Western Standard - Anti-independence politicians push misinformation

00:00:00.000 Today, today is May 21st, 2025.

00:00:28.880 I am Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:34.000 I'm joined by my usual co-conspirators, Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:40.360 Inspiring richly.

00:00:42.160 And Western Standard Senior Alberta Colonist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:45.000 Good evening.

00:00:46.700 Evening.

00:00:47.460 Yeah.

00:00:48.940 It just stays late longer. I get confused now.

00:00:51.220 It does. It does. I'm a simple part, but the kids are asleep now.

00:00:53.560 by-elections

00:00:56.000 bound in Alberta

00:00:57.620 three Alberta

00:00:59.800 by-elections

00:01:00.660 two in Edmonton, one in Old Zisbury

00:01:03.480 Three Hills, and a federal

00:01:05.740 by-election in Alberta

00:01:07.160 in Battle River Crowfoot, where Pierre Polyev

00:01:09.760 is coming west

00:01:11.800 to seek gainful employment

00:01:13.400 we'll be talking about the frenzy of by-elections

00:01:16.020 here

00:01:16.320 former

00:01:19.220 Minister of Information

00:01:21.280 and then former Minister of the Environment

00:01:23.940 Stephen Gilboe is now the Minister of Information again, or Canadian Identity,

00:01:29.080 whatever we call it now, but the minister in charge of controlling and regulating the media in Canada.

00:01:36.000 We're going to talk about his new role and how he might be still trying to have a lot of influence

00:01:42.020 on his old role as Minister of the Environment.

00:01:44.300 But first up, Jason Kenney and I'm going to put a politely weirdo senator, liberal senator, Chris Wells, are pushing what they would call on the other side misinformation, spreading downright falsehoods about independence and what independence could mean in Alberta.

00:02:09.260 Nigel you've had some

00:02:12.560 opinion columns

00:02:14.400 published from some of your columnists

00:02:16.060 why don't you kind of set up with Mr.

00:02:18.560 Kenny and Mr. Wells

00:02:19.840 sorry I don't want to presume Mr. Wells gender I'm not sure

00:02:22.280 if he identifies

00:02:23.000 who knows

00:02:25.160 he uses pronouns

00:02:28.120 so at that point you lose your

00:02:29.760 pronunciation. Anyway

00:02:30.900 what is it they have done? What they've actually said

00:02:34.100 I mean Senator Wells

00:02:36.080 said this he said 0.93

00:02:37.120 But you realize all you stinky little independent seekers, no Canadian, this is on X, no Canadian passport, no citizenship, no pension, and no future if you want to leave Canada. 1.00

00:02:50.200 Then I was quite surprised to see Jason Kenney say more or less the same thing, because when we're talking about Wells and Kenney, we are talking about two different layers of intellect.

00:03:00.380 But even Kenny said, well, you know, by definition, an independent in Alberta equals no more Canadian citizenship, no more Canadian passports, nor entitlement benefits.

00:03:12.040 This is his exact words, and he's wrong on this, but no more entitlement benefits like OAS and CPP.

00:03:20.520 And, you know, CPP is not an entitlement.

00:03:24.000 You pay for it, you get it.

00:03:25.080 whether you're living in Costa Rica now or some independent Alberta

00:03:29.140 at some time in the future.

00:03:31.360 But that's the, you know, we can expect an awful lot of this.

00:03:35.240 Everybody, I think, is behaving at the moment as if,

00:03:38.840 well, what we do next, we invoke the Clarity Act,

00:03:41.020 and then we negotiate, and then it's done, and that's the end of the matter.

00:03:45.620 The trouble is that the federal government knows that without Alberta,

00:03:49.760 Canada basically is no longer sustainable, and this is where the money is.

00:03:53.940 So it's not going to be a nice, gentle little discussion.

00:03:56.940 And you're going to see a tremendous amount of misinformation,

00:03:58.920 but we're going to call it when we see it.

00:04:00.500 And we're doing that right now.

00:04:02.680 I hate using the term misinformation

00:04:04.300 because that's generally what leftists call anything they disagree with.

00:04:09.700 And then some on the right.

00:04:12.320 But, I mean, it is the real thing.

00:04:13.820 And this is it.

00:04:14.480 This is, you know, some things are opinion.

00:04:18.220 Some things are not.

00:04:19.620 Some things are direct falsehoods.

00:04:21.680 Chris Wells, I mean, he's spent his career studying what's in underwear.

00:04:28.720 So perhaps he's just not aware of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the way these things work.

00:04:37.360 Jason Kenney, however, does know better.

00:04:39.660 So I, you know, Kenney has declared himself an unconditional Federalist.

00:04:44.040 There is no point at which Alberta should ever seek to be a sovereign nation on its own.

00:04:49.400 okay, that's fine, that's his position

00:04:52.500 and I don't agree with it, but I

00:04:54.240 can respect it

00:04:55.400 but he knows what he's saying

00:04:57.960 is false, he's not a dummy

00:04:59.860 he knows it's false

00:05:01.180 to what you were saying, Nigel

00:05:04.340 OAS is an entitlement benefit

00:05:06.240 funded out of direct taxpayer

00:05:08.640 dollars, your income tax, corporate tax

00:05:10.260 sales tax, etc.

00:05:12.020 CPP, while it's a Ponzi scheme

00:05:14.220 is not in that category

00:05:16.400 it's funded by CPP

00:05:18.200 premiums. And, you know,

00:05:20.500 if Corey was to give up his

00:05:22.500 citizenship today in

00:05:24.540 Canada and move to 0.86

00:05:26.100 Botswana... 0.86

00:05:28.100 Oh, he's going to go there. Yeah.

00:05:30.080 And if you were 55 years of age or

00:05:32.480 older, you'd be entitled...

00:05:34.640 Is it 55? No.

00:05:35.940 65. If you were of the

00:05:38.580 age to collect it, you get to collect

00:05:40.500 it. It doesn't even matter if you're not a citizen. It doesn't

00:05:42.460 matter where you live. You could move to Mars

00:05:44.540 and give up your citizenship. You still 0.99

00:05:46.600 get that wire transfer up to Mars

00:05:48.560 living on Muscovia or whatever

00:05:50.720 it's going to be called.

00:05:53.320 Like, that's a pretty simple

00:05:54.800 thing.

00:05:57.520 And he knows better, doesn't he?

00:05:59.520 He does. I mean, Kenny's

00:06:00.680 a very smart man. He knows the Constitution

00:06:03.120 inside and out. He could probably school us on

00:06:04.860 a number of things on that. I mean, whatever

00:06:06.840 Kenny might be, he's no fool.

00:06:08.940 So he's purposely 0.89

00:06:11.000 you know, fear-mongering is

00:06:12.920 the term you don't like. How about BSing?

