Western Standard - August 08, 2026


THE PIPELINE: Edmonton Police's ā€œHateā€ Snitch Line


Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

171.0

Word count

8,010

Sentence count

363

Harmful content

Misogyny

19

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

29

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome.
00:00:25.200 Today is August 5th, 2026.
00:00:28.020 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard,
00:00:30.400 and you're watching The Pipeline.
00:00:32.100 I've got our usual crew here, Western Standard's senior news editor,
00:00:36.780 Dave Naylor, senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan,
00:00:40.000 and former opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
00:00:43.800 Stop introducing us for opinion.
00:00:45.480 You're just host of The Hannaford Show.
00:00:47.100 No.
00:00:47.540 There we go.
00:00:49.100 We're going to be talking about the invasion of Spain.
00:00:52.600 We don't need to describe it. You've all seen the video. If you haven't been slipping under a rock, you've seen the viral videos of 50,000 Arab Moroccans invading. What's the city name called?
00:01:08.840 CUTA. CUTA. C-E-U-T-E-A. Yeah, I'm just going to say CUDA. Yeah, CUDA. You've seen the invasion of this, and we're going to talk about the repercussions of this, not necessarily about the situation itself, but the repercussions for migration policy, for national survival policy in European countries, in North America, and what impact that incident might have in Canada.
00:01:38.180 We're going to talk about Alberta Premier Daniel Smith's position, or evolving position, on equalization,
00:01:46.060 but also how that might tie into the broader issues of rumblings in the United Conservative Party in Alberta.
00:01:54.780 It's an unruly bunch at the calmest of times, and we are in anything but a calm time.
00:01:59.880 But first, we're going to start with the Edmonton Police Department's hate snitch line.
00:02:09.120 A lot of people have heard about this, but Dave, maybe just sum up.
00:02:12.380 What is the Edmonton Police's hate snitch line?
00:02:15.280 Well, if somebody tells a joke that offends you, you call a snitch line and turn them in.
00:02:22.040 It's actually a policy that's been going for two years now in Edmonton.
00:02:25.920 just sort of gain social media fame on the weekend.
00:02:31.780 But, yeah, Snitchline is exactly what it is.
00:02:36.000 It's part of their hate crimes unit.
00:02:41.040 And I think, I guess, I assume they're talking about people making offensive jokes, racist jokes.
00:02:47.360 Well, either that or something like, you know, send them back or something.
00:02:51.420 I think the actual specific offensive joke is they go after, but now they're looking
00:02:57.120 to just the kind of comments that people make.
00:02:59.840 Yeah, and this did not go well when the same thing was tried in England.
00:03:07.820 They arrested and jailed tons of people for social media posts, basically saying to send
00:03:15.000 them back.
00:03:16.000 Now, we've contacted Edmonton Police.
00:03:18.500 They haven't responded to questions on this,
00:03:22.780 but it's my understanding.
00:03:24.180 I don't think they've arrested anybody yet.
00:03:26.600 So the snitch line, whoever the operator is,
00:03:29.400 is sitting there in a quiet room by themselves.
00:03:31.980 Just laughing at the latest and best in humor.
00:03:35.720 Exactly.
00:03:36.380 I think it's, I love that job,
00:03:38.320 just so I could, like, read the tweets. 1.00
00:03:40.680 Maybe some beauties out there.
00:03:41.840 I'd just sit there.
00:03:42.840 I'd sit there.
00:03:43.840 Oh, that's a good one.
00:03:45.120 Yeah, we're not charging them, we're going to repost them.
00:03:47.480 Hey, Frank, come see this one.
00:03:50.840 I know in Britain where this was tried, there were so many people arrested, in fact,
00:03:55.920 they actually had to clear out the jails.
00:03:57.740 They did early release for murderers, rapists, thieves.
00:04:04.240 They let real criminals out so that they could put, you know,
00:04:08.300 Margaret, who said, send them back on Twitter in jail,
00:04:11.520 or, you know, Bob, who said, England for the English.
00:04:15.120 things like that or jokes um i don't think it's as extreme as britain although it's very much on
00:04:22.380 the way to where it got in the uk in the uk people would be uh arrested charged arrested
00:04:28.380 uh and jailed for this i think this is the idea because these are not yet criminal code offenses
00:04:36.000 uh the idea would be that the edmonton police would go and have a stern talking to you maybe
00:04:40.500 imply that yeah we might do something else the c9 some of that might be very quickly you could start
00:04:46.260 to see some of that already in c9 something that's different this time is how aggressively they're
00:04:49.780 soliciting the complaints though they've wrapped city buses with this initiative of their saying
00:04:55.380 you know get on there call us out they're not waiting until somebody's been terribly offended
00:04:58.980 they're asking does somebody say something yeah yeah the government's jumped in daniel smith
00:05:03.940 tweeted that she'll defend free speech. Mike Ellis was pretty strong on that too.
00:05:10.820 Mike Ellis, the public security minister, put out a statement. He was very strong on it.
00:05:16.020 He's going to write to all the justices and whatnot. Well, I think, Dave, when the minister
00:05:23.780 and the premier step in, the political direction is very strong, and this will put a stop to it,
00:05:30.420 as long as the minister and the premier are there to quarterback it.
00:05:36.080 I mean, the police respond to what the politicians tell them to.
00:05:39.460 If they're upset about drunk driving, suddenly there are check stops everywhere.
00:05:43.580 If they're worried about homeless people causing a disturbance on the Calgary Sea Train,
00:05:49.940 all of a sudden you've got a police cruiser on every block of the downtown core.
00:05:55.820 Like magic, the problem just becomes much more manageable.
00:05:58.940 So I think now that they've had a sharp flee in the ear from the premier and from Minister Ellis, they'll say, all right, just play it down.
00:06:09.740 Just go for the real stuff, you know, and I don't, Mike, I'd be very interested to hear from our listeners in Edmonton if this carries, if people are still getting called by the police for saying something that shouldn't be an offense.
00:06:21.220 One of the best parts of this, I don't know, maybe we can even insert a little clip of it, but there was the hate crimes unit at the Edmonton Police. 0.74
00:06:30.260 It was these two loser cops. 0.99
00:06:32.360 It was good cops, but these guys were losers. 1.00
00:06:35.160 There was just loser energy on them. 0.99
00:06:36.880 They're like, well, we're here to protect the diversity of the community and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 0.91
00:06:42.140 And they just sit there reading mean tweets all day, I guess.
00:06:45.680 Are there real hate incidents?
00:06:46.920 Yeah.
00:06:47.760 Although it doesn't seem to be right across Canada,
00:06:50.280 our police don't actually do a ton about genuine hate incidents.
00:06:53.780 You know, someone firebombs a mosque.
00:06:56.920 Jewish bakery or something?
00:06:58.500 A Jewish bakery, a synagogue.
00:07:01.020 I don't know, hundreds of churches, perhaps.
00:07:04.540 Not much seems to really take place there.
00:07:07.000 So instead they spend their time reading mean tweets.
00:07:09.880 And some of them probably are genuinely mean, but guess what?
00:07:12.680 unless you're calling for someone to be physically hurt or property to be physically destroyed
00:07:17.960 that's just like your opinion man you know um because let's talk about the political direction
00:07:24.980 of this we had uh premier smith and public safety minister mike ellis telling the police this was
00:07:30.940 not just reallocation of focus on one crime or another this was focus on crime over these things
00:07:36.220 that are not crimes these things that are are god-given right to say even if it hurts someone's
00:07:41.520 feelings, and even if they're genuinely not nice, sometimes it, maybe it is more
00:07:45.420 than a joke.
00:07:45.900 So where did the direction come from?
00:07:47.400 You know, like the way the EPS is structured, somebody's at the top.
00:07:51.180 Is it from that desk or was it from the police commission?
00:07:54.300 And then, and then you, well, you look at the mayor and council, cause
00:07:56.900 that is a municipal force and, and mayor NAC is quite progressive to be polite.
00:08:03.140 Uh, as are a number of members of their council, similar to Calgary that way.
00:08:06.140 It seems we, you know, they, they really like to vote left on, on council.
00:08:09.620 And at least some of the, I'm guessing they're like the Calgary Police Commission, though, they're going to be different people serving from all different roles that would guide in some degree of direction.
00:08:18.220 But where specifically this came from, it would have to be approved by the chief.
00:08:22.780 Well, I want to talk about the NDPs on this.
00:08:26.100 So, look, as someone who served in the opposition, the gut instinct of the opposition is to oppose whatever the government's doing.
00:08:33.440 And then you had David Shepard. He's the NDP MLA Edmonton Centre, I think. And he came out, released a video, and he went after Smith and Ellis for telling them to stop going after these non-crime, non-criminal hate incidents is I think how they're calling it.
00:08:55.900 and he went after that essentially defending the Edmonton police's snitch line and spending the
00:09:01.740 resources on this. I know the instinct in politics is to oppose the other side but sometimes you
00:09:10.560 should just shut the f up. It's not always a hill to die on. I tried to respond to Mr. Shepard's
00:09:15.180 post on Expo but it turns out he has me blocked which it's fine. I must have said something
00:09:19.800 you defended him. You see that's fine. Hit the block button. Get over it. I don't think they're
00:09:25.040 allowed to do that public officials did that thing and pushed through i'm not gonna i i don't agree
00:09:30.540 with him on that one i i do think actually in my view x isn't a right and if a politician wants to
00:09:35.480 block i mean we're going down a rabbit hole now but i just think the irony of him well utilizing
00:09:39.940 the tools to be able to stop hearing adverse speech why doesn't he counsel people well if
00:09:44.740 you see hateful stuff block them don't try or mute them or at least just you don't have to expose
00:09:50.160 there's lots of stuff i don't like uh you know and i hit mute sometimes block but normally just
00:09:54.120 simply just mute them uh although i i mostly retweet insults against myself and the more vile
00:10:00.040 the better um but this is uh you know we i think we at least we saw a good strong reaction from
00:10:06.520 the alberta government here um but we have this in cities right across canada this is it's not 0.99
00:10:11.240 just edmonton this is just this became uh cause celebra now because the edmund the some idiot 0.98
00:10:19.880 run in a social media account for the edmonton police put out a really dumb tweet as like uh 0.88
00:10:25.400 uh well i forgot what it is but let's let's put that tweet up from the edmonton police
00:10:29.800 um so they just kind of drew attention to it themselves thinking this is still 2022 and we're
00:10:37.160 going to arrest you for not using the right pronouns or something people have moved past
00:10:41.880 that the pendulum has swung the other way um you know racist and sexist jokes are back in style
00:10:50.360 everyone loves them again uh no one stopped liking them but you're allowed to do them again
00:10:54.920 sorry guys um but i i don't know uh well i'll tell you what the other thing that we're forgetting
00:11:02.360 here is we've also got a human rights commission if you think it's that bad file a complaint well
00:11:07.640 Well, then it shouldn't exist.
00:11:08.940 Well, I agree with you there, but it does exist,
00:11:11.280 and that's the avenue if you think you've been offended.
00:11:13.920 Well, that's the question.
00:11:14.660 So I do think Danielle Smith is genuine in her defense, 0.78
00:11:19.900 belief around free speech here.
00:11:21.200 Oh, yeah.
00:11:21.620 But if she has the courage of her convictions, 0.99
00:11:23.640 she needs to scrap the Human Rights Commission.
00:11:25.120 At an absolute minimum, gut, a lot of the powers it has, 1.00
00:11:29.840 policing, you know, hurt feelings, whatever.
