating. I mean, we weren't instructed
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to shut it down. We were just told that the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: inspectors would issue tickets of one hundred thousand dollars to
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: my staff and to my customers, which made it impossible
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: to operate a business. We weren't going to do that,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: so yeah, we shipped down.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: It sucks well. In addition to the controversy that we've
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: been talking about for four days at the private jet thing,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: he recently defended major grocers by saying God bless the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Westerns and attack surveillance pricing, claiming that he's a capitalist
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: who doesn't intervene in the economy. Is this capitalism just
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a convenient sales pitch?
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: What a forced error? I mean, come on, why would
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: he hand that the left wing in this province. But
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: it's the ultimate hypocrisy. When there was the conversation it's
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: still ongoing about grocery surveillance pricing, Ford did say God
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: bless the Westons that he wouldn't intervene because he's a capitalists.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: But all you have to do is look at his
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: track record. This is the same premier who imposes strict
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: provincial minimum pricing on alcohol, cannabis, tobacco lottery. There's no
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: free market there. Why not blow up the LCOBO and
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: the OCS wholesale monopolies. During COVID he used the heavy
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: hand of the state to impose economic martial law. He shuddered,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: independent mom and pop shops while letting massive big box
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: retailers stay open and get record profits. He only lets
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the market dictate when it benefits massive corporate players.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, we were just speaking to Chris Simms
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, as we do every single
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Wednesday morning. Here we were talking about the jet and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Chris reminded us that the province is four hundred and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: eighty five billion dollars in debt. I mean, that's a lot.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And you know we service that debt by paying millions
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and millions and millions of dollars every single week, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it's our tax dollars. And it's just going, as I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: always say, up in smoke or down the drain. Now,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the deficits exploding. But the Premiere not too long ago
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: mailed out those two hundred dollars rebate checks to just
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: about everybody in on Taro. And I like your phrase
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you wrote, he's risking the house to pay for a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: second pool.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're staring down that deficit and a debt right now,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: and the Premier solution is to borrow to spend directly
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: into your pocket. I mean some people might make an
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: allegation that that's trying to bribe voters. I'm not going
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: to go and make that on the air Gene because
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I have been told by my lawyer not to go
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: and make such allegations publicly. But listen, we're talking about
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: left wing Keynesian stimulus policies and spending that's being disguised
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: as anything other. Between this and the farce of buying
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: the thirty million dollar jet only to try and flip
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: it because the optics got bad. I mean, these are rash,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: desperate moves. He's risking the house to pay for that
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: second pool. But here's the worst part. He's using our
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: credit card to do so.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so true. You end off your piece by pointing
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: out that the opposition is too afraid to call him
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: out on this and the voters seem happy being bought off. Now,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: you know, when we heard about the private jet and
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: he was not in question period on Monday but said
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: he was going to sell it on Sunday. I mean,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I don't blame him for not being in question period.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't show up either. But then yesterday Tuesday he
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: said he has also been receiving a lot of phone
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: calls from people saying, you know what, you should keep
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the jet. But then this morning there's another report pointing
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: out that the kind of jet he purchased and is
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: now selling but is being told to keep, can only
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: land in ten percent of Ontario airport. So even if
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: he did keep it, I mean, it can't go everywhere.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And what I said was, you know, to styles the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: neep leader and to the Liberal leader, was you know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the guy is a man of the people and people
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: do like him. And if you're going to go after
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: doug Ford, go after the fact that hospitals are underfunded,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: go after the fact that schools are underfunded. I mean,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the guy really is the teflon dug.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: He really is. I mean, a leopard doesn't change its spots,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: that you won't change its stripes, and the eight hundred
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: pound gorilla won't take away the ability to consume all
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the attention in the room. But hey, listen, I mean,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: it's hilarious that it doesn't have the ability to land
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: in ninety percent of the province. I actually bought their
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: argument that because it was a private plane, and because
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Ontario has bad weather throughout a lot of it, we're
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: a big place, that it made sense to not have
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to rely on commercial flights. But I mean, well, that
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: just falls apart under this argument entirely is that's incredible.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: But there's no reason for him to change. The strategy
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: is working perfect for him. But the opposition parties can't
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: call him out on it because they'd be called hypocrites.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: They're left wing central planners inherently by the definition and
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: the nature of their policies and what it is that
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: they are trying to go for. But they have shame.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Ford has no shame, and that's the biggest difference. Shame
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: is a weakness when it is in politics, and Ford
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: knows the academic definition of free market capitalism and it
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: is base when it comes to him. Maslow's hierarchy of
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: needs feed the people what they want, and he does
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: that like he's working the grill at a backyard barbecue.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: He keeps the voters happy. They're being bought off with
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: their own money, but they don't seem to know it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: They seem to be happy. He's the eight hundred pound
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: white elephant. If anything else, he takes all the attention.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And speaking of barbecues, he still has his barbecues too,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: by the way.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: He sure does. I mean I haven't gone to one yet,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: but if they come back to windsor maybe I'll go
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: this year.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Right as usual, always a great take on what's happening
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: in our country. Thank you so much, John, have a
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: great day, you two jam jers. There he goes John Lidkey.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: He writes for the Caves and Release podcast. I tell
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you his takes are something else. I love having him
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: on the show.