Western Standard - Not our war？

00:00:00.000 G'day, today is June 18th, 2025.

00:00:28.720 I'm Derek Pildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:33.440 I'm joined by two of my favorite people here, Nigel Henniford, Western Standard Opinion Editor.

00:00:39.860 Good to be back.

00:00:40.800 And Corey Morgan, Western Standard Senior Alberta Columnist.

00:00:44.100 Glad to be there. Fixture at the end of the table.

00:00:46.680 That's why we put you over there.

00:00:48.020 um we're gonna be talking about uh the alberta government's decision to end taxpayer funding

00:00:56.800 for your uh 139th covid booster shot that means from now on if you want to keep on getting covid

00:01:05.580 boosters you're gonna finally have to pay for it yourself like almost any other vaccine so that's

00:01:11.880 created some predictable

00:01:13.100 brouhaha from the predictable

00:01:15.760 people that you'd expect it from.

00:01:17.820 We're going to talk about the G6

00:01:20.020 meeting

00:01:20.960 just west of us in Kananaskis,

00:01:23.720 just west of us here in Calgary.

00:01:26.320 It was supposed to be the G7,

00:01:28.380 but Donald Trump pretty much

00:01:29.880 flew in and flew out. He kind of did the

00:01:31.700 Frankfurt thing.

00:01:32.940 I think he was just transferring to another location

00:01:35.580 or something as he was flying through, essentially.

00:01:37.760 G6 and a half. There you are.

00:01:40.180 Yeah.

00:01:40.360 Yeah. Well, we'll talk about what happened there. We have Western Center reporters on the ground, and we'll talk about what developed and didn't develop. And is it our war? That's where we're going to start. Israel has attacked, as I already know, this is not news. Israel's attacked Iranian, alleged Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities for building a nuclear warhead.

00:02:07.780 we're going to talk about

00:02:10.560 Israel's decision to do it, but also

00:02:12.320 the larger discussion around

00:02:14.520 is it our war? Our war being

00:02:16.420 the broader western alliance

00:02:18.660 NATO, NATO plus

00:02:20.360 right now

00:02:21.860 Donald Trump is

00:02:24.360 weighing what to do

00:02:26.240 just before we walked in here

00:02:27.900 I saw him speaking at the press

00:02:29.900 he says, maybe I will

00:02:31.460 maybe I won't

00:02:32.960 nice enrichment facilities you got

00:02:35.860 it'd be a shame if anything were to happen to them

00:02:37.460 um it's a question that is very much dividing the mega coalition the mega coalition is very

00:02:47.360 different from you know kind of the older neo-conservative coalition you know that you'd

00:02:52.960 see under george bush and then it kind of petered out in the mccain and the romney years uh you know

00:02:58.800 where the republicans were the hawk party they're going to export democracy uh i was i forget who

00:03:04.460 said it, but someone eloquently put it, we're going to free 0.99

00:03:06.340 the shit out of them. 0.99

00:03:08.320 These kind of endless wars 0.99

00:03:10.200 in the Middle East,

00:03:13.940 ostensibly

00:03:15.720 to make a

00:03:18.480 world safer democracy,

00:03:19.860 as was attempted in the First World War.

00:03:24.280 Israel's hit these facilities, 0.98

00:03:26.500 but it seems

00:03:28.480 likely they probably have not finished

00:03:30.400 the job. The big

00:03:32.500 facility of most concern

00:03:33.980 is buried beneath the mountain.

00:03:37.160 And most experts say that only the Americans

00:03:40.420 have the Bunker Buster bombs

00:03:41.820 that were literally designed for that facility.

00:03:44.280 They designed new bombs 20 years ago

00:03:46.000 to blow up that facility.

00:03:48.120 The Americans have got them. 0.98

00:03:49.880 So they need those bombs.

00:03:51.380 They need B-2 bombers.

00:03:53.040 Big question now is, will the Americans intervene?

00:03:55.940 There's a lot of ways to come at this.

00:03:57.940 I want to start with it first about,

00:04:00.580 was this attack justified?

00:04:03.980 I come from the position that if, in fact, Iran was an imminent threat

00:04:11.500 of obtaining a nuclear warhead, that it was building a nuclear warhead

00:04:15.600 and that it was on the cusp of doing so,

00:04:18.480 then I think Israel's strikes would be justified. 1.00

00:04:25.140 But the evidence provided so far is far from definitive.

00:04:30.260 It's, you know, not good enough, I think, just to take the Mossad's word for it after the 2003 invasion of Iraq on the same pretext.

00:04:42.040 The Iranian regime is, you know, the usual chicken hawks on Twitter say, well, you know, you're just backing the mullahs.

00:04:50.180 You must be an Islamofascist or something. 0.96

00:04:52.060 No, the Iranian regime is about the most odious and evil regime on planet Earth. 1.00

00:04:59.680 And the world would be better for every dead mullah that we've got. 1.00

00:05:04.060 But there's a lot of bad regimes in the world, always has been, and there always will be.

00:05:07.960 And Iran would be a lot harder than Iraq.

00:05:11.840 It is many times the size geographically.

00:05:14.620 It's about three times the size by population.

00:05:17.260 Its military is considerably larger.

00:05:18.960 most estimates put its full forces

00:05:21.400 at around 900,000

00:05:22.840 a million men under arms

00:05:25.420 this would not be

00:05:29.400 even against a war

00:05:31.040 this would be a cataclysmic

00:05:33.040 region wide war, god knows

00:05:35.060 maybe even draws in some other great powers

00:05:36.980 but even if it doesn't it would be a

00:05:39.140 cataclysmic regional war

00:05:41.320 I think

00:05:43.480 I'd put it

00:05:45.060 that it's

00:05:46.720 incumbent on Israel to provide

00:05:48.820 hard evidence that

00:05:51.120 Iran was building a bomb 1.00

00:05:53.020 and that they were on the verge of a bomb

00:05:54.560 to justify these strikes.

00:05:57.320 A little

00:05:57.820 post-facto

00:06:01.020 justification. The thing is that they've already

00:06:02.940 gone and done it.

00:06:05.020 You know, when you're looking

00:06:06.980 at the burden of evidence,

00:06:09.080 you say,

00:06:09.640 do we have the evidence that they were on the cost

00:06:12.920 of getting a bomb? I don't know.

00:06:15.120 But I do know

00:06:16.700 that with their own lips they have contend the great Satan, which is the U.S.,

00:06:23.120 and the little Satan, which is Israel, for the last 50 years, 0.93

00:06:27.160 since we have that nasty little go-around with Jimmy Carter

00:06:29.840 and the deposition of the Shah, the hostage-taking of the American diplomats.

