Western Standard - The Pipeline. Election update, Westjet pilots reject vaccine plan and more

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00:04:30.000 Good day. Today is September 15th. I'm Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western Standard,

00:04:44.580 and you're watching The Pipeline. Today, I'm joined by Western Standard news editor,

00:04:48.900 as usual, Dave Naylor. How are you doing, Dave?

00:04:51.880 Good, Derek. I'm glad to have escaped the left post back home.

00:04:57.020 Did it alive?

00:04:58.060 Yeah.

00:04:58.660 Corey, it's hot in the studio today.

00:05:00.000 I like it. Bring it on. Okay. Well, hot takes from Corey.

00:05:07.540 See what I did there? Yes, I did. Okay. Well, before we've got a great show,

00:05:12.200 we have an exclusive Western Standard story. The WestJet Pilots Union is fighting back

00:05:18.220 against its company in WestJet's requirement of mandatory vaccination for pilots. We've obtained

00:05:26.220 emails from the pilots union and spoken to at least one WestJet pilot who doesn't think this

00:05:34.860 is such a great idea. We're also going to wrap up getting to the homestretch of the federal election

00:05:40.660 and it's finally getting interesting and not really to do with any of the two big parties

00:05:45.220 actually. So we're going to get into that but before we do I want to thank all of our Western

00:05:50.540 Standard members for your continued support. If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard

00:05:54.660 please go to westernstandardonline.com and click on membership. You can try it free for 15 days

00:05:59.260 and cancel at any time. If you like what you're getting, it's just $10 a month or $99 a year.

00:06:06.820 And you can, as I said, you can cancel at any time if you don't like it. Try it for free.

00:06:10.280 Got nothing to lose. Today's show is sponsored by the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.

00:06:16.840 The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights is a fantastic group doing great work across Canada,

00:06:22.140 of fighting for your right to own, use, purchase, and bear firearms responsibly in Canada. It's a

00:06:27.900 very important organization right now where we've got the incumbent liberal government doing

00:06:33.820 everything it can to seize your firearms. It's not actually on the agenda today, but Dave had

00:06:39.700 a great story. I think it was yesterday or the day before. The federal liberals are even examining

00:06:45.800 banning regular hunting rifles and shotguns. Sorry, that's military-style assault duck hunting

00:06:56.020 shotguns. Yeah. So check out firearmrights.ca and click Why More to learn about why you should

00:07:04.760 become a member of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. Well, let's get to the main story

00:07:09.700 we're dealing with off the top here, the resistance of WestJet pilots to orders from corporate

00:07:19.380 management that all of the pilots, I suppose all their employees, but the pilots union in particular

00:07:23.220 is fighting back. Dave, why don't you set the table? Sure. This was an exclusive that our readers

00:07:29.140 were able to look at on the website yesterday. Last week, WestJet announced that by September

00:07:34.820 24th all pilots must show proof of vaccination this has caused some anxiety some concern some

00:07:42.340 anger amongst the west jet 2200 pilots they have their union has sent a letter to the company

00:07:50.740 saying hold on we're against that and they've told their their pilots not to tell the the company

00:07:59.620 whether or not uh they've been injected or not company vows to start firing them by december

00:08:06.180 if they're not uh sorry sorry the union said they refuse to tell the company they've been

00:08:10.260 done well the the union is telling their pilots oh to refuse to tell the company whether or not

00:08:15.220 they've been vaccinated suppose it's one of those you can't fire all the pilots exactly yeah exactly

00:08:19.940 uh well one of the pilots i talked to yesterday i asked him that question what if they file or

00:08:25.460 fire a couple hundred pilots. Well, he says it takes about six weeks to train an experienced

00:08:29.940 pilot to be able to fly one of their 737s. So, you know, the union is angry because they weren't

00:08:37.420 even told about this. They had no preliminary talks. It was just, bang, here's what the company

00:08:43.580 has to say. They didn't even ask the union about it. We tried to get a hold of WestJet yesterday.

00:08:49.180 they responded with an email basically saying we stand by our statement of last week which

00:08:55.500 was just basically three paragraphs saying the health of their passengers is their top concern.

00:09:02.380 One of the pilots I spoke to actually said getting vaccinated could cost him his job

00:09:07.740 because one of the side effects of one of the vaccines Derek is myocarditis or something like

00:09:15.580 that which causes an irregular heartbeat so if a pilot goes in for his medical and he's got an

00:09:21.100 irregular heartbeat that's it he's grounded uh so doing what the airline wants could actually cost

00:09:27.100 him uh his job uh so september 24th was the deadline so it's going to be interesting to see

00:09:33.260 what happens uh when the uh you know eventually i assume that the union is going to have talks with

00:09:39.900 with the airline about what they're gonna do going forward.

