Western Standard - HANNAFORD： Liberal Canadian values are no way to retain Alberta's loyalty

00:00:00.560 As we're celebrating Canada Day, do you really know what we're celebrating?

00:00:06.080 Few people know today that Canada Day is actually the establishment of Dominion Day.

00:00:13.200 The term Dominion of Canada reflects our Christian heritage and foundations as a country.

00:00:19.120 I certainly didn't learn about this when I was growing up and I assume this certainly is the

00:00:24.560 case today it's like our history as a christian nation has been wiped out erased or buried my

00:00:31.840 hope is i'll inform educate advocate for these truths to be resurfaced and brought back into

00:00:40.640 our public consciousness. So thank you for listening and I hope you have a happy Canada Day.

00:01:05.520 Good evening Western Standard viewers and welcome to Hannah Ford, a weekly politics show of the

00:01:09.840 western standard it is thursday july the second ladies and gentlemen canada day came and went and

00:01:16.080 i hope we all had a good time but there are many folks here in alberta especially who wish they

00:01:22.080 could have got a little more into the spirit with me today is gail ing a calgary woman with a mission

00:01:28.480 and it's got to do with canadian patriotism gail good evening good evening nigel thanks for having

00:01:34.480 me you are so welcome gail you're you're a homeschool mother and you're here in calgary

00:01:41.440 and i know you care very deeply about this country because we've talked about it but you told me many

00:01:46.960 albertans you speak with fine canada day isn't the isn't the buzz they used to feel about it um

00:01:55.280 how was your kind of the day well it was fine but like most canadians uh we you know we kind of

00:02:02.880 think about oh we should do something for canada day and maybe we will uh go out and find some kind

00:02:08.880 of celebration uh to participate in but um a lot of us don't know uh what we're celebrating or even

00:02:17.680 why and i would dare to say some people would not even be um especially proud of our country right

00:02:23.920 now so what you're i'm going to play with your words a little but what you're saying i think

00:02:28.880 is that uh people are being asked to celebrate a country they don't recognize often with values they

00:02:38.160 don't really believe in because the values have changed and they feel it doesn't represent who

00:02:43.920 they are i mean is that sort of part of the problem here yes i believe so i think that um

00:02:51.920 you know we have become almost unrecognizable as a country um even say when i was you know growing up

00:02:59.840 um in ontario so i think that people are just feeling a bit uneasy and they don't even know why

00:03:06.400 what's what's really going on with our country what is have you got a theory on this well 0.80

00:03:10.800 Well, I believe that we have drifted away from our Christian roots as a nation, and

00:03:22.360 we don't even understand those Christian roots.

00:03:27.020 We don't even know about those Christian roots.

00:03:29.720 And so I think people just feel like there's something missing, but they don't know what.

00:03:34.940 And so I've been on this quest to find out what is it about our foundations that we're

00:03:39.720 missing?

00:03:40.720 of people would, I mean, I think I know where you're going with this, but a lot of people would say,

00:03:45.120 that's not it, I'm not a Christian, so what is it that I'm missing?

00:03:50.880 Well, no, they're not a Christian. A lot of people don't identify as Christians these days,

00:03:56.720 but when you look into the foundations of our country, actually Canada makes a lot more sense,

00:04:06.880 and uh it doesn't matter what ideological um you know beliefs you have the fact is is that

00:04:14.320 um canada did start out as a christian nation and a lot of um about who we are even our niceness

00:04:21.440 you know as as we're we're typically identified as canadians it actually stems back to those roots

00:04:28.720 and um and so i would venture to say that if people really understood um about those values

00:04:36.880 and about the men and women that contributed a lot to this country at the genesis then they would

00:04:43.520 really understand more about who canada is what canada's all about well you you have recently

00:04:50.000 made a video i think it's i think it's out there now you launched it on canada today or maybe the

00:04:55.680 day before at any rate it's uh you know the numbers look uh quite encouraging and we're going

00:05:01.840 to give the we're going to give the link to that and actually play a little clip from it in a moment

00:05:06.640 but just tell me first tell the tell the viewers what it is

00:05:13.360 like christian values why would that define a canada well for instance um you know when

00:05:22.640 When I was searching, researching about Canada, and then I learned about Canada Day was actually

00:05:28.780 called Dominion Day, and I learned about why it was called Dominion Day.

00:05:33.320 Well, let me stop you right there.

