The Pipeline： Federal election soon？ BC & Sask campaigns, & the Mohammed cartoons
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Summary
Dave and Corey discuss the collapse of the proposed anti-corruption committee, the potential federal election, and the ongoing We Charity scandal. Western Standard is one of the few media outlets in Canada that does not receive government funding and does not apply for government media licensing. If you like Western Standard, please consider becoming a member for 5, 10, or 20 bucks a month.
Transcript
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Mohammed cartoons. Oh, by the way, I think we actually had one in the corner the whole
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time we were talking. Just Mohammed cartoons are wonderful. I love them.
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Gotta love Mo. So, more Mo. So, we'll get right into it. But before we start, just a reminder
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that the Western Standard is one of the few media outlets in Canada that does not receive
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government funding and does not apply for government media licensing. If you support the work we
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do, you like what you're seeing and reading, please consider becoming a member at westerncenteredonline.com
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for 5, 10 or 20 bucks a month. You can help to ensure that we've got a genuinely free press
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here in Western Canada. But let's get started. We're going to deal with the potential federal
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election here that we're seeing. Dave, why don't you set up what's happening in Ottawa
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right now with this anti-corruption committee and a potential election?
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Right now in Ottawa, Derek, it looks like we have avoided the snap election. Deputy Prime
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Minister Singh has come out and said that the NDP will support the government or will not
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vote to hold an election. This all came about with the Finance Committee and the Tories and
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the bloc on that Finance Committee that's looking into the WE scandal. They wanted to set up
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an anti-corruption committee to look into stuff, you know, exactly like this WE scandal where
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members of the Trudeau's family profited hundreds of thousands of dollars, his mother, his brother,
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his wife, and they wanted to give the committee more powers. Obviously, the Liberals have something
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to hide. If they're willing to call an election in the middle of a pandemic, they must have something
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to hide. But it's, you know, it still could happen. It still could come down to a vote this afternoon,
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Wednesday afternoon in the House of Commons. And pundits are saying it could come down to one
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independent vote. And that's Judy Wilson-Raybould. And wouldn't that be an irony if it did come down
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So, Dave, that is really breaking news, I guess, kind of mixing up our broadcasts. You're saying
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that the NDP have caved. They're not going to support the creation of the Anti-Corruption Committee
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That is correct. They're still going to go hard after the government. But, you know,
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the NDP does not want an election right now. They don't have the finances. They don't have the
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infrastructure in place. So it looks like the NDP are going to support the Trudeau government and
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Well, I don't think any of the parties really wanted an election, except possibly the Liberals.
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Like an election is a way to, especially if they can secure the majority, it means they'll never
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be answers on the We Charity scandal. It kind of completely shuts that down. This is, I don't know,
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this is extraordinary, although not entirely surprising that the NDP have caved in. Corey,
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Well, it's striking. I mean, these games of chicken are going to come with a minority government,
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but this one was really coming close to the brink and just over something that, I mean,
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the Liberals are becoming almost hysteric on trying to cover up what's going on with this
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We scandal. Like, it's obvious that there's more hiding in there. I mean, the way Wayne Easter
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shut down that committee meeting last week, the way that they were willing to die on this hill.
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I mean, as you said, perhaps they might want to go to the polls, but you want to go on the polls on
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the right issue. You know, you want to fall on the right sword and going to the polls to say,
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we must take it to all Canadians to avoid having an anti-corruption committee forming is not
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something that any government would want to, you know, put themselves forward to the people on.
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So there's just something bizarre going on. I think part of it too was just, you know,
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yeah, Deputy Prime Minister Singh, as you're putting it, I mean, they've got to establish themselves.
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You know, there are a couple of dogs that are circling. They don't want to admit that the
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other one is in control at any given time. So they've got to try and save face on these issues
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and push back and push close to the brink, but neither of them necessarily really wants to go
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over. If we're going to see this happening with anything controversial coming before Parliament
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in the next few months, so one of these times it's going to fall. Like you can't maintain much
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longer with it constantly coming to threatening a confidence vote to stop things from a majority of
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opposition parties getting up to do something. Why not? Because it does get tiresome. And of course
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they're not afraid of being tiresome either, but eventually one of them is going to have to draw
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their line in the sand with their own party members, their supporters and saying, well, okay,
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we're going ahead and we'll see what happens. So this time might have been narrowly averted,
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but now they're going to see how far they can push on something of more substance than
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Yeah, this is a pretty humiliating back down for the NDP, really confirming their status
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as the junior coalition partner in the current government, really entrenching that. But they
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have been, they've been, the liberals have been, as you just said, fanatical and breathless
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about this. Dave just, I think this morning published a story on a liberal MP who said that
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attempts to create an anti-corruption committee were McCarthyist. I don't know. I don't ever
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see a problem with hunting down commies, but that's a different story. But in this case,
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it's a committee to explore corruption on a very large scale involving potentially hundreds
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of millions of dollars of spending that the government was intending to release to this
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group. And that's considered McCarthyist. Like they're, they're quite fanatical about
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this, but you know what? I actually think most liberal MPs believe it. I mean, like I can
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tell you when you're in a caucus, there is some cool, there's a lot of Kool-Aid to be passed
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around and people there believe it. So I, there's no signs that the liberal caucus has
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anyone really bristling at this. I mean, the person with any real principle already left
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it or was kicked out, Judy Raymond Weibolt and Jane Philippot, only one of which was reelected.
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Well, let's, well, we got a couple of comments we can look at. I'm not sure how relevant they
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are. Clint Upham says, I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning that, but I've noticed some
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clickbait style headlines of our elected CPC members when doing live stream videos. I'm losing
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faith in them by the day. Clint, that is because you're not watching it. If they don't use clickbait
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headlines, you know, we've really tried hard here at the Western Standard not to use clickbait.
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I mean, clickbait is what you call a headline that you don't like, but it's catchy. If you do like a
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headline that's catchy, you just call it a good headline. Um, you know, and as the publisher here,
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I can tell you, it's, it's a difficult task to try and find the right balance between getting people
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interested and making sure it's representing what, what it's about. Uh, but yeah, I, I, I've certainly,
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certainly seen this and, uh, you know, most MPs of all, in all parties, no one even knows who they are,
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even in their own ridings outside of a couple of dozen people. Uh, so, you know, this is their way of
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trying to actually get hurt because who's interested in interviewing most MPs when the
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media would know very well that they have got no power. Yeah. Well, they've been doing some live
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feeds, which are a valuable tool at the same time. There have been a couple, I have to admit to,
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I've clicked onto with a headline of the live feed. I think that perhaps this was Clint's, uh,
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referencing, I won't bother, you know, wish MPs or whatnot, but it sounds like something very
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breaking and something big. And then you get onto it and then suddenly it's more like a fundraising pitch
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and you're not getting much new out of it and so on. And that frustrates me because, okay,
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well, I listened in, I thought you had something that was really going to grab me and something
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new. And here I'm just, uh, okay, that was the headline now, please. Can you contribute?
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Cause we might have an election. Just think of it. Uh, think of clickbait headlines as you're on a
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dating app, you're on a Tinder and there's a very enticing looking picture and you show up for the
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date and it's not quite there. Well, they're going to say, well, you wouldn't have showed up for the
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date anyway, if I didn't have that nice, uh, very glamorous looking picture. So, so just buyer beware.
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Uh, be it Tinder or CBC or members of parliament, it's going to be the same thing. Yeah. It's just
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the way of the times. Let's go on to, uh, Keith, uh, Lorison. My understanding is that we got a
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$30 million advance on the project. Did they return the money? Uh, yeah, we have, they have.
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Yes. Yeah. The, the project didn't go ahead. Uh, so they, yeah, they, they returned. They've paid
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back the money. Okay. Well, there we go. One good. Uh, I think this one's more of a comment.
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Corey nailed it. I thought an election was breaking news. Ha ha. I don't know what you're talking
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about Derek. Okay. Uh, maybe I don't know what Clint's talking about. We're not, well, he, he,
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Clint likes you at least. There's at least one. Okay. Well, um, well, I, you know, I, I think most
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experts are not really predicting this parliament to last much beyond the spring. Uh, that being said,
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I mean, you know, the, the NDP, I, they just don't have the money right now. Uh, they consider
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themselves fortunate in the last election to not lose even more seats than they already did. They,
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they, they lost like half their caucus, but they declared it a victory because they were supposed
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to lose four fifths of their caucus. So, you know, I guess it's all, it's all relative. Uh,
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I remember 2015 with the wild rose, we won, uh, 22 seats and we felt like we had just conquered the
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world because we had, uh, come back from the death after the mass floor crossing. We're down to five
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seats, only three guys running for reelections. So we won 22 seats and we thought it was the best
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thing in the world. So I guess it's, it's all relative, it's all relative, but yeah, the NDP are,
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um, just not in the mood for an election. How, I don't know, how long do you think they can drag
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this out for and still be able to tell their supporters there's a point to voting NDP rather than
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just going for liberal and making it safe? Well, that's what I mean is this brinkmanship. I mean,
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the NDP get a little weaker every time they cave on it. So eventually they'll have to draw a line
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on the sand and stick to it. So they didn't draw the line of corruption. Well, yeah. And, but if
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they keep getting pushed back and back, you know, they're going to lose their own base and, uh,
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the pressures will just come on. I mean, they do accept that they're typically, I mean, right now
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is as powerful as they'll ever get. Uh, that's their best possible position typically is, is being
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holding a balance of power in a minority government. Uh, but at the same time, they've got to stand on
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their point of principle. Then they're not looking to win. They're looking to be principled
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and their supporters are going to get more and more upset every time they seem to back
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down on something that they feel is important. So eventually they're just going to have to
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cave and bring that government down. Uh, we'll see how this brinkmanship goes in the next few
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months, I guess. Yeah. Oh, well, just an update, uh, from, uh, I guess confusion with Clint.
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It was, he was confused. I was talking about what Tinder, but he also says we can also use
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Grindr if that's your thing. Well, he's familiar with the apps then. All right. All, all power
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to you. Whatever, whatever app you want to use. Good, good on you. Um, okay. Well, let's
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move on to, uh, my hands are above the counter. Oh, well, what was it? What was it? What was
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it? The New York post or times? Uh, what was it? Who was he with? Well, he was also a CNN commentator,
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whatever that gentleman's name was. I ranted about him. And, uh, just that reminder people,
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the cameras, uh, and mics may always be hot. Uh, if you really feel compelled to have to do
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something to yourself, perhaps just make sure. Just make sure. Uh, you know what? I, I don't even
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trust that the government's not watching. So always just put a, put a piece of tape or something
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over your camera. You never, you never know, you know, but definitely don't do things while
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you're on a work call with zoom. No, it was, especially if you're a public figure who used
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to be employed. Yeah. Anyway, let's very quickly move on from this topic. Yeah. Um, so, uh, let's
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talk, uh, British Columbia. We've got, uh, we're headed into the final weekend of the campaign.
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New polls out. Uh, Dave, why don't you bring us up to speed? Yeah, I don't think it's anything
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that the liberals will be dancing in the middle of the streets for them, but the poll latest
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poll this week shows that the gap is narrowing. Uh, John Horgan NDP is down from 49% to 45%.
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And the Wilkinson liberals have gained two percentage points up to 35%. So it's still a fairly substantial
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lead. And I don't think anybody's picking anything other than a Horgan majority on Saturday.
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Um, yeah, I suppose it's not worth dancing in the streets over. It's those kinds of numbers. So
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there's no chance. I mean, even if, uh, the polls are overpegging the NDP, there's just no way they're
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going to get anything but a majority. I guess the question is, is it a crushing majority or not?
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Uh, Corey, um, do you think there's really anything that can happen at this point in the campaign of
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DC? Extremely unlikely, especially with so many mail-in ballots having gone too. So even if an issue
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broke at this point, a lot of people already cast their ballot, so they couldn't change their mind
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and get that letter back and change it. I mean, polls have been absurdly wrong over the years.
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We've seen that a number of times, but that's such a wide gap that it's pretty unlikely to see that
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change. But what we can watch for, and you know, we'll be covering that live on Saturday night,
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uh, is some symbolic victories. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, swing ridings. Uh, there's a new
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green leader and the greens are a much bigger player in BC. I mean, they're not going to win the
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election, but they want to win a handful of seats. They certainly, again, held that little
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balance of power for a while. Uh, a few of those lower mainland seats, just to see which way they
00:17:00.200
may go. There might be some incumbents coming and going, but as for forming government, it's looking
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like a, at this point, it's going to be a crushing victory for Oregon. Yeah. Uh, I think the biggest
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loser in this is going to be the greens, because even if they held on all three of their seats,
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which they're not expected to, they're expected to probably come away with one or two. Um, but even if
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they held on to all three, even if they gained a couple of seats, they're not going to have the
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balance of power. That was a very specific and rare circumstance. That is really the sweet spot
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for small third parties to have, especially one with just three seats. They were really in the
00:17:34.020
sweet spot and able to control a large degree of things. And, uh, John Horgan, uh, said, screw you.
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You already gave me what you already gave me the premier share. I had it for long enough.
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Pulls are good and I'm done with you. So the, the greens, I, I think are going to have a hard
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time recovering in this. Even, even British Columbians who were sympathetic to the plan
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of the greens here that, you know, the NDP were playing dirty pool. They're going to say,
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yeah, well, we, we might like the greens, but at the end of the day, what's going to be
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the point of them? Uh, so I think it's going to make it hard for them in the longterm to
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justify their relevancy. And frankly, I, I, I just have, uh, again, it's, you know, we've
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discussed this in previous episodes, especially during the BC leaders debate. What's the point
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of a BC green? I mean, it's just, uh, you're just, uh, you're just like a new Democrat,
00:18:20.660
but an opposition. So I'm not really sure what the point is. You know, it's hard for
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me to see through their eyes because they're just such a radically different ideology.
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But, uh, you know, it's, I think there's going to be big questions coming out of this
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election, but what the point of the BC greens is, well, they've also kind of been representing
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though, that far left wing of even the NDP. Uh, because I mean, in being in power this
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long, the NDP became pragmatic. They had to, when you get into government, it's one thing
00:18:44.520
to stand in all your socialist principles when you're not becoming, once you're in,
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you've actually got to start getting a little more realistic about some things, but then
00:18:51.940
that, that disenfranchises the real hardcore left, the real activists, the radicals. And
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a lot of them have gone around the greens. They had some scandals about, you know, uh, quotas
00:19:00.980
and whatnot for their leadership and, and, you know, social justice.
00:19:04.300
Yeah. They had a retiring MLA and white men are not allowed to replace them in incumbent seats.
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It has to be a woman or a visible minority, or a minority of some kind. But then they
00:19:15.060
had a federal NDP heavyweight come in and they waived the rule. And then, so there was
00:19:19.280
kind of a whole scandal there because, uh, the NDP dared to have a white man as a candidate.
00:19:24.140
But that's where they position themselves, I guess, is to try and grab that, that real,
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you know, fringe for the NDP, which if anything, I think does Horgan a favor because it lets off
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steam, you know, when you've got the real hardcores, the radicals, the crazy ones, you can kind
00:19:36.120
of quietly say, well, perhaps when the BC NDP is not crazy enough for you, that's right.
00:19:44.100
Yeah. Uh, Dave, um, uh, there was another, uh, there's another story, uh, coming out of
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BC today, uh, with you, uh, the BC liberals running an ad, uh, warning against vote splitting
00:19:58.380
with the very small, but, but there, uh, BC conservative party. Do you want to fill us
00:20:06.180
Yeah. The BC conservatives last election, uh, Derek took 0.5% of the vote, not a lot. Uh,
00:20:14.460
but the, uh, liberals have put out an ad today on Facebook urging voters not to vote conservative
00:20:20.760
because of vote splitting. They say those 0.05% of votes gave the Horgan NDP two additional
00:20:28.180
seats. And those were the seats that Horgan needed to, uh, consolidate his power. So they're
00:20:34.480
saying a vote for the conservative is really a vote for the NDP and you might as well stick
00:20:40.320
Yeah. Uh, I mean, 0.5% of the vote isn't, uh, isn't that much, but it's, uh, and you know,
00:20:50.320
they didn't have candidates in a lot of the ridings, but I guess they were, you know, they
00:20:53.200
were, they were around. Uh, I mean, it might be fast. I think there's only two provinces
00:20:57.800
in Canada that, uh, have no explicitly conservative party on the ballot, uh, or major conservative
00:21:05.820
party, I should say. Um, you know, that is, uh, Quebec with, yeah, but the, the sort of
00:21:12.080
conservative option is the, uh, the CAC, the CAQ, uh, what a terrible acronym. I'm not sure
00:21:18.680
if it translates the same way in French, but, um, and then, uh, British Columbia where you
00:21:23.660
just have, you have the greens, you have the NDP and then you have the liberals and conservatives
00:21:27.980
are supposed to just hold their nose and be a part of it. Uh, I mean, you could maybe
00:21:32.320
say Saskatchewan, but I think the Saskatchewan party is a pretty conventional center-right
00:21:37.020
party by now. It's, it's, it's, uh, it can be simply put on par with the UCP or the Ontario
00:21:43.520
PCs. Uh, Corey, what do you, do you think this is, uh, an effective strategy for the liberals
00:21:51.200
to say to those, to the few disenfranchised people thinking about winning conservative
00:21:54.820
as a protest, you know, come back home to the liberal mothership?
00:21:58.100
I don't know. It sounds desperate. I mean, I, I tried to look to see signs of life from
00:22:02.240
the conservative party because they do have a long history in BC, you know, they've, they've
00:22:04.980
been dead for quite some time. I mean, with the, uh, obliteration of social credit though,
00:22:10.520
it seemed it would have left some room for a conservative named party to, to come up. But,
00:22:14.840
uh, I did actually send communications to the conservative party, uh, leadership and was starting
00:22:19.940
towards, uh, moving on an interview and then they suddenly ghosted me. So they appear to
00:22:24.040
like being invisible and that's no problem. I'm happy to help them with that. Uh, I, I,
00:22:29.880
it just seems kind of bizarre with such a minor player for the liberals to, to take the time
00:22:34.460
to speak up on it. I mean, they shouldn't be courting centrist NDP voters to say, look,
00:22:39.240
we need, you know, more reasonable voices to come on over to us. You're not going to win
00:22:44.040
Or alternatively, if you're trying to get conservative voters to vote for you, maybe try
00:22:49.520
by being a little bit conservative, like that, you know, that that's an idea for them. And
00:22:54.300
due to their credit, like they do have one conservative policy, you can call it that in
00:22:59.040
their platform. That's the, uh, ending the ICBC monopoly on auto insurance. Um, I mean,
00:23:05.820
it's not in the, it's in the right direction. I mean, I think it's insane to even have a government
00:23:10.180
auto insurance company, but, uh, I mean like that's, that's an olive branch to people who
00:23:16.100
are, you know, to the right of Justin Trudeau, but maybe they should do a bit more. The, uh,
00:23:20.880
the, the liberals are promising huge deficits. They're promising increases in the carbon tax.
00:23:26.060
They're doing, uh, they're, they're, they're running more or less as liberals in most other
00:23:31.880
provinces. The only difference is their relative position to their main opposition is that
00:23:36.080
they're on the right of that main opposition so that they look more reasonable. But if, uh,
00:23:40.880
the BC liberals, so some free advice for BC liberals, you want conservative votes try being
00:23:46.640
mildly conservative. Yeah. Well, I mean, part of it too, though, is there has been no conservative
00:23:51.700
contender managing to grab that disenfranchised conservatives and, and, and bring them up.
00:23:56.440
So the liberals can afford to keep swinging left. I know the conservative has been trying
00:24:01.040
there for some time. I remember right after I finished university, I lived in, uh, British
00:24:04.960
Columbia, Victoria for a year. I didn't really know much about the politics of it, but I very,
00:24:09.880
which quickly figured out that all these conservatives told me to vote liberal were
00:24:13.920
wrong. I remember I, I called, I called up the number for the BC conservative party and,
00:24:18.940
uh, the leader answered the phone. He's just like, hello. I'm like, who's this? He's like,
00:24:23.220
I'm, I forgot the name of the guy. I'm like, is this the BC conservative party? He's like,
00:24:26.480
I'm the leader. I'm like, yeah, I didn't expect that. There was, it was a pretty mom pop or
00:24:31.880
a shirt somewhere though. Uh, you know, they did have a blip, I think one or two cycles ago where
00:24:35.980
they had a former, I'm not sure if it was John Cummins or something, but they had a former
00:24:39.640
federal conservative MP come in. They've had brief moments where they've tried to get going
00:24:44.800
and had a little bit of success, but they have been pretty successful at cowing center
00:24:50.280
right voters in BC. They're just saying, look, you might hate the liberals, but you hate the
00:24:55.040
NDP more. And that's a, that's a pretty successful strategy in, in most, uh, most jurisdictions.
00:25:00.960
Okay. Well, let's move on to, uh, our friends in Saskatchewan here. Um, uh, Dave, why don't
00:25:12.160
you give us an update on where the polls are at? They're also the final weekend as we head
00:25:17.020
Derek, you've heard the phrase ahead by a country mile that doesn't even begin to describe the
00:25:25.400
lead that, uh, premier Scott Mo has, uh, on the NDP in Saskatchewan. He's now up by 25 points.
00:25:32.960
A recent poll had in Saskatchewan party 56% and the NDP at 31%. So I think much like the British
00:25:43.980
Columbia election, this one's not going to be close and it'll be another majority, uh, for
00:25:51.400
Well, it's, it sounds like it'll be even less close than British Columbia. Um, the gap
00:25:57.000
is even larger and there's no third party to complicate. Well, there are other parties,
00:26:02.260
but there's no other party with seats in the legislature or that is very likely, I think,
00:26:06.660
to win a seat. Uh, it's really just a two horse race here. Uh, actually in a multi, uh, multi
00:26:13.600
party system, it goes to the advantage generally of the really big party. Cause then they, you
00:26:18.700
know, the splits more off and work in their favor. If you're the really big party with
00:26:22.200
a big lead. Uh, but yeah, this looks like a crushing, crushing lead for, uh, for Scott
00:26:28.740
Mo. Uh, you know, I think it was New Brunswick or I think it was New Brunswick in the early
00:26:32.980
nineties under Frank McKenna. They won every single seat in the legislature and, uh, the liberal
00:26:38.340
premier had to appoint the PC leader is the unofficial leader of the official opposition or something.
00:26:44.800
And he sat in the gallery and asked questions, but he had to be very polite in his questions
00:26:48.800
cause if he wasn't, the premier could just kick him out of the legislature cause he didn't
00:26:52.500
actually have a seat. Um, but I think that was a bit of a, again, there were more parties
00:26:57.580
involved in the splits worked in a certain way when, so that the BC liberals won literally
00:27:02.040
every single seat. That would be a very boring legislature.
00:27:05.600
And it's not a healthy one. I mean, a democracy, an opposition is critical. It's important. I mean,
00:27:11.800
they don't necessarily have to be threatening power, but you've got to have at least a diverse
00:27:15.700
number of members who are going to dig into some issues, research things, you know, call
00:27:20.740
up, hold the government to account on things when it's left or right, it doesn't matter.
00:27:25.900
So it's actually kind of dangerous for Saskatchewan. You don't want a government with, with too
00:27:32.600
Well, I don't think they're looking at a Frank McKenna style every single seat, uh, because
00:27:38.180
the NDB do have a certain geographical concentration, yeah, the, the downtowns of the two major
00:27:44.560
cities, sorry, Saskatchewan, if we call those major cities, but you know, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
00:27:50.040
and Regina, um, you know, we, you know, the NDP in the, in the downtown core is there.
00:27:55.680
I mean, geez, there was even a liberal in, uh, in Regina was gonna till, uh, a year ago.
00:28:03.040
So there, there's still going to be some NDP MLAs there. Uh, they're just going to be possibly
00:28:12.420
Yeah. Just, just hope there's a voice for, for reason and balance. I mean, remember back
00:28:16.100
in Saskatchewan, the reason the conservatives got obliterated was, uh, was divine. It was
00:28:21.180
the old state saying to air as human to truly F up is divine.
00:28:25.040
Because with the, the corruption they had in their caucus, I mean, it was outstanding and
00:28:30.760
it, it, it put the party into the history books. They're done. They're gone. That's
00:28:33.760
why the Saskatchewan party's here today. So, uh, let's just hope that Saskatchewan has a
00:28:37.780
good tempered government coming out of this, this next election. But yeah, I'd be, you'd
00:28:41.340
be really gambling to think that, to bet on anybody else but, uh, but Mo right now.
00:28:45.040
Yeah. And I, I, I got, I guess I'll be able to bring this back to Ottawa here. Um, I mean,
00:28:52.100
if we, uh, we, we've now seen, I think it was Nova Scotia that had an election, uh, moving
00:28:57.180
there, but no, New Brunswick had an election moving their minority government, PC government
00:29:02.240
to a majority. Uh, BC looks like it's going to do that going from a minority semi-coalition
00:29:09.300
to a majority. Uh, and Saskatchewan's going to go from majority to another majority, potentially.
00:29:15.020
to perhaps an increased majority. If that happens, the temptation for Trudeau is going
00:29:20.680
to be tremendous to, to engineer his defeat in the house. Um, I mean, you'll have then
00:29:28.780
had, uh, three governments, uh, two governments go from minority to majority status and another
00:29:34.520
one keep itself. It's, this is a, this is the time of incumbents, uh, a crisis time and
00:29:41.540
panic time. People tend to rally around the flag. They rally around the strong man leader.
00:29:46.560
People like incumbents. They like stability. And, uh, and so that I think is resulting at
00:29:52.740
least in Canada where our politics, we kind of like our politicians, milk toast and boring
00:29:57.740
very much in contrast to how things are in the States right now. Um, yeah, I, I, I think
00:30:03.400
this is going to really add to the temptation for Trudeau to engineer his defeat. Uh, Dave,
00:30:09.100
is there, um, I know we don't, Ottawa is not our main focus of attention here. Uh, but it
00:30:15.280
unfortunately still exists. So, uh, are there any signs, uh, in Ottawa right now that, uh,
00:30:23.100
Trudeau is going to have other opportunities to engineer his defeat and get an election that
00:30:27.480
I increasingly suspect that he wants? I think his major problem right now is the, uh, the
00:30:35.020
time of year, Derek, Canadians traditionally have not gone to the polls in the dead of winter.
00:30:40.220
And it's getting to the point now where we're going to be in winter across the country that
00:30:45.820
and the, uh, the pandemic makes any sort of election call now very, very dicey. I think it
00:30:52.660
all depends on what he's trying to hide in this week committee. Uh, but it, you know, uh, Trudeau's,
00:30:59.540
uh, I'm sure Trudeau's thinking right now of the next way he can bring his own government down because
00:31:04.420
that's the way he operates. Yeah. Well, you know, we had an election in the dead of winter actually,
00:31:12.740
uh, over Christmas, even in, uh, 2005, six, when, um, Paul Martin was defeated by, uh, Stephen Harper when
00:31:20.180
formed his first minority government, they, what they did is because it was over Christmas, they
00:31:24.260
actually, um, had a very long rip period so that it would go into, into the new year because so
00:31:29.780
that otherwise the, the rip would have been between Christmas and new year's or something. Cause you
00:31:33.700
can always draw, draw that out. They took a holiday break in the campaign for about a week in the
00:31:38.180
middle of it. It was really different. It was a very different election. Uh, but in that case,
00:31:42.340
all three major opposition parties were up in the polls. They all had a money for an election
00:31:47.780
and the liberals were, uh, there was just no possible way for the opposition parties to support.
00:31:53.220
It was the height of the sponsorship scandal. They were dead. Um, I don't know. Uh, I, I think
00:32:00.100
Trudeau wants an election now and when the government wants an election, they can find a lot of ways to
00:32:04.900
do it. Um, the conservatives are obliged to like, they're supposed to be the only party that has a real
00:32:12.500
ideological difference with the block of left parties, the four other parties that are there.
00:32:18.180
They are essentially obliged to oppose the government on virtually everything. They're
00:32:22.260
the official opposition. They're the government waiting. Um, so Trudeau's got a, if Trudeau wants
00:32:26.980
an election, he has to find something to unite all the other ones. And traditionally that has been
00:32:31.220
ethics issues. That is not a strictly left, right issue. So, you know, Trudeau and his family
00:32:37.220
taking money from a, you know, what increasingly does not look like a real charity, uh, to do this
00:32:45.140
kind of stuff and then giving them a multi hundred million dollar, uh, contract, sole source for the
00:32:51.540
competition, that would normally unite all the opposition parties. Um, so Trudeau might have a real
00:32:58.660
problem getting the NDP to not vote, uh, against him. I think Trudeau wanted the NDP to vote for their
00:33:05.540
anti-corruption committee because that's the only stuff that can unite opposition parties, uh, that
00:33:09.780
are on the, both the left and the center right right now. And they didn't do it. The NDP I think
00:33:16.020
are so desperate to avoid an election. They will vote for anything at this point. Well, if he's going
00:33:20.740
to engineer an election, I mean, he's going to have to find the right hill to die on. So come up with some
00:33:25.300
fiscal plan that's going to be, so this is so important that we have to take it to Canadians
00:33:29.620
in this time of crisis, you know, we must do this to save everybody. That's we have to get behind
00:33:36.820
the liberals, but you can always carefully throw a poison pill in there. I mean, it's one area
00:33:41.620
easily enough to lose NDP support, take a swipe at the union somehow, throw a little something that
00:33:47.300
smells of right to work legislation or just a little bit, just enough. Cause I mean, if the unions turn,
00:33:52.500
the NDP can't support it. They can't, I mean, they decimate.
00:33:56.020
If they do, so it would have to be, well, we're long over, this is the longest Canada in its
00:33:59.700
history. I think it's ever gone without a budget and a budget. You can put in stuff that piss off
00:34:04.100
people on all sides, a la Jim Prentiss. You consult your budget with things that everybody's got
00:34:10.020
something to like, but everyone's got something to hate. So I could see that happening in spring,
00:34:14.180
you know, or after Christmas, I mean, finding that hill and trying to model it. If things don't fall
00:34:18.340
apart beforehand over something like, as we saw today coming closer. Well, uh, let's go even further away
00:34:24.180
than Ottawa. Let's go all the way to Paris and sort of back home and let's talk about, uh, Muhammad
00:34:31.540
cartoons and what's going on. Uh, murder in Paris that is kind of sparked this, uh, Dave, why don't
00:34:39.460
you give us some background on what's going on with the latest in cartoons? Absolutely horrible story,
00:34:46.100
this week out of Paris. Uh, Derek, uh, teacher at a school in a Northern suburb was teaching his class
00:34:53.060
about censorship. He was a history teacher and a geography teacher, and they were talking about
00:34:58.900
censorship. And he brought up the old Danish Mohammed cartoons from back in the mid 2000s. These cartoons
00:35:07.460
showed the prophet Mohammed, and it was very, very offensive to Muslims. There was marches around the
00:35:14.020
world, uh, terrorist attacks. You remember the Charlie Hebdo, uh, terrorist attack in Paris that
00:35:21.380
killed a dozen people. So this teacher had shown his class these cartoons. The fact that he did this
00:35:30.020
got out to some parents of some Muslim, uh, uh, students. Uh, apparently one of the Muslim parents
00:35:37.460
declared a fatwa, uh, holy war on the teacher, and a terrorist stood outside the school.
00:35:44.340
Sorry, anyone can declare a fatwa? Hey, I'm declaring a fatwa.
00:35:51.300
The, uh, the terrorist waited outside the school. The teacher was pointed out to him,
00:35:56.340
and the teacher was then horribly mutilated and decapitated. Uh, responding police, uh, shot the
00:36:02.820
terrorist dead. Uh, teacher has since become, uh, a hero in, uh, in France and been given the
00:36:09.700
country's highest awards. Uh, but no, the Western Standard has a long history with these cartoons,
00:36:15.140
Derek, and I'll, I'll let you, uh, go through that. Uh, yeah, I, I suppose we do. Uh, like this is,
00:36:24.020
this was really kind of the finest hour of the Western Standard long before any of us were involved
00:36:28.260
with it. I was a mere subscriber to it. I was in university at the time, uh, when, when these
00:36:33.220
cartoons came out and there were just, you know, there were riots and bombings all over the planet.
00:36:38.500
It was the biggest story on the planet for months on end and not a single media outlet in Canada or
00:36:45.300
even across the world except for the Western Standard and another outlet out of Israel were
00:36:50.260
the only two on the planet of any significance to publish the cartoons. And I remember just being so
00:36:55.860
proud to get my Western Standard that they had the balls to do this. I remember I clipped some,
00:37:00.260
some cartoons out and I posted them around the university just to see what would happen. I heard
00:37:04.100
people scream and yell. And as I ran away, it was as if people just had just seen a murder scene,
00:37:09.380
it was quite something. Um, but, uh, yeah, and I, and the human rights commissions and the courts,
00:37:15.300
uh, took the Western Standard to court to try and silence it. And the Western Standard had none of
00:37:20.580
it, fought it the whole way. And then it was so embarrassing for the government. They tried to
00:37:24.420
withdraw themselves from the case. And the Western Standard said, no, we're guilty of
00:37:27.940
whatever hate crimes you are accusing us of because they wanted to go to the Supreme Court and challenge
00:37:32.500
the human rights commission's ability to censor, uh, the media. Uh, it was really a historic moment,
00:37:37.700
uh, that made me very proud just to be a subscriber of the Western Standard at that,
00:37:41.700
at that time. Um, you know, fast forward, you know, 2015, we have the Charlie Hebdo murders,
00:37:47.460
dozen people viciously massacred at the Charlie Hebdo. Uh, they're kind of like a magazine,
00:37:53.380
cartoon magazine in Paris. Uh, I don't read French, but the cartoons don't look particularly
00:38:00.420
funny, but you know, that's not the point. They're, you're allowed to have them. And,
00:38:04.420
you know, so they had some stuff that was offensive. They'd show like a Muslim cleric
00:38:07.860
making out with another, with a Charlie Hebdo, uh, sketch artist, uh, you know, offensive to some
00:38:13.540
people, but, uh, apparently offensive enough to get, to get a bunch of people killed. Just a month
00:38:17.780
ago, a meat cleaver attack outside the Charlie Hebdo offices, um, because Charlie Hebdo republished
00:38:24.660
the cartoons again. Well, when this happened in France, because a man was killed over this,
00:38:28.660
uh, I felt that the Western Standard had, had an obligation because of our history associated with
00:38:34.020
this, one of the only two media outlets on the planet, to publish the Muhammad cartoons, uh,
00:38:38.900
after the, uh, initial round of riots when these cartoons came out of Denmark. So we, we republished
00:38:45.540
them. We've had, uh, tremendous support, I think, from people. Um, you know, uh, our, our intent is not
00:38:52.740
to offend our, our Muslim readers and viewers. Uh, we value you, uh, just as much as, uh, heathens like, uh,
00:39:02.420
like Corey and... I'm like dedicated past a farion. There you go. To each their own. Um,
00:39:09.620
so, you know, we, uh, the attention isn't to offend. Uh, if anyone had been murdered over the
00:39:14.500
Piss Christ, uh, so-called art display, I would have displayed that too. I linked, I linked to it
00:39:20.260
on the website. It offends me as a Christian, but that's too bad for my feelings. Uh, I have no right
00:39:25.300
to silence anybody. So, uh, we, we published this. We had tremendous feedback. Uh, we did have, uh, one
00:39:31.460
message from, uh, a Hussein something. I figured his last name was Hussein something. And, uh, he,
00:39:38.820
he sent a curt letter to the editor, uh, fuck off. Um, I wanted him to elaborate a little bit more.
00:39:45.460
If he, uh, if he would elaborate a bit more, I'd be very happy to share the whole thing and all of
00:39:51.140
its expletive, uh, glory. Uh, we want to hear from you if you don't think we should be doing this.
00:39:56.500
But I felt it was the right thing to do for media to assert their right to do this. I remember just
00:40:01.220
how cowardly the CBC and the Toronto Star were. They were, at the time, they were saying, oh,
00:40:06.580
this is culturally insensitive. Cultural sensitivities that they don't show towards
00:40:10.500
Christians or Jews. Um, either you have to be culturally sensitive and, uh, step on eggshells
00:40:17.060
for everybody or for nobody. And that's the right way to do it. Um, you know, but even, even more,
00:40:23.220
uh, conservative outlets like the national post didn't do it, their reasoning I thought was a
00:40:29.380
bit better is like they said, well, we're afraid of being bombed or attacked and that's fair. I mean,
00:40:34.900
um, I'm not going to say that terrorists will get, uh, won't get shot if they attack the Western
00:40:41.460
standard offices. Uh, but you know, it's a, that's a legitimate concern to have and I get it,
00:40:48.420
but I felt that we had to do it, uh, to assert our right to do it. Uh, you know, it's, uh, you know,
00:40:54.980
I, I do think rights are, um, use them or lose them from time to time. Maybe, uh, Corey and Dave,
00:41:01.780
you guys can chime in on how this whole thing played out. Well, yeah, with these, I mean, it's,
00:41:06.980
I know that those cartoons are offensive to, to devote Muslims and I know that 99.9% of them are
00:41:14.260
going to curse or at worst send an email telling us to fuck off. Uh, I love getting all those emails
00:41:20.260
anyways. Oh yes. But, but I mean, they're not going to go out and assault somebody or cut their
00:41:25.860
heads off or things like that. But unfortunately there are a tiny number of them who feel that a
00:41:30.740
violent response is the way to deal with it. And I understand when people get afraid of that,
00:41:35.940
publishers get afraid of that reporters get afraid of it, but we can't let that sort of action
00:41:42.820
suppress coverage of things. I mean, the, the, the, the Western standard didn't even really
00:41:47.620
initially publish those pictures to offend people that they knew it was going to happen,
00:41:52.740
but it's because it was a current story. I mean, we're not sure we can do it.
00:41:57.300
Well, and to say, this is the cartoons that set off the riots all over the place. How can we talk about
00:42:01.620
them, but not actually show them how offensive were they? What were they? Uh, you can't let that
00:42:08.180
shut you down. And then the worst part was the followup with Canadian institutions.
00:42:11.860
That's just the human rights commission and their kangaroo court and the other saying,
00:42:15.540
you can't do that. And, and for people like you and I, and Ezra was, I mean, when you're told you
00:42:21.220
can't do that, we're going to do it and we're going to double down. And I mean, that's part of it too,
00:42:27.460
is letting people know with the free press, free expression, free speech. If you keep pushing us,
00:42:32.660
we're only going to get worse. So lay off. I'd be more than happy. We don't have to talk about
00:42:37.140
Muslim cartoons of, of, of Muhammad ever again, but it's becoming a story because we're being told
00:42:43.860
that we can't, and it's just not going to happen. Uh, that those murders were horrific over something
00:42:48.420
that really, again, is, is trivial. I mean, not trivial to devote, uh, followers, but I mean,
00:42:54.340
it's just going to happen. You're going to see things you don't like get over it. Uh, we need a free
00:42:58.100
world, a secular world as far as laws go anyways. And, and, uh, that's, that's why the standards
00:43:04.100
not be pushed around. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Dave, do you have any closing thoughts before we go?
00:43:14.980
Uh, no, just to say a busy weekend ahead. Uh, the, uh, uh, second part of the, uh, UCP AGM is on
00:43:23.380
Saturday. Uh, many big speakers, including Erin O'Toole and, uh, Leslyn Lewis and Jason Kenney with
00:43:29.620
a keynote address. So, so I'll be covering that. Uh, there's the election, uh, out of BC on Saturday
00:43:34.740
night. So, uh, it should be a fun weekend. Sorry, the UCP is splitting their AGM up into two weekends
00:43:43.060
virtual. Yes. They had, they had the first part last weekend, uh, with all the sort of policies and
00:43:48.260
the motions and whatnot. And then the speeches are this Saturday. Interesting. Well, uh, yeah,
00:43:54.820
we'll, we'll, we'll continue to cover that. Um, I mean, it's an interesting experiment in how parties
00:44:00.180
can try to make the best of these, of these, uh, virtual AGMs. They seem to have, uh, by all reports
00:44:06.740
managed to actually pull it off. I'm not highly doubtful. It's going to have the same enjoyment
00:44:11.380
because you're not around seeing, you know, your friends or frenemies and whatever you're going to see
00:44:15.860
at these things, but you're, you're, you're locking the interaction there. They're not drinking in the
00:44:19.780
hospitality suites and in the bars after, but for the actual brass tacks of, you know, the policies
00:44:25.300
and all this stuff, they seem to be pulling it off reasonably well. They've had 1400 people, uh,
00:44:32.740
have registered for it. So it has seems to be a bit of a success. Yeah. Well, before we go, uh, just a
00:44:40.660
heads up on, um, uh, Dave, uh, BC election, that is Saturday or Sunday, Saturday. Yeah. Even though
00:44:49.220
they have said they will not have final results for several weeks because of the, uh, number of
00:44:54.180
mail-in ballots, but, uh, yeah, it's Saturday. Okay. Well, uh, tune in here Saturday evening.
00:44:59.860
We're going to have live coverage of the BC election as the results, at least as we have them come in.
00:45:05.700
Uh, and the same on Monday, we're going to have live results for the Saskatchewan election.
00:45:10.900
Saskatchewan Monday or Tuesday? Oh, Dave. Yeah.
00:45:19.700
Okay. Just want to be sure before we tell people.
00:45:22.020
Yeah. Well, whenever the Saskatchewan won on the 26th, then yeah, we'll be here and we'll be covering it.
00:45:26.500
Yeah. And, uh, we'll send out, uh, if you're subscribed to our email list, you'll get a notification.
00:45:31.620
Uh, so westernstandardonline.com. As I said before, make sure you become a member. Also,
00:45:37.700
you can also just sign up for our email newsletter. We'll send you a top stories of the day, uh,
00:45:42.420
normally five or six days a week. And we'll give you a notification when we're doing live broadcasts,
00:45:47.460
like we will be for the BC and Saskatchewan elections. And of course, when we get them, uh,
00:45:52.420
close to the big U S election, uh, it might be pretty far from, um, our headquarters in Calgary
00:45:58.420
here, but goddamn, that's going to be fun to watch. All right. Well, thank you very much, uh, for joining
00:46:05.300
myself, uh, Corey Morgan and Dave Naylor here today. Uh, but so for all of us here at the Western
00:46:11.700
Standard, uh, we appreciate your time and your support. Take care.