Western Standard - The Alberta independence rodeo

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is July 8th, 2026. I'm Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western Standard,

00:00:29.620 and you're watching a Stampede edition of The Pipeline.

00:00:34.140 I'm joined in studio here by two of our usuals,

00:00:37.760 Western Standard Senior News Editor Dave Naylor.

00:00:40.200 Howdy.

00:00:41.300 Our former opinion editor, Nigel Henniford.

00:00:44.440 Howdy, as I say.

00:00:46.260 And coming to us from an undisclosed location somewhere, I think,

00:00:49.580 in the deep south of Alberta, Corey Morgan.

00:00:53.300 Good day.

00:00:54.660 I'm getting a bit sick of Corey, even though he's not around.

00:00:57.380 all these stampede events

00:00:59.400 I run into 1.00

00:01:00.720 a lot of ladies saying

00:01:02.960 oh I love you guys Corey Morgan's my favorite

00:01:05.820 it's starting to get to me

00:01:08.120 Corey

00:01:08.360 just a gift you know

00:01:11.340 I'm actually particularly happy to have

00:01:16.060 Nigel

00:01:16.900 because after this we're going to be doing debate prep

00:01:19.980 we have our

00:01:21.120 debate on Alberta

00:01:23.880 independence coming

00:01:25.820 just tomorrow

00:01:27.100 So 5.30 p.m. at the Glenmore Inn and Conference Center.

00:01:30.820 If you're in Calgary, get your tickets.

00:01:33.040 If you don't have tickets, you might be able to, it's almost sold out,

00:01:36.040 but you might be able to buy some still at the door.

00:01:38.360 But I'm going to be debating Mount Royal Professor Dwayne Bratt

00:01:41.720 on the coming Alberta independence referendum question.

00:01:45.720 And the reason I'm so happy to have Nigel is for debate preparation is

00:01:48.660 he helped Stephen Harper in debate preparation for national elections.

00:01:53.600 So that's my secret weapon under my hat here.

00:01:58.720 So we're going to be talking about the Corblund anti-coal mining petition.

00:02:06.620 It's failed.

00:02:08.860 And he's upset about that.

00:02:12.040 Kind of an election denier, someone saying.

00:02:14.680 It should have been accepted.

00:02:16.400 He had the numbers, he says.

00:02:17.920 Elections Alberta says he did not.

00:02:20.500 We're going to talk about the state of the independence campaign.

00:02:24.140 It's now underway. You've probably seen some signs popping up.

00:02:27.820 Some of them may even have Corey Morgan's name on them.

00:02:32.340 Well, where is the campaign at now that it's underway?

00:02:37.160 But first, we're going to start with the announcements, sort of announcement on pipelines in Alberta.

00:02:44.720 We've got, there was some progress on the front for the so-called MOU between Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney.

00:02:54.620 And then between Doug Ford, Scott Moe and Daniel Smith, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, notably not including Manitoba, just proposing that we build a pipeline from Alberta through to Sarnia and Ontario.

00:03:12.020 but that's not that's less of a plan than more of an aspirational wouldn't this be nice if we did do

00:03:17.460 it nigel well it would be nice because right now we are shipping alberto oil to sarnia but it's

00:03:25.400 going down through the united states um you may have heard line five much discussed as when the

00:03:31.100 governor of michigan was trying to close it down uh this this uh proposal that doug ford and

00:03:39.080 and premier smith were talking about earlier this week at i knew it wasn't that serious because they

00:03:46.520 made it at the at a stampede breakfast you don't come in with a you know multi-billion dollar

00:03:51.240 project at a stampede breakfast and also i didn't see any other the of the industry types around

00:03:56.840 there who would normally be there if there if something big was going on but don't let that

00:04:03.080 uh get in the way of thinking about this as an extremely solid proposal because

00:04:09.080 that line five is 73 years old michigan is unreasonable but it is also got a case that

00:04:19.800 if that thing breaks there will be an environmental mess and they could shut that down and if they

00:04:26.440 shut that down how are you going to get that oil to sarnia well obviously it would be through

00:04:31.400 something like this so although you know most of our attention is focused on the west coast project

00:04:37.880 rightly so i mean that's a million barrels a day uh there is reason to take this plan to ship it

00:04:45.800 through manitoba very seriously and of course premier canoe knows that so he's he's pulling

00:04:51.640 out his markers already if mr eb can get something out of a pipeline then manitoba would certainly

00:04:57.640 want to do the same thing well dave let's talk about uh premier wab canoe and manitoba it did

00:05:04.760 not sign on to this he is um i'd say it's he's not as strident in his opposition as bc premier

00:05:12.440 david eby but certainly less than supportive of of the pipeline uh what's he trying to get out of

00:05:19.120 it do you think he's trying to outright stop it or is he trying to get what it appears is going to

00:05:24.000 be the case with the proposed west coast pipeline which is unconstitutionally a province gets to

00:05:30.360 collect a toll on goods moving through its territory.

00:05:33.860 Yeah, it's all about money, Derek.

00:05:35.980 You remember at the Western Premier's Conference, Wob Canoe publicly dressed down Daniel Smith

00:05:41.500 for what he called a lack of consultation with Indigenous groups over the referendum.

00:05:47.380 And he's basically said the same thing about the pipeline.

00:05:51.000 Now, Daniel Smith and Doug Ford at the press conference on Monday both went out of their

00:05:55.000 way to say they want Indigenous consultation and they want Indigenous ownership, some Indigenous

00:06:02.620 ownership of the pipeline. So there'll be talks, there'll be gobs of money handed out, and I think

00:06:09.780 eventually Mr. Canu will acquiesce to the pipeline. I also think he may make a demand to do a side

00:06:19.260 pipeline up to Churchill. The government of Manitoba is looking to have Port of Churchill

00:06:26.060 designated as a major project, nation building. So if that happens and we can start shipping oil

00:06:33.360 out of Churchill, that only enriches both Alberta and Manitoba. Yeah. Corey, it's not yet set in

00:06:42.900 stone, but it's been pretty strongly implied between Mark Carney's talks, public statements

00:06:50.340 with BC Premier David Eby, that BC might get essentially a toll out of a West Coast pipeline.

00:06:58.380 That is wildly, wildly unconstitutional. One of the ideas of having a country is that goods and

00:07:05.860 services can travel through its subnational units, its provinces or its states, without

00:07:12.060 out what amounts to tariffs. This amounts to a tariff for merely passing through. Essentially,

00:07:19.120 we'd be turning the Strait of Juan de Fuca into the Strait of Hormuz, and BC plays the role of

00:07:25.820 Iran in this case. But if that goes forward, that seems to set the precedent that Wab Kanu would

00:07:33.140 have every right then to put his hand up to and say, yeah, we'd like our tolls on Alberta oil

00:07:39.100 passing through our territory as well.

00:07:42.060 Yeah, there's a bunch of terrible precedents being set here.

00:07:45.400 And to be blunt, I am incredibly disappointed in Premier Daniel Smith now.

00:07:49.980 I've been as supportive as I can with her for trying to negotiate and move things forward.

00:07:54.480 But now to paint a nationalized pipeline where you're giving in to basically extortion from British Columbia that is non-constitutional for tariffs for us to move our product across a province and to try and paint that as a victory, it's an embarrassment.

00:08:11.500 And we need provincial leadership to stand up and say, that's enough.

00:08:14.540 We've got a constitution, as you said, it's a federation.

00:08:18.000 That means we're supposed to be able to move our product across provinces.

00:08:21.560 The prime minister has the authority to basically put his foot down and say, this is going to happen and he won't use it.

00:08:28.420 This is one of the worst precedents I've ever seen.

00:08:31.320 And I can't believe we don't have provincial leadership speaking up on this.

00:08:34.820 Enough is enough.

00:08:35.620 We can't capitulate any longer on this.

00:08:38.540 What other things are going to be nationalized now?

00:08:40.320 rather than getting rid of the regulatory hurdles that the federal government has placed in

00:08:43.960 or refused to at least help us bypass, we're just going to nationalize everything. The next oil

00:08:49.540 sands approval, the next coal mine, we just have to wait for tax dollars to go into it. This is a

00:08:55.200 terrible, terrible deal. And then to pitch another one, possibly to Ontario with even more tax

00:09:00.580 dollars going into it, I'm just, I don't know, I'm flabbergasted. I cannot believe somebody who's

00:09:06.700 spoken so strongly against nationalization of things that should be covered by private industry

00:09:11.760 is suddenly coming forward and saying nationalizing a pipeline and paying tolls to BC is a good idea.

00:09:16.860 Maybe what we should be doing is putting a toll on every train car that comes across Alberta from 0.93

00:09:23.020 east to west until the government realizes that the idiocy of allowing this sort of non-constitutional 0.98

00:09:28.320 policy to be entrenched. Any one of you can pick up on this, but I want to continue on this topic. 0.97

00:09:36.700 So, you know, we're talking about this now being definitely the West Coast pipeline, possibly the Eastern pipeline, although that's not even a proposal stage at this point.

00:09:48.020 It's an agreement between three of the four provinces involved that they would theoretically like a pipeline.

00:09:55.940 But for the West Coast one, at least, we're talking about this now being, if not owned and nationalized, at the minimum, backed by taxpayers.

00:10:06.700 to so-called we have to de-risk these things because uh the the legislative and regulatory

00:10:14.000 barriers that are in place have made these such wildly risky prospects anyone any investor who's

00:10:20.700 looked at building a pipeline in Canada in the last 15 years knows that this is just a hornet's

00:10:26.460 nest to kick up you're going to get all sorts of opposition um so now we're looking at government

00:10:31.920 doing this. And the federal government, it's shown more flexibility, at least than the Trudeau

00:10:37.780 government did, but has shown no willingness to get rid of the West Coast tanker ban. It showed

00:10:44.300 no willingness to get rid of the No More Pipelines Act. All of these things that are still in place

00:10:50.200 and make it extremely difficult. Conditions for Indigenous ownership. I have no problems with 0.99

00:10:55.760 Indigenous ownership as long as they're treated like any of the other potential owners, if they

00:11:01.220 want to be a part of it. That's great. That's a good thing. But I don't know why we would then

00:11:05.580 give ownership at a cost to the taxpayer below market rates. That's making everyone pay for it.

00:11:13.740 And then the cost, you know, we remember the Trans Mountain Pipeline, it was supposed to

00:11:18.820 cost somewhere in the neighborhood of three to five billion dollars when the federal government

00:11:22.440 purchased that from TransCanada. By the time all was said and done, once the government gets

00:11:28.880 involved, costs tend to get a little out of hand. I think the final bill was something like $30

00:11:33.280 billion. I want pipelines everywhere. I want to build them north, south, east, west, and upwards

00:11:39.240 to the moon and down to China. But I want them to make money, and they shouldn't be a burden to the

00:11:44.800 taxpayer. These things do make money, but they don't need to cost. They shouldn't be costing

00:11:49.860 the taxpayer. So I don't know. We're in a position now where we could theoretically build pipelines,

00:11:55.060 but at what cost well you know it's it's the position of the federal government by the way i

00:12:00.740 take what um cory said i i mean i i agree i'm still trying to figure that one out but you know

00:12:08.540 when you want the federal government to stay out of your hair it's very hard to push them aside

00:12:14.400 they will use any excuse well you know the sort of the air crosses the border so you have to do

00:12:20.660 to carbon remission our way oh well not if you're importing oil from overseas that there's no

00:12:30.680 there's no remediation there but if you're making it in alberta you've got to bury an equivalent

00:12:34.600 amount of carbon dioxide to what it takes to produce the oil um and you say well stay out of

00:12:40.260 our turf they don't know where the federal government we can make anything happen that

00:12:43.860 we want to make happen but on the other hand we can't tell david eby to accept a pipeline

00:12:49.600 We can't tell Wab Canoe to accept a pipeline. We can't tell Quebec to New Brunswick to

00:12:56.480 decarbonize their oil, or we don't want to. So you have to then say, well, is this actually a

00:13:02.720 weakness of character? Or is there something more sinister, like things can be done, but Alberta is 0.57

00:13:09.440 not allowed to benefit out of it? Is this the unwritten instructions here? I mean, this carbon

00:13:16.240 capture effort that the pathways alliance is going to i don't know who's going to want to buy

00:13:22.000 this for this oil because if they recapture the cost of the burying the carbon as opposed to

00:13:26.720 passing it on to the taxpayer they actually recover the cost it's just going to be 50 a

00:13:30.960 barrel more expensive than whatever else is out there so i i don't let's let's either have a uh

00:13:39.840 let's have a federal government that pushes its weight around on when it's right on the

00:13:48.560 constitution or let's have a federal government that stands back and just keeps to its own lot

00:13:54.000 that's actually what i would prefer yeah but when when pipelines are completed they make money

00:14:00.560 yeah right they're they're a money maker for whoever owns them uh whether it be a province

00:14:06.400 or whether it may be a company, you can make money.

00:14:09.120 So it's just having to deal with all these silly regulations

00:14:11.440 and the deal to even get it going.

00:14:14.340 It should be, you know, it should just take a week of meetings

00:14:17.600 and then it's done.

00:14:18.800 It should be, but it's not.

00:14:20.220 Because if they have to do this, all this decarbonization offsets,

00:14:25.880 it makes it uneconomical and it's going to have to be backed

00:14:28.820 by the taxpayer because it's going to take so much longer

00:14:32.060 to recover just the basic capital cost of building this thing.

00:14:34.940 These things, it'll take long enough to recover that cost to begin with.

00:14:38.560 But, you know, when you drive up the cost per barrel, you know, it could take decades.

00:14:45.460 Well, that leads nicely into the next topic, then.

00:14:48.940 Where we're at with the independence referendum in Alberta right now.

00:14:55.520 Polling's been kind of all over.

00:14:56.900 There's some polling that's been kind of out of left field showing it.

00:15:00.320 Sport for independence in the low 20s.

00:15:01.780 that would be historically low over the last decade.

00:15:05.280 So I'm suspicious of that.

00:15:06.640 And I'm not going to go, I'm not a pollster, so I can't go through the,

00:15:09.920 I'm not going to go through and say this is a bunk poll or not.

00:15:13.020 Most other polling has had it ranging from 30 to 35%, you know,

00:15:17.620 roughly one third of Albertans.

00:15:20.800 But, you know, it's stampede season.

00:15:23.120 You know, the old joke is that it's a petting zoo for politicians.

00:15:26.720 So everyone's in town.

00:15:28.060 you'll see all the Alberta politicians

00:15:30.680 but also people flying in

00:15:32.520 from all over the country

00:15:33.580 it's the political hotspot to be

00:15:36.340 you know, Pierre Polyev

00:15:39.980 I'm not sure if he's here anymore

00:15:42.980 but he was here for a bit

00:15:44.100 they had their annual stampede barbecue

00:15:46.620 at Heritage Park

00:15:47.740 I was there, listened to his speech

00:15:52.580 really not a lot

00:15:54.720 interesting, Corey

00:15:55.620 it was

00:15:56.820 kind of greatest hits

00:15:59.720 of Polyev, it was

00:16:02.220 you know, the liberals

00:16:03.960 ruined the country, I will

00:16:06.140 fix it. He didn't

00:16:08.000 really address independence

00:16:09.540 very much head on, he

00:16:11.840 just said, and I'll fight for a united

00:16:14.100 Canada

00:16:14.580 okay, and he said

00:16:17.820 and I'll get rid of the west coast

00:16:20.200 tanker ban and no more pipelines bill

00:16:21.860 you know, some of these legislative things

00:16:23.960 for Alberta, not a

00:16:26.100 single word about the big systemic and constitutional issues center representation house of

00:16:31.760 commons representation equalization uh he he never said a single word about that he never has

00:16:37.940 said a word about that and i doubt he ever will say a word about that um and and he just said

00:16:44.380 you know and our mantra is affordability affordability affordability um but you know

00:16:50.920 kind of going back to uh cory to his regular message which is uh there's no need for independence

00:16:55.560 because if you just vote for me, everything will be fine.

00:16:59.220 I don't know.

00:17:00.280 How did that speech land with you?

00:17:03.140 I mean, nothing was outstanding.

00:17:04.640 Nothing was unexpected.

00:17:05.900 I mean, they do know the political formula.

00:17:08.080 If he is ever going to crack through the Liberals

00:17:10.760 and become the Prime Minister of the country,

00:17:12.980 he has to win Quebec and Ontario.

00:17:14.780 That's all there is to it.

00:17:16.000 Alberta is just a fundraising pool for the Conservatives.

00:17:19.880 That's Albertans' own fault for being as predictable as we are.

00:17:23.140 I mean, there's no seats to be gained in Alberta, really, by the Conservatives.

00:17:27.460 You know, a couple competitive ones here and there.

00:17:29.840 And there's really many that they'll never lose.

00:17:32.220 So he just gave kind of a stock speech and a stock appearance.

00:17:35.540 He didn't want to come down too hard on things like constitutional issues, equalization, even though it would resonate with Albertans.

00:17:42.920 He knows that that's going to be passed on to central Canada where they don't want to change those things.

00:17:48.080 He also doesn't want to come too hard on the independents,

00:17:50.900 speaking too much even of the referendum and so on,

00:17:53.400 though he had to address unity, because a large, like with Premier Smith,

00:17:58.000 a large portion of his base of support in Alberta, though,

00:18:00.740 are independent supporters.

00:18:02.520 So he's walking that line.

00:18:04.580 So, I mean, we pretty much saw what we would expect out of a barbecue like that

00:18:09.660 in a gathering, just speaking to the party loyal, staying safe,

00:18:13.220 coloring within the lines, and not much going on.

00:18:15.760 And so I, you know, I didn't find myself shocked by anything.

00:18:20.320 The independence movement itself right now, I mean, it seems to be finally, it sure was slow getting out of the gates with a campaign coming.

00:18:27.660 And, you know, it's still topping the news.

00:18:31.360 I mean, everywhere we see the independence issue is there and it's going, but it really hasn't been rolling as a good campaign so far.

00:18:38.840 It's kind of changing a bit with Keith Wilson.

00:18:40.540 And I was very happy to see an actual press release come out from a group responding to breaking news and an issue.

00:18:46.480 I mean, this is the sort of thing that should have been happening months ago, but now it is starting to go.

00:18:51.160 And I mean, if the movement can get established, I guess, over the course of the summer when things get slow,

00:18:56.400 September, October, we're going to see a real campaign get rolling and really see where things are on the independence front.

00:19:01.660 As you said, the polls are all over the map.

00:19:03.300 I think there's a mushy middle.

00:19:04.420 And with it being a non-binding question, I think the independence movement could really potentially capture a good chunk of people who just want to safely express discontent with Ottawa in the referendum this fall without going with the full nuclear option of independence yet.

00:19:19.360 But the campaign is going to have to do better before being able to grasp that.

00:19:23.440 We'll see what comes.

00:19:25.860 Yeah.

00:19:27.540 I mean, there's early fundraising numbers out.

00:19:30.760 I don't have the exact numbers in front of me here.

00:19:33.100 But in terms of at least what's been reported for fundraising, the independent side has blown the Federalists out of the water, Dave.

00:19:41.220 It's it's not even close. Now, it's not gargantuan sums of money, but it's it's like that big in the grand scheme of things for a campaign.

00:19:49.540 But now there are I think there's a lot more of the independence groups out there because there's like, you know, like literally Corey just like was like, no one's got signs.

00:20:00.100 So I'm going to start a little thing, make signs.

00:20:01.560 And then it just kind of blew up and got out of hand, I guess.

00:20:05.620 But then there's other little guys, people I haven't even heard of,

00:20:09.060 and they've just gone and registered as a third-party advertiser.

00:20:12.180 And they're like $5,000, and they're selling some T-shirts or something.

00:20:16.100 There's a lot of really small ones out there.

00:20:20.520 I've expected and do still expect the Federalist side to be much more well-funded.

00:20:26.400 They've got big business on their side.

00:20:27.720 They've got big labor on their side.

00:20:30.100 I think the money raised by the Federalist side, though, is underreported.

00:20:33.860 For some reason, Forever Canada, the Thomas Lukasik elbows up boomer one is not really reporting on anything.

00:20:42.680 We know they're spending money. They've been out around for over a year.

00:20:45.980 They're not reporting anything. So that's odd.

00:20:49.380 um also a lot of i know the uh the kind of i'm not meaning to be pejorative here but kind of

00:20:57.180 the establishment federalist conservative groups they um they've got a lot of very smart professional

00:21:06.240 campaign consultants working there they're already on a payroll so that's not going to show up as

00:21:11.580 fundraising for this kind of thing because that's not technically advertising so they got a lot of

00:21:15.240 campaign muscle power that's just not going to show up as uh on the fundraising side but in

00:21:21.580 terms of what's been disclosed so far the the the albertus albertus side has just blown the

00:21:26.840 federalists out of the water for fundraising yep it looks like it and as you say it's hard to tell

00:21:31.840 at this moment you know as as cory said we're almost in a in a false war type thing the phony

00:21:37.280 war the phony war uh which is and things aren't going to get really heated until uh september

00:21:43.200 when the summer's over uh this part of the campaign i i had a headline it would be sign of

00:21:48.800 the times people are just getting their lawn signs up cory's getting his his signs up people

00:21:54.980 are destroying lawn signs they're vandalizing them spray painting them so i mean it's just

00:22:01.760 like an election campaign you know a vandalized uh sign uh for the uh for the independence group

00:22:08.460 or a vandalized sign for the federalist group it happens it's not i haven't seen any reports of

00:22:12.600 the other way i'm sure it will happen on both sides oh i'm sure it's inevitable but and it's 1.00

00:22:16.340 not a new story right it's just like it's just like an election campaign there's always morons 0.99

00:22:21.920 that do this type of stuff and it's you know it'll build it'll build it'll build especially 0.97

00:22:27.500 after the stampede it'll pick up a little bit more but things aren't going to get going until

00:22:31.480 september yeah you know it's so much easier to be i i can see why there's more enthusiasm more

00:22:39.100 money rate more signs were on the uh on the independence side it is much easier to be a

00:22:47.260 rebel you know if you are defending the status quo it's actually fairly hard to make the argument

00:22:52.920 because status quo is not that great a lot of people are dissatisfied with it and uh but if

00:22:59.220 you say we you know give me liberty or give me death you you can work up a crowd and get everybody

00:23:04.040 cheering um well in the american revolution uh i mean it's a bit maybe of an extreme analogy but

00:23:10.600 uh it was roughly one-third were loyalists one-third were you know would describe themselves

00:23:15.960 as the patriots and one-third were neutral you didn't really hear much from loyalist side yeah

00:23:21.640 you heard from the side that was worked up about about breaking up yeah that's all and i think

00:23:26.520 that's probably typical of movements anywhere is confined to north america but the people who want

00:23:32.360 the change yell the loudest are actually the most motivated so the thing that uh to sort of weave

00:23:39.720 the pipeline discussion that we had a moment ago back into this i can't help thinking that

00:23:47.400 much of the enthusiasm for pipelines whatever the cost even a bad deal of a pipeline is this

00:23:55.800 is if the senior politicians can go out there in the first or second week of october and say

00:24:01.240 we've got one it's going to happen alberta you will make money then a lot of people who are on

00:24:09.480 the edge will say okay if they're if that's if that's actually going to happen then maybe i'm in

00:24:15.480 now conversely if somebody comes out and says you know we just can't put this together it won't work

00:24:23.480 i'm afraid you guys you're gonna you're stuck with your carbon tax you're stuck with the cost

00:24:28.360 So the carbon capture, we're out of here.

00:24:32.560 Watch the numbers for separation.

00:24:35.800 Go like that.

00:24:37.300 Well, let's kind of continue to marry the pipeline discussion with the independence discussion, Corey.

00:24:42.800 It's the whole discussion has been pipelines uber alice.

00:24:47.140 It's only about pipelines.

00:24:49.000 You know, when I talk to people in, you know, the UCP government, it's, you know, they'll be like, you know, hey, if we get this pipeline deal, you know,

00:24:57.220 do you think that'll push support for independence down?

00:25:00.720 You know, I talked to federal conservatives, largely.

00:25:05.400 Mark Carney seems to be on that train as well.

00:25:07.880 The media, they all seem to think the whole independence thing is just about pipelines.

00:25:13.000 I see pipelines as a symptom, not a cause.

00:25:16.540 It's not about pipelines.

00:25:19.240 Pipelines have just become a symbol of it that like Alberta pays the freight of Canada

00:25:24.700 and is simply not allowed to build pipelines.

00:25:27.220 And everyone seems to think if we just build pipelines, one more pipeline, if we just get one more pipeline, that'll solve everything.

00:25:35.020 And that it's not about being disenfranchised from the structures of federal power.

00:25:40.840 It's not about losing our culture, you know, that Albertans are the most rabidly patriotic of Canadians,

00:25:49.140 but that Canada has been destroyed and we miss it and we want to recapture it in our own way in Alberta.

00:25:56.940 The discussion is just pipelines, pipelines, pipelines,

00:25:59.640 and it's not really about that anymore, I don't think,

00:26:02.440 despite the narrative being only about it.

00:26:04.520 Yeah, you know, I think you're absolutely right on that, Derek.

00:26:07.660 I've written that a number of times.

00:26:10.480 It's the values that are widely supported in eastern Canada

00:26:14.740 that keep putting a very woke liberal government into office

00:26:19.500 that people around here are just sick of.

00:26:23.900 But nevertheless, just looking at this very narrowly as there's a referendum coming, what mood are people going to be in when they go in there to tick their box?

00:26:36.500 I'm just saying that a lot of them don't understand the other aspects of this.

00:26:42.320 Some of them might actually even share those woke values with Eastern Canada, but still don't like the financial relationship between Alberta and the rest of Canada.

00:26:51.440 But if there is something that can be presented as a shiny object, look, here it is, we've done it, that will satisfy a significant number of people.

00:27:02.820 I think it is a major issue for the, if we're going to divide...

00:27:08.920 As a symbol.

00:27:09.860 Yeah.

00:27:10.240 I mean, if we're going to divide Alberta into broad segments, there's a third, roughly, that support independence relatively stridently.

00:27:19.400 There's, I'm going to call it a third.

00:27:20.740 it's probably closer to 40% that are just hardcore federalists. And then another rough

00:27:26.400 third that are siding generally with the federalist side, but are, you know, some people have called

00:27:31.780 them frustrated federalists. For them, pipelines are probably a big enough symbolic issue that

00:27:38.480 if you, you know, we get a pipeline, they can say, okay, well, maybe everything's not great,

00:27:42.500 But good enough, I'm voting to stay. So, you know, as it is politically, the pipeline issue, I think, Corey, is on, it's about that middle group, the so-called frustrated federalists, keeping them happy. It's not about winning over the rough third of Albertans that are already in the independence camp.

00:28:06.940 yeah the independence movement runs much deeper than just a pipeline as you said it is a symbol

00:28:13.340 for that 30 or so you know the ones i tend to talk to i haven't heard from people saying yeah

00:28:18.200 if we could just get a pipeline i'd suddenly love federalism that ship is long sailed we're talking

00:28:23.000 about cultural issues we're talking about personal freedoms we're talking about mass immigration

00:28:27.560 things that this pipeline will do absolutely nothing to address they're trying to paint it

00:28:33.740 up to address that mushy middle, but I think they're underestimating the economic acumen

00:28:38.660 of that 30% in the middle. I mean, just a pipeline alone doesn't mean it's going to swing people if

00:28:45.620 the pipeline is crap, and the one they're offering is crap. In fact, it's shown that the federal 0.99

00:28:52.060 system has Alberta over a barrel, and the only way to possibly get a pipeline done is to capitulate

00:28:58.720 with a whole pile of crazy conditions from carbon capture to tolls in another province to

00:29:03.520 endless rounds of indigenous consultation. If anything, I think, unless they can really show 0.81

00:29:11.360 some progress with a private investor and some groundbreaking on this soon, this pipeline attempt

00:29:17.300 thinking is going to calm the independence movement may very well have the opposite effect

00:29:21.980 on that middle group when they realize just how economically ugly the position is that Alberta's

00:29:28.520 in right now and how much the federal system has put the province into that corner so i mean a

00:29:36.400 pipeline success won't get rid of the 30 but a pipeline failure can make that 30 grow i think

00:29:42.660 quite rapidly and i just this is you know that 10 token ownership from pembina as a you know as

00:29:49.040 consultants on this thing that's not enough to make even your average albertan who's often very

00:29:54.700 familiar with the oil field economics, look at it and say, yeah, this is a good deal. So I think

00:29:59.500 they're going to have to pretty this thing up a lot more if they think it's going to be the success

00:30:02.540 they hope it's going to be. Well, I think it would be largely successful with that rough third in the

00:30:09.520 middle, the frustrated Federalists, because their default is still status quo. So from their

00:30:14.440 perspective, it might be enough with them. It wouldn't be enough with the third that are already

00:30:18.300 on independence um and as you said it's it's cultural issues now it's our right to not have

00:30:24.560 very simple and basic firearms stolen from us digital id censorship mass migration the only

00:30:32.400 pipeline i think that maybe when me back over to the federalist cause would be a deportations 0.87

00:30:36.500 pipeline we just throw all the illegal migrants through a pipeline and shoot them off to cargo

00:30:41.140 ships on uh on the east and the west coast that that that kind of pipeline might uh maybe that 0.92

00:30:46.160 wins me over i'm not sure that'd be extremely economical no matter how much it costs uh but

00:30:51.600 you know but it's a cultural issue yeah no but these are these are cultural issues now i mean um

00:30:57.760 you know so i'm you know i've got a debate tomorrow uh on on the on the independence question with

00:31:01.920 duane bratt and uh so i'm not going to get into duane himself it's not about the the personalities

00:31:08.720 involved but you know let's let's look at who the loudest opponents of independence are it's not

00:31:14.400 not uniformly so but a lot of the loudest people speaking the most strident opponents are these are

00:31:19.680 people who three years ago were tearing down statues of queen victoria and sir john m mcdonald

00:31:25.320 these are people who brought down the canadian flag as a symbol of genocidal shame these are

00:31:30.920 people who tried to rename parks streets and uh and public squares these are the people standing

00:31:38.280 up now waving the flag well you know what samuel johnson used to say back in the 18th century

00:31:45.480 patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel and we have scoundrels hot and cold running

00:31:51.240 even right here in calgary who actually renamed the uh for calgary the the confluence confluence

00:31:59.160 well there's also if you supported renaming for calgary into the confluence i don't want to hear

00:32:05.640 you you know there are there are good faith federalists out there uh who did not who have

00:32:10.860 not tried to replace canada's history uh for those guys i've just got an honest disagreement

00:32:16.540 on the issues on and that's fine there's nothing personal there but if you were about renaming for

00:32:23.300 calgary if you were taking down the flags toppling statues changing the national anthem any one of

00:32:29.060 these things uh you don't get to lecture anyone else about being an unconditional canadian you

00:32:35.580 This one, trying to get rid of the Canada Day celebration because...

00:32:40.000 Just a few years.

00:32:42.700 Nancy himself tried to cancel the fireworks for Canada Day.

00:32:45.620 Let's not forget that these cultural issues that you talk about,

00:32:48.740 that are quite rightly upsetting a lot of Albertans,

00:32:50.960 it's not just Albertans, it's entirely across the country.

00:32:54.500 Well, it is, Dave.

00:32:56.300 And certainly if you were to be parachuted into a Canadian Legion

00:33:00.940 in some small Ontario town,

00:33:03.040 it would take you a while to figure out that you weren't in Alberta.

00:33:05.580 But these people do still support and elect and keep in power a group of a political party that is antithetical to not only the interests of Alberta, but to all these values that we're talking about.

00:33:21.660 There's just too many people out east who are prepared to do that.

00:33:25.480 So you have to admit that the color is the whole country. 1.00

00:33:30.100 That's why people want out of it.

00:33:31.820 Well, that's what a lot of people get wrong.

00:33:34.080 it's not anti-canadian no in fact it's for many people at least maybe not everyone but for many

00:33:39.620 people the albert independence movement is on the cultural side about saving a piece of canada

00:33:45.280 canada that they view canada as cooked it's been cooked culturally it's lost it's uh it's been

00:33:52.420 overrun by mass migration it's been overrun by woke ideology um that it's a lost cause it's voted

00:33:58.780 consistently outside of

00:34:00.940 the prairies for these kinds of things.

00:34:03.100 It's now beyond the

00:34:04.960 point of no return. Simply, you can't

00:34:07.060 vote your way out of it. Simply electing

00:34:08.960 the blue team, but that probably

00:34:10.860 just slows down the decline a little bit.

00:34:13.140 It's not going to reverse anything.

00:34:15.240 That's the way it's been

00:34:16.280 ever since the war.

00:34:18.520 Yeah. Second World War.

00:34:21.400 All right. Well, you know what?

00:34:22.680 As a national flag, we could bring back the red ensign, maybe.

00:34:25.580 Wouldn't that be something?

00:34:26.300 yeah well yeah well that's actually uh i seem to remember some stories that dave published here a

00:34:35.240 few years ago there was somebody who was flying the uh red ensign and they were accused of being

00:34:39.740 racist just because they were flying the red ensigns that's now a very common uh thing uh

00:34:44.320 well you know to their credit you know canadian nationalists in the genuine sense of nationalism

00:34:49.320 not you know canadian nationalism being more than simply i'm not american and i don't have a gun

00:34:53.780 they're trying to reclaim

00:34:56.560 the red ensign as a symbol of

00:34:58.340 national pride and nationalism

00:34:59.880 good on them

00:35:02.120 I just

00:35:03.940 I think most of

00:35:06.480 Canada has just kind of gone beyond the point of

00:35:08.340 no return now, it's not coming back

00:35:10.640 Is that line, a Canadian is an American

00:35:14.580 with a healthcare plan and no gun

00:35:16.220 is that what you were

00:35:17.120 riffing on that

00:35:19.000 and if that is the definition of a Canadian, then I'm not a Canadian

00:35:22.580 I want good health care and I want lots of guns, but I love my land here.

00:35:27.240 I don't want to go to the States.

00:35:28.420 I don't want to be an American, but I want my guns and I want some decent health care.

00:35:33.160 So it could be done here in Alberta.

00:35:36.540 Yeah.

00:35:37.320 All right.

00:35:37.740 Well, speaking of referendums, you know, a lot of listeners, viewers will know country

00:35:44.740 musician corb lund uh had been leading or at least was the face of an anti uh coal citizens

00:35:55.180 initiative petition to try and trigger a referendum banning coal mining on the eastern

00:36:00.260 slope of the rockies um i say he's the face of because he's not really the leader it's

00:36:04.780 uh they tried to put it was a smart uh i think it was a very intelligent campaign strategy to make

00:36:12.640 put a sympathetic face, you know, a country singer, a guy who looks like a

00:36:16.620 stereotypical good old boy Albertan to put him up front, but the

00:36:20.800 campaign was very much being run by people in downtown

00:36:24.760 office towers, we're in a downtown office tower, but you know

00:36:28.800 we don't really belong here, but run

00:36:32.880 by the hardcore eco green

00:36:36.720 left usual crowd, overwhelmingly for the most

00:36:41.000 part uh but they've had him up front kind of as the face of it um so you know you've seen um

00:36:47.640 it's it's if you go to some of the usual spots where you had like the you know the elbows up

00:36:52.700 old ladies signing the uh doing the petitioning for the forever canada petition it was literally

00:36:57.040 the same people once they were done with that petition this cycled over to this one he asked

00:37:00.960 some questions they didn't even really know much about it they're just like well this one's against

00:37:04.980 conservatives and it's against uh you know resource development so we're on side so uh

00:37:12.000 they managed to get more signatures on the on the citizens initiative petition than i expected dave

00:37:18.440 but uh they they submitted it i was surprised they even had anything to submit i suppose they

00:37:24.240 had to do something because it would have been embarrassing to not even submit it uh but

00:37:27.960 elections alberta ran the verification process found that there was just too many bad names

00:37:34.480 wrong addresses that kind of thing that's that's why all the uh you know the independent pro

00:37:38.980 independence one and then the forever canada anti-independence when both of them had to submit

00:37:43.920 a large extra margin of a safety zone of signatures because you're expecting some to get weeded out in

00:37:50.000 the verification process uh they failed yeah it's uh it's like a hurting hurting country song for

00:37:56.600 uh for core but but here's the here's the numbers if you hadn't seen them uh they needed 178 000

00:38:04.100 signatures they handed in 196 000 signatures and elections canada tries to elections alberta

00:38:12.100 they try and contact some people but they also put in a statistical error range of five percent

00:38:18.900 so when you take the five percent out of uh 196 000 you're left with 172 000. so they fell 6 000

00:38:27.060 signature short um which doesn't seem like a lot of signatures but you know derek as you know if

00:38:33.540 you're doing a petition you make sure you have way over the amount that you need so uh so it

00:38:38.820 doesn't come back and hurt you and you're you're also right about the uh the ndp led movement i

00:38:44.500 i suggest if you haven't read them already read some excellent investigative stories by our our

00:38:50.180 or Dave Winnick, just on the NDP links to the coal thing.

00:38:57.660 Afterwards, Mr. Lund says that he wasn't happy with the way the ballots were counted,

00:39:03.260 and he's thinking of going to court.

00:39:05.460 So I don't know why he'd go to court.

00:39:07.680 It's already too late to have it on the referendum question.

00:39:12.580 And the Premier says that she's had a meeting with Corb Lund

00:39:17.980 and wants to work with them on some of the issues.

00:39:21.360 Well, you know, you say it's too late to go to court.

00:39:24.080 To get on the plebiscite.

00:39:26.700 We have a rather strange ruling from the Alberta Court of Kings bench

00:39:33.560 recently on that very thing.

00:39:36.540 Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:38.140 I mean, lawyers can disagree, but in my view,

00:39:41.980 that was not a sound legal judgment that was offered.

00:39:46.380 No, no.

00:39:46.760 By the time you appeal it, you're into next year.

00:39:48.780 There was a rush to get it appealed, to take it to court,

00:39:55.260 because they wanted the question on the referendum.

00:39:58.100 And then the government just said, okay, we're going to have it anyways.

00:40:01.160 The government has said it's too late this time.

00:40:04.180 I mean, you can go to court, you can probably get a ruling in your favor,

00:40:07.240 but what it's going to help, I don't see.

00:40:11.680 You know, I just don't tend not to take those kinds of environmental movements

00:40:15.860 seriously, because

00:40:17.680 as Derek was saying, they're run

00:40:19.980 out of somewhere else. They are

00:40:21.980 run by people who, if they weren't protesting

00:40:24.000 coal

00:40:25.680 in Alberta, they'd be

00:40:27.500 protesting oil sands in Alberta,

00:40:30.300 they'd be protesting pipelines

00:40:31.720 coming across B.C.

00:40:34.120 They'll be protesting 0.77

00:40:36.020 animal

00:40:38.040 rights or something like that. That's how they make their money.

00:40:40.440 I was surprised they didn't

00:40:42.020 bring in David Suzuki.

00:40:43.500 But I guess his appearance fee is too high for them.

00:40:45.860 Oh, no, no.

00:40:46.700 This time, they were smarter.

00:40:48.900 They knew, you know, traditionally, they would put a David Suzuki

00:40:52.760 or a David Suzuki-like, you know, granola, crunch-type figure up front.

00:40:58.920 They figured, okay, well, that might work in B.C.

00:41:01.780 It's not going to work in Alberta.

00:41:03.520 If you want to win a majority of Albertans, it's very smart to put a core blunt out front.

00:41:09.240 You know, find a guy who looks like John Dutton, you know.

00:41:12.780 That's smart.

00:41:13.500 um so i i think their their campaign tactics have evolved here now behind the john dutton

00:41:19.760 like figure then you've got the david suzuki type activists so that's where i want to go with this

00:41:25.360 discussion is you know where does uh this anti-coal movement go from here so they've they've

00:41:32.180 failed to get their referendum they don't have the time they don't have the signatures um but

00:41:37.940 the ndp has been very uh i'm not sure the environmental movement like this because

00:41:42.820 they've been very, they, the, um, the anti-coal guys have not wanted the NDP too far up front

00:41:49.020 because the NDP is still the NDP in Alberta. It's got a limited appeal, we can say. Um,

00:41:56.900 but the NDP have grasped onto this. So I expect that the NDP are going to make this a part of

00:42:01.420 their platform, not because they think they're going to win, uh, any seats in the areas where

00:42:06.840 the coal mining takes place. Those areas are in solidly conservative constituencies. Uh,

00:42:11.360 The Crows in this past itself, which is kind of the epicenter of where this controversy is about,

00:42:17.220 they had a referendum on this last year, and they voted, what was it, like 70% or something?

00:42:23.520 Overwhelmingly, with a high turnout, overwhelmingly they voted to go forward with coal mining.

00:42:28.680 So that means jobs for these areas that are often very isolated.

00:42:31.240 So they're not trying to win seats there, but it's trying to buttress the anti-development movement.

00:42:36.160 And, you know, so like, Corey, if, you know, you remember before Rachel Notley became premier in 2015, the NDP was actually quite stridently anti-oil and gas.

00:42:48.320 And it was anti-pipeline. It was pretty similar kind of to the B.C. NDP.

00:42:53.400 They changed their tune when they kind of woke up one day and looked around at each other and found themselves in the cabinet running the Alberta government.

00:42:59.800 And they're like, OK, if we want to have a hope in hell of actually hanging on to power, we have to change our tune on these things.

00:43:06.340 We're going to need the money from it. But when they were just kind of a downtown Edmonton party with two to four seats under Brian Mason, et cetera, they were pretty hard into this.

00:43:18.000 So I see this as kind of a sop to that hardcore anti-development eco-base, but the movement itself, I've seen some, they've now got, you know, a significant, they have a campaign organization, they've got the signatures of, you know, 170 odd thousand people.

00:43:38.080 That can now be parried into other kinds of anti-development movements.

00:43:41.540 They could go after logging, they could go after small regional pipelines, that kind of thing.

00:43:45.660 yeah we'll we'll see what comes of it i mean as you said they became more pragmatic when they

00:43:50.860 realized that they're actually pursuing power they've got to support at least some degree of

00:43:54.880 industry in alberta i don't know if this coal mining thing i mean everybody likes to you know

00:43:59.460 coal's been so so villainized and and uh you know effectively pointed out as some type of dirty

00:44:04.640 energy source even though this would be predominantly used for metals i don't know if

00:44:08.380 it's a smart area for the ndp to get into in the region of the people actually affected as you

00:44:12.580 pointed out i was in blair moore yesterday and there are signs all over supporting the coal

00:44:16.420 development down there it brings me back to memories of the friends of the old man way back

00:44:21.400 in the 90s when the left went bananas because the old man river was going to be damned right in that

00:44:25.160 same area oh the world's going to end the environment's going to be ruined all the rest of

00:44:29.020 it the dam got built nothing bad happened life went on so i think nichi's going to have to seek

00:44:35.380 out a better wedge issue than this one okay all right well we're out of time for that uh we'll go

00:44:41.400 to our parting shots start with uh dave uh the chicken littles of the world said that when the

00:44:47.320 independence movement started to take shape in alberta it would kill off any sort of investments

00:44:53.060 into the province well today premier daniel smith announced mark zuckerberg who's a fairly smart guy

00:44:59.520 his company meta is going to be investing 10 billion dollars into a ai center in northern

00:45:05.920 elbowed us so chicken littles wrong as usual i don't so uh apparently we're going to buy german

00:45:12.800 submarines so u-boats u-boats well you see who better than to give an opinion on this than

00:45:20.240 somebody who actually fought the battle of the atlantic so you probably know bill wilson uh he's

00:45:25.840 still alive he's 102 years old and he's one of the few people around who actually knows what it's

00:45:31.200 like to stand on the heaving deck of a corvette as depth charges are launched against uh ultra sea

00:45:38.160 boots and um i asked him this morning gave him a quick call said well is this a good is this you

00:45:44.480 know how do you feel about that and he said look german u-boats are probably the best they're

00:45:50.800 darned hard to kill i support the decision i feel like the technology has changed a bit since the

00:45:56.240 battle of the atlantic but uh i take the point well he said kind things about your people so 0.98

00:46:02.160 what do you mean your people that's racist nigel 0.95

00:46:06.960 we had the german flag up in here i know 0.95

00:46:11.120 only for a couple of days then they lost they were humiliated

00:46:18.480 argentina cheated their way we've fallen back to argentina they're our hope now

00:46:22.560 uh okay cory just a shout out to our friends at the ctv they reported on a man repeatedly

00:46:30.080 committing indecent acts in the chestermere park pretty frightening to think of their description

00:46:36.000 and text all it said though was 20 this person is 20 to 40 years of age and has a slim build

00:46:43.200 then if you go into the story look at the picture the person is clearly male has a big beard and is

00:46:48.320 most definitely of south asian origin not to slur it south asians i don't care if the person was

00:46:53.600 white i want to hear that they're white if they were chinese looking i want to hear that they're 0.64

00:46:57.040 chinese looking the goal should be to catch the pervert and instead they went with political 0.97

00:47:01.360 correctness and they're putting people at risk by refusing to describe these criminals 0.71

00:47:05.760 dave uh we covered that story and we used the police description it included a line that ctv

00:47:11.840 i guess intentionally excluded didn't it did it the police described him as medium complexion

00:47:18.320 yes medium uh which i thought was like that's a very politically correct way of saying brown

00:47:23.440 yeah i mean what as corey says when you see the picture of this guy he's definitely yeah right

00:47:28.720 you can tell so yeah yeah so ctv intentionally excluded a pretty important detail of who this

00:47:36.080 guy is ctv's gone downhill haven't they they've been gone a long time they've been gone a long

00:47:41.440 time okay and uh there's no time for me to have a parting shot oh so i'll just remind everyone again

00:47:47.360 about uh the debate taking place uh tomorrow evening if you're in the calgary area for stampede

00:47:54.080 or you live around uh 5 30 at the glenmore inn and conference center it's only ten dollars we're

00:47:59.120 just covering the costs uh for the uh debate on the independence question between myself

00:48:05.040 and mount royal professor duane brett come on out it's going to be a great time as we hash it out

00:48:10.320 don't forget your video on friday oh yeah yeah um it's been pre-recorded uh

00:48:18.320 yeah yeah it's been pre-recorded uh we we didn't do it we didn't release it at the

00:48:23.600 time for security reasons but uh i i did an interview with the uh israeli ambassador to

00:48:28.320 canada uh you know uh how do i pronounce his last name again moad moad uh very interesting

00:48:37.440 interview we talked about uh you know what he's in town for the stampede for but also some of the

00:48:41.760 some of the bigger uh issues uh it was it was i think i like to think it was a tough but fair

00:48:48.480 interview uh and really kind of gets into things in a way that uh you know we're probably not used

00:48:54.780 to seeing in the legacy media uh when we're talking to someone like an ambassador so all

00:49:00.680 right that's it in the store and the store buy some hats i'm wearing this because i can't could

00:49:06.960 bring my uh my cowboy lid today because i took the bike in but all right that's it for today

00:49:12.920 thank you dave nigel cory and uh john on production thank all of you don't even have

00:49:19.720 time to plug uh subscriptions we're out of time thank you very much happy stampede and god bless

00:49:36.960 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - July 09, 2026

The Alberta independence rodeo

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