Western Standard - The Pipeline： February 17, 2021

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00:02:30.000 Today is February 17th. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline. Thank you very much for joining us on this beautiful, crisp February day. I'm joined today also by Western Standard News Editor Dave Naylor. How are you doing, Dave?

00:02:51.100 I'm doing well, Derek, and I think I've got all my notifications turned off this week, so let's hope it works.

00:03:00.000 We don't want to call you the dinger, so we're hoping that's so.

00:03:04.980 And also joined by Western Standard podcast editor and columnist extraordinaire, Corey Morgan. 0.96

00:03:11.320 Good day, Corey.

00:03:12.700 Good day.

00:03:15.660 Well, today we're going to be talking about the details that have been revealed about the federal government's gun grab, so-called buyback, as strange as that term is.

00:03:27.920 We'll be talking about the gun grab and the details that are coming and the reaction of Western governments to the gun grab.

00:03:36.500 We'll talk about the never-ending ball drop that has been Ottawa's vaccine procurement.

00:03:48.180 I know many of you have heard of this story before, but it just keeps on evolving and keeps getting worse.

00:03:54.140 Canada is now ranked with some of the most incompetent governments in the world, far outside, not just the G7, not just the G20.

00:04:03.780 We're right down with some of the worst of them.

00:04:07.000 We'll be talking about the big ball drop that has been Ottawa's vaccine crisis.

00:04:14.380 And we'll also be talking about the BC karaoke crackdown.

00:04:20.480 Crack might be okay, but karaoke not.

00:04:24.140 We'll be talking about that in some of the latest COVID madness that's taking place.

00:04:31.660 But first, just an update for everyone.

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00:06:37.780 globally or or in eastern canada that's it for the bureaucratic update um uh well actually no we

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00:06:58.580 advertisers on the website already but our first advertiser uh on this show is uh karensway.com

00:07:05.460 Kierensway.com is a therapeutic masseuse in Calgary, Alberta.

00:07:14.800 It's an incredible business, some of the best service you can get for massage therapy in southern Alberta.

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00:08:00.900 that's supporting the Western Standard. Okay, well, now that that's out of the way, we're going

00:08:06.960 to go to the fun stuff here. The latest in the Trudeau gun grab, details revealed in a new piece

00:08:15.020 of legislation tabled, I believe, just this week. Dave, why don't you give our viewers an update on

00:08:21.980 what is in this bill? Yeah, the legislation was tabled on Tuesday, Derek, and I think what's

00:08:30.340 perhaps one of the biggest news item is what's not contained in the bill and that's any details

00:08:37.320 about the the billion dollar automatic weapon buyback program the gun buyback program no details

00:08:46.120 on that and now there's no automatic gun buyback because automatic guns have been illegal in

00:08:52.880 Canada since the 60s these are the assault style or military style guns these are normally just

00:09:00.320 semi-automatics i don't mean to be pedantic here but i i always just got to be make sure we're

00:09:05.200 clear on this automatic guns have been illegal for civilian ownership since the 1960s an exemption

00:09:11.520 might be if your great grandpa brought something back from a war you might have a special license

00:09:15.760 but you essentially can't use it but uh yeah this is for guns that simply look scary they might look

00:09:22.800 uh like a military gun but they are very clearly not military guns sorry to interrupt you dave

00:09:28.720 but uh i just know we're going to get roasted by in the comments section if we're not clear on that

00:09:32.960 point uh no worries derek you're the you're the gun expert uh no details on the buyback program

00:09:39.200 announced whatsoever uh they say that it will be coming in uh excuse me in uh the upcoming months

00:09:46.400 uh experts have said this is uh got the potential to be a billion dollar boondoggle uh and the way

00:09:53.280 the way the government handles these type of things, it probably will become.

00:09:58.560 Some of the new details that were announced is the government's going to introduce a new

00:10:03.900 flagging system, red flags and yellow flags, so concerned friends and relatives can go

00:10:11.400 to the court if someone's feeling suicidal or making threats or something like that,

00:10:17.660 can go to the courts and the courts can order those guns removed they're going to take more

00:10:25.100 aim at gun smuggling and trafficking they're going to increase the criminal penalties and

00:10:32.300 bulk up the rcmp and border services agencies anti-smuggling operations the jail terms for

00:10:42.140 doing that have been increased from a maximum of 10 years to a maximum of 14 years. And there's

00:10:49.640 also new offenses for altering cartridge magazines and depicting any violence of firearms in

00:10:58.060 weapons. But I think one of the big news items out of it, Derek, is the law will also allow

00:11:05.820 cities, municipalities across the country to bring in bylaws that would basically

00:11:12.060 ban handguns. Trudeau says he wants to give the cities that power with federal penalties and

00:11:22.060 crimes. It's been a mixed reaction. Some mayors out on the West Coast have said they support it.

00:11:31.200 The Alberta government hasn't supported it.

00:11:34.360 In fact, they're moving full steam ahead with a member's bill

00:11:38.760 to make it extremely difficult for cities to do that.

00:11:43.400 And Saskatchewan Premier Moe says no chance also.

00:11:48.580 He says there's only one gun law in the province, and that's their own,

00:11:54.780 and he's not going to allow the feds to interfere.

00:11:58.100 So certainly a lot of meat on it, Derek, a lot of discussion points.

00:12:05.100 Yeah, thank you, Dave.

00:12:07.100 The provincial reaction to it is some of the most fascinating part of the story to me.

00:12:15.100 You know, traditionally the provinces have not exerted much of their constitutional influence in firearms policy,

00:12:23.100 Strangely enough, with the exception of Quebec, which was angry that the federal government under Stephen Harper did away with at least most aspects of the federal long gun registry and Quebec wanted to keep it. And so they exerted some of their influence using their rightful jurisdiction to keep at least parts of the gun registry in place in Quebec.

00:12:43.820 This is the first time, at least that I'm aware of, that some of the provinces have pushed back in favor of legal firearms rights.

00:12:56.480 This is the big thing here.

00:12:58.200 So you've spoken about both Alberta and Saskatchewan on this front.

00:13:01.860 And Corey, give us your sense of what kind of tools do the provincial governments have,

00:13:11.560 particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan, to push back against the federal gun ban here?

00:13:17.840 Well, I guess they got the courts, you know, we could go in and they can start arguing about

00:13:21.860 whether property or things such as that are under provincial jurisdiction. If it comes as a federal,

00:13:28.820 I, you know, better to get a lawyer to speak to it almost, but a federal law, then, you know,

00:13:34.240 criminal law, then perhaps there's nothing the provinces could do with it. But it's just such

00:13:39.600 a clumsy, cowardly way to try and get at these guns, you know, using the municipalities as their

00:13:47.560 enforcement arm. I mean, if you're going to go after them, Trudeau, go after them. But this way,

00:13:51.400 he's tossing it off to the municipal councils. And of course, we have seen across the country,

00:13:55.300 We got some pretty flaky municipal leaders out there who would be more than happy.

00:13:59.100 I heard Mayor Nenshi going on about how Calgary has a gun problem.

00:14:02.540 That's news to me.

00:14:03.980 But, you know, this is old news.

00:14:06.700 I mean, we've heard from police unions, things in the past, during the registry, you know, prior to your time, Derek.

00:14:11.760 But crimes aren't being committed by law-abiding firearm owners.

00:14:16.340 Registered handguns, they've been around for, registered for decades and decades.

00:14:20.040 They can track this.

00:14:21.120 That's not where the crimes are coming from.

00:14:22.880 They're not coming from grandpa's old duck gun in the basement or even an SKS that looks scary, but really isn't, you know, any more dangerous than another firearm.

00:14:33.140 So this achieves nothing but harassing law abiding Canadians. 0.56

00:14:36.520 And they're just using a different arm to try and do it.

00:14:39.580 And I see a real legal mess coming out of this.

00:14:43.980 Yeah, the municipal approach is quite strange.

00:14:46.740 I know the federal NDP under Jack Layton used to talk about this.

00:14:49.920 But here's the thing. And many people might not know this. Municipalities have no constitutional standing. They actually don't exist under the Canadian Constitution. They are creatures of the provinces. That's the only way they're described in the Constitution, the British North America Act.

00:15:03.980 They are creatures of the provinces. The city of Calgary could theoretically, sorry, the province of Alberta could theoretically dissolve the city of Calgary as a legal entity tomorrow and directly administer it. They could just put it, literally have a minister of Calgary and run Calgary out of the premier's office. They would have every legal right to. Of course, there'd be severe political ramifications to that. So they're unlikely to.

00:15:28.020 But the federal government has no jurisdiction whatsoever over the provinces, over the municipalities. The municipalities are to the province as the army is to the federal government. In terms of the constitutional jurisdictions here, Ottawa has no more right to involve itself in municipalities as the Alberta government does to appoint the top general of the Canadian army.

00:15:54.720 It's simply not within its jurisdiction.

00:15:56.740 So it's quite strange.

00:15:58.500 And I think you're onto something here, Corey.

00:16:01.660 They're trying to have it both ways politically.

00:16:04.420 They know that banning guns is more popular in areas where people are less likely to have legal guns.

00:16:12.160 And it's unpopular in areas where people are more likely to have legal guns.

00:16:16.300 And very clearly people are more likely to own legal firearms outside of big cities.

00:16:22.880 And so they want to do this municipally.

00:16:25.120 It's a little different than how Canada did Prohibition for a long time.

00:16:28.940 Prohibition was delegated to the municipal level, and each municipality was able to decide for itself if they were going to make it illegal for people to drink beer or not.

00:16:39.920 So it's a very typically Canadian way of trying to get around things, muddling the Constitution, muddling jurisdiction.

00:16:47.260 But now you've got the provinces that are fighting back, at least two provinces that are fighting back.

00:16:52.880 saying, no, this is our grounds.

00:16:56.000 Dave, do you want to elaborate a bit on what's been proposed

00:16:58.760 by the Alberta Justice Minister and Solicitor General Casey Maddow?

00:17:04.860 Well, they're looking at bringing in their own firearms officer.

00:17:11.480 They've been talking about that for a while now,

00:17:13.720 so I would expect them to be moving on that even quicker now.

00:17:18.480 a member of the legislature has introduced a bill that would basically make it not illegal

00:17:28.920 but very very difficult for cities to bring in such bylaws and they basically say the same thing

00:17:36.620 you just mentioned Derek that the cities are you know exist strictly because as municipalities

00:17:44.100 strictly because of the province and it's the province's rules that that are

00:17:50.340 going to take priority and that's the almost the exact same thing that Premier

00:17:55.740 Scott Moe said today so Casey Maddou the Justice Minister said they're going to

00:18:02.700 expedite the the the bill and get it in as soon as possible so you know I need

00:18:10.440 And any talk that he's trying to bring in a ban may become premature very quickly.

00:18:18.520 Indeed.

00:18:19.960 Okay, well, let's turn towards more.

00:18:24.040 If Ottawa thinks it can manage, you know, Ottawa thinks it can manage firearms very well, I think

00:18:32.040 maybe they want to get the basics right first.

00:18:34.440 let's talk about the absolute cluster muck that is uh the vaccine procurement um

00:18:42.680 uh dave why don't we go straight to you tell us uh what's the latest in in the kind of bungling of

00:18:51.080 procuring vaccines right now well a new poll out this week derek shows that a huge number of

00:18:58.680 Canadians now blame Trudeau for the fiasco that this has dissolved into.

00:19:07.080 Three months, only 23% of Canadians said it was the government's fault. Now a whopping three and

00:19:13.000 five, almost 60% say it's the government's fault. The pollsters basically say Canadians are sitting

00:19:21.240 back looking at other countries. The United Kingdom is vaccinating hundreds of thousands

00:19:27.960 of people a day the united states president biden announced last night on tv that they've

00:19:35.320 they've secured 600 million doses of the vaccine and they say every united states citizen will be

00:19:43.400 vaccinated by september i'm sorry by july trudeau has promised september for canadians but there

00:19:52.840 doesn't seem to be much uh confidence in his ability to deliver at the moment

00:20:02.920 um yeah corey so that we've known this as a disaster for some time but it's it now seems

00:20:08.760 to be seeping through to the public uh beyond just kind of expert or elite opinion uh now

00:20:15.080 canadians are actually starting to sour on the federal government on this uh they're actually

00:20:19.800 starting to wear it. Do you think this is a big political problem for the Trudeau government or

00:20:27.640 is this just going to be another forgiven mishap? I'm glad something's finally bloody sticking to

00:20:34.300 them but you know I think this is a huge problem for them. I mean it was clear they were already

00:20:39.820 doing campaign kickoffs out east. They got their signs printed. They were leading in the polls and

00:20:45.920 think they had every intention of going this spring to the polls to say look at this we saved

00:20:50.480 canada from the plague we're heroes give us a majority so we can take over the recovery for

00:20:55.680 the next four years and make everything better and now look at the credibility i mean they're

00:21:00.320 saying okay entrust us to put everything together for the next four years for this economic recovery

00:21:05.520 when you can't even get vaccines out you've dropped the ball on what's the biggest issue of

00:21:10.400 a generation and uh it's a disaster for them now i still fear in my view i think there's going to

00:21:18.080 be a spring election we're going to see the natural drop in infections just due to the weather

00:21:22.480 as we've been seeing you know and learning about this uh virus but i mean a lot of people if they're

00:21:28.400 hoping for a final end on this you know i mean i know there's people debate whether or not there

00:21:32.240 should be vaccines or whatever but the majority feel a vaccine is the way out of it and to put

00:21:37.200 it bluntly if the government can't get the vaccines into our arms they're absolutely good for nothing

00:21:41.840 so yeah this is a big problem derek i'm going to disagree with corey a little bit i think this is

00:21:48.480 bad enough for the the liberals to postpone any plans of a of a spring election and here's why

00:21:57.200 canadians look at trudeau scandals in the past the the blackface

00:22:01.200 Well, it looks like we might have a case.

00:22:09.800 The luxury vacation that he'd go on.

00:22:13.600 But those scandals don't affect the average Canadian.

00:22:16.420 They just look at it, shake their head and go about their business, affecting every single

00:22:22.280 Canadian.

00:22:23.680 Everybody's got an elderly relative that still hasn't had their shot yet.

00:22:28.140 you know, it's affecting everybody, and it's affecting everybody's way of life until these

00:22:35.540 vaccines get administered. And the rate that Canada seems to be moving on it, I think we're

00:22:42.320 now looking into 2022 before things get figured out. 0.53

00:22:50.620 Yeah, this has obviously got a more real-world impact on people than, say, blackface or the

00:22:57.340 Alka Khan Island vacation getaways and things like that. Although those tend to be more

00:23:02.560 understandable by people, but this has got a real world impact. You know, we've discussed before

00:23:08.540 here, I think, you know, at the Western Standard, we're in pretty broad agreement that vaccines

00:23:13.080 should not be mandatory. But for those of us who do believe in vaccines, they're absolutely

00:23:20.240 critical to getting things back open, getting back to some level of normality. We're now facing the

00:23:28.060 likely prospect that the United States is going to be back to normal, that Europe is going to be

00:23:33.640 back to normal, Japan, Korea, other advanced countries will all be back to normal and reopen,

00:23:38.700 while Canadians are still going to be under one form or another of a lockdown with severe COVID

00:23:44.440 restrictions. And we're going to be asking why. And I think Corey's right. I think the Liberals

00:23:50.200 had every intention of either engineering their defeat in Parliament or calling an election

00:23:55.080 directly themselves to try and get that majority government. They've been looking around at

00:23:59.640 every other government in Canada that's had an election during the pandemic, British Columbia,

00:24:07.880 Saskatchewan, and I think it was either Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, they all saw minority

00:24:13.240 governments move to huge majority governments. Or in the case of Saskatchewan, a majority

00:24:17.220 government retained its majority status. The Liberals were looking at that, licking their

00:24:21.240 lips. I'm sure Doug Ford was licking his lips, but they have a fixed election date that's

00:24:26.160 hard for majority government to justify breaking, unless you're in Alberta, of course. And they

00:24:33.320 wanted to go. But this has been a complete disaster. They're now starting to wear it.

00:24:38.160 And so I think, yeah, we're going to, I just, there's, while there is a chance of a spring election, I think it's highly unlikely now. I think the Liberals want to avoid one at this time. And this puts Jagmeet Singh and the NDP in a powerful negotiating position to extract policy concessions.

00:24:55.800 We could see, you know, if you're scared of what the Liberals have done so far, just wait until Parliament comes back and Jagmeet Singh is in the driver's seat and he gets to demand concessions from the Liberals in exchange for keeping them afloat in Parliament.

00:25:11.880 It could be quite interesting, to say the least.

00:25:18.040 Okay, well, speaking of interesting, we're going to turn our attention to British Columbia.

00:25:22.340 And, you know, I think it's they've got a bit of a footloose, small town attitude right now towards having fun.

00:25:34.060 Dave, tell us about the BC karaoke crackdown.

00:25:38.700 Feelings, nothing more than feelings.

00:25:43.820 Wow, that was good.

00:25:45.080 Apparently the RCMP in Richmond have found people that can sing worse than me, believe it or not.

00:25:55.480 They busted up two karaoke parties over the weekend, handing out thousands and thousands

00:26:02.360 of dollars of fines because currently it is illegal to sing publicly in British Columbia

00:26:09.400 under their pandemic regulations. So RCMP said on Saturday about 1 a.m.,

00:26:16.760 they busted a bar at the local mall and observed a whole bunch of people in there. 34 people and

00:26:26.600 staff got $230 tickets each, manager receiving a ticket for $2,300. And the very next day,

00:26:36.360 Sunday at 2 a.m., they went to another premise in Richmond, and they heard people singing,

00:26:44.880 heaven forbid. So they moved in and shut it all down. 21 people got a $230 ticket,

00:26:54.620 and the organizer on scene got a $2,300 ticket. RCMP say they will continue to crack down on

00:27:05.820 public gatherings and karaoke and they're urging people to snitch and if

00:27:11.640 you spot a party or you spot somebody singing in public they want you to call

00:27:16.620 them right away so taking it to another level Derek

00:27:23.060 Cory people go into jail or being fined for preaching services in church or

00:27:30.580 or singing karaoke, pro or con? 0.92

00:27:37.060 It's just the arbitrary nature of this.

00:27:39.700 They honestly seem to target things

00:27:41.960 where people actually enjoy themselves.

00:27:44.180 They want us to remain miserable and hunkered down.

00:27:47.860 And I tell you, it's gonna have

00:27:48.940 a really bad long-term consequence.

00:27:51.820 And I mean, this reminds me of last summer.

00:27:53.660 There was a couple of communities

00:27:54.800 that did outdoor drive-in movies

00:27:57.880 to try and have something where people could go.

00:27:59.280 They'd sit in their vehicles,

00:28:00.280 wouldn't interact with others and guess what the police broke that up too it

00:28:04.960 doesn't matter if it's spreading the virus it seems to matter if it's

00:28:07.780 spreading joy and people are getting sick and tired of it I almost want to

00:28:12.280 see more of these crackdowns because maybe it'll be enough to wake some

00:28:14.680 people up to get up and start pushing back is the infections are going down 0.65

00:28:17.860 this is ridiculous show some proof that this is a problem or piss off yeah I

00:28:23.500 know in uh brooks in uh southern alberta uh they allowed some drive-in movies uh there you know 0.93

00:28:32.140 kind of old-time driving movies uh the they were distance distanced and people sat with their

00:28:39.340 windows rolled up yet uh you had a couple of karens in this in the town uh in the city uh

00:28:44.780 complained and it got shut down um similarly i know there's been driving uh church services

00:28:50.620 where people have driven up sat in their cars with the windows closed yet the police are sent

00:28:56.540 to break it up as if they're having uh well they're just having too much fun uh it's it

00:29:03.340 there is there is a health dimension to it but i think it's been far overshadowed now by the

00:29:08.380 control dimension and i i think you're being on corey this is just about keeping us miserable uh

00:29:14.780 at this point it's clearly far beyond any original health objectives that

00:29:21.060 there might have been okay well we're gonna wrap it up there today grateful

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00:30:03.540 We will help you out.

00:30:04.920 We've got a great team that will help you through it, making sure that you can enjoy the benefits of being a member.

00:30:10.580 uh again we want to thank our sponsor uh karensway.com uh massage therapy in in calgary

00:30:19.640 it's a great way to uh to unwind during all this madness you can still go um and uh and unwind a

00:30:28.260 bit uh thank you all very much for joining dave corey always a pleasure thank you very much god

00:30:33.920 bless

00:30:40.580 You

Western Standard - February 18, 2021

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