Western Standard - The NDP convention goes off the rails as Alberta independence hits 177,000 signatures

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is April 1st, 2026. I am Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard,

00:00:29.520 and you're watching The Pipeline. I've got the usual crew here today, Western Standard's former

00:00:34.640 opinion editor Nigel Hannaford. Hello again. Senior Alberta columnist Corey Morgan. Good day. News

00:00:40.360 editor Dave Naylor. Good evening. Great show, great show. First, the NDP go full retard by not only

00:00:48.560 elect a Trotskyite as their leader, the convention itself descended into pure madness. Woke doesn't 0.72

00:00:57.320 do justice to how i and i i apologize for the term retardant to the older people who don't

00:01:03.240 get it we would never use that term for a person with actual disabilities

00:01:06.240 well i use it in the way in which i used it in the fifth grade very liberally for just 0.97

00:01:13.100 people who are cognitively functional but somehow still very stupid and uh we're gonna get into that 0.87

00:01:20.440 you've seen i'm sure a bunch of the viral clips of it but we're gonna get into it talk about what 0.98

00:01:24.520 of means for the NDP going forward. The Alberta independence campaign says that it has the

00:01:31.100 177,000 signatures necessary to force a citizens initiated referendum on independence. All signs

00:01:41.840 point towards go for a vote on October 19th. We're going to talk about where the independence

00:01:46.160 movement goes from there. But first, news out of Ottawa. The federal liberal government is

00:01:53.800 quietly considering modernizing Canada's national anthem, senior officials saying that they will

00:02:01.080 remove some or all references to God and replace the words with something more inclusive.

00:02:09.160 According to the documents we obtained in Access to Information,

00:02:14.360 Department of Canadian Heritage has been reviewing it, specifically the line,

00:02:19.560 God keep our land glorious and free

00:02:21.220 the idea is to change it and bring it in line

00:02:23.840 with the successful 2018

00:02:25.440 change to the national anthem to make it

00:02:27.600 gender neutral when they removed

00:02:29.020 in all thy son's command, replaced it with

00:02:31.560 all of us command

00:02:32.820 some of the

00:02:35.500 secularist groups in Quebec

00:02:37.180 have praised this, one group in Quebec

00:02:39.600 though, says in addition to removing

00:02:41.600 God, they want to remove the word Canada

00:02:43.200 because Canada

00:02:44.460 as they see it, is

00:02:47.660 a colonial and oppressive construct so remove canada from old canada the new ndp leader avie

00:02:52.940 lewis says uh i'll quote him here i think we should explore whether god should be updated to

00:02:57.680 something that better resonates with all canadians and express a solidarity with palestine

00:03:03.080 perhaps something like allah keep our land glorious and free uh others have talked about

00:03:10.360 taking elizabeth may said it should take on our first nations that uh we should place god with

00:03:15.760 great spirit uh or creator and potentially even change canada to turtle island in the national

00:03:22.040 anthem alberta premier danielle smith uh was fiercely opposed to it but she said uh it's hard

00:03:28.000 for her to get worked up about it because canada could have its own anthem by november 1st and she

00:03:32.440 guarantees it will have many many references to god uh peer polio uh says it's this is the same

00:03:39.620 government that can't axe the tax build the homes or stop the crime and wants to distract from issues

00:03:44.220 By finishing another job Justin Trudeau couldn't, wrecking our anthem, sissifying our country, and atheizing the people.

00:03:50.740 But since the Conservative Party values the votes of newcomers, they'll be abstaining.

00:03:54.660 And of course, PPC leader Maxime Bernier, he took a harder position, says, 0.97

00:03:57.940 These atheist cucks are ruining our country. Deport them all, or burn them at the stake. 1.00

00:04:05.340 Wow, for those of you who still haven't got it yet, I already mentioned the top of the show. 0.99

00:04:08.840 It's April 1st.

00:04:10.820 If you didn't get it, I mean, shame on you.

00:04:12.960 don't trust any of the news even us even us sometimes we're trying to pull one in on you

00:04:17.940 uh dave our alex zoltan uh our bc reporter did this story you oversaw it uh it was top shelf

00:04:26.500 it's kind of our standard practice for our annual april fool's day story we always want to do

00:04:31.100 something that's outrageous and crazy but believable something close enough to reality

00:04:36.880 and we sure tricked a lot of people this year didn't we certainly did you just read the comments

00:04:41.280 And it was, you know, the Liberals, people bought it because it could happen.

00:04:46.900 It's not something that you would put past the Liberals to do it.

00:04:50.220 And that's the key to making a good joke.

00:04:53.440 Was it the year before or the year before that, we had the federal government getting rid of a lane on the TransCanada

00:04:59.940 and doing a trans bike lane, you know, across country painted with colors

00:05:06.360 and got a lot of people with that one, including Jordan Peterson.

00:05:11.280 And we've got a lot of people on this one, too.

00:05:13.440 It's always a good fun day of the year to be a journalist.

00:05:17.540 Yeah.

00:05:17.880 We always try to start as believable and straight-faced as possible at the top,

00:05:22.120 and then we get into Maxime Bernier calling for burning people at the stake at the bottom.

00:05:26.960 We shouldn't put the caveat, though.

00:05:28.200 I mean, when the conversation evolves into the NDP, as bizarro and surreal as it is,

00:05:32.920 none of it is April 1st stuff, guys.

00:05:35.100 This is real.

