Your Home. Your Rights. Alberta's Castle Law Debate

What does it really mean to own the land beneath your feet? 

Carlin Lutzer sits down with Cory Morgan, a Western Standard columnist and passionate Alberta advocate, for a wide-ranging conversation that hits close to home for anyone who cares about life in Okotoks and the surrounding Foothills County. 

From the landmark Eddie Maurice case right here in our backyard, to Premier Danielle Smith's proposed castle law changes, to the growing uncertainty around Indigenous land claims in BC, Cory offers sharp, opinionated context on some of today's most debated property rights issues. 

Whether you're a long-time Okotoks resident or a newcomer discovering what Alberta values look like in practice, this episode delivers the kind of honest, thought-provoking conversation that defines the Okotoks Podcast.

Listen for:

1:18 What drives Cory Morgan to write opinion columns and challenge political norms in Alberta?

5:07 What really happened with the Eddie Maurice case in Foothills County, and why did it outrage Okotoks-area residents?

14:34 How might Premier Danielle Smith's proposed castle law changes affect property owners in Okotoks and rural Alberta?

18:54 What are Indigenous land claim rulings doing to property rights and mortgage financing in BC?

26:20 Why is Alberta more legally stable than BC when it comes to treaty land and property ownership? 

Connect with Guest: Cory Morgan, Columnist, Western Standard
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Special thanks to Okotoks Nissan for arranging this podcast with Kelly Hrudey.

Transcript

Announcer (00:01):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Okotoks Podcast, brought to you by Carlin Lutzer Real Estate. Glad you're here.

Carlin Lutzer (00:20):
Welcome to the Okotoks Podcast. I'm your host, Carlin Lutzer, and today's conversation steps into some big and often complex territory, the kind of topics that don't always have easy answers, but are becoming harder and harder to ignore. On this episode, I sit down with Cory Morgan to talk about the evolving landscape and property rights in Canada. We get into the changes around Alberta castle law, the realities of self defence, and the broader, more complex conversation around Indigenous land claims, particularly in BC. The goal here isn't to tell you what to think. It is to give you the context, the perspectives, and the information so you can think deeper about it yourself. So wherever you're listening from, thanks for being here. Let's get into it. Cory, thank you for joining me.

Cory Morgan (01:15):
Oh, glad to. I'm always happy to discuss issues like this.

Carlin Lutzer (01:18):
Yeah. And I know that there's many different topics that we could certainly talk about because there's so much going on in the world, in North America, in Canada, in Alberta. And then even when we get closer to home in the municipal politics as well, there's just so much that we could discuss. But today we're going to look at two topics, but I'm wondering if we can just get to know you a little bit, just how you got to where you are at today as a columnist for the Western Standard and what led you to, I guess, feeling the need, having the passion to get the word out as to what you believe about any topic, I guess, and why you feel that you have that voice and I guess even why people should listen to you, Cory.

Cory Morgan (02:12):
It's, well, I mean, a genuine passion to try and bring about positive change. I know that sounds cheesy, but I've come to my own conclusions that there's shortcomings in our political system and our political policies. And some people feel that, I guess, voting or political party membership or things like that are enough. I feel trying to spread my opinion and hopefully change the thoughts of others on some policy issues is my way to contribute in that sense. So that keeps me motivated and writing and just allowing more of the discourse. I know I'm not always necessarily right, but I enjoy the debate.

Carlin Lutzer (02:52):
Right, for sure. So civil discourse is great, but do you actually see where people's minds are being changed?

Cory Morgan (03:03):
I do. I do. I mean, there's a lot of confirmation bias. That's a risk of modern media right now. People are just picking the columnists or the show hosts or the podcasts that reaffirm the views they enjoy as opposed to spreading out. It's a hazard that's happening right now. I've certainly got a bias, but that's why I never make any bones about it. I'm an opinion writer. I'm not a news reporter. There's a big difference between the two.

Carlin Lutzer (03:32):
Yes.

Cory Morgan (03:32):
And there's opinion writers who have opinions quite contrary to mine. I just would hope that people shop around to a degree and find contrary opinions and come to their own conclusions, but I write what I feel as conclusions and go from there. And my own thoughts have changed and evolved over the years at times. So I can only hope and assume that it's possible with other people too.

Carlin Lutzer (03:55):
Right. Yeah. No, with doing the podcast, I a lot of times try to present both sides of the argument if there's an argument going on. But then I have people where they say that they will refuse to listen to the side that doesn't agree with what they're thinking. And I think it's very hard to bring people along as a society, especially with the algorithms and things like that that we have on social media that's feeding my side of the argument. And basically, some people are honestly, they're shocked that there's people that think differently than them.

Cory Morgan (04:32):
Yeah. It's frightening how algorithms work because they will, particularly if you look on X, it's going to keep presenting things that you paused on and that you looked at and that gave you notice. And that means, meanwhile, hundreds of other postings are whizzing by that said something else, but you won't see it because it's modelling what it feels you want to see. And that's an unfortunate and dangerous way of going about things. And so that is part of why I like being at least a ... I mean, I do a lot on social media, but with a publication, there's actual articles, things that if people hopefully have gone into there, they can see some of the different views. It's not as algorithm driven as other aspects of social media.

Carlin Lutzer (05:07):
Right, right. For sure. Well, we have two topics that we're going to talk about today. One, I think is a very fascinating topic because we're looking at Alberta castle law changes. And there's certainly been some circumstances in even the foothills in the last, what is it? I'm just going to take a stab at it and say that it was eight years ago or so that Edward Maurice kind of took matters into his own hands. And he ended up getting into a lot of trouble. He was charged, lots of legal battles. And I was thinking this morning, knowing that I was going to be talking to you, if we were able to back it up and I was able to talk to my grandpa when my grandpa was in his 20s, I think he would be absolutely shocked that if somebody intruded on their property and were stealing, that he wouldn't be able to take matters into his own hands.

Cory Morgan (06:12):
Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people were shocked still even when the Eddie Maurice case happened. Just full disclosure, I do know Eddie from that incident and being in this area, and I was one of the people organizing to keep demonstrations going on outside of the courthouse while they were trying to prosecute Eddie Maurice. And I guess for people who don't remember that, he was a young fellow with a child in the home and there were a couple of intruders on his property at about four or five in the morning. He came out with a .22 rifle and as they approached the house, a shot was fired. The court determined later, or the investigation, that it was a ricochet, hit one of the intruders in the elbow. They fled and then Eddie was ... He called the police. They arrived a couple hours later, but then they arrested Eddie and charged him with a whole number of crimes.

(07:00):
 And it took months before that was rectified in the courts before the prosecution dropped the case. And you could tell reluctantly they really did not want to let that one go. And I believe, I mean, it's just speculation, but a lot of what was happening was there was a lot of political discussion on it. There was a lot of media discussion on it. The demonstrations, even though the prosecution kept kicking it down the road two weeks at a time, every time Eddie would show up in court saying, "We need two more weeks, we need two more weeks." Most of the issue was there was 150 people standing outside demonstrating in support of Eddie. And they realized this was probably going to end up going to a jury, and the jury wasn't going to convict in this one. And that's where public opinion actually can influence these sorts of things, because that would be a jury of his peers, not perhaps a person with a more cold approach to it, like a judge or a prosecutor who just feels that you should leave things to the police.

Carlin Lutzer (07:56):
Yes. Sometimes you're going to wonder where I'm going with this, but I do have a point. But Siskel and Ebert, remember I used to watch Siskel and Ebert, and I felt earlier on in their career, they were very good. I felt later on in their career, they would sit and watch a movie and their opinions, in my opinion, because they watched so many movies and stuff, that their minds were not on the same level as everybody else's. They would critique movies and say, "This one was terrible or this one was really good." And in my opinion, everything was completely opposite. I look at the judge and some prosecutors, and I feel that their minds are so tainted that they don't really put themselves into the position of people that have to live with the consequences of their decisions. Sometimes letting people out that should never be out or prosecuting someone such as Eddie is just mind boggling to a point where they feel that they're doing something of value.

(09:06):
 Now, is that case, was that precedent setting?

