Western Standard - The Pipeline： Poilievre calls non-confidence vote

00:00:00.000 Today and welcome to the pipeline of the Western Standard.

00:00:26.360 Today is March 20, 20, 20, 24, 23, I actually have gotten away without mistakes so far.

00:00:34.520 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. I'm joined by Western

00:00:38.760 Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford. How are you, Nigel?

00:00:41.560 Hi, I'm well. Good to be here.

00:00:43.160 And Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:47.320 Good as always.

00:00:48.280 Always.

00:00:48.760 Just a smiling ray of sunshine.

00:00:50.520 You're always such a happy guy.

00:00:51.720 He is.

00:00:52.600 Okay. All right. Well, we've got good headlines for you today.

00:00:55.720 They pair Polyev and the conservatives hold a motion of non-confidence in the liberal government and the carbon tax.

00:01:06.080 Surprise, surprise, it did not pass and we're not having an election.

00:01:11.560 It's not anti-Semitism if the government-funded liberal media does it.

00:01:16.100 La Presse, or La Sturmer, as I'm calling them now, put out a 1930s Nazi-style cartoon caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, oh, we're going to show it to you.

00:01:31.440 You don't need a PhD in Holocaust studies when you look at this to be, oh, it does not smell good.

00:01:42.320 It does not smell good at all.

00:01:46.100 former Calgary mayor Nahid Nenshi leading the NDP leadership parade. No polls out yet,

00:01:52.960 but all indications are that he's sort of the early front runner, but it's an interesting race.

00:01:56.920 So we're going to talk about the NDP leadership race here. And speaking of Calgary mayors,

00:02:01.360 Gondax graffiti grantifa. Some grannies go out graffitiing some recalled Gondax signs, 0.96

00:02:10.140 not bothering to even cover their faces. So police investigating some anti-democratic

00:02:15.220 graffiti going on, I guess, opposed to the efforts to recall Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek.

00:02:22.240 All right, well, let's start with the vote of non-confidence. I guess you could call it a stunt,

00:02:28.460 but essentially, most things in Parliament, by all parties, are always stunts, but they're done

00:02:33.840 with an intention. The Conservatives wanted, you know, with April 1st, the carbon tax going up

00:02:38.940 Again, even the Ontario Liberals opposed to a provincial carbon tax in Ontario now.

00:02:46.620 Pretty much everybody other than Justin Trudeau and Stephen Gilbo are off the carbon tax train.

00:02:54.260 Carbon tax appears headed for a calamitous, you know, I think of the train at the end of Back to the Future 3

00:03:01.480 when it goes over the incomplete railroad tracks.

00:03:04.740 That's where I feel like the carbon tax is headed right now.

00:03:08.060 But Poliev calls a motion of non-confidence in the government, predictably the NDP, back it.

00:03:16.040 I guess, are you surprised we're not having an election over the carbon tax right now?

00:03:20.000 Not in the least.

00:03:20.760 The NDP don't have any money to go to war with, so it would be very much not in their interests to put themselves in the position of having to defend their point of view towards the general public.

00:03:32.800 but speaking of the general public, I think the polls I saw this morning was something like 70%

00:03:38.720 of Canadians are against the carbon tax. Against the carbon tax hike. I'm not sure if it's 70%

00:03:45.200 against the carbon tax itself, but against the hiking and a solid plurality pushing majority

00:03:50.160 are just the answer period. Everybody understands how inflationary it is. So I'm not even sure that

00:03:56.400 it's just the hike they're against, but certainly the idea that we're going to make everything

00:04:02.720 from gasoline, home heating, fuel, and groceries via the trucking industry, everything is going to

00:04:09.800 be more expensive. People are fed up with it. We're broke already. Corey, there was a, I'd say,

00:04:16.260 about a close to zero percent chance this motion of non-confidence passed the House of Commons.

00:04:24.060 Do you think, what do you think was the point of this for Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives?

00:04:29.520 That's just a way to take over the news scroll. You use your moment and strike at the underbelly of the Liberals where they're soft and vulnerable. As we're saying, this is just not a popular tax, whether it's with other Canadians, whether it's with premiers. And Justin Trudeau is just choosing this as a hill to die on.

00:04:49.320 So, you know, when they smell something that the Liberals are just fixated on, that they're terribly unpopular with,

00:04:55.120 they want to make sure that the Liberals are up there trying to defend this thing as much as possible, as often as possible.

00:05:01.860 It's political brinkmanship, and it's smart political brinkmanship, because you're not getting anything else past it.

00:05:06.180 Well, it very much ties the Liberals to the carbon tax.

00:05:09.620 Remind everybody.

00:05:10.340 Not that anybody doubted it, but it's a strong reminder.

00:05:13.020 Yeah.

00:05:13.960 And tying the NDP to it. 0.95

00:05:16.020 Yeah.

00:05:16.240 I mean, Matt Gurney at the line had an interesting column today about, you know, why the essential coalition agreement between the two is so disastrous for the NDP is previously when liberals become unpopular, people who get disaffected, they can go two ways.

00:05:34.900 They can go to the NDP and they go to the conservatives.

00:05:37.040 But if you voted liberal in the past and you're angry at the liberals, you can't go to the other liberal coalition partner.

00:05:43.620 They're all going to the conservatives now.

00:05:47.840 So I think a lot of this is also about tying the NDP to it, not just that tying the NDP to the liberals, but tying the NDP to the carbon tax and the carbon tax hike.

