00:07:22.920Aaron O'Toole moved quickly and said he was going to take the issue to the whole of the Tory caucus with the move of trying to kick Derek Sloan out.
00:07:34.200Sloan replied, hey, that's not very fair.
00:07:37.380And in fact, the party itself had taken a cut of its donation,
00:07:40.72010% cut of the donation when they processed it.
00:07:45.260So since then, there's been a lot of behind-the-scenes movement on the O'Toole move.
00:07:52.320Our sources, Derek, say it has really split the Tory caucus
00:07:56.760and that the vote today could go either way.
00:08:00.240so it's going to be very interesting to see what happens it's going to be interesting to see if
00:08:06.200if the vote does fail what happens to o'toole's leadership it's going to be interesting to see
00:08:12.300the split that's in the caucus our sources say that the quebec caucus will vote on mass to
00:08:18.820to kick sloan out some in the west are apparently not happy with the move and of course ontario
00:08:27.040OMPs. Ontario, as we all know, has got the best organized socially conservative movements
00:08:32.780in the country. So it's going to be a day of great intrigue ahead for us.
00:08:38.780Yeah, this has been a very fascinating story. And when this came out, the media just more or
00:08:44.160less repeated what Aaron O'Toole had said and just said, oh, well, he accepted this donation.
00:08:51.440therefore, Alex Sloan is practically a Nazi. I smelt a rat. Now, full disclosure, I'm not an
00:08:58.700Derek Sloan fan, despite his name. He's not my cup of tea. I think there are plenty of very
00:09:06.380reasonable social conservatives out there. I don't think he's necessarily one of them. I do not share
00:09:11.320some of his views, but who cares if I don't share some of his views? If you're going to kick him out
00:09:15.480over his views, have the stones to say you're kicking him out over his views. Instead, they've
00:09:19.980trump this up. And so let's go through a few things here. It's really just not adding up.
00:09:25.760It very clearly, I think, is orchestrated per O'Toole. First, this donation came from a guy
00:09:32.380named Paul Fromm. First question is, who the hell is Paul Fromm? I never heard of him. I'm sure 99%
00:09:39.940of people in Canada had never heard of him. I'm willing to take a bet. I'll give anyone three
00:09:46.420one odds that Aaron O'Toole had never heard of Paul Fromm until this came to his attention.
00:09:53.680This guy is a has-been neo-Nazi from the 70s. He likes to get up and play dress-up stormtrooper
00:10:01.620or something and do his best impression of a Nuremberg rally. The guy's a joke. No one cares
00:10:07.240about him, and he's been largely out of the news for decades. No one knows who he is.
00:10:12.820Two, I don't think you can expect that Derek Sloan's campaign could have known who he is.
00:10:19.480First of all, the check was not written in his name.
00:10:23.020It was written under a variation of his name, under Frederick P. Fromm.
00:10:28.460If you don't know who Paul Fromm is, you certainly don't know who Frederick P. Fromm is.
00:10:33.640It's not a name that rings a bell to me.
00:10:35.220It's not a particularly sinister sounding name.
00:10:39.360you wouldn't know. Third, this kind of stuff is handled by your chief financial officer,
00:10:46.460not by a candidate. Someone who's been in politics, I can tell you, I did not know if
00:10:51.100someone was giving me less than a thousand or maybe five hundred dollars. If someone gave up,
00:10:54.980my wife would have given me a $131 donation, and I wouldn't have known about it unless it was signed
00:11:01.020by Sierra Leone Blood Diamond Corporation. I wouldn't have paid any attention to it.
00:11:05.860Fourth, the Conservative Party of Canada didn't catch it either. They accepted their 10% cut of that donation, and they issued him a membership card. They issued him a membership card, and that is done by the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:11:21.740Fifth, this only came out, this came out through press progress. All signs are pointing to, they were tipped off by someone in the, let's just call it the upper hierarchy of the Conservative Party's leadership.
00:11:40.180None of this makes any sense. It's very clearly an attempt to use this as a gotcha moment.
