Western Standard - Alberta wants constitutional amendments (that will never happen)

00:00:00.000 G'day! 0.97

00:00:27.000 today is july 9th 2025 i'm derek fildebrandt publisher of the western standard and you're

00:00:33.260 watching the pipeline uh the special stampede edition i'm joined by my usual cowboy is western

00:00:41.400 standard opinion editor nodule hannaford and tip of the hat to cory morgan western standard senior

00:00:47.820 alberta columnist yeah all right now we got that out of the way uh we got a lot for today's show

00:00:55.580 uh everyone is lying about epstein uh i it's not normally a pipeline kind of topic it's

00:01:04.920 u.s but i think it's global in its implications uh what the lying cover-up of the epstein client

00:01:12.960 list i think is going to do to trust in our institutions and trust that we can actually

00:01:18.940 ever change things by electing someone new uh we're gonna chat about that uh the rcmp say that

00:01:28.340 if someone you know uh used to support uh gender identity rights but now supports traditional

00:01:37.660 values they might be a red flag for terrorism we're gonna chat about that uh cbc host rage

00:01:44.680 quits oh we love our cbc stories and we just love it when people rate but people quit the cbc they

00:01:50.300 quit the cbc uh so we're gonna chat about his rage quitting here uh but we're gonna kick off

00:01:56.340 with constitutional amendments that alberta wants made to reform canada but will never happen uh

00:02:05.600 so we'll start with you cory uh the alberta government's alberta next panel chaired by

00:02:10.740 premier danielle smith uh we found out uh you know they just put out a video here uh but their

00:02:19.340 proposals they they want some constitutional amendments yes she's got i think part of it

00:02:23.860 maybe is distinguishing from jason kenny's uh fair deal panel this is a little different she's

00:02:28.360 proposing constitutional change and they will show a video clip just to see where they're going with

00:02:33.100 this before we uh talk about it examples of proposed constitutional reforms include the

00:02:37.920 following. 1. Amending the division of powers to indicate that core areas of provincial jurisdiction,

00:02:45.000 including over natural resources and health, are immune from federal legislation. 2. Imposing

00:02:51.300 constitutional limits on the federal spending power in areas of provincial jurisdiction. 3.

00:02:57.460 Adhering strictly to representation by population in the House of Commons. Right now, those living

00:03:03.420 in smaller provinces are greatly overrepresented when compared to those living in larger ones.

00:03:09.100 All right, so yeah, two of us in this room are old enough to remember what it was like going

00:03:12.540 through Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, which led nowhere. And this is proposing things

00:03:18.460 that are even bigger than that. I mean, I don't like putting out futility and policy ideas. I

00:03:23.580 mean, they all sound really nice. But that third one really right off the bat is a complete deal

00:03:28.380 breaker because the underpopulated provinces are never going to vote uh to reduce their power in

00:03:34.300 the house of commons it's not going to happen and our constitutional formula requires that we get

00:03:39.340 what seven out of ten provinces to support it representing 50 of the population but uh i i i

00:03:45.980 like where she's going with it because i think uh what premier smith is doing is demonstrating the

00:03:50.140 futility of trying to change canada's system and uh we're going to see where it goes so one of the

00:03:54.860 the ones there's there's a number of potential constitutional amendments uh presentation there

00:03:59.320 one of the ones was not on that video though was a triple e senate where all provinces have an equal

00:04:04.740 number of senators regardless of population theoretically uh that should make the smaller

00:04:10.360 provinces that would lose members of parliament that they don't deserve by population should make

00:04:14.920 them happy the problem is that in canada those provinces are also overrepresented in the current

00:04:20.720 said it. Alberta, with twice

00:04:22.800 the population of all four Atlantic provinces

00:04:24.600 combined, has pretty much half the senators

00:04:26.860 is just Nova Scotia, just New Brunswick.

00:04:29.300 Those guys are never

00:04:30.920 going to vote to give up this

00:04:32.800 sweetheart deal.

00:04:35.100 In their list, though, they do have

00:04:36.880 actually either abolished the Senate entirely

00:04:38.600 or have it represent provincial interests as

00:04:40.620 originally intended. So I imagine if they

00:04:42.520 expand it, you know, what she means

00:04:44.840 by that, it probably means triple E,

00:04:46.720 but again, as you said,

00:04:48.600 it's just not going to happen. No.

00:04:50.720 No. So what's the point of this?

00:04:52.840 I mean, if I thought there was any chance whatsoever Canada could be reformed constitutionally,

00:04:57.700 I wouldn't be an Alberta nationalist.

00:05:00.160 But I think there's a zero percent chance. It's just not happening.

00:05:03.340 Certainly under the existing formula, it seems so highly unlikely that you might as well call it zero chance.

00:05:10.020 However, what it does do is that it presents the Alberta argument to the national stage, to the national conversation, shall we say, in a way that is acceptable and can be engaged on by the folks back east who find Alberta just generally offensive in principle.

00:05:32.300 and our own particular brand of Canadianism

00:05:36.780 to be just something we don't want to be associated with,

00:05:41.520 you know, pickup trucks and hard hats and cowboy hats.

00:05:44.660 So when you render it in terms of constitutional amendments,

00:05:50.060 well, that's something they can engage on.

00:05:52.920 So between that and the fact that it's out there

00:05:59.140 as a serious proposition which needs to be talked about before it's dismissed gives the premier

00:06:07.060 quite a bit of time actually to fend off the uh some of the some of the voices of

00:06:13.780 independence that within our own party a bit awkward for to handle at the moment

00:06:18.420 so i think this is a stalling tactic i agree with you it's never going to happen but it's a good

00:06:23.940 way to articulate what we don't like about the rest of canada so curry would depend on 0.99

00:06:30.980 the timing of a lot of this but you know we're headed towards an eventual independence referendum

00:06:35.940 here in alberta i can see where if this was done beforehand and a deadline is issued for the other

00:06:43.940 provinces and the feds to ratify because also ottawa itself has to ratify if the if all the

00:06:49.060 the provinces around if Ottawa would just do it.

