Western Standard - The Pipeline - Kenney reverses his own tax hike

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

00:00:22.220 You're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:25.420 Today is August 31st, 2022.

00:00:28.280 We've got a great show coming up, but first I want to introduce our regular co-hosts, or semi-regular co-hosts, Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Hannaford. How are you feeling, Nigel?

00:00:42.020 Great today. The debate is over.

00:00:44.200 Top of the morning.

00:00:45.860 And joining us again is former Western Standard Opinion Editor and now Western Standard Senior Alberta Political Columnist, Corey Morgan. Good to see you again, Corey.

00:00:56.860 Oh, it's good to be back in the office. It's good to be away for a week to do this.

00:01:00.300 Well, you're not supposed to say that part. I never like to leave. I sleep here.

00:01:04.600 Yeah, I know.

00:01:05.920 Okay, we've got a great show. We're going to be talking about the final United Conservative Party leadership debate,

00:01:12.440 the second of the official debates, the third or fourth, depending on how you're counting it,

00:01:18.740 or the 15th, if there's a bunch of tiny little regional ones as well,

00:01:22.820 But probably the third or fourth major debate and the final one. And boy, did it disappoint. But I think largely, we're going to get into that. Not too good.

00:01:34.280 All right. Kenny has reversed his giant tax hike. One of the first things he did as premier

00:01:44.820 was to de-index income taxes, bracket creep as they call it. And on his way out the door,

00:01:52.220 he, I think it might be one of the greatest things he's done as premier is to undo one

00:01:56.820 of the worst things he did as premier. We're going to talk about that. Also, we're going

00:02:01.120 talk about the media double standard around harassment of public officials. I'm sure you've

00:02:07.820 read and listened and watched all sorts of breathless media coverage of the guy who made

00:02:14.320 some rather impolite, I think he seemed like an unpleasant character, but the guy who made some,

00:02:19.820 who was screaming obscenities at federal deputy prime minister, Chris Gia Freeland,

00:02:25.660 And expressing the way I think a lot of Albertans feel, but doing so in very, I think, un-Albertan welcoming language.

00:02:35.260 We're going to talk about the breathless media coverage of that versus other times where there's been verbal assaults, or in fact, physical assaults, but against conservatives.

00:02:45.620 We're going to talk about the difference in the media coverage of that.

00:02:49.760 We're going to do so on the federal level and on the provincial level.

00:02:52.920 You might not be that surprised that there might be a double standard involved.

00:02:57.600 Before we get started, though, I want to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:03:02.660 CSSA has been standing on guard for your right to legally own and use firearms in Canada.

00:03:09.220 Without the CSSA, the Trudeau government would have taken away our right to bear any kind of firearms in Canada long ago.

00:03:15.460 They're on the front lines helping any politician who will listen to craft smart firearms legislation and regulation.

00:03:21.800 And very importantly, doing yeoman's work on firearms education in Canada, helping Canadians at large understand what is smart firearms legislation, if that's not a contradiction in terms to begin with.

00:03:38.620 I've been a member of the CSSA for well over a decade because I trust them as Canada's leading gun rights organization to defend my right to own a gun in Canada.

00:03:47.640 If you're not yet a member, you should be.

00:03:49.420 Go to cssa-clia.org.

00:03:53.300 Corey, you're proud of me for getting that right?

00:03:55.200 You didn't get it right.

00:03:56.060 It says cssa-cila.org.

00:04:00.320 What did I say?

00:04:02.240 CLIA.

00:04:03.900 The best thing is to Google.

00:04:05.040 Sorry, it's CL...

00:04:06.040 C-I-L-A. 1.00

00:04:09.080 For F's thing. 0.95

00:04:11.780 CSSA, I love you, but you got to change the French acronym on your name

00:04:15.680 or at least your website. Okay, go to where, Corey?

00:04:20.900 CSSA-CILA.org. I have the advantage of a lot of repetition on that.

00:04:27.160 I love you, CSSA, but not that part. Sorry. Okay, let's get into it. The last UCP leadership

00:04:36.180 debate was last night. It was an official party debate. We're going to get into more specific

00:04:42.440 areas, but Nigel, give us your general high-level thoughts first.

00:04:46.880 High-level thoughts.

00:04:48.200 High-level.

00:04:48.760 Given the choice between watching that and a long drink of warm water, they're about

00:04:53.720 the same.

00:04:54.380 It was not what you'd call exciting stuff.

00:04:58.660 The only time I saw any real slapdown was when Trevor Taves challenged one of his opponents

00:05:07.980 that you should have read.

00:05:09.740 What should they have read?

00:05:11.940 The government financial statements, which is that thick,

00:05:14.560 and it's not something you'd ever pick up unless you really need it to.

00:05:18.440 I think it should be Travis Taves, yeah.

00:05:20.780 Yeah, Travis Taves.

00:05:21.820 What did I say?

00:05:22.860 Trevor Taves.

00:05:23.500 Trevor.

00:05:24.340 Well, okay.

00:05:25.560 There's a lot of Taves in this part of the world.

00:05:27.320 Yes, yeah.

00:05:28.520 But Travis Taves is certainly unmistakable.

00:05:31.240 Thought-level thoughts?

00:05:32.280 I mean, everybody won.

00:05:33.340 At the end of every debate, well, who won?

00:05:35.520 Every team claimed to.

00:05:37.460 We'll hold off on that part.

00:05:38.820 Sure.

00:05:39.240 We will get to that.

00:05:41.500 Okay, so let's talk kind of, before we get into how the candidates did, let's talk about the debate in general.

00:05:46.800 It's format, questions.

00:05:48.660 Well, look, you've got two hours, you've got seven candidates, you've got seven questions,

00:05:54.000 and everybody has to get a fair kick at the can, otherwise it doesn't look like it was done.

00:06:00.480 But you also have a party that is focused on unity and civility.

00:06:05.800 And so from the spectator point of view, it's kind of hard to make a big thing out of a pot bowl question.

00:06:13.460 Tell me what you would do to improve life for farmers.

00:06:17.680 Well, that's important to farmers.

00:06:19.360 But it's a bullshit question.

00:06:20.500 But it still doesn't really, you know, there's not much room to get into controversy there.

00:06:25.880 Yeah.

00:06:26.720 So, you know, Corey, it's an official party debate, so it had to include all seven.

00:06:33.440 I think most of us could agree that from previous experience, less than seven makes for more interaction.

00:06:40.240 But it's an official party debate, and because it's official, they have to have all seven there.

00:06:44.300 There was no way around that.

00:06:46.740 But, you know, I want your thoughts on the format.

00:06:50.680 We'll get into, you know, this idea that they had these vague, very puffball questions, as Nigel was saying.

