Western Standard - The Pipeline： Early election？ Trudeau reneges on deal with NDP

00:00:00.000 good evening i'm cory morgan welcome to the pipeline this is the western standards weekly

00:00:18.060 news panel show where we kind of share our opinions dissect some of the issues and come

00:00:24.380 up with all those solutions that you weren't able to come up with on your own so thank you

00:00:28.780 for joining us tonight. Before I get to who we've got on the panel this week, I do have to mention

00:00:34.000 our sponsor. Of course, the reason we could do this is because of fantastic subscribers like

00:00:38.160 you. I know you've subscribed. And as well, the sponsors, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:00:44.000 They've been sponsoring us for a long time, and they're a fantastic group. If you own firearms,

00:00:48.840 you plan on owning firearms, you support the right of others to own firearms, you got to be a member

00:00:53.680 of these guys. They stand up for your rights. You've got a government that really wants to take

00:00:58.500 away your ability to enjoy firearms. And if you don't, you're going to lose that right. So check

00:01:03.580 them out, guys. They got all sorts of other resources there too, like any other association

00:01:07.180 would, whether it's to sporting events and things such as that. Canadian Shooting Sports Association,

00:01:11.680 their website is cssa-cila.org, or just Google them, check them out, take out a membership.

00:01:18.200 It's well worth it. It's an investment in yourself. All right, let's get on to who our

00:01:23.420 panelists are today. I neglected improperly introducing you guys last week, so I won't be

00:01:28.120 so rude today. I'll start with Nigel. Though our opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford, is at the end of

00:01:35.920 the table this evening. Thanks for coming in to talk to us. It's always a pleasure. I'm at the

00:01:40.940 end of the table because damned energy reporters scooped my seat. Yes, well, it's a first come, 0.99

00:01:45.400 first serve. We're merit-based around here. Normally, I've got Dave on this.

00:01:50.200 All right. And in the middle, stealing Nigel's typical spot. Well, we are graced for the

00:01:56.420 appearance of our energy and business writer, reporter, Sean Polzer. Welcome into the studio

00:02:02.600 rather than coming in remotely for a change. Thank you. All right. So we've got lots to cover

00:02:08.020 as always. We've only got three subjects really going to hit, but they've got a lot within them.

00:02:12.160 I guess we'll start with you, Sean. I mean, we saw the story in the Western Standard and it's

00:02:18.580 up there, westernstandard.news. Trudeau is not following up on his deal with Jagmeet Singh.

00:02:25.800 Like, what have we got going on here?

00:02:28.380 That's a very interesting conundrum, I would think,

00:02:32.360 because on the one hand, you have the prime minister

00:02:34.940 who's not following the deal,

00:02:36.000 and then on the other hand, you have the NDP leader

00:02:38.120 that's not pulling the pin on the deal

00:02:39.860 and seems to be kind of going along with it.

00:02:44.640 So we kind of had this discussion in the morning meeting

00:02:47.580 that what would it take to bring down the government

00:02:52.480 and trigger off an early election?

00:02:54.900 And I think the consensus was a leadership crisis, wouldn't it?

00:03:00.560 Well, that's certainly one aspect of it.

00:03:02.680 I mean, just for background here, for people who don't follow this stuff quite as closely as we do,

00:03:07.700 at the end of the, at the 2021 election, the Liberals, led by Mr. Trudeau, came out with less than a majority.

00:03:16.140 It was 338 seats in the House.

00:03:20.400 They had 160.

00:03:21.680 So they could have carried on as a minority.

00:03:26.180 I mean, Harper governed with less.

00:03:28.740 But they did this deal with the NDP for the sake of assurance and comfort.

00:03:34.940 And the NDP had 25 seats.

00:03:37.480 So the 160 plus the 25, now they've got a comfortable operating majority.

00:03:41.640 But the deal was, the deal was that by December the 31st of this year,

00:03:48.140 there would be legislation for pharma care.

00:03:52.380 That's what the NDP said was their position.

00:03:57.160 Singh didn't ask for, or he said he didn't get a position in cabinet,

00:04:00.600 which a lot of his members said, well, if you're going to make

00:04:03.180 what's effectively a coalition with the liberals,

00:04:07.580 then you should at least be in the cabinet.

00:04:09.180 No, they didn't get that.

00:04:10.240 But they said there would be this, that there would be a pharma care deal.

00:04:14.620 Well, it's not here.

00:04:16.600 parliament wraps up at the end of next week and there is no time in the 11 days

00:04:24.960 for them to get that done the thing is though i don't think the liberals can ever have really

00:04:31.500 meant to get it done because they have had control of the parliamentary calendar ever since the

00:04:37.900 election so it's more than two years if this if they meant to keep that deal they would have got

00:04:42.680 it on the table they would have got it into the house they would have got it through the free

00:04:47.140 reading senate approval and wireless sent like a number of other things that they have done

00:04:52.220 but they didn't do it so my suspicion is that they never meant to do it but they were glad to have

00:04:59.460 two years of peace of reasonable assurance to get them through and or two years yeah two for two

00:05:08.420 years so what strikes me as strange is how little fuss the ndp seemed to be making about it i mean

00:05:18.260 i would have expected that they've been screwed so they would be complaining about it they'd be

00:05:23.620 angry press conferences condemning the you know how untrustworthy the liberals were

00:05:29.380 it's like i said in my like my column on on this matter which published about an hour ago usually

00:05:35.300 if you do a deal with the devil the devil pays up front i mean it all it all works out terribly

00:05:42.260 for you later but meanwhile you do at least they didn't even get that so they have been totally

00:05:49.540 hosed they know it but they're not complaining about it so what's going down i i suspect that

00:05:57.140 mr singh now that his support cannot be taken for granted will exact a higher price for his support

00:06:08.580 if he decides to give it in the weeks going forward so we have now entered this period of

00:06:14.740 great uncertainty how far will the liberals be able to go how far will mr singh back them

00:06:23.060 Now, you would also say, well, the other question here is,

00:06:27.820 Mr. Trudeau was depending on this deal to keep his government afloat.

