Western Standard - Quebec’s PQ win revives independence. What does it mean for Alberta？

00:00:00.000 G'day, today is October 7th, 2026, I'm Derek Phil, the Brandt publisher of the Western Standard,

00:00:29.040 and you're watching the pipeline i've got two of our regulars here our former opinion editor

00:00:35.200 nigel hannaford is away on vacation today but we've got you are some of our usual lineup here

00:00:42.000 our senior alberta columnist cory morgan good day our news editor dave naylor hello and coming to us

00:00:49.600 from an undisclosed location in british columbia is our reporter alex zoltan thank you for having

00:00:56.640 me all right uh well we've got alex here because we're going to be talking about bc's election

00:01:04.840 which is just incredible what's happening supposed to be a crushing super majority for david eb who

00:01:11.760 called an election halfway through his mandate breaking the fixed election date law so two years

00:01:17.080 early and if polls are too believed he is headed at best for a minority but most likely actually

00:01:26.540 to get completely clobbered, and the Conservatives, who were leaderless and chaotic, to put it

00:01:31.900 extremely mildly, looking to form a pretty thumping majority government.

00:01:38.340 We'll see.

00:01:40.520 Speaking of elections, though, we just had an election in Quebec on Monday evening, and

00:01:47.660 the Parti Québécois won it, if you can call it winning.

00:01:51.100 I mean, it's the 28% of the vote's pretty, pretty thin rule for forming government.

00:01:55.960 It's a minority.

00:01:56.540 And it's split with very healthy, strong caucuses for all the other parties in the legislature, those parties of which does not include the CAC, the Coalition Avec Quebec, whatever, that's my best.

00:02:12.240 Heaven here.

00:02:13.060 Yeah, Coalition Avenir Quebec.

00:02:15.300 The CAC.

00:02:15.880 Anyway, the CAC is whack.

00:02:18.500 It's gone.

00:02:18.980 Um, so we're going to talk about the Quebec election, uh, in particular to what impact or influence that might have on the coming Alberta quasi-independence referendum of October 19th.

00:02:33.020 But first, we're going to start with transnational news, uh, an arrest, uh, in the Tubler Ridge, uh, mass shooting case, uh, yesterday.

00:02:43.940 uh david was in washington state so you know pretty culturally similar to uh parts at least

00:02:51.200 of british columbia um we uh i i remember we uh we were really leading with our nose uh when that

00:02:58.700 story was breaking at the western standard was the first media outlet on the planet to confirm

00:03:03.140 uh the identity of the shooter we um we had pretty strong suspicions that this was a trans-related

00:03:09.920 shooting we are the first on the planet to confirm it was and then you know you had politicians and

00:03:15.060 the entire nearly the entire legacy media in canada all crying how dare you even pointed out

00:03:20.400 that the the shooter is trans this has nothing to do with it when it very obviously did we did not

00:03:25.660 use the preferred pronouns of the shooter people thought we were uh racist or something for that

00:03:30.380 i don't i forget how that works now um uh but yeah an arrest of an accomplice in washington state

00:03:38.700 yes and surprisingly he was also trans surprisingly nothing to do with the

00:03:45.780 case nothing to do with the case but this guy was up to his elbows in it he

00:03:51.000 had met the the Tumblr Ridge shooter online a couple of years ago and they

00:03:55.660 they went through the plot and he sent him money to buy stockings and and nice

00:04:03.060 shoes to wear uh for the shooting was it the sugar mommy or daddy uh i'm trying to get it right

00:04:09.860 yeah sugar thing uh sugar thing sugar thing um but yeah he was instrumental in planning it

00:04:17.540 uh they did dry runs he was going to live stream it on on facebook uh thank god facebook shut it

00:04:24.740 down after a few seconds. And his involvement was so much that after the killer had wiped out his

00:04:33.800 family, he went to drive to the school to shoot it up and he couldn't get the car going. So this

00:04:40.420 guy in Washington state helped him get the car going, giving them instructions on what to do

00:04:45.640 to get the car going. And then, you know, followed him along as he shot up the school. So the FBI

00:04:52.460 I was called in and, uh, uh, yeah, he's, you know, hopefully they, they haven't really

00:04:57.460 said yet, but hopefully, uh, they try him in the States and not Canada, cause he'll

00:05:02.540 do way more time in the States, uh, than he ever would here.

00:05:06.560 Well, I think the charge against him is aiding a murder in a foreign country.

00:05:11.680 So, I mean, that's a domestic charge on the part of the Americans.

00:05:14.420 So I would suspect there's no talk about extradition or anything.

00:05:17.140 He committed his crime from the United States.

00:05:19.700 No, I mean, oh God.

00:05:21.980 i mean he'd be let out for within weeks but yeah that's it you know we first brought it out but it

00:05:28.540 is a big issue now you look at all the recent school shootings in in the united states and a

00:05:33.660 lot of them are trans related they're they're uh they're done by kids who say they're transitioning

00:05:41.100 and it shows a you know a mental illness that is a huge problem yeah it doesn't necessarily mean

00:05:45.820 that being trans is a mental illness but i yeah it's insensitive to say but it's obvious we know

00:05:51.740 know it that at the very least a large portion if not it there's a direct correlation with 0.98

00:05:59.860 gender dysphoria being trans with at least it being a symptom of some other mental illness

00:06:06.280 not that being trans is a mental illness but it's often it seems that it's obviously a symptom of

00:06:11.420 something not some trans people are just living stable normal lives they've just transitioned

00:06:15.900 done what they're doing and good on them fine be happy but there is and because it's become such a 0.90

00:06:20.740 trend it has let's face it you know where did the goth kids go they all disappeared if you're 0.83

00:06:24.760 discontent with things you're miserable there was there was there was goth there oh okay well

00:06:29.100 there were kids either way yeah you know i'm just saying there's always a degree of kids who weren't

00:06:33.960 fitting when well or aren't mentally well or so on they embrace something i think a degree of them

00:06:39.580 i mean i know people could jump all over here not a psychiatrist okay fine but still i mean i can

00:06:44.000 speculate they're obviously mentally disturbed nobody in their right mind wants to go out and

00:06:48.440 kill people. They've jumped into trans, they're not comfortable with who they are, what they are, 0.98

00:06:54.100 whatever it is, and they hope that would be a solution. Well, maybe I'm a, I mean, they're 1.00

00:06:57.020 getting fed that by so many fronts too. Well, oh, your problem is just that you're the wrong gender. 0.99

00:07:01.020 If you would just embrace that, everything will be all right. And I think that's part of the 1.00

00:07:03.800 problem. They embrace that, they transition, they try their things, they throw on a skirt

00:07:07.880 and find out, no, I'm just as screwed up and discontent and messed up as I ever was before 0.95

00:07:11.740 I did this. In fact, I'm even more of a social pariah now. And the really twisted ones can snap 0.96

00:07:16.660 farther off the edge.

