THE PIPELINEļ¼ Did Danielleās demands workļ¼
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Summary
The OG Pipeline crew talks abortion, the recall against Alberta's UCP MLAs, and much, much more. Plus, a new documentary explores the controversial topic of late-term abortions in Canada. Thanks to our sponsor, The OG Pipeline!
Transcript
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Good day. Today is November 26, 2025. I'm Derek Fildebrandt,
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publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline. I'm here with the OG
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Pipeline crew, former Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
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And Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.
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All right. Well, we're going to get into one topic that no one likes to talk about because
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everyone gets angry. We'll probably maybe even get angry with each other on this show here.
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Uh, we're talking about late term abortions in Canada. We're told it's exceptionally rare
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and only in medically necessary, uh, situations. Um, a new documentary out would seem to show,
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I think fairly definitively, that that is very much not the case. Um, so we're going to be
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talking about a very, about the touchiest subject you could find in Canada, almost anywhere really,
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but, uh, we're going to, we're going to talk about late term abortions. Um, the total recall
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against, uh, Alberta UCP MLAs continues. I think we're up to what, six or eight or so
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somewhere around there. Uh, 14 now. 14 who have bad approved petitions?
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I believe so, yeah. Okay. But I mean, it's just an application form. It's really-
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Yeah, yeah. It doesn't mean much yet. But, uh, efforts to recall essentially the whole, uh,
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enough UCP MLAs to collapse the government for an election, I guess. Be careful what
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you wish for, guys. I'm not sure you want an election right now. But, uh, some people
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are saying that that process is being abused. We need to change the recall legislation.
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Hmm. I'm not, I'm not so sure. You want recall, you got to accept it when it's used against
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you too. But we'll get into it. But first, did Daniel Smith's demands of Mark Carney's federal
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liberal government work? Um, she, uh, the premier laid down a series of nine demands. I think it may
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have been earlier in the summer, maybe even the spring. It was some time ago. She laid down
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these demands. Um, and this is all in the background of the looming, likely-ish, uh, Alberta
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referendum on independence coming, saying, look, if you, uh, it was kind of an or else. And she
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didn't say what the or else was, but it was more or else. I'm not going to be doing much
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on the, uh, stay side of the referendum. Uh, I think it was kind of the implication. Not
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sure if that's fair or not. But, uh, she laid out these demands. They were not all about
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oil and gas development and pipelines, but I'd say the bulk of them were. There were some
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items on equalization. Surprise! There hasn't been a peep on equalization. Nothing will ever
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seem to change there. Um, but there does, knock on wood, appear to be some movement on the natural
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resource development side of things. Tomorrow, Thursday, Daniel Smith and Mark Carney are
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appearing at the Chamber of Commerce, where they're going to sign or present a memorandum of
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understanding. MOUs actually don't really mean anything. They're just kind of, it's an agreement
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to an agreement. Uh, I was a bureaucrat for one year of my life and we signed an MOU. I was like,
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oh my God, this is a big deal. It was on internal free trade in Canada. Guess what? Nothing came of
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it. We spent years on it to get an MOU and nothing came. So, uh, but, you know, so it's about exceptions
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from the emissions caps, uh, exceptions from the, uh, Northwest coast tanker ban, um, the things like
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that that would make a pipeline feasible. Um, but David EB is saying, wait a minute, you can't treat
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me like an Albertan. I get to have some say in this. And so he, he, he's squawking that, uh, he
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hasn't been consulted and given his permission. Uh, some of the BC native bands are saying something
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similar. Um, I don't know. Do we have much to cheer about yet?
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I don't think so. Uh, you know, I, I would actually love to be cheering about this, but
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here in Alberta, we spend so much time thinking about it from our point of view that we don't
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always think about how the federal government is seeing it and how Mr. Carney in particular
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is seeing it. No, I mean, what does, yeah, we've got nine demands. What does, what does Mr.
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Carney have that he wants to, to get done? He wants the problem to go away. He wants actually
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the appearance of a settlement. He's just come back from a meeting in Brazil where everybody was
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talking about how to, uh, how, how to take the carbon out of the climate. And now he's got to come
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back and he's expected to do work out something with the premier of Alberta who wants to develop
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more oil. So what he's doing is building a situation where it looks like he's agreeing, but he's got an
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escape route. He won't have to go through with it. I am very pessimistic about, uh, this, this, uh,
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particular, uh, I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but I actually don't see any good coming out of this.
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He has, apart from a constituency that's interested in climate change, he himself has made it very clear
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how he sees the climate change. He wants to, he wants to get less carbon emitted. He's come up with
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this crazy idea that in order to produce oil in the West, you must dairy an equivalent amount of
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carbon dioxide to what it took to, to make the oil, nothing like that in the East where they're
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importing it. And now you just mentioned the condition that BC has to agree. And the indigenous
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peoples there have to agree. There is his escape route. They will not agree. Thanks Danielle. It
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was great talking, but we're not, we're not doing anything because BC doesn't agree. Well, wait a
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minute. You intruded in our space, provincially intrude on theirs. Well, you're out.
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Well, bring the bowl of water. Wash my hands of it. Yeah. Well, Corey, none of this requires
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intrusion actually on provincial jurisdiction, uh, interprovincial trade of this kind, the
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infrastructure crossing provincial and national boundaries or international boundaries is strict
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federal jurisdiction. The Supreme court ruled on that. That was, you know, one of the rare times
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where the Supreme courts actually made a sensible, it's written in black and white in the British
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North America act that assigns the powers one way or another. So it's, it's pretty clear that
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that's, that's federal jurisdiction. Uh, the court ruled the David E.B. and the BC and D.P. have no
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standing, whatever, constitutional standing, whatever to interfere. Uh, but I mean, we haven't seen the
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MOU yet, so I, I don't want to prejudge it. I just think as Albertans, we've, uh, you know, we've,
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we've played the Charlie Brown football enough by now that maybe we're overly cynical. I don't know.
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Are we overly cynical here? Or like, is he going to be, are BC natives and the BC government,
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um, which one of those seniors soon will, who knows, but, uh, are, are, are they going to,
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you expect they'll actually be given a real veto of some kind or it's just, you know, the MOU
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will require some basic duty to consult, which would, that's fine. I actually think that's,
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that's, that's appropriate. Uh, I don't know. Am I overly cynical?
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Well, part of it is, uh, you're not overly cynical and, uh, part of it, as I was saying
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to Nigel earlier, and I, I've got limited what I could say, but a little bird told me
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there is nothing in the MOU that does give a veto to the First Nations or the province
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of BC, nor should it, because it's not constitutional, as you pointed out, both with First Nations
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and BC. So Carney has to be a prime minister and he doesn't seem to be willing to. This is
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fully in his hands. He, he says it's getting done or it's not. And what's missing in all of
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this, I think are not enough discussion. Maybe that'll pop over the MOU. Where's the private
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proponent? That's the excuse they like using too. There's no private proponent. Well, none of them
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are going to, unless they can get through. So they need to see something with the prime minister
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saying this pipe is going to reach the coast, not this pipe. If we meet this giant long list
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of conditions, well, nobody's going to pull their wallet out there. No, he's got to be saying,
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I support this and I'm going to facilitate it. And we can't say that, oh, we'll need 10,
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20 years of consultation either, because it's been done already. The Northern Gateway,
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Enbridge already spent, what, a hundred and some million or some, they've done the consultation.
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I know it expired, but you know what? The mountains are in the same place. The rivers are
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in the same spot. If anything, pipelines have gotten even better. We have to fast track this or it's not
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happening. So it's going to be interesting as you say, leading into an AGM for Premier Smith to get
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out and try and tell the members she has accomplished something. And there has been progress
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because they're as cynical as we are for the most part. And they want to see her either standing up
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for Alberta or actually having an agreement that says this pipe is going to go not, oh, we've got
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another MOU. We're going to talk about it for 10 more years while it dies on the vote.
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Corey, to your point, the Western Standard has today published the following comment by Mr. Carney
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in the House of Commons. Word for words, the memorandum of understanding that we're negotiating
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with Alberta creates the necessary conditions, but not sufficient conditions because we believe in
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cooperative federalism. We believe the government of BC has to agree. We believe that First Nations,
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right holders in this country have to agree and support all stakeholders. So they're already, he
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has laid down conditions under which he says, well, I did my best.
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And there's already First Nations saying that they're never going to support it under any
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circumstances. That's where we got to get, we got to define that difference between consultation and
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consent. We aren't obligated to get consent. And obviously they're saying they're never going to give
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it. So at this point, it's either tell them to go get stuffed. We're doing this or just give up.
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So I don't know how much of this is Carney saying one thing. I'm not sure if that was
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in response to an MVP question or conservative question. I think it was conservatives were
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Yeah. So I have a hard time believing that Danielle Smith is going to be willing to stand
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next to Mark Carney at a press conference and put her name to something that would give BC and
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native groups in BC a veto one day before the opening of the UCP convention where she's going to face the
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most hardcore folks in the right who are, I mean, we've been around these folks, they eat leaders
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for brunch. So, you know, when she goes into there, she likes to flex her Alberta first bona fides.
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So I'm hesitant to think that she's going to do this one day before facing that kind of crowd.
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Well, from what I've heard, like I said, that's not in the MOU. So that perhaps tomorrow, it might
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be an interesting conference because if that comes to the opportunity where she might have to put him
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on the spot there and say, well, just to clarify, this is not giving a veto to such and such and make
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him answer it there, because he was absent from question period on this today anyway. So that would
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be a whole different question. Now, if it was a sabotage, I mean, we really want to see provincial
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federal relations go bad, you know, during a conference where they're supposed to be holding
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hands and smiling. But I mean, if she's being undercut before this thing's even signed, perhaps
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the premier will have a good enough cause to put him to the question while they're standing in front
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of the cameras. Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, the United Conservative Party very much inherited
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from the Wild Rose, the kind of Alberta first strain of DNA in that party's blood. Actually,
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in many ways, I think the UCP is more Alberta first than the Wild Rose was. I think that's just
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the Overton window of shit. Well, it's just that the issues are more prescient now, too,
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than they had been at that time. Yeah. So I mean, the politics, it's always good politics
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for the Alberta UCP premier to be fighting like hell against the federal liberal prime minister.
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That's that's good politics. So for her to not play that card and stand next to him at a podium
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the day before convention leads me to think in all probability, I mean, maybe she's lost her marbles
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and gone soft. But in all probability, I would bet that she's got a fair degree of faith in it,
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because I she doesn't like, you know, that there's going to be some people on the harder
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independence, sovereignty, right side of the party who are critics, and they're going to just take
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a picture of her standing at a podium. And that's a bad meme. That's a bad meme. So if she's going to
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give them that, she's probably got to have a fair degree of certainty that no, this is a real thing.
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Well, I think it's going to go one way or the other. There can be a mushy middle on this.
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She has to be standing at that podium to have something that can be taken to the bank. Like
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this is an agreement, and she has to have the prime minister very strongly saying this is going to get
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done. Or if it's some mushy, we're just signing this again, and we're going to tread water for months,
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as you said, well, then something has made her addled because she understands that nobody going
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into an AGM wants a mushy middle position, or if it blows up tomorrow, that goes well going into an AGM
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as well, because then you give the fire and brimstone speech saying, we tried, we did everything we could.
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I took my time the day before this to try and come out and do this. And he torpedoed us before we could
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even get it rolling. I guess we have to look at other alternatives as Albertans to get our resources to
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market. But a middle is not going to look good. Yeah. And you know, this is in the context of a
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probable referendum some point next year on independence. And thank you for all your hard
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work on that, Thomas Nkazic. I appreciate you volunteering your time and your Winnebago or
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whatever, driving around Alberta, getting signatures so that we can have a vote on independence. It was very
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generous of the cause. He is forward thinking sometimes.
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God, you just can't make this shit up sometimes.
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Yeah. He was probably buzzing from the hairspray and wasn't thinking clearly.
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Yeah. Yeah. Um, but anyway, we're, you know, there's a probable referendum on independence coming.
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I mean, if there is tangible, like you got a shovel in the ground somewhere, I mean, it's no pipeline
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is going to get be done and pumping by that time. I'd be honest, that's not reasonable.
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But if you had a shovel in the ground by the time people vote, uh, I think it would make it
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damn near impossible for the independent side to win that. And I, and I think it is sad that
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the whole independence argument gets reduced through just pipelines. It is a hell of a lot
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more than pipe. In fact, it should maybe be at the bottom of the top five list at this point. I'd say
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controlling our simple borders might be at the top. If we can't control the Canadian border,
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then let's at least control the Alberta border. Um, a lot of things, but, uh, I think in terms of
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the discussion, I mean, the independent side always had the much bigger hill to climb to have any chance
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of winning. If, if there's real progress and it's like, yeah, no, we're actually building this.
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There's crews out there right now. There's pictures, there's video of guys digging holes
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and laying pipe. I, I, I think that kills the chance of winning an independence vote.
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It would indicate that other things can get done as well. I mean, that's one symbol. So we're saying,
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well, if it could be negotiated to get a pipeline through, then maybe it's possible to negotiate on
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immigration or negotiate on, uh, equalization or some of those other areas. So it will be a big
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symbolic win that would undercut the independence movement, uh, strongly, but they got to move fast.
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You know, people are impatient. That's the bottom line. They don't want to see it. I mean,
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Kearney loves his hockey analogies. Well, it looks to us like he's ragging the puck and we're not,
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people don't have time for it anymore. You get something going or quit playing us.
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Well, people in Alberta don't have any time for it anymore. Maybe this plays really well
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He's taking the cousins to Alberta and he's going to lay about the Alberta government.
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Tell them exactly where they stand. That's good. That won't play well in Alberta,
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but that could be Chris to his mill in Ontario, Quebec.
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Yeah. We can't always look at it for our lenses.
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Well, that's the thing we get. It's very easy to forget what might be in it for him.
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Yeah. Cause where does some of his MPs are getting pretty upset with the possibility.
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Some of the BC ones who are kind of doctrinaire on this stuff.
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All right. Well, speaking of laying into the Alberta government, um,
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let's talk about the recall campaign. We've gotten into this before. So this is coming out of the
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Alberta UCP government, uh, legislating an end to the teacher strike, uh, sending them back to work.
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They still legislated them a sweetheart deal. I mean, it was a great frigging deal that they got for
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themselves. I thought the UCP should have legislated them back to work with a pay cut.
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Um, like not even more charter schools to be transferred. As you said, I liked that.
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Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I don't think they actually should have legislated them back to work. I think
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they just should have said every day, convert a public school into a charter school until the
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union begs for an end to the strike. Um, walk them out essentially, I'd say, uh, that's not what
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happened. Anyway, the ATA was legislated back to work. They lost their shit. They went, uh, they got
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very, very angry. The notwithstanding clause was used. So it's just bulletproof from a legal challenge
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because the Supreme Court's made some bizarre rulings in the last years where, uh, apparently
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individual rights are also now union rights. They, unions have the same rights as individuals. So, um,
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they lost their mind and they decided to, uh, initiate recall campaigns against Alberta UCP MLAs.
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Some of them seem pretty dumb. They're going after MLAs who had massive margins of victory. I guess
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Daniel Smith had a big margin of victory in Brooks Medicine Hat, but she's the premier. She's very
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symbolic. So they may as well take a shot at that. I guess, um, you know, they're going after other
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ones who have big margins of victory, like up in Grand Prairie. Uh, and then other ones. Now,
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the one that I think is probably their smartest to go after. Sorry, Demetrius is the education minister.
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He's symbolic. He's the education minister. They hate him. And Calgary Bowl had an extremely,
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uh, his constituency in Calgary Bowl had a very, very narrow margin of victory for him.
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So strategically or tactically, that that's a, that's maybe a smarter one, but they're going
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after all sorts of others. Angela Pitt, she had a pretty big margin of victory. Um,
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but they're going after them very clearly based on government policy. And a lot in the UCP are
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stating that, well, that's not fair game. Um, we need to change the rules around here. Now,
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some of it, I think is more legitimate complaints. Like, uh, the legislation says that the people who
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are canvassing for signatures have to live in the constituency. I actually don't think that should
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be a rule necessarily because constituencies, as I could tell my experience, get gerrymandered.
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I strongly differ on that part. Yeah, it is. Okay. But, but, or, or maybe they have to at least
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be in an adjacent one because, because constituencies, particularly urban ones, I mean,
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you live on one side of a street, you're in one constituency, you live on the other side of the street,
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you're in another. And it's just some, some dink sitting in a commission somewhere appointed by
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political parties who drew that. Sometimes. Well, I know it. I live 800 meters from a UCP
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member and I have an NDP member for mine. I'm half a mile out of the border and they gerrymandered it
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actually because they wanted an NDP rural seat. So they made that one. It frustrates me, but I still
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think when it comes to overturning an MLA, it should only be the people living under that constituency.
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In an election, you're allowed to campaign in any constituency you want. In fact, people come
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from other provinces, even other countries in campaign. Yeah. So, you know, if you're allowed
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to go and volunteer to elect someone in a different riding, we do it in general elections and by
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elections, I think you should be allowed to do it for recall too. And you know, let's remember a lot
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of people who are against what's happening with recall here right now. Uh, we were all gearing up to
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recall Jason Kenney, but from the right. Yeah. Uh, but that was province wide. That was, uh, no, but to
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recall him in his own seat. He was going to probably end up getting recalled if, if potential until, uh,
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essentially the party recalled him by forcing a leadership review of him. They recalled him at the
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leadership level, but he was good to otherwise probably get recalled at the MLA level.
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So I guess there's two points. One is the rules are you have to live in the ride. I don't think it's a good
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rule, but that is the rule. And that appears very much to be aggressively violated by the organizers
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here. Um, I think the UCB have got a point there, even if I think it's a bad part of the law where I
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think they don't have a point is they're saying, well, you're just disagreeing with us on government
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policy. You have to have a very specific reason, some kind of misconduct to recall someone.
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I don't think so. Again, you've got, you know, what's, what's, what's a big deal for someone might
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not be like Bev Oda. People got pissed off at $28 glass of orange juice. I mean, this part was
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15, 16, sorry. With inflation, it's 28 years. Um, $16 glass of orange juice. That is not a serious
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thing, but it blew up into a serious thing. So then is a judge going to sit there and say, well,
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this is worthy of recall. And this is not, um, broken promises. Sometimes promises are legitimately
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broken. You made a promise. He got in. Turns out the facts on the ground are different, or the
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government's got no money. Hey, we don't actually have money for this anymore. Are we really going
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to let, uh, have a court decide if someone, if a politician broke his promise or if this scandal
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is serious or non-serious? I think the UCP are kind of grasping at straws on this thing saying that,
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well, you have to have a better reason that you disagree with the government policy.
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They pulled the trigger on the government's own policy. It's the sort of thing I've done in the past.
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Uh, my NDP nomination run when they left it wide open for anybody to register
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policies against it. And be on there. And then it's amazing. They changed their policies within
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two weeks and suddenly I disappeared as an NDP nomination candidate. Let's make sure we pull up
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a picture from, uh, Corey's nomination there. He's a reference and I ran hard. Yeah. You ran for
00:22:35.060
the nomination. It was a bath can ask us. Yes. Yes. You had the, pardon the language,
00:22:39.060
you had the pussy hat and everything. Yeah. It was probably dressed in NDP wear for the time.
00:22:43.220
Yeah. And then they shut down my campaign. Uh, but that's using their, their policies against them.
00:22:47.540
That's what they're doing with the recall. Uh, as annoying as it may be, it's fair
00:22:50.980
game. It is. And I don't think as long as those rules are followed, that they're going to succeed
00:22:55.300
in many, if any of them, as you said, Highwood, they're going after RJ Sigurdsson. They've never
00:23:01.060
had under 70% support for the UCP there. I would not want to be a door knocker going to the door
00:23:06.420
saying, Hey, will you sign this petition with your name address? Cause that's the thing people got to
00:23:10.420
realize, but right now, all they're doing is putting in a form and a fee. Anybody can do that.
00:23:14.900
Yeah. That takes 20 minutes. Yeah. Uh, the news is reporting it as if there's this wave.
00:23:19.140
Well, then there's a vote on if there will be a bioactive. Yeah. So this is a long process. So
00:23:25.300
you have to get signatures from 60% of the people who voted in the last election within a timeframe.
00:23:30.500
You can't flood it with outside help and rest assured there will be a lot of UCP supporters
00:23:35.620
who will want to see a couple of violations. Cause that'll give them an excuse to say this is
00:23:39.220
invalid and thrown out. Uh, as you said, cover bow is maybe the closest they could come to it.
00:23:44.100
But even then that's a tough task. I mean, not everybody's eager to see a
00:23:47.220
by-election or whatnot. Even some who don't like the, the MLA, they might say, well, I'll still
00:23:51.860
hang on till, uh, the next election. Like I like recall and referendum legislation. I like using
00:23:57.220
Switzerland as a model, but something that's different there is the citizens take it very
00:24:00.740
seriously. So if somebody shows up with a frivolous campaign at their door and says,
00:24:04.500
will you sign this? They'll say, no, I'm not interested. Not that Canadian politeness.
00:24:08.020
So I'll just sign. No, it just, I don't like this. I won't sign. So it's incumbent,
00:24:13.460
I think on the same time for that culture to develop here. Like they haven't had initiative.
00:24:17.380
We haven't had recall, no, any practical way. Pretty much now they're putting it to the test.
00:24:21.700
And you know, it really wants people, if people get the idea that this is a serious
00:24:27.220
effort by the opposition to defrone the government, not just take out an MLA who has been an idiot,
00:24:36.340
then the tide is going to turn against this recall. Now that's the thing. They have to get that message
00:24:42.020
out because otherwise people are saying, oh, whatever, you know.
00:24:46.180
Yeah. Like different stuff. But the complaint is saying, like the UCP is talking about
00:24:51.460
changing some of the rules. They haven't said definitively. Yeah.
00:24:55.060
I'm not sure how you can, because it comes pretty subjective when you're getting into
00:24:58.500
what he is or isn't. It really should be. I've been disagreeing.
00:25:01.380
I think on a communications front, you can say that these guys are being frivolous or wrong.
00:25:05.220
Just don't change the rules. Like the example I use is, is Dara Hetherington. I keep bringing her up.
00:25:09.380
And for those who remember, you might not have been in Alberta at the time yet. She was a city
00:25:13.300
councillor in Lethbridge who went very much off the rails, a fake kidnapping story, took off to Las
00:25:18.660
Vegas, very bizarre, but they couldn't get rid of her. She, she still had that seat on council and as
00:25:24.500
loopy as she'd been and so on, she potentially could have been stuck in there for years because
00:25:29.700
you just have no mechanism to have somebody, even though they've proven themselves just to,
00:25:34.900
you know, she needed treatment, not a seat. You know, I mean, just, it's a mental health thing.
00:25:39.860
Oh no. Are you sure it's left? I thought it was in Edmonton.
00:25:43.060
It was an Edmonton councillor who would do that.
00:25:44.340
Well, you're thinking of, uh, uh, uh, Tucker Gomberg. And that poor fellow ended up committing
00:25:49.300
suicide jumping off Confederation Bridge. He wanted to flood the Edmonton city streets to build,
00:25:56.820
Yeah. But he was a city councillor, but similar sorts of things. You see, when they are so clearly,
00:26:00.580
though, something has happened or whatever, or they've done something where they just are no
00:26:03.620
longer fit, we don't have a mechanism to remove them. But theoretically, it should just only be
00:26:08.500
when it gets that bad before you really start doing it. But how do you put, how do you put
00:26:15.380
That's the problem. And I'm not saying this is the UCP's plan. It's not as far as we know, but
00:26:20.020
you know, some prominent voices within it are saying, you know, and some of the MLAs being subject to
00:26:24.020
this are saying, well, no, the rules should say like, there has to be clear misconduct. Well,
00:26:28.420
that means that's going to become a legal case. And yeah, misconduct's a different thing too.
00:26:33.460
Yeah. Okay. So like Sean Chu, the Calgary city councillor, uh, was in some pretty hot water,
00:26:38.260
but he was never charged and convicted with a crime. He did some things which were questionable
00:26:43.780
a long time ago and voters deserve to render their decision. Uh, but he kind of, the way with
00:26:50.500
advanced voting, he still got elected, couldn't be recalled. Okay. But is it always criminal behavior?
00:26:56.660
Like not many are going to be, I think criminal makes it more clear. They'll often just resign
00:27:01.300
its race anyways, but, uh, it's, it's those, but also what, like, what if it's, um, you know,
00:27:06.100
a politician refuses to hand over their gun to the cops. Okay. Well that's criminal technically,
00:27:12.740
but so, okay. Like it just gets way too subjective. You have recall or you don't have recall. And the
00:27:20.500
general rule of thumb is you're going to agree with the reason what it's a politician you don't want,
00:27:24.500
don't like, and you want to recall. And you're going to disagree with it when it's a politician
00:27:27.620
you do like, who's on your side. Well, if the person's principled, they wouldn't. I mean,
00:27:30.820
I wouldn't want to see one against Nietzsche because it would just be a waste of paper,
00:27:34.020
a waste of pounding the street. I'd love to see Nietzsche gone. I've got no use for the man.
00:27:37.220
But I wouldn't sign the petition. He was popularly elected in, in Edmonton Strathcona. Nobody
00:27:42.500
other than NDP is ever going to win that seat. Quit wasting time. Let's get on the bigger issues.
00:27:47.700
But yeah, well, it's interesting to see what's going to happen because if they come out and
00:27:50.820
shoot down their own legislation, it will undercut the ECP. It'll look bad. It would
00:27:55.300
look bad if they did. I think they could, you know, there's some tweaking on the administrative
00:27:59.940
side. I actually think you should not have to live specifically in it in the constituency because
00:28:04.980
the boundaries are so often arbitrary. You're on one side of the street or you're on the other.
00:28:08.500
I think maybe they should say you have to live in it or in an adjacent riding to it. So like
00:28:12.340
you're living in the general area. So even a gerrymandered riding, people who are naturally a part
00:28:17.620
of that area can still participate. I think that... But can't vote.
00:28:21.140
Well, no, no. Only people in that riding can vote and sign a petition to recall, but they could go
00:28:26.020
into there and, you know, carry... Up on jurors and carry petitions.
00:28:29.700
Yeah, because we allow it for elections. Why would we not allow it for this? That's...
00:28:32.900
Well, maybe we shouldn't allow it for elections. But with elections, it's a party and it's a
00:28:35.780
provincial-wide thing, which is a little different. I mean, we know exactly what will happen if you
00:28:41.620
You got to buy elections. You got to buy elections. Yeah.
00:28:42.980
People come in from around the country to go for a bargain. And that's what will happen with these
00:28:47.700
if we open it right up. So old Gil and his gang of union hacks are just going to flood into a
00:28:51.780
constituency and pound every door a hundred times over. People will sign just to get these union nuts
00:28:56.340
to stop harassing them. Well, that's what people were going to do against J.C. Kenney. But from the
00:28:59.460
right, get rid of them. They shouldn't have done that either on the local level. Get rid of them as
00:29:03.860
a leader. But as far as an MLA goes, I think that's up to the constituents. Yeah. Well, in this case,
00:29:08.340
the conservatives have a fairly thin majority. So actually, if you got just a few, boom, all of a
00:29:13.940
sudden, the government's lost its majority. And at that point, you're not going to get
00:29:17.060
by-alarm. The premier just calls an election. Yeah. Which is what would happen.
00:29:20.580
That's what would happen. And I mean, you never know what's going to happen. But based on the polls,
00:29:25.540
I don't think it's going to be... You'll be a careful what you wish for
00:29:29.460
circumstances like Fabio and his referendum petition. Thanks again, John. Thanks for that. Thanks for
00:29:36.260
calling an early election. Because I tell you, there's a lot of people in the ECP who would
00:29:40.820
like to call an early election right now. Renew their mandate. They're strong in the polls.
00:29:44.740
They got money in the bank. They're ready for an election. But it looks bad to call an early
00:29:49.780
election, especially when you've got a fixed election date. Daniel Smith remembers what happened
00:29:52.900
to Jim Prentiss. Yeah. I mean, this would give them all the excuse that they need. That'd be a pretty
00:29:58.020
good one. Okay. Oh, geez. Okay. We're going to talk about this one. Late-term abortions.
00:30:10.580
So I think what's called Right Now, it's a kind of student pro-life group came out to put out
00:30:18.180
a documentary around late-term abortions. And then what's the term? Live birth abortions,
00:30:26.580
which is about the most horrific form it can take. I mean, we're told late-term... Canada is
00:30:36.260
pretty much the only country, if not the only country on the planet that has no legislative
00:30:40.980
framework of any kind around abortion. It's just kind of a black hole. It's a legislative hole. It's
00:30:46.580
not technically legal. It's not technically illegal. It's just there. It's floating in space. And
00:30:54.420
we're told that late-term abortions do not happen on an elective basis. It's just not a thing.
00:31:03.380
They're extremely rare. And they're for medically necessary purposes. And if that was the case,
00:31:10.340
where if a woman is going to die, I mean, of course, we should not have two people die.
00:31:16.660
But it's a terrible situation. But yeah, of course, I think most people would agree with that.
00:31:25.140
But that is not actually what is happening here. So this group, they put out their documentary,
00:31:31.940
and they went around to a number of abortion clinics, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, I think.
00:31:36.180
And it was a woman. She went in, over 20 weeks pregnant, says, I want an abortion. I'm like,
00:31:44.660
okay. Like, no problem. Casual. No, okay. She says, any restrictions? I'm like, no. I mean,
00:31:51.940
she's like, do I have to be at risk or anything? Or just like, I just want to end it. And she's
00:31:56.820
obviously got an undercover camera here. And they're just, like, blase. Like, this is just a
00:32:05.780
normal administrative thing. No, like, are you? They didn't even say, are you sure? Have you
00:32:11.300
thought about this? It's just, yeah, okay. Step right up. Don't be shy. When they've got some
00:32:18.180
damning numbers. Um, uh, so these late-term abortion, uh, abortions, uh, was it? See,
00:32:28.100
all of the, yeah, the KN Institute for Health Information says, uh, it's normally over a
00:32:33.380
thousand a year. Um, normally this, I think last year was down a bit, but it was normally well over
00:32:39.380
a thousand. There were a, not including Quebec, I guess Quebec's got different numbers. There were
00:32:44.020
123 live birth abortions, and that is where they attempt to kill the fetus inside the womb.
00:32:52.580
Um, and then they go to remove it. The child's removed, and it's still alive. And then they kill
00:32:59.060
it outside the womb, normally with a do not resuscitate. Uh, 28 of those were born alive and
00:33:06.180
viable in Alberta alone and allowed to die. I hate this topic, but like, uh, I watched this
00:33:13.700
thing. It's the ultimate third braille in Canadian politics. Uh, if you, you can't watch this and,
00:33:19.860
and, and, and read this and not think we've got to do something, Nigel.
00:33:24.820
Yes. Well, first of all, let's dispose of a couple of things. One is there is no credibility
00:33:32.180
issue here. When I first arrived in Alberta 25 years ago, the Alberta report, our distinguished
00:33:38.420
ancestor had just published a story about live births at, at the, uh, general hospital.
00:33:49.540
They had a nurse who spoke to them. They had names, they had everything. And this particular
00:33:54.580
nurse explained how, when babies were born alive after an abortion, they just put them on the slab
00:34:01.380
and let them die. And there was scandal and outrage. And in the end, they told the nurses,
00:34:07.700
just shut up and do your job. And that's, that, that was the government approach. Um,
00:34:15.060
but it happens when it, it really does happen. It's not as rare as we were told.
00:34:20.180
And it's been going on for 25 years that I can speak to, and I'm sure it was going on before that.
00:34:24.740
And then in our, in the Western standard, a few days ago, Richard Durr, who is, uh, you know,
00:34:32.580
he's a pro-life activist. He's definitely going to do it like Alberta. Yeah. Pro-life Alberta. Yeah.
00:34:36.900
I mean, this is not an entirely impartial source. Nevertheless, in a letter from Alberta's health
00:34:43.140
minister, Adriana Lagrange, he quotes this line, please know that there is no evidence of live birth
00:34:50.500
abortions in Alberta. I mean, that's just not true. We had, uh, 28. This is from the, if I'm not
00:34:59.540
mistaken, this is from the Canadian Institute of Health Information. Yes. So that's not some, uh,
00:35:03.780
right-wing pro-life Christian fanatic. Exactly. Um, and I, I don't know whether Ms. Lagrange wrote
00:35:11.380
that herself or whether that was prepared for a signature by, by somebody within the ministry. Um,
00:35:17.300
um, but it is not true. And that is the, one of the difficulties that we have with this whole issue
00:35:25.700
is knowing what to believe because the people who want abortion and like abortion and feel that it's
00:35:31.700
a right for women will certainly deny, deny, deny. Uh, in my earlier incarnation, while I was on the,
00:35:39.860
uh, on an editorial board, I visited an abortion clinic with other members of the editorial board.
00:35:47.220
We sat down with somebody who was performing abortions and I said, doesn't it bother you that
00:35:53.460
they, the, the thing that you are trying to abort is feeling pain? You wouldn't even do that to a puppy.
00:36:01.300
Oh, they don't feel pain. That is just not true. When you see images where the needle goes in,
00:36:10.500
the fetus, the baby is squirming and riddling and trying to get away from it. It is the most horrific
00:36:18.740
thing to say. Of course they feel bloody pain. What do these people believe? So it is incredibly hard
00:36:27.220
to have a sensible conversation about abortion because people will deny what is manifestly obvious. And
00:36:35.060
you have, I mean, I use CIHI statistics all the time when I'm talking about COVID. I have no reason to
00:36:43.460
believe that they are wrong when they say that there were a thousand hundreds to a thousand
00:36:52.340
live births. Yeah. That's not even just late term. That's live abortions where it, where a late term
00:36:57.060
abortion fails and the child is still born. So I, you know, this was something I didn't, I didn't get.
00:37:04.820
I had to, I had to ask the question, if you are attacking a baby inside a womb with the standard
00:37:14.020
vacuum cleaner apparatus that we read about, how does anything survive being sucked into a jet engine?
00:37:21.060
Well, the answer is that in certain circumstances, they don't use that technology.
00:37:26.340
They use the injection and then they hold the baby out with the forceps.
00:37:32.820
This is pretty graphic stuff. And I apologize for people who are put off for it. And by the way,
00:37:40.180
in this tragic situation, this is not an anti-woman rant on my part. So often the people who want the
00:37:48.740
abortion more than the woman is the man who's involved in the case. There's a lot of women who have abortions
00:37:54.660
who don't actually want them, but somebody else does. Anyway, leaving that aside and God bless the people
00:38:01.140
who do it, you know, who regret it. Here we have this, this frightful situation where the baby comes out
00:38:12.420
and they just leave it on the slide. Where is the humanity? I, I, I cannot.
00:38:18.900
Yeah. And people don't like discussing it. It's, it's a squeamish, a challenging area. And a lot of
00:38:26.020
people don't even realize it or know it. We are unregulated as Derek said. I think it's through
00:38:29.620
Morgenthaler in the past where that came about. We just have nothing there, which technically means
00:38:34.180
there's nothing to stop this. And we, you know, countries, most countries have some degree of
00:38:39.620
regulation. They draw a line usually around viability. Yeah. And kind of third trimester.
00:38:44.740
Yeah. And, and we're getting well beyond that when live babies are being delivered and this is
00:38:48.820
really problematic. And we got to quit making that excuse. Look, if you snip the umbilical cord,
00:38:52.900
even a premature one and put it into an incubator and then somebody came along and stabbed it,
00:38:56.740
they will be charged with murder. But if it turns out they're saying, well, I wanted an abortion. Well,
00:39:01.060
then we'll let that same child, same one, die. Now we're playing semantics with a murder is what
00:39:07.060
we're doing. And I know nobody likes to talk about it. I'm a libertarian. I, I do believe, you know,
00:39:12.100
that's a separate discussion on early term, uh, ability to do that. You've been pro-choice for a
00:39:18.900
very long time. I have. But even you think that there's got the alliance. The line has to be somewhere
00:39:22.900
in viability. We, we've got a lot of science to start in other countries we could look at with,
00:39:26.900
with where a line can be drawn. And right now when we have that void, but no politician wants to touch it
00:39:30.740
with a 10 foot pole. Also, because anyone who says there should be a line somewhere,
00:39:34.340
even an extremely generous to the pro-choice side line, they'll say, well, that's just the
00:39:41.060
split-degree slots of banning. You know, it's, it's become so fanatical. There was a great old
00:39:44.420
movie that really didn't do that great, I think, but, uh, it was called Citizen Ruth. If you might
00:39:48.980
remember it from the early nineties, it had Burt Reynolds and a few others, but it kind of showed the
00:39:52.740
insanity of both sides. It was a, a glue huffer who was found pregnant and pro-lifers have gotten old
00:39:58.500
ever. And it turned into a big fight between the crazed pro-life bunches and the crazed pro-choice
00:40:03.380
bunches. And it really did show both sides as being fanatically crazed on each end of it, kind of.
00:40:08.740
And I mean, it's serious business, but I mean, that it really, there's no room for nuance anymore.
00:40:15.540
Back when I was, you know, I'll give it a little personal. When I was 20, I had gotten a girl
00:40:19.460
pregnant. We went to, cause we weren't sure what we wanted to do. And we went down town. It used to be out
00:40:24.820
by the, the Cecil, actually the family planning clinic, but, uh, and by the way, that's my son.
00:40:29.940
We made our choice to keep, but when we chatted about it, we wanted to hear all options. We really
00:40:34.580
did. But that person, that counselor or whatever sat with us, there was only one option in her world.
00:40:39.540
Abort, abort, abort, abort. That's all she was doing was convincing. You guys are too young. You
00:40:44.100
aren't in a condition to deal with this. You really must. And we can set you up and giving it, well, again,
00:40:48.900
what were the other options? What about adoption? What about, you know, supports if we want to raise it
00:40:53.460
ourselves, all of that. We didn't get any of that. That's just one example, but that really did sour
00:40:58.740
me on the advocates for this. We really did want to come in there and hear about all the options on
00:41:03.460
the table. We've got advocates who were married to one end or another. And those advocates are, again,
00:41:11.940
they want no regulation under any circumstance. Uh, I don't want to see it as advocates on someone who
00:41:16.740
want to see it, you know, illegalized from the point of conception. Uh, I would like to see a line
00:41:22.820
drawn somewhere. And I think viability is kind of where we can start. Yeah. Well, yeah.
00:41:29.540
You know, the other thing, Derek, we want to see a few lines drawn around
00:41:33.060
life at the other end, too. Medical assistance and dying.