00:05:34.600 Doesn't everybody know that it was once called Dominion Day?

00:05:37.560 Well, I was a child of the 70s.

00:05:39.760 I grew up in public school in the 70s.

00:05:41.460 I never heard about this.

00:05:42.740 Really?

00:05:43.120 Ever.

00:05:43.820 At all.

00:05:44.780 And so I'm assuming that it was very similar with kids my age and since then, growing up.

00:05:50.940 Okay, well, tell us about Dominion Day.

00:05:52.640 Well, it's interesting. Dominion Day comes from the fact that we are called the Dominion of Canada.

00:05:59.940 And the Dominion of Canada came, the titling of that came from a man, a father of our confederation named Sir Samuel Tilley.

00:06:11.000 And at a conference that they had to determine the Canadian confederation, Samuel Tilley did his devotions that morning as per normal.

00:06:21.480 and came across Psalm 72 8 which says he means God shall have dominion from sea to sea and so

00:06:30.040 he brought this forward to to the other fathers of confederation and I'm not sure exactly to tell

00:06:37.340 you the truth at this point like how many of those fathers of confederation were Christians

00:06:41.920 and how many were not but Christianity was such a normalized accepted part of this country that

00:06:50.360 But when he suggested calling Canada the Dominion of Canada, it was accepted.

00:06:55.540 It was…

00:06:56.540 Everybody got it, from Atlantic to Pacific.

00:06:59.520 And I think it also says in that verse, from the river to the ends of the earth.

00:07:04.120 And I guess if you go from the St. Lawrence, which was probably what everybody was focused

00:07:08.660 on on those days, to way up the hell and gone towards the Arctic, that must have seemed

00:07:13.800 like the ends of the earth.

00:07:14.920 So, I mean, there's a nice little word picture there.

00:07:18.000 Absolutely.

00:07:19.000 have called it what else could they have called it uh well john mcdonald uh you know he suggested

00:07:24.040 the kingdom of canada um but ultimately tilly's suggestion went out and the rest is history

00:07:29.880 so the conc so what is the conclusion that you draw from the fact that first tilly suggested it

00:07:36.600 based on his biblical knowledge and everybody else said yeah that works for me well as i said

00:07:43.080 it was just christianity was a normalized accepted um even celebrated part of this country and it um

00:07:51.880 it influenced everything um you know that we can be proud of in in this country a lot of it even

00:07:59.880 our participation in world war one and world war ii we really saw that we were fighting against

00:08:05.960 evil and people accepted that and they saw that it's like they saw it that way well i think

00:08:12.600 you're speaking of a time when even people who frankly weren't faithful to going to church every

00:08:20.440 sunday still thought well you know if you're going to argue don't at least don't argue with god

00:08:25.640 you know right so there was a respect i guess for the principles of the bible even if there was not

00:08:33.320 a ready wish to internalize them oneself absolutely absolutely so what does it mean when

00:08:42.760 for a country then, if that's how it was, if you lose that.

00:08:49.640 Well, one of the foundational verses that I go by as I created Stop the Drift, or as

00:08:58.360 I'm creating Stop the Drift, is that Hebrews 2.1 says,

00:09:04.600 um therefore we must earnestly take heed of the things we have heard less we drift away

00:09:11.640 and we're drifting away from those christian values um everyone can see it you know in canada

00:09:19.320 we we can name off multiple ways give us a few well i mean everything from you know our mental

00:09:26.760 health crisis to our you know people our our crime our um homelessness issue it's just everything is

00:09:37.560 just people are getting more and more anxious things are just not right anymore okay well

00:09:43.800 i'll give you the crime one but can you elaborate a little on how drifting away from

00:09:49.320 biblical principles would affect mental health or I think you said homelessness, I mean that's

00:09:57.720 another one. Right, I mean it affects it so much because at the bare minimum. I mean I think we

00:10:03.720 can agree that 50 years ago, 100 years ago when these principles were more widely respected we

00:10:09.580 didn't seem to have these homeless problems and I'm sure there's still some people who

00:10:15.040 who had mental health issues, but...

00:10:18.160 Absolutely.

00:10:19.240 Well, because the Bible, God,

00:10:23.360 really highly esteems and created the family,

00:10:28.440 which is supposed to be our foundational social structure

00:10:32.200 in society.

00:10:33.900 And when you wipe away that foundational social structure,

00:10:38.160 then, and you know,

00:10:40.120 we can talk to all the mental health professionals,

00:10:42.660 um when you take that away or when people are not living by biblical values then um then things just

00:10:53.540 start falling apart to tell you the truth and because you know those things of honesty of

00:10:59.700 integrity of character of building one's um life around values and principles that are about caring 0.61

00:11:07.700 for one another and helping one another even that you know um the cbc uh did a thing about

00:11:15.860 uh tommy douglas being you know the greatest canadian but um nobody knew that tommy douglas

00:11:23.780 was actually a preacher and believed in the social gospel which was about like caring for

00:11:30.020 one another that should be one of our basic principles because that's what jesus did jesus

00:11:34.580 cared for people. He helped people. He wanted people to live right so that they could be well

00:11:40.600 in this world. So are you saying that the CBC was a little selective in their research?

00:11:45.540 I believe so. Yes. Well, I don't think we can put that down to a lack of biblical knowledge,

00:11:51.240 but it certainly is something that we hear in this office quite frequently. All right. So

00:11:57.480 I think that if you have a society where it's generally accepted that you shouldn't steal,

00:12:04.300 you shouldn't murder you know those six commandments out of the ten that deal with

00:12:10.860 how we interact with each other things would probably go a little more smoothly now when do

00:12:15.340 we lose that my belief is that um and statistics will show it was kind of around um you know the

00:12:26.540 1980s when we brought in the Charter for Rights and Freedoms and things like you know the Lord's

00:12:34.540 Day Act got struck down, the abortion laws got struck down, like all these things that were

00:12:40.460 meant to kind of protect people started getting challenged in court.

00:12:46.380 So what was the basis of the challenge? I mean a ban on abortion, well I realize that's a highly

00:12:54.380 inflammable issue and some people feel very passionately that it's a right but of course

00:12:59.340 you know an organism is killed in the process um so you mentioned the lord's day act um again what

00:13:09.100 is it such a bad thing that you can go to costco on sunday well i mean a lot of people say no

00:13:15.660 that's not the day to go actually but um yeah anyway but i'm not i'm not here to be political

00:13:21.100 about it but i i i just i'm just saying that that's kind of when um and probably even before

00:13:28.380 then you know we we went to church as a family but it was like you know christmas and easter

00:13:33.340 kind of so that was kind of the 70s so i think probably my belief is like from you know the

00:13:39.420 introduction of multi multiculturalism with the first trudeau um i think that it's really started

00:13:45.180 then and then just got you know further down the line um until the 80s well i mean i mean you are

00:13:52.940 right according to what i have looked at read studied uh certainly the charter of rights and

00:14:00.540 freedoms was indeed a turning point at which point the old way of interpreting the law which

00:14:08.140 is well what did we do the last time precedent no no what what's going to be acceptable to most

00:14:13.820 people it was a very definite uh uh intention to try and gauge the the the national sentiment

00:14:21.740 i mean i don't know how you do that you read the globe and mail the star and listen to cbc and i

00:14:25.980 guess in central canada that that defines everything but uh you know the courts decided

00:14:31.900 that they had to somehow reflect what people really thought was right rather than some

00:14:39.020 uh originalist yardstick and that's where that's i think so is that what you're reacting to

00:14:46.380 i i believe so like you know when the con i'm not obviously against our charter of rights and

00:14:52.940 freedoms but i am um it was a significant shift in the sense that the course decided what was

00:14:59.580 right rather than parliament and um and that was a dramatic shift and they are unelected officials

00:15:06.780 and and so you can't do much about it can you yeah all right um now you actually have been trying to

00:15:14.860 do something about it last year i think you wanted to uh get what was a christian week or a national

00:15:22.700 christian day or something before the city council ahead of that don't tell us about that well it

00:15:27.740 wasn't me um you know molly and jay um banner jay um so who are these guys so they i just hoping

00:15:37.180 i'm getting their their their name right banner jay sorry um molly and babe uh molly and jay banner

00:15:45.580 jay was um they were they are a couple in toronto they're actually an immigrant couple and um from

00:15:53.340 India, and they are the ones who started this whole movement to try and get Christian Heritage Month

00:16:01.740 embedded into Canadian society. Christian Heritage Month? Yeah, for December, for the month of

00:16:07.420 December. And when I met them, I said, why are you doing this? Like, you're immigrants, like,

00:16:13.180 we're native-born Canadians, we haven't even done this. And they said to me, the reason we're doing

00:16:18.940 this is because we um have seen what happens to a country when you take christianity out of it

00:16:27.260 and so they're on a mission and they even um have um helped um one of the centers senators

00:16:35.820 um just recently um start a bill that will declare christian heritage month across canada

00:16:43.420 and so uh they're doing a great work and that's what actually started me thinking about wow this

00:16:50.400 is this is amazing i'm a little embarrassed as a native canadian and a christian that i didn't

00:16:56.700 think of this um but they they're passionate about it as they should be because they've seen

00:17:02.340 what could happen and so um that started my journey about digging in to what what is this

00:17:12.100 Christian heritage that we have. Again, it's not in our schools. It's not in our public 0.99

00:17:17.860 consciousness. It's not on government websites. It's not even, you know, in those very institutions.

00:17:25.460 Chiseled. Some of it is chiseled into the Peace Tower, you know.

00:17:28.440 Some of it's chiseled into the Peace Tower, but I'm a little bit worried with the reconstruction

00:17:32.080 of the Peace Tower, if they'll actually come out with the same verses in it. But...

00:17:38.180 I haven't thought of that.

00:17:39.080 Yeah, but...

00:17:40.540 Do you have any reason to think that they might?

00:17:42.720 I don't, I don't know.

00:17:44.240 I don't know.

00:17:44.760 I just wonder if you've heard something

00:17:45.600 that missed the newsroom here.

00:17:46.820 No.

00:17:47.680 Carry on.

00:17:48.560 But, you know, it's not being presented

00:17:52.040 in the very institutions

00:17:53.460 that are supposed to reflect Canada to Canadians.

00:17:58.380 So, you know, I...

00:18:01.080 What they would probably say to you is,

00:18:02.620 yeah, we're trying to reflect Canada to Canadians,

00:18:04.960 but most Canadians are not Christians,

00:18:06.340 so that's what we're reflecting. 0.94

00:18:08.640 Sure.

00:18:09.640 And we're encouraging it, of course.

00:18:11.640 Absolutely.

00:18:12.640 But the thing is, is that Canada as a Christian nation at its genesis is fact.

00:18:19.640 Yes.

00:18:20.640 So why aren't we teaching facts?

00:18:22.640 Well, that's a good point.

00:18:24.640 Now, in the spirit of teaching, I think you had, I mean, this little video, which I thought

00:18:31.640 was, well, I mean, you intended it to be informative, and it was informative, but it was very well

00:18:36.640 together it was quite a nice it was it was quite a nice thing and i do encourage people to take a

00:18:42.280 look at it and if we haven't already put it up on the screen we'll certainly have the uh the the

00:18:47.320 web link there for you and it'll be embedded in the article that we always put out at the same

00:18:52.540 time as we put out a podcast however you have further plans what are what are your further

00:19:00.900 plans well my hope is um to do some kind of of a video like i did for canada day every month um

00:19:10.580 looking at various aspects of our our canadian christian heritage to kind of unearth on unveil

00:19:18.900 those facts um and the second video will be about um the fact is kind of a little bit of a play

00:19:30.900 video sorry the third video the second video the second video yeah so the second video we'll look at

00:19:37.560 um a little bit of a play on uh Justin Trudeau's um famous uh quote when he was interviewed by CNN

00:19:46.320 in 2025 when he could only define Canada as we are not American and when I heard that I was like

00:19:54.660 wow that's the only way we can define ourselves that we're not american um and and that's coming

00:20:01.700 from the leader of our country um and so i started researching and thinking about well

00:20:09.940 is that a true statement it is actually a true statement we are obviously different countries

00:20:15.460 but people don't actually realize um how different we are and it has to do

00:20:22.500 how different we are than the United States, and it actually has to do with the fact that

00:20:27.620 Canada grew up as a distinctly Christian nation, whereas the states actually didn't.

00:20:39.700 Really? I think the Americans, as they prepare for 250 years, would probably dispute that.

00:20:46.980 I mean, is there money that has on it in God we trust, not ours?

00:20:50.980 Absolutely. But there's definitely Christians' influence. I will not deny that. There's a strong

00:20:59.060 Christian influence in the United States. In fact, they even attribute their rights

00:21:03.220 to God. To God. But the Founding Fathers were actually deists. They weren't actually Christian.

00:21:09.700 they were um they believed in god they believed in um you know the rationale um the rational

00:21:20.740 acceptance of a god that created a universe um but they weren't christians and in fact

00:21:27.380 they were deists and they were um uh freemasons as well which would go against um a lot of what

00:21:36.820 Christianity would state would be true. So definitely a religious background in the United 0.91

00:21:44.100 States, definitely a Christian influence, but the founding fathers did not believe in the truth of

00:21:52.900 Jesus. And so that's an interesting, and it plays out in different ways. For instance,

00:21:59.940 John Graves Simcoe was our first lieutenant governor in Upper Canada. And by the way,

00:22:07.380 I grew up in Upper Canada in Ontario and never heard about John Graves Simcoe as being our first

00:22:13.820 lieutenant governor. And the fact that he actually was the first person to create and pass an act

00:22:25.460 against slavery in 1793 he was the first person in the british commonwealth to do so even before

00:22:32.700 wilberforce and um and so i believe this fact wasn't taught um because he was a christian uh

00:22:41.820 who just believed in the dignity and value of human life and um you're talking about your

00:22:48.520 experience at school in the you said you were a child of the 70s so so we're talking about 50

00:22:54.680 years ago uh there and simcoe was or 40 years ago i guess i don't imagine he popped from straight

00:23:03.560 from the cradle into grade one but at any rate simcoe um did a very um counter-cultural thing

00:23:13.240 for his time absolutely nobody ever said well i wonder why he did that right did he even talk

00:23:19.080 about the fact that he did it at all when you were in school nope i never even knew who knew

00:23:22.920 who john graves simcoe was and um and that again is in contrast to the united states for 41 i

00:23:30.520 believe of the 52 founding fathers were slave holders yes well i i i'm not prepared to challenge

00:23:39.800 the numbers i'm sure that was true of many so but in canada a lieutenant governor of what became the

00:23:46.360 largest province took action 233 years ago to eliminate slavery from that part of the country

00:23:57.560 for which he was responsible exactly and so that's just to me a just a very practical outworking of

00:24:05.400 the belief his christian belief and and again the states is a very practical outworking of

00:24:12.440 of how they saw human life,

00:24:15.260 even though it's stated in their constitution

00:24:17.600 that everyone is created equal.

00:24:22.780 So to bring this together, Gail,

00:24:29.840 I'm gonna invite you to speculate here.

00:24:32.640 These are facts.

00:24:34.220 People may not like them, but they are facts.

00:24:38.160 They're facts.

00:24:39.160 um why do you suppose that it is not taught and the kind of activity that you've ventured out on

00:24:50.560 making little brief very watchable videos that inform why do you think it has to be that way

00:24:56.700 what what's wrong with people they won't even admit i i wish i could tell you nigel i uh 0.77

00:25:02.900 is a bad thing and we were one of the first to that should be a national talking point absolutely 0.80

00:25:07.980 um and i don't i don't know i you know the the thing is is i just think we have been

00:25:14.540 um taken over by like a a different kind of culture that just wants to suppress

00:25:21.900 and and bury and um not acknowledge these facts uh that's my only understanding of it well

00:25:31.160 if you ever figure it out come back and talk to us again having watched your video a couple

00:25:37.960 of times i just want to congratulate you on a the quality of it and be the fact that you thought to

00:25:42.920 do it at all and we look forward to seeing the next one well thank you very much for having me

00:25:46.680 i really appreciate being here and talking about this video and about this journey of you know

00:25:52.200 stop the drift i think it's an important one and as i said no matter what ideological bent you come

00:25:57.960 from um it doesn't matter the facts are the facts and they should be taught and they should be part

00:26:03.080 of our public consciousness amen so any last words for the operator separatists

00:26:10.840 don't give up on canada um i i honestly believe that um if we get back to our christian roots

00:26:19.080 that things they and people start operating that way people will start seeing that actually this

00:26:26.040 is a wonderful country and to be proud of and so i would say don't give up on canada i know it's

00:26:32.120 hard right now i know there's a lot of angst and a lot of um you know discontent as it as it should

00:26:40.520 be however um i really believe in this country especially when you learn about our christian

00:26:45.880 heritage gail thank you for giving us your time thank you nice to see you in here thank you

00:26:52.440 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford. Good night.

Western Standard - July 05, 2026

HANNAFORD： Liberal Canadian values are no way to retain Alberta's loyalty

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