Western Standard - Jan 20, 2021

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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00:02:30.000 Good day, I am Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.

00:02:40.560 Today is January 20th, 2021.

00:02:45.980 I'm here today from the Western Standards studios at our Calgary office, downtown Calgary.

00:02:52.460 I'm joined in the studio today by Corey Morgan, our podcast editor and columnist extraordinaire.

00:02:58.360 Good day, Corey.

00:02:58.760 and uh joining us from an undisclosed location uh in calgary uh is dave nailer or rico suave

00:03:08.900 nice shirt dave thanks uh derek i got it for christmas uh well today uh there's a lot going

00:03:18.100 on we've been uh we we're gonna get into but before that i just want to remind everyone

00:03:23.300 uh that if you're not yet a member of the western standard please just go to westernstandardonline.com

00:03:28.640 and go to the membership section and sign up to support bailout free independent western media

00:03:34.980 we are having an incredible time right now uh we've had about 1.3 million readers this month

00:03:40.540 already we are on track to have our first two million reader month and if we can hit those

00:03:47.120 kinds of numbers uh we will very probably be able to say that uh at that point that we are either

00:03:53.140 the second or the first most read media outlet in Western Canada online. It would be incredible

00:04:00.640 for us to see that. I really want to say that we're bigger than everybody in Western Canada

00:04:03.740 by readership online. It's really just a break. I just want to be able to go home and tell my wife

00:04:09.200 that, be able to tell our advertisers that. It would certainly help us out. So if you're not

00:04:14.160 yet a member, please go online to thewesterncentredonline.com and sign up there. And if you are a member,

00:04:19.100 Thank you very much. You kick ass. So we're going to dive into it. Today we're going to be talking 1.00

00:04:26.120 about the curious move by Aaron O'Toole to purge Derek Sloan from the Federal Conservative Party's

00:04:36.340 caucus. There's a lot of really funny business going on there and Conservative MPs are voting

00:04:41.520 on that right now. It's happening today, that vote. And we've got some insider information

00:04:45.660 about what is expected to happen. What are our little birds telling us? We've got a lot of people

00:04:51.060 talking. Today as well, just a little over an hour ago, Joe Biden was sworn in as President

00:04:58.460 of the United States. We're going to talk about that. Try to keep it civil if we can. It'd be

00:05:04.360 nice. And of course, some really interesting news coming out of Manitoba. The Manitoba government

00:05:11.380 has said officially that the lockdown and restrictions do not apply to its government

00:05:16.800 employees if they're at work. The lockdown does not apply to the government. It just applies to

00:05:22.600 everybody in Manitoba. Very interesting stuff. So we're going to jump straight into it. We're

00:05:27.680 going to start with the big story we've been following out of Ottawa. Aaron O'Toole has

00:05:34.120 demanded that Alex Sloan be expelled from the Conservative caucus. They're going to vote on

00:05:40.040 We're going to talk a little bit about what's been happening on that today.

00:05:45.040 They may be doing it as we speak.

00:05:47.040 Let's go to Dave Naylor to give us the lowdown on what's been happening on that.

00:05:53.040 Derek, this has been a very fast-moving story since Saturday afternoon.

00:05:58.040 And you're right, the Tory caucus is voting on this matter right now.

00:06:02.040 They're in a virtual huddle on the COVID pandemic regulations.

00:06:07.040 together online likely go for several hours this all started back on Saturday

00:06:12.800 when party leader Aaron O'Toole issued a statement on on Twitter or Facebook I

00:06:17.840 guess basically saying there's no room in the party for people on the far right

00:06:24.260 came out very strongly so there's no room and this was his party his way or

00:06:30.140 the highway so the very next day he came out with the it was revealed that Derek

00:06:36.500 Sloan, a contender for the leadership, finished fourth place at 0201, Derek Sloan had apparently

00:06:44.360 accepted a bribe from a well-known neo-Nazi.

00:06:47.900 That well-known gentleman was called Paul Froome.

00:06:50.860 Sorry, did you say bribe or donation?

00:06:53.180 You said bribe.

00:06:54.840 Did I say bribe or donation?

00:06:56.180 I think that's $131 towards the campaign.

00:06:58.860 I'm not going to call that a bribe.

00:07:00.420 No, I've been watching too much U.S. politics this morning.

00:07:06.500 So he accepted this donation.

00:07:08.880 You need to silence everything beeping in.

00:07:12.840 Yes, I keep signing out and it keeps signing me back in.

00:07:16.680 Anyways, the donation came to light.

00:07:22.920 Aaron 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.

00:07:34.200 Sloan replied, hey, that's not very fair.

00:07:37.380 And in fact, the party itself had taken a cut of its donation,

00:07:40.720 10% cut of the donation when they processed it.

00:07:45.260 So since then, there's been a lot of behind-the-scenes movement on the O'Toole move.

00:07:52.320 Our sources, Derek, say it has really split the Tory caucus

00:07:56.760 and that the vote today could go either way.

00:08:00.240 so it's going to be very interesting to see what happens it's going to be interesting to see if

00:08:06.200 if the vote does fail what happens to o'toole's leadership it's going to be interesting to see

00:08:12.300 the split that's in the caucus our sources say that the quebec caucus will vote on mass to

00:08:18.820 to kick sloan out some in the west are apparently not happy with the move and of course ontario

00:08:27.040 OMPs. Ontario, as we all know, has got the best organized socially conservative movements

00:08:32.780 in the country. So it's going to be a day of great intrigue ahead for us.

00:08:38.780 Yeah, this has been a very fascinating story. And when this came out, the media just more or

00:08:44.160 less repeated what Aaron O'Toole had said and just said, oh, well, he accepted this donation.

00:08:51.440 therefore, Alex Sloan is practically a Nazi. I smelt a rat. Now, full disclosure, I'm not an 0.98

00:08:58.700 Derek Sloan fan, despite his name. He's not my cup of tea. I think there are plenty of very

00:09:06.380 reasonable social conservatives out there. I don't think he's necessarily one of them. I do not share

00:09:11.320 some of his views, but who cares if I don't share some of his views? If you're going to kick him out

00:09:15.480 over his views, have the stones to say you're kicking him out over his views. Instead, they've

00:09:19.980 trump this up. And so let's go through a few things here. It's really just not adding up.

00:09:25.760 It very clearly, I think, is orchestrated per O'Toole. First, this donation came from a guy

00:09:32.380 named Paul Fromm. First question is, who the hell is Paul Fromm? I never heard of him. I'm sure 99%

00:09:39.940 of people in Canada had never heard of him. I'm willing to take a bet. I'll give anyone three

00:09:46.420 one odds that Aaron O'Toole had never heard of Paul Fromm until this came to his attention.

00:09:53.680 This guy is a has-been neo-Nazi from the 70s. He likes to get up and play dress-up stormtrooper

00:10:01.620 or something and do his best impression of a Nuremberg rally. The guy's a joke. No one cares

00:10:07.240 about him, and he's been largely out of the news for decades. No one knows who he is.

00:10:12.820 Two, I don't think you can expect that Derek Sloan's campaign could have known who he is.

00:10:19.480 First of all, the check was not written in his name.

00:10:23.020 It was written under a variation of his name, under Frederick P. Fromm.

00:10:28.460 If you don't know who Paul Fromm is, you certainly don't know who Frederick P. Fromm is.

00:10:33.640 It's not a name that rings a bell to me.

00:10:35.220 It's not a particularly sinister sounding name.

00:10:37.200 His name's not Adolf Fromm.

00:10:39.360 you wouldn't know. Third, this kind of stuff is handled by your chief financial officer,

00:10:46.460 not by a candidate. Someone who's been in politics, I can tell you, I did not know if

00:10:51.100 someone was giving me less than a thousand or maybe five hundred dollars. If someone gave up,

00:10:54.980 my wife would have given me a $131 donation, and I wouldn't have known about it unless it was signed

00:11:01.020 by Sierra Leone Blood Diamond Corporation. I wouldn't have paid any attention to it.

00:11:05.860 Fourth, 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.

00:11:21.740 Fifth, 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.

00:11:40.180 None of this makes any sense. It's very clearly an attempt to use this as a gotcha moment.

00:11:50.540 Aaron O'Toole has said that there's no room for any error here, that there's no tolerance

00:11:56.380 whatsoever for any oversight or lack of due diligence. This sets a bizarrely high bar in

00:12:03.700 the future now for Aaron O'Toole. Actually, not just the future, the past, because we're talking

00:12:07.600 about the past. So if any odious character, if some racist kook somewhere has sent a check to

00:12:14.280 Aaron O'Toole's leadership campaign at some point, or sent a check to the Conservative Party of

00:12:18.580 Canada at some point while he was leader, then Aaron O'Toole needs to step down as the leader

00:12:22.560 and as a member of the Conservative caucus. He has set an impossibly ridiculous standard that

00:12:28.160 no reasonable person would expect someone to be held to. So it's pretty clear what we've seen here.

00:12:34.820 we're going to come around this at a few angles before we get to the we're going to talk about

00:12:40.780 how conservative members are handling this we're going to talk about how the conservative caucus

00:12:43.740 is handling this what this means for Aaron O'Toole's leadership but first I want to pass it to

00:12:48.180 Corey I want your your sense of you know how I feel but does this seem like is this reasonable

00:12:58.820 to begin with, as cause to dismiss someone from the caucus to begin with. And second,

00:13:06.400 do you think Press Progress just found this because they like to comb through $131 donations

00:13:11.660 to people? Or was this something a bit more sinister from within the Conservative Party?

00:13:16.760 Well, that's speculation. But I mean, the bottom line is the response to it is stupid. That's the 1.00

00:13:20.700 only word that describes it is stupid. It's destructive, divisive. I mean, this vote that's 1.00

00:13:26.060 going on in the caucus right now. What a subterd to throw into the punch bowl. I mean, to have them

00:13:32.620 now struggling and fighting with each other on who's going to vote which way, this was completely

00:13:37.080 unnecessary. And as you said, if there was going to be a need to get rid of Sloan for some reason,

00:13:42.800 then come out and do it. If there's something going on behind closed doors we aren't seeing

00:13:45.940 that he's doing, get on with it and explain it. But this weak sauce of some past donation,

00:13:51.880 The 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.

00:14:03.940 The only people who would know, though, who he is are the extreme left, such as press progress, actually.

00:14:09.460 So it is conceivable that they were scouring through and somehow, because they're the more

00:14:14.020 obsessed with white supremacists than anybody else are, would recognize somehow how Frederick

00:14:18.900 P. Fromm is this individual from the past who, again, held some tiny little segment of extremists

00:14:25.520 behind him. But it's just, it's bizarre, you know, the words that come out with this, like,

00:14:29.820 why conservatives just so insistent on shooting themselves in the feet? This is an election year.

00:14:34.080 You need to be rallying your support, and you've just divided it pointlessly over nothing.

00:14:40.080 And as you said, this has now set a standard and a bomb that can blow up on any candidate across the country.

00:14:46.660 It can blow up on Aaron O'Toole. 0.99

00:14:48.100 I guarantee you, I guarantee you some asshole who has views we do not want to be associated with 0.99

00:14:54.400 has donated to Aaron O'Toole or to the party under his leadership at some point. 1.00

00:14:58.760 I guarantee you there is one asshole in there somewhere. 0.97

00:15:01.120 And 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. 0.99

00:15:08.800 But, you know, surely leaders always hold themselves to the same standard as they hold their underlings.

00:15:14.880 Yeah, I don't know. It's just, I can't make sense of this one.

00:15:18.580 And it'll be interesting to see what caucus comes up with coming out of this.

00:15:21.480 But 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.

00:15:27.560 And there was just absolutely no reason to tear into this like this. 0.94

00:15:31.320 It was ridiculous.

00:15:32.820 Yeah, we're seeing right now a huge backlash by the members, including many members or 0.59

00:15:39.800 general conservative supporters who did not support Derek Sloan.

00:15:42.400 Remember, he got 13%, if I'm not mistaken, of the popular vote in the conservative leadership

00:15:46.820 race.

00:15:48.060 Not an insignificant also ran.

00:15:51.120 You know, remember, there was a move to get rid of Derek Sloan at the time.

00:15:53.580 he made some comments about Theresa Tam that were controversial. And some of the mostly Peter

00:16:01.880 McKay wing of the caucus, people were supporting Peter McKay during the leadership race, they tried

00:16:06.380 to get rid of him. And Erin O'Toole came out and proudly said, I will vote against kicking Derek

00:16:13.260 Sloan out. You know, social conservatives are welcomed in our party. And what has Derek Sloan

00:16:19.540 done since that's controversial? Well, just this, this rounding error donation that constitutes

00:16:25.680 about 0.01% of the money that his campaign brought in. I think he'd had 18,000 donations.

00:16:32.500 18,000 donations, $1.3 million. This is a rounding error. So he hasn't done anything

00:16:37.440 wrong here. He hasn't done anything wrong since Aaron O'Toole said he should not be kicked out.

00:16:42.660 But there's been a huge backlash from the members, many more than just supported him.

00:16:46.320 I 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.

00:17:11.740 And what we're seeing here is, I think, pretty clearly an attempt to purge.

00:17:16.860 Leaders do not like people in their caucus who have their own independent power base.

00:17:21.040 And speaking of that, let's so let's turn back to what the cause of this is.

00:17:28.480 Dave, 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.

00:17:40.160 Why don't you tell us about that?

00:17:41.740 Yeah, this whole old neo-Nazi thing just may be a diversion, Derek.

00:17:48.360 What our sources are telling us is that the top bigwigs of the Tory party,

00:17:54.380 the people behind the scenes, even above O'Toole,

00:17:58.820 they're worried that Sloan was making a move with Campaign Life,

00:18:02.520 Pro-Life Organization, Campaign Life Coalition,

00:18:05.440 to stack delegate slates for the Conservative Convention.

00:18:10.840 It's going to be a virtual convention held in March.

00:18:14.180 Each riding would get a certain number of delegates that would represent them at the convention.

00:18:19.820 And the concern amongst the party was that Sloan, along with the Campaign Life people,

00:18:27.180 were working together and trying to get their own pro-life delegates onto various slates.

00:18:34.360 And you know what? 0.99

00:18:35.240 The Tory party is exactly right.

00:18:36.820 We 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.

00:18:46.240 But you know what? It's not this massive operation that the Tories may be perceiving.

00:18:51.880 It's not hundreds of operatives working the phones in the stealth of night.

00:18:56.260 It's just one phone call at a time. And that's how they're trying to to do it.

00:19:00.720 And even they admit the the covid pandemic is is harming their recruitment attempts.

00:19:06.400 But the whole thing is, and they're worried, Derek,

00:19:09.600 that if Sloan and Campaign Life get enough of their delegates,

00:19:14.360 then they can control the convention, they can vote on party policy,

00:19:19.740 and they can elect a national council that will all be in favor

00:19:23.660 of their social conservative lifestyles and movements,

00:19:29.840 and they will have their support, and they will basically take over the party.

00:19:33.040 So that may be the big issue behind the scenes.

00:19:36.040 So I think O'Toole thought he had a lot more political capital to play with than he really did here.

00:19:41.520 And he's obviously pissed off a lot of their members.

00:19:46.620 And I think this is going to have a big backlash for the convention, first of all.

00:19:50.460 So 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.

00:20:02.460 Well, even if they do manage to get through expelling him from the caucus today, I don't think they're going away.

00:20:08.080 In fact, I think they're particularly angry now.

00:20:10.140 I think they see themselves as the target of a purge of at least their leadership and representatives in the party.

00:20:17.300 I was talking to someone who was running for the Conservative National Council yesterday.

00:20:21.320 And they were a little bit worried about social conservatives coming in and backing their candidates before.

00:20:30.420 Now they're terrified because they think these social conservatives, they're now just not going

00:20:34.780 to come out in bigger numbers. They're going to be more motivated. They're going to be more

00:20:37.220 militant. And they are going to be voting against people running for national council who are

00:20:43.260 backing Aaron O'Toole. They want blood. They want his head now. O'Toole's trying to take the head

00:20:48.920 of their guy. Well, now they want O'Toole's head. So now O'Toole is very possibly going to be

00:20:54.040 influencing with this backlash, the elections for the party's national council. And you can see,

00:21:00.220 number of people get on that council who maybe aren't openly calling for his head but are behind

00:21:05.500 the scenes not likely to do him any favors um well anyway the conservatives are voting on this

00:21:11.260 today the conservative uh caucus as you said dave it is a virtual vote uh they're not meeting in

00:21:17.020 person uh but they called an emergency meeting for this uh why don't you tell us uh what it is we know

00:21:23.180 uh is happening from at least our sources are telling us behind the scenes what's happening

00:21:27.740 and how this is likely to play out today well our sources say there's a split in the caucus

00:21:33.980 and it's too close to call it could go either way obviously if it goes against o'toole that's a

00:21:39.580 massive massive uh defeat for him um how he'll save face from that nobody's quite sure uh if he

00:21:47.900 does lose the one saving grace maybe the fact that prime minister trudeau could call a snap

00:21:53.580 election at any time so i'm not sure the conservatives would want to be getting into a

00:21:58.860 leadership convention when when they could be facing an election um the other key thing to

00:22:05.100 keep in mind today derek is that it takes a majority of tory mps to vote him out so if you

00:22:11.660 get a couple of uh of them mps who abstain say those are really technically votes that go in

00:22:19.020 in Sloan's column because it's total number of MPs,

00:22:23.220 not the total number of votes cast.

00:22:26.840 So there's going to be arguments back and forth all day.

00:22:31.760 Source we talked to last night said the prosecution,

00:22:35.660 for lack of a better word,

00:22:36.740 may bring up things that O'Toole has alleged to have done

00:22:39.980 like fundraising and other MPs' writings.

00:22:43.380 And they may bring up his actions,

00:22:45.560 what he's trying to do to the March convention.

00:22:48.280 So I don't expect this to be over much before the late afternoon, early evening hours, Derek.

00:22:55.260 Yeah, all we can do is speculate right now about how this is going to go down.

00:23:00.860 We've got sources telling us it's very close.

00:23:03.360 I can tell you, it would be extraordinary for a leader to lose a vote like this.

00:23:07.560 In most cases, leaders just decide themselves, you're gone.

00:23:10.940 There's not a vote.

00:23:12.300 Or what they do is they kick them out, and then they ratify the vote afterwards and say,

00:23:15.740 okay, I may have broken the law, but please retroactively make it legal. That happens in

00:23:23.280 caucuses all the time. Leaders generally just decide this on their own. I know the whole

00:23:28.780 Wildrose Party had in their constitution that it was by caucus vote, but that didn't really matter

00:23:33.960 anyway. But federally, it's different. There is a law called the Reform Act brought in by Michael

00:23:40.060 Chong. It was very thoughtful. It got really watered down, the leaders and all. It was kind

00:23:44.720 of funny, most of the MPs supported it, but the leaders are all against it. And so in negotiating

00:23:48.440 with the leaders, they watered it down. What it does, though, is it allows the caucuses after

00:23:53.080 each election to decide if they're going to adopt a set of rules in it or not. The liberals decided

00:23:56.940 not to. The conservatives decided they were going to adopt it. Generally, a party's only going to

00:24:02.200 adopt it if they don't have a full-time permanent leader or something, or if a leader is in trouble.

00:24:07.720 Anyway, these rules require that there is a vote to kick them out. Otherwise, without this law in

00:24:13.760 place, I think there's 100% certainty Sloan would have just been kicked out summarily with

00:24:18.500 no due process whatsoever. But it would be extraordinary for a leader to lose a vote like

00:24:24.200 this, especially after he has made it so public. I guess there's three scenarios. One is he gets

00:24:31.540 what he wants, and there's only a few dissenting votes. Two is he gets what he wants, but it's

00:24:36.160 very close. And three, he loses. The first scenario is not very interesting, and I don't think that's

00:24:43.100 likely to happen. I think there's going to be a significant number of dissenting votes here.

00:24:46.160 I'm not sure how close. We're probably going to find out because the conservative caucus chair,

00:24:51.240 Tom Kamish, a Calgary MP, MP for Calgary Shepard, has said he's going to publicly release

00:24:57.040 the vote total. And I think this is going to be a proxy for support in caucus for O'Toole right

00:25:06.980 now. Are you going to back the leader or not? He's making it, he's made it a referendum about

00:25:10.560 himself. And, you know, we're hearing, and we can't confirm this yet, but I know this is a

00:25:16.900 common practice. On stuff like this, the leader says this is essentially a confidence vote. If

00:25:22.180 you don't vote as I tell you to on this issue, I will take it as a vote of non-confidence in me.

00:25:27.300 And that's, you know, kind of an extreme measure, but if he really needs to get something done,

00:25:30.820 at this point, O'Toole's political future demands that he gets this done. So I'll put it to you,

00:25:37.480 Corey, if this vote, maybe give me your thoughts on the two more interesting scenarios. If the vote

00:25:42.840 is close and it passes, or if it actually fails the pass, what do you think that means for the

00:25:48.640 party and for O'Toole? Well, the funny thing is it doesn't matter anymore. The division's there.

00:25:53.160 I mean, he's created it and it's not going away. If 100% of them voted to oust Sloan,

00:25:59.960 they'll know that these guys were just whipped into line. If it's close, well, then it shows

00:26:03.960 a giant amount of division that's visible. If it goes the other way, then it might as

00:26:07.860 well be a confidence vote against O'Toole because this caucus doesn't support his actions. 0.99

00:26:12.280 Again, it was just absurdly stupid to put himself into this situation and put the rest 0.97

00:26:16.960 of the members into it. And now to have alienated the social conservative element of the party. 0.99

00:26:21.460 As you said, it's 13, 15%, but they're an important one, you know, and here's that secret.

00:26:26.620 That's the percentage that voted for him. Leslie Lewis was also a social conservative

00:26:29.860 candidate uh and she won first place by popular vote just didn't win overall and there are others

00:26:35.300 there's very socially conservative eda presidents i mean you see people always wondered why in

00:26:39.380 conservative politics i'll let out a secret here why do they cater so much to what seems like a

00:26:43.700 smaller element of it well because social conservatives that part of the party are the

00:26:47.860 active ones they're the door knockers they're the ones who show up for eda meetings these are the

00:26:51.860 ones who do the ten dollar donations but they do it with thousands of people they're important

00:26:56.420 hard working ground supporters of conservative parties and they do get pushed aside all the time

00:27:02.660 that's what happens is they take advantage of them for the campaign and then they kind of okay we'll

00:27:06.500 toss you a little bone over here that'll die in a boat on the floor and then we'll just uh we'll

00:27:10.340 tap you again in the next election well we have an election coming up this year and they've just

00:27:14.420 ticked off that whole element to the party which is not wise i i just again i'm just flabbergasted

00:27:20.260 by how foolish this move was i don't know what prompted it uh dave i know you're a newsman but

00:27:25.540 but I'm going to ask you to put on your pundit hat here for a second. If O'Toole fails to expel

00:27:32.340 Sloan in today's vote, I don't know how likely that is not to happen, but it's certainly not

00:27:38.120 looking like the slam dunk he expected this to be. But in your view, if O'Toole fails in this vote,

00:27:44.920 do you think that could pretend the end of his leadership, that he'll essentially be forced to

00:27:51.000 resign at that point, like how does a guy continue to lead a party with half of his

00:27:56.420 caucus supporting someone he has, you know, decried in public as essentially being a Nazi?

00:28:02.300 That means by implication that half your caucus are Nazis by the bizarre standard that you've

00:28:07.620 set.

00:28:09.080 If O'Toole loses, do you think he could continue as leader?

00:28:12.400 I think a lot of it's going to depend, Derek, on the vote itself.

00:28:15.880 You 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.

00:28:32.000 And he may have, if he succeeds, but it's the close vote, then he almost loses that way, doesn't he?

00:28:38.160 Because his caucus is so divided and there is such a rift.

00:28:43.520 I personally don't see how he's got the credibility to continue. 0.99

00:28:47.280 As one party source told us last night, he said, quote, it was an idiotic move by O'Toole, end quote. 1.00

00:28:56.740 And he used the word idiotic. 1.00

00:28:58.080 And it looks like it certainly is. 1.00

00:29:00.060 there's a lot of easier ways to get rid of a problem in your caucus you don't

00:29:05.160 have to do it this way so yeah bottom line is unless it's a hundred to none

00:29:11.280 100% to none he's going to lose credibility well I think he gets the

00:29:15.540 vote for himself so he'll get one vote at least but I could tell you right now

00:29:19.500 the counts on these numbers are gonna be very difficult to determine because

00:29:22.800 it's a secret ballot if this was not a secret ballot Aaron O'Toole will get his

00:29:27.000 way. People are just, people don't oppose their leader if they have a good sense of political

00:29:32.420 self-preservation, let me tell you. But it's a secret ballot. And I'm telling you, right now,

00:29:38.800 Sloan is counting votes, and O'Toole and the Whip are counting votes. And I'll tell you,

00:29:45.780 let's say 50 were saying they're going to vote for Sloan, and 50 say they're telling O'Toole

00:29:51.360 they're going to vote for them. Half of them are lying. So whatever vote counts they have,

00:29:54.720 they're wrong. Both of them are going to have less votes probably than they know they have.

00:30:00.680 Well, Sloan perhaps actually, maybe his will be a little more accurate because people might be

00:30:06.780 willing to support him, but aren't going to tell him because they don't want to be seen as opposing

00:30:09.660 the leader. But this is going to be hard to tell. I bet it's going to be a nail biter for both Sloan

00:30:15.160 and for O'Toole, regardless of what the actual vote comes down to, because whatever their vote

00:30:21.260 counting is telling them about how caucus is going to vote half of what

00:30:24.980 they're being told is a lie I guarantee you well let's move on to no I can't say

00:30:33.440 if it's more sane or less sane I don't know though the world's messed up we're

00:30:36.440 gonna move on to what's happening to the south of us today you know this show is

00:30:40.980 not we're not obsessed with American politics that's not our focus we we're

00:30:44.780 not even obsessed with Ottawa politics unless it's affecting the West or real

00:30:48.160 interests of the West, but it's impossible to ignore today. Joe Biden's sworn in as President