00:06:15.460 He also knows politically, though one of the weaknesses, ironically, it's the weakness for conservatives in general, but with the independence movement, are seniors fearful for their pension.

00:06:25.980 They're fearful that an independence vote will come along, Canada will close the doors, and then apparently this new independent Alberta is just going to leave them to starve because Canada no longer continued to pay out their pension.

00:06:36.680 It's just pure baloney, but it does scare people.

00:06:40.060 I've been getting a lot of that feedback on independence issues.

00:06:41.980 These people are worried. I mean, if that's your only means of income, you're on a fixed income, meager as it is, you're going to be very upset if you think it might be shut off.

00:06:51.700 So Kenny, we don't know what he's up to. I mean, he's been in political wilderness for a while. He's suddenly resurfaced and very prolific on media.

00:06:59.460 And in general, he's got some sort of plan for his future power to him.

00:07:04.740 But obviously part of that involves trying to work cracks

00:07:08.840 into the independence movement and weaken it

00:07:10.840 and making seniors fearful of the change that independence would bring,

00:07:15.240 he sees, is an effective way to do it.

00:07:16.760 It worked for the liberals.

00:07:18.200 I don't think there has to be anything devious about it.

00:07:20.940 I actually know Jason Kenney.

00:07:22.700 He's genuinely fond of the idea of Canada.

00:07:25.620 It would be just a matter of faith to him.

00:07:28.560 He probably didn't even think about it.

00:07:30.160 But I am surprised he opened himself up to our modest rebuke on that.

00:07:33.660 Yeah, his federalism isn't shocking. That's fine. But to put out just an outright mistruth like that is surprising out of him. I mean, you can play hardball, but you can do it while staying on the right side of the facts.

00:07:45.020 I was, you know, I've been long a student of the Quebec independence movement, and I was diving a bit more back into it yesterday.

00:07:53.780 And, you know, it was a funny thing.

00:07:55.920 The Federalist side in the two referendums, including in 95, they used the pension boogeyman there as well.

00:08:04.660 Which is odd, because Quebec isn't a part of the CPP.

00:08:08.180 They actually did a half-smarter thing and have a Quebec pension plan.

00:08:12.180 it's notoriously

00:08:14.260 mismanaged and put towards

00:08:16.020 funding crony capitalism

00:08:18.520 so it's

00:08:19.260 not an example of what to do once you have

00:08:22.200 a pension plan

00:08:23.180 but they were I think well within

00:08:26.240 their rights and possibly a good thing that they

00:08:28.180 went with their own pension plan. There was literally

00:08:30.360 no CPP at

00:08:32.320 stake there at all

00:08:33.800 but the federalist side would go around threatening

00:08:36.280 that you're going to lose your pension even though

00:08:38.060 the Quebec pension plan has nothing to do

00:08:40.260 with the Canada pension plan

00:08:42.000 Another one of the mistruths here peddled by Kenny and Wells and some other Federalists was on citizenship.

00:08:50.900 So Peter McCaffrey of the Alberta Institute had a pretty good rejoinder to this.

00:08:55.500 You know, Kenny and Wells said, well, you'll lose your citizenship.

00:08:58.340 Well, when Ireland fought a revolution to become independent from the UK,

00:09:04.280 the people of Ireland still actually had the option of keeping their UK citizenship.

00:09:09.200 When Canada became independent, however, although that was a rather gradual, very boring, much more boring process, when Canada became independent of the UK, wherever you want to put it, at the founding of the Dominion, at the Statute of Westminster, or the 1982 Constitution Act, wherever you want to put Canadian independence, at no time did anyone who had UK citizenship actually have it stripped from them in favor of strictly Canadian citizenship.

00:09:36.220 You've still got both, although it's a different situation.

00:09:39.580 But no one's been stripped of it.

00:09:42.580 Canada has been unable to strip the citizenship away of convicted terrorists who are not from Canada, who have become naturalized citizens.

00:09:52.340 So if we can't take, you know, the Canadian citizenship rights away from a convicted terrorist born in a cave somewhere, then surely I think the Supreme Court of Canada would likewise have a problem with Ottawa unilaterally taking away the citizenship of Alberta.

00:10:12.000 Well, you know, the weird thing about that, Derek, is that who is going to feel threatened

00:10:17.200 by that but residents of Alberta who are Federalist and wanting to stay Canadian.

00:10:25.600 So these are not the people who are about to vote in a reputative referendum for some form

00:10:32.880 of Alberta independence, and yet Ottawa is saying, if you don't listen to us, if you don't do what

00:10:39.040 we say you won't be canadian citizens they're threatening the people who are on their side

00:10:46.560 strange strategy well it would drive up turn it for their side people who are already federalists

00:10:51.760 but they're also trying to scare people in the middle who might be open to the idea of

00:10:56.320 independence both the pension plan and the citizenship uh threats from these guys that

00:11:01.680 as if it'll that'll just be the case um i think you know it would drive up turnout on their side

00:11:07.040 of a referendum. But likewise,

00:11:09.260 I think it's meant to move people in the

00:11:11.080 middle who are flirting with the idea.

00:11:12.780 Well, sure. I mean, fear is a motivator.

00:11:15.000 Same sort of thing. I mean,

00:11:16.220 if they feel that somehow that they're going to lose

00:11:19.120 some, I mean, what are you losing with citizenship

00:11:20.840 at that point post-independency? Anyways,

00:11:23.480 some mobility rights?

00:11:25.300 Are they going to block people from

00:11:26.960 Alberta from getting into the, I mean, 0.91

00:11:28.980 we're just going down a rabbit hole of ridiculousness. 0.87

00:11:32.720 I mean, 0.83

00:11:32.960 it's got an open border to the rest of the world anyway.

00:11:35.300 Ready if you're an independent Alberta?

00:11:36.560 Well, I'll just work and drive south and walk across at Roffman.

00:11:39.600 I mean, whatever I have to do to get into Canada if I wanted to at that point.

00:11:44.400 But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

00:11:47.000 We're going to see misinformation and particularly fear when it comes to everything else.

00:11:51.360 Just like we had the chamber.

00:11:52.580 You haven't even started.

00:11:53.920 Oh, yeah.

00:11:54.380 I mean, you know, it's going to be so big.

00:11:56.720 Deborah Yettle in the Chamber of Woke has been silent on the amount of business driven away by federal liberal policies for years.

00:12:03.840 But suddenly she's speaking up, saying that we're going to drive all the investment away from an independent Alberta, if we dare to go that route.

00:12:11.920 The numbers don't jive, but they can still spread the fear.

00:12:15.140 But that, I mean, there's some truth to it.

00:12:16.640 The instability of a strong independence movement, I could see that chilling a bit of investment.

