The Pipeline - August 18, 2021
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 7 minutes
Words per Minute
168.21616
Summary
The election is finally here! And it s time to kick off the campaign. On this episode of The Pipeline, host Derek Fildebrandt is joined by co-hosts Dave Naylor (News Editor, The Western Standard) and Corey Morgan (Political Columnist, The Huffington Post) to discuss where the parties stand in the polls, what we can expect in the opening days of the campaign, and what to look out for in the coming weeks.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of The Western Standard.
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Actually, what's the date today? I don't have a computer problem.
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Today I'm joined by my co-hosts, Dave Naylor, news editor of The Western Standard.
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I'm suffering, Derek. I'm suffering a bad case of election fever.
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and I've got glazed eyes from going line by line through the platforms.
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You've got a bad case of election fever and the only cure is more cowbell?
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Yeah, you know, it's election. Got a dress for it.
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And Western Standard Alberta political columnist Corey Morgan not wearing a tie.
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No, well, I'm looking forward to the election and the dirt and the scandals
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so I can take the lowbrow approach that I ordered.
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We're going to get you in a hazmat suit when we send you to press conferences.
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Well, today, of course, we're going to be talking about the campaign kicking off,
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where the parties stand, what we can expect in the opening days of the campaign.
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We're going to break down the Conservative Party's platform,
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We're also going to break down the NDP platform,
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which was released even before the election was called.
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It's been released in its entirety, and I've read it so you don't have to.
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We're also going to be talking about tragedy in Afghanistan as the Taliban takes control of that country
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following the final withdrawal of U.S. forces and the collapse of the Afghan army.
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We're going to be talking about what's happened there and what it is going to mean for Canadians and the broader Western alliance.
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But before we get started, I want to thank all of our Western Standard members for your continued
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generous support of what we do. If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard,
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go to westernstandardonline.com and click on membership. You can try it free for 15 days.
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It's only $10 a month or $99 for the entire year. That'll give you unlimited access to bailout free
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Western media, supporting media that is not working for the government.
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So let's kick off the election kickoff news. This election has been called more than two years before it was legally scheduled to take place. Dave, it doesn't seem like there's actually that much controversy around it. Polls are showing that even if people don't want an election, they're not going to probably punish the government for calling it.
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No. To no one's great surprise, Justin Trudeau called the election on Sunday. Much to his chagrin, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan kicked a lot of the front page news that they hoped to have.
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and that led the campaign for the first couple days.
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The leaders are now out and about, crisscrossing the country,
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except for the Green leader, and they can't afford to go anywhere.
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Let's see if she makes it to the end of the campaign, yeah.
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Last I heard, they didn't even have a campaign manager.
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So platforms have been released for the Tories and the NDP, as you said.
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Interestingly, polls are showing the gap is narrowing.
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In fact, in Toronto, the greater Toronto area, which will be one of the key battlefields,
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we did a story this morning, Derek, on the Western Standard Online,
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that they're basically a tie, which shocks me personally that the Liberals aren't well ahead,
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but they're in a statistical dead heat in the GTA.
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And the other piece of good news for the Tories today
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The provincial party there, in a shocking result,
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They were going for their third consecutive majority term
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but were rejected on a campaign basically based on health care.
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So that's also going to give a volt of good news to the federal campaign.
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So, yeah, all party leaders are off and running.
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Trudeau's spending today in the Vancouver area, Burnaby.
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Jagmeet Singh also is down east, but he'll be heading back to his home riding in Burnaby pretty soon.
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O'Toole has kept his campaign Ontario-centric and so far with, you know, an announcement
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a day of his platform, highlights, and we'll see where it goes from here.
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No great surprises in the first several days, no great scandals yet, but I'm sure they're
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Corey, I think it's fair to say that the early dominating issue, the issue, the primary
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issue at the beginning of the campaign is seldom the same issue at the end, but the
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dominating issue so far has been vaccine passports and mandatory vaccines for
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federal government employees. I mean, clearly this was not important enough
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for Justin Trudeau to get into before he called an election. The election has
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clearly made it a necessity for him to get into. I think, you know, obviously
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let's put aside if this is a good thing or bad thing or if this is good policy
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or not. Just the pure politics of it. I think he's looked at the polls and said the majority
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of Canadians support vaccine, mandatory vaccines or vaccine passports that would coerce vaccines.
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And said, you know, the minority that oppose it tend to be conservatives. Conservatives are
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more split on the issue than other parties. So Trudeau comes out, says vaccine passports,
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even to go between provinces, which is extraordinary. It's one thing about having
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vaccines for people, non-citizens coming into Canada, but it's quite something to say it's
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illegal to get on a plane or a train or a bus in Canada and say you can't go across
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provincial boundaries. If our Supreme Court was worth anything, that would clearly be
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unconstitutional. O'Toole came out obviously very uncomfortable with the topic because
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his own supporters are divided, saying that there will be effective vaccine passports,
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But if you don't want to get a vaccine, you can get a rapid test.
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And the equivalent applied for federal employees is you have to get a test literally every
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single day you show up for work, which is clearly impractical for anyone.
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I believe some government employees actually want to do a job and actually get to work.
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How do you think the politics of this has played out?
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Do you think O'Toole has been able to primarily, the big question is, has O'Toole been able
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to find the sweet spot political area where he can appear to be enough pro-mandatory vaccination
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with some people, but not so pro-mandatory vaccination with his base? I think he's gotten
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as close as he can with it. He can't go full out for it because he will lose a good chunk of his
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base to those, even if it's a minority, it's a very dedicated minority. They do not want to be
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vaccinated. They do not want to feel pressured to be vaccinated. And they are not going to support
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party that they feel is doing that. But the trend is now you have to push it. I mean, Doug Ford is
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threatening his entire caucus. He's going to kick him out if they don't get vaccinated now, it sounds
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like. But he's always been a little bit on the insane side with this whole pandemic. But it's a
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play. It's a giant issue. It's a big part of the whole thing. As you said, with that balance, you
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look at what universities are doing. This is where I think the end of some degree of these vaccine
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passports going to come from. As you said, the Supreme Court, they're just allowing any government
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to use Section 1 of the Charter to set aside all our rights. So they're not going to stand up for
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us. But when it comes to healthcare unions and civil service unions, when it comes to mandated
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vaccines, that's when we're going to see the back off. That's when they're going to find compromise
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because there's a number of nurses who aren't going to want to be forced to be vaccinated,
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though the majority do. When it comes to union court actions, the minority is going to rule.
