Western Standard - The Pipeline： Is an Alberta police force off the table？

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.

00:00:23.760 Today is March 1st, 2023, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:29.040 I'm joined, as always, by Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Henniford. How are you, Nigel?

00:00:34.320 Hello again. I'm good.

00:00:36.000 And we've got the always sunny Western Standard Senior Alberta Columnist,

00:00:40.160 Corey Morgan. How are you, Corey?

00:00:41.440 I'm happy to the core of my being, as you can tell.

00:00:44.320 You come in, you illuminate the office with your presence when you come in, and that's great.

00:00:50.320 All right. We've got a good show today. We had no trouble coming up with topics for today.

00:00:55.040 sometimes for like I don't know that it was it's pretty unambiguous today so at our in our morning

00:01:02.000 news meeting today we had I hadn't seen it but on global global news yesterday Alberta finance

00:01:09.360 minister Travis Tabes said that an Alberta independent Alberta police force was off the

00:01:14.800 table no Alberta police force and well that's news to me and I think most Albertans who

00:01:20.880 But they heard Daniel Smith and Travis Tabes say they supported an Alberta police force and they're

00:01:25.120 running for the leadership of the United Conservative Party. And there's been some

00:01:28.320 back and forth and clarifications and statements from the government since. But let's just say it's

00:01:33.840 worrying. And boy, that landed like a stink bomb at the morning news meeting this morning,

00:01:37.600 eh, Nigel? It certainly did. I mean, one of the things-

00:01:42.240 I'm setting up the show. Oh, okay.

00:01:45.360 It landed like a stink bomb. It landed like a stink bomb.

00:01:47.520 I was just looking for, that's right, Derek. But that came just a few hours after the finance

00:01:55.500 minister tabled the Alberta budget. And boy, she's a big, big budget. It's a surplus,

00:02:03.000 which is nice, but a lot of that surplus getting spent away in pre-election spending.

00:02:09.820 See my face for shock and horror and surprise. So we're going to talk about the Alberta budget,

00:02:16.040 what it means, what it looks like, and it could have been any better. And we're going to finish

00:02:22.100 off with, we're going to try to answer the question, are the liberals compromised by China?

00:02:27.620 Spoiler, yes they are. But we're going to get into it because this is really, really building

00:02:34.060 up. How long can the liberals drag their heels and resist calls for a public inquiry on Chinese

00:02:42.880 interference in Canadian elections and politics. Before we get on though, I want to thank my

00:02:47.520 favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. I've been a member of the Canadian

00:02:51.520 Shooting Sports Association for well over a decade because I trust them with my membership

00:02:56.480 dues to protect my rights as a firearms owner. You know, geez, they haven't even paid for sponsorship,

00:03:01.600 we're gonna have to go to them for money, but the Canadian, the big Canadian gun show,

00:03:05.600 the Calgary gun show is coming up. We were talking about around the newsroom today.

00:03:09.040 We're obviously going to be there. I always go and buy at least something. There's always such

00:03:14.800 cool stuff there. We were there together last year. If you are a firearms owner in Canada,

00:03:21.120 you absolutely need to be a member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:03:24.960 They are the organization that is doing the most in Canada to defend your rights as a firearms

00:03:29.840 owner to ensure the government doesn't steal your property. So if you're not yet a member,

00:03:33.680 go to cssa-cila.org or do what I do just google them and join today it's money very well spent.

00:03:42.000 Okay so this kind of works in actually with with firearms the talk around an Alberta Provincial

00:03:49.200 Police Force. So it's been talked about for a long time this goes back to the firewall letter

00:03:56.800 for a very brief time roughly 100 years ago Alberta really briefly had a had its own police force

00:04:01.760 Ontario and Quebec have their own police forces. You know, Ontario is well-known separatist

00:04:06.640 province. They have a police force. That means that they're going to declare independence from

00:04:10.160 themselves very soon. But then, you know, this picked up steam with, you know, the firewall

00:04:16.320 letter around 2001. This was a recommendation of the Fair Deal panel struck by Jay-Z Kenney to try

00:04:24.240 and make all the sovereignists calm down. The government didn't really do much on it, just

00:04:30.400 had some studies. And during the UCP leadership race to replace Jason Kenney, Danielle Smith

00:04:37.060 campaigned on the creation of an Alberta police force moving away from the RCMP controlled by

00:04:40.760 Ottawa. And her main opponent, Travis Taves, also supported an independent Alberta police force.

00:04:48.340 Now we fast forward to yesterday, the rotunda of the legislature. Finance Minister Travis Taves

00:04:54.740 is being interviewed by Dale Smith, a reporter at Global Edmonton. And he said, well, there's

00:05:00.380 there's no money in the budget for the police force.

00:05:03.280 Does this mean it's off the table?

00:05:04.640 Travis Tave spent about 30 seconds

00:05:06.440 not answering the questions.

00:05:08.080 Wow, our priorities are safety,

00:05:10.880 doing the kind of political runaround.

00:05:13.420 And then the reporter to his credit,

00:05:15.280 put it right back to him, he says,

00:05:16.940 so is an Alberta police force off the table?

00:05:21.700 And Travis Tave says, yes, it's off the table.

00:05:25.220 There's no money budgeted for it, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:05:28.040 So, you know, we talked about, you know, this came to my attention, most of our attention during the morning news meeting today when our Edmonton reporter, Arthur Green, brought this up.

00:05:40.660 And, boy, she landed like a stink bomb. 1.00

00:05:42.980 I just, you know, immediately, I said, that's our priority for the day.

00:05:45.780 We're going to get to the bottom of this.

00:05:47.580 Since then, I know you've talked to Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis, and, well, what did they say?

00:05:55.920 So what they are saying is that he misspoke.

00:06:00.860 The finance minister misspoke.

00:06:02.540 Yeah, the finance minister misspoke.

00:06:05.680 They haven't come out and said it is still on the table,

00:06:10.580 but on the basis that if a statement saying it wasn't is misspeaking,

00:06:16.760 I guess it's still there.

00:06:19.700 But here's what worries me about this.

00:06:22.560 you get elected you start to find out where the money is going and you think holy mackerel

00:06:31.140 where do we find some money oh maybe we don't need to do this or maybe we don't need to do it yet

00:06:38.440 but that is totally the wrong approach for this government danielle smith was elected leader

00:06:47.980 on that promise, among a number of others.