00:05:58.020 You know, I'm not sure what the good moves are for the liberals right now.

00:06:01.320 The carbon tax is grossly unpopular, but the one liberal retreat, the big liberal retreat we've seen from it,

00:06:10.720 which was essentially meant for Atlantic Canada MPs who are in trouble,

00:06:16.220 exempting home heating fuel, which is really just for Atlantic Canada, that did not help them.

00:06:22.140 It made them look weak, made it look like they didn't believe in their own policy.

00:06:25.520 It undermined their own policy. It undermined internal cohesion, angering Stephen Gilbeau, who, I guess, to his credit, is not about the politics of this.

00:06:35.360 He's just a fanatic who believes that paying the carbon tax will change the temperature.

00:06:41.580 But, you know, the worry, I guess these battle terms, with a retreat is a retreat can quickly turn into a route where you're no longer organized and you're in a panicked, disorderly run.

00:06:53.280 And that's where there's a lot of blood spilt.

00:06:59.540 Should the liberals stand by the carbon tax?

00:07:01.920 I think if I'm advising Trudeau, he has to stand by it.

00:07:06.340 He can't back away.

00:07:07.340 It's been such a marquee policy for the liberals.

00:07:09.520 If they back away from it, I don't think they get any credit for it.

00:07:12.800 I think they just look like they're trying to save their own skin.

00:07:15.560 Just for the pure politics of it.

00:07:17.880 Corey, if you're advising Justin Trudeau, do you tell him to scrap the carbon tax or stand by it?

00:07:22.340 Just for the politics of it.

00:07:23.040 Yeah, no, I really don't know. He's dead either way. They lost that moral high ground, as you said, when they retreated a bit in the Maritimes.

00:07:30.120 And as soon as they did that, you know, his sanctimonious speech when he was in Calgary, when Justin Trudeau said, you know, it's not my job to be popular.

00:07:37.880 It's my job to do the right thing. Well, you don't have that case to be made when you will weaken your own signature tax for political expediency.

00:07:46.800 That sounds like someone who's already lost, but he's just trying, kind of like Brian Mulroney, who left off as extremely unpopular, who, you know, tried to work on legacy and how he's remembered in the history books.

00:07:56.280 That sounded like someone more concerned about his legacy in the history books than someone who's actually even trying to keep in power.

00:08:01.040 Yeah, I can't see how they can extricate themselves. Either path, getting rid of it, they look weak and it could turn into a route. And standing by it, they're looking weak as well. He's in an untenable position. We're just waiting the clock out for the chance to get to an election. That's the reality of this.

00:08:14.860 You know, if there was an election this fall, Corey, he would really have no options.

00:08:20.500 But the election, if they go the distance, is in October of 2025.

00:08:26.640 Never underestimate the ability of the Canadian public to forget things.

00:08:31.760 If he backed away from it now, he's got 18 months to rebuild his strategy.

00:08:37.800 But I don't think that's actually what he's doing.

00:08:39.580 it very much looks to me as though they know they're going to lose in 2025 with or without

00:08:47.180 the common tax so they are now in the business of doing everything that they ever wanted to do

00:08:53.100 knowing that it can't cost them any more than it's already going to cost them and some of the things

00:08:58.820 are going to be very hard to put back together again for the incoming government whatever it is

00:09:02.820 so I think there's a you know they're kind of like a cornered starving bear right now like

00:09:08.560 they're like a wounded animal and that's what it said it's most dangerous they you know they um

00:09:14.320 they don't seem to have they're flailing they've already accepted death there's a famous there's a

00:09:19.520 famous story from the british warfare where the fellow is cornered he's standing beside a

00:09:27.120 barrel of gunpowder with a loaded pistol as as the bad guys break through he

00:09:32.800 virus, everybody dies. That's, that's the takedown strategy. Yeah, I think it's a combination of that

00:09:40.320 and also just trying to write the history books for after this election. I mean, there's a lot

00:09:45.600 of counting chickens before they're hatched here, but it just seems inconceivable that the liberals

00:09:51.280 pull it out at this point. They're so far down, so low. I mean, some of it's just exhaustion with

00:09:56.080 them too, so it doesn't matter which policy, what, you know, they're past their expiry date,

00:10:01.040 particularly Justin Trudeau. And I mean, the tax is a flashpoint. But even if they got rid of that,

00:10:07.200 I don't know if it would endear the public, as you said, never write anything off, especially

00:10:10.400 with 18 months. But I think their only play would be to have a new leader. I mean,

00:10:16.560 it worked in Alberta for like 40 years. It gets unpopular, get a new one. And it worked again. I

00:10:22.640 mean, Kenny was down. Kenny was the conservatives in Alberta were down by the NDP here by pretty

00:10:28.320 much as much as the Liberals are under the Conservatives federally. You know, a fresh coat

00:10:32.960 of paint can do wonders, but I don't think the Liberal grassroots, if you can even call them it,

00:10:39.120 the Liberal rank-and-file have quite the stomach for internal warfare that Alberta Conservatives

00:10:43.360 have, because that's Alberta Conservatives' favorite thing. That's our favorite thing to do.

00:10:46.480 Yeah, it's a specialty out here. Who would they get? Oh, it could be Freeland, it could be Kearney.

00:10:52.720 So far, I am not reassured.

00:10:57.020 No, but liberal voters might.