00:11:50.540Aaron O'Toole has said that there's no room for any error here, that there's no tolerance
00:11:56.380whatsoever for any oversight or lack of due diligence. This sets a bizarrely high bar in
00:12:03.700the future now for Aaron O'Toole. Actually, not just the future, the past, because we're talking
00:12:07.600about the past. So if any odious character, if some racist kook somewhere has sent a check to
00:12:14.280Aaron O'Toole's leadership campaign at some point, or sent a check to the Conservative Party of
00:12:18.580Canada at some point while he was leader, then Aaron O'Toole needs to step down as the leader
00:12:22.560and as a member of the Conservative caucus. He has set an impossibly ridiculous standard that
00:12:28.160no reasonable person would expect someone to be held to. So it's pretty clear what we've seen here.
00:12:34.820we're going to come around this at a few angles before we get to the we're going to talk about
00:12:40.780how conservative members are handling this we're going to talk about how the conservative caucus
00:12:43.740is handling this what this means for Aaron O'Toole's leadership but first I want to pass it to
00:12:48.180Corey I want your your sense of you know how I feel but does this seem like is this reasonable
00:12:58.820to begin with, as cause to dismiss someone from the caucus to begin with. And second,
00:13:06.400do you think Press Progress just found this because they like to comb through $131 donations
00:13:11.660to people? Or was this something a bit more sinister from within the Conservative Party?
00:13:16.760Well, that's speculation. But I mean, the bottom line is the response to it is stupid. That's the
00:13:20.700only word that describes it is stupid. It's destructive, divisive. I mean, this vote that's
00:13:26.060going on in the caucus right now. What a subterd to throw into the punch bowl. I mean, to have them
00:13:32.620now struggling and fighting with each other on who's going to vote which way, this was completely
00:13:37.080unnecessary. And as you said, if there was going to be a need to get rid of Sloan for some reason,
00:13:42.800then come out and do it. If there's something going on behind closed doors we aren't seeing
00:13:45.940that he's doing, get on with it and explain it. But this weak sauce of some past donation,
00:13:51.880The only person who's happy is Paul Fromm because now the tens of neo-Nazis and white supremacists that are in Canada can find this obscure leader to rally around because it's really nothing for real.
00:14:03.940The only people who would know, though, who he is are the extreme left, such as press progress, actually.
00:14:09.460So it is conceivable that they were scouring through and somehow, because they're the more
00:14:14.020obsessed with white supremacists than anybody else are, would recognize somehow how Frederick
00:14:18.900P. Fromm is this individual from the past who, again, held some tiny little segment of extremists
00:14:25.520behind him. But it's just, it's bizarre, you know, the words that come out with this, like,
00:14:29.820why conservatives just so insistent on shooting themselves in the feet? This is an election year.
00:14:34.080You need to be rallying your support, and you've just divided it pointlessly over nothing.
00:14:40.080And as you said, this has now set a standard and a bomb that can blow up on any candidate across the country.
00:14:48.100I guarantee you, I guarantee you some asshole who has views we do not want to be associated with
00:14:54.400has donated to Aaron O'Toole or to the party under his leadership at some point.
00:14:58.760I guarantee you there is one asshole in there somewhere.
00:15:01.120And by this standard, as soon as we find out who that is, Aaron O'Toole is gone, not just as a leader, but as a member of the Conservative caucus.
00:15:08.800But, you know, surely leaders always hold themselves to the same standard as they hold their underlings.
00:15:14.880Yeah, I don't know. It's just, I can't make sense of this one.
00:15:18.580And it'll be interesting to see what caucus comes up with coming out of this.
00:15:21.480But no matter which way they vote, when they come out of it, there's a whole bunch of division in their caucus now that wasn't there 10 days ago.
00:15:27.560And there was just absolutely no reason to tear into this like this.
00:15:51.120You know, remember, there was a move to get rid of Derek Sloan at the time.
00:15:53.580he made some comments about Theresa Tam that were controversial. And some of the mostly Peter
00:16:01.880McKay wing of the caucus, people were supporting Peter McKay during the leadership race, they tried
00:16:06.380to get rid of him. And Erin O'Toole came out and proudly said, I will vote against kicking Derek
00:16:13.260Sloan out. You know, social conservatives are welcomed in our party. And what has Derek Sloan
00:16:19.540done since that's controversial? Well, just this, this rounding error donation that constitutes
00:16:25.680about 0.01% of the money that his campaign brought in. I think he'd had 18,000 donations.