00:11:33.540 Let's remember the Western Standard has got a...
00:11:35.400 god knows how many human rights complaints uh before the bc human rights uh tribunal right now
00:11:41.960 um but effectively the exact same human rights you know put that in air quotes human rights
00:11:48.520 legislation exists in alberta as in bc they're virtually identical um and so you know the
00:11:55.080 jessica yanibs of the world um could file these complaints against us with the alberta human 0.97
00:12:01.880 rights uh tribunal and commission uh for you know not agreeing that his wing counts as a female part 0.99
00:12:09.160 so so you know you know uh the premier now needs to step up we need to see changes to alberta's 0.92
00:12:16.060 laws because we've still got terribly censorious uh laws on our own books well at least she vocal
00:12:22.620 in the right way to start with yes didn't didn't take that i don't know she's got so many errands 1.00
00:12:27.100 in the fire now, diving into reforming those 1.00
00:12:29.100 laws. But at least, as we said,
00:12:31.380 give credit where it do, her and Ellis gave all
00:12:33.120 the right answers, shy of vowing
00:12:35.180 to change the laws. I mean, saying that
00:12:36.900 this isn't what they support and anything
00:12:38.860 they're going to do. Well, in this case, it's the Edmonton police
00:12:40.880 trying to enforce
00:12:43.300 things that are not laws.
00:12:45.300 It's just something they decided
00:12:46.580 is mean. I do love
00:12:49.420 the kind of propaganda they've put out
00:12:51.300 on it. They've got, like, examples of these hateful
00:12:53.240 tweets. I'm reading them, like, yep.
00:12:55.560 Yep. Yep. Okay.
00:12:57.100 that's good that's good i love well they blurred your name on them that was good yeah
00:13:00.740 they were just they were quoting me and cory
00:13:03.800 i was like hey that's copyright infringement i wrote that i want credit for that if you're
00:13:12.080 going to use my hateful tweets at least give me credit okay um so speaking of uh the premier
00:13:21.020 Last week, Premier Daniel Smith, Prime Minister Mark Carney were in Red Deer doing a housing announcement.
00:13:33.600 Our Edmonton reporter, Will Vassar, was down in Red Deer following them, got some questions in with them.
00:13:40.740 A lot of interesting things, but one was the Premier's response was interesting.
00:13:45.840 It was, he asked about equalization, you know, with the prime minister right there.
00:13:51.160 So it was a nice time.
00:13:53.380 And her response was interesting.
00:13:55.640 She talked about, in a way, we're pressing for equalization reform.
00:13:58.660 And she more or less said, like, capping things, you know, like, Ontario shouldn't be getting money.
00:14:03.580 Some of it may be redistributed.
00:14:04.960 But the long or the short of it, I don't want to be unjust to her, but the long or the short of it was,
00:14:10.100 she was talking about tinkering with the system to reform it, to make it less ridiculous than it currently is.
00:14:15.360 and what she talked about would be an improvement.
00:14:18.160 The issue, Corey, was that I thought the government of Alberta
00:14:21.680 had a very clear position on equalization.
00:14:23.940 It was the position that Albertans voted 60-odd percent for in 2021
00:14:28.380 in a referendum, which was to abolish equalization,
00:14:32.860 remove it from the Constitution.
00:14:36.060 And what she was proposing there sounded like, you know,
00:14:42.000 at best half a loaf of what we get to after negotiations and not the starting negotiation
00:14:46.800 point of the people of Alberta. Yeah well it was a great exposure how politics works because I bet
00:14:51.880 you if it was a conference that was just provincial ministers around and Smith standing there she
00:14:56.300 might have brought up that referenda and the results and outcomes but she had the prime minister
00:15:00.720 standing behind her who you know a separate discussion but the premier has been inexplicably
00:15:05.720 very beholden to this prime minister and doesn't seem to want to step on his toes because it was
00:15:10.320 excellently placed an awkward question that neither of them wanted to deal with while
00:15:13.800 because Kearney seemed kind of awkward in the background too like boy I don't want to dig into
00:15:18.720 this while I'm in Alberta. We asked him about it today in Toronto. Yes got him again but you know
00:15:26.720 I gave credit to Premier Smith for speaking out so strongly when it came to the free speech and
00:15:30.980 I got to give an f when it came to just going mealy mouth and talking in circles because
00:15:34.900 Premier Smith is as aware as you said of the mandate they I mean it's not just a policy a
00:15:39.720 mandate. She's claiming that she's supporting mandates through referendum. Well, 62% of Albertans
00:15:46.180 only a few years ago made it very clear, we want it gone. I understand that doesn't change anything
00:15:52.020 in reality, but for her answer, what she could say by, she could even have started with that
00:15:58.020 and say, we have this mandate. I understand we would have to open the constitution to change it.
00:16:03.500 In the meantime, as we work towards that, here's some of the positive tweaks and things we could
00:16:07.900 do to make it less odious in the process but she sidestepped the entire agenda and referenda of 0.99
00:16:13.800 trying to get rid of equalization and infuriated her base that's the other thing well as derek
00:16:18.460 mentioned our ontario reporter jeff knight asked him today in toronto and he basically said no
00:16:25.120 it's not going to change and we're going to have a review in 2029 so and i knew you brought up the
00:16:32.120 problem core needs the constitution to reopen it's not going to happen guys the equalization
00:16:37.820 will not change because they the have not will vote against it why wouldn't well just about the
00:16:44.540 way this works the principle of equalization is in the constitution and it could really mean
00:16:49.780 anything uh you could abolish the equalization payments themselves and say the fact that ottawa
00:16:55.740 collects money from everyone and redistributes it on a per capita basis but some promises pay more
00:17:00.080 into it like alberta that counts as equalization so the part that's in the constitution really is
00:17:05.180 just that there shall be some kind of equalization between the provinces. It's extremely general.
00:17:09.980 The actual formula is set in legislation. Normally, it's snuck into a budget bill every few years.
00:17:16.640 That's legislative. And the provinces have no say over it. Alberta that pays into it has no say,
00:17:23.440 at least legally speaking. And Quebec, which takes out of it, legally speaking, has no say.
00:17:28.760 It's decided purely by Ottawa.
00:17:30.860 This is not negotiated around the table.
00:17:34.020 But Dave said, though, yeah, I mean, the Mary Dave is based on us voting to get rid of the whole thing.
00:17:40.460 It would be in court for the rest of our lives. 0.89
00:17:44.000 We know in Canada's constitutional setup. 0.97
00:17:46.180 Yeah, but you actually don't need to change the constitution to get rid of equalization.
00:17:49.400 We can knock it down to zero in legislative. 0.99
00:17:52.100 You can do it legislatively. 0.99
00:17:53.260 um what was interesting to me dave sorry uh nigel was uh you know she's a policy wonk she she thinks 0.85
00:18:01.980 these through the policy that she talked about which was tweaking and it'd be a it'd be a
00:18:07.080 significant improvement but really wouldn't help us all that much but it'd be an improvement at
00:18:12.540 least it'd be a less terrible program but what she talked about was you know theoretically what
00:18:18.580 we might get to at the end of a long round of bargaining where the prime minister sat down
00:18:22.580 with all the premiers and they haggle back and forth and maybe that is what comes out the other
00:18:28.260 end that's the sausage that comes through the machine but when you're trying to advocate for
00:18:33.020 a position you don't want to seem unreasonable but you have a starting position i want to buy this
00:18:37.600 car i'm gonna lowball you i'm gonna offer 15 000 you know okay you want 25 and we're gonna negotiate
00:18:43.600 we get to 20 she started at 15 she started at what maybe we would get to at the end of a protracted
00:18:52.560 haggling process.
00:18:55.760 But I don't think there's a process at the moment.
00:18:58.000 But the only process you have is raising a fuss.
00:19:01.540 And if you're going to raise a fuss, you've got to start with your opening position,
00:19:04.040 which is get rid of it.
00:19:05.660 And I know some people in good faith, you know, policy experts.
00:19:10.040 I know Bill Buick, he was the head of policy at the Wild Rose when I was in the legislature.
00:19:15.620 And he responded to something I had said about it, saying, hey, you know,
00:19:18.560 You know that the vote to get rid of equalization was just to get it on the table and renegotiated.
00:19:23.260 I said, yes, but people didn't vote for this renegotiated, convoluted, tinkering position.
00:19:30.480 People voted to get rid of it.
00:19:31.820 And that needs to be Alberta's opening position.
00:19:35.120 Why do you think the Premier kind of came out with the position she did
00:19:40.100 rather than the mandate that was given in the referendum?
00:19:43.200 Well, I'll give you two reasons.
00:19:44.380 One is that politics, as you famously said, is the art of the possible.
00:19:47.540 in her judgment at this point it is not possible why is it not possible because they're never
00:19:55.640 going to agree to it the country is going broke the only thing that keeps the country going is
00:20:00.580 the revenues going out of alberta if there was ever a good time to negotiate equalization this
00:20:08.220 isn't it and she's realistic enough to know and the second reason that she's got a whole
00:20:13.640 mess of, whether we like it or not, tentative agreements with the Prime Minister to get
00:20:19.840 a pipeline going, get this wretched carbon capture going, which is an absolute farce,
00:20:25.260 but there it is. You know, you could blow the whole thing up with one bad comment about
00:20:33.700 equalization and set all the work she's been doing for the last six months back. Now, you 1.00
00:20:40.600 know i don't like it i i don't like equalization i don't like the fact that the rest of the
00:20:46.280 country continues as the famous cartoon from 1909 to to be feeding off the you know the
00:20:54.600 of the western canadian economy but there is right now i actually just don't think you can
00:21:03.240 even get it started and that's probably what put mr kenny off when he had his referendum
00:21:08.600 fresh the ink was still wet 60 want the end of equalization well what happened nothing why
00:21:15.800 couldn't be done i could be other reasons but there's a number i think well his political
00:21:20.280 capital have been blown or we're into covet at that point his leadership was going down i think
00:21:25.320 the big thing for him was he always had his eye on the prime minister chair he wanted to go to
00:21:29.320 ottawa and fighting too much about equalization probably makes it hard to get votes in quebec and
00:21:33.720 and Atlantic and other pockets of Canada.
00:21:36.340 For Smith, I think the, you know,
00:21:40.620 Corey, you touched on this.
00:21:43.740 She seems to genuinely trust the word of Mark Carney.
00:21:49.920 And, you know, I have no personal relationship with the man.
00:21:53.340 So, you know, maybe she probably does know something I don't.
00:21:56.460 So I'm willing to grant that.
00:21:58.580 And she's trying to be diplomatic.
00:21:59.900 but the political problem she faces is that most alberta conservatives don't want diplomacy
00:22:07.480 they want war some to the to the extent where they want independence not everybody but a large
00:22:14.280 portion um and so you know when people are voting for independence they're probably going to be
00:22:19.200 leery of playing nice diplomacy with the ultimate laurentian globalist liberal mark carney
00:22:27.780 um but you know maybe she's right maybe she's right cory and uh she's just wheeling and dealing
00:22:35.880 and this is what's best and we're not seeing it she's gonna have to show some wins really soon
00:22:40.200 because the base is crabby she's riding a hornet's nest and we know that we know the nature of 0.87
00:22:44.720 conservatives we're among them where i'm one of the crabby voices picking at her from underneath
00:22:49.560 when she shows compromise with carney and i do understand i mean you don't march right in and
00:22:54.640 give them the finger. The second you meet the prime minister, you have some degree, but I think a lot
00:22:59.500 of her base expects an adversarial relationship. Maybe you're going to compromise or try to come
00:23:06.700 to agreements, but you're coming from a understanding that this isn't a person working
00:23:10.840 in your favor. It's a person you're negotiating against. So you don't count a billion dollars for
00:23:16.740 housing from the feds a win? No, I see that as a giant intrusion in our local jurisdiction.
00:23:22.880 That should have nothing to do with housing.
00:23:24.600 Now I see we got a bunch of strings and then we have even more federal things that happen because the province has to submit applications for federal approval to get that money, which means Ottawa now controls our planning on infrastructure for municipalities.
00:23:37.720 So no, that's not something to be celebrating at all.
00:23:40.160 You don't count the West Coast Pipeline being sent to the major projects office?
00:23:45.080 National Pipelines, no, I don't see that as a good program.
00:23:47.780 And it's sent to the projects.
00:23:49.280 No.
00:23:50.220 So there's a giant step forward for getting that thing built.
00:23:53.940 If I believed it was going to get built.
00:23:55.700 And it's going to almost certainly have to be built by taxpayers.
00:23:58.780 It's a win if they are able to clear the deck of laws and regulations
00:24:03.540 that make it viable from the private sector to build it.
00:24:06.960 And that win might be.
00:24:07.840 There was an announcement recently saying, you know,
00:24:10.220 that they've now moved another inch forward on the process
00:24:13.680 to speeding it up and fast tracking it.
00:24:15.720 But just as a, and that's where my ideal is blinding me a little bit and making it difficult to declare victory for them.
00:24:23.020 But I just, good Lord, this should have been a no-brainer.
00:24:25.820 Just get out of the way.
00:24:26.960 Don't buy it.
00:24:28.060 That's me.
00:24:28.760 So, Corey, generally speaking, I'm a sort of vote a straight ticket on your opinions, but, you know, you're a smart guy.
00:24:35.340 But in this particular instance...
00:24:36.880 But this time you're not smart.
00:24:38.000 I can take issues with you. You said just a moment ago that Albertans want an adversarial
00:24:46.240 relationship with federal government. Well, yeah, a lot of us do, and there's a lot to
00:24:51.720 be adversarial about. They also expect a mature politician to be, not to be a provocateur,
00:25:02.080 actually try to get things done that need to get done I share your anxieties
00:25:08.740 about whether this pipeline will ever get built and if it gets built whether
00:25:11.440 it'll be a good thing but that's I think what people who don't take much
00:25:17.920 interest in politics expect out of their provincial premier a mature
00:25:22.860 individual trying to deal with the problems in a mature way if you go out
00:25:26.680 there as Dave said stick your finger every time the guy comes across the
00:25:32.020 boredom well you know and actually that's what i said she shouldn't do that you can stand you can
00:25:36.420 have an adversarial relationship but it's probably not going to get you anywhere i i guess part of
00:25:41.540 maybe you ever say it was a poor way for me to phrase it too but just an understanding that
00:25:45.060 i don't think there's mutual interest between those two leaders it's a matter of so uh i don't
00:25:52.120 want to dwell too much live too much in the past here but i i've mentioned this before and i cannot
00:25:58.420 shake
00:25:59.540 the image, when I see
00:26:02.440 Smith with Carney, of
00:26:04.480 comparing it with the image of Smith and
00:26:06.480 Prentice.
00:26:08.520 And Prentice and
00:26:10.220 Prentice and Carney,
00:26:12.460 they're from a similar archetype.
00:26:14.960 You know, they...
00:26:16.220 Pragmatic red Tory businesses.
00:26:18.240 Yeah. And... Wise old men.
00:26:21.180 Yeah. And
00:26:22.400 you know, he was able to
00:26:24.540 sell her a bill of goods
00:26:26.700 in the name of...
00:26:28.240 Because remember, until weeks before, the Wild Rose and PC were blood enemies.
00:26:35.700 Death to each other.
00:26:36.620 They hated each other more than the use of being the NDP ever did.
00:26:39.340 Because, you know, it was more personal.
00:26:41.940 And then, you know, so this adversarial relationship was replaced with, let's all just work together and be on the same team.
00:26:49.380 Now, people can learn from their mistakes.
00:26:52.360 People grow.
00:26:53.700 That was, oh God, that was like a decade.
00:26:58.240 yeah 12 years ago now over a decade geez so i mean there's a lot of water under the bridge but
00:27:06.240 i can't shake the worry i should i shouldn't put it as that i i worry that she is being charmed
00:27:17.360 and sold a bill of goods by a similar archetype of a man they're different guys but the archetype
00:27:24.160 is similar and that you know he's gonna get the better end of this deal and i i'm not sure that's
00:27:31.600 the case but it's a real strong nagging suspicion i've got so there's one difference between then
00:27:38.080 and now and that is then she was the leader and i'm not sure she had the people around her that
00:27:46.800 she's got now she gets too close it's almost exactly the same you know it's a different
00:27:53.760 caucus but uh the cast is there are different people and they're and her closest advisors
00:28:00.640 probably have wondered about the same thing as you just said and are very alert for that
00:28:05.360 if they're not well god of us all but uh that's i don't know i i i can see why you say that i kind
00:28:12.720 i'm not accusing her of that um and i i think she's probably grown and matured in that time as
00:28:21.120 all of us would over that kind of time but i understand the niggling worry still in the 0.98
00:28:25.600 back of your mind but at the same time she suffered as much as anybody out of that bum
00:28:30.800 deal as she got herself into that was a very hard lesson i think that's a part of where
00:28:36.160 a lot of conservatives forgave her after enough years and water into the bridge say well we can
00:28:40.560 support you and trust you to get up there again uh we it sounds like you've learned from that and
00:28:45.760 you've certainly paid a penance but then when you start to see a little of the pattern re-emerging
00:28:50.400 you can't help but worry a little bit like boy you're seeing what i'm saying yeah yeah i mean
00:28:55.520 i i just hope i'm i really wanted to change course and i want to keep supporting smith as much as
00:29:00.960 possible i feel like i kind of maybe i'm just being like a jealous boyfriend who got burned once
00:29:06.400 and i'm just now overly paranoid about about anyone who looks like jim prentice uh who comes
00:29:12.560 along again just compare what alberta got from justin trudeau and compare what in one year alberta
00:29:20.640 got with mark kearney nothing so pharmacist well there's been nothing so far no but we had
00:29:26.880 that active animosity from uh justin trudeau yeah he he hated him yeah we've got to close
00:29:32.240 to oil fields now there's a definite change in tone and language i i agree with that he does not
00:29:39.040 genuinely hate alberto the way i think trudeau did but in terms of actual wins sure the political
00:29:44.800 climate has changed uh we don't have that kind of deep heavy fog over us and we're not at open war
00:29:51.680 but in terms of actual tangible wins there's not really been that much so far that's actually
00:29:57.680 bent that's gotten over the line and done no other that we've agreed to a higher carbon tax
00:30:02.640 yeah and you know i think the the pipeline going to the major project office is a big step right
00:30:09.360 and they're going to i think they're going to approve it no doubt uh they've got people up
00:30:14.080 till september 18th to comment on it the the thing about approval apparently it still depends on
00:30:20.160 indigenous uh well i thought if it was declared a project of national interest well i thought
00:30:25.600 The Indigenous didn't matter.
00:30:28.600 No, no, no, no. 1.00
00:30:29.120 They still have to do that.
00:30:30.160 It doesn't override the consultation required,
00:30:33.140 which is a separate thing.
00:30:34.520 But I mean, if the government has the will,
00:30:37.020 I mean, it is a longer discussion,
00:30:38.860 but, you know, the bar of the problem with that
00:30:41.660 is every judge, they never say that they weren't consulted.
00:30:44.460 They say it's never enough.
00:30:46.080 And there is no formula.
00:30:46.980 How much is enough?
00:30:47.900 When is it?
00:30:48.360 Ten meetings in this guy's living room?
00:30:49.840 A few town halls with donuts?
00:30:52.360 Oh, I'm sure the hereditary chiefs
00:30:54.120 already planning little block yeah so i mean that'll be kind of the sign of things so if carney
00:30:58.840 is serious he's gonna have to take a stance against those chronic opponents because some
00:31:05.160 of them are never going to be on board but he's been well again like i said not walking in the
00:31:09.880 room giving the finger yet but he better be ready for a fight if he's serious about this
00:31:13.320 but let's speak of the fights let's talk about spain the invasion of spain um so a lot of people
00:31:21.800 don't know because it's very small to see on the map but there are two cities spanish cities on
00:31:27.960 the north coast of africa uh bordering morocco uh cuta is one of them the other one is spanish
00:31:36.520 morocco it's just a little further off to the west okay um these are entirely spanish cities
00:31:43.800 uh they have been i don't want to get the exact rates wrong but many many hundreds of years i
00:31:49.400 I think like 600 or so.
00:31:50.740 Yeah, really kind of, they date really from the period of the Reconquesta.
00:31:55.640 So, you know, for people following along at home who don't know what the Reconquesta was,
00:31:59.500 the Reconquesta was the Spanish and Portuguese reconquest of Iberia from the Muslim occupiers,
00:32:09.260 the Islamic occupiers who had been there, who had conquered it under the Moors,
00:32:12.880 you know, during the early, relatively early Islamic invasions that stopped at the Battle of Tours.
00:32:18.560 I'll stop the history lesson largely there, but the reconquest was the reconquest of Iberia, you know, Spain and Portugal, that ended kind of at the beginning of the Spanish Golden Age.
00:32:33.700 So that's what the term means, it's taking your country back, and the term is actually kind of applied by a lot of the, you know, re-migration folks across Europe.
00:32:43.520 It's a reconquest of taking your country back from a foreign occupation.
00:32:48.560 So Spain has now been invaded. Anyone who saw these videos, let's show some on the side here. Everyone's already seen this stuff. You couldn't count a single woman or child in there. It was all uniformly military age men.
00:33:09.880 And if that is not an invasion, I don't know what an invasion is. 1.00
00:33:17.520 Spain has got an insane government that is essentially refugees welcome. 0.99
00:33:24.520 They're kind of advertising that they can do this. 1.00
00:33:27.800 There may have been some other geopolitical factors involved that I don't want to get into.
00:33:33.660 But the fact was that Spain was invaded.
00:33:38.240 They've claimed now that, ah, they've all gone home,
00:33:41.520 but I haven't seen any video of these mass grind-ups.
00:33:45.140 I've seen video of...
00:33:46.360 I've seen them trying, and they were jumping under the trucks
00:33:47.880 when they were trying to bring them back.
00:33:48.980 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:33:50.120 And, you know, we've seen where they've literally went in,
00:33:52.400 they ransacked stores in people's homes,
00:33:54.540 and police are pushing them out of homes,
00:33:56.040 but they're just pushing back onto the streets.
00:33:57.660 They're just getting them out of someone's home that they're squatting in.
00:34:01.040 And this has now had huge repercussions across Europe.
00:34:04.460 I don't know, Nigel, is this finally the point where there's been such a visual shock of an invasion that cannot be ignored, that finally wakes Europe from its slumber?
00:34:18.700 Well, you kind of hope so, but it's been going on for 10 years, isn't it?
00:34:22.820 Arguably 360, but really bad in the last time.
00:34:25.160 You know, really bad in the last time, ever since Angela Merkel decided to open up the borders in Germany.
00:34:31.100 And, you know, the trouble is, maybe it's not a trouble, maybe it's a wonderful thing in our society that we are compassionate, we're empathetic, we see people starving, we see people, you know, just looking for a better way in life and say, yeah, sure, come on in.
00:34:45.920 And then they come and then more come and so all of a sudden you find that you're supporting, as is the case in Great Britain at the moment, you're supporting a population of people who are there for the benefits but not to do the work.
00:34:56.760 Now, here in Spain, I understand that there are 40,000 places ready to, you know, refugee tickets, if you want to call them that.
00:35:05.720 So these folks come in. 1.00
00:35:07.060 They're not Spanish. 1.00
00:35:07.780 They come from somewhere else. 1.00
00:35:10.360 They're all young men. 0.99
00:35:11.640 What are they going to do?
00:35:12.680 They're going to look for what young men want.
00:35:15.840 They're going to want work.
00:35:16.760 They're going to want income.
00:35:18.820 And? 1.00
00:35:19.860 Sex. 0.98
00:35:20.360 And sex, yes. 1.00
00:35:21.280 They didn't bring their women. 0.98
00:35:21.960 They didn't bring their women.
00:35:22.940 And then you see that problem cropping up in Sweden and Germany and so forth.
00:35:27.820 And just before this invasion, Morocco opened up the jails and released everybody.
00:35:34.480 So I would think the majority of these 60,000 are probably criminals.
00:35:38.860 Probably not people.
00:35:39.360 Probably not what you want. 1.00
00:35:40.160 And, you know, Spain gave status to 500,000 refugees. 0.73
00:35:46.100 They approved it for amnesty, essentially, for illegal migrants.
00:35:49.180 They gave them citizenship. 0.54
00:35:50.080 They approved it for, they thought it would be 500,000.
00:35:52.240 It turned out to be a lot more.
00:35:53.800 There was a bunch of illegal city in the country who just popped out and, and they're doing it now to all Europe because when you're given Spanish citizenship, you know, that automatically means you get European citizenship.
00:36:04.340 Yeah.
00:36:05.080 It's, uh, one thing it has done is it's caused some European countries to question whether Spain should be checked out of the EU passport system.
00:36:14.940 Uh, cause they don't have any idea who these people are.
00:36:17.620 They don't know where, what they've done in the past.
00:36:20.180 As Derek said, you look hard in these reels and there is not a single woman there.
00:36:25.820 Not that we want women and children as well, but.
00:36:28.520 But I mean, is the news narrative enough that people are making, like realizing what this is about? 0.89
00:36:34.140 I mean, I watch, again, social media, which is torqued and slanted, but I watched an idiotic exchange between a left wing journalist of some sort in North America saying, well, if people would just stop bombing those countries, they'd stop coming in.
00:36:46.700 And somebody shut it down quick enough with a repo saying, who's bombing Morocco? 0.95
00:36:50.180 Exactly. 0.79
00:36:50.680 You know, these guys are coming in.
00:36:51.660 They're very healthy looking.
00:36:52.720 They're wearing Nikes. 1.00
00:36:53.480 These are not refugees. 1.00
00:36:55.000 This is a different story.
00:36:56.040 But does the average citizen get that picture or realize that?
00:37:00.240 That, I don't know.
00:37:01.500 So you've got to ask yourself, Corey, why is this happening everywhere?
00:37:04.660 Like under Biden, it was happening in the United States.
00:37:08.100 The southern border was not a border.
00:37:10.880 We've been watching this, Dave and I, how it's been working out in England.
00:37:15.620 People just get in a dinghy.
00:37:17.160 If they make it across the channel, most of them do,
00:37:20.780 then we welcome that we give them a status card.
00:37:24.040 They get health benefits.
00:37:25.720 They get put up in four-star hotels.
00:37:27.900 Why wouldn't you, you know, jeepers, why wouldn't you do that?
00:37:31.520 See why they're coming.
00:37:33.560 Why we're not stopping them is that.
00:37:35.100 You know, they like to say, well, when there was trouble in Syria and Iraq and so forth,
00:37:40.320 people got up and left.
00:37:42.500 so that's true to a point but we actually know do we not that the united nations has a sort of a
00:37:51.820 globalization no borders policy some american politicians supported that quite strongly i want
00:37:57.620 to i want to tap into that because you know when you see you mean you want to get to the truth of
00:38:03.180 the matter yeah uh okay so when we see you know you know he's getting serious when he puts his
00:38:07.900 it's like unload the gun um but a few uh you know 20 odd dinghies are arriving a day and 0.97
00:38:18.640 on the south shores of england you could say well that might just be a couple of ragtag guys doing
00:38:24.580 it together maybe it's organized but it's plausibly just individuals doing this there is no way to
00:38:33.700 look at the videos of the 50 000 military age young men streaming through the border in a massed
00:38:43.540 invasion and not ask yourself is this organized and then we've seen video of trucks like they
00:38:51.780 literally had uh like garbage trucks i mean insert your own joke here yeah yeah insert racist joke
00:39:00.900 that gets the edmonton police calling you uh here so um you know garbage trucks that would open up
00:39:06.580 the back and these young guys were just poor where did they get garbage trucks 50 000 50 to 60 you
00:39:13.060 know there's different estimates but we'll go 50. it was obviously organized who why and how
00:39:22.660 i've not seen that answered in a satisfactory way yet i would guess it's the moroccan government
00:39:27.060 You know, they opened up the jail cells and herded everybody to the border and said, okay, go.
00:39:33.920 Because you're right.
00:39:34.620 I was just going to say Castro did that.
00:39:36.640 Yeah, but it's obviously organized.
00:39:39.200 I mean, it's a huge stream of people all coming across at once.
00:39:43.200 And they're undesirable.
00:39:44.300 Yeah, you can't tell me that 50,000 people all came up with the idea at the same time.
00:39:49.600 Well, these countries are using migration as a biological weapon now.
00:39:53.080 they're they're using it to exert uh influence uh to stabilize the neighboring country turkey did 0.54
00:40:00.420 this to blackmail uh germany and europe turkey said like hey unless you give us these concessions
00:40:05.700 we want over here on this set of issues we're going to open the border and we're going to let
00:40:09.500 people from syria flood through turkey into greece and therefore into the rest of europe
00:40:14.120 um and morocco has been doing this and oddly enough so you have these two
00:40:18.580 kind of, lack of a better term,
00:40:20.760 Spanish city-states, for lack of a better term,
00:40:23.140 on the coast, and Morocco
00:40:24.780 claims them as their own, although
00:40:26.680 it's never belonged to a modern Moroccan state.
00:40:29.860 They're beside it. 1.00
00:40:30.900 So they claim sovereignty
00:40:32.600 over these two states, even though
00:40:34.900 until last week, there were no
00:40:36.840 real Moroccans of any numbers living in those
00:40:38.860 two cities.
00:40:40.920 But the United States has actually
00:40:42.600 started to change its tone, showing the United States 1.00
00:40:44.800 is actually starting to bring back Moroccan
00:40:46.640 claims to these two cities,
00:40:48.580 A lot of think tanks very closely linked to the Republican Party are showing it.
00:40:53.020 Even some statements, not from the president, but from senior officials, have started to back Morocco's claims to it.
00:41:00.160 So this might be, perhaps, I can't say, but perhaps with American support might be the wrong word,
00:41:11.220 but at least their consent to go forward and do whatever you want. 0.54
00:41:15.660 This might be Morocco's way of just trying to lay claim to these cities. 0.67
00:41:19.740 Because you can very quickly, in a single day, constitute the majority population. 0.94
00:41:25.000 Quite possibly.
00:41:25.920 And then, hey, now we could vote that they're ours.
00:41:28.160 I mean, there has been a sort of a homegrown resistance movement in the Spanish territories.
00:41:33.560 I think the organization is called Polisario.
00:41:36.400 And they've been around for 50 years, at least.
00:41:39.560 The best Moroccan group, though, was the Moroccan Islamic Liberation Front, MILF.
00:41:50.620 That was an actual organization at one point, the MILF.
00:41:54.460 Insert your own joke.
00:41:55.780 Yeah, I just...
00:41:56.780 The question I have is how many are going to end up in Canada? 1.00
00:42:00.760 Well, they're going to have to take a place in the queue behind the 300,000 Haitians. 1.00
00:42:06.080 the yanks are apparently turning loose because they're not going to want to go back to haiti 0.97
00:42:11.840 what a time to be alive all right we'll put a pin in that there enough talk of the milf
00:42:19.400 uh we'll go uh dave you're parting shot uh just an update on what i talked about uh last week
00:42:26.280 the summer of jimothy in seattle uh seattle mariners had a jimothy night of his picture
00:42:33.860 on all the ticket stubs it was so successful they've had to plan another one so uh jimothy's
00:42:40.180 still alive and has not been run over yet is he being hand-fed milk and chocolate uh probably
00:42:47.860 probably yeah the latest hard-hitting news from the western standard it's popular stuff uh i guess
00:42:55.140 for me that caitlin ford's case has been back in the news and it's good it's getting you know into
00:42:59.140 this fall i see press progress is getting some well-deserved financial pressure after the
00:43:03.380 character assassination they committed but also a name that popped up recently we hadn't seen was
00:43:08.660 john thomas lukasic has been in the thick of that whole mess and was a facilitator for some of the
00:43:13.700 communications that led to that whole thing he's not part of the lawsuit but his name is uh in with
00:43:18.740 that whole bunch so i'd just like to remind folks just who that man is and the sort of company he
00:43:23.460 keeps the disaster artist yeah i was kind of taken by the um the nature of progress when you first
00:43:31.460 invent a rocket that'll take you to the moon. It is the most wonderful thing, and it's a great,
00:43:36.900 well, you know, one footstep for mankind and a hundred miles for humanity, you know,
00:43:43.380 and it's a big deal. Fifty years goes by, sixty years goes by, and when you hit the moon by
00:43:48.900 accident, you're the worst in the world, you know. But I can just see the regulation and the
00:43:55.780 The public mood moving in on this, it's like the guy who had the first motor car accident, you know.
00:44:03.460 Up until then, the motor car was a miracle.
00:44:06.100 One of Musk's SpaceX rockets, I guess.
00:44:08.680 Oh, does everybody not know about that?
00:44:10.120 I thought it was deliberate.
00:44:12.120 No, it was accidental.
00:44:14.820 And apparently, it didn't make much of it.
00:44:16.900 Everybody thought they were going to get this big plume of dust when it hit at 5,400 miles an hour.
00:44:22.320 It was a disappointment.
00:44:24.220 It still looks kind of cool.
00:44:25.780 I say it was faked.
00:44:29.620 Progress.
00:44:30.820 Yeah.
00:44:31.940 Okay.
00:44:32.440 Well, not enough time for me to have one, so we'll stop it there.
00:44:35.120 Nigel, Corey, Dave, thank you.
00:44:36.940 Thank you, John, on production.
00:44:39.100 And thank all of you who joined us for the show today.
00:44:42.280 We appreciate your eyes.
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00:45:25.180 We had our first one last week.
00:45:28.460 Dave and I had burgers right before.
00:45:30.960 It was a good evening.
00:45:31.640 We had a great chat with our first Editor's Circle video conference call.
00:45:37.180 It's a chance for us to give you kind of an insider's look inside the newsroom.
00:45:41.600 What are we working on?
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00:45:57.340 You know, because sometimes we can be on our own fishbowl here.
00:45:59.840 It was a good time.
00:46:01.600 With that, thank you very much, and God bless.
00:46:20.480 We'll be right back.