00:06:52.140 But if Alberta votes

00:06:53.100 for this, and it goes to

00:06:55.020 the other provinces, and they reject

00:06:57.140 it, and this is all, then

00:06:58.880 we go to an independence referendum. I think that would

00:07:00.940 very much strengthen the hand of the independence cause

00:07:03.140 because then it said, here are these

00:07:05.120 very reasonable, good

00:07:06.900 faith amendments we have made to fix

00:07:08.840 Canada, and the rest of the country

00:07:11.080 has told us to pound sand.

00:07:14.960 I think it depends on

00:07:16.980 how the timing around this is scheduled.

00:07:19.060 If it's done at the same time as an independence referendum, I think it actually probably hurts.

00:07:25.040 But if it's done it in advance, do you see it as helping?

00:07:27.720 In the long game, yes, absolutely.

00:07:30.200 I mean, I've been a dedicated, you know, Alberta nationalist for a long time already in speaking in areas and talking to people.

00:07:38.880 Though a lot of what people keep saying is, well, we need to try everything first.

00:07:42.220 Well, this is everything.

00:07:43.180 Here it is.

00:07:44.240 We're going to try again.

00:07:46.340 And we're going to fail.

00:07:47.340 and once that failure is there people won't have that case to make in fighting this any longer

00:07:53.760 for the shorter term though for looking at an independence referendum that'll probably be

00:07:58.060 coupled with a lot of these questions it'll probably hurt people who want to go you know

00:08:02.200 hurt the cause for people who want to go the full option of independence now which is i'm one of

00:08:05.800 them but i also understand that uh and i know some people get upset with me but i don't think we're

00:08:11.000 even close to a 50 vote on that yet there's just too many people who still want to try

00:08:15.880 every possible means of change

00:08:18.060 so this

00:08:19.800 will help in the long run. In the short term

00:08:22.120 though, it's going to be a little tougher on the referendum.

00:08:24.100 It's like going for counselling before the divorce.

00:08:26.120 Yeah, basically. You already know you're going out

00:08:27.960 but okay, let's just go through the motions

00:08:30.040 and you know...

00:08:31.360 Actually, that's maybe not a bad way to put it

00:08:33.920 here.

00:08:36.620 We're not at a majority

00:08:37.940 support yet for independence.

00:08:39.640 We're at a very large

00:08:42.080 minority and

00:08:43.260 might be at a high... It's not insignificant.

00:08:45.200 significant. It's big enough, it can't be ignored anymore. It's not big enough to win. I've said

00:08:50.220 this for a long time, the policy needs to be equality or independence. Equality is never going

00:08:55.340 to happen. The East is never, ever going to accept a constitutional rearrangement where we're on

00:09:02.740 an equal constitutional basis with them. They're just not going to accept it. But I don't think

00:09:10.260 Albertans are going to be willing to accept going the whole hog of independence unless they believe

00:09:16.240 we have tried everything. We've already tried this stuff before, and it's always failed. But

00:09:21.380 I was like five or six years old when Charlottetown happened, and Charlottetown was attempting to

00:09:27.380 change things, and it was still a bad one that should have been rejected. It was rightfully

00:09:30.900 rejected by the West. But I think there's a new generation that needs to see us go through the

00:09:38.620 motions again and do it genuinely and in good faith and after it's projected maybe that well

00:09:45.300 it does make it easier if the rest of the country can is forced to look at this say well actually

00:09:50.500 that's a reasonable case to make they're not just nuts out there well i guess then there's a question

00:09:58.560 of well will they formally reject it because we had a referendum on a constitutional question

00:10:03.100 equalization and it was roundly ignored by the rest of the country now some of that was

00:10:08.640 that took place at a moment where then premier jason kenney had his political capital had sunk

00:10:14.060 to zero uh covid had completely sunk his premiership uh he really wasn't in a position to go

00:10:21.960 march to ottawa and kick down the door it's uh you know at the pmo and demand a response there

00:10:30.040 was just no response from

00:10:31.840 Ottawa or any other province.

00:10:35.620 You know,

00:10:36.320 what's the likeliness, though, that other provinces

00:10:38.060 formally respond by actually

00:10:40.060 voting for or against the constitutional

00:10:41.960 amendment, or that they just ignore it

00:10:44.000 as they did with the Kennegalization referendum?

00:10:46.240 Well, I don't think it's even going to go to a national

00:10:48.120 referendum. I don't think the provinces

00:10:50.060 will accept what's being asked here to go even

00:10:52.000 that far with it. They're just going to ignore

00:10:54.040 it and tell us to roll it up and shove it somewhere else,

00:10:56.000 and that's fine.

00:10:57.540 You don't think you might get a little sympathy

00:10:59.800 from Saskatchewan, at least?

00:11:01.520 Well, sure.

00:11:02.320 And we're speaking of the provinces

00:11:03.860 that were holding the power right now, though,

00:11:05.600 and it's not Saskatchewan.

00:11:06.940 So, I mean, Scott Moe is supportive,

00:11:09.040 but there's no way the maritime provinces

00:11:11.240 and absolutely no way Quebec

00:11:13.080 is going to be even considering these for a moment.

00:11:18.060 So it's going to be in the Alberta discussion

00:11:19.900 solidly because of this for months and months.

00:11:23.040 And it's going to be completely ignored

00:11:24.800 by the ones with the authority to change anything.

00:11:27.180 So I'm looking forward to the rejection.

00:11:28.360 The question mark one is Doug Ford. I don't think he'd be very happy with these, but he is. Yeah, he wants to be prime minister one day. And if he wants to be prime minister of a conservative government in Canada, you're going to need Alberta in it. Otherwise, conservatives are never winning in Canada again.

00:11:46.380 But, you know, he has a, I mean, how he governs Ontario aside, which is a big deal, he does at least try to sound friendly and sympathetic to Alberta concerns.

00:12:00.260 If you want to keep Alberta in Canada, you're going to have to respond reasonably to this.

00:12:05.200 I could see Doug Ford maybe not endorsing the changes, but being willing to put it to a referendum.

00:12:11.920 You could pay lip service to it, but even...

00:12:13.880 I could see an Ontario referendum on this.

00:12:16.380 And if so, that kind of makes it a national thing at that point.

00:12:19.000 If Ontario does, I can't see it.

00:12:21.020 I don't see him putting it to the Ontario voters.