00:16:32.50018,000 donations, $1.3 million. This is a rounding error. So he hasn't done anything
00:16:37.440wrong here. He hasn't done anything wrong since Aaron O'Toole said he should not be kicked out.
00:16:42.660But there's been a huge backlash from the members, many more than just supported him.
00:16:46.320I don't support them. I didn't support any of the four. I'm not a member. I didn't see fit to support any of them. I'm not a Tory. There was no libertarian candidate in the race. There was no Western candidate in the race. So I had no horse in that race. But I smell a rat here. I'm not a fan of the Conservative Party in many ways, but I am a fan of some basic fairness and due process for everybody from the lowest citizen to our elected officials.
00:17:11.740And what we're seeing here is, I think, pretty clearly an attempt to purge.
00:17:16.860Leaders do not like people in their caucus who have their own independent power base.
00:17:21.040And speaking of that, let's so let's turn back to what the cause of this is.
00:17:28.480Dave, we've had some pretty good sources tell us about how this is all kind of wrapped up in the Conservative Convention coming up, delegates going to it.
00:18:36.820We talked to the head of campaign life last night and he admitted and says, yeah, you know, we are trying to we are trying to stack the delegates.
00:18:46.240But you know what? It's not this massive operation that the Tories may be perceiving.
00:18:51.880It's not hundreds of operatives working the phones in the stealth of night.
00:18:56.260It's just one phone call at a time. And that's how they're trying to to do it.
00:19:00.720And even they admit the the covid pandemic is is harming their recruitment attempts.
00:19:06.400But the whole thing is, and they're worried, Derek,
00:19:09.600that if Sloan and Campaign Life get enough of their delegates,
00:19:14.360then they can control the convention, they can vote on party policy,
00:19:19.740and they can elect a national council that will all be in favor
00:19:23.660of their social conservative lifestyles and movements,
00:19:29.840and they will have their support, and they will basically take over the party.
00:19:33.040So that may be the big issue behind the scenes.
00:19:36.040So I think O'Toole thought he had a lot more political capital to play with than he really did here.
00:19:41.520And he's obviously pissed off a lot of their members.
00:19:46.620And I think this is going to have a big backlash for the convention, first of all.
00:19:50.460So I think their hope here was to, by politically defenestrating Sloan, that this would somehow cut the head off the dragon and the social conservatives would go away.
00:20:02.460Well, even if they do manage to get through expelling him from the caucus today, I don't think they're going away.
00:20:08.080In fact, I think they're particularly angry now.
00:20:10.140I think they see themselves as the target of a purge of at least their leadership and representatives in the party.
00:20:17.300I was talking to someone who was running for the Conservative National Council yesterday.
00:20:21.320And they were a little bit worried about social conservatives coming in and backing their candidates before.
00:20:30.420Now they're terrified because they think these social conservatives, they're now just not going
00:20:34.780to come out in bigger numbers. They're going to be more motivated. They're going to be more
00:20:37.220militant. And they are going to be voting against people running for national council who are
00:20:43.260backing Aaron O'Toole. They want blood. They want his head now. O'Toole's trying to take the head
00:20:48.920of their guy. Well, now they want O'Toole's head. So now O'Toole is very possibly going to be
00:20:54.040influencing with this backlash, the elections for the party's national council. And you can see,
00:21:00.220number of people get on that council who maybe aren't openly calling for his head but are behind
00:21:05.500the scenes not likely to do him any favors um well anyway the conservatives are voting on this
00:21:11.260today the conservative uh caucus as you said dave it is a virtual vote uh they're not meeting in
00:21:17.020person uh but they called an emergency meeting for this uh why don't you tell us uh what it is we know
00:21:23.180uh is happening from at least our sources are telling us behind the scenes what's happening
00:21:27.740and how this is likely to play out today well our sources say there's a split in the caucus
00:21:33.980and it's too close to call it could go either way obviously if it goes against o'toole that's a
00:21:39.580massive massive uh defeat for him um how he'll save face from that nobody's quite sure uh if he
00:21:47.900does lose the one saving grace maybe the fact that prime minister trudeau could call a snap
00:21:53.580election at any time so i'm not sure the conservatives would want to be getting into a
00:21:58.860leadership convention when when they could be facing an election um the other key thing to
00:22:05.100keep in mind today derek is that it takes a majority of tory mps to vote him out so if you
00:22:11.660get a couple of uh of them mps who abstain say those are really technically votes that go in
00:22:19.020in Sloan's column because it's total number of MPs,
00:28:09.080If O'Toole loses, do you think he could continue as leader?
00:28:12.400I think a lot of it's going to depend, Derek, on the vote itself.
00:28:15.880You know, as Corey mentioned, if he gets a couple of dozen votes supporting Sloan, then that party, that caucus is fractured. And O'Toole loses all credibility because he staked his reputation on getting rid of Sloan.
00:28:32.000And he may have, if he succeeds, but it's the close vote, then he almost loses that way, doesn't he?
00:28:38.160Because his caucus is so divided and there is such a rift.
00:28:43.520I personally don't see how he's got the credibility to continue.
00:28:47.280As one party source told us last night, he said, quote, it was an idiotic move by O'Toole, end quote.
00:32:56.900When we came on the air, Biden was set to visit the Arlington National Cemetery.
00:33:07.460And then later on this afternoon, he was off to the Oval Office for the first time.
00:33:13.080He's been in there many times as vice president, obviously, with President Obama.
00:33:18.680One of the things he did with President Obama was sign an executive order killing the Keystone Pipeline.
00:33:27.060Of course, Trump turned that around, and four years ago he gave a permit for it.
00:33:32.080And today, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden, will go in there and reverse Trump's order and kill the Keystone Pipeline yet again.
00:33:41.260And seeing the writing on the wall, the TC Energy people, the operator of the pipeline and the proponent of the $8 billion U.S. expansion, put out a release saying they were immediately halting work.
00:33:55.220They're going to sit back and lick their wounds, so to speak.
00:33:59.280They lamented the lack or the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs, most of them union workers, which is ironic because most unions tend to support Joe Biden.
00:34:23.320Did you say that he already has signed that executive order to kill it?
00:34:25.980no that's on his agenda this that's on his agenda to do this afternoon but TC
00:34:32.580energy has come out and killed the project themselves this morning they've
00:34:37.320suspended it they haven't canceled it but they they've stopped
00:34:41.700they've suspended work yeah and throwing it all out so oh and obviously this has
00:34:48.480huge repercussions for Alberta politically Jason Kenney invested one
00:34:53.640and a half billion dollars of taxpayers money uh into tc energy along with another six billion
00:35:00.280dollars worth of uh of loan guarantees and kenny did all this even though biden had been
00:35:06.680saying for years that he was going to kill uh kill keystone um so kenny's got a lot of uh
00:35:14.200questions to answer he's also got a press conference scheduled for later wednesday
00:35:19.080afternoon. So we'll see what he's got to say. He's going to hire lawyers, put some lawyers to
00:35:25.500work, charging taxpayers money on that too, to try and fight it. So, and I'm sure Prime Minister
00:35:32.320Trudeau is hard at work already, also trying to save the pipeline. He admitted, or he said
00:35:38.800yesterday, hey, you know what, I made a call to Biden in November. And he sort of threw up his
00:35:43.240arms and said, what more do you want me to do? So yeah, for the time being, and at least for the
00:35:48.340next four years doesn't look like Keystone will be getting off the ground see this is why we need
00:35:53.320an Alberta army we could invade we're building this pipeline yeah fascinating stuff there's a
00:36:03.780couple of dimensions to this I think the big thing is obviously Keystone remember we're not
00:36:09.700a US politics show I'm not interested I'm not I'm a little bit interested but it's not really what
00:36:15.520we're going to deal with here in terms of the ins and outs of the election do you think there
00:36:19.460was fraud or not would that that's beyond the scope of our program uh i really am not an expert
00:36:26.160in it corey's not dave's not if you want to get into that stuff watch an american show here we're
00:36:31.460talking about how uh actions from governments at home uh in other parts of canada and apart around
00:36:39.060the world like in the united states how they affect the west and so we're going to talk
00:36:43.160primarily about how Joe Biden's presidency is likely to affect the West. Obviously,
00:36:48.680the big thing is Keystone XL. I mean, obviously, our national carbon tax, which is set to go to
00:36:57.540$170 a ton, a 500% increase above what we were, or 470 or something above what we were told it
00:37:03.700would be, has clearly not bought social license from even a Democrat like Joe Biden. And he's
00:37:09.720supposed to be theoretically a moderate Democrat. He's, you know, Joe Biden is not, he's not a
00:37:14.620radical socialist Democrat like AOC or Bernie Sanders. He's a corporatist. He's an establishment
00:37:20.600Democrat. He's been a politician longer than I've been alive. Maybe even longer than you. I don't
00:37:24.720know how you are. I'm not gonna ask, but probably about as long as you've been alive. Dave, you were
00:37:30.220probably in kindergarten when he got first elected. This guy has been a politician forever.