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So I think in the long run, we're going to see a lot of these workplace ones and mobility ones
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thrown out. But for the course of the next foreseeable months, that vaccine passports
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are going to be the way to go whether we like it or not trudeau in markham ontario yesterday said
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there will be quote consequences unquote for federal employees who don't get uh vaccinated
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which of course sent the unions uh into a tizzy uh so our manitoba columnist linda slabody and
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she's writing a column on that today just about uh consequences that canadians may face not being
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vaccinated so it's as you guys say it's going to be in the in the courts perhaps before the
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pandemic is even over yeah it'll be interesting how this plays out i i mean obviously the western
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center has a different take on things than a lot of the government-funded legacy media
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but i've never seen um media look at things different kinds of media look at things
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through the looking glass and get 180-degree different interpretations.
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O'Toole comes out against mandatory vaccine passports.
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O'Toole comes out in support of modified vaccine passports.
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You have to have them or you have to get a rapid test
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Otherwise, I suppose the federal government now believes,
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under either party believes it has the power to exile people and imprison them in their province.
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Because, I mean, in Canada, unless you're living in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
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you've got to, you can't really drive practically between provinces for most things. You've got to
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fly. Yeah, well, and it gives an out with the testing at least. I mean, I don't know how long
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a person wants to have a Q-tip shoved out the back of their nose every day, but there is a way to
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avoid at least the vaccination part. But the media is driving it hard. I mean, I was watching Twitter
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the other night and a prominent media member was calling out, and it's not surprisingly,
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just conservative candidates, but one by one going through the list. Hey, are you vaccinated? Hey,
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are you vaccinated? Like it's the roll call for those candidates, and it's putting them on the
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spot. I don't think the public is calling out and screaming for these candidates to take a stand,
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but the media wants to make sure they're made to take a side on this one way or another.
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It's not going to go away. And I know our viewers, our listeners, our readers,
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they're pretty divided on vaccines. I mean, I think the three of us are vaccinated, right?
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I'm vaccinated. See, I'm asking you, are you vaccinated? Are you vaccinated? Double vaxxed.
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Yeah. But, you know, I didn't ask anyone if they were in the office here. It's personal choice.
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I made the decision for me and my child was best for me. But people, I think it's a good choice for
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others to make, but it's their choice to make. But apparently the My Body, My Choice crowd applies
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only to aborting children, does not apply to your actual body and medical decisions for yourself.
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It really is something. You see self-proclaimed militant pro-choicers, you know, the Jagmeet Singhs, the Justin Trudeaus.
00:16:16.460
They say, my body, my choice. And you say, well, choices on vaccines and it's, you're a terrible person and you deserve to be locked down in your province in perpetuity.
00:16:26.660
Yeah, and people just a lot can't seem to find the balance on this one.
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I mean, I feel vaccines are effective and they're a good idea, but I do not want to see that forced on people at all.
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that is just forced medication is dead wrong. It's just like fluoridation in the water, that
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never-ending issue. I think fluoride's fine, and I'm not worried about all the things people talk
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about, but I don't think it's the role of the city to provide it to you. I mean, if you want to get
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it, go out and get it. Get a filter for your house. I'm pro-fluoride, but I'm happy to put a filter on
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my house that the city's not putting in the water. Yeah, but this people taking a stance, and it
00:16:57.860
doesn't stop there. When the mob moves, you know, they always start it. You're giving the conspiracy
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theorists a lot of stuff to chew on because the stuff you said was considered conspiracy crap
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six months ago is reality today. The passports are here today. And the talk now is of virtually
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forcing you to get a vaccine because we're going to cut you off from practically everything if you
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don't. I hate to say that, but I'm sitting in a world where I think it's going to have to wait
00:17:22.320
for the unions to save me because the government's not scared of us, but they are shit terrified of
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unions. Well, solidarity forever. Thank God for the union standing up for our rights here.
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I think, to wrap this segment up here, the politicization around vaccines, about
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trying to force people to take it, even if it's a good idea, trying to force people to take it,
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I think it's going to, it creates more resistance to vaccines. I have regret getting vaccinated,
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Not because I think it was a bad medical decision, but because I don't like to be forced to do anything.
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And, you know, if I get one of these vaccine passports, if it comes in a paper form, I'm going to burn it.
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Because using a passport, a vaccine passport, I believe would be unethical.
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Because I would be sanctioning a system that punishes people for their own personal choices, even if their choices I disagree with.
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I think it's important to note that this is not just happening in Canada.
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If you're going to want to travel anywhere in Europe, you're going to have to have a vaccine passport.
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If you're going to want to take a British registered aircraft, you're going to need a vaccine passport.
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Police walking around like other uninvited men in uniforms in Paris, demanding people's papers.
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Didn't we just have a big topic after Black Lives Matter and all this police stuff about
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carding being discriminatory and a violation of people's basic rights?
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Well, apparently only certain kinds of carding.
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Time will just have to pass by and once this thing subsides, I hope some sanity starts
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Well, we're going to move on to the conservative platform that we've done an analysis of, kind
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But before we do that, we want to thank one of our important sponsors, the Canadian Coalition
00:19:21.400
for Firearms Rights, the Canadian CCFR is working vigilantly for you every day, protecting
00:19:29.020
your right to own, use and purchase firearms safely in Canada.
00:19:34.480
They're doing fantastic work, they're lobbying politicians, they're doing advocacy speaking
00:19:40.920
You know, I know gun owners, we don't have time, we don't go protest because we're not
00:19:45.460
So while we can go out and hunt or go to the range, they're out doing this full time and
00:19:57.400
Go to firearmrights.ca and click why join to learn more about why you should become
00:20:06.900
a member of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.
00:20:09.700
So we're going to turn now to the Conservative Party's platform
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Released his party's platform on the very first day of the campaign
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The big downside is you can't trickle out a news story every day
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and trying to dominate the headlines with your latest promise,
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sometimes big promises, sometimes little promises.
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You bundle it all together and release it at the end of the campaign
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The other strategy is to do what they've done here,
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No one can accuse you of a hidden agenda then, at least credibly.
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It's all there, and we've gone through it in some detail.
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Dave, why don't you just kind of give us the highlights,
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I personally like the releasing of the platform at the beginning.
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It gives voters a chance to go through it at their leisure.
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Do you know how late we've had to work over this stuff?
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And speaking of firearm rights, one of the things they're going to do is get rid of the
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Liberal gun grab, which of course the Liberals are jumping up and down saying there's going
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Yeah, well, they haven't been legal in Canada for how long?
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Now I lost my train of thought thinking of you armed with an automatic weapon.
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So, yeah, anything you want to know in there about any policy is in there.
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The only thing that's not mentioned, Derek, is equalization and the balanced budget.
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Absolutely no plans in there to balance the budget other than a pie-in-the-eye statement saying it'll be done in a decade.
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The Parliamentary Budget Office, you remember, a week or so ago said currently it won't be balanced until 2070, long after we're all dead.
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But there's stuff in there about revamping the immigration system, propping up and helping
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unions and employees, savings accounts and employee trust to buy companies, you know,
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the carbon tax, the flip-flop carbon tax explained in detail, you remember in April, it was the
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political u-turn of the century when he came out and only weeks ago it signed a pledge to never
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bring in a carbon tax and and he did all that is explained in detail there how you're going to get
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a fancy little debit card to go out and buy electric scooters uh but you know any issue you
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want in there is there uh people can go through it at their leisure and see what the conservatives
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have to offer uh you drive an electric scooter to work right i do you should see me in my helmet
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So there's a lot of, we're obviously, we can't go through the entire thing.
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We, so when we went through, we, we put together kind of the most important eye grabbing parts.
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There's good and there's bad, kind of give each one a letter grade.
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I got to admit on both the conservative and the NDP platforms, we had to grade on a curb
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because there's a lot of bad and I don't want to be just negative.
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So mostly the things with positive letter grades, they're less important, but we had
00:24:02.140
In the positive category is on guns, undoing the cabinet order and one piece of legislation
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from the Liberals that is just confiscating tons of firearms that are no more dangerous
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than any other, but that the Liberals think looks scary.
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about the other broken promise we should mention and get out of the way is the CBC. He campaigned
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in both the leadership of the party and immediately afterwards that he was going to defund the
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CBC. No, not quite. He's going to review the English language operations. He's actually
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going to add a division. Review the mandate. Review the mandate. He's going to add a division
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into Radio Canada for, you know, specifically for them to protect French broadcasting, but
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you know, nothing there about cutting the one in the one point some billion dollars
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Yeah, so he's going to review the mandate. I think this is the worst of both worlds. What
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he's going to do is he's going to anger the CBC. He's going to remind their reporters and
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their management that they're afraid of conservatives. So they're going to continue to act as an
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attack dog for Trudeau. But even if he was to somehow form a majority government and do this,
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he wouldn't be doing much anyway. It was a similar mistake to what Stephen Harper made.
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Stephen Harper cut a very small amount of the CBC's budget and the CBC went to absolute war
00:25:36.800
with him in 2015, more so than they did in the past. They were a huge reason that Stephen Harper
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and the conservatives lost the 2015 election having the CBC go at them the way they did
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to no gain because they didn't really cut much of the CBC budget anyway.
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If you're going to go after the CBC, you privatized it.
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Maybe we'll keep a little bit for the far north
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or we'll contract out some broadcasting services for the far north
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where there is nothing and they should have some kind of news.
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You don't, you know, if I wanted to get rid of Dave,
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I don't walk over and just poke him in the eye.
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Because if I poke Dave in the eye, he's probably going to punch me in the face, right?
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And this is the problem with conservatives and the CBC.
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They poke it in the eye and then they don't do anything about it.
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We've already done a little bit of bad news, but let's go to some good news, which is related
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to CBC, but on the so-called ostensibly private media.
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The media bailout, the conservatives are following through saying they are going to
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Good news, any way you cut it, unless you're a part of the old legacy government-funded
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news, that's now something they're reliant upon.
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That is probably going to create some more unfavorable coverage indirectly for the conservatives,
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This has not gotten any real pickup on the rest of the media that I've seen outside the
00:27:08.920
Western standard, but hidden in there was some really good policy, less about immigration than
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it is about refugees. You know, you've got, you know, I know when my grandparents came to Canada,
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they were privately sponsored. They were sponsored by a church. And if the way it worked is if my
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family went on to welfare or needed any government benefits whatsoever, the church had two options.
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They could pay for it themselves, or they could put us on the next ship back to Hamburg.
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And we still do have some privately sponsored refugees in Canada.
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And they are, across the board, almost unanimously more successful.
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They have a higher rate of getting a job, a better rate of having a good job,
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They are incredibly less likely to be involved in crimes,
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incredibly less likely to be reliant upon government assistance.
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Privately sponsored refugees mean that you have a person or an institution like a church or a charity that is responsible for them and they take direct ownership over the problem.
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It's not some faceless bureaucracy that just sees them as a number.
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And so the conservative platform talks about moving to a 100% privately sponsored refugee program with a few exceptions.
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You know, if a guy shows up on the shore and there's a guy in another boat behind him in the Taliban and you're shooting at him, we're going to let him on.
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So I think it's a hugely positive move forward in that area.
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One of the interesting things they're also going to do, Derek, is prioritize workers
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who want to come in and work in the long-term care industry to get foreign workers working
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Corey, was there anything positive that we haven't touched on in the platform that you
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I think you've touched on the positives already for the most part.
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It's good to see two pragmatic, rational refugee immigration sort of discussion because it's been a weak spot.
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I mean, that's where they have poked and tried to point out conservatives as being paranoid or anti-immigrant or things like that.
00:29:20.780
They were talking about just how we deal with it.
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And that is one of the big problems is the burden to the Canadian taxpayer.
00:29:26.040
And frankly, we're not really helping people too much if we get them to Canada
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and they're on welfare, they don't have a job, they can't speak the language,
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then they're more likely to get into crime, onto government assistance.
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This is going to mean for not necessarily more or less refugees,
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but it's going to make for more successful refugees.
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For the first time that I'm aware of in modern history of the Conservative Party,
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they did not release a costing of their budget,
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just a bunch of promises with a bunch of spending attached to it,
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but no costing. Now, they're saying that they're waiting for the parliamentary budget officer to
00:30:03.460
review it. It's good that actually this stuff goes to the parliamentary budget officer because
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it's a more honest and independent accounting of platforms and the parties themselves.
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Parties make up all sorts of wacky stuff to make the numbers fit on their platforms.
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I remember Rachel and I forgot a billion dollars when she was running for premier in 2015,
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just left a billion dollars out. Oops. So it's good to do that, but generally it makes sense
00:30:28.260
based on what the parliamentary budget officer says.
00:30:30.700
Bob, I'm not sure why you would release the platform
00:30:38.220
but we have no idea how much it's going to cost?
00:30:43.140
That's exactly how the progressive conservatives
00:30:54.320
out of all three major parties they no plans to balance the budget no plans on how they were
00:30:59.360
going to do it they just promised everything and anything and i hate to say it but it worked so
00:31:05.200
perhaps why give the voters the the blood and guts and the reality of how you get there when
00:31:11.120
you can just make the promises and figure out how to deal with it after you get in yeah uh and and
00:31:16.320
o'toole has clearly stated several times already he has no plan to balance the budget he says i'm
00:31:21.360
I'm going to do it over a decade, and we've talked about this before.
00:31:24.360
A decade, 10 years, that would require three back-to-back majority conservative governments.
00:31:30.000
The last conservative leader to do that was Sir John A. Macdonald.
00:31:33.580
And I just have a sneaking suspicion that Aaron O'Toole is just a little bit ambitious
00:31:39.280
for believing he is going to be the only conservative leader in history to match Sir John A. Macdonald.
00:31:46.900
It's just, I'm not going to put my money that he could do that.
00:31:51.360
So there is a 0.0% chance Aaron O'Toole would balance the budget if he was elected Prime Minister,
00:31:57.080
unless we had the greatest economic boom in Canadian history and he didn't tack any extra spending onto that.
00:32:18.060
prompts that the federal government will not intervene in the courts with Bill 21.
00:32:22.780
That is a clearly racist piece of legislation that, you know, I don't think it's a good bill.
00:32:30.420
But I'd like Alberta to adopt it anyway, just to see what would happen.
00:32:35.080
Like, let's not enforce it, because it is terrible.
00:32:38.120
But let's pass the racist bill and just see what Ottawa does.
00:32:43.160
They will fight us in the courts every step of the way.
00:32:48.060
And we'll just see what happens, like, let's pass it word for word, just translate it into English, pass it here, change, we'll just do a Google, we'll just, we'll do a word replacement in a word document, we'll just change Quebec to Alberta, and French to English, and we'll just see what happens.
00:33:02.180
They've said that the Conservatives will not challenge it.
00:33:06.180
We did a word search of the word, the phrase balanced budget.
00:33:13.180
And that is in reference to saying that in balancing the budget, they won't cut transfers to Quebec.
00:33:19.180
That is the only time that the word balanced budget comes up is saying we won't cut transfers to Quebec.
00:33:24.180
So tons of promises around Quebec. Quebec gets automatic seats on the CBC now.
00:33:30.180
I must have missed the part about Alberta and Saskatchewan getting...
00:33:39.620
But they also don't, on the West, they don't really get into equalization.
00:33:45.240
They acknowledge that Alberta is getting screwed.
0.95
00:33:47.160
They give a little lip service to the problem, but they're not touching equalization.
00:33:51.140
They are not touching that with a 10-foot pole.
00:33:53.980
What they are promising is more federal spending going into the physical stabilization fund,
00:33:59.860
which Jason Kenney never talked about before until it became clear nothing's happening
00:34:04.480
Then he starts talking about this, which he calls an equalization rebate, which it is
00:34:09.360
It actually has nothing to do with the equalization program.
00:34:12.200
It's a short-term band-aid to give us more money, but it will do nothing to stop sending
00:34:19.600
Corey, do you think there was any way that Erin O'Toole could touch equalization?
00:34:24.600
Not really. The reality is what we're seeing with this platform like you're talking about, it's standard.
00:34:30.600
It's a platform that's trying to win in the reality of what Canada is.
00:34:34.600
There's no sense catering to the West, even if that is your base of support, because there's little to gain.
00:34:40.600
You need to win Quebec, you need to win Ontario, you need to maybe try and maintain a few seats in the Maritimes.
00:34:46.600
If you go after equalization, you're not gonna win them.
00:34:49.940
So yeah, you can pay lip service to Alberta on the way up as you do with carbon tax or
00:34:55.840
But when the campaign comes along, everything's focused on the center.
00:34:59.240
Well, to be fair, Aaron O'Toole never even promised during the leadership campaign to
00:35:02.900
Well, he said, he gave a vague nebulous promise that he'll review it or...
00:35:15.560
love it and they're going to defend it. Our Soviet style production of eggs, milk and cheese
00:35:23.080
is critical for Canada. That's much of this. This is a solid,
00:35:27.960
unfortunately predictable campaign strategically modeled to try and win the election. So he's going
00:35:33.800
to stay away from regional type of issues that really don't benefit him. That aren't Quebec.
00:35:39.160
Yeah, Quebec and Ontario. He did promise swimming pools for Nova Scotia. That is true.
00:35:44.600
Yeah, he's going to build a big federal swimming pool.
00:35:56.380
It's obviously not as strong as that, but it's very much a big change in tone from previous
00:36:01.380
conservatives, which try to stay kind of neutral on unions, to we like unions.
00:36:07.800
Unions are going to get all kinds of new special rights under Aaron O'Toole.
00:36:14.600
Do you remember in the 2015 election, Stephen Harper was warning about Trudeau imposing
00:36:21.400
a Netflix tax and the media all laughed about that?
00:36:24.960
Well Trudeau has now got plans for a Netflix tax and the O'Toole platform, and as we'll
00:36:29.640
mention later, the Sing platform, they're all hot on a Netflix tax.
00:36:39.600
I don't know if it's a winner, but again, it gets back to what they want to propose to do with it.
00:36:45.340
And I mean, Trudeau's justification, the rest were always, it's for the protection of Canadian content.
