Western Standard - Should Canada annex America？

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is December 4th, 2024. I am Derek Vildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:10.520 Joining me, as always, my good friends here, Nigel Henniford, opinion editor of the Western Standard.

00:00:16.900 Hello again, Derek.

00:00:18.100 And Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:21.220 Always a pleasure.

00:00:22.040 Well, fun stuff today. Donald Trump putting out a tweet saying, you know, they better get drug smuggling and borders under control,

00:00:33.160 or he is slapping a big 25% tariff down on goods coming from Canada and Mexico.

00:00:41.520 And very quickly, Justin Trudeau hopped on a plane, heads down to Mar-a-Lago for a little chit-chat there, kissing the ring.

00:00:48.900 We're going to be talking about that.

00:00:50.540 But then, even more interesting, or at least more fun, in our second segment, we're going to, you know, Donald Trump suggested, jokingly, I think,

00:01:05.020 that, you know, if Canada couldn't take the tariffs or comply with its conditions, that maybe Canada should just join the United States, you know, become the 51st state.

00:01:13.700 So we're going to have a very serious conversation on if Canada should annex the United States of America.

00:01:20.540 And third, I've sometimes thought that Austria should annex Germany.

00:01:27.280 Yeah.

00:01:28.620 Good try.

00:01:30.760 That kind of the Holy Roman Empire Act is more or less dead.

00:01:33.140 And then we're going to talk about the possibility of an early election.

00:01:39.480 There's been some developments.

00:01:41.440 I increasingly think there's a very good chance we're not going to have to wait until October of next year.

00:01:47.780 We might finally be able to put a bulletin old yeller here and move on with our lives, get a government in place that can, you know, actually pass a single bill through par.

00:01:59.940 Okay.

00:02:01.120 Well, let's start off with it.

00:02:03.360 As I said, right at the top.

00:02:06.560 Trump is...

00:02:09.340 I've never seen a president make so many waves in the lame duck period, in between the election of a new president and before they're sworn in.

00:02:18.660 Normally, it's pretty quiet.

00:02:20.460 It's behind the scenes.

00:02:21.200 There's noise around cabinet picks, although not this much noise around cabinet picks.

00:02:25.760 But he is conducting foreign policy at this point.

00:02:30.240 You know, he has issued notice to Hamas that unless all of the surviving hostages are released by the time he's sworn in on January 20th, there's going to be hell to pay.

00:02:39.800 And there's some indications that Hamas, or whatever's left of their leadership at least, is taking that seriously.

00:02:47.360 Slightly less grave, but pretty serious still, is the threats he's issued against Canada and the United States.

00:02:55.820 Not to let us in with Hamas, although you could be forgiven for thinking, looking down the streets of many Canadian major cities.

00:03:02.000 It was the threat that unless we get the border under control, stop the flow of drugs in the United States, that he's going to slap a 24% tariff on Canada and Mexico.

00:03:17.620 Now, Nigel, I think Mexico is generally interested, and I think rightfully interested, to be the major irritant in the North American relationship. 1.00

00:03:26.280 Less so Canada.

00:03:27.860 But there are major irritants.

00:03:29.660 It was not said in his tweet, but I think it's been understood from many American officials related to the incoming administration.

00:03:37.460 The defense is also probably a part of this conversation.

00:03:41.860 But a 25% tariff, I mean, this is Trump. 0.93

00:03:45.400 A lot of people who don't know, it takes a while to understand Trump, and you have to understand the difference between lying and bullshitting. 0.98

00:03:51.720 He lies sometimes. 0.92

00:03:53.040 He's a politician. 0.99

00:03:54.140 But he bullshits a lot. 0.99

00:03:55.880 And there can often be truth in bullshitting. 0.97

00:03:57.960 I mean, I take this as probably just, it's a very bold opening move.

00:04:05.180 I'd be shocked if at the end of the day there was ever a 25% tariff against Canada.

00:04:09.260 I would be shocked indeed.

00:04:10.860 But, you know, the shameful thing in all of this is that it takes a president-elect of the United States to point out what our prime minister is failing at.

00:04:25.180 I mean, we know that.

00:04:26.440 We know they've had a very lax immigration policy, which has allowed some bad people to get into the country, 1.00

00:04:32.720 and some of them try to slip over the border.

00:04:36.960 Well, you know, we should be letting that go on.

00:04:40.160 The drug thing, gosh, if there's a war on drugs, we're losing it.

00:04:44.660 But everybody's in the same boat with that.

00:04:47.140 So while I take it seriously, I don't think that's the major irritant at all.

00:04:50.860 But it is a terrible thing that justification for applying a tariff on Canada is you're not doing your job on border control.

00:05:01.220 That's the first job that the government of Canada has.

00:05:04.940 And it's taking a U.S. president to point that out.

00:05:07.340 It's just an awful situation.

00:05:09.500 So anyway, Mr. Trudeau goes down there and gets his marching orders from over a good dinner, I'm sure.

00:05:16.800 Very likely, I don't know this for a fact, but very likely all at Mr. Trump's expense.

00:05:21.840 He's not yet the president of the United States.

00:05:24.160 He's not putting in his chip.

00:05:25.940 He doesn't even take a salary.

00:05:27.360 It would be very much in the style of the man to have people come in and he feeds them at his estate from his own resources.

00:05:36.100 And then they go back and do what they're told.

00:05:37.880 I expect that it's happening.

00:05:39.640 But during the transition, there is a budget for the incoming presidents.

00:05:43.460 They have significant resources at their disposal.

00:05:45.640 They're treated in many ways like the president, just without the White House and the nuclear codes at that point.

00:05:52.480 But, yeah, I take your point.

00:05:54.300 Corey, there is no real way to control the Canada-U.S. border.

00:06:00.340 Even a wall would not do anything.

00:06:02.420 It's just so utterly massive.

00:06:03.840 I know you posted a picture on your Twitter a couple days ago when you were a landman.

00:06:09.240 Surveyor.

00:06:09.720 Surveyor.

00:06:10.100 You're a surveyor.

00:06:11.560 I've been out down in that area along the U.S. border.

00:06:15.300 I've even driven down border road back in the days where if you're on the road, you're in America.

00:06:20.180 If you're on the north side ditch here in Canada, I'd say technically it's not going to do America. 0.52

00:06:25.600 There is no real control in the border.

00:06:27.340 So I don't think it's fair, say, Canada or even Justin Trudeau is responsible for really what's going back and forth between that border.

00:06:34.720 It's just too big and porous.

00:06:37.260 It's the largest undefended border in the world and in the history of the world as far as I know.

00:06:43.060 But what we do control, and that is much more important and entirely in our ability to control, very easily if we had any determination, is our external, the external North American border.

00:06:55.640 What's coming into Canada, because what comes into Canada can very easily get into the United States.

00:07:01.200 And I think that is the single biggest trade and foreign policy goal of really any Canadian government in the post-war era, is to keep the Canadian-American border as flexible and open as possible.

00:07:17.040 That is an area where we do want an open border.

00:07:18.860 It is our maritime and airspace borders that have become porous under Justin Trudeau.

00:07:25.640 And I don't think Trudeau seemed to grasp that.

00:07:29.920 I don't think Trump is viewing the Canada-U.S. border the way he views the U.S.-Mexican border, where people are hopping over and they don't necessarily want that border open.

00:07:41.160 But I think he's referring probably to Canada's aeronautical and maritime borders.

00:07:45.320 Yeah, I mean, as you said, I've worked down there.

00:07:48.900 It is, we don't have the resources to control that border, even if we wanted to.

00:07:53.140 No country in the world does.

00:07:53.920 And I don't think there's really that much actually crossing, though it's easily enough done if somebody with a bit of planning, as I kind of said.

00:08:00.480 People think that there's a lot going on down there.

00:08:02.360 No, it's a broken down barbed wire fence with houses miles and miles apart at best.

00:08:06.400 And even the Americans have limited resources to watch it.

00:08:09.320 But the issue is we've had unchecked, uncontrolled immigration.

00:08:12.800 We haven't deported people we have found to be bad characters.

00:08:15.860 We have a backlog of over a million people in the immigration system right now in processing.

00:08:20.980 I mean, many of them are legitimate people that just want to come here and make their lives.

00:08:24.320 But this is how badly we've been doing it.

00:08:26.620 It takes years to process this.

00:08:28.360 And then once we process it, we find out, oh, we've got to deport this guy.

00:08:31.240 Great.

00:08:32.060 Well, we lost track of him two years ago.

00:08:33.940 Who knows where he is?

00:08:34.960 And chances are these people are showing up in the United States.

00:08:37.520 So that's where we have to get ourselves under control.

00:08:40.800 As well, I had Sam Cooper on as a guest.

00:08:42.500 He was fantastic.

00:08:43.300 He talked about that.

00:08:44.000 We've become a hub for money laundering in Vancouver for Chinese drug cartels and Mexican drug cartels.

00:08:50.500 And we're finding some very large, again, Mexico is certainly far more of a drug problem than Canada.

00:08:55.080 But we're finding big labs up here.

00:08:58.220 Trump wanted to get Trudeau's attention, and he certainly did.

00:09:01.260 Even if the tariffs aren't something that he's really going to oppose, talk about a power play.

00:09:05.540 He threw that out just on X.

00:09:06.900 You got the leader of a country within a couple days' notice to come down, have dinner at your place, where you basically belittled him and sent him home without much change.

00:09:17.960 He's establishing the relationship that they're going to have right now, and he's on top.

00:09:23.740 Well, let's talk about that.

00:09:25.860 I have to admit, okay, the knee-jerk reaction, not just of conservatives, but I think a clear majority of Canadians at this point, is to loathe anything that Justin Trudeau does.

00:09:36.240 He looks weak because he is weak, and he was in a position of weakness there.

00:09:41.020 But I think he did what any Canadian prime minister had to do in that circumstance.

00:09:45.320 This is an existential threat to Canada at this point.

00:09:47.740 A 25% tariff would throw us back in the dark ages economically.

00:09:52.800 It would hurt America, but it'd kill Canada. 0.66

00:09:55.580 He could bring us to our knees.

00:09:57.020 So there really isn't much more of an important file right now than keeping trade with the United States open.

00:10:02.460 So we had to go down.

00:10:05.040 But it certainly looked weak.

00:10:06.820 But frankly, I think Pierre Paulyev would have had to do the same thing if he was in the case.

00:10:12.180 Stephen Harper would have to do the same thing in that case.

00:10:14.620 But I don't think Trump probably enjoyed the theater of him having to come down and kiss the ring and plead and beg.

00:10:26.540 But he doesn't seem to have any appetite to negotiate with the man because he knows Trudeau can't really negotiate.

00:10:34.000 It's like if there's a hostage negotiation and they just said Bobbin, the hostage negotiator, but he doesn't even have any power to get anything from his bosses.

00:10:45.480 The guy holding the hostages at the bank doesn't really want to talk to you if the hostage negotiator can't deliver anything.

00:10:51.880 He can't deliver the helicopter or whatever his demands are.

00:10:55.440 Trump knows that this guy is gone.

00:10:57.960 He has no negotiating power.

00:10:59.380 Trudeau can't even pass a bill through Parliament at this point.

00:11:02.020 Parliament is deadlocked because the Liberals refused to comply with an order of Parliament to disclose documents on corruption in the Green Slush Fund.

00:11:12.320 And Trump knows this.

00:11:13.220 I get the feeling that whatever remains of liberal Canada at this point and, you know, the headquarter of the Toronto Star and CBC, they don't – it might start even to be finally dawned on them that they have newspapers in Mar-a-Lago.

00:11:29.360 And Trump knows that Trudeau's gone, that there's no point in really talking to him.

00:11:33.960 I think he's going to wait out Trudeau at this point.

00:11:36.520 He'll probably impose the tariffs when he is sworn in.

00:11:41.520 I'm not sure if it'll be 25% right out of the gate.

00:11:44.320 Someone rational will probably tell him that it'll – maybe it'll get up to 25, but it'll escalate over time unless negotiations, you know, bear some fruit.

00:11:55.440 But I think Trudeau is just – Trump is just going to wait Trudeau out.

00:11:58.700 My suspicion is that he'll impose the tariffs on day one and suspend their application pending for the talks with the – with the Government of Canada.

00:12:09.360 I actually don't think that this would be the case had it been Harper or maybe Mr. Bollihev, because the situation that provoked it would not have been allowed to develop this far.

00:12:24.800 No, but if the announcement was made, they would have to go –

00:12:27.700 Obviously, they have to talk about it, but it wouldn't have been – my expectation is it would have been a telephone call first

00:12:35.840 and the whole thing would have looked much more orderly and not a rush to try and save the ship, you know.

00:12:44.200 That was theatre deliberately intended to make Mr. Trudeau look small.

00:12:50.160 And then the – of course, you had that great video that came – that he tweeted out, him standing on a mountain and a Canadian –

00:12:58.120 Well, we're going to get to that.

00:13:00.580 That's a different video.

00:13:01.880 There's another one that – the one that he tweeted out yesterday.

00:13:05.580 That's also related to our website.

00:13:06.940 Yeah.

00:13:07.380 All right.

00:13:08.020 Well, you might want to clip that out.

00:13:11.140 Well, no, it's okay.

00:13:12.040 In any case, there was – there was definite theatre there in doing it to Trudeau because Trudeau had done it to him.

00:13:18.480 Corey, so much of this – again, I guess I kind of get into the power play of what we're going to get into in a moment.

00:13:27.200 But there is a personal loathing of Trump towards Trudeau.

00:13:34.260 Trudeau thought, like many people, that Trump was gone and he's never coming back and he makes a good punching bag politically

00:13:42.820 and he can constantly, you know, point to Pauli and say, Pauli is – I don't know what they call them – maple syrup mangoes.

00:13:50.020 You know, they would try a few things like that, hoping – pun intended – that it would stick.

00:13:56.380 Didn't really seem to.

00:13:57.960 But he can't now.

00:13:59.480 You know, the liberals were hoping for the – you know, the Trump bump.

00:14:02.760 If Trump wins, then they can, you know, stand up for Canada against Trump and they're going to look good and that's going to be what saves them.

00:14:09.580 And they can't beat up on Trump right now because he holds all the cards.

00:14:14.160 He just had Trudeau walk in like he was, you know, being called in on the principal's office.

00:14:19.760 The man's not even sworn in.

00:14:21.400 Yet, you know, Trudeau called – Trudeau's the one who asked for the meeting.

00:14:25.900 Trudeau comes all the way down to Mar-a-Lago to, you know – it was a bit humiliating.

00:14:31.600 But I think how much of this is just also animated by Trump wanting his pound of flesh from Trudeau.

00:14:40.280 Because Trudeau – when Trump and Trudeau were first together, this is 2015, 2016, both were fresh.

00:14:47.580 Trudeau was new.

00:14:48.220 He was still broadly popular in Canada at the time.

00:14:50.680 You know, he was – because it was 2015.

00:14:52.680 Trudeau is now a global avatar of woke progressivism run amok.

00:15:02.420 He's an embarrassment even to the international left at this point.

00:15:06.160 And I think Trump is using – kicking him around as almost a global symbol of what he – of how he's going to operate.

00:15:15.020 And domestically, that what he can do to Trudeau – because it's going to make him more popular at home.

00:15:22.020 Because Trudeau is detested broadly across the United States at this point.

00:15:24.940 Oh, yeah.

00:15:25.320 He completely reversed the dynamic of what the Andrew Coins and the others were seeing was going to happen.

00:15:29.900 Was that Trump was going to provide this perfect foil for Trudeau to say, you need me to defend you from Trump.

00:15:35.540 And as you said, no, Trump has turned this around and said, I'm the person to snuff out this woke sort of Sunnyways, you know, vacuous sort of leadership that everybody's sick and tired of and watch him dance to my song here as I jump into power.

00:15:51.540 So it went completely the other way around from how some people expected it to go.

00:15:56.180 And, yes, Trump is a – he's a vindictive man, and he's got a long memory.

00:16:00.160 And Trudeau spent a lot of time antagonizing him.

00:16:02.640 I mean, he was, again, you know, tittering at a G8 or NATO meeting, I think it was.

00:16:07.800 It was NATO.

00:16:08.520 He was, you know, whispering to Macron and other leaders, gossiping.

00:16:11.760 Like, Trump hasn't forgotten that.

00:16:13.980 And, you know, I don't think it's one of Trump's better traits that he is kind of petty and holds these grudges.

00:16:19.140 But it's a reality of his.

00:16:20.740 And they brought it on.

00:16:21.940 Actually, I would take slight exception there on Mr. Trump's behalf.

00:16:26.800 Half the people that he's nominated for his cabinet are people that he's going head-to-head with.

00:16:31.380 Even his vice president, actually.

00:16:33.340 He's a vice president.

00:16:34.240 You know, so, I mean, if it's in his advantage, he's quite prepared to live and let live.

00:16:40.340 But there's something kind of sneaky about what Trudeau did there at that meeting you referred to.

00:16:44.740 Kind of snickering behind their hands, and it got out.

00:16:47.500 Well, bad move.

00:16:48.940 Okay, well, we'll move the conversation along to where we all want to get it here.

00:16:56.800 So, during this meeting between Trump, Trudeau, and a few others at Mar-a-Lago, Trump apparently joked.

00:17:05.140 And some sources say Trump has joked about this previously with Trudeau.

00:17:08.880 So, it's taken as a joke.

00:17:12.060 But, you know, Trump, along the lines of, everybody already knows the story.

00:17:17.260 But, you know, Trudeau says the 25% tariff will be devastating to our economy.

00:17:22.480 And Trump says, well, you know, if you can't, you know, survive ripping us off with the trade deficit, perhaps I should, you know, just let America, sorry, Canada become the 51st state.

00:17:34.480 And you can be the governor.

00:17:36.580 You know, and Trudeau says something along the lines of, well, you know, it'd be a pretty liberal blue state if it did.

00:17:40.860 And he says, fine, we'll divide it up into one blue state with one red state.

00:17:44.160 I guess he's assuming that, you know, maybe in Elbert and Saskatchewan, we get to be our own state.

00:17:49.660 At last.

00:17:50.660 Yeah.

00:17:52.780 The whole thing was a joke.

00:17:53.880 But word of this got out, and it just blew up the Internet.

00:17:59.200 Not just in Canada, which was predictable, but even internationally.

00:18:02.280 And then Trump riffing on this.

00:18:05.300 You were talking about that picture.

00:18:06.780 He posted to Truth Social and then on the X.

00:18:10.040 At that point, he's just trolling Trudeau.

00:18:13.700 He is trolling Trudeau, trolling it.

00:18:15.680 Also for his supporters, you know, it's just, he likes fun. 0.97

00:18:18.580 He's bullshitting. 0.99

00:18:20.060 You know, again, back to Trump is the bullshitter in chief. 0.99

00:18:22.900 I forget who was that coined that term, but I'm adopting it. 0.91

00:18:27.120 And it just became kind of funny.

00:18:29.260 Let's play that, someone did an AI video.

00:18:33.940 This video is AI.

00:18:36.580 It's getting pretty damn good.

00:18:38.220 So I just want to specify that before.

00:18:39.960 Let's just play a little video, a fake video of AI video of Trump.

00:18:45.820 But that just kind of captures the zeitgeist of the moment.

00:18:49.060 People of Canada, the Great White North, as they call it.

00:18:52.980 Except it's not so great anymore, is it?

00:18:55.280 I call it the Great Sad North, because that's what it is.

00:18:59.000 Sad.

00:18:59.740 On January 20th, I will be slapping huge tariffs on all products coming from your country. 1.00

00:19:05.360 The economic consequences will be devastating, but they don't have to be.

00:19:09.560 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was just with me at Mar-a-Lago.

00:19:13.560 And I suggested that I would make Canada the 51st state.

00:19:17.920 It's called Manifest Destiny, and it's happening whether you hosers like it or not. 1.00

00:19:22.780 You should have never let us get Alaska.

00:19:24.660 That was your first mistake.

00:19:26.440 Makes no sense that you have to drive through Canada to get to America.

00:19:30.360 Not any longer.

00:19:31.460 There are a lot of great benefits to joining America.

00:19:34.300 We have a great military.

00:19:35.880 The greatest in the world. 0.93

00:19:36.980 You'll be able to move from those awful cold shitholes you live in to warm shitholes. 0.98

00:19:43.440 Quebec will no longer be a thing. 0.99

00:19:45.120 You don't like it.

00:19:45.840 You can all move to France.

00:19:47.420 All Tim Hortons will now become Dunkin' Donuts.

00:19:50.420 Curling will be banned. 0.66

00:19:51.780 It's a ridiculous sport, if you can even call it that.

00:19:54.560 As for your precious ice hockey, this will be the hardest part to deal with. 0.75

00:19:58.480 But who said there wouldn't be growing pains?

00:20:00.500 The American and Canadian national teams will merge. 0.99

00:20:04.440 Say goodbye to your silly little leaf. 0.97

00:20:06.980 Say hello to stars and stripes and bald eagles. 1.00

00:20:10.960 Also for all those celebrities that move to Canada because I won sucks to be you.

00:20:15.680 So this all raises the very important question.

00:20:18.480 Should Canada let America join us?

00:20:23.920 Or, as you put it, annex.

00:20:26.180 Should we annex America?

00:20:27.860 I'm not saying we conquer them by force.

00:20:29.840 But, you know, Trudeau and Christian Freeland say Canada is a convening power.

00:20:36.460 We're great at convening.

00:20:38.020 So why don't we just convene a meeting and America can join Canada?

00:20:40.500 Well, there are some issues remaining from 1776 that have yet to be satisfactorily resolved to the benefit of the British Crown.

00:20:49.740 I'm not very happy with the Alaska-B.C. border.

00:20:52.100 Well, the British Empire sold us up the river on that one.

00:20:56.120 Sure.

00:20:56.720 Sure that we...

00:20:58.280 I kind of like the idea of Alaska being a little bit different from the rest of the...

00:21:04.100 Yeah, I'm saying the border adjustment was very unfavorable to Canada.

00:21:07.160 It had to provoke the Charlottetown Conference creating confederation.

00:21:12.340 There were some other things going on then.

00:21:14.400 Indeed.

00:21:14.780 You know, the interesting thing about that is tangent, but Don A. MacDonald probably was a world-scale statesman was up there with Bismarck and Israeli and Gladstone.

00:21:25.660 Anyway, that's a little ancient history, but if we're going to go back into ancient history, sure, 13 colonies.

00:21:32.400 Let's have the other 37 back in the fold. 0.96

00:21:37.420 We can forgive and forget.

00:21:42.940 Yeah.

00:21:43.560 No, Corey, names aren't coming to mind immediately.

00:21:47.460 No, most people have taken this as a joke.

00:21:49.460 Funny.

00:21:50.200 Even Trump critics mostly get it's a joke.

00:21:53.540 But I have seen a few nutters on both sides of the border still light their hair on fire.

00:22:00.400 To the credit of the left, they haven't uniformly lit their hair on fire on this one. 0.99

00:22:05.040 Some of them are finally understanding that Trump does bullshit sometimes, and he's joking. 0.99

00:22:11.340 Well, yeah. 0.99

00:22:11.960 I mean, on a much smaller scale, but on X, I like to lob things out there and get the lobs all squirrely and stirred up, too.

00:22:20.800 And, you know, if they don't react, it's not any fun.

00:22:25.060 And wiser people realize that, yes, this man is drooling you.

00:22:29.220 He's getting a kick out of this.

00:22:30.640 And if you dive into that pool with him, he's just going to laugh while you let the vein in the side of your head pulse.

00:22:37.140 Though there's still an undertone of serious business about this.

00:22:40.860 These are leaders of two sovereign nations, and it's joking at the meal, but that's not a typical joke between world leaders.

00:22:49.260 When you're discussing world national sovereignty between your nations, that's not usual small talk over the appetizers.

00:22:56.440 This is, again, you know, nobody's seriously considering annexing either side going on, but just the fact that leaders are even having this kind of joking.

00:23:06.180 It's just we're building a really bizarre relationship between our countries right now, or at least between Trump and Trudeau.

00:23:11.080 So let's hope that our countries have a better relationship once that leadership changes.

00:23:15.220 Something that occurred to me, though, that was serious in this is just how utterly powerless and at the mercy of America we truly are.

00:23:25.740 That, well, I don't believe Trump has any ambition to annex Canada, and I wouldn't imagine any significant whatsoever segment of the American population has ambitions of manifest destiny to annex Canada.

00:23:42.400 If they wanted to, they probably could.

00:23:44.980 They could force us to, they wouldn't need to fire a shot.

00:23:48.800 I mean, if the United States just decided to close its border to us, we'd just be called Mexico.

00:23:55.960 They could kill us economically and force us to do anything, anything they wanted, they could make us do.

00:24:05.520 And it just, this whole thing, as much as it was a joke, it just really brought that home that we just don't have the chips to play.

00:24:13.060 I don't want to make this a serious conversation, because we did head it, let's annex America. 0.94

00:24:20.700 However, to your point about making Canada do whatever they needed to do, this started in 1942.

00:24:28.320 That is when the Prime Minister of the time, the late and unlamented Mackenzie King, gave the United States permission to do whatever it felt it needed to do on Canadian territory in order to further the war effort.

00:24:45.720 And one of the first things they did was build the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks, Alaska, 1,512 miles of dirt road, which had a strategic objective.

00:24:58.420 An incredible amount of time.

00:24:59.800 And they did it in 10 months.

00:25:01.980 So the point of that is that right there, they effectively exercised sovereignty over Canadian territory, because we had nothing to do with it.

00:25:14.360 Then, in the 50s, we began setting up these early warning lines of radar stations.

00:25:22.300 The Dew Line.

00:25:23.020 The Dew Line, and there are others, the Spruce Line, and the, you know, there's a number of them.

00:25:29.740 But again, these were all camouflaged with the idea, well, this is a NORAD installation.

00:25:35.520 But, yeah, there was an American initiative that was built by the Americans, paid for by the Americans, and administered by the Americans on Canadian territory.

00:25:45.100 So actually, Derek, we're already there.

00:25:48.500 I think we have been for a long time.

00:25:50.300 I just don't think Canadians have been very honest with themselves about this. 1.00

00:25:56.900 I mean, when John Turner was screaming that free trade would destroy Canadian sovereignty, it was already long gone.

00:26:04.580 The United States is a happy neighbor.

00:26:07.240 They generally get a lot.

00:26:08.120 They're good neighbors most of the time.

00:26:10.820 And I'd rather have the United States as a neighbor than really anyone else I could think of.

00:26:14.780 But they hold all the cards.

00:26:16.900 What we've turned ourselves into, I'm glad you brought up, yes, the unlimited Mackenzie King,

00:26:20.960 and bringing up the brilliance of Sir John A. MacDonald, because the attitude in Canada right now is that we're self-defeating.

00:26:28.720 We're taking away John A. MacDonald's statues.

00:26:31.500 We're a post-national state.

00:26:33.480 We don't have a sense of pride or dignity or standing up for ourselves.

00:26:38.140 Well, yes, but, I mean, nationally, it's weak right now, and very much so.

00:26:42.680 And this has been going on for a long, long time.

00:26:44.520 It's really coming to a head now.

00:26:46.120 And Trump has just seen it and exposing it and is taking advantage of it.

00:26:50.380 But this is something that's been going on for a long time.

00:26:52.880 Yeah, and I suppose, to take it further, if we're talking about Canada as a post-national state,

00:26:57.640 and, you know, the whole Trudeopian view of Canada as this, you know, sinful colonial being,

00:27:06.780 well, really, what is the point of maintaining Canada in and of itself?

00:27:10.500 If Trudeau is correct, then why not?

00:27:13.600 I mean, arguably, Canada would have a lot more influence.

00:27:20.480 We'd probably be a pretty big, Canada would not go in as a single 51st state, in the very hypothetical, is purely hypothetical.

00:27:27.180 But if we're going to play this game, it wouldn't be one big giant state, because it would be bigger,

00:27:32.900 it would be a single state, bigger in population than any other state in the United States,

00:27:37.820 and we'd be bigger in size than the rest of it.

00:27:39.380 So, you know, Canada would probably go in, maybe not as 10 states.

00:27:42.940 I don't think Quebec would make a good combined state.

00:27:45.080 No, and I don't think Prince Edward Island gets to be its own thing anymore.

00:27:48.260 Probably the Atlantics get together.

00:27:49.620 There'd be some reconfiguration.

00:27:51.340 But it'd be mostly blue states.

00:27:53.100 The Democrats would benefit tremendously from it.

00:27:55.760 They'd have permanent Senate control and, you know, maybe Alberta and Saskatchewan every once in a while flip red.

00:28:03.260 The Democrats, the Democrats more than anyone would like Canada in, it actually wouldn't be the Republicans wanting it.

00:28:11.640 So I don't know, liberal Canadians are always fantasizing about being Democrats.

00:28:16.380 They want to be the Democrats so bad.

00:28:20.040 They could finally be Democrats.

00:28:21.380 And it would, at least for some time until whatever that country is, recalibrates itself, it'd have to be fairly blue.

00:28:30.360 So I don't know. 0.94

00:28:32.200 It's a silly argument, almost as silly as Canada annexing the United States. 0.85

00:28:38.200 But I think there's a lesson just to remind us here about how weak in this relationship we are and how lightly we have to tread. 0.92

00:28:46.060 You know, just to the point about the post-national state, the United States has just had a great awakening with this last election.

00:28:55.660 You notice how the Democrats haven't challenged it.

00:28:58.140 It was so obvious that the people had spoken.

00:29:02.100 I actually think that there is a Canadian nationalism coming back after the next federal election because the liberals are not going to win it.

00:29:10.700 And there's going to be no more talk about a post-national state.

00:29:13.440 True, but I mean, like military traditions, national traditions, they can be torn down fast, but they take generations to build.

00:29:24.920 And, you know, we've had at least one generation to come up now under Trudeau.

00:29:30.760 A generation has come up under Trudeau.

00:29:32.780 And Canadian nationalism, patriotism has been weakening, I think, for quite some time already.

00:29:39.740 You can probably go all the way back to getting rid of the Red Ensign and things like that.

00:29:45.080 You can go back quite a ways if you want.

00:29:49.580 I don't think even a three-majority term poly of government restores this.

00:29:55.480 They'd have to want to.

00:29:56.720 That's the first thing.

00:29:57.720 It would have to be an explicit goal of them.

00:30:00.260 But also, that always massively upsets the Quebec nationalists.

00:30:03.760 These goals are loggerheads.

00:30:06.440 And Quebec nationalism, this conversation is meandering a bit now, but I like this meandering conversation.

00:30:12.540 The PQ is poised to very possibly return to power in Quebec, promise of a third referendum.

00:30:19.340 There's going to be a lot of hesitancy to poke that bear by really ratcheting up Canadian nationalism.

00:30:25.660 That always really angers even moderate Quebec nationalists.

00:30:29.320 Canadian unity has never been something I've promoted all that hard over my political years.

00:30:33.440 No, it has not.

00:30:35.920 How's it?

00:30:37.160 All right.

00:30:38.740 Well, the tea leaves are changing a bit.

00:30:44.540 And Justin Trudeau is desperate to hang on to power to the absolute end in October 2025.

00:30:54.460 They're just praying for something to change.

00:30:56.240 They thought Trump's election would change them around.

00:30:59.340 That has obviously not worked to their advantage.

00:31:01.680 It actually may be working very much to their disadvantage.

00:31:04.220 The big thing that's been, as much as they might deny it, J. Neitzing's pension, the pension of a significant number of his MPs and MPs in the Liberal Caucus, don't vest until a week after the next election is scheduled.

00:31:25.440 And that's really been, as much as they deny it, I think it's been one of the driving forces for their desperation to not have an election until that's done.

00:31:34.220 Now, just the other day, Calgary entrepreneur and friend of the Western Standard, Keith Wilson, publicly offered J. Neitzing on X that he was going to put together some private financing for him to take care of his pension.

00:31:50.100 If he would just allow for foreign elections, I meant Brett Wilson.

00:31:55.280 Did I say Keith Wilson?

00:31:56.720 Keith Wilson is another friend of the Western Standard.

00:31:59.900 He's a great guy.

00:32:00.740 Yeah.

00:32:01.240 Both good guys.

00:32:02.080 Sorry, Brett Wilson is going to put together private financing saying, don't worry about it, Jagmeet. 0.99

00:32:09.840 We'll take care of your pension. 0.99

00:32:11.080 Just call the damn election. 0.99

00:32:12.860 We'll take care of your, you know, we'll buy your next Maserati or whatever it is. 0.99

00:32:18.720 Nigel, why don't you elaborate a bit?

00:32:21.180 Well, there's a bunch of things that make me think we're heading for an early election.

00:32:24.820 Unless business and pensions is just one of them, because that was obviously going to be a lead weight around somebody's neck.

00:32:32.060 If they've waited it out until October, I think just about every Canadian now realizes that certain people's pensions, and there were probably about 80 of the...

00:32:41.960 We have to exclude the Conservatives there, because none of them are losing the election.

00:32:45.360 They're going to get their pensions no matter what.

00:32:46.620 So they're fine with an early election.

00:32:47.620 Well, of course they are.

00:32:48.320 But they're just in the interest of being accurate, there are about 80 MPs who stand to get a pension vested a week after the scheduled election date.

00:33:01.860 So this exposes the 50 or so of them who are liberal or NDP to the charge of hypocrisy, which is an awkward one if you can get rid of it before you go into an election, do so.

00:33:17.000 The fact that they're prepared to toss it overboard now suggests to me that they may be thinking that an election is coming sooner rather than in October.

00:33:27.960 The second thing is...

00:33:29.200 Elaborate on what's changing with pensions, yeah.

00:33:33.460 Well, you have to serve six years in Parliament to get a parliamentary pension, so that means you've got to get elected for a second time.

00:33:42.840 Yeah, the Liberals were proposing to move the election date back a week, which is that week they needed to get their pension.

00:33:48.700 They dropped it now.

00:33:49.480 So they dropped it, because people were just getting the idea that that was a racket.

00:33:55.660 Where would they get that idea?

00:33:56.600 And it would be another reason not to vote for the Liberals or the NDP.

00:34:02.120 So by shedding that bit of baggage, they are a little better prepared for an election when it comes, and it could come early.

00:34:12.220 The fact that no business is being done in the House of Commons is actually starting to take root in the public generally.

00:34:25.100 I mean, for a while, parliamentary procedure, it's over most people's heads.

00:34:30.760 It's over most people's level of interest.

00:34:32.900 But the narrative has now taken hold that there's something funny in something called a green slush fund, and the Liberals have been told to produce the numbers, but they won't.

00:34:44.320 And therefore, the NDP and the Conservatives and the Bloc de Beclois won't do any other business.

00:34:50.660 And really, if there is something funny, we'd like to see the numbers.

00:34:54.340 And when that's just the political columnists who understand it, that's one level.

00:34:59.540 Well, when people stop you coming out of the church and say, hey, you know about this sort of stuff, can they not do business?

00:35:08.940 And the answer is no, they can't, except as they did a week ago when they passed that GST holiday for Canadians,

00:35:18.140 in which the NDP managed to make themselves look like the saviors of the ordinary people of 10 cents off a packet of chips at Christmastime.

00:35:25.880 But nothing else of consequence is being done, some of which is a good thing.

00:35:32.960 I'm generally glad nothing gets done.

00:35:34.860 By and large, I mean, there's some nasty bills there that are not getting done.

00:35:40.340 But people will not put up with that indefinitely.

00:35:43.440 And eventually, the pressure is going to be on the people sitting in the seats.

00:35:47.320 If you're not going to do your job, let's have the election.

00:35:49.960 And that, I think, is the biggest one.

00:35:54.860 Anyway, people are also starting to get sick of the idea that the NDP said they have no confidence in the government, but they keep voting for them.

00:36:05.280 Well, that's what I want to ask Corey.

00:36:07.900 Corey, the conservatives put forward a very clever non-confidence motion here.

00:36:13.140 Jigmeet Singh stands up every day.

00:36:17.100 He gets out of his Maserati on Parliament Hill.

00:36:21.000 And he goes in and says, I'm for the working man, not like Trudeau and Pollyov. 0.98

00:36:28.640 What do you call this?

00:36:30.420 Billionaire bootlicker or something he calls Pollyov.

00:36:34.980 He's doing a really poor imitation of Trump's ability to give nicknames to his opponents.

00:36:39.780 I just don't think it's working.

00:36:41.840 He doesn't have that je ne sais quoi.

00:36:44.100 But, you know, he condemns Justin Trudeau.

00:36:48.120 Justin Trudeau is so bad.

00:36:49.660 And then he votes with Justin Trudeau that same day.

00:36:54.120 Condemns in the morning, votes with him in the afternoon, keeps him in power.

00:36:57.880 He is the man keeping Justin Trudeau in power.

00:36:59.660 But, Pollyov took a short statement from Jigmeet Singh, word for word, I think, down to the commas.

00:37:08.820 And said, you know, Justin Trudeau is a bad guy for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:37:13.340 Therefore, the House has no confidence in this government.

00:37:17.140 With Jigmeet Singh's own words.

00:37:21.700 And then Jigmeet Singh had to eat it.

00:37:25.520 And says, I'm not falling for that trick.

00:37:28.080 What trick?

00:37:29.100 You're not voting to support your words in the House of Commons.

00:37:32.480 Or you have power.

00:37:35.400 At some point, the embarrassment is at some point going to get too much for Jigmeet, isn't it? 0.97

00:37:41.500 I don't know.

00:37:41.900 I mean, speaking of politically weak relationships, let's go down another level.

00:37:46.460 And the Trudeau and Jigmeet Singh relationship.

00:37:48.960 Whereas Singh is blustered, but he's broke.

00:37:51.200 The party, as people have pointed out, the Maserati Singh drives is worth more than what the entire bank account of the NDP is.

00:37:58.720 He can't go to an election.

00:38:00.120 He will be obliterated if the polls go.

00:38:03.480 So, I mean, it must be frustrating for Trudeau to have his ally speaking so much against him.

00:38:08.300 But he also knows that he's not going to take him down.

00:38:10.880 He can't do it.

00:38:11.900 So, yeah, Pierre Polyev's taking advantage of that.

00:38:13.900 Twisting the knife on Singh as well as Trudeau.

00:38:17.860 I think an election's coming this spring.

00:38:19.480 We're seeing the signs coming.

00:38:21.040 The Trudeau government needs a Hail Mary.

00:38:22.680 They're desperate.

00:38:23.440 They're on the ropes.

00:38:24.680 Do you want to run the clock right out to the end or maybe at least go down on an election budget on a date of your own choosing?

00:38:31.460 Trying, hopefully, to set the theme of the election and what it might be in spring.

00:38:36.160 And let's just throw it to the wind and see what happens.

00:38:38.440 Because there's nothing.

00:38:39.620 Otherwise, it does show pure desperation to run it right to the bitter end and go when you have no choice but when that clock's ticked to the end of it.

00:38:46.440 So, I think from the timing of those checks coming out in April to the dropping of the opportunistic move of the election date.

00:38:56.740 And as Nigel says, it's all signaling they're getting ready to pull the plug this spring.

00:39:00.600 We're going to be in first.

00:39:01.280 Watch when they start putting a lot of money in the party advertising.

00:39:04.080 Yes.

00:39:05.660 You know, and it also raises the question.

00:39:09.460 Trudeau might just decide to pull the plug himself at this point.

00:39:13.840 Which would deny Jake Meats Singh the ability to finally, symbolically, even vote against him.

00:39:19.960 And I think he would.

00:39:20.800 And that's what I'm talking about.

00:39:21.900 He won't be torn down by the other parties.

00:39:23.760 It'll be him saying, this budget is so darned important to Canadians.

00:39:28.180 In fact, we're not going to put it through.

00:39:30.280 We're going to go to the polls with it.

00:39:32.020 You pull a Jim Prentice where you table the budget.

00:39:34.360 Yeah.

00:39:34.660 Call the election.

00:39:35.360 Exactly.

00:39:35.800 I mean, as well as the work for Jim Prentice.

00:39:37.080 But it's better than going down looking like you had a gun to your head.

00:39:41.400 Yeah.

00:39:41.680 And, you know, the liberals need those MVP votes.

00:39:45.460 You know, when you say, hey, you've got to vote for us.

00:39:48.000 Because if you don't, conservatives win, vote splitting, that kind of thing.

00:39:51.940 He might be smart to deny Jake Meats Singh voting against him even once.

00:39:57.860 Because then, because right now, I think Paliyev spends as much time blasting Jake Meats Singh as he does Justin Trudeau.

00:40:05.340 Sometimes even more at this point.

00:40:07.900 But, Nigel, do you think at some point the embarrassment just gets too much for this guy?

00:40:12.160 Because he has swallowed a lot of shysa. 0.99

00:40:15.820 You know, remember he, I'm ripping up the agreement.

00:40:19.000 And you ask by, you know, the media would ask, so this is me, you're going to vote against Trudeau?

00:40:22.860 Well, you know, I ripped it up and it's just, it's palpable, it's facepalming, embarrassing watching this man at this point.

00:40:32.500 He's already swallowed his dignity, but at some point he's got to salvage something for himself.

00:40:37.300 At some point, do you think he, Jake Meats Singh finally snaps?

00:40:41.560 Or do you think it's more likely that in the spring, Trudeau does it for him, calls the election himself?

00:40:46.480 Maybe it won't be Jake Meats Singh that he's responding to.

00:40:49.760 Maybe it'll be Melanie Jolie.

00:40:50.980 Obviously, New York Times had an interview with her while they were all down there in Mar-o-Lago.

00:40:57.920 Produced this wonderful spread on which she declared her loyalty fiercely to Mr. Trudeau, and they headlined it.

00:41:04.620 This could be Trudeau's successor in Canada, Melanie Jolie.

00:41:09.080 I think at this point it's past the time where the Liberals can change leaders, I think.

00:41:13.060 I think they're going in with Trudeau.

00:41:14.900 I think you're probably right, but it was a fascinating diversion of thought.

00:41:19.760 No, you know, he's got more ego than anybody else I've ever known or heard of, and he has a blindness to the obvious.

00:41:32.680 Don't forget, like, this is the, I better be careful with the metaphor here,

00:41:40.980 but this is the bunker mentality where the only information you've got coming in is what your friends are giving you.

00:41:49.280 He may well still think that he can tough this out until October.

00:41:53.860 It's going to take a confidence vote to bring him down.

00:41:58.420 All right.

00:41:59.580 Well, we'll put a pin in that there and go to our party shots.

00:42:03.000 Let's start with you, Corey.

00:42:04.760 Sure.

00:42:05.100 Well, speaking of, again, just bad policy desperation things coming this morning on the X account from Prime Minister Trudeau,

00:42:12.340 whoever the communications person is that writes it, because the spelling is too good for it to be him.

00:42:16.440 But it said, we're going to crack down.

00:42:18.880 We're going to give cities the power to crack down on short-term rentals through Airbnb and VRBO.

00:42:25.320 What are you getting at?

00:42:26.860 Like, for the housing crisis, for one, what resources are you going to give cities?

00:42:30.400 They don't need money, then, to crack down on these things.

00:42:32.680 As well, are you going to make a law to make it illegal to utilize your private property as you please?

00:42:38.180 But this is just, again, just showing the stuff that he's just throwing against the wall, hoping that it sticks, 0.93

00:42:42.680 and it's just another shallow, foolish, economically illiterate thing coming from this Prime Minister's office. 0.87

00:42:47.620 He also does no idea that municipalities are literally creations of the provinces. 0.96

00:42:52.860 He can do nothing with any municipality that a provincial government stands in the way of,

00:42:57.220 including Alberta now, which has legislation to that effect.

00:43:00.500 Nigel.

00:43:01.620 So here are three things that the Trudeau liberals don't want to talk about.

00:43:05.340 The deficit numbers for last year should have been out a month, back three months ago,

00:43:10.200 but they're sitting on them.

00:43:11.880 I've heard the conservatives ask for them in Parliament.

00:43:16.840 Parliamentary budget officer says they've missed by $6.8 billion.

00:43:20.340 They won't tell us for sure.

00:43:21.480 They're defying a parliamentary order.

00:43:23.860 We've talked about this, to release the numbers on the Green Slush Fund.

00:43:26.640 And, you know, they won't even tell you how many people killed themselves medically last year.

00:43:31.540 Normally, the MAID numbers are out in July.

00:43:35.600 They're still not out for 2023.

00:43:37.900 So they're hiding that.

00:43:39.340 They're embarrassed about it.

00:43:40.440 And I just kind of think of this has got to do with the timing of an election.

00:43:45.740 Well, I want to, oh, jeez, I should have this up and ready.

00:43:51.300 But, you know, we were just talking about, you know, Trump's talk around annexing Canada,

00:43:58.580 51st state stuff.

00:43:59.700 Well, I want to draw the attention to a tweet from Jean Charest.

00:44:06.560 Some people remember him, former PC leader, Premier of Quebec.

00:44:11.160 He came into the studio a couple of times.

00:44:12.920 Yes, he did.

00:44:14.760 Pleasant enough guy, but, you know, not my cup of tea.

00:44:17.160 But he echoed something.

00:44:19.640 We're going to put the tweet up on the screen here.

00:44:21.680 Oh, yeah, Trump trolling Canada, put that big picture of him with a Canadian flag up and said, oh, Canada.

00:44:26.980 Jean Charest responded with a piece of what I call an urban legend of Canada,

00:44:33.100 that during the War of 1812, when the United States and the British Empire went to war,

00:44:40.400 that Canada gloriously marched down to Washington and burned the White House. 0.66

00:44:47.160 This, I'm sorry to tell everyone watching or listening at home or in your car who believes this,

00:44:52.980 but this never happened.

00:44:54.280 It didn't even come close to happening.

00:44:56.460 What happened was, so Canadian colonial militia fought in some small battles at Lundy's Lane,

00:45:03.340 Queenston Heights, places like this, mostly in Upper Canada, which we call Ontario today,

00:45:08.760 and a little bit, I believe, in Lower Canada, which we call Quebec.

00:45:12.800 Canadian colonial militia and indigenous warriors did fight there, almost exclusively on Canadian soil,

00:45:20.940 but also in Detroit, which Canadian militia supported some British regulars in.

00:45:27.580 But the White House did get burned down.

00:45:30.320 But it was burned down by British Royal Marines.

00:45:32.840 These were professional soldiers stationed on British warships that sailed up the Chesapeake

00:45:39.220 and landed and took Washington, burning down the White House.

00:45:45.800 The White House was burned in the War of 1812.

00:45:48.080 But there was no one there, as far as I know, in that battle who had even ever visited Canada once in their life.

00:45:55.420 Maybe some of them had been stationed there for a few months or something.

00:45:57.840 But as far as we know, no one even stationed in Canada was in the Battle of Washington,

00:46:02.980 burning down the White House.

00:46:04.220 Canadians had absolutely nothing to do with it.

00:46:06.240 Canadians had about as much to do with it as we did in storming Okinawa.

00:46:11.080 Yes, someone on the same side of a war as us did something, but that did not mean we did it.

00:46:15.300 And so Jean Charest, I think, probably does know better, but playing into this.

00:46:21.760 So just a small little history lesson for folks to correct this urban myth.

00:46:28.080 You bet.

00:46:29.380 All right.

00:46:30.100 Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining.

00:46:31.980 It was a good show.

00:46:33.080 Thank all of you for joining us as well.

00:46:35.280 Remember, if you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, you should be supporting us.

00:46:38.440 The Western Standard is one of less than five serious independent media left in Canada

00:46:44.120 that refuses to take Justin Trudeau's federal media bailout subsidy.

00:46:48.420 Go to westernstandard.news right now.

00:46:50.420 Click on subscribe.

00:46:51.320 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access, and you get past that pesky paywall.

00:46:57.520 We greatly appreciate your support.

00:46:59.900 Thank you very much for joining us today, and God bless.

Western Standard - December 05, 2024

Should Canada annex America？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript