Western Standard - Liberals vote against pipeline motion

00:00:00.000 good evening i'm corey morgan and you're watching the pipeline this is the western

00:00:29.280 standards weekly production a panel show that's going on you know i was just thinking a little

00:00:34.400 while ago about this this is the western standards oldest show they were doing versions of this if

00:00:39.840 you really want to go into the deep bowels of youtube and see where the western standard was

00:00:44.000 first formed and the original pipeline pals that were put together it was uh let's just say we've

00:00:48.800 come a long ways either way we're much more polished and professional now or at least i

00:00:53.840 like to think so so i'll introduce the other folks i'm joined by today i'll start on the end with our

00:00:58.720 news editor Dave Naylor. It is a honor to be here with such two esteemed

00:01:03.840 television legends. Well there we go and thank you. In the middle we have our opinion editor emeritus

00:01:10.880 Nigel Hannaford. And you know my opinion on $1.25 will get your coffee in port.

00:01:17.840 If it's on sale. If it's a very very small one. Well yes well we've got lots to chew on today.

00:01:24.080 Boy, yes.

00:01:26.860 So where to begin?

00:01:28.940 Start federally.

00:01:30.900 Maybe Dave, I'll get you to kind of kick that off.

00:01:33.020 The Liberals have voted against their own pipeline, or at least as the title would put it.

00:01:37.800 They had a motion going through the House of Commons.

00:01:41.540 Do they support the pipeline or not?

00:01:43.360 And they couldn't be cornered.

00:01:45.300 Yeah, yesterday was pipeline follies.

00:01:47.920 The Conservatives introduced a motion saying, do you support pipelines, basically?

00:01:53.260 And the Liberals said, no, it's just party politics.

00:01:57.580 We're not going to support it because it doesn't even talk about A, B, and C.

00:02:02.700 Pierre Paulyev then amended his motion to include A, B, and C, and they still voted against it.

00:02:09.320 It was 169 to 136, so not even close.

00:02:14.460 So it kind of shows you what the Liberal Party thinks of pipelines, I guess.

00:02:18.700 Well, and these are kind of performative too.

00:02:20.380 I mean, this was a motion.

00:02:21.480 It wasn't binding, even if they...

00:02:23.160 Right.

00:02:24.400 No, non-binding motion.

00:02:26.360 I mean, I think to some...

00:02:28.840 There's two ways of looking at it.

00:02:30.220 One is the way the Liberals are looking at it, 0.99

00:02:32.660 that, well, the Conservatives are just playing silly buggers. 0.97

00:02:35.720 And the other way is that the Conservatives are actually trying to flush them out 0.98

00:02:39.280 and see just exactly how deeply and horribly committed they are to this,

00:02:44.280 because here in Alberta, we were supposed to think,

00:02:48.620 because Mr. Carney got on the plane and flew back again.

00:02:51.840 But they were on our side, and things were going to be made to happen.

00:02:55.580 And there's lots of people here who say, I don't know.

00:02:58.360 There's some holes in this argument.

00:03:00.300 It's very costly.

00:03:01.980 Does BC have a veto or not?

00:03:03.960 Do the indigenous people have a veto or not? 0.99

00:03:06.740 Mr. Carney said, of course, they'd need to be in agreement.

00:03:10.260 Well, it's being in agreement, just being consulted.

00:03:14.140 You know, there's a lot.

00:03:16.020 It's very loosey-goosey.

00:03:17.220 And it was a memoramandum of understanding.

00:03:20.080 So we all knew from the start that it was not exactly a deal inked in blood.

00:03:26.300 But this actually did show a certain mentality of evasion and not wishing to be pinned down and keeping all the options open.

00:03:35.480 Not a very pretty picture.

00:03:37.800 If you're in Alberta and you're dependent on your job in the energy industry, it was not a good day's work.

00:03:45.300 Well, and it probably have defanged the second motion when they said, okay, we need this, this, and this, as Dave said, you know, or we won't vote for us. It's okay. Well, I'll pull those things out or I'll reword. I'll change them. Now we can have a vote. And they still voted against. The question I guess is, are they really actually afraid to say that they would support a pipeline? Or is it just the case of parliamentary politics? If there was a motion from the conservatives saying the sky is blue, the liberals would vote against it and say, no, it's black.

00:04:11.440 I think it's a bit of both.

00:04:12.700 I think Polyev hit the nail on the head when he said, you know, there's no doubt there's a lot of the Liberal caucus that is against the pipelines, you know, the Stephen Gilboa faction and so on.

00:04:24.600 And Polyev says, well, Carney goes into his caucuses and says, everybody, take a deep breath.

00:04:30.100 We'll go out there, pretend we support pipelines, and we know it's never going to get built.

00:04:34.880 So let's, you know, try and all stay together and just put on a good ad.

00:04:39.940 Well, and the Bloc and the NDP happily joked in and joined this too,

00:04:43.340 who have made no bones about being opposed to the pipeline.

00:04:47.060 And, you know, that will help segue when we get into what we're going to talk about a bit next

00:04:50.020 with some regionalism going on.

00:04:52.540 But Smith is taking a battering over this.

00:04:54.680 And I'm sorry, but I'm saying rightly so to a degree.

00:04:57.540 You've taken this one to the bank, and he won't even verbally commit that this is going to happen.

00:05:02.240 As you said, it's an MOU.

00:05:03.400 You only have so much.

00:05:04.720 But it looks like they're taking us for a ride.

00:05:07.960 It's not that hard for Carney just to say, I want this to happen, and he won't say it.

00:05:12.620 Yeah, no, you know, I have to say, I wonder actually what Mr. Carney does want to happen.

00:05:19.800 It's sort of significant that there's only been about two pieces of legislation passed since they haven't even got the budget passed yet.

00:05:28.640 And he's been in office now more than six months.

00:05:32.300 So there is a blockage in the system with the federal government.

00:05:37.960 What they have done is they've given themselves permission

00:05:41.240 to borrow a tremendous amount of money.

00:05:44.460 That's the only thing that I can say, well, they did that.

