Western Standard - The Pipeline： Amazon Arrives, Conservatives messy week, Jean vs Kenney

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00:04:30.000 Good day. Welcome to The Pipeline. This is the Western Standards weekly news and opinion show

00:04:48.860 where a few of us get together and talk about what's topping the headlines around here week

00:04:53.160 by week. My name is Corey Morgan, columnist, host of The Corey Morgan Show. You usually have Derek

00:04:57.960 Phil DeBrand sitting in this seat, but he couldn't make it today.

00:05:01.500 So we are joined with Dave Naylor, our news editor.

00:05:06.480 Corey, I'm not a very happy man today.

00:05:08.880 Why would that?

00:05:09.600 Well, a reporter, Mel Risdon sitting over here has been prancing

00:05:13.200 around the office all morning, singing Justin Bieber songs and saying,

00:05:17.460 I've got to go to Tim Hortons and get my Bieb bits.

00:05:20.580 Yes. 0.84

00:05:20.920 There wasn't Bieber's glazed balls. 0.89

00:05:23.700 So Melanie Risdon is a reporter. 0.99

00:05:25.760 So let's talk about Bieber's balls for a moment. 0.99

00:05:27.960 will kick off with you. They're Tim Beebs. Oh, sorry. Tim Beebs. Yes. And this is exciting 0.99

00:05:33.740 news, is it? Well, I mean, it's kind of cute. He's a big fan of Tim Hortons. I mean, he's

00:05:39.180 putting it on the map for a lot of people. He's kind of loved worldwide. So he's collaborating

00:05:45.060 with Tim Hortons and he's coming out with three flavored Timbits called Tim Beebs. Tim

00:05:51.440 Beebs. Tim Beebs. I prefer Beebs bits. Beebs bits. Well, I'm not going to go any lower

00:05:56.860 Yeah. But it is a story that's on the Western standard online. Actually,

00:06:02.860 if you haven't gone in and had luck, you know,

00:06:04.860 we don't always write nothing but dry political stuff.

00:06:06.860 That's more of my and Dave's specialty,

00:06:09.860 but we need to read about other items of interest and be with a notable

00:06:13.860 Canadian, whether you like them or not, as Morton's is certainly a Canadian brand.

00:06:17.860 Okay. Going further, actually, just to point out, it's November 10th.

00:06:22.860 So Remembrance Day is tomorrow,

00:06:24.860 is tomorrow. As you can probably tell the people wearing the poppies, be sure to make sure to take

00:06:31.480 a moment and, you know, thank the veterans who came before us and the veterans who are still around

00:06:36.480 today who put it all on the line so we can have the freedoms to get together and complain about

00:06:41.440 our political leadership like we do, because we wouldn't be able to if those guys hadn't done it

00:06:45.620 and gals. So we should make a note, observe that, go to a ceremony tomorrow, or perhaps just take a

00:06:51.460 home at home to think about it. It's pretty important. And I think underrated observance

00:06:55.260 every year, you know, we do everything else from Arbor Day to who knows what, but Remembrance

00:06:59.440 Day is a really crucial one. All right. Well, let's get into the news stories. Oh, actually

00:07:04.820 I should start also and thank our members. I've always got to thank them. Those are the

00:07:09.080 people who pay our bills and eventually in the painful way of trickle down economics

00:07:14.220 that we do espouse, it does get to us a little bit. We wouldn't be able to do this though

00:07:19.100 without subscriptions. We aren't government funded media like so many others, like the CBC that gets

00:07:23.400 it just outright directly as a virtual state broadcaster or some of the other publications

00:07:28.440 out there who get subsidies and tax incentives and such. We are a private company reliant on

00:07:33.800 the listeners, the viewers, the readers. And, you know, we give a good deal for 10 bucks a month.

00:07:38.440 Get on there, go to westernstandardonline.com. You can get a free trial, take out a membership,

00:07:43.160 you can get past that paywall, see the content, the editorials, the columns, the news. We get

00:07:47.480 stuff breaking all the time. I think you'll find it well worth your while and you'll keep your

00:07:50.980 subscription past that first trial period. It's a good deal. So thank you for those who've already

00:07:55.680 subscribed. And if you guys haven't already, get out there and do it. Now, news that's been

00:08:00.680 breaking. We'll start with something that's kind of good news, some positive news. The economy has

00:08:04.040 been dreary and sad and depressing in a lot of ways, but there's been a big coup. A large company

00:08:10.500 is moving out to Alberta. Dave, perhaps you can expand on that. Yes. Amazon is coming to town.

00:08:15.200 It's a $4.3 billion deal for the Calgary area.

00:08:21.560 They're going to set up a tech shop, basically, to do techie things that are well beyond my capabilities and help companies with their tech needs.

00:08:31.780 They're going to be needing thousands of staff.

00:08:35.380 Even places like Mount Royal University are offering a free course on how to get into the tech business.

00:08:41.960 uh i think it's a 12-week program that you can basically walk from there and get a job at

00:08:47.640 this upcoming amazon facility but one of the key questions corey that's not being answered is

00:08:53.480 where is it going to be located uh specifically wasn't mentioned google says

00:09:00.360 it's because of security purposes that they don't want the location known

00:09:05.080 it would have been a major coup if it had come to downtown calgary because you know it's a ghost

00:09:10.760 town right now we can use all the people down here we can get uh but korea i think it's probably

00:09:16.120 more likely to go to an outlying area who get better tax deals i don't know like melanie you've 0.99

00:09:20.920 been downtown lately i mean this is certainly an area could use a resurgence some energy something

00:09:25.160 new i mean what do you feel maybe this will bring some activity downtown into the core yeah i think

00:09:29.880 so uh western standard just did a story yesterday about um the office buildings i think there's nine

00:09:37.640 no sorry 19 different office buildings that are sitting completely empty downtown so

00:09:42.840 i would say there's certainly room for it uh i think it would be a great way to revitalize

00:09:48.840 downtown especially considering when you're talking the tech industry you're talking a lot of young

00:09:53.720 you know um young i guess vibrance right so that's gonna uh potentially be something that

00:10:01.880 that comes back into our downtown core. However, having said all of that and walking the downtown

00:10:07.800 streets quite frequently, it would be great to see maybe another precinct downtown or some heavier

00:10:16.360 presence to try to clean things up and perhaps that would instigate it.

00:10:20.440 Yeah. Well, as Dave says, it's noteworthy. They keep referring to it as Calgary area.

00:10:26.840 There are some people very desperate to see a couple of victories in downtown Calgary,

00:10:31.400 for one with economic diversification, because the new mayor has said, we want to move beyond

00:10:36.200 oil and gas. We need everything else. And of course we want to fill those vacant buildings

00:10:42.020 downtown. So, but I just got a feeling, I mean, they know where they're going. This is a big deal.

00:10:46.320 They've planned it out. This has been in the works for quite a while. She would be screaming

00:10:50.580 it from the rooftops if it was going downtown. And look, here we are, here it's going. I suspect

00:10:56.380 it's not going downtown. It might not even be in city limits. She's been actually, you know,

00:11:01.040 optimistic, of course, because it's still good for all Albertans, no matter where it is,

00:11:04.760 but a little quiet that maybe it might be up by Crossiron Mills where the other Amazon facility

00:11:08.900 is. And they certainly would employ a lot of Calgarians, but it doesn't help that downtown

00:11:13.700 crunch. In fact, it might even bleed a little bit. It'd be interesting to see how this develops.

00:11:19.640 Yeah, it's not going to help Calgary's tax roll either, is it? If it's out in the Rocky

00:11:24.640 View County, which I think you're right. I think that's probably where it's going to end up.

00:11:28.060 Yeah. I mean, it'd be indirect. A lot of employees would perhaps commute from Calgary to the facility

00:11:31.980 and they come home and pay property taxes in Calgary and other fees, but they wouldn't have

00:11:35.580 that business to gouge as they so enjoyed out of oil companies for so long downtown.

00:11:40.540 And of course they overplayed their hand and that's part of why our downtown vacant, but it's a larger

00:11:44.780 Yeah. And this week, Jodi Gondek, our new mayor got her climate emergency motion on the table

00:11:52.860 unanimously it's going to be debated on monday in calgary but i can't see that helping to bring

00:11:58.860 businesses energy businesses anyways back to downtown well but i think the the positive though

00:12:05.020 is when you're when you're seeing a big player like amazon setting up tech here i think you're

00:12:10.700 going to find all sorts of you know subsidiary companies or you know other tech companies looking

00:12:16.540 towards Calgary as well. Sort of a precedent setter, a trailblazer. And so maybe that will

00:12:23.980 bring more business here that would- I mean, Bezos didn't get to be the richest man in 1.00

00:12:30.620 history for being stupid. He's going to go where the taxes are lowest. 0.99

00:12:34.780 Yeah. Well, and we got all that empty space. Maybe we'll get an Amazon proving ground here.

00:12:38.060 Bezos can send his next fallout rocket. That big old flying chode was quite something to be seen

00:12:45.180 crossing the skyline, Alberta could get a piece of that. But as you say, no, there could be a lot

00:12:50.220 of associated businesses that come with Amazon. I mean, a longtime columnist in Calgary, Don Braid

00:12:55.920 wrote an interesting piece. One of the things he spoke to is what Melanie was speaking of was,

00:13:00.320 I think the term he uses is he draws other associated companies like filings to a magnet.

00:13:05.480 They will come in and come around such a hub. But the other part he did say was that he was

00:13:10.120 basically almost trying to credit the climate emergency saying that these companies come to

00:13:14.920 cities because they've declared such things. And you point out Montreal is the only other one with

00:13:18.420 such a hub and they declared a climate emergency. And I got to call bullshit. I mean, Amazon made 0.99

00:13:23.560 this decision a long time ago. And I'm certain when they were in the boardroom, they weren't

00:13:28.320 saying, oh, geez, you know, that city looks pretty good, but that one's got a climate emergency.

00:13:34.180 That's the drawing. Come on. They're looking at dollars and cents. They're looking at space.

00:13:37.860 Sure, they're looking at quality of life and they're looking at a great deal of factors,

00:13:42.160 but whether or not the city is virtue signaled with a climate emergency, I think is very,

00:13:46.100 very low on the priority list of companies when they're determining where they're going

00:13:50.620 to go.

00:13:51.620 And if you're an oil company or a gas company, which is still paying the majority of the

00:13:53.900 bills in Calgary, whether Jody likes it or not, they're going to be less inclined to

00:13:58.480 come to a city that's declared a climate emergency.

00:14:02.820 It's going to be interesting though, at least Jason Kenney was able to put a feather in

00:14:05.040 his cap as well.

00:14:06.520 something coming into Alberta, something diversifying the economy. We should celebrate

00:14:11.000 it. You know, it's going to put some people to work and it's going to be, you know, in a forward

00:14:15.480 moving industry that's certainly been explosively growing. Yep. Good news for a change.

00:14:19.800 So let's get on to some bad news. One of my favorite areas. Leader O'Toole there with the

00:14:25.480 Conservative Party of Canada has not had a good week. Lay out what he's been enduring this week,

00:14:31.000 It actually started last week, Corey, when Ontario MP Gladue announced she was forming a separate COVID caucus of up to 30 Tory MPs who would just deal with COVID-19 issues like mandatory vaccinations and things like that.

00:14:50.180 seemed a strange move to a lot of people, followed this week on Monday with the knowledge or release

00:15:00.060 of a story into Tory council member Bert Chen. He was suspended for 60 days because he called for

00:15:07.380 the recall of Aaron O'Toole as the leader the day after the September 11th, sorry, the September

00:15:14.500 elections uh so he put out that petition he got suspended now they've launched the tory party's

00:15:20.500 launched a witch hunt they are demanding that he turn over all his personal emails uh social media

00:15:26.660 postings uh you know all sorts of correspondence because they want to try and find out who within

00:15:31.300 the party he was talking to they want to try and weed out the dissidents uh then they got even

00:15:38.260 stranger for O'Toole. MP Gladue came out the next day, Tuesday and apologized, said she was all

00:15:46.460 wrong about COVID and obviously she'd been whipped into place. O'Toole then announced his shadow

00:15:54.420 cabinet yesterday. Some good news for the West with the naming of Michelle Rempel-Garner as

00:16:01.260 natural resources critic and Pierre Polyev going back to finance. He was very good at that,

00:16:08.120 but somehow, for some reason, moved out of it when O'Toole named a shadow cabinet in February.

00:16:16.620 Noticeably absent was Leslyn Lewis, a strong leadership contender and perhaps a future voice of the party.

00:16:25.260 And the MP Gladio also didn't get in there, obviously, because of her COVID coalition. 0.96

00:16:32.740 So up and down week for O'Toole. He's also being blasted for staying silent on Trudeau's plan to shut down oil and gas emissions out west, which is going to decimate our oil industry even further. He hasn't said word one about that. And I know you wrote a column on that, Corey. And he's trying to hide in the weeds, I think.

00:16:59.080 Yeah. Well, I mean, one thing to be said though, is a couple of,

00:17:02.640 with Rempel and Polyev, I mean,

00:17:03.780 those are vocal shadow cabinet people.

00:17:06.260 They will be speaking up on those issues that he has been weak on.

00:17:09.440 So I guess perhaps Melanie that's a good sign seeing some other voices talking

00:17:12.560 to those issues or speaking on the finances and Western concerns.

00:17:17.380 Yeah. Western concerns for sure. I think Michelle Rempel will, you know, 0.99

00:17:20.860 represent Alberta well. And I,

00:17:26.020 I personally just think you know O'Toole is struggling to stay relevant and he is you know

00:17:35.220 I think trying to create diversions for the fact that he's staying silent on things that that you

00:17:42.980 would you would suspect that he would have opinion on or he would be contributing to

00:17:47.060 specifically for you know Trudeau's stance on on the environment and how that's going to affect

00:17:54.900 the West, and like you said, cripple the province's oil and gas sector.

00:18:01.780 In fairness, the silence isn't just deafening from O'Toole. It's deafening from every

00:18:06.900 Western conservative elected. Nobody said anything. And you would think somebody may

00:18:12.500 put up their hand and say, yeah, I don't think my constituents would like this.

00:18:16.660 That's just, silence is deafening. And I did, as you said,

00:18:20.340 had ripped into him at Western Standard Online in one of my columns for that last week. And I had

00:18:25.200 some people, you know, coming after me on social media, showing some tweets from O'Toole questioning

00:18:29.680 Gilboa's appointment, saying, no, no, he hasn't been silent. Look at that. Well, that was three

00:18:33.480 weeks ago. And that was before this emissions cap declaration. If that's the best you guys can do,

00:18:38.460 he's not standing up for us, guys. It's not even close. I mean, this is a major issue. This is

00:18:42.140 headlines for a week. You think the leader of the official opposition would be front and center on

00:18:46.380 you speak to it, you break it down, even if you're supporting it then. But hiding,

00:18:50.620 that's just cowardice. But yeah, it's been a rough week. And then Gladue,

00:18:56.540 she's the MP for Sarnia area, I believe. Always been a backbencher, if I can recall.

00:19:02.620 But for her to come out and it's something I'm sure he didn't want to hear. But I mean,

00:19:08.140 there's a very, we know it, we hear it a lot here at The Standard. There's a very vocal

00:19:11.340 constituency concerned about vaccinations, mandatory vaccinations, COVID issues, things

00:19:15.660 things such as that. The PPC spoke to that constituency before the election is done now

00:19:20.880 and they feel voiceless. She got up to speak to that group. But the other thing that O'Toole

00:19:25.800 is well aware of, as the PPC demonstrated, it's a minority and a small one and a divisive one.

00:19:31.560 And it's the last thing he wanted to dip his foot into was that debate. I mean,

00:19:35.600 the liberals have been hammering him on that and the media, of course, it's been repugnant

00:19:38.840 watching the liberal media. Actually, they sound worse than Trudeau when they constantly,

00:19:42.280 are your MPs vaccinated? Are you going to make them get vaccinated? Have you checked for holes

00:19:45.520 in their arms? Have you, you know, followed them into the room to make sure it was a real

00:19:48.720 vaccination? I mean, they're, they're brutal, but then to have Gladue come out and open it up and

00:19:53.760 how quickly she came around with a full unreserved, oh, I was dead wrong. I didn't mean a thing I

00:20:00.300 said. It was, I'm sorry about that. It'll never happen again. That backroom spanking must have 1.00

00:20:05.440 been something pretty thorough. And meanwhile, Trudeau's just sitting back at 24 Sussex or

00:20:10.640 wherever he lives now, laughing, you know, he doesn't have to do anything because

00:20:14.560 everybody's so focused on the Tories tearing themselves apart as they are want to do.

