Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： Carney’s debt-backed wealth fund

00:00:00.000 Good day! Today is April 29th, 2026.

00:00:28.340 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:33.180 I'm joined in the studio here by our usual crew, former opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:39.080 Here I am.

00:00:40.000 Senior Alberta colonist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:42.000 Good day.

00:00:42.720 News editor, Dave Naylor.

00:00:44.360 Hello.

00:00:45.200 And coming to us from Lotusland, left coast, we've got our BC reporter, Alex Zoltan.

00:00:51.480 Thank you for having me.

00:00:53.000 All right.

00:00:53.600 Well, the reason Alex is here is because we're going to be talking about the B.C. Conservative Party heading into the last weeks of its leadership race.

00:01:02.940 There was a debate just last night. Land acknowledgements at a B.C. Conservative leadership debate. Interesting stuff.

00:01:12.760 We're going to talk about the state of that race. Maybe we can handicap it at this point. Who are the most likely guys to win? 1.00

00:01:23.600 We're going to talk about the University of Lethbridge

00:01:27.300 going full, woke, authoritarian,

00:01:30.780 arresting Frances Widdowson, a former professor,

00:01:34.580 for showing up on campus.

00:01:36.740 I think she was in the middle of violently

00:01:40.360 and dangerously drinking a coffee when it happened.

00:01:44.300 And then the very kind of limp-wristed response

00:01:47.460 from Alberta's government, kind of equivocating,

00:01:50.140 not taking a strong stance on it,

00:01:51.720 which seems to be a departure from where the UCP was until pretty recently on these kinds of issues.

00:01:57.560 And Mark Carney's mega deficit, just shy of $70 billion.

00:02:03.180 But don't worry, it's smaller than it's supposed to be.

00:02:06.600 It's smaller than expected.

00:02:08.600 As Stephen Harper said, it's just a little wee deficit.

00:02:12.400 Just a little deficit.

00:02:14.360 But a gigantic deficit, just shy of $70 billion.

00:02:19.480 Not in wartime. 0.82

00:02:20.520 oh my goodness i just threw a pen at nigel uh not a wartime not uh not not even the thank you 0.92

00:02:26.280 nigel not even that nigel's pen uh and uh not covid nothing um but the good news is we've also 0.91

00:02:35.400 got a sovereign wealth fund uh but i'm not sure that really counts if we're just borrowing all

00:02:40.520 the money goes into it that's exactly what we're doing it's like you if you've got a line of credit

00:02:44.760 and he takes on that line of credit and set up a tax-free savings account.

00:02:55.000 Tax-free savings account. There you go. Well, honey, we've got a tax-free savings account.

00:03:00.040 Well, that's wonderful. Yeah. Well, we borrow it. Now it's not wonderful anymore.

00:03:05.320 And really, in fact, so much of this stuff is an exercise in showmanship.

00:03:11.080 And, you know, the update that we had yesterday, they call it a Canada Strong Fund, and it's

00:03:21.960 described by the government as a sovereign wealth fund.

00:03:24.400 Well, what we've done in Alberta is a sovereign wealth fund.

00:03:27.240 We take the money that's surplus that we get from oil and natural gas sales, don't spend

00:03:32.360 it all, shunt some of it into a savings account.

00:03:35.260 That is a sovereign wealth fund.

00:03:36.460 I think it's at about, what, $30 billion at the moment, something in that area.

00:03:40.740 In Norway, which has been doing the same thing, they measure this in trillions, Alaska's got

00:03:48.980 a sovereign wealth fund, same thing, they pay a dividend, which is a good reason to

00:03:53.320 move to Alaska.

00:03:54.320 At least there's one.

00:03:56.920 That's what a sovereign wealth fund is.

00:03:59.340 This is just, it sounds good.

00:04:01.980 And Mr. Carney does like things that sound good.

00:04:07.420 had a lot of them in the past year uh but it's not strictly accurate this the true the um the

00:04:14.140 fund appears to well i mean it's stated that it's on borrowed money it's a racket so theoretically

00:04:21.820 you know you've we've probably had our own financial advisors tell us you know when interest

00:04:26.060 rates are really low hey you could uh you could take out a line of credit you know you borrow

00:04:31.580 twenty thousand dollars uh because the expected rate of return on the market is higher than the

00:04:38.180 cost of borrowing and that might be strictly true sometimes in our personal finances but in our

00:04:44.640 personal finances we have a clear if we're doing things right at least we're invested in it for the

00:04:49.940 long term some people don't exactly plan long term in their lives but um we're thinking long

00:04:54.600 term if i screw this up i pay the consequences the worst that happens to a politician is he's

00:04:59.960 out of office in a few years enjoying a pension he's the politicians never suffer the consequences

00:05:05.900 of this uh mark carney is a banker a central banker uh the whole point is to lend money

00:05:14.080 and borrow money that's so i don't think he's ever seen a bank he didn't uh think should lend

00:05:19.540 out money or borrow money from um but i think that's his argument is that i'm i'm the genius

00:05:25.760 and I can go and earn a better rate of return.

00:05:29.620 But, you know, Corey, Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund

00:05:34.080 specifically does not invest in Norway.

00:05:37.160 So it kind of insulates it, at least for the most part,

00:05:41.000 from political manipulation, that it can't be hijacked,

00:05:46.180 say, the way Quebec's pension plan is for domestic political things.

00:05:49.660 Hey, we're going to take this pension money

00:05:51.040 and we're going to invest it in this Quebec company

00:05:53.900 and that Quebec company is probably involved

00:05:55.800 in some corrupt deal with the Quebec government.

00:05:58.120 There's some kind of kickback, at least.

00:06:01.380 And then there is concern

00:06:02.900 around control with Alberta's fund.

00:06:06.560 People have raised concerns

00:06:07.720 that it's going to be used to de-risk projects.

00:06:12.200 Okay, that might be a worthwhile goal,

00:06:14.120 but it's an objective

00:06:16.640 that is not purely

00:06:17.700 about earning the best return

00:06:19.860 for the owners of it.

00:06:21.000 There does not appear to be any such protections and firewalls here.

00:06:27.320 In fact, this seems to be very specifically designed to reinvest back into the Canadian economy, which sounds nice, but seems to be a recipe for corruption. 0.96

00:06:36.920 Yeah, well, if you want to de-risk projects, get the government out of the damn way. 0.97

00:06:40.440 That's the problem. 0.98

00:06:41.640 That's the hindrance. 0.97

00:06:42.620 That's why private markets aren't investing in Canada.

00:06:45.980 That's what the Alberta government says.

00:06:47.100 They have to de-risk it because the federal government is then involved in creating risk.

00:06:50.420 So that's the reason given by the Alberta government.

00:06:53.340 And it's not an unreasonable thing to say.

00:06:55.300 Well, and they're speaking more on the federal fund.

00:06:57.500 I mean, they have more tools at their disposal to actually improve investment in Canada than this.

00:07:03.160 I mean, RBC noted just recently that $1 trillion fled Canada in the last 10 years.

00:07:08.940 I mean, we've got the resources.

00:07:10.560 The prices are high.

00:07:11.520 People want them.

00:07:12.640 The problem is government. 0.93

00:07:14.000 But they won't do that.

00:07:14.980 Instead, they're going to borrow money.

00:07:16.200 and what I see is investing then in high-risk projects because if they weren't high risk,

00:07:21.840 the private market would invest in them. As you said, Norway is quite different. Their mandate

00:07:25.540 is just to get a return on it. And if you look at the breakdown of their fund, they have 0.4%

00:07:31.800 in renewables, for example. So I mean, they know that renewables are garbage to invest in. Do you 0.98

00:07:37.220 think that zero carny with this decarbonized oil is going to avoid dumping money into some of those

00:07:42.360 or more rocket pads or other domestic investment items

00:07:47.600 that the private market would never touch.

00:07:50.020 He's done the opposite of what Norway's done with this fund.

00:07:52.280 This is a slush fund, and I can only see bad things coming out of this.

00:07:56.880 You referred to rocket pads.

00:07:58.520 I think all of us have seen the viral picture of these so-called Canada space.

00:08:02.160 But to be fair to Ottawa, Alberta's had its own bungled space program.

00:08:06.940 I think it's St. Paul that has the UFO landing pad.

00:08:09.780 Well, they've landed yet, but it could be any time.

00:08:11.780 It's St. Paul, yes.

00:08:12.800 Yeah.

00:08:15.260 I wouldn't write that investment off yet.

00:08:18.700 St. Paul, those of you not from Alberta who don't know,

00:08:22.180 you can trust Wikipedia or Google on this one.

00:08:25.660 Look up Alberta UFO landing pad, and it will take you to St. Paul, Alberta.

00:08:31.160 This is a real thing.

00:08:32.740 This is a real thing.

00:08:35.200 Corey, sorry, Dave, as crazy as this is,

00:08:39.720 financial, fiscal policy, monetary policy

00:08:42.980 stories, I think they go over

00:08:44.740 the head of almost everybody, even

00:08:46.640 most people working in the media.

00:08:48.980 I think Carney's

00:08:50.620 sales job on this has been politically

00:08:52.500 successful so far for the most

00:08:54.700 part. I don't think most

00:08:56.600 people are like, oh, deficit, but

00:08:58.600 we're saving? I don't

00:09:00.620 know, whatever. I'm

00:09:02.760 going to trust the banker guy who looks competent

00:09:04.780 to figure this out, but

00:09:06.740 it looks to me like he's at least had a fairly

00:09:08.760 successful political sales job the conservative attacks on it which i probably think you know

00:09:14.040 somewhat somewhat similar to what we're saying here i think i don't i don't think they've landed

00:09:18.120 i think people are trusting uh carney he's the money guy yep i think you're right uh first of

00:09:24.200 all i'd just like to put it on the record that uh you don't pay me enough to have a financial advisor

00:09:29.080 so uh when you talk about money stories going over the head i think you're talking about me

00:09:34.280 uh but yeah he has um he has he has you know people don't know enough about it derek to

00:09:41.640 to get upset about it oh a fun to generate well that sounds good yeah i'll support that

00:09:47.640 and uh you know maybe once some of the details start coming out on what exactly

00:09:52.920 is is going to be uh what it's all about maybe there'll be some opposition but i i think it's

00:09:58.280 like like Nigel said it's just a racket and this has got sponsorship scandal written all over it

00:10:05.480 just to a much much larger degree you know one of the things Dave that's uh that struck me about

00:10:12.200 this when you look at where the money is actually going the amount that's going to pay interest

00:10:18.520 that is now getting large that is uh it's going to be the you can picture a rowing boat

00:10:27.400 out on the lake it's going to be the kind of it's going to be the thing that's heavy that rolls

00:10:32.040 around and starts to affect the movements of the boat this is this is very serious it was a clever

00:10:40.360 idea to put the word out that we would be getting an 80 billion uh a dollar deficit and then come

00:10:45.720 back with one that was smaller it was oh that's good no this is actually huge deficit well the

00:10:51.720 But, Alex, this isn't the first year.

00:10:56.220 It's not like just this year's deficit.

00:10:59.720 I run a company here, and if I have a deficit for one quarter, 0.98

00:11:05.420 I ask Dave, I'm like, God, holy shit, we've got to do something. 0.98

00:11:09.840 And we're either cutting expenses or we're working hard 0.98

00:11:12.040 and bringing new advertisers, new subscribers.

00:11:14.260 We're doing something to close it.

00:11:17.420 You run a one-year deficit.

00:11:20.000 It's a big deal.

00:11:20.860 we're we're losing our minds around here to fix it and to end it we don't like them um but we have

00:11:27.420 run a deficit every single year since justin trudeau came to power in 2015 and before that

00:11:34.520 i know not not not nigel doesn't like it when i go after the harper government but harper ran a

00:11:38.540 long series fairly long series of deficits before that he had got it down to pretty much zero by

00:11:44.740 the time he left office. But, you know, we racked on a lot of debt in the Harper years, and then we

00:11:51.200 doubled the debt very quickly in the Trudeau decade. And then we're still doing it.

00:12:00.340 Kearney's brand was, well, elbows up, he's going to fight against Trump. But it was also,

00:12:06.180 well, I'm going to do away with the frivolousness of the Trudeau era. He brought a lot of people

00:12:10.440 back to the liberals who were looking

00:12:12.500 at the conservatives because he

00:12:14.340 projected managerial competence.

00:12:17.040 He was...

00:12:17.880 He really just does look like a

00:12:20.380 banker. Like, if I was

00:12:22.420 in a cast, if I was in Central Casting,

00:12:24.380 I need a banker.

00:12:26.240 I'd pick Mark Carney. Straight out of line.

00:12:29.960 Well, I'm...

00:12:31.100 He was going to eliminate the

00:12:32.460 deficit. We were going to be

00:12:34.200 smart with money again.

00:12:37.540 I don't know.

00:12:38.280 But do you think he gets away with it here?

00:12:40.440 Yes and no. I think the perception is reality. And if people think that he looks like a banker and acts like a banker, then to them, he's a banker. I'm going to get in trouble with with Dave and probably a lot of the viewers. I actually was a financial advisor. I did that for the better part of the last decade. And this sovereign wealth fund story reminds me of two stories, if you'll forgive me for telling them. The first one, I'll leave out some of the details because I don't want to give away who the individual is. But I worked in a retirement community. So I dealt with all kinds of weird financial situations involving people who were

00:13:10.420 doing estate planning so a woman came in and she wanted to add her daughter onto the line of credit 0.99

00:13:15.940 that was affixed to her home because the daughter was a co-owner of the home no problem i invite the

00:13:20.660 daughter in i said i just have to create a banking profile for you pull your credit bureau ask you

00:13:24.980 some questions what do you do for work and she said well i'm a phd in economics and i'm a top

00:13:29.540 leading advisor to the government of canada on economic issues i said wow that's amazing i look

00:13:34.100 at the bureau she's from ottawa everything checks out she has no credit score so i said well you

00:13:40.500 have a zero credit score she says yes i'm i'm borrowing a verse i've never borrowed money

00:13:44.820 before in my life and this is a leading advisor to the government of canada and she can't access

00:13:53.140 credit as an individual i would never be as audacious as pierre polyev he got in a lot of

00:13:57.860 trouble recently for accusing carney of being somewhat financially illiterate um i think this

00:14:03.060 is actually a really illustrative example of how sometimes a degree, and even in the case of

00:14:08.260 experience, Carney was a central banker. Well, central banker, it sounds like an important

00:14:12.020 position, but your decisions are typically binary. You're either increasing interest rates or you're

00:14:15.940 lowering them. And if you're in a time of economic crisis, you're always lowering them. So the

00:14:20.100 decision is made for you. So it doesn't require a particularly intelligent person to do it.

00:14:25.380 And the sovereign wealth fund reminds me of my second story, which is in a retirement community,

00:14:30.260 you often had people that came in very well-intentioned people who said i really love

00:14:33.940 my grandchildren i want to leave a legacy to them can i create a trust fund but then you would look

00:14:38.680 at their financial situation and there was no wealth to put in the fund so you it just didn't

00:14:45.400 make any sense and this both of these stories remind me of what the carny government is doing

00:14:49.300 it seems like financial illiteracy personified to some extent i i think this is uh this is an

00:14:57.440 excellent example of just the canadian and in particular laurentian or eastern central canadian

00:15:03.640 but the canadian deference to authority and credentialism you know um this person has a

00:15:11.680 resume you know dave how often we gone through found someone with a great resume who couldn't 0.87

00:15:17.940 write a new story for shit yeah and they usually had pronouns yeah well but now we know to filter 0.88

00:15:24.160 them out if they have pronouns their resume straight to garbage don't even make it to my 0.97

00:15:28.000 desk at this point uh i'm talking about your application jessica um charge number seven um

00:15:36.400 so you know but canadians are have just such a deference to authority i i think it comes from

00:15:44.300 kind of the uh the upper canadian loyalist tory tradition i think it comes from that but they just

00:15:51.300 you know uh credentials institutions resumes these things count for so much more in the in

00:15:59.880 the east and i think in canada overall but in the east in particular um you know uh the media

00:16:06.040 says that this guy is competent and therefore and then it just becomes an article of faith it's why

00:16:11.220 you know you have you know the canadian bar association issue statements condemning a

00:16:17.340 newspaper for criticizing the decision of a judge as if that undermines confidence in

00:16:22.500 the justice system, not the justice system making ridiculous decisions to put criminals

00:16:27.420 back on the streets because they have a certain race or they're not a citizen or something

00:16:31.640 like that.

00:16:34.180 I think Kearney is just the ultimate emblem of that.

00:16:38.400 You know, I'm actually reflecting on Alex's story about the senior civil servant who didn't

00:16:44.140 have a credit score because she never borrowed money.

00:16:47.340 Where do you find people like that?

00:16:48.880 Could we not have more of them who actually don't launch their campaign saying, well, we're going to come off a balanced budget, go straight into four years of deficits, then we'll think about it, and instead double the amount of money that they said they were going to borrow and take the national debt from $600 billion to $1.2 billion in five years?

00:17:13.080 i mean i actually kind of like the idea of somebody who has an aversion to debt

00:17:17.960 being in government the last year canada ran a circle was it like 2009 what year was the financial

00:17:23.480 crisis well 2007 2008 and okay so it'd be it'd be circa 2007 or eight would be the last time canada

00:17:31.480 ran a surplus surplus harper had pretty much eliminated the deficit by the time he left

00:17:36.840 office yeah but it was still it's still technically in deficit and then trudeau

00:17:42.120 ramped it up massively and well you know you gotta remember if you're thinking about why things are

00:17:47.800 the way they are in canada people voted for that he actually said when we had a balanced budget

00:17:54.120 we've been talking about balanced budgets and overspending since the early 90s

00:17:58.760 finally we make it and he said oh i think we'll we'll run we'll run deficits for four years and

00:18:03.880 the result what a good idea we should do that and voted them in so um you know the canadian

00:18:09.480 people unfortunately have a certain amount to answer for in this as well you know when you

00:18:14.360 look at the statistics on personal debt yep they voted for a government that does things the way 0.84

00:18:19.960 they do them okay i think we back to the girl who uh has no credit score i i could be she should be

00:18:25.960 interviewed if i'm wrong left put in the comments section as a correction but uh i i think i'm

00:18:30.120 correct it canadians are have the highest personal debt on the planet right now it's

00:18:34.760 it is crazy and i i suppose you know if canadians are all massively personally indebted

00:18:40.360 then this stands to reason that they'd say well i i guess the government needs to do it as well

00:18:45.480 all right if i get to dad the the story about the um the young lady i find is interesting because

00:18:53.640 it's indicative of a certain level of financial illiteracy amongst the populace and that's

00:18:59.080 bleeding into the bureaucracy this person has never paid off an overdraft and they're advising

00:19:04.500 the government on how to clear a one trillion dollar plus deficit they don't even have a personal

00:19:10.080 credit score so i find that i found it just so incredible okay we're gonna switch it up now uh

00:19:17.380 bring it a little closer to home here uh cory i know you're you're regularly in trouble with the

00:19:23.500 authorities for uh you know making documentaries you know about regularly but yes i'm uh just it

00:19:30.200 just feels like it some days he's saying charges now so francis widowson uh so she was a professor

00:19:36.340 at the at mount royal university in calgary calgary's other university uh they hate getting

00:19:43.380 told that um but uh she she was a professor there i i think she was fired uh and won a wrongful

00:19:50.400 this missile suit, I think, because she was

00:19:52.380 fired for her views around 1.00

00:19:53.780 the fake

00:19:55.720 graves from

00:19:58.140 Campbell's.

00:20:00.560 I think it was around that stuff.

00:20:02.460 Or at least something related to it. She was

00:20:04.120 fired for her views.

00:20:08.320 And

00:20:08.540 I don't know, since then

00:20:10.560 she's just kind of been on the activist

00:20:12.460 and speaking circuit talking about these

00:20:14.520 things. We don't need to re-ash

00:20:16.640 it here. No bodies have 0.86

00:20:18.460 been found uh the counter is still zero uh here let's put the counter up how many bodies have been

00:20:24.780 found there we go uh yeah that's genocide uh very bloody um so she says this and this really

00:20:35.540 bothers people um and then she so she was uh she went to go speak about this or something she was

00:20:41.320 invited by a free speech club or something in the university of lethbridge they issued a warning

00:20:46.480 Let's put the warning up on the screen.

00:20:48.160 They had heard a warning about this dangerous individual around campus.

00:20:52.600 She was told she's not allowed to come, and she was arrested.

00:20:57.360 Yeah, and Professor Widowson has a history.

00:21:00.120 She wrote, I believe it was called the Aboriginal Industry Disrobed,

00:21:03.660 about 15 years ago when she was still a professor.

00:21:06.220 And it broke into a lot of the bureaucracy and the corruption and issues going on,

00:21:10.380 actually, with what was called the Indian industry.

00:21:12.580 We all know of it, the lawyers, the bureaucrats, the chiefs.

00:21:15.720 There's a lot of people who get very, very wealthy through the status quo of the system,

00:21:19.680 and they certainly don't like that critique. 0.94

00:21:23.180 Ironically, if they hadn't gotten her fired from Mount Royal, she would probably be still 0.79

00:21:28.120 more quietly teaching classes and so on, and you wouldn't hear as much. 1.00

00:21:31.900 But you took this firebrand of a woman and fired her from the university wrongly. 1.00

00:21:36.660 She won the suit, but now she's had that time on her hands to become an activist professor 1.00

00:21:41.200 rather than just one who was academic.

00:21:42.980 and she has it's amazing the courage for as you said this this threat she's reminds me of tamara 0.90

00:21:48.420 leach i mean i we've talked to francis another time she's what 110 pounds soaking wet and uh

00:21:54.000 she's not a threat to anybody yet she wanders into crowds and groups in winnipeg she did it

00:21:59.020 in bc she did it with protesters getting very aggressive very uh uh i'd be afraid to walk into 0.99

00:22:05.020 that crowd and i gotta give it to winnison for her her ballsiness she'll just push right in there 0.99

00:22:10.700 And she just calls it like it is. 1.00

00:22:13.000 She made that CBC interviewer almost cry that time,

00:22:16.160 not by being mean, but just being that blunt speaking woman 0.59

00:22:18.520 who just talked mean to her or straight to her.

00:22:21.540 And it drives them nuts.

00:22:23.580 So she's been outright calling about this.

00:22:27.820 Oops, of the 215 bodies in Kamloops.

00:22:31.040 She got kicked off from Lethbridge, or the protesters drove her out.

00:22:35.200 She was invited by another professor to speak.

00:22:36.720 That was the first time this happened.

00:22:38.260 And there was a bunch of protesters banging drums, screaming, pushing her around.

00:22:44.480 And there was a second incident, again, where she got driven off of the campus.

00:22:48.120 And they basically warned her outright.

00:22:49.920 She said, you are not welcome to come here under any circumstance.

00:22:53.100 And being Francis, she said, well, I'm going to arrange something to go on.

00:22:55.680 She did so.

00:22:56.580 And they literally took her away in handcuffs and charged her with trespassing.

00:23:00.180 I did the original stories with Francis about five years ago, right at the start of the standard.

00:23:05.540 And back then, it had nothing to do with bodies.

00:23:08.380 She was just arguing against this genocide theories on residential schools.

