Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： Carney pulls Canada closer to Europe

00:00:00.000 Good day, today is September 16th, 2026.

00:00:28.160 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:32.420 I'm coming from home today.

00:00:34.440 My own office had a little bit of temperature troubles, so I'm coming out of remote.

00:00:40.180 But everyone else is in the studio, which is nice and cool.

00:00:44.120 We've got our usual lineup, our Western Standard news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:00:48.940 Hello.

00:00:49.900 Senior columnist, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:53.500 Here again.

00:00:54.540 And senior columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:56.720 Good evening.

00:00:58.160 All right. Well, there is a new report out released just this morning from the University of Calgary on the cost of independence that was commissioned by the government of Alberta.

00:01:12.360 We'll we'll be talking about that. We'll be also talking about the news from just the other day by election in Alberta and the constituency of Calgary, Shaw, a UCP writing that was lost to the NDP.

00:01:27.940 We're going to read the tea leaves, or read the entrails, I should say, about what happened, why it happened, and what it could mean in Alberta politics going forward.

00:01:39.260 But first, we are going to talk about Canada sort of, kind of, maybe joining the European Union.

00:01:49.900 Nigel, just the other day, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada would be seeking some kind of associate membership in the European Union.

00:02:01.520 And then Ursula, I don't recall her last name.

00:02:05.480 Van Lien.

00:02:06.880 Pardon?

00:02:07.760 Ursula van Lien.

00:02:08.660 Ben, yeah. She announced today, early this morning, our time, that Canada, the European Commission was offering Canada associate membership in the European Union.

00:02:26.300 Nigel, as a man born in Europe, why don't you tell us what associate membership in the European Union means?

00:02:33.100 I was born in Great Britain, so I wouldn't really know.

00:02:35.540 Yes, we exited a lot of long ago.

00:02:40.540 Fog in the channel, Europe cut off.

00:02:43.540 Look, there's really no details to comment on at the moment, but in the larger picture,

00:02:51.540 very obviously Mr. Carney has been trying to present himself as an alternative point of view to the American-dominated world economy,

00:03:02.540 And he is trying to get Europe, which is a considerable player, is like a fifth of the world GDP, to cooperate with him in presenting a possibility of an alternative pull of influence to that dominated by the United States.

00:03:18.840 Whether this would ever lead to a formal signed relationship with the European Union and what

00:03:28.860 that might look like is a little early to tell.

00:03:33.680 One thing we do know is that when Mr. Harper, in the last Conservative ministry, negotiated

00:03:44.520 Canadian European trade deal exports did indeed increase. Canadian exports to

00:03:52.020 Europe, European exports to Canada, and right now it's in the order of 130

00:03:58.340 billion euros which depending upon what the exchange rate is around 200

00:04:01.800 billion dollars a year maybe. If you're a banker don't persecute me if

00:04:06.720 I've got that off by a digit. But it's a significant amount of money as a

00:04:11.340 as a consequence of a free trade deal that was done 15 years ago, 16, 17 years ago.

00:04:19.220 Now what kind of an increase in trade could come from basically extending that free trade

00:04:29.960 agreement?

00:04:30.960 It's hard to know, and Mr. Carney himself, I notice, has not made exaggerated promises

00:04:37.400 about what that's going to mean, because he knows very well that compared to the $800 billion

00:04:43.640 Canadian-US trade per year, the European is still going to look like not much of a solution or an

00:04:50.280 answer. But the value of this to Mr. Carney is that it pulls Europe into what you might call a

00:04:56.920 united front against the US. The Europeans are not very pleased with the Americans anyway,

00:05:04.920 because of the difficulties they now have getting oil through the Straits of Hormuz,

00:05:10.200 not to mention some insulting remarks that he has made to them and about them. In my view,

00:05:16.440 not without some justification, but at any case, if they take offense, there's a reason why they've

00:05:20.840 taken offense and there was something to take offense to. So the idea of the Europeans and

00:05:25.080 the Canadians standing together and offering their collective forefingers to the United States is all

00:05:31.880 you really need to understand what's going on here dave i want to go to you next uh we as nigel

00:05:39.800 said we already have the canada we have cita the canada europe trade agreement uh the overwhelming

00:05:47.480 bulk of the european union's members are a part of nato of which we're already a part i'm trying

00:05:54.440 to figure out what this is so-called associate membership would be there's never been this is

00:06:00.040 a new thing that's just been invented seemingly overnight although i imagine behind the scenes

00:06:05.160 there's probably been some kind of discussion i'm trying to figure out what it would mean because

00:06:10.280 the european union came originally from the european community and then before that the

00:06:14.840 european coal and steel committee uh community uh and it's grown from there and every time the

00:06:20.760 european union and its different iterations has grown it it's had a membership process but it's

00:06:26.920 never had this associate membership before. Has there been any details announced from the European

00:06:34.920 Commission or Mark Carney so far since this announcement about what this means? This is about

00:06:41.880 labor mobility, moving people back and forth between the EU and Canada. Is it making Canada

00:06:49.480 compliant in regulations? I don't know. Is it Canada taking on the euro currency? Any information

00:06:56.040 that we've gotten so far since this announcement

00:06:57.840 about what this associate membership might mean?

00:07:00.620 No, not a single thing.

00:07:02.100 As Nigel was saying, the details are scarce.

00:07:07.600 It looks to me like it's just part of Mark Carney's move

00:07:11.640 to move Canada further and further away from the States.

00:07:16.960 He's got a big speech to the European Union

00:07:20.140 set for tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. Calgary time.

00:07:25.600 So when you wake up, a story should be already on the Western standard.

00:07:30.360 But the Americans aren't happy with this.

00:07:33.060 There's already been several top American officials coming out and saying, look, all this is going to do is make it harder for Canada to get a trade deal with the United States.

00:07:45.580 So, yeah, there's been absolutely no information other than the EU is going to go open and set up an office in Ottawa.

00:07:55.080 other than that uh the sergeant uh schultz was fond of saying on hogan's hero i know nothing

00:08:02.280 nothing uh cory i'm gonna i'm not maybe i'm playing devil's advocate here but i'm gonna

00:08:10.360 put you a weird i i'm gonna try and put a based spin on this um you know you got to imagine that

00:08:18.520 the turks right now are stewing in anger they've been trying to get into the european union as long

00:08:23.800 as it's existed and uh you know at least some of their territory is unfortunately in europe they

00:08:30.840 currently occupy constantinople but uh the turks have been trying to get into the eu for a long

00:08:36.680 time and they've never been shown the courtesy of an associate membership and you know canada

00:08:41.720 rolls out of bed one day and says hey uh we'd like to we'd like that and you're you know the

00:08:46.680 the European Commission jumps up and says, absolutely.

00:08:52.420 There is a sense to which Turkey,

00:08:55.300 which is at least a little bit geographically European,

00:08:58.960 but is excluded from capital E Europe.

00:09:03.300 Canada is obviously not geographically anything to do with Europe,

00:09:06.740 but in some senses, we are European.

00:09:10.580 We're of European civilization.

00:09:12.180 um is there a way to kind of put almost like a right-wing nationalist you know european

00:09:22.860 civilization kind of based outlook on this if you will that you know canada is not a post-national

00:09:30.060 uh economic zone it is it is clearly of european civilization we put that out there as a as a kind

00:09:40.880 a defense of this uh announcement to you well if it's that clear a lot of european cities are

00:09:47.300 looking more like turkey than constantinople is these days so that's been a consequence of the eu

00:09:53.320 and open borders and a whole lot of things that actually i think canadians should have been

00:09:57.720 consulted on before we even consider tightening our relationship at least in that sense opening

00:10:02.780 more trade deals sure but this bizarre associate membership which yeah we don't know what it means

00:10:08.420 It might be just window dressing in a corner seat behind Christine Anderson in Brussels or something, or, you know, the kiddie table at the scene, or it might be a step into getting in.

00:10:19.940 What do other European nations think of this as well?

00:10:22.400 Yeah, Turkey would be annoyed.

00:10:23.580 I mean, they have a more, as you said, a more geographic claim, though generally culturally, I guess they'd be more separated than Canada is.

00:10:33.440 It's a sign of desperation on Carney's part, though.

00:10:35.780 So he's got to show, because he's had an impasse with the United States.

00:10:38.980 He's got to show something.

00:10:40.660 But it shows the arrogance of the man.

00:10:42.700 Not a word of this was mentioned during the election campaign.

00:10:46.240 Not a word of selling off airports was mentioned in the election campaign.

00:10:52.360 Parliament hasn't sat, it seems like, in years.

00:10:56.160 And he's just doing all this without, you know, like he's some sort of king.

00:10:59.980 Well, he's some sort of extreme business executive.

00:11:02.840 I think that mindset that he must have picked up at the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, and Brookfield is that you're the top guy and you make decisions and then you activate them is probably what's driving him on this.

00:11:16.040 The little bit of information we do have about this deal is that, in Carney's words, the points of interest are defense cooperation, which is understandable, critical minerals, and you did mention labor mobility.

00:11:32.720 I just, you know, out of that little three-part package, he is now constructing a whole grander vision that is intended to irritate, embarrass, and maybe change things with the United States.

00:11:49.160 It'll change things, but not in a good way for Canada.

00:11:51.500 Well, yeah, that labor mobility thing is concerning, actually.

00:11:55.240 Mobility has been part of the problem.

00:11:56.960 How much labor mobility do you want?

00:11:59.400 But I don't think we care if, you know, Englishmen or, oh, I guess, you know, England's not in the EU anymore. 0.89

00:12:05.040 But we don't really care if, like, Frenchmen and Italians, Germans and Poles come and work here.

00:12:09.740 The problem is, who else has the EU let into the continent?

00:12:13.180 Who have they let into the Eurozone?

00:12:16.300 I think that'd be the concern with liberal mobility.

00:12:18.300 We don't really care about actual European. 0.99

00:12:19.660 I don't know if you need more Frenchmen either. 0.57

00:12:20.900 No, just looking for 500,000 migrants given Spanish citizenship.

00:12:27.960 you know they could get some free passage to canada and then finland and some of the others

00:12:33.280 in the eu they've got some internal issues they've got to deal with too and i don't know if fire

00:12:37.000 note associate memberships is going to calm some of their internal uh strife going well something

00:12:42.760 dave something dave said was that you know that mark carney has no mandate for this of course he

00:12:48.540 has no mandate for this but that could be an interesting trap that he is setting the liberals

00:12:53.760 are riding sky high in the polls right now. The Conservatives are down in the dumps.

