Western Standard - Carney is very, very afraid of reporters

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.960 G'day, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:35.660 Today is March 5th, 2025, and I'm joined by my usual partners in crime here, Western Standard Senior, Senior, I'll start with you, Senior Alberta Colobus, Corey Morgan.

00:00:47.920 Always happy to be.

00:00:48.800 Were you trying to think what he actually does here?

00:00:50.600 Yeah.

00:00:51.500 I'm the opinion editor.

00:00:53.080 Yeah.

00:00:53.480 Okay.

00:00:53.860 And the opinion editor, of course, Nadal Hannaford.

00:00:56.540 and we're gonna have a few others coming in today uh we're gonna have uh sean pulser a western

00:01:03.780 standard business and energy reporter joining us uh from another part of our offices around here

00:01:10.000 but just outside the studio and we're gonna have uh western standard uh bc bureau chief jared yager

00:01:15.700 joining us from vancouver and our alberta legislative reporter james snell joining us

00:01:20.340 from Edmonton. We're going to be talking about the liberal leadership campaign and the coronation

00:01:27.400 that seems coming of Mark Carney. And, you know, we had sent one of our reporters to a Mark Carney

00:01:33.760 event right here in Congaree last night. And yet again, he refuses to allow Western Standard or

00:01:40.480 any non-regime reporters in, for that matter. What is he so afraid of? Why is he intent on

00:01:47.920 running such a Kamala Harris-style

00:01:49.720 bubble-wrapped campaign.

00:01:51.820 We're going to be talking about that. We're going to be talking about

00:01:53.800 the budgets

00:01:55.800 that came down last week in Alberta

00:01:57.680 and, or is it

00:02:00.000 earlier this week? Last week.

00:02:01.700 Last week in Alberta.

00:02:03.980 And yesterday in British Columbia.

00:02:06.440 Both provinces totally

00:02:08.040 blowing the money spigot

00:02:09.940 open, running big deficits

00:02:12.020 without particularly

00:02:13.600 good big reasons. So we'll be

00:02:15.860 talking about that with our reporters covering those respective beats. And we're going to try

00:02:21.460 and make any sense, if it's possible, of Donald Trump's mad dog trade war. I thought I was seeing

00:02:29.720 strategy in it. I'm starting to see a lot less logical strategy in what he's doing. If he was

00:02:36.280 trying to accomplish something, it seemed like he had a plan. But now I'm not even really sure what

00:02:40.560 the guy's trying to accomplish. So we're going to try and make some sense of what's going on

00:02:43.660 with that before we get going though i want to thank my favorite sponsor uh new world precious

00:02:50.640 metals this episode of the pipeline is sponsored by new world precious metals based right here in

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00:03:19.200 and if you're interested in gold and silver make sure you use these guys they're a sponsor of the

00:03:23.820 Western Standard and by you supporting them you're helping them to support us and the work that we're

00:03:29.920 doing here all right so we're gonna start by bringing in our Western Standard business and

00:03:38.760 energy reporter Sean Polzer. He is actually just in another room of our headquarters here

00:03:44.980 in Calgary. So yesterday, Mark Carney came to Calgary and had a campaign event up in the

00:03:55.780 northeast of the city. And we had a suspicion that he might not let, well actually we sent

00:04:03.500 Sean Polzer, who you see here, and as well as Western Standard reporter

00:04:07.500 Jen Hodgson. We sent both of them. We had a feeling that we might

00:04:11.580 have an unfortunate repeat of when we sent

00:04:15.280 James Snell, who's going to be on, actually, in the next segment,

00:04:19.960 that we're going to have a repeat of this, where he just refuses to let

00:04:23.500 Western Standard reporters in. Sean, you were there.

00:04:28.440 He allowed regime reporters in, that is

00:04:31.360 reporters funded by the federal government in uh cbc global ctv uh calgary herald the calgary sun

00:04:39.620 you know the post media papers uh bloomberg i i you know you don't forget bloomberg oh bloomberg

00:04:46.020 bloomberg was there uh of course so the nominated candidates get bloomberg but i guess mark carney

00:04:51.220 is gonna get bloomberg um i didn't really need to tell you but i did anyway just for good measure

00:04:56.780 i was like no no episodes not might get a scene yourself be nothing but polite and professional

00:05:03.880 and you went there um actually uh yeah i yeah we're not even gonna show the clip it's it's

00:05:10.440 pretty boring it's just you standing there nicely saying um can i come in please here's my name on

00:05:17.480 the registration i registered here's the email we sent and them saying oh uh you're not on the list

00:05:24.940 you can't come in. I want you to tell us what happened. Well, you know, Derek, sometimes it's

00:05:31.100 more effective to kill them with kindness. And yeah, so I went there. You picked the right guy 0.99

00:05:36.920 for the job. You know, I tried to stay pretty low key. I talked up the volunteers and some of

00:05:43.160 the local people there, you know, the little people, you always got to make friends with them.

00:05:47.100 And actually, I was surprised because for a minute there, it actually looked like I might get in,

00:05:51.720 but they it was almost like they were anticipating a scene so you know uh as I sat there and kind of

00:05:59.640 waited and and nothing happened nothing happened nothing happened finally they just kind of moved

00:06:04.020 in with the big guys and you know showed us to the door at the end of the day they left it to

00:06:09.260 one of their uh little volunteers uh I don't know she was about 21 or 22 year old student uh I think

00:06:15.540 from your Alameda in Carlton there in uh in Ottawa where she was taking political sites and she was

00:06:21.280 originally from Calgary and we were swapping pictures of our dogs on the cell phones and

00:06:26.040 you know initially she was extremely nervous because somebody must have told her that these

00:06:30.900 big old mean reporters were coming and you know here I just asked her about how her studies were

00:06:35.760 going and why she volunteered. She apparently seems to really believe in Kearney and in the

00:06:42.240 value of volunteering and I said that the most valuable thing that people can contribute to

00:06:47.060 political process is their time. Well, 20-year-old Carleton political science students will believe

00:06:52.420 in anything. Let me assure you. Gentlemen, we've seen this before. Actually, when you dealt with

00:07:01.880 it in particular, Nigel, when the NDP had an embargo against us, we weren't allowed to ask

00:07:07.920 questions. They were unable to generally keep us out of things. Those were part of the parliamentary

00:07:11.180 press calling. It was a provincial issue. But Rachel Notley would refuse to answer your questions 0.99

00:07:16.640 because they didn't like the things we wrote.

00:07:19.560 And that continued until Richard Notley was gone.

00:07:25.240 I mean, prominent progressivist politicians like Nahid Nenshi

00:07:30.260 take Western Standard questions.

00:07:33.640 Carla Beck, the leader of the NDP opposition in Saskatchewan,

00:07:38.280 has even done sit-down interviews with Chris Oldcorn,

00:07:42.600 our bureau chief in Regina.

00:07:44.120 um but the federal liberals in particular still seem to be uh very sensitive and mark carney

00:07:52.360 in particular i mean he he pretty much doesn't talk to canadian media just very little canadian

00:07:57.600 media at all in terms of a sit down with you know some back and forth where you actually might get

00:08:01.840 into an issue um then if he does answer questions at all at his events it's it's strictly regime

00:08:09.000 media. It is media that are approved by the federal liberal government and receive money

00:08:14.580 from them. We're approved by the liberals, we just don't take the damn money. But, you know, 0.99

00:08:20.760 I guess this seems like a failing strategy that we've seen extremely recently. Kamala Harris

00:08:29.080 did no interviews for a long time, and then she would do strictly only these kind of bubble-wrapped,

00:08:35.420 hyper safe interviews with friendly media only and then as soon as she was exposed at all to any

00:08:42.720 media that wasn't even necessarily hostile but any media that was not just kind of in their pocket

00:08:47.800 she fell apart uh and it it looks like carney is following a similar path well i think you've said

00:08:56.400 it all derek i mean i've been around this business for 50 years off and on and uh it's um

00:09:01.820 it was not like this.

00:09:05.500 Now, one thing has changed.

00:09:08.220 There is what we now,

00:09:09.680 what you refer to as the regime media.

00:09:13.380 And there are people who are not part of the regime media.

00:09:18.260 If they are,

00:09:20.360 the vulnerable politicians are trying to draw a distinction.

00:09:24.180 Well, you're not real media,

00:09:25.400 you know, if you're a part of the new crowd.

00:09:28.640 The other ones, yes, we have to talk to you

00:09:30.360 whether we like it or not.

00:09:31.280 but, you know, you're just off the street.

00:09:33.820 Well, I mean, it's completely untrue.

00:09:35.420 So as you can see probably in the background here,

00:09:37.920 the viewer can see there's a whole infrastructure

00:09:41.220 of news gathering and production that's in the background.

00:09:45.000 They're entirely legitimate.

00:09:46.920 But they cling to this as an excuse to not have to answer

00:09:51.160 the questions that we would put to them,

00:09:53.360 which would be more, I think, incisive

00:09:56.260 and more difficult to answer.

00:09:58.160 And when you've got a candidate like Mr. Carney, who has clearly taken the option of saying as little as possible to as few people as possible, thereby reducing the risk of what we used to call a bozo eruption, saying something that's very hard to defend, and you get these scenes where they just try to exclude you. 0.77

00:10:20.880 But this is going to change because eventually the mainstream media will not be able to even turn up to the press conferences.

00:10:30.460 The business model is failing.

00:10:32.560 If they ever lose their government funding, then they will be in that much worse condition.

00:10:38.380 And frankly, the people who mean business in Canadian politics are going to have to talk to us.

00:10:44.360 You know, Corey, it's kind of popular nowadays to say,

00:10:50.420 Well, anyone can be a journalist.

00:10:52.340 Sure, anyone can call themselves a journalist.

00:10:54.860 And I think that's, broadly speaking, a good thing.

00:10:57.480 But in terms of press availability and access, the line has to be, unfortunately, it has to be drawn somewhere.

00:11:05.000 Not, you know, if you're having a press conference, can literally any, you know, hundreds of people with a phone just come up and get a line?

00:11:12.960 You know, that's going to mean that professional journalists who do this for a living are not going to be able to ask questions.

00:11:19.180 So we have to draw the line somewhere.

00:11:21.460 I don't know where we draw the line.

00:11:23.200 The only thing I know is the line should not be drawn by the politicians.

00:11:26.640 All I know is that the line drawing doesn't get to be drawn by the people who are covering.

00:11:34.080 The alternative to that seems to be that other journalists get to draw the line.

00:11:37.800 And I'm not comfortable with that either because then it becomes this insular club. 1.00

00:11:41.340 You know, the Western Senators member of several press galleries across Canada.

00:11:45.760 And the press galleries decide on their own membership.

00:11:48.440 And most of the time they do a reasonable job, but sometimes, sometimes they flub it up.

00:11:53.560 So who is media?

00:11:55.440 Well, some are really clear.

00:11:57.860 Some are not so clear.

00:11:59.480 Is a guy with a podcast and a blog by himself one-man operation media?

00:12:04.640 Sometimes no, but sometimes Joe Rogan.

00:12:08.180 Joe Rogan is kind of a one-man.

00:12:09.620 He's got a little bit of a supporting cast now, but, you know, the Western standard, you know, you see the liberal reactions on X.

00:12:17.780 is, well, you're not real media.

00:12:19.840 Well, then who is?

00:12:21.440 Who is?

00:12:22.240 I mean, the Western Standard's got more reporters, I think,

00:12:24.120 than any other media outlet in Alberta right now,

00:12:26.680 except for the CBC with its unlimited budget.

00:12:29.380 You know, we're, you know, on readership,

00:12:31.320 we outdo the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Sun.

00:12:34.300 So it's pretty hard to say no to us,

00:12:36.660 but, you know, the Cardi campaign is saying no

00:12:38.760 to anyone who is not regime media.

00:12:41.280 But, you know, where would you draw the line?

00:12:43.780 Because a line must be drawn.

00:12:45.980 You have to discriminate at some point. And I guess we could endlessly debate where that line is, whether it's a smaller podcaster or group of them or an individual. But I mean, to a degree, if you're going to measure that level down, the Western Standard is still quite well up there. I mean, it's not a matter of that.

00:13:01.900 We're not anyone near the line.

00:13:02.740 It's not that we don't have reach or don't have staff or legitimacy.

00:13:06.480 The problem that's going on here is they're basing access on where our editorial leaning is.

00:13:11.860 And that is problematic.

00:13:13.880 That shows a fear of critical questions.

00:13:17.100 And so, I mean, the line has to be drawn.

00:13:19.580 They're drawing it based on ideology rather than need.

00:13:22.800 You know, you don't need 500 people in there screaming.

00:13:25.000 But at the same time, that's not what their intent was.

00:13:27.340 They want a friendly room.

00:13:28.740 I just think it shows that they don't have confidence in their own candidate, though.

00:13:31.640 And that's what's more telling than anything else, because the embarrassment of turning away media, and if you've got a good candidate, you just want to get their face in front of as many people as possible, because theoretically, they're going to create converts and voters. And they obviously don't feel confident that Carney can do that. So they want to carefully curate who's going to have access to him and doesn't vote well for the general election.

00:13:52.900 Well, because, you know, he's not a dumb guy. 0.67

00:13:55.840 He's not Justin Trudeau. 0.70

00:13:57.140 This is an intelligent man.

00:13:58.840 He's had jobs beyond being a part-time drama teacher before going to college.

00:14:03.160 But he's not a campaigner.

00:14:04.300 That's a different earth.

00:14:04.920 He's not a good campaigner.

00:14:05.900 I mean, it was just days ago, he kind of seemed to invent this factoid out of thin air that Canada supplies like,

00:14:14.240 did he say like 90% of the semiconductors of the United States or the vast majority or something to that effect.

00:14:21.800 And then, you know, two-second Google search, you find out Canada isn't even in the top 10.

00:14:27.520 It's like, I think it's like 1% or maybe less than 1%.

00:14:30.780 It's an insignificant amount.

00:14:33.260 We're not even in the ballgame.

00:14:36.520 So, you know, you would expect a journalist who shows up to say,

00:14:40.360 where'd you get that from?

00:14:43.460 And that's not a gotcha question.

00:14:46.120 You know, our reporters, you know, they don't yell at the politicians,

00:14:48.880 hey, when did you stop beating your wife? 1.00

00:14:50.440 You know, they don't do that kind of stuff.

00:14:53.300 But, you know, if our reporters would have been allowed in, I think, you know, our reporters would have probably asked something like, you claimed the other day that Canada supplies the vast majority of American semiconductors.

00:15:04.520 Here's what the numbers say.

00:15:08.280 You care to explain?

00:15:09.980 We didn't even see that question from the legacy media there as far as I know. 0.96

00:15:14.720 But I don't know why he's so damn terrible.

00:15:16.600 Like, campaigning for your leadership seasons you.

00:15:20.520 It gets you ready for a real campaign.

00:15:22.700 Tough one coming.

00:15:23.400 And the lack of a primary, you know, for Kamala Harris, she had no primary. 1.00

00:15:27.840 She didn't have to take the feeding and the grind of the nomination period that tempers you, strengthens you as a candidate.

00:15:36.260 Maybe it destroys you as a candidate.

00:15:38.020 But if it destroys you at that level, you probably shouldn't be in the general election.

00:15:41.260 Maybe then it should be a different candidate.

00:15:43.260 But, you know, I think this is just going to mean, in the end, this is going to be bad for the Liberals,

00:15:47.440 that they're going to have a weak candidate going in who can't stand the sunlight of a couple of very basic, simple questions.

00:15:55.920 Well, you know, Derek, when you look at the four of them, it's hard to see one you like, isn't it?

00:16:00.760 You say you have a weak candidate going in.

00:16:02.920 Well, Chrystia Freeland has not impressed anybody as finance minister. 0.98

00:16:08.100 And the other two are people, I mean, it's Karina Gould and Jim Bayless.

00:16:12.280 but most people don't even know that they're in the race.

00:16:15.080 No.

00:16:15.540 So they're not really in the race.

00:16:18.060 Well, they're on paper.

00:16:20.060 Time will tell, I guess, but I can't.

00:16:22.640 Certainly I'm not, if there's an office pool,

00:16:25.040 I won't be putting my bottle of beer on either of those.

00:16:28.380 But it's actually a really distressing thing that the liberals,

00:16:34.580 after nearly 10 years in office,

00:16:37.580 and with a party history going back 100 years or more,

00:16:40.720 can't come up with somebody better than what they're offering right now.

00:16:47.900 What has happened to that party?

00:16:50.500 Actually, we haven't started our office pool for the leadership.

00:16:54.460 I don't think they'll be, I think it'd be more like the Polyev one, 1.00

00:16:57.080 about like, what's the margin going to be?

00:16:58.580 Because nobody bet that Polyev was going to win, or even on first ballot.

00:17:01.980 Their office pool on that was saying, what's the margin going to be?

00:17:04.380 So I've just made a little note here.

00:17:05.940 All right, good.

00:17:07.780 Yeah.

00:17:08.000 Okay, well, I don't know what more to say about that. The man's a coward. 1.00

00:17:15.860 Well, we will continue to try to bring into action. 0.99

00:17:19.540 We're not going to stop. You know, we're not going to stop sending reporters to the events.

00:17:25.040 Yeah. All right. Thank you for joining us today, Sean.

00:17:28.920 All right. We're going to bring in our Western Standard BC Bureau Chief, Jared Yager here,

00:17:35.400 and our Alberta legislative reporter based in Edmonton, James Snell.

00:17:43.360 Let's start with B.C.

00:17:46.260 You know, we start with a lot of Alberta stuff here, being Alberta-based.

00:17:50.220 Let's start with British Columbia here.

00:17:52.980 British Columbia, back to hell of a day in the news cycle to table their budget, Jared,

00:17:58.660 which was, maybe that was intentional, I don't know.

00:18:01.420 So, you know, the B.C. budget got very overshadowed in the news cycle with, you know, Trump tariffs coming into effect and all the, you know, Trump has his address to the joint sessions of Congress.

00:18:16.840 The news cycle was absolutely mad.

00:18:19.240 And I think the B.C. budget got very little mention on the newscasts and in the newspapers.

00:18:26.260 why don't you just give us the real high level highlights of the BC budget Jared

00:18:31.880 okay so yeah yesterday was a pretty hectic day in Victoria and the BC NDP wasted no time in

00:18:39.640 blaming the tariffs and Trump for not being able to meet their goals so I'll start off with

00:18:46.740 something everyone can understand so there was a projected 10.9 billion dollar deficit which

00:18:52.440 is the highest in the province's history and this is despite not following through on their

00:19:00.420 promised one thousand dollar rebate which in and of itself would have cost two billion so you think

00:19:05.400 if they would have put that in just how much higher that would have been and they were slammed

00:19:10.560 across the political spectrum for not following through on that promise there's a there's a guy

00:19:15.180 here uh mo amir he's far from conservative and he was saying like eb and the finance minister

00:19:20.900 brenda bailey they should take a thousand dollar pay cut because that's basically what they've done 1.00

00:19:25.380 to british colombians by not including this in the budget something they really campaigned on

00:19:29.960 and so over the next few years they projected that the deficit is eventually going to go down

00:19:36.580 but it's going to stay above nine billion for the foreseeable future which you know a lot of people

00:19:44.120 have found unacceptable considering that bc used to run surpluses uh well what's been the reaction

00:19:51.300 of the conservatives there because there hasn't been any significant conservative opposition in

00:19:57.100 british columbia for some time you know in the post gordon campbell era it was led by christy

00:20:01.860 clark who has finally admitted that she's a liberal liberal um you know uh the conservatives

00:20:08.720 have really are now there as a I think the province's biggest opposition in its history

00:20:13.700 it's uh it's formidable in size but how was how was the reaction of that party to the budget

00:20:20.860 oh they were not impressed and they brought the numbers to prove that the bc ndp could have done

00:20:27.460 so much more but they just kind of fell back on their heels and refused to act so for example

00:20:33.880 the finance critic, Peter Milo, he pointed out that in September, growth was predicted to be 1.9%.

00:20:39.900 Now, that has only fallen to 1.8% since, you know, all the tariff nonsense has come into play.

00:20:48.780 And so he was saying, how can you blame the tariff and Trump when the numbers that you had to work

00:20:54.680 with back then when you were formulating this budget weren't that much different than they are

00:20:59.720 today. And so

00:21:01.780 he was asked yesterday, how much blame do you

00:21:03.960 think the tariffs should take? And he just flat out said

00:21:05.900 none. So that kind of

00:21:08.020 gives you a sense of where the Conservatives stand.

00:21:10.540 Well, that would seem to indicate

00:21:11.960 that actually if the tariffs

00:21:14.080 I mean, there's how

00:21:15.940 long, we don't know how long they're going to be here, but if the tariffs

00:21:18.040 actually do start to bite, the depths will be

00:21:20.000 significantly worse than they're projecting right now.

00:21:23.620 Okay,

00:21:24.100 let's bring in James Snell. He is

00:21:26.100 our Alberta legislative reporter. He was in

00:21:28.100 the lockup for the Alberta budget table late last week.

00:21:32.280 I think normally they do it on Thursdays.

00:21:34.400 I've been in a few of these budget lockups myself over the years.

00:21:38.620 James, another big deficit, not as big as British Columbia's, but a big deficit, I think

00:21:48.880 in the range of just north of $5 billion.

00:21:51.280 Give us the highlights.

00:21:53.500 Derek, it's nice to see you.

00:21:54.800 So the highlights are deficits projected for the next three years, and I think the Western Standard asked the best question of the finance minister, and that was, why is such a rich jurisdiction like Alberta, even having a conversation about deficits,

00:22:19.940 given the fact that some experts in the energy industry say the province is sitting on not one

00:22:27.280 but two Saudi Arabias. And so the question for me was we have an awful lot of natural resources in

00:22:38.180 this province but yet we're also having some financial hardship. So deficits are projected

00:22:44.840 for the next three years, and also a moderate, well, I don't want to call it insignificant

00:22:52.420 because it will be significant to some people, but a relatively small tax break for many

00:23:00.260 Albertans who earn incomes less than $60,000 a year.

00:23:05.900 So we're still not seeing the major tax cuts promised from the electric campaign, right?

00:23:10.280 That's correct. And so there was a lot of talk in the budget documents about the government of Alberta operating under the dark cloud of tariffs. And so far, we don't know exactly. We know the tariffs are going to hurt Alberta. We know they're going to potentially harm the oil and gas sector, but we don't know what degree that's going to happen.

00:23:36.300 And certainly Trump is proving himself to be fairly inconsistent in what he's saying.

00:23:46.400 Nobody can really predict what he's going to be.

00:23:48.260 Politely, yeah.

00:23:50.420 Yeah.

00:23:52.020 Go to you first, Corey.

00:23:54.520 Still no delivering on the tax cut, which was the main promise of the election.

00:23:59.420 Still.

00:24:01.200 Big deficit.

00:24:02.120 it. And this cannot be chalked up to tariffs right now. It could actually be worse depending

00:24:09.240 on how much the tariffs end up biting. There's no good reason for this. This is spending.

00:24:19.860 The UCP government prior to Smith had done some very moderate fiscal discipline while

00:24:26.080 Kenny was there. He never cut spending. He never reduced it. But he just kind of held

00:24:30.680 the line as revenues grew, which is kind of the minimally physically conservative thing you can

00:24:35.500 do. And the Smith government's been strong on a bunch of points. But God, they have been so damn

00:24:41.060 weak on fiscal discipline and the budget. They're not delivering the tax cuts. And we still have a

00:24:45.980 big deficit because they've blown the bank on spending here. Yeah, I think it was an 8% increase

00:24:52.000 this year. If they had just kept it at zero, just kept it at zero, they would have a surplus.

00:24:58.080 And I know it's hard to even keep it at zero when, you know, every deputy minister is banging on your door and saying, I need more for this, I need more for this, I need more for this.

00:25:06.200 But that's the tough job.

00:25:08.060 That's why you're in the big chair when you say no.

00:25:10.760 You find some corners to cut.

00:25:12.800 Daniel Smith has always been, at least to be able to speak fantastically, is a fiscal conservative.

00:25:18.660 She certainly would hold the other premier's feet to the fire in the past.

00:25:21.960 it's time for that government to practice a bit of what they used to preach and at least hold the

00:25:27.160 line on the spending. But, you know, she's juggling a whole bunch of balls. I think she set aside the 1.00

00:25:32.620 fiscal aspect of things, but that can't be allowed to continue. It can't. If you want to see a right

00:25:38.480 movement as Alberta tends to splinter and foster them, you keep running those deficit budgets and

00:25:43.320 you'll watch one start to spring up. That's how the Wildrose began in the first place was bad

00:25:46.980 fiscal practices. And she could lay the groundwork for that if she didn't get it under control.

00:25:51.820 Nigel, uh, we all know Premier Smith around here.

00:25:56.960 We know in her heart she's a physical conservative.

00:25:59.060 She's been living and breathing this stuff since you worked with her back at the Calgary Herald.

00:26:04.120 What?

00:26:04.440 You know, in an earlier part of your career.

00:26:07.160 She's always been consistent on this stuff.

00:26:10.540 But now that she's got the lovers of power, we're just not seeing it.

00:26:15.540 What to you accounts for the disconnect between what we know she actually believes?

00:26:19.920 You know, this was not rhetorical stuff for her.

00:26:21.780 She's been too consistent about it for too long.

00:26:24.320 What's the disconnect between what we know she believes and what she's actually delivering in these budgets here, which is big spending and now big deficits?

00:26:34.060 Well, there's a couple of things that would work here.

00:26:36.000 One is that the province is actually growing in population.

00:26:40.740 So when you have more people to service, you will end up having to spend more money.

00:26:45.640 The second thing is that the two largest expense line items are education and health.

00:27:00.060 Both of those professions are overloaded with people.

00:27:04.520 And there's a long history in Alberta that we pay the people who are working as teachers and as nurses more than they earn elsewhere.

00:27:15.640 This has been examined by the Taxpayers' Federations all over the place.

00:27:21.460 We always end up looking like, if you're going to be a teacher, this is the place to be one.

00:27:26.380 So, they ultimately need to take this on.

00:27:33.240 But when they take it on, they need to be ready to take a strike.

00:27:37.540 And I'm not sure that they are ready to take a strike as a party at the moment.

00:27:43.520 But the second that you're actually trying to rein in the salary expectations of those two large professions, who you know both hate the UCP government and will work hand in hand on this, there's going to be a big fight when it happens.

00:27:59.620 Well, I know the Alberta Teachers Association union contract is coming up.

00:28:05.140 They're spoiling for a fight.

00:28:07.460 I mean, there's got to have...

00:28:09.420 We need a strike.

00:28:10.820 They should be locked out.

00:28:12.480 There should not only not be increases, there needs to be cuts.

00:28:17.240 Did you like...

00:28:18.200 Well, you know, Derek, I can agree with you on that,

00:28:20.200 but I tell you what, the phones will be ringing off the hook

00:28:22.480 by people who have to go to work and have no place to dump their kits.

00:28:25.520 They take the...

00:28:25.840 Hey, I'll be one of them, but I'm also a taxpayer, and I'm sick of this.

00:28:29.300 No, if you bring her in, then she'll play in the corner over there, 0.79

00:28:31.820 but most people can't do that.

00:28:33.420 No.

00:28:33.920 And it's...

00:28:35.760 That's something that ordinary MLAs don't want to contend with.

00:28:40.000 I have an idea.

00:28:40.560 would convert the public schools into charter

00:28:43.060 schools. We'll have to deal with the ATA real

00:28:45.120 quick.

00:28:46.560 There just won't be an ATA to deal with.

00:28:49.720 You know, these guys

00:28:51.140 have got to take some responsibility here.

00:28:52.880 I mean, conservatives in Alberta have cut them

00:28:54.920 a lot of slack now

00:28:56.160 since Smith became

00:28:59.060 premier on the physical issues

00:29:00.660 because she was delivering on sovereignty issues.

00:29:03.380 She was delivering on

00:29:05.280 some of the woke

00:29:07.000 issues. She's been

00:29:08.900 pretty solid on those fronts.

00:29:10.560 and so she's been i think conservatives have given her a lot of slack but this is the meat

00:29:15.280 and potato stuff and they're not minding the shop this is the stuff that's out of control

00:29:19.840 and can hurt you in the long term if you really want to get historical about it this goes back

00:29:23.600 to rolf klein they had some fantastic revenue years the contracts were up and instead of

00:29:31.280 fighting he just gave them what they wanted by that set this it's a oh look i was the finance

00:29:36.480 critic of the uh wild rose opposition i i know this stuff inside and out no one really wants to

00:29:41.240 tackle it but i mean the little bit there was a little bit of fiscal discipline during the

00:29:47.360 kenny go 80s uh you know i'm not too charitable with that government but give credit where it's

00:29:51.900 dude there was there was a little bit of fiscal discipline and they've blown even that i mean

00:29:57.940 i don't know i think it's time for some heads to start the role inside the ucp government

00:30:03.320 because I think I'm out of slack to give on the budget.

00:30:08.820 This is not acceptable.

00:30:14.380 Anything else from either you, Jared, or you, James?

00:30:20.800 For one thing that I found interesting is the budget,

00:30:25.380 it accounted for carbon tax revenue through 2028 and beyond.

00:30:30.900 even though EB has said that the NDP government will do away

00:30:35.460 with the provincial consumer carbon tax

00:30:39.660 as soon as the federal government says that it's okay.

00:30:42.740 Interesting.

00:30:44.140 So it makes you wonder.

00:30:46.560 You know what?

00:30:47.180 I think I considered marching orders right now.

00:30:50.600 I want you to dive a bit deeper into that.

00:30:53.280 Okay.

00:30:54.640 All right.

00:30:55.680 Last thoughts from you, James?

00:30:56.760 My last thought is MLA, UCP MLA Sinclair from Lesser Slave Lake was very unhappy with the budget and published a lengthy and sharply worded statement on Facebook criticizing the budget.

00:31:13.900 But basically his argument was his riding is producing an awful lot of wealth that's generated for the province.

00:31:23.560 A lot of revenue going out and he is dissatisfied with the amount of spending and projects in his riding.

00:31:34.580 So I thought that was quite interesting.

00:31:36.860 You know what? I'll give some orders to you here too.

00:31:39.860 I want you to contact him. Invite him to write a guest column for us.

00:31:43.900 let's give a little platform to some dissenting voices in the UCP

00:31:48.680 until management starts to get a little common sense on this stuff.

00:31:53.300 You bet.

00:31:54.460 Okay.

00:31:55.280 Thank you, gentlemen.

00:31:56.760 Thank you.

00:31:58.860 All right.

00:32:00.320 So, you know, we were talking about tariffs impacts on the Alberta

00:32:04.040 and BC budgets there.

00:32:06.700 But we're going to zoom out just kind of on the issue in general.

00:32:10.040 My worry about doing this right now is by the time some people listen

00:32:13.480 to this if it's after the fact

00:32:15.640 of it being live

00:32:17.180 if you listen to this tomorrow

00:32:18.420 we could be living in a different set of facts

00:32:21.560 another world because this stuff changes

00:32:23.260 every day

00:32:23.940 I'm not going to recount the whole

00:32:27.080 history of Trump's

00:32:29.380 threats and carrying through and

00:32:31.160 postponing and then implementing

00:32:33.200 and then exempting

00:32:34.520 of tariffs

00:32:35.880 all I'm going to say is

00:32:37.940 I'm not sure I'm seeing the eye out of the deal

00:32:41.440 here

00:32:41.700 maybe he's just so damn smart we can't see it maybe there is a plan but it's just looking like 0.91

00:32:49.380 he's a mad dog without much sense i i could see some of the stuff when he was you know uh the 0.95

00:32:55.160 ones on china china china does screw him all out of trade deals uh canada is wrong on a few points 0.70

00:33:01.620 you know uh he'd be right to go against our tariffs that are in the over 200 against american dairy

00:33:08.180 I mean, we're guilty of sin there, and it's actually not good for Canadians.

00:33:12.360 142%.

00:33:13.240 242.

00:33:14.140 Yes.

00:33:14.780 Look at you.

00:33:15.720 Yes.

00:33:16.300 Walking in social media.

00:33:17.420 Font of information.

00:33:18.340 Yeah.

00:33:19.580 He'd be right to stick us on there.

00:33:21.220 He'd be right to stick us on a lot of the protectors measures we have keeping out American banks.

00:33:27.020 There's a number of things where we are guilty.

00:33:30.340 We keep out American health companies because we like to have Canadian government monopoly health care.

00:33:35.160 So we're keeping out American health companies in that.

00:33:37.380 There are some areas where we're guilty and, you know, telecom, for God's sakes, airlines.

00:33:44.120 We're very guilty on a few fronts.

00:33:47.240 And, of course, the need for us to increase our military spending.

00:33:50.660 Actually, you're winning me over here to the Trump side with our guilt.

00:33:54.080 Well, yeah, but he's not talking about most of that.

00:33:56.880 He mentions some of these things once in a while.

00:33:59.100 But, you know, but it's not like he's lined up and said, here is my list of grievances.

00:34:03.340 fix these grievances or else you're going to get this list of tariffs that would make sense um

00:34:11.440 this is just it just seems chaotic and it doesn't seem to make any sense to me anymore i can offer

00:34:17.320 you one theory and that is that if you're negotiating with somebody you create fear

00:34:22.260 and distress and one of the ways that you can create fear and distress is by creating uncertainty

00:34:28.300 So, yes, today it's about fentanyl and about poor immigration policies.

00:34:34.380 And you think, all right, well, that I can do.

00:34:36.520 I'll work on it, or at least I'll pretend to.

00:34:39.300 And then you come back and say, oh, actually, it's also you're not spending enough on continental defense.

00:34:45.180 And you keep this up over a period of time.

00:34:47.560 And eventually the victim in this story, which happens to be the government of Canada,

00:34:51.720 and ultimately the people of Canada, becomes so uncertain as to what game is actually played

00:34:58.160 that in the end, when you do come in with a final offer,

00:35:03.440 they take it, whatever it is, because they just want certainty.

00:35:06.800 They just want it all to stop.

00:35:10.360 Maybe. I mean...

00:35:11.720 Yeah, maybe. I mean, I didn't get...

00:35:14.300 I mean, I'm not even seeing that anymore.

00:35:15.920 It's like, I mean, if you want to do that, you do that on the threat side.

00:35:19.380 But he's not making clear demands.

00:35:21.080 He had a few demands, and we either did something or pretended to do something,

00:35:24.900 depending on how charitable you're being to the government.

00:35:28.160 but he's not being very clear about what his issues are.

00:35:32.480 And, you know, it might just be, you know, one day he says, I just like tariffs.

00:35:36.720 I, you know, it's my favorite word.

00:35:38.500 It's the greatest word in the English language.

00:35:40.640 And he might just want tariffs to be a major source of American revenue.

00:35:44.860 That's extremely poor economics and fiscal policy.

00:35:47.520 But, I mean, it is an option that he can pursue, however ill-advised it might be.

00:35:53.260 Fine.

00:35:55.300 But he's not being clear about which ones they are.

00:35:58.060 Then he's talking about the stack tariffs.

00:35:59.500 There's a general tariff, and then there's ones for these set of grievances.

00:36:03.140 It's just not making any sense to me anymore, Corey.

00:36:05.660 No, I can't see the end game in the Orange Man's plan here.

00:36:11.120 As Nigel said, I mean, there's tactics.

00:36:12.740 Shake them all up and then start negotiating.

00:36:14.420 But at some point, you've got to stop shaking.

00:36:16.600 And it could go the other way because a lot of Canadians are getting really, really pissed off.

00:36:23.180 And it might not be to the point of saying, I've had enough.

00:36:26.180 I'll agree to anything.

00:36:27.020 it might be you know what i'll give him the middle finger no matter how much it hurts us because i'm

00:36:30.940 sick of this plus you can't trust him and that's part of the problem he five years ago the when he

00:36:39.980 tore up nafta and then insisted on getting the u.s mca this is his agreement he's violated it was the

00:36:45.500 best deal ever signed that's his words and then he tore up his own bloody agreement how do you do

00:36:51.900 business if you can't have a contract that's abided by so i i mean he's i i can only assume 0.99

00:36:59.080 he's not stupid he's pretty crazy it seems but he's not stupid he's got something in mind he's 0.64

00:37:03.860 got an end game but nobody can see it yet and you know he does have an end game in mind i'm actually 0.85

00:37:10.440 because it's not entirely convinced it's it's causing a lot of real damage you're shaking the

00:37:15.260 economies of both countries we've got companies that are really getting damaged with this so if

00:37:21.060 there's a game going on then start to move towards the goal line mr president because this is now 0.87

00:37:25.700 just getting stupid well you know again it's only a theory because none of the three of us really

00:37:30.240 know exactly what he's that's the whole point of the discussion we don't know what the game plan is 0.98

00:37:34.340 but i did notice when i watched the um joint presidential address last night early on he

00:37:41.740 said that he had met with the big three heritage motor manufacturers you know ford tricer general

00:37:47.440 Motors, and that they were happy. And up until that point, we had been making the point editorially

00:37:53.040 that these guys are going to have a problem because cars go backwards and forwards.

00:37:57.060 Well, they just got an exemption.

00:37:58.120 They only do have a one-month exemption. So I'm wondering if the end game for him is not to just

00:38:04.180 bring that entire industry back over the border.

00:38:07.900 Actually, his spokeswoman was saying precisely that today, is that, yeah, you've got a month

00:38:13.580 reprieve but you need to start uh moving your your uh your operations over well there you are

00:38:19.120 um i mean there's a i mean some days i like the guy some days i don't um but i i i don't know how

00:38:30.200 much we i don't think you just can't trust them like i mean we're a friendly i think paulia put

00:38:35.520 it well like if canada is not your friend then who is you know and and there is things that canada

00:38:42.420 is doing wrong on trade where we are being dishonest where we are being protectionist

00:38:47.620 it's you know it's very rich of us to wrap ourselves in the free trade banner and say

00:38:52.260 we're the world's greatest free traders oh yeah uh can i buy some uh wisconsin cheese

00:38:58.340 no no you cannot it's it's a it's it's next to illegal to get there's no point in importing

00:39:03.220 because it's so expensive um so you know we're hypocrites on this stuff and you know early on

00:39:10.020 And I was like, yeah, okay, you know what?

00:39:11.380 Actually, maybe it'll be good for us because he's going to force us to give up on some of these protectionist measures.

00:39:16.700 But I think it's not even – I don't think he's actually trying to get us to become more free trading.

00:39:22.600 I think he's just trying to bring it all directly into the United States.

00:39:27.100 If they're going to get that insular, I mean, that can be dangerous. 1.00

00:39:30.280 I mean, Canada is not – yeah, it's a much smaller market than the United States, but it's right next door and it's 40 million people.

00:39:35.420 We buy a lot of goods.

00:39:37.600 And we have our own protectionist stuff.

00:39:39.600 you know why you can't get a diesel toyota tundra because they're not allowed to sell it here but

00:39:44.320 that could change and i tell you what toyota makes a hell of a better car than the big three i don't

00:39:48.940 care what other people say and i don't know you bring me a toyota diesel and and i'm willing to

00:39:55.000 invest in that thing and uh i'm just saying this is a bit biased against japanese and korean trucks

00:40:00.620 good cars but i'm a bit biased against their trucks so take a land rover out for maybe yeah

00:40:05.140 maybe i should take a lot but i'm just saying that you know there are alternatives out there

00:40:09.380 there's people willing to start filling those voids and just we're not winning we're not winning

00:40:13.460 these are heavy items we have integrated markets uh pulling everything down into the united states

00:40:18.180 and castrating windsor okay but that long-term game i don't know if it's really going to benefit

00:40:22.820 the united states either in the end uh it comes back to the big question again you know he keeps

00:40:30.740 talking about annexing canada is is this is this chaos which does not appear to be headed towards

00:40:38.220 a deal and again you know i could by the time you listen to this i can be it could be a bloody deal

00:40:43.720 we're going so damn fast um but you know is this to economically strangulate canada to try and

00:40:52.880 annex it i again this it sounds crazy but it's a it's a fair question in a fair question but one

00:40:59.600 of the answers is why would trump want a bunch of liberal voters fine but he said he wants them

00:41:05.300 he said he wants them that's where we don't know what to believe you know you don't know when you

00:41:09.080 believe him and when not to i mean sometimes doesn't he is trolling sometimes he sounds more

00:41:13.640 serious do i think he could be serious about wanting alberta maybe saskatchewan yeah i actually

00:41:20.800 i i could see that i could see the economics of it i could see the politics of it i could see him

00:41:26.120 wanting that i have a hard time seeing why you would want all of canada i mean it's a lot more

00:41:30.160 trouble than it's worth buddy but you know um is is that his goal is this just chaos and economic

00:41:39.260 pain until until he either the whole thing or part of it breaks apart i mean it that would

00:41:46.480 seem to make more sense than he's trying to get to a new deal right now oh uh yeah that

00:41:53.420 as i say i stand i stand by my theory that that chaos comes and then then comes the the final

00:42:01.200 demand but what do i know well i guess most of us we're saying or i get we hope to see that demand

00:42:08.800 let's just start to see some light so we can work towards well that's exactly what i'm saying you

00:42:13.180 you're now to the point of saying i'm sick of all this show me what you want and we'll we'll sign

00:42:18.800 Well, I didn't say we'll...

00:42:19.640 Tell me what you want.

00:42:22.240 You want a duffel bag of money and a helicopter to Mexico?

00:42:26.260 Give me your demands.

00:42:27.220 Because we get on to that phase of it.

00:42:29.180 And I understand tough negotiating.

00:42:30.560 I mean, down in Mexico, I see a bunch of raw Opal I want to buy.

00:42:35.140 How much do you want for that?

00:42:36.120 $5,000. 0.99

00:42:37.020 Okay, Pedro, you're insane. 1.00

00:42:38.520 That stuff's terrible. 1.00

00:42:39.720 The clarity's awful.

00:42:40.760 I'll give you $500 for it.

00:42:42.280 We fight back and forth for an hour, and eventually it sells for $2,000.

00:42:45.580 bars but we're going to get to that first point of those crazy we're not even saying what he wants

00:42:49.420 to buy yes that's what we don't know so i'm hoping we can move on to that face soon all right speaking

00:42:54.220 of moving on let's move on to our parting shots so with you nigel oh well you know derek i was just 0.86

00:42:59.420 going through the news this morning and i see that if you can't afford the five million dollar gold

00:43:04.860 card to get u.s citizenship for a mere 105 000 you can get gold card membership of the island of

00:43:11.980 Nauru, in the middle of the Pacific, where the sun always shines and the palm trees wave and it's just

00:43:19.020 a lovely place to be. The only problem which makes this a bad deal, and I'm not going for it,

00:43:25.740 is that they take that $105,000 and they put it into climate control strategies,

00:43:32.220 because as the sea level is rising, they say, they're all going to get flooded out. So

00:43:36.700 it might be a short-term citizenship that you're getting into.

00:43:40.540 too but bring your water wings but yeah bring your own boat charm all right cory your funny shot

00:43:46.480 uh well i just a great example though unfortunately as our lame duck trudeau regime leaves uh of how

00:43:52.540 performative they really are when we had the reappearance of gi jolie at justin trudeau's

00:43:58.460 conference let's put that picture up put it up on the screen because you know she she has for those 0.98

00:44:03.340 who aren't familiar with it it's melanie jolie our foreign affairs minister a little military-ish

00:44:07.520 sort of a little outfit that she likes to put on and it's not a coincidence she only puts it on

00:44:12.080 when they're doing one of their war footing conferences with gaza or ukraine and in this

00:44:16.300 case now it's the trade war there she was looking nice and military standing we got that so seemed

00:44:20.900 pretty hot oh it was certainly easy enough on the eyes but i i prefer somebody who's easier on my

00:44:26.000 brain and they these shows that they that they do when we're doing dealing with serious business

00:44:33.660 reminds us that we just don't have a serious government right now all right uh for mine um

00:44:39.160 mine's not technically real news it's fake news but it's fake news that speaks a very real truth

00:44:44.660 uh i'm gonna let's put this tweet up on the screen here so this is from um i think this was

00:44:51.160 from the babylon b uh germany commits to 100 electric vehicle terror attacks by 20 uh 35

00:45:01.100 Germany has had yet another terror attack.

00:45:06.200 Some maniac gets in a car and drives through a crowd.

00:45:10.620 It is endless.

00:45:12.440 I mean, I don't know why terrorists didn't start this a lot easier earlier.

00:45:15.140 It's a lot easier to pull off than the 9-11. 0.99

00:45:18.040 It's less splashy, a little less panache in your terrorist attack.

00:45:22.000 But this stuff is constant across Europe.

00:45:23.700 It's now become every few weeks in Germany.

00:45:26.720 Germany just voted between the new CDU

00:45:30.460 ever so barely moderately conservative government

00:45:34.100 and the AFD, the more robustly right-wing party

00:45:38.100 a clear majority of Germans have voted

00:45:40.740 to end mass migration into Germany finally

00:45:44.300 but that's not what they're going to get

00:45:46.500 because the CDU is going to form a super coalition

00:45:48.700 with the left-wing parties to keep out the right

00:45:50.580 but I thought it was just so bloody

00:45:53.840 it just captured the spirit

00:45:56.740 of Europe. Germany commits

00:45:58.680 100% to 100% electric vehicle

00:46:00.780 terrorist attacks by 2035.

00:46:03.400 Technically fake news, but I

00:46:04.800 thought that spoke a greater truth than anything

00:46:06.900 in the real news today.

00:46:09.240 Okay, gentlemen, thank you

00:46:10.900 for joining today. It was a pleasure.

00:46:13.440 And thank all of you for joining us

00:46:14.900 on the pipeline today. Remember, the Western

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Western Standard - March 06, 2025

Carney is very, very afraid of reporters

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