Western Standard - The Pipeline： 3 Liberals Debate in BC

00:00:00.000 welcome to this edition of the pipeline i'm cory morgan digital editor columnist

00:00:07.940 ranter i'm sitting with our publisher derek phildebrand and we've got our news editor the

00:00:14.300 man who's just been pumping out all those fantastic stories dave naylor who's dialing in

00:00:18.600 morning gentlemen we got a few things to cover uh we had a live feed last night of the bc debates

00:00:25.140 in their provincial election derek ran that and we'll have some things to say on it uh the world

00:00:31.140 certainly all stirred up with the proposed changes to how uh some services are going to be done with

00:00:36.260 the alberta health services or whether they're going to be in-house or outsourced uh there's a

00:00:41.060 the story of the day there today in alberta and we've got uh justin trudeau saying that the we

00:00:47.300 investigation is finished and done with uh that it's over we should just leave it behind us but

00:00:52.740 we should start perhaps derek with the bc debate last night that the western standard covered and

00:00:57.300 uh what conclusions you came to in your viewing there well there were uh officially the green

00:01:04.300 party leader the uh the bc ndp leader bc liberal leader um but uh taken together with the moderator

00:01:12.080 there really were four liberals uh in the debate uh just trying to see who could out left each other

00:01:19.200 it was quite quite extraordinary um you know i think john horgan probably came across the best he

00:01:25.420 was the only one who uh seemed confident in uh in his skin up there uh none of them really smiled

00:01:33.020 except for john horgan uh where he had kind of a cheshire shitty grin on his face at one point uh as

00:01:40.700 andrew wilkinson was talking about uh ending the complete government monopoly over auto insurance the icbc 0.74

00:01:47.160 uh over there but he um you know they're all very dour the green leader uh in particular sonia 1.00

00:01:54.800 uh really had just a scowl on her face the whole night so none of them came across very well i think

00:02:01.260 but uh i think i think horgan still probably came out on top but nothing definitive i don't think if

00:02:06.600 you're you know unless you're extremely unsure about how you're voting i don't think many minds were

00:02:12.180 changed last night um but it was quite extraordinary the degree to which there were

00:02:18.180 virtually unanimity on 95 of the issues between the three party leaders uh essentially opinions

00:02:25.600 ranging from the center left to the very hard left uh and the moderator herself she did a good job of 0.77

00:02:32.180 keeping order and control of the debate uh very much unlike you know the u.s presidential debate that we

00:02:38.100 uh that we saw but it was um she was uh an outright combatant in the debate uh to an extraordinary

00:02:46.100 degree she accused all three party leaders of white privilege she doesn't know these people she uh at

00:02:53.620 least that i'm aware of she uh doesn't know their backstories doesn't know if any of them have

00:02:58.500 you know uh perhaps not have uh been grown up with a silver spoon in their hand but she accused them

00:03:04.980 all of white privilege um and with no check on the premise uh premises there was uh you know just

00:03:13.300 she really kind of she said things that were not up for debate up for dispute and then put it out

00:03:20.500 there uh she even had you know the bc liberally the bc liberal party is a very funny creature there it's

00:03:27.060 essentially supposed to be a coalition of the anybody who's not a hardline socialist so it's sort of

00:03:32.740 middle of the road liberals hard hard left liberals in bc tend to vote ndp but essentially middle of the

00:03:38.500 road business liberals with conservatives uh you know i'm not a british colombian i lived there for

00:03:44.180 a year uh when i was there i was you know if i'm politically homeless in alberta boy i was sure

00:03:48.900 politically homeless in bc uh there is nothing to the right um i'd say you know the bc liberals are a

00:03:56.420 little bit to the right of justin trudeau um but anything like i'd say probably a majority of

00:04:01.620 people watching right now uh it really was a very weird debate to watch with a with remarkably low

00:04:08.660 level of any kind of ideological diversity so that's it's unfortunate i know the bc conservative

