Western Standard - David Eby’s cluster muck, Doug Ford’s gravy plane and Canada’s new foreign legion

00:00:00.000 good day today is april 22nd 2026 i'm derek fildebrand publisher of the western standards

00:00:30.000 and you're watching the pipeline i've got the usual crew here former western standard opinion

00:00:35.040 editor nagel hannaford good afternoon good to be here uh city alberta core columnist cory morkin

00:00:42.320 always a pleasure news editor dave daylor the pleasure is all is and coming to us from lotus

00:00:48.000 land uh special guest today our our bc reporter alex zoltan pleasure as well all right uh we're

00:00:57.760 We're going to talk about Canada's new foreign legion.

00:01:01.260 The Canadian Armed Forces is meeting or exceeding its recruitment targets

00:01:06.940 by bringing in large numbers of foreigners.

00:01:11.640 Should we be worried about arming people with a governing party 0.59

00:01:16.640 that is known to use the power of the state to crush dissent?

00:01:20.260 I don't know. We'll chat about it.

00:01:22.380 We're going to chat about Doug Ford's gravy plane,

00:01:25.860 The short-lived, super-luxury jet that Doug Ford purchased with Ontario taxpayers' dollars

00:01:35.560 met an unfortunate end with pretty predictable public outrage for the gravy plane.

00:01:44.980 He's now going to sell it.

00:01:47.220 It's been a total political disaster in Ontario,

00:01:50.880 but Doug Ford's pretty good at sensing when things are unpopular

00:01:54.320 and somehow living to fight another day.

00:01:57.060 But we're going to start with David Evie's cluster muck.

00:02:01.160 That's why we're bringing in our BC reporter, Alex Zoltan.

00:02:05.460 Alex, why don't you give us just a really quick summary?

00:02:09.720 I think most people have some idea about the disaster that's going on

00:02:13.680 with UNDRIP stuff in DC.

00:02:17.320 But this has turned into an hourly evolving position for David Evie.

00:02:22.960 and just a total political disaster.

00:02:27.280 Yeah, so a quick summary,

00:02:29.080 I would be asking really kind of the impossible in some sense.

00:02:33.400 This has been an ongoing thing for many, many years.

00:02:37.640 DRIPA was passed unanimously in the House in 2019.

00:02:41.620 It was a well-intentioned bill at the time

00:02:43.520 and nobody really thought much of it,

00:02:45.240 but what it has caused is a state of paralysis

00:02:47.480 in the economics of British Columbia.

00:02:50.760 In order to understand DRIPA,

00:02:52.440 you have to understand UNDRIP, which is this aspirational document from the UN. It was never

00:02:57.800 intended to be a law. Essentially, what it is, is this promise that you would act in good faith

00:03:03.680 while negotiating anything with Indigenous people. The BC government, in their infinite wisdom,

00:03:09.140 decided to make it a law, and then they doubled down on that. Noting that it was an aspirational

00:03:14.260 document, they decided that they wanted to give it teeth. So in 2021, they passed another law

00:03:18.940 called the Interpretation Act. The Interpretation Act essentially instructed the government and by

00:03:24.980 extension the courts to demand that DRIPA must or sorry I should backtrack a little bit here any

00:03:32.060 provincial statutes must be in alignment with DRIPA which is essentially identical to UNDRIP

00:03:36.740 that has basically created a standstill in terms of many different things including resource

00:03:43.200 projects pipelines so on and so forth and now david eby um on april 1st this all the recent

00:03:52.780 history of undrip started on april fool's day funnily enough and he said it was non-negotiable

00:03:57.880 they had to get rid of it because it's caused so many problems he then backed down on that and he

00:04:02.320 proposed a pause he didn't have enough support even amongst his own caucus in order to get the

00:04:07.580 pause passed so then he went back to the drawing table and on sunday he decided that he was going

00:04:12.440 to be he had written legislation that was supposed to be produced on monday um but later on sunday

00:04:18.140 evening apparently the uh first nations leadership council had threatened him with collective action

00:04:23.720 we don't really know what that means and so he decided to scrap um making any changes to drippa

00:04:29.240 whatsoever for the spring session and he's now kicking the can down the road to the fall session

00:04:33.400 that's a short version

00:04:35.680 yeah

00:04:36.780 Dave we

00:04:39.320 you know it's been a busy

00:04:41.940 week in or I guess

00:04:43.800 from last week into this week

00:04:45.620 covering this because it's been

00:04:47.300 Alex has been filing sometimes

00:04:49.860 stories on the hour as

00:04:51.920 the BC government's position

00:04:53.980 has changed

00:04:54.980 but David Eby is in a weird

00:04:58.080 spot now

00:04:59.160 the legislation is self-evidently

00:05:02.360 extremely economically

00:05:05.160 destructive. You've got land titles

00:05:07.380 threatening the property 1.00

00:05:09.180 Aboriginal

00:05:11.040 land title challenges threatening the property

00:05:13.120 title of people, can't get mortgages.

00:05:15.480 You've got essentially

00:05:16.920 total shutdown of new resource development

00:05:19.260 projects with this

00:05:20.780 undripped nonsense

00:05:22.340 to the point where David

00:05:25.020 Eby, who has spent his entire career around

00:05:26.940 this stuff, finally recognizes

00:05:28.420 we simply

00:05:31.160 cannot function as a society we can't function as a government as an economy uh and then i i don't

00:05:38.220 know the chief's made him an offer he couldn't uh refuse or or something i don't or maybe a threat

00:05:43.580 yeah collective action again we don't know what the heck that really means um but i know uh i

00:05:50.640 think you read it there was a great column from von palmer uh and i think in the vancouver sun

00:05:55.340 or times columnist one of the speedy papers there is the david eby is kind of realized he's not

00:06:00.860 really in charge of bc anymore no he looks like a dead man walking he looked he looked almost gaunt

00:06:08.140 uh at the press conference yesterday uh the stress is certainly taking its toll on him and uh

00:06:14.380 yeah he's he's paralyzed with i don't know if it's fear or not but he's you're quite right i think

00:06:19.740 he's realized that he's gone they've gone too far but they can't like can't figure out a way to get 1.00

00:06:25.580 it back on track because of the uh uh you know the threats from the the indigenous group so 0.99

00:06:32.140 you know somewhere along the line uh he's either gonna have to uh uh whatever that phrase is or 0.99

00:06:38.380 get off the uh get off the toilet so um yeah he's uh he he looks extremely weak at the moment um

00:06:48.380 Um, it's, he's in an impossible political position, Corey, I think, right now.

00:06:53.480 Uh, it's very, it's exceedingly obvious that this needs to be next.

00:06:59.240 Um, it's possible he actually could have found, or his government is majority by a single seat.

00:07:06.180 It's the narrowest of margins.

00:07:08.120 It's possible that, you know, he could have passed it with the support of the conservatives.

00:07:12.600 because the conservatives seem to be

00:07:16.200 at least most of them are on board

00:07:18.360 for doing away with this nonsense

00:07:19.940 but

00:07:21.080 it would mean the end of his premiership

00:07:24.560 because if he's relying on the conservatives

00:07:26.260 for a vote and most of his

00:07:28.520 own MLAs, maybe not all but

00:07:29.920 at least a very large number of his own MLAs

00:07:32.360 vote

00:07:33.800 against him

00:07:36.240 that would mean the end of him

00:07:38.620 politically and

00:07:39.780 literally moments before

00:07:42.480 we we came on in to record here uh alex and bc published story that the uh the rose caucus which

00:07:50.300 is kind of the radical socialist wing of the of the ndp nationally is demanding the resignation

00:07:55.460 of david eb for being too soft on this stuff uh is the clock ticking on this guy now yeah he's done

00:08:02.600 he tried to play both sides and he can't win he's come across he's he's done something that not 0.96

00:08:08.060 enough socialists hit fast enough and that's a reality check their legislation is garbage it's 0.58

00:08:13.700 paralyzing the province unfortunately he's leading the wrong ideological party to take the stance and 0.90

00:08:19.800 say we've gone too far with this race-based policy we have to turn it back they're terrified

00:08:25.700 all politicians conservative ones are too of the indigenous lobby and whatever those threats may

00:08:31.140 be it would be you know maybe banging drums on the legislature steps or blocking roads or

00:08:35.360 all sorts of things that upset

00:08:37.380 indigenous bands do when they feel their

00:08:39.380 entitlements are being threatened. And he

00:08:41.440 just doesn't have the backbone to stand up for it.

00:08:43.320 Or he also doesn't have the caucus

00:08:45.200 support to make that stance. He's

00:08:47.340 in an impossible position. He's, as

00:08:49.380 I said, dead man walking. We'll just see how long it is

00:08:51.220 before he's pulled out of there.

00:08:53.720 I'm not sure what the way is out of

00:08:55.400 this. It's clearly urgent. They must

00:08:57.500 deal with it. They must deal with it immediately.

00:09:00.760 Kicking the can on the

00:09:01.600 road is major economic consequences

00:09:03.640 for British Columbia.

00:09:05.360 But he seems to be politically paralyzed in this.

00:09:09.620 He probably could get it through the legislature,

00:09:12.540 but it would be the end of his premiership then

00:09:14.300 to have to rely on conservative votes

00:09:15.980 and lose potentially a majority of his own caucuses' votes in it.

00:09:20.120 You don't get to survive something like that.

00:09:21.780 No, you don't.

00:09:22.840 You know, I mean, if he was a man who you could depend on

00:09:25.320 to do the right thing, you'd say,

00:09:26.520 all right, I wear it, I made a huge mistake here, I resign.

00:09:30.580 And then somebody else who hasn't got the personal investment in it

00:09:34.760 could come out and do a deal.

00:09:37.540 But, you know, Corey, we were talking about banging the drums on the legislature

00:09:40.840 of green grass and so on.

00:09:43.020 Yeah, that would probably happen.

00:09:44.680 There's a whole mess of things that could also happen,

00:09:47.880 and I think that's what people are really concerned about.

00:09:50.760 I just want to take you back a couple of years.

00:09:52.780 We were building a pipeline out to the coast from the Dawson Creek area

00:09:57.080 carrying natural gas.

00:09:59.320 They had tremendous problems, people interfering with the pipeline,

00:10:03.740 breaking equipment setting things on fire a bunch of people got beat up uh the workers on the site

00:10:10.380 you know uh and i i have a sense that all these years when we have been saying well of course you

00:10:18.380 know it's nice to be here but we recognize that we're on the traditional territory of the whatever

00:10:23.660 uh finally the whatever have said yeah you know you're right there you are so we'd like it back

00:10:30.700 and mr eby thought that he was coasting that particular wave and unfortunately even if he

00:10:37.260 didn't mean it they did and so this my little solution that yes he can resign it is the

00:10:44.700 necessary first step but the fellow who comes along after isn't going to have an easy ride of it well

00:10:50.380 i'm not even sure the conservatives are up to it i mean it's a diverse field but and then there is

00:10:55.820 There's a lot of talk about UNDRIP and DRIPA and the conservative leadership race, but I'm not sure how far they're really actually willing to go.

00:11:07.520 Alex, you're a reporter, but I want you to do your best job putting on your, using your crystal ball here.

00:11:18.980 How does EV get out of this?

00:11:23.140 Is it simply kick the can down the road and just accept like kind of an economic collapse of resource development in B.C.?

00:11:32.220 How does he get out of this one?

00:11:34.920 I think the concern is less about how E.B.'s political career survives this and more about how B.C.'s economy survives it.

00:11:42.340 Ultimately, DRIPA has to be repealed.

00:11:44.340 I'm not a lawyer, but the key issue with DRIPA is this language that says that all indigenous tribes have a right to free and informed consent on anything, whether that be, you know, a resource project like a pipeline or many things that are less or more innocuous than that.

00:12:02.740 and consent is a very nebulous term it's very broad it's very vague it's not exactly clear

00:12:08.140 it's one of the reasons sexual assault conviction the rate of convictions is very very low because

00:12:13.560 the concept of consent is difficult to to fully grasp it very rarely do two people or let alone

00:12:19.340 two groups agree completely on everything removing a sexual assault element that's a minefield of its

00:12:24.500 own you know take for example if you are invited to go to your mother mother-in-law's house for

00:12:29.840 the weekend does anybody truly consent to that well you know it's debatable because you may be

00:12:35.940 pressured and so this is the issue with tripa right is and then you have another issue which

00:12:41.540 is that in bc unlike other provinces we did not fully form treaties 95 of bc sits on what they

00:12:47.920 call unceded territory so even if you receive the consent of one tribe to put a pipeline through

00:12:52.820 their land another tribe may say that that land is on their overlapping territory and so ultimately

00:12:59.000 David Eby's political career is is a very small part of this bc his entire economy is on the line

00:13:05.060 Eby's proposal to go ahead okay well I mean yes but let's be realistic David Eby's number one

00:13:14.360 concern probably is his political career most politicians have a tendency to conflate what's

00:13:21.480 good for the people with what's good for themselves the people need me I am the best guy

00:13:26.280 uh therefore if i go down the people go down so they tend to conflate one with the other

00:13:32.360 um the obvious solution seems to be like there's a deadlock they've got to deal with it the obvious

00:13:38.780 solution seems to be to resign but i'm i'm doubtful that he would see that as probably the best way

00:13:44.480 out how short of resigning how could you conceive that david eby navigates his way through this one

00:13:54.240 I think that David Eby, if we're remaining completely laser focused purely on his political career and his own self-interest, his best option was to simply put a pause on DRIPA until the next fixed election date, which was, it looked like that that was going to be the avenue that he took, but it appears that he didn't have enough support amongst his own caucus for that.

00:14:15.080 So I would say that his political career is pretty much dead in the water at this point. I would agree with you gentlemen on that.

00:14:20.160 yeah

00:14:21.500 oh the slow drip

00:14:24.200 I was thinking of more classic

00:14:26.640 EB's got no drip

00:14:27.580 alright

00:14:29.340 well from one

00:14:32.740 troubled premier to

00:14:34.240 a guy actually I can't say he's a troubled premier

00:14:36.920 Doug Ford

00:14:37.600 he's the tough one premier

00:14:39.580 he survives anything

00:14:41.860 because Ontario conservatives 0.68

00:14:43.680 are unfortunately pretty cowardly often 0.89

00:14:46.280 when it comes to their leaders

00:14:47.200 they don't do anything about it

00:14:48.960 um so i dave maybe just i think most people are kind of broadly aware just give a real

00:14:55.200 short summary of the saga of doug ford's gravy plane uh doug ford wants plane doug ford gets

00:15:02.560 plane doug ford realizes he's made a major mistake doug ford gives plane back all without

00:15:08.080 going for a single ride on it but it's uh it's great sorry well how do you say you wanted to

00:15:12.960 quick so uh 29 million dollar plane uh the entire conservative uh cabinet voted 100 that he should

00:15:21.280 have one and they went out and bought this this thing from uh bombardier it's a beautiful plan

00:15:27.120 i mean any premier would be would be proud of it but uh he wasn't reading the temperature of the

00:15:32.320 room very well when the record lineups at uh at food banks and inflation i know you don't like

00:15:39.360 like that word, Derek, but rising prices, hurting people, you know, all over the place. People are

00:15:46.480 squeezed. People are hurt. The optics just look bad. So a day of answering his cell phone, people

00:15:53.160 yelling at him, he backtracked. He was very sulky and very, you know, poor me, poor me. Prime

00:16:01.580 Minister gets his jet. Why can't I have mine? I have a long way to fly in Ontario, you know,

00:16:06.900 which he does and it to me it's it's it shows canada as a nation is a failure

00:16:15.220 he should have a jet of course he should have a jet uh because he's responsible for billions

00:16:20.900 and billions of dollars and his province is absolutely huge it's it's little things like

00:16:26.500 that people canadians don't like to see their leaders have nice things the other point i want

00:16:32.660 to make is just look at 24 sussex right the nation's prime minister should have a house

00:16:40.980 that looks pretty good that's where you host foreign leaders and bring them over for barbecues

00:16:47.140 and stuff like that meanwhile in canada we can't even agree on that and 24 sussex is falling to

00:16:54.260 bits i mean uh come on our leaders need nice things so you know i i've i've uh i don't slag

00:17:03.440 my former employer the taxpayers federation but you know when i was there you know i uh i i was

00:17:09.440 the most guilty party of always going after a lot of these little things you know i remember we went

00:17:14.780 after bev oda's orange juice there actually was an explanation for it was an outrageous cost for 0.98

00:17:18.980 the orange juice but there was actually perfectly reasonable explanation for it sometimes shit just 0.96

00:17:22.820 happens and it is a really canadian thing that we are overly nitpicky uh ontario is bigger 0.92

00:17:29.940 if someone correct me if i'm wrong i think it's bigger than any european country other than

00:17:33.760 russia and i don't consider russia europe uh but uh it's a gigantic province there is entire areas

00:17:41.460 where there's not even a dirt road to it uh and when my my grandfather he would he'd have to fly

00:17:46.360 in the middle of absolute nowhere for moose hunting.

00:17:50.200 And even if there is road access,

00:17:52.400 do we expect the premier to waste an entire day in travel to get around?

00:17:56.220 No, you charter a plane. You don't have to buy it.

00:17:58.800 You know, there's enough travel between the premier and the cabinet to justify it.

00:18:03.680 Though I think the problem was here, trying to be reasonable and balanced,

00:18:07.440 and Dave got into this, it was a $29 million, $30 million plane.

00:18:12.560 We looked it up. I remember when the news was first breaking,

00:18:14.680 I was like, I don't know.

00:18:16.520 A plane seems reasonable.

00:18:17.980 Let's look into what kind of plane it is.

00:18:19.720 It was a luxury plane. 1.00

00:18:21.180 Like, this is something that some sheik from Abu Dhabi could fly around in. 1.00

00:18:27.480 Like, this was creme de la creme. 1.00

00:18:30.140 It was overkill.

00:18:33.760 You know, I'm not saying that the Premier needs to go in a hang glider or a little Cessna or something.

00:18:38.320 That, I think, could have been reasonable.

00:18:40.460 But he went overboard.

00:18:42.040 But at the same time, I think we do need to, Corey, I think we do have this problem in Canada.

00:18:47.740 24 Sussex is literally uninhabitable because people don't want to be seen as living high on the hog.

00:18:54.260 We don't have to make it the White House and we don't have to make it Air Force One.

00:18:59.200 But at some point, I think Canadians can be overly curmudgeonly and penny-pinching on this stuff for fear that officials are taking advantage of the system. 0.64

00:19:10.440 well maybe make the case before handing us the bill i mean it was poorly done too so if you

00:19:17.240 start by saying this is a large geographic place here's the list of the places we've had to travel

00:19:21.960 to and the importance of it here's an emergency we had to go to quickly so yeah i didn't have time

00:19:27.160 to get in a charter plane or a smaller one but it was just kind of well i'm just dropping that on

00:19:33.400 you here it is here's the 29 million dollar one like did you shop around did you check around and

00:19:38.440 we've seen some other examples where those things have been abused. Allison Redford was the prime 1.00

00:19:43.560 case in Alberta. The Plain, again, it's a large province. She's a premier. Maybe it's justified

00:19:48.280 in getting people. She was using a fly friends to Palm Springs. Yeah. And let's face it, how long 1.00

00:19:53.660 would it have been before Doug took off to the Bahamas and that thing? He should have played

00:19:59.700 better politics with it. There's some truth to it. That's a good point. Like with Sussex and so on.

00:20:03.340 I mean, these are leaders. They do need resources. They need to put out an impression of, you know,

00:20:07.600 support and strength but at the same time you better be cognizant and respectful of the people

00:20:12.720 who pay the bills for all those things and that didn't happen this time well you know it may well

00:20:16.800 be that if you were respectful of the people paying the bills and you charted all of the

00:20:23.920 air charters that the government of ontario does for various reasons this thing would have been

00:20:30.400 defensible as well maybe not the 30 million dollar luxury plane but well it's the luxury you know

00:20:36.720 something that did the job yeah yeah a little challenging jet so the prime minister flies

00:20:40.960 around and they're not luxury they're actually rather uncomfortable but you know they do the job

00:20:46.000 and they're not any 29 million dollars so that probably was the thing but i think i'm guessing

00:20:52.960 here and an enterprising reporter for the you know who wants to get quids in with the queen's park

00:20:59.520 might just do a a search for information and i think the information would be very quickly

00:21:06.320 supplied that would allow him to write a story saying that this would have cost that would save

00:21:10.080 the taxpayers millions of dollars in the air and by the way kit it out so it could do medevac and

00:21:15.680 then you your hands are clean well and funny thing this is coming at the same time as the ontario

00:21:21.280 government is trying to amend its freedom of information laws to exempt the cabinet from

00:21:26.160 having to release information and this would have been exempted i mean is it any coincidence i mean

00:21:34.000 I think having a plane

00:21:36.560 maybe not this particular luxury

00:21:38.760 model $300 million plane

00:21:40.860 but a plane would have been

00:21:42.720 reasonable, but they don't want to answer

00:21:44.900 for it. That's one reason the Ford government is

00:21:46.900 radically overhauling its freedom of information

00:21:49.040 laws. No

00:21:50.660 government of any partisan stripe

00:21:52.500 likes freedom of information when you're on the government

00:21:54.620 benches. You love it when you're on the opposition benches

00:21:56.800 because you can use it as a cudgel to beat

00:21:58.760 your enemies over the head with, but no one likes it

00:22:00.640 once you're on the government side. So I get that.

00:22:04.000 But it goes, Alex, against just the very core brand of Doug Ford.

00:22:10.560 I mean, he always rode on the coattails of his brother, Rob Ford, on this stuff.

00:22:14.440 But they had this brand shared together. 0.82

00:22:17.020 I think it was the, no one can name her because she's a nobody,

00:22:19.980 but the NDP leader of the opposition in Ontario, she called it the gravy plane,

00:22:24.140 which played on, remember, Rob Ford and Doug Ford talked about the gravy train

00:22:27.320 on Toronto City Hall, the gravy train.

00:22:30.800 These guys are living on the benefit of the taxpayers.

00:22:32.780 they've got all these wild perks

00:22:34.760 that they're using

00:22:35.880 and so this stuck

00:22:38.280 because everyone in Ontario knows

00:22:39.800 the gravy train, this is the gravy plane

00:22:41.840 Doug Ford, you know

00:22:43.520 it is for the cameras but people seem to like it

00:22:46.500 he's out seeing

00:22:47.400 shoveling out someone's car

00:22:49.900 that's stuck on the side of the road in a snowstorm

00:22:52.400 he's the

00:22:54.020 he's Dougie, Premier Doug

00:22:56.460 and this just went

00:22:58.660 so

00:23:00.100 this cut against his brand

00:23:01.740 um but he backed down pretty fast i think he survives this

00:23:07.180 i would tend to agree i think that optically speaking it's also

00:23:12.660 a bit inconvenient for for doug ford in the sense that there was also the controversy over

00:23:18.820 donald trump and the qatari plane and so anything that looks trumpian is um

00:23:23.680 a bit of a disaster for any canadian politician at all levels of government right now

00:23:28.220 yeah yeah and i've always thought the comparisons of 0.99

00:23:32.880 of ford and trump uh were pretty stupid uh i i guess they have a passing uh i i i'm kind of 0.93

00:23:40.680 ripping off of um uh matt gurney at the line here you get a good piece on this uh yeah they have a 0.99

00:23:47.260 passing resemblance they're kind of bombastic guys with with blonde hair that's about where

00:23:53.220 most of the comparisons end except they both tend to also chicken out you know the meme uh

00:23:57.640 Taco Trump always chickens out.

00:23:59.000 It's become a thing in the States.

00:24:02.060 And Doug.

00:24:02.920 Doug chickens out.

00:24:04.160 He hits the least bit of controversy.

00:24:07.340 He backs off.

00:24:08.940 And I'm just conflicted on this one

00:24:10.780 because it makes sense for the premier

00:24:12.660 who governs a province

00:24:15.660 the size of half of Western Europe

00:24:17.880 that has obviously cut

00:24:20.520 much less transportation capacity

00:24:22.500 than virtually anywhere in Europe.

00:24:24.260 He should probably have a plane.

00:24:25.920 and then he screws it up so badly by getting this

00:24:28.220 luxury plane

00:24:30.140 and then

00:24:32.160 not really telling anyone about it

00:24:34.140 doing it surreptitiously

00:24:35.440 the man's just got no spine but he

00:24:40.160 has an incredible political radar 1.00

00:24:42.100 to realize when he's stepped in a file of shit 1.00

00:24:44.240 and getting himself out 1.00

00:24:45.720 alright

00:24:49.700 Nigel, let's talk about

00:24:54.140 our brave new foreign legion.

00:24:57.040 France,

00:24:59.040 you know, the famous

00:25:00.020 foreign legion.

00:25:01.820 It's a way to become a citizen. 1.00

00:25:04.200 It's got not the greatest

00:25:06.080 reputation as the most

00:25:07.340 compliant with the Geneva

00:25:10.060 conventions.

00:25:11.540 They tend to be a little rougher.

00:25:14.820 But every military

00:25:16.300 needs someone to do the dirty work, I guess.

00:25:18.120 And these guys do it. 1.00

00:25:19.960 Notice that the French don't let them set up 0.65

00:25:22.060 a barracks in France. 0.95

00:25:24.140 Yeah, they like to keep them out of France, the metropolitan France, as they would call it.

00:25:30.680 And one of the reasons is you don't like the idea of foreign troops, even under your own flag, foreign troops on your own soil. 0.92

00:25:40.400 The French like to have a revolution every few years. 0.59

00:25:42.980 And it's important that if the revolution, if the government is going to fire on its citizens, it must be Frenchmen firing at other Frenchmen. 0.91

00:25:51.460 That there's a sense of blood there and that they'll be a bit more hesitant to shoot.

00:25:56.460 Well, it's compliant with their national anthem, actually, that calls upon, you know, the peasants to rise up and let the blood flow.

00:26:03.020 And I don't know the literal translation, but it's pretty gory.

00:26:06.140 Anyway, you're onto something with that.

00:26:07.520 Look, so here's the thing that this is actually a very sad story, because if you're like me, you're aware of the Canadian military contribution over the last hundred years.

00:26:21.460 the kind of people who went out and did the job and well take it back to the boer war if you care

00:26:27.460 to but at any rate first world war second world war korea uh you know half a century of gallant

00:26:34.260 peacekeeping chills bosom was that peaceful and you look at these guys well let's be honest about

00:26:39.780 it they were people like us all white guys and uh that's not what the present government has

00:26:48.020 been trying to promote in the armed services or anywhere else for that matter since Mr. Trudeau

00:26:54.340 came to office in 2015. It had to be about women. It had to be about minorities. It had to be about 0.99

00:27:02.500 men who would be glad to find a tampon in the washroom. You know, not the warrior culture. It's 0.82

00:27:08.820 a very, very different attitude. You see in Pete Hegseth down in the United States, the Secretary

00:27:15.140 of war not everybody likes pete excess but boy oh boy they put a military together that can do

00:27:20.820 what's being done out there in the iran and if somebody gets shot down they can go in and get

00:27:24.820 them now not to get too far off point here they cannot find people who want to serve in the

00:27:34.340 canadian armed forces insufficient numbers to fill the ranks they want 70 000 people they got about

00:27:42.340 sixty thousand if they really were serious about it they would send the recruiting sergeants down

00:27:47.780 to new brunswick which is where the you know the basic uh warrior culture exists and they say come

00:27:54.660 on boys for you we'll do the old deal and you'll receive honor you know not much wages but we'll

00:28:01.540 give you the prestige of being in the canadian armed forces and you won't have to take orders

00:28:06.100 from a woman and you won't have to take orders from somebody you don't like you know let's we're

00:28:11.140 going to rebuild the the army we had in 1945 and you're going to be part of it then they'd have

00:28:17.540 their numbers now that's not what they want to do so where shall we look next well according to dr

00:28:26.580 grok the they are looking in some of the right places so places like great britain the netherlands

00:28:34.900 u.s five eyes partners i've got a jump on this so when you're if you're picturing a foreign legion 0.79

00:28:41.700 that looks foreign that that may be an overstretch a bunch of kiwis isn't what i had in mind well

00:28:49.300 you don't knock the kiwis mate no i know i'm saying that's not what i imagine as a foreign 0.92

00:28:53.860 legion yeah well that's uh that just seems like getting the band back together for the empire

00:28:59.780 well that would probably work very well if that's but they're talking about recruiting immigrants

00:29:05.140 who already become permanent residents so they've gone through one layer of selection rather than

00:29:10.500 directly importing large numbers of foreign nationals from you know ukraine or brazil or 0.96

00:29:17.460 somewhere and therefore like the sort of the nightmare fantasy where you get the somali

00:29:25.540 regiment of ottawa sent out to suffield just in case alberta gets restless probably not that likely

00:29:35.300 well so far so far so far let's see how many signs um take the king's shilling yeah uh so far uh but

00:29:45.540 they've they you know they have said that this is they're making this a path to citizenship

00:29:49.940 uh there's only so many kiwis and australians and brits and yanks willing to do it uh

00:29:57.300 it a path for citizenship most of the people coming in who wants it

00:30:01.460 okay you're a weird you're a weird case i can't really you mess with all sorts of my arguments by

00:30:06.180 sitting there but um you know but for the most part i i do think that this inevitably ends in

00:30:12.580 the, you know, Her Majesty's Somalian regiment in, you know, in Ottawa, and His Majesty's

00:30:20.520 Punjab regiment in Calgary.

00:30:24.720 That's probably where this does inevitably end, though.

00:30:27.960 Well, I got to tell you a story about one of my reporters back in the day.

00:30:32.080 He came from an immigrant family, and he was so grateful for Canada taking his family in

00:30:40.060 that he joined the military, became a reservist, became a tank commander,

00:30:45.300 served in Bosnia, and, you know, has gone on to a highly respectful career,

00:30:52.600 you know, and he was an immigrant who wanted to give something back.

00:30:58.420 That may be a case in some of these new recruits.

00:31:01.900 It may be a case of, you know, somebody just looking for a job.

00:31:07.860 But, you know, Nigel's right.

00:31:08.980 We're going to get back to making the Canadian Armed Forces a warrior culture. 0.99

00:31:14.500 And I'm sorry, but having a female in command of the military does not make it a warrior culture. 0.99

00:31:23.700 Female in command of the Air Force, too, by the way. 0.99

00:31:25.660 Well, at the very least, not this woman. 0.99

00:31:28.980 Exactly. 0.98

00:31:29.680 This woman.

00:31:30.460 Yeah, I don't mean to take it as a slight against all women.

00:31:32.760 Yeah.

00:31:33.840 She's a DEI.

00:31:35.020 Yes, exactly. 1.00

00:31:35.980 We need to get the tampons out of the bathroom. 1.00

00:31:39.340 Well, out of the men's room. 1.00

00:31:40.300 Out of the men's room, at least.

00:31:42.840 Yeah, and it wasn't that long ago that Canada had a respected army worldwide.

00:31:50.340 And we had one of the largest navies worldwide.

00:31:53.080 It's been pretty long.

00:31:54.560 It could be in the Navy.

00:31:55.540 It's been a long.

00:31:55.860 Respected army.

00:31:57.600 Our boys did a great job in Afghanistan.

00:32:00.740 Yeah.

00:32:00.960 No question about it.

00:32:01.720 It was a small force, but it was an effective force.

00:32:04.940 But it was small, but at least we had something operational.

00:32:07.840 We could put a regiment in the field.

00:32:10.160 We couldn't even put a single regiment in the field now.

00:32:15.220 Alex, my concern is, I'm sure a lot of people, they would see it as a way of giving back.

00:32:23.380 This is the country that's taken me.

00:32:25.280 I want to contribute to it.

00:32:27.140 That is a very noble sentiment.

00:32:30.340 That's fine. 0.87

00:32:31.480 But the French do it with a foreign legion.

00:32:34.260 And it's generally not stationed on French soil for very good reason. 0.66

00:32:39.960 When they're done their time in the foreign legion, they get to make up a citizen and then they can go into metropolitan France.

00:32:46.740 But there is the concern of loyalty.

00:32:50.560 This is, you know, it was not long ago that we had the Emergencies or formerly War Measures Act invoked against a peaceful Canadian protest in Ottawa and on border towns.

00:33:02.480 um the military itself was not used but brutal police action was they dragooned uh tow truck

00:33:10.740 drivers against their will to uh they essentially conscripted conscripted them into into into

00:33:16.480 service uh is it and that was all done at the urging of mark carney justin trudeau did it and

00:33:22.860 is ultimately responsible for it but mark carney was very clearly on the record in support of it

00:33:28.080 which has now been found repeatedly to be unconstitutional and abuse of power.

00:33:33.700 It's not inconceivable that there could be some other kind of emergency, real or perceived.

00:33:40.660 You know, Quebec is very possibly headed towards an independence referendum.

00:33:43.860 Alberta's headed very likely towards an independence referendum.

00:33:47.760 I can conceive of a situation where Ottawa declares it an emergency.

00:33:52.060 And I would, in the case of an emergency, I would want the soldiers that we have armed and trained to share something in common with me, that we have grown up in a similar country, that we have similar values, that we have a sense of kinship, brotherhood, that we are a part of a similar people.

00:34:15.060 uh, people, um, because if we've armed them and we've trained them and they're being set as an

00:34:21.500 adversary against us, it seems to me that they're a lot more likely to fire a whiff of grape shot

00:34:27.420 into the crowd if they have very little in common with the people they're pointing the guns at.

00:34:33.360 I don't know if I would necessarily agree with that. I think that Dave's anecdote of the first

00:34:39.240 generation immigrant coming to Canada and appreciating our freedoms, maybe more than some

00:34:43.680 of, you know, Canadians who are third or fourth generation immigrants, I think that that's fairly

00:34:48.880 accurate. I think a lot of people who have been in Canada for many, many, many generations maybe

00:34:53.440 take for granted the freedoms that they have. It's that old saying, you don't know what you have

00:34:57.280 until it's gone. That resonates with me. I'm a first generation immigrant myself, and I would be

00:35:03.960 the last person to shoot into a group of people because my family instilled the importance of

00:35:08.980 freedom and democracy and personal rights and the right to protest and so on and so forth.

00:35:13.680 because they didn't have it no doubt and i you know it's not lost on me that yeah i think the

00:35:19.940 people most uh compliant the most deferential to authority the the least vigorous in defense

00:35:26.300 of their own freedoms tend to be uh heritage canadians people who are are you know descendants

00:35:32.360 of old settlers they take they often very much they often i think disproportionately take it

00:35:37.620 for granted um uh and yeah a lot of people who do sign up for this kind of thing they're going to

00:35:42.500 want to be a part of it but they're they're not yet they're not yet even citizens they're not even

00:35:50.620 paper one of us yet in this case and i i i'm very worried about arming that kind of person and

00:35:58.540 giving them an authority over everyone else well you know derek i don't think you can 100 percent

00:36:02.640 generalize about that sort of person well i'm not 100 generalizing about anyone i'm generalizing in

00:36:07.940 the broad sense here's what to to alex's point um alex as we're sort of introducing you to the

00:36:14.260 world here tonight um sultan sounds like not from around here where actually was your family from

00:36:20.640 i think the mud there they were from hungary they came in 1956 okay well look so here's the thing

00:36:26.720 that we discovered during the covet crisis is that people who came from hungary from czechoslovakia 0.86

00:36:37.380 from Poland, that whole Eastern Europe cluster that had grown up under communism and had

00:36:47.080 learned how to navigate through the system.

00:36:50.880 You never give an opinion.

00:36:52.700 You never speak to the wrong people. 0.76

00:36:56.120 You keep your mouth shut.

00:36:58.000 You don't talk about what, like all of the marks of oppression, they were among the first

00:37:05.020 to communicate to me we don't like what's going on here and so i actually when when i offered the 0.91

00:37:14.380 opinion that we had less chance of the what do i what was it i said the first somali dragoons or

00:37:21.880 something coming out here and shooting up alberta i actually was saying that's less likely to happen

00:37:26.560 But the people who have come from a country where they sort of share a bit of a culture with us, but have a better experience of going through communism or some system of government that has taught them how great it is to be here, where you can say what you want, at least for a year or two yet, they may well be on our side.

00:37:50.100 But not everybody comes from that background.

00:37:53.120 And if you've got people, I probably better not go through and name the countries, but you don't have to be a genius to think of the way.

00:38:00.360 You already named Somalia.

00:38:01.600 Well, the question isn't the government doing it.

00:38:04.240 It's whether or not the government can do it right.

00:38:05.880 And that's the big problem.

00:38:07.200 Permanent residents have been serving for quite a while already, actually.

00:38:10.140 The issue right now is the volume.

00:38:11.700 20% of the latest recruits were permanent residents rather than citizens.

00:38:16.220 Now, I don't like to envision a Somali unit or a Palestinian unit or even an Irish unit, for that matter. 0.90

00:38:23.200 If you're bringing 20% in, I would like to see it spread around then and not in... 0.73

00:38:28.300 I don't think they're actually going to do dedicated units.

00:38:29.800 I understand. I don't put it beyond our woke lunatics, though, to say, you know, for the sake of cultural, we should have the Islamic unit over here.

00:38:36.580 Well, we used to have... I guess we had Highlander units back in the day. So instead of Kilsia turbans... 0.96

00:38:41.320 it's like immigration is good. Mass uncontrolled immigration is a problem. And this could be a 0.95

00:38:48.540 good thing if they do it correctly. That's a big F for the government in a military that is prone

00:38:53.720 to incompetence and woke issues. So I just, I'm not wholly opposed to the concept of permanent

00:39:00.720 residence, especially it's not a, they've gone through some steps already. They're not fresh

00:39:04.660 in as refugees or something, and then given a firearm and put out there. But boy, just, 1.00

00:39:10.780 just don't let it overwhelm and make sure that you're maintaining that culture again and spreading

00:39:14.800 it around instead of having actually uh cultural clusters that that gets a little more frightening

00:39:20.300 could i add another could i add another point to this so i canada's military history is epic

00:39:26.980 like back in time and even not even that far back in time if you go back to afghanistan

00:39:33.020 that fun fact i don't believe canada lost a single battle or skirmish in afghanistan and

00:39:37.540 many Taliban leaders wrote that the Canadians were the one group that they were more fearful of than

00:39:41.780 any other. So this point that I'm making is not to discount Canada's military history, but I think

00:39:48.020 that the need for Canadian hard power military has always been a bit overstated. I mean, we're

00:39:53.280 quite blessed in the sense that we already have an amazing defense from two oceans and our only

00:39:58.560 major neighbor, the United States, is generally quite friendly to us. I think that maybe we could

00:40:03.900 reframe this discussion in the sense that all of these foreign recruits who are interested in

00:40:08.660 joining Canada's military offer an incredible opportunity in terms of soft power. If you look

00:40:13.480 at the major threats in the world right now, China and India are becoming major threats, and the world 0.99

00:40:18.380 is looking for intelligence people who speak those languages. Canada has an overabundance of them now. 0.91

00:40:24.320 I agree with you, Derek, as well, that I don't necessarily trust this government to vet those

00:40:29.980 people properly. But that's going to be a problem regardless of who you have working in your

00:40:34.300 intelligence service. And so I think that Canada has a unique opportunity right now with the amount

00:40:38.660 of immigrants that we have to kind of spin gold out of hay here and maybe become a world leader 0.99

00:40:43.480 in soft power. You may well be right. Although I would say there's another side of the coin, 1.00

00:40:49.260 and it's going to be super politically incorrect to say, but say China and India, because those

00:40:54.280 are the two examples you mentioned, they would also see the diaspora community here as an

00:40:59.460 intelligence opportunity so yeah that's i'm not casting aspersions on anyone who's here but they

00:41:06.240 will be seen as another the other uh you know it's a double-edged sword here uh they would be

00:41:12.140 seen as an opportunity from from those players um well i mean if they're paying them right they're 0.96

00:41:17.600 not going to bite the hand that feeds them so if we feed them instead of the chinese or the indians

00:41:21.280 feeding them then then they're ours now you know canadians care too much about money uh people from

00:41:26.540 other cultures often prize other things and to their credit they prize things that are more 0.67

00:41:33.260 important than than money okay uh let's go we'll go to go to our parting shots start with uh nigel

00:41:41.820 yes well you would mention uh stories that didn't get a lot of attention we at least put the story

00:41:47.580 in about canada's spaceports are now a national priority billions will be spent now i actually

00:41:55.980 do think that canada should have a robust space program should be able to launch its own satellites

00:42:04.300 and not go to somebody else with cash uh it's just that rather as we're not sure that

00:42:10.860 this government knows how to get military recruitment right i'm not sure that they have

00:42:16.940 that i would want to travel on anything contracted by this government

00:42:21.260 we have one we have about three dozen satellites in space they've all been launched by the x they

00:42:27.100 take them up five at a time in one of musk's uh rockets and we're going to do better than that

00:42:36.140 you know from scratch we have one rocket that's been in production for 50 years it's the black

00:42:40.860 brand apparently is a hell of a good rocket if all you want to do is shoot some instruments

00:42:47.980 up about 200 000 feet and let them float down and take measurements things utterly reliable

00:42:54.460 but you can launch it out of your backyard so i i have a feeling that this is another pipeline

00:43:01.180 proposal in the making we're supposed to think oh that's great vote for it and give mr carney

00:43:07.100 the credit i'm not we're going to get the gravy rocket out of this doug ford is going to get a

00:43:11.660 spaceship. It's not rocket science, Nigel. Apparently not. Corey should have mentioned it.

00:43:16.780 Just back into that foreign interference in diaspora populations. Imagine being a Chinese, 1.00

00:43:23.180 immigrant of Chinese origin. And then, you know, we know they have been strong arming people here

00:43:28.140 with their Chinese police stations on Canadian soil and things like that. And then find out our

00:43:32.780 RCMP is in partnership and some secretive partnership as the usual RCMP won't tell us

00:43:37.660 what the details are about it so even if you're getting pressured from the chinese government

00:43:42.140 whilst in canada who on earth do you call because the rcmp is already proudly wearing their chinese

00:43:47.020 star on their arms and won't tell you what the partnership is welcome to canada now dave uh

00:43:53.580 yesterday would have marked the 100th birthday of the late great queen elizabeth ii uh celebrations

00:44:00.300 held throughout england including uh at buckingham palace where the royal family met people who were

00:44:06.380 also turning 100 including war veterans and whatnot so it was a day of reflection and how

00:44:12.860 we missed that grand old lady you you almost gave me a heart attack for a second because i i was my

00:44:18.300 dates weren't exact and i thought you were going memorializing another uh mid-april birthday oh no

00:44:28.860 oh this this episode is why would that be top of mind for you derek

00:44:33.760 Oh, no, that's when you smoke weed.

00:44:37.660 All right, Alex, you've never had one before.

00:44:40.960 This is your first parting shot.

00:44:42.860 Yeah, William Major.

00:44:44.100 This is a really weird court case going on in the Vancouver, B.C. Supreme Court.

00:44:48.680 Depending on who you ask, he's either a communist spy who turncoded on Canada or he's a great

00:44:54.480 patriot who is a whistleblower now being punished by his own government.

00:44:57.920 Still not exactly sure.

00:44:58.940 I only sat through one day of court proceedings.

00:45:01.160 And to be honest with you, I think I left with less understanding of what was going on than when I arrived.

00:45:07.180 All right.

00:45:09.860 I want to give special attention to my favorite dude, Mr. Jessica Yaniv.

00:45:16.280 I mentioned something about this man on last week's pipeline.

00:45:22.660 Within like an hour of putting the clip online, we got our six human rights complaint.

00:45:30.000 He's watching, Derek.

00:45:31.100 He's watching.

00:45:31.940 Derek just doesn't give up.

00:45:33.280 I don't know who's watching right now.

00:45:35.100 I know my dad does.

00:45:36.300 Hi, Dad.

00:45:37.840 But I don't know who else really watches.

00:45:40.360 I know we've got some regulars.

00:45:41.500 They're mostly here for Corey.

00:45:43.000 Old ladies love Corey.

00:45:45.160 But I do know that my brother in arms, one of my favorite dudes, Mr. Jessica Yaniv, is watching.

00:45:53.620 So just stop sending me the human rights complaints directly.

00:45:56.940 We already told you.

00:45:57.620 send it to our lawyer. The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms is defending us on this

00:46:02.060 one. Our lawyer is Marty Moore. You skip the middleman. You're just sending it to me and we

00:46:08.020 all have a good laugh at your expense around the office. Just skip me, send it straight to our

00:46:12.520 lawyer so we can get up to number seven. Six human rights complaints. These are rookie numbers

00:46:18.020 in this racket. We're trying to pump these numbers up. Again, I look forward to this one

00:46:22.400 being replayed at my human rights trial

00:46:24.260 when it comes.

00:46:25.920 Alright. Corey, Dave,

00:46:28.540 Nigel, Alex, thank you.

00:46:30.720 And subbing in for John

00:46:32.320 today, we've got Josh

00:46:34.180 running broadcast. He hasn't entirely

00:46:36.480 screwed it up, I think.

00:46:37.980 So good for Josh.

00:46:40.840 You can go back to his job as

00:46:42.420 our food critic.

00:46:44.680 And thank all of you for joining us today.

00:46:47.020 Go to westernstandard.news,

00:46:48.860 click on subscribe. It's only $10

00:46:50.220 a month or $100 a year for

00:46:52.000 unlimited access to all Western Standard content. You'll get past the paywall and support the work

00:46:57.420 that we are doing here. Thank you very much, and God bless.

00:47:22.000 You

Western Standard - April 23, 2026

David Eby’s cluster muck, Doug Ford’s gravy plane and Canada’s new foreign legion

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