00:23:14.080 And that got her kicked out of Mount Royal, still awaiting the results of a tribunal to get her job back.

00:23:22.540 But you're right.

00:23:23.260 The optics look terrible. 1.00

00:23:24.520 There's this 100-pound woman who is dragged, literally, because she's refusing to walk. 0.97

00:23:30.660 They're dragging her out.

00:23:32.280 But my problem with it, I fear these kind of stunts turn her almost into a, you know, a victim.

00:23:44.900 You know, what's the word I'm looking for? 1.00

00:23:47.140 A little bit more like Menzies. 1.00

00:23:48.760 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:23:49.860 I mean, she knows what's going to happen. 0.80

00:23:51.820 She does it anyways.

00:23:52.940 She gets what she wants. 0.98

00:23:55.780 But she's almost looking like a professional victim now.

00:23:59.700 So, but obviously we still support her, support her a hundred percent.

00:24:04.320 And, you know, even when she was kicked out of Montmorel, as I was saying, it was just on the residential school issue itself.

00:24:12.720 Now she's grabbed these 215 hoax graves and is running with it.

00:24:17.680 It's honest, Dave, if you don't actually step out, how do you engage people's intention?

00:24:23.820 i mean i understand what you mean about the professional victim here but what would be a

00:24:28.860 what would be a better way of achieving the same end oh no you know i i understand both sides of

00:24:34.780 the argument and people gather around her and they beat their drums because they don't a they don't

00:24:40.140 want to hear the message right when the last time she was arrested she was sitting in a uh a campus

00:24:45.900 food fair at the university of lethbridge and she was calmly talking to a student and then the cops

00:24:50.940 come in and haul her away um so yeah i understand that she has to do stuff to to bring it to uh

00:24:57.420 uh to everybody's attention what we need now is authorities with just enough intestinal fortitude 1.00

00:25:03.980 to say well actually we don't like what's happening to her when she does these things 1.00

00:25:09.260 like people who pay for the university bills that's where i want to go with this nangel uh

00:25:14.540 So, I think it was, whatever reporters, was it Leah we had on the story for the response here?

00:25:22.380 We had Leah, we had Will.

00:25:24.000 Okay.

00:25:24.640 Team effort.

00:25:25.420 Okay, so we have a few reporters on this, and they reached out to Alberta's Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Minister McDougall.

00:25:35.820 And he issued a pretty equivocating statement.

00:25:39.160 I don't remember it exactly, but here, we'll throw his written statement up on the screen here so people can see it exactly.

00:25:45.320 But it was kind of equivocating.

00:25:47.700 It was like, oh, well, we have to find the balance between personal safety and free speech. 1.00

00:25:52.580 Personal safety is a hundred pound woman who couldn't knock my dog over, is no threat to anyone. 1.00

00:26:02.360 to imply in any way 1.00

00:26:04.720 that she is a threat to safety

00:26:06.840 is buying into the words

00:26:08.360 or violence narrative

00:26:09.420 of these nutjobs.

00:26:11.400 I think the Alberta government

00:26:13.100 and the Minister of Post-Secondary Education

00:26:16.080 in particular

00:26:16.700 is fumbling this one badly.

00:26:20.120 The University of Lethbridge

00:26:21.640 should be getting a letter

00:26:22.620 saying you have one week

00:26:24.580 to apologize,

00:26:26.100 make restitution,

00:26:27.520 put in place a policy

00:26:28.520 to prove this will never happen again,

00:26:30.260 or a week from now

00:26:31.460 Now we are pulling every single tax dollar from the University of Lethbridge.

00:26:35.480 Amen.

00:26:36.480 That is what is required.

00:26:38.400 Of course, you are sitting in nothing, the pain, the suffering, the harmed feelings,

00:26:45.300 which are in the woke world just as serious as physical injury.

00:26:50.220 In this case, the minister, the UCP minister gave that credence.

00:26:54.700 Balancing personal safety.

00:26:56.700 They use the safety weasel words in all of the universities, though.

00:27:01.160 They often say, well, we can't guarantee the safety of the speaker who's coming in or the guest.

00:27:05.760 Well, that's a fault of the university, then.

00:27:08.260 That means you're not getting your own students in order.

00:27:11.640 But they use that as we can't guarantee your safety.

00:27:13.700 So for your own sake, we're going to cancel the event. 0.95

00:27:17.420 It's up to you to get enough security and get enough police to beat the shit out of the people who are trying to violently stop.

00:27:23.340 and of the end from taking place 0.63

00:27:25.280 we were trying to use violence

00:27:27.240 and force to stop a speaker

00:27:28.540 it's incumbent on the university to provide the protection

00:27:31.420 not to say hey we can't do it

00:27:32.880 but that's just their cowardly way out

00:27:34.880 well we're just doing it so nobody gets hurt

00:27:36.580 yeah well they say they can't afford it

00:27:38.120 sure you know what

00:27:40.720 you expel five or six students and see how fast

00:27:43.360 it changes now

00:27:44.140 yeah you know that's a good way to do it

00:27:46.580 okay you know what we can't hold it today

00:27:49.020 because these guys here but we are expelling

00:27:51.180 these guys who showed up

00:27:52.300 We're going to invite you back in a week from now, and we'll see if it works.

00:27:56.740 If they want to lose their post-secondary career by acting violently and inappropriately at an event, we never hear of that.

00:28:03.860 Why shouldn't we?

00:28:04.520 If I was in high school, I remember those days, if I'd have gone off on somebody visiting the high school, 0.99

00:28:08.580 that principal would have had my ass kicked out of that school faster than any. 0.94

00:28:11.520 Isn't it an established fact that the people protesting were students? 0.99

00:28:15.580 No, and that's the question I was just going to ask.

00:28:17.660 They brought a bunch off the blood reserve, but there were students there too, some of them.

00:28:22.300 they had a bunch of tokens they brought in for uh yeah which they did which they did when they

00:28:27.420 when she was in uh in ubc and a couple other universities across british columbia it was

00:28:33.660 like to rent a demonstrator yeah okay uh we're gonna go to alex in bc here uh i think it was

00:28:42.380 just yesterday there was a uh debate for the leadership race heading into the final strokes

00:28:50.540 here uh but before we get into you know who you think won who you think lost you know we'll get

00:28:56.300 you kind of handicap the race here uh before that though let's let's talk about the very weird uh

00:29:01.660 opening ceremonies of this debate that would seem to be a little ill-fitted for a party that

00:29:07.100 i think everyone's kind of agreeing at this point drippa and land acknowledgements uh the white guilt

00:29:13.820 and shame industry it's got to go yeah as the old joke goes i showed up to a debate and a land

00:29:20.640 acknowledgement broke out it was it was quite bizarre so the whole thing began with a land

00:29:28.140 acknowledgement which is extremely ironic given that in the last bc conservative leadership

00:29:32.140 debate which was only days earlier there was a bit of a race to the bottom on this issue of who

00:29:38.120 hated land acknowledgements the most and then nobody contested when the land acknowledgement

00:29:43.560 opened to the next debate which i think speaks to the fact that the candidates might not have

00:29:48.680 as much gumption as maybe their campaigns pretend that they do yeah it seemed like a missed

00:29:54.100 opportunity that you know maybe you know when they're talking about land acknowledgements yes

00:29:58.580 i'm the most conservative i'm against this stuff this stuff is just you know a part of uh guilt

00:30:04.280 and shame culture or the cult of shame that we're all supposed to have in european countries

00:30:09.960 because we're all colonial genocidal maniacs um but but this seemed like a missed opportunity

00:30:16.380 for someone to stand up at least at their first speaking opportunity not necessarily interrupt

00:30:21.160 them but be like hey i just want to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of

00:30:26.860 british columbia i mean i i will render i will offer some forgiveness to them in the sense that

00:30:33.100 in bc these things are so baked into the cake socio-culturally and politically you hear land

00:30:38.420 acknowledgments so often especially if you're working even in the private sector in the finance

00:30:42.500 world that you really you really become oblivious to it i had barely noticed the land acknowledgment

00:30:47.040 until others started ranting about it online it's it's it's quite um shame on you we're gonna have

00:30:52.800 to disturbing splash some cold water on you well i mean i've never done one and i don't intend to

00:30:57.840 and i don't understand why they happen but i'll know you're trying to quit if you do

00:31:01.760 yeah it's just like anything else right I mean you you can you can acclimatize

00:31:06.260 yourself to just about anything yeah okay well kind of give us just kind of a

00:31:11.060 high level you don't have to go through each of the each of them but you know

00:31:14.180 what tell us what were some of the big highlights who do you think came out on

00:31:18.500 top and maybe improved their position from this debate there really were no

00:31:23.000 big highlights it was quite a mundane event so the highlight was the land

00:31:27.440 acknowledgement and then that von palmer went on like a bit of a miss uh grandpa simpson rant at

00:31:33.040 the end that a lot of people thought was a waste of time i thought it was kind of interesting

00:31:36.560 personally it's nice to hear somebody's history in bc politics um i imagine it's a minority opinion

00:31:43.280 uh in terms of who i thought was the best or the worst everybody kind of held their ground

00:31:49.600 this has really never been when you ask for a high level uh look at this this has never been

00:31:54.960 a particularly high level race in the sense that all of the candidates agree on all of the major

00:31:59.360 issues so it really is just a matter of personality and likability almost at this point

00:32:03.440 it's uh what is the one of the i don't know how to put it um one of the debates uh maybe fault

00:32:13.440 lines i i've noticed in the race is you know some are saying some of the candidates are saying we

00:32:18.980 need to talk less about culture war issues more about you know fiscal management market issues

00:32:24.660 More of the kind of the think of the older B.C. liberals, you know, late Gordon Campbell, where it was just about fiscal probity.

00:32:33.380 But it's kind of a return to kind of traditional Reaganite economic focus as, you know, the fiscal conservative thing.

00:32:42.340 And that's all important. But in 2026, that's not really what's animating people.

00:32:47.200 But I know there is some kind of split and some candidates saying, no, we should not be emphasizing fight against DRIPA. 0.70

00:32:53.540 Maybe I'm against DRIPA, but like, on purely economic grounds, I'm not against, I don't want to get into it because I'm sick of white guilt. I'm sick of ritual shaming. I'm only against it because it compromises our economic prosperity. I think I'm seeing that as kind of a fault line emerging in the race.

00:33:15.800 I would disagree.

00:33:16.740 So on DRIPA, all of the candidates completely agree.

00:33:19.440 They've each said ad nauseum that they intend to repeal it as quickly as possible.

00:33:22.960 Even David Eby, just as recently as a few weeks ago, was saying that repealing it was

00:33:27.180 non-negotiable.

00:33:28.720 So the only party in BC and the only political faction that wants to keep DRIPA is the Green

00:33:33.540 Party, and they say all kinds of crazy things.

00:33:35.960 Yeah, I know all the candidates are saying they're going to get rid of it, but it's purely

00:33:41.440 just because this is economically disastrous, not for the other side, which is that it is also

00:33:46.620 socially and culturally contagious and, and, and, and sickening. And that, you know, some of the,

00:33:52.220 I think maybe it's Ian Black, who's like, you know, he wants the race to be about physical

00:33:57.820 management and property, economic prosperity, and less about culture wars. Yeah, I would agree with

00:34:06.720 you completely. And whether or not that will resonate with the BC conservative audience is

00:34:10.580 very difficult to know at this time. I do worry, in fact, to Ian Black's point, that what might be

00:34:16.620 occurring with some of the other candidates is a bit of online audience capture, where we're

00:34:20.960 against becoming a bit of a race to the bottom that will make them less electable in the general

00:34:24.640 election against the NDP, because BC, as we all know, is fairly left coast. So you can't go so

00:34:30.860 far to the right to win the leadership race that you lose the whole thing. And so he is being,

00:34:37.400 to some extent the adult in the room by encouraging restraint all right uh if you had to handicap the

00:34:45.360 race right now uh you know carolyn elliott seems to be the name that comes up the most uh has she 0.59

00:34:52.620 got it in the bag or is this going to be a multi-ballot uh vote my impression is that she 0.92

00:34:59.560 does not have it in the bag but she is the front runner and i would put millibar second after her

00:35:04.560 Carrie Lynn Finley III, Ian Black IV, and I think Fulmer's campaign is in trouble

00:35:12.620 because the details related to the MOU with the 1BC thing have never been ironed out.

00:35:18.500 So it's not even clear if the mechanics of the party would allow it.

00:35:21.140 Why don't you suss that out a bit?

00:35:23.220 I don't think people outside of British Columbia know that much about it.

00:35:28.840 Tell us about this MOU at 1BC.

00:35:30.260 Sure. So the Conservative Party would be the right-leaning, right-of-centre party in BC. 1BC would be something to the right of that. It would be the equivalent to the PPC, let's say.

00:35:40.820 So in order to not divide the vote on the right and to avoid vote splitting, an agreement was made between Uri Fulmer, who was really the last place candidate at the time, to stand down in five ridings out of, I can't remember off the top of my head, I think it's 93 ridings in BC.

00:35:56.760 and that way they would ensure that they could have five 1bc candidates elected that would work

00:36:03.740 in tandem with the conservative party you know there's a whole bunch of details about this that

00:36:07.200 don't really make sense number one there's no conditions for the supply and confidence

00:36:10.820 agreement there's no lines in the sand so why even have two parties at that point secondly we

00:36:16.720 haven't identified which five writings would run 1bc candidates and so there are five writing

00:36:21.700 associations hypothetically speaking that haven't been told that they need to stand down would they

00:36:26.340 agree to that we don't know and if they were told that they wanted they were to stand down and they

00:36:31.640 declined then the board of the conservative party would be put into the precarious position of either

00:36:37.560 kicking them off the writing association or um or i don't know they're so it the whole thing is

00:36:45.140 actually quite dysfunctional when you break it down to its inner mechanics it doesn't actually

00:36:50.380 make sense then you also have the issue too where the 1bc party is not actually a party officially

00:36:54.680 speaking there's only one mla there was originally two but they had some dysfunction and so they had

00:36:59.000 to split up and so it becomes very very uh hard to believe that a one bc party of five candidates

00:37:07.560 would act in perfect unity with the bc conservative party when the same political entity couldn't keep

00:37:12.440 a caucus of two unified for a particularly long period of time that's why it's two bc

00:37:20.360 um all right any of you got anything to say

00:37:24.680 I have to say that after living in BC for 25 years and living the politics down there,

00:37:33.000 I was sure glad to get to Alberta. People said to me when I arrived in Alberta, get ready for

00:37:39.800 a rough ride. Albertans are kind of crazy. You just can't fool them. Things are better here. 1.00

00:37:47.000 For those of you in BC worrying about your mortgages, get to Alberta.

00:37:52.760 yeah my mom says uh finley so there's that all right it's a lesson though i think for

00:37:58.360 conservatives in general i mean we can see it eb is handing the government to a new party 0.96

00:38:04.760 you know on a platter if they can just get their crap together but conservatives are their own 0.96

00:38:09.320 worst enemies and the only thing that could potentially save evie's hide is conservatives 0.98

00:38:15.880 ripping themselves apart you know because they've not had a particularly harmonious time since the

00:38:24.440 last election and that's not a uniquely bc that's alberta conservatives that's you know we love

00:38:29.400 fighting with each other yeah but the bc was particularly it happened particularly remember

00:38:35.080 like you had the majority of the caucus had voted the leader out and the leader says i'm not leaving

00:38:40.680 and then you had like a showdown in the legislature who gets to sit in the opposition leader's chair

00:38:44.920 I mean, it was pretty good.

00:38:47.780 Yeah.

00:38:48.240 Now, behind the scenes, I haven't said too much on this publicly.

00:38:51.560 Behind the scenes, the Wild Rose came perilously close to similar things in its time.

00:38:57.880 Held to, there was times where it didn't hold together, obviously.

00:39:01.260 Well, I was there.

00:39:02.360 It did, but it came within an inch.

00:39:07.160 But yeah, B.C., whew.

00:39:08.880 Alex, what actually are the fault lines in the Conservative Party?

00:39:13.400 In B.C.?

00:39:14.560 Or I assume, I don't think there are many, to be frank.

00:39:19.940 I think that people are splitting hairs.

00:39:21.960 A great example would be land acknowledgments.

00:39:24.300 So some individuals think that land acknowledgments should be banned in the public service, something that they should be strongly discouraged.

00:39:30.420 Others think that they should be allowed to continue.

00:39:32.800 At the end of the day, I mean, if somebody does a land acknowledgment, it takes 15 seconds out of the meeting.

00:39:36.800 You know, it's annoying.

00:39:38.480 And I think that it does have legal consequences way downstream.

00:39:41.760 I see both arguments.

00:39:42.880 but but these are really not make or break issues for the conservative party of bc and

00:39:48.900 i see there's a litmus test anyone who engages in in land acknowledgements to me

00:39:54.500 is selling out their people their land their their heritage uh posterity they're selling

00:40:01.480 out their own posterity uh you know for me it's i i i'm not interested in the rest of your platform

00:40:06.660 at that point it's uh you could be you'd be great on economics and foreign policy oh but i want to

00:40:11.280 trans your kids well i'm sorry at that point you're also like it's a disqualifying thing i

00:40:15.520 i i put land acknowledgments in that in that in that basket i think the real wild card that you

00:40:21.300 know it's always the story you're at least paying attention to that becomes the most important and

00:40:24.820 the biggest fault line not in the conservative party of bc but in bc politics generally is the

00:40:29.740 green party a lot of leftists in bc have gravitated towards a more radical left than they already

00:40:37.840 adhere to, which is hard to believe. There's room on the left side of the political spectrum from

00:40:43.660 the B.C. N.D.P., but I believe that the Green Party may split the vote on the left, which would

00:40:48.480 likely result in a healthy conservative majority.

00:40:54.360 All right. We'll put a plug in it there. Alex, you're... Oh, no, we'll come to you next. We'll

00:41:01.480 start with Nandula, you're a parting shot. Yeah, sure. So the news came out that a 0.78

00:41:07.760 The pipeline had been approved in British Columbia, actually.

00:41:11.740 It runs from Chapman down to the U.S. border.

00:41:15.500 300 million cubic feet a day.

00:41:17.640 It's only been two years in the planning, and there's going to be another two years before it's done.

00:41:24.680 And our federal energy minister speaks up and says,

00:41:27.100 this is what being an energy superpower looks like.

00:41:31.780 the actual amount of gas coming through alberta and bc something like 11 billion cubic feet a day

00:41:41.140 and through an extra 300 million makes you an energy superpower i just found the i just found

00:41:49.700 this remarks unbecoming from somebody who does actually have a good personal knowledge of working

00:41:55.060 in the industry. Corey, just a rare little bit of a tip of the hat to the state broadcaster.

00:42:01.780 Somebody dug deeply enough into the economic update onto page 145 and found that buried in

00:42:09.540 there was a note to make it legal for the RCMP to come in and enter and check your mail through

00:42:16.980 Canada Post without warrant. It's bizarre. It's authoritarian. And why on earth are you burying

00:42:23.060 it in a fiscal update uh keep your eye on whatever the heck they're up to i mean the police have the

00:42:28.820 ability to check your mail with a warrant if they feel there's criminal activity or something

00:42:32.660 this is a note to give warrantless access to your physical mail what on earth is this government

00:42:38.100 pursuing and why would they stick it in it it's the same thing with the internet as well that's

00:42:42.180 what they want yeah dave uh good week to be british as you watch the uh prince or king

00:42:49.860 charles do a royal tour de force in washington uh two great speeches a brilliant gift of a ship

00:42:58.180 ship's bell from the uh royal navy submarine uh uh hmcs trump uh left uh left there's an hmcs trump

00:43:07.780 there was like an old submarine called trump no way and then they and they gave him uh they gave

00:43:16.020 him the bell i know how to speak to their audience here oh shiny bling loud fits uh fits nicely into

00:43:23.700 the overall office so uh british u.s relations have been uh very sour lately and i think his

00:43:29.940 visit will go uh go a long way to uh fixing them up so god save the king you know that's two weeks

00:43:36.020 in a row where you've done uh your party shop's been uh royal a royal job there you go okay doing

00:43:42.580 a good job alex yeah this just shows how laser focused i am on the bc conservative leadership

00:43:49.140 race i noticed that the seating configuration yesterday was really really tight and yuri

00:43:54.500 fulmer um there's nothing funny about people getting sick of course but he said and was

00:43:58.820 visibly under the weather that he was sick and coughed all over ian black and then they went

00:44:02.820 for martinis after and so my prediction is that everybody at the next debate in a couple of days

00:44:08.020 is going to have the sniffles super spreader event there we go yeah rodeo um you know what

00:44:17.860 i i was going to talk about doug ford being down in the polls but i'm scratching that because

00:44:21.800 there was actually a little piece i forgot from our discussion about the francis widdowson thing

00:44:26.260 uh you know she has um she you know she's in trouble here because she calls the kembloops

00:44:35.820 body hoax a hoax which it now most definitively is um and the cbc uh not very long ago was forced

00:44:46.380 uh through its legislative process to issue a correction about yeah that being a hoax that

00:44:52.460 no no bodies have been found there is no mass graves etc they were forced to issue some

00:44:58.380 corrections very quietly they slipped it under the you know they did it uh so the cbc is on

00:45:03.900 the record now that it's essentially a hoax um but in the story about francis widdowson they uh

00:45:12.060 they don't acknowledge that she's right by their own admission and their forced corrections that

00:45:19.100 they now at least on paper agree with francis widdowson about the kamloops grave hoax uh they

00:45:27.260 they do the story and it's uh oh you know she's this controversial speaker uh you know uh residential

00:45:34.300 schools denier all this stuff um but they don't mention not a word that oh yeah and as we were

00:45:42.620 forced to do previously uh she is right not not a word so well that would uh that had to make a

00:45:50.380 lists i forgot it from our segment all right nothing on jessica uh jessica we're stuck at

00:45:58.700 seven if if i could if i could add something about the francis widowson case i spoke something about

00:46:04.460 jessica okay no no no i do not engage as i said in my most recent headline about jessica but as

00:46:11.660 far as francis widowson is concerned my understanding and i don't want to put words

00:46:15.900 in her mouth is that this is more or less an epistemological exercise it is not up for her

00:46:21.260 to say whether the bodies are a hoax or not it is a case of he who makes the claim in this case the

00:46:26.860 government that the bodies are there are required to prove it it's not up to her to prove that the

00:46:32.220 bodies are there or aren't there or that it is a hoax or it isn't a hoax because she didn't make

00:46:36.540 the initial claim and i think this is something that gets very misunderstood about the position

00:46:40.940 that she's taken on the topic yeah uh all right uh well i don't have anything really rich i'll

00:46:49.240 add other than uh here let me talk to this camera here jessica you're still a man

00:46:55.700 all right uh that's it for today uh nigel cory dave alex thank you and thank you john running

00:47:05.480 the studio here doing a great job as always and thank all of you for joining us on the pipeline

00:47:10.120 today remember we need your support to continue the work we're doing at the western standard to

00:47:15.080 get unlimited access to all our content go to westernstandard.news click on subscribe

00:47:19.720 it's only ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year uh thank you very much for your time today

00:47:24.840 And God bless.

Western Standard - May 02, 2026

THE PIPELINE： Carney’s debt-backed wealth fund

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