Western Standard - 9⧸11, the day 'everything changed'

00:00:00.000 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show of the

00:00:21.840 Western Standard. It is September the 10th, 2026. 25 years ago tomorrow, 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers seized

00:00:34.280 four American airliners. Two were flown into the World Trade Center. One struck the Pentagon.

00:00:42.340 Passengers and crew on the 4th forced it down in a Pennsylvania field before it could reach

00:00:49.920 Washington. Almost 3,000 people were murdered. If you are under 25, that is the event that we

00:01:00.320 commemorate tomorrow. Osama bin Laden's network planned it as a mass casualty jihad against the 0.69

00:01:08.240 United States. The motive was not blowback in the abstract. It was a declared war by a terrorist

00:01:17.020 organization that had already attacked U.S. targets before and wanted a spectacle large enough

00:01:23.500 to change American policy. It did. Grief became a warrant for a stronger state.

00:01:34.160 Border queues, airport scanners, and the standing assumption that intelligence services should find

00:01:41.100 plotters before they kill were not the old normal after 9-11 they were. The trade-off was not

00:01:49.980 imaginary. North America has seen deadly attacks since, but nothing on that scale. Same thing in

00:01:59.280 Canada, which also introduced new legislation to deal with the new threat. Here in Canada,

00:02:07.380 and so empowered, the work of CSIS against the so-called Toronto 18 plot to storm the House of

00:02:13.580 Commons and murder politicians is a Canadian example of how real the threat was, and also

00:02:21.560 of the successful prevention that ordinary criminal law used after the fact would have

00:02:28.240 arrived too late to accomplish. But what never followed is that every power taken in the first

00:02:38.460 frightened weeks should stay, migrate, and attach to new targets. The American sequence is familiar

00:02:48.620 for those who watch Fox News,

00:02:50.800 the Patriot Act,

00:02:52.340 bulk telephony metadata,

00:02:54.740 and FISA Section 702.

00:02:57.660 Those tools can stop bombs,

00:03:00.780 but they can also be turned inward,

00:03:03.400 and many conservative politicians

00:03:05.660 in the United States

00:03:07.260 argue that they were.

00:03:10.120 A foreign intelligence architecture

00:03:12.620 was used in an investigation

00:03:14.600 that touched the presidential campaign.

00:03:17.780 FISA process, unmasking, and an informant in a campaign's orbit are not folklore.

00:03:24.060 They are matters of public record, and the warning is simple.

00:03:27.880 A machine built for foreign enemies will, if unsupervised, sit down in domestic politics.

00:03:37.460 Happily, Canada did not copy the entire American model, but it built its own stack.

00:03:44.560 The 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act created terrorism-specific offenses, financing crimes and asset-freezing tools beyond ordinary murder and conspiracy.

00:03:58.480 Years later, in the government which I serve, Bill C-51, let CSIS move from watch and report to threat reduction measures.

00:04:08.560 CSIS warrants still go to the federal court

00:04:12.980 but are usually dealt with in secret

00:04:15.840 In 2002, the national security vocabulary

00:04:20.700 was applied to oppressors

00:04:22.260 To declare a public order emergency

00:04:25.400 cabinet had to find a threat to the security of Canada

00:04:28.780 in the CSIS Act since

00:04:30.500 espionage, sabotage, foreign influence, terrorism or violent

00:04:34.620 subversion while the same statute excludes

00:04:37.940 lawful advocacy, protest, and dissent.

00:04:42.160 In the end, the Emergency Economic Measures Order

00:04:45.080 then authorized banks to freeze accounts of people

00:04:48.340 linked to the protest without a court order,

00:04:51.420 the shape of a sanctions tool used on a political occupation.

00:04:57.020 The Federal Court of Appeal has since held the invocation unreasonable

00:05:01.060 and beyond what the law allows,

00:05:03.340 and found charter breaches of expression and unreasonable search.