00:30:54.560 of the United States. I know a lot of our viewers here and a lot of our listeners are not Joe Biden

00:31:04.000 fans. I'm not a Joe Biden fan as well, but if you're going to be commenting, you're very welcome

00:31:11.560 to but uh try not to use expletives um joe biden is president now and you might not like it

00:31:19.720 i don't like it but it's a fact and that's something that needs to be accepted you can

00:31:24.520 call someone on their policies you can call someone on what they do but he's president and

00:31:29.080 it's there uh there's there's no more conspiracy theories out there uh that say that donald trump

00:31:36.040 is going to somehow remain president he is no longer president he's probably playing golf

00:31:40.200 somewhere right now having a better time than he ever did as president so uh let's kick it to dave

00:31:44.760 uh about uh what happened with today's inauguration and what we can expect today

00:31:51.000 well uh yeah uh joe biden is now the president of the united states so all those people who

00:31:57.240 were writing me nasty letters a month ago when i called him uh the president-elect i told you so

00:32:04.120 uh he uh sworn in an outdoor ceremony in front of the capitol attended by uh actually not very

00:32:10.680 many people because of the coveted lockdown and and the security measures uh lady gaga sang a

00:32:17.320 beautiful rendition of the american national anthem garth brooks ironed his jeans and uh

00:32:23.640 and sang and uh biden took the oath on a bible that must have been a foot and a half tall

00:32:29.800 i'd love to know the uh the back story on that so you know you should see the bible i was sworn in

00:32:34.440 on uh as a wild rose mla i have a giant uh german family bible it is like that tall it looks like

00:32:41.880 it was written by moses in stone so uh joe biden's bible's got nothing on mine mine mine is uh mine

00:32:49.720 Mine's like a cinder block.

00:32:56.900 When we came on the air, Biden was set to visit the Arlington National Cemetery.

00:33:07.460 And then later on this afternoon, he was off to the Oval Office for the first time.

00:33:13.080 He's been in there many times as vice president, obviously, with President Obama.

00:33:18.680 One of the things he did with President Obama was sign an executive order killing the Keystone Pipeline.

00:33:27.060 Of course, Trump turned that around, and four years ago he gave a permit for it.

00:33:32.080 And today, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden, will go in there and reverse Trump's order and kill the Keystone Pipeline yet again.

00:33:41.260 And 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.

00:33:55.220 They're going to sit back and lick their wounds, so to speak.

00:33:59.280 They 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.

00:34:11.800 Dave, sorry, did I mishear you?

00:34:15.920 I know Joe Biden is expected to kill Keystone today on his first day in office.

00:34:20.800 That news came out a few days ago.

00:34:23.320 Did you say that he already has signed that executive order to kill it?

00:34:25.980 no that's on his agenda this that's on his agenda to do this afternoon but TC

00:34:32.580 energy has come out and killed the project themselves this morning they've

00:34:37.320 suspended it they haven't canceled it but they they've stopped

00:34:41.700 they've suspended work yeah and throwing it all out so oh and obviously this has

00:34:48.480 huge repercussions for Alberta politically Jason Kenney invested one

00:34:53.640 and a half billion dollars of taxpayers money uh into tc energy along with another six billion

00:35:00.280 dollars worth of uh of loan guarantees and kenny did all this even though biden had been

00:35:06.680 saying for years that he was going to kill uh kill keystone um so kenny's got a lot of uh

00:35:14.200 questions to answer he's also got a press conference scheduled for later wednesday

00:35:19.080 afternoon. So we'll see what he's got to say. He's going to hire lawyers, put some lawyers to

00:35:25.500 work, charging taxpayers money on that too, to try and fight it. So, and I'm sure Prime Minister

00:35:32.320 Trudeau is hard at work already, also trying to save the pipeline. He admitted, or he said

00:35:38.800 yesterday, hey, you know what, I made a call to Biden in November. And he sort of threw up his

00:35:43.240 arms and said, what more do you want me to do? So yeah, for the time being, and at least for the

00:35:48.340 next four years doesn't look like Keystone will be getting off the ground see this is why we need

00:35:53.320 an Alberta army we could invade we're building this pipeline yeah fascinating stuff there's a

00:36:03.780 couple of dimensions to this I think the big thing is obviously Keystone remember we're not

00:36:09.700 a US politics show I'm not interested I'm not I'm a little bit interested but it's not really what

00:36:15.520 we're going to deal with here in terms of the ins and outs of the election do you think there

00:36:19.460 was fraud or not would that that's beyond the scope of our program uh i really am not an expert

00:36:26.160 in it corey's not dave's not if you want to get into that stuff watch an american show here we're

00:36:31.460 talking about how uh actions from governments at home uh in other parts of canada and apart around

00:36:39.060 the world like in the united states how they affect the west and so we're going to talk

00:36:43.160 primarily about how Joe Biden's presidency is likely to affect the West. Obviously,

00:36:48.680 the 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

00:37:03.700 would be, has clearly not bought social license from even a Democrat like Joe Biden. And he's

00:37:09.720 supposed to be theoretically a moderate Democrat. He's, you know, Joe Biden is not, he's not a

00:37:14.620 radical socialist Democrat like AOC or Bernie Sanders. He's a corporatist. He's an establishment

00:37:20.600 Democrat. He's been a politician longer than I've been alive. Maybe even longer than you. I don't

00:37:24.720 know how you are. I'm not gonna ask, but probably about as long as you've been alive. Dave, you were

00:37:30.220 probably in kindergarten when he got first elected. This guy has been a politician forever.

00:37:36.260 He'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.

00:38:03.460 There'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. 0.94

00:38:10.360 Corey, how strongly do you think we can expect Justin Trudeau to go to the mat in fighting for this pipeline right now? 0.95

00:38:21.680 Not at all. If this was a priority for me, he already would have been speaking up. He would have been front and center.

00:38:26.220 This isn't something you can sit in the back seat and wait on.

00:38:30.140 I mean, the thing is, I think, though, well, for one, I don't think Trudeau really cares

00:38:34.880 that much.

00:38:35.880 Let's be blunt about it.

00:38:36.880 It's not a priority for him either.

00:38:37.880 I mean, he has to go through the motions of being supportive, but it doesn't follow his

00:38:41.100 ideological agenda.

00:38:42.480 He's more than happy in the back of his mind to see Keystone die.

00:38:46.540 As Dave said, you know, he made his phone call in November.

00:38:48.460 Well, I tried and he can shrug it off.

00:38:51.660 We had secretly hoped that Joe was just going through the motions, sort of like, you know,

00:38:55.260 talking about pandering social service.

00:38:56.380 We'll do that.

00:38:57.380 But then when the time comes, oh, you know what?

00:38:58.320 It's just not feasible.

00:38:59.320 court challenge and it has to go through uh that didn't happen if he's putting that on his day one

00:39:05.880 priority this is not something he's going to back down from i mean that that means he's setting up

00:39:10.680 his presidency based on this this isn't six months in this is day one you're not going to convince

00:39:15.880 him otherwise then so uh jason kenny's talking about court challenges because he's got a pile

00:39:20.520 of egg on his face because he invested a bunch of tax dollars in this he won't there's no court order

00:39:25.240 can stop a presidential executive order. You can't win that in the courts.

00:39:28.920 Oh, no, no, you can't. No, no, no, no. No, that's not the case. Trump had some executive

00:39:33.560 orders shot down in the courts as unconstitutional. And that is where our hope lies here because

00:39:42.920 this was permitted. They went ahead.

00:39:44.840 And we can see compensation coming out of this.

00:39:48.040 Well, so either one of two things is going to happen. The pipeline is going to get built

00:39:51.720 or the courts are going to order that the federal government is going to have to pay

00:39:56.340 an obscene amount of money to Keystone XL and its investors, like Alberta, Alberta taxpayers,

00:40:03.420 to compensate them because governments are not allowed to cancel projects in the middle of it

00:40:07.880 unless they compensate you. And he's not just canceling, he's saying the pipelines,

00:40:11.360 they'd be torn out of the ground. It would be obscenely, obscenely expensive. So it is

00:40:18.360 It'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.

00:40:35.440 organization. So, no, I think there is still hope in the courts. Remember, John Horgan said he was

00:40:41.520 going to cancel the Trans Mountain Pipeline. He knew he couldn't do it. He just said it to, you

00:40:46.800 know, to kind of keep the green vote from going to, you know, too many votes from going over to

00:40:49.800 the greens. He just wanted to shore up that far left green eco vote. He knew it wasn't going to

00:40:55.780 go anywhere. He knew that the courts would side against the province. And so once the courts beat

00:40:59.660 him, he exhausted it. He was able to look to his base and say, hey guys, I tried. Sorry, I can't do

00:41:04.380 anything about it. So maybe we'll see the same thing here. We'll see. But again, I don't think

00:41:08.660 Biden's expecting that or he wouldn't put it on day one because that's just something he's going

00:41:11.840 to be wearing right away. You know, it would be something you want to put your priorities

00:41:15.200 somewhere else if you think it's going to be shot down later on. And again, I think maybe a

00:41:20.980 compensation thing I could see more. Well, you can shut it down, but you're going to have to pay

00:41:23.860 out these investors. But the other thing is, as I said, TC Energy has halted their construction

00:41:29.880 for now and that you can't stop a project like that on a dime like that's a heavy duty change

00:41:36.200 that's thousands of people immediately put out of work that's the gears stop turning the other thing

00:41:41.200 is how long do we wait you know a year in court two years in court meanwhile we're investors i

00:41:47.200 mean who's going to put money into that you'd be insane i think if it tells us anything it's

00:41:51.220 let's start getting our pipes to the coast let's get energy east because the americans are not a

00:41:55.800 stable customer right now we're in great trouble from this you know and the reason justin trudeau

00:42:00.240 supports keystone on paper is because it doesn't go through any other provinces it's just alberta

00:42:04.820 it only affects alberta and saskatchewan where there's virtual unit almost universal support

00:42:08.860 for pipelines uh i think the pipeline itself i don't even think directly goes through saskatchewan

00:42:13.420 saskatchewan links up to it but the pipe this pipeline doesn't uh this one cuts the corner

00:42:17.940 just down by east end but okay yeah yeah but it's essentially mostly just alberta uh because it

00:42:23.540 doesn't anger BC, it doesn't anger Ontario, it doesn't anger Quebec or the

00:42:26.300 bear, excuse me, oh my goodness, pardon me. Sorry, I just ate some very

00:42:34.040 stinky German cheese before it came on the air. I made Corey smell it, I think it

00:42:41.580 burnt his nostrils. It did again now. And you wonder why I don't want to come into

00:42:48.260 the office. It's more dangerous than COVID, I'll tell you. We're going to have to get Edelweiss

00:42:55.760 Village Calgary advertising with us. That was free advertising for their stinky cheeses. Sorry,

00:43:03.000 that was quite a digression. Yeah, so this could, it'll end up in the courts. The big thing now is

00:43:10.500 also what the hell is going to happen in Alberta here? I mean, Jason Kenney, someone to me, his

00:43:16.600 early career was at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in Alberta, and he made a name

00:43:21.460 for himself fighting against the Alberta government, getting directly involved in buying, investing

00:43:27.040 in businesses. It once in a while works out, but more often than not, it's a complete and

00:43:33.300 total disaster because governments can never make investment decisions as well as people

00:43:37.660 whose money it actually is. They don't have, government doesn't really have skin in the

00:43:41.260 game. And you know, so we had Novotel, we had all these big disasters under the Getty government,

00:43:48.140 Klein sold them all and said we're getting government out of the business of business,

00:43:51.580 period. And that's been steadily eroding over the years. It began with Stalmac and continued all the

00:43:56.060 way through Redford, Prentice, Notley, and Kenny's been in it too. And then he has made one of the

00:44:03.500 biggest direct government investment decisions in Canadian history, certainly on a provincial level.

00:44:08.620 You put $1.5 billion Canadian buying direct investment stakes in Keystone XL's pipeline,

00:44:18.780 and another $6 billion in loan guarantees. Now, this does not make me anti-Keystone pipeline.

00:44:27.500 This makes me anti-corporate crony capitalism, makes me anti-corporatist. This is a hugely

00:44:34.140 important pipeline it is absolutely critical for alberta for the west even for canada um but that

00:44:40.460 doesn't mean i think the government should be uh should be bailing it out i like cars i hope

00:44:45.420 ontario builds cars but i don't want the government owning car companies it's same with airplanes i'm

00:44:51.420 happy for quebec to build airplanes but i don't want to be paying for them to build airplanes

00:44:55.580 and at the same thing if we're going to be if we're going to be consistent in our views if you

00:44:59.100 oppose the Ottawa bailing out Bombardier, oppose Ottawa bailing out GM, then you have to oppose

00:45:05.220 Alberta bailing out Keystone. And I love Keystone. And these problems are not actually Keystone's

00:45:10.020 fault because this is all political. Their problems are not economic. The economic case is clear.

00:45:15.340 These are political factors influencing it. But Jason Kenney has made a massive investment decision

00:45:20.920 here on behalf of Alberta taxpayers. All in, $7.5 billion are on the table. And we could see that

00:45:28.760 evaporate before our eyes. And if that happens, cancellation of Keystone is not then just

00:45:33.760 an economic catastrophe for Alberta. It is now a government finance catastrophe. It is now a

00:45:39.540 catastrophe for taxpayers. How much egg do you think Kenny's going to have on his face here

00:45:49.480 if, as we expect, Joe Biden cancels this? We'll go to you, Dave. Then I'm on your side of this,

00:45:56.180 Corey. What does this mean for Jason Kenney? Is he going to have to really wear this or is he

00:46:01.980 going to be able to shrug his shoulders and blame this one on Trudeau too? No, it's just the latest

00:46:07.680 kick in the groin for Kenny, you know, coming on the heels of the Snowbird scandal. To me, Derek,

00:46:15.120 the thing about this, how could you not see this coming? Kenny obviously put all his eggs into the

00:46:21.260 Trump re-election basket and he lost. He took a gamble and he lost. Joe Biden has been saying

00:46:28.900 for years and years that he's going to kill Keystone. When he was vice president, he killed

00:46:35.060 Keystone. When he started the Democratic primaries, what was that, in 1643, it seems like it was so

00:46:41.320 long ago, he said he was going to kill Keystone. In the Democratic debates, he said he was going

00:46:46.000 kill keystone and then everybody acts surprised when he goes ahead and kills keystone i mean

00:46:53.600 you know and if you're in charge of alberta taxpayers money and you hand over a billion

00:46:59.200 and a half in in uh you know readies to the to tc energy and another six billion in loan guarantees

00:47:08.000 after after biden has made all these statements then yeah you wear it the egg is on your face

00:47:17.200 and uh another major scandal that kenny's gonna have to overcome

00:47:23.280 uh yeah if this goes down i think it will probably qualify as the single most expensive

00:47:29.040 government boondoggle in canadian history as certainly in alberta history if it doesn't beat

00:47:35.360 federal. It certainly would beat any other province, including much larger provinces

00:47:39.300 than Alberta. Corey, what do you think the political fall-up would be if this happens

00:47:45.500 and we have just dropped $7.5 billion into a lemon? 0.99

00:47:50.240 Well, it's just piling on, and everything Jason's touching has turned into crap. I mean... 0.99

00:47:56.320 Well, that should be the title of your new book.

00:47:59.260 Well, there we go. I mean, you know, I was supportive of Kenny, and I still would hope

00:48:03.860 that somehow he figures out, but it's just a disaster everywhere. You look at the energy

00:48:09.200 center that's supposed to defend these things. Maybe you should have gave them one and a

00:48:11.620 half billion to promote Alberta down south. They couldn't have done any worse than flushing

00:48:15.700 it.

00:48:16.700 I think the 30 million they spent on that, I don't think it's gone too long.

00:48:19.580 I know. And the coal mine disaster, the parks disaster, the travel gate, it just doesn't

00:48:25.700 seem to stop. And it just keeps piling on. And now you've got libertarian fiscal conservatives

00:48:31.600 like us who were, yeah, bloody pissed off. I mean, come on. In the 90s, Jason Kenney was leading the

00:48:37.140 Taxpayers Federation against Klein, talking about MagCan, Novotel, as you mentioned, Swan Hills,

00:48:43.840 Gainers. Like I'm of the age, I remember all of those. And government investment is a kiss of

00:48:48.160 death. Every one of those things was money flushed right down the toilet. It makes me worry about

00:48:53.220 TMX probably is going to die as well, just due to the curse. And once you get the government

00:48:56.640 involved. It's done. So yeah, we're ticked off. And Kenny's going to be wearing this.

00:49:01.760 And he's in such a hole to try and recover from in the next two years. It's just one more thing

00:49:06.680 that he's going to try and win back. I think as they get more politically desperate,

00:49:10.700 when they're facing numbers in the mid-20s like they are right now, looking at an absolute

00:49:14.120 devastating election coming up, if they can't start pulling these up, my worry is that he's

00:49:21.540 going to get more politically desperate, take more of these reckless gambles. I mean, 7.5 billion

00:49:27.280 dollars for, I can't say what I was going to say something's sake. Like, that is an incredible

00:49:32.940 amount of money. Look, you kind of made me think of something here. If you want to make me dislike

00:49:38.780 something, fund it with the government. I, at one point at least, I had a Keystone XL hat. Like,

00:49:46.380 you know, I am one of these pipeline worshippers. I admit it. I'm definitely a petropatriot. I love 1.00

00:49:52.160 this stuff. But as soon as the government starts owning Keystone, I said, eh, I don't like government

00:49:57.260 businesses. Keystone is a little better than a crown corporation now. Trans Mountain, it is a

00:50:02.040 crown corporation. I don't like crown corporations. I want crown corporations to fail. So, I mean,

00:50:08.280 what an absolute total disaster this has been. I mean, this is the month from hell, I think,

00:50:17.360 for this government. But the big losers here are going to be taxpayers. How are you going to look

00:50:21.480 Albertans in the face and say, hey, guys, I went to the casino. I put $7.5 billion on red,

00:50:28.360 and we came up blue. Sorry. I mean, how are they going to explain that away? And yes,

00:50:34.980 Justin 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.

00:50:51.760 That 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.

00:51:14.560 Oh, I can't imagine how that budget's going to work.

00:51:16.600 Oh, good God.

00:51:18.180 I mean, there is no words to explain how much of a disaster this is.

00:51:24.480 I just want to know how the premier is going to be able to look Albertans in the eyes and say,

00:51:27.940 I'm sorry, I just lost $7.5 billion because I didn't think there was any chance that Joe Biden would become president.

00:51:37.000 I'm sorry. 0.97

00:51:38.480 That is the dumbest gamble I've seen. 0.99

00:51:41.380 I wouldn't bet $20 on that. 0.99

00:51:44.380 The only way I would bet $7.5 billion on that is if it was somebody else's money.

00:51:49.220 And that's what happens when governments make bets with other people's money. 0.91

00:51:53.320 End rant, because I am just about to blow a friggin' lid.

00:51:57.460 I've had it with this. 0.89

00:51:59.440 There's just...

00:52:01.160 I said I'm going to end the rant.

00:52:02.060 I'm going to end the rant. 1.00

00:52:03.700 Well, let's talk about more stupidity from governments close to home here in the West. 1.00

00:52:10.220 Manitoba, wow, they really let the mask slip on this one, no pun intended. 1.00

00:52:16.320 Dave, why don't you tell us how we're all in this together in Manitoba?

00:52:21.660 I'm scared to, Derek.

00:52:23.000 You may go on another rant after this.

00:52:25.820 Yeah, this is just another example of one rule for one and another rule for others.

00:52:33.100 That 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.

00:52:58.420 So the question was posed to Dr. Brent Roussin. I hope I'm pronouncing his name right. He's the

00:53:05.260 chief medical officer of health for Manitoba. And I'll just read you his quote, Derek. He says,

00:53:12.000 quote, our public health orders don't apply to any levels of government. Let me just repeat that.

00:53:19.320 Our public health... Say that again. That's just too good. That needs to be on a billboard.

00:53:23.660 Our public health order don't apply to any levels of government, says Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief medical officer of health for Manitoba.

00:53:35.560 The quote continues, so they don't apply to federal, provincial, or municipal governments.

00:53:42.260 All three levels of governments, they're okay, they can do whatever they want.

00:53:47.060 His quote continues, so I am aware of health inspectors having visited some of these gyms and found them safe.

00:53:53.660 He says referring to government gyms.

00:53:57.160 They were not given any special, they were not given an exemption outside the order, meaning they could just do whatever they want.

00:54:05.460 The closure orders don't affect them because they're government.

00:54:09.840 So 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?

00:54:22.480 But, yeah, really, really silly thing to say,

00:54:25.980 and it's certainly making the rounds on social media. 0.91

00:54:29.980 Again, just the government arrogance.

00:54:33.460 You know, it's just like the snowbirds, right?

00:54:35.260 UCP snowbirds jetting off to sun and sand destination

00:54:38.420 while the rest of us saps sit in our houses alone locked out.

00:54:44.720 It's one rule for the government, one rule for the rest of us, Derek.

00:54:48.260 Incredible.

00:54:49.160 Dave, as soon as we are done, the broadcast here today,

00:54:51.500 I want you to dig in and see if we are finding that in the other Western provinces, in D.C.,

00:54:56.360 in Alberta, in Saskatchewan.

00:54:58.420 I want to see if this lockdown and restrictions for the but not for me stuff is applicable

00:55:07.020 in our other corners of the West here.

00:55:12.040 Absolutely incredible.

00:55:14.600 I've ranted too much, and I'm too angry.

00:55:17.340 I'm having an angry day.

00:55:18.660 I'm having a good day, but I'm angry right now.

00:55:21.500 Corey, say something. I'm always angry anyway. That's just my natural state. That's just your

00:55:29.440 default setting. You do it. I think it's going to kill all the lockdowns though and lose the

00:55:34.620 moral ground. Nothing destroys it faster than hypocrisy. And we see it from haircuts to travel 0.74

00:55:39.680 to now gyms. These governments living high on the hog whilst we're suffering and sacrificing

00:55:47.400 down below and it's going to crumble so they better hope the bloody vaccine works because

00:55:51.800 the let them eat cake attitude is going to get an uprising and very soon well the vaccine may

00:55:57.140 work corey but we're not getting it no this is another thing that kenny's going to have to deal

00:56:02.740 with is there's there's no pfizer vaccines coming this week so we're sitting around with a lot of

00:56:07.780 nurses with empty needles this is one area where i think kenny can legitimately point the finger at

00:56:14.440 the feds uh the vaccine procurement is one of the very few areas of uh federal government 0.87

00:56:20.380 jurisdiction within health care uh and they have they've shit the bed on it uh like big pharma

00:56:27.400 i don't like big pharma i don't know many people who like big pharma but guess what during a 0.94

00:56:33.380 pandemic when you need them to come up with a vaccine is a bad freaking time to pick a fight

00:56:37.900 with big pharma you know they're not uh as my wife uh said to me this morning as we were talking

00:56:43.840 this over breakfast uh they're not the hero we deserve but they're the hero we need right now

00:56:49.040 big pharma is what's going to pull this out of the fire and uh with the vaccine so that we can get

00:56:54.320 back to normal life uh because you know you know even you know i'm i oppose lockdowns i and a lot

00:57:00.800 of these mandatory measures but uh i still want the vaccine i want a vaccine to get rid of this

00:57:07.440 because this is a big problem and we're not going to have life back to normal until we've got

00:57:12.640 But I don't know what percentage of the population is necessary, but certainly enough to achieve herd immunity with a vaccine here.

00:57:20.920 So it has been fumbled.

00:57:26.200 It's now a shortage in all the provinces.

00:57:28.500 And 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.

00:57:36.800 They've actually done a pretty good job of that, but they're out of it now.

00:57:38.940 They can't do it because they don't have enough stock.

00:57:42.640 But we'll just bring it back to Manitoba to close off. Absolutely wild that these kinds of laws

00:57:52.940 that are imposed on everybody else are not imposed on governments. They have special

00:57:57.040 privileges because they are governments. So Dave, you've got a task ahead of yourself here.

00:58:03.100 See if you can track this down. If so, we're going to have the story for you here at the

00:58:09.020 Western Standard. We'll probably be back with another special edition of the pipeline.

00:58:12.880 But what a time we're in. So much happening. So much stupidity by people who we would like to

00:58:21.740 be smart in positions of power. But that's the way it is. Well, thank you, Dave. Thank you, 1.00

00:58:28.440 Corey, for joining today. Thank you, everyone else at The Standard right now. We've got other

00:58:32.200 people in the office here. Thank everyone on our team for making this possible. Thank you,

00:58:37.640 our, especially to our members who are supporting us. We cannot do this without you. If you are not

00:58:43.160 yet a member of the Western Standard, go to westernstandardonline.com, click on membership.

00:58:47.520 It's right at the top under our band, our masthead of the Western Standard there. Become a member.

00:58:52.900 10 bucks a month. You can support bailout free independent media that is here for Western Canada,

00:59:00.320 standing up for your interests and keeping an eye on things. I'm so proud of what we've been

00:59:06.680 able to do uh in just a little over a year in operation we've really turned a corner here

00:59:12.040 we're now um uh we're gonna do the official numbers but i think in uh this december we

00:59:18.200 are either these uh number one uh or at the least the number two most read online news platform in

00:59:24.600 alberta um and i and uh across western canada we were either uh number two or number three uh this

00:59:32.440 month we're headed for our first two million reader month so everything you

00:59:37.240 see from the Western standard share it get it out there we want the breaking

00:59:40.420 rights I want to be able to tell people when I'm trying to sign up advertisers

00:59:45.220 for the Western standard that we have two million readers a month and we have

00:59:49.400 the most read news site in Western Canada that's something I sincerely

00:59:53.320 that's breaking rights I sincerely sincerely want right now I can't speak

00:59:56.920 today I haven't even had anything to drink I should probably have something

01:00:01.600 it'll calm me down or it'll make me fighty i don't know depends on the day uh well thank you

01:00:07.660 all very much uh for joining me today uh joining cory and dave it's been a wonderful time you've

01:00:12.060 been a wonderful audience thanks for your questions and comments god bless

01:00:31.600 You

Western Standard - January 21, 2021

Jan 20, 2021

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