Rebel News Podcast - Alberta after the lockdown liars： Cory Morgan of the Western Standard Online

00:00:00.000 Hey Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show,

00:00:05.380 The Gun Show. However, this is the internet so you can listen or for that matter watch

00:00:09.460 whenever you feel like. Tonight my guest is Corey Morgan of the Western Standard and

00:00:14.020 of Suits and Boots and we're talking about high-flying political hypocrisy over the Christmas

00:00:22.340 break. Now, if you like listening to the show then you're going to love watching it but in

00:00:26.280 order to watch you need to be a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's what we call our premium

00:00:30.480 long-form TV-style shows here on Rebel News. Subscribers get access to my show which, you

00:00:35.680 know, I think is well worth the price of admission but you also get access to David Menzies' fun

00:00:41.380 Friday night show Rebel Roundup as well as Ezra's nightly Ezra Levant show. Just go to rebelnews.com

00:00:48.420 to become a member of Rebel News Plus. It's only eight bucks a month. You won't regret it and just

00:00:54.920 for our podcast listeners you can save an extra 10% on a new Rebel News Plus membership by using

00:00:59.520 the coupon code PODCAST when you subscribe. So, those directions are rebelnews.com slash

00:01:07.560 subscribe to join today. And if you like the show and I'm, you know, I'm relatively confident

00:01:13.540 that you will, please leave a five-star review wherever you find us because that's a great

00:01:17.560 way to support the show without having to spend a dime but it also helps other people find the show

00:01:23.080 too. Now, please enjoy this free audio-only version of The Gun Show.

00:01:42.080 Do as I say, not as I do. High-flying hypocrites and lockdown liars. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're

00:01:49.020 watching The Gun Show.

00:01:53.080 You know, someone joked on Twitter late last week that the reason Canadian politicians were advising

00:02:13.220 us normals to cancel all of our non-essential travel during the holidays was to prevent us

00:02:19.960 from running into the politicians in places like Hawaii or Cancun. In Alberta here, several UCP MLAs,

00:02:27.760 including the Minister of Municipal Affairs or former Minister Tracy Allard, took Christmas vacations

00:02:34.540 out of the country while the Alberta government advised the rest of us unfortunate regular people

00:02:39.840 to, I don't know, shelter in place, remain under house arrest, and cancel all of our

00:02:45.880 non-essential travel over the holidays. It took three days of shame and intense public pressure

00:02:52.900 before Premier Jason Kenney really understood what was going on here and demoted all of those MLAs.

00:03:00.180 Saskatchewan's highways minister, Joe Hargrave, resigned after spending Christmas in Palm Springs to,

00:03:05.560 as he describes it, wrap up a real estate deal. Yeah, yeah, okay, sure. Now, as the scandals were breaking,

00:03:12.900 Mayor Nahid Nenshi in Calgary was pretty tight-lipped, which is kind of unusual for him until news broke

00:03:19.800 late yesterday afternoon. So, after I had recorded my interview with today's show guest, unfortunately,

00:03:27.540 that Nenshi's chief of staff had also traveled outside of the country as well. During the pandemic,

00:03:34.220 Nahid Nenshi had been calling for stronger lockdown measures to come from the province. I suppose those

00:03:40.860 stronger lockdown measures were meant for the rest of us and not for those closest to the big purple

00:03:46.100 mayor himself. And it's a great hypocrisy from Calgary's leadership, especially since every single

00:03:52.460 weekend people are protesting the lockdown in front of Calgary City Hall, and those same people are

00:03:59.180 receiving $1,200 fines for protesting the lockdown. A pastor named Artur Poloski has received at least a

00:04:08.060 dozen tickets for what the city of Calgary calls unauthorized gatherings. But in reality, what

00:04:12.960 Artur's doing is feeding Calgary's homeless, and we're helping him fight those fines at fightthefines.com.

00:04:19.240 It's one rule for me and one rule for thee. Now, joining me now is Corey Morgan of the Western

00:04:25.200 Standard and of Suits and Boots. And we recorded our interview before all the Nenshi news broke. So,

00:04:32.100 just bear that in mind as you're watching.

00:04:48.880 Joining me now from his home in Prittis, I guess, just outside of Calgary, is Corey Morgan of the

00:04:55.720 Western Standard and of Suits and Boots. But we'll get back to that towards the end of the

00:05:01.380 interview. Corey, thanks for joining me. I wanted to have you on because I would suggest that not

00:05:06.840 only have you been a conservative activist for a very long time, but I guess sort of a conservative

00:05:12.720 insider from the outside. And I wanted to talk to you about this. It's like a mushroom cloud that is

00:05:21.320 set to consume the entire UCP caucus. This out-of-country travel scandal, while the government

00:05:29.740 had the rest of us locked down and were openly advising everybody to cancel non-essential travel

00:05:35.940 while they were engaged in the most non-essential of all travel, Christmas vacations, I guess.

00:05:41.700 Do you know how this story broke? Was it mainstream media politicians or mainstream media journalists

00:05:52.400 fishing around for information? Or did it come from disgruntled staffers who leaked it? How did

00:05:58.360 this all come to be, if you know? Yeah, I don't know where ground zero of this mushroom cloud

00:06:04.200 actually is. It just started. And as soon as even mainstream media and alternative media like ours,

00:06:10.220 you know, smelled the blood in the water, we started looking around. And I think the fact

00:06:14.960 that none of these guys were even really trying, well, some were making an effort to try and hide

00:06:18.900 it, which is what really ticked people off all the more, because they knew they were doing something

00:06:22.760 wrong. But it wasn't like they did a really good job of it. So it didn't take a lot of, you know,

00:06:27.240 detective work to find out how many of these people were out of the country. And it exploded very

00:06:32.280 quickly. Yeah. And it was funny because as this was breaking, I said to my boss, if these people

00:06:41.100 were smart, and clearly they're not, they would be telling on themselves and at least taking the air

00:06:48.920 out of the CBC bubble. And they didn't. They just kept letting it get broken by the mainstream media.

00:06:56.620 And then it's a scandal as opposed to what, and I hate to say it, I hate to commend the liberals on

00:07:03.700 anything. But when the federal liberals are doing this, and they are doing this, they are not pushing

00:07:09.960 Justin Trudeau out front to fall on his sword. They are telling on themselves and resigning. And that's

00:07:17.320 the end of the story. Whereas with Jason Kenney, he came out, took responsibility, and then it just kept

00:07:23.880 growing and growing and growing. Who's managing the media crisis here? Or is anybody?

00:07:32.440 I don't know. I mean, it's out of control. I'm guessing maybe all their media communicators are

00:07:37.000 out of country too. So they're having a hard time trying to get onto this message. But I mean,

00:07:42.380 on Friday, Kenny came out. And again, it's Keystone Coppish or something. I think he didn't know that

00:07:49.500 there were more out there. He thought he had it done. So okay, let's put this out on a long weekend

00:07:54.140 Friday, tear off the Band-Aid. I'll say I'm sorry, I did something wrong. And we're going to work on

00:08:00.580 this in the new year. But of course, over the weekend, then more of them surface. Plus the rage

00:08:05.520 just built more because just saying I'm sorry that it happened wasn't enough. People wanted to see some

00:08:11.100 sort of sanction. And that's when he had to come out now. But he's chasing it now. So to pull some

00:08:18.300 people from cabinet and associate ministers positions and some committee work, some people

00:08:25.560 are just not feeling that it's enough. So I'm not sure how much he could do to calm the rage. I mean,

00:08:31.180 there's so many of them now. You can't kick six members out of caucus. Well, you can, but it's really

00:08:37.480 going to cripple you. I don't know how he's going to put it out. It just gets hotter and hotter. The

00:08:42.440 hypocrisy, though, is just so deep. And it's rattled so much trust and confidence. I mean,

00:08:47.460 as you said, you know, nobody would think these are elected people. They aren't stupid. Well,

00:08:51.020 apparently some of them are. I mean, how did you not see this coming? It really shows that

00:08:56.200 disconnect elected officials have with those of us in the real world. Like, they didn't think for a

00:09:01.160 second that people who have given up family traditions of meeting and doing things or

00:09:06.420 memorials or church services, all sorts of very personal things. And then to have these guys just

00:09:13.580 go off and do it on themselves. I mean, they just didn't even know how much that was going to

00:09:17.120 outrage us. And well, they're certainly finding out now. Well, I think the two most egregious ones

00:09:22.660 were Allard because of her ministerial position and Tanya Furr. And I think the two of those,

00:09:29.320 they didn't really understand why everybody was mad. They basically said, well, it was allowed. So we

00:09:34.560 did it, which is, I suppose. Well, you're allowed to fart in an elevator, but it's not a good idea.

