Western Standard - Gondek’s Gone, and the BC Conservatives are losing it

00:00:00.000 Good day, today is October 22nd, 2025.

00:00:29.320 I'm Derek Fillebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:34.640 I'm joined by two of our regular co-hosts, Western Standard BC columnist, Alice Mills.

00:00:43.860 Hi, everybody.

00:00:45.960 There she is.

00:00:47.180 And Western Standard former opinion editor, now senior columnist, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:53.400 Good afternoon.

00:00:54.880 Good to be back.

00:00:55.400 And you can see, sitting between us, the rose between two thorns, filling in for Corey Morgan, who's off on Jihad right now.

00:01:02.700 We've got Lindsay Wilson, who's, yeah, I don't even know how I introduce you.

00:01:09.260 Formerly of Alberta Proud, worked on the Jeff Davison mayoral campaign here and joining us today, particularly as we talk about fallout of Calgary election.

00:01:18.480 Yes. Well, thank you very much for having me today.

00:01:20.500 And you were actually filling in for Corey Morgan on the Corey Morgan show today.

00:01:24.340 we called Jin for that and then we sat down to do this

00:01:26.900 and I was like, oh my god, where's Lindsay? She hasn't finished

00:01:28.840 her job today if she actually doesn't do

00:01:30.580 Cory's spot on the pipeline

00:01:32.620 Well, I'm happy. You can't call me Cora Morgan

00:01:34.760 Cora Morgan. You're Cora Morgan

00:01:36.680 Okay

00:01:38.400 You know what? We're just going to do two topics

00:01:40.980 today so we can really kind of suss it out

00:01:42.780 See how that goes

00:01:43.940 The BC

00:01:46.760 Conservative shit show continues

00:01:48.560 to get shittier by the

00:01:50.900 day. More defections from

00:01:52.900 caucus more chaos uh as the uh leadership of john rust that continues to come under fire

00:02:01.980 how long can he last will he last uh yeah we're we're gonna get into that as the bc conservative

00:02:10.260 party so promising uh a year ago continues to just fall apart into disarray uh but first

00:02:19.580 Ding-dong, Gondek is gone.

00:02:23.040 Calgarians can celebrate that now former mayor Jody Gondek went down to a historic defeat Monday night.

00:02:34.020 Oh, we found out. We found out about it Tuesday.

00:02:36.460 But the numbers from the early reporting was clear enough on Monday night.

00:02:40.260 We didn't necessarily know who was going to win, but we sure knew who was not going to win.

00:02:45.060 And Jody Gondek became the first incumbent elected Calgary mayor since 1980.

00:02:52.040 I wasn't even born since 1980 to lose re-election.

00:02:57.940 And she became the first mayor in the history of Calgary, which is older than Alberta, to not even place second.

00:03:07.540 She came in third place.

00:03:10.980 just an absolutely

00:03:13.300 I don't

00:03:14.980 be a jerk

00:03:16.160 because losing an election sucks

00:03:18.120 I don't want to dance on the political grave

00:03:19.800 but I'm going to, god damn I'm happy

00:03:21.880 bad news for her

00:03:24.840 but I think great news for Calgarians

00:03:26.660 Calgarians

00:03:28.420 I'll start with you Lindsay

00:03:30.980 as I said you worked on the Jeff Davison campaign

00:03:34.940 you're not a neutral observer here

00:03:36.540 but it's an opinion show so that's okay

00:03:38.380 uh there was a lot of division over who should replace jody gondek as mayor uh farkas came in

00:03:47.460 uh a narrow first still subject to recount but likely to stand i think i think uh sharp would

00:03:54.080 need to pick up between six and eight hundred votes net not likely to happen but it's close

00:03:58.620 enough that a recall should be done that's enough recall a recount uh but you know uh farkas uh

00:04:04.980 coming first, Gondek in a close second,

00:04:07.960 Jeff Davison

00:04:09.180 coming in

00:04:10.580 fourth,

00:04:13.260 and

00:04:14.640 then, I guess,

00:04:17.480 Brian Thiessen,

00:04:19.080 Brian Thiessen

00:04:20.100 coming in fifth, kind of splitting the left

00:04:23.200 vote, but it wasn't enough left vote to split

00:04:25.320 in this one, arguably.

00:04:27.680 So, we'll get into

00:04:28.980 council in a bit.

00:04:30.900 Your candidate didn't win,

00:04:33.060 but, I don't know,

00:04:34.980 How hard was it then, I guess, to stand out as, you know, for the candidates to say,

00:04:40.780 I'm the one to beat Jody Gondek?

00:04:43.340 And was that the major question or was it more on policies?

00:04:46.440 Well, this wasn't anything but Gondek vote that won this election, certainly.

00:04:50.220 And now we have a mayor-elect, Jeremy Farkas.

00:04:52.600 And Jeremy has won with a very, I mean, what is his mandate, right?

00:04:56.520 26%, I think, a margin of just under 600 votes.

00:05:00.240 He won with, this time, less votes than he lost with last time.

00:05:03.300 Which is so interesting.

00:05:04.180 so I think he has his work cut out for him I think you know and in transparency some of the

00:05:10.020 people watching this may or may not know that I did work for Jeremy Farkas once upon a time I

00:05:13.920 helped to run a mayoral campaign last time this time I was with Jeff Davison no regrets on either

00:05:19.260 side of those things you know we live and we learn and we move forward and I think I do want to say

00:05:24.300 that I am congratulating mayor-elect Jeremy Farkas and I want the best for Calgary and I want the best

00:05:29.640 for unity for sure for uh for conservatives and i think jeremy's got a lot to prove i think people

00:05:36.600 felt like he lost the last election he went and hiked a mountaintop and found a new version of

00:05:42.120 himself and the term has come out a lot you know jeremy 2.0 versus jeremy 1.0 what's that going to

00:05:47.960 look like um there was some perception that while he has some very strong conservative roots that

00:05:53.640 something happened on that mountaintop and on that big walk that he did in the name of charity it was

00:05:57.880 all very respectable and great and a huge accomplishment but something happened there

00:06:02.360 and uh now that he's kind of more associates with more of the left side of the spectrum so

00:06:06.760 i think a lot of us are really interested is he going to have more of a centrist appeal and will

00:06:11.640 that be really good for the former rabble rouser um who you know is maybe not perceived as the most

00:06:17.640 collaborative of the bunch when he was on council and will he be able to build those bridges and to

00:06:22.440 get this slate of very independent dominated candidates i mean we just came off of a show

00:06:28.600 where we were talking about the party system what that's going to look like moving forward but

00:06:32.360 he's definitely got some work cut out for him from this independent independent advantage

00:06:36.600 to clarify you're not speaking for jeff davison here the campaign's over so you know you're

00:06:41.240 speaking for you knowing you know it's kind of more background that you were on the campaign

00:06:45.640 you know not a neutral observer but uh you're not speaking for the campaigns just for yourself here

00:06:50.200 Um, Nigel, it was, I, you were privy to some of the discussion here.