00:06:37.000 That's all they have talked about. 0.87

00:06:39.020 We are going to destroy you. 0.71

00:06:40.640 That's addressed to Israel, but it's also addressed to the United States. 0.99

00:06:46.200 just israel first so if you're going to have 50 years of rhetoric saying we're out to kill you 0.99

00:06:52.560 at some point when does it not just become stupidity to ignore it and say oh that's just 0.99

00:06:58.560 those guys they're blowing off steam they have to say that for their own people well they don't have 0.99

00:07:02.780 to say that for their own people their own people hate them so this is very much uh some of their

00:07:07.580 own people hate them they do have a lot of support in iran there's a there's a very large westernized

00:07:11.660 liberal minority in Iran.

00:07:13.840 But I don't think it's fair to say

00:07:15.840 that the Iranian people broadly hate the regime.

00:07:17.880 I don't know.

00:07:18.260 That it's a divided society.

00:07:19.960 It certainly is.

00:07:21.200 It certainly is.

00:07:22.700 Yeah, we have to be a little careful.

00:07:24.760 But I mean, some people really put their lives on the line

00:07:26.960 in some of the public demonstrations,

00:07:28.860 and it's very clear that that regime is not universally loved.

00:07:33.800 No.

00:07:34.100 So all of that saying, if you think,

00:07:37.560 if you were an Israeli prime minister

00:07:39.440 and you think that iran having developed the technology to drop a rocket in your backyard

00:07:47.440 is also saying we're working on a nuclear bomb

00:07:51.120 when we've got the two together we're going to destroy you there is a very solid argument

00:07:57.200 whether they're a week away a month away or 10 years away we're doing what you can to slow them

00:08:02.560 down and i think the israelis have already accomplished that by the way well they've

00:08:06.240 bit slowed down but it's not stopped that's why they want american intervention that's why they

00:08:09.700 want and um i mean there are there certainly is an argument all right you guys have done what

00:08:14.940 you've done and it's and it's worked so now instead of being a year away or a month away

00:08:20.460 it's 10 years or 15 years the israelis have claimed the iranians are on the verge of getting

00:08:25.640 a bomb for 30 years now now maybe they're right this time uh well it's the first time they've

00:08:31.100 actually gone done anything about it so they obviously have so like this would not be likely

00:08:35.020 undertaken. Sure, but we can't take their word

00:08:37.100 for it. I mean, George Bush

00:08:38.840 going into Iraq in 2003

00:08:40.920 I would like to think was not lightly undertaken.

00:08:45.200 You know, the Saddam 1.00

00:08:47.220 Hussein regime was

00:08:48.800 nearly as odious,

00:08:50.960 maybe not as extreme as the Ayatollahs, but 0.51

00:08:53.080 it was an odious, murderous,

00:08:55.080 and genocidal regime.

00:08:56.820 Pretty much par for the course for an Arab country. 1.00

00:08:59.500 Yeah, well,

00:09:00.560 one of the worst on the block in a very

00:09:03.040 bad neighborhood.

00:09:05.020 But, I mean, the Israelis have claimed this for a long time.

00:09:09.620 So what would you accept as being the trigger moment?

00:09:14.100 We need evidence.

00:09:15.200 Now, I understand the need for a preemptive attack.

00:09:18.560 Bob?

00:09:20.860 Like, seriously, the Iranians are going to come back and say, oh, no, we're just...

00:09:25.820 I'm a fairly sympathetic.

00:09:27.780 I think I'm a fairly sympathetic guy to the cause.

00:09:30.880 I detest the regime, but we'll become better when they're eventually gone someday.

00:09:36.920 I'm a pretty sympathetic guy to hear the argument.

00:09:39.980 I just haven't seen the convincing evidence yet.

00:09:43.620 The same with Saddam Hussein. 0.52

00:09:46.680 I, you know, I was a teenager when it happened.

00:09:49.600 I grew up in military towns, and this was a very big thing.

00:09:54.140 But the evidence failed to materialize.

00:09:56.720 And I get the need for a preemptive strike.

00:09:58.380 The Seven Days War was a preemptive strike.

00:10:00.880 And Israel provided the evidence for that post facto. So I get that. But you better be pretty ironclad in that. You better have it to provide post facto if you're going to make a preemptive strike. 0.93

00:10:12.860 Well, there's a fear that the evidence to be a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. I mean, there's the other part that could come afterwards. But I know, I mean, Mossad, CIA, I mean, they do some good things, but they're also organizations you can't trust necessarily anything.

00:10:27.080 By nature, they're intelligence agencies. By nature, they do have shady shit. 0.99

00:10:31.000 And, you know, there's open secrets of the Middle East. I mean, technically, Israel doesn't have nukes either, but everybody knows they have them. 0.99

00:10:38.780 Iran says they're not working towards a nuclear program. We all know they're working towards it. 0.82

00:10:43.320 The question, actually, is how far along are they? That's the question.

00:10:48.500 And, you know, Israel's saying it could be as much as just a couple of weeks away from having that capability, or it could be another 20 or 30 years.

00:10:55.200 How do you prove that?

00:10:57.080 I don't know. Israel's got other motivations right now. 0.55

00:11:00.320 I'm generally pretty supportive of Israel, but Iran's also been proxy funding the Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas

00:11:08.860 and basically keeping those terrorist groups that are picking at Israel from the sidelines all this time.

00:11:15.480 Israel's happy to have an excuse, I think, to just give them a bit of a slapping around to remind them 0.98

00:11:21.080 that there's going to be a price to continue to mess with Israel. 0.87

00:11:23.820 So, but yeah, we're going to, I think, especially with the potential for this to turn into a kinetic, larger ground war.

00:11:32.860 I mean, it's a big army.

00:11:34.080 It could turn bad.

00:11:35.360 We would, I guess, hope then that there's justification.

00:11:38.740 Well, it has to go on faith because we can't trust any of the organizations that they're worried on this.

00:11:42.540 You know, we're sitting here in Calvary, so we can afford to say, show us the evidence.

00:11:46.460 But if you're sitting in Tel Aviv, this is getting too close for comfort.

00:11:52.140 Let's go and do something about it.

00:11:53.280 Look, if I'm sitting in Tel Aviv, I'd be

00:11:55.220 likely to just more blindly

00:11:57.420 trust whatever my government's telling me.

00:11:59.480 But I'm not sitting in Tel Aviv here.

00:12:01.220 I'm sitting down in Calgary.

00:12:03.820 And, you know, my son

00:12:05.060 is too young to fight in a war.

00:12:07.320 But I'm concerned this turns into

00:12:09.140 a bigger war and

00:12:10.860 young Alberta, Canadian,

00:12:13.440 American, French-German

00:12:14.860 sons get drawn into a war 0.75

00:12:17.020 and we have to die.

