Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： Liberals vote against pipeline motion

00:00:00.000 they tell you what to think they decide what you should hear and what you shouldn't not hear

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00:00:53.580 good evening i'm cory morgan and you're watching the pipeline this is the western standards

00:00:59.960 weekly production a panel show that's going on you know i was just thinking a little while ago

00:01:04.900 about this this is the western standards oldest show they were doing versions of this if you

00:01:09.980 really want to go into the deep bowels of youtube and see where the western standard was first formed

00:01:14.640 and the original pipeline pals that were put together it was uh well let's just say we've

00:01:18.900 come a long ways either way we're much more polished and professional now or at least i

00:01:23.920 like to think so so i'll introduce the other folks i'm joined by today i'll start on the

00:01:28.000 end with our news editor dave naylor it is a honor to be here with such two esteemed television

00:01:34.360 legends well there we go and thank you in the middle we have our opinion editor emeritus nigel

00:01:41.340 hanaford and you know my opinion on a dollar 25 will get your coffee in port if it's on sale

00:01:48.680 if it's a very very small one well yes well we've got lots to chew on today uh boy yes so

00:01:57.080 where to begin start federally uh maybe dave i'll get you to kind of kick that off the liberals uh

00:02:03.740 have voted against their own pipeline or at least as the title would put it they they had a motion

00:02:08.660 going through the house of commons would do they support the pipeline or not and uh they couldn't

00:02:14.440 be cornered yeah yesterday was pipeline follies the uh conservatives conservatives introduced a

00:02:20.460 motion saying do you support pipelines basically and the the liberals said uh no it's just party

00:02:26.860 politics we're not going to support it because it doesn't even talk about a b and c uh pierre

00:02:33.040 polly have then amended his motion to include a b and c and uh they still voted against it was

00:02:39.720 169 to 136 so not even close so uh kind of shows you what the liberal party thinks of pipelines i guess

00:02:47.960 well and these are kind of performative too i mean this was a motion it wasn't binding even if they

00:02:52.840 uh right no non-binding motion i mean i think to to some there's two ways of looking at it the one is 0.74

00:03:00.600 the way the liberals looking at it that well the conservatives are just playing silly buggers and

00:03:05.640 the other way is that the conservatives are actually trying to flush them out and see just 0.58

00:03:09.960 exactly how deeply and horribly committed they are to this because here in alberta we were supposed to

00:03:18.280 think as mr carney got on the plane and flew back again but they were on our side and things were

00:03:23.720 going to be made to happen and there's lots of people here who say i don't know it's uh there's some

00:03:28.840 holes in this argument it's very costly does bc have a veto or not do the indigenous people have a

00:03:35.240 veto or not mr carney said of course they'd need to be in agreement well it's being an agreement just

00:03:42.200 being consulted you know there's a lot there's a lot there's very loosey-goosey and it was a memorandum

00:03:48.840 of understanding so we all knew from the start this was not exactly a deal inked in blood but this actually

00:03:57.720 did show a certain mentality of evasion and not wishing to be pinned down and keeping all the options

00:04:04.600 open not a very not a very pretty picture and not one in if you're in alberta and you're dependent on

00:04:10.040 your job in the in the energy industry is not a good uh it was not a good day's work well and it

00:04:16.440 probably have defanged the second motion when they said okay we need this this and this as dave said

00:04:21.000 you know or we won't vote for us it's okay well i'll pull those things out or i'll reword i'll change

00:04:25.080 them now we can have the vote and they still voted against the question i guess is are they

00:04:31.080 really actually afraid to say that they would support a pipeline or is it just the case of

00:04:35.640 parliamentary politics if there was a motion from the conservatives saying the sky is blue

00:04:38.600 the liberals would vote against it and say no it's black i think it's a bit of both i think

00:04:42.760 polyev hit the nail on the head when he said you know there's a lot there's no doubt there's a lot of

00:04:47.800 the liberal caucus that is against the pipelines you know the uh stephen gilbo faction and so on and

00:04:54.600 uh polyev says well carney goes into his caucuses and say everybody take a deep breath we'll go out

00:05:00.440 there pretend we support pipelines and we know it's never going to get built so let's uh you know try

00:05:06.280 and all stay together and just put on a good ad well and the block and the ndp happily joked in and

00:05:12.360 joined this too who have made no bones about being opposed to the pipeline uh and you know that'll help

00:05:17.800 segue when we get into what we're going to talk about a bit next with some some regionalism going on but

00:05:22.840 smith is taking a battering over this and i'm sorry but i'm saying rightly so to a degree 0.61

00:05:27.480 you've taken this one to the bank and he won't even verbally commit that this is going to happen

00:05:32.120 as you said it's an mou you don't have so much but it looks like they're taking us for a ride it's

00:05:38.040 not that hard for carney just to say i want this to happen and he won't say it yeah yeah no you know

00:05:44.760 i have to i have to say i wonder actually what mr carney does want to happen is sort of

00:05:50.600 significant that there's only been about two pieces of legislation passed since uh they haven't

00:05:56.840 even got the budget passed yet and he's been in office now more than six months so there is a

00:06:03.800 blockage in the system with the federal government what they have done is they've given themselves

00:06:10.760 permission to borrow a tremendous amount of money that's the only thing that i can say well they did that

00:06:18.280 that is irrefutable everything else is moving along at a snail's pace some of which by the way i'm glad

00:06:24.760 is moving at a snail's pace but uh at the same time i don't actually understand where the favorable

00:06:34.520 opinion of mr carney is coming from he makes these elaborate promises haven't seen anything come of them

00:06:42.120 yet and yet he still seems to enjoy the popular support more than more even so than uh mr paul yes

00:06:50.520 don't forget he got elected right so he does have that base of popular support well that was a while

00:06:55.240 ago things could change things can change i think the polls have been pretty steady uh you you're right

00:07:01.400 though they raised the debt ceiling to i think one and a half trillion which enables them to go months

00:07:07.080 more without having to you know defend what they're spending money on in parliament and to the

00:07:13.400 pipeline issue the daniel smith has to get a proponent out in front of this quickly or else the

00:07:20.840 whole deal is going to fall apart uh you know as you guys have both said this there's a lot of wishy

00:07:27.080 washy talk in the mou but if if a company like enbridge steps forward and says okay we're going to take a

00:07:33.880 run at doing this then that moves it a huge step forward then you can start maybe thinking that

00:07:39.560 hey this may happen because right now you're thinking this ain't gonna happen so how would

00:07:43.240 you incent a company like enbridge or anybody else to take that step when you really don't know what

00:07:50.680 political issues you're going to face in british colombia well no that's why you've got uh you've got

00:07:56.680 bill c5 which would declare it a national project uh that well in theory would brush brush aside any

00:08:05.560 opposition from indigenous groups or the government of bc so mr carne has specifically said that they

00:08:13.160 need to be on side but he doesn't say that they have a veto just implied that if they didn't agree that

00:08:21.880 probably wouldn't have no but he as a head of a company you could hold a press conference daniel

00:08:27.320 smith and says i commit our company to build this pipeline and we're gonna we will have shovels ready

00:08:34.520 as soon as you promises there'll be no stopping and we're not going to spend a dollar before you give

00:08:39.960 us that uh that uh permission i will see it's a big chicken and egg thing he's asking a lot to invest in

00:08:47.240 a maybe that's the problem but uh you don't hear oil companies or pipeline companies losing money

00:08:53.640 so they know there is money to be made if they get this thing built yeah they're making it in qatar

00:08:59.400 yeah well i mean the only the only news you can take to the bank from the oil industry in the last six

00:09:05.400 months is that imperial is leaving calgary so what does that tell you about industry confidence in the

00:09:12.360 in anything going forward and i keep coming back to that that uh story we ran about six weeks ago

00:09:19.320 talking about the actual mechanics of pumping carbon dioxide underground which is the condition

00:09:25.560 that's the one condition that mr carney has set for this uh you have to invest in carbon capture and

00:09:32.440 underground storage if this thing is going to go ahead well for the kind of oil production that you're

00:09:39.160 going to need to make the whole thing viable that's an enormous expense uh i'm i'm not aware of um

00:09:45.240 there are other places in the world where it's been tried uh on a large scale but they haven't all

00:09:51.480 done that well the only one that's going well actually is the one in weyburn but that's like a

00:09:55.560 very small of my squirrel operation by comparison with what's needed yeah well we'll watch and see i

00:10:01.400 mean so i mean leading into the next subject patience is kind of wearing thin we've had independence

00:10:06.040 movement really kind of exploding in alberta over this last eight months or so it's always been

00:10:10.600 simmering but it seems to be growing and hanging in there uh one of the principles among them is is

00:10:15.800 jeffrey rath and uh he's he's uh an outspoken man i guess to say the least uh but uh you know all

00:10:24.680 kind of intro this one he's been turning his guns on premier smith uh he at the agm really brought

00:10:30.360 the issue to a head waiting in line and and you know brought the room up on on independence

00:10:36.040 on those motions then he got quite upset uh over a cbc interview that the cbc even retracted because uh

00:10:42.840 uh they've claimed that smith was going to pro uh campaign against independence actively

00:10:49.160 and uh now over bill 14 over him the ability of daniel smith to appoint uh candidates which is the

00:10:57.160 ability that actually every party leader canada has always had uh now he's calling for her head

00:11:02.280 on a pike i mean he's basically saying we got to organize the constituency associations and have 0.94

00:11:06.840 a leadership review and potentially pull her down what's going on i'm sorry when he claims he was

00:11:15.400 taken out of context but he wasn't you know he made these comments on uh on the podcast and we

00:11:21.320 quoted i think we're the only one who had the story we we quoted him uh verbatim and he he sounded

00:11:27.960 angry and yes i i i have enough constituency associations that we're going to talk we're

00:11:33.960 going to get a special general meeting and we're going to kick premier smith out of her job it's 1.00

00:11:38.840 exactly what he said uh rob smith he said no relation to danielle smith uh is the ucp president and he

00:11:48.120 told us jeffrey rath maybe knows two constituency association heads and that's it and uh he's upset

00:11:55.560 because he he didn't get his all his people elected to the ucp board and he's got no chance of doing

00:12:01.800 this and this is just one vote and uh we ran that story yesterday and now mr rath is responding again

00:12:10.040 to that we'll have that story up uh jeffrey's got to learn to take a deep breath before he opens his

00:12:17.080 mouth because these sort of outbursts are not helping the independence movement in my opinion

00:12:23.720 corey well there's a lot of things that aren't helping the independence movement but one thing

00:12:28.120 i would like to hear from somebody who wants independence is all right let's say that this

00:12:34.360 little phone is alberta it's about the right shape you've got saskatchewan there and bc there

00:12:39.720 and you're now independent and you want to export oil you're pretty sure it's probably not going to

00:12:47.800 go through bc they're sticky enough with the federal government sort of suggesting that they ought to

00:12:55.160 yield on this there's basically one way out which is south maybe that could be done but you're not going

00:13:01.880 to get the top dollar for it so what is this what is the independence option for developing the oil in

00:13:08.440 industry i'm not saying it can't be done but it has not yet been explained in my hearing as how it

00:13:16.440 would be done now the u uh us ambassador to canada in an interview with the the national post this week

00:13:23.000 he said the mou sounds great he says the mou is going to enable alberta to produce a lot more oil

00:13:30.760 and the united states wants some of it so they've you know they've indicated their their desire that

00:13:37.800 anything extra we can get to them uh you know they'll happily take but as you mentioned it's

00:13:42.600 usually at that discounted right the landlocked issue i got stark answers for this i do get asked

00:13:48.360 it quite often this is a way for starters if you look at a map of alberta and bc see that there are only

00:13:56.280 four rail lines that come from british columbia into alberta if we got into a theoretical situation

00:14:02.440 that alberta was independent bc decided we're not going to let you export your oil through here

00:14:06.840 we won't let them export their trains through here this standoff will last i figure six to seven hours

00:14:13.720 before we're at a table negotiating in fact we would finally have strength in negotiation because we're

00:14:19.800 the thing that i often point out to people too they say you'd be landlocked well we already are

00:14:24.680 we don't have anything to lose anymore this government is shutting us down no matter what

00:14:28.840 we try if we were independent theoretically we could have leverage likewise yes we do have a

00:14:34.360 customer to the south who would be happy to take a lot of product but that's not an ideal situation

00:14:38.600 when you have a single customer you can end up being uh you know losing on a premium with things like

00:14:43.800 that and that's where the patience is running out i mean part of the deal on keeping independent

00:14:49.160 minded people quiet and patient is saying well we can work something within the federation to get

00:14:54.600 it done and that's why this pipeline is such a symbol because if we can't even get that then

00:15:00.520 that's where people are saying well what have we got to lose um but it's you know it would certainly be

00:15:05.480 challenged it's not like we go overnight and have a pipeline laid through bc as an independent alberta

00:15:09.400 as a bullying neighbor uh putting the elbows out and shoving them from from our area but uh

00:15:14.600 i've heard that works elbows up yes well it's not as well as something but i think that's part of

00:15:20.280 the problem we have is some crabbiness and impatience with independent supporters in general i mean they've

00:15:24.360 been spinning their wheels for a while now uh my view on it i mean again is schedule at our referendum

00:15:31.080 i said as much in the culinary room you know the tea kennels plugged up and it's pressuring up people 0.61

00:15:35.720 like wrath who were a little even more bombastic than others but even i guess if you use the term if

00:15:41.960 it's not an oxymoron moderate independent supporters give them something to work on

00:15:46.840 schedule that thing let them get working on petitioning let them get on the ground and that

00:15:52.600 pressure will come on haven't you always been a proponent though that a referendum this quickly

00:15:58.440 is not good for independence yeah in the movement uh so how do you explain the oxymoron then of saying

00:16:03.720 okay let's get a call out because the ball's rolling too fast now there's too big a movement

00:16:07.720 that is impatient and not and champing at the bit for this in my view if you don't give this

00:16:13.800 outlet to it they will form a party of an effective one i mean there's a bunch of little ineffective

00:16:18.280 ones already but they will form one that's going to pull 10 or 20 it's not going to win but it's

00:16:23.800 certainly going to cause a heck of a lot of damage plus if we're looking at 30 if we have a referendum

00:16:28.680 with 40 i'm still only 54 i think it's conceivable if it doesn't come this time i could see it in my

00:16:35.880 lifetime it's a step towards plus with six months of campaigning on it maybe actually that uh ball

00:16:42.840 will move closer to the end i ideally yeah i think it should be a couple more years to work on it but

00:16:47.880 they just can't anymore you know it's like the horses when you see them in a gate at a race and

00:16:52.440 they're just ready to go you can't keep that gate closed for too long or it's going to get out

00:16:56.520 yeah i would argue that your movement does not want jeffrey rath as its main focus and spokesman

00:17:04.040 so that's an issue you have to fix i don't have to that's the alberta prosperity projects uh

00:17:11.480 but i know he's speaking independent sport in general i mean that's uh it's been an interesting

00:17:15.560 discussion because i'm not a member of any of those groups i'm certainly you know supportive of us be a

