Western Standard - Carney’s Alberta Oil Embargo

00:00:00.000 G'day, I'm Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western

00:00:29.680 Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline. Today is March 25th, 2025. I'm joined, as

00:00:36.520 always, by my good friends here, Western Standard Senior Alberta Columnist, Cory Morgan. Always

00:00:41.840 a pleasure. And Western Standard Senior, not Senior, well, yeah. Very, very Senior, and

00:00:48.600 looking forward to the tax break that's been promised. Freudian slip, perhaps. Western

00:00:53.300 Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Hannaford. Good to be here. We're going to be talking

00:00:58.440 about an idea floated by Mark Carney today for an export tax on Alberta oil, Saskatchewan potash

00:01:08.060 and uranium, perhaps BC like natural gas. Essentially, the federal government imposing

00:01:14.380 an embargo on the ability of the western provinces to export their products and what that means.

00:01:21.820 uh we're going to talk about why mark carney seems to have given some life back to the liberals in

00:01:29.700 the polls uh as a relative unknown to most canadians are voters projecting uh what they

00:01:35.860 want on a blank slate or do they like what's really there i'm going to talk about it and uh

00:01:41.380 the big kerfuffle over danielle smith uh her comments to trump and the people around him that

00:01:48.620 he should lay off tariffs until the Canadian election is over. All it's doing is helping

00:01:52.820 the Liberals. He should stay out of it. Does that constitute asking foreign power to intervene

00:02:00.300 in the Canadian election? Most of the media seem to think so. So we're going to get into

00:02:04.640 that. Before we do that, though, I want to thank our sponsor, New World Precious Metals.

00:02:09.200 This episode of The Pipeline is sponsored by New World Precious Metals, based right

00:02:15.360 here in Alberta. Years of inflationary money printing and rising debt have decimated the

00:02:20.300 average Canadian's savings. Gold and silver are the only currencies that have held their value

00:02:26.000 for thousands of years. Last year saw 30% increases. New World Precious Metals offers

00:02:31.460 unique platforms to help protect and grow your hard-earned wealth with silver and gold.

00:02:35.800 Check them out at newworldpm.com. They're a great sponsor of the Western Standard and the pipeline

00:02:41.640 here and they would sure appreciate the business. All right, Nigel, the whole idea of a federal

00:02:51.940 export embargo of Alberta and Saskatchewan oil or an export tax, why don't you key up what

00:02:59.200 Carney was talking about here? So it was actually on a campaign stop. He was asked by reporters

00:03:05.440 whether he would consider export taxes on Canadian goods

00:03:10.060 as a strategy to deal with the tariff war with the United States.

00:03:16.680 Now, Canadian goods, they're not going to be putting too many tariffs on motor cars

00:03:21.380 or anything they export from back east,

00:03:23.400 but they've tried before to put tariffs on Alberta exports,

00:03:28.780 namely, we're taking it back to the National Energy Program 45 years ago.

00:03:33.240 And that was very interesting because that too came in the context of an election where you may remember Pierre Trudeau, not terribly popular, but he picked up this idea that he would stick it to Alberta and Saskatchewan to some degree and solve some problems back east while he was doing so.

00:03:55.760 And it worked for him.

00:03:58.200 So, obviously, Alberta objected to this highly strongly at the time.

00:04:03.460 Nevertheless, there's a popular phrase used by liberal bagman Keith Davey.

00:04:10.920 He said, screw the West, we'll take the rest.

00:04:15.120 And that, to me, seems to be what is happening here, Derek,

00:04:17.420 that as far as Mr. Carney is concerned,

00:04:20.900 this is Alberta's reasonable contribution to the fight against the terrorists with the U.S.

00:04:26.260 But it's actually a kind of economic warfare against Alberta, and you know he's got a goal. He doesn't talk much about his green agenda, because it's not a winner, but he wants to keep the Alberta energy industry down. He's still committed to emission caps. This is just one more way that he can do it.

00:04:47.020 Corey, seeing the screw the West, we'll take the rest strategy before the Liberals most of the time play some variation of it.

00:04:58.200 They might lean into it sometimes more than others.

00:05:00.600 1980, they leaned into it the very hardest.

00:05:03.040 The Liberals ended up winning zero seats east of Ontario.

00:05:06.320 Precisely zero.

00:05:08.900 And they were really just picking on Alberta at that time, but the rest of the West kind of got behind Alberta in the fight against it.

00:05:14.300 but uh you know carney hasn't said yet that i will do it but he's he certainly said he's very

00:05:21.800 open to the uh to the idea it should be on the table this comes after justin trudeau was saying

00:05:25.720 it um there i guess there's two ways he could go about this one is hinting about it that he likes

00:05:33.340 it uh to try and get easterners to vote for him against the west uh the other is to go to lean

00:05:40.040 into it very directly if he does that he writes off the chance the liberals have at a few seats

00:05:45.640 i guess they have one in calgary then a couple uh maybe i think they have one or two in edmonton

00:05:49.820 uh one um i think he writes writes off those seats at that point uh which way do you think

00:05:57.580 he's likely to go uh one is scorched earth in the west but might get him a better result in

00:06:02.720 the east the other one is to hint at it maybe benefit from it but then spring the trap after

00:06:08.160 election if he in fact does go that route. Yeah I think the place he's at right now is putting his

00:06:12.260 finger in the air and seeing how well it's received and whether that will I mean they are

00:06:18.860 cynical political players they're going to do whatever they think wins them the most seats

00:06:22.900 whatever it's going to take to garner that support and yes there's very little to lose in Alberta

00:06:27.980 and if it can consolidate his support in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto I think without hesitation he'll

00:06:34.840 do that. The factor, and it's going to be a frustrating factor throughout this whole election

00:06:38.680 is it depends on what President Trump does south of the border. You know, it looks like we've got

00:06:43.280 another announcement coming, more tariffs from that end, more, I guess you could say belligerence

00:06:48.280 almost towards Canada. And if that stirs things up enough, Central Canadians will be supportive 0.53

00:06:53.800 of the notion of utilizing Western resources as a club to try and push back against Trump in the

00:07:01.340 trade war so it could be politically successful for him so right now i think they're just laying

00:07:06.580 the groundwork he's not ruling it out he's not diving into a regional battle within canada yet

00:07:10.620 but he's definitely keeping that as a tool in the toolbox i think it's the campaign evolves

00:07:15.080 nigel i think one of the advantages the liberals have here well you know the selection is mostly

00:07:21.840 fought in the greater toronto area and there's a few other pockets at play lower mainland of

00:07:26.820 british columbia but for the most part it's in the gta uh we're expecting an announcement from

00:07:32.820 donald trump many people by the time they watch or listen to this uh we'll already know what he

00:07:37.480 does but there's an announcement coming uh this evening at four o'clock eastern i think on new

00:07:43.000 auto tariffs this is gonna probably continue to supercharge things in uh the gta that's you know

00:07:49.760 got a lot got a lot of auto manufacturing uh it puts poliev in a uncomfortable position

00:07:55.880 because he in his heart and politically i think does support the right of the west

00:08:00.960 to export its products uh probably understands that it would do irreparable harm this is not

00:08:06.820 a short-term thing putting an export embargo against the export of western oil and gas to

00:08:12.420 the united states it would it could cause the united states to permanently reconfigure uh

00:08:17.180 uh it's uh it's energy infrastructure it's not like you could just switch it back on when this

00:08:21.740 is all over and it goes back to normal this could damage it in a very long term uh it puts

00:08:28.000 polio in an awkward position where he has to defend the west and that would play into the

00:08:33.660 liberal attack line against him which is uh he's secretly with trump he's he's working for the oil

00:08:39.380 barons and sheiks in the west he uh he doesn't really care about us he's not a strongly nationalistic

00:08:46.680 Team Canada as Mark Carney.

00:08:49.100 How should Pierre

00:08:50.700 Pollyov respond if

00:08:52.540 to this issue, I think

00:08:54.580 he's been quiet so far because he doesn't want to talk about

00:08:56.720 this for reasons we just

00:08:58.780 discussed. If

00:09:00.700 Carney goes further though and this becomes

00:09:02.700 an issue where he has to take a position

00:09:04.620 how should Pollyov respond?

00:09:07.260 Yes, I can mention that's

00:09:08.760 keeping them up late at night.

00:09:10.840 Clearly he can't afford to abandon

00:09:12.500 the Western position altogether because

00:09:14.740 Because, frankly, when Mr. Mulroney did that back in 1986, the Reform Party and the Alliance Party and the Conservative Party was the result of that, speaking of the F-18 maintenance contracts.

00:09:29.240 So, you know, if he wants to throw away the goodwill in the West, he will just follow the party line on that.

00:09:36.960 I think he needs to come out and make a strong defense, first of all, of the Western leaders who have actually tried to do something about this and to take the fight to the enemy at a time when the federal government was totally unable to focus on anything other than the survival of the Liberal Party.

00:10:02.740 and we're going back to January and February here

00:10:05.380 when this first started to erupt

00:10:07.000 you'll notice it was Danielle Smith who was 0.99

00:10:09.300 out there, it was other

00:10:11.220 premiers who were taking the

00:10:12.660 initiative

00:10:14.000 and it's

00:10:16.420 that's

00:10:18.400 other Canadians need to remember that, they probably

00:10:21.260 know but they need to be reminded of that

00:10:23.100 but we've been in

00:10:24.980 the western provinces

00:10:27.000 have been in the fight right from the start

00:10:28.960 and they've actually did things when

00:10:31.040 the federal government did nothing. Now, obviously, we're a party for all Canadians, and together

00:10:39.760 we'll work our way through this, but he cannot afford to abandon the West.

00:10:43.800 All right, but how should he, okay, if he doesn't abandon the West, how should he message

00:10:48.900 this to Easterners who, you know, there's exceptions, but Easterners, for the most part,

00:10:55.060 They're very sensitive to Quebec nationalism and sovereignty movements.

00:11:00.200 They're not very sensitive to it in Alberta and Saskatchewan in particular.

00:11:05.520 How does he message that to Easterners to say, look, guys, this might sound good on paper, but here's why I'm not going to do that.

00:11:15.400 Doesn't that put them in a weaker position with Eastern Canadian voters than Carney?

00:11:21.020 Well, certainly it does.

00:11:22.160 One thing, and that's the whole, you know, the Liberals are very fond of this idea, that's why they're pushing it.

00:11:28.520 But, you know, one thing that we've all got to remember, and I'm sure Mr. Poliev would remind people back east of this,

00:11:38.380 the energy industry in Western Canada, Saskatchewan as well as Alberta, is worth about $140 billion.

00:11:44.660 The auto industry that they're trying to protect is worth about maybe $40,000, $30,000, $35,000.

00:11:53.760 So he's going to have to remind the government of Canada that they need to protect all industry,

00:12:05.900 the valuable industry as well as the less valuable industry.

00:12:10.360 They cannot walk away from this and say, well, we're going to put tariffs on.

00:12:14.340 that'll show them because it won't show them. And secondly, it will kill the industry in the

00:12:21.020 western part of the... And I think there are enough people of goodwill in Ontario especially

00:12:26.020 to hear that message and take it home. We often forget that although the Liberals tend to win

00:12:32.360 heavily in Ontario, they don't win by that much. There is a huge reservoir of strong conservative

00:12:40.240 support in Ontario and to some degree in the in the maritime provinces that will back him on this

00:12:48.380 they understand Corey you know Nigel just talking about protecting all industries and

00:12:54.320 well we saw just this morning dear Pauly of talking about protecting all industries

00:12:59.360 and very especially especially the supply managed industries you know I had to go there

00:13:06.040 That means supply managed, for those who don't know, is mostly dairy, eggs, which are under a Soviet-style command and control economy with quotas, all sorts of crazy stuff.

00:13:21.240 And, you know, Trump is wrong on a lot of things on trade here.

00:13:25.060 One area he is so obviously not wrong and has such a strong point against us.

00:13:31.000 and everyone we'd end up in trade negotiations with, bludgeons us over the head with, is supply management.

00:13:38.580 In addition to costing Canadian consumers far more than it should to buy a block of basic cheddar cheese,

00:13:46.500 it costs us untold billions in missed trade opportunities because we have to protect that small, little, tiny block,

00:13:57.420 mostly, but not entirely, concentrated in Quebec.

00:14:01.000 um is this a ruse because polyev is a conservative he understands economics he knows it's a boneheaded 0.98

00:14:12.760 idiotic policy both for canadians and for our ability to get better trade deals for exporting 0.96

00:14:18.080 our products i hope he's lying is he lying because i hope to god he is it's unfortunate 0.99

00:14:26.780 that you have to count on that you know he's a pragmatist he's there's one of the things i guess

00:14:31.960 that people cut into poly of a bit he's a career politician he's looking at the polls the ups and

00:14:36.980 downs of what he needs to do to get elected and unfortunately taking on supply management

00:14:43.580 is political suicide on the federal scene in the short term i i don't think it should be for a few

00:14:50.700 seats of quebec that's it well yeah i i mean they're terrified of it but they it's also millions

00:14:55.780 and donations the dairy cartels are very effective we've seen them lobby and nominations in leadership

00:15:01.700 races look as a fiscal conservative as a libertarian i'm mortified that no politician has the courage

00:15:08.640 to take on that rotten odious system nobody can call themselves and i've said it online and i mean

00:15:14.580 it with poly as well you cannot call yourself a free market conservative if you support that

00:15:18.640 system you can't that's it it's it's night and day you're you're lying or you know you you are

00:15:24.900 just uh covering up out of cowardice but you know that sad occasion when andrew sheer drank a glass

00:15:30.100 of milk of the boy he frided himself on each i know i called him a name that i won't say on this

00:15:34.380 show when that happened but uh it's frustrating it's it's the the nature of the regional politics

00:15:39.840 though pauliev knows better i questioned him on that in this very studio during the leadership

00:15:43.660 race and he didn't like us going there even because it's a bad corner for him and he basically

00:15:49.220 at that time he said it would be just be he said it was a bad system but it would cost too much to

00:15:54.400 get out of it if we tried to do buyouts like New Zealand did he's not going to touch it in this

00:15:59.260 election and as you said maybe we could hope he's lying hope he wins and that during his time later

00:16:04.040 feels it's worth taking it on you know I have not voted federal conservative in a very long time

00:16:10.140 because I just haven't felt that they've deserved my vote.

00:16:14.780 But when I voted for Harper's Conservatives in 2011,

00:16:19.460 when they won their majority government,

00:16:21.960 I voted Conservative believing Stephen Harper was lying,

00:16:25.780 that there was a hidden agenda.

00:16:27.100 I wanted the hidden agenda.

00:16:29.800 Unfortunately, he was not lying, and I haven't voted for them since.

00:16:34.740 You know, I'm likely to vote Conservative this time,

00:16:37.340 the first time in a long time on the federal level.

00:16:40.140 only because i think poly of his line he knows it's a terrible system and if we are

00:16:47.180 ever going to have a resolution to the trade dispute with the trump administration supply

00:16:53.900 management is going to go and let me tell you mark carney is going to kill supply management

00:17:00.300 no matter who wins supply management is going to die because they're just not going to be any

00:17:07.340 any resolution to this trade agreement if if we persist in that because it is so obviously the

00:17:13.260 wrong thing to do so uh i think so you will not fight for the right of all canadians to pay more

00:17:22.000 for dairy i'm just not patriotic uh patriotic enough to want to pay so much more for my milk

00:17:26.940 and dairy i i just not that picture shame on you derrick shame on you and it's worked for people

00:17:32.700 up you know as i've shown my my less than fondness of president trump's tactics and actions but he's

00:17:38.940 exposed a real one here but maybe it's made people pay attention to this particular time if you don't

00:17:44.300 like it well here's the one time he's right and people realize i mean it wasn't that long ago we

00:17:48.460 lost a big ud deal with the uk over protecting a fragment of a market of canadian cheese

00:17:55.020 we're talking billion dollar trade deals getting screwed to protect millions in quebec cheese so

00:18:01.340 yeah, I don't care who gets rid of it. I just want to

00:18:03.480 get on it. It's an absurd system.

00:18:05.220 Well, I mean, if they put a boycott against

00:18:07.420 our export of Alberta oil,

00:18:09.480 I think we have to put a boycott against the import

00:18:11.360 of Quebec cheese.

00:18:13.240 Big loss, eh? Okay.

00:18:16.500 Well, let's...

00:18:18.280 We're going to stay on this

00:18:19.500 track here and talk

00:18:21.200 more about Mark Carney specifically.

00:18:25.580 I mean, he's

00:18:26.720 given the life, the liberals

00:18:29.360 back some life in the polls. This often

00:18:31.260 happens when you have an unpopular leader and unpopular party you switch out the leader they

00:18:35.560 often get a bump in the polls but not always um but that you know given enough time you know

00:18:42.060 we talked about Jim Prentice before he had a huge bump in the polls brought the PCs in Alberta back

00:18:47.160 to life but he had about six months plus as premier before he called that election and people

00:18:53.660 remembered that they hated the PCs and he blew that honeymoon Carney I think was smart to go

00:18:59.260 straight to an election so people didn't really have time to get that close of a look but there

00:19:07.240 is still a campaign period and people will start to pay attention at some point you know our voters

00:19:13.780 just kind of projecting what they want almost like a Rorschach test on to Carney I think there's a

00:19:21.220 bit of that definitely going on because I mean we look at it political weenies like us who have

00:19:24.740 always known who he was okay fine he didn't appeal to us but to the average person in the public

00:19:29.160 he does appear as a blank slate i mean the electorate was crabby they were ready for change

00:19:33.620 you know trudeau's levels were abominably low and uh it turned around unfortunately you know

00:19:39.520 when people are ready for change they want to see something different they see a long established

00:19:44.920 politician like per polyev who's been in there for a long long time and they just see perhaps

00:19:50.980 you know again somebody who's playing the game they even if he's not fresh uh carney is offering

00:19:57.140 a fresh face to them and and they're what do they want to see they want to see a counter to trudeau

00:20:02.500 they want to see a counter to the the clown the tongue out guy the the vacuous statements the

00:20:07.520 colorful socks well you don't get much more drab than mr carney and then when you've got that blank

00:20:12.980 slate you can yes project whatever you think you're going to see on it they think they're

00:20:16.400 going to see a stable man who's going to stand up to trump or a man who's going to stabilize the

00:20:21.260 economy because he has a an experience in banking and his understandings of the mechanics of it

00:20:26.180 And again, it might be contrary to actually some of the things he's promoted over the years, but your average Canadian hasn't looked at what Carney has promoted.

00:20:33.180 So he's offering the facade of a fresh face and it's working.

00:20:38.720 And as part of what's showing right now with Carney's campaign too, though, is he's willing to embrace whatever policy seems to be reflecting well in the focus groups.

00:20:47.360 And if Pauly said something the day before, Carney won't hesitate to say it the day after.

00:20:52.700 And that's the frustrating part.

00:20:54.220 It's working.

00:20:54.640 you know it's always dangerous to oversimplify things to left and right and here's what they

00:21:00.260 monolithically think but they're useful shorthands nigel um i mean i think the further left uh view

00:21:07.860 carney as a ruthless capitalist businessman who cut canadian jobs and move them to the united

00:21:14.520 states and not pay his taxes with shelters and bermuda that kind of thing the the further right

00:21:21.380 sees him as a globalist W.E.F. man who has written in plain language about some extremely

00:21:30.040 socialistic policies he supports around global warming and mass migration, these kinds of things.

00:21:36.320 But let's narrow into swing voters on the center left and the center right. How do you think the

00:21:43.940 center left is viewing him? And how does the center right view him? And is it kind of a Rorschach test

00:21:49.320 their ability to just kind of project onto a blank slate or is it that both of them are seeing

00:21:54.680 something that they like well first of all when we talk about the people in the middle we're actually

00:22:02.120 talking about the mushy middle where people don't look at a what a politician says and check that

00:22:09.480 off against their own set of principles the way we do. So in that situation they

00:22:18.460 see different things and one of the things that they have already started to

00:22:22.260 see is that Mr. Carney has got a little bit of a mean streak that comes out

00:22:29.280 every now and then. It started last week with Rosemary Barton at the CBC and

00:22:35.240 Stephanie Levitz and they were pushing him on this important matter of what his

00:22:39.360 his holdings were. And he shut them down rather crudely, and he's done that to a couple of other

00:22:45.840 reporters in the days since. I think we're going to be publishing an article based on a report

00:22:54.240 from the London Daily Telegraph, which says that he has got a volcanic temper. And if he does,

00:23:01.320 and if he is provoked, as he will be during the debates, especially in the French one where he's

00:23:07.460 not quite sure what was asked but thinks it's something that's insulting he's going to lose it

00:23:15.900 and over the course of the next four weeks he is going to reveal more and more not only of what he

00:23:21.880 actually thinks or what he wants you to think that he thinks but also that character which so far we

00:23:29.680 have only seen hints at and he may be riding fairly well now it's going to go down the other

00:23:37.060 Another thing to your point about saviour candidates is that you mentioned Jim Prentiss

00:23:42.380 and that's a positive example, but I could give you three saviour candidates on the federal

00:23:46.940 level who were total disasters, and one would be John Turner.

00:23:50.120 No, no, Prentiss was only very briefly the saviour, then he called it.

00:23:53.820 Yeah, well, he did, but then John Turner was supposed to be the saviour after the very

00:23:58.220 unpopular Liberals.

00:23:59.420 He got totally wiped out by Mulroney, and then Mulroney being just as unpopular after

00:24:04.660 nine years. Like, there's a cycle in

00:24:06.680 governments, as you well know,

00:24:08.800 and ten years seems to be about it.

00:24:10.720 So they put Kim Campbell there, and 0.84

00:24:12.600 she took the party down to two seats. 0.98

00:24:15.560 And

00:24:16.080 they brought Michael Ignatiev in

00:24:18.680 in 2011, thinking

00:24:20.660 well, nothing's going very well with

00:24:22.460 Stefan Dion, let's try a public

00:24:24.680 intellectual. And again, the

00:24:26.620 party went down to a crashing defeat.

00:24:28.760 So I'm not sure that

00:24:29.980 there's anything inevitable about Mr. Carney

00:24:32.700 being the saviour of the Liberal Party

00:24:34.560 in this especially when we get to know him well you know i wouldn't say it's inevitable that's

00:24:39.340 for sure i mean as you said it's going to be picked at over time but that's where they were

00:24:43.140 they're going to want to maintain that blank slate we're talking about they don't want people to get

00:24:46.740 to know him if you can just keep him solid and riding but i mean this is going to be the most

00:24:52.500 intense scrutiny he's endured for his entire professional career yeah i mean the financial

00:24:56.720 presser was very sir can you tell us you know and then he gives them a very technical explanation

00:25:02.420 that they write down and put in the back pages.

00:25:05.160 That's not what he's going to get when he moves further afield.

00:25:09.660 But is this enough time?

00:25:11.160 Is the campaign enough time for voters to really get a good sense of him,

00:25:15.320 for the conservatives to be able to actually brand him

00:25:18.980 and make their attacks stick?

00:25:21.780 Or is it too short?

00:25:23.080 It'll be interesting to see if the media steps up a little bit,

00:25:25.140 the legacy media, though, because they do tend to circle the wagons

00:25:27.940 sometimes when they get shot at their own,

00:25:29.600 even if they're the Laurentian gang and the press gallery.

00:25:32.920 But when he got so snotty with Rosemary Barton and Globe and Mail reporters,

00:25:37.640 I mean, you know, they applaud it when he gets on the Western Standards case,

00:25:40.780 but it's going to be some of those reporters wanting to make a mark,

00:25:44.720 wanting to stand out, even if they're with legacy outlets,

00:25:47.180 they might want to be the one who, through that question that got under his skin,

00:25:50.940 the one that did make that mercurial explosion come about,

00:25:55.500 you know, they're the one documented and in that news cycle.

00:25:58.260 Don't forget the self-interest of some reporters, and they're going to be on his case now for this next few weeks.

00:26:05.160 Well, you know, Corey, it only takes one really bad moment to sink the whole campaign.

00:26:09.400 It doesn't take much.

00:26:10.900 I mean, look at the Howard Dean scream.

00:26:12.700 I mean...

00:26:13.060 Look at the mirror.

00:26:14.420 I had no choice.

00:26:17.200 Take your pick.

00:26:18.080 He's got a lot of landmines.

00:26:20.460 He's going to have to wait for this next time.

00:26:21.800 As for this business, I own nothing.

00:26:24.160 Well, what kind of a banker were you?

00:26:25.620 You know, I mean, that's a, that was his thing.

00:26:28.860 And he's happy.

00:26:30.760 Don't think it's going to last.

00:26:33.600 All right.

00:26:35.280 Well, let's bring it back closer to home in Alberta here.

00:26:38.660 But it's become a national issue.

00:26:42.620 Danielle Smith is in some hot water with the leftist parties, 0.76

00:26:48.020 both in Alberta and federally and with the media,

00:26:50.540 alleging that, you know, her conversations with Donald Trump and the administration there

00:26:58.040 constitute her asking him to interfere in the Canadian federal election.

00:27:03.700 Why don't you kind of set up the card?

00:27:06.720 Well, let's deal with that point right away at the start.

00:27:10.380 The federal elections officer said she broke no rules.

00:27:13.660 So that's an important thing to understand about this before we even get into the details.

00:27:18.560 Premier Smith broke no rules in her dealings with the United States and with various individuals.

00:27:25.600 So, you know, the thing about Danielle Smith is that she's one of the few premiers 0.93

00:27:31.140 who have actually tried to deal with the tariff situation at a time when the federal government,

00:27:39.280 the government of Canada, to which we ought to be looking for leadership and guidance

00:27:43.060 and, frankly, firm action, was fondering.

00:27:45.920 They're totally looking inwards at their own problems with succession from Mr. Trudeau,

00:27:52.980 first getting Mr. Trudeau to even agree to give up his seat,

00:27:58.060 and then rigging the system and proroguing.

00:28:01.260 Like, all that time, the government of Canada should be on it.

00:28:05.540 They weren't, but Danielle Smith put a border patrol out, 1.00

00:28:10.400 and that was presented as the reason.

00:28:11.980 uh she went down to the down to washington she did the round she met the people who could make

00:28:18.840 a difference uh people who had a a um the ear of the president she met the president himself

00:28:26.540 and uh you know she came back and the 25 tariff that was going everywhere everywhere else was

00:28:32.860 only going to be 10 on alberta product and then suspended and then suspended so you know from our

00:28:39.360 point of view what do you want of a premier other than to represent the

00:28:43.800 interests of your province and if you are in the situation where you can't

00:28:50.360 delegate that to the federal government because the federal government is like a

00:28:56.520 car that won't start then she did in my humble estimation the right thing and

00:29:05.120 And there's this other, where the headline comes from was an interview with Breitbart.

00:29:10.000 Breitbart is often described as the right-wing news outlet in the United States.

00:29:15.660 They get their facts right.

00:29:17.340 So I guess right-wing, left-wing, they get their facts right.

00:29:21.640 But what she said there was that what she feared is that the longer this dispute goes on,

00:29:30.580 politicians' posture, let me read this to get it right,

00:29:33.100 politicians posture and it seems to be benefiting the Liberals right now so I

00:29:38.520 would hope that we could put things on pause and I've told the Trump

00:29:42.880 administration officials let's just put things on pause so we can get through an

00:29:49.240 election and looking at that as a Canadian from the Canadian side you

00:29:53.560 actually want a government that has the support of the people won in an election

00:29:59.100 to actually be dealing with the Americans 0.99

00:30:01.620 rather than people who are on their way out.

00:30:06.480 So her default is, she said,

00:30:09.540 hold off on the tariffs, let us have our election first. 0.98

00:30:12.980 This was her saying, she's quite clearly there,

00:30:16.480 that the tariffs are interfering in our election.

00:30:20.780 Stop interfering the election with tariffs.

00:30:22.900 And her saying that is being construed as

00:30:27.320 asking him to interfere in the election

00:30:29.800 by stopping interfering in the election

00:30:32.400 with the tariffs.

00:30:33.400 It's madness.

00:30:34.460 I mean, if she's not supposed to do this,

00:30:37.320 what is she supposed to do, Corey?

00:30:38.620 Well, the tiny little line she crossed,

00:30:40.180 if it was crossed,

00:30:41.220 was she did say it's benefiting the liberals.

00:30:42.860 So that's when you brought a partisan flavor into it.

00:30:45.960 She said, you know,

00:30:46.560 basically it was by way of exclusion saying

00:30:49.420 if it's benefiting the liberals,

00:30:50.520 it's harming the conservatives.

00:30:51.980 We want the conservatives to win.

00:30:53.920 Please back off

00:30:55.220 so we can get a conservative government

00:30:56.740 in to deal with things later.

00:30:58.680 But as Derek said, too, what was she supposed to do?

00:31:01.320 She's a conservative premier.

00:31:02.480 She's not going to endorse a party that wants to have emissions caps, a party that is threatening

00:31:07.720 to impose export tariffs on our oil and gas products.

00:31:12.340 She's not going to be a friend of the Liberals.

00:31:14.680 I mean, some people might say it's a matter of, you know, form that you shouldn't speak

00:31:20.460 up on these things or just kind of let things run their course in a federal election as

00:31:24.960 you're a provincial leader.

00:31:25.800 But we've got to remember, it's the liberals that left us with a void in leadership.

00:31:29.760 I mean, this interview is something that was dug up.

00:31:31.420 The gotcha games are just getting started right now. 0.98

00:31:33.780 And they're trying to do anything they can to, again, show Smith or anybody she's related to or Polyav or anybody they're related to as traitors or darn, you know, right in bed with Donald Trump. 0.95

00:31:44.500 And if that's the best they can do, they're in for a long campaign. 0.94

00:31:49.320 But again, what were we supposed to do?

00:31:52.160 We had a prime minister who was lame duck when that interview was held.

00:31:55.380 We've got a prime minister who now just won on a cakewalk of a, you know, leadership race going on.

00:32:01.600 There still is nobody who really has a mandate to speak for Canada.

00:32:05.200 So, yes, Premier Smith speaking for Alberta and she's putting Alberta first and she bloody well should.

00:32:11.080 How, Nigel, should Danielle Smith fight back against this?

00:32:16.160 because the media and you know the alberta ndp the federal liberals they uh have that they seem

00:32:24.280 to think this is a smoking gun that she she is a foreign agent at this point should she fight back 0.97

00:32:31.300 aggressively lay low um you know because at least the perception of it's not been helpful to the

00:32:38.140 poly of campaign in eastern canada uh perception rightly or wrongly should she be trying to fight

00:32:43.560 that perception? Or should she be laying low? What's the best course for her? Definitely not

00:32:50.540 laying low. If you have done nothing wrong, then you don't need to lay low. So her response has

00:32:58.200 to be, look, nobody else was doing anything. I did what I could. And you know what? If I was in

00:33:03.460 the same position, I would do it again. You know, it is not interfering in, it is not electoral

00:33:12.640 interference to talk to a foreign news outlet. It might be if you tried to

00:33:20.440 vernagle an official, but she's giving an opinion when asked. And I think in a case like this,

00:33:29.940 if you equivocate, if you back down, if you seem to be, you know, sorry that you found yourself in

00:33:35.620 this position, when you're explaining, you're losing. And she needs to be very, very strong

00:33:41.440 in just saying I did absolutely nothing wrong.

00:33:43.700 I did what was best for Alberta.

00:33:45.380 And by the way, I think I did what was best for Canada as well

00:33:48.200 because Lord knows nobody else was.

00:33:50.020 Yeah, I mean, if you want to defang a cancel mob, 1.00

00:33:52.040 and that's what they're trying to get that mob going,

00:33:55.260 don't apologize.

00:33:56.000 Never apologize.

00:33:56.700 Never apologize.

00:33:57.060 All you do is give them fuel.

00:33:58.660 It's never enough.

00:33:59.940 I mean, then Nenshi will be up there screaming from the hilltop,

00:34:02.780 so, you know, she must resign, she must resign. 0.99

00:34:05.740 It's never enough for them, even if she was contrite on this

00:34:09.660 and she's done nothing wrong, said nothing wrong.

00:34:11.700 I mean, Smith has made mistakes, but in this case...

00:34:15.120 But this wasn't one of them.

00:34:16.180 No, no.

00:34:17.680 To repeat, that is not my opinion.

00:34:21.980 That is the opinion of Canada's chief electoral officer.

00:34:24.620 She did nothing wrong.

00:34:25.500 For the sake of Polyev, she should try and stay out of the new scroll a little bit 0.74

00:34:29.660 if she can stick to Alberta issues for a while.

00:34:32.420 I mean, just if she really does want to benefit Polyev,

00:34:35.400 she's providing that foil and distraction for the legacy media 0.97

00:34:38.560 in the council almost though so before we move on i'm gonna just bring one issue that we didn't

00:34:45.460 have on our agenda here for good reason the ndp i tried to find a clever way to rhyme jagmeet sing

00:34:52.520 with waldo so i can make a you know a good where's waldo joke the ndp have vanished i mean the media

00:34:59.920 is covering them but it's very it's just kind of obligatory it's like the way you cover the

00:35:03.860 green party oh okay well here's the kids okay give them their moment okay move along next the

00:35:10.060 ndp are flatlined in the polls they seem to have no message that resonates at all right now

00:35:16.300 is there anything the ndp can do to inject themselves enough into this race to at least

00:35:23.920 try and save the seats that they've got well i i think he's gonna i honestly get to the point of

00:35:30.340 questioning whether singh is actually trying to make a strategic vote happen and collapsing his

00:35:37.280 own party's support because it's been so so bad i mean they have a base they do have a base the

00:35:43.540 socialists of canada hold a certain amount the labor vote holds a certain amount they've lost

00:35:48.840 much of the labor vote of the conservatives for the first time they're getting uh i think it was

00:35:52.680 the boilermakers endorsed the conservatives for god's sake it's never happened well singh's not

00:35:56.360 reaching out to them. He's not reaching out to his NDP base. He's just neglecting them and letting

00:36:00.580 the Conservatives and the Liberals eat his lunch. But he could effectively get them. I mean, what do

00:36:06.940 you do if you are a hardcore Union socialist? And they exist, far too many of them I like to think

00:36:11.840 of, but there's enough of them and in concentrated areas to win NDP seats. And if they could focus

00:36:16.780 and gather that support, they will win those seats and they'll always hold on to that 10, well, 20%.

00:36:21.780 they're down to 10 now but he doesn't seem to be trying it is the only question now is is it

00:36:27.720 incompetence or design because the foreign agent of the liberals there we go uh nigel uh is jade 0.98

00:36:35.100 meeting a foreign agent of the liberal party yeah well you know if i knew the answer to the

00:36:40.240 ndp's problem i wouldn't tell them anyway although i might tell you later but i don't so but what i

00:36:46.040 just when you brought up the matter of the

00:36:48.400 Boilermakers

00:36:49.060 I was

00:36:52.140 I'm thinking back to a recent

00:36:54.620 Polyerva event

00:36:56.320 I think they were steel makers

00:36:58.760 a pretty rugged looking lot

00:37:00.840 standing in a human

00:37:02.620 backdrop behind the conservative

00:37:04.760 leader and I

00:37:06.780 thought well okay I can see how people

00:37:08.880 might vote

00:37:10.780 for that. The NDP

00:37:12.880 that used to be

00:37:15.020 the NDP stereotype, but now if you wanted an NDP stereotype, you would assemble a teacher, a nurse,

00:37:24.680 a bureaucrat. You go to the faculty lounge at the sociology. Yeah, that's right. I mean,

00:37:31.260 they're DEI everywhere all the time, and I think most people are just fed up with that and move

00:37:36.600 right on. So that 10% that he's still got tells you roughly how many, okay, I'll be kind,

00:37:43.380 how many people still think that way

00:37:45.720 I was going to say something else

00:37:47.460 so

00:37:49.220 they've

00:37:50.960 pushed their base away

00:37:53.100 and what they've got left with isn't going to take them over the finish

00:37:55.740 line, it's going to be a wipe out

00:37:57.860 Well, before we finish

00:37:59.800 we have to take our parting shots

00:38:01.660 Corey

00:38:02.680 Well, I want to

00:38:05.120 highlight a bit of just showing again

00:38:07.500 as people get to know the Liberals or get to re-know

00:38:09.500 the Liberals, I mean again, don't let

00:38:10.780 carny snow you on this and the opportunism and the self-serving attitudes were on such great

00:38:17.500 display this last couple of weeks when the polls turned and suddenly liberals who had to spend more

00:38:23.640 time with their family it was so precious so important they had to set aside their political

00:38:28.620 career only a few weeks ago because they wanted to sit with their wives and kids and cousins and

00:38:34.080 whatever just watch the results come in on the day and then all of a sudden sean fraser and anita

00:38:38.860 and former cabinet ministers

00:38:40.420 decided, no, I don't really like my family

00:38:42.920 that much, come to think of it, and I'd rather

00:38:44.940 sit in parliament and fight.

00:38:46.900 And they turned around. Sean Fraser

00:38:48.160 actually displaced the liberal

00:38:50.800 candidate.

00:38:53.080 And it shows the liberals too, elbows up.

00:38:55.100 Out of the way. We're making room

00:38:57.020 for Sean to come back.

00:38:58.760 And then, just on top of it all,

00:39:01.280 Amarjeet Sohi,

00:39:02.660 Edmonton's mayor, who, again,

00:39:04.760 following the polls, realized he was not a

00:39:06.540 hope in heck and winning as a mayor again,

00:39:08.680 has said, I'm not running this fall when the election is slated, but now he's decided I'm

00:39:13.900 going to run for liberal member of parliament position, but I'm not going to resign as mayor.

00:39:18.240 I'm taking a leave of absence. So he's got to fall back. So that way, if he doesn't win the

00:39:22.300 seat, he'll still collect a salary as mayor, even though he's a lame duck mayor leaving

00:39:26.620 for five more months, six more months. This is the liberals people. This is who they are.

00:39:31.920 This is what they are. Pay attention to these clowns. Do not give them another bloody mandate. 1.00

00:39:37.500 They don't deserve it, and you're going to get four more years of that from these guys.

00:39:42.100 All right. Party shot from Nineville.

00:39:44.500 Yes. Well, you know, I often wonder why the mainstream media never pick up on any of the logical inconsistencies that the Liberals present.

00:39:53.780 We all know, we've heard about nothing else for 10 years.

00:39:57.220 Now, the idea is to get Canada's carbon emissions down.

00:40:00.360 We want to get net zero.

00:40:01.940 I think ultimately the idea must be that we don't emit any carbon at all.