00:05:07.940 The government has taken the case towards the Supreme Court.

00:05:11.920 Until that court speaks, two levels of court have said the statutory threshold was not met.

00:05:19.540 The freeze was temporary. The precedent is not.

00:05:24.380 Or to put it in a pub sort of way, long after the emergency has gone, the furniture is still in the room.

00:05:35.780 That is the Canadian warning.

00:05:38.080 You may not need a spy in a campaign office.

00:05:42.120 You may need only a proclamation, a list of account numbers,

00:05:46.320 and over the last five years, new statutes

00:05:49.520 that keep parts of the exceptional architecture in ordinary law.

00:05:55.060 That would be, for example, Bill C-8,

00:05:57.940 that lets the industry minister order telecommunications providers

00:06:01.720 to take steps to secure the system against specified threats, including, in defined circumstances,

00:06:09.440 prohibiting or suspending service to a named person.

00:06:13.840 That is an executive cut-off power over connectivity with limited prior judicial control.

00:06:20.480 Bill sent C-22, passed by the Commons, and before the Senate, is lawful access reform.

00:06:27.600 In other words, warrantless yes-or-no confirmation of service coupled with powers to require specified service providers to retain categories of your information for up to six months.

00:06:42.640 They will hang on to your emails.

00:06:44.360 Bill C-34, not yet law, would create a digital safety regime for social media and chatbot

00:06:53.420 services and a new digital safety commission with enormous powers. Harmful content categories

00:06:59.840 and age gating are the stated purpose. Broad regulation of platforms is the effect. None of

00:07:07.960 these is the American-style Patriot Act, but together they move the state closer to seeing,

00:07:13.440 tracing, interrupting, and conditioning us to accept government oversight of our digital lives.

00:07:20.420 It is the legacy of 9-11 that we have spent our moral superiority. Liberal democracies had that

00:07:28.960 once. We used to tell other countries, we hunt terrorists, we do not treat dissent as a security

00:07:35.220 file, we do not freeze a citizen's money, we do not prepare dossiers on our political opponents,

00:07:41.720 We welcome visitors to our country with a smile.

00:07:46.560 The actions of terrorists have cost us all that.

00:07:51.200 The rule should have survived.

00:07:53.340 The second week of September 2001 is still simple.

00:07:58.520 Any power, so as necessary against terrorism, needs to include a sunset clause.

00:08:06.880 This changed everything is not a legal test.

00:08:10.240 in canada at least it is still the charter 9-11 changed what we fear it did not repeal what a

00:08:20.900 free country is allowed to become ladies and gentlemen today is a sober day as we contemplate

00:08:28.520 what our politics has become here in canada i'm very privileged to have with me dave naylor

00:08:34.440 news editor here at the Western Standard like myself on the original day he was

00:08:40.620 in the newsroom and I'm also delighted to have also with me Liam O'Shea one of

00:08:46.980 our younger reporters who almost missed it. Dave what was it like on the day for

00:08:55.800 you? I was woken up by a phone call and told to turn on the TV right away just

00:09:02.880 caught the second jet going into the Twin Towers and it was one of the fastest drives I've ever

00:09:13.200 done down Deerfoot Trail listening to the radio and the radio had announced that a plane had gone

00:09:18.880 into the Pentagon and there was another one headed for Washington and the emotion that I

00:09:26.480 recall that day was just utterly it was being utterly terrified absolutely no one knew what

00:09:32.320 was going on. Planes going into buildings, obviously unheard of. I remember my daughter

00:09:40.740 phoning, asking me what's going on. I said, hon, I can't tell you. She would have been

00:09:45.920 about nine at the time. I remember, you know, obviously being glued to CNN in the newsroom

00:09:54.080 and getting reporters onto the story. Big stories like that, Nigel, you know what a

00:10:00.040 newsrooms like everybody just drives in without even being asked and you know

00:10:04.240 sending reporters to the airports and and whatever what other stories that we

00:10:09.100 can and and we put out Calgary Sun put out a an afternoon edition which was I

00:10:16.180 think the first time we had had ever done that but Lee has been working for a

00:10:22.840 couple days on the feet on a feature now to come out tomorrow and just going

00:10:27.700 those old videos and you you see the building collapse and then that that wall of ash and dust

00:10:33.540 and everything sort of barreling down the canyon of a street and people running for their lives and

00:10:40.260 it was it was a horrific day um 16-hour day and at the end of it i had a very good cry

00:10:49.700 Right. Yeah, you are seeing things perhaps for the first time. Were you taught much about this

00:10:57.720 in school? I just remember, I think the first time we ever learned about it was grade nine.

00:11:04.000 Mm-hmm. And I think we watched a documentary on it, so that's how I was kind of introduced to it

00:11:09.680 back then. But in high school, I don't really think we really talked about it that much

00:11:15.340 from my memory so when you saw that documentary did you come away with any idea of why it happened

00:11:24.940 um i honestly it's been too long but from what i can remember i think the only

00:11:31.980 inkling of why it happened would have been in the documentary the teacher

00:11:35.580 himself didn't really say anything as to why it happened now that you're now that you're

00:11:41.340 working on this special project with with dave here what are you finding out that

00:11:48.780 strikes you as a reporter my goodness i never knew um honestly i think the most famous is

00:11:57.260 the videos of the twin towers but i didn't really know about the pentagon stuff so i think that

00:12:02.700 shocked me most and also the fact that the people in the one of the flights fought back

00:12:09.100 that's how they landed in the field yes that was sure they were headed for washington as well but

00:12:15.260 they there's that famous phrase uh it comes over on like these poor people we knew they were going

00:12:21.340 to die but they had their cell phones and they were able to talk to to their wives their husbands

00:12:29.260 their children yeah and then on the particular flight that you mentioned you hear the words

00:12:34.700 let's roll, and that's when the passengers, I shouldn't say, took control of the plane because

00:12:41.980 it crashed. They didn't have control, but they were able to prevent the act that had been intended

00:12:49.700 from taking place. Are you saying, tell me again, you're saying that's not a story that's well known

00:12:55.380 in your generation? I don't know if it's my generation. I don't want to speak for everyone,

00:12:59.260 but I think it's just because you see all the videos, even on social media, you'll see a bunch

00:13:03.380 videos of 9-11 every single year. So I think that's also how I was exposed just through social media

00:13:08.580 all the time. You'll see the videos, but they don't really show that much on the Pentagon. So

00:13:13.840 I think that's also why maybe people don't know about it as much. I see. Dave, I'm making the case

00:13:21.280 that the phrase, everything has just changed, which was on everybody's lips in the days

00:13:29.520 immediately after the event actually everything did change i wonder if i can just talk about

00:13:36.400 uh some of the things that changed like going down to the states right yeah i think the big

00:13:43.640 thing for me was air travel and you know going actually being to new york a couple times since

00:13:49.940 and it used to be easy like getting on a bus yeah and now it's a rigmarole and

00:13:57.260 shoes off and arms up in the body scanner.

00:14:03.380 But it seems to me like a small inconvenience

00:14:07.960 to guarantee your safety as much as you can.

00:14:13.120 You know, and you were talking about cell phones

00:14:15.480 to loved ones just there.

00:14:17.780 And to me, that's one of the most haunting things.

00:14:19.780 I was listening to a guy yesterday

00:14:22.020 who was trapped on the 110th floor

00:14:24.460 and just begging for a fire department to come and help him,

00:14:27.760 help, you know, it's getting closer, it's getting closer.

00:14:30.200 And then just as the building collapsed on him,

00:14:32.500 you hear him say, ah, you know, screeching for God.

00:14:38.080 And the calls of people to their wives and notes

00:14:42.860 and just utterly, utterly heartbreaking.