00:05:48.340 That is irrefutable.

00:05:50.000 Everything else is moving along at a snail's pace,

00:05:53.240 some of which, by the way, I'm glad is moving at a snail's pace.

00:05:57.200 But at the same time, I don't actually understand

00:06:02.280 where the favorable opinion of Mr. Carney is coming from.

00:06:07.460 He makes these elaborate promises, haven't seen anything come of them yet, and yet he

00:06:13.900 still seems to enjoy the popular support, more even so than Mr. Pollyoff.

00:06:20.640 Don't forget, he got elected, right?

00:06:22.160 So he does have that base of popular support.

00:06:24.660 Well, that was a while ago.

00:06:25.800 Things could change.

00:06:26.660 Things could change.

00:06:27.780 I think the polls have been pretty steady.

00:06:30.860 You're right, though.

00:06:31.740 They raised the debt ceiling to $1.5 trillion, which enables them to go months more without having to defend what they're spending money on in Parliament.

00:06:42.640 And to the pipeline issue, Daniel Smith has to get a proponent out in front of this quickly, or else the whole deal is going to fall apart.

00:06:54.180 You know, as you guys have both said this, there's a lot of wishy-washy talk in the MOU.

00:06:58.660 But if a company like Enbridge steps forward and says, okay, we're going to take a run at doing this, then that moves at a huge step forward.

00:07:07.520 Then you can start maybe thinking that, hey, this may happen.

00:07:10.820 Because right now you're thinking this ain't going to happen.

00:07:13.020 So how would you incent a company like Enbridge or anybody else to take that step when you really don't know what political issues you're going to face in British Columbia?

00:07:23.800 Well, no. That's why you've got Bill C-5, which would declare it a national project

00:07:30.520 that, in theory, would brush aside any opposition from indigenous groups or the government of BC.

00:07:39.240 Mr. Carney has specifically said that they need to be on site, but he doesn't say

00:07:48.280 that they had a veto. It just implied that if they didn't agree, it probably wouldn't happen.

00:07:52.680 No, but as the head of a company, you could hold a press conference, Daniel Smith, and says, I commit our company to build this pipeline, and we'll have shovels ready as soon as you promise us, there'll be no stopping, and we're not going to spend a dollar before you give us that permission.

00:08:13.740 We'll see. It's a big chicken and egg thing. He's asking a lot to invest in a maybe. That's the problem.

00:08:19.180 You don't hear oil companies or pipeline companies losing money, so they know there is money to be made if they get this thing built.

00:08:27.180 They're making it in Qatar.

00:08:29.500 Well, I mean, the only news you can take to the bank from the oil industry in the last six months is that Imperial is leaving Calgary.

00:08:39.000 What does that tell you about industry confidence in anything going forward?

00:08:43.680 And I keep coming back to that story we ran about six weeks ago, talking about the actual mechanics of pumping carbon dioxide underground, which is the condition, that's the one condition that Mr. Carney has set for this.

00:08:59.480 You have to invest in carbon capture and underground storage if this thing is going to go ahead.

00:09:05.580 Well, for the kind of oil production that you're going to need to make the whole thing viable, that's an enormous expense.

00:09:12.660 I'm not aware of them. There are other places in the world where it's been tried on a large scale, but they haven't all done that well.

00:09:22.660 The only one that's going well actually is the one in Weyburn, but that's like a very small miscarriage operation by comparison with what's needed.

00:09:28.660 Yeah. Well, we'll watch and see. I mean, so I mean, leading into the next subject, patience is kind of wearing thin.

00:09:34.660 We've had an independence movement really kind of exploding in Alberta over this last eight months or so.

00:09:39.660 so it's always been simmering but it seems to be growing and hanging in there uh one of the

00:09:44.460 principles among them is is jeffrey rath and uh he's he's uh an outspoken man i guess to say the

00:09:51.340 least uh but uh you know all kind of intro this one he's been turning his guns on premier smith

00:09:57.740 uh he at the agm really brought the issue to a head waiting in line and and you know brought

00:10:03.340 Brought the room up on independence on those motions.

00:10:07.260 Then he got quite upset over a CBC interview that the CBC even retracted

00:10:11.480 because they claimed that Smith was going to campaign against independence actively.

00:10:19.360 And now over Bill 14, over the ability of Daniel Smith to appoint candidates,

00:10:26.960 which is the ability that actually every party leader in Canada has always had,

00:10:31.120 now he's calling for a hit on a pike. 1.00

00:10:32.900 I mean, he's basically saying we've got to organize the constituency associations and have a leadership review and potentially pull her down.

00:10:39.560 What's going on?

00:10:42.220 I'm sorry.

00:10:43.120 When he claims he was taken out of context, but he wasn't.

00:10:47.580 You know, he made these comments on the podcast and we quoted, I think we're the only one who had this story.

00:10:53.240 We quoted him verbatim and he sounded angry.

00:10:58.460 And, yes, I have enough constituency associations that we're going to top.

00:11:04.000 We're going to get a special general meeting, and we're going to kick Premier Smith out of her job. 1.00

00:11:08.640 That's exactly what he said.

00:11:10.440 Rob Smith, no relation to Danielle Smith, is the UCP president.

00:11:17.780 And he told us, Jeffrey Rath maybe knows two constituency association heads, and that's it.

00:11:23.860 and that he's upset because he didn't get all his people elected to the UCP board

00:11:30.100 and he's got no chance of doing this and this is just one vote.

00:11:35.220 And we ran that story yesterday and now Mr. Rath is responding again to that

00:11:40.440 and we'll have that story up.

00:11:43.540 Jeffrey's got to learn to take a deep breath before he opens his mouth

00:11:47.480 because these sort of outbursts are not helping the independence movement,

00:11:52.260 in my opinion, Corey.

00:11:54.760 There's a lot of things that aren't helping the independence movement,

00:11:57.760 but one thing I would like to hear from somebody who wants independence

00:12:01.680 is, all right, let's say that this little phone is Alberta.

00:12:05.980 It's about the right shape.

00:12:07.980 You've got Saskatchewan there and BC there.

00:12:11.080 And you're now independent and you want to export oil.

00:12:15.800 You're pretty sure it's probably not going to go through BC.

00:12:18.920 they're sticky enough with the federal government sort of suggesting that they ought to yield on

00:12:25.840 this there's basically one way out on which is south maybe that could be done but you're not

00:12:31.900 going to get the top dollar for it so what is this what is the independence option for developing

00:12:37.680 the oil industry i'm not saying it can't be done but it has not yet been explained in my hearing

00:12:44.980 as how it would be done.

00:12:47.340 The U.S. ambassador to Canada

00:12:49.760 in an interview with the National Post this week,

00:12:53.080 he said the MOU sounds great.

00:12:55.460 He says the MOU is going to enable Alberta

00:12:58.380 to produce a lot more oil

00:13:00.220 and the United States wants some of it.

00:13:03.860 So they've indicated their desire

00:13:07.360 that anything extra we can get to them,

00:13:10.280 they'll happily take.

00:13:11.560 But as you mentioned,

00:13:12.580 it's usually at that discounted rate.

00:13:14.000 The landlocked issue, I got stock answers for this.

00:13:17.720 I do get asked it quite often.

00:13:19.240 This is a way of Francisco.

00:13:21.060 For starters, if you look at a map of Alberta and BC,

00:13:25.300 you'll see that there are only four rail lines that come from British Columbia into Alberta.

00:13:30.200 If we got into a theoretical situation that Alberta was independent,

00:13:33.680 BC decided we're not going to let you export your oil through here.

00:13:36.700 We won't let them export their trains through here.

00:13:39.300 This standoff will last, I figure, six to seven hours.

00:13:43.160 before we're at a table negotiating.

00:13:45.940 In fact, we would finally have strength in negotiation

00:13:48.600 because the thing that I often point out to people too,

00:13:51.800 they say, you'd be landlocked.

00:13:53.000 Well, we already are.

00:13:54.540 We don't have anything to lose anymore.

00:13:56.600 This government is shutting us down no matter what we try.

00:13:59.520 If we were independent, theoretically, we could have leverage.

00:14:03.140 Likewise, yes, we do have a customer to the south

00:14:05.420 who would be happy to take a lot of product,

00:14:06.840 but that's not an ideal situation.

00:14:08.680 When you have a single customer, you can end up being,

00:14:11.640 you know, losing on a premium with things like that. And that's

00:14:15.600 where the patience is running out. I mean, part of the deal

00:14:18.000 and keeping independent minded people quiet and patient is

00:14:21.300 saying, well, we can work something within the Federation

00:14:24.520 to get it done. And that's why this pipeline is such a symbol.

00:14:27.540 Because if we can't even get that, then that's where people

00:14:31.240 are saying, well, what have we got to lose? But it's, you know,

00:14:34.980 it would certainly be challenged. It's not like we go

00:14:36.640 overnight and have a pipeline laid through BC as an independent

00:14:39.160 Alberta is a bullying neighbor, uh, putting the elbows out and 1.00

00:14:42.040 shoving them from, from our area. 0.78

00:14:43.540 But, uh,

00:14:44.780 I've heard that works, elbows up.

00:14:46.480 Yes.

00:14:46.840 Well, it's not as well as some, but I think that's part of the problem we have

00:14:50.960 is some crabbiness and impatience with independent supporters in general.

00:14:54.040 I mean, they've been spinning their wheels for a while now.

00:14:56.900 Uh, my view on it, I mean, again, is schedule at our referendum.

00:15:01.180 I said as much in the column or, you know, the tea kennels plugged up and

00:15:04.900 it's pressuring up people like wrath who were a little even more

00:15:08.660 bombastic than others but even i guess if you use the term if it's not an oxymoron moderate

00:15:13.300 independent supporters give them something to work on schedule that thing let them get working

00:15:19.440 on petitioning let them get on the ground and that pressure will come off haven't you always

00:15:24.280 been a proponent though that a referendum this quickly is not good for independence yeah in the

00:15:30.660 movement so how do you explain the oxymoron then of saying okay let's get a call out because the

00:15:35.500 ball's rolling too fast. No, there's too big a movement that is impatient and not, and champing

00:15:40.260 at the bit for this. In my view, if you don't give this outlet to it, they will form a party

00:15:46.060 of an effective one. I mean, there's a bunch of little ineffective ones already, but they will

00:15:49.900 form one that's going to pull 10 or 20%. It's not going to win, but it's certainly going to cause a

00:15:54.780 heck of a lot of damage. Plus if we're looking at 30%, if we have a referendum with 40%,

00:15:59.620 I'm still only 54. I think it's conceivable

00:16:02.540 if it doesn't come

00:16:04.520 this time, I could see it in my lifetime.

00:16:06.460 It's a step towards. Plus, with

00:16:08.420 six months of campaigning on it,

00:16:10.840 maybe actually that

00:16:11.880 ball will move closer to the end.

00:16:14.660 Ideally, yeah, I think it should be a couple more years

00:16:16.340 to work on it, but they just

00:16:18.340 can't anymore. It's like the

00:16:19.840 horses, when you see them in a gate at a race

00:16:22.400 and they're just ready to go, you can't keep that gate closed

00:16:24.520 for too long or it's going to get

00:16:26.540 out of hand. I would argue that your

00:16:28.440 movement does not want Jeffrey Rath as its main focus and spokesman.

00:16:34.180 So that's an issue you have to fix.

00:16:36.000 I don't have to, that's the Alberta prosperity projects, but I know he's

00:16:42.280 speaking independent sport in general.

00:16:43.500 I mean, that's a, it's been an interesting discussion because I'm not a member of

00:16:47.040 any of those groups, I'm certainly, you know, supportive of them.

00:16:49.320 I'll be a guest speaker at their events, things like that.

00:16:53.340 That group has to figure out who's speaking for them and in which capacity.

