Western Standard - The Pipeline： Calgary ban on protests

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching

00:00:28.760 the pipeline. Today is March 15th, 2023. I'm joined as usual by Western Standard Opinion

00:00:37.060 Editor Nigel Hanford. How are you, Nigel? Good to be here. Have a great day. Duty. Also

00:00:42.160 joined as usual by the Western Standard's senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan. How

00:00:46.940 are you, Corey? Very good. Thanks. We've got a great show today. We're going to be covering

00:00:51.640 the ban from Congress, Mayor and Council of certain kinds of protests. That's right. If

00:00:58.080 you protest certain things that the municipal government here in Calgary deems to be overly

00:01:03.160 offensive and not appropriate, you can face a $10,000 fine or up to one year in prison.

00:01:10.400 It's going to be sure to launch a whole series, a whole new industry of court challenges

00:01:14.780 while people are facing these fines in the meantime. Now, we're going to take a bit of a

00:01:19.660 turn into UCP, Alberta UCP nomination battles. Now, don't change the channel just yet. In a

00:01:27.300 majority of constituencies, both across Canada and Alberta and in other provinces, the real election

00:01:33.380 is not on election day. It's in the nomination. Those votes, in some cases, votes in constituencies

00:01:40.340 that decide who is the candidate for certain parties, because most constituencies are actually

00:01:44.900 quite safe. It's only a handful in the middle that flip hands generally between elections,

00:01:49.220 and it's very, very important. So we're going to be diving into some of the most important and

00:01:53.220 high-profile nomination races for the United Conservative Party in Alberta today. And some of

00:01:59.120 them are pretty damn interesting. It's also now been three years since lockdown started. And I

00:02:05.600 know some of you are probably tired of talking about it. Some of you I know are definitely not.

00:02:10.180 But it's been three years since most people in the world outside China had a normal life.

00:02:18.520 We're pretty damn back to normal now, but it was three years ago, right around this time, that things started.

00:02:24.340 So we're going to take a retrospective look.

00:02:26.160 We're going to look at what were some of the harms, potential benefits.

00:02:32.460 Some people benefited.

00:02:33.360 Worked for the government.

00:02:34.140 It was pretty good.

00:02:35.200 Some people did benefit.

00:02:36.540 Some people benefited quite a bit if you got the right kind of government contracts.

00:02:39.980 But we're going to talk about what are the long-term effects retrospective, now that we can look in hindsight, three years from when this all started.

00:02:47.760 Before we get going, though, we've got to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:02:53.580 Yeah, I know. You've heard me say it before. I've been a CSSA member for well over a decade.

00:02:58.600 That's because I've trusted them this time to be my voice for gun rights in Canada.

00:03:05.060 The CSSA is Canada's leading firearms rights organization.

00:03:08.940 Without them, the federal government would have probably seized damn near everything by now, even my kids' BB guns.

00:03:15.760 I just bought another gun yesterday and I felt confident doing so knowing that I've got an organization like the Canadian Shooting Sports Association that stands on guard for my right to responsibly and safely purchase, own and use firearms in this country.

00:03:31.080 So if you're not yet a member of the CSSA, go to CSSA-CILA.org or do what I do, just Google them and become a member today.

00:03:39.280 It's absolutely vital in the fight to stand up for your right to bear arms in Canada.

00:03:44.140 All right, so we're going to dive into it here. Just the other day, Calgary City Council, led by the mayor, passed a new, quote, safe and inclusive access bylaws.

00:03:58.040 So we have the story up from one of our reporters, Jonathan Bradley.

00:04:02.080 This restricts protests objecting to or disapproving of, quote, race, religious beliefs, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, whatever the differences between those.

00:04:16.380 Physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income, family status, status, or sexual orientation.

00:04:26.580 And people would be banned from engaging in protests about these topics within 100 meters of an entrance to a community center or library.

00:04:35.280 And if you don't listen to Mayor Gondek, you can face a maximum penalty of up to $10,000 fine or a year in prison.

00:04:48.960 Hefty stuff.

00:04:51.900 Where you start on something like this.

00:04:53.700 But, you know, we've had, there's been bylaws already passed by the Calgary Council, and then these things have a way of being contagious.

00:05:00.760 You know, one wacky city council does something, others are going to do it.

00:05:04.240 So that's why we're talking.

00:05:05.340 I know not everybody here is in Calgary, the majority of our viewers are, but we've got a lot of people in Calgary.

00:05:09.360 But what happens in Calgary doesn't stay in Calgary.

00:05:12.240 Just, you know, Toronto does something wacky, Calgary normally follows soon after.

00:05:15.640 But this is coming because there's been, I think, an increase in the number of protests primarily aimed at drag events targeted towards minors.

00:05:27.740 In some case, very, very young minors.

00:05:30.100 We've talked about this before, but there's been an increase in these protests.

00:05:33.900 I haven't seen any protests.

00:05:35.780 I'm not saying it has been, but I have not seen any protests of people protesting against races.

00:05:41.180 No Irish. 1.00

00:05:42.740 I haven't seen protests against color.

00:05:44.940 no green gender I haven't seen no women no men I haven't seen that gender identity I haven't seen

00:05:54.420 people protest against people's gender identity whatever that is or gender expression whatever

00:05:58.800 that is actually you see people protest against subjecting young kids to kind of creepy drag

00:06:06.000 shows but I haven't seen people protesting against people expressing themselves over they want against

00:06:12.060 physical disability. Are you allowed to protest against like Alzheimer's disease anymore?

00:06:17.760 I don't know. Down with Alzheimer's? My weekend plans are done. I never remember when I go after

00:06:23.580 them anyway. Mental disability, age. Kind of a demented thing to do, wouldn't it? Yeah. Age, 0.99

00:06:28.740 you're not allowed to protest against age, so like no old people. I don't know. Ancestry, 1.00

00:06:35.880 place of origin. I haven't seen a source of income. That wouldn't get cut me. So are you

00:06:40.500 allowed to protest against drug dealers is I suppose that would now be illegal are you you're

00:06:45.620 not allowed to protest against drug dealers uh sexually I haven't seen people protesting against

00:06:50.900 gay people or lesbians I've just never these things have happened in days of yore but I just 1.00

00:06:57.140 haven't seen these things um let's start with you Nigel um what do you think the danger is of this

00:07:04.660 being applied haphazardly beyond how they probably intended to be this is totally political it's uh

00:07:13.060 it's it's virtue signaling we have a charter of rights that gives us freedom to protest

00:07:19.780 it's that simple and if the uh if if they charge somebody under this bylaw

00:07:27.140 my certainty the way i would bet in any office pool constructed around that case

00:07:32.900 would be that it would be dismissed

00:07:35.360 because we do have the right to assemble

00:07:37.980 the right to free speech

00:07:40.460 and both of these are compromised by this bylaw

00:07:43.960 but I don't think that mattered to the people

00:07:47.080 who wanted to put this through

00:07:48.460 they wanted to make a statement

00:07:50.280 they've made it

00:07:51.900 why they would want to make that statement

00:07:55.320 I cannot imagine

00:07:57.920 you correctly listed all the things

00:08:02.400 that this bylaw excludes you from protesting about,

00:08:08.040 none of them happen except for that one thing

00:08:10.760 where children are exposed to a drag show.

00:08:16.560 Now, maybe it's about the 19th century, I mean,

00:08:19.300 but I just find that concept something that you should protest,

00:08:23.020 something that is wrong.

00:08:24.300 And when somebody does it, as long as they don't screw it up,

00:08:27.320 as long as they make the facts of the case reasonable,

00:08:29.880 They don't get into a struggle with a police officer or assault a drag performer with their sign as they enter the building or anything like that.

00:08:39.080 As long as they make the facts reasonable, this will not hold up.

00:08:43.320 This is unconstitutional.

00:08:45.180 It's a public relations gesture.

00:08:47.760 Why they want to make it, that's a political question maybe we should ask.

00:08:52.680 But there it is.

00:08:55.000 Won't hold up.

00:08:55.700 I'm not so confident it won't hold up in the courts.

00:08:57.700 Our courts have a funny way of reinterpreting the Constitution to fit whatever the political sensibilities of the day are.

00:09:04.520 But I would agree, in principle to the way the Constitution is written, it's clearly unconstitutional.

00:09:09.200 But that doesn't seem to really matter to a lot of judges.

00:09:11.900 You're right in one sense.

00:09:12.560 They want to make legal precedents in the books.

00:09:14.580 They want to be cited.

00:09:15.480 You're right in one sense.

00:09:16.720 but defending the right of grown men dressed up in women's clothes to expose themselves to children 0.97

00:09:22.480 doesn't seem like something that a normal person would want to be associated with.

00:09:28.840 Like, you wouldn't want that to be the case for which you, as a judge, are remembered.

00:09:33.660 And certainly the public is not with you on it.

00:09:36.060 I don't know.

00:09:37.420 So this has rings, Corey, of the bubble zone law.

00:09:40.820 I was thinking of just that.

00:09:42.080 This is familiar turf for you.

00:09:43.180 Yeah. I'm inevitably going to have to toot my horn a little bit. I'll try to keep it to an absolute bearable minimum. So we go back to 2019. The NDP provincially introduced so-called bubble zone law to make it illegal to protest outside of an abortion clinic. And for the most part, at least the way it's portrayed in Hollywood, those are kind of nasty protests. People are hurling insults at women and being generally nasty, saying things I don't think are actually going to do the pro-life movement

00:10:13.180 any good. But most of these protests actually tend to not be like that. They're very quiet.

00:10:19.720 They might be someone handing out a pamphlet with alternatives to abortion. Sometimes it's

00:10:25.000 Linda Gibbons silently praying outside there. Yeah, but all of that was illegal. And the

00:10:31.040 Knotley government brought this in, trying to catch Jason Kenney because he was known as a

00:10:35.620 pro-lifer, trying to catch the UCP as scary social conservatives. And the UCP decided to abstain

00:10:42.040 from voting, which you can't actually do under the rules, so they had to leave the legislature

00:10:45.640 every time there was a vote on the law. They weren't counting on me putting, I think, 25 or

00:10:50.340 28 amendments to it, so it actually, they had to skip dozens and dozens of votes. It turned out to

00:10:55.820 be kind of an embarrassing thing, but the UCP kind of cowardly ran away from it. They didn't want to

00:11:00.700 talk about it, but this is kind of based on it. You're banning protests on a certain location

00:11:05.840 around a topic, which is one reason I'm not confident the courts will strike this down,

00:11:11.520 because the courts have upheld that but this this is going another that

00:11:18.180 legislation didn't mention what you're protesting said you can't protest at an

00:11:21.960 abortion clinic theoretically you can't protest for abortion at an abortion

00:11:28.080 clinic although that doesn't really tend to happen but you know what you were it

00:11:31.740 was not about the topic it was the location so that seems to list the court

00:11:35.040 challenges but Corey this is getting into the topic you cannot protest on

00:11:39.660 on these topics. It's taking a, the legislation is very clear on what you can be for and what you

00:11:46.380 can't be for. I don't know, do you think this, you're not a lawyer, but your view, do you think

00:11:52.920 this has any chance of standing up in a court or are we, is this purely going to be just symbolic,

00:11:58.260 gets struck down and we move on? I'm kind of with you. I think I'm with Nigel in that it shouldn't

00:12:03.760 stand up in court. It's clearly unconstitutional, but I think it will. We'll see. Depends on who

00:12:11.840 the first one charged is and what they've done. Well, that's what I say. You've got to make sure

00:12:15.480 the facts. You've got Larry Heather in there, who's kind of a perennial chronic social conservative

00:12:20.560 protester who can get pretty hysteric. It makes it hard defensively, you know, in front of the

00:12:27.320 court. Again, people should say, well, he should be charged then for crossing lines of intimidating

00:12:31.280 people or blocking access or things, but this was virtue signaling. I mean, the language in

00:12:36.920 the city hall from Courtney Walcott, when he said, and if I were another counselor, I'd be

00:12:41.820 outraged, is anybody who votes against this supports hate. That's what he said, right out

00:12:46.960 right. Like, come on. And he's been known for his race baiting. I'll call him out on it because

00:12:50.640 it's not conducive. There's real hateful people out there. But when you pull stunts like that,

00:12:55.640 you just add to the division. You look at the protests outside of these, they're usually 10,

00:12:59.580 11 people. We're not talking about a big groundswell or a real problem. It's just a symbolic problem. And they're trying to spot it with a hammer.

00:13:06.580 It's obviously designed to send a message.

00:13:12.580 And I guess they've done it. But I suppose it's not just the dreg shows. There's the case of trying to what to call it. I'm calling it for now the whippersnapper.

00:13:23.580 The biological male who identifies as a woman who, according to multiple eyewitnesses to the Western standard, was walking around the female change room at the Canyon Meadows public pool in Southern Calgary, waving her penis around. 0.96

00:13:41.580 Again, that's 2023 verbiage there. And there were protests against this and the usual suspects have said people who are opposed to this, people who have reported it are hateful.

00:13:55.580 The Western Standard is hateful for talking about this, but we've got four or five eyewitnesses in person who saw the whippersnapper whipping around doing his or her thing.

00:14:08.580 And there was protests against this, and they're very angry about it.

00:14:15.860 Nigel, do you think this will be successful in kind of tamping down these protests?

00:14:20.880 Because they're facing pretty serious consequences now.

00:14:22.980 If they do it, $10,000 a year in prison, it's a pretty big price to pay for going out on Saturday and making yourself hurt.

00:14:29.080 I think what it's more likely to do in the short term is discourage women from taking their daughters swimming in these municipally owned swimming pools, which is a great shame. 1.00

00:14:39.880 I mean, it shouldn't have to be that the person who is offended is the one who suffers the withdrawal of privileges and the person who is doing the offending.

00:14:49.260 And it is offensive. You know, I think it's important for us to say that here at the Western Standard, we're not taking the position that transgender people are wicked or evil.

00:15:03.440 we are saying that community standards that have served us very well

00:15:11.800 are not to be forfeited to accommodate transgender people who somehow want to create a moment.

00:15:23.320 And most don't even appear to be doing this.

00:15:25.180 It seems to be a small minority of a small minority that are going out of their way to, you know, to do obscene things like the whippersnapper at the pool.

00:15:36.520 You know, why should a thousand people be inconvenienced, offended, or feel that they can't safely go to a swimming pool to accommodate the one person who wants to make a point by strolling around?

00:15:48.240 What you're saying now is essentially a hate crime in Calgary.

00:15:50.900 If you were to express that view within 100 meters of the swimming pool in question.

00:15:57.420 I'm wondering if maybe we should test this bylaw ourselves.

00:16:00.960 I'm not testing.

00:16:04.280 You have a way with words that you might not make for the best case, Corey.

00:16:11.040 You know, I heard an interesting thing, and I doubt the people who like protesting and making a lot of noise,

00:16:15.840 the Larry Heathers and some of the others will be satisfied with changing tact.

00:16:18.620 But it was an interesting approach at an event I'd gone to, and somebody had asked the speaker about those issues of the libraries anyways, not the pool.

00:16:26.740 And he asked in the room, how many people here have been on the board of their local library?

00:16:31.240 And not a single hand went up.

00:16:33.360 And, you know, those are the positions that really, if you've got 12 people together and show up at a library AGM, you can take over the entire board and you will not have another drag show there ever again. 0.53

00:16:43.340 So maybe they should redirect, though.

00:16:45.960 So, I mean, I'm not saying that we don't have a bigger issue with the threats to public protest and things, but the protesters perhaps could do their cause a better favor as well by being less loud and obnoxious.

00:16:56.680 I agree, but I'm also not sure it's reasonable to think that to exercise your right to free speech, you need to join such an exciting and esteemed group as your local library board.

00:17:07.900 I mean, that's a lot of mental...

00:17:10.740 There's a reason the hands didn't go up, too.

00:17:12.320 I don't care if my local library was conducting satanic child sacrifice rituals.

00:17:19.960 I'm not joining the board.

00:17:21.320 I just can't bring myself to do it.

00:17:24.620 I think that might still be seen as a legitimate protest

00:17:28.660 if you decided to take matters into your own hands.

00:17:33.060 Satanic child sacrifices?

00:17:34.620 No, you cannot protest that.

00:17:36.700 That is on religious grounds.

00:17:38.220 Well, you know, there's an interesting thing here.

00:17:39.940 When some of the rights that we actually really respect,

00:17:45.300 like the right to free speech, have been won

00:17:49.000 when people defied the law as it then was.

00:17:52.540 I think particularly in our own industry of how the right

00:18:00.040 to free speech was won back in 1834 by Joseph Howe.

00:18:03.600 He was in breach of the law when he published.

00:18:07.160 And he said, well, I'm publishing anyway

00:18:08.780 because what I'm saying is true. Joseph Howe and the Nova Scotia colonial legislature is a bit of

00:18:14.660 backstory for this, but you are right. Yeah. So, you know, who knows how, who knows where this

00:18:19.360 will go? Well, speaking of backstory, let's get into some real deep backstory here. So right now,

00:18:26.280 Alberta is ramping up for a general election coming up, what's it, May 27th? 29th. May 29th.

00:18:33.940 Yes sir. That is taken down faster than most of us realized. But before the election is in most

00:18:41.860 constituencies the real election or in some cases appointment. And that is where the parties nominate

00:18:47.460 their candidates. Theoretically it's normally a vote of the members in the constituency who

00:18:52.580 are in good standing. The party vets some candidates, the people get to select. That's

00:18:56.820 normally the way it works more or less. The party leaders will put the thumb on the scale a bit

00:19:02.100 here and there but sometimes it gets a bit more extreme but these nomination battles matter

00:19:06.980 because seven roughly 75 percent of the seats in any given jurisdiction provincial federal whatever

00:19:14.740 it is between 60 and 75 percent of the seats they're not up for play um cyprus medicine hat

00:19:23.300 is never voting ndp the ndp could run jesus christ and the ucp could run the devil himself

00:19:29.060 and the UCP will still win the seat. And then Edmonton Strathcona, Rachel Notley's seat.

00:19:36.820 The NDP could run, oh, I don't know, Stalin. And the UCP run Winston Churchill. The NDP are still

00:19:47.700 going to win that seat right now. It's a safe seat. And that's the way generally a majority of seats

00:19:52.420 are. Elections are cited in the middle. So the nominations are really, really important,

00:19:56.820 especially if you live in those seats where your vote doesn't really matter anymore that one party

00:20:00.900 is going to win it one way or another so we're going to kind of go through some of the most

00:20:04.180 high profile ones don't worry we're not going through all 87 we're going to go through some

00:20:08.020 of the more recent ones that have just been nominated or have had recent news and controversy

00:20:14.260 let's just start with maybe um the most controversial of them all rimby rocky

00:20:19.140 mountain house sundry so there you have jason nixon first elected in 2015 as the wild in wild

00:20:25.140 Rose, 2019 re-elected as UCP, and he was Jason Kenney's right-hand man, as Minister of Environment,

00:20:30.980 and importantly House Leader. He was kind of his hammer within the caucus to try and keep it in

00:20:35.540 line, especially as unrest happened during lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He was kind of

00:20:41.780 the muscle behind Kenney. And that led, as Jason Kenney became very unpopular, Jason Nixon,

00:20:48.660 he was kind of on the ship. And the Kenney ship went down. But before the Kenney ship went down,

00:20:53.780 the party opened the nomination really early and to have a nomination and they disqualified a guy

00:21:00.900 named tim hoven tim hoven uh rancher in the area uh was essentially slandered by the party as a

00:21:07.700 racist though he had no record of him saying anything racist or anything but he was a racist 0.73

00:21:12.420 sounded like kind of what the ndp would do here and they disqualified him so that jason nixon

00:21:16.660 became the candidate in a hyper safe seat about as safe a seat as you're going to get in alberta 0.55

00:21:21.060 federally that's he used to be called wild rose it's that damn safe and disqualified him so there

00:21:27.980 was no vote and the ucp members in that constituency were denied any chance to

00:21:31.980 select who their candidate was it was just who jc kenny picked and there's been a lot of stuff

00:21:36.280 in the background since and the local members have overthrown the board demanded a nomination

00:21:41.300 an actual vote all of this has been denied and now tim hoven has announced he is going to run

00:21:47.380 as an independent in this right now.

00:21:50.420 Last independent elected in Alberta was Ray Speaker.

00:21:53.540 And that was the early 80s, before I was born.

00:21:56.220 And he had been the deputy premier of the province,

00:21:58.280 the finance minister,

00:21:59.420 and de facto premier actually for quite a long time.

00:22:02.260 And it was before they even had televised leaders debates

00:22:04.440 when people actually cared who their local MLA was.

00:22:07.540 Not since then has there been an independent elected.

00:22:10.760 So with you, Nigel, is this a big deal?

00:22:15.640 Oh, yeah, absolutely.

00:22:16.400 It's a big deal.

00:22:17.040 because it illustrates the divide that remains in the UCP now.

00:22:22.460 But it's a big deal that he would run as an independent

00:22:24.040 because independents do not win in Alberta.

00:22:26.500 I'm sorry, anyone who thinks you can win as an independent.

00:22:28.660 You can't.

00:22:29.760 It's just...

00:22:30.580 Well, that certainly is the historical experience.

00:22:34.960 What Mr. Hoven might well illustrate by his unsuccessful attempt

00:22:40.920 is just how badly divided the party is.

00:22:44.900 If he, you know, if he pulls in 500 votes and everybody votes for Jason Nixon, well, I guess people are going to make this thing work.

00:22:56.380 And those who we describe as Kenneites march on. 1.00

00:23:04.080 But if Mr. Hoven should gain substantial voter attraction, not win, but really make a hole in Mr. Nixon's majority, which he will win, well, I would have to say that the fight remains on.

00:23:23.480 And that going forward, assuming that Danielle Smith wins, which I think is a reasonably safe assumption, that she's going to have to deal with this for the next four years.

00:23:40.000 It's a bellwether.

00:23:41.320 But, like, there's just no way the UCP doesn't win that constituency.

00:23:45.040 Even if the UCP candidate doesn't have the support of the local UCP members, people are going to vote for the blue signpost.

00:23:53.480 That's just the way it works, unfortunately.

00:23:56.380 It's just the way it works.

00:23:59.040 If Nixon is the UCP candidate in the ballot,

00:24:01.560 it's going to be the UCP MLA at the end of the day.

00:24:03.880 How do you think, even if Hovind gets a respectable showing as an independent,

00:24:09.060 5% or 10% would be, 5% exceeds the vast majority of independents.

00:24:13.400 Most independents, they'll break one.

00:24:16.560 How do you think Smith, two-part question,

00:24:19.100 how do you think Smith should deal with this now?

00:24:21.420 How do you think she deals with it post-election

00:24:22.820 and Nixon inevitably takes the riding under the UCP banner.

00:24:26.340 I don't know.

00:24:27.260 I think she should have opened that nomination up early and just bite the bullet. 1.00

00:24:31.520 And yes, Jason Nixon might have lost it, but now he's that symbol that's there.

00:24:35.220 I mean, it would have been behind her and out of the way. 0.60

00:24:37.080 But she was facing a significant revolt.

00:24:39.660 Well, the caucus was upset.

00:24:40.700 The caucus was worried that, well, what about if you open up his nomination,

00:24:43.720 my nomination might get opened.

00:24:44.840 And there's all these grassroots groups out there who are scary and taking out nominations.

00:24:49.080 These are tough choices.

00:24:51.120 But, you know, this division, that's what kills conservatives, kills them.

00:24:56.060 And sure, you're right.

00:24:58.320 There's no way Hogan's going to win as an independent. 0.90

00:25:00.660 But he could build the base that now you're going to have four more years of battles going on in there.

00:25:07.180 How to deal with it?

00:25:08.120 Yeah, I don't know.

00:25:08.780 That's why I'm in here and not in the legislature.

00:25:11.560 She's got some very difficult rifts to heal there.

00:25:15.500 And Nixon is just, he's a walking, breathing symbol of Kenny walking around her caucus right now that she's going to have to deal with down the road, if not sooner.

00:25:26.080 And we'll see where Mr. Hovind goes.

00:25:28.680 I mean, he apparently had sold over a thousand memberships, you know, when trying to win that nomination before.

00:25:33.860 Again, he won't win the race, but as Nigel said, he could take a very strong, symbolic bite out of it that make them realize that you've really got something to worry about.

00:25:43.320 So I guess the only advice I could offer then if it's if it's Jason Nixon still in there after the election is Daniel Smith has got to figure out how to heal that rift and turn it into a unified party because there's going to be more fighting to come.

00:25:57.560 Well, let's turn to a very symbolic writing, Calgary Lougheed.

00:26:01.320 So this is symbolic for a few reasons.

00:26:04.680 It's named after Peter Lougheed, who I think represented at one point.

00:26:09.480 And it had another premier representing it until very recently, Jason Kenney.

00:26:14.800 He won in the by-election there in 2017 and then represented since the last general election.

00:26:22.300 He resigned.

00:26:23.860 So that obviously opens up.

00:26:25.240 There's no incumbent there.

00:26:26.140 UCP had to nominate a candidate.

00:26:28.540 Now, a guy named Eric Bouchard won just the other day, 53% of the vote in a five-way race.

00:26:35.620 So a good number of candidates.

00:26:37.560 And he is, I think it's fair to say for the profiling we've seen by the likes of Linda Silbodian of him, pretty much an anti-Kenny candidate.

00:26:47.560 He comes from the more libertarian populist wing, hardcore anti-lockdown.

00:26:52.560 He was a business owner who felt that Kenny's lockdowns and mandates devastated his business and others.

00:26:58.560 And at least as Bouchard tells it, he was organizing other business owners who were angry at Kenny for this and managed to win.

00:27:06.560 And I'll start with you, Corey. How significant is it that like an anti-Kenny candidate is now the UCP candidate of the party Kenny more or less founded in Kenny's own constituency?

00:27:21.600 That's hard to say. I think he was better organized. I mean, from what I read, too, he was just shy of winning on a first ballot, actually, with five other contenders.

00:27:29.560 They seem to all be more clustered together. They were voting for the other guy, so we took a few ballots from the win.

00:27:33.160 Yeah, to pull that extra few percent, there was him versus the rest.

00:27:37.800 So there was the anti-Kenny and the Kenny, but it was close.

00:27:40.440 And again, it illustrates some ongoing, perhaps a bit of division going on.

00:27:45.580 But as far as the public notices, it's not the case of him knocking off an incumbent like we were talking about with Nixon.

00:27:50.820 It's not going to be quite the hard feelings or the symbolism of how much that necessarily means.

00:27:55.780 To walks like us, we can read in and see that we're getting some non-conventional candidates winning these nominations that we thought before, but whether or not that bodes, you know, bigger division later on, I don't know if we can read too much into that.

00:28:10.020 Nigel, Kenny was famous, if nothing else, for being a great organizer.

00:28:15.560 I mean, even his greatest detractors, don't take that away from him.

00:28:18.460 He was a machine politician.

00:28:21.780 He could organize better than anyone else.

00:28:24.380 And no doubt he had his own organization in Calgary Law. He used it as the base as constituency association as the base for his campaign for him to keep the UCP leadership.

00:28:34.380 They were in all the calls and stuff to be paid for by his local CA going out in support of keeping him as leader.

00:28:41.380 But what does it say that Kenny's organization would seemingly be unable to hold the UCP nomination in Kenny's own seat?

00:28:52.380 Well, there are two things that it could possibly say. One is that the organization wasn't trying. That's possible. The other is that there has been a genuine groundswell going with the new Premier.

00:29:08.920 And, I mean, Bouchard is, says he's never met Daniel Smith, but he says he's a big supporter of Daniel Smith.

00:29:18.660 Perhaps that's an indication of just where public sentiment is in the politically interested in Calgary Lockheed.

00:29:27.100 And I qualify that by saying the politically interested because, to my observation,

00:29:33.100 In rural areas, such as we were just talking about, Remy, with Jason Nixon, people are a lot more interested in who their MLA is.

00:29:44.440 They tend to just be more aware of those people.

00:29:48.280 Whereas in a downtown constituency, they're busy, going to work, getting on with it, going to the grocery stores.

00:29:57.200 Oh, yeah, somebody knocking on the door.

00:29:59.260 Who is it?

00:29:59.760 No, no, it's all right.

00:30:01.840 Yeah, tell them we're with them.

00:30:03.100 and that's about as much as it gets. So it may not indicate terribly much about the feelings in

00:30:09.980 the constituency, but it does tell you something about the feelings within the party in that

00:30:15.420 constituency. Clearly, they are not backing anybody who rides on Mr. Kinney's foottails.

00:30:22.300 So we're switching out Lacombe Pinocca. So, you know, just a bit north of Red Deer,

00:30:27.500 There's rural and small urban constituency in central Alberta. There it was at least portrayed, I think fairly, as kind of a showdown between the Smithites and the Kennyites.

00:30:43.900 You had Jennifer Johnson representing kind of the populist insurgent wing, and Dusty Marshall, who, at least as it's been written, I don't know the individual, coming more from the Kenneite faction, and Jennifer Johnson beating Marshall there.

00:31:02.220 And this is replacing Ron Orr, the current MLA who's not seeking re-election, who, I think, Kenny has Minister of Culture and maybe women's issues or something?

00:31:13.860 Yeah, but it's a safe riding.

00:31:18.280 The UCP nominee in this riding is going to be the UCP MLA in that riding, no doubt.

00:31:25.580 Do you guys have any insights into this riding?

00:31:28.820 I don't have direct insights.

00:31:30.080 I did do a brief tabletop interview with Ms. Johnson here about six months ago, and, you know, she described very much the same kind of feelings within the people who were interested in politics in the constituency that you described with

00:31:58.360 Rimby Rocky Mountain House Sundry. They were worried that the party was taking too much

00:32:05.100 interest in the nomination process. But she stuck it out. I mean, she's a very credible individual.

00:32:11.540 You meet her, you think, oh, yeah, well, this one will do well. And so I guess she did.

00:32:17.380 Mr. Marshall, I have not met, have not interviewed. Just reading his campaign material,

00:32:23.340 he seemed like a sensible guy but I should note in in almost all of these not necessarily all all

00:32:30.540 but most of them especially in safe or winnable UCP seats it's also not been battled just between

00:32:35.820 candidates and factions but between political action committees PACs and that's that's going

00:32:40.380 behind the scenes and it's only now starting to get a little bit of mention in the legacy media

00:32:45.100 you've got take back Alberta on one side and then a variety of other PACs I won't name them

00:32:50.380 them, so I don't get it wrong, but more PACs that had been affiliated with Kenny in the past and

00:32:55.140 other kind of groups. And so there's money and organization on both sides. And they're kind of

00:33:00.700 dueling out. It's almost like these PACs are mini parties that have an election, have a nomination

00:33:08.020 before the election. Then in the general election, well, whatever candidate is in there gets to

00:33:12.700 carry it forward. But it's quite the series of proxy wars from top to bottom across Alberta.

00:33:17.340 You know, it's interesting how some people sneer at PACs,

00:33:21.620 and yet PACs are doing exactly what we were saying earlier.

00:33:24.760 They're getting involved.

00:33:25.320 You need to do with the library board.

00:33:26.760 You don't like what the library's doing?

00:33:28.100 We'll go on the board and see what you can do about it.

00:33:31.900 Well, somebody said, I don't like what's going on in the UCP.

00:33:35.300 We've got to get things changed, but let's call it Take Back Alberta, you know?

00:33:39.040 And what did they do?

00:33:39.880 They put nine, they won nine seats on the executive branch there at the AGM.

00:33:46.060 So, you know, you don't have to agree with them, but at least they're putting their money where their mouth is.

00:33:51.520 On both sides.

00:33:53.060 And they're changing focus.

00:33:54.360 You know, it used to be PACs.

00:33:55.060 Okay, we got a PAC, we got a big war chest.

00:33:56.880 We're going to buy a whole bunch of third-party advertising or do other stuff.

00:33:59.840 They should buy a bunch of that.

00:34:00.840 Or run polls.

00:34:02.560 But the amount of impact versus when suddenly, you know, particularly when it turned with Take Back Alberta,

00:34:08.420 well, you know what, we're going to focus on these micro races, not the general election,

00:34:12.420 and we're going to win these things by bite.

00:34:16.060 the other packs have responded that's the real election and uh absolutely it's interesting to

00:34:20.860 watch it does make me nervous as i said with conservatives how bent out of shape are the

00:34:26.060 losing candidates going to be because that's that risk that say daniel smith wins but with a reduced

00:34:30.940 majority and suddenly you get five people across the floor forming a party and off to the races

00:34:36.780 here we are with conservatives isn't letting the party again i uh we'll just see but there's

00:34:40.780 there's definitely still some still move on to one that i don't think is as much of a proxy

00:34:45.820 battle. Now, we have to give a clear disclosure here of a massive conflict of interest on this

00:34:52.280 one. Cyprus Medicine Hat, where James Finkbeiner is fighting against Justin Wright for the UCP

00:34:59.680 nomination. Conflict of interest because James Finkbeiner is the former director of operations

00:35:04.240 for the Western Standard. Now, it was not an editorial position behind the camera, behind the

00:35:09.300 pages, but running a large part of the business and day-to-day functions of the standard here.

00:35:14.120 So, a friend of the standard. So, clear disclosure of conflict of interest. You know, if I lived in Cyprus, Minnesota, I might vote for James, but I don't, and we're just going to try and take more of a, as much as we can, a clear-eyed analysis of it.

00:35:30.260 So Finkbeiner, you know, is a big Smith fan.

00:35:38.140 Justin Wright, I think, is more of, you know, from the kind of older member among the constituency association board, local businessman, but it's a big fight, and it's guaranteed whoever is the candidate in this riding is going to be BMLA.

00:35:54.920 potential independent challenge. This is currently represented by Drew Barnes.

00:36:00.080 Drew Barnes, you'll remember, was kicked out of the UCP caucus or they didn't really name what, 0.99

00:36:06.300 just being a pain in the ass that Jason Kenney was. 0.99

00:36:08.120 Just being Drew. 1.00

00:36:08.840 Drew just being Drew.

00:36:10.220 I like Drew, but we were talking earlier, he's just hard to work with.

00:36:13.040 He can be difficult to work with, but you know, generally takes the right side on issues, but

00:36:16.880 sometimes difficult to work with maybe. He said he wasn't running for the UCP nomination there,

00:36:23.400 And remember, he didn't come back into the UCD caucus when Todd Lowen did.

00:36:26.280 Todd Lowen was kicked out for a very specific reason, saying Kenny should resign.

00:36:31.240 But it's an interesting two-maybe-plus race there.

00:36:35.380 It's, again, we know the NDP is on the ballot, but we don't take them seriously in this riding.

00:36:41.160 Maybe you, Nigel.

00:36:44.700 Is this going to be an interesting riding to watch, or is it just going to be?

00:36:47.280 Well, I think we'll find it interesting to watch for all the reasons you've just given.

00:36:52.900 But, I mean, there's one other contrast between the two candidates that you didn't touch on.

00:36:57.880 My understanding is that Justin Wright is part of a family that has lived in that area for generations, two or three anyway,

00:37:08.280 and therefore is very well known and has a lot of personal loyalties around him.

00:37:13.040 He is a businessman. He's known in the area.

00:37:16.400 James was born and raised there as well.

00:37:19.220 You know, he's always talking about weird times in Redcliffe, things people in Redcliffe do.

00:37:24.300 Well, it'll be interesting to see who's, you know, what weight to put on local experience down there.

00:37:32.720 I won't get into it.

00:37:34.860 I'll just keep it very general.

00:37:37.500 But, you know, I'm privy to some of the things that have been happening in that campaign.

00:37:41.580 you know, very whisper campaigns, nasty, quasi-hateful things that are not published in the

00:37:50.220 newspapers, but they're whispered around in phone calls and at the coffee shop. And it's really

00:37:55.520 nasty stuff. And it's the kind of thing you often see in local constituency level party politics.

00:38:01.180 You probably know what the kind of thing I'm talking about, Corey. I've heard some of the

00:38:04.440 things already. Yeah, it's nasty stuff. But, you know, how significant a role can the kind of

00:38:10.940 whisper campaign play in a race like this? Because it's not in the newspapers. I doubt anyone would

00:38:17.320 put their name to it in the paper. It makes it personal. And if it is tied directly to another

00:38:22.600 campaign rather than a campaign supporter, whoever wins afterwards, you could end up with a very

00:38:27.140 divided constituency with at least the group of people who would have been your supporters and

00:38:31.540 campaigners in the general election. You know, as you said, it's not in the papers. General people

00:38:35.640 don't know it. But internal party things, and with that one being such a weird hornet's nest,

00:38:40.220 If Drew decides to run again, and as an independent, his odds are really slim, but as an incumbent, he's going to take a good bite.

00:38:47.200 And if you've got a group of the UCP that are really out of joint going suddenly behind Barnes, you might see something unusual happen.

00:38:56.320 I watched actually, there wasn't much else going on that night that I saw pop up, but I watched the candidate debate between Justin and James.

00:39:03.620 And, you know, it was a typical nomination, one pretty dull for the most part.

00:39:07.760 But I did see a bit of a theme, at least a difference between the two.

00:39:11.280 And James is not really a hardcore social conservative by those measures.

00:39:15.740 And Justin seems to be kind of trying to collect the social right together.

00:39:20.020 And that's one of the areas where conservatives love to divide themselves up a bit as well.

00:39:24.820 So, I mean, it can harm the party level organization if you get those rumors.

00:39:28.160 I hope they don't cut too deep with it.

00:39:30.160 That's all.

00:39:30.740 We're going to find out tomorrow.

00:39:31.900 That kind of stuff could be pretty nasty at the right now.

00:39:34.820 We won't get into it here because it's mostly defamatory stuff.

00:39:38.320 You said tomorrow's the day?

00:39:39.400 That's the day for this, yeah.

00:39:40.400 Okay, well, we'll make sure we're watching that.

00:39:43.360 Another writing, didn't have a nomination because not many people won it.

00:39:47.980 Edmonton Whitemud.

00:39:48.900 Now, in 2012, this was the safest PC seat in Alberta when Allison Redford won.

00:39:54.700 But guys, remember, a lot of the left switched to vote PC in that lecture to stop Wildrose.

00:39:59.180 Edmonton Whitemud.

00:40:00.060 And, oh boy, what an interesting candidate. Former Liberal Party of Alberta leader Raj Sherman, the Shermanator.

00:40:10.060 Now, to be fair, Raj Sherman was actually a PCMLA originally. I'm not sure if he was under Klein at all or just under Stomach.

00:40:18.060 I think he was just under Stomach, but it could be wrong.

00:40:21.060 I know he was at least there in 2008 when Stomach won. I'm not sure if he was there previously, all at the end of Klein.

00:40:26.060 Klein, but he's always been an interesting guy. Anyone will agree about that with Raj. He's

00:40:31.700 interesting. I like Raj. He's a fun and personable guy, a bit to my left, but yeah, and he was the

00:40:41.020 liberal leader in 2012 and stepped down as liberal leader like five minutes before the 2015 election.

00:40:49.700 But he was in a seat, but he's high profile. He tried to run for the UCP leadership. The party

00:40:54.920 disqualified him without really saying why. I mean, I'm not inclined to vote for people who have ever

00:41:01.000 been liberals, but I mean, Jason Kenney was a liberal at one point. But yeah, he wasn't allowed

00:41:08.800 to run for the conservative leadership. He had no chance of winning. I don't know why they

00:41:13.140 disqualified him, but he kind of kept on trucking anyway. He had a deckled out van. He wrapped his

00:41:18.000 whole truck in everything. Yeah, his truck. He had a campaign wrapped around his truck. Even after he

00:41:22.520 was disqualified. He's like, I don't care. And he just kept on campaigning for the leadership

00:41:25.200 anyway. I kind of liked his charge at the enemy style, even in a hail of arrows. I don't know.

00:41:35.600 He's high profile. He was a liberal leader. He's won an Edmonton seat before. It's not the same

00:41:39.480 seat. He's running in a seat on the outside that's a more conservative place at Edmonton,

00:41:44.040 but the NDP is so damn strong in that city. Do you think the Shermanators got any chance? 1.00

00:41:48.920 I don't know. I like the way you put it as a charge, because he makes me think of Don

00:41:52.060 Quixote almost. I mean, he's a bit of a character. He's kind of in his own world. He just, Raj is

00:41:57.880 going to do what Raj is going to do. It was a cannon fodder riding. The worst thing that could

00:42:03.520 happen in white mud is that he'd lose. I mean, the UCP wasn't going to take it any other way.

00:42:08.320 And he does have some history there. And who knows, maybe he'll galvanize voters. I think

00:42:13.100 it's a pretty long shot, but he'll make what would have been a pretty boring Edmonton election

00:42:16.800 interesting, I'm sure, because Raj is just Raj. You're saying all those old liberals are going

00:42:21.500 come out and support him now. I don't know, but he could engage people you wouldn't expect him.

00:42:27.100 He's a colorful, attention grabbing individual. Yeah. We'll go to the new fair. That's the last

00:42:35.660 one here, Nigel. Grand Prairie Wapiti. Not sure if they've had a nomination there yet or not.

00:42:45.260 Travis Stave still hasn't decided whether he's going to run or not as far as I know.

00:42:49.180 So Travis Tays, finance minister, he ran to succeed J.C. Kenney, largely carried the Kenney banner into that leadership race, kind of a Kenney establishment candidate, but, you know, conducted himself pretty well, but obviously did not catch fire, did not win.

00:43:04.300 Smith kept him on as finance minister, but it's pretty strongly suspected that he's not going to run yet, but he hasn't said.

00:43:13.420 Over or under, is Travis Tays running or not? Are we going to have a UCP nomination in that routing?

00:43:19.180 I'm just waiting for him to tell us.

00:43:22.020 So you think he's not right?

00:43:23.380 I have no idea.

00:43:26.280 That's one area where I just do not have a good plug-in.

00:43:32.400 My hope is that he would, because in my view,

00:43:36.640 Travis Taves has done a very credible job as finance minister,

00:43:42.120 and if he would go on doing it, it's bench strength for this government.

00:43:45.640 If they win in May, then there's a place for Mr. Taves.

00:43:52.300 But, you know, politics is tough, maybe he's had enough.

00:43:55.320 Taking his big throw, didn't work.

00:43:58.460 Two months, though, leaving it a bit late to say.

00:44:01.480 It is getting pretty late, yeah, for a new candidate to come in.

00:44:04.180 It's a safe seat.

00:44:05.660 Yeah.

00:44:06.300 All right, well, we were going to talk about three years in the rearview mirror for lockdown,

00:44:11.960 but we spent longer actually on the UCB nomination section than I thought. And we can't really breeze

00:44:17.560 through a three year retrospective of three years since the first lockdowns and mandates and whatnot.

00:44:22.920 So we're gonna put that one on the back burner. Maybe we get to it next week, depending on

00:44:28.280 what happens in the meantime. But yeah, I think we're gonna have to scratch that one.

00:44:33.160 Tell you what though, there is an excellent article from today's Western Standard, which does

00:44:38.520 have a retrospective on that and it's good reason to check in and

00:44:42.200 John from John Carpe put in a column on this. Fantastic. We're largely going to rehash his

00:44:50.440 column anyway, probably weren't going to do much better than John's own words anyway. So yeah,

00:44:54.760 I'd strongly encourage everyone to go to the westernstandard.news and read Carpe's column,

00:45:00.120 you can see it right in the opinion section. I'll tell you what, while we're pumping our own

00:45:04.840 columnist, Linda Slobodian. Have a look at what she has to say about that whole situation with

00:45:11.560 the Calgary City Council and their unconstitutional bylaw. Check her out. Absolutely. All right.

00:45:18.960 Well, Nigel, Corey, thank you very much for joining. And thank all of you for joining us

00:45:24.280 this evening. It's been a real pleasure. If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard,

00:45:28.340 go to westernstandard.news. Click on membership. It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited

00:45:33.960 access to all western standard content it's vital that every people like you sign up and support the

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00:45:45.160 up and support us voluntarily with your own money that's it that's all thank you very much have a

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Western Standard - March 16, 2023

The Pipeline： Calgary ban on protests

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