00:05:35.940 That is why I think of all the news outlets, we have the best April Fool's stories,

00:05:40.920 because we it's not true it is a trick it we are fooling you but it's something totally plausible

00:05:46.920 it's not true but it's plausible we're lying by telling a greater truth i think that uh most

00:05:53.400 people don't read very far into it but if you ran into it uh quite a bit and you got to a guy called

00:05:58.760 frenchie mcfrench i didn't i didn't quote him saying tabernak yeah i think that's when most

00:06:05.240 people probably yeah he should include him when frenchy mcfirst frenchy all right um anyway the

00:06:15.240 risk of what we're doing is we actually give uh the federal government ideas because this is

00:06:19.400 something they would do they would do it okay all right the next part i swear to god this is true

00:06:27.480 news we are not making this up uh you probably know it because you've probably seen a bunch of

00:06:32.600 bunch of the clips on it. These clips first went viral

00:06:34.540 when, again, our BC reporter, Alex

00:06:36.540 Zoltan, he was

00:06:37.400 monitoring the NDP convention. Most

00:06:40.240 of what the media

00:06:42.480 watch and what the public watch, if the public,

00:06:44.220 most of the public watch, none of this,

00:06:46.340 but they'll watch, like, the speech from, you know, the winner

00:06:48.540 and stuff like that, of the

00:06:50.540 leadership. They'll watch the nuts

00:06:52.620 and bolts of the convention itself.

00:06:54.400 Oh, they were nuts.

00:06:57.140 I'm not sure which of them had nuts

00:06:58.600 and which ones. You're not allowed to say

00:07:00.620 nuts there, are you? Some bolts, too,

00:07:02.400 i'm sure yeah missing some nuts and bolts i'm talking them anyway yeah oh god i'm having

00:07:09.600 evisions from silence of the lambs um okay uh so we're just many of you have already seen it we're

00:07:16.640 just going to play a quick little montage of some of the the best of moments from canada's

00:07:22.000 democratic socialist parties convention the point of privilege on microphone one then we'll go to

00:07:26.640 microphone three go ahead delegate yes hello i i was standing here with my gender equity card

00:07:32.560 before you called on the previous speaker this card was used in an inappropriate matter i see

00:07:39.200 that we are one minute ahead of schedule and so i'm going to get out of here these are my rights

00:07:47.200 being directly under attack right now in alberta and that a cisgender woman had spoken uh over me

00:07:55.040 I will invite delegates to assist me in better using the card by forming a straight

00:08:02.400 straight line behind the microphone um with a prominently displayed equity card again we

00:08:08.000 thank delegates not to call me madam chair or madame la presidence i'm a non-binary person

00:08:12.480 my pronouns are they them and their chair is sufficient

00:08:14.960 and with regret you've spoken to the resolution it's not open to you to also call the question

00:08:25.600 okay um uh the state rests its case uh they're certifiable uh i mean this stuff is

00:08:36.800 i don't know dave you start i have i don't know i don't even know what to say

00:08:42.620 Well, I think it goes down as the, you know, Nigel's been around a lot longer than I have, but certainly the most bizarre political convention in Canadian history, some of the most bizarre attendees, you know, you've seen it by the little clips that John just played, gender cards and cis cards and cards coming here, cards coming there. 0.61

00:09:04.740 and it was it was it was a little ridicule uh and unfortunately it is it's brought shame on

00:09:11.220 the country out of canada uh it's being mocked around the world sky news uh had a segment in

00:09:17.300 australia where they're saying canada is not a real country greg gutfeld on fox uh last night

00:09:24.180 was saying they got to build a wall more than canada to keep out the wackos you know he gave 1.00

00:09:28.820 that about 20 minutes which is a lot so they gave a lot of material yeah they gave them two hours

00:09:34.020 worth of material to work with so yeah i've certainly never seen anything like it uh i feel

00:09:39.140 sorry for the the average real ndp person who goes to these pays their money and then goes to the

00:09:46.100 convention and is probably sitting in row 12 just wondering what the hell have i got myself into

00:09:52.100 And it's, you know, by electing Abby Lewis, they've moved.

00:09:58.840 So they are now left of Elizabeth May.

00:10:01.940 Okay, we'll get to Abby Lewis.

00:10:04.040 I want to focus on everything but for now.

00:10:07.560 Ludacris.

00:10:08.020 Ludacris.

00:10:09.920 I'm not positive it was John K.

00:10:12.720 It may have been him or someone else dubbed,

00:10:15.960 or we'll put a picture of him, her, they, back up,

00:10:20.060 pronoun Hitler.

00:10:21.140 put pronoun Hitler back up 0.76

00:10:23.180 let's juxtapose it with

00:10:24.560 old school OG Hitler 0.88

00:10:26.420 you could see where

00:10:28.880 they them is going 0.85

00:10:30.820 with this

00:10:32.020 it's

00:10:34.500 there was one segment where

00:10:37.220 she they

00:10:39.100 had to use the word straight

00:10:41.000 in some very non obviously gender related

00:10:43.260 things just

00:10:43.760 straight like 0.85

00:10:46.200 she choked on it

00:10:47.540 the word itself was too much for her to

00:10:50.760 Not even in sexual context.

00:10:53.620 Can't even talk about a sexual context. 0.99

00:10:54.960 God damn it, Corey. 0.99

00:10:56.720 Oh my god. 1.00

00:10:58.260 What? What did you read into that?

00:11:00.340 I wasn't even being heard that time.

00:11:03.140 You guys picked up what Corey said, right?

00:11:05.760 No?

00:11:06.560 Okay, it's just me.

00:11:08.420 I know normally I'm getting things up through.

00:11:10.940 This time I missed it. Let me know what I was getting.

00:11:13.140 Let us know in the comments if you guys took Corey away.

00:11:15.560 Maybe I'm just oversensitive for the kind of things he says now.

00:11:18.620 You're probably after the show.

00:11:20.160 Okay.

00:11:20.760 So to Dave's point, Corey, you know, what are the regular members thinking sitting there?

00:11:28.320 I'm not sure how many are there because, you know, at the core, and I'm speaking in very broad strokes here, but, you know, at the core of the left in general is a sense of a lack of self-esteem, of victimhood, and of moral superiority to compensate for your lack of success.