00:37:36.260He's an establishment Democrat. He likes being in power and he'll do left wing things when his base require him to do left wing things. He'll do maybe center right things if he thinks it's going to get him votes. It's going to get him support Congress. But clearly, this is a promise he made during the U.S. primaries to shore up his left flank against the threat from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And he's going to make good on it. I was hoping, you know, politicians lie about a lot of things. I was hoping he was lying about that.
00:38:03.460There's a lot of times I hope politicians are lying, because when they say they're going to do stupid things, I hope it's a lie and that they don't do it.
00:38:10.360Corey, how strongly do you think we can expect Justin Trudeau to go to the mat in fighting for this pipeline right now?
00:38:21.680Not at all. If this was a priority for me, he already would have been speaking up. He would have been front and center.
00:38:26.220This isn't something you can sit in the back seat and wait on.
00:38:30.140I mean, the thing is, I think, though, well, for one, I don't think Trudeau really cares
00:39:44.840And we can see compensation coming out of this.
00:39:48.040Well, so either one of two things is going to happen. The pipeline is going to get built
00:39:51.720or the courts are going to order that the federal government is going to have to pay
00:39:56.340an obscene amount of money to Keystone XL and its investors, like Alberta, Alberta taxpayers,
00:40:03.420to compensate them because governments are not allowed to cancel projects in the middle of it
00:40:07.880unless they compensate you. And he's not just canceling, he's saying the pipelines,
00:40:11.360they'd be torn out of the ground. It would be obscenely, obscenely expensive. So it is
00:40:18.360It's possible the courts will let him. It's possible the courts will say, no, this was approved. You can't stop it. Or they might say, you shouldn't stop it, but if you're going to, you're going to have to pony up, God knows how many tens of billions of dollars in compensation.
00:40:35.440organization. So, no, I think there is still hope in the courts. Remember, John Horgan said he was
00:40:41.520going to cancel the Trans Mountain Pipeline. He knew he couldn't do it. He just said it to, you
00:40:46.800know, to kind of keep the green vote from going to, you know, too many votes from going over to
00:40:49.800the greens. He just wanted to shore up that far left green eco vote. He knew it wasn't going to
00:40:55.780go anywhere. He knew that the courts would side against the province. And so once the courts beat
00:40:59.660him, he exhausted it. He was able to look to his base and say, hey guys, I tried. Sorry, I can't do
00:41:04.380anything about it. So maybe we'll see the same thing here. We'll see. But again, I don't think
00:41:08.660Biden's expecting that or he wouldn't put it on day one because that's just something he's going
00:41:11.840to be wearing right away. You know, it would be something you want to put your priorities
00:41:15.200somewhere else if you think it's going to be shot down later on. And again, I think maybe a
00:41:20.980compensation thing I could see more. Well, you can shut it down, but you're going to have to pay
00:41:23.860out these investors. But the other thing is, as I said, TC Energy has halted their construction
00:41:29.880for now and that you can't stop a project like that on a dime like that's a heavy duty change
00:41:36.200that's thousands of people immediately put out of work that's the gears stop turning the other thing
00:41:41.200is how long do we wait you know a year in court two years in court meanwhile we're investors i
00:41:47.200mean who's going to put money into that you'd be insane i think if it tells us anything it's
00:41:51.220let's start getting our pipes to the coast let's get energy east because the americans are not a
00:41:55.800stable customer right now we're in great trouble from this you know and the reason justin trudeau
00:42:00.240supports keystone on paper is because it doesn't go through any other provinces it's just alberta
00:42:04.820it only affects alberta and saskatchewan where there's virtual unit almost universal support
00:42:08.860for pipelines uh i think the pipeline itself i don't even think directly goes through saskatchewan
00:42:13.420saskatchewan links up to it but the pipe this pipeline doesn't uh this one cuts the corner
00:42:17.940just down by east end but okay yeah yeah but it's essentially mostly just alberta uh because it
00:42:23.540doesn't anger BC, it doesn't anger Ontario, it doesn't anger Quebec or the
00:42:26.300bear, excuse me, oh my goodness, pardon me. Sorry, I just ate some very
00:42:34.040stinky German cheese before it came on the air. I made Corey smell it, I think it
00:42:41.580burnt his nostrils. It did again now. And you wonder why I don't want to come into
00:42:48.260the office. It's more dangerous than COVID, I'll tell you. We're going to have to get Edelweiss