00:36:51.180
And when you say protection of Canadian content, translate French.
00:36:57.380
It's just embedded as it tends to be with most policies.
00:37:08.220
I mean, the greatest flip-flop I've seen in my lifetime politically.
00:37:16.800
When you'll stand next to a screen and sign on a press conference saying outright,
00:37:23.640
The closest I can remember was Ontario Premier Dalton McGinty
00:37:27.000
when he was first running in roughly 2003 against Ernie Eves in Ontario.
00:37:31.460
He signed a giant pledge saying he promises not to bring in any more taxes.
00:37:35.540
He signed a big Canadian Taxpayers Federation pledge, and then he flip-flopped.
00:37:38.640
Going a bit before your time, but the Liberals completely flip-flopped on abolishing the GST.
00:37:43.320
The only one who fell on her sword over that, of all people, was Sheila Copps.
00:37:48.260
And, well, Gretchen didn't pay a high price for that flip-flop in the long run, unfortunately,
1.00
00:37:52.220
but they were very clear that they were going to end NAFTA and abolish the GST.
00:37:59.240
I don't know if you consider it a good thing or not, but the Tories will promise a GST holiday in May.
00:38:05.060
You can get all your Christmas shopping done and not have to worry about paying the GST.
00:38:16.000
Whether or not they're going to make it easy for businesses remains to be seen, but a little bit of good tax news.
00:38:23.540
Well, I don't know. I would like an actual tax cut, not just a little gimmicky holiday.
00:38:28.000
I mean, obviously retailers have been hurting, but I mean, Christmas is their time.
00:38:32.860
I'm not sure, if you want to actually increase retail sales, you should have a GSD holiday
00:38:40.660
If you're going to be doing this, you do a GSD holiday in January, not when people are
00:38:46.360
And the CFIB roasted that because what's your average consumer going to do?
00:38:49.000
You know what retail sales are going to look like in the last week of November?
00:38:51.460
You're not going to be able to give your product away because you can wait a week and get a
00:38:55.260
5% discount on everything you buy or depending on what product, well, I guess it's just the
00:38:59.620
If I'm owning a retail store, I close down for November.
00:39:05.120
Just close your doors, say we'll be open, free stuff.
00:39:09.000
He had to dangle a goody, I guess, I mean, Trudeau came out with the check to seniors
00:39:12.680
and now, well, here, we'll give you a GST holiday.
00:39:14.740
Look, if you want to cut the GST, I mean, the GST is a less harmful tax than income
00:39:19.520
taxes, every economist will tell you that, but we all hate it because we see it.
00:39:23.000
If you want to cut the GST, I'm in favor of a tax cut, so fine, it'd be broad-based and
00:39:27.140
it's permanent. But this kind of thing is just gimmicky. I mean, he's quite literally
00:39:32.820
playing Santa Claus, so I don't know. Why don't you cut my income taxes?
00:39:38.080
I'm sure Jane is cursing at home because it throws a loop into all the bookkeepers
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00:39:41.100
and the rest because you get this one month now where you're buggering around where you're
00:39:43.340
not remitting 5%. Oh yeah, it's going to be an accounting
00:39:47.940
nightmare. I mean, I have to deal with all sorts of accounting here at the Western Standard
00:39:55.300
I think we're going to continue to charge GSD because we're not retail, but maybe we
00:40:03.480
How do I not charge everyone GSD for one month and then I have to charge them GSD on the
00:40:15.360
Okay, well, and I do want to emphasize, the conservative platform is not all bad.
00:40:21.160
I know we can beat up on them, but that's because, you know, we believe, you know, I'm, I don't call myself a conservative, I'm a libertarian, but I'm definitely on the right.
00:40:36.360
I want Canada to have a good conservative party that I might see myself voting for one day.
00:40:43.120
And that's, I think, why I'm a little tough on it.
00:40:46.200
and as are some of my colleagues is we want to see a good conservative party campaigning and
00:40:52.120
executing conservative policies. And that's why we're rough on it. But if you thought that was
00:40:57.540
rough, we're going to get to the NDP platform in a second. But before we do, we want to thank
00:41:03.300
another of our sponsors. Why don't you do resistance coffee? Resistance coffee. I love
00:41:08.860
doing resistance coffee. It's your stuff. It's one of those things. We're drinking it at all.
00:41:17.540
But chances are, even though they got those awesome names like, you know,
00:41:19.960
Liberal Tears and Defund the CBC, I mean, it might have been awful.
00:41:23.640
I might have had to fake it and say, you know, this is good stuff.
00:41:36.540
But either way, you know, these guys are great.
00:41:42.740
Oh, I guess there's so many digressions I can go with here.
00:41:48.280
We're going to think it's not a red screen because Corey would
00:41:57.420
These guys give 10% of your purchase to good causes.
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And if you go to resistancecoffee.ca and you look and
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they'll show who they're giving it to, like the GCCF
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and other ones that are standing up for your individual rights.
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Plus, if it's your first time buying, there's a promo code box.
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If you order, I think it's over, I'm not going to guess here, $60 worth or something.
00:42:34.620
Your money's not going to go to some left-wing cause.
00:42:54.220
All right, well, let's move on to something else dirty.
00:43:00.260
Dave, we've actually not yet published our review on it.
00:43:02.780
I was actually just kind of working on one of the first drafts
00:43:05.420
when we had to get in here for the show, but you've gone through it, right?
00:43:09.920
Well, yes. It can be summed up in three words, Derek. Spend, spend, spend.
00:43:15.920
I think we've identified 25 separate stories that we'll be doing over the next day or two.
00:43:22.420
See, I don't know why you don't prefer trickling out a platform.
00:43:25.420
25 days in like 25 stories on one platform in a matter of days, that's a lot to bite off.
00:43:31.420
It is. It is. And we're doing it so you dear viewer don't have to. So yeah, and everybody gets more money. I think you called it a socialist dream. Even the CBC will be rolling in even more taxpayer money. So again, no, nothing in there. I don't think about balancing the budget.
00:43:54.320
No. I think we said Alberta got mentioned three times.
00:44:00.880
There is no, if you do a word search, the word Alberta never comes up once.
00:44:05.880
Saskatchewan comes up, does come up one single time, only insofar as they're referring to
00:44:12.880
So very obviously very heavy on Quebec stuff, but yeah, every sector of the economy gets
00:44:21.560
more cash, bottom line, and who's going to pay for it, nobody knows.
00:44:27.760
they're going to pay for it nobody knows. You know, I think as Corey says, it seems to work,
00:44:35.280
promise the world with no plans on how you're going to pay for it.
00:44:40.560
Okay, so as I said with the conservative platform, we graded these things on a curb.
00:44:45.280
It's not, you know, when we compare the platforms, it's not apples to apples,
00:44:51.840
because we expect more out of the conservative platform I think. But I tried really hard to
00:44:56.880
find some things that aren't terrible and we were able to find that even in the NDP platform
00:45:03.500
because we're nice guys. So let's got to go through the nice things and I'm sure some of
00:45:09.980
our listeners and viewers are not going to agree with me on this but I actually thought they had
00:45:14.500
a really good point on drugs, on illicit drug use. The NDP are kind of leading the pack on this one
00:45:21.520
I think, from a libertarian view, although it's not for libertarian reasons they're doing
00:45:30.880
Well, you've got to consume something to read that platform.
00:45:36.880
But the NDP, I think, have got actually, out of the three big parties, actually the best
00:45:42.900
It's about decriminalizing the use of drugs and redoubling police efforts on traffickers,
00:45:50.280
pushers. No one has ever quit drugs because the government put them in jail. People go to jail
00:45:58.560
and they do more drugs 99% of the time. Addicts deserve, I think, treatment and compassion.
00:46:07.940
Putting them in prison is just not going to fix it. And I think the NDP have got,
00:46:13.120
they're actually on the right, I can't believe I'm saying this for God's sakes. They're on the
00:46:17.200
right track in this specific policy area. Take the resources you're spending going after people who
00:46:24.400
are addicts for the most part and put it going after the traffickers. At the same time, they
00:46:29.920
also want to get more aggressive on expunging the criminal records of people who have been convicted
00:46:34.960
of having small amounts of cannabis before it was legalized. Absolutely. I would imagine we
00:46:41.280
We probably did something similar when Prohibition in Canada ended in the later, some point in the 20s.
00:46:49.460
You should therefore not have a criminal record for it.
00:46:55.180
Well, it depends on what we're taking and what the party is.
00:46:57.780
But as far as where they're going, though, I mean, seriously, it's an area I've always been big on.
00:47:04.260
And from a libertarian or even just a conservative point of view, it's a smart way to go.
00:47:08.320
Like, guys, you're paying for these addicts already.
00:47:10.580
Whether you like it or not, you're paying for them in the hospital system, in the justice system, you know, in general welfare, in property damage, you name it.
00:47:19.380
I mean, the homeless, addicted people are costing a fortune if you just want to look at the cold, hard costs.
00:47:24.740
For every one you can get out through treatment and perhaps get straight and get into the working world, we benefit.
00:47:32.320
I mean, they're no longer draining, they're contributing.
00:47:35.460
You know, criminalizing these guys, as you said, it's been a failure, it doesn't work.
00:47:39.520
So, yeah, I mean, good on the NDP to point out that this is the way to go.
00:47:43.160
Quit chasing after these guys, trying to throw them in jail.
00:47:45.360
Let's chase after them and try and get them into rehab, which is still not easy,
00:47:48.920
but it would have a lot more benefit for us and them for every successful case you could find.
00:47:57.580
I'm going to talk about one little good part there,
00:47:59.940
and that's the last of the good stuff I could find, really.
00:48:02.540
Oh, actually, no, they had some stuff around B.C. salmon fisheries that are tough.
00:48:06.640
So we've got, there's kind of two broad kinds of salmon farms.
00:48:13.100
There's the onshore ones, which you can imagine is a big fancy swimming pool with a bunch
00:48:17.560
And then there's the offshore ones, and they're essentially floating farms.
00:48:23.400
And unfortunately, they are extremely damaging to the environment.
00:48:29.700
All sorts of pollution that comes from the waste and the feed, and they are disease,
00:48:35.640
disease farms. And what they do is they spread diseases to the natural salmon and they're
00:48:40.460
damaging habitats. It's unfortunate stuff because it's an honest living. I don't think
00:48:44.520
there's anything wrong with salmon fishing. Love salmon, but it's damaging, particularly
00:48:50.520
to the wild salmon stocks. The NDP are talking about finding a reasonable transition plan
00:48:56.400
to move from the offshore salmon farming to onshore, which is not really impactful to
00:49:03.000
the environment. It's more expensive to do, but it's producing bad quality fish. It's
00:49:08.900
hurting the wild salmon fisheries, which is not fair to those farmers. So, a little bit
00:49:13.500
of good stuff there, I think, as long as the transition is reasonable and fair and recognizes
00:49:19.060
that people put a lot of money into capital for these things already. Tiny little bit
00:49:23.220
of good on EI. They want to make it so, you know, right now, if you want to collect EI,
00:49:27.460
You've got to get laid off if you get fired for a cause or you just want to go back to
00:49:34.040
school and upgrade your skills so you can come back into the labor market and make more
00:49:39.180
I don't think that's fair, especially if you've been paying into EI your whole life.
00:49:42.880
You're a hard worker, never lost a job, but you want to go back to school so you can come
0.89
00:49:47.400
You know, so you're an entry level nurse and you want to come back as a nurse practitioner.
00:49:57.280
good stuff there. It's all downhill from here, all downhill. On EI, they're going to make
00:50:03.740
more generous for everybody though, including quote unquote seasonal workers, which is Latin
00:50:09.880
for Atlantic fishermen. We remember, you know, we've got the pogey culture that still exists
1.00
00:50:15.380
out there. It's less extreme than it used to be. They want to go back to an older system
00:50:20.500
where they could literally fish for two months and then collect pogey for the rest of the
00:50:34.220
Corey, there's a bunch of stuff on unions there, banning replacement workers during strikes,
00:50:42.080
strengthening union power in all sorts of ways, basic guaranteed income, without cutting
00:50:48.840
back the welfare state, I'll just tack you to stone money.
1.00
00:50:53.960
No, I mean, the bottom line is we could look at how the NDP were going to come into this campaign one of two ways.
