Western Standard - BREAKING LIVE： O’Toole ousted as Tory leader

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Good morning. It's February 2nd, 2022. Welcome to a special episode of Triggered. I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:41.860 I'm joined unusually with our publisher, Derek Fildebrand, because we have news breaking faster

00:00:48.160 than we can cover it in our regularly scheduled show. So thanks for coming on. We got a lot to

00:00:52.780 talk about. First appearance on Triggered. Happy to be here, Corey. Great. Yes. So I just want to

00:00:57.360 cover what we'll be doing you know we do typically do this show every morning monday to friday at

00:01:01.980 11 30 a.m but of course at the western standard when news breaks such as yesterday when everything

00:01:06.960 went wild and our man on the ground james finkbeiner was down there in the coots crossing

00:01:10.620 he gave us live streaming coverage of what was happening he's still there right now by the way

00:01:14.680 and we're going to check in with him a little later today i'll have another guest zane novak

00:01:18.460 and we're going to talk about the leadership uh review coming up for jason kenney but what's

00:01:23.060 immediately breaking right now. It has just hit the news. Aaron O'Toole is out. A majority of

00:01:28.460 his caucus, a strong one, is at a vote today and he just got blown out. He's done. We are into a

00:01:36.420 federal leadership race. Tell us about it. Well, geez, I'm not the news guy, but you know, the

00:01:44.060 details, we knew this came out, I think it was Monday, around Monday evening, word came out,

00:01:51.720 I think it was Global News, I could be wrong, or CTV.

00:01:56.480 Bob Fyfe, whoever he is.

00:01:58.340 I think it was CTV.

00:01:59.240 Yeah, so maybe CTV.

00:02:00.260 They broke the story originally that 35 members of the Conservative Caucus,

00:02:05.700 so over the threshold of 20% required, had signed a letter demanding a vote of the caucus

00:02:11.480 that would trigger a vote of the caucus on dumping Aaron O'Toole as Conservative leader.

00:02:18.720 you know O'Toole

00:02:21.060 put out some statements saying

00:02:23.220 oh my god these are dangerous right wingers

00:02:25.440 if I'm not the leader anymore

00:02:26.580 the conservative party will be conservative

00:02:28.520 how terrible that would be

00:02:30.060 I don't think that was messaging that

00:02:32.960 particularly endeared him to other members of the caucus

00:02:35.180 besides those who had signed a letter

00:02:36.720 then he was waffling

00:02:39.380 around telling members of the

00:02:41.180 conservative caucus purportedly

00:02:42.420 that if you just keep me as conservative

00:02:45.120 leader maybe I'll switch our policies

00:02:47.240 back. I can change. He can change again. He ran as a red Tory in the first leadership race,

00:02:52.760 the one that Andrew Scheer won. He ran as the true blue conservative at the time that Aaron O'Toole

00:03:00.120 won. And then as soon as he was leader, he dumped on trumped up charges, dumped guys like Derek

00:03:06.360 Sloan. He dumped Pierre Poliev as finance critic, brought in a carbon tax breaking,

00:03:13.320 has written, pledged never, ever to do so.

00:03:15.440 He put a bloody thing of writing.

00:03:17.180 Yeah, it was pretty clear.

00:03:18.360 There were pictures of him.

00:03:19.460 Brings in, proposes a carbon tax

00:03:21.080 that's even worse than Justin Trudeau's,

00:03:23.460 loses the election,

00:03:25.040 actually loses some seats,

00:03:26.540 even over Andrew Scheer.

00:03:28.340 Then flailing in the wind here,

00:03:32.300 I guess the trucker protest,

00:03:34.060 the Freedom Convoy was the final straw.

00:03:36.340 Just didn't take a strong stand one way or another,

00:03:38.940 blowing in the wind.

00:03:39.980 Eventually his hand was forced

00:03:41.040 and he sort of tepidly welcomed it-ish.

00:03:44.280 And now he's got, he had conservative MPs accusing him of lying to slander them and bring them down.

00:03:50.200 This has finally led to a leadership vote.

00:03:52.460 And the reports coming out of Ottawa, unconfirmed, are that he's been dumped by 61% of the caucus, 73 to 45, absolute blowout.

00:04:02.220 Aaron O'Toole, ding dong, the Liberal's dead.

00:04:06.260 Yeah, what a crazy tumultuous time.

00:04:07.980 And I think the main thing out of all of those, if a leader's going to come in, you're going to have a strategy, you're going to try and do things.

00:04:13.320 you have to win elections or you'll have to make gains.

00:04:15.640 So he watered down policy, he flip-flopped,

00:04:18.140 he insulted his own caucus, but you know what?

00:04:20.320 They will accept it if you win seats out of it.

00:04:21.980 I mean, that's the goal in the end.

00:04:22.980 If you'd come in and even get made gains on Trudeau,

00:04:25.760 I think you'd be okay, but he compromised so many principles

00:04:29.140 and then still lost, why are you gonna keep this man?

00:04:32.860 He's not showing any more indications

00:04:34.200 of better leadership, he's not endearing himself

00:04:35.780 to Canadians and he's taken off the caucus.

00:04:38.240 But still, I never expected it to happen

00:04:39.800 so suddenly and decisively.

00:04:41.380 But also if you wanna take the party to the left,

00:04:43.320 You should attempt to gain a mandate from the members to do so when you're running.

00:04:47.540 I mean, the leadership race where he defeated Peter McKay, he said, I'm the true blue Tory.

00:04:52.240 Peter McKay is this liberal light red Tory.

00:04:55.620 I'm the guy.

00:04:56.260 Now, anyone paying attention knew that it was an act. 1.00

00:04:58.780 He's always been a red. 0.97

00:05:00.040 He's always been, I mean, if you're being charitable in terminology, he's a moderate conservative. 0.99

00:05:04.280 So closer to the liberals than he is to the conservative base.

00:05:07.340 It was purely tactical.

00:05:08.540 Like many of us could see through it, but enough conservative members bought it.

00:05:13.320 You know, he got the down ballot support from Leslie Lewis and Derek Sloan before throwing both of them under the bus.

00:05:19.060 Leslie Lewis, actually, the popular vote in the leadership race is actually second place.

00:05:24.640 She beat up Peter McKay, yet she's been put on the back benches, possibly because she's a threat.

00:05:30.580 She's also suspected to be unvaccinated. 0.97

00:05:33.360 That's one reason.

00:05:34.460 But he said that had nothing to do with it.

00:05:37.180 His leadership has been a disaster from start to finish.

00:05:39.300 But you're right. If you're going to move the party to the left, one, you should probably have a mandate.

00:05:44.560 You should not have the opposite mandate from the members.

00:05:48.060 Two, you shouldn't lie about things in writing with written pledges and then break them black and white.

00:05:53.260 And then two, well, you have to have victory to show for it.

00:05:56.440 And he actually lost seats.

00:05:58.020 Yeah, well, and the only way conservatives can win.

00:05:59.740 I mean, we have a more difficult path than progressives typically.

00:06:04.100 I mean, they are sort of natural followers.

00:06:06.100 They stick together. They stand to the leader.

00:06:08.020 Conservatives, a leader has to find that sweet spot.

00:06:10.800 And it's all a very tough one between the small Cs, the social conservatives, and the libertarian element, that sort, and even the red Tories to a degree.

00:06:19.340 And you've got to somehow manage to keep them under 110.

00:06:21.400 And that takes strong leadership to hold that coalition together.

00:06:25.360 Because to be honest, with those sort of three factions, you don't have enough to win elections.

00:06:29.640 So you won't be able to keep it together.

00:06:31.480 And O'Toole, he managed to take them all off.

00:06:34.160 Well, you've got three broad ideological factions in the party.

00:06:37.420 But then you've got significant regional factions.

00:06:39.560 You've got Quebec nationalists.

00:06:42.280 You've got central and eastern, like Atlantic and Ontario,

00:06:47.420 sort of red Tories.

00:06:49.940 Or I shouldn't say red Tories,

00:06:51.680 because I shouldn't be speaking ideologically in this sense.

00:06:54.560 But, you know, they just see themselves as upper Canada.

00:06:56.500 They're Canada.

00:06:57.220 And then you've got Western regionalist populists,

00:07:00.620 some of which kind of go in the Reform Party direction,

00:07:03.680 which is trying to change Ottawa.

00:07:05.420 You know, now today, I think many of them have forgotten trying to even change Ottawa.

00:07:09.740 It's now about getting out.

00:07:11.000 So you've got significant regional cleavages within the Conservative Party.

00:07:15.460 And then those massive ideological factions, the libertarians, the social conservatives, the red Tories.

00:07:23.340 And then there's kind of the nondescript fourth faction, I would say, which is just the partisan jersey wearers.

00:07:28.800 They don't care about policy and ideology.

00:07:31.840 They're just going to wear the blue shirt.

00:07:33.380 It's like the Toronto Maple Leafs. 0.98

00:07:34.240 It doesn't matter how shitty the team is. 0.93

00:07:36.060 They're the blue shirt, and they're going to wear the blue jersey no matter what. 0.96

00:07:39.160 O'Toole had started with the blues and some of the reds.

00:07:44.080 And, well, there wasn't a libertarian.

00:07:45.900 The libertarians largely have no place in the party anymore.

00:07:48.020 But he started with them and then the partisans.

00:07:52.860 So he becomes leader.

00:07:53.680 He's got the partisans, the jersey wearers.

00:07:55.780 He's got the red Tories.

00:07:56.700 He's got the blue Tories. 0.95

00:07:57.760 He immediately throws the blues, the SoCons, overboard, immediately throws them out.

00:08:02.500 And then by losing and being an incompetent leader, I think he's left, he lost a lot of the partisans. 0.93

00:08:09.800 He was left with just sort of a smaller red base.

00:08:12.480 And he just increasingly said, if you're not with me, you are against me.

00:08:15.760 If you don't support my leadership, you have no place in the party.

00:08:18.200 And a lot of people said, fine.

00:08:19.760 If it's you or me, I'm picking you.

00:08:21.720 It went to a ballot.

00:08:22.360 And somebody pointed out, and you've worked in caucuses before that have been tumultuous with the leadership.

00:08:25.860 But a difference, again, when we compare Jason, Kenny's travails, which are coming up pretty soon here with this leadership review.

00:08:32.060 I mean, he knows, Kenny knows.

00:08:34.180 One of the things, if you want to wrangle it and try and avoid getting shut out, is make sure it is not a secret ballot.

00:08:39.500 Make sure a person has to hold their hand, stand up and be counted.

00:08:43.060 O'Toole didn't have that.

00:08:43.880 This was a secret ballot among caucus.

00:08:45.520 You couldn't intimidate.

00:08:46.500 You couldn't push.

00:08:47.380 So these guys voted their conscience.

00:08:49.280 And I thought it was going to be at least somewhat close.

00:08:51.640 But it was just a blowout.

00:08:53.060 He clearly is alienated to a large amount of his stuff.

00:08:55.360 So the reason they got a secret ballot and the Alberta United Conservative Party caucus did not is something called the Reform Act.

00:09:01.200 That was a piece of legislation passed as a private member's bill by a conservative MP, Michael Chong.

00:09:06.240 He's actually kind of a moderate red Tory in Ontario.

00:09:08.660 I can't help but like him because he's thoughtful.

00:09:12.440 I disagree with him on a lot of policy issues, but he's thoughtful, intelligent.

00:09:16.760 He's principled. Not the same principles as us, I guess, necessarily, but he's one of the better ones.

00:09:22.000 So he brought this in, and this gives the caucus the power to trigger a vote on the leader of a secret ballot vote if you get 20% of the caucus signing a letter.

00:09:32.160 Compared to Alberta, there is no rules around this.

00:09:35.060 There's no rules whatsoever.

00:09:36.960 It means that leadership fights in Alberta and in places where you don't have these kinds of rules, they're much more drawn out.

00:09:42.700 Jason Kenney has essentially been bludgeoned walking around with tons of daggers in him for a year and a half now.

00:09:49.740 one way or another he will and he'll probably not be the premier

00:09:52.480 in a year and a half from now

00:09:54.280 maybe in a few months he won't be

00:09:55.880 but it's a much more drawn out process because there's nothing formal

00:09:58.340 for a caucus to remove someone if they've lost confidence

00:10:00.440 because when they tried to have a vote of

00:10:02.160 non-confidence Kenny in the UCP caucus

00:10:04.240 Kenny said fine but it's no secret

00:10:06.480 ballot and in that

00:10:08.480 case I mean these are politicians looking up for their jobs

00:10:10.440 very few are going to

00:10:12.460 stand up and just raise their hand without a secret

00:10:14.440 ballot it's really difficult to remove a leader

00:10:16.480 but with that secret ballot

00:10:17.580 But O'Toole was just massacred.

00:10:20.660 Yeah, so moving on beyond that, O'Toole's out.

00:10:22.760 He's done.

00:10:23.440 One of the people we know who won't run for the leadership now is John Williams,

00:10:27.140 because if you are going to be the interim leader, you can't run for the leadership.

00:10:30.260 But that still leaves an entire caucus and perhaps people outside of the caucus.

00:10:33.560 I mean, we've opened up a whole Pandora's box now of potential leaders of the Conservative Party.

00:10:39.060 As you said earlier, Polyev is the first one that pops to everybody's mind.

00:10:41.920 I mean, he's been, even when demoted farther from finance critic portfolio,

00:10:45.660 was still the most effective leader of the opposition we've seen in months.

00:10:49.120 Well, and O'Toole was forced to put him back into finance.

00:10:51.500 When O'Toole lost the election, like if O'Toole had won the election, 0.54

00:10:54.320 Polyev probably wouldn't even have been in the cabinet.

00:10:56.500 He would have just completely sidelined these guys, 0.99

00:10:58.300 or he would have given them some bullshit job like 0.98

00:11:00.460 Minister of Science and Innovation and Widgets or something. 0.98

00:11:04.220 Some associate ministry or something.

00:11:05.880 Yeah, something, nothing.

00:11:07.180 But he was forced to put him back into finance because he's so high profile,

00:11:09.940 liked by the members.

00:11:11.380 He had to put him back.

00:11:13.080 I think without a doubt, if Polyev runs, he's the front runner here.

00:11:17.140 Like he's, he has cultivated a serious following among the membership and a lot of people who have drifted away from the Conservative Party of Canada over time.

00:11:24.880 Like a lot of PPC style voters like him.

00:11:28.300 I think he'd be hard to beat.

00:11:29.460 This gives an opportunity for rejuvenation.

00:11:31.820 I mean, the people who had left the party, this is when they might reconsider coming back.

00:11:35.720 But it depends on who leads it, who campaigns.

00:11:37.960 They, you know, again, PPC supporters might get behind a particular candidate and move.

00:11:42.540 Maybe Derek Sloan's going to try and make a return, though.

00:11:45.040 It was his own caucus that pushed him out of there.

00:11:46.840 And I don't think he has enough of a base of support, but it'll make for a lively race.

00:11:51.240 He could win, but if he's allowed to run, remember, the Conservative Party of Canada will disqualify people who they don't approve of.

00:11:57.680 But if Derek Sloan was approved to run, he's allowed on the ballot.

00:12:01.360 He'd probably play a similar-ish role as he played in the last leadership race, where Aaron O'Toole was actively courting him for down-ballot votes.

00:12:07.740 once he knew Sloan would get knocked off,

00:12:10.320 kind of as that SOCON standard bearer.

00:12:13.760 He could play an influence.

00:12:14.860 But even if it's not Derek Sloan,

00:12:16.300 there's always going to be someone in that role.

00:12:18.640 The thing is, you don't want to be that guy. 0.79

00:12:20.460 That guy always has their throat cut.

00:12:22.540 Because Aaron O'Toole played,

00:12:24.560 Derek Sloan played that role.

00:12:25.700 And as soon as the leadership was over

00:12:27.220 and O'Toole had his down ballot votes,

00:12:30.200 O'Toole cut his throat, threw him overboard.

00:12:32.140 Before him, you had Brad Trost,

00:12:33.980 who played the same role.

00:12:35.400 And as soon as Andrew Scheer

00:12:36.720 had his down-ballot votes, he cut

00:12:38.820 his throat, threw him overboard.

00:12:40.680 Some compromise can be

00:12:42.860 made by a good leader, though. I mean, Harper managed to pull it

00:12:44.780 together, for example, even though he didn't,

00:12:46.700 he respected the social conservative

00:12:48.600 set. He never empowered them, he never put them in the front,

00:12:50.960 but he at least treated them with respect so

00:12:52.740 they could feel comfortable remaining

00:12:54.540 supportive within that group. He didn't do anything for them

00:12:56.680 at all, which, I mean, it's odd that

00:12:58.660 there's a group of voters who would support a party

00:13:00.540 who don't actually do anything for them,

00:13:02.700 but I suppose most social conservatives

00:13:04.640 made the calculation that, well,

00:13:06.200 they won't do anything against us.

00:13:09.580 They'll at least respect us

00:13:11.080 and let us be quiet and sit in the back

00:13:13.280 corner. Whereas

00:13:14.580 Scheer, and to an even much greater degree

00:13:17.140 O'Toole, actively push them out.

00:13:19.800 So, among other members

00:13:21.160 speaking of the progressive set of the

00:13:23.100 caucus, an interesting commons, Michelle Rempel

00:13:25.160 is a name that we're going to see coming up, I would 1.00

00:13:26.980 suspect. And whereas she's

00:13:29.120 a Calgarian conservative,

00:13:31.140 but she's increasingly been

00:13:33.080 taking on more of, to be blunt,

00:13:34.860 the virtue signaling woke

00:13:36.540 approach with things

00:13:38.240 it's been kind of difficult to pin down where Michelle

00:13:40.720 sits from where she was initially

00:13:42.200 one day I really like her

00:13:43.720 she authored the Buffalo Declaration 1.00

00:13:46.120 I mean that was good, kick ass hard 1.00

00:13:48.820 stuff, was willing to take

00:13:50.860 a big risk, the mainstream media absolutely 1.00

00:13:52.900 hated that thing, went after her for it

00:13:54.960 so days like that I'm like wow

00:13:56.920 if I'm ever to

00:13:58.960 vote for a federalist again

00:14:00.240 maybe her, but then the next day

00:14:03.100 uh you know she's putting uh apologizing for being uh white white privileged and she's putting um

00:14:10.860 uh her uh her adject her pronouns in the end and so she's just kind of all over i mean she's kind

00:14:20.380 of cozy up to the gun guys i like that she's but but it's it's been inconsistent yeah so i mean

00:14:25.980 again i mean personally i think as i said you gotta try and get that large tent but you've

00:14:30.380 You've got to be consistent to be able to grab it.

00:14:32.040 And if you're just bouncing around like a ping pong ball,

00:14:33.900 what you're going to do is alienate more than you gather.

00:14:35.540 Yeah, you build compromise between groups and bring a coalition.

00:14:38.180 Every political party of any success is a coalition of different kinds of people

00:14:41.700 and different interests and policies.

00:14:44.360 But you have to be consistent.

00:14:45.300 And that's the problem with O'Toole.

00:14:46.300 O'Toole wasn't, you know, I think a red toward probably could lead a conservative coalition, 0.60

00:14:49.940 but they had to be consistent and respectful of the other parts. 0.82

00:14:53.020 O'Toole was not.

00:14:53.680 He was disrespectful towards libertarians,

00:14:55.560 disrespectful to physical conservatives,

00:14:57.120 disrespectful to social conservatives, 0.71

00:14:59.260 disrespectful to Westerners,

00:15:01.240 and actively pushed others out.

00:15:03.000 Well, he even tried to push a senator out,

00:15:04.600 and he failed.

00:15:05.280 That was a big thing, you know,

00:15:06.200 not to forget about it.

00:15:07.040 That was from, I believe.

00:15:08.860 Was it from?

00:15:09.380 No, Batters.

00:15:09.980 Denise Batters. 1.00

00:15:10.660 Yes.

00:15:11.080 And yeah, she spoke up, 0.87

00:15:12.740 and he tried to remove a Senate 0.83

00:15:14.220 from the Senate caucus,

00:15:15.040 and his own Senate caucus said,

00:15:16.180 you go get stuffed. 0.85

00:15:17.220 Again, it just was another cut to his legs.

00:15:19.520 You aren't in control of this party.

00:15:22.560 And he took a beating.

00:15:23.940 I think that one internally

00:15:24.920 cost him a lot more than Canadians realize.

00:15:26.600 Sure, no room for disagreement with him.

00:15:28.700 when there was a member of the Conservative Party's National Council

00:15:31.080 who said that we should have a...

00:15:33.480 He didn't even say O'Toole needs to go.

00:15:34.640 He says the members need to have an earlier vote on

00:15:36.840 if we have a leader sometime before the next election

00:15:40.500 rather than this scheduled one, which is not a realistic timeline.

00:15:45.480 He had the guy punted.

00:15:47.480 Denise Bathers was critical of his leadership,

00:15:50.060 attempted and failed to fire her from the Conservative Senate caucus,

00:15:53.680 utterly unwilling to listen to criticism.

00:15:57.180 Most Canadian leaders, including provincial leaders, don't take well to criticism.

00:16:01.980 They don't take well to dissent.

00:16:03.500 But Erin O'Toole was particularly sensitive to it.

00:16:06.460 A name I'm seeing coming up from some of the commenters, actually, is Candace Bergen and Ronna Ambrose, of course.

00:16:11.960 Those two names.

00:16:12.660 Actually, before we go to them, we should talk about Rumpel's role in this.

00:16:14.940 I was surprised to see she publicly backed O'Toole.

00:16:18.340 She said she's voting to keep him.

00:16:20.520 I was surprised by that.

00:16:22.020 I mean, if nothing else

00:16:24.680 I thought maybe she'd stay quiet

00:16:25.840 I wonder what the secret ballot actually looks like

00:16:27.840 That's all speculation

00:16:29.680 I can't say

00:16:30.720 But either way, she publicly came out and said she wanted to keep him remaining

00:16:34.100 And

00:16:34.640 And that would probably hurt her 0.99

00:16:37.720 In a future leadership race

00:16:39.500 I don't think the tool is particularly popular

00:16:41.820 With Conservative members right now

00:16:43.040 It doesn't help, but those things get forgotten pretty quickly

00:16:45.100 She was saying, well look, I was trying to keep party unity

00:16:46.820 It didn't happen, I respect the vote of the caucus

00:16:48.900 It doesn't disqualify her

00:16:50.540 Yeah, and we'll move forward, yeah.

00:16:53.780 And then, yeah, so

00:16:54.740 Candace Bergen, though, I mean, a lot of people are really,

00:16:56.900 I hear that a lot, I even saw a couple,

00:16:58.620 somebody says it's Danielle Smith, but people 0.57

00:17:00.760 really seem to be eager to see maybe a female 0.97

00:17:02.760 face as the leader of the next conservative party.

00:17:04.820 Well, then let's talk about Leslyn Lewis. And we've got Leslyn Lewis as well.

00:17:06.680 Leslyn Lewis came out of

00:17:08.460 absolutely nowhere last time. 1.00

00:17:10.660 Media did pay attention to her because she's a black woman 1.00

00:17:12.640 and that means she's not allowed to be a conservative. 0.99

00:17:15.460 But that's just, unfortunately

00:17:16.860 for the media, not the case.

00:17:18.000 uh she came out of absolutely nowhere i have to admit even i didn't take her candidacy

00:17:22.460 all that seriously because she wasn't even an mp she's not like a big business person or something 0.98

00:17:27.380 uh she'd just been a candidate i think she was a lawyer but she came out of nowhere she beat 0.99

00:17:31.940 peter mckay for the popular vote uh she won alberta saskatchewan and uh for sure but she 0.95

00:17:39.980 she did really well in the west for a new entrant who hadn't been in in the house of parliament

00:17:44.160 it hadn't been in caucus. I mean, kind of a political, a great resume as a lawyer and many

00:17:48.740 other things behind her, but a political neophyte, you know, you don't have that structure. You don't

00:17:52.780 have that to pull it off as she did. But she actually, if it wasn't for the bizarre voting

00:17:58.160 system of the Conservative Party of Canada, it's quite possible she would have won because she

00:18:02.140 beat Peter McKay on the third ballot, but because Western votes don't count as much as Eastern

00:18:07.500 ballots, this weighted voting in the Conservative leadership, that meant that even though she had

00:18:11.540 more votes than Peter McKay to proceed to the final ballot. The point system meant that she

00:18:16.460 was dropped. If she would have proceeded to the final ballot, especially because, like, O'Toole,

00:18:22.040 people would never vote for McKay, and McKay's people would have never voted for O'Toole,

00:18:25.860 she probably would have actually become the leader if it had not been for the system that

00:18:29.940 disadvantages Western voters, members of the Conservative Party, which disproportionately

00:18:34.100 voted for. I would be shocked if we do not see her in this race. Well, here's another question.

00:18:38.320 you think McKay might make another kick at it?

00:18:40.240 No.

00:18:40.800 He's pretty dejected.

00:18:42.080 I mean, he's been, you know,

00:18:43.180 he's put decades of this in

00:18:44.920 and he keeps kind of being, you know,

00:18:46.720 always the bridesmaid, never the bride

00:18:48.620 sort of circumstance.

00:18:49.380 He's there in the main crowd, he's in front,

00:18:51.200 but he just can't get that final leap. 1.00

00:18:54.040 And also, you know, O'Toole was dumb 0.99

00:18:55.440 because he was running as a liberal. 0.99

00:18:57.320 Now, to Peter McKay's credit,

00:18:59.760 he ran as a moderate center red Tory.

00:19:03.480 He ran as that and lost as that.

00:19:05.640 O'Toole was a moderate center red Tory

00:19:07.420 who ran as the true blue conservative.

00:19:09.800 So at least Peter McKay

00:19:11.380 was being much more honest about this.

00:19:13.540 He was saying, this is who I am.

00:19:15.100 And that's fine.

00:19:15.760 I think there's obviously a place

00:19:17.560 for those people in a mainstream conservative party.

00:19:20.020 I'm not saying they shouldn't be there.

00:19:21.640 I'm just saying that you shouldn't lie

00:19:23.200 about being a hardcore conservative if you're not.

00:19:25.840 I've got more respect for an open liberal

00:19:28.440 than a closet one.

00:19:30.180 Just come out and say what you are.

00:19:31.860 That's fine.

00:19:32.560 We know who you are and you're being honest.

00:19:34.260 Yeah, it's when they come in to campaign right,

00:19:36.320 govern left.

00:19:36.780 we see that in municipal politics all the time because they can bypass the whole party system

00:19:40.900 uh but uh you know when you see o'toole doing it for example again it might have won him the

00:19:47.680 leadership race in the short run but cost him in the long run and now he's he's out um but yeah

00:19:54.660 some other people saying no more career politicians brad wall there's another interesting name coming

00:19:58.240 out of the woodwork so i don't think he will i mean i'll indicate i know a lot of the people

00:20:02.580 close to Brad Wall here.

00:20:04.560 The guy bought a ranch, and he's

00:20:06.520 doing his

00:20:08.560 best impression of being John

00:20:10.440 Dutton on Yellowstone.

00:20:12.080 He likes being... Hey, even his son, just a

00:20:14.560 side note, he's got songs, he plays

00:20:16.480 blues songs that were played on Yellowstone, just to throw that

00:20:18.560 out for Brad. Yeah, look it up, Brad

00:20:20.520 Wall's son and his good blues stuff.

00:20:22.580 He's quite high profile. So, yeah, Brad

00:20:24.440 Wall, honestly, I think

00:20:26.620 if he's going to lead a party, he should be a Western party.

00:20:29.940 I think he... 0.97

00:20:31.180 Honestly, Westerners, I don't think, are going to win no matter what. 1.00

00:20:33.560 Even if you had a good guy like Pierre Polyev is actually a Calgarian. 1.00

00:20:38.820 Yeah, he straddles a good balance.

00:20:40.400 I think that's part of where that name comes up.

00:20:41.800 But I don't think, we had a Calgarian before. 0.55

00:20:44.460 I just don't even think a well-intentioned, Western-friendly leader 0.96

00:20:48.960 who supports all of our stuff is actually still going to do it for us, 0.72

00:20:52.040 just because the structures of Confederation are such that you have to cater to the East. 0.73

00:20:55.220 It's the system, and I mean, that's fodder for many, many shows 0.65

00:20:57.920 that will all be going on about for a long time.

00:20:59.560 but as far as this particular party goes

00:21:01.880 and who's going to win this race

00:21:03.160 Brad Wall would be popular

00:21:03.820 but I don't think

00:21:04.660 I'd be surprised

00:21:05.580 somebody just said

00:21:07.140 what about Brent Wilson

00:21:08.060 I haven't seen much interest out of him

00:21:10.520 into putting his foot into the ring

00:21:12.320 I spoke to him the other day

00:21:14.180 on the show

00:21:15.340 I would have thrown that at him

00:21:16.360 if we'd seen it

00:21:16.980 if we'd known that this broke so fast

00:21:18.400 I suspect not

00:21:19.880 he'd be an interesting one

00:21:20.900 I won't disclose the details

00:21:23.080 of a conversation I had with him once

00:21:24.300 but once I did ask him

00:21:25.940 to consider running for a certain office

00:21:28.100 I won't say what

00:21:29.340 And he said, Derek, I'm a businessman. 0.99

00:21:31.840 I've got way better things to do than to deal with, you know, picking up dog shit in the park. 0.98

00:21:37.280 Well, and his Twitter history looks a heck of a lot like mine, which means if he ran for something, it would just be a barrage of all the things he said. 0.97

00:21:47.600 Well, I don't know.

00:21:48.780 Actually, I think there is a space potentially for someone who is genuinely authentic and open.

00:21:54.440 But you can't be half and half.

00:21:55.820 You can't do the Aaron O'Toole thing where you're hyper-scripted, but you're pretending to be a normal human being with a pulse.

00:22:02.520 Brett Wilson, he'd be kind of a throw-of-the-dice candidate.

00:22:07.620 I mean, he can come up big, or you get snake eyes.

00:22:13.260 He'd be controversial and plain-spoken.

00:22:15.640 And the Canadian system doesn't really reward people who actually say what they're thinking.

00:22:20.680 Yeah, well, and he's not a politician.

00:22:22.180 I mean, in the internal wrangling in games you have to play, you need a structure, you need things in place before you can be a serious contender.

00:22:30.600 And he's never even started on that line.

00:22:32.440 I mean, nothing's impossible, but I'd say that's exceedingly unlikely.

00:22:35.200 But I see, I think some of the reasons some of those people are putting that out in the comments, as another had said, no more career politicians.

00:22:41.560 They want something fresh and they want to see, you know, a new name pop up.

00:22:45.360 I mean, I saw that and we'll have those discussions probably soon.

00:22:47.600 but in Alberta when we look at all the names of potential

00:22:49.900 contenders for Kenny's throne

00:22:51.800 if he's pushed aside are all 0.99

00:22:54.020 retreads who have been 1.00

00:22:54.940 we are not seeing new ones yet

00:22:57.740 anyways these races I mean sometimes

00:22:59.460 somebody can come out of the woodworks we never thought of

00:23:01.720 here's the thing everyone says

00:23:03.240 they don't want career politicians but most

00:23:05.800 people vote for career politicians

00:23:07.140 they know what they're doing

00:23:08.420 because it's such a perilous game 1.00

00:23:11.960 and there's so much shit that 0.98

00:23:13.700 you've got to know how to navigate it and there's a reason 0.99

00:23:15.960 that career politicians

00:23:16.880 are career politicians.

00:23:18.820 Those are guys who have figured out

00:23:19.820 how to navigate these things.

00:23:21.320 I don't like them.

00:23:22.380 I want to see someone with business experience.

00:23:24.380 I want to, you know, my kind of candidate,

00:23:26.680 that's why I like Brett Wilson.

00:23:28.340 I want to see someone who has built a business

00:23:30.300 who understands finance and how these things work.

00:23:33.360 We haven't had a prime minister

00:23:34.820 who's actually run a business.

00:23:38.200 Oh my God, I can't think of one.

00:23:42.120 I mean, Brian Mulroney at least was a private sector lawyer,

00:23:44.000 but I don't think he was running a business.

00:23:46.880 Kachin was a lawyer.

00:23:49.360 Pearson was a bureaucrat.

00:23:51.420 Harper is a think tank sort of guy.

00:23:55.320 Diefenbaker was a career politician and before that a lawyer,

00:23:58.420 but he was a politician most of his life.

00:24:00.900 Lucille Laurent politician.

00:24:02.280 That doesn't bode well for what we're hoping for.

00:24:03.860 So we have to go back to probably before the First World War.

00:24:07.000 I don't know if we've actually ever had a businessman as prime minister.

00:24:10.420 Ever.

00:24:11.160 But it's different skill sets.

00:24:12.560 You know, I mean, you've got to know how to play the game

00:24:14.860 and a businessman looks at things differently,

00:24:17.000 a politician has to look at it.

00:24:18.880 I mean, in order to win, it's a different skill set.

00:24:21.460 Yeah.

00:24:22.420 So, yeah, we're breaking in on this special,

00:24:24.480 though, a whole lot of discussion.

00:24:25.440 This is moving along.

00:24:26.160 We will move on to the regular scheduled show pretty soon.

00:24:28.960 Yeah, well, you just...

00:24:31.020 Well, actually, we're probably almost ready

00:24:33.020 for your regular show.

00:24:34.460 I'll bugger out when that happens.

00:24:35.700 Getting into it, yeah.

00:24:36.560 But, I mean, this was well worth going into

00:24:37.840 because, I mean, it's breaking right now.

00:24:39.660 And just that reminder to everybody,

00:24:41.040 I mean, when news breaks at The Standard,

00:24:42.680 We'll grab poor Nico and shove him behind the computers early and get him running things.

00:24:47.060 He's been doing great and pulling up those images for us and stuff.

00:24:49.900 And we'll get in here and cover it just as we did yesterday when the convoy exploded.

00:24:53.740 We've still got James Finkbeiner down there.

00:24:55.200 Yeah, we broke in out of nowhere when our guy on the ground, James in coots there, the police were lining up, getting ready to move in.

00:25:05.360 We immediately went live here.

00:25:06.900 We stayed on for a couple of hours.

00:25:08.480 um the police ended up backing off when uh so actually a little bit of background we didn't

00:25:14.780 know this so you know how a bunch of tractors and trucks blew the police barricades and we're told

00:25:20.620 not confirm but we're told like pretty good sources who are on the ground there uh the reason

00:25:24.700 that happened is there was kind of a convoy trying to get through that was blocked by those

00:25:27.580 further out perimeter barricades by the police um and then out of nowhere SWAT teams started

00:25:34.480 zooming past them and they thought they were going in to break it up right away. And so these guys

00:25:38.840 blew the barricades, uh, and started rushing in and that's what forced the police to retreat. So

00:25:45.000 it, it, it appeared from our cameras that the police were trying to move in and clear it out

00:25:49.440 yesterday as we started covering it. Well, it shows a tense situation. You got to watch even

00:25:54.380 the symbols of, of, of action can change things. So, uh, great. Well, we've covered that and,

00:25:59.320 yeah, we'll, we'll break in again if any new news comes out from this, of course,

00:26:02.660 and we're going to keep reporting on it.

00:26:04.420 As I said, I will have James on actually afternoon

00:26:06.860 and he's still down in Coots.

00:26:08.360 We're going to talk to him about what he's seen

00:26:09.680 and what's going on down there.

00:26:10.900 And if anything happens, he will cover it live for us.

00:26:14.780 Well, production, why don't we go

00:26:16.520 to a quick commercial break here?

00:26:18.300 I'm going to bow out

00:26:19.180 and maybe we'll go to your regular show.

00:26:21.020 You bet.

00:26:22.100 Just stand by folks.

00:26:23.180 We'll see you in a moment.

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00:27:09.120 Tight studio, moving that chair aside.

00:27:11.460 Thanks for staying with us, everybody.

00:27:13.980 Just that reminder and to catch up for those who came in expecting the regular triggered at 1130.

00:27:19.100 We cut in early because we had that breaking news of Aaron O'Toole being evicted by his own party.

00:27:25.860 So I'm going to check in with Dave Naylor.

00:27:28.480 I'll just see if he's ready.

00:27:29.480 he'll give me a wave if he's uh set for that excellent and this is our newsroom check-in

00:27:34.240 with dave we'll see how the coverage has been going how you doing dave oh up to my neck and

00:27:39.360 alligators gory yeah i'll be quick with this because i know you're writing like mad we got

00:27:43.520 so many issues breaking and i still got to get my rant at everybody get that vein pulsing for the

00:27:47.640 rest of the show so uh i guess what's what's topping your agenda with the stories and what

00:27:51.780 do we got coming dave okay well obviously uh erin o'toole is uh is leading the pack at the moment

00:27:58.020 overwhelming majority of MPs, conservative MPs voting for him to go this morning in a secret

00:28:06.220 virtual ballot. So we've got that story up there with all sorts of reaction pouring in. We're just

00:28:13.800 about to hit publish on a story looking at who may be the next leader. Names being thrown around

00:28:19.600 like Pierre Polyev and Lesley Lewis.

00:28:24.060 If you ask me, it's Polyev's to lose,

00:28:26.680 but politics is a strange business.

00:28:30.380 A major story also this morning out of the blockades.

00:28:35.040 Corey, you remember Premier Kenney

00:28:36.680 held a televised press conference yesterday

00:28:39.780 where he sternly told the viewers

00:28:42.440 that RCMP officers had been assaulted, quote-unquote.

00:28:46.480 They'd been swarmed, quote-unquote,

00:28:48.640 and that police vehicles have been rammed.

00:28:51.980 Well, it turns out none of that is true.

00:28:54.700 The RCMP, talking to our male resident this morning,

00:28:58.300 confirmed that no officers have been assaulted

00:29:02.080 and that no ramming of vehicles took place.

00:29:06.960 We contacted Kenny's office for an explanation on the discrepancy

00:29:13.500 and they kind of danced around it.

00:29:15.400 But you can read all that currently on the Western Standard site, Corey.

00:29:21.960 Our legislature reporter, Amber Goslin, has an update on the flu.

00:29:28.100 We went through an entire season last year with zero cases, and we've had a few this year.

00:29:34.880 So if you want to click on that, that story's there for you.

00:29:39.620 Our reporter, Eva, has done a story on the trucker's GoFundMe this morning.

00:29:45.160 crossed the $10 million mark.

00:29:47.780 That makes it the eighth greatest GoFundMe project in history.

00:29:52.860 So that's quite something.

00:29:55.240 And, you know, for something completely different, our military affairs analyst,

00:30:00.260 Dave Makachuks, got a column on a desperate race to find a sunken F-13 fighter jet

00:30:08.140 that crashed off a carrier into the South China Sea last week.

00:30:12.960 And there's sort of an international intrigue race going on to try and find that wreckage and all the technology that's on it.

00:30:20.760 So the big ones this afternoon will be Aaron O'Toole and the blockade for us, Corey.

00:30:27.620 So another busy day.

00:30:29.480 Yeah, no, you're working like crazy and these Wednesdays are mad.

00:30:32.080 So I appreciate the check-in and I'll let you get back to getting that copy up there, you and the rest of the news crew.

00:30:37.560 So I'll see you after the show, Dave.

00:30:39.640 Thanks, Corey.

00:30:41.500 Great, thanks.

00:30:42.040 Yeah, as Michelle Oates is saying and Dave Makachuk, I'm looking to get Dave on the show to talk about that.

00:30:47.500 Actually, tomorrow he sent an email wondering, but we cut in early.

00:30:50.280 So, yes, Dave, Mr. Makachuk, I want you on.

00:30:52.720 Let's talk about that.

00:30:53.660 International news is still big, even though everything's getting overwhelmed with all this craziness between the blockades in southern Alberta on the border.

00:31:03.520 We've got the convoy in Ottawa.

00:31:05.400 We've got O'Toole out of power.

00:31:07.260 And now we've got jets crashing in the South China Sea.

00:31:10.220 and we're here to cover it all and Dave's running like crazy so again go to westernstandardonline.com

00:31:16.380 take out a membership as you can see we break this stuff you know we're not just an opinion

00:31:20.780 group or something like that this is a news organization and we get that stuff out there

00:31:24.700 if you want the details on these stories get up to where Dave and Eva and Melanie have been

00:31:29.180 writing by the way Mel did some great live coverage of everything as it was breaking on

00:31:33.600 the show yesterday and she did an interview with Pierre Justin Trudeau's half brother

00:31:37.720 week that has just been amazingly viewed. It's been quite interesting. So I'm going to get on

00:31:42.920 to though my opening rant, what's got me triggered today and get our show back on track. So let's

00:31:50.120 face it, everybody in Canada who's willing to be vaccinated for COVID-19 has been vaccinated.

00:31:55.000 The people who refuse to get vaccinated at this point have strong personal feelings on the issue

00:31:58.660 and nothing less than literal force is going to make them get that shot. And policies both

00:32:03.060 federally and provincially have to learn to reflect this reality. If there was ever a justification

00:32:07.740 for vaccine passports and mandates, it was when it was believed that vaccination would stop the

00:32:12.160 spread of COVID-19. Political, media, and medical leaders all assured us that mass vaccination would

00:32:17.260 bring the pandemic to an end. Well, that narrative is crumbled as the Omicron variant is sliced

00:32:22.000 through vaccinations like a hot knife through butter. Vaccines clearly don't contain COVID-19.

00:32:27.520 The division and fear-mongering used against unvaccinated people was repugnant to behold.

00:32:32.120 Media eagerly ran interviews of people saying they were banning family members who weren't vaccinated from teachers from Christmas gatherings, while teachers unions claimed to fear for the safety of their teachers because they might be exposed to unvaccinated children.

00:32:45.400 The campaign to ostracize unvaccinated people didn't increase general vaccination rates, but it did divide families and spread a lot of fear for no reason.

00:32:53.680 And now it's clear that an unvaccinated person presents no more risk of transmitting COVID-19 than a vaccinated one.

00:33:00.480 The science does show, and I know I'll get the commenters over this, but vaccination does greatly

00:33:04.420 reduce a person's risk of being hospitalized or killed by COVID-19. I still think it's a good

00:33:09.220 idea to get vaccinated, and I've chosen to do so myself. The online harassment of those who chose

00:33:13.960 otherwise, though, or the ongoing harassment, I should say, has to end. It's a choice. That's the

00:33:19.060 main thing. It's a choice. If vaccines, though, don't stop the spread of the virus, why do we

00:33:23.060 still have the passport requirements for entering businesses? Why are we requiring truckers and

00:33:27.200 travelers to be vaccinated? And why are we even considering going further with mandates requiring

00:33:31.920 interprovincial truckers to be vaccinated? Vaccine mandates aren't harmless. Thousands of Canadians

00:33:38.160 have lost their jobs over these mandates. Our already decimated hospitality sector has taken

00:33:42.680 on added expenses because they've had to become vaccine watchdogs while they lost a segment of

00:33:47.720 their customer base. They have to sit there and have a hostess or host up front dealing with all

00:33:52.060 of this and scanning documents. Yeah, think about that. Scanning documents to get into a restaurant.

00:33:56.940 Stress and division between people due to the mandates has been increasing, and it serves no

00:34:01.100 purpose. Now, there's two motivations behind maintaining the vaccine mandates. One's a

00:34:06.360 misguided notion that if we simply harass the unvaccinated enough, they'll submit to vaccination

00:34:10.400 and hopefully reduce pressure on healthcare facilities. This policy has been a grand 0.99

00:34:15.260 success in making the lives of the unvaccinated miserable as they face unemployment and are

00:34:19.720 turned into social pariahs, but it hasn't convinced them to get vaccinated. Those remaining aren't

00:34:24.060 going to. The other reason mandates remain is political, and that's even worse. Governments,

00:34:29.000 both federal and provincial, have invested political capital into vaccine mandates,

00:34:32.860 and they don't want to appear to be pushed off those mandates by protests. It's a point of pride

00:34:36.780 for politicians now, and facts won't push them off this hill that they chose to die upon, at least

00:34:43.140 not easily. This is a terrible reason to maintain a damaging policy, but it's a reality. We can't

00:34:48.420 force people to get vaccinated. Truly forced medication is an abhorrent concept, and any

00:34:53.540 efforts to do that would lead to nationwide riots. I mean, look what the mandates have brought in

00:34:57.440 protests. Could you imagine if somebody actually tried to force it? Courts would never support such

00:35:02.080 an effort anyways, and that's likely what convinced Quebec even to back off from their ridiculous 0.52

00:35:05.840 plan to find the unvaccinated. The current campaign of coercion of the unvaccinated is 0.62

00:35:10.920 little better than outright force. I mean, you were really ostracizing and making people miserable. 0.98

00:35:16.140 The truckers for freedom convoy protests are only the tip of the iceberg. As these restrictions and

00:35:20.340 mandates drag on without purpose, more and more Canadians are going to feel inspired to push back.

00:35:25.280 Protests are spreading across the country, and they're only going to get more aggressive over

00:35:28.380 time. While people who have chosen not to be vaccinated might be in a minority, they still

00:35:32.700 represent millions of Canadians. These people are supported by millions more who are people like

00:35:37.460 myself who are pro-vaccine, but we're pro-choice. This number of citizens can't be dismissed as

00:35:42.560 being fringe or extreme, though the Prime Minister and his complicit members of the legacy media

00:35:46.420 continue to do so. Aside from vaccine mandates, restrictions in general are proving to be useless

00:35:51.880 as we examine data from two years of pandemic policies. Johns Hopkins University examined

00:35:57.360 metadata from 24 studies and determined lockdown school closures and limited gatherings only

00:36:03.860 reduced COVID mortality by 0.2% and it came at enormous economic and social costs. It's not

00:36:11.680 working guys and I'm not talking about natural news or some alternative site. This is Johns

00:36:15.680 Hopkins so come on let's face the science we've got it now what a terrible waste of time energy

00:36:21.040 and resources these restrictions have been i mean we can be forgiven for trying these in the early

00:36:24.800 stages of the pandemic when we didn't know any better but now there's no reason to maintain

00:36:28.800 these restrictions the science has spoken we've heard that enough times before well let's listen

00:36:32.880 to it countries around the world are opening up while canada remains living in the dark ages of

00:36:36.960 restrictions and mandates if we want to see an end to social discord and protest there's only

00:36:41.120 one way out. End the vaccine mandates now. That's what's got me triggered today. Now, before I get 0.93

00:36:49.040 to my guest, I see him in the lobby there, Zane Novak. We're going to talk about something non-vaccine

00:36:52.780 related. I think we all kind of need a break from that. Anyway, I do want to speak about another one

00:36:56.780 of our sponsors, and that's the Canada Shooting Sports Association. These guys have been sponsoring

00:37:01.880 us for a while, and they're standing up for rights. Again, when we talk about ideologies

00:37:05.420 pushing us where, you know, unreasonable areas and infringing on our rights, well, that ideology,

00:37:10.880 against responsible legal firearm owners has been on the case of responsible fire owners for some

00:37:17.340 time. These guys are standing up for you. They are the Canada Shooting Sports Association. Their

00:37:22.020 website is cssa-cila.org. And they have legal challenges out on behalf of firearm owners.

00:37:30.200 They're standing up for you. They got all sorts of other resources too for the safe, responsible

00:37:33.820 use of firearms. I mean, nobody wants to see dangerous or illegal use. Nobody does. It's

00:37:37.240 unreasonable. The vast majority of us who own firearms would never commit a crime, but we're

00:37:42.000 being treated like criminals and we shouldn't have to. So check out the Canada Shooting Sports

00:37:46.260 Association, see how they can help you stand up for you. All right. So I'm going to bring in

00:37:52.180 Zane Novak right away here, and we're going to talk now. We're going to pivot onto the other

00:37:57.360 leadership issue that's boiling over, and that's with Jason Kenney and the United Conservative

00:38:01.980 Party. Hey there, Zane. Good to see you. Hey, how are you doing? Can you hear me okay?

00:38:06.140 I do. You're coming in loud and clear.

00:38:08.360 I'm a little blurry for some reason.

00:38:10.300 I don't know. Maybe my camera's not clean here.

00:38:13.460 Well, I see you're looking recognizable.

00:38:15.680 You don't have Nico in a studio to try and make you look pretty as I do.

00:38:19.080 And as you can see, Nico's got limitations, you know.

00:38:22.940 I have never made my living on my looks, so we're okay either way.

00:38:27.520 Right on. So I'll just frame this a little bit.

00:38:30.860 As we know, in April, there's going to be a leadership review.

00:38:33.700 There's been a lot of internal battles over the leadership of the United Conservative Party.

00:38:37.600 A lot of people discontent with Jason Kenney.

00:38:39.820 He kind of kicked the can down the road and managed to get it.

00:38:42.520 So it's going to be a delegated event held in Red Deer in April.

00:38:45.820 You'll have to pay a fee to attend.

00:38:48.720 And this is where this is the only means I guess members will have to say whether or not they want Kenney to remain as a leader.

00:38:55.080 Now, Zane, you were the first person I've seen, I think, is kind of organizing, trying to get people together, though, because it is a campaign now to campaign on one side or another.

00:39:02.700 So can you kind of frame that out, what you're calling your initiative?

00:39:06.740 Yeah, for sure.

00:39:07.500 And I think the last time that we spoke, Corey, it was when I was running to be mayor of Calgary back in August, September, October.

00:39:16.880 And after that, and kind of seeing the way everything is unfolding municipally and provincially, you know, it still has me very piqued and concerned about the path that our province is on.

00:39:26.920 And so myself and a few other people got together and we organized what is called TBA 2022.

00:39:33.880 Take back Alberta 2022.

00:39:37.240 And, you know, after the election and that whole process, I took a couple of months off because it was very tedious and it certainly warned a person.

00:39:44.440 But I was approached by countless groups who said, you know, Zane, we really want you to be the voice.

00:39:49.800 You need to speak up. You need to speak up about our rights and our freedoms and less mandates, support of business, support of children.

00:39:56.920 all these types of things. But I tell you, this group that we've started now and set up is what

00:40:02.980 resonated with me the most, because what it really does is it unifies people. Whether your concern is

00:40:09.520 about support of small business, whether it's concern over mandates, loss of freedoms, freedom

00:40:15.420 of choice for religion and beliefs and all of that, this is something that we can all get behind,

00:40:22.400 because until we change the leadership in the UCP party we're not going to see any forward

00:40:29.640 movement on the progressive side so kind of the interesting thing how this started was

00:40:34.320 it resonated with me and the reason it resonated with me it was because it was formed in personal

00:40:39.340 conversations and not just on Instagram or Facebook or or any of the other platforms

00:40:44.800 telegram or anything this was people talking to each other and understanding a commonality

00:40:51.720 and a common goal where we, the people, can make a choice as to the future

00:40:58.480 of not only our community but our province.

00:41:00.500 And the other thing that's just beautiful about it is we're utilizing the constitution that's in place.

00:41:05.160 The constitution that's there, whether it's the UCP party constitution.

00:41:08.200 You seem to have perhaps lost a little bit.

00:41:15.240 The viewers are hearing, Zane, this could be on my end.

00:41:18.500 and of course my producer just stepped out for a moment uh which he almost never does

00:41:23.960 uh can you hear me oh i hear you now yes you're coming in yeah okay sorry so the beauty of tba

00:41:31.620 take back albert is it's really based on things that we believe in and support which is the

00:41:36.480 constitution of canada and also you know the written constitution of uh the leading you know

00:41:41.680 the elected party right now the ucp with this leadership review we tried a long time ago to

00:41:46.940 hold our leader jason kenney accountable for what was going on and that wasn't strategically

00:41:52.740 possible at the time but we did get this concession of being able to have a leadership

00:41:57.360 review on april 9th in red deer so what we're doing is we're literally and we're truly truly

00:42:03.820 a grassroots community uh movement that is province-wide meeting talking with people

00:42:11.220 in living rooms in kitchens some places community halls talking about what's important to us

00:42:16.920 and then getting out to express our wishes via this leadership review uh in red deer yeah i mean

00:42:24.500 i i guess ideally it would have been something that people could vote remotely from or for a

00:42:28.560 smaller field but a smaller fee i should say uh but we have what we're working with now this is

00:42:34.700 the opportunity whether we like the means of it or not and and uh if you want to make change well

00:42:39.400 this is kind of the way to do it.

00:42:42.560 Exactly.

00:42:43.180 And, you know, when people say that, because there is some inconvenience, obviously, in

00:42:46.300 traveling the whole way to Red Deer, whether you're in Pincher Creek or Calgary or Medicine

00:42:50.140 Hat or Grand Prairie, there is inconvenience.

00:42:53.040 And then there is the $100, if you buy now, the $100 entrance fee that on March 19th goes

00:42:58.220 up to $150.

00:42:59.180 But I always, you know, put it in these terms.

00:43:02.400 You look what's happening in Ottawa right now.

00:43:04.160 We have truckers that have driven, you know, from Vancouver and Prince Edward Island, New

00:43:09.240 from London all over to congregate there.

00:43:12.720 I used to drive truck, I still have my class one

00:43:14.520 heavy haul ticket actually.

00:43:15.920 I know what it costs to run a semi down the road

00:43:18.800 one kilometer, let alone the time.

00:43:21.800 If those individuals can make that investment

00:43:25.000 and that sacrifice, I think that we as Albertans

00:43:28.480 for the love of our community, our families and our future

00:43:31.000 can get organized, take one day and it's a Saturday.

00:43:34.120 So for most of us, you don't even have to take the day

00:43:36.120 off work and buy a $10 UCP membership, $100 entrance fee, show up, vote in a block. We're

00:43:46.000 all going to be wearing our TBA 2022 t-shirts. We have a staging yard. We have everything

00:43:50.760 we need to do this in an organized, proper democratic fashion and take back our province.

00:43:56.380 This is our community. Here in Calgary, it's our city, but it's our province. And we need

00:44:00.020 to say to the world not just Canada but to the world that our leaders are accountable to us

00:44:06.800 we can use the system that's been mandated and put in place to take ownership of where our future is

00:44:14.020 going this is us doing it and this is us making a statement it's going to make a statement to the

00:44:18.440 west that we have a voice it's going to make a statement you know we often say to the east that

00:44:23.120 you know we are organized we have a purpose we have a mandate and we are standing up for what

00:44:29.720 we believe in take us seriously yeah it's very interesting you know it's something to be said

00:44:35.720 for it and something we've been losing and i miss was uh you know this will be more than just people

00:44:40.420 walking up and voting i mean the ucp is going to make an event out of it so if you're going to

00:44:44.020 spend 100 bucks you know it doesn't mean you're going to walk in cast a ballot and leave you make

00:44:47.820 a day of it uh there will probably be other speakers i mean i'm just guessing i'm not one

00:44:51.940 of the organizers but i i know from being a past political organizer you never pass up an

00:44:56.680 opportunity when you've got a bunch of members together to try and make an event out of the

00:44:59.980 whole thing. So I know, you know, $100 people, again, it's a fee that you feel you might not

00:45:05.500 be able to spend, but getting in person at these political gatherings, it can be actually kind of

00:45:10.140 fun. It's networking, it's getting with other like-minded people or different mind. And we've

00:45:15.000 lost so much of that over this pandemic. I mean, it's so important. Some of the best political

00:45:18.820 organization that I've ever done was at the back when I used to smoke outside of the smoke doors

00:45:22.880 at conventions because you get that informal chat with a lot of elected people uh so i mean just

00:45:27.300 just to add to it even if you want to go there and support days and kenny i mean it's a democratic

00:45:30.720 exercise uh you know you're a hundred dollars it might be well spent if you're making a whole day

00:45:35.360 of it and i think you know we see this we saw this in the municipal election particularly here

00:45:39.740 in calgary there's a lot of apathy there's a lot of voter weariness i mean you look what we've gone

00:45:45.540 through with you know so many federal elections in such a short time covid just on and on and on

00:45:52.440 there's just we just so many people just feel that there is not an answer and there isn't hope out

00:45:56.840 there so the way we're doing it you know we're not going on the social media platform we're not

00:46:01.500 putting our statements on instagram and facebook and and dealing with the trolls we are talking

00:46:07.720 face to face we're going like i said to people's living rooms people's kitchens we're finding out

00:46:13.220 what they want and we're trying our best to get people engaged in what we have out here in alberta

00:46:19.220 which is an amazing, beautiful province.

00:46:21.980 Our resources, our opportunities, our future,

00:46:24.760 and our futures for our children and our grandchildren.

00:46:27.360 And we're really trying to ignite the passion

00:46:29.320 and the fire in people's homes

00:46:31.560 and get people to understand that we do have an opportunity

00:46:35.320 to make a historic change.

00:46:36.780 You know, there has never been an elected premier

00:46:39.880 who's been voted out midterm by the people,

00:46:44.380 you know, by the members.

00:46:45.620 There have been some who's had to resign due to health

00:46:49.020 or due to a non-confident vote in caucus,

00:46:51.660 but never before in the history of the Constitution

00:46:53.740 have we the people said, we're not satisfied.

00:46:57.920 We are holding our leaders accountable

00:46:59.360 and we're taking this back.

00:47:01.320 And we will work to get someone in

00:47:03.260 who does respect our wishes,

00:47:05.040 who does believe in what we believe

00:47:07.000 and realizes if they get in on a promise

00:47:09.720 and break that promise,

00:47:10.980 well, we're coming for you too.

00:47:12.720 Came for Jason Kenney

00:47:13.700 because we feel that he flip-flopped.

00:47:15.500 We feel he didn't follow up with what we needed.

00:47:17.620 and we feel with him at the helm

00:47:19.360 that we will not win the next election in May of 2023.

00:47:23.380 So we're going to get someone in who will believe in us,

00:47:26.900 will believe in them, will support them

00:47:28.480 and we will win the election in 2023.

00:47:30.680 This isn't a one trick pony that we're doing.

00:47:33.600 TBA 2022, we're taking back the province.

00:47:36.840 We're going to take back the school system.

00:47:38.960 We're going to hold AHS accountable.

00:47:42.480 This is our province and it is to be run by us,

00:47:45.820 the common Albertan. Yeah, well, people have tired of a lot of political wrangling and things like

00:47:51.840 that. And somebody asked an interesting question, because it would impact the vote on whether or

00:47:56.820 not, and I imagine you probably can't answer that, but whether or not vaccine passports are to be

00:48:00.520 required to enter the convention in order to vote, because that would cut away all of the people who

00:48:04.920 have chosen not to be vaccinated. I can answer a little bit, though. I did go to the UCP convention

00:48:10.240 before and they did allow rapid testing for people as an alternative to being vaccinated as well we're

00:48:16.900 also hearing language out of premier kenny that he's going to be reducing and retracting a lot of

00:48:21.880 the restrictions i suspect shortly before the convention because he wants to make everybody

00:48:25.640 happy before it happens so i think the unvaccinated might be able to vote i think you hit the nail on

00:48:31.160 the head cory we've said this from day one you just mark our words he's going to roll back a

00:48:35.380 whole bunch of stuff try to appease people do the typical smoke and mirror you know uh the the bait

00:48:41.960 and switch get everybody to go we're good we're good and deflect from the importance of this

00:48:47.160 leadership review and as far as the vaccine you know mandate to get in uh if there is still that

00:48:54.980 mandate in place we're a thousand percent positive that rapid testing will be an option and we have

00:49:00.040 a block of disgruntled nurses who have already stepped up and they will be helping us if it's

00:49:07.820 not a if the opportunity isn't there provided by the ucp party they will be doing rapid tests for

00:49:13.740 us right at the door so there can be no roadblock for us getting in and voting great yeah we

00:49:19.980 definitely just want to encourage people to get out there but if you're not going to be out on

00:49:23.580 typical social media channels how you know we've got uh many hundreds of viewers on right now

00:49:28.760 actually how could they reach you though if they want to take part in the organization uh join your

00:49:34.120 group that sort of thing well you know i'm on facebook uh and all of that they can reach out

00:49:39.640 to me that way i think that we're we have people all over the province right now engaging i really

00:49:45.080 don't it's pretty much we've gotten already just in the last few weeks to one degree of separation

00:49:50.360 i believe it'll be not hard to google we do have a website uh tba 2022 um that you can reach out to

00:49:58.760 But the best is to just start asking your community.

00:50:01.580 And I would almost think already there's someone who's made contact with us or we've made contact with them.

00:50:05.760 But you can go to our website and Google TBA 2022 and you'll find our website and reach us out to us that way.

00:50:13.240 But this is very much a situation of, you know, we're talking to people that are like minded and we're saying, why don't you get 20 of your friends who are like minded together?

00:50:21.520 We'll come have a chat and let's figure out where we really want to take this province and how we want to do it.

00:50:28.440 And this is us, the people.

00:50:30.920 This is us, the people taking back our province.

00:50:34.080 Yeah, no, and I love grassroots organization.

00:50:36.680 I always have.

00:50:37.280 I mean, I've spent so much time all the way from little coffee meetings with the Alberta Alliance Party, you know, almost 20 years ago to, well, huge conventions now.

00:50:44.720 And now I'm finally out of all that mix.

00:50:46.100 I just talk about it now, which I enjoy much more.

00:50:48.860 Ali Mack was asking, any idea when the vote will be?

00:50:51.140 Just to repeat, that's April 9th.

00:50:52.620 It will be held in Red Deer.

00:50:53.760 And if you're considering taking part in it, they've got kind of a, it's $99 to attend right

00:51:00.640 now, plus a membership fee, but it'll go up in March and it'll go up again in April.

00:51:04.460 So the sooner you buy in, the more money you'll save, right?

00:51:07.300 Yes.

00:51:07.920 So a couple of things that are very important.

00:51:10.600 You have to renew or get your UCP membership, which is $10.

00:51:16.520 It's good to take a screenshot that you've done it.

00:51:19.600 And it needs to be done before March 19th.

00:51:23.760 So I think it's something like 21 days before the boat for you to be qualified to vote in it, that you have to have your membership.

00:51:29.180 So go online, go to the UCP website, get your membership, $10, take a screenshot before you submit it because everything's electronic now.

00:51:37.820 And I do not believe they send out a hard copy anymore.

00:51:41.940 Then on that same website, you can register and it is $99 for entrance fee into the April 9th event.

00:51:50.300 it's $49 if you're younger than 25 and I believe if you're over 14 or over you can vote and then

00:51:57.820 if you wait until March 19th to buy that entrance ticket it goes up to 149 if you wait to do it the

00:52:03.820 day of it's 249 but they stopped selling it at 11 a.m on April 9th so you know be proactive

00:52:10.500 if truckers can drive the whole way to Ottawa we can take a moment to get a membership

00:52:15.700 Yep. Pay $99 and go out for one day on a Saturday. It's going to be a great event. We're going to have a staging yard. We're going to have a platform. We're going to have barbecues. We're going to be with like-minded people who love their province.

00:52:29.940 Great. And just that reminder to everybody too. Once you take out that membership, assuming perhaps that Premier Kenny is removed as leader, now you have a membership to take part in what is obviously going to be a leadership race coming up. So that $10 is going to keep you for a year of activities and other political involvement.

00:52:45.080 So thanks.

00:52:47.320 You got something else?

00:52:48.440 Just a couple of things.

00:52:49.500 So our website is www.tba.com.

00:52:52.500 And you're right.

00:52:53.260 Like the whole political beast that we face right now, I say it's kind of like an elephant, right?

00:52:58.040 We see this municipally, provincially, federally.

00:53:01.080 But there's that old saying, how do you eat an elephant?

00:53:03.040 It's one bite at a time.

00:53:04.220 So the first bite is April 9th.

00:53:06.520 The second bite is endorsing who the new leader will be.