00:04:14.580 party has been struggling just to show some degree of relevance even or be seen on the scene uh they

00:04:19.940 weren't even invited to the debate i don't imagine they had enough candidates to be considered uh welcome

00:04:24.980 but i mean it's an unfortunate thing with an election that seems to be such uh kind of sliding

00:04:29.220 under the radar and a done deal when you aren't seeing some uh diversity and options for the

00:04:34.580 voters up there particularly during a debate so you know let's out left each other it's kind of

00:04:39.060 frightening but david you spent some quality time in bc a little while ago uh you saw the campaign to

00:04:43.460 be a little bit uh on the underwhelming side i guess uh or hard to even know what's going on

00:04:47.700 it was uh cory i was there for five weeks uh very little talk about it very few signs uh as i mentioned

00:04:57.300 earlier in my drive home from vancouver area i did not see one election sign all the way to calgary

00:05:03.540 uh i just don't think it's coming the election's coming at such a horrible time during a pandemic

00:05:09.220 people just want to get it over with and then try and get on dealing with kovat i think 0.96

00:05:13.620 yeah well i'm guessing horgan riding high in the polls taking advantage of that early election call

00:05:19.700 just wants to get it over with and renew his mandate and not have to uh answer to a green tail

00:05:24.340 wagging his uh ndp dog like it's been the last and he did take some heat as as you would expect uh

00:05:30.100 during the debate both the liberal leader and the green giving him hell for it but particularly the green

00:05:35.940 uh leader you know they had a deal with him uh there's not just a fixed election date in alberta that

00:05:42.180 you're presumably supposed to respect in some measure but they're also they also had a formal

00:05:47.140 agreement with the ndp that was supposed to last four years um i mean i guess that's politics uh

00:05:54.740 people will keep their word uh so long as it's convenient for them and as long as it's not once

00:05:59.700 it's not convenient anymore uh well then that's just too bad uh but you know horgan's argument for

00:06:05.540 the early election was uh you know it's never wrong to ask british columbians what they want

00:06:13.140 no one care parties don't care what people want other than just as much as the polls dictate what's

00:06:18.020 popular i mean uh it's pretty clear they've got high polls right now they're virtually guaranteed a

00:06:26.500 significant size majority government that's why they're doing it but i suppose it would be a bit

00:06:32.020 strange for someone to actually admit that so i guess turning into alberta here dave you've been

00:06:37.940 busy with a number of stories from different perspectives uh coming in on uh proposed changes

00:06:43.380 to uh where alberta health service is going to be sourcing some some of the services such as laundry

00:06:48.100 and uh food preparation and other uh items can you fill us in on that all sorts of controversy on it

00:06:56.020 cory on tuesday the ucp health minister tyler shandro announced the alberta health services plan they're

00:07:03.140 going to lay off 800 jobs none of them will be actual layoffs they'll all be through attrition

00:07:10.260 they will transfer 9700 jobs off the government payroll and to the private sector uh those will be

00:07:18.660 2 000 laboratory jobs 4 000 housekeeping jobs 400 laundry jobs and uh can't read my notes here uh 3 000 in

00:07:29.860 the in food services so the uh alberta unions have reacted with chalk and horror uh and are

00:07:39.220 i don't think it'll happen but there's even some rumblings of a general strike uh they say that these

00:07:44.500 layoffs are going to predominantly affect women because the vast majority of the workers that are 0.96

00:07:49.940 involved here are women but uh derek the unions are losing their minds well you know that's that's 0.99

00:07:57.060 a sign that the government's doing something right is when uh the alberta federation of labor and public

00:08:01.780 sector unions uh when their heads are exploding that means something's normally gone right uh i mean

00:08:07.700 this government has been remarkably timid on actually cutting any kind of cost particularly on

00:08:14.500 the uh you know the government employee side of the ledger which is where

00:08:19.300 three quarters of government spending goes is to paying government employees