00:41:42.340
Um, I mean, where you draw the line, I mean, there's only one really clear line and that would
00:41:48.020
be the hard pro-life side, which is conception. Okay. I'm not prepared to draw it there. Um,
00:41:54.980
even if you think that is like, and you know, but I actually do think that's probably where life
00:42:02.980
Yeah. I mean, that is probably where life is, but I mean, it's probably,
00:42:05.860
it's just not a practical place to draw it. Um, somewhere, you know, towards the end of the
00:42:12.820
first trimester is probably a reasonable place. If it's going to be after that, it's got to be where
00:42:16.660
it's absolutely medically necessary. The woman's life is at risk, that kind of thing. But we just
00:42:23.460
are so fixated ideologically in this country. I mean, look at Europe, these crazy dumb ass
00:42:32.420
liberal Europeans, every single one of them, every single European country has some line somewhere.
00:42:39.060
And, you know, and there's a spectrum about where they are.
00:42:42.180
Ireland, I think, had it too strict at one point and a woman died as a result.
00:42:45.620
That was too far in one way. Um, but very, very liberal countries, France, Germany,
00:42:52.500
Britain, uh, Spain, like all, all these, you know, run by lefty countries, they all don't allow this.
00:43:00.340
This is, this is not cool. Um, and I get the conservatives are terrified. They don't want to
00:43:06.420
touch it. And there are things that actually could be done provincially in the provincial
00:43:09.460
government's response. When I was a provincial politician to federal jurisdiction. Well, yes,
00:43:13.700
on the criminal code it is, the administration of healthcare is provincial. And you could decide
00:43:18.500
not to allow this in, in these most extreme cases, because they are not exceedingly rare.
00:43:24.580
They're not the majority of abortion cases, but they're not rare. And they are brutally violent.
00:43:30.260
I said, you wouldn't do it to a puppy. I wouldn't do it to a gopher. So at least what I do to a gopher is a lot more.
00:43:42.660
Jesus, you do it from a distance with a 22. I mean, here's the reality too. And that's quick. I'm glad
00:43:47.860
that they're bringing it to public attention. And hopefully maybe at least it has some impact on some
00:43:53.380
of the women, young women are making decisions and planning and then maybe see the horrors of
00:43:58.260
what waiting too long might turn into a doctorate. This is ghoulish. That too. This is ghoulish.
00:44:03.300
We also know politically, we've been at it so long, the chances of any politician initiate,
00:44:06.980
they're not going to, no, no one's going to touch this. So all you can do is public information and hope
00:44:11.060
for the best right now. Anyways, unless something dramatically changes. Yeah. Okay. I hated that,
00:44:17.860
but you know what? Uh, so anyway, hats off, probably for Alberta, Richard, uh, and, uh,
00:44:24.420
the right now group. Uh, I I'm not with them on a hundred percent of where they go with these things,
00:44:28.500
but I, I think they've done a real public service bringing this forward in a very
00:44:33.140
tasteful way. This wasn't a bunch of graphic images designed to turn so much stomach. I think
00:44:36.740
they, they made a logical argument actually, and they did journalism here, going out, getting
00:44:41.620
information, video, proving their case. So hats off to them. That was, that was good work.
00:44:46.340
Yeah. The front page of the national post of the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Good one.
00:44:50.660
Okay. Uh, do I have enough time for mine, but you two get a parting shot. We'll, uh, start with
00:44:57.060
Nigel. Well, yeah, I had something else in mind, but you know, what I would say is that if they did
00:45:02.420
outside the womb to a child, what they do inside the womb to an unborn baby, we wouldn't be having
00:45:07.940
this discussion. It wouldn't be allowed. Yeah. Well, and you know, we don't even, uh, we're not even
00:45:12.020
willing to, when a, when a person murders an obviously pregnant woman, uh, we don't give them
00:45:19.220
two counts of murder in Canada, even though that's very often the intent is it's kind of abortion by
00:45:25.300
execution of the mother. It's a man who doesn't want the child that happens. And we, they still
00:45:30.820
only get one count of murder. Uh, God, we're messed up. Corey, take us through another topic.
00:45:38.500
I'll just go through it. It's healthcare, but not nearly as, as, as rough, but, uh, I, I like that,
00:45:42.580
uh, Premier Smith has released bill 11. I just love the irony that I remember bill 11 when Ralph
00:45:46.740
Klein did it. Yeah. We're looking at healthcare reform and he backed off and he said that was
00:45:50.260
one of his great regrets. Uh, I hope Premier Smith does not because we need healthcare reform
00:45:54.820
terribly. Uh, please, Ms. Smith, stand your ground on this one. Let's get that, uh, private public,
00:46:00.900
uh, ability out there because our system's failing and people can't deny it anymore.
00:46:05.780
All right. Gentlemen, Nigel, Corey, John around the studio. Thank you very much.
00:46:12.900
Thank all of you for joining us today on the pipeline. Remember, if you're not a member,
00:46:17.140
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00:46:22.260
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00:46:26.580
and get past the paywall blocking you from getting the very best news in the West. Oh,
00:46:32.020
yeah. And one last thing, uh, the United Conservative Party's AGM is this weekend.
00:46:37.700
The Western standard crew is headed north, uh, to cover it all weekend in Edmonton. We are going
00:46:44.820
to be throwing a very large, very loud and boisterous hospitality suite. The Western standard rager,
00:46:52.260
we're calling it, um, free drinks, free food. It's going to be a lot of fun to be right at the
00:46:57.540
convention grounds. So if you're, uh, an Alberta unit conservative party member or visiting from
00:47:02.420
out of province and you go into the convention, uh, come on by and have a drink on us. Thank you