Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： Lest we forget Palestine？

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome, I'm Derek Philibrant, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're

00:00:29.300 watching The Pipeline today on October 12th, 2025. I'm joined by some of the regular crew

00:00:37.480 here, former Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford. That would be me. How are

00:00:42.800 you doing today? I just ate a Schweinhaxa. I can hardly move. I knew you did, that's why

00:00:48.860 I asked. I have to unbutton myself here. And Western Standard Senior Alberta columnist

00:00:56.280 Corey Morgan. Less bloated today and sitting on the end, yes. Very good. Well, I guess

00:01:03.000 speaking of not kosher, we're introducing today for the first time on The Pipeline, although

00:01:13.620 he's on your show earlier today, Corey, our new Western Standard Parliament Hill correspondent,

00:01:19.500 William Barkley. Welcome, William. Hey, thank you so much for having me on the show today.

00:01:23.060 It's a pleasure to be here with you all. Happy to be here. Well, let's see how you

00:01:27.240 do. We're going to get into some serious shit. All right. Well, a lot of media are talking 1.00

00:01:36.480 about Fear Polyev's upcoming leadership review. I don't think even legacy media people are expecting

00:01:43.240 he's going to have a particularly hard run. They, you know, they get talent. They're trying

00:01:48.860 to gin something up about controversy. I don't think there's too much. But, you know, who

00:01:53.020 really wants this guy gone? He's going to pass pretty solidly. But there's been some tripping

00:01:59.140 here and there. Is it all just media? Or is there something to it? We're going to talk

00:02:03.220 about it. Hilarious. Hilarious story. Coming right after Remembrance Day. The Liberals' plan

00:02:11.680 for increasing the sex toppling of the Canadian Reserve Forces apparently is going to rely very

00:02:19.760 strongly on making weekend warriors out of unionized federal bureaucrats. So, you know, you can go to

00:02:27.800 your Cup W union meeting, sharing your pronouns Monday to Friday. And on the weekend, you go

00:02:34.720 out and they're going to put you in a green jacket and hand you a gun and you can file a human rights

00:02:39.440 complaint for having your dignity. I don't know. But yeah, they're going to make an army out of

00:02:43.880 bureaucrats. We're going to talk about the crazy plan here to have 300,000 researchers. It's like

00:02:50.300 it's never, ever going to happen. It's never going to happen. Yeah. And we'll kind of get into

00:02:55.280 some of the overall dilapidated state of the military. I had, if I might toot my own horn a

00:03:00.440 bit, I think I had a very fun column over the weekend. Spoiler, we have two generals for every

00:03:08.040 tank. Every tank. We've got two generals in Canada. One can drive, one can man the gun.

00:03:16.140 Our command structure is that efficient in Canada. The general's orders are obeyed immediately because

00:03:20.900 the only one to obey his orders are himself. So that's the state of the Canadian military.

00:03:28.080 Adjacent to that, though, we're going to begin with, you know, we're a day past Remembrance Day

00:03:33.840 here. Normally, you know, I grew up in military towns. So for me, you know, this was always a very

00:03:40.260 big deal. I was a cadet, so I was always in parades for it. You know, I'd have the school assembly part,

00:03:46.260 you know, day before or something, and then Remembrance Day, I'd go out and do the parades and do the

00:03:49.960 whole thing. And in military towns, it was always a very big, very solemn thing. Very big deal for me.

00:03:59.820 And, you know, but there's been some controversy around this one. Remembrance Day is normally not

00:04:06.020 a particularly controversial day. Some people have at times accused it of glorifying war. I have

00:04:12.360 found it generally does not. It's about honoring the sacrifice of those who have served if you agreed

00:04:17.620 with the wars or not. And I can go for either the world wars, Korea, or more controversial wars

00:04:23.760 afterwards, like Afghanistan, that did not necessarily have unanimous support. It wasn't

00:04:28.900 about the wars. It wasn't about glorifying war or even militarism. It was about honoring those who

00:04:33.740 have served and died. But like everything, everything is political now. And we've now got some controversy

00:04:41.920 around Remembrance Day. We're finally there. I guess there was a white puppy thing. Whatever.

00:04:47.300 But, you know, now we've got a bit more. So the University of Calgary has got this kind of famous

00:04:53.180 rock, big rock. And people can paint whatever, people paint the rock. There's probably 30,000 layers

00:05:01.200 of paint on this thing at this point. Very often, it's the political clubs, you know, the conservatives

00:05:06.180 paint blue, and the liberals go over the weekend, paint red, and then your Democrats come paint it

00:05:10.920 orange. You can put things on it, or it can be different causes. For roughly the last year or

00:05:15.960 so, it's been painted and the colors of the Palestinian flag. You've got various Palestinian

00:05:20.420 things on it. Okay, cool. But it's been there for like a year. As far as I know, it rarely retains

00:05:26.840 its paint on it for a week or more. This thing has been the colors of this for a year. Now, the

00:05:33.740 campus conservative club, the University of Calgary, has gone and painted it as a Canadian

00:05:41.480 flag on Remembrance Day. They painted a Canadian flag. I mean, being a bit more appropriate,

00:05:47.000 probably should have been done as a red ensign, the flag that most people fought on.

00:05:50.780 Yeah, that's it. I mean, make it all red, just put a shield. But yeah, it's not as neat

00:05:55.860 to paint. So whatever. They painted a Canadian flag. And Albert Premier Daniel Smith kind of

00:06:02.940 shared the tweet and said like, you know, hey, great honor conservatives doing this. And then

00:06:08.180 you had the likes of Thomas Lukasik saying, this is anti-Palestinian racism. I mean, the guy says a

00:06:16.020 lot of dumb shit. He says a lot of dumb shit. But it actually took me a while. I don't understand. 1.00

00:06:21.680 I actually didn't get what he's getting at. So when someone inevitably paints over the Canadian

00:06:26.400 flag, if they happen already, is that going to be anti-Canadian racism? I don't know. It's

00:06:33.540 it was just mind numbing. And you saw all the usual characters saying this is racist. First of all,

00:06:41.740 Palafine is not a race. It's a, some argue it's a nation. Maybe. But yeah, arguably, arguing maybe it's

00:06:49.400 a nation. Maybe. But it's not a race. Mr. Carney thinks it's a nation. You know, I argue, I think

00:06:55.780 nationhood can be developed or undeveloped in time. Nations fall and rise and it's an organic

00:07:03.560 thing. So I arguably think, yeah, maybe it constitutes a nation, but certainly does not

00:07:07.940 constitute a race. We know it does not constitute a race. And then at the same time, you know,

00:07:13.860 we've got some stories up on this. During Remembrance Day ceremonies, and particularly

00:07:20.860 the one that's been the most, gotten the most play here, was in Toronto, I guess at Old

00:07:25.920 City Hall, there's a cenotaph. And they called up some poor cadets. They put these poor cadets

00:07:31.700 up to do it. I think they were maybe air cadets or air cadet and army cadet. So kids, like teenagers.

00:07:36.520 And they have one read a land acknowledgement. And the other one do an ancestry, I don't

00:07:45.640 know what they call it, ancestral acknowledgement or something. Whereas essentially, we apologize

00:07:49.140 for being white and that there was ever slavery in Canada. Technically, there was never slavery

00:07:53.520 in the modern state of Canada. Long, long pre-confederation, there was technically slavery. But Canada actually

00:08:00.140 was one of the first places on the planet, even predating the British Empire, which predates

00:08:04.660 America, which predates most of the rest of the world, in getting rid of slavery. Canada

00:08:08.820 was the first part of the British Empire to outlaw slavery. But we have to have these 1.00

00:08:13.800 acknowledgements just about, oh, sinful Canada is born in sin that it ever had slavery. Yeah.

00:08:22.820 You know, I'm not going to say, of course slavery is bad. We know it. You don't have to say

00:08:27.300 that crap. We just know that. It's self-evident. But we've now drenched Remembrance Day. 1.00

00:08:34.660 In ritual shame and self-loathing. I can't imagine there as many veterans present or past

00:08:47.500 would imagine this is the kind of Canada they fought for and this is the kind of recognition

00:08:52.740 they would get for their service and sacrifice. I don't think they would have been. You know,

00:08:57.900 one of the remarkable things about Canada is the number of people who actually put on uniform.

00:09:05.100 In 1939, this was just a country of about 11 million people. 900,000 men and women put on uniform. 900,000

00:09:16.300 out of a population of 11 million. And they were not fighting for anything but freedom and an end

00:09:28.220 to fascism. And what we're looking at now with this kind of thing that you've just described so eloquently,

00:09:35.420 Derek, is a new kind of fascism, except that this time it's directed at people like us by the kind of people

00:09:44.940 who benefited most from Canada's war effort. It is a shame. It's a disgrace. And we'll probably see more

00:09:53.740 of it before we see less of it. The only reason I even raise the possibility of seeing less of it

00:09:59.660 is that if you've noticed, the shibboleths are starting to fall. You know, we have Bill Gates

00:10:05.660 coming out and saying, well, maybe global warming isn't the most important thing in the world. And

00:10:12.220 some of the government offices backing off on the indigenous claims that seem to require the most

00:10:21.980 proof. I think in the end, oh, and as for trans, you know, people are starting to say,

00:10:28.460 yeah, maybe not, maybe not so much. I think these things come and they're used politically

00:10:36.380 to embarrass the conservative side, or the tempting, but this too will pass. Meanwhile,

00:10:44.540 there's a shocking and sad development. I'm not sure how far to take this sentiment,

00:10:50.940 but I don't know, Corey, if you saw it, there was a, it was on the Good Morning Britain,

00:10:55.660 or it was a British news show, and they had this very, very old veteran on. I mean,

00:11:01.260 there's not a lot of Second World War veterans left, but they had, they had this veteran on.

00:11:06.300 Do you know the clip I'm talking about? No, I'm not sure, actually. Okay. So I, I, I don't want to.

00:11:11.580 Okay. You haven't seen it. I want to get too far, but he more or less said, um,

00:11:19.100 I don't want to put words in the man's mouth, but William, you saw this? Yeah. I'm pretty sure he said

00:11:23.660 it wasn't worth it. Oh, okay. I don't want to put words in this man's mouth, but I mean,

00:11:27.980 he was very old. He had some difficulty articulating himself, but I think it was fair to say more or less,

00:11:33.500 I don't think I would have fought if this is the country I knew we were going to get at the end.

00:11:37.740 I wouldn't have put on the, I wouldn't have taken up arms. I don't know. Am I reading

00:11:41.660 too much into that? No, absolutely not. I don't think so.

00:11:48.140 Um, I think what we're seeing with regards to kind of the rock in Canada, at least is the

00:11:51.900 erasure in real time of Canada's national identity, what it means to be Canadian, uh, Canada's

00:11:56.460 foundational values and ideology, and specifically in order to make space for alternative ideologies and

00:12:01.820 diverse cultures. And again, at the expense of Canada's own national identity.

00:12:07.340 Yeah. Uh, it kind of reminded me of, uh, this was a British veteran. It wasn't Canadian,

00:12:13.180 but obviously very akin. Uh, there, there was a funny slash terribly sad AI video made,

00:12:20.700 and it was, uh, I guess, operation sea lion, 1940, uh, these, uh, German soldiers. And, uh,

00:12:27.500 one guy burst into the headquarters is, I know how we're going to invade Britain.

00:12:31.340 And then it shows them on blow up rubber dinghies going across the channel. And they're like,

00:12:36.060 it's amazing. They just let us right in. Um,

00:12:41.420 and it made the point a very dark, but you know, kind of funny way, uh, about what's happened. And

00:12:46.700 that's just Britain, but Britain is just kind of a symbol of what's happened to all of us here.

00:12:51.740 Uh, but yeah, now we take even remembrance days and drench them, Corey, in this ritualistic

00:13:00.860 self-hatred, self-loathing that might go fine at, uh, you know, federal cup W union meeting

00:13:10.060 where everyone's got pronouns and a bio. And this is just kind of usual par for the course,

00:13:14.780 but remember it's day isn't about those people. At least it's not yet until we declare all of them

00:13:19.100 veterans all of a sudden when they do weekend training once a year, but, uh, you know, we're

00:13:24.780 now investing even remember and stay with this stuff. We have an ideology sweeping across this

00:13:31.900 country and a culture where there's some people better start paying bloody attention to that rock. 0.99

00:13:36.780 For example, at UFC was a beautiful tradition. It was perfect. It was a democratic spot. And that was

00:13:42.220 the place to have your passive aggressive battle, paint your little flag. The next group will paint it.

00:13:46.620 The next group will paint it. But this group, the woke world painted it green, white, and such as

00:13:52.060 the state years ago, this was actually a couple of years ago when they did the, uh, occupation that

00:13:56.300 their short lived camp on the university, they painted that rock and they basically let everybody

00:14:00.300 there know it's sacred. You do not dare paint over it again. The tradition is finished. And today,

00:14:05.020 finally, you know, with, uh, I may believe a flag being put on it and allegedly that's controversial.

00:14:10.860 The one place, I mean, I don't fault if somebody came tomorrow and painted the Palestinian flag,

00:14:15.820 that's the place. That's what it's supposed to be for. So they've said, we can't do it at the place

00:14:20.940 where we're supposed to do it. And then they're bringing their crap into the other areas where 0.97

00:14:24.700 you weren't supposed to bring the politicization in, which is Remembrance Day. And I sadly, I think 0.96

00:14:29.100 part of why they're getting away with it, if they'd done it 20 years ago, when you're at a ceremony

00:14:33.900 and there were still a hundred or 200 actual veterans from World War II who could still get

00:14:39.740 around without a walker and such, whoever was stating the land acknowledgements and saying,

00:14:43.740 everybody should look at their shoes and everybody should be ashamed of being Canadian would have 1.00

00:14:46.940 been pelted by rocks from the veterans in the background. I said, we're not going to put up with

00:14:50.140 that crap on our day, but we need somebody to stand up and say, do not do that on their day. They're 0.99

00:14:55.900 not here anymore. So those of us who didn't serve now got to get up and say that crap's going to end 0.99

00:15:00.620 because it's degrading such a critical, critical ceremony that just had, none of that crap has 0.98

00:15:05.900 any place going into it. You know, and on this, on Remembrance Day, so correct me if I'm wrong,

00:15:11.900 but I think, I think it was yesterday. Toronto Mayor Chairman Chow says, announced that they're

00:15:19.500 going to be raising the flag at the Toronto City Hall. No, they didn't raise it on Remembrance Day.

00:15:25.980 I think that might be a bridge too far, even for the nuttiest nuts so far. They were probably

00:15:30.380 going to want to get there, but on Remembrance Day, she announced that they will be raising

00:15:34.780 the, uh, the Palestinian flag at the Toronto City Hall. Uh, we also just got word now, uh,

00:15:40.620 the same thing is going to happen at Calgary. Calgary City Hall is going to raise the Palestinian 1.00

00:15:44.620 flag. I mean, it's, it's particularly provocative, but I think it, I want to pull it back, William,

00:15:51.820 to maybe broader topic of corrupting our public spaces, institutions with things, ideological causes

00:16:02.060 that have nothing to do with us. Palestine is a different people on a different continent that 0.50

00:16:10.700 frankly should have nothing to do with us. Um, they want to raise the Palestinian flag. 0.94

00:16:15.420 Raise it in Palestine. Good for Palestine. Raise it at home or wherever. Raise it on your project 0.97

00:16:21.340 property. But then, you know, I don't want to use the double standards here. So, and I'd say

00:16:27.100 we should also then not raise the Israeli flag at City Hall. What does City Hall have to do with

00:16:32.140 Israel or Palestine? What does it have to do with your sexual orientation? We, we should be scrapping

00:16:39.180 this, like, we've just got an endless, now, uh, ream of applications in for declarative days. 0.91

00:16:47.660 Today's gay day. Today's Palestine day. Today's, today's Israel day. Uh, it's time we shut this 1.00

00:16:55.900 shit down. It's time we just draw the line and say, City Hall can have three flags. Canada, Alberta, 1.00

00:17:02.940 Calgary. That's it. Uh, or, okay, fine, if we lose a bet, like, say we lost the

00:17:07.900 game to the Oilers, we have to raise, you know, Oilers flag. Okay. I guess we need a little bit

00:17:13.580 of wiggle room, but I'd rather give them an inch. You know what? I'd rather there just be no wiggle 0.71

00:17:18.940 room at all, rather than this constant pandering to every little group that claims grief or victim

00:17:25.500 puts out. I think as many of them are generally fine causes that I don't, at least on the surface,

00:17:30.460 have any problem with, but I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it, William. And I'm going to go crazy if I

00:17:35.740 see one more frigging flag. That's not Canada, Alberta or Calgary at my bloody city hall. 0.99

00:17:42.220 No, I gotcha. I think maybe in the past, maybe there's a place for it upon the canvas of Canadian

00:17:46.780 society, but that's really the thing we need to reestablish Canada's identity. We need to really

00:17:51.740 reestablish a canvas because it's being rent asunder. I think it's 43% of Canada's youth are

00:17:56.620 actually in favor now of becoming part of the United States of America. Um, and so that's,

00:18:01.020 that's essentially half of Canada's future is essentially, well, they see no future in Canada.

00:18:07.020 They want to go to the States. And that's because in a lot of ways we very much sacrificed our own

00:18:11.340 spirit, values, ethos in order to make space for the culture and pride of others. Um, I think in a

00:18:17.020 lot of ways, the modern advent of identity politics has transformed the pursuit of diversity into an

00:18:21.980 instrument of oppression and very much a political mechanism that leftists everywhere now routinely

00:18:26.540 leverage in order to, to legitimize and very much encourage the persecution of any sufficiently

00:18:30.700 undiverse or, or white person. And we see that in America, we see that in Canada. Um, I think in a 0.67

00:18:35.820 lot of ways, even the over abuse of white people has become, uh, legitimized, uh, based on kind of this

00:18:41.660 advent of identity politics in a way you have to even beg the ability to suffer, uh, the ability to have

00:18:46.780 a legitimate perspective now, uh, within your own nation.

00:18:49.100 Uh, all right. Well, this, um, we're in it slightly behind. Uh, maybe I rented too much,

00:18:58.940 but, uh, it, it, it, uh, segues real nicely into our next topic here, bureaucrats at arms. So, uh,

00:19:06.700 Nigel, the federal budget, I, I was kind of pilloring, uh, this, uh, you know, the, the feds have this

00:19:14.780 plan to increase our reserve forces to 400,000 or at 25 to 26,000 right now. So 16 fold increase.

00:19:25.820 There is a 0% chance. Like you, you, you would have to pay reservists a hundred thousand dollars

00:19:32.060 a year to go on a couple of weekends to get up there without conscription. Just no way you're

00:19:37.020 ever going to get even vaguely close to it. We've had the, a 30,000 target for eight years,

00:19:44.540 seven, eight years now. We haven't closed it by one soldier. Essentially we've not gotten anywhere.

00:19:51.020 Also people come in, they realize how crappy it is in our forces. Now you've got tampons in the men's 0.97

00:19:56.380 room. Uh, it's not a yes, sir or ma'am. It's yes, they, them kind of crap. There's no spree

00:20:02.300 to core anymore. Our military has been shredded from its martial spirit as a spree to core. Um,

00:20:08.540 but the plan now is, uh, uh, at least for 300,000 of this massive new people's army in Canada, uh, is

00:20:18.300 reclassifying bureaucrats. So, you know, first of all, I want to point the listener to an excellent

00:20:25.020 column in the Western standard from, uh, John Thompson, who is, who often writes on military matters.

00:20:31.580 And he writes with some authority because he was, uh, he was in the forces himself.

00:20:36.460 I must confess when I read this, I didn't know whether we should be taking this seriously or 0.98

00:20:40.620 whether we should play it for laughs because the whole idea is outrageously stupid from the very 0.99

00:20:47.980 start. But you never know with Mr. Mr. Carney, whether even something ridiculous actually meets 0.98

00:20:55.580 an undisclosed government motive. I really, I really have to think, well, he's made various

00:21:01.260 promises about spending more money on the Canadian military. Well, here's a way to do it. Uh, that he's

00:21:07.260 going to expand the forces. Well, if it's just numbers that you're thinking about, here's a way

00:21:11.500 that you can fool people. Well, let me, if we're going to go to the numbers game, let's just look at a

00:21:16.940 couple of things here. There are approximately 400,000, uh, Canadian civil servants, and there will

00:21:24.300 still be 400,000 plus after Mr. Carney has completed his budget cuts. Of that number, 58% are women. 0.97

00:21:34.940 That's not to say women can't be part-time soldiers, but the other thing is more than half are over the 1.00

00:21:45.580 age of 40 and more than a third are over the age of 59. Now, basically that's not your traditional

00:21:56.380 recruiting pool. Okay. And what do they get? Old cat ladies working in offices. They get one week's 1.00

00:22:03.900 training. They get shown to shoot a gun to fly a drone. And this is obviously something that's

00:22:12.300 going to have to be procured because we don't actually have a hell of a lot of these things.

00:22:17.500 And, uh, I have to wonder what it is that Mr. Carney and those advising him are imagining. This is the

00:22:27.260 sort of army that defends, well, you would understand this. This is the army that defends Berlin

00:22:33.660 in March, April, 1945. Yeah. You're not, it's not the crib of your crop. It is the, it is the army

00:22:40.220 that Britain was. Why do I understand that? Well, the stereotypes. Racism. Racist. Right in your own

00:22:47.740 shot, Derek. Anyway. So, you know, this is the sort of army that, uh, Britain would put together. They

00:22:54.700 call them the home guard. They had pitchfork shovels and one gun between three, you know, and if the

00:23:01.020 Jerry's had ever landed, they'd have had a rough time with it. But this kind of, uh, this, these are

00:23:08.620 not minutemen. To use an American analogy, our civil servants are not the people you want if you have a

00:23:17.900 citizen army. And they certainly aren't the people who are going to rise to the occasion with one week's 0.98

00:23:22.860 training. So obviously this is a big, uh, rubbish story. And I can't help thinking that this is all 0.93

00:23:29.980 about, uh, giving the government cover to go back and say they've done something when in actual fact,

00:23:35.900 they've done nothing. Funny historical, just note there, uh, one of the last organized divisions in

00:23:42.540 Berlin, May, uh, May, 1945. Hitler, Haibon. Uh, no, it was, uh, a French, uh, SS division, uh, Charlemagne. It was

00:23:50.860 actually French. The, the French defended Berlin to the end, maybe not Paris, but the French defended

00:23:56.460 Berlin to the end. Um, on France every, it's every show. Oh, William, uh, I mean, uh, a year ago, the

00:24:05.500 liberals were saying, uh, we're going to confiscate all these military assault rifles from Canadian

00:24:11.420 hunters and we're going to give it to Ukraine. That's my parting shot. Oh, you didn't tell me. 0.99

00:24:17.020 Yeah. Well, they're, they were going to give these guns to Ukraine. Uh, turned out Ukraine didn't want 0.52

00:24:22.860 them because none of them are actually military rifles. They're, they're just hunting and sports

00:24:26.860 shooting rifles. Uh, so the Ukrainians disagreed that these are actually assault rifles, but this

00:24:31.420 sounds just about as crazy that we're going to arm the Ukrainians with our hunting rifles. Uh, now we're 1.00

00:24:35.820 going to make a mass people's army out of bureaucrats. Yeah. That's how do you, how often do you think they

00:24:43.980 are you're in Ottawa? Well, so here's the funny thing. I've been trying to turn this on and said

00:24:47.900 to make sense of it. And I wonder if really the goal isn't necessarily, uh, physical, let's say,

00:24:52.860 but ideological kind of, uh, to reconstitute the ideology, uh, of the Canadian armed forces when we

00:24:58.540 already know that they're doing everything they can not to recruit from people on the right. Um,

00:25:02.700 because the, the Canadian armed forces like the RCMP has equated traditional values squarely with

00:25:07.420 extremism. Right. And so what else would kind of swelling its ranks by so many, uh, public servants do,

00:25:12.940 but essentially inject like a huge amount of, like you said yourself, hyper leftist ideology

00:25:17.260 directly into the ranks of the Canadian armed forces. And I wonder if maybe that's really the

00:25:21.980 goal and not combat readiness, not the ability to do anything militarily, um, to reestablish our

00:25:28.060 martial spirit, but to change the ideological constitution, uh, decisively of the Canadian armed

00:25:33.740 forces. Uh, to me, that's really the only thing that makes sense. And in a way it's almost the most

00:25:37.180 nefarious and possibilities. I think there's a good point to that. I think there is also, uh,

00:25:44.300 Carney does need to be able to show Trump and to a lesser extent NATO more broadly that,

00:25:48.300 Hey, look, Canada's got this. We have an actual army now. So on paper, you could show that you've

00:25:53.180 got more. I think that is one goal, but I, on the other, I think that is a not unreasonable suspicion

00:25:59.260 that will these serve as ready-made commissars to ensure that the military is ideologically, uh,

00:26:05.180 reliable. They've already done this at the upper end of, of the forces, Corey. You remember, uh,

00:26:10.940 it was just the, uh, it was like last week or something, the, uh, chief of defense staff,

00:26:15.020 what's her notes, uh, budget. I'm kidding. No. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, she gave this weepy,

00:26:20.220 teary apology for systemic discrimination in the forces. Oh, uh, you know what? Yeah. Like everything,

00:26:28.380 it's not always had a perfect politically correct record, but for God's sakes,

00:26:32.220 the purpose of the military was never inclusion and diversity. It was war fighting. That's what

00:26:38.540 it does. It defends the country and it attacks others. It, it, it's pretty simple. Um,

00:26:45.020 but those with a taste for adventure should turn and tune into Fox news tonight.

00:26:49.580 They are going to have a riot with this.

00:26:51.980 Oh, absolutely. They're going to have Pete Hanks will be there laughing at it. Oh,

00:26:56.300 Trump will be laughing at it. Yeah. Yeah.

00:26:58.300 I was going to say it makes us look worse to Trump. I think that to be honest, like

00:27:02.140 all this talk of a 51st state is squarely the result of our weak leadership. I think that let's

00:27:07.420 say, uh, you have Harper in there and Trump makes the same crack, the same joke about a 51st state.

00:27:11.740 And it stays just that because you had a strong leader, uh, in office. And so I think that in a weird

00:27:16.860 way, like adding all these public servants, it makes us worse, uh, in, in the eyes of Trump,

00:27:21.500 it makes us look even more, uh, limp wristed, let's say a feet and almost incapable of anything

00:27:26.620 internationally. Yeah. Um, well, you know, this, maybe this will make the, uh, the lower ranks,

00:27:35.340 you know, uh, uh, more ideologically reliable perhaps, but they've already done this with the

00:27:39.980 upper ranks, uh, promotion. Now I I'm sure merit still plays some role in the forces, but it is

00:27:47.340 very clearly not the most important thing. Uh, you know, they're not putting a hoser like Randy 0.68

00:27:53.820 Illyer from Newfoundland in anymore. Uh, that, that kind of guy is not gonna, we're not going to see

00:27:59.180 him as chief of defense staff anytime soon. Um, you know, they've got these DEI hires who are clearly

00:28:06.060 there just for photo op. It looks good on paper to these kinds of people. Um, but yeah, I, I wrote

00:28:12.540 a column we published just over the weekend. I, you know, I was thinking, uh, so the Royal Canadian

00:28:17.820 Navy, Corey, uh, tweeted that the, uh, the HMCS Cornerbrook, uh, was, um, uh, refitted and is back

00:28:27.420 in service. And they said it is quote, the most advanced submarine in the Canadian fleet. Now my dream

00:28:33.740 as a kid was to be in the Canadian Navy. I wanted to command a submarine. So I, I pay attention to

00:28:38.380 this stuff. And I scratched my head and I thought it's the most advanced submarine in the Canadian

00:28:43.020 fleet. I'm pretty sure it's the only submarine in the Canadian fleet. I looked it up. Yes, it is.

00:28:50.140 We have on paper, three submarines built in the eighties, which have been out of service virtually

00:28:55.260 the entire time since Canada bought them used. And these are diesel submarines. Um, they've never

00:29:01.340 really been an act of service. They were, oh, they, they killed us a couple of sailors when

00:29:04.940 they brought them over. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they've been getting refitted the entire time

00:29:08.620 we've had them. Uh, so we have three sitting around one now, I guess in service. And I thought,

00:29:14.140 you know, okay, wonder how many admirals we've got for our submarines. And then I, so I thought about

00:29:20.220 this and I start correcting the numbers. We've got three admirals. Okay. Okay. So we've, we've got 145

00:29:26.700 flag officers. That's generals and admirals, uh, combined, there's different levels of generals

00:29:32.780 and admirals, but we've got 445, uh, excluding, uh, joint commands, like chief of defense staff,

00:29:39.420 people in NORAD, NATO, stuff like that. Um, we have, so excluding a significant number of those

00:29:45.660 generals and admirals and joint commands and organizations, we have three admirals per active

00:29:51.900 duty or combat ready warship in Canada, three admirals. So like one admiral can literally run

00:29:57.820 the engine. I don't know what the captain does in the Navy anymore. We got two generals per combat

00:30:03.180 ready tank. One can drive, one can man the gun. And we've got nearly, uh, one air force general

00:30:10.620 per active fighter jet. Now I know that's a very oversimplifying metric, but I think it should put

00:30:15.660 things in perspective that we don't have a Navy. We don't have an army. We don't have an air force.

00:30:22.140 We've got paper organizations that are just led by people in uniform who are no longer even led,

00:30:28.620 at least at the high levels, based on anything involving a meritocracy. Uh, for all intents and

00:30:35.500 purposes, Canada doesn't just have an underfunded, undermanned military. We don't have a military.

00:30:40.860 We've got two tanks per general. Well, in this latest embarrassing- So two generals per tank.

00:30:44.860 Embarrassing brainstorm, which people will see through immediately, and NATO and so on aren't going to

00:30:48.620 say, Oh great. Canada has met its 2%. No, they have to keep them there. We don't need more body

00:30:53.020 bags. I mean, we can't take these reservists and stick them in a real combat situation. It would be

00:30:58.060 inhumane. I mean, I, I had the opportunity. I've just returned from a country actually with some of 0.71

00:31:03.180 the most active reservists on earth, which is Israel. And you'd see them on the streets. You go

00:31:07.820 Tel Aviv at night and they're going to the nightclubs and you see a couple of good looking girls walk 1.00

00:31:11.020 and you realize they have M4s hanging over their back. And you see off-duty reservists-

00:31:15.580 around them. Oh yeah. But you see off-duty reservists and people around, they aren't fat, later middle-aged

00:31:22.380 old bureaucrats, or even old journalists like myself would be unfit for that duty. These are,

00:31:26.780 they're conscripts, but they're young because they really want them to serve a purpose. They're in

00:31:32.060 shape. They've clearly been trained. That's why you can have them walking around in public with firearms.

00:31:37.420 And because, you know, unfortunately, because there's a very dire need for it over there,

00:31:41.340 they're in the middle of a war. But I mean, there's loads of examples around the world of how

00:31:45.580 to put together functional reserves, functional militaries. The only reason the current government

00:31:50.700 is doing this is that they don't want us to have one. It's as simple as that. If they wanted one,

00:31:54.300 they'd have a model that would start, because they're not afraid to spend money,

00:31:57.900 they want to keep it just a woke extension of the bureaucratic nightmare that we're already living in.

00:32:02.220 Well, and every single last one of the successful reserve army models in the world

00:32:06.620 relies on young men of your biggest demographic in your nation. And I mean, did I not just describe

00:32:15.500 the danger group? Young white men. That's, that is enemy number one of the Canadian government. 0.80

00:32:22.220 They're like, oh, they're radical. They're extreme. Well, you're making them radical real fast.

00:32:26.780 You're making them extreme real fast by treating them like second class citizens in their own country.

00:32:31.580 But I mean, you're not going to have a military of any kind, big, medium, small, effective or not,

00:32:37.980 unless you've got young men who like guns and stuff. That's who wants to join up. And they don't want

00:32:44.780 to join up at significant numbers right now because they're treated like crap. 0.95

00:32:50.140 Well, again, I mean, the example, if you want to see of any specialized force or something they could 0.97

00:32:53.900 garner respect, it'd be small and well-trained. The closest thing we got to Canada and that is GTF2.

00:32:59.100 These are bearded, manly looking, tough men. And I imagine if there was ever a recording of their,

00:33:04.460 let's just call it locker room talk, they're not talking about a cheering man ponds. They are

00:33:10.940 not politically correct. They are aware of the role.

00:33:13.820 They'd be fired in an instant. I'm sure if we got a recording of what they say.

00:33:16.700 And that's the closest, you know, we have to such, if we really want a functional force, you want to

00:33:21.340 temper them down fine, but expand that category. And they're not interested in doing that. As you said,

00:33:27.100 that's the ones they want to sideline. Yeah.

00:33:30.780 All right. It's like April the 1st, but yeah, Ronald's real.

00:33:36.140 This stuff should not be a joke, but I mean, we've been a joke of a country with a joke of

00:33:41.900 a military for, for generations now. Well, I think that's part of the, maybe the saddest part.

00:33:47.820 Like, I mean, long before we were a peacekeeper and kind of seen as a steward for other nations,

00:33:52.220 we're very much a peacemaker and we're renowned as one of the international community's most

00:33:56.540 spectacular merchants of violence. You know, we have a storied history, not just of kind of

00:34:00.860 helping people and keeping people safe, but very much advancing our own national interests and doing

00:34:04.380 damage.

00:34:07.260 All right. I guess, okay. I won't get as worked up on the next topic.

00:34:12.060 All right. Who wants Pierre gone? Um, so there was Polo just the other day saying,

00:34:20.460 you know, just nearly half, I think it was like 47% or so, but you know, essentially half of

00:34:26.140 right-leaning Canadians want, uh, new leadership for the conservative party. Um, so Pierre Poliev,

00:34:34.780 I think, is it February? It's coming up in the convention, January, January. Uh, they're having

00:34:39.580 their, uh, biannual convention right here in Calgary. Um, I mean, facing a leadership review

00:34:46.140 is probably smart strategically to go to a friendly area. Each constituency is only allowed to send,

00:34:52.220 you know, a dozen or whatever it is, but an equal number of people, but you're going to get more

00:34:56.460 from there when you have smaller travel costs, et cetera. So it's, it's, it's generally friendly

00:35:00.220 turf. Uh, Calgary, pretty friendly for Poliev, obviously. Uh, so he's got his leadership review

00:35:05.420 coming up. I haven't seen any pundits predicting that he might lose. Uh, leadership reviews in

00:35:14.540 Canada are almost always a forgone conclusion. The only question is how strong is the support?

00:35:19.820 It is extremely rare for incumbent party leaders to come anywhere close to actually losing.

00:35:26.860 In Canadian history, uh, you can count them almost on one hand. Uh, the first leadership review,

00:35:33.660 the whole process was created, I think in the sixties to oust John Diefenbaker. He had,

00:35:39.180 he had overstayed his welcome as the leader of the party and don camp and all that wanted about.

