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

00:00:00.240 As we're celebrating Canada Day, do you really know what we're celebrating?

00:00:05.880 Few people know today that Canada Day is actually the establishment of Dominion Day.

00:00:13.320 The term Dominion of Canada reflects our Christian heritage and foundations as a country.

00:00:19.180 I certainly didn't learn about this when I was growing up, and I assume this certainly is the case today. 0.87

00:00:25.400 it's like our history as a christian nation has been wiped out erased or buried my hope is i'll

00:00:32.620 inform educate advocate for these truths to be resurfaced and brought back into our public

00:00:41.260 consciousness so thank you for listening and i hope you have a happy canada day

00:00:55.400 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:01:09.720 of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, July the 2nd. Ladies and gentlemen, Canada Day

00:01:15.260 came and went, and I hope we all had a good time. But there are many folks, here in Alberta

00:01:20.240 especially who wish they could have got a little more into the spirit with me today is gail ing

00:01:26.400 a calgary woman with a mission and it's got to do with canadian patriotism gail good evening

00:01:32.560 good evening nigel thanks for having me you are so welcome gail you're a you're a homeschool mother

00:01:38.420 and you're here in calgary and i know you care very deeply about this country because we've

00:01:44.440 talked about it but you told me many Albertans you speak with fine Canada Day isn't the isn't

00:01:51.540 the buzz they used to feel about it um how was your Canada Day well it was fine but like most

00:01:59.280 Canadians uh we you know we kind of think about oh we should do something for Canada Day and maybe

00:02:05.840 we will uh go out and find some kind of celebration um to participate in but um a lot of us don't know

00:02:15.020 uh what we're celebrating or even why and i would dare to say some people would not even be

00:02:21.140 um especially proud of our country right now so what you're i'm going to play with your words a

00:02:27.120 little but what you're saying i think is that uh people are being asked to celebrate a country they

00:02:35.120 don't recognize often with values they don't really believe in because the values have changed

00:02:41.580 and they feel it doesn't represent who they are i mean is that sort of part of the problem here

00:02:47.640 yes i believe so i think that um you know we have become almost unrecognizable as a country

00:02:55.760 even say when i was you know growing up um in ontario so i think that people are just feeling

00:03:04.080 a bit uneasy and they don't even know why what's what's really going on with our country what is

00:03:09.300 have you got a theory on this well i believe that um we have drifted away from um our christian

00:03:17.780 roots as a nation and um and we don't even if we don't even understand those christian roots

00:03:26.560 we don't even know about those christian roots and so i think people just feel like there's

00:03:32.300 something missing but they don't know what and so i've been on this quest to find out what is it

00:03:38.200 about our foundations that we're missing well a lot of people would i mean i think i know where

00:03:43.080 you're going with this but a lot of people would say that's not it i'm not a christian so

00:03:47.360 what what is it that i'm missing well no they're not a christian um a lot of people don't identify

00:03:55.040 Christians these days. But when you look into the foundations of our country, actually, Canada

00:04:04.720 makes a lot more sense. And it doesn't matter what ideological, you know, beliefs you have,

00:04:12.380 the fact is, is that Canada did start out as a Christian nation, and a lot of about who we are,

00:04:20.120 even our niceness you know as as we're we're typically identified as canadians it actually

00:04:26.560 stems back to those roots and um and so i would venture to say that if people really understood

00:04:34.100 um about those values and about the men and women that contributed a lot to this country

00:04:40.880 at the genesis then they would really understand more about who canada is what canada's all about

00:04:48.400 Well, you have recently made a video.

00:04:51.240 I think it's out there now.

00:04:53.480 You launched it on Canada Day or maybe the day before.

00:04:56.480 At any rate, the numbers look quite encouraging.

00:05:01.580 And we're going to give the link to that and actually play a little clip from it in a moment.

00:05:06.040 But just tell me first, tell the viewers what it is.

00:05:12.860 Like Christian values, why would that define Canada?

00:05:18.400 well for instance um you know when i was searching researching about canada and then i

00:05:26.580 learned about canada day was actually called dominion day and i learned about

00:05:30.560 um why it was called dominion day and let me stop you right there doesn't everybody know that it was

00:05:36.160 once called dominion day well i was a child of the 70s i grew up in public school in the 70s

00:05:41.420 i never heard about this really ever at all and so i'm assuming that it was very similar with

00:05:48.400 kids my age and since then growing up okay well tell us about dominion day well it's interesting

00:05:54.280 dominion day um comes from the fact that we are called the dominion of canada yes and the dominion

00:06:01.000 of canada um came the titling of that came from um a man a father of our um confederation named

00:06:09.180 sir samuel tilly and um at a conference that they had to determine the canadian confederation

00:06:16.640 um Samuel Tilly did his devotions that morning as per normal and came across Psalm 72 8 which says

00:06:25.080 he means God shall have dominion from sea to sea and so he brought this forward to um to the other

00:06:34.160 fathers of confederation and I'm not sure exactly to tell you the truth at this point like how many

00:06:39.120 of those fathers of confederation were Christians and how many were not um but Christianity was such

00:06:46.360 a normalized accepted part of this country that um when he suggested calling canada the dominion

00:06:53.880 of canada it was accepted it was everybody got it from everybody atlantic to pacific and i think it

00:07:00.000 also says in in that verse uh from the river to the ends of the earth i guess if you go from the

00:07:05.780 saint lawrence which was probably what everybody was focused on on those days to way up the hell

00:07:11.440 and gone towards the arctic that must have seemed like the ends of the earth so i mean there's a

00:07:16.140 nice little word picture there absolutely uh they could have called it what else could they have

00:07:20.440 called it uh well john mcdonald um you know he suggested the kingdom of canada um but ultimately

00:07:27.140 tilly's suggestion went out and the rest is history so the so what is the conclusion that

00:07:32.700 you draw from the fact that first tilly suggested it based on his biblical knowledge and everybody

00:07:39.660 else said yeah that works for me well as i said it was just christianity was a normalized

00:07:45.520 accepted um even celebrated part of this country and it um it influenced everything um you know

00:07:55.900 that we can be proud of in in this country a lot of it even our participation in world war one and

00:08:01.800 world war two we really saw that we were fighting against evil and people accepted that and they saw

00:08:09.500 that it's like they saw it that way well i think you're speaking of a time when even people who

00:08:15.180 who, frankly, weren't faithful to going to church every Sunday,

00:08:20.980 still thought, well, you know, if you're going to argue,

00:08:23.720 at least don't argue with God.

00:08:26.240 So there was a respect, I guess, for the principles of the Bible,

00:08:31.540 even if there was not a ready wish to internalize oneself.

00:08:39.520 Absolutely.

00:08:40.620 Absolutely.

00:08:41.020 What does it mean for a country, then, if that's how it was, if you lose that?

00:08:49.240 Well, one of the foundational verses that I go by as I created Stop the Drift, or as I'm creating Stop the Drift, is that Hebrews 2.1 says,

00:09:04.840 um therefore we must earnestly take heed of the things we have heard lest we drift away

00:09:11.660 and we're drifting away from those christian values um everyone can see it you know in canada

00:09:19.340 we we can name off multitude of ways give us a few well i mean everything from you know our

00:09:26.420 mental health crisis to our you know people our our crime our um homelessness issue it's just

00:09:36.340 everything is just people are getting more and more anxious things are just not right anymore

00:09:42.360 okay well i'll give you the crime one but can you elaborate a little on how drifting away from

00:09:49.560 biblical principles would affect mental health or or i think you said homelessness i mean that's

00:09:57.740 another one right i mean it it affects it so much because at the bare minimum i mean i think we can

00:10:03.860 agree that 50 years ago right 100 years ago when these principles were more widely respected we

00:10:09.600 didn't seem to have these homeless problems and that i'm truly i'm sure there's still some people

00:10:14.860 who are had mental health issues but uh well because um the bible god um really highly um

00:10:25.680 esteems um and created the family which is supposed to be our foundational social structure

00:10:31.620 in in society and um when you wipe away that foundational social structure

00:10:37.460 then um and you know we can talk to all the mental health professionals um when you take

00:10:44.440 that away or when people are not um living by biblical values then um then things just start

00:10:54.020 falling apart to tell you the truth and because you know those things of honesty of integrity

00:11:00.280 of character of building one's um life around values and principles that are about caring for

00:11:08.020 one another and helping one another. Even that, you know, um, the CBC, uh, did a thing about,

00:11:15.840 uh, Tommy Douglas being, you know, the greatest Canadian, but, um, nobody knew that Tommy Douglas

00:11:23.800 was actually a preacher and believed in the social gospel, which was about like caring for one

00:11:30.320 another. That should be one of our basic principles because that's what Jesus did.