00:10:58.880 I don't think you're the target of that.

00:11:00.780 I wonder.

00:11:02.060 Okay, well, we'll switch gears here.

00:11:06.220 Speaking of liberals, we'll talk about a liberal newspaper, La Presse, funded by the liberal government.

00:11:13.540 I think it's the main French language, if I'm not mistaken, it's the main French paper in Montreal.

00:11:17.500 I think it's the second largest French paper, I believe.

00:11:23.020 Okay, it's one of the big ones in Quebec.

00:11:27.340 Published, let's throw it up on the screen.

00:11:31.180 So you'll see here, it is a cartoon caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

00:11:38.300 It's technically, I guess, a take on Nosferatu, a vampire from a movie in the 20s or something, but most of us don't recognize it for Nosferatu, the vampire. 0.51

00:11:54.560 We recognize it because a guy named Julius Streicher, amongst the most extreme of the extreme anti-Semitic Nazis, grasped onto this and used it as a kind of new, more modern caricature of the blood-sucking Jew and the vampire.

00:12:12.260 The vampire, oh man, this is going to set up the algorithms, you know, the vampiric caricature image, and this became one of the main anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews in the 1930s and 40s, and so I didn't recognize it for Nesferatu, I recognize it as a very recognizable genre of anti-Semitic caricature cartoons that we all know.

00:12:37.320 Now, Nigel, you've worked at, you know, you worked at the Calgary Hill for quite a while as the, on the editorial board.

00:12:47.460 If this came across your desk from the cartoon section, what would be your first thought?

00:12:53.720 Is this something, would it work across your mind that, eh, maybe we, would you recognize this as Nazi-style anti-Semitic propaganda?

00:13:02.820 I would have recoiled from the screen in horror.

00:13:05.900 You just don't do that sort of thing. Gosh, we've canned cartoons for much less than that.

00:13:14.940 And extremely sensitive to any portrayal that could be taken as negative in regards to race or religion.

00:13:23.600 This is sensitive to neither, and I cannot imagine the thought process of the people who let that through.

00:13:32.300 First, the guy who came up on it and then the city desk, you know, I said, well, you know, passed it through.

00:13:40.360 They probably were quite surprised at the reaction.

00:13:44.120 And that's what I find truly upsetting about the whole thing.

00:13:48.440 Like, when did that become OK?

00:13:52.040 Because it wasn't OK.

00:13:53.860 And I don't think 10 years ago that would have been OK in La Presse.

00:13:57.980 But today, I don't think it would have been fine two years ago.

00:14:00.180 Well, probably not. But at any rate, the thing is, something has changed. And now it's okay to be anti-Semitic. And you see it everywhere. You see it in the Liberal Party as they take a vote to support an NDP motion. Most of them voted for it.

00:14:15.600 Oh, we'll get into that a little bit. So Liberal Propaganda Minister Saint-Ange, she's in charge of the press in Canada and pays the press to do the Liberals' viddings here. 0.98

00:14:28.700 She was called upon, obviously, as the minister who controls the press in Canada to condemn a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon taken straight out of the pages of Der Stürmer, the most extreme of a paper, a Nazi paper that was so outrageous that even many Nazis found it offensive.

00:14:50.720 But take it straight out of the pages of Der Stürmer.

00:14:54.080 That's the sort of stuff they put in.

00:14:55.640 Yeah, like extreme even for the Nazis was Der Stürmer story, so crazy.

00:15:01.420 She refused to condemn it repeatedly until La Press, you know, recognized that, you know,

00:15:09.680 maybe that being La Stürmer was a bad look.

00:15:13.720 Then she issued a pretty soft statement.

00:15:16.520 Oh, I'm glad it came down. 0.98

00:15:19.520 anti-semitism is bad not like nothing like holy crap i can't believe this got into a government 0.98

00:15:24.960 funded newspaper what the hell's going on nothing like that watch us defund it yeah yeah no no talk 0.94

00:15:31.760 about defunding this because it's not anti-semitism when liberals do it apparently not and i mean you

00:15:37.840 know i mean some people have already seen trying weekly to make the case it wasn't after jews it

00:15:42.560 was after netanyahu netanyahu's open game absolutely there's a many people in israel

00:15:48.000 have little use for Netanyahu as well. But with his face, and it was a clumsy one. I saw that in

00:15:54.060 the newsroom with the original Nosferatu next to the one they made. All this person did was clipped

00:16:00.220 a cartoon image of Netanyahu and smack it right onto the face. Otherwise, it was exactly the same.

00:16:05.980 If it wasn't a hundred-year-old image, it might be considered plagiarism. But I mean, it should

00:16:12.340 have jumped right on. Plus, it had the excessive bulbous nose and the rest as well. I mean,

00:16:17.200 if you took any other race

00:16:19.400 and grossly exaggerated their features in cartoons

00:16:21.540 as used to be the Norman Asian person

00:16:23.320 with eyes or a black person and blew up 0.99

00:16:25.580 there's going to be outrage 0.99

00:16:27.760 and there should be. Keep talking about

00:16:29.460 your caricatures of other races

00:16:31.280 I'm talking about what

00:16:33.360 used to be done though

00:16:34.860 the world has gotten to a

00:16:37.560 place where we don't accept that sort

00:16:39.440 of caricature anymore

00:16:40.920 yet that warranted

00:16:42.820 multiple pushes on the minister to even

00:16:45.460 condemn it. Where are we right now? I wonder if Justin Trudeau's ever dressed up as a Jew. 1.00

00:16:51.620 Like calf can and locks and stuff like that. What have Justin Trudeau's ever done? I don't think

00:16:55.940 I've seen that one yet. I mean, we've seen him with a kippo on a few times, but that's typically

00:16:59.560 a sign of respect to him. Yeah, yeah, you can do that. But I wonder if he's gone like old-fashioned

00:17:03.280 caricature Jew. We'll keep looking. Yeah. You know, this comes right on the heels of an NDP 0.85

00:17:10.600 motion passed with some liberal amendments in the House of Commons to recognize state of Palestine.