00:07:17.540 I mean, we have to admit that, have to admit that, yeah, as Dave said, you know,

00:07:21.100 it could be a symptom of a bigger issue.

00:07:23.260 It's, it's not typical and I know it's a sensitive issue and I know we don't want

00:07:27.700 to blanket just everybody who's wearing a, you know, outside gender clothing is

00:07:31.800 going to be dangerous or do anything like that.

00:07:33.640 But we, we can't hide from the fact, this is more than a little bit of a pattern now.

00:07:38.580 No, Alex has been through the 48, 41 page indictment.

00:07:42.600 So, and it details a lot of the conversation.

00:07:45.040 so i'd like to hear what stood out for him yeah alex uh you yeah you went through the indictment

00:07:50.560 what stands out for you that we don't already know from kind of the the major headlines in

00:07:56.080 legacy media yeah so i think what stood out for me and what i think is getting lost a little bit

00:08:01.200 in the trans discussion is the fact that this was just a predatory adult speaking to a minor and

00:08:06.160 i'd actually be curious to hear your guys's thoughts on whether this changes your thinking

00:08:11.360 or leads to an evolution in your thinking in terms of age verification for these platforms

00:08:16.240 well no no i mean like screwed up people don't get the cause everyone else losing their freedoms

00:08:23.420 period i mean the internet is going to be a place of predators it's going to be a place of creeps

00:08:28.340 and there is only so much we can do to protect it's not worth giving up our

00:08:32.620 our liberties for it but yeah so you know there's there's that dynamic but what what else in the

00:08:37.720 indictment stands out for you uh that that you saw in there that yeah there were there were some

00:08:45.360 particularly there were some particularly disturbing images i mean this kind of circles

00:08:50.260 back to the trans issue but one of them was a picture of the gun that was used allegedly in

00:08:55.740 the crime which was interesting because the rcmp has been quite reluctant to release any information

00:09:01.600 related to that and the gun had a trans activism sticker on it and also had what appeared to be a

00:09:07.280 trans activism sticker or maybe a scrunchie um along the barrel of the gun uh the journalist

00:09:13.220 andy know who i believe is based out of portland but i think he goes into washington state quite

00:09:17.840 often made the rather interesting point that this means people would have been killed literally

00:09:22.540 through the barrel of a trans gun which is quite disturbing to think about what type of firearm 0.79

00:09:29.320 was it uh you have to you have to modify the barrel if it's gonna be trans yeah invert the 0.66

00:09:35.660 trigger. This is getting dark. Yeah. I mean, and I'm not a gun guy. I'm here in BC, but I think 0.98

00:09:44.540 it's an SKS if I'm not mistaken. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's a pretty, that's a very common

00:09:50.480 and cheap semi-automatic, uh, rifle from Europe. And it's, uh, I mean, there's, there's hundreds

00:09:57.180 of thousands very likely in Canada, more in the States. That's part of why I was asking is that's

00:10:01.540 actually just gets into a side issue. They'll go too far in the rabbit hole, but that's been

00:10:05.080 one that has avoided

00:10:07.200 the ban list because it's very common among

00:10:09.200 indigenous hunters. Well, they tried to 1.00

00:10:11.180 ban it, but they didn't have any actual gun owners

00:10:13.280 in the Liberal government, and they realized

00:10:15.040 they pissed off indigenous gun owners, and so they

00:10:17.040 unbanned it quickly. 0.82

00:10:18.340 Isn't there an old Russian World War II

00:10:21.340 model?

00:10:22.240 That's what these are, just post-World War II.

00:10:25.020 They're post-war, but they're semi-automatic.

00:10:27.560 To somebody who doesn't know

00:10:28.620 guns, they might think it's like an AK-47.

00:10:31.160 It's not. But it is an Eastern 0.93

00:10:32.680 Bloc, like

00:10:34.760 I'm not going to say much about them,

00:10:36.500 but they're manufactured often in former Czechoslovakia.

00:10:41.560 They're cheap, reliable, utilitarian.

00:10:43.720 They use the same ammunition as an AK-47.

00:10:46.420 Yeah, they shoot cheap 7.62, which they can buy by the crate cheap.

00:10:49.980 It stinks. It does stink.

00:10:52.360 Alex, was there stuff in the indictment about the RCMP

00:10:56.380 knowing of this kid in advance,

00:10:59.080 knowing of his mental problems and knowing of his weapons?

00:11:02.340 uh so just a little bit of a correction it wasn't an indictment it was a criminal complaint and

00:11:08.260 because i'm not an expert on american legal um nomenclature i don't really know what the

00:11:12.820 difference is there but i know that the cbc posted a correction on that so i assume it's

00:11:16.460 somewhat relevant and in the criminal complaint they mentioned that uh discord had reached out

00:11:21.820 to the rcmp um proactively with regards to information that they had connected to the

00:11:28.340 Tumblr Red Shooter, the RCMP had already disclosed that they were familiar with Jesse

00:11:33.120 Van Routselaar because they had been there on numerous wellness checks. He had also tried

00:11:40.000 burning his own house down, which I think they had to attend to. So this, was there any evidence

00:11:46.220 though, I guess, of any flags coming up with that other gentleman in the United States before any

00:11:51.240 of this happened? I mean, there was obviously a lot of conversation and planning, but, and I'm

00:11:55.360 I'm glad he's caught even after the fact, but was there any possible chance of heading this off?

00:11:59.920 I don't think so.

00:12:01.260 I imagine that it's fairly difficult for these social media applications or companies to parse through what is serious and what is sarcastic.

00:12:10.020 I imagine people say all kinds of crazy things on the Internet that they don't actually intend to do.

00:12:14.420 So I would be surprised if there was any advance warning provided to the police.

00:12:19.120 So I want to before we move on, I want to talk about media coverage of it.

00:12:23.400 So as I mentioned, you know, when the original Tumblr Ridge shooting took place, you know, we were up late.

00:12:30.340 We had, was it Will Vassar?

00:12:33.400 Yeah, we sent Will Vassar, our Edmonton report.

00:12:35.500 He was actually the closest to Tumblr Ridge.

00:12:37.420 We had him drive all the way from Edmonton overnight to get there in the morning.

00:12:41.600 But we actually had contacts on the ground living in Tumblr Ridge, kind of just lucky that we actually knew some people.

00:12:48.780 So, you know, we confirmed the identity and the gender identity of the shooter as the first media in the world on this story.

00:12:56.900 But, you know, you remember the CBC, Toronto Star, all the usual CTV Global, they all ran stories about how this was bigoted to even mention the gender identity of the shooter.

00:13:11.160 um you know it raised questions for us first when it was not a male shooter because

00:13:16.260 most violent crimes are committed by men and then this was identified as the police

00:13:22.420 kind of intimated a oh there was a female shooter ish and that we instantly knew we're like

00:13:28.080 bet it's not bet it's not wasn't their initial sort of text active shooter dress in a dress

00:13:35.740 man in a dress or just in a dress they didn't say one they didn't say man and that dress that's a

00:13:41.960 little what infuriates me with this if we have an active scene it's like exactly it's like the

00:13:47.480 edmonton one two with that predator they released and i remember reading that press release and it 0.77

00:13:52.340 says this woman who's got a history of you know uh molesting children and things like that be on

00:13:56.900 the lookout and i thought wow and then i click on the release and open it up and there's a dude

00:14:00.860 with a five o'clock shadow and earrings on like if you really want to make the public safe i would

00:14:05.640 have been out looking for a woman by that description just say what it is for the sake

00:14:10.940 of public safety i'm sorry if it's insensitive but too damn bad if we get an active shooter

00:14:15.240 i want as accurate a description as possible so the people out there know what to watch for when

00:14:20.340 they hunker down well i i could be wrong about this but i believe the original police warning

00:14:24.900 was a woman wearing a dress which i found particularly disturbing because that would

00:14:31.120 put any woman wearing a dress technically at risk right because people could mistake her for the

00:14:35.960 shooting it's a live situation yeah and and the description well the description was also a red 1.00

00:14:42.280 flag for many people number one as you've already noted um it's very rare for women to engage in 0.98

00:14:47.140 mass shooting incidents and number two a woman wearing a dress is sort of a redundant phrase

00:14:51.560 it's like saying a man wearing pants right i mean it's yeah it set off red flags for a lot of people

00:14:57.500 and led them to speculate.

00:14:59.100 So, Alex, my question is about media coverage of this,

00:15:02.860 the Washington state arrest here in British Columbia.

00:15:07.120 So I know, you know, we had a lot of media attacking us

00:15:10.320 for being whatever phobics and isms

00:15:14.920 when we named the shooter as trans.

00:15:18.020 And then we discussed the relevance of it on shows

00:15:22.300 and in opinion pieces afterwards.

00:15:23.800 How has the media that you've seen, legacy media you've seen covering the Washington State arrest of the transnational shooter, have they been respecting preferred pronouns? Have they mentioned or not the trans identity of the shooter? What kind of nomenclature have they used in this?

00:15:48.920 Yeah, so much like in Canada and NBC in particular, much of the mainstream or legacy media, if you will, have been referring to the individual Cody James Bryant as a she.

00:15:59.700 They also referred to him as a she in the courtroom, which is, again, analogous to what we would typically do here in British Columbia.

00:16:06.460 But there is also some, for lack of a better term, what you might refer to as alternative media who are referring to the individual by the pronouns that correspond with his biological sex.

00:16:18.940 It is striking too, though, that other aspect.

00:16:21.380 I'm glad you brought up because I just hadn't thought of it, really.

00:16:23.440 But, you know, this is another facet when we are talking about a predatory online person, though.

00:16:28.780 It is something to be concerned about.

00:16:30.560 The age spread is big.

00:16:32.140 And this is worse than, you know, just your run-of-the-mill pervert, if you want to call it that.

00:16:36.120 I mean, he helped and counseled that guy into committing one of the most horrific things we've ever seen in Western Canada.

00:16:42.480 Yeah, I completely agree.

00:16:44.020 I don't think that I will be breaking any news when I say that the internet is swimming with

00:16:48.400 predators. But I think that that is kind of the bigger issue that maybe we're losing here

00:16:51.800 is the fact that, you know, it's quite disturbing for any parent, I would imagine, to think about

00:16:57.980 the fact that this type of person may be speaking to their child. And so it does give me pause for

00:17:03.360 thought on perhaps some sort of age verification system on the internet. I understand that the

00:17:08.240 teenagers as well are not exactly known for compliance so i mean i i question how effective

00:17:13.860 that would be if i steal man my own suggestion here but it does make you think i mean especially

00:17:19.740 when it comes to children i'm willing to give up an ounce of my privacy for a pound of their

00:17:23.420 security it's children i still don't think it'll protect children uh so um yeah i mean it was

00:17:31.760 obvious when the first when this story first broke with the tumblr ridge shooting as soon as

00:17:37.380 the police description said woman in address or person in address whatever it was and where you

00:17:41.440 and i just looked at each other we're like it's not a woman we knew well excuse the policing

00:17:47.640 statistics as well right so the policing statistics i believe they're they've been very very closed

00:17:52.760 mouth about it but apparently they're counting this as a female murderer which you know that

00:17:58.340 that i imagine has downstream i'm happy to have one less in the in the men's category but like

00:18:04.720 come on and another aspect did it talk much about actually the ai element i know that was big up

00:18:10.140 here there's the suit against chat gpt because he'd been communicating with that and that's

00:18:15.460 another kind of rabbit hole though i mean ai could counsel people into nasty things but

00:18:20.040 if we're talking about something that could be online and watch the dangerous discussion and

00:18:23.940 raise flags when there's a problem ai is probably the perfect tool for that too but yeah yeah there

00:18:29.460 was there was a really good story on that actually on the ai element and what had happened originally

00:18:33.680 was, according to this story, Van Routselaar was kicked off of the ChatGPT platform, and then when

00:18:39.120 he created a new account to go back on, he informed ChatGPT that his previous account had been

00:18:44.180 deleted, and ChatGPT advised him on how to get around the protocols for discussing violent

00:18:49.560 activity. But one thing that's also very interesting about this most recent Tumblr Ridge development

00:18:54.620 is people are questioning whether it will have any impact on the civil suit occurring between

00:18:59.480 dozens of victims and the province of bc against chat gbt because the argument in that civil suit

00:19:05.160 was that the chat bot had essentially convinced ben root solar to commit this horrific act but

00:19:09.720 now it appears as though a regular well not regular a somewhat irregular human being um

00:19:15.800 encouraged him to do it instead of a chat bot so it'll be interesting to see if it has any

00:19:19.400 implications on that case there definitely are restrictions on uh these things now i uh for

00:19:25.800 you know we're getting to halloween here and so i i bought a fairly human-sized skeleton i wanted

00:19:31.640 to hang it from a tree with a hangman's noose and i asked uh i asked grok uh how to how to make a

00:19:37.320 hangman's noose and it just says you need to call this number for help right now don't do it i was

00:19:42.600 like this is for halloween i'm trying to hang a plastic skeleton from a tree over my driveway

00:19:47.320 i would have figured it'd accuse you being a klansman

00:19:49.320 thank you i don't i don't know alex uh one of the inspirational stories that came out of tumblr

00:19:58.380 tumblr ridge is a little maya i know you've been following her recovery how is she doing

00:20:04.080 she's doing surprisingly well it's been a miraculous recovery all things considered

00:20:08.960 so i believe she went through several um skull or what is it what do they call it

00:20:15.440 i'm not a doctor um she went through several different surgeries and she has began to be

00:20:22.880 almost verbal she is able to do hand gestures to express joy uh she appears to be surprisingly

00:20:30.240 well adjusted there was a video posted recently of her dancing with a friend

00:20:33.800 so it has been a rare glimpse of inspiration amidst uh what is otherwise a horrific tragedy

00:20:39.920 you i'll close on that yeah uh move to something a bit lighter uh so uh ppp uh you know we thought

00:20:50.240 pure paul over pp we have ppp in uh quebec is it pierre yes something palado is it three piece

00:20:59.760 paul say pierre plumondon uh i mean if you wanted a quebec sounding name from a quebec party whoo

00:21:07.760 they got it um so quebecers voted i think it was only 28 that is a low percentage of the vote to

00:21:14.760 form a government but you had a a real split between the party quebecois the quebec liberals

00:21:20.040 the quebec conservatives which have finally entered the uh they call it the national assembly

00:21:25.820 in quebec as a very large third party uh the quebec solidaire they're a essentially marxist

00:21:32.760 pro-independence party. They're like extreme, extreme left. Uh, they're like a weird mix of

00:21:38.180 like the communist party and Hamas. Um, so, uh, then, um, and then the CAC, the governing party

00:21:47.300 went from a big majority government to zero seats, completely wiped out. Um, so I know, uh,

00:21:55.680 Plamondon. I'll just keep it Plamondon. I've interviewed this guy before in studio here.

00:22:04.300 He came to Alberta and met with people in the independence movement. Very personable guy. I

00:22:09.340 really wanted to dislike him and I couldn't. You know, kind of a lefty Quebec thing. And

00:22:15.340 he's a charming guy and he was here very intentionally building bridges with Alberta's

00:22:22.380 independence movement. That's something that never existed in any significant critical mass

00:22:26.100 during the 1980 Quebec referendum or the 1995 Quebec referendum.

00:22:33.440 Now, he has said, Corey, that there's going to be no independence referendum as long as Trump

00:22:39.420 is still president, because Trump is such a big existential threat. You know, he makes the point

00:22:43.740 that, well, maybe it'd just be too disruptive. And I think Quebecers are afraid while they're

00:22:50.460 facing the boogeyman of the South.

00:22:53.920 Kind of top

00:22:54.500 line, what do you think the big impact of any

00:22:56.620 the election of

00:22:58.400 PQ government in Quebec, even

00:23:00.560 one that says we're not yet holding an independence

00:23:02.420 referendum, what impact do you think that

00:23:04.520 will have on the Alberta referendum

00:23:06.720 and federal provincial

00:23:08.440 politics going forward? Being this close to

00:23:10.460 the referendum in Alberta, I don't know if it will have much.

00:23:12.640 Maybe a little bit, a bit marginal. I mean, it's

00:23:14.460 showing just, again, there's some instability

00:23:16.280 in other parts of the country. There's a province

00:23:18.380 that's still discontent.

00:23:19.740 I know it's less than 30% that voted for the PQ,

00:23:22.540 but at the same time, it can't be denied

00:23:23.720 that an overtly secessionist party

00:23:25.360 did manage to win the largest amount of votes.

00:23:28.360 And the Quebec Solidaires is there.

00:23:29.860 They're overtly...

00:23:30.440 And they're that way as well.

00:23:32.420 The movement's not gone from Quebec.

00:23:34.220 Trump gives them a convenient excuse

00:23:35.960 to kick it down the road

00:23:36.820 because their promise was to hold them,

00:23:37.980 and they know they don't have

00:23:38.640 the winning conditions yet.

00:23:41.440 So, I mean, I think it could offer

00:23:42.880 a little inspiration on the front out in Alberta.

00:23:45.660 I think in the longer game

00:23:46.760 is more what to look at, though,

00:23:47.820 because he's going to be looking to create those winning conditions.

00:23:50.040 He's going to be spoiling for scraps with the federal government and fighting with them.

00:23:54.000 And if he's talking cooperatively with Albertans, at least, we'll see.

00:23:57.600 I don't know how cooperatively he'd be with Premier Smith,

00:23:59.420 but if there's any sane independence leaders emerge in the next few months or whatever,

00:24:04.620 there could be people that there could be dialogue back and forth.

00:24:07.060 Yeah, well, they want a lot of the same stuff Alberta wants.

00:24:10.140 Yeah, there's a lot of shared. 0.96

00:24:11.420 They want cuts to immigration.

00:24:12.980 So if Alberta and Quebec team up as provinces against the feds, I think that could work well.

00:24:19.620 But look, I mean, 28% public support, there's no chance that they're going to call a referendum.

00:24:27.560 And plus, the appetite is not there.

00:24:34.600 It's ranging from high 20s to low 30s.

00:24:37.760 It's basically the same.

00:24:39.020 Quebec Solidaire is another 10% on top of that.

00:24:41.720 And there are a fair number of people who voted CAC and Conservative who are also nationalists.

00:24:45.680 They were very nationalists.

00:24:46.760 So it's not, it's strong.

00:24:48.320 It's not over 50%, but it's, it's undeniably still strong there.

00:24:51.520 I mean, it hasn't gone away.

00:24:52.260 But surely they need to, to work and work on the game.

00:24:55.520 Unlike the Alberta one here where it came as a, you know, you guys didn't have a running start.

00:25:01.780 You know, they could plan on it, but I don't see it.

00:25:04.600 I don't see it happening immediately.

00:25:06.700 No.

00:25:06.940 Well, they said they're not doing it immediately.

00:25:08.260 Yeah.

00:25:08.500 I mean, I don't see it happening in their first term.

00:25:10.500 And the good thing here for Polyev is the Conservatives dominated the younger vote, right?

00:25:17.500 They actually, you know, cleaned up with young voters.

00:25:20.500 So, you know, just like federally in the elbows up crowd, it's the old people who were voting for the PQ.

00:25:30.500 And you'll see oldies voting for Kearney. 0.95

00:25:33.500 Well, Corey mentioned the term winning conditions, and a lot of people in English Canada don't really know what that means.

00:25:42.120 It's a term popularized by Lucien Bouchard, who, after the failure of the 1995 referendum, and that was a razor-close thing.

00:25:50.700 Keeping in mind, remember, sport was in the 30s when that referendum started.

00:25:54.580 They moved it up.

00:25:55.860 They got razor-close.

00:25:58.960 Some of them clearly actually won, and the Feds cheated.

00:26:01.080 But neither here nor there.

00:26:03.500 Um, Lucien Bouchard took over as premier, uh, from, uh, Jacques Perizeau right after the

00:26:12.280 referendum and he wanted to hold a third one, but his point was, we're not going to call

00:26:18.160 one until we have what he called winning conditions.

00:26:21.280 And that means setting things up on the federal provincial relations stage to make clear to

00:26:28.000 nationalist Quebecers that they can't get what they want with Ottawa in Canada.

00:26:33.080 And then you hold the referendum.

00:26:35.240 And I've always said this is one of the big, possibly the single biggest problem with the Alberta independence movement is that it has never paid any attention to winning conditions.

00:26:46.960 It was always just like, let's just hold the vote as soon as we can and the people will rise up with us.

00:26:52.660 And that's just not the way it normally works.

00:26:55.580 you know I've always thought we should have

00:26:58.120 one round of referendums first on constitutional

00:27:00.500 reform here

00:27:01.500 which will go nowhere but there should be good

00:27:04.420 faith efforts to amend the constitution

00:27:05.920 the second five questions are what we have 0.99

00:27:07.860 but we're holding them at the same time which is idiotic 0.99

00:27:10.500 so we're talking about getting rid of the senate 0.99

00:27:12.520 and provincial employment of upper court

00:27:14.640 judges on the same ballot 0.99

00:27:16.720 it's idiotic to hold it this way 0.99

00:27:18.100 you hold that first and then six months later you hold your 0.99

00:27:20.260 referendum on independence

00:27:21.480 and so Palado here

00:27:24.260 it's about winning conditions.

00:27:27.260 You don't want to hold a referendum if you don't

00:27:29.220 think you've got at least a

00:27:31.220 50-50 shot of winning, which is

00:27:33.160 in contrast to Alberta, which

00:27:34.820 it was just the excitement of like, hey, we've

00:27:37.220 got the Citizens Initiative thing,

00:27:39.800 let's go do it. It was like a dog

00:27:41.180 chasing a car.

00:27:43.580 Well, I mean, just to say, if anybody

00:27:45.240 had read my original version of the Sovereign to Sand

00:27:47.220 book,

00:27:48.100 I wrote that a few years ago, and I did

00:27:51.160 say in it, we aren't ready. I literally

00:27:53.100 had that in the chapter saying, we need to get this done. We need to get this done. We need to

00:27:57.020 build those winning conditions. Then the trigger got pulled and I wrote my updated version as well.

00:28:01.400 We're heading for it now. So I might as well kind of soft sell that chapter. I think maybe I'll have

00:28:06.640 to put out a volume three and bring the original chapter back in if things don't go on the 19th.

00:28:12.100 But yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. Like my advice at that time was, you know, I think we need

00:28:16.480 to move towards it. I think we got the ability and the momentum, but there's a lot of work we

00:28:20.000 need to do first and as soon as they had the opportunity with this citizens initiative they

00:28:25.260 they jumped in full feet and and here we are off to the races and uh hoping for the best and

00:28:30.820 certainly sending a you know a message and that sort of thing and a campaigning rate for this

00:28:34.480 this next final 10 days but it's going to be hard to see if we can get over the line uh alex uh

00:28:40.060 yeah i know quebec is pretty far away from you it's pretty even further away from us in some ways 0.99

00:28:45.140 um but uh yeah the only time we have french people here is when they're picking berries

00:28:52.220 in the okanagan in the summer yeah uh our french people work at the gate of banff and jasper where

00:28:59.360 you pay your ticket to enter the park because they have to be bilingual and none of us are

00:29:02.780 but um i i want to see if you've noticed this i've noticed you know in all media uh covering

00:29:10.660 the Alberta independence movement that the pro-independence movement are called separatists

00:29:15.680 and they're framed as downright treasonous and I've noticed in the national media at least

00:29:22.160 you know the PQ and Plomondon they're called sovereigntists or nationalists and they're

00:29:30.000 viewed you know not necessarily favorably I don't think that'd be fair to say but at least with more

00:29:35.520 understanding and empathy they're they're just trying to be the best Quebecers they could be

00:29:40.280 But how have you maybe tell me what you've seen in the national media from your spot in B.C.

00:29:48.620 Yeah, I mean, in B.C., much like I think in the rest of the country, the word separatist does seem to carry a negative connotation.

00:29:56.280 David Eby in particular has tried to couple the concept of Alberta independence with Donald Trump, which I think in some jurisdictions has been a fairly effective campaign strategy.

00:30:09.660 surprisingly enough um especially in areas in eastern bc i think about the caribou region where

00:30:15.360 it's really close to alberta and there's a lot of anti-trumpers there um those are probably not

00:30:19.940 winnable ridings for him anyway though so um yeah i i it's it's mostly used as a political weapon

00:30:26.680 during an election campaign more than anything else i don't think any of us are having really

00:30:30.180 sophisticated or deep level discussions on the possibility of either i was asking about media

00:30:34.440 coverage like uh what's the difference been in media coverage that you've seen of the alberta

00:30:39.540 independence movement uh here and then the election of a pro-independence pq government

00:30:45.220 you know i i at least yeah i mean literally language used to describe one versus the other

00:30:51.300 no i would say that in local provincial media coverage in bc there's really very little

00:30:56.180 attention paid to quebec politics whatsoever it almost never comes up we just don't have

00:31:00.660 have enough frankenfall speakers here frankly i suppose they called the hellings um two two

00:31:05.840 go ahead sorry go ahead alex well i was going to say in terms of alberta though they've very much

00:31:12.380 coupled it with what they call mega politics and um it's more or less just a campaign strategy for

00:31:18.340 the ev government um i would say that at the ground level the interest in alberta independence

00:31:22.880 here is also fairly limited for various reasons um mostly it's just people that are hysterical

00:31:28.460 about Donald Trump that are interested in it

00:31:30.220 for their own reasons.

00:31:32.020 Two tweets of note today.

00:31:34.300 Elon Musk, the world's richest man

00:31:36.400 and first trillionaire,

00:31:38.160 responded to Quebec's election

00:31:40.600 saying Quebec should separate.

00:31:42.520 And then he added on another tweet saying

00:31:44.660 Alberta and Saskatchewan should separate too.

00:31:47.880 And Jeffrey Rath,

00:31:49.700 our favorite separatist leader,

00:31:52.000 sorry, independence leader,

00:31:53.560 says Jesus Christ would want Alberta to be independent.

00:31:58.460 Well, I will share that.

00:32:00.180 What would Jesus do in this case?

00:32:01.620 What would Jesus do?

00:32:03.500 My father is actually.

00:32:05.420 Ready to Caesar what's Caesar's, ready to God what's God's.

00:32:08.860 That's not my business.

00:32:10.140 I don't think Jesus would take a particularly active hand.

00:32:13.280 As we're getting into the last 10 days, 11 days of this,

00:32:16.200 I'm not sure if that's the best campaign tacked on Mr. Raff's part,

00:32:19.940 but nobody can control what Mr. Raff's going to say.

00:32:23.460 You know who does have a religious position on independence?

00:32:26.340 The Punjabs, who are having a referendum of their own in Alberta

00:32:30.260 the day before, October 18th.

00:32:32.680 Yeah.

00:32:34.720 That's confusing, Dave. 1.00

00:32:36.440 Yeah, Calistani independents. 0.89

00:32:40.960 Huge billboards across Alberta,

00:32:43.900 and I'm sure the lineups will be huge in Edmonton

00:32:46.900 the day before the referendum.

00:32:49.400 It will have no effect on anything.

00:32:52.620 It's more of a show than anything, and they do it quite often.

00:32:56.840 Yeah, they did one just a couple of years ago, too.

00:32:58.880 You know, I'm semi-sympathetic to the Kalistani movement for independence.

00:33:04.500 There are people who want national self-determination,

00:33:06.800 have their own independent state.

00:33:08.160 So I'm not without some sympathy for it.

00:33:11.300 Over there, as soon as you bring it here, like, no.

00:33:17.300 It should crush you now.

00:33:18.320 i i think it would be difficult to overstate how repressive the indian regime is and also

00:33:24.120 similarly well actually invert go fight it over there not here well no you can't i mean that's

00:33:29.260 the thing like there are two calistani members in um the indian parliament they're in jail

00:33:34.720 right so it's it's not a place where where peaceful protest is really but it's not our

00:33:40.460 freaking problem you want to bring your domestic politics to alberta to canada uh yeah no i lose

00:33:48.280 all sympathy at that point i think that the best analogy i could use international relations our

00:33:53.320 foreign affairs it's like when you bring you bring israel you bring palestine you bring any uh you 0.90

00:33:59.240 bring pakistan versus india any of this shit you bring it here you're trying to influence our our 0.92

00:34:05.080 our foreign policy and our domestic affairs based on your tribal affairs back home i'm sorry 0.98

00:34:10.280 yeah i don't see too many uh calistanis rallying for alberta independence in calistan or india

00:34:20.040 well actually the other interesting gig the other interesting thing about the calistan movement and

00:34:25.480 this may be actually because of the repression in india but it almost exists exclusively in the

00:34:30.000 overseas diaspora there actually is very little traction for the movement in india which is

00:34:35.020 another interesting little side plot

00:34:36.980 to that whole

00:34:37.560 that's a giant rabbit hole

00:34:41.080 I just know I got myself into a whole world of trouble

00:34:43.180 when I talked to Prasad about it

00:34:44.500 in an interview and then I had a bunch of 1.00

00:34:47.240 Sikh individuals, I'm not touching it 1.00

00:34:49.240 anymore 1.00

00:34:49.580 speaking of not touching it

00:34:52.200 that was a tangent

00:34:54.360 yeah, quite a tangent

00:34:56.540 and it was my fault, that tangent was my fault

00:34:58.580 okay, well Alex is going to be the center

00:35:01.180 of, center stage here

00:35:03.040 in the time we have left

00:35:04.560 But, you know, I think everyone's broadly familiar that, you know, the B.C. Conservatives had an absolute meltdown of two years, really began almost very quickly after the last B.C. election with the leadership of John Brustad became very problematic and troubled for a variety of reasons.

00:35:24.100 some his fault, some not. He's overthrown. We get Carolyn Finley, her leadership immediately.

00:35:32.280 It goes from nuclear to thermonuclear then. David Eby just couldn't bloody help himself. He

00:35:40.360 breaks his fixed election date law, calls an election two years early, halfway through his

00:35:46.380 mandate. That's got to be a record for an early election for a majority government.

00:35:49.520 and uh yeah alex tell us how have the people of british columbia reacted to this

00:35:57.280 um surprisingly negatively um that includes within uh strangely enough evie's own cabinet

00:36:04.700 so almost immediately upon him dropping the right for the snap election uh four cabinet ministers

00:36:10.840 ravi calon branda bailey lana popham and kelly green all said that they would not be seeking

00:36:15.980 re-election. A fifth, actually, former cabinet minister, George Chow, has similarly said that

00:36:20.640 he will not be running for re-election. There was never really any great reason or justification

00:36:25.780 provided by any of these individuals for why they're not seeking re-election, with the exception

00:36:30.040 of Brenda Bailey, who had treatable cancer. But they're actually really just part and parcel of

00:36:35.840 the entire province's reaction, which has been one of anger, frankly. The DCNDP have long been

00:36:42.820 notorious for being incredibly wasteful, especially with tax dollars. And so this

00:36:47.860 snap election call, which is estimated to cost anywhere between 80 and 100 million dollars,

00:36:52.560 is very much on brand for the BCNDP, and the public is noticing.

00:36:58.360 I mean, people do get upset about the cost a bit for an unnecessary election, but I think

00:37:03.600 it's more of the sense of... Canadian voters are cynical. We expect our politicians to lie to us,

00:37:09.660 But we like them to have plausible deniability when they lie.

00:37:14.460 Canadians, they say they don't want to be lied to.

00:37:17.440 Yeah, they do.

00:37:18.660 They like being lied to.

00:37:20.080 But they want to at least, the lie should be plausible.

00:37:25.180 And this reeks of the 2015 early election call of Jim Prentice, which was a full year early for him.

00:37:33.840 And people reacted furiously.

00:37:36.140 And that was one year early.

00:37:37.280 And he called that early election to take advantage of the chaos from what happened with Wildrose.

00:37:44.100 Daniel Smith at two-thirds of the Wildrose crossed the floor to the progressive conservatives.

00:37:48.100 He wanted to take advantage of that, called it early election, and people were furious and they lashed out in any way they could and they ended up electing the NDP as a result.

00:37:57.980 I'm seeing this as kind of similar where the conservatives literally did not have a leader.

00:38:02.620 They had to appoint essentially an emergency interim leader.

00:38:04.920 David Eby's even had the temerity to say

00:38:07.940 you can't vote for the Conservatives

00:38:09.800 because they don't have a

00:38:11.620 normally selected permanent leader

00:38:14.000 to which everyone said

00:38:15.500 why is that?

00:38:17.660 because you called the early election

00:38:19.600 so I think, Corey

00:38:21.580 I'm getting echoes of 2015

00:38:24.040 Alberta's early election call

00:38:25.900 or roughly every decade 1.00

00:38:27.660 some asshole gets it in his head that 1.00

00:38:29.740 I'm so clever, I'm going to call this early 1.00

00:38:32.000 election while the opposition's got its pants

00:38:34.000 down and I'm going to triumph for it. And the people get pissed off and freak out. Yeah. I mean,

00:38:39.800 you see that when any early election typically comes, cause you always see the polls, nobody

00:38:43.480 wants the early election, nobody, but then two weeks later, they've all forgotten about that.

00:38:46.180 They got into the routine, but this was just so crassly opportunistic. There was no other reason,

00:38:52.520 no burning issue, no particular, everybody could see directly through it. Well, because Donald

00:38:57.780 Trump, provincial election, you're desperate. You're, you're opposing parties on the rocks.

00:39:02.460 You're going to try and take advantage of that to snap it open and shut.

00:39:05.040 The public saw through it, and it doesn't seem to be cooling down.

00:39:07.860 In fact, as far as I can tell from Alex's reporting, they're getting even more pissed.

00:39:11.220 And now Eby's campaign against himself.

00:39:13.260 I think I have a lot of family in B.C., and you cannot underestimate the anger at David Eby for this election call.

00:39:21.620 And his campaign has just been disastrous.

00:39:24.780 You know, day one, it's all about Donald Trump, and now he's completely reversed that

00:39:29.540 Because all the issues that people care about in British Columbia, Donald Trump is like way down the list.

00:39:35.080 They care about hospitals and getting a doctor and, you know, owning a house.

00:39:41.300 That's what B.C. people care about.

00:39:43.480 You know, Trump.

00:39:43.940 Yeah.

00:39:45.200 Just to piggyback off of that, originally he thought he was running against Carrie Lynn Finley, which he called a mega regional manager.

00:39:51.280 And so all of this conservative infighting and the replacement of her with Lauren Dirksen as a leader,

00:39:56.300 who is by most estimates a very centrist moderate with held in high regard on both sides of the aisle

00:40:01.560 and then in the legislature, it completely ruined their narrative. And the narrative itself,

00:40:06.640 even if Carrie Lynn Finley was the leader, doesn't entirely make sense because they already had a

00:40:10.580 majority. So the narrative that they've spun is that they needed to have an election so that they

00:40:15.820 weren't at risk of dissolving the government so that they could defend themselves against an

00:40:19.740 existential threat presented by Donald Trump, but then they dissolved the government, which doesn't

00:40:24.940 actually make sense. And now they're running against their own health care record, saying

00:40:28.380 that the wait times are too long and there's no MRIs, but they've been the governing party for

00:40:32.360 nine years. Yeah. So none of the messaging is sticking because none of it is rational.

00:40:38.120 He's desperate. Has so well, actually, let's really quickly just touch on the polls. The

00:40:44.000 polls I've seen range from the conservatives have a very small lead in a statistical tie,

00:40:50.300 but with a very small lead to a pretty substantial lead at this point.

00:40:56.960 Yeah, I mean, I always think of the polls as a bit like the scoreboard.

00:41:01.320 Don't watch the scoreboard. You're missing a good game on the ice.

00:41:03.960 But at the same time, I also express skepticism at some of these polls.

00:41:08.620 One of them has the Conservatives at a supermajority at somewhere around 68 seats.

00:41:13.020 I saw today that seems just patently unrealistic to me.

00:41:16.560 that would require, you know, virtually all of the downtown Vancouver writings to swing

00:41:20.500 conservative, which is just not going to happen.

00:41:22.780 I think that the most, and we're many weeks away, so it's kind of a fool's errand for

00:41:28.200 me to make a prediction at this point, because so much can change, and a week is a lifetime

00:41:32.000 in politics, but I imagine that the legislature will look very, very similar to the way it

00:41:36.220 did before the election, which is to say one of the parties will win with a one or two

00:41:40.520 seat majority, perhaps even with the Green Party, or even one seat belonging to Senator

00:41:45.580 BC being the balance of power, which, again, renders the whole purpose of the election

00:41:49.920 meaningless.

00:41:51.280 Real, real quick before we wrap, has one BC, you know, Dallas Brody's, you know, further,

00:41:59.200 you know, a more right populist party, has it been able to catch any traction and insert

00:42:05.300 itself into the narrative of this election?

00:42:08.460 It certainly has on X, but X is not necessarily the best reflection of real life.

00:42:13.720 A lot of weird things have happened with 1BC in this election cycle so far.

00:42:18.100 At one point, Dallas Brody said that she intended to run 93 candidates, so that would be one in every riding.

00:42:24.340 Then she said that she was going to stand down in eight ridings because those ridings contained what she called principled conservatives.

00:42:31.800 Then she reneged that offer and ended up running, I think, in two or three seats against those principled conservatives anyway.

00:42:39.380 And I believe that was because they reneged and ran against her, right?

00:42:42.460 Well, there was never any promise that they wouldn't run against her in Vancouver, Kilchenna.

00:42:45.780 And as a major political party, it would be silly to do that anyway.

00:42:49.500 I mean, you might as well run a candidate in every riding if you can.

00:42:52.780 Funnily enough, the BC NDP who called the snap election failed to put a candidate in all the ridings.

00:42:58.140 Which is the first time that's ever happened, actually, for the modern NDP.

00:43:01.780 That is funny.

00:43:02.700 They weren't even prepared.

00:43:04.460 They actually almost missed a few seats to get their papers in.

00:43:08.060 And the riding actually is interesting as well.

00:43:10.340 So that's Peace River North, where Jordan Keeley currently sits as an independent MLA.

00:43:15.000 He left the party as well during the John Rustad leadership crisis, but he remains an independent because he is facing criminal charges for sexual assault and is looking at a jury trial in July.

00:43:26.040 And Amelia Bolpe, who crossed the floor from independent to the BCNDP, had actually introduced a private members bill saying that any individuals charged under such crime should be booted from the legislature.

00:43:36.200 So the BC NDP now, I'm surprised no reporters have asked about this, should have to explain to the public why they were unable to put a candidate in a rioting where they had introduced the law to have that candidate kicked out of the rioting.

00:43:48.660 Where they introduced the law to essentially penalize someone before they prove it guilty.

00:43:53.180 Well, yeah, I mean, but such a law exists at the municipal level.

00:43:57.160 So, you know, there's an individual here in Penticton, for instance, who is a city councillor.

00:44:01.980 He was charged.

00:44:02.880 You're out of time.

00:44:04.020 Sorry, Alex.

00:44:05.560 but yeah I appreciate that okay well Dave parting shot cultural disaster in

00:44:12.740 Alberta this week Derek with the closing of the Torrington gopher Museum let's

00:44:17.980 put that up on the screen this is a cultural gem of Alberta world famous

00:44:22.420 Torrington gopher machine gopher museum has made news all over the world over

00:44:28.660 the years and sadly has been forced to shut its doors I I'm basing this on

00:44:35.320 absolutely nothing this is not solid journalism but it's just cynical suspicions for me i think

00:44:40.440 they shut it down intentionally to get all the press about this and then it will reopen because

00:44:45.160 they're getting global headlines sure well you know all the money that the government gives

00:44:49.800 you know let's give 10 000 bucks to the gopher museum save the gophers save the gophers yeah

00:44:54.520 all right cory well with me just because i'm too cheap to pay full parking i walk a long way and i

00:44:58.760 come under the eighth street bridge in calgary for those unfamiliar with it they ripped up the entire

00:45:03.240 southbound lane of that and built a giant

00:45:05.480 bike lane in it. Now they've

00:45:07.400 ripped up the northbound lane, so I guess they're

00:45:09.260 sticking another one there. So, Mayor

00:45:11.260 Farkas, I am looking forward to the bike lane battles.

00:45:13.560 I was kind of speaking on city jurisdiction 1.00

00:45:15.140 before being able to stand up for it, but you clearly can't

00:45:17.440 get it under control. I look forward to

00:45:19.300 Devin Dreeshan coming in and doing your job 0.99

00:45:21.300 for you and stopping this idiocy. 0.99

00:45:23.360 It's one of the, you know, it's not a town I like 0.98

00:45:25.260 from Doug Ford, but I kind of did like how he stuck

00:45:27.280 it to the bikes.

00:45:29.600 Yeah. Alright, Alex,

00:45:31.360 parting shot?

00:45:33.240 Yeah, Party Shot, I'm looking forward to the debate on October 14th.

00:45:36.460 We're one week away.

00:45:37.280 It'll be the only televised debate during the BC election.

00:45:40.000 So it should be an interesting one.

00:45:42.740 And do we know, obviously, the Conservatives and the NDP are invited to participate.

00:45:48.420 The Greens probably because they've been there.

00:45:50.140 But what about Centre BC and 1BC?

00:45:52.520 Are they invited to participate?

00:45:54.160 Yeah, strangely enough, 1BC and Centre BC have been excluded.

00:45:58.480 I think the logic is that you need two members in the legislature to have official party status.

00:46:02.940 and neither of them did at the time of the legislature being dissolved.

00:46:07.460 Only the Greens, the Conservatives, and the NDP did.

00:46:09.740 The Greens have been in debates without having official party status before.

00:46:12.720 They had a roll to do in a deal with the former Premier John Horgan.

00:46:17.300 So I can speak from personal experiences,

00:46:20.320 but there are no hard and fast rules around this stuff.

00:46:23.360 There's a lot of politics, and who gets into the debate, who does not?

00:46:27.140 Okay, well that's it for today.

00:46:29.400 We're out of time.

00:46:30.520 Corey, Dave, Alex, thank you very much.

00:46:32.940 and thank you john runnin production here thank all of you for joining us today if you're not yet

00:46:38.780 a subscriber to the western standard make sure you go to westernstandard.news click on subscribe

00:46:43.060 we've actually got no paywall up until october 20th and when the alberta referendum uh is over

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00:47:02.940 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - October 08, 2026

Quebec’s PQ win revives independence. What does it mean for Alberta？

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