00:14:47.600 Now, as you say, we now got, we've gone into a more authoritarian,

00:14:53.220 Authoritarian.

00:14:54.220 Authoritarian.

00:14:55.220 Authoritarian.

00:14:56.220 Some people say.

00:14:57.220 Yeah, some people.

00:14:58.220 I mean, a state with much more broader overreaches, which is not good.

00:15:03.220 And you've written several pieces on that for the Justice Center.

00:15:08.220 So, yeah, it's and, you know, it got us into a war in Afghanistan, which we didn't win.

00:15:16.220 The Taliban are still there.

00:15:19.220 We were, you know, hunting bin Laden for several years till we finally got him. 0.53

00:15:28.740 And terrorism has not stopped, has it?

00:15:31.820 There's acts of terrorism, it seems, somewhere around the world almost daily.

00:15:35.740 Well, because we were doing this interview, I did look up to see how effective things

00:15:42.940 like the Patriot Act have been.

00:15:45.180 And there's probably been about a dozen acts of, I won't call them mass casualties, because

00:15:52.840 two and three is not a mass casualty, but excluding school shootings and things that

00:15:59.400 have got nothing to do with terrorism, there have probably been about a dozen events, not

00:16:06.080 withstanding all of these rules and regulations in the United States, where people have been

00:16:12.020 killed in threes, fours, and in one case the nightclub was bombed, and I think there were

00:16:18.220 probably about 40 people, and that's kind of most of the casualties. So in some senses,

00:16:24.360 the regulations do work. It has enabled the authorities to see what's going on long before

00:16:31.520 anything happens. A good example of that, Nigel, would have been just a couple of weeks ago when

00:16:36.720 the UFC held their fight on the grounds of the White House, and authorities were able

00:16:44.360 to intercept or stop a plan that was going to fly explosive-ridden drones into the event

00:16:52.460 with President Trump sitting at ringside.

00:16:56.380 So there are nasty people still out there plotting against the United States, and hopefully

00:17:03.300 the authorities get them all.

00:17:07.620 Sadly, some will slip through.

00:17:09.300 What do you think, Leah?

00:17:11.380 Should we have these kinds of draconic rules and legislation?

00:17:18.580 They do work, apparently, but on the other hand,

00:17:21.540 we've got to live with them.

00:17:24.040 Well, I just recall what Dave said about the airport stuff.

00:17:27.980 And although I do find it a bit annoying when I go,

00:17:31.300 i understand it so in my opinion sometimes you have to sacrifice some stuff for your safety

00:17:38.900 i do think sometimes it does go too far um when you were in your introduction when you were

00:17:44.520 mentioning about like especially like social media the government having access to i don't

00:17:49.380 know just all your data and stuff like that that to me does seem like kind of like they're just

00:17:55.140 trying to justify having access to everything without like a it's almost like they're calling

00:18:00.300 you uh guilty before proving that you're guilty kind of thing which does scare me in those cases

00:18:06.700 but safety wise for like flights and stuff i do think that it's okay yeah you're okay with that

00:18:14.780 but but not on the buses no not on buses that would be ridiculous oh it's uh no it it's it's

00:18:21.980 it's a very old weighing up of the options do we do we go for security or do we do or do we go for

00:18:29.820 complete freedom and of course in the end we have why do we have government at

00:18:34.020 all it is because we want protection from internal threats and external

00:18:38.440 threats we want internal order we want to keep the bad guys out so I think my

00:18:44.160 my whole point really is we have to be constantly monitoring what government

00:18:51.780 what powers government is taking to themselves in order to promise us

