Western Standard - The Pipeline November 4, 2020

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

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00:03:01.000 Welcome to the Western Standards, The Pipeline, our weekly Wednesday current affairs program.

00:03:08.420 I'm Western Standard publisher, Derek Fildebrandt.

00:03:10.720 Joining me today is Western Standard news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:03:15.540 How are you doing, Dave?

00:03:16.840 I'm a little bit tired after last night, but it was good fun.

00:03:21.860 Indeed.

00:03:22.440 And Corey Morgan, podcast editor and columnist with Western Standard.

00:03:25.680 Good day, Corey.

00:03:27.960 Good day.

00:03:28.760 All right.

00:03:29.760 All right.

00:03:30.860 Well, last night was absolutely fascinating.

00:03:35.620 Our broadcast ran out of time.

00:03:37.880 Facebook Live limits us to eight hours.

00:03:40.720 And frankly, I can't say I'm sad we ran out of time.

00:03:44.500 I was happy to go to bed.

00:03:45.700 We finished our broadcast around 1230 last night.

00:03:48.960 We ended it with a prediction, a prediction that Donald Trump would carry the evening.

00:03:55.220 That prediction was not a solid one, but one we felt reasonably comfortable about.

00:04:01.120 I think overnight and into the morning, things have become a bit less sure.

00:04:07.020 But let's go to you, Dave.

00:04:08.860 Give us a rundown on where things stand right now after developments early this morning.

00:04:15.560 Well, I'm sure a lot of people are feeling tired today because it was a very, very long night.

00:04:21.260 The voting in the states is now coming down to six states and probably thousands of lawyers.

00:04:30.860 Let me just call up the latest stats here.

00:04:34.980 We've got Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, all still not declared winners.

00:04:48.180 Trump is leading in three of them.

00:04:50.940 Biden is leading in three of them.

00:04:54.060 Biden's leads are a lot narrower than Trump's leads are.

00:04:58.060 And I'll just quickly give you the figures and then you guys can discuss which pathway is going to go where.

00:05:05.820 In Georgia, 95% of the vote has been counted.

00:05:10.460 Trump leads 50.2% to 48.5%.

00:05:16.160 That seems to be a comfortable lead in Georgia.

00:05:18.820 In North Carolina, 94% of the votes are counted.

00:05:23.760 And it's Trump with 50.1%.

00:05:26.680 Biden, 48.7%.

00:05:30.560 Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, only 64% of votes counted.

00:05:39.020 And it's 53.4% for Trump, 45.4% for Biden.

00:05:48.680 The three that are in Biden's favor at the moment include Michigan.

00:05:55.180 Very, very close there.

00:05:57.260 96% of all ballots have been counted.

00:06:01.000 Joe Biden in the lead with 49.7%.

00:06:04.020 Donald Trump trailing by less than a percentage point at 48.9%.

00:06:10.680 In Wisconsin, 95% of the vote has been counted.

00:06:16.060 Joe Biden is ahead 49.6% to Trump's 48.5%.

00:06:24.480 Sorry, 48.9%.

00:06:26.220 Trump has already said his campaign will be demanding a recount in Wisconsin.

00:06:34.740 And finally, Nevada.

00:06:37.080 67% of ballots counted.

00:06:40.520 I guess they were up late last night on the slot machines.

00:06:44.080 Very, very close race.

00:06:46.040 49.2% for Biden.

00:06:48.640 48.6% for Trump.

00:06:53.100 So, gentlemen, this race still could go either way.

00:06:58.740 Absolutely.

00:06:59.680 It's last night it looked like Trump was on a clear path, however narrow a path that is.

00:07:05.720 Looked like he was on a clear path to victory with leads in Wisconsin and Michigan.

00:07:10.580 Those two leads have evaporated.

00:07:13.480 Biden now has narrow leads, as you've said, Dave.

00:07:16.380 The current math.

00:07:19.480 Now, we'll actually pull up the map here again.

00:07:27.180 You'll see here there are only two states in America that are not necessarily winner-take-all states.

00:07:35.260 That's Maine in the upper northeast there, and Nebraska, right in the center of the country.

00:07:43.300 Maine's a blue state.

00:07:44.600 Nebraska's a red state.

00:07:45.840 But there is an opportunity for a single electoral vote to be cast to the other party if they can win a certain electoral district.

00:07:53.320 Trump has won Maine, picking up one point, and Biden has won one of those points in Nebraska.

00:08:01.880 Now, if Trump had held all of Nebraska, even though he won it by 20 points, a very sizable lead, Biden managed to win a single electoral district.

00:08:10.760 If that had not happened, they would both be tied at 69 electoral college votes, which would have each of them one vote shy of a majority of the electoral college.

00:08:24.180 That would be a tie, and then it would go to the U.S. House of Representatives, which, because they vote on a state-by-state delegation basis, not as individuals, would likely favor Trump in a bizarre tie vote scenario.

00:08:35.920 That's unlikely to happen, because Nebraska is going to keep its vote for Biden.

00:08:42.840 Under the current math, if all current leads hold, Biden wins by an absolute nail-biter of 270 electoral college votes, and 270 is exactly what you need to win.

00:08:56.900 I can't imagine.

00:08:58.000 I'm not aware of any presidential election that's been won with the exact number of electoral college votes.

00:09:03.420 It would be the absolute slimmest of possible margins to be decided in an election outside of the U.S. House of Representatives.

00:09:12.700 Corey, give us your breakdown on how you think things are going to progress here.

00:09:19.760 Really, it all hinges on Trump flipping one, holding all of his leads, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia.

00:09:27.260 Give us your thoughts.

00:09:28.400 He's now got to flip either Wisconsin, Michigan, or Nevada.

00:09:33.420 Give us your thoughts on what you think the chances of that happening are, or you think Biden is going to be able to hold it and get in by the slimmest of margins here.

00:09:42.660 Yeah, I don't think it's looking very good for President Trump.

00:09:47.420 The only one that's kind of race that's narrowing in his favor has been Nevada.

00:09:51.780 That started actually with a strong Democrat lead, and as the votes have been coming in, it's actually narrowed and come closer for Trump.

00:09:59.040 But really key was Wisconsin and Michigan, which, again, last night looked nice and locked for him.

00:10:06.780 And now they're very much in question.

