Western Standard - Conservatives Strike Back (at Alberta Independence)

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome.

00:00:25.500 Today is June 10th, 2026.

00:00:28.040 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:32.380 I've got most of our normal crew here today.

00:00:34.820 We've got former opinion editor Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:37.360 Nothing normal about me, my friend.

00:00:39.760 And our senior Alberta columnist and serial litigant against the powers that be, Corey Morgan.

00:00:47.700 Always a pleasure between court cases.

00:00:50.660 Indeed, I'm glad you can fit time between these cases.

00:00:52.540 Nothing normal about Corey either.

00:00:53.760 No.

00:00:54.040 But we do not have Dave here today because we're down on the ground floor of the Global Energy Show at the BMO Centre here in Calgary.

00:01:03.440 And so we've left Dave back in the newsroom, minding the kindergarten in there.

00:01:11.060 We're going to talk about the events coming out of Belfast in Northern Ireland,

00:01:18.100 where an Irishman was nearly beheaded in the middle of a street by a migrant.

00:01:26.120 Northern Ireland in flames right now over this,

00:01:29.760 and there's very much international ripple effects

00:01:33.280 coming just right after the conclusion of the trial with Nowak in London

00:01:38.800 for another case involving migrant murders of indigenous Britons.

00:01:44.440 and what effects this is having on the global conversation around mass migration.

00:01:51.560 Just the other day, I think yesterday,

00:01:54.680 Pierre Polyev was in town speaking to a, I think, conservative federalist audience

00:02:02.060 making the case for Alberta staying in Canada.

00:02:07.200 Spoiler, he just said, vote for me.

00:02:10.320 I think that summarizes more or less his argument.

00:02:12.760 But we'll talk about what he said, break it down, and talk about how effective or not it might be.

00:02:18.700 But we're going to begin with Alberta politics. 0.57

00:02:22.840 Is Danielle Smith purging independent supporters from the United Conservative Party?

00:02:30.320 So, the Premier has performed, as we've said many times here, an incredibly delicate and successful balancing act.

00:02:40.680 Really since her leadership campaign where she put forward the Sovereignty Act in its original form,

00:02:45.720 which was significantly more muscular,

00:02:47.800 but she's performed this balancing act between Alberta nationalists and federalists 0.93

00:02:52.180 and managed to keep them in the same party, walking together, compromising on the same team.

00:03:00.660 Ever since she announced the referendum question, since the courts made some bizarre

00:03:07.080 and I think what will prove on appeal ultimately unsuccessful and bad rulings,

00:03:11.300 but saying you're not allowed to have referendums on independence

00:03:13.560 until you first consult Indigenous people.

00:03:17.520 She put forward this kind of referendum to have a referendum question.

00:03:22.280 That's angered a lot of people in the independence movement.

00:03:24.580 There's a lot of nuance not really being discussed about it,

00:03:26.600 but it's obviously angered a lot of people, Corey.

00:03:29.780 And that has set off some in the independence camp

00:03:35.220 to want to now fight a two-front war, both the referendum and at the same time

00:03:39.560 try to oust her from the leadership and replace the premier, etc.

00:03:45.620 There's now, I think, very significant anecdotal evidence

00:03:50.760 that she is moving to, at least at some level,

00:03:58.020 purge independence supporters from positions of responsibility in the party.

00:04:01.600 Not necessarily from membership, but from positions of responsibility.

00:04:05.220 there was, I don't recall his name, but there was a candidate for the UCP nomination for an

00:04:09.860 upcoming by-election in Calgary, Shaw. He was, he's an open independent supporter, and he was

00:04:14.780 disqualified. On pretty dubious grounds, it was, it was, you know, we've seen this before. Oh,

00:04:19.660 your paperwork wasn't in line or something. If the party wants you to be a candidate, they'll make

00:04:23.500 sure your papers, paperwork's in line. If they don't want you to be a candidate, they'll find

00:04:27.160 a comma in the wrong place or something and disqualify you. This happens in all parties

00:04:31.220 in all provinces, but they disqualified them.

00:04:35.240 We've had pretty significant reports of people who have been approached

00:04:39.540 by UCP ministers saying, if they believe that they're federalists,

00:04:45.140 saying, hey, if you're against independence, we'll get you a free ticket

00:04:49.200 to come to the convention and vote there.

00:04:53.080 Stop the independent supporters from stacking the board,

00:04:55.680 from potentially launching a leadership review, these kinds of things.

00:05:00.420 So, Corey, how real do you think this is?

00:05:04.020 Is it any kind of scale yet?

00:05:07.380 And do you think, is this wise politics on Smith's part?

00:05:11.580 I mean, to start off, I don't think it's wise politics.

00:05:14.140 As you said, it's been a balancing act.

00:05:15.980 I mean, Premier Smith shouldn't take a full-on pro-independence stance.

00:05:19.360 That would be a political suicidal move.

00:05:21.840 I mean, there's still probably not a majority support among Albertans for that sort of thing,

00:05:25.780 even if it is a very strong level amongst members.

00:05:28.360 She's also taking an oath of allegiance to the crown, doesn't she?

00:05:31.220 Well, there's some of that. 0.52

00:05:32.740 Ah, so do members of the Bloc Ibequois. 0.99

00:05:34.300 Yeah, so, you know, that's an area, but I mean, I don't expect her to do such. 0.98

00:05:39.660 And I don't, I'm not shocked that she presents herself as a Federalist, and that's fine. 0.99

00:05:43.920 But to start into a full campaign mode against the independent side,

00:05:48.320 I don't know about the political wisdom of this.

00:05:51.720 It's, there's a subgroup within the independence movement

00:05:55.080 that's really wanted to rip her out of power for quite some time,

00:05:57.520 and they're working on that.

00:05:58.960 But I don't think they've been getting anywhere with it

00:06:01.080 because people want to deal with this referendum.

00:06:03.280 But if she keeps infuriating the independence base,

00:06:06.320 they're going to start shrugging and saying,

00:06:07.740 well, maybe that is the biggest hindrance to our independence right now

00:06:11.060 is the premier, and maybe those other individuals have been correct

00:06:14.160 all this time in saying she must be removed.

00:06:16.580 And then you're going to have an internal party battle, as you said,

00:06:19.180 with people trying to stack boards at the AGM,

00:06:21.360 with people trying to take over nominations

00:06:23.280 and all of those joys that come with a split party from within

00:06:25.880 that we've both been through already several times um i personal view i really think she should back

00:06:33.360 off on her hardcore federalist campaign you can see all some of the videos coming out with almost 0.86

00:06:37.200 the exact same statement from senior mlas just talking about how they love canada you know darn

00:06:41.980 well that was scripted and and pushed out there just say you're a federalist say you want to see

00:06:46.840 people vote to stay in alberta and then get on to doing some things like maybe getting a pension

00:06:50.940 plan and a pipeline that would be refreshing but going to war with the independent segment in the

00:06:54.980 party. I don't think it's very wise right now. Nigel, it's obviously, I'm shocked her balancing

00:07:02.760 act has been successful for as long as it has been because this is not a disagreement over

00:07:08.180 a marginal policy. Like should the lowest income tax bracket be 8% or 10% or should this be in the

00:07:16.080 curriculum or not? Those are issues on which people in a party, in a caucus, in a cabinet

00:07:20.860 can put a little bit of water in their wine, and everyone can kind of meet halfway.

00:07:25.220 Independence is not really one of those issues.

00:07:27.520 You can't be half pregnant on this kind of thing.

00:07:29.800 So she's managed to do it successfully, but now, ever since she announced the referendum,

00:07:35.980 she's taken tremendous heat from the legacy media,

00:07:38.960 from a lot of establishment figures inside and outside of Alberta.

00:07:43.380 And my impression is that she's kind of overcorrected politically

00:07:47.460 to the Federalist side in her rhetoric around this.

00:07:50.860 And that has angered a lot of independent supporters, where she was viewed as a more or less neutral figure.

00:07:57.980 I'm re-watching The Crown right now.

00:07:59.920 Watching Queen Elizabeth bite her lip on issues, it's quite something. 0.99

00:08:04.360 And Danielle Smith was doing a sort of version of that, where she's trying to just stay above it. 1.00

00:08:12.920 This is a referendum, it's a citizen's initiative, and they can fight that out.

00:08:18.100 And she's just staying out of it, more or less.

00:08:20.860 She's not doing that anymore.

00:08:22.180 I think she's overcorrected under the heat she's gotten from a lot of these figures.

00:08:27.720 And that has angered a lot of people in the independence movement.

00:08:31.460 And so now it's become a potential leadership threat to her.

00:08:35.560 The problem is the more she tries to fight it, the more she aggravates that problem.

00:08:40.840 Remember Jason Kenney, as soon as he had an insurgency over COVID policies,

00:08:45.720 his failure to sufficiently fight Ottawa on some issues,

00:08:49.220 to fight them he started calling them you know the lunatics taking over the asylum he said all 0.50

00:08:54.840 of his critics were racists and by trying to fight his critics he emboldened them he he swelled their

00:09:00.700 numbers uh i think smith should has a real potential problem here that the more she tries

00:09:07.460 to fight back uh the independence movement in the party the more she alienates herself from them

00:09:13.880 So one of the things that occurred to me was that I wonder if she has her own internal polling

00:09:21.680 that indicates that maybe the pro-independence movement is not quite as strong as the numbers are claimed.

00:09:33.100 She has to pick a side.

00:09:35.480 In the end, as you said, you can't be half pregnant on this. 0.92

00:09:40.500 So the safer way for her is to say, listen, we have the status quo.

00:09:48.860 I'm a sworn member of the Privy Council.

00:09:52.460 I am loyal to the king.

00:09:54.840 But if people want to do something different, we will find out from them.

00:09:58.560 We will find out in October. 0.50

00:10:00.660 First of all, that gives her the summer during which she can retreat to that position 0.89

00:10:05.500 and say, well, we'll see what people say. 1.00

00:10:07.260 Well, the more she cracks down on them is the more she's going to aggravate them to 1.00

00:10:12.200 come after her. 1.00

00:10:13.200 Well, they're going to do that anyway.

00:10:14.700 I mean, we have degrees of enthusiasm within all political movements.

00:10:20.980 The people who are gung-ho, die-hard for independence will certainly do everything that they can

00:10:27.440 do or imagine to get their way, and that could well include taking out the Premier at a party

00:10:34.100 conference.

00:10:35.100 On the other hand, there are other people who say, okay, we're not really ready to do this yet.

00:10:40.620 Let's just give her time and see how this evolves.

00:10:44.500 So actually having the referendum in October, whatever the mainstream media thinks about it,

00:10:50.380 not bad politics from her point of view.

00:10:52.100 It gives her all of June, July, August, and September to live.

00:10:57.180 I'm going to challenge you on a few points.

00:10:59.040 First, I don't think being a member of the Privy Council and swearing allegiance to the king or queen

00:11:04.000 is contradictory to sporting independence

00:11:06.660 because nothing says, first of all,

00:11:09.120 that Alberta would have to be a republic.

00:11:10.940 It's kind of assumed so rhetorically among a lot of people,

00:11:14.080 but just as Canada became a dominion in 1867,

00:11:18.980 that was not breaking away from the crown.

00:11:23.740 It was the establishment of a new and semi-sovereign crown

00:11:27.560 within the empire and what would become the Commonwealth.

00:11:30.380 But everybody wanted it.

00:11:31.560 Yes, but there is technically nothing that would, very little that could stand in the way of Alberta simply becoming a separate dominion with the crown.

00:11:41.040 So I would just challenge you on that, that it's not necessarily disloyal to the institution of the crown.

00:11:47.560 Well, I would disagree with you, but anyway.

00:11:49.440 But I know I took this in a little bit of a rabbit hole.

00:11:51.920 That's not what everybody's talking about anyway.

00:11:52.800 But look, there are elements within the independence movement that hate Smith, that have wanted her gone for a long time.

00:12:01.560 And they're still against her.

00:12:04.980 But I would say the vast majority of independence supporters within the UCP, as both members and as voters, they have backed her.

00:12:14.420 And they have backed her until now.

00:12:16.380 Many of them still do.

00:12:18.140 So they want independence, but they have not viewed her as an obstacle to it.

00:12:22.560 In fact, many of the left have, or the Federalists, I should say, have with some justification said that she is their enabler.

00:12:30.800 She is allowing them to do this.

00:12:33.320 Jason Kenney would have never allowed a referendum on independence, no matter what.

00:12:37.600 Rachel Notley never would have.

00:12:40.120 Jim Prentice, Alison Redford, none of these people would have ever under any circumstance allowed it.

00:12:45.660 Daniel Smith is not championing it, but she has allowed it to happen.

00:12:49.280 And so both the Federalists and the Alberta Nationalists, I think, have seen her as the enabler of at least allowing the vote to take place and that she is more or less neutral on it.

00:13:00.800 But by actively inserting herself into the debate, she begins to be seen as an obstacle.

00:13:06.560 And as she begins to be seen as an obstacle, and they want to start to, because there's

00:13:11.200 some challenge to her leadership now, they want to remove some of these people from running

00:13:15.380 for party boards, constituency associations, candidates in nominations. 0.92

00:13:20.300 That would potentially aggravate it, and it paints her into a corner.

00:13:23.720 And let's remember, the hardcore federalist side of the UCP didn't make her the leader.

00:13:30.420 The people who made her the leader are the people who saw the Sovereignty Act

00:13:33.460 as a wink-wink, nudge-nudge towards full sovereignty.

00:13:38.200 Well, when you use the word enabler, of course,

00:13:40.920 you immediately think of the negative connotations of that word.

00:13:44.140 The term enabler is used as a pejorative by the Federalists.

00:13:48.260 Facilitator is maybe the more positive one from the Nationalists. 0.79

00:13:51.480 I would certainly...

00:13:52.920 But really, you could just make the argument that she is doing her best

00:13:57.260 to give Albertans an opportunity to say what they think on what is the key political issue of the

00:14:04.960 year, maybe of the decade. Sure, but now they're disallowing people to run for nominations because

00:14:09.700 they're pro-independence. They're actively trying to swamp the convention. The significant anecdotal

00:14:17.660 evidence suggests they're trying to swamp the convention with Federalists. This is very actively

00:14:21.840 intervening, and that, I think, risks alienating the nationalists in the party.

00:14:26.440 This week's story, but the week before, the story was the reverse, that pro-independence

00:14:35.660 factions were trying to stack the party, and I believe that is the case.

00:14:40.320 I mean, that's what segment is about.

00:14:42.620 So you've got both sides trying to do what they can to strengthen their positions.

00:14:49.000 But what I'm saying is, she has sided with the Federalists in stacking it in her favor.

00:14:53.940 You don't have to cloak yourself in the flag.

00:14:55.660 You don't have to go on press conference rants against the independence movement.

00:14:59.920 You can declare yourself a federalist.

00:15:01.780 You could say you want Alberta to stay, but she's taking an active campaign role.

00:15:05.940 I think that's kind of the line that some are seeing crossed.

00:15:09.940 But your point is that that's not getting her anywhere with the pro-independence movement.

00:15:14.520 She's not winning with either.

00:15:15.660 Again, just staying off to the side.

00:15:17.140 I mean, the thing is, it's not that it's a majority of people,

00:15:19.860 but it's the people you are happy to be.

00:15:21.980 It's the majority of the party.

00:15:22.880 It's the members that act.

00:15:24.360 These are the ones that come to the conventions.

00:15:26.200 These are the ones that vote.

00:15:27.400 These are the ones that show up at these meetings.

00:15:30.340 And it makes them punch above their weight.

00:15:31.720 And that's part of the rough position because, yeah, it might only represent 20 or 30 percent of the province. 0.91

00:15:35.840 But it could still put her in dire trouble in the party.

00:15:38.740 And that's a tough spot she's in.

00:15:40.500 As the premier of a province, you can go too far into actively advocating for that province leaving Confederation.

00:15:51.220 She shouldn't advocate for the province leaving.

00:15:53.060 And she's already said she's a federalist.

00:15:55.700 But if she wants to keep dedicating hours to lighting a fire under those independent supporters 1.00

00:15:59.540 by campaigning overtly against them, she's going to make it worse.

00:16:03.780 That's what I'm saying. 1.00

00:16:04.620 She's jumping in front of a problem that doesn't need to be hers.

00:16:07.540 Well, you could be right.

00:16:09.380 But I still get the impression that maybe the independence movement is not as strong as we think it is.

00:16:16.700 So in which case she's going to find out.

00:16:20.660 I don't think any of the three of us here are under any illusions that it's at a clear majority support right now.

00:16:25.980 It's not.

00:16:27.080 But it's a large minority in the general public, and it's a majority, how big a majority?

00:16:32.940 Hard to say, but it's a majority among UCP voters, and especially among active members.

00:16:37.780 And so she represents the majority within the minority.

00:16:44.820 You know the other thing that we haven't talked about in this yet, and that's the position of the NDP.

00:16:49.080 The NDP are missing in action.

00:16:50.660 They are really almost like a non-player at the moment.

00:16:55.640 So, you know, if you are a Federalist and you are usually not that interested in politics,

00:17:05.300 you're not probably going to look to the NDP for leadership on this because they have offered none.

00:17:11.260 So you might not normally support the Premier, but in this case, on this issue, yes, maybe we will.

00:17:17.860 I don't think so. I think hardline federalists are more likely to back the NDP because the NDP's voters are 98% federalist.

00:17:28.600 The UCP's voters are, depending on the poll, 25 to 40% federalist. So they're divided.

00:17:37.680 The thing is, Nenshi has nothing interesting to say here because his federalist campaign isn't really a federalist campaign.

00:17:44.160 It's an NDP campaign.

00:17:45.960 He's just saying the whole problem with this is Danielle Smith.

00:17:48.680 This is not like what you saw in Quebec where the Federalists came together

00:17:52.640 and this was above party politics and they stood together.

00:17:57.160 You'd have Jean Charest and Jean Chrétien working together.

00:18:02.140 Nenshi is making this a partisan issue, trying to maximize NDP votes.

00:18:05.760 So he doesn't have anything interesting to say.

00:18:08.060 The only people with things interesting to say are the independence crowd

00:18:10.680 and then conservative Federalists.

00:18:13.540 So that's a good pivot, I think, to where we want to go next, which is Pierre Polyev's address, I think.

00:18:19.400 Was it yesterday?

00:18:20.300 It was Monday.

00:18:21.100 Monday?

00:18:21.780 The day before, yes.

00:18:22.560 Okay.

00:18:23.080 So Pierre Polyev in Calgary, speaking, as best we can tell, to a group of people who are already Federalists, but they're Conservatives.

00:18:32.800 And so the message was, it was a less condescending version of Jason Kenney.

00:18:39.260 Jason Kenney, you know, likes to, you know, go after any Alberta nationalists and independent supporters.

00:18:47.120 Polyev did not do that, but his argument was, look, I understand your frustrations.

00:18:52.480 Your frustrations are real, but the way to fix your frustrations is to just vote for me.

00:18:58.420 I will fix your problems.

00:19:01.600 There was two problems, I think, in this.

00:19:03.560 It was a fine speech.

00:19:05.400 I think it's going to be fairly effective with people,

00:19:08.660 but I think there was two big holes in it.

00:19:10.760 The first, Corey, was that he never mentioned any issues really beyond pipelines and guns.

00:19:19.560 Pipelines and guns, he mentioned.

00:19:21.200 Okay, and the Conservatives are better on pipelines and they are better on guns.

00:19:25.060 But not a single word about fiscal transfers out of Alberta to the rest of the country.

00:19:29.600 Equalization and other forms the fiscal transfers take disproportionately to other places in Canada.

00:19:34.220 Not a word about mass migration, which is a huge concern that is kind of a big tertiary issue within the independence movement now.

00:19:47.680 And or representation for Alberta in the House of Commons or representation for Alberta in the Senate.

00:19:53.480 So none of these issues that are major longstanding Alberta grievances, he mentioned a word about because he can't.

00:20:01.340 that would cost him votes in other parts of Canada.

00:20:05.180 The second biggest problem with his argument,

00:20:07.760 which was, vote for me and everything will be fine,

00:20:09.760 was, we just did that.

00:20:11.820 A year ago, Albertans overwhelmingly voted

00:20:14.200 for the Conservatives and Pierre Polyev.

00:20:17.180 And it didn't change anything.

00:20:19.120 And then the time before that,

00:20:20.480 Albertans voted overwhelmingly for Aaron O'Toole

00:20:23.020 and the Conservatives.

00:20:24.180 And nothing changed there.

00:20:25.060 And then before that,

00:20:26.320 they voted for Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives.

00:20:29.160 Nothing changed there.

00:20:29.920 And then the last time Harper ran, they voted for Harper and the Conservatives, and again, nothing changed.

00:20:35.520 So his argument is, vote for me and everything will be fine, unlike the last four times you very specifically did that.

00:20:43.920 So I think it's an argument with some pretty big holes that he's making,

00:20:48.660 but I think among people who aren't paying a ton of attention, it'll be fairly effective.

00:20:53.320 Well, the independent supporters understand, for the most part, the issue isn't policies, it's the system.

00:20:58.380 and that's things like equalization that's things like the senate representation that's

00:21:03.100 that's things like these these issues where the constitution's not being upheld when it comes to a

00:21:07.440 federal government in you know in enforcing allowing infrastructure to cross the country

00:21:11.520 and then otherwise the constitution seems to be holding us up when we try to do other things

00:21:15.180 and no he's not touching it with a 10-foot pole don't blame him that's just part of the political

00:21:20.100 game you're not going to win in toronto and montreal by talking about those things but at

00:21:23.440 same time then why are you pissing on her leg and telling it's raining in alberta go away we're here

00:21:28.400 to raise funds for you you know we're going to vote for you no matter what you do it's similar

00:21:32.560 to premier smith wrapping herself up in the federalist cause you guys have got other things

00:21:36.960 to do the premier's got a lot of provincial things she should be doing mr poliev should be trying to

00:21:41.440 win those votes in montreal and toronto and the maritimes and he should be campaigning over there

00:21:48.080 again he's just inflaming the independence movement out here offering platitudes when we are well

00:21:52.880 aware that the best that the conservatives can offer is a term of perhaps a government that will

00:21:57.360 be less bad than the last one but uh it's again i understand he's a federalist i don't expect him to

00:22:04.720 he's been more respectful to the independent set than than other leaders have absolutely saying

00:22:09.040 you know you understand some of the problems and i appreciate that but these guys jumping in on this

00:22:14.080 is not helping with the movement their best asset in the movement of the independence movement is

00:22:18.960 that they're horribly disorganized and infighting so they probably aren't going to get anywhere if 0.97

00:22:21.760 if they don't get their crap together pretty soon.

00:22:23.860 But they're not making a good case to turn people away from that right now. 0.97

00:22:28.460 So I partially disagree with Corey on this one.

00:22:32.560 He is running to be Prime Minister.

00:22:34.880 He is the Federalist leader of a Federalist party.

00:22:38.020 And he's from Alberta, and he has a seat in Alberta.

00:22:41.680 I mean, I'm not sure what he considers himself more of an Ontarian-Albertan at this point.

00:22:45.520 But either way, he has a lot of support in Alberta.

00:22:50.840 And I think he does need to be seen to be campaigning for the federalist cause in Alberta.

00:22:55.340 I think it is expected of him, at least in the rest of the country, that he will do that.

00:23:00.940 So I don't actually blame him for that so much.

00:23:05.580 I think it would be a bit different if you had Mark Carney, who, I mean, he's born in Alberta,

00:23:12.840 but I don't think he really identifies in his heart of heart as, I'm an Albertan, and that's my major identity.

00:23:17.060 um he needs to be seen to be campaigning for the federalist cause in alberta as a federal

00:23:22.280 political party leader trying to be prime minister i'm actually okay with that even if i disagree

00:23:26.540 my problem is that he's just offering platitudes and bromides it's just vote for me and everything

00:23:33.000 will be fine when we've done that every single time practically since confederation and every

00:23:39.360 once in a while we get small marginal gains but very few of these big issues ever really get

00:23:43.300 settled uh i know you always don't like it when i go after the harper government harper government

00:23:47.380 was good years for alberta but it didn't really fix beyond getting rid of the wheat board

00:23:52.500 it didn't fix any of the big structural issues senate house of commons uh equalization none of

00:23:59.520 those things were touched and so he's just saying vote for me and everything will be fine but he's

00:24:05.740 not saying and i am so serious about keeping alberta inside of canada that i'm willing to

00:24:11.340 perhaps not get rid of equalization but make some significant reforms to it to make it fairer to

00:24:16.680 Alberta. I'm willing to reopen the constitution to make sure we have got a more reasonable level

00:24:25.000 of representation by population in the House of Commons for all provinces including Alberta

00:24:29.020 and we're going to amend the constitution so that in the Senate Alberta with twice the population

00:24:35.040 of all four Atlantic provinces doesn't just have half the senators of little old New Brunswick.

00:24:39.720 that's my problem isn't that my problem is not that he's campaigning here for the federalist

00:24:44.520 side it's that he's not coming with any meat on the bone yeah well he i mean to some degree the

00:24:50.000 speech that he gave was meant to be an emotive one it was not a long one and to get deeply into

00:24:55.520 the weeds on specific policies and so on probably not not not the place to do it this no no but he

00:25:01.820 did he did get into it on pipelines he talked up he did get into it on guns he did talk about

00:25:06.380 policies where they can do things without costing votes elsewhere. These are Alberta issues like

00:25:10.240 nobody else gives a grip about pipelines they may give a rip about firearms but this is the

00:25:16.400 speech that he's going to be giving across the country for the political party barbecue season

00:25:21.520 that begins about now and runs through to Labor Day and so this will be the framework for a speech

00:25:28.160 that he's going to give right across the country but amended for local audiences. So that's the

00:25:34.180 first thing. But the key policy, the key thing that he said, the thing that stayed with me,

00:25:40.280 is that we don't need a different country. We need a different government in Ottawa. Now,

00:25:47.340 that was the key message. It's also one of the most disappointing ones.

00:25:52.440 Yeah, he can't promise that.

00:25:53.300 Because he can't promise that. And, you know, there was a time, and the time was in the late

00:25:57.480 1980s when out here in Alberta and in BC and in Saskatchewan we said we've had

00:26:04.660 enough the West wants in and hundreds of thousands of people gave that message

00:26:13.420 everything they could they gave her their time their money their

00:26:15.780 organizational skills and they actually displaced the unworthy progressive

00:26:21.660 Conservatives in Western Canada and in a handful of Ontario ridings, weren't buying it.

00:26:33.320 And so in the end, to get anywhere, they had to join forces with the Central and Atlantic

00:26:40.280 and Canada forces, and that meant compromise.

00:26:45.540 And this is what he's going to run into as well.

00:26:48.920 And he had to say something, and this was at least, you know, look, I'm a Federalist

00:26:55.100 through and through, and you guys are going to have to get used to it.

00:26:57.260 He couldn't say that, certainly couldn't say the other.

00:26:59.940 So this is a middle road, it's about the best that he's got.

00:27:03.700 Unfortunately, you know, it's, look, he talked about what we're fed up with as Canadians, 0.56

00:27:12.260 new policies, criminal justice, what's with pandering to immigrants, two-tier justice,

00:27:16.960 base justice catch and release bail firearms pipelines and so forth these are all things

00:27:22.240 that could be fixed and would make a lot of people happier here in western canada but he never but

00:27:27.360 he never made the case why that's easier to do inside of canada than outside and just do it

00:27:32.640 ourselves without asking toronto and montreal for permission he's not going to send a separatist

00:27:37.840 message i mean i know i'm glad i didn't have to write that but but he did not make the case why

00:27:43.680 that is better to do inside of canada than outside of canada he just said you should well he sort of

00:27:49.440 did actually because he he talked about the many commonalities that common opinions that people

00:27:56.160 you know you go to the canadian legion in calgary you're going to hear a certain point of view you

00:27:59.520 go to a canadian legion uh ranch in uh rural ontario you're going to see at the same point

00:28:04.720 of view like there's more that he his point is that there's more that unites us than divides us

00:28:12.880 so let's work on that it's not perfect it's uh it's not the speech that you would want him to

00:28:18.160 give but i don't know what else he could have said yeah well and that just unfortunately

00:28:23.920 or unfortunately depending on the point of view but reinforces the independence case the futility

00:28:28.240 of trying to play within the system and and and as we said he's doing the politically wise course

00:28:32.640 it's the only course he has you know it makes perfect sense i i am not surprised but where

00:28:37.840 he's going like i said maybe some of the ire was similar to what i offer for smith and

00:28:41.520 I understand why you have to take that position and be public with it,

00:28:44.120 but you also don't have to make it your main focus for the next four months

00:28:47.960 if you don't want to infuriate that crowd.

00:28:51.380 I think it's a mediocre speech, but it's mediocrity.

00:28:54.080 It was outstanding.

00:28:54.800 Exactly.

00:28:56.040 Alberta, our own biggest sin is that we're predictable.

00:28:59.080 That's how we get taken for granted by the Conservatives and the Liberals

00:29:01.820 because the Liberals have nothing to gain here and nothing to lose,

00:29:04.960 and the Conservatives have the same way.

00:29:06.440 We're just, though we are a fundraising spot,

00:29:09.300 whereas perhaps some funds could end up directed towards things like

00:29:12.000 independence TPAs versus the Conservative Party federally.

00:29:14.960 Good, good plug for billboards and taper, Corey.

00:29:18.480 Yeah, but aside from that, it's just the nature of the politics in Canada

00:29:23.060 and that frustration that, you know, if you have swing seats, you get attention.

00:29:26.980 We don't have those.

00:29:28.200 Yeah, or very few.

00:29:29.680 Okay, yeah, as I said, my problem is not that he came here

00:29:32.040 and made the case for the Federalist side.

00:29:35.240 It's that he had nothing to offer.

00:29:38.720 besides asking for our votes that's and we don't have answers either i mean we can't give it what

00:29:43.200 what could he offer yeah but what is he going to give to us in exchange for those votes and it's

00:29:48.320 not much all right well more than what you'd get from the uh liberal candidate like you said he's

00:29:54.080 less bad that's the endless conservative argument in alberta at least we're not as bad as the

00:30:00.160 liberals and i gotta say that's not a compelling case that's not a very compelling case it'll work

00:30:05.760 for a lot of people and to work in elections it works every time but i'm i'm kind of sick of that

00:30:09.840 message you know derek what would have the alberta independence movement on its feet if you had a

00:30:15.600 bunch of if you had a bunch of uh liberal mps supporting the bad things that the liberal

00:30:23.280 government initiates in ottawa that would send people crazy but at least right now we do feel

00:30:29.840 still feel that we have somebody to represent our point of view anyway okay time to move on yeah uh

00:30:36.240 all right well speaking of uniting against common foes northern ireland um so coming right on the

00:30:44.400 hill heels of uh young man nowak and indigenous britain uh brutally murdered uh by a migrant

00:30:53.680 in london and the police um and that was probably the most outrageous one because of the actions of

00:31:01.440 the police where uh the murderer of a migrant background said that the guy was a racist and

00:31:07.360 then they just stood there and let him bleed out and die uh this one's perhaps not as egregious

00:31:12.960 because there's not the police angle in it but uh egregious nonetheless and it's and it's had

00:31:18.240 a massive impact. A man in Belfast attacked by a migrant, I think Sudanese, and the Sudanese man

00:31:33.040 tried to saw his head off in the middle of the street with people all around. This thing was

00:31:39.760 filmed and uh other indigenous northern irish had to come up and and save this man and

00:31:49.440 you know uh i was i was young during kind of the last era of the troubles but i mean the northern

00:31:56.160 irish are not known as a sedate bunch i mean for europeans some have said they're the least european

00:32:04.400 of the europeans because of just how rowdy they get they're not solving this in parliament they're 0.97

00:32:08.800 they'll take direct action, often violent.

00:32:12.680 And I don't believe there's been a moment since the Reformation

00:32:16.640 when Catholics and Protestants have ever stood together really on the same side. 0.83

00:32:23.740 They have, for moments, stopped killing each other,

00:32:27.560 but they've never stood side by side against a common foe.

00:32:30.480 You've always got to know which foot you kick with.

00:32:33.880 I forget which foot is Protestant and which foot is Catholic 0.78

00:32:40.360 but that's fundamental information

00:32:42.360 We've now seen Catholics and Protestants marching side by side

00:32:46.220 in demonstrations against this

00:32:48.520 In some areas it's turned to violence and rioting

00:32:52.640 Some of it going in through

00:32:54.440 if I understand it correctly, I don't want to get it wrong

00:32:56.920 but I think government funded, taxpayer funded housing for migrants 1.00

00:33:02.040 which is wild. Why in any of our countries are we paying for other people to be here 1.00

00:33:07.500 when we can't take care of our own people first?

00:33:09.720 But it's resulted in some less than civil reaction.

00:33:16.360 And not to excuse it, but to understand it.

00:33:19.620 I think it's because in virtually every European country,

00:33:22.700 people have voted to end illegal migration and to significantly limit legal migration. 0.89

00:33:28.940 and no matter what happens it only gets worse and now their streets are overrun with barbarians

00:33:36.720 who are killing people uh harassing women you name it there's a whole long list

00:33:42.880 and so they're they feel out of options at the ballot box to do it and i don't know how far

00:33:49.240 this will spread i don't know how long it goes on in northern ireland but the northern irish

00:33:52.400 who have a history of taking this out directly seem to be doing that again yeah well they sure

00:33:58.260 are, and they've had a lot of practice over the years. So I actually don't have an optimistic

00:34:06.740 point of view on this at all. I'm not able to come out and say, well, you need to do

00:34:10.420 this, you need to do that. There was a very prescient book written back in the 1960s.

00:34:16.940 Enoch Powell was a member of parliament, distinguished Britain, veteran, gentleman, and he wrote

00:34:25.200 the book i see the tiber running with much blood yeah we discussed this last week yeah just like

00:34:30.960 we were talking about nowak last week uh yeah so you know up until now we've substantially been

00:34:36.920 able to dismiss that as rhetoric now we're actually starting to see blood and i think there

00:34:42.320 will come a point and it may come very soon where the british public and the irish public which has

00:34:48.800 been told you know you have to be nice you have to be kind don't be racist that's fine as long as

00:34:54.660 people were not being racist about or respectful in return but the second that they start trying 0.96

00:34:59.380 to behead people on the street the second that they stick a knife in somebody and he dies and

00:35:05.940 you find that the police have been told effectively to stand down then people are just going to go out 0.97

00:35:13.140 the front door and it's going to be like that scene my man is hell and i'm not going to take

00:35:16.900 it anymore when the saxon began to hate well that's kipling for you and awfully so like i 0.62

00:35:22.340 You're not supposed to know that as a German.

00:35:24.740 Saxons, we share that between.

00:35:27.000 But, I mean, it's going to descend into mob rule,

00:35:30.120 and this is what happens when cowardly governments abdicate their duty

00:35:32.980 to actually represent the population and protect the population.

00:35:36.500 They took what they thought was the point of least resistance,

00:35:39.380 and it kept the floodgates open, and the powder keg just kept filling,

00:35:43.300 and the pressure kept building, and citizens, when they feel unsafe,

00:35:47.440 when they feel their children are unsafe,

00:35:49.280 when they feel that they don't have a future being safe,

00:35:51.240 they will take it up in their own hands and then we've seen belfast is the perfect spot for it to

00:35:55.860 really flare but this is a risk of happening in every western country around the world and it's

00:36:02.120 if they don't stop i i think it's too late to be honest i think it's just a few more incidents

00:36:06.460 from this happening in paris from happening in germany from happening in in the netherlands even

00:36:10.920 it's gone too far the citizens are going to push back and it's going to be bloody and i don't want 0.54

00:36:15.780 to see it because innocent people get mob mentality is awful innocent people you're the wrong color

00:36:20.540 you're in the wrong place at the wrong time you could be terribly harmed or killed and i blame

00:36:26.140 the wrong place at the wrong time by being a five-year-old girl in a place in a that too and

00:36:30.820 and and that's what i mean so i blame governments though for being too weak to address this and

00:36:34.840 unfortunately now it's going to descend into chaos to become resolved so i don't you know

00:36:40.320 no one should mistake this for excusing mob violence it's not the way to do it um but to

00:36:47.680 To build on your point, it is the responsibility of the state, the sovereign entity responsible

00:36:53.800 for collectively representing the people, to represent its own people first, to stop

00:37:00.520 illegal migration, to make sure that legal migration is not out of hand, and to remove

00:37:06.440 people who should not be there.

00:37:08.460 And the state has for decades in every Western country, virtually, failed to do its basic

00:37:15.540 duty removing people who should not be there should be done in a legal safe and organized

00:37:22.820 fashion by the state its failure to do so has now resulted in violent mobs going door to door and

00:37:31.780 that is not the way you want to see it innocent people will be hurt and even people who are there

00:37:36.800 illegally who are not innocent they still don't necessarily deserve a mob coming in kicking down

00:37:43.400 the door and hurting someone. That is not what we want to see. But I think we're seeing that 0.73

00:37:48.500 because the state has utterly abdicated its duty. In fact, on the contrary, it has acted against the

00:37:55.000 indigenous populations of Western countries, as we saw with the murder of Nowak, where the police

00:38:00.400 stood down to protect the murderer over the person who got murdered. That's why I think we're seeing 0.99

00:38:06.140 it turn into mob violence now. And I think Corey is right. It's not just in Ireland. It's not just

00:38:11.800 in britain um it is right across continental europe possibly the broader broader west where

00:38:18.540 i i don't know how many more incidents we are away from this getting to something much bigger

00:38:22.940 and nastier but it i it will happen just as an aside derrick it's you don't see it in hungary

00:38:27.780 where orban actually closed the border to mass migrations there is a government i mean he's out

00:38:33.080 of office now and he was never popular outside hungary when he was in office but there is a

00:38:38.760 government that did what you have just said needs to be done protect the people that it has

00:38:43.340 yeah i mean he had a simple population uh policy which was to keep hungry hungarian

00:38:49.440 and that shouldn't be a controversial thing to do and that doesn't mean you dislike other people

00:38:54.420 but it means you love your own people the most you're not against anyone necessarily but you're

00:39:00.080 for your own people and that's not controversial if you are the president of uh zimbabwe it's not

00:39:06.800 Controversial if you're the chairman of the party in China or or the Prime Minister of Japan

00:39:12.820 It's not controversial anywhere else except for our countries

00:39:17.160 But it's a crime when we do it when we do it here

00:39:20.520 It's a very particular spiritual rot anyway. Yeah, we have an agreement on that. Yeah

00:39:27.380 somebody God bless

00:39:30.800 Ulster and I

00:39:33.740 Don't know I'm not optimistic this this ends nicely

00:39:36.800 Well, I'm afraid I'll share your sense of it.

00:39:39.600 Yeah.

00:39:40.560 Okay, well, we'll wrap it up with parting shots.

00:39:43.980 I'll start with you.

00:39:44.880 Well, I'm just intrigued by this chap who flew for Air Canada for 19 years now.

00:39:51.900 That's impressive.

00:39:53.080 He's like the catch-me-if-you-can guy.

00:39:54.680 Yeah, exactly.

00:39:56.000 Yeah, and the Wall Street, there's a lawyer in the Wall Street film.

00:40:00.920 So here's the thing.

00:40:01.820 I mean, the guy had his pilot's license.

00:40:04.380 He was type-rated for everything that he flew. There is one other layer of

00:40:10.480 Bureaucracy you're supposed to satisfy. It's called an air transport

00:40:14.700 License he didn't have that he should have and so you know we can't condone it, but I I gotta say that

00:40:21.660 you know

00:40:23.280 Give him marks for for troops pop. I kind of like the idea of the old Mikado

00:40:28.380 You know make the punishment fit the crime

00:40:30.300 so you get this guy out of jail and you put him in charge of compliance at Air

00:40:34.380 Canada as long as he's in charge of like check fraud just keep flying he's

00:40:41.460 proven he's pretty good at it well that's kind of thing like he shouldn't

00:40:45.040 do it but like even we're doing this one since what the 90s or something like

00:40:48.920 he's flown 900 flights like nobody's I could only do one hundred thousand

00:40:55.620 passengers have been safely guided to their destination by this guy who doesn't have a

00:41:00.720 piece of paper, but does know how to fly an airplane.

00:41:03.260 He should have the piece of paper, but he's clearly not, like, he's not bullshitting.

00:41:09.220 Yeah, I'm a little mixed.

00:41:11.340 All right, Corey.

00:41:12.000 I didn't think I want to clear, I'll give a quick self-serving plug then.

00:41:15.400 If people are interested in his story, look up billboards and Corey Morgan. 1.00

00:41:18.800 You just stole my parting shot, you son of a bitch. 0.99

00:41:20.260 Oh, okay, well, you can expand on it, because it actually, aside from my self-serving part, 1.00

00:41:24.300 It really is actually a democratic issue going on with election interference.

00:41:27.740 I'll let you finish it because we're running long on time anyway.

00:41:29.880 No, I'll go on another one. I'll just let people know.

00:41:32.920 What a great show it is down here. That's one thing.

00:41:34.860 Yeah, yeah. The Western Standard had reached out to Thomas Lukasik,

00:41:38.940 the head of the Forever Canada petitioners.

00:41:42.200 Very friendly conversations with those guys, inviting them to have a debate.

00:41:47.020 We offered to pay for it. We offered to give them half the tickets

00:41:49.440 so it's not just stacked with Western Standard subscribers and fans

00:41:52.700 and that we would have a mutually agreed-upon, neutral moderator.

00:41:56.660 And we actually had a very good conversation.

00:41:58.000 I was actually quite optimistic this would happen.

00:41:59.760 It mostly took place over the phone, a little bit by email,

00:42:04.020 but mostly just over the phone with these guys.

00:42:06.540 In the end, Thomas Lukasik chickened out, didn't want to do it,

00:42:11.240 and so we issued then a public challenge,

00:42:13.820 and it worded pretty friendly, I think, at first,

00:42:16.400 challenging him to a debate, and then these guys went out. 0.99

00:42:19.640 But, you know, he couldn't just say, I'm too chicken shit for this. 0.98

00:42:23.680 He had to say, the Western Standard is out there saying that I've agreed to a debate. 0.98

00:42:28.140 I have not.

00:42:29.120 We never once, ever said that Thomas Lukasik agreed to a debate, because he never did.

00:42:34.300 We had good faith discussions, and we're optimistic at one point that he would potentially agree.

00:42:40.000 But anyway, he's out there.

00:42:41.840 I mean, lying is no new thing to him.

00:42:44.480 But he was out there saying, the Western Standard is claiming he agreed to a debate.

00:42:49.640 Never once. Pull the tape. You can't find it anywhere.

00:42:53.740 He lies about the issues, and he's lying about this, but that's okay.

00:42:58.900 We've made an appeal to our subscribers to help fund a debate,

00:43:05.220 because we're going to have a debate regardless.

00:43:07.000 It's just not going to be with Big Chicken Lukasik.

00:43:09.460 So if you want to donate, you can go to westernstandard.news.

00:43:12.840 There's a donate section that'll help us put on a debate at hopefully minimal ticket price for people

00:43:19.160 so we can make it as widely accessible to the public as possible.

00:43:22.560 We're going to find, you know,

00:43:23.920 and there are lots of great and articulate Federalists out there

00:43:27.460 who I'm sure are a little braver and willing to make the cause

00:43:31.080 in front of people that are not a curated and sycophantic CBC reporter.

00:43:36.880 So I'll leave that at that.

00:43:40.220 All right, Corey, Nigel, thank you.

00:43:43.020 Thank you, John, on production.

00:43:44.400 We also got a bunch of our staff here at the Global Energy Show.

00:43:46.700 we got jesco we got josh we got david veitschnik and we uh also want to oh come on in come on in

00:43:54.280 here group shot and uh we also want to thank uh all the organizers at the uh yeah just walk

00:44:01.540 straight in front of the camera guys brilliant brilliant uh john john's never been seen on this

00:44:07.380 side of the camera on the camera john john john runs the show uh but i'm because he just called

00:44:14.500 them out here. This is my opportunity to embarrass John. John, stop fiddling. Get out here right now.

00:44:20.320 John. John, come. Come. Get in front of the camera. He's got to keep the shot. Put it down.

00:44:25.720 Put it down. Put it down. Oh, he has excuses. John doesn't really exist. He's AI. He's a bot. 0.92

00:44:32.800 Okay, and I want to thank the organizers of the Global Energy Show here in Calgary. It's a

00:44:36.360 fantastic event. We're at it every year with our booth. We're still here until what day? Is it

00:44:42.420 tomorrow tomorrow if you're in calgary you're working in downtown calgary come on down to the

00:44:46.900 global energy show and uh when you come into the exhibitor area just kind of go to the right

00:44:51.060 uh you can't miss it you'll find uh our friendly staff down here come meet a bunch of the team

00:44:56.900 if you're not yet a subscriber go to westernsnetter.news click on subscribe

00:44:59.940 ten dollars a month hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to everything

00:45:03.940 thank you very much for joining us today and god bless

00:45:12.420 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - June 11, 2026

Conservatives Strike Back (at Alberta Independence)

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