Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： David Eby’s cluster muck, Doug Ford’s gravy plane and Canada’s new foreign legion

00:00:00.000 Good day! Today is April 22nd, 2026.

00:00:27.640 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:31.640 I've got the usual crew here, former Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:37.320 Good afternoon, good to be here.

00:00:39.800 City Alberta columnist Corey Morkin.

00:00:42.420 Always a pleasure.

00:00:43.500 News editor Dave Naylor.

00:00:44.860 The pleasure is all his.

00:00:46.220 And coming to us from Lotusland, special guest today, our BC reporter Alex Zoltan.

00:00:54.220 Pleasure as well.

00:00:54.920 All right. We're going to talk about Canada's new foreign legion.

00:01:01.280 The Canadian Armed Forces is meeting or exceeding its recruitment targets by bringing in large numbers of foreigners.

00:01:11.620 Should we be worried about arming people with a governing party that is known to use the power of the state to crush dissent?

00:01:20.260 I don't know. We'll chat about it.

00:01:21.680 We're going to chat about Doug Ford's gravy plane, the short-lived, super-luxury jet that Doug Ford purchased with Ontario taxpayers' dollars.

00:01:35.840 It met an unfortunate end with pretty predictable public outrage for the gravy plane.

00:01:45.000 He's now going to sell it.

00:01:47.380 It's been a total political disaster in Ontario, but Doug Ford's pretty good at sensing when things are unpopular and somehow living to fight another day.

00:01:57.080 But we're going to start with David Evey's cluster muck.

00:02:01.180 That's why we're bringing in our BC reporter, Alex Zoltan.

00:02:05.440 Alex, why don't you give us just a really quick summary?

00:02:09.720 i think most people have have some idea about the disaster that's going on with uh undrip drippa

00:02:15.240 stuff uh in dc but this has turned into a uh hourly evolving positions for for david eby

00:02:23.320 and uh just a total political disaster yeah so a quick summary i would be asking really kind of

00:02:31.000 the impossible in some sense this has been an ongoing thing for many many years drippa was

00:02:38.040 passed unanimously in the House in 2019. It was a well-intentioned bill at the time, and nobody

00:02:44.060 really thought much of it, but what it has caused is a state of paralysis in the economics of British

00:02:49.640 Columbia. In order to understand DRIPA, you have to understand UNDRIP, which is this aspirational

00:02:56.300 document from the UN. It was never intended to be a law. Essentially, what it is is this promise

00:03:01.820 that you would act in good faith while negotiating anything with Indigenous people. The BC government

00:03:07.880 and their infinite wisdom decided to make it a law, and then they doubled down on that.

00:03:12.800 Noting that it was an aspirational document, they decided that they wanted to give it teeth.

00:03:17.060 So in 2021, they passed another law called the Interpretation Act.

00:03:20.740 The Interpretation Act essentially instructed the government and by extension the courts

00:03:26.000 to demand that DRIPA must, or sorry, I should backtrack a little bit here.

00:03:31.880 Any provincial statutes must be in alignment with DRIPA, which is essentially identical

00:03:36.060 to undrip um that has basically created a standstill on in terms of many different things

00:03:42.520 including resource projects pipelines so on and so forth and now david eby um on april 1st this

00:03:51.400 all the recent history of undrip started on april fool's day funnily enough and he said it was

00:03:57.240 non-negotiable they had to get rid of it because it's caused so many problems he then backed down

00:04:01.620 on that. And he proposed a pause. He didn't have enough support even amongst his own caucus in

00:04:06.860 order to get the pause passed. So then he went back to the drawing table. And on Sunday, he

00:04:11.580 decided that he was going to be he had written legislation that was supposed to be produced on

00:04:15.400 Monday. But later on Sunday evening, apparently the First Nations Leadership Council had threatened

00:04:22.100 him with collective action. We don't really know what that means. And so he decided to scrap

00:04:27.080 making any changes to dribble whatsoever for the spring session and he's now kicking the

00:04:31.940 can down the road to the fall session that's a short version yeah uh dave we you know it's it's

00:04:41.180 it's been a busy week in or i guess uh from last week into this week uh covering this because it's

00:04:47.040 been you know alex has had been filing sometimes stories on the hour as as the bc government's

00:04:53.120 position has changed um but david eby is in a is in a weird spot now it's the the legislation is

00:05:01.380 self-evidently uh economically extremely economically destructive you've got land

00:05:06.900 titles threatening uh the property uh aboriginal land title challenges threatening the property

00:05:13.120 title of people can't get mortgages uh you've got essentially total shutdown of new resource

00:05:18.800 development projects with this undrippa nonsense uh to the point where david eby who has spent his

00:05:25.840 entire career around this stuff finally recognizes we we simply cannot function as a society we can't

00:05:33.120 function as a government as an economy uh and then i i don't know that she's made him an offer he

00:05:39.520 couldn't uh refuse or or something i don't or maybe a threat yeah collective action again we

00:05:46.080 We don't know what the heck that really means.

00:05:49.400 But I know, I think you read it.

00:05:51.180 There was a great column from Vaughn Palmer, I think, in the Vancouver Sun or Times columnist, one of the speedy papers there.

00:05:58.160 David Eby has kind of realized he's not really in charge of BC anymore.

00:06:03.520 No, he looks like a dead man walking.

00:06:05.540 He looked almost gaunt at the press conference yesterday.

00:06:10.300 The stress is certainly taking its toll on him.

00:06:13.080 And yeah, he's paralyzed with, I don't know if it's fear or not, but he's, you're quite right. I think he's realized that he's gone, they've gone too far, but they can't, they can't figure out a way to get it back on track because of the, you know, the threats from the indigenous group. 1.00

00:06:31.400 So, you know, somewhere along the line, he's either going to have to, whatever that phrase is, or get off the toilet. 1.00

00:06:41.020 So, yeah, he looks extremely weak at the moment.

00:06:50.280 He's in an impossible political position, Corey, I think, right now.

00:06:54.160 It's very, it's exceedingly obvious that this needs to be next.