00:17:19.640 guest speaker at their events things like that uh that group has to figure out who's speaking for

00:17:25.240 them in which uh uh capacity because they there's an advantage of i guess not having a single soul

00:17:32.360 voice and that you can have different people representatives speaking around but then when

00:17:35.880 one goes perhaps to the point of irritating even your own members you've got to clarify who's speaking

00:17:42.120 for whom and yes i don't know if necessarily my movement needs to but i think the alberta prosperity

00:17:46.600 project had better start examining who's the other the other thing and the quarry is all the discussion

00:17:53.320 surrounds the pipeline there is a lot more to becoming an independent country oh yeah than that

00:18:01.880 one issue that's just a symbol it's a symbol it's a useful symbol but one of the unfortunate things which

00:18:08.680 dave alluded to very delicately is that the people who are most to the front and foremost

00:18:17.560 would you really follow them into independence and trust their judgment for everything that has to

00:18:25.480 come next the constitution how we're going to run things what are we what are we going to do about

00:18:31.240 basic civil liberties do we have them there's an assumption among uh independence-minded people that

00:18:37.480 alberta will be more free when it is removed from some of the canada you know some of the structures

00:18:44.120 of canada that will have different values than those people back east who consistently uh elect

00:18:51.080 liberals and that may be true but it also may not be oh yeah if you could make a small or bad version

00:18:59.640 of what you just escaped uh you know one of the things i talk to in rooms i speak to people's well

00:19:04.120 there's no way we embrace the westminster parliamentary system if we just managed to rip

00:19:08.520 ourselves out of it that would just be the idiocy i mean if this hasn't served us we have to examine 0.89

00:19:12.920 new systems and and i have some of those discussions i'd actually say you could embrace the westminster 0.94

00:19:18.280 system because there's the people back east who are separating themselves from it if we could just

00:19:24.680 have things done the way the westminster system is supposed to work with the politicians make the

00:19:29.640 laws and the judges interpret them as they are written and not according to the latest uh fancy

00:19:36.280 that coming from the liberal ministry of justice well that the westminster system is pretty good it's

00:19:42.040 what the liberals have done with it for the whole country that makes us uh suspicious and frustrating

00:19:46.840 at all you know i don't want an appointed senate i don't want uh a centralized government have an

00:19:55.880 elected one but have a senate you know it's uh but then we're getting into a new system and a bicameral

00:20:01.000 one we can have without yeah but you're right see that shows that there does have to be discussions

00:20:05.400 nuanced ones and most discussions are not happening as i've heard uh they are but they aren't necessarily

00:20:10.360 embraced uh it's funny i've had a for example bruce party uh from queen's university a law professor

00:20:16.360 who's put out his very uh libertarian version of a very scaled-out constitution which i think is a

00:20:22.040 uh pie in the sky level i don't know if that appeared in c2c about uh i think i think we've

00:20:29.240 run a version of it here in the western standard when i was still at the desk and i interviewed bruce

00:20:33.480 about that you know as a libertarian i quite agreed on it i mean very much from that empowering the

00:20:38.600 individual you know reversing the relationship of the government but uh jeffrey rath went on a rampage

00:20:44.360 about bruce party just yesterday on x uh and as i said so that's where they've got to start to

00:20:49.480 centralize some of the discussion but you're right you've got a the movement has to come up with more

00:20:54.040 answers for what's going to happen the day after yep and uh you can't answer every one of them that's

00:20:59.000 part of the problem too if you want to go into what about isn't to the point that you never have a

00:21:01.800 referendum you'll never have a referendum at some point people will have to vote there's going to be

00:21:05.400 some question marks but the more you can feel in advance the better you'll get the confidence of

00:21:09.800 citizens right now as we said if we voted tomorrow it's not going to do well it's it's there's much more to

00:21:16.040 be done but if you have six eight months of a campaign on independence we'll see what surfaces

00:21:21.320 you know and you think right now the the leading the pro canada side would be tom lucas well there we

00:21:26.360 go look as he versus wrath the stories will never end of course that would be a nice uh cool and

00:21:35.560 rational discourse uh he's certainly got nicer hair than jeffrey well i mean this is the only place i'll

00:21:42.840 give thomas credit i mean he's got nicer hair than most of us he's he's one in the hair yeah well

00:21:47.240 listen if we're going in the hair states we've had nicer hair and it hasn't got us anywhere no no we

00:21:52.120 had that in ottawa for points of time and that's it that pay off it's always prancing around with katie

00:21:57.400 perry now uh all right well let's see nigel perhaps you want to lay down bill c9 um so look um what's 0.89

00:22:09.640 happening in canada right now is that the liberals for the last five years have been trying to control

00:22:16.040 the internet and they've put out seven bills which about which two just fell by the wayside two got

00:22:24.360 passed uh one died on the order order paper as well and they've got a couple out this session

00:22:31.720 that's bill two and bill eight and then there's bill nine and what bill bill nine is strictly speaking

00:22:41.160 not about controlling the internet it's about it's a as a marketed as an anti-hate bill and so this is

00:22:49.720 the bill for for people who are following this at a distance this is the bill that would make it

00:22:55.480 illegal to raise a nazi flag on your flagpole in your in your in your backyard now i'm not aware