00:09:41.660 Well, I suppose it's an excuse. It's not a good one, especially from an elected official.

00:09:47.140 Allard's excuse was, well, it's been a family tradition for 17 years. Well, yeah, a lot of

00:09:52.200 people had family traditions going back 17 years that they weren't able to do because of her

00:09:57.120 government's rules. And I look at small business owners and I think, well, their family tradition is

00:10:01.680 being in business and you put them out of business. And Tanya Furr, you know, she said

00:10:09.180 she went to Las Vegas to visit her sister. And she thought that was a reasonable excuse,

00:10:16.280 while at the same time, people in Alberta couldn't visit their sister if their sister lived in a

00:10:23.920 different household. They basically outlawed that which they flew to Las Vegas to do. And they

00:10:29.920 didn't understand the problem with it. It was more like, I'm sorry that I got caught. I'm sorry,

00:10:36.380 you're mad. But they couldn't really grasp what they were sorry for. And I think at the beginning,

00:10:42.980 Jason Kenney also didn't grasp the problem. And I noticed that when he did his little speech about

00:10:49.340 how important the airlines are. Yeah, I agree. Airlines are important. I want everybody to go back

00:10:55.080 to traveling and flying and all those things. And WestJet is definitely important for the Western

00:10:58.980 economy. But that's not why people were outraged. We weren't mad that they traveled to visit with

00:11:04.960 their family. We were mad that they told us that we couldn't do it. Do you think Jason Kenney finally

00:11:10.560 gets it? Oh, he's getting something. He's got to be. I mean, that's the thing that's surprising

00:11:16.440 people because Kenney's not stupid, whatever he may be. He's smart. So it's somewhere he just

00:11:21.900 totally dropped the ball on this. Of course, he's been in Parliament for a long time, but he was

00:11:27.360 never in a leader position. Maybe he underestimated just how bad that herd of cats he's trying to

00:11:33.480 manage is. I mean, part of his first response was, it's kind of my fault because I didn't explicitly

00:11:38.800 tell them not to go. And of course, everybody else's immediate response was, well, you shouldn't

00:11:42.640 have had to. He told us not to go. Like it's on a government website. He's recommended. So it's

00:11:49.500 just, and it just keeps burning. I think what they're praying for now is some sort of explosive

00:11:53.660 issue to happen somewhere else in the world to distract people from it because this thing just

00:11:57.260 keeps feeding itself. People are furious. He's pulled out the magical combination. He's got

00:12:03.800 everybody mad, left, right, and center at him. I mean, the pro-lockdown people are furious because,

00:12:09.200 well, again, we're pro-lockdown. We want to keep everybody safe from this bug and you guys are

00:12:13.240 traveling all over the world. The anti-lockdown people who grudgingly at least accepted that

00:12:17.820 we're locked down for now are even more furious because, again, we're doing this crap that we

00:12:23.540 never want to do in the first place and you guys aren't. So it's just hypocrisy cuts deeper than

00:12:28.660 anything else in politics. It really does. And some people don't understand that. They really

00:12:34.360 don't. They're figuring it out. Yeah. I didn't think we would get back to Alison Redford country

00:12:41.880 as quickly as we have. Like, this feels a lot like Sky Palace. This also feels a lot like when

00:12:47.780 they were using the government airplanes, like they were the family minivan. This feels a lot like

00:12:53.820 we're going to live one way and we're going to do one way, things one way, and you're going to live

00:12:59.020 a completely different way, you normal people. But, you know, based on some Western Standard

00:13:05.500 reporting, a story that broke last night. And again, I say that Western Standard has been doing

00:13:10.660 some great work on this. And I think it's I think, you know, you and I were talking off camera. It has

00:13:17.340 a lot to do with the relationships that you've built within the UCP caucus. And, you know, that goes back

00:13:23.880 quite a ways. But Dave Naylor's story, the premier's staff say he never saw the travel memo from Allard

00:13:35.820 saying that she was leaving the country. So maybe Jason Kenney was truly in the dark about whether or not

00:13:44.180 she was out of the country. But if that's the case, then you need to clean house with all of your staff

00:13:51.520 because they're either incompetent and not telling you information that you need to get out in front

00:13:56.860 of or they're colluding with the travelers and, you know, the locker down or hypocrites.

00:14:05.360 But, you know, either way, Jason Kenney wears this as a millstone around his neck.

00:14:11.000 Yeah, I mean, when you're on top, you're in charge, whether so now they're giving him a shield of

00:14:17.180 plausible deniability in it. Well, that still doesn't make people feel comfortable in how much

00:14:21.920 in control he might have been in the situation to begin with. And some of it's just hard to

00:14:26.320 believe. Now, I can understand he's not paying attention to every backbencher who's popped off

00:14:29.960 for a vacation. He's only got so much time. But when his chief of staff sneaks and it was sneaking,

00:14:35.940 I mean, he routed it through the states to get past travel bans to go into the COVID hotspot

00:14:41.500 of the planet. And this is the chief of staff. This is a person you're typically in communication

00:14:46.320 with every day. It's just defies belief that he wouldn't have been aware that he'd gone off to

00:14:52.780 the UK in the midst of this. And again, you should have known better. But they're blinded. I'm still

00:15:01.180 astounded by this. And I don't know how they're going to get this under control. As I said, only

00:15:05.740 something that might distract and push it down the news scroll. But they're going to wear this for a long

00:15:10.200 time. I mean, Aloha Allard is going to be wearing that in the next general election, assuming she 0.98

00:15:15.580 runs in that one. Like, whoever's campaigning against her is going to rub her nose in it. 0.99

00:15:20.700 Jeremy, Nixon, Tanya, Furr, all of these guys. I mean, political bruises like this last a long,

00:15:26.260 long time, if not for the party as a whole, for those individual candidates. So they've really screwed

00:15:31.100 up. That's all I can say. Well, how does Kenny get this under control? Does it go away? Do,

00:15:39.720 does he sit down and have a caucus meeting and say, okay, everybody tell on yourselves,

00:15:44.260 get out in front of this and resign? I don't know what the way out of this is.

00:15:49.740 I think that, I guess the first thing is just plug all the holes. I would hope,

00:15:53.600 because even now I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't another one hiding out there somewhere.

00:15:57.080 So they must be investigating, calling, contacting. Are there absolutely no more out there? I mean,

00:16:02.440 you can't go for closure until you're confident there's not going to be another one pop up and throw it

00:16:07.580 back on the top of the scroll. Lay down the law. And I honestly don't know. I mean,

00:16:14.020 the strategy they're doing now, obviously, is to try and hunker down and just hope that it blows

00:16:17.340 over, but it's just blowing up. And if I had the answer on how we could get it under control,

00:16:21.940 I could probably apply for some great positions as issues manager with the UCP. Speaking of which,

00:16:28.620 which was a funny thing, and it shows our mainstream media, though, that the state broadcaster

00:16:34.040 there had to put out a tweet specifically to point out that Matthew Wolf, Matt Wolf,

00:16:40.560 went on a traveling trip and visited, but actually he stayed within each and every rule all the way

00:16:45.920 around out there. Like, so why do you even report it? I know. It's just, they despise him that much

00:16:51.900 that we just want to make sure that maybe a little bit will stick to him while they're out there.

00:16:55.760 Yeah. Yeah. I saw that Matt Wolf followed not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of it too.

00:17:00.820 And CBC reported it as though it were a scandal. And I was like, well, thanks for letting me know

00:17:04.960 that there's a couple of good ones left. Appreciate that. They just completely got it wrong.

00:17:09.240 It's a whole other disconnected world, that one.

00:17:12.160 Now, I wanted to ask you, now you are a contributor with the Western Standard, which is fantastic. And

00:17:18.200 I love the work that Western Standard is doing, particularly on this issue, but on many other

00:17:25.020 issues. But you are also now in charge of the goings on over at Suits and Boots. And a lot of

00:17:33.200 people might not know what Suits and Boots is all about. So why don't you start there?

00:17:37.900 Sure. So Rick Peterson founded Suits and Boots a couple of years ago. It was mostly in a response

00:17:43.580 that came about when the Trans Mountain basically went into limbo. And when Kinder Morgan said, you know

00:17:49.020 what, we're out. We can't work in this country that's opposed to us, which is the truth of

00:17:54.760 it. And he felt that an organization needed to be put together to defend, I mean, our industries,

00:18:01.360 our pipelines, and speak up and more actively, a little more in your face. So they did things,

00:18:06.180 you know, counter protesting later on with Camp Cloud and, you know, flying a banner around

00:18:12.360 Ottawa. So a bit more of an activist, but it was speaking up also for the, it was a great name,

00:18:17.740 you know, Suits and Boots, from our petroleum engineers up top to the rig hand down on the

00:18:22.720 bottom, to speak for them and defend this industry. Rick then, though, has moved on to,

00:18:30.020 things really slowed down in the COVID year. It's just, everything's been on hold. You can't hold

00:18:33.520 rallies. You can't get out on the ground. Rick also ran for the Conservative leadership

00:18:38.480 and then has been going for a federal nomination. So he's handed it to Rick Grafton, who's another

00:18:46.500 very well-known individual in the energy sector. And Grafton held on to it for six months and kind

00:18:53.420 of moved it along. But now it's time to kind of reinvigorate. We're going into 2021. So yeah,

00:18:59.500 they approached me when, you know, need some fresh energy. And I sold my pub, so I've got some time

00:19:04.300 because we've got a real critical year ahead of us for the energy industry. We've got, you know,

00:19:11.020 a president elected in the United States who wants to shut down Keystone. We've got an imbecile in

00:19:16.100 Ottawa who won't say it, but he wants to shut down Keystone. We've got Trans Mountain, which nobody

00:19:21.080 believes is going to be built until we actually see oil coming out of the other end. We've got carbon

00:19:25.680 taxes. We've got fuel standards. I mean, we are embattled here and we need somebody to speak up and

00:19:30.720 push back on this. So yeah, they've approached me. I've taken that on. And that's something I've

00:19:35.340 always kind of been as a, as an activist in politics over the years. I'll take it to them.

00:19:40.060 Yeah, you have. I remember when you protested, I think it was Occupy.

00:19:45.120 You visited Occupy back when Occupy was around. And I thought that was great because,

00:19:51.520 you know, there's these squatters just taking up space illegally in a, in a park and nobody had

00:19:58.880 bothered to just do the same to them. And, uh, I still remember that. That's, I think when you

00:20:05.740 first came on my radar was, Hey, that guy's actually doing something back to them. And I'm so

00:20:11.160 because of that, I'm excited to see the direction you take suits and boots. And, um, I'm excited to

00:20:16.980 hear something a little more in your face, um, because bless the folks at CAP, they sure like to

00:20:23.320 keep their hands clean. Well, that's it. And then they are, those are industry associations

00:20:28.720 and a problem the energy sector has had for a long time is that they won't speak up. They, I mean,

00:20:34.920 energy professionals are usually introverted engineers, you know, not to knock them.

00:20:38.200 They're important, hardworking people, but they don't want to get out front and center and make

00:20:41.120 noise. Uh, these industry associations, uh, it reminds me of, well, I've been speaking to some

00:20:46.740 degree to Calgary, uh, home builders and developers. They're afraid to speak up for themselves

00:20:50.660 because they feel they're going to get punished further. So somebody relatively bulletproof

00:20:55.760 needs to speak up for these industries. What are you guys going to do? Fire me? Yeah. Good luck.

00:20:59.320 There's nothing else you can do to me. Uh, I'm in alternative media now and in activism,

00:21:04.720 uh, because we need to speak up and push back. I mean, it's speaking again to the UCP, the war room

00:21:09.860 was supposed to speak on behalf of our industry. It was a catastrophe. It's been a joke. It just puts

00:21:14.360 out press releases of fluff. So, uh, suits and boots can fill that role. It will speak up. It'll speak

00:21:20.400 up on our behalf unapologetically, uh, unafraid, uh, you know, uh, you're not going to shut down

00:21:25.800 Morgan Incorporated. So I will happily go out and counter protest and do things like that.

00:21:31.500 And, uh, I guess like a lot of other things, you know, the industry professionals can certainly send

00:21:36.360 us information and we will be the, the, the loudspeaker for it. Yeah, I think that's great.

00:21:41.240 Um, I think that sometimes the corporate interests tend to be a little bit more, um, politically

00:21:48.760 cautious, I guess they don't want to make, uh, Justin Trudeau bad. We saw that with, you know,

00:21:55.400 the CEOs who sort of, well, not sort of, they absolutely did suck up to Rachel Notley over

00:22:00.300 the carbon tax. In the meantime, round after round of layoffs were happening in their own

00:22:05.960 companies because of the policies of Rachel Notley. And so I am happy to see that suits and

00:22:11.700 boots will have that more, um, worker boots on the ground to, you know, engineers to geologists

00:22:18.000 sort of focus, um, outside of, you know, that the corporate silo, it'll be more about the

00:22:23.980 workers. So I'm, I'm very happy to hear that. And I think you're probably just the exact right

00:22:29.440 guy for the job. Um, I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. Corey, where else can people find

00:22:35.020 the work that you're doing? So I've mentioned the Western standard online, which is great,

00:22:38.840 um, suits and boots. I'm excited to find out where that goes and what happens next,

00:22:43.060 but where else can people find you? And for that matter, support the work that you're doing.

00:22:47.540 Absolutely. Well, again, the suits and boots, I mean, please, you know, go on to the website. It's,

00:22:51.760 it's simple to find, just Google it. And, uh, you can sign up for the newsletters and

00:22:56.340 information to keep up to date on what we're doing. Uh, of course, my favorite playground is

00:23:00.760 Twitter, uh, Corey B Morgan. If you, if you really want some interaction and, and we call

00:23:04.960 your names and such, that's where to do it. Uh, and Corey Morgan.com is just my own site where I,

00:23:10.260 I tend to promote other things, of course, whatever I might be involved in groups or,

00:23:14.340 or, uh, alternative media and things such as that. So that's it. Podcast. Podcast. Well,

00:23:21.980 I've got the podcast. I figure if you get to all those other things, you'll find some of the other

00:23:25.040 stuff. I've got my, my toes dipped into the water. I have a weekly show with the post-millennial

00:23:29.160 as well, actually, uh, called the Western Voice. Uh, and yes, I do my own podcast, which would

00:23:34.860 always be posted on CoreyMorgan.com as well. So. Corey, you got to get better at shameless

00:23:40.020 self-promotion, friend. Although I know, as you see, I've got my hands in so many different things

00:23:46.140 too. I don't want to take up a quarter of this valuable time by just going into all the crazy

00:23:50.240 stuff I'm into. Uh, suits and boots will be taking up a larger part of all of that. It's a much more

00:23:54.760 important task. So. Great. And Corey, thanks so much for coming on the show. I know, obviously,

00:23:59.220 you just listed everything you're doing. So you're a very busy guy. Uh, thanks for being

00:24:02.780 generous with your time. Um, and I can't wait to see what you do next. Hey, thanks. Always happy

00:24:09.340 to talk to you, Sheila. Thanks. It's one of those rare times where I really have to hand it to the

00:24:21.600 Liberals. They are handling the scandals of their politicians traveling outside of the country over

00:24:27.520 Christmas a lot better than we are on the conservative side of the aisle. The Liberals

00:24:32.520 are not trotting out their mental lightweight leader, Justin Trudeau, to fall on his sword.

00:24:38.420 Instead, they're telling on themselves and resigning before public pressure turns into a firestorm. In

00:24:44.720 fact, the Liberals are just smothering the firestorm with a wet blanket before he gets out of control.

00:24:49.540 And that's definitely not at all what's been happening on the conservative benches. No,

00:24:55.620 is it? And it's pretty out of touch for the conservative leadership to let these things

00:25:01.260 fester when so many of us are conservatives because we believe in personal responsibility

00:25:07.840 and personal accountability for our choices. Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thank you

00:25:13.060 so much for tuning in. I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week. And

00:25:18.440 remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.

00:25:43.060 you

Rebel News Podcast - January 07, 2021

Alberta after the lockdown liars： Cory Morgan of the Western Standard Online

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript