Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： Canadian freedom under attack from Ottawa, and abroad

00:00:00.000 Good day, today is March 18th, 2026.

00:00:27.820 I'm Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:32.180 I've got our usual roundup of miscreants here.

00:00:35.680 Former Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:38.600 Still in trouble.

00:00:40.340 Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:42.480 Always a pleasure.

00:00:44.000 And Western Standard news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:00:46.240 Just here for the laughs.

00:00:48.020 We're all in our nice spring blue jackets, except for Dave.

00:00:52.160 Great. It's not spring yet.

00:00:53.400 You didn't get the memo.

00:00:54.700 No, I'll wear it tomorrow.

00:00:55.640 All right.

00:00:56.220 um we're gonna talk uh about the thing that everyone is talking about everyone can't get

00:01:03.940 enough news about the uh very important and decisive race for the leadership of the federal

00:01:09.340 NDP uh we've been maybe derelict in our duty we have just not really covered much for Canada's

00:01:19.580 a long-standing third party.

00:01:22.940 They've had nothing.

00:01:24.120 Nothing but bad news

00:01:25.180 for a long, long time. And it just continues

00:01:27.740 to get worse. But they are

00:01:29.660 in roughly two weeks?

00:01:31.560 Two weeks? Ten of the month. Okay, three weeks

00:01:33.820 plus. Soon, they're

00:01:35.660 going to vote on who their leader is.

00:01:38.420 Will it be of any consequence

00:01:39.780 whatsoever? Or is this just a tree falling

00:01:41.580 in the forest that no one heard? We'll talk about it.

00:01:45.080 The Emergencies

00:01:46.060 Act, formerly the War Powers 0.88

00:01:47.600 Act, that

00:01:49.160 former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

00:01:51.200 invoked to

00:01:53.280 crush the

00:01:54.760 militant uprising at the

00:01:57.180 Freedom Convoy, which has been

00:01:59.320 repeatedly ruled to be unconstitutional

00:02:01.540 and excessive

00:02:03.320 powers.

00:02:05.240 On the last day possible,

00:02:08.380 the

00:02:08.480 Carney government has decided

00:02:11.300 to appeal that, take it all the way to the

00:02:13.160 Supreme Court of Canada, the very final

00:02:15.060 appeal. That seems

00:02:17.200 like curious logic to me, since I

00:02:19.160 think they would probably just rather let this be in the rearview mirror, but that's odd. But it

00:02:24.220 could have implications for the ability of the government, potentially in the future, to be able

00:02:28.420 to use military force to crush bouncy castles and hot tubs, things like that, other sundry threats

00:02:37.020 to national security. But we're going to start first with some, I think, rather ill-advised

00:02:43.960 comments from the Israeli ambassador to Canada. We covered this yesterday, both in the news and

00:02:51.180 we had an editorial on it. The Israeli ambassador to Canada said, you know, all lies of the world

00:02:57.600 are on Canada. There's been a significant increase in anti-Semitism and hate incidents against our

00:03:04.900 Jewish community. I don't think many reasonable people would have disagreed with him, but he

00:03:10.680 kept on talking and he says uh you know this uh uh this could um this this is you know gonna need

00:03:20.860 uh canadians to give up some of their freedoms he did say what freedoms i think the implication is

00:03:25.140 more likely around freedom of speech possibly privacy rights you know with internet spying

00:03:31.200 from the government or something hard to say but probably most significantly freedom of speech

00:03:35.040 freedom of assembly those kinds of things let's say in order to combat the rise of anti-semitism

00:03:40.660 dave uh we're gonna have to give up some of our uh our freedoms yes thing for a foreign ambassador 0.85

00:03:47.300 to say yes that's what he said so you're supposed to let me introduce all that stuff oh i'm kind of

00:03:53.060 tossing it to you to suss it out oh okay well i can't you you said it all uh yes that's what he

00:03:58.740 said uh clearly stepped over the boundary of uh diplomatic uh lines uh you don't go into a foreign

00:04:06.340 country no matter where in the world and and tell their governments what to do as far as i could see

00:04:14.740 derek we were the only media that covered that angle uh so i'm not expecting much of a rebuke

00:04:20.660 from the liberal government normally the ambassador would be called in by the foreign minister and

00:04:25.940 given a stern talking to but i don't see that happening here so yeah same book i had on the

00:04:32.980 Hannaford show here about a year ago you know this they do tend to play overplay

00:04:39.160 their hand there's a wide sympathy for Israel for the events of October the

00:04:44.860 seventh I think everybody on this understood why they reacted and 50 years

00:04:50.220 ago when I entered this business everybody understood why they were so

00:04:54.940 very sensitive to anything that appeared in press about that could be construed

00:05:00.100 as anti-semitic they were still processing the holocaust and in fact every now and then

00:05:07.540 somebody still crops up who was a holocaust survivor and if not then then their children

00:05:14.660 introduce them say i am a holocaust survivor's child of course they're sensitive about losing

00:05:22.100 six million people in an act of genocide so i think it was fairly forgivable that my breath

00:05:29.140 and the Jewish Defense League took a very active stance back there in the 70s, the 80s.

00:05:35.500 If they saw anything that seemed to be holding Jewish people in hatred or contempt,

00:05:40.960 they jumped on it right away.

00:05:42.720 You probably remember the Keigstra story.

00:05:46.500 Albert, a teacher who had a very countercultural view of recent history,

00:05:51.780 blamed Jews for all sorts of things, got fired,

00:05:55.740 became a litmus test of free speech in this country.

00:05:58.720 So it goes on and on and on. I think Canada has been in the past a very fair country in terms of upholding the interest of Jewish people in their own history and how it's perceived.

00:06:11.300 Now, for some reason, and it may be related to immigration from Muslim countries, that's all changed.

00:06:20.840 And it's common for people living in Jewish neighborhoods to be very fearful.

00:06:25.420 They turn the lights out at my gangs in the street, broken windows, firebombs at their little restaurants and so forth and so on.

00:06:34.500 This is wicked.

00:06:35.000 This is the sort of stuff that we don't want in Canada.

00:06:41.300 and we never tolerate it in Canada.

00:06:43.740 So let's see what's changed here.

00:06:45.560 I think the issue is we kind of are tolerating it now

00:06:48.560 and that our governments do not respond adequately.

00:06:52.100 Good Lord, they would jump all over a small-time newspaper

00:06:54.860 for saying something about the Holocaust

00:06:58.340 that wasn't directly on message.

00:07:00.660 But now, if you want to hold a demonstration on a bridge,

00:07:04.460 block traffic, slag Israel, nobody does anything.

00:07:07.800 No, it's happening everywhere.

00:07:08.740 I think the ambassador, although I strongly disagree with what he said, I see where he's coming from.

00:07:13.600 Yeah, it happens every weekend, right?

00:07:15.220 And especially in Toronto, where they got death to Israel chants by mass people.

00:07:19.580 Toronto police just bring them donuts.

00:07:21.140 Part of what he's hit, though, is overstepping diplomacy, as we said.

00:07:25.800 I mean, the bottom line is we have all the mechanisms to deal with this.

00:07:29.980 The country has not been choosing to exercise them.

00:07:33.080 So we don't need to reduce any freedoms any further.

00:07:35.780 That's a terrible thing to say.

00:07:36.820 that's never a good statement to put out. I mean, that kind of ties into what we'll talk a little

00:07:40.740 bit about later with the Emergencies Act. I mean, I can understand him expressing concern. That's

00:07:46.180 part of your thing. We've had some people of the Jewish faith are feeling unsafe. We think Canada

00:07:49.980 has not been stepping up well enough. He just phrased it terribly. And when we have discussions

00:07:54.740 going on on things like C9 and such, we're a little more sensitive to where things might be

00:08:00.220 going. Don't need pressures. It's bad. We've got enough fight going on in here. We don't need the

00:08:03.440 outsiders chiming in on on the legislation so i mean it was worth noting because it's just not

00:08:09.020 the police of a diplomat to say those sorts of things or go into that but he is identifying a

00:08:14.100 problem absolutely it was worth speaking to it's just saying maybe it's uh it's his cure that's

00:08:19.260 the problem yeah i mean tell your toronto police to stop bringing them coffee and donuts and

00:08:22.720 actually enforce the laws you already have that's a very valid case and point to make and no extra

00:08:28.000 freedoms need to be infringed to do that you just actually have to enforce the existing laws yeah i

00:08:32.940 I was chatting, I won't name the person, but I was chatting with a Jewish friend of mine last night about this.

00:08:39.700 The legacy media covered it and just said, yeah, the Israeli ambassador is talking about the anti-Semitism problem in Canada.

00:08:45.600 But we made very prominent in how we chose to cover this story.

00:08:51.140 And he says the solution is we have to have less freedoms.

00:08:54.700 And he said so out loud.

00:08:55.980 He didn't just imply it.

00:08:57.140 He said it very explicitly, which just doesn't seem like a very good thing for a diplomat to say.

00:09:04.160 But I was putting it, it was a good natured conversation.

00:09:07.460 And I put it this way, how I, as a non-Jewish person, received what he said.

00:09:13.160 You know, there are people who have obviously very legitimate problems with gun crimes and shooting.

00:09:18.320 But then they see the solution to go and take everyone's guns away.

00:09:22.120 punish everyone, limit everyone's 1.00

00:09:24.680 freedoms, because there are a few people who

00:09:26.540 do bad things. And

00:09:28.640 that makes me dislike

00:09:30.580 the groups that want to take my

00:09:32.660 guns away. And so

00:09:34.400 I explained to this person that

00:09:36.500 this will not help

00:09:38.620 lessen

00:09:39.760 anti-Semitism. This would be

00:09:42.280 playing into the worst stereotypes.

00:09:45.060 This would be taking

00:09:46.560 away some of everyone's freedoms

00:09:48.300 to probably give yourself a false

00:09:50.580 and probably won't help like censoring people is not actually going to make anyone safer

00:09:54.260 just as a lot of these gun laws do not actually make anyone safer all you're going to do is breed 1.00

00:09:58.820 resentment and i i think the person understood and i took this well but uh this is just overplaying

00:10:05.860 uh the ambassador is over overplaying his hand i mean this would be a terrible thing

00:10:09.380 or even a canadian citizen i think to say that we'd be bad enough but fine we got plenty enough

00:10:13.700 but then a foreign ambassador says this and you know we should be we would be i think uh we'll be

00:10:23.620 outraged if you know the chinese engage in foreign interference all the time but they're subtle 1.00

00:10:27.940 enough not to say you need to elect the liberals or you need to uh you know there's there's some

00:10:32.900 anti-chinese racism so you need to have less freedoms because of that they're more subtle

00:10:36.820 they'll stack buses and go to a liberal nomination meeting or something but but this is foreign 1.00

00:10:41.220 interference i mean they're allowed to express their views on our country i suppose but this

00:10:44.660 is a clearly domestic political issue canadians get to decide what their rights are and the

00:10:50.580 charter decides not a foreign diplomat the thing is this is going to backfire on him derek because

00:10:55.060 there are plenty of people who like myself are very sympathetic to what the israelis are trying

00:10:59.380 to cope with over there who are fine right up to the point that he wants to limit my freedoms

00:11:05.700 here in canada no no no i'm i'm backing off for just for a week or two on until that until this

00:11:12.180 gets sorted out we need an apology yeah but how we got here is a failure of numerous canadian

00:11:19.300 institutions starting with the the border and immigration people who are letting into this 0.99

00:11:24.660 country people that hate jews uh from from muslim countries uh letting in letting them in by the

00:11:31.940 boatload and then again not only immigration but then we've got the the failure of ceases to weed 0.79

00:11:37.380 out uh any uh any islamic type guy we got the failure of any deportations you know we've got

00:11:46.020 these 700 iranian agents in canada nobody's talking about or nobody's deported them and

00:11:52.420 we've as we've already mentioned we got the failure of the the police services in canada

00:11:56.820 in montreal dave i i really think that it's possible to build a conspiratorial narrative

00:12:03.780 of evil doing in ottawa directed against the rest of the country and so you can do that i could do

00:12:09.380 it maybe i should do it but the truth of the matter is that they don't understand they we

00:12:17.540 are governed by politicians who have got a rosy view of the world and think that if everybody

00:12:22.100 comes to canada they muck in together and they will all be think the same eat the same do the 0.80

00:12:26.500 same cheer for the same set of teams and that's not like that people come in from certain parts

00:12:32.340 of the world and they bring their stuff with them we've seen it the sikhs have brought their stuff 1.00

00:12:39.140 with them and they're not part of this argument but very clearly you look at the footage of the

00:12:44.660 demonstrations against israel who do you see out there the people who have brought their stuff

00:12:50.980 with them from some other continent and the people who vote to bring them and the people who vote to 1.00

00:12:55.220 bring them but they're the ones that i really have an issue with they are stupid they should 1.00

00:12:58.660 know better yeah well maybe that's part of it i mean again just what was just a terrible statement 0.99

00:13:02.660 in general either maybe either an apology or go to ground or at least you should expand on what

00:13:07.220 were you talking about i mean some people try to defend i mean if you know i call out say we got

00:13:11.780 700 identified irgc people in canada why the hell are they even here why do we not have them on a

00:13:16.740 couple of planes and just dump them back and i ran that's where they want to be appears uh but

00:13:21.460 But somebody on the extreme left side, well, that would infringe on their freedoms.

00:13:25.420 Now, maybe in a roundabout that way, that's what I can't speak for.

00:13:29.420 If you're not a citizen, I don't care about your freedoms. 0.91

00:13:31.480 Yes, I'm with you there.

00:13:32.500 Your freedoms belong in your country.

00:13:33.800 Maybe there was room for this guy to phrase where he was trying to go with this, 1.00

00:13:37.620 because it just sounds so damn stupid. 1.00

00:13:39.800 It's just not typical for a diplomat, you know? 1.00

00:13:42.520 He's probably back in his office in Ottawa slapping his forehead.

00:13:45.240 He's probably had, I would imagine, a few emails like, dude.

00:13:48.200 Somebody else slapping his forehead as well.

00:13:49.700 there yeah yeah but i mean it's kind of as we all conclude i mean there's lots we can do to make

00:13:54.500 things better without infringing on any canadian citizens freedoms uh and the discussion of

00:13:58.900 limiting them just shouldn't be coming up well this would seem to be counterproductive because

00:14:03.140 they're i mean canadian society is pretty divided on the israel-palestine issue i think we're

00:14:07.700 generally much less divided although unfortunately not unanimous we're less divided on people of

00:14:13.700 every minority group we've got should be protected they should be safe they shouldn't have you want 0.98

00:14:17.700 You want to demonstrate in front of the Israeli embassy and you're not calling for violence.

00:14:21.240 You know what?

00:14:22.140 Agree or disagree.

00:14:23.100 That is acceptable.

00:14:24.380 That's fine.

00:14:25.220 You have the freedom to do that.

00:14:27.140 Going through a residential neighborhood that just happens to be populated by Jewish people.

00:14:32.740 I'm not sure how we frame that as like this is a Jewish zone, this is a non-Jewish zone. 0.93

00:14:36.440 I'm not sure how we can actually legislate around it.

00:14:38.600 But it's obviously not cool.

00:14:40.020 It's obviously over the line. 0.92

00:14:41.280 That's the difference between protesting against Israel and protesting against Jews. 0.70

00:14:45.640 I mean, you look at, you know, we've got Bernie Farber or Abby Lewis.

00:14:49.480 Not every Jew is necessarily supportive of what Israel's doing.

00:14:53.180 But when you target that neighborhood, you're targeting Abby and Bernie and all the rest of them while you're out.

00:14:57.600 And I'm not sure how you actually force law around it saying, like, you know, this is a Jewish zone and this is a non-Jewish zone.

00:15:03.280 It's the Muslim zone. 0.99

00:15:04.160 It's difficult.

00:15:05.160 But I mean, we know.

00:15:05.800 I'm not sure how you do it.

00:15:06.500 We know where there's a part of town where predominantly black people. 0.71

00:15:09.460 Well, if we all decided to throw on the old white hoods and go trotting around the neighborhood, we're going to have an intervention on us. 0.92

00:15:18.000 Something's going to come along.

00:15:19.460 Yeah, what Corey's found in his bedsheets walking through a certain part of town, I guarantee you the police will enforce that.

00:15:24.640 You're not getting coffee and donuts.

00:15:25.720 They're going to have a conversation, and that's kind of what's, I know, you can talk about the line being fuzzy,

00:15:31.580 but when you have a very distinctive Jewish neighborhood and you have people walking around with Palestinian flags and such, it's not.

00:15:39.100 That's where you need a smart cop to say no.

00:15:41.520 Yeah.

00:15:41.860 That's all you do.

00:15:42.340 You need one smart cop to say no and put up the mounted patrol.

00:15:46.020 They'll go away.

00:15:47.660 There's been no consequences.

00:15:48.760 That's smart cop, unfortunately.

00:15:49.720 We don't know if consequences will work because they've never tried it.

00:15:52.500 Yeah.

00:15:52.740 That smart cop you speak of, Dave, will probably be disciplined by his superiors on the orders of the people who instruct his superiors.

00:16:00.020 Don't rock the boat.

00:16:01.460 So let's actually, this is not, we're going to have to take time away from other things, but actually this is, maybe we should just take a moment to talk about the Edmonton police chief.

00:16:08.760 and the hot water he's found him in himself in uh you know i am not uh unquestioningly with

00:16:16.440 israel on a lot of what they've done my own views have changed on the topic

00:16:20.120 um but i mean the guy goes on a trip with other chiefs of police to israel it seems pretty harmless

00:16:28.120 to me um and you know you've got everybody calling for his resignation you've got the mayor

00:16:34.520 Knacker, whatever the hell his name is, you know, demanding this guy's head on a plait. 0.68

00:16:41.540 We'll call him Knickers. 0.90

00:16:42.940 Knack.

00:16:43.900 Knack.

00:16:44.800 The worst American encounter.

00:16:46.140 Knack. 0.99

00:16:46.460 He's terrible.

00:16:47.940 But you've got these guys calling for the police chief's head because he went to Israel.

00:16:53.680 I don't know.

00:16:54.340 When I went to Israel and in the West Bank, it actually opened my eyes up to, you know,

00:16:57.740 actually a lot of the suffering of the Palestinians.

00:16:59.460 I saw it with my own eyes.

00:17:00.400 It actually made me more empathetic with the other side.

00:17:03.240 I think I came out more sympathetic, to an extent, with the Palestinians.

00:17:08.360 I don't actually understand what people are angry about.

00:17:11.340 No, and as far as policing goes, I mean, if there's any country where the local police at least know how to watch for and deal with terrorists,

00:17:16.960 I think Israel's had a lot of dealing with that.

00:17:19.260 I mean, aside from the government things, watching for packages, watching for settlers to tear out. 0.50

00:17:23.860 I thought we were starting on a different thing.

00:17:25.320 Look, you know, an area where they have dealt with knife-bearing nutcases, bombs left in public places, you know, things like that.

00:17:33.520 There are things that can be shared just from a raw policing perspective that, you know, are of worth.

00:17:39.940 Because we are seeing rising things and shootings of synagogues and things like that.

00:17:43.580 There might be some stuff to be shared.

00:17:44.860 It doesn't mean he's endorsing the Israeli government's stance in Palestine or anything of the source.

00:17:49.300 I just don't understand what people are upset about.

00:17:51.380 Keep in mind Edmonton's being the site of the only confirmed ISIS-inspired attack when the guy shot up City Hall.

00:17:59.080 So for Knick-Knack to go off the deep end and criticizing the police chief for trying to gain experience.

00:18:06.140 And he didn't just talk to the Israelis.

00:18:08.340 He talked to the Muslim Druze.

00:18:10.200 He talked to Muslims.

00:18:11.560 He gained valuable policing experience with other police chiefs on how to deal with important matters. 0.96

00:18:18.920 It is absolutely the most ridiculous controversy this year.

00:18:22.820 Well, and speaking of telling you, I guess, you know, like an ambassador has overstepped his grounds. 0.80

00:18:26.320 Don't forget the groups that made the biggest complaints right off the bat were like the Muslim Association of Edmonton and the rest.

00:18:31.960 Well, what the hell is your place to tell the police chief where he's allowed to go?

00:18:35.180 Well, this is overreach kind of on both sides of things.

00:18:39.100 You know, guys like the ambassador, people who agree with them that, yeah, we should take away the freedoms of Canadians to curtail anti-Semitism.

00:18:44.960 and you've got nutters on the other side

00:18:47.980 to think that visiting Israel and meeting with police there

00:18:50.840 somehow makes you complicit in, you know,

00:18:54.100 the good, the bad, and the ugly of what goes over there.

00:18:56.280 People on both sides have just totally lost their minds.

00:18:59.880 Yeah.

00:19:01.220 You don't owe me just because you've given me a job as a policeman.

00:19:05.140 Exactly.

00:19:06.220 All right, well, speaking of police and losing minds,

00:19:09.400 the Emergencies Act.

00:19:10.360 uh so uh you know cory yeah we we all know what happened with the emergencies act we had to crush

00:19:17.480 the insurrection of hot tubs and bouncy castles uh the federal government has lost i think every

00:19:22.940 step of the way uh finding it unconstitutional invoking up emergencies act there and then we

00:19:29.380 see from the canadian constitution foundation announced yesterday christine van guying who

00:19:33.000 we've had on you know shows and had her in our paper before uh we find out the very last minute 0.99

00:19:39.040 the federal government is appealing their losses and now goes to the supreme court

00:19:42.620 they just don't want to let this one go and then i it's not like that we're reaching for

00:19:48.560 consequences like we should when we've had multiple levels of of the courts have said that

00:19:52.360 the government will basically illegally impose martial law in canada that they should call the

00:19:56.980 emergencies act martial law again so people understand the gravity of what that act actually

00:20:01.240 is it's suspending rights to deal with an immediate situation it was improperly used that was found

00:20:06.740 multiple times. Maybe they're worried

00:20:08.900 that there are consequences that are coming.

00:20:10.880 Korea, there's an example recently

00:20:12.660 where their prime minister

00:20:14.600 illegally used the Emergencies Act there,

00:20:16.720 their martial law there, and he's got

00:20:18.700 a life sentence in jail now. There was actually calls for

00:20:20.660 execution. That politician was thrown in jail.

00:20:24.080 Our former

00:20:24.960 politician who did it illegally in Canada

00:20:27.020 is nuzzling in the chest of a

00:20:28.700 pop star somewhere on a beach.

00:20:31.480 Maybe they do fear it will

00:20:32.940 eventually lead to consequences for politicians

00:20:34.880 for the first time in canadian history i don't know because why are you appealing this up

00:20:38.800 farther but they're taking it to the higher court and people have some valid questions too because

00:20:42.560 richard wagner on the court has been very vocal already in public about his thoughts on the convoy

00:20:49.200 and called them you know basically anarchists and uh said they were taking other citizens hostage

00:20:53.840 and he's prejudged the case before it comes to him yeah so i don't have much faith in him giving it a

00:20:58.240 good uh hearing when it gets to there this this is of concern i mean we had speaking of you know

00:21:02.960 you know, restricting individual freedoms without cause.

00:21:05.920 That's exactly what happened in this case.

00:21:08.040 We should be examining ourselves how we can tighten things up so it doesn't happen again

00:21:12.220 instead of the government trying to get itself out of the hole and make an excuse for having done it.

00:21:16.480 Nigel, I'm not sure I'm following the federal government's logic here

00:21:21.180 because unlike, what's his name, Moon or whatever, the South Korean guy,

00:21:25.820 there is no consequences when a government is found to break its own laws

00:21:30.800 because these things are not a part of the criminal.

00:21:32.060 But people don't understand the difference between just the law, regular statutes, and then criminal code.

00:21:36.960 This is not a part of the criminal code.

00:21:38.560 This is its own standalone act.

00:21:40.360 And it says it's reviewable by the courts, but it doesn't say what happens if you lose.

00:21:44.460 It's just the court waves its finger and says be more careful in the future.

00:21:47.700 You know, it's like if a government blows through its debt ceiling or something, it's in contravention of the law, and it just means they change the law to comply with it normally.

00:21:57.920 So there's no actual consequences beyond, you know, giving a kind of a baton for the Freedom Convoy people to beat them with rhetorically.

00:22:06.260 No one's going to go to jail. No one even gets fined a nickel for this other than just they get a rhetorical baton.

00:22:14.320 But, you know, people who supported using the Emergencies Act, War Measures Act, they still support it generally.

00:22:20.660 People who opposed it still oppose it.

00:22:23.520 I don't think the courts are actually really changing people's minds all that much on this.

00:22:27.920 All this does is open up the feds to just another round of some bad headlines that they lost again, this time potentially at the Supreme Court, even the Supreme Court stacked, I think, almost entirely by liberals at this point, not 100%. And Wegner, I think, was a Harper appointee, and he should recuse himself from this because he's already prejudged it publicly.

00:22:48.440 yeah um what is the win here for the liberals i guess unless they are confident they're going to

00:22:55.640 win at the zippering court having despite having lost every single time the win for the liberals

00:23:01.080 is the satisfaction of placing their thumb firmly on top of people that they despise and grinding

00:23:08.600 them into the top of the desk it was very obvious they're the defendants here like this is not uh

00:23:15.480 You know, this is not going to keep Tamera Leach. 1.00

00:23:17.260 Yeah, but they're the ones who are keeping this thing going.

00:23:20.520 And they want to have the, look, everything you read about the liberal government at the moment,

00:23:28.160 whatever bill it is that you're examining it, when you get past the fluff,

00:23:34.260 which says this would be a good thing to do because you get down to,

00:23:37.860 and in order to do that, we are going to curtail a liberty in one direction or another.

00:23:43.080 other we wanted cut back on child pornography by the way there's a thing in here about redefining

00:23:48.600 hate and that's going to make it more difficult for people who hold a certain point of view to

00:23:53.000 express it oh this this this bill over here yeah we really need to uh cut down on uh on the use of

00:24:00.520 cash this is bill c2 oh why oh well drug stuff you know people people don't need large amounts

00:24:07.400 of money well maybe some don't need it but just prefer it that way anyway we're gonna take that

00:24:12.040 liberty away and one day you know when we have a currency that is entirely electronic it'll be

00:24:19.640 just that much more convenient now you're not applying the government would freeze your bank

00:24:24.040 accounts or anything but that's uh that's something that this is about so when you sit when you ask me

00:24:30.600 why would they do this what is the upside in one sense it's a rhetorical question what is the upside

00:24:36.760 it may never half the people involved in this are no longer in office but the other half are

00:24:42.840 and they feel very strongly but in canada in order for everybody to get along and play nicely

00:24:49.480 they need to do exactly as they are told and this is about winning the argument that if we say it's

00:24:57.080 an emergency it's an emergency and you must do exactly as you are told so this is not necessarily

00:25:02.760 logical this is in some cases deeply personal but in another case part of a larger government plan

00:25:11.880 for complete domination of the canadian people and deeply expensive just imagine how the billable

00:25:18.200 hours all the team of lawyers maybe that's the point lawyers are going to get rich out of this

00:25:26.600 richer and uh you know at a cost of likely hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars

00:25:33.080 it's uh it's a money-making machine for that low-balling yeah yeah it'll be in the millions

00:25:38.760 it's an authoritarian bent as nigel is saying and part of it i guess is they also want to make sure 0.99

00:25:44.280 that they still have this act in their pocket down the road if they feel they might need to use it

00:25:48.680 again i don't think they have anything specific in mind but are they feeling then that they're

00:25:53.880 going to get large protests again in the future somewhere where they feel that they need to be

00:25:58.520 able to justify it in using it in this case because i mean what if alberta voted for independence do

00:26:03.480 you think they would not invoke martial law then you know well that would really be a poor idea

00:26:09.240 but that's a rabbit hole yeah but i i can foresee some you know not entirely hypothetical

00:26:15.080 circumstances under which they might they might want to have this in their back pocket i mean

00:26:19.640 And losing the case doesn't mean that the act goes away, but it might mean that certain courts will be more likely to step in and say, this is unconstitutional.

00:26:29.140 We're putting this to review.

00:26:30.220 You don't get to just implement this with a blank check yet.

00:26:33.820 That's the big thing.

00:26:35.080 You're right, Eric.

00:26:35.620 This is about precedent.

00:26:37.340 Whatever the court decides now will shape how future governments can invoke the emergency powers.

00:26:44.440 And there's always going to be an emergency.

00:26:46.360 a few yeah i mean i also i guess it would be nice for them to see if they can win i mean

00:26:53.000 they've got a pretty stacked court here um it's even i think like the last one or two herper 1.00

00:26:59.480 appointees even there oh they're already prejudged on side so maybe they got a good chance of winning

00:27:03.640 uh so then you take that rhetorical baton away from the freedom convoy supporters i wouldn't

00:27:08.920 place too much hope in having in who appoints the the judges something about working on uh

00:27:14.840 the Supreme Court, in fact, any court bench, people become very collegial and they'll actually

00:27:20.280 say, well, you know, I'm going to let them win that one. No, you want people like Anton Scalia,

00:27:25.480 the U.S. Supreme Court, came in, heard the case, went home, wrote up his notes, didn't talk to

00:27:29.480 anybody, never went to the parties, never went to the drinking sessions. These people are pals.

00:27:33.720 But don't forget there were two lower court judges that ruled against it,

00:27:37.320 and you would think they would also be a liberal appointed.

00:27:39.640 Well, there was nothing.

00:27:40.600 No, the lower courts will be provincial.

00:27:42.040 not the federal court of appeal

00:27:44.160 federal court of appeal but if you're talking like

00:27:46.220 lower, the lowest court will be perfect

00:27:48.160 but here you've got nine people

00:27:49.960 who've worked together, the other courts I don't think

00:27:52.260 it's the same, you and

00:27:53.880 you know, it's random

00:27:55.660 I presume the evidence is still the same, the bottom line

00:27:58.100 the problem they had was there was nothing they

00:28:00.220 did when they

00:28:02.120 got rid of the demonstrators and such

00:28:04.160 that couldn't have been done without the

00:28:06.100 emergencies act, that was the

00:28:07.760 aside from the tow trucks and

00:28:09.920 press gangs for that which they never used

00:28:11.920 uh no well it was the threat of it they said we will press you into it and they the tow truck

00:28:16.760 drivers had been refusing to rightfully they have the right to refuse their services conceivably

00:28:21.960 the demonstration could have been dealt with maybe a little more slally but it could have

00:28:25.380 been dealt with without the invocation of the emergencies act the police had the authority at

00:28:29.100 that point to start clearing people and you could find means like that that's part of where it was

00:28:33.480 failing in court did they have to come in and say they had to make their case why was it absolutely

00:28:37.540 impossible to clear out this demonstration without evoking the emergencies act and they can't make

00:28:42.300 that case i would just hope that these justices still remember their initial legal training and

00:28:46.760 that even if they feel beholden to their liberal uh people who pointed them in there that there's

00:28:52.860 just not a good basis for you know you know what would have ended it quickly if trudeau met with

00:28:58.860 these people instead of running off to cowardly to errington lake or at least he would have had

00:29:04.500 actually more of a moral authority to say, look, I

00:29:06.420 tried to negotiate with these guys. 1.00

00:29:08.380 They're crazy. They're irrational. They all threw 1.00

00:29:10.320 snowballs at me. Now we've got to

00:29:12.760 act a little more

00:29:14.560 firmly. But he had a wedgie in the bouncy

00:29:16.340 castle. He never even tried to negotiate.

00:29:18.720 And that was another aspect.

00:29:21.340 Foul.

00:29:22.960 That's got to be a two-week suspension.

00:29:28.060 That guy.

00:29:28.780 Alright, well, you're going to be last on Party

00:29:30.360 Thoughts now.

00:29:30.900 Okay, let's switch it up to the most important thing going on in Canada right now, the NDP leadership race.

00:29:40.160 NDP leadership, and you're picking an old conservative to talk about it.

00:29:43.500 I don't even know how to introduce it.

00:29:45.260 I'll go straight to you, Nigel, because I don't know what to say about these guys.

00:29:48.880 Well, there ain't really that much, but from what we read in this morning's news,

00:29:54.500 She's the Abby Lewis is leading in fundraising.

00:30:00.300 And when you're leading in fundraising, you're probably leading in popularity as well.

00:30:05.640 So there are five of these hopefuls.

00:30:07.480 And if there is an interesting thing about it, it is how between the five of them, they actually cover the ground that the NDP travels on.

00:30:18.860 So you've got a hardline union leader.

00:30:20.660 You've got an airy-fairy, you know, blue skies and kiss-the-grass candidate.

00:30:28.400 You have got the green side, you've got the blue side, you've got the brown side.

00:30:36.420 The brown side is not a reference to race.

00:30:38.620 It's a reference to the brownfield development, by the way, for those people who are, you know.

00:30:43.320 I thought you were going to say brown shirts.

00:30:44.640 Well, Jagmeet Singh has resigned, so we have no more about that.

00:30:49.920 But look, so you've got Don Davies serving as an interim leader.

00:30:55.140 And, you know, here's where they all, here's what they're all about.

00:31:00.500 Abby Lewis, well, he's a journalist, a documentary filmmaker, a longtime climate activist.

00:31:06.120 So we're like son or grandson of the former NDP.

00:31:08.780 He is Stephen Lewis.

00:31:10.300 He is the actual son of former NDP leader Stephen Lewis and the grandson of former federal leader David Lewis.

00:31:18.880 What a family affair. 0.92

00:31:20.360 He has perfect credentials.

00:31:22.820 And is he married to Naomi Klein?

00:31:24.800 Yeah.

00:31:25.520 Is he?

00:31:25.760 Yeah, like this is one big family affair.

00:31:28.220 Yeah.

00:31:28.660 So anyway, if you are the kind of person who wants everybody to drive an electric car or ride a bike,

00:31:36.480 and by the way, give the country away, he'd be the pick.

00:31:44.060 Now, he has raised roughly 778,000, I'm told.

00:31:50.380 I beg your pardon, that's over a million now.

00:31:52.960 And he has the largest number of donors.

00:31:55.220 We picked that up out of the Hill Times.

00:31:58.020 So he is, that's about twice as much as anybody else has raised.

00:32:02.360 In fact, it's more than anybody the rest of them have.

00:32:04.920 So it looks like Abby Lewis is going to be the guy unless they find out something terrible about him.

00:32:11.960 you know like that he once had dinner with Donald Trump or something you know

00:32:17.520 that would be bad but he represents the left end of the party it's all about

00:32:22.200 climate justice activist policies and far more confrontational stance towards

00:32:27.120 corporate power and capitalism then you got from Edmonton

00:32:31.920 Heather McPherson she is an MP she's actually the only sitting MP in the race 0.99

00:32:39.200 and what's her background well international development humanitarian aid you know i don't 0.55

00:32:45.820 think it's necessarily a bad thing to be looking out for your neighbors but um these people never

00:32:52.180 do it with their own money so uh and she is also she has been in israel and she's quite anti-israel

00:33:00.380 she's quite anti so when she goes to israel she goes to see the wrong people as far as i'm concerned

00:33:06.000 I don't know how the mayor feels about her wandering in the streets of old Jerusalem,

00:33:12.080 whether he feels any better about her being there than the police chief. But anyway,

00:33:16.400 she is an elected representative. So it is of interest to all of us if that's where she went

00:33:21.680 when she had the chance. Well, Corey, on McPherson, she's kind of got a tough track to tread

00:33:30.640 with kind of rank and file, you know, conventional urban NDP members now because she's represented

00:33:37.500 in Alberta riding and she was extremely tepidly and really just on paper, technically in favor

00:33:44.580 of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

00:33:46.060 She represents an Alberta constituency, which shared a name and overlapped with Rachel

00:33:51.820 Notley's constituency when Rachel Notley was the NDP leader and premier and opposition

00:33:55.700 leader.

00:33:56.060 uh and you know so as an and you know as an alberta mp she she had to she was extremely 1.00

00:34:02.540 tepid she never talked about it but on paper she was in support of the pipeline and that is

00:34:07.760 that is a cardinal sin among the modern it's like you can hardly get away with that as a as a liberal

00:34:14.100 in most areas of the country at this point you could definitely not get away with it as a modern

00:34:17.720 new democrat and as far as i could tell like avi lewis is beating her he's like it's like a pipe

00:34:24.280 bomb, no pun intended. He's just beating her with it. Yeah. And there's no room for a moderate 0.97

00:34:30.440 NDP leader at this point. Abby's looking. If we consider her moderate. I know she's a

00:34:35.120 vert loop. I mean, you know, I watched her stand in the House of Commons and her cafe and, you

00:34:41.120 know, her, and as you said, she only has been silent on the pipeline out of political pragmatism,

00:34:46.340 not because she supports it in any sort of way. This, she just kind of reiterates and as Nigel's

00:34:51.340 going through it and that's the top two and it only goes downhill from there uh this i wouldn't

00:34:56.760 necessarily call the labor guy i understand those guys yes i understand i'm just talking about yeah

00:35:02.580 but they have no chance of winning some win yeah well i would just think this party is heading

00:35:07.620 for the basement for a while and the person who's going to be most upset about it i think

00:35:11.760 you know just to sidetrack a bit wasn't ahead and edgy because there's been that anchor of the

00:35:15.980 federal ndp on the provincial ndp that's a little bit of what harms them as well and and as

00:35:21.980 abby lewis or or whether it turns out to be mcpherson pulls this even farther left

00:35:26.620 loses sight of the old labor roots they used to have uh you know it's been long gone at this point

00:35:32.140 yeah it's it's you know the only union members now are more of the teacher's lounge ones not the

00:35:36.540 lunchbox one carrying ones this is a party in dire trouble and they don't even know it

00:35:41.740 they're pulling it into a hammer and sickle mode rather than trying to yeah sorry there's something

00:35:47.260 to watch out for if it's either it's coming down to lewis or uh mcpherson both of them i think you

00:35:53.580 could describe as what you just did uh i'm not going to say because i don't want to get done for

00:35:58.060 slander but either one of those two becomes leader they go to the house of commons you may have some 0.98

00:36:05.980 disillusioned ndp people who say screw it i can't deal with this sort of idiocy i'm going to the 0.96

00:36:12.620 liberals that's already happening but yeah they lost one uh just last week well even voters too 0.97

00:36:18.140 though they're just actually where i was going to go with this was that um you know if you get

00:36:24.220 somebody with the views of lewis there are some of the old ndp people who voted for jack layton 0.99

00:36:31.820 who would say you know the idiocy i don't want to have any more to do with is the liberal idiocy 0.99

00:36:37.540 So I'm out of it. 1.00

00:36:38.500 I'm not voting liberal anymore.

00:36:40.060 At least these people say what I believe.

00:36:42.980 And that's a powerful motivator for the NDP.

00:36:46.620 So this has got something to do with whether we have an election in the spring.

00:36:50.180 Nigel was talking about, you know, every party's got its different factions.

00:36:53.900 The liberals, oddly, have, I think, the least factions.

00:36:56.060 It's just more or less kind of lefty, and we like to be in government.

00:36:59.500 So there's less closely defined factions.

00:37:02.220 They've got some factions, but not to the same degree that conservatives or new Democrats do.

00:37:05.440 But traditionally, you know, you've got the two holes that are often in real conflict with each other, even if they try to keep it under the radar, between labor and then like urban, social progressivist, you know, you could be the workers party or the professors party, and you can't really be both.

00:37:26.300 and I guess they've got a workers party candidate

00:37:28.360 but he's just so far down, he's a non-factor

00:37:30.740 the two frontrunners are both

00:37:32.660 leading to become

00:37:34.440 the professors party, the urban

00:37:36.320 you know, the barista party

00:37:38.560 you know, Heather McPherson

00:37:40.420 dresses like a barista for God's sakes 0.75

00:37:41.920 both of them are running to lead

00:37:44.440 that, that does seem to indicate

00:37:46.540 you know, people have talked about how is the

00:37:48.440 NDP going to reinvent itself, it's been utterly

00:37:50.220 crushed by Mark Carney

00:37:51.820 and there might even be an opening on the left because

00:37:54.000 you know as much as we see carnage on the left a lot of a lot of canadians see him as more

00:37:59.060 reasonable than justin trudeau he's at least more competent we'll have to grab the devil is due you 0.97

00:38:03.860 know he's not he's not an idiot um and you know he is at least rhetorically we haven't seen the 0.85

00:38:09.940 substance of it yet but rhetorically he's not as anti-development of oil and gas and infrastructure 0.57

00:38:15.800 that kind of thing so there's there's some opening perhaps on the liberals left flank

00:38:20.280 people have been talking about. Is it going to be

00:38:22.800 a workers' party, or

00:38:24.540 is it just going to be

00:38:25.940 the professors' baristas' party?

00:38:28.940 The two overwhelming candidates,

00:38:31.520 they're clearly

00:38:32.820 the professors' baristas'

00:38:35.080 party. There's, this, I think,

00:38:36.940 is like, there's no candidate

00:38:38.840 of any standing who's going to

00:38:40.900 make a good showing for being the workers' party

00:38:43.040 anymore.

00:38:45.860 Well, we'll

00:38:46.920 have to see in the vote, but

00:38:48.140 But, I mean, the other thing about the NDP is that if you look carefully into their positions on the back of the nation, you have to wonder what their founders would have ever made of it.

00:39:00.320 Tommy Douglas would euthanize them.

00:39:03.980 Well, you know, the founders of the NDP, oh, there's a whole new rabbit hole.

00:39:07.800 As my Christian friends remind me from time to time, the NDP was started by Christians, you know, Nigel. 1.00

00:39:15.260 And I have to admit that they were.

00:39:18.140 they're prairie socialists but it's it's it's nothing of the party that they that they were

00:39:23.640 yeah of old that's for sure yeah so okay i'm like very wrong here all right parting shots since

00:39:30.160 nigel didn't care to mute his phone uh before going here we'll uh give dave first shot all

00:39:35.900 right first shot uh big doings at calgary city hall saturday or sorry friday morning at 10 30

00:39:42.200 where there will be a solemn procession of 215 smelly old discarded shoes

00:39:49.000 that have been there since the announcement by the Kamloops First Nation

00:39:54.100 of 215 children's bodies found in the graveyard there.

00:39:59.640 So they're going to march these 215 pairs of shoes over to the confluence.

00:40:06.860 Yeah, Fort Calgary for those.

00:40:08.120 Formerly Fort Calgary.

00:40:08.980 Formerly Fort Calgary.

00:40:09.820 will be fort calgary again where these 215 smelly shoes will be housed in a 7.5 million dollar

00:40:19.740 exhibit so talk about a waste of taxpayers money but on the right side our good friend

00:40:26.460 francis widdowson and her her pals vowed to disrupt the whole procession with questions

00:40:33.420 about the 215 graves so it's going to turn into a police melee so uh john our production guy and a

00:40:41.580 western standard team will be there friday morning 10 30 to document all the fun

00:40:48.380 i don't know if john knew that i think he's like oh no he knew we talked okay okay cory yeah i'll

00:40:56.540 keep a little profile since you uh gated your phone you get to go next oh thanks i just wanted

00:41:00.380 want to give a shout out to our friends at the CBC and thanks to our friends at the Taxpayers

00:41:05.120 Federation for reminding us and putting that out with their ratings numbers. The CBC News

00:41:10.340 now is capturing 1.7% for our $1.5 billion a year. That's their news hour actually captures

00:41:19.440 for audience share. Their top shows are 3.6%. So it's bad enough that we're spending as much

00:41:27.640 as we do on them, you would think at least

00:41:29.740 it would get in front of people, but no, 1.00

00:41:31.560 they aren't watching their crap. 0.99

00:41:33.360 I think this is good news. 1.00

00:41:34.480 I'd rather just waste the money on someone watching.

00:41:36.460 It's just burnt money, I guess, yes, but it's just to remind

00:41:39.620 people, when you're trying to defend

00:41:41.340 keeping that dead old institution,

00:41:43.720 people aren't even watching.

00:41:44.620 Did you see David Cochran's coming back, though?

00:41:47.060 Oh, well, that'll bring it back.

00:41:48.500 He's been missing since

00:41:50.700 Downrage's testimony

00:41:54.700 eviscerated him.

00:41:56.020 went on medical leave but he posted a lengthy thing yesterday saying not telling you what it's

00:42:01.500 all about but i vowed to be back and uh rosie barton uh retweeted a fist pump looking forward

00:42:09.320 to having you so an increase in ratings increase in ratings soon to come 1.6 percent of what do

00:42:16.440 we know of people watching news oh okay so is that like 160 000 or 16 000 or 1600 i don't know

00:42:24.060 heard numbers i'd have to dig into that that's just the audience share numbers because there's

00:42:27.820 part of it too is not a lot of people watch tv news anymore anyways that's uh no matter what

00:42:31.580 station it sounds like not a lot yeah yeah okay all right well i'm going in front of nigel good

00:42:37.900 i'm going in front of nigel this time i always save myself the last not today because that was 0.76

00:42:41.340 rude uh the uh now former director of the uh united states's uh counter-terrorism uh office

00:42:51.660 Joe Kent, who was a Trump appointee, resigned in quite a fashion yesterday, writing in opposition to the war with Iran.

00:43:07.900 And, you know, he did not criticize Trump, but he says, effectively, Trump has been manipulated by certain players into doing this.

00:43:21.020 Iran, you know, it's not friendly, but it was not an imminent threat.

00:43:24.340 It was not in America's interests.

00:43:25.920 You know, you ran three times for president, it's America first, no more of these forever wars in the Middle East.

00:43:32.520 and what obviously got everyone's

00:43:35.160 attention was he says he was manipulated into

00:43:37.120 it by the Israeli government and its

00:43:39.020 lobby in Washington. That is

00:43:41.040 obviously a very spicy thing to

00:43:43.080 say

00:43:43.400 and it's

00:43:47.060 raised a lot of conversation. But this is

00:43:49.040 the first big high-profile

00:43:51.400 resignation since Trump

00:43:52.680 resumed the presidency last year

00:43:55.100 I don't know how

00:43:57.100 much more there could be

00:43:58.240 but Trump's response

00:44:01.060 was he was never very good on security well then why the hell did you appoint him to be in charge

00:44:05.600 of counterterrorism i mean i mean but we know trump you you take him seriously but not literally

00:44:12.160 i think you know either it was dereliction of duty to appoint someone who's no good on security

00:44:17.380 to be in charge of counterterrorism uh or or you're not telling the truth but it's anyway this

00:44:23.480 is uh this was a pretty big moment in the united states and uh i i've predicted before i think

00:44:31.980 iran very well could be kind of the beginning of the end of mega and breaking that coalition apart

00:44:36.860 you may be right let me tell you however about the peculiarity of bc premier david eby and we

00:44:47.280 did report this on the news pages who went out confronted by a bill to abolish the bc human

00:44:56.020 rights tribunal from one of the opposition parties and he made a you know emotional speech

00:45:03.440 saying how the bc human rights commission and its tribunal were there to protect people they were

00:45:09.440 there to protect women this from the lips of the premier after his same said human rights tribunal 0.99

00:45:19.040 has just penalized a school board trustee in the amount of 750 000 for protecting the dignity of

00:45:30.960 women by saying there you can't just come along and say you're a woman if you're actually a man 0.99

00:45:36.640 it is the how they can't make those connections i guess it's just their minds are programmed

00:45:44.880 differently and this is a problem in this country we've got a lot of people with their minds

00:45:49.280 i think it is it does seem like computer programming and and there's a problem with

00:45:52.720 the buying no pun intended there's probably the binary code here yeah uh i'm sure you

00:45:58.800 they're still feminists but then they're also for essentially getting rid of women's rights because 1.00

00:46:03.920 Because, you know, this trans rights thing.

00:46:06.500 Yeah, I think there's a programming problem.

00:46:10.600 It's like when you ask a hardcore pro-abortion activist about sex selection, abortion, and they're a feminist.

00:46:19.140 The robot starts twitching.

00:46:21.160 It does not compute.

00:46:22.140 It does not compute.

00:46:22.640 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:23.500 Okay.

00:46:24.880 All right, that's it for today.

00:46:25.760 Thank you, Nigel, Corey, Dave.

00:46:27.960 Thanks, John, on production.

00:46:30.080 And thank all of you for joining us and lending us your time today.

00:46:33.420 remember the Western Standard relies on support for people like you. Go to westernstandard.news,

00:46:38.480 click on subscribe. It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all

00:46:43.400 Western Standard content and support the work that we do. Thank you very much and God bless.

00:47:03.420 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - March 23, 2026

THE PIPELINE： Canadian freedom under attack from Ottawa, and abroad

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