00:23:04.280 that you know only cross burnings are more or are more unlikely than than that i mean people just

00:23:11.320 don't do that so you have to ask why is there uh why is this the object of legislation

00:23:17.480 i have a suspicion that the answer lies not in alberta but in quebec where the quebec government is

00:23:26.360 anxious about the about its its own uh its own people and some of the extremes of hatred

00:23:34.440 that they're experiencing back there but anyway this bill nine has hit the um has hit the

00:23:41.880 the national news and apart from the swastika there is one as one amendment that has been pushed by the

00:23:52.520 bloc quebecois which you know they're very uh anti-religious symbolism if you were a muslim you're not

00:24:02.360 supposed to wear your muslim gear to work if you're a christian you're not supposed to display your cross 1.00

00:24:07.560 and they want uh to make it that you cannot use your sincerely held religious beliefs as a defense 0.72

00:24:20.920 if you are accused of saying something unkind about homosexuals the gay lifestyle of which the bible

00:24:32.280 has a number of references so if you are pulled before a human rights commission then you say why

00:24:40.600 you know i i pulled my kid out of school because i didn't like what they were teaching

00:24:46.280 and they say well that's discriminatory and you say well that's my sincerely held religious belief

00:24:50.920 up to this point you were okay if this bill passes as amended then you would not be okay

00:24:57.400 now the justice minister sean fraser is trying to say no well no used to

00:25:04.040 he makes various promises about how this thing will be fenced in and it's not going to be the

00:25:08.840 problem you think it's going to be and i don't doubt that he's perfectly sincere in his assurances

00:25:13.640 it's just that he cannot he is not in a position even as minister of justice to give those assurances

00:25:18.680 because you don't know what happens to this legislation when it comes before the courts and the judges

00:25:24.200 start thinking for themselves well i don't know it seems pretty pretty off to me i think you're

00:25:29.240 guilty you know well but the minister said oh i said that two years ago you know now you're in front

00:25:35.720 of me so it's a very serious issue of religious freedom that's on the line here with bill c9 um

00:25:43.720 it's uh it's dangerous and what that has to do with the internet is this people use the internet

00:25:52.760 to put their opinions out you do oh certainly i do you have opinions i try and keep them do you try

00:26:00.120 and keep them to yourself but the thing is that people may wish to comment on things related to

00:26:08.520 trans lgbt and uh you know a lot of people don't like that but we believe in free speech in this country

00:26:19.400 and therefore we do what we do however if somebody who says well i said what i said because i'm

00:26:25.880 actually believe what it says in the bible now you can't say that anymore or that's the intention of

00:26:30.600 the act and so it's going to have the the effect of cramping free expression on a lot of things

00:26:39.800 people are not going to want to take the chance of getting too close to these issues

00:26:43.560 and that's where this bill of c9 works together with uh bill two which makes it possible for the

00:26:52.920 government to walk into the into your uh your internet suppliers office and look at the files

00:27:00.360 and see who you've been who you've been corresponding with and what sites you've been without without a warrant

00:27:05.640 and then uh yeah so it goes on it's uh it's a it's a real tightening of the grip and it's been going

00:27:13.080 on for about five years been fits and starts but it's relentless so dave i mean you know in news you

00:27:19.400 see this maybe as a solution looking for a problem though i i haven't heard a lot of cases of people

00:27:24.360 using a religious defense if they've been no i can't remember uh and that was a very good long

00:27:30.440 derek-like uh explanation of somebody had to do i appreciate that because you certainly know more

00:27:36.920 about it than i do but does it would it mean that uh a priest in a pulpit who reads scripture

00:27:45.320 somebody in the congregation could say well i really don't agree with that and make a complaint yes

00:27:51.320 that priest could end up in trouble for just reading the bible you could get into trouble as a

00:27:57.240 pastor just by objecting to a drag queen story hour if you live in calgary so yes you absolutely

00:28:04.040 bet there will be people keeping an eye on what's said from the pulpit you know a lot of pastors

00:28:08.440 preach the bible they started genesis and they go through to revelation so there's going to be some

00:28:12.440 places where they got to deal with it or else admit that you're afraid to deal with it well something

00:28:18.120 that would really truly put this to the test though i could see some busybodies trying to charge a

00:28:24.280 minister or so on for saying it i dare one of them to take some uh an imam for quoting the koran

00:28:31.960 because it's supposed to apply to that too yes it does you bet they wouldn't dare for a second

00:28:37.720 and i tell you what i mean with any ancient religious text it doesn't you know stand up to

00:28:42.280 the measure of what's considered acceptable today or not that's just the nature of it these are written

00:28:46.440 thousands of years ago we just interpret that as older thinking and don't practice perhaps you're

00:28:51.880 stoning people and all those goodies that are packed into the old testament uh we can leave

00:28:57.560 it at that typically if there's any area where they seem to be working on the literal interpretations

00:29:02.840 and wanting to bring it in it's coming more out of islam than anywhere else yet that's the one area

00:29:06.360 they won't touch no and you're you're right corey there there's some amounts that there's a guy in

00:29:11.160 victoria i think who whose name is casering but he spews hateful hateful rhetoric on a weekly basis

00:29:18.360 and i know there's been complaints made but he hasn't been brought up before before any court any

00:29:23.720 board uh you know and you know he calls for the wiping out of israel and really very very anti-semitic

00:29:31.560 stuff that uh is is quite vile and corey's right everybody's afraid of even to go within this very

00:29:37.720 negative attitude it is it is and uh you're right corey once again it'll be christians who are bearing the 0.78

00:29:45.320 brunt of it well islam islamics uh get off scot free i'm just you know i'm of the free speech 0.91

00:29:52.520 mind i mean i don't have to like everything that i hear from every faith or what they put forward

00:29:56.040 but it's their right to do it and i will counter it through discourse and go from there but i just

00:30:01.000 see this as a showing as well just if they're going to be selective with the application well they

00:30:04.760 shouldn't apply it at all but if it's selective this is really a worthless piece of legislation

00:30:10.040 amen if i may say that praise the lord inshallah

00:30:15.880 well let's start with the parliamentary budget officer he's uh recanting

00:30:20.440 yes uh jason jacks is his name he's the interim uh budget officer by all accounts doing an

00:30:27.960 extra video budget uh by all accounts doing an exceptional job uh when the liberals first

00:30:35.240 brought down their budget he he called it shocking and unsustainable and stupefying and stupefying

00:30:41.880 uh and he's now obviously had a word in his ear and uh walked it walked back his comments and is now

00:30:48.440 saying oh yeah all right it might be sustainable so yeah somebody got them yeah well i mean this takes

00:30:54.840 you back to the budget discussion uh you mentioned before how the government that extended its credit

00:31:02.360 limit to 1.6 1.6 1.5 at any rate you know when when the liberals took office in uh 2015 the national

00:31:14.120 debt was about 600 billion dollars over covid plus a year they managed to get it up to 1.2 they double it

00:31:23.320 and you know a lot of i i thought it was wrong but a lot of people would probably forgive them for saying

00:31:28.280 well we had to get through we had to get ourselves through covid uh i think it's a poor argument but

00:31:32.840 at any rate that's the one they they went with well now mr carney comes in and says we can do another

00:31:39.960 25 percent so this is borrowed money and ostensibly it's so that we can develop canada all these big

00:31:47.560 projects pipelines for instance you know this is how uh this is how this extra money is going to be used

00:31:54.440 and there was a very strong commitment made to national defense uh i think it was 80 billion

00:32:00.840 well that's great except that we don't know how to buy equipment in this country so how whether that

00:32:06.920 will ever get spent on defense or whether it'll be diverted to something else we don't know point is

00:32:13.480 that the parliamentary budget officer looked at this and said this is stupefying you know and he said so

00:32:21.240 i was and then he got whacked and said well maybe i maybe i was a little little hard on them but we

00:32:29.640 know what he really thought because he said what he really thought and you know what it was what a lot

00:32:34.680 of other people were thinking without necessarily having the expert knowledge that he had to be able to

00:32:41.000 go out into the public square and point the finger well he did and it's it's also created problems

00:32:49.080 with looking for his replacement the the finance committee down in ottawa uh passed the motion

00:32:54.680 that they want to interview any candidates for this job just so they can see what he thinks money

00:33:00.760 wise and and whatnot and they were shut down by the privy council office there's no chance you're not

00:33:06.760 going to you're not going to uh get a chance to interview any of these nominees well that's what we've

00:33:11.720 put it out he is the interim parliamentary budget officer um what then what would his motivation be

00:33:19.000 in recanting is he pursuing you know that job is the full time uh you know trying to unburn the bridge

00:33:25.480 that he did when he dared to criticize the horrific budget that was placed before him i mean why well

00:33:32.440 he's not ready for retirement so even if he is only the interim highly parliamentary budget officer he

00:33:40.200 still has 20 years to work or 15 years or something like that and he has chosen to make his career

00:33:46.840 in the civil service yeah well i guess he's not looking private because i mean you know that coming

00:33:51.960 from that role if you had a principal controller in a corporation actually a lot of companies would

00:33:57.880 seek that out hey you're willing to say the emperor has no clothes and we could use that just to

00:34:03.560 show you what kind of job he's doing the canadian taxpayers federation on monday released their

00:34:09.720 naughty and nice list so leading off the naughty list was doug ford quite rightly and leading off

00:34:17.080 the nice list was uh jason jacks because they were just thrilled with the job he's doing in holding

00:34:23.880 auto auto account yeah well it could also be that you know here's a man who's been decades in government

00:34:31.480 and second by everything that he saw i mean i don't know the man so i'm just making this up as i go

00:34:36.440 along but it could be that he just said you know i got a chance to actually say what i really think

00:34:41.160 for once and for all had his mad as hell i'm not taking it yeah moment of one of those moments but 0.62

00:34:46.040 he didn't carry forward with it he's unfortunately a rare moment uh in the civil service somebody

00:34:52.200 actually speaking somebody actually speaking the truth well it's just unfortunate because it is an

00:34:57.000 important role to have somebody who will at least speak up on these things somewhat candidly and

00:35:01.320 they're making it clear that we want a yes person to fill that role in the future that the privy office

00:35:06.760 will choose and and it's just going to be a useless reading his what he said carefully in his recant

00:35:13.000 i got the impression that he was not actually recanting what he found merely saying that he could have

00:35:19.320 been more circumspect in how he made his report and perhaps that's so it was certainly a unusual

00:35:26.760 uh expression of uh grim determination that for a civil servant but hey that's great oh yeah well

00:35:35.960 auditors general we see that quite often too when they actually poke into an area that the government

00:35:40.440 doesn't like and suddenly the pressure's on to move them out of that position too they really want

00:35:45.400 neutered senior bureaucrats when it comes to watching their own activities and it's not a you know to be

00:35:51.000 fair it's not just liberals who are like that no government likes it when somebody's poking into their

00:35:55.240 or misdeeds but it's just in the last 10 years those supervisory agencies have been so much busier

00:36:03.080 than they were oh boy i mean uh where was it the arrive can is that ever gonna nobody's ever gonna

00:36:12.120 pay a price for that all right you know rcmp still investigating but uh you and i will long be in the

00:36:18.440 uh retirement home for journalists uh before anything happens just speaking of federal agencies that are

00:36:24.680 neutered i mean come on how many years does it take you when there's such clear fraud you know if it

00:36:28.600 was you and i doing it in the private market or don't we will all be handcuffed already and out the door

00:36:32.520 but they're just ragging the puck yeah well that's uh i believe they were friends of the government

00:36:40.760 they are the rcp that's a separate discussion all into itself oh why don't we move a little provincial

00:36:47.480 we've got a new party leader in alberta has appointed himself that's right and as a sitting

00:36:53.960 member he becomes the alberta parties only sitting mla uh peter guthrie mla from erdry uh was booted out

00:37:03.400 of the ucp caucus earlier for uh basically complaining about the procurement scandal and he'd been a sort of

00:37:11.080 a needle in the side of daniel smith for a while so he moved over to sit as an independent and now

00:37:17.560 has uh joined forces to uh to lead the uh the alberta party i guess he's not on his own he's got uh

00:37:24.440 scott sinclair there with him as well yeah has scott moved to the alberta party or is he just sitting

00:37:30.840 as an independent i believe he's with them as i believe he's moved over yeah but guthrie's declared

00:37:35.320 herself the leader of this two-person two-person caucus yeah so well i mean so so they have the

00:37:44.840 alberta party that according to what you were printing earlier the idea is that they're going to

00:37:53.000 do whatever they have to do to call it the progressive conservative party i guess an earlier

00:37:58.040 attempt to just take that name was was resisted by the ucp which still has the rights to the name

00:38:05.720 but really that however they you know new familiar the new party they should have a new name i don't

00:38:10.520 know but what uh that what the game is here is that they want to give what they call sort of a more

00:38:17.720 centrist um option to people who want to vote in the next election well i'm not sure that this i'm not

00:38:27.320 sure that anybody in alberta has asked for a centrist option there are some people who want separation

00:38:35.320 independence and there are people who are going to back up daniel but danielle smith but nobody has

00:38:41.400 said if only there was somebody who was just you know like we used to be 40 years ago a little corrupt

00:38:49.480 but not too corrupt you know a little malleable look like you're doing something but not actually do

00:38:55.800 anything too too drastic because actually we're all very good at doing big things so let's just keep the

00:39:02.680 bills paid and move ahead and give out the proceeds of the low patches that the proceeds aren't there

00:39:09.080 anymore so it's a it's an odd sort of thing well the alberta party is just sat there as a home for

00:39:15.320 homeless mlas for four or five election cycles saying we're running in the middle we're the happy middle 0.71

00:39:20.520 albertans want the middle and they get electorally obliterated every time two percent support three percent

00:39:26.920 support the media treats them as if they're viable but the electors never do yeah 2023 election um the

00:39:34.920 the the alberta party of 2023 got 12 576 votes uh the ucp got 928 900. even the greens got more than

00:39:47.320 the alberta party now maybe it was weak leadership and under mr guthrie things will be different but

00:39:53.080 steven mandel led them a few people gone through it i mean to give him the long history that with

00:39:58.920 that vessel has been some some trivia but i was that was the very first provincial party i was a

00:40:04.920 member of i was on the board myself and some board members marched off and formed the alberta

00:40:09.560 independence party then we turned around to try to get registered status by trying to take over the

00:40:13.560 alberta party and we failed but the alberta party has been used for exactly that by other groups

00:40:20.520 year after year they take over that withered board and they get party status then they turn it into

00:40:25.240 what they want to and then they they fail i mean the problem here is that they're never going to win

00:40:30.760 no but they have the power to take the win away from the ucp and make room for you know how many how

00:40:39.400 many uh seats would they have to flip for the ndp to uh to to to come in i mean the one that guthrie is in

00:40:47.080 uh was it erdry cochran yes cochran whatever just looking at the uh looking at the numbers here

00:40:56.440 there would be a bit of a fluke if uh if having a progressive conservative option in that particular

00:41:03.240 uh writing was going to a constituency was going to upset the the situation but there are a number