00:12:58.720 If Pierre Polyev speaks up and says, you have no mandate for this, you didn't get one in the last

00:13:05.420 election, that could be all the excuse that Mark Carney needs to dissolve Parliament and call an

00:13:12.760 election. He does have a bare working majority right now, but he essentially can't afford a

00:13:17.560 single Liberal MP to defect and vote the opposition or to be sick that day. He would get himself

00:13:23.600 a stonking majority government to be called an election right now. And frankly, it's bizarre,

00:13:31.000 but Canadians have always had at least huge numbers of Canadians, more so in the East than

00:13:36.740 in the West, but still in the West, have had an anti-American streak about them. It's been one of

00:13:42.460 the unfortunate defining characteristics of Canadian nationhood is we're Americans that

00:13:48.660 aren't in america you know we're not american but we're so damn close to being american

00:13:53.620 and canadians have always liked to identify themselves more with europe and you know that

00:13:58.820 go back to uh to robert borden or john dieffen baker trying to identify more of the british

00:14:04.580 empire and commonwealth that's always been a romantic notion for a lot of canadians and

00:14:10.900 while canadians say they want no truck or trade with the yankee uh we've now can you imagine if

00:14:17.140 If, you know, a prime minister, conservative or liberal had said, we're going to get associate statehood with America, like we're still Canada, we're our own thing, but we're going to be an associate state, even if it meant nothing like this associate member of the EU might mean absolutely nothing. 0.96

00:14:33.880 People would absolutely lose their shit if we were to be an associate state of America. 0.70

00:14:40.980 I think this would be an interesting election item for Mark Carney to go on. 0.99

00:14:46.300 He might say, I need a mandate to do this.

00:14:49.020 So he negotiates what this looks like.

00:14:52.440 And I now need a mandate to do it.

00:14:54.100 Even Pierre Polyev says, I need a mandate to do this.

00:14:57.040 And I have a feeling that a majority of Canadian voters, rightly or wrongly, if this is portrayed as a choice between being pulled more into the American imperial orbit or choosing a more European path, I think most Canadian voters would probably choose the European path.

00:15:18.260 Exactly. That's what the polls are showing, that they approve of Kearney getting the closer relationship with Europe.

00:15:26.840 They are completely ignoring the fact that if you look at the numbers, the trade numbers,

00:15:30.880 if trade with Europe was going to grow significantly, it would have already grown because there's effectively free trade now.

00:15:38.000 So this is a smokescreen.

00:15:40.480 Well, and again, it gets back to Carney's cowardice when it comes to actually doing something then to open up other markets.

00:15:49.840 Why don't we have a pipeline built halfway to the West Coast by now?

00:15:52.920 Why is he still talking?

00:15:54.600 He's still spinning his wheels.

00:15:56.160 He's still got an MOU gathering dust on a desktop in an empty Calgary office somewhere.

00:16:01.400 He's virtue signaling.

00:16:02.600 I mean, if there's anything Europe wants from Canada, it's our energy.

00:16:06.360 Oh, there's no business case. 0.99

00:16:07.480 They don't give a crap. 0.96

00:16:08.080 Remember that we're an associate member, but they would certainly very much like another source of oil and gas coming in from us. 0.99

00:16:15.260 But Carney's still not acting on that.

00:16:17.220 He's not. I mean, he's listening to the last prime minister, isn't he, who said there was no business case here.

00:16:21.620 There you go. Apparently so. As long as the government's in the way, there isn't one.

00:16:27.380 Well, speaking of associate members, the UCP candidate in Calgary, Shaw, will have to call an associate member of the legislature

00:16:35.620 because the NDP won in that by-election just the other day.

00:16:40.740 How do you like that for a segue?

00:16:43.300 It was a pretty narrow race, but the NDP did win.

00:16:49.100 The newly christened and, I think, curiously named Progressive Tory Party

00:16:54.420 got less than 1,000 votes, not much,

00:16:56.880 but it was enough to make up the margin.

00:17:00.760 I want to come to you, Dave.

00:17:02.380 You can maybe sum up what's happened here

00:17:04.600 And then we'll get into trying to parse out the analysis of why and what.

00:17:10.680 Yeah, I'm terrible at math.

00:17:13.140 I failed it.

00:17:13.720 A lot of numbers here, so I wrote them down.

00:17:16.740 Kyle Campbell, NDP, got 46.6% of the vote.

00:17:21.080 Mike Derry, UCP, 43%.

00:17:23.620 Campbell wins by 1,400 votes.

00:17:28.700 Derek's mentioned the progressive conservatives.

00:17:31.660 No, no, no, no, no.

00:17:33.180 they're not they're the progressive tories progressive tories uh peter guthrie's boys uh

00:17:40.300 taking about a thousand uh votes away uh our chris old corn though did some did some digging into it

00:17:47.340 and uh he discovered that the writing while everybody says is is strongly ucp has grown

00:17:55.340 the number of immigrants in there used to be 35 of the writing was immigrants now it's up to 40

00:18:01.420 percent of the writing is immigrants and who do immigrants vote for they don't vote for

00:18:07.900 conservative parties they vote liberal or or ndp our friend naheed nenshi was jumping around and

00:18:15.420 said this is an earthquake and there's no safe seats in calgary anymore for the ucp over exaggerating

00:18:24.540 as always and uh you know a lot of i think a lot of the reasons the ndp one is

00:18:30.140 is the ucp handling of the referendum 58 of albertans say they do not like the way premier

00:18:36.700 smith has handled the referendum so there may be some fallback on that but uh i don't uh i

00:18:43.020 personally don't see any uh panic stations happening at uh ucp headquarters this is

00:18:50.460 there's a canada for some reason does not do exit polls the united states does it big european

00:18:56.540 countries do it. And I love it because it can give us a really accurate idea of who is going

00:19:03.540 to win, even when there's only a little bit of the results in, and allows us to figure out why

00:19:08.380 someone won. And there's a few theories. One is, yes, people are, you know, particularly in an

00:19:15.500 urban center like Calgary, are upset about the independence referendum that that's rubbing off

00:19:22.700 on the smith government i don't think there's actually been a ton of evidence to support that

00:19:27.080 uh i think maybe there's a little bit uh from you know people who are on the kind of left side of

00:19:34.060 the uh ucp voter coalition there might be some of that i know jason kenney's blamed that uh but

00:19:38.900 even nenshi himself said he doesn't think that's what it is that it was actually general you know

00:19:43.400 more general uh kitchen table and pocketbook issues that the ndp went on but we could take

00:19:49.620 that as it is. He has motives to try and paint it one way or another. I think the changing

00:19:55.940 demographics of the constituency are very important. Overwhelmingly, migrants in Alberta, 0.99

00:20:02.800 in Canada, in North America, across the entire Western world, they vote overwhelmingly for

00:20:07.720 leftist parties. They don't vote uniformly that way, obviously, and there's diversity within

00:20:12.040 different migrant communities. Some vote a bit more like the general host population than others,

00:20:17.140 But overall, they tend to vote for leftist parties that want to keep a more open door to further migration and are seen as more friendly towards migration, for good reason.

00:20:28.100 That might have a lot to do with it. 0.72

00:20:31.500 I know Stockwell Day and Peter Guthrie argue the same thing, that the progressive Tories cost them the seat because the number of votes they had made up the margin between the difference between the UCP and the NDP.

00:20:45.440 I'm always hesitant of that answer. I don't believe any political party owns votes and is owed those votes. And, you know, maybe some of those votes were people who wouldn't have voted for the UCP anyway. Difficult to say without exit polling.

00:21:01.320 Or it could have been people on the more populous right of the UCP voter coalition, enough of them at least, staying home.

00:21:08.700 Because there's a fair number who are not entirely pleased with Daniel Smith and the UCP government right now.

00:21:15.360 Corey, I know we don't have exit poll information to make any qualitative or quantitative analysis of this right now.

00:21:28.400 But what's your take?

00:21:29.560 what made up for this? This was not a bedrock UCP rutting. It had gone NDP in 2015 when the

00:21:37.700 NDP had won government, but it's been UCP in the two elections since then. What's your best take

00:21:44.060 on why the NDP won this one? Yeah, I think it's mostly people taking advantage of by-elections.

00:21:52.180 I mean, they're a good opportunity to express discontent with the government without the risk

00:21:56.440 of overthrowing the government. I think a lot of conservatives stayed home. The funny thing is on

00:22:02.160 both sides, I think, in the issue. I think the referendum has been impacting it. The UCP base

00:22:08.140 is divided among it, and it's not a soft divide when it comes to that. You're kind of really very

00:22:13.300 much either for it or against it. And the independent side is livid right now because

00:22:19.040 they're seeing $4 million of tax dollars being spent to campaign against them in the referendum.

00:22:23.860 The Federalist side is furious because there's a referendum even being held in the first place.

00:22:29.060 And when you get both facets of your party upset with the direction of things, I don't know if it's a revolution that they're going to get up and try and unseat the UCP.

00:22:39.140 But when they're sitting at this by-election and they're seeing this going on all over the place, I think there's a lot of conscious decisions from people saying, you know, I'm just not going to get up and go out there this time.

00:22:49.340 And they didn't.

00:22:50.500 They will when the election comes.

00:22:52.100 I think when the general election comes, that's when, again, you know, more pragmatism in a broader picture, plus the referendum will be behind us, whatever that may be. As for Peter Guthrie's thing, yeah, you can't assume those votes came from the Conservatives. That's a left-leaning party. And actually, you know, it's Liberals under a coat of paint is what they are. And they could be pulling actually some of the bluer NDP members who, you know, they only voted NDP before because they didn't like the UCP, but they were happy with a more moderate option.

00:23:22.100 We can't assume that what he peeled off was exclusively from the UCP.

00:23:27.480 He got more votes than I would have anticipated out of that.

00:23:29.880 But again, it's a by-election going way back to the Wild Rose days.

00:23:34.400 We won Calgary Glenmore in an upset and then still got wiped out by the PCs in the general election.

00:23:39.600 Same sort of reason the public was ready to vote for an alternative to send a message during a by-election.

00:23:46.340 But when it's a general election, the decision is much different.

00:23:48.820 So I wouldn't read too much into this yet.

00:23:50.340 uh nigel again we don't have hard data because for some reason we don't do exit polling in canada

00:23:57.500 but uh what do you think the impact at least will be uh is this gonna spook uh you know urban

00:24:06.780 and you know calgary ucp mlas uh to to want to course you know maybe challenge the leadership

00:24:16.260 of danielle smith or uh or course correct and say hey we've been you know you can go in either

00:24:21.900 direction sorry i've got a dog here trying to intrude on us uh you know it could be interpreted

00:24:29.080 either way it could be interpreted again in the absence of data one side of the party can interpret

00:24:33.720 this and say hey we've been too hardcore on this independence thing we got to really moderate and

00:24:38.040 go into the middle we got to take a westward turn the other side might say hey no well we've been

00:24:42.900 pissing off our independent supporters. They stayed home. That's why we lost. We got to double

00:24:47.140 down and take a more nationalistic turn. What lesson do you think the UCP takes away from this

00:24:53.060 by-election? Well, the first thing I agree with, Corey, that this is well behind them by the time

00:25:00.400 the election comes out. But as to the lesson they learn about it, one thing we have not discussed

00:25:10.920 is the impact of this relentless left-wing NDP slash union slash ATA advertising that is

00:25:20.480 constantly undermining or criticizing and putting the worst spin on every single thing that this

00:25:29.380 government has done. So whereas there is certainly some division of opinion within the voters about

00:25:37.220 the referendum, that's not going to be the issue for the next little while, but this

00:25:47.860 relentless advertising on radio and on signs and ads saying things like people before profits

00:25:58.780 in healthcare, teachers good, government bad, it's been going on for so long and it's going

00:26:04.640 to go on for longer, it can't help have a drip-drip-drip effect upon people, and just

00:26:11.640 to reflexively think there's something wrong with the conservative, the UCP, when in actual

00:26:17.820 fact if you look at what they have done, the money they have put into education, the money

00:26:24.940 they have put into health, the reforms that they are attempting, they actually deserve

00:26:32.820 of a gold star for what they've accomplished here.

00:26:36.300 But you would never know that from what you hear on the radio as you drive into work or

00:26:43.380 as you're in the kitchen or you're doing whatever.

00:26:46.020 You will not hear that.

00:26:47.720 So I think there's been a very effective campaign against the UCP by the left wing.

00:26:54.300 And I'm tempted to see at least some of what's happened here attributing to that.

00:27:00.760 percentage vote that the ndp got was 46 percent it was last time it was 43 percent that's uh

00:27:09.160 that's significant that's measurable that's several hundred people enough to make a difference in an

00:27:14.520 election propaganda works all right well we're going to turn it and keep it close to home here

00:27:28.040 in alberta today uh cory the university of calgary i think their school of public policy

00:27:34.680 had been commissioned by the government of alberta to do an analysis a report on the cost

00:27:41.880 kind of a cost benefit analysis of independence um that's been released today uh why don't you

00:27:50.200 tell me what are some of the big highlights from the report and uh you know do you think this was

00:27:56.520 a fair and honest even-handed attempt to give Albertans information before they vote or was this

00:28:04.440 you know what was the thumb on the scale one way or another yeah well it only dropped this morning

00:28:09.080 so admittedly I've only read the executive summary and gone through some of the basics I haven't done

00:28:12.840 a deep dive it the numbers though on the surface already look a little more fair I think than past

00:28:18.280 things we've heard like for example Premier Smith's strange uttering of saying it was going to cost

00:28:22.600 $400 billion for Alberta to become independent. This report's talking along the lines of $170

00:28:29.720 billion over five years of potential assumed new costs. And I believe, you know, when you look at

00:28:36.760 the authors of Jack Mintz and Ted Morton, you know, they're going to be a little more on the

00:28:41.960 Alberta-centric side, but it was clearly still a Federalist bent. One of the things I noted,

00:28:46.660 though, what was striking was they've got projections going out as far as 20 years in this.

00:28:51.080 And I mean, come on, you know, you're really kind of stretching on what you think things might look like 20 years from now.

00:28:56.280 We can get five economists that can't give the same answer for a one-year projection, much less 20.

00:29:02.580 Some of it, too, it was a bit of give and take.

00:29:04.920 The report admitted that the regulatory regime for oil and gas and pipelines is hurting Alberta,

00:29:12.220 and getting out of Ottawa would benefit the energy industry here.

00:29:15.720 but at the same time, they felt that it would make it harder for us to get it to market because

00:29:20.220 an independent Alberta would have a harder time getting pipelines, which I don't know. Zero from

00:29:24.560 zero is still zero. So I don't know how it can get a harder, but that was, I guess, the caveat.

00:29:29.980 They wanted to make sure not to show that they were encouraging a picture with it. The other

00:29:34.040 thing to note was their speculation was very wide. I mean, they were talking again from those startup

00:29:39.020 costs going from, I believe, $20 billion to $170 billion. I mean, you're really ballparking

00:29:44.600 pretty big uh with variables and things when you start putting out numbers like that

00:29:49.220 it's it's something when i get a chance to drill down in more detail i'll have more

00:29:53.840 specific thoughts on it but it sounds like one of the more optimistic as far as it goes but still

00:29:59.860 a negative slant in general on on what people might feel independence would bring well what

00:30:04.280 do you think actually corey that uh would they have wanted to put out a report showing that there

00:30:08.960 was an immediate profit from independence.

00:30:12.880 I mean, that would kind of make the case

00:30:14.840 in a way that a lot of people would cause

00:30:16.700 to look at it again and say,

00:30:18.320 well, maybe this isn't such a bad idea.

00:30:20.360 So there's a strong political incentive, I think,

00:30:22.560 to keep expectations down here.

00:30:24.820 Certainly that.

00:30:25.660 I think realists, even in the independence movement,

00:30:28.300 maybe there's not enough of them,

00:30:29.220 but they would realize too,

00:30:30.680 in the transitional period, it's gonna be expensive.

00:30:32.960 There are some institutions that have to be recreated.

00:30:35.260 It's gonna come with an expense.

00:30:36.520 There's gonna be some instability

00:30:38.520 If the province voted to go and it would cause some investment chill for a few years.

00:30:42.220 These are undeniable things.

00:30:44.380 You know, I think independent supporters like myself believe in the longer term things would look better.

00:30:48.620 But this group was not commissioned to put something out, to put a rosy flavor on this by any means.

00:30:54.140 And I think they put a less exaggerated one.

00:30:58.600 The one that is still a sticking point that bugs me, they did it in this, Premier Smith did it, the Canada West Foundation did it,

00:31:04.340 is they treat Alberta's assumption of a share of the national debt

00:31:08.360 as if this is a new debt.

00:31:10.860 Look, we already have it.

00:31:12.180 You know, we have it whether we stay in Canada

00:31:14.520 and we have it whether we leave.

00:31:16.800 So, I mean, fine, you know, it's a debt that we'd be sitting on,

00:31:20.460 but we're sitting on it regardless.

00:31:21.760 Looking at it as if it's a new expense we would incur,

00:31:24.460 I do believe is being disingenuous.

00:31:27.220 At the worst, it would mean we assume it and don't pay it down

00:31:29.880 just like we have with the federal situation,

00:31:31.460 so we'd be in the same boat.

00:31:33.700 And it did mention a drop in GDP, and it did mention salaries would drop.

00:31:41.600 So it's not just pie in the sky, $170 billion numbers.

00:31:46.300 It's actual figures on individual...

00:31:48.380 Those figures, it puts speculation on GDP dropping between like 5% and 18%.

00:31:54.000 Like these massive spreads, which make it a little difficult to...

00:31:57.460 Still a drop, though.

00:31:58.720 Well, maybe.

00:32:00.420 Maybe they were off by the 18 on the origin of error on the other direction.

00:32:03.680 It just still felt like a dart in the board to me.

00:32:05.680 But, I mean, I've got my own bias on this, of course.

00:32:08.340 Yeah, and a lot of this would depend very much on the negotiations that take place

00:32:13.720 and how those negotiations take place.

00:32:16.260 You know, how is the debt apportioned?

00:32:19.260 How are assets apportioned?

00:32:22.000 You know, Alberta has argued that it's entitled to a lot more than simply a per capita share

00:32:27.000 of the Canada Pension Plan assets

00:32:28.840 because Albertans have contributed

00:32:31.140 hugely, disproportionately more to the CPP.

00:32:37.420 So Alberta would be in a position to demand more.

00:32:40.980 And on the other side, 0.68

00:32:42.160 when you've got liabilities,

00:32:46.820 like the debt, 0.55

00:32:49.860 Alberta would have some cards to play

00:32:52.300 in these kinds of things

00:32:53.780 if the federal government decided

00:32:55.420 decided to try and hold back too much of Albertans' fair share of the Canada Pension Plan assets,

00:33:02.240 Alberta could then say, well, fine, we're simply not taking the debt. There'd be some give and take.

00:33:08.860 So I understand that the report has a difficult time in trying to predict what this would be like,

00:33:14.500 because so much would be decided in negotiations. Other things, there might be some assets we

00:33:19.240 simply don't want. We might simply not want much of the Canadian military hardware, because first,

00:33:24.840 there's not much. Second, it's extremely antiquated. So in Alberta, negotiating independence

00:33:31.680 might well say, fine, you know, keep the military hardware, we're going to go out and buy our own

00:33:36.600 here. But as a result, you know, we're not going to take as much of the debt because you're going

00:33:40.760 to keep certain of these kinds of assets. Another interesting part of the report that actually I

00:33:45.340 don't think anybody else had gone into is they did put reports on how this would impact the rest of

00:33:49.340 Canada if Alberta left. And they had their projections and guesses there too. And that

00:33:53.020 didn't look very rosy as well. It said actually would knock Canada's status down from being what's

00:33:58.480 considered a middle power and be somewhere closer to Mexico or Australia in comparison as far as

00:34:05.220 punching economically. Though I think we're in that going in that direction already but nobody

00:34:09.960 else has really addressed that aspect. We keep talking about where Alberta would be if it became

00:34:13.840 independent. Not many have said well what would happen to the rest of the country in such a

00:34:17.880 circumstance and and the report did delve into that a little bit which again might make some

00:34:23.880 some canadians concerned derek's always wanted a aircraft carrier on the bull river hasn't it so

00:34:29.440 do i yeah i don't know the question is whether we would seek associate status with europe just to

00:34:38.260 pick things up a little bit yeah sure thing alberta eu associate state yeah

00:34:44.180 i i have to i have to say that there's been a number of reports i mean the canada west

00:34:54.800 foundation put out one the alberta prosperity project has its own estimates now we have this

00:35:01.520 government which i actually do wonder whether these are what they really think these numbers

00:35:09.760 or whether the real picture is perhaps a little more attractive hard to say just putting myself

00:35:16.240 in the place of a minister who actually has to bring this thing out and say well here it is

00:35:21.920 it would be great you know that's a hard position to take oh sure and i don't think the appt one is

00:35:28.320 over-optimistic actually. It's an advocacy group that really wanted to punish things as much as it

00:35:33.120 could. So I guess my takeaway from it, Corey, would be this is actually a fairly believable

00:35:41.360 report. It could actually be better, more attractive to leave than they're admitting,

00:35:49.200 but if this is a good basis to discuss the matter going forward. And it did in one of

00:35:55.360 its projections say if again if the stars align the right way alberta could be seeing gdp increases

00:36:00.880 in growth in a 20-year timeline but again that's really throwing the dart a long long way at that

00:36:05.920 point but we've never seen anything coming out to say that there would be anything other than 0.93

00:36:09.360 dystopia uh you know we can write a treaty with ukraine for 100 years why can't we look 20 years

00:36:17.520 down the road in alberta true enough so i mean as you said as far as these reports go though it's

00:36:22.640 It's been, it's not favorable to independence, but it's been the least unfavorable for many institutions.

00:36:28.660 Oh, that's true.

00:36:29.800 I think Derek's muted.

00:36:31.600 I was thinking, you know, maybe we can split the difference here.

00:36:34.360 Rather than full independence, Alberta just declares itself to be an associate province of Canada.

00:36:39.260 Hey, there we go.

00:36:41.640 Everything solved?

00:36:42.560 I think we already kind of are.

00:36:43.840 i'm imagining i mean this was the other thing that's striking this was funded by the provincial

00:36:54.720 government it was done by u of c but it was the government that that paid for this so presumably

00:36:59.460 this is the line that's going to come from our mlas from the premier they're going to reference

00:37:06.140 this for this next six weeks this is where they're going to come from sure which just looking at

00:37:10.960 things if this was spun strategically from a federalist side I think it was a smart way to go

00:37:15.840 about it you're not you know promising a crushing uh misery uh you know as I said I think they

00:37:21.840 overreacted when they claimed that 400 billion dollar cost but they still want to make sure it

00:37:25.400 doesn't look positive as well so they can keep referencing this just to show there's a negativity

00:37:30.520 but it's not exaggerated or at least they don't feel it is it's it's more of a I still see a bit

00:37:35.720 of a campaign piece than a necessarily uh yeah I think you're right if they had presented a very

00:37:40.440 very rosy picture that maybe maybe we like that you'd be accused of pushing the the referendum

00:37:46.680 so yeah they couldn't win all that put them in trouble one way or another yeah totally all right

00:37:53.240 all right we're gonna put a pin in that there we'll go to our uh parting shots starting with dave

00:37:59.640 all right it's been uh hard work this week going over the uh new sydney sweeney ads over and uh

00:38:07.800 over and uh that's why you've been working late and over and over again oh sorry uh yes very nice

00:38:15.000 ads and the best part about it is watching uh liberal women meltdown uh on social media you

00:38:22.760 know calling her every name in the book so you go girl well i don't know what happened to this

00:38:31.320 body positivity thing uh you know you've had uh the feminist movement for uh quite some time trying

00:38:37.240 to say uh you know everyone is beautiful no matter your size etc etc and uh it's a positive thing to

00:38:44.920 you forgive my language here but you know you can't shame someone you know for you know displaying

00:38:51.000 their sexuality and as soon as this woman comes along uh they seem to have forgotten all of that

00:38:56.840 real real quick all right nigel yes so i'm thinking about the investment summit and mr 0.69

00:39:06.040 Mr. Carney rolls out with $500 billion, and it's all government money that he wants to

00:39:10.800 spend.

00:39:11.800 Apparently, there are people who are interested in investing sitting on the sidelines, and

00:39:15.120 they may do something.

00:39:17.220 But you know, this is loudly touted as the first investment summit.

00:39:22.100 The reason it's the first is because we never used to need to get people with money together

00:39:28.380 and try and sell them on the idea of investing in Canada, because we have the rules and the

00:39:33.860 procedures that made it an attractive thing to do yet didn't have to have an investment summit

00:39:39.380 more grandstanding more showcasing shame on them i don't know uh you had um kevin o'leary uh you

00:39:49.220 know put on uh said on x that it was kind of like dragon's den and everyone would go to the different

00:39:54.660 premiers and the premiers would make a pitch for why you should invest in their province

00:39:58.500 and he said that it was a failure for everyone except for alberta and saskatchewan

00:40:02.820 uh you know that they had tangible you know everyone was talking about you know how do i

00:40:06.580 get permits for developments and all the premiers had pretty bad answers except for alberta and

00:40:10.500 saskatchewan he said i don't know i'm trying to keep an open mind yeah it's theater everything in

00:40:16.900 politics is going to have some theater that's that's just baked into it but i don't know some

00:40:22.340 of the feedback coming from it i i think is i want to be cautiously optimistic about that

00:40:27.300 That at the very least, it is a different message than Justin Trudeau, who was sending a message that we do not want investment.

00:40:35.500 You could buy our government bonds, but we don't actually want to invest in doing anything here.

00:40:40.260 So at a minimum, they're broadcasting a different message.

00:40:45.160 How do you think Pierre Polyerve is feeling about Mr. Harper saying that Marnie had no choice but to walk away from the deal?

00:40:55.700 be feeling a little rejected yeah yeah not a good day for paul you have all right go ahead gory

00:41:01.560 all right well just speaking of performative grandstanding we saw in the western standard

00:41:05.600 story uh with the passive aggressive battle happening in our classrooms with our kids as

00:41:09.880 the pawns in it so since the political flags and such were banned in classrooms uh we have a teacher

00:41:15.700 proudly prancing around the classroom in his rainbow shirt uh dress codes have existed i think 1.00

00:41:22.420 for teachers uh for time immemorial isn't it time maybe then to crack down there these stupid games 0.99

00:41:29.140 i'm getting sick to death of and it's union-based let's get a voucher system and right to work 0.98

00:41:34.860 legislation you guys want to have your little rainbow place to have the children by all means

00:41:39.340 advertise and try and draw parents in let the rest of us choose sane places to have children

00:41:44.320 educated amen amen you know what no i i used to be with cory on this uh we all we all our side

00:41:52.420 seems to ask for is choice the other side doesn't want to even allow us to have choice so i actually

00:41:58.740 i think it's time we start taking away theirs because they are never going to be happy with

00:42:03.180 just letting us raise our children as we see fit you got this creepy let's make sure we get the

00:42:08.680 the image of this creepy teacher up here. He feels the need to broadcast his personal sexuality

00:42:16.780 to children that he has been entrusted by the state and by parents to teach. This guy is sick. 1.00

00:42:24.360 He should be nowhere near a classroom. Our side just keeps saying, you know, we want charter 0.99

00:42:28.560 schools. We want private schools. We want to have the right to have choice here. But the other side,

00:42:33.640 that's something that only works

00:42:36.020 when both sides can finally agree

00:42:38.060 to some kind of detente and say, fine,

00:42:39.880 I'll have my schools, you have your

00:42:42.060 schools. The other side don't

00:42:43.940 agree to let us have our schools.

00:42:46.500 So I think we need to take a much

00:42:48.140 more heavy hand here.

00:42:49.900 These guys want to stick it down our kids' throats. 0.98

00:42:52.220 They can find a new job

00:42:53.380 in Ontario or something.

00:42:57.580 Amen to that too.

00:43:00.000 Nice way to put it, Derek. 0.99

00:43:01.220 cory and i are in a bidding war for biggest jerk okay uh mine here uh this is uh so former uh wild 0.96

00:43:11.280 rose and ucp mla drew barnes uh he's a guy i served in the legislature with for a term 0.95

00:43:16.080 from uh he's from medicine hat uh he is launching a new federal political party called alberta now

00:43:23.140 it promises to be sort of the bloc quebecois of alberta i know when this has been discussed

00:43:30.020 previously. Some people called it the bloc redneck qua. I think they meant that as an insult,

00:43:34.100 but I think it's pretty funny. But the idea of a federally elect, electing federal MPs whose job

00:43:42.300 is just to represent Alberta. A few quick thoughts on it. One, I don't yet think the Alberta voters

00:43:50.360 are ready for it yet, but I do think they might well be ready for it very soon. Pierre Paldiev's

00:43:58.820 leadership is looking increasingly fraught. He might not last until the next election.

00:44:04.580 If that's the case, I've said before, I think his two most likely successors are either to be

00:44:09.800 Jason Kenney or Doug Ford. Both of those people are entirely unacceptable to a very large number

00:44:16.800 of people on the populist right in Alberta. There would be no way for many of us to vote

00:44:23.100 federal conservative with either of those men there. The argument, I think, has been made

00:44:28.460 extremely well over a long time, that the conservatives, while Albertans elect conservatives

00:44:34.200 overwhelmingly at the federal level, the conservatives take us for granted simply because

00:44:38.740 they have to, to win in other parts of the country. And so it's time for Albertans to

00:44:41.800 vote a bit more strategically and create competition on the right for the conservatives

00:44:46.520 with this. That being said, it's another stupid name for a political party. Remember when we 1.00

00:44:52.200 tried this with the Maverick Party and that terribly named entity because there was going to

00:44:56.980 be a sequel to a movie coming out uh this was uh this was terrible uh this is less terribly named

00:45:03.860 but if you're going to vote for alberta now when we're talking about the party in the last election

00:45:08.040 are we going to call it alberta then uh it's it's it just come up you know the alberta party

00:45:14.640 or the wild rose party the the alberta alliance there's a lot of different things i really don't

00:45:21.080 like how a lot of these new political parties try to be cute with their names i don't think

00:45:25.600 voters want cute. I think they want serious. I think they want an agenda. Like the progressive

00:45:33.620 Tory party provincially in Alberta. It's trying to be cute. It's playing on something. It's dumb.

00:45:39.400 So look, I want to give my hats off to Drew here. I think this is a worthy initiative. 0.98

00:45:45.700 It's going to take a ton of effort to do it. I hope he's got it in him. But I think they should

00:45:50.560 give the name

00:45:52.580 another

00:45:53.140 look here.

00:45:56.860 It's a bit too cute.

00:45:59.380 Think of something else.

00:46:00.460 Maybe just bring, if we're going to have an Alberta party

00:46:02.400 at the federal level, bring back the Wild Rose.

00:46:04.960 There we go.

00:46:07.120 Okay. Any chance

00:46:08.640 of you running for the leadership of it?

00:46:10.860 I got a job. I'm good.

00:46:12.460 Alright.

00:46:13.540 I hate travel, so

00:46:16.420 I don't think. Going to Edmonton was bad enough.

00:46:18.720 Flying to Ottawa,

00:46:19.640 No, I don't think so.

00:46:22.840 All right.

00:46:24.340 Dave, Nigel, Corey, thank you very much.

00:46:26.980 And thank you, John, Runnin Production,

00:46:29.540 and all of you who have shared your time with us today.

00:46:32.000 Thank you very much.

00:46:32.960 If you're not yet a subscriber to the Western Standard,

00:46:35.180 go to westernstandard.news right now.

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00:46:52.100 and God bless

Western Standard - September 19, 2026

THE PIPELINE： Carney pulls Canada closer to Europe

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