Western Standard - February 09, 2024


‘Canada Will Be Great Again’

Topics
Canada must be great
Mentioned
Stephen Harper Pierre Pauly
CMS： Alberta’s recall process is a waste of time The Winter Games bolster local economies in rural Alberta

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

142.17

Word count

587

Sentence count

52

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A Prime Minister who got it deeply right, and a story about why Canada needs a leader who uses his hammer to build, not to tear down. For the Western Standard, I m Nigel Hammond, and I think Canadians do want it to be great.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello, Western Standard viewers.
00:00:03.140 Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that Conservative leader Pierre Poilier wants to make Canada great again,
00:00:10.440 but that that was not what Canadians want.
00:00:14.020 This was in question period on February the 8th.
00:00:17.620 Let's have a look at it.
00:00:18.820 And by the way, we have not cut, chopped or edited this in any way.
00:00:23.300 We feel it speaks for itself.
00:00:25.200 Under the previous Conservative government, everything was perfect.
00:00:28.940 And what he is proposing to do is to make Canada great again.
00:00:34.620 That is not what Canadians want.
00:00:37.100 He is pining for a nostalgia that, quite frankly, Canadians do not feel.
00:00:41.820 They remember what he did as part of Stephen Harper's failed housing minister.
00:00:47.140 He remembers the rights of Indigenous peoples violated, 1.00
00:00:52.880 the ignoring of environmental responsibilities,
00:00:55.640 and the lack of an environmental and economic plan for the future.
00:00:58.940 We're going to continue on.
00:01:02.220 Well, there's your Prime Minister for you.
00:01:04.460 He is smug.
00:01:05.900 But he's not insincere.
00:01:07.860 He's telling you what he really thinks.
00:01:10.880 Remember, he believes Canada is a post-national country.
00:01:14.380 So in that sneer about Poilier of wanting to make Canada great again,
00:01:18.360 he's reminding us that he thinks there's nothing commendable in Canada's history,
00:01:23.380 and nothing good about Canadians who think there is.
00:01:29.000 Obviously, he's wrong.
00:01:31.060 Deeply wrong.
00:01:33.140 So let me tell you a little story about a Prime Minister who got it deeply right.
00:01:39.280 Back in April 2011, Stephen Harper was fighting the election that gave Canada its strong, stable, national, conservative majority, as we used to call it.
00:01:50.600 In every speech he made, he spoke of his love for Canada.
00:01:55.160 He spoke of it all the time.
00:01:57.560 Then one day he said something spontaneous that was so powerful, so passionate, and so utterly and completely true,
00:02:05.080 that the boys in the PMO basement got together and made a video out of it.
00:02:12.520 Canada is and always has been our country.
00:02:17.340 And we want Canada to be a true north that is as strong and as free as it can be in every way that matters.
00:02:25.500 The best country in the world.
00:02:27.280 That's why we're here.
00:02:28.340 That's why we strive.
00:02:29.600 That's why we serve.
00:02:30.580 Canada must reflect the true character of the Canadian people.
00:02:38.740 Honourable in our dealings, faithful to our commitments, loyal to our friends.
00:02:45.100 By turns, a courageous warrior and a compassionate neighbour.
00:02:49.800 It is our purpose that Canada must be great.
00:02:53.100 It must be great for all Canadians.
00:02:55.280 It must be a country of hope and an example to the world.
00:02:58.700 And only when it is these things, when Canada is all that it can be, only then can we say that our work is done.
00:03:06.960 That still brings tears to my eyes.
00:03:14.160 Friends, if you ever watch that Home Improvement Channel,
00:03:18.960 you'll hear people telling each other that the house they're working on has good bones.
00:03:26.160 Well, after eight years of the Trudeau Liberals, Canada has indeed become a fixer-upper.
00:03:34.120 But don't give up.
00:03:36.260 It's got good bones.
00:03:39.820 I think Canadians, contra the Prime Minister, I think Canadians do want it to be great.
00:03:45.640 And I think what Mr. Harper said all those years ago is the kind of greatness they have in mind.
00:03:53.860 We just need a leader who uses his hammer to build, not to tear down.
00:04:02.300 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hammond.
00:04:04.740 For the Western Standard, I think Canadians do want it to be great.
00:04:05.740 For the Western Standard, I think Canadians do want it to be great.
00:04:06.740 Thank you.