Paul Holmes and Derek Vildebrandt discuss the federal budget, the fiscal update, and the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. They also discuss the pipeline hearings, the CEC War Room, and Kenny's poll numbers.
00:00:00.000and you're listening to the pipeline my name is Paul Holmes coming from Victoria
00:00:13.920British Columbia I'm the digital editor with the Western Standard and joining me
00:00:18.060as usual is Derek Vildebrandt publisher of the Western Standard how are you
00:00:22.500today Derek fantastic awesome so today we are going to be talking about the
00:00:28.140federal budget and or the federal budget fiscal update and we're going to be
00:00:33.960talking about the leadership of the Conservative Party latest developments
00:00:39.000this week on that we're going to be talking about the pipeline hearings the
00:00:43.380CEC war room out of Alberta and Kenny's poll numbers and I suppose whether those
00:00:48.880two things have anything to do with each other we're gonna start with the budget
00:00:52.500so the or the fiscal update is what they call the mini budgets now what were
00:00:58.820your initial reactions there well the Liberals campaigned on as they
00:01:05.940traditionally do a large suite of new spending promises and we're already
00:01:10.860running a large deficit and had no plan literally ever they read they had the
00:01:16.800the fiscal projections projected deficits literally without end forever unless
00:01:22.560something major changes in Canada that was before the election now they've
00:01:27.360campaigned on even more big spending items and they're gonna probably try to do a
00:01:31.380deal with the NDP on things like a national pharmacare program to try and take
00:01:35.160over more provincial jurisdiction and even before any of that happens the deficit
00:01:42.040has exploded even further now it's it's not record but it is extraordinarily high
00:01:47.500meaning that if if if they start to try and implement any of theirs of their
00:01:53.580campaign promises little on any of the NDP's campaign promises in a the deal of a
00:01:57.980minority Parliament our deficit is is going to become wildly dangerous but what
00:02:05.440about that amazing middle-class tax cut well we have the Minister of
00:02:09.920middle-class prosperity to take care of that so I think everything's fine although
00:02:13.760Justin Trudeau was a was asked about he was doing a year-end interview yesterday
00:02:20.660or the day before and they asked him because the silly new Minister of middle
00:02:24.860class prosperity they said well what is the middle class to you and his and his
00:02:28.940response of if I think I can quote it correctly was Canadians know who the
00:02:33.380middle class is so his definition of the middle class was Canadians who
00:02:36.460consider themselves middle class which is very typical of someone who is very much
00:02:40.780not middle-class well and I would say with the exception of people like Trudeau
00:02:45.340most Canadians would consider themselves middle-class if you're earning you know
00:02:49.840two hundred fifty thousand dollars and you're living in Toronto you know you
00:02:54.460might you might consider yourself middle-class every day of the week if
00:02:59.260you're and if you're scraping by living in a small town in British Columbia you
00:03:03.840might consider yourself middle-class just because you don't want to consider
00:03:06.360yourself marginal so I think by default we all like to think of ourselves as
00:03:11.700middle-class there is a funny thing in our in our culture and I think it goes
00:03:15.460beyond Canada I think it's across the developed world where the middle class is
00:03:21.060really everyone who's not filthy rich to everyone who's not dirt poor right and
00:03:27.720and maybe there's some merit to that but maybe the term middle class is almost
00:03:32.940becoming obsolete because it it ranges there's such a range of what is middle
00:03:38.580class now so we can both agree that this this government has performed poor
00:03:43.560fiscally the finance minister himself seems like a really smart guy but and sort of
00:03:49.980spins it eloquently does he think that we're all stupid or see does you think
00:03:57.660something somewhere deep in his soul he understands that this is a problem I don't
00:04:04.320think he thinks we're all stupid I think he's actually quite correct that
00:04:08.460Canadians don't care about the deficit right I care about it I think you care
00:04:13.200about it well we used to we used to have this thing yeah you know after after the New
00:04:18.460York Times you know I believe it was the New York Times referred to Canada is the
00:04:23.700next third world country when our when our debt was enormous as compared to our
00:04:29.540GDP that's that's not the current problem although it's creeping up and it was a
00:04:34.960very different moment in politics they're used to you know beginning in
00:04:39.760the early sorry the late 80s early 90s they're developed across partisan cross
00:04:43.420ideological consensus it was led by the Reform Party and then had groups like the
00:04:47.520Canadian Taxpayers Federation Fraser Institute beating the drum and eventually
00:04:50.520it became assumed as gospel across the political spectrum you had NDP
