Canada is arming back up
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Summary
Western Standard crime editor Nigel Hannaford and crime editor Corey Morgan discuss the results of the Alberta by-elections, the Iran war, and the U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Plus, a look at why Danielle Smith is so popular in Alberta.
Transcript
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I'm Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.
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I'm joined by my two usual partners in crime, Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
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And partner in crime, criminal number two, Corey Morgan, Western Standard senior, Alberta colonist.
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Well, we're going to be talking about a commitment made just today by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada is signing on to the new NATO spending commitment of 5% of GDP.
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That would be a roughly threefold increase in Canadian military spending.
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I mean, 5% is not a particularly heavily armed country, but it's a hell of a lot more than we have.
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And it's probably a fairly reasonable peacetime amount to be at.
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We'll also be talking about what's been happening with U.S. intervention in the Iran-Israel war.
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War of words between Donald Trump and CNN, I think, and the New York Post?
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We'll be talking about what's going on with Iran.
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And Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has launched her Alberta Next panel, which will be touring Alberta.
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Coming up, we're listening to Albertans about what they want to do going next forward.
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And footy forward, potentially a whole series of referendum questions around Alberta sovereignty-related issues.
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But that comes right on the hills of fresh by-elections in Alberta.
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And Alberta NDP leader Nahid Nenshi was, as expected, he won Rachel Notley's old seat, the safest NDP seat in Alberta.
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He won it by something 80% supermajority, so he'll finally be in the legislature.
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There was another by-election, another safe NDP seat in Edmonton, no surprises there.
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But there were, there was a lot more interest in a by-election in Old Disbury Three Hills in central Alberta.
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That's a constituency where the upstart Republican Party of Alberta
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ran its leader and kind of threw the kitchen sink
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I mean, it was still a solid win around 65, 62, 61, I think.
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I mean, a win's a win, and that's still a big win.
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But it's down from the roughly 75% that it was in the general election.
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Almost all of that, pretty much all of that vote went to the Republicans who are running on an explicitly independence ticket there.
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And there's, I mean, and the Republicans ran third place behind the NDP, just behind the NDP.
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But, you know, I think going into this, I had no expectations they could win it.
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But Daniel Smith is very popular right now, particularly with conservatives and in rural Alberta.
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You know, this is not like when, you know, Ed Stelmack is sitting around and there's a lot of discontent.
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There's not a lot of discontent for Smith, especially coming from the sovereigntist and nationalist right in Alberta.
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So, you know, the Republicans, you know, I put it this way, a contextual win for them would have been to come in second place.
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the NDP for second. And I think they would have been
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different ways we can parse this, but we'll talk to the reaction
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for this seat, this holds Disbury Three Hills in
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until it was a general election. But, you know, it had
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for an independence candidate to break through,
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So yeah, legacy media panned this and said, this is people rejecting independence.
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I said that I see this as Danielle Smith relatively successfully keeping the independence movement within the UCP tent.
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Now, the UCP candidate there does not appear to be a nationalist.
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um i'll put it to you first cory uh you know do you see this uh is a glass half full glass half
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empty there's different fair ways to come at this i suppose the actual candidate supporting
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independence lost came in a i think a semi-respectable third for a third party 20 uh
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you know 18 is not bad for a third can third party candidate um but i i didn't see it as
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repudiation of independence necessarily no it definitely wasn't a repudiation of independence
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I'm still more on the glass half empty notion of this one, though.
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As you said, as you kind of framed it, this was, in my view, the perfect storm for an
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You had the spike in support for independence from the recent election.
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By-elections are an opportunity for malcontents to safely vote for a different party because
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you don't have to worry about flipping over the party in power or anything like that.
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I mean, a disaster would have been a nine or single digit support number for this party
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but I think if they were running exclusively on the independence thing, perhaps that's part of
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where they went wrong. They should have scored higher. I mean, polling is showing much higher
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for independence support, but they spent a lot of time too. And that's what some people were
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getting a feeling that maybe there's a bit of a personal vendetta is the UCP and Daniel Smith in
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this. They should have focused more on the independence because that's what they were
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standing for and less time sniping at the UCP. And maybe they could have cornered that market
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and cornered that as a vote to make a statement and they didn't do that and so I think they kind
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of grabbed the default of hardcore independent supporters but now as you said it's provided an
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opportunity to be framed and saying there isn't much support for it. I mean if you couldn't break
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18% support in the strongest constituency in the whole province and they got 0.7% support in
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Strathcona which nobody expected much but how are you going to do across the province and it doesn't
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bode well. And I don't think it is representative
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And some of that was good at jolted conservatives
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of the electoral system that, yeah, okay, if you did have multiple conservatives running
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in, say, downtown Calgary, yeah, you're probably going to elect the NDP. If you did it in suburban
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Calgary, you might elect the NDP. If you did it in Old Vizbury, Three Hills, there's just a zero
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percent chance. You could safely vote for the most radical, right-wing, independent supporting
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candidate you want to your heart's content, and the NDP will never win. But I don't think the
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average voter gets that. And I don't think the Republican campaign there just appreciated how
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ingrained that is now in the conservative psyche in Alberta.
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Well, the other aspect of all of that is the very name Republican is not really a winner in
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Canada and not really a winner in Alberta, even though we think differently to the rest of Canada.
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calling yourself the alberta republicans is just i think that was i'm going to put some people off
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there was no relationship between the alberta republicans and the republican party in the
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united states well it'd be illegal yes exactly so but that said it sort of sounds like it and
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you just made the point in yourself there that a lot of people aren't deep thinkers on this stuff
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this is coming back in about a year's time and in the in the air what we're
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gonna see people will give fair-minded people will give mr. Carney a chance he
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will work things you will work with Daniel Smith it won't work I don't
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think they're gonna come together I don't think they're gonna find a column
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ground and see how they can and we're gonna be where we were just before the
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election with Eastern Canada and all of its presuppositions and all of its
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prejudice is about the West, it'll still be there and the value difference, never
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mind the money, the value difference between Alberta and the rest of Canada is
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still going to make people say, I want out of here.
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Well then a referendum is going to be a whole different animal and it takes
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out, as Derek was talking about, that party aspect of it.
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This is a yes or no when it comes to that, on that issue itself.
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And you can add a lot more clarity on where you're going, you know, I'm not
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intended on that but so I mean that's you lose a lot of those complications that come with trying
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to take a party approach when you move into a referendum situation so marking this outcome is
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something that would reflect on a referendum no and I mean as Nigel was saying too the Republican
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Monitor I mean I heard some people say well they're talking about Alberta being a republic well fine
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but we know as campaigners before if you're explaining at the door you're losing you don't
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have time to spend a minute to explain your definition of your party name at every door
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and you can't be explaining vote splitting at the door
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split the vote and then you're trying to explain like
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upset with them with the potential that they might bring
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They were not going to allow a Citizens Initiative to do a referendum on independence,
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something like that. I'd be inclined to say, yeah, that's the time for
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something like the Republican Party. You're going to have to take the UCP down, and
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maybe that does split some votes and whatnot, but if that's your goal, you're going to
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recognized that, that that was an issue that would
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I mean, that's not a majority of Albertans, but you don't
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something like the Republican Party or before that
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all the different iterations we've had at these things,
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too much lately, but they would have their own justification
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but does that have the horsepower to go all the way
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because I don't think you win a referendum unless the UCP
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weight of its campaign organization behind a referendum it's hard to say i i mean the ucp is
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not going to go full independence it's not going to happen but they're getting as close as you
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possible she loves walking that line though i mean as this thing here bouchard is holding a
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an event you know a sovereignty uh that's a ucp mla in south california yes and a federalist party
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would never even allow it for a second in mla to hold an event like that so they're kind of walking
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that line. And it gives, as you said, too, though, it's like a pressure cooker, but you got that
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little valve to let off some steam. And the referendum allows independence minded people
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to be channeling their energy towards that towards a vote, whether or not it could succeed or not,
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as you said, it'd be very difficult, no matter what, especially without UCP support. But it does
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keep an organized group that would eat up 20% of their party or 30% of their party and possibly
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whether or not people agree if she's a federalist or not
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it's a separate question. I think Smith has gone
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or a change to the party's constitution comes forward
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ones. Those are the ones that would come out to conventions.
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they could do it by simply winning a vote there i mean that's probably that's much easier than
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starting another party going through a full civil war wild rose pc style probably have an
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nep government at least in the interim you know so now you're talking eight to 12 years to get there
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you could do it in the fall you could simply just take over the ucp and that would be dangerous for
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the ucp though because you gotta remember 35 of them and this is a very there's not many in-betweens
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on that when it comes to that level there's some people that much connected to the federation that
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debate. That's where you could actually get them swinging. Well, the NDP, the only one's representing
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federalism. I will go there. Like, it would be very, very dangerous if the UCP took on a formal
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sovereigntist stance, I think. But there's that damage with the reserve.
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This is not a debate over what the curriculum is or what the marginal tax rate should be. This is
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an existential constitution. But if you can keep it towards the referendum and not party policy,
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you can potentially sidestep that. But we'll see. But it does give Premier Smith a good,
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strong hand when she's dealing with Carney. She represents herself as the voice of reason that
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stands between hardline separatists within her own party, that we do have these legitimate demands.
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And, you know, sir, do you want to be the prime minister who stood on your principles
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and caused massive disruption in Confederation.
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I'm, you know, off camera, you know, we have the same problem.
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Sure, if our goal is to try yet another round at saving Canada,
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I think she has to at least attempt, because I think,
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Before she can actually, even if she wants to lead an independence movement,
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and I actually don't see anybody else with a persona
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Maybe there's somebody out there and maybe you know who they are,
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but at the moment, I don't think anybody's got the credibility.
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But everything that we put towards holstering the independence movement
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actually strengthens her hand when she is negotiating with Carney.
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But I don't think a referendum will actually win in the end
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what's not going to be good for the conservative party of Canada
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here so there's going to be massive campaign organization
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We've threatened and we've threatened and we've threatened.
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it will ever work, you know, if Barney doesn't budge.
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This year, we're having that discussion for real because there's going to be a vote coming.
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How's the organizations on either side going to get together?
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I got to admit, as a political weenie, I'm just pumped.
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I know the outcome I want, but it's also the process I'm looking forward to.
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you know, as an Albertan, I want to see it gone. Just as a political watcher, I'm just looking
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forward to the intrigue and the tactics we're going to be observing this next year.
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Okay. Well, we'll move it into the next, the logical progression of this conversation.
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So the day after the by-elections, yesterday, Premier Smith announced the appointments of this
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go off and write rumor report that I can ignore.
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Why don't you elaborate on what she's doing here?
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Well, I'm glad you mentioned the Fair Deal panel, though,
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because that's one of the concerns is it smacks a bit of the deal.
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speaking of taking pressure off from the regionalist and independent side.
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Okay, well, let's just hold a bunch of hearings, let everybody vent,
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and then we'll just kick the can down the road and not do anything about it.
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And that's part of, I think, what built, the people who crossed the line,
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said, well, that's it. We got to go all out because we can't. So that's some of the first
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thing with this Alberta Next that the Smith and her panel are going to have to deal with are the
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people saying, again, like a lot of these things we've discussed already. How long is it going to
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be before you actually do something? But it is an interesting panel. She's got, yeah, like Trevor
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Toome on it. He's certainly not a hardcore independence type. He's not going to be
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towing an independence line. No. And he's been critical of the Alberta Pension Plan, for example,
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but he's given, I think he gave actually a very good balanced interpretation of it.
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So, I mean, we're going to see some good discussion, good policy, something that's different.
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It's going to be Premier Smith sitting at these, listening to it.
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I guess a lot of the question, though, is are they going to follow through on what they find at these?
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And the UCP has been planning this for a while.
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They already had like a promotional video on it on the concept of an Alberta provincial police force.
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promo and you can see that they know which direction
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and Quebec have it. Yeah, they have their own police force
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and you notice the timing of it, these things are going to be spread
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I think they're going to have their conclusions.
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They're talking about putting things on a referendum this time, though.
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They weren't talking about that with Jason Kenney's Dog and Shoney Pony Show.
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So I think their plan is to come up with a number of items
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that would probably be coupled with an independence referendum.
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We'll have a referendum with a number of questions on it.
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And this will be the tactic they'll use to defuse
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or try to use to defuse attempts at the AGM to bring about more policies.
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They'll say, well, that's going to be on the referendum question.
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So I think we're seeing some deep political strategy going on here.
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Nigel, my concern with having, you know, a whole bunch of referendum questions at the same time is, you know, Albertans, I think, share the Canadian compulsion for moderation.
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And if you give Albertans, Canadians or Albertans, a choice of one, two, and three, they always choose two.
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You'd say one, two, three, four, and five, they choose three.
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I kind of feel like that's going to come into play
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that they say, well, okay, I want independence,
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To me, you know, the point's made, well, you know, we've been through all this before.
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Yeah, but you can't really expect anybody to rely on discussions that took place in 2020, which is the Fair Deal panel, which under a different premier.
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So even if you take the thing at face value, she almost has to go out and ask the questions herself and get the answers and make it her own.
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Yeah, but I'm talking about the referendum, of course.
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Really, what she's doing is getting people engaged.
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She is making them get up out of their armchairs, go to the meetings, listen, react, and frankly, put some wind in her sails when she goes to deal with the Prime Minister.
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I mean, I'm going to play cynical devil's advocate here.
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it's going to be, you're going to have hardcore independence
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it's just good it's not going to be many people
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they've got better things to do with their lives
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true. However, the very fact that on this panel, we've just resurrected a set of discussions that
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took place five years ago, shows that those discussions actually had some weight and some
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impact at the time. And indeed, they led to a vote on the equalization, and then nothing happened,
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which soured a lot of people on the process. But the actual act of going out generates headlines.
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I mean, you're quite right about the likely participation
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In fact, it would be a daunting prospect for, you know,
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you know, for them to go to these kinds of meetings,
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and then it'll go into the public recollection of that this thing happened and this is what
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this is where we had so as a as an exercise in generating um i i like the phrase wind in her
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sails as she goes to meet mr carney it has value yeah well and is that no matter who shows up to
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it you know speaking is the cynical tactician sort and with what they're doing and as you said
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they're going to be bringing it to the dis to the debate and bringing the subject up if you
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want it to die you don't want to hold a bunch of meetings all over the place keep it in the news
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scroll i had mike thomas one of our columnists in to speak about municipal things one of the things
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he talked about is these pre-ordained consultation meetings where you go there but the city already
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knows what conclusions they want to see they're just going through the motions of doing it you
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just lately require it to consult and and i've got to admit that's kind of what it looks like when
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these were just declared and already there's videos that are basically making the pitch for
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an alberta police force that the premier is posting on x before these meetings even happened
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kind of where they're already going with it, which I'm fine
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with because I like where they're going with it.
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people. They're going to have their one side or another, and
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then we're going to see whatever outcome they want to see.
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I think the Premier has a pretty good idea where she wants to
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go, but, you know, she's got panel members like
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for being balanced, actually. Yeah, but I don't
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think he has you know a particularly strong alberta nationalist drive you know like for me
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the biggest reasons for an alberta pension plan and alberta police force these things
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is not that we would save money and they'd be better financially which i believe they would be
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that's not why i want them i want them because it's alberta way i don't want yeah i don't want
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anything to do with ottawa that's not negotiated in a treaty that's why i want it has nothing to
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do actually with the dollars and cents. And I don't think dyes like him have any shared sense
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of that. Yeah, we can't get out of equalization as constitutionally entrenched right now. But
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I think we should reframe it as foreign aid. There's a lot of things we could do to start
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moving away. We'll funnel it through the UN. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's look
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well how how quickly can you buy something like even if you want to buy a motor car
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that if it's uh if it's ordered from the factory it's going to take six months to get here now you
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imagine plump by a destroyer or a tank or fighters we can't procure anything like this is this has
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always been the issue that first they could first in the defense industry they can't make their minds
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up when they do make their minds up it's got to be bilingual and then after they've sorted all that
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then they then they actually get to place the order by which time the prices increase so it
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goes back to the start for a further uh for a further review now i mean mr kearney has
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pledged a tremendous amount of money into this thing but i we had a we ran a piece by roy remple
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just last week now roy remple was a defense policy advisor to stephen harper back in the
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get home in the days 2010 to 2015. So I knew him fairly well. We talked about this stuff a lot at
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the time. And they just don't actually know how to say yes and write a check. A lot of the
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departments where you would think, well, they would be able to, they should be able to buy
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bullets. You find that actually, no, they count. It's got to go back through public works and then
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it goes through a whole separate chain of approval. Well, that's one of the pauses of
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delay, but what it says about adding all of this money to the budget, it's just going
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So much of it will just be eaten up by the length of time it takes to actually place
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I mean, the F-35 program is a perfect example.
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Well, this 5%, it probably is not going to produce the effect that Mr. Carney is promising.
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You know, the only procurement I ever saw that really worked fast was during the Afghan war.
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Even with the armed services at war, you still couldn't actually buy equipment, but you could lease it.
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So they wanted a drone to keep an eye on things.
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They rented one for Donald Detweiler in Vancouver.
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shipped it to afghanistan the mda guy went with it and he would jockey the thing out to the button
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on the runway get up out of the chair the canadian armed forces uh personnel would occupy the chair
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take control of the joystick fly the mission bring it back land it get up out of the chair
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the mda guy would come in taxi it into the hangar that way they maintained the fiction that they
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were buying a service that's why we should just subcontract up the whole military at this point
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And if you have to go to that much trouble, even in a war to get stuff, then you have got a problem with spending money on military.
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Mr. Carney has clearly demonstrated that it is simply the way that bureaucracy works.
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uh maybe you know they'll get some more recruits with more attractive pay for you know soldiers
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and airmen and sailors here but morale is beyond crater i mean uh you know i've got family members
00:33:07.460
who who quit not that long ago from the forces uh you know they joined up to be in the in the army
00:33:14.400
instead they're and they go to the washroom and there's tampons of the men's room i mean it's uh
00:33:20.280
Yeah, can you imagine, you know, the drill sergeant from Full Nipple Jacket walking in?
00:33:27.820
He would have preferred the bullet he found in the men's room over the tampons.
0.95
00:33:31.920
Yeah, he'd rather see the crazy guy with a gun than the tampons.
0.94
00:33:37.640
Well, I mean, like, I mean, people don't want to join.
00:33:40.900
Like, we've spent over a decade at least denigrating the very existence of Canada.
00:33:50.940
not this faux-Canadian, post-nationalist, anti-American
00:33:54.620
elbows-up nationalism. No one joins the military for that.
00:33:59.660
And then the military itself denigrated as an institution
00:34:06.920
over warfighting capacity. Unless there's a huge cultural
0.57
00:34:10.820
change in the forces, I'm not seeing large numbers
00:34:14.840
of young men and women lining up to uh to go through the hell of boot camp and then serve
00:34:21.560
you know in a fairly spartan existence in the military for their career yeah well and and so
00:34:26.440
i mean you've hit on it there's kind of three problems going on the big one though credit
00:34:30.440
we're due with carney where nobody else really was willing to do it that was the first part was
00:34:33.960
committing this signing a big check i mean that that nobody else had the courage to say even to
00:34:38.600
get to two percent much less commit now to five and in the short term getting to two so okay you
00:34:59.400
did the day the Liberals announced they're banning. They're going to
00:35:05.400
recent article that just came out, there was apparently
00:35:13.120
they probably, that was an oversight, pretty stupid because most people are going to realize,
00:35:16.580
well, for one, if you've got this extra money, start paying your personnel a little better.
00:35:20.720
And yes, they have to change that culture, that woke garbage that they've really let sink in.
00:35:25.040
You know, rainbow flags are pretty, but they make terrible camouflage.
00:35:28.980
And people join the forces with a vision in mind. They aren't going out to join the trades.
00:35:35.200
They aren't going, they're, we have to admit it, they're young people looking for adventure,
00:35:39.260
for a tough world, for that sort of experience as they're going forward.
00:35:47.020
They realize that they're never going to be getting rich through that course
00:35:51.720
But they want to also feel that, that they're part of something important,
00:35:55.380
that they're part of something that's more than just a woke exercise of foolishness.
00:36:07.920
So hopefully they've got a plan to get on with those other two steps.
00:36:11.860
As, as, as Nigel said, I mean, he even, we could raise it to 10%,
00:36:15.820
nothing will change unless they change their processes a bit,
00:36:18.240
because it's a bottomless pit you could throw money into,
00:36:20.740
and it's not going to be effective unless you make those personnel change
00:36:25.060
that culture and turn it into what a military force is supposed to be.
0.83
00:36:35.860
uh well so this kind of feeds in uh trump was at nato uh today um and he was feeling questions
00:36:45.100
uh the cnn and new york times are reporting uh from a leak somewhere in the department defense
00:36:53.840
department uh claiming that uh the u.s airstrikes on iranian alleged nuclear facilities were not
00:37:31.760
One is, did Iran pose an imminent threat of obtaining nuclear warheads?
00:37:39.280
That's one question that, I mean, there's been some claims around it, but no hard evidence yet to substantiate it.
00:37:48.700
He said, she said two is, were these facilities completely destroyed, as Trump said?
00:37:57.560
The first is that for 45 years, Iran has terrorized the Middle East, caused enormous problems, killed people, and threatened to kill Americans.
0.99
00:38:09.060
Meanwhile, they point to their atomic facilities and have basically said, when we get a bomb, we're going to use it.
00:38:16.160
Maybe against America, maybe against Israel.
0.66
00:38:57.000
of defending the bloody Ayatollahs here. They're about
1.00
00:38:59.960
You said just now you want to be a devil's advocate.
00:39:02.780
Be a devil's advocate. You don't want to defend the Ayatollahs.
1.00
00:39:16.840
So we've discussed before, these are the worst guys.
00:39:21.560
But no, these guys are not on the record saying we're building a bomb,
00:39:24.280
and when we get that bomb, we're going to nuke Israel.
0.91
00:39:26.340
Now, they've said death to America, death to Israel.
00:39:28.640
They like to say it about 40 times a day, maybe more.
00:39:31.860
But no, they have not claimed that they're building a bomb.
00:39:34.540
They have not claimed that they're going to use that bomb then against Israel and the United States.
00:39:39.020
That isn't to say that they're not building a bomb.
00:39:40.780
That isn't to say that they wouldn't use the bomb against Israel and the United States.
0.77
00:39:43.680
But it is still an unsettled question of if they were on the cusp of obtaining a nuclear warhead.
00:39:54.640
And now there's the second question of, was the American strike successful on destroying the facilities that were allegedly producing a nuclear bomb?
00:40:04.660
And we only have he said, she said on both of those questions.
00:40:11.780
Yeah, well, so the CNN and the New York Times are part of the anti-Trump lineup.
00:40:19.700
So somebody comes along and says, well, you know, I don't think they really, they seize on that.
00:40:25.980
They say, well, we can't possibly reveal the source.
00:40:35.420
you don't have to be a defender of trump to say that that is the strategy for that the the left
00:40:43.280
uses to never ever admit that trump ever did a good thing cnn and new york times were both
00:40:50.960
cheerleaders for bombing iran though they were in the pro-war party on this that's that's great
1.00
00:40:56.960
they get to have it both ways on that like sure but what i'm saying sorry on this is there's still
00:41:09.940
but I think it was pretty much a wide open secret
00:41:30.780
But, I mean, they wanted it, you know, but just wanting it alone isn't a crime in itself.
00:41:36.020
I guess we're always going to be debating that.
00:41:38.700
But it might have been 30 years away from where they were.
00:41:40.600
Or it might have been two weeks as Israel's saying.
00:41:46.380
Now, that doesn't mean at some point that they wouldn't be on the cusp of it.
00:41:49.400
But, I mean, your credibility is a little strained at that point.
00:41:53.400
I mean, they talked about what these bunker buster bombs, the munitions from the United States.
00:41:56.760
And apparently this is exactly what they're designed for.
00:41:59.900
I mean, not just for bunkers in general, but that Iranian one.
1.00
00:42:03.340
Well, the Iranians are insane and they're bloodthirsty, but not all of them are stupid.
1.00
00:42:08.500
So I would think then you're going to drop that thing even deeper into a mountain.
00:42:12.500
And as powerful as the big bad U.S. is, if you get a thousand feet below rock, it's just going to be difficult with anything less than a nuke to actually shake it loose.
00:42:21.160
So I wouldn't be surprised if the damage was superficial.
00:42:23.940
and that has been one of the fears for a long time
00:42:26.940
is that it's going to take a tactical nuclear weapon
00:42:34.600
find all the entrances, fill them with concrete
00:42:44.000
I think we should actually give a first parting shot
00:42:51.920
uh he got iran and israel to agree to a ceasefire uh and both sides do not seem to be
00:43:00.480
meticulously abiding by said ceasefire and uh he had some remarks let's give the last word uh
00:43:05.680
the parting first parting shot to donald trump you know what we have we basically have two countries
00:43:12.220
that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing do
0.75
00:43:18.080
understand that all right uh not the most presidential thing i'm not up there with the
00:43:23.120
gettysburg address or uh you know the day after pearl harbor but um an effective effect of getting
00:43:30.640
his point across is that so i'm supposed to follow that with the parting shot yeah yeah
00:43:36.160
uh you're you're up first a little bit of inside baseball here one of the most popular articles
00:43:41.440
that has appeared in the western standard during the past week measured by pages absolutely
00:43:46.240
astonishing response was the item in which we wrote about 91 year old don cherry who we all
00:43:52.880
thought had retired but he's going to continue with his podcast he's coming back and this is
00:43:59.200
the grapevine tens of thousands of people logged into that a lot of them left enthusiastic comments
00:44:05.520
and i like the one i like this this one that was left on our website he said you know think about
00:44:10.960
don cherry he grew up at a time when it was okay to have an opinion and you could disagree with him
00:44:18.880
or you could agree with him but it was okay and you carried on well of course don't show the don
00:44:26.080
cherry story really is a living proof of how in our bid to be sensitive and kind to everybody
00:44:35.040
we have actually suppressed free speech and it's all to our detriment so i say god bless don cherry
00:44:39.280
I hope he carries on, given his opinions, for a lot longer.
00:44:45.300
When he got canned, the Western Standard was very young at the time,
00:44:49.940
I managed to talk to him myself when he got canned from Hockey Night in Canada.
00:45:01.360
Well, mine's going to be more of a parting plug,
00:45:02.720
but it segues into this and free speech and being unapologetic,
00:45:06.120
and the Western Standard's been sort of sponsoring that.
00:45:08.500
There's an event coming up, or a few events actually, with a member of European Parliament, Christine Anderson, who some people get upset because she's dared to speak the things that Starmer says today.
00:45:18.240
And I'll be speaking at one of those events as well in Calgary.
00:45:21.200
So if people really want to celebrate speech unrestrained, whether some people all agree or is controversial or not, check it out.
00:45:27.540
It's Trinity Productions and, well, we'll be talking about whatever the heck we want to talk about for a couple hours.
00:45:33.500
Just background for those who don't know, Christine Anderson
00:45:47.000
They got accused of it, but as you said, the stuff
00:45:58.980
she was kind of onto something. Maybe Europe's got a little problem.
00:46:03.060
Okay, my parting shot, this is found by Black Locks Reporter, reported in our pages today.
00:46:14.080
There's a federal grant program that's encouraged more women to enter the skilled trades.
0.97
00:46:21.080
Well, shock of shockers, when there's a benefit to be had by being a woman, many men will consider themselves to be women.
00:46:31.200
They believe the apprenticeship grants evaluation report found that applications were approved solely based on self-identification and a few focus group participants.
00:46:42.100
18% reporting that male applicants have received the grant by declaring themselves female on the forms.
00:46:48.880
You bigots who would question that those people are actually, no, trans women.
00:46:53.920
They were just women with penises, that's all.
1.00
00:46:57.780
We've had a lot of swearing between Donald Trump now.
00:47:04.620
So, yeah, you can get an apprenticeship incentive grant for women offered up to $8,000,
00:47:10.180
double the amount available to men to boost female participation in trades like plumbing, welding, electrical work.
0.97
00:47:15.740
Well, if you weld the right parts on or off, you can get in on that, too.
00:47:33.660
We want to thank all of you for being with us and your support.
00:47:37.380
Remember to go to westernstandard.news, click on subscribe.
00:47:40.100
It's only $10 a month or $100 a year to get full access to all Western Standard content
00:47:45.440
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