00:11:34.080 jesus cared for people he helped people he wanted people to live right so that they could

00:11:39.600 be well in this world so are you saying that the cbc was a little selective in their research

00:11:45.000 i believe so yes well i don't think we can put that down to a lack of biblical knowledge but

00:11:51.420 it certainly is something that you we hear in this office quite frequently um all right so

00:11:57.480 So I think that if you have a society where it's generally accepted that you shouldn't steal, you shouldn't murder, you know, those six commandments out of the 10 that deal with how we interact with each other, things would probably go a little more smoothly.

00:12:15.020 Now, when did we lose that?

00:12:16.120 my belief is that um and statistics will show it was kind of around um you know the 1980s um

00:12:28.320 when we brought in the charter of rights and freedoms and things like um you know the lord's

00:12:34.680 day act got struck down the abortion laws got struck down like all these things that were

00:12:39.420 meant to kind of protect people started getting challenged in court so what was the basis of the

00:12:47.820 challenge i mean a ban on abortion well i realize that's a highly inflammable issue and some people

00:12:56.160 feel very passionately that it's a right but of course you know an organism is killed in the

00:13:01.420 process um so you mentioned the lord's day act again what is it such a bad thing that you can

00:13:10.660 go to costco on sunday well i mean a lot of people say no that's not the day to go actually

00:13:17.200 but um yeah anyway but i'm not i'm not here to be political about it but i i i just i'm just

00:13:24.060 saying that that's kind of when um and probably even before then you know we we went to church

00:13:30.460 as a family but it was like you know christmas and easter kind of so that was kind of the 70s

00:13:35.100 so i think probably my belief is like from you know the introduction of multiculturalism with

00:13:41.680 the first trudeau um i think that it's really started then and then just got you know further

00:13:48.440 down the line um until the 80s well i mean i mean you are right um according to what i have

00:13:55.680 looked at read studied uh certainly the charter of rights and freedoms was indeed a turning point

00:14:03.580 at which point the old way of interpreting the law which is well what did we do the last time

00:14:09.760 precedent no no what what's going to be acceptable to most people it was a very

00:14:14.700 definite uh intention to try and gauge the the the national sentiment i mean i don't know how

00:14:22.580 you do that you read the globe and mail the star and listen to cbc and i guess in central canada

00:14:27.500 that that defines everything but uh you know the courts decided that they had to somehow reflect

00:14:34.020 what people really thought was right rather than some uh originalist yardstick and that's where

00:14:41.900 that's i think is that what you're reacting to i i believe so like you know when the i'm not

00:14:50.440 obviously against our charter of rights and freedoms but i am um it was a significant shift

00:14:57.420 in the sense that the course decided what was right rather than parliament and um and that

00:15:03.060 was a dramatic shift and they are unelected officials and and so you can't do much about it

00:15:10.340 can you all right um now you actually have been trying to do something about it last year i think

00:15:17.800 you wanted to uh get what was a christian week or a national christian day or something before

00:15:24.200 the city council how did that tell us about that well it wasn't me um you know molly and jay um

00:15:31.700 banner jay um so who are these guys so they i just hoping i'm getting their their their name

00:15:39.360 right banner jay sorry um molly and babe uh molly and jay banner jay was um they were they are a

00:15:48.380 couple in toronto they're actually an immigrant couple and um from india and they are the ones

00:15:55.360 who started this whole movement to try and get um christian heritage month um embedded into

00:16:03.080 canadian society christian heritage month yeah for december for the month of december um and when i

00:16:09.940 met them i said why are you doing this like you you're immigrants like we're native-born canadians

00:16:14.640 we haven't even done this and they said to me the reason we're doing this is because we

00:16:20.420 um have seen what happens to a country when you take christianity out of it and so they're on a

00:16:28.920 And they even, um, have, um, helped, um, one of the centers, senators, um, just recently, um, uh, start a bill that will declare Christian heritage month across Canada.

