00:05:38.040So we're going to start right probably about a kilometer, kilometer and a half away from the Western Standard Studios here at the Calgary City Hall.
00:05:48.920Calgary Mayor Nahid Nenshi, the latest victim of the Great Snowbird Scandal of 2021.
00:05:54.780Dave, why don't you tell us what's happening?
00:05:59.400Well, it's council starting to arrive back from holidays, I guess.
00:06:04.500Derek, I hope the audience can hear you better than I can.
00:06:08.120I was only getting about one every three words there.
00:06:10.500But, yeah, it's turned out that Calgary Mayor Nahid Nenshi's chief of staff was one of the people that worked part of her holidays in Hawaii, I guess.
00:06:24.800She flew out despite recommendations from the Provincial Health Authority against non-essential travel.
00:06:31.360The lady's name is Devery Corbin. She's been with the city since 2012 and has been with the mayor's office, I believe, since 2018-19.
00:06:45.380Another member of Nenshi's staff, an office administrator, also went to Hawaii.
00:06:51.800As you said, Derek, Nenshi's been awfully, awfully quiet the last couple of days.
00:06:57.400And he admitted when he met with the press yesterday, he admitted when Kenny held his bumbling press conference last Friday, trying to explain the UCP Snowbird scandal, he admitted that he was, quote, yelling at the TV in frustration because he was so angry about it.
00:07:16.260But I guess when the shoe's on the other foot, you suddenly lose your moral high ground.
00:07:22.760Nenshi says there will be no sanctions against these two staffers.
00:07:28.660Ward 5, Alderman George Hall, put a public letter out, just published on the Western Standard website.
00:07:36.400Derek, he represents Ward 5, and it's one of the hardest hit areas of the city in terms of COVID.
00:07:43.280But he says it's absolutely ludicrous.
00:07:45.940Mayor Nenshi waited until today, or sorry, until yesterday to release the details of his wayward travelers.
00:07:54.720He said it's been the big topic in the news, all the news headlines for five days.
00:08:02.000And he says this news should have come out from Nenshi way, way earlier.
00:08:07.380He also points out that the restrictions seem to be good for one but not good for the other parts of Alberta society.
00:08:17.360He says those with fiscal means don't seem to be suffering as much as those with, you know, we're on the lower end of the economic scale.
00:08:27.420So lots of controversy at Calgary City Hall at the moment, and there's probably no happier person about that than Premier Jason Kenney.
00:08:37.380Yeah, I think the real reason Nahid Nanshi was screaming at the TV is because he was angry about the whole situation. He was angry that he can't pontificate and lecture anybody else about it. I mean, if there is someone doing something on the other side of the planet that he doesn't agree with, you're going to hear about it.
00:08:59.120Sorry, if anyone in Ottawa or in BC there is working with your hands,
00:09:03.480it's making a lot of background noise.
00:09:04.600So just please try to keep your outside noise to a minimum.
00:10:13.320I mean, well, we're getting to see such a walking, talking example of the double standard that's out there in social media and in the mainstream media.
00:10:21.600They were more than happy to dance all over and beat the hell out of Kenny.
00:10:25.340And Kenny earned it with that mess with these guys going on out there.
00:10:28.220But, I mean, as you said, with Ninchy, I mean, he was in the pack in December saying,
00:10:33.540if Jason Kenney does not crack down on citizens and lock down, we the city are going to do it ourselves.
00:10:39.240And I had Ninchy with his stay home, save lives in his Twitter profile sat quietly while Kenny saw the worst controversy of his terms so far.
00:15:21.200and of course no office can be complete without a changing room and Redford was having one built
00:15:29.840for both herself and her daughter at the time and that was going to cost taxpayers $14,000 so
00:15:35.320so clearly there was a revolt back then and you know the optics just look bad on this one the
00:15:42.380timing looks bad Derek they're going through the UCP snowbird scandal now the NDP will be jumping
00:15:48.720on this as just another you know political culture uh showing that they're entitled and
00:15:56.420they don't care about voters so uh really really bad timing for this one uh yeah it's it's not a
00:16:05.560good look uh i remember when i was at the legislature um so that just so people know
00:16:10.160the sky palace is a penthouse a luxury penthouse that was built on top of something called the
00:16:15.180federal building. The federal building was a very swanky building that most of the MLAs,
00:16:21.080all the opposition and some of the government MLAs had their offices in. You're very fortunate
00:16:26.660to work in that building. It is very nice. But on top of it, Alison Redford, without proper
00:16:33.400financial authorization, had ordered the construction of this luxury residential penthouse
00:16:40.360uh when the uh pcs lost power it was a given that it'd be a wild rose or ndp whoever took over
00:16:47.960uh that was not going to continue the project was was kiboshed um i remember i i i this was
00:16:55.700not an official government plan but i had discussed with brian gene at the time the towards
00:16:59.600the end of the 2015 campaign um we kind of chuckled about it but it was i think a real
00:17:05.540possibility that if Wildrose had won, we were going to stage the world's greatest press conference.
00:17:11.460We were going to take a giant crane with a massive wrecking ball, and on live television,
00:17:20.420blow the Sky Palace up. Not the whole federal building, but the penthouse. We were going to
00:17:25.220literally blow the Sky Palace up. Obviously, Wildrose didn't win. It came in a strong second,
00:17:30.660came back from the dead in 2015. The NDP won. The NDP, I didn't blame them for not blowing it up,
00:17:37.480but they just essentially turned it into kind of a conference space. They didn't really use it for
00:17:42.520much. Mostly, it was just a place where the NDP MLAs could go to smoke, technically illegally
00:17:49.240smoking on government property, but it was on an out, they were on the kind of the terrorists on
00:17:52.640the outside of the penthouse. I wasn't angry that they were smoking on government property. I was
00:17:56.200just angry that the Wild Bros MLAs weren't allowed to go and smoke illegally on government property.
00:17:59.900That was my only problem with it. But other than entitling themselves to a private smoking area, the NDP never really used the Sky Palace for anything. But now we're learning that it's been converted into an office. I don't think it's, I want to get your opinion, Corey. I personally don't think it's quite comparable to turning this into a luxury residential penthouse, custom design for Kenya's family, however that is.
00:18:27.720but it is, it's probably a bad look. What do you think the politics of this?0.99
00:18:32.440Yeah, no, I think the motivation is probably just, well, we've got some space,
00:18:36.520we can utilize it. Let's get it rolling. But again, it's forgetting, it seems. It's
00:18:40.920a bit of a tone deafness. Symbolism matters, whether it's fair or not. And that's, we've seen
00:18:46.920so much of it this last few months. And I'd like to keep going back to the old
00:18:50.920Bavota $16 orange juice disaster. It's the little things that drive the citizens and the electors
00:18:57.320crazy when they feel like they're contributing and the people are asking them to contribute aren't
00:19:02.680walking the talk all this we're all in this together what a line now that's so sour coming
00:19:07.960from so many of these hypocritical politicians and jason kenny's really taken a beating from his
00:19:12.360populist front with that the whole vacation the snowbird scandal and wild rose supporting people
00:19:18.360from the past who supported the merger of them but were reticent worried about the old pc taint
00:19:23.560coming in uh to see more of that coming in and there's no name more toxic still to this day with
00:19:30.200the pcs than allison redford so i mean it's just you know it's this isn't going to be a government
00:19:36.440crushing episode or anything like that but they've really really got to work on their optics and
00:19:41.000think about every step they do because people like us are going to be on their case well at least we
00:19:45.640know where jason kenny is now he's uh refused to come out uh and speak to albertans or to the press
00:19:51.000since the i think widely acknowledged disaster of a press conference on january 1st
00:19:56.280where he refused to do anything about the snowbird uh scandal uh now we know where he is he he's in
00:20:02.840he's in the sky palace um i don't know if i'm advising him if i'm his uh interim chief of staff
00:20:09.640i don't know if i'd advise him to come out i if i was a political advisor i might tell him yeah just
00:20:13.640shut up stay quiet like just yeah let the new cycle move on yeah uh that's probably what i do
00:20:20.280although I don't think they have that choice because, and we'll probably discuss this on
00:20:24.280tomorrow's show, but the government has to make a decision very soon on if they're renewing the
00:20:28.100lockdown or not, and boy, I would not want to be in the UCP government right now making a decision
00:20:34.440about if they have the moral authority to lock Albertans down for another month. That doesn't
00:20:39.260sound fun. Speaking of a great moral authority, we're going to talk about where in the world is
00:20:46.020Justin Trudeau. I think this story was yesterday. Ken will clarify if it was yesterday or the day
00:20:52.440before. We were on this. Most of the media aren't really touching it. But Justin Trudeau has issued
00:20:57.560a statement from on high, decreeing that politicians who are traveling right now are bad.
00:21:02.960But we haven't really seen much about where he is. But we're going to go to our Ottawa Bureau
00:21:06.760chief, Ken Grafton, who's going to put some meat on the bone here and update us on where in the
00:21:12.540world as Justin Trudeau? Well, I guess that's the question, Derek. And this story,
00:21:18.720as you mentioned, hasn't been covered widely in Ottawa or any other location.
00:21:26.700It arose out of a tweet that came from someone at the International Airport in Barbados,
00:21:32.860who reported seeing a, well, what he described as the Prime Minister's jet.
00:21:38.740And, you know, from that, we can take it's part of the VIP fleet that's run by the Royal Canadian Air Force.
00:21:45.660So it must have had the markings on it.
00:21:47.760And this person that tweeted, and I think there were actually more than one person involved in that, didn't identify who was on the plane.
00:21:57.540So this is where the question, where is Justin Trudeau came from?
00:22:04.240It was noted, subsequently, that the plane didn't originate in Ottawa, but in, I forget the location, in Puerto Rico, somewhere else in the Caribbean, but that could have been an interim stop, so we really don't know the origin of the flight when it departed Canada.
00:22:22.620So, these planes, the VIP flight, are used for VIPs on government business, and it had to be someone with some horsepower in the government to warrant flying on, in essence, a private jet to the Caribbean and back.
00:22:40.300the prime minister's office issued a statement the same day denying that the prime minister was
00:22:48.400in Barbados and a CTV journalist confirmed that he was in fact on Harrington Lake at the prime
00:22:57.500minister's official summer residence Harrington Lake for those who don't know is in the Gatineau
00:23:03.220park area of quebec just north of ottawa about 25 minutes or so by automobile and so that's where
00:23:13.380he was reportedly uh over christmas was adhering to the lake yesterday his official uh itinerary
00:23:20.900on the government website noted that he was at rito hall or sorry real cottage for um for a
00:23:28.580meeting at rio cottage the previous day he had a virtual meeting on his calendar but there was no
00:23:36.180physical location attached to that so it didn't say whether he was at harrington lake or rio
00:23:42.180cottage or somewhere else and that's really all the information that is out there now there are
00:23:50.100people i gather from from some subsequent tweets that uh were actually trying to track down uh
00:23:57.940inbound flights at the auto airport and had also researched uh flight numbers and tail numbers on
00:24:05.300on the internet to try and identify which uh which one of the challenger jets this was and
00:24:11.620who was using it um that's all the the meat of the story really at this point so ken
00:24:19.620i guess well he's issued a statement condemning the snowbirds um i mean i mean we're not going
00:24:26.180put hypocrisy beyond him. I mean the whole story is about hypocrisy and we're talking about Justin
00:24:30.260Trudeau here, but putting out a statement condemning it, it seems to be a good sign that he didn't do it.
00:24:40.820Did Justin Trudeau or his office explicitly deny traveling outside of the country over the last
00:24:48.100two months? A spokesman from the PMO did make that statement, Derek, that he was not there,
00:24:56.880or sorry, that he hasn't traveled over Christmas. Was it just that he didn't go to Barbados or
00:25:02.040that he just did not travel? That he did not travel over the Christmas period. That was the
00:25:07.320statement issued by the PMO. Well, I mean, it's not beyond a government to lie, but I mean,
00:25:15.180if they have put out a statement saying it, that would be a wildly risky move if it's a lie.
00:25:22.160So it would, if I'm a betting man here, I'd say he probably didn't travel in that case.
00:25:29.980I mean, someone else is missing though, Derek.
00:25:33.120That's it. So if we can, if we can say that the Challenger jet was in Barbados,
00:25:38.840well, there's not many people who use the Challenger jet. It'd be the prime minister,
00:25:42.160it'd be the foreign or whatever they call it now the global affairs minister global canada
00:25:46.880minister whatever the hell it's called um or the uh uh chief uh or the chief of defense staff uh so
00:25:54.640the head of the canadian armed forces very very few people would really have access to those
00:25:59.800challenger jets no no uh the mp from um from timbuktu is not going to have access to a challenger
00:26:08.880jet that is a major major operation it's only for top vips in the canadian government uh i'd like to
00:26:15.760know who that is i i believe derek that uh sorry to interrupt but i believe that the deputy prime
00:26:22.640minister would would have access to those flights as well and uh freeland has been uh noticeably
00:26:29.600quiet uh since before christmas so uh that question hasn't reached the media yet uh but um
00:26:40.400you know where is christia freeland might be uh an equally interesting question to pursue
00:26:48.000uh yeah well uh ken we've got you in ottawa if you can track this down i gotta stay dinner with
00:26:54.320your name on it well uh i'll hold you to that derrick i i've got family in ottawa so uh i might
00:27:03.520engage in some unsanctioned travel uh to get out there and we'll stake if you can if you could land
00:27:08.160that story and figure out the mystery of the missing challenger jet sounds good very good
00:27:15.520well uh before we go today i want to uh again thank everyone who is a western standard member
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00:27:25.360click on membership if you support a free and independent western media uh that doesn't take
00:27:31.200guff from left or right uh we just report what we can find our opinion uh definitely falls on
00:27:37.840one side of the things but we got guys like dave nailer and ken grafton uh i think dave's trying
00:27:42.400to talk but he's got his mic muted um yeah your mic is muted dave um and that was not me uh
00:27:52.800okay well in any case uh we appreciate everyone's support right now we are crowdsourcing a major
00:27:58.560poll we have contracted main street research they are one of the very top polling firms in canada
00:28:05.120uh eminently credible uh but it's a very expensive poll we're trying to figure out what albertans
00:28:10.320think about things right now this poll is just going to be in alberta so if you're outside of
00:28:13.760alberta well you can kick in if you like but it's not not necessary um but if you're in alberta
00:28:19.520where we're polling right now um how do albertans feel about the great snowbird scandal of 2021
00:28:25.920do they think there needs to be additional actions uh for accountability around this scandal should
00:28:30.960there be resignations or not uh from ucp mlas uh we want to know uh is there going to be a change
00:28:38.320in how people intend to vote. Are people angry, but they're going to just go back to voting NDP
00:28:43.040or UCP? Or is there going to be wider fallout, either support going to the NDP or rightwards
00:28:49.840to something like Wild Rose? We want to figure this stuff out. Also, we are going to poll
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00:28:59.760his primary opponent, Jeremy Farkas, or some of the other lesser known candidates. We want to
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00:29:29.680from the government, media bailouts. We have to do this with your support.
00:29:33.800But thank you all very much for watching. Thank you, Corey, Ken, Dave, for joining us.
00:29:41.800We appreciate all of your time. Godspeed.