Western Standard - Polls show Alberta independence & UCP gaining

00:00:00 Good day and welcome.

00:00:25 Today is February 26, 2026.

00:00:28 I am Derek Fildebrandt, the publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:33 I've got almost the identical normal lineup here.

00:00:37 We've got former Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:40 We've got senior Alberta columnist Corey Morgan.

00:00:45 Filling in for Dave Naylor is David Veitschnek.

00:00:48 Thanks for having me.

00:00:49 It's confusing you in the office.

00:00:51 We've got two Daves, double D, and we've also got two Johns.

00:00:55 We do this too much here.

00:00:58 um all right we're gonna be talking about uh two cases from human rights commissions one

00:01:04 in Quebec the other in British Columbia in Quebec where some poor little hair salon was 1.00

00:01:11 fined five hundred dollars for having a male and female uh option when booking appointments on the

00:01:18 website and I guess a non-binary person with no hair uh was not able to select an other category

00:01:27 And then in British Columbia, slightly more expensive, three quarters of a million, yeah, three quarters of a million dollars awarded, taken from some guy who opposes radical gender ideology and given to weird BC teachers organizations because he disagrees and expressed himself on social media.

00:01:54 and that is so damaging uh we're going to talk about the nine very likely ten referendum

00:02:03 questions that are going to be coming up in alberta in october question five of them on

00:02:09 immigration four them on constitutional reforms and then the final one very likely on independence

00:02:16 uh it's quite strange we've had referendums before not a lot i don't think any place in

00:02:23 Canada's ever had 10 at the same time. I doubt any has even had more than two or three at a time.

00:02:29 It's new ground. But first, we're going to talk about a series of polls the Western Standard

00:02:34 commissioned. Western Standard hired Main Street Research to poll Albertans. We did a pretty big

00:02:41 sample size for this, asking a variety of questions. David Veitschik, we've got in today

00:02:46 because he led most of those stories.

00:02:50 We'll talk first maybe about the poll we asked on independence,

00:02:56 you know, how Albertans would vote.

00:03:00 Well, right off the bat, Derek, I mean, the poll, I'm just bringing it up here.

00:03:03 If a referendum were held today in Alberta,

00:03:05 basically 34% said that they would be for independence

00:03:08 and 66% said that they'd remain part of Canada,

00:03:11 which seems to be kind of similar to a bunch of other polls that we've seen recently.

00:03:14 I think there was one that just came out today.

00:03:16 I saw that said, can't remember who did it, but they said that 80% of all Canadians that they polled

00:03:20 wanted to see Alberta and Quebec still stay within Canada. So the numbers are kind of just varying,

00:03:24 but I mean, for the most part, I've seen that. I think 34% are roughly around that 34% number

00:03:28 supporting independence in numerous places, but this poll just kind of proves that point.

00:03:33 I'm just looking here to see what the gender divide is. 73% of women actually were for a 1.00

00:03:39 remaining part of Canada, and that seemed to be a number that popped up a lot with the

00:03:42 questions pertaining to independence.

00:03:44 I don't know what the point is or the deal is with that

00:03:46 exactly. I don't know, maybe if

00:03:48 you have any thoughts on that?

00:03:49 Well, men, on most

00:03:51 issues, you know, it's not going to be clear-cut,

00:03:53 but men will skew to the right

00:03:55 on issues, and women will skew 1.00

00:03:57 to the left on issues,

00:03:59 and that's not just Alberta or even Canada,

00:04:01 that's just most places in the world

00:04:03 where people vote on things.

00:04:06 And, you know, the Alberta

00:04:07 independence movement's dominantly

00:04:09 a political project, so you're going to

00:04:11 it's, you know, it's going to lean right. Um, one of the things, uh, I mean, Corey, this, uh,

00:04:17 the poll was, I mean, it's not out of line with what we've seen before. Other polls will show it

00:04:21 lower though. Uh, would they just change one word independence or separation? Uh, I I've always said

00:04:28 that, you know, it's like, uh, you know, you, your marriage is ended and you go to the singles bar

00:04:35 and you can introduce yourself as single or you can introduce yourself as divorced. They mean kind

00:04:39 of the same thing in this context but they have a very different uh connotation to it so i i think

00:04:44 that's one thing that fuels it absolutely i mean there's lots of ways we know that you can massage

00:04:49 polls sometimes to get results that you want and that wasn't the case in this it was straightforward

00:04:53 questions but that's where you can see some disparity between different uh people who have

00:04:57 polled and and some of the outcomes something is as minor as the question i mean separation sounds

00:05:02 harsh and negative and uh you know is an end yeah but it's just likewise it can also tell you where

00:05:09 somebody stands as soon as you're talking to them, particularly in media, if they use the word

00:05:13 separatist, chances are they're not terribly thrilled with the concept altogether. They use

00:05:17 independence, maybe they're a little more receptive, but it's like tar sands and oil sands.

00:05:21 If they're anti-energy, conventional energy, they're going to call it tar sands. If you're

00:05:27 not, it's oil sands. And words count though. These campaigns are made to convince people to go one

00:05:35 way or another and we'll see these sorts of things happening. What's interesting though,

00:05:38 the numbers you had too that were on the undecideds have been removed. Yeah. So that's

00:05:45 still a large chunk that we can see a lot of momentum might happen in this next eight months

00:05:50 since we've never really had a discussion like this this long. Yeah. Nigel, it wasn't our poll,

00:05:56 it was someone else's poll and they pulled across Canada on if Alberta should be allowed to leave

00:06:01 And if Quebec should be allowed to leave, I guess implying that if they try to, Canada would send the army or something.

00:06:09 I guess that's implied in that at the end of the day.

00:06:13 Super majorities of people outside of Alberta and Quebec, super majorities across Canada say, no, they should not.

00:06:20 But notably, it was six to eight points higher for refusing to allow Alberta to leave.

00:06:27 i think there is a significant number of people probably in alberta who would be happy for quebec

00:06:32 to leave um so i maybe i didn't look around uh the cross tabs for enough detail but it was funny

00:06:38 to me that more a huge number of canadians are like no they should not be allowed to which then

00:06:44 raises the next ideological the next logical question which is what are you prepared to do

00:06:50 to not let someone leave well that's precisely what i thought when i read the story this morning

00:06:57 it makes perfect sense that the rest of Canada would be very against allowing the province that

00:07:03 pays the freight to leave Confederation. I mean, just the Canada pension plan would be the first

00:07:08 hit. And coming right after that, the whole reason why we have such a debate about equalization

00:07:17 in Alberta is that it doesn't work for us. We end up paying not a bit more, you know,

00:07:23 You know, not that little bit more, which just makes you a good citizen, but basically paying the cost of confederation.

00:07:29 So, you bet people in eastern and central Canada understand exactly what that game is.

00:07:35 Alberta is just about the only half province.

00:07:40 In other words, where the money comes from.

00:07:43 If you may indulge me in a personal anecdote, some years ago I was in Quebec, in that part of Quebec on the north side of the river, which doesn't speak English.

00:07:51 very hard to find somebody

00:07:54 but we noticed

00:07:56 as we went around the houses, everything

00:07:58 was fixed up, it was just beautiful, they'd had

00:08:00 an ice storm just a year or two before

00:08:02 finally managed to find somebody

00:08:04 with broken English and they said

00:08:05 great, where did you get the money from?

00:08:07 oh, it's from the government, well where does the

00:08:10 Quebec government get money from?

00:08:11 it gets it from Alberta, so we were happily

00:08:14 there looking around to see what we paid for

00:08:16 yeah, of course they don't want us to go

00:08:17 as you say, what are they prepared

00:08:20 to do to keep us logically you have to be prepared to send the army if you had an army yeah yeah well

00:08:27 i guess i guess canada is planning on having an army now staffed with non-canadians we're happy

00:08:32 to use military force against canadians that's almost a little chilling i i had a slovakian

00:08:37 friend who we know with this mandatory service in the 80s the way they worked it with them is

00:08:42 you're all under the soviet umbrella but you never got stationed in slovakia you got he got stationed

00:08:47 in east berlin and likewise polish soldiers would be in ukraine they would always make sure that 0.75

00:08:52 that way in case they had to do something against the local population there wasn't a loyalty to it

00:08:57 i don't think i'm not going to read in so far thinking that's the motivation to discover it

00:09:01 i think it's one that just doesn't know how to draw people into the military and is getting

00:09:04 desperate but there's some reasons to be concerned when you have people who aren't domestic in your

00:09:11 military forces you know to that point corey if they want to import people from that part of the

00:09:16 world into the canadian armed forces they're probably going to have a bit of a tampon trouble 0.92

00:09:22 in the washrooms these guys are not that kind of true enough you know there's some slovakian guy 0.99

00:09:30 what does this machine here for yeah but the thing is if you have people with that mindset

00:09:36 yes you probably could deploy them against the canadian population and they wouldn't mind all 1.00

00:09:42 All right. So we have a few poll questions. There was one that was not that surprising. We'll talk the federal and provincial vote. The results on the, you know, how people would vote in an Alberta election. Not, I mean, pretty good news for the UCP, pretty big lead over the NDP.

00:10:02 the Liberals

00:10:06 it's funny, I guess it's just a residual

00:10:08 brand recognition, they've pulled like

00:10:10 6% or something down

00:10:12 but they almost don't run candidates at this point

00:10:14 they're effectively a dissolved party for all

00:10:16 intents. Yeah, well 6%, yeah. So I

00:10:18 caution Conservatives that that Liberal vote

00:10:20 is likely just to vote NDP in a provincial

00:10:22 election because they're going to go cast a ballot

00:10:24 they're not going to be there. But noticeably

00:10:26 the so-called progressive

00:10:28 Tory party, you know

00:10:30 the two breakaway MLAs

00:10:31 and the Republicans

00:10:33 and Independence Party, both of them

00:10:36 are like 1%. They're just total no-shows.

00:10:38 Yeah, no, the Republicans are 1%.

00:10:40 The Progressives are actually 3%.

00:10:41 It's like, yeah, not much big of a difference, let's be honest,

00:10:44 really, and I think the other people that would vote

00:10:45 for another party is also pulling at 1%, so again,

00:10:47 it's just minuscule, really.

00:10:49 Yeah.

00:10:51 Corey, the Progressive Tories,

00:10:54 it's not really...

00:10:56 You know, new parties are always hard

00:10:57 to start and get traction on.

00:10:59 We've both been through that,

00:11:01 but uh if you're gonna start a new party in canada almost any political system you have to

00:11:07 come in from the edges you have to offer something no one else is offering and this is just like

00:11:12 the late actually quite legally speaking it is the it is the alberta party yeah with the new name

00:11:18 they're just trying to set up switzerland in 1917 on the western front like there's already two big

00:11:26 armies hacking at each other fighting over no man's land and you're you're proposing to set

00:11:30 up your lines in no man's land where everyone's already fighting over well and it's just continuing

00:11:35 that recipe for failure the Alberta party's had for 15 years where they just keep saying

00:11:40 we're the middle we're the middle well good for you but when people vote they vote for this or

00:11:45 they vote for that and as much as you know you listen to some polls people say oh I get tired

00:11:49 of hearing from left and right and I'm in the middle well perhaps but your votes don't actually

00:11:54 reflect that. So this progressive Tory party is going to have to stand for something if it wants

00:12:00 to carve out a spot for itself. As it sits, it's just an area for disenchanted, left-leaning

00:12:06 conservatives to land, and it's just not grabbing anybody's imagination. I don't expect much of it.

00:12:12 The federal poll was, I think, the most interesting.

00:12:18 Well, here, why don't you give us the results of the...

00:12:21 Well, this is the Alberta voters for a federal election.

00:12:25 Yeah, and this is, again, with the undecideds removed,

00:12:27 48% said they'd vote for the Conservative Party under Polyev,

00:12:32 and 45%, surprising, this was the big thing that people were talking about,

00:12:35 said they would vote for the Liberals under Mark Carney.

00:12:36 I have no idea where that number came from,

00:12:38 because I did not expect to see that originally when we started looking at these numbers.

00:12:42 Yeah, that is, I didn't believe it.

00:12:45 I'm still highly skeptical of it.

00:12:47 I'm becoming a little less skeptical of it,

00:12:49 But I saw that. I don't think there's a single person alive in Alberta who has been around with the liberals, came even anywhere close to tying the conservatives or one of the conservative pre-assessor parties like Reform Alliance, etc.