00:12:20.120 So what are the

00:12:21.260 sort of mirrors and levers that would

00:12:23.060 involve canada in this perhaps not canada because we have no capacity to fight an unforeseen war

00:12:28.540 but i'm talking about the west western blood and western treasure more generally even if it's not

00:12:33.420 canada i still feel a kinship with americans french germans poles italians and i don't want

00:12:41.180 to see any of our blood and treasure spilt for another forever war in the middle east unless it 0.84

00:12:47.620 It was absolutely necessary, and I have not seen the evidence yet.

00:12:52.020 So why does it have to be a forever war?

00:12:54.900 You go in, you drop the bomb, it's over.

00:12:57.600 Well, you want to drop the big one.

00:12:59.760 Okay, well, that, sure.

00:13:01.260 Or you're talking about the bunker buster.

00:13:02.540 Okay, well, when you say it's a bomb, that means a particular bomb.

00:13:06.800 That's a capital T.

00:13:08.100 The bomb we're talking about is the bunker buster.

00:13:10.500 You drop it, it destroys the facility.

00:13:13.400 Okay, but Iran domestically would be then,

00:13:17.300 well within its rights to consider that an act of war

00:13:19.580 and we could very much then

00:13:21.080 the possibility of a much

00:13:23.160 larger kinetic ground

00:13:25.420 and air war gives an extremely

00:13:27.260 real possibility and

00:13:28.940 I mean Donald Trump used the term

00:13:31.140 unconditional surrender when he was

00:13:32.820 leaving the G7 and he was

00:13:34.540 I think it may be just to blow it on the ground when he said it

00:13:37.680 and we talked about this briefly

00:13:39.100 just the other day

00:13:40.380 I'm hopeful he does not

00:13:42.920 understand the proper meaning of that

00:13:45.240 in the Yalta

00:13:46.800 an Atlantic Charter sense of the word,

00:13:48.800 meaning we have to launch a ground

00:13:50.820 invasion of this huge

00:13:52.900 and militarily powerful country

00:13:54.720 if we thought Iran and Iraq were

00:13:56.360 difficult.

00:13:58.360 We're in for a whole new order

00:14:00.900 of nightmare if we want to go fight

00:14:02.820 one of these kinds of wars in Iran.

00:14:05.480 Could they be defeated in

00:14:06.840 the field with relative ease

00:14:08.780 by the Americans if they fully mobilize?

00:14:10.880 Yeah. But if you want

00:14:12.800 to defeat them and occupy them,

00:14:14.840 you know, set up McDonald's and strip clubs

00:14:17.160 and give them democracy

00:14:18.120 I mean, we're in for another

00:14:20.640 20 years, of course, well, anywhere in Iran

00:14:22.720 or Afghanistan, or Iraq and Afghanistan

00:14:24.540 but, I mean, the hard part is

00:14:26.620 there's a real fear, though

00:14:28.620 I mean, if there's any country in the world, I don't

00:14:30.560 lose sleep over Russia having 0.97

00:14:32.700 nukes, even though Putin's a crazed dictator 0.96

00:14:34.540 as well, or, you know 0.66

00:14:36.480 China having nukes, because 0.97

00:14:38.520 they still don't seem inclined to really

00:14:40.600 use them. If any country would actually

00:14:42.860 potentially push

00:14:44.620 that button, Iran's among them.

00:14:46.900 And that's one you really

00:14:47.960 kind of got to worry a little more about

00:14:50.480 than you do with other countries as well.

00:14:54.120 Hindsight's

00:14:54.520 20-20. Could you imagine the hindsight again if

00:14:56.360 these lunatics did manage to pull it off 1.00

00:14:58.500 and go and fire somewhere? 0.99

00:15:00.600 I actually do agree with the premise.

00:15:02.900 If the Israelis 0.99

00:15:04.260 are telling the truth, I actually agree

00:15:06.600 with the premise of their casus belli.

00:15:08.620 Iran must not have a bomb.

00:15:11.360 I'm not that.

00:15:12.620 I'm a general non-interventionist

00:15:14.920 but I'm not a

00:15:16.340 doctrinaire under no circumstances

00:15:18.980 non-interventionist. Iran

00:15:20.760 must not be allowed to have a bomb. These guys

00:15:23.080 have an apocalyptic

00:15:24.760 world vision

00:15:27.080 in their theology.

00:15:28.740 It was suicidal. They're a martyr type

00:15:30.820 culture. So hey, well, it was for Allah 0.99

00:15:32.760 we blew up Israel. The communists may have

00:15:34.840 been evil and terrible but they didn't want 0.95

00:15:36.760 to die. They therefore acted

00:15:38.920 as rational actors and

00:15:40.340 game these things. As terrifying as those games

00:15:42.740 were, you could game it out and we

00:15:44.680 didn't nuk each other. Good. These guys, I

00:15:46.700 don't think the math quite applies,

00:15:48.640 so I'm in agreement. Just as an argument when it

00:15:50.720 comes to a regular war, too. They're not easy to battle

00:15:52.800 because, hey, it's my

00:15:54.660 path to 72 virgins, because

00:15:56.340 the ones I found here are terrible. You've just lowered

00:15:58.720 the threshold of evidence required

00:16:00.740 considerably without state. No, no, no,

00:16:02.540 I don't think I have. No, I'm

00:16:04.560 saying they must not be allowed to have a bomb,

00:16:06.920 but we have to have convincing proof

00:16:08.680 that they were about to get the bomb

00:16:10.720 before we were willing to potentially trigger

00:16:12.520 a massive regional war

00:16:14.340 that could kill millions in the end of this escalate.

00:16:16.580 Perhaps we'll get it, but we need to have some limb warriors 0.99

00:16:18.600 demanding it, I guess.

00:16:21.060 Or if they're presenting that evidence to anybody,

00:16:23.000 I would think maybe behind closed doors

00:16:24.620 to Trump and the others.

00:16:26.280 One thing about Trump, as much as he talks and blusters,

00:16:29.220 and I'm not a fan of his,

00:16:30.540 never have been, but he's never been a hawk.

00:16:33.120 He's never actually been all that keen

00:16:34.960 on getting into

00:16:37.080 American soldiers on the ground.

00:16:39.400 So I think, to some degree, he could be reasoned with

00:16:41.200 if he could find a way to avoid

00:16:43.280 those things. I think they would have to present him

00:16:45.120 with evidence before he's ready to...

00:16:46.980 Yeah, but I'm not willing to take any leader's

00:16:48.980 word for it. Even leaders I like

00:16:51.120 or not, or have a respect for. I mean, J.D. Vance

00:16:53.340 is trying to make this argument. He had

00:16:55.020 an extensive post on X

00:16:57.100 saying, like, look, Donald Trump

00:16:58.940 is the least interventionist president in the

00:17:01.000 post-war era.

00:17:02.700 I think that's correct, so far.

00:17:04.560 so this, you know, he's earned a little

00:17:06.780 trust on this. Sure. Okay, maybe, you know,

00:17:08.760 he's got more credibility than your

00:17:10.460 brother-in-law, Republican, and Democrat.

00:17:12.620 But I'm not willing to take anyone's word

00:17:14.720 for it that, like, guys, I've seen the evidence.

00:17:16.920 Trust me. George Bush said the same

00:17:18.680 thing. And at least George Bush presented some false

00:17:20.720 intelligence to us. Well, maybe they've learned from

00:17:22.700 that, I guess. Well, they're going to have to say,

00:17:24.520 God, show us the money. I don't know.

00:17:26.700 Wait, what'd the money look like? I mean,

00:17:28.740 Corey. Some kind of evidence. Corey said it

00:17:30.560 did the mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv.

00:17:32.140 Well, I mean, that'd be more evidence than we want.

00:17:35.760 Well, how much would you convince you?

00:17:39.420 I don't know. Photos?

00:17:41.880 People who have worked inside? I don't know.

00:17:43.920 I'm not an intelligence source. I'm not an intelligence agent here.

00:17:48.180 But we need evidence.

00:17:49.120 If you're going to launch a war that could potentially become something much bigger

00:17:53.220 and could potentially kill millions of people,

00:17:57.320 we've got to go on more than someone's word.

00:17:59.500 We can reverse that onus. I know it's trying to reason with the unreasonable, but maybe if Iran wants to avoid this, they could say, well, we'll bring in some outside observers to our facilities and prove we don't have this.

00:18:09.040 I know it's forcing them to prove a negative, but...

00:18:12.320 The ARL-Tumberg agency has been trying to get in there for years.

00:18:15.380 They've been a little less than...

00:18:18.080 A little spishy.

00:18:18.780 I think, you know, there were similar problems with Iraq.

00:18:23.540 Saddam Hussein was less than entirely cooperative.

00:18:27.040 But in the end, he did not have the bomb.

00:18:28.700 He was not building the bomb.

00:18:30.460 Well, the bomb wasn't the issue because they destroyed the Osiris plant years before.

00:18:34.380 Yeah, but they were claiming he was restarting these other weapons of mass destruction programs.

00:18:41.040 Heard that could not be true, but he had been less than cooperative.

00:18:43.680 So failure to cooperate is certainly suspicious.

00:18:46.100 It certainly should set off alarm bells, but in and of itself, I don't think it's caused a spell lie for a potential cataclysmic war.

00:18:54.320 Well, the toothpaste instead of the tube now, though, so the only thing left, again, as they're saying, is whether or not the Americans do that final.

00:19:01.660 So let's talk that.

00:19:03.860 To finish the job, finish is maybe the wrong word.

00:19:08.280 To finish destroying the nuclear facilities, they need the American B-2s with bunker buster bombs.

00:19:14.400 Now, that doesn't necessarily mean the job's done.

00:19:16.880 Iran might take this as a full state of war, and we're going to have to fight it through to some bloody conclusion. 0.95

00:19:22.960 So destroying those facilities with B-2s 1.00

00:19:24.880 does not necessarily mean the end of the war.

00:19:26.620 Maybe it does. I don't know.

00:19:28.460 But the Israelis appear to have bet. 0.88

00:19:33.100 Trump said not to be told Netanyahu not to do this.

00:19:36.560 Netanyahu went ahead and did it anyway

00:19:38.420 on the assumption that the Americans will be drawn in

00:19:41.660 and will do it.

00:19:42.820 Now, that is not a sure thing,

00:19:44.020 but that was the gamble that Netanyahu has made.

00:19:49.800 Put it to you, Nigel.

00:19:50.860 should the americans intervene here first of all i'm not sure that that was a gamble because like

00:19:55.800 we said in the previous segment they will whatever state that program of developing nuclear weapons

00:20:02.480 had reached what has happened in the last week has set that back a very long time so but it was

00:20:10.700 who took the gamble that the americans would intervene to finish them off in the end we are

00:20:16.400 Well, maybe.

00:20:19.160 He did not have a guarantee they would.

00:20:20.880 But he has already achieved, on behalf of Israel,

00:20:26.460 security from an Iranian nuclear attack.

00:20:30.020 I'm not qualified to judge, but probably for 10 years.

00:20:33.820 Maybe it's only 5, maybe it's 20.

00:20:36.400 What they've already done without that facility being destroyed

00:20:40.440 has already thrown the Iranians seriously off. 1.00

00:20:45.160 And by the way, if it's thrown it off for Israel, it's also thrown it off for the United States because you don't need a nuclear, you don't need a missile that can go from Tehran to New York.

00:20:56.760 You just need a means of delivery.

00:20:59.780 Well, that could be a container on a cargo ship.

00:21:02.260 So America has an interest in making sure.

00:21:06.620 But should America intervene here? Because if they do, the Iranians are then likely to more directly target American assets, and it increases the chance that this becomes an all-out regional war. 0.74

00:21:19.240 I guess that depends on their own intelligence at this point.

00:21:22.120 I mean, as we've said, it didn't seem like Trump's too eager to jump in

00:21:25.580 unless he sees something he feels might justify it.

00:21:30.180 Something else that's interesting in development out of this, though,

00:21:32.340 was Jordan stepping up when Iran was responding 0.65

00:21:35.960 and knocking out some of Iranian hardware coming over their country.

00:21:40.800 So Iran has lost a lot of friends around themselves, too.

00:21:44.220 We're not talking about this necessarily going into a full-out regional war.

00:21:47.300 Jordan's got no love of Israel, but at the same time, they don't want to get a hold. 0.90

00:21:50.720 Well, all of the Gulf Arab states and then some in the Levant, like Jordan, these guys hate Iran.

00:21:56.120 This is a Sunni Shia, largely, because these guys are terrified of Iranian hegemony in the region.

00:22:03.260 And if Iran does get the bomb, well, then the Saudis are going to buy a bomb in the next week from Pakistan or something.

00:22:09.640 It really is opening a door into a dark room as soon as Iran gets the bong here, but equally so, a potential regional war. 0.92

00:22:21.260 But does American intervention lessen the chance of this expanding to a bigger war, or does it increase the chance?

00:22:27.900 Well, it depends on how definitively—if Americans intervened and they definitively splattered things enough in Iran in short order,

00:22:34.720 I don't think other regions will be eager to raise their hand and say,

00:22:38.140 let's jump in and play in this sandbox with the rest of them.

00:22:40.960 I mean, war has changed too.

00:22:42.600 I mean, we're not going to see a bunch of alliance and all the tanks

00:22:44.340 rolling across the desert like we saw, you know, 30 years ago.

00:22:48.880 And in some ways it makes it more likely for them to jump into it,

00:22:51.560 but you're not putting as much manpower on the ground as you used to.

00:22:54.100 You're doing a lot more remote control, almost video game style.

00:22:57.140 I'm not sure Iran is really in a position to fight a war,

00:23:00.220 even if it wanted to.

00:23:01.200 Like right now they have, the Israelis have full control of the Tehran skies. 0.98

00:23:06.820 They don't actually have any people there.

00:23:09.380 So who are you going to shoot if you're an Iranian? 1.00

00:23:12.440 So Iran would be just in a position of saying, we hate you. 0.99

00:23:17.100 We hated you before, now we hate you even more.

00:23:19.980 There's not much they can do about it.

00:23:21.260 I'd be concerned about Iraq because Iraq was the implacable enemy of Ayatollah Iran. 0.93

00:23:28.360 Saddam Hussein was there because it was the Sunni 1.00

00:23:30.820 minority-dominated country

00:23:32.980 that was majority Shia and with

00:23:34.780 Kurds. 0.74

00:23:36.460 We don't want the Kurds in either of the... 1.00

00:23:38.280 Nobody wants the Kurds in a separate... 0.99

00:23:40.900 But

00:23:41.700 it's now, now that it's

00:23:45.020 democratic, it is

00:23:47.040 ruled by Shiites 0.86

00:23:48.360 with Iran.

00:23:53.440 It's hard to say because Sunni... 1.00

00:23:56.040 Saddam Hussein was Sunni.

00:23:58.360 and he still didn't get along with Iran by any measure.

00:24:00.580 No, no, that's my point.

00:24:01.540 When Saddam Hussein was removed

00:24:03.340 and the Americans pulled out,

00:24:05.380 the Iraqi regime became a lot more friendly with Iran.

00:24:08.160 Iran is extremely influential right now

00:24:10.280 in Iraq.

00:24:12.920 And that gets you awful close

00:24:14.440 to the borders of Israel at that point.

00:24:17.120 I don't think the Canadian military

00:24:18.320 could do much to stand in the way

00:24:19.400 if they had both of them.

00:24:20.520 If we're waiting for the peace in the Middle East, 0.72

00:24:22.280 I guess we're going to be waiting a while.

00:24:23.760 We're just going to hope for the best.

00:24:26.180 That's all we can.

00:24:27.500 I know what you're saying.

00:24:28.120 we're never going to get... I mean, the things that come up with

00:24:30.440 evidence, you don't know if you can necessarily trust that either, or

00:24:32.380 Geiger counters came up and found this material

00:24:34.400 from blowing up that mountain, and we know there was...

00:24:36.460 I want something between a mushroom cloud

00:24:38.640 and taking a

00:24:40.480 politician or intelligence agency's word

00:24:42.520 for it. I want something in between

00:24:44.420 those two. Maybe we'll get that.

00:24:46.900 So say, well, have the research assistant

00:24:48.520 look that up. Yeah.

00:24:50.400 We'll put a reporter on. Yeah.

00:24:53.040 Okay.

00:24:55.440 Well,

00:24:55.880 Well, it segues nicely to where we're going next.

00:25:00.520 Leaders of the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Canada.

00:25:09.200 Matt, for the G7.

00:25:12.600 Short drive from where we're sitting here in Calgary, just west of us in Canada's country.

00:25:19.060 A couple ways to stab at this.

00:25:20.760 But the meeting was, I think, significantly disrupted by Donald Trump pretty much touching down Sunday evening.

00:25:31.820 Yeah, actually, I was in I was sitting down to watch TV for the evening.

00:25:35.860 It was, you know, nine o'clock ish.

00:25:38.680 My house started to shake and that was Donald Trump and Donald Trump's helicopter Marine One and then his Osprey helicopter escorts rolling right over my house.

00:25:49.040 pretty, pretty low

00:25:50.440 on the way to the G7, coming from the

00:25:53.100 Calgary Airport.

00:25:55.280 So he dutched us down Sunday

00:25:57.060 night, and he left not too long

00:25:59.220 into the day, Monday.

00:26:00.820 It may have even been before noon, but he was

00:26:03.020 pretty much in and out, touching down like he was just

00:26:04.960 a quick little layover at an airport,

00:26:07.040 switching flights, went back to

00:26:09.080 the States to deal with the

00:26:10.920 evolving war in the Middle East here.

00:26:13.540 Without the American president 0.75

00:26:14.820 or this

00:26:16.520 I don't know, is there any point to the G7

00:26:20.980 without an American president present?

00:26:23.340 It's not so much the person of the president.

00:26:25.620 It is the strategy that whoever is president is following.

00:26:30.340 The issue here is that the G7 was formed at a time

00:26:33.640 by democratic countries interested in free trade

00:26:37.120 with the idea of pursuing those objectives,

00:26:40.440 democracy and free trade.

00:26:42.100 And without going as deep as a bunker buster bond takes us, it is simply the fact that the United States is the biggest part of the G7 in terms of product, gross domestic product production.

00:27:00.260 They're not interested in free trade anymore.

00:27:03.020 They're interested in protection.

00:27:04.660 And that removes right at the root the whole point of the G7.

00:27:09.360 We are actually, you heard it here first, we are actually living in a few years during

00:27:20.040 which the whole new era of international affairs is going to be rewritten.

00:27:26.240 It was rewritten at the end of the Second World War.

00:27:29.460 It was rewritten when we went into the free trade era of the 1970s, 80s, 90s.

00:27:36.840 all the liberalism represented by regan bush and bush too and now we're coming out of that

00:27:45.640 and we're going into big power blocks so the united states china particularly and the g7 0.90

00:27:54.280 doesn't have a place in that because nobody is interested in what the g7 has been doing for the

00:27:59.560 last 40 years they're interested in doing something completely different so trump wasn't particularly

00:28:04.920 interested in the business of the g7 i don't think he came in he signed a he signed a deal with the

00:28:09.480 british he batted mr carney on the arm and said it'll be all right in a few weeks and left and

00:28:16.120 that i think is the end of the g7 i don't even think there's a g6 to be solved out of it because

00:28:22.360 the americans are not part of it well i mean the g6 is essentially the main european countries plus

00:28:27.560 japan and canada and canada is increasing the the only reason canada's ever included in the original

00:28:32.440 g7 was courtesy it was courtesy they were being nice to us um i hate to say that by the way i

00:28:40.040 mean when i came to canada in 73 and some before i thought it was a great place it was rocking

00:28:46.360 things were going well i was proud it's just what the last 10 years have done sadly and bitterly

00:28:53.160 reduced us well we're poor in italy now which makes us i think uh effective we're a rich second

00:28:59.480 world country at this point yeah yeah uh to nigel's point both for and against it

00:29:08.720 at the same time oddly the g7 doesn't deal just with major economic issues it kind of depends on

00:29:14.040 what's what's dominating the news cycle at the time that the g7 is held you know often it's

00:29:19.900 dealing with foreign policy you know you know selensky was there um you know sometimes it's

00:29:25.880 dealt with covid etc uh the americans do have a different agenda on trade it would appear

00:29:31.600 than you know the other g7 members at this point um but its relevance on foreign policy must

00:29:37.460 also be diminished if it ever really had an influence because this is a key moment in foreign

00:29:43.900 policy and trump decided not to stay there with other major leaders in uh the western world plus

00:29:52.260 japan he decided that that was not the most relevant place to be it was just in washington

00:29:57.680 in the situation room um what is did anything of any significance come out of this meeting

00:30:04.680 i don't think so as i just said it was kind of a beginning of an end perhaps trump snubbed it

00:30:09.020 without much uh regard i i mean the claim was that i don't think things are escalating in israel and

00:30:14.820 and uh you know i ran but i i haven't seen any action out of trump since then that was

00:30:19.960 tell me that he really needed to be in Washington to make some of those decisions or be briefed on

00:30:24.720 issues or, you know, be there in person or anything of that sort. Sounds more like a pretense to me.

00:30:31.040 And anything that would have been sticky diplomatically is Zelensky being there. And he

00:30:35.020 maybe just wanted to avoid the headache, which shows again, the indifference he kind of treats

00:30:39.360 the G7 with though, that it's a headache. I don't want to bother with it. I'm just going to kind of

00:30:43.780 bow out after making a token appearance, shake some hands, smile, get a picture. I feel like

00:30:47.900 treated it the way most canada prime ministers treat a premier's meeting yeah pretty much you're

00:30:51.900 the senior guy in the room you want to show up for a picture but you don't want to be pastured

00:30:55.740 by these you don't actually didn't even get the picture you know they didn't need to take the

00:30:59.740 tradition of having a group picture he wasn't there for it to your point you asked well was

00:31:03.980 there anything significant uh diligent readers of the western standard will already be aware

00:31:09.020 that there were in fact six uh statements that were agreed upon and this is what they were

00:31:15.740 securing high standard critical mineral supply chains that power future economies that's one

00:31:23.500 driving secure responsible and trustworthy ai solutions

00:31:29.260 boosting cooperation to unlock quantum technologies full potential to grow economies

00:31:36.940 so that can start tomorrow number four mounting a multilateral effort to prevent

00:31:42.620 fight and recovery from rising wildfires i wouldn't i won't even bore you with the other

00:31:49.500 two they are in the western standard in a thoughtful editorial that we published yesterday

00:31:58.620 um it's not worth the effort that goes into preparing these meetings if you're not going

00:32:05.500 to deal with the big money issues and that's now a thing of the past this is stuff that could have

00:32:10.700 been done by a committee of bureaucrats on through email well actually i know as funny as you think

00:32:15.100 i mean all this stuff is the problem the bureaucrats they work on this they're already 0.99

00:32:19.900 working on the next year's one they haven't been told that the game's up they're already working

00:32:24.380 on this for next year and all that happens is they get all the paperwork together the leaders fly in

00:32:30.380 they shake hands they sign the paper make a few statements get the group photo and everybody goes

00:32:35.820 home. And in this case, Trump

00:32:37.740 said, if that's all it is, I'm out of here.

00:32:40.100 It's one small victory. I mean,

00:32:41.760 we know that a former

00:32:43.900 prime minister was pining away because he

00:32:45.740 desperately wanted to be the man to

00:32:47.640 host that, if only for his final

00:32:50.000 act as a prime minister, if he knew

00:32:51.880 he was on the way out the door, but he couldn't cling that

00:32:53.820 long. And whatever Carney

00:32:55.980 might have done, at least he didn't do anything to

00:32:57.900 embarrass us. There was always that risk with our last

00:32:59.940 prime minister. He was going to feel a stunt.

00:33:01.700 Well, he didn't pull his socks off.

00:33:03.220 for us. Yeah, he's at least

00:33:04.940 doing mean girl gossiping. He's got

00:33:07.160 some dignity about himself and

00:33:08.900 diplomacy, whereas our last leader

00:33:11.060 didn't, because we'd always cringe whenever

00:33:12.980 our last Prime Minister went overseas or

00:33:15.020 was hosting something like this, because

00:33:16.940 what's he going to do this time?

00:33:19.200 Again, I'm not a Kearney fan by any

00:33:21.040 means, but at least

00:33:23.260 you don't have to worry about that.

00:33:24.840 A small victory.

00:33:26.420 I was disappointed mostly

00:33:29.140 because we had two of

00:33:31.080 our reporters,

00:33:31.640 two of our new staff

00:33:33.940 on the ground at the G7

00:33:36.260 G6 meeting

00:33:38.120 in Kananaskis there

00:33:39.240 I was really

00:33:42.180 looking forward, we were trying really hard

00:33:43.920 we were actually in contact with the White House to get into

00:33:46.160 the pool to ask questions up front

00:33:47.840 one really

00:33:50.120 really relevant question

00:33:52.260 I was really hoping that would get

00:33:53.480 it would have been so good because this is

00:33:56.200 in Alberta, this is in Selder in Alberta

00:33:57.920 he's close to the epicenter

00:34:00.300 of the independence movement in Alberta.

00:34:03.240 And we wanted to ask Donald Trump

00:34:06.000 that in the event that Alberta

00:34:08.100 does vote for independence

00:34:09.880 and the likely coming referendum

00:34:11.320 we're going to have,

00:34:12.560 will he recognize Alberta's sovereignty?

00:34:16.460 Because any answer other than no

00:34:19.040 would have been an earthquake.

00:34:21.840 It would completely upset the calculus

00:34:23.400 of the federal government,

00:34:24.180 which would hope that it could simply

00:34:25.780 rag the puck on negotiations

00:34:27.240 and Alberta stays within Canada

00:34:30.480 no matter how it votes.

00:34:33.360 But our best laid plans for that

00:34:35.440 were kiboshed when Trump took off

00:34:38.560 to go back to Washington.

00:34:39.500 Up until you put that thought to Catherine Levitt

00:34:43.160 that he was going to stay for the whole show.

00:34:47.700 But you have to wonder

00:34:49.280 if you use beautiful Kananaskis

00:34:51.400 and the Rocky Mountains.

00:34:51.980 I don't want to answer the question.

00:34:53.420 Yeah.

00:34:54.320 But you have to wonder

00:34:55.300 and Trump didn't stay too long

00:34:57.820 but he's flying out looking at the place

00:34:59.900 I think

00:35:00.320 this place is pretty nice

00:35:02.440 casino can go there

00:35:03.940 he actually flew over

00:35:07.260 two casinos on the way there

00:35:10.020 Trump

00:35:11.240 national

00:35:11.840 you just have to wonder

00:35:17.660 how much he was like

00:35:18.520 this place should be real nice

00:35:21.120 okay

00:35:23.760 Okay, so we're taking it from the international to the international locally to the local.

00:35:32.160 Corey, ever since COVID vaccines and then boosters became available, governments everywhere in Canada have been paying for this.

00:35:41.740 Alberta, I believe, is the first government that has said it's going to finally stop paying for this.

00:35:46.760 COVID is really getting in the rearview mirror now.

00:35:49.080 It is not a significant threat, particularly if you're not a senior living in a communal living home.

00:35:56.260 And even there, it's pretty low now.

00:35:57.720 But wherever it is a lingering, remaining threat of any kind, that would really be only it.

00:36:02.020 So the Alberta government said it's ending taxpayer-funded COVID boosters.

00:36:06.720 You know, if you're under your...

00:36:07.740 How many hundreds of boosters are you into at this point?

00:36:10.500 You're limping around.

00:36:13.260 Perforated, yeah.

00:36:14.140 Yeah, and you're demanding more boosters.

00:36:15.700 So unless you're the immunocompromised people living in communal seniors' homes, they're still covered. 0.91

00:36:21.780 But everybody else you've got to pay for on your own.

00:36:24.500 It's been a pretty predictable reaction from the predictable people on that.

00:36:28.400 Yeah, if it had been any other premier, they would have said, well, they're being pragmatic with changing times.

00:36:33.040 But it is the great devil Daniel Smith.

00:36:34.900 So thus, there's an underhanded anti-vax motivation behind it.

00:36:38.860 Not the fact that only, what, 14% of Albertans are partaking in that vaccination any longer.

00:36:45.060 Is it as high as 14% still getting COVID boosters?

00:36:48.160 I think it was 14.

00:36:49.120 I could be corrected on that. 1.00

00:36:51.600 Too many stupid people still here. 1.00

00:36:53.020 Well, there's still some vulnerable people, seniors, others who could find some benefit from vaccination with that. 1.00

00:36:59.580 As well, a whole pile of it, I mean, it has a shelf life.

00:37:02.420 And as has been pointed out, we've been throwing millions of dollars down the drain because we've had this big backlog of vaccinations that nobody had to pay for.

00:37:11.860 And they're choosing not to go in and get them.

00:37:13.820 So why on earth do we continue to offer them?

00:37:16.300 It's a common sense statement.

00:37:19.000 I'm supposed to end up constantly getting encouraged by my wife to bother going and getting the shingles vaccination. 1.00

00:37:25.500 That's $400.

00:37:27.840 I caught shingles a month or so ago.

00:37:29.820 I didn't even know what it was until I was.

00:37:31.560 Well, and for people who get badly infected with it, it can have some terrible long-term consequences and make them very, very ill.

00:37:39.580 And after a certain age, you're encouraged to get it.

00:37:41.820 But even with that, they say you're encouraged to get it, but this is one of those things

00:37:45.540 you'll have to reach into your pocket and pay for to get by yourself.

00:37:49.440 We can't pay for everything for everybody all the time.

00:37:52.600 I mean, I understand that our socialists in office feel that that's plausible.

00:37:56.440 That's part of why we have a healthcare system that's overwhelmed and waiting lists that

00:38:00.620 are interminable because we are trying to be everything to everybody all the time.

00:38:04.380 So yeah, if there's only demand from 14% of the populace for a particular service,

00:38:09.800 Why are we funding it for 100%?

00:38:12.180 It was a common sense decision,

00:38:13.620 but the establishment's going to paint it as, again, 0.95

00:38:16.360 as Smith just being the evil wicked witch in the West. 0.94

00:38:20.080 So the Western Standard actually had, 0.82

00:38:22.920 we just pat ourselves on the back.

00:38:25.120 We had this story first before the government announced it.

00:38:27.920 It was a nice little scoop.

00:38:30.460 But there was a very predictable reaction.

00:38:33.800 One is, well, what's the politics of this?

00:38:37.380 I think, you know, people who are against the COVID vaccination, they're obviously happy to see this gone.

00:38:43.900 I think most people generally don't care because most people are not taking their 300th booster at this point.

00:38:50.280 It's a pretty small number at this point.

00:38:52.640 As Corey points out, some of those people I think actually is fairly legitimate.

00:38:56.140 You're in a communal living home for seniors, you're immunocompromised. 0.99

00:38:59.820 Those people, I get them.

00:39:01.080 And for them, it's still covered.

00:39:02.160 um but you know what would what's the kind of the ndp's political calculus do you think and

00:39:09.960 you know screaming uh ringing the alarm bells about this when almost no one's taking it at

00:39:16.680 this point who's not immunocompromised well i mean i think the political calculus isn't any

00:39:23.220 more sophisticated than if danielle smith is for it we're against it and if she's against it we're

00:39:29.200 for it so that's that you know at the very basement level whatever she says they're going

00:39:33.920 to disagree but i i actually have a theory that the ndp honestly believes that you need to have

00:39:44.800 a kind of a nanny state approach to public health and that ever they were very happy with the

00:39:50.880 situation and back in 2020 21 where everybody had to do what they were told and if they couldn't

00:39:57.440 and there would be penalties and you know take your medicine well they still think that

00:40:04.560 and it's remarkable that they do so because there's no strong evidence that these vaccines

00:40:13.040 were neither safe nor effective um we published a graph i think it was yesterday it's in murray

00:40:20.960 lytle's column on the subject and it shows what it shows is at first there was this spike in deaths

00:40:28.960 from covid and then it it kind of got a little better a little better and then you hit 2021 fall

00:40:38.400 when everybody was encouraged to forced really to take vaccines and there is an almost vertical

00:40:45.680 spike like that massive increase in the number of covid deaths after the introduction of the

00:40:54.260 vaccines now i'm not saying that the vaccines caused the deaths but what i'm saying is it

00:40:58.720 didn't prevent them and so people said whatever you know meanwhile i've you know plenty of people

00:41:05.020 tell you what a rough ride they had when they had the vaccine and there's some evidence that

00:41:09.880 i'm not qualified to judge but uh it certainly needs to be investigated by somebody who is

00:41:15.640 that there were adverse outcomes from people who did take the vaccine

00:41:20.820 because they were awarded to.

00:41:22.960 So my thought on the whole thing is that Albertans generally

00:41:28.420 are pretty skeptical of the vaccine.

00:41:30.680 They have good reason to be.

00:41:32.300 But if you're a member of a party that believes in top-down control,

00:41:36.720 you haven't got that message yet.

00:41:38.560 Well, let's remember the UCP under Kenny was opposing

00:41:43.620 exactly that kind of top-down control

00:41:45.980 when he was still

00:41:47.740 in power. The NDP's only problem was

00:41:49.760 he did not go far enough for

00:41:51.700 what they wanted. But he essentially did everything that

00:41:53.660 they wanted. They would just then layer

00:41:55.540 more things on top of their demands.

00:41:57.520 And it'll be in the column that I have

00:41:59.780 coming out this week, but I write on that just that

00:42:01.780 now we're seeing measles popping up. We're seeing

00:42:03.980 whooping cough popping up.

00:42:05.640 And I attribute a lot

00:42:07.840 of the people who are choosing not to get these

00:42:09.800 well-established vaccines now

00:42:11.360 due to the authoritarian

00:42:13.280 and untrustworthy push that the government

00:42:15.460 did. It made such mistrust that now

00:42:17.300 unfortunately people are choosing not

00:42:19.540 to get the vaccines which were proven

00:42:21.520 to be safe and effective.

00:42:23.540 It's backfired and it's actually made

00:42:25.580 us more

00:42:27.380 unsafe. Well, what we're forgetting is that

00:42:29.020 the thing that they gave you for COVID actually was

00:42:31.420 the vaccine. They had to retroactively

00:42:33.480 change the definition of vaccine

00:42:35.200 in order for them to be honestly able to

00:42:37.420 use the word.

00:42:37.940 It could be.

00:42:40.080 It's led to people losing trust in all of them, which is

00:42:41.960 bad yeah some of these are very long established and proven medical technologies that have saved

00:42:50.440 millions of lives around the world uh yeah and i know there's a lot of reasons if you are if you

00:42:56.840 have a child get the bloody vaccine the measles vaccine you know yeah mumps i mean it starts

00:43:05.080 things like that yeah but you but you're bang on that you know the authoritarian measures taken

00:43:08.840 during COVID created a general distrust

00:43:11.120 of vaccines. And I can

00:43:12.980 understand why. It's reasonable.

00:43:15.980 Yes. But I

00:43:17.020 think it's the wrong conclusion

00:43:18.940 to draw from the COVID experiment.

00:43:21.260 Yeah. It was an

00:43:22.760 uneducated consequence as a conclusion.

00:43:25.140 Yeah. And being more authoritarian, unfortunately,

00:43:27.020 is their instinct on how to deal with them. I'm hearing people talking

00:43:29.040 about it. We've got a lot more

00:43:30.660 on this. Oh, boy. You're not helping.

00:43:32.600 We're just going to go in the opposite direction.

00:43:34.680 Yeah. Yeah.

00:43:36.320 All right. Well, let's turn it now

00:43:38.560 to our parting shots. I'm going to give it to you first today, Corey. Sure. Well, I'm back on

00:43:42.440 justice. It's always a favorite of mine. I just read stories, you know, that just make my hair

00:43:46.020 grayer. We saw the one recently with the judge saying, uh, the gentleman shouldn't do any time

00:43:51.580 in jail because he had a, just a modest collection of child porn. Uh, now there was a, it was

00:43:58.200 tasteful. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so here's another one with a guy who pushed his girlfriend off a 50

00:44:04.040 foot cliff to her death where she wasn't found for three weeks until a friend of his finally

00:44:11.080 ratted on him to say, hey, by the way, he killed his girlfriend. She's at the bottom of the cliff.

00:44:16.040 He, part of the defense was that there wasn't a guardrail there. So I guess we should always put

00:44:20.840 guardrails up, not to stop people from pushing girlfriends off cliffs. His sentence got reduced

00:44:25.540 though on this to 698 days in appeal uh if if we can't get 10-year sentences for people who do

00:44:35.000 things like this where are we going meanwhile i saw a story resurfacing in the standard covered

00:44:39.660 that well whereas we took a guy who sold eggs and put him in jail for a couple of days and

00:44:44.700 tamara leach is still in the midst of the longest mischief mischief trial in modern history our 1.00

00:44:50.340 justice system has just got priorities that are just completely out of whack so because you went

00:44:54.960 there, I'm going to put myself

00:44:56.360 second for parting shots, because it's a good

00:44:58.940 segue.

00:45:00.680 The egg farmer who got in trouble

00:45:02.760 and they came to murderous chickens, and so he

00:45:04.820 put them on the underground rail

00:45:06.500 to get them out,

00:45:08.580 that was because of supply management.

00:45:11.440 Parliament just passed

00:45:12.960 Bill 202. It is a blockade

00:45:14.700 of private members' bill from the previous parliament

00:45:16.740 that they managed to revive, and

00:45:18.760 it makes it illegal for the federal

00:45:20.900 government to

00:45:22.040 include any discussion of

00:45:24.960 supply management that is canada's soviet style command and control price and supply fixing

00:45:31.600 uh regime for primarily dairy but also eggs and parts of poultry and things like that

00:45:39.100 uh parliament just voted to pass it including and we expect the socialist parties to vote for

00:45:45.180 that kind of thing uh the dairy cartel is so powerful we get it but i want to shame half of

00:45:50.980 the conservative caucus that voted for it uh half the conservatives uh stood on principle and voted

00:45:56.980 against the bill uh even if all the conservatives vote against it still would have passed uh so

00:46:01.540 there's very little political risk i think there but half of them are still scared shitless of the

00:46:06.740 dairy cartel and voted in line with it voted with the bloc the ndp and the liberals and the greens

00:46:15.540 for this atrocious piece of legislation and it just shows that our political class

00:46:20.980 the entire left and at least half of the conservatives are not very elbows up if we 0.82

00:46:26.000 are really taking this trade uh crisis seriously we would put one of the weakest most uh ridiculous

00:46:33.080 parts of our economy on the chopping block in negotiations because we're better off without it

00:46:37.300 ourselves and it's a huge barrier to trade uh trade agreements which is why the grain growers

00:46:42.340 came out today because they know that that bill is going to mean less exports for actual competitive

00:46:47.320 industries. So I just want to take

00:46:49.400 a moment to shame the half of the Conservative

00:46:51.340 Caucus that voted to that bill.

00:46:53.200 Amen. And as

00:46:55.320 for me, I would say that

00:46:57.040 whether you are at a

00:46:59.280 G7 meeting or playing

00:47:01.460 poker, if

00:47:03.320 you won't get much done, if

00:47:05.280 you don't have a Trump.

00:47:08.280 Ooh.

00:47:09.120 Oh. Well done.

00:47:11.680 Okay. Well.

00:47:13.400 Mic drop there. Finish it 0.95

00:47:15.360 like George Gisdans and go out on a high note.

00:47:17.320 All right, Corey, Nigel. Thank you very much. Thank you, John, for producing today's show. Thank all of you for joining us on the pipeline today. Remember, if you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, you really should be. Go to westernstandard.news, click on subscribe. It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all Western Standard content.

00:47:37.760 We've got reporters in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Vancouver, pretty soon probably back on Parliament Hill.

00:47:46.040 We've got lots of stuff you don't want to miss and get past that pesky paywall.

00:47:49.060 And you'll be supporting the work that we're doing here at the Western Standard.

00:47:52.540 Thank you very much for joining us today, and God bless.

00:48:07.760 Thank you.

Western Standard - June 19, 2025

Not our war？

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