00:20:20.000 Well, that's a conservative thing. It's not just federal where we're all good at that.

00:20:24.000 And then with Chen, I mean, and that's showing, I say a leader who's feeling insecure, you know,

00:20:29.040 he is uncomfortable when you're trying to track down communications like that, like that's a purge,

00:20:34.480 that's discomforting. You know, when you communicate with executive committee members

00:20:39.360 in a party or a national council, you're thinking that's going to be between you and them.

00:20:45.200 And now he's demanding communications after suspending a guy for daring to critique him.

00:20:49.920 That's not a party that's feeling secure and stable right now.

00:20:52.000 No, and Chan's lawyer called it unprecedented. So it's going to be interesting.

00:20:58.640 Speaking of rubbing his hands together, it'll be Maxime Bernier as more disenchanted conservatives

00:21:04.400 drift his way. He's moving towards a leadership review, but I think it's kind of been a pretty

00:21:08.560 strong one-man show with the PPC, Max, if he wants it, we'll keep it.

00:21:11.820 Yeah, I don't see anybody taking it over from him.

00:21:14.620 So speaking of infighting conservatives who love beating up on each other.

00:21:19.360 Nice segue.

00:21:20.400 Brian Jean has re-emerged from the sidelines where he's been lobbying a lot of grenades

00:21:25.420 at Jason Kenney over the years, but never officially got back into the political game.

00:21:29.120 And now he's come in full bore and he is looking to-

00:21:32.480 He is looking to be nominated for the UCP party in Fort McRiding.

00:21:39.580 Brian Jean, you'll remember, ran as leader of the Wild Rose

00:21:44.300 and ran for the leadership of the UCP, but lost to Jason Kenney.

00:21:49.200 As Corey mentioned, he's been sitting on the sidelines,

00:21:52.640 throwing in grenades more and more over the last year,

00:21:54.920 and finally made it official, announcing he was going to seek the nomination.

00:21:58.960 uh you can talk about how nomination processes sometimes don't go the way they should uh jason

00:22:07.900 kenny says basically just called him a distraction he said he'll sign nomination papers for whoever

00:22:14.100 the party uh selects uh you know john's openly said he's only running to help the process of

00:22:21.620 getting rid of kenny uh so it's going to be interesting the uh the hallways of the gray

00:22:26.880 Casino will be filled in two weeks time with political intrigue with the annual UCP AGM.

00:22:34.880 And I'm sure Brian Jean will be on the lips of a lot of people.

00:22:38.620 Well, assuming they let us in, we'll be there to cover it.

00:22:43.020 For that. So, I mean, what did you, in Fort Mac, do you think Brian Jean would be able to

00:22:46.760 establish himself again up in that region? I mean, he's a well-entrenched personality up there.

00:22:52.180 I personally think he could. Yeah, I do. I think he could. And taking another run at Kenny,

00:23:01.680 it kind of feels like, you know, Kenny's in a vulnerable position these days. I think there's

00:23:07.020 a lot of, a lot of call for Kenny to step down on from many people. So maybe it's good timing

00:23:17.360 for him. Well, and that's part of the issue is if this was somebody who didn't have an established

00:23:23.040 constituency, somebody who you could block the nomination on, who you could shove aside,

00:23:29.520 chances are as an independent, they would never take that seat. But Brian Jean's in a different

00:23:32.660 position. This was a member of parliament for a number of years. He was a popular MLA up there.

00:23:36.760 Even if Kenny's poking the shots at him, you know, on his having left both of those roles

00:23:41.120 before finishing terms, he could very realistically win that without a UCP nomination. And that

00:23:46.260 changes the whole game i think for how jason kenny has to deal with this you know maybe

00:23:50.360 maybe jason kenny is being nice by to sign his papers because he knows he's not going to be

00:23:55.180 around you know uh the first the first thing we said when we heard the uh the news was oh there's

00:24:00.500 no way kenny's going to sign his papers but uh you know he's saying all the right things now but

00:24:05.680 yeah jean could easily cruise to victory up there yeah well and as we talked about before we've

00:24:11.920 talked in the office and derek and i and we've dealt with nominations i mean there's a lot of

00:24:16.020 ways parties can play with things to give an edge or pull the rug out from somebody who's running

00:24:21.500 and things like that. But again, it's easier with a smaller name. You know, Gene, it's going to be

00:24:26.540 difficult, say, to get a ringer in there to try and sell memberships and beat him for a nomination,

00:24:30.440 which would be the best thing Kenny could hope for. Well, there, see, I gave him a chance and

00:24:33.220 he lost. But that would be a tough, tough go for him. But if Gene gets elected, you've got a caucus

00:24:39.740 member, another caucus member, I hear has been pretty open about calling for Kenny's resignation.

00:24:44.900 you're, you're starting to build a whole section of caucus calling for Kenny's head. I mean,

00:24:49.340 how long could he last with that? Well, and people want change.

00:24:51.800 It's going to be interesting for the, the independence. Those who were kicked out of

00:24:55.820 the UCP, like Drew Barnes and Todd Lowen. Drew has said, I think he's running again,

00:25:02.180 but he's gonna have to run as an independent and Alberta just tends not to elect independent MLAs.

00:25:08.600 So it's going to be interesting to see what happens with those two.

00:25:11.240 Yeah, well, I personally don't think Kenny's going to make it to the next election. I don't. And whoever comes in to replace him, that might be where I notice, I'm just guessing here, but Todd and Drew have both been, they've stayed away from, say, joining the Wilder's Independence Party.

00:25:29.180 Drew floated an idea of forming a new party, but I don't think he's going kind of ahead with that.

00:25:34.300 They're biding their time. And if a new leader comes in, chances are they'll come back to the

00:25:37.940 UCP caucus, I suspect later on. But this is all a lot of speculation.

00:25:42.120 Yeah. I think at the UCPA GM, Kenny's going to have to deliver the speech of his life,

00:25:47.320 or that could be the last one he attends.

00:25:50.180 Agreed.

00:25:51.160 That's it. I'm looking forward to getting in there. I mean, there's where you can really

00:25:54.300 find out what's going on with the party loyal. You know, you get to, the speeches are great,

00:25:58.600 but the hospitality suites are even better. You know, get a couple of drinks in the cabinet

00:26:04.120 minister and see what they may or may not. I shouldn't warn them that I'll be listening.

00:26:08.360 And there's blackjack.

00:26:09.240 Yes. If you haven't gambled enough with the party,

00:26:13.880 just go on over to the casino and invest a little there.

00:26:16.360 I hear some of them like to drink.

00:26:20.600 Good point. Good timing.

00:26:21.880 Good point. Yes. Some of them do like to drink.

00:26:24.520 Yes. And liquor and conventions. That's an interesting point. I mean,

00:26:27.960 I wonder how many orders from above or, I mean, just just so recently having been acutely stung,

00:26:32.760 booze and these, these conventions and these parties have always gone hand in hand for a

00:26:36.120 long time and it has bitten them before, but having it so recently, nobody's going to want 0.92

00:26:40.280 to see a YouTube video of an elected member stumbling around saying something foolish or 0.95

00:26:45.880 something like that. So I would, you'll have the camera rolling all weekend. 0.94

00:26:49.560 Of course. So there's going to be some, and yeah, and I'm dry these days guys. So you can't count

00:26:53.640 I don't want me missing anything, but that pretty much covers what's been standing out in the news

00:27:00.680 this week. Uh, an interesting one, you know, and then lots of political intrigue going on, uh,

00:27:06.120 from Biebs bits, Biebs bits. They won't be available until later November. So we can't go

00:27:12.200 get some today. So you might actually do some work this afternoon. Maybe I'd have to get the

00:27:16.760 regular Tim bits and just imagine Biebs bits as you can see. Okay. Well, thank you all for joining

00:27:22.680 us this week, sans Derek. And thank you, Dave and Melanie for being in support as I was suddenly

00:27:28.840 thrown into the spotlight and hosting this fine production. Most of all, thanks to the veterans

00:27:34.520 and our members. Absolutely. And we will see you all next week at the same time.

00:27:52.680 You

Western Standard - November 11, 2021

The Pipeline： Amazon Arrives, Conservatives messy week, Jean vs Kenney

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