THE PIPELINE： Polls show Alberta independence & UCP gaining
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Summary
In this episode of The Pipeline, The Western Standard's senior Alberta columnist Corey Morgan and editor-in-chief David Veitschnek talk about the upcoming referendum on Alberta's independence from Canada. They also discuss two new Human Rights Commission cases, one involving a non-binary person with no hair, the other involving a guy who opposes radical gender ideology.
Transcript
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I am Derek Fildebrandt, the publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.
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I've got almost the identical normal lineup here.
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We've got former Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford.
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We've got senior Alberta columnist Corey Morgan.
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Filling in for Dave Naylor is David Veitschnek.
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We've got two Daves, double D, and we've also got two Johns.
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All right, we're going to be talking about two cases from Human Rights Commissions.
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In Quebec, where some poor little hair salon was fined $500 for having a male and female option when booking appointments on the website.
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And I guess a non-binary person with no hair was not able to select another category.
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And then in British Columbia, slightly more expensive, three quarters of a million dollars awarded, taken from some guy who opposes radical gender ideology and given to weird BC teachers' organizations because he disagrees and expressed himself on social media.
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We're going to talk about the nine, very likely ten, referendum questions that are going to be coming up in Alberta in October.
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Question five of them on immigration, four of them on constitutional reforms, and then the final one, very likely, on independence.
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I don't think any place in Canada has ever had ten at the same time.
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I doubt any has even had more than two or three at a time.
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But first, we're going to talk about a series of polls the Western Standard commissioned.
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Western Standard hired Main Street Research to poll Albertans.
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We did a pretty big sample size for this, asking a variety of questions.
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David Veitschek, we've got in today because he led most of those stories.
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We'll talk first maybe about the poll we asked on independence, how Albertans would vote.
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Well, right off the bat, Derek, I mean, the poll, I'm just bringing it up here.
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If a referendum were held today in Alberta, basically 34% said that they would be for independence,
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and 66% said that they'd remain part of Canada, which seems to be kind of similar to a bunch of other polls that we've seen recently.
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I think there was one that just came out today I saw that said, I can't remember who did it,
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but they said that 80% of all Canadians that they polled wanted to see Alberta and Quebec still stay within Canada.
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But I mean, for the most part, I've seen that, I think 34% are roughly around a 34% number supporting independence in numerous places.
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I'm just looking here to see what the gender divide is.
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73% of women actually were for a remaining part of Canada,
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and that seemed to be a number that popped up a lot with the questions pertaining to independence.
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I don't know what the point is or the deal is with that exactly.
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I don't know, maybe if you have any thoughts on that?
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Well, men, on most issues, you know, it's not going to be clear cut, but men will skew to the right on issues,
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and women will skew to the left on issues.
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And that's not just Alberta or even Canada, that's just most places in the world where people vote on things.
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And, you know, the Alberta independence movement's dominantly a political project,
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so you're going to, you know, it's going to lean right.
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One of the things, I mean, Corey, this poll was, I mean, it's not out of line with what we've seen before.
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Other polls will show it lower, though, where they just change one word.
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I've always said that, you know, it's like, you know, your marriage has ended and you go to the singles bar,
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and you can introduce yourself as single, or you can introduce yourself as divorced.
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They mean kind of the same thing in this context, but they have a very different connotation to it.
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I mean, there's lots of ways we know that you can massage polls sometimes to get results that you want,
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It was straightforward questions, but that's where you can see some disparity between different people who have polled
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and some of the outcomes, something as minor as the question.
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I mean, separation sounds harsh and negative and, you know, is an end.
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And yeah, but it's just like, it can also tell you where somebody stands as soon as you're talking to them,
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If they use the word separatist, chances are they're not terribly thrilled with the concept altogether.
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They use independence, maybe they're a little more receptive.
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You know, if they're anti-energy, you know, conventional energy, they're going to call it tar sands.
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These campaigns, you know, are made to convince people to go one way or another, and we'll see these sorts of things happening.
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What's interesting, though, the numbers you had, too, though, were on the undecideds have been removed.
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So that's still a large chunk that we can see a lot of momentum might happen in this next eight months.
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We've never really had a discussion like this this long.
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It was someone else's poll, and they pulled across Canada on if Alberta should be allowed to leave,
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I guess implying that if they try to, Canada would send the army or something.
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I guess that's implied in that at the end of the day.
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Super majorities of people outside of Alberta and Quebec, super majorities across Canada say, no, they should not.
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But notably, it was six to eight points higher for refusing to allow Alberta to leave.
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I think there is a significant number of people probably in Alberta who would be happy for Quebec to leave.
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So maybe I didn't look around the cross tabs for enough detail, but it was funny to me that a huge number of Canadians are like, no, they should not be allowed to,
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which then raises the next logical question, which is, what are you prepared to do to not let someone leave?
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Well, that's precisely what I thought when I read the story this morning.
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It makes perfect sense that the rest of Canada would be very against allowing the province that pays the freight to leave Confederation.
