Calgary Mayor Nahed Nenshi is at a loss without a seat in the Alberta legislature, and he's got no idea what to do about it. He's been trying to find a way to get one, but no one within his party is willing to step aside from a safe seat for a new leader.
00:02:47.920I mean, the first comprehensive poll held in Alberta since he won the leadership
00:02:51.240has found that support for the NDP has been flatlined,
00:02:55.240and they're trailing Daniel Smith's UCP by 14 points.
00:02:58.460Typically, a new party leader can expect a honeymoon with the electors
00:03:01.120and maybe even a bump in support, but this hasn't happened with Nenshi.
00:03:04.800I mean, he's proven himself to be a formidable organizer in the leadership race,
00:03:07.660but he just hasn't endeared himself to the electorate at large.
00:03:11.600and she's working hard right now on the pancake circuit while the legacy media dutifully carries
00:03:16.240water for him with breathless coverage on how well attended the heads and events have been but
00:03:20.720the public at large really hasn't taken notice of him and when the summer ends and the public
00:03:24.600events dry up then she's going to be challenged by his lack of a seat more than ever the legislative
00:03:29.540session is going to begin this fall in alberta and some unknown backbench mla named christina
00:03:34.380gray will serve as the leader of the opposition while nancy remains on the outside looking in
00:03:38.960Many Albertans don't know who Nenshi really is.
00:03:40.980If a person isn't an avid CBC viewer or didn't live in Calgary during his reign as mayor,
00:03:46.260they really aren't too familiar with the guy, actually.
00:03:48.500And it's going to take more than flipping some pancakes at rodeos to get people to know him.
00:03:51.980The legislature is the natural place to establish himself as an opposition leader and potential future premier.
00:03:57.220It's where Nenshi can hold the premier's feet to the fire on policies and where he can promote NDP motions.
00:04:01.900It would keep him in the news scroll and establish him in the minds of Albertans as a possible premier in waiting.
00:04:07.180But alas, for now, the best Nenshi can do is hang around the legislature atrium after sessions and hope that a reporter wants to speak with him.
00:04:15.100With media outlets getting smaller, few, aside from the Western Standard, of course, have the resources to keep a reporter on site in the legislature full time.
00:04:22.380Those other outlets garner their information from debates on bills and get video clips from the legislative session.
00:04:27.060They don't sit in groups to scrum party leaders in the lobby as they used to.
00:04:30.520Nenshi's a canny political player. He knows he's at a terrible disadvantage as a leader without a seat.
00:04:34.800but for now there's not a bloody thing he can do about it. It's beautiful. Normally somebody within
00:04:39.180a party would be willing to step aside from a safe seat for a new leader. Clearly right now
00:04:43.700nobody within the NDP caucus is willing to do that for Nenshi. A part of the problem is that
00:04:48.460Nenshi can't offer great incentives for an MLA to fall on their sword and give them their seat.
00:04:53.140A party in power can offer all sorts of appointments to ensure an MLA taking one for
00:04:56.600the team has a soft landing. A party in opposition is kind of limited when it comes to such political
00:05:01.080horse trading. The safest seats for the NDP are in Edmonton. There may be an MLA or two up there
00:05:06.480willing to step aside to make room for Nenshi, but it wouldn't be ideal for him. If the NDP can't
00:05:10.120make gains in Calgary, they don't have a chance of winning the next election. They want to keep
00:05:14.000Nenshi in Calgary where they hope to build a more solid base of support. In Calgary, there are a few
00:05:18.340seats that would be considered safe, but the MLA sitting in them aren't going to move over for
00:05:21.820Nenshi. This indicates Nenshi isn't as popular within the party ranks as some people might think.
00:05:26.760I mean, sure, he won the leadership with an astounding level of support, but to get a seat,
00:05:30.280he needs some love coming from the old NDP stalwarts, and it doesn't appear to be there.
00:05:34.240While Lethbridge West is open and will be holding a by-election soon, it's far from a safe seat for
00:05:38.280Ninchy. He could possibly run and lose down there, but that would cause some pretty deep embarrassment.
00:05:43.340He's better off to bide his time than take such a risk. It's still going to be more than three
00:05:46.940years till the next general election, and Ninchy's surely going to find his way into the legislature
00:05:50.120before then. But he isn't riding the wave of popularity that the legacy media implies, though,
00:05:55.160and he needs every advantage he can get. With every month, he sits forlornly outside the legislature
00:05:59.640you're begging for attention. While another MLA serves as opposition leader, Nenshi's just going
00:06:04.940to look weaker and weaker. Being seatless right now is an inconvenience for Nenshi, but the quest
00:06:09.180for his heat's going to turn into one of desperation pretty soon if he doesn't get a chance to pursue
00:06:12.780it soon. So sit back and watch. Let's see if he can buy the love of another NDP member soon.
00:06:18.560All right, that's enough out of me. Oh, by the way, just a hat tip to the folks at the
00:06:21.880barbecue I was at last night for the Banff-Canonaskis constituency. That's where I live,
00:07:14.480He was speaking at an event at the Canadian embassy during the NATO summit this week.
00:07:20.760And he was talking about climate change and how that is actually Canada's most, quote,
00:07:26.000existential threat and not just because of the environment but also the security issues that are
00:07:31.680around that but speaking of security issues and nato trudeau simultaneously is raked through the
00:07:38.320coals at nato by u.s senators uk media for failing to meet the two percent pledge that as a nato
00:07:47.120member country canada is expected to meet this requirement of having two percent of the gdp so
00:07:53.440So there's a lot of scrutiny internationally, unfortunately, faced at Canada because we have
00:07:58.860failed to meet up to that. And Trudeau is still trumpeting how well our defense spending is going
00:08:05.460while Minister, Defense Minister Bill Blair, he actually inflated the numbers for the defense
00:08:13.320spending. They can promise all they like. They've actually got to cut a check at some point.
00:08:18.020Yeah. And he's not willing to do that. I mean, he's not afraid to spend money on things he likes.
00:08:21.840when he's dragging his heels on this, his little pointy heels, he honestly just doesn't want to
00:08:27.220invest in defense. Well, you would think his defense minister, that would be something he
00:08:30.620likes. Well, his boss is stuck on walking issues. That's right. Well, and so speaking of problematic
00:08:38.240liberal MPs, we have another liberal MP who is being investigated for conflict of interest.
00:08:44.720We have the ethics committee calling a special meeting next week, even though parliament is
00:08:50.020on summer session to investigate Liberal MP Randy Boissoneau. Boissoneau is a major shareholder in
00:09:00.020a medical supply a medical supplier that was contracted by the federal government during the
00:09:05.220pandemic era and some partners the business partners were discussing Randy in text messages
00:09:12.900although Boissoneau denies that it was actually him and says well it must be some other Randy.
00:09:18.180Well, there's so many Randys out there, it's easy to confuse at all. I'm sure his company has at least 20 Randys with him.
00:09:23.380Oh, that's right, especially a company of maybe about 20 people in itself, all named Randy.
00:09:29.600And so going on as well to the spy scandal, so that we saw recently on Parliament Hill last month that conveniently when summer session went on break, the subject wasn't as animatedly discussed.
00:09:45.980However, the Quebec RCMP is very interested to find out more about the Chinese foreign interference.
00:09:53.600And they put out a release yesterday saying that they're looking for the public's help to really narrow down where is this Chinese interference coming from.
00:10:03.720So anyone who's being harassed or threatened by Chinese agents, they're asked to report it to the police.
00:10:11.300And also law enforcement in Montreal and Long Gai are hosting open forum meetings next week.
00:10:21.200Or actually, it might even be this week coming up already to inform the public more about the threat of China on Canada.