00:12:23.140 I can see him talking a good game,

00:12:24.620 but he doesn't want that discussion among Ontario voters

00:12:27.380 because he's going to have to take a solid side.

00:12:30.040 Doug Ford is mushy.

00:12:31.240 He's going to do whatever he thinks is going to get him to the top.

00:12:33.660 And yes, Alberta is requisite, but so is Ontario.

00:12:36.500 And bringing this sort of referendum to the Ontario voters,

00:12:39.700 then he's going to have to take a side on that thing.

00:12:41.700 And he's not going to win either side he takes as a conservative.

00:12:44.400 So I just don't see it.

00:12:47.080 And it was, of course, Mr. Ford, who was ready to sacrifice Alberta's interests a few months ago over tariffs in order to keep Ontario's intact.

00:12:56.800 So I don't think you should assume that Doug Ford's going to be on side with this.

00:13:01.960 I don't know. Like Lord Corey says, he changes when he needs to.

00:13:06.480 All right. Well, we'll switch it up here.

00:13:10.000 A CBC host, Travis Donraj, I'm sure I pronounced that correctly, he accused the public, the CBC, of, quote, performative diversity, tokenism, a system designed to elevate certain voices and diminish others.

00:13:28.560 his lawyer, Catherine Marshall,

00:13:31.240 we've had her on programs before, 0.88

00:13:34.020 she says

00:13:35.120 that he was told not to book people of

00:13:36.760 a conservative persuasion.

00:13:39.200 I know I certainly haven't been invited to the show.

00:13:42.280 Daniel,

00:13:42.880 why don't you elaborate a bit more on

00:13:44.560 the latest big rage quit at the CBC?

00:13:47.760 So there's actually two levels

00:13:48.960 to take this. One is just exactly

00:13:51.060 as Derek has explained

00:13:52.880 there, that there is a

00:13:54.520 professional disagreement between

00:13:56.540 the employer and the employee

00:13:58.400 and as is usually the case, the employee loses.

00:14:03.680 The other is to say, all right, let's sort of say it out loud.

00:14:07.520 He is a person, Travis Downrange is a person of color.

00:14:11.760 And, you know, in one sense, he texts boxes for the CBC

00:14:17.320 because, you know, you push all the old white guys out 0.97

00:14:20.680 and now you bring in the women and you bring in the people of color

00:14:23.920 and you look very modern and multicultural and inclusive

00:14:28.220 and diverse and all the other things.

00:14:31.580 But he did not fit the exact mold

00:14:36.200 because what they want is diversity of appearance.

00:14:39.240 They do not want diversity of opinion.

00:14:43.720 And that leads to the second level

00:14:45.560 of which you can look at his.

00:14:47.540 And that is in concert with Jamil Giovanni,

00:14:51.720 presently a conservative member of parliament.

00:14:54.820 But a few years ago, five years ago, I think it was,

00:14:58.220 fighting with his employer bell because they had hired him for the same kind of reasons i i think

00:15:05.100 i can't say this out loud and definitively because the case is believe it or not is not settled five

00:15:10.280 years later but he says he was he says he was hired as the the black guy all right and therefore

00:15:18.000 he was supposed to have black guy opinions but he didn't i mean he's a conservative member of

00:15:23.740 parliament he certainly is not of the cut from central casting for for a modern canadian media

00:15:32.660 company so you have two examples where the media says yeah we want to we want to make it look right

00:15:41.700 we want the branding of having people of color women sexual diversity you know try and find a 0.99

00:15:51.900 straight white guy on any of the on the cbc and you know you've got to look down the channels quite

00:15:57.020 a way uh so when they get there they find and this is the testimony of mr downraj that isn't

00:16:07.380 actually like that at all that there is a power structure which controls his future and it's not

00:16:13.100 one that is uh that's nearly as diversity and minded or inclusive as they would like you to

00:16:19.220 think you just want the faces on the screen but meanwhile there are other people who are running

00:16:23.060 just like they always did so and that seems to be the experience of giovanni

00:16:30.420 so there's a real rot in the media and we knew this we've said this many times this is just the

00:16:38.820 latest manifestation of it so i don't know wish him good luck i noticed that he has you mentioned

00:16:45.700 that he was represented by katherine marshall it was katherine marshall who also represented

00:16:50.900 jamil davani and she has got kind of a history of of looking after people who have strong opinions

00:16:59.300 and don't necessarily conform i wouldn't say she's an advocate for right-wing extremists but she's not

00:17:04.820 and i wouldn't say that travis danrouch was a right-wing extremist because i think he probably

00:17:10.180 is just a guy who genuinely wants to do journalism in an opening it doesn't come

00:17:15.060 across as even a conservative he's just he's just a guy doing his job but all of a sudden he's

00:17:20.420 understanding why conservatives are upset yeah i was gonna go to the joe demil giovanni comparison

00:17:26.500 i think that was ctv if i'm not mistaken well it was bill media yeah yeah it was radio um so parent

00:17:32.260 company uh there's a lot of parallels there he was also uh he he claims through his lawyer catherine

00:17:39.220 Marshall, that he was punished

00:17:41.360 essentially and demoted

00:17:42.840 for saying that he had

00:17:44.980 divided Catherine Tate, the president of the CBC

00:17:47.340 on, to explain all these 0.96

00:17:49.160 ridiculous... This is Dan Rush you're talking about. Yeah. 0.86

00:17:51.040 Yeah, yeah, Dan Rush.

00:17:53.460 Yeah, he was reprimanded

00:17:54.960 essentially and punished

00:17:57.220 in his career, trying to

00:17:59.160 have Catherine Tate on, and then he went

00:18:00.640 when she declined to do an interview about the ridiculous

00:18:03.060 bonuses she's paying herself and other executives,

00:18:05.740 he went and said she declined

00:18:07.000 the interview. And they're like,

00:18:08.580 you're taking our dirty laundry out.

00:18:12.140 I mean,

00:18:13.720 in a private company,

00:18:15.140 you know, you guys aren't allowed to say

00:18:17.400 this is a private company.

00:18:20.100 No, there's confidentiality here.

00:18:21.920 But, you know, if you're the CBC,

00:18:24.700 you're a government

00:18:25.640 body. You have to be accountable,

00:18:27.560 including to yourself, your own

00:18:29.440 reporters. I mean, I was shocked when I

00:18:31.580 saw, I remember that CBC story

00:18:33.680 that there was a CBC reporter willing

00:18:35.240 to call out his own boss

00:18:37.640 there i was like oh brave turns out it was also not a good career move as i i figured at the time

00:18:43.780 um it works just fine for jamil it well it did for him he rage quit and parlayed it all the way

00:18:50.420 to parliament um but yeah i don't i don't know cory uh this is not the first big rage quit from

00:18:58.780 the cbc it was murray others yeah tara henley uh she came up and uh the same sort of thing and

00:19:07.100 And I believe, I mean, it doesn't mean that Tara Henley is a hardcore conservative or the other gentleman is, but if they came up as idealistic journalism students, they wanted to be there.

00:19:18.980 They wanted to cover both sides and they get hit with that stark reality of, whoa, actually.

00:19:24.980 Don't book any conservatives.

00:19:25.780 Yes. And it's the other aspect, they might be conservative a bit.

00:19:30.660 there's the notion that progressives

00:19:33.280 are terrified of. The reality

00:19:34.880 that actually

00:19:36.340 conservatives aren't all white straight

00:19:39.100 men. And so when they, and

00:19:40.580 we see cases of tokenism, I'm going to say

00:19:43.020 the word out loud, that's what they've been doing.

00:19:45.480 Oh, that's what he called it himself. His own job

00:19:47.020 was tokenism. And they break from the mold.

00:19:49.220 I mean, the other thing that terrifies

00:19:50.700 progressives is somebody from the LGBTQ 0.54

00:19:52.940 community, and there's a lot

00:19:55.140 actually, and they're really starting to come out

00:19:57.140 as conservatives.

00:19:59.060 It's ironic that they have, you know, it's quite open that you can come out now as gay, which is great.

00:20:03.480 But to come out as a gay conservative, that's the, and then there's a lot because they're business owners, they're family people like anybody else.

00:20:11.420 And they're saying, we've had it with this stuff too.

00:20:13.760 And the cracks showing in the mother corporate, I think it's beautiful because that's the worst of the organizations as far as that goes. 0.96

00:20:21.480 What makes me mad about this, though, is that this mother corporation is the one that our new prime minister, in his throne speech, has just doubled the damn budget. 0.92

00:20:30.780 Oh, yeah. 0.94

00:20:31.100 He went from like 1.5 billion bonus to, what is it, 2.6?

00:20:34.960 We're seeing exactly what he's rewarding for, is for suppressing the other party's views.

00:20:39.360 Yeah.

00:20:40.560 And that's dangerous.

00:20:42.180 It's, well, I mean, I think most of us here agree that we don't even really need a state broadcaster.

00:20:46.560 But if indeed we must, that of all, as Derek was saying, is the one that should be trying its hardest to be balanced because it's taking tax funding.

00:20:56.720 And we've, anybody who's watched CBC knows bloody well that they're terribly imbalanced.

00:21:01.220 They always have been.

00:21:02.680 But to have this starkly exposed is an embarrassment for them.

00:21:06.380 And I'm glad that this fella came out to rip into them.

00:21:09.480 Let's just call CBC what it is, a semi-official news agency.

00:21:14.300 Yeah.

00:21:14.720 Semi-official.

00:21:15.420 well cbc is not the only one who's concerned uh about having uh views not in line with

00:21:25.760 official government federal government policy uh the rcmp now too uh so this week there were i think

00:21:34.160 four members of the canadian armed forces arrested on terrorism related charges i mean it's still we

00:21:42.240 don't know enough for me to say but initially some of this smells a little funny um they're

00:21:50.200 saying they you know were stockpiling guns i mean well that's that's not a crime you're allowed to

00:21:54.720 have as many guns as you like um for now at least uh you're allowed to have guns uh they said they

00:22:02.800 had plans to seize land seize land that seems like an odd terrorism thing uh there were four

00:22:08.560 of them for them i mean i normally still see terrorism with you know you're gonna get in a

00:22:12.740 car and run over a crowd or you're gonna shoot up a bunch of people or you're gonna blow something up

00:22:16.780 i don't know what they were gonna see what land they were gonna seize but they just said land

00:22:21.180 so it's like they're gonna walk out to a field somewhere and say this is ours uh i don't know

00:22:28.040 odd um but the whole thing has just struck me i mean there's been this big crackdown

00:22:34.500 on people having

00:22:36.380 non-social

00:22:38.780 progressivist views in the Canadian

00:22:40.280 armed forces.

00:22:42.560 They give out tampons in the men's

00:22:44.720 room on Canadian

00:22:46.580 military bases now.

00:22:49.540 That's a virtue signal

00:22:50.760 if I've ever seen one.

00:22:52.940 They've got DEI officers spread

00:22:54.760 like Soviet commissars throughout the Canadian

00:22:56.780 forces now. They've done everything

00:22:58.820 they can to rip out the martial

00:23:00.480 culture and spirit of our military and

00:23:02.740 replace it as just essentially being a uh another bureaucracy in uniform um bureaucrats at arms

00:23:11.020 bureaucrats at arms yeah um completely destroying the long crowd martial culture of the canadian

00:23:16.620 forces um uh and then just a few days before that there was a story about uh there is a private

00:23:24.440 facebook chat group or something a private group and some of them are sharing some lewd things

00:23:29.760 There might be racist remarks in there or something, but it's a private group, and these guys are going to face potential discipline or even court-martial or something for having a private chat group.

00:23:40.720 I grew up in military towns. I'm not a vet. I grew up in military towns. I know military people.

00:23:47.900 In private, they speak exactly like you would think. It's not pretty, but they're soldiers, especially among the enlisted men.

00:23:56.620 So there's this weird thing going on, and then they announced these terrorism charges, and it just kind of sounds, I don't want to speak out of time because we don't know enough yet, but we're getting this weird vibe that they were charged largely because maybe they held right-wing views and they were worried about it.

00:24:13.720 that's the impression i got and then kind of as if to confirm that inkling i'm getting uh the rcmp

00:24:22.340 officer here was on uh the cbc and uh here's here's a portion of what she had to say well

00:24:29.640 radicalization in general quite often will show by people isolating themselves and uh changing

00:24:36.560 their behavior like changing um what they're saying on a subject like becoming more extremist

00:24:43.120 And if someone you know was very believed in equal gender rights, but all of a sudden are leaning towards like traditional values, and that might be a sign that they're becoming more extreme.

00:24:59.180 Alright, so, you know, I was willing to indulge, to a certain extent, gender ideology, just by being polite.

00:25:11.560 You know, but as things went absolutely nuts and off the rails, I've gotten less indulgent of people's delusions centered around mental illness.

00:25:22.500 And, you know, in some ways, I'm, you know, a bit more supportive of some traditional values.

00:25:29.180 it never occurred to me that i'd be a candidate for terrorism uh that'd be a red flag but i mean

00:25:36.860 english is obviously her second language uh but the way i got what i got from that gentleman was

00:25:42.580 if you uh if you've added change in your views on some social issues and

00:25:47.980 and you think it might be a good idea to have a wife and a couple of kids you might be uh under

00:25:54.480 suspicion of terrorism by the feds been radicalized by the western standard we're doing our job okay so

00:26:01.520 i mean where does it stop i mean and i can see where it begins it begins with a federal directive

00:26:07.520 that we have to end and start with these values of so-called values of diversity equity and

00:26:13.360 inclusion but then they talk themselves into a corner and if you actually believe in what

00:26:21.280 But never mind Christian civilization, all of civilization, for as far back as how many thousand years you want to take it, the nuclear family has always been my part of the kids.

00:26:34.800 That's normal, you know.

00:26:37.480 And for that to suddenly be redefined as a red flag for terrorism doesn't show that there's something wrong with the people who believe that that's the model.

00:26:48.300 It shows that there's something wrong with the perceptive abilities of the RCMP and the people who are instructing them.

00:26:56.880 That's just crazy talk.

00:26:59.600 Corey, are you a red flag for terrorism?

00:27:02.040 I think I'm typically pretty harmless.

00:27:04.980 And, you know, I'm quite socially liberal.

00:27:09.120 I'm fine with trans folk.

00:27:11.140 If you identify as such, I'll happily indulge.

00:27:13.640 but eventually as you said the radicals have driven that so far over to the point where yes 0.97

00:27:18.680 i'm not going to accept a person with testicles competing against women in sports i'm sorry you've 1.00

00:27:25.680 gone well beyond reasonability and to have well let's talk about dei i think the rcmp member we 0.97

00:27:33.880 heard from was a classic example of one because she isn't bloody very bright when you say something

00:27:38.180 like that. I hire. Yeah, she didn't get in there 1.00

00:27:40.240 on her communication skills, that's for sure.

00:27:43.200 Basically, labeling

00:27:44.140 I think what we're getting to a tipping

00:27:46.200 point of most Canadians where

00:27:47.720 they're not necessarily all talking about

00:27:50.140 looking at a Norman Rockwell

00:27:52.060 household, but they do realize that these

00:27:54.240 activists have just gone well beyond

00:27:56.240 the scope of reasonability

00:27:57.540 and now you are apparently

00:28:00.360 a possible terrorist. 0.99

00:28:02.080 It's just nuts.

00:28:04.240 And it's not making enough news

00:28:06.420 I think that we have somebody in that senior position

00:28:08.560 I mean, we've got concerns about extremists

00:28:10.520 we've got concerns about terrorists, fine

00:28:11.980 but when you start talking about the red flags

00:28:14.400 like that, let's talk about divisive 0.96

00:28:16.540 and ridiculous

00:28:17.420 Well, you know what will potentially 0.70

00:28:20.220 radicalize people and get them to do

00:28:22.380 something genuinely extreme? 1.00

00:28:25.160 Shit like that! 1.00

00:28:26.660 When you see a senior government 1.00

00:28:28.400 official with police powers saying

00:28:30.440 you know, uh, you

00:28:31.960 if you used to be

00:28:34.520 believe in gender identity

00:28:36.140 ideology, but now you think it might be a nice kid to have a, it might be a nice thing to have

00:28:43.260 a traditional nuclear family. And, you know, they're saying you're an enemy of the state.

00:28:51.660 You're an enemy of official federal ideology. That could radicalize someone, because then

00:28:58.840 they're going to say, my way of life, my civilization, my family is at risk. It is

00:29:06.240 targeted and considered undesirable by the federal government. And I can see someone

00:29:13.860 taken out a bit far. Well, Derek, I mean, it's coming at people from so many directions.

00:29:20.020 There you have one particular example. But when the kids go to school,

00:29:23.980 uh you don't know unless you really dig what they are being taught you may recall that last week we

00:29:31.840 were talking about uh the premier's uh commissions who remove sexually suggestive books from the

00:29:39.980 school libraries why would you need to have the premier getting involved in what should be a

00:29:46.760 routine thing by the school librarian who says no keepers we're not going to have a atomic book

00:29:52.360 Showing a couple of girls getting at it

00:29:55.440 Or boys gunning each other

00:29:56.900 That goes straight

00:29:58.440 That goes straight

00:29:59.480 Gunning each other

00:30:02.240 Quite the stampy reference

00:30:04.860 I can't believe you haven't heard that before

00:30:07.440 Derek

00:30:08.180 I'm innocent 0.96

00:30:10.860 You're the lewd and crude one 0.54

00:30:15.340 I guess today that's my role 0.98

00:30:17.540 But anyway

00:30:19.440 On my turf

00:30:20.520 What I'm trying to say to you here, I meant the mocking, is that you have a couple of guys in the military who apparently say, you know, things are going a little bit too far.

00:30:33.320 What are we going to do about it, boys? Here, crack me another beer.

00:30:36.640 And then you come back, and of course there's trouble, and then you get back to the schools, and it's the same.

00:30:42.660 Gosh, it was bad in Alberta. It's worse than Saskatchewan if you keep up with Chris Oldcorn's columns.

00:30:47.200 and it's the same in every province these uh this um influence this attempt to redefine

00:30:55.140 uh sexuality as something that isn't precise and can be anything and are you sure you're a boy

00:31:00.420 wouldn't you really rather be a girl you know um that's that that is a threat that parents 0.98

00:31:07.660 perceive and they have now taken it to the to the provincial government and bless their hearts

00:31:12.080 you know the smith government has actually been taking a look at it i wish every province would

00:31:16.260 do the same. So you get it there. You get it from the private industry where people are just

00:31:25.400 pulled into human resources, said, look, you know, just so as you know, this is the company's stand

00:31:30.420 on DEI. You've got a sign here that you agree with. Well, I don't agree with it. Well, you know,

00:31:36.060 go and read it and then come back and sign it because if you don't, you know, it's not going

00:31:39.980 to go that well for your advancement. It's everywhere. And if you're looking again,

00:31:45.360 you know we got some military members it sounds like went off the rails somehow perhaps or something

00:31:51.120 went on but the wokeism in the military and the stuff is leaking out again this is

00:31:55.220 we're talking about military that people join that for with an expectation or vision or something

00:32:00.700 and i just saw the other day a poster somebody put up from the canadian military showing you know

00:32:06.260 watch out for sexual harassment it could happen anywhere and it shows a small blonde woman with 1.00

00:32:10.840 a hand out and pushing a guy and a middle eastern man both in uniform sitting back saying please

00:32:16.100 hands off me you know i think they ripped that off of uh some german government propaganda

00:32:22.700 posters showing like a blonde german woman sexually harassing a middle eastern man i mean

00:32:27.740 let's let's get realistic here and i mean they're getting exhausted with it sexual harassment exists

00:32:34.520 i imagine that there's some some men who have been abusive towards women in the armed forces

00:32:40.360 watch for those things we got to get realistic about the demographic gender wise and also

00:32:47.380 culture wise what is it you're trying to say cory they're saying you're trying to say what i'm

00:32:51.360 trying to say is if you want a high risk area get a straight middle eastern man and it's going to be

00:32:57.640 more likely not all by any means but if you want a trouble spot where there's going to be harassment

00:33:02.760 of women ask the germans during new year's eve celebrations where it was coming from it wasn't

00:33:07.360 blonde women jumping on Middle Eastern men. It was Syrians groping women, but the, everything 0.98

00:33:12.920 up is down, left is right. It's bizarre. It's backwards. And these military members are getting 0.94

00:33:18.240 spoon fed. This crap are getting overloaded. And that's what these guys are creating the extremism 1.00

00:33:23.720 and then pointing at traditional values as being the problem. Yeah. There's not many spoon fed,

00:33:28.060 but they're asked to agree. Force fed actually is a better way to put it. Yes. I mean, it's a feeding

00:33:32.220 tube of woke garbage going into them 0.99

00:33:34.280 and they're overflowing from it.

00:33:35.440 So these four guys arrested

00:33:37.460 terrorism-related charges,

00:33:39.760 as I've said, 0.97

00:33:41.440 let me just cover my ass here, we don't really know 0.98

00:33:44.080 what they're truly accused of doing. 0.98

00:33:46.800 So I can't

00:33:48.260 say if they're in the right or wrong.

00:33:50.100 Totally unknown yet.

00:33:51.560 But what I do know is the police

00:33:54.060 statements around this,

00:33:55.780 the federal police, federal government

00:33:58.280 statements around this,

00:33:59.340 they're at least making it sound like they're dangerous because they hold maybe some traditional 0.98

00:34:06.380 views but also guess who does martial culture military culture appeal to 0.98

00:34:13.100 guys who like guns and shit or women of that inclination still of yeah i want firearms and 0.81

00:34:20.480 toughness and that sort of approach to things i mean this has been a divide and conquer thing 0.99

00:34:26.520 going on for a while too. It's been interesting to watch them flip-flop where recently I saw an

00:34:30.240 article that basically said it's okay to embrace the Canadian flag again. But remember for a while

00:34:34.300 during the trucker's convoy, they were saying it's a sign of extremism if a person's waving a

00:34:38.260 Canadian flag and then suddenly, well, it became convenient for elbows up and now it's okay to 0.94

00:34:42.680 wear it. It was never bad. I don't know anymore. Which symbols are you allowed this week and not,

00:34:49.540 but you're going to be labeled an extremist if you're carrying the wrong one according to the

00:34:53.900 establishment you know chaps this is where the governments and i mean all of them are losing 1.00

00:34:59.580 people that this is where distrust of authority comes from is when authority tries to tell you

00:35:06.940 that two and two does not equal four it equals five and this is a perfect example of the of the

00:35:13.400 type that being a family person is somehow radical and could lead to terrorism what am i

00:35:21.800 how are we supposed to trust a government that peddles that message through the RCMP at the

00:35:28.720 military, which we trust to defend? Well, that's a hell of a segue to our last one. They're all

00:35:35.480 lying about Epstein. I try to generally keep our pipeline topics focused on the West, if not the

00:35:44.380 West, Canada, or Canada related to others.

00:35:49.040 Epstein, well, it's an international thing.

00:35:52.760 What's happening right now is within the purview of the American government, the DOJ,

00:35:59.280 but it's got obvious international implications.

00:36:02.960 You know, we had princes getting caught up in this.

00:36:06.140 The Epstein network was not limited to Manhattan, obviously, or an island.

00:36:11.140 uh the trump administration you got bondi these guys saying uh there is no list uh there's nothing

00:36:21.000 to release here uh all that would be if we released it all we'd be showing you is kitty 0.68

00:36:24.540 porn no we don't want to see the kitty porn that should obviously never see the light of day in

00:36:28.860 the public uh that's just evidence and it should stay under strict lock and key for all time that's

00:36:34.280 not what anyone's asking for we want to know who uh who were the clients did he keep a nice

00:36:42.500 neat alphabet alphabetized list probably not but you must know who they are because otherwise

00:36:49.520 Ghislaine Maxwell is the first person in history charged for sex trafficking people to no one

00:36:53.380 there's you obviously know who the clients are who are they now there's two real possibilities

00:37:00.360 about why this is all of a sudden not being released.

00:37:03.380 One is that Trump or major people

00:37:05.680 in the Trump administration are on the list.

00:37:07.800 I don't think that's particularly likely

00:37:09.760 because Trump himself was until extremely recently

00:37:12.300 very gung-ho to release the list.

00:37:15.440 So I think that's less likely as an explanation.