00:18:58.680 safety because I think sometimes

00:19:00.840 I think frequently they take

00:19:02.940 more than what they need

00:19:04.600 and then tell us well it's

00:19:06.840 for your safety

00:19:07.560 maybe not, maybe not always

00:19:10.580 I cannot resist adding

00:19:12.920 I saw your

00:19:16.020 special edition

00:19:18.640 from the sun

00:19:19.440 when you were passing it out

00:19:22.680 and I think likely

00:19:23.820 Calvary Herald did one as well of course

00:19:26.100 and

00:19:28.960 it's one of the few times that I saw

00:19:31.040 senior management out there with

00:19:32.720 an arm full of papers

00:19:34.260 buy a paper here, read all about it

00:19:36.960 it was like something out of the 19th century

00:19:39.080 Peter Menzies and

00:19:40.800 Lauren Motley and

00:19:42.220 myself I guess, not that I was

00:19:44.920 senior management but at any rate

00:19:46.880 everybody who could pick up 50

00:19:48.780 newspapers, they told us

00:19:50.860 to sell and nine tenths

00:19:53.020 of mine I think I gave away because just people

00:19:54.920 wanted it but they didn't have change you know yeah i remember just the insatiable appetite for

00:20:00.200 the news and tell us what's going on we need to know we need to know then there was astonished

00:20:04.600 there was that astonishing silence in the skies yeah afterwards and then we were in the an

00:20:11.560 editorial i'm getting into telling old stories i was sitting there and having an editorial board

00:20:16.680 meeting and suddenly about 500 feet above where the old cavalry herald building was there was this

00:20:22.920 roar as a plane went out low and fast looked up it was a it was a transport turned out to be

00:20:30.760 the u.s ambassador who had been caught on the ground in calgary getting recalled to ottawa

00:20:37.800 that was the only plane that flew that day in canada we have the uh the wonderful story of

00:20:44.680 gander newfoundland where they uh you know all the american planes were diverted to

00:20:50.040 And all of a sudden, they had thousands of people on their doorstep.

00:20:53.540 Oh, OK, welcome to Gander.

00:20:55.400 I guess we've got to find places for you to stay and food for you to eat and all that sort of stuff.

00:21:00.100 And it was excellent Canadian hospitality.

00:21:03.660 And it even spawned a musical, which is apparently quite good.

00:21:08.920 Now, again, was that story told to you?

00:21:12.380 No, I had no idea, which is insane, because you'd think in our social studies classes they would want to teach us that.

00:21:18.360 Well, Canadian history, and frankly, in the present temper of the times, it stands

00:21:25.820 in sharp contrast to the war of words that's going on between Canadians and Americans and

00:21:32.120 the antipathy.

00:21:33.120 But you know, do you think that if the same thing happened, we'd do it all again?

00:21:38.740 Absolutely, we would, because we're Canadian.

00:21:41.860 And, yeah, I don't want to offend my separatist friends,

00:21:48.780 but there's much good in this country yet.

00:21:51.220 If we could just change the government.

00:21:53.260 Anyway, look, 9-11, a black day, a terrible day,

00:21:57.680 one that changed everything just as people said it did.

00:22:02.640 Do you ever see it changing back?

00:22:04.540 No.

00:22:05.920 No.

00:22:06.340 As I said, there's always terrorists somewhere 1.00

00:22:08.260 popping their ugly heads up. 0.95

00:22:09.720 and there's always to use the Hannaford theorem there's always a government that 0.98

00:22:16.140 would like to know just a little more about you so I just like to encourage

00:22:20.640 everybody to look out for Leah's peace tomorrow should be good sure if and I

00:22:25.660 know Chris old corn has several opinion columns lined up to mark the day very

00:22:30.940 good so all the reason in the world to check the Western Standard tomorrow 25

00:22:38.820 years, we're on it.

00:22:41.060 There you go. Thank you, Dave.

00:22:42.840 Thank you, Leah. I very much appreciate both

00:22:44.840 of you joining me on this program.

00:22:47.120 For the Western Standard, I'm

00:22:48.800 Nigel Hannaford.

Western Standard - September 11, 2026

9⧸11, the day 'everything changed'

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