Western Standard - The Pipeline： Poilievre's landslide win

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Derek Phil DeBrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. You're watching The

00:00:23.900 Pipeline today on September 14th, 2022. And boy, it has been a beautiful day. We've got a great

00:00:31.740 show today. Let me introduce my co-belligerents, Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Henniford.

00:00:38.140 How are you? I'm great. How's everybody? It's good. Octoberfest is coming. I'm stockpiling beer,

00:00:45.740 polishing lederhosen. Glad to hear that. Yeah. We'll help you. You're not a big fan of leather

00:00:51.240 the pants, Corey? I just didn't like thinking of polishing your lederhosen. I don't actually polish

00:00:54.460 the lederhosen. Actually, the way you do it is when I was in Munich for Oktoberfest, there was

00:00:58.600 this old, old guy I was drinking beer with. He had these beat up old lederhosen and I said, wow,

00:01:04.980 they've taken a lot. You know, mine are getting kind of worn out too and I can't find a place

00:01:08.340 with dry cleaners. You never dry clean the lederhosen. You take the oil on your hands from

00:01:13.240 like chicken or sausages or something. You take the oil and you rub it through the lederhosen.

00:01:17.680 and it gives it good protection.

00:01:19.920 I've known more of a Russian accent, I guess it sounds like.

00:01:22.280 But, yeah, that's how you polish it,

00:01:24.320 because you just take grease from food and rub it into it, and it protects it.

00:01:28.260 Greasy, my greasy leather pants.

00:01:30.680 That's an amazing heritage you're preserving.

00:01:34.660 It's our proudest moment.

00:01:37.480 Okay, well, we've got an interesting story today,

00:01:39.900 a set of discussion topics today.

00:01:43.140 Polyeb's landslide win, absolutely killing it,

00:01:46.440 crushing, annihilating, I don't know how many adjectives I can use to describe

00:01:50.160 Polyev's win. We're going to talk about what the hell happened, reality, expectation versus reality.

00:01:58.640 Also, the Western Standard has commissioned Main Street Poll to conduct a series of scientific

00:02:04.300 polls across Alberta, some very interesting data. We have a real, we did on a number of topics,

00:02:09.840 real focus on the UCP leadership race, but a few other things as well. Danielle Smith leading the

00:02:14.820 race, unsurprisingly, but we've got a breakdown of where that's at and what it could mean for

00:02:19.700 the selection of Alberta's next UCP leader and premier. Also, we pulled Albertans of where they

00:02:25.600 stand on the Sovereignty Act. In particular, how does it break down within the United Conservative

00:02:31.080 Party? Very interesting numbers coming up. The numbers certainly don't support a lot of the

00:02:36.740 strategies that are being pursued by at least some of the camps. Also polling, who Albertans

00:02:42.920 trust more mainstream media or independent and alternative media sources? Well, I know how you,

00:02:49.020 I know what you guys trust more. Of course you should watch the CBC, the schmucks. Yeah, no,

00:02:54.260 I'm just joking. We've done some polling on what kind of media Albertans like to go to.

00:02:59.840 Before we get into it, though, we got to thank my favorite sponsor. Oh, they're just wonderful,

00:03:04.340 the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. I've been a member of the CSSA for well over a decade

00:03:09.400 because I trust them as Canada's leading gun rights organization, defending our right to buy

00:03:15.100 and use firearms safely and legally in Canada against the federal government's constant attempts

00:03:20.720 to take those rights away. Without the CSSA, they would have taken our guns long, long ago. And yes,

00:03:26.800 they try, but whatever rights we have got left are thanks to groups like the Canadian Shooting

00:03:30.880 Sports Association. If you're not yet a member of the CSSA, go join right now. Go to cssa-cila.org.

00:03:39.400 And yes, I asked Corey before the show started so I could write it down.

00:03:43.400 That's the first time I got it right, isn't it, Corey?

00:03:45.900 It's a rare occasion, yeah.

00:03:47.620 Rare occasion.

00:03:48.200 And I always just remind everybody, just kind of Google it anyways.

00:03:50.320 You'll find it pretty fast.

00:03:51.800 Yeah.

00:03:52.640 It's easier.

00:03:53.340 If my CSSA friends are watching, please change the URL.

00:03:56.040 It's terrible.

00:03:56.880 But just Google the damn thing.

00:03:58.320 Google it.

00:03:59.440 Okay, so let's jump right into this, guys.

00:04:03.920 Crushing.

00:04:05.720 Massive.

00:04:06.940 Destroying.

00:04:07.300 I don't know how many more adjectives we can use to describe this.

00:04:13.120 Anything?

00:04:13.660 I know we had our own predictions down.

00:04:15.780 Corey actually, just for those of you who didn't watch our live broadcast Saturday,

00:04:19.640 Corey actually won the office pool on it.

00:04:21.580 He was entitled to quite a few six-packs of beer.

00:04:23.460 He very generously declined a lot of good, expensive beer.

00:04:29.280 I could have used it.

00:04:30.480 Oktoberfest coming.

00:04:31.180 I could have really used that beer.

00:04:32.300 I did not win.

00:04:33.500 Corey edged me out for the top spot.

00:04:37.300 Instead, he took his prize in the form of a pizza party for all the staff in the Calgary headquarters.

00:04:41.940 Very nice.

00:04:42.220 I'm getting bloated now, thanks to us.

00:04:43.760 Yeah.

00:04:45.040 So the win was not really unexpected.

00:04:48.740 It was actually even higher than both our predictions.

00:04:50.640 It was about 68% in points, 70% in terms of popular vote.

00:04:56.140 So let's not talk about expectations versus reality, actually.

00:04:58.980 We all expected this to be huge, maybe a little bit bigger, some of us were thinking.

00:05:02.600 But I want your thoughts.

00:05:03.700 What does this mean for the Conservative Party?

00:05:05.420 Polyev has won with the biggest mandate of any leader in the history of that party,

00:05:09.780 obviously more than Scheer and O'Toole, but even more than Stephen Harper did,

00:05:13.440 both in terms of points percentage and in terms of number of votes and popular vote percentage.

00:05:18.980 What do you think this means for Polyev coming in as the new leader?

00:05:22.640 Nothing bad, that's for sure.

00:05:24.860 I mean, one of the grim predictions leveled against Polyev from the beginning was,

00:05:31.180 well, he'll do well in Alberta, but he won't do so well back east.

00:05:34.580 well what happened out of 338 riding associations he carried 330 of them so that means that at least

00:05:43.300 70 of them in Quebec voted for everything but six in Quebec and two in Ontario so first of all the

00:05:52.100 there's something going on across the country I think it's particularly strong here in Alberta

00:05:57.220 but if you look at the way people are engaging with politics at the moment the number of people

00:06:02.180 for example who went to red who wanted to go to red deer last year for the leadership or in fact

00:06:07.860 it was march of this year for the leadership review i mean not only those events get about a

00:06:12.020 thousand two hundred twelve hundred people there were uh are near twenty thousand people who wanted

00:06:17.940 to go like wanting to go to a leadership review like that means paying a hundred dollars and

00:06:22.740 driving halfway across the province to get there because whether you're starting from calvary or

00:06:27.620 edmonton you know red deer's in the middle so there was a tremendous commitment to making a

00:06:32.980 statement whether it was for the premier or against a lot of people wanted to do that you

00:06:39.220 look at the turnout that you get in some of the uh some of the constituency association meetings now

00:06:45.940 to put in the new board that's going to go in that was 450 i think came out to leela here's

00:06:51.860 board meeting.

00:06:54.420 A local AGM.

00:06:55.280 I've never heard of a local AGM

00:06:56.280 with anything approaching that.

00:06:57.740 A hundred would be a lot.

00:06:58.760 Yeah, 50, 60 is kind of normal.

00:07:01.200 So something was obviously going on there.

00:07:05.300 Something was obviously going on

00:07:07.140 that thousands of truckers

00:07:09.280 converged on Ottawa

00:07:11.240 and thousands more people

00:07:13.140 joined them either on the streets

00:07:15.180 or in echo events around the country.

00:07:17.780 So something has happened in this country

00:07:19.660 that is causing people who normally wouldn't even write a letter to the editor

00:07:25.540 to get on their bike, get in their truck, get on the plane,

00:07:30.260 go somewhere and do something and make a statement.

00:07:33.400 Now, that is the wave of unrest that I think has helped Pierre Oliver

00:07:41.220 move into such a commanding position.

00:07:44.420 Like right now, if there was an election tomorrow,

00:07:46.480 So that particular campaign is already on a war footing.

00:07:51.180 I would be surprised if Mr. Trudeau would even want to dare risk it.

00:07:55.840 He's surfing it.

00:07:58.660 Corey, I think, you know,

00:08:01.920 Nigel's essentially arguing that he's captured lightning in a bottle.

00:08:04.380 There is this big tsunami coming right now,

00:08:07.480 and you could see Polyev on his surfboard wearing a nice Hawaiian shirt,

00:08:12.000 riding it to a crushing victory.

00:08:13.960 but the magnitude of his victory you know it's not these little piecemeal down ballot things

00:08:21.140 Andrew Sheard I think took 13 ballots to win and he didn't win a single one of them until the very

00:08:25.180 last one and there were even questions about that last ballot and then you have O'Toole I think it

00:08:32.840 took a good number of ballots for him to win and he needed the clear support of social conservative

00:08:36.920 king makers to get there before he threw them overboard he threw Leslie Lewis overboard he

00:08:41.600 through Derek Sloan overboard. Polyev doesn't seem to owe anyone anything here. It's his party.

00:08:49.060 What do you think that means for the ability of Polyev to maybe remake the conservative party 0.89

00:08:57.660 in his mold? Well, I don't know if he's looking to remake things, but the bottom line is he's got

00:09:01.900 the mandate. He's got the authority. He can move. I mean, nobody can question where he's going to go

00:09:06.180 right now he just got 68 percent in a hard walk you know fought race within that party and the

00:09:11.960 closest was charay at 16 so it's not like there was even a close second contender so it gives him

00:09:17.940 a lot of leeway to stay on message people can't keep saying to him you have to tone it down now

00:09:22.480 you have to lighten up i mean there's a degree of looking at the federal picture now but he's in

00:09:27.940 charge i mean he he's been proven right on where he's gone and the way he's done it and i imagine

00:09:32.980 he's going to continue to. And it's not, it's as Nigel says, people are looking for change.

00:09:36.820 They're getting off their butts and they're doing something. And, you know, it's not like he had

00:09:41.420 pretty hair and was of a rockstar quality. He's a bit of a geeky looking guy, you know,

00:09:47.860 and, but it's the messaging people came on to him. And that's a stronger base of support than

00:09:53.280 somebody looking for, you know, something fluffy. He could do some great things here.

00:09:56.560 So we talked about this on Saturday evening when he gave his acceptance speech, which I think he was pretty confident he was going to be allowed to give, about potential pivot.

