Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： Crossing the Floor： From Ottawa’s Budget Blowout to Alberta’s ‘Total Recall’

00:00:00.000 they tell you what to think they decide what you should hear and what you shouldn't not hear

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00:00:30.000 good day today is november 5th 2025 i'm derek phildebrandt publisher of the

00:00:59.980 western standard and you're watching the pipeline i'm joined by the usual gang here western

00:01:05.520 standard's former opinion editor nigel hannaford nice to be here western standard senior alberta

00:01:11.080 columnist cory morgan always a pleasure and western standard bc columnist elise mills hello hello

00:01:17.280 gentlemen hello elise uh actually a little little housekeeping business uh the western standard

00:01:22.760 is growing we have uh we're getting a man back on parliament hill it's been some time since we've

00:01:29.500 we used to have a full-time reporter on parliament hill but uh we just haven't uh haven't found the

00:01:36.960 right person until now we're putting uh william western standard columnist william barkley has

00:01:42.460 been promoted and he is going to be our full-time parliament hill correspondent um starting effectively

00:01:48.340 right now we just had him in calgary the calgary office here for a few days for training and uh

00:01:52.720 we've sent him uh back out east to go do god's work uh we're also getting someone back up at the

00:01:58.100 legislature in alberta here full-time another william uh it's got a french last name william v i'm gonna

00:02:06.060 call him for for now i'm not i'm a hard time uh hard time pronouncing that that french name uh but

00:02:12.360 yeah we're uh we're on the march western standard growing getting a full-time presence at uh

00:02:17.940 two very important spots for us in edmonton and ottawa all right well uh total recall is on the uh

00:02:28.140 alberta teachers are really pissed off now working with uh known marxist gil mcgowan of the alberta

00:02:36.460 federation of labor they're trying to recall every single alberta uh united conservative uh party

00:02:44.080 mla which is interesting i think they might have a little better luck if they focus on just a few

00:02:51.480 guys which which is what they kind of essentially started with but anyway yeah uh hardcore uh union

00:02:58.200 guys promising to recall every single uh conservative mla in alberta which would be hilarious because

00:03:05.020 then you would just call an election which the ndp is not boys to win right now so that'd be kind of

00:03:09.900 funny um who's the ndp leader again some purple dude grimace some guy some guy some effing guy uh

00:03:19.900 so anyway fun stuff there we're going to talk about the secret liberal majority on paper mark carney's

00:03:27.320 liberals one what is technically a minority in the last election uh but with a floor crossing and a few

00:03:33.980 other little bits of finagling i think there's a de facto majority here other people might disagree

00:03:39.260 with me a lot of people have been saying there's an election coming the budget might not pass

00:03:42.800 i think you're dead wrong uh i think the budget's definitely passing but i don't know

00:03:48.520 we'll see we're gonna debate it but that's my theory that liberals have a secret majority government

00:03:52.920 right now but uh speaking of budget passing nadal you wrote a very good column on the budget here uh

00:04:01.680 the liberals of uh let's see we're boring uh 70 odd billion dollars it's the biggest deficit

00:04:08.320 in the history of canada outside of covid uh still bigger deficits we ran in either world war or korea

00:04:14.540 uh or afghanistan uh so it's biggest non-pandemic deficit ever because pandemic but uh budgets are

00:04:22.860 bigger than wartime budgets apparently um and the liberals that's a very creative branding around what

00:04:29.460 they call debt now so look i i want to give the the watchers something firm to grip onto

00:04:36.980 we can get into all kinds of theory and in a moment i will but what i would say is that this

00:04:43.560 is an inflationary budget if you want to do yourself good reduce your debt and uh trim your credit cards

00:04:51.460 this is this is not going to go well um so what they've done and it's interesting that mark carney

00:04:58.440 actually is promised to do this when he was campaigning back in april he said then that he

00:05:04.280 would borrow a quarter of a trillion dollars and i thought well that's an odd thing to go campaigning on

00:05:09.260 but he said it and i i was in fact i was so unsure that i went back and checked it out and sure enough

00:05:15.340 there it is the ever reliable cbc has it so they're condemned from their own mouse and then we get this

00:05:22.780 budget and he borrows somewhat more than uh than a quarter of a trillion dollars in the next few years

00:05:30.780 starting in this fiscal with a 78 billion dollar deficit now when the numbers get that big i think

00:05:39.020 we will tend to come our eyes glaze over but let me put it this way income and when income and

00:05:44.760 expenditures are equal to each other then we call that a balanced budget and that's what we had in

00:05:50.140 2015. now we are running a one years one year we are going to go 78 billion dollars in the hole and next

00:06:00.240 year 65 and the year after that is 50 something and who knows what it'll actually that's if they stick

00:06:07.000 to that's a deficit reduction target which we should note for the last decade the liberals liberals have

00:06:13.200 never done once no ever so it was a good thing so what i what i'm saying is this is going to hurt

00:06:21.600 um before we even get into the specifics of the budget there's a 493 page document so it's going to

00:06:28.720 be very superficial let me just give you a couple of the main things if you wanted to say this is a good

00:06:34.260 budget what you would point to is that finally somebody is doing something about defense

00:06:40.160 they have committed a lot of money 80 billion dollars to rebuild rearm and recruit reorient

00:06:45.400 they would um you you would um talk about the natural resources emphasis and then you would try

00:06:53.760 not to go back and talk about the some of the details of that because actually this is not there's

