In this special Stampede edition of The Pipeline, host Derek Fildebrandt is joined by Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford ( ) and Senior Alberta Columnist Corey Morgan ( ) to discuss the Epstein scandal, the proposed constitutional changes Alberta wants to make to Canada, and why they will never happen.
00:03:44.140But, uh, I, I, I, I like where she's going with it because I think, uh, what Premier Smith is doing is demonstrating the futility of trying to change Canada's system.
00:03:52.440And, uh, we're going to see where it goes.
00:03:54.360So, so one of the ones, I mean, there's, there's a number of potential constitutional amendments, uh, in the presentation there.
00:03:59.400One of the ones that was not on that video, though, was a triple E Senate where all provinces have an equal number of senators regardless of population.
00:04:06.740And, uh, theoretically, uh, that should make the smaller provinces that would lose members of parliament that they don't deserve by population should make them happy.
00:04:15.340The problem is that in Canada, those provinces are also overrepresented in the current Senate.
00:04:21.360Uh, Alberta, with twice the population of all four Atlantic provinces combined, has pretty much half the senators.
00:04:26.860It's just Nova Scotia, just New Brunswick.
00:04:29.300Those guys are never going to vote to give up this sweetheart deal.
00:04:34.740In their list, though, they do have actually either abolished the Senate entirely or have it represent provincial interests as originally intended.
00:04:41.620So I imagine if they expanded it, you know, the, what she means by that probably means triple E.
00:04:46.740But again, as you said, it's just not going to happen.
00:05:02.800Certainly under the existing formula, it seems so highly unlikely that you might as well call it zero chance.
00:05:10.040However, what it does do is that it presents the Alberta argument to the national state, to the national conversation, shall we say,
00:05:21.320in a way that is acceptable and can be engaged on by the folks back east who find Alberta just generally offensive in principle and our own particular brand of Canadianism to be just something we don't want to be associated with.
00:05:41.440You know, pick up trucks and hard hats, you know, so when you render it in terms of constitutional amendments, well, that's something they can engage on.
00:05:51.800So between that and the fact that the very, the very fact that it's out there as a serious proposition, which needs to be talked about before it's dismissed, gives the premier quite a bit of time, actually, to fend off the, some of the, some of the voices of independence within our own party.
00:06:15.900It's a bit awkward for us to handle at the moment, so I think as a stalling tactic, I agree with you, it's never going to happen.
00:06:22.080But it's a good way to articulate what we don't like about the rest of Canada.
00:06:29.620So, Corey, it would depend on the timing of a lot of this, but, you know, we're headed towards an eventual independence referendum here in Alberta.
00:06:37.600I can see where if this was done beforehand and a deadline is issued for the other provinces and the feds to ratify, because Ottawa itself has to ratify.
00:06:47.740Anyway, if all the provinces ratified, Ottawa would just do it, but if Alberta votes for this, and it goes to the other provinces, and they reject it, and this is all, then we go to an independence referendum.
00:07:00.240I think that would very much strengthen the hand of the independence cause, because then it said, here are these very reasonable, good faith amendments we have made to fix Canada, and the rest of the country has told us to pound sand.
00:07:12.420Do you think that's, I think, depending on how the timing around this is scheduled, if it's done at the same time as an independence referendum, I think it actually probably hurts.
00:07:25.080But if it's done in advance, do you see it as helping?
00:07:30.200I mean, I've been a dedicated, you know, Alberta nationalist for a long time already in speaking in areas and talking to people, though a lot of what people keep saying is, well, we need to try everything first.
00:07:44.240We're going to try again, and we're going to fail.
00:07:48.400And once that failure is there, people won't have that case to make in fighting this any longer.
00:07:54.340For the shorter term, though, if we're looking at an independence referendum that'll probably be coupled with a lot of these questions, it'll probably hurt people who want to go, you know, hurt the cause for people who want to go to the full option of independence now, which is, I'm one of them.
00:08:05.960But I also understand that, and I know some people get upset with me, but I don't think we're even close to a 50% vote on that yet.
00:08:13.100There's just too many people who still want to try every possible means of change.
00:09:09.040But I don't think Albertans are going to be willing to accept going the whole hog of independence unless they believe we have tried everything.
00:09:17.560We've already tried this stuff before and it's always failed.
00:09:20.660But I was like five or six years old when Charlottetown happened and Charlottetown was attempting to change things.
00:09:27.820And it was still a bad one that should have been rejected.
00:09:30.380It was rightfully rejected by the West.
00:09:33.980But I think there's a new generation that needs to see us go through the motions again and do it genuinely and in good faith.
00:09:44.260Well, it does make it easier if the rest of the country is forced to look at this and say, well, actually, that's a reasonable case to make.
00:09:57.260Well, I guess then there's a question of, well, will they formally reject it?
00:10:00.740Because we had a referendum on a constitutional question, equalization, and it was roundly ignored by the rest of the country.
00:10:07.660Now, some of that was that took place at a moment where then Premier Jason Kenney had his political capital had sunk to zero.
00:10:15.700COVID had completely sunk his premiership.
00:10:19.360He really wasn't in a position to go march to Ottawa and kick down the door, you know, at the PMO and demand a response.
00:10:29.800There was just no response from Ottawa or any other province.
00:10:33.940You know, what's the likeliness, though, that other provinces formally respond by actually voting for or against the constitutional amendment or that they just ignore it as they did with the Kenney equalization referendum?
00:10:46.260Well, I don't think it's even going to go to a national referendum.
00:10:49.080I don't think the provinces will accept what's being asked here to go even that far with it.
00:10:53.240They're just going to ignore it and tell us to roll it up and shove it somewhere else.
00:10:57.580You don't think you might get a little sympathy from Saskatchewan, at least?
00:11:01.340Well, sure. And we're speaking of the provinces that were holding the power right now, though, and it's not Saskatchewan.
00:11:06.980So, I mean, Scott Moe is supportive, but there's no way the maritime provinces and absolutely no way Quebec is going to be even considering these for a moment.
00:11:18.060So it's going to be in the Alberta discussion solidly because of this for months and months.
00:11:23.120And it's going to be completely ignored by the ones with the authority to change anything.
00:11:27.180So I'm looking forward to the rejection.
00:11:32.720I don't think he'd be very happy with these, but he is.
00:11:37.640Yeah, he wants to be prime minister one day.
00:11:39.760And if he wants to be prime minister of a conservative government in Canada, you're going to need Alberta in it.
00:11:44.600Otherwise, conservatives are never winning in Canada again.
00:11:46.400But, you know, he has a, I mean, how he governs Ontario aside, which is a big deal, he does at least try to sound friendly and sympathetic to Alberta concerns.
00:12:00.340If you want to keep Alberta in Canada, you're going to have to respond reasonably to this.
00:12:04.580I could see Doug Ford maybe, maybe not endorsing the changes, but being willing to put it to a referendum.
00:12:11.920You could pay lip service to it, but even.
00:12:13.880I could see Ontario referendum on this.
00:12:16.540And if so, that kind of makes it a national thing at that point.
00:12:20.980I don't see him putting it to the Ontario voters.
00:12:23.060I could see him talking a good game, but he doesn't want that discussion among Ontario voters because he's going to have to take a solid side.
00:12:47.040And there was, of course, Mr. Ford, who was ready to sacrifice Alberta's interests a few months ago over tariffs in order to keep Ontario's intact.
00:12:56.820So I don't think you should assume that Doug Ford's going to be on side with this.
00:13:18.360He accused the public, the CBC of, quote, performative diversity, tokenism, a system designed to elevate certain voices and diminish others.
00:13:29.160His lawyer, Catherine Marshall, we've had her on programs before.
00:13:34.280She says that he was told not to book people of a conservative persuasion.
00:13:39.200I know I certainly have been invited to the show.
00:13:40.900So, Daniel, why don't you elaborate a bit more on the latest big rage quit at the CBC?
00:13:47.460So there's actually two levels to take this.
00:13:49.860One is just exactly as Derek has explained there, that there is a professional disagreement between the employer and the employee.
00:13:58.780And as is usually the case, the employee loses.
00:14:02.880The other is to say, all right, let's sort of say it out loud.
00:14:10.280And, you know, in one sense, he ticks boxes for the CBC because, you know, you push all the old white guys out.
00:14:21.040And now you bring in the women and you bring in the people of color and you look very modern and multicultural and inclusive and diverse and all the other things.
00:14:30.420But he did not fit the exact mold because what they want is diversity of appearance.
00:14:39.260They do not want diversity of opinion.
00:14:43.460And that leads to the second level of which you can look at his.
00:14:47.360And that is in concert with Jamil Javani, presently a conservative member of parliament.
00:14:54.740But a few years ago, five years ago, I think it was, fighting with his employer, Bell, because they had hired him for the same kind of reasons.
00:15:04.300I think I can't say this out loud and definitively because the case, believe it or not, is not settled five years later.
00:15:11.800But he says he was hired as the black guy.
00:15:16.600And therefore, he was supposed to have black guy opinions.
00:16:43.780I noticed that he has, you mentioned that he was represented by Catherine Marshall.