00:37:19.300 Much more likely is that the intelligence blackmail operation

00:37:24.700 that Epstein and Glenn Maxwell were running

00:37:27.920 uh succeeded it has blackmail information on extremely powerful people and those people

00:37:36.300 have made clear that this guy was just not going to be releasing it it'd be too damaging

00:37:42.020 probably to people in both parties they've got the dirt on everyone or enough people um

00:37:48.840 and this what this shows is like you can elect the most disruptive anti-establishment uh precedent

00:37:57.620 wrecking president ever and at the end of the day the powers that be are still truly in charge

00:38:05.620 and that more than anything mark this moment in our history of when we're going to have this is

00:38:12.480 another kind of uh watergate level destroying and trust in our institutions uh in our leadership

00:38:20.400 uh in democracy maybe itself because it it shows it i think it does show doesn't matter actually

00:38:26.340 who you elect the same people are in charge and this is going to radicalize people well yes um

00:38:34.500 i i don't have a strong argument otherwise on that and i'm not sure i particularly want one

00:38:42.380 it has the ring of truth to it however there is this one thing one little corner there we need

00:38:50.380 look at and that is if you are so powerful that you can keep your name out of it

00:39:02.220 do you actually need to have blackmail files on however many people i've seen dealt with

00:39:11.100 well that's the point the blackmail files that's how you keep your name out of it well if you if

00:39:15.180 you expose me i'm going to expose you that's that's the way it works that's how they kept

00:39:20.060 this under wraps for so long.

00:39:24.480 If you're that powerful, do you need to do

00:39:26.260 this? I guess. Maybe you're right.

00:39:28.480 Well, that is our...

00:39:29.560 Maybe that's where the power comes from.

00:39:32.040 The blackmail is our... Like, Jeffrey Epstein doesn't appear

00:39:34.160 to have had really a legitimate job in his life.

00:39:35.980 He got paid hundreds of

00:39:38.180 millions of dollars for

00:39:39.740 some tax advice that turned

00:39:42.140 out to not even be sound.

00:39:45.420 Like, it's

00:39:46.180 clearly an extortion and blackmail, right?

00:39:48.580 Whatever the rash,

00:39:49.920 you know, the background or whatever on it. I mean, it's just something stinks to high heaven.

00:39:55.600 And that's what a lot of Trump's own supporters now. And he knows, he must know, he's gut-punching

00:40:00.700 his own base. He has never been play double with his own supporters. So much of this. And then

00:40:05.740 just suddenly, ah, you know what? Nothing to see here. Whoa, hang on a second. You know,

00:40:09.940 you've been talking about this for years, Mr. Trump. What's going on? It gets onto your desk

00:40:15.440 and then suddenly you flip out of it.

00:40:17.140 And if that's going to, whether realistic or not,

00:40:21.060 yeah, it's going to spawn theories.

00:40:22.140 When there's a void, people fill the void.

00:40:25.320 And often, sometimes it might be correctly or incorrectly,

00:40:28.380 but the theories will become more crazy

00:40:30.380 as you suppress what was in that thing.

00:40:33.300 Because we do know there is a cover-up.

00:40:35.000 There's something good.

00:40:35.840 There is clearly a cover-up. 1.00

00:40:37.320 It's like, you gotta be an idiot 1.00

00:40:39.980 to actually believe there was no cover-up here, 1.00

00:40:42.060 that powerful people are not being protected,

00:40:45.440 So, you know, what people fill the void with?

00:40:47.980 Anybody's guess.

00:40:48.820 And it's going to range from the plausible to the totally nutty.

00:40:52.100 It's going to get filled up.

00:40:53.360 And you can't counter it because they won't release the bloody information.

00:40:55.680 Exactly.

00:40:56.740 Because we know they're lying.

00:40:58.560 We know they're lying.

00:41:00.760 Yeah, I mean, you know, just on top of the very suspicious circumstances

00:41:05.160 in which Epstein died.

00:41:08.500 You know, the memes and the whole rest.

00:41:10.860 Just with, you know, was it suicide or not?

00:41:14.660 I mean, the coincidence of the down cameras, the whole works of it and the timing.

00:41:18.780 And now you've got this on top of it.

00:41:20.680 You're just giving poor fodder to the people who are inclined to take.

00:41:25.800 You can tell Trump knows he's wrong.

00:41:27.620 And I've never seen that before.

00:41:28.800 I've seen him be wrong, but believe he is right.

00:41:33.740 I've never seen it in his eyes until now where he knows he's wrong.

00:41:38.240 He's doing the wrong thing.

00:41:39.780 You can see it in his eyes.

00:41:40.820 He saw it when he was with Bondi the other day, and the journalist asked, like, why this flip-flop on such an important issue that you've been on site on?

00:41:49.920 You know, what explains this?

00:41:51.700 And you're all people who are angry.

00:41:53.000 And he responded just by saying, like, why are you asking me about that?

00:41:56.780 I mean, the economy's doing great.

00:41:57.940 Why aren't you asking about the economy?

00:41:59.080 And you could just see in his eyes, he knows he's on the wrong side of history here.

00:42:02.700 But something is forcing his hand.

00:42:05.640 You need to replay that tape.

00:42:06.700 You may have noticed that Bondi was just about to speak and she sort of had her mouth open and he cover off that was like that.

00:42:15.400 So I don't know what she was.

00:42:16.520 Obviously, we don't know what she was going to say, but clearly he wanted to make sure that he messaged this the way he wanted.

00:42:21.820 And you see it in her eyes, too.

00:42:23.500 You know, the files on my desk were just, you know, we're censoring out the names of victims and whatnot to protect privacy.

00:42:29.700 It's going to be coming.

00:42:31.200 And oh, what list?

00:42:33.160 What file?

00:42:34.000 It's gone.

00:42:34.380 these guys are lying we can see right through them and the big question is why and who

00:42:41.400 amen i think this is going to be a this is a big cultural moment right now that we're going to look

00:42:47.020 back on and whatever comes from it a lot's going to point to right here it feeds it feeds every

00:42:53.620 conspiracy theory that there is going whatever your theory is this this this will fulfill it

00:43:00.520 there'll be a thousand different theories

00:43:04.620 that this all fits into

00:43:05.820 and it probably does actually

00:43:07.860 correctly fit one, I just don't know which one

00:43:10.460 yeah well, they're only going to get crazier

00:43:12.120 unfortunately

00:43:12.740 okay, well

00:43:15.620 we'll wrap it up with our parting shots

00:43:17.980 yes, so look

00:43:19.960 you may have noticed if you're a regular reader

00:43:21.700 that we have been featuring ads for

00:43:24.060 a forthcoming conference

00:43:25.560 the Alberta Christian Municipal Rally

00:43:27.720 happens this Saturday

00:43:29.500 July the 12th, down at Southside Victory Church.

00:43:33.320 It's to, and I'm quoting from their literature here,

00:43:37.260 that let's pray for the next mayor's city councillors

00:43:40.760 and school board trustees.

00:43:42.500 Hear how Christians running in your area, 1.00

00:43:45.280 learn how you can support them.

00:43:47.320 Let's look to the future of Alberta.

00:43:50.240 And they have got, actually not just in Calgary,

00:43:54.380 they're meeting in Westlock, Red Deer, Lethbridge,

00:43:56.340 Medicine Hat, Edmonton.

00:43:59.500 Something Flats, Anger Flat, Alder Flat,

00:44:02.780 Drayton Valley, Lloyd Minster, Edmonton,

00:44:05.700 Pinocchio, and Grand Prairie.

00:44:07.580 It's a very worthwhile effort by Michael Clark.

00:44:09.920 Michael Clark was one of the people who ran for the Liberal Party leadership.

00:44:14.040 I think he was trying to make a point rather than ask them for a good job.

00:44:17.760 He's not very good.

00:44:19.000 But, you know, he's a good guy.

00:44:20.780 Go and see them tonight.

00:44:22.640 Go and see them Saturday night in Calgary.

00:44:25.580 In any of those other cities, look at our ads.

00:44:27.460 and maybe just go and see

00:44:29.840 what they have to say.

00:44:30.980 You know, it sounds like

00:44:32.220 they might have traditional values

00:44:33.560 and so everyone going

00:44:35.080 is going to end up

00:44:35.640 on the RCMP's terror list.

00:44:36.920 True.

00:44:37.300 Could be.

00:44:37.980 Well, red flags.

00:44:39.760 I guess I'm speaking

00:44:40.820 to the one in Calvary,

00:44:41.960 so there you go.

00:44:43.480 You've already been

00:44:44.200 on the list for a long time.

00:44:45.560 You're not a new addition.

00:44:47.400 You've got your own agent.

00:44:48.900 You bet.

00:44:49.680 Okay.

00:44:50.140 Corey.

00:44:51.120 Well, Mark Miller,

00:44:53.100 alumni of Trudeau's wedding party

00:44:56.020 and former cabinet minister.

00:44:57.840 He was the immigration minister

00:44:58.720 for a couple of years.

00:45:00.080 Just seeing him out on X

00:45:01.620 tweeting about

00:45:03.140 immigration caps are contributing

00:45:05.260 to lower asking rents in Canada.

00:45:09.120 This came from the Housing

00:45:10.960 and Mortgage Corporation,

00:45:12.500 but he was among the group

00:45:15.020 that was calling all of us again

00:45:17.680 racists, intolerant,

00:45:19.700 everything else.

00:45:20.340 If we were daring to speak

00:45:21.860 on slowing down the mass immigration

00:45:23.800 that he was shepherding

00:45:24.640 as immigration minister,

00:45:26.020 and now that finally they're capping it a little bit and lo and behold the rents are going down

00:45:31.920 as if supply and demand works but again back to that liberal flip-flop where they will just

00:45:36.500 bald-faced you know turn around and celebrate look at that look how good we are we've reduced 1.00

00:45:41.540 the immigration and boy i brought the rents down i good work you hypocritical chode i've had it 0.84

00:45:46.440 with these guys you know i think his views may have changed on some things and now he has more

00:45:51.240 traditional value. Of course, that sounds like a traditional

00:45:53.500 wedding. That's right. I think the RCMP

00:45:55.340 better look into him. True enough.

00:45:58.060 All right.

00:45:59.680 Business news. NVIDIA

00:46:01.380 is the world's first

00:46:05.500 $4 trillion

00:46:07.580 company.

00:46:09.520 I mean, you've got to just

00:46:10.940 $4 trillion.

00:46:13.720 I mean,

00:46:16.180 that's a fake

00:46:17.200 amount of money. That's not

00:46:19.040 real. That's like a couple

00:46:21.160 Well, I guess it's only like, what, two or three years of the U.S. federal deficit.

00:46:26.620 Five years ago, though, they didn't exist.

00:46:29.280 Yeah.

00:46:30.040 Look, how did that happen?

00:46:32.200 Yeah.

00:46:33.020 Well, I mean, it's AI changing everything.

00:46:36.440 I guess a side note, I guess Grok had some value changes as well in the last 24 hours.

00:46:43.600 I thought AI singularity was going to come in the form of Skynet or the Matrix. 0.88

00:46:48.260 I didn't think you'd just be a troll 0.62

00:46:49.940 but yeah 0.62

00:46:52.200 AI is so impossible

00:46:54.380 to predict where it's going to go other than the end of the world

00:46:56.220 I think it inevitably does result in the destruction

00:46:58.340 of humanity or enslavement

00:47:00.440 by machines at some point

00:47:01.600 but what happens in the meantime to get there is

00:47:03.960 impossible to predict

00:47:04.880 it's fun to watch and crazy

00:47:08.220 every day

00:47:08.660 okay and just a programming

00:47:12.360 note tomorrow we've

00:47:14.280 got our own little

00:47:15.900 stampede party here for the Western Standard

00:47:18.100 staff, where all the new folks

00:47:20.120 are going to have to go through our hazing ritual

00:47:21.900 and eat some prairie oysters.

00:47:24.140 Oh, you can see a few of them behind.

00:47:25.700 See the ginger break between

00:47:27.440 Corey and Nigel here?

00:47:30.280 He's going to have a ball.

00:47:31.580 Yeah, we got

00:47:32.400 Tula.

00:47:36.080 Oh yeah. He's going to...

00:47:38.180 Good one, Corey.

00:47:39.420 Well, that's it for today.

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Western Standard - July 10, 2025

Alberta wants constitutional amendments (that will never happen)

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