00:12:20.060 But let's not pretend we haven't had over $500 billion chased off by the existing government anyways.

00:12:25.040 It's kind of like we can't do much worse.

00:12:26.400 Well, let's talk more about on that side.

00:12:28.440 That's one where it's not, that one is opinion, where you can argue both sides.

00:12:32.300 it's not like the CPP

00:12:33.660 it's not like citizenship where they're just peddling

00:12:36.080 outright falsehoods

00:12:37.540 the business uncertainty and business exit one

00:12:40.020 you can argue either side

00:12:42.100 of that one at least, that's a fair matter

00:12:43.960 arguable, that's fair

00:12:45.000 it's a fair area of disagreement and opinion

00:12:47.840 you know but what

00:12:49.980 a lot of, you know, they point to Quebec

00:12:52.460 the Quebec referendum

00:12:53.920 as sparking

00:12:56.220 an exit of capital

00:12:57.680 they don't point to Scotland

00:12:59.420 and there's a reason, because there are two

00:13:03.140 Quebec did have an exit of capital with both referendums,

00:13:07.740 but it wasn't because the prospect of independence.

00:13:11.980 It was because everyone knew that an independent Quebec

00:13:15.400 would be this hardline ethno-linguistic nation-state

00:13:19.380 that prizes the supremacy of the French language above all else.

00:13:24.760 That flight began with Bill 101 under René Lévesque

00:13:27.940 with the first PQ government when it first came to power in the 1970s.

00:13:32.240 Driving out, you know, when you banned English signs, that's bad for business.

00:13:37.600 You ban the ability to use English in the workplace, that's bad for business.

00:13:42.960 That's what was driving things out.

00:13:45.880 The unsuccessful Scottish independence referendum, by contrast,

00:13:51.200 was about establishing an independent Scotland,

00:13:53.640 but there was no worry that they were going to ban English and replace it with Gaelic or something.

00:13:58.860 It just would have been another...

00:14:00.080 I don't know if there were the Highlands reasons later.

00:14:02.240 No. But it didn't have this huge exodus of capital the way they were talking. Same with Catalonia, when Catalonia in Spain has pushed for independence. Because yes, they were talking about establishing a smaller nation state. But Quebec has a very proven track record of being explicitly anti-English. And if you're going to do business, you need to have English. That's just a sad matter of a fact.

00:14:23.620 so uh yeah uh it's a fair point of argument but they're ignoring that it was never really actually

00:14:30.580 about independence it was about what they were going to do with it and i don't think there's

00:14:33.480 any worry that an independent alberta is going to ban english no and i mean a chill on investment

00:14:38.740 too is different than a capital flight i as i said the instability could i could see it cooling

00:14:43.840 things down but i couldn't see people who are already here packing up and running for it they'd

00:14:47.900 be like you know i'm not going to do the that expansion right now until we stabilize and figure

00:14:51.900 what's happening but in the longer run

00:14:54.040 as you said

00:14:54.760 presumably this is going to be a free enterprise

00:14:58.080 state that we're building and want to

00:15:00.140 incur. No one's going to

00:15:02.180 assume that an independent Alberta is obviously

00:15:03.880 going to become some hardline Marx estate

00:15:05.920 it's one of the whole

00:15:07.840 points of independence when it's raison d'etre

00:15:09.960 is to be more

00:15:11.860 business friendly, to be more accepting

00:15:13.660 to capital and investment

00:15:14.860 and if you want to do oil

00:15:17.540 you're going to have to go where oil is

00:15:19.720 which happens to be Alberta

00:15:21.640 so that's

00:15:24.120 not going to be a... That's what bothers them

00:15:25.980 I mean, try as they might, even with the NEP

00:15:27.840 they can't snatch that from under our feet

00:15:29.700 it's not a

00:15:30.980 flexible resource, we've got it

00:15:33.500 so we're going to deal with it

00:15:35.000 Alright, well

00:15:37.520 zero to win from

00:15:39.960 Alberta to four specific

00:15:42.060 spots in Alberta

00:15:43.460 by-elections

00:15:45.960 we're entering a big by-election season

00:15:47.940 here, one

00:15:49.500 is in Battle River Crow, but primarily along

00:15:52.820 the central eastern portion of Alberta,

00:15:56.740 triggered by a Conservative MP

00:15:59.220 vacating his seat so that Pierre Paulio could run,

00:16:03.080 get back into the House of Commons and resume his role as leader of the opposition.

00:16:07.140 The other,

00:16:09.340 then there are three Alberta by-elections.

00:16:12.060 Edmonton, Stroudkona, which Rachel Notley vacated,

00:16:15.580 I don't think on paper, but effectively so that

00:16:19.040 Nahi Benchie, can win a seat 0.82

00:16:20.600 and take up his role

00:16:23.120 as leader of the opposition for the NDP.

00:16:25.520 Edmonton Ellerslie,

00:16:26.760 vacated by Marxist

00:16:29.140 extraordinaire

00:16:30.100 Loyola.

00:16:32.640 Rod Loyola, who

00:16:35.080 resigned his seat to run for the federal

00:16:36.980 liberals, and the liberals promptly kicked him out.

00:16:38.920 Not for supporting communism, but

00:16:40.780 for supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

00:16:43.720 We're still surprising.

00:16:44.840 I mean, they've got no shortage of Hamas and Hezbollah supporters

00:16:47.040 among the rest of their country.

00:16:47.900 Yeah, yeah. I mean, why were they picking on him?

00:16:51.740 And then the other is Old Visbury, Three Hills, Nathan Cooper, the Speaker of the Legislature,

00:16:58.420 stepped down so he could take a position as Alberta's trade representative of the Washington.

00:17:03.940 So by-elections abound.

00:17:07.300 Maybe let's... I want to compare two of them.

00:17:10.400 One federal, one Alberta.

00:17:12.920 where Pierre Polyev

00:17:16.160 is running in

00:17:17.140 Battle River, Crowfoot

00:17:19.320 Mark Carney has

00:17:22.080 I think to his credit said he's going to call that

00:17:24.000 by election as soon as he is legally able

00:17:25.900 I think we're pretty much almost into

00:17:28.060 that window where he can so that Pierre Polyev

00:17:30.160 can take his role as leader of the opposition

00:17:31.860 in the House of Commons. Whatever else you think

00:17:33.880 Carney? Classy move

00:17:35.160 and then

00:17:37.740 compare and contrast that with

00:17:40.220 Edmonton Strathcona where

00:17:42.120 Rachel Notley resigned

00:17:44.620 so that, and that's where

00:17:46.580 Nahidenshi says he wants to run so he can take up his role

00:17:48.960 as a leader of the opposition to the Alberta

00:17:50.960 legislature.