00:16:48.400It was Catherine Marshall who also represented Jamil Davani.
00:16:52.860And she has got kind of a history of looking after people who have strong opinions and don't necessarily conform.
00:17:01.080I wouldn't say she's an advocate for right wing extremists, but she's not.
00:17:04.480And I wouldn't say that Travis Danrach was a right wing extremist, because I think he probably is just a guy who genuinely wants to do journalism in an open way.
00:17:14.700He doesn't come across as even a conservative.
00:17:16.480He's just he's just a guy doing his job.
00:17:18.740But all of a sudden, he's understanding why conservatives are upset.
00:17:23.780Yeah, I was going to go to the Jamil Giovanni comparison.
00:17:26.660I think that was CTV, if I'm not mistaken.
00:17:30.880So parent company, a lot of parallels there.
00:17:36.020He was also he claims through his lawyer, Catherine Marshall, that he was punished, essentially, and demoted for saying that he had invited Catherine Tate, the president of the CBC, on to explain all these ridiculous.
00:19:55.680And they're really starting to come out as conservatives.
00:19:59.200It's ironic that they have, you know, it's quite open that you can come out now as gay, which is great.
00:20:02.740But to come out as a gay conservative, that's the, and then there's a lot because they're business owners, they're family people like anybody else.
00:20:11.440And they're saying, we've had it with this stuff too.
00:20:13.260And the cracks showing in the mother corporate, I think it's beautiful because that's the worst of the organizations as far as that goes.
00:20:21.600What makes me mad about this though, is that this mother corporation is the one that our new prime minister in his throne speech has just doubled the damn budget.
00:20:41.620Because it's, well, I mean, I think most of us here agree that we don't even really need a state broadcaster, but if indeed we must, that of all, as Derek was saying, is the one that should be trying its hardest to be balanced because it's taking tax funding.
00:20:56.740And we've, anybody who's watched CBC knows bloody well that they're terribly imbalanced.
00:21:01.240They always have been, but to have it this starkly exposed is an embarrassment for them.
00:21:06.400And I'm glad that this fella came out to rip into them.
00:21:09.100Let's just call CBC what it is, a semi-official news agency.
00:22:09.500I mean, I normally associate terrorism with, you know, you're going to get in a car and run over a crowd, or you're going to shoot up a bunch of people, or you're going to blow something up.
00:22:17.380I don't know what they were going to seize, what land they were going to seize, but they just said land.
00:22:21.340So, it was like, they're going to walk out to a field somewhere and say, this is ours?
00:22:29.640Um, but the whole thing has just struck me.
00:22:32.700I mean, there's been this big crackdown on people having non-social progressivist views in the Canadian Armed Forces.
00:22:41.420Uh, you know, they give out tampons in the men's room on Canadian military bases now.
00:22:49.280You know, that's a virtue signal if I've ever seen one.
00:22:52.260Um, they've got DEI officers spread like Soviet commissars throughout the Canadian Forces now.
00:22:57.560Uh, they've done everything they can to rip out the martial culture and spirit of our military and replace it as just essentially being a, uh, another bureaucracy in uniform.
00:23:18.820Uh, and then just a few days before that, there was a story about, uh, there is a private Facebook chat group or something, a private group.
00:23:26.920And some of them are sharing some lewd things.
00:23:29.900There might be racist remarks in there or something.
00:23:33.500And these guys are going to face potential, uh, disciplinary, discipline or even court martial or something for, uh, for having a private chat group.
00:24:15.280And then, kind of, as if to confirm that inkling I'm getting, uh, the RCMP officer here was on, uh, the CBC.
00:24:25.440And, uh, here's, here's a portion of what she had to say.
00:24:28.840Well, radicalization in general quite often will show by people isolating themselves and, uh, changing their behavior, like changing, um, what they're saying on a subject.
00:24:43.100Like, and, um, if someone you know was very, um, uh, believed in equal gender rights, but all of a sudden are leaning towards, like, traditional values.
00:24:55.240And that might be a sign that, uh, they're becoming more extreme.
00:24:59.180Alright, so, you know, uh, I was willing to indulge to a certain extent gender ideology just by being polite.
00:25:10.600Um, you know, but as things went absolutely nuts and off the rails, I've gotten less indulgent of people's, uh, delusions centered around mental illness.
00:25:22.520And, you know, in some ways I'm, uh, you know, a bit more supportive of some traditional values.
00:25:30.120It never occurred to me that I'd be a candidate for terrorism.
00:25:35.820But, I mean, English is obviously her second language.
00:25:39.240Uh, but the way I got, what I got from that gentleman was if you, uh, if you've added change in your views on some social issues and anything, it might be a good idea to have a wife and a couple of kids.
00:25:52.740You might be, uh, under suspicion of terrorism by the feds.
00:25:56.180You've been radicalized by the Western standard.
00:26:03.860I mean, and I can see where it begins.
00:26:05.900It begins with a federal directive that we have to end up and start with these values of so-called values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
00:26:13.820But then they talk themselves into a corner.
00:26:16.920And if you actually believe in what, never mind Christian civilization, all of civilization, for as far back as how many thousand years you want to take it, the nuclear family has always been marked behind the kids.
00:26:33.780That's normal, you know, and for that to suddenly be redefined as a red flag for terrorism doesn't show that there's something wrong with the people who believe that that's the model.
00:26:48.340Well, it shows that there's something wrong with the perceptive abilities of the RCMP and the people who are instructing them.
00:27:11.100You identify as such, I'll happily indulge.
00:27:14.020But eventually, as you said, the radicals have driven that so far over to the point where, yes, I'm, I'm not going to accept a person with testicles competing against women in sports.
00:27:24.980I'm sorry, you've gone well beyond reasonability and to have, well, and let's talk about DEI.
00:27:32.180I think that the RCMP member we heard from was a classic example of one, cause she isn't bloody, very bright when you see something like that.
00:27:42.800Uh, basically labeling, I think what we're getting to a tipping point of most Canadians where they're not necessarily all talking about looking at a Norman Rockwell household,
00:27:52.680but they do realize that these activists have just gone well beyond the scope of reasonability.
00:27:58.320And now you are apparently a possible terrorist.
00:28:26.700When you see a senior government official with police powers saying, you know, uh, you, uh, if you used to be, uh, believe in gender identity, uh, ideology, but now you think it might be a nice kid, uh, have a, uh, it might be a nice thing to have a traditional nuclear family.
00:28:45.440And, uh, you, you, you, you, they're saying you're an enemy of the state.
00:28:51.700You're an enemy of official federal ideology that could radicalize someone because then they're going to say my way of life, my civilization, my family is at risk.
00:29:05.080It, it is targeted and considered undesirable by, by, by the federal government.
00:29:11.160And I, I can see someone taken out a bit far.
00:29:16.260Well, you know, Derek, I mean, it's coming at people from so many directions.
00:29:20.100There you have one particular example, but when the kids go to school, uh, you don't know unless you really dig what they are being taught.
00:29:29.960You may recall that last week we were talking about, uh, the premier's, uh, commission to remove sexually suggestive books from the school libraries.
00:29:41.900Why would you need to have the premier getting involved in what should be a routine thing by the school librarian who says, well, keepers, we're not going to have a, uh, atomic book show and a couple of girls getting at it or a boy is gunning each other.
00:29:56.920And that goes straight away and that goes straight as it has been instead gunning each other, quite the stampede.
00:30:05.000Can't believe you haven't heard that before, Derek.
00:30:08.240Uh, or, or, or you, uh, I, I'm innocent.
00:30:11.240I, I, I, you're, you're, you're the lewd and crude one.
00:31:43.260And if you're looking again, you know, we got some military members.
00:31:47.360It sounds like went off the rails somehow, perhaps, or, or something went on, but the wokeism in the military and the stuff that's leaking out.
00:31:54.800Again, this is, we're talking about military that people join that for, with an expectation or vision or something.
00:32:00.720And I just saw the other day, a poster somebody put up from the Canadian military showing, you know, watch out for sexual harassment.
00:32:08.500And it shows a small blonde woman with a hand out and pushing a guy and a Middle Eastern man, both in uniform, sitting back saying, please hands off me.
00:32:18.020You know, I think they ripped that off of, uh, some German government propaganda posters showing like a blonde German woman sexually harassing a Middle Eastern man.
00:32:27.280I mean, let's, let's get realistic here.
00:32:30.500And I mean, they're getting exhausted with it.
00:32:51.000What I'm trying to say is if you want a high risk area, get a straight Middle Eastern man.
00:32:56.780And it's going to be more likely, not all by any means, but if you want a trouble spot where there's going to be harassment of women, ask the Germans during New Year's Eve celebrations where it was coming from.
00:33:07.060It wasn't blonde women jumping on Middle Eastern men.
00:33:09.140It was Syrians groping women, but the, everything up is down.
00:33:31.280I mean, it's a feeding tube of woke garbage going into them and they're overflowing from.
00:33:35.400So these four guys arrested terrorism related charges, as I've said, let me just cover my ass here.
00:33:43.260We don't really know what they're truly accused of doing.
00:33:46.780So I, I can't say if they're in the right or wrong, totally unknown yet.
00:33:51.020But what I do know is the police statements around this, the government, the federal police, federal government statements around this, they're at least making it sound like they're dangerous because they hold maybe some traditional views.
00:34:06.880But also guess who does martial culture, military culture appeal to guys who like guns and shit or women of that inclination still of, yeah, I want firearms and toughness and that sort of approach to things.
00:34:24.120I mean, this has been a divide and conquer thing going on for a while, too.
00:34:27.540It's been interesting to watch them flip flop where recently I saw an article that basically said it's OK to embrace the Canadian flag again.
00:34:33.060But remember for a while during the truckers convoy, they were saying, it's a sign of extremism of a person's waving a Canadian flag.
00:34:39.240And then suddenly, well, it became convenient for elbows up now.
00:34:47.080Which symbols are you allowed this week and not, but you're going to be labeled an extremist if you're carrying the wrong one, according to the establishment.
00:34:54.500You know, chaps, this is where the governments, and I mean all of them, are losing people.
00:35:00.780This is where distrust of authority comes from, is when authority tries to tell you that two and two does not equal four, it equals five.
00:35:10.960And this is a perfect example of the type.
00:35:13.860That being a family person is somehow radical and could lead to terrorism.
00:35:20.580How are we supposed to trust a government that peddles that message through the RCMP at the military, which we trust to defend us?
00:36:47.180But you must know who they are, because otherwise, Ghislaine Maxwell is the first person in history charged for sex trafficking people to no one.
00:36:54.680You obviously know who the clients are.
00:36:57.380Now, there's two real possibilities about why this is all of a sudden not being released.
00:37:03.080One is that Trump, or major people in the Trump administration, are on the list.
00:37:08.100I don't think that's particularly likely, because Trump himself was, until extremely recently, very gung-ho to release the list.
00:37:15.520So, I think that's less likely as an explanation.
00:37:19.340Much more likely is that the intelligence blackmail operation that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were running succeeded.
00:37:30.880It has blackmail information on extremely powerful people, and those people have made clear that this gun is just not going to be releasing it.
00:37:40.980It'd be too damaging, probably to people in both parties.
00:37:44.240They've got the dirt on everyone, or enough people.
00:37:47.260And what this shows is, like, you can elect the most disruptive, anti-establishment, precedent-wrecking president ever.
00:38:00.600And at the end of the day, the powers that be are still truly in charge.
00:38:05.640And that, more than anything, mark this moment in our history of when we're going to have, this is another kind of Watergate level destroying and trust in our institutions, in our leadership, in democracy maybe itself.
00:38:23.180Because it shows, I think it does show, it doesn't matter actually who you elect, the same people are in charge.
00:38:28.440And this is going to radicalize people.
00:38:45.320However, there is this one thing, one little corner there we need to look at.
00:38:50.920And that is, if you are so powerful that you can keep your name out of it, do you actually need to have blackmail files on however many people I've seen dealt with?
00:39:11.240Well, that's the one with the blackmail files.
00:39:12.780That's how you keep your name out of it.
00:40:59.500Yeah, I mean, you know, just on top of the very suspicious circumstances in which Epstein died, you know, the memes and the whole rest, just with, you know, was it suicide or not?
00:41:14.740I mean, the coincidence of the downed cameras, the whole works of it and the timing.
00:43:49.680And they have got, actually not just in Calgary, they're meeting in Westlock, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Edmonton, something flats, Anger flat, Alder flat, Straton Valley, Lloydminster, Edmonton, Pinocchio, and Grand Prairie.
00:44:07.600It's a very worthwhile effort by Michael Clarke.
00:44:09.940Michael Clarke was one of the people who ran for the Liberal Party leadership.
00:44:13.600I think he was trying to make a point rather than asking them for a little job.
00:44:51.120Well, Mark Miller, alumni of Trudeau's wedding party and former cabinet minister.
00:44:57.860He's the immigration minister for a couple of years.
00:44:59.700Just seeing him out on X tweeting about immigration caps are contributing to lower asking rents in Canada.
00:45:07.720Uh, this came from the housing and mortgage corporation, but this, he was among the group that was calling all of us again, racists, intolerant, everything else.
00:45:20.380If we were daring to speak of slowing down the mass immigration that he was shepherding his immigration minister.
00:45:25.680And now, finally, they're capping it a little bit.
00:45:29.980And lo and behold, the rents are going down as if supply and demand works.
00:45:34.340But again, back to that liberal flip-flop where they will just bald-faced, you know, turn around and celebrate.