00:11:48.480 and so if they're

00:11:50.900 I'm sure there were a handful

00:11:52.880 of like white, straight

00:11:54.880 cisgendered 0.75

00:11:57.120 males there

00:11:58.840 and they're not allowed to speak

00:12:00.940 because they're literally playing race

00:12:03.100 cards, they're literally playing gender

00:12:05.020 cards and

00:12:05.800 they have a whole bunch of categories

00:12:08.660 so if you're a white, straight

00:12:10.780 so-called cisgendered

00:12:12.560 Christian guy and you're just like an 1.00

00:12:14.880 old school labor guy who's there for

00:12:16.480 somehow do they enjoy it's a humiliation ritual do you imagine gil mcgowan sitting in that crowd 0.93

00:12:25.400 yeah he's super privileged his white privilege is off the chart so like how do you think a white 0.79

00:12:31.680 how do you think a gil mcgowan say would feel there that he like he's literally not allowed

00:12:36.260 to speak um is he are they kind of enjoying this humiliation ritual or or are they actually upset

00:12:44.120 like what happened to my party well i think most of them are already gone that's what that was

00:12:48.040 happened here is that jagmeet singh and so on and this party is atrophied and it's shrunken and and

00:12:53.720 it's gotten smaller and what we saw was a display of what the husk of it is you know that the

00:12:58.280 pragmatic labor types have moved on or at least they won't show up for these meetings they've 1.00

00:13:03.080 allowed the fringe to dominate now i mean they're down to they're just a fringe party in the house

00:13:08.520 of commons and you know we we know from even established parties if you've got a small room

00:13:14.520 the nuts can take the committee pretty fast and that's what happened and somebody referred to

00:13:19.000 it as the victimhood olympics you know because they had a point system you know you started

00:13:23.800 it that straight white man okay you're down at zero and everything you can come up with whether

00:13:27.960 it's a handicap or a racial or sexual identity and you just added all those points until you

00:13:35.080 got to jump the line i mean it was absurdity so how does the the last of the stalwart

00:13:40.760 ndp members feel about this i don't know you've got you've got your green card you've got your

00:13:46.360 yellow card you've got your white card there still needs the guys with the credit card yeah

00:13:52.920 and that's the old school that you're talking about now i you know this was hilarious in a sad

00:13:58.760 kind of way and of course you have to remember we've got people who think like that and do that

00:14:04.280 kind of thing and speak like that right here in alberta as well so you know we can we can't afford

00:14:10.040 to be too too snooty about it but you know um most people don't take that much notice of politics

00:14:18.440 when it's not an election on this will be over and done with in a day or two everybody had a

00:14:24.840 good laugh meanwhile your new leader he'll make his presence felt in the in the commons no he won't

00:14:31.240 Well, he's got to get a seat.

00:14:34.140 He's not going to run for one.

00:14:35.300 There's no real seats available.

00:14:36.460 It's safe to win.

00:14:37.440 But, you know, he's going to have his say.

00:14:41.220 And when the election does come around, remember there are 3 million people who normally vote NDP.

00:14:48.500 That's the pattern over the last several elections.

00:14:51.900 Only 1.25 million voted for Jagmeet Singh.

00:14:56.600 There's going to be a bounce back up.

00:14:58.620 And it's going to come from people to whom all of what we are talking about meant nothing.

00:15:05.020 They were born NDP, they will die NDP, they will vote NDP.

00:15:09.840 And it's going to be interesting to see what that, you know, when one and a half million people come back to the NDP at the next election, which I think they will.

00:15:20.000 What difference does that make to the outcome?

00:15:22.340 You don't think there could be a 1.25 million leave?

00:15:25.880 I mean, if you look at the auto workers.

00:15:27.440 Well, they should, but no.

00:15:29.480 The auto worker whose dad was a member of the union in Windsor, and you're a member of the union, and you've always been an NDPer, and you're looking at this. 0.56

00:15:39.840 Well, it's an interesting point, because when the Reform Party got started, there was a lot of people who walked over from the NDP to join the people who they would never have thought they would ever have any agreement with, and the Reform Party was born.

00:15:51.320 Well, this is a broader trend across the whole Western world right now where traditional Labour versus Labour versus Bourgeois party politics of Europe have faded down.

00:16:04.740 It was never as strong in the United States and Canada as it was in Europe, but it's breaking down even in Europe where social democratic parties have lost basic blue collar unionized support.

00:16:16.000 It's now much more cultural. People vote along the lines of how do you feel about mass migration?

00:16:21.320 much more than they feel about, you know, what do you

00:16:23.220 think, you know, policy

00:16:25.400 should be on open versus closed

00:16:27.260 shop for unions. Like, that's

00:16:29.180 happening everywhere. I think this is just accelerating

00:16:31.320 though, the NDP. So this is a good

00:16:33.220 way for us, I think, to pivot into

00:16:34.560 the party more broadly under the

00:16:37.140 direction of Abby Lewis. So Abby

00:16:39.060 Lewis, I mean,

00:16:41.000 his predecessors, and he comes from NDP

00:16:43.000 aristocracy. His 0.93

00:16:45.020 grandfather...

00:16:46.960 Just died, I believe.

00:16:48.260 No, his grandfather was already dead.

00:16:50.300 His grandfather was the leader, I believe, of something called the Waffle, which was a radical Marxist and Trotskyite faction within the federal NDP.

00:17:00.860 It was eventually kind of purged as it was trying to not be seen as too tied to the Soviet Union.

00:17:06.760 Or it was by purge.

00:17:07.720 It was kind of pushed down, suppressed.

00:17:10.880 His father, Stephen Lewis, he was leader of the federal NDP and leader of the NDP in Ontario.

00:17:17.680 so he comes from NDP aristocracy

00:17:21.260 I mean just as a family thing

00:17:22.620 probably was nice for his father

00:17:24.680 if he was cogent at the time

00:17:26.840 I don't know what his last days were like

00:17:28.440 but it's good to see your son go on to succeed

00:17:31.340 so within the family

00:17:32.280 that's nice

00:17:33.820 so he comes from NDP aristocracy

00:17:36.520 he's married to Naomi Klein

00:17:38.100 who is also very well regarded

00:17:40.860 in the radical left in Canada

00:17:42.160 I'm

00:17:44.500 always hesitant to

00:17:46.440 tell the left what's good for the left.

00:17:48.980 The way I see

00:17:49.700 Gary Mason

00:17:52.860 of the Globe and Mail in Vancouver

00:17:54.400 likes to say, tell Albertans what's good for

00:17:56.620 Alberta.

00:17:58.380 Or you see lefties always say,

00:18:02.640 oh, if the Conservatives have this leader,

00:18:04.780 they're going to be too right-wing and they'll never get

00:18:06.520 elected or something.

00:18:08.200 They all said that about Danielle Smith.

00:18:11.940 So

00:18:12.460 I'm always hesitant of leftist advice

00:18:14.840 for rightists so i'm cautious of committing the same sin in reverse what do i think the left 0.64

00:18:21.220 should do i think there is a market for the crazy left um but he is without a doubt the most radical

00:18:28.280 leftist to ever lead the ndp i don't think he would deny that characterization i i think he's

00:18:35.500 quite i'm not sure if it's openly or not but he's he's a trotskyite essentially which

00:18:39.320 And Trotsky's big thing was that Stalin was too right-wing.

00:18:44.760 That's kind of, that was kind of what we say, when we say Trotskyism, we're talking about the schism that developed within the extreme left between Stalinism and Trotskyism.

00:18:54.020 Of course, Trotsky says, and I would have been nicer, I wouldn't have murdered all those people.

00:18:57.920 Too bad he led the Cheka, and, oh no, he didn't lead the Cheka, he led the Red Army and murdered hundreds of thousands or millions of people himself. 0.91

00:19:04.880 I think, you know, a bit of historical digression, but yeah, he comes from a Trotskyite position that thought Stalin was too conservative.

00:19:16.680 I'll put it to you, Nigel.

00:19:18.220 Is there a market for this in Canada in 2026?

00:19:21.740 Not seriously.

00:19:22.360 Not to win, but to have a presence in Parliament.

00:19:24.860 Well, people will be like, there are the kind of crazy pinker people out there that we saw. 1.00

00:19:32.460 They will be, the spotlight will not be on them.

00:19:37.120 The party will take its case to the people and saying that Mr. Carney has betrayed the Green Movement,

00:19:46.580 that we need less oil and more solar power.

00:19:50.780 They'll say all those things.

00:19:51.860 they'll say they're in solidarity with the palestinians which is kind of odd given that

00:19:56.560 i believe the family the lewis family is jewish isn't it well i want to talk about that that is

00:20:02.280 a weird thing that also comes back to trotskyism but uh we'll go down that path a little bit yeah

00:20:08.360 yeah but anyway that no i mean these people know how to know how to run an election campaign

00:20:13.140 now they've got people out of the way who don't and like everything else they'll play out their

00:20:17.720 strengths and certain people will be told to just sit still and be quiet over there don't rock the

00:20:22.560 boat you'll get your you'll get what you want but let the big people who know how to do politics

00:20:28.060 win this election or win the seats and that's that's what they have is the possibility to take

00:20:34.220 power away from mr carney mr carney's right sitting on the edge of a of a majority with the

00:20:40.700 next three by-elections are supposed to go his way um they have the power to take that away from him

00:20:47.240 when it's that thin.

00:20:49.740 A couple of seats are hanging on less than 300 votes.

00:20:52.700 Dave, what Jagmeet Singh would say,

00:20:56.960 when I am Prime Minister, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

00:20:59.540 and everyone would laugh. 0.95

00:21:00.600 It was so self-evidently ridiculous. 0.57

00:21:04.700 But we'd humour him in that, like, well, you know, 0.81

00:21:07.200 they've got a respectable chunk of seats in Parliament

00:21:10.300 and they build some power.

00:21:11.140 He's not going to be Prime Minister, but, like, he says it, whatever.

00:21:15.040 The NDP briefly contested for power, sort of, before Jack Layton died and early Thomas Mulcair.

00:21:21.040 They were the up-and-coming party that could challenge the Conservatives in a two-party system.

00:21:26.960 I think this is the NDP explicitly just adopting its more traditional role of,

00:21:33.540 we're not contending for power, we're a conscience of Parliament,

00:21:37.160 and we are going to move the Overton window far to the left, create space,

00:21:41.200 and try to drag the Liberals there when they don't adopt our policies. 0.99

00:21:44.760 we create a political price for them to pay.

00:21:47.880 That is a perfectly respectable thing to do

00:21:50.280 on the left and the right in different circumstances.

00:21:53.800 It's very often done, the Green Party does it.

00:21:57.080 The Green Party doesn't make claims to run for power,

00:21:59.080 but they make claims to try to change the conversation,

00:22:02.020 move things in their direction.

00:22:04.260 I think this is the NDP explicitly saying

00:22:06.800 we have no interest in actually governing anymore.

00:22:09.680 We don't even want, we saw how disastrous

00:22:11.360 the de facto coalition was with J.B. Singh.

00:22:13.440 Jake Mead Singh was too moderate. We had to give up too much to get those kinds of things done.

00:22:17.500 But we are going to try to radicalize the conversation here and try to win in metapolitics and not worry about trying to win too many seats and certainly not worry about trying to win government anymore.

00:22:29.580 That's what I think. That's the big message, I think, that the NDP is explicitly making that decision right now.

00:22:35.000 You may be or you may be reduced to a rump party and end up just having one or two seats next to Elizabeth May.

00:22:41.340 well they're already essentially and having no no influence whatsoever

00:22:44.880 their big problem right now is is money right they got to find as nigel says they got to find 0.92

00:22:51.280 some money men who are willing to put up uh big bucks to help them you know get some money in the

00:22:56.860 bank massive yeah yeah massive massive but this could this could uh by going really hardcore here

00:23:03.000 you could get some lefties who have you know some of them have jobs they you know they're white

00:23:07.760 colored unionized government employees and professors by going this radical you might

00:23:12.480 convince the faculty lounge at whatever ryerson university is called now to open up their wallets

00:23:18.240 this could help them financially yeah maybe i mean uh lewis family himself is worth 28 million

00:23:24.480 according to reports that would take a good chunk they didn't get that rich by giving it over the

00:23:29.680 party no no there's donation caps there's there's some moderate workarounds that you know i'm going

00:23:37.120 I'm going to give the donation cap, maximum donation limit.

00:23:39.920 My wife will, my children's. 0.86

00:23:41.960 But, you know, you can't come in and just lay down millions of dollars.

00:23:46.600 It doesn't really.

00:23:47.180 You could put up a secure line of credit for the party to keep it afloat.

00:23:51.200 Private wealth can do that.

00:23:52.500 It's already happening, actually.

00:23:54.060 Yeah, that kind of thing can happen.

00:23:56.960 But, you know, you can't come in and just buy your way like that.

00:24:00.300 Super straightforward anymore.

00:24:01.500 When you are positioning yourself to the left of Elizabeth May,

00:24:05.040 a lot of most people most sane canadians will not take you seriously uh you're right about some

00:24:12.880 university professors and uh and uh some of the uh david suzuki's of the world but for for most

00:24:20.060 people no um i would think for most ndp voters no uh most i don't think most people joined the ndp

00:24:28.960 five six years ago for it to be run by the freaks that are running it today right now as i see

00:24:34.540 For me, the question is, where does the NDP vote go to?

00:24:38.800 Do they go to the Liberals or does it go to the Tories?

00:24:42.000 Oh, you see there, Dave, that's where I think we're on slightly different tracks.

00:24:46.120 I think that the NDP will play down the freaks when it gets close to an election.

00:24:52.940 They won't be seen.

00:24:53.960 They won't be heard.

00:24:55.420 And they'll play on the old sentiment of, you know, we're the revolutionary left-wing party.

00:25:01.040 But the Tories and the Liberals can just put out what their policies are.

00:25:05.420 They will.

00:25:06.040 And that's, you know, we don't want any more.

00:25:08.280 I think he's going to run as an, to his credit, I think he's going to run as a radical leftist.

00:25:14.300 The guy.

00:25:14.880 He's come over the gate saying he wants to nationalize grocery stores, nationalize housing construction, nationalize.

00:25:20.480 Like he's gone way and beyond.

00:25:22.480 I think he's in on this.

00:25:23.620 I don't think he's going to back way too much.

00:25:25.440 Temper it a bit, but he certainly is not starting to.

00:25:27.560 No, he's won the leadership even.

00:25:29.000 He's.

00:25:29.660 Yeah.

00:25:29.880 Well, you know, it's interesting, Corey, because Mandani won on that platform in New York.

00:25:34.620 So maybe there's a nut buyer in Canadians who have bought the free groceries. 0.89

00:25:40.120 21 out of 23 council members in Toronto voted to have government-run grocery stores, as ridiculous as it is. 0.83

00:25:47.040 So it's true, Nigel, there is a constituency for it.

00:25:49.580 If you can concentrate them, you can win some seats.

00:25:52.580 So, Nigel brought this up.

00:25:54.880 What do you guys take on this?

00:25:56.660 It's a difficult and very complicated subject.

00:25:59.880 But his ancestry is curious in this case. He's Jewish. He's married to a Jewish woman. So obviously, he keeps his Jewish identity. But he's a secular Jewish person. I'm not sure if he's atheist or not, but he's certainly not orthodox.

00:26:18.580 And he is explicitly, and in very no uncertain terms, anti-Zionist. He was asked about this at a press conference just the other day. And he says he comes from a long line of anti-Zionist Jews.

00:26:37.760 He was a part of the Bund, which was kind of a Jewish communist group in the former, what became the Soviet Union, pre-revolutionary Russia before 1917.

00:26:51.680 And I mean, I think that's a head scratcher to a lot of people that he would be not just not a Zionist himself, but explicitly anti-Zionist.

00:27:00.740 I don't understand it terribly well, but I mean, there is a tradition on the radical left of that, like Trotsky.

00:27:07.760 think this guy is a Trotskyite. Trotsky was Jewish, and he came from the radical radical left

00:27:14.480 in the Bolshevik party, and he was anti-Zionist. And so there was kind of historically, if we're

00:27:22.640 going back over 100 years here, 100 years, 100 years plus, conflict within the community about

00:27:29.120 where you're going to be nationalist, so a Jewish nationalist being a Zionist, or internationalist

00:27:33.920 being the extreme communists and so I think that's that's the best sense I

00:27:41.120 can make of it as he comes from the other tradition and it's the minority

00:27:43.640 tradition certainly within the Jewish population today but it is a

00:27:49.580 tradition that that I think he comes from and and he says his father and his

00:27:54.200 grandfather always come from I don't think that we need to be too puzzled

00:27:57.360 about that Derek I mean we tend to think of the Jewish people as being united by

00:28:03.260 their sufferings and therefore all thinking the same thing but they don't and there are some who

00:28:09.580 will cheerfully sell out their you know their race if you want to put it that way for their own

00:28:14.700 advantage here we have one uh it's not a surprise to me because there are lots of people who look

00:28:22.780 like you and i who sell out people like us all the time well it's much more common among white 0.90

00:28:30.540 there's a number of different sects like there's a messianic jewish congregation that believes

00:28:38.140 actually they've created this hybrid of believing in jesus being the messiah yet claiming to still

00:28:43.740 be jewish they've got a church down west calgary although they would be ethnically jewish but

00:28:48.140 religiously exactly but they deviate from the the other things i mean part of it too with the

00:28:54.140 israel connection it's a pretty good indication there's going to be some secularism going on

00:28:58.860 Because those who are the true believers believe that they have to be in possession of the Temple Mount for the coming of the Messiah. 0.83

00:29:04.660 That's a lot of where that tie comes.

00:29:06.060 Well, that's another one subsect.

00:29:09.260 And then you get some Orthodox Jews within New York who oppose the Zionist cause.

00:29:14.740 And that's more, I think, on an idealized thing that they feel it's going to come with.

00:29:21.040 The Messiah must come first, before. 0.99

00:29:23.220 So, I mean, it's all over the map.

00:29:24.640 But the bottom line is, as far as ideologies go, his extreme socialist ideology has overwhelmed any of the Jewish identity when it comes to the Zionism part.

00:29:34.420 In a lot of the debates online and as vitriolic as they get, I certainly wade into them on X, you know, because I really take pleasure in the nuanced discussion I get.

00:29:42.320 And some of the lunatics who really come after me on that one, though, you'll see they have the Palestine Plague and a shocking amount, honestly shocking, of the hammer and sickle. 0.97

00:29:50.880 Like, there's a battle going on, too.

00:29:52.880 There really is some people trying to make a resurgence,

00:29:54.540 not just of communism, but of Sovietism.

00:29:57.420 And they're tied into that whole Palestinian thing.

00:30:01.400 And I don't fully comprehend why,

00:30:03.740 because I don't see how a new Soviet system

00:30:08.480 is going to help the Middle Eastern countries.

00:30:10.360 But there's a lot of bizarro stuff going on.

00:30:11.920 All I can say is, look what happened to Trotsky.

00:30:14.800 Yeah, didn't end well.

00:30:15.980 Yeah.

00:30:16.640 Dave, I feel kind of like we're crawling around,

00:30:18.980 feeling our way through an unlit cave in this discussion of that it's it's it's it's an odd

00:30:24.900 one and i i don't fully understand it um but i don't think it'd be fair to call him an anti-semite

00:30:33.540 he is a radical anti-zionist like hard he is a hardline anti-zionist but i don't think it's not 0.98

00:30:40.940 plausible i'm not sure he is self-hating because there is a maybe he is maybe he's not i don't it's

00:30:47.780 all blurry. I can't see into this man's

00:30:50.040 heart, but he does come from a tradition that's

00:30:52.000 like this, within secular

00:30:53.980 Jewish community.

00:30:57.520 You know, because

00:30:57.900 are a lot of

00:30:59.600 anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic? Yes, but not

00:31:02.000 all.

00:31:03.820 There's different groups. I mean, I haven't seen

00:31:05.460 Lewis trying to soft sell or apologize,

00:31:07.960 and hopefully that doesn't happen. Say, for the ones who've been

00:31:09.760 targeting a Jewish community repeatedly

00:31:11.780 in Toronto. That's anti-Semitic.

00:31:13.500 Are anti-Jew. That is.

00:31:15.580 But there are other people who are just critical of the

00:31:17.680 concept of Israel at all together,

00:31:19.660 not necessarily the Jew aspect. It's very hard

00:31:21.740 to untangle those two things, but that is where they're

00:31:23.600 coming from. I think, I'm

00:31:25.740 going to guess that Lewis is landing more

00:31:27.680 there. I haven't seen it. But again, the interesting thing,

00:31:29.720 I mean, the only one and only flag waving on the stage

00:31:31.780 when he did the big money shot at the

00:31:33.680 end of the convention was a Palestinian

00:31:35.560 flag. No Canadian flags, no Manitoba

00:31:37.620 flags, no, not even a trans flag, 0.88

00:31:40.160 just a Palestinian. Well, 1.00

00:31:41.560 okay, so that is the most baffling part of

00:31:43.700 all that I just don't

00:31:45.580 get. Like,

00:31:47.120 why why like why would you have okay i guess you guys like palestine good for you you like trans

00:31:55.220 but you didn't have the fan they didn't have a canadian flag

00:31:58.200 does anyone want to attempt to that i know we're really deep into the dark cave at this point

00:32:05.760 you know we're trying to get inside their minds and i'm sure we're not doing a great job

00:32:10.700 crazy place to get it it's a terrifying dark cave any idea of why they would choose to have a

00:32:16.240 only palestinian flag on a stage and not even a canadian flag not even alongside it just a way

00:32:23.120 of giving the finger to everybody who doesn't agree with them don't forget you've got a most

00:32:27.000 disagreeable bunch of people there we were talking earlier about the there they were with their cards

00:32:32.940 and their pink hair and their shrapnel in their ears and so forth well they're by their appearance

00:32:41.100 And by the positions they take, they're just saying, 0.79

00:32:44.100 screw you to the rest of Canada.

00:32:45.620 Well, they don't care about electability. 0.86

00:32:47.100 And I mean, maybe he's saying the same thing.

00:32:50.200 Do we think they did it deliberately or do we think they were just an organ?

00:32:53.540 Those things are stage organ. 0.99

00:32:54.700 Those are stage managed events.

00:32:55.880 You're careful about who brings which flag onto a stage for a shot like that.

00:32:59.180 And I mean, the conservatives, you know,

00:33:00.980 Polly was typically, and Shu and others,

00:33:04.020 but pretty supportive of Israel and so on.

00:33:06.020 But you know darn well they're not going to have a conservative event

00:33:08.640 where one flag in the background is the Star of David 0.94

00:33:10.640 waving around there, that would be ridiculous

00:33:12.540 as you're pigeonholing and causing division 0.95

00:33:14.320 you don't need to embrace.

00:33:16.620 These guys chose to.

00:33:17.940 The Conservatives would be rightfully ripped

00:33:19.700 if they had any foreign flag on stage

00:33:22.460 besides...

00:33:24.020 If it's alongside the Canadian flag,

00:33:27.280 even that's a bit weird

00:33:28.340 if you're supposed to be the Canadian party,

00:33:30.500 but you have only one, and it's a foreign

00:33:32.680 flag.

00:33:33.600 This question of whether it exists or not.

00:33:38.640 I don't understand.

00:33:40.180 We need a translator.

00:33:41.100 I don't think we're going to.

00:33:42.040 This is the wrong room to try and get into the mind of NDP.

00:33:44.800 We need to talk to some left.

00:33:46.420 They don't talk to me.

00:33:47.300 They throw stuff at me.

00:33:48.520 I like talking to them.

00:33:49.860 I mean, it's crazy, but sometimes it's a bit more interesting just talking to you guys who are mostly sane.

00:33:55.760 Okay.

00:33:57.440 Mostly sane.

00:33:58.480 Well, let's face it.

00:33:59.460 We have seen a lot of our own kind betray us.

00:34:02.840 This man is a Jew, but he's not taking the Jewish part.

00:34:06.720 I'm not sure

00:34:09.060 I think he sees it

00:34:10.500 probably just as a different tradition

00:34:12.960 it's like a different way of doing it

00:34:14.920 as they would see it

00:34:16.560 well what would be the it

00:34:18.480 then

00:34:19.020 I mean

00:34:20.440 what does success look like for him

00:34:24.700 having taken that position

00:34:26.140 world communism

00:34:27.060 that's what I mean, that's where you get to the bottom

00:34:29.780 starting in Winnipeg

00:34:32.080 yes

00:34:33.160 yeah

00:34:35.620 Okay.

00:34:38.080 Okay.

00:34:38.700 Anyway, that's...

00:34:40.380 I'm not polishing the turd.

00:34:42.540 We're trying to dissect the turd here. 0.79

00:34:44.460 Anyway, I guess when the segment's called

00:34:46.400 NDP Go Full Retard, it's difficult 1.00

00:34:48.500 for us to empathize.

00:34:51.400 We've done our best.

00:34:53.460 Okay.

00:34:54.640 Alberta goes full

00:34:56.480 independence.

00:34:58.780 So, Corey,

00:35:00.600 the Alberta Prosperity Project

00:35:02.640 says that it has reached

00:35:04.320 177,000 signature threshold. They're obviously going to try to get more than that because some

00:35:09.100 signatures will get disqualified for different reasons. There was one setup, you know, I live

00:35:15.200 out in the county. There was a new location set up just on the side of Township Road I was driving

00:35:20.520 home to yesterday and I stopped by and chatted with them. So they're still going strong at this,

00:35:26.080 but it seems extremely likely now they're going to get the signatures and we're going to be having

00:35:31.700 a referendum alongside nine other questions on referenda uh in october yeah and uh yes day free

00:35:38.900 alberta they they did their thing i i'm a little perplexed as to why i mean if if there was a

00:35:44.340 successful petitioning thing to give a little credit where it's due you know lukasic didn't

00:35:49.860 let a peep about his numbers out until the very end and then floored everybody with a massive

00:35:54.260 number and that way he kept his volunteers constantly pushing and going and going yeah

00:35:58.900 this is not a good idea i know that stay free albert is saying but don't stop guys keep going

00:36:03.060 we need to make an example look these are volunteers who have been sitting out on cold

00:36:08.020 highways they've been getting the finger from people they've been taking time out of their

00:36:12.260 lives and some will continue to do so but that's hard work and it's going to be a little harder

00:36:16.900 when the weather's bad you get up in the morning geez do i want to go set up at a table outside

00:36:20.580 or go knocking on doors or maybe i should you know clean the bathroom or something it's going

00:36:25.380 going to slow down the collection but they were feeling some pressure i mean it seemed like every

00:36:29.620 week another story was coming out saying that they're not going to make it uh and it's freaking

00:36:33.660 people out and freaking supporters there was another one saying oh that was hitting headlines

00:36:37.020 just two days ago oh there's problems with rural addresses and they might not make the bar and i

00:36:41.420 think they were getting frustrated with that and just wanted to say look we're getting it done

00:36:44.240 and then there's that potential injunction coming on the south which isn't stopping a referendum

00:36:50.340 it's stopping the petitioning which is really bizarre and I for most legal people I've talked

00:36:55.380 to that you can never predict a judge saying it's really it's junk it's not going to go through

00:36:59.460 but they're feeling well we want to establish we crossed the line there's going to be a referendum

00:37:04.660 injunction and no referendum we did what we had to do and they'll have that moral ability to push

00:37:09.140 for one this fall so I think that's the rationale on releasing that but it's clear there's going to

00:37:14.100 be a referendum this fall people have better accept that and move on to the campaign mode now

00:37:17.940 um yeah and so campaign mode is i think where this they need to start start thinking about

00:37:25.460 things um jason kenney is i guess positioned himself as the de facto leader of the federalist

00:37:32.060 side which is wonderful um but he's got the easier job you know they're they've got the

00:37:37.600 high ground here uh he's defending high ground um but i i think this is trying to position himself to

00:37:43.980 take Kierpolyev's job

00:37:46.320 if Kierpolyev loses the next election.

00:37:48.160 I think that's what he's trying to position himself for.

00:37:50.500 He probably won't get much support in Alberta

00:37:52.360 when that happens, but he could say to the rest of Canada,

00:37:54.880 I kept Alberta

00:37:56.220 in Canada.

00:37:58.480 The pro-independence side,

00:38:00.620 though, that's got no

00:38:02.680 clear leader at all.

00:38:05.640 You know, there's a number

00:38:06.660 of names around.

00:38:09.360 I know

00:38:10.040 Kenny's going to be debating with Keith Wilson

00:38:12.540 of the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:38:15.280 He's a pretty well-spoken guy.

00:38:18.240 But, Dave, there does not appear to be any real major figure yet

00:38:23.660 on the independent side.

00:38:25.580 And to me, that looks like that is the single biggest thing

00:38:29.260 that's got to get fixed.

00:38:30.320 Absolutely.

00:38:30.940 But they seem quite happy at the moment.

00:38:33.180 We talked to Mitch Sylvester yesterday.

00:38:35.800 He's one of the leaders.

00:38:37.460 He says, look, we've gotten this far.

00:38:40.420 We've got several leaders.

00:38:42.540 and he named jeff rath is one of our leaders and uh but he doesn't want to be a politician uh you

00:38:48.620 know i don't want to be a politician so he's quite happy to let things grow from from the ground

00:38:54.220 level up uh so i i don't i i'm like you during i i think that they need to have somebody they need

00:39:01.420 to have somebody in place quick if they want any any chance of winning this thing uh but they don't

00:39:08.300 seem to be in any rush to appoint a leader uh unless they're keeping something up their sleeve

00:39:14.140 well i know when nigel one of the things you know alberta prosperity project says is well you know

00:39:20.700 this is non-partisan it's decentralized you know corey and i've been around this movement a long

00:39:26.700 time we know that by its very nature the movement attracts very independent-minded people that

00:39:33.420 sometimes have a hard time working together so it might be very difficult for you to get literally

00:39:37.740 everyone else to stand down, essentially

00:39:39.780 become lieutenants, and have

00:39:41.740 one guy up front, and everybody agree to

00:39:43.800 do that. A lot of that

00:39:45.600 is being independent-minded.

00:39:48.140 Some of it, no one will admit it,

00:39:49.840 but some of it is going to be ego.

00:39:53.000 So, I don't know.

00:39:53.720 Is this just, is it just kind of

00:39:55.720 an excuse? The reason we have no leaders is because

00:39:57.800 everyone's a leader, and it's organic, and

00:39:59.740 everyone goes out.

00:40:02.880 Is that

00:40:03.460 legitimate, or do you think it's,

00:40:05.020 I see it as a bit of an excuse for the independent side not able to organize itself appropriately for even a short-term campaign like this.

00:40:14.120 Well, no disrespects to any of the people who've worked very hard on this project, but nobody has actually, by their words and actions, distinguished themselves as the leader.

00:40:26.100 It ought to be pretty obvious by now who the guy is.

00:40:29.820 Well, it would be a guy.

00:40:31.740 But it's not just

00:40:34.720 It's not obvious

00:40:37.800 From the words and actions so far

00:40:40.740 So I think what you're going to get

00:40:43.680 Is assuming everything goes according to plan

00:40:47.640 You will get a referendum

00:40:48.840 It doesn't have to be in October

00:40:51.180 There's a number of things that could delay it

00:40:54.600 Including the legislature itself

00:40:56.640 That could schedule it later than October

00:40:58.540 or the legislature is within the legislature's gift to amend the question or just defeat the

00:41:04.220 bill there is actually no legal requirement for it to go ahead even if they get the signatures

00:41:10.380 so there's a lot of things that could interrupt the flow of this thing but until somebody comes

00:41:15.740 along who actually has the credo and the clout to challenge the federal government personally

00:41:22.140 and thereby draw to himself or herself all the bad words

00:41:30.720 that make other people want to rally around them and help them.

00:41:34.400 We've not got our Sam Adams.

00:41:36.640 We've not got our George Washington.

00:41:38.560 We've not got the people who you're going to send to the Constitutional Convention

00:41:43.800 to write the new book for Alberta.

00:41:47.520 So it doesn't mean it won't happen.

00:41:49.880 it just may take a little longer than the

00:41:52.560 enthusiasts of hope. The thing is

00:41:54.560 they have the signatures. They know

00:41:56.660 that there is the feeling there.

00:41:58.640 Well, we don't have our Washington.

00:42:00.520 We don't have our Jefferson, but

00:42:02.160 some of us can fashion ourselves

00:42:04.640 at least the Thomas Paine writing our

00:42:06.780 pamphlets trying to spread

00:42:08.700 the news. Somebody has to inform the Washingtons.

00:42:11.280 René Levesque could be something

00:42:12.560 they could use. Yeah. Okay.

00:42:14.400 We're out of time. I don't even

00:42:16.540 get a party shot. We have such little time. So we're going to go

00:42:18.540 quick firing line of parting shots starting with nigel all right so my my thing is about air canada 0.96

00:42:24.700 you know they'll they'll reroute you they'll start you early in the morning and deliver you

00:42:30.060 late at night they'll lose your bags they will cancel the flight that you booked and put you on

00:42:36.300 at a time and then that you don't want to go and then as for the flight itself sometimes it goes

00:42:42.940 well and sometimes it's exciting none of that matters life goes on but when the chairman of

00:42:49.420 air canada gets up and delivers his heartfelt condolences for the two pilots who were killed

00:42:55.500 in new york in that accident and he only does it in english well then the bloody roof comes down

00:43:01.660 and oh well this can't be tolerated you're down the road and we're going to get somebody who can

00:43:05.900 speak both languages that's the problem you know like this is the problem i see in so many areas

00:43:11.980 of our life is that people are focused on the wrong things and that's just a beautiful

00:43:17.260 example and he was effectively fired by parliament the committee voted to recommend he be fired he

00:43:23.500 was essentially forced to retire and it wasn't just the liberals and the bloc it was the

00:43:27.980 conservatives too yeah well we got shame on the concha you know we've got it we've got to start

00:43:32.700 focusing what it is that matters to make this country work yeah corey i'll go quick i just

00:43:37.420 think since the condolences weren't properly delivered in french we should have the highest

00:43:41.340 office in the land do so and our governor general should give those condolences in an extended

00:43:45.340 french speech that's cruel you mean hey have corporate heads got to speak french shouldn't

00:43:53.460 our governor general douchey dave uh the good ward good lord willing uh the uh manned mission

00:44:01.900 to the moon is underway as we speak uh for the first time in half a century uh godspeed artemis

00:44:08.360 too amen it's fake they're filming it in northern ontario all right nigel cory dave thank you

00:44:18.040 thank you john on production and all of you who joined us today and are supporting our work

00:44:23.800 uh go to western standard dot news click on subscribe it's only ten dollars a month or

00:44:27.500 a hundred dollars a year to get unlimited access to all western standard content and

00:44:31.460 support the work that we are doing thank you very much and godspeed

00:44:38.360 We'll see you next time.

Western Standard - April 02, 2026

The NDP convention goes off the rails as Alberta independence hits 177,000 signatures

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