Western Standard - Polls show Alberta independence & UCP gaining

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome.

00:00:25.340 Today is February 26, 2026.

00:00:28.500 I am Derek Fildebrandt, the publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:33.540 I've got almost the identical normal lineup here.

00:00:37.560 We've got former Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:40.940 We've got senior Alberta columnist Corey Morgan.

00:00:45.080 Filling in for Dave Naylor is David Veitschnek.

00:00:48.420 Thanks for having me.

00:00:49.960 It's confusing you in the office.

00:00:51.260 We've got two Daves, double D, and we've also got two Johns.

00:00:55.020 We do this too much here.

00:00:58.500 um all right we're gonna be talking about uh two cases from human rights commissions one

00:01:04.900 in Quebec the other in British Columbia in Quebec where some poor little hair salon was 1.00

00:01:11.320 fined five hundred dollars for having a male and female uh option when booking appointments on the

00:01:18.320 website and I guess a non-binary person with no hair uh was not able to select an other category

00:01:27.840 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.

00:01:54.300 and that is so damaging uh we're going to talk about the nine very likely ten referendum

00:02:03.180 questions that are going to be coming up in alberta in october question five of them on

00:02:09.020 immigration four them on constitutional reforms and then the final one very likely on independence

00:02:16.060 uh it's quite strange we've had referendums before not a lot i don't think any place in

00:02:23.460 Canada's ever had 10 at the same time. I doubt any has even had more than two or three at a time.

00:02:29.100 It's new ground. But first, we're going to talk about a series of polls the Western Standard

00:02:34.440 commissioned. Western Standard hired Main Street Research to poll Albertans. We did a pretty big

00:02:41.120 sample size for this, asking a variety of questions. David Veitschik, we've got in today

00:02:46.620 because he led most of those stories.

00:02:50.820 We'll talk first maybe about the poll we asked on independence,

00:02:56.340 you know, how Albertans would vote.

00:03:00.500 Well, right off the bat, Derek, I mean, the poll, I'm just bringing it up here.

00:03:03.720 If a referendum were held today in Alberta,

00:03:05.920 basically 34% said that they would be for independence

00:03:08.860 and 66% said that they'd remain part of Canada,

00:03:11.520 which seems to be kind of similar to a bunch of other polls that we've seen recently.

00:03:14.940 I think there was one that just came out today.

00:03:16.200 I saw that said, can't remember who did it, but they said that 80% of all Canadians that they polled

00:03:20.280 wanted to see Alberta and Quebec still stay within Canada. So the numbers are kind of just varying,

00:03:24.940 but I mean, for the most part, I've seen that. I think 34% are roughly around that 34% number

00:03:28.920 supporting independence in numerous places, but this poll just kind of proves that point.

00:03:33.640 I'm just looking here to see what the gender divide is. 73% of women actually were for a 1.00

00:03:39.300 remaining part of Canada, and that seemed to be a number that popped up a lot with the

00:03:42.160 questions pertaining to independence.

00:03:44.640 I don't know what the point is or the deal is with that

00:03:46.380 exactly. I don't know, maybe if

00:03:48.340 you have any thoughts on that?

00:03:49.560 Well, men, on most

00:03:51.360 issues, you know, it's not going to be clear-cut,

00:03:53.600 but men will skew to the right

00:03:55.480 on issues, and women will skew 1.00

00:03:57.680 to the left on issues,

00:03:59.280 and that's not just Alberta or even Canada,

00:04:01.400 that's just most places in the world

00:04:03.400 where people vote on things.

00:04:06.540 And, you know, the Alberta

00:04:07.460 independence movement's dominantly

00:04:09.440 a political project, so you're going to

00:04:11.500 it's, you know, it's going to lean right. Um, one of the things, uh, I mean, Corey, this, uh,

00:04:17.420 the poll was, I mean, it's not out of line with what we've seen before. Other polls will show it

00:04:21.880 lower though. Uh, would they just change one word independence or separation? Uh, I I've always said

00:04:28.480 that, you know, it's like, uh, you know, you, your marriage is ended and you go to the singles bar

00:04:35.540 and you can introduce yourself as single or you can introduce yourself as divorced. They mean kind

00:04:39.860 of the same thing in this context but they have a very different uh connotation to it so i i think

00:04:44.480 that's one thing that fuels it absolutely i mean there's lots of ways we know that you can massage

00:04:49.620 polls sometimes to get results that you want and that wasn't the case in this it was straightforward

00:04:53.140 questions but that's where you can see some disparity between different uh people who have

00:04:57.240 polled and and some of the outcomes something is as minor as the question i mean separation sounds

00:05:02.780 harsh and negative and uh you know is an end yeah but it's just likewise it can also tell you where

00:05:09.720 somebody stands as soon as you're talking to them, particularly in media, if they use the word

00:05:13.600 separatist, chances are they're not terribly thrilled with the concept altogether. They use

00:05:17.360 independence, maybe they're a little more receptive, but it's like tar sands and oil sands.

00:05:21.740 If they're anti-energy, conventional energy, they're going to call it tar sands. If you're

00:05:27.920 not, it's oil sands. And words count though. These campaigns are made to convince people to go one

00:05:35.700 way or another and we'll see these sorts of things happening. What's interesting though,

00:05:38.920 the numbers you had too that were on the undecideds have been removed. Yeah. So that's

00:05:45.680 still a large chunk that we can see a lot of momentum might happen in this next eight months

00:05:50.340 since we've never really had a discussion like this this long. Yeah. Nigel, it wasn't our poll,

00:05:56.000 it was someone else's poll and they pulled across Canada on if Alberta should be allowed to leave

00:06:01.820 And if Quebec should be allowed to leave, I guess implying that if they try to, Canada would send the army or something.

00:06:09.240 I guess that's implied in that at the end of the day.

00:06:13.420 Super majorities of people outside of Alberta and Quebec, super majorities across Canada say, no, they should not.

00:06:20.640 But notably, it was six to eight points higher for refusing to allow Alberta to leave.

00:06:27.840 i think there is a significant number of people probably in alberta who would be happy for quebec

00:06:32.700 to leave um so i maybe i didn't look around uh the cross tabs for enough detail but it was funny

00:06:38.700 to me that more a huge number of canadians are like no they should not be allowed to which then

00:06:44.500 raises the next ideological the next logical question which is what are you prepared to do

00:06:50.040 to not let someone leave well that's precisely what i thought when i read the story this morning

00:06:57.300 it makes perfect sense that the rest of Canada would be very against allowing the province that

00:07:03.220 pays the freight to leave Confederation. I mean, just the Canada pension plan would be the first

00:07:08.580 hit. And coming right after that, the whole reason why we have such a debate about equalization

00:07:17.620 in Alberta is that it doesn't work for us. We end up paying not a bit more, you know,

00:07:23.380 You know, not that little bit more, which just makes you a good citizen, but basically paying the cost of confederation.

00:07:29.480 So, you bet people in eastern and central Canada understand exactly what that game is.

00:07:35.680 Alberta is just about the only half province.

00:07:40.360 In other words, where the money comes from.

00:07:43.380 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.

00:07:51.980 very hard to find somebody

00:07:54.540 but we noticed

00:07:56.300 as we went around the houses, everything

00:07:58.300 was fixed up, it was just beautiful, they'd had

00:08:00.220 an ice storm just a year or two before

00:08:02.200 finally managed to find somebody

00:08:04.220 with broken English and they said

00:08:05.480 great, where did you get the money from?

00:08:07.620 oh, it's from the government, well where does the

00:08:10.060 Quebec government get money from?

00:08:11.720 it gets it from Alberta, so we were happily

00:08:14.100 there looking around to see what we paid for

00:08:16.060 yeah, of course they don't want us to go

00:08:17.820 as you say, what are they prepared

00:08:20.320 to do to keep us logically you have to be prepared to send the army if you had an army yeah yeah well

00:08:27.200 i guess i guess canada is planning on having an army now staffed with non-canadians we're happy

00:08:32.960 to use military force against canadians that's almost a little chilling i i had a slovakian

00:08:37.840 friend who we know with this mandatory service in the 80s the way they worked it with them is

00:08:42.320 you're all under the soviet umbrella but you never got stationed in slovakia you got he got stationed

00:08:47.280 in east berlin and likewise polish soldiers would be in ukraine they would always make sure that 0.75

00:08:52.400 that way in case they had to do something against the local population there wasn't a loyalty to it

00:08:57.600 i don't think i'm not going to read in so far thinking that's the motivation to discover it

00:09:01.280 i think it's one that just doesn't know how to draw people into the military and is getting

00:09:04.800 desperate but there's some reasons to be concerned when you have people who aren't domestic in your

00:09:11.040 military forces you know to that point corey if they want to import people from that part of the

00:09:16.560 world into the canadian armed forces they're probably going to have a bit of a tampon trouble 0.92

00:09:22.240 in the washrooms these guys are not that kind of true enough you know there's some slovakian guy 0.99

00:09:30.800 what does this machine here for yeah but the thing is if you have people with that mindset

00:09:36.640 yes you probably could deploy them against the canadian population and they wouldn't mind all 1.00

00:09:42.880 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.

00:10:02.380 the Liberals

00:10:06.440 it's funny, I guess it's just a residual

00:10:08.440 brand recognition, they've pulled like

00:10:10.260 6% or something down

00:10:12.260 but they almost don't run candidates at this point

00:10:14.200 they're effectively a dissolved party for all

00:10:16.300 intents. Yeah, well 6%, yeah. So I

00:10:18.260 caution Conservatives that that Liberal vote

00:10:20.300 is likely just to vote NDP in a provincial

00:10:22.420 election because they're going to go cast a ballot

00:10:24.000 they're not going to be there. But noticeably

00:10:26.340 the so-called progressive

00:10:28.200 Tory party, you know

00:10:30.320 the two breakaway MLAs

00:10:31.500 and the Republicans

00:10:33.920 and Independence Party, both of them

00:10:36.080 are like 1%. They're just total no-shows.

00:10:38.220 Yeah, no, the Republicans are 1%.

00:10:40.080 The Progressives are actually 3%.

00:10:41.600 It's like, yeah, not much big of a difference, let's be honest,

00:10:44.100 really, and I think the other people that would vote

00:10:45.940 for another party is also pulling at 1%, so again,

00:10:47.880 it's just minuscule, really.

00:10:49.280 Yeah.

00:10:51.240 Corey, the Progressive Tories,

00:10:54.340 it's not really...

00:10:56.080 You know, new parties are always hard

00:10:57.600 to start and get traction on.

00:10:59.920 We've both been through that,

00:11:01.100 but uh if you're gonna start a new party in canada almost any political system you have to

00:11:07.920 come in from the edges you have to offer something no one else is offering and this is just like

00:11:12.880 the late actually quite legally speaking it is the it is the alberta party yeah with the new name

00:11:18.120 they're just trying to set up switzerland in 1917 on the western front like there's already two big

00:11:26.020 armies hacking at each other fighting over no man's land and you're you're proposing to set

00:11:30.480 up your lines in no man's land where everyone's already fighting over well and it's just continuing

00:11:35.640 that recipe for failure the Alberta party's had for 15 years where they just keep saying

00:11:40.100 we're the middle we're the middle well good for you but when people vote they vote for this or

00:11:45.080 they vote for that and as much as you know you listen to some polls people say oh I get tired

00:11:49.760 of hearing from left and right and I'm in the middle well perhaps but your votes don't actually

00:11:54.780 reflect that. So this progressive Tory party is going to have to stand for something if it wants

00:12:00.680 to carve out a spot for itself. As it sits, it's just an area for disenchanted, left-leaning

00:12:06.340 conservatives to land, and it's just not grabbing anybody's imagination. I don't expect much of it.

00:12:12.700 The federal poll was, I think, the most interesting.

00:12:18.860 Well, here, why don't you give us the results of the...

00:12:21.100 Well, this is the Alberta voters for a federal election.

00:12:25.100 Yeah, and this is, again, with the undecideds removed,

00:12:27.680 48% said they'd vote for the Conservative Party under Polyev,

00:12:32.140 and 45%, surprising, this was the big thing that people were talking about,

00:12:35.180 said they would vote for the Liberals under Mark Carney.

00:12:36.980 I have no idea where that number came from,

00:12:38.660 because I did not expect to see that originally when we started looking at these numbers.

00:12:42.220 Yeah, that is, I didn't believe it.

00:12:45.580 I'm still highly skeptical of it.

00:12:47.500 I'm becoming a little less skeptical of it,

00:12:49.620 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.

00:13:06.280 This is unheard of. And so I didn't really believe it, except, you know, we asked rough 10, 12-ish questions.

00:13:12.420 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.

00:13:19.620 independence how people thought about pensions a number of different questions it all lined up

00:13:23.700 more or less with the conventional wisdom let me think it's possible nigel that this could be 0.99

00:13:30.120 correct i know um you know there were uh some other conservative media and some uh some people

00:13:37.080 in you know the conservative sphere very upset with us for releasing this poll to which i said

00:13:43.080 like we paid to have a good poll done and just because we didn't like the answer doesn't mean

00:13:48.800 we don't release it we're you know we're not doing propaganda for you here we might be on the right

00:13:53.860 but we're not working for a conservative party here that's not our job there are some people

00:13:57.420 who'd rather not know from their doctor that they have cancer so i you're going to get a certain

00:14:01.300 amount of that but this says there's a big big problem for the federal conservatives in alberta

00:14:06.280 yeah and i and i think where it comes from just a theory but uh there's a tendency when the world

00:14:12.940 looks like a dark place to gather around the flag to gather around the government of the day

00:14:18.240 in an attempt to find certainty and comfort.

00:14:23.140 It's like people who build their houses beside a fort.

00:14:26.520 You know, they want to be, they're looking for protection.

00:14:29.560 It's not the Alberta way, which makes this very surprising.

00:14:32.920 But I still have to say that when people, first of all,

00:14:38.840 the narrative around the Conservative Party at the moment

00:14:41.060 is unfortunately not as strong as the Conservatives would wish it to be.

00:14:45.360 There are tensions within the party.

00:14:47.740 And although nobody talks about it, then nevertheless, they're there.

00:14:53.160 And so can we trust the Conservatives to lead us out of this?

00:14:57.920 They asked themselves, what's going on with separation?

00:15:03.960 What's going on with independence, whichever way you want to look at it?

00:15:08.020 Is that going to affect my pension?

00:15:09.780 Answer, no, it shouldn't.

00:15:11.040 But at any rate, that's just my opinion.

00:15:13.180 Other people have theirs and they get scared.

00:15:15.760 And then they say, well, this carny chop seems steady.

00:15:20.740 Let's just part there for a while.

00:15:22.960 So I see this as a reaction to this.

00:15:25.940 This is searching for certain searching for certainty.

00:15:28.780 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.

00:15:38.140 That's the weird one that I couldn't understand.

00:15:40.020 That doesn't make sense to me.

00:15:41.700 No, but we've had those.

00:15:43.340 I think it was Angus Reid came out

00:15:44.880 yesterday or something, and

00:15:47.120 they didn't show the Liberals as strong

00:15:49.440 in Alberta, but showed

00:15:51.160 very unusual levels of strength.

00:15:53.540 Yeah, kind of getting into this neighborhood.

00:15:55.260 Well, there's still some hangover, I think, though,

00:15:57.420 and I mean, even among Albertans, and we're

00:15:59.340 seeing that attitude. There's a U.S.

00:16:01.440 versus Canada state that's been

00:16:03.340 fostered by the Liberals and fostered by

00:16:05.340 Trump back and forth,

00:16:07.440 and it kind of plays into what Nigel's saying, too.

00:16:09.340 People will rally the forces.

00:16:11.440 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.

00:16:28.080 That's been the thing hanging over his neck for a year now, and it's hitting him, I think, here as well.

00:16:32.960 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.

00:16:41.440 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.

00:17:01.660 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.

00:17:09.500 But, you know, an external threat can do that.

00:17:12.400 Perhaps it is.

00:17:13.720 Some I've seen speculate in the media that, you know, it's the Alberta independence threat.

00:17:19.720 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.

00:17:27.400 Normally, the federal conservatives outperform provincial, the United Conservative Party.

00:17:32.520 So this says that there is, you know, it's not a huge number,

00:17:36.360 but a significant number of people who would vote for the UCP and Danielle Smith,

00:17:40.320 which is significantly more hardcore and Alberta nationalistic.

00:17:44.300 And then they go and plan to vote for Mark Carney.

00:17:48.560 I don't understand those people.

00:17:50.880 There are switchers in all provinces.

00:17:53.140 Get them to email us if there's anybody listening.

00:17:55.480 Let us know.

00:17:56.280 If you are Danielle Smith, Mark Carney voters, we want to hear from you.

00:18:01.660 I want to open up your brain and examine it.

00:18:04.200 I don't understand it.

00:18:05.820 But, I mean, there's switchers in all provinces.

00:18:07.980 But in this case, you're going from a, you know, 0.99

00:18:10.320 the Alberta UCP is, I mean, their fiscal stuff is terrible.

00:18:14.140 You know, we've seen the budget and all that.

00:18:15.600 They're not doing great there.

00:18:16.860 But on a lot of these issues, especially around Alberta,

00:18:20.480 national unity, independence, Trump, all this stuff,

00:18:23.560 I don't get how you vote Daniel Smith one day

00:18:26.020 and then you'd vote Mark Carney the next.

00:18:27.800 That's a weird voter, and I don't,

00:18:30.160 I want to understand who that is.

00:18:32.300 We're at some volatile times.

00:18:33.860 I mean, you know, that's, it's, it's a weird mix going on.

00:18:37.140 It, I think this year before it's up, we're going to see some changes.

00:18:40.700 I don't know exactly where the heck they're going to go, but, uh, we've never seen a period like now.

00:18:44.980 That's part of why we're seeing, I think just these strange things in the tea leaves.

00:18:47.760 A year ago from now too, though, look, when those polls first started coming out, we were dismissing like,

00:18:52.940 holy cow, look at this liberal resurgence.

00:18:54.600 And, and it went from down in the toilet to just shy of a majority.

00:19:00.160 And little has changed in that in the year.

00:19:03.140 Yeah.

00:19:03.560 Okay.

00:19:04.180 Well, speaking of independence, let's talk about the big rash of referendums coming up.

00:19:10.900 Yesterday, I interviewed Premier Daniel Smith.

00:19:15.560 She was generous with her time.

00:19:17.000 I know some of her staff wanted to keep it shorter, but she wanted to go through a lot

00:19:22.140 of the individual questions to her credit.

00:19:24.180 um so uh there's five policy questions uh mostly essentially centered around immigration issues

00:19:34.580 and you know alberta taking more control of immigration limiting migration uh removing

00:19:40.980 benefits from those who were not supposed to be here and requiring people to promote

00:19:45.620 citizenship when they vote so there's a referendum on those five questions and then four

00:19:50.660 or questions of a constitutional nature, abolishing the Senate, clarifying powers between provinces

00:19:58.500 and the feds, appointments of judges, things like that. And then very, very probably there'll be a

00:20:04.860 vote on independence triggered by the Citizens Initiative at the same time. So we'll get to the

00:20:09.260 timing of all of it to begin with. But I was a bit critical of the five immigration questions,

00:20:15.480 not because I don't think they're good policies. I think they're, they're so obviously good

00:20:20.000 policies that they should do it immediately polls show that there's a big uh big appetite

00:20:26.700 for this in the public not just in Alberta but across Canada for for actions on getting

00:20:31.260 migration mass migration under control here um you know I'm fine with some direct democracy 0.98

00:20:38.040 particularly for constitutional questions constitutional questions should always go

00:20:41.640 directly to the people but this is a legislative issue and I feel like they've got a majority

00:20:47.440 the legislature sitting right now they should just do it and if the people broadly don't support it

00:20:54.180 they can start a citizens initiative to overturn it that's what we hire them for uh so i don't know

00:21:01.480 which he wants to pick it up first but uh i'm against having referendums on this just do it

00:21:07.100 do it now these are urgent problems we can't wait so what she actually said to you derek was that

00:21:11.980 she wanted to hang off on this basically she wanted to get the people behind her she didn't

00:21:16.840 disagree with you that she had the legislative

00:21:20.760 power to do it now. She 100%

00:21:24.960 agreed. But she pointed out things have changed a bit in the last

00:21:28.720 five years. We've got a whole bunch of people who weren't here five years ago.

00:21:33.120 That's part of the problem, of course. But to just go out there

00:21:36.960 and do this without putting it in front of

00:21:40.900 the people and making a referendum out of it would

00:21:44.500 just give the NDP

00:21:46.740 and any other opposition

00:21:48.060 well, she's just

00:21:50.700 like Trump. Are we going to get

00:21:52.720 a Nazi for it? 0.70

00:21:56.420 It's not

00:21:57.020 going to mute any of the opposition. They called

00:21:58.900 her a Nazi for putting forward a referendum 0.73

00:22:00.940 on measures that are supported, I think,

00:22:03.040 by even most legal and productive

00:22:05.060 migrants that are here.

00:22:06.400 So she's not getting anyone on side.

00:22:08.720 She doesn't already have. So the subtlety here

00:22:10.780 is that now that she's

00:22:12.780 put it to a referendum, she doesn't have to 1.00

00:22:14.500 do anything for six months so that's true but she should be doing something we're talking about the 0.99

00:22:21.140 political approach so yeah somebody like i mean yes she's got to get out of 2020 something this 0.89

00:22:26.680 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

00:22:32.800 way i get it but cory you know uh yes they were not elected this was not in their platform but

00:22:39.140 we don't elect parties just to enact what's in their platform we expect them to react to issues

00:22:43.640 as they come along. If a problem was already there and acute before, like, I don't know,

00:22:50.000 the NDP just bringing in a carbon tax or the federal liberals bringing in a carbon tax that

00:22:54.120 they did not run on in their platforms, that's highly questionable. And we should have the right

00:22:57.820 to have an initiative petition referendum to repeal that if we want. We did not when the NDP

00:23:04.280 was in. We did not with Trudeau when he did it. But we elect these people not just to rubber stamp,

00:23:10.760 but to govern and to think and to react to issues as they come.

00:23:14.860 The public is, I think, already on side for this stuff.

00:23:17.700 These are urgently needed policies.

00:23:19.760 Or at least one.

00:23:20.680 I can see, I mean, just reading at the bottom when it comes to bringing in a law

00:23:24.560 requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship in elections.

00:23:27.720 Well, if you want to have something that modifies the way we can vote,

00:23:31.200 why are you putting that to a vote?

00:23:32.500 If this is an acute issue, we want that before you vote on this,

00:23:37.240 as opposed to, you know, that's one that you really could do tomorrow.

00:23:40.760 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

00:23:50.520 She's got a budget that really, I mean, let's face it doesn't look terribly conservative, uh, fiscally.

00:23:55.480 She's just made some very large spending announcements.

00:23:59.340 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.

00:24:09.160 So they can use the legislative session, kind of as Nigel said, you know, to chew on all the rest of this stuff.

00:24:14.340 And this gets kicked down the road to deal with by referenda at the end of the year.

00:24:19.120 Not saying it's necessarily the best way or most principled way, but I can understand the rationale of it.

00:24:24.040 Okay, well, let's talk about some of the rationale, particularly around the constitutional questions and the likely coming independence question.

00:24:31.960 So four constitutional questions, David, and independence.

00:24:39.160 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.

00:24:49.660 Nothing happened.

00:24:51.360 Absolutely nothing.

00:24:52.500 They just ignored it.

00:24:53.700 That was the end of it.

00:24:55.160 Um, even if they didn't ignore it, uh, Quebec has a de facto veto on any change to the constitution.

00:25:01.640 Parliament will never, Parliament also has to sign off, not just the provinces.

00:25:05.020 Parliament will never sign off on a constitutional

00:25:06.840 change that does not have Quebec's 0.89

00:25:08.980 blessing.

00:25:11.300 So, I think this is a dead

00:25:12.880 end, because for Quebec to even consider

00:25:14.900 it, they have it as well-established

00:25:17.000 policy that

00:25:18.560 they have

00:25:20.880 their whole grab bag of constitutional issues

00:25:22.680 they want, and they're all very francophone

00:25:24.960 nationalist stuff, and asymmetrical

00:25:27.200 federalism that does not

00:25:28.780 treat all provinces the same. You know, we're

00:25:30.700 going back to Meech Lake and Charlottetown

00:25:32.440 for the young kids, if you can remember from your

00:25:34.380 history books. I was

00:25:36.240 a tyke, I guess, when this stuff

00:25:38.380 happened, too. But

00:25:39.240 it's never going to

00:25:42.500 happen.

00:25:44.480 But I get putting forward

00:25:46.560 the idea of constitutional

00:25:48.320 reform, but why would we vote

00:25:50.280 on constitutional reform

00:25:52.580 on the same piece of paper in which

00:25:54.480 we're also voting on independence?

00:25:56.860 We, I mean,

00:25:58.380 this is like going to the

00:26:00.420 courthouse to the divorce

00:26:02.400 counter and asking for marriage

00:26:04.500 counselling. No, like

00:26:06.260 I put it to her that

00:26:08.380 we should vote on

00:26:10.440 these reforms and see

00:26:12.340 what the rest of Canada, see what Ottawa

00:26:14.120 does, give them

00:26:15.900 three months, six months, whatever, you know,

00:26:18.240 something reasonable, and then we have

00:26:20.120 the vote on independence.

00:26:22.380 She seemed to reject

00:26:24.160 that, and it just seems to be you're doing

00:26:26.340 two very different things at the same time that are

00:26:28.560 mutually

00:26:30.100 exclusive. Yeah, well I was just going to ask

00:26:32.380 you if you thought maybe she was doing that so they could

00:26:34.440 put sort of a damper on the

00:26:36.300 independence talk to kind of put that on the back burner

00:26:38.240 maybe and kind of just hide it within all the other stuff

00:26:40.360 that's why they're having it at the exact same time

00:26:42.220 that was my thoughts I just don't know

00:26:44.340 that's what I'm thinking because like you said it's like is anything really

00:26:46.240 going to change like I don't care to change

00:26:48.100 what you see of Nigel

00:26:50.240 a lot of the you know lefty commentators

00:26:52.220 are out there saying that she's holding all of these

00:26:54.220 referendums to boost the independence

00:26:56.440 vote

00:26:56.800 as they've said it I'm inclined to agree with David

00:27:00.260 that I see this is

00:27:02.320 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.

00:27:29.540 so the yeah the left is arguing she's trying to do this to bolster independence i don't think 0.99

00:27:34.200 she's necessarily trying to stop independence but trying to mix it up and i don't think it'll work

00:27:38.740 and i think she actually risks the success on her nine questions she's putting forward

00:27:43.720 because everybody who's going to come out to vote against independence the federalist vote

00:27:48.280 i my my i think their inclination will be to also vote pro-ottawa down the ballot

00:27:55.340 on all of the questions.

00:27:56.980 I'm voting against independence,

00:27:58.920 and I'm voting against taking more control of immigration.

00:28:02.080 I'm voting against limiting migration.

00:28:05.960 I'm voting against abolition, those kinds of things.

00:28:09.080 I don't know whether I agree with you on that, Derek.

00:28:12.800 See, one of the things that she has to contend with,

00:28:17.640 which you didn't mention in your summary there,

00:28:19.580 is her own caucus,

00:28:21.900 who are not of one mind on many of these things.

00:28:24.660 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.

00:28:38.560 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.

00:29:04.840 i agree but why would we be voting on tinkering with or getting rid of the senate and tinkering

00:29:10.760 with divisions of federal powers and and uh and it's not going to work everyone's only going to

00:29:16.840 talk about independence this is not going to work you derek you are a deep thinker on these things

00:29:23.800 corey is a deep thinker favor is a deep writer as well as a thinker on these things so we go into

00:29:30.120 there's stuff with a passionate intensity and work out little angles and so forth with all due

00:29:36.520 respect to albertan voters most of them don't pay any attention to this except when they're told to

00:29:43.000 and even then it's a superficial thing so i agree i have to just you know okay so on this um

00:29:52.520 in uh you know when we get into an actual campaign period for these referendums yeah if you stopped

00:29:58.200 an average person on the street and said how are you voting in the referendum which question are

00:30:02.920 they going to assume you're asking about oh yeah and and but i mean getting to it so it's going to

00:30:07.680 be essentially the campaign starts now it's an eight month campaign one of the things i didn't

00:30:11.660 like looking at this too i just did it while we were you're doing your intro i just did a quick

00:30:15.460 check when you add the questions together there's about 400 words among them you know sorry about

00:30:19.900 word salad questions this is why the clarity act was created in the first place i mean at least

00:30:25.220 The independence question actually is, bang, it's yes or no.

00:30:28.820 And that's where 90% of the discussion is, but we're going to have eight months

00:30:32.180 talking about some of these things, which yes, we know, they go asking if the

00:30:36.380 other provinces will be willing to abolish the Senate.

00:30:38.660 We know that's not going to happen in a million years.

00:30:40.520 The Atlantic provinces in Quebec are never going to go for that.

00:30:42.860 Well, it's actually a Supreme Court of Canada reference made and it can't be done.

00:30:46.120 Yeah.

00:30:46.320 So let's remind Albertans, all of that, as we're approaching an independence vote,

00:30:50.620 the futility of trying to change these things, the futility, plus having the

00:30:55.040 the Andrew Coins and the others up there poo-pooing it and saying, you guys can't choose your judges.

00:30:59.500 You guys can't have these things. And after eight months of that discussion, and as Derek said,

00:31:04.520 there's really only one question that's going to be on people's minds when they go into that booth.

00:31:08.360 I think in the long run, this will help because they either, we got to accept the complete

00:31:13.100 intractability of the rest of the country or you vote for independence. That's the two questions

00:31:16.800 you're going to have. But you should vote for one first, give them three months, six months,

00:31:20.740 whatever to at least signal their willingness to talk guess what they're not going to but let

00:31:26.440 albertans see that first ideally it'd be great i mean i'd slap these out in june and then we could

00:31:31.480 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

00:31:36.340 it in june whatever it is we're gonna work with what we got but due respect nigel this is not 0.87

00:31:41.580 camouflaging is not going to work here when you ask someone on the street how are you voting in

00:31:44.520 the referendum everybody everybody's gonna assume you're asking about independence not about

00:31:50.720 one of the other nine questions on immigration or the senate or judge appointments every single

00:31:56.960 person is going to go to that last question independence that's what i was going to talk

00:32:01.540 about so camouflage if this if the strategy here is to camouflage it i don't think it's going to

00:32:07.180 work well we'll see i guess but my i do think if you go and you stop the stranger on the street

00:32:12.900 and said how are you going to vote on the on the referendums he's probably going to say at this

00:32:17.880 days where I don't understand a lot of them and I thought

00:32:19.920 we couldn't vote on the Senate anyway

00:32:21.820 but yeah, you know, well

00:32:23.860 I'm still making my mind up about independents

00:32:25.780 it'll be a... The average voter's not even

00:32:27.860 going to know there's a vote on this. He's going to say what? What referendum?

00:32:30.460 They're not even going to know. They're going to say well

00:32:31.740 that's their worst ones. There's

00:32:33.920 something interesting to keep in mind too though. So

00:32:35.760 the Quebec referendum in 93

00:32:37.220 95 had a 93%

00:32:39.880 turnout. When a question's that important

00:32:41.660 people will get off their butts. 0.85

00:32:43.660 So they're going to be in that booth and they're going to 0.98

00:32:45.780 look at these as well. If it was just

00:32:47.880 these, I think you'd have a 40% turn up because people are already bored and their eyes have

00:32:51.660 glazed over. But when you've got that nuclear option at the back of all those questions,

00:32:56.160 this is going to spawn a discussion of these issues we've never had before, really,

00:32:59.460 in a way we haven't had before anyways. And it might make a difference.

00:33:04.420 All right. Let's switch to something funnier.

00:33:08.400 People having to give up their houses to pay out

00:33:11.480 offended teachers for not agreeing with trans ideology.

00:33:15.880 uh nodule yeah there's i bet you're the top of the show two cases uh one a lot pricier than the

00:33:22.000 other but both absolutely absurd where people are having to pay for not complying with gender

00:33:28.080 ideology so what we've got going on here is two cases of compelled speech we'll we'll like to talk

00:33:34.780 about freedom of speech so we can say what we think we without fear of our penalty what we've

00:33:41.000 now as is government agencies telling us what we must say this is no longer about

00:33:46.580 what we whether we dare say what we think this is about do we dare not say

00:33:52.700 what the government is telling us to think so what we got here you mentioned

00:33:57.080 two cases one was in Quebec so as a little hairdresser's shop you go online

00:34:02.720 and making your booking are you a male or are you a female because you make a

00:34:06.500 different you know so somebody and I think when you told the anecdote you

00:34:13.460 said that this person was without hair let's put a picture up yeah let's see

00:34:18.560 that let's see this guy or girl or whatever whatever he says he is wanted a

00:34:23.600 haircut what's it going on barber at all well it's just another level almost of

00:34:29.000 the the ball waxer there you know you're just going beyond the pale with your

00:34:35.840 requests back in Quebec they do this you know they're a little a little crazy anyway I think

00:34:42.320 but uh so the thing goes to court and the little hairdresser shop gets fined 500 because they

00:34:49.160 didn't have an option and said pick up and they apologized and they and they and they had fixed

00:34:55.760 they had fixed the website and added his uh you know none of the above kind of option or whatever

00:35:00.380 this is probably and they still find them five hundred dollars you know they probably went to

00:35:05.260 the trouble of fixing the website because they saw what was going on in bc which is the really

00:35:09.500 outrageous one like you don't screw with this stuff if you're a passionate one tell us about

00:35:15.020 bc well bc there's a there's a school district um uh chilevac school trustee his name is barry

00:35:23.260 new felt and is ordered by the bc human rights tribunal to pay not five hundred dollars not even

00:35:32.220 five thousand dollars but seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to lgbtq if i got that in the

00:35:40.860 right order educators for you forgot the plusy oh there's a two in on s in there as well

00:35:46.060 Oh, I understand.

00:35:47.580 Sorry.

00:35:48.660 Yeah, poor research.

00:35:50.360 Anyway, why does he have to pay them?

00:35:53.300 Well, for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.

00:35:57.100 And what had he been doing?

00:35:58.680 For some time, he has publicly criticized the educational programs in B.C. schools as child abuse

00:36:06.660 because they encourage children to consider, you know, are you sure you're a boy?

00:36:12.240 Are you sure you're a girl?

00:36:13.460 You know, you can talk to us.

00:36:14.520 You don't have to talk to your parents.

00:36:16.060 He calls that child abuse, you know, and he labeled gender fluidity a biologically absurd theory.

00:36:24.740 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.

00:36:33.140 So all of this the tribunal deemed as an existential denial of trans identities, terms like gender ideologies seen as fostering discrimination.

00:36:44.500 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.

00:36:57.880 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.

00:37:08.340 And if a woman thinks she's a man, you must give her credit for her feelings on this matter. 0.95

00:37:13.740 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.

00:37:32.160 So David

00:37:34.360 I mean the great totalitarian

00:37:36.800 regimes of the 20th century

00:37:38.400 often banned

00:37:40.780 speech

00:37:41.540 Idi Amin actually

00:37:43.520 I have to admit he was kind of funny in a way

00:37:46.480 he says I can guarantee freedom of speech

00:37:48.360 I just can't guarantee freedom after speech

00:37:50.700 So

00:37:52.720 you know

00:37:54.000 he has moments I guess

00:37:56.100 but you know the great totalitarian

00:37:58.580 regimes would ban speech

00:38:00.620 but they wouldn't generally compel speech.

00:38:04.080 You know, you weren't allowed to criticize the regime

00:38:06.620 or the dictator or their policies or whatever,

00:38:09.680 but the average person was not required to go around

00:38:13.600 and chant the slogan for the most part.

00:38:18.200 That's where we're at.

00:38:19.240 We've skipped kind of hard totalitarianism

00:38:21.640 and gone into whatever this is. 0.76

00:38:23.860 I keep hearing online, they call it gay race communism.

00:38:26.580 It's quite a bit different than regular communism, it would seem.

00:38:29.320 And I was just going to say as well,

00:38:30.200 like that first case Nigel brought up

00:38:31.820 about the guy apologizing

00:38:33.000 and still like them getting fined.

00:38:34.440 It's like, that's why you never apologized to these people

00:38:35.840 because you enabled them 0.82

00:38:36.780 and you're still going to get screwed over anyway. 0.83

00:38:38.540 He probably would have gotten, 0.69

00:38:39.880 Nigel's point,

00:38:40.980 he was probably looking at the case in BC

00:38:42.400 of three quarters of a million.

00:38:43.420 Yeah, and he got us with his slap on the wrist of $500.

00:38:47.240 I think now he might be kind of fighting it 0.92

00:38:49.540 because he's like, okay, this is ridiculous. 0.83

00:38:51.340 But well, it was like, 0.69

00:38:52.540 remember that case of those bakers in the States

00:38:54.380 with the whole like Islamophobia thing?

00:38:56.060 It's kind of the same thing.

00:38:56.900 Did they apologize?

00:38:57.580 because they want to bake the cake for the gay couples gay marriage couple that's yeah that was 0.62

00:39:02.660 the slippery slope i don't think the slippery slope was gay marriage uh people had their concerns

00:39:07.800 it happened and the sky didn't fall and that was okay but people did warn of the slippery slope

00:39:13.960 and where the slope started to get slippy i think was the cake where the cake because this was not

00:39:20.620 about you know gay marriage you know people arguing for it said you're not this is not

00:39:25.180 affect your marriage you don't have to do anything this is other people doing their own thing and as

00:39:31.020 soon as someone else had to do something to affirm what they wanted to do in their private lives for

00:39:36.380 it that opened the door and that's where we are now with gay race communism where you get fined 0.99

00:39:42.860 three quarters of a million dollars for wanting to keep gender weighing studies out of the third

00:39:48.460 grade class well and it's what's distressing with this though is the extreme they went to they

00:39:54.140 They aren't trying to just inconvenience or punish.

00:39:56.800 They're trying to crush him.

00:39:58.240 Those are bankruptcy numbers.

00:39:59.680 These are lose your home, lose your retirement,

00:40:02.580 live in penury for the rest of your life in some shack

00:40:06.060 unless you were somehow very independently wealthy

00:40:08.880 when you've been nailed by something like this.

00:40:11.440 I would only hope that it's appealable

00:40:13.860 just in the extreme of the punishment.

00:40:15.860 I think you can't take it to a court.

00:40:17.160 I doubt a court's going to uphold it.

00:40:18.900 But it shows you how mad the BC Human Rights Commission is.

00:40:22.000 And these conditions shouldn't exist, period.

00:40:23.740 They shouldn't, that's the whole thing, too.

00:40:25.660 We shouldn't legitimize these Judy, you know, or quasi-judicial kangaroo courts.

00:40:30.220 I think you said Judge Judy.

00:40:31.640 Yeah, I have more faith in her.

00:40:33.740 You would get a better, more fair trial with Judge Judy.

00:40:36.880 But, you know, we should just have one judicial system anyway.

00:40:39.840 It's not this human rights crap that's usually appointees who are extreme of one ideology or another who sit on these things.

00:40:45.060 And, by the way, when a tribunal hears these cases, they are not bound by the procedural techniques of a court.

00:40:52.960 no there's no business of uh you you may be able to demonstrate that what you're saying is true

00:40:58.640 but that doesn't matter truth is it could excuse feelings truth is not a defense

00:41:03.760 if it exposed an identifiable group to uh hatred or hatred or contempt truth is not a defense you

00:41:09.600 can prove that what i said is true but if it exposed an identifiable group to hatred or contempt

00:41:15.520 you're guilty i hold the commissions in contempt yeah uh and this is just a good reminder uh back

00:41:21.520 Back in the Western Standard's first version, when it was a print magazine,

00:41:24.140 the Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals came for the Western Standard 1.00

00:41:26.740 for being the only publication in Canada to publish the Mohammed cartoons.

00:41:31.800 And, you know, those commissions almost went down over that

00:41:37.800 because they finally crossed the bridge too far.

00:41:39.620 They were just going after some unsympathetic figure,

00:41:43.480 you know, printing anti-Semitic leaflets through a fax machine or something.

00:41:48.760 They went after a legitimate news outlet.

00:41:51.520 sharing a legitimate news story

00:41:53.380 and they went to bridge too far.

00:41:55.660 But it just goes to show you have to defend

00:41:57.720 those unsympathetic figures

00:41:59.180 who are maybe doing something you don't agree with

00:42:01.840 because

00:42:02.980 you know, to quote Rachel Notley

00:42:05.460 first they came for the anti-Semites.

00:42:08.020 You know, then they came for the capitalists.

00:42:12.640 You know.

00:42:13.800 Alright.

00:42:15.560 Alright, our parting shots. We're going to get first.

00:42:18.100 Okay, well this is one I think you guys agree

00:42:19.820 that I'm getting annoyed with hearing about.

00:42:21.520 is all these people that are on the Alberta independence petition,

00:42:24.320 their canvassers, are getting harassed by people.

00:42:26.500 And now Mitch Sylvester, the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project,

00:42:29.940 had a guy come into his store in Bonneville with a bullet and threaten him.

00:42:33.560 Where was any of this for the Forever Canada petitioners?

00:42:36.180 I never heard a single thing about that ever happening to them.

00:42:38.800 So what's the difference?

00:42:40.060 I'd pull over, I'd see them on the side of the road,

00:42:43.000 kind of a country road in the way of my place, my boulder.

00:42:45.680 Say hi, how's it going?

00:42:46.680 Smiling with it.

00:42:47.280 Bye-bye.

00:42:48.060 Although I have seen, we may even need to follow up on the story,

00:42:50.540 I have seen it alleged.

00:42:52.180 It was not an actual bullet.

00:42:53.160 It was a...

00:42:53.540 It was...

00:42:54.020 I talked to Mitch to clarify.

00:42:55.460 It was an actual bullet.

00:42:56.500 That guy's...

00:42:56.840 It was an actual bullet.

00:42:57.180 That guy...

00:42:57.560 That actual video, that's not the guy.

00:42:59.460 It's not even the same guy now.

00:43:00.880 Okay.

00:43:01.660 Interesting.

00:43:02.760 All right, Corey.

00:43:04.420 Well, it just kind of ties into where you're going, I think, in a bit.

00:43:07.000 But if people aren't familiar with John Cleese from Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, and I

00:43:11.800 know he's never been a conservative with his political views, but boy, this last week has

00:43:15.660 he let loose, including on that $750,000 ruling saying he may not tour Canada because of that.

00:43:21.660 Because again, as much as he might be a lefty, he values free speech and he's ripping into Islam 1.00

00:43:26.520 just brilliantly. So follow him on X because he's pulling back all political correctness.

00:43:32.660 Him and Rowan Atkinson as well. So the old English comedians, at least you're standing up,

00:43:36.920 might be too late, but at least they're speaking out. Mr. Bean, symbol of freedom.

00:43:41.040 His speeches might not be good.

00:43:43.920 Although, I'll never forget,

00:43:45.860 I'm sure you've all seen that one clip.

00:43:47.900 It was Rowan Atkins, not as Mr. B, but Rowan Atkins,

00:43:50.120 and he was speaking at a Tory convention

00:43:52.100 in the 80s.

00:43:53.920 Oh, it's such a classic.

00:43:56.900 It's such a classic.

00:43:58.320 All right.

00:43:59.520 Brilliant.

00:44:00.360 So, look, watched the State of the Union

00:44:02.900 address last night, despite the

00:44:04.640 intense difficulty.

00:44:07.100 You watched the whole thing?

00:44:08.280 Yeah, we were workingers.

00:44:10.180 This is how we know you're retired.

00:44:12.360 Yep.

00:44:12.800 This is, I don't know whether it was TELUS or whether it was the originating,

00:44:16.640 it was a horrible thing to have to watch.

00:44:19.640 But what Trump said appealed to me.

00:44:25.300 What didn't appeal to me was the response by some Democrats who couldn't even rise to say,

00:44:34.260 well, at least that kid is all right, or that kid has done well, or this fellow deserves his medal.

00:44:43.140 And it took me back, I haven't thought about this for a very, very long time,

00:44:47.420 but when General Grant became president, Ulysses Grant, after this American Civil War,

00:44:55.080 finally he died, he was reckoned to have been a good president,

00:44:58.160 and two Confederate generals were among the poll bearers as he left the church.

00:45:05.400 So it is possible for Republicans and Democrats to get together over things that are possible.

00:45:13.600 It was possible back in the 1870s.

00:45:16.840 There's something about the Democrat response there.

00:45:20.320 They can't even applaud something that's good.

00:45:23.400 It makes me think the problems in the United States are a lot deeper than we think.

00:45:27.200 And just on that, a tip of the hat to the cameraman at the speech.

00:45:33.120 I didn't watch the whole speech.

00:45:34.700 It was way too long.

00:45:36.220 But Trump had these moments where he talked about, I'm quoting Trump here.

00:45:40.720 He talked about Somali pirates ransacking Minnesota.

00:45:44.680 And he pans to Aliyah Omar, who's crashing out. 0.75

00:45:49.620 And he talks about, you know, the absurdity of transgendered ideology. 0.99

00:45:55.760 and he pans to, I think, a Democratic

00:45:57.540 member of Congress who is a biological

00:45:59.540 man but dresses as a woman. 0.79

00:46:01.720 Pants to...

00:46:03.080 That cameraman

00:46:04.680 better hope

00:46:07.300 J.D. Vance stays president because he's not going to be

00:46:09.300 filling many more of these things.

00:46:12.140 It was

00:46:12.920 ballsy. Okay, mine,

00:46:15.320 I want to draw note

00:46:17.280 to those of you who have not been paying attention to

00:46:19.560 the United Kingdom's

00:46:21.520 newest political party, Restore

00:46:23.280 Britain.

00:46:23.660 uh you know there was a lot of hope maybe there still is some uh for Nigel Farage's reform party

00:46:30.160 or Nigel Farage led Brexit for years did God's work uh leaves the reform party now which has

00:46:36.220 been uh leading in kind of minority government territory in the UK um completely eclipsing the

00:46:42.820 Tories the Tories look headed for kind of liberal democratic uh Lib Dem um you know third party

00:46:49.340 fourth party extinction status um was really going for it but he just didn't seem to have a

00:46:55.920 religion on things like re-migration the key issue re-migration and he kicked out uh a member of

00:47:02.920 was it uh low what's his name the mp anyway you kicked this guy out this guy has now gone on to

00:47:09.080 start his own party he kicked this guy out because this guy's uh supported re-migration this guy has

00:47:13.140 gone on to start Restore Britain.

00:47:16.520 Brilliant

00:47:17.000 social media campaign. Rupert Lowe.

00:47:19.260 Rupert Lowe, yeah.

00:47:21.280 Brilliant social media campaign in the

00:47:23.100 span of, I think the party's roughly a week,

00:47:25.620 maybe two weeks old.

00:47:27.400 It's less than two weeks.

00:47:28.920 It's only 7% in the polls.

00:47:30.900 Three times with the polls with the

00:47:32.720 Alberta's progressive Tories are.

00:47:36.600 You know,

00:47:36.900 already, like, really hitting the map.

00:47:38.880 My fear is, of course, you've now got

00:47:40.840 the Tories, you've got

00:47:42.400 reform and you've got restore and first past the post system that's not a recipe for success

00:47:48.080 but neither is doing what the uk has been doing which is leading it to civilizational

00:47:51.920 uh extinction so they've got to do something radical uh but i just want to bring note uh

00:47:59.920 point out restore uk uh just the absolute they've come down like a meteorite on the on the uk british

00:48:06.000 scene and uh i think we'll hear we're gonna hear a lot more about them in the next years okay

00:48:13.280 corey david nigel thank you and thank you john running in the studio here and all of you uh

00:48:20.720 watching from home or your elliptical whatever you're doing thank you very much for joining us

00:48:25.680 remember to go to westernstandard.news click on subscribe it's only ten dollars a month or

00:48:29.840 a hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to all western standard content getting past that

00:48:34.240 paywall and to support the work we are doing we've now got uh we got full-time staff full-time

00:48:40.120 reporters in vancouver calgary edmonton regina toronto ottawa uh we're spreading like the plague

00:48:49.380 all right thank you very much for joining us today and god bless

00:49:04.240 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - February 26, 2026

Polls show Alberta independence & UCP gaining

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