00:04:54.180governments provincially balancing budgets where it was just you can have big
00:04:57.960government or small government but we all agree we're gonna balance the budget to
00:05:00.800do it that consensus broke down and some of our listeners might not like it but I
00:05:06.480actually blame Stephen Harper for it Stephen Harper's decision to not just take us
00:05:11.940into deficit in circuit 2009 2008 2009 but to take us into massive deficit and then to
00:05:21.600brag about it as an economic necessity broke that cross-partisan cross-ideological
00:05:27.940consensus because you know then he went on to say well I'm gonna campaign on
00:05:33.240balancing the budget and then Trudeau throws a sidewander and says well I'm not
00:05:38.440going to balance the budget at least anytime soon I'm gonna run bigger
00:05:42.160deficits even than the NDP and conservatives were indignant about this
00:05:45.640I said how could you be so reckless but take yourselves put yourself in the
00:05:49.720perspective of everybody else and says well it's it's fine for conservatives to
00:05:52.960run deficits but right but it's not fine for liberals no either either these
00:05:57.460things are good or they're bad regardless of what party and and because
00:06:00.580conservatives have this conservatives get a pass on physical issues the way
00:06:05.440left-wing parties get a pass on health care and social issues and so if even the
00:06:11.000conservatives think deficits are okay then clearly it's okay for the parties less
00:06:16.180traditionally aligned with balanced budgets to run them so it was it was
00:06:19.060actually the federal conservative party that I think smashed this cross
00:06:22.180ideological consensus around balanced budgets it's interesting about the getting
00:06:26.060the past because you think about when Paul Martin balanced the budget he did so
00:06:30.820by cutting health care spending and a lot of people forget that and of course they
00:06:36.040were the liberals though they were responsibly cutting health care spending
00:06:38.980whereas if the if the conservatives had cut health care spending well my
00:06:43.840goodness you know the sky would have fallen right and I think you're right I
00:06:47.620think I think on the flip side you know when I when a conservative
00:06:50.380government runs a deficit maybe there's a perspective certainly I would say
00:06:56.020amongst partisan conservatives that they did so responsibly but but I would I
00:07:02.260would definitely push back a little bit on the idea of the time and and
00:07:09.400frankly I always get bothered by this when people compare and this was a big
00:07:13.840left-wing talking point the last time Harper ran for Prime Minister and lost you
00:07:19.480know they the the people on the left we're talking about the fiscal record and how
00:07:23.780horrible his fiscal record was as compared to every other Prime Minister in
00:07:27.960history and it was and used valid data but it was just spinning it sort of
00:07:35.780forgetting about the fact that we had this massive global economic meltdown that
00:07:42.180was very very real and that governments around the world had to scramble to deal
00:07:47.360with and I think I don't think I don't think you should get a full pass for that
00:07:51.780but I think at some level there has to be some recognition so between that and the
00:07:57.280minority government that he was sitting across from you know that he that he was
00:08:01.920he had the minority he he he had to bring at least one other party on that's fine
00:08:08.280but but the Harper government it wasn't just the the economic reality of the
00:08:12.520meltdown at the time of revenues dropping off they made so the revenues were not
00:08:17.260really not necessarily within their control but what was within their control
00:08:21.060spending and they decided to do the opposite of what they should have done
00:08:25.300they should have cut the already massively bloated spending of the federal
00:08:29.100government instead they increased spending to record levels that we had
00:08:33.060never achieved before even under Trudeau senior the Liberals had put forward some
00:08:38.940demands for so-called stimulus that was really just to kind of pull their
00:08:42.840chestnuts out of the fire after that failed coalition thing and they were
00:08:45.840looking bad because that whole thing was actually about getting rid of the
00:08:48.400party subsidies so they tried to change the channel Harper trip I think roughly
00:08:53.640tripled the amount of new spending that the Liberals had demanded and then he and
00:08:57.700he didn't play this off as some kind of cross party deal to keep the government
00:09:02.140going he he said no this is this is it and he shifted the window of acceptable
00:09:07.240opinion radically to the left in Canada at the time by doing so so I really don't give
00:09:13.900them a pass nobody campaigned in the election right before then on us owning
00:09:18.580car companies but six months later Canadian taxpayers are the proud owners
00:09:23.200of Chrysler and GM and for me though that was a bridge too far that's when I stopped
00:09:29.160being a federal conservative party member I didn't come back until Bernie I ran for
00:09:32.260the leadership later on about seven or eight years later but for me I said I didn't
