Western Standard - Crossing the Floor： From Ottawa’s Budget Blowout to Alberta’s ‘Total Recall’

00:00:00.000 good day today is november 5th 2025 i'm derek phil de brant publisher of

00:00:29.920 the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:32.860 I'm joined by the usual gang here,

00:00:35.340 Western Standard's former opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:38.740 Nice to be here.

00:00:39.800 Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:42.320 Always a pleasure.

00:00:43.480 And Western Standard BC columnist, Elyse Mills.

00:00:46.400 Hello.

00:00:47.040 Hello, gentlemen.

00:00:48.840 Hello, Elyse.

00:00:49.700 Actually, a little housekeeping business.

00:00:51.940 The Western Standard is growing.

00:00:53.920 We have, we're getting a man back on Parliament Hill.

00:00:57.760 It's been some time since we used to have a full-time reporter on Parliament Hill, but we just haven't found the right person until now.

00:01:08.540 We're putting Western-centered columnist William Barclay has been promoted, and he is going to be our full-time Parliament Hill correspondent, starting effectively right now.

00:01:18.980 We just had him in the Calgary office here for a few days for training, and we've sent him back out east to go do God's work.

00:01:26.640 We're also getting someone back up at the legislature in Alberta here, full-time.

00:01:31.320 Another William.

00:01:33.500 He's got a French last name.

00:01:35.280 William V, I'm going to call him for now.

00:01:37.040 I'm having a hard time pronouncing that French name.

00:01:42.240 But yeah, we're on the march.

00:01:44.480 Western Standard growing, getting full-time presence at two very important spots for us in Edmonton and Ottawa.

00:01:51.960 All right.

00:01:52.400 Well, total recall is on the Alberta teachers are really pissed off now working with a known Marxist Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labor.

00:02:07.660 They're trying to recall every single Alberta United Conservative Party MLA, which is interesting.

00:02:17.340 I think they might have a little better

00:02:19.340 luck if they focus on just a few

00:02:21.500 guys, which is what they

00:02:23.240 kind of essentially started with, but

00:02:24.780 anyway, yeah, hardcore

00:02:27.160 union guys promising to

00:02:29.260 recall every single

00:02:30.860 conservative MLA in Alberta,

00:02:33.700 which would be hilarious, because then you

00:02:35.240 would just call an election.

00:02:37.500 The NDP's not boys to win right now,

00:02:39.400 so that'd be kind of funny.

00:02:41.560 Who's the NDP leader again?

00:02:44.260 Some purple dude.

00:02:45.280 Grimace? Some guy.

00:02:46.380 some guy some effing guy uh so anyway fun stuff there we're gonna talk about the secret

00:02:53.560 liberal majority on paper mark carney's liberals one what is technically a minority in the last

00:03:00.560 election uh but with a floor crossing and a few other little bits of finagling i think there's a

00:03:06.720 de facto majority here other people might disagree with me a lot of people have been saying there's

00:03:10.760 an election coming the budget might not pass i think you're dead wrong uh i think the budget's

00:03:17.140 definitely passing but i don't know we'll see we're gonna debate it but that's my theory that

00:03:21.240 liberals have a secret majority government right now but uh speaking of budget passing

00:03:27.180 nigel you wrote a very good column on the budget here uh the liberals of uh let's see we're boring

00:03:35.160 70 odd billion dollars it's the biggest deficit in the history of canada outside of covid uh still

00:03:41.860 bigger deficits we ran in either world war or korea uh or afghanistan uh so it's biggest non-pandemic

00:03:49.580 deficit ever because pandemic budgets are bigger than wartime budgets apparently

00:03:54.620 um and the liberals that's a very creative branding around what they call debt now

00:04:01.340 So look, I want to give the watchers something firm to grip onto.

00:04:07.940 We can get into all kinds of theory, and in a moment I will.

00:04:11.360 But what I would say is that this is an inflationary budget.

00:04:15.860 If you want to do it yourself good, reduce your debt, and trim your credit cards.

00:04:21.620 This is not going to go well.

00:04:23.020 um so what they've done and it's interesting that mark carney actually is promised to do this when

00:04:30.740 he was campaigning back in april he said then that he would borrow a quarter of a trillion dollars

00:04:36.680 and i thought well that's an odd thing to go campaigning on but he said it and i was in fact

00:04:42.640 i was so unsure that i went back and checked it out and sure enough there it is the ever reliable

00:04:47.440 cbc has it so they're condemned from their own mouse and then we get this budget and he borrows

00:04:54.000 somewhat more than uh than a quarter of a trillion dollars in the next few years starting in this

00:05:01.920 fiscal with a 78 billion dollar deficit now when the numbers get that big i think we all tend to

00:05:09.520 come our eyes glaze over but let me put it this way income when income and expenditures

00:05:15.600 are equal to each other then we call that a balanced budget and that's what we had in 2015

00:05:20.700 now we are running a one years one year we are going to go 78 billion dollars in the hole and

00:05:30.040 next year 65 and the year after that is 50 something and who knows what it'll actually

00:05:35.760 that's if they stick to deficit reduction target which we should note for the last decade the

00:05:42.000 liberals liberals have never done once no ever it was a good thing so what i what i'm saying is

00:05:50.760 this is going to hurt um before we even get into the specifics of the budget there's a 493 page

00:05:57.080 document so it's going to be very superficial let me just give you a couple of the main things

00:06:02.420 if you wanted to say this is a good budget what you would point to is that finally somebody is

00:06:08.680 doing something about defense, they have committed a lot of money, $80 billion to rebuild, rearm and

00:06:14.300 recruit, reorient. You would talk about the natural resources emphasis and then you would

00:06:23.560 try not to go back and talk about some of the details of that because actually there's nothing

00:06:29.800 good in that. You would talk about the $115 billion infrastructure blitz, historic investments

00:06:38.180 an industrial corridor all that stuff housing hyperdrive 25 billion and you could you could

00:06:44.980 you could make the case but when i when i try to do that i see the defense it's very hard to

00:06:52.500 spend the money you give everybody a pay raise after that where do you get where do you get the