00:08:22.820 uh you know i remember when i was uh finance critic for the ball of rose the uh you know we were

00:08:29.540 dumbfounded that the ndp would uh they spent they costed millions and millions of dollars to cancel

00:08:36.980 contracts with private uh private firms so that they could create a bunch of unionized government positions

00:08:42.980 uh for housekeeping and laundry in the in the healthcare system and so you know predictably

00:08:50.660 the ndp and the public sector unions afl there's they're saying uh not having government employee

00:08:58.340 official government employees cleaning uh the laundry and doing the housekeeping is now american style

00:09:04.980 privatized healthcare yeah i i don't really have a problem with that but that's not actually what's

00:09:11.140 happening what's happening is they don't have bureaucrats cleaning the laundry that's it and uh they're

00:09:18.580 lighting their hair on fire saying these are huge cuts and i and i really don't think a lot of the

00:09:22.660 mainstream media is helping with this they're they're labeling this as uh this is ahs layoffs and for

00:09:28.980 most people who just read the headline or the first two sentences of a story they're seeing this and

00:09:33.540 saying well that must mean uh thousands of doctors and nurses and people who actually do things in the

00:09:38.580 healthcare system are not to diminish that you need housekeeping whatnot but you know you don't need

00:09:43.620 to be a government employee to do these things but you know people who are actually delivering the

00:09:47.620 frontline healthcare a lot of people are mistaking that the ndp and the unions are obviously playing

00:09:52.180 into that that's you know i suppose that's just fair politics um but i don't think the government's

00:09:57.700 being aggressive enough in in fighting on this they're they're very timid and afraid of these unions i find

00:10:04.180 uh and i i think they would just be better to uh say fine the ndp's platform is to have a government

00:10:11.540 washing bed sheets uh you know government government jobs don't exist to keep people employed they

00:10:17.700 they exist to do jobs that the private sector and private society couldn't otherwise reasonably be

00:10:22.580 expected to do and if you if you don't think the private sector can wash the bed sheets then uh well

00:10:28.100 then that's your world view well and there's a lot of i think bad narrative going on with this like

00:10:33.540 for example they do keep talking about 11 000 jobs lost well wait a minute at worst they're shifting

00:10:38.340 i mean it's not like they're getting rid of these services they're just talking about somebody else

00:10:41.860 providing them now a private sector provider may be more efficient and it may indeed you know what used

00:10:46.660 to take 3 000 people to do the laundry might now be uh 2500 doing it but but it's still not a total wash

00:10:54.500 and loss of jobs if jobs are the only focus by the way a reminder we are live so people are welcome to

00:10:58.980 comment uh we can see those on the screen and we'll happily answer them uh see some folks lurking

00:11:03.620 in there you're welcome to speak up on it uh so that narrative annoys me when i see that coming out

00:11:09.700 but also just that assumption that yeah that somehow unionized government workers are going to do it

00:11:14.660 better or more efficiently than others uh you weren't here back in those times derek i i suspect dave might

00:11:21.060 have been with the days when the government ran the liquor stores so you had you know maybe a dozen

00:11:25.620 liquor stores and i was in kindergarten yeah okay they were uh open during banker's hours uh they

00:11:31.460 seemed to go on strike every couple of years uh the beer was only warm you couldn't get it cold

00:11:37.060 and uh it was just terrible and uh and you know the union screamed bloody murder when client privatized

00:11:43.540 them but you know who really actually wants to go back to that or auto registries you used to have

00:11:47.540 to take a day off work to go in and take a number and sit there to renew your driver's license with

00:11:52.580 some again if they weren't on strike that month uh very well compensated union government worker

00:11:58.420 the services from registries are no worse i mean these are things that clearly outside services can

00:12:03.940 provide with just as much quality uh so the end user isn't getting hooped it's not just a broad cut so

00:12:09.060 for dipping their toe in the water of health reform it's as you said they've been scared of the unions

00:12:14.180 so far it's pretty modern at least if this is uh health care reform just that the government

00:12:19.460 doesn't wash the sheets anymore uh with the government's still going to get your sheets

00:12:23.700 washed but not physically doing it itself that's pretty tepid stuff uh but this kind of comes back

00:12:29.380 to how the ucp i think is kind of getting the worst their strategy in communicating these things and and

00:12:35.380 in their actions kind of the worst of both worlds they dip their toe and get these guys lighting their

00:12:40.020 hair on fire then they don't actually go that far and do that much i mean at the end of the day

00:12:44.820 this is going to be a good thing but it's not going to revolutionize the health care system

00:12:48.500 it's just going to save a little bit of money so if they're going to piss these unions and the ndp

00:12:54.980 off anyway but then really piss them off get something done so you actually have something to

00:12:59.140 show for it at the end of four years it's a lot more you do i think one of the things that one of

00:13:03.300 the things that's not being talked about is ahs management they have 3 300 managers i'll say that

00:13:11.780 again 3 300 in management you can just imagine and i think i think they said 17 vice presidents

00:13:19.620 just a crazy number so but the government has said you've got to cut 100 100 out of 3 300

00:13:27.380 not exactly a drastic cut to management no and i would hope then maybe if they're outsourcing some

00:13:33.780 of these other services it would tell me that you need less managers to deal with that aspect of things

00:13:38.100 too so i think they could cut some fat in that department while they're at it 0.97

00:13:41.780 well why don't we move on sure we can move on to uh well the the we scandal the only thing that's

00:13:49.380 really been dogging the federal liberals i mean we had the trudeau show going all spring with his

00:13:53.620 morning uh addressed to us all uh which actually seemed to help him and he was really rising in

00:13:58.820 the polls i thought we might be in for a federal election this fall and the same opportunism as the

00:14:03.940 bc uh approach uh but then the we scandal broke and everything sort of hit the fan and fell apart and

00:14:10.900 some of the the sheen finally started uh washing off the the the prime minister blackface there and 0.86

00:14:17.380 he started dropping in the polls and so he cut a deal with the ndp and off we go but now that they've

00:14:22.740 prorogued parliament they've cut their deal it sounds like they're shutting down the committees and

00:14:27.060 trying to shut down any more talk or discussion on this and saying the case is closed but i think it's

00:14:31.460 anything but yeah prime minister prime minister trudeau held a press conference on uh tuesday

00:14:39.140 where he said uh in in effect yeah cases closed on the we we've been transparent we've released

00:14:45.380 thousands of pages of documents those are real quotes by the way people yeah we've been transparent

00:14:50.580 on the case is closed yeah these are these are real quotes these are not uh dave taking any liberty and

00:14:56.740 paraphrasing things these are real quotes from the prime minister yes we have been transparent and as

00:15:02.180 far as the liberals are concerned it's case closed on the we scandal trudeau said if the tories continued

00:15:08.500 to wanted to ask questions about it that's up to them but they were getting on with the job of

00:15:13.140 governing the country through a pandemic the liberals meanwhile are into their second week of filler

00:15:18.980 bustering uh trying to stop the tories from accessing more more documents uh i think they're trying to

00:15:26.420 get specific on how much money the trudeau family the close relatives of trudeau has made and i think

00:15:32.660 the current total is above 700 000 between his uh his mother and various siblings and uh his wife was

00:15:41.380 in there for a few thousand too so uh yeah trudeau may want it to go away i don't see the opposition

00:15:46.900 letting it go do you gory no and i don't think we're gonna let it go either uh this is a sick story

00:15:53.220 of self-serving corruption i mean it i think part of why it grabbed this much attention too though

00:15:58.180 was it showed that disconnect i mean trudeau is not an everyman he's a laurentian trust fund baby

00:16:04.420 who felt a sense of intelligence he really you could tell didn't understand even what they did wrong at

00:16:08.740 first he didn't get it well so i got mom a couple hundred grand you know so i got my brother 10 20 grand

00:16:13.700 that's what we do that's where we're trudeaus i mean they didn't understand that to people like us

00:16:18.500 who are struggling to pay our mortgages this is odious this is outrage and and and not just in

00:16:23.620 alberta so uh i think they finally realized how damaging it is now maybe not why but but then

00:16:29.300 they don't know how to put the lid back on the bottle yeah i mean it's been almost uh a kafka-esque

00:16:36.580 farce uh in in how far the liberals have gone to stop this uh so uh tori finance critic pierre

00:16:42.820 polliver or polyev however you want to slice that um he uh you know he was trying to bring forward a

00:16:50.260 motion to strike a special committee uh to investigate the weed corruption scandal and uh

00:16:58.180 wayne easter all these people are meeting remotely uh you know they're they're behind computers they're

00:17:02.980 not physically in a room together right now and uh wayne easter the liberal chair of the committee

00:17:08.500 uh literally just hit stop on the zoom meeting without a vote which is quite illegal and uh

00:17:15.140 unconstitutional uh for a committee meeting to end at least under those kinds of rules certain

00:17:21.140 committees have automatic drop dead times i used to try the public accounts committee and i remember

00:17:26.260 the ndp tried to stop us from investigating something once they brought forward a motion to stop us

00:17:31.540 and we filibustered until we ran out the clock and i said meeting's over and because it was automatic

00:17:36.180 that was the rules but in the rules of this particular committee the meeting only ends when

00:17:40.420 the committee votes to end the meeting otherwise it goes on forever and he just hit stop on on the zoom

00:17:46.580 and ended the meeting before there could be any kind of discussion or debate on uh having a special

00:17:52.340 uh anti-corruption committee so you know it has really just been a farce uh how far the liberals are

00:17:58.740 going to keep a lid on this but you know as bad as it is and it has softened them in the polls i

00:18:05.060 don't think it's going to soften them that much more at the end of the day uh you know people

00:18:11.140 support a party they assume that everything is corrupt everything is bad so as long as it's our

00:18:18.180 guys who cares i mean it's not like all liberals are going to stop voting liberal a couple of people

00:18:23.620 on the fence will peel left to the ndp couple people on the right will appeal appeal to the tories

00:18:29.700 but that's going to be about it i don't think you know unless there is a criminal charges which is

00:18:36.180 damn near impossible to prove in something like this uh unless there are criminal charges i don't

00:18:41.700 think this is going to bring the the government down but it certainly makes for a bad day yeah it's 0.95

00:18:49.140 a good day for us uh so uh speaking of uh stories and such have you got more coming here dave uh you're

00:18:56.100 working on this week well we've got the saskatchewan uh federal elect or not federal uh provincial election

00:19:03.700 debate uh that's happening tonight uh i think the three of us will be back on the screen uh for that

00:19:09.940 and uh we'll just keep plugging away whatever comes up we're going to uh cover it yeah tonight uh six

00:19:16.260 o'clock uh mountain time uh seven o'clock pacific we're gonna have a live broadcast of the saskatchewan

00:19:23.060 leaders debate uh that is the ndp and saskatchewan party leaders we're actually uh right now in

00:19:28.580 negotiations with the leaders of some of the smaller parties who were not invited to the leaders

00:19:32.820 debate potentially to have the western standard host uh the other leaders debate uh the second

00:19:38.660 tier if you will and uh we'll have more news on that hopefully soon but uh six o'clock tonight

00:19:43.540 mountain we're gonna have the saskatchewan leaders debate followed by uh uh kind of an analysis

00:19:48.740 breakdown by uh the three of us uh who are here dave and uh corey uh so we'll be carrying that live

00:19:56.900 and uh obviously we'll have more as we get to uh the actual election days of both british columbia

00:20:03.860 and saskatchewan uh before we go though i want to thank everyone who's donated to our crowdfunding campaign

00:20:11.540 uh to fund a poll we are um in the western standard uh semi-regularly we try to get um we hire uh an

00:20:20.900 independent pollster to uh to ask questions of westerners that are often ignored by the mainstream

00:20:27.620 media uh so we'll ask them more fair and balanced questions uh you know we'll ask we'll ask people

00:20:34.900 uh westerners about the independence question we ask them do you support independence or not we don't say

00:20:40.820 you know do you support separating from your beloved mother country you know we we ask fair

00:20:45.060 questions we have we want to ask about uh support for provincial police forces provincial pension

00:20:51.140 plans collecting our own taxes a lot of issues and also uh you know where parties sit in the polls and

00:20:58.020 we include most part you know you can't include the infinite list of like the animal alliance and

00:21:03.140 whatnot but we try to have a much longer list than the media will ask for when uh when we see polls

00:21:08.420 recently in the media with eight percent other uh that makes me scratch my head and say well who the

00:21:14.100 hell are the eight percent so we want to do polls and figure out who are those eight percent um so we're

00:21:19.700 uh right now we are trying to crowdsource to be able to afford this poll it's going to cost two thousand

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00:22:00.180 government media license uh i'll i'd rather see us go bankrupt before we uh become uh a licensed

00:22:07.940 media outlet with the approval of the government oh and by the way uh the western standard is not

00:22:12.660 on the cbc's list of approved uh trusted media cbc doesn't approve the cbc face the cbc officially

00:22:19.460 does not approve of the western standard although occasionally they do quote us when they're like

00:22:23.460 well what uh what do the crazy westerners think yeah let's i guess western standard is where you go to

00:22:27.620 find out well the cbc wouldn't know that's for sure uh just following up too and the part of why we do

00:22:32.340 this live though is we can get those comments and they'll be kind of fun during the debate tonight we

00:22:36.100 can chat while we go we've had a few people uh dan uh mason i'm probably slaughtering the french as we 0.76

00:22:42.100 always do but pointing out that it's funny that's the news yeah okay funny criminals don't get the

00:22:46.260 privilege of telling us when a case is closed yeah if you're in the right family uh you so you get to

00:22:53.380 say case closed not for your uh run-of-the-mill criminal and andrea kettle uh yeah who's on quite

00:22:58.100 regular ask you it's four eastern standard time for the uh saskatchewan debate i believe that would

00:23:02.180 be right uh because uh saskatchewan and alberta are on the same time for the next few weeks now we

00:23:07.220 are the same most of the year but every once in a while for half of the year we're an hour off yeah

00:23:11.620 yeah so but uh yeah if you're watching from the east as i'm i'm guessing that's why andrea is probably

00:23:16.660 i'm saying ontario okay if you're ontario uh it'll be 4 p.m uh eastern time um you can tune in uh it'll

00:23:24.820 be 90 minutes so 8 p.m pardon wouldn't it be 8 p.m uh yes actually it starts at 6. yeah oh yeah we're

00:23:34.180 doing it there later okay that's this math is hard yes yeah so yeah so it'll be uh 8 p.m if you're in the

00:23:41.540 east um it'll be 90 minutes long so uh you know by our time six uh so by 7 30 uh the three of us will

00:23:50.580 be live directly here and we'll uh we'll kind of give a bit of a breakdown and analysis of uh of what

00:23:56.900 happened and what we think the fallout is going to be for for the election all right well i i think

00:24:03.540 that's it that's nice well thank you very much for watching today we uh we appreciate your time uh to all

00:24:09.780 our members thank you very much for your support and if you're not a member yet please go online

00:24:13.700 and get your membership for 10 bucks a month you can make sure that you don't have to watch the cbc

00:24:17.780 anymore thanks a lot

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Western Standard - October 14, 2020

The Pipeline： 3 Liberals Debate in BC

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