00:06:58.560 it's possible he actually could have found

00:07:02.200 his government is majority by a single seat

00:07:06.160 it's the narrowest of margins

00:07:07.540 it's possible that he could have passed it with the support of the conservatives

00:07:12.640 because the conservatives seem to be

00:07:16.200 at least most of them are on board for doing away with this nonsense

00:07:20.060 but it would mean the end of his premiership

00:07:24.580 because if he's relying on the conservatives for a vote

00:07:27.400 And most of his own MLAs, maybe not all, but at least a very large number of his own MLAs vote against him.

00:07:36.640 That would mean the end of him politically.

00:07:39.120 And, you know, just literally moments before we came on to record here, Alex in BC published a story that the Rose Caucus,

00:07:50.220 which is kind of the radical socialist wing of the NDP nationally,

00:07:53.620 is demanding the resignation of David Eby

00:07:56.320 for being too soft on this stuff.

00:07:59.200 Is the clock ticking on this guy now?

00:08:02.000 Yeah, he's done.

00:08:02.680 He tried to play both sides and he can't win.

00:08:05.540 He's come across, he's done something

00:08:07.740 that not enough socialists hit fast enough

00:08:10.400 and that's a reality check. 1.00

00:08:12.080 Their legislation is garbage. 1.00

00:08:13.580 It's paralyzing the province. 1.00

00:08:15.400 Unfortunately, he's leading the wrong ideological party

00:08:18.520 to take the stance and say,

00:08:20.280 we've gone too far with this race-based policy.

00:08:22.420 We have to turn it back. 0.51

00:08:24.420 They're terrified, all politicians, conservative ones are too, of the indigenous lobby and

00:08:30.100 whatever those threats may be.

00:08:31.380 It would be, you know, maybe banging drums on the legislature steps or blocking roads

00:08:35.080 or all sorts of things that upset indigenous bands do when they feel their entitlements

00:08:39.820 are being threatened.

00:08:41.140 And he just doesn't have the backbone to stand up for it.

00:08:43.320 Or he also doesn't have the caucus support to make that stance.

00:08:47.140 He's in an impossible position.

00:08:48.620 He's, as I said, dead man walking.

00:08:50.240 We'll just see how long it is before he's pulled out of it.

00:08:52.420 I'm not sure what the way is out of this

00:08:55.580 It's clearly urgent

00:08:56.840 They must deal with it

00:08:57.960 They must deal with it immediately

00:08:59.640 Kicking the can on the road

00:09:01.740 It's major economic consequences for British Columbia

00:09:04.580 But he seems to be politically paralyzed

00:09:07.460 In this

00:09:08.920 He probably could get it through

00:09:11.420 The legislature

00:09:12.280 But it would be the end of his premiership then

00:09:14.300 To have to rely on conservative votes

00:09:16.000 And lose potentially a majority

00:09:18.420 Of his own caucuses votes in it

00:09:20.000 You don't get to survive something like that

00:09:21.780 No, you don't.

00:09:22.880 You know, I mean, if he was a man who you could depend on to do the right thing,

00:09:26.300 he'd say, all right, I wear it.

00:09:27.400 I made a huge mistake here.

00:09:28.680 I resign, you know.

00:09:30.560 And then somebody else who hasn't got the personal investment in it

00:09:34.760 could come out and do a deal.

00:09:37.520 But, you know, Corey, we were talking about banging the drums on the legislature

00:09:40.920 of Greengrass and so on.

00:09:43.000 Yeah, that would probably happen.

00:09:44.500 But there's a whole mess of things that could also happen.

00:09:47.920 And I think that's what people are really concerned about.

00:09:50.820 i just want to take you back a couple of years when we're building a pipeline out to the coast

00:09:55.380 from from the dawson creek area carrying natural gas they had tremendous problems people

00:10:01.700 interfering with the pipeline breaking equipment setting things on fire a bunch of people got beat

00:10:07.860 up uh the workers on the site you know uh and i i have a sense that all these years when we have

00:10:16.580 been saying well of course you know it's nice to be here but we recognize that we're on the

00:10:21.220 traditional territory of the whatever uh finally the whatever have said yeah you know you're right

00:10:27.540 there you are so we'd like it back and mr eby thought that he was coasting that particular wave

00:10:35.060 and unfortunately even if he didn't mean it they did and so this my little solution that yes he

00:10:43.220 can resign it is the necessary first step but the fellow who comes along after isn't going to have

00:10:49.060 an easy ride of it well i'm not even sure the conservatives are up to it i mean it's a diverse

00:10:53.780 field but and then there is a lot of talk about undrip and drip uh and conservative leadership

00:10:59.300 race but i'm i'm not sure how how far they're really actually willing to go uh alex i uh you're

00:11:09.060 a reporter but i want you to do your you know do your best job putting on uh your uh you're using

00:11:17.220 your crystal ball here how how does ev get out of this is it simply kick the can down the road

00:11:26.100 road and just accept like kind of an economic collapse of resource development in bc uh how

00:11:33.140 How does he get out of this one?

00:11:34.940 I think the concern is less about how E.B.'s political career survives this and more about how B.C.'s economy survives it.

00:11:42.360 Ultimately, DRIPA has to be repealed.

00:11:44.900 I'm not a lawyer, but the key issue with DRIPA is this language that says that all indigenous tribes have a right to free and informed consent on anything,

00:11:55.660 whether that be a resource project like a pipeline or many things that are more innocuous than that.

00:12:03.140 And consent is a very nebulous term. It's very broad. It's very vague. It's not exactly clear. It's one of the reasons sexual assault conviction, the rate of convictions is very, very low because the concept of consent is difficult to fully grasp.

00:12:17.060 But very rarely do two people or let alone two groups agree completely on everything.

00:12:21.980 Removing a sexual assault element that's a minefield of its own.

00:12:25.280 You know, take, for example, if you are invited to go to your mother, mother-in-law's house for the weekend.

00:12:30.600 Does anybody truly consent to that?

00:12:32.540 Well, you know, it's debatable because you may be pressured.

00:12:37.500 And so this is the issue with TRIPA, right?

00:12:39.640 And then you have another issue, which is that in B.C., unlike other provinces, we did not fully form treaties.

00:12:45.980 95% of BC sits on what they call unceded territory.

00:12:49.820 So even if you receive the consent of one tribe to put a pipeline through their land,

00:12:53.680 another tribe may say that that land is on their overlapping territory.

00:12:58.140 And so ultimately, David Eby's political career is a very small part of this.

00:13:02.900 BC's entire economy is on the line.

00:13:05.760 Eby's proposal to...

00:13:07.100 Go ahead.

00:13:08.120 Okay, well, I mean, yes, but let's be realistic.

00:13:13.120 David Eby's number one concern probably is his political career.

00:13:17.280 Most politicians have a tendency to conflate what's good for the people with what's good for themselves.

00:13:24.280 The people need me. I am the best guy.

00:13:27.880 Therefore, if I go down, the people go down.

00:13:30.460 So they tend to conflate one with the other.

00:13:34.300 The obvious solution seems to be like there's a deadlock.

00:13:37.800 They've got to deal with it.

00:13:38.500 The obvious solution seems to be to resign.

00:13:41.020 But I'm doubtful that he would see that as probably the best way out.

00:13:46.100 How short of resigning, how could you conceive that David Eby navigates his way through this one?

00:13:54.160 I think that David Eby, if we're remaining completely laser focused purely on his political career and his own self-interest, his best option was to simply put a pause on DRIPA until the next fixed election date.

00:14:07.400 which was it looked like that that was going to be the avenue that he took but it appears that he

00:14:12.720 didn't have enough support amongst his own caucus for that so i would say that his political career

00:14:16.840 is pretty much dead in the water at this point i would agree with you gentlemen on that

00:14:20.300 oh the slow drip i was thinking of more classic ev's got no drip all right all right um well from

00:14:32.400 one troubled premier to

00:14:34.240 a guy, actually, I can't say he's a troubled

00:14:36.580 premier. Doug Ford,

00:14:38.260 he's the Teflon premier. He survives

00:14:40.740 anything, because

00:14:42.660 Ontario Conservatives are 0.62

00:14:44.640 unfortunately pretty cowardly often when it 0.99

00:14:46.540 comes to their leaders. They don't do anything about it.

00:14:50.740 So, Dave, maybe just

00:14:52.440 I think most people are kind of broadly aware

00:14:54.580 just give a real short summary of

00:14:56.120 the saga of Doug Ford's

00:14:58.720 gravy plane. Doug

00:15:00.560 ford wants plane doug ford gets playing doug ford realizes he's made a major mistake doug

00:15:06.240 ford gives plane back all without going for a single ride on it but it's uh great sorry well

00:15:11.920 how do you say you wanted to quit so uh 29 million dollar plane uh the entire conservative uh cabinet

00:15:19.760 voted 100 that he should have one and they went out and bought this this thing from uh bombardier

00:15:25.840 it's a beautiful plane i mean any premier would be would be proud of it but uh he wasn't reading

00:15:31.360 the temperature of the room very well when the record lineups at uh at food banks and inflation

00:15:38.720 i know you don't like that word derek but uh rising prices uh hurting people uh you know

00:15:44.960 all over the place people are squeezed people are hurt the optics just look bad uh so a day of

00:15:51.360 answering his cell phone people yelling at him he uh he backtracked he was very sulky and very uh

00:15:59.120 you know poor me poor me uh prime minister gets his jet why can't i have mine i have a long way

00:16:04.800 to fly in ontario you know which he does and it to me it's it's it shows canada as a nation is a

00:16:13.920 failure he should have a jet of course he should have a jet uh because he's responsible for billions

00:16:20.880 and billions of dollars and his province is absolutely huge it's little things like that

00:16:26.720 people canadians don't like to see their leaders have nice things the other point i want to make

00:16:32.960 is just look at uh 24 sussex right the nation's prime minister should have a house that looks

00:16:42.000 pretty good that's where you host foreign leaders and bring them over for barbecues and stuff like

00:16:47.760 that meanwhile in canada we can't even agree on that and 24 sussex is falling to bits i mean uh

00:16:55.840 come on uh our leaders need nice things so you know i i've uh i don't slag my former lawyer

00:17:04.240 to the taxpayers federation but you know when i was there you know i uh i i was the most guilty

00:17:10.320 party of always going after a lot of these little things you know i remember we went after bev oda's

00:17:15.680 orange juice. There actually was an explanation

00:17:17.620 for it. It was an outrageous cost for the orange juice.

00:17:19.720 But there was actually a perfectly reasonable explanation

00:17:21.720 for it. Sometimes shit just happens. 0.99

00:17:23.740 And it is a really Canadian thing that we 0.99

00:17:25.620 are overly nitpicky.

00:17:28.780 Ontario is

00:17:29.540 bigger. If someone can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:17:31.740 I think it's bigger than any European country other

00:17:33.600 than Russia, and I don't consider Russia Europe.

00:17:36.620 But

00:17:37.060 it's a gigantic province.

00:17:40.320 There are entire areas where

00:17:41.620 there's not even a dirt road to it.

00:17:43.700 And my grandfather, he would

00:17:45.440 He'd have to fly in the middle of absolute nowhere for moose hunting.

00:17:50.160 And even if there is road access, do we expect the premier to waste an entire day in travel to get around?

00:17:56.220 No, you turner a plane. You don't have to buy it.

00:17:58.800 You know, there's enough travel between the premier and the cabinet to justify it.

00:18:03.680 Though I think the problem was here, trying to be reasonable and balanced, and Dave got into this,

00:18:09.220 it was a $29, $30 million plane.

00:18:12.460 We looked it up. I remember when the news was first breaking, I was like,

00:18:15.140 I don't know. A plane seems reasonable. Let's look into what kind of plane it is.