00:06:59.600 nothing good in that you would talk about 115 billion 115 billion dollar infrastructure blitz

00:07:06.580 historic investments in industrial corridor all that stuff housing hyperdrive 25 billion and you

00:07:14.420 could you could you could make the case but when i when i try to do that i see the defense it's very

00:07:22.260 hard to spend the money you give everybody a pay raise and after that where do you get where do you get

00:07:26.820 the stuff that you want to buy that we can't do procurement we can't do procurement we're very

00:07:30.320 bad at that the um the infrastructure blitz well create the situation where people want to do

00:07:35.960 business in canada and you will not have to spend 115 billion dollars of taxpayers money to build the

00:07:42.660 infrastructure that is the failure of this government over the last 10 years it means that

00:07:46.800 nobody's interested in investing and therefore they have to use taxpayer money to do the the thing

00:07:53.360 the industrial corridors the ports the the 25 billion dollars for new houses you really want to

00:07:59.820 well a house that's built by the government you know they'll never get that out of the door so really

00:08:05.580 every all of these are great ideas if you're a technocratic if you're a technocratic prime minister

00:08:11.700 then wow if we ever got a plan it's going to depend how the implementation goes meanwhile we're going

00:08:20.640 further and further and further into debt and that is going to cause inflation uh at least uh one of

00:08:27.300 the interesting parts for uh western perspective and maybe newfoundland here is at least you know the

00:08:35.380 headline was the liberals are getting rid of the emissions cap well kind of but it it's you know an

00:08:44.480 emissions cap if necessary but not necessarily an emissions cap you know canadian you know archetypal

00:08:49.780 canadian but uh have it both ways uh so you know the you know champagne the finance minister says

00:08:56.320 well you know yeah okay we the emissions cap is probably not good if we're going to be elbows up

00:09:02.800 and canada is going to do its own thing here uh so we can get rid of it if alberta and another

00:09:09.680 producing you know bc's god you know it's lng under under what it could be but you know it's it's a

00:09:15.380 it's a thing uh we'll get rid of the emissions cap if you guys do this could you could you tease

00:09:21.160 that out a bit more well i can't think just about the emissions cap to be honest with you because i

00:09:28.200 consider it a part of the suite of serious issues that are plaguing uh even the best laid plans so let's

00:09:36.060 just say that we buy into this budget um and you know the the idea is that they have the emissions

00:09:43.460 cap which is we're going to we don't we're going to take it away but we're only going to take it away

00:09:47.760 because we've reached we don't need the cap i still don't quite understand the fantasy land but let's get

00:09:53.500 back to what's really important here and nigel brought this up the question of who wants to do

00:09:58.560 business in canada and then let's reverse engineer this out to their 500 billion dollar plan to go

00:10:05.040 to the investment banks and find private capital nobody's going to give this money to canada

00:10:11.640 especially since we still have all the levers in place or all the legislative impediments in place

00:10:19.660 that have prevented the the organic investment that should be in this country the tanker ban is still there

00:10:27.020 the emissions cap is there that can't we can't build pipelines and we can't get to tidewater so that's a

00:10:33.320 big issue uh we don't we have provincial interprovincial regulation regulatory environment

00:10:39.140 that is is frustrating and investors don't want to deal with it um i'm not so sure who's lending us

00:10:47.000 this money and how and how somehow we're going to have this we're going to be the most competitive

00:10:53.200 country in the g7 there's a lot of fairy tales that minister champagne uh spoke to yesterday

00:10:59.320 i had to laugh i didn't know whether to laugh or just scratch my head i was beginning to wonder if

00:11:05.600 i was the patient or the visitor in this and somebody's going to find that analogy quite

00:11:09.880 offensive i'm sure uh but so number one he starts off in his interviews talking about how this budget

00:11:15.880 made us the most competitive yet we still have an emissions cap we still have all the barriers that

00:11:21.160 impede our energy sector we have a red tape wrapped up forestry sector that can't get out ahead of

00:11:27.980 itself uh and we have zero appetite for foreign investment just in the first three quarters of

00:11:34.060 this year we lost a billion of organic foreign investment what does anyone think is going to

00:11:40.960 happen when we go to bay street or we we go to new york and we say hey we'd love we'd love 500 billion

00:11:46.780 i know you didn't want to give it to us i know you walked away and i know all the things that you

00:11:50.780 complained about are still there but i promise you this is going to be transformational it just doesn't

00:11:55.420 make any sense to me and and to be honest with you i don't know about the three of you but i watched

00:11:59.420 yesterday and i'm actually uh i'm focused in on stuff that my work in the united states right now

00:12:06.340 i have to be honest i just watched it it was like a clown car zooming by i realized that this was just

00:12:13.220 a spend-a-thon none of what they had put in paper was realistic apart from the the cuts to the public

00:12:18.780 service but they inflated the cbc again to be honest with you i just want to throw the whole thing

00:12:23.180 in a dumpster and light it on fire because that's exactly where this country's going to be

00:12:27.020 uh in a matter of weeks and months uh cory um you know a lot of people could be mistaken

00:12:35.220 from believing the carbon tax was gone when um when uh president mark carney signed his executive

00:12:42.100 order abolishing the carbon tax that was one half of the carbon tax that was the consumer facing one

00:12:48.700 there is the industrial one as well uh that all be that fits in to uh what we're talking about the

00:12:57.200 emissions cap the emission cap is gone but yeah the industrial carbon tax is still there and it looks

00:13:04.080 like mark carney's looking to that's one of his caveats to get rid of this emissions cap is that

00:13:08.880 we're going to hike the industrial carbon tax so we're going to slam producers with a giant tax

00:13:15.280 increase essentially in exchange for raising the carbon uh or the emissions cap you know all these

00:13:20.920 words and this baffle gab and this garbage and it gets tiresome the bottom line is they're maintaining

00:13:25.780 their attack on alberta's energy sector and we are going to remain an investment pariah as we try to

00:13:31.140 develop so if they make the price 170 a ton there's 80 a ton right now what's that going to do

00:13:36.740 to the competitiveness of western oil not eastern oil by the way they don't have to pay this but the

00:13:43.480 western oil trying to sell it anywhere well let's say we already sell at a discount due to our lack

00:13:48.260 of access to uh coastal waters and this just makes the margins all the more narrow to produce here it

00:13:55.680 means we have to have much higher uh commodity prices in order to remain functional again when

00:14:01.820 we're looking at a world market we're looking at world investors people are going to look at alberta

00:14:06.260 bc saskatchewan and just you know they're going to shake their heads no we'll put our money into

00:14:11.160 places like norway where they're expanding on the north sea uh you know places like uh saudi arabia

00:14:17.260 where they don't really care about environmental concerns and meanwhile we'll just languish on our

00:14:22.000 shut-in resources with uh limited amount of export it's bad it's it's just bad in general the only

00:14:27.980 bright light we might have had in this budget i mean the producers we we have a the balance between

00:14:33.040 public sector and private sector in canada is becoming terribly skewed and when you crush the

00:14:38.540 resource markets these are the only guys funding it anymore this is bad well you know maybe we'll

00:14:42.720 get a nice uh price spike when donald trump invades nigeria uh i mean you know they're a major oil

00:14:48.840 producer with zero environmental regulation or human rights uh yeah so you know when uh when we begin

00:14:55.660 the the fifth crusade the to go into there uh at least uh i mean this whole budget discussion

00:15:03.180 um is also wrapped up with uh the ability to pass uh the budget it's a confidence vote if the

00:15:12.080 government cannot pass its budget that triggers an election because the house does not have confidence

00:15:16.580 um you know election night the liberals came within a hair of uh securing a majority they even had

00:15:24.660 one mp uh win in and i say win generously in quebec by one vote uh and that appears to have been

00:15:34.820 dubious i don't know why we have not redone that election yet but uh the liberals are up another seat

00:15:39.680 as of yesterday uh the conservatives kind of preemptively booted a guy who was openly musing

00:15:46.280 about uh joining the liberals um last thing dotremont or something don't huh the ontremont

00:15:53.860 okay all right there you go your friends just can't master your friend your kebik was better

00:15:59.080 mind uh anyways but he's a nova scotia guy um uh you say i'm a red tory and uh my god this poly of

00:16:05.660 a so right wing uh i'm pretty sure you knew who you were running like he just got elected he was at a

00:16:12.320 very narrow uh margin riding where you know he'd have at least equal if not better chance of getting

00:16:17.400 reelected as a liberal uh who knows if there was inducements or not we wouldn't know that that

00:16:21.700 kind of thing is done hush hush when when it is done uh but at least uh the liberals now stand at

00:16:26.540 170 seats is it two i think too shy of a majority yeah uh conservatives 143 22 block seven ndp one green

00:16:36.820 one vacant uh so i mean they you know you throw a bone to elizabeth may and coax one more conservative

00:16:46.320 over got your majority uh ndp they are uh they've been totally nuked they're no position for an election

00:16:55.100 they don't have a leader uh they have they have a gigantic debt that they're carrying they're the

00:17:02.620 party that wants the election the least they've openly mused about abstaining for the budget not

00:17:06.140 voting for but abstaining that would give that would allow it to pass uh my theory has been

00:17:11.540 since election night that the liberals have a de facto majority government here on paper it's minority

00:17:16.780 but uh they would have to go out of their way to intentionally uh lose a confidence vote at this point

00:17:23.540 i think yeah i i completely i'm on the same page you are about this i've always felt that the liberals

00:17:31.540 have the majority that this wasn't uh something that that was even debatable quite frankly i will

00:17:38.360 say it was interesting to see elizabeth may yesterday boy was she angry about those the

00:17:43.620 cancellation of the two billion trees that were planted i will be honest i kind of agreed with

00:17:48.300 her in tom all care if we're talking about emissions caps and we look at all the forest fires

00:17:52.880 we kind of could use the trees they're one of the best cappers of emissions quite frankly and

00:17:57.900 you know we do the two billion trees promise was just seen as wildly unrealistic it's you know it's

00:18:02.840 typical trudeau government announced these preposterous numbers that feels good and then

00:18:07.100 do zero to execute it you know a lot of people have said the announcement is the action uh that was

00:18:13.400 the whole point is just to announce it because it feels good and then they just performative

00:18:16.240 very performative plus there was an agreement i don't think they're really cancelling two billion

00:18:20.860 trees they're just like yeah we're obviously not going to do it we were never going to do it

00:18:26.800 so i thought it was actually kind of honest well and they also have agreements with like the prince

00:18:31.480 um of wales's trust uh at full disclosure i worked with them on and off on some of this stuff

00:18:37.000 they they it would be kind of embarrassing for them to unwind themselves completely but anyway i just had

00:18:42.920 to point out elizabeth may because yesterday was i think in the real the highlight reel of one of her

00:18:47.680 greatest hits and then there was don dades from the ndt going i cannot believe we're cutting this and

00:18:53.120 this government and i all i was thinking was okay this is the ndp that's been propping up this liberal

00:18:58.600 government for since 2021 so you need to just move aside but that you're you're absolutely right this

00:19:04.980 government has that majority but i will tell you eve you know eve blanchette the leader of the block

00:19:10.800 he is very feisty i i kind of i think he's one of the best opposition leaders we've seen in a while

00:19:17.700 probably since tom malcare in the days of stephen harper um i always enjoy his press conferences i

00:19:23.580 it's okay to be offended when he's when he talks but his uh scrum yesterday i think really spoke to

00:19:29.760 an issue that conservatives are going to have uh with one another and and what we're what

00:19:34.680 conservatives are looking at with the future of the party the problem is none of this budget stuff or

00:19:40.000 whether it's a vote of confidence or whether we call an election none of this is going to be about

00:19:44.400 principle it's all going to be about winnability and when the party is polling 10 points ahead of

00:19:49.600 where pierre's polling you know the liberal or the conservatives are not going to pull the trigger

00:19:53.780 even though they should damn well pull the trigger and that's where i am today as a as you know a

00:20:00.300 fiscal conservative uh i believe that the right thing would be to pull this government down and

00:20:06.500 call an election and team up with the block on that because it would be a one and done

00:20:10.780 but that's not where we are and they haven't been in this country on principled politics for a really

00:20:15.740 long time and you know carney's going to get his dream team and if it's true that there's another

00:20:21.060 conservative crossing uh which would be the concert a conservative convenience like chris uh

00:20:26.500 etremont uh you know and and by the way there is uh information that's being leaked on twitter

00:20:34.840 that he was using about this um and talking about his winnability as a conservative so he's never

00:20:40.460 been the type of conservative like the stephen harper type conservative that we are more familiar

00:20:45.440 with he was being he's been a conservative of convenience so i say see you later because him

00:20:50.140 leaving didn't really matter again point to what you said derrick ndp and elizabeth may team up and

00:20:56.180 carney's got his dream team or at least i guess what we would consider a dream team so um

00:21:01.580 yeah it's just all about performance but i think this brings in and i was speaking to a couple of

00:21:06.360 uh stephen harper conservatives uh and last night and i and i said you know this will have to be

00:21:13.260 a conversation that conservatives have leading into the leadership review uh those that that sticky

00:21:19.800 number that sticky 10 points that pierre just can't seem to get up and beyond that has to be a

00:21:25.680 conversation that the party has and i'm probably going to get a ton of hate mail right now and bad

00:21:30.040 tweets um and you know but with something that's what really is the sticking point in this whole

00:21:35.860 vote thing okay uh cory um the i i feel like there there could be a few more uh this crop of

00:21:46.020 conservatives is on aggregate more conservative than uh the team that polyev inherited uh you know

00:21:53.020 we had a erin o'toole there who was a particularly unconservative conservative in many ways at least

00:21:58.840 uh well polyev's team is a bit more robust but i mean there's there's obviously a heck of a lot of

00:22:04.720 it it's still a diverse coalition i i don't really uh if you're going to get a floor crosser like that

00:22:10.800 that it comes from either urban ontario or parts of atlantic it's not as surprising you know what it's

00:22:17.440 like you know atlantic you know atlantic canada the difference between conservatives and liberals was

00:22:22.180 mostly for many generations until not that long ago uh are you from a conservative uh a protestant

00:22:28.360 family or a catholic family or are you english are you french and that's kind of way it is that's less

00:22:32.960 of it now but it is the ideological differences between the part the parties there are particularly

00:22:39.540 uh small um i i don't know uh how much do you think it is carney's gonna be able to pick off

00:22:48.320 two more and i think the ndp caucus also might have uh some pickings every single one of those guys

00:22:53.860 has got to be like we are in for a miserable four years we don't have official party status the party

00:22:59.020 is utterly bankrupt it might even become officially bankrupt at some point here i know you've talked

00:23:03.960 about that uh there's there's got to be a a few more if if carney wants to cobble together and i'm

00:23:10.960 not sure it's ever happened before in canadian political history where someone's gone from an

00:23:14.360 official minority to an official majority without an election yeah well i'm certainly trying because

00:23:20.000 that that window is narrow and as you said there's a few vulnerable mps who could make the jump whether

00:23:24.900 or not they do it before the budget vote or not is they um is is arguable i guess because it does

00:23:31.900 look opportunistic but they're putting the feel out i'm with you though that i think even if he

00:23:36.200 doesn't get the crosses we're not having an election it's not happening it's not the tea leaves

00:23:39.980 the parties aren't in condition to fight it if it comes to it and they're up against it and then

00:23:45.280 the conservatives remain adamant and there aren't crossers we can expect suddenly a handful of

00:23:49.380 conservative mps will have had bad oysters in the parliamentary cafeteria and be lost in the

00:23:54.260 washrooms when the vote comes up and uh it'll pass narrowly i mean that's just kind of the way the

00:23:59.200 game is played they're going to bluster polioff can't afford to come out and support the budget

00:24:03.700 but he can't afford to bring it down either so we're going to see that sort of posturing in the

00:24:08.040 next couple of weeks and it'll pass well nagel i if any of the opposition parties could withstand

00:24:13.180 an election it would be the conservatives but if unless polioff wins then his leadership

00:24:18.460 i mean you know you don't often even get two kicks at the can and not win anymore i want one

00:24:23.280 kick at the can no one's getting two kicks at the can anymore harper got one to come up short

00:24:28.020 but he had massively improved the party standings um i don't think polioff would get a third if he

00:24:34.460 didn't make it but i think the conservatives i mean they'd have a shot i'd give them a one and

00:24:40.080 three shot of winning the election today but i think canada is there still kind of a wait and

00:24:43.400 see moment uh mode it if anyone wants an election it is the liberals uh do you think carney wants an

00:24:49.780 election to secure an outright majority but then risk maybe not winning or do you think he prefers to

00:24:55.760 just try to pick up a couple floor crossers and cobble together a majority that way well i'm not

00:25:01.220 i'm not the carny whisperer but i will say that if he wanted another election he could easily enough

00:25:07.380 of uh fix the budget speech so that nobody could nobody could uh support it um i mean the conservatives

00:25:15.300 already hate the idea of the debt that we're taking on and the ndp probably some of the liberals too

00:25:22.260 or scandalized that the federal civil service has been reduced as much as it has but not as much as

00:25:29.020 it could have been you know which makes so he he pulled his punches there a little bit uh now he's

00:25:35.420 accepting the resumes from other members i think he wants to carry on he wants to get started on what

00:25:41.800 he's set forth to do because well it's taken him a number of months to get to this point i think a

00:25:48.700 man has a mission so my my guess is that he doesn't want an election i uh let's remember guys

00:25:55.180 just remember remember a couple of weeks ago carney met with all the party leaders and so thinking

00:26:01.680 about pierre and we should give him credit he grew uh conservative vote significantly in the last

00:26:07.640 election the problem was it's not was was the aging population that we would need um but and so i want

00:26:14.040 to make that clear he did an incredible job there um but pierre went into a meeting with with carney

00:26:20.000 like the other leaders and apart from hearing that you know pierre had told carney that you're not to go

00:26:26.620 over for 48.5 billion or something in this debt otherwise we won't support you we actually didn't hear

00:26:32.560 what else pierre had asked for and i began to think about this when i saw another significant

00:26:38.760 boost to the cbc who already has several solid revenue streams and we all know the fight about

00:26:44.900 the cbc and so i won't just circle the drain on that one but there was a lot in that budget that i

00:26:49.960 began to wonder so did pierre know about some of this wasn't this on some of his attack list i would

00:26:55.340 have gone after the emissions cap i would have gone after the suite of the anti-oil or anti-pipeline

00:27:01.760 bills the c c68 and c48 um or c69 and c4048 um but we never ever found out from the conservatives

00:27:12.100 uh whether it was the lip or were uh the leader himself we never found out how he held carney

00:27:19.100 accountable and that will be that should be a question many people start to ask like where where

00:27:24.740 was the game of chicken i want to know about that stuff yeah and i just point out it's kind of a mini

00:27:29.800 parting shot on this topic uh before put a pen in it that uh carney was ran very seriously to get

00:27:37.160 his seat in ottawa and the peon uh constituency saying i will not cut the civil service bureaucrats

00:27:43.960 will all keep their jobs and the liberal candidate who ended up defeating pierre polyev his main point

00:27:49.360 going door to door was knock knock do you work for the government pierre polyev is going to cut

00:27:54.980 jobs working for the government and the liberals this is why i like it when liberals lie uh because

00:28:02.500 generally they campaign on doing crazy liberal stuff uh but sometimes uh reality will come up and slap

00:28:08.980 them in the face uh these are pretty small cuts to the size of the bureaucracy they're very small

00:28:14.760 but the liberals ran on and we're going to continue to grow at hunky dory and no one's losing

00:28:18.940 their jobs haven't seen much in the way of criticism of this uh even even from the conservatives but

00:28:24.700 certainly haven't seen any of the hypocrisy of this pointed out uh so whatever his name is what's

00:28:29.220 his nuts uh who defeated yeah fanja uh fansha fanjoy in the uh in the carlton constituency that beat uh

00:28:39.180 polyev uh this was his main thing and i haven't heard a pete from him uh this was the platform he ran on

00:28:46.220 so uh okay bringing closer to home here in alberta uh i you know we don't really get a lot of recall

00:28:55.460 in canada uh for the longest time bc was the only province to have it on the books and it was only

00:29:01.100 technically on the books it's never been actually technically used in bc there was one case where it

00:29:07.260 was effectively used the guy resigned first so it was effectively used but it was at this wild margin

00:29:12.060 that no one could effectively hit um uh kenny brought it into alberta but set the bar extremely high

00:29:19.380 it's had some tweaking sense with uh with smith um i think kenny would have been the first mla in

00:29:26.740 alberta recalled if his leadership uh had uh if he had tried to hold on to leadership i think he would

00:29:31.420 have been recalled by fellow conservatives um but obviously that didn't happen he lost leadership

00:29:36.660 um but uh you know we the ucp brought in the cory the back to work legislation preemptive used that

00:29:46.060 made a preemptive strike with the notwithstanding clause can challenge it here's your deal that's it

00:29:51.380 because there that stride was going to go on forever no one could really figure out what what

00:29:55.640 is it the ata wants they were given a big raise all this stuff so it was fine um but then they freaked

00:30:01.700 out after yeah of course they were going to be pissed off i expect them to be pissed off um and then they

00:30:06.460 said we're going to recall the minister of education dimitro nicolaides uh in calgary bow i mean if

00:30:12.740 you're gonna target someone that made sense uh because he's the education minister so okay there's

00:30:18.360 a face on it and he was in a very tight race uh in that constituency with the ndp so it's not like a

00:30:24.840 rock-ribbed rural deep blue conservative ridings that would have been a logical strategic choice

00:30:31.520 they started with that so then they've expanded it to every single conservative mla uh in alberta

00:30:38.240 they call it total recall which kind of reminds me i'm pretty sure they're borrowing on um

00:30:42.660 way before we had memes and stuff remember we had jib jab or jib jab online oh yeah yeah and they

00:30:49.940 had to have those weird cartoons they had some fun political cartoons uh you know let's play that

00:30:54.340 quick this reminds me total recall

00:30:56.200 all right so yeah you know there's arnold schwarzenegger this is a no recall this is a

00:31:07.960 total recall i mean that was good branding so i think this is a good brand you know total recall

00:31:13.080 it's fun uh but it they're obviously not going to succeed i think they if they targeted just you

00:31:22.400 know say demetrio nicolaitis because of the vulnerability of that constituency maybe a handful

00:31:27.200 of others maybe maybe they could make some headway but by you know instead of taking a sniper rifle

00:31:33.580 they're trying to drop napalm uh i feel like that's not going to work yeah no it's just the

00:31:38.280 gill mcgowan version of the long ballot committee they're just trying to use the process against itself

00:31:42.700 uh to abuse what should be a means to recall somebody if they've done something beyond the pale if

00:31:48.020 it's a an mla who committed an odious crime or or never showed up for work or things like that

00:31:53.260 uh part of why they're spreading now for the shotgun blast too though is for a recall it's not like

00:31:59.220 fabio's petition for uh uh the referendum you know or thomas lucasic as some people might refer to him

00:32:05.040 as uh that's where you could have your resources all the way across the province every single

00:32:10.640 petitioner for this recall has to be registered with elections alberta with an id badge and they have to

00:32:15.680 live in the constituency you can't petition if you don't live in the no you cannot qualify for one

00:32:21.500 of those petitioners badges unless you live within the constituency so you can't take 500 union members

00:32:27.280 from edmonton and flood them into nickel ladies riding for a weekend and go out petition and get

00:32:32.720 signatures they have to live there that really limits the amount of what you can galvanize to get

00:32:38.560 out to work on these campaigns uh i looked at the numbers for example too just to tell show people the

00:32:43.680 logistics of this so i i used angela pitt's writing because that's the other one they've targeted and

00:32:48.040 they've already qualified for so they would need 60 of the votes cast that was one of the improvements

00:32:53.620 because it used to be 60 of those eligible i believe uh on an official petition on paper witnessed

00:32:59.100 all that good stuff uh within within 90 days there'd be about 15 000 signatures in airdrie east

00:33:05.800 uh and assuming all of them are valid so closer to 16 17 000 that's not as easy as some people might

00:33:12.540 think it is especially when you have to have local volunteers on the ground or even paid people but

00:33:16.960 they have to be local doing this so we'll see as you said if you kill targeted just a couple maybe

00:33:22.560 they could really pull that off but now that they realize that they they can't just uh target like

00:33:27.820 that with the resources now they're looking to broaden it and i don't think it'll have much success

00:33:32.560 i mean talk about you know brooks or something if they went after the premier i mean come on i mean you

00:33:36.980 get a lot this is also under the assumption that people all sign it that they are interested in having a

00:33:40.920 buy election that they are that upset with their representative so uh a neat publicity thing a

00:33:45.980 neat name but i don't think it's going to add up to much but the other part is it's going to cost a

00:33:49.980 lot of money elections alberta is already saying they're going to need 14 000 if this happens because

00:33:53.920 that's a whole lot of petitions to track and people to register and and resources to direct

00:33:59.440 i don't know if everybody's gonna be thrilled with that yeah at least this comes after the alberta

00:34:03.600 federation of labor's president uh gil mcgowan who's a a known hardline marxist uh and i'm not

00:34:11.200 just throwing around like oh this guy wants to raise my taxes by one percent he's a communist no

00:34:14.800 oh this guy is a capital k communist um so uh but he he he was saying we need a general strike

00:34:24.480 uh i'm i feel like the total recall campaign here is kind of their way like you know gil says crazy

00:34:31.980 shit like all the time uh he's got to put the bottle down in one hand put the mic put the put

00:34:39.420 the put the microphone in the other hand down take a deep breath gil um but he's uh you know he wanted

00:34:48.220 a general strike and i i i feel like he got on the phone called the first private sector union guy in

00:34:54.940 the afl and says all right jimmy your boiler makers your pipe fitters your welders how are they feeling

00:35:01.980 about going on strikes so that they could pay more taxes to give teachers i don't know a twenty percent

00:35:07.820 raise uh and guy on the other and says uh yeah yeah i don't know anyone here who wants to do that we

00:35:15.820 don't it's not our fight we don't give a shit uh so i he calls for this general strike it's gonna be a great

00:35:21.340 uprising he says he wants to overthrow the government uh okay gail all right uh you know

00:35:27.260 i guess we're like 1918 here and we're just gonna overthrow the government the general strikes

00:35:31.660 uh so i feel like he got on the phone and everyone told him uh to get stuffed

00:35:36.460 right and he's got to do something so they have to make some kind of performative thing

00:35:41.260 and that's it fine we're gonna recall everyone

00:35:44.220 i it's it's unclear play i mean it it's getting to an i mean getting to an election without actually

00:35:53.660 having the ability to trigger the election and my version of that is a gentleman by the name of

00:35:59.900 paul finch who's the head of the bcgeu and i just had 25 000 workers finally returned back to work

00:36:07.580 and not thinking not caring once for what british colombians were going through got one of the most

00:36:12.460 massive platinum pension pay raises in the history of bc um and so i i think that it's interesting

00:36:20.220 because i've been watching alberta and watching what albertans are saying just not political

00:36:25.260 commentators but just average or albertans uh or parents about you know how that teacher strike

00:36:32.380 you know went and how it was resolved and i think initially it got a little frothy but now parents

00:36:37.500 are just like yay the kids are back i don't want to talk about it again and i and i don't want to

00:36:42.220 to get involved in your politics i just want the kids to be back and like i said maybe some of them

00:36:47.980 may have been questioning how that came about and the decision that um that the premier made

00:36:55.420 um but oh we're having uh elisa's connections getting a little that's okay but all right

00:37:05.020 uh all right better now uh maybe i don't know you're gonna have to talk okay i'm sorry i'm so

00:37:14.140 sorry anyway i don't think there's an appetite in alberta for these strikes and i can tell you right

00:37:18.780 now the union completely jumped the shark with the public here is this is the first time that i saw

00:37:24.620 you know blue-collar towns turning against their union members that were walking out so i i don't think that's

00:37:30.060 reality you know and if nenshi wants to have an election he should do it all by himself with his

00:37:34.620 cast of you know characters over at the ndp well uh i mean if these guys theoretically succeeded

00:37:42.620 and you know even getting a few recalled nigel i i think the logical play then would be okay well

00:37:48.780 rather than have uh 50 odd recall elections theoretically well we're just gonna have an election like you just

00:37:56.220 you just say fine we're we're just calling an election based on current polls ucp looks in a

00:38:02.860 pretty damn good position to win that i would i would imagine that's just what would happen if

00:38:07.340 these guys even theoretically succeeded uh yeah you know and run on a platform of banning the afl

00:38:13.260 i think in a year's time everybody's gonna look back on this and say well it was exciting but really

00:38:18.700 we did kind of overstate our case um you know as you said earlier the teachers it's hard to know what

00:38:25.100 they really want i mean they'll tell you all sorts of things but when you get right down to it

00:38:29.820 um 12 is not bad and a lot of them were looking for increases due to moving up the scale and so

00:38:36.540 forth so i have to think it's not the money just the money well what was the rest of it and who was

00:38:42.620 going to give it to them the school board the government hard to see so it comes all of this leads

00:38:49.580 back to the my personal theory which is that the that the afl thought well this is a great cause

00:38:57.020 that we can jump on the teachers are very good at organizing they're prepared to spend their strike

00:39:01.900 money on advertising against the government we can have a workers revolution and then it didn't happen

00:39:07.740 and now they're trying to fade and save face and that's kind of where the thing ends up so yeah

00:39:12.220 the the given that the i mean things can change very fast in politics as we all know but given

00:39:19.500 that right now that the ucp looks pretty strong in the polls it's hard to imagine how this thing plays

00:39:24.940 out well i think everybody's going to look a bit sheepish in a little while so well that that was fun

00:39:31.340 yeah all right well let's put a pin in there uh we'll go to our parting shots give first one up to elise

00:39:37.900 oh you guys are going to like this one less than an hour ago um the david eddie and his government

00:39:46.460 signed a another agreement uh with first nations uh uh in into reinforcing a full-on tanker ban for

00:39:57.100 british columbia so my parting shot goes to mr eby who is now overreaching his position uh as premier

00:40:07.100 british columbia and basically defying the agreement he had with with mark carney uh when

00:40:13.500 mr carney was first selected that there would be open dialogue and flexibility around how they were

00:40:19.580 going to approach the tanker issue but this is shots fired to premier daniel smith premier scott moe

00:40:26.140 and i think even out in uh central canada who are softening to the idea of pipelines and understanding

00:40:32.940 we have to get our product to tidewater so this will be interesting how this plays out it's only

00:40:38.620 an hour old but it's definitely shots fired yeah uh i would just point out for the record this does

00:40:45.420 follow in a proud bc tradition of extending the provincial government's uh jurisdiction

00:40:52.860 illegally into federal areas concerning maritime issues bc actually did build its own warships and navy

00:40:59.260 at one point they gifted it to the royal canadian navy but i think it was during the first world

00:41:03.820 war maybe the second first world war they picked up two submarines in seattle yes that's it they they

00:41:10.540 didn't build them but they are they bought two uh u.s submarines there was a british columbia navy

00:41:16.620 at some point and i guess just for the record uh british columbia had a bigger navy back a bigger

00:41:22.060 submarine fleet back then than canada has today so you know good on bc i want to bring the bc navy back

00:41:28.940 corey well it came up earlier just with that tree planting program just those numbers six years

00:41:35.900 267.7 million dollars and they achieved about 12 of their target so for people who really want the

00:41:42.220 government to take over children's lunch programs and daycare this is why i hose it folks because

00:41:48.700 it's going to cost 10 000 a month for each child and nine out of ten children won't be able to get in

00:41:53.660 yeah all right so you know going through the budget documents and i come across this astonishing little

00:41:59.420 nugget that they want that they want canada to enter in the eurovision song contest what sorry

00:42:08.460 yeah sorry sorry sorry sorry i need a double take call now i got to fill up my apple can you know

00:42:13.580 or no this is um okay i don't think a lot of things are going to do that that's real crazy stuff you may

00:42:19.660 remember the first place where mr carney went after he was elected it was over to europe but as they're

00:42:25.900 getting out he could compete 100 no no no no not so fast i'm i nominate lawrence to enter on to go over and

00:42:32.940 represent canada and saying it's time to say goodbye okay wow uh

00:42:41.260 you can pronounce his name okay you're gonna have to play that to dave in the newsroom when

00:42:46.460 we get out of the studio here that's good all right uh well i don't know how i'm gonna top that um

00:42:54.380 all right uh you know a lot of people who are not paying attention to american

00:43:01.100 news right now might not know this but there is a titanic uh civil war erupting

00:43:10.380 on the american right right now this is not like we've seen really ever uh this is this is a new

00:43:17.500 thing i don't know how to do it justice uh with enough nuance not get in trouble here but i guess

00:43:23.100 like in in short it's kind of a new very very hard right i would think it'd be fair to say far right

00:43:29.660 except the term far right gets so abused it gets applied to people like us all the time so it's

00:43:33.980 like well what's far right to people who are far right i i don't know this is covering it well yeah

00:43:41.020 this is extreme extreme right yeah i i think it's a case where uh you're not even meeting with judgment

00:43:47.980 it's a it's probably a fair term to apply i just don't know how to apply it anymore because it's it's

00:43:52.060 just so it's been so abused and devalued but um you know i i think some of it comes from a legitimate

00:43:59.500 skepticism of uh you know the influence of israel on the united states foreign policy and whatnot

00:44:06.700 some of it then goes much further than i think otherwise valid reasonable rational criticism but i

00:44:12.700 think it comes from what has been a suppression of any discussion around it and now it's just kind

00:44:17.740 of like a simmering pot that's blown and it's uh it's a very very messy fight i guess you know the

00:44:24.620 most prominent one on kind of the insurgent side would be this guy named nick fuentes young like he's

00:44:30.780 like 27 or something uh very hugely successful podcaster roy peruse or something yeah i mean i i i

00:44:39.980 can't i should not have picked this as a parting shot i mean this is this is a whole episode of

00:44:44.140 no consult to get into which one you're just i think you totally want to get into it but uh look

00:44:49.500 i i'm just gonna say that this is just gigantic fight and uh it is fascinating to watch i've never

00:44:56.860 ever seen anything like this uh in american politics certainly not canadian politics which is

00:45:02.380 you know even more con controlled but american politics has i think a lot more fluidity to it for

00:45:07.260 new players so it's an interesting point if you were the kind of democrat who would vote for kennedy in

00:45:12.940 1960 who would you go where would you go now you'd have absolutely nowhere yeah so anyway um

00:45:19.900 i i'm gonna look i that was a terrible parting shot to pick i i should have just

00:45:24.300 met a whole you can't even make that one of our main topics has to be a whole damn show if you want

00:45:27.900 to even begin to scratch the surface and all you're going to do is get in trouble i guess but

00:45:31.580 um i don't think so i think it's a great topic i think it's a great topic we're watching a revolution

00:45:38.220 and it's about time it's a very it's the time was long ago so it was great to see certain people

00:45:45.420 even barry weiss came out and i thought it was fantastic ben shapiro is a hero in my book so well

00:45:51.580 done that i i i think you you did well landing on that one yeah uh i'm not sure that the response to

00:45:59.180 it was particularly helpful to their own cause seeing guys like representative uh re fine saying

00:46:05.340 like damn right we are in the business of canceling i think that was the wrong message for these guys

00:46:10.780 to send in their defense uh so we're going to that rabbit hole yeah well i'm i'm stopping the rabbit

00:46:17.980 hole there derrick remember this nick quentes guy it self-proclaimed not see talked about slapping

00:46:24.540 women women are second-class citizens that use the r word we're in anyway you know this is to be

00:46:30.860 rolled over i'm not gonna do a nick flinta's best of compilation here i i know that people can people

00:46:37.660 people should go and take a look at this stuff for themselves all i'm saying is the response to it i

00:46:42.940 don't think helped their cause there was a way to respond to it that i think would have hit the mark

00:46:47.660 a lot better and i don't think they hit it there i i'm gonna put some concrete on that rabbit hole right

00:46:52.940 now because that's uh we're we're already out of time all right uh at least thank you cory thank you

00:46:59.820 guys as always and thank all of you for joining us here today on the pipeline remember to go to

00:47:05.900 westernstandard.news become a member support the work we're doing get full access to all western

00:47:11.020 standard content go to westernstandard.news right now it's only ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars

00:47:15.340 year thank you very much very much for your time and god bless

Western Standard - November 11, 2025

THE PIPELINE： Crossing the Floor： From Ottawa’s Budget Blowout to Alberta’s ‘Total Recall’

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