Western Standard crime editor Nigel Hannaford and crime editor Corey Morgan discuss the results of the recent by-elections in Alberta, the Iran-Israel war, and the U.S. intervention in the Middle East.
00:02:41.760But there were, uh, there was a lot more interest in a by-election in Olds-Disbury-Three Hills, uh, in central Alberta.
00:02:50.760That's a constituency, uh, where the upstart Republican Party of Alberta, uh, ran its leader and, uh, kind of threw the kitchen sink and tried to make an impact.
00:03:03.220If not win, at least, uh, make an impact.
00:03:05.820Um, the conservative vote there fell, I mean, it was still a solid win around 65, uh, 62, 61, I think.
00:06:49.540I mean, polling is showing much higher for independence support, but they spent a lot of time too.
00:06:53.900And that's what some people were getting a feeling that, well, maybe there's a bit of a personal vendetta, I guess, the UCP and Daniel Smith in this.
00:06:59.440They should have focused more on the independence because that's what they were standing for and less time sniping at the UCP.
00:07:05.720And maybe they could have cornered that market and cornered that as a vote to make a statement.
00:07:12.360And so I think they kind of grabbed the default of hardcore independence supporters.
00:07:16.520But now, as you said, it's, it's, it's provided an opportunity to be framed and saying there isn't much support for it.
00:07:22.580I mean, if you couldn't break 18% support in the strongest constituency in the whole province, and they got 0.7% support in Strathcona, which nobody expected much, but how are you going to do across the province?
00:07:36.720And I don't think it is representative of the independence support, but it's given opponents to independence some good ammunition now to claim there isn't support there.
00:07:47.340Another reason I'd chalk up for the result the Republicans got here, Nigel, I think is the vote splitting PTSD that Alberta conservatives have.
00:08:00.080The, you know, the 2015 win of the NDP is just mentally scarred conservatives in Alberta.
00:08:09.560And some of that was good at jolted conservatives that get their act together, come together.
00:08:17.460A constituency like that, you could run four conservatives in and the NDP are still not going to win.
00:08:23.320You could run, like, there's just a 0% chance.
00:08:26.880But I don't think the average voter has a, I don't mean to sound elitist here, but I don't think the average voter has a particularly nuanced view of the electoral system.
00:08:36.660Yeah, okay, if you did have multiple conservatives running, say, downtown Calgary, yeah, you're probably going to elect the NDP.
00:08:42.480If you did it in suburban Calgary, you might elect the NDP.
00:08:46.880If you did it in Old Vizbury, Three Hills, there's just a 0% chance.
00:08:51.140You could safely vote for the most radical, right-wing, independent supporting candidate you want to your heart's content, and the NDP will never win.
00:09:00.080But I don't think the average voter gets that.
00:09:02.740And I don't think the Republican campaign there just appreciated how ingrained that is now in the conservative psyche in Alberta.
00:09:11.220Well, the other aspect of all of that is the very name Republican is not really a winner in Canada, and not really a winner in Alberta, even though we think differently to the rest of Canada.
00:09:25.980Calling yourself the Alberta Republicans is just, I think that was, I'm going to put some people off.
00:09:32.900There was no relationship between the Alberta Republicans and the Republican Party in the United States.
00:09:39.600Well, it'd be illegal if, it'd be illegal if.
00:09:44.660But, that said, it sort of sounds like it, and you just made the point in yourself, Derek, that a lot of people aren't deep thinkers on this stuff.
00:09:54.460Well, is that Trump running here, you know?
00:09:58.520I mean, silly as it is, that's the kind of thing that puts people off.
00:10:01.840I was actually surprised they got the 17%.
00:10:04.880But, where I may have a slightly different take on this with you two is, I certainly have a different take for the mainstream media who are saying, well, that's it.
00:10:17.940That's repudiation of independences all over.
00:10:41.520And, we're going to be where we were just before the election with Eastern Canada and all of its presuppositions and all of its prejudices about the West.
00:10:54.740And the value difference, never mind the money, the value difference between Alberta and the rest of Canada is still going to make people say, I want out of here.
00:11:02.700Yeah, well, in a referendum, a referendum is going to be a whole different animal.
00:11:07.420And it takes out, as Derek was talking about, that party aspect of it.
00:11:13.600This is a yes or no when it comes to that, on that issue itself.
00:11:16.700And you can add a lot more clarity on where you're going, you know, pun not intended on that.
00:11:21.560But, so, I mean, that's, you lose a lot of those complications that come with trying to take a party approach when you move into a referendum situation.
00:11:27.700So, marking this outcome is something that would reflect on a referendum.
00:11:33.440And, I mean, as Nigel was saying, too, at the Republican Monitor, I mean, I heard some people say, well, they're talking about Alberta being a republic.
00:12:16.060And it definitely puts them at a disadvantage.
00:12:18.140And it's going to be much more so if the party does continue to exist and tries to run a general election.
00:12:24.860I think people are going to be, many are going to be very upset with them with the potential that they might bring about another NDP.
00:12:30.660So let's chat about, you know, the party approach for independence versus the, I don't know, pressure group approach.
00:12:40.560I mean, you know, if in a different universe, say, Jason Kenney was still the premier and, you know, the United UCP was a unconditional federalist party.
00:12:53.460They were not going to allow a citizens initiative to referendum on independence, something like that.
00:12:59.020I'd be inclined to say, yeah, that's the time for something like the Republican Party.
00:13:02.940You're going to have to take the UCP down.
00:13:05.280And maybe that does split some votes and whatnot.
00:13:07.720But if that's your goal, you're going to have to take them down.
00:13:11.820Smith, I think, recognized that, that that was an issue that would cause a mass exodus from the right flank of Hervardy.
00:13:21.540Maybe beyond just the right flank of it at this point.
00:13:24.480You know, 66% of UCP voters in Alberta support independence.
00:13:27.820I mean, that's not a majority of Albertans, but, you know, it was the majority of your own party either.
00:13:33.560You know, so if the UCP was taking an unconditionally federalist approach, I think something like the Republican Party or before that, the Wal-Rose Independence Party, all the different iterations we've had at these things.
00:13:45.400They would, you know, they'd have a better casus belli for war themselves.
00:14:00.880And Smith, I think, has been successful in trying to keep it within the tent.
00:14:05.580But does that have the horsepower to go all the way?
00:14:08.360Because I don't think you win a referendum unless the UCP is actually more on side, putting the full weight of its campaign organization behind a referendum.
00:15:09.460Whether or not people agree if she's a Federalist or not, it's a separate question.
00:15:12.060I think Smith has gone as far as she can go right now.
00:15:15.620But I'm not sure that she and the UCP are as far as they will go.
00:15:20.440I mean, there is going to be a convention for the party, an AGM, in the fall.
00:15:26.820I can very much foresee a situation where a change to policy of the party comes forward or a change to the party's constitution comes forward.
00:15:36.14066% of the general voting members of the UCP, not members, just of the public.
00:15:42.520Those are the ones that would come out to conventions.
00:15:43.920Yeah, they're much more motivated, just as we saw around COVID with the insurrection against Kenya.
00:15:51.760I think if you're going to be fighting in a partisan way on this, they could do it within the UCP and formally make the UCP an officially sovereignist party.
00:16:03.700They could do it by simply winning a vote there.
00:16:07.260I mean, that's much easier than starting another party, going through a full civil war, Wild Rose PC style, probably have an NDP government, at least in the interim.
00:16:16.220So now you're talking eight to 12 years to get there.
00:17:48.460Before she can actually, even if she wants to lead an independence movement, and I actually don't see anybody else with a persona who could pull it off at the moment.
00:17:59.540Maybe there's somebody out there and maybe you know who they are.
00:18:02.800But at the moment, I don't think anybody's got the credibility.
00:18:07.600But everything that we put towards bolstering the independence movement actually strengthens her hand when she is negotiating with Carney.
00:20:48.400Corey, why don't you elaborate on what she's doing here?
00:20:51.780Well, I'm glad you mentioned the fair deal panel, though, because that's one of the concerns is it smacks a bit of fair deal part.
00:20:57.120And that thing was something that Kenny did, speaking of taking pressure off from the regionalist and independent side.
00:21:04.540Okay, well, let's just hold a bunch of hearings, let everybody vent, and then we'll just kick the can down the road and not do anything about it.
00:21:10.140And that's part of, I think, what built, the people who crossed the line said, well, that's it.
00:21:13.500We've got to go all out because we can't.
00:21:15.580So, that's some of the first thing with this Alberta Next that the Smith and her panel are going to have to deal with.
00:21:20.440So, the people saying, again, like a lot of these things we've discussed already.
00:21:23.620How long is it going to be before you actually do something?
00:23:15.540My concern with having, you know, a whole bunch of referendum questions at the same time is, you know, Albertans, I think, share the Canadian compulsion for moderation.
00:23:28.820And if you give Albertans, Canadians or Albertans, a choice of one, two, and three, they always choose two.
00:23:36.140You'd say one, two, three, four, and five.
00:24:01.720Well, I'm not sure that that's actually really what's going on here.
00:24:05.800To me, you know, the point's made, well, you know, we've been through all this before.
00:24:12.320Yeah, but you can't really expect anybody to rely on discussions that took place in 2020, which is the Fair Deal panel, which under a different premier.
00:24:24.720So even if you take the thing at face value, she almost has to go out and ask the questions herself and get the answers and make it her own.
00:24:34.820Yeah, but I'm talking about the rougher end, of course.
00:24:36.700Well, we'll get there, but I'm not even sure that that's the idea.
00:24:40.780Really, what she's doing is getting people engaged, is making them get up out of their armchairs, go to the meetings, listen, react, and frankly, put some wind in her sails when she goes to deal with the prime minister.
00:31:28.280It's all going to cost more by the time.
00:31:30.240And this 5%, it probably is not going to produce the effect that Mr. Carney is promising.
00:31:37.500You know, the only procurement I ever saw that really, really worked fast was during the Afghan war.
00:31:46.100Even with the armed services at war, you still couldn't actually buy equipment, but you could lease it.
00:31:53.100So they wanted a drone to keep an eye on things.
00:31:55.800They rented one for Donald Detbiler in Vancouver, shipped it to Afghanistan.
00:32:01.880The MDA guy went with it, and he would jockey the thing out to the button on the runway, get up out of the chair.
00:32:08.400The Canadian Armed Forces personnel would occupy the chair, take control of the joystick, fly the mission, bring it back, land it, get up out of the chair.
00:32:17.080The MDA guy would come in, taxi it into the hangar.
00:32:19.780That way they maintained the fiction that they were buying a service.
00:32:23.360Why would you just subcontract up the whole military at this point?
00:33:37.640Well, I mean, like, I mean, people don't want to join.
00:33:40.920Like, we've spent over a decade at least denigrating the very existence of Canada, denigrating a real sense of nationalism, not this faux Canadian post-nationalist anti-American elbows up nationalism.
00:33:58.060You know, and then the military itself denigrated as an institution and, you know, prizing things like DEI over warfighting capacity.
00:34:09.420Unless there's a huge cultural change in the forces, I'm not seeing large numbers of young men and women lining up to go through the hell of boot camp and then serve in a fairly Spartan existence in the military for their career.
00:34:24.980Yeah, well, and so, I mean, you've hit on it.
00:34:27.320There's kind of three problems going on.
00:34:29.300The big one, though, credit where due with Kearney, where nobody else really was willing to do it, though, was the first part was committing, the signing a big check.
00:34:36.060I mean, that nobody else had the courage to say even to get to 2%, much less commit now to 5% and in the short term getting to 2%.
00:35:11.000Now, I got a feeling that they probably, that was an oversight pretty stupid because most people are going to realize, well, for one, if you've got this extra money, start paying your personnel a little better.
00:35:20.700And, yes, they have to change that culture, that woke garbage that they've really let sink in.
00:35:25.540You know, rainbow flags are pretty, but they make terrible camouflage.
00:35:28.200And people join the forces with a vision in mind.
00:35:33.540They aren't going out to join the trades.
00:35:35.220They aren't going, they're, we have to admit it, they're young people looking for adventure, for a tough world, for that sort of experience as they're going forward.
00:35:47.040They realize that they're never going to be getting rich through that course.
00:35:49.840And they're going to put themselves at risk.
00:35:51.740But they want to also feel that, that they're part of something important, that they're part of something that's more than just a woke exercise of foolishness.
00:36:20.800And it's not going to be effective unless you make those personnel change that culture and turn it into what a military force is supposed to be.
00:36:45.260The CNN and New York Times are reporting from a leak somewhere in the Defense Department claiming that the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian alleged nuclear facilities were not as successful as claimed.
00:37:05.340But it's a bit, it's he said, she said, because I think it's, I mean, even if these facilities were in perfectly working order, it's pretty hard to get someone in to take pictures of the thing.
00:37:18.320I mean, one level of destroyed or not, it's going to be hard to provide that kind of evidence.
00:37:28.420Nigel, it's kind of he said, she said on two fronts.
00:37:31.780One is, did Iran pose an imminent threat of obtaining nuclear warheads?
00:37:39.280That's one question that, I mean, there's been some claims around it, but no hard evidence yet to substantiate it.
00:37:57.920The first is, that for 45 years, Iran has terrorized the Middle East, caused enormous problems, killed people, and threatened to kill Americans.
00:38:09.080Meanwhile, they point to their atomic facilities and have basically said, when we get a bomb, we're going to use it.
00:38:16.180But maybe against America, maybe against Israel.
00:38:18.800But they have, if this was all a bluff, they have paid dearly for their bluff.
00:38:30.700I don't know, they have insisted that they're not building a nuclear bomb.
00:38:34.760Oh, well, Israel's never admitted they have one yet.
00:38:39.300If they're not building a bomb, why do they have to bury the facility underneath a mountain?
00:38:45.040Obviously, they're really wanting to protect this thing.
00:38:48.120other people who are using nuclear power for civil purposes is there in the open.
00:38:54.340Well, it's also because, okay, I don't want to be in the position of defending the bloody Ayatollahs here.
00:38:58.660They're about the worst people in the world.
00:39:54.660And, now there's the second question of was the American strike successful on destroying the facilities that were allegedly producing a nuclear bomb?
00:40:35.440You don't have to be a defender of Trump to say that that is the strategy that the left uses to never, ever admit that Trump ever did a good thing.
00:40:48.440Well, CNN and New York Times were both cheerleaders for bombing Iran, though.
00:40:53.260They were in the pro-war party on this.