00:41:10.520 where you know lose a couple of thousand votes and change the last the very last thing we need

00:41:16.920 is premier naheed ninchy well something to keep in mind despite what the alberta party always claims

00:41:22.200 part of why they always get rejected as well is really when it comes out to policy wise they almost

00:41:26.440 always land pretty far to the left so if anything they might end up pulling votes from ninchy

00:41:30.920 don't assume that they're going to pull from the conservatives uh voters have seen through that

00:41:36.600 yeah so uh we'll see either way they're a known entity yeah if they were a color they'd be beige

00:41:43.720 forgettable all right well let's try about to be too forgettable we'll move on with the uh

00:41:49.320 parting shots i guess i'll start in the end with dave what do you got i'm going to use my parting shot to

00:41:54.120 plug my friend nigel's show hannaford show tomorrow night exclusive interview with premier daniel smith must

00:42:00.840 watch tv but thank you very much dave i was going to say the predictive capacity of the hannaford show

00:42:08.680 is remarkable last week we interviewed a lady who was leading a charge in canada to cross legislation

00:42:18.360 that you have to be 16 years old before you can get access to social media well bless my soul i read

00:42:24.680 pick up the paper this morning australia has just done that and i thought well this is an interesting

00:42:31.000 idea but i don't know how practical it is well if the aussies can do it but we can it would be a

00:42:36.760 workout it's a enforceability is a challenge with that sort of idea but i mean the principles okay they

00:42:42.520 don't necessarily need those accounts well is it to that point of enforceability uh first thing i thought

00:42:47.960 of and that my guest told me that uh in actual fact they can tell they being the the social media

00:42:56.200 company they can tell they know who's got a credit card and who doesn't and you know who has who's only

00:43:01.640 been online for six months and so forth probably a kid you know and then just the deal doesn't go

00:43:10.040 through interesting idea yeah well they're certainly pretty prescient i mean i swear i drive it along the

00:43:14.520 road and i'll just think to myself geez i'm creating a mars bar and suddenly the next ad that pops up

00:43:18.360 through meta i'll be one for mars bars for some bloody reason they know us better than we do they

00:43:22.440 sure should be able to figure out who's under 16. but they probably can already master so i mean before

00:43:29.320 i get on to my let you go though with you having uh being able to bend the year of the premiere uh you

00:43:34.200 got a couple of things you can hit where you might want to go in that discussion with her

00:43:37.320 you know i haven't even had that discussion with her staff and i'm not going to have that discussion

00:43:49.480 with her staff so if i tell you today oh i don't want you to give any spoilers to keep her off guard

00:43:59.160 no i think the thing that everybody wants to know is where do we go from here yeah well hopefully she's

00:44:04.040 got some good answers i'm sure we'll all be tuning in for it yeah i think we're going to do it uh at

00:44:09.640 eight o'clock not seven o'clock though we just need that extra hour of production time so if you are

00:44:15.960 likely to tune into the hanaford show at seven o'clock give it an hour it's past my bedtime

00:44:26.120 take yourself a bowl of chips and some cocoa and watch the hanaford show you can't not now that you

00:44:33.240 promoted it no i know all right i was trying to stay awake certain if there was a late seahawks

00:44:37.800 game you wouldn't miss it no i'm not all right all right from myself i just wanted to point out yes

00:44:43.160 on the national post this is stuff that's been going on the bc uh the court has ruled bc laws must be

00:44:51.160 interpreted through the united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people on drip i mean bc

00:44:57.560 already kind of you know embraced said we're going to model it but now we got the courts actually

00:45:01.480 saying you have to follow that uh people have read that vile document and it's vile again if you

00:45:06.760 want to you think that my cause is an independent supporter is hopeless keep bringing stuff like

00:45:11.880 this in and see how long this nation's going to stick together but bc boy are they ever got a

00:45:18.120 serious problem sometimes when you want to remortgage your house

00:45:21.560 well if you're in richmond pretty much out of luck yeah we're seeing those stories popping out

00:45:25.800 businesses that are canceling developments because they can't get their financing behind it because the

00:45:30.360 status of the ownership of that land now is unsure and some individuals when popping up saying we're

00:45:34.040 trying to renew our mortgages and the bank saying nah sorry we're not committing to give you 20 more

00:45:38.920 years because we don't know if you're going to own it in a few years or not crazy but that's bc crazy

00:45:44.680 at least we can hide from a little bit over here yes no craziness in alberta no i'm here

00:45:50.520 all right well thank you very much dave and nigel uh for helping us cut through some of the crazy

00:45:55.800 and uh yes i'll close it off and thank everybody else for tuning in and as dave said make sure to

00:46:01.160 tune into nigel's interview it's going to be great and subscribe to western standard that's how we pay

00:46:05.480 the bills we uh aren't getting all those tax dollars like some outlets are anyways so uh keep us

00:46:11.480 independent check it out westernstandard.news subscription hundred dollars for a year 99 bucks

00:46:17.080 for um 99 bucks 9.99 for a month i was gonna hang just under ten dollars it's a special

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00:46:52.680 so

Western Standard - December 18, 2025

THE PIPELINE： Liberals vote against pipeline motion

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