00:17:52.960 And the Premier

00:17:54.780 has not called that one. I guess

00:17:56.740 she's saving it for the bunch now, but she didn't necessarily

00:17:58.840 know it was going to be a bunch when it was done.

00:18:01.160 I'll start with you, Corey.

00:18:02.420 I know you mentioned on your show at this point

00:18:04.980 that a long time ago saying like

00:18:06.860 call a blight election, let him get in.

00:18:09.360 There's no real great political

00:18:10.780 advantage, other than maybe

00:18:12.520 depriving Menchie of a salary for a bit,

00:18:14.960 but there's no great political

00:18:16.780 advantage to keeping him out of the legislature.

00:18:19.340 It would look magnanimous

00:18:20.980 and a statesman-like

00:18:22.880 for Smith to call the by-election, yet

00:18:24.520 she's waited. And that's not a good look

00:18:26.940 compared to Carney, and I really don't like it

00:18:28.700 when that happens.

00:18:30.620 No, I mean, it's short class on Carney's part.

00:18:33.200 None of these by-elections

00:18:34.840 are going to go in an

00:18:36.700 unpredictable way. So there's

00:18:38.640 very little benefit in dragging out in them

00:18:40.560 Anyways, I mean, the old tradition, which I don't think was a good one, was that if there's a leader of another party, you wouldn't even run candidates against them.

00:18:46.980 You'd open it quickly so they can get in and get a seat and let them in.

00:18:49.460 I think you should run a contested violation, even if it's in a seat that's a surefire thing.

00:18:53.920 But it just shows that you value the role of official opposition, even if you personally detest the person who's in that role.

00:19:01.600 And no, it hasn't looked good on Smith doing that.

00:19:03.980 But at this point now, they pretty much run the clock out.

00:19:07.100 This thing's got to be called, I think, within a couple of weeks.

00:19:09.020 it's it's there's no she couldn't have dragged it out any longer within the constitution of canada 0.99

00:19:14.300 uh it's it's gonna go anyways and i guess it'll be lost in the mix i mean trying to find one

00:19:21.320 that's going to be interesting it's gonna be difficult crow crowfoot was over 80 for the

00:19:25.820 conservatives in the federal uh election yeah then there was chosen of course so that you can

00:19:30.040 be absolutely certain that the polyeth will be safe and winning that uh strathcona the strongest

00:19:35.720 NDP riding in the province.

00:19:37.680 Again, Nottingham won that with 80%.

00:19:39.520 Nenshi, as a parachute, might lose

00:19:41.880 5% on that, so he'll win with 75%.

00:19:45.120 Ellerslie

00:19:46.320 was 60, I looked it up,

00:19:47.780 62% for Loyola, and he's a whack job.

00:19:50.080 So, I mean, if they just put a...

00:19:51.600 They elected an open commune. A moderately sane

00:19:53.900 leftist there, they'll still sit there at

00:19:55.780 60-70%. Old Stidsbury,

00:19:58.200 now, that might be a little interesting

00:19:59.880 just in the environment right now.

00:20:01.580 It is the independence hotbed 0.99

00:20:03.940 of Alberta. That's where

00:20:05.340 Kessler was elected with the Western Canada

00:20:07.800 concept, you know, 40-some years

00:20:09.900 ago. I looked at the last

00:20:11.860 election. It was the strongest showing for an

00:20:13.860 independence candidate. It was Catherine

00:20:15.760 Kowalczyk. She was the leader of the

00:20:17.820 Independence Party, and she got

00:20:19.760 4.71% in that

00:20:21.800 election. Now,

00:20:23.600 I know the Republican

00:20:26.020 Party is going to run Mr. Davies there.

00:20:28.300 Astoundingly, he was acclaimed

00:20:29.360 to take that spot.

00:20:32.380 But whatever, it'll be a

00:20:33.800 test, I guess, of a partisan approach to an independence

00:20:35.780 party in that. And by-elections are where people

00:20:37.820 are more inclined to jump

00:20:39.880 in and take a chance on something different.

00:20:42.380 You're not swinging a whole election.

00:20:43.900 Yeah, you can make a statement. And it's

00:20:45.760 in the riding where that's

00:20:47.220 any potential if they're going to have a strong

00:20:49.620 showing. I think it would be very unlikely

00:20:51.580 they would win it. The UCP took it with

00:20:53.500 75%. But if they came in at 20%,

00:20:55.860 that's going to raise some eyebrows.

00:20:57.620 And it's a respectable

00:20:59.660 showing. So I think of all these

00:21:01.740 four, that'll be kind of the one to watch.

00:21:03.800 in the next couple of months.

00:21:06.480 Before we're coming back to the

00:21:07.640 maybe Old Stisbury, Three Hills,

00:21:10.180 just a bit more

00:21:10.880 on the

00:21:13.500 two leader by-elections.

00:21:15.480 Nenshi's by-election and

00:21:17.260 Paulyov's by-election.

00:21:19.720 It would have cost Smith

00:21:21.580 nothing. I guess they're saying, yeah, they want to group them together.

00:21:24.400 Perhaps they knew

00:21:25.500 some time ago they were going to appoint

00:21:27.480 Nathan Cooper. I can't say if that's

00:21:29.600 the case or not.

00:21:31.640 I don't think the UCP had any

00:21:33.620 idea that ron layola was going to give up the seat to run federally uh so the idea of oh they

00:21:38.460 were just waiting to punch a bunch of by elections together i i wouldn't buy that also by elections

00:21:44.000 i think cost the same no matter what if they're held together or separately uh it doesn't really

00:21:50.340 matter when they're held from a cost so there's no cost uh argument here i think it just looked

00:21:56.040 petty keeping nenshi out i don't know a lot of people watching is i will screw nenshi yeah well 0.52

00:22:00.780 are you saying the same thing about peer polio because he's being let in this is not about

00:22:05.980 simple partisan politics of it and i you know i've got my favorites and i've got my least favorites

00:22:12.240 but i mean it's it costs you nothing and you get to look like a like a good guy and and

00:22:19.860 carney gets to look like a good guy here and smith and the ucp do not i'm going to hold my

00:22:25.680 applause for Mr. Carney

00:22:27.380 until the day that he actually does

00:22:29.680 call that by-election.

00:22:31.440 But he said he'll do it.

00:22:33.560 He said he'll do it. He certainly said the right

00:22:35.680 thing. I mean, I kind of

00:22:37.320 helped thinking sort of in there in the

00:22:39.580 interior of the Premier's office.

00:22:41.980 You know, if we call this by-election,

00:22:44.500 then we're going to have to look at him

00:22:45.720 and listen to him.

00:22:47.240 And everybody's

00:22:48.000 okay, let's pick that up again next week.