00:09:43.640 But it's gonna be interesting.

00:09:45.800 The pilot I talked to says it's split 50-50.

00:09:49.420 They've got a chat room amongst themselves.

00:09:51.480 And he says of the hundreds of people in there

00:09:54.460 split right down the middle, 50-50.

00:09:56.900 Corey, you're shop steward

00:09:57.820 of the Western Standard Rudders Union.

00:09:59.480 Am I expecting any resistance

00:10:02.060 to my mandatory vaccination program

00:10:03.640 for Western Standard employees?

00:10:04.880 No, we got other stuff we're upset with you about.

00:10:07.380 Vaccines, we're fine.

00:10:08.860 look, the sexual harassment was an accident. I didn't mean it. You experienced it differently.

00:10:14.780 I showed you on the doll. All right. We're going to move on from that.

00:10:21.700 Corey, do you think this is a big problem for the company? Or do you think at the end of the day,

00:10:29.580 people want to keep their jobs, they're just going to do it?

00:10:31.480 I don't know. I mean, I'm surprised that organized labor has been this late to the show

00:10:35.260 as far as all of this goes with so many companies and public services and areas where they're saying

00:10:39.600 we're going to fire you if you don't take this medication uh we're talking upwards of 10 20

00:10:44.420 percent of in the midst of a labor crisis of highly trained people who may not have a job soon

00:10:50.100 and and uh this is a bigger issue than just saying well damn it go out and get it okay that's fine

00:10:54.780 but if you lose 10 15 of your nurses 10 of your pilots things like that we've already got a problem 0.63

00:10:59.700 it's going to get a lot worse and i would have thought the unions would have been faster to get

00:11:02.900 on this i mean the people again we've talked about that who truly feel that a vaccine may harm them

00:11:08.180 or have other con you know conscious beliefs against it they're not going to get vaccinated

00:11:12.660 so that means they are going to be unemployed and this gun to the head strategy i i isn't going to

00:11:17.460 pay off in the long run but i i've got a feeling a lot of people might find themselves fired and a

00:11:21.460 lot of companies might be short-staffed in the short term i think the the first person whether

00:11:25.780 it's a civil servant or a west jet pilot to to be fired before refusing to take the vaccine

00:11:31.460 obviously that's going to end up in court and uh uh how long or how quickly the court deals with it

00:11:37.780 will remain to be seen but i think you can expect hundreds if not thousands of lawsuits well this

00:11:43.860 is why a lot of uh big companies like government mandating mandatory pass uh vaccine passports

00:11:50.900 because it removes liability from companies the companies who are doing this on their own

00:11:54.900 they want big government to step in and do this because if they do this they are quite open

00:12:01.900 potentially to lawsuits it's it's happening across the states it's happening in provinces

00:12:05.940 already where mandatory vaccination is coming to place these lawsuits are already starting

00:12:10.120 but it's particularly more dangerous for companies that do it on their own

00:12:14.100 because it could be a case of wrongful dismissal human rights tribunal in some cases I we're gonna

00:12:22.980 to have to, this is not a story we have up yet, but some we're going to work on. I was just speaking

00:12:26.180 to a nurse today in northern Alberta. We've got an ICU capacity problem in Alberta, which is 0.99

00:12:32.420 incredible. I mean, if we can't fit a thousand people, extra patients in hospitals across the

00:12:37.880 entire province, actually, it's not just ICU, it's just the hospital capacity. If we can't take a

00:12:42.200 thousand, you've written about before, if we can't take a thousand extra people after nearly two

00:12:47.040 years of this crisis and trying to expand our capacity, then clearly we've got a crappy health

00:12:51.060 care system. Like there's something wrong if we can't absorb this kind of shock. But either way,

00:12:55.220 I guess there is a shortage and there's a shortage of nurses. Yet now AHS is going to fire nurses who 0.99

00:13:02.880 do not get vaccinated. I mean, I think it's a minority of nurses who feel that way. You know,

00:13:10.080 if it's my nurse, I'd probably encourage them to get vaccinated, but it's their choice. And now

00:13:14.460 we're going to compound a shortage of spaces and staff and hospitals right now by firing nurses 0.93

00:13:21.120 who make their own personal choice not to. It's not too smart. Do you think this WestJet move

00:13:28.960 is going to put any pressure on the, WestJet's Calgary-based? Do you think it's going to have

00:13:33.240 any impact on the provincial government as we potentially move towards an Alberta vaccine

00:13:36.580 passport? Well, the Alberta government yesterday announced that you can print off your own

00:13:41.360 vaccine passport, basically, that they're still not going to make it mandatory, but

00:13:45.160 they're coming in all over, Derek. BC had theirs introduced on Monday. Quebec is in, Manitoba is

00:13:54.200 in Ontario, is going to a passport, even after Premier Ford vowed not to. So whether or not it

00:14:02.200 forces Kenny I don't know he's very he doesn't like to apologize often he

00:14:09.940 doesn't like to say he's mishandled this pandemic at all he's still in hiding

00:14:16.180 God knows why getting crisis communication is very poor very poorly

00:14:24.700 handled at the moment can he needed to come out of hiding and get in front of

00:14:28.540 this and and he hasn't done so and uh he's on orders from ottawa well i think that's probably

00:14:34.120 the case and you know the mind of the election ends on monday uh so maybe we'll see him next

00:14:38.900 week uh and he might see a shadow and go hide again for another six weeks but uh yeah albert

00:14:46.980 it could be the last one standing so to speak well that's a good segue to the teaser i promise

00:14:52.160 people um yesterday there was a emergency meeting of the pic the it's one of the it's the cabinet

00:15:00.240 committee responsible for covid and an emergency meeting of the united conservative party's

00:15:04.080 caucus in alberta uh actually just about two blocks that way and um they uh well in regular

00:15:12.080 fashion you know i don't like to miss a ucp caucus meeting no i know um and uh they've been talking

00:15:17.840 Okay, so I'm not going to give it away too much because we've still got to write the story itself.

00:15:24.860 We've got some juicy tidbits about what was said in that caucus meeting.

00:15:29.540 If people in the staff in the Premier's office are watching right now, call your husband, call your wife.

00:15:34.960 You're probably working late tonight.

00:15:36.920 We've got something I don't think will disappoint.

00:15:39.560 So watch the Western Standard in the next half an hour, 45 minutes after the broadcast ends today.

00:15:45.760 and buckle up. It's gonna be fun. So let's turn towards the federal election. We've got,

00:15:55.080 let's see, we're, today's Wednesday election is, I guess, less than a week away. It's Monday.

00:16:00.160 Less than a week?

00:16:00.520 Yeah, we're in the homestretch. The liberals and conservatives seem essentially deadlocked,

00:16:09.360 but it's fascinating. We don't have proportional representation like a lot of countries in Europe,

00:16:14.620 But, you know, Germany's last federal election, it was the first time in that country's history that the two biggest parties combined, the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party, between the two could barely form a majority, a coalition, a grand coalition, because there's all these smaller parties eating up.

00:16:32.540 We're kind of seeing something similar in Canada right now where the Conservatives and the Liberals are both roughly 33% each.

00:16:42.800 Now, because we don't have proportional representation, we've got first past the post, we're not going to have any problem where the Liberals and Conservatives couldn't even govern together.

00:16:50.460 That's not going to be the case.

00:16:52.000 But there's been a lot of movement.

00:16:54.080 The Green Collapse has been spectacular. 0.99

00:16:58.020 The bloc has come up a bit.

00:16:59.520 the really big story is the Maverick Party, sorry, the People's Party of Canada taking off.

00:17:08.400 Why don't you tell what's going on on that side right now, and how do you think this is going to

00:17:14.700 shape up in the election? Well, thank goodness it's almost all over, Derek. If the polls are

00:17:20.280 correct and all of the polls are basically saying the same thing, I think it's safe to say we're

00:17:24.620 to have another minority government uh the question is whether it's a conservative or a

00:17:29.660 liberal one uh i think if it's a liberal one that's the beginning of the end for trudeau

00:17:35.180 uh he called this election hoping to get a minority a majority i'm sorry and it's obvious

00:17:41.420 that he's not going to get it so how long the the party big wigs let him hang around

00:17:46.300 and people decide it's time for a different sunny way remains to be seen ppc continues to crisscross

00:17:55.460 the country bernier having rallies in the west this week that drew pack crowds as you say the

00:18:02.480 the green party is is not even in play anymore their leader paul had to use air miles i think

00:18:10.880 to get out to the Maritimes yesterday, they may not even win her own seat that she's running 1.00

00:18:20.500 for in Toronto. Maverick Party, really not getting much traction. They're running a much

00:18:29.420 different campaign than the PPC, whereas Bernier is everywhere to be seen. The anthem leader,

00:18:36.280 Jay Hill is really nowhere to be seen. Most of the candidates are just doing their thing via

00:18:43.340 social media and having coffee lunches and stuff like that. So I think people are going to be

00:18:53.100 shocked, Derek, about how much support the PPC actually gets. Advanced polling wrapped up this

00:19:02.060 week. I think a huge number, 18% increase over the last time. It's just a daily grind of election

00:19:09.780 news already today. The NDP announced they booted out two candidates for anti-Semitic remarks.

00:19:17.420 Aaron O'Toole is turning his attacks personally now against Trudeau in this last week of the

00:19:23.800 campaign. Trudeau continues to bring up the ghost of Stephen Harper, who wasn't even running, but

00:19:29.760 some days you would think it. So I think when we hold our election special Monday night,

00:19:36.440 make sure you all tune in. It's going to be fun and games, and we may not even know the

00:19:42.460 official result by the end of the evening. Corey, you kind of hinted at this in your column. It

00:19:51.140 wasn't, I guess, based on any data, but kind of your spidey sense that you could see a lot of

00:19:55.360 Green Party supporters going PPC. And I was just reading a very interesting focus group survey and

00:20:02.060 poll today. I think it was on the line. Where are these PPC supporters coming from? And only about

00:20:09.980 40 percent are coming from the Conservatives. 25 percent of current, as of today, people saying

00:20:15.840 they're going to vote PPC in polls. 25 percent voted Green last time. Oh, well, that'll make

00:20:21.500 Corey happy. He's happy. What do you think is driving? Why do you think the PPC has been able

00:20:28.720 to kind of catch fire? Again, let's be realistic. They'll be lucky if Bernie wins his seat. Who

00:20:34.240 knows what could happen elsewhere? Maybe there'll be a couple surprises, but despite their support,

00:20:38.840 I think it's fairly evenly spread across the country, not concentrated enough to win seats

00:20:43.380 under our archaic old system. But what do you think is really driving this? What's behind it?

00:20:48.860 And do you think on election day that the PPC's numbers are going to hold up or people are just going to kind of go back to the traditional parties?

00:20:56.240 Well, I mean, it's clear they pitched their tent on some unique ground and a strong area for it.

00:21:02.260 You know, they're the only party who is outright against lockdowns, against vaccine passports, against this pressuring for vaccinations, against restrictions in general.

00:21:11.300 and even though that might only represent 10 15 percent of the population that's a very dedicated

00:21:17.560 10 or 15 percent of the population that's their deal breaker issue and if you were a green 1.00

00:21:22.840 supporter whereas yeah you were worried about the endangered you know it's not slug from the west

00:21:27.380 coast or whatever all those other issues were that you were on but one of the other things too was

00:21:31.680 you went to your natural path for your health care or you used crystal healing or i i'm using

00:21:38.580 stereotypes, but there's some truth to it. I grew up in Banff. I got to know some of these people

00:21:42.260 and they are not for vaccinations. They're extremely against vaccinations. So if only one

00:21:49.680 party is standing up on that front, they're going to get behind that party. And Maxine Bernier has

00:21:55.200 been providing that. But now for a long, I think that'll hold into the election on election day.

00:21:59.560 I don't know if it's going to win them seats, but it'll, that solid number is going to stay there

00:22:03.400 because people will want to cast their ballot and make their thoughts known. Whether or not that

00:22:06.460 holds them together for the subsequent years after the election, I don't know. That's kind of a shaky

00:22:10.920 coalition. But that one issue, he's really grabbed a single issue that strongly pulls people together

00:22:16.340 for at least this particular election. Yeah. I was having a conversation with an old reform party guy

00:22:23.700 today, and we were talking about People's Party and Maverick and all these parties. And my

00:22:32.760 observation was that yeah i'm in two years from now who knows maybe we're still gonna be dealing 0.95

00:22:38.280 with this shit maybe we're still gonna be in covid but i mean if i'm betting man and i've 0.88

00:22:42.540 been wrong about covid many times about how long this is gonna go on but if let's assume it's done 0.99

00:22:47.140 it's not the topic du jour anymore uh it's i i think maverick has been smart as mark as mark

00:23:02.760 .

00:23:32.760 Thank you.

Western Standard - September 16, 2021

The Pipeline. Election update, Westjet pilots reject vaccine plan and more

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