THE PIPELINE： Lest we forget Palestine？
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Summary
Western Standard editor-in-chief Nigel Hannaford joins the show to talk about the state of the Canadian military, and the controversy surrounding Remembrance day. Plus, a story about a woman who wants to join the military.
Transcript
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Good day and welcome, I'm Derek Philibrant, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're
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watching The Pipeline today on October 12th, 2025. I'm joined by some of the regular crew
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here, former Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford. That would be me. How are
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you doing today? I just ate a Schweinhaxa. I can hardly move. I knew you did, that's why
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I asked. I have to unbutton myself here. And Western Standard Senior Alberta columnist
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Corey Morgan. Less bloated today and sitting on the end, yes. Very good. Well, I guess
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speaking of not kosher, we're introducing today for the first time on The Pipeline, although
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he's on your show earlier today, Corey, our new Western Standard Parliament Hill correspondent,
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William Barkley. Welcome, William. Hey, thank you so much for having me on the show today.
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It's a pleasure to be here with you all. Happy to be here. Well, let's see how you
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do. We're going to get into some serious shit. All right. Well, a lot of media are talking
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about Fear Polyev's upcoming leadership review. I don't think even legacy media people are expecting
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he's going to have a particularly hard run. They, you know, they get talent. They're trying
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to gin something up about controversy. I don't think there's too much. But, you know, who
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really wants this guy gone? He's going to pass pretty solidly. But there's been some tripping
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here and there. Is it all just media? Or is there something to it? We're going to talk
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about it. Hilarious. Hilarious story. Coming right after Remembrance Day. The Liberals' plan
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for increasing the sex toppling of the Canadian Reserve Forces apparently is going to rely very
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strongly on making weekend warriors out of unionized federal bureaucrats. So, you know, you can go to
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your Cup W union meeting, sharing your pronouns Monday to Friday. And on the weekend, you go
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out and they're going to put you in a green jacket and hand you a gun and you can file a human rights
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complaint for having your dignity. I don't know. But yeah, they're going to make an army out of
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bureaucrats. We're going to talk about the crazy plan here to have 300,000 researchers. It's like
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it's never, ever going to happen. It's never going to happen. Yeah. And we'll kind of get into
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some of the overall dilapidated state of the military. I had, if I might toot my own horn a
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bit, I think I had a very fun column over the weekend. Spoiler, we have two generals for every
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tank. Every tank. We've got two generals in Canada. One can drive, one can man the gun.
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Our command structure is that efficient in Canada. The general's orders are obeyed immediately because
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the only one to obey his orders are himself. So that's the state of the Canadian military.
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Adjacent to that, though, we're going to begin with, you know, we're a day past Remembrance Day
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here. Normally, you know, I grew up in military towns. So for me, you know, this was always a very
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big deal. I was a cadet, so I was always in parades for it. You know, I'd have the school assembly part,
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you know, day before or something, and then Remembrance Day, I'd go out and do the parades and do the
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whole thing. And in military towns, it was always a very big, very solemn thing. Very big deal for me.
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And, you know, but there's been some controversy around this one. Remembrance Day is normally not
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a particularly controversial day. Some people have at times accused it of glorifying war. I have
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found it generally does not. It's about honoring the sacrifice of those who have served if you agreed
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with the wars or not. And I can go for either the world wars, Korea, or more controversial wars
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afterwards, like Afghanistan, that did not necessarily have unanimous support. It wasn't
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about the wars. It wasn't about glorifying war or even militarism. It was about honoring those who
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have served and died. But like everything, everything is political now. And we've now got some controversy
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around Remembrance Day. We're finally there. I guess there was a white puppy thing. Whatever.
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But, you know, now we've got a bit more. So the University of Calgary has got this kind of famous
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rock, big rock. And people can paint whatever, people paint the rock. There's probably 30,000 layers
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of paint on this thing at this point. Very often, it's the political clubs, you know, the conservatives
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paint blue, and the liberals go over the weekend, paint red, and then your Democrats come paint it
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orange. You can put things on it, or it can be different causes. For roughly the last year or
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so, it's been painted and the colors of the Palestinian flag. You've got various Palestinian
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things on it. Okay, cool. But it's been there for like a year. As far as I know, it rarely retains
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its paint on it for a week or more. This thing has been the colors of this for a year. Now, the
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campus conservative club, the University of Calgary, has gone and painted it as a Canadian
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flag on Remembrance Day. They painted a Canadian flag. I mean, being a bit more appropriate,
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probably should have been done as a red ensign, the flag that most people fought on.
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Yeah, that's it. I mean, make it all red, just put a shield. But yeah, it's not as neat
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to paint. So whatever. They painted a Canadian flag. And Albert Premier Daniel Smith kind of
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shared the tweet and said like, you know, hey, great honor conservatives doing this. And then
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you had the likes of Thomas Lukasik saying, this is anti-Palestinian racism. I mean, the guy says a
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lot of dumb shit. He says a lot of dumb shit. But it actually took me a while. I don't understand.
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I actually didn't get what he's getting at. So when someone inevitably paints over the Canadian
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flag, if they happen already, is that going to be anti-Canadian racism? I don't know. It's
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it was just mind numbing. And you saw all the usual characters saying this is racist. First of all,
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Palafine is not a race. It's a, some argue it's a nation. Maybe. But yeah, arguably, arguing maybe it's
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a nation. Maybe. But it's not a race. Mr. Carney thinks it's a nation. You know, I argue, I think
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nationhood can be developed or undeveloped in time. Nations fall and rise and it's an organic
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thing. So I arguably think, yeah, maybe it constitutes a nation, but certainly does not
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constitute a race. We know it does not constitute a race. And then at the same time, you know,
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we've got some stories up on this. During Remembrance Day ceremonies, and particularly
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the one that's been the most, gotten the most play here, was in Toronto, I guess at Old
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City Hall, there's a cenotaph. And they called up some poor cadets. They put these poor cadets
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up to do it. I think they were maybe air cadets or air cadet and army cadet. So kids, like teenagers.
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And they have one read a land acknowledgement. And the other one do an ancestry, I don't
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know what they call it, ancestral acknowledgement or something. Whereas essentially, we apologize
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for being white and that there was ever slavery in Canada. Technically, there was never slavery
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in the modern state of Canada. Long, long pre-confederation, there was technically slavery. But Canada actually
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was one of the first places on the planet, even predating the British Empire, which predates
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America, which predates most of the rest of the world, in getting rid of slavery. Canada
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was the first part of the British Empire to outlaw slavery. But we have to have these
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acknowledgements just about, oh, sinful Canada is born in sin that it ever had slavery. Yeah.
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You know, I'm not going to say, of course slavery is bad. We know it. You don't have to say
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that crap. We just know that. It's self-evident. But we've now drenched Remembrance Day.
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In ritual shame and self-loathing. I can't imagine there as many veterans present or past
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would imagine this is the kind of Canada they fought for and this is the kind of recognition
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they would get for their service and sacrifice. I don't think they would have been. You know,
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one of the remarkable things about Canada is the number of people who actually put on uniform.
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In 1939, this was just a country of about 11 million people. 900,000 men and women put on uniform. 900,000
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out of a population of 11 million. And they were not fighting for anything but freedom and an end
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to fascism. And what we're looking at now with this kind of thing that you've just described so eloquently,
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Derek, is a new kind of fascism, except that this time it's directed at people like us by the kind of people
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who benefited most from Canada's war effort. It is a shame. It's a disgrace. And we'll probably see more
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of it before we see less of it. The only reason I even raise the possibility of seeing less of it
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is that if you've noticed, the shibboleths are starting to fall. You know, we have Bill Gates
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coming out and saying, well, maybe global warming isn't the most important thing in the world. And
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some of the government offices backing off on the indigenous claims that seem to require the most
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proof. I think in the end, oh, and as for trans, you know, people are starting to say,
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yeah, maybe not, maybe not so much. I think these things come and they're used politically
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to embarrass the conservative side, or the tempting, but this too will pass. Meanwhile,
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there's a shocking and sad development. I'm not sure how far to take this sentiment,
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but I don't know, Corey, if you saw it, there was a, it was on the Good Morning Britain,
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or it was a British news show, and they had this very, very old veteran on. I mean,
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there's not a lot of Second World War veterans left, but they had, they had this veteran on.
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Do you know the clip I'm talking about? No, I'm not sure, actually. Okay. So I, I, I don't want to.
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Okay. You haven't seen it. I want to get too far, but he more or less said, um,
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I don't want to put words in the man's mouth, but William, you saw this? Yeah. I'm pretty sure he said
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it wasn't worth it. Oh, okay. I don't want to put words in this man's mouth, but I mean,
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he was very old. He had some difficulty articulating himself, but I think it was fair to say more or less,
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I don't think I would have fought if this is the country I knew we were going to get at the end.
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I wouldn't have put on the, I wouldn't have taken up arms. I don't know. Am I reading
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too much into that? No, absolutely not. I don't think so.
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Um, I think what we're seeing with regards to kind of the rock in Canada, at least is the
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erasure in real time of Canada's national identity, what it means to be Canadian, uh, Canada's
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foundational values and ideology, and specifically in order to make space for alternative ideologies and
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diverse cultures. And again, at the expense of Canada's own national identity.
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Yeah. Uh, it kind of reminded me of, uh, this was a British veteran. It wasn't Canadian,
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but obviously very akin. Uh, there, there was a funny slash terribly sad AI video made,
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and it was, uh, I guess, operation sea lion, 1940, uh, these, uh, German soldiers. And, uh,
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one guy burst into the headquarters is, I know how we're going to invade Britain.
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And then it shows them on blow up rubber dinghies going across the channel. And they're like,
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and it made the point a very dark, but you know, kind of funny way, uh, about what's happened. And
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that's just Britain, but Britain is just kind of a symbol of what's happened to all of us here.
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Uh, but yeah, now we take even remembrance days and drench them, Corey, in this ritualistic
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self-hatred, self-loathing that might go fine at, uh, you know, federal cup W union meeting
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where everyone's got pronouns and a bio. And this is just kind of usual par for the course,
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but remember it's day isn't about those people. At least it's not yet until we declare all of them
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veterans all of a sudden when they do weekend training once a year, but, uh, you know, we're
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now investing even remember and stay with this stuff. We have an ideology sweeping across this
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country and a culture where there's some people better start paying bloody attention to that rock.
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For example, at UFC was a beautiful tradition. It was perfect. It was a democratic spot. And that was
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the place to have your passive aggressive battle, paint your little flag. The next group will paint it.
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The next group will paint it. But this group, the woke world painted it green, white, and such as
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the state years ago, this was actually a couple of years ago when they did the, uh, occupation that
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their short lived camp on the university, they painted that rock and they basically let everybody
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there know it's sacred. You do not dare paint over it again. The tradition is finished. And today,
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finally, you know, with, uh, I may believe a flag being put on it and allegedly that's controversial.
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The one place, I mean, I don't fault if somebody came tomorrow and painted the Palestinian flag,
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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
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where we're supposed to do it. And then they're bringing their crap into the other areas where
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you weren't supposed to bring the politicization in, which is Remembrance Day. And I sadly, I think
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part of why they're getting away with it, if they'd done it 20 years ago, when you're at a ceremony
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and there were still a hundred or 200 actual veterans from World War II who could still get
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around without a walker and such, whoever was stating the land acknowledgements and saying,
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everybody should look at their shoes and everybody should be ashamed of being Canadian would have
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been pelted by rocks from the veterans in the background. I said, we're not going to put up with
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that crap on our day, but we need somebody to stand up and say, do not do that on their day. They're
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not here anymore. So those of us who didn't serve now got to get up and say that crap's going to end
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because it's degrading such a critical, critical ceremony that just had, none of that crap has
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any place going into it. You know, and on this, on Remembrance Day, so correct me if I'm wrong,
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but I think, I think it was yesterday. Toronto Mayor Chairman Chow says, announced that they're
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going to be raising the flag at the Toronto City Hall. No, they didn't raise it on Remembrance Day.
