Western Standard - The Pipeline： Ottawa vax propaganda

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Derek Fulda-Brent, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching

00:00:16.860 The Pipeline. Today is June 7th, 2023. I'm joined, as always, by Western Standard opinion

00:00:23.460 editor, Nigel Hannaford. How are you, Nigel? I am well. Good to be here. Great. Also got

00:00:28.480 But our other usual co-host, Corey, Western Standard, Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:34.140 How are you, Corey?

00:00:34.940 Very good, thanks.

00:00:35.820 Like the purple tie.

00:00:37.720 All right, today we're going to be talking about the coming cabinet from Alberta Premier

00:00:42.780 Danielle Smith on Friday.

00:00:44.660 A new cabinet for Alberta will be unveiled and sworn in.

00:00:49.560 We've got lots of speculation about who's in, who's out, and what that cabinet's going

00:00:53.640 to look like and what it's really going to be charged with doing.

00:00:56.340 We're going to talk about a memo obtained by Black Locks reporter and published in the Western Standard from the federal government, the Privy Council office, which is essentially more or less the wing of the prime minister's office in Ottawa.

00:01:11.280 Kind of laying out some pretty stark language, the federal government's so-called communication strategy around adverse effects for vaccines.

00:01:20.360 Obviously, all vaccines have adverse effects, and the COVID vaccine was no exception, but the communications, or spin, if you will, or propaganda, if you're being less charitable around this, is quite jarring, and we've got the memo itself.

00:01:38.920 We're going to get into that.

00:01:40.000 David Johnson continues his march from esteemed Canadian noble statesman to Liberal Party puppet.

00:01:50.500 It's been absolutely jarring to see the very unexpected fall from grace of David Johnson and his previously impeccable reputation

00:02:00.400 into the point where he's essentially the dancing monkey in Justin Trudeau's Chinese interference parade.

00:02:07.840 And if we have time, we're going to talk about a revelation first reported in the Western Standard coming from Alberta Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner, who has obtained evidence that there were more sexual assaults in the COVID hostage hotels established by the federal government.

00:02:28.840 Before we get into all that, though, I want to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. I've been a member of the CSSA for more than a decade because I trust them as Canada's leading firearms rights organization in Canada.

00:02:40.980 If you're a gun owner in Canada, your rights under constant attack by the federal government and other subnational governments across Canada, they want to take your guns away, and they're not stopping at the scary looking ones.

00:02:54.780 They're coming for all of them.

00:02:56.300 They've made that absolutely clear.

00:02:58.320 They're just taking one bite of the pie at a time.

00:03:02.220 If you're a gun owner, though, you need to stand together with other gun owners in Canada and join the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:03:08.100 Go to CSSA-CILA.org or do what I do and Google them and become a member today.

00:03:15.020 Okay, so election's over.

00:03:18.200 Danielle Smith is still the premier, and she gets to swear in her second cabinet.

00:03:24.600 Her first cabinet, she inherited largely from Jason Kenney.

00:03:29.420 She made some changes, removed a few, most notably Jason Nixon, who was Kenney's right-hand man

00:03:37.260 and who had inserted himself into the leadership race in a way that most people found was grossly

00:03:42.480 inappropriate. So he was out. And he was very unpopular with people who opposed mandates and

00:03:47.100 things like that, because he just seems too close to Kenny. Rick McIver, a longtime PC minister under

00:03:54.280 Alison Redford and Jim Prentice. And then again, under Jason Kenney, he was removed, although that

00:04:02.000 was a bit more surprising. And he was the interim leader of the PCs after they lost the 2015 election.

00:04:07.260 There were a number of changes. She brought in some, but it was overall, more or less, still kind of Jason Kenney's cabinet. Didn't want to rock the boat too, too much.

00:04:15.960 Oh, and brought in Todd Lowen, who not only just came into the cabinet, but came into the caucus itself after being exiled by Jason Kenney.

00:04:24.320 I don't want to get into the specifics yet. We're going to talk about individual ministers you expect to be in or not to be in.

00:04:31.220 But we'll start with you, Corey, on what you generally are expecting from Smith's first new cabinet now. Are you expecting more or less a continuation of the previous cabinet or something entirely new?

00:04:46.160 It's a tough question. I mean, whether she's going to want to make her mark now and break away now that she has a mandate or carry on.

00:04:53.660 And I, you know, because she's got a limited caucus now compared to what she'd had before, she doesn't quite have the leeway to really shuffle too, too much from before. 0.77

00:05:02.440 I mean, we've got some inexperienced caucus members.

00:05:05.140 I think there's going to be some eye raisers in there, though.

00:05:07.440 I mean, her relationships with different MLAs that are in there, we're only just seeing development.

00:05:11.900 Because I do believe she's going to want to make this hers.

00:05:14.160 As you said, she's been kind of carrying the remnants of Jason Kenney's cabinet for a while.

00:05:18.260 she's going to want some distinctions in there that are definitely her own that she didn't have,

00:05:22.880 I think, going into this election. Nigel, how big a change? Of course, some changes necessitated.

00:05:29.080 There are MLAs there who weren't there before, and there are some ministers who were in cabinet

00:05:33.780 before but aren't there now. Kenny's cabinet was particularly urban and in particular Calgary

00:05:42.880 urban heavy and that's where nearly all of the losses for the UCP and the electric came from

00:05:49.140 was in Calgary so by necessity some of these people are just not going to be in cabinet

00:05:52.720 but how big a change are you expecting this cabinet to be over her previous cabinet

00:05:57.400 which was you know in large measure but not entirely still had a significant number of

00:06:04.480 holdovers from Kenny. Well I'll tell you what I'm expecting and I'll tell you what I'm hoping

00:06:09.200 My expectation is, as you said, so many of the last group, the last cadre have lost the election or retired from the game of politics.

00:06:21.100 But out of the 24 cabinet positions that she announced in October, eight of those are gone.

00:06:27.800 So she has a choice to make a smaller cabinet, but it's not going to be an order of magnitude smaller that it would only have, you know, 20.

00:06:35.980 Some of those ministries just don't mesh well together.

00:06:40.480 So she's going to have to come up with 20, 21, 22 names, I'm sure.

00:06:44.860 And my expectation is that she will look favorably on the people who supported her during the run-up.

00:06:55.560 Why wouldn't she?

00:06:57.200 And then secondly, there are some interests that she has to satisfy.

00:07:01.500 There's got to be somebody from Edmonton.

00:07:03.700 The closest one would be a chap from Sherwood Park.

00:07:07.220 And the Mordenville, St. Albert.

00:07:08.640 There's two really close ones.

00:07:10.240 But there's also Spruce Grove, Stony Plain.

00:07:11.960 They've got the whole donut around.

00:07:13.300 Somebody has to speak for Ebenton.

00:07:15.220 So those two individuals have a very high chance.

00:07:19.100 Two or three, actually.

00:07:19.860 There's three kind of really close donut ones.

00:07:22.040 All three could end up in cabinet, I'd say.

00:07:23.640 They could.

00:07:24.300 So I'm expecting that.

00:07:25.860 What I'm hoping for is a cabinet that recognizes

00:07:29.740 that the fight is going to be on with Ottawa.

00:07:33.700 because Ottawa wants to fight and therefore we need people with guts to go in there and stand

00:07:40.060 up for Alberta. And I hope that that's a big part of how she makes her decision on who she puts in

00:07:47.080 there. Okay, so I'm going to kind of go through the list of some of the defeated ministers here.

00:07:52.820 Was Prasad Panda defeated? Yes. Yeah. Okay, so Prasad Panda was a Kenney minister but didn't

00:07:58.160 make it into the Smith cabinet, which surprised me because Prasad Panda had been a Wild Rose

00:08:01.580 candidate in 2012 and 2015. And he'd stayed out of the leadership too. He'd been quiet on it.

00:08:07.020 Yeah, he stayed very neutral, at least in public. I don't know what happened behind the scenes,

00:08:10.740 but he didn't stay very public. I was actually surprised not to see him there. So he was

00:08:15.700 defeated, but wasn't a minister when he was defeated, but he was cabinet material. Jason

00:08:20.300 Copping, he was minister of labor under Kenney and then replaced Tyler Shandro when Shandro was

00:08:25.300 shuffled out of health. So he was defeated Calgary varsity. Tyler Shandro, nail biter, but he was

00:08:34.520 Minister of Health under Kenny, which obviously very controversial considering everything in

00:08:38.980 COVID. But he was moved to justice under Smith, where in justice, he appeared actually to do a

00:08:44.060 pretty good job trying to redeem himself. Although put in a very awkward position of having to

00:08:49.220 oversee prosecutions of people who were charged for bullshit things during COVID. So very, 0.67

00:08:56.760 from his ministry and health before, so very weird, but he's defeated. Nicholas Milliken,

00:09:02.900 Calgary Curry, I think very low level minister, but defeated as well. Casey Maddow, that was

00:09:08.400 probably the biggest defeat of the night. The UCP's sole MLA in Edmonton, not reelected,

00:09:14.340 lost to the NDP, as you're saying. So they have no seats in Edmonton proper. Jeremy Nixon had a

00:09:20.140 relatively minor-ish, but an important one around addictions and whatnot, but considered a fairly

00:09:24.800 minor cabinet post. Defeated. Jason Luan had a very minor cabinet post. Defeated.

00:09:31.500 And then, as I said, Prasad Panda, cabinet material-ish, but also defeated.

00:09:38.640 I think we're going to see a smaller cabinet. Smith actually, I believe, had the largest cabinet

00:09:42.860 in Alberta history. Canadians in general, we have a big, generally considered the biggest cabinets

00:09:47.740 on the planet, in the provinces and federally. Like the United States government gets by with a

00:09:52.460 cabinet that's something like one-third the size of Canada's. And, you know, the United States

00:09:56.600 government's a pretty big beast. Some of that is, I think, Westminster parliaments, you know,

00:10:01.640 the American cabinet is actually fixed by legislation. If you want to add cabinet posts,

00:10:05.840 you got to go to Congress and create a department, whereas, you know, Canada, Britain, that kind of

00:10:11.320 thing. The prime minister, the premier just snaps his finger, and you have created a ministry.

00:10:18.220 And it's like it's inflation ministry, because, you know, you want to make you want to make someone

00:10:23.140 happy, you make them a ministry, they got a pay bump, they get to sit on the front bench, they get

00:10:27.040 bigger office, all sorts of stuff. And you can make geographic regions happier, demographic,

00:10:33.340 religious, racial, whatever it is. And within caucus, you can placate potential internal enemies

00:10:40.760 by making them ministers, and Smith had a lot of enemies when she became leader,

00:10:44.480 so it was no surprise she had a very, very big cabinet.

00:10:47.160 I think where it's going to be smaller, probably not going to,

00:10:49.980 I'd be surprised if it got to a reasonable size,

00:10:52.760 but I think you're right, Nigel, that it'll be smaller,

00:10:54.820 just not orders of magnitude smaller.

00:10:57.140 So it's not that she has to fill all of these gaps if she creates less gaps here.

00:11:00.720 But let's get your guys' bets on who's in, who's out,

00:11:05.580 out of the out of the lineup there between the new MLAs and reelected MLAs who are not currently in the cabinet that went into this election. So with you, Nigel, who do you think is in? Who do you think is out?

00:11:18.580 Quoting from my column that I published an hour ago.

00:11:22.920 I should read that.

00:11:24.340 You certainly, everybody should read it.

00:11:28.080 Agriculture Minister Nate Horner, one of the Horner dynasty of political operatives at both the provincial and the federal level.

00:11:39.640 The rancher.

00:11:41.560 Put him in finance.

00:11:44.080 Was it Doug Horner?

00:11:45.960 Was he his uncle or how are they related?

00:11:48.580 Because it's part of the Horner dynasty.

00:11:50.600 Yeah, I can't remember what the relationship is.

00:11:52.980 I know they're related.

00:11:53.840 But Doug Horner was actually finance minister under Redford, and he was a disaster.

00:11:59.000 Probably the second worst finance minister in Alberta after Joe Sisi.

00:12:03.480 But it's not congenital.

00:12:04.860 No, well, they're different men, and they get the stand on their own.

00:12:08.140 And I know a lot of his caucus colleagues speak very highly of Nate Horner.

00:12:12.080 But yeah, I think he's one of the names that I've been bandied about.

00:12:15.440 If he doesn't get health, he's going to get something high profile.

00:12:18.580 Brian Jean, go to justice.

00:12:21.480 He's one of only three lawyers, and generally justice goes with the solicitor general.

00:12:26.500 And solicitor general doesn't legally have to be a lawyer.

00:12:29.780 I was going to say, it should be a lawyer.

00:12:33.760 It's generally a bad idea, I think, to mix sometimes your profession with the ministry.

00:12:39.080 Former doctors tend to make really bad health ministers.

00:12:43.020 Former generals and admirals sometimes make bad defense ministers.

00:12:47.020 But when it comes to justice, you really need to be a lawyer.

00:12:51.720 And that used to historically not be a problem, because two-thirds of the politicians used to be lawyers.

00:12:55.080 That's not the case anymore.

00:12:57.620 But yeah, he's one of three lawyers, so I think there's a good chance he goes to justice.

00:13:01.880 And, you know, a lot of the fight with Ottawa is going to be over legislation,

00:13:07.040 over whether this can be done or that can be done.

00:13:09.440 Is this constitutional? How do we take it forward?

00:13:12.740 We're going to do our own thing. They're going to sue us.

00:13:14.780 You know, you need somebody.

00:13:16.400 And I think Gene has got the, I think he's got the intestinal fortitude to actually take that on and wouldn't need to be, wouldn't need to be handheld through the whole process.

00:13:25.980 The other one possible one for him, I'd say, would be health, because he's always talked more than a normal conservative would about health care.

00:13:34.720 That was one of the reasons he re-entered provincial politics after the death of his son, and he was upset with the health care system.

00:13:39.540 That being said, if you want to make sure someone is not able to ever challenge you for the leadership of your party, you make them health minister, because no health minister ever does well, because health is a disaster in Canada, and it always will be a disaster in Canada.

00:13:54.600 So you want to kill someone on your side, you put them in health.

00:13:57.440 That and social services.

00:13:58.840 Well, I don't want to kill Brian Jean that bad, so I'm just putting him in health.

00:14:02.960 Okay. Well, the other big fight that she's got on her hand if she chooses to accept it is

00:14:11.680 to sort out education. Right now, the ATA basically runs education. The Alberta Teachers Association 0.92

00:14:19.540 runs education in Alberta. It's got so much so that they even endorse their own candidates for

00:14:28.940 local school boards where they think is so it's a peculiar situation where you have the teachers

00:14:33.880 getting on the school board so they can adjudicate how education is done the at is behind all that

00:14:40.400 they were a huge uh third party player in the election you saw the ads you know stand for

00:14:44.920 education and uh i my fear is that if this government doesn't get a handle on education

00:14:53.160 and stop turning, allowing the education blob to turn out social justice warriors every year for graduation.

00:15:03.600 So is this a roundabout saying you think there's a particular person going to education? 1.00

00:15:07.120 Yeah, I am saying that Adriana LeGrand should leave education and take on health.

00:15:18.600 And the Demetrius Nicolaitis, who did so well in advanced education, should take on the big thing, the education K-12 system.

00:15:27.540 Interesting.

00:15:28.180 Well, it's a tough call for him, but I think he could do it.

00:15:31.720 I don't know if Nigel stole your thunder or not, but I don't know what your list is.

00:15:35.360 Who do you think is in?

00:15:36.020 Who do you think is out?

00:15:36.700 You know, my list is a similar number of people that are clearly going to be cabinet material.

00:15:40.240 And I should also say, and people who also might stay out.

00:15:43.980 Yeah, and where they might go is a little different.

00:15:47.060 Yes. Actually, a name, though, that didn't come up.

00:15:50.300 Well, you get one point if you get them in, and you get three points if you name the ministry.

00:15:54.540 I'm thinking I'm going to go on an odd one is Rick McIver for finance.

00:15:59.320 If you want to see somebody who's not afraid of actually pursuing a bit of austerity, he was known as Dr. No in municipal politics.

00:16:05.680 He also is good for quelling the PC wing of the party.

00:16:08.920 I mean, she's got a lot of unity issues still to work on right now.

00:16:12.180 I think McIver back into the cabinet fold and in a senior position could do that.

00:16:17.460 I think that is one thing I'm willing to say with an almost certainty is McIver is going back into cabinet.

00:16:22.100 Yeah, and it's a matter of where.

00:16:25.120 Likewise, with Gene and Sonny and Rebecca Schultz is saying, I mean, again, they were leadership contenders who stayed on.

00:16:34.740 They've been civil.

00:16:36.660 They're going to get cabinet spots.

00:16:38.700 I mean, Asani might go into an associate minister position or something like that, but I think Schultz, she's got a lot of gumption, and I know Nigel's column.

00:16:47.120 Schultz is, I think, going to get a pretty secret post.

00:16:49.100 I think she, is she one of the other lawyers, one of the three lawyers?

00:16:52.320 Is she a lawyer?

00:16:53.260 I'm not aware of that.

00:16:54.060 I'm not sure.

00:16:54.960 I'm not sure.

00:16:56.520 The other one is Red Deer South.

00:17:03.120 Stefan?

00:17:03.760 Jason Stefan.

00:17:04.720 Jason Stephan, he's currently on the back benches, but he supported her in the leadership.

00:17:08.420 And he's one of only three lawyers, which, you know, puts him on a short list.

00:17:13.160 I don't know if Stephan would go into justice or not.

00:17:15.100 I don't know about justice.

00:17:15.800 Yeah, that'd be a bit of a leap, but he might go into cabinet.

00:17:18.360 Going oddly with a new name, like getting around that donut, Sony playing Cyril Turton

00:17:22.620 has kind of quietly put his time in as a backbencher, but he's been solid, actually.

00:17:28.020 You know, he's a reasonable guy.

00:17:30.020 He's personable and bright.

00:17:32.140 I like his name.

00:17:32.800 It's a cowboy name.

00:17:33.520 Yeah.

00:17:33.840 I don't know if you'd see him again in one of those top roles of finance or health or something,

00:17:38.540 but I suspect we could see him in there.

00:17:40.260 He's in the Edmonton Donut.

00:17:41.600 Exactly.

00:17:42.180 Which is another good short list to be. 1.00

00:17:43.400 She needs some strength in there and municipal affairs, perhaps, or something like that, transportation. 0.99

00:17:48.940 We might see Turton put into something like that.

00:17:53.680 Anyone big or prominent that you expect not to see him?

00:17:59.180 Any snubbings?

00:18:00.600 Well, I mean, I don't think we're going to see Jason Nixon in, even though he got his seat.

00:18:03.840 Surprise, a conservative one, Rimby Rocky Mountain House Sundry.

00:18:07.660 Yeah, his cabinet time is done.

00:18:11.300 I don't see any relationships so soured, perhaps aside from that,

00:18:15.720 where it was just still so tightly tied to the Kenney government

00:18:18.720 that she would completely eliminate necessarily them from cabinet.

00:18:22.600 None there standing out to me.

00:18:24.200 Nigel, I think Jason Nixon is one of the big question marks over this.

00:18:28.100 I think he's generally considered competent for cabinet.

00:18:30.880 But, you know, managed to make a lot of internal enemies over the years. He's a very elbows-up political player and seen as the enforcer. He was a tied domi of Jason Kenney and very much tied to kind of the, particularly the, even though he wasn't health minister, he was an instrumental guy during the Kenney government and kind of got the stink of mandates or lockdowns on him, even though it was not his ministry.

00:18:56.940 Sorry. He'd be a controversial move, I think, to bring back. But he is competent. Do you think

00:19:05.280 we're going to see him back in? No, but I will give you the thinking that would make it possible

00:19:11.660 for you to get past those old animosities. There is an expression that you keep your friends close

00:19:17.300 and your enemies closer. All right, he has not been an enthusiastic supporter of Daniel Smith.

00:19:23.580 left out there

00:19:25.400 in the outer part of the solar system

00:19:27.900 who knows what mischief

00:19:30.040 he might get up to

00:19:31.280 so bring him in

00:19:33.500 you said he was an enforcer

00:19:37.260 that's certainly the impression

00:19:38.760 that we've had

00:19:40.900 from the news clippings

00:19:42.160 you're going to need an enforcer

00:19:45.160 when you're dealing with Ottawa

00:19:46.980 maybe there is a place

00:19:48.720 for that man's voice

00:19:50.200 at that table

00:19:51.720 when they're plotting how to deal with Mr. Trudeau.

00:19:56.800 So that would be the rationale that you would use

00:19:59.820 if you were making the case for bringing back Mr. Nixon into cabinet.

00:20:05.540 That said, I can't see it happening.

00:20:09.960 But you certainly need that kind of bullsiness for the next couple of years.

00:20:17.480 So there's one cabinet post I want to talk about, and it's a weird cabinet post.

00:20:21.160 It's one that premiers often take for themselves. It's one Kenny took for himself. That's intergovernmental affairs.

00:20:27.900 On almost every province, that's a boring-ass job.

00:20:31.540 It's more or less the scheduler for meetings with other premiers in between ministries. 1.00

00:20:36.840 It's generally a bullshit job. 0.85

00:20:39.080 But it has the potential to be a very important job in Alberta, although I think you probably want to change the name of it. 0.98

00:20:45.000 It's essentially the Minister for Fighting Ottawa. I don't know.

00:20:48.500 Time for our own Ministry of Defence.

00:20:51.160 Minister of Ottawa. Now we're talking. Yeah. I don't know if you come up with a sexier name for it.

00:20:56.920 It's the Alberta Sovereignty Ministry or whatever it is.

00:21:00.880 But, you know, Smith, normally it goes, it's called Intergovernmental Affairs.

00:21:06.220 And it goes to someone and it's a consolation prize. It's a hyper junior post.

00:21:11.520 Or it gets carried by the premier and it's like a, you know, kind of uses a symbolic thing that I'm going to fight Ottawa.

00:21:17.000 Do you think we see this be broken out as its own ministry again and beefed up into a more prominent senior position, or do you think it gets kind of carried along as a little attendum?

00:21:32.460 The symbolism of Daniel Smith taking that particular post would be significant.

00:21:37.760 Well, Kenny did it, though, and it didn't really say much after the initial announcement.

00:21:41.100 Well, that's because it was Jason Kenny who made the decisions that he made.

00:21:46.140 But I'm not sure it actually says that much, because there's two ways you can look at it fairly.

00:21:51.660 One is, it's so important that the Premier carries it.

00:21:54.480 The other is, it's so unimportant that the Premier can also carry it,

00:21:58.620 and didn't actually assign anyone to focus on it as their full-time job.

00:22:03.280 And I think both of those are probably fair ways to look at it, Corey.

00:22:05.920 Well, if we were looking at it, I'm sorry, Corey, go ahead.

00:22:08.200 No, that's okay.

00:22:08.820 I was just going to say, if we were making the argument in New Brunswick, yeah, maybe you could say that.

00:22:12.280 But Alberta and Ottawa, the lines are already drawn.

00:22:15.700 So we know it's not an insignificant thing.

00:22:18.300 I know that, but Kenny took it and it was, you know, he would issue some terse news releases and huff and puff at a podium once in a while, but there was no one focused on it full time.

00:22:30.180 So I'll kind of just rephrase the question for you, Corey.

00:22:32.960 Does it say more about its importance if the Premier takes it personally, or does it say more if the Premier says, I'm putting someone in charge of this and it's their job full time to, you know, man the ramparts against Ottawa?

00:22:48.080 I still think it's more important if the Premier takes it themselves and they can go head to head. I mean, not just the optics of I'm going to take on Trudeau and whoever that might be, and it'll look better for the Premier down the road, too.

00:23:01.340 I mean, that always pulls well with those types of battles.

00:23:03.480 If she does something, the problem was Kenny took it and didn't do anything with it.

00:23:07.860 You know, he postured, he talked, and I think Premier Smith sounds like she's ready to go to battle.

00:23:12.480 And it gives her an out to reduce the cabinet a little as well when there's no sense bloating it more when we've already got an issue of a large cabinet.

00:23:19.000 I just really don't think the premier taking a ministry says it's more important because, you know, a government that's hyper focused on finance, the premier doesn't also take the finance role.

00:23:28.420 They understand you still need someone who's focused on it full time.

00:23:30.900 the premier is the the premier still will talk about finance taxes spending if you're committed

00:23:36.980 to health you know smith did a lot on health or at least focused a lot on health uh between her

00:23:41.780 election as ucp leader and election generally she didn't take the health ministry she talked about

00:23:46.580 it a ton so i don't know being in her governmental affairs i don't think uh means she talks more or

00:23:51.540 less about it i think it actually says more if it's a standalone so someone's it's someone's

00:23:55.620 job to focus on it all day every day and she could talk about it as much or as little she likes one

00:24:00.420 way or another. Potentially, but I mean, again, it's just almost a duplication. I mean, if there's

00:24:06.180 one minister there, they might steal her thunder a little if it comes to battles with Ottawa. I mean,

00:24:09.460 she doesn't have to make an announcement that I'm taking this ministry. It's just a matter of

00:24:12.980 I'm not recreating it. I think it should be called the State Department. Next to the defense.

00:24:20.660 I won't get too into it because we're going to waste all our time, but I think we should just

00:24:24.340 totally reorganize cabinet. We should have a ministry of the interior, and you can consolidate

00:24:29.780 a ton of current bullshit ministries into the ministry of the interior. And then you have a 0.93

00:24:35.540 state department, everything that's looking out. You know, I, yeah, you may be right, Derek. One

00:24:40.840 thing is for sure, we're looking at a very special time in Alberta's relationships with Ottawa. It

00:24:46.520 isn't always been this adversarial, but now it is. So that's what's going to define, first of all,

00:24:52.240 the next few years, and secondly, how she composes her cabinet. Yeah. Okay. Well, speaking of Ottawa, 0.83

00:24:59.620 Let's go to Ottawa for a little bit here.

00:25:03.880 There's a part of me that feels bad for David Johnson right now.

00:25:07.820 You know, it's not elder abuse the way the Democrats are using Joe Biden.

00:25:11.760 I feel like that's just like, come on, let great-grandpa retire.

00:25:15.720 He's senile.

00:25:17.000 You're abusing him by putting him up there.

00:25:19.140 David Johnson's still got his marbles.

00:25:20.660 He seems to still be fully clicking along.

00:25:24.440 But I feel like he was almost abused by being put in this position.

00:25:27.520 He should have obviously said no. I actually think he probably accepted it with the best of intentions. And even if he was doing a good job, which I don't think he is, but even if he was, the perception is that he cannot, because he clearly has too many ample conflicts of interest in his relationship with Justin Trudeau.

00:25:47.660 So he's taken all of this abuse, I think rightfully so. And then parliament voted, a majority of parliament, all the opposition voted for an NDP motion. And the NDP are not known as the toughest critics of the liberals around. They voted demanding he step aside. And he refused, saying, well, but my mandate comes from the prime minister, all but saying, I'm Trudeau's man. You can't fire me because you didn't hire me. I don't work for Trudeau. I don't work for the representatives of the people.

00:26:15.860 I work with Trudeau. And then I believe it was yesterday he appeared at a parliamentary committee. And it was just sad. He's a man who's been generally held in great esteem. I mean, he might be the definition of a Laurentian elite, but a man of genuine public service and just totally unable to answer questions satisfactorily.

00:26:39.680 He's now spending oodles of taxpayers money on hiring navigator at crisis communications firms that try and rehabilitate his image and what he's doing.

00:26:49.680 It's a fall far from, it's a fall, far fall from grace.

00:26:55.180 Nigel, is there any way at all for Johnson to salvage his reputation at this point?

00:27:04.480 Not for most Canadians.

00:27:06.980 like you i started off feeling sorry for him wishing that he hadn't taken it on understanding

00:27:14.500 that he probably did it with the best of intentions as a national service former governor general who

00:27:21.940 would be come in and with his reputation look at everything and then issue an authoritative report

00:27:29.260 But the more this has gone on, the more I am less sorry

00:27:36.500 because I'm thinking, what part of conflict of interest is it

00:27:39.940 that you don't understand the appearances?

00:27:44.920 He can be, and probably is, entirely honest and dispassionate

00:27:50.260 in his considerations.

00:27:52.740 I am prepared.

00:27:53.980 I have no reason to think otherwise.

00:27:56.220 But look at the people that he has now gathered around him.

00:28:03.260 One of the, let me just give you some chapter and verse here.

00:28:07.560 There was a particular individual, Sheila R. Block,

00:28:13.360 a lawyer who acts as general counsel for Johnson's office

00:28:17.720 while he's been investigating China.

00:28:20.440 Turns out she's a major liberal donor, as recently as this fall.

00:28:25.440 Retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Yacobucchi, who was...

00:28:29.840 Yacobucci, I think.

00:28:30.600 Yacobucci, probably.

00:28:32.060 That one kills me, too. 1.00

00:28:33.180 Don't spend much time with Italians, sadly. 0.98

00:28:36.860 Anyway, Johnson hired him at the clearum of having a conflict of interest.

00:28:42.760 Well, Johnson was on the Trudeau Foundation.

00:28:47.040 The Italian, Yacobucci, was on the Trudeau Foundation.

00:28:53.080 And they've been buddies since university.

00:28:54.640 And they've been buddies since universities, and he works at the same firm as Sheila R. Block.

00:29:01.060 He literally has a conflict of interest with the guy he hired to determine if he has a conflict of interest.

00:29:07.480 It's madness.

00:29:09.280 And there's one more here, Morris Rosenberg, who wrote the report for the government saying there was no foreign interference.

00:29:16.520 Well, bless my soul, he is a former president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation.

00:29:22.340 Now, you would not actually, by the way, just to give credit where credit is due,

00:29:28.300 I am relying on two sources here.

00:29:29.720 One is Black Locks, which is amazing, and also the Toronto Sun,

00:29:34.000 who I think they probably relied on Black Locks as well.

00:29:36.980 But, I mean, what we have here is a little group of people.

00:29:40.160 They all swim in the same swimming pool, never mind whether they ski at the same resorts.

00:29:45.960 They all drink the same bathwater.

00:29:48.480 And bless my soul, if they don't all think that certain things are self-evidently natural and obvious,

00:29:56.560 when in actual fact to everybody on the outside, they are not.

00:30:00.120 That is the problem that Mr. Johnson has put himself into.

00:30:04.320 He just has such infinite trust in this little group of Laurentian elites.

00:30:10.460 You can't imagine that anybody else would have a problem with it, when in fact, a lot of people do.

00:30:16.000 Corey, I'm going to ask you an impossible question.

00:30:18.480 just do your absolute best. If there was no way for David Johnson to step down, if it was illegal

00:30:28.980 on pain of death, he must continue to do the job. What do you think he could do to salvage his

00:30:35.140 reputation and any belief by any reasonable person in Canada that the exercise he's conducting

00:30:42.780 is actually going to be fair, thorough, and proper.

00:30:47.980 Well, he would have to come up with an exercise that appears thorough and proper,

00:30:53.220 and he hasn't even done that.

00:30:55.140 I mean, if he'd come forward with a well-prepared, you know,

00:30:58.440 sin-experienced statesman, and his performance under questioning has been appalling.

00:31:03.960 He doesn't know the answers to questions.

00:31:06.460 He's admitting that he didn't thoroughly investigate things.

00:31:09.500 He didn't even make a phone call to Han Dong before clearing him.

00:31:13.440 And again, those are allegations.

00:31:16.020 Who knows if it's true?

00:31:17.120 But he didn't even doctor the guy.

00:31:18.500 No.

00:31:18.840 And so, I mean, he could have, if he'd put out a detailed report that looked like, you know, document your inquiries, your conclusions, then people could say, okay, the guy gave it a very serious investigation and he came to the conclusion.

00:31:32.900 He might not agree with the conclusions, but it was a genuine effort.

00:31:35.680 But we're not seeing evidence that he even did that.

00:31:38.860 So, yeah, if he's stuck in it for life, I'd say, okay, you know what?

00:31:41.300 People aren't satisfied with my conclusions.

00:31:43.780 Give me another four weeks to put this together.

00:31:46.260 Try to get some other people to help him with it then and have a good, solid report to give out.

00:31:50.320 Because that looked like something a high schooler would have put out as an assignment, not a man of his stature.

00:31:55.040 It looks like he Googled everything.

00:31:57.040 And, you know, the other thing that he needs and doesn't have, and this is what he would ask for if he was put in the position that you're addressing from Derek's question.

00:32:06.160 the reporter does not have power to subpoena anybody. So he's never going to be able to

00:32:12.320 talk to the people who really know what's going on and get them to fess up.

00:32:16.080 All we got was, we don't need an inquiry, and I can't tell you why.

00:32:21.520 Take my word for it. I'm sorry, no one's word is that good enough. Okay,

00:32:28.080 we're going to stick in Ottawa for a little bit here.

00:32:29.840 I don't want to go back to COVID. I got so sick of it. I know some of you probably want to talk about it forever.

00:32:38.720 You were sick of COVID?

00:32:39.580 I never got sick from COVID, but I'm sick of COVID. But, I mean, there's still some accounts to settle here.

00:32:50.120 And Blacklock's reporter, you know, who we contract to do a lot of great investigative journalism, they found a doozy of a memo.

00:33:01.940 So bear with me, folks. There's a bit here, but this is really interesting stuff.

00:33:07.440 So this was a secret memo for the Privy Council Office.

00:33:12.800 The Privy Council Office is essentially the bureaucratic wing of the prime minister's office.

00:33:16.420 And it states that injuries and vaccines caused by the COVID-19 vaccine, I should say vaccines, there's quite a few different ones.

00:33:26.420 Those injuries or deaths have the potential to quote to quote have the potential to shake public confidence.

00:33:34.420 Adverse effects following immunization news reports and the government's response to them have the potential to shake public confidence in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout.

00:33:43.420 rollout said the memo titled testing behaviorally informed messaging in response to severe adverse

00:33:50.620 events following immunization that's a very bureaucratic title if i've ever heard one

00:33:55.900 uh so black clocks reporter got this through an access to information requests

00:34:00.460 um approximately five months after the department of health granted its first license to the pfizer

00:34:06.860 BioNTech vaccine. Here's a quote from the memo that really stood out. The current study proactively tested the impact of various messaging strategies delivered through different messengers in response to a hypothetical adverse effect following immunization.

00:34:26.860 It goes on to say that they need to minimize the perception or impact of deaths or injuries, stating that there's a chance of it happening, the chance of happening to me is one in a million rather than it has happened five different times.

00:34:45.080 Now, it's one of those cases where both will be factually correct.

00:34:49.840 You know, if you have five million people, a million people, five deaths, and, you know, it's the same numbers.

00:35:01.800 It's not lying, but it's spin.

00:35:06.060 And I guess that's the discussion here is, was this, governments message everything.

00:35:14.040 They spin everything. I mean, that's just politics. That's just government. There is literally nothing that comes out of the government, no matter how benign, that it's not spun, that it's not messaged.

00:35:24.400 But does this cross the line from kind of the usual government spin into propaganda?

00:35:30.660 Yes, it does. They knew that there were people were going to be harmed by these vaccines.

00:35:39.380 they knew that then uh the vaccines at the time that this was all being done

00:35:44.340 were not fully tested it couldn't be there was a big rush on it

00:35:50.260 and they knew there were there was something was going to go wrong so they said well when it does

00:35:54.500 we still need to keep control of the situation we want everybody to to do as they're told and shut

00:36:01.300 up so what are we going to say and this is the kind of discussion that would go on in any

00:36:08.340 communications department about well just a second let's choose positive words not not words

00:36:14.260 that condemn ourselves uh but what's the proof of the of the pudding i guess those people who

00:36:22.900 doubted them in may 2021 can now look and see what the public health agency has reported in

00:36:29.060 canada namely that out of the nearly 100 million dollar 100 million doses administered there were

00:36:36.420 20,000 serious adverse effects, including more than 400 deaths. Now, what they when they announce

00:36:46.180 those numbers, which I believe, they also say, but of course, we have no evidence that the death was

00:36:52.100 connected to the vaccine. Although they certainly made no bones about connecting any death during

00:36:58.420 COVID to COVID. Remember, we had the story of kid who died of brain cancer in Okotoks. And he

00:37:05.140 happened to have COVID when he was dead. The Alberta government said that was a COVID death.

00:37:09.620 Yeah and and people would go in for one thing and be tested while they were in there and

00:37:14.580 they got shot at a lockdown anti-lockdown protest they probably call it a COVID death.

00:37:19.220 So you know there was a very definite intention at the outset to deceive that's what that says

00:37:25.300 and that's propaganda. Corey okay let's try to untangle personal feelings about about this stuff

00:37:32.100 Oh, I have no personal feelings on this. Yeah, but more of a hypothetical question. I mean, and the number of adverse effects and deaths is widely disputed. There is some evidence the government's not been, provincial governments have not been particularly forthright about this.

00:37:49.400 But let's speak in the hypothetical for a moment that is relevant to this. And if you are, you know, you're in charge of the government here. And yeah, there's going to be deaths from this vaccine, but you believe that on balance, this is hugely, it'll save far, far more lives.

00:38:10.160 that it is objectively a public good. Would it be wrong to lie about it to get a higher vaccine

00:38:20.620 uptake if, you know, you've got the evidence in front of you and it is clear as day, it's black

00:38:27.300 and white, this is going to, on net, save a lot of lives. Is it a good idea to tell, is it just a

00:38:35.460 white lie? No, it's still wrong to lie to the public. Make your case better than based on those

00:38:41.780 facts to make it to the public. There's some people that they're never going to accept

00:38:45.760 vaccinations as being safe or effective. There's still people clamoring about, you know, the false

00:38:52.100 story of vaccines causing autism from childhood vaccines years ago. You're not going to get

00:38:56.600 through to them anyway. And we've seen they will lose their jobs. They will do anything to avoid

00:39:01.880 being vaccinated. So there's no sense spinning to try and change your approach to them.

00:39:06.380 Anyhow, just on a case of morality, I know when you start taking that leap thinking, well,

00:39:11.840 I'll lie to them for their own good. We know that can really, really go downhill really quickly. And

00:39:17.640 as Nigel dug up too, I mean, we're seeing, and this is where their lie could catch up with them.

00:39:23.100 I mean, we're seeing some legal compensations have been paid out into the millions now to some people

00:39:27.420 for vaccine injuries. If it's getting determined that the government hid some of the potential

00:39:31.320 risk from these, those settlements are going to go up a lot more. And if they've just been truthful

00:39:35.900 to begin with, rather than trying to spin, they could say, look, we've put the risk, it was a very

00:39:40.280 minimal risk, a very outlying risk, and the benefits gained, they could claim, or, you know,

00:39:45.120 I don't want to argue with the viewers, but from reducing COVID deaths were worth it, fine. But

00:39:50.240 now that it looks like there was deception, boy, this is far from a finished issue now.

00:39:55.480 but it's a fine line i mean the memo did not recommend lying no um it just recommends a very

00:40:03.960 strong spin on things a tilt on things yeah and as i said like you know the difference between uh

00:40:09.800 one in a million or you know five people out of five million it's not that's not a lie that's just

00:40:19.000 you know statistics them statistics and lies i mean it's it's it is technically it's factual

00:40:24.280 it's just a different way of looking at it. Is that wrong? Yeah. Just don't sugarcoat it.

00:40:31.880 Put it out with confidence and still say these are the numbers. And I can strongly recommend

00:40:35.880 you do this. I mean, put your pressures on, you know, I really think it would be responsible for

00:40:41.160 people to do this and things like that. But if you're going to start, you know, this is all the

00:40:46.040 benefits and then quickly to mumble, this is the risk. That's not that's already hiding a risk.

00:40:50.100 And I don't see it personally as a moral stance to take.

00:40:54.440 Nigel, I think for most people, COVID is the rear of the mirror.

00:40:58.600 They don't want to relitigate it anymore.

00:41:02.760 I don't think there's going to be any real consequence in all of this, right?

00:41:07.480 Probably not.

00:41:08.760 Not with this government.

00:41:11.340 I think if there is a consequence, it's just long-term distrust.

00:41:15.300 It's just long-term distrust that, I mean, it's unlikely in our lifetimes we'll see another thing like this again.

00:41:21.560 But it could absolutely happen.

00:41:24.120 And I think it's going to, this kind of thing reduces people's trust in vaccines in cases where it is a good vaccine and it's appropriate.

00:41:34.920 Like, you know, there's a lot of people who weren't anti-vax as a policy.

00:41:39.400 They're generally pro-vaccine, but had questions about this.

00:41:43.840 Hasn't been tested enough.

00:41:45.300 Are the companies, are these pharmaceutical companies being open enough? Are governments being open? And they were hesitant, got it, thinking, okay, I guess I'll try, I'll do it. Then they look at this stuff and they say, not next time. And it'll be the same thing, I think, all the time.

00:42:01.760 It'll be the same thing with lockdowns, because I know some of our viewers will disagree with this.

00:42:05.560 I think there are theoretically extreme enough circumstances that could justify a lockdown.

00:42:11.600 And I hate saying that, but I mean, you know, like Hollywood style apocalypse, bubonic plagues.

00:42:20.180 OK, the problem is next time there, if this happens again in living memory.

00:42:26.920 Not enough people are going to believe it. I'm going to say, I remember the last time you told us to stay in our houses.

00:42:31.760 but walmart did fine screw you i'm going out and so it just damages trust in these institutions

00:42:37.600 uh that theoretically need to be trusted in certain circumstances and they've now they've

00:42:43.120 clearly squandered and wasted that trust they have and you know isn't it interesting that in the same

00:42:47.440 week in the same pipeline program we're talking about two issues where public trust has been

00:42:52.960 seriously undermined by the actions of the government i mean this is not a bunch of little

00:42:58.080 ultra ultra people running around saying hey you can't trust the government the government has

00:43:02.960 appointed a special rapporteur who should have known better now nobody trusts the outcome anything

00:43:08.040 that he says as a consequence yeah now you've got a story like this uh you know they knew stuff that

00:43:13.680 they weren't telling us they could have been straight up but they chose not to it gets over

00:43:18.120 the course of a year it just gets worse and worse and worse yeah all right uh we have just a tiny

00:43:24.360 Tiny bit of time to sneak in under the line. The latest rape, COVID rape hotel. Perhaps, perhaps that's overstating the case too much. Perhaps not. We don't know. But if sexual assaults, that's a broad term that can mean bad to really, really bad. 0.89

00:43:41.720 So, Michelle Rampelgarner, Calgary Conservative MP, using her privilege as a member of Parliament to demand questions from the government, got some interesting stuff.

00:43:53.340 So, the Public Health Agency of Canada says it's aware of two sexual assault complaints filed by travellers. 0.94

00:44:00.200 I love how they say travellers. Let's back up. These are not travellers. 1.00

00:44:03.580 They were detainees.

00:44:04.500 These are people kidnapped by the federal government. Western Centre was actually the very first media outlet to break this.

00:44:10.860 People will be returning from overseas and you don't have a vaccine passport.

00:44:16.560 The federal government literally kidnapped you if you didn't willfully come with them.

00:44:20.680 And they were snatching people up from the from airports.

00:44:23.360 We had one who was snatched up from the Calgary Airport, I believe.

00:44:29.140 Whisked away in a vehicle, put in one of these COVID prison hotels, and they didn't even inform the family. 0.54

00:44:35.320 The family's like, where the hell is it?

00:44:36.480 Just whisked away, essentially kidnapped without violating the criminal code, just kidnapped. And so people are put in these so-called quarantine places. So I guess I couldn't even finish my quote because the federal government refers to them as travelers. No, they were prisoners. These were prisoners who have not been charged with any real crime.

00:44:54.840 But they were aware of two sexual assault complaints filed by travelers while abiding by the government's hooting quarantine measures since March 1st, 2020.

00:45:09.920 So Garner says that this week in response to an order paper question, I filed the government revealed that a second sexual assault against a traveler allegedly occurred at one of the government quarantine hotels nearly three months later.

00:45:21.800 This is because the federal health minister, Patty Andrew, she told Parliament that she'd taken actions to prevent further assaults. Nothing else is going to happen. Rape hotels are not a thing, but it turned out there was another one.

00:45:39.600 I guess we don't have the quarantine jails anymore, Corey, but I don't know. What does this say? Government said no more rapes. No, no. 0.84

00:45:49.700 I guess we've got to be quick, but it's appalling if the government's going to seize people, if they're going to detain people, that makes them fully responsible for the safety of the people they've snatched up, and they drop the ball, and they put those people at risk and perhaps into harm.

00:46:02.960 And it's got to be investigated, and it's just unconscionable.

00:46:08.260 I think we're going to get really here much.

00:46:10.480 I haven't seen this reported anywhere else yet in the media outside the Western Standard.

00:46:14.560 Maybe it's been picked up somewhere, but I don't know, Dijil.

00:46:18.040 Do you think there's any consequence for this? 0.98

00:46:20.080 Liberals kidnapping people, putting them in hotels where they're getting sexually assaulted?

00:46:24.060 You're asking whether much comes of it when the police investigate the police.

00:46:28.040 I doubt that there will be much consequence.

00:46:30.200 The police investigating the police.

00:46:31.540 Sounds a lot like a special rapporteur.

00:46:35.280 Okay, well, we're going to wrap it up there.

00:46:36.900 We're right at the wire.

00:46:37.700 Nigel, Corey, thank you very much.

00:46:40.140 And thank all of you for joining us today.

00:46:42.400 If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, go to westernstandard.news.

00:46:45.980 Click on Membership.

00:46:46.980 it's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all Western Standard content.

00:46:52.580 Thank you very much for joining us on the pipeline today, and God bless.

00:46:56.740 Here's an update on commodity prices in Lethbridge for today. Cash barley is unchanged at $4.12,

00:47:02.500 feed wheat is steady at $4.12, and corn is down $2 at $4.04 per metric ton.

00:47:08.100 In the milling wheat markets, July Minneapolis futures dropped $0.1675 to $7.9975,

00:47:14.260 with local heart rate spring bid for June movement at $10.50 per bushel. Looking at canola,

00:47:19.700 nearby futures are up $0.50 at $6.70.40 per ton, with delivered values for June movement at $15.42

00:47:26.500 per bushel. In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are trading at $0.33 per pound

00:47:32.100 and yellow peas are holding at $11.25 per bushel. And in the cattle markets,

00:47:36.980 August live cattle slipped $0.60 at $1.73.90 per hundredweight. For more information on pricing

00:47:43.460 or picked up options give me a call at 403 394 1711 i'm matt musicum at marketplace commodities

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Western Standard - June 08, 2023

The Pipeline： Ottawa vax propaganda

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