Western Standard - Feb 10, 2021

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00:02:30.000 Good morning. I'm Derek Fildebrandt. Welcome to The Pipeline, the Western

00:02:52.160 standard's weekly wednesday nooner um i'm joined today in uh studio by uh western standard

00:03:01.920 columnist and podcast editor extraordinaire cory morgan good day cory good day and uh dave

00:03:08.640 i'm gonna unmute you but you gotta be careful with all your background noise there dave can

00:03:13.200 we hear you i hope so okay it's all solved now very good uh dave nailer news editor for western

00:03:20.160 standard uh self-isolating somewhere in calgary i'm cold it's damn cold you know hey you didn't

00:03:29.840 have to ride the crack train all the way here today so point to me well uh speaking of the

00:03:36.720 crack train today we're going to be talking about calgary's in what i think we're gonna essentially

00:03:43.280 unfortunately have to be calling it uh the crack train what is happening to public transit in

00:03:48.240 calgary and in uh major cities across the west and in canada today uh right now uh the lockdown

00:03:55.360 opioid epidemics other drug drug epidemics uh what they are doing to public transit around canada

00:04:01.280 right now uh we have very first-hand experience with that with the train that runs uh right by

00:04:06.320 our offices here we'll also be talking about uh calgary mayor nahi denchi's latest lawsuit and

00:04:14.160 And it's for something that's shockingly familiar, being sued essentially for doing the, allegedly doing the exact same thing that he was sued for defamation for last time, just with somebody else.

00:04:26.000 We're going to get to that.

00:04:27.440 And a Edmonton area church pastor arrested for holding Sunday service.

00:04:33.420 No, it was not Emperor Nero.

00:04:35.780 It was the Alberta government.

00:04:38.080 So we're going to jump into it.

00:04:39.780 We're going to begin with Calgary's crack train.

00:04:44.160 This is actually a video that came to us through Corey Morgan. I think a contact of yours gave it to us. Maybe we'll actually throw it straight to you. Give us a brief description of how you came into this, what happened, and then we're actually going to pull up the video itself.

00:05:01.540 Sure. I mean, Dave's written about the problem getting on city transit as well in the past.

00:05:06.220 And what I'd done is put out a tweet because it was the other Wednesday when I came here.

00:05:09.280 I rode the train. I saw the usual mess station, addicts, garbage.

00:05:15.260 I mean, it's just gotten awful. And I tweeted as much.

00:05:18.080 You know, it's where I share my thoughts and express myself.

00:05:21.460 And it led to actually a chain of responses from other people, you know, about their experiences on the train.

00:05:26.640 And then a fellow who, you know, wanted to remain anonymous, understandably Rise Daily, picked up this video just the other day of a fellow smoking meth right on the Calorie Blue line. So we'll pull that up perhaps.

00:05:56.640 So, yeah, I mean, that really just kind of drives home to a lot of people who haven't

00:06:26.620 riding the train. There aren't a lot of commuters. It's kind of a whole big issue with a lot of

00:06:31.100 factors. The trains have been virtually empty because the downtown is virtually empty.

00:06:35.820 We have a growing opioid epidemic. It really is. There's addicts everywhere and more so,

00:06:41.340 I mean, for a lot of factors from the downturn of the economy to CERB facilitating a lot of

00:06:47.580 people to become more deeply addicted. Basically, the weather got cold. These guys are driven onto

00:06:53.260 the trains to keep warm or is a spot that's convenient for them and what's what was really

00:06:58.540 almost the most shocking part of the video if you saw at the end the woman sat down next to him

00:07:02.620 and didn't bat an eye and the guy who shot the video said he talked to her afterwards and she

00:07:07.900 he said why didn't you get up and move she said because it was along the lines of you know son

00:07:12.380 if i had to do that i'd have to get up move every day when i get on the train like it's become

00:07:17.100 almost standard as a part of riding the train that you're going to deal with that sort of bold

00:07:21.420 picture of addicts and of course there's a lot of stills and other things and I'm

00:07:24.760 gonna do a you know a piece on it later of just the amount of things people have

00:07:28.200 been seeing I think the city was kind of hoping that this would just be not

00:07:32.340 noticed and forgotten it's a problem they don't want to deal with and you

00:07:36.520 know the it's coming to a head you know just riding in just today I got to one

00:07:43.200 of the train stations coming in I try to save on parking so I take the train in

00:07:46.900 now and uh there was probably three fire trucks two or three ems uh ambulances there uh just the

00:07:55.440 whole thing it looked like if there had been some police in that mix i would have thought there was

00:07:59.380 a bombing or something it was just a whole crowd of emergency services were at the train station

00:08:04.720 and i i walked over talked to one of the peace officers i said overdose and he just said

00:08:09.640 your words not mine i mean there's an overdose right at the train station as i was coming in

00:08:14.560 this morning. While I'm on the train coming downtown, there was a woman clearly cracked on

00:08:22.980 something. She wasn't consuming it where I could see her, but she was walking around the train

00:08:27.320 smoking a cigarette and for about five minutes drinking out of an empty cup that I guess was

00:08:32.680 providing some kind of magic water or liquid. I mean, she wasn't threatening, but she was walking

00:08:39.040 around sitting much closer than even you or I, like right up beside people just smoking. And

00:08:43.500 Everyone was too afraid to tell her even to put out your cigarette.

00:08:48.400 It's getting, and obviously not wearing a mask.

00:08:50.820 I mean, you know how to wear, how do you smoke on the train wearing a mask, right?

00:08:53.600 You can't wear a mask while you're smoking on the train.

00:08:57.740 It's getting horrendous.

00:09:00.120 And, you know, Calgary City's council's war on cars to try and make it so expensive to drive your car through the city, particularly to park downtown.

00:09:08.380 the only reason they can get people to ride public transit is because they make it so miserable to

00:09:13.460 drive. They're not doing a very good job of making public transit actually appetizing

00:09:18.300 and pleasurable or convenient or safe to ride. Dave, we'll go to you for your thoughts and

00:09:25.140 your very recent experiences with this. Yeah, I had what I called my C-train ride from hell

00:09:32.480 Just a couple of weeks ago, Derek, as you mentioned, the train stops right outside our plush downtown offices, waiting at the platform.

00:09:42.840 There was a gentleman, obviously, under the influence of something, yelling at the top of his voice using language that would make my mother blush.

00:09:52.080 Not sure what he was angry at, but he was yelling and using all sorts of nasty language.

00:09:58.920 And he got on the same train as me, and I thought, oh, this is going to be good.

00:10:04.160 So he continued berating whoever he was angry at at the top of his voice, not wearing a mask, of course.

00:10:11.940 Fortunately, he got off a couple stops later and was last seen heading into an office tower.

00:10:19.220 He was quickly replaced by a young woman who was very, very ill.

00:10:24.920 She sounded like she had some sort of massive chest infection.

00:10:29.100 She was coughing and coughing and coughing and obviously didn't wear a mask.

00:10:34.500 She was obviously sick and just ended up curling up full length on one of the seats

00:10:41.620 and trying to go to sleep, but her coughing kept waking her up.

00:10:46.660 And to complete the ride, there was a man who was obviously suffering from mental issues

00:10:52.540 who just walked from one length of the train to the other,

00:10:56.560 turned around and walked back, talking under his breath without a mask on.

00:11:03.620 And that was just one ride, Derek.

00:11:07.000 You know, you're exactly right.

00:11:08.940 How do they expect people to feel safe in their commutes?

00:11:14.440 And this was not at 10 o'clock at night.

00:11:16.660 This was at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

00:11:18.560 it's uh it's just a crazy situation on our on our crack trains as you call them yeah uh you know we

00:11:26.860 had a comment uh from one of our listeners uh says uh philip campbell says just go by the old crack

00:11:33.660 max to see all the issues in the downtown core i i was nearly attacked there just a couple of months

00:11:39.160 ago uh just just for being there i was wearing a suit and i guess if you're wearing a suit that

00:11:45.140 means they think you must have more than a toonie in your pocket they'd be

00:11:49.180 surprised but they'd be pleasantly disappointed if they had succeeded in

00:11:53.720 getting into my pockets but you know for those who don't know crack max shut down

00:12:00.620 I mean it was so badly branded as crack max that max sold the location I forget

00:12:05.340 what it is now it might be is it a circle K or what is it so they're all

00:12:08.540 circle K's it's funny it's a circle K and it's still I mean it hasn't

00:12:14.940 change. The same crowds there. I mean, I lived in Calgary in the apartment. It's not a max,

00:12:19.660 but like what is it? It's not even a max anymore, but it's universally still known as crack max.

00:12:25.200 Yes. I think they could put, uh, they could have put a Victoria's secret in there and it will

00:12:29.620 still be called the crack max, uh, lingerie store. Like it's just permanently brand new as crack max

00:12:35.480 because it's just such a terrible, terrible place to be right now. And our public transit's

00:12:39.940 increasingly looking like it. Well, it used to be just focused kind of on that location. Every

00:12:43.600 city's got one. I mean, that's just part of being a large city. You're going to have kind of a

00:12:47.360 seed here into town, a place where the addicted gather and exchange and so on. But the problem

00:12:53.120 now is that it's all over the place and they're using these trains as almost a pipeline to get

00:12:59.120 around. I mean, another thing that I have a friend who lives up by Westbrook, you know, which was

00:13:02.460 never a high, high end of town. But since the train is gone there in the last few years and I

00:13:07.360 looked up the stats, crime up there has almost quadrupled because it brings a convenient, you

00:13:12.680 know way for the people the troubled people to get into residential

00:13:16.160 neighborhoods and break into garages and cars and a lot of property crimes that

00:13:19.040 are happening up there so this is a really big city issue that's been

00:13:22.400 sliding under the radar I appreciate that guy putting out the video because

00:13:25.820 you know we can talk and talk but sometimes just kind of seeing it for

00:13:28.400 yourself to see how bold and how real this is you don't have to take a bunch

00:13:31.960 of rides to find the scene like that as we said we can all relate and we just

00:13:35.120 just one ride at a time with something that's happened on there and the city's

00:13:39.200 really reticent about cleaning it up I think it's time they wake up they got

00:13:42.080 bigger priorities than public art and stuff uh if you want to be a world-class city and retain

00:13:46.480 tourists it doesn't matter how beautiful your public art is if they take one ride in that train

00:13:49.880 they're never coming back yeah i i i've traveled the world quite a bit uh i mean like they're

00:13:55.440 gonna be i've been to some seedy cities in eastern europe and the and the trains are not as sketchy

00:14:01.500 as they are right here in calgary there's no excuse for it philip campbell says actually it's

00:14:05.320 now known as the cracked k okay uh yeah it's got a ring to it but i don't know i i still know it

00:14:11.220 crack max everyone i know is still called crack max but um i think joe i think gentlemen we can't

00:14:16.980 forget that this is a societal problem uh these people are are addicted uh they you know they

00:14:24.420 obviously can't help themselves and then right now they have nowhere to go and it's uh it's minus a

00:14:30.420 gazillion degrees out there so they go to the obvious place to to keep them warm and uh and

00:14:36.820 continue with with their addictions uh you know so it's going to need a massive effort you can't

00:14:43.300 just put one or two more transit cops on the line and expect that to clean it up it's going to be

00:14:48.900 have to be a massive uh undertaking by all three levels of government to to try and help these

00:14:54.500 people and they do need help absolutely i just to follow up on that and i want to you know as i'm

00:14:59.860 going to be following up on this story more in the in the next while like it is a symptom of a much

00:15:04.260 bigger problem and these are people these are albertans these are calgarian citizens and they

00:15:08.900 need help you can't just chuck them off the train it's cold out and they're still addicted and now

00:15:13.140 they're just off a train that could mean lead to them breaking into apartment lobbies or other

00:15:17.780 issues we need places for them to go part of the problem is shelters are there and apparently

00:15:22.740 there's a lot of shelter space there's lots of room right now but they won't take you when you're

00:15:26.660 outright wasted and they won't let you smoke or inject your drug of choice in the shelter they've

00:15:32.500 got to maintain a degree of control so that's why again that they're seeking other warm places to do

00:15:37.380 it so it's a big there's not an easy answer to it i mean i mean you know we've been talking i think

00:15:43.700 david's right to pivot the conversation we're talking about how this is unsafe to the public

00:15:47.620 how this makes it essential you know why are we even paying a bazillion dollars for these lrt's

00:15:52.820 when they're just not safe they're not pleasant to use those are i think important points but i

00:15:58.420 think two of you have been right to pivot this conversation towards now these are people who

00:16:03.060 need help um i don't know anybody who is happy to be addicted to crack or to meth or to opioids

00:16:11.540 uh no one wants to be addicted to these things and there's there's many reasons why that's happening

00:16:17.140 uh addictions are spiking right now during lockdowns um i mean geez the train might

00:16:23.220 literally be the only place some of these people can get in be around other people they might just

00:16:27.860 be happy to be around humans. It's hard to say because there's going to be so many different

00:16:32.900 reasons for it and there's not an easy answer to it because the shelters are right to not allow

00:16:38.820 people to do drugs on site or to allow them in severely debilitated on site, but these people

00:16:47.380 have got to go somewhere and we don't want them to freeze to death. They're human beings, they need

00:16:52.020 our help there's not really an easy answer but you can't let people shoot up in in these shelters

00:16:57.940 because then the whole place falls apart because there's a lot of people in those shelters who

00:17:00.980 are trying to get clean yeah and i should point out though there are some groups are doing some

00:17:04.340 really good work while we're at it a van you'll see quite constantly at the westbrook station and

00:17:08.900 around i saw them the other day is the dope team it's doap they're a non-profit organization they

00:17:14.820 get out there to help people who are in dire straits they often take them to alpha house

00:17:19.300 which isn't a homeless shelter it's a detox uh sort of place to bring them down uh safe space

00:17:25.140 so i mean if somebody sees something like that and somebody's really in distress there are services

00:17:28.660 if you call they will get out there and do what they can to help these people well maybe just

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00:18:35.300 out if it's something you guys are interested in doing. Well, let's move on to something maybe a

00:18:40.560 a little more funny. Calgary Mayor Nahid Nenshi is getting sued again for pretty much the exact

00:18:51.680 same allegation. We're not going to say he did something because we don't want to get sued

00:18:55.760 for defamation, but he has alleged to have done something which is suspiciously similar

00:19:02.320 to another lawsuit for which he had to settle out of court, which ended up being quite a pricey

00:19:08.400 legal bill dave nailer why don't you tell us uh about uh net defamation suit part two uh derek

00:19:17.760 this is a story we had exclusively yesterday on uh on the website and involves a gentleman called

00:19:23.920 mike turingo he's a calgary businessman uh quite well known in the city and he's alleging that

00:19:30.640 Mayor Nenshi in two separate oral conversations called him an Italian racial stereotype.

00:19:39.200 We won't repeat the alleged slander here, but an Italian stereotype. He's got two whistleblowers

00:19:47.840 that have come forward to confirm or allegedly confirm that this is what Nenshi said. So he's

00:19:56.080 seeking $190,000 from the mayor. If you remember six years ago, the city was on the hook for

00:20:04.560 $300,000 in Nanshee legal bills after he allegedly defamed Calgary businessman, developer,

00:20:12.880 home builder, Cal Wenzel in a similar sort of wording, similar sort of phrasing. They went to

00:20:21.600 court uh settled out of court uh but uh you know nenshi and city taxpayers were on the hook for

00:20:28.880 three hundred thousand dollars city councils put a halt to that and uh told nenshi that he would

00:20:35.360 have to pay for it himself and he did so by hosting a series of uh fundraisers so second

00:20:42.160 time in uh just a few years that the mayor has been accused of uh uttering uh racial slurs against

00:20:49.280 business uh so this uh we're not allowed to repeat uh the defamation otherwise we're committing

00:20:58.320 potential defamation oh shoot we're not allowed to repeat the alleged def defamation i'm trying to

00:21:02.720 be i don't mean to be pedantic here we're just trying to we're trying to be careful here we

00:21:06.560 don't want to get sued uh we prefer membership money to go to writing and broadcasting and fun

00:21:13.360 stuff, not towards lawyers. The alleged defamation, an Italian racial slur.

00:21:25.120 We might be able to describe the previous lawsuit with Cal Wenzel where he called him the godfather.

00:21:34.400 Is it safe to say that this Italian... doesn't he have a problem with Italians? I don't know.

00:21:43.360 He has a problem with businessmen.

00:21:45.220 He has a problem with businessmen.

00:21:47.920 Yeah.

00:21:48.420 He has a problem with Italian businessmen.

00:21:50.660 Benzel's not Italian.

00:21:52.300 No, I suppose not.

00:21:53.900 So, yeah.

00:21:55.060 Although the plaintiff in the second case is, in fact, Italian, I believe.

00:22:00.680 So, yeah, Dave, do you want to just elaborate on, insofar as we can say, without getting in legal trouble here, about the Italian racial slur?

00:22:11.680 I think we're going to have to let that be up to the imagination of our viewers, Derek.

00:22:19.680 I will say that in a similar case, he did call Cal Wenzel, I think it was a godfather-like figure, referring to the Italian mafia as the godfather of a family.

00:22:34.740 So that got him into trouble for the Wenzel one.

00:22:38.620 The instances of this case involving Turingo happened during a land use development meeting in which Turingo's company was trying to get a land use deal done so he could build an apartment building on land he owns down in Kensington.

00:22:58.120 and this was made to other councillors who have since come forward as as whistleblowers

00:23:04.840 we cannot name them for legal reasons whistleblowing legislation but they've come forward

00:23:11.560 to say and she made the comment twice that day once in in the morning session once in the

00:23:20.280 the evening dinner break so whether or not it's a pattern or behavior i think that's for somebody

00:23:26.680 else to decide uh corey i got a serious question for you is racism against italians and the irish

00:23:35.320 the only acceptable forms of racism in 2021 well even then if we're looking at this lawsuit and

00:23:41.000 perhaps not even there so people are getting tired of uh you know it isn't acceptable anymore i know

00:23:45.960 it's in a joking status but of people uh using somebody's ethnicity we'll take everyone but not

00:23:52.600 the irish yeah gotta be able to joke about somebody come on someone has to take them

00:23:57.160 it has to be the butt of something i guess a lot of it's you know context and the vitriolic nature

00:24:01.320 of how it's coming out yeah uh okay so this is the second time this is alleged to have happened

00:24:10.680 uh the first time nenshi settled out of court with kyle wenzel uh but he essentially had to

00:24:18.200 he got the bad end of that deal. It was going to be more expensive to go. I remember I was with

00:24:24.120 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation at the time, and I filed a freedom of information request

00:24:28.600 with the city to see if Ninchy was charging taxpayers for his legal bills. Turned out he

00:24:34.600 wasn't. And I remember I put this out and I said, hey look, Ninchy's not charging taxpayers as he

00:24:40.680 said. Good for you. And then I remember he had this epic Twitter meltdown. I think this is his

00:24:46.040 last epic Twitter meltdown. I think after that, uh, his chief of staff took his Twitter machine

00:24:50.060 away. Um, and then he was just like, how dare you file a freedom of information request for this?

00:24:55.860 Like, it's not your business. It wasn't my business to see if you're spending taxpayers,

00:25:00.860 like hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars on this. He had this meltdown and denied it. But

00:25:06.260 then after the fact, he still build it to the city. Now he said he would hold a fundraiser to,

00:25:11.220 pay it back. I'm assuming that he did. I haven't seen final documents, but I'm assuming. Yeah,

00:25:18.260 okay. So he has, but he did still bill it to the taxpayer. So he essentially used the taxpayer as

00:25:22.980 bridge loan, an interest-free bridge loan to get this. And then, I mean, that kind of fundraiser

00:25:29.440 after the fact, when you're the sitting mayor, there's obviously going to be people with

00:25:33.140 expectations when they're making donations of that kind. When you toss 30 or 40,000 at somebody,

00:25:37.640 I mean, you never know, but it's a big contribution to make for somebody who keeps saying he wants to get big money out of politics.

00:25:43.940 Just because you brought a new issue in to raise the funds for it doesn't mean it's not a political contribution.

00:25:48.840 You're really starting to walk a fine line, you know, on what's considered such.

00:25:53.160 Terry Newman says, just to clarify, the Italian and Irish do not constitute race.

00:25:57.920 You tell that to the Italians and Irish.

00:25:59.920 They think they're very special.

00:26:01.920 They're an identity, anyways.

00:26:03.580 But I mean, just further on Nenshi, there was another incident that people have kind of forgotten about, and I know about, but if you remember when he was in that Lyft car in Boston, and he was babbling away, and the driver was headed up on Periscope, and Nenshi was talking about, he said, well, it's shown also Nenshi, one of the things with him, his profound arrogance, he really is, and he forgets that, I mean, he takes that pride in being a person of influence with a large reach, but forgets that there's some responsibility with that.

00:26:32.940 and he was going on he called the head of uber at that time a dick well that's fine that's opinion

00:26:38.540 but the other thing was he went on this bizarre meandering saying that the city had been sneaking

00:26:43.380 uh sex offenders through the uber screening process and and that uh and that turned out to

00:26:48.540 be a blatant lie he just made it up and the funny thing was this is just speculation but

00:26:53.960 they had been fighting uber coming into calvary tooth and nail hard as all i get out because

00:26:58.560 cab drivers have you know your cab companies had dedicated a heck of a lot of money to city hall

00:27:03.120 to make sure that uber was kept out after that little tirade suddenly they found a way to let

00:27:08.480 uber into calgary you know i mean you would think a company like that when they've had a person a

00:27:12.640 profile saying that they're slipping sex offenders through their screening would have had some very

00:27:16.960 serious legal things to say but instead it just kind of disappeared but uber came in i don't know

00:27:21.680 i'm just guessing here but it almost seems like somebody decided to back off on their uber opposition

00:27:26.480 in a real hurry. Sounds like it to me. Dave, there's a little bit more to this story too

00:27:32.660 involving another city councillor, Drew Farrell. Why don't you give us just a little bit of a

00:27:38.140 primer on that before we move on to the next topic? This is another exclusive we broke yesterday,

00:27:44.100 Derek, involving the same businessman, Mike Turingo. He is also suing Drew Farrell

00:27:50.660 for defamation and basically for refusing to allow his development to go ahead.

00:27:59.240 He's alleging that Farrell lives about in the same block as his building,

00:28:05.240 didn't want it up and moved to block it.

00:28:10.400 He's also calling for a contempt of court ruling against Farrell

00:28:15.620 for what he alleges is her refusal to produce evidence required by the judge.

00:28:23.100 So Drew has run up already more than $158,000 in taxpayers' money defending this particular lawsuit.

00:28:35.020 One of them was for $51,000 to Bennett Jones for one court appearance.

00:28:41.620 One morning court appearance, they charge the city $51,000.

00:28:46.160 Was that trial by combat?

00:28:47.720 What the hell was that expensive for a single morning?

00:28:50.880 Well, I guess they had several lawyers there,

00:28:54.260 and they are described as one of the highest-charging law firms in Canada.

00:29:01.800 So I guess maybe a better question is why the city law department has chosen to go outside,

00:29:07.460 And when they do, you know, why are they choosing the most expensive option available?

00:29:14.260 So I guess when this comes to a head, I guess council will be asked to decide again

00:29:19.440 whether Farrell will have to pick the total fees up because they're only going to go up, right?

00:29:25.840 They haven't even started the proceedings and they're at $158,000.

00:29:29.820 So it'll be up to council whether she has to pay it or taxpayers will cover it.

00:29:35.320 Dave, we heard more ringing.

00:29:37.460 If I hear your computer ring one more time, I'm going to ring your head like a bell.

00:29:41.380 I swear to God.

00:29:43.280 Sorry, man.

00:29:43.780 I can't help it.

00:29:44.600 It's the news coming in.

00:29:45.800 The news never stops.

00:29:46.640 I know where you live.

00:29:48.140 I've seen your address on the payslips.

00:29:50.300 I know where you live.

00:29:51.300 I'm going to come and get you, and I'm not going to wear a mask.

00:29:53.960 I'm just going to cough on you.

00:29:55.860 Nice.

00:29:58.380 Now I see the lawsuits coming.

00:30:01.620 I don't think this is a very hospitable workplace for me at the moment.

00:30:04.980 well we do things i've threatened to beat you guys and i got a curl in my safe space afterwards

00:30:13.560 i am a snowflake just just meet your stuff on a broadcast just for an hour

00:30:21.520 i can't help it if it all comes back in what's the phone number you didn't what's the phone number

00:30:28.520 for our hr department i'm calling hr uh call my number i'll forward it in thanks thanks

00:30:34.660 Yeah. Okay.

00:30:37.540 I apologize.

00:30:39.720 Speaking of oppression, we just the other day after Sunday service, a pastor for the, I think, the Grace Life Church just west of Edmonton towards Stony Plain was arrested for holding Sunday service in defiance of the Alberta government's

00:31:04.640 lockdown orders dave uh mute your phones all your dingers uh you know maybe that's you're gonna get

00:31:11.840 the name the dinger you're gonna replace rick bell as the dinger now we're gonna see you're

00:31:15.600 you're gonna be the dinger soon uh so just mute your dingers and uh tell us uh what happened in

00:31:22.080 this case well there's been uh police actions against uh churches across western uh western

00:31:30.320 canada uh bc manitoba alberta saskatchewan all of the provinces have had churches that refuse to

00:31:38.560 close uh keep uh keep their doors open every sunday and uh this particular pastor particular pastor

00:31:47.840 had uh you know who that is that's sean our tech guy calling me so i apologize for that

00:31:54.640 uh this pastor in alberta had uh had continued uh sunday services and despite uh being asked not to

00:32:02.000 by uh authorities the rcmp and the uh the um health people and uh he held his uh service as

00:32:11.120 usual on sunday and rcmp were there waiting uh they waited until after the service uh and then

00:32:18.240 uh went and arrested the pastor uh so it's uh you know it's uh it's a very lightning rod type move

00:32:27.280 to do that when you uh when you're interfering with uh church and state and i know derek you uh

00:32:32.800 you wrote a very uh interesting column on it and live free or die i think was the title and

00:32:38.800 uh it's certainly attracting a lot of attention uh yeah i i suppose so uh this one got under my um

00:32:48.240 Got onto my craw a bit. Yeah, so I wrote a column titled Live Free or Die. There was a gentleman who was angry at me. I said, like, look, if we're arresting pastors for holding peaceful Sunday services, we have to ask if we've lost something along the way.

00:33:10.080 if we are really off the bandwagon here. And he said, you know, what rate of deaths would it take

00:33:18.420 for you to agree to these lockdowns? And I think he meant, I think he thought my answer was being

00:33:25.360 flippant or rhetorical, but it was not. I meant it quite literally. My answer was just simply

00:33:31.620 live free or die I would I would I will live free or I have no intention of

00:33:40.440 living and for increasing an increasing number of people that's the case opioid

00:33:46.080 deaths are up suicides are up people are dying from not getting treatment

00:33:54.060 necessary in hospitals because of critical surgeries getting canceled or non-critical

00:34:03.900 surgeries being put off, which is harming people's quality of life and therefore making

00:34:10.760 life unbearable for many people. My basic point was, look, it's not up to me to say

00:34:18.320 how bad does COVID have to be before I accept my liberties being taken away.

00:34:23.080 The burden is on the person taking away the liberties to justify to the person having them taken away why it is necessary.

00:34:31.740 And very clearly, what we are doing right now, arresting pastors for holding Sunday service, fining and arresting small business owners for opening their restaurant, clearly that is not proportional.

00:34:45.040 Clearly that's not justified.

00:34:46.260 uh so i you know as the publisher of the western standard i i actually don't get a chance to write

00:34:53.860 nearly as often as i'd like to i spend most of my time managing the business side and helping

00:34:59.220 with editing in the background i don't get to write very often so when i when i write i'm

00:35:03.460 particularly pissed off uh cory's always pissed off so we can always write and i get pissed off

00:35:10.100 a lot but uh i have to be particularly pissed off to get motivated right now and take take the time

00:35:15.220 to do it. So that was kind of my take on it. Corey, I mean, I think I could probably predict

00:35:24.580 relatively safely how you feel about a pastor getting arrested like this.

00:35:29.940 So maybe give us your view on the political fallout of it. Is this going to further damage

00:35:39.060 respect for the province's lockdown policy? Absolutely. And then we're getting divided

00:35:43.060 all over. And I mean, as we've acknowledged repeatedly, I am a dedicated heathen. Religious

00:35:47.760 services aren't a priority to me. I've seen you burst into flames. On occasion. But I understand

00:35:54.060 the importance of protecting the rights for people for things that I don't necessarily take part in

00:35:59.060 and enjoy. That's what protecting rights is about. And freedom of religion is a huge one. It's in

00:36:04.620 every modern constitution. It is there to be protected. And religious services are incredibly

00:36:11.000 important to a lot of people. This is a lot of people's social outlet. This is where they get

00:36:16.020 together. This is where they visit friends. This is where they feel spiritually better afterwards.

00:36:20.540 Again, we aren't doing a cost benefit on these lockdowns. We really aren't. And we're forgetting

00:36:26.720 about some of these costs. Like there's a church. My next door neighbor actually out for this there

00:36:31.020 is a church. And it's just got a small congregation, mostly senior citizens. They've been all locked up

00:36:36.520 at home, not able to go there now for the better part of a year. And this is what leads to senior

00:36:42.200 citizens depression. There is a cost. I mean, suicides happen with people. Again, seniors or

00:36:49.240 even younger people, they need those social places. So let's, you know, Notley is applauding

00:36:54.660 the lockdown or the arrest of this pastor. Look, these churches provide a benefit and we're taking

00:37:00.460 that benefit away and there's a cost to that. We've got to address that. We've got to look at

00:37:05.000 both sides and we're only looking at one and expand on that rant just to quickly bring up

00:37:09.800 uh since the dinger came up earlier i have to credit him with a recent column he wrote on how

00:37:14.680 so which dinger our dinger the sun's dinger the sun's dinger the original dinger rick bell

00:37:19.240 and uh but that uh infections are very low right now we've really you know they're knocked down

00:37:25.640 and so on and what are we hearing from the mainstream media they're finding every expert

00:37:29.240 they can to tell us about the new variants and tell us about all these new ways we're all going

00:37:32.920 going to die and that we've got to stay locked down and why it's so darn dangerous for us to

00:37:37.140 allow some people to eat in at some restaurants and again why it's evil for a pastor to hold a

00:37:42.160 service for a handful of people at what point will we start allowing things yeah we had some

00:37:48.920 breaking news yesterday where uh two members of the ucp government have said they've had enough

00:37:54.560 and they joined the National and the Lockdown Caucus.

00:37:59.700 That was Angela Pitt, an Airdrie MLA, who's also the Deputy Speaker.

00:38:05.120 And Drew Barnes.

00:38:08.040 Drew Barnes.

00:38:09.040 So there's two Alberta UCP members that have joined,

00:38:13.480 broken ranks with the government.

00:38:15.200 And Angela Pitt told me yesterday,

00:38:17.600 100% certain that there's going to be more to follow.

00:38:20.380 So this issue could start tearing the UCP party apart from the inside.

00:38:28.840 Yeah, I was not very shocked that Drew Barnes joined.

00:38:33.940 He's spoken out previously against the lockdowns quite openly.

00:38:37.680 I think by this point, he's DGAF.

00:38:42.360 He does not give a you-know-what.

00:38:46.600 It's quite rare to see this in the Canadian system.

00:38:49.900 You see this in Britain all the time. It's a similar parliamentary Westminster system,

00:38:54.460 but you have backbenchers actually feel free to speak out on issues and not be just a bloody

00:38:59.980 Borg drone all day. But it's extremely rare in Canada to see it, particularly from a member of

00:39:05.680 a governing party. So Drew Barnes was not very surprising, but Angela Pitt, that really shocked

00:39:10.200 me. I know her fairly well when we surfed together in the Wild Rose Caucus. She was not the type to

00:39:16.300 really rock the boat. I mean, she, as I knew her, she was happy to be there, happy to be a part of

00:39:22.680 the team, played ball. I've never seen her stick her neck out on something like this before. It

00:39:32.040 was quite shocking. And so either something has snapped in her or there was something bigger

00:39:37.040 at play. You know, she says there's a certainty there'll be others. We'll see. I'll believe it

00:39:42.220 I see it, but I know matter-of-factly, I can tell you, I know very personally, there are other

00:39:47.740 UCP MLAs who are opposed to the lockdown. Most of them are afraid to speak out, but

00:39:54.220 Corey, what does this say? Is this the sign of really the party and the caucus and Kenny's

00:40:00.460 leadership kind of fraying at the seams here? Can we read anything more into this other than

00:40:04.860 just two people speaking up? Oh, just two. It's hard to read it. And as you said,

00:40:07.980 Drew is Drew's own man. And, you know, when I interviewed him the other week, he's still,

00:40:13.500 it's nuanced. He's not opposing just for the sake of opposing or being a burr in Kenny's butt. I

00:40:17.340 mean, he was talking about nuanced discussions like Medicine Hat area where he represents doesn't

00:40:22.300 have the infection issues and COVID issues that urban areas do. So maybe we should be looking

00:40:27.420 regionally rather than these big blanket policies. Like he was just doing his job as a regional

00:40:31.260 representative. Now with Angela, yeah, it was usually quite, you know, kind of a quiet background

00:40:36.380 MLA who does her job but doesn't get into the mix on some of the bigger things. It was unexpected

00:40:41.220 and unusual. But the UCP is in dire straits. I mean, they have been in constant retreat mode,

00:40:46.500 whether it's the coal mines, whether it's the lockdowns, whether it's sports reopenings now

00:40:50.800 and non-reopenings. They're a party that's just been floundering for months. They're dropping in

00:40:57.040 the polls. And if you want to see a caucus fall apart, make some of those members start fearing

00:41:02.100 for their re-election. And we're getting into the two-year mark. And if these MLA start thinking,

00:41:07.240 you know what, I'm better off somewhere else, they're going to jump. That's just the way it

00:41:11.360 works in politics. So they got a lot to get together. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think nobody was

00:41:19.020 shocked about Barnes. But Pitt doing that, I think, should be a big wake-up call to people

00:41:23.660 in the Premier's office. I mean, you don't generally see this from very popular governments

00:41:29.900 or where you have a popular leader of the government, the prime minister or the premier.

00:41:34.460 But when you get into the mid or low 20s and approval, people might start to take a bit more

00:41:41.620 liberties in pushing the margins. I'm just surprised to see some of those who are. And

00:41:47.880 yeah, it's interesting. We'll see. We'll see if there's more. Actually, I have sources telling

00:41:55.420 me, there are going to be more as soon as today, possibly, including a federal member

00:42:00.640 of parliament and an Alberta MLA. But we're not going to, we won't break that until we

00:42:05.360 have the confirmation in front of us and we've spoken to them. Dave, let's give the last

00:42:10.840 word to you before we wrap up.

00:42:13.800 I apologize for my technical errors. Stay warm, everybody.

00:42:19.680 Okay, well, that's it for me. Thank you very much to everybody who's watched. If you

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00:42:57.980 but if you're not yet a member please go to westernstandardonline.com

00:43:01.980 and become a member very soon we're going to have a very a limited soft payball in place and if you

00:43:06.940 want to have unlimited access to uh independent western news uh you're going to need to become

00:43:12.220 a member uh in a matter of days here uh so thank you very much corey uh dave uh pleasure as always

00:43:20.460 uh dave i guess stay warm stay off the train

00:43:26.860 and uh cory godspeed on the train yes and by the way just one last note uh if you haven't

00:43:32.620 subscribed to our youtube channel yet seek it out it's the western standard you just search on

00:43:37.180 youtube you'll find it subscribe because i'll be putting videos up we're putting more and more and

00:43:42.220 there's content appearing there and you want to be catch it quick if you're a subscriber it shows you

00:43:47.020 you when that material has gone up there so uh be sure to click in there yeah oh and actually you

00:43:51.500 know we did actually i think uh skip something today we're not going to get into it but uh uh

00:43:56.220 bryce bonass that can't be a real last name it must be from bryce from bonus i'm gonna guess

00:44:01.980 we'll see if your last name is bonass that's pretty awesome but uh best neighborhood calgary

00:44:07.900 but uh uh yeah uh o'toole shuffling pierre poliver out of the finance role today uh i'll just say

00:44:17.020 the one guy who can excite conservatives in the conservative caucus. You're going to shuffle them

00:44:23.800 to a mid-level portfolio. Brilliant job, Aaron O'Toole. I hope you enjoyed being leader of the

00:44:30.380 opposition. That's it for today. Thank you all very much. Godspeed.

Western Standard - February 11, 2021

Feb 10, 2021

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