00:16:43.680 And so, uh, they're doing a great work and that's what actually started me thinking about, wow, this is, this is amazing.

00:16:52.260 I'm a little embarrassed as a native Canadian and a Christian that I didn't think of this, but they, they're passionate about it as they should be because they've seen what could happen.

00:17:03.860 And so that started my journey about digging in to what, what is this Christian heritage we have?

00:17:13.460 again it's not in our schools it's not um it's not in our public consciousness it's not on

00:17:19.040 government websites it's not it's not even you know in those very institutions um chiseled some

00:17:26.300 of it is chiseled into the peace tower you know some of it's chiseled into the peace tower but

00:17:30.400 i'm a little bit worried with the reconstruction of the peace tower if they'll actually come out

00:17:34.340 with the same verses in it um but um i haven't thought of that yeah but do you have any reason

00:17:41.220 to think that they might uh i don't i don't know i don't know if you've heard something that missed

00:17:46.040 the newsroom here no carry on but um you know it's not in it's not being presented in the very

00:17:52.840 institutions that um are supposed to reflect canada to canadians so you know i they would

00:18:01.280 probably say to you is yeah we're trying to reflect canada to canadians but most canadians

00:18:05.740 are not christians so that's what we're reflecting sure but and we're encouraging it of course

00:18:11.340 absolutely but the the thing is is that canada as a christian nation um at its genesis is fact

00:18:20.000 yes so why aren't we teaching facts well that's a good point now in the spirit of teaching i think

00:18:27.560 you had i mean this little video which i i i thought was was was well i mean you intended

00:18:33.660 it to be informative and it was informative

00:18:35.580 but it was very well put together

00:18:37.040 and it was quite a nice

00:18:38.300 thing and I do encourage people

00:18:41.620 to take a look at it and if we

00:18:43.600 haven't already put it up on the screen we'll certainly

00:18:45.580 have the web link

00:18:47.740 there for you and it'll be embedded

00:18:49.520 in the article that we always

00:18:51.320 put out at the same time as we

00:18:53.700 put out a podcast

00:18:55.180 however

00:18:56.820 you have further plans

00:18:58.980 what are your further plans?

00:19:02.440 Well my hope is

00:19:03.620 um to do some kind of of a video like i did for canada day every month um looking at various

00:19:11.720 aspects of our our canadian christian heritage to kind of unearth and unveil um those facts

00:19:19.820 um and the second video will be about um the fact is kind of a little bit of a play

00:19:30.120 on the third video sorry the third video the second video the second video yeah yeah so the

00:19:36.040 second video we'll look at um a little bit of a play on uh justin trudeau's um famous uh quote

00:19:44.780 when he was interviewed by cnn in 2025 um when he could only define canada as we are not american

00:19:51.880 and when i heard that i was like wow that's the only way we can define ourselves that we're not

00:19:58.280 American. And, and that's coming from the leader of our country. And so I started researching and

00:20:08.460 thinking about, well, is that a true statement? It is actually a true statement. We are obviously

00:20:13.640 different countries. But people don't actually realize how different we are. And it has to do

00:20:21.880 how different we are than the United States. And it actually has to do with the fact that

00:20:27.440 Canada grew up as a distinctly Canadian, or sorry, distinctly Christian nation, whereas the states actually didn't. 0.51

00:20:39.600 Really? I think the Americans, as they for 250 years, would probably dispute that.

00:20:47.180 I mean, it's their money that has on it in God we trust, not ours.

00:20:50.840 Absolutely. But there's definitely Christians' influence. I will not deny that. There's a strong Christian influence in the United States. 0.53

00:21:01.120 In fact, they even attribute their rights to God.

00:21:03.920 To God, but the founding fathers were actually deists. They weren't actually Christian. They believed in God. They believed in the rational acceptance of a God that created a universe, but they weren't Christians.

00:21:26.720 And in fact, they were deists and they were Freemasons as well, which would go against a lot of what Christianity would state would be true.

00:21:40.700 So definitely a religious background in the United States, definitely a Christian influence.

00:21:47.100 But the founding fathers did not believe in the truth of Jesus.

00:21:53.220 And, um, and so that's an interesting, and it plays out in different ways.

00:21:59.300 For instance, um, John Graves Simcoe was our first Lieutenant Governor, Governor in

00:22:05.320 Upper Canada.

00:22:06.140 And by the way, um, I grew up in Upper, in Upper Canada in Ontario and never heard about

00:22:12.160 John Graves Simcoe as being our first Lieutenant Governor.

00:22:14.580 And the fact that he actually was the first person to create and pass an act against slavery in 1793.

00:22:27.960 1793.

00:22:29.100 He was the first person in the British Commonwealth to do so, even before Wilberforce.

00:22:33.520 and um and so i believe this fact wasn't taught um because he was a christian uh who just believed

00:22:43.200 in the dignity and value of human life and you're talking about your experience at school in the you

00:22:51.020 said you were a child of the 70s so so we're talking about 50 years ago uh and simcoe was

00:22:59.600 or 40 years ago i guess i don't imagine he popped from straight from the cradle into grade one

00:23:04.820 but at any rate simcoe um did a very um counter-cultural thing for his time absolutely

00:23:15.160 nobody ever said well i wonder why he did that right did he even talk about the fact that he

00:23:19.940 did it at all when you were in school no i never even knew who knew who john graves simcoe was

00:23:24.460 and um and that again is in contrast to the united states for 41 i believe of the 52

00:23:31.940 founding fathers were slaveholders yes well i i i'm not prepared to challenge the numbers i'm

00:23:40.460 sure that was true of many so but in canada a lieutenant governor of what became the largest

00:23:46.760 province took action 233 years ago to eliminate slavery from that part of the country for which

00:23:58.060 he was responsible exactly and so that's just to me a just a very practical outworking of the

00:24:05.680 belief his christian belief and and again the states is a very practical outworking of you

00:24:13.320 know how they saw human life even though it's stated in their constitution that you know um

00:24:19.400 that uh everyone is created equal so so to bring this together gail um you are

00:24:28.400 i'm going to invite you to speculate here these are facts people may not like them

00:24:35.460 but they are facts

00:24:37.940 why do you

00:24:42.540 suppose

00:24:43.440 that it is not taught

00:24:46.760 and the kind of activity

00:24:48.760 that you've ventured out on

00:24:50.580 making little brief

00:24:52.300 very watchable videos

00:24:54.680 that inform why do you think it has to be that way

00:24:56.720 what's wrong with people they won't even admit

00:24:58.800 I wish

00:25:00.900 I could tell you Nigel

00:25:02.040 slavery is a bad thing and we were one of the first

00:25:05.000 to that should be a national talking point absolutely um and i don't i don't know i you

00:25:11.420 know the the thing is is i just think we have been um taken over by like a a different kind

00:25:20.020 of culture that just wants to suppress and and bury and um not acknowledge these facts

00:25:27.120 that's my only understanding of it well if you ever figure it out come back and talk to us

00:25:34.920 again but having watched your video a couple of times i just want to congratulate you on

00:25:40.060 a the quality of it and be the fact that you thought to do it at all and we look forward

00:25:44.260 to seeing the next one well thank you very much for having me i really appreciate being here and

00:25:48.300 talking about this video and about this journey of you know stop the drift i think it's an

00:25:53.660 important one and as i said no matter what ideological bent you come from um it doesn't

00:25:59.680 matter the facts are the facts and they should be taught and they should be part of our public

00:26:03.700 consciousness amen so any last words for the operator separatists don't give up on canada

00:26:12.240 um i i honestly believe that um if we get back to our christian roots that things

00:26:20.380 and people start operating that way people will start seeing that actually this is a wonderful

00:26:26.800 country and to be proud of and so i would say don't give up on canada i know it's hard right now

00:26:32.900 I know there's a lot of angst and a lot of, you know, discontent, as it should be.

00:26:41.240 However, I really believe in this country, especially when you learn about our Christian heritage.

00:26:47.620 Gail, thank you for giving us your time.

00:26:49.700 Thank you.

00:26:50.500 Nice to see you in here.

00:26:51.940 Thank you.

00:26:52.520 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

00:26:55.100 Good night.

00:27:02.900 Thank you.

Western Standard - July 02, 2026

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

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