Western Standard editor Nigel Hannaford and editor-in-chief Derek Fildebrandt discuss the non-confidence motion in the Liberal government, the latest on the Alberta leadership race, and much, much more.
00:00:52.600Okay. All right. Well, we've got good headlines for you today.
00:00:55.720They pair Polyev and the conservatives hold a motion of non-confidence in the liberal government and the carbon tax.
00:01:06.080Surprise, surprise, it did not pass and we're not having an election.
00:01:11.560It's not anti-Semitism if the government-funded liberal media does it.
00:01:16.100La 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.
00:01:31.440You don't need a PhD in Holocaust studies when you look at this to be, oh, it does not smell good.
00:03:20.760The 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.
00:03:32.800but speaking of the general public, I think the polls I saw this morning was something like 70%
00:03:38.720of Canadians are against the carbon tax. Against the carbon tax hike. I'm not sure if it's 70%
00:03:45.200against the carbon tax itself, but against the hiking and a solid plurality pushing majority
00:03:50.160are just the answer period. Everybody understands how inflationary it is. So I'm not even sure that
00:03:56.400it's just the hike they're against, but certainly the idea that we're going to make everything
00:04:02.720from gasoline, home heating, fuel, and groceries via the trucking industry, everything is going to
00:04:09.800be more expensive. People are fed up with it. We're broke already. Corey, there was a, I'd say,
00:04:16.260about a close to zero percent chance this motion of non-confidence passed the House of Commons.
00:04:24.060Do you think, what do you think was the point of this for Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives?
00:04:29.520That'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.
00:04:49.320So, you know, when they smell something that the Liberals are just fixated on, that they're terribly unpopular with,
00:04:55.120they want to make sure that the Liberals are up there trying to defend this thing as much as possible, as often as possible.
00:05:01.860It's political brinkmanship, and it's smart political brinkmanship, because you're not getting anything else past it.
00:05:06.180Well, it very much ties the Liberals to the carbon tax.
00:05:16.240I 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.
00:05:34.900They can go to the NDP and they go to the conservatives.
00:05:37.040But if you voted liberal in the past and you're angry at the liberals, you can't go to the other liberal coalition partner.
00:05:43.620They're all going to the conservatives now.
00:05:47.840So 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.
00:05:58.020You know, I'm not sure what the good moves are for the liberals right now.
00:06:01.320The carbon tax is grossly unpopular, but the one liberal retreat, the big liberal retreat we've seen from it,
00:06:10.720which was essentially meant for Atlantic Canada MPs who are in trouble,
00:06:16.220exempting home heating fuel, which is really just for Atlantic Canada, that did not help them.
00:06:22.140It made them look weak, made it look like they didn't believe in their own policy.
00:06:25.520It undermined their own policy. It undermined internal cohesion, angering Stephen Gilbeau, who, I guess, to his credit, is not about the politics of this.
00:06:35.360He's just a fanatic who believes that paying the carbon tax will change the temperature.
00:06:41.580But, 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.
00:06:53.280And that's where there's a lot of blood spilt.
00:06:59.540Should the liberals stand by the carbon tax?
00:07:01.920I think if I'm advising Trudeau, he has to stand by it.
00:07:23.040Yeah, 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.
00:07:30.120And 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.
00:07:37.880It'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.
00:07:46.800That 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.
00:07:56.280That sounded like someone more concerned about his legacy in the history books than someone who's actually even trying to keep in power.
00:08:01.040Yeah, 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.
00:08:14.860You know, if there was an election this fall, Corey, he would really have no options.
00:08:20.500But the election, if they go the distance, is in October of 2025.
00:08:26.640Never underestimate the ability of the Canadian public to forget things.
00:08:31.760If he backed away from it now, he's got 18 months to rebuild his strategy.
00:08:37.800But I don't think that's actually what he's doing.
00:08:39.580it very much looks to me as though they know they're going to lose in 2025 with or without
00:08:47.180the common tax so they are now in the business of doing everything that they ever wanted to do
00:08:53.100knowing that it can't cost them any more than it's already going to cost them and some of the things
00:08:58.820are going to be very hard to put back together again for the incoming government whatever it is
00:09:02.820so I think there's a you know they're kind of like a cornered starving bear right now like
00:09:08.560they're like a wounded animal and that's what it said it's most dangerous they you know they um
00:09:14.320they don't seem to have they're flailing they've already accepted death there's a famous there's a
00:09:19.520famous story from the british warfare where the fellow is cornered he's standing beside a
00:09:27.120barrel of gunpowder with a loaded pistol as as the bad guys break through he
00:09:32.800virus, everybody dies. That's, that's the takedown strategy. Yeah, I think it's a combination of that
00:09:40.320and also just trying to write the history books for after this election. I mean, there's a lot
00:09:45.600of counting chickens before they're hatched here, but it just seems inconceivable that the liberals
00:09:51.280pull it out at this point. They're so far down, so low. I mean, some of it's just exhaustion with
00:09:56.080them too, so it doesn't matter which policy, what, you know, they're past their expiry date,
00:10:01.040particularly Justin Trudeau. And I mean, the tax is a flashpoint. But even if they got rid of that,
00:10:07.200I don't know if it would endear the public, as you said, never write anything off, especially
00:10:10.400with 18 months. But I think their only play would be to have a new leader. I mean,
00:10:16.560it worked in Alberta for like 40 years. It gets unpopular, get a new one. And it worked again. I
00:10:22.640mean, Kenny was down. Kenny was the conservatives in Alberta were down by the NDP here by pretty
00:10:28.320much as much as the Liberals are under the Conservatives federally. You know, a fresh coat
00:10:32.960of paint can do wonders, but I don't think the Liberal grassroots, if you can even call them it,
00:10:39.120the Liberal rank-and-file have quite the stomach for internal warfare that Alberta Conservatives
00:10:43.360have, because that's Alberta Conservatives' favorite thing. That's our favorite thing to do.
