Western Standard - The Pipeline： Far-left editor charged

00:00:00.000 I'm Derek Phil LeBrand, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline

00:00:24.680 Today on October 26, 2022, we've got a real interesting show today, a bit of insider baseball, but some real interesting nuggets.

00:00:36.260 Really focused today, particularly on Alberta.

00:00:39.840 As usually, I'm joined by Western Standard News Editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:44.500 Hi, are you, Nigel?

00:00:45.520 Good, thank you. And yourself?

00:00:48.540 Any better than I'd be on vacation.

00:00:51.180 Sounds good.

00:00:52.360 Also joined by Western Standard Senior Alberta Columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:57.120 Corey, survive a bear attack okay?

00:00:59.840 So far, he's still harassing us.

00:01:02.120 Like he said, he tore our fence down last night.

00:01:04.220 The battle goes on. 1.00

00:01:05.760 Shoot, shovel, and shut up. 1.00

00:01:06.780 It might come to that. 1.00

00:01:07.960 Yeah.

00:01:08.700 Although, maybe I shouldn't have said that on air.

00:01:11.080 A neighbor might do that. 0.98

00:01:13.860 Shame.

00:01:14.940 Shame.

00:01:15.980 Okay.

00:01:16.340 Well, we've got an interesting show.

00:01:18.560 A far left, the editor of a far left Alberta publication, Progress Alberta, or Progress Report, has been criminally charged for vandalizing a monument to a Ukrainian commander who fought against the Soviet Union and Nazis in the Second World War.

00:01:40.480 I think I have a feeling he's more angry about the fighting the Soviet Union part of that equation.

00:01:44.800 The best part is this guy, he wrote about it the next day. Shocked that this happened. Largely glorifying this act of proletarian insurrection. But he wrote about it the next day on his lefty publication. It's a bit of a head scratcher if the allegations prove true in court.

00:02:09.260 um and then the ucp convention was last weekend friday to uh sunday uh the western standard was

00:02:17.160 there we had a number of reporters i was up there myself as well a lot of really interesting

00:02:21.740 things going on danielle smith uh introducing her cabinet her first big speech to the party

00:02:28.520 membership at the convention uh and a bit of an insurrection uh by a large group of the membership

00:02:35.100 taking over the board of that party. And there's a lot of implications to that. That sounds super

00:02:41.900 inside baseball, but I'm asking you to please bear with me. Stay with me. Some of this stuff

00:02:45.020 is going to have real effects on Alberta politics. Before we get into it, though,

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00:03:52.320 Speaking of excellent investments and membership, you're not yet a member of the Western Standard.

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00:04:10.660 So let's get into it. This came across the wire last night. We got kind of our internal chat.

00:04:18.260 This came up that Duncan Kinney, he is a executive director of Progress Alberta and the editor,

00:04:25.640 if I got that right, of the progress report. These things are ideologically and personally

00:04:34.400 related to press progress. I know it's so much progress, but they are different legal entities.

00:04:40.860 So Progress Alberta, this organization, it is a NDP and union affiliated organization,

00:04:49.120 kind of builds itself as an activist group to the, I think they describe themselves as far to the

00:04:54.620 left of the NDB to pull them even closer to in the direction of workers' paradise. And then they

00:05:00.340 have their publication, the progress report. So this guy, he's been around for a long time. He's

00:05:06.140 talked about punching conservatives in the face and things like that. In 2001, some point in 2001,

00:05:14.060 there was an attack on a monument. I can't pronounce the guy's name. I won't even try.

00:05:18.740 There was an attack on a monument to some commander of the Ukrainian insurgency army.

00:05:24.800 The Ukrainian insurgency army was an armed sort of militia that fought against Igerber.

00:05:33.560 This is coming right of Holomodor. 0.96

00:05:34.900 Up to that point, probably the biggest act of genocide in world history, soon to be overtaken by the Holocaust. 0.94

00:05:41.020 But up until that point, the biggest.

00:05:43.520 They would fought against the Soviet Union.

00:05:45.600 they at times fought against Nazi Germany but at that time the Soviet Union was for

00:05:52.020 Ukrainians was generally perceived as a more immediate threat considering it was

00:05:54.720 in the process of liquidating Ukrainians. So there's a statue of the commander of

00:06:00.360 this army and someone painted and put in red paint across it actual Nazi and then

00:06:08.100 there was another attack on another Ukrainian monument calling the Nazis as

00:06:12.480 well, something to the effect, the same day. The day after, or something to that effect,

00:06:20.060 Duncan Kitty, Progress, Alberta, wrote a big long screed about this. Hey, someone has leaked me

00:06:27.720 photos of this attack. Great exclusive pictures. Great exclusive. Someone got exclusive pictures

00:06:33.340 of this attack. So they had a real scoop, and he wrote a big thing about it, more or less justifying

00:06:38.720 it saying these guys fought against the soviets and because the soviets were at war with the

00:06:43.280 germans therefore these guys were nazis odd logic but it's the logic he used fast forward to last 0.68

00:06:50.080 night duncan kinney charged by the edmonton police service with wait for it committing the act the

00:06:57.040 criminal act of vandalism himself that he had the great scoop on uh the next day um i'll start with

00:07:04.640 with you, Corey. You know who this guy is. I think you've even had some run-ins with him. I have,

00:07:08.640 and I've written about him. I mean, he's had a history of stunts. I don't even want to revisit

00:07:13.380 the history and whether or not the statue was of a decent guy or if he was a monster. Yeah. That's

00:07:17.580 not the point. It's on private property as well. It should be noted. This isn't some public space

00:07:21.840 statue. This was on some Ukrainian association cemetery, I believe, or something like that.

00:07:26.680 Yeah. And just the bizarreness of Kinney, should he have been the one who did it? But if you look

00:07:32.000 at his history. He had to put out quite a letter of apology after he slandered the Weber Academy.

00:07:37.120 That led him into the legal soup, and he had to put out that letter, which I tweeted recently.

00:07:41.640 People are reviewing it. It's well worth reading. And I think Keelan Ford has also got him...

00:07:46.800 I'm not sure. I could be getting this. There's so much progress.

00:07:50.000 I did check. It's listed. Even him himself is one of the ones she listed. Now, where that's going,

00:07:55.680 I don't know or not. But he he's pushed the limits. He's a very far left extreme activist,

00:08:02.380 and it's catching up with them. You know, you can't get away with all that with impunity.

00:08:06.520 And whether he did this or not, I guess the courts will decide. But I mean, looking at the guy's

00:08:12.920 history and other things, I won't be terribly shocked if he's found guilty. Nigel, what came

00:08:19.560 to mind to me with this was, how do you square this in your mind? And I think maybe he thinks

00:08:24.560 of himself as Clark Kent, working at

00:08:26.600 the world, what was Clark Kent's

00:08:28.880 paper called in Superman?

00:08:30.600 The Daily? Daily Globe?

00:08:32.620 I don't know. Clark Kent, you know,

00:08:34.540 who's a journalist, a reporter. Clark Kent

00:08:36.540 writing about the exploits of Superman

00:08:38.560 if Superman was a

00:08:40.760 two-bit Marxist petty 0.95

00:08:42.520 thug. 0.93

00:08:45.400 You've been in the media

00:08:46.460 business a long time.

00:08:49.080 Sorry.

00:08:50.220 It's okay.

00:08:52.640 You've been in the media business a long time.

00:08:53.880 It feels like a long time.

00:08:55.280 You've been in it longer than I am.

00:08:56.220 Yes.

00:08:57.000 Have you ever seen a journalist, or somebody calls himself a journalist at least, do something in secret and then report on it the next day?

00:09:11.900 No, I haven't.

00:09:14.160 But what I have seen is a long list of journalists who have invented fake stories.

00:09:21.080 And as we are talking about the situation between Russia and Ukraine, then we can take ourselves into the whole business of the New York Times and its reporting on, you mentioned a whole lot more just now.

00:09:38.320 Yes, they had a journalist there by the name of Walter Durante. He occupied the Moscow Bureau for the New York Times for 14 years and won a Pulitzer Prize for the reporting.

00:09:50.080 He completely ignored the ethnic destruction of approximately four million.

00:09:54.740 You're talking during the Stalin era.

00:09:55.780 Yeah, this is in the Stalin era.

00:09:59.400 So now we have this story about Roman Zhukovic.

00:10:04.460 Then this is, like Corey, to try and get into the history of this thing,

00:10:11.460 and was he a good guy or a bad guy?

00:10:13.060 It all depends who you ask.

00:10:14.660 It's a complicated period.

00:10:16.380 This is a period of time when the Nazis were blamed for the Katyn Massacre and later turned out to be the Soviet Union.

00:10:26.240 How would we know?

00:10:27.980 But what we do know, what I know anyway, you asked me, have I ever seen anything like this before?

00:10:33.360 No, I haven't.

00:10:34.100 The closest thing I can see to it is if it is true as charged as the case just a couple of years ago of Jesse Smollett, the film star.

00:10:44.300 J-U-S-S-I-E, I'm better on the Ukrainians, but at any rate, fate, a hate crime against himself.

00:10:58.300 Yeah. And he actually went down for 150 days for that.

00:11:01.580 Yeah. That caught my mind too. I know we were talking about the Juicy Smoulier thing.

00:11:07.180 If you haven't seen the Dave Chappelle skit, or not skit, his bit on Justice for Juicy, Juicy Smollier, it's one of the best pieces out there.

00:11:20.120 But yeah, he had committed a fake hate crime against himself to illicit sympathy.

00:11:25.980 This is, well, it's both worse than that and not as bad as that.

00:11:32.480 It's worse than that in that he didn't commit the fake hate crime against himself here.

00:11:37.020 He destroyed someone else's property.

00:11:39.040 It was his private property.

00:11:39.960 It may have been like the Ukrainian youth organization of some kind.

00:11:44.140 But it was private property.

00:11:45.360 He destroyed someone's property to do it.

00:11:50.180 But it's...

00:11:51.480 Well, I think the distinction is that in the case of Juicy Smollett,

00:11:56.100 you could have got serious civil unrest falling out of that.

00:12:00.760 I mean, people could have been hurt, killed, police involved.

00:12:05.100 That was a pretty...

00:12:06.480 Well, maybe indirectly people were hurt from it because it increases hatred for mega people and Trump and police.

00:12:15.160 But this instance here, if it turns out to be as charged, well, okay, the Ukrainian community is offended,

00:12:22.780 but they will certainly have their satisfaction if that's the way the case goes.

00:12:30.060 It pretty much ends there.

00:12:32.340 Will it be the end of Kinney? I guess that's the question.

00:12:34.720 Well, I don't know. We've had reporters on it. I don't think we've heard any confirmation yet if he's even still got his job. I mean, he's not convicted of anything yet. But you'd think at the end, like, this is the height.

00:12:47.540 You probably love him, Derek. I mean, it's a slow news day and he goes out and makes some news.

00:12:51.160 But you're not supposed to get caught doing it.

00:12:52.800 You're not supposed to get caught.

00:12:55.440 So, like, this is the single, probably most unethical thing you can do if it happened in journalism.

00:13:05.400 Commit a crime and then report on it and pretend you had nothing to do with the crime.

00:13:11.400 I cannot think of, I suppose it could be worse if it was even more serious crime.

00:13:16.340 Or if money changed hands, but I don't think that's the case.

00:13:18.760 Yeah, I mean, if I was an arson or something dangerous.

00:13:20.760 it wasn't that if i went out tomorrow and like killed a guy and then i had the scoop i'm like

00:13:25.860 hey i got the picture of the body and the story what happened i suppose that'd be worse because

00:13:29.800 it's a much more serious crime but it is the most unethical thing you could do so i i cannot see how

00:13:35.360 some people who at least build themselves as journalists could keep him there at the very

00:13:41.080 least you know he's got to take a step aside until a trial settles the matter but i don't think they

00:13:48.400 even really fashion, they only publicly fashion themselves as journalists. They're propagandists.

00:13:52.960 This is Alberta's, this is Alberta's cheap Walmart Zeller's knockoff of Pravda. Like they're

00:14:02.560 propagandists. They just do hit jobs. And he's a fellow at the Broadbent Institute as well, which I

00:14:07.040 would suspect they might want to sort of flush their pipes of the likes of him. The thing is,

00:14:14.000 if they had any credibility to lose it would cost them but i don't honestly think that anybody

00:14:22.880 takes them terribly seriously when they break a story no well i'll disagree with you on that

00:14:28.880 the mainstream media regularly pick up the stuff they do um like when uh i forget if it was progress

00:14:35.760 alberta uh progress report or press progress i mean they're corporately different but they're

00:14:41.600 the same thing um i forget which one did it but they were a big part of the hit job on

00:14:46.480 kaylin ford you know kaylin ford was a conservative a ucp conservative uh candidate in the last

00:14:51.280 provincial election they uh slandered her as a nazi absolutely bizarre stuff terrible character

00:14:57.760 assassination yeah it was just character assassination they put this stuff out the

00:15:01.520 mainstream media picked it up swallowed it hook line and sinker and reprinted it without terribly

00:15:06.800 much question and they've done it on a bunch of other stuff mostly different character assassinations

00:15:11.520 stories. And they'll have like a thread of something to pull on. You can't invent it out

00:15:16.980 of thin air, but they'll put out a couple of threads, arrange it in such a way, and the media

00:15:21.780 will pull on it. I don't think reasonable people reading it would take them very seriously, but

00:15:25.960 they have influence in the sense that they can get the mainstream media to pick up on their stories,

00:15:30.800 and that's where people consume their content indirectly through the mainstream media.

00:15:35.180 So we're going to have to go and look it up and see whether the mainstream media,

00:15:38.520 in citing a source for their story on Kaelin Ford,

00:15:42.340 mentioned that a far left propagandist news agency look-alike.

00:15:47.440 Charged.

00:15:48.600 Charged with what some would argue would be kind of a hateful crime against Ukrainians.

00:15:53.980 Well, either way, I mean, I just, you know, can't help but like it.

00:15:56.840 After such a long history of basically social media thuggery out of this guy,

00:16:00.160 he's just not a good character, and it looks good on him.

00:16:04.140 Okay, well, that closes our section on Alberta Pravda.

00:16:08.520 So, this just past weekend, the United Conservative Party held its first ever convention without Jason Kenney as leader, or in attendance.

00:16:20.380 A very interesting weekend. It opened immediately before the convention.

00:16:25.700 The government put out a news release announcing the new cabinet at around a quarter to noon on Friday.

00:16:30.780 And 15 minutes after that, I sat down with Alberta's new premier, Danielle Smith, and we chatted for an hour.

00:16:38.520 questions of my own, some from the comment section, which by the way, we can confirm is

00:16:44.760 going to be a regular bit. Not sure if we're going to, not sure. Yeah, we're probably not

00:16:48.680 doing it this Friday, but we're going to have a Danielle Smith on every Friday for question 1.00

00:16:52.500 period with the premier here. But we spent an hour going through it, spent a lot of the time

00:16:59.320 on the cabinet. So let's, let's talk about her cabinet picks here. It's a big cabinet, isn't it,

00:17:04.540 Nigel? 27 members. I think that's a few more. I'm not a big fan of big cabinets. Plus a ton of

00:17:09.660 parliamentary secretaries. I can see why people do it. I mean, it's not just Premier Smith. It's

00:17:15.060 generally speaking, you have a large cabinet. She set a record for Alberta, though. This is the

00:17:19.060 biggest. Well, this is a fan. I'm not a fan, but this is a, it's easy to see what the temptation

00:17:26.040 is. You've got a party that has just come through a six-month fight. There's still some hard

00:17:32.760 feelings even though the i'd say it's a two-year fight because it was a big fight to get rid of

00:17:36.120 kenny and then six months to replace him that's actually true yeah so obviously despite a quite

00:17:43.240 convincing show of unity on saturday with brian gene and travis daves coming out and standing

00:17:50.840 there and saying all the right things through gritted teeth it was nevertheless a convincing

00:17:58.040 performance but they're still out there there are still hard feelings give everybody a job something

00:18:02.720 to do a reason to stay in law i can see what the argument for a larger cabinet would be don't have

00:18:08.720 to like it yeah so that's uh but as for the actual composition of it um it was very well put together

00:18:16.240 a mix of the old and the people who had experience which by the way is important

00:18:21.360 it was mostly though she left most of the cabinet intact uh some people that she left in their

00:18:27.520 positions, like Travis Taves, returned to their positions, kept Shandro in justice. Those are two

00:18:34.000 of the big ones. Some people got moved around, like Sonya Savage. Some people booted, some people 0.55

00:18:38.880 in. But it was, for the most part, fairly status. I thought it was a very status quo cabinet,

00:18:43.600 considering Danielle was coming in as very much an insurgent, shaking it up, and then 0.99

00:18:49.520 she shook up the cabinet. But it was a cabinet shuffle, it wasn't a new cabinet.

00:18:52.880 No, you'd have to be a diehard rebel to look at that and say, well, that just isn't my cabinet. You should be able to live with that, even if you didn't vote for Danielle Smith in the leadership campaign, didn't support her as a member of caucus. You should be able to live with it.

00:19:10.760 um uh what were your big takeaways uh from the the new cabinet oh similar to what nigel's saying 0.97

00:19:17.300 i mean she's buying caucus peace and uh i guess perhaps the the phase has moved because she's

00:19:22.840 still speaking some pretty uh militant you know language about shaking up the government going

00:19:28.100 after ahs uh fixing that uh still stuck you know very focused on the sovereignty uh act things like

00:19:34.640 that but i think perhaps she's done rattling the party tree for a while let it settle down for a

00:19:40.420 And yes, politically, the easiest way to do it is to toss as many bones as possible as you can to the caucus.

00:19:47.580 It's a fractious caucus.

00:19:48.860 It's sensitive.

00:19:50.520 And I got a feeling you won't see her shake up that party until post-election, 0.99

00:19:54.740 presuming they win after the election.

00:19:57.540 And then maybe she would be starting to put much more of her own mark.

00:20:00.300 But very pragmatic that way.

00:20:02.300 I mean, there's a lot of Kenny loyalists.

00:20:03.980 I mean, he was kicked out in a vote, but that was 51%, you know.

00:20:08.020 51% of a pretty rigged vote where they change the rules half a dozen times.

00:20:12.800 But there's still some people that were not too thrilled with that whole thing.

00:20:16.040 And if it looked like a full flush of Kenny's presence, it would probably lead to some problems.

00:20:22.420 She can't afford to have that happening with only six months now until an election hits. 1.00

00:20:28.280 So I don't like seeing it either.

00:20:30.040 I'm a big fan of small government.

00:20:31.640 I'm hoping that this will change.

00:20:33.280 But I can, as Nigel was saying, I can see why it was done.

00:20:38.020 So you're talking about throwing a bone. Let's talk about one guy who really got boned.

00:20:42.180 Nixon. Jason Nixon. Jason Nixon was really, within the caucus at least, the right-hand man

00:20:49.380 of Jason Kenney. He was the House leader. He shepherds the bills through the legislature and

00:20:54.100 whatnot, Minister of Environment. And then while Tabes was running for the leadership,

00:20:59.860 he was also Minister of Finance. But really, even though Minister of Finance generally thought to

00:21:04.020 to outrank Minister of Environment, Nixon was the right-hand man there. He is now deep on the

00:21:09.880 back benches. I'm not sure where his seat is, if he's out sitting on the Siberia side of the house,

00:21:14.000 but he's now on the back benches. No cabinet role whatsoever. He's on a committee, that's it.

00:21:21.240 I think definitely if there was a sacrificial lamb that like we're cleaning house, 0.97

00:21:27.060 that was it. Well, let me throw a completely wild speculation, say, on some of the wheelings and

00:21:32.780 dealings that happen when it comes to cabinet things. One of the most prickly members she

00:21:36.300 brought into it was Brian Jean. I was kind of surprised. He's been conciliatory. He's sitting

00:21:39.940 in the cabinet. He's staying around, at least at the very least till the next election. But I thought

00:21:43.560 Brian Jean would be grinning from big, big ear to big, big ear with the thought of Nixon being 0.70

00:21:49.160 pushed out. So if there was, you know, I'll give you cabinet peace as long as he's not in it.

00:21:53.880 That could have been some of the negotiations that are going on too.

00:21:56.460 I do have a hard time imagining the two being there considering how personal and visceral the

00:22:02.180 relationship is between them uh with dealings in the last leadership race the time that the kenny

00:22:08.740 came in yeah uh one i expected to see him at one i was watching to see i think all of us were

00:22:16.340 watching see was shandro so shandro uh ever we all remember was minister of health during lockdowns

00:22:23.220 and the imposition of vaccine passports uh made himself i think it's fair to say fairly unpopular

00:22:29.660 with a very large number of Albertans, particularly more conservative Albertans.

00:22:33.700 He was shuffled eventually to justice by Kenney.

00:22:40.980 But Smith left him there.

00:22:43.760 Now, he's not doing the harm that he did in AHS.

00:22:47.440 I don't really know how he's doing in justice.

00:22:48.780 For all I know, he's a great justice minister.

00:22:51.420 But a large number of her supporters, particularly people who hated mandates,

00:22:55.000 who hated lockdowns and things like this,

00:22:56.680 he was after Kenny

00:22:58.560 enemy number one

00:23:01.160 were you surprised to see him

00:23:03.100 stay in cabinet?

00:23:04.520 Actually I was not

00:23:05.520 he's a capable man

00:23:07.800 even if you don't like

00:23:08.500 there are some people

00:23:10.220 if you give them a job

00:23:11.060 they go off and do it

00:23:11.980 and then there are other people

00:23:13.440 who that's not true about

00:23:14.900 but I think that

00:23:16.180 Mr. Shandro

00:23:18.120 when he's given his marching orders

00:23:20.020 there's a commissar

00:23:21.400 he'll get you there

00:23:22.340 and justice

00:23:24.280 not a bad place for him to be

00:23:26.820 He's got some challenges coming up, has he not?

00:23:31.400 Yeah, he's got a hearing with the Alberta Law Society

00:23:37.160 surrounding some of the things he did as health minister.

00:23:40.220 He's alleged to have gone up to a doctor on his driveway

00:23:43.820 and yelled at him and used the AHS database to get the personal cell phones.

00:23:47.780 Various things, I don't know if any of which are proven,

00:23:50.500 but they're alleged, and I'm not even sure if they're denied,

00:23:52.900 But he's up for a review by the Alberta Law Society while he's the justice minister.

00:23:58.240 I've never heard of this before.

00:23:59.600 That's a very unusual situation.

00:24:01.580 And, you know, the only thing I can think of is, you know, maybe, maybe the premier thought, I don't need to do anything about this.

00:24:08.820 This will take care of itself after Christmas.

00:24:11.400 That's possible.

00:24:12.460 Yeah.

00:24:12.900 Any big surprises for you in the cabinet between who's in and who's out?

00:24:15.700 I mean, I actually would have thought Chandra would have been out, though.

00:24:18.060 He does carry a lot of baggage that you don't necessarily want to embrace.

00:24:20.800 I mean, he infuriated people on left and right as health minister.

00:24:24.520 And in justice, well, he hasn't done badly.

00:24:27.140 Perhaps he's doing very well with the file.

00:24:28.620 But just that one, I would have thought for the sake of looking like a bit of a fresh start,

00:24:31.780 maybe even shuffled him to a more junior position.

00:24:34.480 Well, she did chop his job up into three parts, though.

00:24:37.200 He's justice minister.

00:24:38.340 He was justice minister, and he is justice minister.

00:24:40.340 But that department, speaking of cabinet inflation, is now broken up also.

00:24:45.700 Separate attorney general and minister of public safety.

00:24:49.140 public safety pulls in a few other things like emergency relief, but public safety will take

00:24:52.620 part of the justice minister portfolio as well. So it's so big now she could split a lot of

00:24:56.980 cabinet roles though. Casey Maddu was one, I can see the political reasons. He's your only

00:25:02.780 Edmonton MLA. He's also got a massive amount of baggage on the go right now. I mean, he really

00:25:07.460 blew it when in justice and she's still, yeah, it was a tough decision. I'm sure. I mean, he's,

00:25:14.100 yeah, well, he's, he's, he was a curious one. I mean, he's got some controversy with what

00:25:18.240 happened while he was justice minister in that traffic ticket. Well, not the traffic ticket

00:25:23.160 itself, but to try to get out of the traffic ticket. But I mean, the only UCP MLA from

00:25:30.020 Edmonton proper. And he was a staunch Smith loyalist throughout the campaign. Yeah, and he's

00:25:35.420 fairly conservative. So she also made him deputy premier. In fact, she has two deputy premiers.

00:25:41.460 Kenny had no deputy premier at all. Smith appointed, so Casey Maddew from Edmonton,

00:25:46.980 and then Nathan Newdorf from Lethbridge.

00:25:49.960 So two deputy premiers. 0.68

00:25:51.740 Now, I tend to think of deputy premiers

00:25:53.520 as sort of like vice president of the United States,

00:25:56.780 except even if the leader dies,

00:25:58.660 he still don't get to go to power.

00:26:00.460 It's really kind of token.

00:26:02.580 Yeah, I mean, they kept Herb Gray there forever

00:26:04.400 with the federal liberals, for example,

00:26:06.240 you know, just because he was an established long-term member,

00:26:09.760 but he really, he didn't have the capability

00:26:11.400 to manage a large cabinet portfolio anymore.

00:26:14.140 Generally, what they'll do more likely

00:26:15.540 is the answer for the head of the government when they're not in the House. So Rachel Notley had a

00:26:20.700 deputy premier, Sarah Hoffman. Her main job, I think, as deputy premier was when Rachel Notley's

00:26:24.920 not there, she answers her questions in question period. That was really good. But I suppose you

00:26:29.600 might empower them. I mean, look, the United States, Kamala Harris does not appear to have

00:26:33.420 particularly much power. Joe Biden didn't have any power as vice president, but Dick Cheney had

00:26:39.180 more power than the president. So it's really what you make of the office and really what the senior

00:26:42.880 guy does in terms of delegating power well i'm thinking back to 1963 here but lyndon johnson was

00:26:49.600 a very ordinary vice president right up until the time that kennedy was assassinated at which point

00:26:55.840 he became president and there was a very easy transition so i guess if the premier is pulled

00:27:00.880 out of uh pulled offline for some reason the deputy premier would fulfill that function question is

00:27:08.320 Which one? Nathan Newdorf? Well, the deputy premier can be sent to represent the premier

00:27:13.280 of events. Oh, we have to cut a ribbon for this bridge opening. Well, if it's in the north,

00:27:17.040 you send Casey. If it's in the south, you send Newdorf. You can do that. Yeah. But, you know,

00:27:21.600 in Canada, you know, if, God forbid, a premier or prime minister was ever assassinated like JFK,

00:27:28.240 the deputy premier or deputy prime minister doesn't necessarily have, there's an order of

00:27:31.760 precedence. But if that happened, what would happen is the governing caucus would immediately meet

00:27:36.560 and they'd look at each other and say uh cory's uh cory's premier interim anyway until they can

00:27:42.080 yeah until a leadership race or something but that's the way that would work we'd probably go

00:27:45.280 a few days without a real prime minister but there'd be a order of precedence where someone

00:27:49.280 does the duties of that person either way yeah we've got i think for the first i've never heard

00:27:53.760 of a province having two deputy premiers but yeah let's get on a business card and it just keeps

00:27:59.200 it's more roles to give people in an area where they're probably not gonna do much damage

00:28:02.720 yeah okay well let's um i'll just say the other thing about the some of these appointments which

00:28:08.080 people are puzzled about is that uh premier smith is actually not a vindictive person

00:28:14.320 i think that she probably probably believes and i hope she's right that if you try to work with

00:28:22.720 people people will come around and will work with you and so there is kind of grace and forgiveness

00:28:29.280 And I believe she did use the phrase, wipe the slate clean.

00:28:33.820 She's not the night that she was elected UCT leader.

00:28:36.500 That's the night that she was elected. We were all down there.

00:28:38.240 So, yeah, it could be actually a personality thing with her

00:28:43.520 that she's not the kind of person who's going to say, right, you were against me. 0.98

00:28:46.800 I'm going to just screw you so hard as I can. 1.00

00:28:49.860 She does not appear to have used the cabinet to settle scores and be vindictive. 0.99

00:28:54.360 No, she does not.

00:28:56.320 In fact, some people are talking about Chandra.

00:28:58.180 I mean, if she was going to settle a score, she definitely would have taken him. 0.85

00:29:00.680 She left him there.

00:29:03.120 Well, let's talk about someone or a group of people who do appear to be out to settle a score.

00:29:08.940 Take Back Alberta. 1.00

00:29:10.720 Take Back Alberta, some of you guys might know, you guys do, is kind of a grassroots-y organization,

00:29:18.900 kind of within the UCP orbit, and it goes out and just mobilizes people,

00:29:24.000 gets them signed up to do stuff in political parties, or the UCP, I should say. It played a

00:29:30.580 very significant role in the takedown of Jason Kenney. It was out there signing people up.

00:29:37.240 Actually, let's back up a little bit. The last UCP convention, November 2021, the Great Eagle

00:29:43.420 Casino on Susina Reserve, just next to Calgary here. Jason Kenney was bragging, my slate of

00:29:50.480 candidates sweat the table. No one even came close. This talk of challenging my leadership

00:29:55.520 is all a paper tiger made up mostly by the Western standard. Well, we knew better than that.

00:30:01.820 But some of the media bought that. Like, they sweat the board. The UCP board, half of it comes

00:30:06.780 up for election every time, plus vacancies. Kind of like the U.S. Senate, you know, kind of never

00:30:10.980 turns over all at once. And his people sweat the table. But the people against them weren't even

00:30:16.200 really trying. It kind of made them overconfident, which is why they didn't see the big

00:30:21.420 leadership challenge coming. So then Take Back Alberta comes, and it signed up a ton of people

00:30:25.940 and played a pretty big role in what was supposed to be the in-person vote on Kenny's leadership

00:30:31.100 in Red Deer. They had beaten Kenny about four to one, three or four to one. Then they canceled that

00:30:36.620 and changed the voting stuff. Anyway, Kenny still goes down. Take Back Alberta seems back again,

00:30:42.960 And it showed up in force at this convention. It seems to both influence the policy votes, but more particularly to elect a new board of directors for the party. That board was rightfully or wrongly perceived as Kenny's board. And they swept it. There was nine positions up, and they took every single last one.

00:31:04.940 So that was half the board up for re-election plus some vacancies.

00:31:07.300 So these guys now hold a majority on the board of directors.

00:31:12.200 And they seem to have been a little less forgiving than Smith.

00:31:14.740 They came in looking to now shake up the party's establishment and governing body itself, their board.

00:31:21.520 Corey, you've been around internal politics a long time, less so with the UCP.

00:31:26.700 But you kind of understand how these things work.

00:31:29.060 um have you ever seen like an outside group come like this to to a major party not like uh you know

00:31:35.840 take we can take over the alberta green party in the afternoon yeah you me and nigel can go when

00:31:39.500 we take you know vote them at the ag and i've seen them try with blocks there have been advocacy

00:31:43.900 groups that have tried or slates and things like that but not something on such a large order with

00:31:48.040 that many voting members to manage to do it uh but there's a whole lot i mean a party board a lot

00:31:52.940 of people don't necessarily understand what the board does i mean uh you get policy discussions

00:31:57.380 through the party, for example.

00:31:58.640 Okay, well, all those really are

00:31:59.660 to caucus or suggestions.

00:32:01.380 In reality, they're bound by them.

00:32:03.800 But still, the leadership should nod

00:32:07.120 and respect the board

00:32:08.140 because the board is supposed to be the conduit

00:32:09.900 from the members to the leader, in a sense.

00:32:12.800 I mean, it's very mixed up

00:32:14.080 as well as the constituency boards.

00:32:15.780 Yeah, it's internal.

00:32:17.700 And the fights can get bad, though.

00:32:19.240 See, I was a VP membership during most of the time.

00:32:21.860 Daniel Smith was the leader of the Wildrose Party.

00:32:23.980 And then we had a lot of clashes with Smith

00:32:26.960 at that time because she wants her independence to go out and we felt as board members. And I

00:32:31.220 think we were wrong in hindsight as board members. You get a little too self-important that you

00:32:35.040 should be telling the leader what to do. And that can lead to bad breaks within your party

00:32:39.660 and frustrations. And I think those are some of the scenes that led to, again, that floor

00:32:44.820 crossing eventually. So the relationship between the board and the leadership now with taking back

00:32:51.180 Alberta, it's going to be interesting to see what's going to come out of this and what's

00:32:54.040 going to happen hopefully it's positive well it's not just an advisory board like the policies

00:32:59.500 and kenny says i hold the pen on policy but the board is different i view it as almost

00:33:04.140 the legislative branch of a political party internally it it is the governance of the party

00:33:11.840 and they set the rules on leadership races they said nominations on nominations and i think that

00:33:18.560 We're going to come to that in a second.

00:33:22.680 Nominations aside, which we're going to get to,

00:33:24.820 do you think there's any significant fallout from this?

00:33:27.440 Do you think this kind of very clear and open,

00:33:31.460 they made no bones about it, like we're Wild Rose types

00:33:34.300 and we think the current board are PC types

00:33:36.620 and we're coming in and taking it over.

00:33:40.440 Their executive director, David Parker, told Rick Bell, Calgary Sun,

00:33:44.800 the Wild Rose is back, the Wild Rose is in charge now.

00:33:47.020 The PCs had it, now the Wild Rose does.

00:33:49.300 Do you think this is going to maybe ruffle too many feathers?

00:33:53.280 Well, that might.

00:33:54.440 But I thought it was rather brash language, but, you know, like wind, but don't rub it in.

00:33:59.100 But anyway, I would imagine that the premium would probably find that a fairly congenial group of people to hear from.

00:34:09.500 You know, it's one of the funny things that, and you can see this with some of the reaction to this already,

00:34:17.020 takeover by this shadowy group of men in dry suits, you know.

00:34:24.240 Lens to mistrust.

00:34:25.520 Mistrust it.

00:34:27.220 And yet, we always tell people to get involved in politics.

00:34:29.840 If you believe in something, go out, join, act, do.

00:34:33.380 And these people did.

00:34:34.680 They went out, they joined, they acted, and they did.

00:34:37.820 They took over the board.

00:34:40.700 And so...

00:34:41.440 It wasn't him.

00:34:42.560 They weren't shadowy about it.

00:34:44.660 Like they were very open about it and then bragged about it in the newspapers.

00:34:48.120 They were very open about it.

00:34:49.080 So why would anybody say, well, this is a dangerous thing, internal takeover and so on?

00:34:56.420 I don't know.

00:34:56.880 I mean, there'll be another chance to elect a different board in due course.

00:35:00.840 It's just normally done, I think, a bit more congenially.

00:35:04.560 There's always slates on these things, you know, essentially different teams competing

00:35:07.800 and they're aligned with each other.

00:35:09.020 but it's kind of a little more hush uh than this was and and not bringing in so many new people i

00:35:15.340 mean you'd see um you know i was there and i recognized okay this guy's been like a pc for

00:35:19.720 30 years this guy was wild rose for 10 and uh and you know then there was just a bunch of guys and

00:35:25.700 flannel walking in you've never seen before and i know who they're voting for well i hope the people

00:35:31.040 on the board though and in the party uh just in hindsight and experience like it was a smaller

00:35:35.420 version but the wild rose party was the merger of the alberta alliance in a wild rose group

00:35:40.620 and some of us never got over that they were still self-identifying i was an alliance person

00:35:46.380 and link byfield was a wild rose person we used to fight based on that and i look back and boy 0.98

00:35:51.420 we fought over the stupidest of crap because we were still holding our tribalism rather than 0.94

00:35:55.580 looking at the the whole party thinking of which uh his brother that's vince byfield yes he's a 1.00

00:36:00.780 a part of those new members. Carrying the torch. But you know the thing is that people say well

00:36:05.800 it's been taken over. It doesn't take over the government. When you are elected as an MLA

00:36:12.200 you are elected as a representative for a constituency. You happen to belong to this

00:36:18.740 party and it's probably what gets you elected but in the end you work within a constitutional

00:36:24.620 structure into which the board of the party does not feed in any sense.

00:36:30.980 These things influence government, but it's not taking over a government.

00:36:34.320 You're taking over the governing body of the governing party.

00:36:38.980 It's different.

00:36:39.880 They will get their phone calls returned.

00:36:41.620 So let's talk about what's probably most on the mind of these people coming in.

00:36:46.840 So in the interview I had with Premier Smith on the Friday, I asked about, well, you know, there's these some very controversial nominations that have already been kind of snapped in ridings with Kenny loyalists, where their opposite opponents were all disqualified on what seems some pretty flimsy grounds.

00:37:07.180 probably those, you know, we had Jody Gateman in Carts and Siksika, and probably most

00:37:11.440 prominently Tim Hoven in Remy Rocky Mountain House Sundry with Jason Nixon. And I asked Smith about,

00:37:20.300 you know, okay, what's happening with reopening these nominations? This was talked about during

00:37:23.120 the leadership. She said, it's not really up to me. It's up to the party's board. The leader does

00:37:27.080 not have the power to just snap the thing. A leader can get what they want if they really

00:37:32.020 want to push hard enough. But I got the impression she wasn't going to spend too much political

00:37:36.400 capital on it but she said uh it's up to the board and you know if the members want to want

00:37:41.120 these nominations open they're going to have to elect a board that wants to do that

00:37:44.640 but appears to be exactly what's happened um so nominations reopening uh

00:37:52.400 let's start with you uh let's start with cory uh because i think you got a bit more background on

00:37:57.280 this one um what are the chances that jason nixon has to face a contested nomination now

00:38:03.680 with an opponent that doesn't get disqualified. I think quite good. That could be part of why he

00:38:08.800 was jettisoned from caucus too. I mean, she has, that's the large, not caucus. Cabinet, I should

00:38:14.180 say. Yes. Thank you. And that was part of what Smith campaigned on as well was saying she would

00:38:19.600 reevaluate those. And that was one of the most odious. I mean, Tim Hoeven was not a radical

00:38:24.940 racist or any of that kind of garbage. He was kicked out on shaky grounds. It was insulting. 0.98

00:38:31.660 And there were 1,000, I think estimates was maybe 1,400 local memberships sold there.

00:38:37.320 She needed those for that leadership.

00:38:38.900 This is kind of returning that favor, saying, well, you can have that nomination.

00:38:42.580 And I think Lakeson will have a very hard time winning it.

00:38:44.700 It's not necessarily, she's, they'll kind of wash her hands.

00:38:46.680 No, no.

00:38:46.940 Saying like, if the board wants it.

00:38:48.680 We know unofficially the board, either way, the board would be more inclined to reopen that one.

00:38:54.040 Jody Gateman with a show down south.

00:38:56.520 I don't, I mean, it was similar circumstance, but not quite as.

00:38:59.260 Well, she kept Joseph Shaw in cabinet.

00:39:01.560 yeah portfolio and house leader pretty good gig so whether or not i mean again as you said it's

00:39:06.940 not up to her she and if the board says it she can say look this the party governance is the board

00:39:11.740 and joseph will just have to go out and sell memberships and win it uh but i mean i do think

00:39:17.500 at least one of those has to reopen just for the sake of giving that feeling that we're correcting

00:39:20.660 some of the past wrongs um nigel how divisive do you think it'd be opening it up is it going to be 0.86

00:39:26.600 seen as correcting past wrongs and the grassroots getting their say or do you think it's going to

00:39:30.980 be viewed as as vindictive and a purge oh it's probably going to be a 50 50 split on that but

00:39:37.140 my my bet if i had to take uh if i had to take money or if there was an office pool on it would

00:39:42.640 be if you have spent the last 10 months actively campaigning to take over the board because you

00:39:50.480 were mad about the way things are done and one of the things that makes you maddest is the way that

00:39:55.820 nominations were, as you see it, rate. Why would you do all

00:40:01.400 that and come all that way and spend all that money and all

00:40:04.320 that effort and all that door knocking, and all those times in

00:40:07.720 cold church basements, and then say, Well, I guess, in the

00:40:13.400 interest of everything, we'll just, of course, they're going

00:40:15.560 to open the nominations up. Yeah.

00:40:17.940 Why wouldn't they? That's the most, that's the most

00:40:21.220 The hoppiest thing in the world.

00:40:22.220 True enough, if they're pushing that, why did you get into the board?

00:40:24.220 Smith might be trying to calm the waters and get everyone singing kubaya, but I have a 0.98

00:40:28.460 feeling these guys aren't paid, they're volunteers, and yeah, they've been doing this for damn

00:40:35.340 near a year.

00:40:36.340 Yeah.

00:40:37.340 There's a lot of effort to go and just say, well, you know, you're going to start cutting 0.96

00:40:39.720 this crap out. 0.99

00:40:40.720 Next time. 0.98

00:40:41.720 So let's talk about a very prominent case of nomination trouble, Lila Ahir.

00:40:48.000 So disclosure, I've got some history in this.

00:40:51.460 That's one reason I know a fair bit about it.

00:40:53.240 But there's a lot of news with this just today.

00:40:56.420 Now, Aheer has never faced a nomination ever.

00:40:59.380 She's been elected twice but never had a nomination.

00:41:01.820 When she was first elected on the Wild Rose banner in 2015,

00:41:06.740 the party wanted a woman in an electable riding. 1.00

00:41:09.840 And so essentially, everyone else was elbowed out of the way to make room.

00:41:14.520 She wasn't appointed, but just kind of elbowed out of the way. 0.96

00:41:17.280 It was a bit cleaner than what happened in 2019, where she was one of only two members in the entire UCP,

00:41:23.080 one of only two minorities, and Kenny had the party just disqualify anyone who wanted to challenge her.

00:41:28.820 She was untouchable. He told me himself.

00:41:32.680 No one was allowed to run against her because she would have lost that nomination. 0.62

00:41:37.800 Now, this time around, she had a falling out with Kenny because she didn't get the right cabinet spot or something.

00:41:43.480 She had a falling out for one reason or another.

00:41:46.560 but that didn't mean that the anti-Kenny side would then adopt her, because she was

00:41:51.680 opposed to Kenny on the left. She took more of an NDP line on lockdowns and mandates,

00:41:59.440 thought we should have had stricter things and all this. And so she faced, for the first time,

00:42:04.720 Kenny was no longer going to protect her. And so she has a nomination challenge there,

00:42:08.880 Chantal de Young or something. A young woman went around selling memberships. 0.68

00:42:13.440 they had a local board election for the local UCP there here's board got trounced all three

00:42:23.780 positions thrown out like four to one on a technicality they had to help hold a meeting

00:42:28.900 again a couple months ago during the UCP leadership again the here board completely thrown out

00:42:34.680 including family members with their own name then she gets trounced around one percent or so 0.97

00:42:40.580 in the ucp election last place she's not got the smith people protecting her anymore i'm sorry the

00:42:47.060 the kenny people and the smith people are definitely not going to protect her after

00:42:50.100 that leadership race went and not probably seen it as needing being of any great political value

00:42:55.720 getting one percent uh so she's facing a real nomination and she's not going to be protected

00:43:01.360 all signs were that she's going to get completely blown out so we had an exclusive story that went

00:43:06.880 up. 8.30 this morning from our columnist, Linda Slavonio. So Linda has this up. Now, this has been

00:43:13.700 in the works for a few days. We had known about it. Sources very close to here confirming she was

00:43:20.140 sniffing around about moving roddings going all the way up to Calgary Elbow. Voted UCP last time,

00:43:25.280 but it's open right now. She was sniffing around there, but she probably would have a very difficult

00:43:31.740 time with the nomination even there. Probably a better suit of a rodding. It's more lefty,

00:43:36.280 more urban but there's people who want that nomination would probably win and then today

00:43:42.040 we've got uh she announces she's not running for the ucp next time although i don't am i reading

00:43:48.680 too much into the language that she used i'm not running for the ucp next time uh digel am i reading

00:43:55.760 too much into that no i don't think so you know there's during the leadership i always used to

00:44:01.860 like Lila here, and probably on a personal basis, I still do, but when she was involved

00:44:10.580 in the early leadership debates, she had such strong language favoring the Alberta Teachers 0.95

00:44:17.300 Union, but I thought, this sounds more like the NDP, and, you know, you asked the question,

00:44:25.240 am I reading this?

00:44:25.980 She's not going to run for the UCP.

00:44:27.900 Well, who are you going to run for?

00:44:29.400 Is it the NDP?

00:44:30.880 Is it the NDP in Calgary elbow?

00:44:34.580 I don't know whether they have a candidate there or not.

00:44:38.840 But, you know.

00:44:40.500 They do, because they've been chomping the bit, actually, to try and get that one.

00:44:43.400 Oh, okay.

00:44:44.120 Running.

00:44:44.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:44:45.420 So they have, yes.

00:44:46.740 So she's going to look for maybe a.

00:44:49.600 There's, like, some northeast Calgary seats that are vulnerable where the UCB could lose or she could run for the NDP.

00:44:55.440 I mean, we've kind of been wondering around here.

00:44:57.520 We've all known she was not going to be a UCB candidate.

00:45:00.000 As soon as she lost Kenny's protection, her time as a UCB candidate was pretty much over.

00:45:05.240 Yeah, she's not a strong conservative by any means, and that's why she had the trouble, I'm sure, in her constituency. 1.00

00:45:12.960 That was a very large meeting that came and voted a new board, none of whom were favorable to, let's say, here.

00:45:23.680 Like, that was 450, 400?

00:45:26.060 I've never heard of a constituency meeting.

00:45:27.840 You know, 30 people who are hunched over a table.

00:45:32.060 Some political parties get that at their annual convention.

00:45:34.440 Yeah, you know, so there was obviously a lot of, and she read the tea leaves that they had right.

00:45:40.120 They weren't with her.

00:45:41.240 So then time to go look elsewhere.

00:45:44.800 If she really wants to say imposing.

00:45:46.480 Well, see, I mean, I kind of agree.

00:45:47.720 She is personable when you see her person.

00:45:49.600 I like her, but I wouldn't say she's just a weak conservative. 0.99

00:45:52.840 She's a weak politician, though. 1.00

00:45:54.120 I mean, management of your constituency, for example, that's something you've got to watch your flank as a politician, no matter what party you're in.

00:46:00.200 And she let that fester and get behind her and couldn't get it under her own control.

00:46:05.640 I don't know necessarily if the NDP wants here.

00:46:09.600 We can't presume that they would necessarily want her amidst them as well.

00:46:15.320 Well, they didn't want Sandra Janssen.

00:46:17.140 Well, look how that worked.

00:46:18.300 They took Sandra Janssen to say, hey, look, red Tory, we're the moderate, you know, old progressive conservatives can come to us.

00:46:25.820 I can see them taking her on those grounds.

00:46:27.920 They might think, well, I mean, she's got a high opinion of the position she should hold in cabinet. 0.99

00:46:34.700 She was it was a poorly kept secret.

00:46:37.180 The reason she was upset with Kenny was she didn't get a senior cabinet portfolio because she had been used to more prominent position for one reason or another that didn't apply anymore.

00:46:48.300 But it would probably be at least viewed as a win for the NDP.

00:46:52.620 She might be a bit of a handle, but. 1.00

00:46:55.120 Maybe.

00:46:55.520 It depends.

00:46:56.220 I mean, it depends on their internal politics.

00:46:57.540 Because, I mean, you've got to remember,

00:46:58.260 you've always got to displace somebody else when you bring someone there.

00:47:02.220 And, yeah, Jansen, I think actually here is stronger than Jansen

00:47:05.580 when it comes to that.

00:47:07.400 Jansen left the NDP out to dry.

00:47:09.200 At least here you can have a conversation with Jansen.

00:47:11.460 It's just not.

00:47:12.940 I miss her.

00:47:13.640 She was so entertaining.

00:47:14.700 But, you know, this would allow the NDP to say we're the home of progressive conservative.

00:47:21.200 Yeah, big tent.

00:47:22.520 We're big tent.

00:47:23.560 You know, you may have voted PC before, but, you know, you could be with us.

00:47:28.180 I mean, it's probably smartest for her to just not run. 0.99

00:47:32.260 But if she was to pick, you know, one of the weak UCP seats in Northeast Calgary, there's a couple that are pretty vulnerable.

00:47:38.720 The NDP could pick up.

00:47:40.320 She could move to one of those runnings and potentially win under the NDP.

00:47:44.020 Volatile country up there.

00:47:45.240 I mean, anybody can win one of those potentially

00:47:46.940 if you run the right campaign.

00:47:48.240 Northeast Calgary is quite a special pod.

00:47:53.140 What a mess.

00:47:54.600 You know what?

00:47:55.080 I half thought we should get into Paul Hinman

00:47:56.620 and the Wild Rose, but maybe another time.

00:47:59.700 I could only handle so much messy internal politics

00:48:03.240 and that one, I'm opening up Pandora's box.

00:48:07.460 Okay, gentlemen, thank you very much for your time today.

00:48:11.380 And thank all of you for joining us this evening.

00:48:13.700 I love spending time with you, as always.

00:48:16.920 If you're already a member of the Western Standard, thank you very much.

00:48:19.820 Your support allows us to continue building the Western Standard.

00:48:24.640 Actually, it's our three-year birthday.

00:48:26.320 It is.

00:48:26.840 Just, what was it, yesterday, the day before?

00:48:30.600 Although Friday, we're going to have a couple beers around the office, most of us.

00:48:35.480 We're celebrating three years, and we've done it because of you.

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00:48:47.260 in helping us to just grow the organization the way we have so tremendously over the last three

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00:48:57.580 already supporting the CBC and the mainstream media with your tax dollars. That's where it's

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00:49:06.940 watching us, you probably like what you're seeing and you should support, although I am told I'm

00:49:11.280 very good authority. The NDP caucus, watch this because this is how they find out what happens

00:49:15.580 inside the conservative politics. This is where they figure out what's going on. So,

00:49:19.740 hi guys. Even you NDP staffers up in Edmonton, I'm watching you right now.

00:49:26.120 Thank you very much for joining us today and God bless.

00:49:36.940 Alberta Press-Ferty Project is dedicated to protecting Alberta's world-class energy sector

00:49:53.160 and has invited Alex Epstein, American author of the best-selling new book, Fossil Future,

00:49:58.400 to speak on the importance of fossil fuels and the vital role they play in our economy.

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Western Standard - October 27, 2022

The Pipeline： Far-left editor charged

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