00:10:29.080So at least the Quebec RCMP is at least talking about it.
00:10:32.480We haven't seen as much from our politicians.
00:10:34.380That's what it's down to, the Quebec RCMP.
00:10:36.260Well, at least somebody's paying attention.
00:12:20.820So that was Jen Hodgson. Yes, you look, see those very prolific stories from Jen all over the site
00:12:25.820there. Jonathan Bradley and others, of course, are always putting lots out there and Sean will
00:12:30.160be checking in with him in a little while the reason we can do that guys the reason we can
00:12:33.980afford to is because you've been subscribing we're subscriber based not subsidy based so we don't ask
00:12:39.600for tax dollars and you know the government's not really in a rush to offer them to us but all the
00:12:43.120same that makes us accountable to you so if you haven't subscribed yet come on guys get on there
00:12:48.480westernstandard.news subscription take one out 9.99 a month 100 bucks a year just like when you used
00:12:53.620to get the newspaper to your door then you can get past that pesky paywall and get to all those
00:12:58.100stories and coverage is going on out there. So if you subscribed already, thank you very much. We
00:13:01.720really do appreciate it. It keeps us independent and it keeps us rolling on these things. And again,
00:13:07.420if you haven't subscribed yet, I'm going to keep nagging you because that's how we pay those bills.
00:13:12.300All right. Yeah, we got, I don't know. It's just dark comedy watching Justin Trudeau
00:13:19.520with his behavior in NATO. He knows. I mean, he has to know. They've been upset with him for years
00:13:27.840And I said in a recent piece I wrote, I mean, this was prior to Justin Trudeau, even Canada's been neglecting to pay its fair share into defense spending for years for multiple governments.
00:13:39.140And we're not talking about sending more money overseas to other nations.
00:13:42.800We're just talking about spending that much on our domestic defense so as to be a properly contributing member of NATO.
00:13:50.280And I know some people get upset with things and everything.
00:13:52.180I'm not going to go into that whole debate.
00:13:53.800But I tell you what, NATO is important.
00:13:55.580Russia is on an expansionist trip right now. And the best defense is to have a strong number of
00:14:03.280allies properly invested with decent defensive capabilities to at least stand as a, you know,
00:14:12.660deterrent. Right now, Canada is at like 1.3% of GDP. And what does Trudeau do? He gets up there
00:14:19.080gives them a lecture on climate change. They don't care. I don't think anybody in Ukraine
00:14:25.180really cares about what the temperature is tomorrow. They're worried about getting blown0.54
00:14:29.240into obliteration. But no, Trudeau lectures him in that tone. Oh, if you really want to torture
00:14:34.860yourself, listen to his presentation. That wasn't what they wanted to hear. And he's getting
00:14:39.540pilloried by the UK, by the Americans. Even Cocaine Mitch put a tweet out saying Justin Trudeau
00:14:45.600Canada, you know, their northern neighbors need to step up and spend what they're obligated to if
00:14:51.780they want to take part in NATO. Jordan is saying NATO's done for, whatever. You know, the bottom
00:14:56.860line is, I know there's a lot of debate on that. There's some people who cuckily think that Putin's
00:15:00.140not a lunatic. But all the same, even if we want out of NATO, fine, but we still should be keeping
00:15:07.600our defensive forces properly funded and modern and so forth. All right, well, let's get on to
00:15:12.440our guest on to something different where we've really been making a nice mess nationally too
00:15:15.640and that's with safer supply i've got adam zivo back i've been looking forward to it thank you
00:15:19.820very much for joining us again today adam i'm certain we'll be able to hear each other this
00:15:23.240time right yeah i can hear you just well thanks for having me back on the show so i i mean i've
00:15:28.800been watching with interest on social media boy you cover a lot of things and it's fantastic out
00:15:33.140there but the one i do want to discuss has been the the safer supply almost i i say it is a cult
00:15:40.560like advocacy. I mean, the people who were pushing for this, just the advocates are getting so
00:15:46.400extreme, I mean, to the point of looking to sabotage conferences, coming after you,
00:15:52.920and just a refusal to look at the consequences of these policies. What's going on out there, Adam?