00:06:56.740 You're not here full time anymore, but I mean, the discussion around here about who to vote

00:07:01.840 for was, I, you know, I've never seen our newsroom so split, you know, uh, I, you know,

00:07:07.220 when Farkas ran in 2021, uh, the newsroom was like unanimously, Jerry, he was the most

00:07:13.760 conservative candidate and he was the most likely candidate to beat um uh to be gondack or nenshi

00:07:20.780 um this time you know i always tease him i called it his forrest gump run when he went on this

00:07:27.020 thing here and you know a lot of time to think and reflect as you as you're as you burn the

00:07:32.560 cowards but uh he's a different he was a very different candidate um he's certainly not as

00:07:41.620 strident and outspoken he tried to make the argument to me that he's learned and matured

00:07:46.060 but you know he hasn't fundamentally changed his convictions i don't know that's to be seen uh

00:07:53.460 he's a very at the very least less strident um and you know maybe that just means he's more

00:07:58.320 diplomatic but he is fundamentally the same guy i don't know i don't know i i think um

00:08:04.240 a lot of conservatives still even though he didn't run as explicitly a conservative campaign this

00:08:10.020 time he was so known as the conservative guy last time that a lot of conservatives still voted for

00:08:15.640 him some people in the center who probably voted for gondek last time they can i like her

00:08:20.960 definitely won some of those switchers but he lost a lot of his core support sonya sharp

00:08:26.840 and jeff davison jeff davison obviously had some support for last 71 but

00:08:30.680 um do you think alberton's elected a conservative

00:08:36.040 I honestly think that that remains to be seen for all the reasons that you've just given.

00:08:42.200 He seems to have had some kind of an epiphany, and we'll see what he does with it.

00:08:47.700 We'll know when we see where he tries to lead the gang when it comes to looking at the rezoning bylaw.

00:08:55.540 Are we going to walk that back?

00:08:57.320 Are we going to get out of that arrangement and give people their property rights back?

00:09:02.740 You know, that was the issue.

00:09:05.420 even more than plastic straws that got calories not for me well okay

00:09:10.200 classic straws above everything crime and safety though don't forget about crime and safety help

00:09:15.200 up will he get on second to plastic straws he has 580 plastic straws in boxes in his office so

00:09:21.480 that you know that's uh he knows where he speaks but i'm saying that um for the rest there was no

00:09:28.240 other issue that got people out of their chairs and down to city hall like the rezoning issue

00:09:35.000 And I, to be honest with you, I thought that this was going to be the revolution.

00:09:41.700 I thought people were going to be marching down to the votes to register their disapproval of everything that had gone before.

00:09:48.860 And certainly in as much as Mayor Gondek is now a retired Mayor Gondek, former Mayor Gondek,

00:09:55.580 you know, through the five stages of grief and the time it took me to finish the sentence,

00:10:00.080 many people feel the same.

00:10:01.500 But all right, that got done.

00:10:04.580 Well, what about the rest?

00:10:05.500 So there is the question of how they move forward on rezoning.

00:10:11.000 And what do we do with the green line?

00:10:13.500 You know, there is another thing.

00:10:15.920 So those are two areas where there is a conservative position

00:10:19.540 and there is another position.

00:10:21.880 And I will answer your question about how is Mr. Farkas going to look

00:10:28.580 when I see what he decides to actually do with both of those issues.

00:10:33.260 Let me rephrase the question ever so slightly.

00:10:37.400 Do Calgarians think they elected a Conservative?

00:10:41.380 Yes, I think they probably do.

00:10:42.940 I think largely.

00:10:43.880 Yeah, I think they do,

00:10:46.260 which is what makes the whole thing a little bit of a waiting game.

00:10:51.740 The possibility of disappointment is out there.

00:10:55.780 We were going through the list this morning,

00:10:57.660 And as near as I could confirm anything, given the fact that some of these people didn't really open up who they were during the campaign, I think it's like six conservatives out of the 14, which is an improvement on last time, when on the day after the vote, I think maybe we had three conservatives, and the rest were a little on the left, and of course with a very left-leaning mayor.

00:11:24.880 uh now you make a few basic assumptions about the parties and the individuals and you can kind of

00:11:32.360 put it together there's just about six conservatives there and then a bunch of people who really don't

00:11:37.780 know where they stand i think there might be some centrists in there like truly and i know say well

00:11:41.920 is there anything such as a centrist but i think some of those people that are defined as more

00:11:46.760 left-leaning i think they might be more community focused which is really where we need municipal

00:11:51.040 politicians it doesn't need to be so much about left and right either i think we're going to see

00:11:55.660 some people hopefully that are in the middle i think some of the really diverse divisive

00:12:00.400 personalities i will just say courtney walcott courtney penner they were perceived as very

00:12:04.380 diverse of left-leaning uh councillors last time i'm i'm hopeful those are maybe out of the picture

00:12:10.440 this time and it's a little bit more moderate and i think um from the right i think i think what we

00:12:15.980 were talking about earlier today that landon johnson might be the new jeremy 1.0 right so i

00:12:21.000 think that'll be really interesting okay so we'll talk um okay okay i want to come back to council

00:12:27.300 um we'll talk maybe just about the dynamics of the race a bit more um what one of the most

00:12:35.180 decisive questions for a lot of people was who can beat gondek now the campaign all the different

00:12:41.860 campaigns uh the not gone deck campaigns were putting out polls regularly saying look my

00:12:48.640 campaign is the one to beat gone deck and you know i've been around the block enough to know that

00:12:53.980 okay when you when a campaign puts out a poll it's obviously they're they're trying to

00:13:01.200 uh get people to vote strategically and so i generally don't trust

00:13:05.160 polls put out by campaigns they do internal polling and that's the stuff they don't share

00:13:09.800 And that's the good stuff. That's actual good, hard data.

00:13:12.080 Stuff they're not supposed to share, but some of the

00:13:13.720 campaigns did end up sharing that. And it does

00:13:15.640 create a false narrative, but it works.

00:13:17.080 And then it's like, oh yeah, we didn't mean

00:13:19.780 to leak this, and they intentionally leak it.

00:13:22.360 So, you know,

00:13:23.840 the one I really put a lot of weight in

00:13:25.680 was Jenna Brown's poll.

00:13:28.120 You know, she's got a pretty good track

00:13:29.800 record. She

00:13:31.500 mostly-ish predicted what was

00:13:33.700 going to happen here. Municipal's harder to predict, I think,

00:13:35.700 because voter turnout tends to be

00:13:37.640 so low.

00:13:38.140 So, Nigel, you have the numbers.

00:13:40.540 Yeah, so, yeah, it's just been getting worse and worse every year.

00:13:43.720 We think it didn't quite make 40%.

00:13:45.500 I think it's 38.4, 33, is it?

00:13:47.940 And it was 30 up in Edmonton.

00:13:49.360 And I think a lot of this is due to these long lineups that we saw.

00:13:51.900 Well, no, it was 38.9 this time.

00:13:55.980 Oh, was it?

00:13:56.440 Okay.

00:13:56.680 36.4 in 2021.

00:14:00.320 It was over 50% in 2017 and more again in 2013.

00:14:05.040 so was it diminishing

00:14:07.020 it depends on the issues

00:14:09.300 and the structure of things

00:14:10.900 like the last Alberta election had an increase

00:14:13.040 in voter turnout I believe

00:14:14.840 but

00:14:16.500 I thought John was nodding no

00:14:18.740 but he's actually just scratching his eyes

00:14:20.020 something on John

00:14:23.400 and

00:14:24.220 last time there was just such a clear

00:14:28.900 dichotomy

00:14:29.460 Gondek on the left, Barkas on the right

00:14:32.140 and then he also had Jeff Davison

00:14:33.460 but it was such a clear-cut race

00:14:35.160 that people didn't know who to vote for here

00:14:36.960 so I think a lot of people just

00:14:38.380 didn't vote

00:14:40.280 because it was so unclear

00:14:42.240 so anyway, the different candidates

00:14:44.880 putting this stuff out, the Janet Brown poll came out

00:14:46.980 and said Farkas was leading

00:14:48.140 and then it essentially had

00:14:50.360 Gondek and Sharp

00:14:53.160 more or less tied in second

00:14:54.580 and Davidson in fourth

00:14:59.100 Thyssen in distant fifth

00:15:00.500 I think that probably

00:15:03.120 influenced a lot of people to

00:15:05.260 vote Farkas, but

00:15:07.220 I think even more so it probably influenced

00:15:09.100 Davison people to then

00:15:11.300 vote for Sharp because that said

00:15:13.240 Davison can't win. He's running fourth. It was a respectable

00:15:15.060 fourth, but it said he couldn't win

00:15:17.260 so he probably underperformed the polls

00:15:18.900 because of that. I think

00:15:21.120 but

00:15:22.620 Davison, I know that campaign

00:15:25.320 had been saying the whole time, we

00:15:27.180 can win. We're the ones who can beat Gondek.

00:15:30.440 I know

00:15:30.980 you have to say that.

00:15:33.120 But like, I was like, come on, like, you're not going to be in position from fourth.

00:15:38.360 They can't leapfrog the fourth in the last few days.

00:15:41.280 I think there was just, there was a lot of resources.

00:15:43.300 There's a lot of, there's a tremendous benefit to party politics in the sense

00:15:46.700 that there's a lot of resources.

00:15:48.160 And at the end of the day, I think, you know, Communities First with Sonia Sharpe

00:15:51.240 had just had significantly more resources than the Jeff Davison campaign did.

00:15:54.720 Because if we're talking about issues, there wasn't a lot of differentiators,

00:15:58.120 you guys, blanket rezoning.

00:15:59.480 Okay.

00:15:59.720 We're all going to repeal blanket rezoning in some form or another, a little

00:16:02.260 flip-flopping there but at the end of the day that was the commitment uh crime and safety let's get

00:16:06.520 tough on crime and safety let's you know partner with the province to shut down the Sheldon Schumer

00:16:10.980 um you know so there's those issues but affordability was the number one thing and you

00:16:15.400 guys I will tell you in our last couple weeks of the campaign our messaging which I think to the

00:16:21.320 degree it could be was effective was all around Jeff Davison's promise for a four-year tax uh tax

00:16:27.240 freeze and that really resonated with people because affordability is the number one issue

00:16:31.620 in the city. You know, there were so many people that I talked to who said, I actually would like

00:16:35.480 to vote for Jeff Davidson, but he's not going to win. So I got to pick between, and that was just

00:16:41.060 what you were up against. I know. And it was really difficult because, you know, I will maintain,

00:16:45.040 and for everybody listening, like Jeff Davidson is a tremendous candidate and human being. And

00:16:48.820 he was, and it was, we had a beautiful campaign filled with really, really good quality people

00:16:52.820 and absolutely no regrets. But yeah, it was an uphill battle. He was the underdog. And in the end,

00:16:58.400 I was surprised. I didn't think that she would get that high. I thought she appealed

00:17:04.360 even though I don't really truly believe that she's in her. She's truly really a conservative.

00:17:10.760 I think being painted that way and I just thought it would be more appealing to a far right crowd

00:17:15.620 and hey I was wrong before and I'll be wrong again. I didn't think she would appeal to the

00:17:19.740 moderate base as much as she obviously did but you know within 600 votes of Marilette Jeremy

00:17:25.080 Farkas. And a recount to come. Again,

00:17:27.100 I don't think we're going to see a lot of change in the mayor's chair.

00:17:28.960 That's just too big a margin. But any campaign

00:17:30.940 manager would advise her to do that. And that is the

00:17:32.900 respectable thing to do. I don't think that's sour grapes

00:17:35.080 for her to request. Not at all.

00:17:37.620 It's totally

00:17:38.860 reasonable. Alright, well, let's talk

00:17:40.680 council. I'm sorry

00:17:42.560 we're not including Elise really

00:17:45.040 here yet.

00:17:47.560 But I would expect

00:17:49.340 yeah, I would

00:17:51.180 expect someone from Vancouver to have about as much insight

00:17:53.160 into Calgary's municipal politics as I would

00:17:55.160 have been to Vancouver.

00:17:56.660 We did know about Gondek. We did,

00:17:59.200 believe me, we know about your mayor.

00:18:01.140 We're a former mayor.

00:18:02.460 We prayed

00:18:05.280 a lot for you. We really did.

00:18:07.700 So, you know, the way to get high

00:18:09.080 our prayers have been answered. So thank you

00:18:11.120 for sending good vibes our way.

00:18:14.580 Okay,

00:18:15.120 so let's talk about council.

00:18:17.640 So, Lindsay,

00:18:18.580 I think Nigel said there's roughly

00:18:21.180 six. I know Common Sense Calgary put out

00:18:22.980 something uh today which i think was pretty reasonable saying broadly speaking there's

00:18:27.940 six center right counselors six center left counselors and i think two just unknown kind

00:18:35.040 of more and was one of the unknown centrist people maybe we can look this up is that john

00:18:39.040 pandasopoulos in six more six and he is he perceived as not part of the six because i

00:18:44.560 think he will end up being part of six i don't know i think he's more conservative leaning and

00:18:48.520 i think um you know watch the greeks yeah that's the only thing about him is he's got a difficult

00:18:52.320 greek name that's the only thing i know about this guy yeah um you know so we've got uh i want

00:18:58.700 to ask you about the party system yeah so i you know i i i've been saying this whole time since

00:19:06.520 we got minnesota parties in calgary and edmonton that i think it's going to take a few cycles for

00:19:11.720 things to come out in the wash before it kind of gets settled there was one left party uh calgary

00:19:16.720 party and then there was community first on the on the center right and abc on the center right

00:19:21.840 uh so yeah communities first and a better calgary all very imaginative names um sorry and that is

00:19:30.100 the trouble there is absolutely nothing in and as per bill 20 provincial legislation you can't

00:19:35.740 put conservative or ndp or liberal anything and that's what i think what voters are looking for

00:19:39.280 and you got to think people have one minute a week for politics the average voter and they

00:19:43.980 have even less than that for municipal politics it just it created confusion yeah it it didn't

00:19:49.560 settle that at all. I think the reason

00:19:51.720 they didn't allow them to use names like conservative, liberal,

00:19:53.940 etc. is that, you know,

00:19:55.920 the Alberta UCP, the federal

00:19:57.640 conservatives don't want, you know, some guy

00:19:59.760 gets nominated as the conservative

00:20:01.300 councillor in Ward

00:20:03.000 20, and he says

00:20:05.660 something a little off-color,

00:20:07.660 and then, you know, then they have to go

00:20:09.720 ask Daniel Smith and Pierre Paulyev, what do you think

00:20:11.660 about what this guy in Ward 20 said?

00:20:14.440 I think that was it.

00:20:17.000 But yeah,

00:20:18.000 but the point is,

00:20:18.980 uh on the there's independent left elected and then there's calgary party elected there's

00:20:24.740 independent right elected and then there's people from two different parties elected

00:20:29.860 on the right because most are communities first but there was one uh a better calgary party yeah

00:20:36.900 currently has uh worked well with mike jameson and they're hanging on by 29 votes i know there's

00:20:40.820 going to be a recount there and that's happening yeah uh and then that's close enough and then you

00:20:45.540 And then you have the Calgary party with one seat, so you have AAC, you have Calgary party

00:20:50.640 with one seat, and then you have Communities First technically with four, but I do want

00:20:54.660 to, because we should be very clear that two new seats, we lost a couple, and then you

00:21:00.780 had two very, very strong councillors in wards 10 and 13, Dan McLean and respectively André

00:21:06.280 Chabot, and I think it's very fair that anybody would agree that they would have been elected

00:21:11.640 regardless of the system they gave legitimacy to the community's first party uh as far as being

00:21:17.080 perceived as conservative party yeah um so you know i i think assuming we have the one abc candidate

00:21:24.880 and a few communities first they're going to form a natural block together i don't imagine

00:21:29.560 that there's the kind of antagonism that existed say between wild rose and progressive conservatives

00:21:35.080 where that went on for over a decade and we hated each other's guts until we finally faced

00:21:40.500 socialist hordes that get across the aisle from each other um i am no because quite frankly it's

00:21:46.320 embarrassing and it can't continue right there's a lot of bad blood i think that was took place

00:21:50.300 in the election and i think everybody needs to just have a truce and work together so uh but

00:21:55.080 i'm thinking in the long term you think it's likely those two parties come together it's four

00:21:58.140 years they have to you have to turn into a third party advertiser they have to either that or they

00:22:04.160 just dissolve them but i don't think they're going to i think this was a pilot project i think you

00:22:07.560 know i hosted one of your shows earlier this morning and it suggests you know like okay you

00:22:11.660 know nothing's going to be perfect the first time out of the gate i think there's some changes that

00:22:15.400 myself with along with i had amber ready and stephen carter on that show and i think you know

00:22:19.940 there's some things like maybe higher thresholds for creating a party um you getting access to the

00:22:24.540 voters it's like there's some things that definitely need to change but they didn't have

00:22:27.500 access to the voters list what the hell is the point of a party if you don't get the voters list

00:22:31.740 i know it's a real problem so i think there's just name them correctly and you don't get a

00:22:35.700 voters list i don't understand why we have these parties then exactly like it was just a real

00:22:40.300 uphill battle and you know i i do want to give credit where credit is due i give credit to a

00:22:43.960 better calgary party um i think you know they ended up and um you know i did help originally

00:22:48.760 build that party and then i i kind of parted race with them on very good terms but to me a better

00:22:53.600 calgary party they did try to do what i think a party should be which is you know democratically

00:22:57.820 elect uh their their their member and they have the memberships uh vote on who they want to be

00:23:04.200 their representatives and I think and communities first it was a slate it was never a party it was

00:23:08.200 a slate and it was very confusing with their branding and strategically probably very smart

00:23:12.000 for them but it was very confusing to people because you had these candidates running under

00:23:16.020 the communities first banner but unless you saw them in a photo op together you would never know

00:23:19.520 that they were part of a party that it wasn't displayed on signage it wasn't clear in a lot of

00:23:23.700 their marketing and I think that's confusing to people I would like to see something like hey if

00:23:27.740 you're going to be part of a party you got to make that you got to put that front and center the

00:23:30.960 Calgary party executed on that ABC candidates executed on that whether you

00:23:34.860 agree with those parties or not is beside the point they were very clear

00:23:37.680 hey we are party this is these are our candidates and I think that we need that

00:23:42.000 clarity moving forward or it's just going to you're gonna have more

00:23:45.360 disenfranchised voters because they feel like they're being duped and that's what

00:23:47.880 you think about the name communities first anyway like that has a socialist

00:23:52.200 feel about that's the kind of woke community involvement type of person who

00:23:58.440 would gravitate to that well i think so too i think you could almost say that about any of the

00:24:03.480 party names i think uh better calgary party calgary party communities first i don't really

00:24:08.200 think that any of them could note the naming is just like everybody's trying to appear to the mall

00:24:13.480 appeal to the moderates and you know that's you know it's it's what it is and no criticism of

00:24:17.960 their individual branding but the name itself doesn't connote anything but i mean communities

00:24:21.640 firstly they put themselves forward as a conservative party certainly they had very

00:24:24.760 respectable conservatives. You know, the Dan McLean and Andre Chabot in 13 and 10, fronting that party.

00:24:31.320 And they chose Sonia Sharp as their candidate, who was perceived as a conservative. Don't know

00:24:35.880 that she really was one, but was perceived as a conservative from award one. So, you know,

00:24:39.880 they put that, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how that's, I don't, I don't, then they had an

00:24:44.200 award nine candidate who was like an ardent NDP, I mean, an ardent NDP activist, I think is the

00:24:49.720 best way to put it. She attended NDP conventions as a delegate. So what are you? It's interesting.

00:24:55.880 And actually we're talking about John Pantasopoulos. His campaign manager, did he have connections to

00:25:01.480 the NDP? Correct, he did. But I think John himself appeals as more of a moderate conservative and

00:25:07.080 is a businessman. It comes from that perspective. So I think he might end up siding a lot with more

00:25:11.640 the conservative. Just let them come out and say, we are the party of the overdog.

00:25:15.160 yeah remember this anyway okay well if anyone from the alberta cabinet has watched any ucp nlas

00:25:24.440 give them the friggin voters list and let them put reasonable names on their parties that

00:25:29.160 what a mess okay we've kept at least on the bench long enough for putting her on the ice

00:25:36.520 um john rostad the bc conservative leader he took that party from nothing

00:25:45.160 And really made it into something.

00:25:47.780 You know, some of it was catch a lightning in a bottle, maybe.

00:25:51.120 And the BC Liberal United Party did a lot of the work in collapsing themselves.

00:25:56.720 But the guy, there's a lot of credit for what he did.

00:25:59.460 Came with just a hair of becoming Premier a year ago.

00:26:04.160 But, you know, the promise of them as this government-in-waiting that, you know,

00:26:09.940 they could maybe try to topple the quasi-ish minority government.

00:26:13.780 that they were on the doorsteps of power,

00:26:17.460 and it has just fallen apart.

00:26:21.220 I have no way to describe it,

00:26:22.760 but just a total shitshow.

00:26:25.540 John Rostad has now lost his fifth MLA.

00:26:28.960 His fifth MLA.

00:26:30.500 Proportionally, if you were to take, you know,

00:26:31.960 in terms of caucus sizes and the size of the legislature,

00:26:35.260 this is going to be damn near as much as Stockwell Day lost

00:26:38.600 when his leadership came under a lot of trouble

00:26:43.320 with the Canadian Alliance in the day,

00:26:45.020 and that was enough, ultimately, to topple him.

00:26:48.660 You know, and Stok, actually, a bunch of us,

00:26:51.300 I think maybe all of us know Stok well.

00:26:53.900 Great guy, but...

00:26:55.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:58.300 But, you know, when you're having to kick people

00:27:01.740 out of caucus in numbers,

00:27:04.360 when you have them leaving caucus in protest,

00:27:08.220 there comes a point where you just can't take any more damage.

00:27:12.460 he's just lost his fifth he's lost them on kind of the left and the right of the party it seems

00:27:17.160 um the the last one to go uh i don't recall the name you'll tell me in a second at least

00:27:22.060 but uh she leaves the caucus and then john rustad says wow she's got mental health issues

00:27:28.200 i don't know this person maybe she does but i mean if that was the case why was she your candidate

00:27:34.500 why was she in the caucus um and that just seemed like a really personal attack to try and

00:27:42.020 justify what was happening at least what the hell is happening in lotus land out there

00:27:47.600 it i have to tell you it's a very it's a clown car and there's a lot of people in that clown car

00:27:58.340 um just speaking on that candidate you should also know that she it's a legal issue and i would

00:28:05.100 recommend and i have recommended that she speak to katherine marshall because katherine marshall

00:28:09.500 this is her territory um what had happened with that mla is that she had privately gone to the

00:28:15.680 leader and said i think there was a family matter and she was struggling with her mental health she

00:28:21.120 needed a break she's the critic for ministry of children and families in british columbia which

00:28:25.720 is if you believe in the devil the devil resides in the ministry of children and families it is a

00:28:32.640 horror show in there um and i think as a woman i think it does affect you maybe differently and

00:28:38.100 that's okay for us to say that. I think that it was difficult for her. And so she went to the

00:28:45.580 leader as she should. And she said, Hey, John, I'm having a bit of a struggle. I need to take a bit

00:28:50.400 of time off. And she wasn't talking months. She wasn't even talking weeks. And then he proceeds

00:28:55.820 to tell everybody that he's supporting her. There have been some problems in caucus. Some people

00:29:02.540 thought she was too left leaning, sort of very similar to the conversation that all three of

00:29:06.780 you have just had about municipal politics in Calgary and political parties are you really a

00:29:12.340 conservative was sort of the question that goes around and there's some ardent hardcore very

00:29:18.780 right-wing conservatives in that caucus and so John backed her and then a day or two ago he jumps out

00:29:26.840 and says you know he shares this privileged information technically as her employer and

00:29:34.100 breaches all of the standards that he is he is not her employer there would there would not be

00:29:40.700 any employment relationship to like the leader of a party is effectively the boss but like legally

00:29:47.280 speaking the employer would be the legislative assembly of british columbia yes exactly oh and

00:29:52.180 i and i just want to say i wish bc conservatives when lindsey shepard was fired nobody understood

00:29:57.920 who the employer really was and that there are employment standards you can't beak off

00:30:03.240 and say whatever you want to say but the the point of this is that she had gone through the right

00:30:08.400 protocols and he steps out and not only does he break that confidence and therefore creates a huge

00:30:15.000 liability for the party and a huge liability for her he then claims that the woman he's been

00:30:21.400 protecting and supporting is a secret hamas supporter okay it's very it's very joe mccarthy

00:30:28.400 you're a communist you're a communist you know it was so we actually oh my god she was a secret

00:30:36.840 hamas supporter of some kind yeah a sympathizer and uh and so i have to tell you for me and my

00:30:43.420 jaded colleagues uh not the and i would say that there's a lot of first-time mlas in that caucus

00:30:48.620 they were horrified i had one whose voice was cracking i had another one who told me that his

00:30:54.360 entire family was calling him and his wife was telling him how disappointed she was in him and

00:31:01.880 that he was worried about this moa's mental health it was absolute chaos it was that

00:31:06.760 shit show going on the other thing is that me and my colleagues were standing there watching us i

00:31:13.240 have to tell you we were laughing our asses off at one point because it reminded us of that show

00:31:19.320 in the thick of it with malcolm tucker it was just absolute chaos and the and it wasn't we weren't

00:31:25.640 laughing about the mental health but when he did the overreach jump the shark suggesting that she

00:31:30.440 was some sort of hamas secret agent in the or sympathizer in the caucus to us that was just

00:31:35.720 a bridge too far um but it from that point on it really speaks and it has spoken and i would say

00:31:42.600 that John what what may not be visible or obvious to the observers across the

00:31:49.020 country or who haven't had a first-hand or a front-row seat to the John Russ

00:31:54.560 dad show when he became leader and I'll be very honest with you there were a lot

00:32:00.000 of us that had worked for Gordon Campbell including myself in

00:32:03.240 communications that you know I've known John 26 years I think it is and I know

00:32:09.780 know what his strengths are and leadership definitely wasn't

00:32:12.480 one of them. But he we needed somebody that was charismatic

00:32:16.380 that was that could that could bridge the the 604 and the two

00:32:22.380 five o's together, which is you know, our resource communities

00:32:26.480 how this province works with the First Nations communities and

00:32:30.180 then with Metro Vancouver, which conservatives or right of

00:32:33.540 center have a hard time breaking through or have had a hard time

00:32:37.200 breaking it through. But it has been one

00:32:39.780 one ridiculous, and sometimes even offensive error. What goes on in that little

00:32:47.100 fiefdom in the leaders office is embarrassing. The other thing is, is he's got three prominent,

00:32:53.280 hardcore, former NDP organizers, and a federal liberal now and there. And he's gotten rid of

00:33:01.500 all of his conservative or I don't even know if there was a lot of conservative stuff. But his

00:33:05.380 inner circle is NDP and federal liberal. And you've got one of

00:33:12.220 his his new assistant director or assistant chief of staff, Ryan

00:33:17.220 Painter has a reputation for decimating female conservative

00:33:22.120 pundits like myself, I have a litany of things I could accuse

00:33:25.420 him of. And he had started an apology tour with me, I should

00:33:29.020 have known then that there was something up he was flipping

00:33:31.840 over to the conservative side. But getting back to what's

00:33:34.620 happened. As of 11 o'clock Pacific time today, the board of the party has finally written John

00:33:41.800 Rustad a letter. And they have, it's a traditional, typical, we'd like you, we don't support you,

00:33:48.140 we'd like you to leave. But what you can take away from this letter, which makes it, which

00:33:52.500 differentiates it from other letters or other situations like this that I've, that I've witnessed

00:33:57.860 or participated in, is that they don't even tell him that they want him to stay while they choose

00:34:03.420 an amateur leader or decide on what the leadership looks like. They want him gone ASAP. And by the

00:34:08.580 way, don't let the door hit you on the way out. And so that makes it very different. This is also

00:34:14.680 a very new party. And I think what John Rustad always, and your viewers and even maybe some of

00:34:22.080 you won't know, but John Rustad, when I was with the BC Liberals, took a hard run at my boss at

00:34:28.760 gordon campbell um or at least in rustland land it was a hard hard run and um he failed

00:34:36.440 he i believe he always wanted to be leader and what he really liked and what he still i think

00:34:41.320 covets is the is the 2009 to 2011 bc liberal party because we were a a machine in communications

00:34:51.640 we were getting more conservative we were probably presenting more social credit

00:34:56.200 um and we were getting a lot of attacks and with the NDP I'm very proud of that time

00:35:03.220 um and I think what he thought when he took it over because he just it was a cakewalk he just

00:35:08.280 grabbed the leadership and and took everybody out to the election basically I think what he thought

00:35:13.340 he was going to do is create that that certain period of time of the BC Liberal Party and put

00:35:18.740 it into the BC Conservative Party but he doesn't he his follow-through it has always been terrible

00:35:25.320 he's he's he he has a he has i think he has a little add i don't think he understands how to

00:35:31.460 put things together what the expertise and the team that needs to be there to have that type of

00:35:36.120 discipline and consistency because the two things that john rustad's team isn't disciplined and

00:35:41.960 consistent and there is a level of a pure meanness that is go that has um is notorious uh or infamous

00:35:50.000 when we think about that leader's office, too.

00:35:52.700 So anyway, I don't suspect that he'll make it past the weekend,

00:35:58.280 but he obviously can't come out and resign right away

00:36:01.020 when he receives that letter

00:36:02.140 because he needs to look like he's in control.

00:36:04.740 Yeah.

00:36:06.680 Yeah, I thought for some time

00:36:10.100 it doesn't look like he's going to be able to hang on.

00:36:15.680 You know, I talked to some folks I know

00:36:18.860 or have met in the BC Conservatives

00:36:21.000 about what's going on there, I said,

00:36:23.160 you know, and early on, I was

00:36:24.900 like, you know, especially when Rust had

00:36:26.700 expelled two MLA's from the right

00:36:28.820 wing of the party, and I said,

00:36:30.960 you know, it's growing

00:36:32.760 pains. You guys, your growing pains

00:36:34.980 in the BC Conservatives are so much

00:36:36.880 easier than it was for Alberta Conservatives.

00:36:39.120 We had this war that went

00:36:40.780 on forever. You can go back to

00:36:42.420 essentially, like, 2001

00:36:45.000 with the Alberta Alliance and

00:36:46.800 transforming into the Wild Rose Alliance

00:36:48.720 to the Wild Rose Party, and then

00:36:50.760 eventually to the United Conservative Party,

00:36:53.200 and then that...

00:36:54.400 That is... UCP has only achieved

00:36:56.760 peace, really, ever since Daniel Smith

00:36:59.100 won the last election.

00:37:01.300 There wasn't even peace in that party

00:37:02.720 when it became the United Conservative Party.

00:37:04.580 So, it was like, you know what? You guys,

00:37:06.420 you avoided even having a single election

00:37:08.520 against the B.C. United Liberals.

00:37:11.800 Your

00:37:12.240 war is much cleaner. You'll figure

00:37:14.660 it out. Find a way to bring those

00:37:16.740 two back and make peace with them.

00:37:18.720 they do not seem to have done that they have doubled down on chaos now and i don't know all

00:37:27.760 these individuals maybe i mean new parties new mlas you're gonna have it's not as established

00:37:33.260 the politicians are not gonna be as polished which is a good thing in many ways but at the

00:37:38.080 same time it means they're also more likely to be rambunctious and rebellious um so you know

00:37:44.580 maybe John Rustad is just the only adult in the room

00:37:46.640 and everyone else is crazy.

00:37:48.420 Possible. I don't know everyone out there.

00:37:52.140 But,

00:37:52.660 Lindsay, it doesn't look to me

00:37:54.860 like

00:37:56.040 that could be the

00:37:58.700 case at this point. He's lost five MLAs

00:38:00.440 from the left wing and the right wing of the party.

00:38:03.640 People leave.

00:38:05.800 You've got to remember

00:38:06.600 the party is carrying a significant

00:38:08.640 amount of debt. There isn't one

00:38:10.540 person that wants to give him a buck.

00:38:12.220 And it's not because they don't want to help the

00:38:14.280 party but they have told john and i know this for a fact they have told them the taps are turned off

00:38:19.180 and it's been going on for a long time now and the final warning the final push came just i think

00:38:25.080 36 hours ago i was speaking to somebody relatively well very well connected and is known to be a good

00:38:31.000 donor to the party and just said no because there's also questions about where some of this money has

00:38:35.840 gone it is this story is not just about a guy that said something that at best was really mean

00:38:43.880 and stupid and at worst litigious or legally um made us legally vulnerable this goes into

00:38:51.000 management um it goes into um there's is there negligence there there's a whole bunch of problems

00:38:58.280 and the bcndp is likely to call a spring election because this is good as it's going to get for eb

00:39:03.880 and he's got his own knives out in his caucus so there's a lot more to this all right so um

00:39:10.040 Um, yeah, Nigel, it's, uh, ever Liz Truss, I was very sad to see what happened with her.

00:39:15.780 I really liked Liz Truss.

00:39:16.800 I think she could have been a really great prime minister if she had more than, like, a week or two.

00:39:23.820 Like, it was so, so short-lived that, uh, her, her prime minister, her premiership.

00:39:28.040 But, uh, you know, I remember, uh, I don't know if it was Daily Mail or, but one of the major British publications had a head of lettuce and said,

00:39:34.760 which will survive longer, uh, Liz Truss's prime minister or this head of lettuce.

00:39:38.200 that it was pretty funny um if i was to put a head of lettuce in our newsroom right now nigel

00:39:45.400 which one do you think lasts longer after listening to elise i think the um i think the head of

00:39:53.320 lettuce has got it by by a long shot the one thing that i'm wondering here is is there somebody with

00:40:01.240 and i guess i should be directing this to elise is there somebody in the party who is the obvious

00:40:08.120 replacement or

00:40:10.260 is the power base

00:40:12.120 so distributed that it's going to be

00:40:14.140 a fist fight even trying to

00:40:16.200 find a new leader to take over

00:40:18.080 from Rustad should he do the

00:40:20.180 right thing and

00:40:21.140 resign

00:40:22.600 Well I think the way that it would go

00:40:25.780 and I think this is the agreement

00:40:27.400 amongst the gentleman's handshake

00:40:30.040 agreement amongst caucus and the

00:40:32.080 party brass is that

00:40:33.740 there's a gentleman

00:40:35.380 by the name of Wards

00:40:37.320 uh stammer starmer unfortunate last name there um but there's gentlemen like him that i believe

00:40:45.340 and i might be wrong have agreed to be the insure leader so you need somebody that's steady that the

00:40:50.580 caucus really likes but after that the leadership the leader shipping the politics of it that

00:40:57.880 already started today at the truck loggers association luncheon where all the big wigs

00:41:02.380 and all the political fixers and movers and shakers, they go to this lunch. And John Rustad

00:41:07.160 was supposed to speak there. And I don't even know if he ended up showing up. But I can tell you,

00:41:11.660 there are some people out there that are pushing certain candidates. So I know of at least three

00:41:17.020 at this particular moment, there's definitely people that can take over. The question is,

00:41:22.300 the people that are trying to push that are formerly BC liberal types like myself,

00:41:27.360 who haven't learned the lessons.

00:41:29.720 You know, I left the BC Liberals

00:41:31.140 when Christy Clark really turned that

00:41:33.260 into a corrupted machine.

00:41:35.380 I am looking for real conservatism.

00:41:37.940 I do not want somebody that's had some position

00:41:40.500 as a spokesperson somewhere.

00:41:42.360 I want somebody that's had a real job before this.

00:41:45.700 I want somebody that understands

00:41:47.360 what real people really need

00:41:49.600 and to grow the party along with them.

00:41:52.320 And there is a particular candidate

00:41:53.840 that I have my eye on in regards to that.

00:41:56.540 All right.

00:41:57.360 Well, maybe that'll be on the next episode.

00:41:59.580 We've got to put a pin in it there and go to our parting shots starting with Nigel.

00:42:04.680 Well, you know, Mr. Gilbo, he's always good for a bad quote.

00:42:09.460 He came out yesterday and said that the CBC needs to have more money so that it can conduct unbiased local reporting.

00:42:20.200 I have to wonder whether Mr. Gilbo knows what unbiased reporting is.

00:42:26.360 and for that matter whether the cbsc itself knows what unbiased reporting is i mean it's just

00:42:33.580 the first decision is what do we even report they ignore the right all right uh elise

00:42:41.000 my parting shot is to the carny liberals who betrayed canadian manufacturers and canadians

00:42:47.860 across the country this week when they decided to support uh the un's taxes and levies uh or

00:42:54.200 global carbon tax for marine traffic. 30% of our GDP is tied to pushing our products out across

00:43:03.520 the waters. And it's an absolute betrayal. It's also one of the worst cases of doublespeak.

00:43:08.560 You oppose the carbon tax, but you won't actually get rid of it, the consumer carbon tax in Canada.

00:43:13.660 You've kept the industrial one. And now the UN, who should not even be in the business of taxes

00:43:19.200 and levies that is not their lane you've empowered them through this legislation the other side to

00:43:24.700 this very quickly is trump the trump white house for several months had warned the carney cabinet

00:43:29.960 and carney himself you support that we will retaliate this story i think if the media and

00:43:36.460 and over to nigel on this one if the biased media actually took a look at the story there's a can

00:43:42.180 of worms there all right lindsay this is your first parting shot okay well i just i think i

00:43:49.200 want to close i want to close this loop on the municipal election cycle as somebody who is

00:43:53.220 working on it i probably worked on the jeff davison campaign team we lost we have a new

00:43:57.300 mayor-elect jeremy farkas um and i think we need to we need to stop dividing we need to we need to

00:44:04.940 approach this from a place of unity we need to empower these newly elected uh councillors across

00:44:11.140 this province with the tools with the experience with the wisdom so we don't have this division

00:44:17.060 and we don't have this left versus right at the municipal level um i think you know a shout out

00:44:22.660 lindsay clark took it down in medicine hat and that's really interesting as she had lawsuits

00:44:29.060 and she had all of this stuff and it's seen as a real vindication she took out popular conservative

00:44:34.020 choice Drew Barnes, former MLA. And that's a really interesting story. And out where I live,

00:44:41.480 in Cochrane, we had another councillor who was elected, Marnie Fideko, who had also taken on

00:44:46.160 administration, incurred a lot of legal bills. So I just want to say that it's really hard to be an

00:44:50.980 elected official. And when you're having these battles with administration and being silenced

00:44:55.880 and being muzzled, we do need to help these people and stand up for them, regardless of what side of

00:45:00.080 the political spectrum that they stand on. So shout out to those two for their victories in

00:45:05.500 the municipal cycle this season. All right. Well, I want to call out the pearl-clutching

00:45:12.180 legacy media for its wild reaction to Pierre Polyev's comments about the RCMP being political.

00:45:21.960 That's the reason why Justin Trudeau has never faced criminal charges. Justin Trudeau has broken

00:45:28.020 in some major laws during his time in office.

00:45:31.880 The police should not target someone

00:45:37.660 just because they have a high public profile.

00:45:40.400 Wink, wink, I can tell you that.

00:45:42.780 But neither should they do the opposite

00:45:44.880 and look the other way

00:45:46.940 because someone has a high public profile

00:45:49.060 or is politically powerful.

00:45:51.080 The RCMP is not above criticism.

00:45:54.840 This would be different if Pierre Polly was in power

00:45:56.980 and he was directing the RCMP to file charges,

00:46:00.260 that would be over the line.

00:46:01.380 That's not the way our system works.

00:46:03.400 That would be, or if Pierre Paulyev was prime minister

00:46:07.020 and directing his attorney general

00:46:08.600 to not press charges against someone,

00:46:11.640 that's not the way the system is supposed to work.

00:46:15.300 But the pearl clutching around this,

00:46:18.380 he has, as opposition leaders said,

00:46:21.160 the RCP is political.

00:46:22.680 That is why nothing has happened here.

00:46:24.500 and just the absolute meltdown.

00:46:27.720 Oh, he's Donald Trump!

00:46:29.580 Just like Donald Trump is using the legal system to go after his opponents,

00:46:32.820 like Donald Trump's opponents used it to go after Donald Trump, for God's sakes.

00:46:38.020 It is just myopic and mind-numbing how these people have approached it.

00:46:45.600 My hope is that Pierre Polyev stands up to the withering criticism that he's getting here.

00:46:51.420 my gut tells me that

00:46:54.580 he has enough disdain for them that he's not

00:46:56.540 going to back down. I really hope he doesn't.

00:46:59.580 Okay.

00:47:00.740 Nigel, Elise,

00:47:02.620 and our special guest,

00:47:05.280 Corinne Morgan.

00:47:09.240 Cora.

00:47:09.920 Cora Morgan.

00:47:10.580 Cora Morgan.

00:47:12.540 Lindsay Wilson, thank you very much.

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Western Standard - October 23, 2025

Gondek’s Gone, and the BC Conservatives are losing it

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