00:13:06 This is unheard of. And so I didn't really believe it, except, you know, we asked rough 10, 12-ish questions.

00:13:12 We asked a bunch of questions. And the answers on those, for the most part, didn't really surprise me, like the provincial vote attention.

00:13:19 independence how people thought about pensions a number of different questions it all lined up

00:13:23 more or less with the conventional wisdom let me think it's possible nigel that this could be 0.99

00:13:30 correct i know um you know there were uh some other conservative media and some uh some people

00:13:37 in you know the conservative sphere very upset with us for releasing this poll to which i said

00:13:43 like we paid to have a good poll done and just because we didn't like the answer doesn't mean

00:13:48 we don't release it we're you know we're not doing propaganda for you here we might be on the right

00:13:53 but we're not working for a conservative party here that's not our job there are some people

00:13:57 who'd rather not know from their doctor that they have cancer so i you're going to get a certain

00:14:01 amount of that but this says there's a big big problem for the federal conservatives in alberta

00:14:06 yeah and i and i think where it comes from just a theory but uh there's a tendency when the world

00:14:12 looks like a dark place to gather around the flag to gather around the government of the day

00:14:18 in an attempt to find certainty and comfort.

00:14:23 It's like people who build their houses beside a fort.

00:14:26 You know, they want to be, they're looking for protection.

00:14:29 It's not the Alberta way, which makes this very surprising.

00:14:32 But I still have to say that when people, first of all,

00:14:38 the narrative around the Conservative Party at the moment

00:14:41 is unfortunately not as strong as the Conservatives would wish it to be.

00:14:45 There are tensions within the party.

00:14:47 And although nobody talks about it, then nevertheless, they're there.

00:14:53 And so can we trust the Conservatives to lead us out of this?

00:14:57 They asked themselves, what's going on with separation?

00:15:03 What's going on with independence, whichever way you want to look at it?

00:15:08 Is that going to affect my pension?

00:15:09 Answer, no, it shouldn't.

00:15:11 But at any rate, that's just my opinion.

00:15:13 Other people have theirs and they get scared.

00:15:15 And then they say, well, this carny chop seems steady.

00:15:20 Let's just part there for a while.

00:15:22 So I see this as a reaction to this.

00:15:25 This is searching for certain searching for certainty.

00:15:28 Well, one thing I would say as well, Derek, if I may, that was very interesting is 38 percent of people that were polled from the rest of Alberta, which is like rural Alberta, said that they would vote for carny and the liberals.

00:15:38 That's the weird one that I couldn't understand.

00:15:40 That doesn't make sense to me.

00:15:41 No, but we've had those.

00:15:43 I think it was Angus Reid came out

00:15:44 yesterday or something, and

00:15:47 they didn't show the Liberals as strong

00:15:49 in Alberta, but showed

00:15:51 very unusual levels of strength.

00:15:53 Yeah, kind of getting into this neighborhood.

00:15:55 Well, there's still some hangover, I think, though,

00:15:57 and I mean, even among Albertans, and we're

00:15:59 seeing that attitude. There's a U.S.

00:16:01 versus Canada state that's been

00:16:03 fostered by the Liberals and fostered by

00:16:05 Trump back and forth,

00:16:07 and it kind of plays into what Nigel's saying, too.

00:16:09 People will rally the forces.

00:16:11 I mean, even if they're proud Albertans and they're ticked with Ottawa, when you see an external threat and when you see, you know, some of the tensions and attitudes going on with that, you'll sometimes go, Poliev hasn't been able to frame himself as the person who can defend against Trump.

00:16:28 That's been the thing hanging over his neck for a year now, and it's hitting him, I think, here as well.

00:16:32 I think it's not so much that Albertans have turned into liberals, but when push comes to shove, they're just not feeling confidence that Poliev is going to stand up for their interests.

00:16:41 Um, yeah, I mean, there's a rally around the flag effect whenever there's an external threat. I mean, you remember after 9-11, George W. Bush's poll numbers, it got into the 80s, pushing towards even 90 or something like North Korean levels of like, we always make fun of North Koreans. But I mean, from their perspective, they're always facing an external threat.

00:17:01 Obviously, they're heavily propagandized, but so are we in a different, we have a much more subtle, much more maniacal kind of propaganda here.

00:17:09 But, you know, an external threat can do that.

00:17:12 Perhaps it is.

00:17:13 Some I've seen speculate in the media that, you know, it's the Alberta independence threat.

00:17:19 The other numbers don't seem to bear that out because the UCP is doing better than the federal conservatives in Alberta, which is not usual, actually.

00:17:27 Normally, the federal conservatives outperform provincial, the United Conservative Party.

00:17:32 So this says that there is, you know, it's not a huge number,

00:17:36 but a significant number of people who would vote for the UCP and Danielle Smith,

00:17:40 which is significantly more hardcore and Alberta nationalistic.

00:17:44 And then they go and plan to vote for Mark Carney.

00:17:48 I don't understand those people.

00:17:50 There are switchers in all provinces.

00:17:53 Get them to email us if there's anybody listening.

00:17:55 Let us know.

00:17:56 If you are Danielle Smith, Mark Carney voters, we want to hear from you.

00:18:01 I want to open up your brain and examine it.

00:18:04 I don't understand it.

00:18:05 But, I mean, there's switchers in all provinces.

00:18:07 But in this case, you're going from a, you know, 0.99

00:18:10 the Alberta UCP is, I mean, their fiscal stuff is terrible.

00:18:14 You know, we've seen the budget and all that.

00:18:15 They're not doing great there.

00:18:16 But on a lot of these issues, especially around Alberta,

00:18:20 national unity, independence, Trump, all this stuff,

00:18:23 I don't get how you vote Daniel Smith one day

00:18:26 and then you'd vote Mark Carney the next.

00:18:27 That's a weird voter, and I don't,

00:18:30 I want to understand who that is.

00:18:32 We're at some volatile times.

00:18:33 I mean, you know, that's, it's, it's a weird mix going on.

00:18:37 It, I think this year before it's up, we're going to see some changes.

00:18:40 I don't know exactly where the heck they're going to go, but, uh, we've never seen a period like now.

00:18:44 That's part of why we're seeing, I think just these strange things in the tea leaves.

00:18:47 A year ago from now too, though, look, when those polls first started coming out, we were dismissing like,

00:18:52 holy cow, look at this liberal resurgence.

00:18:54 And, and it went from down in the toilet to just shy of a majority.

00:19:00 And little has changed in that in the year.

00:19:03 Yeah.

00:19:03 Okay.

00:19:04 Well, speaking of independence, let's talk about the big rash of referendums coming up.

00:19:10 Yesterday, I interviewed Premier Daniel Smith.

00:19:15 She was generous with her time.

00:19:17 I know some of her staff wanted to keep it shorter, but she wanted to go through a lot

00:19:22 of the individual questions to her credit.

00:19:24 um so uh there's five policy questions uh mostly essentially centered around immigration issues

00:19:34 and you know alberta taking more control of immigration limiting migration uh removing

00:19:40 benefits from those who were not supposed to be here and requiring people to promote

00:19:45 citizenship when they vote so there's a referendum on those five questions and then four

00:19:50 or questions of a constitutional nature, abolishing the Senate, clarifying powers between provinces

00:19:58 and the feds, appointments of judges, things like that. And then very, very probably there'll be a

00:20:04 vote on independence triggered by the Citizens Initiative at the same time. So we'll get to the

00:20:09 timing of all of it to begin with. But I was a bit critical of the five immigration questions,

00:20:15 not because I don't think they're good policies. I think they're, they're so obviously good

00:20:20 policies that they should do it immediately polls show that there's a big uh big appetite

00:20:26 for this in the public not just in Alberta but across Canada for for actions on getting

00:20:31 migration mass migration under control here um you know I'm fine with some direct democracy 0.98

00:20:38 particularly for constitutional questions constitutional questions should always go

00:20:41 directly to the people but this is a legislative issue and I feel like they've got a majority

00:20:47 the legislature sitting right now they should just do it and if the people broadly don't support it

00:20:54 they can start a citizens initiative to overturn it that's what we hire them for uh so i don't know

00:21:01 which he wants to pick it up first but uh i'm against having referendums on this just do it

00:21:07 do it now these are urgent problems we can't wait so what she actually said to you derek was that

00:21:11 she wanted to hang off on this basically she wanted to get the people behind her she didn't

00:21:16 disagree with you that she had the legislative

00:21:20 power to do it now. She 100%

00:21:24 agreed. But she pointed out things have changed a bit in the last

00:21:28 five years. We've got a whole bunch of people who weren't here five years ago.

00:21:33 That's part of the problem, of course. But to just go out there

00:21:36 and do this without putting it in front of

00:21:40 the people and making a referendum out of it would

00:21:44 just give the NDP

00:21:46 and any other opposition

00:21:48 well, she's just

00:21:50 like Trump. Are we going to get

00:21:52 a Nazi for it? 0.70

00:21:56 It's not

00:21:57 going to mute any of the opposition. They called

00:21:58 her a Nazi for putting forward a referendum 0.73

00:22:00 on measures that are supported, I think,

00:22:03 by even most legal and productive

00:22:05 migrants that are here.

00:22:06 So she's not getting anyone on side.

00:22:08 She doesn't already have. So the subtlety here

00:22:10 is that now that she's

00:22:12 put it to a referendum, she doesn't have to 1.00

00:22:14 do anything for six months so that's true but she should be doing something we're talking about the 0.99

00:22:21 political approach so yeah somebody like i mean yes she's got to get out of 2020 something this 0.89

00:22:26 is not this is a um i'm not saying i agree with it but i can see look i reason to advise her that

00:22:32 way i get it but cory you know uh yes they were not elected this was not in their platform but

00:22:39 we don't elect parties just to enact what's in their platform we expect them to react to issues

00:22:43 as they come along. If a problem was already there and acute before, like, I don't know,

00:22:50 the NDP just bringing in a carbon tax or the federal liberals bringing in a carbon tax that

00:22:54 they did not run on in their platforms, that's highly questionable. And we should have the right

00:22:57 to have an initiative petition referendum to repeal that if we want. We did not when the NDP

00:23:04 was in. We did not with Trudeau when he did it. But we elect these people not just to rubber stamp,

00:23:10 but to govern and to think and to react to issues as they come.

00:23:14 The public is, I think, already on side for this stuff.

00:23:17 These are urgently needed policies.

00:23:19 Or at least one.

00:23:20 I can see, I mean, just reading at the bottom when it comes to bringing in a law

00:23:24 requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship in elections.

00:23:27 Well, if you want to have something that modifies the way we can vote,

00:23:31 why are you putting that to a vote?

00:23:32 If this is an acute issue, we want that before you vote on this,

00:23:37 as opposed to, you know, that's one that you really could do tomorrow.

00:23:40 Uh, I think realistically, we know that we know the political game, we know communications, uh, this allows, well, cause she's got a lot going on on the plate. 0.86

00:23:50 She's got a budget that really, I mean, let's face it doesn't look terribly conservative, uh, fiscally.

00:23:55 She's just made some very large spending announcements.

00:23:59 Uh, this is something to keep the discussion for the populists going and, and things like that, but still on the sideline and not trying to eat all that soup all at the same time.

00:24:09 So they can use the legislative session, kind of as Nigel said, you know, to chew on all the rest of this stuff.

00:24:14 And this gets kicked down the road to deal with by referenda at the end of the year.

00:24:19 Not saying it's necessarily the best way or most principled way, but I can understand the rationale of it.

00:24:24 Okay, well, let's talk about some of the rationale, particularly around the constitutional questions and the likely coming independence question.

00:24:31 So four constitutional questions, David, and independence.

00:24:39 Um, I, I, I put it to Smith when I was interviewing her yesterday that, I mean, look, we had the equalization referendum a few years ago.

00:24:49 Nothing happened.

00:24:51 Absolutely nothing.

00:24:52 They just ignored it.

00:24:53 That was the end of it.

00:24:55 Um, even if they didn't ignore it, uh, Quebec has a de facto veto on any change to the constitution.

00:25:01 Parliament will never, Parliament also has to sign off, not just the provinces.

00:25:05 Parliament will never sign off on a constitutional

00:25:06 change that does not have Quebec's 0.89

00:25:08 blessing.

00:25:11 So, I think this is a dead

00:25:12 end, because for Quebec to even consider

00:25:14 it, they have it as well-established

00:25:17 policy that

00:25:18 they have

00:25:20 their whole grab bag of constitutional issues

00:25:22 they want, and they're all very francophone

00:25:24 nationalist stuff, and asymmetrical

00:25:27 federalism that does not

00:25:28 treat all provinces the same. You know, we're

00:25:30 going back to Meech Lake and Charlottetown

00:25:32 for the young kids, if you can remember from your

00:25:34 history books. I was

00:25:36 a tyke, I guess, when this stuff

00:25:38 happened, too. But

00:25:39 it's never going to

00:25:42 happen.

00:25:44 But I get putting forward

00:25:46 the idea of constitutional

00:25:48 reform, but why would we vote

00:25:50 on constitutional reform

00:25:52 on the same piece of paper in which

00:25:54 we're also voting on independence?

00:25:56 We, I mean,

00:25:58 this is like going to the

00:26:00 courthouse to the divorce

00:26:02 counter and asking for marriage

00:26:04 counselling. No, like

00:26:06 I put it to her that

00:26:08 we should vote on

00:26:10 these reforms and see

00:26:12 what the rest of Canada, see what Ottawa

00:26:14 does, give them

00:26:15 three months, six months, whatever, you know,

00:26:18 something reasonable, and then we have

00:26:20 the vote on independence.

00:26:22 She seemed to reject

00:26:24 that, and it just seems to be you're doing

00:26:26 two very different things at the same time that are

00:26:28 mutually

00:26:30 exclusive. Yeah, well I was just going to ask

00:26:32 you if you thought maybe she was doing that so they could

00:26:34 put sort of a damper on the

00:26:36 independence talk to kind of put that on the back burner

00:26:38 maybe and kind of just hide it within all the other stuff

00:26:40 that's why they're having it at the exact same time

00:26:42 that was my thoughts I just don't know

00:26:44 that's what I'm thinking because like you said it's like is anything really

00:26:46 going to change like I don't care to change

00:26:48 what you see of Nigel

00:26:50 a lot of the you know lefty commentators

00:26:52 are out there saying that she's holding all of these

00:26:54 referendums to boost the independence

00:26:56 vote

00:26:56 as they've said it I'm inclined to agree with David

00:27:00 that I see this is

00:27:02 I don't think she's trying to suppress the independence vote, but I think if I'm being cynical, she is perhaps trying to mix it with a bunch of things so we're not just talking, guess what? No one's going to be talking about the immigration reform. No one's going to be talking about constitutional reform. Everyone's going to talk about independence because it's so much bigger. We don't have to ask Ottawa for more permission over immigration if we're our own country. We don't have to talk to them about getting rid of the Senate if we're our own country. So all these other issues become completely moot.

00:27:29 so the yeah the left is arguing she's trying to do this to bolster independence i don't think 0.99

00:27:34 she's necessarily trying to stop independence but trying to mix it up and i don't think it'll work

00:27:38 and i think she actually risks the success on her nine questions she's putting forward

00:27:43 because everybody who's going to come out to vote against independence the federalist vote

00:27:48 i my my i think their inclination will be to also vote pro-ottawa down the ballot

00:27:55 on all of the questions.

00:27:56 I'm voting against independence,

00:27:58 and I'm voting against taking more control of immigration.

00:28:02 I'm voting against limiting migration.

00:28:05 I'm voting against abolition, those kinds of things.

00:28:09 I don't know whether I agree with you on that, Derek.

00:28:12 See, one of the things that she has to contend with,

00:28:17 which you didn't mention in your summary there,

00:28:19 is her own caucus,

00:28:21 who are not of one mind on many of these things.

00:28:24 There are some members of a caucus who are very much in favor of independence, and there are others who won't have it at any price. Some just really want to know what their constituents think, and they can modify their position then.

00:28:38 So how do you actually stop all this boiling over in 2026 when it would be highly inconvenient to have a split in the caucus out in the open, which other parties would take advantage of, and other parties would include, by the way, the federal liberals to whom it would be a tremendous advantage to have a disunited Alberta government.

00:29:04 i agree but why would we be voting on tinkering with or getting rid of the senate and tinkering

00:29:10 with divisions of federal powers and and uh and it's not going to work everyone's only going to

00:29:16 talk about independence this is not going to work you derek you are a deep thinker on these things

00:29:23 corey is a deep thinker favor is a deep writer as well as a thinker on these things so we go into

00:29:30 there's stuff with a passionate intensity and work out little angles and so forth with all due

00:29:36 respect to albertan voters most of them don't pay any attention to this except when they're told to

00:29:43 and even then it's a superficial thing so i agree i have to just you know okay so on this um

00:29:52 in uh you know when we get into an actual campaign period for these referendums yeah if you stopped

00:29:58 an average person on the street and said how are you voting in the referendum which question are

00:30:02 they going to assume you're asking about oh yeah and and but i mean getting to it so it's going to

00:30:07 be essentially the campaign starts now it's an eight month campaign one of the things i didn't

00:30:11 like looking at this too i just did it while we were you're doing your intro i just did a quick

00:30:15 check when you add the questions together there's about 400 words among them you know sorry about

00:30:19 word salad questions this is why the clarity act was created in the first place i mean at least

00:30:25 The independence question actually is, bang, it's yes or no.

00:30:28 And that's where 90% of the discussion is, but we're going to have eight months

00:30:32 talking about some of these things, which yes, we know, they go asking if the

00:30:36 other provinces will be willing to abolish the Senate.

00:30:38 We know that's not going to happen in a million years.

00:30:40 The Atlantic provinces in Quebec are never going to go for that.

00:30:42 Well, it's actually a Supreme Court of Canada reference made and it can't be done.

00:30:46 Yeah.

00:30:46 So let's remind Albertans, all of that, as we're approaching an independence vote,

00:30:50 the futility of trying to change these things, the futility, plus having the

00:30:55 the Andrew Coins and the others up there poo-pooing it and saying, you guys can't choose your judges.

00:30:59 You guys can't have these things. And after eight months of that discussion, and as Derek said,

00:31:04 there's really only one question that's going to be on people's minds when they go into that booth.

00:31:08 I think in the long run, this will help because they either, we got to accept the complete

00:31:13 intractability of the rest of the country or you vote for independence. That's the two questions

00:31:16 you're going to have. But you should vote for one first, give them three months, six months,

00:31:20 whatever to at least signal their willingness to talk guess what they're not going to but let

00:31:26 albertans see that first ideally it'd be great i mean i'd slap these out in june and then we could

00:31:31 have three months to chew on it before we go to it i i'm fine with that let's do it yeah let's do

00:31:36 it in june whatever it is we're gonna work with what we got but due respect nigel this is not 0.87

00:31:41 camouflaging is not going to work here when you ask someone on the street how are you voting in

00:31:44 the referendum everybody everybody's gonna assume you're asking about independence not about

00:31:50 one of the other nine questions on immigration or the senate or judge appointments every single

00:31:56 person is going to go to that last question independence that's what i was going to talk

00:32:01 about so camouflage if this if the strategy here is to camouflage it i don't think it's going to

00:32:07 work well we'll see i guess but my i do think if you go and you stop the stranger on the street

00:32:12 and said how are you going to vote on the on the referendums he's probably going to say at this

00:32:17 days where I don't understand a lot of them and I thought

00:32:19 we couldn't vote on the Senate anyway

00:32:21 but yeah, you know, well

00:32:23 I'm still making my mind up about independents

00:32:25 it'll be a... The average voter's not even

00:32:27 going to know there's a vote on this. He's going to say what? What referendum?

00:32:30 They're not even going to know. They're going to say well

00:32:31 that's their worst ones. There's

00:32:33 something interesting to keep in mind too though. So

00:32:35 the Quebec referendum in 93

00:32:37 95 had a 93%

00:32:39 turnout. When a question's that important

00:32:41 people will get off their butts. 0.85

00:32:43 So they're going to be in that booth and they're going to 0.98

00:32:45 look at these as well. If it was just

00:32:47 these, I think you'd have a 40% turn up because people are already bored and their eyes have

00:32:51 glazed over. But when you've got that nuclear option at the back of all those questions,

00:32:56 this is going to spawn a discussion of these issues we've never had before, really,

00:32:59 in a way we haven't had before anyways. And it might make a difference.

00:33:04 All right. Let's switch to something funnier.

00:33:08 People having to give up their houses to pay out

00:33:11 offended teachers for not agreeing with trans ideology.

00:33:15 uh nodule yeah there's i bet you're the top of the show two cases uh one a lot pricier than the

00:33:22 other but both absolutely absurd where people are having to pay for not complying with gender

00:33:28 ideology so what we've got going on here is two cases of compelled speech we'll we'll like to talk

00:33:34 about freedom of speech so we can say what we think we without fear of our penalty what we've

00:33:41 now as is government agencies telling us what we must say this is no longer about

00:33:46 what we whether we dare say what we think this is about do we dare not say

00:33:52 what the government is telling us to think so what we got here you mentioned

00:33:57 two cases one was in Quebec so as a little hairdresser's shop you go online

00:34:02 and making your booking are you a male or are you a female because you make a

00:34:06 different you know so somebody and I think when you told the anecdote you

00:34:13 said that this person was without hair let's put a picture up yeah let's see

00:34:18 that let's see this guy or girl or whatever whatever he says he is wanted a

00:34:23 haircut what's it going on barber at all well it's just another level almost of

00:34:29 the the ball waxer there you know you're just going beyond the pale with your

00:34:35 requests back in Quebec they do this you know they're a little a little crazy anyway I think

00:34:42 but uh so the thing goes to court and the little hairdresser shop gets fined 500 because they

00:34:49 didn't have an option and said pick up and they apologized and they and they and they had fixed

00:34:55 they had fixed the website and added his uh you know none of the above kind of option or whatever

00:35:00 this is probably and they still find them five hundred dollars you know they probably went to

00:35:05 the trouble of fixing the website because they saw what was going on in bc which is the really

00:35:09 outrageous one like you don't screw with this stuff if you're a passionate one tell us about

00:35:15 bc well bc there's a there's a school district um uh chilevac school trustee his name is barry

00:35:23 new felt and is ordered by the bc human rights tribunal to pay not five hundred dollars not even

00:35:32 five thousand dollars but seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to lgbtq if i got that in the

00:35:40 right order educators for you forgot the plusy oh there's a two in on s in there as well

00:35:46 Oh, I understand.

00:35:47 Sorry.

00:35:48 Yeah, poor research.

00:35:50 Anyway, why does he have to pay them?

00:35:53 Well, for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.

00:35:57 And what had he been doing?

00:35:58 For some time, he has publicly criticized the educational programs in B.C. schools as child abuse

00:36:06 because they encourage children to consider, you know, are you sure you're a boy?

00:36:12 Are you sure you're a girl?

00:36:13 You know, you can talk to us.

00:36:14 You don't have to talk to your parents.

00:36:16 He calls that child abuse, you know, and he labeled gender fluidity a biologically absurd theory.

00:36:24 And he posed medical transitions for minors, which is what we, of course, oppose here in Alberta as well, thanks to the Daniel Smith government.

00:36:33 So all of this the tribunal deemed as an existential denial of trans identities, terms like gender ideologies seen as fostering discrimination.

00:36:44 Now, let's just remind ourselves that whether you're a short earther or a long earther, nobody has questioned the idea of gender for about 500,000 years.

00:36:57 In the last 20, it has become fashionable to say, well, if a person thinks he's a woman, then you must treat him as a woman.

00:37:08 And if a woman thinks she's a man, you must give her credit for her feelings on this matter. 0.95

00:37:13 It is somebody sticking a gun into your head and saying, you will either repeat after me something that you know to be totally inaccurate, totally wrong, something that you don't even agree with, or we're going to take your house.

00:37:32 So David

00:37:34 I mean the great totalitarian

00:37:36 regimes of the 20th century

00:37:38 often banned

00:37:40 speech

00:37:41 Idi Amin actually

00:37:43 I have to admit he was kind of funny in a way

00:37:46 he says I can guarantee freedom of speech

00:37:48 I just can't guarantee freedom after speech

00:37:50 So

00:37:52 you know

00:37:54 he has moments I guess

00:37:56 but you know the great totalitarian

00:37:58 regimes would ban speech

00:38:00 but they wouldn't generally compel speech.

00:38:04 You know, you weren't allowed to criticize the regime

00:38:06 or the dictator or their policies or whatever,

00:38:09 but the average person was not required to go around

00:38:13 and chant the slogan for the most part.

00:38:18 That's where we're at.

00:38:19 We've skipped kind of hard totalitarianism

00:38:21 and gone into whatever this is. 0.76

00:38:23 I keep hearing online, they call it gay race communism.

00:38:26 It's quite a bit different than regular communism, it would seem.

00:38:29 And I was just going to say as well,

00:38:30 like that first case Nigel brought up

00:38:31 about the guy apologizing

00:38:33 and still like them getting fined.

00:38:34 It's like, that's why you never apologized to these people

00:38:35 because you enabled them 0.82

00:38:36 and you're still going to get screwed over anyway. 0.83

00:38:38 He probably would have gotten, 0.69

00:38:39 Nigel's point,

00:38:40 he was probably looking at the case in BC

00:38:42 of three quarters of a million.

00:38:43 Yeah, and he got us with his slap on the wrist of $500.

00:38:47 I think now he might be kind of fighting it 0.92

00:38:49 because he's like, okay, this is ridiculous. 0.83

00:38:51 But well, it was like, 0.69

00:38:52 remember that case of those bakers in the States

00:38:54 with the whole like Islamophobia thing?

00:38:56 It's kind of the same thing.

00:38:56 Did they apologize?

00:38:57 because they want to bake the cake for the gay couples gay marriage couple that's yeah that was 0.62

00:39:02 the slippery slope i don't think the slippery slope was gay marriage uh people had their concerns

00:39:07 it happened and the sky didn't fall and that was okay but people did warn of the slippery slope

00:39:13 and where the slope started to get slippy i think was the cake where the cake because this was not

00:39:20 about you know gay marriage you know people arguing for it said you're not this is not

00:39:25 affect your marriage you don't have to do anything this is other people doing their own thing and as

00:39:31 soon as someone else had to do something to affirm what they wanted to do in their private lives for

00:39:36 it that opened the door and that's where we are now with gay race communism where you get fined 0.99

00:39:42 three quarters of a million dollars for wanting to keep gender weighing studies out of the third

00:39:48 grade class well and it's what's distressing with this though is the extreme they went to they

00:39:54 They aren't trying to just inconvenience or punish.

00:39:56 They're trying to crush him.

00:39:58 Those are bankruptcy numbers.

00:39:59 These are lose your home, lose your retirement,

00:40:02 live in penury for the rest of your life in some shack

00:40:06 unless you were somehow very independently wealthy

00:40:08 when you've been nailed by something like this.

00:40:11 I would only hope that it's appealable

00:40:13 just in the extreme of the punishment.

00:40:15 I think you can't take it to a court.

00:40:17 I doubt a court's going to uphold it.

00:40:18 But it shows you how mad the BC Human Rights Commission is.

00:40:22 And these conditions shouldn't exist, period.

00:40:23 They shouldn't, that's the whole thing, too.

00:40:25 We shouldn't legitimize these Judy, you know, or quasi-judicial kangaroo courts.

00:40:30 I think you said Judge Judy.

00:40:31 Yeah, I have more faith in her.

00:40:33 You would get a better, more fair trial with Judge Judy.

00:40:36 But, you know, we should just have one judicial system anyway.

00:40:39 It's not this human rights crap that's usually appointees who are extreme of one ideology or another who sit on these things.

00:40:45 And, by the way, when a tribunal hears these cases, they are not bound by the procedural techniques of a court.

00:40:52 no there's no business of uh you you may be able to demonstrate that what you're saying is true

00:40:58 but that doesn't matter truth is it could excuse feelings truth is not a defense

00:41:03 if it exposed an identifiable group to uh hatred or hatred or contempt truth is not a defense you

00:41:09 can prove that what i said is true but if it exposed an identifiable group to hatred or contempt

00:41:15 you're guilty i hold the commissions in contempt yeah uh and this is just a good reminder uh back

00:41:21 Back in the Western Standard's first version, when it was a print magazine,

00:41:24 the Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals came for the Western Standard 1.00

00:41:26 for being the only publication in Canada to publish the Mohammed cartoons.

00:41:31 And, you know, those commissions almost went down over that

00:41:37 because they finally crossed the bridge too far.

00:41:39 They were just going after some unsympathetic figure,

00:41:43 you know, printing anti-Semitic leaflets through a fax machine or something.

00:41:48 They went after a legitimate news outlet.

00:41:51 sharing a legitimate news story

00:41:53 and they went to bridge too far.

00:41:55 But it just goes to show you have to defend

00:41:57 those unsympathetic figures

00:41:59 who are maybe doing something you don't agree with

00:42:01 because

00:42:02 you know, to quote Rachel Notley

00:42:05 first they came for the anti-Semites.

00:42:08 You know, then they came for the capitalists.

00:42:12 You know.

00:42:13 Alright.

00:42:15 Alright, our parting shots. We're going to get first.

00:42:18 Okay, well this is one I think you guys agree

00:42:19 that I'm getting annoyed with hearing about.

00:42:21 is all these people that are on the Alberta independence petition,

00:42:24 their canvassers, are getting harassed by people.

00:42:26 And now Mitch Sylvester, the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project,

00:42:29 had a guy come into his store in Bonneville with a bullet and threaten him.

00:42:33 Where was any of this for the Forever Canada petitioners?

00:42:36 I never heard a single thing about that ever happening to them.

00:42:38 So what's the difference?

00:42:40 I'd pull over, I'd see them on the side of the road,

00:42:43 kind of a country road in the way of my place, my boulder.

00:42:45 Say hi, how's it going?

00:42:46 Smiling with it.

00:42:47 Bye-bye.

00:42:48 Although I have seen, we may even need to follow up on the story,

00:42:50 I have seen it alleged.

00:42:52 It was not an actual bullet.

00:42:53 It was a...

00:42:53 It was...

00:42:54 I talked to Mitch to clarify.

00:42:55 It was an actual bullet.

00:42:56 That guy's...

00:42:56 It was an actual bullet.

00:42:57 That guy...

00:42:57 That actual video, that's not the guy.

00:42:59 It's not even the same guy now.

00:43:00 Okay.

00:43:01 Interesting.

00:43:02 All right, Corey.

00:43:04 Well, it just kind of ties into where you're going, I think, in a bit.

00:43:07 But if people aren't familiar with John Cleese from Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, and I

00:43:11 know he's never been a conservative with his political views, but boy, this last week has

00:43:15 he let loose, including on that $750,000 ruling saying he may not tour Canada because of that.

00:43:21 Because again, as much as he might be a lefty, he values free speech and he's ripping into Islam 1.00

00:43:26 just brilliantly. So follow him on X because he's pulling back all political correctness.

00:43:32 Him and Rowan Atkinson as well. So the old English comedians, at least you're standing up,

00:43:36 might be too late, but at least they're speaking out. Mr. Bean, symbol of freedom.

00:43:41 His speeches might not be good.

00:43:43 Although, I'll never forget,

00:43:45 I'm sure you've all seen that one clip.

00:43:47 It was Rowan Atkins, not as Mr. B, but Rowan Atkins,

00:43:50 and he was speaking at a Tory convention

00:43:52 in the 80s.

00:43:53 Oh, it's such a classic.

00:43:56 It's such a classic.

00:43:58 All right.

00:43:59 Brilliant.

00:44:00 So, look, watched the State of the Union

00:44:02 address last night, despite the

00:44:04 intense difficulty.

00:44:07 You watched the whole thing?

00:44:08 Yeah, we were workingers.

00:44:10 This is how we know you're retired.

00:44:12 Yep.

00:44:12 This is, I don't know whether it was TELUS or whether it was the originating,

00:44:16 it was a horrible thing to have to watch.

00:44:19 But what Trump said appealed to me.

00:44:25 What didn't appeal to me was the response by some Democrats who couldn't even rise to say,

00:44:34 well, at least that kid is all right, or that kid has done well, or this fellow deserves his medal.

00:44:43 And it took me back, I haven't thought about this for a very, very long time,

00:44:47 but when General Grant became president, Ulysses Grant, after this American Civil War,

00:44:55 finally he died, he was reckoned to have been a good president,

00:44:58 and two Confederate generals were among the poll bearers as he left the church.

00:45:05 So it is possible for Republicans and Democrats to get together over things that are possible.

00:45:13 It was possible back in the 1870s.

00:45:16 There's something about the Democrat response there.

00:45:20 They can't even applaud something that's good.

00:45:23 It makes me think the problems in the United States are a lot deeper than we think.

00:45:27 And just on that, a tip of the hat to the cameraman at the speech.

00:45:33 I didn't watch the whole speech.

00:45:34 It was way too long.

00:45:36 But Trump had these moments where he talked about, I'm quoting Trump here.

00:45:40 He talked about Somali pirates ransacking Minnesota.

00:45:44 And he pans to Aliyah Omar, who's crashing out. 0.75

00:45:49 And he talks about, you know, the absurdity of transgendered ideology. 0.99

00:45:55 and he pans to, I think, a Democratic

00:45:57 member of Congress who is a biological

00:45:59 man but dresses as a woman. 0.79

00:46:01 Pants to...

00:46:03 That cameraman

00:46:04 better hope

00:46:07 J.D. Vance stays president because he's not going to be

00:46:09 filling many more of these things.

00:46:12 It was

00:46:12 ballsy. Okay, mine,

00:46:15 I want to draw note

00:46:17 to those of you who have not been paying attention to

00:46:19 the United Kingdom's

00:46:21 newest political party, Restore

00:46:23 Britain.

00:46:23 uh you know there was a lot of hope maybe there still is some uh for Nigel Farage's reform party

00:46:30 or Nigel Farage led Brexit for years did God's work uh leaves the reform party now which has

00:46:36 been uh leading in kind of minority government territory in the UK um completely eclipsing the

00:46:42 Tories the Tories look headed for kind of liberal democratic uh Lib Dem um you know third party

00:46:49 fourth party extinction status um was really going for it but he just didn't seem to have a

00:46:55 religion on things like re-migration the key issue re-migration and he kicked out uh a member of

00:47:02 was it uh low what's his name the mp anyway you kicked this guy out this guy has now gone on to

00:47:09 start his own party he kicked this guy out because this guy's uh supported re-migration this guy has

00:47:13 gone on to start Restore Britain.

00:47:16 Brilliant

00:47:17 social media campaign. Rupert Lowe.

00:47:19 Rupert Lowe, yeah.

00:47:21 Brilliant social media campaign in the

00:47:23 span of, I think the party's roughly a week,

00:47:25 maybe two weeks old.

00:47:27 It's less than two weeks.

00:47:28 It's only 7% in the polls.

00:47:30 Three times with the polls with the

00:47:32 Alberta's progressive Tories are.

00:47:36 You know,

00:47:36 already, like, really hitting the map.

00:47:38 My fear is, of course, you've now got

00:47:40 the Tories, you've got

00:47:42 reform and you've got restore and first past the post system that's not a recipe for success

00:47:48 but neither is doing what the uk has been doing which is leading it to civilizational

00:47:51 uh extinction so they've got to do something radical uh but i just want to bring note uh

00:47:59 point out restore uk uh just the absolute they've come down like a meteorite on the on the uk british

00:48:06 scene and uh i think we'll hear we're gonna hear a lot more about them in the next years okay

00:48:13 corey david nigel thank you and thank you john running in the studio here and all of you uh

00:48:20 watching from home or your elliptical whatever you're doing thank you very much for joining us

00:48:25 remember to go to westernstandard.news click on subscribe it's only ten dollars a month or

00:48:29 a hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to all western standard content getting past that

00:48:34 paywall and to support the work we are doing we've now got uh we got full-time staff full-time

00:48:40 reporters in vancouver calgary edmonton regina toronto ottawa uh we're spreading like the plague

00:48:49 all right thank you very much for joining us today and god bless

00:49:04 We'll be right back.

`witch hunt`	Both words, anywhere in the episode.
`"witch hunt"`	The exact phrase.
`witch OR hunt`	Either word.
`"alpha male" -"high value"`	The first phrase, but not the second.
`(feminist OR feminism) AND (marriage OR divorce)`	Parentheses group alternatives.
`"decline civilization"~5`	Both words within 5 words of each other.

`misogyn*`	Any word starting with "misogyn": misogyny, misogynist, misogynistic…
`feminizm~1`	Words one letter off: catches typos and transcription errors.

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Western Standard - February 26, 2026

Polls show Alberta independence & UCP gaining

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