The Pipelineļ¼ Breaking down the UCP debate
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Summary
On this episode of The Pipeline, we discuss the fallout from the United Conservative Party leadership debate hosted by the Western Standard. Who won, who lost, and who was the big winner? We also discuss why the debate was one of the most entertaining debates we ve seen so far.
Transcript
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Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching
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The Pipeline. Today is August 10th. As usual, I'm joined by Western Standard news editor,
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I'm great. Also joined by Western Standard Opinion and Broadcast Editor, Corey Morgan.
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Corey, you have a good show today? It was a good show today. Always good shows.
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Always good shows. Never bad. No, some are better than others, but it's never a bad one.
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Okay. Well, we've got an interesting show. We're going to be focusing
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almost entirely on the fallout of the United Conservative Party frontrunners debate hosted
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by the Western Standard. Last night, we had Danielle Smith, Travis Taves, and Brian Jean
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duking it out on stage, the three big front runners. There was a lot of fireworks. There
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was a lot of action. I really enjoyed it. And I think there were a lot of moments that
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could potentially be inflection points of the campaign. So we're going to be talking about
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pretty much just the debate, but we'll also might get into Twitter, banning the Western Standard for
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reporting the news not even very controversial stuff not stuff that anyone even disputes the
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facts of uh not not not anything uh not anything too too crazy uh but the fact that it's the
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western standard about covid got us banned by twitter uh so if we have time we're going to
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talk about that before we get in though i want to uh just take a moment to note one of my all-time
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We're going to have a couple of clips that we're going to get into.
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But before we get into some of the individual moments, don't spoil it, guys.
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Before we get into individual moments, let's talk more generally.
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I think the big winner was the viewer because they were able to see each candidate clearly spell out their ideas on numerous topics.
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I think you asked, what, 20 questions or something like that.
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There was some brilliant work by Corey on the time bench.
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And then when they were almost out of time, you had that German salute.
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So, yeah, I think it was certainly the best debate so far of the UCP
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and actually one of the best political debates I've seen in Canada.
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Well, I agree entirely. That's because it was the Western standard. But yeah, no, I think it was
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a very lively debate. It was designed that way. When we sat down and figuring out the rules,
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who's invited and what are the ground rules for the debate itself? I think what really sets this
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apart from all, not just UCP debates, I don't want to pick on that, all internal party leadership
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debates when they're officially held by parties, the objective is to simply showcase your candidates
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and make sure that the party's not embarrassed.
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And that results, I think, in very dull affairs.
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mix it up. Your general thoughts, Corey. I'm with Dave on it in the sense, well, for one,
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it was really outstanding, actually, as a debate to watch. I mean, I got the most cynical critic
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of them all, and that's Jane, who's sick and tired of politics. But she watched it,
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and she even said, holy cow, I didn't realize it was a two-hour debate because it was actually
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that interesting. You know, it wasn't dragging out. It really engaged the viewer, like not just
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patting ourselves on the back. The standard hit it out of the park there. Also, as Dave said,
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I didn't see a clear loser out of the bunch. There was no knockout punch. I mean, there was
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a lot of good, you know, fireworks and things going on, but nobody really stood out. They're
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all solid. If I saw anything complaining, is Brian Jean, I mean, I think he was trying to
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come across as passionate, but it often came across as angry. And, you know, he's known for
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his temper a bit and it came out that way, even if unintentional. So that might've soured him a
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bit on some people watching, but I think all of them kind of kept to their, where their stances
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were on the policies. And there was some distinguishing differences between all of
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them to be seen. So I think it was just good all around and nobody really won or lost. The crowd
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seemed to have mostly Smith supporters in it, but that's just a matter of how the room was
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comprised, not necessarily how they performed. And I think it's important to point out that I
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think we were proven right into limiting it to the top three. Todd Lohan, who was fourth,
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did show up and you introduced him and he was warmly welcomed by the crowd. But I could not
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imagine having eight candidates across that stage and trying to get some interplay between the
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candidates uh the top three the front runners that's the way to do it uh first of all yeah we
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wouldn't have even fit them like it was actually pretty grand for three it's not a it's not a huge
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stage especially the way it was configured uh unless we wanted them under the band canopy and
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that would look ridiculous um but i yeah i i really think it had great uh by limiting it i i think it
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They didn't have to stick just to their talking points.