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I mean, just the Canada pension plan would be the first hit, and coming right after that,
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the whole reason why we have such a debate about equalization in Alberta is that it doesn't work for us.
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We end up paying not a bit more, you know, not that little bit more, which just makes you a good citizen,
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but basically paying the cost of Confederation.
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So you bet people in eastern central Canada understand exactly what that game is.
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If you may indulge me in a personal anecdote, some years ago I was in Quebec,
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in that part of Quebec on the north side of the river, which doesn't speak English.
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But we noticed that as we went around the houses, everything was fixed up.
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They'd had an ice storm just a year or two before.
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Finally managed to find somebody with broken English, and they said,
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Well, where does the Quebec government get money from?
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So we were happily there looking around to see what we paid for.
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Well, as you say, what are they prepared to do to keep us?
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Logically, you have to be prepared to send the army if you had an army.
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Well, I guess Canada is planning on having an army now staffed with non-Canadians.
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We're happy to use military force against Canadians.
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I had a Slovakian friend who had, you know, with his mandatory service in the 80s,
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the way they worked it with them was you're all under the Soviet umbrella,
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And likewise, Polish soldiers would be in Ukraine.
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They would always make sure that that way, in case they had to do something
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against the local population, there wasn't a loyalty to it.
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I don't think, I'm not going to read in so far thinking that's the motivation
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I think it's one that just doesn't know how to draw people into the military
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and is getting desperate, but there's some reasons to be concerned when you
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have people who aren't domestic in your military forces.
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You know, to that point, Corey, if they want to import people from that part
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of the world into the Canadian armed forces, they're probably going to have a bit
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But the thing is, if you have people with that mindset, yes, you probably could
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deploy them against the Canadian population, and they wouldn't mind.
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The results on the, you know, how people would vote in an Alberta election.
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The liberals, it's funny, I guess just a residual brand recognition.
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They pulled like 6% or something down, but they almost don't run candidates at this point.
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They're effectively a dissolved party for all intents.
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So I caution conservatives that that liberal vote is likely just to vote NDP in a provincial
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election because they're going to go cast a ballot.
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But noticeably, the so-called progressive Tory party, you know, the two breakaway MLAs,
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and the Republicans and Independence Party, both of them are like 1%.
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But yeah, it's like, yeah, not much big of a difference, let's be honest, really.
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And I think the other people that would vote for another party is also pulling at 1%.
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Corey, the progressive Tories, it's not really, you know, new parties are always hard to start
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But if you're going to start a new party in Canada, almost any political system, you
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You have to offer something no one else is offering.
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And this is just like, actually, quite legally speaking, it is the Alberta party.
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They're just trying to set up Switzerland in 1917 on the Western Front.
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Like, there's already two big armies hacking at each other, fighting over no man's land.
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And you're proposing to set up your lines in no man's land where everyone's already fighting
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Well, and it's just continuing that recipe for failure the Alberta party's had for 15
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years, where they just keep saying, we're the middle, we're the middle.
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But when people vote, they vote for this or they vote for that.
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And as much as, you know, you listen to some polls, people say, oh, I get tired of hearing
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Well, perhaps, but your votes don't actually reflect that.
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So this, this progressive Tory party is going to have to stand for something if it wants
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As it sits, it's just an area for disenchanted left-leaning, you know, conservatives to land.
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And it's just not grabbing anybody's imagination.
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The federal poll was, I think, the most interesting.
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It, well, here, why don't you give us the results of the Alberta voters for federal election.
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Yeah, and this is, again, with the undecideds removed, 48% said they'd vote for the Conservative
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Party under Polyev and 45%, surprising, this was the big thing that people were talking
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about, said they would vote for the Liberals under Mark Carney.
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I have no idea where that number came from because I did not expect to see that originally
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I'm becoming a little less skeptical of it, but I saw that.
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Not, I don't think there's a single person alive in Alberta who has been around with
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the Liberals, came even anywhere close to tying the Conservatives or one of the Conservative
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pre-assessor parties like Reform Alliance, etc.
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This is unheard of, and I, so I didn't really believe it, except, you know, we asked rough
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We asked a bunch of questions, and the answers on those, for the most part, didn't really
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Like the provincial vote attention, independence, how people thought about pensions, a number
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It all lined up more or less with the conventional wisdom.
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It's possible, Nigel, that this could be correct.
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I know, you know, there were some other Conservative media and some people in, you know, the Conservative
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sphere very upset with us for releasing this poll, to which I said, like, we paid to have
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And just because we didn't like the answer doesn't mean we don't release it.
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We're, you know, we're not doing propaganda for you here.
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We might be on the right, but we're not working for a Conservative party here.
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There are some people who'd rather not know from their doctor that they have cancer.
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So you're going to get a certain amount of that.
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But this says there's a big, big problem for the federal Conservatives in Alberta.
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And I think where it comes from, just a theory, but there's a tendency when the world looks
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like a dark place to gather around the flag, to gather around the government of the day
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It's like people who build their houses beside a fort.
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You know, they want to be, they're looking for protection.
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It's not the Alberta way, which makes this very surprising.
