Western Standard - The Cory Morgan Show, April 5, 2021

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00:01:00.000 Let's get started.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 morning welcome to a special episode of the cory morgan show for easter monday april 5th are we

00:02:16.140 sitting out here i'm calling special because actually i know on the last show i had said uh

00:02:20.820 i wasn't going to do the monday one because of the holiday coming up and everything but

00:02:24.600 my mind's easily changed sometimes. Some new polling numbers have come through on the federal

00:02:31.040 front. Aaron O'Toole's situation looks dire. Well, not to mention the entire Conservative Party of

00:02:36.660 Canada under his leadership. There's been a number of columns and of course critique going on about

00:02:42.680 it. And there's a lot of concern. So Clinton DeVoe, who's been a guest a couple of times with

00:02:48.380 us, he's great. He's from Halifax and speaks, well, gives us an East Coast perspective on the

00:02:53.960 conservative front. And he'd recently written a piece on that. And he's got some speculation as

00:02:59.540 to what should be done or what can be done. It's interesting, but it sounds pretty bleak.

00:03:06.240 So Clinton's going to come on in a little while. We should have Mark Petroni as well. He's been

00:03:10.120 on with us and he's the host of the Mark Petroni show in Mississauga, Ontario on Saga 960.

00:03:17.140 And Mark's been on before as well. So I mean, we'll kind of have three regions of the country

00:03:21.400 be able to pitch in and try to sort out you know just what's going on with this conservative party

00:03:28.120 under a tool can it be salvaged what can be done uh can anything be done so we'll see here i'm

00:03:34.760 gonna bring clinton in right now hello clinton good morning to uh you and your fellow albertans

00:03:40.600 how are you today good thanks yeah i guess it's already the afternoon out your way so uh you had

00:03:47.880 written a piece recently uh it was on medium and you said it's going to be appearing uh elsewhere

00:03:52.280 soon yeah so i've written uh an article recently uh and it's called aaron it's over and uh the

00:04:00.680 basis of the article is that i sat down and i examined all the polling data from a whole host

00:04:09.160 of polling firms and then i looked at the regional breakdown of the polling data so i looked at the

00:04:16.200 the Alberta regional breakdown, the Ontario breakdowns, those kinds of things.

00:04:20.880 And then I looked at the favorability ratings and those kinds of things

00:04:27.580 between Aaron O'Toole and Justin Trudeau, the prime minister.

00:04:32.740 And basically, after going through all of the data and collecting it from September

00:04:38.500 through March, through just this last week, a pattern has developed.

00:04:44.160 And that pattern is that the Conservatives are anywhere from 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 points behind the governing Liberals.

00:04:55.300 So as it stands right now, the Conservatives are not going to win.

00:05:01.520 And I think the problem, quite frankly, is with Aaron O'Toole.

00:05:06.660 Yeah, well, a number of people have said that.

00:05:09.240 I read another piece by Lauren Gunter, you know, an Edmonton columnist who's been writing conservatively for a long time and he outright called Aaron O'Toole a dud.

00:05:19.880 But I mean, what's terrifying, I guess, of this or frustrating with this is it's not like we're two years out from an election.

00:05:26.740 And if you want to, you know, change a leader out that you have time to run a process and find the best person and, you know, try to rejuvenate through that.

00:05:34.880 I mean, most people feel we're going into election possibly within a couple of months, probably definitely by fall.

00:05:41.640 You sort of propose that it's beyond repair and that one way or another O'Toole should be yanked out of there.

00:05:47.760 But how could that be accomplished without doing more damage than good?

00:05:51.240 Well, I would argue that what would be more damage for Canadians is having an uncompetitive political party system.

00:06:02.260 So you've heard me argue many times, Corey, that Canada operates best when we have two national

00:06:12.180 political parties vying for government. And to me, the alternative of a runaway liberal majority

00:06:23.380 is a lot more damaging and problematic for the Conservative Party and quite frankly,

00:06:28.100 the country as a whole um than replacing mr o'toole now while they have the opportunity

00:06:36.900 so if we look at the the polling data for example there was a series of polls that came out last week

00:06:43.860 that had the conservatives nationally in the 27 to 29 range and um the liberals were anywhere from

00:06:54.980 35 to 40 percent depending on those whichever poll people were looking at and what that means

00:07:03.300 is the liberals are going to win a majority government and some people could say well the

00:07:08.260 poll is just a snapshot in time which is true except the problem for mr o'toole is that when

00:07:15.860 he won the leadership of the conservative party back in august of 2020 historically any new leader

00:07:23.940 that's chosen you know for the party whether it's the liberals or the conservatives they get a bump

00:07:29.540 in the polls and instead of getting a bump in the polls what we saw was within seven days of him

00:07:37.860 acquiring leadership the the poll numbers immediately started to tank they started to drop

00:07:45.380 so there was no bump and in fact there was a fall and so what we have seen consistently since

00:07:51.220 september through now april is that the conservatives start to tumble they form a new low

00:08:00.420 they recuperate a little bit and they they will bump back up into the uh the 30 31 32 percent

00:08:09.300 range uh for a week and then they immediately start to drop again and they they end up going

00:08:16.420 to a new all-time low so what we saw last week were national polls that have the conservatives

00:08:22.420 at 27 percent now we could talk about the regional breakdown as well if that's something that you're

00:08:29.140 interested in doing because to me that's where it becomes even more problematic for the conservative

00:08:34.180 party well absolutely i mean that the regional breakdown gets more into wonky status but that's

00:08:40.900 okay that's what we're about here and it's critical i mean it's just like it's just like

00:08:45.460 with the american system which is really uh you know complicated but you have to understand

00:08:49.940 their electoral college and a number of things to see how certain uh presidents win in the united

00:08:55.700 states it's the same in canada you have to look at the regional strengths because uh overall polling

00:09:00.900 snapshots of the country don't necessarily uh indicate who can win or lose it's where those

00:09:05.540 votes are concentrated which are most important and that unfortunately is part of what leads to

00:09:09.860 our regionalism and division but that's a much longer separate uh discussion so looking at the

00:09:15.460 uh regional breakdowns then uh what have you uh seen and determined with the conservatives right

00:09:20.420 now as they're standing yeah so uh well i'll start with ontario first but then we'll have

00:09:27.460 some surprises that are it's going to come as a shock to many of your alberta viewers

00:09:33.300 so if we look at ontario right now the liberals are at 44 percent and the conservatives are at 28

00:09:42.740 So that's a 16-point differential. What that basically means is that there's a whole bunch

00:09:48.980 of existing conservative members of parliament that are going to go down to defeat when the next

00:09:55.140 federal election is called. And more importantly, Corey Tanike, who is the former director of

00:10:03.220 communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he gave an interview recently where he talked about

00:10:11.620 how the Conservatives are anywhere from 10 to 15 points behind in the key ridings that Ontario

00:10:20.020 Premier Doug Ford required in order to win a majority government. Now, the reason all of this

00:10:25.620 is important is because the federal map in Ontario is the same as the provincial map. In other words,

00:10:34.260 the ridings more or less all line up the same and so those uh ridings that are in the 905

00:10:42.180 which is uh for your listeners that may not know that's the area code uh for the suburbs of the

00:10:48.340 greater toronto area so doug ford was able to win seats in the in the 905 which is the the

00:10:54.420 suburbs surrounding the greater toronto area premier ford was able to win seats in the 416

00:11:02.180 which is the sort of the proper Toronto core and of course he was able to win uh ridings

00:11:09.940 in uh the rural 613 which is outside of Ottawa it's that sort of the the rural country farmland

00:11:17.780 of the Ottawa Valley so if the Conservatives are 10 to 15 points behind in all of those key areas

00:11:25.060 according to Mr. Tanaik and he has access to a lot of internal data that the general public

00:11:31.380 doesn't have access to that means the conservatives are in for a drubbing and you know it's for those

00:11:39.540 members of parliament that are in the conservative caucus in ontario some of those individuals have

00:11:43.940 been elected for the first time in the 2019 election and let's not kid ourselves you require

00:11:51.380 two terms in office plus six years in order to qualify for a MP's pension so

00:12:03.420 there's going to be a number of MPs that are most likely going to lose their

00:12:07.780 golden pension and they're going to go down and defeat in Ontario so Cory I

00:12:15.440 know in your case you often have questions about Alberta and I'm happy to

00:12:18.800 talk about uh you know what i say even though i'm not in alberta i've been examining the data and

00:12:24.320 i'm happy to talk about alberta as well if you'd like yeah well i mean things that are surprising

00:12:30.400 and and not just alberta in the regional breakdown but an issue i mean when a leader is leading a

00:12:35.200 party they've got two groups i guess you could say that they they have to appeal to i mean number one

00:12:39.840 is the entire nation i mean if you're going to win in a general election you have to reach out

00:12:44.560 to general canadians enough of them in order to win i mean simple as that but the other part is

00:12:49.360 managing your own party your party faithful your supporters your members and uh o'tul seems to be

00:12:56.560 having a lot of difficulty with traditional conservatives keeping them happy i mean not

00:13:00.560 only is he not winning people who were swing voters he can't seem to retain his conservative

00:13:06.160 base and that conservative base yeah a lot of it is in alberta these are people you would think

00:13:09.760 would not drift away from the conservatives but the numbers out here aren't looking that great either

00:13:14.560 Well, you're right. So, you know, there is a political strategy that some people would argue where if you're lacking support in some regions of the country and you have tremendous supports in a different region, if you can appeal to the area where you need votes and lose a little bit of support where you have a large critical mass, that at the end it will all work out.

00:13:42.420 Now, the problem in this case is if we look at the regional breakdown in Alberta, to your point about the conservative base, if you will, there's multiple polls, and this is not coming from me.

00:13:59.000 So there was a Leger poll.

00:14:01.740 If we look at the breakdown of Alberta, the conservatives are leading, and they're in a solid 41%.

00:14:09.780 uh the problem for the conservatives is that the liberals are at around 34 percent according to

00:14:17.020 that regional breakdown and that means the liberals are going to win seats in alberta

00:14:21.660 and this is not just coming from me but hardcore sort of rock rib right-wing conservatives you

00:14:27.840 know people like ezra levant for example he's openly talked about over the past week that he

00:14:35.060 believes that the liberals are most likely going to win seats in alberta and specifically in the

00:14:39.300 greater Edmonton area yeah well and go on sorry yeah so what I was saying was it's this is not

00:14:45.800 just a problem that's occurring in central Canada or eastern Atlantic Canada it's a problem that's

00:14:53.940 actually occurring in the prairies for the conservatives and and to your point what's

00:14:59.540 happening I believe is that a lot of the conservative vote is being suppressed and

00:15:05.900 And in some cases, I think a lot of the Conservative vote has, for whatever reason, decided that the Conservatives, as they are currently constructed, are not going to win.

00:15:19.260 And so, you know, there's an older argument where it's better to be inside government than it is outside government.

00:15:26.740 And we know that Saskatchewan, for example, your neighboring province, that they don't currently have any representation in the government.

00:15:35.900 And so if it looks like the Conservatives are going to go down to defeat, then the likelihood of more Liberals being elected becomes a greater possibility because people don't want to vote for an opposition party per se.

00:15:54.440 You know, most people want to vote for someone who they believe can win, who they believe can form government.

00:16:00.320 yeah it's it's frightening and galling as a uh you know conservative albertan that we might be

00:16:08.680 seeing liberals representing us in calgary again and uh you know those swing votes in edmonton but

00:16:13.060 these numbers indicate just that very thing we might be finally getting rid of mayor in the head

00:16:17.840 and she is the mayor but he might actually be entrenched as one of our members of parliament

00:16:21.240 what an awful trade-off for us there we were just kind of hoping to shuffle about all together

00:16:25.840 But I see Mark Petroni has jumped in now, which is great.

00:16:29.480 So we can kind of get that middle perspective on what's going on here.

00:16:34.160 So, yeah, Mark Petroni is from the Mark Petroni Show in Mississauga at Saga 960.

00:16:38.980 And, Mark, we've been discussing Clinton's recent piece and just the polling numbers and just that inability for O'Toole to gain traction, it seems, virtually anywhere.

00:16:50.240 with his own party faithful, with swing voters in other parts of the country, or as we just finished

00:16:55.840 there in Alberta. What are your views or what are you seeing out where you're at with this?

00:17:02.080 Well, remember, Aaron O'Toole was the guy who was going to bring seats back to the Conservative

00:17:07.260 Party of Canada, right? I mean, that's the Ontario guy, right? He's the kid from Bowmanville. So he

00:17:12.860 was going to bring in, which is, you know, part of the greater Toronto area. It's a little bit

00:17:16.640 further out. He's east of Toronto. But I mean, this is the guy who was going to do that. He was

00:17:21.600 going to accomplish that. It's one of the reasons why conservatives, grassroots conservatives,

00:17:26.400 gravitated towards his campaign. That and the fact that he said, no, I will not betray

00:17:31.540 conservative principles, not like that, you know, Peter McKay over there, that lefty,

00:17:37.520 despite McKay's long, solid track record of voting, you know, along, you know, strict

00:17:44.100 conservative lines, it didn't matter because O'Toole pushed this narrative that McKay was the

00:17:51.460 lefty and that the true blue conservative, the only real true blue conservative of the bunch,

00:17:56.660 was Mr. O'Toole. Well, turns out that he's not really blue or true. Here's a guy as soon as he

00:18:02.820 got in. What did he do? Well, he turned on the very people who supported him, who helped him

00:18:08.500 get over the top, namely the SOCONs, the social conservatives, people like Derek Sloan, whom he

00:18:13.380 later booted out of the party. And so then he started talking a lot about climate change,

00:18:19.620 you know, rather than talk about reopening the economy, getting Canadians working again,

00:18:25.940 the kind of, you know, rock-ribbed conservative policies that people who vote conservative

00:18:31.680 normally, like myself, wanted to hear from him. Well, no, he didn't want to talk so much about

00:18:36.500 that. He didn't want to talk about the Liberals' ongoing attack on free speech, on pushing this

00:18:43.000 idea that we need to regulate social media posts. Stuff like that tends to scare conservatives,

00:18:50.120 but we didn't hear Aaron talk about that pushback against those types of policies.