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but then there's enough time that they would get out.
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It wasn't, these weren't 15 second, 30 second spots.
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and then we had time for some ad hoc rebuttals in there.
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all the questions that i asked during the debate and uh he's doing a youtube uh or facebook live
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and he's going to answer them anyway and i i say good for todd you know uh none of us felt really
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great about uh not having todd on the stage but just he wasn't measuring up by all the professional
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polls and that's really all we could go by um but i i good on him and so uh you know that that's
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something we're going to cover when uh when todd answers those questions even though it wasn't at
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the debate. He's answering them anyway. I think it's a, I think it was actually, he was a great
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sport showing up anyway. He worked the room. So yeah, we're going to cover that anyway and see,
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you know, what would Todd have said if he was there? I think that'll be interesting.
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Do you think anyone won or lost? No. As Corey says, no knockout blows. But like I said,
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I think the viewer who, an undecided viewer got their money's worth last night. If you were a
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Danielle Smith supporter, you liked what you saw. If you were a Taves supporter, you liked,
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and same with Brian Jean. Lots of barbs thrown. It was a feisty debate. Standing room only crowd,
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probably more than 400 people. It was a good night. Yeah, yeah, we were at fire code, maybe
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even an inch above it, but don't tell the fire marshal. Okay, well, let's get into some of the
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debate itself. Some of the key moments here. Nico here has got some of the kind of the key
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moments, some of the clips of the highlights. One of the big clashes, as expected, right off the
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top, was on the Sovereignty Act. Sovereignty Act has dominated the campaign. It's kind of become
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a referendum on the Esports Sovereignty Act or not. Nico, why don't we show that clip from the
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clashing over the Sovereignty Act? So all the Sovereignty Act would do is it would put them
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on notice that we're drawing a line that we are not going to enforce any federal rules laws or
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regulations that violate the constitution and our sovereign rights under sections 92 through 95 in
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the constitution or violate the rights of our citizens under the charter of rights and freedoms
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it's letting them know that we are going to stop being a junior player in confederation
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and we're going to start being a senior partner we're putting them on notice
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so the sovereignty act if implemented i believe would create uncertainty and a lack of predictability
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it would have the potential to create chaos within this province and send billions of dollars of
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capital out of alberta look yes the federal government has undermined alberta's vital
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economic interests but why should we create additional chaos all that will do will send
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our economy into a tailspin. All right. Well, that was Danielle Smith, obviously the candidate
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most prominently supporting the Sovereignty Act. I think Todd Lohan is as well, but otherwise all
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of the other candidates are opposed. Travis Tabes is running second in virtually every poll we've
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seen. Him coming back at Danielle Smith. I don't know, Dave, who do you think kind of got the best
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that exchange. Well, and right there, Derek, you see probably the big issue of the campaign
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at the moment. Danielle Smith on one side, Sovereignty Act, as you said, everybody else
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on the other side. And it's, I don't, you know, if you're a Danielle supporter, that's red meat
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for you. Alberta standing up to Ottawa, we're not going to follow your regulations, your silly rules
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anymore. You know, that's great stuff. And Travis Taves, on the other hand, you know, investment's
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going to flee. It's going to be an economic disaster. Doesn't get two more stark summaries
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of the same thing. So, you know, it's judging by just the applause in the room, Daniel won that
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round. Corey, the candidates, all the other candidates, save Todd Lowen, have been just
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really coming at her on the Sovereignty Act. Do you think any of them are breaking through on this?
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do you think they're actually landing any blows that are going to be able to knock her off some
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of the support she's got? No, because there's a problem that obviously everybody has identified.