00:09:38.200sign up for a party so that I could own a car company that's losing money and
00:09:42.520anyway we're way into the historical weeds here but hopefully this is the last
00:09:47.440time that that you forced me to defend Harper's fiscal record by playing devil's
00:09:52.960advocate I don't really think there is much of a defense to make they they had
00:09:56.380they did have a terrible fiscal record you do take into account that they did
00:10:02.200face an economic meltdown at the time that was global and not restricted to Canada
00:10:06.820but their reaction to it was precisely the opposite of what they should have done and
00:10:11.200the long-term effect of that was not just that they added a hundred billion
00:10:14.260dollars to the debt it's that they changed the window of acceptable opinion in
00:10:18.220Canada so that people can vote liberal and they don't really care one way or
00:10:24.460another if they have any plan of balancing the budget and the conservatives
00:10:27.640themselves remember in the last election didn't campaign on a balanced
00:10:31.140budget it campaigned on continued deficits and making the deficit smaller
00:10:34.720maybe getting to a balanced budget theoretically in a second term second
00:10:40.220majority term somewhere and that means you're not actually campaigning on
00:10:42.940balancing the budget the NDP and Alberta had a more aggressive balanced budget
00:10:46.960plan the NDP in British Columbia has balanced the budgets I we mentioned this
00:10:52.780last week you know it's I don't know what the hell is happening yeah so when a BC
00:10:57.760NDP or the Alberta NDP have a more aggressive balanced budget plan than the
00:11:01.980federal conservatives I think conservatives have lost the right to be moral and
00:11:06.700indignant about Trudeau's balanced budget until they get serious about it
00:11:09.840themselves which is why right now among major parties federally if you're a
00:11:14.920fiscal conservative I really don't see much of a home so so where do we go from
00:11:19.220from here you know I mean we've got this minority liberal government bring it back
00:11:24.060back and the NDP can prop them up the the certainly the block make walk and can prop
00:11:34.500them up what what are we looking at are we looking at you know just a deeper deeper
00:11:39.960hole until somebody until we're drowning and somebody throws a life raft we're gonna
00:11:45.660see bigger and bigger deficits and perpetual deficits the only possible thing that
00:11:51.420would change is if you know won't be Maxime Bernier himself obviously but if
00:11:55.620there is a new Bernier a new kind of anti-establishment establishment
00:11:59.420aggressively conservative or libertarian candidate that takes the leadership of
00:12:03.900the federal Tories and then goes on to win a majority government in the
00:12:07.860subsequent election maybe maybe then you would see something but barring a
00:12:13.660radical outsider candidate winning the leadership of that party I'll put ten bucks down
00:12:21.360I'll bet anybody we're gonna run deficits ten years from now in Canada
00:12:24.120with no end in sight well who's in government it's worked for America for
00:12:28.480decades after decades so I suppose it helps to be the world's global reserve
00:12:32.580currency oh yes the world trades in your dollars you can borrow without end my
00:12:37.800naturally for Canadians we are not the world's global reserve currency no no and
00:12:42.960maybe maybe we can come up with the digital currency the Canadian Bitcoin all
00:12:48.900right on on that note CPC leadership what's happened since obviously Andrew
00:12:56.400Scheer for those of you living under a rock stepped down last week and we now
00:13:02.700have a conservative field wide open lots of names have been dropped we covered
00:13:07.620some on our drill episode last week but definitely looking at a few other names
00:13:14.820that have popped up Christy Clark is one that's been floated which I think is
00:13:19.060sort of hilarious because I know amongst the last time we had a red Tory federal
00:13:25.420conservative leader from BC who was that I don't know what did are you is that are
00:13:30.420you being yeah that was oh Kim Campbell okay I was gonna say I was gonna say has
00:13:35.460there been one yes all right did not end well I forgot about that so so Christy
00:13:42.300Clark obviously you know amongst my BC liberal friends the presumption has
00:13:49.180always been that Christy Clark is actually a federal liberal so I don't know
00:13:54.060where that's coming from if there's any anything real behind that Michael
00:13:57.640Chong went on a bit of a media blitz announcing everywhere that he was
00:14:02.580interested in looking at it seems seems very keen what else are you hearing well
00:14:10.980Chong himself is an interesting guy he I really disagree with a lot of his
00:14:16.420politics on the ideological side I mean he ran for a carbon tax but I had to give
00:14:22.420him credit for it because he believed it was the right thing to do and he did it
00:14:26.220anyway right and he got crushed for it and I can sympathize with that hundred percent is
00:14:31.340his running on principle you know popularity be damned do what you think is
00:14:36.060right he was he was doing it on an issue I completely think he's wrong but but he
00:14:39.560did it in a way that was intellectually honest and I really appreciated that he's
00:14:43.320a very smart guy he he did a lot for democratic reform pushing the reform act of
00:14:48.440of Parliament really against the will of party leaders so he's I really
00:14:56.420disagree with his politics but I think he's good to be there he's one of the
00:14:59.540few kind of red Tories that I think actually really adds to the conversation in
00:15:03.680our democracy I'd like him to run I certainly wouldn't want him to win but I
00:15:08.000want him to run because he kind of keeps things honest and and brings
00:15:11.480the actual credibility to things I think it's great and and you know the this is
00:15:15.200what this is what's missing so much in politics now is you know a lot of
00:15:18.920people they they just throw their hat in the ring they they continue to spout
00:15:23.480whatever the talking points are the day we see this in the Democratic race and then you see an
00:15:27.740outliner like Andrew Yang who similarly you know in my books I I disagree with a lot
00:15:35.660of what he has to say but have like an enormous amount of respect for the fact
00:15:39.920that a he just chooses to say it and be that you know that he makes really good
00:15:47.000intellectual arguments for public policy as opposed to just bashing Trump or you
00:15:53.660know you know whatever the social justice talking points are of the week
00:15:58.160here's a guy why and that's it right similar very similar but it's hard to
00:16:04.460find somebody that doesn't you know at least respect that right so you know the
00:16:07.940guy's gonna so Kenny is taking himself out of the running here yeah no matter how
00:16:13.260many times he does people will still suspect he plans on it I've said before I
00:16:18.380think his heart is ultimately in Ottawa but I I just don't think he can pull it
00:16:22.380off at this time so I I don't think he'll be in the race no the big as Brad
00:16:27.680Wall's taking himself out Rona Ambrose is you know reported media and through some
00:16:34.880of my contacts is actively considering if not actively planning an entry right now
00:16:39.080she would be the clear front runner she does have against her though that she is
00:16:43.040from the West now Westerners will like that but I there's gonna be I I think
00:16:50.300east of the lakehead there's gonna be a lot of people saying it can't be yet
00:16:53.840another Western leader yet Preston Manning Stockwell Day Stephen Harper Andrew
00:16:59.900Shear you know as pro-Western or not as you might have considered the
00:17:05.000conservatives since reforms was gotten rid of aside there is a perception that leader
00:17:11.000needs to be from the east I'm not one of those people but I it's gonna be
00:17:14.000something a lot of people think about but Ambrose I think would be the clear
00:17:17.480front-runner McKay is sizing things up he if it's her and McKay in it I have a hard
00:17:23.600time seeing it being someone else unless something radical happens neither of them
00:17:27.980are outsiders though and the question is it like in the last race Maxi Bernie was
00:17:32.460very much clearly the the anti-establishment outsider candidate and he
00:17:36.080nearly one but if this is Ambrose and McKay in there I have a hard time seeing
00:17:43.820anyone in the waiting in the wings who could be that outsider candidate it would
00:17:48.440almost certainly be the two of them also Aaron O'Toole the joke is he
00:17:53.300announced yesterday yeah he is very much an insider candidate as well but I think
00:17:57.140he'd be overshadowed by McKay and Ambrose I think so eventually end up having to
00:18:01.100support one of those two and and broker some kind of deal what about Pierre
00:18:07.420Polly have any do you think he he stands a chance or just not enough
00:18:13.100constituency within the party again it's gonna depend on who's all in I mean
00:18:17.240Ambrose and McKay are going to be towering especially if both of them are
00:18:21.500in it they are going to suck up all the energy but who knows this could end up
00:18:27.140being you know everybody when Trump ran for president nobody everybody thought
00:18:31.140he was a joke of course it's gonna be Jeb Bush or some respectable insider you
00:18:36.960never really know but our you know the process and the conservative party of
00:18:39.740Canada over Canadian political parties in general is much more of an inside and
00:18:42.940elite affair than American primary so it's it's harder for an outsider to come in
00:18:47.360someone like Bernie Sanders or a Trump or a Kevin O'Leary yeah I mean so Pierre
00:18:54.860Paul of her poly of however you want to pronounce it he's he's an interesting
00:19:00.020candidate I think he would be you know compared to McKay or or Ambrose he would
00:19:06.320be the conservative standard bearer he is considered more firmly planted on the
00:19:11.920right than either of them and he'll attract people for it but I mean he just
00:19:17.940doesn't have the same profile and he's young that'll yeah that'll count against
00:19:22.360him and he doesn't he's not just young he looks young sure so I think yeah I
00:19:33.420think Paul of her should run if nothing else to kind of just kick some ass and and
00:19:37.920and and push the boundaries I don't think he'd be will serve by playing the
00:19:43.700game and backing anyone else I think he should run but again as if McKay and
00:19:48.260Ambrose ran it'd be very difficult for anyone else to get enough oxygen they'll
00:19:52.200suck up almost all the organizers and bunny I don't believe they've the party has
00:19:56.160announced the rules of the game yet I know there's a there's been a lot of back
00:20:01.920and forth that we've seen on social media and through other through other places
00:20:05.360around how it should go down because there's a fair amount of discretion for
00:20:10.640the party in terms of how they run their leadership race they could have a very
00:20:14.120high entry fee you know $50,000 let's say you know sort of keep the riff-raff at
00:20:21.620bay if you will the any middle-class people there's a good chance they'll do
00:20:29.120that the you know last time they had what was it like 13 candidates that actually
00:20:35.180got to the ballot some mothers who dropped off even before that and nobody
00:20:38.900knew half who three-quarters of them were as yeah and it made for more
00:20:42.500unpredictable leadership race but hard to cover right it was hard for the media to
00:20:46.940cover because it makes her poor debates yeah I generally say more the merrier
00:20:51.680but 13 is a bit much it's not like in the United States where you're in the
00:20:55.820primary system where you eliminate candidates as you go along you know after
00:20:59.600Iowa well even before Iowa and New Hampshire a bunch will drop off if they don't
00:21:03.260think they're gonna get it I won New Hampshire kind of calls the field half
00:21:06.680the people drop off on the first vote and then and then allows the field to
00:21:11.060kind of whittle down so that by the time you're getting to the later states it's
00:21:14.240it's either a done deal or it's down to one or two and you and you can have
00:21:18.440one-on-one debates that are are more relevant we don't have that here because
00:21:23.180we just have one big day and it all just it's one day and one vote and all
00:21:27.920just kind of filters down so you won't get those top tier candidates facing off against each
00:21:33.260other I wonder if it has to be that way you know there is a fair amount of
00:21:38.240discretion again it's a you know the Conservative Party of Canada is a private
00:21:42.020organization they are governed by the rules of Elections Canada but I wonder
00:21:45.800nothing would stop them other than their Constitution I'm not sure what their
00:21:49.220Constitution is pretty open-ended is you know if I and again I had read it
00:21:54.000recently but I remember there was a fair amount of discretion in terms of how that
00:21:58.100it was intentionally left very open-ended and and you can you can have it you can
00:22:02.820have a two-tier voting system I think where the first vote narrows the field
00:22:08.000down to you know three candidates or something and the next vote you know no
00:22:12.020it no they do have a single transferable vote you can certainly cast the ballot
00:22:16.760once their constitutional limit that would be interesting you'd have to poke
00:22:22.700around the Constitution but they there's a chance I have to maybe I'll make a note
00:22:28.880of looking into this but they might consider having certain provinces vote at
00:22:33.680different times than others right like like in the US primary system like okay
00:22:37.340you're gonna have Iowa New Hampshire up front and then you know a couple weeks
00:22:41.900later you're gonna go to South Carolina and you allow the field to kind of
00:22:45.440whittle its way down now inevitably that'll favor some candidates over others I
00:22:49.460mean early voting states yeah Nova Scotia you're gonna have a bigger
00:22:55.460advantage than someone from California yeah well I think of Peter McKay in
00:23:00.200Nova Scotia right if Nova Scotia voting first or last or yeah you know maybe you
00:23:04.280have a really small province like Prince Edward Island go first chances are
00:23:07.640we're not gonna have an Islander candidate right favorite Atlantic person but
00:23:11.360you know maybe they consider staggering the provinces and maybe do it
00:23:15.020randomly actually so that they you know so that it's so it's fair but you know
00:23:19.400have some earlier voting provinces so that the can the field can whittle its
00:23:23.780way down so you don't go into a convention day with 13 people and you get
00:23:28.700something crazy like you had on the last time where one guy can lose every
00:23:32.920single ballot except for the last one right right yeah well I think that's
00:23:36.920enough on leadership for now we'll see how that all I'm sure we'll be talking
00:23:41.400about it for a while I I think the other the only other point is how long you
00:23:46.400you know they have some discretion in terms of the date so we could you know
00:23:50.440they have a lot of discretion on that one yeah they could do a year-long
00:23:54.040campaign again or they could decide to do it in three months I think they're
00:23:57.840gonna do it probably within six months or so I think you're right it's a
00:24:01.140minority government they want to be ready to go exactly yeah all right let's let's
00:24:05.400move along to the Trans Mountain pipeline the little pipeline that might what's the
00:24:11.820what's the latest this week on the hearing well the hearings happening much
00:24:17.980closer to you than it is to me it's going on in Vancouver we've got our
00:24:21.240reporters covering it live right now I think we're I think we might be going to
00:24:26.380the third day of hearings here endless hearings this has been in court forever
00:24:31.960the polit it once the politician spike it and then reapprove it the courts spike it
00:24:37.620and then reapprove it and we just continue to go around and round and round and
00:24:41.460you know this is over inadequate First Nations consultation which is just wild
00:24:46.800to me when the courts struck it down last time they didn't provide any
00:24:50.880recommendations but okay well what part of that was inadequate they just said
00:24:53.920inadequate right that's not the way courts are supposed to provide rulings
00:24:57.220they're supposed to address specifically what parts were inadequate if that was
00:25:01.900the case so that the the legislative side the political side can address that
00:25:06.660they gave really no instructions so we're just kind of going around and
00:25:09.960round and round it seems to never end I I I part with many Albertans in believing I
00:25:20.040actually do think it's going to get built eventually if nothing else because
00:25:22.980it's it's become it is the last pipeline that probably ever will get built
00:25:28.200right between Alberta and BC or Alberta beyond Alberta and Saskatchewan I think we
00:25:33.000could agree on that yeah there will be no others built I believe in the
00:25:37.500foreseeable future of Canada but I think this one that's going to get built because
00:25:40.500of the political imperative if it didn't get built I mean we talked about this
00:25:45.540before Premier Kenny has massively moved the goalposts on those demands and for a
00:25:49.860fair deal from Ottawa essentially now give us a check for a one-time payout and
00:25:53.700give us TMX and then we'll pretend to be happy after that I mean that's a pretty
00:25:59.640low bar to hit so TMX is probably still going to get built but it's still tied
00:26:03.780up in the courts and this is largely the fault I think of new very poor
00:26:10.740legislation around the approval process one of the fun columns this week at the
00:26:16.500Western Standard suggested an alternative route through to Seattle if if all else
00:26:25.080fails what are your thoughts on on that I'm thinking maybe we should just build it over BC
00:26:32.080we could just right we just suspend it with helicopters it'd probably be cheaper to have
00:26:36.760helicopters suspending a pipeline over top of BC then that they continue through this process
00:26:42.080but you know Seattle is quite a possibility I mean have a lot of the same political pushback
00:26:50.080though yeah but you don't get the same in the United States when you had regular
00:26:55.840court delays and regulatory pushback the political response to it is immediate I
00:27:02.260mean within days of Montana court with this Democrat appointed judge trying to
00:27:09.160stop the Keystone pipeline from going forward within days Trump had by executive
00:27:14.140order overrode it fixed it got it done here you know you get a court an endless
00:27:21.820and and nuisance court delay and the federal government will spend six or nine
00:27:26.260months naval gazing so that it doesn't look too enthusiastic about pipelines so in
00:27:32.020the states if they want to get a pipeline built they get a pipeline built of
00:27:35.320course you're gonna have some activists who were against it but it's much less
00:27:39.580militant and their government has shown that it's willing to uphold the rule of
00:27:44.440law if you have people chaining themselves to trees they're they're
00:27:49.180going to send in police and remove you we're not gonna simply sit around and
00:27:52.760indulge people violating private property like that well in the province of
00:27:57.380excuse me the province of British Columbia just recently passed this
00:28:03.880legislation or or not I think it was legislation enacting the UN
00:28:08.640declaration on the rights of indigenous people and so so this is you know this
00:28:13.640is if anything going to add another wrinkle to the TMX you know as as things
00:28:20.040progress and so I think there is a legitimate cause for concern the problem
00:28:23.580is you know it's like go back and fix it you didn't do it right and by the way
00:28:28.740there's no instructions on how to do it right and I think that's fundamentally
00:28:32.460and you're right adding the UN declaration is gonna add a whole other
00:28:36.540wrinkle to things luckily that is just provincially I don't yeah it's just the
00:28:41.820province of British yeah yeah and the province has no legal standing to block
00:28:46.500this thankfully but it it has unintended consequence it sounds like a nice thing
00:28:53.940to do we should be respecting our indigenous peoples but on principle I
00:28:57.860don't think we should ever implement anything from the UN even a declaration on
00:29:01.980how cute puppies are if it's from the UN we could take it under advisement but we
00:29:06.580should always do our own thing we should know at least anything from the UN we
00:29:09.600could implement it but just rename it something else yeah even if it's just the
00:29:13.220UN declaration on puppies are cute we can we just rename it because I just
00:29:18.240don't want us implementing anything from you I will call it the BC
00:29:21.440declaration on the rights of indigenous people and just just call it just call
00:29:24.940it a day sure word for word exactly the same it's all good all right so so the
00:29:31.900other thing that's emerged which is kind of interesting and I was listening to
00:29:36.220another podcast yesterday where they delved a fair fair bit into this but
00:29:40.600there's the economic war council is that right the Canadian Energy Center the
00:29:48.180Canadian oh yeah CCC the CCC war room the Canadian Energy Center which is an
00:29:56.140offshoot I guess communications wing of the Alberta government to try to increase
00:30:03.720it's actually quite it's a very unique thing I'm not sure we've ever done this
00:30:07.800before outside of CSIS it's it's not a crown corporation it's a private
00:30:14.160corporation owned by government hmm and that is done so that it's not subject to
00:30:21.420the Freedom of Information Act yeah BC fairies runs that way as well in the
00:30:25.440province by the way you can't file a Freedom of Information request with BC
00:30:28.800fairies I I think you might still be able to do it however well that would mean
00:30:33.600it's probably just the credit is a it is no it's not it's a it's a it's a share
00:30:37.380corporation that's wholly owned by the province yeah there was enough I've
00:30:45.300always been tepidly open to the idea of this war room for Canadian energy
00:30:50.220obviously there's a need for something to fight back against lies and
00:30:54.300misinformation and propaganda when you know DiCaprio comes here and says you
00:30:58.800know he saw our global warming happened before his eyes and doesn't know what a
00:31:01.620Chinook is someone should probably point that out to him in a powerful way like
00:31:06.180there is a need for this kind of thing I'm always very leery though about
00:31:10.600government do right about about the state doing it because there's a fine
00:31:14.700line between public information and propaganda and they all too often cross a
00:31:20.220fine line and setting it up the way this was where it's not accountable is it is a
00:31:29.060bit concerning dodgy yeah how how they go about it is it's still very early days
00:31:37.040they just formally opened it days ago or last week so it's still early days they
00:31:42.940kind of messed up a bit they I'm not sure was meant to come across this way but
00:31:47.420they essentially ordered the Medicine Hat newspaper to to print an op-ed it came
00:31:53.120across that way I'm not sure if it was intended but it sounded like you will print
00:31:56.540this when we give it to you and there that's private newspaper it's under no
00:32:00.380obligation to print something from the government but you know it still has the
00:32:05.840potential to do a lot of good but I I want to see something doing like this but I'd be
00:32:10.420much more comfortable if it if it was either operating with more accountability from the
00:32:15.600government or and to government with some oversight and subject to normal laws or if it
00:32:21.160was just entirely private and privately funded in either of those cases I'd be a bit
00:32:25.540more comfortable with it it's still early days there are I know there's some good
00:32:28.820smart people working in there very smart people but it runs the risk of going off
00:32:37.540the rails unless it's kept under pretty strict control right and related but
00:32:43.400unrelated but related Kenny's poll numbers he's he's now proven to be very
00:32:50.900very quickly um the honeymoon is over he's proven to be uh unpopular uh in the province uh obviously uh the implementing uh some public service cuts uh also some other hard uh to get done things in his first year good strategy pays off in the long run what are your thoughts
00:33:12.900well it's it's it's it's hard to say what is specifically responsible for the drop in their
00:33:20.180numbers and they've been huge i think it's uh off the top of my mind it's a roughly a 15
00:33:24.180point drop in a month yeah that is precipitous now that doesn't mean they're necessarily
00:33:28.260going to lose an election or anything and uh there was no correlated numbers showing that
00:33:32.980the ndp are up i think there is very little appetite for the return of the ndp in alberta but uh
00:33:38.580there is probably uh there is a strong there is a growing sense at least that of unhappiness with
00:33:46.260the uh with the tories um some of it might just be heated up opposition from people who already
00:33:50.820oppose the public sector unions that are going to hate them no matter what they do um i imagine there's
00:33:56.660at least some disenchantment from people on the right who are starting to see that this fight with ottawa is
00:34:02.820a bit more uh tepid a bit more sizzle than steak yeah and um so there's probably a few things feeding
00:34:12.020into it uh but but if if you know the media are trying to build a narrative that this is moderates
00:34:17.220who are angry at public service cuts these cuts are 2.8 spread over four years right ralph klein cut
00:34:23.220more than 20 in a single year right but there was a difference ralph klein was a very upfront when he
00:34:30.100ran for uh in his first election in 93 and said this is going to be brutal this is going to be hard
00:34:35.380but this is necessary and here's exactly what i'm going to do jason kenny ran saying i'm going to get
00:34:40.180us through a balanced budget and there'll be some of he but he used this kind of weaselly language that
00:34:45.220conservatives used to off now we're going to find efficiencies and uh streamline blah blah no government
00:34:52.820is inefficient by its very nature it doesn't matter who's in charge of government it's always going to
00:34:57.060be inefficient because it is government the only way to cut it back is to change the role of government
00:35:02.340and so he is um even though it's only 2.8 percent he's not he's kind of departing a bit because he
00:35:10.340had mutually contradictory campaign promises he said he's going to balance the budget but he said he's
00:35:15.060not going to cut front line services whatever the heck that means those were mutually contradictory
00:35:21.140promises that could not be kept at this both at the same time unless oil went back up to
00:35:25.780to record levels which is not happening hasn't happened so uh i think he probably could have
00:35:31.060weathered this a bit more if he had been more up front in the campaign but they tried to win a
00:35:34.820super majority they want a good majority but not a super majority and um as a result they didn't get
00:35:40.100a bunch of seats in edmonton and they didn't get the mandate to do some of what they're doing right now
00:35:44.900so i i think just some of this is backlash because he didn't necessarily receive a clear mandate to cut
00:35:51.700spending because he just he used this language that conservatives used to often of like well we're
00:35:56.340just going to find efficiencies here and there and you know very bureaucratic um technocratic language
00:36:02.900rather than uh straightforward stuff derek how much of this is just just the general frustration of the
00:36:09.300average everyday alberton with what's going on in the province and you know they voted for some change
00:36:14.980that they haven't seen the change uh their families are still suffering you know uh how much of this
00:36:22.020is just is just you know we're just frustrated i mean clearly they don't want the ndp back as you
00:36:26.500indicated but they also um you know very quickly uh are disheartened now with with jason kenney is
00:36:32.980that do you get do you have a read on that well people voted against the ndp more than they voted for
00:36:38.900the ucp or jason kenney that was very clear people just wanted the ndp gone yesterday and um it really
00:36:47.780didn't matter people kind of just returned to their instinct of voting for something called
00:36:51.060conservative if it is conservative or not they were just angry at the ndp um now it wasn't you know as
00:36:58.820extreme as when the ndp got elected people were voting against the pcs and they had no idea what the ndp
00:37:03.780was about them in british columbia by the way yeah but we had never been experienced i mean it was
00:37:10.740this fringe little party that existed in downtown edmonton that no one had any experience with and
00:37:14.740the lady smiled and we hated the tories and so uh that was even more so an anti and backlash vote
00:37:21.380than than when kenny came in so he has more of a policy meant that i i'd say than rachel notley
00:37:25.940had when she became premier um but i think uh you know they have actually made a fair number of
00:37:32.100bold changes uh many of which i think are positive um uh that they can make on the provincial level
00:37:40.180here um but you know that can only change so much so much of alberta's economic fortunes right now
00:37:46.820are tied up in national and federal affairs and it's becoming increasingly clear to many at least that
00:37:57.940you know huffing and puffing is not going to get the federal government to do anything because they
00:38:01.460don't care why should they care right if you're talking to a federal conservative government they
00:38:06.820could take us for granted if you're talking to federal liberal government they can write us off
00:38:10.820as hopeless politically so you know that this is part of the problem is there isn't there's such an
00:38:17.220appetite in most of alberta to fight with ottawa and get a better deal but it's increasingly
00:38:23.700it's becoming more and more apparent that there is no better deal with these guys maybe we can
00:38:27.940get them to cut a little check here and get a pipeline there but at the end of the day nothing
00:38:31.620is going to change so some of it i think is starting to realize that simply yelling at ottawa
00:38:37.540unless it's backed by something concrete isn't going to achieve anything well on that happy note
00:38:43.460we'll call it an episode for for this week uh december 18th 2019 uh if you're listening to this on
00:38:52.820your podcast player uh know that you can also watch this on our youtube channel you can like and
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00:39:19.140rate us and do all those nice things and uh we'll get the show out to even more people so thanks for
00:39:25.220joining me today derek filled rent publisher at the western standard thanks for seeing you paul