Cory Morgan (09:11):
I believe it was in Alberta, at least to a degree. Now, some things have to be looked at too, the timing of that case. That was very shortly after Gerald Stanley was acquitted by a jury over the shooting of Colten Boushie. For those who might remember that, that was a First Nations young man who was on a ... Well, and it was found to be in the courts on a rampage with a few others, went on to a property in northern Saskatchewan. They tried stealing some items. There was a lot of havoc and Colten Boushie ended up getting shot fatally in the head. And when a jury, again, acquitted the homeowner, Gerald Stanley, there was a lot of rage. And I believe there was an incentive as well on the part of the courts to get somebody on one of these home defence things. And Eddie was kind of really very much in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(09:59):
 Had it happened a year earlier or a year later, I think they might not even have charged him. But your analogy's very good. I mean, it's kind of like as well, if you want to use movies, look at Rotten Tomatoes. Look at the reviews and ratings versus critics versus the public. And quite often, they're quite different. The people, as you're saying, academics, justices, lawyers, they forget what it's like to be the person on the ground. And what outraged people even more with the Eddie Maurice case was the person, even when Eddie was, the charges were dropped, one of the people who invaded his place tried to sue him in civil court to add insult to injury. That got dropped pretty shortly afterwards too. But Premier Kenney at the time brought in legislation to block people from suing people when they get injured in the course of committing a crime.

(10:51):
 Again, you'd think common sense would cover that, but apparently we need an actual specific legislation for it. But again, drilling down to the bottom of the whole issue, and there were a lot of discussions here in Priddis where I live in the MD of Foothills. The RCMP was holding a lot of town hall meetings and people were pretty upset because thefts have been a problem and concerns in rural areas. And the RCMP response was always, in my view, call, cower, and pray. That's all they would tell you every time when you talk about defending yourself or your property. They say, "Call us, lock up and just hope they don't break in." That's the extent of the advice they would give. They would never even, in the slightest way, offer that you may defend yourself or your home. They're just hoping that the thick door might do it and time takes care of it.

(11:36):
 And the attitude of the other people at these town hall meetings was not accepting of this and not very impressed at all. And plus in rural areas, I could tell that they're saying, "Well, you could tell me whatever you like. If I feel my family's threatened, I'll do whatever I feel I have to do in order to protect them." I mean, we need limitations. We don't have a Wild West. We don't want to have somebody shot because they came up a driveway to ask directions. But at the same time, when you clearly feel your family is at risk, the priority should be on protecting the rights of the homeowner or renter or whatever that might be, the person on that property versus the intruder. And it's gotten backwards. And we've seen a number of cases in Canada over the years with this.

Carlin Lutzer (12:19):
So you talk about the Wild West. Let's talk about Texas because Texas basically is ... Yeah, you have the right to shoot. It seems like you have the right to shoot and ask questions later as a homeowner, a property owner. Do you know if the crime stats are less in rural Texas than they are even here for that matter? I

Cory Morgan (12:45):
Don't offhand. I do know that they're very strongly protected. I worked a lot down in Texas, and it's something to get used to when you come up and a homeowner often walk out with a handgun. I'm not pointing at you, but on their hip or whatnot, it's open carry down there. But again, I think to the most part, from what I've found down there, common sense prevails. When I'm driving down the driveway, I was working down there as a surveyor and I have to speak to a homeowner and I'm unexpected. They might come out of the house tentatively, but they're not coming out with guns pointing or anything else. They're exercising common sense as well. If I was pulling down their driveway at three in the morning without notice, I might be putting myself in danger. So I do believe that it projects a message, I think, to potential intruders that invading rural properties in Texas probably isn't good for your health.

Carlin Lutzer (13:32):
For sure. So sometimes on Facebook pages and stuff like that, you see even locally, I follow Foothills County and some of the rural crime watch pages. And a lot of times you see people driving around, they're not scared of anything. They're very confident in what they're doing. And I think it's because they do know the laws and they do know that most Canadians are not carrying guns. Now you get more, and I would say that's the acreage owners per se, but then you spread that out to farmers. I would imagine farmers, they'd be a little bit more concerned that the farmers are going to have guns to shoot wildlife or medicine gophers or whatever. But are you starting to get the sense that there could be some changes made? Because I know that Danielle Smith a few months ago was talking about that, that there's going to be some meaningful legal changes made to the laws.

Cory Morgan (14:34):
Yeah. She certainly has the will to do it and wants to. And considering her voter base, it would be, I think, well received among most of them to try and entrench a little more of the ability and right to defend your home and property and yourself, of course. How that's going to be though is going to be interesting to see. As I said, Premier Kenney brought in something to stop the civil actions against you, but when it comes to criminal, well, the Criminal Code's federal. So I'm not sure the extent of things that Premier Smith can bring in to protect those sorts of rights without being overwritten by the federal justice system. It takes people more learned than me to explain exactly how that might work. Part of the issue too though is the relationship between RCMP and the prosecutors and others. And that's where the beginnings come of whether it's felt that charges should be pursued or not in a case.

(15:25):
 And while we're moving more towards having more provincial forces and less RCMP, and while they all are bound by enforcing the same law, different forces will sometimes feel different priorities, I think, on what they feel should be strongly prosecuted versus others. So I think that might be a bit of a backdoor way that we're moving away from charging some people for protecting themselves too.

Carlin Lutzer (15:46):
Right. Yeah. And there's certainly no doubt would have to be some education. I know I think it was out east, again, three, four months ago, there was a break in in a house and the police were basically just saying, "Don't fight with these guys, just give them what they want." I think if these guys that are breaking in knew that there could be some consequences, even fatal consequences for the actions that the homeowner could take themselves, I think that would definitely be maybe a little bit ... They'd maybe rethink their career choices, I

Cory Morgan (16:21):
Guess. The preventative approach, of course, would be the best. Let's just not have these incidents happen at all. Sure. But the second thing that may happen is that an invader gets shot and injured and or killed.

(16:32):
 Now, you're going into speculation, but that very possibly could prevent a homeowner and their family from being harmed by that invader in the first place. So there's kind of a couple of levels. I mean, we'd prefer to stop it in the first place, but we know again, with addicted people, troubled people or whatnot, they still might decide that it's a good idea to go into a household. The safety of the person in the household has to be held paramount. And we don't want to see anybody getting harmed or shot, but if it has to happen, I'll take a side on that one. The homeowner, again, should be protected. And there've been cases in the States. Florida has very strong stand your ground laws.

(17:11):
 And there was a case a couple of years ago with a woman. She'd had a bunch of difficulty with her neighbours. She was a strange lady. They were in kind of a low income neighbourhood and something had happened where a woman was pounding on her door and kicking at it, and the other woman shot through the door and killed the person on the outside of the door. There was worry that the stand your ground laws might get the person who shot through that door acquitted because it still was her place, her personal space, and the person was ostensibly trying to get in, but that was found to be beyond reason and she was charged and convicted of murder. So just for some of the opponents of things like stand your ground laws and castle laws, there are limits on it even in places, Wild West, Texas and Florida.

(17:54):
 I mean, a degree of reason and presenting, you have to prove that some risk was presented to yourself before you can take up arms. And there's no reason we couldn't have that same sort of common sense here.

Carlin Lutzer (18:05):
Right. Wondering if we can shift gears here and go into the second topic that we had on our list. And again, I know that there's many different topics that we can talk about, but something that is a little bit concerning as to what is happening in BC right now, and that's the Indigenous land ownership rights. We look at potentially if the Court of King's Bench makes a precedent in setting some of these things, I think it could start to become a concern for all Canadians, not just Canadian people living in BC right now, which is a huge concern. I'm just wondering if you can talk a bit about that. I don't know a lot about that, but if you can fill me in and let me know what your thoughts are, I'd be appreciative of that.

Cory Morgan (18:54):
Yeah. Well, there's been some recent rulings. I mean, the big one now is through the Musqueam band. It's mostly lower mainland BC, and this is all applying to some of the most valuable property in North America. I think it's no coincidence. It makes bigger news when it's a fight in lower mainland BC rather than say a piece of bush up in northern Manitoba or something like that. The Cowichan band ruling that came a little while ago, or settlement, involved a bunch of property down in Richmond. And I'm hearing from experts and well, that term expert because they've given completely divergent points of view. There's people saying, "Well, this really doesn't mean anything. It's just more land usability or engaging the First Nations." And other people saying, "No, this could lead to the loss of your actual property." And it's hard to tell which one's right, to be honest.

(19:45):
 But what's concerning in Richmond, people saying, "Well, they got nothing to worry about. The people still have their homes, the people still have their businesses," but people have tried to renew their mortgages. And banks have said, "Nah, sorry, we're not touching that because your property status is in limbo. We're not going to extend ourselves on that." And there's been some businesses as well that have pulled out. They said, "Well, we can't finance because our property status is now in limbo." And we got to understand property rights aren't in the Constitution in Canada. They weren't entrenched in the Charter. And there was even a motion back when the Charter was created in the 80s by Progressive Conservative premiers to say, "Can you put in the enjoyment of property rights?" And even that wasn't expressly put in. So you don't have a Charter property right. You have a de facto property, so you still could take things into courts, but it's not as cut and dry as it would be in a place that actually has property rights in its Constitution and Charter.

(20:37):
 And that leaves a lot of ambiguity, which is really showing now and it's dangerous. It's similar to the government won't necessarily take your property away, but it can completely devalue it by reducing what you can do with it. Handguns, for example, the government didn't take the handguns away from law abiding handgun owners, but what they did say is you're never allowed to sell it to anybody or give it away. Well, now it's become valueless aside from to yourself. And that's similar to what's kind of happening in Richmond. They're not saying you have to leave your home and you won't be able to keep your property or anything. They're saying, "Nah, but I wouldn't sell that right now if I were you." And nobody's willing to finance it. And the Eby government talked about saying, "Well, we'll backstop financing up to $150 million in the area." There's where some of the ambiguity comes.

(21:24):
 Well, Premier Eby, if there's no threat to the property, as you keep telling people, why would you need to backstop it with government dollars, or I think it was 150 billion they were talking, some crazy amount. And now these things are really in flux and these court rulings, that the Musqueam one is massive. It hasn't taken people's property. It hasn't given the Musqueam band control, but it's really opened a big doorway now and people are very concerned. And to be honest, I don't 100% know what it means either. And that unknown is already impacting the property rights of the people living there.

Carlin Lutzer (22:02):
Right. So is the example of the Cowichan Valley mobile home a little bit different because that was ... Did they sign a lease with the Indigenous band?

Cory Morgan (22:16):
Yeah, so that was leased land. So that one was kind of, they're the landlords. They said, "You know what? We've hit the end of your lease and we're going to move it along because we want to build something bigger there." I feel terrible for the people stuck in that circumstance,

(22:32):
 But I think the band was kind of within their rights to do that, even if it wasn't very nice. The city of Calgary did that actually with a mobile home park off of 16th Avenue as well. They evicted people who had been living there for decades so that they could make a new development up in there, and that was city owned land. Unfortunately, when you rent or lease property, your rights are limited, particularly on reserves. I mean, I'm no financial advisor, but I would strongly advise that people might not want to lease land on reserve land because they aren't necessarily the most stable of landlords. In the Siksika Reserve east of Calgary, there used to be a large resort area actually down on the Bow River down in the valley and the band decided they don't want to have it there anymore and they just didn't renew any of the leases.

(23:15):
 So the people had put in cottages and built them up and created what they felt was a property there, essentially lost out. They had to truck out what they had. Technically, it was the band's land, so fair enough, but it doesn't make for a good relationship or investment. So the mobile home park is kind of a different story.

(23:38):
 A lot of the talk is getting higher and pitched and stronger. I mean, if we look at land acknowledgements even, I mean, you can't do a public event anywhere without being reminded, particularly in BC, you're on unceded land as well, there's the activists who are pushing and always saying land back, land back. Well, they are expressly saying that we're supposed to take land that's owned by others and give it to Indigenous bands. Well, what does that mean for the people living on that land who already own that in a fee simple manner? It's of real concern now. The Kamloops band has basically made a claim against the entire city. Whether that leads anywhere down the road, I mean, people again are kind of saying, "Ah, yeah, but that's just them, but they're just being insane." Well, a lot of court rulings come down and turn out to be pretty insane in the long run.

(24:30):
 So people need clarity on this.

Carlin Lutzer (24:32):
So the court rulings, are they using those land acknowledgements to kind of make a case for their position?

Cory Morgan (24:42):
No, they aren't, but those land acknowledgements, I think, is one of the areas where you're trying to change public opinion. That's where I talk about public opinion does impact court rulings. And when you have a national attitude of people at every event and every feeder event and sporting event and government event, being asked to look at their feet and say, "You're standing on land that was unceded and taken from somebody a couple hundred years ago and you don't necessarily belong here." It's starting a psychological basis to say that while you're here, I mean, what was it?

(25:14):
 UBC professors in their job title description had below it on the website saying uninvited guests on unceded Musqueam land. How far along are we going to go and keep saying these things before maybe there is a legal basis to say, well, if you are uninvited guests and it is their land, then what on earth are you doing there? Maybe it's time to evict you or charge you a heck of a lot more for being there. But we've really got to reevaluate these things that we think might be innocuous little statements at the start of events or on your job titles and realize that they might come with real legal repercussions down the road.

Carlin Lutzer (25:46):
Well, yeah, it's one thing if me, the individual, is getting a group of people together and we have a land acknowledgement. It's a little bit different when it's the city of Calgary, a little bit different when it's the provincial government, they're meeting and they're having a land acknowledgement. Well, didn't you guys say that you're on our land? Now, can you talk to me about the treaty land? That would be considered a little bit different and it couldn't be claimed in ways or could it?

Cory Morgan (26:20):
Never saying never, but Alberta and Saskatchewan are much more stable than British Columbia because there were treaties that permanently ceded over 98% of the land. So Alberta's under Treaties 6, 7, 8 and a little chunk of 10 comes in from Saskatchewan. And some people actually get that interpretation backwards. We're seeing some of those debates going on right now with relation to the independence debate, but they're saying, "Well, you can never go because it's all treaty land." Well, people haven't read the treaties perhaps. Those treaties actually, yeah, it's treaty land and the treaty states that that land was all permanently forever ceded away from Indigenous claim forever. They're pretty clear about that. And the portions that remain that are actually reserves are 1.3% of the province. But then you start getting sticky into Section 35 of the Constitution that talks about obligations for consultation with First Nations before you pretty much do anything that might impact them.

(27:18):
 And then you have difficulties using property again if it can be determined in any sort of way to impact a First Nations person. So we don't have the ambiguity on whose property it is yet, so much in Alberta as they do in BC. But at the same time, how many times can we have a government say you're standing on stolen land before somebody says, "Well, give it back."

Carlin Lutzer (27:39):
Well, that's just it, right? If it's something that's passed down from generation to generation, and yeah, it's a mentality that, "Hey, this is not ... Well, whose land is it actually?" And that's a very confusing message being sent. But yeah, so in regards to the, because we are seeing some Indigenous chiefs make claims, in fact, even just before I had gone on with you, it looks like they've made a pitch to King Charles to stop the Alberta movement. Again, I don't think King Charles really has a say in what transpires there, but what's your take on that with these movements? Because I know that there's conflicting stories out of the Indigenous tribes as to the higher ups thinking a little bit differently than the regular person that's a band member.

Cory Morgan (28:44):
Well, I'm certain it varies from chief to chief, so I don't want to blanket them all, but for any of them to really feel that the King has any authority whatsoever on these issues, shows that they kind of have a pretty grossly large misunderstanding of what the legalities are and the current political system we are all living under, First Nations or not. So if they really do believe that the King could intervene on land issues in Alberta, it becomes difficult to believe or put much stock into their expertise when they're talking about other things such as treaty rights and the extent of them and how it applies to property on permanently ceded land. So there's where they're coming from. And then yeah, there's the next level of people on the reserves themselves, the regular citizens. To be honest, from the reserves I've been on and worked on, many of the citizens are in so much social distress.

(29:40):
 I don't think they're concerning themselves with much of anything as far as property rights go and those sorts of things. They're just trying to get through the days. That's a whole separate rabbit hole to go down on the structure and problems on reserves, but they've got very important things they should be dealing with rather than, I guess, performative sorts of things like approaching the King and thinking he's going to put on his suit of armour and charge over and reestablish land rights over here. But there's a fear of questioning First Nations leadership and we will hold every other politician accountable. We'll certainly have plenty of columnists and other politicians and so on when an elected official says something and they want to call BS on it or they disagree with it or they'll argue with it. But people are pretty afraid of standing up sometimes when it comes to First Nations leadership saying, "That chief might be wrong.

(30:31):
 That chief might be incorrect or possibly even spreading this information." And it changes the nature of the debate, I guess you could say.

Carlin Lutzer (30:41):
Well, the one thing that what Harper did was get them to open up the books and their budgeting and where their finances are going, which is awesome. Still boggles my mind why Trudeau put an end to that. Basically, that was one of his first moves that he did when he became Prime Minister, which is, in my opinion, disgusting because there's a lot of hurting people that could use that money, that money. We know that money's not getting there.

Cory Morgan (31:10):
No, and I mean, a side note, I don't know how much you looked into my background. I'm currently in the midst of a court action with the Siksika Reserve right now because I had driven on the highway that goes through the reserve. There's a public highway, actually there's three public highways that go through the reserve. And I shot video showing the houses in disrepair, the garbage, the wild dogs, and these things that are unfortunately quite typical on a lot of First Nations reserves. And I posted that on YouTube along with some commentary and things because that reserve had gotten $1.3 billion from Justin Trudeau only a few years ago. And it kind of ties into that. If you got $1.3 billion on a reserve with only a few thousand people living on it, why are they living in squalor? And they got pretty upset with that and charged me with trespassing.

(31:58):
 That's going to court in June. But that goes back to what you're talking about. Why should this level of political leadership, especially when we're talking about dollars that high, be immune from having actual scrutiny. I mean, the people living on the reserve have a right to know what's been happening with those dollars and what the chiefs and councils are doing. I don't know what they did with the $1.3 billion, but I sure as heck know they didn't build houses with it and I showed that. And boy, they got pretty upset with it. And again, the biggest victims of them all in that are the First Nations people living on the ground. They're in terrible conditions and there's really no excuse for it.

Carlin Lutzer (32:35):
We throw around that word billion quite regularly these days. And I've looked into it before, and I know it's a little bit just over, but if I was to give you a dollar a second, Cory, it would take me over 33 years to give you a billion dollars.

Cory Morgan (32:56):
And

Carlin Lutzer (32:58):
That's a lot of money and that's very unfortunate. And yeah, I think it's fair to ask where our taxpayer dollars are going to. But Cory, you're a wealth of information. You have an open invitation to come onto my podcast anytime, anytime that we want to ... Because yeah, we could have went in 90 different directions today because of the state of the world, state of Alberta, state of Canada. It's fascinating times and I appreciate your passion for Alberta and what's going on and having your opinion and not being afraid to get your opinion out. I know these days that it's scary for people to get their opinions out because people take it so personally and a lot of these topics are very hot topics. But Cory, I can see that you have the demeanour. You're not sitting there ready to fight. You're just out there to educate, which is fantastic.

Cory Morgan (34:07):
I appreciate that. No, I'm happy to talk anytime as you can see. Yes. I'm more than happy to blather on about politics at length. I appreciate your, again, participating in it as well with your podcast. Is this the way we'll spread information and hopefully get positive discourse?

Carlin Lutzer (34:21):
Yeah, that's exactly what I want. And again, like I said, I love presenting both sides. I love talking ... If somebody listens to this podcast and like, "I disagree with Cory, he said this and this," well, come on the podcast. Let's go. Let's have a chat about it. A

Cory Morgan (34:38):
Way to do it.

Carlin Lutzer (34:39):
Yeah, because I think we get bogged down sometimes, Cory, with the issues that don't really matter, that split us, that don't really need to split us. And I'm talking between the left, the right, the centre. I think there's certain little things that get in the way of us really trying to unify and that we really are closer in thinking than we really think, but there's a great divide. And I would much rather us be more united because united, we become very, very powerful. We become very strong. Unfortunately, that divide seems pretty huge, but I do think that there's a path to finding middle ground with a lot of issues that we disagree on, right?

Cory Morgan (35:27):
Well, here's the hope. And I mean, one thing I say often is left to right and people get heated and they take things personally when they should take it seriously, but not personally. But 90% of people who get into politics or discuss politics really believe that their view is going to make the world a better place, even if they may or may not be incorrect. They aren't bad people. They just have different views on what's going to make things better. So if you start with that basis in mind, it can reduce a little bit of the vitriol.

Carlin Lutzer (35:55):
Yeah, absolutely. Cory, thank you for your time today.

Cory Morgan (35:59):
Oh, thank you.

Carlin Lutzer (36:02):
Before we wrap up here, a couple of key takeaways from today's conversation with Cory. First, when it comes to property rights and self defence laws in Alberta, things aren't always as clear cut as people might think. While there have been shifts in how these laws are interpreted, the reality is that context matters and the legal system still operates in a space where every situation is judged on its own facts. Second, the conversation around land, especially when it comes to Indigenous land claims and evolving land decisions like places like BC, it's becoming more complex, not less. These aren't just political discussions, they're real issues that can impact development, ownership, and how land can be moving forward. These are big topics, and like we said throughout the episode, the goal isn't to tell you what to think, but to give you something to think about. And if you're enjoying these kinds of conversations, the ones that go beyond the surface, please take a moment to like and follow the Okotoks Podcast on your favourite platform.

(37:07):
 It helps the show grow and reach more people in the community more than you know. And as always, if there's a topic, a question, or even a guest you'd like to hear on the show, reach out. This podcast is as much yours as it is mine. Thanks for listening, and we will see you next time.

Announcer (37:24):
You've been listening to the Okotoks Podcast, brought to you by Carlin Lutzer Real Estate. Thanks for joining us. We'll catch you next time.