Western Standard - The Pipeline： Notley’s war on press freedom

00:00:00.000 good evening welcome to the pipeline this is the western standards weekly news panel where we

00:00:19.520 cover top stories or interesting stories or at least discussion worthy stories among a few of

00:00:25.880 us here every week. Typically, our publisher, Derek Fildebrand, hosts this show. He's unavailable

00:00:31.880 today, so you've got me, and I'm Alberta columnist Cory Morgan with the Western Standard. I'm usually

00:00:36.900 on. I'm just usually a couple of seats over, and as well, we have our opinion editor, as always,

00:00:43.420 Nigel Hannaford. How are you doing, Nigel? So far so good, Cory. Okay, well, we'll see if we can't

00:00:48.400 change that in the course of the show. There's plenty of time to screw it up. There certainly is,

00:00:52.120 and we have a knack for it. And bringing in our only occasional show appearance, so if anybody's

00:00:57.920 going to mess it up, it could very well be him, our intrepid Calgary reporter, Jonathan Bradley.

00:01:02.640 Hey, Jonathan, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Happy to be back. Great, thanks. So we've

00:01:06.420 got a lot to cover today, and as I was just kind of wanted to talk about quickly earlier,

00:01:10.780 you went down and checked out some of the picket lines in Calgary here at the

00:01:14.800 public service strike building. Yes, it was outside the Harry Hayes building. There were about 1,200

00:01:21.200 or people who showed up. People were protesting with signs such as on strike or 2% is for milk,

00:01:31.800 referencing the 2% wage increase that they want. And yeah.

00:01:37.560 They want more than 2%.

00:01:38.980 They want more like 30 to 40%.

00:01:40.300 Yes.

00:01:41.440 But yes, well, they get creative with their signs, if only they'd put as much effort into

00:01:46.440 their time in the office.

00:01:47.940 Yes.

00:01:48.580 But, well, I'm glad you came down there and back safely so those picket lines can get a little hairy.

00:01:53.540 And it's a sizable turnout.

00:01:55.060 You can't deny that.

00:01:55.980 I didn't see anyone famous, but apparently Gil McGowan was down there.

00:01:59.260 And I'm sure that if he was to see me and I was to interview him, he'd probably, like, go on some unhinged rant.

00:02:04.240 Well, you know, I say it was a large turnout, but I don't think they have much choice in the matter.

00:02:08.940 If you're a union member, you've got to be out on the picket line, right?

00:02:12.760 Yes, there's the irony of it.

00:02:13.860 If you want your strike pay, you've actually got to get up and go out and show up for it.

00:02:17.320 Versus, though, if you're still working for the government, you can keep your fuzzy bunny slippers on and work from home for the most part.

00:02:22.880 I thought that's part of what the strike was about, along with the crazy wage raise.

00:02:27.720 Yes.

00:02:28.700 Just the ironies of life.

00:02:30.200 Yes, we'll see how it develops.

00:02:32.880 And, yeah, as with Gil and as with, you know, they'll segue in and we'll talk about that in a moment with some of the, I guess,

00:02:38.700 progressive reaction to some of the Western Standard and other news outlets with our coverage and access to them.

00:02:44.820 And just that reminder before we get into the subjects, then, is this is the Western Standards Weekly Show.

00:02:49.980 These stories, if you want to see them in full and in detail, you've got to go to the westernstandard.news.

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00:03:01.420 Get on there.

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00:03:06.980 That way we can keep having these reporters we're sending out and columnists and others to carry on and do this work and get this content to you.

00:03:15.760 So, again, and to those who have already subscribed, of course, thank you all very much.

00:03:19.500 So, yes, let's talk about press freedom over this week.

00:03:23.580 It was interesting.

00:03:24.660 Nigel, you don't typically go to press conferences, but in this case, you went to see former Premier Notley's press conference here in Calgary and put forth a question tour that got quite a response.

00:03:35.860 I did indeed.

00:03:36.980 For some time, Corey, and as you know, the Western Standard has been cut off from receiving

00:03:45.040 press releases and communiques from the NDP.

00:03:48.160 It's an odd situation.

00:03:50.740 We get them from the Saskatchewan NDP.

00:03:53.540 I'm very grateful to have that.

00:03:58.360 We get them from the federal party.

00:04:00.480 We're an accredited news media in the Alberta legislature, in the Saskatchewan legislature.

00:04:06.320 we're an accredited even to the press gallery in ottawa but um the ndp here in alberta takes

00:04:14.800 the view that we're not a real newspaper and on the day that i went down there my question

00:04:21.200 and i imagine quite a few of our viewers have probably seen this already because the

00:04:26.160 the video has been widely viewed but the question was simply why why are you cutting us off from

00:04:34.440 the source of information obviously we're not a not a particularly NDP

00:04:39.600 friendly newspaper but we still cover the NDP and so the answer was that we

00:04:48.420 were not a very nice organization we were kind of hateful actually and

00:04:53.940 therefore we simply weren't going to take any questions from us so we have

00:05:00.060 here a political party and a leader of a political party who is saying well look

00:05:05.140 we'll pick and choose who we take questions from.

00:05:08.980 Now, you'd never get away with that with the Calgary Herald

00:05:11.020 or the National Post or the Edmonton Journal.

00:05:14.240 But with online media, I guess the leader of the opposition

00:05:22.380 has decided it's worth a try.

00:05:25.020 Just don't talk to these people.

00:05:26.940 And I think it's presumptuous to say,

00:05:30.440 well, this organization is okay, and this one is not,

00:05:36.920 when all organizations we're talking about are accredited news media.

00:05:43.960 Fit the bill.

00:05:45.020 The only way that this publication differs from the Calgary Herald

00:05:50.680 or the Edmonton Journal is that we do not receive the federal subsidy.

00:05:56.100 Maybe that's what you have to do to be considered, you know,

00:05:59.440 but we don't want to be considered state-run media either.

00:06:03.760 So that's what we do.

00:06:04.840 We refuse the subsidies, and that's what happened.

00:06:09.440 Well, that's a distinction we pride ourselves.

00:06:11.060 Yes, it is, yes.

00:06:12.900 So, I mean, Jonathan, you've been assigned

00:06:14.880 to cover some NDP events or things like that,

00:06:17.000 I believe, in the past.

00:06:18.000 Did you have issues with them before?

00:06:19.900 On a handful of occasions,

00:06:21.020 I have covered NDP-related stories.

00:06:22.920 I remember one time I wanted to cover

00:06:24.360 the Albert NDP convention, but they didn't let me in.

00:06:26.680 part of that problem was because uh I didn't uh credit myself fast enough in time and that was

00:06:32.020 I didn't know in advance so that was my issue but I kind of felt that since I wasn't accredited

00:06:36.860 to that event I'm like oh I wonder if they would have treated me different if you know I was like

00:06:39.380 CBC or CTV and you know more friendly to them yeah I suspect they might make accommodations

00:06:47.120 if it were an outlet they're of course inclined to see coverage but I mean yes we heard a friend

00:06:52.280 the NDP, typically I guess editorially, but it's not like we write anything that's untrue or

00:06:57.080 anything like that. We're just a conservative leading paper. But they're making us, we're not

00:07:01.400 going to be any more friendly to them in light of this sort of action. Well, you know, right before

00:07:07.320 an election, it did seem a strange thing to do. But there's actually one other aspect to this,

00:07:11.960 and that is that a few days before this press release, Premier Smith had indicated that she

00:07:19.400 she was only going to take one question at these press conferences.

00:07:22.100 There would be no follow-up.

00:07:24.540 And leaving aside the fact that there is room for discussion on whether that is actually

00:07:33.660 a good thing to do or not, I mean, if you're the last guy to ask a question at some of

00:07:39.560 these press conferences where people go on with their follow-ups, you may not get to

00:07:44.140 ask your question.

00:07:44.920 And Smith's statement was she wanted to make sure

00:07:48.500 that without going to great long lengths

00:07:51.920 that everybody got to ask their question.

00:07:55.300 You can have that discussion.

00:07:57.880 However, it was played as a bad story for Premier Smith.

00:08:03.000 And indeed, the Alberta Press Gallery wrote to her

00:08:05.720 and asked her to reconsider.

00:08:08.880 So I think that what was going on on Monday

00:08:11.360 was that Rachel Motley, as you would expect, 1.00

00:08:18.960 wanted to make some hay out of the embarrassment of her rival 0.96

00:08:24.360 and said, oh, I'll take questions.

00:08:27.040 I'll take as many questions as you want.

00:08:30.560 I was first to the mic.

00:08:34.400 As luck would have it.

00:08:35.580 As luck would have it.

00:08:37.420 And made my pitch.

00:08:40.060 And that was when she told me that she wouldn't take questions from the Western standard

00:08:44.540 because we were horrible people and not a real newspaper.

00:08:49.040 So that's kind of the whole story right there.

00:08:52.020 She didn't have you removed, at least.

00:08:53.900 I mean, I saw some video.

00:08:55.060 I think it was Kian Bextie was actually removed from the conference,

00:08:58.460 and I think they also turned away Rebel News.

00:09:01.020 That's exactly right, yes.

00:09:02.620 Bextie was, you know, come with me, sir, and the, with the Rebel News chap,

00:09:07.980 Herb Dallowall, I think his name is. Alex Dallowall. Alex, is it? Where did I get Herb from? Must be a liberal politician. Anyway, Mr. Dallowall was just totally couldn't go in and off he went.

00:09:20.560 It's, you know, it's a trend, I think is distressing, though, in general, I mean, some of the reason whether, you know, with Premier Smith, for example, I mean, follow ups are important. I know they can drag out a conference. We have some reporters I know do five minute preamble before they can get a question out of them. But at the same time, I like to see a leader think on their feet. It's that second question, I think is the one that makes them think and have to really respond sometimes, rather than the first one.

00:09:48.900 And I think in the case of Premier Smith, I know they're saying it's for the sake of brevity, but I suspect maybe it's also just to try and avoid more incidents that can cause unexpected or wanted grief.

00:09:59.500 You know, Corey, you can speculate on the reasons. Like I said, there's room for a whole discussion on that. But what it came down to for me that day is with Premier Smith, I would have got one question. I didn't get any.

00:10:13.160 It's just one more than you got with Premier Smith.

00:10:14.900 Well, one other point to consider that I think the NDP is kind of annoyed with is that we've been covering some of their, covering some of the opposition research on various candidates.

00:10:25.380 Like, we've done a few stories about the Alberta NDP candidate for Calgary Albo, Samir Kayande, who's made some questionable comments about oil and gas, we'll put it that way.

00:10:35.320 And both stories often do well on our site, and they just, I think that's part of the issue on why they're not talking to us.

00:10:42.600 Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit of the way things have evolved now, too.

00:10:47.820 I mean, there's always been biased press.

00:10:48.980 Every publication's always had this leaning or that leaning.

00:10:51.400 It was the paper publications.

00:10:52.900 But, you know, politicians seem to accept that.

00:10:56.080 You just had to deal with it.

00:10:57.140 You knew this guy was going to be a little more hostile and that one was going to be a little more friendly.

00:11:00.260 But south of the border and federally with Polyev, I mean, some of the outright clashes with media right now are really starting to come to a head.

00:11:10.400 Well, let's face it, Corey. We have our differences with all political parties. You were mentioning some questionable comments by NDP candidates. Well, you know, we have one, we, the NDP has a couple of candidates who made outrageous anti-police statements. They've actually tweeted these things out.

00:11:32.980 And of course the tweets have been deleted, but you know, they're out there if you know where to look.

00:11:39.400 You know, accusing them of being, I think they must be wife beaters, there's a lot of sick rage goes on.

00:11:45.080 That was Drew Farrell from Calgary Bow.

00:11:47.000 So it was, and Drew Farrell was standing right there with Rachel Notley on Monday on this.

00:11:51.920 So far from repudiating these kinds of scurrilous, outrageous comments, Rachel Notley evidently just sucks it up and carries on.

00:12:06.520 You know, there's a list of them. We'll probably be...

00:12:08.920 We ran one of your stories, I believe it was, last week that had three or four of them.

00:12:13.340 Yes, that was the one about the six candidates.

00:12:16.220 So, you know, if you, for example, don't care for NDP support for that practice of suggesting to children

00:12:32.400 that they may not be the sex they were born with and support a policy of bringing children to counselors

00:12:41.760 without the knowledge of their parents maybe even to to medical service without the knowledge of

00:12:47.760 their parents young children 9 10 12 13 we're against that we were we believe children and

00:12:56.000 parents are the fundamental unit and if there's anything going on with the kid the parent needs

00:13:01.840 to be the first to know not the last and i think there are some members of the um some candidates

00:13:10.080 who are running for the NDP who disagree with that position. Well, if that's the case,

00:13:17.360 we are going to attract some controversy. I'm glad to do it, frankly.

00:13:23.760 Every side, well, we'll keep pushing on. It's not like we're going to stop covering them just

00:13:28.640 because they don't care for our presence there. So we'll pivot a little and get on to the legacy

00:13:36.320 media and actually before i start on that i mean i'll carry on with this a little bit more normally

00:13:41.520 when a politician though gets hostile with media members the press gallery and the core tend to

00:13:47.120 circle the wagons even if they don't necessarily like but in this case i i'm not seeing a lot out

00:13:52.400 of the provincial press gallery popping up and saying hey hey hey uh you know madam notley uh

00:13:57.520 this isn't uh necessarily all that uh i don't know whether the last word on that is written yet but

00:14:02.800 I will tell you that I was very good and actually Derek made reference to this in his column on the

00:14:08.800 matter on Tuesday. CTV reporter there at the time was Jordan Callaghan just followed up and asked

00:14:25.280 Rachel Motley again how she felt about you know whether she should be picking and choosing between

00:14:30.800 news outlets when she was writing. So I had some support there, and I noticed there has been a

00:14:36.720 couple of favorable comments in the Calgary Herald that Rick Bell, or in The Sun, Rick Bell

00:14:44.080 had made reference to it. And so I don't get the impression that the news media are so

00:14:54.080 opposed to us, so they may actually be supportive.

00:14:56.880 Yeah, okay. I mean, that's columnist by columnist, right?

00:15:00.880 Yeah. 0.98

00:15:01.880 But it's not universally indifferent to what she's doing.

00:15:04.880 I mean, it'll be interesting to say whether the Alberta Press Gallery has anything to say.

00:15:08.880 Yeah, because it's just such a bad precedent in general.

00:15:10.880 No.

00:15:11.880 You know, again, presumably if you get a new premier in there, the same premier, 1.00

00:15:16.880 she might start pulling such tactics down the road as well.

00:15:19.880 You don't want to set that selective ability to pick who you're going to answer.

00:15:23.880 I mean, this is the thing. These are these little illustrative moments when you think, well, okay, if you did have the NDP, led by Rachel Notley as another government, what would it be like?

00:15:35.600 Well, I guess it would be like that. And I guess that the kind of comments that Jonathan was referring to earlier would continue to be acceptable from members of government. It's really something to be concerned about, frankly. I hope people are paying attention to it.

00:15:56.700 Certainly do. So let's get on to the big monolithic media institution in Canada, Mother Corp, the CBC. And over the weekend, we had quite an interesting episode with Elon Musk basically poking a finger in the eye of the CBC and changing. For people who aren't familiar with Twitter, there's identification, verification badges.

00:16:19.880 You know, there's blue ones for a general verification, and there's a golden one they give to government-funded media.

00:16:25.980 It's a special one that goes towards them.

00:16:28.100 And Musk decided to change the CBCs to government-funded, which kind of only makes sense.

00:16:34.300 They are government-funded.

00:16:36.620 $1.2 billion of taxpayers' money every year.

00:16:39.180 I believe it was $1.4 billion, wasn't it?

00:16:41.640 No, well, perhaps they kind of won't hear.

00:16:43.960 I don't know.

00:16:44.580 A lot of money.

00:16:45.420 A little bit of advertising revenue, too.

00:16:47.320 Yeah, and just to lay it out more for the viewers before we dissect a little of what happened there, you know, they went bananas and progressives went bananas and people went off and they said it's unfair and they make some advertising revenues.

00:16:59.780 Okay, that's fine.

00:17:00.960 Well, we'll change the label to say 70% tax funded.

00:17:04.660 And they were still upset.

00:17:06.160 So he said, fine, 69.

00:17:08.360 And that's where it's still sitting today.

00:17:11.340 But I know it's kind of petty, and I know it's a minor thing.

00:17:14.780 But at the same time, boy, with the amount of outrage being expressed, even Prime Minister Trudeau addressed this.

00:17:21.640 Like, Jonathan, have you covered and watched this, and what do you think what's going on with this?

00:17:25.980 Well, I think it's hilarious how Elon Musk continues to treat Twitter like his own personal playground,

00:17:30.620 just doing whatever he wants without people, like, dictating to him what to say.

00:17:34.800 I thought it was hilarious when he changed it to the 70% government-funded because none of the other government-funded media outlets have a percentage listed.

00:17:44.660 Yeah, he's definitely given them unique treatment.

00:17:49.960 Nigel, I mean, would you think it's unfair to label them as a government-funded outlet?

00:17:55.380 Well, not really. They are.

00:17:56.780 yes you know i mean what is i mean the distinction i think what people are are doing here is that

00:18:02.940 they're they're hearing government funded and understanding government directed now

00:18:12.700 i i don't think that the cbc gets a weekly phone call from the prime minister's office

00:18:22.060 telling them what they need to write about and what the what the line is this week

00:18:25.740 I mean in the crazy world we live in anything as possible but I don't think that that actually

00:18:32.460 they're not a full-state broadcaster in other words they're not like Al-Ahram or

00:18:36.240 Pravda where the control is very very tight so it's the one thing though is that you don't get

00:18:54.960 to be at the top of the cbc if you're likely to go off message anyway these folks don't need to be

00:19:06.560 told what is you know favorable to the government and what is not favorable to the government

00:19:14.080 and sometimes to their credit they they do bring up a story they bring up one just just this last

00:19:20.160 week, which was something that the liberals would probably prefer not to have had come up.

00:19:32.140 But they have a certain culture, and that culture is generally supportive of left-wing,

00:19:37.180 progressive, liberal causes. So they don't really need to be instructed on what the line is.

00:19:42.220 No, I mean, they aren't government-directly controlled, but they're most certainly

00:19:45.880 influenced and holding a similar ideology anyways to the current government as it sits.

00:19:52.560 Yeah, that's right. So I don't think it's a pointless discussion, though. It does help to,

00:20:02.560 I think it helps for people to be reminded that, yeah, actually, the CDC is paid for by public

00:20:08.540 funds. That reminder, because people, I think, are starting to kind of question, well, do we

00:20:13.520 really need to keep funding this thing because not many people watch it anymore yes well that's true

00:20:18.160 and then and the other thing is that uh it would have strengthened the cbc's case if if if it had

00:20:28.000 been the cbc that had led the way with the with the disclosures on the chinese allegations of

00:20:37.280 chinese electoral interference so i would i would expect in their defense they would say well the

00:20:42.800 the guys from CSIS didn't come to us.

00:20:45.500 Well, why didn't they come to you, you know?

00:20:48.680 That's a good point.

00:20:50.500 They wanted to pick wherever they thought

00:20:52.160 somebody's gonna give it good and clear coverage,

00:20:53.940 and that turned out to be the Globe and Mail.

00:20:56.160 And made a global TV.

00:20:57.400 So yeah, that tells you something.

00:21:00.260 Look, so often we pick on the CBC,

00:21:03.640 and we do so with good reason,

00:21:06.700 but I want to acknowledge that there are some reporters

00:21:10.140 in the CBC who are very well trained

00:21:14.760 and are very well motivated and do a really good job.

00:21:18.440 So I'm not gonna name names,

00:21:20.480 but this is not a totally lost cause.

00:21:24.580 It's just, it is government funded,

00:21:26.900 so let's not pretend it isn't, you know.

00:21:29.640 You know, people of the older vintage like yourselves,

00:21:32.000 I mean, some of the best investigative stuff

00:21:34.520 you used to see a long time ago,

00:21:37.000 very often was coming from the CBC.

00:21:38.720 I mean, because they had the budget, they had the ability, they would dig into things

00:21:42.280 that a lot of outlets didn't and didn't really get there.

00:21:44.760 But Jonathan, you didn't grow up with that from the CDC so much as we did.

00:21:48.900 Well, when I was younger, I remember that it was much different compared to now.

00:21:53.060 I mean, I'm 24 right now, but in the last few years on Twitter in particular,

00:21:56.500 you'll see some story that they do, and then people just jump on it.

00:22:00.680 Like I remember a few years ago, there was a story about, I think it was the 16 words

00:22:05.340 you shouldn't say.

00:22:06.000 It was things like blacklist, blackmail, brainstorm, and it was just like, why are we spending money on this?

00:22:14.460 Yeah.

00:22:16.660 They've drifted down some strange roads of woke.

00:22:19.840 I mean, that's part of the problem that you have, I think, when you're not accountable to viewers.

00:22:23.780 You stop caring, actually, about what your viewers necessarily want to see.

00:22:26.720 Yes, and that was a big part of why former CBC producer Tara Henley left.

00:22:31.160 I got to see Tara speak at the Canada Geography Network National Conference.

00:22:34.960 and she spoke about how that's a problem with uh much of the mainstream media nowadays on how

00:22:40.780 they're just trying to you know appease this woke mob with these niche stories that you know regular

00:22:46.540 people wouldn't care about well they've been appropriately labeled i suspect mr musk isn't

00:22:51.440 going to be all that eager to change a bag no matter how much they uh stamp their little feet

00:22:55.180 and complain about it so i guess they must just accept it and carry on as a state-funded broadcaster

00:22:59.460 yeah donovan told me the other day that some of his best friends work for the cvc

00:23:03.760 so no not at all it's always that line isn't it all right well let's get a little closer into

00:23:12.400 alberta something in it still impacts everything right across the country everybody's grappling

00:23:16.720 with this i've been writing about these issues as well uh premier daniel smith's government has

00:23:22.320 actually talked a little bit about or at least mused about bringing in something that might

00:23:26.720 mandate treatment for addicts or basically perhaps short-term incarceration of some sort to

00:23:35.760 force a treatment upon somebody when they've hit a certain degree as an addict and of course

00:23:39.440 has caused a lot of controversy immediately. Jonathan, you've been reading up on that and

00:23:44.000 watching the situation? Yes, so they're looking at introducing a bill about involuntary drug

00:23:49.440 treatment so what that would entail is if people are arrested they would be required to do this

00:23:55.040 treatment to avoid criminal penalties, sanctions, things like that. It's much different compared to

00:24:01.520 now where, you know, we'll have like an attic and, you know, maybe the police officer will

00:24:04.960 take the drugs away or maybe arrest them if you're being violent. But this would incentivize,

00:24:09.680 it could incentivize people to, you know, like get clean and yeah.

00:24:14.560 Nigel, I mean, it's a big line to cross to take somebody's liberty, even for their own good. I

00:24:19.360 mean, we've seen a lot of times where the state says they're doing something for your own good

00:24:22.960 and quite often it's anything bad.

00:24:25.040 Well, that certainly is always the difficulty, isn't it?

00:24:29.320 And I think the original argument for closing the institutions,

00:24:33.680 this is going back 30 years now,

00:24:35.460 but there was a time when people who were either addicted

00:24:42.360 or had serious mental illness problems would end up in a home,

00:24:47.520 in a supervised group environment.

00:24:50.200 And I don't imagine those are almost always pleasant places.

00:24:55.000 So the argument was that, well, you take away their agency, there's a better way of doing this.

00:24:59.680 We can sort of have people live in halfway houses and have supervised medication and so forth and so on.

00:25:06.740 Well, it didn't work.

00:25:07.700 so i mean i guess when do you intervene if somebody appears to be indulged indulging in

00:25:18.160 self-harmful practices if you were walking down the street and you saw somebody banging himself

00:25:26.200 on the head with a piece of wood you would probably get something done about it you would

00:25:31.560 call the police you'd call it there why will i mean he's going to kill himself right so you

00:25:37.060 intervene uh clearly not in his right mind the way that you would intervene in the case of a child

00:25:43.540 about to do something dangerous they don't have the judgment to know that what they're doing

00:25:48.260 you're expected to intervene so now you come to somebody who is um well they've taken it's a cold

00:25:57.620 night, they've OD'd, they're laying there on a park bench, they're going to die. So do you

00:26:07.140 scoop them up from the park bench and take them to a place of shelter? Yes, and I don't think

00:26:14.960 anybody would object to that. Do you then, when you see that pattern of behavior repeated,

00:26:21.520 we eventually say, we need to do something to help this person get past whatever it is

00:26:28.140 that causes them this self-destructive behavior every night.

00:26:32.520 I mean, that's before we even get into the larger argument of what is the effect on the rest of society

00:26:38.760 when you have a large group of people making it difficult for everybody else to do what they normally do.

00:26:49.320 the difficulties we've heard on the c-trains you i was just driving home the other day and i saw

00:26:55.360 somebody already set up their camp in a doorway i used to live down in the belt line and some

00:27:00.780 of the stuff you saw that went on down there if you're a shopkeeper the first thing you had to do

00:27:04.960 was to scrub down your your your doorstep i don't get too explicit here you know what i'm talking

00:27:11.540 about why should people have to put up with that that is another argument that's not a sympathetic

00:27:17.400 one. People say, well, you know, we've got to make accommodations for people who struggle.

00:27:23.460 Well, all right. When exactly are you prepared to step in and say, this person needs help?

00:27:30.640 If they don't get it, they're going to kill themselves. What we're talking about is when

00:27:35.800 they are apprehended for something else, then they have that choice. It's still a choice.

00:27:42.040 Yes. Well, a choice perhaps between, yes, a full incarceration or entering a treatment

00:27:46.800 program. And I mean, we've seen, I think that's why even, you know, governments are finally musing

00:27:51.980 about it. The enablement approach has failed. It's failed everywhere it's been tried. The West

00:27:57.580 Coast is a disaster from Los Angeles all the way up to Vancouver, anywhere where they try saying,

00:28:03.560 if we can just give enough safe consumption, administer naloxone enough times, they're going

00:28:08.880 to come out of their fog and voluntarily go into treatment. And they don't, and they won't.

00:28:13.960 The other aspect of this, too, though, I mean, as Rachel Motley was, of course, playing the politics, saying Daniel Smith wants to incarcerate innocent Albertans and such.

00:28:23.880 I believe I saw that it wouldn't be arbitrary.

00:28:27.220 They would set up a tribunal and I would imagine set some bars.

00:28:30.360 Has this person, I'm just throwing things out, been repeatedly brought in for this?

00:28:35.100 Has there been medical distress?

00:28:36.480 Have they perhaps threatened others' safety or well-being of businesses?

00:28:40.680 I mean a number of check boxes before you get to the point of forcing the

00:28:46.020 issue. And one point that I want to build on is with Alberta they're doing the

00:28:52.140 Alberta model whereas BC has the BC model and the Alberta model is more

00:28:55.380 focused on treatment whereas the BC model is more focused on harm reduction.

00:28:59.280 I know for a fact that Daniel Smith's current chief of staff Marshall Smith

00:29:04.080 used to be a former drug addict in the downtown east side of Vancouver and he

00:29:09.480 He talked about how eventually it was a treatment model like what's going on in Alberta,

00:29:13.660 which ultimately brought him out of the addiction and, you know, treated him.

00:29:18.520 I mean, they need treatment.

00:29:19.940 They won't come out alone.

00:29:21.320 You can't just cold turkey it.

00:29:23.020 You can't white knuckle it.

00:29:24.340 And I mean, it's great for the people who have never experienced withdrawal.

00:29:28.760 You know, they can't understand.

00:29:33.160 And again, I've been open about it.

00:29:34.500 I had to deal with my alcoholism.

00:29:36.160 I had to go to a lot of AA meetings and deal with a lot of things to get there.

00:29:40.380 And I had a lot of help.

00:29:41.980 One of the aspects of that is to be able to get around other people who have experienced that.

00:29:47.000 So you can share your experiences and you network.

00:29:50.260 But you've got to get into that program, that first step.

00:29:54.480 And then to try and think that some of those addicts, when they're at the point of sleeping behind a dumpster unconscious or they're shuffling down the street, again, you know, emaciated and covered in sores,

00:30:03.300 they're not going to voluntarily choose to come in at that point.

00:30:06.000 And we're looking at intervention to save a life by that point.

00:30:09.980 They're not going to make it if we leave them as it is.

00:30:12.000 But that's what we're being asked to do.

00:30:15.640 Yeah, you know, I guess politics is the art of negotiating between very difficult options.

00:30:23.940 If it was easy, everybody could do it.

00:30:27.240 This is a tough one.

00:30:28.580 Yes.

00:30:28.960 Yeah, and I mean, I remember initially when Jonathan came here, you know, last, it's been a while since he got out here.

00:30:35.000 Yeah, I moved out here in July.

00:30:37.000 And then, you know, you hadn't seen much of it initially, and you're wondering what we were talking about in here.

00:30:41.000 It's not so bad, but you know, once you kind of get down and get a closer look, you realize...

00:30:45.000 And you've probably seen it, I imagine, escalate in this last eight months.

00:30:49.000 Oh, of course. I've had to intervene on three occasions with people who are having a bad reaction to drugs.

00:30:56.000 One of them was actually, I want to say maybe three weeks ago, where I was shopping at the Superstore in the downtown East Village.

00:31:02.000 village and there was a guy there who had looks like he was overdosing and I had to call the

00:31:06.980 ambulance over that and the response what I always remember was a response from a paramedic the

00:31:11.480 paramedic basically walked up to the guy who was at that time woken up and he's like oh are you

00:31:15.720 fine he's like yeah and then I think he asked me a few other questions to clear we're good we're

00:31:18.440 out of here I'm like excuse me that was less than a minute you were here like maybe you should have

00:31:22.740 tried to encourage the guy to go into treatment or something they don't have more that they can

00:31:27.300 do and they only have so much. It's tough. And, you know, I mean, just to kind of finish on that

00:31:33.120 subject, I just know that, you know, people are coming at this with this intervention, not from

00:31:36.400 a place without compassion. That's where it's coming from. Like, try to put yourselves in the

00:31:40.460 shoes of the family members of these addicts. They are people. We don't want to dehumanize them.

00:31:45.320 They came from somewhere. They've probably got loved ones somewhere. And I can only imagine most

00:31:49.100 of those loved ones would be fine if that's what it takes. If you've got to take them and put them

00:31:55.080 treatment because it's still a much better fate than dying in an alley and you know or in a park

00:32:00.520 somewhere it's all good for you johnson for doing something and not looking the other way thank you

00:32:05.160 yeah it's part of it the blinders that are starting to come on to people it can be scary

00:32:09.160 too like uh even last week after as i was grocery shopping there was a guy who looked like he was

00:32:13.880 having a bad reaction one of the alleyways and as i was walking by i just went up to him i

00:32:18.120 obviously cut my distance because you know like sometimes it can snap and i was like

00:32:21.480 do you need an ambulance and he was just kind of like like are you sure you don't want an ambulance

00:32:26.360 and he just like dismissed me i'm like okay i'm like at least i offered help but like it's up to

00:32:30.200 you sometimes make the choice it's it's hard and then i mean i i used to uh carry naloxone i wrote

00:32:35.880 a column a couple of years ago i got that western standard award for that one it was a hard one to

00:32:39.720 write and i was walking into here and i went through a park and i encountered an overdose

00:32:43.400 and that didn't end well the naloxone didn't work and a young man died in front of me

00:32:48.840 Yeah, it was it shook me up. I'm still carry some in the car too. Yeah, and I carry it while I because I'm driving all over the place with humor. But, you know, you got to try and intervene. But I mean, I've had first responders on my show on that too. So, you know, we see the same person sometimes day after day after day. It's not saying they should stop intervening, but we got to break that pattern. I mean, one of these times it's not going to work.

00:33:13.520 So challenging, but as Nigel said, yeah, if they're easy answers, somebody would have

00:33:19.460 found them already.

00:33:20.460 Yeah, you bet.

00:33:21.460 But we keep trying.

00:33:22.460 I'm just happy to see some people with the courage at least to shake the status quo up

00:33:24.960 a little and propose some different things.

00:33:27.460 So speaking, then we will go into something a little less grave and get into the status

00:33:34.660 quo though.

00:33:35.660 So the whole Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light debacle, that's the only term I can use.

00:33:43.500 for it. Where do we begin here? Jonathan, I'll start with the young guy. You're more familiar

00:33:53.120 with social media influencers. It's a new relative new trend in the last few years. They carry a lot

00:34:00.060 of weight. People have come out of nowhere and some large brands are starting to utilize them,

00:34:05.180 but I don't know if they're necessarily picking the right winners and losers. Yes, especially

00:34:08.640 with the uh the dylan mulvaney case and for anyone who's unfamiliar with uh dylan mulvaney he's

00:34:14.400 uh he's a former uh musical theater star he was in the book of mormon and a few other musicals

00:34:19.760 and then about a year ago he decided to transition to a woman and he's been doing these videos uh

00:34:27.440 days of womanhood so it's like here's my first day as a woman here's my 72nd day as a woman

00:34:32.160 and bud light decided to do this uh initiative because it was his one year anniversary becoming

00:34:37.280 a woman so in the ad it's him walking up with all these beer cans and then he puts them down and

00:34:42.880 starts talking about march madness and bud light and how it's a great brand but obviously you know

00:34:49.200 with bud light you would associate their drinkers you know to be more you know conservative white

00:34:53.600 guys who probably aren't too fond of dill mulvaney and it's led to their stocks dropping a ton and

00:34:59.360 people have stopped buying it as much and yeah well a ton six million dollars yeah that's a ton

00:35:06.080 that's a ton yeah it's a big thing and i mean i i just i understand wanting to broaden your

00:35:12.160 market you want to reach out and bring in new consumers absolutely but if you're going to

00:35:17.920 sacrifice a large core of your existing consumers to get it it's probably not a wise business

00:35:24.480 decision uh where who came up with this well actually it's possible to name names and we have

00:35:31.280 there is a person in sort of the mid-level marketing department in Anhuser

00:35:38.000 Bush, which is the parent company for Bud Light, who did a Twitter interview,

00:35:46.160 and not a Twitter interview, an interview that ended up on Twitter,

00:35:49.760 and she said, well, this was our thinking, we're trying to,

00:35:53.760 we got a bunch of good old boys, you know, it's kind of NASCAR type of a crowd,

00:35:58.240 as though there was something mildly reprehensible about NASCAR.

00:36:05.600 And we just wanted to reach a younger, hipper, cooler crowd. 0.54

00:36:09.520 But the thing is, for all the publicity that the trans movement gets,

00:36:15.620 I don't get the impression just walking up and down the street

00:36:19.600 and hanging out in the places I go to and where I do run into young people

00:36:24.380 that it's actually a mainstream preoccupation.

00:36:28.240 In the demographic that Dylan Mulvaney would, you know, most of them are tolerant of it, but I don't see too many imitators.

00:36:36.100 So perhaps this just wasn't the thing to do.

00:36:38.840 I'm just, I mean, did they gain outside of that?

00:36:41.580 We know it lost.

00:36:42.520 I mean, when I drank, I didn't caramel or whatever tastes okay and is cheap as to when I was really at my height.

00:36:48.360 But brand loyalty is very serious when it comes to beers there.

00:36:51.940 There's some people, I'm a Bud-like guy, I'm a Coors-like guy, I'm a Sleeman's, whatever it may be.

00:36:57.620 And it's difficult to budge people from those brands.

00:37:00.720 But, I mean, it's hard to bring new ones in.

00:37:03.680 But, boy, it's dangerous to knock them off of it.

00:37:05.660 Because it's not a big leap for that NASCAR crowd to start drinking Coors Light.

00:37:09.620 Well, that's right.

00:37:10.400 You know, I mean, what they really said is this bud's not for you.

00:37:13.860 So, you know, just to get, I hate to get serious on these shows.

00:37:19.360 But, Corey, indulge me for a moment.

00:37:21.640 And last year, a whole bunch of people who are habitually not listened to and whose views

00:37:29.220 by and large are dismissed by the elite establishment that runs this country, got into their semi-trailers

00:37:35.660 and drove to Ottawa.

00:37:39.300 Remember that film, Network, I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore?

00:37:44.500 And they went to Ottawa and they said, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

00:37:51.640 And it wasn't too long after that, that the Conservative Party had an election for a new leader.

00:37:59.720 And I think that Pierre Polliver benefited considerably from that sentiment, that he was authentic.

00:38:10.600 He wasn't saying the same tired old stuff that the others were saying.

00:38:15.480 And a whole bunch, he had such an overwhelming 72% acceptance within the party.

00:38:23.460 And people were saying, I'm mad as hell, I'm not going to take the old stuff anymore.

00:38:29.060 And now you have this one.

00:38:32.180 And obviously, a whole demographic said, if that's what you think is cool, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to drink your beer anymore.

00:38:45.480 yeah and uh they'll come back okay more Clydesdale ads will do it in the end but eventually they'll

00:38:52.520 come back but i find it very interesting that you get these mass reactions in those last few years

00:39:01.640 is it covid maybe i don't know sensitive and uh but i mean upset but i mean people are tired of

00:39:10.360 just having it you know the term is not pushed down your throat it's easy to

00:39:14.020 ignore but it is everywhere and it's getting ubiquitous and we're getting

00:39:17.980 tired of it as you said bad as hell I just don't want any more of it that's

00:39:21.580 all it I'm a problem I mean bizarrely with this influencer he she got sponsored

00:39:29.320 by Tampax I wish I was kidding that when we get to the point of some of this 1.00

00:39:37.200 trans trend. And I'm going to call it a trend. There's real trans people, I think, who transitioned 1.00

00:39:42.640 and they want to live a life as a different gender and get on them. But a lot of it just seems to be 1.00

00:39:47.080 a fad. And this is when it comes to the point, in my view, of being a mockery of biological women. 1.00

00:39:52.780 When you have a person who never, unless they had a nosebleed that they wanted to stop up, 0.84

00:39:58.980 is going to conceivably need a Tampax, yet actually gets answered by them. It's a departure

00:40:05.720 from physiological reality that we're being not asked, but demanded that we accept. And I think,

00:40:12.340 as you said, people are finding, that's enough. Just let me have a beer around a fire and have

00:40:17.880 some fun without thinking about this odd person. Like Kid Rock said at the end of his video,

00:40:23.920 stop it. I saw there was a tweet. I can't remember who I saw it from. I think it was from a Carrie

00:40:29.940 Lake's account. And apparently she was at some event and there was an open bar. And she said,

00:40:34.860 all the beers have been taken except for Bud Light, which was funny because it was like,

00:40:39.660 oh my God, like people are really worked up about this commercial.

00:40:42.280 Well, yeah.

00:40:42.940 And I mean, you know, again, you shouldn't care so much, but I mean, that's the reality

00:40:45.920 of marketing and that's the way those things, particularly beers.

00:40:48.280 I mean, when you're at that gathering, you can get the poking in the market because you're

00:40:52.440 holding that brand right there.

00:40:54.800 I don't imagine that they're suddenly selling a load of Bud Light at Twisted Elements in

00:40:59.420 Calgary.

00:41:01.620 So, I mean, I don't know how much they've gained.

00:41:03.500 And as you said, they'll come back eventually.

00:41:05.460 I mean, we're talking about Budweiser.

00:41:08.380 I mean, it's, but it just seems to be such a terrible tactic.

00:41:12.660 Actually, the thought I've been playing with is if I were a marketing executive

00:41:18.060 and I had just made an important decision that dropped $6 billion off my company's stock value,

00:41:27.920 what would be my next job?

00:41:33.500 Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a measurable move that you've made. In fact, with the marketing change,

00:41:41.020 I mean, you've got to be careful. I mean, you're too young, Jonathan, but if you remember,

00:41:45.120 they changed Coca-Cola in the 80s. Oh, my word. Oh, people, some people still haven't gotten

00:41:50.000 over that. I think with the new Coke, I mean, that was a catastrophe. And they took a beating

00:41:55.440 on that. They had to come back with the classic Coke and recover from it. Just some of those big

00:42:00.780 brands people take them they stick with them to for life and and boy they get upset when you mess

00:42:06.180 with their brand and uh somebody's learned some hard lessons i think out there but uh well time

00:42:13.120 will tell oh well i mean it's their beer it's their business i can't boycott them even if i

00:42:18.640 wanted to i just don't drink the stuff anymore but i don't think i'd go that far out of the way i don't

00:42:22.220 really care but a lot of people do though the sales wouldn't drop by that much if it didn't

00:42:27.160 So we'll see what happens.

00:42:29.640 Well, that about wraps it up this week, guys.

00:42:31.660 Thanks for joining me.

00:42:34.940 We'll be back to our normal panel again next week with a whole bunch more stuff to rant.

00:42:39.400 Oh, I bet we do.

00:42:41.020 When do you think the RIT is going to drop?

00:42:45.660 RIT.

00:42:47.240 It should be May 1st, I guess.

00:42:50.120 I would say May 1st.

00:42:51.140 28-day election campaign. 1.00

00:42:53.040 so we got another 10 days to uh before it gets stupid before it gets stupid 0.63

00:42:58.960 there this has been the pipeline we appreciate you tuning in and we will see you all next week 0.98

00:43:04.740 at this time canadian shooting sports association without the cssa our gun rights would have been

00:43:10.740 taken long long ago these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent

00:43:17.200 firearms regulations and legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public

00:43:22.840 about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people we've become a member it's absolutely

00:43:27.800 worth every penny as things are greening up outside the commodity markets aren't following

00:43:35.080 suit as they're mostly red today the only thing that is up is cash barley which is up three dollars

00:43:39.960 a ton to 4.22 per metric and feed wheat's unchanged at 4.20 a metric and corn is holding

00:43:45.400 steady at 4.15 a metric moving to the milling wheat markets may minneapolis futures dropped 12

00:43:50.920 and a half cents to $8.73 per bushel with local hard red spring bid for April

00:43:55.460 movement at $10.25 per bushel delivered. In the oilseeds, nearby canola futures

00:44:00.420 are off $4.80 to $777 per metric ton with delivered values for April

00:44:06.940 May movement at $17.50 per bushel. Continuing on to the pulse markets,

00:44:12.080 nearby red lentil prices are trading at $0.35 per pound and yellow peas remain

00:44:16.640 at $12 per bushel. Finishing up with the cattle markets, June live cattle dropped 1.78 cents to

00:44:23.780 $163.43 per hundredweight. For more information on pricing and picked up on farm options, give me

00:44:30.180 a call at 403-394-1711. I'm Mike Van Dyke at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time

00:44:36.740 marketing information and pricing options. You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a

00:44:41.620 or $99 a year for unlimited access.

Western Standard - April 20, 2023

The Pipeline： Notley’s war on press freedom

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