Western Standard - The Pipeline Goodbye 2020! We discuss the biggest stories out of the West this year.

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00:02:30.000 Good day. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. You're watching

00:02:47.040 The Pipeline on December 30th, 2020. I'm joined today by Western Standard News

00:02:54.880 editor Dave Naylor. Good day Dave from beautiful Vancouver. We're nearby? Nearby, near enough.

00:03:03.520 Hope you had a good Christmas start. Good enough as it can be expected. And joined today by podcast

00:03:10.480 editor and Western Standard columnist extraordinaire Corey Morgan, also from Calgary. How you doing,

00:03:16.640 Cory good good well today we're going to do the happiest story of 2020 which is

00:03:25.040 saying good riddance to 2020 the year that will finally go away today's 0.87

00:03:31.220 December 30th as I said meaning we have only one full day left of this crap on

00:03:37.820 paper but I have a pretty bad feeling that 2020 is going to continue well into

00:03:44.240 2021. We will see. We're going to cover some of the biggest stories that came out of or affected

00:03:50.760 the West this year. We'll also talk about what we think are maybe some of the most underreported

00:03:56.800 stories. We'll kind of bat that around a bit. Obviously, it goes without saying, we're going

00:04:02.440 to discuss COVID if we haven't had enough of that bloody story yet. We're going to discuss the

00:04:06.680 re-election of John Horgan's NDP in British Columbia, the re-election of Scott Moe's Saskatchewan

00:04:11.700 party in Saskatchewan the rise of the Alberta independence movement 2019 was a huge year for

00:04:17.140 that we're going to talk about what's happened in Alberta as the approval ratings of both the UCP

00:04:23.540 and Jason Kenney continue to nosedive this year after a relatively popular 2019 and of course

00:04:33.460 we'll take your questions and comments as usual so you know Dave we were discussing what to do

00:04:41.380 before this show and uh we said well you know how what should we call covet we obviously have to

00:04:48.620 talk talk about covet and dave said let's call it uh the biggest story of the year and i said

00:04:53.260 that's a very bold move dave uh you're you're really putting us out on a limb on that one

00:04:59.600 um we're going to be taking big chances by calling uh covet 19 the biggest story of the year

00:05:06.380 Dave, why don't you tell us a bit about your bold call on COVID being the biggest story?

00:05:13.020 Yeah, sometimes, Derek, the big ones are right in front of your face.

00:05:18.120 I mean, just look back.

00:05:19.660 It was only eight months ago that we were living normal lives.

00:05:23.640 We were going to shopping centers.

00:05:25.520 We were going to neighborhood pubs.

00:05:27.660 And, you know, we were meeting friends.

00:05:30.440 We were being our social selves.

00:05:33.340 And then all of a sudden, I remember, I think it was March.

00:05:35.740 I read a story out of China about six people, started with six people, at least that first story anyways, about six people getting ill with this, this strain of mystery flu type virus called COVID-19.

00:05:52.200 And I'd certainly never heard of it before. And in the next ensuing 24 hours, the story just emanated. And within a week, the first cases were appearing all over the world.

00:06:03.560 And it soon became the biggest story in the world. Everybody was talking about it. Everybody

00:06:10.680 was worried about it. And it was in Iran first, and we didn't really believe the numbers coming

00:06:19.040 out of Iran because you can't really believe anything that comes out of Iran. And then it

00:06:24.040 hit Italy. And I think we were all stunned by the ferociousness that it swept through

00:06:30.180 poor little Italy and the number of cases and the number of deaths multiplying day after day after

00:06:37.900 day you know 20,000 new cases a day a thousand deaths doctors in emergency rooms deciding who

00:06:46.240 to give a ventilator and who not to give a ventilator and you could see it spread through

00:06:50.680 the rest of Europe and and Great Britain became hard hit and we all knew it was coming then and

00:06:58.560 And, you know, I don't think Canada battened down the hatches quickly enough.

00:07:02.840 And soon enough, it was sweeping across eastern Canada and then into the west.

00:07:08.760 And, you know, and now it's, you know, just an everyday fact of life.

00:07:14.720 And it doesn't seem to be disappearing anytime quickly.

00:07:18.800 Alberta is in its second lockdown.

00:07:20.900 BC is in its second lockdown.

00:07:23.160 Germany is now talking about going into a third lockdown.

00:07:25.820 Yeah. So, you know, we went out on a limb, Derek, and called it the biggest story of 2020.

00:07:32.720 And I may go out on a limb right now and maybe say it may be the same in 2021. It may be the

00:07:38.420 biggest news story of 2021. Well, that's a bolder caller, but I think you very well might be right

00:07:44.460 about that. Corey, I think it's without a doubt the biggest story of 2021, but it turned out very

00:07:52.180 quick within within i think about two or three months it turned out not just to be a uh story

00:07:57.380 about a virus but it became uh stories about the chinese communist government's uh cover-ups uh

00:08:04.740 you know we just saw a reporter out of china who was one of the very first reporters to blow the

00:08:08.980 whistle on uh on covid she was sentenced i think to six years in prison or something mad like that

00:08:16.740 it became about the cover-up, it became about the World Health Organization seemingly doing the bid

00:08:24.260 of the Chinese regime, and then about some of the mishandling by governments across the world,

00:08:30.580 including in Canada and in the West here, and the increasing resistance to clampdowns on civil

00:08:39.060 liberties. How do you think this? This story has obviously changed outside of just, you know,

00:08:46.420 virus is spread or virus is mutated. This story went from, I think, almost a purely medical

00:08:53.860 story in most respects to a very polarizing political issue, which I found strange at first.

00:09:02.420 But now we've seen the virus and the reaction to it break down almost long ideological lines.

00:09:12.120 Corey, how do you think that that happened?

00:09:14.780 How did this transform from a medical story into a political story?

00:09:19.740 Yeah, well, just because it became so huge and overwhelming, I mean, it's impacted every aspect of our lives.

00:09:26.420 There's going to be decades of study on how we responded to this, why we responded the way we did.

00:09:33.280 But part of it was we've seen the entire world imposing control on the rights of individuals in a way that's never been seen in human history, like in a whole worldwide sort of way.

00:09:45.400 And that's, I believe, what makes the ideological divide.

00:09:50.360 I mean, conservative libertarian minded people want the state out of their face.

00:09:54.840 They don't want to be controlled. They don't want to be told what to do. They may willingly do those things if asked, but they don't want the state taking care for them. Versus a person who tends to be progressive minded, they feel it's the role of the government to take care of everything. And they want the state to crack down and they want the state to run their lives and they want the state to hold their hand.

00:10:14.640 So that division is getting deeper and deeper as the year goes on because people are getting

00:10:19.680 crabbier and crabbier with the lockdowns, whether you're on a progressive or a conservative

00:10:24.160 side of the spectrum.

00:10:26.180 It's really put a different kind of fissure, you know, and divide into people of those

00:10:32.400 mindsets.

00:10:33.660 You know, that's looking in a big picture sort of way.

00:10:36.720 And then we look at responses and reactions state to state and place to place.

00:10:40.920 And it's only going to get more acute because the government's not going to want to let go of these controls now that they've taken them.

00:10:48.280 Indeed. We also saw the rise of many conspiracy theories about this.

00:10:53.620 Some of that has good reason.

00:10:55.220 There has been conspiracy in the non-kooky sense of the word from the very beginning.

00:11:01.800 The Chinese government clearly cracking down on information about the virus coming out.

00:11:06.920 uh you know as i just mentioned sending one journalist to prison for six years

00:11:11.080 for reporting on this without the government's authorization so uh and then some pretty funny

00:11:15.800 business from the world health organization genuine conspiratorial actions that we've we've

00:11:22.680 got a pretty good sense of now but that's you know where you see a few points on a map and you can

00:11:30.120 pin together reasonably you might then start to see a lot of other points on a map that uh maybe

00:11:34.760 don't make so much sense uh and so we've seen a lot of conspiracy theories uh spawn beyond i think

00:11:42.760 the reasonable into the increasingly kooky um we would go to dave but uh he appears to have fallen

00:11:49.960 into a green tub of liquid um let me would okay there he is uh back in sunny vancouver uh dave

00:11:59.240 Why don't you maybe tell us a bit about where some of these conspiracy theories have gone,

00:12:07.080 without getting into too much detail, what really the gist of the main conspiracy theories are that

00:12:12.840 we've seen arise from this. Dave, you're muted.

00:12:18.280 have i mentioned i really hate 2020 um the conspiracy theories run the gamut as you know

00:12:30.840 derek i think part of the problem was that it started in china and nobody trusts anything

00:12:36.280 that comes out of uh of communist china and probably with good reason and you know all

00:12:42.520 boiling down to a lot of people just don't believe the pandemic is real they don't believe in 0.86

00:12:47.160 vaccinations they don't believe in in uh in government control uh you see it to this day

00:12:54.440 with weekly marches in major cities in western canada with uh people that are protesting the

00:13:01.000 restrictions uh people that are protesting the anti uh or the the mask mandatory mask bylaws

00:13:08.360 you know it goes out all the way out onto the wacky end of the scale too with people worried

00:13:13.080 about, you know, it's the 5G network coming in, and if you get a vaccination needle, you're going

00:13:20.880 to get, you know, some sort of listening device or something implanted in your brain. And I think

00:13:29.020 another part of the problem is just the backtracking that our supposed experts have given

00:13:35.720 us at the very beginning of this pandemic. Wear a mask. Don't wear a mask. No,

00:13:42.580 wear a mask of three you know three layers you know lockdowns are good no

00:13:46.600 known lockdowns are bad no you know lockdowns don't cure a thing so people

00:13:51.340 are confused I think they're still confused to this day really just what

00:13:56.020 some governments are aiming for and and and what some government's actual

00:14:01.460 pathway is to to a normalcy returning to our lives

00:14:07.920 Corey just wrap up the COVID I'm so sick of talking about COVID but just can't

00:14:14.820 stop it drives me nuts we'll wrap it up maybe with comment from you on this as

00:14:21.740 involves conspiracy theories you know I you've written a bit on it you know when

00:14:28.520 we see you know these freedom marches against lockdowns against mandatory

00:14:32.880 masks because you know I think it'd be very unfair to say most of those people

00:14:39.120 are conspiracy theorists I think probably most just don't want the

00:14:43.140 government telling them what you can do in the privacy your own home and things

00:14:45.640 like that pretty you don't have to be a radical anarcho-libertarian to think

00:14:50.460 that but certainly the conspiracy theorists will come out in front of

00:14:54.900 attach themselves to it how damaging do you think to the anti lockdown movement

00:15:00.400 the attachment of these conspiracy groups have been to it they've been

00:15:06.960 terrible to it I did attend two of the marches and again as you said most of

00:15:11.680 the people are just concerned and they're rational they're definitely in

00:15:14.260 the majority that the ones who go to these things but the the more out there

00:15:18.620 a person is the more vocal they always are we know that from political

00:15:22.200 organizations in the past as well and a lot of people came down to these these

00:15:27.020 protests and marches they were curiosity seekers they were interested they walked around the

00:15:31.420 periphery and then they would have somebody approach them and talk about lizard people

00:15:34.780 or uh you know bill gates implanting microchips into them with vaccines and then they walk away

00:15:39.420 and they just don't come back so it has harmed that but and i've also you know saw the the

00:15:45.260 turnout declining at these i think that's going to turn around this year though and it's going to

00:15:50.140 change because i i do believe and hope that the vaccine is going to help start turning this around

00:15:56.460 We're going to see this thing starting to move into our rear view mirror, but we aren't going

00:16:00.400 to see the state easily easing on restrictions. And that's when your average person is going to

00:16:04.820 get up and say, you know what, I've had enough. You know, back off, get out of my life. I'm coming

00:16:09.920 out and I'm going to speak up for it. But we'll see more of that, I think, later in 2021.

00:16:15.600 Just following up a bit on what Corey said, Derek, I think people are now, they're fed up.

00:16:21.360 They've reached the end of their patients.

00:16:23.720 And you look at what's happening just in Calgary in the last couple of weeks where you've got, you know, police and bylaw officers descending on neighborhood community rinks because young adults and kids are skating and a neighborhood Karen has snitched on them.

00:16:40.480 That type of thing, unless we start seeing some reductions pretty quickly in government control,

00:16:48.480 those sort of things are going to grow and grow and grow and get more problematic for the authorities.

00:16:54.900 Indeed.

00:16:55.800 Okay, well, let's also deal with bad news in the West.

00:16:59.660 This year we saw John Horgan dissolve his own government,

00:17:03.940 break his written agreement with the Green Party in effective coalition with him,

00:17:08.760 and call an early election, breaking the fixed election laws there.

00:17:14.080 And he was wholesomely rewarded for it, reelected with a very large majority government.

00:17:20.220 The Liberal leader can't remember his name, wasn't there very long.

00:17:24.060 He is gone.

00:17:25.660 The Liberals ran, I think, a very underwhelming campaign.

00:17:29.080 I mean, they essentially just made themselves about five degrees to the right relative to the NDP and thought that'd be enough.

00:17:43.220 I'm not sure if there really was a good path to victory for them here, but they got slaughtered.

00:17:47.760 They lost seats.

00:17:50.280 They had a couple of semi-okay commitments in their platform, like ending the ICBC's monopoly on car insurance.

00:17:59.080 It was news to me. I don't know how the hell people in B.C. live with a government monopoly on auto insurance.

00:18:11.360 Seems pretty strange to me, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.

00:18:15.840 Dave, why don't you tell us, really, what was the defining issue of the B.C. election campaign in your mind, sitting from where you are in Red Vancouver?

00:18:34.720 Well, I spent a lot of time out in Vancouver, an area during the campaign.

00:18:40.540 And to be honest, Derek, there were no issues.

00:18:44.600 there were no, you know, screaming platforms. I guess it was mainly because nobody, you know,

00:18:52.600 you couldn't attend any meetings, you couldn't go knocking door to door. But the populace as a whole

00:18:58.600 seemed fairly happy with what Premier Horgan's been doing. Wilkinson was the name of the liberal

00:19:06.040 leader whose name escaped you at the moment. But, you know, he certainly didn't light the world on

00:19:11.160 fire and he's now resigned to the ash pit of history. I think it's very much like on the

00:19:22.040 federal front with Prime Minister Trudeau. People are happy because they're getting free money.

00:19:29.800 My parents each got 500 bucks this week from the Horgan government for doing nothing other

00:19:34.760 than being BC residents. My son studying in Vancouver, he got the same $500, and all he

00:19:42.600 was was just a BC resident. So, you know, as any political party gives money away, they

00:19:50.780 seem to keep the electorate on their side, that's for sure. No doubt he took a gamble

00:19:55.540 by calling the election during a pandemic, but it paid off in spades for him.

00:20:01.520 Yeah, Corey, do you think there was any path to victory for the BC Liberals here?

00:20:12.100 They obviously completely blew it.

00:20:14.820 There does seem to be, you know, we had a Nova, I think it was a Nova Scotia election

00:20:18.800 called early, you know, we'll get to Saskatchewan, but we know the government there was reelected.

00:20:26.120 John Horven was reelected.

00:20:27.420 most provinces outside of Alberta, incumbent governments have seen their popularities go up

00:20:32.940 during the pandemic. You know, in times of crisis, be it war or something like that,

00:20:37.740 people tend to rally around the strong leader, the strong man. They want a paternalistic figure

00:20:44.540 when they're afraid. Do you think there was any path to victory for the BC Liberals here?

00:20:50.220 No, you know, they really weren't that strong going in. Of course, that's what encouraged

00:20:57.060 Oregon to take the chance and pull the pin early. They just weren't engaging people. They weren't

00:21:01.840 setting them on fire. They couldn't define themselves with any issues except to say we're

00:21:06.140 a little less NDP than the NDP. The closest it came was, I think, they went after ICBC,

00:21:13.120 which is a big issue in BC, but not enough to take down an incumbent government in the midst

00:21:18.940 of a crisis at a time like that. So no, I don't think they ever had a hope. Their leader just

00:21:24.360 didn't get people excited or engaged, and they were spinning their wheels. Horgan made a political

00:21:30.980 play, and he won big. Fair enough. Well, let's go also next door, but to our east in Saskatchewan,

00:21:43.100 Scott Moe's Saskatchewan party re-elected with a large majority government. I think the seat count

00:21:48.120 was more or less status quo. I don't think he picked up much or lost much. I think the total

00:21:55.740 count maybe switched one or two seats. The big story there, though, and we'll get into it

00:22:01.200 in the next segment on the rise of the independence movement, but the big story in B.C., most would

00:22:06.880 agree, was the rise of the Buffalo Party, I think fair to say a moderate sovereignness party that

00:22:13.480 came out of the Wexit movement, making a pretty big impact.

00:22:18.760 Maybe we'll go to Corey for that in a second.

00:22:20.580 But Dave, why don't you tell us generally, what was the Saskatchewan campaign about?

00:22:25.860 What were the big issues that were at stake?

00:22:29.080 Again, it was all about Premier Moe's handling of the COVID virus pandemic within the province.

00:22:37.240 The interesting thing that happened in Saskatchewan that wasn't available in BC

00:22:41.360 was the separatist Buffalo Party, and that gave the election an added bit of flavor.

00:22:48.900 And they ended up doing pretty well.

00:22:51.160 They actually finished second, Derek, I think, in several writings and, you know, put themselves

00:22:58.140 on the map.

00:22:59.880 They certainly did better for themselves than the NDP did, who under their leader, Mealy,

00:23:06.620 or Mealy, we always get it wrong, don't we?

00:23:08.620 But they've put themselves on the political map in Saskatchewan now, and moving forward, they've got their election that they can point to as this was the turning point.

00:23:21.600 Well, the Saskatchewan NDP can claim for the first time in, I'm not sure if it's three or four elections, that their leader didn't lose their seat in the general election.

00:23:31.600 They've had a very bad curse.

00:23:33.340 I think it was twice in a row they lost it.

00:23:35.560 I think the third time they avoided the NDP.

00:23:37.800 the Saskatchewan NDP hat trick of losing their leader three elections in a row uh so that was

00:23:43.700 the only real upside there uh for them uh but I think without a doubt the uh the big story was

00:23:49.900 the Buffalo party I think they ran in roughly 15 17 ridings uh a relatively small minority

00:23:56.560 of constituencies but they um they came in third in the overall vote total uh the Green Party ran

00:24:04.100 in every single constituency and still got less votes than the Buffalo Party.

00:24:10.660 Buffalo Party ranked fourth in a couple of ridings.

00:24:14.260 They didn't come close to winning anywhere, but the party was only a few months old.

00:24:18.020 It had an interim leader, not a permanent leader.

00:24:19.780 It didn't have its first policy convention or anything and was ignored by virtually every

00:24:25.360 other media outlet in the province except for the Western Standard until Election Day

00:24:29.780 itself when it finally proved that, yeah, this is a real thing.

00:24:32.620 um i think the saskatchewan saskatoon star phoenix just did a profile on it the other day

00:24:38.460 admitting that this is a real entity it um the summation of its article was that the threat to

00:24:45.420 the saskatchewan party doesn't come from the ndp on the left but it comes from uh the buffalo party

00:24:50.720 to its right uh a similar phenomenon that i think exists in alberta today uh cory do you think the

00:24:58.260 Saskatchewan party, sorry, the Buffalo party made a big enough impact in Saskatchewan that it's going

00:25:03.760 to be able to contend for seats in another four years? Or do you think it, do you think it has a

00:25:11.140 staying power to actually start to make a move for seats and potentially power at some point? Or is

00:25:15.540 this a flash in the pan? Well, four years is forever in politics, especially in something

00:25:22.500 like, you know, independence parties. But I mean, there's no doubt they made an impressive showing

00:25:27.960 of themselves. They've established themselves as a potential player. I know from past elections when

00:25:34.420 I was with the Wild Rose Party and then Alberta Alliance even before it though, your hardest times

00:25:38.620 are actually those first two years after an election because people are tired, the excitement's

00:25:43.180 kind of gone, your run-of-the-mill members really aren't quite as engaged and interested in taking

00:25:48.060 part. There's not events happening so we'll see if they can organize and take advantage of that

00:25:52.380 strong showing and build an ongoing base. It will be tough. A lot's going to depend on events though

00:25:57.760 coming out in the next few years too. And I think there's going to be a lot of good recipes for

00:26:01.840 independence parties across the West in the next couple years with this economic nightmare we've

00:26:08.460 got looming on us. And if they play their cards right, I think they're very much going to be the

00:26:12.840 second party in the next election. Interesting. Well, I think that's a great segue. I can get a

00:26:22.420 better segue into our next segment about the rise of the independence movement. The independence

00:26:27.540 movement, I think, has been ticking upwards from the extreme margins increasingly towards

00:26:36.280 the center stage of politics in Alberta and increasingly Saskatchewan. 2020 in Alberta

00:26:46.080 saw the unification of the party I used to lead, the Freedom Conservative Party and Wexit

00:26:51.880 Alberta, the two of the largest independence groups in the province. They seem to have come

00:26:58.800 to some sort of fusion between the extreme, let's just separate tomorrow and doesn't matter if we

00:27:07.200 win the referendum or not, we don't have to put in any places to be actually ready for nationhood,

00:27:12.120 go right for it. The kind of real simplistic slogan airing and, you know, a firewall is,

00:27:19.200 a, you know, a strong firewall plus on the other side, which you saw with kind of the earlier side

00:27:23.740 of the Freedom Conservative Party, which I suppose I had something to do with. I think they've kind

00:27:29.460 of synthesized into something similar to the Buffalo Party, a moderate sovereignty, a sovereign

00:27:35.580 party that wants to move towards independence, but wants to put in place some of the building

00:27:41.040 blocks of Nationhood First, wants what you'd call, what Lucien Bouchard in Quebec called winning

00:27:45.440 conditions that you shouldn't just hold a referendum for the sake of holding one, because

00:27:50.620 you have to sit your cause back.

00:27:53.360 They've achieved, so we'll focus first, we've already talked about Saskatchewan, we'll talk

00:27:59.220 now about Alberta, and then we'll also talk federally with Wexit slash Maverick there.

00:28:04.160 The party managed to, I think, gain in itself a credible leader in Paul Hinman, the first

00:28:10.820 leader of the original Wild Rose Party, who stepped aside when Danielle Smith came onto

00:28:15.680 the scene around 2009. Dave, tell us really what has the, you can answer this in terms

00:28:25.500 of the movement, the independence movement in Alberta, or the more party side with the

00:28:30.720 Wild Rose Independence Party. Do you think it's managed to get much traction this year

00:28:35.540 and enough profile?

00:28:39.820 Well, I think for both the Wild Rose Independence Party

00:28:43.300 and for Maverick on the federal stage,

00:28:46.340 the pandemic has just come at the worst possible time for them.

00:28:51.280 In the last week, I've spoken to Jay Hill of the Maverick Party

00:28:54.080 and Paul Hinman of the Wild Rose,

00:28:57.320 and both of them say they're just so frustrated

00:28:59.440 by the fact that they can't hold public rallies.

00:29:02.260 They can't hold leaders' dinners or luncheons

00:29:05.260 And, you know, as you know, Derek, that's the way parties get off the ground, the grassroots, grassroots parties get off the ground.

00:29:14.160 Part of the problem in Alberta is that, as we're going to talk about, Premier Kenney is in political freefall.

00:29:21.320 And there's all sorts of polls showing the NDP is now leading the UCP in both Calgary and Edmonton and closing in in the rural gaps.

00:29:31.320 But none of these pollsters talk about specifically the Wild Rose Independence Party.

00:29:37.180 They're all sort of meshed in with all the others, which I think are hovering about 8% in most of the polls.

00:29:46.080 Talking with him, and he says his goal this year is to double the number of Wild Rose members in the province.

00:29:52.660 They currently have 5,800.

00:29:56.800 So he wants to get that into, you know, more than 10,000 plus.

00:30:00.720 And the person that's going to help him the most, he says, is Prime Minister Trudeau.

00:30:05.720 Every time it seems Trudeau opens his mouth, he's doing something to upset the West and further the flames of independence.

00:30:14.380 So he's predicting a spring election.

00:30:17.480 And if Trudeau maintains the support that he's got now and becomes a majority, that'll even do more for his party's fortunes in the future.

00:30:28.180 Yeah, I think it's—I have noticed this in the polls. It's quite strange. We—and I think

00:30:39.380 some point in June, we commissioned an independent poll. We hired Northwest Research.

00:30:44.340 Wild Rose Independence Party wasn't even a real thing yet. They hadn't concluded the merger to

00:30:48.980 create the new party, but we put out a poll saying, you know, that, well, these guys are

00:30:53.780 holding a referendum. If they do merge, who are you going to vote for? And we gave essentially

00:30:57.540 all of the options in Alberta of any significance whatsoever, even down to the Green Party.

00:31:05.060 We didn't put the Pro-Life Association in there, we didn't put the Animal Rights Alliance in there,

00:31:12.500 but we did put in virtually anyone of any consequence. And in that, WIP was third place

00:31:21.140 with uh i think 10 or 11 support uh the tories were still in the lead the ndp uh were where they

00:31:28.180 were uh at the point of the last election but the tories had bled about 10 all of it to the wip

00:31:34.260 um but since then it's funny i i've seen not a single poll out there um that asks people about

00:31:42.500 them they're just lumped in with other and that actually brings down the other side because if

00:31:45.780 you're the option you want to vote for isn't on there well you there's a good chance if you're

00:31:50.020 asked by a pollster you're just going to pick your second choice so you know if you're a new if you're

00:31:55.460 an alberta liberal supporter and it's not an option well you might not say other you might

00:31:59.460 just say well fine ndp that's the next closest so i'm going to go ndp or as i said if you're wip

00:32:05.060 and it's not an option you might just say ucp but uh you know i i saw the university of alberta put

00:32:10.580 out a study uh about a week or two ago uh saying the tories have shed a tremendous amount of support

00:32:18.340 all of it going to almost all of it going to WIP, but then they showed their poll and it had just

00:32:24.100 other. And other in all the polls in Alberta is the number of third party in Alberta. So you have

00:32:30.180 UCP mostly at the top or almost tied with the NDP depending on the polls, but you see UCP, NDP,

00:32:36.900 and then a huge other, and then Alberta party, Liberals, etc. You can't account for every

00:32:46.180 single party in every poll which is why you have another option but when other is about five percent

00:32:52.580 in canadian politics when other is the third party it kind of behooves a pollster to ask

00:32:59.060 who the hell is this other uh cory why do you think it is the pollsters and uh the government

00:33:06.580 subsidized media outlets are not picking up on this at all well there's a couple of reasons

00:33:14.020 They can't avoid it forever though. Part of it is with Paul Hidman now on board, once they get an

00:33:20.820 actual leader, I mean we know too if you want to report on something, it'd be nice to get a quote

00:33:24.180 from a known name, you don't have a face there. It's a movement still and so it doesn't encourage

00:33:30.900 them to dig a little deeper on this. The thing that they're in danger of doing though with Paul,

00:33:35.780 and I know from working with him, is he's a tireless ground worker. You could find somebody

00:33:40.980 more experienced in the province in building parties from the ground up than Paul and, you

00:33:47.100 know, hardworking and door knocking and speaking to people. I mean, people say he lacks charisma

00:33:52.000 and, you know, lighting the world on fire. But, you know, right now, that's not what they need.

00:33:55.200 They need solid organizational leadership. And he's the person. In looking ahead, as David said,

00:34:01.960 too, we're probably, I feel, going to have a federal election this year. And it is probably

00:34:08.360 going to put the liberals back in. And if you think last year's flare up of independent support

00:34:13.720 was strong, just wait until the liberals get in yet again, because people, we got hard economic

00:34:19.440 times coming. Alberta, after decades of paying in and paying in, we're seeing that we're really not

00:34:25.540 getting a hell of a lot back and we're not going to. There's going to be a strong surgence and

00:34:31.940 they can, the media can't avoid that party any longer. Yeah, sorry, we're having a hard time

00:34:37.660 with your camera. Corey's actually out of Pritis, Alberta today, just south of Calgary, and his

00:34:43.960 internet connection there is not the best. So you might have a little problem with him

00:34:49.800 freezing from time to time. But we did hear you the whole time, Corey. You know, the pollsters

00:34:56.420 right now should be taking lessons from Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan, where the independence movement

00:35:00.160 is significantly less developed, where it tends to have a lot, you know, while there's certainly

00:35:06.240 is support. There is less support for it than in Alberta, and it is less organized than it is in

00:35:12.280 Alberta. The party came in third, and it was just a few months old, and you've got stuff like the WIP

00:35:18.580 or the Maverick party. Again, no one's ever pulled Wexit federally. Wexit slash Maverick, whatever the

00:35:24.540 hell we're calling it now. No one's ever pulled that, but the main independence party in Saskatchewan

00:35:30.700 came in third place with just a few months.

00:35:34.560 Federally, Maverick is going to be over a year old

00:35:37.020 when it goes into its first federal election, likely.

00:35:39.620 The WIP will be probably three years, roughly,

00:35:43.500 old when it goes into its first federal provincial election.

00:35:47.600 These are going to be much more well-organized

00:35:49.400 than the Buffalo Party was in its.

00:35:51.920 Yet no one polled the Buffalo Party in Saskatchewan.

00:35:54.620 Everyone ignored it in the media, except for us, essentially.

00:35:57.340 And the media are making the same mistake here in Alberta, where that movement is significantly more advanced and organized.

00:36:05.060 Not that it's particularly well organized, but it certainly is further along down that road.

00:36:10.540 Dave, why do you think the media is ignoring this?

00:36:14.800 They know that there is a movement there, but why are they ignoring these parties in polls and in media coverage largely?

00:36:22.500 I think, Derek, it's because they don't like to be wrong.

00:36:26.660 they don't you know they're producing their media for mainly the left the the you know most of the

00:36:34.820 the media organizations the cbc the post media toronto star they're producing their content for

00:36:41.700 left-wing readers and for them to start taking note of the independence parties going out west

00:36:47.940 would have to you know admit that their fearless leaders in in trudeau and and uh and whatnot are

00:36:56.020 are wrong and they're hey you know there's a huge part of the percentage or a huge percentage of the

00:37:01.780 population and it's growing but trudeau and for the media to to do that i just i just don't think

00:37:08.900 they will um you know especially the the toronto stars of the world it's uh you know i think um

00:37:15.700 Corey hit the nail on the head about Paul Hinman. In this day and age, you don't want a fiery speaker

00:37:23.200 because you can't hold mass rallies. You can't hold a saddle don't full of people.

00:37:28.280 What you need is somebody on the ground building it up, building it up, building it up,

00:37:31.600 slowly but surely, constituency by constituency, so that perhaps not this next election when I

00:37:39.280 agree with Corey that Trudeau is going to get back in with the majority, but the next election.

00:37:43.540 And holy cow, they'll have four full years of hopefully mostly COVID-free time to, you know, to become a force and then become a force that the media cannot ignore anymore.

00:38:00.260 Well, let's talk about, we're going to keep with this topic, but we'll like, we'll maybe parlay it into 2021.

00:38:06.860 one. Corey, what do you think is going to happen with this movement and the various parties around

00:38:12.200 it in the new year? Federally, we'll probably have a federal election. We can see how the

00:38:19.100 Maverick Party slash Wexit fares there. I'd be less hopeful about them than maybe provincially

00:38:26.920 with WIP, but they do have a credible interim leader in Jay Hill, although he said repeatedly

00:38:32.700 he's not going to seek the top job, but they still haven't had a leadership convention. They

00:38:36.600 haven't had a policy convention yet. All that stuff is extraordinarily difficult when it's

00:38:40.800 illegal, but there are ways to do it online. What do you think, both for the WIP in Alberta

00:38:47.960 and Maverick federally, what do you think 2021 pretends for them?

00:38:53.580 Well, I mean, again, I do believe there's going to be a federal election coming, so that'll give

00:38:58.400 the Maverick party a chance to show what they've got, if they've got anything behind them and to

00:39:04.040 them. I see they recently announced, it might sound familiar, they're only going to run in

00:39:08.480 very strongly conservative ridings in the West, where it was overwhelmingly won by a conservative, 0.94

00:39:13.840 so people don't fear putting a liberal or a dipper into their seat by casting a ballot for them. 0.97

00:39:19.020 I don't know, though, if they have it together enough to really make a splash or an impact, 0.99

00:39:24.000 which wouldn't be detrimental to the Wildrose Independence Party, because it's just, it'll be

00:39:28.880 another bellwether to look at, and it won't even necessarily be a fair comparison of the provincial

00:39:33.780 movement. So, I mean, it'll impact the provincial movement a bit, but again, if Trudeau, the best

00:39:39.500 friend for the independence movement is another Trudeau government. Indeed. Okay, well, let's,

00:39:47.640 again, these are easy segues to make. I think we planned it very well today. This brings us to,

00:39:55.120 I think, one of the biggest stories in Alberta and out of the West is the complete nose diving in

00:40:00.700 the polls of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party. They went from one of

00:40:07.420 the biggest electoral triumphs in Alberta's history, and there's been some pretty big ones,

00:40:13.020 but it was certainly up there, I think roughly 55%, 54, 55% of the vote in 2019, massive majority

00:40:20.800 government. They squeezed out all the small parties, my own included, set up a nice clean

00:40:27.200 two-party system with the NDP. Since then, their polls have continued to drop and drop and drop.

00:40:35.440 The poll we did in June had them down to roughly 44%, so down 10, 11% from the election,

00:40:43.600 but still in pretty comfortable majority territory, but bleeding 10% to the Wild Rose

00:40:48.400 Independence Party. The NDP was essentially where it was at the last election, hadn't moved.

00:40:54.480 But since then, we've seen some other polls.

00:40:56.980 I have a hard time putting much in these polls, though, on the party horse races, as we've discussed.

00:41:03.940 When third place is other, they should probably ask who the hell the other is.

00:41:10.120 So I think the other actually is probably much larger than it's showing up in most polls produced into the mainstream media.

00:41:18.080 But nonetheless, we've seen the approval ratings of the UCP come crashing down.

00:41:23.600 uh close to levels with the ndp and we've seen the personal approval ratings of jason kenney

00:41:27.760 come down significantly uh dave what what do you think is really driving this in alberta

00:41:34.640 uh to make kenny uh almost alone among the premiers in canada see his approval ratings go down

00:41:41.520 while uh the other premiers have seen theirs go up well if you remember when rachel notley came 0.66

00:41:47.280 to power she was handed the uh the pleasure of record low oil prices and that hampered her

00:41:52.720 government from day one kenny's got the same problem but it's with the covet 19 pandemic

00:41:59.120 and the the theory on the average alberton is that he hasn't handled it very well

00:42:05.040 the new this week showed that only 30 percent of albert is approved of the job he's doing 30

00:42:10.960 he was tied dead last with brian pallister of manitoba and he's part of the problem was

00:42:19.280 before the pandemic he was battling with doctors and he was battling with nurses and he was

00:42:24.560 battling with teachers and then the the pandemic came and the request hey come on guys we all have

00:42:30.400 to work together we're all in this together i don't think people have been happy with his

00:42:36.400 pandemic performance um the friends that i've got many many friends who are ucp supporters and

00:42:44.240 and voted for kenny to a man have said they've been disappointed they they thought they would

00:42:51.040 they had voted for a man of action and uh and we certainly haven't seen that at the moment

00:42:57.360 um perhaps now is not the time that he could have taken on the big unions and

00:43:02.080 and tried to bring them to their knees so very very difficult to do when uh when a pandemic is

00:43:06.960 going on and you need all the nurses and and doctors that you can he's quietly been working

00:43:12.560 behind the scenes uh to get a doctor's deal done uh when that happens that would hopefully take a

00:43:19.120 lot of the pressure off but the average ucp supporter is just not happy with the performance

00:43:24.880 of the man that they elected yeah when you have 30 approval rating and you got 55 of the vote

00:43:31.840 that means nearly one nearly one in two people who voted for you don't approve of the job you're

00:43:37.440 doing and normally approval ratings are higher than the normal the number of people who would

00:43:41.600 vote for you generally if you have 40% people saying they'll vote for you

00:43:45.560 there's a good chance you've got 50 or 60% saying they approve of you but they

00:43:49.820 still prefer someone else so when you've got half of the approval of the number

00:43:54.140 of votes you got that is that that is that's red alert that is a terrible

00:44:00.200 situation for a government to be in 30% approval that is it's not quite

00:44:06.060 Alison Redford but Alison Redford was not we're gonna have to pull up some

00:44:10.600 numbers here but I think I'm not sure how low she got but it was somewhere I

00:44:14.680 think into the lower 20s some of this might be just a temporary though I mean

00:44:19.220 Kenny's got another two years and change ahead of them that's a lot of time to

00:44:23.620 change the channel I mean anger goes away and the channel might change but you

00:44:32.440 know a lot of the media I think are assuming that anyone who's upset with

00:44:35.740 Kenny is upset from their point of view so you know most reporters in the media

00:44:40.980 are gonna be to the left of Kenny they don't think there is anything to the

00:44:44.700 right of Kenny anything after that is here be dragons but they think that if

00:44:49.560 people are disapproving of Kenny it must be because they agree with something to

00:44:53.680 the leftward spectrum of where Kenny is and I think yeah certainly there are a

00:44:58.060 lot of those people but I think the real danger has been his own core base

00:45:02.620 completely collapsing on it's it's been people who voted for him who are displeased with how

00:45:10.540 he's handling the pandemic but not because he didn't bring in lockdowns harder and faster

00:45:14.980 but because he brought them in and caved to pressure to do it things like that people who

00:45:19.880 aren't upset that he's going to hold a referendum on equalization they're upset that he hasn't held

00:45:24.400 it yet they're upset that he hasn't moved on a lot of these fair deal or firewall items

00:45:29.240 you know I'm astounded by the number of people who voted for him thinking he was a closet

00:45:34.460 sovereignist you know people project what they want onto a leader but this is the difference

00:45:39.860 between being an opposition being in government in government you actually have to deliver on

00:45:44.020 these things and it's often a lot more difficult to execute than to promise be it on sovereignty

00:45:51.400 be it on liberties around COVID, be it around balancing the budget.

00:45:57.600 Corey, what do you think has been really driving the nosedive in the polls for Kenny and the UCP?

00:46:05.420 Yeah, well, he can't seem to find his feet and win.

00:46:08.600 I believe he's surprising out of Kenny because he's a very experienced politician,

00:46:13.560 but he's trying to be everything to everybody, and he's just pissing off everybody.

00:46:18.300 The NDP aren't gaining anything out of this.

00:46:20.780 They've been sitting at a flat line, I think, 38 percent level or so since the election.

00:46:26.460 Kenny's bleeding to the right. And as you said, a lot of it's coming. I mean, he campaigned on

00:46:30.980 the Alberta agenda and, you know, getting those things going. And it seemed like pulling teeth

00:46:35.760 to get the outcome of that, that those hearings around the province and what they concluded. And

00:46:41.380 then, you know, it was conclusively decided that we Albertans wanted to see a provincial police

00:46:46.740 force. So when you say, well, we're going to strike another study and have a look at it yet

00:46:49.720 But again, well, at some point, you've got to pull the double-edged trigger.

00:46:53.160 And I think a lot of members do, again, see Ottawa as a big threat.

00:46:57.220 Kenny can't take a separatist stance.

00:46:59.020 I understand that.

00:46:59.720 That's not what he campaigned on.

00:47:01.060 But he's got to show some sort of way to push back against Ottawa effectively

00:47:06.160 or people are going to go to the independence option.

00:47:09.320 It's the only one left for them.

00:47:10.340 So he's going to have to figure out where he's coming from and soon

00:47:13.220 because he's going to keep bleeding for two more years.

00:47:15.920 The old joke, Derek, going around is that the only way Kenny is battling unemployment at the moment is by creating another UCP panel.

00:47:24.980 I'm sure he's set all sorts of legislature records for the number of panels he's created in 2020.

00:47:33.260 And I think that, you know, Corey hinted on that.

00:47:36.400 People don't want any more panels.

00:47:38.260 They want to see action.

00:47:39.600 And they want action yesterday.

00:47:41.400 So enough with the panels.

00:47:43.020 That should be Jason Kenney's 2021 New Year's resolutions.

00:47:47.000 I, Premier Kenney, will not strike another panel on anything.

00:47:51.220 It has gone quite strange.

00:47:53.340 I mean, like, there's nothing wrong with bringing an outside expertise and some level of panels to inform your really big decisions, especially if you don't have an electoral mandate for these things.

00:48:03.740 I think there's some merit in it.

00:48:06.380 But it has gotten to a farcical level now.

00:48:08.800 So, I mean, every recommendation from the Fair Deal panel now has essentially its own individual panels looking at, most of which are doing nothing.

00:48:16.780 They're just, they're a nice announcement for the government to make, give the appearance of doing something.

00:48:22.180 But I think people are genuinely frustrated by it now.

00:48:26.740 Well, let's turn now, and we'd like, you know, we'll solicit ideas in the comments section from those watching.

00:48:35.420 What are the most underreported, what's the most underreported story of the year?

00:48:40.240 No one say COVID.

00:48:42.160 Anyone says COVID, I'm going to block you from our channels.

00:48:45.640 I'm going to give back your Western Standard membership and refund it.

00:48:49.840 Please don't say COVID.

00:48:51.540 I don't think anybody will.

00:48:52.460 I think we got smarter viewers than that.

00:48:54.060 I don't know about you two, but I don't think any of our viewers are going to say COVID was the underreported story of the year.

00:49:00.320 But because we've had this one massive domineering story, I think a lot of things have fallen

00:49:07.680 by the wayside. So we'll start with you, Corey. What do you think is the most underreported story

00:49:13.600 of 2020? You've caught me at a total loss here. I didn't see that one coming. We were definitely

00:49:21.040 in agreement that COVID was overreported and it overwhelmed just about everything else.

00:49:26.640 else, so we didn't hear much about it. To try and stick to an under-reported, I'm drawing

00:49:35.900 it here.

00:49:36.900 I'll give mine then. A 500% increase in the carbon tax. And the mainstream media

00:49:42.920 just couldn't give a shit. There was just nothing on it. I mean, this is a total, complete 0.99

00:49:51.120 break of the promise of Prime Minister Trudeau and then Environment and Climate Change Minister

00:49:58.000 Catherine McKenna, you know, saying that, no, no, it's not going to go above $50 a ton. We all

00:50:03.600 knew that's bullshit because a $50 ton carbon tax doesn't do anything. If you actually want a carbon 0.99

00:50:08.080 tax to do something, it's got to get at least north of $300 per ton. And at that point, it's

00:50:15.600 now a very oppressive tax. This is not a token feel good virtue signaling thing. This is now

00:50:20.960 a massive new tax on everything you do. And the most proponents, I should say, of the carbon tax

00:50:28.560 have not been intellectually honest about this. They're saying, oh, this will save the world,

00:50:32.720 and it won't cost you much. No, it's going to be one or the other. It's either going to save the

00:50:35.760 world according to your beliefs, and it's going to cost you a lot, or it's not going to save the

00:50:41.920 world, and it's not going to cost you a lot. There's really only two there. So we saw Trudeau

00:50:48.160 break this very keystone promise, and we saw virtually nothing. The day after this happened,

00:50:57.280 the press gallery in Ottawa didn't ask any questions about it. They wouldn't take questions

00:51:01.520 from the reporters who would. Our reporters, or say Brian Lilly from The Sun, he talked about this.

00:51:07.280 You know, there are good reporters out there who are not at the Western Standard. And even in the

00:51:11.760 mainstream media, there are still a few good journalists left. But of all the journalists

00:51:17.120 who were called upon to ask questions the day after this happened. Not a single question about

00:51:23.160 this. I think I'm going to give myself, I haven't heard you, Dave, but I don't know if you could

00:51:31.900 top it for a more underreported story of 2020. Well, I've got just one final bit of sad breaking

00:51:38.980 news on COVID for 2020. Dawn Wells, who you remember played the lovely Mary Ann TMZ, has

00:51:46.780 just reported that she's died from COVID. Very sad news. I always preferred Mary Ann to Ginger.

00:51:54.200 I don't know about you guys, but a big loss out of my childhood. I'm not going to say it's the

00:52:00.200 most underreported story because we did get a lot of coverage on it, but then all of a sudden it

00:52:05.880 stopped. And that's the We Scandal. And it was stopped because of Trudeau prorogued parliament.

00:52:12.140 And I think we were just starting to get to the root of the corruption in behind the We Scandal.

00:52:20.260 And the Trudeau family, you know, it's been revealed that the family, I think last I figure

00:52:25.080 I heard was more than $700,000 in speaking fees and travel benefits and whatnot. And I think that

00:52:33.420 was just the tip of the iceberg. And because Trudeau prorogued Parliament, the story seems

00:52:39.860 to have gone away, just as I think it was getting to a point where it could have brought

00:52:45.040 down the government. So for me, as I said, it wasn't underreported, but I thought there's

00:52:50.040 a lot more tentacles to dig out.

00:52:54.620 Well, we can certainly thank Jay Mead Singh and the NDP for, you know, they didn't just

00:52:59.720 prop up the Liberals on confidence votes. They prop them up specifically on a confidence vote

00:53:04.340 about the Lee scandal. Certainly should have been a humiliating moment for them, especially when

00:53:09.480 the NDP's only justification for its existence right now is that, yeah, we're pretty much the

00:53:14.800 same as the Liberals, but we're not corrupt. Well, I'm not sure if you even have that anymore,

00:53:19.980 at the very least for your own political reasons, because you didn't have the money for an election

00:53:23.680 willing to prop them up. So I get it. The NDP didn't want an election. They just didn't have

00:53:29.100 money for it. But their excuse that it was no time for an election didn't make sense because

00:53:34.460 Jagmeet Singh's premier in BC, John Horgan, called an early election, and he already had a stable

00:53:40.780 government in a coalition with the Greens. So all of their excuses, I think, weren't really,

00:53:47.020 they obviously didn't hold much water. But I think the the NDP is one leg to stand on. Well,

00:53:52.140 why you should vote NDP? Well, we're like liberals, but not corrupt. I don't even think

00:53:55.980 they really have that anymore. But certainly some of our viewers have been mentioning the

00:54:01.580 We Scandal as the most unreported story of the year. I think that is probably a pretty good one. 1.00

00:54:06.220 Although that one I blame less on media than on the government itself. The carbon tax, the media

00:54:11.580 just ignored it. They didn't want to talk about it. It's just going to piss people off. We should

00:54:15.660 be talking about it's progressive and it's good for people anyway. So we shouldn't be talking

00:54:20.220 about it because people get pissed off. The We Scandal, the media, at least most of it, were

00:54:25.100 talking about it and actually doing some pretty good in investigative journalism but uh the flow

00:54:30.940 of information just shut off because the liberals prorogued parliament and threatened uh to call an

00:54:35.980 election if uh any investigations continued and the ndp supported them in that so while i would

00:54:41.580 say that is very fairly one of the most underreported stories of the year uh i i don't

00:54:46.780 think that's that one in particular is necessarily the fault of the media i think that's the fault of

00:54:50.460 the government silencing the media. What else we got? Bridget Frostat says, how about the

00:55:01.000 silencing of separatist sentiment during the fair deal panels? Well, yeah, I mean, I attended

00:55:08.560 some of the fair deal panels as they came through Southern Alberta. People certainly did stand up

00:55:13.960 and speak about it. I don't think they were silenced. I think the huge number of people

00:55:20.820 who showed up, they were probably the largest plurality of any single group at these fair

00:55:24.720 deal panels, and none of their recommendations were in it. The panel just outright refused

00:55:32.060 to discuss it much. It explicitly rejected it. I think that was probably one of the big

00:55:36.820 reasons for you seeing UCP MLA Drew Barnes issue a dissenting report on the fair deal

00:55:42.960 panel um but of all that you know i'm not sure if any single group um if any single group um

00:55:51.360 had a majority at these fair deal panel meetings but i think the largest single one were probably

00:55:55.680 the sovereigntists from what i could see in the room at least uh quite clearly the largest

00:56:00.160 group in the room and they weren't necessarily there organized the way the the unions were

00:56:04.800 um but every one of their recommendations were just shut down i think because

00:56:09.120 while the panel is technically independent, it's not going to issue ideas that it knows will be

00:56:16.160 rejected by the government. And they knew that holding a vote on independence would clearly be

00:56:21.120 rejected by a federalist government in Alberta. So I think it's fairly big, but I'm not sure if

00:56:27.860 it's the biggest underreported story of the year. Yeah, we certainly did lots of coverage of Drew

00:56:32.460 Barnes is you know tabling his own paper especially you know he makes a good

00:56:38.960 argument we cannot say as somebody who wants to maybe go our own way if unless

00:56:45.960 you give a what we want not have the threat of separation there which is what

00:56:50.840 the Fair Deal panel said and what Drew Barnes was completely opposed to he wants

00:56:56.280 that threat on the table indeed okay well I guess there's a couple of other you

00:57:06.720 know there's a couple of other suggestions on here but I think the two

00:57:10.780 big ones of the year I think we'll I can fairly settle for would be the we

00:57:14.220 scandal and the carbon tax is the most under reported stories of the year well

00:57:19.560 gentlemen ladies and gentlemen thank you for your time I think we've had a good

00:57:25.320 discussion here our last of 2020 if you're a Western Standard member we

00:57:30.040 sincerely thank you for your support you've been incredible actually this

00:57:35.480 graphic here is now old already six million readers that was until the

00:57:39.560 beginning of December from October 2019 this December we're going to announce

00:57:45.960 the official numbers next week after the new year but this this month we believe

00:57:51.000 we've cracked 1.2 to 1.3 million readers, which would make Western Standard, we're going to do

00:57:57.260 official comparisons, but would make us one of the very biggest media outlets in Canada, not just in

00:58:03.000 the West, right across Canada. And we've done it without a penny of government subsidies. We thank

00:58:07.960 our members for their support. If you like what we do, and you're not yet a member, please go to

00:58:12.320 westernstandardonline.com. Click on the membership section for a few bucks a month. You can ensure

00:58:17.260 you have a genuinely independent western media outlet that refuses to take government subsidies

00:58:22.700 but thank you very much we hope you all have a good near new year dave corey thanks so much

00:58:28.060 for the fantastic work you guys have done this year uh it's been a real pleasure working with

00:58:31.980 you happy new year to you derek and corey you bet you too dave there happy new year's thanks for

00:58:38.780 watching guys

00:59:01.980 You

Western Standard - December 31, 2020

The Pipeline Goodbye 2020! We discuss the biggest stories out of the West this year.

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