00:10:09.640 He definitely didn't throw any of his policies and signature ideas off, but there were some things that he talked about regularly, his biggest applause lines during campaign events that were not in that speech.

00:10:22.140 you didn't hear talk about digital currencies like Bitcoin. You didn't hear talk about defunding

00:10:27.460 the CBC and ending media subsidies. Still talked about, in general, about freedom and things like

00:10:34.460 that. You know, a lot of the punditry has speculated, is he going to pivot? Is he going

00:10:40.760 to pivot? Do you think this was a pivot of any kind? And if so, was it a pivot of substance or

00:10:47.800 just rhetoric. What do you think? Maybe a pivot of rhetoric. I mean, first of all, the regular

00:10:53.900 mainstream media, the state-supported media, as we refer to them, are not going to give this man

00:11:01.800 a break in any sense. So if he does well, well, he could have done better. If he says this, well,

00:11:07.180 he could have said that. So the fact that he did not make further reference to defunding the CBC

00:11:14.460 does not mean the idea has gone away.

00:11:17.080 It just means come back another day

00:11:19.460 when the time is right.

00:11:21.560 Didn't talk about, I don't think you mentioned

00:11:23.880 firing the governor of the Bank of Canada either.

00:11:27.160 But, you know, do you think that,

00:11:29.320 I don't think that that matter is at rest.

00:11:32.320 Whether the governor stays or the governor goes,

00:11:34.420 it's the policy that has to change.

00:11:36.520 And that is what, that is,

00:11:38.620 every indication that Mr. Poliver means

00:11:41.440 to cut back on the inflationary spending that has brought about the situation we're all

00:11:48.420 struggling with now are the gas pumps in the grocery stores. So I don't see a pivot there.

00:11:53.600 So, Corey, we're not going to know if he actually jettisons any of the... I mean,

00:11:56.820 it's not uncommon for a political leader, you know, a conservative leader to run on the right

00:12:00.780 in the leadership, pivot to the center for the general, or, you know, often, you know,

00:12:06.940 liberals and Democrats run on the hard left in the leadership and they come to the center

00:12:11.040 afterwards. We're not going to know until we really see the platform. If we don't see anything

00:12:15.580 about the CBC in there or the Bank of Governor, Governor of the Bank of Canada, well, then we'll

00:12:20.560 know for sure. So we're an election platform. Yeah, we're not going to know until we see that

00:12:24.820 for sure. Right now. I mean, it's as Nigel said with the CBC, though, it does resonate with some

00:12:29.140 people, but you're keeping your powder dry. I mean, maybe the right opportunity comes. We've

00:12:32.760 got a while to the next election. So suddenly some pictures get leaked of Rosie Barton's Justin

00:12:36.540 Trudeau hope chest. Well, that's going to bring everybody up and show just how slanted they

00:12:40.740 They are the CBC, and that's a good time to take another shot and fire out of that.

00:12:45.920 But there's no sense going into shooting every barrel you got just after you've won.

00:12:49.460 The economy is the big thing, and he's really focusing on that right now.

00:12:53.300 And I suspect he's going to come back to the others if they rise in the interest of Canadians.

00:12:57.940 The other thing is, if and when an election comes around, you're not going to go out.

00:13:02.420 You've published a full policy book, but you're not going to campaign on 100 things.

00:13:06.860 You're going to do like Stephen Harper did, I would guess, in the 2006 election.

00:13:11.900 Pick out five things that actually resonate and dribble them out,

00:13:15.660 one a week through the election campaign.

00:13:17.620 Well, when Harper did that, it was five big items,

00:13:20.200 but they still had a full platform, costed out.

00:13:22.540 Yes, they did.

00:13:23.920 It's expected that you're going to have a full platform,

00:13:26.040 but Harper had five big things.

00:13:29.220 And I remember, you know, I was like, I was barely in university.

00:13:34.740 or no, I don't even know if I was in university.

00:13:37.640 Yeah, I think I was in university or high school.

00:13:39.500 I was in high school, that's what it is.

00:13:41.200 And every Canadian could say what those five things were.

00:13:46.520 They didn't know the rest of the platform,

00:13:47.800 but those five things were it, and everyone got it.

00:13:50.800 So you'll probably see something like that.

00:13:52.600 I want to talk about the runner-runner-up, Leslyn Lewis.

00:13:57.760 Now, I'm not positive, but her campaign, I think,

00:14:00.660 has claimed she actually got more votes this time 0.79

00:14:02.880 than last time.

00:14:03.760 but her impact on the race was undeniably smaller. Last time, you know, the time O'Toole was elected,

00:14:10.820 she was probably the only real, arguably Derek Sloan, but her and Derek Sloan were the only

00:14:16.000 actual real conservatives in that race. Aaron O'Toole, you know, people who were cheering for

00:14:20.860 him, he was running for true blue, and I said, guys, he's clearly lying to you. He's clearly full

00:14:25.060 of it. But Lewis was the most genuine of those candidates. She did very strongly. She arguably

00:14:31.120 won the popular vote and could have won except for the points system. But she was pretty far

00:14:35.180 back this time. But she was

00:14:39.260 closer to Jean Charest in points than Charest was

00:14:42.800 to Polly F. Much, much closer. In fact, in popular vote

00:14:47.280 she was only a hair behind Charest. In popular vote she was almost

00:14:51.140 the second place candidate. What's next for her? 0.97

00:14:55.020 She had a really strong showing in the time O'Toole

00:14:59.100 one, but O'Toole put her straight to the back benches, didn't care that she represented a more

00:15:03.020 conservative wing of the party, was angry at her that she was on, or that she refused to disclose

00:15:07.640 her vaccination status. We'll start with you, Coria, maybe. What do you think the future holds

00:15:14.980 for her? Where's Leslie Lewis going to settle, go when the dust settles here? I think Paul Yev

00:15:20.160 will give her a good critic's portfolio and keep her front center. I don't think he's going to make

00:15:23.440 the same error as O'Toole. I mean, he's got a good unified party. Let's keep it. Sure, she'll

00:15:29.080 came in at what around 10% this time around but that's a significant number is when you're looking

00:15:33.100 at 600 and some thousand members as you said that that number of votes still grew and and these are

00:15:38.460 motivated voters I mean the ones she represents are the door knockers they're the donors they're 0.98

00:15:44.520 you know that that's part of why people always wonder why traditional conservatives or social

00:15:48.280 conservatives tend to punch above their weight well it's because their base gets out and helps

00:15:52.600 they're much more potent in a party than others so I think Polly is wise enough to take that

00:15:56.500 seriously respect her as we talked about before uh put her somewhere and probably i would imagine

00:16:02.260 if he forms a government some sort of cabinet portfolio he's going to keep her prominent maybe 1.00

00:16:06.580 not right next to him all the time but she's going to be well captain uh sandy nigel what 0.98

00:16:11.620 what do you think happens with lewis oh i think cory has nailed it i mean i noticed she didn't

00:16:16.020 make the first cut when he announced his uh leadership team she was not one of the one of

00:16:21.300 of the eight. But she absolutely represents an important constituency. And Corey was making a

00:16:28.140 reference to that they work hard, they turn out, they pound the signs into the hard packed earth

00:16:34.040 and 20 below. They also write the checks. They strongly believe in putting their money where

00:16:41.680 their mouth is. If he were to lose that, lose the respect of that component, it would cost them

00:16:47.180 literally money. And, you know, she wasn't a part of that leadership team, but the way caucus works,

00:16:53.760 there's some of that leadership team who are genuinely in positions of leadership,

00:16:57.480 like house leader, which is Andrew Scheer and the whip. Some of the positions like caucus chair

00:17:01.940 and things like that are actually a bit more junior because then you've got your critic

00:17:04.300 portfolios. Generally, the finance critic job, which Polly have had before, a job I used to

00:17:09.780 have as well provincially, that's considered a very high level one. So, you know, you'd rather be

00:17:15.340 finance critic, probably, and not be on the leadership team in most cases. You're going to

00:17:20.060 get airtime there. The question is, is he going to be as scared of his finance critic as O'Toole

00:17:24.940 was of his finance critic? I suspect not. I suspect that there is enough people who think

00:17:30.920 the same way that it will not be an issue to choice. Just, you know, who's going to, who's

00:17:36.360 absolutely. Okay, so let's, I'm going to bring it back here, closer to home here. The Western

00:17:41.620 Standard commissioned Main Street research to do a scientific poll. This is not like

00:17:45.940 a website poll. You know, the Western Standard, we put up a poll, we're asking readers what they

00:17:49.680 think. But it's kind of self-selecting. Those are Western Standard readers. This is not self-selecting.

00:17:56.120 This is demographically weighted across Alberta. It gets a pretty good sense of where Albertans

00:18:00.240 are at. So we paid Main Street to do this, ask them a number of questions. One of the ones we

00:18:06.740 asked was, of course, how people intend to vote in the next election. The UCP in this has pulled

00:18:12.820 ahead. UCP has been languishing in the polls. It's not that long after they were elected and

00:18:17.740 it continued to go down and down and down, often at the expense of the Wild Rose, sorry, to the

00:18:24.360 benefit of the Wild Rose. In this, the Wild Rose had really fallen back down to earth at 5%. 5%

00:18:30.580 has still got a heartbeat of something, but it's much lower than the 14% they were getting this

00:18:36.060 time last year, right before Kenny was kind of showed the door by his party's members in

00:18:41.220 leadership review. But among those who say that they're voting UCP, the poll had Danielle Smith

00:18:48.960 at 44%. Second place at less than half of that was Brian Jean at 20. And then in a statistical

00:18:55.620 tie, but technically a point behind him was Travis Taves, 19. And then after that, you had

00:19:02.040 Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% for Rebecca Schultz, roughly another 5% or so for Todd Lowen, and then nil for the last two.

00:19:16.820 What's your think of this number? Do you think this is reflecting what you're seeing?

00:19:20.280 Well, first of all, you know, that huge support for Danielle Smith is the same kind of spirit that drives it as this huge support for Polly Herve.

00:19:32.820 People are looking for change, and they find somebody who articulates that need to change very clearly,

00:19:39.080 very definitely knows what they think, and is good at putting it across.

00:19:43.220 They're not playing around at the edges.

00:19:45.580 But what I find interesting about that particular race

00:19:50.100 is that Smith raised more than a million dollars,

00:19:54.540 something like a million and 40,000.

00:19:57.660 And she got that from something like 4,500 people.

00:20:03.020 And she has 44% of the party's...

00:20:08.320 It was a large number of small donations.

00:20:10.480 A large number of small donations.

00:20:12.020 Mr. Taves also raised over a million dollars

00:20:17.020 not quite as much as

00:20:18.100 They're about tied, yeah

00:20:19.320 They're about tied

00:20:20.160 but his support is down there at 19%

00:20:22.620 so what does that tell you?

00:20:24.160 It suggests to me that there's

00:20:25.720 a smaller number of larger donations

00:20:28.280 So who is backing?