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But I still have to say that when people, first of all, the narrative around the Conservative
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Party at the moment is unfortunately not as strong as the Conservatives would wish it
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And although nobody talks about it, they're nevertheless, they're there.
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And then the second, so can we trust the Conservatives to lead us out of this?
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They asked themselves, what's going on with separation?
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And then they say, well, this carny chop seems steady.
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So I see this as a reaction to, this is searching for certain, searching for certainty.
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Well, one thing I would say as well, Derek, if I may, that was very interesting is 38%
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of people that were polled from the rest of Alberta, which is like rural Alberta, said
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that they would vote for carny in the Liberals.
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But we've had, there's a, I think it was Angus Reid came out yesterday or something.
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And they, they didn't show the Liberals as strong in Alberta, but showed very unusual
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Well, there's still some hangover, I think though.
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And I mean, even among Albertans and we're seeing that attitude, there's a US versus Canada
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state that's been fostered by the Liberals and fostered by Trump back and forth.
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And it kind of plays into what Nigel is saying too.
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I mean, even if they're proud Albertans and they're ticked with Ottawa, when you see an
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external threat and when you see, you know, some of the tensions and attitudes going on
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with that, you'll sometimes go to, Polyev hasn't been able to frame himself as the person
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That's been the thing hanging over his neck for a year now.
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I think it's not so much that Albertans have turned into Liberals, but when push comes to
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shove, they're just not feeling confidence that Polyev is going to stand up for their
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I mean, there's a rally around the flag effect whenever there's an external threat.
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I mean, you remember after 9-11, George W. Bush's poll numbers, it got into the 80s,
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Like North Korean levels of, like we always make fun of North Koreans.
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But, I mean, from their perspective, they're always facing an external threat.
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Obviously, they're heavily propagandized, but so are we in a different, we have a much
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more subtle, much more maniacal kind of propaganda here.
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Some I've seen speculate in the media that, you know, it's the Alberta independence threat.
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The other numbers don't seem to bear that out because the UCP is doing better than the
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federal conservatives in Alberta, which is not usual, actually.
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Normally, the federal conservatives outperform provincial, you know, the United Conservative
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So, this says that there is, you know, it's not a huge number, but a significant number
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of people who would vote for the UCP and Danielle Smith, which is significantly more hardcore
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And then they go and plan to vote for Mark Carney.
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You'll have to get them to email us if there's anybody listening.
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If you are Danielle Smith, Mark Carney voters, we want to hear from you.
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But, I mean, there's switchers in all provinces.
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But in this case, you're going from a, you know, the Alberta UCP is, I mean, their fiscal
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But on a lot of these issues, especially around Alberta, national unity, independence,
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Trump, all this stuff, I don't get how you vote Danielle Smith one day and then you'd
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I mean, you know, that's, it's, it's a weird mix going on.
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I think this year before it's up, we're going to see some changes.
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I don't know exactly where the heck they're going to go, but we've never seen a period
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That's part of why we're seeing, I think just these strange things in the tea leaves.
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A year ago from now too, though, look, when those polls first started coming out, we were
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dismissing like, holy cow, look at this liberal resurgence.
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And, and it went from down in the toilet to just shy of a majority and little has changed
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Well, uh, speaking of independence, let's talk about the big rash of, uh, referendums coming
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up, uh, yesterday I interviewed, uh, premier Daniel Smith, um, she was generous with her
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I know, uh, some of her staff wanted to keep it shorter, but, uh, she wanted to go through,
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uh, a lot of the individual questions to, to her credit.
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Um, so, uh, there's five policy questions, uh, mostly essentially centered around immigration
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issues and, you know, Alberta taking more control of immigration, limiting migration,
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uh, removing benefits from those who were not supposed to be here and requiring people
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So there's going to be a referendum on those five questions.
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And then four questions of a constitutional nature, uh, abolishing the Senate, clarifying
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powers between provinces and the feds, appointments of judges, things like that.
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And then very, very probably there'll be a vote on independence triggered by the citizens
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Um, so we'll get to the timing of all of it to begin with, but I'm, I, I was a bit
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critical of the five immigration questions, not because I don't think they're good policies.
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I think they're, they're so obviously good policies that they should do it immediately.
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Polls show that there's a big, uh, big appetite for this in the public, not just in Alberta, but
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across Canada for, for actions on getting migration, mass migration under control here.
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Um, you know, I'm fine with some direct democracy, particularly for constitutional questions.
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Constitutional questions should always go directly to the people, but this is a legislative issue.
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And I feel like they've got a majority, the legislature sitting right now, they should just do it.
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And if the people broadly don't support it, they can start a citizen's initiative to overturn it.
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Uh, so I don't know, uh, which he wants to pick it up first, but, uh, I'm against having referendums on this.
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So what she actually said to you, Derek, was that she wanted to hang off on this.
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Basically, she wanted to get the people behind her.
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She didn't disagree with you that the, that, uh, she had the legislative power to do it now.
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Uh, she 100% agreed, but she pointed out things have changed a bit in the last five years.
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We've got a whole bunch of people who weren't here five years ago as part of the problem, of course.
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Um, but to just go out there and do this without putting it in front of the people and making a
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referendum out of it would just give the NDP and any other opposition, well, she, this, she's just,
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They called her a Nazi for putting forward a referendum on measures that are supported,
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I think, by even most legal and productive migrants that are here.
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So the, so they're not, she's not getting anyone on site.
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So the subtlety here is that now that she's put it through a referendum,
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she doesn't have to do anything for six months.
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This is not, this is a, um, I'm not saying I agree with that, but I can see
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But Corey, you know, uh, yes, they were not elected.
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This was not in their platform, but we don't elect parties just to enact what's in their platform.
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They expect them to react to issues as they come along.
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So if a problem was already there and acute before, uh, like, I don't know, the NDP just
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bringing in a carbon tax or the federal liberals bringing in a carbon tax that they did not run
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And we should have the right to have a, an initiative petition referendum to, to repeal
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Uh, we did not when the NDP was in, we did not with Trudeau when he did it.
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Um, but we elect these people, not just to rubber stamp, but to govern and to think and
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Uh, the public is, I think, already on side for this stuff.
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I can see, I mean, just reading at the bottom when it comes to, uh, uh, bringing in a law
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requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship in elections.
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Well, if you want to have something that modifies the amount of way we can vote,
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If this is an acute issue, we want that before you vote on this, uh, as opposed to,
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you know, that's one that you really could do tomorrow.
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Uh, I think realistically, we know that we know the political game, we know communications.
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Uh, this allows, well, cause she's got a lot going on on the plate.
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She's got a budget that really, I mean, like let's face it doesn't look terribly conservative,
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She's just made some very large spending announcements.
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Uh, this is something to keep the discussion for the populists going and, and things like
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that, but still on the sideline and not trying to eat all that soup all at the same time.
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So they can use the legislative session, kind of as Nigel said, you know, to chew on all the rest
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And this gets kicked down the road to deal with, uh, by referenda at the end of the year, not saying
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it's necessarily the best way or most principled way, but I can understand the rationale of it.
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Well, let's talk about some of the rationale, particularly around the constitutional questions
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and the likely coming independence ref, uh, question.
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Uh, so for, for constitutional questions, uh, David, uh, and, and independence.
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Um, I, I, I, I put it to Smith when I was interviewing her yesterday that, I mean, look, we had the
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Um, even if they didn't ignore it, uh, Quebec has a de facto veto on any change to the constitution.
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Parliament will never, Parliament also has to sign off, not just the provinces.
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Parliament will never sign off on a constitutional change that does not have Quebec's blessing.
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Um, so I think this is a dead end because for Quebec to even consider it, they have it as
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well-established policy that they, uh, they have their whole grab bag of constitutional issues
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And they're all very francophone nationalist stuff and asymmetrical, uh, federalism that
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You know, we're going back to Meech Lake and Charlottetown for, for the young kids.
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If you can remember from your history books, I, I was, uh, I was a tyke, I guess, when this
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stuff happened too, but, um, it's never going to happen.
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Um, so, but I get putting forward the idea of constitutional reform, but why would we vote
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on constitutional reform on the same piece of paper in which we're also voting on independence?
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We, I mean, this is like going to the courthouse to the divorce counter and asking for marriage
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No, like we, I, I put it to her that like, we should vote on these reforms and see what
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the rest of Canada, see what Ottawa does, give them three months, six months, whatever,
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And then it just seems to be, you're doing two very different things at the same time
00:26:31.280
Well, I was just going to ask you if you thought maybe she was doing that so that they could
0.62
00:26:34.400
put sort of a damper on the independence talk, kind of put that on the back burner,
00:26:38.160
maybe, and kind of just hide it within all the other stuff.
00:26:40.240
That's why they're having it at the exact same time.
00:26:44.800
He's like, you said, it's like, is anything really going to change?
00:26:48.000
Well, you see, uh, uh, Nigel, a lot of the, you know, lefty commentators are out there saying
00:26:52.800
that she's holding all of these referendums to boost the independence vote.
00:26:58.080
As they've said it, I'm inclined to agree with David that I see that this is, I don't
00:27:02.720
think she's trying to suppress the independence vote, but I think if I'm being cynical, she
00:27:07.200
is perhaps trying to mix it with a bunch of things.
00:27:11.840
No, one's going to be talking about the immigration reform.
00:27:13.600
No, one's going to be talking about constitutional reform.
00:27:15.520
Everyone's going to talk about independence because it's so much bigger.
00:27:19.680
We don't have to ask Ottawa for more permission over immigration if we're our own country.
00:27:23.840
We don't have to talk to them about getting rid of the Senate if we're our own country.
00:27:27.440
So all these other issues become completely moot.
00:27:29.920
So yeah, the left is arguing she's trying to do this to bolster independence.
0.74
00:27:33.600
I don't think she's necessarily trying to stop independence, but trying to mix it up.
00:27:38.640
And I think she actually risks the success on her nine questions she's putting forward
00:27:44.160
because everybody who's going to come out to vote against independence, the Federalist vote,
00:27:50.880
I think their inclination will be to also vote pro Ottawa down the ballot on all of the questions.
00:27:56.800
I'm voting against independence and I'm voting against taking more control of immigration.
00:28:05.760
I'm voting against abolition, those kinds of things.
00:28:08.800
I don't know whether I agree with you on that, Derek.
00:28:12.720
See, one of the things that she has to contend with, which you didn't mention in your summary,
00:28:19.120
there is her own caucus who are not of one mind on many of these things.
00:28:25.040
There are some members of her caucus who are very much in favor of independence,
00:28:29.920
and there are others who won't have it at any price.
00:28:32.400
Some just really want to know what their constituents think, and they can modify their position then.
00:28:38.960
So how do you actually stop all this boiling over in 2026,
00:28:47.200
when it would be highly inconvenient to have a split in the caucus out in the open,
00:28:55.120
And other parties would include, by the way, the federal liberals,
00:28:59.440
to whom it would be a tremendous advantage to have a disunited Alberta government.
00:29:05.200
But why would we be voting on tinkering with, or getting rid of the Senate,
00:29:10.080
and tinkering with divisions of federal powers?
00:29:15.840
Everyone's only going to talk about independence.
00:29:25.520
Fever is a deep writer, as well as a thinker on these things.
00:29:29.120
So we go into this stuff with a passionate intensity and work out little angles and so forth.
00:29:35.920
With all due respect to Albertan voters, most of them don't pay any attention to this,
00:29:45.200
So I have to just, you know, so on this, um, in, uh, you know, when, when we get into an actual
00:29:54.720
campaign period for these referendums, if you stopped an average person on the street and said,
00:30:01.920
Which question are they going to assume you're asking about?
00:30:07.040
So it's going to be essentially the campaign starts now.
00:30:10.640
One of the things I didn't like looking at this too.
00:30:12.880
I just did it while we were doing your intro, but I just did a quick check.
00:30:16.080
When you add the questions together, there's about 400 words among them.
00:30:20.960
This is why the clarity act was created in the first place.
00:30:24.640
I mean, at least the independence question actually is bang it's yes or no.
00:30:28.640
And that's where 90% of the discussion is, but we're going to have eight months talking
00:30:32.400
about some of these things, which yes, we know they are asking if the other provinces
00:30:38.560
We know that's not going to happen in a million years.
00:30:40.560
The Atlantic provinces and Quebec are never going to go for that.
00:30:42.720
Well, it's actually a Supreme Court of Canada reference made that can't be done.
00:30:46.240
So let's remind Albertans all of that, as we're approaching an independence vote,
00:30:50.480
the futility of trying to change these things, the futility, plus having the,
00:30:56.880
poo-pooing it and saying, you guys can't choose your judges.
00:31:02.080
And after eight months of that discussion, and as Derek said,
00:31:04.400
there's really only one question that's going to be on people's minds when they go into that booth.
00:31:08.480
I think in the long run, this will help because they either,
00:31:11.120
we got to accept the complete intractability of the rest of the country,
00:31:17.120
Yeah, but you should vote for one first, give them three months, six months, whatever,
00:31:24.240
They're not going to, but let Albertans see that first.
00:31:29.200
I mean, I'd slap these out in June and then we could have three months to chew on it before we go to it.
00:31:42.800
When you ask someone on the street, how are you voting in the referendum?
00:31:46.560
Everybody, everybody's going to assume you're asking about independence,
00:31:50.160
not about one of the other nine questions on immigration or the Senate or judge appointments.
00:31:56.160
Every single person is going to go to that last question, independence.
00:32:01.600
So if the strategy here is to camouflage it, I don't think it's going to work.
00:32:09.520
But my, I do think if you go and you stop a stranger on the street and said,
00:32:13.040
how are you going to vote on the, on the referendums?
00:32:16.080
He's probably going to say at this stage, well, I don't understand a lot of them.
00:32:19.520
And I thought we couldn't vote on the Senate anyway, but yeah, you know,
00:32:23.520
well, I'm still making my mind up about independence.
00:32:26.880
The average voter's not even going to know there's a vote on this.
00:32:28.640
I was going to say what, what referendum they're not even going to say.
00:32:33.600
There's something interesting to keep in mind too, though.
00:32:35.520
So the Quebec referendum in 93, 95 had a 93% turnout.
0.97
00:32:40.240
When a question is that important, people will get off their butts.
00:32:43.680
So they're going to be in that booth and they're going to look at these as well.
00:32:46.720
When, if it was just these, I think you'd have a 40% turnout because people are already bored and
00:32:52.560
But when you got that nuclear option at the back of all those questions,
00:32:56.240
this is going to spawn a discussion of these issues we've never had before, really,
00:32:59.520
in a way we haven't had before anyways, and it might, might make a difference.
00:33:08.400
People having to give up their houses to pay out offended teachers for not agreeing with trans ideology.
00:33:15.920
Nigel, yeah, there's, I mentioned at the top of the show, two cases, one a lot pricier than the other,
00:33:22.160
but both absolutely absurd where people are, I mean, to pay for not complying with gender ideology.
00:33:28.560
So what we've got going on here is two cases of compelled speech.
00:33:32.960
We all like to talk about freedom of speech so we can say what we think without fear of our penalty.
00:33:40.480
What we've got now is government agencies telling us what we must say.
00:33:45.440
This is no longer about what we, whether we dare say what we think.
00:33:50.240
This is about do we dare not say what the government is telling us to think.
00:33:55.680
So what we've got here, you mentioned two cases.
00:33:58.720
So as a little hairdresser's shop, you go online and making your booking.
00:34:08.160
You know, so somebody, and I think when you told the anecdote,
00:34:27.040
Well, it's just another level almost of the, the, the ball waxer there.
00:34:30.880
Uh, you know, you're just going beyond the pale with your requests.
00:34:39.520
You know, they're a little, a little crazy anyway, I think.
00:34:42.080
But, uh, so the thing goes to court and the little hairdresser's shop.
00:34:47.440
$500 because they didn't have an option and said pick a, and they
00:34:52.240
apologized and they, and they, and they had fixed, they had fixed the website and added his,
00:34:57.680
uh, you know, none of the above kind of option or whatever it is.
00:35:03.920
You know, they probably went to the trouble of fixing the website because they saw what
00:35:07.520
was going on in BC, which is the really outrageous one.
00:35:15.360
Well, BC, there's a, there's a school district, um, uh,
00:35:22.160
His name is Barry Neufeld and, uh, is ordered by the BC human rights.
00:35:28.480
Tribunal to pay not $500, not even $5,000, but $750,000 to LGBTQ.
00:35:53.200
Well, for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.
00:35:59.440
He has publicly, publicly criticized the educational programs in BC schools as child abuse because they
00:36:07.680
encourage children to consider, you know, are you sure you're a boy?
00:36:17.200
You know, and he labeled gender fluidity a biologically absurd theory, and he posed medical
00:36:26.400
transitions for minors, which is what we, of course, oppose here in Alberta as well, thanks to the
00:36:33.120
So all of this that the tribunal deemed as an existential denial of trans identities,
00:36:40.240
terms like gender ideology seen as fostering discrimination.
00:36:44.800
Now, let's just remind ourselves that whether you're a short earther or a long earther,
00:36:51.680
nobody has questioned the idea of gender for about 500,000 years.
00:36:58.240
In the last 20, it has become fashionable to say, well, if a person thinks he's a woman,
00:37:08.320
And if a woman thinks she's a man, you must give her credit for her feelings on this matter.
0.95
00:37:14.000
It is somebody sticking a gun into your head and saying, you will either repeat after me
00:37:22.480
something that you know to be totally inaccurate, totally wrong, something that you don't even agree
0.96
00:37:32.080
And so, David, I mean, the great totalitarian regimes of the 20th century,
00:37:38.400
uh, often, uh, banned speech, uh, I mean, actually, I, I have to admit he was kind of funny in a way.
00:37:56.000
Um, but you know, the great totalitarian regimes would ban speech, but they wouldn't generally compel
00:38:03.360
speech. You know, you weren't allowed to criticize the regime or the dictator or their policies or
00:38:08.560
whatever, but you were, the average person was not required to go around and chant the slogan for
00:38:15.840
the most part. Um, that, that's where we're at. We've, we've skipped kind of hard totalitarianism
00:38:23.760
I keep hearing online. They call it gay race communism. It's quite a bit different than regular
00:38:27.760
communism. It would seem. And I was just going to say as well, like that first of case,
00:38:31.040
Nigel brought up about the guy apologizing and still like them getting fined. It's like,
00:38:34.480
that's why you never apologize to these people because you enabled them and you're still going
0.91
00:38:37.280
to get screwed over. Anyway, he probably would have gotten Nigel's point. He was probably looking
00:38:41.600
at the case in BC of three quarters of a million. And he was like, yeah, he got us with his slap
00:38:45.440
on the wrist of $500. I think now he might be kind of fighting it. Cause he's like, okay,
00:38:50.080
this is ridiculous. But, uh, well, it was like, remember that case of those bakers in the States
0.70
00:38:54.320
with the whole like Islamophobia thing. It's kind of the same thing. Did they apologize?
00:38:57.600
Because they want to bake the cake for the gay couples, gay marriage couple.
0.95
00:39:01.600
That's yeah, that was the slippery slope. I don't think the slippery slope was gay marriage.
1.00
00:39:06.160
Uh, people had their concerns. It happened and the sky didn't fall and that was okay.
00:39:11.920
But people did warn of the slippery slope and where the slope started to get slippy,
00:39:16.560
I think was the cake where the cake, because this was not about, you know, gay marriage,
00:39:22.320
you know, people arguing for it said, you're not, this is not going to affect your marriage.
00:39:26.560
You don't have to do anything. This is other people doing their own thing.
00:39:30.640
And as soon as someone else had to do something to affirm what they wanted to do in their private
00:39:35.840
lives for it, that opened the door. And that's where we are now with gay race communism, where
0.98
00:39:42.080
you get fined three quarters of a million dollars for wanting to keep gender weighing studies out of
00:39:48.080
the third grade class. Well, and it's what's distressing with this though, is the extreme
00:39:53.360
they went to. They aren't trying to just inconvenience or punish. They're trying to crush him.
00:39:58.080
Those are bankruptcy numbers. These are lose your home, lose your retirement, live in penury for the
00:40:03.760
rest of your life in, in some shack, unless you were somehow very independently wealthy when you've been
00:40:09.600
nailed by something like this. I would only hope that it's appealable just in the extreme of the
00:40:15.200
punishment. I think you can't take it to a court. I doubt a court's going to uphold it, but it shows
00:40:19.840
you how mad the BC human rights commission is. And these commissions shouldn't exist, period.
00:40:23.840
They shouldn't. That's the whole thing too. We shouldn't legitimize these judy, you know,
1.00
00:40:28.000
or quasi judicial kangaroo courts. I think you said Judge Judy. Yeah, I have more faith in her.
0.89
00:40:33.920
You would get a better, a more fair trial with Judge Judy. But you know, we should just have one
00:40:38.560
judicial system anyway. It's not this, this human rights crap. That's usually appointees who are extreme of
0.98
00:40:42.960
one ideology or another who sit on these things. And by the way, when a tribunal hears these cases,
00:40:48.880
they are not bound by the procedural techniques of a court. No. There's no business of, uh, you,
00:40:55.280
you may be able to demonstrate that what you're saying is true, but that doesn't matter. Truth is,
00:41:02.160
truth is not a defense if it exposes an identifiable group to hatred or contempt. Truth is not a defense.
00:41:09.520
You can prove that what I said is true, but if it exposes an identifiable group to hatred or contempt,
00:41:15.520
you're guilty. I hold the commissions in contempt. Yeah. Uh, and this is just a good reminder, uh,
00:41:21.360
back in the Western standards first version, when it was a print magazine, the human rights
00:41:24.640
commissions and tribunals came for the Western standard for being the only publication in Canada
00:41:29.280
to publish the Muhammad cartoons. And, uh, and, you know, those human, those commissions almost went
0.79
00:41:37.200
down over that because they, they finally crossed the bridge too far. They were just going after
00:41:41.040
some unsympathetic figure, uh, you know, printing anti-Semitic leaflets on, uh, you know, through a
00:41:46.800
fax machine or something. They went after a legitimate news outlet sharing a legitimate news story
00:41:53.280
and they went to bridge too far, but it just goes to show you have to defend those unsympathetic
00:41:58.720
figures who are maybe doing something you don't agree with. Uh, because, you know, to quote Rachel
00:42:05.040
Notley, first they came for the anti-Semites, you know, then they came for the capitalists,
0.88
00:42:12.800
you know? All right. All right. Our parting shots. We're going to get first. Okay. Well,
00:42:18.320
this is one that I think you guys can agree that I'm getting annoyed with hearing about is all these
00:42:21.840
people that are on the, uh, Alberta independence petition, their canvassers are getting harassed by
00:42:26.080
people. And now I miss Mitch Sylvester, the CEO of the Alberta prosperity project, had a guy come
00:42:30.400
into his store in Bonneville with a bullet and threatened him. Where was any of this for the,
00:42:34.800
uh, forever Canada petitioners? I never heard a single thing about that ever happening to them.
00:42:38.560
So now what's the difference? I pull over, I'd see them on the side of the road, uh,
00:42:42.880
kind of a country road in the way of my place. I pull over, say hi, how's it going?
00:42:46.480
I'm smiling away. Although I have seen, uh, we maybe need to follow up the story. I have seen
00:42:51.120
it alleged. It was not an actual bullet. It was a, it was, I talked to Mitch to clarify,
00:42:55.280
it was an actual bullet. That guy's an actual, that guy, that, and that actual video. That's
00:42:58.720
not the guy. It's not even the same guy now. Okay. Interesting. All right. Uh, Corey, uh,
00:43:04.480
well, just kind of ties into where you're going, I think in a bit, but if people aren't familiar
00:43:07.760
with John Cleese from, uh, Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, and I know he's never been a conservative
00:43:12.960
with his political views, but boy, this last week has he let loose, including on that $750,000
00:43:18.880
ruling saying he may not tour Canada because of that. Because again, as much as he might be a
00:43:22.960
lefty, he values free speech and he's ripping into Islam just brilliantly. So follow him on X because
1.00
00:43:29.200
he's pulling back all, uh, political correctness him and Rowan Atkinson as well. So the old English,
00:43:34.960
uh, comedians, at least you're standing up might be too late, but at least they're speaking out.
00:43:38.960
Mr. Bean, symbol of freedom. I, uh, his speeches might not be good. Oh, although I'll never forget.
00:43:45.680
Uh, I'm sure you've all seen that one clip. It was Rowan Atkins, not as Mr. Bean, but Rowan Atkins,
00:43:50.000
and he was speaking at a Tory convention in the eighties. I haven't seen one. Oh, it's such a
00:43:55.920
classic. It's such a classic. All right. Hey, brilliant defense. Yeah. So look,
00:44:01.600
what's the state of the union address last night, despite the, despite the intense difficulty,
00:44:06.960
watch the whole thing. Yeah. We, we, we were working. This is how we, we know you're retired.
00:44:12.240
Yep. This is, uh, I don't know whether it was tell us or whether it was the originating was a
00:44:17.680
horrible thing to have to watch, but what was, uh, what Trump said, appealed to me. What didn't
00:44:25.840
appeal to me was the response by some Democrats who couldn't even rise to say, well, at least that kid
00:44:35.840
is all right, or that kid has done well, or this fellow deserves his, his, uh, his medal.
00:44:42.960
And it took me back. I haven't thought about this for a very, very long time, but when General Grant
00:44:49.760
became president, Ulysses Grant, after this American civil war, finally he died. He was reckoned to have
00:44:57.120
been a good president. And two Confederate generals were among the poll bearers as he, as he left the
00:45:04.320
church. So it is possible for Republicans and Democrats to get together over things that are
00:45:12.800
possible. It was possible back in the 1870s. There's something about the Democrat response there.
00:45:20.400
They can't even applaud something that's good. It makes me think the problems of the United States
00:45:25.440
are a lot deeper than we think. Uh, and just on, on that, a tip of the hat to the cameraman at the,
00:45:31.680
uh, speech. I didn't watch the whole speeches. It was way too long, but, uh, Trump had these moments
00:45:37.920
where he talked about, I'm quoting Trump here. It's not me talking about Somali pirates ransacking
00:45:43.600
Minnesota. And he hands to Elian Omar. Who's, who's crashing out. And he talks about, uh, you know,
00:45:52.320
uh, the absurdity of transgendered ideology. And he pans to, I think a democratic member of Congress,
0.98
00:45:58.560
who is a biological man, but dresses as a woman. That cameraman better hope of JD Vance stays
0.91
00:46:08.160
president because he's not going to be filling many more of these things. It was, it was ballsy.
00:46:13.920
Uh, okay. Mine, uh, I want to draw note to those of you who have not been paying attention to,
00:46:19.520
uh, the United Kingdom's newest political party, restore Britain. Uh, you know, there was a lot
00:46:26.080
of hope and maybe there still is some, uh, for Nigel Farage's reform party or Nigel Farage led Brexit
00:46:31.680
for years, did God's work, uh, at least the reform party now, which has been, uh, uh, leading in kind
00:46:38.560
of minority government territory in the UK, um, completely eclipsing the Tories. The Tories look
00:46:43.760
headed for kind of liberal democratic, uh, Lib Dem, um, you know, third party, fourth party,
00:46:50.000
extinction status, um, was really going for it, but he just didn't seem to have a religion on things
00:46:56.640
like re-migration, the key issue, re-migration. And he kicked out, uh, a member of Farmland. Was it, uh,
00:47:03.760
Lowe? What's his name? The MP. Anyway, you kicked this guy out. This guy has now gone on to start
00:47:09.120
his own party. You kicked this guy out because this guy, uh, supported re-migration. This guy has
00:47:13.040
gone on to, uh, start, restore Britain. Brilliant social media campaign from me. Rupert Lowe. Rupert Lowe,
00:47:19.680
yeah. Um, brilliant social media campaign in the span of, I think the party's roughly a week,
00:47:25.600
maybe two weeks old. It's less than two weeks. It's only 7% in the polls. Three times with the polls,
00:47:32.240
what the, uh, Alberta's, uh, progressive Tories are. Um, you know, already, like, really hitting
00:47:38.480
the map. My fear is, of course, you've now got the Tories, you've got reform, and you've got restore,
00:47:44.560
and first pass the post system, that's not a recipe for success, but neither is doing what the UK has
00:47:49.920
been doing, which is leading it to civilizational, uh, uh, extinction. So they've got to do something
00:47:55.440
radical, uh, but I just want to bring note, uh, point out for Store UK, uh, just the absolute,
00:48:02.640
they've come down like a meteorite on the, on the UK-British scene, and, uh, I think we'll hear,
00:48:08.800
we're gonna hear a lot more about them in the next years. Okay, Cory, David, Nigel, thank you,
00:48:16.240
and thank you, John, running in the studio here. And all of you, uh, watching from home, or your
00:48:22.800
elliptical, whatever you're doing, thank you very much for joining us. Remember to go to
00:48:26.320
westernstandard.news, click on subscribe, it's only $10 a month, or $100 a year for unlimited access
00:48:32.000
to all Western Standard content, getting past that paywall, and to support the work we are doing.
00:48:36.880
We've now got, uh, we've got full-time staff, full-time reporters in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton,
00:48:43.440
Regina, Toronto, Ottawa, uh, we're spreading like the plague. All right, thank you very much for joining us