Western Standard - The Marc Patrone Show. February 5, 2021

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00:02:30.000 Greetings 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.

00:02:59.980 conversing with my uh my new buddies over at western standard derek filder pratt of course

00:03:06.000 who's the publisher of that online publication and dave naylor a guy i used to work with

00:03:11.280 at another publication which shall remain i don't know if you really want to go there dave but uh

00:03:17.660 we were there we were there together for a while and uh i don't hear you i see your lips move buddy

00:03:22.340 all right well let's just leave it to name it's so far in the past right there are there are worse

00:03:32.540 publications than the Sun I'm gonna call it absolutely there are but there aren't worse

00:03:40.700 than the Toronto Star excuse me but I don't know about and how now all these guys are going for

00:03:48.620 uh for more government money uh western standard of course covered covered that story these guys

00:03:53.420 are having all sorts of problems i mean we could go on at length about how difficult things are for

00:03:58.060 media right now we should that we should actually add that as a topic i think i know it's not you

00:04:02.060 know what derrick i think we should absolutely look this is the first time we're doing this so

00:04:07.260 we're just kind of feeling each other out not literally but uh we're getting acquainted with

00:04:12.380 with the whole technology of doing this stuff online.

00:04:15.380 I'm a radio guy, many of our listeners,

00:04:18.840 many of my listeners normally would be listening

00:04:20.740 on Saga 960, a terrific radio show that we do in the GTA.

00:04:25.920 And of course it's available to anybody listening online

00:04:29.100 on Saga960am.ca.

00:04:33.520 But the number of topics that we have to talk about,

00:04:36.460 a lot of people in the West are looking

00:04:38.880 at this new blue party out here

00:04:40.660 and wondering what the hell's going on.

00:04:42.200 Listen, when we elected Doug Ford in Ontario, guys, a lot of us in the conservative media were quite happy about that.

00:04:50.980 We thought, great, you know, after 14, 15 years of liberal government in Ontario,

00:04:55.820 we're finally getting one of our own in there, somebody who's going to believe in the kinds of things that conservatives believe in.

00:05:02.600 Derek, Dave, you know, I mean, we want lower taxes.

00:05:06.720 We want less regulation.

00:05:08.100 We want more focus on self-reliance.

00:05:10.580 we want less government in our hair. What did we end up with? None of the above. Now, you got to

00:05:17.020 cut Doug a little bit of slack here, guys, because of COVID. But Doug has shown very little

00:05:24.700 inclination to be a small government guy. And out of the blue, we have Jim Karahalios and his new

00:05:32.320 blue party. A lot of people are excited about that. Although I suspect that the conservative

00:05:36.760 party itself is looking at the new blue party and thinking are these guys going to you know chip

00:05:41.400 into our support base in ontario because we certainly don't need that meaning the conservative

00:05:45.760 party does not does not need that but that's the situation here i don't know do you guys think that

00:05:51.900 it's looking like a new wild rose is that what you're referring to let's start with you derek

00:05:57.880 you're thinking that the new blue could be the wild ontario's version of wild rose

00:06:02.680 uh it's difficult to say i mean ontario doesn't have quite the same tradition uh as alberta or

00:06:11.100 the prairies in general have with uh inventing and experimenting with new political parties

00:06:17.400 ontario uh ontario was founded on not experimenting with new things it was founded as the loyalists

00:06:23.820 who weren't into the american revolution uh but i've got a soft spot for ontario especially

00:06:28.820 of rural Ontario where I'm from. I think there's clearly room, there's political space for a new

00:06:35.520 party in Ontario. I feel like you, about Doug Ford, I was quite optimistic about him when he

00:06:41.980 came in. He was supposed to be populist, anti-establishment conservative, not beholden

00:06:47.240 to the big blue machine. And he's proven to be anything but one of his first acts in the first

00:06:53.480 few months was to punt Randy Hillier from the PC caucus. Randy Hillier is a member of the

00:06:58.720 provincial parliament from the Ottawa Valley, a most notoriously conservative part of Ottawa,

00:07:05.220 sorry, of Ontario, arguably of Canada. And he was punted for not being a drone, essentially.

00:07:12.180 He has since then punted several members of the PC caucus for disagreeing with extreme draconian

00:07:18.760 lockdowns, throwing people in jail for operating their businesses. So there's clearly, you know,

00:07:24.840 he hasn't gotten spending under control, he hasn't gotten taxes under control, there's clearly a lot

00:07:28.680 of ideological space for a new party there. But Ontario has a much less successful history of new

00:07:36.120 insurgent political parties, particularly on the right, you know, when reform, the reform party

00:07:41.960 was created, it completely replaced the PC party out west in large measure that also replaced the

00:07:47.640 the NDP out west federally. It had much less success east of Manitoba. And because Ontarians

00:07:56.440 who consider themselves conservative often define themselves conservatism as, well, whatever the

00:08:01.940 Conservative Party stands for. And I look at the Ontario Conservative Party and say, well, I don't

00:08:08.060 see almost anything that would reflect someone like me in that right now. So it's hard to say.

00:08:12.960 i think there's ideological space for it the question is are people going to uh look at this

00:08:18.320 as a credible and viable option for replacing doug ford yeah there's a lot of people who are

00:08:22.960 disgruntled with the the move uh the meat that you just talked about here in terms of what doug

00:08:29.040 ford has brought in randy hillier i'm glad you brought him up this roman babber of course he 0.99

00:08:33.680 was just turfed as well these are individuals who have now become a real thorn in the side 1.00

00:08:38.560 of the Doug Ford government as he tries to make the case for stricter lockdowns in the face of

00:08:47.300 more and more opposition. And more and more videos that we're seeing, every other day you're seeing

00:08:52.720 videos of people being treated very, very badly. This latest video out of Barrie, which is just

00:08:58.840 north of Toronto, shows a guy being tackled by police. He was a skateboarder. He's a 20-year-old.

00:09:05.960 I 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.

00:09:14.220 We can look at some of the things that police are doing, and people are just, they can't believe it. 0.83

00:09:18.700 It'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.

00:09:30.740 It'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.

00:09:43.660 Same 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.

00:09:57.180 I mean, you cannot make this stuff up.

00:09:59.000 And Dave, how present, how much of a problem has this been?

00:10:03.380 I mean, is this sinking into the cycle of individuals, the psyche, rather, of individuals in Alberta?

00:10:09.760 Are they looking at this and thinking, you know, this can't be allowed to continue?

00:10:14.560 Well, it's certainly drawn the interest of Albertans, that's for sure.

00:10:18.760 The 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.

00:10:26.660 You 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.

00:10:40.860 Justin Trudeau issued a very sort of wishy-washy tweet saying, you know, he thinks there should be more transparency.

00:10:49.080 But, you know, there's been nothing from Aaron O'Toole, nothing from Justin Trudeau.

00:10:54.660 uh but uh yeah i i watched that berry video this morning with the young gentleman getting uh

00:11:00.580 you know hit in the face with a taser uh not tased in the face but actually struck with the weapon

00:11:07.140 uh oh it's uh it's quite scary what's going on out there that's for sure mark

00:11:12.260 yeah exactly and the media uh let's talk a little bit about that because more layoffs announced

00:11:18.980 bell media closing their accident the ctv national of course which is part of the bell media empire

00:11:25.860 has closed their quebec bureau cutting staff at radio stations there's talk of radio stations

00:11:32.100 going dark and i'm looking at what's going on and asking myself okay yeah these guys have gone to

00:11:38.420 government more and more western standard of course did an excellent story about that

00:11:43.940 they're getting more money and what are they losing in you know what's the bargain here what

00:11:50.500 what are they giving up and the answer of course and derek you know this having started this

00:11:55.060 organization online is credibility right once you as a media organization begin to take cash from

00:12:01.540 from the government you become reliant on that government the next thing you know you become

00:12:06.180 very reticent about criticizing that government so the whole point of people tuning in to a media

00:12:11.860 organization to try and get some accountability out of their government that goes out the window

00:12:16.440 why because media organizations are less and less willing to to go hammer and tong after governments

00:12:22.820 that abuse the public purse and i think we're seeing that and that i believe is part of the

00:12:27.960 reason why more and more people are bailing out of the mainstream media and how is that being

00:12:32.520 people are going to blame covet i get that you know the the ad revenues for many of these radio

00:12:38.580 stations and television stations for instance is cratered as a result of covid but i think the the

00:12:43.940 rot had already settled in in terms of media becoming more and more reliant on government

00:12:49.540 and what suffers is credibility right and so as that credibility erodes people stop tuning in

00:12:56.740 they look for media elsewhere and it just it's just a cycle that is created here whereby you

00:13:02.740 lose viewers because your credibility is shot you rely on government for more money and guess what

00:13:08.420 happens your credibility suffers even more i mean is this what we're talking about here

00:13:12.740 in this current media environment derek

00:13:18.580 well uh part of me loves watching these big media bosses grovel on their knees to just

00:13:26.260 sadistic or what i mean i've said before i'm a collapsitarian in many senses i'm happy to see

00:13:32.980 things get worse uh so that people eventually reach a breaking point look these guys surrendered

00:13:38.340 most of them have surrendered their credibility a very long time ago. The media is becoming

00:13:43.940 increasingly like another Bombardier in Canada where they don't actually produce anything. They

00:13:49.700 just collect subsidies and have make work projects. People are tuning out in huge numbers from the

00:13:55.220 mainstream media because they don't trust it anymore. Now, a lot of the alternative media

00:13:59.700 is trying to fill the void, but a lot of that alternative media also lacks credibility because

00:14:05.060 because maybe they might have weaker standards

00:14:08.340 than on the objectivity of their news and whatnot.

00:14:10.460 We rectified that at the very beginning of the Western Standard

00:14:13.280 by having Dave Naylor come in, an immensely respected reporter,

00:14:18.180 coming in from the mainstream media,

00:14:20.180 bringing that kind of level of credibility to us,

00:14:23.040 but without having the paymasters of government

00:14:25.140 and special interest groups telling us what we need to do.

00:14:30.700 So what we've got now is, after the $600 million was not enough,

00:14:35.060 just as a billion dollars is never enough for Bombardier it's always going to be more and more

00:14:39.140 and more you've now got a media that is like Bombardier and many other industries in Canada

00:14:44.980 not just to pick on them that are in the rent seeking business they're in the subsidy collecting

00:14:50.820 business they're not actually producing anything anymore and that is increasingly becoming the

00:14:56.340 mainstream media in Canada so on the one hand I'm happy to see them grovel and continue to surrender

00:15:02.020 what last vestiges of dignity and credibility they have left. But on the other hand, I mean,

00:15:08.480 the Western Standard is pledged in our mission statement to never accept government funding.

00:15:14.400 And we will never accept government funding. But this puts us at a permanent competitive

00:15:18.900 disadvantage to our competitors in the mainstream media who are in the government subsidy business.