00:10:08.760 And what you've got to look at is the trending.

00:10:11.460 As the votes come in, which way are the leads changing?

00:10:15.040 And in those ones, the more votes that come in, the worse he's looking.

00:10:19.200 People talked about that earlier.

00:10:20.680 I mean, Trump really dominated at first because the voters who came out on Election Day tended to be Republicans.

00:10:27.520 Those are the ones that came in, cast their ballot in person.

00:10:31.020 The Democrats really campaigned on the fear of the plague and telling everybody, send in your mail-in ballots.

00:10:36.680 You must do mail-in ballots.

00:10:38.580 And now we're seeing that.

00:10:39.980 Those take longer to count.

00:10:41.240 They're coming in, and they definitely are being dominated by Democrat votes.

00:10:45.520 As well, you're really seeing a rural-urban split.

00:10:49.520 You know, you're seeing in these states, the high population centers are tending to lean Democrat, and the rural areas are strongly Republican.

00:10:58.640 But it's often the cities that are the latest in their county because they got those larger districts and larger amounts of votes.

00:11:04.220 So same thing as those votes keep coming in and trending when you're getting votes out of Detroit, you're getting votes out of Green Bay, areas like that.

00:11:11.380 Again, it's not doing Trump any favors in picking these up.

00:11:15.220 So personally, as the trend said, I mean, he might still hang on to South Carolina, Georgia, or North Carolina and Georgia.

00:11:24.280 But he's really got to, I think, get Wisconsin or Michigan, and those are looking really tight.

00:11:28.560 Pennsylvania, he's got, I believe that lead's going to narrow by quite a bit, but he's holding a pretty good one.

00:11:33.740 He might hang on to that, and that's pretty key as well, of course.

00:11:36.800 Gentlemen, I've got some breaking news.

00:11:40.520 CNN has just declared Biden a winner in Wisconsin.

00:11:43.800 So that's what I'm being told, and only CNN is reporting that at the moment as far as I can see.

00:11:52.040 But from what I'm seeing, it's 95% of the vote in, and Biden has a very slim lead.

00:12:02.980 It's 49.6% Biden to 48.9% Trump.

00:12:07.420 Biden might well take that by the slimmest of margins, but 5% coming in, I'm not sure you can call that yet, unless CNN has earlier results than we have.

00:12:21.220 Yeah, I've got the same figures as you, Derek, and the figures we've got, it's too early to call.

00:12:25.740 But CNN has seen something that they like, and they've given it to Biden.

00:12:31.680 Very interesting.

00:12:33.160 Well, let's go through the math here about the different scenarios.

00:12:36.880 So let's say Biden takes Wisconsin.

00:12:43.260 We'll give him that.

00:12:44.400 Let's give him Wisconsin. 0.91

00:12:52.140 Right now, Biden sits at 270 if he holds that.

00:12:55.220 Trump needs to flip any one of the remaining.

00:12:58.600 He has to hold Georgia.

00:13:00.640 If he doesn't hold Georgia, he's done.

00:13:02.560 If he doesn't hold North Carolina, he's done.

00:13:04.340 If he doesn't hold Pennsylvania, he's done.

00:13:06.400 And then he's got to flip something else.

00:13:09.560 If he flips Michigan, he wins.

00:13:14.260 If he flips Nevada, he wins.

00:13:20.520 A very slim margin if he takes Nevada.

00:13:24.240 But Trump has to hold everything that he's leading in currently and flip one other.

00:13:29.940 And Pennsylvania, there's still a lot of votes to come.

00:13:32.200 It's not guaranteed he holds it.

00:13:33.340 He's got about a 7-point lead in Pennsylvania right now.

00:13:37.500 But there is only 64% of the polls reporting.

00:13:42.560 There is a lot of room to maneuver there.

00:13:45.720 And North Carolina, he'll probably carry it, but it's tight.

00:13:49.080 Georgia, he'll probably carry it, but it's tight.

00:13:52.320 But he's definitely got to hold Pennsylvania and switch any other one of those states that are currently leaning blue to his column.

00:14:00.460 If he can win.

00:14:01.520 Sorry, a little bit more breaking news for you.

00:14:03.800 The Trump campaign has sued the state of Michigan.

00:14:07.900 It's just coming in now.

00:14:09.120 They're demanding that the counting be stopped.

00:14:12.380 They want greater access to scrutineers at polling and counting sites.

00:14:18.120 So that is now before the courts.

00:14:21.140 And ironically, at the same time, Biden has launched a fundraising campaign to pay his legal bills.

00:14:27.740 Obviously, there's going to be a lot of richer lawyers in the United States at the end of a couple of weeks.

00:14:36.420 But those two little pieces of breaking news.

00:14:40.300 Yeah, right now it looks like the only real winner are the lawyers.

00:14:43.500 There's an absolute army of lawyers found out across the swing states right now.

00:14:46.980 Nevada, one reason we have so little out of Nevada right now and had so little last night is that the Trump campaign sued the state to keep polls open, I think, for another hour after they were supposed to close.

00:15:02.440 They claim there were irregularities stopping many of their supporters from getting to the polls and voting.

00:15:07.980 They claim there.

00:15:38.560 But, you know, last night it looked like, you know, with Trump with pretty good leads in both Michigan and Wisconsin, it looked like he was on track for it.

00:15:45.980 If he could win those, he's got it.

00:15:48.640 But, you know, Biden has taken the lead there.

00:15:51.600 But Nevada has come back into play.

00:15:53.060 It looked like Biden was going to run away with Nevada for a bit.

00:15:56.200 But now it's much closer.

00:15:58.240 And Nevada, the whole election could swing on Nevada somehow.

00:16:03.520 Now, Corey, how do you, you know, last night Donald Trump claimed victory.

00:16:12.140 He said that there's a big fraud being perpetrated against him and his supporters.

00:16:18.800 Joe Biden did not concede defeat.

00:16:20.900 I thought Joe Biden was reasonable not to concede defeat, even though it looked like he was going down.

00:16:25.960 There was still enough out there that he still had a potential path to victory.

00:16:29.440 So how do you think the two candidates handled last night?

00:16:35.040 Do you think Biden should have been more strident one way or another about defeat or victory?