00:15:58.660Well, I mean, it's a long story. But what I have to say is that addiction policymaking in Canada
00:16:03.420is dominated by a clique of activists and activist minded researchers, who for 20 years
00:16:09.280have been championing this radical harm reduction ideology that has facilitated countless deaths
00:16:18.480because we're really not solving this addiction crisis. They claim to be evidence-based. They're
00:16:22.880often not. Their definition of evidence is quite questionable. For example, many of the studies
00:16:27.840that they have, which support safer supply, amount to just interviews with drug users who are on this
00:16:33.440program. And then the answers given to those interviews are framed as objective proof that
00:16:40.000it's working. So imagine, for example, you go up to a drug user who is receiving free opioids and
00:16:44.200we say, oh, do you like this program? Is it benefiting you? Are you selling the drugs? And
00:16:48.660the guy says, oh yeah, it's great. It's wonderful. Of course I would never sell the drugs. And if I
00:16:52.440do, it's only out of compassion. There's no downsides. And the researchers say, oh yeah,
00:16:56.140you know what? We're going to believe him. And we need to expand safer supply because this is
00:17:00.420evidence that this is true, and this is evidence-based policymaking. And it's just absurd.
00:17:05.220I mean, if it worked, if we could see results, if we could see people's lives really being saved,
00:17:09.280if we could see a decline in overdoses, a reduction in addiction, I'd support it too.
00:17:14.680But we're just not seeing it. We're really not. And here's the thing,
00:17:18.320is that the largest study ever conducted on safer supply was published in January,
00:17:24.700and it was published in the British Medical Journal, and it claimed that safer supply led
00:17:29.140to a 55 to 91% reduction in overdose deaths. But I reviewed the evidence and the underlying data
00:17:35.380with a team of six physicians, all who have a background in addiction medicine, all of whom
00:17:40.020are distinguished. And we realized that the researchers actually fudged their interpretation
00:17:45.700of this data. And that when you actually fully filtered out confounding effects
00:17:51.220and measured long-term outcomes, safer supply had no statistically significant impact on death.
00:17:58.020So essentially, these researchers found this robust data that showed that safe supply didn't
00:18:03.760work. And then they misrepresented the data to imply that it did. And I think that that's
00:18:08.600deeply unethical. Absolutely. But what I don't understand, as I said, is the almost religious
00:18:14.580like hang up advocates have with it to the point of, again, I was just shocked when you wrote that
00:18:20.600piece about they were looking to even dye the water in a fountain red or do things like, where
00:18:26.640are these people coming from? Why are they so fixated on this? I mean, I understand compassion
00:18:31.860and concern, then why aren't they looking at evidence-based instead of this strange obsession
00:18:37.160with this? Well, I mean, there's different groups here, right? So I feel the most compassion for the
00:18:41.920grassroots organizers who are dealing with addiction every single day and who are watching
00:18:46.720their friends and associates die. That's really traumatizing. We've seen such a rise in death
00:18:53.800over the past 10 years, that it's understandable that these activists are desperate in a way and
00:18:59.580they are searching for anything which could potentially save their friends' lives. But when
00:19:05.440you're in that kind of mind space, sometimes you're willing to make compromises and you are
00:19:11.380willing to believe, to really delude yourself into thinking that something like Safer Supply
00:19:18.100is an effective intervention when in reality it's not.
00:19:22.520I think also there is a lack of understanding
00:19:25.860of the weakness of the evidence-based and safe for supply.
00:19:29.560Many safe for supply advocates think that these studies are legitimate,
00:19:34.180but once again, when you break them down,
00:19:36.120you find that oftentimes they have really weak methodologies
00:19:38.960or really strange interpretations of data.