00:22:52.020 And next week kept on coming.

00:22:53.560 So anyway, you're right.

00:22:55.200 It would have looked better if they had just

00:22:57.460 opened up a seat

00:22:59.540 and where you go.

00:23:01.220 But

00:23:01.240 that was

00:23:04.380 not what they did.

00:23:07.100 Now we will see what

00:23:08.860 Mr. Nenshi does with it.

00:23:11.400 Whether he comes in

00:23:12.480 in a

00:23:14.720 bit of a rage

00:23:16.060 of having lost six months' salary

00:23:18.860 or whether it's...

00:23:20.660 Well, he's not going to stay the salary part.

00:23:22.180 That's not what he'll say.

00:23:23.600 No, but you know.

00:23:25.200 yeah that's yeah well at least the little i mean what was the benefit to keeping an energy out

00:23:31.760 he's gonna win the seat no matter what it can't win that seat it doesn't change the leader's

00:23:35.600 fortunes it's funny to watch some of these and i'll go way back for those with don getty in

00:23:39.760 alberta and he won government but embarrassingly lost his own seat so there's a premier without

00:23:43.920 a seat so they made room for him i think it was camrose was it there are still some beautiful

00:23:49.440 roads paved in the middle of nowhere a bill for a hospital and they moved the western canada

00:23:53.680 lottery corporation headquarters into it and that aeronautics museum or whatever mechanical music

00:23:58.800 there's a big museum they gave all sorts of stuff to get him in uh but i mean it had no impact on

00:24:04.880 this government after all that as well i mean he was in as long like most pcs of that time as long

00:24:09.600 as he felt he should be and before moving on uh so i mean it's just a matter of political

00:24:15.840 breakmanship at this point and who's saving face or whatnot and yeah it could have looked better

00:24:20.880 now it's too late, so

00:24:22.960 she'll open the door. I guess some of it will be

00:24:25.580 lost in the distraction

00:24:27.600 of three by-elections now going on

00:24:29.320 instead of just one as well.

00:24:31.380 Not much will be lost. Let's face it.

00:24:33.220 This has been a long time coming. You're getting the leader

00:24:35.420 of the opposition. My next fall.

00:24:37.280 I just don't see the political advantage of what they did.

00:24:40.060 Like, I mean, if there was

00:24:40.920 something to get out of it, maybe.

00:24:43.780 Ed Carney could have a little

00:24:45.500 bit to gain by delaying it.

00:24:47.980 By, you know, if

00:24:48.900 he was able to

00:24:50.120 prevent Polyev

00:24:52.100 from being there for the opening of Parliament.

00:24:54.740 It would be a further, just embarrassed

00:24:56.340 Madonna, kind of hurt him in the gut a little

00:24:58.540 bit.

00:25:00.400 Assuming Parliament's not going to sit this summer, actually.

00:25:02.280 That's not going to be the case.

00:25:04.360 Yeah. I don't know. It's just

00:25:06.200 a chance to be magnanimous that would have

00:25:08.260 costed you absolutely nothing politically.

00:25:10.320 I don't know. Getting Ninchy into the legislature

00:25:12.180 might not be the bad thing some people think.

00:25:14.280 For people who've watched City Hall meetings in

00:25:16.260 Calgary when Ninchy was mayor, he does

00:25:18.400 not endear himself

00:25:20.500 to people when he gets at a podium

00:25:22.220 and starts his eyes closed

00:25:24.500 lecturing.

00:25:26.240 So you're saying this would have been a subtle way to undermine

00:25:28.400 the NDP? Give him a platform.

00:25:30.780 He doesn't exactly

00:25:31.620 impress people. I mean, I haven't

00:25:34.500 seen him in a question period scenario in a

00:25:36.480 room with 80 some other individuals,

00:25:38.460 but seeing him in City Hall, I tell you,

00:25:40.680 he wouldn't have won re-election if your average

00:25:42.300 person would sit through some of those meetings that he

00:25:44.340 would pompously chair. Yeah. 0.97

00:25:46.000 yeah um and then okay i guess we'll just come back to the old disparate three hills by-election

00:25:51.400 for a moment uh it is pretty much the conservative equivalent of edmonton strathcona for the

00:25:58.880 conservative side it's just not going to be lost i remember after the big mass floor crossing of

00:26:04.540 december 2014 uh you know me nathan cooper rick strang we were sitting down and we were looking

00:26:11.700 like the party had just totally

00:26:14.260 gone nuclear meltdown

00:26:16.420 it was a Chernobyl party

00:26:17.780 and we thought okay well

00:26:20.080 worst case scenario

00:26:21.500 we save, what three seats

00:26:24.240 can we save and it was

00:26:26.020 Vermheller-Stettler with

00:26:30.000 Rick Strachman

00:26:30.620 or four, Cypress Medicine

00:26:33.620 with Drew Barnes

00:26:35.440 Strathmore-Brooks with me

00:26:37.380 and Old Zisbury-Three-Hills with Nathan Cooper

00:26:39.940 like it is

00:26:41.700 If the Conservatives won four seats in Alberta, that would probably be it, unless it was an invasion from the right.

00:26:48.460 The only way to lose that seat ever is an invasion from the right.

00:26:52.960 It happened, I guess, twice in our history, 1982, the Western Canada concept, and then when the Wild Rose came through in 2012.

00:27:02.200 That's the only time it's ever changed party hands.

00:27:04.720 It's always from the right.

00:27:05.820 It's never changed hands from the left.

00:27:07.780 I don't think

00:27:10.900 the Republicans or any of the other

00:27:12.940 parties have the muscle to do it

00:27:14.400 but as Corey was saying

00:27:16.900 by-elections are a different creature

00:27:18.520 it's a chance to send a message

00:27:21.060 or throw a grenade without actually

00:27:22.840 changing who is the GOAT

00:27:24.980 Cam Davies I do not think is known

00:27:28.880 very publicly, he's a well-known

00:27:31.060 campaigner behind the scenes

00:27:32.620 but it's behind the scenes, I don't think he has any name recognition

00:27:35.040 but he's a

00:27:36.140 He's a capable campaigner in terms of an organizer.

00:27:39.460 Maybe he can raise some money.

00:27:42.620 You think there's any chance of an upset of any kind?

00:27:47.880 Well, I wouldn't put any money on it, but, you know, if the other side can...

00:27:52.880 First of all, it's going to be up to Mr. Davies to try and persuade anybody else

00:27:57.580 who is of that persuasion to stay out of it.

00:28:00.580 Because if there's another person who wants to talk about Alberta independence

00:28:04.940 to split that vote, small as it is.

00:28:07.320 I mean, it's going to have to...

00:28:10.160 And then he's going to define the ballot question

00:28:12.540 as sending a message.

00:28:14.880 That's probably not what the ballot question

00:28:17.160 is going to be anywhere else in the province.

00:28:20.780 So I would...

00:28:25.040 The safe thing to say is that his chances are low,

00:28:29.180 but they probably would have said that

00:28:31.920 when Gordon Kessler was running.

00:28:34.000 Or Paul Hintman in his by-election.

00:28:37.340 Yeah.

00:28:37.780 What was it in 1982 that made that seat so vulnerable to this?

00:28:44.600 Something that obviously took the whole province by surprise.

00:28:49.820 It's got to be to do with the federal government.

00:28:53.200 The national energy policy at that time was obviously devastating Alberta.

00:28:58.780 The stock picture was the rig going south.

00:29:02.700 And people reacted to that.

00:29:04.140 Well, we actually do have a significant dissatisfaction

00:29:08.880 with the federal government at the moment,

00:29:11.480 because not only is it the fourth counter,

00:29:14.080 the liberals says one, and that could be just,

00:29:16.120 well, that's the way things go,

00:29:17.840 but the overt hostility shown to Alberta values

00:29:23.000 by the people who are now running the country in Ottawa,

00:29:27.060 that somebody could take the magnifying glass, you know,

00:29:29.860 and shine that and create a real hotspot

00:29:31.900 right there in Old Stisbury.

00:29:33.720 So, well, I'm going to say, no,

00:29:35.280 there's probably nothing going to happen

00:29:36.300 that's terribly dramatic.

00:29:38.660 I'm not going to rule it out entirely.

00:29:41.520 The difference with Gord Kessler, too, though,

00:29:43.920 is he was a local boy of an ag family.

00:29:46.180 I mean, his brother, Reg, raised rodeo stock.

00:29:48.380 Their family was famous within Alberta,

00:29:50.200 actually, for that.

00:29:51.760 So that was a candidate with profile

00:29:53.980 amongst the riding as well.

00:29:55.880 And that's a very, I mean,

00:29:56.840 old agricultural college

00:29:58.200 and it's surrounded by farmland.

00:29:59.860 Well, usually saying a candidate makes about a 5% difference.

00:30:03.620 Yeah, but a violation becomes a little different.

00:30:06.420 Not voting for the premier anymore.

00:30:08.500 But again, I mean, the atmosphere of the National Energy Program, without doubt, had an impact on that.

00:30:13.540 But that's another challenge.

00:30:16.180 They picked a person with an agricultural history for the UCP and appointed her in there with some local connections.

00:30:23.220 Cam's going to be parachuting in as an urban guy into a rural riding, which if they're voting on the issue, it won't matter.

00:30:31.600 But if they're looking at the individual, that's going to be a tougher one for him to overcome.

00:30:35.160 He's going to have a harder time speaking one-on-one at the ranch side versus in some of the town sites.

00:30:40.780 But it'll be interesting to watch.

00:30:42.320 I don't see anything but a UCP win being in the cards.

00:30:46.640 But I think if the Republicans play their cards right,

00:30:52.920 they could beat the NDP for a distant second.

00:30:55.440 And that actually would be a contextual victim.

00:30:57.280 Nice symbolic.

00:30:58.440 It gets you on the radar.

00:31:00.420 I don't think we're going to see a Republican in the legislature.

00:31:03.180 It's a highly doubtful.

00:31:04.960 Almost completely out of the cards.

00:31:07.000 I'm not even sure the Republican was a terribly wise choice for that.

00:31:11.240 You know, there are some people who are for independence,

00:31:13.340 but still for the monarchy.

00:31:14.720 other things that say Republican

00:31:17.460 is this American money moving in

00:31:20.940 have we not considered

00:31:22.380 keeping constitutional monarchy but with our own house

00:31:25.140 the Horns Owens or the Vittles Bottoms

00:31:27.420 or the House of Bourbon

00:31:29.220 who knows

00:31:30.120 I'm quite happy with the House of Vittles

00:31:32.600 Satchtober frankly

00:31:33.960 yeah

00:31:34.560 but I could see them

00:31:38.800 oh Janet

00:31:39.400 Windsor's

00:31:44.840 so much more

00:31:45.740 but you know I could see them

00:31:48.860 fighting for second place

00:31:50.660 because that would leave a mark

00:31:51.940 it would allow them to claim

00:31:54.080 give them a mark of credibility

00:31:56.380 well it depends on how ticked

00:31:58.940 people are, as you pointed out Paul Himman too

00:32:00.540 there was a very rural candidate

00:32:02.220 from southern upper and anywhere

00:32:03.660 which is actually kind of an older established

00:32:07.000 neighborhood, although urban voters tend to care less

00:32:08.960 about a little candidate than rural.

00:32:10.740 Yeah, rural voters want

00:32:12.880 a bit more connection. Oh, I know. The only reason

00:32:14.700 I got accepted as a local within

00:32:16.300 10 years is because I bought the local bar.

00:32:19.120 I'd still be an outsider after

00:32:20.980 12 by now if I hadn't

00:32:22.860 at least jumped the queue that way.

00:32:24.680 So you're just buying drinks for 10 years to get...

00:32:27.420 So now we could be called

00:32:28.840 locals by most of them. Some of them are still...

00:32:30.700 I don't know about that new guy. So if you Republicans are

00:32:32.800 watching, here is your tip to win.

00:32:35.240 You're going to have to get everyone in Old 0.94

00:32:36.580 Disbury, Three Hills, drunk.

00:32:38.640 Might work.

00:32:39.300 That's the way I used to join a McDonald's.

00:32:42.700 I heard, yes.

00:32:44.360 That's what the Federation itself was done.

00:32:46.660 Okay.

00:32:48.560 Let's zoom out

00:32:49.860 back to Ottawa and Quebec here.

00:32:52.980 Stephen Gilbo

00:32:53.900 was Minister of Heritage

00:32:55.940 and Minister of Environment, which is

00:32:58.540 what he obviously always really wanted.

00:33:00.560 A former Greenpeace

00:33:02.160 guy, trapezist

00:33:04.700 or whatever.

00:33:06.580 been moved back to heritage heritage has been renamed canadian identity um i'm not sure the

00:33:13.060 difference means there uh well let me lay it out for you canadian identity

00:33:22.660 heritage whenever whenever the name changes it usually means that somebody has got an objective

00:33:30.580 well i mean not too many other ministries change names some were invented like one for

00:33:34.740 Foreign Affairs, intelligence, and so forth.

00:33:37.200 Foreign Affairs changed?

00:33:38.460 Yeah, it did, but that's one.

00:33:40.040 But I think they were trying to send a signal that foreign is a dirty word.

00:33:42.540 We're not foreign, we're global.