00:16:40.060 And do you think that Donald Trump was perhaps being too presumptuous in declaring victory and casting aspersions on the legitimacy of the election?

00:16:49.860 Yeah, well, I think Biden came out and did it right.

00:16:54.600 Of course, it was probably getting near his bedtime, so he couldn't talk for too long.

00:16:58.000 But, I mean, he kept it brief and got to the point.

00:17:00.720 He's saying we're not out.

00:17:02.380 We feel that there's, you know, that we're on the path to winning.

00:17:05.680 But he didn't declare an outright victory.

00:17:07.420 And he certainly didn't try to stir folks up.

00:17:10.580 And it was unfortunate, but not unexpected out of President Trump to, I guess, not just strongly declare, virtually declare a victory, but also to cast aspersions on the entire process.

00:17:26.760 And I just, I don't personally, we'll see as evidence comes out, think there's any grand conspiracy or ballot stuffing, or at least not on a level that's going to make a difference on this election.

00:17:37.100 It was a strategy, it was a mechanism to vote, and it definitely is dominating votes for the Democrats at this point.

00:17:46.080 But now that Trump has thrown that doubt in, and in a close race, again, I just fear for stability.

00:17:51.820 I mean, the upset people, the conspiracy theorists, the others are never going to accept results, no matter how they go at this point.

00:18:00.640 And it's just bad for the entire process.

00:18:03.740 And it's bad for the unity of that country going ahead.

00:18:07.240 So I do wish, perhaps, he'd have restrained a bit on that, leave it to his lawyers, perhaps, to pursue it rather than in his speech last night.

00:18:13.920 But it's President Trump.

00:18:15.540 What else do you expect?

00:18:19.420 Yeah, all the major cities with their businesses all boarded up, they're going to have, those poor businesses are probably going to have to leave the boards up for some time more.

00:18:28.860 If folks start rioting, they don't know if they're going to riot yet, if they lose or not.

00:18:35.620 So the United States is entering a very dangerous time right now, because both candidates could claim victory by casting aspersions on the vote.

00:18:50.160 You know, Biden might say Trump supporters are trying to stop our people, or Trump is trying to stop our votes from being counted.

00:18:58.200 Trump could claim that there's been funny business with all these mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.

00:19:05.000 We have, let me be, Dave, if you want to update us in Pennsylvania, all in Pennsylvania right now, these so-called naked ballots.

00:19:11.500 Tell us what's happening there.

00:19:12.340 Pennsylvania is still stuck at 64%.

00:19:17.260 Derek, no change in the numbers.

00:19:20.740 Tell us about the so-called naked ballots and the controversy with that.

00:19:25.680 Apparently they're predicting court challenges over the so-called naked ballots.

00:19:31.860 And what those are, Derek, are votes that have been mailed in, but not in their super-secret pouch or envelope.

00:19:41.840 All votes obviously should be kept secret, but a lot of these votes are being sent in with them not in the proper envelope.

00:19:54.520 So everybody's talking about lawsuits in that one.

00:19:58.860 And interestingly, the Trump campaign has now tweeted six times since midnight asking for money for their legal fees as well.

00:20:08.300 So I'm just interested in, is this going to end today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year?

00:20:16.780 I don't think anybody can say at the moment.

00:20:19.320 And in the event of this, it's really tied up in the courts, and the courts aren't able to resolve this by Inauguration Day in January.

00:20:29.820 Nancy Pelosi would become the acting president of the United States.

00:20:33.660 Donald Trump would cease to be president until it's resolved in the courts, and someone can be sworn in.

00:20:40.640 So it'll be interesting to see how quickly the courts can react to this.

00:20:44.480 This is not like 2000 with just Florida.

00:20:47.700 Everything hinged on Florida.

00:20:49.320 You're going to probably see very serious legal challenges in Nevada, in Pennsylvania, possibly in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia.

00:21:02.200 This is going to be quite a few court battles that will be solved at the first dealt with at the state level, then probably make their way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

00:21:09.520 And the courts will have to work overtime.

00:21:15.260 I mean, it would be an absolute disaster for the fabric of America's political stability to not have, for the first time in their history, a president sworn in by Inauguration Day.

00:21:26.480 So the courts are going to have to work overtime if they're going to have any chance of solving that and having a declared winner by then.

00:21:32.860 And Derek, we all know what happened recently in the Supreme Court, so if it gets to that level, you're looking at a definite Republican edge to whatever vote comes out.

00:21:45.540 That's with the swearing in of Justice Barrett just last week, I believe it was.

00:21:53.600 So they obviously did the right thing in getting their nominee appointed before election date, if you're a Republican fan.

00:22:01.720 And it remains to be seen, though, it is certainly a conservative Supreme Court.

00:22:07.600 It leans conservative on issues of judicial philosophy and ideology.

00:22:11.920 But is it a Republican Supreme Court?

00:22:15.620 That's that's a bigger question is is the Supreme Court going to side with Republicans just because they're appointed by Republicans or or not.

00:22:26.820 There is a there is a difference between conservative judicial philosophy and just backing your guy because you want him to win.

00:22:33.400 And sorry, Derek, pundits are saying that even if the Chief Justice John Roberts votes on the side of the Democrats, there's still enough conservative leaning judges that they should still win the day.

00:22:48.340 Yeah, although the Republicans would have to have at least some semblance of a case for that for that to happen.

00:22:53.180 They're not going to rule based on nothing.

00:22:55.680 I mean, as loaded as the U.S. Supreme Court is ideologically one direction or another, it it does still have to operate on the rule of law.

00:23:05.140 The justices are likely to side one way or another, depending on what they like.

00:23:09.680 But it's going to still have to be based on something.

00:23:12.320 They're not going to they're not going to pull it out of thin air.

00:23:16.620 OK, well, let's let's turn closer.

00:23:20.480 Is there anything else on the U.S. election?

00:23:21.940 Guys, I'd just like to speak a bit to the broader issues of some of the stuff that was learned last night, though, as we said right now, the only one who could clearly be declared a winner are lawyers.

00:23:31.560 And they're all going to be an army of them doing just fine for the next few weeks.

00:23:35.660 But those broader issues, the biggest losers were pollsters again.

00:23:40.480 I mean, they were predicting for weeks a Biden landslide.

00:23:44.660 They were saying this was going to be knocked out of the park and they were clearly found to be utterly wrong.

00:23:50.040 The mainstream media and who were, you know, basically tied at the hip to a lot of those pollsters and silver and the rest, again, have a lot of egg in their faces.

00:24:00.000 And their bias throughout this whole campaign was was quite well exposed.

00:24:04.680 I watched last night on Fox and Tucker just tore a strip out of the mainstream media in general, including his own newsroom.

00:24:14.180 And it was it was just something quite interesting to watch.

00:24:17.700 But there's going to be some broader fallout and changes to things in general out of this election, aside from just the presidency itself.

00:24:24.940 I mean, this entire campaign set a whole different tone.

00:24:28.780 And I don't think it was a good one, but hopefully we've learned some things from it.

00:24:32.240 Yeah, I hope so.

00:24:35.460 The pollsters, as usual, were radically wrong when it comes to predicting Trump.

00:24:39.240 We discussed this yesterday.

00:24:40.660 I've actually got a bit of sympathy for them.

00:24:43.040 I know it's not a popular thing to say, but it's very hard to measure Trump support because a lot of Trump supporters don't say they support Trump in the polls.

00:24:50.380 The polls are pretty good most of the time in scientifically weighting demographics and regions, you know, balancing men and women, ages, depending on how they think people are going to.

00:25:02.240 What numbers people are going to come out to vote, urban and rural and their locations.

00:25:06.320 But it's hard to adjust for shy voters, people who intend to vote Trump when they get into the ballot box, but won't tell the pollster that up front.

00:25:14.780 So that's why, in general, when I look at these polls, I take the polls at face value, and then I generally add 3% for Trump as a rule of thumb.

00:25:24.140 Add 3% for him on top of what the polls are saying.

00:25:26.580 The polls aren't completely wrong, but they do underplay Trump support because it's so hard to measure.

00:25:31.620 And what we saw last night is he generally outperforms by about 3% or 4%, depending on where it is.

00:25:37.820 And that was enough to move this from the blowout that the pollsters and a lot of the major networks in the United States were predicting to what we saw, which is a nail-biter election that is almost certainly going to be decided in the courts, not at the ballot box.

00:25:52.000 Well, let's bring things closer to home now, in case anyone's paying attention.

00:26:00.880 Monday, there was quite a blow-off in the legislature.

00:26:04.080 The ADP brought forward a motion trying to get the UCP on the record about independence for Alberta,

00:26:13.560 trying to essentially play a little bit of games, sticking a knife in the divisions of the Tory caucus between the Federalists, which dominate the party.

00:26:22.000 And potential solverists, which are now not much of a secret, kind of within its ranks, some of them hiding, some of them not hiding.

00:26:31.080 Dave, why don't you give us an update about what happened?

00:26:34.400 Yeah, and we've got some breaking news on that front, too, Derek.

00:26:38.620 The NDP motion was put in, as you say, to debate independence.

00:26:44.900 The UCP stood up and said, that's not fair.

00:26:51.120 It breaks the relationship between an MLA and his constituent.

00:26:58.320 So that was basically put to the bottom of the order of papers, meaning it's never going to see the light of day, probably.

00:27:05.920 But in a story I just published on westernstandardonline.com, rebel UCP MLA Drew Barnes has again broken ranks.

00:27:16.000 And he has stood up and said, hang on a second, fellows, this is completely unfair to the NDP party.

00:27:23.980 He says private members' bills are one of the few things that MLAs have a chance to do themselves that aren't linked to the party.

00:27:33.940 He said in his time in the legislature, he's only been able to do it twice and only being able to stand up and speak for his Cypress Medicine Hat constituents twice in all those years.

00:27:46.880 So, you know, Barnes keeps poking the bear.

00:27:52.000 He's disagreed with the government on many, many issues, including EMS dispatch consolidation.

00:27:59.840 He wrote another report on the fair deal panel saying that independence needs to be on the table if Alberta's got any chance of making a better deal in Confederation.

00:28:16.560 But, yeah, Barnes is poking the wasp's nest once again.

00:28:21.880 Yeah, this this is we're just seeing this come across the wire now from the story you broke, Dave.

00:28:28.880 Really, while while we're discussing this here, you're a talented man doing stories while you're on the air.

00:28:34.140 But Drew Barnes really poking the bear, as you said, he is now so kind of a bit of background.

00:28:43.380 There is something called private members business in the Alberta legislature.

00:28:48.040 There's private members motions and bills.

00:28:50.300 They're drawn by a lottery.

00:28:51.900 And they're really kind of the only opportunity the vast majorities of MLAs have to have any kind of impact on the agenda of the legislature.

00:28:59.980 If you're not a part of the cabinet, you don't get to propose bills unless you get one of these rare private members motions or bills.

00:29:06.480 And Drew Barnes spent two terms in opposition.

00:29:11.400 You know, I spent one term in opposition.

00:29:13.340 I never actually I did get lucky to draw a private members motion once that was to cut MLI pay.

00:29:17.920 And unfortunately, I was the only member to vote for it.

00:29:21.300 The NDP and the Tories voted against it at the time.

00:29:24.880 But it was an opportunity for me to put something on the agenda.

00:29:28.060 Drew Barnes, having been in opposition, gets that it's very important that this is not messed with.

00:29:33.180 If the governing side can vote against private members motions and bills.

00:29:37.100 But it was an unprecedented step for them to outright cancel debate on it, to not allow a vote on it.

00:29:44.160 Corey, let's go to you.

00:29:45.240 Why do you think the Tories took an unprecedented step of essentially canceling private members business, killing this motion without any debate or a vote?

00:29:54.620 And then secondly, why do you think Barnes did this and very publicly broke ranks with his party in the legislature?

00:30:05.720 Yeah, well, I mean, it was a brilliant political play on the part of the NDP.

00:30:13.440 If, you know, not even necessarily for the sake of Albertans, but just on a political partisan brinkmanship.

00:30:18.600 You know that there's a lot of unrest within the UCP caucus because there is a growing number of supporters for an independence option, at least flirting with it, if not outright.

00:30:29.760 And they just don't want to touch it.

00:30:32.360 And doing this forces it right onto the floor.

00:30:35.000 There was no choice.

00:30:35.780 You guys are going to have to talk about this.

00:30:37.840 And of course, that could potentially bring about a great deal more rifts within the party.

00:30:43.160 It would force them to stand and be counted.

00:30:45.420 Do you consider this a viable option or not?

00:30:47.480 And for every MLA, because we've seen that, you know, Notley's pretending to be supportive of Barnes who's taking his stand, but Notley was demanding that he be thrown out before because he's taken independent style stands.

00:30:57.560 And if this motion had gone to the floor and five or six UCP members had voted saying that they don't support that motion, then Notley could say, well, look, we've got this nest of separatists in there.

00:31:10.440 Kenny, what are you doing?

00:31:11.300 Are you a separatist party?

00:31:12.160 I mean, they could just make so much hay out of it.

00:31:14.800 Drew Barnes, I guess you'd have to ask him what he's up to.

00:31:19.380 He's not walking to the beat of the premier's drum.

00:31:23.440 There's no doubt about it.

00:31:24.580 But, you know, there's been some speculation that maybe he's kind of looking to get kicked out and then take over in representing that segment of the population in an independence type movement.

00:31:37.680 Though, I mean, perhaps Drew's just also using his role as an MLA because he wants to speak to that thing.

00:31:43.480 Perhaps we can get him on again soon to talk about that.

00:31:46.740 I think that's something we should absolutely do.

00:31:49.140 We should get him on the broadcast here and hear from him directly.

00:31:55.600 I can tell you that it is extremely rare for MLAs to vote against a party line, let alone do it on a semi-regular basis.

00:32:04.780 I did it as a Wildrose MLA.

00:32:06.600 And it was not the smartest career move one could take to oppose your party whip, particularly doing it on a semi-regular basis.

00:32:17.700 Drew Barnes is doing it pretty regularly here, speaking out on this.

00:32:22.420 I think he certainly looks like he's daring them to take him on.

00:32:25.920 I think their Tory leadership is smart enough to know where the polls are at and that kicking him out would look pretty bad for keeping their coalition together.

00:32:35.100 And even though the Tories are federalists, they do rely on, according to the polling we had done, half of their support, 52% of UCP voters, back independents.

00:32:46.380 And those are the ones who haven't already left for one of the independence parties.

00:32:49.080 So kicking him out would be extremely dangerous.

00:32:52.560 But at some point, you know, the question is, is Jason Kenney going to decide that it's better to keep him inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in?

00:33:03.120 And that's going to be a pretty big decision for them to make.

00:33:06.300 But if they do kick him out, are they going to end up martyring him politically and giving more air to moving the independence movement outside of the Tory tent into something like the Wild Rose Independence Party?

00:33:21.620 Gentlemen, if you can talk amongst yourselves for a minute.

00:33:24.860 I'm just in contact with Drew Barnes right now, and I'll see if I can't get him on the show with us right now.

00:33:31.180 Oh, very good.

00:33:31.720 Well, be sure to send Drew a link and just give him quick instructions about how to get on.

00:33:39.280 We'd love to have Drew on right now.

00:33:43.200 Or we could, yeah, okay, well, let's see.

00:33:47.360 See if you can get him on.

00:33:50.160 Drew, do you think Jason Kenney is going to put up with Drew Barnes marching to his own beat like this for much longer?

00:33:59.180 Yeah, it's hard to say how much more he can take because, of course, that emboldens more potential unrest or revolution within caucus.

00:34:10.900 He's really between a rock and a hard place with this whole thing.

00:34:14.820 Even with this motion being buried, you know, they used a political mechanism to bury a political mechanism.

00:34:22.100 But I think it had the effect Notley wanted anyways.

00:34:25.500 It's just not in the same way.

00:34:26.780 She wanted to cause some strife and division within that caucus. 1.00

00:34:30.000 She wanted to be able to paint that party as being potentially separatist.

00:34:34.060 And that speculation is going now, whether the motion came to the floor or not.

00:34:38.540 Perhaps, in hindsight, it would have been healthier for the motion to have hit the floor.

00:34:44.760 And they can at least speak for themselves one by one as to whether they're supportive or not of those sorts of things.

00:34:49.840 So it's made quite a mess for Jason Kenney.

00:34:52.040 And Drew's carrying on with that mess right now.

00:34:54.900 Yeah, it's Drew is really he is the only one of the original class of 2012 Wild Rosers to still be in the Wild Rose caucus.

00:35:06.020 Sorry, in the UCP caucus, the vast majority, the other two who were left over, who survived the floor crossing and came back as Wild Rosers in 2015 when I was elected as a Wild Rose MLA.

00:35:20.980 One of them was kind of pushed into retirement.

00:35:24.660 That's Pat Stier.

00:35:26.440 And the other one, Rick Strankman, was taken out in a hostile nomination.

00:35:32.140 And people have a lot of theories about what happened there.

00:35:36.580 And then of the other Wild Rosers in 2015 who were elected, some of them were real Wild Rosers.

00:35:46.380 But it was kind of mixed.

00:35:48.100 But among the strong personalities of the Wild Rosers, there's not a lot who were who are who are really left standing.

00:35:55.880 Drew Barnes really is kind of among the very last of the old Wild Rose school to still be in the Alberta legislature right now.

00:36:05.260 And the Wild Rose culture is very different than the old PC culture.

00:36:08.860 And, you know, a lot of folks, myself included, think that the UCP culture more reflects the PC culture or the Conservative Party of Canada's culture than it does the old Reform Party or Wild Rose culture.

00:36:25.880 So that will be fascinating to see, you know, is Drew Barnes able to mash that Wild Rose chip on his shoulder that he carries with the way they're doing things right now.

00:36:39.820 I do think we're about to get Drew Barnes here.

00:36:43.360 Let's go to Dave as we see if we can plug Drew Barnes in.

00:36:46.820 Hey, Drew's going to be here in a second or two.

00:36:53.780 I think he just wants to go audio at the moment, probably up late last night, like all of us, and maybe has a case of bed hair going or something like that.

00:37:02.680 But, yeah, he'll be on within moments.

00:37:05.940 And we'll get to hear from the horse's mouth exactly what his strategy is moving forward.

00:37:10.940 Drew Barnes, do we have you live right now?

00:37:15.800 Yes, you do.

00:37:16.600 Hello, Derek.