00:20:29.320 Well, Taves' campaign

00:20:30.900 our reporter in Edmonton, Arthur Green

00:20:33.440 asked the Taves' campaign

00:20:35.600 he gave the Western Standard

00:20:37.420 the amount that the Taves' campaign has raised

00:20:40.060 but they refused to disclose the number

00:20:41.800 of donors, which was very strange.

00:20:45.360 One could surmise that probably means

00:20:47.920 it's a smaller number of large donations.

00:20:50.480 Strangely, though, the Gene campaign refused to say anything.

00:20:53.060 They refused to say how much has been raised,

00:20:55.940 let alone from how many people.

00:21:00.100 But yeah, it's an interesting point.

00:21:01.580 You've got both campaigns raising pretty much the same amount of money,

00:21:05.020 but one campaign with more than twice the support of the other.

00:21:07.560 So what I'm thinking, there are some people

00:21:10.220 who are deeply invested in Alberta politics

00:21:14.380 who really want Mr. Toews to win

00:21:17.100 and they're digging deep in their pockets,

00:21:19.600 which is their right.

00:21:22.240 But it's interesting that Smith's appeal

00:21:25.280 seems to be wider, much wider.

00:21:28.620 Of course, back to the polling numbers.

00:21:32.940 We've got all of the other candidates

00:21:36.240 whose name is not Daniel Smith, save Todd Lowen,

00:21:38.900 have been very clear it's anybody but Danielle.

00:21:42.420 They had their, as Linda Silbodian put it,

00:21:44.840 their Mean Girls press conference getting together saying,

00:21:48.340 Sovereignty Act is terrible.

00:21:50.100 It's the worst thing ever.

00:21:51.100 Danielle must be stopped. 1.00

00:21:53.120 Vote for anyone but her. 1.00

00:21:54.820 Rank your ballot all the way with everyone whose name is not Danielle Smith.

00:22:00.060 She's sitting at 44 here.

00:22:01.560 And that's, I think, lining up with most other polls.

00:22:04.180 It's got her just shy of winning on a first ballot. 0.99

00:22:06.640 But I think the smart money here is that she's not going to grow as much on subsequent ballots as probably Travis Taves and possibly Brian Jean will.

00:22:19.240 How much risk is she in of Alberta conservative frontrunner syndrome here where she has a strong first ballot but can't grow her way to a win on the subsequent ballots? 0.91

00:22:28.140 I don't think it's that high a risk. If you look at the numbers, even if he's held, and of course, you know, we pulled with people who say they would vote UCP, but it's not necessarily members. So that's a different category altogether. And a 44% and then it was seven, I believe, for Lowen. And I would almost think when Lowen drops off, if the balance could, if those numbers held, almost all of those 7% would go towards Smith.

00:22:50.960 her bar to reach and that creep. And we know that she might only get a small percentage of 0.99

00:22:55.820 the second votes for the other candidates if when they drop off, but it would be enough by that

00:23:00.300 point to push her over the edge. But I think realistically among members, I mean, it's

00:23:04.800 indicative as well. When you look at the way those fundraising numbers matched out, she's doing good

00:23:09.380 traditional ground organization. She's selling a lot of membership. She's getting people on the 0.58

00:23:13.860 ground. She's galvanizing them. I mean, you could get a millionaire to give a hundred thousand to a 1.00

00:23:18.700 campaign, but his vote's still only one vote when it comes to the membership voting. Technically

00:23:22.800 that would be illegal. Well, you know what I'm seeing. There's ways. So, you know, she's doing 0.96

00:23:28.100 it the traditional get them out there. And I suspect when you're looking at percentages of

00:23:31.700 actual members sold plus members that are engaged ones that are going to get out and vote, I still

00:23:37.900 think she's going to win it comfortably on the first ballot. You think she's going to get first

00:23:40.940 ballot? I do. Have you got that on the bet? I don't know. Might have changed by this point.

00:23:44.760 You got to get on the board. Oh, I'm up there. I just, that might, I haven't looked at it.

00:23:48.700 Well, it's going to cost you another six-pack to update your – if you want to get on again.

00:23:51.980 You're going to get that back out of me one way or another.

00:23:53.740 I'm going to get paid back here.

00:23:55.720 You can add another one, but it costs you another six-pack.

00:23:58.300 It's essentially you're placing a second back.

00:23:59.740 I don't even remember what I did.

00:24:01.520 You're going double or nothing.

00:24:02.260 I was going to have a look, so I'll have a look.

00:24:04.080 But at this point –

00:24:05.020 You're saying first ballot.

00:24:05.880 I think she's going to win at first ballot. 1.00

00:24:07.300 I'll throw my number out right now at 55.

00:24:10.400 Okay.

00:24:12.340 Have you got a guess?

00:24:13.420 I would actually say very much the same as Corey.

00:24:16.700 Just to make it more fun, I'll say 60%, but, you know.

00:24:19.660 60?

00:24:20.280 First ballot.

00:24:21.820 Okay.

00:24:22.100 Well, you know, think about it.

00:24:24.060 You take all the votes that aren't already committed to Taves and Gene,

00:24:31.720 they've got to go somewhere.

00:24:34.480 Yeah, but other than Lohan, they're all strongly, strongly anti-Smith.

00:24:39.000 And Taves' status quo support.

00:24:41.080 Like, he's been selling to people who are saying,

00:24:42.440 I'm okay with things as they are.

00:24:43.660 Those are the hardest ones to get off their butt, fill out their thing, seal the envelope, and put it in the mail.