00:17:18.600 And you know like I think there should be a state of Palestine.

00:17:24.600 There are Palestinians. Palestine is not a nation in the traditional sense, but I guess neither is Canada.

00:17:30.600 Most of the Arab states of the Middle East are all kind of arbitrarily drawn around imperial Sykes-Pico agreement in the First World War, you know, to divide up the Ottoman Empire.

00:17:43.260 None of the borders in the Middle East really make much, all that much sense.

00:17:45.800 They're pretty fluid, dude.

00:17:47.240 Yeah, and they're all kind of drawn by Europeans. 0.52

00:17:50.280 They don't make sense.

00:17:51.580 But nonetheless, the people there, if they want to have a state, they have a right to self-determination.

00:17:55.560 But Israel also has a right. It does not need to recognize a nation that's bent on its genocide.

00:18:01.560 But, you know, so Canada now officially recognizes a state of Palestine.

00:18:06.560 The question to me is which state of Palestine, because there are two Palestinian states.

00:18:12.560 There is, and both of them generally claimed the whole territory of Israel in that state.

00:18:18.560 that state. But there is one Palestinian state based in Gaza run by Hamas, which are full time genocidal maniacs. And then there is a other state of Palestine based in the West Bank run by the Palestinian Authority, which are part time genocidal maniacs. 0.93

00:18:38.120 They're, I mean, on this Hezbollah's turf, where they still meddle around it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but on the spectrum, I guess they're, they're not 100% of the time genocidal. They're like 75%, you know, so they're, you know. 0.73

00:18:50.860 Soft genocide.

00:18:51.580 Soft genocide. Yeah. But there were two Israeli states. So I guess this raises the question, which Palestinian state do we recognize as legitimate? 0.90

00:19:00.900 Well, that's half the problem. I guess even just if we're going to look at the geographic setup, because yes, it's split on each side. One's on the other side of Israel. 0.85

00:19:07.840 and one's next to the ocean.

00:19:09.380 That's part of why, though, the genocidal ones chant that odious from the river to the sea,

00:19:14.180 because it's the river and it's the sea.

00:19:16.500 And they want everything in between.

00:19:17.500 They want the middle.

00:19:18.340 They want Israel. 0.96

00:19:19.260 And that's where it's getting tiresome, where Israel's constantly being condemned for not

00:19:24.200 supporting a multi-state solution.

00:19:27.820 They're not the ones who've been fighting it.

00:19:30.920 They've tried.

00:19:31.820 They gave them at least some self-determination in Gaza.

00:19:34.400 They gave them the West Bank, and in return, they've gotten missiles. 0.87

00:19:37.840 Should we pursue such a solution? Sure, because this thing is never ending. It just seems to keep going. But the condemnation, as we saw in Parliament and things like that, it's always going after Israel, not Hamas, and the others who are chanting on wipe out every Jew and take Israel. Like, guys, you've got it backwards. And yet again, it's...

00:19:54.840 Well, there is fair criticisms, not just of Netanyahu, but like Israeli government policy, like there are illegal settler colonies outside of Israel in the West Bank and things like that, outside of Israel's recognized legitimate borders.

00:20:10.420 You know, they've got some settlers.

00:20:12.520 Some valid disputes.

00:20:13.500 Yeah, like those should not be there.

00:20:15.520 Those are a violation.

00:20:17.620 Those are imperialist policies.

00:20:21.720 And that's fair game to touch.

00:20:23.540 I used to be kind of one of these hardcore, Israel could do no wrong guys. 0.98

00:20:27.360 I'm not anymore.

00:20:28.380 They're a state, they're a government, and they could do wrong just like any other state.

00:20:31.800 Which means they will do wrong.

00:20:33.760 And that stuff's fair, but there's just no balance from the liberal.

00:20:37.700 You know, the NDP has been infiltrated by Islamists, anti-West Islamists for a long time.

00:20:43.040 So this is not surprising from them.

00:20:44.520 But the Liberals have completely abandoned, you know, the Liberal Party used to be the traditional home of Jews in Canada.

00:20:55.520 They very much do not seem to be anymore, Nigel.

00:20:58.520 That's quite so. Look, the settlements aren't the issue.

00:21:04.520 If you go back in the history of that area, there was a vicious pogrom in 1925.

00:21:11.520 there were no settlements. There was another one in 1934. There were no settlements. I could

00:21:17.480 go through these. Oh, they're going to want to kill the Jews settlements or not. I'm saying 1.00

00:21:21.280 it's legitimate for Canada to criticize the settlements because they are illegal. They

00:21:25.900 should not be there, but they could get rid of the settlements tomorrow and they'll still try 1.00

00:21:30.340 to kill all the Jews. Well, and that's where I was going with this. In 2006, when the Israelis 1.00

00:21:36.580 withdrew from gaza they took with them the settlements that had been established by the

00:21:42.580 way people they don't sort of imperialistically take these things people go in and buy their land

00:21:47.300 and then they then they build on it anyway it was going to be a problem so they took the settlements

00:21:52.260 out the settlements never have been and never will be the problem the problem is the sheer

00:21:58.340 race hatred of the people in gaza for the people on the other side of the wire the israelis and

00:22:05.620 it is part of the hamas charter that israel has to be destroyed with the people in it so until such 0.98

00:22:13.060 time as that group of people accepts that the israel is it going to exist there is going to

00:22:21.940 continue to be strife and warfare can't be any other way unless you think unless people think

00:22:28.660 and maybe this is what the liberals now do think is that israel should just sort of quietly fold

00:22:33.620 up shop and everybody leave and hand the keys over to other people, to Hamas. If that's what they 0.97

00:22:39.860 think, then perhaps. But as long as... I think the liberals have a more white guilt, naive worldview

00:22:48.020 that if, you know, the Israelis, I don't know, just had a happier face that the Palestinians

00:22:56.080 would then make peace and everybody would hold hands. I think the liberals have a naive...

00:23:00.880 The NDP, I think, is more in on the quiet, don't say genocide out loud part.

00:23:06.580 I think a lot of new Democrats do not view Israel as a legitimate state and nation.

00:23:13.100 I think the liberals just have a more naive view that peace can break out if the Israelis just do something.

00:23:18.940 Also, if there's this two-state solution, if ever there will be such a solution, fine.

00:23:24.460 We can talk about it. We can make motions for it.

00:23:26.180 The problem wasn't so much the liberals calling for or acknowledging a two-state solution.

00:23:30.880 But they're essentially saying that Hamas is a legitimate authority within that two-state solution.

00:23:36.540 They're talking as if you can negotiate with Hamas, as if they were a government you could speak with.

00:23:41.800 And they're backing away from what most of the world recognizes. 0.97

00:23:45.420 They're terrorists. 0.96

00:23:46.540 They're unreasonable. 1.00

00:23:47.820 They want to kill every Jew. 0.99

00:23:49.480 We could talk with Palestine and the Palestine Authority, but you cannot talk with Hamas. 0.98

00:23:54.040 Nothing's going to happen as long as Hamas is in power and the liberals are afraid to say they have to be wiped out.

00:23:59.560 And that's what that motion sort of did. It gave them legitimacy.

00:24:03.880 And equated Hamas with Israel as if there's any equivalency between the two.

00:24:11.360 And you can't compare those.

00:24:13.100 Okay.

00:24:13.480 I think we should meet in the middle here because I wasn't always uncritical of Israel.

00:24:17.800 But, you know, I think what I saw on October the 7th changed my mind forever on that.

00:24:25.960 It hurt me back into that direction.

00:24:28.220 I have been moving in the direction of a lot more ballots in it.

00:24:32.960 But, you know, there is still a lot Israel does wrong and can fix. 0.99

00:24:37.040 But I don't think any of that is going to get the genocidal maniacs that want to kill them all to stop being genocidal maniacs wanting to kill them all. 0.96

00:24:45.020 Okay, a little less extreme here. 0.97

00:24:49.460 Speaking of New Democrats, Alberta's New Democrats are having a leadership race.

00:24:54.180 Six candidates.

00:24:55.480 We've got Nahid Nenshi, Farmer Calgary Mayor, Sarah Hoffman, Kathleen Ganley, Racky Pancholi, Gil McGowan.

00:25:09.720 Jody Callow-Stonehouse.

00:25:12.120 Yeah, that was the name I was going to get.

00:25:14.000 There's six here.

00:25:16.500 The four women are in the NDP caucus, and the two men are not.

00:25:22.940 So Nenshi is the real outsider in this race, I think.

00:25:27.860 He's not a lifelong New Democrat.

00:25:29.640 And we've chatted here before, but the NDP has a very different culture than most other political parties in Canada.

00:25:37.260 You know, parties like it if you've been around for a while, but they will sometimes, especially conservatives, like an outsider instructor.

00:25:42.240 You know, it's not unusual for somebody who's not even ever been elected to come in and become the leader and become prime minister, become premier.

00:25:53.780 The NDP is not like that. You're expected to pay your dues.

00:25:56.120 And Nenshi has not. But he's by far the biggest name media wise to come in.

00:26:01.780 We haven't I haven't seen any internal polling yet on the NDP leadership race.

00:26:05.620 So it's really hard to say.

00:26:08.860 But is it fair to say that Nenshi is the frontrunner just based on the amount of media attention that he's managed to garner versus the others?

00:26:16.280 I don't know if I'll go that far yet because we've got to remember this is a leadership race, not a general race.

00:26:21.300 So when we're talking about active memberships already and selling new ones, I noticed that Gil McGowan hasn't stepped down from the AFL.

00:26:30.420 He's still putting out releases in his name.

00:26:32.260 He still has the ear of hundreds of thousands of unions.

00:26:35.800 Well, Gil has no chance of winning.

00:26:37.380 Well, when we're talking membership sets.

00:26:38.800 No, Democrats don't even like him.

00:26:40.040 Yeah, I understand.

00:26:41.280 But, you know, he's got access to a lot of memberships.

00:26:43.900 The other thing is, too, with the other four women who are suddenly the also-rans in this, 0.99

00:26:48.400 they've been pushed aside.

00:26:50.820 And women within the party and those women themselves might not be too thrilled that the two men came in and said,

00:26:55.320 come on, girls, now we're going to take this over for you. 1.00

00:26:57.320 but I could see them rallying around one. If it, if Nancy doesn't win it in the first ballot,

00:27:03.860 I don't see him being a popular second choice for the NDP types either. He'll sell a lot of

00:27:09.920 new memberships. Absolutely. He can't be underestimated. And that's what he has to do

00:27:13.100 is get new people to buy memberships. The NDP chose an intentionally short leadership

00:27:17.400 race period where you can sell memberships. I think intentionally to stop outsiders like him.

00:27:22.620 Well, that's it. Given enough time and enough work on the ground. Yeah. I think he could wipe

00:27:26.440 them off that that electoral map but right now he's got a lot of memberships to sell and there's

00:27:30.920 still a good base of memberships that i don't think will accept him as a second choice much

00:27:35.660 less a first one so race is not done yet though they're they're calling him to be considered a

00:27:41.140 front runner at this point maybe he is but uh i wouldn't call it in the bag by any means yet

00:27:45.260 yeah uh nigel uh do you think it's fair like media coverage wise i mean if we're just doing 0.81

00:27:52.040 a poll based on media hits is far and away the front runner uh but i it's certainly definitely

00:27:59.560 not in the bag because you know uh i'd say new democrats who prize winning the most are probably

00:28:05.640 going to lean to him because i mean he he might sell better than another hardcore downtown and

00:28:11.640 edmonton socialist you know because the ndb knows it needs to win in calgary and a guy who's won in

00:28:17.480 calgary before you know there's an appeal of that um but he you know i don't think he's necessarily

00:28:23.400 in the trust in more long time new democrats who are true believer socialists um do you think it's

00:28:28.840 fair to say he's the front runner though no is there a front runner no i don't i have no access

00:28:34.440 to their internal polling so i can't say for sure but what i can what i can say is what we have been

00:28:40.200 reporting is that first of all he even if he were to win that doesn't mean that the ndp is going to

00:28:49.720 win now we can't predict the outcome of an election in three years time but the polling that was taken

00:28:53.960 last week would you prefer an ndp government led by naheed nenshi to a continuation of a ucp

00:29:02.520 government led by danielle smith he did not win he did not even come close to touching her lead

00:29:08.600 so it's not like he's magic if they can only get him across the line and one of the uh one of the

00:29:14.280 real difficulties that that he faces is this very lack of uh long-term paying my dues do you want

00:29:24.600 are they so cynical remember this is the ndp we're talking about not the progressive conservatives

00:29:30.360 of old are they so cynical that they would take anybody who could just guarantee that they were

00:29:36.440 or offered a guarantee that they would win the next election i think they're a little more

00:29:40.680 calculated than that these are people who dig deep into their own pockets just to fund the party

00:29:46.680 unlike some other parties uh they care very much about principle and they care about policy

00:29:54.200 i hate their policies despise their principles but they do have them and they mean a lot to them

00:29:59.880 and i'm not sure that somebody who can just say oh i can be that if you want me to

00:30:03.720 i was with the alberta party years ago but you know and and i could be a liberal if there was

00:30:08.760 a little more opportunity but this looks like a well this looks like i could something i could

00:30:14.360 do yeah i'll i'll be a leader it does look very operative that is just an athenon to the hardcore

00:30:23.240 ndp so he's going to need to recruit a lot of non-hardcore ndps if he's going to get anywhere

00:30:28.840 maybe he can do it but i don't think he's too early to tell anybody that he's the front runner

00:30:35.160 if i were actually asked right now to say who i would imagine taking the taking the top spot

00:30:42.840 i would probably say it would be either kathleen ganley or sir hoffman they very much will appeal

00:30:49.560 to the this existing ndp base i i think similar there's some similarities and some differences

00:30:56.760 from the last UCP leadership race.

00:30:59.960 You know, Smith was the big outsider, not a member of caucus,

00:31:03.520 the disruptor coming in, but she ran as the right candidate. 0.87

00:31:09.580 She ran to the right of pretty much everyone except, you know,

00:31:12.280 Todd Lowen was kind of in the shared kind of space,

00:31:14.460 but she ran as the most conservative, the most libertarian,

00:31:17.520 the freedom candidate as the outsider.

00:31:20.780 Nenshi is the outsider here, not a member of caucus, et cetera,

00:31:24.560 but he's not running as the most radically left-wing candidate.

00:31:28.120 He's running to be center-left.

00:31:31.580 He's running to be whatever you want him to be.

00:31:33.980 Yeah, and so that's what marks him off from Smith.

00:31:36.620 Smith was an outsider, but she came in as kind of a crusader.

00:31:39.080 I'm here to take down the establishment of the Conservative Party

00:31:42.740 and undo the bad that's been done over the last few years.

00:31:46.240 Make Conservatives conservative again.

00:31:48.740 Menchie isn't coming in saying,

00:31:50.840 I'm going to make the NDP real socialists again.

00:31:54.560 He's, you know, by extension, making him a little less social, still socialist, but a little, little less.

00:32:03.140 That's not very motivating. I think, do you think the big motivating factor for him is his appeal that I can win in Calgary, these other guys can't, and Daniel Smith's bad, we've got to get rid of them.

00:32:13.340 Members have a pragmatism versus principal choice to make.

00:32:16.060 You know, if you want to make that pragmatic choice and hope that's the only way that we could win full power.

00:32:21.080 Or do we just accept that either we could win on our bare socialist principles or be a principled opposition?

00:32:27.920 And are we comfortable with that?

00:32:29.340 That's really what has to go through their minds right now.

00:32:32.740 And we'll see what happens.

00:32:35.160 As you said, they're a different sort of party.

00:32:36.500 These are ideologues.

00:32:37.400 A lot of the base supporters, the members.

00:32:39.740 These guys aren't much on pragmatism quite often.

00:32:42.860 But then she's trying to bring in those more. 0.80

00:32:44.700 well, and he's selling new memberships. The nomination that I lost when I ran years ago

00:32:49.820 for the Wildrose, I started campaigning to the existing membership. I learned a good hard lesson

00:32:53.880 there. And I did very well with that. But then a new contender came on and he sold a whole whack

00:32:59.140 of brand new memberships. And I tell you, the rate of being able to convert somebody else's

00:33:03.180 membership sales, nearly impossible. I lost the nomination handily. But when we dissected the

00:33:09.300 numbers later too. I had like 70% support among the existing members prior, but it meant nothing

00:33:15.300 when new memberships come in and wipe me off there. And that's what Nenshi's strategy has

00:33:19.800 to be. He has to bring in the new ones. And if he brings them in, the other contenders will have a

00:33:24.080 hard time trying to swing them. They're going to be selling new memberships as well. Them as well,

00:33:27.960 yes. We keep saying that Nenshi's got an organization, which he does. So do they.

00:33:33.260 Yeah. All right. Well, kind of sticking with the theme of Calgary mayors, there's the Recall Gone Deck campaign.

00:33:41.400 We've talked about it. It's got a near zero percent chance of success because you need more than that.

00:33:46.540 You need five to six hundred thousand signatures in Calgary in like a short, like a two month period of time.

00:33:52.160 It's just logistically not possible in a city the size of Calgary.

00:33:55.340 If we were talking about Brooks, even then, that'd be difficult.

00:34:00.160 But you could do it on something on the scale of Brooks, if you had a really unpopular mayor.

00:34:04.920 But you couldn't even do it for Medicine Hat or Red Deer, let alone Calgary or Edmonton.

00:34:08.680 It's just, it's not a kind of...

00:34:09.740 An absurd bar.

00:34:10.520 Yeah.

00:34:11.120 So, but it's taking place nonetheless.

00:34:15.320 And, you know, there's, you drive down Memorial and stuff, and you're going to see some recall Gondex on it.

00:34:20.080 Okay, I mean, it's not a ton of them, but it's a small campaign, he's putting some stuff up.

00:34:23.760 But video, you know, let's actually show that these grannies out. 1.00

00:34:30.160 Vandalizing the signs from recall Gondek into respect Gondek.

00:34:37.020 Okay, I mean, fine.

00:34:40.440 But what surprises me is that they're making zero effort at all to hide their identities

00:34:45.240 because they're clearly committing a criminal act.

00:34:48.280 This is vandalism and, you know, and by extension, anti-democratic to do this kind of thing.

00:34:54.940 I think sign vandalism happens in every campaign.

00:34:58.060 It's usually in the dark of night, though.

00:34:59.620 Thank you.

00:35:00.160 Yeah, yeah, that's where you're supposed to do it. I remember I saw a video in Trump's first presidential campaign. Someone tipped on vandalizing this Trump sign in the yard and a guy electrified it. It was a great video. The guy comes to steal the sign and pfft.

00:35:14.160 I mean, a very Texas way of dealing with a political vandal, but the police are now finally investigating.

00:35:26.360 It shouldn't be that hard to get these guys on, but I haven't even seen the contact contemnism.

00:35:30.280 Apparently she put it up on her own Facebook page, one of them.

00:35:32.900 Yeah, I believe they've been identified.

00:35:34.900 She put it up on her own Facebook page.

00:35:37.100 Yeah, they're quite proud of it.

00:35:38.140 will the calgary city police prosecute they're gonna get a ticket i think they have to yeah i

00:35:47.120 mean you know we're not talking about they're not going to slap the cuffs on them in jail but i could

00:35:50.260 most certainly see a uh you know this is the realm of a police officer certainly giving a stern

00:35:55.200 talking to and the seriousness of it and issuing a fine you know for vandalism a minor offense but

00:36:02.620 saying you know no this is not acceptable i know some people are screaming it was a breach of the

00:36:07.040 Elections Act and they should be in jail. It's not going to happen. But I don't think they can

00:36:11.020 leave it alone. Not when is this bold. No. Well, there's an interesting difference of tactic. You

00:36:16.020 know, during the, we were talking about this before, but during the last provincial election,

00:36:20.340 they had that big, the NDP had the big signs up saying, what will she do next? And then somebody

00:36:26.920 came along and said, well, lower taxes and various other things. Thing was, they don't actually

00:36:33.340 write that on somebody else's sign. They put their own sign in front of it so that you could

00:36:39.980 you don't touch the other person's sign. If they wanted to stand and wave signs in front of it

00:36:46.040 saying respect Gondek or block the sign, go ahead or even put their own signs in. I mean I remember