00:10:46.480Yeah, it's a specialty out here. Who would they get? Oh, it could be Freeland, it could be Kearney.
00:11:06.220Speaking of liberals, we'll talk about a liberal newspaper, La Presse, funded by the liberal government.
00:11:13.540I think it's the main French language, if I'm not mistaken, it's the main French paper in Montreal.
00:11:17.500I think it's the second largest French paper, I believe.
00:11:23.020Okay, it's one of the big ones in Quebec.
00:11:27.340Published, let's throw it up on the screen.
00:11:31.180So you'll see here, it is a cartoon caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
00:11:38.300It'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.
00:11:54.560We 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.
00:12:12.260The 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.
00:12:37.320Now, Nigel, you've worked at, you know, you worked at the Calgary Hill for quite a while as the, on the editorial board.
00:12:47.460If this came across your desk from the cartoon section, what would be your first thought?
00:12:53.720Is this something, would it work across your mind that, eh, maybe we, would you recognize this as Nazi-style anti-Semitic propaganda?
00:13:02.820I would have recoiled from the screen in horror.
00:13:05.900You just don't do that sort of thing. Gosh, we've canned cartoons for much less than that.
00:13:14.940And extremely sensitive to any portrayal that could be taken as negative in regards to race or religion.
00:13:23.600This is sensitive to neither, and I cannot imagine the thought process of the people who let that through.
00:13:32.300First, the guy who came up on it and then the city desk, you know, I said, well, you know, passed it through.
00:13:40.360They probably were quite surprised at the reaction.
00:13:44.120And that's what I find truly upsetting about the whole thing.
00:13:53.860And I don't think 10 years ago that would have been OK in La Presse.
00:13:57.980But today, I don't think it would have been fine two years ago.
00:14:00.180Well, 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.
00:14:15.600Oh, 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
00:14:28.700She 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.
00:14:50.720But take it straight out of the pages of Der Stürmer.
00:16:42.820multiple pushes on the minister to even
00:16:45.460condemn it. Where are we right now? I wonder if Justin Trudeau's ever dressed up as a Jew.1.00
00:16:51.620Like calf can and locks and stuff like that. What have Justin Trudeau's ever done? I don't think
00:16:55.940I've seen that one yet. I mean, we've seen him with a kippo on a few times, but that's typically
00:16:59.560a sign of respect to him. Yeah, yeah, you can do that. But I wonder if he's gone like old-fashioned
00:17:03.280caricature Jew. We'll keep looking. Yeah. You know, this comes right on the heels of an NDP0.85
00:17:10.600motion passed with some liberal amendments in the House of Commons to recognize state of Palestine.
00:17:18.600And you know like I think there should be a state of Palestine.
00:17:24.600There are Palestinians. Palestine is not a nation in the traditional sense, but I guess neither is Canada.
00:17:30.600Most 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.
00:17:43.260None of the borders in the Middle East really make much, all that much sense.
00:17:51.580But nonetheless, the people there, if they want to have a state, they have a right to self-determination.
00:17:55.560But Israel also has a right. It does not need to recognize a nation that's bent on its genocide.
00:18:01.560But, you know, so Canada now officially recognizes a state of Palestine.
00:18:06.560The question to me is which state of Palestine, because there are two Palestinian states.
00:18:12.560There is, and both of them generally claimed the whole territory of Israel in that state.
00:18:18.560that 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.0.67
00:18:38.120They'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
00:18:51.580Soft 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
00:19:00.900Well, 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
00:19:31.820They gave them at least some self-determination in Gaza.
00:19:34.400They gave them the West Bank, and in return, they've gotten missiles.0.87
00:19:37.840Should 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...
00:19:54.840Well, 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.
00:24:28.220I have been moving in the direction of a lot more ballots in it.
00:24:32.960But, you know, there is still a lot Israel does wrong and can fix.0.85
00:24:37.040But 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.
00:25:29.640And we've chatted here before, but the NDP has a very different culture than most other political parties in Canada.
00:25:37.260You know, parties like it if you've been around for a while, but they will sometimes, especially conservatives, like an outsider instructor.
00:25:42.240You 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.
00:25:53.780The NDP is not like that. You're expected to pay your dues.
00:25:56.120And Nenshi has not. But he's by far the biggest name media wise to come in.
00:26:01.780We haven't I haven't seen any internal polling yet on the NDP leadership race.
00:26:08.860But 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?
00:26:16.280I 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.
00:26:21.300So when we're talking about active memberships already and selling new ones, I noticed that Gil McGowan hasn't stepped down from the AFL.
00:26:30.420He's still putting out releases in his name.
00:26:32.260He still has the ear of hundreds of thousands of unions.
00:31:50.840I'm going to make the NDP real socialists again.
00:31:54.560He's, you know, by extension, making him a little less social, still socialist, but a little, little less.
00:32:03.140That'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.
00:32:13.340Members have a pragmatism versus principal choice to make.
00:32:16.060You know, if you want to make that pragmatic choice and hope that's the only way that we could win full power.
00:32:21.080Or do we just accept that either we could win on our bare socialist principles or be a principled opposition?
00:35:00.160Yeah, 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.
00:35:14.160I mean, a very Texas way of dealing with a political vandal, but the police are now finally investigating.
00:35:26.360It shouldn't be that hard to get these guys on, but I haven't even seen the contact contemnism.
00:35:30.280Apparently she put it up on her own Facebook page, one of them.
00:35:32.900Yeah, I believe they've been identified.
00:35:34.900She put it up on her own Facebook page.