00:06:50.620 And it's part of the sweep that

00:06:52.360 establishes Alberta's

00:06:54.680 position regarding

00:06:56.360 Ottawa. If you

00:06:58.220 don't have that,

00:07:00.980 what

00:07:01.240 happens when

00:07:03.800 the RCMP are ordered by

00:07:06.200 Ottawa to go and pick

00:07:08.220 up firearms, for example?

00:07:11.320 Do you

00:07:12.240 want that kind of federal force

00:07:14.240 embedded in your own province

00:07:16.360 forever. When we have the alternative of doing this, which was campaigned on, was supported

00:07:23.360 widely among the leadership candidates, and people are now expecting it. And then suddenly,

00:07:30.320 you know, what a cooler conversation, I guess it's off the table. No, let it not be off the

00:07:35.660 table. They've got to bring this back quick. I'm looking for a statement from the premier

00:07:40.500 that this is on the table. Yeah, forever. So I think, I'd say, you know, it was probably

00:07:47.520 reassuring to those of us who'd like to see an independent Alberta police force, that it's not

00:07:53.000 off the table. But they didn't say it's directly on the table. It's left in kind of a state of

00:07:58.780 political purgatory, I think. So what you know, what they said is they're going to,

00:08:04.540 they're building out the sheriffs. You know, there was an announcement in Grand Prairie recently

00:08:08.520 where the sheriffs are going to be built out to kind of take over the regional policing in that

00:08:11.880 area. And I think what they're trying to telegraph indirectly as well we're not getting rid of the 0.68

00:08:18.200 RCMP and replacing with an Alberta police force but we're going to build up the sheriffs as sort

00:08:27.320 of an Alberta police force as an option for different communities and they can contract

00:08:33.080 either one. And I don't know. How are you reading it, Corey?

00:08:38.600 It's about it. I think they're taking a piecemeal approach rather than taking the fuss that would

00:08:42.120 come with trying to change the whole system at once. The other thing is, with an election pending,

00:08:46.700 they just don't want the battle on that front when they got 100 others going.

00:08:50.360 That said, four years ago, a very popularly elected premier came into office with a strong

00:08:56.800 majority mandate and he screwed us on the provincial police on the fair deal panel and

00:09:02.800 all that backpedaling and where is he today premier smith would be very well served to

00:09:07.840 understand that there will be very little patience for seeing no movement on the things she campaigned

00:09:13.880 on to get into the leadership position so she'd best clarify this very soon because she doesn't 0.84

00:09:18.700 want to be losing internal support when an election's coming or be kicked out of the party

00:09:22.480 after the election because people will do it again they're not going to put up with that anymore

00:09:26.100 that we've seen saw it too recently. No Alberta conservative premier has even completed a term

00:09:32.660 since Klein's second last election 2001 to 2004. That was the last 2001 to 2004 is the last time

00:09:38.980 a conservative premier even finished term last premier of Alberta period to leave of their own

00:09:43.940 accord was Peter Lougheed in the mid 80s. So I think they're trying to find they're trying to

00:09:54.180 thread the needle minimize comfort uh points of controversy here but the the main point there's

00:09:59.860 several points for getting rid of the rcp one is you know an alberta provincial an alberta police

00:10:03.620 force would probably be more reactive to our needs maybe provide better services one of the really

00:10:08.980 big ones is that we don't have agents of ottawa stationed on our soil executing the will of 0.98

00:10:16.260 ottawa so things like firearms uh you know they're piloting the confiscation programs in prince of

00:10:21.220 Rhode Island right now. And depending on how that goes, they're going to move it across the country.

00:10:25.580 They're going to try and learn the lessons in PEI and then launch it elsewhere. It'd be really

00:10:29.140 difficult for Justin Trudeau to start stealing people's firearms in Alberta if he's got no police

00:10:34.100 on the ground here to do it. And if it goes the way, again, we don't know exactly where it's going,

00:10:39.380 but it looks like it's just going to kind of be a patchwork of sheriffs and RCMP. That still

00:10:46.180 leaves the RCMP stationed on Alberta soil able to execute the

00:10:50.300 will of Ottawa at Trudeau's command? I don't know. Do you

00:10:56.140 think this is this the politically smart move, Nigel,

00:10:58.540 in the advance of an election? Or is this probably gonna set us

00:11:01.000 up for more trouble?

00:11:02.260 Well, I dare say they think it's a politically smart move in

00:11:05.680 advance of the election that enables them to deploy the money

00:11:09.520 that would have been committed to this elsewhere. And we kind of

00:11:12.580 hope that people won't notice it. I mean, it's Travis Taves, the

00:11:16.080 day of the, he's just presented his budget. Everybody's talking about the budget. Somebody

00:11:20.860 asks him about the police force. Now it's off the table. You know, if you were going to say that,

00:11:25.580 that would be the time to say it when attention is elsewhere. But he did say it. And we want to

00:11:30.500 bring attention back on that because that is one of the key points. He did try to put attention on

00:11:34.840 it. He tried to intentionally downplay this. There's no mention in the budget that they're

00:11:38.840 not going ahead with an Alberta police force. He was asked the question by a journalist who,

00:11:43.700 You know, to his credits, I don't see money for it.

00:11:46.340 You ask him a question about it.

00:11:47.620 Taves didn't answer the question.

00:11:48.940 He danced all around it.

00:11:50.620 And then he put the question back to him.

00:11:52.460 And then he said, yeah, it's off the table.

00:11:54.020 So clearly they weren't trying to telegraph this in a very public way.

00:12:00.900 This was supposed to be quiet, but I don't think it is anymore.

00:12:05.820 Corey, do you think, I don't know, should we just pray this is a hidden agenda?

00:12:11.040 and that, you know, election's over, and then they're going to say,

00:12:13.780 ah, yeah, Alberta police force is on.

00:12:15.840 Here's the Alberta Rangers or whatever you call it.

00:12:17.560 That's kind of how I said it in my show, in a sense.

00:12:19.600 But it's unfortunate, though, it's such a disingenuous way to get something done

00:12:22.880 if that's the way it has to be.

00:12:25.540 And I don't like seeing it done that way.

00:12:27.340 I mean, you know, we end on what you came.

00:12:30.080 And, you know, as I said as well, don't forget who brung you when it comes to the dance thing

00:12:34.740 because it will bite you.