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I think that might be a bridge too far, even for the nuttiest nuts so far. They were probably
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going to want to get there, but on Remembrance Day, she announced that they will be raising
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the, uh, the Palestinian flag at the Toronto City Hall. Uh, we also just got word now, uh,
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the same thing is going to happen at Calgary. Calgary City Hall is going to raise the Palestinian
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flag. I mean, it's, it's particularly provocative, but I think it, I want to pull it back, William,
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to maybe broader topic of corrupting our public spaces, institutions with things, ideological causes
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that have nothing to do with us. Palestine is a different people on a different continent that
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frankly should have nothing to do with us. Um, they want to raise the Palestinian flag.
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Raise it in Palestine. Good for Palestine. Raise it at home or wherever. Raise it on your project
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property. But then, you know, I don't want to use the double standards here. So, and I'd say
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we should also then not raise the Israeli flag at City Hall. What does City Hall have to do with
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Israel or Palestine? What does it have to do with your sexual orientation? We, we should be scrapping
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this, like, we've just got an endless, now, uh, ream of applications in for declarative days.
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Today's gay day. Today's Palestine day. Today's, today's Israel day. Uh, it's time we shut this
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shit down. It's time we just draw the line and say, City Hall can have three flags. Canada, Alberta,
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Calgary. That's it. Uh, or, okay, fine, if we lose a bet, like, say we lost the
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game to the Oilers, we have to raise, you know, Oilers flag. Okay. I guess we need a little bit
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of wiggle room, but I'd rather give them an inch. You know what? I'd rather there just be no wiggle
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room at all, rather than this constant pandering to every little group that claims grief or victim
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puts out. I think as many of them are generally fine causes that I don't, at least on the surface,
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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
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see one more frigging flag. That's not Canada, Alberta or Calgary at my bloody city hall.
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No, I gotcha. I think maybe in the past, maybe there's a place for it upon the canvas of Canadian
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society, but that's really the thing we need to reestablish Canada's identity. We need to really
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reestablish a canvas because it's being rent asunder. I think it's 43% of Canada's youth are
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actually in favor now of becoming part of the United States of America. Um, and so that's,
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that's essentially half of Canada's future is essentially, well, they see no future in Canada.
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They want to go to the States. And that's because in a lot of ways we very much sacrificed our own
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spirit, values, ethos in order to make space for the culture and pride of others. Um, I think in a
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lot of ways, the modern advent of identity politics has transformed the pursuit of diversity into an
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instrument of oppression and very much a political mechanism that leftists everywhere now routinely
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leverage in order to, to legitimize and very much encourage the persecution of any sufficiently
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undiverse or, or white person. And we see that in America, we see that in Canada. Um, I think in a
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lot of ways, even the over abuse of white people has become, uh, legitimized, uh, based on kind of this
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advent of identity politics in a way you have to even beg the ability to suffer, uh, the ability to have
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a legitimate perspective now, uh, within your own nation.
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Uh, all right. Well, this, um, we're in it slightly behind. Uh, maybe I rented too much,
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but, uh, it, it, it, uh, segues real nicely into our next topic here, bureaucrats at arms. So, uh,
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Nigel, the federal budget, I, I was kind of pilloring, uh, this, uh, you know, the, the feds have this
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plan to increase our reserve forces to 400,000 or at 25 to 26,000 right now. So 16 fold increase.
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There is a 0% chance. Like you, you, you would have to pay reservists a hundred thousand dollars
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a year to go on a couple of weekends to get up there without conscription. Just no way you're
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ever going to get even vaguely close to it. We've had the, a 30,000 target for eight years,
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seven, eight years now. We haven't closed it by one soldier. Essentially we've not gotten anywhere.
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Also people come in, they realize how crappy it is in our forces. Now you've got tampons in the men's
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room. Uh, it's not a yes, sir or ma'am. It's yes, they, them kind of crap. There's no spree
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to core anymore. Our military has been shredded from its martial spirit as a spree to core. Um,
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but the plan now is, uh, uh, at least for 300,000 of this massive new people's army in Canada, uh, is
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reclassifying bureaucrats. So, you know, first of all, I want to point the listener to an excellent
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column in the Western standard from, uh, John Thompson, who is, who often writes on military matters.