00:35:45.420 So they created this process and he lost, it was literally created to get rid of him. So,

00:35:49.420 okay. John Diefenbaker lost. Um, but you know, after that, the next one comes up is Joe Clark, who

00:35:56.780 got like 66% or something. And he said, well, that's not strong enough. So he resigned and then

00:36:02.620 ran again, obviously did not want to get to Brian Mulroney. That's kind of been the bar. You got to

00:36:07.660 get over 66% bare, bare minimum, uh, to stay on. I know that in a lot of the media were saying,

00:36:14.060 oh, is Danielle Smith going to win her leadership review? She got like 97 or something. She was in 0.82

00:36:21.100 like North Korea territory strong. Um, Thomas Mulcair lost. Normally when a leader is going to

00:36:29.420 lose, they can read the room first and they say, all right, guys, before you even get to the

00:36:34.300 convention, they've got good feelers out there. You're not going to win. Jason Kenny did not read

00:36:40.060 the room. After rescheduling it a bunch of times and rigging the rules, he got like 51% obviously

00:36:46.460 couldn't stay, had to go, but he would have gotten much less if they had not rigged it.

00:36:50.620 Uh, but normally leader reads the room. Pierre Polyev is going to win. Uh, the media are hedging

00:36:56.140 their bets. Oh, it's going to be, I think he's going to get pretty strong. Um, but William,

00:37:01.500 I don't know. Uh, I, I know you, you just started, but we've kind of thrown you into the lion's den

00:37:07.180 and the press gallery there. Uh, what are the, who's taking this seriously that Pierre Polyev's

00:37:13.580 leadership's actually in any jeopardy? Uh, I think the media and liberal

00:37:17.420 politicians are the ones who are really taking it seriously. I think they've essentially

00:37:21.260 constructed this narrative. I think essentially post-election, uh, that Pierre Polyev is not

00:37:25.820 doing too well. He's not enjoying support. The conservative party is kind of in decline.

00:37:29.500 And I think that now certain conservative politicians are becoming beholden to this

00:37:33.340 narrative and kind of bullied into fulfilling its prophecies. I think it's part of this, uh,

00:37:38.060 greater attempted narrative push that we've all seen, uh, kind of over the past few years,

00:37:42.060 this attempt to convince everyone that right-wing values, conservatism, religion, even are all

00:37:46.540 dying out. It's simply not true. I think, especially amongst Canada's youth, uh, youth,

00:37:50.780 sorry, which is for all intents and purposes, uh, Canada's future data indicates, for instance,

00:37:55.820 that if the last election were to have been decided entirely by Canada's youth, uh, we'd actually been

00:38:00.780 blessed with a conservative government. Um, and I think that that's something we need to keep in mind,

00:38:04.700 uh, that conservatism is firmly on the upswing. It's, it's strong. It's, it's doing great in Canada,

00:38:09.500 especially amongst the youth in our future. And I think that we risk almost, uh, let's say,

00:38:13.900 speaking something into existence that, that we don't want to do. Right. Um, and that's this

00:38:17.900 narrative that conservatism is in decline and we, we really need to be worried and careful of not

00:38:22.460 speaking that into, into existence because we're, we're doing great right now. And I think that,

00:38:26.540 uh, the only people who think we're doing badly, uh, kind of Pierre Polyev's, uh, leadership is

00:38:31.020 suffering are again, the liberal media and liberal politicians. I think they're the ones who have really

00:38:34.860 constructed this narrative, uh, to be honest, if there's any fracturing going on because of the

00:38:39.260 budget or let's say, uh, Polyev's, uh, well, not Polyev's leadership, but if there's any fracturing

00:38:43.580 going on, uh, anywhere, uh, we can look to the liberal party, uh, to take it in. Um, Carney very

00:38:49.340 recently, I think he's actually been forced to keep his EV mandate, uh, to keep people like Gilbo happy.

00:38:54.220 Um, and that one liberal MP, uh, Erskine Smith, I think it is, is openly and, uh, viciously criticized the

00:38:59.660 liberal, uh, liberal and Carney budget. Right. And so if we want to look for any real explicit

00:39:04.220 signs of a party fracturing, uh, we've got that all in the liberal party and we look to the

00:39:09.180 conservative party, really the only signs of this fracture and kind of reports from, uh,

00:39:13.820 the liberal party and their, their partisan media that we can't really give any, any real credence.

00:39:19.340 Well, I, I don't think the conservatives are totally united. I think their voters and especially

00:39:26.300 the members are broadly united behind, uh, Polyev right now. I think the caucus may be a little less

00:39:33.260 so the, you know, caucus tends to be more upper crust. It's wealthier. They have more,

00:39:40.460 their personal issues. They have ambitions. Everyone wants to be a cabinet minister.

00:39:44.700 They're now looking at likely four years in opposition, four years, and you don't even

00:39:49.740 have a theoretical chance of being a cabinet minister unless you cross the floor. Um, you know,

00:39:55.660 and interpersonal, factional, uh, fighting, um, power, nothing unites like power. Harper kept his

00:40:03.740 guys together, but he was power in opposition. He had a much, much harder time. You had Belinda

00:40:08.780 Stronick famously cross the floor opposition. You just don't have as many carrots and you just don't

00:40:14.860 have as many sticks. Um, so I, I'm not surprised to see some, you know, we had the floor crossing there.

00:40:21.340 Then you had Matt Jenneru resign in very weird circumstances, but then has like a hostage video

00:40:30.460 put out later. Like, I swear to God, I was not thinking of joining the liberals. I'm resigning,

00:40:34.940 but not immediately. I'm doing in the field. Like it, it was weird. It was a weird thing. I think I,

00:40:41.020 I, I can't say for sure, but I smell something was there. What exactly? Can't say. But, uh, I think

00:40:47.820 there's divisions in caucus and, uh, from some of the provincial parties, particularly in the east

00:40:53.980 and in particular Doug Ford's government, they've scheduled their convention for the same

00:40:59.100 day. I think that's because if it wasn't the same day, people would be expecting if, if Doug Ford is

00:41:03.900 this great political organizer of force, he should be able to knock Pierre-Paul Yev out by having his

00:41:09.260 convention the same day. He could say, yeah, I'm busy. I don't care. Um, I, I think that's where the

00:41:13.740 division is. There's some, maybe not a ton, but some in the caucus and certainly a lot on some of

00:41:18.940 the provincial PC parties. You know, there really isn't a person that I can think of who would be a

00:41:25.820 natural fit, uh, or somebody who's in waiting as it were. And that's part of, uh, part of, uh, Pierre's

00:41:33.740 probably has a success is that he's managed to keep those, any possible rivals in the sort of the

00:41:40.460 unknown in the caucus, but there are two people already trying to fashion them. So Doug Ford

00:41:44.380 and I think Jason Kenney try to fashion themselves as success. There's one is loyal successor.

00:41:49.660 I was going to bring up the matter of the Doug Ford having his convention on the same, same weekend.

00:41:55.580 Obviously I like, I don't see the, that his people are doing anything at the moment. We're

00:42:00.060 still laying the seed. So I, I asked for Mr. Kenny. Well, um, I can't see it, but anyway,

00:42:10.460 that's just because I'm a little blind in one eye. Um, the question on that, on that poll is really not

00:42:18.620 do, should not have been, do you want a new leader? Cause people will say yes. The question is,

00:42:23.740 what would you want a new leader to do that's different to what the one

00:42:26.860 you have has done because Poliareff has actually accomplished a little miracle here and bring in

00:42:35.100 the conservative party up to the point in January, February of this year where it was the recognized

00:42:42.460 option. And this is the thing we got to remember. A lot can happen in a short time. So right now he's

00:42:47.340 on the outs, but he could be back in a flash with a change in circumstances that right now, nobody's even

00:42:55.420 prepared to contemplate. I, I know what you're saying, but I, I, that's kind of said every time

00:43:00.540 a leadership comes up, people would say, ah, but who could possibly succeed? People said the same

00:43:05.500 thing when, uh, when Kenny was going down, people said the same Stockwell day went down. Well, and you

00:43:10.940 said the same thing when the last time I brought this up. So I remember the occasion, but I, and people

00:43:15.980 said the same thing with Trudeau was going down, who could possibly succeed him. And I mean, from a liberal

00:43:21.340 perspective, Carmi's worked out pretty good. I mean, so, so this is kind of said every time.

00:43:27.020 These are jobs that people want and people come out of the woodwork for it.

00:43:30.220 Okay. Well, the problem is with Pierre and it's with them, with the conservative party.

00:43:34.620 This is actually a media event. And the reason that the media are on it is the conservatives do not talk

00:43:41.420 to the media. This, you've got to, you've got to feed the goat and the media is a goat.

00:43:50.700 And if you don't give them something to chew on, they will go somewhere else and get it. And what do

00:43:55.580 they do? They go to the liberals and the malcontents of the people who do calls. They are trying to,

00:44:02.060 trying to get, um, trying to get, uh, uh, anything out of a conservative MP. They've been told to shut up and

00:44:09.580 not hug her about with the messaging. All right. Uh, Corey, we don't have enough time for you here, but I'm 0.83

00:44:15.340 going to, we don't have enough time overall. So I don't even get a parting shot. So you're just

00:44:19.260 going to get the parting shot time and you're up first. I'll do a quick one. Just a gentle

00:44:23.580 reminder to some folks that great cup is this weekend and I couldn't care less about the Canadian

00:44:27.740 football league. I know, but there are, uh, were nine big lines drawn in the sand by somebody in

00:44:33.420 Alberta saying great cup weekend was the deadline for all of those lines. And I don't see any of

00:44:37.740 them having been released. Uh, premier, premier Smith, uh, has, has made it pretty clear that there

00:44:44.140 was a whole bunch of demands that she expected Carney to meet by then. And that deadline's fast approaching.

00:44:48.220 I don't think a memorandum of understanding covers it. I really hope she's got something in mind for

00:44:54.700 the or else part of her threats because otherwise they're just hollow. I think it's a very, uh, that's

00:45:01.180 a good point. Nigel. Well, you, you, you, you grab mine about the stolen parting shot. Look, the one

00:45:07.180 thing I want to mention is, uh, I, I see that, uh, under the new deal that, uh, Tesla, Mr.

00:45:12.460 Musk is going to be the world's first trillionaire. Um, I'm not jealous. Good luck to them. Uh, but it

00:45:19.420 just needs to show what you can do when you give people what they want at a price they can afford.

00:45:24.540 Well, I don't want a Tesla, nor can I afford one, but I got to take your point.

00:45:29.180 All right, William final parting shot to you. Um, maybe I'll touch on what we're talking a little

00:45:35.740 bit earlier about, uh, anti-Palestinian racism. I think the, one of the things we struggle with is

00:45:39.740 kind of the difference between anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia. And, and the difference

00:45:44.140 is actually stuck something striking. Uh, anti-Palestinian racism is predicated on this idea

00:45:49.340 that you can't criticize the Palestinian cultural narrative. And that's, that's simply anti-Canadian.

00:45:54.940 It's against everything. It needs to be a democratic nation. And, and it's indicative of exactly the,

00:45:59.660 the, the main problem with adopting anti-Palestinian racism is anything salient in Canadian society.

00:46:05.020 All right. All right. That's it. Corey, Nigel, William, and John running the studio here. Thank

00:46:13.900 you very much. And thank all of you for joining us today on the pipeline. Remember the Western

00:46:19.020 Standard relies on people like you to keep doing what we're doing, providing an independent voice

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00:46:42.300 got here in the Western Standard newsroom. Thank you very much for joining us today and God bless.

00:47:01.020 Have a great 상황 here.

Western Standard - November 16, 2025

THE PIPELINE： Lest we forget Palestine？

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