00:36:51.920 instructing that when managing other campaigns with volunteers and everything. Never ever ever

00:36:56.880 lay your hands on the other person's signs even if they put the sign somewhere illegally. Even if

00:37:00.720 fell down and you're looking to stand it up because a picture of you with your hands on

00:37:05.440 their sign and you've got a catastrophe. And these two ladies, they didn't care. They used to be 1.00

00:37:12.080 considered bad form to vandalize the other side's signs. Yeah, anti-democratic and petty. You had

00:37:19.380 George Chahal, remember? Forge Pirate Chahal. Video footage of him, a liberal MP, never kicked

00:37:26.200 out of caucus for it. Stealing conservative literature off at the doors, doorbell cams

00:37:30.860 caught them. I mean, the candidate himself doing it. I mean, like, it's one thing for your volunteers

00:37:37.840 to do that. The combination of the pettiness and the stupidity. I mean, the other scandal you just 1.00

00:37:43.780 embraced over, what, stealing some flyers? Do you think that was the edge that was going to bring

00:37:48.380 you over in the election? Yeah. And it shows the madness some people get into, I guess, in politics.

00:37:52.320 you know i gotta say this takes me back a little bit and i've covered my fair share of protests

00:37:57.360 and riots and things like that especially when i lived in british columbia well the only time that

00:38:02.640 i've ever been even moderately concerned for my own safety was when the raging grannies were 1.00

00:38:08.960 present you have never seen a more angry and violent and uh it's so righteous that's the

00:38:17.040 beat you over the head with a sign of those guys you know now we've got what did you call them

00:38:22.000 grantiva grantee how's michelle uh during the meeting before the show yeah so uh grand tifa

00:38:27.600 is out there on the warpath i think uh you know you know but let's put that image up michelle

00:38:34.000 had a great uh ai generated image of grand tifa so this is an ai image it's not this is not real

00:38:40.640 raging grannies but we had a an ai generated image of antifa style grannies so we call it

00:38:46.080 Well, a grand Tifa, let's put that on this. 0.99

00:38:49.280 I mean, that's it.

00:38:50.140 And it is almost disturbing, though, how they were grinning while somebody else is filming them.

00:38:54.840 The self-righteousness of it, the feeling that their moral authority is so high, they can vandalize the property of others.

00:38:59.600 Have we seen Dondack even criticize, like, at least condemn it?

00:39:02.400 Nothing, yeah.

00:39:03.180 I would guess she'll just say, stay silent.

00:39:06.280 Oh, let's just touch on this before we wrap up here.

00:39:09.320 So, Mount Royal University professor...

00:39:13.100 Dwayne Brack.

00:39:13.560 Dwayne Brack.

00:39:14.140 Yes.

00:39:16.080 Never seen a man short of Nenshiu who is so convinced he's right about everything.

00:39:21.840 He got some letter, I guess, on the Recall Conduct campaign,

00:39:25.700 and he's like, I've got the smoking gun.

00:39:27.660 Take back.

00:39:28.200 Alberta is running it all, and it's all connected.

00:39:31.180 The guy sees a David Parker under every bed.

00:39:34.240 You know, like, look up in the closet.

00:39:35.860 David only wishes he had that much control.

00:39:38.320 Yeah, I mean, you know you're stroking David Parker's ego

00:39:42.000 when you think that everything going on is, you know, he's pulling the strings everywhere. I mean,

00:39:48.000 it's, it's laughable, the degree to which they're convinced this happens. Anyway, it turns out a

00:39:53.680 surprise to be completely not true. And Dwayne Brett's deleted it. But CTV reported on it.

00:40:00.640 They gave it airtime. Yeah, the evening news. Like, man, you know, I wish I could be as certain

00:40:06.560 of anything is Mr. Brat is certain of everything.

00:40:10.400 Yeah, it's a comfortable place to be, I guess.

00:40:12.800 Well, I guess we've got a lot here, but what is driving this belief among the media class

00:40:21.440 and the academia here that David Parker, Take Back Alberta, is behind everything?

00:40:29.900 I think part of it is, as we know and as I know, David can be pretty abrasive, to put it politely.

00:40:35.960 he chafes a lot of people. They're looking for a weak spot. But why do they think he's behind

00:40:40.540 it? I don't even know if they think he's behind it, but they're looking for a weak spot in

00:40:43.920 Premier Smith's armor. People like Premier Smith, but they don't like the idea perhaps that somebody

00:40:48.460 else is in there and controlling things and pulling levers. So they're hoping to entrench

00:40:52.680 that feeling among people that something's going on behind the scenes and they want to feed that.

00:40:58.060 I don't even know if they themselves believe that that's what's happening, but I think

00:41:00.820 some people want to feed that narrative because they think it's a way to undercut the existing

00:41:04.720 government well there's that and then of course there's the media fascination with conflict

00:41:08.640 and as you said david says some says some uh old things sometimes said uh your fight promoters

00:41:16.320 yeah i mean fair enough like pretty much all of the all of our topics today have been

00:41:21.360 uh yeah yeah we're kind of a political jerry springer yeah oh god that'd be good all right

00:41:26.960 well we're gonna have to wrap it up there we're out of time nigel cory thank you very much for

00:41:29.920 joining us it was a pleasure i thank all of you for joining us today if you're not yet a member

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Western Standard - March 21, 2024

The Pipeline： Poilievre calls non-confidence vote

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