00:37:17.160 Hello, Dave.

00:37:18.360 Oh, very good.

00:37:19.080 Okay.

00:37:19.320 Well, we've got Drew Barnes live on the line.

00:37:22.500 No video, but we've got Drew's audio.

00:37:26.320 Drew, thanks for joining us.

00:37:28.520 Why don't you start?

00:37:29.400 Tell us, well, what the heck is happening right now?

00:37:33.300 Well, it's an interesting time for sure.

00:37:35.740 You know, yesterday was, you know, another example of what, you know, I've been fighting for for almost nine years, what I've been talking about.

00:37:45.680 And, you know, Derek, I just did hear your preliminary words a minute or two ago, and you're bang on.

00:37:51.540 You know, I'm very grateful to have represented Cypress Medicine Hat since 2012, starting the first two times as a Wild Roser.

00:37:58.840 And so much of what the Wild Rose was trying to do in 2011, 2012 was democratic reform, grassroots involvement, more opportunity for MLAs to talk in the legislature,

00:38:15.120 more opportunity for Albertans to have direct access with citizen-initiated reforms, answers to questions, input into the Alberta economy and Alberta bureaucracy and rules.

00:38:28.760 And, you know, so basically yesterday was a time when through a standing order technique, through a government motion that was adjourned, you know, we get so little members, private members time now, only three hours a week.

00:38:47.720 And that's provided we sit on a Monday, and for some reason we haven't been sitting a lot of Mondays.

00:38:53.200 So I just felt it was absolutely wrong, you know, to the 62 or 63 of us that aren't in Cabinet, that that three hours a week is sacrosanct.

00:39:05.020 And, you know, too important and too limited is time to take away.

00:39:11.140 So I was grateful that, you know, I'm glad that, you know, a member of Heather Sweet from the NDP put in a point of privilege.

00:39:19.740 I was pleased to stand up and support her on that.

00:39:22.520 And I believe the speaker is going to be ruling, I hope today, about 1.30, maybe just before orders at three o'clock.

00:39:31.460 But I'll be interested in hearing what he has to say.

00:39:33.720 Drew, do we, has there been any reaction from your caucus colleagues or the leadership of the party to you breaking ranks on this to essentially try to maintain the integrity of the private members business process?

00:39:55.180 Has there been any, has there been any word from the leadership or your caucus colleagues yet?

00:40:01.180 No, there, there, there, there's, there's been nothing, no, you know, nobody from the whip's office or, or from Premier Kenny's office has reached out to me.

00:40:12.540 But I've had several.

00:40:17.600 Several of my UCP colleagues.

00:40:23.180 Some of my, you know, you know, what needed you needed to be said.

00:40:28.680 A lot of said, thank you for saying it, you know, with, with passion and with meaning.

00:40:32.900 And, you know, I, you know, basically I, you know, talked about the fact that we get so little opportunities to do this in nine years, Derek and Dave.

00:40:44.620 I've only had two.

00:40:46.980 Sorry, Drew, your audio's cut out a little bit.

00:40:53.640 Drew.

00:40:57.280 All right.

00:40:57.780 Well, we're having a little trouble with, with Drew's audio.

00:41:01.720 Drew, when you get your audio working, please pipe back up.

00:41:04.680 We, we want to hear from you.

00:41:07.980 Corey, how do you think this is going to go down in the Premier's office?

00:41:10.820 Well, I, I suspect he's not thrilled.

00:41:14.480 I mean, this was something they kind of hoped to bury and have it forgotten.

00:41:17.540 It's a busy news week, you know, outside of the country.

00:41:19.960 And of course, with, with COVID and everything else going on, this was just something I don't think that Premier Kenny wanted to deal with.

00:41:27.560 But, uh, Drew's making it clear that, that he speaks for his constituency and, uh, the, uh, uh, more, you know, grassroots, old school, wild rose sort of thing.

00:41:39.600 And, and he's not going to back down on these things.

00:41:41.580 So, uh, the, the line keeps getting drawn in the sand.

00:41:44.640 Uh, we'll see.

00:41:45.300 I mean, if nothing gets done from Premier Kenny's office this week, uh, we'll see where Drew goes next week.

00:41:54.600 Uh, fascinating.

00:41:56.040 Um, Drew.

00:41:56.820 Oh, looks like we've lost Drew.

00:41:58.600 Um, uh, well, hopefully we'll get him back.

00:42:03.380 Uh, we'll see what happens.

00:42:05.300 Just, just to follow up what Corey was talking about.

00:42:08.640 Premier Kenny had hoped this was going to be a one day news cycle event, uh, come up Monday afternoon and then be buried and forgotten, uh, for good.

00:42:17.920 What, uh, Drew Barnes's move has done has made it a continuing story now that has now turned into a three or four day story.

00:42:25.600 Uh, which increases the embarrassment, uh, to, uh, Premier Kenny's office.

00:42:30.380 So, uh, the Premier will be less than pleased.

00:42:34.160 And I think Derek, as you mentioned, it's just, you know, how many times is the Premier's office going to allow, uh, Drew Barnes to be a renegade, uh, before they finally say, okay, enough's enough.

00:42:45.940 Go, uh, go, uh, go sit by yourself in the corner.

00:42:49.600 Well, I've, I've sat in that corner before.

00:42:52.500 And, uh, it, it could be a lonely corner, but, uh, it's a rewarding corner because you, you get to do a lot more than you do, uh, just, uh, sitting and following orders.

00:43:01.520 Um, yeah, I, I, I'm not sure how much longer that will go.

00:43:05.940 Uh, I think, uh, Corey, you were, you were bang on that, um, you know, shutting down the private members business of the day, which has never been done.

00:43:15.180 As far as I know, in the history of Alberta, I'm not even sure it's ever been done in any province or federally, just shutting down private members business like that.

00:43:21.860 It just doesn't happen.

00:43:23.260 Um, but, uh, it, it, it was an extraordinary move and, um, there's going to be some political follow-up.

00:43:32.180 I think we do have Drew Barnes back.

00:43:34.080 Uh, I'll put it to, uh, you, Dave and, uh, Corey for, uh, questions you've got for Drew.

00:43:42.720 Hey, Drew.

00:43:43.500 Uh, we've just been talking about, uh, uh, premier Kenny and, uh, uh, you repeatedly poking, uh, the stick is your, what's your end game?

00:43:54.240 Do you have an end game or are you just going issue by issue?

00:43:58.320 Well, you know, an end game, my end game has always been the same.

00:44:02.620 I'm grateful to represent Cypress.

00:44:04.800 Oh, Drew, I think you're covering up your microphone a bit.

00:44:07.560 Oh, okay.

00:44:08.280 Sorry.

00:44:08.880 How's that?

00:44:09.940 That's better.

00:44:10.840 Okay.

00:44:11.160 Thank you.

00:44:11.700 Sorry about that.

00:44:12.300 Uh, my end game's always been the same, uh, for more hope, more opportunity for Alberta families and Alberta communities, of course, particularly Cypress Medicine Hat, which I'm, I'm fortunate to, to represent.

00:44:26.340 Um, there's a quite a difference of opinion right now about what we should do about our relationship with Ottawa and our Canadian partners.

00:44:36.180 Uh, the NDP motion, of course, was under no conditions should we ever question our, our loyalty to, to Ottawa and we're always going to be better off as, as part of Canada.

00:44:49.180 Uh, of course, I don't, I don't agree with that.

00:44:50.900 Um, then when the government shut down the debate on that motion and their motion was more like, we're, uh, we believe in the United, uh, being a United Canada and part of Canada, but we will work towards a fair deal.

00:45:05.000 Uh, and as I consistently put out, there has to be consequences, uh, not only should we immediately start to move towards the, the items in the famous firewall letter from 20 years ago that, that, you know, now consecutive fair deal panels have talked about from collecting our own taxes, from having our own pension, uh, from our own police force, our own chief firearms officer, control of immigration.

00:45:30.860 Uh, but we, there also has to be consequences, uh, Albertans need to, to have the opportunity to, to let Ottawa know, you know, in a year or two or, or whatever, if Ottawa hasn't come to the table in a fair way and the best consequences is a referendum on independence.

00:45:49.260 Uh, and, uh, I, I believe that in my heart and I believe also strongly that, uh, Albertans need the opportunity to get engaged, to be involved in this discussion.

00:45:59.920 Uh, one of the real joys of the fair deal panel was as, as tens and tens, hundreds of Albertans went to the mic, there were so many great unique new ideas, uh, that, uh, you know, that, uh, I, I think, you know, that and development of our own Alberta written constitution would go so, so far.

00:46:19.260 Um, to, to strengthen our culture and, and solidify Alberta being the free and most prosperous jurisdiction in the world.

00:46:27.100 Those, those are what I'm, I'm looking for.

00:46:31.100 Uh, drew when the province announced that they were going to be studying the provincial police idea and not report back until April, you immediately issued a statement saying enough's enough.

00:46:42.680 We need to get this done now.

00:46:44.480 Let's do it now.

00:46:45.280 We've got enough sheriffs. 0.86

00:46:46.940 Uh, let's move on it.

00:46:48.020 Obviously, you're frustrated at the pace of the UCP's actions when it comes to trying to implement the fair deal.

00:46:59.200 Yeah, yeah, David, it's not only me.

00:47:01.680 Albertans everywhere are telling me, quit studying, just do it.

00:47:05.000 Particularly the things that we don't need Ottawa support or the other provinces support, like the constitutional items, whether we need seven provinces and 50% of Canadian population.

00:47:16.500 The things we can do, like give notice by March 31st to run our own police force, you know, there's a whole bunch of elements there.

00:47:24.560 The values being a bit different out of Ottawa have made our legal system, you know, some issues here.

00:47:32.780 You know, I can't count the number of times I hear about people being arrested five times and still not locked up and the impact that has on quality, quality police work.

00:47:41.840 Ottawa does subsidize our police, it's about $100 million a year now, but all the signals are that they're going to discontinue doing that.

00:47:50.560 There's been some unionization and cost increases in the RCMP.

00:47:54.540 There's been cost increases everywhere.

00:47:57.280 So Ottawa is clearly giving the signals that they're going to discontinue this anyway.

00:48:01.220 So without even counting the leverage that we can start to gain with our Canadian partners by showing that we are, you know, self-reliant, we can stand on our own, these things only make sense.

00:48:15.000 I'll give you another example from yesterday.

00:48:18.480 We have emergency helicopter response in the South, called HALO.

00:48:22.900 We've been waiting years to get the same amount of per capita support that STARS gets for the rest of the province.

00:48:31.900 The Health Minister Andrew has been saying that he's going to have a HEMS review, HEMS for helicopter emergency management system.

00:48:38.760 It was supposed to be due in the summer.

00:48:40.300 It was backed up to September 30th.

00:48:44.900 And I believe today at RUMA announced that the report wasn't conclusive enough, didn't cover that enough.

00:48:53.320 So, you know, all that time, all that money, and the answer still wasn't there that we can tell right now.

00:49:00.960 And the same with the police force.

00:49:01.860 Let's just do it.

00:49:06.300 Well, Drew, that's interesting stuff.

00:49:11.280 I'm interested to know, you know, what do you think is, you know, the NDP are obviously trying to get this debated.

00:49:24.160 We know they obviously are not particularly sympathetic.

00:49:26.980 Just break it up.

00:49:29.000 Oh, sorry.

00:49:32.920 Oh.

00:49:35.140 So, you know that.

00:49:39.680 Sorry, what was that, Drew?

00:49:41.280 Drew, we know the NDP are obviously not sympathetic to the independence cause, but they did want this debated in the legislature.

00:49:55.140 I think they're trying to get others on the record.

00:49:58.940 They're well-known where you stand.

00:50:00.240 Are there others in the UCP caucus who think, as you do, that independence needs to be on the table?

00:50:10.080 Or are you more or less on your own on this?

00:50:12.600 Okay, well, thank you.

00:50:16.900 You know, I guess I'll let my colleagues speak for themselves, but I will say this, you know, many, many of them have reached out to me, inquired, but no more precisely, I heard the fair deal panel.

00:50:28.600 And let's be clear, 80% of Albertans that went to the mic said our relationship with Ottawa is broken.

00:50:36.800 We need change.

00:50:38.340 Degree and the amount of change that they wanted didn't vary somewhat.

00:50:41.760 Sorry, Drew.

00:50:42.060 Drew, I was referring to within the UCP caucus.

00:50:45.880 You've been pretty outspoken on this, but are there others within the UCP caucus who believe independence should be on the table?

00:50:52.100 Or are you the only non-federalist?

00:50:54.500 Again, you know, I just think that this discussion going forward the next three months is very, very interesting.

00:51:05.980 I will let them speak for themselves.

00:51:09.840 Very good.

00:51:11.440 Let's put it to you, Corey, for any questions you've got.

00:51:15.560 While we're getting near the end, I just want to throw one out quickly.

00:51:18.100 Drew, have you been talking to the Wilder's Independence Party at all?

00:51:21.000 Yeah, you know, I absolutely have.

00:51:26.920 I mean, I've, you know, I've really enjoyed politics.

00:51:31.200 And, Corey, you know, including you and my friendship now for 10 or 12 years, I've talked to 10 or 12 Albertans absolutely every day.

00:51:40.780 And a lot of them call me.

00:51:43.120 A lot of them discuss, you know, their thoughts and their ideas.

00:51:47.180 I am so grateful that people like the Wilder's Independence Party, you know, the old legacy parties of Wexit and Freedom Conservative come together.

00:51:57.560 They care deeply about Albertans, Albertans families.

00:52:01.280 They care deeply about hope and opportunity and helping each other.

00:52:04.400 So, so I'm so glad they're there.

00:52:06.740 And, yeah, let's, let's, let's see what happens going forward.

00:52:12.680 I, you know, always is important.

00:52:14.860 Well, Drew, what do you think is next here?

00:52:25.960 So we're obviously going to still wait on the speaker to make a ruling on this.

00:52:31.020 Remains to be seen how it's going to work.

00:52:33.120 I think parliamentary precedent has it that this is highly inappropriate for the government to use its majority to effectively cancel private members' business, not allow any debate, not allow any vote on things not determined in advance by the government.

00:52:51.480 So I will ask you about next steps forward.

00:52:53.440 But I was quite shocked when I was watching the, I don't really watch a lot of theater legislature much anymore.

00:52:59.060 But I was quite shocked when they did that.

00:53:02.780 Was there any notice given to the UCP caucus that this debate would be, would be ended the way it was?

00:53:09.080 Or did this just kind of get sprung on everybody out of nowhere?

00:53:17.480 Derek, just a little bit hard to hear.

00:53:19.400 So I think you, you know, what was a surprise?

00:53:22.500 Yeah.

00:53:22.980 Sorry, my question was.

00:53:24.660 I'm surprised.

00:53:25.500 I had no idea.

00:53:29.060 Sorry, Drew, we didn't hear you.

00:53:31.920 My question was, did the move by the Tory majority to cancel private members' business, you know, without any debate or vote, was notice given to the UCP caucus that this would happen?

00:53:45.760 Or was this just kind of done and you found out while it was happening in the legislature?

00:53:50.300 Yeah, sorry, Derek, just only here every fourth or fifth week.

00:53:57.820 But I was totally surprised.

00:54:00.420 I believe in the election, they had no idea if private members' time was circumvented.

00:54:05.000 You know, when the government tried to bring Bill 304, the private members' bill that we were on, the NDP didn't allow it, I think because, you know, they felt that they'd been slighted.

00:54:19.060 You know, maybe they should have, but, you know, that would have been a huge, you know, reaction to not be upset as to what happened.

00:54:31.040 So, but, you know, it's, you know, one of the things that we need to look at, and it's back to, you know, when we started in this wild movement, starting in 2000, and, you know, the last, you know, the John Murdochs and the Paul Hinmans and all these people, the Danielle Smiths, Corey Morgan, all these people that had worked so hard before.

00:54:55.840 We really wanted, and we were really hearing from Albertans that deep desire for more grassroots involvement in our democratic process.

00:55:06.140 Hopefully, what happened yesterday is one of those catalysts, one of those steps along where a government that cares, a government that listens, will enhance, and things will only get better.

00:55:21.120 That's my hope.

00:55:21.620 Well, this kind of brings it back to what we were saying when you joined us in this conversation originally about, you know, what kind of culture is prevailing within the UCP.

00:55:36.200 You know, we both served together in the Wild Rose Caucus, and that had a particular culture.

00:55:43.420 It was never popular within the Wild Rose Caucus amongst the leadership for any of us to break ranks and vote against the party whip, but we certainly did from time to time.

00:55:55.900 And then, you know, we contrast that with the more PC culture or the Conservative Party of Canada culture, which is significantly more centralized.

00:56:02.640 Which, do you think the Wild Rose Caucus has got enough strength right now, or is more of the older PC culture pervading in terms of the role of an MLA and that kind of question around centralization or decentralization of the ability of MLAs to do their own thing within the legislature?

00:56:24.960 Thank you, sir.

00:56:54.940 Thank you.

00:57:01.940 Thank you.

00:57:02.760 Thank you.

00:57:08.700 Yeah, very good. Yeah, Drew, we'd love to have you on for longer, but it looks like the connection at your end is just a bit not quite strong enough. Please talk to tell us or whoever is responsible for this. We'd love to have you on again. If we can get the stream working a little bit better. It's looking a bit like something coming from Prytis right now.

00:57:30.380 But I think we're I think that was fascinating. Thanks again to Drew Bynes for coming on and Dave for bringing them on at such late notice. But it made for a very interesting discussion.

00:57:45.320 I want to thank everyone of our viewers for watching today. If you're not currently a member of the Western Standard, please go to westerncenteredonline.com and go to membership. The Western Standard does not accept a penny of government funding.

00:57:59.240 We don't comply with government media licensing and regulation. If you support a genuinely free press that is here for the West and just the West, it's important that you're supporting independent journalism like the Western Standard.

00:58:11.340 So if you're not yet a member, please consider becoming one. And those of you watching who are members, we thank you very much for your support for what we're doing.

00:58:20.660 But I'd like thank you, Dave Naylor, for joining us today, news editor of the Western Standard, Corey Morgan, podcast editor and columnist for the Western Standard.

00:58:30.220 Thank you very much for joining us, everyone today. God bless.

00:58:33.600 God bless.

00:59:03.600 God bless.

Western Standard - November 04, 2020

The Pipeline November 4, 2020

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