00:12:37.120 Even at least make a statement and say we're going to work on it.

00:12:39.500 We're just not working on it until post-election.

00:12:43.660 I mean, it's a little more honest and the Hornets will swirl for a week and you know what?

00:12:46.840 It'll phase.

00:12:47.520 But if you're going to sit here and make it look like it's bait and switch like Premier Kenny did, I don't think it's going to pay off.

00:12:52.680 I don't see whose vote they're saving in doing this because Smith is on the record probably a hundred times saying there should be an Alberta police force.

00:13:00.460 Travis Taves is on the record a bunch of times.

00:13:02.720 Jason Kenny even said that there should be.

00:13:04.340 He just didn't do anything about it.

00:13:05.740 I mean, they can't plausibly deny that this is something they want to do.

00:13:11.160 Like, their fingerprints are all over it.

00:13:13.240 It's not like, you know, liberals always use conservatives, oh, you're going to ban abortion.

00:13:17.380 And conservatives are like, find a single statement where I said that.

00:13:20.440 The left can't.

00:13:21.540 They try to make that stick.

00:13:22.680 In this case, you know, Smith, Taves, they can't deny that their fingerprints are on this issue.

00:13:27.920 And that's a good thing.

00:13:29.100 I just don't see how they're going to hide from it.

00:13:33.840 I want to dovetail this.

00:13:35.060 And I've got a column that came out today focused on this, but kind of dealing with kind of some of the other broken or watered down promises of the government since Smith came to power.

00:13:47.960 It began with a sovereignty act.

00:13:49.560 A sovereignty act, as was originally envisioned by Smith when she put it out there, was, let's say, robust, to say the least, revolutionary, if you will.

00:13:58.180 And, you know, then you had all of the UCP leadership candidates save Todd Lowen denouncing it, saying it's terrible.

00:14:05.180 You had Jason Kenney coming after it. And then she kind of really soft peddled it.

00:14:10.180 And let's just say took some of the bloodier teeth out of it.

00:14:15.180 And then what got passed even had a different name, the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act.

00:14:21.180 And it was watered down. So something was passed, but it wasn't really what people had expected it to be.

00:14:27.180 it to be. And then there was, you know, Smith had promised that she was going to amend the Human

00:14:31.780 Rights Act with the right to refuse that mandatory vaccination from the government in there. That was 0.81

00:14:36.680 totally scrapped. There's been a number of these kind of big leadership campaign promises that she

00:14:42.940 made that seem to have gotten lost. And I don't know if that is her climbing. There's what the

00:14:51.360 reasons are for climbing down. I think a lot of it is that she was dealing with a largely hostile

00:14:55.660 caucus. It was still half that caucus was still roughly Kenny's guys, and they were very angry

00:15:00.220 about her winning. So I don't know. So with you, Corey, is there a risk? How big a risk is there

00:15:08.060 in Smith and kind of watering these things down? Is it risking losing the base and her credibility

00:15:13.180 is the fearless kind of poly unconventional politician? Or is that gonna be compensated

00:15:19.820 for by being seen as more modern, reasonable by centrist voters? I don't know. She's got a

00:15:24.380 a juggling act, as you said. I mean, there are some elements in caucus. The last thing she needs

00:15:27.940 is that with an election pending in a few months is suddenly to have a few MLAs go rogue and start,

00:15:32.900 you know, publicly infighting. We know how devastating that was to the UCP before too.

00:15:37.580 And I think a lot of why the UCP support was plummeting wasn't just an unpopularity of

00:15:41.640 Premier Kenney, but it looked like he had no control of his government. If people don't see

00:15:45.640 a government in control, they get uncomfortable, they move away. So she does have to be cognizant 0.96

00:15:50.880 of how those caucus members feel who got elected on more of the soft stance with Kenny. But at the

00:15:55.360 same time, I mean, she's leading in a province with us, putting a long and storied history of

00:16:00.900 firing our premiers if they don't listen to us. So all I can say is I can understand why they're

00:16:06.760 doing it. I don't know what their intent, though, whether it's a permanent scrapping or a hidden

00:16:10.220 agenda, but they just best tread very, very carefully because this could really blow up

00:16:15.340 and she could be just another one that comes and goes in a short period of time. 0.85

00:16:18.260 So, Nigel, I know you had a column, I think, just yesterday dealing with the budget.

00:16:23.040 Yeah, it came out right after the budget there.

00:16:26.500 You know, it was talking about just a lot of this is maybe just kind of political necessity.

00:16:32.480 We're going to hold off on the budget itself, actually, for a second.

00:16:35.140 Kind of the broader pattern of these either broken or watered down promises.

00:16:40.960 Do you think there's much risk for Smith in this?

00:16:42.760 Or do you think, you know, people are just going to buck it up, get through the election because the NDP is the threat and she doesn't really have to worry about bleeding support from people who might be a bit disillusioned by it?

00:16:54.000 Well, you know, I think her biggest challenges would come after a successful election. 1.00

00:17:00.220 Yeah. 1.00

00:17:00.560 These people would be stupid to take their divisions public now. 1.00

00:17:06.400 That's not to say there aren't some stupid people, but, you know, I think if you want to get re-elected in your own seat, never mind see the government itself re-elected, just keep quiet until May the 30th. 1.00

00:17:20.480 If Smith wins with a substantial majority, obviously, that will strengthen her hand. 0.99

00:17:29.120 If she's hanging on there by two votes, then the wingnut factions within that party are going to be very, very hard for her to handle. 0.99

00:17:38.240 There's constantly going to be the threat.

00:17:40.500 Well, if you don't do this, then we're going to create a situation that you can't handle.

00:17:45.320 So far, the rebellious side of the party has been the more establishment Kenney side of the party. That's the side that's been revolting. We had, you know, we've confirmed already that, you know, there was significant movement in one constituency, Raymond v. Rocky Mountain House Center, to reopen the nomination there.

00:18:06.020 There, they'd use dirty tricks to get Jason Nixon, Kenny's right-hand man, acclaimed as the candidate.

00:18:13.680 The party refused to allow anyone to cast a ballot in the nomination in that constituency to protect Kenny's guy who was facing likely defeat to a guy named Tim Hoven.

00:18:24.520 And Nixon's board got completely voted out, replaced by a new board that wants a nomination.

00:18:31.220 Half the UCP's Central Alberta board was up for election at their recent convention.

00:18:37.340 Every single one of those spots was won by people who wanted to see that nomination reopened.

00:18:41.880 But then there was a revolting caucus.

00:18:43.640 Nixon had successfully gotten some others together.

00:18:46.500 Apparently some who don't even necessarily like Nixon in the back end, but they were worried that, well, what if my nomination comes back into question?

00:18:52.460 So Smith had a whole caucus revolt over this stuff, and it's mostly been coming from kind of the Kenneite faction.

00:18:58.420 And that seems to be where, which is funny,

00:19:01.420 because it's the opposite side that was rebelling against Kenny.

00:19:03.980 You know, Kenny had more of the Wild Roser, populist wing coming after him.

00:19:08.640 It's now the more traditionalist, PC and Kenny-ite wing that's coming there.

00:19:14.020 So I don't know.

00:19:15.280 Do you think it'd be the more hardcore right wing to be her problem after the next election? 0.71

00:19:19.220 No, I don't.

00:19:20.000 I mean, only in the sense that, Danielle, why aren't you more hardcore right wing? 1.00

00:19:24.180 That would be the, and she would probably welcome that pressure from the right to give her something to work with against the others who clearly are not pulling very hard on the same.

00:19:35.040 But that pressure took Kenny down.

00:19:37.600 Yeah, but she'd find that, Kenny found it hard to listen to that point of view.

00:19:42.540 Daniel Smith does not find it hard to listen to it and say the right thing to that constituency.

00:19:49.360 Okay. Well, we're going to turn it not very far. We're going to turn it right into the budget.

00:19:56.800 So yesterday, as we said, Travis Davis finance minister tabled the Alberta budget. It is a

00:20:04.480 surplus $2.4 billion driven mostly by higher non-renewable resource revenues. But I think a

00:20:15.760 A little bit of, let's give a little credit where credit's due.

00:20:19.580 Under Kenny and Taves, who was the finest mister, also under Kenny, they had limited growth in spending.

00:20:25.640 They didn't cut spending.

00:20:27.200 Spending is higher today than it was under the NDP.

00:20:30.600 But it has a percentage of GDP and, you know, per capita.

00:20:33.720 On that kind of scale, it's lower because the population's up, inflation's up.

00:20:39.220 So a combination of restraining growth in spending and an increase in revenues.

00:20:44.660 We've got a balanced budget.

00:20:45.760 They have introduced balanced budget legislation, which is nice. You know, once upon a time, I worked at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We always liked that stuff. But in time, I don't know. I think this stuff is kind of gimmicky because, you know, a government passes a bill saying, in the future, we're not allowed to do this. We're not allowed to run a deficit.

00:21:04.960 but you know what happens every time anything goes wrong they amend the legislation or they

00:21:10.160 repeal the legislation so alberta had balanced budget legislation under ralph klein and uh you

00:21:17.280 know as soon as uh anything went wrong ed stelnack amended it and things continue to go wrong and

00:21:22.160 allison redford amended it several times um prentice amended it and then richard dotley amended

00:21:28.720 it several more times and so this stuff seems to be pretty toothless bc used to have a balanced

00:21:34.240 budget law that if the government ran a deficit, the cabinet had to take a pay cut.

00:21:38.000 Well, they ran deficits for quite a while. You know how many years they took a pay cut?

00:21:41.760 Not a one. Not one year did they take the pay cut. So governments always amend this stuff. So

00:21:47.360 maybe before we get into the overall budget, let's just talk about the balanced budget

00:21:51.760 legislation stuff. I'll start with Corey. The balanced budget legislation,

00:21:57.280 good and useful or nice and symbolic, but ultimately useless?

00:22:03.940 That's the second answer. It's just a gimmick. It looks nice. It shows a degree of commitment.

00:22:08.520 It does make it a little more embarrassing if and when you have to repeal it to go into deficit.

00:22:13.560 That was spoken on earlier. The first time I ever actually got a seat in the gallery in the

00:22:17.200 legislature was when Stelmack, shamefully with his caucus, just kind of quickly before the budget

00:22:21.700 came in. They waited right until budget day. Quick motion popped in, repealed the balanced

00:22:26.240 budget legislation, and while the room is still settling, then they table the budget. So, I mean,

00:22:31.880 there's not much to it. It's just a gesture, but it's at least a gesture. If you wouldn't see one

00:22:36.980 like that from the NDP, he'll give it that. So, Nigel, today I was having a chat with Chris Sims.

00:22:41.560 She's the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a job I used to have.

00:22:45.480 And we were having exactly this conversation. She says, I love it. Balance budget legislation. And I

00:22:50.380 said, you know, it's gimmicky. You know, they just amended it, repeal it whenever it's in trouble.

00:22:53.700 She says, yes, they do. We'll give them hell. I said, yeah. And I gave Redford and Prentice hell. And before me, Scott Hennig gave Ed Stalmack hell. And after me, Paige McPherson and Colin Craig gave Rachel Notley and Jason Kenny hell. Like, I don't know. Is this stuff got any value? Like, I guess it attaches a little political cost to repeal this stuff or amend this stuff. But it doesn't seem to stop anyone from actually running a deficit if you have a balanced budget law. 0.99

00:23:23.080 I think Corey came close to it when he said you wouldn't get this out of the NDP.

00:23:28.540 What does that tell you?

00:23:29.920 Well, it tells you that at least the people who pass balanced budget legislation

00:23:36.400 understand that they should be doing that.

00:23:40.080 They should balance the budget. 0.99

00:23:42.200 So at least they're hypocrites when they do it. 0.99

00:23:44.600 Hey, hypocrisy is, what do they say? 0.98

00:23:47.380 It's the tribute that vice pays the virtue.

00:23:50.700 You know, they are, they are, when you have somebody like the NDP, for that matter, like the Federal Liberal Party, that just does not believe in balancing budgets, doesn't behave that way, doesn't try to, certainly would never pass a balanced budget act.

00:24:09.640 Well, you know what you're dealing with there.

00:24:11.100 At least these guys, you think to yourself, well, if they could, they would.

00:24:15.160 And we know stuff happens, and they probably won't.

00:24:17.740 Nobody ever has stuck by it.

00:24:19.800 But it's better than nothing.

00:24:22.380 So I guess the highest we can say of it is it's at least a sign that you theoretically care about it.

00:24:29.200 Yes.

00:24:29.640 But there's a part of me that almost likes the NDP approach more,

00:24:31.840 because at least they're intellectually honest.

00:24:33.460 When they want to run a deficit, they'll just run a deficit.

00:24:35.980 Conservatives will just.

00:24:36.940 Derek, do you realize you just said the NDP is intellectually honest?

00:24:41.940 When it comes to deficits, yes.

00:24:44.940 Yes, they make no shame about deficits.

00:24:47.940 Alison Redford had to change the definition of a balanced budget and declared she was running a balanced budget. 1.00

00:24:53.940 I remember I was looking through the numbers.

00:24:56.940 Okay, you say you're spending a, you know, let's just pick a number.

00:24:59.940 Let's say you're running a $4 billion surplus.

00:25:01.940 This says you're borrowing $10 billion.

00:25:04.940 million dollars. How does that work? Oh, well, you know, they just literally changed the definition

00:25:09.420 of it. And I got this big, long running fight with them for years. And we're kind of back to

00:25:14.440 actually to some sane math and budget accounting now. But conservatives are hypocritical about this 0.96

00:25:19.500 stuff. And they tend to think it's okay for them to run deficits, but not anyone else. 0.97

00:25:25.500 You know, like it was it was very difficult, I think, for Stephen Harper to successfully

00:25:28.860 criticize Justin Trudeau's plan to run a deficit, because he had run so many big deficits himself. 0.99

00:25:34.940 And, yes, they'll say, well, circumstances, we had reasons, but everyone's got, you know, excuses are like assholes. 0.98

00:25:41.860 Everyone's got one. 0.95

00:25:43.160 Yeah, you know, with Harper, if he had not done what he did, there would have been, the three other parties would have forced an election, which Harper would probably have lost.

00:25:52.220 But then he bragged about running a deficit and how it was a good thing and a necessary thing.

00:25:57.520 He wasn't saying, I'm doing it because they're forcing me to.

00:25:59.800 He says, deficits are good when I run deficits.

00:26:03.220 Then he restored it to balance before he left office.

00:26:06.440 For about a month, and it was undone.

00:26:08.240 But in the meantime, they had set the political table.

00:26:10.080 It wasn't him who one did it.

00:26:12.260 Yeah, but they had changed the political calculus.

00:26:14.560 They had broken the consensus that had been established across the political spectrum in Canada

00:26:18.220 that deficits were a bad thing.

00:26:20.580 We had a decade in Canada where even the federal NDP wouldn't dare talk about running a deficit.

00:26:25.760 Well, that was actually one of the peculiar things about the 2015 election,

00:26:29.640 that the NDP were not in favor of a deficit

00:26:32.480 and the liberals campaigned on their intentions

00:26:35.960 to run three consecutive $10 billion deficits.

00:26:39.120 Remember that?

00:26:40.480 Just a little.

00:26:41.040 Just a little.

00:26:42.000 A little bit of pump priming going on there. 0.78

00:26:44.480 But I think with, I mean, it's a school of thought,

00:26:47.480 and I'm not saying I disagree with it

00:26:48.960 when I refer to it as a school of thought,

00:26:51.600 that by the time that governments around the world

00:26:54.520 started introducing deficits in 2008, 2009,

00:26:58.620 to combat the recession of that time.

00:27:02.260 By the time they did it, natural compensators in the system

00:27:06.440 were already starting to kick in.

00:27:08.380 So it was sort of gratuitous.

00:27:10.880 But again, it's the old business of the politics of the day

00:27:15.920 forcing you to do things that your political inclinations don't want to do.

00:27:22.820 Harper was not a deficit guy.

00:27:25.040 No.

00:27:25.680 He felt forced to do it.

00:27:26.760 uh sure but then by but i by embracing it enthusiastically when he eventually did embrace

00:27:32.200 it well it's what are you gonna say he eventually embraced it he didn't just say oh i have no choice

00:27:37.800 but to he embraced it and i think that's what destroyed the balanced budget consensus in the

00:27:42.200 country which is still not even close to restored at this point that's for sure yeah um okay so

00:27:48.200 that's balanced budget legislation let's talk about the guts of the budget itself so there's

00:27:52.840 There's a surplus, $2.4 billion, it's nice,

00:27:56.580 but I feel like it should be a lot bigger than that,

00:27:59.300 considering the increase in revenues,

00:28:02.600 because there's been very significant increases in spending,

00:28:07.000 4.1% increase in health,

00:28:08.500 which is the single biggest line item in the budget,

00:28:11.280 5.2%-

00:28:12.280 That's over three years.

00:28:13.680 Yeah, 5.2 billion though for education,

00:28:16.620 sorry, 5.2% for education,

00:28:18.280 that's the second biggest line item in the budget.

00:28:20.600 So the big increase in spending, now to be fair, there is some in there on debt repayment, but the debt repayment number is more nebulous.

00:28:29.600 It's saying, well, we're going to take a certain proportion of the surplus over the year and that goes to debt repayment.

00:28:36.600 But increased spending got firm numbers, they got X billions of dollars for spending, debt repayment didn't quite get that.

00:28:44.600 Now, it'll probably be significant if oil prices hold up. And to their credit, they budgeted

00:28:51.160 very conservatively on those oil prices. Remember, whenever was it? 78, wasn't it?

00:28:57.160 That rings a bell, yeah. 78 or close to 78 bucks. And yeah, what's the spot price today?

00:29:04.040 A lot higher than 78. So they're budgeting, I think, pretty reasonably, maybe even some would

00:29:09.640 say even over conservatively in their oil price estimates, which means we're probably not going

00:29:13.800 going to get any big surprises this year unless peace breaks out. So you get maybe some of your

00:29:20.080 overall thoughts on the budget itself. Do you get the balance right? Or is, you know, just just kind

00:29:26.640 of a big spending pre-election budget? So, well, it certainly is a pre-election budget. There's no

00:29:31.840 question about that. Look, the with respect to revenues, there's this great little year over

00:29:38.600 year chart that you can get in the back of the budget page 164 for the for the bean counters

00:29:43.880 our fiscal reference tables that's my favorite part that's right and uh so we've got um they've

00:29:49.640 got revenues total revenues here for this year at 76 billion dollars whereas uh budgeted for the year

00:29:59.400 to come 70.6 so they're budgeting for five and a half billion dollars less in revenue now when

00:30:06.840 And my wife and I sit down and do the household accounts.

00:30:11.040 We look at the same kinds of numbers.

00:30:12.760 There aren't so many zeros after them.

00:30:14.600 But we figure, well, what are we going to do with this?

00:30:17.840 And so then if you go down to the expenses, after all, well, there was this much for health

00:30:23.780 and that much for education and so forth.

00:30:26.600 at the bottom line on the expenses is that they're up from $65.6 billion to $68.2 billion.

00:30:41.820 So they're up a couple of billion dollars, all right.

00:30:45.420 No question about it.

00:30:47.500 Less revenue, more expenses.

00:30:49.460 Are the expenses justified?

00:30:50.940 Well, now here's where the value judgments begin.

00:30:53.140 Is it, she, Emanuel Smith, Premier, has committed herself, committed her election prospects to fixing health care.

00:31:05.620 After all the, after all the redirection of resources that can be made by just saying, okay, you over here, go over there.

00:31:13.420 And there is some of that.

00:31:15.140 And you folks who are in the, taking up beds in hospitals, you need to be out of there and you need to be in this care facility.

00:31:21.460 you can do that but at the end if you're going to make any kind of a dent in for

00:31:27.360 example all those elective surgeries 69,000 of them that are waiting you're

00:31:34.300 going to need doctors nurses and probably ambulance drivers so if you're

00:31:38.580 going to make a dent how are you going to do it even if you put it out to

00:31:41.260 private medicine as she has some of it you're still going to pay the bills when 0.93

00:31:48.040 Unless they allow private insurance.

00:31:50.800 That would bring in money without taxpayer support.

00:31:53.720 Would you run this election on that promise?

00:31:56.820 Oh, hell no.

00:31:57.480 There's a reason I'm not a politician.

00:31:59.300 I'm saying, but if you really want to fix health care, we're not wrong, by the way.

00:32:03.320 We've been throwing money at this stuff forever.

00:32:05.540 More money, sure, you could do more with more money, but it's pretty diminishing returns at this point.

00:32:09.740 If you really want to do it, you want to bring in more money without raising taxes, you've got to bring in private insurance.

00:32:14.800 I have under no illusions that that is a terrible election idea, even in Alberta, where we have a higher tolerance threshold for private health care.

00:32:25.000 I don't think people are quite ready to go there yet.

00:32:27.980 Well, you know, they've been told they're not ready to go there, so they tend to think that they're not ready to go there.

00:32:32.740 But if we, back in the Ralph Klein days, if instead of Klein bringing in Bill 11 and making it illegal to run a private medical facility in Alberta,

00:32:43.740 he had said, we will put out a tax break, bring your medical facilities here, and you can just bid for government work, our bills would be a lot lower. 0.68

00:32:57.480 Now, I know there's arguments against it.

00:32:59.100 So I know we're quickly turning into a discussion on just health care.

00:33:02.600 But get your thoughts, Corey, on the overall budget.

00:33:07.040 I know health care is a big part of it.

00:33:08.440 So every budget always tends to at least somewhat of a discussion on health care.

00:33:12.680 But, you know, there's a not insubstantial increase in spending here.

00:33:17.580 But it's not just spending.

00:33:18.780 There's debt repayment as well.

00:33:20.380 Your overall thoughts on the budget.

00:33:22.020 You know, for an election budget, I don't think it's that bad.

00:33:25.260 I mean, I expected this.

00:33:27.540 I know that Premier Smith is a fiscal conservative.

00:33:30.040 have. I'm sure if she thought she could win in May, by holding the line on spending or even 1.00

00:33:36.380 cutting it a little, she would. But you're buying the love of Albertans for an upcoming election. 0.68

00:33:42.420 And, and I noticed that practically every single line item has an increase. But they're modest

00:33:47.640 ones. Actually, they're not huge. She's not going mad with it. And then healthcare, for example,

00:33:52.300 as I just said, it's gone up, but not by all, it's not a massive increase. I mean,

00:33:56.220 But it's taking a lot of bullets out of Rachel Notley's gun because I mean, they can't point it anywhere and say you cut this or you didn't increase this or you're starving this because she's increased it a little bit everywhere. So again, it's, you know, the, looking at the pragmatism versus principle, as much as a fiscal conservative, I think we could get by with a quarter less spending and the world wouldn't end. But I also know it would be electoral suicide.

00:34:22.140 So I think it was a fairly reasoned budget.

00:34:25.840 Being careful with oil forecasting, they've always done that.

00:34:29.300 Ralph Klein used to do it too, because you look great if it comes in above,

00:34:32.620 because now you've got this extra money.

00:34:33.720 If it comes in below, you're not into a budget disaster.

00:34:36.100 So you do those modest forecasts.

00:34:38.000 So it was a good hold-to-line election budget.

00:34:40.660 So, Arthur, you raised a good point, which I think is a point of discussion here.

00:34:45.260 The NDP's reaction to it, they didn't really have a lot they can do.

00:34:49.540 But even before the last election, Rachel Notley would say the UCP is going to slash and burn. I think that was their terms. Slash and burn. They're going to gut and devastate government services and blah, blah, blah. Jason Kenney ran on more or less holding the line on spending modest increases. And lo and behold, that's actually one of the areas where he did what he said he was going to do. They more or less just held the line on spending.

00:35:12.440 and Rachel Notley has been sitting there kind of spinning her wheels.

00:35:17.800 They keep on claiming that the UCP is going to gut and slash.

00:35:22.200 I mean, I'm not in charge of the government.

00:35:24.280 It doesn't seem like that's something they're going to do, but I don't know.

00:35:27.100 Are there any openings for the NDP here?

00:35:29.260 I don't think so.

00:35:30.100 Well, not in this budget, no.

00:35:32.280 I don't know what they would be if they were.

00:35:34.660 I mean, that you didn't spend enough?

00:35:37.040 Well, we spent what we had.

00:35:38.980 You know, what did you spend it on?

00:35:41.020 we put most of it into health. Isn't that what you've been saying should happen? Hard to really

00:35:47.240 see where Mrs. Notley would go with that. You'll notice that her reaction was not it's wrong,

00:35:58.200 it's that you can't trust. In other words, if I could trust her, it was okay.

00:36:05.640 Yeah.

00:36:05.880 You know? But she'll never deliver what she's promising. Oh, all right. I think the jury's out on that.

00:36:13.220 Smith's only been there for four months, five months. People are going to make that judgment in a couple of years.

00:36:20.800 Okay, well, we're going to switch up a little, move to Ottawa.

00:36:25.300 So this has been building for some time. We had, there was a CSIS report leaked that shows that the Chinese were very clearly and deliberately trying to interfere in the lab, 0.98

00:36:35.220 at least the last two federal elections and have had at least some modest success with that. I

00:36:41.460 think there was one liberal in the greater Toronto area. I can't remember what's his name.

00:36:49.220 Handong. And, you know, he was quite clearly targeted to be supported by the Chinese Communist

00:36:58.660 Party. There were certain Chinese conservatives who were targeted to lose because they were

00:37:04.980 Chinese that's the most dangerous to the Chinese they probably don't care if some cracker like me 1.00

00:37:10.100 is there because you know I probably not gonna greatly influence Chinese balls one way or another 0.99

00:37:14.980 they want to they target ethnic Chinese and help those who were at least perceived as supportive

00:37:20.900 of the CCP and attack those who are seen as hostile to the CCP. And so this has been building

00:37:29.140 for some time. Now we have word, you know, that the Chinese communists were flowing money into

00:37:35.220 the Trudeau Foundation, and even tried to, although I guess they didn't get, but even tried to

00:37:42.420 lobby for the Trudeau Foundation to build them a statue of Mao in Montreal,

00:37:47.300 Mountrial, I guess, something like that. But this building, and it's, and it's becoming

00:37:53.060 apparent that this is not a little thing. Now the Liberals have said, well, the reports say that it

00:38:01.620 did not influence the outcome of the election. And I can probably buy it that Chinese support 0.99

00:38:08.060 of certain primarily Liberal candidates didn't result in the Liberals winning overall more seats

00:38:13.500 than the Conservatives. But it seems to have clearly compromised the Liberals, that the

00:38:19.120 Liberals now have a vested political interest in China, and China in the Liberals, and did sway at least a few seats.

00:38:26.340 It didn't change who was in government, but it has changed the makeup of the government and the makeup of Parliament.

00:38:34.900 Corey, I'll start with you.

00:38:37.400 Liberal, regardless of party, governments don't like calling public inquiries into themselves.

00:38:43.720 It's a bad, bad things come of it.

00:38:46.020 There's a parliamentary committee going on to these things, but parliamentary committees, I've been on one.

00:38:51.360 You're there for the cameras.

00:38:52.920 You might try to get to a little bit, but it's mostly you're there to score points.

00:38:56.880 The MPs or MLAs are trying to score points on the questioner, and the questioner is trying to score points back or at least play defense.

00:39:04.320 They can't really compel evidence the same way as a commission.

00:39:08.820 At the end of the day, do you think the Liberals are going to be forced to call an inquiry here?

00:39:13.300 Do you think they're going to be able to hold out?

00:39:15.160 But I wish I knew.

00:39:16.920 You know, I think they absolutely should.

00:39:18.540 I mean, this is so serious, so serious.

00:39:20.520 And the evidence is already so compelling that we really need to blow the lid off this thing

00:39:24.980 and find out just how deep it is and what's going on.

00:39:27.540 But this party just never seems to cease to surprise with its indifference to accountability.

00:39:33.520 And the electorate seems to be okay with it.

00:39:35.860 I mean, I'm really getting frustrated with people in general.

00:39:38.160 I mean, you've had a foreign rogue nation meddling with your elections.

00:39:43.280 We should be protesting in the streets.

00:39:46.500 Prime Minister Trudeau is shut down questioning, saying you're a racist if you even talk about it.

00:39:51.440 And it looks to me like the public's already starting to shrug.

00:39:53.820 The parliamentary committee, yeah, they're doing their beating back and forth.

00:39:56.620 I watched an NDP member, I tortured myself in the newsroom with the TV with it on the committee.

00:40:01.160 The NDP member gets up and says, so let's talk about the Russian influence on the convoy.

00:40:05.980 Well, what on earth does that have to do with Mr. Dong?

00:40:10.640 They're just spinning their wheels in there.

00:40:13.280 Well, the only evidence of any Russian inferences in the convoy was a CBC reporter claiming there was and later having to retract it because there was.

00:40:21.920 And this is profoundly serious.

00:40:23.640 And it could explain a lot of the reasons why.

00:40:27.120 I mean, people have noted that for years.

00:40:29.100 The Trudeau government is terribly weak when it comes to dealing with China.

00:40:32.900 And maybe the chairman of China knew about some of the influence, has some evidence of things.

00:40:38.720 And, you know, Mr. Trudeau, we're going to squeeze harder unless you do this or that.

00:40:42.100 They don't have to win the whole election.

00:40:43.360 What are you going to have quickly squeezing with your hands?

00:40:44.860 His foot.

00:40:45.560 I'm orange, obviously.

00:40:46.220 Yes.

00:40:47.660 So it's, but either way, just because.

00:40:52.860 Me, don't put that one in the file for the starfish.

00:40:55.900 They don't have to have fully influenced the election or want it to have gained a lot of influence on the government itself.

00:41:02.260 And, yes, they could be, you know, they're not winning every seat, but they're squeezing the grapes of power.

00:41:08.180 And that could influence policy.

00:41:09.800 Squeezing the grapes of power.

00:41:11.580 Alright, I'll back off now. Did you coin that phrase or is that from something else? No, I just coined that one for now. You know, that sounds like a good column headline right there. I'll keep that in mind.

00:41:22.720 Yeah. So, you know, you know, Corey referenced what Trudeau said, you know, more or less saying, well, you're racist against Chinese people.

00:41:31.940 Actually, the victims of Chinese influence in Canada are mostly other Chinese people.

00:41:37.920 Of course, you know, no community, you know, despite progressive ideology, minority communities are not homogenous and no one speaks for them.

00:41:48.000 And there's going to be diversity within it. Obviously, there's going to be some are sympathetic to the CCP.

00:41:52.720 Most Chinese I've met are clearly not, and they're the victims of this kind of thing. 0.97

00:41:58.400 But Mr.

00:42:01.440 How do you say his name? Dong. Dong. 0.54

00:42:04.080 Handong. Handong. Okay.

00:42:07.160 Corey was squeezing the dong. Just the grapes.

00:42:10.360 The grapes. Somebody else get the dong. 0.85

00:42:12.120 Squeezing the grapes. Okay.

00:42:13.000 No, I didn't know, guys.

00:42:13.840 Okay. He, one reporter noted, I forget where, but they did some good, just quick little search of the voting record in Parliament.

00:42:29.060 And you'll remember, not that long ago, there was a vote in Parliament at the House of Commons condemning the genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Western China.

00:42:38.600 And Mr. Dong was in Parliament that day voting before that resolution and voting after that resolution, but was mysteriously absent during the vote condemning the Chinese Communist Party's genocide weaker Muslims.

00:42:53.600 And so I don't know. Are we racist for for mentioning his voting record and that he was directly targeted for support by the CCP.

00:43:03.600 I mean, that's just the default Trudeau response to any problem is to try and look for an angle

00:43:11.140 so that he can call his accusers or his questioners racist.

00:43:15.860 And I think that's what probably offends me most about the whole situation is not that

00:43:20.320 the Chinese are trying to influence our politics. 0.99

00:43:24.320 That goes on all the time.

00:43:25.960 Of course they're trying.

00:43:26.960 It has gone on for decades.

00:43:28.960 It's what they do.

00:43:29.960 Czechoslovakian people tried to influence British politics in the 1930s to get us on site. You know,

00:43:35.260 I mean, there's a history of this. And the Americans have almost certainly tried to

00:43:39.120 manipulate our politics at times. It'd be crazy not to. Certainly. And everybody else's as well,

00:43:44.660 if you go back since the war. Look, we know it goes on. It's what response do we want from our

00:43:52.160 leaders when they are told about it? The response we got was not, okay, thanks, guys. That was good

00:43:59.480 work we'll take it from here it was well it's not up to the security agencies to say who we can and

00:44:06.600 can't run as a candidate i don't think anybody ever suggested that it ought to be but they did say

00:44:13.880 you look over here sir look over there look over there you have some foreign influence going on

00:44:19.800 here which may you may want to be aware of and for that they got their they got their ears scorched

00:44:27.000 That is not leadership. That is not the Prime Minister who's got the interests of the country at heart.

00:44:34.000 So I think we're pretty subtle on the table. Should there be a public inquiry? Of course there should be.

00:44:40.000 But I'll put the same question to you as I put to Corey.

00:44:43.000 Do you think at the end of the day the Liberals will agree to one kicking and screaming?

00:44:49.000 They obviously don't want to have one. It's never good news for the government.

00:44:53.000 And I'm not, it's not necessarily the case that the liberals would welcome Chinese help, you know, limited or widespread, whatever it is.

00:45:04.600 But, you know, it taints your victory to some extent.

00:45:08.100 And they've said, one liberal MP said, you know, referring to this all as Trumpian.

00:45:13.260 You know, in fact, although I think she's mixing it up, it was actually the Clintons who accused the Trump campaign of receiving foreign influence from Putin.

00:45:20.500 That's actually what happened.

00:45:22.300 But do you think at the end of the day, we're going to get a public inquiry on this one?

00:45:26.700 Depends what Jagmeet Singh reckons it would do for his chances.

00:45:30.440 He's the one guy who's got the leverage to make this happen.

00:45:33.800 I mean, we can have Dick Patton, we can have even Jerry Butts saying it's really time,

00:45:41.340 but that doesn't force the prime minister's hand.

00:45:44.740 But if his key parliamentary ally can find it in himself for reasons, good or bad, to demand it, that, I think, would change things.

00:45:56.060 It's up to Mr. Singh.

00:45:57.720 I think you're probably right.

00:45:59.760 All right.

00:46:00.560 Well, we're going to call it quits there.

00:46:02.200 Remember, if you're not yet already a member of the Western Standard, go to westernstandard.news, click on membership.

00:46:07.380 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year to get you complete access past the Western Standard's paywall to all of our content.

00:46:13.460 As you know, the Western Standard refuses to accept the federal government's media bailout subsidies, and we need you to support the work we do to continue in operation here.

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00:46:30.320 Just look up Western Standard News, and you'll get access to all our shows, including Corey's.

00:46:34.840 Corey's wonderful times.

00:46:35.960 He's got some great stuff.

00:46:38.420 That's it for me, Nigel.

00:46:40.140 Corey.

00:46:40.920 Great to be here.

00:46:41.560 Happy St. David's Day.

00:46:43.460 I had to apply a side influence on my opinion on that one.

00:46:46.440 What did St. David say?

00:46:47.840 Welsh. 0.63

00:46:48.760 Welsh? 0.84

00:46:49.360 Yes.

00:46:49.960 Ah, West England.

00:46:50.840 Okay.

00:46:51.380 Thank you very much.

00:46:52.640 Thank you all very much, and God save the king.

00:46:55.560 We're all the way up to minus 8 in Lethbridge today, and here's what commodities are doing.

00:46:59.820 Cash barley is unchanged at 4.15.

00:47:02.020 Feed wheat is down $2 at 4.28.

00:47:04.820 And corn is down $5 at 4.25 per metric tonne.

00:47:07.980 In the milling wheat markets, May Minneapolis futures slipped 5.25 cents to 8.61.

00:47:13.460 with local hard red spring bid for April movement at $11.20 per bushel.

00:47:18.140 Looking at canola, nearby futures are higher $0.90 at $8.19.20 per ton,

00:47:23.360 with deliberate buys for March-April movement at $18.12 per bushel.

00:47:27.460 In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are unchanged at $0.33 per pound,

00:47:31.960 and yellow peas remain at $12.50 per bushel.

00:47:35.420 And in the cattle markets, April live cattle are lower $0.40 at $1.65.08 per hundredweight.

00:47:40.980 For more information on pricing or picked up options, give me a call at 403-394-1711.

00:47:48.280 I'm Matt Busiekum at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

00:47:54.480 Canadian Shooting Sports Association, without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:48:01.300 These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms, regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:48:08.520 and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

00:48:14.280 If you become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

00:48:19.140 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month.

Western Standard - March 02, 2023

The Pipeline： Is an Alberta police force off the table？

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