00:19:42.700Yeah, and some of the stuff we can see is anecdotal,
00:19:45.740but people getting out and being, you know, on the streets, paradoxically, one of the commenters
00:19:49.500saying, and yeah, in Calgary's Beltline, I mean, it's just horrific. It's dystopian. And we know
00:19:53.860that Vancouver, of course, has really been the epicenter of it. But, you know, the failure,
00:19:58.440unfortunately, of current policies, I don't think anybody's really found a solution yet.
00:20:02.240We just know there's a tragic, horrific problem of addiction going on out there.
00:20:06.760But some of it's been exposed. I mean, there was a recent piece, I'm forgetting which one it was
00:20:10.620now, it was, I think, from the UK. But I mean, it was some photojournalism and some fantastic work
00:20:14.900just to bring it home for people who perhaps don't get out of the suburbs or don't get out
00:20:18.340of rural areas just to see how awful and terrible this addiction epidemic is i mean
00:20:23.680how it's eating people alive out there well i mean that's the thing is that we have to all
00:20:27.540recognize the fact that this is a real crisis that is taking thousands of lives every single year
00:20:32.900uh overdose is now over drug-related that's kind of like the leading cause of death uh for youth
00:20:39.380in BC. And our governments are saying that they're taking this seriously, but they're not.
00:20:46.520We don't have significant investment into treatment capacity. In BC, for example,
00:20:50.880it takes a very long time to get into detox. It takes a very long time to get into a rehab center.
00:20:55.940Same thing in Ontario. In Alberta, it's much better because Daniel Smith has been investing
00:21:01.500heavily into treatment services, but it's still not where it needs to be. So we constantly talk
00:21:07.220about this illicit drug crisis and all of these overdoses, but it's really rhetoric. There's no
00:21:12.360real action here. And even these big interventions like safe supply, people say it's the compassionate
00:21:18.860thing. Unfortunately, it is actually just the lazy solution. It is the cheap solution
00:21:24.300because getting people better, giving them the comprehensive supports, the housing supports,
00:21:30.780the employment supports, the counseling needed for them to reclaim their lives is expensive
00:21:36.420and complicated. It's much easier and much cheaper just to give people a bottle of pills every day
00:21:42.360so they can go kill themselves slowly. Yeah. And then not only is it not effective in getting
00:21:47.760people off of their addictions that are slowly killing them, when we get diversion of these,
00:21:53.800the risk now, and there's evidence starting to show that it's actually causing harm. It's creating
00:21:59.040new addicts, which is even more devastating. I mean, it's bad enough to have a policy that's
00:22:03.080ineffective but this policy could very well be making things worse oh yeah no though this this
00:22:07.800the safer supply policy is obviously exacerbating the addiction crisis in canada and so for viewers
00:22:13.640who haven't been following the safer supplies this idea that we give out pharmaceutical alternatives
00:22:17.800to elicit street drugs let's say cory gets addicted to fentanyl because he's really stressed you know
00:22:23.160running this show he needs something to take the edge off uh so cory you're addicted to fentanyl
00:22:28.280you buy your fentanyl off the street, it could be contaminated with xylozine, with other forms
00:22:33.580of fentanyl, like carfentanil, which is much stronger. The dosage is unpredictable. So there's
00:22:39.020easily, you could easily die from buying drugs off the street. So the idea here is that we give you
00:22:44.400drugs of a known potency and of a known purity, so pharmaceutical drugs, to keep you alive until
00:22:50.600you're ready to seek treatment. Sure, that sounds great in theory. In practice, though,
00:22:55.980So the drug we give, hydromorphone, it's as potent as heroin, but fentanyl is 50 times
00:23:09.720And so you do the rational thing that any person would do in the situation.
00:23:13.820You sell your hydromorphone at rock bottom prices because you got it for free and you
00:23:18.720use that money to buy your drug of choice, which is fentanyl.