00:42:55.760Village Calgary advertising with us. That was free advertising for their stinky cheeses. Sorry,
00:43:03.000that was quite a digression. Yeah, so this could, it'll end up in the courts. The big thing now is
00:43:10.500also what the hell is going to happen in Alberta here? I mean, Jason Kenney, someone to me, his
00:43:16.600early career was at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in Alberta, and he made a name
00:43:21.460for himself fighting against the Alberta government, getting directly involved in buying, investing
00:43:27.040in businesses. It once in a while works out, but more often than not, it's a complete and
00:43:33.300total disaster because governments can never make investment decisions as well as people
00:43:37.660whose money it actually is. They don't have, government doesn't really have skin in the
00:43:41.260game. And you know, so we had Novotel, we had all these big disasters under the Getty government,
00:43:48.140Klein sold them all and said we're getting government out of the business of business,
00:43:51.580period. And that's been steadily eroding over the years. It began with Stalmac and continued all the
00:43:56.060way through Redford, Prentice, Notley, and Kenny's been in it too. And then he has made one of the
00:44:03.500biggest direct government investment decisions in Canadian history, certainly on a provincial level.
00:44:08.620You put $1.5 billion Canadian buying direct investment stakes in Keystone XL's pipeline,
00:44:18.780and another $6 billion in loan guarantees. Now, this does not make me anti-Keystone pipeline.
00:44:27.500This makes me anti-corporate crony capitalism, makes me anti-corporatist. This is a hugely
00:44:34.140important pipeline it is absolutely critical for alberta for the west even for canada um but that
00:44:40.460doesn't mean i think the government should be uh should be bailing it out i like cars i hope
00:44:45.420ontario builds cars but i don't want the government owning car companies it's same with airplanes i'm
00:44:51.420happy for quebec to build airplanes but i don't want to be paying for them to build airplanes
00:44:55.580and at the same thing if we're going to be if we're going to be consistent in our views if you
00:44:59.100oppose the Ottawa bailing out Bombardier, oppose Ottawa bailing out GM, then you have to oppose
00:45:05.220Alberta bailing out Keystone. And I love Keystone. And these problems are not actually Keystone's
00:45:10.020fault because this is all political. Their problems are not economic. The economic case is clear.
00:45:15.340These are political factors influencing it. But Jason Kenney has made a massive investment decision
00:45:20.920here on behalf of Alberta taxpayers. All in, $7.5 billion are on the table. And we could see that
00:45:28.760evaporate before our eyes. And if that happens, cancellation of Keystone is not then just
00:45:33.760an economic catastrophe for Alberta. It is now a government finance catastrophe. It is now a
00:45:39.540catastrophe for taxpayers. How much egg do you think Kenny's going to have on his face here
00:45:49.480if, as we expect, Joe Biden cancels this? We'll go to you, Dave. Then I'm on your side of this,
00:45:56.180Corey. What does this mean for Jason Kenney? Is he going to have to really wear this or is he
00:46:01.980going to be able to shrug his shoulders and blame this one on Trudeau too? No, it's just the latest
00:46:07.680kick in the groin for Kenny, you know, coming on the heels of the Snowbird scandal. To me, Derek,
00:46:15.120the thing about this, how could you not see this coming? Kenny obviously put all his eggs into the
00:46:21.260Trump re-election basket and he lost. He took a gamble and he lost. Joe Biden has been saying
00:46:28.900for years and years that he's going to kill Keystone. When he was vice president, he killed
00:46:35.060Keystone. When he started the Democratic primaries, what was that, in 1643, it seems like it was so
00:46:41.320long ago, he said he was going to kill Keystone. In the Democratic debates, he said he was going
00:46:46.000kill keystone and then everybody acts surprised when he goes ahead and kills keystone i mean
00:46:53.600you know and if you're in charge of alberta taxpayers money and you hand over a billion
00:46:59.200and a half in in uh you know readies to the to tc energy and another six billion in loan guarantees
00:47:08.000after after biden has made all these statements then yeah you wear it the egg is on your face
00:47:17.200and uh another major scandal that kenny's gonna have to overcome
00:47:23.280uh yeah if this goes down i think it will probably qualify as the single most expensive
00:47:29.040government boondoggle in canadian history as certainly in alberta history if it doesn't beat
00:47:35.360federal. It certainly would beat any other province, including much larger provinces
00:47:39.300than Alberta. Corey, what do you think the political fall-up would be if this happens
00:47:45.500and we have just dropped $7.5 billion into a lemon?
00:47:50.240Well, it's just piling on, and everything Jason's touching has turned into crap. I mean...
00:47:56.320Well, that should be the title of your new book.
00:47:59.260Well, there we go. I mean, you know, I was supportive of Kenny, and I still would hope
00:48:03.860that somehow he figures out, but it's just a disaster everywhere. You look at the energy
00:48:09.200center that's supposed to defend these things. Maybe you should have gave them one and a
00:48:11.620half billion to promote Alberta down south. They couldn't have done any worse than flushing
00:48:16.700I think the 30 million they spent on that, I don't think it's gone too long.
00:48:19.580I know. And the coal mine disaster, the parks disaster, the travel gate, it just doesn't
00:48:25.700seem to stop. And it just keeps piling on. And now you've got libertarian fiscal conservatives
00:48:31.600like us who were, yeah, bloody pissed off. I mean, come on. In the 90s, Jason Kenney was leading the
00:48:37.140Taxpayers Federation against Klein, talking about MagCan, Novotel, as you mentioned, Swan Hills,
00:48:43.840Gainers. Like I'm of the age, I remember all of those. And government investment is a kiss of
00:48:48.160death. Every one of those things was money flushed right down the toilet. It makes me worry about
00:48:53.220TMX probably is going to die as well, just due to the curse. And once you get the government
00:48:56.640involved. It's done. So yeah, we're ticked off. And Kenny's going to be wearing this.
00:49:01.760And he's in such a hole to try and recover from in the next two years. It's just one more thing
00:49:06.680that he's going to try and win back. I think as they get more politically desperate,
00:49:10.700when they're facing numbers in the mid-20s like they are right now, looking at an absolute
00:49:14.120devastating election coming up, if they can't start pulling these up, my worry is that he's
00:49:21.540going to get more politically desperate, take more of these reckless gambles. I mean, 7.5 billion
00:49:27.280dollars for, I can't say what I was going to say something's sake. Like, that is an incredible
00:49:32.940amount of money. Look, you kind of made me think of something here. If you want to make me dislike
00:49:38.780something, fund it with the government. I, at one point at least, I had a Keystone XL hat. Like,
00:49:46.380you know, I am one of these pipeline worshippers. I admit it. I'm definitely a petropatriot. I love1.00
00:49:52.160this stuff. But as soon as the government starts owning Keystone, I said, eh, I don't like government
00:49:57.260businesses. Keystone is a little better than a crown corporation now. Trans Mountain, it is a
00:50:02.040crown corporation. I don't like crown corporations. I want crown corporations to fail. So, I mean,
00:50:08.280what an absolute total disaster this has been. I mean, this is the month from hell, I think,
00:50:17.360for this government. But the big losers here are going to be taxpayers. How are you going to look
00:50:21.480Albertans in the face and say, hey, guys, I went to the casino. I put $7.5 billion on red,
00:50:28.360and we came up blue. Sorry. I mean, how are they going to explain that away? And yes,
00:50:34.980Justin Trudeau is responsible for a lot of our problems, but he is not responsible for the decision to invest $7.5 billion of taxpayers' money into this, $1.5 billion in buying stocks and another $6 billion in loan guarantees.
00:50:51.760That was not Justin Trudeau's decision. That was the decision of the energy minister, Sonia Savage, and the premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney. Those are the two people who are responsible. You can't even blame most of the rest of the legislature because they didn't even vote on it. This was not approved by taxpayers. I'm sure they'll put it into a budget retroactively later.
00:51:14.560Oh, I can't imagine how that budget's going to work.
00:52:23.000You may go on another rant after this.
00:52:25.820Yeah, this is just another example of one rule for one and another rule for others.
00:52:33.100That came about after media in Winnipeg noted that gyms in government buildings in the city of Winnipeg buildings were remaining open and city employees were allowed to go in and work out this despite a pandemic, excuse me, health closure for the rest of the gyms across the province, very similar to what's happening in Alberta and across the West.
00:52:58.420So the question was posed to Dr. Brent Roussin. I hope I'm pronouncing his name right. He's the
00:53:05.260chief medical officer of health for Manitoba. And I'll just read you his quote, Derek. He says,
00:53:12.000quote, our public health orders don't apply to any levels of government. Let me just repeat that.
00:53:19.320Our public health... Say that again. That's just too good. That needs to be on a billboard.
00:53:23.660Our public health order don't apply to any levels of government, says Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief medical officer of health for Manitoba.
00:53:35.560The quote continues, so they don't apply to federal, provincial, or municipal governments.
00:53:42.260All three levels of governments, they're okay, they can do whatever they want.
00:53:47.060His quote continues, so I am aware of health inspectors having visited some of these gyms and found them safe.
00:53:57.160They were not given any special, they were not given an exemption outside the order, meaning they could just do whatever they want.
00:54:05.460The closure orders don't affect them because they're government.
00:54:09.840So obviously this has upset the regular gym owners in Manitoba who quite rightly are questioning, hey, why is it good for one and not good for the other?
00:54:22.480But, yeah, really, really silly thing to say,
00:54:25.980and it's certainly making the rounds on social media.
00:57:26.200It's now a shortage in all the provinces.
00:57:28.500And one area where the province is, Alberta has been pretty decent, though, has actually been in vaccine distribution, getting it out, getting it stuck in people's arms.
00:57:36.800They've actually done a pretty good job of that, but they're out of it now.
00:57:38.940They can't do it because they don't have enough stock.
00:57:42.640But we'll just bring it back to Manitoba to close off. Absolutely wild that these kinds of laws
00:57:52.940that are imposed on everybody else are not imposed on governments. They have special
00:57:57.040privileges because they are governments. So Dave, you've got a task ahead of yourself here.
00:58:03.100See if you can track this down. If so, we're going to have the story for you here at the
00:58:09.020Western Standard. We'll probably be back with another special edition of the pipeline.
00:58:12.880But what a time we're in. So much happening. So much stupidity by people who we would like to
00:58:21.740be smart in positions of power. But that's the way it is. Well, thank you, Dave. Thank you,
00:58:28.440Corey, for joining today. Thank you, everyone else at The Standard right now. We've got other
00:58:32.200people in the office here. Thank everyone on our team for making this possible. Thank you,
00:58:37.640our, especially to our members who are supporting us. We cannot do this without you. If you are not
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00:58:52.90010 bucks a month. You can support bailout free independent media that is here for Western Canada,
00:59:00.320standing up for your interests and keeping an eye on things. I'm so proud of what we've been
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00:59:12.040we're now um uh we're gonna do the official numbers but i think in uh this december we
00:59:18.200are either these uh number one uh or at the least the number two most read online news platform in
00:59:24.600alberta um and i and uh across western canada we were either uh number two or number three uh this
00:59:32.440month we're headed for our first two million reader month so everything you
00:59:37.240see from the Western standard share it get it out there we want the breaking
00:59:40.420rights I want to be able to tell people when I'm trying to sign up advertisers
00:59:45.220for the Western standard that we have two million readers a month and we have
00:59:49.400the most read news site in Western Canada that's something I sincerely
00:59:53.320that's breaking rights I sincerely sincerely want right now I can't speak
00:59:56.920today I haven't even had anything to drink I should probably have something
01:00:01.600it'll calm me down or it'll make me fighty i don't know depends on the day uh well thank you
01:00:07.660all very much uh for joining me today uh joining cory and dave it's been a wonderful time you've
01:00:12.060been a wonderful audience thanks for your questions and comments god bless