00:50:59.300
I mean, they were either going to perhaps hope they could turn singing to the next Jack Layton
00:51:03.100
and actually start contesting, like really threatening to perhaps become a player, to win an office.
00:51:09.120
Or they could just stick true to their socialist roots, their principles,
00:51:13.320
and just put out an unrealistic wish list of socialist dreams and flog those and push.
00:51:20.000
their hope is to impact the election their hope is to be a voice in the house of commons but never
00:51:24.560
actually be in power in the house of commons so they clearly chose to swing left stick to that
00:51:29.920
and maybe hope the balance you know hold the balance of power so they can really push hard
00:51:33.280
left when the next government well i think the ndp has to because there's no point to the ndp if the ndp
00:51:39.280
is pretty much the exact same as the liberals or even to the right of the liberals uh trudeau in
00:51:44.400
2015 swung to the left of the ndp where thomas mulcair had them thomas mulcair was dedicated
00:51:48.640
to balance budgets, not very strongly, but a little bit. And Trudeau said, budgets will balance
00:51:53.760
themselves, which Aaron O'Toole effectively has too. He's like, we're just going to grow the
00:51:58.800
economy and the budget will balance itself. Not an exact quote, but that really is summing up what
00:52:03.600
he said. So the NDP have reacted to Trudeau's pretty hard left turn by just going into total
00:52:11.680
cuckoo bananas. They're not even pretending. And, but I mean, they'll corner their support
00:52:16.640
in those areas where that strong you know lower mainland bc a few you know toronto quebec ridings
00:52:21.680
maybe a prairie socialist or two but i mean there were there were always two kinds of ndp i mean
00:52:25.760
there's the romano mdp you know in the past as well and you know compared to what singh is putting
00:52:30.960
out i mean those guys are hardcore conservatives but if you want to well roman was a hardcore
00:52:35.440
conservative darren o'toole yeah well he knew though he had to get realistic if he actually
00:52:40.000
wanted to win and form office and then and there's no illusions on the part of the singh ndp that
0.52
00:52:45.040
that's not their goal. They're stuck on the ideology. So, fair enough.
00:52:50.000
Taxes, just don't know where to start. Look, there's a section on, I can't get into it,
00:52:54.080
it's just so long. 75% capital gains tax. So any of you, if Jake...
00:53:00.240
Past-rated economy, I can't think of a better way.
00:53:02.560
If Jake meets Prime Minister and you want to start a business, think of something else.
00:53:08.720
I mean, like, just, who the hell would invest in anything with a 75% tax?
00:53:19.420
So now taxes, not even on your income, just for having it.
00:53:22.400
Well, I'm sure Turks and Caicos and all kinds of other tax havens will be very happy if
00:53:28.020
Jake Meadson becomes Prime Minister because everybody's moving their money over there.
00:53:32.360
I don't have a bunch, but whatever I have, I'd move it overseas.
00:53:39.780
Carbon taxes, he is virtually a carbon copy position as Trudeau and O'Toole.
00:53:51.300
The three parties all agree and they support supply management.
00:53:55.360
In fact, Aaron O'Toole's language, like they both say the same thing, but the language
00:54:00.100
around it about how much they just, God, love supply management, Aaron O'Toole was even
00:54:05.100
They're more socialist and saying by quite a bit, but it's still the same policy.
00:54:08.980
They just really wanted to emphasize they love, love supply management, uh, CBC, as
00:54:15.860
you mentioned, Dave, uh, more money, uh, any people promise they're going to get rid of
00:54:38.220
I don't, I could be wrong, I have to do a word search, but I don't think I saw the word
00:54:41.920
deficit or balanced budget anywhere in the entire thing.
00:54:46.020
Why don't you tell us about some of their energy transition?
00:55:08.240
It doesn't mention the word Alberta once, as I said.
00:55:10.780
It mentions Saskatchewan once, but only in reference to St. Douglas.
00:55:17.500
But it just says, yeah, we're shutting it down,
00:55:19.160
and we'll provide EI for you and some transition training.
00:55:23.680
So all of you watching and listening who are working in the oil patch,
00:55:27.460
you will get retrained to assemble solar panels and engineer some windmills.
00:55:34.720
I'm sure kids who are from poor families and go straight into the patch
1.00
00:55:39.140
trying to earn a decent living, I'm sure they'll be very happy about that change.
00:55:43.060
There'll be some good labor jobs, too, for people with big fans to blow on the windmills
0.77
00:55:47.300
on the days when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, too.
00:55:49.800
So, I mean, this will be a good make-work project.
00:55:51.380
Do you remember when Trump was first running for office and all the Americans said,
00:56:00.200
If Jagmeet Singh wins the election, they'll be moving trucks headed the other way at the end.
00:56:05.860
Well, we'll at least transfer our money offshore.
00:56:09.840
I've actually already had some family flee Canada because they're done with lockdowns.
00:56:16.220
They're suspected to be mandatory vaccinations.
00:56:18.620
I've had some family already flee down to the United States.
00:56:21.780
So, I mean, you know, I'm not moving anywhere because I think Western Standard is going to have, we're kind of counter-cyclical.
00:56:30.800
The worse the government is, the better, you know, the better the news is.
00:56:33.940
So I'm not going anywhere, but I'm definitely moving every penny I own offshore.
00:56:47.600
As Corey said, if you have no chance of winning the election, promise the world.
00:57:01.820
Let's go to the very dark circus unfolding in Afghanistan.
0.98
00:57:11.620
The Afghan army basically collapsed and fled, and I think it took the Taliban three days to take over the entire country.
00:57:22.300
Unbelievable pictures of Afghans climbing aboard, moving planes, falling from the skies as they tried to hold on to get out any way they could.
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Canadians had to hire Gurkhas, the legendary Nepalese soldiers, to...
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The Gurkaz are the one that slit your throat in the night and you never knew they were there.
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So thanks to their efforts, all our Canadian staff and JTF soldiers were able to get out.
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Of course, Canadians left the Gurkaz behind initially, which caused outrage.
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or outrage. And Prime Minister Trudeau said this morning they have been able to get them out to
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safety now. But horrible, horrible scenes. You know, if you're a veteran that died protecting
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Kandahar, you're turning over in your grave. The West is being accused of abandoning these poor
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people. Joe Biden standing by his decision saying, you know, we can't be there forever. The Afghans
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have to have to fight for themselves. The Taliban already bringing back Sharia law.
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Our Linda Slobodian has talked to veterans and people working with the translators that
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are now behind trying to get them out. And it's just sort of panic and sort of devastation,
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especially for these people who have spent a decade risking their lives to help Canadian
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troops being abandoned and left to what would be a certain gruesome fate?
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Yeah, you know, I grew up in military towns, Army and Air Force towns around Canada,
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and so I've got a lot of buddies who served in Afghanistan, a lot of friends whose dads
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served in Afghanistan. It was very personal for me because I knew people right after 9-11 who went
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to Afghanistan fought there. And some of my friends who came back were not the same.
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Some are still suffering in very serious ways. I mean, I suppose every war always has a losing side
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and they feel frustration and hopelessness that the loss and what was it all for when you lose.
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And the frustration here is similar to Vietnam. We never lost a battle. We won every single battle,
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but we have lost the war. And I do agree, we cannot be there forever. America and the West
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should not be world policemen. I think we made a grave mistake in trying to bring freedom to
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a place in the world that, I hate to say it, is probably never going to be free,
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at least in the next few lifetimes. Maybe our great-great-grandkids might know a different
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world, but you can't change a people unless you're willing to commit damn near war crimes to subdue
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them. And I don't think we should be willing to do that. And, you know, the Russians tried,
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the Americans tried. This is, at this moment, an unconquerable country.
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And what it has done is it's taken over the election news cycle for a couple of days and
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focused maybe a little bit on veterans. You'll all remember the last election campaign when
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Trudeau told that veteran who lost a leg that they have no more to give. And veterans
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veterans, the money spent on veterans will once again become a key campaign issue, I think.
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It's funny, I'm actually reading a book on Alexander the Great right now, and that's the
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first man we, at least they're aware of in history, who tried to conquer Afghanistan. It just doesn't
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work. I'm not one of these people who says we should have never been there. I mean, they attacked
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our ally. They murdered thousands of innocent people. They deserved what they had coming to
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them. But in the long term, we've got to really rethink here when we have to intervene. Not like
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a rock where we didn't have to intervene, but where we actually do have to do something.
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What's our long-term goal? Is it we show up, we knock out the bad guys and say,
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okay, you get McDonald's strip clubs and Facebook? Or are we just going to make sure we just have
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someone who's friendly to us there? And they might be, you know, as they said about Pinochet,
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He might be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.
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I mean, I think we need to take a more realistic view of how we deal with the world and not be policemen.
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And I think the message has to be, look, we'll leave you alone.
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But if you send any harm our way, we will turn your rubble into even smaller rubble.
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And act swiftly and decisively on any terrorist action that comes from that.
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Corey, do you think there was any way around this?
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20 years of being there, as we've seen, it didn't change the culture of the place.
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It didn't change the nature of it just being vulnerable to be run by the extreme fundamentalist element of Islam.
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I mean, it took three days and bang, they're back.
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So they really accomplished, and I hate to say it, 158 Canadians died over there.
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Thousands got injured and many more, as we said, with injuries we can't see.
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They should have been working to get out, but boy, they should have.
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Get these people out before you take the military out.
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If you're going to save the unarmed, take them out while you still have armed people there.
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You pulled away all the defenses and left them hanging.
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Their excuse to that or response to that, if you will, is that no one expected the Afghan army to just...
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I mean, you know, as you said, back to Alexander the Great, or if you look back to the end of the 1800s, the Brits were there.
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I mean, generally, it takes a while for these things to melt down.
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Biden said it would take 90 days for the Taliban to recover.
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And you can't announce a pullout without having a plan in place.
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It's the land of the proxy war for fundamentalist Islamists, unfortunately.
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Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and they've got China filtering things in the south.
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Don't forget Pakistan and the tribal areas.
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The Kashmir area, it's just a focal point for this sort of thing.
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So, I mean, they were just waiting in the wings to be able to come back in.
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I mean, you can't help but feel awful for those people trying to get out of there.
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I just, seeing those people so desperate to get on,
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I don't know what hope they had that they could stay on a moving jetliner
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on the outside, not actually holding on to any,
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And I actually, at this point, I don't think there's a good way to deal with it
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because these people who, many of the people, like the people who are translators,
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people who helped Canadian soldiers, they should have been fast-tracked to get out of there.
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But other refugees in general, people who we don't necessarily owe anything to,
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but who we might want to help, they've got to be screened.
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Like, we can't just take any person running around a tarmac.
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I'm sure many of them are deserving of refugee status, but obviously there's going to be
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some pretty questionable characters salted into that crowd.
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And they've got to, it's got to be, because we should learn with what happened from Syria.
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I mean, you had the Syrian refugee crisis, terrible situation.
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Then you had the likes of Merkel and other European leaders just opened up the borders.
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All sorts of nasty characters came in, people who should have had no business in a civilized
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So these things are not easy to do, but part of the problem here was it just happened so quickly and no one seemed to see it coming.
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As our Linda Slobodian wrote in her column, she talked to a military expert who says you can bet the Taliban is already working on fake papers to get their agents into the line of refugees and out to other countries where they can lay in wait and create havoc when called upon.
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In all likelihood, although if they are smart, the Taliban, and who knows, maybe they're smart now.
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This is a new, improved Taliban. Who knows?
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Maybe they're going to say, you know what, let's just be happy taking Afghanistan
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and, like, consolidate our gains there for a while.
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Because, you know, if, you know, within a couple of weeks they blow up another building in New York,
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well, then the American army is coming back again.
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Like, they're not going to take that laying down.
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So, if the Taliban, I mean, they might be crazy, but they're not stupid.
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So, if they're not stupid, they'll probably try to just consolidate their gains in Afghanistan for a while and try to bomb us later.
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I don't think it'll be immediate, but you can bet they're having agents infiltrate the refugee lines now.
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Again, we want to thank all of our Western Standard members for your continued support.
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We are greatly appreciative of what you do for us.
01:06:43.520
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01:06:54.440
Corey, thanks for your magnetic presence, as usual.
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And Dave, thank you for making sure you read all your notes before the show.
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And I'm just glad Corey has never had to fake it.