00:53:10.740 then after that we are going to be helping them to be sure that we win a conservative government

00:53:16.960 in may so this is an ongoing process tba 2022 is not a one-trick pony we have a long-term mandate

00:53:24.900 and like i said earlier this is we're going to then be holding our school board our educational

00:53:29.860 system and our health care system and other systems accountable we're looking at things

00:53:34.060 like maybe a provincial police force maybe provincial collection of taxes maybe provincial

00:53:38.060 CPP. We're not

00:53:40.200 a one-trick pony. We're here for the duration

00:53:42.040 because we love our province and our

00:53:44.180 neighbours. Great. Well,

00:53:46.260 thank you very much for taking the initiative, Zane.

00:53:48.340 And we'll see what happens. I love

00:53:50.220 seeing democracy in action no matter what the

00:53:52.200 outcome is. And if we don't get off our

00:53:54.180 butts, somebody else will do it on our behalf and you might not 0.92

00:53:56.200 like where it ends. So

00:53:57.520 check it out.

00:54:00.240 Look up Zane Novak and his efforts and

00:54:02.180 take part in the politics, guys. We've got

00:54:04.040 a volatile, active population like we've

00:54:06.180 never seen before, we can make some changes. So let's do it. So thanks again for joining me

00:54:09.960 today, Zane. And I'm sure we'll be talking again soon as your campaign progresses.

00:54:13.320 Thank you so much for having me on. It's always a pleasure.

00:54:15.840 Great. Thanks. So yeah, that was, as I said, Zane Novak with Take Back Alberta 2022.

00:54:22.740 And you know, there's going to be others lobbying to try and keep Jason Kenney in power. Again,

00:54:27.320 if you feel strongly about that, that's the point of the whole exercise. Get in there,

00:54:30.880 vote which way you prefer and do so. If we don't, it won't work for us. Now, somebody who was

00:54:37.680 asking, I saw that Sharon saying, can we vote online without attending the event? No, we can't.

00:54:43.860 That was, again, some of the political wrangling. I think that's what's got a lot of people upset.

00:54:48.380 The initial push from constituency associations wanted to have a one member, one vote, like

00:54:52.620 everybody could vote on this one way or another, whether it was online or mail-in or something.

00:54:56.840 Premier Kenny managed, he is a very skilled political operator,

00:55:00.640 to make sure it was an in-person event held in Red Deer

00:55:03.620 so there will be no outside voting.

00:55:05.840 You have to actually pay the fee and attend.

00:55:08.620 And same thing, you know, Mikey Lady Bird, another commenter,

00:55:13.120 saying it eliminates a large number of the population

00:55:15.100 if people have to pay for it.

00:55:16.180 Absolutely it does.

00:55:16.900 And that was the goal.

00:55:17.860 That really was.

00:55:19.100 You know, plus it's Red Deer.

00:55:20.400 It's central to the majority of Albertans,

00:55:22.360 but that's a long haul for somebody living in Grand Prairie

00:55:24.620 or Fort Mac or high level, or, you know, even just a couple hours away, because, you know,

00:55:29.800 a lot of us are working and busy and won't be able to take part necessarily. So, uh, you know,

00:55:34.280 there's an opportunity though. And, and, uh, yeah, you know, as Bridget, uh, Frosted is saying,

00:55:38.940 you know, uh, I think he's not going to like how that backfires on him. Maybe it will. We'll see.

00:55:43.240 Uh, Kenny's fighting for his political life and it's been interesting to see what happened. I mean,

00:55:47.800 of course we saw O'Toole boy, his, his caucus sure jettisoned in there. And I mean, just it's

00:55:53.180 one stumble after another for Kenny. So he's not in coots, you know, down there. I'll talk to him

00:55:58.820 a little bit later on that. And one of the things that came out yesterday that we've been sharing

00:56:03.360 and spreading and Mel called, I believe, and Dave called, it was Mel, because Kenny was claiming

00:56:08.860 that an officer had been assaulted. You know, I mean, this is looking to inflame the populace

00:56:12.900 to say, this is why we have to move in on these guys. They are assaulting police officers. Well,

00:56:17.880 the RCMP is confirmed. And as you find on westernstandardonline.com, no police officer

00:56:23.600 was assaulted. Like talk about spreading fake news. Talk about inflammatory false information.

00:56:30.680 That's a big one. Now I don't know where it came from. So I'm not quite ready to point the finger.

00:56:35.640 You know, Premier Kenney might've heard it from a news outlet that was reporting on a rumor

00:56:39.020 or an advisor told him, or maybe he fabricated himself. I have no idea, but somebody made it up.

00:56:44.140 But it got widely reported, and it was wrong, and it strongly impacted the tone of this whole protest. I mean, yes, you know, most people are saying, geez, if these guys are attacking police officers, yeah, I want to see the police move in there and take care of this right away. Well, if it's not happening, then what do you think about it?

00:57:03.380 I mean, I'm concerned.

00:57:04.220 I'm concerned about them stopping up the border too long

00:57:06.180 because it is forcing the hand of government,

00:57:07.660 and I'm worried this is going to get ugly.

00:57:09.740 But let's keep things in reality.

00:57:11.560 Let's only report on news.

00:57:12.820 This is the most powerful politician in Alberta

00:57:15.960 has gotten up and falsely accused these protesters

00:57:18.980 of assaulting RCMP officers.

00:57:22.400 Why?

00:57:23.380 Where did you get that from?

00:57:24.260 Do you not have fact checkers? 1.00

00:57:26.180 Well, you know, we get spanked hard enough 1.00

00:57:28.760 if we report on rumor.

00:57:29.720 We've learned our lesson there.

00:57:31.340 The premier should know better.

00:57:32.520 And that's another concern. But this is a premier who's in a desperate situation right now. And it's sad to watch. You know, political games, Canadians are sick of them. They're sick to death of them. And that's why we're seeing them pushing back. We're seeing them on the leaderships. We're seeing it. You know, one of the things for those who watch Parliament, so it's still going on. It's unfortunate. But all those jackasses are still gathered actually in Parliament Hill in the House of Commons and doing their stuff.

00:58:01.040 So the Liberals set a trap, and it shows just how repugnant and divisive they've been anyways. 0.94

00:58:05.660 So they threw out kind of a motion on the floor, and you've got to get unanimous consent.

00:58:09.240 It's just making a motion, it's making a statement, it's things they do in legislatures and parliaments.

00:58:13.860 And this one had this big, long list of things that we want, unanimous consent.

00:58:17.940 Everybody in here has to condemn racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, Derek.

00:58:28.100 They're even talking anti-gay, anti-trans.

00:58:29.920 say, I mean, you know, you found your one or two flags to try and smear tens of thousands of

00:58:33.320 protesters with. I never saw any trans or anti-gay things, but they threw that into their statement

00:58:39.340 too. And we want to have everybody unanimously condemn any of that that was happening on the

00:58:43.400 Hill. It was a loaded statement. It was a bunch of crap. But you see, the way that works is when

00:58:46.760 that goes in the house, anybody who votes against it, immediately they turn it around and say,

00:58:51.260 well, you must support it then. See, and it's pointless. It's not a policy. It's not anything

00:58:55.440 else. It's just a statement, but it's a trap. So every conservative, they did get their unanimous

00:58:59.200 consent. They voted against all that nasty stuff that was on there. But then the conservatives

00:59:03.200 turned around and threw a motion out there. And this was, again, it's political gameplay. And it's

00:59:06.920 disgusting to watch. It was funny at the same time because it undercut the whole thing. There was a

00:59:10.500 motion on the floor put out by a conservative member, I think an Albertan one, to condemn,

00:59:17.840 universally condemn, the wearing of blackface. Because, you know, it is offensive. It is

00:59:22.240 disgusting. It's making a mockery of people of another race. I mean, should you not get the 1.00

00:59:28.780 entire house to unanimously stand up and say, we will not tolerate such acts of racism as 0.91

00:59:34.800 blackface. Considering we have a prime minister who wore blackface so many times, he couldn't 0.54

00:59:40.580 even remember how many times. When he got caught the first time, he said, well, you know, they 0.89

00:59:44.440 asked, is there any other pictures? I don't think so. I don't remember. Second time they came up,

00:59:47.940 any other pictures? No. Third time, there's probably more. He's just lucky there weren't

00:59:52.620 more digital cameras back then. Either way, the house now had it in front of them, but can we

00:59:56.620 universally could condemn this. And they didn't. The liberals wouldn't give unanimous consent.

01:00:03.400 Thus, if we're going by the logic of the liberals, they support the wearing of blackface. I guess 0.85

01:00:09.600 they were going to rock in a hard place. How do you condemn your own leader who is Canada's most

01:00:13.880 notorious blackface wearer while at the same time, you know, so, I mean, it was good at least to see 0.99

01:00:21.120 a silly political game turned on its head and pushed back at them. But I'm tired of these 1.00

01:00:26.560 games. I'm sick of the division right now. I'm just sickened by it. Look, we had well over 10,000

01:00:33.480 people on Parliament Hill the other day. There's no gathering of 10,000 people you can get without

01:00:38.240 having some nutcases in the bunch. I wish it weren't so, but that's the reality. I was shocked,

01:00:43.680 to be honest, by how few examples they found. It was remarkable. One idiot with a Confederate flag

01:00:50.240 who the crowd ran off of there anyways, got rid of. 1.00

01:00:54.160 He wasn't wearing blackface, but there was no blackface in evidence

01:00:57.120 at the protests on Parliament Hill. 0.67

01:00:59.800 So as much as these guys are apparently extreme and racist, 1.00

01:01:03.000 none of them did anything as stupid, extreme, and racist 1.00

01:01:05.460 as our Prime Minister has done on three occasions. 1.00

01:01:09.080 That says quite a bit, doesn't it?

01:01:10.760 But he's labeling them over and over,

01:01:13.340 and the complicit media is banging that drum for him,

01:01:16.600 saying it's racists, it's extremists.

01:01:18.980 and I mean, all it's doing is galvanizing support for them on there. Come on, we know that the

01:01:24.020 majority of those people weren't like that. We know this swastika, and I want to remind everybody

01:01:29.180 else between True North and the Western Standard and Brett Wilson, we've got a reward. If you want 0.97

01:01:33.980 to make a quick 5,000 bucks, you find us the identity of the idiot who was walking around 1.00

01:01:38.900 with a swastika at the protests, you'll make yourself five grand. Turn them in because we 0.99

01:01:43.780 want to find out what that was. Whoever it was never even went into the protest. These were

01:01:47.900 pictures taken from the outside. Thousands of pictures. If that person had been walking through

01:01:52.220 there, pictures would have surfaced. They didn't. They did a couple of staged pictures off to the

01:01:56.620 side and then disappeared. The question is whether it was staged to make it look bad, which is

01:02:00.960 believable, or whether it really was some goofball sick neo-Nazi, which is believable as well. But 0.99

01:02:06.900 the reality is it doesn't reflect the people there. It doesn't. And the media won't report

01:02:13.340 it that way though. And the media, I was driving this morning, you know, part of what helps me

01:02:17.060 with my ranting and getting going on the show every morning is is there is only one talk radio

01:02:21.900 for now and you know as we start getting streaming into vehicles we're going to get triggered into

01:02:26.000 your vehicle for your drive and things like that I assure you but I torture myself with talk radio

01:02:30.980 on my my ride up here to see what's happening and they interviewed a little old lady in Ottawa

01:02:36.380 this poor old gal she's afraid to leave her home she can't go outside she can't get groceries 1.00

01:02:42.460 she's afraid. She's afraid. And she said, they're starving me. They're starving me in my home. 0.57

01:02:49.180 That's the narrative, the crap that's being spoon-fed to us from the mainstream media right 1.00

01:02:54.220 now. If that woman is that agoraphobic, we should have a wellness check and have her taken out 1.00

01:03:00.000 because she's afraid of the outside world and it's dangerous to her. But don't report on it as if 0.82

01:03:04.440 little old ladies were ever put at threat by the people on Parliament Hill right now. This has been

01:03:10.060 one of the most calm protests we've ever seen. Yet this is what the media feeds us. They had

01:03:17.180 this other woman on who they interviewed her. That was CTD. I think that was on the weekend. 0.96

01:03:22.180 And she was a black lady and she was saying, I'm afraid to go outside because as a black woman, 0.87

01:03:28.160 I think I'll get assaulted. I've been home for three days already leading up to this protest 0.58

01:03:31.680 and I'm going to stay until they're all gone. So she must be starving at home as well.

01:03:36.040 you know come on you guys come on as i said the most egregious example we've seen of blackface

01:03:43.780 from a political leader was justin trudeau himself the most racist display out there so who is he

01:03:51.400 to get on a high horse and try to tell everybody else that this group there is overrun with racists

01:03:57.540 it's not it was a fantastic positive thing you know for the three or four ugly flags that we

01:04:04.280 saw in the mix. There were literally, everybody else saw thousands and thousands of Canadian 0.92

01:04:08.500 flags. The anthem was sung with pride. They scrubbed down the statues that some idiots had

01:04:14.660 hung some stuff upon. Looks like some idiot took a leak next to the tomb of the unknown soldier. 1.00

01:04:21.180 That's pretty gross. And I don't know if it was a purposeful act or just somebody who couldn't 1.00

01:04:24.860 find somewhere to go to the bathroom. It's hard when you got that many thousands.

01:04:28.600 But this movement has been peaceful. It's been good. And, you know, as they keep getting cornered

01:04:32.460 and getting assaulted by the media and by our political leadership. And that picture, as you

01:04:37.420 can see, by the way, with the Confederate flag to sidetrack, that is from when the group, you can

01:04:41.620 see they were actually chasing him out of their mix. They're saying, get the hell out of here.

01:04:45.940 You don't belong here. You don't represent us. Leave now. Did the media play any of them chasing 0.92

01:04:51.760 him out? No, we played the video of that. And the real news is there. And so that's that reminder too,

01:04:57.640 not just in subscribing to us

01:04:59.880 in westernstandardonline.com

01:05:01.460 to get past that mainstream bias, 0.99

01:05:03.580 that mainstream junk and crap, 1.00

01:05:05.880 but follow us. 0.99

01:05:07.280 We're breaking this stuff, as you've seen.

01:05:09.360 We come in live whenever something huge happens,

01:05:12.260 like yesterday when the things went off the rails.

01:05:15.580 The RCMP looked like they were going to try

01:05:17.180 and break up the Coots protest.

01:05:18.720 Derek and I came on live today

01:05:20.280 when we discovered that Aaron O'Toole 0.99

01:05:22.180 has gotten the big footprint on his butt, 0.99

01:05:24.100 kicking him out of caucus. 0.99

01:05:25.260 If you subscribe on YouTube or Facebook

01:05:27.600 or Rumble or any of our channels,

01:05:29.880 you know, when these live things break

01:05:31.300 and our reporters on the ground are there,

01:05:32.720 you'll get an alert and it'll let you know

01:05:34.360 so you can come into the show

01:05:35.260 because we have our scheduled shows every day.

01:05:37.300 And once a week, the Pipeline and Melanie 0.88

01:05:39.100 does some fantastic interviews

01:05:40.540 that come along all the time.

01:05:41.720 But if you want the live breaking stuff,

01:05:43.660 you know, catch it as soon as it's happening.

01:05:45.600 You got to subscribe and that way you'll see it.

01:05:47.320 You know, you get an alert on your phone

01:05:48.500 or your laptop or whatever way you're watching.

01:05:50.060 So I just want to remind everybody

01:05:51.000 to please do that

01:05:52.340 because we can bypass the bad coverage

01:05:54.520 you've been getting and it's been bad.

01:05:56.200 I mean, everybody agrees.

01:05:57.600 and our subscribers have been going through the roof. People have been following us. People have

01:06:02.040 had it with the establishment media. So that's a good development out of all of this in these

01:06:06.060 tumultuous times. So I've been ranting for a bit. I think I'm going to get James in pretty soon here

01:06:11.100 to talk. James Finkbeiner, for those who were tuned in before, he's been down at the Coots

01:06:16.860 border crossing pretty much since the beginning of things. Last weekend, we sent him back down

01:06:22.680 there into the freezing cold the other day, and he was covering things as they broke.

01:06:26.680 Let's go to James and get an update on what he's seen.

01:06:29.160 Hey, James, how's it going?