00:06:32.760 He just sort of let it dribble away.

00:06:34.660 Why would he do that?

00:06:36.220 Well, maybe he actually has decided that his leadership is so weak.

00:06:40.700 And this is the point that you were coming to here with the discussion we had this morning.

00:06:44.980 his position is so weak that he's actually got a better chance of staying on as prime minister

00:06:53.740 if he goes to an election he may not win but he might whereas if he does nothing they'll have him

00:07:03.880 out of there before easter the support within the liberal party for mr trudeau right now

00:07:09.380 very, very low. And I think that he's vulnerable to a coup. This possible election is his easiest

00:07:18.320 and best chance of staying on for a little longer. Well, I think the person who has the most to lose

00:07:23.220 if the deal falls apart is actually Jagmeet Singh, because he's in the driver's seat right now.

00:07:31.500 He's got a lot of influence within the Liberal government, and as long as he props it out,

00:07:36.340 then he gets to be the de facto deputy prime minister if he lets it slide and the liberals

00:07:42.440 lose i don't agree with you i mean they've taken him for granted for two years doesn't matter what

00:07:47.240 he wants he wanted this he didn't get it now if it doesn't suit mr trudeau to be brought down on

00:07:54.340 any given day in january or february they may actually have to listen to what jagmeet singh

00:08:00.260 wants he's in a better position now than he's been for quite a while because he's not bound

00:08:05.120 up until now he's been banned. The silence has been deafening though. I mean, perhaps he's been

00:08:10.160 complicit. I mean, he knew this bill isn't forthcoming. Why didn't he speak up a month ago,

00:08:14.740 two months ago when he would draft it or even draft a private member's bill from the NDP and

00:08:19.160 say, here, and if you guys don't support it, then our deal is off. I don't know about him being

00:08:25.280 screwed so much as just being over a barrel. That could be. The other thought that struck me 0.96

00:08:30.860 Kind of on the other hand, is that if an election were held today, then there's a pretty good chance that he would become leader of the opposition.

00:08:39.100 Mr. Singh.

00:08:39.880 Yes, and so I guess the question is, does he want to be in a supply and confidence arrangement with a minority government,

00:08:45.960 or does he actually want to be the opposition leader?

00:08:47.740 I don't know what suits his purposes more.

00:08:52.260 It might help his pride a little more to be the leader of the opposition.

00:08:56.300 He can move into Stornoway, redecorate with Versace and whatever other, you know, designer items he wants to add to his opulent tastes.

00:09:07.300 They're not tearing down Stornoway, are they?

00:09:11.760 Yeah, but these are things you'll have to think about in the next one.

00:09:13.840 Because he seemed to have been celebratory with minor, relatively minor wins.

00:09:18.320 You know, they brought in legislation banning replacement workers for federally regulated industries if they're unionized in strikes.

00:09:27.340 I mean, I'm not thrilled with that development either, but he proed that that was part of his process from Justin Trudeau.

00:09:34.880 Well, that wasn't the keystone to his deal.

00:09:37.480 The PharmaCare deal was such.

00:09:39.520 I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is an election within the next six months that the Liberals grab Pharmacare and make that one of their key planks. They've done it before.

00:09:49.860 Well, that would be quite an irony that, you know, you break your deal, you go to the polls because you didn't table a Pharmacare bill. And then when you're at the polls, you put out as a campaign promise, Pharmacare bill.

00:10:03.280 I don't know. They've done that before.

00:10:05.520 Well, nothing surprises anymore.

00:10:08.460 But boy,

00:10:09.640 what a bizarre turn of events.

00:10:11.860 But everything has been nothing but one bizarre

00:10:13.680 turn of events after another.

00:10:15.800 Boy, we'd have some fun shows going over

00:10:17.760 that if that's the case.

00:10:20.260 Versace.

00:10:21.020 Well, a lot of it is wondering

00:10:23.360 what does Jagmeet Singh want?

00:10:25.960 He's that variable

00:10:27.440 in there. He's as close to power as he'll

00:10:29.680 ever be. He knows that.

00:10:31.860 And, you know, being a kingmaker, in a sense, in a minority government, I don't think, to be honest, that's my opinion, is the interests of it.

00:10:42.420 He's not the ideological NDP type that others put him out to be.

00:10:45.480 He's a champagne socialist.

00:10:46.980 That's why we make fun of him with his Rolex and his Versace and his other such things.

00:10:51.640 It's points of pride with him.

00:10:53.200 So which scenario would feed his pride better?

00:10:56.680 leader of the opposition or being Trudeau's second, you know,

00:11:01.500 tenant in the government, I guess he is.

00:11:03.420 I can't imagine that for the past two years he's had much that he feels very

00:11:08.080 proud of.

00:11:08.780 You mentioned a couple of things there, but, you know,

00:11:12.760 like where's the suspense, where's the drama, you know,

00:11:15.080 that he's going to back the government,

00:11:16.480 so the government does what it wants to do.

00:11:19.000 It has all been on the basis of this promise that it would appear was never

00:11:23.400 meant to be kept.

00:11:24.040 Well, and at some point, if the liberals, the fate of the liberals keeps on going down,

00:11:28.680 you'd have to think that it's going to drag down the NDP.

00:11:32.180 There must be some point where he starts to wonder about, maybe it's just better to cut

00:11:37.320 this guy loose.

00:11:38.320 It's a credibility issue.

00:11:39.320 Oh, there certainly is, but I mean, this was how the thing, this is how the conservatives

00:11:44.800 won their 2011 election, you know, the election that gave them the majority is when the left-wing

00:11:54.480 vote went so far to the NDP. You remember the orange wave and that sweep through Quebec and,

00:12:01.600 you know, people who just allowed their names to sit on an election ballot for the sake of,

00:12:06.880 you know, party unity. One woman won, she didn't even speak French, and she took a Quebec seat.

00:12:10.960 Well, that's right. She was down there playing the slots in Las Vegas, 1.00

00:12:14.160 and got this phone call you've just been elected to the vote what no you're kidding me you know

00:12:19.440 but it was true she was and she wasn't the worst of the ndp ndp mps either so it's uh but that's

00:12:28.960 when the left-wing vote splits if it all goes to the liberals it'll never all go to the ndp

00:12:35.200 but the liberals really grabbed that vote back in 2015 from the NDP and then they were able to form

00:12:45.400 their own majority government but they've been losing it. Every election since 2019, 2021

00:12:53.220 the liberal vote has been going down. They've lost probably about a million votes from the

00:12:59.440 six and a half million that they started with in 2015. I think in 2021 they were down to around

00:13:04.800 five point something. It was really a sad show. The NDP, meanwhile, has been holding steady,

00:13:11.880 and the Conservative vote has been coming up. So I think we're now ready to just 10 years,

00:13:18.160 well, it's eight years, but you know, it's getting to that.

00:13:21.360 There's got to be pressure coming from within the NDP too, though. I mean, they're, again,

00:13:25.280 they're hardcore supporters. Their stalwarts are very ideologically driven. They joined the federal

00:13:29.480 NDP on principle, knowing that the odds of their party ever forming a majority power structure are

00:13:36.280 very slim. They want to win on their points of principle, get their things done. And they're not

00:13:41.300 like conservatives. When conservatives are upset with our leaders, we know because they're screaming

00:13:44.400 it on every rooftop and every quarter and cutting it down. Left wing parties, they still have

00:13:49.980 discontent, but they keep it internalized. There's got to be some that are saying to Jagmeet, that's

00:13:54.700 enough pragmatism we've got to start making a stand you know there's got to be closed door

00:13:59.500 pressure coming upon him i think maybe that's going to swing him to start making solid demands

00:14:04.940 like okay pharma care now that's it that was the deal yeah yeah you know there's one thing i

00:14:09.800 obviously ideologically i got very little uh support for any ndp ideas but i do admire this

00:14:16.960 thing about the average ndp supporter they're prepared to reach into their pocket and give

00:14:22.100 their own money to the party it was very evident before the chrétien reforms 20 years ago which

00:14:29.160 gave us this per vote per capita grant from the government none of us like but back in those days

00:14:37.900 you know the the conservatives and the ndp would both have large mailing lists who all sent small

00:14:44.320 notes the liberals used to just meet somebody at the restaurant and uh on somerset uh avenue there

00:14:52.960 in ottawa was it mama theresa's you know they'd walk in there was a little back room i took my

00:14:58.640 wife there one day just to just to shore just to give her the sense of it you know and the waiters

00:15:03.760 said well you know you can we can put you there this is where the money chain stands you know so

00:15:08.080 you walk in the envelope goes across the table twenty thousand dollars in it from a big law firm

00:15:13.120 or a major company, and that's how the Liberals used to raise money.

00:15:17.760 It was so not the People's Party.

00:15:20.720 The NDP supporters, they would reach into their pockets,

00:15:24.100 just like the Conservative supporters would,

00:15:27.060 and there'd be $5 here and $20 there and $100 here.

00:15:31.640 That's a big one.

00:15:33.140 They actually believed in their own BS enough to put their own money behind it.

00:15:37.980 They were populists.

00:15:38.560 They were populists.

00:15:39.900 You've got to respect that, and I think that's still the way.

00:15:43.120 When you see the reporting numbers coming out of who's getting what,

00:15:47.480 the NDP is very well funded by its own supporters.

00:15:51.440 For a small party, they get a lot of money.

00:15:53.640 Well, I remember the Reform Party being at a rally in Edmonton,

00:15:57.580 and it was like the collection plate at church.

00:16:00.720 They were passing out, you know, boxes, right?

00:16:02.480 It was the KFC bucket, you know.

00:16:05.540 If there wasn't enough in it, they went around again, you know.

00:16:10.540 The Lord is not satisfied.

00:16:13.120 The Wildrose Party ones, we'd pass the cowboy hat.

00:16:17.260 But I mean, it was a big, but that's part of when you're up and coming too.

00:16:20.320 That's part of when you're in opposition.

00:16:21.500 Once you get in power, it's not even as if you have to solicit the big donors.

00:16:24.880 They're going to knock on your door and they're going to say, you know, we'd really like to buy a little love.

00:16:29.640 Maybe they might not put it that way, but we know you don't donate to a party unless you're expecting some degree of policy to reflect your values.

00:16:36.000 So all of this is to the point that the NDP supporters, the true believers down there, are going to be wanting more from Mr. Singh than this.

00:16:44.540 Exactly. That's kind of what I was saying.

00:16:46.360 They've got to be getting a little tired of it, too.

00:16:48.200 I mean, at one point, they'd rather die on a hill of principle, I think, than sell their soul to try and get a little more power in the automobile.

00:16:54.840 But they also have nowhere to go.

00:16:56.040 I mean, NDP supports typically around 20%.

00:16:59.000 They could go green.

00:16:59.740 It goes up or down.

00:17:00.620 They could go to the green pocket.

00:17:01.740 But I could see an NDP member saying, you know, look, Jake, we get this concession or we go to the polls.

00:17:08.020 I'm willing to lose our deal and give up on what this whole agreement was about two years ago.

00:17:13.720 There's got to be some of them saying that. 0.99

00:17:14.900 Well, the deal is dumb. 0.94

00:17:15.800 I mean, it's not been, they haven't kept it. 0.97

00:17:19.900 I guess we'll find out, eh?

00:17:21.320 Yeah.

00:17:22.160 If there's an early election, I mean, that's a desperate hope for Trudeau.

00:17:26.380 I mean, things are looking pretty bleak for him right now.

00:17:29.460 But, boy, I just can't imagine diving into a general election.

00:17:32.840 I mean, things change.

00:17:33.760 You know, in an election period, it's amazing how much can change.

00:17:36.520 But he is in the toilet.

00:17:38.520 I mean, those numbers are staggeringly low.

00:17:44.040 Start night of the soul.

00:17:45.440 Yes, we're in for an interesting year, as always.

00:17:48.660 Well, let's get a little more into another battle.

00:17:50.320 It's federal, provincial. 0.99

00:17:52.300 And Danielle Smith, I mean, that was her main platform point in the leadership.

00:17:57.060 and it was her first policy, I believe, is becoming creamier, is the Sovereignty Act,

00:18:01.040 and she has now invoked it.

00:18:04.520 Yeah.

00:18:05.740 What does that mean?

00:18:07.640 That's a really good question.

00:18:09.080 What exactly does it mean?

00:18:10.360 I'm still trying to sort it out myself, to be honest.

00:18:12.840 It was funny because she got the question at the press conference from a reporter up in Edmonton.

00:18:19.120 I couldn't see him because I could just hear him, but it was kind of to the effect of, like,

00:18:23.880 are you doing this for show just to draw attention to yourself?

00:18:26.800 She said, yeah, that's exactly what we're doing, you know, like there's, there's not, she wasn't quite so blase.

00:18:35.080 Oh, she was.

00:18:36.020 Well, she said, no, I want the courts to understand, I want the courts to understand what we're about here.

00:18:41.840 When this comes before the courts, this is the reasoning that we're going to give.

00:18:45.720 And I said, like, what are you trying to do, draw attention to it?

00:18:47.780 She goes, yeah, you know, unabashed about it.

00:18:50.640 Part of the point from that reporter, which I think was kind of valid, he asked, what is this empowering you to do that you didn't already have?

00:18:56.800 the ability to do. And I'm not seeing anything. I mean, I'm seeing that it can be a useful

00:19:02.060 act. I'm not dismissing the whole thing, but nothing new really is coming up. It's just

00:19:05.620 kind of perhaps packing it together into a bill that can help take things to the federal

00:19:11.240 government, to the courts in one package rather than a few different efforts.

00:19:15.580 Well, I think the idea is to get the federal government to go to the court and they've

00:19:20.100 already said that they're not going to do it. So they're just going to ignore it. So

00:19:23.300 I don't know what that means. I don't know if they're going to try and claim that it's against the law to resist these regulations, which haven't really come into effect yet, and weren't really supposed to come into effect until next spring sometime, and they're still negotiating, and you've got these ongoing negotiations, and now you've got this COP28, something happening in Dubai, where there's going to be a big head-to-head.

00:19:50.600 It's not just the vote that's going, it's Francelot-Philippe-Champagne is going,

00:19:56.880 and his whole liberal delegation, and there's going to be a lot of face-to-face meetings.

00:20:03.200 And Premier Smith has been making announcements like every day this week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

00:20:07.960 She's actually had a hell of a communication strategy, much, much better than the Ottawa communication strategy.

00:20:14.740 I mean, all you get is a sort of sour, dour face saying, you know, we're going to insist on our electricity regulations.

00:20:24.420 You're probably better able to reel off the announcements than I am because it's your beat.

00:20:28.380 But what have we had here?

00:20:30.300 We've had the methane targets.

00:20:32.240 Methane targets, carbon capture storage, 8.8 billion so-called clean plastic cracker.

00:20:40.640 We're going to make clean plastic straws.

00:20:43.040 those are the kind to have all right yeah none of this paper crap well it has been interesting

00:20:49.680 though i mean something i've noticed recently i was thinking of writing and i haven't got around

00:20:52.560 to but it's felt this last two months almost as if we're in an election because the communications

00:20:57.840 from the ucp have been like that they're driving the discussion is every week here's the conference

00:21:04.000 here's the change we're making here's what we're doing the next week here's another conference

00:21:07.760 whether it's addictions treatment or it's energy or it's the sovereignty act but there's always

00:21:12.560 something coming up and and uh i think it's been effective but you know former premier notley is

00:21:18.720 always on her heels and reacting uh and the liberals are are kind of flat-footed too like

00:21:23.680 how do you deal with this and it's they're driving the agenda i guess that's my point

00:21:28.000 actually is that as she goes off with the alberta crew to cop 28 i don't know how much of the rest

00:21:36.400 of the world cares about what we do in canada but if they do they have on the one hand this

00:21:44.880 this uh we'll just say that the federal government does not have a very interesting imposing or

00:21:50.720 attractive appearance on the other hand you have got the charismatic let's face it she is charismatic

00:21:58.640 i mean you agree with her or disagree with her but she's not a she's not somebody who you can

00:22:03.600 ignore so there she'll be in cop 28 she's camera fodder for the international crew

00:22:09.840 and she's having a fight with her own government and as she has the fight she has got all of

00:22:15.600 these things that we just discussed stacked up behind her all the good promising progressive

00:22:22.560 we're really trying to get to do the right thing here all of these announcements and they don't

00:22:28.240 and it may or may not work,

00:22:34.260 but nobody can say that they didn't try

00:22:37.000 and that the communications people

00:22:39.540 and the premier's office didn't provide good advice

00:22:42.720 and get it together when they had their marching orders.

00:22:44.800 This has been very well done.

00:22:46.420 She's in complete control of the agenda. 0.73

00:22:48.840 She's driving the agenda. 1.00

00:22:50.380 She's coming at it within this framework 0.96

00:22:53.480 of reducing emissions.

00:22:55.060 We're not reducing oil production.

00:22:56.560 We're reducing emissions.

00:22:58.240 she spoke at an industry luncheon on Friday and even there you know the

00:23:07.340 hosts are already describing her as a transformational leader you know like a

00:23:11.920 once-in-a-generation kind of person that's come along she's done her

00:23:15.400 homework she's completely up on the issues she's on the file she understands

00:23:19.760 it she knows people she's on the ground and I think was our friend Tristan over

00:23:25.620 at IPAC, he made a comment there that it's actually quite surprising that she's managed

00:23:29.780 to get all, you know, her horses.

00:23:33.540 Well, he is only surprised because he didn't know her before.

00:23:37.300 Oh, really?

00:23:37.840 But he said he was surprised that she's done so fast.

00:23:40.660 Yeah, but remember what she was like on the radio?

00:23:42.940 Remember what she was like on the Herald editorial board?

00:23:46.720 She had a grasp of detail and then being able to give it back to you in a form that you

00:23:51.420 could receive it that just left hostile interviews kind of flat-footed and wishing they hadn't come

00:23:57.580 and she was also polite about it. Oh yeah she maintains composure that's something she's always

00:24:02.880 a little different than say Polly Evan that says Polly maintains composure but he'll

00:24:06.140 kind of start slapping back. Premier Smith in between bites she'll just stick to her messaging

00:24:12.580 though and just shake off because she's got a very harsh establishment pushing back on her and 1.00

00:24:19.780 controlling the message. For example, you know, Notley and Deborah Yedlin were hand in hand saying

00:24:24.980 that Daniel Smith is going to drive investment out of Alberta. Well, our population's increasing,

00:24:29.900 we have the highest GDP growth in the country, and now she's just announced any $20 billion

00:24:34.060 project that's going to fire up. They sort of look deflated after that, but we can't get credit for

00:24:39.880 anything either. I see when they announced the carbon capture project, the first thing the CBC

00:24:44.280 put out, as I torture myself in reading their headlines, they found a handful of people who

00:24:48.820 opposed to carbon capture and feel it might damage the environment so no matter what alberta does

00:24:53.060 the state broadcaster is going to say we're bad um it's time to stop pandering well and she's

00:24:59.140 managed to stay on message i mean they you know the knock on premier smith used to be the you know

00:25:04.980 the moonwalk you know when she was gonna go kind of stray off topic when she starts yeah or she 0.98

00:25:10.340 would even use the term blue sky she gets very granular yeah but you know she's managed to keep

00:25:15.060 it tight and focused and straight to the point well she's reined that in she's transformed from 0.94

00:25:20.500 the talk show host to a premier and you know she she stepped in it a few times when when treating

00:25:26.500 i think you know in her early part of her leadership treating as if she was still talk

00:25:29.860 show host well i can speculate or i can talk about or i can put out hypotheticals no you

00:25:34.180 can't do that anymore people are watching your every word and interpreting it and you don't see

00:25:39.380 that anymore i i compared that period of her leadership to somebody who has only ever driven

00:25:44.420 automatic now having to learn to drive a standard but the point is she's got the

00:25:48.500 hang of it oh yeah she's certainly bright enough to talk about somebody who's been

00:25:52.160 able to transform herself yes from you know media member to short-term school

00:25:59.360 board member to opposition leader to catastrophic bad choice as an

00:26:05.200 opposition leader to radio host to premier I mean it's there's gonna be a

00:26:09.620 profound biography written I hope I live long enough to see it you know to

00:26:13.460 document her path. And she's still young. You'd be right again. Maybe. Daniel and I are both 52.

00:26:21.160 We're in that class of 71. So is Trudeau for that matter. Something strange happened that year,

00:26:25.460 I guess. And she's managed to grow into the role as well. She'll change. That's something

00:26:31.540 different than a lot of people. Coming back to your point about why she was asked, yes,

00:26:37.460 why did you need to make this announcement when you could do everything you've talked about?

00:26:43.460 But I think that was part of the communication strategy, which was to say this, the line has always been there, but this, you know, people walk across it and the sand gets kicked around. Nobody really knows where it is. Well, here it is today. This is what we're going to do. And we are going to indemnify the people who run the generating stations so that the federal government cannot come after them.

00:27:09.200 And somebody said to her, what do you mean by that exactly?

00:27:12.880 Well, I gather, and I didn't know this until this week,

00:27:16.700 but the chief of public health in Alberta,

00:27:21.120 probably every other government, is actually indemnified.

00:27:25.360 They cannot be prosecuted.

00:27:27.800 If they give good advice, great.

00:27:29.400 If they give bad advice, they have no recourse.

00:27:33.300 They did their best, we assume, and it wasn't good enough.

00:27:37.040 But they can't be prosecuted.

00:27:38.620 Well, now she's putting the people, the executives and possibly the board members of the generating companies, it depends how far this goes, they will not be prosecuted if they are generating power and the conditions of the clean energy regulations are not met.

00:27:56.680 Well, I think that's one of the reasons for wanting to set up a Crown power company

00:28:02.700 so that the people that are on that board, presumably including her,

00:28:08.200 if she's the president and CEO, are identified because...

00:28:11.740 Well, that's part of it, but they also want the Crown Corporation to provide backup power 0.97

00:28:17.280 if all the rest of the guys can't meet it.

00:28:20.220 Well, because they're scared of being prosecuted.

00:28:22.640 If she said we want to be a generator of last resort, she said it once, she said it 12 times in that press conference, that they will only set that organization up if they feel that the imbalance between interruptible sources, solar and wind, and natural gas generation is so badly off that they can't guarantee.

00:28:49.020 they'll keep the the lights on and the heat on and under the worst conditions

00:28:54.220 and that could be that could also be summer air conditioning as well as winter

00:28:58.540 so you know if it looks as if things are not well catered to then they have given themselves that

00:29:05.580 that that position they can put a plant together and i think these things can be done relatively

00:29:13.340 relatively quickly because at least we know what we're doing yeah i think it's also a compromise

00:29:18.860 on the moratorium on the renewables because our big sticking point on, you know, most of this

00:29:26.300 renewable stuff there, you know, the private deals on private land and, you know, they have to have

00:29:31.160 ties to get it to the crater. And so she said, you can't have all this renewable energy come on

00:29:36.500 without the base load backup. So I think by in essence saying, well, we will provide the base

00:29:41.700 load backup to allow these things to go forward. That might be a way out of that as well.

00:29:46.700 i still sweat a little when i hear any talk of more crown corporations of any government getting

00:29:51.420 into the business of being in business i've been in alberta a long time where we spent a lot of

00:29:54.620 time getting out of that i mean premier smith has a you know a tattoo of a libertarian symbol on her

00:29:59.500 arm uh you know we're of like mind on a lot of things uh and to hear her speak of i mean boy

00:30:05.740 that better be a really true last last last resort i mean it took us 10 years to get out of liquor

00:30:11.660 stores for crying out loud uh yeah but you know you live down in prittis you could be the guy

00:30:17.500 that she's trying to keep alive okay you know when the power goes and the lights start to flicker

00:30:23.820 and honestly we'll be safer the generator the wood stove the hunting ability in the game in the

00:30:29.580 backyard it's the person in the apartment building in calgary who's got a sweat and it's a real

00:30:34.220 concern though we start getting blackouts uh during 35 degree weather in summer uh people with

00:30:40.380 health conditions without air conditioning can end up actually in a very dangerous circumstance or

00:30:44.620 if we hit a blackout and it's minus 35 which is again very conceivable in alberta

00:30:49.260 the same thing some people are at some very terrible risk uh you know when there was some

00:30:54.060 of that discussion where she said it's a life and death thing it really is literally so i mean our

00:30:57.580 power is important to us yeah i don't think a lot of people realize just how close we have come on

00:31:02.540 number number of occasions to i mean normally when when things get tight they have the ability to buy

00:31:08.220 in from bc but if that ability is not you know if bc can't sell when you really want it and when you

00:31:14.860 really want it is going to be when they really want it too then we've got a problem well here's

00:31:19.500 a story out of europe yesterday that kind of ties into this germany was always held up as the king

00:31:23.980 of the renewable countries they invested so much in solar and wind and every other renewable you

00:31:30.220 could think of you know and it bit him in the butt badly and still is they have just now their

00:31:36.940 Their residential grid operators will be empowered to restrict the flow of power to heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers in 2024 because they're draining the grid too much.

00:31:46.240 They don't have the capacity to power these things.

00:31:49.640 These are the two things in Canada they're saying we must have, and Germany can't keep up.

00:31:55.940 They're saying depower those things because we've got higher priority things we have to maintain right now.

00:32:02.080 We just seem to refuse to learn the lesson from the people who walked before us, well, at least outside of Alberta.

00:32:06.940 I'd like some heat.

00:32:09.000 And that, coming back to COP28, basically that's where the federal government is,

00:32:16.300 and it is Alberta that is coming forward with the ideas and the actions that address the situation.

00:32:22.900 Well, that's it.

00:32:23.820 And it needs to be communicated to people because sometimes they don't think about it.

00:32:26.400 They say, it doesn't make sense.

00:32:27.280 Alberta's short of power, yet you went and put a moratorium on all these new projects. 0.99

00:32:30.440 Well, yes, but these are crap projects. 0.98

00:32:33.200 This is what Germany already did, and it failed. 0.99

00:32:35.580 It led to energy instability, insecurity, expensive and problematic.

00:32:41.200 We need, you know, realistic generation ability, not just this kind of thing.

00:32:45.740 If you're worried that you're not going to have power because the wind doesn't blow,

00:32:50.620 you're not actually, there's not more windows that you need, is it?

00:32:54.520 Well, and I'm not sure if it was Premier Smith meeting.

00:32:59.740 It was one of these factoids that come out and stick out.

00:33:02.460 And it was the other day when the wind stopped blowing and it was dark at night, you know, the whole renewable fleet in Alberta here was providing like less than half a percent of the total power output of the province, you know, because the wind stopped on that colder night a couple of weeks back.

00:33:20.460 The sun's not shining, so we're back to gas.

00:33:22.780 And again, we don't have a St. Lawrence River.

00:33:24.980 We don't have, you know, these easy ability to add renewable or emissions-free types of power sources.

00:33:32.760 We have natural gas, and we have a lot of it.

00:33:35.360 We'd be fools not to burn it for our needs, and that's what we're doing.

00:33:40.260 And so, I said, Premier Smith knows this. 0.90

00:33:41.880 Let's just hope he remembers it.

00:33:43.400 Well, even if we have to evade it, I mean.

00:33:45.580 You know, the other thing that made me, I just smile a bit, it didn't make me laugh,

00:33:49.340 but it may be a smile, she sort of threw a little olive branch

00:33:53.000 in the direction of Minister Wilkinson, Energy and Natural Resources, Canada. 0.68

00:34:02.080 The Smith government is big on hydrogen.

00:34:05.180 And she said, oh, you know, Wilkinson's not so bad.

00:34:08.360 He drives a hydrogen-powered car.

00:34:10.380 This I did not know, but obviously Mr. Wilkinson has decided to give it a try,

00:34:17.100 put his money where his mouth was and he got a he got a golden atom boy from premier smith so

00:34:22.940 i asked him about it when did you yeah i like the subtle jabs i said how does the car perform

00:34:29.100 you know how does it come off the line because oh yeah it's pretty zippy but uh he's also down

00:34:33.900 in vancouver as well and it seems to me that they're using hydrogen they're looking at it for

00:34:38.620 the ferries and you know there's some other applications there that are happening in british

00:34:42.700 as well, with the ships and with the marine traffic.

00:34:45.700 So he's probably not that far away from a filling station.

00:34:49.860 Well, that's what it's gonna take, of course,

00:34:51.560 if the idea is gonna go anywhere.

00:34:54.340 We'll see where it goes.

00:34:55.180 It's gonna take a while.

00:34:56.020 Well, let's just get to the granddaddy

00:34:58.040 of environmental gatherings and energy burning

00:35:01.520 and hypocrisy, and that's COP28.

00:35:04.580 Sean, what do we got going on this year?

00:35:06.680 Oh, I had fun with this story this morning.

00:35:08.460 Yeah, I ripped a little into my monologue today as well.

00:35:12.700 private tech concierge complete with bodyguards and security and vip shuttles going from the

00:35:19.500 airport to the hotels and catered vegan meals and uh we've got king charles iii and we know

00:35:26.780 i know you're a monarchist so but we also know that charles is very uh you know he's taking a

00:35:33.100 fondness for environmental causes and uh bill gates is going to be there and uh john kerry and

00:35:39.180 and Al Gore, you know, who's who.

00:35:42.620 St. Greta is going to be there. 0.98

00:35:44.120 I don't think she's going to be flying in on a private jet. 1.00

00:35:46.660 I don't think she takes private jets.

00:35:48.620 We'll see. 1.00

00:35:50.300 She's not a flying coach. 0.98

00:35:52.380 Probably not.

00:35:53.220 I don't think she can anymore.

00:35:56.460 And there's no sailboats.

00:35:57.900 Yeah, and I don't think King Charles will be using the concierge either.

00:36:01.820 That'll be...

00:36:02.740 He's got the MI6.

00:36:05.420 Well, it'll be something from the King's flight.

00:36:07.340 I don't know what they'll use, but...

00:36:08.980 obviously going to be a fairly substantial aircraft, but he will, he will come in a royal

00:36:15.480 plane in style. Aside from the usual international, you know, luminaries and such that we expect and

00:36:25.260 anticipate to show up in the politicians and environmental leaders and literal royalty,

00:36:30.420 70,000 people. How many people do we need to stuff into one city to navel gaze for two weeks

00:36:37.200 and tell us how to tighten our belts.

00:36:38.820 Well, it's almost doubled over the past three.

00:36:41.260 So they have these conferences every year.

00:36:44.400 And the reason Minister Jebel was taking such a prominent role

00:36:47.940 because he was handed off at COP27, some kind of a ceremonial role,

00:36:52.500 similar to the one that he had with the Chinese Communist Party

00:36:54.820 to organize it and get it all together.

00:36:58.960 You should probably enlarge on that slightly.

00:37:01.340 Not everybody knows about his association with the Chinese Communist Party.

00:37:05.080 Well, apparently it was some kind of a ceremonial role to help them advise on their own emissions,

00:37:11.620 but it was pretty top-down, right?

00:37:15.100 Let's face it.

00:37:16.080 These are not grassroots rallies or organizations.

00:37:20.560 They are, you know, dominated by elite.

00:37:22.900 It's just an odd position for an elected official in Canada to hold.

00:37:27.040 Yes.

00:37:27.420 Not anymore.

00:37:27.840 And now that, so word has come out as well, because the head, country Dubai,

00:37:34.640 the guy who's the host is also the head of the state oil company there and they're looking to

00:37:39.840 do deals like literally tens of thousands of deals, oil and gas deals, fossil fuel deals

00:37:44.660 with countries including Canada, including Canada. It's almost like an OPEC conference. I mean,

00:37:49.120 it's going to be some of the same guys getting together, but just the staggering hypocrisy. Are 0.87

00:37:53.160 people ready to start seeing through this yet? I had to pull up this tweet. I just laughed my head

00:37:58.440 off at it. There's Sapporo Berman, you know, the environmental crusader throws out this tweet.

00:38:04.640 yesterday. Got into Dubai late last night, opened my curtains in my hotel this morning to find what

00:38:09.520 I now know is the largest single site natural gas power generation facility in the world.

00:38:14.800 Fitting, I'm going to have to stare at this through the haze of pollution for two weeks.

00:38:19.840 You flew there. You went to an energy capital, a desert country that you knew was nothing,

00:38:26.000 and then you're just going to whine about the view out of your luxury apartment for the next two

00:38:30.000 weeks oh well i feel terribly by the way if you've got air conditioning and i'm sure you do madam

00:38:35.600 you know if you didn't you'd be able to fry an egg on the on the patio without a frying pan so

00:38:41.840 be grateful for that she envisioned slaves with paul franz and i'm sorry but i i'm just segwaying

00:38:47.520 into some of the labor practices of dubai they aren't exactly sweethearts with human rights

00:38:53.440 and labor and any of that there's the other realm of hypocrisy you're going to one of the nastiest

00:38:58.640 nations on earth and pouring money and legitimacy into this government that still has floggings 0.66

00:39:04.580 and stonings. I don't know if Dubai has the floggings and stonings. I looked it up. They do

00:39:10.820 actually in Dubai. The odd thing is they rarely do capital punishment in Dubai, but they have

00:39:16.540 floggings, stonings, and Sharia law entrenched in their courts, and they'll make you wish 0.98

00:39:20.320 you were dead. I think the difference between Saudi and Dubai is that Sharia law only applies 0.97

00:39:27.280 to muslims in dubai but anyway that's either way but i've been to the middle east they are the

00:39:32.880 democratic country that respects from the right and you wouldn't have fresh food without refrigeration

00:39:37.000 you wouldn't have water without desalination you definitely would not be able to exist for

00:39:42.920 nine months of the year outside you know without air conditioning like you can barely go for a walk

00:39:48.880 on a nice evening unless it's like in the middle of december yeah so i mean if these guys are

00:39:52.920 going to virtue signal i would just you know in particularly as progressive bunches you would

00:39:56.780 think they would say well you know like glasgow okay there it's a uh a democratic country and and

00:40:02.540 you know that was last year's gathering spot i believe and uh you know there's not huge tremendous

00:40:07.660 human rights abuses or or such conspicuous consumption of fossil fuels but they went

00:40:12.700 rigged into the heart of it this time around and apparently it's not an issue with or or

00:40:16.780 you could be like zipporah and actually was the charmelle shake last year yeah it was it was

00:40:20.940 Egypt last year. And the labor practices too, like it's, it's almost all foreign imported labor

00:40:29.640 because the locals, the locals don't work. So they bring in, they import all the labor and 0.97

00:40:37.080 they're denied basic, uh, you know, rights like citizenship rights or treated terribly. Uh,

00:40:43.060 and they've been chased and they're paid well, but compared to where they're coming from,

00:40:47.000 They're taking advantage of people coming from some pretty rough spots.

00:40:51.120 I mean, you know, when you're coming from the depths of Sri Lanka or something.

00:40:54.640 The house keeping stuff. 1.00

00:40:55.920 Yeah, your job might seem a little better when you get over there.

00:40:58.880 Jeebers, Cory, I think you're just mad that you didn't get to go.

00:41:03.940 If I got someone paying my bills to go live in opulence for two weeks, I'm going to do it. 0.87

00:41:09.260 I'm not going to be a hypocrite about it.

00:41:10.740 I would look out the window and say, look at this magnificence of utilizing the fruits of the earth to keep me cool when it's 40 degrees out.

00:41:19.760 I do believe it's the largest one of its kind in the world.

00:41:23.000 Well, they turned down my immediate accreditation.

00:41:26.720 I don't think Derek's been sponsoring us to go so far, but I won't turn it away.

00:41:33.720 But the other part, and I asked about, too, how are they really getting much accomplished when you've got 70,000 people there?

00:41:39.560 I mean, there's gonna be some of the high level

00:41:41.260 dignitaries will have private meetings and cuts and deals.

00:41:43.940 Ironically, as you said, probably oil companies

00:41:46.640 and things such as that, but are they really gonna come up

00:41:48.580 with decent environmental policies or any significance

00:41:51.560 that they couldn't have done outside of this yet?

00:41:54.560 Well, apparently a couple of the issues are

00:41:59.120 third world financing.

00:42:00.240 So I think Indonesia just signed a $60 billion deal

00:42:04.640 and I think it was a gas bar,

00:42:07.680 another 80 billion to electrify their grids, 0.99

00:42:10.540 but what they're forcing these developing countries

00:42:12.820 to do is to go massively into debt.

00:42:16.140 One of the things that John Kerry is apparently pushing for

00:42:19.400 is a reparations fund that's going to redistribute money.

00:42:24.960 The UN wants, they're estimating it's gonna cost

00:42:28.120 about $122 trillion to revamp the electrical systems

00:42:33.000 around the world, and the biggest chunk of the bill

00:42:36.360 is gonna be in these countries.

00:42:37.520 that can barely afford to turn the lights on now.

00:42:41.620 Yeah, so you know the leadership in Dubai

00:42:43.940 probably isn't gonna be switching their power sources

00:42:46.840 anytime soon.

00:42:47.680 Probably not, no, I would imagine.

00:42:49.800 Well, they nosh on catered vegan meals,

00:42:52.840 vegetarian and vegan.

00:42:54.120 Over 50% of the meals are gonna be vegan and vegetarian,

00:42:57.360 certified, recyclable packaging.

00:43:00.300 Yeah, and imported by plane and refrigerated.

00:43:03.740 Mm-hmm.

00:43:04.580 You know, again, as I've said,

00:43:06.920 I didn't crunch the numbers, but I figured they probably,

00:43:09.500 these 70,000 delegates will consume more resources

00:43:12.840 in every kind and sort over the next two weeks

00:43:15.840 than some small countries do as a whole.

00:43:19.260 You know, it's just overwhelming hypocrisy. 0.84

00:43:23.540 It just drives me bananas.

00:43:24.460 Well, how many people live in Red Deer?

00:43:25.620 We were trying to...

00:43:26.460 Yeah, we definitely did look up the way.

00:43:28.480 It's gotta be pretty close to about 7,000.

00:43:30.680 Yeah, but they're eating Kraft dinner.

00:43:32.160 They're not having some vegan imported...

00:43:34.300 Oh boy, but I mean, we can hopefully look forward to some fireworks. It would be interesting if

00:43:44.360 Premier Smith and Gilbo have some fireworks over there. I don't think she's ever been to the

00:43:51.320 Middle East. I think she was saying, you know, she doesn't normally go to these kinds of conferences

00:43:56.640 and so she's probably going to get an eye opener. Well, the first thing is she steps off the plane.

00:44:02.420 It's like somebody holding a hairdryer in your face, you know, and that's, that'll be our opener.

00:44:07.020 That last oven thing.

00:44:08.180 Yeah, I had contracts in Texas-Mexico border in July in the past.

00:44:12.060 It's a special sort of heat when you get it, if you haven't experienced it.

00:44:17.220 But again, I mean, there, I imagine it's sort of like when I used to get my Arctic contracts, too.

00:44:21.120 Yeah, it's awfully cold out there, but you're getting off of the plane, into your truck, into your truck, into the camp, into the camp, into your Nodwell.

00:44:28.680 You're rarely exposed to the elements for too long.

00:44:31.060 and it's also late november yeah and here nodwell does it do we still have nodwells i don't know

00:44:38.180 they did the last time i was in the arctic but it's been a while i was gonna say that's a few

00:44:41.220 years ago and that's it yeah that's what we're just a calgary boy wasn't he i not well those

00:44:47.540 things i think they were they're their foremost uh industries that produces them and i think it

00:44:52.580 might be from out here initially i thought it was anyway but again i mean specialized uh

00:44:57.540 adaptive tools from oil and gas to get more oil and gas and we see them in use in dubai as they

00:45:02.900 all gather and tell us why we're supposed to stop using oil and gas so i'm just waiting for the

00:45:08.740 camel shot the camels yes oh i'm just of the tourism well uh danielle smith on camel this

00:45:18.020 is going to be a oh this close to another starfish there i kept that back i didn't say anything i'm

00:45:25.860 not going to in fact we're pretty much at the end of the show so before i get us in serious trouble

00:45:32.020 i think i will wrap it up so thank you very much nigel and sean and uh everybody else for tuning

00:45:40.180 in we'll be reporting on the progress of uh this this conference and everything else going on in

00:45:45.540 the future again that reminder get on to the western standard take out a membership it keeps

00:45:49.300 us independent so we can keep doing this for you and uh you know keep tuning into this show share

00:45:54.260 those links guys we're going to spread the word the government's not doing us any favors that way

00:45:58.260 so thank you for tuning in this week and come back again next week at this time we'll have a whole

00:46:02.500 new set of issues to break down and chat about canadian shooting sports association without the

00:46:07.620 cssa our gun rights would have been taken long long ago these guys are on the front lines helping

00:46:13.940 to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in canada and more importantly

00:46:20.660 educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people to become a member

00:46:25.780 it's absolutely worth every penny you can become a western center member for just ten dollars a

00:46:32.500 month or 99 a year for

Western Standard - November 30, 2023

The Pipeline： Early election？ Trudeau reneges on deal with NDP

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript