Season 2, Episode 5: Beau Shaw for Calgary Center
NDP Candidate in the 2025 Canadian Election
In Season 2, Episode 5, I welcome back Beau Shaw, an advocate for human rights and a candidate for MP in Calgary Centre with Canada’s New Democrats. Beau discusses his involvement in Palestine solidarity movements, his political aspirations, and his commitment to addressing issues like trade wars, healthcare, and environmental protection. He highlights the importance of civic participation and the need for political will to enforce existing laws for environmental and social justice. The conversation also touches on the challenges of running a grassroots campaign and the significance of supporting candidates who prioritize human rights and community well-being.
The Gravity Well Podcast, hosted by Jenny Yeremiy, delves into complex issues to foster understanding and improve the world.
Re-Intro to Beau Shaw and His Candidacy for the Federal NDP
Alex:
Welcome to the Gravity Well Podcast with Alex and Jenny here. You break down heavy ideas with us to understand their complexities and connections. Our mission is to work through your dilemmas with you in conversation and process making our world a better place for all.
Jenny:
We acknowledge that we live on the traditional territories of treaties, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10. The ancestral homelands of diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Metis. Peoples whose ancestors have walked this land since time immemorial and whose histories, languages, and cultures continue to influence our vibrant communities. We pay respect to indigenous people through our ethical relationship building efforts. Our community agreement asks for genuine conversations, real hearts, open minds, and different perspectives in conflict. Let’s rely on our six W system and live participant feedback. What matters most is finding common ground.
Alex:
We dedicate this podcast to our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The gravity well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Join us@thegravitywell.net.
Jenny:
Welcome back to the show, Beau Shaw. So if anybody remembers, Beau was with us back in, geez, I want to say it was like May or June of last year, episode 20 of our show. You can check that out. We had a very good conversation around standing up for human rights in the world. Beau has been very active in the Justice for Palestine movement from a Jewish perspective, if I will. But I’ll let you introduce yourself properly and explain why we’re chatting today. First, please.
Beau:
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me, Jenny. I was also here for the year end wrap up, just saying
Jenny:
Thank you, vo. Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry.
Beau:
Yeah, of course. I’ve been involved in Palestine solidarity movements from a Jewish perspective. I think one thing that’s really important to me is that both Jewish safety and Palestinian safety rely on taking the air out of conversations that are about identity rather than human rights, right? Human rights are universal and everyone deserves the right to life. Safety and security under the UN conventions and also our domestic laws and international laws and all that fun stuff. A little bit about myself, of course, I’m running to become the next MP in Calgary Centre with Canada’s New Democrats. I’m running in the 2025 general election. I am originally from Thomson, Manitoba, but I moved to Calgary in about 2017. Been a lifelong volunteer with veterans, disabled folks, human rights organizations across Canada. And I’m also a labour organizer with my local union chapter. I co-chair two grassroots organizations, and I’ve been organizing and participating in protest movements in Calgary for the last five years.
Jenny:
If I can just summarize to say, this is a person that has genuine interest for your community. You dedicate your time in three ways on the labour side, the human rights side, and now on a political front. Wow, thank you very much for stepping up to Run Bow. I know how much work it is and how difficult it is in a place like Calgary to be running for a party that is not conservative. Thank you for stepping forward and taking on the task. What led you to run? Can you give a little bit of colour? Obviously your work has led you to this. Any other reasons that you didn’t cover?
Beau:
Yeah, I mean, just as a constituent, I live in Calgary Centre. I’ve lived here for I think the longest amount of time since I’ve moved to Calgary. I’m running obviously because I’m tired of complacency from our government regardless of party. Honestly, I am not seeing a lot of return on investment for our current elected officials. I’m really disappointed in their response to public outcry, especially with regard to Palestinian human rights, and of course the antisemitism that’s been taking place here in Canada as well. I’m tired of seeing folks ripped off by grocery conglomerates and elites. I know Canadians aren’t getting their fair share because there’s more than enough tax base for every single person in this country to live and age in place with dignity. And it’s beyond me that we’re not demanding more of our elected officials. Never mind asking, never mind settling for whoever can beat one polarized position to another. Why aren’t we asking more of our elected officials? And I think that civic participation is really, really lacking in Alberta because Albertans have been historically disenfranchised for a number of reasons, but historically, voters have been suppressed and disenfranchised in Alberta.
Jenny:
That’s such an excellent point, Beau, and I know we’re going to get into that further a little bit more here. But yeah, I just want to talk about the important points of human decency. People have a right to live in human decency. We brag about Canada having a high GDP. Why don’t we have the human decency demonstrated behind that? We have more homes available than homelessness in Canada, for example. It’s a really good way to measure the fact that we have the opportunity for more human decency and should be demanding it from our elected officials. Thank you for understanding that and stepping into this task when it is quite like the responsibility is growing, not lessening. Again, thank you very much. You spoke a little bit about your concerns. Can you elaborate a bit for us, Beau, on what are your top three, if you don’t mind? Reasons for running?
What are the reasons for Beau’s running in the 2025 Canadian Election?
Beau:
Well, I mean, entering the Alberta context, right? In particular with Alberta, there are some cross jurisdictional issues that are impacting Albertans right now. Of course, you gave me three top concerns. I’ve got many, many more than that. But the three I want to talk about today, of course, are the trade war, how that’s going to impact everyone with our neighbours down south, threatening our sovereignty and threatening our economy, and how we take care of Canadians. That includes our healthcare and CPP and how we take care of the environment. Right now, there’s coal projects on the table, again in Alberta, despite it being unilaterally unpopular across political differences, too, by the way, conservatives don’t want it. Libertarians don’t want it. Liberals don’t want it. The NDP doesn’t want it. Nobody wants it. I really struggle to see why we’re revisiting coal right now. And there are ways that the federal government can intervene on these issues where our provincial government is held to task, even though we have until 2027 to go back to the voting booth again and hopefully get some better representation. But realistically, there are ways that the federal government can intervene on these issues, and I really care about those in particular.
Jenny:
Fantastic. I mean, you struck all the things that I would want to lead with. I heard you talk about trade wars. Yes. That’s fundamentally the economy we are in. We need to speak, say this out loud. We are in a war with the United States. We are at war with the United States, and it is a remarkable place to be in such short order. And then also just that we need to focus on care, care for each other, and care for our environment and care for all the inhabitants. Thank you so much for understanding that. And yes, my goodness, the fact that the feds have decided to not ask for impact assessments on things is a major way that they have been holding back their power to make sure that Albertans and everybody downstream, let’s be honest, this is an interprovincial issue. Our water is protected, and not just our water, but our business’s water.
People rely on this as by design. It doesn’t make any sense. And lastly, I’ll just add from my perspective, and then we’ll ask some questions back and forth, is, yeah, we’re just being distracted by coal because we have a much bigger issue right on our doorstep, which is the oil and gas liabilities that the Alberta government is about to try and unload on us through a leaked report. We can get into that. But yeah, let’s start with the trade wars. What are your thoughts around it? What are your feelings in terms of the elbows up kind of response that we’re seeing, especially from the NDP? I’ve been so impressed by
Beau’s Thoughts on the Trade War with the United States
Beau:
Charlie Angus.
Jenny:
Charlie Angus, yes. I’ve been so impressed with Charlie. Can you speak a little bit about the trade war and how you see it?
Beau:
Yeah, I mean, it’s completely incoherent frankly to start right? Donald Trump, of course, has his motivations. I’m sure there are a few that I can think of. But realistically, we need to have our lawsuits prepared under the NAFTA trade agreements, right? Canada, United States, Mexico, and South America trade agreements. Because right now, the US is violating those trade agreements and those are trade agreements that they signed. Those are trade agreements that Donald Trump himself, Donald Trump, hundred percent. First off, we have litigation that we can go through. Of course, that’s going to be long and drawn out, but realistically, we want to maintain Canada’s independence. We want to localize our economies. We want to make sure that products are able to make it from the east coast to the west coast, and that is done in a manner that supports local economies and makes us less reliant on the United States.
Jenny:
Yeah, I love that. I just left a room, I have to tell you, I’m really excited by the thought of, we talk about east to west all the time, and it was just brought to my attention that we can be thinking more north to south now. We have a lot of inter…
Beau:
Yeah, cool. I’m from the north and there’s a huge disparity in terms of services available, healthcare available, clean water available, right?
Jenny:
A hundred percent.
Beau:
Yeah. It’s really, really dire in certain communities. Being from Thompson, there’s 16 different reserves around Thompson that haven’t had clean drinking water in 150 years. That’s an infrastructure project that the government of Canada could take on realistically and actually employ Canadians to do. Infrastructure projects are where we need to go in terms of keeping people employed and keeping that tax base going. People who are going to get laid off, we need to make sure that they have easy access to EI and pandemic style relief. Right now is not a time for cuts.
Jenny:
No, no. It’s interesting. Just today I saw, let’s be clear, it’s April 3rd. Yesterday was Donald Trump’s, what did he call it? Independence Day or something. And it was the announcement of the tariffs. The result on the stock market is all the top players are getting taken down by Donald Trump. You look at that alone in isolation and think this is a good thing. But then like you’re saying, he’s, they’re letting go of government employees, letting go of the rule of law, letting go of information, access to information. Those three things to me, along with this degrowth that is needed is the problem. Yes, we need to protect workers, not be coming after workers. Sorry, I’m speaking for you, but thank you. I hear
Beau:
You. No, a hundred percent. I agree that we need to be protecting workers first and foremost, right? Because businesses don’t run without workers. Let’s just be honest, right? There’s no profit to be had if no people are working right. Realistically, making sure that our own economy is insulated and that small and medium sized businesses don’t go under because you had a number of businesses during the pandemic because we were a little hasty in our rollout, or perhaps it wasn’t done as well as it could have been because it was a global emergency. Everyone was building the plane as they flew it. And I think that Canada did a reasonably good job. Realistically, I think that there are provinces, and in particular, I wasn’t pleased with Alberta’s response to the pandemic. We just kept opening and closing and opening and closing instead of actually putting people first.
Jenny:
No kidding.
Beau:
Putting people first. We didn’t need to have the Calgary Stampede in the middle of the pandemic. It did not need to happen.
Jenny:
Yeah.
Beau:
It was reckless, it was careless. And frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if people died because of that. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that because our government was not taking care of people. Realistically, I think that it’s any civil servant’s job to put their constituents first. Every single person in Calgary Centre should have a job, a roof over their head, food on their plate, and they should be able to save at least a little bit of money here and there for something nice. I think that’s a reasonable goal for our populace. And when we’ve got buildings sitting empty and people needing homes, I can’t help but think, what are our priorities?
Beau’s Thoughts on the Environment
Jenny:
No kidding. No kidding. Yeah. Thank you. That’s amazing. Yeah, you sort of went into care and thank you for expanding that way. Can you speak a little bit about your view of the environment? I mean, well, maybe, I hope you remember. I have a strong background in this. Liability is kind of my jam, obviously I got to ask you a little bit about this in my space, and I can offer you my thoughts first, if that’s helpful. Oh, sure. I really believe in land stewardship laws. You spoke a bit about the feds already, and in the fact that they’re not using their authority appropriately. Land stewardship laws to me are the way forward. I think about this liability opportunity across each province, not just Alberta. Let’s be clear. The industrial complex is not just an oil and gas problem. The opportunity to restore the environment and take on more of a indigenous understanding of the relationship with land, helping drive our decisions that way. That’s my view and how I see us moving forward. Beau, what are your thoughts in that space?
Beau:
I think that’s a great way to tackle it, but I think folks also forget that we already have tools. We already have the Canada Water Act, the Species at Risk Act. We have the Fisheries Act. All of those things protect our land and water from exploitation, from coal mining, for example, or any sort of land exploitative sort process that can harm the environment. There has not been the political will in successive governments to actually enforce the law. And I’m really dumbfounded by that because it’s not outside the realm of responsibility. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but we keep being told, oh no, you’ve got to wait. Oh, no, we need this. We need that. Well, no, we need water so that we can grow food so that farmers can have a job. Realistically their land can be tended, people can be fed, and we’re not destroying the natural beauty of Canada.
And of course, first and foremost, respecting our treaties as a sovereign nation with the people who came before with indigenous nations. It just makes sense that we’re consulting. There are new developments for indigenous housing that are actually coming to Calgary at Tsuut'ina Nation, for example, and that is a land lease program. But I am sure, and anyone who is a decent negotiator would know you don’t give something for nothing. Right now, we’ve been giving everything for nothing to these companies that are just exploiting our land. They are socializing the cost, and they are privatizing the profit. It is so ridiculous that our government cannot actually keep these businesses in terms of their policies and their practices in check. Right. You said before that folks, they said, we can’t do surveys. No, we can do surveys. There’s no moratorium on land surveys, right? There’s no moratorium. They could do a land survey tomorrow if they wanted to. The political will is not there, and if we keep voting for the middle, we will never get there.
Campaign Setbacks
Jenny:
Thank you. This is going to lead into our next section, but I just want to say it’s about us demanding it. It goes back to what you said earlier, unless we forget party lines and start looking at the people that understand this and help those people get into office, we will rinse and repeat. It’s like the discussion around meritocracy. In my view, this is “merit”. This is understanding the issues and being willing to stand up for them. Thank you for this. Let’s talk about some setbacks. You just touched on the fact that we’re voting centrist, if you will, in some spaces. Again, we can be, when I think about who’s the best candidate, let’s think about it that way. In this case, you’re presenting a very good claim for candidacy in Calgary Centre. Tell me why should the voter choose you? Why should they forget about the party and think about the person that you are and your understanding, and why Beau Shaw is the candidate for Calgary Centre?
Beau:
Well, for one, I always seek adequate counsel for any decision that I make, any policy that I support, any candidate that I vote for realistically. And I think that’s a wise thing to do for any person. And so I would never begrudge someone their vote. No ballot cast is a ballot wasted. There’s no such thing, right? Anyone who tries to dissuade you from casting that ballot, however there’s something up. There’s something wrong there. I think that for me, I care about where I live. I’ve always cared about where I live. I’ve been on the ground organizing with people. I’ve worked in frontline social work. I’ve worked in the service industry. Now, I’m an entirely self-trained tech expert. I mean, I have a thirst for knowledge. I can play several different instruments. I was a music student all my life, anything that I could learn growing up, I was just a voracious learner. And realistically, I think that the most important thing in an elected official is that they continuously learn, they continuously grow, and they continuously go to bat for their constituents. I know very well that that’s exactly the kind of person I am.
Takeaways and Action Items
Jenny:
Great. And because I want to explore this area of setback a little more with you, I ran for a party that was more progressive than what I felt was being seen from an energy standpoint. From your perspective, how do you get around people just looking at the label of your party and not looking at the person you are and what you bring forward?
Beau:
There are a lot of people who do not feel comfortable talking about the reasons why they vote, right? I go to the door and a lot of people are just like, honestly, I haven’t even really had time to think about it. I haven’t thought about it before now. What I ask them is usually like, what’s really important to you? That’s the first question I ask someone after I’ve introduced myself and told them, of course I’m running, and I’d like to count on your vote this year. If you thought about who you might vote for, the next question immediately is what’s important to you? Normally, people who are decided one way or the other, they don’t want to talk to you at all. To be honest with you, progressives need undecideds to vote for them. There are people who are hardened on one end or the other end of the political spectrum, but realistically, I suppose, around the political map of spectrums.
And some people have their preference, and some people want to improve their party that they support, or some people are just voting because maybe their husband or their brother or their sister or their mother votes that way, and that’s how they’ve always voted. But sometimes those folks can be reached on the issues, and most people are telling me, my life costs too much. I’m worried about my future. I’m worried about my children’s future. And I don’t think our government is doing enough. And I think that’s perfectly reasonable to say. I mean, I agree wholeheartedly that our government’s not doing enough. I think that some folks don’t necessarily agree on the path forward. They don’t necessarily agree on what needs to be done. But I can tell you right now, throughout history and even through wartime, right? You’re seeing parties come out with these wartime measures. Well, those wartime measures realistically should include higher taxes on the wealthy because the average person.
Jenny:
Hallelujah.
Beau:
The average person does not have an extra $2,000 a year to spend on taxes. Most seniors will not be able to make their mortgage payment or some other rent payment, or they’ll be unhoused or unable to afford their food, their electricity, or anything like that. People living on a fixed income, disabled people, seniors, anyone who’s experiencing temporary joblessness, they have a fixed income. Those people cannot afford their cost of living to go up. We need to be able to put price caps on goods and services. We need to be able to reduce the GST on certain items. We need to be able to make sure that corporate landlords aren’t buying up and developing properties that could otherwise be used for affordable housing. I think that it would be very interesting to allow folks access to capital, which of course, the NDP has announced that they would do low interest mortgages for first time home buyers.
Beau:
I think we could go a little farther than that. Personally, I think that allowing folks access to equity is the best way to strengthen and bolster our economy. Realistically, folks who have those sorts of affordability issues, or they’re worried about Trump, they’re like, I’m going to vote for the person who’s strongest on Trump. And I guess that’s kind of up to interpretation what that actually means. Because to me, that means an independent Canada, where we have a strong local economy, we do global trade short. But I can tell you one thing, there are countries for whom global trade is not how they keep their country stable. Like Japan, for example. They don’t rely on global trade, right?
Jenny:
It’s not a necessity.
Beau:
No, no, it’s amazing.
Jenny:
Yeah. I just want to back up and underscore what you said, which is we have the money to do this. And this is something that I really appreciate about the labour movement that you would understand, Beau, is this, the bosses have the money, right? We have the money. It’s how we choose to spend it. And you’re absolutely right. It needs to be. If we’re socializing the costs, then we need to receive some equity in return, right?
Beau:
Yeah. A lot of people don’t realize that we spend more on corporate welfare than we do on foreign aid, and people are complaining about the foreign aid programs. They want to shrink the social service in some cases and things like that. No, they’re being distracted from the fact that we’re giving 50 billion a year in corporate welfare. And have you received a pay raise for that since we’re subsidizing the businesses that employ these people? Have you received a pay raise for that? I don’t think so. Have you received a better quality of service? No, I don’t think so. Have you received any sort of industry regulation, be that consumer protection, be that environmental protection? No, we haven’t. What are we getting for that money? And like I said before, why are we giving away something for nothing? Why are we not conditioning this corporate welfare one hand washes the other? Well, my hands are real dirty.
Jenny:
No kidding. No kidding. Yeah, it’s shocking. Thank you so much again, for just being aware about we need more and more people like you to be interested in politics, and I’m grateful. Okay, how do folks get involved? How do they support you? What do you need right now? What are you after? Lay it out for us.
Beau:
Yeah, I mean, of course a lot of folks might not realize, but liberal and conservative campaigns or any other major party that is not an underdog in this sort of race, they have a lot of money. And I did speak to the liberals about potentially running for them previously. I know very well that they spent $75,000 last election on their candidate, whereas the conservatives spent a little bit more than that. They usually spend closer to a hundred thousand dollars a year. I’m running a campaign right now on grassroots funding. I have small dollar donations. Anyone who gives cash the Elections Canada Act makes it so that you’re not able to take cash donations over $20 no matter who you are. And that stifles grassroots candidates that stifles underdog candidates. Of course, we want to buy more signs. We want to paint the town orange. Folks who want to support me that way.
Of course, they can donate@boshaw.ndp.ca. They can also learn more about me there. They can also find me on social media, on Facebook and Instagram. They can sign up to volunteer on my website as well. Of course, the more the merrier, we’ve got a hundred thousand voters to get in contact with. We are in the upper half percentile of all NDP campaigns across Canada. My campaign in particular, we’re doing very, very well on talking to voters. I think folks should probably just keep in mind there are a lot of people for whom other parties, for example, maybe they’re a single issue voter. We saw down south in the United States, a single issue took down the Democratic candidate for president. Right now in Calgary Centre, one third of the population of my riding are immigrants, right? I can tell you right now, they care a lot about immigration and they care a lot about foreign policy. They care that our country is living up to our claimed peacekeeper status and that we are strong global partners for peace. And if that’s not happening, and I’ve not seen any commitments from either of the other two major parties running in this election, I think that the NDP and the Green Party actually are the only two that are really committed to making sure that human rights are respected universally and that realistically that Canada isn’t breaking international law or its own domestic laws as we’ve seen over the last two years.
Jenny:
Thank you. Beau. I just want to reiterate, because I feel very strongly about running on issues and people that have this understanding and merit, that if there is a candidate that is for one of the other parties that is willing to speak out on these issues, this is something that I think we really need to understand as being
Beau:
No, I wish that for them. I really wish they would, but I think that they’re going to avoid the issue as they historically have, because they think that not a lot of people care about it. And I can tell you that a lot of people care about it. Almost every letter from a constituent, even though I’m not even elected, has been about two issues. One being Canada’s response as a country to the infringement of human rights.
And the second is actually caregivers rights. People who are caring for an infirm or disabled loved one, a senior who’s taking care of their spouse, they’re not getting worker protections, they’re not getting the tax benefits that they need, and they’re not being cared for appropriately when realistically, they’re taking a huge burden off of our healthcare system. One in four Canadians ends up being a healthcare provider as a caregiver, rather in particular, to a loved one or a family member. That’s really one of the things that I’m actually not hearing from people. I’m not hearing about elder care. I’m not hearing about Canada’s responsibility as a member of the United Nations and as signatory to many, many treaties as it pertains to human rights and war crimes. Right. I’m not hearing those things.
Jenny:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, we both encourage that. Thank you very much for bringing it up. And like I said, for standing for this, because we’re all human. Let’s understand. This is our rights we’re talking about and we need to stand up for them. Yes, thank you so much both. Okay. Thank you for laying out ways to help you. I heard this is a grassroots movement. This means we need people, you and me, to put money forward for. Can you, just because I know a lot of my community doesn’t understand this, can you talk about the tax benefits of donating if you know them offhand?
Beau:
Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, every single person who donates to a political party or campaign, they receive a tax receipt. Right now, it’s between 50% to 75% depending on how much you donate, that is returned back to you on your taxes. You get a tax credit for any donation that you make. However, there is a maximum contribution limit. You can only make a contribution of $1,750 to any political party or campaign. And that is the limit. But realistically, in that case, I believe they’re still offering 75% back on your taxes, which is a pretty decent credit.
Jenny:
And it’s good to know that it’s like you said, up to 75% deductible. I didn’t understand that as a person who didn’t pay attention to politics enough in the past. Thank you. Is there a debate that people can pay attention to? Beau, can you tell me, is there a date set for that?
Beau:
Yeah, I mean, the first date that comes to mind, of course, and the first coming up is April 13th at noon at Cold Garnet Brewing in Inglewood. There will be a candidate’s debate. Of course, I’m already confirmed. I’m not sure who else has confirmed yet, but that is the first upcoming debate, and I think there might be one or two more. We’ll see.
Jenny:
Anything else you want to offer quickly before we wrap?
Beau:
I think it’s our responsibility as Canadians to care for one another. I think that the way that polling data nationally is working, only 0.003% of Albertans are polled in national polling data. Some of it’s based on historical data, and that’s if they run a hundred polls. It’s about between three and six people per riding that are polled in Alberta. There’s 37 ridings in Alberta federally. There’s about 150 people at any given time. And then you times that by a hundred, divide that by 4.6 million, and you get 0.003%. And that’s not a lot of people. If you wouldn’t trust 0.003% of Albertans to make a decision, a life-changing decision for you, I implore you to get involved on the riding level with your candidates because it’s important that we meet the people that are going to represent us.
Jenny:
Fantastic. Yes, we need to look people in the eyes and be ready to hold them accountable. That’s the only way we’re going to get back to a place where we can trust our government. Like you said, no matter the aisle, this is how we’ve lost trust if people are not feeling heard, not feeling understood, and for good reason. Okay. This has been incredible, Beau. Thank you so much for running again. I’m going to make sure to support you in some way. But yeah, I just wanted to add a couple of things that I’m up to. First of all, I’m working for the Alberta Resistance, that is The Gravity Well, myself, is helping to lead the first recall campaign in Calgary Bow. That is Minister Nicolaides, who’s the Minister of Education here in Alberta. We are looking to help [trigger] an early election.
The goal is to stand up six of these recalls so that we can get ourselves a vote of non-confidence and a new election in Alberta sooner than 2027. That’s the goal. We need people to get involved for that to happen. I’ll be specific in Beau, that is 40% of the vote. That’s 15,985 people that need to want this and need to sign a petition in 60 days time, which we’re looking to launch somewhere near the end of this month or close to the federal election day. And then the other thing I’ll mention is I’m working with a group called the Coalition for Responsible Energy. We’re looking to address the announcement that we’re expecting from the Alberta government this coming week, their leaked plan that David Yeager wrote up, the unelected advisor to the premier. It’s a select group of Albertans that met and built a proposal to offload the oil and gas liabilities onto us Albertans in a Harvest Co. and a Closure Co. attempting to replace the orphan program. And of course, the orphan program is our safety net. It is the Alberta Energy regulators responsibility that they developed back in the 1990s to address the conventional liabilities that were mounting.
The industry said, don’t worry, we have your back. We will make sure we, meaning the largest companies are responsible with this promise, and they’re trying to renege on that now that it’s the time is due and the bill is due. So that’s the second thing I’m working on. And lastly, I just want to mention, I’m still doing the ongoing land-based organizing with Colin Smith and the Land Lovers Group. We’ve been meeting every three weeks at community centers, various community associations around the city, building that local, as you were describing, Beau, knowing your neighbours and building that community of like-minded individuals that understand that this is reformation, let’s call it, that’s required so that people take responsibility and act like we deserve democracy for real. Yeah. So anything you want to add to that, Beau, before we wrap? But thank you for being here.
Beau:
Any major political movement, to be honest with you, it’s usually like 12 people doing a lot of the work because some folks are just like, well, it’s here, this thing’s here. And of course, maybe they don’t need help because they’re already doing it. No, people need help. If you see an initiative that you really care about, please offer to help. We always need help. Everyone always needs help. I promise you. They only have so much time in the day just like you. And I think that if more of us got involved, some of us could take a little bit of a breather, take a break. The world does not stop turning.
Jenny:
Yes, I feel you. And yes, I could not agree more. I would love to be able to put my feet up and feel like you said, more and more people are coming into that understanding that I’m not doing it personally, I’m doing this with the help of other people, or it doesn’t happen. The reality of the situation is we can only do so much. Okay. Thank you so much again. This has been amazing. Thank you. I’ll make sure to get involved in supporting you a little more here, Beau. Again, thanks for your time.
Beau:
No, thanks for having me.