00:33:43.740 Well, there you are.

00:33:44.840 So now what's the signal they're sending here?

00:33:46.840 Well, Heritage, gosh, doesn't that just sound like a bunch of old guys standing in front of a flag 0.98

00:33:54.480 and buying the statue of Sir John A. McConnell and moving over to the war memorial

00:33:59.640 to salute the sacrifices of past generations?

00:34:04.160 And that's not what this government is all about.

00:34:07.280 This is a propaganda ministry.

00:34:09.580 And by the way, it has been a propaganda ministry for 10 years

00:34:15.000 because this is the ministry through which this government,

00:34:19.460 this liberal government, roots money to interest groups,

00:34:24.000 to do research, to tell them what they want to hear

00:34:27.120 so that they can then turn around and say,

00:34:30.480 oh, well, we've heard this from the community, now we have to act.

00:34:33.760 So they give money, for example, to people who they call anti-hate groups, who usually turn out to be pretty hateful.

00:34:43.360 They will route the money through heritage to newspaper outlets that are friendly to the government.

00:34:51.340 And if they weren't friendly before, they'll be friendly once the money starts to flow, and they'll stay that way.

00:34:55.900 This was one of our big concerns is the unfair competition from mainstream media, but that gets

00:35:03.340 funded by the government when we don't take funds, we don't have that financial advantage.

00:35:08.300 Now, the thing is, when did it become the job of a government to tell people what kind of people

00:35:16.940 they ought to be? Because that's the point of this Ministry of Canadian Identity. It is

00:35:22.780 to move public opinion in a way that is favorable to the government and to define canadian values

00:35:29.740 as something that the government thinks is valuable and not content to just say well we've

00:35:34.940 got 40 million people and we're going to do our best to be fair to everybody no they want

00:35:39.580 to change those people into thinking a certain way so he is going to the kind of person that

00:35:49.020 that Stephen Gilbeau is, I think, is the kind of person that they are going to want.

00:35:56.000 All about the environment, all about woke values,

00:36:01.900 nothing about nationalism or being strong in defense or any of those things.

00:36:09.960 Certainly not business friendly,

00:36:12.460 but they want a bunch of people who are prepared to come at protest meetings.

00:36:16.220 He's the guy who's going to deliver it.

00:36:19.020 He is an interesting intersection of environmental radicalism and now continuing his earlier role as chief regulator of the Canadian media industry.

00:36:34.160 Let's put up right now a tweet from Stephen Gilbo.

00:36:37.460 he

00:36:38.280 was responding to a western standard

00:36:41.760 story that he

00:36:43.780 obviously has a problem with

00:36:45.100 and it says

00:36:47.080 you know, misinformation

00:36:49.540 and blah blah blah blah blah blah

00:36:50.980 I mean that's

00:36:53.320 sure he can, that's his opinion, he certainly

00:36:55.640 did not like the story

00:36:56.860 but when the

00:36:58.780 you know, when we use the term misinformation

00:37:01.320 like earlier today

00:37:02.420 we mean that's factually incorrect

00:37:05.340 and we should correct it

00:37:06.780 But when the modern progressivist left uses the term misinformation, very often it is implied that it is now the state's role to intervene and correct said misinformation.

00:37:19.780 And when they say misinformation, it's often just information they disagree with. It's not one side of an issue or the other. It's just information they disagree with.

00:37:29.260 and by labeling it misinformation not bad opinion uh they give themselves license to intervene

00:37:36.080 and fix it we already have this to a limited some extent when it comes to foreign interference and

00:37:41.460 elections there was a you know there's a government body that deals with that

00:37:44.780 and on the surface i'm okay with it but a part of it makes me really nervous okay well i'm not sure

00:37:50.900 I don't know

00:37:54.780 I don't mean to be

00:37:55.460 ticking little here

00:37:57.120 but this is not a

00:37:58.860 your run of your mill

00:38:00.080 career politician

00:38:01.280 liberal cabinet minister 0.99

00:38:02.280 this guy is nuts 1.00

00:38:03.840 oh yeah 1.00

00:38:04.500 and he's got the crazy eyes

00:38:05.560 he's got crazy

00:38:06.900 the picture wants to Google

00:38:08.400 is him in his orange jumpsuit

00:38:09.940 manically grinning

00:38:10.900 as the police are escorting him away 0.96

00:38:12.460 he's truly that mad

00:38:13.720 he's an authoritarian

00:38:15.140 he's a hardcore ideologue

00:38:17.720 and now he's in charge of

00:38:19.300 potentially telling us what we're supposed to think and what we're allowed to broadcast.

00:38:22.920 We should be very frightened. I am. I really am. We've got this new age of information sharing,

00:38:31.040 this ability that we're taking advantage of right now with this show and other people are doing on

00:38:35.500 a smaller scale through social media and some with larger. And this man wants to control that.

00:38:41.280 And he might have the ability to do so because he has the support of a prime minister who really

00:38:47.420 didn't campaign on individual freedoms

00:38:49.740 or speech. He didn't rail against it

00:38:51.720 either. But when you empower a nutcase like 0.98

00:38:53.560 Gilbo in a role as

00:38:55.360 he gave him, you've

00:38:57.840 let the dog off the leash. 0.99

00:38:59.900 The Online Harms Act will be

00:39:01.740 back. Oh yeah, and we've got some fights ahead

00:39:03.660 of us. There's no doubt about that.

00:39:05.960 I hope that I have it

00:39:07.720 overwhelmed the Justice Center. I'm sure there'll be

00:39:09.620 some more charter challenges coming in the

00:39:11.620 future as these kind of

00:39:13.680 laws start coming down the pipe.

00:39:16.440 Excellent segue.

00:39:17.420 down the pipe um there again with kind of the intersection of his former and then second and

00:39:26.760 now current portfolio again between environment heritage identity etc whatever whatever you're

00:39:31.780 going to call it um he uh went out of his way to speak to some reporters about pipelines the other

00:39:38.820 week uh you know responding to alberta's demands that i mean energy quarters like you won't keep 1.00

00:39:44.340 Alberta in Canada, let's have Canadian energy infrastructure.

00:39:49.020 Pretty simple demand.

00:39:50.960 I mean, if Quebec was asking for that, he'd done yesterday.

00:39:55.140 But he was saying, no, we don't need more energy pipelines.

00:39:57.820 He was spreading very clear misinformation that the Trans Mountain Pipeline is only at 40% capacity.

00:40:06.040 That is wildly untrue.

00:40:08.000 But he says it anyway.

00:40:09.180 um you know he was getting into there really speaking out of his lane normally a smart cabinet

00:40:16.420 minister gets asked about a portfolio a question that's in a portfolio of another ministry says

00:40:21.220 we got to go ask that minister but that's a pretty reasonable answer generally you're supposed to

00:40:26.280 speak about your own portfolio generally or party matter something like that um then he uh

00:40:33.060 but this guy has or the progressivist left in general call it a climate emergency it's not

00:40:42.520 just one issue among others it's existential we're all gonna die unless we tax the car kind of thing

00:40:50.360 um i we actually already have legislation passed by the ndb and the liberals uh banning essentially

00:40:58.340 oil companies from openly speaking out in ways that could contradict the government's narrative

00:41:03.460 um i am deeply concerned that these guys are going to go further especially now having a

00:41:10.740 radical the most radical of radical environmentalists now in the ministry of

00:41:16.200 information that these guys are going to crack down further on speech that they consider to be

00:41:20.400 misinformation about the so-called climate emergency well you said it cory has just said it

00:41:28.340 I 100% agree. I actually regard this particular appointment and the objectives of that ministry, as they have been redefined over the years, as fundamentally antithetical to what we would consider Canadian interests.

00:41:46.340 they have the bit between their teeth they know they're damn lucky they could be getting a fourth

00:41:50.400 term they almost didn't get it all this stuff would have gone away they were very careful not

00:41:55.280 to talk about it during the campaign and the mainstream media who had significant access to

00:42:01.000 them when it came to questioning them didn't think it was worth bringing up i thought why would you

00:42:05.840 rock the boat this is how your money comes to you and so here we are and i think the public is going

00:42:11.600 be very very surprised to find what comes down the pike and one day you know somebody who's just 0.99

00:42:16.640 a little player guy with who's got his own podcast and puts it out through a small uh company is

00:42:25.920 going to suddenly find well no you we're not taking this one you can't say that what do you

00:42:30.400 mean you always did yeah i know but now we're covered by the online harms act and you know and

00:42:36.160 or Bill 11, or at any rate, there's three of them, Bill 11, Bill 18, and Bill C 63.

00:42:44.900 And they're going to suddenly find that what they've been used to doing, they can't do.

00:42:48.760 And they will all of a sudden wake up and find there's nothing they can do about it.

00:42:53.320 Yes, freedom of speech is in big trouble in this country.

00:42:57.320 All right.

00:42:58.220 Well, let's go to our parting shots.

00:43:00.140 Starting with Corey.

00:43:00.620 Well, speaking of crazed authoritarians, we've got Unifor.

00:43:06.160 that's Canada's largest private sector union head, and the leader of it has been out screaming,

00:43:12.720 demanding that the government crack down on businesses that are leaving Canada to go

00:43:17.920 operate in the United States. You gotta wonder, what do you mean, crack down? I can understand

00:43:22.800 you're getting upset with them leaving, maybe we should look into why they're leaving, but instead

00:43:26.880 he just wants to crack down. What are you talking about? They're forced chaining them to their desks?

00:43:32.320 Are you going to, you know, ban the movement of capital?

00:43:35.800 And it really is something right out of, I love to quote Ayn Rand when I can, Atlas Shrugged.

00:43:39.980 It was directive 10-289 when you were getting in the late stages of that authoritarian regime

00:43:45.140 and capital flight was happening and businesses were leaving and workers were illegalizing mobility of capital and labor.

00:43:53.400 Is that what he's asking for?

00:43:54.940 And I haven't heard the government tell him to stuff it yet.

00:43:57.960 Yeah.

00:43:58.660 All right, Nigel.

00:43:59.480 That's so true.

00:44:00.200 So they should be teaching Ayn Rand in high school in Alberta.

00:44:04.280 Look, there's one thing that we didn't touch on in our earlier discussion

00:44:08.360 about the independence claims of the opposition.

00:44:14.300 But, you know, one of the things, well, you won't have a Canadian passport.

00:44:17.180 And I think, why wouldn't you have a Canadian passport?

00:44:19.540 We have a prime minister who, up until about three weeks ago,

00:44:22.940 had three passports, British, Irish, Canadian.

00:44:26.360 And when he talked to the CBC and they asked him, they said, well, are you going to carry on with three passports?

00:44:32.720 He said, no, I should only have one, really.

00:44:35.200 But an awful lot of MPs do have multiple passports.

00:44:38.380 So MPs have multiple passports.

00:44:41.820 The prime minister has three.

00:44:43.300 But somehow you couldn't possibly have a Canadian passport.

00:44:46.200 And an offer.

00:44:48.080 Surely not.

00:44:49.640 All right.

00:44:50.860 My parting shot is for some parting MPs.

00:44:56.360 The Canadian Taxpayers Federation did the calculations on what the annual and lifetime estimated pension obligations are going to be for defeated and retiring MPs.

00:45:09.400 I know it pretty well. I used to be the guy doing the math when I worked there in an earlier part of my career.

00:45:15.480 110 MPs are not returning to Parliament, either because they retired or they were defeated, etc.

00:45:21.060 um there's 110 columns of information you can look through uh so i'll just pick on one the

00:45:28.760 biggest one that's justin trudeau he uh is eligible for two pensions one as just being

00:45:33.860 an mp and then another as prime minister and his is estimated for a lifetime total of 8.4

00:45:40.120 million dollars now to be fair uh that the pension plan was reformed during the harper government

00:45:47.260 number. The CTF

00:45:49.480 would always do these calculations at the election of

00:45:51.140 everyone who's defeated. I said, well, let's do

00:45:53.280 the pension calculations for everyone who's still there

00:45:55.200 and then email everyone in their constituency

00:45:57.120 what that number is. And it sparked

00:45:59.300 a big political

00:46:01.160 problem in the Kennedy government.

00:46:02.880 In the

00:46:05.280 Harper government. And they came

00:46:07.240 around to some modest reform. It's still

00:46:09.440 a very rich and excellent pension

00:46:11.200 plan, but the contribution rates

00:46:13.300 used to be something like

00:46:14.280 for every dollar

00:46:15.740 M&P put in, taxpayers put in

00:46:18.340 like 32. It was the craziest pension

00:46:20.460 plan in the world. Now it's roughly

00:46:22.320 dollar for dollar. It's still a very good

00:46:24.380 pension plan to have,

00:46:26.460 but it's not nearly as

00:46:28.500 gross on the contribution rates anymore. So it's

00:46:30.380 worth pointing that out that it's not worth

00:46:31.900 you can get a little upset over it, but it's

00:46:34.520 not anywhere near as

00:46:36.540 outrageous as it used to be.

00:46:38.700 So, that's it for me.

00:46:41.080 Nigel, Corey, thank you

00:46:42.620 much and thank all of you for joining us on the pipeline today uh remember the western standard

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00:47:21.700 today. God bless the West.

00:47:39.820 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - May 22, 2025

Anti-independence politicians push misinformation

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