00:06:56.900 stuff that you want to buy that we can't do procurement we can't do procurement we're very

00:07:00.260 bad at that the um the infrastructure blitz well create the situation where people want to do

00:07:05.940 business in canada and you will not have to spend 115 billion dollars of taxpayers money to build

00:07:12.420 the infrastructure it is the failure of this government over the last 10 years it means that

00:07:16.740 nobody's interested in investing and therefore they have to use taxpayer money to do the the

00:07:23.060 thing with the industrial corridors the ports the the 25 billion dollars for new houses you really

00:07:29.460 want a house that's built by the government you know they'll never get that out of the door so

00:07:35.220 really every all these are great ideas if you're a technocratic if you're a technocratic prime

00:07:41.220 minister then wow if we ever got a plan it's going to depend how the implementation goes

00:07:49.460 meanwhile we're going further and further and further into debt and that is going to cause

00:07:53.860 inflation uh at least uh one of the interesting parts for uh western perspective and maybe

00:08:02.660 maybe Newfoundland here, is at least, you know, the headline was the Liberals are getting rid of the emissions cap.

00:08:09.280 Well, kind of, but it's, you know, an emissions cap if necessary, but not necessarily an emissions cap.

00:08:17.340 You know, archetypal Canadian have it both ways.

00:08:23.960 So, you know, Champagne, the finance minister says, well, you know, yeah, OK, the emissions cap is probably not good

00:08:31.380 if we're going to be elbows up

00:08:32.820 and Canada is going to do its own thing here

00:08:34.580 so we can get rid of it

00:08:36.240 if Alberta and another producing,

00:08:40.460 you know, BC's got, you know,

00:08:42.120 it's LNG under what it could be,

00:08:44.540 but, you know, it's a thing.

00:08:47.380 We'll get rid of the emissions cap

00:08:48.640 if you guys do this.

00:08:50.460 Could you tease that out a bit more?

00:08:53.420 Well, I can't think just about the emissions cap,

00:08:57.120 to be honest with you,

00:08:57.860 because I consider it a part of the suite of serious issues that are plaguing even the best laid plans.

00:09:05.560 So let's just say that we buy into this budget.

00:09:09.680 And, you know, the idea is that they have the emissions cap, which is we're going to we don't we're going to take it away,

00:09:16.540 but we're only going to take it away because we've reached.

00:09:19.080 We don't need the cap. I still don't quite understand the fantasy land.

00:09:23.100 But let's get back to what's really important here.

00:09:25.160 and nigel brought this up the question of who wants to do business in canada and then let's 0.81

00:09:30.360 reverse engineer this out to their 500 billion dollar plan to go to the investment banks and

00:09:37.100 find private capital nobody's going to give this money to canada especially since we still have

00:09:44.640 all the levers in place or all the legislative impediments in place that have prevented the

00:09:51.800 the organic investment that should be in this country the tanker ban still there the emissions

00:09:57.860 cap is there that can't we can't build pipelines and we can't get to tidewater so that's a big

00:10:03.500 issue uh we don't we have provincial inter-provincial regulation regulatory environment

00:10:09.160 that is is frustrating and investors don't want to deal with it i'm not so sure who's lending us

00:10:17.020 this money and how, and how somehow we're going to have this, we're going to be the most competitive

00:10:23.220 country in the G7. There's a lot of fairy tales that Minister Champagne spoke to yesterday. I had

00:10:30.520 to laugh. I didn't know whether to laugh or just scratch my head. I was beginning to wonder if I

00:10:35.720 was the patient or the visitor in this, and somebody's going to find that analogy quite

00:10:39.900 offensive, I'm sure. But so number one, he starts off in his interviews talking about how this

00:10:45.560 budgets made us the most competitive. Yet, we still have an emissions cap. We still have all

00:10:50.360 the barriers that impede our energy sector. We have a red tape wrapped up forestry sector that 1.00

00:10:56.960 can't get out ahead of itself. And we have zero appetite for foreign investment. Just in the

00:11:03.000 first three quarters of this year, we lost a billion of organic foreign investment. What does

00:11:08.980 anyone think is going to happen when we go to Bay Street or we go to New York and we say, hey,

00:11:15.000 we'd love 500 billion. I know you didn't want to give it to us. I know you walked away. And I know

00:11:20.080 all the things that you complained about are still there. But I promise you, this is going to be

00:11:23.600 transformational. It just doesn't make any sense to me. And to be honest with you, I don't know

00:11:27.900 about the three of you, but I watched yesterday and I'm actually, I'm focused in on stuff that

00:11:34.580 my work in the United States right now. I have to be honest, I just watched it. It was like a clown

00:11:39.600 cars zooming by i realized that this was just a spend-a-thon none of what they had put in paper

00:11:46.000 was realistic apart from the cuts to the public service but they inflated the cbc again to be

00:11:51.600 honest with you i just want to throw the whole thing in a dumpster and light it on fire because

00:11:54.960 that's exactly where this country's going to be uh in a matter of weeks and months uh corey um

00:12:01.920 you know a lot of people could be mistaken for believing the carbon tax was gone when um when

00:12:09.600 When President Mark Carney signed his executive order abolishing the carbon tax, that was one half of the carbon tax.

00:12:17.320 That was the consumer-facing one.

00:12:19.020 There is the industrial one as well.

00:12:22.620 That fits in to what we're talking about, the emissions cap.

00:12:27.820 The emission cap is gone, but...

00:12:30.160 Yeah, the industrial carbon tax is still there.

00:12:33.160 And it looks like Mark Carney's looking to, that's one of his caveats to get rid of this emissions cap, is that we're going to hike the industrial carbon tax.

00:12:42.120 So we're going to slam producers with a giant tax increase, essentially, in exchange for raising the carbon or the emissions cap.

00:12:50.580 You know, all these words and this baffle gab and this garbage, and it gets tiresome.

00:12:54.140 The bottom line is they're maintaining their attack on Alberta's energy sector, and we are going to remain an investment pariah as we try to develop.

00:13:01.440 So if they make a price $170 a ton, it's $80 a ton right now, what's that going to do to the competitiveness of Western oil?

00:13:09.980 Not Eastern oil, by the way.

00:13:11.520 They don't have to pay this.

00:13:13.000 But the Western oil will try to sell it anywhere.

00:13:15.660 Well, let's say we already sell it at a discount due to our lack of access to coastal waters.

00:13:22.100 And this just makes the margins all the more narrow to produce here.

00:13:25.640 It means we have to have much higher commodity prices in order to remain functional.

00:13:30.940 Again, when we're looking at a world market, we're looking at world investors, people are going to look at Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, and just, you know, they're going to shake their heads.

00:13:39.720 No, we'll put our money into places like Norway, where they're expanding on the North Sea, you know, places like Saudi Arabia, where they don't really care about environmental concerns.

00:13:49.680 And meanwhile, we'll just languish on our shut-in resources with a limited amount of export.

00:13:55.080 It's bad.

00:13:55.880 It's just bad in general.

00:13:57.400 The only bright light we might have had in this budget, I mean, the producers, we have the balance between public sector and private sector in Canada is becoming terribly skewed.

00:14:07.680 And when you crush the resource markets, these are the only guys funding it anymore.

00:14:10.780 This is bad.

00:14:11.720 Well, you know, maybe we'll get a nice price spike when Donald Trump invades Nigeria.

00:14:17.340 I mean, you know, they're a major oil producer with zero environmental regulation.

00:14:22.160 Or human rights.

00:14:22.780 Yeah. So, you know, when when we begin the fifth crusade to go into there, at least I mean, this whole budget discussion is also wrapped up with the ability to pass the budget.

00:14:40.460 It's a confidence vote. If the government cannot pass its budget, that triggers an election because the House does not have confidence.

00:14:46.640 um you know election night the liberals came within a hair of uh securing a majority they

00:14:54.200 even had one mp uh win in and i say win generously in quebec by one vote uh and that appears to have

00:15:04.620 been dubious i don't know why we have not redone that election yet but uh the liberals are up

00:15:08.860 another seat as of yesterday uh the conservatives kind of preemptively booted a guy who was openly

00:15:15.880 musing about uh joining the liberals um last name is dotremont or something

00:15:24.920 okay all right there you go your friends just can't master your friend your camera

00:15:28.680 requires better mind anyways but he's a nova scotia guy um uh he's saying i'm a red tory

00:15:33.720 and uh my god this poly of a so right wing uh i'm pretty sure you knew who you were running 0.71

00:15:40.280 like he just got elected he was at a very narrow uh margin riding where you know you have a

00:15:45.720 but at least equal, if not better, chance of getting

00:15:47.420 reelected as a Liberal. Who knows

00:15:49.540 if there was inducements or not? We wouldn't know that.

00:15:51.580 That kind of thing is done hush-hush when it is

00:15:53.500 done. But at least

00:15:55.260 the Liberals now stand at 170 seats.

00:15:58.000 Is it too, I think, too shy

00:15:59.360 of a majority?

00:16:01.220 Yeah.

00:16:03.220 Conservatives 143, 22 blocks,

00:16:05.700 7 NDP, 1 Green, 1

00:16:07.280 vacant.

00:16:09.800 So, I mean,

00:16:11.680 you know, you throw a bone

00:16:13.400 to Elizabeth May and

00:16:15.380 coax one more conservative over got your majority uh ndp they are uh they've been totally nuked

00:16:23.480 they're no position for an election they don't have a leader uh they have they have a gigantic

00:16:29.520 debt that they're carrying they're the party that wants the election the least they've openly mused

00:16:34.580 about abstaining for the budget not voting for but abstaining that would give that would allow

00:16:38.940 it to pass uh my theory has been since election night that the liberals have a de facto majority

00:16:45.040 government here. On paper, it's a minority, but they would have to go out of their way to

00:16:50.300 intentionally lose a confidence vote at this point, I think. Yeah, I completely, I'm on the

00:16:58.460 same page you are about this. I've always felt that the Liberals had the majority, that this

00:17:02.840 wasn't something that was even debatable, quite frankly. I will say it was interesting to see

00:17:10.120 Elizabeth May yesterday, boy, was she angry about the cancellation of the two billion trees that

00:17:15.640 were planted. I will be honest, I kind of agreed with her in Tom Mulcair. If we're talking about

00:17:20.500 emissions caps, and we look at all the forest fires, we kind of could use the trees. They're

00:17:25.120 one of the best cappers of emissions, quite frankly. And, you know, we do the two billion

00:17:30.000 trees promise was just seen as wildly unrealistic. It was typical Trudeau government announced these

00:17:34.880 preposterous numbers that feels good and then do zero to execute it. You know, a lot of people have

00:17:39.540 said the announcement is the action uh that was the whole point is just to announce it because

00:17:44.600 it feels better than they just performative very performative plus there was an agreement

00:17:49.060 i don't think they're really canceling two billion trees they're just like yeah we're obviously not

00:17:54.900 going to do it we were never going to do it so i thought it was actually kind of honest

00:17:58.460 well and they also have agreements with like the prince um of wales's trust uh at full disclosure

00:18:04.620 I've worked with them on and off on some of this stuff.

00:18:07.720 It would be kind of embarrassing for them to unwind themselves completely.

00:18:12.020 But anyway, I just had to point out Elizabeth May, because yesterday was, I think, in the

00:18:16.160 highlight reel of one of her greatest hits.

00:18:18.600 And then there was Don Davies from the NDP going, I cannot believe we're cutting this

00:18:22.980 and this government.

00:18:24.240 And all I was thinking was, OK, this is the NDP that's been propping up this liberal

00:18:28.620 government since 2021.

00:18:30.800 So you need to just move aside.

00:18:32.300 but that you're you're absolutely right this government has that majority but i will tell you

00:18:37.800 you know yves blanchette the leader of the bloc he is very feisty i i kind of i think he's one of the

00:18:45.020 best opposition leaders we've seen in a while probably since tom malcare in the days of stephen

00:18:50.040 harper um i always enjoy his press conferences i it's okay to be offended when he's when he talks

00:18:56.140 but his uh scrum yesterday i think really spoke to an issue that conservatives are going to have

00:19:01.680 uh with one another and and what we're what conservatives are looking at with the future

00:19:06.500 of the party the problem is none of this budget stuff or whether it's a vote of confidence or

00:19:11.700 whether we call an election none of this is going to be about principle it's all going to be about

00:19:15.780 winnability and when the party is polling 10 points ahead of where pierre's polling you know

00:19:21.520 the liberal or the conservatives are not going to pull the trigger even though they should damn well

00:19:25.340 pull the trigger and that's where i am today as a as you know a fiscal conservative

00:19:31.220 uh i believe that the right thing would be to pull this government down and call an election

00:19:37.440 and team up with the block on that because it would be a one and done but that's not where we

00:19:42.380 are and they haven't been in this country on principled politics for a really long time

00:19:46.460 and you know carney's going to get his dream team and if it's true that there's another

00:19:51.080 conservative crossing uh which would be the concert a conservative convenience like chris

00:19:55.980 Etremont, you know, and by the way, there is information that's been leaked on Twitter that he was musing about this and talking about his winnability as a conservative.

00:20:09.820 So he's never been the type of conservative like the Stephen Harper type conservative that we are more familiar with.

00:20:15.800 He was being he's been a conservative of convenience.

00:20:18.380 So I say see you later because him leaving didn't really matter.

00:20:22.000 Again, point to what you said, Derek, NDP and Elizabeth May team up and Carney's got his dream team, or at least I guess what we would consider a dream team.

00:20:30.380 So, yeah, it's just all about performance.

00:20:33.700 But I think this brings in and I was speaking to a couple of Stephen Harper conservatives last night.

00:20:41.140 And I said, you know, this will have to be a conversation that conservatives have leading into the leadership review.

00:20:47.800 those that that sticky number that sticky 10 points that Pierre just can't seem to get up and

00:20:54.060 beyond that has to be a conversation that the party has and I'm probably going to get a ton

00:20:58.600 of hate mail right now and bad tweets and you know but with something that's what really is

00:21:04.660 the sticking point in this whole vote thing okay Corey the I feel like there there could be a few

00:21:14.420 more. This crop of conservatives

00:21:16.400 is, on aggregate, more

00:21:18.260 conservative than the team

00:21:20.340 that Polyev inherited.

00:21:22.900 You know, we had Aaron O'Toole

00:21:24.500 there, who was a particularly

00:21:25.940 unconservative, in many ways

00:21:28.440 at least.

00:21:30.620 Polyev's team is a bit more robust,

00:21:32.420 but, I mean, there's obviously a heck

00:21:34.380 of a lot of... It's still a diverse

00:21:36.260 coalition. I don't really...

00:21:39.120 If you're going to get a floor crosser 1.00

00:21:40.440 like that, that it comes from

00:21:42.020 either urban Ontario or parts

00:21:44.400 at Atlantic. It's not as surprising

00:21:46.700 what it's like. Atlantic

00:21:48.420 Canada, the difference

00:21:50.460 between conservatives and liberals was mostly

00:21:52.680 for many generations

00:21:54.360 until not that long ago.

00:21:56.260 Are you from a Protestant family

00:21:58.680 or a Catholic family? Are you English?

00:22:00.760 Are you French? And that's the kind of way it is. 0.95

00:22:02.440 That's less of it now, but

00:22:03.640 the ideological differences between

00:22:06.280 the parties there are

00:22:07.820 particularly

00:22:09.560 small.

00:22:12.520 I don't know

00:22:15.280 how much do you think it is

00:22:17.040 Carney's going to be able to pick off two more

00:22:18.740 and I think the NDP caucus also might have

00:22:21.080 some pickings

00:22:22.060 every single one of those guys has got to be like

00:22:24.340 we are in for a miserable four years

00:22:26.740 we don't have official party status

00:22:28.320 the party is utterly bankrupt

00:22:30.820 it might even become officially bankrupt

00:22:32.600 at some point here, I know you've talked about that

00:22:34.400 there's

00:22:36.080 got to be a few more

00:22:38.260 if Carney wants to cobble together

00:22:40.100 and I'm not sure it's ever happened before in Canadian political

00:22:42.640 history where someone's gone from an official

00:22:44.680 minority to an official majority without

00:22:46.740 an election. Yeah, well

00:22:48.880 I'm certain he's trying because that window

00:22:50.580 is narrow and as you said there's a few vulnerable

00:22:52.520 MPs who could make the jump

00:22:54.180 whether or not they do it before the budget vote or not

00:22:56.840 is

00:22:57.820 arguable

00:23:01.160 I guess because it does look opportunistic

00:23:02.980 but they're putting the feel out. I mean with you

00:23:04.980 though that I think even if he doesn't get the

00:23:06.760 crossers we're not having an election. It's not

00:23:08.660 happening. It's not the tea leaves. The parties aren't in condition to fight it. If it comes to

00:23:13.140 it and they're up against it and then the Conservatives remain adamant and there aren't

00:23:17.040 crossers, we can expect suddenly a handful of Conservative MPs will have had bad oysters in

00:23:21.660 the parliamentary cafeteria and be lost in the washrooms when the vote comes up and it'll pass

00:23:27.400 narrowly. I mean, that's just kind of the way the game is played. They're going to bluster.

00:23:31.140 Paulyov can't afford to come out and support the budget, but he can't afford to bring it down

00:23:35.480 either. So we're going to see that sort of

00:23:37.440 posturing in the next couple of weeks, and it'll pass.

00:23:39.780 Well, Nigel, if any

00:23:41.460 of the opposition parties could withstand

00:23:43.220 an election, it would be the Conservatives.

00:23:45.340 But unless Polyev wins,

00:23:47.420 then his leadership...

00:23:49.140 You don't often even get two kicks

00:23:51.520 at the can and not win anymore. One kick

00:23:53.440 at the can, no one's getting two kicks at the

00:23:55.440 can anymore. Harper got one to

00:23:57.420 come up short, but he had massively improved

00:23:59.460 the party standings.

00:24:02.500 I don't think Polyev 1.00

00:24:03.620 would get a third if he didn't make it.

00:24:05.120 But I think the Conservatives, I mean, they'd have a shot.

00:24:09.400 I'd give them a one-in-three shot of winning the election today,

00:24:11.700 but I think Canadians are still kind of a wait-and-see mode.

00:24:15.920 If anyone wants an election, it is the Liberals.

00:24:18.720 Do you think Carney wants an election to secure an outright majority,

00:24:21.880 but then risk maybe not winning?

00:24:24.440 Or do you think he prefers to just try to pick up a couple floor crossers 1.00

00:24:28.280 and cobble together a majority that way?

00:24:30.360 Well, I'm not the Carney whisperer,

00:24:32.660 But I will say that if he wanted another election, he could easily enough have fixed the budget speech so that nobody could support it.

00:24:43.860 I mean, the Conservatives already hate the idea of the debt that we're taking on.

00:24:49.440 And the NDP, probably some of the Liberals too, are scandalized that the Federal Civil Service has been reduced as much as it has.

00:24:58.160 But not as much as it could have been.

00:24:59.760 you know which makes so he he pulled his punches there a little bit now he's

00:25:05.340 accepting the resumes from other members I think he wants to carry on he wants to

00:25:10.740 get started on what he set forth to do because well it's taken him a number of

00:25:16.500 months to get to this point I think a man has a mission so my my guess is that he

00:25:22.140 doesn't want an election I mr. number guys just remember remember a couple of

00:25:28.080 weeks ago, Carney met with all the party leaders. And so thinking about Pierre, and we should give

00:25:33.320 him credit, he grew conservative votes significantly in the last election. The problem was, it's not

00:25:39.200 was the aging population that we would need. But, and so I want to make that clear, he did an

00:25:45.480 incredible job there. But Pierre went into a meeting with Carney, like the other leaders. And

00:25:51.440 And apart from hearing that Pierre had told Carney that you're not to go over for $48.5 billion or something in this debt, otherwise we won't support you, we actually didn't hear what else Pierre had asked for.

00:26:05.060 And I began to think about this when I saw another significant boost to the CBC, who already has several solid revenue streams, and we all know the fight about the CBC, and so I won't just circle the drain on that one.

00:26:17.660 But there was a lot in that budget that I began to wonder, so did Pierre know about some of this? Wasn't this on some of his attack list? I would have gone after the emissions cap. I would have gone after the suite of the anti-oil or anti-pipeline bills, the C-68 and C-48, or C-69 and C-48.

00:26:38.040 But we never ever found out from the conservatives, whether it was the lip or the leader himself, we never found out how he held Carney accountable. And that will be that should be a question many people start to ask, like, where where was the game of chicken? I want to know about that stuff.

00:26:57.520 Yeah, and I just point out as kind of a mini parting shot on this topic, before I put a pen in it, that Carney ran very seriously to get his seat in Ottawa, in the European constituency, saying, I will not cut the civil service.

00:27:13.580 Erocrats will all keep their jobs.

00:27:14.940 And the liberal candidate who ended up defeating Pierre Polyev, his main point going door to door was, knock, knock, do you work for the government?

00:27:23.660 Pierre Polyev is going to cut jobs working for the government.

00:27:26.640 And the Liberals, this is why I like it when Liberals lie, because generally they campaign on doing crazy Liberal stuff. But sometimes reality will come up and slap them in the face. These are pretty small cuts to the size of the bureaucracy. They're very small.

00:27:44.760 but the liberals ran on and we're going to continue

00:27:46.920 to grow at hunky-dory and no one's losing

00:27:48.940 their jobs. Haven't seen much

00:27:51.080 in the way of criticism of this

00:27:52.580 even from the conservatives but

00:27:54.720 certainly haven't seen any of the hypocrisy of this

00:27:57.060 pointed out. So whatever his name is

00:27:59.060 what's his nuts who defeated

00:28:00.500 Polio. Yeah, Fanjot 0.98

00:28:02.720 Fanshawe

00:28:03.860 in the

00:28:06.420 Carleton constituency that beat

00:28:08.820 Polio. This was his 1.00

00:28:11.080 main thing and I haven't heard a pique

00:28:12.960 from him. Uh, this was the platform he ran on. So, uh, okay. We're getting closer to home here in

00:28:20.120 Alberta. Uh, I, you know, we don't really get a lot of recall in Canada. Uh, for the longest time,

00:28:27.180 BC was the only province to have it on the books. And it was only technically on the books. It's

00:28:32.360 never been actually technically used in BC. There was one case where it was effectively used. The

00:28:38.180 guy resigned first. So it was effectively used, but it was at this wild margin that no one could

00:28:42.620 effectively hit um uh kenny brought it into alberta but set the bar extremely high it's had

00:28:49.780 some tweaking sense with with smith um i think kenny would have been the first mla in alberta

00:28:57.080 recalled if his leadership uh had uh if he had tried to hold on to leadership i think he would

00:29:01.440 have been recalled by fellow conservatives um but obviously that didn't happen he lost leadership

00:29:06.680 um but uh you know we the ucp brought in the cory the back to work legislation preemptive

00:29:15.600 used that made a preemptive strike with the notwithstanding clause can challenge it here's

00:29:20.080 your deal that's it because there that strut was going to go on forever no one could really figure

00:29:25.000 out what what is it the ata wants they were given a big raise all this stuff so it was fine um but

00:29:31.280 then they freaked out after yeah of course they were going to be pissed off i expect them to be

00:29:34.600 pissed off. And then they said,

00:29:36.660 we're going to recall the Minister of Education,

00:29:38.680 Dmitriu Nicolaitis,

00:29:40.400 in Calgary Boat. I mean,

00:29:42.660 if you're going to target someone, that made

00:29:44.580 sense, because he's the Education

00:29:46.620 Minister, so okay, there's a face

00:29:48.660 on it. And he was in a very tight

00:29:50.740 race in that constituency

00:29:52.540 with the NDP. So it's not like

00:29:54.640 a rock-ribbed, rural,

00:29:57.600 deep blue, conservative

00:29:58.540 ridings. That would have been a logical

00:30:00.660 strategic choice. They started with that,

00:30:02.680 then they've expanded it to every single conservative mla uh in alberta they call it

00:30:08.680 total recall which kind of reminds me i'm pretty sure they're borrowing on um

00:30:14.040 way before we had memes and stuff remember we had jib jab or jib jab online oh yeah yeah and

00:30:19.720 they have to have those weird they had some fun political cartoons uh you know

00:30:23.560 Let's play that quick.

00:30:25.040 This reminds me.

00:30:25.660 Total Recall.

00:30:33.640 All right.

00:30:34.200 So, yeah, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger.

00:30:36.480 This is a no recall.

00:30:37.600 This is a total recall.

00:30:39.220 That was good branding.

00:30:40.300 So I think this is a good brand, you know, total recall.

00:30:43.280 It's fun.

00:30:46.660 They're obviously not going to succeed.

00:30:48.740 I think they, if they targeted just, you know, say, Demetrio Nicolaitis because of the vulnerability of that constituency, maybe a handful of others, maybe they could make some headway.

00:31:00.300 But by, you know, instead of taking a sniper rifle, they're trying to drop napalm.

00:31:05.880 I feel like that's not going to work.

00:31:07.580 No, it's just the Gil McGowan version of the long ballot committee.

00:31:10.280 They're just trying to use the process against itself to abuse what should be a means to recall somebody if they've done something beyond the pale.

00:31:17.860 If it's an MLA who committed an odious crime or never showed up for work or things like that.

00:31:24.340 Part of why they're spreading now for the shotgun blast too, though, is for a recall, it's not like Fabio's petition for the referendum, you know, or Thomas Lukasik, as some people might refer to him as.

00:31:36.500 That's where you could have your resources all the way across the province.

00:31:40.120 Every single petitioner for this recall has to be registered with Elections Alberta with an ID badge and they have to live in the constituency.

00:31:47.000 You can't petition if you don't live in the constituency.

00:31:49.120 No, you cannot qualify for one of those petitioners' badges unless you live within the constituency.

00:31:54.800 So you can't take 500 union members from Edmonton and flood them into Nicolaitis riding for a weekend and go out and petition and get signatures.

00:32:03.340 They have to live there.

00:32:04.800 That really limits the amount of what you can galvanize to get out to work on these campaigns.

00:32:10.680 I looked at the numbers, for example, too, just to show people the logistics of this.

00:32:14.500 So I used Angela Pitt's writing because that's the other one they've targeted and they've already qualified for.

00:32:19.860 So they would need 60% of the votes cast.

00:32:22.860 That was one of the improvements because it used to be 60% of those eligible, I believe, on an official petition, on paper, witnessed all that good stuff within 90 days.

00:32:32.520 That'd be about 15,000 signatures in Airdrie East, and assuming all of them are valid.

00:32:38.440 So closer to 16,000, 17,000.

00:32:40.200 And that's not as easy as some people might think it is, especially when you have to have local volunteers on the ground or even paid people, but they have to be local doing this.

00:32:49.140 So we'll see, as you said, if you kill targeted just a couple, maybe they could really pull that off.

00:32:54.020 But now that they realize that they can't just target like that with the resources, now they're looking to broaden it.

00:33:01.380 And I don't think it'll have much success.

00:33:02.660 I mean, talk about, you know, Brooks or something, if they went after the premier, I mean, come on.

00:33:06.740 And this is also under the assumption that people all sign it, that they are interested in having a by-election, that they are that upset with their representatives.

00:33:13.500 So a neat publicity thing, a neat name, but I don't think it's going to add up to much.

00:33:18.400 But the other part is it's going to cost a lot of money.

00:33:20.380 Elections Alberta is already saying they're going to need $14,000 if this happens, because that's a whole lot of petitions to track and people to register and resources to direct.

00:33:29.900 I don't know if everybody's going to be thrilled with that.

00:33:31.300 Yeah. At least this comes after the Alberta Federation of Labor's president, Gil McGowan, who's a known hardline Marxist. And I'm not just throwing around like, oh, this guy wants to raise my taxes by one percent. He's a communist. No, this guy is a capital K communist.

00:33:47.840 so

00:33:49.840 but he was saying

00:33:52.080 we need a general strike

00:33:54.520 I feel like

00:33:56.840 the Total Recall campaign here

00:33:58.320 is kind of their way 1.00

00:33:59.680 Gil says crazy shit 1.00

00:34:02.380 all the time 1.00

00:34:03.780 he's got to put the bottle down

00:34:06.160 in one hand

00:34:06.920 put the microphone

00:34:10.160 in the other hand down

00:34:11.700 take a deep breath Gil

00:34:13.580 but he's

00:34:16.140 he's

00:34:17.840 know he wanted a general strike and i i i feel like he got on the phone called the first private

00:34:23.840 sector union guy in the afl and says all right jimmy your boiler makers your pipe fitters your

00:34:30.320 welders how are they feeling about going on strikes so that they could pay more taxes 0.98

00:34:35.360 to give teachers i don't know a 20 raise uh and guy on the other says uh yeah yeah i don't know 0.98

00:34:43.280 anyone here who wants to do that we don't it's not our fight we don't give a shit uh so i he calls 0.95

00:34:50.020 for this general strike it's gonna be a great uprising he says he wants to overthrow the 0.96

00:34:53.560 government uh okay gail all right uh you know i guess we're like 1918 here and we're just gonna

00:34:59.600 overthrow the government the general strikes uh so i feel like he got on the phone and everyone

00:35:04.680 told him uh to get stuffed and he's got to do something so they have to make some kind of

00:35:09.980 performative thing. And that's it. Fine. We're going to recall everyone.

00:35:16.460 I, it's, it's unclear play. I mean, it, it's getting to an, I mean,

00:35:21.020 getting to an election without actually having the ability to trigger the

00:35:25.560 election. And my version of that is a gentleman by the name of Paul Finch.

00:35:30.620 She's the head of the BCG EU. And I just had 25,000 workers finally returned

00:35:36.500 back to work and not thinking not caring once for what british colombians were going through got

00:35:41.660 one of the most massive platinum pension pay raises in the history of bc um and so i i think

00:35:49.240 that it's interesting because i've been watching alberta and watching what albertans are saying

00:35:53.760 just not political commentators but just average albertans uh or parents about you know how that

00:36:01.200 teacher strike you know went and how it was resolved and i think initially it got a little

00:36:06.080 frothy but now parents are just like yay the kids are back i don't want to talk about it again

00:36:11.200 and i and i don't want to get involved in your politics i just want the kids to be back

00:36:16.000 and like i said some of them may have been questioning how that came about and the

00:36:20.800 decision that um that the premier made um but oh we're having uh elisa's connections getting a

00:36:31.120 a little, that's okay. All right. Is it better now? Maybe. I don't know. You're gonna have to

00:36:40.960 talk. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Anyway, I don't think there's an appetite in Alberta for

00:36:47.660 these strikes. And I can tell you right now, the union completely jumped the shark with the public

00:36:52.540 here is this is the first time that I saw, you know, blue collar towns turning against their

00:36:57.120 union members that were walking out so i i don't think that's reality you know and if nenshi wants

00:37:02.100 to have an election he should do it all by himself with his cast of you know characters over at the

00:37:06.780 ndp well uh i mean if these guys theoretically succeeded and you know even getting a few recalled

00:37:15.120 nigel i i think the logical play then would be okay well rather than have uh 50 odd recall

00:37:21.840 elections theoretically well we're just going to have an election like you just you just say fine

00:37:27.460 we're we're just calling an election based on current polls ucp looks in a pretty damn good

00:37:33.660 position to win that i would i would imagine that's just what would happen if these guys

00:37:37.760 even theoretically succeeded uh yeah you know and run on a platform of banning the afl i i think

00:37:43.700 in a year's time everybody's going to look back on this and say well it was exciting but really

00:37:48.460 that we did kind of overstate our case um you know as you said earlier the teachers it's hard

00:37:54.700 to know what they really want i mean they'll tell you all sorts of things but when you get right

00:37:58.860 down to it um 12 is not bad and a lot of them were looking for increases due to moving up the scale

00:38:06.220 and so forth so i had to think it's not the money just the money well what was the rest of it and

00:38:12.380 who's going to give it to them on the school board the government hard to see so it comes

00:38:18.620 all of this leads back to the my personal theory which is that the that the afl thought well this

00:38:26.060 is a great cause that we can jump on the teachers are very good at organizing they're prepared to

00:38:30.780 spend their strike money on advertising against the government we can have a workers revolution

00:38:36.620 and then it didn't happen and now they're trying to fade and save face and that's kind of where

00:38:41.100 the thing ends up so yeah the given that the i mean things can change very fast in politics as

00:38:48.140 we all know but given that right now the ucp looks pretty strong in the polls hard to imagine how

00:38:54.300 this thing plays out well i think everybody's going to look a bit sheepish in a little while

00:39:00.460 that was fun yeah all right well let's put a pin in there uh we'll go to our parting shots

00:39:05.980 Let's give first one up to Elise. 1.00

00:39:09.100 Oh, you guys are going to like this one.

00:39:11.500 Less than an hour ago, David Eadie and his government signed another agreement with First Nations into reinforcing a full-on tanker ban for British Columbia.

00:39:27.960 So my parting shot goes to Mr. Eby, who is now overreaching his position as Premier of British Columbia and basically defying the agreement he had with with Mark Carney when Mr. Carney was first selected that there would be open dialogue and flexibility around how they were going to approach the tanker issue.

00:39:51.320 But this is shots fired to Premier Daniel Smith, Premier Scott Moe, and I think even out in central Canada, who are softening to the idea of pipelines and understanding we have to get our product to Tidewater.

00:40:05.660 So this will be interesting how this plays out.

00:40:08.380 It's only an hour old, but it's definitely shots fired.

00:40:11.200 yeah uh i would just point out for the record this does follow in a proud bc tradition of

00:40:18.400 extending the provincial government's uh jurisdiction illegally into federal areas

00:40:24.660 concerning maritime issues bc actually did build its own warships and navy at one point they gifted

00:40:30.900 it to the royal canadian navy but i think it was during the first world war maybe the second

00:40:34.720 first world war they picked up two submarines in seattle yes that's it they they did build

00:40:41.020 They bought two U.S. submarines.

00:40:44.000 There was a British Columbia Navy at some point.

00:40:47.340 And I guess just for the record, British Columbia had a bigger submarine fleet back then than Canada has today.

00:40:55.500 So, you know, good on B.C.

00:40:56.960 I want to bring the B.C. Navy back.

00:40:58.960 Corey.

00:40:59.540 Well, it came up earlier just with that tree planting program.

00:41:03.260 Just those numbers, six years, $267.7 million.

00:41:08.120 and they achieved about 12% of their target.

00:41:11.120 So for people who really want the government to take over children's lunch programs

00:41:14.740 and daycare, this is why I hose it, folks, 0.99

00:41:18.340 because it's going to cost $10,000 a month for each child

00:41:21.460 and 9 out of 10 children won't be able to get in.

00:41:23.820 Yeah.

00:41:24.380 All right, Nigel.

00:41:25.420 So, you know, going through the budget documents,

00:41:27.600 I come across this astonishing little nugget that they want Canada

00:41:33.240 to enter in the Eurovision Song Contest.

00:41:37.320 What? Sorry.

00:41:39.460 Sorry, sorry.

00:41:40.500 I need a double-take call.

00:41:42.260 I've got to fill up my aproposia.

00:41:45.880 Okay.

00:41:47.740 Is this real?

00:41:48.860 It's crazy stuff.

00:41:49.580 You may remember the first place Mr. Carney went after he was elected.

00:41:53.640 It was over to Europe.

00:41:55.760 Does Carney compete?

00:41:57.760 No, no, no, no.

00:41:58.900 Not so fast.

00:42:00.040 I nominate Lawrence de Entourant to go over and represent Canada

00:42:03.980 and saying it's time to say goodbye.

00:42:07.320 Okay. Wow.

00:42:10.800 You can pronounce his name.

00:42:12.300 That was a banger.

00:42:13.720 Okay, you're going to have to flag that to Dave in the newsroom

00:42:16.380 when we get out of the studio here. 0.99

00:42:18.820 That's good shit. 0.99

00:42:19.980 All right. Well, I don't know how I'm going to top that. 1.00

00:42:24.200 All right.

00:42:27.360 You know, a lot of people who are not paying attention

00:42:30.260 to American news right now might not know this,

00:42:33.420 But there is a titanic civil war erupting on the American right right now.

00:42:42.960 This is not like we've seen really ever.

00:42:46.620 This is a new thing.

00:42:47.920 I don't know how to do it justice with enough nuance, not get in trouble here.

00:42:52.360 But I guess, like, in short, it's kind of a new very, very hard right.

00:42:57.800 I would think it'd be fair to say far right, except the term far right gets so abused.

00:43:01.480 it gets applied to people like us all the time

00:43:03.440 so it's like well what's far right to people

00:43:05.640 who are far right

00:43:06.480 I don't know

00:43:07.960 this is extreme

00:43:12.040 extreme right

00:43:13.600 I think it's a case where

00:43:15.560 you're not even meeting with judgment

00:43:17.940 it's probably a fair term to apply

00:43:19.740 I just don't know how to apply it anymore

00:43:21.420 because it's just so

00:43:22.620 it's been so abused and devalued

00:43:24.580 but

00:43:25.320 I think some of it comes from a legitimate

00:43:29.360 skepticism of

00:43:31.380 the influence of Israel

00:43:33.860 on the United States' foreign policy and whatnot.

00:43:36.580 Some of it then goes much

00:43:37.860 further than, I think, otherwise

00:43:39.660 valid, reasonable, rational criticism.

00:43:42.420 But I think it comes from

00:43:43.760 what has been a suppression of any

00:43:45.920 discussion around it, and now it's just kind of

00:43:47.960 like a simmering pot that's blown.

00:43:50.200 And it's a

00:43:51.860 very, very messy

00:43:53.780 fight. I guess the most prominent

00:43:55.260 one on the insurgent

00:43:58.120 side would be this guy named Nick Fuentes.

00:43:59.520 young, like he's like 27 or something

00:44:02.360 very hugely successful

00:44:06.140 podcaster

00:44:07.220 Roy Bruce or something

00:44:08.100 I can't, I should not have picked this as a

00:44:11.840 parting shot, I mean this is a whole episode

00:44:14.060 of no consult to get into

00:44:15.160 which one, you totally want to get into it

00:44:18.180 but look

00:44:19.340 I'm just going to say that this is just gigantic

00:44:21.660 fight and

00:44:23.260 it is fascinating to watch

00:44:25.720 I've never, ever seen anything

00:44:27.740 like this uh in american politics certainly not canadian politics which is you know even more

00:44:33.180 controlled but american politics has i think a lot more fluidity to it for new players so it's

00:44:39.160 an interesting point if you were the kind of democrat who would vote for kennedy in 1960 who

00:44:44.020 would you go where would you go now you'd have absolutely nowhere yeah so anyway um i i'm gonna

00:44:50.880 look i that was a terrible parting shot to pick i i should have just made a whole you can't even 0.90

00:44:55.720 make that one of our main topics has to be a whole damn show if you want to even begin to 0.75

00:44:58.660 scratch the surface and all you're going to do is get in trouble i guess but um i don't think so i 0.85

00:45:03.660 think it's a great topic i think it's a great topic we're watching a revolution and it's about

00:45:09.820 time it's a very it's the time was long ago so it was great to see certain people even barry weiss

00:45:16.400 came out and i thought it was fantastic ben shapiro is a hero in my book so well done that

00:45:22.240 I think you did well

00:45:24.740 landing on that one.

00:45:27.180 I'm not sure that the

00:45:28.780 response to it was particularly helpful to

00:45:30.780 their own cause, seeing guys like

00:45:33.000 Representative Ari Fine 0.94

00:45:34.760 saying, damn right we are 0.90

00:45:36.900 in the business of cancelling. 0.88

00:45:38.580 I think that was the wrong message for these guys

00:45:40.920 to send in their defense.

00:45:43.000 We're going to that rabbit hole.

00:45:46.620 I'm

00:45:47.220 stopping the rabbit hole there.

00:45:48.820 Derek, remember this Nick

00:45:50.620 Quinta's guy, self-proclaimed 0.98

00:45:53.020 not see, talked about slapping women. 0.99

00:45:55.120 Women are second-class citizens 1.00

00:45:56.520 that use the R word.

00:45:58.880 You know, there's to be

00:46:00.920 rolled over. I'm not

00:46:02.720 going to do a Nick Quinta's best of

00:46:04.800 compilation here. I know that

00:46:06.560 people should go and take a look

00:46:08.840 at this stuff for themselves. All I'm saying

00:46:10.940 is the response to it

00:46:12.380 I don't think helped their cause. There was a way

00:46:14.820 to respond to it that

00:46:16.000 I think would have hit the mark a lot better, and I don't think

00:46:18.820 they hit it there i i'm gonna put some concrete on that rabbit hole right now because that's uh

00:46:24.180 we're we're already out of time all right uh at least thank you cory thank you guys as always

00:46:31.380 and thank all of you for joining us here today on the pipeline remember to go to westernstandard.news

00:46:37.680 become a member support the work we're doing get full access to all western standard content go to

00:46:42.140 westernstandard.news right now it's only ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year

00:46:45.760 thank you very much for your time

00:46:47.700 and God bless

Western Standard - November 06, 2025

Crossing the Floor： From Ottawa’s Budget Blowout to Alberta’s ‘Total Recall’

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