00:23:21.320So, not only is this program not mitigating the illicit fentanyl market, it's subsidizing it, and it would actually make more sense for us just to give you cash, right, to buy your fentanyl.
00:23:35.360But at this point, because you're selling this, you are flooding communities with hydromorphones, so essentially government heroin.
00:23:43.120And then because experienced drug users don't want it, it goes to people who are opiate naive.
00:32:39.420And keeping with the agricultural theme, that entails a whole reworking of the supply chain
00:32:44.340for chicken and and those various meat products that they use so yeah it's a bizarre on i guess
00:32:54.100uh well i don't know it's a business decision on their part but i don't know if it's really
00:32:57.620been well received by everybody in general when they hear about it well apparently it is quite
00:33:02.420common and i i didn't know this but some other chains like uh for instance popeyes is supposed
00:33:06.900to be halal already i don't i don't know if it's certified normally they put their little certified
00:33:11.060mark um if you go to the uk um uk is one of the few countries in europe where people do eat a lot
00:33:18.020of fried chicken but they do tend to be uh muslim so that sounds like it's coming over here um
00:33:24.500another interesting story we've got um this uh anti-woke activist uh starbuck robbie starbuck
00:33:33.540down in the states he's already taken down uh tractor supply and now he's going after john deere
00:33:38.660for their DEI policies and what is it the HRS scores or whatever it is that they do
00:33:48.900to so in case you missed the story last week tractor supply was forced to back down on
00:33:57.460green energy diversity inclusion hiring all those various initiatives they get a CEI score
00:34:08.660which is inclusion for LGBTQ people, you know, and John Deere scored 95 out of 100.
00:34:18.020If you didn't know, John Deere is one of the oldest publicly trained corporations in the United States.
00:34:23.040It was founded in about 1837, so the company itself is actually older than Canada,
00:34:27.660and it is among the largest manufacturers of agricultural equipment around the world.0.97
00:34:32.400They're in South America, they're in India, they're all over.
00:34:34.160yeah well i found it interesting because i think the only thing dumber than going woke for budweiser
00:34:39.560is going woke for people who use tractors because if you want the least support for dei and woke
00:34:44.020garbage and gender pronouns and emails it's probably agricultural producers who are buying
00:34:49.040those tractors well all i have to do is look around here
00:34:52.480well crazy times but it's good to see a pushback at least you know i mean i think for most consumers
00:35:00.480and just just give me my product i don't care about all the other stuff just just just just
00:35:05.920sell me a decent product sure another interesting story that i followed earlier this week was um
00:35:11.600alberta government's announcement with shell and acco to license the four space for carbon
00:35:17.520sequestration so um for those who are familiar with the oil patch uh oil companies lease uh you
00:35:26.000know the subsurface rights to pull the minerals out of the ground and in this case what they're
00:35:30.480doing is they're leasing the subsurface to take the captured gases from the stockford refinery
00:35:37.680and put them underground so it's kind of a major shift and whether or not you agree with carbon
00:35:45.760capture or not the jury is still out on how expensive it is or what the business case is but
00:35:51.440But, you know, if Shell seems committed to spend $15 billion on it and Alberta government is talking about a $45 billion industry by 2030, there's supposed to be about two dozen more of these projects lined up in the queue.
00:36:05.960We're talking some pretty substantial investments in some pretty good scale, something like 50,000 jobs.
00:36:12.660So, I don't know, those sound like pretty good numbers to me.
00:36:15.760Yeah, well, time will tell if it's effective.
00:36:17.740I mean, we're a producer, but we've got to keep flexing because we're just embattled on every direction for what we produce.
00:36:23.580Well, the comment was made is that customers are demanding this.
00:36:27.800So it'd be like if you're going to McDonald's and, you know, people are getting tired of your watered down Coke and your greasy hamburgers.
00:36:33.560Maybe you've got to come up with something new to try and keep that business, right?