00:15:24.620 And that makes it harder for us to compete. What we're doing right now, what the government is

00:15:30.100 doing is subsidizing candles when the light bulb has already been invented. The Western Standard

00:15:37.160 and other alternative media on left and right are the light bulb, and they're just delaying the

00:15:42.660 inevitable. They're making it difficult from a purely market and economics perspective for the

00:15:48.340 new, young, scrappy, dynamic, and inventive and competitive players to emerge into the market

00:15:56.080 it and take our rightful place. But all they're doing is delaying the inevitable. These guys soon

00:16:01.760 enough are just going to continue to shed jobs no matter how many subsidies they get. They're going

00:16:07.360 the way of the dodo. The Western Standard, despite the competitive disadvantage we're at for not

00:16:13.480 accepting government subsidies, we're turning a corner. We're on our way to becoming financially

00:16:18.260 viable here. And we do that, I guess, shameless sales pitch here by having a large number of

00:16:24.640 members joining us voluntarily paying for the content they get from the western standard

00:16:30.080 uh and not by us going to the government with a tin can and asking justin trudeau if we can

00:16:35.040 please have some more yeah and it's interesting to watch uh how the other media have been reacting

00:16:42.240 because western standard of course has broken a number of key stories stories that by all rights

00:16:48.080 should have been picked up dave you've been instrumental in writing about these stories

00:16:52.320 stories that you would expect uh you know your buddies at post media would would snap up but

00:16:58.560 it's not happening it's like the media is looking at these stories and going well they're pretty

00:17:02.480 good but rather than following them up and basically crediting uh western standard for

00:17:08.560 breaking it in the first place they would rather just kind of ignore it and it reminds me a little

00:17:12.400 bit about what big tech did in terms of uh squelching and suppressing some of the stories

00:17:20.480 that were potentially damaging to the biden campaign you know in a way they're kind of

00:17:26.000 they're kind of serving the same purpose here dave i don't correct me if i'm wrong

00:17:30.080 before dave comes in here i actually i i want to just add that in i want to take dave's time here

00:17:34.880 but uh the the media often don't report on stories broken by the alternative media

00:17:41.440 uh for one reason or another but actually the western standard uh is in a bit of a

00:17:46.400 different classification here. We do break stories that the mainstream media do often pick up on.

00:17:52.320 Dave in particular breaks big stories. The mainstream media are ignoring them because

00:17:57.360 they have a blind spot. They can't see that 50 or 60 percent of people are actually interested in

00:18:02.800 this topic. So let's take for example the secret detention of Canadians returning from abroad

00:18:09.120 being thrown forcefully into these isolation centers or detention centers and their families

00:18:14.720 not being informed uh dave uh broke that story for us and the mainstream media didn't touch it

00:18:20.720 for three days but they eventually did pick it up this has happened on a lot of fronts where we have

00:18:26.400 a story and it sits out there for several days because they don't think it's important but the

00:18:31.600 social media managers and the editors in these big newsrooms they keep on seeing this stuff come

00:18:36.560 through their social media feeds they see the people are talking about it and so yeah they

00:18:41.200 might not want to talk about this stuff or they might not think it's good news or or important

00:18:46.400 but it turns out it is so the western said it's kind of in a unique category among the non-mainstream

00:18:51.520 media where we're not totally lumped in with the rest of the alternative where when we break stuff

00:18:56.800 it often does go mainstream it just sometimes take takes a little while but i think that's a good

00:19:01.040 segue for for dave yeah absolutely okay so dave go ahead yeah i've given up long ago mark trying

00:19:08.640 to figure out what the mainstream media uh is doing and and thinking about and i think it's

00:19:14.400 just okay like when we broke the story on the weekend about the uh the secret airport detentions

00:19:19.600 you know that had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of clicks and hundreds of shares on

00:19:24.800 on social media so the word quickly got out and then jason kenney the premier of alberta uh you

00:19:31.360 know threw his two cents worth in so you've got the pre the the premier of the province commenting

00:19:37.440 on your story at that point the mainstream media has no choice they cannot they cannot continue to

00:19:44.720 ignore us or uh ignore what we're doing they they have to do the story uh so you know what

00:19:52.160 let them do it that way if they uh you know we're not going anywhere we're we're in here for the

00:19:56.400 long haul uh you know instead of uh instead of always asking for bailouts why don't they do what

00:20:03.600 the western standard is doing mark and go knock on doors and and sell advertising right that's

00:20:09.280 you know back in the old days that's the way it used to be you'd call up a car dealership and say

00:20:13.920 hey do you want to advertise or a stereo shop hey do you want to you want to advertise your big

00:20:19.120 woofer uh mainstream media i'm gonna put that in great and uh dave's uh all-time best quotes you

00:20:28.080 you want to have big woofer big woofer yeah okay you're no longer knobby you're you're you're dave

00:20:34.640 big woofer dave big woofer nailer i love it i like it instead of always trying to get money handed

00:20:42.720 to them go out and try and earn it surely that's a better business well you know what dave i think

00:20:48.560 those i think they're done look once you've begun the process of taking money once you've taken

00:20:53.440 money from government where do you go from there you know it's like you've taken a bite of the

00:20:57.840 apple right it's like the devil has tempted you with this juicy apple i'll go out and take a bite

00:21:03.040 take a bite you really want to well once you take a bite of that your credibility is immediately

00:21:08.960 brought into question in the eyes of the public there is no going back i don't mean uh i don't

00:21:14.080 think you can go back you can't try heroin casually i mean this is not thank you there's no casual

00:21:20.800 heroin or meth users out there, you try it, you're into it and you're addicted to it and

00:21:26.380 everything else falls by the wayside. So in this, you know, I'm a big fan of Breaking Bad and right

00:21:34.360 now Trudeau is Heisenberg. He's selling, he doesn't use it himself, but he's selling it

00:21:40.440 and he's pushing it. He's got a good product and it's called government cash. And anyone who gets

00:21:45.320 addicted to government cash is no longer a sovereign free individual. And the same applies

00:21:50.380 the people the same applies to government and absolutely media all right i want to talk a little

00:21:55.740 bit about this story guys i know it's one of your feel you're feeling a little bit reticent about

00:21:59.740 but i think it's it's weird i think and i think it says a lot about the government in terms of what

00:22:05.020 they feel is important versus what most canadians so i think is important and i and i started off

00:22:12.380 my radio show with this do you think that you can put on a proud boys t-shirt emblazoned with

00:22:18.700 a pride flag now you think about try to picture this a proud boys t-shirt logo emblazoned with

00:22:24.780 a pride flag i mean can you still potentially be arrested and suspected as a suspected terrorist in

00:22:31.020 canada we know of course that that is one of 13 groups that have been labeled in that way by the

00:22:36.460 government but does the pride flag cancel out or inoculate you against being called a terrorist

00:22:43.660 Do you get a pass?

00:22:45.240 I mean, no, think about this.

00:22:46.500 If 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?

00:22:59.540 Look, it's a minor distinction, but it's huge.

00:23:04.500 and I happen to think that you can walk around in some of the gay areas perhaps in Calgary or

00:23:10.580 in Edmonton or maybe right here in Toronto and you can walk around with a Proud Boy shirt 0.84

00:23:17.060 and maybe even a MAGA hat and they're going to consider that to be ironic you can get away with

00:23:23.840 it in those communities you leave those communities all of a sudden well all bets are off you can get

00:23:29.520 arrested but i don't know do you think that this is an issue or am i just barking up the wrong tree

00:23:37.040 silence who are you who are you asking well all right let's start off with dave because he's got

00:23:44.480 a grin on his face right now he probably thinks petroni you know drop the subject but i i gotta

00:23:50.320 go there can you wear can you wear a proud boy t-shirt with a pride flag and get away with it

00:24:00.520 I guess it depends whether or not you're wearing your face mask.

00:24:08.060 Okay, that's it?

00:24:10.820 Yeah, I guess, you know, the answer to your question is I don't know.

00:24:16.180 Who knows what goes on these days, Mark, in this country, right?

00:24:19.840 You just never know.

00:24:22.740 I'll just speak for Calgary.

00:24:24.220 We really haven't seen a lot from the Proud Boys.

00:24:28.280 they have provided security at some anti-masking rallies but you know hasn't

00:24:37.760 really been a big issue out here my question is why are these guys being

00:24:41.180 treated as a terrorist organization as far as I know they've never done

00:24:44.100 anything here and as a matter of fact I'm hearing reports that they may have

00:24:48.080 even furnished the police with with intelligence have you guys heard this I

00:24:52.400 mean in the United States they've they've been FBI informants and so now

00:24:58.160 all of a sudden they're treated as a terrorist group i'm just saying that the government went

00:25:01.600 too far we don't know enough about this in order to be labeling groups uh you know like proud boys

00:25:08.480 terrorism because as far as i know they've never committed any group i don't know maybe they maybe

00:25:12.160 they're going to go after their shriners next i want to talk about this latest sorry before you

00:25:17.600 you wanted to weigh in oh yeah okay it's my thing i didn't talk when i want i didn't think you wanted

00:25:24.160 to touch that with a 10-foot pole you were there smiling in the corner i just i just you know it's

00:25:29.560 not an area of focus for me but yeah um i mean a lot of uh qualified experts in terrorism have

00:25:38.320 said that this is probably the wrong move um it's you know the proud boys have been a nebulous

00:25:44.080 organization it started off as uh you know if we can call it kind of a a fight club for young men

00:25:51.680 You know, just kind of disenfranchised, angry young guys, a social club of some sorts where they might get into fights and whatnot.

00:26:01.920 But the bar for a terrorist organization is, sorry, since then they have morphed into something that I think is significantly darker.

00:26:11.280 I think the organization has morphed as organizations do, particularly decentralized organizations.

00:26:16.180 But 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.

00:26:41.020 So 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.

00:27:07.600 I think you could strongly disagree with much of what the Proud Boys do without believing that politicians should get into the business of this.

00:27:16.780 Because, you know, I consider people in Antifa do commit acts that are arguably of terror.

00:27:26.200 But I'm not sure that Antifa itself is a terrorist organization on par with ISIS or al-Qaeda.

00:27:32.420 So it's just it's a very dangerous game that they're playing.

00:27:35.180 most terrorism experts believe that this was a wrong move that was just purely politically

00:27:39.820 motivated and that all this is going to do is push people underground and potentially

00:27:43.960 radicalize people further because if there are people in that organization who aren't too far

00:27:48.560 gone but all of a sudden the government is saying your very existence is illegal you actually have

00:27:53.500 now the real risk of radicalizing people and we should have learned this uh after september 11th

00:27:59.320 where certainly certain organizations

00:28:03.100 were classified as terrorist organizations, 1.00

00:28:05.380 and that was rightfully so,

00:28:06.820 but other organizations that have odious beliefs,

00:28:10.140 supporting Sharia law, Islamic supremacy,

00:28:13.560 and things like that, their beliefs were radical,

00:28:17.240 but their actions were not committing terrorism,

00:28:19.600 and they would be lumped in with terrorists.

00:28:22.160 And that just simply radicalized people further

00:28:25.080 and created more terrorists.

00:28:26.640 So 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.

00:28:37.960 Well, 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.

00:28:48.160 And 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.

00:28:56.120 here they are, declared a terrorist group. You know what I'm saying? You're almost focusing

00:29:01.780 attention on a group that really is not very well known in this country at all. So in a way,

00:29:07.340 you've given me another reason to reinforce my views that maybe the government went too far

00:29:11.520 with these guys. I'm not saying that they're a bunch of Boy Scouts, but I'm saying that by

00:29:16.940 labeling them terrorists, I think we might have gone too far. And to your point, maybe drawn

00:29:22.080 attention that they didn't otherwise deserve. But I want to talk about this recent poll by

00:29:27.900 Abacus, suggesting that the liberals are losing a lot of support because of their handling of the

00:29:35.660 vaccine issue. This Abacus poll of almost 4,000 people, guys, suggests that now the liberals are

00:29:44.800 down to 32 percent they've lost three in the last three points in the last month this is a party

00:29:52.120 that was looking to go into an election possibly this spring maybe in the fall looking at maybe

00:29:58.420 gaining back that majority and here it is slipping away all right now they're looking at the Canadians

00:30:05.100 are looking at the handling of this vaccine issue and thinking you know what this government really

00:30:09.960 can't be trusted to manage this pandemic very well maybe we need to look around and so as a result

00:30:16.040 the liberals are losing support and i don't know could this be a ballot question in the coming

00:30:22.360 election guys do you think that this could be the thing that finally perhaps breaks the guy who had

00:30:28.840 been seen as largely the teflon prime minister a guy who's been able to withstand all these other

00:30:35.160 scandals is this going to be the one that finally does them in dave i think it has that potential

00:30:41.160 uh absolutely mark you know you look at all the scandals that he's he's had from blackface to the

00:30:47.880 to the we charity and you know people will tut tut and uh say he shouldn't have done that but

00:30:53.960 it doesn't affect them it doesn't affect their individual lives but this thought completely

00:30:59.880 botching of the vaccine rollout is hitting people personally it's hitting everybody everybody either

00:31:06.760 wants that vaccine they have an elderly parent or grandparents who desperately need that vaccine

00:31:14.760 and it's not common uh and we look around the world uh i think the united states

00:31:21.400 injected one million people yesterday great britain is uh you know on their second go-round

00:31:27.880 already and uh you know we're doing absolutely terribly and uh every and it affects every single

00:31:35.720 person every single voter which uh his other scandals uh didn't mark so i think it's got the

00:31:41.400 potential to do great harm to him eric uh i don't know what do you think it looks to me that the

00:31:47.720 pro that the prime minister frankly uh i'm not saying that they're quite panicking but if you

00:31:53.240 go online for instance and you have a guy like aaron o'toole who has been thus far failing to

00:31:59.400 make much attraction as far as you know being seen as a guy who could be the next prime minister

00:32:05.640 aaron o'toole comes on he says something about the vaccine and he's immediately being attacked

00:32:11.080 by you know dozens of leftists and liberal supporters saying well what would you do under

00:32:15.480 the circumstances that to me tells me that they're vulnerable that they're scared that they understand

00:32:21.320 that their credibility on the vaccine issue and their handling of covet has taken a huge hit i

00:32:26.920 mean when you push back against anything related to attacking this prime minister on his handling

00:32:33.320 of the vaccine rollout if you push back that much it it suggests to me that you're vulnerable and

00:32:38.920 that you're slightly afraid that the public backlash is going to be such that you won't be

00:32:42.920 able to recover i don't know is is the prime minister in big trouble here over this issue

00:32:47.560 politically i'm talking probably not actually i i'm okay i'm much more cynical on this uh

00:32:55.720 look all right yeah dave is i think being far too kind to the average voter here um i might be a

00:33:04.280 populist but that doesn't mean i think people make the right choices often collectively um look

00:33:11.160 justin trudeau like the liberals will always attack the conservatives no matter what so when

00:33:16.360 Justin Trudeau was at 50% in the polls, they still would attack whoever is the conservative

00:33:20.980 leader saying they're dangerous. You know, if the conservatives get elected, they're going to take

00:33:25.900 away your health care. There'll be no abortion and taxes will be so low that everybody starves

00:33:32.780 in the streets. They're going to say these things no matter how high or low they are in the polls.

00:33:37.700 They just get a bit more extreme the lower they are, the closer they are to potentially losing

00:33:42.880 power. The Conservatives have gained in the polls here. But remember, in the last election,

00:33:47.380 Andrew Scheer's Conservatives won the popular vote, but they still lost the election badly

00:33:51.820 because the votes were concentrated in Western Canada, running up big majorities in safe

00:33:59.560 Conservative ridings and not where they needed to win, which is exactly where you are right now,

00:34:03.960 Mark, in the 905 surrounding Toronto. That is where elections are determined. They're not

00:34:09.520 determined in Alberta or Saskatchewan, rural Manitoba or rural BC. They're determined in the

00:34:19.980 suburbs of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. That's it. So even if the Conservatives win the popular

00:34:26.560 vote, they're still likely again to come up short of even a minority government. And even if Justin

00:34:31.940 Trudeau doesn't win the most seats in the next election, that doesn't mean that Aaron O'Toole

00:34:36.300 gets to be prime minister automatically. Justin Trudeau would have the right to try and form some

00:34:41.220 kind of coalition with other parties if it's still a minority government and he can hold the

00:34:45.460 confidence of the house. So yeah, I think the federal government has botched the vaccine rollout.

00:34:53.220 I think, you know, healthcare is overwhelmingly a provincial responsibility. It's provincial

00:34:58.300 jurisdiction under the constitution and in practice. So I know there's a lot to blame

00:35:03.340 in the provinces. The premiers are most to blame for how things are delivered. The one major area

00:35:10.120 here that the federal government, the federal government's responsible for two things involving

00:35:13.860 the pandemic. Borders, where they're now jailing, essentially jailing, very nice jails, but jails

00:35:19.160 nonetheless. People traveling and not telling their families where they are, that's federal.

00:35:24.240 And vaccines, that is their most direct application into this, and they've completely

00:35:28.580 dropped the ball. We are now something like number 26, approaching number 30th in the world

00:35:34.060 for our vaccine rollout and acquisition and actually getting this jabbed into the arms of

00:35:40.520 people who want it. So they have completely dropped the ball on it. But at the end of the day,

00:35:47.760 people seem to be very forgiving of Justin Trudeau. Look at those big puppy dog eyes and that

00:35:53.660 beautiful shaggy hair and uh and at the same time just just remember uh conservatism i think is

00:36:00.080 generally falling out of vogue uh in in canada and for conservatives to win in canada uh you know

00:36:09.180 most most of the experts say they have to be much less conservative and i say at that point well

00:36:13.440 what's the point of even having them if it's just going to be more liberals in a blue jersey

00:36:17.660 there's not really a point to it so even if the conservatives win conservatism doesn't win

00:36:22.660 Boy, that level of cynicism is going to make a lot of people out here

00:36:27.020 maybe consider Albertans' feelings a little bit maybe.

00:36:30.760 Come on, are Albertans really ticked off at the fact,

00:36:34.380 and you talked about this, the GT area, the 905 belt,

00:36:38.700 deciding, for instance, whether or not to go with Trudeau or not.

00:36:43.340 You feel that somehow, despite all these boondoggles,

00:36:47.240 despite the failed rollout of the vaccine,

00:36:51.120 that somehow Ontario voters are still going to look the other way

00:36:54.560 and still decide ultimately that, no, Trudeau is still our guy,

00:36:58.900 despite all the problems this government has had.

00:37:02.380 You still think that somehow people here have just not seen it,

00:37:07.020 or maybe they don't want to see it.

00:37:08.540 Is that what it is?

00:37:09.400 I mean, what's it going to take?

00:37:11.340 All right, what's it going to take for people in Ontario,

00:37:15.680 people in Vancouver, people in Atlantic Canada now

00:37:19.200 where the Tories are polling in the teens?

00:37:21.120 to finally see the light and get rid of this guy what do you think dave

00:37:28.400 i don't i you know it's it's a tough i i disagree with derek i think uh i think this vaccination

00:37:35.040 thing has potential to to damage uh trudeau he hasn't played his trump card of blaming

00:37:41.600 stephen harper yet but i'm sure that'll be uh that'll be coming down uh that'll be coming down

00:37:46.800 the pipe at some point but uh you know derek is right it all comes down to uh those suburban

00:37:52.640 writings in the in the big cities and uh unless people's lives are dramatically changed then

00:38:00.720 then trudeau will keep getting in uh you know it's uh

00:38:06.400 i don't know what the answer is uh you know obviously aaron o'toole is not setting the

00:38:11.440 the world on fire? Do we need to get Pierre Polyev in there as the leader? He might show

00:38:17.780 some more fire in his guts. But yeah, it's a very different political situation out here in Alberta

00:38:27.680 where we're just getting one kick in the groin after the other, the latest being the Keystone

00:38:33.580 Pipeline cancellation in which out here people in the West don't think Trudeau did enough,

00:38:39.920 if anything, to try and prevent the cancellation from U.S. President Joe Biden. So it's just going

00:38:47.540 to widen the political gulf in Canada again, Mark, I think. All right. And will a liberal

00:38:54.760 majority win? Because, I mean, if you're right, Derek, and people here will continue to support

00:39:01.680 Trudeau, will a liberal majority actually push Albertans over the edge? I mean, that's the

00:39:09.440 question I want answered here. Is that what it would take, do you think? Well, I think it certainly

00:39:14.860 would push support for independence higher. Does it get it over the edge? I don't think so. I think

00:39:20.480 that is largely in the hands primarily of Jason Kenney and the independence movement here in

00:39:26.020 Alberta. People's minds out here are already made up about Justin Trudeau. People aren't going to

00:39:34.560 dislike him anymore or like him anymore, no matter what he does. He's kind of, he is a known quantity

00:39:39.780 here. He's not an X factor anymore. The big thing is, can Jason Kenney continue to keep the very

00:39:47.040 delicate coalition he has right now together over this question? Polling we've done shows that 60%

00:39:53.320 or more of UCP voters would vote for independence. So they're largely split, a majority of UCP voters.

00:40:01.440 Now, 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.

00:40:22.020 uh, Ottawa has not given ground anywhere. Ottawa treats Alberta worse today than it did

00:40:26.740 two and a half years ago when the UCP got elected. Uh, so he hasn't been able to show

00:40:31.920 any progress on this stuff whatsoever. There is no fair deal. We're going to have a referendum

00:40:36.060 in October on equalization. Uh, Albertans are going to expect Jason Kenney to get on a plane

00:40:41.240 the next day, go to Ottawa and, uh, essentially pin Justin Trudeau on the rug and give him a

00:40:45.960 noogie until he agrees to change equalization. And that, and it's not going to happen. They're

00:40:51.240 going to tell us to piss off. Nothing is going to happen. And so that's a moment I'm really 0.62

00:40:56.620 looking towards in the future here is are people going to do one of three things. They're going to

00:41:03.340 say, okay, well, you didn't get it, Jason, but we're still behind you. Keep fighting. That's

00:41:09.520 going to be a difficult argument for Kenny to make. People could say, well, he tried. I guess

00:41:15.100 we just have to accept our lot. And this is just the way it is. It's not going to change. We've

00:41:20.020 tried the Reform Party. We've tried the Conservative Party of Canada. We've tried Jason Kenney with

00:41:25.480 fair deals. It's not going to get anywhere. We just have to accept the status quo and move on.

00:41:29.900 And just that's the way it is. Or third, people are going to do what Albertans do every once in

00:41:34.940 a while and burn the house down. We've done it before. This would probably be the most radical

00:41:40.660 incarnation of that. But I think it's largely now in the hands of Jason Kenney and the

00:41:50.980 independence movement itself. That being said, if Aaron O'Toole wins, I think there will be a

00:41:55.760 placebo effect, even if the policies don't really change, the rhetoric changes. It's the home team,

00:42:01.480 it's the blue jersey. So people would probably calm down for a little bit. But none of these

00:42:05.500 fundamental problems i think will will actually change if there's a if erin o'toole becomes prime

00:42:11.420 minister and what about the maverick party i mean do you sense that um that the maverick party

00:42:17.700 is gaining any traction is the maverick party going to be a factor in the coming election

00:42:23.440 i mean one of the polls that i saw recently guys suggests that support for the conservative party

00:42:28.440 has actually dipped below 50% in the 48% range

00:42:32.300 because, to your point, Dave,

00:42:35.760 you know, Aaron O'Toole is just not really setting the world on fire

00:42:39.520 and that Albertans are not that keen.

00:42:41.580 Yeah, they're going to do what they usually do,

00:42:44.040 which is a rubber stamp their vote for the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:42:48.200 but they're not particularly thrilled with Aaron O'Toole.

00:42:51.380 Could that be an opening for a party like the Maverick Party, do you think?

00:42:55.380 Well, we did some recent polling, Mark,

00:42:57.700 And 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.

00:43:14.220 They expect the floodgates to open and people, you know, to break down their doors to try and join.

00:43:21.180 In the polling we did, the Maverick party really didn't register.

00:43:24.260 They'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.

00:43:41.720 I believe they were, and Derek will correct me, I believe they were at 9% in our polling.

00:43:48.480 So 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.

00:43:57.420 You never see any social media interaction with Jay Hill or any of the other people in the party.

00:44:05.120 uh so it appears the albertans are certainly more joining the independence movement on a

00:44:14.140 provincial scale as opposed to a federal party scale and the implications of that okay you want

00:44:20.020 to did you want to weigh in on that yeah uh i think there's a few reasons for it yeah so the

00:44:24.440 the polling we had done from main street shows that within alberta uh wild rose independence

00:44:29.200 party was at nine percent and maverick was at three percent three percent is within the margin

00:44:33.760 of error so they could theoretically be six percent or they could be zero percent uh it's

00:44:38.480 it's barely got a pulse and there's i think a few reasons for that one is and dave kind of alluded

00:44:44.480 to it in my humble opinion i think it's a silly name yes i like i like mavericks but it's a strange

00:44:53.280 name for a part and i guess wild rose is too but wild rose is still an established uh political

00:44:58.640 brand here. It's a provincial symbol within Alberta. It actually means something. So I think

00:45:05.560 a lot of it is the name. I think Jay Hill has added a lot to that party when he came on because

00:45:10.620 it used to be called the Wexit party. I think he's brought a lot of credibility and professionalism

00:45:14.420 to that organization that it should be very grateful to have. Another thing though, and this

00:45:20.780 might cut across the conventional wisdom, yes, support for independence is higher when Justin

00:45:27.840 Trudeau is in power, but among the parties themselves, I think one of the things that's

00:45:34.040 driving support for Wild Rose Independence Party is that the conservatives are in power

00:45:38.320 and seen by many to be failing.

00:45:41.280 So just as the reform, you know, Tom Flanagan wrote a book in the mid-90s called Waiting

00:45:46.640 for the Wave, and it was about the early reform party.

00:45:49.500 And it was Preston Manning's theory that even though the West needed the reform party in

00:45:54.440 the 70s and early 80s, it wasn't the right time because Peter Trudeau was in power and

00:46:01.160 the PCs would inevitably fail the West, but voters would project their hopes onto Brian

00:46:08.200 Mulroney, Joe Clark, and the PCs to fix things. They needed to be given a chance to fail first

00:46:13.680 and then people would defect from the PCs. So similarly in Alberta, the Wild Rose Independence

00:46:23.640 Party, and before that, the party I led, which was a part of the merger that created Wildrose,

00:46:28.120 the Freedom Conservative Party, people just wanted to get rid of the NDP. They hated the NDP so much

00:46:32.920 that they were just willing to project all of their hopes and dreams onto the UCP and all of

00:46:40.280 their anger onto the NDP. Federally, Westerners passionately hate Justin Trudeau, but even though

00:46:47.800 Aaron O'Toole isn't really talking about many of these issues in a serious way that will address

00:46:52.440 western issues uh people are able to project their hopes onto him to fix things uh as the best chance

00:46:59.080 to do it so oddly enough uh federally for a party to take a sovereign western party to take off

00:47:05.640 federally it actually might require that the conservative party takes power federally and

00:47:12.440 have a chance to fail first before people voters at a federal level are willing to switch to a

00:47:18.040 sovereignist party which leads to my next question which is how big a disappointment

00:47:23.480 is is jason kenny i mean here's a guy that you would expect to be uh you know front and center

00:47:29.160 in terms of leading the province against the feds and yet you just you still get that uneasy sense

00:47:35.320 that the premier uh would secretly rather be in ottawa than be in alberta that he saw the leadership

00:47:42.360 of the merged united conservative party in alberta as a kind of a stepping stone that he his heart

00:47:50.520 was really still back in ottawa where i think he spent something like 19 years or thereabouts guys

00:47:56.680 i don't know how big a disappointment has jason kenny been and should he step down before the

00:48:03.080 next provincial election guys i don't know what do you think dave i think the situation in alberta is

00:48:09.080 is very much like what you're dealing with in ontario market people aren't happy because they

00:48:14.760 didn't get what they thought they were voting for uh jason kenny really hasn't uh stepped up to the

00:48:23.080 plate in terms of fighting with ottawa that most voters want it seems to me that everything he

00:48:28.280 he's touched has turned to dust and especially in the last few months uh you know last year he

00:48:34.440 invested $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money into the Keystone Project, and we know where that money is

00:48:42.280 gone now. All that the UCP seems to have done in their first third in power is just set up panels.

00:48:55.260 Okay, we want a provincial police force. Let's form a panel to see whether that would work.

00:49:02.400 There's been very, very few concrete moves.

00:49:06.440 In fairness, they did announce last week the creation of the Alberta Parole Board,

00:49:11.660 which is now going to take over parole issues for people in provincial jails serving two years less a day.

00:49:19.500 But the Albertans just haven't seen the movement from Kenny that they want.

00:49:23.200 There's no, there doesn't seem to be any passion.

00:49:25.760 uh you know he's i i guess his theory is to try and play nice uh with trudeau and see uh

00:49:33.040 see how that works but hasn't gotten him anywhere yet mark yeah what a major disappointment because

00:49:38.640 i think a lot of people had very high expectations once jason kenny came in this was going to be a

00:49:44.240 fighter i think that's really what albertans want i mean obviously i'm in ontario right now i lived

00:49:50.320 in calgary for a couple of years i certainly got a sense for life in alberta but i think albertans

00:49:56.600 really want a scrappy fighter a ralph klein we had a ralph klein type of guy who's going to stand up

00:50:02.640 shake his fist at ottawa and really stand up to what the feds are doing to alberta i mean it really

00:50:07.960 feels like alberta is more of a colony rather than a province and i think that they have conned

00:50:12.540 albertans into believing that somehow they're this equal partner in confederation when in fact

00:50:17.320 they're more like a more like a colony especially when you look at how that party how that province

00:50:21.940 has been milked over the years for you know billions and billions of dollars i know you

00:50:26.880 want to weigh in on this derek go up go right ahead well just i guess before we wrap up uh all

00:50:32.740 i get to say is i told you so uh i bought into kenny uh i was probably one of the very very

00:50:38.880 first people in Alberta to buy into it. There were some early warning signs that I tried to bring up,

00:50:49.040 but as I said earlier, people were just so angry at the NDP, they were willing to overlook anything,

00:50:54.560 overlook how realistic it is that we can actually fix anything without going further than shaking

00:50:59.600 our fist. But I think a lot of people are seeing it now. They're very upset. I mean, Kenny's got a

00:51:07.600 very difficult task ahead of himself uh he he is fighting a two-front war i've i've compared this

00:51:13.760 to the schlieffen plan and the first world war he's he he's got um all right well the schleifen

00:51:20.960 plan was a success though back wasn't it i mean going going around the uh it was not a success

00:51:28.160 it nearly worked uh it may have been the best option they had but it didn't work uh you know

00:51:33.280 He 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

00:51:49.980 And 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

00:51:57.440 he's in a tough pickle. And his big problem right now, he's got a Jim Prentice syndrome. He doesn't

00:52:05.080 know which front to attack first, and he's got to pick one. And he's constantly just trying to

00:52:10.600 balance himself. Funny war on two fronts is exhausting. You generally have to, you got to

00:52:16.480 pick one side and go after it. He's got to decide to move center and displace the new Democrats,

00:52:21.880 or he's got to go right and crush the wild rose and bring those voters home.

00:52:27.440 well it's been too long i think i mean for him to pick a lane because he's had no success up to this

00:52:33.440 point and albertans i i think i suspect are running out of patience derek you want to uh throw in a

00:52:39.680 plug for anybody wanting to want to become a member a western standard member yeah i think

00:52:45.440 we're having trouble with your mic i guess so i guess it's a good time for us to re-wrapping up

00:52:48.720 anyway uh but yeah i would think all of our current western standard members we're making some changes

00:52:53.760 right now uh you know in the next few days you might have some if you have a if you are a current

00:52:58.880 western standard member and you have trouble logging into the western standards website

00:53:03.360 uh to read any content uh just send us a message info at westernstandardonline.com or sorry members

00:53:09.840 uh membership at westernstandardonline.com our staff will help you work through the bugs we're

00:53:15.360 making big technological changes uh but yeah grateful to our members and make sure you guys

00:53:20.400 sign up all right guys well thank you so much really appreciate this it's been a

00:53:24.580 lot of fun let's do it again real soon Dave and Derek let's sign things off for

00:53:29.580 now bye bye we'll see you next time

Western Standard - February 06, 2021

The Marc Patrone Show. February 5, 2021

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