00:06:58.380 you know uh it wasn't um you know what will you do to um you know increase market access for farmers

00:07:07.180 uh it would be you know some long preamble about how great the ucp is followed by and what will

00:07:12.700 you do to make agricultural policy even better that's not the exact question specifically and

00:07:17.820 then they would say specifically yeah they would ask a general vague question and then always say

00:07:22.220 and specifically um what are your thoughts on how like you know the questioning well it's probably

00:07:27.740 where the candidates almost want it to be too and this tail end i mean they're all actually now

00:07:31.340 courting second place votes is what they're doing their strategy has changed they've they've you

00:07:34.620 know people don't switch allegiance this late in the race very much unless there's been a

00:07:38.300 catastrophe of some kind so they don't want much for fireworks anyways they want to look congenial

00:07:43.660 to the other candidates uh strategically something that changed i guess you know with the format as

00:07:47.740 well i mean the first one they really messed up when they had that opportunity to okay choose who

00:07:52.140 you're going to debate well yeah so just before you get there explain for those who didn't watch

00:07:57.420 this painful debate experience, they'd be asked this BS vague question. And then the candidate

00:08:03.780 who got the question, and you could tell, I think they were given the questions in advance. They

00:08:08.860 had these scripts they're reading from. It looked like it. And then the candidate could ask anyone

00:08:13.520 else a question they want. And that was BS too. It's kind of interesting that they didn't ask

00:08:19.580 Daniel Smith very often, did they? Well, I think that's where Corey is going, is because it was

00:08:23.060 the same format as their first official debate. And they screwed that up because they were all

00:08:27.040 asking Danielle questions. I don't think they did that this time. No, they did realize their

00:08:30.800 mistake because Danielle is a smart orator. She doesn't get shaken. She doesn't get rattled. 1.00

00:08:35.840 And every time you give her another two minutes to speak, she's just gaining more support. And I

00:08:39.760 watched that first appearance. You're calling out the strongest one here. I mean, if she was a 0.96

00:08:44.640 terrible speaker, if she had bad points to make, then fine, keep going to her. But they just gave 0.99

00:08:48.720 her more airtime. She had, I mean, and when you're trying to grab oxygen amongst seven candidates,

00:08:53.500 it's hard to stand out. But when they're all turning to her the first time, she was actually

00:08:57.020 leave the face you saw half of the time for the entire debate. This time around, they figured

00:09:00.640 that out. Let's not give her more oxygen than you need to. Yeah. And again, I just don't think

00:09:05.220 anybody was eager to have any sparks at this point. They're all trying to hold the line.

00:09:09.320 As you said about the second place stuff. So instead of most of the questions being,

00:09:13.820 Danielle, why are you trying to destroy Canada with the Sovereignty Act? It was,

00:09:19.360 Travis, why is your tie so nice? It was trying to ingratiate one another for second ballot

00:09:26.320 of choices or to or maybe if you're a lower candidate you're hoping maybe Travis wins that

00:09:32.240 you know you'll be treated nicely when cabinet picks come along um yeah I think it's a really

00:09:37.160 good one I remember you wrote a column on it at the time and then you did a show um that

00:09:41.460 all those questions focused on Smith in the first debate they made at the Smith show

00:09:45.260 this time they um they talked about Smith and slammed her all the time but they didn't do it

00:09:52.520 questions to her they would they would debate each other and say nice things about each other

00:09:57.020 and be like what do you share with us why you think the sovereignty act is the worst thing

00:10:01.200 since the atomic bomb they'd figured that out and and again yeah they there's no doubt too that 0.79

00:10:08.580 she's still the front runner at least as far as they're concerned their internals have got to be

00:10:11.840 telling them that i mean if she was lagging you're not going to be turning your guns at her then and

00:10:15.940 they're still all focused on her uh things haven't changed much i think from that first debate it's

00:10:21.060 just as far as the progression of the race, you're in the latter half. So the tactics are going to

00:10:26.940 change. But the policies, there's not much new coming out. They're all just trying to hold on

00:10:31.040 to what they got. And as I said, try to get those second place votes. Because if somebody doesn't

00:10:34.720 win it in the first ballot, it's going to be really critical in this system to try and pick

00:10:38.720 up a lot of those second place choices. The debate in general, do you think UCP members got anything

00:10:48.120 out of it i wonder how many actually watched it to the end to be honest with you um so the answer

00:10:54.840 is no i i can't imagine that anybody changed their mind as a result of anything they heard there

00:11:01.880 last night uh it's very hard to be prescriptive about what a perfect setup for a leadership

00:11:08.680 debate is because on the one hand you don't want to stromash in the in the uh on the stage or

00:11:16.600 chaos it makes for good entertainment well it's entertaining but i encourage chaos in our debate

00:11:21.240 and i think it went great we intentionally courted chaos but you know i mean i mean

00:11:26.840 josh davidson did an excellent job of hosting the event but he was so anxious to make sure that

00:11:33.240 people didn't cut into candidates time by applauding when really they should be quiet

00:11:38.440 i think he spent more time scolding people about don't applaud don't applaud uh than people actually

00:11:44.440 She's been applauding, you know, and you sort of want it like that.

00:11:47.300 Well, it accepts the energy in the room.

00:11:48.680 Yeah.

00:11:49.080 Like, in our debate, there was lots of applause.

00:11:53.040 Every once in a while, it was just a bit excessive.

00:11:56.260 But we liked it because it adds the energy.

00:11:59.020 It makes the candidates, puts the candidates more in the ring.

00:12:02.940 You know, can you imagine, you know, if you've ever done mixed martial arts

00:12:07.540 or any kind of boxing, it's not very fun to fight without a crowd.

00:12:11.360 Right.

00:12:11.520 I think of those NFL games during the COVID when they had the cutout fake audiences in the background in an empty arena.

00:12:16.240 Yeah, it's not the same if you're not hearing thousands of screenings.

00:12:19.240 You want that, and it materially changes the debate.

00:12:23.340 Well, you know, sometimes the speaker actually draws energy from the crowd.

00:12:27.400 That's where you know that you're a politician.

00:12:31.220 Former.

00:12:31.620 Former politician.

00:12:33.360 So, you asked me what I thought.

00:12:37.160 I watched it through, but it was hard work.

00:12:39.960 We had a fair number of people watching on our own stream of it. I got a weird message about halfway through the debate from an NDP staffer in Edmonton and said, no, I can't actually say if the UCP stream was not good or not, but the person claimed at least that the official UCP stream is not very good.

00:13:02.200 So the NDP were all hate watching it on the Western Standard stream.

00:13:08.260 I don't know if that's true or not, but that's that's what the NDP person told me.

00:13:13.840 And truth is not an objective thing.

00:13:16.460 The NDP has no reason to flatter us.

00:13:19.400 The NDP doesn't have much interest in flattering us.

00:13:21.420 So I'll take it for what it is.

00:13:24.380 OK, let's we'll talk maybe more focused on the bigger and medium candidates, winners and losers.

00:13:30.580 Do you think anyone came on top?

00:13:33.100 Probably not.

00:13:34.100 I mean, it was more just maintaining the line.

00:13:36.380 Nobody made a knockout blow.

00:13:37.740 Nobody stepped in it ankle deep.

00:13:39.980 We're not seeing headlines this morning of, you know,

00:13:42.680 nobody made any broad new announcements or anything either.

00:13:45.640 It was just a steady-as-she-goes event.

00:13:47.580 And as Nigel said, that's where the challenges of staying awake through it were.

00:13:50.280 Well, Nigel, maybe I used the wrong term, winners and losers.

00:13:53.380 Well, that can be contextual, I guess, based on where you're coming from.

00:13:57.080 I'm not saying that the last place candidate landed a blow that catapults them to first or first fell to last, but who do you think, relatively speaking, relative to where they went coming into this debate, who do you think rose the most, who do you think fell the most?