00:40:05.140 We hold our breath.

00:40:05.720 Well, Mr. Carney has taken on board a man who represents the Century Project, and that's the idea of having 100 million Canadians by the turn of the century.

00:40:21.100 We all breathe. We all heat our homes. We all drive cars. If we drive electric cars, we drive cars that are running on a fuel that's generated somewhere else because you're never going to do it with wind and solar.

00:40:34.320 And so just the very act of increasing immigration is going to drive up Canada's carbon emissions.

00:40:43.280 At the same time, the main goal is to drive things down.

00:40:47.560 It's another version of that wretchedness in which they won't replace coal-burning generators in Asia 0.99

00:40:56.300 with natural gas from Canada, which emits far less carbon because it might help Alberta. 0.91

00:41:04.320 screw them. And 0.92

00:41:06.040 British Columbia, the resource extracting by regions

00:41:08.480 of BC. BC's huge on LNG

00:41:10.580 and some people

00:41:12.520 just don't want to do it there either. They're going to put a little

00:41:14.440 plug in for the West Coast Standard.

00:41:16.300 Rapidly emerging is the authoritative voice

00:41:18.480 of the West Coast. Absolutely.

00:41:20.480 Alright, well, my parting shot

00:41:22.260 flows nicely from

00:41:24.480 Corey's.

00:41:26.280 The Liberals have, I guess they had no

00:41:28.380 Democratic nomination for it, they just seem to have

00:41:30.360 appointed, it would appear, Rod

00:41:32.420 Loyola, who is

00:41:34.080 Let's bring up a picture of Rod here.

00:41:36.300 Now, I served in the Alberta legislature at the same time as Rod.

00:41:40.320 No one knew who he was until after he was elected.

00:41:44.240 For very good reason.

00:41:45.460 The NDP did not broadcast it.

00:41:46.900 He was a card-carrying communist.

00:41:50.320 He has...

00:41:51.360 Okay, that's enough for Rod up there.

00:41:54.640 He was, I believe, a member of the Communist Party.

00:41:57.900 I might sound like the House Committee on Non-American Activities.

00:42:01.860 But if he was asked, have you or are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

00:42:07.540 If he answered correctly, he would have to say yes.

00:42:10.060 He was a member of the Communist Party.

00:42:11.320 He's marched with the Communist Party.

00:42:13.020 He even did a strange kind of prayerish tribute to Hugo Chavez, the communist dictator of Venezuela, when he died.

00:42:24.120 He is a, I mean, you know, the left call people on the right fascist far too frequently, casually.

00:42:31.160 sometimes on the right i mean most of them are communist but sometimes we might use the term

00:42:36.680 communist a little too casually this is not one of those cases he is a capital c communist or at

00:42:44.440 least was for a long period of his life he's got a he was a i guess a rapper of not much notoriety

00:42:50.660 but he had a lot of lyrics in his rap rap performances about violent insurrection to

00:42:58.360 kill and overthrow capitalists if he is no longer a communist there would appear to be no record of

00:43:06.780 him anywhere repudiating communism it's not like he's some former skinhead who's like oh you know 0.96

00:43:12.040 i was misguided in my youth and uh you know i'm changing my tattoos and doing the tours of

00:43:17.560 repentance he's never done that about his very long well-documented time as a communist uh he

00:43:25.460 still openly calls himself a socialist i suppose socialism is a bit more of a spectrum of which

00:43:31.000 communism is a part but when he was endorsing nahi denci for the alberta ndp leadership

00:43:35.380 he called them fellow socialists i am a socialist we uh we are socialists he is nowhere ever on the

00:43:43.520 record that i can find repudiated um his time as a card-carrying communist and that's one thing

00:43:52.480 you were with the ndp you kind of expected some commies are gonna sneak through the cracks here

00:43:56.960 and there he was in a very safe edmonton seat so okay but this is the liberal party which are not

00:44:02.080 supposed to be communists they're supposed to be crony capitalists they're supposed to be

00:44:05.840 maybe democratic socialists at most under in the trudeau mold but they're not supposed to be

00:44:10.400 capital c communists and that is who the liberal party have running under their banner in edmonton

00:44:18.000 gateway to his credit though and like so he he actually did resign his seat

00:44:22.640 so meaning he probably feels more confident he's going to win the seat

00:44:27.200 went all in given that he he he he went call me okay well that's it for today uh if you're not

00:44:34.400 yet a member of the western standard you need to be the western standard is one of the only media

00:44:40.080 anywhere in canada not accepting the trudeau carney's uh trudeau carney government's federal

00:44:46.800 media bailout money.

00:44:48.620 The Western Sneddard is funded by people like you.

00:44:51.900 Go to westernsneddard.news right now,

00:44:53.700 click on subscribe.

00:44:54.740 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year

00:44:56.820 for unlimited access.

00:44:58.000 You'll get past the pesky paywall

00:44:59.380 and you'll be supporting

00:45:01.400 one of the last free media left in Canada.

00:45:04.480 Thank you all for joining us today

00:45:06.400 and God bless.

00:45:08.160 What does success mean to you?

00:45:10.380 Peace of mind, financial freedom,

00:45:12.920 generational wealth.

00:45:13.820 What do you see in your future?

00:45:15.620 Investing in gold and silver can help you get there

00:45:19.060 Through our trading partners

00:45:20.700 New World Precious Metals offers safe, affordable, secure international accounts

00:45:25.540 To help you meet your unique financial goals

00:45:28.160 Connect with one of our experienced team members

00:45:31.440 Invest in gold and silver today

00:45:45.620 We'll see you next time.

Western Standard - March 27, 2025

Carney’s Alberta Oil Embargo

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript