00:02:30.000Greetings and welcome. Happy Friday. Mark Petroni with you. So very glad that you could join us on this live transmission. I'm coming to you from the little community of Clarkson, which is part of Mississauga, the greater Toronto area.
00:02:59.980conversing with my uh my new buddies over at western standard derek filder pratt of course
00:03:06.000who's the publisher of that online publication and dave naylor a guy i used to work with
00:03:11.280at another publication which shall remain i don't know if you really want to go there dave but uh
00:03:17.660we were there we were there together for a while and uh i don't hear you i see your lips move buddy
00:03:22.340all right well let's just leave it to name it's so far in the past right there are there are worse
00:03:32.540publications than the Sun I'm gonna call it absolutely there are but there aren't worse
00:03:40.700than the Toronto Star excuse me but I don't know about and how now all these guys are going for
00:03:48.620uh for more government money uh western standard of course covered covered that story these guys
00:03:53.420are having all sorts of problems i mean we could go on at length about how difficult things are for
00:03:58.060media right now we should that we should actually add that as a topic i think i know it's not you
00:04:02.060know what derrick i think we should absolutely look this is the first time we're doing this so
00:04:07.260we're just kind of feeling each other out not literally but uh we're getting acquainted with
00:04:12.380with the whole technology of doing this stuff online.
00:04:15.380I'm a radio guy, many of our listeners,
00:04:18.840many of my listeners normally would be listening
00:04:20.740on Saga 960, a terrific radio show that we do in the GTA.
00:04:25.920And of course it's available to anybody listening online
00:05:10.580we want less government in our hair. What did we end up with? None of the above. Now, you got to
00:05:17.020cut Doug a little bit of slack here, guys, because of COVID. But Doug has shown very little
00:05:24.700inclination to be a small government guy. And out of the blue, we have Jim Karahalios and his new
00:05:32.320blue party. A lot of people are excited about that. Although I suspect that the conservative
00:05:36.760party itself is looking at the new blue party and thinking are these guys going to you know chip
00:05:41.400into our support base in ontario because we certainly don't need that meaning the conservative
00:05:45.760party does not does not need that but that's the situation here i don't know do you guys think that
00:05:51.900it's looking like a new wild rose is that what you're referring to let's start with you derek
00:05:57.880you're thinking that the new blue could be the wild ontario's version of wild rose
00:06:02.680uh it's difficult to say i mean ontario doesn't have quite the same tradition uh as alberta or
00:06:11.100the prairies in general have with uh inventing and experimenting with new political parties
00:06:17.400ontario uh ontario was founded on not experimenting with new things it was founded as the loyalists
00:06:23.820who weren't into the american revolution uh but i've got a soft spot for ontario especially
00:06:28.820of rural Ontario where I'm from. I think there's clearly room, there's political space for a new
00:06:35.520party in Ontario. I feel like you, about Doug Ford, I was quite optimistic about him when he
00:06:41.980came in. He was supposed to be populist, anti-establishment conservative, not beholden
00:06:47.240to the big blue machine. And he's proven to be anything but one of his first acts in the first
00:06:53.480few months was to punt Randy Hillier from the PC caucus. Randy Hillier is a member of the
00:06:58.720provincial parliament from the Ottawa Valley, a most notoriously conservative part of Ottawa,
00:07:05.220sorry, of Ontario, arguably of Canada. And he was punted for not being a drone, essentially.
00:07:12.180He has since then punted several members of the PC caucus for disagreeing with extreme draconian
00:07:18.760lockdowns, throwing people in jail for operating their businesses. So there's clearly, you know,
00:07:24.840he hasn't gotten spending under control, he hasn't gotten taxes under control, there's clearly a lot
00:07:28.680of ideological space for a new party there. But Ontario has a much less successful history of new
00:07:36.120insurgent political parties, particularly on the right, you know, when reform, the reform party
00:07:41.960was created, it completely replaced the PC party out west in large measure that also replaced the
00:07:47.640the NDP out west federally. It had much less success east of Manitoba. And because Ontarians
00:07:56.440who consider themselves conservative often define themselves conservatism as, well, whatever the
00:08:01.940Conservative Party stands for. And I look at the Ontario Conservative Party and say, well, I don't
00:08:08.060see almost anything that would reflect someone like me in that right now. So it's hard to say.
00:08:12.960i think there's ideological space for it the question is are people going to uh look at this
00:08:18.320as a credible and viable option for replacing doug ford yeah there's a lot of people who are
00:08:22.960disgruntled with the the move uh the meat that you just talked about here in terms of what doug
00:08:29.040ford has brought in randy hillier i'm glad you brought him up this roman babber of course he0.99
00:08:33.680was just turfed as well these are individuals who have now become a real thorn in the side1.00
00:08:38.560of the Doug Ford government as he tries to make the case for stricter lockdowns in the face of
00:08:47.300more and more opposition. And more and more videos that we're seeing, every other day you're seeing
00:08:52.720videos of people being treated very, very badly. This latest video out of Barrie, which is just
00:08:58.840north of Toronto, shows a guy being tackled by police. He was a skateboarder. He's a 20-year-old.
00:09:05.960I mean, people are getting pictures of this stuff, and I'm glad they are doing it, because Lord knows through social media, we can watch what's happening.
00:09:14.220We can look at some of the things that police are doing, and people are just, they can't believe it.
00:09:18.700It's like watching a movie, or it's like watching newsreels out of East Germany, you know, or someplace like that in the past, or the old Soviet bloc where people were treated like garbage.
00:09:30.740It's extremely troubling, and Dave, you and I have talked about some of the things that have happened in Alberta, for instance, where people flying in are found to have had the wrong COVID test.
00:09:43.660Same thing here happened at Pearson Airport in Toronto, where a guy from Scarborough came in, apparently he had had the wrong COVID test, ended up being basically locked in a room with bread and water.
00:09:57.180I mean, you cannot make this stuff up.
00:09:59.000And Dave, how present, how much of a problem has this been?
00:10:03.380I mean, is this sinking into the cycle of individuals, the psyche, rather, of individuals in Alberta?
00:10:09.760Are they looking at this and thinking, you know, this can't be allowed to continue?
00:10:14.560Well, it's certainly drawn the interest of Albertans, that's for sure.
00:10:18.760The stories we did over the weekend on these secret airport detentions, you know, set a record number of hits for us at the Western Standard.
00:10:26.660You know, but other than individual Canadians clicking on a story and feeling outraged, it's been pretty well radio silence for most of the political leadership in the country.
00:10:40.860Justin Trudeau issued a very sort of wishy-washy tweet saying, you know, he thinks there should be more transparency.
00:10:49.080But, you know, there's been nothing from Aaron O'Toole, nothing from Justin Trudeau.
00:10:54.660uh but uh yeah i i watched that berry video this morning with the young gentleman getting uh
00:11:00.580you know hit in the face with a taser uh not tased in the face but actually struck with the weapon
00:11:07.140uh oh it's uh it's quite scary what's going on out there that's for sure mark
00:11:12.260yeah exactly and the media uh let's talk a little bit about that because more layoffs announced
00:11:18.980bell media closing their accident the ctv national of course which is part of the bell media empire
00:11:25.860has closed their quebec bureau cutting staff at radio stations there's talk of radio stations
00:11:32.100going dark and i'm looking at what's going on and asking myself okay yeah these guys have gone to
00:11:38.420government more and more western standard of course did an excellent story about that
00:11:43.940they're getting more money and what are they losing in you know what's the bargain here what
00:11:50.500what are they giving up and the answer of course and derek you know this having started this
00:11:55.060organization online is credibility right once you as a media organization begin to take cash from
00:12:01.540from the government you become reliant on that government the next thing you know you become
00:12:06.180very reticent about criticizing that government so the whole point of people tuning in to a media
00:12:11.860organization to try and get some accountability out of their government that goes out the window
00:12:16.440why because media organizations are less and less willing to to go hammer and tong after governments
00:12:22.820that abuse the public purse and i think we're seeing that and that i believe is part of the
00:12:27.960reason why more and more people are bailing out of the mainstream media and how is that being
00:12:32.520people are going to blame covet i get that you know the the ad revenues for many of these radio
00:12:38.580stations and television stations for instance is cratered as a result of covid but i think the the
00:12:43.940rot had already settled in in terms of media becoming more and more reliant on government
00:12:49.540and what suffers is credibility right and so as that credibility erodes people stop tuning in
00:12:56.740they look for media elsewhere and it just it's just a cycle that is created here whereby you
00:13:02.740lose viewers because your credibility is shot you rely on government for more money and guess what
00:13:08.420happens your credibility suffers even more i mean is this what we're talking about here
00:13:12.740in this current media environment derek
00:13:18.580well uh part of me loves watching these big media bosses grovel on their knees to just
00:13:26.260sadistic or what i mean i've said before i'm a collapsitarian in many senses i'm happy to see
00:13:32.980things get worse uh so that people eventually reach a breaking point look these guys surrendered
00:13:38.340most of them have surrendered their credibility a very long time ago. The media is becoming
00:13:43.940increasingly like another Bombardier in Canada where they don't actually produce anything. They
00:13:49.700just collect subsidies and have make work projects. People are tuning out in huge numbers from the
00:13:55.220mainstream media because they don't trust it anymore. Now, a lot of the alternative media
00:13:59.700is trying to fill the void, but a lot of that alternative media also lacks credibility because
00:14:05.060because maybe they might have weaker standards
00:14:08.340than on the objectivity of their news and whatnot.
00:14:10.460We rectified that at the very beginning of the Western Standard
00:14:13.280by having Dave Naylor come in, an immensely respected reporter,
00:22:46.500If you're a male, if you're a guy, a dude, and you're a believer and follower in the pride movement, does that mean that you can call yourself a proud boy without being called a proud boy?
00:22:59.540Look, it's a minor distinction, but it's huge.
00:23:04.500and I happen to think that you can walk around in some of the gay areas perhaps in Calgary or
00:23:10.580in Edmonton or maybe right here in Toronto and you can walk around with a Proud Boy shirt0.84
00:23:17.060and maybe even a MAGA hat and they're going to consider that to be ironic you can get away with
00:23:23.840it in those communities you leave those communities all of a sudden well all bets are off you can get
00:23:29.520arrested but i don't know do you think that this is an issue or am i just barking up the wrong tree
00:23:37.040silence who are you who are you asking well all right let's start off with dave because he's got
00:23:44.480a grin on his face right now he probably thinks petroni you know drop the subject but i i gotta
00:23:50.320go there can you wear can you wear a proud boy t-shirt with a pride flag and get away with it
00:24:00.520I guess it depends whether or not you're wearing your face mask.
00:24:24.220We really haven't seen a lot from the Proud Boys.
00:24:28.280they have provided security at some anti-masking rallies but you know hasn't
00:24:37.760really been a big issue out here my question is why are these guys being
00:24:41.180treated as a terrorist organization as far as I know they've never done
00:24:44.100anything here and as a matter of fact I'm hearing reports that they may have
00:24:48.080even furnished the police with with intelligence have you guys heard this I
00:24:52.400mean in the United States they've they've been FBI informants and so now
00:24:58.160all of a sudden they're treated as a terrorist group i'm just saying that the government went
00:25:01.600too far we don't know enough about this in order to be labeling groups uh you know like proud boys
00:25:08.480terrorism because as far as i know they've never committed any group i don't know maybe they maybe
00:25:12.160they're going to go after their shriners next i want to talk about this latest sorry before you
00:25:17.600you wanted to weigh in oh yeah okay it's my thing i didn't talk when i want i didn't think you wanted
00:25:24.160to touch that with a 10-foot pole you were there smiling in the corner i just i just you know it's
00:25:29.560not an area of focus for me but yeah um i mean a lot of uh qualified experts in terrorism have
00:25:38.320said that this is probably the wrong move um it's you know the proud boys have been a nebulous
00:25:44.080organization it started off as uh you know if we can call it kind of a a fight club for young men
00:25:51.680You know, just kind of disenfranchised, angry young guys, a social club of some sorts where they might get into fights and whatnot.
00:26:01.920But the bar for a terrorist organization is, sorry, since then they have morphed into something that I think is significantly darker.
00:26:11.280I think the organization has morphed as organizations do, particularly decentralized organizations.
00:26:16.180But there is a difference between organizations with people that we disagree with, even very strongly, and a terrorist organization. There is normally a very specific bar for that. And for good reason in Canada and in the States, we generally leave it to authorities, non-political authorities, to make that determination, to determine what is a terrorist organization or not.
00:26:41.020So Antifa, for example, commits all sorts of violence, irregularly, it's a part of the raison d'etre, but they are not, they don't really have much of a hierarchy, they have little local cells. But I think it'd be wrong probably to classify them as a terrorist organization, at least having politicians do it. And this was an act of Parliament passed by all parties in the House of Commons, to declare Proud Boys a terrorist organization. I think it was a political stunt.
00:27:07.600I think you could strongly disagree with much of what the Proud Boys do without believing that politicians should get into the business of this.
00:27:16.780Because, you know, I consider people in Antifa do commit acts that are arguably of terror.
00:27:26.200But I'm not sure that Antifa itself is a terrorist organization on par with ISIS or al-Qaeda.
00:27:32.420So it's just it's a very dangerous game that they're playing.
00:27:35.180most terrorism experts believe that this was a wrong move that was just purely politically
00:27:39.820motivated and that all this is going to do is push people underground and potentially
00:27:43.960radicalize people further because if there are people in that organization who aren't too far
00:27:48.560gone but all of a sudden the government is saying your very existence is illegal you actually have
00:27:53.500now the real risk of radicalizing people and we should have learned this uh after september 11th
00:28:26.640So I think this is an ill-informed and politically motivated move that is not going to make anything better, but it might make some people, some politicians feel better about themselves.
00:28:37.960Well, what I'm hearing you say is that this thing could backfire, that by declaring them a terrorist group, that what you're doing is drawing attention to what they're doing.
00:28:48.160And that if you're of a mind to get involved in groups like this, there might be somebody out there who thinks, well, there's an exciting group to get involved in.
00:28:56.120here they are, declared a terrorist group. You know what I'm saying? You're almost focusing
00:29:01.780attention on a group that really is not very well known in this country at all. So in a way,
00:29:07.340you've given me another reason to reinforce my views that maybe the government went too far
00:29:11.520with these guys. I'm not saying that they're a bunch of Boy Scouts, but I'm saying that by
00:29:16.940labeling them terrorists, I think we might have gone too far. And to your point, maybe drawn
00:29:22.080attention that they didn't otherwise deserve. But I want to talk about this recent poll by
00:29:27.900Abacus, suggesting that the liberals are losing a lot of support because of their handling of the
00:29:35.660vaccine issue. This Abacus poll of almost 4,000 people, guys, suggests that now the liberals are
00:29:44.800down to 32 percent they've lost three in the last three points in the last month this is a party
00:29:52.120that was looking to go into an election possibly this spring maybe in the fall looking at maybe
00:29:58.420gaining back that majority and here it is slipping away all right now they're looking at the Canadians
00:30:05.100are looking at the handling of this vaccine issue and thinking you know what this government really
00:30:09.960can't be trusted to manage this pandemic very well maybe we need to look around and so as a result
00:30:16.040the liberals are losing support and i don't know could this be a ballot question in the coming
00:30:22.360election guys do you think that this could be the thing that finally perhaps breaks the guy who had
00:30:28.840been seen as largely the teflon prime minister a guy who's been able to withstand all these other
00:30:35.160scandals is this going to be the one that finally does them in dave i think it has that potential
00:30:41.160uh absolutely mark you know you look at all the scandals that he's he's had from blackface to the
00:30:47.880to the we charity and you know people will tut tut and uh say he shouldn't have done that but
00:30:53.960it doesn't affect them it doesn't affect their individual lives but this thought completely
00:30:59.880botching of the vaccine rollout is hitting people personally it's hitting everybody everybody either
00:31:06.760wants that vaccine they have an elderly parent or grandparents who desperately need that vaccine
00:31:14.760and it's not common uh and we look around the world uh i think the united states
00:31:21.400injected one million people yesterday great britain is uh you know on their second go-round
00:31:27.880already and uh you know we're doing absolutely terribly and uh every and it affects every single
00:31:35.720person every single voter which uh his other scandals uh didn't mark so i think it's got the
00:31:41.400potential to do great harm to him eric uh i don't know what do you think it looks to me that the
00:31:47.720pro that the prime minister frankly uh i'm not saying that they're quite panicking but if you
00:31:53.240go online for instance and you have a guy like aaron o'toole who has been thus far failing to
00:31:59.400make much attraction as far as you know being seen as a guy who could be the next prime minister
00:32:05.640aaron o'toole comes on he says something about the vaccine and he's immediately being attacked
00:32:11.080by you know dozens of leftists and liberal supporters saying well what would you do under
00:32:15.480the circumstances that to me tells me that they're vulnerable that they're scared that they understand
00:32:21.320that their credibility on the vaccine issue and their handling of covet has taken a huge hit i
00:32:26.920mean when you push back against anything related to attacking this prime minister on his handling
00:32:33.320of the vaccine rollout if you push back that much it it suggests to me that you're vulnerable and
00:32:38.920that you're slightly afraid that the public backlash is going to be such that you won't be
00:32:42.920able to recover i don't know is is the prime minister in big trouble here over this issue
00:32:47.560politically i'm talking probably not actually i i'm okay i'm much more cynical on this uh
00:32:55.720look all right yeah dave is i think being far too kind to the average voter here um i might be a
00:33:04.280populist but that doesn't mean i think people make the right choices often collectively um look
00:33:11.160justin trudeau like the liberals will always attack the conservatives no matter what so when
00:33:16.360Justin Trudeau was at 50% in the polls, they still would attack whoever is the conservative
00:33:20.980leader saying they're dangerous. You know, if the conservatives get elected, they're going to take
00:33:25.900away your health care. There'll be no abortion and taxes will be so low that everybody starves
00:33:32.780in the streets. They're going to say these things no matter how high or low they are in the polls.
00:33:37.700They just get a bit more extreme the lower they are, the closer they are to potentially losing
00:33:42.880power. The Conservatives have gained in the polls here. But remember, in the last election,
00:33:47.380Andrew Scheer's Conservatives won the popular vote, but they still lost the election badly
00:33:51.820because the votes were concentrated in Western Canada, running up big majorities in safe
00:33:59.560Conservative ridings and not where they needed to win, which is exactly where you are right now,
00:34:03.960Mark, in the 905 surrounding Toronto. That is where elections are determined. They're not
00:34:09.520determined in Alberta or Saskatchewan, rural Manitoba or rural BC. They're determined in the
00:34:19.980suburbs of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. That's it. So even if the Conservatives win the popular
00:34:26.560vote, they're still likely again to come up short of even a minority government. And even if Justin
00:34:31.940Trudeau doesn't win the most seats in the next election, that doesn't mean that Aaron O'Toole
00:34:36.300gets to be prime minister automatically. Justin Trudeau would have the right to try and form some
00:34:41.220kind of coalition with other parties if it's still a minority government and he can hold the
00:34:45.460confidence of the house. So yeah, I think the federal government has botched the vaccine rollout.
00:34:53.220I think, you know, healthcare is overwhelmingly a provincial responsibility. It's provincial
00:34:58.300jurisdiction under the constitution and in practice. So I know there's a lot to blame
00:35:03.340in the provinces. The premiers are most to blame for how things are delivered. The one major area
00:35:10.120here that the federal government, the federal government's responsible for two things involving
00:35:13.860the pandemic. Borders, where they're now jailing, essentially jailing, very nice jails, but jails
00:35:19.160nonetheless. People traveling and not telling their families where they are, that's federal.
00:35:24.240And vaccines, that is their most direct application into this, and they've completely
00:35:28.580dropped the ball. We are now something like number 26, approaching number 30th in the world
00:35:34.060for our vaccine rollout and acquisition and actually getting this jabbed into the arms of
00:35:40.520people who want it. So they have completely dropped the ball on it. But at the end of the day,
00:35:47.760people seem to be very forgiving of Justin Trudeau. Look at those big puppy dog eyes and that
00:35:53.660beautiful shaggy hair and uh and at the same time just just remember uh conservatism i think is
00:36:00.080generally falling out of vogue uh in in canada and for conservatives to win in canada uh you know
00:36:09.180most most of the experts say they have to be much less conservative and i say at that point well
00:36:13.440what's the point of even having them if it's just going to be more liberals in a blue jersey
00:36:17.660there's not really a point to it so even if the conservatives win conservatism doesn't win
00:36:22.660Boy, that level of cynicism is going to make a lot of people out here
00:36:27.020maybe consider Albertans' feelings a little bit maybe.
00:36:30.760Come on, are Albertans really ticked off at the fact,
00:36:34.380and you talked about this, the GT area, the 905 belt,
00:36:38.700deciding, for instance, whether or not to go with Trudeau or not.
00:36:43.340You feel that somehow, despite all these boondoggles,
00:36:47.240despite the failed rollout of the vaccine,
00:36:51.120that somehow Ontario voters are still going to look the other way
00:36:54.560and still decide ultimately that, no, Trudeau is still our guy,
00:36:58.900despite all the problems this government has had.
00:37:02.380You still think that somehow people here have just not seen it,
00:37:11.340All right, what's it going to take for people in Ontario,
00:37:15.680people in Vancouver, people in Atlantic Canada now
00:37:19.200where the Tories are polling in the teens?
00:37:21.120to finally see the light and get rid of this guy what do you think dave
00:37:28.400i don't i you know it's it's a tough i i disagree with derek i think uh i think this vaccination
00:37:35.040thing has potential to to damage uh trudeau he hasn't played his trump card of blaming
00:37:41.600stephen harper yet but i'm sure that'll be uh that'll be coming down uh that'll be coming down
00:37:46.800the pipe at some point but uh you know derek is right it all comes down to uh those suburban
00:37:52.640writings in the in the big cities and uh unless people's lives are dramatically changed then
00:38:00.720then trudeau will keep getting in uh you know it's uh
00:38:06.400i don't know what the answer is uh you know obviously aaron o'toole is not setting the
00:38:11.440the world on fire? Do we need to get Pierre Polyev in there as the leader? He might show
00:38:17.780some more fire in his guts. But yeah, it's a very different political situation out here in Alberta
00:38:27.680where we're just getting one kick in the groin after the other, the latest being the Keystone
00:38:33.580Pipeline cancellation in which out here people in the West don't think Trudeau did enough,
00:38:39.920if anything, to try and prevent the cancellation from U.S. President Joe Biden. So it's just going
00:38:47.540to widen the political gulf in Canada again, Mark, I think. All right. And will a liberal
00:38:54.760majority win? Because, I mean, if you're right, Derek, and people here will continue to support
00:39:01.680Trudeau, will a liberal majority actually push Albertans over the edge? I mean, that's the
00:39:09.440question I want answered here. Is that what it would take, do you think? Well, I think it certainly
00:39:14.860would push support for independence higher. Does it get it over the edge? I don't think so. I think
00:39:20.480that is largely in the hands primarily of Jason Kenney and the independence movement here in
00:39:26.020Alberta. People's minds out here are already made up about Justin Trudeau. People aren't going to
00:39:34.560dislike him anymore or like him anymore, no matter what he does. He's kind of, he is a known quantity
00:39:39.780here. He's not an X factor anymore. The big thing is, can Jason Kenney continue to keep the very
00:39:47.040delicate coalition he has right now together over this question? Polling we've done shows that 60%
00:39:53.320or more of UCP voters would vote for independence. So they're largely split, a majority of UCP voters.
00:40:01.440Now, the UCP leadership is quite strictly federalist. Most of the caucus is federalist, although there are some sovereignists in that caucus right now. So the big thing is, can Jason Kenney's kind of tough talk on, I'm going to get a fair deal, actually do something? I mean, we haven't had any movement on this stuff.
00:40:22.020uh, Ottawa has not given ground anywhere. Ottawa treats Alberta worse today than it did
00:40:26.740two and a half years ago when the UCP got elected. Uh, so he hasn't been able to show
00:40:31.920any progress on this stuff whatsoever. There is no fair deal. We're going to have a referendum
00:40:36.060in October on equalization. Uh, Albertans are going to expect Jason Kenney to get on a plane
00:40:41.240the next day, go to Ottawa and, uh, essentially pin Justin Trudeau on the rug and give him a
00:40:45.960noogie until he agrees to change equalization. And that, and it's not going to happen. They're
00:40:51.240going to tell us to piss off. Nothing is going to happen. And so that's a moment I'm really
00:40:56.620looking towards in the future here is are people going to do one of three things. They're going to
00:41:03.340say, okay, well, you didn't get it, Jason, but we're still behind you. Keep fighting. That's
00:41:09.520going to be a difficult argument for Kenny to make. People could say, well, he tried. I guess
00:41:15.100we just have to accept our lot. And this is just the way it is. It's not going to change. We've
00:41:20.020tried the Reform Party. We've tried the Conservative Party of Canada. We've tried Jason Kenney with
00:41:25.480fair deals. It's not going to get anywhere. We just have to accept the status quo and move on.
00:41:29.900And just that's the way it is. Or third, people are going to do what Albertans do every once in
00:41:34.940a while and burn the house down. We've done it before. This would probably be the most radical
00:41:40.660incarnation of that. But I think it's largely now in the hands of Jason Kenney and the
00:41:50.980independence movement itself. That being said, if Aaron O'Toole wins, I think there will be a
00:41:55.760placebo effect, even if the policies don't really change, the rhetoric changes. It's the home team,
00:42:01.480it's the blue jersey. So people would probably calm down for a little bit. But none of these
00:42:05.500fundamental problems i think will will actually change if there's a if erin o'toole becomes prime
00:42:11.420minister and what about the maverick party i mean do you sense that um that the maverick party
00:42:17.700is gaining any traction is the maverick party going to be a factor in the coming election
00:42:23.440i mean one of the polls that i saw recently guys suggests that support for the conservative party
00:42:28.440has actually dipped below 50% in the 48% range
00:42:41.580Yeah, they're going to do what they usually do,
00:42:44.040which is a rubber stamp their vote for the Conservative Party of Canada,
00:42:48.200but they're not particularly thrilled with Aaron O'Toole.
00:42:51.380Could that be an opening for a party like the Maverick Party, do you think?
00:42:55.380Well, we did some recent polling, Mark,
00:42:57.700And both Wild Rose Independence leader Hinman and Maverick leader Jay Hill told me that the best thing that could almost, well, the best thing that could happen to them in terms of membership is for Trudeau to get another majority.
00:43:14.220They expect the floodgates to open and people, you know, to break down their doors to try and join.
00:43:21.180In the polling we did, the Maverick party really didn't register.
00:43:24.260They've said they want to run, I think, in 39 ridings to try and become the Bloc Quebecois of the West, but they really didn't register on the poll, whereas the Wild Rose Independence Party certainly did in provincial politics.
00:43:41.720I believe they were, and Derek will correct me, I believe they were at 9% in our polling.
00:43:48.480So I don't know if it's just the name, the Maverick Party, or they really haven't been actively out there, in my opinion.
00:43:57.420You never see any social media interaction with Jay Hill or any of the other people in the party.
00:44:05.120uh so it appears the albertans are certainly more joining the independence movement on a
00:44:14.140provincial scale as opposed to a federal party scale and the implications of that okay you want
00:44:20.020to did you want to weigh in on that yeah uh i think there's a few reasons for it yeah so the
00:44:24.440the polling we had done from main street shows that within alberta uh wild rose independence
00:44:29.200party was at nine percent and maverick was at three percent three percent is within the margin
00:44:33.760of error so they could theoretically be six percent or they could be zero percent uh it's
00:44:38.480it's barely got a pulse and there's i think a few reasons for that one is and dave kind of alluded
00:44:44.480to it in my humble opinion i think it's a silly name yes i like i like mavericks but it's a strange
00:44:53.280name for a part and i guess wild rose is too but wild rose is still an established uh political
00:44:58.640brand here. It's a provincial symbol within Alberta. It actually means something. So I think
00:45:05.560a lot of it is the name. I think Jay Hill has added a lot to that party when he came on because
00:45:10.620it used to be called the Wexit party. I think he's brought a lot of credibility and professionalism
00:45:14.420to that organization that it should be very grateful to have. Another thing though, and this
00:45:20.780might cut across the conventional wisdom, yes, support for independence is higher when Justin
00:45:27.840Trudeau is in power, but among the parties themselves, I think one of the things that's
00:45:34.040driving support for Wild Rose Independence Party is that the conservatives are in power
00:45:41.280So just as the reform, you know, Tom Flanagan wrote a book in the mid-90s called Waiting
00:45:46.640for the Wave, and it was about the early reform party.
00:45:49.500And it was Preston Manning's theory that even though the West needed the reform party in
00:45:54.440the 70s and early 80s, it wasn't the right time because Peter Trudeau was in power and
00:46:01.160the PCs would inevitably fail the West, but voters would project their hopes onto Brian
00:46:08.200Mulroney, Joe Clark, and the PCs to fix things. They needed to be given a chance to fail first
00:46:13.680and then people would defect from the PCs. So similarly in Alberta, the Wild Rose Independence
00:46:23.640Party, and before that, the party I led, which was a part of the merger that created Wildrose,
00:46:28.120the Freedom Conservative Party, people just wanted to get rid of the NDP. They hated the NDP so much
00:46:32.920that they were just willing to project all of their hopes and dreams onto the UCP and all of
00:46:40.280their anger onto the NDP. Federally, Westerners passionately hate Justin Trudeau, but even though
00:46:47.800Aaron O'Toole isn't really talking about many of these issues in a serious way that will address
00:46:52.440western issues uh people are able to project their hopes onto him to fix things uh as the best chance
00:46:59.080to do it so oddly enough uh federally for a party to take a sovereign western party to take off
00:47:05.640federally it actually might require that the conservative party takes power federally and
00:47:12.440have a chance to fail first before people voters at a federal level are willing to switch to a
00:47:18.040sovereignist party which leads to my next question which is how big a disappointment
00:47:23.480is is jason kenny i mean here's a guy that you would expect to be uh you know front and center
00:47:29.160in terms of leading the province against the feds and yet you just you still get that uneasy sense
00:47:35.320that the premier uh would secretly rather be in ottawa than be in alberta that he saw the leadership
00:47:42.360of the merged united conservative party in alberta as a kind of a stepping stone that he his heart
00:47:50.520was really still back in ottawa where i think he spent something like 19 years or thereabouts guys
00:47:56.680i don't know how big a disappointment has jason kenny been and should he step down before the
00:48:03.080next provincial election guys i don't know what do you think dave i think the situation in alberta is
00:48:09.080is very much like what you're dealing with in ontario market people aren't happy because they
00:48:14.760didn't get what they thought they were voting for uh jason kenny really hasn't uh stepped up to the
00:48:23.080plate in terms of fighting with ottawa that most voters want it seems to me that everything he
00:48:28.280he's touched has turned to dust and especially in the last few months uh you know last year he
00:48:34.440invested $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money into the Keystone Project, and we know where that money is
00:48:42.280gone now. All that the UCP seems to have done in their first third in power is just set up panels.
00:48:55.260Okay, we want a provincial police force. Let's form a panel to see whether that would work.
00:49:02.400There's been very, very few concrete moves.
00:49:06.440In fairness, they did announce last week the creation of the Alberta Parole Board,
00:49:11.660which is now going to take over parole issues for people in provincial jails serving two years less a day.
00:49:19.500But the Albertans just haven't seen the movement from Kenny that they want.
00:49:23.200There's no, there doesn't seem to be any passion.
00:49:25.760uh you know he's i i guess his theory is to try and play nice uh with trudeau and see uh
00:49:33.040see how that works but hasn't gotten him anywhere yet mark yeah what a major disappointment because
00:49:38.640i think a lot of people had very high expectations once jason kenny came in this was going to be a
00:49:44.240fighter i think that's really what albertans want i mean obviously i'm in ontario right now i lived
00:49:50.320in calgary for a couple of years i certainly got a sense for life in alberta but i think albertans
00:49:56.600really want a scrappy fighter a ralph klein we had a ralph klein type of guy who's going to stand up
00:50:02.640shake his fist at ottawa and really stand up to what the feds are doing to alberta i mean it really
00:50:07.960feels like alberta is more of a colony rather than a province and i think that they have conned
00:50:12.540albertans into believing that somehow they're this equal partner in confederation when in fact
00:50:17.320they're more like a more like a colony especially when you look at how that party how that province
00:50:21.940has been milked over the years for you know billions and billions of dollars i know you
00:50:26.880want to weigh in on this derek go up go right ahead well just i guess before we wrap up uh all
00:50:32.740i get to say is i told you so uh i bought into kenny uh i was probably one of the very very
00:50:38.880first people in Alberta to buy into it. There were some early warning signs that I tried to bring up,
00:50:49.040but as I said earlier, people were just so angry at the NDP, they were willing to overlook anything,
00:50:54.560overlook how realistic it is that we can actually fix anything without going further than shaking
00:50:59.600our fist. But I think a lot of people are seeing it now. They're very upset. I mean, Kenny's got a
00:51:07.600very difficult task ahead of himself uh he he is fighting a two-front war i've i've compared this
00:51:13.760to the schlieffen plan and the first world war he's he he's got um all right well the schleifen
00:51:20.960plan was a success though back wasn't it i mean going going around the uh it was not a success
00:51:28.160it nearly worked uh it may have been the best option they had but it didn't work uh you know
00:51:33.280He has kind of the French New Democrats to his left, and he's got the Russian Wild Rose on its right, kind of a more barbaric, uncouth, but growing threat that takes longer to mobilize.0.50
00:51:49.980And so he's got a war on two fronts right now that he did not believe he'd ever face once he had the merger of the original Wild Rose and the PC party's done.0.89
00:51:57.440he's in a tough pickle. And his big problem right now, he's got a Jim Prentice syndrome. He doesn't
00:52:05.080know which front to attack first, and he's got to pick one. And he's constantly just trying to
00:52:10.600balance himself. Funny war on two fronts is exhausting. You generally have to, you got to
00:52:16.480pick one side and go after it. He's got to decide to move center and displace the new Democrats,
00:52:21.880or he's got to go right and crush the wild rose and bring those voters home.
00:52:27.440well it's been too long i think i mean for him to pick a lane because he's had no success up to this
00:52:33.440point and albertans i i think i suspect are running out of patience derek you want to uh throw in a
00:52:39.680plug for anybody wanting to want to become a member a western standard member yeah i think
00:52:45.440we're having trouble with your mic i guess so i guess it's a good time for us to re-wrapping up
00:52:48.720anyway uh but yeah i would think all of our current western standard members we're making some changes
00:52:53.760right now uh you know in the next few days you might have some if you have a if you are a current
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00:53:20.400sign up all right guys well thank you so much really appreciate this it's been a
00:53:24.580lot of fun let's do it again real soon Dave and Derek let's sign things off for