00:18:19.740 It was a luxury plane. Like, this is something that some

00:18:23.260 sheik from Abu Dhabi could fly around in. 1.00

00:18:27.500 Like, this was creme de la creme. It was 0.99

00:18:31.020 overkill. You know, I'm not saying that the Premier needs to go

00:18:35.400 in a hang glider or a little Cessna or something. That, I think, could have

00:18:39.380 been reasonable. But he went overboard. But at the same time,

00:18:43.280 I think we do need to, Corey, I think we do have this problem in Canada.

00:18:47.760 24 Sussex is literally uninhabitable because people don't want to be seen as living high on the hog.

00:18:54.260 We don't have to make it the White House and we don't have to make it Air Force One.

00:18:59.220 But at some point, I think Canadians can be overly curmudgeonly and penny-pinching on this stuff for fear that officials are taking advantage of the system. 0.64

00:19:10.440 well maybe make the case before handing us the bill i mean it was poorly done too so if you

00:19:17.240 start by saying this is a large geographic place here's the list of the places we've had to travel

00:19:21.960 to and the importance of it here's an emergency we had to go to quickly so yeah i didn't have time

00:19:27.160 to get in a charter plane or a smaller one but it was just kind of well i'm just dropping that on

00:19:33.400 you here it is here's the 29 million dollar one like did you shop around did you check around and

00:19:38.440 And we've seen some other examples where those things have been abused. 1.00

00:19:42.120 Allison Redford was the prime case in Alberta.

00:19:45.200 The Plain, again, it's a large province. 0.96

00:19:46.940 She's a premier.

00:19:47.560 Maybe it's justified. 1.00

00:19:48.460 And getting people, she was using a good fly friends to Palm Springs.

00:19:52.480 Let's face it.

00:19:53.260 How long would it have been before Doug took off to the Bahamas and that thing?

00:19:57.160 Just, he should have played better politics with it.

00:20:00.680 There's some truth to it.

00:20:01.300 That's a good point.

00:20:01.880 Like with Sussex and so on.

00:20:03.360 I mean, these are leaders.

00:20:04.080 They do need resources.

00:20:05.000 they need to put out an impression of

00:20:06.960 support and strength

00:20:08.520 but at the same time you better be cognizant

00:20:11.600 and respectful of the people who pay the bills

00:20:13.320 for all those things and that didn't happen this time

00:20:15.500 you know it may well be that if you

00:20:17.500 were respectful of the people who pay in the

00:20:19.520 bills and you

00:20:20.940 charted all of the

00:20:23.600 air charters that the government of

00:20:25.520 Ontario does

00:20:26.560 for various reasons

00:20:29.000 this thing would have been defensible

00:20:31.000 as well maybe not the 30 million

00:20:33.480 dollar luxury plane but well they recently it's the luxury you know something that did the job

00:20:37.880 yeah yeah a little challenging jet so the prime minister flies around and they're not luxury they're

00:20:42.760 actually rather uncomfortable but you know they do the job and they're not any 29 million dollars

00:20:49.480 so that probably was the thing but i think i'm guessing here and an enterprising reporter for

00:20:55.160 the you know who wants to get quids in with the queen's park might just do a a search for

00:21:03.720 information and i think the information would be very quickly supplied that would allow him

00:21:07.480 to write a story saying that this would cost that would save the taxpayers millions of dollars in

00:21:12.280 the air and by the way kit it out so it could do medevac and then you your hands are clean well

00:21:18.360 and funny thing this is coming at the same time as the ontario government is trying to amend its

00:21:22.600 its freedom of information laws to exempt

00:21:24.680 the cabinet from having to

00:21:26.600 release information, and this

00:21:28.760 would have been exempted.

00:21:31.640 I mean, is it

00:21:32.160 any coincidence? I mean,

00:21:34.920 as I said, I think having a plane,

00:21:36.720 maybe not this particular luxury

00:21:38.740 model, $300 million plane,

00:21:41.400 but a plane would have been

00:21:42.720 reasonable, but they don't want to

00:21:44.620 answer for it. That's one reason the Ford government

00:21:46.600 is radically overhauling its freedom of

00:21:48.660 information laws. No

00:21:50.660 government of any partisan stripe

00:21:52.500 likes freedom of information when you're on the government

00:21:54.620 benches. You love it when you're on the opposition

00:21:56.440 benches because you can use it as a cudgel

00:21:58.440 to beat your enemies over the head with, but no one likes it

00:22:00.660 once you're on the government side. So I get

00:22:02.560 that. But it goes

00:22:04.760 Alex, I guess

00:22:05.760 just the very core

00:22:08.560 brand of Doug Ford.

00:22:10.560 I mean, he always wrote on the coattails of his brother

00:22:12.540 Rob Ford on this stuff, but

00:22:14.520 they had this brand shared together.

00:22:17.000 I think it was the, no one

00:22:18.580 can name her because she's a nobody, but the

00:22:20.360 NDP leader of the opposition in Ontario

00:22:22.260 she called it the gravy plane which played on remember rob ford and doug ford talked about the

00:22:26.680 gravy train and on toronto city hall you know the gravy train these guys are living on the benefit

00:22:31.980 of the taxpayers they've got all these wild perks uh that they're using um and so this stuck because

00:22:38.560 everyone in ontario knows the gravy train this is the gravy plane doug ford you know i mean it is

00:22:44.400 for the cameras but people seem to like it you know he's out seen uh you know shoveling out

00:22:49.060 someone's car that's stuck on the side of the road in the snowstorm you know he's uh he's the

00:22:54.040 you know he's Dougie premier Doug and and this just went so this cut against his brand um but

00:23:03.500 he backed down pretty fast I think he survives this I would tend to agree I think that optically

00:23:11.580 speaking it's also a bit inconvenient for for Doug Ford in the sense that there was also the

00:23:17.820 controversy over donald trump and the qatari plane and so anything that looks trumpian is um

00:23:23.660 a bit of a disaster for any canadian politician at all levels of government right now 0.99

00:23:28.240 yeah yeah and i've always thought the comparisons of ford and trump uh were pretty stupid uh i i 0.98

00:23:38.280 guess they have a passing uh i i i'm kind of ripping off of um uh matt gurney at the line 0.94

00:23:43.480 here. You get a good piece on

00:23:45.480 this. They have a passing

00:23:47.540 resemblance. They're kind of bombastic guys

00:23:49.760 with blonde hair.

00:23:52.080 That's about where most

00:23:53.480 of the comparisons end, except they both

00:23:55.400 tend to also chicken out. The meme

00:23:57.400 Taco Trump always chickens out has become a thing

00:23:59.520 in the States.

00:24:02.080 And Doug. Doug chickens

00:24:03.620 out. He hits the least bit of

00:24:05.540 controversy.

00:24:07.340 He backs off. And I'm

00:24:09.620 just conflicted on this one because

00:24:11.260 it makes sense for the premier of a gigantic

00:24:13.480 who governs a province

00:24:15.660 the size of like half of Western Europe

00:24:17.880 and that

00:24:19.740 has obviously got much less

00:24:21.320 transportation capacity than virtually anywhere

00:24:23.420 in Europe, he should probably have

00:24:25.560 a plane. And then he screws it up so badly

00:24:27.600 by getting this luxury

00:24:28.780 plane and

00:24:31.140 then like not really telling anyone

00:24:33.580 about it, doing it surreptitiously.

00:24:38.140 The man's just got no spine

00:24:39.740 but he has an incredible political

00:24:41.700 radar to realize when he's stepped in a 1.00

00:24:43.700 file of shit and getting himself out. 1.00

00:24:49.080 Alright. 1.00

00:24:52.580 Nigel, let's 1.00

00:24:53.640 talk about our brave new foreign

00:24:55.580 legion. France

00:24:57.560 has, you know,

00:24:59.680 the famous foreign legion.

00:25:01.820 It's a way to become a citizen.

00:25:03.680 You know, it's got

00:25:05.000 not the greatest reputation as the most

00:25:07.320 compliant

00:25:09.500 with the Geneva Conventions. You know, they

00:25:11.200 they tend to be a little

00:25:13.480 rougher. But yeah,

00:25:15.160 every military needs someone to do the dirty

00:25:17.400 work, I guess, and these guys do it. 1.00

00:25:19.940 You'll notice that the French don't let them 0.89

00:25:21.580 set up a barracks on

00:25:22.920 France soil. Yeah, they like 0.97

00:25:25.420 to keep them out of

00:25:26.960 metropolitan France, as they would call it. 0.87

00:25:31.000 And 1.00

00:25:31.160 one of the reasons

00:25:33.480 is you don't like the

00:25:35.400 idea of foreign troops, even under

00:25:37.360 your own flag, foreign troops on your own soil. 0.68

00:25:40.400 The French 0.99

00:25:40.880 like to have a revolution every few years 1.00

00:25:42.960 and it's important that if

00:25:45.000 the revolution, if

00:25:46.880 the government is going to fire on its citizens 0.98

00:25:49.040 it must be Frenchmen firing at other

00:25:50.940 Frenchmen, that there's a sense of blood there

00:25:53.140 and that they'll

00:25:55.080 be a bit more hesitant to shoot.

00:25:56.460 It's compliant with their national anthem actually

00:25:58.720 that calls upon the peasants

00:26:01.180 to rise up and let the blood flow

00:26:02.900 I don't know the literal translation

00:26:04.680 but it's pretty gory. Anyway, you're onto

00:26:06.760 something with that.

00:26:08.200 So here's the thing

00:26:09.740 But this is actually a very sad story, because if you're like me, you're aware of the Canadian military contribution over the last hundred years, the kind of people who went out and did the job and, well, take it back to the Boer War if you care to.

00:26:27.780 But at any rate, First World War, Second World War, Korea, you know, half a century of peacekeeping, Jill's bosom was out peaceful.

00:26:37.820 And you look at these guys.

00:26:38.920 Well, let's be honest about it.

00:26:40.400 They were people like us, all white guys.

00:26:44.880 And that's not what the present government has been trying to promote in the armed services or anywhere else, for that matter, since Mr. Trudeau came to office in 2015. 0.93

00:26:56.820 It had to be about women.

00:26:58.820 It had to be about minorities. 0.75

00:27:01.540 It had to be about men who would be glad to find a tampon in the washroom.

00:27:05.800 you know not the warrior culture it's a very very different attitude you see in pete hexath down in

00:27:13.100 the united states of secretary of war not everybody likes pete hexath but boy oh boy they put a

00:27:19.080 military together that can do what's being done out there in the iran and if somebody gets shot

00:27:23.700 down they can go in and get them now not to get too far off point here they cannot find

00:27:30.320 people who want to serve in the canadian armed forces insufficient numbers

00:27:37.040 to fill the ranks they want 70 000 people they got about 60 000 if they really were serious about

00:27:45.480 it they would send the recruiting sergeants down to new brunswick which is where the

00:27:49.620 you know the basic uh warrior culture exists and they say come on boys for you we'll do the old

00:27:57.160 deal and you'll receive honor you know not much wages but we'll give you the prestige of being in

00:28:03.080 the canadian armed forces and you won't have to take orders from a woman and you won't have to

00:28:07.480 take orders from somebody you don't like you know let's we're going to rebuild the the army we had

00:28:13.800 in 1945 and you're going to be part of it then they'd have their numbers now that's not what

00:28:20.920 they want to do so where shall we look next well according to dr grok the they are looking in some

00:28:31.000 of the right places so places like great britain the netherlands u.s five eyes partners have got

00:28:37.240 a jump on this so when you're if you're picturing a foreign legion that looks foreign that that may 0.99

00:28:44.600 be an overstretch bunch of kiwis isn't what i had in mind well you don't knock the kiwis mate 1.00

00:28:50.920 No, I know. I'm saying that's not what I imagined as a foreign leader. 1.00

00:28:54.760 Yeah. Well, that just seems like getting the band back together for the empire.

00:28:59.720 Well, that would probably work very well. They're talking about recruiting immigrants 0.99

00:29:05.160 who have already become permanent residents, so they've gone through one layer of selection,

00:29:09.880 rather than directly importing large numbers of foreign nationals from Ukraine or Brazil or 0.84

00:29:17.480 somewhere and therefore like the sort of the nightmare fantasy where you get the somali regiment

00:29:26.520 of ottawa sent out to suffield just in case alberta gets restless probably not that likely

00:29:35.320 well so far so far so far let's see how many signs take the king's shilling yeah uh so far

00:29:44.200 uh but they've they you know they have said that this they're making this a path to citizenship

00:29:49.960 uh there's only so many kiwis and australians and brits and yanks willing to do it uh

00:29:58.440 a path for citizenship most of the people coming in who wants it i mean you're weird

00:30:02.440 you're weird case i can't really you you mess with all sorts of my arguments by sitting there

00:30:07.160 um you know but for the most part i i do think that this inevitably ends in the

00:30:12.840 The, you know, Her Majesty's Somalian Regiment in, you know, in Ottawa, His Majesty's Punjab Regiment in Calgary.

00:30:24.720 That's probably where this does inevitably end, though.

00:30:27.960 Well, I got to tell you a story about one of my reporters back in the day.

00:30:32.080 He came from an immigrant family, and he was so grateful for Canada taking his family in that he joined the military.

00:30:42.440 Became a reservist, became a tank commander, served in Bosnia,

00:30:47.140 and, you know, has gone on to a highly respectful career, you know,

00:30:53.360 and he was an immigrant who wanted to give something back.

00:30:58.400 That may be a case in some of these new recruits.

00:31:01.600 It may be a case of, you know, somebody just looking for a job.

00:31:07.860 But, you know, Nigel's right.

00:31:08.980 We're going to get back to making the Canadian Armed Forces a warrior culture. 0.99

00:31:14.120 And I'm sorry, but having a female in command of the military does not make it a warrior culture. 0.99

00:31:23.680 Female in command of the Air Force, too, by the way. 0.99

00:31:25.640 Well, at the very least, not this woman. 0.99

00:31:28.980 Exactly. 0.98

00:31:29.680 This woman.

00:31:30.440 Yeah, I don't mean to take it as a slight against all women.

00:31:32.760 Yeah.

00:31:33.840 She's a DEI.

00:31:35.020 Yes, exactly. 1.00

00:31:36.360 We need to get the tampons out of the bathroom. 1.00

00:31:39.320 Well, out of the men's room. 1.00

00:31:40.280 Out of the men's room, at least.

00:31:42.840 Yeah, and, you know, it wasn't that long ago that Canada had a respected army worldwide.

00:31:50.340 And we had one of the largest navies worldwide.

00:31:53.020 It's been pretty long.

00:31:54.600 It's been a long time.

00:31:55.860 It's a respected army.

00:31:57.700 Our boys did a great job in Afghanistan.

00:32:00.760 Yeah, no question about it.

00:32:01.720 It was a small force, but it was an effective force, but it was small.

00:32:06.240 But at least we had something operational.

00:32:07.820 We could put a regiment in the field.

00:32:09.900 We couldn't even put a single regiment in the field now.

00:32:15.200 Alex, my concern is, I'm sure a lot of people, they would see it as a way of giving back.

00:32:23.380 This is the country that's taken me.

00:32:25.280 I want to contribute to it.

00:32:27.160 That is a very noble sentiment.

00:32:30.340 That's fine.

00:32:31.140 But the French do it with a foreign legion, and it's generally not stationed on French soil for a very good reason.

00:32:39.940 When they're done their time in the foreign legion, they get to make up a citizen, and then they can go into metropolitan France.

00:32:46.820 But there is the concern of loyalty.

00:32:49.960 This is, you know, it was not long ago that we had the Emergencies or, you know, formerly War Measures Act invoked against a peaceful Canadian protest in Ottawa and on some border towns.

00:33:03.640 The military itself was not used, but brutal police action was.

00:33:08.600 They dragooned tow truck drivers against their will to, they essentially conscripted them into service.

00:33:16.860 and that was all done

00:33:20.020 at the urging of Mark Carney

00:33:21.780 Justin Trudeau did it and is ultimately responsible for it

00:33:24.260 but Mark Carney was very clearly

00:33:26.040 on the record in support of it

00:33:28.080 which has now been found repeatedly to be

00:33:29.640 unconstitutional and abuse of power

00:33:31.600 it's not inconceivable

00:33:35.520 that there could be some other kind of

00:33:38.000 emergency real or perceived

00:33:39.720 Quebec is very possibly

00:33:42.040 headed towards an independence referendum

00:33:43.440 Alberta's headed very likely

00:33:45.740 towards an independence referendum i can conceive of a situation where ottawa declares it an

00:33:51.620 emergency and i would in the case of an emergency i would want the soldiers that we have armed and

00:33:58.620 trained to share something in common with me that that we have grown up in a similar country that

00:34:06.580 we have similar values that we have a sense of kinship brotherhood um that we are a part of a

00:34:14.040 similar uh people um because if we've armed them and we've trained them and they're being set as

00:34:21.320 an adversary against us it seems to me that they're a lot more likely to fire a whiff of

00:34:26.920 grape shot into the crowd if they have very little in common with the people they're pointing the

00:34:31.680 guns at i i don't know if i would necessarily agree with that i think that dave's anecdote

00:34:38.080 of the first generation immigrant coming to canada and appreciating our freedoms maybe more than some

00:34:43.680 of, you know, Canadians who are third or fourth generation immigrants, I think that that's fairly

00:34:48.880 accurate. I think a lot of people who have been in Canada for many, many, many generations maybe

00:34:53.420 take for granted the freedoms that they have. It's that old saying, you don't know what you have

00:34:57.280 until it's gone. That resonates with me. I'm a first generation immigrant myself and I would be

00:35:03.960 the last person to shoot into a group of people because my family instilled the importance of

00:35:08.980 freedom and democracy and personal rights and the right to protest and so on and so forth.

00:35:13.680 because they didn't have it no doubt and i you know it's not lost them to me that yeah i think

00:35:19.580 the people most uh compliant the most deferential to authority the the least vigorous in defense of

00:35:26.420 their own freedoms tend to be uh heritage canadians people who are are you know descendants

00:35:32.360 of old settlers they think they often very much they often i think disproportionately take it for

00:35:37.780 granted um uh and yeah a lot of people who do sign up for this kind of thing they're going to

00:35:42.500 want to be a part of it but they're they're not yet they're not yet even citizens they're not even

00:35:50.620 paper one of us yet in this case and i i i'm very worried about arming that kind of person and

00:35:58.540 giving them an authority over everyone else well you know derek i don't think you can 100 percent

00:36:02.640 generalize about that sort of person well i'm not 100 generalizing about anyone i'm generalizing in

00:36:07.940 broad sense here's what to alex's point um alex as we're sort of introducing you to the world here

00:36:14.740 tonight um sultan sounds like not from around here where actually was your family from i think the

00:36:20.980 mud there they were from hungary they came in 1956. okay well look so here's the thing that we 0.65

00:36:28.820 discovered during the covet crisis is that people who came from

00:36:35.380 Hungary, from Czechoslovakia, from Poland, a whole Eastern Europe

00:36:42.340 cluster that had grown up under communism and had learned how to navigate through the system.

00:36:50.900 You never give an opinion. You never speak to the wrong people. You keep your mouth shut. You don't

00:36:58.340 talk about what like all all of the the marks of oppression they were the among the first

00:37:05.300 to communicate to me we don't like what's going on here and so i actually when when i offered the

00:37:14.660 opinion that we had less chance of the what do i what was it i said the first somali dragoons or

00:37:21.780 something coming out here and shooting up alberta i actually was saying that's less likely to happen

00:37:26.500 But the people who have come from a country where they sort of share a bit of a culture with us,

00:37:36.700 but it has a better experience of going through communism or some system of government that has taught them how great it is to be here,

00:37:43.460 where you can say what you want, at least for a year or two yet.

00:37:47.780 They may well be on our side, but not everybody comes from that background.

00:37:53.080 And if you've got people, I probably better not go through and name the countries,

00:37:57.960 but you don't have to be a genius to think of the way.

00:38:00.360 You already named Somalia.

00:38:01.600 Well, the question isn't the government doing it.

00:38:04.240 It's whether or not the government can do it right.

00:38:05.860 And that's the big problem.

00:38:07.160 Permanent residents have been serving for quite a while already, actually.

00:38:10.120 The issue right now is the volume.

00:38:11.540 20% of the latest recruits were permanent residents rather than citizens.

00:38:16.220 Now, I don't like to envision a Somali unit or a Palestinian unit or even an Irish unit, for that matter. 0.88

00:38:23.200 If you're bringing 20% in, I would like to see it spread around then and not in culturally... 0.94

00:38:28.320 I don't think they're actually going to do dedicated...

00:38:29.780 I understand. I don't put it beyond our woke lunatics, though, to say, you know, for the sake of cultural, we should have the Islamic unit over here. 0.75

00:38:36.580 Well, we used to have... I guess we had Highlander units back in the day. 0.96

00:38:39.760 So instead of Kilsia turbines... 0.99

00:38:41.320 it's like immigration is good. Mass uncontrolled immigration is a problem. And this could be a 0.99

00:38:48.540 good thing if they do it correctly. That's a big F for the government in a military that is prone

00:38:53.720 to incompetence and woke issues. I don't trust them to do a good issue. So I just, I'm not wholly

00:38:59.340 opposed to the concept of permanent residence, especially it's not a, they've gone through some

00:39:03.260 steps already. They're not fresh in as refugees or something and then given a firearm and put out 1.00

00:39:08.120 there but uh boy just just don't let it overwhelm and make sure that you're maintaining that culture

00:39:14.040 again and spreading it around instead of having actually uh uh cultural clusters that that gets

00:39:19.440 a little more frightening could i add another could i add another point to this so i canada's

00:39:25.880 military history is epic like back in time and even not even that far back in time if you go

00:39:32.120 back to afghanistan that fun fact i don't believe canada lost a single battle or skirmish in

00:39:36.760 Afghanistan, and many Taliban leaders wrote that the Canadians were the one group that they were

00:39:40.900 more fearful of than any other. So this point that I'm making is not to discount Canada's military

00:39:46.300 history, but I think that the need for Canadian hard power military has always been a bit

00:39:52.160 overstated. I mean, we're quite blessed in the sense that we already have an amazing defense

00:39:56.360 from two oceans, and our only major neighbor, the United States, is generally quite friendly to us.

00:40:01.800 I think that maybe we could reframe this discussion in the sense that all of these foreign recruits who are interested in joining Canada's military offer an incredible opportunity in terms of soft power.

00:40:12.740 If you look at the major threats in the world right now, China and India are becoming major threats, and the world is looking for intelligence people who speak those languages. 0.57

00:40:21.680 Canada has an overabundance of them now. 0.74

00:40:24.300 I agree with you, Derek, as well, that I don't necessarily trust this government to vet those people properly.