00:16:58.440 because there's an advantage of, I guess, not having a single

00:17:02.100 sole voice and that you can have different people

00:17:04.260 representatives speaking around.

00:17:05.580 But then when one goes perhaps to the point of irritating

00:17:08.460 even your own members, you've got to clarify who's speaking

00:17:12.280 for whom.

00:17:12.720 And yes, I don't know if necessarily my movement needs

00:17:15.480 to, but I think the Alberta Prosperity Project had

00:17:17.160 better start examining who spoke.

00:17:18.680 The other thing, Corey, is all the discussion surrounds

00:17:24.760 the pipeline.

00:17:25.500 there is a lot more to becoming an independent country oh yeah than that one issue that's just

00:17:33.100 the symbol it's a symbol it's a useful symbol but one of the unfortunate things which dave alluded

00:17:39.520 to very delicately is that the people who are most to the front and foremost would you really

00:17:48.560 follow them into independence and trust their judgment for everything that has to come next

00:17:56.180 the constitution how we're going to run things what are we what are we going to do about basic

00:18:01.740 civil liberties do we have them there's an assumption among uh independence-minded people

00:18:06.880 that alberta will be more free when it is removed from some of the canada you know some of the

00:18:13.800 structures of Canada that will have different values than those people at

00:18:17.940 back East who consistently elect liberals.

00:18:22.440 And that may be true, but it also may not be.

00:18:27.560 Oh, yeah, if you could make a smaller bad version of what you just escaped.

00:18:30.900 You know, one of the things I talk to in rooms that I speak to people is,

00:18:34.180 well, there's no way we embrace the Westminster parliamentary system

00:18:37.520 if we just managed to rip ourselves out of it. 1.00

00:18:39.420 That would just be idiocy. 0.96

00:18:40.800 I mean, if this hasn't served us, we have to examine new systems. 0.98

00:18:43.800 And I have some of those discussions.

00:18:46.040 Well, I don't actually say you could embrace the Westminster system because it's the people

00:18:50.760 back east who are separating themselves from it.

00:18:54.180 If we could just have things done the way the Westminster system is supposed to work

00:18:58.180 with the politicians, make the laws and the judges interpret them as they are written

00:19:03.300 and not according to the latest fancy that coming from the Liberal Ministry of Justice.

00:19:09.320 Well, the Westminster system is pretty good.

00:19:11.980 It's what the liberals have done with it for the whole country that makes

00:19:14.620 us suspicious and frustrating at all.

00:19:17.920 You know, I don't want an appointed Senate.

00:19:21.460 I don't want a centralized government.

00:19:25.720 Have an elected one, but have a Senate, you know, it's a...

00:19:29.080 But then we're getting into a new system, a bicameral one we can have without... 1.00

00:19:33.280 But you're right.

00:19:33.620 See, that shows that there does have to be discussions, nuanced ones.

00:19:36.460 Those discussions are not happening, as I've heard.

00:19:39.200 They are, but they aren't necessarily embraced.

00:19:40.840 It's funny. I've had, for example, Bruce Barty from Queen's University, a law professor, who's put out his very libertarian version of a very scaled-out constitution, which I think is a pie-in-the-sky level.

00:19:54.420 I don't know. That appeared in C2C. I think we ran a version of it here in the Western Standard when I was still at the desk.

00:20:02.600 And I interviewed Bruce about that, you know, as a Libertarian,

00:20:05.140 but I quite agreed on it.

00:20:06.720 I mean, very much from that, empowering the individual, you know,

00:20:10.480 reversing the relationship with the government.

00:20:12.520 But, uh, Jeffrey Rath went on a rampage about Bruce party just yesterday on X.

00:20:17.300 And as I said, so that's where they've got to start to centralize some of the

00:20:20.240 discussion, but you're right.

00:20:21.260 You've got to, the movement has to come up with more answers for what's

00:20:24.860 going to happen the day after.

00:20:25.880 Yep.

00:20:26.720 And, uh, you can't answer every one of them.

00:20:28.880 That's part of the problem too.

00:20:29.800 If you want to go into what about isn't to the point that you never have a

00:20:31.880 a referendum you'll never have a referendum at some point people will have to vote there's going

00:20:35.340 to be some question marks but the more you can feel in advance the better you'll get the confidence

00:20:39.620 of citizens right now as we said if we voted tomorrow it's not going to do well it's it's

00:20:45.420 there's much more to be done but if you have six eight months of a campaign on independence we'll

00:20:49.920 see what surfaces you know and you think right now the the leading the pro-canada side would be

00:20:55.120 Tom Lukasik.

00:20:55.840 Well, there we go.

00:20:56.960 Lukasik versus Rath.

00:20:59.020 The stories will never end.

00:21:02.440 That'd be a nice, cool and rational discourse.

00:21:08.880 He's certainly got nicer hair than Jeffrey.

00:21:11.200 Well, I mean, this is the only place I'll give Thomas credit.

00:21:13.800 I mean, he's got nicer hair than most of us.

00:21:15.700 He's one in the hair.

00:21:16.880 Yeah.

00:21:17.140 Well, listen, if we're going in the hair stakes, we've had nicer

00:21:19.560 hair and it hasn't got us anywhere.

00:21:21.100 No, no.

00:21:22.020 We had that in Ottawa for more of time.

00:21:24.180 and that's it, that pay off.

00:21:25.600 He's prancing around with Katy Perry now.

00:21:29.080 All right.

00:21:30.040 Well, let's see.

00:21:32.540 Nigel, perhaps you want to lay down Bill C9.

00:21:37.140 So, look, what's happening in Canada right now

00:21:41.100 is that the Liberals, for the last five years,

00:21:43.720 have been trying to control the Internet,

00:21:47.100 and they've put out seven bills,

00:21:50.580 which two just fell by the wayside,

00:21:53.880 two got passed uh one died on the order or the paper as well and they've got a couple out this

00:22:01.320 session that's bill two and bill eight and then there's still nine and what bill nine is strictly

00:22:10.680 speaking not about controlling the internet it's about it's a as marketed as an anti-hate bill

00:22:19.000 and so this is the bill for for people who are following this at a distance

00:22:23.880 This is the bill that would make it illegal to raise a Nazi flag on your flagpole in your backyard.

00:22:33.640 Now, I'm not aware that, you know, only cross burnings are more unlikely than that.

00:22:40.880 I mean, people just don't do that.

00:22:42.380 So you have to ask, why is this the object of legislation?

00:22:47.460 I have a suspicion that the answer lies not in Alberta, but in Quebec, where the Quebec government is anxious about its own people and some of the extremes of hatred that they're experiencing back there.

00:23:06.280 But anyway, this Bill 9 has hit the national news, and apart from the swastika, there is one amendment that has been pushed by the Bloc Quebecois, which you know they're very anti-religious symbolism.

00:23:30.520 if you were a muslim you're not supposed to wear your muslim gear to work if you're a christian

00:23:35.160 you're not supposed to display your cross and they want to make it that you cannot use

00:23:46.360 your sincerely held religious beliefs as a defense if you are accused of saying something unkind 0.82

00:23:55.800 about homosexuals, the gay lifestyle 1.00

00:24:00.160 to which the Bible has a number of references

00:24:04.300 so if you are

00:24:07.560 pulled before a human rights commission

00:24:09.520 and you say well I pulled my kid out of school

00:24:13.440 because I didn't like what they were teaching

00:24:14.980 and they say well that's discriminatory

00:24:18.080 and you say well that's my sincerely held religious belief

00:24:20.780 up to this point you are okay

00:24:22.380 if this bill passes as amended

00:24:26.200 then you would not be okay now the justice minister sean fraser is trying to say no well no

00:24:34.120 he makes various promises about how this thing will be fenced in and it's not going to be the

00:24:38.920 problem you think it's going to be and i don't doubt that he's perfectly sincere in his assurances

00:24:43.720 it's just that he cannot he is not in a position even as minister of justice to give those

00:24:48.120 assurances because you don't know what happens to this legislation when it comes before the courts

00:24:53.080 on the judges start thinking for themselves well it seems pretty pretty off to me i think you're

00:24:59.240 guilty you know well but the minister said oh i said that two years ago you know now you're

00:25:05.480 in front of me so it's a very serious issue of religious freedom that's on the line here with

00:25:11.000 bill c9 um it's uh it's dangerous and what that has to do with the internet is this people use

00:25:21.320 use the internet to put their opinions out, you do.

00:25:25.880 Oh, certainly.

00:25:26.720 I do.

00:25:28.200 You have opinions.

00:25:29.200 I try and keep them neutral.

00:25:30.200 You try and keep them to yourself.

00:25:32.040 But the thing is, people may wish to comment on things related to trans, LGBT, and you

00:25:42.920 know, a lot of people don't like that, but we believe in free speech in this country,

00:25:49.760 and therefore we do what we do.

00:25:51.840 However, if somebody who says, well, I said what I said because I actually believe what it says in the Bible,

00:25:58.180 now you can't say that anymore, or that's the intention of the act.

00:26:01.880 And so it's going to have the effect of cramping free expression on a lot of things.

00:26:09.760 People are not going to want to take the chance of getting too close to these issues.

00:26:14.500 And that's where this bill of C9 works together with Bill 2,

00:26:20.740 which makes it possible for the government to walk into your internet supplier's office

00:26:29.420 and look at the files and see who you've been corresponding with

00:26:33.360 and what sites you've been, without a warrant.

00:26:36.880 And then, yeah, so it goes on.

00:26:39.700 It's a real tightening of the grip, and it's been going on for about five years, been fits and starts, but it's relentless.

00:26:47.080 So, Dave, I mean, you know, in news, you see this maybe as a solution looking for a problem, though?

00:26:52.240 I haven't heard a lot of cases of people using a religious defense if they've been…

00:26:57.280 No, I can't remember.

00:26:59.260 That was a very good, long, Derek-like explanation of the…

00:27:03.400 Somebody had to do it.

00:27:04.320 So I appreciate it.

00:27:05.100 Yes, I appreciate it, because you certainly know more about it than I do.

00:27:07.800 But does it, would it mean that a priest in a pulpit who reads scripture, somebody in the congregation could say, well, I really don't agree with that and make a complaint.

00:27:20.260 Yes, it does.

00:27:20.760 And that priest could end up in trouble for just reading the Bible.

00:27:25.620 You could get into trouble as a pastor just by objecting to a drag queen story hour if you live in Calgary.

00:27:32.920 So, yes, you absolutely bet there will be keeping an eye on what's said from the pulpit.

00:27:36.980 But, you know, a lot of pastors preach the Bible.

00:27:39.340 They start at Genesis and they go through to Revelation.

00:27:41.520 So there's going to be some places where they've got to deal with it

00:27:44.680 or else admit that you're afraid to deal with it.

00:27:47.540 Well, something that would really, truly put this to the test, though,

00:27:50.920 I could see some busybodies trying to charge a minister or so on for saying it.

00:27:56.040 I dare one of them to take an imam for quoting the Koran. 1.00

00:28:01.840 Because it's supposed to apply to that, too.

00:28:03.880 Yes, it does.

00:28:04.360 you bet they wouldn't dare for a second.

00:28:07.780 And I tell you what, I mean, any ancient religious text

00:28:10.960 doesn't, you know, stand up to the measure of what's considered acceptable today or not.

00:28:14.620 That's just the nature of it. These are written thousands of years ago.

00:28:18.140 We just interpret that as older thinking and don't practice,

00:28:21.500 perhaps, you know, stoning people and all those goodies that are packed into the Old Testament.

00:28:26.820 We can leave it at that, typically.

00:28:29.480 If there's any area where they seem to be working on the literal interpretations

00:28:32.880 and wanting to bring it in it's coming more out of islam than anywhere else yet that's the one

00:28:36.080 area they won't touch no and you're you're right cory there there's some amounts that there's a

00:28:40.400 guy in victoria i think who whose name is case right but he spews hateful hateful rhetoric on

00:28:46.880 a weekly basis and i know there's been complaints made but he hasn't been brought up before before

00:28:52.880 any court any board uh you know and you know he calls for wiping out of israel and really very

00:29:00.160 very anti-Semitic stuff that is quite vile. And Cory's right, everybody's afraid even to go with him.

00:29:07.360 That's a very negative attitude.

00:29:08.720 It is, it is. And you're right, Cory. Once again, it'll be Christians who are bearing 1.00

00:29:15.200 the brunt of it while Islamics get off scot-free. 1.00

00:29:20.000 I'm just, you know, I'm of the free speech mind. I mean, I don't have to like everything

00:29:24.000 that I hear from every faith or what they put forward, but it's their right to do it. And I

00:29:27.520 I will counter it through discourse and go from there.

00:29:30.520 I just see this as a showing as well.

00:29:32.640 If they're going to be selective with the application,

00:29:34.740 well, they shouldn't apply it at all.

00:29:36.120 But if it's selective, this is really a worthless piece of legislation.

00:29:40.220 Amen.

00:29:41.020 If I may say that.

00:29:42.480 Praise the Lord.

00:29:43.340 Inshallah.

00:29:46.060 Let's start with the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

00:29:48.240 He's recanting.

00:29:50.460 Yes.

00:29:51.840 Jason Jax is his name.

00:29:53.540 He's the interim budget officer.

00:29:56.680 By all accounts, doing an exceptional job.

00:30:03.760 When the Liberals first brought down their budget, he called it shocking and unsustainable.

00:30:09.540 And stupefying.

00:30:10.520 And stupefying.

00:30:12.220 And he's now obviously had a word in his ear and walked back his comments and is now saying,

00:30:19.180 oh, yeah, all right, it might be sustainable.

00:30:21.220 So, yeah, somebody got one.

00:30:23.500 Yeah, well, I mean, this takes you back to the budget discussion.

00:30:26.680 You mentioned before how the government had extended its credit limit to 1.6, 1.5, at any rate, you know, when the Liberals took office in 2015, the national debt was about $600 billion over COVID plus a year, they managed to get it up to 1.2.

00:30:51.520 They doubled it.

00:30:53.540 And, you know, I thought it was wrong, but a lot of people would probably forgive them for saying, well, we had to get through, we had to get ourselves through COVID.

00:31:01.360 I think it's a poor argument, but at any rate, that's the one they went with.

00:31:05.200 Well, now, Mr. Carney comes in and says, we can do another 25%.

00:31:10.920 So this is borrowed money, and ostensibly, it's so that we can develop Canada.

00:31:16.780 There were all these big projects, pipelines, for instance.

00:31:20.380 You know, this is how this extra money is going to be used,

00:31:24.580 and there was a very strong commitment made to national defense.

00:31:28.300 I think it was $80 billion.

00:31:30.740 Well, that's great, except that we don't know how to buy equipment in this country.

00:31:36.000 So whether that will ever get spent on defense

00:31:38.420 or whether it will be diverted to something else, we don't know.

00:31:42.720 Point is that the parliamentary budget officer looked at this and said,

00:31:46.780 This is stupefying, you know, and he said so out loud, and then he got whacked and said, well, maybe I was a little hard on them, but we know what he really thought, because he said what he really thought, and you know what?

00:32:04.020 It was what a lot of other people were thinking without necessarily having the expert knowledge that he had to be able to go out into the public square and point the finger.

00:32:13.820 Well, he did.

00:32:14.440 and it's it's also created problems with looking for his replacement the the finance committee down

00:32:22.540 in Ottawa passed a motion that they want to interview any candidates for this job just so

00:32:28.720 they can see what he thinks money-wise and and whatnot and they were shut down by the Privy

00:32:34.300 Council office there's no chance you're not gonna you're not gonna get a chance to interview any of

00:32:39.760 these nominees.

00:32:41.220 Well, that's what we've pointed out.

00:32:42.220 He is the interim parliamentary budget officer.

00:32:45.840 What, then what would his motivation be in recanting?

00:32:50.000 Is he pursuing, you know, that job as the full time, you know, trying to

00:32:54.620 unburn the bridge that he did when he dared to criticize the horrific budget

00:32:59.460 that was placed before him?

00:33:00.540 I mean, why are you not sure that he's not ready for retirement.

00:33:04.460 So even if he is only the interim parliamentary budget officer,

00:33:10.160 he still has 20 years to work or 15 years or something like that.

00:33:14.120 And he has chosen to make his career in the civil service.

00:33:19.220 Well, I guess he's not looking private because I mean, you know,

00:33:21.620 that coming from that role, if you had a principal controller in a corporation,

00:33:26.780 actually a lot of companies would seek that out.

00:33:28.720 Hey, you're willing to say the emperor has no clothes and we could use that.

00:33:33.020 Just to show you what kind of job he's doing, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on Monday released their naughty and nice list.

00:33:41.400 So leading off the naughty list was Doug Ford, quite rightly, and leading off the nice list was Jason Jax.

00:33:50.660 They were just thrilled with the job he's doing in holding on the water account.

00:33:54.820 It could also be that, you know, here's a man who's been decades in government and second by everything that he saw.

00:34:03.680 I mean, I don't know the man, so I'm just making this up as I go along.

00:34:06.980 But it could be that he just said, you know, I've got a chance to actually say what I really think for once and for all.

00:34:12.860 Had his mad as hell and not taking any more moments.

00:34:15.060 Yeah, one of those moments.

00:34:16.040 But he didn't carry forward with it.

00:34:17.700 He's unfortunately settled back.

00:34:19.220 A rare moment in the civil service.

00:34:21.860 Somebody actually speaking the truth.

00:34:25.440 Well, it's just unfortunate because it is an important role to have somebody who will at least speak up on these things somewhat candidly.

00:34:31.280 And they're making it clear that we want a yes person to fill that role in the future that the Privy Office will choose.

00:34:37.600 And it's just going to be a useless.

00:34:39.520 Reading what he said carefully in his recant, I got the impression that he was not actually recanting what he found,

00:34:47.620 merely saying that he could have been more circumspect in how he made his report.

00:34:53.660 And perhaps that's so.

00:34:54.980 It was certainly an unusual expression of grim determination for a civil servant.

00:35:03.920 But, hey, that's great.

00:35:05.440 Well, Auditors General, we see that quite often, too,

00:35:08.220 when they actually poke into an area that the government doesn't like

00:35:11.240 and suddenly the pressure's on to move them out of that position, too.

00:35:15.020 They really want neutered senior bureaucrats. 1.00

00:35:17.620 when it comes to watching their own activities and it's not a you know to be fair it's not just

00:35:21.620 liberals who are like that no government likes it when somebody's poking into their misdeeds

00:35:27.780 but it's just in the last 10 years those supervisory agencies have been so much

00:35:32.660 busier than they were oh boy i mean uh where was it the arrive can is that ever gonna nobody's

00:35:41.860 Nobody's ever going to pay a price for that, are they?

00:35:43.860 Well, RCMP is still investigating, but you and I will long be in the retirement home

00:35:49.800 for journalists before anything happens.

00:35:52.580 Just speaking of federal agencies that are neutered.

00:35:55.180 I mean, come on, how many years does it take you when there's such clear fraud?

00:35:58.460 You know, if it was you and I doing it in the private market, oh, don't we, we'll all

00:36:00.860 be handcuffed already and out the door, but they're just ragging the puck. 0.99

00:36:05.540 Yeah.

00:36:06.540 Well, I believe they were friends of the government.

00:36:10.980 The RCP, that's a separate discussion all into itself.

00:36:16.340 Why don't we move a little provincial?

00:36:17.720 We've got a new party leader in Alberta has appointed himself.

00:36:22.060 That's right.

00:36:22.560 And as a sitting member, he becomes the Alberta Party's only sitting MLA.

00:36:28.940 Peter Guthrie, MLA from Erdry, was booted out of the UCP caucus earlier for basically complaining about the procurement scandal.

00:36:39.440 and he'd been a sort of a needle in the side of Daniel Smith for a while.

00:36:44.300 So he moved over to sit as an independent

00:36:46.260 and now has joined forces to lead the Alberta Party.

00:36:52.600 I guess he's not on his own.

00:36:53.940 He's got Scott Sinclair there with him as well.

00:36:57.180 Yeah.

00:36:57.740 Has Scott moved to the Alberta Party

00:37:00.120 or is he just sitting as an independent?

00:37:01.720 I believe he's with them.

00:37:02.660 I believe he's moved over, yeah.

00:37:04.580 But Guthrie's declared himself the leader of this two-person caucus.

00:37:08.400 Yes. So, well, I mean, so they have the Alberta Party, and according to what you were printing

00:37:18.840 earlier, the idea is that they're going to do whatever they have to do to call it the

00:37:24.820 Progressive Conservative Party. I guess an earlier attempt to just take that name was

00:37:30.500 resisted by the UCP, which still has the rights to the name. But really, however they knew

00:37:38.200 maybe the new party they should have a new name i don't know but what uh the what the game is here

00:37:44.060 is that they want to give what they call sort of a more centrist um option to people who want to

00:37:52.180 vote in the next election well i'm not sure that this i'm not sure that anybody in alberta has

00:37:59.860 asked for a centrist option there are some people who want separation independence and there are

00:38:07.080 people who are going to back up daniel but danielle smith but nobody has said if only there was

00:38:13.080 somebody who was just you know like he used to be 40 years ago a little corrupt but not too corrupt

00:38:20.580 you know a little malleable look like you're doing something but not actually do anything

00:38:26.320 too too drastic because actually we're all very good at doing big things so let's just keep the

00:38:32.800 bills paid and move ahead and give out the proceeds of the oil patch, except the proceeds

00:38:38.660 aren't there anymore.

00:38:39.600 So it's an odd sort of thing.

00:38:41.080 Well, the Alberta party has just sat there as a home for homeless MLAs for four or five

00:38:47.860 election cycles saying, we're running in the middle.

00:38:49.760 We're the happy middle.

00:38:50.780 Albertans want the middle.

00:38:52.140 And they get electorally obliterated every time.

00:38:55.440 Two percent support, three percent support.

00:38:57.380 The media treats them as if they're viable, but the electors never do.

00:39:01.640 Yeah, 2023 election. The Alberta Party of 2023 got 12,576 votes. The UCB got 928,900. Even the Greens got more than the Alberta Party. Maybe it was weak leadership, but under Mr. Guthrie, things will be different.

00:39:22.380 but Stephen Mandel led them. A few people have gone through it. I mean,

00:39:27.260 to give him the long history of that, what that vessel has been, some trivia, but I was, that was

00:39:32.860 the very first provincial party I was a member of. I was on the board. Myself and some board members

00:39:38.460 marched off and formed the Alberta Independence Party. Then we turned around to try to get

00:39:42.060 registered status by trying to take over the Alberta party, and we failed. But the Alberta

00:39:47.580 party has been used for exactly that by other groups year after year they take over that withered

00:39:52.380 board and they get party status then they turn it into what they want to and then they they fail

00:39:57.260 i mean the problem here is that they're never going to win no but they have the power to take

00:40:04.060 the win away from the ucp and make room for you know how many how many uh seats would they have to

00:40:11.500 flip for the ndp to uh to to to come in i mean the one that govery is in uh was it airdrie cochran

00:40:20.380 yes cochran whatever just looking at the uh looking at the numbers here it would be a bit of

00:40:27.260 a fluke if uh if having a progressive conservative auction in that particular uh writing was going

00:40:34.380 constituency was going to upset the situation.

00:40:39.820 Well, there are a number where, you know,

00:40:42.160 lose a couple of thousand votes and change the party.

00:40:45.000 The very last thing we need is Premier Nahid Nenshi.

00:40:48.820 Well, there's something to keep in mind.

00:40:50.640 Despite what the Alberta Party always claims,

00:40:52.400 part of why they always get rejected as well is really when it comes out to

00:40:55.000 policy-wise, they almost always land pretty far to the left.

00:40:58.220 So if anything, they might end up pulling votes from Nenshi.

00:41:01.000 Don't assume that they're going to pull from the Conservatives.

00:41:04.380 Uh, voters have seen through that, so we'll see.

00:41:08.160 Either way, they're a known entity.

00:41:09.580 Yeah, at this point.

00:41:10.260 If they were a color, they'd be beige.

00:41:13.760 Forgettable.

00:41:15.180 All right.

00:41:15.620 Well, let's try about to be too forgettable.

00:41:17.440 We'll move on with the, uh, parting shots.

00:41:20.260 I guess I'll start at the end with Dave.

00:41:21.780 What do you got?

00:41:22.380 I'm going to use my parting shot to plug my friend Nigel's show,

00:41:26.160 Hannaford show, tomorrow night, exclusive interview with Premier Daniel Smith.

00:41:30.580 Must watch TV.

00:41:33.220 Thank you very much, Dave.

00:41:34.380 I was going to say the predictive capacity of the Hanford show is remarkable.

00:41:39.920 Last week we interviewed a lady who was leading a charge in Canada

00:41:46.480 to cross legislation that you have to be 16 years old

00:41:50.800 before you can get access to social media.

00:41:53.760 Well, bless my soul, I really picked up the paper this morning.

00:41:56.940 Australia has just done that.

00:41:59.420 I thought, well, this is an interesting idea,

00:42:01.560 but I don't know how practical it is.

00:42:03.200 well, if the Aussies can do it, but we can.

00:42:06.260 It would be a workout.

00:42:08.140 It's a, enforceability is a challenge with that sort of idea, but I mean,

00:42:11.440 they're the principles.

00:42:12.260 Okay.

00:42:12.560 They don't necessarily need those accounts.

00:42:14.900 To that point of enforceability, the first thing I thought of is that my

00:42:19.760 guest told me that in actual fact, they can tell, they being the social media

00:42:26.340 company, they can tell, they know who's got a credit card and who doesn't.

00:42:29.480 And you know, who has, who's only been online for six months and so forth,

00:42:36.180 probably a kid, you know, and then just the deal doesn't go through.

00:42:40.940 Interesting idea.

00:42:41.900 Yeah.

00:42:42.180 Well, there's certainly pretty prescient.

00:42:43.420 I mean, I swear I drive it along the road and I'll just think to myself,

00:42:45.800 geez, I'm creating a Mars bar and suddenly the next dad that pops up through

00:42:48.660 Meta, I'll be one for Mars bars for some bloody reason.

00:42:50.800 They know us better than we do.

00:42:52.400 They sure should be able to figure out who's under 16. 0.99

00:42:56.820 They probably can.

00:42:57.680 Marty Masters. So, I mean, before I get on to my Let You Go, though, with you having, being able to bend the ear of the Premier, you've got a couple of things you can hint at where you might want to go in that discussion with her?

00:43:09.760 You know, I haven't even had that discussion with her staff, and I'm not going to have that discussion with her staff. So if I tell you today...

00:43:22.980 Oh, I don't want you to give any spoilers to keep her off guard.

00:43:26.620 I think the thing that everybody wants to know is where do we go from here?

00:43:32.620 Yeah. Well, hopefully she's got some good answers. I'm sure we'll all be tuning in for it.

00:43:36.940 Yeah. I think we're going to do it at eight o'clock, not seven o'clock though. We just

00:43:41.980 need that extra hour of production time. So if you are likely to tune into the Hannaford Show

00:43:49.180 at seven o'clock, give it an hour. It's past my bedtime.

00:43:53.260 Take yourself a bowl of chips and some cocoa and watch the Hannaford Show.

00:44:02.040 You can't not now that you've promoted it.

00:44:03.880 No, I don't.

00:44:04.940 All right.

00:44:05.500 I'm trying to stay awake.

00:44:06.640 I'm certain if there was a late Seahawks game, you wouldn't miss it.

00:44:08.920 No, I'm not.

00:44:09.880 All right.

00:44:10.760 All right.

00:44:11.220 To myself, I just wanted to point out, yeah, I saw in the National Post,

00:44:14.280 this is stuff that's been going on.

00:44:15.400 And the B.C. court has ruled B.C. laws must be interpreted through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, UNDRIP.

00:44:26.980 I mean, B.C. already kind of, you know, embraced, said we're going to model it.

00:44:30.480 But now we've got the courts actually saying you have to follow that.

00:44:33.900 People have read that vile document, and it is vile.

00:44:36.320 Again, if you think that my cause as an independent supporter is hopeless, keep bringing stuff like this in and see how long this nation's going to stick together.

00:44:45.400 But B.C., boy, are they ever got a serious problem.

00:44:49.120 So what happens when you want to remortgage your house?

00:44:51.540 Well, if you're in Richmond, you're pretty much out of luck.

00:44:54.080 Yeah, we're seeing those stories popping out,

00:44:55.980 businesses that are canceling developments

00:44:57.460 because they can't get their financing behind it

00:44:59.280 because the status of the ownership of that land now is unsure.

00:45:02.720 And some individuals have been popping up saying,

00:45:04.080 we're trying to renew our mortgages, and the bank's saying,

00:45:06.500 nah, sorry, we're not committing to give you 20 more years

00:45:09.280 because we don't know if you're going to own it in a few years or not.

00:45:12.140 Crazy.

00:45:12.800 But that's B.C. crazy.

00:45:14.720 at least we can hide from a little bit over here yes no craziness in alberta no i'm here

00:45:20.560 all right well thank you very much dave and nigel uh for helping us cut through some of the crazy

00:45:26.640 and uh yes i'll close it off and thank everybody else for tuning in and as dave said make sure to

00:45:31.200 tune in to nigel's interview it's going to be great and subscribe to western standard that's

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Western Standard - December 11, 2025

Liberals vote against pipeline motion

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