00:14:15.160 Well, you know, Derek, something very interesting has happened over this entire campaign that

00:14:20.200 was cemented last night. And that is that when the campaign started, the general assumption was

00:14:27.180 that it was between the two former party leaders, Daniel Smith and Brian Jean. And Brian Jean,

00:14:33.860 without actually ever, as you put it, putting his foot in it ankle deep, has just sort of

00:14:39.360 not kept up

00:14:41.140 and Mr. Taves

00:14:43.540 has come

00:14:45.440 from behind

00:14:47.020 and mounted a very

00:14:49.460 effective

00:14:50.020 with all the provisos that we've said

00:14:53.480 that this was not theatre

00:14:55.460 but within the context of that

00:14:57.720 debate, he did well

00:14:59.020 he was very effective, very articulate

00:15:01.320 knew his files, spoke

00:15:03.160 firmly

00:15:04.700 you had the sense that if it was a

00:15:07.480 follow-up question he would have had the answer to it and so winners and losers I wouldn't be

00:15:14.580 prepared to say that there was an outright winner but it seemed to me very clear that he and Danielle

00:15:21.280 Smith were the two who at the end of the day you had to say it's going to be one of these or it

00:15:26.960 better be one of these if it's not this is not to say that people like Mr. Lewin I thought I thought

00:15:34.540 you know, they said sensible things. But on top, those two, yes.

00:15:44.760 Okay. You know, my thoughts were, I think Todd Lowen did well. You know, I don't think he came

00:15:54.020 out of it catapulting anywhere near frontrunner status. But I think, you know, he, I think,

00:15:59.600 endeared himself a lot with his comment around, you know, it was an agriculture, I think it was

00:16:03.420 on the bs agriculture question and he talked about uh fertilizer and he talked about uh you know if

00:16:08.820 we just uh you know trudeau trudeau's mouth is fertilizer and we can use that uh something to

00:16:15.280 that effect and it got a good rouse out of the crowd brian gene tried to jump onto that it took

00:16:20.840 the metaphor i think a bit too far to the point where it did definitely i'm not implying he made

00:16:25.700 it inappropriate or gross but it would just kind of the point where the the joke was pretty old

00:16:30.100 and stale and ran with it

00:16:32.000 too far. But I think Lowen did well

00:16:34.120 to endear himself there.

00:16:36.120 The Right to Farm Act, I think that was

00:16:37.940 the Right to Farm Act.

00:16:41.000 Largely symbolic,

00:16:42.120 I'm sure, but it sounds good to

00:16:44.020 a farmer.

00:16:45.400 It was more

00:16:48.120 or less an agriculture section of a

00:16:50.200 sovereignty act, more or less

00:16:52.120 saying, we're going to tell

00:16:54.140 Ottawa where to stick at any time they

00:16:56.040 tell our farmers what to do.

00:16:57.280 Right, exactly. So more or less it's a agriculture restricted section of a Sovereignty Act.

00:17:03.360 It's become a live issue of late with the plan to reduce nitrogen emissions. I mean,

00:17:07.760 there may be a case for that, certainly. So I want to talk about the two candidates who've

00:17:12.560 consistently pulled in by far the bottom two. And they pulled the bottom two possibly because

00:17:21.600 last night they came across as if they were at an NDP debate. You had Lila here and Rajan Sani

00:17:29.520 used a lot of rhetoric that sounded like they're trying to channel their inner Alice in Redford

00:17:34.880 and when you get the Alberta Teachers Union to sign up on mass. I don't think that's a strategy

00:17:38.720 that will work anymore because now you have the NDP. You don't need to elect a Liberal or New

00:17:43.520 Democrat as a PC. So I don't think that play will will work. But you had here and Sani saying things

00:17:50.880 like you know we're balancing the budget on the backs of our public schools you

00:17:55.440 know asked if they support choice in education they say I support choice and

00:17:59.400 then immediately say but I support our public education that is like the

00:18:03.000 Alberta Teachers Association they would and that's a shout out to all the

00:18:06.720 teachers yeah and they would organize there's a union organizers yeah and they

00:18:10.620 would use buzzwords around curriculum more or less implying it should be they

00:18:14.660 should go back to what the NDP did which is give the ATA control over the

00:18:17.580 curriculum, that kind of thing. I guess we'll talk about these two candidates here, Ahir and

00:18:24.140 Sani. Do you think they had any kind of pickup from this debate? I can't imagine who they would 0.99

00:18:31.620 come from, who is also a member of the United Conservative Party. That is a very, very minority

00:18:38.300 point of view. And you'll notice that probably the biggest round of applause that came during

00:18:43.840 the entire evening, came for Mr. Taves after he said, look, first principle, parents are

00:18:53.120 primarily responsible for the education of their children, and the whole place went wild.

00:18:58.280 This was right after the remarks you just quoted had been made. So I don't think there's any

00:19:04.120 doubt of where the party membership stands. So in terms of putting that out there at the debate,

00:19:11.160 I don't see what the point was

00:19:13.480 because that was not going to pick up votes

00:19:15.560 whether there is some other

00:19:16.860 whether that is going to be useful

00:19:19.200 in some other context

00:19:20.320 I don't know

00:19:21.700 but in terms of picking up last night

00:19:23.720 no, definitely not

00:19:24.780 Corey, so when Redford tried this kind of play successfully

00:19:28.380 it was under very different leadership rules

00:19:30.520 you could become a member of the PC party

00:19:33.540 right up until the first ballot vote

00:19:35.060 and if there was a second ballot vote

00:19:36.460 which there was, you know, to the final three

00:19:38.060 you could continue to sell memberships

00:19:41.020 right up until that last ballot vote.

00:19:44.240 And that's what Redford did, and she got the ATE to come in. 0.98

00:19:47.080 The membership cutoff has already happened,

00:19:49.420 so there won't be any more teachers signing up.

00:19:53.180 What do you think was kind of the play of here

00:19:55.780 and to a lesser extent, Sonny here?

00:19:58.200 To be honest, I don't even know why they ran.

00:20:00.320 I mean, it's this point in the race.

00:20:02.160 I mean, they're also rands, but they aren't even...

00:20:04.400 It's fine, you get those in every race,

00:20:05.860 but they aren't endearing themselves to the other candidates

00:20:08.260 if you're looking for a cabinet spot later

00:20:10.200 or a longer period.

00:20:11.820 I mean, it looks like Leila should have been paying better attention 1.00

00:20:13.940 to her constituency because chances are she's not going to win her nomination. 0.99

00:20:17.240 Yeah, they just lost the vote of their board there by 75% in their own writing.

00:20:21.920 Yeah, and strategically, I guess, Sonny, you know, you're getting some profile.

00:20:26.800 You got a little more known within the party.

00:20:28.660 You're carving out a pretty left edge over there,

00:20:31.760 and then you don't have that teacher's union to be able to pad those votes. 0.87

00:20:35.600 I'm not sure what her rationale was

00:20:39.400 even for running in the first place, to be honest,

00:20:41.120 unless she really misread what the membership of that party is.

00:20:44.800 But I guess maybe it'll help show balance.

00:20:47.120 I mean, you know, a good congenial leader afterwards

00:20:50.180 might say, well, we'll put you in cabinet social services

00:20:53.060 or something just to pacify that wing of the party.

00:20:56.460 Or perhaps they're going to be looking at something

00:20:57.940 like Alberta party in the next election or something.

00:21:02.420 I want to do, I'm going to get you,

00:21:04.920 I'm going to get us all on the record. We're going to predict, and we've had an office pool

00:21:09.600 going on the other side of the door in the hallway on how the federal conservative leadership is

00:21:14.580 going to break down. We haven't really gotten on the record for Alberta yet. So, you know,

00:21:21.240 we've got Smith, Taves, Gene, Schultz, Lowen, Sonny, Aheer. I want predictions. I'll put,

00:21:29.520 I'd say a case of beer, but a case of beer. A beer would be very satisfactory.

00:21:34.160 Okay. I'm willing to go in on a case of beer. I'm going to bet here. For you, cash equivalent.

00:21:41.240 Put a case in the fridge for guests.

00:21:43.160 Okay. There we go. I'm going to bet a case of beer here, but you got to rank them in the right order in which they're going to place on first ballot.

00:21:51.720 Your predictions, Corey. Let's start with last and work your way up, or from first and work your way down.

00:21:57.480 Last, we're looking at the top three, or are you looking at all seven?

00:22:00.440 All seven. All seven from first to last.

00:22:03.140 I think here is going to come in in seventh.

00:22:06.400 Very recently so.

00:22:08.400 Okay.

00:22:10.080 Sonny will come in sixth.

00:22:12.300 She's got a solid base of support in Northeast Calgary,

00:22:15.160 and she's courting that, and it'll get some numbers in. 0.97

00:22:17.380 But it'll still be a far, far distance.

00:22:19.100 I won't try to go for percentages.

00:22:20.580 You don't need percentage.

00:22:21.480 Just ranking.

00:22:22.300 Yeah, and then Todd Lowen.

00:22:24.520 Fifth, yeah.

00:22:25.320 Brian Jean.

00:22:26.980 Okay.

00:22:28.020 Oh, wait a minute.

00:22:28.720 For Schultz.

00:22:30.100 Schultz and Jean, yeah, no, I think I'd go for Schultz

00:22:32.420 and then Gene.

00:22:34.080 I'm sorry.

00:22:35.380 Who's higher, who's lower?

00:22:36.780 Gene higher than Schultz.

00:22:38.200 Okay, so Schultz in fourth,

00:22:39.760 Gene in third.

00:22:40.640 Yep.

00:22:41.720 And Taves and Smith.

00:22:44.600 That's the exact order

00:22:45.560 I wrote mine in.

00:22:49.120 What are your predictions?

00:22:49.920 Well, I agree

00:22:52.580 that

00:22:53.800 Mesa here will

00:22:55.440 trail.

00:22:57.520 Like in dead last?

00:22:59.000 Seventh place.

00:22:59.860 Yeah.

00:22:59.980 And Sony will be six.

00:23:05.600 I actually am predicting a late rally for Rebecca Schultz.

00:23:10.660 It will put her into fourth place, pushing Brian Jean down to fifth.

00:23:15.620 So Brian Jean, five.

00:23:18.820 Rebecca Schultz, fourth.

00:23:20.460 Sorry, and where's Lohan?

00:23:22.200 Lohan is three.

00:23:23.860 Lohan in third.

00:23:26.200 Schultz in fourth.

00:23:27.480 Oh, sorry.

00:23:28.560 Oh, Schultz in fourth.

00:23:29.980 Gene in fifth and second first. Well, Smith first and Tave second. Okay, bold. I could see it

00:23:37.740 happening. But it is bold, yes. It's a bold one? Yeah. Okay. I shall have reserved beer. I think

00:23:43.820 you'll probably, you should actually get odds for it because you're breaking food. I'm going to stick

00:23:48.140 with the conventional wisdom. We've been good at being wrong before too though, so there's still

00:23:53.820 room. I mean, this is an easy call. I have never been wrong. I've never been wrong,

00:23:58.220 particularly about anything in politics. Yeah. Okay. And just for the record, from first to last,

00:24:04.140 Smith, Taves, Gene, Schultz, Lowen, Sonny, Aheer. I think that's probably the conventional wisdom,

00:24:11.020 at least the more objective observers. Okay. Well, it's on the record. We're going to come back to it

00:24:19.020 on United Conservative Party election night. Speaking of which, we're going to have live

00:24:23.180 broadcast on the night of the federal conservative leadership vote, which is what September

00:24:28.140 10th? Yes. September 10th, we're going to have live wall-to-wall coverage. I think it'll be a

00:24:33.820 lot better than the last time we covered a federal conservative leadership. God, it has to be.

00:24:38.200 We have better than like a phone camera taped to a wall. We need to have good tape.

00:24:45.200 We're obviously going to have a live full night coverage of the United Conservative Party race

00:24:49.960 as well. Okay, let's move on. Speaking of why they're having a United Conservative Party

00:24:55.000 leadership race. Jason Kinney on the way out. He's trying to check some things off. I think he's

00:25:01.180 trying to leave himself. It's very interesting. You wouldn't think that the man who founded and

00:25:09.160 led a party and is turfed by that party three years after forming a majority government,

00:25:13.960 you wouldn't think that that's, you wouldn't think he's actually been thrown out. He seems to be

00:25:18.320 going around acting like he's served like three terms. He's done a long time as premier and he is

00:25:23.980 just kind of on his long way out. He's doing legacy building. And one of these

00:25:28.100 things he's done, maybe you want to challenge me on that. But one of the things he's done is

00:25:34.040 reverse. One of the first things he did as premier, which was reversing the indexation

00:25:40.900 of income taxes. Now that's called bracket cream. And just for a little history for people,

00:25:46.340 Jason Kenney became known in Alberta and across Canada before entering formal politics as the

00:25:52.900 head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, first then Alberta, then nationally. And he made his

00:25:56.720 name beating the hell out of Ralph Klein and then Paul Martin over bracket cream, saying it was

00:26:03.660 damn criminal. It's the government effectively raising taxes every year because inflation goes

00:26:08.820 up, but the tax brackets stay the same. So people are pushed into higher and higher tax brackets,

00:26:14.160 even though their real income is effectively the same. I think he used the term pernicious.

00:26:18.820 He said it was a pernicious and stealth tax hike.

00:26:22.820 And one of the first damn things he did when he came to office was to do exactly that.

00:26:28.760 Yesterday, he announced the reversal of that.

00:26:32.300 And I suppose that's a good thing.

00:26:36.160 Nigel, do you think he deserves a pat on the back for it?

00:26:40.920 The thing with Jason Kenney is that he has significant accomplishments behind him.

00:26:47.660 And when the leadership review gave him 51%, he won technically, 51%.

00:26:55.120 After changing the rules half a dozen times to get him 51%.

00:26:58.780 Don't leave me down that rabbit trail because I don't know where it ends.

00:27:02.640 But it gets pretty dark down there.

00:27:06.120 But I can try and put myself in his head and think, you know, I drove all over Alberta in an old blue Dodge truck.

00:27:13.920 I've done all this.

00:27:14.940 COVID hit me.

00:27:15.660 then I just as the financial situation is turning around I get thrown out darn it I'm going to have

00:27:23.220 my say and I'm going to leave my leave a bit of a personal legacy is that a selfless thing to do

00:27:30.020 when you have you know the next people coming along might be very nice to make a make that

00:27:35.960 gesture make these gestures maybe not but I can see how he gets there and as for the as for does

00:27:42.140 he deserve a pat on the back? Probably not, because he let it happen in the first place.

00:27:49.780 He didn't need to do that. I mean, it's never too late to do the right thing, and he's done the

00:27:56.860 right thing, but he's done the right thing, technically reducing the tax revenue of his

00:28:01.900 successor, never himself. And I get that he wants to leave the legacy. He wants to go out with

00:28:09.420 something positive on his name not just being chased out by his own party for arresting pastors

00:28:15.640 and shutting down businesses and things like that that's not how most conservatives want to be

00:28:20.120 remembered by history uh but he's taken away an easy win from his successor i think it goes without

00:28:25.240 saying we've seen in the leadership debates every single candidate has said that they would reverse

00:28:28.900 back at creep probably something they would do on the first day in office jason kenny just took away

00:28:34.480 the ability of his successor to get an easy win.

00:28:36.920 Do you think he's, or do you think he's, you know,

00:28:42.140 do you think he's being,

00:28:45.480 does he have the best interest of his party success

00:28:48.420 after him and his successor at heart here?

00:28:50.800 Or is it just fine, like, ah, whatever, you know, let him have it?

00:28:54.860 It's hard to get into his mind.

00:28:56.540 I mean, he wants just to go positive in the end, I guess, for himself.

00:29:00.120 There's no doubt about that.

00:29:01.240 I mean, if you were playing, and he's a political guy.

00:29:03.240 I mean, he's as political as they get.

00:29:04.720 He knows what he's doing when he does these things.

00:29:07.080 And you're stealing some thunder from whoever's coming in next,

00:29:09.640 whoever that might be, because you want them to hit the ground running.

00:29:12.840 They've got a general election six months after getting in.

00:29:16.360 They need a legislative session with a whole bunch of good,

00:29:18.840 popping policies that make Albertans happy.

00:29:21.080 Well, they can't announce the bracket creep.

00:29:22.800 They won't be able to do a darn thing with the surplus

00:29:24.680 because he's already dedicated it, which was great.

00:29:27.300 I thought that was another thing.

00:29:28.100 It's good that they put it towards debt repayment.

00:29:30.360 That's a very positive thing.

00:29:31.920 But, like, that would have been a nice little announcement for his successor to me.

00:29:36.920 If you're looking for a legacy, you know, pick a capital project.

00:29:39.760 Take a little chunk of that surplus and go cut a ribbon on something you know.

00:29:42.720 This was the one that Jason Kenney initiated and brought up.

00:29:45.860 Let Jason Kenney build the Jason Kenney Memorial Park, for all I care.

00:29:49.820 Yeah, nuts.

00:29:50.880 But, like, whatever.

00:29:52.020 This has some undertones.

00:29:53.260 Most legacies are much more expensive.

00:29:54.880 A little bit of spite, I think, still on.

00:29:56.940 You know, no, no.

00:29:57.420 I'm not giving you guys gifts, whoever you are replacing me.

00:29:59.760 You're going to work for it.

00:30:00.720 I'm taking the credit for this stuff.

00:30:02.200 I think it's because he thinks Danielle Smith is going to win.

00:30:05.380 Because I'm not even convinced he wants her to win the next election.

00:30:10.480 Because I think it's, I think he would like to be, I think when the history books are written about this, he'd like it to be, well, I could have won.

00:30:20.340 But these yokels kicked me out of my job.

00:30:23.940 And I could have won that election, but they didn't know it was good for themselves.

00:30:27.280 And they lost because they picked a crazy person like Danielle Smith. 1.00

00:30:30.040 If he has gone out of his way to attack her and her platform,

00:30:33.760 I'm not convinced that he actually wants her to win

00:30:37.260 because he'll look better in history if she doesn't.

00:30:39.700 That's in the back of his mind in our own little petty personal place,

00:30:43.320 but I still think he's a decent enough person.

00:30:44.940 He doesn't want to see Notley in for another term.

00:30:47.380 Maybe have Danielle win with three-seat majority on top of it, 1.00

00:30:51.100 but get a spanking, but I just don't think he's quite that vindictive.

00:30:54.280 I don't think he wants to see the NDP win,

00:30:56.300 but I don't think he also wants to see Danielle.

00:30:58.540 I think he might be a bit incongruent in his thinking here.

00:31:04.280 But everything's so bizarre with this whole year and how this has all landed.

00:31:07.980 So to try and guess where he's going to go and why, I think he can answer.

00:31:12.200 Okay, so we kind of come back maybe more to the, I kind of moneyed the first question about, do you think he deserves credit for it?

00:31:18.680 I mean, it's never too late to do the right thing, but does he deserve any credit for this?

00:31:24.980 when he, Kenny, Jason Kenney imposed one of the largest tax hikes in Alberta history. The only

00:31:31.360 one that was potentially larger was the NDP carbon tax, which we still have because we're willing to

00:31:36.380 do what Ottawa says. Do you think Kenny deserves any credit whatsoever for this?

00:31:42.520 As Nigel said, he never had to bring it in in the first place or the numbers were already there too

00:31:47.240 that he could have dropped this months ago if it was such a rush then to do it, to do it just before

00:31:51.140 the end of the leadership race? I don't know. There's stuff at play. Nigel? If any, whoever wins

00:31:59.380 the race, if they want an idea from this desk, they can do more on gas taxes. 0.61

00:32:07.220 Well, there's only a bit they can do, I think, because, well, as Kenny punted the date of his

00:32:15.940 leadership vote several times there and change the rules. He also announced they were temporarily

00:32:22.080 getting rid of the provincial portion of the gas tax. That was very nice. Probably extremely

00:32:26.120 politically motivated as he was trying to save his job, obviously was not enough. But some of

00:32:32.460 the candidates, I know Travis Taves, I'm not sure about Daniel Smith, but at least Taves has said

00:32:37.180 he would make that permanent, no provincial gas tax. I think that'll last at least as long as

00:32:41.780 gases, as long as oil revenue keeps coming in. But then there was Jean's proposal. So right now,

00:32:48.260 there is no provincial gas tax, which is nice, because it kind of more or less neutralizes

00:32:51.620 the federal carbon tax just means the money goes to Ottawa, though. But what can be done was Jean's

00:32:57.140 interesting proposal of... Actually, is that doesn't it? Now, is that actually so? Because

00:33:01.860 we pay GST on the price of a liter. So if you take 15 cents a liter off, that means less GST.

00:33:08.780 Less GST goes to Ottawa.

00:33:09.880 Yes, a little bit less.

00:33:11.160 Taves pointed that out yesterday.

00:33:13.720 When I was at a previous life, when I was at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:33:17.060 I wrote the gas tax report every single year.

00:33:20.060 And it's incredible how much money goes to Ottawa

00:33:23.660 because the GST doesn't apply to just the price of the gasoline.

00:33:27.860 It applies to even the gas taxes on it.

00:33:31.540 So if you cut the gas tax, that means actually the amount of GST going to Ottawa goes down.

00:33:36.440 A lot of people don't know that, you know.

00:33:37.620 Yeah, it's a tax on taxes. In Quebec, they have a tax on a tax on a tax. The QST, buckle up, folks, this one's wild. The QST in Quebec, it doesn't just tax the gas and the regular excise taxes on gas, it taxes the GST.

00:33:57.500 Because the GST is a tax on a tax.

00:33:59.820 The QST is a tax on a tax on a tax.

00:34:03.480 Now, that is some meta-tax for you there.

00:34:05.280 You still following me, everyone?

00:34:07.320 Let us know in the comments section if we're just complete.

00:34:09.840 We sound totally out to lunch.

00:34:11.100 It makes sense, I swear.

00:34:12.280 That's why the tax freedom day comes at the end of August in Quebec, isn't it?

00:34:15.800 Yeah.

00:34:17.640 Okay.

00:34:20.040 Before we move on, just on the gas tax part,

00:34:22.920 Jean's proposal was interesting, saying that because Albertans are the owners of the resource, we should not be paying the royalty portion at the pump.

00:34:32.480 So I don't know exactly how it works, but I've read it. It seems to actually make some sense.

00:34:38.340 You know, thoughts on that? Jean's kind of royalty tax?

00:34:41.360 That's actually what I had in mind. The next leader can do something, do more on gas taxes.

00:34:45.700 That's I just didn't remember it was Mr. Jean who said that.

00:34:49.940 Yeah, absolutely. Let's at least look at that.

00:34:52.920 It's an idea.

00:34:55.100 That might be an easy one.

00:34:56.360 It's not as easy as bracket creep, which everyone...

00:35:00.680 Well, no, it's not an easy thing.

00:35:02.280 But when you think how far people will drive to save two cents a liter,

00:35:06.180 whatever that royalty is worth, that is going to be appealing to some people.

00:35:12.080 It's a very visible thing to people on their budget.

00:35:13.620 Yeah.

00:35:14.700 Maybe what we need is...

00:35:16.760 They used to do this.

00:35:17.640 They used to put it on the side of the gas pump and say,

00:35:19.720 your gas cost you 50 cents and then this tax and this tax and this tax and people could actually

00:35:25.140 see well you know those stickers came from the canadian taxpayers federation i used to i used

00:35:29.000 to make those well there you go yeah and people are still talking about it derrick i've actually

00:35:33.360 i've got a giant version of it blown up for a press conference still on the wall in my garage

00:35:37.520 right now there we go okay do it again uh clearly politicians would never be hypocritical and

00:35:44.840 Speaking of hypocrites, let's talk about the mainstream media's harassment double standard.

00:35:52.780 So I think late last week or something along the lines, there was some fella in Grand Prairie,

00:36:00.600 and he saw that Deputy Prairie Minister Chrystia Freeland was there.

00:36:05.460 Apparently, she's originally from the region.

00:36:07.380 She does not consider herself an Albertan, but when she's here, she calls herself a daughter of Alberta or something.

00:36:12.080 But she's not an Albertan. She's a Torontonian.

00:36:14.380 But, you know, I don't think most Albertans think very highly of her.

00:36:19.300 But I don't think most Albertans would scream and swear the way this guy did.

00:36:23.860 It was, we should have actually included the video in this.

00:36:27.380 But I think most people have seen the video.

00:36:29.440 I think everyone's seen the video by now.

00:36:32.200 It wasn't a very good way to express oneself.

00:36:34.480 The media have called this an assault, or sometimes they've slightly backed up their language to say a verbal assault.

00:36:41.620 Maybe. But the media has made a pretty big deal of this, haven't they, Nigel?

00:36:48.340 Well, they have. And also, they've tried to pin it to this province. Like, you know,

00:36:52.580 come to Alberta, and these are the kind of people you're going to meet. It's sort of a subtext to

00:36:58.900 the whole thing. Because we were having this discussion, I was looking through the files,

00:37:03.620 and I see that they've had some pretty nasty incidents down east as well. I don't think it's

00:37:07.700 peculiar to Alberta or any other province. There's a general diminishment of people's standards of

00:37:15.140 behavior. It's been coming on for decades. This kind of thing tended not to happen so much in the

00:37:20.820 1950s and the 1960s, saying it didn't, but not so much. Now it's pretty common.

00:37:26.420 You're dating yourself a bit.

00:37:29.060 People look, I mean, with the cameras you're using, everybody's going to see the wrinkles.

00:37:33.060 i don't have to date myself it's just being done for me but um no so that you you can speculate on

00:37:41.060 why standards are coming down but uh the idea of a of a man sort of seeing a woman whether she's

00:37:48.900 in politics or not and hurling obscenities at her was absolutely outrageous at an earlier time now

00:37:57.220 we're talking about it on a talk show you know examining it to see whether this was definitely

00:38:01.940 not the best foot forward of Alberta. I don't think it's the best way to express anger.

00:38:05.900 Absolutely not. I have a lot of anger at the federal government and Christia Freeland, but

00:38:10.380 I wouldn't deign to strip down to a tank top and get up to her and start screaming obscenities. It 0.60

00:38:20.480 was not very nice. I think we can all agree it was not a nice thing to do. But the media,

00:38:27.000 I'm going to talk about the media reaction to this, though.

00:38:29.820 The media, Corey, have bit on this hook, line, and sinker, I think,

00:38:36.140 and have tried to portray this as outright violence.

00:38:41.220 Tried to portray it, I think, as Nigel said, in the subtext very gently as it's Albertans, you know, Albertans,

00:38:48.580 and that he's a racist and misogynist. 0.53

00:38:52.580 He could be those things, but I don't know.

00:38:54.780 I just take him to be an angry, uncouth, and ungentlemanly figure.

00:39:01.680 I don't know.

00:39:02.580 Your take on how the media has framed this.

00:39:04.360 Yeah, well, I mean, again, everybody has condemned it, and they should.

00:39:07.640 I mean, look, she's a small woman who, you know, even myself,

00:39:12.360 I had that lunatic running at me with a wife, beat her around, screaming. 1.00

00:39:14.940 I'm going to feel intimidated.

00:39:16.080 And intimidating of elected figures is unacceptable.

00:39:19.100 There's no getting around that.

00:39:20.380 And just before I get after the media, who I love getting after,

00:39:24.540 Some of our own typical social media supporters, it's always, it wasn't right, but, no, wait a

00:39:28.880 second, there's no but, you got, no, but it's but, oh, they did this, they did that, no, no, and that's

00:39:33.640 what feeds the media too, and you see a bunch of, and then they start pulling it up, oh, this tweeter

00:39:36.480 from Alberta said, well, but in her case, she's a this, and there's some really ugly discussion

00:39:42.780 going on out there, and it does feed a biased media, gives them the opportunity to say, this is

00:39:47.460 the Albertan thing, or this is what Polyev fostered, and as you said, it's in a subtext, they won't say

00:39:51.620 it directly, but they are doing that. What they will say directly is that Pierre Polyev, Daniel

00:39:58.900 Smith, the Western Standard, other non-government funded media, we're responsible for this.

00:40:06.520 You know, to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, the world is moving in a direction where no one's responsible

00:40:13.440 for anything they did, and everyone is responsible for something that other people did. This is where

00:40:19.640 they're going. So I think we've got some headlines that we're going to bring up here covering this.

00:40:25.880 So, you know, first we had some of the mainstream media coverage of, you know, the accosting of

00:40:33.900 Chrystia Freeland here. It's assault. It's verbal battery, all these things. It's very serious.

00:40:41.240 We're now like in approaching the second week of talking about this almost. This is leading the

00:40:48.500 editorials of all the big legacy government-funded newspapers, all the legacy government-funded

00:40:53.660 television stations. But I don't remember quite the same outrage when there was not very long ago

00:41:00.900 a physical assault on a politician in Canada. Maxime Bernier had eggs thrown at him. That is

00:41:06.960 physical assault. That's serious. Obviously, he was not injured in any great way. There was no

00:41:14.000 grenade inside the egg, but that was assault. I can't remember, Nigel, there being anywhere

00:41:20.860 near the outcry. Well, again, in the process of looking up the old issues, I couldn't find

00:41:28.380 anything where anybody said, this, of course, we deplore the egging of Mr. Bernier, but,

00:41:36.600 and then all the reasons why it actually was perfectly all right, barely got a mention.

00:41:41.700 if it did it was usually it was almost ignored well it was almost ignored except when it was

00:41:45.640 mocked you know couldn't have happened to a nicer guy that sort of comment yeah so you're totally

00:41:51.500 correct there is a double standard uh in the medium and but we knew that going in we know the

00:41:58.560 media tends to have a point of view there are exceptions there are people who don't fall into

00:42:04.900 a neat log step but generally speaking they are going to they're going to love a victim story

00:42:10.620 because it's a process story.

00:42:14.100 Ideas are not interesting to write about,

00:42:17.380 but people fighting with each other

00:42:19.520 or a woman being verbally assaulted,

00:42:23.380 oh, well, everybody has an opinion about that

00:42:25.380 and they get into it and know what the opinion is going to be.

00:42:27.380 So it's like catnip for the media.

00:42:33.540 You didn't see the denouncement swarm.

00:42:36.300 No.

00:42:36.360 And that's what we get now, right?

00:42:38.040 Everybody's accepted.

00:42:39.160 If everyone hasn't proactively come up and issued some official statement from on high,

00:42:45.420 well, then you condone it.

00:42:46.640 You're practically beating women. 1.00

00:42:48.160 Nobody was getting on Trudeau's case, so you had to denounce what happened to Bernier.

00:42:51.340 I mean, you shouldn't have to.

00:42:52.140 It's a given.

00:42:52.700 Everybody rational knows.

00:42:54.400 Rational.

00:42:54.900 There's not enough rationality.

00:42:56.180 I understand that.

00:42:57.200 But rational people know you don't throw eggs at people.

00:42:59.720 You don't come running, screaming at them, spouting obscenities.

00:43:02.160 You just don't.

00:43:02.720 You don't have to constantly make people reiterate that and say over and over that they don't

00:43:06.540 support that.

00:43:07.180 But that's what the media is doing and cornering, and it's getting annoying.

00:43:11.140 You know, it was interesting that Mr. Trudeau did make that statement the following day.

00:43:16.080 Oh, let's talk about that.

00:43:17.800 Well, that was incredible.

00:43:20.260 It was at an event, and he just got out of his speaking notes to draw attention to this situation with Ms. Freeland.

00:43:31.420 Let's talk about what he said.

00:43:32.660 Well, just for the viewers' benefits, I don't remember, I'll have to paraphrase here, but Trudeau said something along the lines of, you know, politicians, public figures need to stop doing things that divide people.

00:43:48.820 You need to stop saying things that get people angry and get people divided and all these things.

00:43:53.660 And I was watching this, and my jaw was just dropped that the man who said that many of the unvaccinated in Canada were racists and misogynists, bigots, and all these nasty things.

00:44:09.000 Had unacceptable views.

00:44:10.380 Unacceptable views.

00:44:11.460 The man who invoked martial law and seized the bank accounts of people protesting against his policies.

00:44:16.820 And this twerp has the nerve to say that everyone else is responsible for dividing Canadians.

00:44:27.120 He has no responsibility for any of this.

00:44:30.600 Well, what he actually said was that it was not, he also said it wasn't an isolated incident that women generally face this.

00:44:38.480 Got to tell you, men face it as well.

00:44:40.640 Two of the people we were talking about earlier, Travis Staves and Ryan Jean, both had death threats during this leadership race.

00:44:50.340 They seem to be pretty calm about it.

00:44:54.240 But I didn't recall hearing a lot of other people being uncalm about it.

00:44:58.020 You know, I've never talked about this publicly because I don't want to.

00:45:01.840 I think a lot of politicians use this kind of thing to score, oh, poor me points.

00:45:06.560 But I'll just briefly say a guy was just convicted the other week for making death threats against myself.

00:45:12.960 The whole trial revolved around his political inquisition.

00:45:16.820 It was actually quite political.

00:45:18.860 Most media didn't bother reporting on that.

00:45:21.020 But a guy made the whole thing about politics and was convicted of making death threats against myself.

00:45:28.540 And all the comments I saw from lefties and all these stories on the Herald or the Suns was like,

00:45:36.420 of course, someone threatened to kill Phil DeBrand.

00:45:39.140 He deserves to be killed.

00:45:40.400 This was unanimously the left-wing comments.

00:45:43.040 And I took it as a compliment.

00:45:45.000 But I don't talk about this thing, and I'm not very comfortable talking about it,

00:45:47.660 because people like to use this and saying, well, someone made a threat against me,

00:45:51.080 so everyone should feel bad for me, and that should somehow score me some political points.

00:45:55.620 and well our own mayor yeah let's talk about her yeah jody conduct tweeted i have been asked by

00:46:03.220 some people why i haven't made a public statement about the assault on our deputy the assault by

00:46:09.240 the way not the verbal assault she says right here on twitter on our deputy prime minister 0.80

00:46:14.000 she continues to be blunt i had to sit with my thoughts for a couple of days because this

00:46:19.840 incident is not isolated

00:46:21.520 and it brings up too much

00:46:23.760 pain and fear.

00:46:26.140 Yes.

00:46:28.160 Yeah, whatever.

00:46:29.820 I just am not in the mood for Gondek myself.

00:46:32.180 You know, but

00:46:32.900 there has been stuff happening too. People showed up at her

00:46:35.800 house and that is an

00:46:37.700 intimidation. That's not cool.

00:46:39.640 And it is wrong. And I went

00:46:41.120 on about that at the show because I mean, I rip

00:46:43.520 Gondek all the time and I had a lot of my own show commenters

00:46:45.820 saying, yeah, she deserves it.

00:46:47.880 Guys, you're not helping.

00:46:49.080 it's just as wrong if our our side people we agree with do these things it is wrong even if

00:46:58.820 they're doing it out of anger that we share just as if the other side does it it's just as bloody

00:47:04.860 wrong and you give her more opportunity to play oral me like she did with that yeah so you're 0.98

00:47:09.540 only helping them guys you know you're not so let's talk another example of uh you know this

00:47:15.460 kind of double standard, very close to home here, involving the USP leadership race. So you have

00:47:23.600 the kind of lefty-ish Leela here. Someone apparently hacked her Facebook, she claims,

00:47:32.020 and started posting some nasty things. And she very successfully played the victim card

00:47:40.860 in the media. I think we may even have some of the headlines. The media very much bought onto

00:47:46.360 that narrative. She's a victim for her. Now, I think like the exact same, maybe even the same

00:47:53.060 day, if not, it was plus or minus one day, someone was going around making fake phone calls and

00:48:02.740 recording them, pretending to be the Danielle Smith campaign, saying very nasty things,

00:48:08.200 pretending to be on behalf of Danielle Smith. The media on that one, damn near silence. They

00:48:16.160 barely even reported it happened. You had Dwayne Bratt, apparently the only political science

00:48:24.220 professor who could be quoted in Alberta politics in the media. With a here, he said these people

00:48:29.540 should face jail time, call the police. And with Danielle Smith, he, I believe, said,

00:48:36.160 Like, call the police against Danielle Smith.

00:48:38.620 You know, I've noticed that so many people are really anxious about the ability of Facebook and the telephone companies to trace them.

00:48:47.480 Why are we not able to find the people who made the fake phone calls to Danielle Smith's campaign?

00:48:54.260 Why are we not able to find the people who hacked, you know, how much of a grip has Big Brother got on us?