01:06:30.640 Corey, good.

01:06:31.400 How are you?

01:06:32.460 Good, good.

01:06:33.040 I think everybody's ready for a break from my rambling voice here.

01:06:37.540 I guess just to check in, maybe give a rundown of what you've seen this morning and what's happening down there.

01:06:43.940 So far this morning, the village of Coots was trying to get a fuel truck in.

01:06:49.180 And with a little negotiation with the RCMP, they were finally able to get a fuel truck in.

01:06:54.660 I know that the plot was running low on fuel, the community skid steer was running low on fuel, and they really needed to get that truck in.

01:07:01.800 So it did cross the barricades earlier this morning.

01:07:05.180 I also know that the locals were able to get some propane in this morning for the protesters.

01:07:09.920 They were starting to get pretty concerned last night.

01:07:13.160 The propane levels were getting pretty low.

01:07:15.200 They weren't able to keep the heaters going.

01:07:18.380 Excuse me.

01:07:19.060 there's also quite a few families that are staying in RVs right on the highway and they were starting

01:07:26.380 to get low on propane as well so there was some concern about fuel so that they could stay

01:07:31.500 heated and some of those supplies have gone in now they are they're still bringing in more supplies

01:07:39.020 actually locals and different different protesters are actually using toboggans and wagons

01:07:47.100 to walk the supplies in.

01:07:49.600 The RCMP are not letting vehicles

01:07:51.540 pass the barricades.

01:07:53.320 The RCMP barricades, I should say.

01:07:56.100 They are only letting people

01:07:57.680 walk in past the RCMP barricades.

01:08:01.240 And it's still colder

01:08:03.060 than all get out down there right now,

01:08:04.700 I guess, eh?

01:08:05.780 It is minus 22 today.

01:08:08.140 The sun is shining,

01:08:09.440 but that does not mean it is warm.

01:08:11.220 It is cold.

01:08:11.960 It is bitterly cold down here.

01:08:14.260 You know, speaking of mainstream media reports, actually, I've thrown a curveball. You probably heard about this. There was the mayor of Cootes was saying that some protesters had been intimidating other elected officials in the area or something at their homes. Did you hear anything about this or what's going on with that?

01:08:28.420 I have absolutely not heard anything like that. I've talked to a ton of different residents. The residents have been meeting with the protesters, coordinating with them to bring stuff in.

01:08:40.960 I don't know where the intimidation is coming from or where the, I guess you could call it a rumor that a police officer was assaulted yesterday because these people are extremely peaceful.

01:08:55.840 There is more praying going on.

01:08:58.860 And I haven't even heard a raised voice, Corey.

01:09:02.260 Yeah, and that's what I want to cut through.

01:09:03.940 I mean, again, we even had our premier found to be spreading false information on what happened down there.

01:09:09.260 I mean, things do happen.

01:09:10.340 And some of it's believable tempers get up.

01:09:12.920 We've had protesters in Calgary, bothering elected officials, but I have

01:09:15.800 difficulty believing anymore when I hear these reports on the mainstream.

01:09:18.500 That's why we rely on, you know, you down there in person to tell us what

01:09:21.960 you've seen anyways, and what's going on.

01:09:23.460 I mean, it doesn't mean it didn't happen, but you've heard nothing of it.

01:09:26.300 No, after, uh, after the RCMP, uh, started to advance yesterday and

01:09:30.960 started checking truck by truck, uh, we, we seen the live stream, uh, the,

01:09:35.520 the line that the RCMP had formed and started walking forwards.

01:09:38.920 It was, uh.

01:09:40.340 It was shortly after that, Jason Kenney's press conference happened, and I know all of the protesters watched that press conference together, and right after, I was in there, I talked to as many protesters as I can, I talked to as many locals as I can, I talked to the farmers who broke through the barricade yesterday, and I talked to several RCMP members, and no one could tell me where this assault claim came from.

01:10:06.560 Later on in the evening, we were alerted that the RCMP would be putting out a press conference about the assault and making a retraction and saying that it just wasn't true.

01:10:17.720 So for new viewers, maybe if you can kind of break down then what we've got going on.

01:10:22.080 I believe what there's like multiple police checkpoints.

01:10:24.560 Some are set quite farther north of where you are trying to stop people from coming down.

01:10:28.500 You got one closer to where the convoy is.

01:10:31.120 And then you've got the border.

01:10:32.620 Is there any traffic moving across the border right now?

01:10:34.500 there there there is and there isn't so there there was some um i was told cattle liners that

01:10:43.080 had moved through um the the route that they took to reach uh the community of coots and then cross

01:10:49.780 the border i was told after they moved through the rcmp then blocked that access as well so there

01:10:56.520 is essentially a large perimeter around the community of coots and every entrance in and

01:11:02.460 out is being blocked by the rcmp um they are only allowing locals in uh that will show id

01:11:09.580 and that have or or that have a business or a job in coots um i know that mel has talked to

01:11:15.740 a local resident and she says she's just fed up with the rcmp and the hassle and the the essentially

01:11:22.780 the third degree that she's getting every single time she tries to enter her own community and

01:11:27.340 she's very supportive of the protesters but frustrated with the RCMP. Obviously the roads

01:11:33.900 are are fairly they're they're plugged up but they're they're porous you can get a vehicle

01:11:38.140 through I think a commercial truck would be quite a challenge but there's there's access to and from

01:11:43.900 the protest area you can get through it. I know yesterday I was able to drive to drive through

01:11:50.060 everything. Uh, you know, it's just, it's, it's plugged.

01:11:54.200 So it is the RCMP blocking it at this point, but let's say if the RCMP said,

01:11:58.380 Hey, we will allow commercial traffic to cross the border with the protesters

01:12:02.060 allow that, or is their goal though, to keep that from happening right now?

01:12:05.580 Their goal right now is to, uh, hold their position and stay here until

01:12:11.280 the mandates are lifted. Um, now I know they have been having discussions

01:12:15.560 this morning with their attorneys. And I think they're hoping that there's going to be some

01:12:21.920 negotiation today between themselves, the RCMP and Jason Kenney's government.

01:12:28.700 Yeah, well, we certainly, I mean, we don't, we don't want to see a violent outcome.

01:12:32.660 And there's concerns. I mean, some of us with Jason Kenney, but some of what they're asking

01:12:36.800 for, isn't it about the federal mandates that Kenney couldn't do anything about even if he

01:12:40.620 wanted to. Yeah, that's true. I don't know what they're expecting. I mean, they're focused on

01:12:49.280 Jason Kenney. They're focused on the provincial government. In fact, they just put a call out

01:12:54.620 in the saloon earlier, just right as I was coming over here. They are actually looking for laptops

01:13:00.880 right now, and they are all going to start signing up for UCP memberships. Their intention is to go

01:13:07.520 to the UCP leadership review of Jason Kenney and vote no on Jason Kenney. I don't know what kind

01:13:15.440 of federal coordination they have. I don't know what they're expecting from Justin Trudeau. I

01:13:21.300 don't think they're expecting anything from Justin Trudeau. I think a timeline from the

01:13:28.940 government on when these mandates would drop or be gone, I think that would do a lot to see

01:13:35.560 this situation change. Yeah, and let me see, clarifying information, because we can see is

01:13:40.440 no matter how, as I like to say the other day, when people are listening with their mouth rather

01:13:44.740 than their ears, they misinterpret things. So I got a commenter, Terry, saying, Siege, what are

01:13:48.460 you lying about? Report the news. It's a protest. The siege we're talking about, actually, Terry,

01:13:53.620 if he had been listening in, is the RCMP, because they're the ones blocking actually access to the

01:13:58.900 protest and to people coming and going. It was siege breakers, essentially, that went around an

01:14:04.340 RCMP blockade yesterday, because again, the RCMP are blocking fuel and supplies and things from

01:14:09.740 getting to those down there. So by definition, that's a siege. And if you were listening closely,

01:14:14.160 you'd understand who was holding it. But thank you for letting me clarify that for you, Terry.

01:14:18.620 So getting farther from that, though, I mean, I just do, I know it's me, I'm crabby,

01:14:23.180 it's triggered. Hey guys, when I respond to things and correct them, it's going to be Corey Morgan

01:14:26.840 doing it. Not a nice, polite one, but I'll get to the point with things. We do want clarity on

01:14:31.320 what's happening. So with this being blocked and not as many people being able to come in and add

01:14:35.380 to the protest, it sounds like other ones are sort of springing up in support in other

01:14:39.360 parts of Southern Alberta. Can you tell me more about that? We are getting reports from all over

01:14:45.180 Southern Alberta right now. We're working on this right now and we should have this soon. I'm just

01:14:51.240 waiting for the photos. There is a lineup of tractors that is moving down Highway 3 in the

01:14:58.160 grassy lake area. I've seen pictures this morning of a rolling protest going between Nobleford and

01:15:07.400 Pitcher Butte. We have another possible blockade at the Crow's Nest Pass and we're getting

01:15:16.320 unconfirmed reports of another blockade right in the city of Lethbridge. Yeah and we're seeing it

01:15:23.320 across the country too perhaps not through the week but I mean we're hearing about it more

01:15:27.260 protests are getting organized uh different areas of just hindering and upsetting uh the balance

01:15:32.800 I guess people are out of options they feel their back is against the wall I mean the one of concern

01:15:37.800 uh just for again for viewers and listeners who aren't that familiar with that border crossing

01:15:41.460 though and part of why I guess that the provincial government and the federal government perhaps even

01:15:45.880 are so inflamed with this that is that's Alberta's main crossing like some people have been saying oh

01:15:50.720 well the trucks can just go to another crossing it's not that easy uh the nearest one to there

01:15:55.740 is a gravel one down out south of uh foremost almost and and then there's uh i think carway

01:16:01.820 that's off to the west a ways but it's not commercially set up uh that's the only one with

01:16:06.540 an agricultural inspection station so a lot of product has to go through that crossing and i

01:16:12.060 believe if you've got your paperwork as a trucker for a particular crossing you have to use that one

01:16:16.380 you can't just bounce to another so just just to clarify on some of those things and that's why

01:16:21.180 this has been such a pressing issue for a lot of authorities and individuals.

01:16:26.460 Yeah. And actually, one of the protesters here, I would say he's part of the committee that's kind

01:16:33.180 of coordinating with everybody here. He actually got a phone call from a business associate out of

01:16:38.780 the States today. And he said, like, come on, guys, like, we got to get some movement at the

01:16:43.420 border there. We've got to get things going through. He said, I just I just found out that

01:16:47.980 it's going to cost me an additional $2,500 just to route to the next border crossing instead of

01:16:55.060 using coots. You know, these guys are truckers. They know the industry. They know what they're

01:17:00.420 doing and they know that it is causing economic harm. But, you know, they have said our mandate

01:17:06.700 is to get rid of all of the mandates, no vaccine passports, no mandatory vaccination, and we will

01:17:12.920 stay here and we will all get arrested. And as you've seen, they all lined up on the highway as

01:17:17.480 the RCMP was advancing yesterday. They all lined up on the highway. They all stood arm to arm and

01:17:23.260 they said, if you're arresting one, you are arresting all of us. Yeah. And, and as Dale

01:17:28.460 Frisk, another commenter said, Dale, Dale Bonita is super close on a great gravel road. Come on.

01:17:32.260 Yes, that's true there, Dale, but commercial traffic can't cross there. I mean, I, I, for

01:17:39.000 an individual's travelers, perhaps if they're going great, you know, and, and get on with your

01:17:42.520 vacation to head down to Yuma like I was the other week and I miss it so or other spots but the point

01:17:48.480 is that these truckers these larger commercial things cannot go through just another crossing

01:17:52.980 like that and it's heartening to know at least you know the lawyers are there negotiation is a

01:17:58.900 word I want to hear you know maybe this protest can be maintained while still allowing some

01:18:04.300 traffic through I mean it stretches out rather than getting to a point of of conflict I mean

01:18:09.040 that that's the hope for what we do want to see i think yeah and and you know some of the

01:18:13.840 protesters have been reaching out to uh local mlas and local mps now and uh and they're saying hey

01:18:20.320 like let's talk like let's what what what's the situation here what what are you guys doing in

01:18:26.400 government um are the mandates going to stay are the mandates going to be dropped um and you know

01:18:33.020 they're they're starting to make some progress it sounds like i think things are positive i don't

01:18:37.880 think that this this complete total stoppage and impasse is going to remain um but you know

01:18:45.320 the the the protesters have been clear they have not completely obstructed the area the rcmp have

01:18:52.200 uh they would be more than willing to let uh traffic trickle through the area now um i'm

01:18:58.600 just going to assume that the rcmp um because an actual lane isn't open um are are saying that

01:19:06.040 that that's too unsafe to, to let the public through like that. But, uh, you know, I, I can't

01:19:10.700 sure, uh, I can't be sure that speculation. Uh, but I, I think the, uh, the protesters are looking

01:19:16.360 forward to some dialogue today. And I think with some dialogue, uh, I, I don't believe a total

01:19:23.560 blockage will continue. Yeah. Well, and as you said, uh, you know, goods are coming in well by

01:19:29.660 people dragging them on toboggans and pulling it in. But, uh, as far as people can last or how

01:19:35.280 long they can last. There'd been a rumor before, and I don't know if you know anything or can

01:19:38.840 confirm anything on it, that some funding from the Truckers for Freedom in Ottawa, it's ticked

01:19:43.520 over $10 million now, can be dedicated towards the protest and blockade down there in Coutts.

01:19:49.720 Is there any truth to that that you know of? So that was a rumor on Saturday when things first

01:19:58.580 started, but I believe there was some confusion between the different groups of protesters who

01:20:04.320 kind of converged here. And they actually have their own GoFundMe. We've reported that on that

01:20:10.100 on the westernstandardonline.com. There's a link on our site to that GoFundMe. And Rebel News,

01:20:17.640 Rebel News has retained attorneys for them and started crowdfunding. And they're getting money

01:20:25.880 that way uh i believe they also have an e-transfer email address but i i wasn't able to confirm that

01:20:35.000 i think that was more um the the group of protesters are putting money into that account and

01:20:40.680 that account is being used to pay for food and supplies and some other things for the area but

01:20:45.980 honestly cory with the amount of support that they have here from the locals and the amount of

01:20:51.940 equipment and the amount of people that are able to get in and out of this area, no matter what

01:20:56.200 the RCMP are going to do. I got to tell you, these guys can stay here for months. These guys can stay

01:21:02.580 here until the mandates are completely gone. Yeah. And it's quite a standoff. I just wanted to

01:21:07.340 clarify too. So there's no direct association necessarily between this convoy and the one in

01:21:11.020 Ottawa. I mean, it's definitely related in the spirit of it and the timing and inspired by each

01:21:16.480 other, but it's difficult. I mean, the one in Ottawa, it's even difficult to find out exactly

01:21:20.580 who's leading or managing that one as with yours very decentralized uh and yeah just to give some 0.99

01:21:27.140 more background to some people because we see a lot of the i i you know idiots on social media 0.96

01:21:32.180 that that's fine uh i i play with them on twitter now and then uh but they say you know just send 0.99

01:21:36.660 them in and lock them up you know grab them and chain them up or just tow those things off there

01:21:40.580 it's not hard i i think some people don't understand how a heavy equipment works it when

01:21:45.540 that thing is shut off and sitting on a highway and bumper to bumper with the next one if it's a

01:21:48.980 b-train or something you don't just back up a little tow truck and move that thing that's a very

01:21:53.620 specialized skill and need specialized equipment like the rcmp have a heck of a dilemma on their

01:22:00.020 hands even if all those guys left there it would take a long time to try and open everything up

01:22:05.940 yeah corey there's hundreds of trucks still here and some of the trailers that are here are loaded

01:22:11.140 so you can't just hook on to a truck with a loaded trailer and haul it away they're there it's just

01:22:16.660 it's overweight uh the the tow trucks just aren't powerful enough to do it so it would take weeks

01:22:23.300 to clear these units out of here and and that's if you can find a tow truck in alberta that is

01:22:29.220 willing to to come down to this site now melanie risden and i called uh citywide towing last night

01:22:36.100 in calgary to confirm what they told melanie earlier in the day that their trucks were down

01:22:41.780 in milk river only for emergency support and they were sent down out of abundance of caution

01:22:49.380 as the protest was still rolling while the protest was rolling in case of an accident

01:22:55.620 citywide towing was here to help with recovery and emergency clearing of the highway after

01:23:02.020 the blockade was uh or began or i guess after after they made a porous blockade and parked

01:23:09.780 that's when citywide towing went back uh the weekend was over they told us that they have

01:23:15.060 their own clients in calgary that they need to take care of they're back in calgary taking

01:23:19.060 care of their own community and they have no intentions to come down here now we have contacted

01:23:24.660 tow truck companies as far north as white court uh and they have said they're not coming down here

01:23:30.900 uh yesterday i i talked to um an oil field drilling contractor out of brooks and he told me

01:23:39.780 that the rig moving companies across southeast alberta have all also been contacted as well

01:23:44.980 to come in here to help remove equipment and they've all said no as well so i even if they

01:23:50.740 go truck to truck they're going to have to drag each driver out one at a time the drivers have

01:23:56.340 said we will not resist arrest we will not become violent they they do not want um any animosity

01:24:04.980 between them and the RCMP. They support the RCMP. They support the police. But they will have to go

01:24:12.600 truck by truck and remove each driver and then figure out how they're going to tow these units

01:24:18.180 out here. And I mean, I got to tell you, Corey, there is a large grater on the back of one of

01:24:24.700 these trucks. And that the truck that is attached to it is about the only thing that's pulling it

01:24:29.180 out of here. Yeah, it's not like some hippie protest with a bunch of idiots who glued their 1.00

01:24:33.260 hands to the pavement and you can get a pancake flipper and cut them loose. This is unique. I 1.00

01:24:37.720 mean, we've never seen anything like it. It's a massive barrier of heavy intractable equipment

01:24:43.560 that won't be moved easily without cooperation. I think, again, urban living people might not

01:24:49.900 fully understand just the logistics involved and how this puts authorities on the spot if they want

01:24:55.840 to try and deal with this. As well with those companies, I mean, it puts them in a rock and a

01:25:00.700 hard place but they understand there's only so many heavy hauling companies and heavy hauling

01:25:04.980 trucks out there and the people at this blockade are their clientele and they do not want pictures

01:25:10.140 of their branded tow truck going around towing one of these guys out of there because it will

01:25:14.920 cost them business down the road um you know don't get on their case too if they're refusing to go

01:25:20.100 down there people for people who don't like the blockade just be fair to these towing companies

01:25:23.820 i mean they've got to look out for themselves too and it would just not serve them well to go down

01:25:28.440 and get into that mix. But again, it leaves the RCMP in a terrible position too. What an

01:25:32.960 interesting time, I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah, it's crazy. And actually, I just heard

01:25:39.360 the RCMP helicopter take off again. It happened right around this time yesterday. And that was

01:25:44.720 the precursor to the RCMP starting to advance on the trucks and start going truck by truck to clear

01:25:51.540 them. So, you know, shortly after this, we'll go outside. We may have an update. We may have a

01:25:56.400 livestream. I know that the committee and the drivers, they're working as a whole. They were

01:26:02.220 talking with the lawyers right before I came over here. So, you know, it could be another exciting

01:26:09.800 day. There could be another RCMP raid or there could be words of negotiation. You know, it's

01:26:16.580 all still up in the air. Yeah. So, you know, and that helps segue just to remind all of the viewers

01:26:23.440 and we've got a lot now you know people are clearly tuning into alternative media such as

01:26:27.860 ourselves to cut through the mainstream bs because we've seen so much uh if you haven't subscribed

01:26:32.180 to all of our social media channels because that's when yesterday we broke in out of the blue we found

01:26:36.240 out like holy cow it's hitting the fan james is down there right now let's cut in live let's show

01:26:40.980 people what's happening as it happens you know unfiltered not some uh you know cherry picked

01:26:45.860 stuff at the six o'clock news where they're going to have an agenda we're just going to give you the

01:26:48.900 live stream and we did so so if you subscribe to our youtube our rumble our facebook channels

01:26:54.500 you'll get the alert when these things happen because because james is down there and he will

01:26:58.560 bring it to you right away so if you haven't subscribed already and share it you know we can

01:27:02.640 bypass those mainstream guys we don't have to listen to them for information anymore and for

01:27:07.340 the detailed stories because james of course is reporting to dave and eva and mel and and all the

01:27:12.960 rest of the members crazily writing in Edmonton uh go to westernstandardonline.com take out a

01:27:19.160 subscription we can keep uh you know helps us afford to keep this coverage out there and spread

01:27:23.540 the the reality of what's going on real news yeah even uh I know a couple of people reached out to

01:27:30.300 me last night and said it seems like you're really attached to your vehicle they're correct uh I have

01:27:35.260 three layers on right now it was minus 28 with the wind chill yesterday and that wind goes right

01:27:39.800 through you and let me be honest in this kind of temperature your cell phone battery does not last

01:27:45.100 very long not with this live streaming program and uh and and yes i was i was plugged right into my

01:27:51.560 truck the whole time and you know it it's not the best i wish i could get better video for our

01:27:57.140 members a better better product for subscribers but uh you know the the more support and more

01:28:02.920 subscribers we have the better we can do and the better coverage we can bring you guys oh yeah well

01:28:07.600 And if people saw any of the productions we made a year ago, I tell you, we've come a long way.

01:28:11.660 And, you know, you and Nico and some others have done a fantastic job of building this media outlet that we've got going on.

01:28:18.080 And just to let everybody know, I mean, how seriously we're taking, we were all put on alert.

01:28:21.920 If things were to break out last night, often with these kinds of protests, the RCMP will move in at like three in the morning.

01:28:26.520 They want to catch people when they're asleep, get the least amount of resistance, the least amount of coverage.

01:28:30.580 And James spent the night there.

01:28:33.480 We were to be phoned.

01:28:34.520 I was going to crawl out of bed if it was three in the morning and head to the office.

01:28:37.600 Mel and Nico, we're going to be right there covering it as it happened. And, uh, uh, we were

01:28:43.300 ready to go. So there's something happening now, James there. Yeah, actually, uh, I I've

01:28:50.020 commandeered an office here and, uh, I've got a local sources that are calling into the office.

01:28:54.580 I just got, uh, handed a note here that, uh, things are changing rapidly. Uh, so, uh, I I'm

01:29:00.980 sorry, I'm going to cut this short. Hopefully you guys in the office there can set up another

01:29:06.280 live stream and if i've got something to bring you uh then very shortly uh i will i will bring

01:29:11.940 something to you if uh if i get out there and i don't have anything for you then i'll let you

01:29:17.340 know hopefully cory before the end of your show and uh yeah i i'll be back in touch uh watch

01:29:23.540 follow my twitter i'm gonna update on my twitter uh but uh as soon as we go live and it's on the

01:29:29.080 live stream i have to shut the notifications off on my phone or the stream will drop so i won't

01:29:33.680 see the Twitter notifications. I'm really sorry about that. But I'm going to go check out what's

01:29:39.100 going on out there, Corey. Yeah. And what's your Twitter feed? It's at Jimmy Bianchi.

01:29:44.680 Okay, great. I'll let you get out there and see what's going on. Thanks for checking in there

01:29:48.580 in detail, James. Yeah, take care, Corey. So yeah, I mean, it's good to have somebody on

01:29:54.600 the ground. As I said, you know, when you get the evening news, you get the clips of what they want

01:29:59.620 to show you. And I mean, there's some great reporters out there. I know we're always all

01:30:02.900 over the mainstream. But I mean, the behavior of them over this whole convoys and state one,

01:30:08.420 I mean, people have seen just how grossly slanted it was. I mean, we even had a CBC reporter try to

01:30:14.760 claim Russians were behind the organization. The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. 0.87

01:30:18.720 What an embarrassment. You know, our state broadcaster, yeah, they hate being called that, 0.70

01:30:23.060 but when you're going to be that pathetically groveling to the liberal agenda, you clearly are

01:30:27.040 a state broadcaster, not just a national broadcaster. You're a one and a half billion 0.57

01:30:31.220 subsidized trumpet for the government and it's ridiculous and people are seeing through it and

01:30:37.800 they're tuning in to other coverage to find out what's really going on so and I mean hey we're

01:30:43.080 going to stream it live as we did yesterday with James when he did so out there shivering there

01:30:47.740 was a lot of you know speculation as he's walking around and trying to see what's happening but if

01:30:52.120 anything had happened well things were happening and if more had happened you're going to see it

01:30:56.000 unfiltered straight to you that's the way we're going to cover it and I mean you know we don't

01:31:00.540 have an agenda when we cover things later on we will give you what we saw what we heard and there's

01:31:06.500 just so many rumors bouncing around uh about so many things again i was i was floored you know

01:31:13.540 jason kenny is he's certainly no fool um i i will give some benefit of the doubt when he said

01:31:19.640 he thought that uh there'd been an assault on police officers um during the uh the protests

01:31:27.820 yesterday. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think somebody fed them bad

01:31:30.780 information on that. But either way, that talked the news, of course. That conference went everywhere.

01:31:36.060 It was on the headlines. It was in the evening news. It was on the radio that people at the

01:31:40.040 protest had assaulted police officers. We found out that is 100% absolutely untrue. It did not

01:31:45.420 happen. So why are we getting such bad information out there in the mainstream, in the big channels?

01:31:50.280 We're not talking about a Twitter rumor. This was the premier saying that. So James Twitter,

01:31:55.880 I've forgotten what it was too

01:31:58.380 but if you search James Finkbeiner

01:32:00.160 like at James Finkbeiner

01:32:02.180 in your Twitter thing it will pop up

01:32:04.420 his account there or even look

01:32:06.400 at mine Corey B Morgan I believe you know if you scroll

01:32:08.460 far enough you'll find I've retweeted James stuff

01:32:10.440 quite often in that and I'll throw it

01:32:12.480 up when I get the chance for sure at least

01:32:14.380 if only on my own Twitter and

01:32:16.160 as I said if you're

01:32:18.360 subscribed to

01:32:20.460 our channels and such you'll get the updates

01:32:22.360 as soon as they break like if James sees

01:32:24.380 something hitting the fan. He's going to get that live feed rolling. We're going to be in here

01:32:28.260 and we're going to be covering it. So, you know, keep an eye on these feeds if you haven't

01:32:31.360 subscribed already. Looks like actually James might be popping on again in a moment. We'll see.

01:32:39.400 It's hard to tell. He's in an office. It's difficult out there in the field. He'll give

01:32:42.940 me a wave if he wants to get on. If he's got anything new, he is waving. So let's bring James

01:32:47.780 back and see what update we got. What's happening, James? I have an update. I'm headed outside to

01:32:53.580 confirm this, but I have just been told that the drivers are opening up a lane in each direction

01:32:58.140 to allow traffic in and out of the area. I'm also told that there is roughly 30 MLAs coming down to

01:33:04.960 the area to meet with the protesters. I'm going to get out there. I'm going to go find out which

01:33:09.640 MLAs. I'm going to get us some video of those trucks moving, but it looks like the impasse

01:33:14.800 has finally moved and we're moving forward now. This is an exciting development. This is awesome,

01:33:21.840 Corey. Great. Okay. Well, we'll watch for you outside. We'll keep the show rolling here.

01:33:26.720 That is an interesting development. And yeah, we'll let you get out there and looking forward

01:33:30.300 to the footage, James. Be back soon. Thanks, Corey. All right. And yeah, some of those people

01:33:35.120 asking, there's this fantastic and beautiful viewer down in Pritis. Her name's Jane Morgan.

01:33:41.060 I got a little bit of bias there, but damn, she's hot. And she watches the show loyally like my 0.97

01:33:45.500 mother does. And she has found James' Twitter account number there, or account ID there. It is

01:33:52.140 Twitter. It's at Jimmy Bianchi. So J-I-M-M-Y-B-I-A-N-C-H-I. So if you want to follow James as he's

01:34:00.500 live tweeting things when he sees them down there, that's where to go. Follow James,

01:34:05.200 get stuff as it happens. So that is a big and interesting development. And as a whole pile

01:34:10.180 of MLAs coming down, that's fantastic. This is what we're seeing on negotiation. I know

01:34:15.460 some people got upset with me before when I've been talking saying we need to negotiate, we need

01:34:19.320 to talk, we need to have an exit ramp, we need to have a vent. And there's truth to it. And this

01:34:24.060 seems to be what's happening. I mean, when you've got apparently 30 MLAs coming down there to talk

01:34:28.840 to them, you've got the ear of the government. It doesn't mean the government caved for those who

01:34:32.080 oppose this blockade. It means they're listening and they're taking it seriously and respectfully.

01:34:38.220 That's how you calm these situations. And I imagine we're just speculating the deal is

01:34:42.720 you guys open up and start letting some traffic through. So James is going out to check on that.

01:34:47.780 And that takes some of the pressure off. As I said, we've got commercial vehicles, as James

01:34:53.040 pointed out, that, you know, it costs them thousands of dollars to go to another location

01:34:58.160 to get their stuff across the border, if they can. I mean, if you've got your papers, I mean,

01:35:03.800 going through customs brokers for commercial stuff, it's not like when you're going down

01:35:07.140 for vacation. You don't just wave your passport and go through. It takes inspections and a number

01:35:10.920 of things. And the Coutts border is the only one in Alberta that is an agricultural facility. So

01:35:16.740 if you're moving livestock or a number of things, they have the specialists there to cover that

01:35:21.460 sort of thing. You can't just go to another border with it to haul it over there. And it's a very

01:35:26.400 busy one. It's integral for Albertan producers and American producers. So this closure has had

01:35:32.400 a very strong impact. And I don't think the people at the protest want to hurt their fellow

01:35:38.500 businessmen. They don't want to hurt their fellow farmers and producers as such. They want to make

01:35:44.840 a goal. I'm going to take a quick break here. Perhaps we'll go to our sponsor, Algadex, just a

01:35:49.320 quick ad from them. And Jimmy's getting set up outside there and we'll see what he's got for

01:35:54.160 updates. So just hang on a minute and I'll see you in a moment. Algadex is owned by Algonaut. This is

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01:36:37.720 Okay, welcome back. And that's one of our sponsors. And again, us being an independent outlet, we are reliant on you guys subscribing, which has been great. And sponsors who come in, you know, to reach out to you guys. So that's Algadex. They've been a good, strong sponsor for us. Check their site out. It's very interesting on developments with digital currency. For those who might have recently tuned in, so things are breaking right now. James Finkbeiner has gone out to see if he can get some live streaming of that.

01:37:03.360 The truckers have agreed and they're going to be moving aside to let traffic go both ways to a degree at that border.

01:37:09.640 It's not that the protest is over, but they're given some ground to say we can start letting some folks through.

01:37:14.260 This is an important development, a big development.

01:37:17.500 And I guess the government has agreed to send 30 MLAs down there to talk to them.

01:37:22.840 And as I said, it's a sign at least that they're taking this seriously and they're looking for resolution.

01:37:27.880 And it's good to see.

01:37:28.960 and Lavalace saying

01:37:31.740 Kenny lied yesterday

01:37:33.660 and said police were assaulted. Why did he do that?

01:37:35.680 I don't know why. As I said, maybe somebody

01:37:37.660 fed him bad information. We're trying

01:37:39.700 to get to the bottom of that, but at least we

01:37:41.320 have corrected the record on

01:37:43.740 that. As James gets

01:37:45.640 set up out there, let's see what else we've got going on

01:37:47.580 at the standard. We've got a cartoon

01:37:48.600 that's on the Western Standard site, you know,

01:37:51.500 just things to watch for. We are a comprehensive site.

01:37:53.720 We do more than just the streaming stuff

01:37:55.480 and coverage is something with a greyhound, I believe.

01:37:58.960 Groundhog. There we go. The Groundhog Day cartoon. Yes. And that's Chronicles cartoon. He does a

01:38:04.880 number of them for us. As you can see, he's quite an artist and he's got Justin Trudeau and Doug

01:38:11.800 Ford. It looks like Jason Kenney and the fella from BC out there and Trudeau looking, they're

01:38:17.300 all popping out of gopher holes. Saw their shadow and said six more months of mandates and lockdowns.

01:38:21.200 I'm reading those things up because a lot of people, by the way, download this as the audio

01:38:25.400 and listen to it. You can go to any of your favorite podcast sites and look up the Western

01:38:29.880 Standard. Podbean's our main one. And you can download and listen at your leisure as well,

01:38:34.300 because not everybody can always tune in live and see what's going on around here. And here's some

01:38:40.540 of the stories from the Western Standard. They've been at the top, as you see from Eva there. The

01:38:43.980 trucker's GoFundMe account has hit $10 million. I mean, that's amazing. How often, as Dave reported

01:38:50.680 earlier when I had the check-in from the newsroom. That is the eighth highest GoFundMe has ever done.

01:38:56.920 I mean, they're the world's biggest online fundraising website. People from across the

01:39:01.800 country are supporting this. As well, the top story we can see from Nico, we've got, yes, the

01:39:07.360 breaking news of Aaron O'Toole. He is out. There's a picture of Pierre Polyev, a picture of Leslyn

01:39:12.720 Lewis. These are people and names that we expect will probably run for the leadership of the

01:39:17.140 conservatives. This came so suddenly, how ready they are to make their run or how prepared they

01:39:22.320 are to go. We'll see. And we're going to see all sorts of names coming up. Lots of people for the

01:39:26.540 comments scroll. I think Polyev is already the leader, I guess you could say, even though he

01:39:31.900 hasn't formally thrown his hat in yet. And there Nikos put the numbers up. I mean, 73 to 45 was

01:39:37.200 what the MPs voted to remove him. All they needed was a 50% vote in order to get him out. I really

01:39:44.620 thought it was going to be kind of close. And even if it was 55%, you know, it would have been so

01:39:48.280 weak, he would have been done. But this was definitive. I mean, a strong majority of the

01:39:53.000 caucus members have said, O'Toole, we're done with you. Get out. It's not working for you.

01:40:00.560 And who we got? Here we go. Yes, John Williamson. He's from New Brunswick. So he's saying he's

01:40:05.900 going to be or he's running to be the interim leader of the party and interim leader. So

01:40:10.960 there's one person we can rule out. You can't run for the leadership if you are the interim

01:40:15.940 leader. So that's one person who won't be running because there's going to be all sorts of

01:40:21.500 speculation about who will be running. And you know, it goes to follow something that Danielle

01:40:27.800 Smith and she's done shows here before they do their show uncensored every now and then with

01:40:33.860 her and Rob Anderson and Bruce McAllister. But Danielle's always said, and boy, she knows about

01:40:40.220 caucus dissension that it's when your caucus turns on you when you're done you can't get by

01:40:45.440 you're finished the public is you know can pressure but when you've lost caucus support

01:40:49.780 you're toast and clearly uh o'toole massively lost caucus support uh something i was talking

01:40:57.320 with derek about earlier you know he's been in caucus provincially and things like that and he's

01:41:01.060 gotten in fights with leaders though one of the ways to avoid that is always to make it an open

01:41:06.360 vote. Well, let's have the vote right now. Let's see the raise of hands. And of course,

01:41:10.060 caucus members often will curl back and not vote against in that case, because they know that if

01:41:15.920 the leader stays on, they're going to get the repercussions for it. But this was a secret

01:41:20.140 ballot. So we don't know who voted how, but the vast majority of the conservative caucus voted

01:41:25.080 this morning and said they want a new leader. So we're going to be going into a race for that.

01:41:29.880 And as with talking with Zane earlier too, Jason Kenney's facing that in April 9th, you know, we're probably going to be within a year.

01:41:39.220 We know the fixed election date, Alberta should be going into an election in about a year and two months.

01:41:43.900 With federal elections and minority governments averaging once every 18 months or so, I think chances are really good.

01:41:51.400 I mean, they've got to move fairly fast too.

01:41:52.940 These parties, if you want to get a new leader, you can't do it two months before an election.

01:41:56.080 You've got to get them in, get that race done and start campaigning and hopefully there to win or replace whoever's there in the first place.

01:42:03.900 And that's why these parties are getting a little desperate as well.

01:42:06.240 They know they couldn't wait much longer with O'Toole.

01:42:08.160 They've got to get them out right away.

01:42:10.000 And well, we'll see with Jason Kenney.

01:42:11.880 I mean, there's a lot of discontent, but he's also a very skilled political operator.

01:42:16.720 Never underestimate Jason Kenney's ability to play the political games.

01:42:23.160 Derek and I talked a little bit about that when things were breaking with that.

01:42:26.080 There's different skills. Derek says he'd love to see a businessman in office and win and be a

01:42:29.820 prime minister, but they never do. But you see, businessmen have to, I mean, they can have their

01:42:33.780 ups and downs and negotiations and play politics, but it's not the same as managing a partisan

01:42:38.420 animal. That's a special skill. That's an ability to make deals, an ability to compromise

01:42:44.440 and hold things together. Not many people have it. Unfortunately, really skilled politicians

01:42:53.460 aren't always the best legislators. They aren't always the best ideologues. They might not bring

01:42:57.640 the best policy. They're only good at winning. And that doesn't serve us very well. And Kenny,

01:43:04.200 you know, my personal point of view and why he's done so badly, and he really has,

01:43:08.300 there's no getting around that. I'd hoped for better, but he's done awfully as premier. He's

01:43:12.500 lost a lot of public support. The party is sinking terribly. Yet he'd spent decades in Ottawa and

01:43:18.940 it was very effective. He was a fantastic cabinet minister federally. I mean, some people might

01:43:22.440 differ with me. I thought he was very effective. He was always known as one of the hardest worker

01:43:26.340 working in there. But there's a world of difference between running a cabinet portfolio

01:43:32.440 and managing a party. See, that's that weird royal jelly of leadership. You know, you don't see it

01:43:38.920 that often. You really don't. There's only so many who are really that talented at pulling it

01:43:43.120 together. So once he got into a party situation, you can't run a provincial political party like

01:43:48.000 you do a cabinet portfolio. And he didn't know how to do it. And he hasn't managed to do it

01:43:52.380 well. Ralph Klein, for example, not heavily educated in politics, not a political person,

01:43:58.040 but he could pull people together. He could unite them and he could keep that conservative

01:44:02.200 coalition going. And it was a skill and a talent. Again, whether you liked his

01:44:06.640 governance or his abilities, just as a leader who could keep conservatives going on walking,

01:44:14.460 and that's that rare trait in lockstep. Ralph Klein had it in spades and we haven't really

01:44:18.600 seen anything like it since. Stephen Harper, he got a majority, he held things together for a bit,

01:44:24.160 was as strong a conservative as we could for a while. I mean, a very smart man,

01:44:28.660 again, a relentless organizer, played the political games and could hold it together,

01:44:33.920 at least to get a majority government for a while and do a few things, but still ended up,

01:44:37.320 you know, eventually losing. So the conservatives have got some very big decisions to make

01:44:42.440 in the near future. You know, I mean, how on earth do you unseat this bloody Trudeau? 0.95

01:44:48.600 nobody's going to want to go to another election and into another stalemate. It's just going to 0.96

01:44:53.760 feel like a waste of time and effort yet again. I like Pierre Polyev, you know, it's early and we

01:44:59.620 keep seeing that name popping up. I mean, the guy has just at least been, but we got to remember

01:45:03.380 that I like him fine, but I like outspoken, grumpy, abrasive people. And not everybody does.

01:45:10.160 He grates on a whole lot of people as well. And you've got to think about how much the electorate

01:45:16.700 at large would like Mr. Poliav as a leader. I think you pull it off. I really do. But we'll

01:45:22.100 see. I mean, he's got an interesting balance, you know, and that's one of those hard things

01:45:24.840 when you come to the regional thing. I mean, he's initially a Calgary person,

01:45:28.260 but now he's out there. I believe he's riding. He's near Ottawa. Very much a swing one. He won

01:45:33.400 a tough one for the Conservatives, but he can lay a little claim to those Western routes

01:45:37.820 and of course, those precious Ontario routes that you need in order to form a government,

01:45:43.260 Try to figure out how you can just get all those crabby conservatives into one room and vote and move along the government.

01:45:52.620 So Polyev is one of the names that comes up and the one I'm seeing the most.

01:45:57.880 Candace Bergen, again, comes up a lot.

01:46:01.400 Ronna Ambrose, that's a name we saw provincially all over.

01:46:04.040 People really loved Ronna and she did a great job when she was in an interim role.

01:46:08.200 The downside is she's made it clear so many times. 0.97

01:46:11.140 she's just got no interest in throwing her hat back into the political field. So we'll see who

01:46:19.380 pops up though. You know, Brad Wall, that's another one I got excited about. But as Derek said,

01:46:23.180 he's never really shown much interest, seems to be quite happy in his ranching role and he does

01:46:28.440 public speaking circuit and other things such as that. But, you know, I could see him pulling it

01:46:34.920 together. He's another Westerner, but I think he's a Westerner who could pull that coalition

01:46:41.620 together. Samantha Jones LeBlanc saying, can they vote Trudeau out on Parliament Hill? Well,

01:46:47.700 Trudeau is in a minority government. So theoretically, if enough of the members of

01:46:58.300 all the parties get in and do a non-confidence vote, they can throw him out and throw us into

01:47:01.120 an election. But Jagmeet Singh is as powerful as he's ever going to get sitting as he is right

01:47:04.900 now. And I don't think he's ever going to vote to remove Trudeau. I just got a heads up from

01:47:09.260 Dave, our news editor, that Justin O'Toole is set to speak at 1pm. So he's going to come out

01:47:16.640 and address his now career change. So maybe I think, because James is still working out there,

01:47:23.160 watch our site. I'm going to break away and we'll take a breather. And once James, if he finds stuff

01:47:28.460 this developing. Chances are very good. We're going to come back on live soon and cover what's

01:47:35.280 going on down there in Coots. But for the time being, you can see what O'Toole has got to say

01:47:39.720 at his conference and what's happening there. Barring anything else happening, as I said,

01:47:44.160 I was ready to get up at two in the morning. If things happen, I will do so and we will cover it

01:47:47.860 live. Things are springing up. They're developing as we go. Make sure to go to the westernstandardonline.com

01:47:53.660 to get these stories as they break. Tomorrow, I've got Travis Smith coming on. He wrote on

01:47:58.220 time he spent at a truck stop with the convoyers oh geez before i take off it looks like i see a

01:48:03.060 frosty james walking around out there so i might cut over to him in case uh we don't need to break

01:48:08.080 the feed james how's it going hey cory can you guys hear me yes we can all right so i i have

01:48:14.400 confirmed now that uh 30 mlas in the rural caucus are meeting right now to discuss dropping all

01:48:20.920 restrictions in rural alberta and uh as a sign of good uh good faith in bargaining the truck

01:48:26.460 drivers have decided to move and let one lane open. If the caucus meets and they don't drop

01:48:33.020 the restrictions, they'll move right back into place. They'll block everything up again. But

01:48:37.740 if these rural MLAs decide that they're about to drop the restrictions in rural areas, then

01:48:43.920 they're going to get one lane open in each direction today. Wow, that is an amazing live

01:48:50.180 development. This is what we're getting, guys, breaking as it goes. So we could see a deal cut

01:48:54.920 right now. 30 MLAs are talking about getting it open. Of course, yeah, this is a dangerous game

01:49:01.100 because if those 30 aren't enough to get those restrictions dropped, the guys opening up the

01:49:05.100 border right now are going to be some kind of upset, I imagine. Yeah, we're going to go in and

01:49:10.640 we're going to talk to everybody. We're going to get the names of those MLAs. We're going to find

01:49:15.080 out what's happening. But right now, the drivers are starting to head to their trucks. Let me flip

01:49:20.740 my camera around here and see uh see if uh if if we can get this here but the guys are starting to

01:49:26.460 go to their trucks their trucks are starting to fire up uh they they want to they want to be clear

01:49:32.500 that uh they're bargaining in good faith here they they they know that they can't keep this

01:49:38.000 close forever they know that the economy relies on it their drivers themselves uh they want some

01:49:44.820 dialogue and uh it looks like they're gonna get it it looks like they're gonna get what they've

01:49:49.140 asked for. Excellent. I mean, this is just history in the making in a sense of seeing, you know,

01:49:55.080 grassroots citizens action, getting out reasonably doing something and perhaps accomplishing some

01:50:00.320 very positive change. I mean, we'll see if and when those mandates get dropped, but we're

01:50:04.720 definitely seeing, as you said, you showed the camera view, the drivers are moving,

01:50:08.800 they're negotiating in good faith. If the provincial government continues to negotiate in good faith,

01:50:13.400 we're going to see a whole pile of rural restrictions gone, which a lot of us are ready

01:50:17.520 to see and uh we can start moving forward that's fantastic news james uh um so cheryl's asking

01:50:24.520 though is that just rural restrictions we're talking about so far that's all we've heard is

01:50:29.080 just rural restrictions uh i'm not sure what's going to happen in the cities um i think you know

01:50:34.220 i i think this is step one i think this is a big step i think this is progress i i think this is

01:50:39.660 what a lot of people here wanted to see yeah and kieran o'toole saying the same thing he's been

01:50:44.560 posted some great videos from his facebook page by the way from uh he went to the edmonton convoy

01:50:48.540 there um but uh yeah as you said it's a step one and the cities will have a very hard time

01:50:53.600 maintaining restrictions and controls if the rural ones are being dropped i mean that would

01:50:57.880 just be a domino falling it wouldn't be long afterwards then the fights would become with

01:51:01.240 gondek and and some of the others who love restrictions but at least the province will

01:51:05.820 be out of it yeah absolutely i uh you know i i think some of the municipal politicians will

01:51:12.880 have decisions to make they need to protect their own population and I think some of the rural

01:51:17.260 politicians are seeing a different thing in their area and you know they've chosen to work with

01:51:23.720 their constituents in this situation well that's great news and that's breaking guys that's live

01:51:29.560 so here we go we've got some progress we got things going on you're chilly out there I'll

01:51:34.340 let you keep going and get more information I'm sure you'll cut in as things develop and let us

01:51:38.160 know and uh thanks for for keeping us up to date here james no problem talk soon cory you bet

01:51:44.760 so yeah we'll uh break off the show for a bit here as things are happening as i said

01:51:50.660 dave has been letting me know that o'toole is going live right away to to address his leadership

01:51:56.680 status now we're seeing uh what looks to be in a deal cut or some negotiations going on between

01:52:02.680 the truckers convoy at the border and the alberta government i know some people don't feel that

01:52:07.240 rural is enough. As I said, though, if that starts falling just with the rural, the urban is not

01:52:13.140 going to be far behind at all. And that would be an amazing accomplishment. A protest that did that

01:52:17.620 and look at the pressure that'll put on Ottawa. It's showing the province can relent. Justin,

01:52:24.560 why can't you? And negotiations will have to start getting going up there, whether people like it or

01:52:30.460 not. So this is a good development. We could start seeing perhaps, you know, well, we are going to

01:52:34.500 see it. James has said that the trucks are starting to move. Product is going to go across

01:52:37.580 the border again. And, you know, hopefully we're going to see some restrictions drop. This could

01:52:42.760 be a very good day in many ways, except for Aaron O'Toole, who now is, I guess, a backblancher for

01:52:48.960 the time being. So thank you all for tuning in. Again, subscribe to all of this stuff.

01:52:53.180 Go to westernstandardonline.com, take out a membership. We break this stuff as fast as it

01:52:57.440 comes out. James will break in with a live update. If anything new develops, he's down there in

01:53:02.980 person. He's going to stay down there. And as I said, even if it's going to be two or three in

01:53:06.280 the morning, we're going to keep you up to date on that. So thank you all for tuning in today.

01:53:10.020 It's been a marathon episode and if nothing else breaks, I will see you tomorrow at 1130

01:53:14.820 or I might see you sooner. Have a good night.

01:53:32.980 Thank you.

Western Standard - February 02, 2022

BREAKING LIVE： O’Toole ousted as Tory leader

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