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They know that Albertans are sick and tired of Ottawa's incursions. That's been the main theme
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of this whole campaign. I mean, this is the most, from an independence point of view, the most open
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talk I've seen from a party in power on nudging the line of independence movements that we've ever
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seen. And Smith has put something forward, whether viable or not, that's saying we're going to do
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something different, and we're going to push back. And all Mr. Taves is stuck with is the status
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quo saying, I'll try to negotiate some more. And, you know, to try and say that we're going to drive
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out investment is a hard case to make when we've lost, what, $600 billion in equalization. We've
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had oil sands projects shut down. We've had Energy East shut down. We've got them coming for our
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firearms. Can we really hurt ourselves any more than Ottawa ever would? So it's a tough case. And
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Brian Jean is focusing very much on autonomy, but he's talking about trying to do it through the
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courts. Well, we failed over and over in the courts. So whether Smith's plan is workable or
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not, she's proposing something different. And I think people are going to embrace that. And these
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guys are going to have to come up with something that's going to feel more solid, and at least
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with a better chance of success than just trying the tried and true and failed. Yeah, Gene, let's
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come to him for a second. Gene threw out the entire debate on this section as well. But on
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this section, we didn't put his clip up because he was literally just quoting a section of a Supreme
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Court ruling and the Constitution. So it wasn't really a memorable moment. But throughout the
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debate, he was always saying, this is why we need to change the Constitution. And he's right that
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you can't really fix Canada without changing the Constitution. But I don't think it's a stretch to
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say it's impossible to change the Canadian Constitution. It is locked in for all time,
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and Quebec has a veto. And if Quebec didn't have a veto, it'd just be Ontario. There's just no way
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He's, you know, Daniel Smith has kind of stolen
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that hardline autonomy and sovereignty pull in this race.
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And I think with that, a lot of that traditional
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wild row support, Gene's trying to take it back.
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but he was talking about changing the constitution.
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We've been to the Supreme Court on the carbon tax we lost.
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We tend not to do very well in Supreme Court decisions.
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If Brian Jean gets elected as premier, he could be through the next election before the Supreme Court even hears a case.
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Okay, so Gene and Taves and the other candidates, whenever they're all there, they're all attacking Smith over the Sovereignty Act. And I mean, some people think it's bunk, that it's just crazy, it's not going to do anything. Okay, that's not what we're into right now. But at least from a pure political perspective, that's her strength.
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And one of the primary rules of war in politics is you never fight on the ground of your enemy's choosing, and that is the ground of Danielle Smith's choosing. She wants to fight on that ground. UCP members and voters tend to support it in pretty large numbers.
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and so it's like I feel like they're attacking the hard snout of the crocodile on this when
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they should be focusing on the soft underbelly and you ask anyone what's the one big knock
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against Danielle Smith it was the 24 December 2014 mass floor crossing that utterly obliterated
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her political career destroyed almost destroyed the wild rose and did destroy the progressive
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of Conservative Party, ultimately leading to the election of the NDP. That is where she is soft
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and vulnerable. And we saw them, I think for the first time, trying to actually go for that soft
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underbelly. They haven't really been doing it till now. They did it last night. Nico, why don't we
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play the clip of that exchange? And I want to point to Daniel Smith right now, because the floor
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crossing in 2014, I believe, led not only to the end of her immediate political career, and that
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of Jim Prentice, but it led to a setback for this province and for all Albertans in decades,
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in tens of billions of dollars. Look guys, no politician is perfect, but I think we all respect
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politicians who recognize mistakes, who own up to them, and who apologize. In fact, I think that's
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part of the reason we're in the problem that we're in right now, is that we've had precious
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little apologizing for a lot of the errors that have been made in the last two years.
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Now, I have humbly apologized to you for my role in splitting the conservative movement.
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I'd ask Mr. Taves to apologize to you for the role he played in locking us down the last two years.
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You know, as I travel around this province, I absolutely acknowledge that so many of the government decisions were taken in error in the last two years.
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i acknowledge all the loss that albertans have experienced and i and i apologize as part of that
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covet cabinet committee even though i brought a perspective of freedom i was part of that
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decision making as part of that government and i'm i'm happy to own that but here's here's the
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reality when danielle crossed the floor in 2014 it ultimately took this province to the left
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That resulted in an NDP government for our children and grandchildren.
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Well, okay, so there's kind of, well, two and a half parts of that.
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We're going to deal with the floor crossing one bit, but obviously it's very tied into how she hit back
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and kind of pivoted the whole thing back to Travis Taves' role in lockdown.
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So we're going to try to discombobulate these two as much as we can here.
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So they finally, and actually we didn't show it here,
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but Brian Jean before that also took some pretty hard shots on Danielle Smith for that,
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saying, you know, I got into provincial politics to pick up the mess
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shots on Gene's part in a sense of self-promoting
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and kind of shooting at Daniel at the same time.
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is Jean. Do you think, I guess it's kind of tied in with her comeback, but Corey, do you think
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those blows landed? Obviously, with Danielle's diehard supporters, they have forgiven her.
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They've moved on, but I'm not sure everyone has. So with people who are on the fence,
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they're not maybe sure about her. Do you think those blows landed? I do. And I mean, those who
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are willing to forgive Danielle have already, as you said, and she's shown contrition on this for
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for years. And I think most people believe it's genuine. With a lot of people, though,
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the next question is, can you trust her judgment, though? I mean, okay, you're sorry about it. You
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realize you made a mistake, but you're asking to be put into a very strong position of power.
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And if you've got a tendency for making impulsive mistakes, we can all pay some
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very big prices for it. So that's where that vulnerability is, as you said, and they're
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cutting hard. And that's where she is weakest. Those undecideds, those on the fence, if it
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sounds like she might not make sound decisions as a leader. And that tied in a bit with even some of
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her off the cuff talk, whether it's Sovereignty Act or the cancer issue, they can really, really
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cut her there. So she's got to make people confident that she'll make reasoned decisions
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in the future. And I think they're going to keep twisting that knife now that they've seen
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where they're getting some blood out of her. Dave, they finally struck for the soft underbelly.
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Do you think they hit the mark? A little bit. You know, she's been on a Alberta wide apology
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tour uh ever since she announced she's been running or was going to run for the the ucp
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leadership uh you know what we're talking about events of eight years ago that that you guys are
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still angry about well you know when we talk about it um you know and you as the moderator last night
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we're bringing up stuff that she she she wrote about in 2015 calgary sun or 2020 2020 that was
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And if you're a UCP voter, do you believe that she's made that change?
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Okay, so we're going to pivot now to her response.
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As we saw in that clip, you know, she says, I have apologized.
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She tried, I think, without mentioning him, she kind of tried to rob Klein a bit,
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who was famous for eating crow when he needed to.
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She says, you know, Albertans appreciate when their politicians apologize.
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eyes. And I think you owe Wilburton's an apology for locking them down over the last three years
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or something to that effect. That was an interesting turnaround. Corey, do you think
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that was an effective turnaround? First of all, do you think it was an effective answer from her
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on the defense over the floor crossing? And do you think it was an effective turnaround
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with her attack on Tabes in particular there? Yeah, well, it's as effective as her defense
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for the floor crossing Leguette, as I said, she's repeated it over and over, and those who will
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accept it will accept it. Tactically, it was a fine turnaround, because it put him on the defensive,
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it changed the channel a bit, and took it away from her, and dropped it back onto his own lap.
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I mean, he had scored, and he came back at it yet again anyways with his response, that's the nature
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of the back and forth, but at least she turned it into kind of a counter volley, rather than just
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taking some abuse. So tactically, it was good, though it appeals to different crowds. I mean,
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there's some people even in the conservative party UCP who thought the
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lockdowns were correct. So it doesn't necessarily undercut everything Taves did.
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This is the albatross that Travis Taves has to wear.
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He was a member of the Cori, not the Cori, the Kenny Inner Circle.
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He was a member of the Sky Party dinner scandal.
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He was a close confidant of Jason Kenny and he was probably one of the top two
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three people that were making decisions he was in the covet cabinet he was responsible for the
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lockdowns that that came across alberta on many occasions uh he you know he was the decision
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maker in all this and this is what he's going to have to wear in throughout the entire campaign
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is that he was a kenny crony and he's got to try and talk himself out from under that
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the way he did it last night was well you know i i fought for the rural communities
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It didn't stop the rural communities from being shut down,
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So I thought it was a great, great shot by Daniel.
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I figured out pretty quickly that on the Travis Tapes questions,
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I may as well have been asking it of Jason Kenney
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because I was more or less just, I felt I had no choice.
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Essentially, he has to defend the government's record
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Because he, first of all, he's the only one who was even an MLA for the whole time.
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And he was not just an MLA, he was in a cabinet, in the cabinet, and a key inner circle of that cabinet.
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And so I tried, maybe it's not entirely fair that he has to wear everything Kenny did, but he was right beside him during it.
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And so the questions, I tried to leave enough that he is still an individual.
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He is not Jason Kenney. But I felt in many ways he had to defend the record of the government.
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And that was kind of the role he was in. You know, as you're kind of getting at, he was put in the position, particularly on this, on the COVID questions of saying, well, you never heard from me publicly because it's cabinet, cabinet, it's confidential.
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but I was there secretly behind the scenes, fighting for rural Alberta, fighting for, quote,
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the perspective of freedom. I don't know. Corey, you think that held much water? I mean,
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maybe it could be true. You know, maybe around the cabinet table, he was on one side, but
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ultimately he was there. But he tried to make the argument that you couldn't hear me because of
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where I was. But trust me, pretty much saying it would have been a lot worse if I wouldn't have
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been at the cabinet table. Pretty weak. I mean, he's put in an awkward position. He can't prove
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it. He can't say how vocal or not vocal he was within cabinet. I mean, you know, we know that
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the general caucus leaks, but, you know, cabinet tends to be pretty tight. So I guess it's just a
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matter of trust whether you believe him that he was actually actively lobbying that way or not.
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He's got to wear that government's record. And, you know, if we're talking about soft spots for
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them, as Dave said, that's his. And Danielle, you know, poked right back at where he was weak.
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And the other cabinet ministers running for the job, they have to wear the same cloak, Schultz and Rajon Swanee. It's funny, if you watch social media, and you got Schultz putting out a statement, well, I'm going to fix this, or Taves putting out a statement, well, I'm going to fix the healthcare system. The immediate response from everybody is, well, why didn't you do it in the four years you were in power? Right? I mean, that's the end of the argument, because they don't have an argument.
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Well, their argument is, I wasn't that particular minister.
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Because to be fair, they weren't the premier in charge of everything.
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Sure, but Travis Taves was in charge of the money.
00:26:39.640
And he's got a tough road to hoe wearing that Kenny yoke.
00:26:43.960
Yeah, now there is one other former cabinet minister running.
00:26:51.860
But I suppose she, her criticism of the government is that it didn't lock down harder.
00:27:02.420
So I suppose she is not wearing the record of the government because she thinks that they were too soft.
0.65
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Maybe that's why she's polling somewhere around zero.
00:27:18.600
um okay so there was obviously there's a lot of fireworks throughout the whole thing um
00:27:24.740
the last question you had to do it didn't you i just kind of felt like a kid with a molotov
00:27:32.540
cocktail when else was i going to have the opportunity to do this um you know i thought
00:27:38.160
we uh we should all end on something that's a bit more unifying a bit bit easier i thought
00:27:43.800
about asking about what they're binging on Netflix or what their favorite band is. Instead, I asked
00:27:49.340
them about abortion. A nice, easy one to finish it on. I mean, they're not going to get questions
0.98
00:27:56.460
about abortion in official party debates where, you know, as I was saying earlier, the goal is to
00:28:01.020
showcase candidates not tear it up too much and do anything that might be too controversial. So I
00:28:07.120
figured abortion would be the 10 out of 10 on the other side of that. We did not ask them if
00:28:13.780
they're going to ban abortion or not because that would be criminal code stuff that's federal
00:28:16.900
and that's we all know what they would say they're not going to touch it but we asked them
00:28:21.300
would they actually i think we've got a well we asked them if they would um uh defund abortion
00:28:26.500
with taxpayers dollars that's provincial and if they would repeal the ndp's bill that they passed
00:28:30.580
where the ucb refused to vote on it before the last election that bans people from protesting
00:28:35.140
against abortion in certain areas uh why don't we play the clip on the abortion exchange nico
00:28:38.980
my view is that we need to be focused on what was the original promise was that abortion would be
00:28:46.060
safe legal and rare and i would like to see us spend more time and effort in supporting women
00:28:53.000
to make a different choice with adoption i think that's the way that you my personal position on
00:29:00.200
on abortion my personal view would put me in the pro-life camp and i'm happy to legitimize that
00:29:05.300
position every time i'm asked but i recognize it's a complicated issue and there's passionate
00:29:09.740
positions held by really good people right across the spectrum that um i am pro-life as well i lost
00:29:15.980
this child and i tell you if you want to be pro-life that's that's the situation that will
00:29:19.500
make you pro-life and i think that we should do exactly what these two people have said i've
00:29:23.460
come forward with a concrete plan on this i think we should i've done adoptions they take two years
00:29:28.240
three years sometimes to do an adoption where everybody's in favor of it why are we doing that
00:29:31.580
Why are we not providing more supports for the people that are actually doing the adoptions?
00:29:42.840
Okay, so on all of the other questions, if a candidate didn't answer the questions directly,
00:29:50.600
you know, I kind of brought them back sometimes.
00:29:53.360
You know, like we asked Travis Tabes, how did you vote on kicking Todd Lohan and Drew
00:29:59.280
And, you know, I went back to him and said, you didn't answer the question.
00:30:07.780
This one, I appreciate they're going to wiggle because unless you're in the more of the left side, you know, the NDP says we want to build abortion clinics on every corner like they're max.
00:30:20.720
You know, if you're more on the conservative side, maybe a bit more pro-life, it's a controversial thing to take on.
00:30:29.480
So I allowed a bit more fudging. None of them really directly answered either of the questions on ending taxpayer funding of elective abortions, repealing the NDP's ban on protesting against abortion in Alberta.
00:30:47.360
And then third was, you know, where do you stand on the NDP's call for building abortion clinics on every corner?
00:31:01.280
The only thing they were seemingly unified on was let's get more adoptions happening.
00:31:08.600
And, you know, to me, that seems like a good thing.
00:31:10.900
The system now is onerous, costly, time consuming.
00:31:20.320
Corey, I want to ask about any individual candidate
00:31:24.040
because they all more or less said the same thing.
00:31:27.700
I noted two different things in there, actually.
00:31:29.700
One of them, and I could be wrong on which one it was,
00:31:44.320
the other one's never addressed it. And something a little further that was surprising out of Taves
00:31:49.180
is he invoked the conscience rights term, which I saw as almost kind of stepping in it because
00:31:54.440
that's a loaded issue. It's an unfair issue, I think, because conservatives have fallen on that,
00:31:59.440
including Daniel Smith in the past. The 2012 election. Yeah. And that's something that
00:32:03.460
Kathleen Smith with her setup that she did in the past, discovering there were conscience rights in
1.00
00:32:07.780
the policy and having a tantrum over it and making it a big issue. When everybody forgets,
0.94
00:32:12.200
If you look at the associations, whether it's pharmacists or doctors or nurses, it's all built
00:32:18.240
into it. They already have conscience rights. They are allowed to decline to do procedures
00:32:23.060
or administer things that they feel conflicts with their religious or personal feelings. So
00:32:28.120
it's just, unfortunately, politicians step into it because there's some pro-life groups that are
00:32:32.860
always pushing to have that entrenched in policy, but it's a non-issue. They already have it. And
00:32:37.520
now he said it, it's on the record and I've already seen it on social media. They're using
00:32:41.420
it to attack. Oh, they're going to bring in conscience rights. And, you know, Joe such and
00:32:45.640
such up in Fort Smith isn't going to be able to get a day after pill or something. So they did
00:32:49.620
make a couple of answers. So this is why official party debates don't ask about abortion.
00:32:55.860
Okay, well, let's just get before we get on to Twitter banning the Western standard. Let's just
00:33:00.200
kind of final thoughts on on the debate. Great. Let's do another one. No, it was it was well
00:33:08.620
moderated i'm not just saying that because you're my boss it's my my mom said it was well moderated
00:33:14.940
you should give up uh this job and become a professional you're just saying that so that
00:33:19.580
you could be the boss i well i don't need the publisher anymore i just go moderate things yeah
00:33:23.580
that's fine yeah uh yeah no it was great the audience had a great time the candidates i think
00:33:28.700
enjoyed the the interplay so uh yeah uh well done to the candidates well done to us
00:33:34.060
yeah uh cory final thoughts on how the debate went well likewise yeah you and i don't like
00:33:40.180
giving you compliments but all the same no you moderated it really well and it kept it on pace
00:33:44.140
and you didn't take any crap from them and it set a good bar because debates i mean we've seen so
00:33:48.900
many usually when i hear another debate uh you know i'm political so i'll watch it but i i'm
00:33:54.200
ready for some droning and it was really fast-paced productive had a lot of content in it it set the
00:34:00.460
bar for debates i really think the western standard knocked that out of the park well i i hope that
00:34:05.640
the next official ucp debate in edmonton uh that'll be the final official debate i hope they
00:34:12.260
could you know have look at this and maybe make it a bit more interesting and again i'm not trying
00:34:18.140
to pick on uh how they did the first one that's just how parties do debates hopefully we can
00:34:24.220
maybe change how they're doing but i i i'm not optimistic i think if you if you want these
00:34:29.240
debates to be good. You have to do it as they do in, say, Republican and Democratic primaries in
00:34:33.600
the states where different networks or different other media do it. You know, Fox News will do a
00:34:37.940
Republican debate. MSNBC will do the Democrat debate. And they're just so much more lively
00:34:44.660
than our official party debates. They suck. They suck so bad. Okay. Speaking of debate, Twitter
1.00
00:34:51.440
says no debate um so just uh you know a couple hours ago um i'm just sitting in my office working
00:35:00.120
away doing my thing and uh notification pops up twitter is uh banned us they've locked our account
0.72
00:35:05.940
um i was like oh crap did someone say something stupid because you know you immediately thought
0.58
00:35:11.360
of cory i think it's me i immediately thought what the hell did cory do yes uh it wasn't it
0.98
00:35:16.480
just some straight news stories uh dave what the hell happened if i knew i'd tell you a straight
00:35:22.240
story uh the government of denmark announced this week no more vaccinations for anybody under age
00:35:28.160
age uh 18 because it's been proven that kids don't suffer the same sort of consequences
00:35:35.200
from covid that older people do and that's very controversial medical advice right no
00:35:39.520
no one uh everyone knows that young people die from covet just as much as old people
00:35:46.880
And we quoted the official Denmark government statement.
00:35:51.760
And I guess Twitter didn't like that and banned us for it.
00:35:56.240
And the frustrating thing to me is regular media have reported it all over the place and didn't get punished.
00:36:07.480
But for some reason, Twitter decided, I don't know whether they were thinking of making an example of us,
00:36:12.460
but it was literally within moments of when the story was published.
00:36:16.380
And before you continue, YouTube and Facebook censors.
00:36:30.580
So just that little thing there, Facebook, YouTube censors.
00:36:33.660
We don't want to get banned from you as well, again.
00:36:39.360
There was another story that they cited we got banned for.
00:36:41.860
Yeah, this was a really good story, a Christopher Oldcourt exclusive from Saskatchewan, where he talked to parents of foster children who the social services department, social service workers, had gone and got the kids vaccinated without even consulting them.
00:36:59.060
And we had at least two confirmed cases of that through the parents.
00:37:05.520
And Twitter didn't like that and sort of banned us on top of the Denmark story.
00:37:12.200
So Corey's really pissed somebody off in Twitter headquarters this week.
00:37:25.760
But, I mean, there's been the odd thing that's snuck out.
00:37:33.680
I mean, we've got an increasingly large-ish organization here.
00:37:40.080
And there's, you know, every once in a while, I'll see something.
00:37:42.280
And, you know, I'll say, hey, I think we need to add a little more to this story.
00:37:46.980
Let's get an opposing ā we get more of the opposing side on it.
00:37:51.040
This came up, and I looked through the stories, and I was scratching my head.
00:37:55.760
We weren't even talking about vaccine efficacy, and we are not talking about vaccine efficacy, YouTube and Facebook censors right now.
00:38:03.580
We're not even talking about it. These stories don't talk about vaccine efficacy.
00:38:06.680
One was talking about the entirely unchallenged, incontravertible fact that COVID is not as great a risk for young people.
00:38:16.480
one okay not an issue the other one was parents who say that social services of the saskatchewan
00:38:25.420
government are taking kids away and vaccinating without the sign off that was good journalism
00:38:30.440
that was a good story that was good yeah it was very good journalism uh chris old corn our
00:38:34.920
saskatchewan reporter tip it hat to him that is the kind of thing reporters should be doing and
00:38:39.180
they're just really not in significant numbers anymore this this wasn't medical advice this
00:38:44.560
wasn't misinformation. This was just factual. He spoke to real humans who said this is happening
00:38:49.940
and he verified it's happening. He did his job. I don't know. You got something to say, Corey?
00:38:57.620
What the hell? They just want to chill the discussion. It's as simple as that. They've
00:39:00.740
taken their side of things they don't even want it questioned and they just don't want us to
00:39:03.940
talk about it. Again, if it was an opinion piece, if it was speculation, even if it was a story
00:39:09.080
interviewing somebody who's a bit of a fringe practitioner or something, but this was just
00:39:12.980
news copy. And it's ridiculous, but it shows an agenda of the social media giants. And there's
00:39:21.320
certain issues they do not want discussed, and they will chill it. I think now they've sort of
00:39:26.580
fended off Mr. Musk, they're flexing their muscles again and censorship. Yeah. Bonkers.
00:39:35.420
That's why we got to do what we got to do. Speaking of which, if you're not yet a member
00:39:40.500
western standard you need to be the western standard is one of the only western headquartered
00:39:46.980
major media in canada we refuse to take a penny of the federal government's media bailout subsidies
00:39:54.100
we don't take a penny we are funded entirely by two sources uh advertising and members our
00:40:00.980
member subscribers we rely on you if you become a member you're gonna have unlimited access to all
00:40:06.340
western standard content and we've got reporters right across the west and on parliament hill
00:40:10.980
we've got some of the best opinion writers in the business some of the best reporters in the
00:40:14.740
business uh and with your support we've been able to grow tremendously over the last year we're
00:40:19.700
we're only coming up on three years this october it's it's incredible how far we've come since uh
00:40:24.980
working in our basements uh at the very beginning here uh so yeah if you're not yet a member of the
00:40:30.100
western standard go to westernstandard.news click on membership sign up it's only ten dollars a
00:40:34.500
a month or $100 a year for unlimited content. And actually your trial amounts are like a buck
00:40:40.280
or two bucks or something crazy. Okay, Dave, Corey, thank you for joining me today on the
00:40:46.400
pipeline and thank all of you for joining us today. Have a great evening and God bless.