Western Standard - Edmonton Police's “Hate” Snitch Line

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome.

00:00:25.220 Today is August 5th, 2026.

00:00:27.940 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:32.100 I've got our usual crew here, Western Standard's senior news editor, Dave Naylor, senior Alberta columnist,

00:00:39.060 Corey Morgan, and former opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:43.800 Stop introducing his former opinion editor, host of The Hannaford Show.

00:00:47.180 No.

00:00:47.560 There we go.

00:00:49.140 We're going to be talking about the invasion of Spain.

00:00:54.140 We don't need to describe it.

00:00:55.460 you've all seen the video if you haven't been slipping under a rock you've seen the video uh 0.97

00:01:00.180 viral videos of 50 000 uh arab moroccans invading uh what's the city name called cuta cuta yeah c-e-u-t-e 0.87

00:01:11.940 yeah i'm just gonna say kuda yeah kuda um you've seen the invasion of this uh and it's we were 0.94

00:01:18.740 we're going to talk about the repercussions of this not necessarily the situation itself but the

00:01:24.420 repercussions for migration policy for national survival policy in uh in european countries in

00:01:31.700 north america uh and what impact that incident might have in canada we're going to talk about

00:01:39.700 uh danielle smith alberta premier danielle smith's position or evolving position on equalization

00:01:46.100 but also how that might tie into the broader uh issues of rumblings in the united conservative

00:01:53.540 party in alberta it's an unruly bunch at the calmest of times and we are in anything but a

00:01:59.360 calm time but first we're going to start with the edmonton police uh department's hate snitch line

00:02:07.880 uh a lot of people have heard about this but dave maybe just sum up uh what is the edmonton

00:02:13.640 police's hate snitch line well if uh somebody tells a joke that uh that offends you you call

00:02:19.440 the snitch line and turn them in it's actually a policy that's been going for two years now in

00:02:25.500 Edmonton just sort of gain social media fame on the weekend but yeah snitch line is exactly what

00:02:34.040 it is they're it's part of their hate crimes unit and I think I guess I assume they're talking about

00:02:43.920 people making offensive jokes racist jokes well either that or something like um you know send

00:02:50.560 them back or something i think they i think the actual specific offensive joke is they go after

00:02:55.840 but now they're looking to just the kind of comments that people make yeah and this is mean

00:03:01.200 yeah yeah uh this did not go well when the same thing was tried in england they arrested and

00:03:08.960 jailed you know tons of people for social media posts basically saying to send them back now

00:03:16.800 we've contacted edmonton police they haven't uh responded to questions on this but it's my

00:03:23.680 understanding i don't think they've arrested anybody yet so the snitch line whoever the

00:03:28.640 operator is is sitting there in a quiet room by themselves just laughing at the latest and best

00:03:35.040 in humor exactly i think it's i love that job just so i could like read tweets okay maybe some

00:03:41.360 beauties i'd just sit there i'd sit there oh that's a good one yeah we're not charging them

00:03:46.180 we're gonna repost it hey hey frank come see this one um i know in britain where this was

00:03:52.820 was tried uh there were so many people arrested in fact they actually had to clear out the jails

00:03:57.760 They did early release for murderers, rapists, thieves.

00:04:04.260 They let real criminals out so that they could put, you know, Margaret, who said, send them back on Twitter in jail.

00:04:11.720 Or, you know, Bob, who said, England for the English.

00:04:15.160 Things like that.

00:04:16.420 Or jokes.

00:04:18.800 I don't think it's as extreme as Britain, although it's very much on the way to where it got in the UK.

00:04:24.240 In the UK, people would be arrested, charged, arrested, and jailed for this.

00:04:31.400 I think this is the idea, because these are not yet criminal code offenses.

00:04:36.780 The idea would be that the Edmonton police would go and have a stern talking to you,

00:04:40.380 maybe imply that we might do something else.

00:04:43.520 The C9, some of that might be very quickly.

00:04:46.000 You could start to see some of that already in C9.

00:04:47.660 Something that's different this time is how aggressively they're soliciting the complaints, though.

00:04:51.240 They've wrapped city buses with this initiative of their sin, you know,

00:04:56.220 get on there, call us out.

00:04:57.340 They're not waiting until somebody has been terribly offended.

00:04:59.060 They're asking, did somebody say something?

00:05:00.780 Yeah, the government's jumped in.

00:05:03.120 Daniel Smith tweeted that she'll defend free speech.

00:05:07.440 And Mike Ellis was pretty strong on that too.

00:05:10.920 Mike Ellis, the security minister, put out a statement.

00:05:14.100 He was very strong on it, freedom.

00:05:15.960 He's going to write to all the justices and whatnot and so on.

00:05:21.980 Well, I think, Dave, you know, when the minister and the premier step in,

00:05:25.720 the political direction is very strong, and this will put a stop to it

00:05:30.200 as long as the minister and the premier are there to quarterback it.

00:05:36.080 I mean, the police respond to what the politicians tell them to.

00:05:39.460 If they're upset about drunk driving, suddenly there are check stops everywhere.

00:05:43.600 If they're worried about homeless people causing a disturbance on the Calvary Sea Train,

00:05:49.940 all of a sudden you've got a police cruiser on every block of the downtown core.

00:05:55.880 Like magic, the problem just becomes much more manageable.

00:05:59.680 So I think now that they've had a sharp flee in the ear from the Premier and from Minister Ellis,

00:06:07.020 they'll say, all right, just play it down, just go for the real stuff.

00:06:10.860 You know, and I don't, Mike, I'd be very interested to hear from our listeners in Edmonton if this carries, if people are still getting called by the police for saying something that shouldn't be an offense.

00:06:21.540 One of the best parts of this, I mean, I don't know, maybe we can even insert a little clip of it, but there was the hate crimes unit, the Edmonton police. 0.62

00:06:30.280 It was these two loser cops. 0.99

00:06:32.380 It was good cops, but these guys were losers. 1.00

00:06:34.760 There was just loser energy on them. 0.98

00:06:36.900 They're like, well, we're here to protect the diversity of the community. 0.87

00:06:40.860 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they just

00:06:42.860 sit there reading mean tweets all day,

00:06:44.880 I guess. Are there real hate incidents?

00:06:46.940 Yeah. Although it doesn't seem to be

00:06:48.840 right across Canada, our police don't

00:06:50.920 actually do a ton about genuine

00:06:52.800 hate incidents. You know, someone

00:06:54.520 firebombs a

00:06:56.000 Jewish bakery or something? 1.00

00:06:58.720 A Jewish bakery, a synagogue.

00:07:01.040 I don't know, hundreds of churches

00:07:02.980 perhaps.

00:07:04.580 Not much seems to really take place there.

00:07:07.020 So instead they spend their time

00:07:08.220 reading mean tweets. And some of them probably

00:07:10.720 We are genuinely mean, but guess what?

00:07:12.760 Unless you're calling for someone to be physically hurt or property to be physically destroyed,

00:07:18.560 that's just like your opinion, man, you know?

00:07:23.160 Because let's talk about the political direction of this.

00:07:25.840 We had Premier Smith and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis telling the police,

00:07:30.660 this was not just reallocation of focus on one crime over another.

00:07:34.020 This was focus on crime over these things that are not crimes.

00:07:37.580 these things that are our god-given right to say even if it hurts someone's feelings and

00:07:42.020 even if they're genuinely not nice sometimes it maybe it is more than a joke so where did

00:07:46.280 the direction come from you know like the way the bps is structured somebody's at the top

00:07:50.700 is it from that desk or is it from the police commission and then and then you well you look

00:07:56.040 at the mayor and council because that is a municipal force and yeah and mayor knack is

00:08:00.020 quite progressive to be polite uh as are a number of members of their council similar to

00:08:05.420 Calgary that way, it seems.

00:08:06.740 They really like to vote left on council

00:08:09.520 and at least some of the, I'm guessing

00:08:11.620 the Calgary Police Commission, though,

00:08:13.440 they're going to be different people serving from all different

00:08:15.340 roles that would give some degree

00:08:17.460 of direction, but where

00:08:19.360 specifically this came from...

00:08:20.760 It would have to be approved by the chief.

00:08:23.420 I want to talk about the NDPs on

00:08:25.520 this. So, look, as someone who served

00:08:27.520 in the opposition, the

00:08:29.460 gut instinct of the opposition is to

00:08:31.600 oppose whatever the government's doing.

00:08:33.440 And then you have, so you had David Shepard, he's the NDP MLA Calgary, Edmonton Centre, I think.

00:08:41.400 And he came out, released a video, and he went after Smith and Ellis for telling them to stop going after these non-crime, non-criminal hate incidents is I think how they're calling it.

00:08:56.700 And he went after that essentially defending the Edmonton police's snitch line and spending the resources on this.

00:09:03.440 Um, I know the instinct in politics is to oppose the other side, but sometimes you should just 0.85

00:09:10.920 shut the F up. 0.92

00:09:12.100 That's not always a hell to die on. 0.97

00:09:13.520 I tried to respond to Mr. Shepard's post on X, but it turns out he has me blocked, which

00:09:18.120 it's fine.

00:09:19.040 I must've said something that offended him for, you see, that's fine.

00:09:22.340 Hit the block button, get over it.

00:09:24.360 I don't think they were allowed to do that.

00:09:26.200 Public officials.

00:09:27.340 Ezra did that thing and pushed through.

00:09:29.000 I'm not going to, I don't agree with him on that one.

00:09:31.320 I do think, actually, in my view, X isn't a right, and if a politician wants to block him, we're going down a rabbit hole now, but I was just saying the irony of him, well, utilizing the tools to be able to stop hearing adverse speech, why doesn't he counsel people?

00:09:44.560 Well, if you see hateful stuff, block them.

00:09:47.320 Or mute them, or at least mute them.

00:09:48.880 Yes, just you don't have to expose yourself.

00:09:50.300 There's lots of stuff I don't like, you know, and I hit mute, sometimes block, but normally just mute them.

00:09:55.980 Although I mostly retweet insults against myself, and the more vile, the better.

00:10:01.320 Um, but this is, uh, you know, we, I think we, at least we saw a good, strong reaction

00:10:06.460 from the Alberta government here.

00:10:08.180 Um, but we have this in cities right across Canada.

00:10:10.720 This is, it's not just Edmonton. 1.00

00:10:12.100 This is just, this became, uh, cause celebrity now because the Edmonton, uh, the, some idiot 1.00

00:10:19.900 running a social media cat for the Edmonton police put out a really dumb tweet. 0.98

00:10:23.780 It was like, uh, uh, well, I forget what he was saying, but let's, let's put that tweet 0.84

00:10:27.680 up from the Edmonton police.

00:10:28.740 um so they just kind of drew attention to it themselves thinking this is still 2022 and we're

00:10:37.320 going to arrest you for not using the right pronouns or something people have moved past

00:10:42.040 that the pendulum has swung the other way um you know racist and sexist jokes are back in style

00:10:50.200 everyone loves them again uh no one stopped liking them but you're allowed to do them again

00:10:54.960 sorry guys um but i i don't know uh well i'll tell you what the other thing that we're forgetting

00:11:02.320 here is we've also got a human rights commission if you think it's that bad file a complaint well

00:11:07.680 it shouldn't exist well i agree with you there but it does exist and that's the that's the avenue

00:11:12.560 if you think you've been offended question is it so i do think danielle smith is genuine in

00:11:19.120 her defense belief around free speech here yeah but if she has the courage of her convictions 1.00

00:11:23.600 She needs to scrap the Human Rights Commission at an absolute minimum, gut, a lot of the powers it has policing, you know, hurt feelings, whatever. 0.96

00:11:33.580 Let's remember the Western Standard has got a God knows how many human rights complaints before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal right now. 0.99

00:11:42.460 But effectively, the exact same human rights, you know, put that in air quotes, human rights legislation exists in Alberta as in B.C.

00:11:50.420 They're virtually identical. And so, you know, the Jessica Yanibs of the world could file these complaints against us with the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal and Commission for, you know, not agreeing that his wing counts as a female part.

00:12:09.140 so so you know you know uh the premier now needs to step up we need to see changes to alberta's 1.00

00:12:16.080 laws because we've still got terribly censorious uh laws on our own books well at least she's

00:12:21.980 vocal in the right way to start with yes didn't didn't take that i know she's got so many errands

00:12:27.100 in the fire now diving into reforming those laws right to see but at least as we said give credit

00:12:31.740 we're due her and ellis gave all the right answers shy of vowing to change the laws i mean saying

00:12:36.740 that this isn't what they support

00:12:38.340 in anything they're going to do.

00:12:39.300 Well, in this case,

00:12:39.840 it's the Edmonton police

00:12:40.900 trying to enforce

00:12:43.300 things that are not laws.

00:12:45.460 It's just something they decided

00:12:46.600 is mean.

00:12:48.340 I do love

00:12:49.420 the kind of propaganda

00:12:50.640 they've put out on it.

00:12:51.560 They've got, like,

00:12:52.080 examples of these hateful tweets

00:12:53.500 I'm reading them.

00:12:54.140 I'm like,

00:12:54.780 yep, yep, yep, okay.

00:12:57.220 That's good.

00:12:57.900 That's good.

00:12:58.500 They blurred your name on them.

00:12:59.820 That was good.

00:13:00.520 Yeah.

00:13:01.340 They were quoting me and Corey.

00:13:06.740 I was like, hey, that's copyright infringement.

00:13:09.120 I wrote that.

00:13:10.020 I want credit for that if you're going to put it up.

00:13:11.800 If you're going to use my hateful tweets, at least give me credit.

00:13:16.880 Okay.

00:13:19.180 So speaking of the Premier here, last week, Premier Daniel Smith, Prime Minister Mark Carney were in Red Deer doing a housing announcement.

00:13:32.240 our Edmonton reporter

00:13:35.100 Will Vassar was down at Red Deer

00:13:36.960 following them

00:13:37.560 got some questions in with them

00:13:40.580 a lot of interesting things

00:13:41.760 but one was the Premier's

00:13:44.580 response was interesting

00:13:45.840 he asked about

00:13:47.540 equalization with the Prime Minister

00:13:50.600 right there so it was a nice time

00:13:52.640 and her response

00:13:54.320 was interesting, she talked about

00:13:56.100 NLA were pressing for equalization reform

00:13:58.520 and she more or less said like capping

00:14:00.560 things, you know, like Ontario shouldn't be getting money. Some of it may be redistributed.

00:14:04.960 But the long or the short of it, I don't want to be unjust to her, but the long or the short of it

00:14:09.620 was she was talking about tinkering with the system to reform it, to make it less ridiculous

00:14:14.260 than it currently is. And what she talked about would be an improvement. The issue, Corey, was

00:14:19.340 that I thought the government of Alberta had a very clear position on equalization. It was the

00:14:24.280 position that Albertans voted 60 odd percent for in 2021 in a referendum, which was to

00:14:31.040 abolish equalization, remove it from the Constitution. And what she was proposing there

00:14:39.360 sounded like, you know, at best half a loaf of what we get to after negotiations and not the

00:14:46.120 starting negotiation point of the people of Alberta. Yeah, well, it was a great exposure

00:14:49.940 how politics works because I bet you if it was a conference that was just provincial ministers 0.97

00:14:54.600 around and Smith standing there she might have brought up that referenda and the results and 1.00

00:14:59.320 outcomes but she had the prime minister standing behind her who you know separate discussion but

00:15:03.660 the premier's been inexplicably very beholden to this prime minister and doesn't seem to want to

00:15:08.920 step on his toes because it was a excellently placed an awkward question that neither of them

00:15:12.900 wanted to deal with while her name on our part because Kearney seemed kind of awkward in the

00:15:17.160 background too like boy i don't want to dig into this while i'm in alberta but we asked about it

00:15:20.840 today in toronto yes got him again uh but you know i gave credit to premier smith for speaking

00:15:28.640 out so strongly when it came to the free speech and uh i got to give an f when it came to just

00:15:33.060 going mealy mouth and talking in circles because premier smith is as aware as you said of the

00:15:37.220 mandate they i mean it's not just a policy a mandate she's claiming that she's supporting

00:15:41.980 mandates through referendum, well, 62% of Albertans only a few years ago made it very

00:15:47.780 clear we want it gone. I understand that doesn't change anything, you know, in reality, but for

00:15:54.260 her answer, what she could say by, she could even have started with that and say, we have this

00:16:00.220 mandate. I understand we would have to open the constitution to change it. In the meantime, as we

00:16:05.020 work towards that, here's some of the positive tweaks and things we could do to make it less

00:16:08.780 odious in the process, but she sidestepped the entire agenda and referenda of trying to get rid 1.00

00:16:14.980 of equalization and infuriated her base. That's the other thing. As Derek mentioned, our Ontario 1.00

00:16:19.820 reporter, Jeff Knight, asked him today in Toronto and he basically said, no, it's not going to change

00:16:26.340 and we're going to have a review in 2029. So, and I knew you brought up the problem, Corey,

00:16:32.640 needs the constitution to reopen. It's not going to happen, guys. The equalization will not change

00:16:38.700 because they have not,

00:16:41.300 we'll vote against it.

00:16:42.300 Why wouldn't they?

00:16:43.820 Just about the way this works.

00:16:45.440 The principle of equalization

00:16:47.060 is in the Constitution.

00:16:48.720 And it could really mean anything.

00:16:51.260 You could abolish the equalization

00:16:52.800 payments themselves and say

00:16:54.800 the fact that Ottawa collects money

00:16:56.360 from everyone and redistributes it

00:16:57.760 on a per capita basis,

00:16:59.100 but some provinces pay more into it,

00:17:00.420 like Alberta,

00:17:01.200 that counts as equalization.

00:17:02.500 So the part that's in the Constitution

00:17:04.000 really is just that there shall be

00:17:05.960 some kind of equalization

00:17:07.200 between the provinces.

00:17:07.860 It's extremely general.

00:17:10.000 The actual formula is set in legislation.

00:17:13.020 Normally, it's snuck into a budget bill every few years.

00:17:16.640 That's legislative.

00:17:18.040 And the provinces have no say over it.

00:17:20.680 Alberta that pays into it has no say, at least legally speaking.

00:17:24.820 And Quebec, which takes out of it, legally speaking, has no say.

00:17:28.880 It's decided purely by Ottawa.

00:17:30.880 This is not negotiated around the table.

00:17:34.020 But Dave said, though, yeah.

00:17:35.780 Yeah, I mean, the mandate is based on us voting to get rid of the whole thing.

00:17:40.480 It would be in court for the rest of our lives.

00:17:42.820 It would be possible, we know in Canada's constitutional setup. 0.67

00:17:46.200 Yeah, but you actually don't need to change the constitution to get rid of equalization.

00:17:49.420 We could knock it down to zero in legislative. 0.99

00:17:52.120 You could do it legislatively. 0.94

00:17:54.640 But what was interesting to me, Dave, sorry, Nigel, was, you know, she's a policy wonk.

00:18:01.340 She thinks these through.

00:18:02.360 The policy that she talked about, which was tweaking, and it'd be a significant improvement, but really wouldn't help us all that much.

00:18:11.080 But it'd be an improvement. At least it'd be a less terrible program.

00:18:14.580 But what she talked about was, you know, theoretically what we might get to at the end of a long round of bargaining where the prime minister sat down with all the premiers and they haggled back and forth.

00:18:25.640 And maybe that is what comes out the other end.

00:18:28.500 That's the sausage that comes through the machine.

00:18:31.020 But when you're trying to advocate for a position,

00:18:33.940 you don't want to seem unreasonable, but you have a starting position.

00:18:36.900 I want to buy this car.

00:18:38.420 I'm going to lowball you.

00:18:39.960 I'm going to offer $15,000.

00:18:41.940 You want $25,000.

00:18:43.040 If we're going to negotiate, we get to $20,000.

00:18:45.500 She started at $15,000.

00:18:47.720 She started at what maybe we would get to at the end of a protracted,

00:18:52.640 haggling process.

00:18:55.740 But I don't think there's a process at the moment.

00:18:57.980 Is there?

00:18:58.160 But the only process you have is raising a fuss.

00:19:01.560 And if you're going to raise a fuss, you've got to start with your opening position, which is get rid of it.

00:19:05.960 And I know some people in good faith, you know, policy experts.

00:19:10.060 I know Bill Buick, he was the head of policy at the Wild Rose when I was in the legislature.

00:19:15.880 And he responded to something I had said about it, saying, hey, you know that the vote to get rid of equalization was just to get it on the table and renegotiated.

00:19:22.720 I said, yes, but people didn't vote for this renegotiated, convoluted, tinkering position.

00:19:30.500 People voted to get rid of it, and that needs to be Alberta's opening position.

00:19:35.060 Why do you think the Premier kind of came out with the position she did rather than the mandate that was given in the referendum?

00:19:43.440 Well, I'll give you two reasons.

00:19:44.380 One is that politics, as you famously said, is the art of the possible.

00:19:48.160 In her judgment at this point, it is not possible.

00:19:51.740 Why is it not possible? Because they're never going to agree to it. The country is going broke. The only thing that keeps the country going is the revenues going out of Alberta. If there was ever a good time to negotiate equalization, this isn't it.

00:20:08.960 And she's realistic enough to know.

00:20:12.200 And the second reason is she's got a whole mess of, whether we like it or not,

00:20:16.960 tentative agreements with the prime minister to get a pipeline going,

00:20:21.000 get this wretched carbon capture going, which is an absolute farce.

00:20:25.300 But there it is.

00:20:27.580 You know, you could blow the whole thing up with one bad comment about equalization 1.00

00:20:34.600 and set all the work she's been doing for the last six months back.

00:20:39.740 Now, you know, I don't like it.

00:20:42.560 I don't like equalization.

00:20:44.260 I don't like the fact that the rest of the country continues

00:20:47.340 as the famous cartoon from 1909 to be feeding off the, you know,

00:20:53.820 the teens of the Western Canadian economy.

00:20:57.940 But there is, right now, I actually just don't think you can even get it started.

00:21:04.140 And that's probably what put Mr. Kenney off when he had his referendum fresh.

00:21:09.060 The ink was still wet.

00:21:10.720 60% want the end of equalization.

00:21:13.520 Well, what happened?

00:21:14.440 Nothing.

00:21:15.240 Why?

00:21:15.920 Couldn't be done.

00:21:17.640 There could be other reasons.

00:21:18.680 There's a number.

00:21:19.340 I think his political capital had been blown.

00:21:21.480 We were into COVID at that point.

00:21:23.320 His leadership was going down.

00:21:25.200 I think the big thing for him was he always had his eye on the prime minister chair.

00:21:28.820 He wanted to go to Ottawa.

00:21:29.720 and fighting too much about equalization

00:21:31.440 probably makes it hard to get votes in Quebec

00:21:33.640 and Atlantic and other pockets of Canada.

00:21:36.360 For Smith, I think the, you know,

00:21:40.640 Corey, you touched on this.

00:21:43.780 She seems to genuinely trust the word of Mark Carney.

00:21:49.940 And, you know, I'd have no personal relationship with the man.

00:21:53.380 So, you know, maybe she probably does know something I don't.

00:21:56.700 So I'm willing to grant that.

00:21:58.520 And she's trying to be diplomatic.

00:22:01.460 But the political problem she faces is that most Alberta conservatives don't want diplomacy. 0.99

00:22:08.120 They want war.

00:22:09.480 Some to the extent where they want independence.

00:22:12.940 Not everybody, but a large portion.

00:22:16.040 And so, you know, when people are voting for independence, they're probably going to be leery of playing nice diplomacy with the ultimate Laurentian globalist liberal, Mark Carney.

00:22:28.520 Um, but you know, maybe she's right.

00:22:32.020 Maybe she's right, Corey.

00:22:33.380 And, uh, she's just wheeling and dealing and this is what's best.

00:22:37.060 And we're not seeing it. 0.97

00:22:38.340 She's going to have to show some wins really soon. 0.99

00:22:40.220 Cause the base is crabby. 0.98

00:22:41.960 She's riding a hornet's nest. 1.00

00:22:43.160 And we know that we know the nature of conservatives.

00:22:45.200 We're among them where I'm one of the crabby voices picking at her from underneath when

00:22:49.860 she shows compromise with, with Carney.

00:22:52.220 And I do understand, I mean, you don't march right in and give them the finger.

00:22:55.380 The second you meet the prime minister, you have some degree, but.

00:22:58.520 I think a lot of her base expects an adversarial relationship.

00:23:03.400 Maybe you're going to compromise or try to come to agreements,

00:23:07.440 but you're coming from an understanding that this isn't a person working in your favor.

00:23:11.720 It's a person you're negotiating against.

00:23:14.280 So you don't count a billion dollars for housing from the feds a win?

00:23:19.020 No.

00:23:19.640 I see that as a giant intrusion in our local jurisdiction. 1.00

00:23:22.740 The feds should have nothing to do with housing.

00:23:24.580 Now I see we got a bunch of strings and then we have even more federal things that happened because the province has to submit applications for federal approval to get that money, which means Ottawa now controls our planning on infrastructure for municipalities.

00:23:38.000 So no, that's not something to be celebrated at all.

00:23:40.160 You don't count the West Coast Pipeline being sent to the major projects office?

00:23:45.100 National Pipelines, no, I don't see that as a good program.

00:23:47.780 And it's sent to the projects.

00:23:49.300 No, I don't.

00:23:50.540 So there's a giant step forward for getting that thing built.

00:23:53.980 If I believed it was going to get built.

00:23:55.700 And it's going to almost certainly have to be built by taxpayers.

00:23:58.860 It's a win if they are able to clear the deck of laws and regulations

00:24:03.560 that make it viable for the private sector to build it.

00:24:06.960 And that win might be coming.

00:24:08.220 There was an announcement recently saying, you know,

00:24:10.260 that they've now moved another inch forward on the process

00:24:13.680 to speeding it up and fast-tracking it.

00:24:16.160 But just as a, and that's where my ideal is blinding me a little bit

00:24:20.340 and making it difficult to declare a victory for them.

00:24:22.960 But I just, good Lord, this should have been a no-brainer.

00:24:25.840 Just get out of the way.

00:24:26.960 Don't buy it.

00:24:28.100 That's me.

00:24:28.780 So, Corey, generally speaking, I'm a sort of vote-a-straight-ticket on your opinions.

00:24:32.580 But, you know, you're a smart guy.

00:24:35.340 But in this particular instance…

00:24:36.880 But this time you're not smart.

00:24:39.020 This time, I can take issue with you.

00:24:41.600 You said just a moment ago that Albertans want an adversarial relationship with federal government.

00:24:48.080 Well, yeah, a lot of us do.

00:24:51.080 And there's a lot to be adversarial about.

00:24:52.960 They also expect a mature politician to be, not to be a provocateur, to actually try to get things done that need to get done.

00:25:06.680 I share your anxieties about whether this pipeline will ever get built and if it gets built, whether it'll be a good thing.

00:25:12.400 But that's, I think, what people who don't take much interest in politics expect out of their provincial premier, a mature individual trying to deal with the problems in a mature way.

00:25:26.280 If you go out there and, as Dave said, stick your finger up every time the guy comes across the border, well, you know.

00:25:33.480 And actually, that's what I said.

00:25:34.500 She shouldn't do that. 1.00

00:25:35.420 You can have an adversarial relationship, but it's probably not going to get you anywhere.

00:25:40.180 I guess part of it made me ever say it was a poor way for me to phrase it too, but just an understanding that I don't think there's mutual interest between those two leaders.

00:25:48.860 It's a matter of...

00:25:50.740 So I don't want to dwell too much, live too much in the past here, but I've mentioned this before and I cannot shake the image when I see Smith with Carney of comparing it with the image of Smith and Prentice.

00:26:07.020 and they're prentice and sman uh prentice and carney they're from a similar archetype you know

00:26:15.240 they uh pragmatic red tory businesses yeah and wise old men yeah and you know he was able to sell

00:26:25.000 her a bill of goods in the name of because remember until weeks before we're very familiar

00:26:32.300 The Wild Rose and PC were blood 1.00

00:26:34.380 enemies. Death to each

00:26:36.440 other. They hated each other more than the Eusebine, the NDP 0.74

00:26:38.360 ever did. Because, you know, it was

00:26:40.340 more personal.

00:26:42.320 And then, you know, so this adversarial

00:26:44.580 relationship was replaced with

00:26:46.120 let's all just work together and

00:26:48.340 be on the same team. Now, people

00:26:50.260 can learn from their mistakes.

00:26:52.380 People grow. That was

00:26:54.440 uh, oh

00:26:56.340 God, that was like a decade.

00:26:58.280 Yeah, 12 years ago now, maybe. Over a decade.

00:27:00.400 Jeez. So, I mean, there's a lot of water under the bridge, but I can't shake the worry, I shouldn't put it as, that I worry that she is being charmed and sold a bill of goods by a similar archetype of a man.

00:27:21.900 they're different guys but the archetype is similar and that you know he's gonna get the

00:27:28.320 better end of this deal and i i'm not sure that's uh the case but it's a real strong nagging

00:27:35.080 suspicion i've got so there's one difference between then and now and that is then she was

00:27:41.300 the leader and i'm not sure she had the people around her that she's got now she gets too close

00:27:49.100 uh it's almost exactly the same you know it's a different caucus but uh the the cast is not

00:27:56.140 they are different people and they're and her closest advisors probably have wondered about

00:28:02.060 the same thing as you just said and are very alert for that if they're not well god of us all but uh

00:28:08.380 that's i don't know i i i can see why you say that i kind of want i'm not accusing her

00:28:14.460 of that um and i i think she's probably grown and matured in that time as all of us would over that

00:28:22.000 kind of time but i just had the niggling worry still in the back of your mind but at the same

00:28:26.800 time she suffered as much as anybody out of that bum deal as she got her so into that was a very 0.92

00:28:33.040 hard lesson i think that's a part of where a lot of conservatives forgave her after enough years

00:28:38.580 and water into the bridge say well we can support you and trust you to get up there again

00:28:42.720 it sounds like you've learned from that

00:28:45.780 and you've certainly paid a penance

00:28:47.080 but then when you start to see a little of the pattern

00:28:49.800 re-emerging you can't help but worry a little

00:28:51.840 bit like boy

00:28:52.800 you're seeing what I'm seeing

00:28:54.340 I just hope

00:28:56.400 I really wanted to change course and I want to

00:28:59.760 keep supporting Smith as much as possible

00:29:01.360 I feel like maybe I'm just being

00:29:03.600 like a jealous boyfriend who got burned

00:29:05.660 once and I'm just now

00:29:07.320 overly paranoid

00:29:08.440 about anyone who looks like Jim Prentice

00:29:11.920 who comes along again just compare what alberta got from justin trudeau and compare what in one

00:29:19.580 year alberta got with mark kearney nothing so far missus well there's been nothing so far no but

00:29:25.640 we had active animosity from uh justin trudeau that yeah he hated him yeah we've got to close

00:29:32.340 the oilfields down that would he there's a definite change in tone and language i i agree

00:29:37.280 with that he does not genuinely hate alberto the way i think trudeau did but in terms of actual

00:29:43.200 wins sure the political climate has changed uh we don't have that kind of deep heavy fog over us

00:29:48.900 and we're not at open war but in terms of actual tangible wins there's not really been that much

00:29:56.460 so far that's actually been that's gotten over the line and done no other than we've agreed to

00:30:01.580 higher carbon tax yeah and you know i think the the pipeline going to the major project office

00:30:07.820 is a big step right and they're going to i think they're going to approve it no doubt

00:30:12.540 uh they've got people up till september 18th to comment on it the the thing about approval

00:30:18.780 apparently it still depends on indigenous uh well i thought if it was declared a project

00:30:23.820 of national interest well i thought the indigenous didn't matter no no no they still have to do that

00:30:30.060 it doesn't override the cons uh consultation require which is a separate thing but i mean if

00:30:35.020 the government has the will i mean it is a longer discussion but you know the bar the problem with

00:30:41.340 that is every judge they never say that they weren't consulted they say it's never enough

00:30:45.980 and there is no formula how much is enough when is it 10 meetings in this guy's living room a few

00:30:50.780 town halls with donuts i'm sure the hereditary chiefs are already planning little block yeah

00:30:56.300 so i mean that'll be kind of the sign of things so if carney is serious he's gonna have to take

00:31:01.980 a stance against those chronic opponents because some of them are never going to be on board but

00:31:07.500 he's been well again like i said not walking in the room giving the finger yet but he better be

00:31:11.340 ready for a fight if he's serious about this all right let's speak of the fights let's talk about

00:31:16.940 spain the invasion of spain um so a lot of people don't know because it's very small to see on the

00:31:24.220 map but there are two cities spanish cities on the north coast of africa uh bordering morocco uh

00:31:33.180 cuta is one of the i don't know the other one in spanish morocco it's just a little further

00:31:37.900 off to the west okay um these are entirely spanish cities uh they have been i don't want to get the

00:31:46.300 exact race wrong but many many hundreds of years i think like 600 or so yeah really kind of they

00:31:52.380 They date really from the period of the Reconquesta.

00:31:55.680 So for people following along at home who don't know what the Reconquesta was,

00:31:59.520 the Reconquesta was the Spanish and Portuguese reconquest of Iberia from the Muslim occupiers,

00:32:09.280 the Islamic occupiers who had been there, who had conquered it under the Moors

00:32:12.260 during the relatively early Islamic invasions that were stopped at the Battle of Tours.

00:32:18.580 I'll stop the history lesson largely there, but a reconquest

00:32:21.400 that was the reconquest of

00:32:23.060 Iberia, you know, Spain and Portugal

00:32:25.240 that ended

00:32:28.800 kind of at the beginning of the Spanish Golden Age

00:32:31.200 they 0.99

00:32:33.960 so that's what the term means, it's taking your country

00:32:37.320 back, and it's a term that's actually kind of applied

00:32:39.260 by a lot of the

00:32:40.220 remigration folks across 1.00

00:32:42.960 Europe, it's a reconquest, it's taking your country back 1.00

00:32:45.360 from a foreign occupation

00:32:47.600 uh spain has now been invaded anyone who saw these videos uh let's show some on the side here

00:32:55.740 everyone's already seen this stuff that there was you couldn't count a single woman or child

00:33:03.680 in there uh it was all uniformly military age men and if that is not an invasion i don't know what 0.56

00:33:14.400 an invasion is uh spain has got an insane government uh that is essentially refugees

00:33:23.720 welcome they're kind of advertising that they can do this there may have been some other

00:33:29.440 geopolitical factors involved uh that i i don't want to get into but uh the fact was that spain

00:33:35.860 was invaded uh they've claimed now that ah they've all gone home but i haven't seen any video of

00:33:43.640 these mass grind-ups. I've seen

00:33:45.620 video of them trying. They were jumping under the

00:33:47.680 trucks when they were trying to bring them back.

00:33:49.880 And we've seen where

00:33:51.560 they literally went in, they ransacked stores

00:33:53.540 in people's homes, and police are pushing them

00:33:55.600 out of homes, but they're just pushing them back onto the streets.

00:33:57.720 They're just getting them out of someone's home that they're squatting in.

00:34:01.040 And this

00:34:01.600 has now had huge repercussions

00:34:03.660 across Europe. I don't know,

00:34:05.620 Nigel, is this

00:34:07.420 finally the point where there's been

00:34:09.680 such a visual shock

00:34:11.260 of an invasion that cannot be

00:34:13.480 ignored that finally wakes europe from its slumber well you kind of hope so but it's been going on

00:34:20.520 for 10 years isn't it and uh arguably 360 but really bad you know really bad in the last 10

00:34:26.660 ever since angela merkel decided to open up the borders in germany and you know the trouble is

00:34:33.780 maybe it's not a trouble maybe it's a wonderful thing in our society that we are compassionate

00:34:37.860 we're empathetic we see people starving we see people you know just looking for a better a better

00:34:43.700 way in life is yeah sure come on in and then they come and then more come and so all of a sudden

00:34:48.660 you find that you're supporting as is the case in great britain at the moment you're supporting a

00:34:53.460 population of people who are there for the benefits but not to do the work now here in spain um i

00:34:58.340 understand that there are 40 000 uh places ready to you know refugee tickets if you want to call

00:35:04.260 them that. So these folks come in. They're not Spanish. They come from somewhere else.

00:35:10.500 They're all young men. What are they going to do? They're going to look for what young men want. 0.99

00:35:15.700 They're going to want work. They're going to want income. And? Sex. And sex, yes. They didn't bring

00:35:21.540 their women. And they didn't bring the women. And you see that problem cropping up in Sweden and 1.00

00:35:26.260 Germany and so forth. Just before this invasion, Morocco opened up the jails and released

00:35:33.780 everybody. So I would think 0.76

00:35:35.720 the majority of these 60,000 are probably

00:35:38.140 criminals.

00:35:40.540 Spain 0.70

00:35:40.940 gave status to

00:35:43.560 500,000 refugees.

00:35:46.080 They approved it for amnesty

00:35:47.880 essentially, for illegal migrants, they gave them citizenship. 0.90

00:35:50.080 They approved it for, they thought it would be

00:35:51.740 500,000, turned out to be a lot more.

00:35:53.820 There was a bunch of illegal city in the country

00:35:55.680 who just popped out.

00:35:57.300 And they're doing it now to all Europe. 0.94

00:35:59.220 Because when you're given Spanish citizenship, 0.73

00:36:01.540 that automatically means European

00:36:03.580 citizenship yeah it's uh one thing it has done is it's caused some european countries to question

00:36:10.540 whether spain should be checked out of the eu passport system uh because they don't have any

00:36:16.140 idea who these people are they don't know where what they've done in the past as derek said you

00:36:21.740 look hard in these reels and there is not a single woman there not that we want women and children

00:36:27.500 as well but i mean is the news narrative enough that people are making like realizing what the 0.99

00:36:33.500 is about i mean i watch again social media which is torqued and slanted but i watched an idiotic 0.91

00:36:38.140 exchange between uh a left-wing journalist of some sort in north america saying well if people would 0.95

00:36:44.540 just stop bombing those countries they'd stop coming in somebody shut it down quick enough

00:36:47.820 with a repo saying who's bombing morocco exactly you know these guys are coming in they're very 0.85

00:36:51.900 healthy looking they're wearing nikes these are not refugees this is a different story but

00:36:56.700 does the average citizen get that picture or realize that that i don't know so you're gonna 0.64

00:37:01.900 ask yourself, Corey, why is this happening everywhere? Like under Biden, it was happening

00:37:06.980 in the United States. The southern border was not a border. We've been watching this,

00:37:12.300 Dave and I, how it's been working out in England. People just get in the dinghy. If they make it

00:37:17.800 across the channel, most of them do, then we welcome them. We give them a status card.

00:37:24.060 They get health benefits. They get put up in four-star hotels. Why wouldn't you, you know,

00:37:29.100 jeepers why wouldn't you do that yeah see why they're but it why we're not stopping them is

00:37:35.000 you know they like to say well it's when when there was trouble in syria and iraq and so forth 0.90

00:37:40.260 people people got up and left so that's true to a point but we actually know do we not that the

00:37:50.180 united nations has a sort of a globalization no borders policy some american politicians

00:37:55.540 in support of that quite strongly i want to i want to tap into that because you know when you see

00:38:02.020 you mean you want to get to the truth of the matter yeah uh okay so when we see you know

00:38:06.180 you know he's getting serious when he puts his glasses yeah it's like unload the gun um

00:38:13.380 but a few um you know 20 odd dinghies are arriving a day and on the south shores of england 1.00

00:38:19.940 And you could say, well, that might just be a couple of ragtag guys doing it together.

00:38:25.400 Maybe it's organized, but it's plausibly just individuals doing this.

00:38:31.060 There is no way to look at the videos of the 50,000 military-age young men streaming through the border in a mass invasion and not ask yourself, is this organized?

00:38:49.240 and then we've seen video of trucks like they literally had uh like garbage trucks i mean

00:38:55.180 insert your own joke here yeah yeah insert racist joke that gets the edmonton police

00:39:02.140 calling you uh here so um you know garbage trucks that would open up the back and these

00:39:07.460 young guys would just pour where did they get garbage trucks 50 000 50 to 60 you know there's

00:39:13.440 different estimates but 50 it was obviously organized who why and how I've not seen that

00:39:23.620 answer to the satisfactory way I would guess it's the Moroccan government you know they opened up

00:39:28.920 the jail cells and herded everybody to the border and said okay go because you're right I was just 0.74

00:39:35.260 gonna say Castro did that yeah but it's obviously organized I mean it's a huge stream of people

00:39:41.300 all coming across at once. 0.81

00:39:43.220 And they're undesirables.

00:39:44.260 Yeah, you can't tell me that 50,000 people all came up with the idea at the same time.

00:39:49.640 Well, these countries are using migration as a biological weapon now.

00:39:53.520 They're using it to exert influence.

00:39:57.880 To stabilizes the neighboring country. 0.50

00:39:59.700 Turkey did this to blackmail Germany and Europe.

00:40:02.680 Turkey said like, hey, unless you give us these concessions we want over here on this 0.85

00:40:06.800 set of issues, we're going to open the border and we're going to let people from Syria flood 0.60

00:40:10.980 through turkey into greece and therefore into the rest of europe um and morocco has been doing this

00:40:17.140 and oddly enough so you have these two kind of lack of better term cities spanish city states

00:40:22.020 for lack of better term on the coast and morocco claims them as their own although it's never

00:40:27.060 belonged to a modern moroccan state they're beside it so they claim sovereignty over over these two

00:40:33.860 uh states even though until last week there were no real moroccans of any numbers living in those

00:40:38.880 two cities. But the United States has actually started to change its tone, showing the United

00:40:44.580 States is actually starting to back Moroccan claims to these two cities. A lot of think tanks

00:40:49.560 very closely linked to the Republican Party are showing it. Even some statements, not from the

00:40:54.660 president, but from senior officials, have started to back Morocco's claims to it. So this might be

00:41:01.140 perhaps, I can't say 1.00

00:41:03.500 but perhaps with American

00:41:04.560 some, I don't know

00:41:09.700 American support might be the wrong word

00:41:11.240 but at least their consent

00:41:13.300 to go forward and do whatever you want

00:41:14.860 this might be Morocco's way of 0.98

00:41:17.380 just trying to lay clean to these cities 0.67

00:41:19.440 because you can very quickly in a single

00:41:21.400 day constitute the majority population

00:41:23.340 quite possibly

00:41:25.800 and then hey, now we can vote

00:41:27.320 that they're ours

00:41:28.100 I mean, there has been a sort of a homegrown resistance movement in the Spanish territories.

00:41:33.400 I think the organization is called Polisario, and they've been around for 50 years, at least.

00:41:39.560 The best Moroccan group, though, was the Moroccan Islamic Liberation Front, MILF.

00:41:50.620 That was an actual organization at one point, the MILF.

00:41:54.460 Insert your own joke.

00:41:55.540 Yeah, I just...

00:41:56.780 The question I have is how many are going to end up in Canada? 1.00

00:42:00.760 Well, they're going to have to take a place in the queue behind the 300,000 Haitians. 1.00

00:42:06.880 The Yanks are apparently turning loose because they're not going to want to go back to Haiti. 1.00

00:42:13.200 What a time to be alive. 1.00

00:42:15.960 All right.

00:42:16.980 We'll put a pin in that there.

00:42:18.620 Enough talk of the MILF.

00:42:21.440 Dave, you're parting shot.

00:42:23.340 Just an update on what I talked about.

00:42:25.540 Last week, the summer of Jimothy in Seattle,

00:42:30.160 Seattle Mariners had a Jimothy night.

00:42:32.920 His picture on all the ticket stubs.

00:42:35.540 It was so successful, they've had to plan another one.

00:42:38.780 So Jimothy's still alive and has not been run over yet.

00:42:43.480 Is he being hand-fed milk and chocolate?

00:42:47.200 Probably.

00:42:48.000 Probably, yeah.

00:42:49.640 The latest hard-hitting news from the Western Standard.

00:42:52.380 It's popular stuff. 0.60

00:42:53.500 I guess for me, the killing Ford's case has been back in the news and it's good.

00:42:58.220 It's getting into this fall.

00:43:00.080 I see Press Progress is getting some well-deserved financial pressure after the character assassination they committed.

00:43:05.640 But also a name that popped up recently we hadn't seen was Thomas Lukasik has been in the thick of that whole mess

00:43:11.660 and was a facilitator for some of the communications that led to that whole thing.

00:43:15.520 He's not part of the lawsuit, but his name is in with that whole bunch.

00:43:19.460 So I'd just like to remind folks just who that man is and the sort of company he keeps, the disaster artist.

00:43:26.060 Yeah, I was kind of taken by the nature of progress.

00:43:30.080 When you first invent a rocket that will take you to the moon, it is the most wonderful thing.

00:43:35.700 And it's a great, well, you know, one footstep for mankind and a hundred miles for humanity, you know, and it's a big deal.

00:43:44.520 50 years goes by and 60 years go by

00:43:47.320 and when you hit the moon by accident

00:43:49.380 you're the worst in the world

00:43:50.980 but I can just see 0.98

00:43:53.260 the regulation

00:43:54.260 and the

00:43:55.780 public mood moving in on this

00:43:59.040 it's like the guy who had

00:44:01.120 the first motor car accident

00:44:02.500 up until then

00:44:04.400 one of Musk's SpaceX

00:44:07.440 rockets

00:44:08.180 I thought it was deliberate

00:44:11.580 no it was accidental

00:44:13.220 And apparently they didn't make much of a

00:44:16.700 Everybody thought they were going to get this big plume of dust

00:44:19.200 When it hit at 5,400 miles an hour

00:44:21.480 And it was a disappointment

00:44:23.400 It still looks kind of cool

00:44:25.680 I say it was faked

00:44:26.980 Progress

00:44:30.180 Yeah

00:44:31.180 Okay, well not enough time for me to have one

00:44:33.760 So we'll stop it there

00:44:34.920 Nigel, Corey, Dave, thank you

00:44:36.560 Thank you John on production

00:44:38.580 And thank all of you who joined us for the show today

00:44:42.020 We appreciate your eyes.

00:44:44.260 We also appreciate those of you who have become subscribers of the Western Standard,

00:44:48.560 supporting our work financially.

00:44:50.720 If you're not yet a subscriber, please go to westernstandard.news, click on subscribe.

00:44:54.680 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year.

00:44:56.960 Or you can upgrade even.

00:44:59.480 You can start your subscription or upgrade your current subscription to the Editor's Circle.

00:45:04.340 That's $20 a month or $200 a year for our premium tier membership.

00:45:08.000 You're going to get personal briefings from myself and the other senior leadership at the Western Standard.

00:45:14.900 Special invitations to Editor's Circle only events.

00:45:18.560 But also you'll be on, we just had our first of these, a exclusive Editor's Circle video conference call.

00:45:25.200 We had our first one last week.

00:45:28.800 Dave and I had burgers right before.

00:45:30.980 It was a good evening.

00:45:31.640 We had a great chat with our first Editor's Circle video conference call.

00:45:36.740 So it's a chance for us to give you kind of an insider's look inside the newsroom.

00:45:41.620 What are we working on?

00:45:42.940 What's happening inside the Western Standard right now?

00:45:45.160 But also a chance to solicit feedback from you guys.

00:45:48.460 What are we doing that we could be doing better?

00:45:50.780 Other stories do you think we're ignoring or maybe not giving the attention it deserves?

00:45:55.560 Or angles that we're missing?

00:45:57.360 You know, because sometimes we can be on our own fishbowl here.

00:45:59.840 It was a good time.

00:46:01.600 With that, thank you very much and God bless.

00:46:06.740 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - August 06, 2026

Edmonton Police's “Hate” Snitch Line

Episode Stats

Transcript