00:40:30.740 But that's going to be a problem regardless of who you have working in your intelligence service. 0.99

00:40:35.140 And so I think that Canada has a unique opportunity right now with the amount of immigrants that we have to kind of spin gold out of hay here and maybe become a world leader in soft power. 0.97

00:40:45.920 You may well be right, although I would say there's another side of the coin and it's going to be super politically incorrect to say. 0.70

00:40:51.800 but say china and india because those are two examples you mentioned they would also see the

00:40:57.640 diaspora community here as an intelligence opportunity so yeah so i'm not casting aspersions

00:41:04.300 on anyone who's here but they will be seen as another the other uh you know it's a double-edged

00:41:10.560 sword here uh they would be seen as an opportunity from from those players um well i mean if they're

00:41:16.720 paying them right they're not going to bite the hand that feeds them so if we feed them instead 0.79

00:41:20.100 the chinese of the indians feeding them then then they're ours now you know canadians care too much 0.90

00:41:24.900 about money uh people from other cultures often prize other things and to their credit they prize

00:41:32.340 things that are more important than than money okay uh let's go we'll go to start go to our

00:41:38.980 parting shots start with uh nigel yes well you would mention uh stories that didn't get a lot

00:41:45.060 of attention we at least put the story in about canada's spaceports are now a national priority

00:41:51.620 billions will be spent now i actually do think that canada should have a robust space program

00:42:01.380 should be able to launch its own satellites and not go to somebody else with cash uh it's just

00:42:08.580 that rather as we're not sure that the this government knows how to get military recruitment

00:42:13.940 right i'm not sure that they have that i would want to travel on anything contracted by this

00:42:20.020 government we have one we have about three dozen satellites in space they've all been launched by

00:42:26.180 the x they take them up five at a time in one of musk's uh rockets and we're going to do better

00:42:35.060 than that you know from scratch we have one rocket that's been in production for 50 years it's the

00:42:40.580 black brand apparently is a hell of a good rocket if all you want to do is shoot some instruments

00:42:47.940 up about 200 000 feet and let them float down and take measurements things are utterly reliable but

00:42:54.660 you can launch it out of your backyard so i i have a feeling that this is another pipeline proposal

00:43:01.780 in the making we're supposed to think oh that's great vote for it and give mr carney the credit

00:43:08.020 i'm not we're going to get the gravy rocket out of this doug ford is going to get a spaceship

00:43:12.420 it's not rocket science nigel apparently not corey should have mentioned uh just back into that

00:43:17.540 foreign interference in diaspora populations imagine being a chinese uh immigrant of chinese

00:43:24.180 origin and then you know we know they have been strong arming people here with their chinese

00:43:28.740 police stations on canadian soil and things like that and then find out our rcmp is in partnership

00:43:34.900 and some secretive partnership as the usual RCMP won't tell us what the details are about it

00:43:39.220 so even if you're getting pressured from the Chinese government whilst in Canada who on earth

00:43:43.940 do you call because the RCMP is already proudly wearing their Chinese star on their arms and won't

00:43:48.340 tell you what the partnership is welcome to Canada now Dave uh yesterday would have marked the 100th

00:43:55.700 birthday of the late great uh Queen Elizabeth II uh celebrations held throughout England including

00:44:01.940 at Buckingham Palace

00:44:03.620 where the royal family met

00:44:05.640 people who were also turning 100

00:44:07.320 including war veterans and

00:44:09.640 whatnot so it was a day of reflection

00:44:11.900 and how we missed that

00:44:13.580 grand old lady. You almost 1.00

00:44:15.620 gave me a heart attack for a second

00:44:17.160 because my dates weren't exact

00:44:19.340 and I thought you were memorializing

00:44:21.560 another mid-April

00:44:23.500 birthday. Oh no.

00:44:28.640 Oh

00:44:29.240 this episode is

00:44:30.940 So why would that be top of mind for you, Derek?

00:44:33.980 Oh, no, that's when you smoke weed.

00:44:37.720 All right, Alex, you've never had one before.

00:44:40.940 This is your first parting shot.

00:44:42.840 Yeah, William Major.

00:44:44.100 This is a really weird court case going on in the Vancouver, B.C. Supreme Court.

00:44:48.460 Depending on who you ask, he's either a communist spy who turn-coated on Canada,

00:44:53.760 or he's a great patriot who is a whistleblower now being punished by his own government.

00:44:58.000 Still not exactly sure.

00:44:58.940 i only sat uh through one day of court proceedings and to be honest with you i think i left uh with

00:45:03.720 less understanding of what was going on than when i arrived huh all right uh i want to give uh

00:45:11.320 special attention to my favorite dude uh mr jessica yaniv uh i i mentioned uh something about

00:45:19.020 this man uh on last week's pipeline uh within like an hour of uh putting the clip uh online we got

00:45:27.480 our six human rights complaint he's watching derek he's watching he just doesn't give up

00:45:33.060 i don't know who's watching right now uh i know my dad does hi dad uh but i i also i don't know

00:45:39.440 who else really watches i know we've got some regulars they're mostly here for cory uh old

00:45:43.400 ladies love cory um but i do know that my my brother in arms uh one of my favorite dudes

00:45:50.420 mr jessica yuneev is watching um so just stop sending me the human rights complaints directly

00:45:56.780 We already told you, send it to our lawyer.

00:45:58.720 The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms is defending us on this one.

00:46:03.460 Our lawyer is Marty Moore.

00:46:05.300 You skip the middleman.

00:46:06.800 You're just sending it to me, and we all have a good laugh at your expense around the office.

00:46:10.620 Just skip me, send it straight to our lawyer so we can get up to number seven.

00:46:14.880 Six human rights complaints.

00:46:16.900 These are rookie numbers in this racket.

00:46:18.960 We're trying to pump these numbers up.

00:46:21.260 Again, I look forward to this one being replayed at my human rights trial when it comes.

00:46:25.540 All right.

00:46:27.340 Corey, Dave, Nigel, Alex, thank you.

00:46:30.720 And subbing in for John today, we've got Josh running broadcast.

00:46:35.640 He hasn't entirely screwed it up, I think.

00:46:37.980 So good for Josh.

00:46:40.820 You can go back to his job as our food critic.

00:46:44.680 And thank all of you for joining us today.

00:46:47.000 Go to westernstandard.news, click on subscribe.

00:46:49.620 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all Western Standard content.

00:46:54.580 you'll get past the paywall and support the work that we are doing here thank you very much and god

00:47:00.740 bless

00:47:24.580 You

Western Standard - April 27, 2026

THE PIPELINE： David Eby’s cluster muck, Doug Ford’s gravy plane and Canada’s new foreign legion

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript