Western Standard - January 13, 2026


THE PIPELINEļ¼š Freelandā€™s allegiance, free helicopter rides and 'Team Americaļ¼š World Police'


Episode Stats

Length

47 minutes

Words per Minute

187.22147

Word Count

8,948

Sentence Count

749

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

26


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Good day! Welcome back to the Pipeline. Happy New Year!
00:00:27.780 Today is January 7th, 2026. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and this
00:00:33.440 is the first Pipeline of 2026. I've missed you all very much. I've also missed my dear
00:00:40.100 colleagues here, former Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
00:00:43.500 You're never cold.
00:00:45.740 I was busy doing nothing.
00:00:47.780 So was I.
00:00:48.600 Yeah. I'm glad you didn't cold.
00:00:50.080 Yeah.
00:00:50.540 I liked you not that much. I really liked doing nothing for a while.
00:00:54.060 Yeah.
00:00:54.480 It was great.
00:00:55.000 And I also missed our dear friend, Corey Morgan, senior Western Standard columnist.
00:00:59.720 It has been a long break. Like I said, I enjoyed the break, but I was getting restless.
00:01:03.520 I was ready to come back.
00:01:04.380 Yeah.
00:01:05.420 Yeah.
00:01:05.980 You know, actually doing work while I'm here. I'm trying to reestablish habits, some muscle
00:01:09.720 memory of actually working, but I'm happy to be back.
00:01:12.960 Yeah.
00:01:13.640 Yeah.
00:01:14.900 Locked in my house with kids for that long. I love them, but it's time to send me. You're
00:01:20.400 going back to school. You're going back to school.
00:01:22.020 So, okay. Well, I mean, there's never news over the break. Nothing happens, right? That's
00:01:29.000 why we don't need any reporters working. It's not like, I don't know, Canada's former deputy
00:01:35.140 prime minister, minister of finance is going to sign up working for a foreign government
00:01:39.700 while a sitting member of the Canadian parliament.
00:01:41.520 Uh, oh yeah. Donald Trump goes, uh, kidnapped a guy. Kidnapped the president of Venezuela.
00:01:50.800 Just another Christmas.
00:01:51.840 Yeah. Uh, okay. We'll, we'll, we'll get to free helicopter rides in a bit. We're going
00:01:55.700 to start the first one there. Chrystia Freeland. Uh, so this was, uh, you know, one of, uh,
00:02:02.780 Trudeau's best girls, uh, former deputy, uh, prime minister, minister of finance, minister
00:02:09.220 of foreign affairs, et cetera. I think she was foreign affairs, right? Uh, we don't actually
00:02:13.320 say for a while. Yeah, no, we're thinking of, uh, what's her name? Another idiot.
00:02:18.640 Julie. Yeah. Uh, anyway, anyway. Uh, and anyway, she is still a, she was in one of Carney's
00:02:27.080 cabinets. She's a member of parliament right now for Canada. I should clarify member parliament
00:02:32.780 for Canada, but she is also now the economic advisor or whatnot for Vladimir Zelensky, the
00:02:39.360 president of Ukraine. So for those following along at home, Ukraine is this whole other
00:02:45.020 country that is not Canada. Uh, it has its own citizenship. It has its own parliament as
00:02:51.380 its own territory. That territory is under dispute at the moment, but it has its own territory.
00:02:56.040 It's this whole other country. I love Ukrainians. Who doesn't? We got a lot in Alberta here.
00:03:02.900 Uh, you know, I'm broadly sympathetic to Ukraine. I'm not all in. I don't think it's worth World
00:03:08.040 War III over, but I'm broadly sympathetic. Um, and Canada has no formal alliance with Ukraine.
00:03:15.840 There's no, they're not a part of NATO. Uh, we have no formal alliance. Otherwise we'd be
00:03:21.020 a war explicitly, at least with Russia. Uh, but now Christian Freeland is now an official employee
00:03:30.360 or working for in an official capacity, the government of Ukraine. She's not the Canadian
00:03:35.200 representative to Ukraine on economic issues, which I'm sure would be effectively amount to the
00:03:41.080 same thing, but it's not a Canadian appointment to represent Canada to Zelensky advising him on
00:03:46.720 economics because everybody knows, uh, Christian Freeland has all sorts of great economic advice
00:03:51.820 coming from her time in the Trudeau government to impart on Ukraine. Uh, they can give Ukraine
00:03:56.540 advice on smart economic policy and how to fight corruption. That's, that'll be brilliant.
00:04:00.740 Or they can give her Maduro. He needs a new job.
00:04:02.660 Yeah. But anyway, it's not that. She's not Canada's special representative to Ukraine on economic
00:04:08.860 development or something. No, she's working for Ukraine while she is a sitting member of parliament.
00:04:17.180 That blew up pretty quick. She has announced, she will eventually in a few weeks resign her seat
00:04:23.840 in parliament. Um, I don't know. I, I'm not one to throw around the treason word lightly. And yeah,
00:04:31.320 I mean, Ukraine's not a hostile government to us, but it is a foreign government to us and it is,
00:04:36.540 so it's not our government, it's not our country. And we're not even in a formal alliance with them.
00:04:42.880 I think we'd be having a different conversation if she had become the economic advisor to Vladimir Putin.
00:04:47.740 Certainly. Well, you know, I'm kind of surprised that it's happening with Mark Carney at the helm.
00:04:53.840 I mean, just think about it. Brookfield management, his, his company, supposing that somebody had walked
00:04:59.100 into the office one day while he was there and said, you know what? It's been great here at Brookfield,
00:05:04.620 but I'm going to go and work for so-and-so. Uh, they're not paying me and I'm not leaving here,
00:05:12.480 but I'm sure you'll understand. He would not take that. He would not accept that. And no employer
00:05:19.480 would. It's the definition of a conflict of interest. Exactly. And that's what this, this is.
00:05:22.880 He is evidently content with this arrangement. So really you have to ask, why would this be a good
00:05:31.460 thing for Mark Carney to, to allow? Now, I think that once the, I think she dropped this on him on New
00:05:40.080 Year, on Christmas Eve, was it not? So will Jeremy assume he wasn't really awake at the switch at that
00:05:46.960 point. Uh, so, but he's had time to think about it. And the only thing he can think about is the
00:05:54.620 fact that it's actually handy to have that vote for the next, for as long as it's there until I can
00:06:00.700 recruit another member of the conservative party to cross the floor and take her place. So the whole
00:06:07.340 thing stinks really badly. But at the very basement level that anybody can get at, this is a simple
00:06:15.160 conflict of interest. She's taken a job with the Ukraine. Good luck to her. I hope she does well.
00:06:20.380 Hope she's making, if she's going to give them economic advice, let it be to buy all your good
00:06:24.180 stuff. Haven't they suffered enough in Ukraine? Oh, well, you know.
00:06:27.760 Hasn't Ukraine suffered enough? Okay. So I, I, you know, just, just a shameful thing. I mean,
00:06:35.420 uh, is she a dual citizen for Ukraine? I don't think so. No, her parents are sort of Ukrainian. Yeah.
00:06:42.520 Um, I mean, cause she was born in Alberta. Yeah. She's, she's born in Alberta. Uh, she's Canadian,
00:06:49.220 but I mean, this is diaspora politics is supposed to at least keep a veneer of loyalty to the country
00:06:58.600 of which you are a member of parliament to even like the deputy prime minister until very recently,
00:07:04.200 like the veneer of loyalty to Canada first, when you're playing this diaspora politics,
00:07:09.640 even beyond the, I mean, I don't think it goes as far as treason, perhaps, unless it was a hostile,
00:07:14.000 as you said, country with us, but still the ethics are just out the window bad. And even if this was
00:07:19.560 the private market, if I had said, Hey, I'm going, I got a good gig down at the national post. Oh,
00:07:24.660 but I'm going to keep collecting the check here. I'm not going to do anything here. Even I just expect
00:07:28.400 you to keep paying me while I go work for the competitor. Uh, how quickly would the coffee cup hit
00:07:33.340 my head as you're throwing me out the door with my neighbor? I have fired people for that. So she,
00:07:40.120 it's just, it's robbery. You aren't doing your job. You're not doing the job. You're getting six
00:07:44.780 figures and an incredible pension to do. You aren't even in the country. You should, there's one of the
00:07:50.660 problems with accountability in the Canadian system because we don't have a mechanism to fire her.
00:07:54.700 Only she can do that to herself. And, uh, which I understand with an MP, it should be difficult to take
00:08:00.740 one out of office, but this is a point you can't say, I got to kick it down the road and not do my
00:08:05.960 job for a few months for the sake of Kearney. What you're saying here is actually the liberal
00:08:10.460 mentality, their basic assumptions about how things ought to work in their favor. You think this
00:08:17.460 would have flown with Harper? No, they would go on bananas. Yeah. And, and as I said, it wouldn't have
00:08:22.780 flown with Mark Curry if he was still at Brookfield and she was an employee there. So I'd say the only thing
00:08:28.700 that makes any sense to me and it may not be the whole answer is that he just wants her around
00:08:32.540 for the sake of her vote for a little longer. Well, you know, it should matter if we're friendly
00:08:37.880 with Ukraine or not, at least it shouldn't, it shouldn't be the decisive factor. It should
00:08:42.980 be maybe an aggregating factor if it's a hostile regime or not. But you gotta remember the Canadian
00:08:47.100 federal government until extremely recently did not consider the People's Republic of China
00:08:52.040 to be a hostile foreign actor. Uh, when all the Chinese interference, foreign interference stuff
00:08:57.460 came up, Trudeau's first reaction was you're racist. You're racist. Uh, everybody who's talking
00:09:02.520 about Chinese foreign interference, you're racist against Chinese people. Actually, most people
00:09:06.280 blowing the whistle were Chinese who were being bullied and, uh, coerced by the People's Republic.
00:09:12.220 Um, but, you know, the Trudeau government was very, very friendly with China. Maybe not to the extent
00:09:20.720 we're friendly with Ukraine, like sending weapons, sending money, that kind of thing, but still very,
00:09:25.640 very friendly with China. China was not seen, was not as explicitly then seen as a hostile actor.
00:09:31.700 Um, this isn't election interference, uh, but it's worse. We've got a sitting member of parliament who is
00:09:42.420 working for a foreign, like, how is this legal? How is this legal? I guess it, I guess it is.
00:09:50.820 Uh, as soon as she's run this through the conflict, Finchrist commissioner, I assume a lawyer is
00:09:55.700 saying yes. The other question is, she's probably on the brass neck to do it. I gotta think that
00:10:00.580 Carney probably isn't thrilled with this. I, I, I, she seems to like doing things over Christmas. I
00:10:05.140 mean, it was Trudeau where she, you know, Christmas time, she cut the legs out from when you had them
00:10:08.740 too. Yeah, it's the Freeland's Christmas surprise. Yeah, I guess. But, uh, uh, as, as Nigel said, though,
00:10:15.060 I mean, Carney should be saying, well, you know, pooper, get off the pot. We either got to get you out of
00:10:20.420 that seat and run a by-election if you want to show yourself as principal, but he'd rather take the egg on
00:10:25.300 his face and say, well, we just can't afford to have that seat become vacant before it's time,
00:10:29.220 so, uh, please, we'll keep paying you. Well, Parliament's not sitting right now. She should
00:10:33.300 resign immediately. You can call a by-election immediately. He actually doesn't need to
00:10:36.980 see to this exact moment. Parliament's not sitting. True enough. There's no immediate budget vote.
00:10:41.780 They've already done the budget vote. Um, I, I actually don't think that makes sense. He doesn't need,
00:10:49.540 he doesn't, if there's a time for it. Unless there's an emergency sitting or something, but, uh,
00:10:53.620 yeah, he didn't, he doesn't need it right now. He- Not desperately. He could just quickly call,
00:10:57.780 he'll get, get one of his buddies from Brookfield, put him, that's a safe seat in downtown Toronto.
00:11:02.500 Okay, great. He's got another- Yeah, it's not like that seat's gonna go conservative anyway.
00:11:06.260 No, it's a solid liberal seat, so he gets to put, like, you know, some, some guy from Brookfield
00:11:10.660 or wherever, he gets to bring in someone from the outside, maybe someone a little more competent
00:11:14.980 in finance than champagne, and, uh, you know, like, this is actually a good opportunity for him.
00:11:21.460 My guess actually is that she wants to keep it for some reason, and what's Carney gonna do?
00:11:26.660 Oh, okay. So as for her reasons, I gather that this is, uh, a, uh, an unpaid position for a while,
00:11:34.820 and she's gotta wait until around about July before she starts working for the road, the Rhodes Trust,
00:11:40.180 which will be well remunerated. So this is a simple matter of cash flow for, for, um, Ms. Freeland.
00:11:47.300 Very, very strange thing. The, um, what's the betting, by the way, that, uh, as the conservative
00:11:54.420 convention comes up here in Calvary in a couple of weeks' time, there's a couple of more conservative
00:12:00.740 MPs who've been queued to cross the floor just to muddy the waters for the different subject,
00:12:08.020 but it has to do with, uh, you know, the number of people you have on the floor in the House of
00:12:12.260 Commons under your label.
00:12:13.140 I'm not in the caucus. That's a good question. I'm not in the caucus, but I, I just say the math
00:12:19.700 is very strong for Carney. Um, this, the next guy to cross the floor has massive leverage.
00:12:25.140 You can ask for a lot. Now you might not get the cabinet post that day, so it doesn't look
00:12:29.060 as cynical and transactional as say Belinda Stronach when she did in 2005 or whatever that was.
00:12:36.260 But, uh, you know, you delay, you know, it'll happen in six months, but like, okay,
00:12:40.260 six months, you're going to get a cap. This guy gives them their majority. He's going to get leverage.
00:12:45.380 Uh, there's going to be, you know, there's all sorts of guys who are at swing seats will
00:12:48.900 have a chance keeping their seat as a liberal. Uh, damn good chance. And also remember there's
00:12:53.460 the other side of the ledger. They're still working the NDP. The NDP guys are even more right
00:12:58.100 for the plucking. That party is pretty dead. They have pretty abysmal chances. So if you're a new
00:13:04.020 Democrat, you're probably going with showing that the NDP were on the uptick. Now that doesn't
00:13:08.660 mean they're going to be a grand resilience, but the part is bankrupt. I mean, if I were to be,
00:13:12.820 you know, Machiavellian and, and, and do the, the, the nasty political plays, if I were Kearney.
00:13:17.940 Oh yeah. Well then where I would be sitting strategically, if I had, uh, negotiated a
00:13:23.060 couple of MPs in the bag over Christmas, I wouldn't want to announce it right now. I want to do it
00:13:27.060 week right before the conservative conference. I want to own the news cycle because that's all they'll be able to
00:13:32.260 talk about during the conference, any messaging they had, any plans they had for the conference
00:13:36.580 will be gone. And, uh, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a couple in the pocket already.
00:13:40.820 So once he's got a couple more over across the floor, uh, from the conservatives, then she's free
00:13:45.380 to go. Yeah. That could be the time too, where you take out the trash. Fine. We've brought these two
00:13:49.540 in and oh, by the way, uh, Christian, you can go, uh, you go to do thing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I think the timing
00:13:56.420 of that would be smart if the liberals can now, I guess the downside to that is, um,
00:14:01.380 word leaks out. It's bad news. Uh, you don't want word if you lose the, also the guy might wiggle
00:14:07.060 off the hook by then. Maybe the, uh, the MP who's going to cross gets cold feet, but maybe, uh, it's
00:14:12.100 an, they don't know who each other are, right? It's not like they all sat in a group. I doubt they all
00:14:16.660 sat in the waiting room to go outside the prime minister's office. Chicken number. Yeah. Uh, you know,
00:14:21.700 who wants a cabinet spot, who wants to join? I doubt that was it. Oh, we'll be down to the table,
00:14:26.500 back room to improve the holidays. The holidays are ideal because you have so many of those social
00:14:32.100 functions and things going on where you can have informal meetings and get togethers all over the
00:14:36.580 place. It's the best time for it. Yeah. Uh, I mean, Kanye is going to get his majority. It's going to
00:14:42.820 happen. It's going to happen from conservative, more conservatives or some Democrats. Oh yeah.
00:14:47.620 It's, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. These guys will always justify it.
00:14:51.380 There, there's always some way. Oh my, I talked about it. Constituents tell me they want me to
00:14:54.660 join Mark Carney. We've heard this play a hundred times before. And you, if it's to your team,
00:15:02.900 this just shows we're winning and we're doing things right. And that we're on the march. Of
00:15:07.300 course, conservatives are good. That's why everyone wants to join the conservatives. And when it's the
00:15:11.620 other way, oh, they're traitors. There should be a by-election. They betrayed the people. They
00:15:15.940 betrayed the party. It always depends on which direction it's going.
00:15:21.540 Well, sometimes more than others, Derek. I mean, you get one.
00:15:24.260 I know you're going to justify once to the conservatives right now.
00:15:26.660 Well, actually, just, uh, just speaking in very general terms, you get one person gets a crisis
00:15:31.620 of conscience and besides they must cross the floor. Okay. We don't like it, but it happens.
00:15:37.620 When you have a number of people orchestrated, orchestrated to cross the floor in sequence,
00:15:43.780 well then that's a different kind of political maneuver. And one doesn't make these people look very good.
00:15:49.460 And I'm not bashing floor cross. Actually floor, the ability to floor cross
00:15:52.740 is a critical part of our system. Our leaders are already far too powerful in the ability to leave
00:15:57.860 your caucus. I've been out heavily for writing and saying that before, but there's truth to it.
00:16:02.660 That is one of the only remaining checks on the power of leaders in the Canadian parliamentary
00:16:08.100 system. It's one of the only things, uh, look at NBC. Now they didn't, uh, leave. It was the threat
00:16:16.100 of, you know, they were going to lose the majority of caucus. They got, don't rust that out. The ability
00:16:20.500 to leave caucus when you have a leader doing bad things and the party doing bad things, it's
00:16:25.060 necessary. It gets abused all the time for, oh, this has nothing to do with the cabinet post I'm
00:16:30.980 getting or this committee appointment, et cetera. And it never has anything to do with that. I mean,
00:16:36.260 so there's a lot, there's always a principle.
00:16:38.260 Well, they resign as MP and fight the election again under a different flag. How about that?
00:16:46.580 No, I, I don't know. Cause you'll technically we're still not electing parties. We're electing
00:16:50.500 MPs. We know that's not the case in reality, but it's one of the only checks we have on a leader at
00:16:54.340 this point. So anyway, two across the floor we get before the convention. Yeah. Okay. You read it here
00:17:03.460 first. So speaking of rides, let's talk about free helicopter rides in Venezuela. Um,
00:17:11.140 better explain the joke. Oh, for the, it's funny. I think it's a joke that younger people get who
00:17:17.940 were not around when it was taking place. Older people who were around when it was taking place
00:17:21.300 tend not to get it. But when you talk about free helicopter rides, we're talking about Pinochet,
00:17:26.900 the anti-communist, uh, leader of, or dictator, if you will, of Chile. And, uh, he, he was known
00:17:36.260 for giving free helicopter rides over the Pacific ocean to communists. He would pick them up a
00:17:42.020 helicopter and they would just go for, I don't know if they just slipped up. The communists slipped
00:17:47.060 out and fell into the ocean. Yeah. The Guatemalan government used to do that as well. I visited Guatemala
00:17:52.500 at the end of the eighties and, uh, still that proxy war going on. Yeah. People just disappeared.
00:17:58.180 So I, you know, Argentinian and you want to do something similar with the Argentinian government
00:18:03.300 background. They had kind of a Latin America technique. It was, it's kind of a Latin American
00:18:08.740 thing, but, uh, Pinochet was the one most known. He, he really perfected the art of free helicopter rides.
00:18:15.300 Um, so, you know, when, uh, the United States, uh, comes in and scoops up Maduro in the middle of the
00:18:21.780 night in a helicopter, I was pretty surprised that he, you know, they didn't say, ah, the guy was
00:18:27.060 all sweaty and wearing some pajamas. He fell out of the helicopter somewhere over the Gulf.
00:18:31.860 Uh, uh, well, they brought him back alive. So, uh, you know, Corey, you and I, uh, we, we,
00:18:37.380 we certainly set the cat among the pigeons with our commentary on this when it happened.
00:18:42.180 There's no room for nuance in this. The world is an objectively better place
00:18:47.860 without a communist dictator like Maduro in charge of the, of Venezuelan people. Yeah.
00:18:52.500 Dr. Any, like, I don't know a ton of Venezuelans, but all the ones I know,
00:18:56.580 you know, they're, they're having a little, uh, they don't, Marigotchi bands are Mexican,
00:19:00.660 but particularly that any just for a population and because they had to run from their homeland.
00:19:04.580 Yeah. Because the people like him, this is good for the Venezuelan people generally,
00:19:09.540 but I'm actually pretty skeptical of this, you know, world police thing that America just
00:19:15.780 comes in and does its thing.
00:19:17.220 Yeah.
00:19:18.100 Yeah.
00:19:18.500 That's a Team America song, wasn't it?
00:19:21.140 Yeah. Let's play the song. Play the song, John.
00:19:23.060 Well, you can't, well, America.
00:19:25.140 You'll have to bleep it.
00:19:26.340 Yeah.
00:19:26.580 Okay.
00:19:27.540 I mean, what a classic. When I first watched it, you know, Bush was still around. I watched it
00:19:38.500 unironically. Then a couple of years later, I was like, Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. They're making a point here
00:19:45.140 that I, Oh, it's a point that's salient today. Yeah.
00:19:47.540 Actually very much so. Are they the world police? Is that the role that he should be taking on? Was,
00:19:52.900 was Monero presenting such a threat to the United States? And again, it's not,
00:19:57.300 that's where the discussion unfortunately goes off the rails immediately. Oh, you're defending
00:20:00.420 him. No, I'm not. I'm just, is this the appropriate way to deal with it? And maybe it is,
00:20:06.660 but we should be hoping to discussion on it. And right now that discussion's a little heated.
00:20:10.180 So Nigel, I, um, I hold several mutually exclusive and contradictory opinions at the same time on
00:20:19.220 this. Um, you know, Trump, okay. If this was Bush or Obama, if this was anyone going back to Woodrow
00:20:27.140 Wilson, they would say this intervention is about making the world safe for democracy or some high
00:20:33.940 falutin idea. And it's not, it's raw politics and power, uh, for, for one thing or another,
00:20:40.980 it's, it's serving some kind of agenda and they would always try to cloak it in flowery language
00:20:47.380 of a liberal democracy. And, you know, America's pretty cynical about that now, very rightfully.
00:20:53.700 So I think Iraq was kind of finally finished that off. We're not, that's where it'd be.
00:20:59.540 If America first is supposed to be about pragmatic, you know, it's, it's the tractors say, well,
00:21:04.820 they're isolationists. No, there's a big difference between isolationists, which is we pretend that the
00:21:10.900 oceans, the world stops at the oceans, the coasts, and the world doesn't exist. And that pretty much
00:21:16.420 doesn't exist in America. It almost never really has. America first is America shouldn't be embroiled
00:21:21.860 and fighting other people's wars and playing world policemen, but American power can be used for
00:21:26.020 American interests. And Trump, he did not say, yeah, we did this for tomorrow. He's like, yeah,
00:21:31.460 we're going to take their oil. We're going to, we're, we're, we run Venezuela now and we're,
00:21:36.580 we're going to take back the oil. Uh, no, actually you have to, and he does have a minor point on that,
00:21:40.660 not a minor point. Yes. At some point, Hugo Chavez had nationalized American oil assets,
00:21:45.860 which is stealing. So America actually does have a claim to some of that oil. They stole it. Um,
00:21:51.220 anyway, it was very cold, uh, transactional language, taking the oil. And then, you know,
00:22:00.260 other, other, other members of the administration tried to walk it back and, and, and, and soften it.
00:22:05.140 But, um, I don't know, is this, is this like Roosevelt on steroids that America is now going to,
00:22:13.540 in a very muscular way, exercise its dominance of the hemisphere? All right. Absolutely.
00:22:19.860 Uh, when you were talking about American, the world policeman, I thought, well, no, no, no,
00:22:25.620 this has got nothing to do with being the world police. This is looking after things on the home
00:22:30.260 front. Don't forget, it's not just the oil, although that's what we're focused on in the
00:22:34.020 morning. It's also the drugs. It's also excluding from the Chinese. Drugs were a bit, but it wasn't
00:22:40.340 mostly the drugs. That's what they got. That's what they're charging. But it wasn't. I disagree with you
00:22:44.100 on that. Okay. Okay. But then they would have been in Mexico first, or Columbia first,
00:22:47.460 Venezuela is a part of it, but they're not the failure. They're next. That's all. That's some
00:22:51.940 of the discussion. Yeah. You know, I'll believe it's about drugs when they go in and start murdering.
00:22:57.220 Well, I don't know. Has the price of an eight ball gone up yet?
00:22:59.220 Ready? Nothing. I didn't hear. What? He's asking if the price of Coke has gone up yet.
00:23:04.100 Uh, I imagine, uh, right. Price of oil comes down, price of Coke goes up. Well, the issue for us,
00:23:10.180 of course here in Alberta is what is this going to do? We've got what, uh, 50 million barrels of oil
00:23:17.780 going to be leaving Venezuela, ending up in the coast refineries. Uh, that's actually where
00:23:23.540 Alberta low goes. So Alberta low is going to be at a bit of a discount. Uh, not that this is the
00:23:30.340 subject of this segment, but if you want to feel mad with anybody again, feel mad with Mr. Trudeau,
00:23:36.820 who canceled arbitrarily, talk about arbitrary, we should already, Northern gateway should be
00:23:42.500 right there. And we should be pumping oil through that to new customers. Cause it's going to be
00:23:46.340 difficult when you have got a steady stream of oil coming from Venezuela. Thankfully,
00:23:50.900 the Venezuelans have been such economic illiterates for so long that it's some of the estimates I've
00:23:57.620 seen, it would take about a trillion dollars and a decade to get Venezuela's production.
00:24:02.580 Yeah. Their field's a mess to our levels. So thank God for communism. It's the only thing saving
00:24:08.980 Alberta right now. I mean, what, uh, just what next? I mean, that's just kind of the thing kicking
00:24:13.860 off the air. There's Trump being Trump though. Oh, we'll, we'll get into it. Yeah. So what I mean?
00:24:17.620 We'll get into it. There's a helicopter thing that just that I remember when, uh, when Trump said,
00:24:21.940 we don't need your oil. That's going into Tuzma negotiations. Oh yeah. He's, he's going to say,
00:24:28.180 Hey, but it don't need your oil. I got it from Venezuela. Get it, getting a little back.
00:24:32.980 It's going to take them some time now to possible ethics of this though. And the fact that he did
00:24:36.580 bring him back, he brought him alive. He's putting him on trial and going through a pair of process.
00:24:41.380 I mean, we go back to kind of the last time the Americans did something similar when they got
00:24:45.060 Osama bin Laden. And here's where the only time when I really throw my tin hat on, because I still
00:24:51.460 don't believe that they killed him there. It was this weird that, oh, we shot him and we just whipped
00:24:55.700 him off and dumped him into the ocean because we didn't need any other evidence and everything
00:24:58.260 else. Everybody else forget about it. We'll just move on with life. I got a strong, it's a little
00:25:01.620 weird. I got a strong suspicion that perhaps he went somewhere for a very uncomfortable month or two,
00:25:06.020 just to make sure they could get every other bit of information on Al Qaeda out of him before he did
00:25:10.740 eventually disappear in the ocean. The Americans aren't above and beyond that, perhaps, or CIA or
00:25:16.820 Mossad or the side, but other countries that do those sorts of things. They took some fingernails before
00:25:19.940 the drug. Yeah, either. I can't be wrong. That's certainly, but it just, it was odd. They didn't, I think they did
00:25:25.540 kill bin Laden, but did they get him right then? Who knows? Yeah, but there was no effort to, this
00:25:30.820 wasn't an assassination attempt. They didn't just take a drone and blow up his bedroom or he didn't
00:25:35.780 fall out of a helicopter or, you know, choke on a green bean on his first day in prison or anything
00:25:41.620 of the sort. So I think they are still trying to frame themselves a little bit of saying this is a
00:25:46.100 police action versus a power play. It is an act of war. I mean, snatching the head of state,
00:25:52.020 that's an illegitimate one who obviously rigged all, you know, several elections. He's illegitimate,
00:25:57.460 but he is the head of state according to their law, because they have obviously their judicial
00:26:02.260 system is corrupt, but that judicial system recognizes him as the president. That doesn't
00:26:05.860 mean he's legitimate, but it means he's legal. And those are different things. I think we've got a
00:26:11.140 legal government that is illegitimate, but, um, you know, he is the head of, he is the head of state
00:26:18.580 and snatching him is an act of war. America committed an act of war. Question is, is it
00:26:24.580 justifiable? They're not doing it on the grounds of democracy. I think the byproduct, I mean, still
00:26:30.980 way too early to say, we don't know how it's going to develop in Venezuela. Are they going to have a new,
00:26:35.780 you know, some legitimate elections at some point that are overseen by international observers?
00:26:41.780 Very possibly, but we don't know. Uh, I imagine probably wants to get there at some point, but, um,
00:26:49.940 uh, that's a, he's seen that as a byproduct and, and he's, and he's not doing the Bush and Obama
00:26:57.860 and Clinton thing where he's just like, we're doing this for democracy and blah, blah, blah, blah. We're
00:27:01.540 doing it for them. Say, no, we're doing it for us. And at least that is. And it's offering a chilling
00:27:08.260 effect to other countries that are obstinate or, or dictators as well. This didn't go like they have
00:27:13.460 pigs or even the Iran attempt to rescue hostages. This went without a hitch. I mean, it's quite a
00:27:17.860 gamble. If their special forces had landed in there and they'd been pushed back and lost a few members
00:27:23.300 and it could have turned into a catastrophe. Obviously their intelligence was amazing.
00:27:30.420 Uh, so you know that every dictator right now is looking around their room.
00:27:34.580 I'm not sure it's just dictators. Greenland and Denmark. We're going to get there, but
00:27:38.340 I'm not sure it's just dictators.
00:27:39.940 So, I mean, uh, it's making them sweat though. I mean, where else is the next CIA agent?
00:27:45.620 They're going for Trudeau at Cary Perry's, uh, Cary Perry's apartment.
00:27:48.500 God, I think they've got him on a leash already with that.
00:27:50.980 They're just keeping occupied with a pop star. I won't have to worry about him anymore.
00:27:54.180 I don't know. There's a, there's a lot going on here. Then the bigger picture, I, we didn't stay
00:28:04.980 there, but keeping the Chinese out of Central America is a very big thing for Trump. Uh, yeah,
00:28:11.700 the oil is a big thing. The drugs are a big thing, but you may remember two years ago, there was quite
00:28:17.380 a foofer that, uh, the, the Chinese that gained effective control of the Panama canal. Uh, they,
00:28:24.580 they had their people running it at each end and obviously everything that went through, went through
00:28:28.740 with the, with the, uh, blessing of the government of China. That's not a plate. That's not a situation
00:28:35.060 that the Americans can tolerate. Yeah. And so here is another situation that that production was going
00:28:42.900 straight to China. So now they're scrambling to find another 400,000 barrels a day of oil from the
00:28:48.580 world market. Uh, they've got a problem and they know they're not going to be able to do what they
00:28:54.740 want to do in, in the central, in Central America. So yeah, you know, it's an act of war. That's what
00:29:02.580 nation states do. Unfortunately, if they were powerful enough, if they're not powerful enough,
00:29:07.780 then they form a league of nations or a United nations organization and try to moralize about it.
00:29:13.860 But in the end, the international court, if you want to take it that far, can only enforce a
00:29:19.300 judgment if it has the backing of the largest nation makes right. I mean, I mean, 10, this is
00:29:24.660 about international justice or years of liberal international moralizing about this act. Then we
00:29:30.980 go back to the end of the first world war and the link of the nations at the end of the day,
00:29:34.420 it's all bullshit. I mean, it's nice. I mean, the world is nicer when we go by that, but
00:29:41.380 we don't ever actually go by it. We just kind of pretend to, and maybe it does give us more norms to
00:29:46.580 go with some guardrails, but end of the day, it's all bullshit. The world courts and all that too. It's
00:29:51.860 funny. Some of the people decrying though, what Trump did with Maduro are the same ones who were
00:29:56.020 saying that Netanyahu should be arrested if he steps foot outside of Israel. Actually, with what I saw
00:30:01.380 he's doing with the Christians in Israel, I'm actually kind of coming around to that. I've
00:30:05.220 seen it with Tony, but he's doing to Christians there. I'm coming around to that now. Either way,
00:30:10.580 the ability to take a leader into custody for another state is the question.
00:30:17.140 Well, that is a whole other thing. That's like going to Israel and stashing up Netanyahu.
00:30:20.260 Oh yeah. That's an act. Good luck on that. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck.
00:30:25.300 You know, could it get to the Mediterranean before they stop in the, yeah. Um,
00:30:30.820 okay. So we can take the, we'll take this a bit more broadly, zoom out, you know, America,
00:30:36.340 team America here. Um, some of this stuff, like I, you know, we, we talked about Iran,
00:30:43.460 Iran, you know, when Iran happened back in, uh, it was in October. So I, I, I was not for that one
00:30:50.420 because I don't think that was America's interest. There was no evidence, still no evidence really
00:30:54.580 provided. Um, nothing solid, at least 600 feet deep. Yeah. But I don't trust governments with just
00:31:02.980 saying the evidence is down there somewhere and you're going to trust me. They said that in the
00:31:05.700 Gulf War too, didn't they? Yeah. Uh, I, I've just not taken anyone's word for it anymore. Uh,
00:31:10.420 we've, we've, we've just seen that abused enough, but I don't think that was in America's interest.
00:31:15.060 That was other interests. Venezuela is America's interest. Now, is it the right thing to do?
00:31:21.940 Is it nice? No, it's not. But is it the right thing to do from an America, America first national
00:31:28.500 self-interest perspective? I mean, time will tell, but very possibly, but this is now being applied
00:31:34.900 very aggressively elsewhere. You've got, you know, we're talking about Panama, uh,
00:31:40.420 America built the damn thing. There's a pretty strong argument for it. Actually, Panama exists
00:31:43.620 as a country because of America. They formatted world.
00:31:45.380 And then I'm going to show you the book. I'll, uh, he grabbed Noriega. So that's it.
00:31:50.180 Iron Maiden had a hand in that as well. If I recall, give a credit where it's due. Well,
00:31:54.180 they were blasting Iron Maiden outside when they were, uh,
00:31:56.820 already got it. Yeah. That's pretty America. That's, that's America. Uh, but then, you know,
00:32:02.420 but then, uh, it's, you know, we were saying earlier, it's not just dictators got friendly.
00:32:06.820 Like, can you think of a more, but benevolent country in the world, the Denmark, at least,
00:32:12.340 at least for the last thousand years, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, they just don't stir the world.
00:32:18.660 They're in the Canadian club of these benevolent, don't bother nice guys. Yeah. Yeah. Like
00:32:23.860 the super nice guys. Now, uh, the last time Denmark was at war, they actually have the record
00:32:30.020 to this day for being the shortest, but when they were attacked by Germany, the second world war,
00:32:34.900 I think it was literally a matter of hours. They literally just dropped paratroopers on
00:32:38.340 the presidential palace and the war was over. I think it was the shortest invasion in world
00:32:42.500 history. Uh, and I imagine an American invasion of Greenland would go similar. Uh, it would be,
00:32:49.140 it would be an unopposed. Like there is no point in fighting, um, you know, American carrier rolls
00:32:55.060 off the coast of Greenland. I'm sorry guys, it's over. Uh, it'd be like if they came for us. Uh,
00:33:01.060 but this is their NATO partner. If America took an aggressive military action against
00:33:06.100 Greenland, technically that's an act of war against NATO. Yeah, that's a different line
00:33:11.780 crossed. But Ukraine attacked NATO when they blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. So
00:33:17.300 technically we should be at war with Ukraine for that. Um, but I, I read, uh, send them Christy
00:33:21.620 or Freelance. I mean, it's opened up so much discussion and then part of it is everybody's
00:33:26.020 got to speculate what, what is the big plan in the orange man's head. And it's hard to try and guess
00:33:30.420 what he's really looking at. As you said, I mean, somebody wrote a good piece, actually,
00:33:33.940 I think it might've been the globe. I do read that, but, uh, on, well, if he went into Greenland,
00:33:39.540 it might be the end of NATO. And if it's the end of NATO, then we got some other bigger issues going
00:33:44.100 on throughout the rest of Europe. Uh, there's a lot of, you know, ripple effects that comes from these
00:33:50.420 actions. You may be right about that, but I personally do not think that the object is to make
00:33:56.180 Greenland the 54th state or the 52nd or the 53rd. What are they going to do with a, where the
00:34:04.340 the continent is covered by ice? It actually, it's pretty small. It only looks big because
00:34:09.380 it's actually quite small. It's easy, right? It's a, it's a lot of real estate covered by ice.
00:34:13.540 You can't do anything with it except on a few little coastline clouds. So the deal is going to be,
00:34:18.820 we need this and we need that. There's where we're going to put our bases.
00:34:22.260 Uh, but they already have the bases there. There's been an American military presence
00:34:26.340 there. So you're in the middle of the second world war. Uh, well, now they want more.
00:34:31.140 Yes. And, and, and news and, uh, Denmark and Greenland have said they can have it.
00:34:35.220 Yeah, but there's a lot of military secrets. If you're paying the lease, hell, you can have it.
00:34:38.660 They haven't invited them to do it. What I think this is, is Trump has got a big board of a big
00:34:45.300 risk board sitting somewhere in the Oval Office and he wants to paint more stars and stripes.
00:34:50.660 America looks bigger, cooler, more badass. He wants to leave legacy as he's been in America.
00:34:56.900 Shaving your bushes to make the tree look. There's an insecurity going on.
00:35:00.500 This is, and I don't even mean these words pejoratively, but this is about demonstrating
00:35:05.220 American expansion, manifest destiny over the hemisphere, um, making America look cooler.
00:35:11.940 America is growing occasionally. It's not a risk. I think that's what he's doing there. Uh, I like
00:35:18.100 playing strategy games and I like to paint the map of whatever country I'm playing here. You know,
00:35:24.180 the map looks bigger for me. I've taken it over. And I think that's what he's doing because America
00:35:29.460 can put all of the military installations and hardware and personnel that it wants in Greenland.
00:35:34.260 They have since like 1942. There's no restriction on what America can do there really.
00:35:41.380 He doesn't need to own it to do that. I think it's just because it's cool.
00:35:46.900 Well, it is cool. It is cool. I'm sorry. It's playing on words there.
00:35:52.340 The thing is that he is sending the message every time he does something extreme. Don't mess with me.
00:35:58.900 I will bomb your underground nuclear factory. Don't mess with me. I will have you out of your
00:36:04.980 cottage and into a New York pen and we will take your oil. Uh, you know, everything he does is
00:36:12.580 calculated to build the reputation of don't mess with me. That is actually a very safe thing to do
00:36:19.140 because the one thing where wars really start, I'm talking about the serious ones, is when people
00:36:25.940 can't quite sure what the other side is going to do. The first world war is a classic example of that.
00:36:31.300 The second world war, you could make the same argument. It would just take longer to do it.
00:36:35.940 If he says to China, stay out of Taiwan, the Chinese are not going to invade while he is president.
00:36:41.380 And all of these things contribute to that image of irresistible force not to be trifled with.
00:36:48.340 It might be that, but actually the Taiwan example, I think might, might be backwards.
00:36:55.220 Trump, I don't think there's any grand doctrine of Trump that you can really,
00:37:00.100 you don't know where he's coming from.
00:37:02.900 But I think one of the general things he sees is he sees the world as
00:37:06.820 transactional, great power, multipolar politics, and America should be the greatest pole of that.
00:37:12.500 But he recognizes spheres of influence. And recognizing spheres of influence, arguably,
00:37:18.020 could have maybe stopped both world wars. Maybe. Hard to say. But the idea is, okay, Ukraine,
00:37:25.140 that's Russia's sphere of influence. Always has been. Nothing we can do about it. So we're going to
00:37:30.020 write off Ukraine, but that's Russia's sphere of influence. Taiwan, we like Taiwan, but it's China's
00:37:37.300 sphere of influence. It's ethnically Chinese.
00:37:39.220 But then he just wasn't intercepted two tankers that were bound for Russia, weren't they?
00:37:43.380 In America's hemisphere.
00:37:44.660 Yeah. I was saying he's a rest of his actions here.
00:37:47.780 He's posturing onto the other side of the Eastern Europe line too.
00:37:49.940 Sure, but he's saying, no, no, no. Russia, you can do what you want in Ukraine.
00:37:54.340 Maybe he's saying tacitly that China can do what it wants at the time. Maybe I'm reading too much of
00:38:00.260 that one. But he's saying the Western hemisphere, no one gets to play here. This is Monroe
00:38:04.980 doctrine on steroids. Venezuela, you're not being a proxy for Russia and for China anymore.
00:38:12.500 You work for Daddy Trump. That's what's going on here.
00:38:15.380 Well, it's got a lot of panel on all of this. Some Western hemisphere and America's the boss.
00:38:20.900 And as a result, the other big powers, you get to do what you want in your backyards.
00:38:24.420 But this is my backyard.
00:38:25.380 I think broadly, I would agree that he has a view of spheres of influence. But the Chinese are so
00:38:31.380 obviously making the whole world their sphere of influence, but especially around the United
00:38:36.180 States, this is what concerns him. But yeah, there is a strong element of pushback. And Taiwan,
00:38:41.220 of course, is the point at which the Chinese could challenge him. And I think if he says no,
00:38:48.420 stay out of it, they'll wait until the next Democrat.
00:38:51.380 I don't know. Well, you may be right. But I don't think he sees Taiwan as America's
00:39:01.300 national vital interest. Is it worth World War Three? I don't think it is. I'm sorry for Taiwan.
00:39:06.900 I mean, it's always come to World War Three, because what he says will simply be taken.
00:39:10.740 It's not worth taking the risk. We'll wait till the next Democrat.
00:39:15.460 Chinese do like thinking long term. That's one thing to give to them. They're the opposite of
00:39:18.980 Trump. Trump is like, tomorrow morning, the whole plan could be different.
00:39:22.660 The Chinese could be thinking a generation ahead. And if they got to wait out an administration,
00:39:27.540 it's just an administration. But I just had to laugh on a similar subject with people who
00:39:32.340 were uncomfortable or worried about the states unrealistically or realistically. I don't know
00:39:35.620 if you saw the Toronto Star headline that Ford now has to watch his back. Doug Ford.
00:39:41.220 They're going to kidnap Ford. That's going to the Toronto Star.
00:39:43.380 They're going to kidnap Ford. They're going to come get done like they want them.
00:39:48.660 But this is the absurdity of Canada's legacy media. I just, you know, it should have been a
00:39:53.220 parting shot, but I already have one. So I just, and it ties into this issue. But the ludicrousness
00:39:58.020 of people's responses to this whole affair, you know, it's just another, it's just another reason to
00:40:03.620 criticize Trump. Well, so that guy couldn't even do something good. Nevermind. The, uh, Trump cultivating the,
00:40:10.580 uh, major, I'm the crazy guy. I'll, I'll do it. You know, okay. You saw the, you know, remember
00:40:15.300 little rocket man, North Korea, Kim Jong-un. Okay. I mean, he's been doing that. And I get
00:40:20.660 the strategy from that perspective, but Greenland, Denmark, it backfires there potentially because
00:40:28.740 yes, in politics, in international politics, it's important that your adversaries believe you
00:40:35.060 that I am crazy enough. I will come snatch you out of your presidential palace in the middle of
00:40:38.820 the night. Uh, I will bomb your ass. But at the same time, trust from your friends and allies
00:40:45.380 is important. People have to believe your friendship is worth something, that your alliance
00:40:49.860 means something, that your signature on this treaty means something. And, you know, essentially I, I
00:40:57.140 doubt anyone would get killed in taking Greenland. Uh, there's, I would be utterly shocked if there was
00:41:02.260 any kind of battle at all. The landing mode hit a rock or something. Yeah. Um, you know, there'll be
00:41:08.260 nothing, but you know, it could still be a nonviolent occupation, military action, that kind of thing.
00:41:16.500 Those happen. Um, how could NATO survive that? Look, I'm not shilling for Trump. I'm just saying that,
00:41:23.780 you know, this is, this is his game plan. I don't know. Like you said, they've had, um, bases there
00:41:29.940 for a long time. What's different about this one? I don't know. But, uh, maybe he's just negotiating a
00:41:34.980 lower lease rate. Or maybe he's like, maybe the message isn't for the Danes, it's for somebody else
00:41:40.980 altogether. Don't screw around with me because I'm, uh, you know, you guys in NATO can go on.
00:41:45.460 Um, I mean, NATO, yeah, so, so. Largely obsolete in many ways. It's, and, and actually, you know,
00:41:52.100 that America, that foreign policy paper that the White House put out, uh, roughly a month or so ago
00:41:57.300 does look at Europe as now an unreliable partner in the long term, that Europe is undergoing radical
00:42:04.820 demographic replacement. Europe is already almost not European anymore, and it is becoming increasingly
00:42:12.820 less so by the day. And America sees that. And okay, you're no longer our brother that we know.
00:42:20.340 We don't, we're no longer going to share common civilization very soon. NATO is, in many respects,
00:42:27.060 obsolete. And this could be by intention. This could be Trump intentionally trying to just finally
00:42:32.500 scupper NATO because it's, it's already finished. I mean, the, the lazy, you know, kind of closure on
00:42:37.780 it just is that 2026 is kicking off. The whole world picture is changing now. We're in for a
00:42:42.100 heck of a ride this year. Nothing happened over the break. Real quiet on the news front.
00:42:48.100 Okay. Gentlemen, uh, who wants first parting shot? Oh, you go for a story, huh? I just wanted to
00:42:54.260 remind everybody of all those recalls that, uh, legacy media and some professors and others were
00:42:58.900 saying, we're going to force Danielle Smith into a spring election out of terror. The most possible,
00:43:04.740 feasible one of them all was Nicholas, or I mean, uh, Nicolaides. And it was the one based on
00:43:10.580 him being the education minister and teacher strike. And it was a razor thin margin mining.
00:43:14.260 Yeah. It was very close. It was one that's conceivable, not even vaguely close to making
00:43:18.340 the signature barrier. It's going to fail and the rest will fail even more so obviously. So that was
00:43:24.260 just a bunch of show and, uh, an abuse of the system and, uh, the bar that was set in the legislation
00:43:30.580 is appropriate. I think if we did have a, an ax murderer in the legislature, then the bar would be
00:43:35.300 achieved, but this wasn't enough. Thank you for demonstrating the efficacy of the legislation,
00:43:40.180 Gil. Uh, better luck next time. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. So, you know, for my, for my two
00:43:47.540 panels, I think we were just, we're about to see now where the Kearney is serious about a pipeline to
00:43:53.540 the coast. Uh, for all this happened in Venezuela, we've talked about it for half an hour. You know,
00:43:59.140 the case for getting an, uh, an alternative export route has for Alberta oil never been more obvious.
00:44:07.220 So if something isn't on, on the rails in 12 months, we'll know without doubt that his green values
00:44:14.740 mindset is what animates him. And he's been just looking for a way to make it look like he's serious,
00:44:21.140 but also to make it go away. So I, I, I'm kind of pessimistic about that. And I have to say,
00:44:28.580 what has, you know, what does Kearney actually accomplished in 10 months? Can you think of
00:44:33.780 anything that's really, he got government free, save the liberals, save the levels. All right. Well,
00:44:38.340 thanks. Thanks very much for that. Now we've got somebody we can criticize, you know, we could have
00:44:42.900 found something else. No, he's done nothing for, for nine months, uh, except made plans. It's like
00:44:50.500 somebody who is very unconfident of their EA job. They spend all the time rearranging the desks. So now we've
00:44:56.260 got a, you know, a ministry of, uh, fast track products, but we've got no products.
00:45:00.740 So what's, there's the most disappointing tenure of office.
00:45:06.580 I came straight here from a meeting and I actually didn't prepare mine, but I've pulled one out of my
00:45:11.380 arse and it feeds right into what we would say about where is America going next. We've got actually a
00:45:17.300 pool. You can't see it on the camera here, but I'm, uh, we've got kind of a glass wall over there.
00:45:22.340 And I like to write out wagers. I make with the staff. Sometimes this one, uh, I'm just,
00:45:27.140 I'm the house. I'm giving odds on one country. Uh, Trump will make a significant intervention
00:45:32.660 with next defining as a significant act of war. It doesn't have to mean a war actually breaks out,
00:45:38.660 but an act of war. So, you know, it could be major bombings. It can be
00:45:43.460 snatching the president out of the palace or something. Uh, so I'm given, uh, one-to-one odds,
00:45:48.980 Iran or Mexico, uh, two-to-one odds on Colombia, Cuba, and Panama, five-to-one odds on Greenland,
00:45:59.780 uh, and 15-to-one odds on Canada. Uh, and I, and I, so don't sweat it folks.
00:46:06.660 And I made a subcategory for Alberta, 10-to-one odds. Uh, now I'm not, that's not, uh, you know,
00:46:14.580 I don't know how legitimate those odds are that I'm given. Uh, but the fact that I'm, you know,
00:46:21.060 15-to-one, the fact that it's not a billion to one, the fact that it's not a billion to one,
00:46:27.060 I would obviously not. I'm going to win the bet. I'm willing to give 15-to-one odds on Canada.
00:46:32.500 I, I probably should give even better odds, but, you know, I'm not going to collect pennies here.
00:46:37.460 But, uh, yeah, the fact that it's not a billion to one shows you that we're in a very interesting
00:46:42.420 new world. All right, Cory, we are, Nigel. Thank you. And, uh, John for running the show.
00:46:49.540 Thank all of you for joining us today on The Pipeline. Remember to go to westernstandard.news,
00:46:54.740 click on subscribe. It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all western standard
00:47:00.660 content. Supporting the work that we do, we've got, uh, new offices. We're actually, we're, we're,
00:47:05.780 we're growing in addition to our core in Calgary, Edmonton. Uh, we've got offices in, uh, Vancouver,
00:47:11.540 Regina, and I'll be formally announcing it soon, but we're in Toronto, believe it or not.
00:47:17.540 Toronto, we're coming for you, doggy. Uh, for once, west, the west is trying to colonize
00:47:24.340 the east. We're bringing the western standard out east. Our, uh, reporter Jeremy Borg, who's
00:47:29.380 been with us for some time, he's a Toronto native. I do hold it against them, so we, uh, exiled him
00:47:34.580 back to the east, to Toronto at Queen's Park. That's it for today. Thank you very much, and God bless.
00:47:47.540 you