Western Standard - Release the traitors names already!

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is October 16th, 2024, and you're watching The Pipeline. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. I'm joined, as always, by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:15.740 Hello again, Eric.

00:00:17.000 And Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:20.320 Good day.

00:00:20.820 We're also going to have joining us later in the show, Western Standard's Saskatchewan Bureau Chief and editing manager of the Saskatchewan Standard, Chris Oldcorn, talked to us about the election there, as well as Western Standard's BC Bureau Chief and managing editor of the West Coast Standard, Jared Yager, talking about BC's election.

00:00:44.360 Before we get into there, though, we're going to start with the big story. Cooking in Canada today. Allegations of India currying favor, if you will. That's, you know, that's Nigel's.

00:01:02.800 And it was an unintentional pun in our meeting earlier today when we're figuring out what we're going to talk about.

00:01:10.900 So, India, I don't think it's any great surprise, has at least some nefarious interference in Canada. 0.89

00:01:22.880 I haven't seen direct allegations of electoral interference yet. I'd be shocked if there wasn't at least some minor electoral interference.

00:01:31.460 The different Indian diasporas are a pretty significant portion of the Canadian population, and diasporas are a hot commodity for politicians looking for votes, and they're a hot target for foreign powers from which the diasporas originate.

00:01:49.620 We know how that's happening in India. Sorry, with the Chinese case, very significantly. 1.00

00:01:55.380 We're hearing more about India now. The allegations being that, you know, a very large proportion, I'm not sure what proportion, of the Indian diaspora in Canada,

00:02:04.980 at least a large portion, maybe even a majority of it in Canada, tends to be Sikh, some of which has Kalistani independence movement sympathies.

00:02:18.560 And some of that, I think, is perfectly legitimate. People who want an independent homeland for Sikh Indians.

00:02:26.320 But some within that movement are obviously very extremists and have committed terrible acts of terrorism and violence.

00:02:33.440 And most notoriously, that manifested itself in the, I think, 1985 bombing of Air India.

00:02:39.840 Yes, 329 people.

00:02:42.000 So, yeah. So, it has very real manifestations on our shores here.

00:02:47.740 And the allegations, and I think these parts are quite believable so far, is that the Indian government, under Prime Minister Modi,

00:02:56.120 who's quite fierce against the Kalistani movement, both its legitimate and its illegitimate manifestations,

00:03:03.600 has been trying to put it down, the Kalistani movement in Canada.

00:03:11.220 And that's allegedly now taken the form of murders, targeted hits.

00:03:17.440 And there have been some very notable Kalistani supporters, some of which are maybe unsavory, some of which are probably legitimate, 1.00

00:03:27.940 getting killed on allegedly targeted hits from the Indian government with the sign-off of Modi.

00:03:33.020 It's quite an allegation.

00:03:37.440 But it took a strange turn yesterday, Nigel, when Prime Minister Trudeau was suddenly seized by a zeal,

00:03:47.380 all of a sudden, to tackle foreign interference.

00:03:51.260 It was racist to talk about it a year ago when it was in his party.

00:03:55.740 But all of a sudden, it's now the number one issue, and he is on the attack.

00:04:01.160 Well, he would be, wouldn't he?

00:04:02.400 You mentioned the power of the diaspora vote.

00:04:06.320 And he has always behaved as though it's there for him when he needs it.

00:04:14.660 Right now, he really needs it.

00:04:17.400 And I think what you're seeing here is a very cynical play.

00:04:23.680 This has been, as you said, going on for 40 years. 0.67

00:04:29.160 And that this being the activities of Kalistani terrorists, Sikh terrorists, if you will,

00:04:39.720 who want an independent state of Kalistan.

00:04:42.860 And I mean, it's not just what they've done here with the Air India bombing.

00:04:46.260 They were responsible for the murder of an Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, as well as various other outrages.

00:04:54.760 So these are very serious players.

00:04:56.060 And I can absolutely understand why the Indian government would want to know what was going on here,

00:05:03.900 would want to do something about it in just the same way as if we, as Canadians,

00:05:08.900 had a Canadian diaspora movement that wanted to separate some piece of territory from Canada and was doing it from India.

00:05:16.340 We would be very, very interested.

00:05:19.260 What's changed is this.

00:05:20.560 It used to be that all of this kind of got dealt with at the local police level.

00:05:25.540 The RCMP, the Canadian security agencies would talk to the other people and try and keep a lid on it.

00:05:31.800 Meanwhile, you were free to have a relationship between two strong and powerful countries.

00:05:38.200 That's how it was.

00:05:39.740 Now, as you say, Mr. Trudeau has politicized the event.

00:05:43.640 And I think for very narrow partisan purposes, as a difficult election approaches for him.

00:05:50.880 Yeah, Corey, Trudeau claimed any discussion of the Chinese Communist Party's interference in Canada was racist.

00:06:01.220 And that, it just didn't hold up.

00:06:03.840 Unfortunately for him, he was making that argument just as the woke movement started to collapse.

00:06:08.160 People stopped buying the excuse that anything you talk about that's controversial is racist anymore.

00:06:13.780 But that's crumbled.

00:06:17.380 But now he's willing to talk about this because, I guess, he's trying to play the triangulate in politics here.

00:06:25.680 And I think for a lot of non-seek or non-Indian Canadians, it's difficult to grasp.

00:06:29.440 But here's my best attempt to explain it, as best I know, is Trudeau operates, at least, on the assumption that Sikhs do not like Modi in India because Modi is a Hindu nationalist.

00:06:41.860 And bashing Modi is good politics with Sikhs in Canada. 1.00

00:06:48.100 And there are more Sikhs in Canada than other groups from India, by and large.

00:06:52.980 And I think so.

00:06:56.200 I think that's the play.

00:06:56.960 And, you know, the Indian government's alleged, and I think credibly alleged, that Canada has also become a safe haven for Calistani militant or even terrorist training.

00:07:08.200 Like, there's actually been training taking place here.

00:07:11.360 Not just that it's a safe haven for Calistani separatists.

00:07:14.000 I'm actually okay with that, as long as you actually keep your politics off our streets.

00:07:17.600 If you're in Canada, stick to Canadian issues.

00:07:19.500 If you want to deal with your diaspora issue, do it back there, not here. 1.00

00:07:24.660 But Trudeau then came out today testifying again at the Foreign Interference Inquiry.

00:07:31.020 And this was just gobsmacking.

00:07:33.820 He says, there are a large number of conservatives under foreign influence, and I could name them.

00:07:44.460 He went on the attack.

00:07:45.940 No mention of the very serious problems with Communist Party infiltration in his party, so Chinese Communist Party infiltration.

00:07:53.680 Probably infiltration from others.

00:07:56.160 And I have no doubt that other foreign governments hold sway with people, probably in most, at least, of the big parties who have some support in some of the ethnic enclaves.

00:08:06.160 But Trudeau goes on the attack just today saying, you know, the conservatives are full of foreign interference, and I can name them.

00:08:13.240 And Pierre Polyev responded right away and says, name them, and name all of them.

00:08:19.840 Because we know that there's a significant number that the intelligence committee have named that are compromised, are either fully treasonous or unwittingly treasonous in different parties.

00:08:31.460 And Trudeau's refused to name them.

00:08:33.000 But then he comes up with this today.

00:08:34.180 Is he just making this up, or do you think maybe he finally has a card to play?

00:08:42.320 I'm guessing here at his motivations.

00:08:44.920 I don't think he's making something up.

00:08:46.400 I suspect.

00:08:47.080 I mean, this is a big report.

00:08:48.360 Eleven, they said, were known parliamentarians, witting and unwittingly compromised.

00:08:53.620 And yeah, we always assume Chinese, but it could mean India, it could mean Russia, and it could be a lot of things.

00:08:57.580 It's the innuendo that's getting tiresome.

00:09:00.300 It's the picking a little bit out and blaming the other party without just releasing it then.

00:09:04.940 Get it out there because you're causing more distrust.

00:09:08.700 You're fostering it, and it's for political purposes.

00:09:12.580 You know, Prime Minister Trudeau has never been very good when he goes off script, and that was part of the problem with the inquiry today.

00:09:17.500 You don't have a teleprompter in front of you.

00:09:19.800 You're answering questions.

00:09:20.960 And I suspect, because it was a very clumsy way to try and deal with this, that this might have been his own brainstorm on the spot, and now he's kind of painted himself into a corner.

00:09:30.740 It ties in with a lot with the Indian issue, though.

00:09:33.880 And when he's playing, as Nigel kind of said, you know, politicize this.

00:09:37.500 This has been going on for a long, long time, and it doesn't mean we should ignore it, but when you start throwing it onto the floor, it changes everything, and we start paying a price.

00:09:45.360 I mean, we can't forget, India and Canada trade $10 billion a year.

00:09:50.780 Again, it seems to always come back to who are the main exporters to India?

00:09:54.540 Western farmers.

00:09:55.740 So if we start getting sanctions, it's going to be the West pay and the price on this again, too.

00:10:00.600 So he's not going to lose Central Canadian political points diving into this mess.

00:10:04.860 But the Indian-Kalistani issue is nuanced.

00:10:08.640 It's dangerous.

00:10:09.320 It's messy.

00:10:09.920 And I don't like when Prime Minister Trudeau jumps into it because he's not a nuanced, careful politician.

00:10:18.180 We had a radio host beat up in North Calgary just a couple of weeks ago.

00:10:22.380 He's a friend of mine.

00:10:23.020 And there was a couple of Sikh individuals who jumped him in the parking lot and laid a beating into him because they disagreed with his views on the Kalistani thing.

00:10:30.960 This is real, and it should be addressed.

00:10:33.860 But again, it shouldn't be addressed with political motivations like Trudeau's doing.

00:10:37.180 And we should be seeing how we can stop this sort of carnage on our streets.

00:10:40.580 It's just bad.

00:10:41.300 Well, yeah.

00:10:42.720 But, I mean, they're politicians.

00:10:45.020 Political motivations are going to inform everything they do.

00:10:48.000 I just suppose the question is to what extent should political considerations inform things?

00:10:53.380 They're always there, I understand.

00:10:54.540 But, you know, I think this is – Nigel, I think this is – this is the inevitable endgame of mass immigration, open-door immigration, and diaspora politics where we have not – where we brought people in at such a rapid level where they're unable to assimilate into the broader Canadian mainstream. 0.65

00:11:17.700 And now a ethno-political fight around Kalistan in a part of India that I guarantee you nine out of ten Canadians could not point out on a map where Kalistan is kind of roughly supposed to be in India.

00:11:37.180 And yet that is a driving force in our politics.

00:11:41.320 It is very important for the NDP, the Conservatives, and the Liberals.

00:11:46.980 Sikhs are a major group in Canada.

00:11:49.260 They're now a major voting bloc.

00:11:50.660 They're power brokers in any political party now for the most part.

00:11:54.340 And they are within the Conservatives too.

00:11:59.680 Where do you think the danger is for the Conservatives in maybe the broader question of diaspora politics, but also in, you know, their goal of trying to get close to the Sikh community, to bring them into the party, to get their votes, but to not end up playing diaspora politics to the point where it's influencing our foreign policy and our national security?

00:12:20.820 It's certainly an issue to think of, to the point about how strong the Sikh voice is in Canada.

00:12:28.960 I had the opportunity to check some notes here.

00:12:31.360 And apparently, Sikhs occupy 15 seats in the Canadian Parliament.

00:12:38.720 There are, in fact, more Sikh cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Trudeau's cabinet than there are in Prime Minister Modi's cabinet in India.

00:12:50.020 Yeah, something that Mr. Trudeau...

00:12:52.260 Oh, that is a hell of a...

00:12:53.080 Well, that's just some of the imbalance in India too.

00:12:54.980 Yeah.

00:12:55.280 Yeah.

00:12:55.560 I mean, Modi is not known to be the friendliest of all.

00:12:58.540 No.

00:12:58.980 Well, apparently not.

00:13:00.300 The thing was, it was Mr. Trudeau pointed this out back in 2016.

00:13:05.580 And you can imagine the, like he's barely been, he's barely newly minted Prime Minister.

00:13:10.560 He barely knows where the washrooms are.

00:13:12.180 And he's already taking pot shots at the Prime Minister of India, who the Harper administration had developed a very cordial relationship with and, you know, poking him like that.

00:13:27.000 Well, yes, it was true. 0.68

00:13:28.380 There were four Sikhs in Mr. Trudeau's cabinet at that time, but he chose to mention it.

00:13:36.620 Now, there are, there's actually 2% of the population is Sikh and 4% of the MPs are Sikh.

00:13:46.260 So, they're very strong in Canada.

00:13:49.140 It's almost impossible not to play that kind of game.

00:13:53.400 You're not going to say anything offensive, but what they can do, what they can do and should do, is emphasize the Canadian-ness of a politician.

00:14:04.680 If you're going to serve in the House of Commons, you're serving Canadians, not people in another country.

00:14:12.160 And that is, that is about messaging.

00:14:14.680 It's about enforcing that in your members.

00:14:18.020 And that is something that Mr. Trudeau has conspicuously failed to do.

00:14:21.080 I think we should mention that to the NDB candidate in that recent Montreal by-election, who ran without Canadian flags on her literature, but had Palestinian flags.

00:14:30.040 So, you know, the member for Gaza.

00:14:31.400 Okay, to your larger point about what is the danger?

00:14:35.200 Has it all come apart?

00:14:36.740 Yes, it has.

00:14:37.540 And that'll be the next group.

00:14:39.140 I refer you to that scullerless little video of the assault by Palestinians on the RCMP cars outside the Langevin block yesterday. 0.99

00:14:48.240 Well, I know you're going to get to that later on.

00:14:51.420 That's a teaser.

00:14:52.420 All right.

00:14:53.160 All right.

00:14:53.720 Well, we're going to put a pin on the India file here.

00:14:58.980 And we're going to bring in our British Columbia Bureau Chief for the Western Standard and our managing editor for West Coast Standard, Jared Yager.

00:15:08.720 Jared, thank you for joining us.

00:15:10.940 We actually just had you out here in Calgary for our annual staff meeting.

00:15:15.780 It was glad to have you out here in person.

00:15:18.400 But you're back on the ground in BC now.

00:15:22.280 The election is – this is very odd.

00:15:24.740 I have never seen an election taking place on a Saturday or Sunday.

00:15:28.320 It's only a Monday or Tuesday.

00:15:30.680 Elections on weekends tend to be an internal party race, like a nomination or a leadership race or something.

00:15:36.080 But British Columbians go to the polls this Saturday.

00:15:41.660 What are the polls showing?

00:15:43.440 And what can they expect right now on Election Day this Saturday?

00:15:49.120 Hi.

00:15:49.840 Nice to see you guys again.

00:15:51.420 So the most recent poll from the Angus Reid Institute was taken between October 9th and 13th, just after the latest leadership debate.

00:15:59.440 And it showed the NDP at 45% and the Conservatives at 40%.

00:16:04.660 Now, it's hard to tell whether that was due to policy or whether it was due to other factors.

00:16:13.340 Because in amongst that time, I don't know if you guys saw, but the candidate for South Surrey, Brent Chapman, some of his old social media posts came out.

00:16:21.980 And so I'm wondering if maybe that influenced the polling a little bit.

00:16:29.340 And so, yeah, it's – I mean, the NDP and the Conservatives, they've been going back and forth in the polls for the past few months now.

00:16:36.320 And so, honestly, the only poll that matters is the one taken on Election Day.

00:16:42.280 But, yeah, right now it's impossible to tell who's going to come out on top.

00:16:46.420 Well, I mean, the only poll that matters is the one taken on Election Day.

00:16:52.220 That's something you hear candidates often say when they're losing.

00:16:55.500 When they're winning, they say, oh, the polls are just showing how great we are.

00:17:00.480 So I take that.

00:17:03.420 I mean, there's been a lot of controversy around some BC Conservative candidates.

00:17:07.260 I mean, the party was just kind of slapped together.

00:17:09.620 It is a very new party.

00:17:12.160 It's not an old experience machine.

00:17:14.700 I mean, the NDP and then its predecessor, the CCF, have been around in British Columbia since the 1930s in one form or another.

00:17:23.820 It's a seasoned machine.

00:17:25.280 It is the current government.

00:17:27.000 The BC Conservatives are kind of like a kit car.

00:17:31.120 It's just kind of thrown together from spare parts in the junkyard.

00:17:34.220 And it's got a lot of horsepower, but it's got some untested parts.

00:17:39.960 Do you think it's kind of the social media posts, controversies around some of the Conservative candidates?

00:17:47.640 Do you think that's having the NDP hammering at that every day?

00:17:50.960 Is that having an effect now?

00:17:52.260 Because the NDP has opened up a mild gap here, whereas a week ago it was neck and neck or even a minor leap for the Conservatives.

00:17:59.440 No, I think it's definitely having an impact on more of the centrist voters who maybe like some of the Conservative policies, but can't stomach the sentiments being expressed by some of the candidates.

00:18:14.160 But John Rustad yesterday at a press conference when he was unveiling his platform, he made a good point.

00:18:19.960 And he said people should focus not on the words of Brent Chapman, but the actions of David Eby.

00:18:26.880 And to see, like, okay, yes, he said these things and we condemn them, but is it worth sacrificing the province for the next four years just because you don't like what somebody said online?

00:18:39.100 Corey, I mean, you've had experience, you were kind of, you were involved heavily in the earlier stages of the Wild Rose.

00:18:48.820 I mean, there's some parallels between the Wild Rose insurgency in 2012 as that party, that was a brand new party.

00:18:55.360 Although it was probably more well put together and had more of an infrastructure than the BC Conservatives today,

00:19:00.320 because the BC Conservatives are very much an ad hoc coalition thrown together at this point compared to Wild Rose then.

00:19:09.580 But, you know, maybe you could speak to, you know, you know, what are the dangers for the BC Conservatives when they have this many untested?

00:19:17.180 Almost all their candidates are not incumbents except for a few BC Liberals who came over.

00:19:22.600 You know, how dangerous is it for a party in this position?

00:19:25.500 It's very dangerous because people have a fear of the unknown, and that's when it makes it easy to paint a hidden agenda.

00:19:31.160 It makes it easy to, you know, put fear in the minds of the voters saying, we don't know what these people are going to do.

00:19:35.960 And if we can find any comments, social media, things like that to reinforce that fear and make it appear that there's,

00:19:42.260 this is a Trojan horse full of extremists coming through, it can be very effective. 0.99

00:19:47.060 I was speaking of that earlier on my show with the Wild Rose case with the Huntsberger issue and people taking his quotes on the lake of fire and such.

00:19:55.940 We were doing very well in the polls, and it was dramatic, though.

00:19:59.020 It was like voters were giving us support, but it was tentative.

00:20:03.200 It was just, it didn't take much to knock them right off us again if they saw something fearful, and it was effective.

00:20:08.860 We were decimated in that final week.

00:20:11.040 I don't think we would have won that election, but we would have had a heck of a lot more seats.

00:20:14.520 And I think that the BC Conservatives are in just as much of a sensitive position.

00:20:20.700 They're doing well.

00:20:21.300 People want to support them, but these aren't long, well-entrenched supporters.

00:20:25.500 These are recent supporters coming on board as voters, and they can easily be pushed off of that support if they feel that there's something to fear.

00:20:36.440 Nigel, I don't know.

00:20:38.060 How much do you think the BC Conservatives are having their boats just lifted by the rising tide of the federal Conservatives right now?

00:20:48.120 How much of this is kind of a homegrown, organic rebellion against the EB government and, to an extent, rebellion against the BC United Liberals and their failure to offer a sufficiently different alternative for some time?

00:21:02.020 And how much of it do you think is just the rising tide of conservatism and the capital C conservative brand across the country as polyevs lead its eye-watering levels? 1.00

00:21:14.660 There are a lot of people who don't make the distinction between the Liberals of Ottawa and the Liberals of BC, and that actually caused the Liberals of BC to disassociate themselves from the federal group by changing their name.

00:21:31.240 Therefore, it is entirely conceivable, as you suggest, that the increased popularity of the federal Conservatives is going to help the provincial Conservatives.

00:21:44.480 Well, I think there's something else going on there.

00:21:47.480 It puzzles me that after the tepid response offered by David Eby to the outrages in Vancouver, where the flags were burned and people were proudly claiming themselves to be,

00:22:04.680 we are Hamas, we are Hezbollah, death to Canada, and he came out with some sort of weak, anodyne, staff-written condemnation.

00:22:14.480 That that didn't cause an exit from the NDP.

00:22:20.220 So for that reason, I'm somewhat suspicious of the latest of any poll that has been taken since then that puts the NDP in a large lead.

00:22:30.820 Doesn't seem right.

00:22:32.920 Jared, you know, the polling is, I guess, confusing at this point.

00:22:40.220 The ability to project onto local races is difficult because the BC Conservatives have never truly contested an election in a serious way in, oh, the 1930s, the last time they were a major party?

00:22:54.360 Was it the 30s?

00:22:55.920 The Conservatives?

00:22:56.580 Yeah.

00:22:57.000 Oh, yeah, before the war.

00:22:58.380 It was social credit all through the 1930s.

00:23:00.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:00.460 So the actual, under the Conservative banner, it's the 1930s.

00:23:03.700 But I suppose we can roughly substitute the former BC Liberals for Conservatives for seat projections.

00:23:09.320 You know, what are the main regions and what are the bellwether constituencies that you're watching on election night?

00:23:16.380 That, you know, if this riding, this riding, and this riding, blue, that's going to mean a blue government.

00:23:21.440 Or if they go orange, this is going to be an orange government.

00:23:25.020 What are the main ridings you're watching?

00:23:26.460 Well, the Conservatives, as you would expect, have pretty broad support in, you know, rural BC, up in the north, in the interior.

00:23:36.440 Vancouver Island, it's going to stay NDP or green.

00:23:38.760 That's just how they are over there.

00:23:40.740 You don't think some of the bigger northern island ridings are going to go over?

00:23:45.900 Or do you think the whole island's then orange?

00:23:48.640 There's a chance, but I wouldn't bank on it.

00:23:50.920 But in the lower mainland here, there's a bit of a blue wave, if you will.

00:23:57.080 And two of the ridings that I'm really watching are over in Abbotsford Mission with Raeanne Gasper.

00:24:03.460 She's going up against the agriculture minister, Pam Alexis.

00:24:07.200 And I was over there a couple of weeks ago, and I saw a pretty grassroots campaign bloom into something more, where, you know, there's a lot of support.

00:24:18.300 People were packing the theater for her.

00:24:20.600 And so I think people are ready for change over there.

00:24:22.960 And also here in Vancouver, David Eby's riding Vancouver Point Grey.

00:24:27.920 Paul Rashford, he put up a stellar performance against Eby in the latest debate.

00:24:34.360 And, you know, it's not too often you see an incumbent premier get such a negative reaction in his own riding.

00:24:43.140 So those are kind of the two I'm watching right now.

00:24:45.720 Point Grey.

00:24:46.500 Was that Gordon Campbell's riding back in the day?

00:24:52.140 I'm not too sure about that.

00:24:54.100 All right.

00:24:54.380 Well, we want to check on that.

00:24:55.560 But that rings a bell.

00:24:56.880 Well, I mean, because that's a Point Grey school where Justin Trudeau used to teach a long time ago.

00:25:01.200 Oh, we can't talk about that.

00:25:02.320 That's a separate issue altogether.

00:25:03.060 For legal reasons, we'll get sued if you.

00:25:06.200 I'm not encouraging anyone to Google Justin Trudeau and Point Grey school because we can't talk about it here without getting sued.

00:25:13.500 Either way, I think that might be what's ringing the bell.

00:25:14.940 So I won't encourage anyone to Google it right now.

00:25:18.580 It was Gordon Campbell's riding.

00:25:21.020 Okay.

00:25:21.440 Both.

00:25:22.180 Okay.

00:25:22.380 I get a little PC political trivia.

00:25:24.760 All right.

00:25:25.880 Well, what do you think we could, what could we expect now?

00:25:28.880 We're in the last few weekdays of campaigning.

00:25:33.140 I mean, there's only, yeah, only a few days left of the campaign.

00:25:35.620 The parties have got their platforms out.

00:25:37.540 They've made most of their pitch.

00:25:38.980 So now they're, I mean, over the, they're largely going to turn out to get out the vote.

00:25:44.740 But what are we going to hear from the campaigns?

00:25:46.500 What can we expect in the last few dying days of this campaign?

00:25:49.340 Well, from the David Eby campaign, you're going to hear a lot of attacks on Rustad against his candidates.

00:25:58.900 And I mean, and the policies themselves, but more, more character attacks than anything else.

00:26:04.020 And from the conservatives, it's going to be the opposite.

00:26:06.640 You're going to see a lot of attacks on, on policy because Eby has a record to, to go up against.

00:26:12.420 Just, you know, Rustad, he, he hasn't been a leader for, well, he's never, never been a leader in, in government.

00:26:19.220 Whereas with Eby, you just look outside and you can see the product of his, his past time in government.

00:26:27.020 So I think, yeah, all the parties are going to double down on what they've already said and really just hammer down those attacks that they've been going out for, for the past few weeks.

00:26:39.160 All right.

00:26:41.360 That's Jared Yager, BC Bureau Chief for the Western Standard and Managing Editor of the West Coast Standard.

00:26:48.780 Thank you for joining us today.

00:26:50.680 Yeah, thank you.

00:26:51.920 All right.

00:26:52.300 Well, we're going to turn east of us now. 1.00

00:26:56.320 You Eastern bastards in Saskatchewan. 1.00

00:26:59.420 We're going to bring in Chris Oldcorn. 0.99

00:27:01.960 Chris is our Saskatchewan Bureau Chief of the Western Standard Managing Editor.

00:27:06.720 Thank you for joining us, Chris.

00:27:09.660 Eric?

00:27:12.180 All right.

00:27:13.180 So your election has, I'm sorry, it's just, just not as exciting as British Columbia's.

00:27:21.460 But we checked in with you last week.

00:27:24.460 It's, it's, it's, it's just, I mean, it's not good for the news business.

00:27:27.700 But, you know, what's been animating the campaign for the last week?

00:27:31.220 Basically, both parties had to come out with their platforms, because there's the debate tonight, which is ironically at six o'clock at night, which seems like a weird time to have a one hour debate when people are coming home from work and having dinner.

00:27:44.460 But that's when they scheduled it.

00:27:45.940 And basically, the platforms, there's nothing new in them.

00:27:49.660 They had already all made those announcements.

00:27:51.440 And so it's basically, the SAS party is campaigning on income tax, and then also not raising the small business tax from one to 2% next year when it's supposed to go back up.

00:28:02.540 They completely eliminated the small business tax during COVID.

00:28:05.860 And then last year, it went up by a percent, and then it's supposed to go back up by another percent next year.

00:28:11.060 Other than that, nothing really exciting.

00:28:13.260 We've had some, obviously, some issues in hospitals, including here in Regina, where our two main hospitals are missing a doctor who's required for very key diagnoses.

00:28:23.320 So anyone that needs certain tests has to actually go to Saskatoon now, as well as we had two ERs closed over the weekend, requiring people in rural areas to drive over an hour just to get to the nearest open ER.

00:28:34.840 So healthcare is the number one concern in the province right now.

00:28:39.300 The poll came out just a couple hours ago, showing that basically 61% of people think that healthcare is either the top issue or one of the top issues.

00:28:50.600 And unfortunately for the SAS party, only 5% felt that they were doing a good job with healthcare.

00:28:55.940 So the NDP is just hammering healthcare every single day with different healthcare-type announcements.

00:29:00.580 But they all revolve around hiring more healthcare workers, which is a problem for anyone who gets into government, because there's just not enough going around to begin with.

00:29:10.580 Well, so let's talk about the polls.

00:29:13.000 In this election, going into it, expectations were that the SAS party was going to lose seats,

00:29:18.760 and that this election would be either fully competitive or at least more competitive than it has been for a long time.

00:29:27.840 I mean, the Saskatchewan party has been in for a long time.

00:29:32.280 I think, are they going for the, is it fourth or fifth majority government they're going for here?

00:29:35.880 This would be the fifth, yes.

00:29:37.360 They've been in since 2007.

00:29:39.320 This will be the fifth government.

00:29:40.800 Because we only have two parties, you automatically get a majority if you win.

00:29:45.060 However, the lines have been redrawn for this election.

00:29:49.340 So we're now up to 61 ridings.

00:29:51.900 So even if the SAS party, let's say they do get to that magic number of 40 that they've been above,

00:29:57.620 it's not as impressive as previous elections because we have more ridings now.

00:30:01.560 Yeah.

00:30:01.960 And so, but still, I would say you're looking at a SAS party government probably in the high 30s,

00:30:09.580 which means the NDP, basically, they're going to have to be somewhere in the mid to low 20s.

00:30:15.340 Plus, we have some other parties that may pick off a couple of ridings as well.

00:30:19.480 Do you think there's a real chance that smaller parties like the PCs, Buffalo, SAS United,

00:30:24.500 do they actually have a chance at winning seats or just perhaps being spoilers in a few

00:30:28.940 or perhaps running a decent second place?

00:30:31.300 Do they really have a chance of winning a small number of seats?

00:30:35.380 Well, Nadine Wilson up in SAS, SAS Rivers, who left the SAS party to be the first leader of SAS United.

00:30:42.320 Her race is very close.

00:30:45.080 She's probably going to win it, though.

00:30:46.880 You think she will?

00:30:48.260 I think she do.

00:30:49.680 She will, yes.

00:30:50.740 It'll be close.

00:30:51.840 I don't expect it to be more than a couple percentage points apart.

00:30:55.940 But people really like her in her riding.

00:30:58.060 And before she was even with the SAS party, she was also involved in other elected positions as well.

00:31:03.420 So she's very well known in the community.

00:31:06.420 However, she could lose that seat to the SAS party.

00:31:11.680 And even the SAS NDP think they might have a shot because of the conservative vote being split

00:31:17.820 between SAS party and SAS United.

00:31:19.320 They actually think they could play spoiler there.

00:31:22.380 I'm not sure if that's going to happen.

00:31:23.800 I don't think it would because they still need to get around 30 percent support to be able to do it.

00:31:28.360 So how tight are the polls right now?

00:31:32.680 Does the NDP have any?

00:31:34.560 I mean, there's still a little time to go into campaign.

00:31:37.260 It's, I mean, BC is this weekend.

00:31:39.440 You're out another roughly two weeks-ish, right?

00:31:42.700 Yeah, on Monday, October 28th.

00:31:44.720 However, people can start voting on the 22nd.

00:31:47.320 We actually have a week of early polls.

00:31:51.360 So there is the opportunity to actually even start voting as early as the 22nd.

00:31:56.560 Is there any prospect of the NDP able to turn this around and actually go for a slight win here?

00:32:01.880 Or do you think it's pretty cooked in at this point?

00:32:05.260 I think it's pretty cooked in at this point.

00:32:07.600 The SAS party has not made a public appearance of Scott Moe in four days until tonight at the debate.

00:32:12.580 He will have to face immediate scrum after that.

00:32:15.900 I think some of that has to do with some questions I've been asking that they don't want to answer.

00:32:19.960 But we'll find out tonight when I get a chance to ask those questions.

00:32:24.900 But I don't think the NDP is in a position to win this election because, unfortunately for them,

00:32:32.800 they have great support in the cities of Saskatoon and Regina.

00:32:36.760 But once you get outside of the two major largest cities in the province, their support really tanks.

00:32:44.160 I mean, even at their convention last year, they had a seminar on how to talk to rural people for their candidates.

00:32:49.880 Like we're talking about a party that talks great to like like people in urban centers.

00:32:57.760 But when you drive 20 minutes outside of either of those cities and their message just kind of falls flat on its face, unfortunately for them.

00:33:06.260 And there's just there's no way that you can you can become a premier in this province without winning rural seats as well as winning urban seats.

00:33:16.420 And on top of that, the SAS party actually does fairly well in Saskatoon as well.

00:33:21.000 So there's a lot of battlegrounds there that they're probably going to hold.

00:33:26.620 So it's not going to be the city's flipping completely orange.

00:33:30.140 I'll put it to either of you two gentlemen on what's going on in Saskatchewan.

00:33:36.160 Well, I've been watching it.

00:33:37.740 I mean, you know, peripherally and so on.

00:33:39.680 And it's been hard.

00:33:41.400 And I mean, I'm a political watcher and I think a lot of Saskatchewan.

00:33:44.140 I worked out there.

00:33:44.920 I mean, they're very kindred spirits to Alberta.

00:33:47.080 I mean, we're close neighbors and I'm very concerned.

00:33:50.120 I want to make sure hopefully we maintain a conservative neighbor so that, you know,

00:33:54.060 it's good for a PowerPoint in the West, you know, when we talk about dealing with Ottawa,

00:33:58.700 no matter which government's in there.

00:34:00.640 But it does appear from what I can see is that the SAS party is taking it on cruise control

00:34:05.460 and just wants to kind of ride it in.

00:34:07.920 Nobody moves.

00:34:08.460 Nobody gets hurt.

00:34:09.200 We might shed a few seats, but we'll maintain power.

00:34:11.940 I'm thinking the bigger discussions will be the day after the election, though,

00:34:14.480 because they do seem to be tired in the eyes of the voters and they're going to need some

00:34:17.600 kind of rejuvenation.

00:34:19.260 I look from the outside.

00:34:20.400 Look, you know, looking into them, I think maybe some of the discussions over the longer run,

00:34:24.580 but not immediately, maybe it's time for Scott Moe to go out to pasture

00:34:28.200 and somebody fresh to come into that party in the next election cycle.

00:34:31.120 But for now, I'm just watching and hoping that, as Chris is saying, at least anyways,

00:34:35.740 that, you know, they can maintain a conservative struggle out in Saskatchewan.

00:34:38.860 Yeah, I mean, just getting rid of the leader may not be enough.

00:34:44.560 In Alberta, we saw a whole 40 years of the progressive conservatives,

00:34:49.700 during which we had Rolf Klein, Don Getty.

00:34:53.200 I'm not going in order here.

00:34:56.240 Changing leaders did save them many times.

00:34:58.740 Well, just until the next president.

00:35:02.180 It did not only once.

00:35:03.280 The problem with the progressive conservative party in Alberta was that it was widely perceived

00:35:09.440 and with some reason to be just a governing club and you could be in government for a while

00:35:17.140 and then you would come out and you'd have contracts that paid you very well

00:35:21.900 and then you'd go back in again and a sort of a revolving door of people interested.

00:35:27.740 And that, I think, ultimately, plus the fact that there was nothing very conservative

00:35:32.980 about the Alberta conservatives by the time they got to the end, brought them down.

00:35:39.500 Now, the opportunity for the Saskatchewan party is to avoid that culture of privilege

00:35:44.980 and to maintain a consistent strategy of being conservative,

00:35:51.380 which actually having a strong NDP is going to encourage them to do.

00:35:55.840 Lay the fire under their books.

00:35:56.740 There is a difference.

00:35:57.580 Chris, so when we were, which, I guess, you know, we're not at election day yet.

00:36:05.620 I'm going to ask you a similar question.

00:36:07.500 The same question as I put to Jared for BC.

00:36:10.320 What are the main constituencies that you're watching?

00:36:13.360 Like, what are the bellwethers?

00:36:16.120 You know, if this riding stays Saskatchewan party, they're going to stay in government

00:36:19.460 or if it flips orange, NDP are going to win.

00:36:23.620 What are the, say, top three bellwethers you're watching?

00:36:27.580 Well, definitely Regina Pasqua because it's the same two candidates in the last election. 1.00

00:36:33.320 In the last election, the NDP lost by just over 200 votes in the riding.

00:36:39.400 So that's right here in Regina.

00:36:40.800 It's in the southwestern part.

00:36:44.340 And then you can also look to Regina University.

00:36:47.740 That's held by, well, it's a new riding because the boundaries have been redrawn.

00:36:52.780 But right now it's held by a former Saskatchewan rough rider who I think has used his fame

00:37:00.220 as a rough rider to be successful in politics.

00:37:04.160 That's going to be a close riding.

00:37:06.040 And then Bronwyn Eyre for the Sask party as well.

00:37:08.140 She's the attorney general and she's up in Saskatoon.

00:37:12.100 Her riding's going to be close.

00:37:14.560 Moe was even there campaigning for her.

00:37:16.700 Those three ridings, if those all flip, I think you will see the NDP probably in the

00:37:24.660 mid, even the high 20s.

00:37:27.180 If those, because they were close in the last elections, but the seats have been held by

00:37:32.700 the Sask party.

00:37:33.540 They haven't lost them yet, but they could.

00:37:37.180 And this election we'll see.

00:37:39.100 Because once again, Saskatoon and Regina are the spots that the NDP really needs to pick

00:37:44.040 up seats.

00:37:44.440 Well, those would be bellwethers of the NDP picking up a lot of seats, but what would

00:37:48.480 be the bellwether seats of the NDP winning a slim government here?

00:37:56.780 I mean, they'd have to flip things like Nidian Wilson's Sass Rivers and some other ones that

00:38:01.960 are, I mean, those are Hail Mary ridings for them that they're hoping for.

00:38:07.180 And when I met with the NDP a couple of weeks ago and they kind of showed me their path to

00:38:11.720 31, I would say six to seven of them are Hail Marys and you don't make every Hail Mary pass.

00:38:19.780 So they're hopeful, but they themselves don't think they can get above 31 and everything

00:38:25.280 has to go right to get them to 31. 0.84

00:38:27.980 Well, and that's going to take flipping rural seats that have been solidly Sask party for

00:38:33.620 literally decades.

00:38:34.760 Praise be to God.

00:38:37.000 All right.

00:38:37.840 Well, thank you, Chris, for your insights today.

00:38:41.360 I'll let you get back to the campaign trail.

00:38:43.880 Thanks very much, Derek.

00:38:45.700 All right, gentlemen.

00:38:47.000 We've saved a little more time than usual.

00:38:49.600 Not a lot, but a little more time than usual for our parting shots.

00:38:52.740 I realized just today as I was sketching out my notes, it's P.S.

00:38:57.800 It's a great way to, it's our postscript of the show.

00:39:00.460 It's a great way to finish it off.

00:39:02.080 So, Nodule, your parting shot today.

00:39:03.760 See, I thought that was the plan all along.

00:39:05.720 You knew it.

00:39:06.740 I didn't.

00:39:08.520 Filderbrun's brilliant.

00:39:09.520 That's just great.

00:39:11.620 So anyway, the truth is finally out there.

00:39:14.340 Look, parting shot.

00:39:16.000 There's a video doing around.

00:39:17.200 We talked about this earlier.

00:39:18.600 What you see is outside the Langevin block.

00:39:20.660 Those who are not familiar with Ottawa, the Langevin block is where the government does

00:39:25.180 it, where the prime minister's office does its business.

00:39:28.580 It's right across the Wellington Street from Parliament.

00:39:33.020 And there's a couple of prime minister's personal detail, black limousines, pulled up

00:39:37.420 outside there.

00:39:38.680 And they're stormed by a group of Palestinian, I guess they're pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas 1.00

00:39:45.960 protesters.

00:39:47.200 At this point, we call them Hamas, Hezbollah people.

00:39:50.660 So they swarmed them and the RCMP backed up and de-escalated the situation, as they

00:40:00.720 were probably told to do.

00:40:02.480 What is the message?

00:40:03.900 Well, look, you try and do that sort of thing in China or in the United States, and it doesn't

00:40:11.040 go that way.

00:40:11.800 You don't assault vehicles used by the president and get away with it.

00:40:16.980 In Canada, you do.

00:40:18.360 And that video has gone around the world, and it makes us look weak.

00:40:23.700 It makes us look like we don't believe in our own stuff.

00:40:26.420 And it makes it look like whatever you want to do in terms of pressing your issue here

00:40:31.960 in Canada, you can do it up to and including storming a motorcade on Parliament Hill.

00:40:38.580 That is a bad message.

00:40:40.640 There needs to be consequences, and there needs to be the word go out that don't let this happen again.

00:40:47.820 I saw that.

00:40:49.600 And those of – we should obviously make sure we're showing some of the footage on the side here.

00:40:53.820 But if you see it, you'll recognize that building because there used to be bouncy castles and hot tubs

00:41:00.580 outside of it.

00:41:01.900 And that got a violent police response.

00:41:04.740 We all remember police cavalry trampling an old lady on her walker.

00:41:11.040 That was the response for protesting outside of it.

00:41:13.840 But if you're a Hamas and Hezbollah supporter attacking the prime minister's motorcade outside of it,

00:41:20.000 well, then it's time for talk and de-escalation.

00:41:22.680 To me, we don't know that the prime minister was in either of those vehicles.

00:41:27.060 No, but it is his motorcade.

00:41:28.180 They didn't know either.

00:41:29.180 They didn't know either.

00:41:30.140 No.

00:41:30.720 So that's what was going on there.

00:41:33.580 Yeah.

00:41:33.980 All right.

00:41:35.020 Corey, you're parting shot.

00:41:36.440 Sure.

00:41:36.780 Further to Canada's international reputation, a large historical Canadian company has set a record

00:41:43.020 south of the border of the United States.

00:41:45.460 TD Bank managed to get itself fined a record-breaking $3.1 billion.

00:41:50.720 $1 billion, American, real dollars, not the Canadian peso, and for money laundering.

00:41:56.920 I mean, this is unreal.

00:41:59.560 One of the big six Canadian established banks, and this wasn't a case of a little bit of allegation

00:42:04.340 or a little mistake.

00:42:05.400 They were complicit.

00:42:06.320 That's why the fine is so massive in laundering millions and millions of dollars.

00:42:12.500 Again, we wonder why Canada has difficulty being taken seriously when we're looked at

00:42:17.780 as a place for terrorist haven.

00:42:19.520 But not only that, our major banks are participating in money laundering in other countries.

00:42:25.640 So just a hat tip to TD.

00:42:27.740 They're lucky the news scroll was as busy as it is.

00:42:30.440 That kind of only made a blip in the news.

00:42:32.460 But it's worth noting, that's a pretty major bloody affair.

00:42:35.460 They're all about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

00:42:38.360 And they're diversifying their holdings.

00:42:41.980 The Colombian holdings, yeah.

00:42:43.560 Yeah.

00:42:44.180 And they're just being equitable and inclusive with criminals.

00:42:47.140 Yeah.

00:42:47.760 It just floored me.

00:42:49.060 I thought I read it wrong when that first popped up.

00:42:50.940 So bank with a TD, but invest in the Royal, eh?

00:42:53.440 Yeah.

00:42:53.880 Yeah.

00:42:54.120 Okay.

00:42:54.920 Yeah.

00:42:55.340 Well, good on you, TD.

00:42:56.900 All right.

00:42:57.120 My parting shot.

00:42:58.900 Actually, we don't have Jared on here anymore, but he has a lot to do with it.

00:43:02.700 The Samidun.

00:43:04.620 Am I saying that right?

00:43:05.760 Samidun? 0.53

00:43:06.660 It's phonetically.

00:43:07.580 We know what you can.

00:43:08.040 Whatever.

00:43:09.240 Samidun, I mean, very clearly a front for certain Palestinian terrorist organizations.

00:43:16.220 Has finally now been banned by the federal government.

00:43:20.800 It's late, but, I mean, they did the right thing in the end here.

00:43:25.520 That comes after Jared Yager, our British Columbia Bureau Chief, was the only reporter in the country to obtain footage of Samidun bosses leading a chant of,

00:43:38.680 We are Hezbollah, we are Hamas, and death to Canada, or death to America, death to Israel, death to Canada, and burning Canadian flags.

00:43:47.340 Now, burning Canadian flags, I think, is an extremely poor taste, but actually, I defend that as free speech.

00:43:53.940 Free speech I really don't like, but that's why it's free speech.

00:43:57.200 But death to Canada?

00:43:59.280 No, we are Hamas, we are Hezbollah, so terrorist organizations who want to kill innocent people, including Canadians. 0.92

00:44:07.820 No, that's advocating murder. 0.84

00:44:09.520 That's not free speech.

00:44:10.960 And they have now finally been, and media across Canada, used the Western Standards footage that was taken by Jared Yager when he was on the streets of Vancouver.

00:44:20.760 So tip of the hat again to Jared for that, and noting that the work he and the Western Standards done has played a big role in getting these bums banned as a terrorist organization in Canada. 1.00

00:44:32.860 All right, well, that's it for today's show.

00:44:35.140 Thank you, gentlemen, for being a part of it today.

00:44:38.360 I thank all of you for joining us.

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Western Standard - October 17, 2024

Release the traitors names already!

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