00:24:48.340 I agree.

00:24:48.840 It's the angry one of those.

00:24:50.040 I think the reason she's not, she has semi-captured lightning in a bottle here, but I think a little less so than Polyev.

00:24:58.780 And the reason for that is that federally, the liberals are in power.

00:25:03.760 Right now, the conservatives are in power.

00:25:05.560 And so you have a large segment of the UCP, the more kind of establishment PC Tory side that says, well, things can't be that bad.

00:25:13.900 We're in power. So they're not as angry for them.

00:25:17.840 The last few years have been on balance, probably fine.

00:25:21.360 You know, all mistakes were made, but on balance, they're fine.

00:25:25.060 I think she's captured the bigger part of the party.

00:25:27.860 But I think because, you know, it's not like federally we're Trudeau's in power.

00:25:32.740 So I'd be surprised if she captures that much of a thundering win, but let's go to the one way maybe she can.

00:25:42.100 So what we're going to talk now about is another part of the poll we did, which is on the Sovereignty Act.

00:25:48.380 So I don't have the exact numbers. Overall, a plurality of Albertans were opposed to it.

00:25:53.840 Now, we asked the question differently than other media have.

00:25:55.800 Other media, upholsters went out and they said, do you support the Freedom Convoy, which was a movement that went to Ottawa to blockade borders, occupy the city, and end public health measures?

00:26:08.420 Well, that's pretty leading.

00:26:09.900 I didn't want to lead it any other way and say, did you support the Freedom Convoy, which went to overturn the tyrannical government in Ottawa, which has been oppressing us?

00:26:18.560 That would have been leading as well, even though it might be kind of my view.

00:26:21.040 We just asked simply, do you support the proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act?

00:26:24.740 simply. So there was a plurality, not a majority, but a plurality of Albertans

00:26:29.380 were opposed, but a very, very strong minority were supportive. And then roughly 23, 25 percent

00:26:38.380 didn't know or didn't have an opinion. But I had the pollster ask that question for a different

00:26:46.000 reason. I want to know how UCP voters feel about that. So then you segment, you know, that first

00:26:51.180 question we had. How are you going to vote? And you match it up, take the UCP people, and then ask for

00:26:55.060 their answers on the Sovereignty Act. And that was an interesting number. 67% of likely UCP voters

00:27:03.780 in Alberta say that they support the Sovereignty Act. Second place was not opposition to the

00:27:10.660 Sovereignty Act. Second place, by far, was about 25% who said that they don't know or don't have

00:27:18.120 an opinion. Among UCP voters, the opposition to it was about, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:27:25.160 we have the numbers on the site, but it was about only 17% of UCP voters oppose the Sovereignty Act.

00:27:33.100 So let's talk about what this means just for raw politics. I don't know about you, Nigel,

00:27:39.380 But I would like to be on the side with 67%, not 17%. 0.80

00:27:45.560 Right now, you've got one big candidate and one small candidate, Smith and Lowen, on the 67% side.

00:27:52.240 And then you've got all five other candidates, two of which are big, sharing 17%.

00:27:58.080 If you're advising Travis Taves or Brian Jean, and you look at these numbers, what do you advise them to do?

00:28:09.380 change the channel. Don't talk about the Sovereignty Act if you can get away with it.

00:28:15.380 They've tried. They can't. This has become a referendum on it. It's too late.

00:28:18.260 Smith has obviously laid out the terms of this thing, but they're on the wrong side of the people

00:28:24.260 who are going to make the decision. It's as simple as that. If you've got 10 people in the room and

00:28:30.340 six of them want one thing, two of them don't know and two of them all wants completely different,

00:28:36.100 it's the sixth that's going to make the decision. Those are roughly the percentages that you're

00:28:40.900 talking about here. There's not really an awful lot that you can do about it. They can...

00:28:44.740 It's actually like six, three, and one almost. They're in third place beyond don't know.

00:28:52.420 So they're not in a good spot. If it's a referendum on the Sovereignty Act,

00:29:00.260 there's the result. So Corey, I'm going to ask you this from a different perspective.

00:29:04.980 You look at this, and you're on the Smith campaign.

00:29:07.920 This would tell me that the Sovereignty Act is more popular than Danielle Smith. 1.00

00:29:13.060 Danielle Smith is actually below where she should be. 0.93

00:29:15.700 If this is a referendum on the Sovereignty Act, she's underperforming.

00:29:20.500 Sovereignty Act's at 67 among UCP voters.

00:29:23.620 She's at 44.

00:29:25.180 If I was her, if I'm advising her, I'm telling her, double down on it.

00:29:30.920 Talk Sovereignty Act all day, every day.

00:29:34.280 What would you advise her?

00:29:35.500 I don't know if I'd go with that.

00:29:37.120 Like, it's at this point, if you're starting to feel pretty confident, you're going to pull this off.

00:29:41.060 Because that's going to be the harder sell if and when she does win the win. 1.00

00:29:44.240 She probably wants a first ballot win, though. 0.99

00:29:46.780 Well, if the 44 turns out to be true, that's not a first ballot.

00:29:50.420 It's still at least up in the air.

00:29:51.820 I think broadening some of her policy, I think with the tactics she did recently, now she's gone into health care. 1.00

00:29:56.420 And she's, you know, that's a big issue with a lot of people.

00:29:59.640 And when you've got some of that 67%, they might have still been supporting one of the other candidates because, well, I don't know where she stands in health care.

00:30:05.720 I like the Sovereignty Act, but I don't know where she is there.

00:30:07.320 Well, she's now stepped in that. 0.57

00:30:09.100 I mean, there's a risk because her health stance could drop people off of her. 1.00

00:30:12.060 You know, when you start changing, you start losing some of your base as quickly as you gain it.

00:30:16.220 So you better watch which battles you take.

00:30:18.300 But I don't know about hammering further on the Sovereignty Act.

00:30:20.800 I mean, you don't back down from it by any means, but I think at this phase.

00:30:24.360 Smith is less popular among UCB voters than the Sovereignty Act.

00:30:27.360 I mean, so on the other side, just politically, I mean, Taves and Jean might genuinely believe that the Sovereignty Act is a bad idea.

00:30:35.920 But, I mean, I've never met a politician who's above flip-flopping when it makes good sense to.

00:30:41.240 And for me, if I'm looking at them, it looks like this is a time to flip-flop.

00:30:45.700 Well, she can twist the knife a little more. 0.99

00:30:47.260 She has been trying to be very conciliatory and nice.

00:30:50.060 The reality is, you know, at least when you're looking at Taves, look, you guys did nothing for three years.

00:30:54.480 That's why your leader got kicked out on his butt.

00:30:57.360 I'm proposing to do something.

00:30:59.300 That's what's drawing people.

00:31:01.140 You guys should get on board with this,

00:31:02.800 even if you're going to twist that knife a little more.

00:31:04.840 But I mean, I think everybody's already well aware

00:31:06.740 that that's her act as far as that goes. 0.95

00:31:08.660 I mean, if that's why they're going to support her,

00:31:10.280 then they will.

00:31:11.460 So I just don't know if doubling down

00:31:13.580 is going to give her much benefit at this point.

00:31:19.120 Yeah, well, I don't know.

00:31:21.760 I'll put it to you.

00:31:22.740 So Smith, 44 is definitely leading the pack by a wide margin, but she is still well behind support for the act that she's associated with. If you were advising her, would you tell her, you need to do more? You need to continue to bust away in support of the Sovereignty Act? Or are you trying to broaden appeal? Or are you just trying to max out Sovereignty Act support?

00:31:47.660 So people like the Sovereignty Act, the people who are going to make this decision, some of them are still unsure about Danielle Smith because of the floor crossing.

00:31:59.120 That is probably a big part of the difference between the 44% that she supports, that she enjoys, and the 67% that supports.

00:32:09.420 A big albatross.

00:32:10.200 How does she cross that? There's only one way to do it, and that's out there doing what she's doing, out there talking to people. She is very persuasive. When you meet her, you want to believe her. So the more people she meets, the more hands she shakes, the more she puts it out there, the better her chances of reaching out to the low-end supporters as well.

00:32:34.540 The single biggest cause that leads me to think that she's going to win this is not that she is at 44%.

00:32:41.320 It's that the keystone policy that this has become a referendum on the Sovereignty Act is at 67%.

00:32:47.700 And that other than Todd Lohan, all of the others have not just said that they're against it.

00:32:51.840 They have cried chicken little about it.

00:32:55.100 They're calling this apocalyptic.

00:32:56.920 Now, you've got to be careful with polling on issues, though, because not every issue is weighted the same to every voter.

00:33:05.600 Every voter says health care is important, but not every voter makes their decision based on health care.

00:33:11.260 67% say they support the Sovereignty Act.

00:33:13.620 That doesn't mean that 67% of the UCP voters are going to make their decision based on the Sovereignty Act either, because people have different priorities.

00:33:22.780 You are correct.

00:33:24.620 Right. That is the theory. But you said it yourself just now. Sovereignty Act has become the referendum. This election is a referendum on the Sovereignty Act. That's the trigger issue this time. I think your analysis is correct.

00:33:45.660 Speaking of a referendum, we had a little one in this poll on how Albertans feel about the media.

00:33:51.340 Now, I don't want to toot our own horn too much, but I got to do it a bit.

00:33:56.520 I don't have, geez, I should have written down the details of the numbers here, but the numbers were great.

00:34:01.080 So this is Albertans at large, not just UCP voters.

00:34:04.280 This is Albertans at large with a demographically weighted proper poll.

00:34:08.960 And there was a strong plurality, I think, in the 40s, around 42% of Albertans.

00:34:13.300 honestly more than I thought. We asked Albertans, or our pollster asked Albertans,

00:34:19.080 which source of news do you trust more? Independent and alternative sources or

00:34:26.220 mainstream sources of news? And it was, I think, a win of about 10% for independent and alternative

00:34:33.780 media, which is incredible. I know we're at strong risk of tooting our own horn here too much,

00:34:42.480 but whatever, let's take a victory lap. But it's not just the Western standard. There are other

00:34:47.040 independent media here, some on the left, mostly not on the left, but there are some.

00:34:53.640 Corey, go to you first. What do you think would be behind that? Why would, you know,

00:35:00.280 why are at least Albertans, we didn't ask Canadians at large, but we asked Albertans,

00:35:05.100 why do you think Albertans would be leaning so strongly towards independent

00:35:09.060 media outlets and away from the mainstream?

00:35:12.440 I think a lot of it still hangs over from the truckers' convoy.

00:35:15.100 I mean, the legacy media in Canada embarrassed itself

00:35:18.040 with its coverage of that, the way they portrayed things,

00:35:21.400 they spun things, they fabricated some things.

00:35:24.120 I mean, the amount of retractions that Mother Corp

00:35:26.300 had to put out during the convoy was an embarrassment in itself,

00:35:29.840 and Albertans haven't forgotten that.

00:35:31.860 And a lot of that, too, is, again, we've seen that

00:35:34.160 definitely a fawning towards Justin Trudeau

00:35:37.820 and Justin Trudeau's hostility towards Alberta.

00:35:39.860 So you're getting quite a recipe for people to say,

00:35:42.320 I've had it with that established media

00:35:43.940 and I'm looking for alternatives.

00:35:45.200 So I think it's happening across the country,

00:35:47.100 but probably more so than other areas than in Alberta.

00:35:49.860 And then some of it, I like to think,

00:35:51.280 as pattern on backs, we're doing a good job.

00:35:53.340 We've been putting stuff out there.

00:35:54.480 It's been some years of Dave with some solid news copy

00:35:57.540 and some great columnists and reporters

00:35:59.880 and people realizing we can go to other sources.

00:36:02.300 You can pat yourself on the back.

00:36:03.740 We have good opinion from you too.

00:36:05.220 But they're finding out that these alternatives are more than blogs.

00:36:08.760 They are real news alternatives, and they're coming up, too.

00:36:11.720 I think it also really went downhill for mainstream media during the last two years with the COVID coverage.

00:36:17.480 Yeah.

00:36:17.840 Because it was so obvious that they were, in their own minds, they were good corporate citizens doing a public service by taking whatever the government said

00:36:29.180 and putting it out there with a bullhorn

00:36:32.400 and making sure people did the right thing.

00:36:35.780 And often it wasn't the right thing.

00:36:38.020 And often they found themselves saying one thing here

00:36:41.340 and something else completely different there.

00:36:44.400 And people eventually said,

00:36:46.540 well, I don't know whether I believe any of them anymore.

00:36:49.360 And their behavior during COVID really hurt them.

00:36:53.000 I would take it from both of you.

00:36:55.620 I think those two years were absolutely devastating to it.

00:36:59.180 were, in their minds, they were being good corporate citizens, but they stopped seeing

00:37:03.000 themselves as watchdogs of the powerful and started seeing themselves as the bullhorn of

00:37:08.560 the public good. And they have a different view than perhaps some of we do on what is public

00:37:12.860 good. And I think their coverage of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, that was just kind of, that was

00:37:19.820 the piece de resistance. That was just kind of accumulation of it where you've just got some

00:37:24.660 truckers with bouncy castles and hot tubs, and they're saying, well, good God, it's like London

00:37:29.460 in the Blitz. We're under siege from the Nazis, and we're facing imminent evasion at any time.

00:37:34.800 Democracy is going to be overthrown. And I think a lot of people saw through that. I would suspect

00:37:40.200 that if we conducted this poll in other provinces, particularly in the East,

00:37:44.840 you'd probably see mainstream with an edge over the independent and alternative sides. I think

00:37:49.820 you'd still see a lot of support for independent and alternative, but I think you'd see less so

00:37:53.460 because there's less independent and alternative media there.

00:37:57.220 Alberta is, we're the laboratory of it in Canada.

00:38:02.960 The influence of independent media, I think, in Alberta is much greater than elsewhere.

00:38:07.640 I mean, that's where the Western standard will cross all four Western provinces,

00:38:10.740 but it's no secret.

00:38:12.140 Careful, Derek, they're listening.

00:38:14.420 We're broadcasting.

00:38:17.000 But it's no secret that the, you know, we're most read in Alberta over other provinces.

00:38:22.940 We've got good readerships in the other three Western, but definitely biggest in Alberta.

00:38:26.980 And you've also got significant numbers of people here who are going to listen to other non-government sources of media, left and right.

00:38:35.240 I think it's just bigger here, so there's more experience with it.

00:38:39.980 And, you know, yes, the last two years, then finished off with the Freedom Convoy.

00:38:46.160 But this has been coming for a long time.

00:38:49.020 It's been coming for a long time, trust going down in the mainstream media.

00:38:52.940 But what was more interesting to me was trust in the independent and alternative media.

00:38:59.180 Distrust in the mainstream media has been building for some time.

00:39:01.960 But trust in the alternatives to it, that was heartening that 40-odd percent of Albertans were,

00:39:08.520 they put their trust in organizations like us and other independents.

00:39:13.160 Okay, well, that's enough tooting of our own horn for a day.

00:39:17.300 I like the Freedom Convoy.

00:39:18.740 All right, gentlemen, thank you very much for joining.

00:39:22.140 If you are not yet a member of the Western Standard, shame on you.

00:39:26.320 Shame.

00:39:26.700 Hang your head in shame.

00:39:28.320 But open your computer right now if it's not already open.

00:39:30.520 Go to westernstandard.news and click on membership.

00:39:32.760 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year.

00:39:36.760 And that will give you unlimited access to all Western Standard content.

00:39:39.680 And you'll be supporting independent, bailout-free Western media.

00:39:44.560 Apparently, your neighbors trust us.

00:39:46.560 So if you trust us, if you trust the Western Standard to provide you the straight goods,

00:39:51.420 well, then you should support it

00:39:52.540 because the Western Standard refuses

00:39:53.680 to accept the penny of the federal government's media bailout

00:39:55.740 and we can't do it without the support of you.

00:39:58.880 Well, that's it for today.

00:39:59.880 Nigel, Corey, thank you very much as usual.

00:40:02.620 Thank you. Always a pleasure.

00:40:04.040 And all of you, thank you very much.

00:40:06.340 Auf Wiedersehen.

00:40:20.980 Thank you.

Western Standard - September 15, 2022

The Pipeline： Poilievre's landslide win

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