00:18:55.240 No, he wanted to talk about climate change, which is straight part of the liberal party

00:19:00.760 bailiwick. And then he sort of said, well, I'm going to move the party left. And that's basically

00:19:07.720 what he said so after months of pushing the idea that he was the true blue conservative he gets in

00:19:13.080 what does he do he is anything but the true blue conservative then he tries to

00:19:17.160 tell people like like we saw in that speech at the policy convention we got to change you know

00:19:22.520 where was the solid uh defense the full-throated defense of conservative party policies and

00:19:29.640 principles and values it wasn't there i didn't hear it instead he got this kind of mea culpa 0.99

00:19:35.880 thing going where we've got to change well excuse me but it's liberal parties that suck they're the

00:19:40.920 ones who have to change and we're the ones who need to bring in you know common sense policies

00:19:46.360 on issues like the economy and i didn't hear that from erin o'toole we needed to hear that we didn't

00:19:52.040 it was more of this yeah we can try to get liberal votes well unfortunately what happened

00:19:57.640 he not only alienated people in his own party but he failed utterly at least he has up to this point

00:20:03.400 guys failed to draw in many people who would normally vote liberal. So he figured, at least

00:20:10.600 the brain trust in the O'Toole camp figured that, no, if we just move the party left,

00:20:15.880 we know that there are a lot of people who vote liberal who are not happy with Justin Trudeau,

00:20:22.920 and guess what? We're going to get those people. Those are the people who are going to flock over

00:20:26.520 to our side if we just move a little bit left. Well, did it work? So far it has failed miserably.

00:20:33.400 And I think Clinton is absolutely right.

00:20:36.540 It's over.

00:20:37.520 You know, he took a shot.

00:20:39.060 He has made no traction whatsoever.

00:20:42.620 In fact, he's alienating conservatives.

00:20:44.980 So it's time to move on.

00:20:47.520 Just on a side note, do you mind if I jump in, Corey, to some of the things that Mark has mentioned?

00:20:54.320 You know, Mark, there's another problem that you didn't touch on, which I think is really important in this case.

00:21:00.580 There seems to be, from my perspective anyways, what I like to call a communications disaster coming out of Aaron O'Toole's office.

00:21:08.780 So a couple of months ago, he started to make traction by talking tough, and rightly so.

00:21:14.740 Let's be honest, there are Canadian citizens currently being held hostage by the Beijing government.

00:21:21.180 And he started to make traction with the public at large.

00:21:25.140 And then for some strange reason, Mr. O'Toole decided to hire the vice president of Huawei.

00:21:33.360 And, you know, I think that created a communications problem for him where a lot of people were left scratching their head going, geez, like, what's this guy on?

00:21:44.260 And, you know, I would argue that one of the reasons, amongst many, but one of the reasons why he's performing terribly in the polling data is because of mistakes like we saw with the Huawei situation.

00:21:58.560 And I would argue now is not the time for the Conservative Party to capitulate, nor is now the time for the Conservative Party to take a knee.

00:22:07.960 And I'm wondering, you know, from your perspective in Ontario, do you think that Wall Way was a was a problematic issue for Mr. O'Toole?

00:22:17.220 Well, I think it was a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. 0.74

00:22:20.920 I mean, O'Toole was going gangbusters, get tough on China, get tough on China.

00:22:25.820 And I think a lot of Canadians in the midst of everything that's happened with the two Michaels, the bashing of Canada on the world stage.

00:22:34.740 We saw some trade related attacks on this country on things like commodities like soybeans.

00:22:42.660 And so and then, of course, you go back to what happened with Nortel and the ongoing theft of intellectual property.

00:22:48.260 Canadians are very wary of China right now. China has a major PR problem in Canada.

00:22:54.360 So here's O'Toole coming out and saying, yeah, we agree with you and we're going to go after China on the matter of the Uyghurs and other minority,

00:23:01.700 religious minority groups in China, which we know have suffered, which have been under

00:23:05.640 the thumb of this Chinese totalitarian regime, which have had to exist in a very hard circumstance

00:23:15.380 like, you know, the labor, the forced labor camps that we have heard of, associated with

00:23:21.340 major corporations, by the way.

00:23:23.540 And so that came out and O'Toole looked like a winner because he said, we're going to go 0.75

00:23:28.200 after China on this front. 0.95

00:23:29.660 Well, what happens?

00:23:30.420 Well, days later, it comes out that he hired the former VP of Huawei Canada, and we had a lot of people scratching their head like, well, what's going on here?

00:23:39.460 And why isn't he talking about banning Huawei 5G? We haven't heard too much about that.

00:23:44.820 Yeah, there was talk about it before, but all of a sudden something flipped, something changed.

00:23:48.880 So I agree with you, but not only was it a communications issue, it was a change in direction that I think had a lot of Canadians scratching their head and wondering,

00:23:58.060 This guy, he has flip-flopped on the Social Conservative issue, he's flip-flopped on being

00:24:03.340 Mr. True Blue Conservative, and now he's flip-flopped on China. So we no longer trust the

00:24:08.060 guy. I think I agree with you, Clinton. It was a major blunder on his part.

00:24:11.740 And Corey, just to add to this, one of the other issues, to Mark's point about

00:24:19.820 Huawei was that the Conservative Party actually had a popular petition basically arguing that

00:24:29.740 things like Huawei being involved in Canada's 5G network may not be a good idea.

00:24:35.580 And shortly after the hiring of the Huawei vice president,

00:24:41.900 that petition from a number of media sources has disappeared.

00:24:46.700 So that sort of feeds into the narrative that that Mark has pointed out, that there's this communications problem. And like I said, I would argue now is not the time for conservatives in Canada to capitulate and take a knee in the face of how Beijing is treating Canadian citizens by randomly picking them up and essentially treating them as hostages.

00:25:10.640 yeah well and if anything's happened over the years and i've been guilty of it is underestimating

00:25:17.300 justin trudeau i hate to say it uh and i i do believe he almost began as a bit of a blithering

00:25:23.060 idiot but he's really actually evolved uh and and become stronger perhaps it's better guidance from 0.95

00:25:29.400 the people around him uh perhaps he himself has just eventually learned and gotten into that role 1.00

00:25:34.840 but he actually instills confidence in a fair number of canadians whether we like it or not

00:25:40.420 even if it seems unimaginable to us and when it comes it you know that's where you have to look

00:25:45.280 at a vulnerability then where is he soft and it has been inexplicable justin's got a giant weak 0.86

00:25:51.840 spot with china uh but they will they won't exploit that i mean that's where a number of

00:25:58.300 canadians you see the articles you hear from canadians they're worried about china i mean

00:26:02.220 they're the world rogue nation right now they're the bad player on the stage they want to feel 0.57

00:26:06.700 confident that we're not vulnerable to them. It doesn't matter which leader, they just want one

00:26:10.460 to stand up to them. And when O'Toole's coming off weak need with China as well, where do we go?

00:26:17.820 But getting back to that, and as somebody else asked, like what, you know, a bit of it was,

00:26:21.420 okay, let's take a stronger stance and with China and standing up for Canada,

00:26:25.980 what else would it take to dislodge the Liberals? I mean, the time is running out fast.

00:26:30.300 Well, to your point, Corey, you are correct that Prime Minister Trudeau is very popular

00:26:38.780 amongst a large segment of Canadians. And there are a lot of Conservatives that may not like that,

00:26:43.900 but that is a reality. And we just have to look at the polling data in order to see this.

00:26:49.420 So to circle this back, like setting aside Conservative data versus the Liberals, if we look

00:26:54.940 at Prime Minister Trudeau versus Aaron O'Toole for preferred prime minister, there's a number

00:27:00.940 of research firms in the last month that have released data that shows Trudeau is the choice

00:27:08.540 of 40% of Canadians and Aaron O'Toole is the choice of 15% of Canadians. So if it's 40 to 15

00:27:17.580 for preferred prime minister um and the the conservatives are uh 10 to 13 points behind

00:27:27.980 uh the liberals depending on whatever polling data we're looking at i would argue that mr o'toole

00:27:34.620 is dragging the conservative party further down and uh this is why i wrote this article saying

00:27:42.140 you know aaron it's over and um when we talked about the regional breakdown earlier in ontario

00:27:50.700 with the liberals leading by 16 points in alberta with the liberals uh on nipping at the the tails

00:27:57.660 of the conservatives at 41 to 34 this means a lot of conservative mps are going to lose their jobs

00:28:04.220 so they can either quietly sit back and allow themselves to be unemployed that's fine that's

00:28:10.860 their choice some of them won't qualify for a pension that's fine that's their choice or they

00:28:17.500 could speak up now while the opportunity is there uh in caucus and the caucus could act as a unifying

00:28:25.340 voice and so oh geez sorry about that i uh hey that's the joys of life sorry about that um so the

00:28:37.260 The other problem is that if we look at what caucus members are saying, there's a well-known Alberta Conservative MP named Michelle Rempel-Garner, who stated that there's been no communication between the leader and the caucus.

00:28:59.700 There's been, I think her words were, there's been no in-person interaction.

00:29:07.120 And, you know, I understand that in time of COVID that that's harder to do.

00:29:13.140 But, look, you can use equipment like we're using.

00:29:19.100 You can use Skype.

00:29:20.000 You can use FaceTime.

00:29:21.140 You can use StreamYard.

00:29:22.860 You can use all these different apps in order to have communication and interaction with your caucus.

00:29:29.700 You can wear a mask, you can social distance, and you can meet with people in person that way.

00:29:35.100 And the fact that there's been no interaction for the past seven months is probably one of the other reasons why the Conservatives are polling so poorly.

00:29:45.240 And so I just thought I'd throw that out there.

00:29:46.820 I'm sure maybe Mark might have a different viewpoint or something to add to that.

00:29:50.280 But I think that's another big problem in this.

00:29:53.340 That's a big problem.

00:29:54.620 Sorry, go ahead.

00:29:55.460 I just wanted to put out there.

00:29:57.000 I mean, it was something that Danielle Smith said quite regularly, and she quite knew from being inside a disrupted caucus in the past.

00:30:03.980 It is the caucus that will take a leader down every time.

00:30:07.020 I mean, the members might get upset, but when the caucus is fearing for their jobs, it's amazing.

00:30:11.580 You know, just look to Stéphane Dionne or Alison Redford or, you know, a number of them.

00:30:16.100 I mean, these were majority party leaders, at least Redford and Stelmack were.

00:30:20.220 But when their representatives below them felt feared for their jobs, they cut their legs out from under them.

00:30:26.640 But to you, Mark, and with that, and Clinton's pointing out, you know, there's the mechanism

00:30:30.700 perhaps to pull a tool out, but is there time?

00:30:33.700 I mean, can this be done without doing more damage than good?

00:30:36.280 I mean, what if Trudeau calls an election when you don't even have a leader?

00:30:41.200 Yeah, and I wouldn't put it past him to do that.

00:30:44.060 But there's going to be a budget tabled in what, two and a half weeks?

00:30:47.300 So we're looking at a budget on April the 19th.

00:30:50.300 and uh you know you can bet that there will be some extremely unpalatable things in that budget

00:30:57.820 that will make it very difficult for the typical conservative member of parliament to vote for the

00:31:03.980 party to vote for so there will be a poison pill in there and there may even be things in there

00:31:08.620 that the ndp can't support because of course uh all the liberals really need is new democrats to

00:31:15.100 support the budget and the Tories can pound sand. And so who's to say there won't be something in

00:31:21.420 there that gives, you know, Jagmeet Singh reason to say, hey, wait a minute, I can't support this.

00:31:26.780 This is too right wing. But it's possible. He may be able to do that because we know that Justin

00:31:33.580 wants to go. Yeah. Well, and to Mark's point, what's even more of an issue there is that if

00:31:40.780 If the Conservatives are, well, not if, we know they're polling terribly right across the country.

00:31:46.980 So the problem then becomes if one of the other opposition parties feel that they can't support the existing government in order to keep this minority government going,

00:31:57.580 then it's going to be left in the hands of the Conservatives to prop up the existing Liberal government.

00:32:05.460 And I would argue that that is also going to help suppress the Conservative Party base of support.

00:32:15.720 And so, look, Erin O'Toole, it hasn't worked out.

00:32:19.900 And it's time for the party and for the caucus to start having these discussions.

00:32:28.380 Because as it's going right now, the Conservatives are going to lose a lot of seats.

00:32:35.460 and the Liberals are going to win big and so it's up to the caucus to speak out and

00:32:40.980 you know there have been other you know there are members of parliament that have been talking to

00:32:45.060 the media um and uh you know besides Michelle Rempel-Garner uh there are others that have that

00:32:54.580 have gone as unnamed in uh in various newspapers but um all it takes is for one or two of those

00:33:03.060 to to chime in publicly with their name and uh they can create uh the circumstances to to bring

00:33:12.660 about a new leader and uh you know otherwise i think everyone's just wasting their time

00:33:19.700 you know i think the liberals are going to win unfortunately and that's great for the prime

00:33:23.700 minister and that's great for the liberal party but i'm saying as as for conservative activists

00:33:28.340 and conservative voters, that's a problem.

00:33:31.520 As Mark was saying, if I were a liberal strategist and I wanted to engineer an election,

00:33:37.760 the budget's the ideal opportunity, particularly in a year of crisis.

00:33:41.140 I mean, this timing, the stars are lining up for the liberals as far as I'm concerned.

00:33:45.660 I mean, we're going to see infections going down between the weather and the weather patterns

00:33:50.400 and vaccinations finally dragging out and getting out to people.

00:33:53.640 The crisis is going to be easing.

00:33:54.740 People are going to be in a better mood. 0.50

00:33:56.300 and I would model this budget that just has goodies and pie-in-the-sky crap for everybody

00:34:01.340 and I wouldn't even run it past the other parties though because you know we could frame it so that

00:34:06.720 this is such a turning point year it is so critical this budget is so important that we

00:34:11.460 must take it to Canadians to get the full mandate and have them put their stamp upon it so we're

00:34:16.880 going to go to the polls because it's just critical and it's the right thing to do then they wouldn't

00:34:20.720 even have to count on the NDP or the conservatives to to swallow a poison pill they will have

00:34:25.980 engineered and i mean people always get upset about what they feel are early elections but

00:34:29.360 you know what a weekend of the campaign they always forget it but again if the conservatives

00:34:32.860 are busy cutting aaron's legs out at the time boy it's not just going to be a liberal majority

00:34:37.720 it's going to be a slaughter well i mean look that's uh i guess that's the conundrum that the

00:34:44.320 party has do they uh do they sit back and but let me rephrase this a different way governments to

00:34:53.900 your point governments will always choose when to call an election when it benefits them and if they

00:35:02.020 don't uh opposition parties will call an election when it benefits them and so it benefits the

00:35:10.100 government so we know there's an election coming soon and um you know is it better for the

00:35:17.200 conservatives to have a strong liberal majority government that could be in power for the next

00:35:23.880 four or five years and to rebuild after an election or is it better for the conservatives

00:35:31.460 to do something now while they still have an opportunity you know and so caucus could come

00:35:39.260 together caucus could pick a uh a leader um until there's more time for a future leadership race

00:35:50.260 those kinds of things so there are other you know we've seen this happen in the united kingdom

00:35:55.380 we've seen it happen in australia and other places so there's no reason why it couldn't

00:36:00.100 happen in canada now if conservatives are happy with you know a strong liberal majority for the

00:36:04.820 next four or five years well then you know i guess the caucus is happy with that and if there are

00:36:09.940 caucus members that are prepared to lose their own seats in ontario and in alberta in british

00:36:17.860 columbia and manitoba well you know i guess that's a decision that that they're going to make

00:36:25.140 well is there somebody outstanding you think you could uh quickly come in and

00:36:29.620 fill that role and turn it around though to fill in for a departing aaron o'toole

00:36:36.660 yeah well i mean i look fearful yeah it certainly is the name everybody throws around

00:36:40.580 now there may be some issues there he didn't run last time but you know i think people see him as

00:36:45.860 a fighter, which is something they don't see here. They see Aaron O'Toole as a guy who seems to be

00:36:49.860 more trying to be more liberal. I think he is a liberal at his core. I think Aaron O'Toole is in

00:36:54.900 the wrong party. You know, I mean, his father was the true blue conservative. And so I guess Aaron

00:37:00.340 kind of fell into it. But this is a guy who's clearly uncomfortable in the conservative party

00:37:05.460 of Canada. He'd rather be in the liberal party of Canada. You know, it's like when Elton John

00:37:10.020 married a woman, right? I mean, to me, it was like, yo, dude, I mean, you play for the other team. 0.73

00:37:15.060 i don't understand what you what you're doing here you know go go play with the other team and

00:37:19.460 but aaron has found himself in the conservative party you know he wants to be the leader he wants

00:37:24.820 to be prime minister but temperamentally philosophically speaking ideologically

00:37:29.860 speaking the guy's a liberal and he's trying to pull the party in a direction that most conservatives

00:37:35.140 do not want to go so that at the core is the problem with aaron o'toole he's you know a square

00:37:41.940 peg in a round hole he needs to go just for that reason alone well there's there's other problems

00:37:47.540 as well uh so if we set like this discussion about polls and all this stuff aside uh to to

00:37:55.860 mark's point you know there's these other deeper problems so for example if we talk about pierre

00:38:00.980 polyev let's be honest he was demoted from his position so i'm you know that hasn't helped

00:38:07.940 mr o'toole's ability um to be liked by uh his own party uh if we look and and by the is your

00:38:18.020 listeners and viewers know i'm not a social conservative but if we look at how derek sloan

00:38:23.300 was treated um you know that alienated a significant portion of the conservative

00:38:31.380 party base which again was another one of these sort of um self-inflicted wounds uh if we look at

00:38:42.180 his main competitor in the leadership race peter mckay uh you know peter for all intents and

00:38:48.900 purposes uh you know has been driven out of the party so you know whether you're talking about

00:38:56.900 um polyev whether you're talking about sloan whether you're talking about peter mckay you

00:39:02.340 know mr o'toole has not done a good job of bringing the caucus together of bringing the

00:39:09.060 team together and that's backed up by the fact that michelle rempel garner stated on a podcast

00:39:14.580 about a week ago that there's been no interaction with the leader so you know this is an individual

00:39:21.940 who has told him to isolate himself from his own call to security sounds like your ship you hear

00:39:30.340 that it's a frightening bleak outlook it really is i i'm just hoping that's why i keep prodding i

00:39:41.140 want to see a a light at the end of the tunnel i mean we've got a you know bad and bad choices

00:39:46.740 ahead of us and and something that you guys you know you're probably hearing rumblings of but

00:39:50.740 particularly for us with the western standard like alienation in the west is at a high like

00:39:56.020 i've never seen before and i i led you know the albert independence party back when i was 29 years

00:40:00.980 old i keep an ear close to the ground on these things and uh it is we're angry as hornets out

00:40:08.500 here and uh another liberal majority and you're gonna see i i i think a true strong push i mean

00:40:15.300 it doesn't mean we're necessarily gone within a couple of years or whatever but it's there's

00:40:18.740 going to be a disruption like people are not going to sit back and accept four years of liberal rule

00:40:24.260 in a majority after this many scandals after this much uh abuse to the west as usual i mean

00:40:29.620 he didn't use the ham-handed national energy program he used bill c69 c48 c15 i mean the

00:40:34.660 list goes on and on where we just keep pummeling alberta and it seems to be a successful tactic

00:40:40.260 well i would argue that uh that if if liberal party members of parliament are elected in alberta

00:40:47.380 that um you know that would make things harder for the conservatives in the long long run because

00:40:57.940 as you know as an Albertan there's not a big history of liberals being elected there

00:41:02.780 and so I don't think strategically it's a good idea to allow your opponent to plant roots

00:41:11.520 uh in an area that you traditionally dominate because if those roots take hold

00:41:18.120 um it will expand like uh like any garden and uh you'll see growing numbers of liberals being

00:41:28.420 elected in i can i can agree with you that it'd be bad for the conservative party to have liberals

00:41:33.500 in some of those strongholds in alberta but you got to understand some of these alberta ridings

00:41:38.040 we're talking conservative support in the 75 to 80 percent rate they're never going to get into

00:41:43.000 there but what you're going to see there is a resurgence of something like the reform party

00:41:47.200 whether it comes from the seeds of the maverick or i mean that's what we do in the west we made

00:41:51.440 the progressives you know almost 100 years ago we when we get upset we spawn off new parties and it

00:41:56.620 doesn't necessarily mean that that party will lead to a majority or changing something down the road

00:42:01.220 but that's just kind of a long tradition out here for us um i and again i don't know what to say i

00:42:07.300 I mean, it's not like I'm throwing that out as a threat.

00:42:08.980 You know, that's what some people do.

00:42:10.260 The rest of you guys that better not vote liberal or we're out.

00:42:12.780 Well, it doesn't impact how people are going to vote in the rest of the country, whether we like it or not.

00:42:17.320 So we're just in quite a conundrum going into the election this year.

00:42:20.520 I'm not looking with optimism, I'm afraid.

00:42:24.100 Well, as I said, the power rests in the caucus.

00:42:27.280 And so if the caucus chooses to be silent and chooses to do nothing, then we know what the results will be.

00:42:35.320 If the caucus chooses to do something and take action, well, we don't know what the results will be and we don't know what the outcome will be.

00:42:44.120 So sometimes there's greater opportunity by taking a chance than there is with accepting an impending defeat.

00:42:54.760 So the anarchists can be like that.

00:42:56.460 You know, let's just stir it up and maybe actually it would gain some momentum and interest going into a sudden election.

00:43:02.980 What do you feel, Mark, on that? 1.00

00:43:04.920 uh you know should we go for it get rid of o'toole yeah that oh yeah i never supported o'toole from 0.98

00:43:13.800 the start because i knew he was a fake i knew that when he got in that he was basically not going to

00:43:19.480 be a good fit for the party and uh unfortunately we're bearing the uh the fruit of those of that

00:43:27.160 original decision by the party to install this guy i think mckay would have been polling a lot better

00:43:32.760 a lot stronger even in the gta ironically here's here's a guy who's from nova scotia but at the

00:43:37.960 time he was based here in toronto and so i think mckay would have been a guy that uh you know with

00:43:44.600 the sort of chops i mean with the foreign affairs minister he was attorney general he's justice

00:43:50.040 minister defense minister the guy who formed the party you know a guy who had voted consistently

00:43:55.160 conservatively and yet the party said no we don't want that guy we'll take o'toole i think it was

00:44:00.840 one of the dumbest decisions i've ever seen but as i said i think there's more behind that

00:44:05.400 than what really took place no i think aaron's got to go how you push him out i don't know 0.96

00:44:10.760 and i take your point that if he you know if there's an election then he's he's the guy you

00:44:15.480 go with i mean he's the leader of the party and i suppose you just bite the uh bite the bullet and

00:44:20.280 try to you know save the furniture to the best degree you can and then after the election is

00:44:24.680 over you look at the wreckage and think okay well what have we got left and i also agree with you

00:44:29.000 Corey, that if Liberals do form a majority government, I think that will push Alberta

00:44:34.200 perhaps to the brink of deciding, you know what, we need a referendum here. Because right now,

00:44:38.440 I have to tell you, a lot of people outside Alberta and Eastern Canada, it's just a lot

00:44:43.160 of noise out of Alberta. Anytime people start talking about unhappiness out west and grumbling,

00:44:49.480 they see it as just kind of whining. It's just white noise off in the distance. They don't really

00:44:54.360 care that much. What would really get people's attention if there was a referendum? It got

00:44:59.280 everybody's attention. Well, Quebec had two of them, right? So if Alberta decided, if Albertans

00:45:04.640 decided, you know what, let's put it to the people. Let's decide, let's have a look at the pros and

00:45:09.840 cons of independence and say, well, what's the good side? What's the bad side of becoming our

00:45:16.280 own country? And, you know, would we benefit? Would the people of Alberta benefit from independence?

00:45:22.260 Let's put it before the people and have a vote.

00:45:24.080 Now, that would get the attention of people of Ontario, especially if it started to lean towards Albertans finally saying, you know what?

00:45:31.480 We're done.

00:45:32.220 Thank you very much.

00:45:33.040 We're out of here.

00:45:34.600 Yeah, no, and I hear you there.

00:45:36.240 Like, if there's anything that Westerners don't understand when you get out east, it's not that there's even a vitriol towards the west.

00:45:41.740 It's indifference.

00:45:43.240 And that's actually more infuriating when you sit and think about it for a little while.

00:45:48.020 Well, that's because you've got to have, you've got to push for a referendum.

00:45:51.820 You really do. Albertans have to do that. And the reason why they don't, I've heard this from people, I've spoken to people in Alberta many times, and they all say, well, you know, what's the point? We're going to lose. Hey, Quebec lost two of them, and they're not doing too badly. You know, have it, push it. Let's see how far you can go. You know, start a crap storm internationally. Show the world that here's a province in Canada that is considering going its own way. You know, I mean, make Ottawa nervous. Make Ontario nervous.

00:46:21.820 make Quebec nervous, make Atlantic Canada nervous, make BC nervous, and do it by pushing seriously,

00:46:29.620 looking seriously at a referendum and really putting it before the people and making a strong

00:46:34.820 case for independence. That's how you get to where you're going. You don't get anywhere by

00:46:40.780 taking independence off the table like Jason Kenney did. Oh, no, we're not going to go down

00:46:44.860 that road. Well, congratulations. You just got rid of your own Trump card, the only Trump card

00:46:49.860 you're only going to have because if you don't use that trump card or at least have it there 0.76

00:46:54.500 then the rest of canada is going to say screw you we don't care it's just a lot of noise

00:46:58.800 look i i i so i don't agree with mark on this on this point when it comes to and i understand

00:47:08.460 strategically why he's arguing for it but i don't think it's ever a good idea um to push the

00:47:15.600 potential breakup of a country through a referendum. But setting that aside, I think

00:47:21.720 a solution to this would be for the Conservatives to put forward a series of policy directions

00:47:31.080 that would cause Canadians to vote for them. So I know, Corey, in your case in Alberta,

00:47:38.100 that obviously energy and specifically, you know, oil is a big issue. You know, instead of the

00:47:45.240 conservatives always talking about finding a way to run a pipeline through Quebec, which everybody

00:47:50.340 knows is never going to happen, find a workable solution. So as I have said many times, you know,

00:47:58.680 you have your neighboring provinces of Manitoba, and you have a water port there at Hudson's Bay.

00:48:06.760 So there is a way to get your product, the Tidewater, that doesn't involve British Columbia

00:48:13.120 and doesn't involve Quebec.

00:48:15.480 But Mr. O'Toole has nothing to say about Hudson's Bay, unfortunately.

00:48:20.240 You know, we've talked at length about the fact that Alberta and Saskatchewan

00:48:24.980 has tremendous lithium deposits at their various oil sands operations.

00:48:31.860 That, you know, that the prairies have tremendous nickel deposits

00:48:35.600 and copper deposits.

00:48:37.400 And, you know, those are what I like to, as you guys make fun of me,

00:48:40.440 Sometimes I call it the ingredients of the electric car battery.

00:48:44.320 You know, Mr. O'Toole is not talking about those issues that would benefit people in Alberta, that would benefit people in Saskatchewan, whether it's Hudson's Bay or the ingredients for electric vehicle batteries.

00:48:55.060 So, you know, there's a whole host of these issues that the Conservatives could be promoting and could be talking about, which would maybe help them gain traction throughout the entire country.

00:49:06.200 But for whatever reason, Mr. O'Toole has chosen the option of silence and nobody knows what he believes in or what it is that he would like to accomplish.

00:49:20.960 And so as long as that policy vacuum remains there, then people will look to the government.

00:49:26.700 And, I mean, let's be honest, like his first big policy decision upon winning the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada was to unveil a new logo with a sideways-leaning maple leaf.

00:49:42.060 I mean, if that is your big first policy announcement, that speaks volumes about the vacuum that exists between your ears when it comes to policy.

00:49:52.840 Yeah, well, we're running a little, you know, late.

00:49:55.200 I mean, that could be a longer term things for the Conservatives to try and it sounds more like plans for rebuilding after an election.

00:50:01.260 I mean, along the lines, though, of what Mark was saying, too, I mean, we are something interesting.

00:50:06.320 And again, as a person who's very quite pro-independence myself, I'm looking at Canada as a system rather than a country I'm sentimental about.

00:50:13.020 It's a system that's broken. And this is an opportunity to tear it down and repair it.

00:50:17.420 But one of the worst things we could do is rush to an independence referendum and lose with a 20% vote because it'll be 10 years before we get another chance. I don't think Jason Kenney is trying to move towards that. But with this equalization referendum we're holding this fall, that's a dry run. That's a practice run. The people opposed to, you know, Alberta voting against the equalization are going to frame it as such. They're going to say anybody who votes for that is a separatist. Anybody who votes for that is pursuing Alberta independence.

00:50:46.420 So this gives a proxy vote a chance to push that out there, push regional items onto the agenda, at least in Alberta.

00:50:54.600 And as Mark said, you know, if we had a strong, strong vote among Albertans, like 70 percent saying, you know, take your equalization formula and jam it somewhere deep and dark.

00:51:03.640 Whether or not Canada listens, it'll be a very distinctive warning shot across the bow of other regions.

00:51:09.900 Look, I'm of the opinion, quite frankly, that the issue of Alberta independence, and this is going to frustrate some of your viewers, I think this is a dead issue.

00:51:26.280 And the reason I argue it's a dead issue is because if we look at Quebec, where separatism gained strength and steam in Quebec, it did so for a couple of reasons.

00:51:38.460 The first reason is that you had a provincial government in Quebec, the Palti-Quebecois, which was a separatist government.

00:51:46.080 Now, the last time I checked, Jason Kenney, nor the Conservative Party of Alberta, is going to advocate for independence from Canada.

00:51:55.060 That's a non-starting point.

00:51:57.860 Now, the other reason that it was able to gain traction in Quebec, and this is often forgotten through the annals of history, unfortunately,

00:52:05.620 is that the Bloc Quebecois, the federal counterpart to the Palti Quebecois,

00:52:13.780 was created by conservatives and liberals, both parties,

00:52:18.580 leaving their respective parties, elected members of parliament to create the Bloc.

00:52:24.700 I don't believe for one minute that you're going to see liberals in Western Canada

00:52:32.800 or the prairies, or quite frankly, New Democrats, leave their respective parties to join with

00:52:39.380 a potential handful of federal conservative members of parliament in the pursuit of the

00:52:48.020 breakup of Canada.

00:52:48.920 And so I think that it's an interesting talking point, but I don't believe it's workable

00:53:01.180 under this political reality.

00:53:03.920 And I mean, the other side, the other part of this

00:53:06.580 is that, as I alluded to earlier,

00:53:10.360 the Conservatives are at 41% in Alberta

00:53:12.680 and the Liberals are at 34%.

00:53:14.680 Now, some polls are as low as 25,

00:53:17.520 but 25 to 34, you have another 20% of voters

00:53:21.160 that are New Democrats.

00:53:22.660 That essentially means that somewhere

00:53:24.460 in the neighborhood of half of Alberta

00:53:25.980 doesn't vote for the Conservatives.

00:53:27.560 and so that makes the argument for independence that much more problematic and that much more

00:53:35.060 unworkable in my in my opinion well and it's an interesting issue so we're we're in a i think

00:53:43.480 though it's going to be a big pivotal turning point year who knows it's that uh you know human

00:53:47.340 vanity we always think we're living in the most interesting time ever and maybe we're always right

00:53:51.340 uh but i mean i i got a feeling some events are going to happen this next few months whether we

00:53:56.260 like them or not they're gonna they're gonna pretend large changes probably not for the better

00:54:01.800 by the sounds of things the way we're talking but we also know in politics a lot of things can

00:54:05.960 change dramatically and quickly so of course all of us will be watching it closely so I'll kind of

00:54:12.180 cap it off with perhaps a statement from each of you what do you see in the next three months

00:54:16.100 Mark what do you feel we're looking forward to here okay well it's beginning to look like we're

00:54:22.840 heading for an election but there's no absolute guarantee but it certainly looks that way and i

00:54:28.300 think the liberals realize that if they don't go they might regret it down the road because if the

00:54:33.080 economy tanks which it probably will because we have a liberal government and we have a we have

00:54:38.780 a conservative government in ontario that's uh you know hell-bent on locking down that that's

00:54:43.600 their big solution every you know it's like if you're a hammer everything looks like a nail

00:54:47.120 so that's uh that's their big solution is lockdowns and so that's going to destroy our

00:54:51.920 it is destroying our economy you know thousands of businesses are going under that's the that's

00:54:57.040 the real key issue here it's not climate change you know so if aaron o'toole wanted to get some

00:55:03.760 support from people get some people behind him he would actually say we got to move ahead we got to

00:55:08.960 reopen our economy and we got to do that asap in order to keep canadian businesses from collapse

00:55:16.000 and so that's what he should have done but i guess it's too late so will there be an effort

00:55:20.480 to get rid of O'Toole, I have no doubt that it's going on as we speak. You know, things are

00:55:25.560 happening behind the scenes that we're going to find out over the next week or two aimed at trying

00:55:31.520 to push Mr. O'Toole out the door. And it's going to be exacerbated by the never-ending, relentless

00:55:38.400 polling showing that Aaron O'Toole is not liked. And in fact, the more Canadians see of this guy,

00:55:45.260 the less they like him. And so I tend to agree that politically speaking, people in caucus are

00:55:51.080 eventually going to turn on the guy because what have they got to lose? They could try to be a

00:55:55.740 team player, stand behind the leader. But if the leader is a disaster, then at some point they're

00:56:01.460 going to turn on him. And that's what I'm looking forward to. I want to see a change in the

00:56:05.140 Conservative Party again. If that means Stephen Harper coming back, then fine. I say let him come

00:56:12.080 back i suspect that if harper was leading the conservative party of canada the polls would be

00:56:16.640 looking very differently because canadians are worried you know you think that people are

00:56:21.120 gravitating towards justin trudeau they just don't see a real alternative right now if harper came

00:56:26.160 along if he came back people would say well there's a guy who's led us out of the wilderness

00:56:31.120 in the past he's the one who guided us out of that 2008 fiscal crisis and did a pretty good job

00:56:37.680 It involved bailouts of GM and Chrysler and the rest of it.

00:56:41.180 But at the end of the day, he did a pretty good job.

00:56:43.960 And at the time that he left, we had a balanced budget and our economy was strong.

00:56:48.560 And Canada's place on the world was a lot more solid than it is now. 0.99

00:56:52.780 You know, fast forward six years later, we have a complete moron in terms of a prime minister. 0.99

00:56:57.500 Our economy is tanked. 0.99

00:56:59.360 He's botched the vaccine rollout.

00:57:02.140 COVID has been, you know, an absolute nightmare in terms of managing it with PPE and the rest of it.

00:57:06.900 There's all sorts of areas where this prime minister has proven himself incapable of being a leader of this country.

00:57:13.400 You bring along a guy who has some experience.

00:57:16.340 Strategically, he's a smart person. 0.99

00:57:18.200 He may not be warm and fuzzy, but frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about warm and fuzzy. 0.87

00:57:22.640 I just want somebody confident leading the country. 0.93

00:57:25.140 And I think if a guy like that were to decide to come back, I think a lot of Canadians would gravitate towards Harper.

00:57:31.420 That's my take on it.

00:57:34.080 Great. Thanks, Ted.

00:57:35.080 I, you know, look, I got to jump in there. I have marked through a lot there. So I'll tell you, one of the more interesting aspects in all of this is that this week, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to be giving a keynote address to the Alberta Strong and Free Network.

00:57:57.660 And I expect to see probably a lot of Conservatives publicly start to long for Mr. Harper to come back.

00:58:08.140 And that may, in fact, be the first steps of the undoing of Mr. O'Toole.

00:58:15.940 As Lorne Gunter pointed out in his column that he published over the weekend,

00:58:22.720 is it too late to ask for Mr. Harper to come back?

00:58:26.500 And so we may start to see a push for that.

00:58:29.240 So I think Mark is on to something interesting there.

00:58:34.480 Well, and so, Mark, we can find more from you and those great rants and diatribes at Saga 960.

00:58:41.780 Yeah.

00:58:42.320 And by the way, look, I'm not rooting for Alberta to go, by the way.

00:58:45.680 So that's a mischaracterization.

00:58:47.700 I'm not rooting for the breakup of the country at all.

00:58:50.620 All I'm saying is that I've spent enough time listening to Albertans complain about this matter.

00:58:57.060 And so take a lesson from Quebec and say, you know what?

00:59:00.080 You don't take that off the table.

00:59:01.780 You know, it's like having a vicious pit bull on a leash and say, look, you know, I'm going to control this guy as much as I can.

00:59:08.280 But at some point, I'm going to let him go if you guys don't come around.

00:59:12.380 Quebec had two failed referendums.

00:59:15.440 And today, they're a hell of a lot better off than they were, say, 30 years ago.

00:59:19.280 I'm saying that Alberta could take a page out of their book and say, look, if we're not happy, you know, maybe we should look at it.

00:59:26.540 I'm not saying go. I don't want the country to break up.

00:59:29.920 And so I want Albertans to stay in, but I also want Albertans to feel like they're a part of the country and welcome.

00:59:35.840 And if they need to get some leverage in terms of being able to push their agenda, well, sadly, the only people that really listen are those who fear that the country is going to break apart.

00:59:46.600 So I think it's a card that Alberta should be prepared to play,

00:59:50.660 not necessarily play it,

00:59:52.140 just to make sure that you understand what my point is on that referendum.

00:59:56.300 Oh, I do.

00:59:57.740 And so, Clinton, where can we keep up with what you're writing

01:00:01.120 and what you've been putting out there?

01:00:02.140 So you can find me on Twitter, Clinton DeVoe on Twitter,

01:00:05.460 and you can find my article there.

01:00:07.180 There's links to it.

01:00:08.220 It's called Aaron, It's Over.

01:00:10.780 So I hope your listeners and viewers enjoy it.

01:00:13.660 next time I'm gonna try not to fall off my chair I don't know it helped break

01:00:19.520 things up in the process anyways well thank you both very much for guys Monday

01:00:29.380 we've got lots to watch and guys like us have always got lots to talk about so

01:00:33.180 I'm certain we will do something like this again sometime soon great thanks

01:00:37.440 guys thanks for having me on thank you

01:00:43.660 Okay. Well, that was, you know, I mean, what I enjoyed there, everybody, it was multiple perspectives. I mean, I know some of the commenters were having differences with some of the views, but I mean, that's the point of this, right? We're talking, we're listening, we're getting different perspectives and from different parts of the country.

01:01:02.760 I mean, we can be prone to living in our own little bubbles and forgetting that whether we like it or not, different regions don't share our view necessarily on these things.

01:01:12.100 So we have to figure out more ways to make change through reaching out to other regions and taking a stronger stand.

01:01:21.460 One thing that seems that we're agreeing with all the way across the country, we're not seeing leadership out of Aaron O'Toole and the Conservative Party.

01:01:29.040 And that's very distressing.

01:01:30.300 he's certainly you know it's going to take a miracle if he stays in for

01:01:35.140 somehow to manage to actually even keep the liberals at a minority the way things

01:01:40.140 are going so far I should point out to have neglected to mention our sponsor

01:01:45.280 Kyren's way she's a local business in Calgary if you're looking for non

01:01:51.540 pharmaceutical means of dealing with stress anxiety things like that penny

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01:02:07.100 her out and you know it's small businesses like that that help support us and keep us from

01:02:11.500 putting these things out here because we don't take government funding for the western standard

01:02:15.500 we need sponsors and hey if you want to get your business or service out there in the show

01:02:19.740 reach out get a hold of me get a hold of derek we can fix you up and you know we all help each

01:02:23.740 other out here uh next week i am going to have a couple of guests on i haven't solidified the

01:02:29.180 second one but on uh friday i will have uh julia barnes and she's releasing a documentary called

01:02:34.860 bright green lies and it's uh it almost she's an environmentalist but it couples in

01:02:41.260 with the planet of the humans in that uh it exposes a lot of the issues with alternative

01:02:45.980 energy generation and perhaps it isn't nearly as green as a lot of the environmentalists seem to

01:02:50.540 feel it is and uh they're bringing that up for discussion so it should be very interesting and

01:02:55.340 and a couple of the authors of the book that go with that will be on with me.

01:02:58.320 So tune in next week at Friday.

01:02:59.820 Be sure to subscribe to YouTube so you don't like us on Facebook.

01:03:03.080 These things, make sure that we get these specials out to you.

01:03:06.620 When they pop up, you get the notification.

01:03:08.420 You know what's there.

01:03:09.060 You don't miss anything. 1.00

01:03:09.920 Danielle Smith pops on now and then, does those fantastic specials.

01:03:12.580 Mark Petroni has done them.

01:03:15.640 And thank you again for tuning in.

01:03:17.320 I'll let you get back to your Easter long weekend,

01:03:19.880 and we will see each other next week.

01:03:25.340 Thank you.

Western Standard - April 06, 2021

The Cory Morgan Show, April 5, 2021

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