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And he writes with some authority because he was, uh, he was in the forces himself.
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I must confess when I read this, I didn't know whether we should be taking this seriously or
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whether we should play it for laughs because the whole idea is outrageously stupid from the very
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start. But you never know with Mr. Mr. Carney, whether even something ridiculous actually meets
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an undisclosed government motive. I really, I really have to think, well, he's made various
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promises about spending more money on the Canadian military. Well, here's a way to do it. Uh, that he's
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going to expand the forces. Well, if it's just numbers that you're thinking about, here's a way
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that you can fool people. Well, let me, if we're going to go to the numbers game, let's just look at a
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couple of things here. There are approximately 400,000, uh, Canadian civil servants, and there will
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still be 400,000 plus after Mr. Carney has completed his budget cuts. Of that number, 58% are women.
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That's not to say women can't be part-time soldiers, but the other thing is more than half are over the
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age of 40 and more than a third are over the age of 59. Now, basically that's not your traditional
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recruiting pool. Okay. And what do they get? Old cat ladies working in offices. They get one week's
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training. They get shown to shoot a gun to fly a drone. And this is obviously something that's
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going to have to be procured because we don't actually have a hell of a lot of these things.
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And, uh, I have to wonder what it is that Mr. Carney and those advising him are imagining. This is the
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sort of army that defends, well, you would understand this. This is the army that defends Berlin
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in March, April, 1945. Yeah. You're not, it's not the crib of your crop. It is the, it is the army
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that Britain was. Why do I understand that? Well, the stereotypes. Racism. Racist. Right in your own
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shot, Derek. Anyway. So, you know, this is the sort of army that, uh, Britain would put together. They
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call them the home guard. They had pitchfork shovels and one gun between three, you know, and if the
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Jerry's had ever landed, they'd have had a rough time with it. But this kind of, uh, this, these are
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not minutemen. To use an American analogy, our civil servants are not the people you want if you have a
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citizen army. And they certainly aren't the people who are going to rise to the occasion with one week's
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training. So obviously this is a big, uh, rubbish story. And I can't help thinking that this is all
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about, uh, giving the government cover to go back and say they've done something when in actual fact,
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they've done nothing. Funny historical, just note there, uh, one of the last organized divisions in
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Berlin, May, uh, May, 1945. Hitler, Haibon. Uh, no, it was, uh, a French, uh, SS division, uh, Charlemagne. It was
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actually French. The, the French defended Berlin to the end, maybe not Paris, but the French defended
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Berlin to the end. Um, on France every, it's every show. Oh, William, uh, I mean, uh, a year ago, the
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liberals were saying, uh, we're going to confiscate all these military assault rifles from Canadian
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hunters and we're going to give it to Ukraine. That's my parting shot. Oh, you didn't tell me.
00:24:17.020
Yeah. Well, they're, they were going to give these guns to Ukraine. Uh, turned out Ukraine didn't want
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them because none of them are actually military rifles. They're, they're just hunting and sports
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shooting rifles. Uh, so the Ukrainians disagreed that these are actually assault rifles, but this
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sounds just about as crazy that we're going to arm the Ukrainians with our hunting rifles. Uh, now we're
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going to make a mass people's army out of bureaucrats. Yeah. That's how do you, how often do you think they
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are you're in Ottawa? Well, so here's the funny thing. I've been trying to turn this on and said
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to make sense of it. And I wonder if really the goal isn't necessarily, uh, physical, let's say,
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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.
00:26:51.980
Oh, absolutely. They're going to have Pete Hanks will be there laughing at it. Oh,
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
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
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
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.
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.
00:32:50.140
Well, again, I mean, the example, if you want to see of any specialized force or something they could
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,
00:33:30.780
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
00:34:07.260
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
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
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
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00:46:24.540
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00:46:42.300
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