Jan 5, 2020
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Summary
The great snowbird scandal of 2021 continues to rage in Alberta. Derek Fildebrandt and Dave Naylor pick up where they left off yesterday and discuss the political fallout from Jason Kenney's decision to let six of his own MLAs go on the "vacation" while the rest of the caucus is on vacation. Plus, a Black Lives Matter activist and candidate for City Council in Edmonton joins the show to talk about an exclusive story from The Western Standard.
Transcript
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Hello, I'm Derek Fildebrandt. You're watching The Pipeline on January 5th, 2021. I'm joined
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today by Cory Morgan, podcast editor and columnist with the Western Standard. Good day, Cory.
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Good afternoon. I don't know if it's eight minutes into afternoon, I guess. Yeah.
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Dave Naylor, news editor of the Western Standard. Good day, Dave.
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G'day, Derek. Still morning for me out here in soggy Vancouver.
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Indeed. Well, today we're picking up where we left off yesterday.
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The great snowbird scandal of 2021, as we are dubbing it now, continues to rage.
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Kenny fired his chief of staff and gave a small slap on the wrist to some of his
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vacationing Tories despite the government's own lockdown. We're gonna
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talk about the political follow-up of it. Have the heads that have been served up
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and wrist slaps, are they enough to appease the anger of Albertans right
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now? And what is gonna be the long-term fallout of this? We're gonna discuss it.
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we're gonna discuss though I think very importantly did Jason can really not
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know about this as he claims we've got a bit to say about it and we've got some
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documents we're gonna share with you today and as well a Black Lives Matter
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activist and candidate for City Council in Edmonton cheering the death of a
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murdered Calgary police officer we'll we'll talk about that an exclusive story
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from Dave Naylor at the Western Standard. So let's hop into it again with the great snowbird
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scandal of 2021. We're jumping back in where we left off yesterday. Dave, Kenny accepting the
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resignation of Tracy Allard from Cabinet, firing his chief of staff, Jamie Huckabay, and then giving
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pretty minor slaps on the wrist to the other six UCP MLAs and then I think no
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sanction at all towards the press secretaries Dave we've been put you've
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been closely following the fallout of this is it looking like this is going to
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be enough to satisfy the bloodlust of angry Albertans right now or do you
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think there's more to come well I don't think it's anywhere near close enough to
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satisfied the bloodlust. Derek, all the political columnists and all the major mainstream media say
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it isn't. Not that they should be listened to, but, and certainly the phone calls and the emails
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and text messages that I'm getting from Wild Rose supporters, they're just, they're just,
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they're just still living. And, you know, now we're getting to the point in the story where
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people are coming forward and saying, hey, did you know this person was there? And hey,
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did you know that press secretary was was out of the province over here so these are all the leads
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that we're we're following up as quickly as we can but uh still uh nowhere near the end of the story
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and uh i think as you hinted at there derek the uh the question now becomes what did the premier
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know and when did he know it indeed uh corey do you think uh i i mean perhaps this uh would have
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gone down better if Kenny had made these actions when he held his now widely lamented press
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conference January 1st. He acted instead yesterday, January 4th, when this scandal seems to have
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gotten out of control. Do you think this is going to be enough or do you think it'll be pretty much
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died down by this time next week? I honestly don't know. I mean, I don't know how much more
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he can do. Well, we know things that people are calling for. I mean, some are calling for Kenny
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to resign well it's not going to happen and the ndp is going to call for canada resign every week
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over everything it doesn't really matter anyway um can he really kick six members totally out of
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caucus i know he's kicked members out of caucus before and uh for what things that perhaps could
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be considered lesser uh offenses than this but losing half a dozen and it's playing catch up
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right like he's in a terrible position he's put himself into it uh friday he put out that conference
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and did nothing but it also does tell me i i guess it's mixed either maybe it's a bit of both
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he didn't realize just how bad this is which again shows some of the disconnect they have
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with the mindset of grassroots and populist type of supporters and also he didn't he didn't know
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how many guys were still out of the country and perhaps you shouldn't hold a conference until
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you've had a head count on every one of them because that's part of what killed him too
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he thought i could do this on a new year's day get it out put it to bed people will forget about it
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but unfortunately over the next two days more of them got exposed which just poured gasoline on
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the fire and then he was forced to do something by Monday what he'll be able to do though to put
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it out is broken trust I don't think any more punishment is going to change it the only thing
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you can hope for is one of two things one is something big and coming and pushing it down
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the news cycle for him which is out of his control and the other thing is just time you've broken
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trust and it's going to take time to regain it if you can. Yeah, and I think you're right. I'm not
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sure that more heads will solve it at this point. And while people might say that they should all
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be tossed, you can offer up the heads of maybe one out of caucus, maybe two, but it is tough
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to fire uh seven or more uh members of your caucus uh and he didn't really know apparently
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how many there were although i've not i think for the backbenchers they didn't know but uh
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i have a pretty good feeling they knew how many members of cabinet were out of the country
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uh and i'm not sure that the public does yet i have a feeling it was not just tracy allard even
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though she's the one who's paid the price so far um but i think where this where this story is going
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now is not just um what those guys did and kenny's reaction to it i think it's um jason kenny's
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statements about what he knew and when he knew it um dave uh this is uh something you've had
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some breaking stories on uh you know uh you've been working i think 14 hour days in our media
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sweatshop here uh why don't you tell us where we're at with the with the memo and some of the
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revelations we've had uh about when he knew and when he knew it yeah derek what happens when a
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cabinet minister goes on holiday is they fill in a basically a vacation request form which they give
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to their chief of staff uh the cabinet minister's chief of staff then gives it to the premier's
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office and it's not just a case of okay minister a's going on holiday they have to figure out
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who's going to cover for minister a so they have to give minister a's responsibility to to minister
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x so it's not just a case of uh of rubber stamping now we've talked to a senior senior tory party
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insider a former tory cabinet minister and a confidant of the premier jason kenney and he
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says it's quote inconceivable unquote that the premier did not know that one of his cabinet
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ministers uh you know had been gone for a month um and he points out the fact that you know kenny
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is such a hands-on guy a hands-on command and control as he put it very much like stephen harper
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used to be with his prime minister's office he just points out the fact that there's no way kenny
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didn't know when we published this exclusive story last night on the western standard uh derek we got
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an email from the premier's office within five minutes of it going up when's the last time we
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did that holy cow we can't even get a question in at one of their press conferences but uh
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you know on the bright side it shows they're reading us uh and quite closely and that uh that
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press conference was just a reaffirmation saying look you know that that memo came into uh the
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premier's office but there's no way it got to uh kenny's hands the premier did not see it well
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well let's kind of go into that for a second here we've got uh so we've got this memo uh we're gonna
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we're gonna pull it up here in a second um but we've got this memo from tracy owler the
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now former minister to jason kenney and uh you can all see it here uh reads please be advised
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that i will be on personal time december 29th 2020 until january uh 10th 2021 inclusive rick
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McIver will take over yada yada yada uh that's from Tracy Allard you can see in the upper left
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to the Honorable Jason Kenney Premier and copying Jamie Huckabee Chief of Staff um as well as Rick
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McIver and the Chief of Staff to Allard uh now uh as uh you've said Dave uh once we put that up
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the um uh a spokesman for jason kenney says oh he didn't read it
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uh now let's just put this in context tracy allard was the chairwoman of the
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government's coveted 19 emergency response committee
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these which is the nexus of the entire government right now this is the most
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important cabinet committee around and jason kenny is a well-known
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workaholic even his critics admit that he's a hard worker
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and he is a control freak he has his hands on everything he knows what every minister is doing
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and we are supposed to believe that the premier of alberta during a lockdown did not read a memo
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from the chair uh the chair of the coca 19 emergency response committee informing him
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that she would be away we are supposed to believe uh that uh he didn't read this
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I mean, we weren't in the room. So I suppose it is theoretically possible.
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Corey, give us the over-under on what are the chances are that Jason Kitty did not really read
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this? I think it's extremely unlikely that he didn't read it. I mean, to give a little bit of
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benefit of the doubt, he may have read it though and thought, okay, she's going to visit her sister
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in Saskatchewan or Edmonton or something and took the presumption that she'd be smart enough not to
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leave the country at a time like this. I mean, there is a little bit of that wondering, but again,
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he's on top. You have to wear it. So you can't apparently assume that your caucus is all smart
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enough not to step into this mire because they did. And they shouldn't have had to have been
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instructed not to but but the mess is all now on his lap he may have read it it's i'm sure he
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probably did read it i i'll just try to be a little kind of think maybe he just assumed though
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that it meant she was taking a break and not that she'd be leaving the country
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uh yeah weight of the vaccine rollout and she is the minister in charge of it now uh what he said
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is when he held his uh you know uh widely panned uh press conference of january 1st
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uh he said i well we've got the actual wording here um well we've got it elsewhere uh but he
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said i became aware of this on the 29th of december this memo is dated the 13th of december
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uh that's a fair bit of time and he also said during that press conference we have had virtual
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cabinet meetings so she's been and he meant to say oh she's been working it's
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not like she wasn't actually doing anything while she was on vacation she's
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been working we had virtual cabinet meetings so you had these long virtual
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cabinet meetings and it never came up that she was about two hemispheres over
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that is increasingly difficult to believe and again it's not just the
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actions of the scandal here it's the cover-up of it it's what art is he
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telling the truth of it to trying to extract himself from any blame um maybe you you've got
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to wonder what allard was using as a green screen right maybe she's got a snowbound grand prairie on
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it as opposed to her her lying on the beach but i i think you know kenny's blundered this from the
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beginning i think cory hinted about that that friday performance was a fiasco and he's now
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what in today four or five of radio silence so he's getting some bad advice i'm not sure who's
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left to give him advice as he's you know he fired his chief of staff but he's getting some bad advice
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and now you know it's the worst thing you can do because then you got the media screwing around for
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stories well let's talk about the chief of staff more um i mean i suppose it's theoretically
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possible not to know where a minister is even if you're on conference calls with her and she is
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now the essentially the most important minister in the government right now
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chairing the COVID-19 emergency response committee. Let's grant them that but
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let's talk about the chief of staff. Now when I was in politics I had a chief of
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staff and I can tell you I know if they're taking a piss. I know where they
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are at all times. There is no one more important in your organization and I was
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leading a pretty small political party. I was not the premier of Alberta so my
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chief of staff as important as that person was there's a hell of a lot less
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important than the chief of staff to the premier of a province, a major province.
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You know where your chief of staff is at all times. Now Jason Kenney said I guess
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is trying to have us believe that he did not know where his chief of staff was
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for weeks on end while they were overseas during one of the biggest
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crises a government can face. Well, Dave, you spoke to someone last night who has something
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to say about that. They spoke on condition of anonymity. Why don't you run us through
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what the likelihood is that Jason Kenney was telling the truth about not knowing where
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his chief of staff was? Well, it's like you say, the chief of staff is your right arm.
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right on with the cabinet minister. He's the one that gets him to all the appointments. He's the
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one that tells him where he's going. He's the one that tells him who he's speaking to. You know,
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he's the one that buttons up his tie and makes sure he's looking okay before he goes to, you
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know, before he goes in front of the press. So, you know, to claim that he didn't know his chief
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of staff was in the United Kingdom, as our force says, is inconceivable. Well, let's get into
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that a bit more here um so you spoke to a senior uh he was a former senior minister uh conservative
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minister and he is a close confidant of jason kenney we can tell you people this is not thomas
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lukasik uh but this uh former minister and close confidant of jason kenny spoke on condition of
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anonymity um he says uh when you go away every minister fills out a form the form goes to the
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the Minister's Chief of Staff, then the Premier. It is, quote, inconceivable that Kenny wouldn't
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know Allard was traveling. Well, when people close to you start speaking to the media,
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that's probably a good reason to be worried. Corey, is this a sign that the wheels might
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be falling off a bit here? Well, I imagine there's a lot of turmoil going on inside right now. I
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mean everybody's scrambling they want to save their own butts uh they're they're pointing fingers
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uh you know but again i i think what it all comes down to i mean kenny is a a smart guy you know
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nobody could deny that it shows that that disconnect i mean with the chief of staff i
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don't recall kenny ever directly said he didn't know about where uh huckabay was i think he's
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been kind of silent on that one because it's just too much to believe that is as you said his right
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man is uh has been gone you know out off the continent and he wouldn't know about it what it
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does say though is they really didn't realize uh just how profoundly bad these actions were they
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didn't realize how it was going to resonate with albertans uh that's a sign of the the elitism
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that you get stuck with you know as they say dome disease or ottawa syndrome for the federal ones
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and things like that but they they they don't even understand how they've offended everybody yet now
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that it's really blowing up in their face, they're getting a really good understanding of it.
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But I think the reason they didn't try to cover that earlier is because they didn't even realize
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they were doing something wrong. And that's kind of a whole different level of disturbing.
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Now, what's making it worse, Derek, at this moment is the federal liberals, right? Everybody's
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bogeyman in the West. And their MPs who have admitted that they traveled are voluntarily
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stepping down. Even before it was made public, they're coming forward and saying,
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I visited this sick grandmother I visited this person and I'm stepping down from my role as
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parliamentary secretary to this that and the other we're doing it voluntarily far worse less terrible
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circumstances resignations were unnecessary I mean one went to a memorial service or funeral
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in Washington State another one went to see a dying relative in Delaware I am not terribly
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outraged about that uh and the thing is they admitted it voluntarily and they took their their
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job cuts voluntarily the prime minister came out this morning first time he's been seen in ages
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outside rito cottage and he scolded scolded uh politicians you shouldn't be traveling at this
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time of year uh you know so when the liberals look smarter than the ucp does it's a big public
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relations image uh this uh this confidence of uh premier kenny's last night described it as
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like the dying days of uh allison redford's uh premiership so uh you know i'm not sure if kenny's
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gone into the bunker uh uh yet beneath the dome but uh it's it's a pretty bleak for him at the
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moment and unlike cory i really don't know what he does to try and get out of it indeed okay well uh
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let's move on uh dave you're just a bloody machine um breaking news stories um the latest
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is a black lives matter activist and defund the police guy and candidate for edmonton city council
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uh why don't you tell us uh what's what's going on with this oh derek reporters aren't supposed
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to get personally involved in their stories but i i just found this disgusting it made me uh
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made me sick to my stomach um this is a gentleman called abdul hakim dolla he's a edmonton uh
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community activist he calls himself a community activist and he's uh he's a politician up there
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he tried to run for the ndp in the last federal election but uh didn't make it through the
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nomination uh process he's now uh said he's running in ward seven in the election and he
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celebrated the death today of calgary police sergeant andrew harnett who was killed in that
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horrible horrible hit and run and he was responding to a tweet about Prime
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Minister Trudeau not you know publicly acknowledging the fact that Harden had
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fallen in the line of duty which the the Prime Minister has done on you know
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every time a soldier or usually another police officer does fall in the line of
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duty and Dalal came out and answered that tweet by saying quote cuz he was a
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And then he followed it up with five smiley emojos.
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Just, you know, no matter what side of the argument you're on,
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if he gets elected and has been quoted several times
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in edmonton and uh i debated whether myself i mean you know this guy's certainly on the fringe
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derek i debated with myself whether or not to write the story but within a couple minutes of
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writing it i heard from two police officers and one edmonton politician who basically said you
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know thanks for exposing this guy we need to know what kind of people are running for office so
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even the black lives matter people will not be happy about this uh focusing a spotlight on them
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Corey, how do you think the whole BLM defund the police crowd will have to respond to this?
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I don't know. To be honest, if you look at their history, this is typical of them. This is not,
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like I'm tired of people treating the group of extremists with kid gloves. There are a lot of
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quotes, extremism, hatred, promotion of violence that have come from Black Lives Matter for years.
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And it does hit the news a little bit. It's just in this case, it's much closer to home. And I
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just so vile as to dance on the grave of an officer who's recently died in the line of duty
00:24:33.100
i i don't think they'll condemn them they might just distance themselves a little from this guy
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but this isn't new out of these people and and uh i should watch the these people statement uh
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the the extreme activist element uh and uh uh it's just sickening i'm very happy dave called
00:24:53.020
them out and i i think i want to write on this further because black lives matter i mean people
00:24:58.220
are concerned there's real issues there's certainly some police cultural issues to work on
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uh when people marched on mass when things were first happening a lot of moderate people around
00:25:07.740
the streets with concerns but when the mainstream and the moderate people move aside that extreme
00:25:13.580
element of blm leadership remains and and it's just over and over again and again these guys
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have to be called out and in my view disbanded or at least sidelined as an extremist band of nut
00:25:24.860
cases and if somebody wants to put together a rational police reform type of group or or
00:25:31.260
addressing systemic racism assuming it is there it's time for a new one because blm is is just
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garbage yeah i want to point out derek that at this very second thousands of calgarians are lining
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the route along memorial drive and into forest lawn for a funeral not a funeral procession but
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the BLM defund the police movement I guess those two movements have kind of
00:26:22.340
merged into one more or less it's unfortunate because it takes away from
00:26:28.080
the need for real real police reform you know we've seen video of absolute
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goons of police officers in Gatineau violently forcing their way into a home
00:26:39.500
without a warrant as far as we know in Gatineau Quebec and violently dragging
00:26:45.320
man out because he was one of six people having supper on new year's eve uh absolute goonery
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uh now these cops are acting under the orders of the politicians and the politicians are
00:26:56.760
ultimately responsible but uh there is you know we do have a problem with uh with police uh you
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know we saw the two um keystone cops in calgary uh failed miserably to take a man down for playing
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hockey uh threatened to fucking tase him uh the absolute gong show of that we do have a problem
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with some adrenaline junkie cops going around uh demanding people respect their authority and uh
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there is a need for reform uh and police to know that uh it's their job to keep the peace not to
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uh enforce uh government proclamations uh so there's a need for this uh but it gets really
00:27:39.720
hard to advocate reasonable police reform when uh when we've got these people coming out screaming
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defund the police and the most extreme elements of them uh not all of them i think it's fair to
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say but the more extreme elements of them cheering the murder of police officers so
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uh so uh for all of you watching members and non-members we need your help we are going into
00:28:05.320
the field today we have contracted Main Street research one of the most
00:28:10.840
prestigious and credible polling firms in Canada to do a poll of how Albertans
00:28:16.920
feel right now we want a snapshot of how Albertans feel about this what they
00:28:20.980
think is the appropriate reaction we want to know do Albertans think that the
00:28:26.620
resignation of a single minister and a chief of staff is enough or does there
00:28:29.920
need to be more we want to know has this affected how Albertans intend to vote
00:28:34.400
are they gonna are they just gonna kind of get over this or they talking about
00:28:38.940
our Albertans feeling now that they're gonna start shifting how they're going
00:28:41.540
to vote we don't know that yet we need good hard scientific data on it and we
00:28:46.420
have contracted Main Street research just an hour ago but it's an expensive
00:28:51.680
poll and I don't want to bankrupt the Western Standard to do it and I hope I
00:28:56.900
hope all of you feel the same way so please help us crowdsource this go the
00:29:02.800
link below westernstandardonline.com slash donate dash poll slash I'm gonna
00:29:11.020
put that in the in the comments you can follow that link and make a donation to
00:29:20.020
help us help us crowdsource this in a way that's not going to bankrupt the
00:29:26.480
Western Center there's a very important poll right now we're gonna pull on some
00:29:29.020
other issues we're going to pull on how people feel right now about things like
00:29:33.460
Alberta independence or Western independence questions at the mainstream
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media don't often ask too often or ask very fairly we're going to be asking
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about a lot of these important questions that get ignored by the mainstream media
00:29:46.060
so please kick in give what you can those of you who are already members of
00:29:53.020
the Western Standard thank you very much for your support if you're not yet a
00:29:56.740
member please go to westernstandardonline.com click on membership
00:30:00.500
sign up um you know the good folks of the western standard here are working
00:30:08.420
and they are working ridiculous hours right now
00:30:10.660
breaking stories uh ahead of much of the rest of the mainstream media
00:30:15.060
so uh if you can please uh uh please do what you can to contribute become a
00:30:20.820
member and also help uh help us crowdsource this poll to to get
00:30:24.980
some uh important information on how albertans are really feeling right now uh but with that
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we're going to wrap up today's show we thank you all very much for for joining and especially
00:30:35.060
to dave and corey for your contributions today thank you very much hey this was fun derek if
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the news continues we should do it again tomorrow and we just might okay thank you all very much