00:49:02.960 look

00:49:05.340 there's nothing you can say in defense

00:49:08.520 of people who do that kind of thing

00:49:10.580 there really isn't

00:49:11.700 I don't even know whether there's awfully much

00:49:14.360 you can say to understand but I do

00:49:16.280 suppose that there are some folks who are so deeply

00:49:18.380 invested in the

00:49:20.340 politics that they believe in that they feel

00:49:22.360 that they are doing something useful

00:49:24.440 for their person if they

00:49:26.240 screw up the other guys

00:49:27.500 this is not the first time you've heard about this kind of thing

00:49:30.280 it happens all the time

00:49:31.420 but

00:49:33.300 I wish they wouldn't

00:49:35.560 but I do wish that

00:49:37.600 if you're going to make a big fuss

00:49:40.200 for one person

00:49:40.960 can you make a big fuss for the other person

00:49:43.660 and if not then neither

00:49:45.460 let's be fair about this

00:49:47.280 Corey I think there's kind of two key

00:49:50.260 points about why the media make a big

00:49:52.340 difference about one person

00:49:54.560 or group of people and not about another

00:49:56.500 I think the first

00:49:58.480 is their politics, are they on the left

00:50:00.780 In the case of Freeland and Ahir, they're on the left, but they're also willing to, actually, oh, I hate to do this. Freeland's credit, she didn't play the victim card. The media definitely played it for her. She didn't go out there pleading for me. Ahir definitely did this teary-eyed press conference and very much actively tried to play the victim card.

00:50:25.620 So in that case, actually, Freeland was less bad.

00:50:30.480 But, you know, when you see this with conservatives, you know, there are tons of death threats against Harper.

00:50:37.880 I remember when I was in politics, I got a ton of death threats.

00:50:41.040 But you know how I handled it.

00:50:42.340 I never went out and talked about it at all.

00:50:44.540 What I did is I applied for a concealed carry permit.

00:50:49.180 I made the argument that, look, I'm an elected official.

00:50:52.680 I'm getting death threats and it'll cost the taxpayer almost a million dollars a year to give

00:50:56.140 me a security detail. How about I'll do it for free? You just let me carry my Glock.

00:51:01.600 They said no, but I had to try. I had to try. The extent of some of this, and I mean, yeah,

00:51:08.020 what they made with what they hear, there hasn't been enough critical, at least examination before

00:51:12.320 they reported on these things. And this was reported as if it was a political attack on

00:51:15.860 here. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Facebook's not the easiest thing in the world actually to hack

00:51:19.480 unless you went and downloaded that darned app

00:51:22.180 and didn't read the small print

00:51:23.140 and put some cute little bunny ears on your picture

00:51:24.940 when you're Instagramming.

00:51:26.120 And holy cow, you downloaded something

00:51:27.960 and made a crack into your own page.

00:51:30.220 So a little critique here

00:51:31.800 because there's lots of people

00:51:32.560 who would love to hack all sorts of political pages,

00:51:34.640 but they don't manage to

00:51:35.580 because they're being responsibly run.

00:51:38.000 I've never heard, I'm sure it happens.

00:51:41.120 I want to victim blame here.

00:51:42.500 But I've never seen another Albertans Facebook page

00:51:45.600 ever hacked.

00:51:47.040 Like it's pretty, I really shouldn't say this

00:51:49.100 because now someone's going to try and hack me.

00:51:50.700 But in general, it's pretty tough to hack these things.

00:51:55.100 There's a lot of security measures in place.

00:51:57.040 Some discussion, just some critical discussion on some of the things.

00:51:59.340 And the same with Smith's episode with the fake calls that were made.

00:52:02.600 Those little calls were taken at face value right off the bat.

00:52:04.860 Look at that.

00:52:05.540 The Smith campaign's been doing these belligerent calls.

00:52:07.300 Well, wait a minute.

00:52:08.020 Look at the source of the recording and just look at her Twitter thread.

00:52:11.540 Coincidentally, the person that this supposed calls went to

00:52:14.940 is a haywire left-wing online activist.

00:52:17.620 wow what a four and a half million people in the province that's the one the belligerent caller from

00:52:22.100 the smith campaign phoned up yeah amazing coincidence just some i mean critical look

00:52:28.260 before you report but they didn't it was straight to and you're not going to get a call from any of

00:52:32.900 the ucp leadership campaign or at least any of the big ones that know what they're doing unless you

00:52:37.860 are one a current ucp member to a former ucp member possibly a legacy wild rose or pc member

00:52:45.940 or you're on some list that got into their hands that has overlapping interests.

00:52:50.900 You're a part of a gun group or you're a pro-life group or a screw Ottawa group.

00:52:55.740 But you have to be on some kind of right-wing list.

00:52:58.420 Otherwise, you're not going to get a random call.

00:53:01.680 You have to have had some interaction either with the UCP

00:53:04.220 or with UCP-adjacent organizations to get on those lists.

00:53:08.260 So this person who cried that they got this call, I'm not convinced.

00:53:14.760 But the media reported it as fact, and then did remarkably little to walk down when it turned out Smith campaign were actually the victims.

00:53:21.220 Or that person really got the call unsolicited, but somebody who was faking it says,

00:53:24.340 who's the person who's going to make the most racket if they get calls like this?

00:53:27.840 Well, here's a haywire social media person.

00:53:29.900 It'd be like if I got a bunch of belligerent NDP calls.

00:53:32.360 I mean, I'm not on NDP lists, or at least not positive ones.

00:53:37.060 You know, come on.

00:53:38.080 I mean, you know I'm going to make up.

00:53:39.000 I think you are on a block list somewhere.

00:53:40.520 Yeah, some sort of list.

00:53:41.980 It's just the odds are getting pretty long with some of this stuff happening.

00:53:44.400 But there wasn't critical examination.

00:53:46.000 It was just reported as is.

00:53:47.200 And that's questionable.

00:53:49.540 Yeah.

00:53:49.820 Well, that's so often the case.

00:53:52.020 Okay.

00:53:52.560 Well, we've had a great chat today.

00:53:54.900 If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, what the hell's wrong with you?

00:53:59.180 You really should be.

00:54:00.140 The Western Standard, we are actually now the only media organization in all of Canada,

00:54:05.480 west of Mississauga, that has a bureau on Parliament Hill.

00:54:10.060 While everyone else is shrinking and going bankrupt,

00:54:12.560 The Western Standard is growing and we're growing because of people like you who are becoming members of the Western Standard.

00:54:18.300 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all Western Standard content, no paywall.

00:54:25.500 And, you know, we've got dozens of reporters and columnists now providing some of the best news and commentary you're going to get in Canada.

00:54:33.220 If you're following any of the stuff that we're talking about today, you know, the federal conservative leadership race,

00:54:38.440 the United Conservative Party leadership race in Alberta, the corrupt state of the Canadian media,

00:54:44.420 you need to be following this. The Western Standard very proudly refuses to take a cent

00:54:48.740 of the federal government's media bailout. We are 100% funded by advertising and people like you

00:54:56.920 who sign up as members. So if you're not yet a member, go to westernstandard.news slash membership,

00:55:01.340 sign up, sign up. It'll make me, Corey, and Nigel very, very happy. It sure will. Speaking of happy,

00:55:09.080 I think it's time to get a beer.

00:55:10.160 I think it is.

00:55:10.800 Yeah.

00:55:11.900 Gentlemen, it's been a slice.

00:55:13.900 Thank you for joining us today.

00:55:15.340 You're welcome.

00:55:16.000 It was a pleasure.

00:55:16.820 Thank all of you, and God bless.

Western Standard - September 01, 2022

The Pipeline - Kenney reverses his own tax hike

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