THE PIPELINE： ‘Professionally incapacitated’： John Rustad voted out
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Summary
BC Tory Leader John Roloff is no longer the leader of the party, and a new leader has been appointed. Western Standard's own Jaron Yeager joins the show to talk all about it. Plus, we talk Bill C-9, the pipeline deal between Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney, and much more.
Transcript
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You've heard the headlines, you've watched the narrative shift, and you can feel it when the truth is being rewritten in real time.
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But not here. We don't make the powerful comfortable. We make them answer.
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No scripts, no gatekeepers, no permission needed.
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If you're done with polished spin and state-approved storylines, stand with the voice of Western Canada.
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Today is December 3rd, 2025. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.
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I'm joined by the usual crew in the studio here, former Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
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And Western Standard senior operator columnist, Corey Morgan.
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And joining us for a very special day, you're going to find out in a second why we've got Western Standard's VC Bureau Chief, Jaron Yeager.
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So, we'll be talking about Bill C-9, a bill in Parliament right now, which is designed to make sure you can't hurt people's feelings online.
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But now is going to quite explicitly strip people of freedom of speech and freedom of religion around saying, quoting things from religious scriptures, which, you know, the Bible, that could be construed by.
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Some has, hateful, removing any provisions that were in that bill.
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We'll be talking about the pipeline deal between Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney.
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We were talking about it in anticipation of it on the pipeline last week.
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I'm not convinced one way or another yet, but it's not quite as shiny and pretty as we were hoping it would be.
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But first, the reason we've got Jared Yeager on the program today.
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BC Conservative leader, John Rostat, walks the plank.
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Like earlier today, our BC Bureau Chief, Jared Yeager, broke the story that a majority of the BC Conservative caucus signed a letter declaring non-confidence in him.
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And then just moments ago, the board of the BC Conservative Party voted to remove him as leader.
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Jared, why don't you add a bit more detail about what's been going on?
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It's just developing as we're talking, but why don't you just give us a little background and what's been going on today?
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Yeah, so it's been a pretty busy day, but for anyone who's been paying attention to BC politics over the past few months, this shouldn't come as too big of a surprise.
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So more and more people have been calling on Rostat to resign from both within and outside the party.
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And today was kind of the kind of the final nail in the coffin.
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20 out of the 39 MLAs in his caucus signed on saying that they no longer supported his leadership.
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And so once that came out, he held a press conference and basically said, I'm not going anywhere.
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And then, like you said, just moments ago, the board of directors passed a resolution to oust him as leader of both caucus and the party.
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And Surrey White Rock MLA Trevor Halford has been appointed interim leader of both the caucus and the party.
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So there was the letter released by the majority of the BC Conservative Caucus declaring they had no confidence in Rostat as leader and requesting the employment of interim leader.
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Rostat then held a press conference after that saying, doesn't matter if a majority of my caucus have voted to remove me, I'm still the leader, right?
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Yeah, someone asked him, like, does this put you in an untenable position?
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And he basically, so he said his argument was there's too many things that are going on in BC under the BC NDP.
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And ordinary people don't care about this, you know, internal party squabbling, which is true.
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But when it comes down to it, there's not much you can do as a party if you're not united.
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And if there's all this stuff going on inside, it takes time away from actually tackling the issues that matter.
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So, well, look, Corey, I mean, John Russ, that blasted his heart.
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I mean, like he did obviously incredible things for this party, getting it to where it is.
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But his leadership ran into really tough waters.
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He appears to have become paranoid trying to fire everyone from caucus that he suspected of anything or disagreeing with him on things, which is ironic because that's how he got kicked out of the BC Liberal Caucus, very strangely.
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I don't think most people understand the Constitution, but the leader of a political party and the leader of an opposition should understand one of the simple parts of our Constitution.
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Whoever can hold the confidence of the whole legislature or parliament is the premier or the prime minister.
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But to stay the leader of your party in your caucus, you have to have the confidence of your caucus.
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And today, the majority of his caucus declared non-confidence in him.
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That is like the prime minister or the premier saying, I don't care if the House has voted non-confidence in me.
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I'm still the prime minister or I'm still the premier.
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John Rustad appears to be totally off the reservation here.
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I think, you know what, I can't help but draw a parallel to former premier Jason Kenney when it all comes to it.
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But then shortly after getting in, just everything started to fall apart.
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But he stubbornly, I guess, you know, they get the sense of accomplishment.
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I own, I have the right to stay in the leadership this long.
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And they just aren't going to give out until they dragged out kicking and screaming with premier Kenny.
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He tried every mechanism he could to hang in there and hold on.
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But when it finally even push came to shove, the members voted him out.
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I think Rustad's in a simple, simple, similar mindset.
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Just the, you know, I've got to use every possible way.
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And he just won't read that writing on the wall.
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And it's a shame because, yeah, already the amount of dignity lost is massive.
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But if you're pulled out virtually by your ear from that seat, you know, you just don't have any left whatsoever when you go.
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There's a difference between building something and getting there and being able to maintain it once you're there.
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The only person who doesn't know it anymore is him.
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You know, Nigel, sometimes leaders have failed, but they've been able to still have a political career in that same caucus afterwards.
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Stockwell, they had a pretty messy one, but he did manage.
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He was a tougher one, but he did manage to stay on as a member of the Alliance and then Conservative Caucus federally and as Captain Minister.
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Brian Jean did not initially with Jason Kenney because there was so much bad blood there, but he did come back.
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He went down pretty quickly, so there wasn't too much blood on the floor.
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But John Brustat has held on so hard, tried to kick out so many people.
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I mean, I guess there's some parallels with Stockwell Day in that respect.
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But does it seem like there's too much blood on the floor for him to even be able to remain as a member of that team?
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Or is this just he now just needs to completely exit the stage?
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I mean, look, he's not leading anybody at the moment.
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If there was a snap election in British Columbia?
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So he's going to have to accept that somebody else is going to do it.
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As a member of the party, as the respected former leader, very much up to him what he does in the next 24 hours.
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And if he says, you guys, you know, if the ship goes down, you're all going down with me, then he's done.
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Stockwell Day is a man of tremendously fine character.
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And he accepted the judgment of the party at that time.
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And he did it in such a way that he was able to serve the new conservative government under Harper.
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And I don't see that in Mr. Rostat's response here.
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Jared, so he refused to step down unconstitutionally when his caucus had voted non-confident.
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So a lot of this is just kind of behind the scenes.
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But I've had people, pretty senior people, well-placed people in the B.C. conservatives tell me that members of caucus for quite some time had been trying to bring a vote of non-confidence against him in the caucus.
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But then the caucus, John Rostat's caucus chair, was just refusing to allow a vote to take place.
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Which, I mean, I really wish I had a boring book of Robert's Rules of Order to give to them.
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You could then impeach the chair at that point.
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You just impeach the chair if the chair is not allowing a vote.
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But, I mean, the other way around was what they did today, which is you just sign a letter.
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And at that moment, you cease to be, you don't have the confidence of your caucus.
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Otherwise, literally, legally speaking, anyone could declare themselves a leader of the caucus.
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Just by convention, if you were elected the leader of the party, you're the leader of the caucus.
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But the caucus can remove you at any time and replace you with anyone that they like.
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He refuses to go when the caucus votes to oust him, unconstitutionally.
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But now the party, as the party's board has voted to remove him,
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One of the things I've been told was that the party was at least strongly considering.
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Maybe this will be kind of a further carrot and stick.
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But one of the things told by some of the sources I've talked to is that if he would not step down,
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they would also revoke his party membership and ban him as a local candidate.
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You're salting the earth, murdering everyone, and selling the women and children to slavery at that point.
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But I suppose that would be one further carrot.
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As far as you know, judging by the look on your face,
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that is not what we know that they've done yet, right?
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No, I haven't heard anything about that yet, no.
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Okay, well, I got the impression from the folks I'm talking to that that is kind of like,
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that's the ultimate stick as opposed to the carrot.
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It's like, you're going to accept our judgment or you're literally not even a grassroots member of the party
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and you're not allowed to be a local candidate.
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Any sign, have you seen any sign yet, Jared, that John Rustad is going to,
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now that his caucuses voted against him, and now he did not accept that.
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But now that the party's board has voted to remove him as the leader,
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Or is he going to bring them to the Carthaginian option?
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I mean, I don't know how you can't accept that.
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Because, you know, he's been the MLA up north in his writing for almost 20 years.
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And so I'm sure he wants to continue doing that.
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So, I mean, or maybe he's just gone too far to give up
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and he might just push it all the way to the end.
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I guess he gets, like, you know, I've never, I've fired people in my career.
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I've never had to hire security to escort someone out.
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I've had staff walk out in extremely rare occasions.
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But at this point, it sounds like you're going to have to hire Brinks or something to come
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and, like, get him to pack up his box and escort him out of the office.
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So the question that I have for Jared is, whatever happens to Mr. Rustad, what is Dallas Brody and her fellows thinking at the moment?
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Is there likely to be a rapprochement between these rogue MLAs and the rest of the party?
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Yeah, there's the independent ones expelled by Rustad on the left end of the party.
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Yeah, Jared, your thoughts on rapprochement with the rebels?
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I think 1BC, they've been successful as a standalone party.
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You look at the polls and they're, you know, almost at the same popularity as the BC Greens.
00:14:10.760
And so I think they're just going to keep doing what they're doing and let the BC Conservatives kind of figure out their mess themselves.
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But even with Rustad gone, they wouldn't, like, I don't know.
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I get the impression Brody would be a contender to win the leadership of the United Party.
00:14:27.060
I could be reading it wrong, but I'm gathering this is the typical battle we have with any big tent Conservative Party, though.
00:14:33.280
You know, you get your red Tories and your blue Tories, and they've really fractured to the far sides.
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I think a lot would depend on what the leadership race is, because I imagine there's going to be candidates sort of representing, you know, we're just getting ahead of ourselves, but still, like, presuming Mr. Rustad's gone, there's going to be a race.
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And there's going to be candidates representing each of those sorts of factions.
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They're trying to find a way to pull it together.
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And anybody who's on the outs with the party right now, I think, would be taking a wait-and-see as to, well, who's going to end up winning the party confidence?
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She has, very few people knew who she was until she was expelled, and then she's built some significant profile.
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If Brody were to go back in and run for the leadership, do you think she'd be a competitive candidate?
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She's kind of thrown all her cards on the table.
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And like you were saying, Corey, it's hard to keep a party together when there are so many different factions.
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But I think the majority of those who have stayed in the BC Conservative Party haven't joined 1BC or split off because they kind of want to be a part of that Big Ten coalition.
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And bringing Brody back in, I think, would kind of, I don't know, just put the party back in the same place it was when it was more fractured at the beginning.
00:15:49.540
Well, then it's not a Big Ten coalition if it's not got a place for people like Brody.
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Like, then it depends on how big you want to make the coalition, yeah.
00:15:57.760
Well, I mean, it's a pretty fundamental part of it.
00:15:59.680
If you're going to be the Conservative Party, you've got to have the Conservatives.
00:16:03.720
Otherwise, you're just kind of the old Liberal coalition, and we're back to where we were 15 years ago.
00:16:12.640
I think some of that, assuming even if Brody wanted to make a go at it,
00:16:16.640
I guess that would land on the party executive committee on whether or not a lot reestablish your membership even in the party,
00:16:25.340
I mean, there's a whole lot of rabbit holes to go down with this.
00:16:28.560
And if she did win the leadership, that would lead to quite a splint in the remaining party.
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You know, I had congratulated BC Conservatives on having such a quick and neat and nice unification relative to the Alberta experience.
00:16:53.480
Like, we've got to remember how friggin' messy it was.
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Remember, like, the mass floor crossings and then just total death.
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And it's still not as bad as it ever got in Alberta.
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You guys are really working on replicating to how nasty and messy the Wildrose people are.
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Talk to some of the veterans of the PC Wildrose battles.
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So, if John Rustad finally bows to, yes, my caucus has voted me out.
00:17:34.840
Okay, then we know more or less where it's going to go.
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What happens if he chains himself to the radiator, handcuffs himself to the radiator, locks the door, says, I'm not leaving my office.
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Well, you'll have to send me out to Victoria because that'd be some great footage.
00:18:03.840
I, well, you know what, this actually might, we're ever so slightly pre-recording here.
00:18:10.120
This already might be answered by the time we're done.
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Jared, keep your Twitter feed open as we're talking.
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But, uh, John, John, you know, you probably got other things to do tonight.
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But if you're watching this, for God's sakes, for the good of the BC conservatives and for British Columbia, I know you feel you've been wronged here and that you're on the right side.
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But, uh, it's time to fall on your sword and do the right thing.
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Um, I guess it kind of segues with BC a bit here.
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Uh, so last, uh, last Wednesday, last time we did the pipeline, uh, you know, our general comment thing was it's got to be pretty good because Smith is facing UCP members.
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It's Friday night at her, uh, the annual UCP convention in Edmonton.
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And, uh, I mean, for her to be able to do a peace deal with Ottawa with a party that does not like peace with Ottawa right now is better be pretty good.
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There's a lot of ins and outs of it, but there's, there's some odd stuff.
00:19:28.940
Uh, but yeah, Corey, you, you, you know, you were with me at the convention and, um,
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I think to the shock and horror of the rest of Canada, Alberta conservative members were not glowing in their praise of this agreement on Friday, were they?
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And they expressed it and watching that parallel and talking to a lot of people.
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And we, we talked to probably hundreds of people over that two days.
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Smith is still wildly popular among the members.
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They love her, but they think she signed onto a stinker.
00:20:08.120
One is just, some people don't believe the pipeline is ever going to go anyways.
00:20:11.900
And the other is some of a, you know, basically as you're putting out a, is, is a Faustian deal.
00:20:15.740
Like we're looking at some of the commitments that have to be made in order to do this, a massive carbon carbon capture project, which could benefit some crony capitalists and possibly suck some subsidy dollars into certain directions, which blue conservatives aren't necessarily thrilled with that sort of trade-off.
00:20:36.660
What I see is actually a lot of junior operators in Alberta, probably not really happy with this whole deal at all.
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Cause that's crushing their ability to be competitive on the markets while the major players play the subsidy game.
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The, the big players, they, they pay, but they also get to collect.
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If you're sucking it back out through the carbon capture thing, then you can perhaps reclimate.
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It's just getting uglier and uglier as we look at it.
00:21:00.400
And then with our own Dave Winnick talking about some of this stuff with obligations, domestic purchases of materials for it, which could price this out of the range, you know, rather than having a wide option of areas to source your materials and so on.
00:21:17.380
I, I mean, we did expect a lot because we'd seen that hard, you know, and we'd gotten on our case.
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Premier Smith said, Hey, these nine things have to be gone by great cup or else.
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And then we came all the way up to great cup and it was, or else, well, I'll tell you in two weeks.
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And we come up on two weeks and okay, this better be, this is going to be something big.
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And she said seven of nine is not bad, but you don't even get the seven of 10.
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And this is a commitment on paper to seven of nine.
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We're seeing that the Bloc Québécois, you know, demanding the prime minister basically stop this.
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Indigenous groups are saying we're not going to have it.
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And the prime minister has just kind of said, eh, I'm going to step out the door and let
00:22:02.080
Because the only way this is going to happen is with ongoing support from the prime minister
00:22:15.200
Nigel, um, you know, one of the reoccurrent themes you've talked about with Mark Carney is
00:22:20.640
he, you know, he likes to have his cake and eat it too.
00:22:23.900
He likes a process where the process is his decision, not, not what we're actually trying
00:22:30.920
You know, uh, I will recognize a Palestinian state if they do X, Y, and Z and well, then
00:22:35.820
allows him to just pretend the process made something up.
00:22:46.700
It's an agreement for a process to potentially build a pipeline.
00:22:51.920
It potentially makes it wildly uneconomical to do.
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If you have to use, it'll be by Canadian steel provisions.
00:23:09.520
The written agreement does not say BC and first nations have a veto, but talks about meaningful
00:23:14.980
Um, but you know, I'm going to go to Jared and a bit about David Eby, but, uh, verbally
00:23:22.520
he said, no, BC and first nations have to be on side.
00:23:25.680
And if that's the case, there's a zero, like we, we may as well just bury this document
00:23:30.640
It's, it's the only thing that's getting in the ground.
00:23:39.220
Smith seemed genuinely proud of us and, and she does not have a reputation for being weak
00:23:43.700
on Ottawa, but do you think she got snuckered here?
00:23:48.620
Well, I'm not going to say that just yet, but boy, oh boy, you've raised such a raft of
00:23:56.920
I'm trying, you know, we're very good at trying to look at things from Alberta's point of view,
00:24:01.140
and we should, but I've been trying to think, well, all right, if I were Carney, what would
00:24:07.840
Um, you want to give the impression that you have a national reach, that you're not just
00:24:13.760
You want to give the impression that difficult though, Daniel Smith is to deal with.
00:24:21.200
And, uh, I will go out and I'll engage with, uh, with a rebel premier and, uh, and we'll sit
00:24:27.880
down at the table and we'll work something out.
00:24:29.440
Um, that's the image I want to portray in Eastern Canada.
00:24:33.880
Now, so many of the things that we're talking about, we've just brought in the price of steel,
00:24:43.800
Um, the attitude of Quebec, I mean, you have to say, why, why would we care what Quebec thinks?
00:24:53.540
They've had their say, they don't want a pipeline.
00:24:56.420
So why are we, why are we, what, what, what's their spot on the table there, but it's all
00:25:01.640
the, these are the details that people forget, you know, even have, even we have to make
00:25:07.800
the notes before we come into the, to the meeting to make sure we don't forget anything.
00:25:12.060
So what sticks in Eastern Canada is that the prime minister went out and met his biggest
00:25:20.960
They shook hands, they signed something and everybody smiled as they went their separate
00:25:30.060
Don't ask about the details because then that doesn't look so good.
00:25:34.100
And with, uh, with premier Smith, I mean, she did do this two days before she had a big
00:25:42.060
Uh, at which point most people have, well, she may have expected that most people wouldn't
00:25:49.360
It kind of sounds as if enough had that, you know, some of the applause was muted.
00:25:55.520
Uh, I can just see this whole thing as a charade, as a, as a, um, as a little bit of political
00:26:02.660
theater that met the temporary needs of two leaders at the same time.
00:26:07.040
Well, Corey, you were there with me as this agreement was booed.
00:26:11.700
It was roundly booed by the members, uh, on two days, the first day, uh, during a bear
00:26:18.420
pit kind of accountability session with the members.
00:26:20.520
And, you know, Smith went into this, I think, you know, beaming, genuinely believing she
00:26:26.980
had a win and she could hold this up and, you know, in front of the people and say, we
00:26:33.420
played tough, you know, and we won, we got this and people booed it the next day.
00:26:41.400
You know, she, uh, said, you know, let's not give up on our, I'm going to paraphrase
00:26:45.800
her, let's not give up on our country just as we're winning, uh, you know, for, uh, sovereign
00:26:50.620
Alberta with any United Canada and people booed again.
00:26:52.760
Now that time there was also some applause interspersed with it.
00:27:00.640
Uh, but she went into this convention, I, I think, uh, expecting this to be a, you know,
00:27:09.380
And, uh, I, I, I, I, I was a kind of up two minds.
00:27:13.860
I was still not, I'm still not a hundred percent one way or another, but I was still
00:27:21.000
I was shocked for the, one of the first times in my life to find myself the moderate in the
00:27:32.020
And I think highly of her, but she's got a tendency to forget what the membership thinks.
00:27:37.900
If anything, you give me a flashback of a time where she held up a thing and told Alberta,
00:27:44.880
She'd negotiated a great deal with a political leader and you're going to say, I know, I
00:27:50.680
And it was the mass floor crossing, which was a political catastrophe and cost every
00:27:59.720
Uh, again, that leader fled on his commitments once he got pushed back from his own party,
00:28:05.520
And he rug pulled her and I could see Carney doing it to her again.
00:28:09.400
I think some of it is Daniel Smith trying to see the best in people.
00:28:12.780
She really does and tries to think this is genuine.
00:28:15.300
This can go somewhere, but forgot what the members might think instead.
00:28:22.640
And hopefully it was a wake up because as I said, everybody at the AGM really does seem
00:28:27.620
They think very highly of her, but we know how quickly conservative minds can change.
00:28:32.200
She's gotten a warning shot and I hope she's thinking really, really hard about it.
00:28:36.340
I, um, I was going to say, but I, I, you know, I get Prentice vibes from Carney.
00:28:44.180
I mean, looks good and professional, comfortable in the corporate boardroom accomplished, very
00:28:51.980
much hailed and respected by the blue bloods, that type of crowd.
00:28:58.620
And I mean, Daniel fell for it with him to catastrophic ends.
00:29:05.120
And I, I'm not saying this is the same thing, but I, I get, I get Prentice vibes.
00:29:11.560
I'm not saying it's the same, but some of that feel is coming up and hopefully she's just
00:29:16.120
And, and I think that, you know, the, she's always, the members do love her, but they still
00:29:22.060
And I, I mean, and it took a lot for forgiveness to take place there, but they did.
00:29:30.040
If I was Smith, I'd be trading very cautiously around, uh, around Carney here.
00:29:38.000
Um, David, according to the written agreement, David Eby has to be meaningfully consulted.
00:29:45.600
First nations along the route need to be meaningfully consulted.
00:29:48.080
According to Carney verbally, they have to agree, uh, if the verbal one is the case and
00:29:55.460
it actually, because it's an MOU, it's not actually a legally binding contract.
00:30:03.820
But, um, I mean, if they are given some kind of veto, never, their consents required, like
00:30:10.640
it is just done and there's no sense discussing it.
00:30:13.840
Uh, but I, I know David Eby responded by, he said something very odd.
00:30:18.540
He's open to another pipeline, but so long as the Northwest coast tanker ban remains in
00:30:24.440
So you can, you can build the pipeline, but you're just not allowed to spend the oil anywhere.
00:30:29.640
Like it can just sit in, you know, infinitely accruing pile of barrels in a port somewhere
00:30:42.820
Uh, so that, yeah, you summed it up pretty well there.
00:30:46.300
Uh, the thing with the BC coast is the, the tanker ban covers pretty much everything North
00:30:51.940
And then obviously you have Vancouver Island in the way.
00:30:55.580
So you're not going to build a port anywhere along there.
00:30:57.840
And there's no cities anyways, leaving only one option, Vancouver and, uh, Burrard Inlet.
00:31:04.520
It's already, uh, too shallow to allow the, uh, existing TMX pipeline to operate at full
00:31:12.480
So nobody's going to want to build a third pipeline next to two that already don't fully
00:31:21.000
So I think what Eby is doing is kind of in a, or beat around the bush way of saying, yeah,
00:31:33.700
Like he, I mean, the, the, the hardcore eco green movements, you know, a pretty major part
00:31:40.660
Um, at what point does the federal government actually exercise the power it says it has
00:31:46.760
to control movement of product across, uh, provincial buildings?
00:31:53.080
I, like, I'm, I'm trying not to be overly partisan or ideological about this.
00:32:04.820
I, I, I, I, I mean, the federal government comes to Alberta and says, you better do things
00:32:17.200
Uh, your, um, your pipeline projects are not going anywhere unless we say so.
00:32:25.520
Are you stating they still aren't going to go anywhere?
00:32:28.260
Either the federal government has, uh, control over interprovincial trade, uh, movements or
00:32:38.900
This is the, this is the bad thing about Carney.
00:32:41.680
It always tells you something and then says, of course there's, you, you made reference to
00:32:45.200
it earlier, but it's conditional on something else.
00:32:47.860
Well, I, I, I, maybe end with this, that we have a likely independence referendum coming
00:32:56.860
There needs to be a hard deadline for approvals.
00:33:01.500
I mean, and, and by Canadian standards, that is warp speed to get there that fast, but there
00:33:06.620
needs to be a hard deadline on approvals before that vote takes place.
00:33:11.020
We should probably schedule the vote for next fall and we should, we should know this, but,
00:33:26.140
Because it has, has the conditions attached to this made this thing economical between
00:33:30.060
the carbon tax, between buy Canadian steel provisions, uh, you know, uh, carbon sequestration
00:33:39.440
But there are some deadlines built into the MOU.
00:33:41.800
That's one thing positive to kind of be said about it.
00:33:43.940
There's some April ones and some June ones that at least start some, you know, road signs
00:33:47.920
to say whether you've actually made any progress working towards this.
00:33:51.440
And if they don't hit those, then, you know, again, I already think this thing's dead.
00:33:55.400
To be honest, I'm getting from skeptical to cynical, but those are in there.
00:33:59.640
And yeah, if there's an active independence referendum campaign going and these deadlines
00:34:03.620
come with even those relatively modest goals haven't been reached, uh, it's going to look
00:34:11.040
And Daniel doesn't have to defend it any longer after that.
00:34:19.220
That's where she's getting in some real danger.
00:34:22.500
We're going to have to hold her feet to the fire on this stuff.
00:34:24.540
There's no, we, we, we got a referendum likely coming up here and these dates mean something
00:34:37.320
If she can say that the dates have come and passed despite my best efforts, they didn't
00:34:51.040
Uh, we don't have a ton of time for it, but let's talk about Bill C9, Nigel.
00:34:56.060
This is, uh, I guess the new, uh, you know, hurt feelings online act.
00:35:01.260
Uh, there had been provisions in it that, you know, if you express a sincerely health religious
00:35:06.180
view, uh, you know, I mean, there, there's some spicy verses in the Bible and in the Quran,
00:35:11.160
uh, around homosexuality and things like that, um, that, you know, don't go over well in
00:35:20.840
Um, but there was protections ostensibly for, uh, sincerely held religious views expressed,
00:35:27.560
uh, that in order to, uh, secure, uh, support of the block of the legislation have been stripped
00:35:34.560
Well, you know, I, I, I, I think the liberals are brave.
00:35:38.680
If you're going to go up against God, get ready.
00:35:42.160
It's not going to go ahead and well, um, look, Bill C9, there's two things to say.
00:35:48.460
One is, um, Bill C9 is ostensibly about online protection for children.
00:35:55.000
And what it says in there is, you know, fair enough if that's what you want to do.
00:36:00.640
We actually already have the legislation to do all that stuff, but protecting children
00:36:05.760
from online predators, making it illegal to, uh, distribute, uh, non-consensual, um, erotic
00:36:14.520
But it's in the bill and they're defending it on that basis.
00:36:18.200
What they have also done is they introduced a second stream in there, which deals with
00:36:26.880
And that's where they, you know, I don't know who would actually want to hoist a swastika
00:36:33.520
on their, uh, on their flagpole in their back lawn.
00:36:37.000
I don't see that happening, but if they did, they would be breaking the law, a big accomplishment.
00:36:44.480
I think it's more aimed at Muslim expressions of, uh, Muslimism in Quebec.
00:36:51.440
I think that's what's driving this, but to kind of make it look, um, to make it look fair,
00:36:57.120
they have also said, well, by the way, the Bible says some unkind things about homosexuality.
00:37:05.600
And it's part of a back scratching deal between the government and the, uh, and, and, and the,
00:37:14.000
Now, the second thing to say is that although it would be possible for Christian conservatives
00:37:19.360
to get mightily angry about this, and they should because it's wrong, nevertheless, they'd have to
00:37:27.120
understand that the liberal party, which is backing this, has got a very different world view.
00:37:35.760
And within their world view, they are being entirely consistent.
00:37:40.720
So it illustrates the deep cultural divide in this country at this time.
00:37:47.200
Um, you know, the temptation when you see Mark Miller out there saying, well, you know,
00:37:52.480
we're going to have to, to ban the, ban these passages of the Bible.
00:37:56.560
They're not going to be used as a, a defense of, uh, genuinely held belief anymore.
00:38:01.840
You know, your back goes up and you think, well, who are you to say that the Bible is wrong?
00:38:05.840
Well, within their essentially, uh, uh, atheistic point of view, that's that they're doing exactly
00:38:17.520
Um, I'm surprised it's taken this long to get here.
00:38:21.680
Uh, Corey, the bill was, I mean, ran into similar trouble in the previous parliament under Trudeau.
00:38:29.200
They've essentially just trying again here, I guess.
00:38:32.480
They said, ah, we're going to avoid some of the prep falls of the last one.
00:38:35.120
They, they do not appear to be, um, the UK, I think, uh, Ukraine arrests, not even accounting
00:38:41.680
for the difference of population size, UK arrests, uh, arrests, arrests in gross numbers,
00:38:47.680
three times as many people a year for online comments as Russia.
00:38:52.000
Now, to be fair, in Russia, they just desentestate you in some case.
00:38:56.960
You, you, you, you, yeah, you fall out the window.
00:38:59.360
Uh, so I'm not accounting for those numbers and that's real, but that's probably not a big
00:39:04.080
number, but it's a, it's a harsher punishment than you get in Canada for, uh, or in Britain
00:39:09.600
But they're, uh, Britain arrests three times as many people a year and Russia has a significantly
00:39:17.920
Uh, the worry is this is going to put us on the same trajectory.
00:39:25.440
Um, there doesn't appear to be much of the way in pushback, uh, there's elements of the,
00:39:32.880
I guess, you know, the center-right establishment mainstream conservative media, uh, you know,
00:39:37.440
like the post-media stuff is, yeah, it is, it's around it on their opinion sections, but
00:39:41.120
there doesn't seem to be any major, major pushback from this.
00:39:44.960
Even the conservatives, I think, are a little tepid on it.
00:39:49.120
No, it makes for hard political games to play because you know how it always works.
00:39:52.400
You're defending hate, you're defending fascism, you're doing-
00:39:55.120
I mean, you want to be the guy who defends the right to fly a National Socialist flag.
00:39:58.720
No, that, that's not, that's not good politics.
00:40:01.600
And I find that I'm, I'll take that stance as a libertarian.
00:40:04.480
I find the flag disgusting and anybody who wants to waive it is doing so, but I don't
00:40:09.520
Uh, you know, it should just be pointed out and let the public, uh, bury that down.
00:40:15.440
I mean, most of them in every religion, if you go back, they don't,
00:40:20.800
If you want to take a literal interpretation of them, well, there'd be people pushing to
00:40:24.560
have slaves and, uh, you know, uh, have sacrifices and things, depending on how far
00:40:30.880
It's, but the modern world has moved past that without banning the texts.
00:40:35.200
There's been, you know, just realizing that we don't take those interpretations
00:40:41.600
Well, I guess part of the problem, uh, Islam, uh, Islam's a different, uh, we, I think generally
00:40:49.840
the Christian world, which has a more elastic interpretation of some of these texts.
00:40:55.600
Whereas in Islam, it's, you know, the Quran is the literal divine, not divinely inspired,
00:41:04.480
And it is, and of course, not every Muslim takes it this way, but very significant numbers
00:41:12.160
And, and so, yeah, some of their texts, uh, spicier sections, if you will, um, a lot of
00:41:22.720
And I get that some groups don't feel safe from that, but guess what?
00:41:28.720
They're going to get to say some stuff that makes you feel very uncomfortable.
00:41:32.480
And I mean, we have to go after the crime rather than the texts.
00:41:35.120
I mean, I'm an atheist and my views in, in some of the countries in the Middle East,
00:41:39.440
if I tried to put those out in the open, that's the same crime because what my thoughts
00:41:44.000
and speech wouldn't be allowed and I would be beaten down because it's a theocracy on the
00:41:51.440
You just ban the acts and, you know, and murder and, and, uh, honor killings.
00:41:56.080
And some of the other things that people might use their texts to try and justify.
00:42:00.400
But the government's using that, I think just as a easy target, low hanging fruit to
00:42:03.920
bring in another bill that's controlling speech.
00:42:05.920
So they'll go after those extreme elements and say, we need to do it because of this.
00:42:09.600
But as you said, it's going to come to the point where people are going to be getting
00:42:20.480
Well, we're going to put a pit in that and go to our parting shots.
00:42:24.640
First one, uh, uh, Jared, I'm going to give you a little more time since you're, uh,
00:42:33.440
So what Nigel thinks is that we just have the, uh, the numbers on medical assistance in dying
00:42:39.600
and they reveal that the practice continues to grow.
00:42:44.400
Um, the, uh, you know, you try to be so organized with these things, but look, uh,
00:42:50.880
uh, 16,499 people received medical assistance in dying in 2024 figures just out on Friday.
00:43:00.560
And what they, a lot of people have missed is that more than 22,000 were actually approved
00:43:08.240
Now, some did back off, decided to change their minds.
00:43:11.840
But, uh, you know, there were more than 4,000 who were approved who didn't get it.
00:43:18.480
How often do we hear about somebody who wants a life-saving procedure, dies on the waiting
00:43:26.720
Uh, you'll die on the waiting list, waiting for assisted suicide.
00:43:39.120
Uh, just, uh, reminding folks that it's not just, uh, the pipeline that's being held
00:43:44.720
There's indigenous leaders as reported in the standard saying that the ring of fire development's
00:43:48.640
never going to happen in Ontario as well, which is in the major projects office.
00:43:57.120
Either nothing's getting done or you're having a fight with the indigenous leaders.
00:44:04.480
Um, so I actually don't have a parting shot, but I have something that's even more.
00:44:13.120
Uh, so the BC conservative party just released a statement saying that they, uh, the board
00:44:18.880
certified that Rustad is professionally incapacitated and thus unable to get continuous party leader
00:44:26.240
There's only, there's a number of ways you can get rid of a leader.
00:44:37.840
Just his career resignation, death, incapacitation, or a leadership review vote.
00:44:43.840
And so they got creative and, uh, incapacitation.
00:44:47.840
It's, it's kind of like article 25 of the U S constitution.
00:44:53.760
And he was, they argued that he's professionally incapacitated.
00:45:01.920
And it's now, uh, if it's, if the party is structured, anything like in Alberta, that's
00:45:06.880
a bylaw under the societies act, and it could technically be challenged in court, but I mean,
00:45:12.480
Also, in the meantime, there is always the option.
00:45:17.680
Uh, they ousted their leader, the wild rose independence party to house their leader.
00:45:23.120
And if you're not a member of the party, you can't be the leader of the party.
00:45:34.560
It's not really a party shot, but it's a, it's a good bulletin.
00:45:37.680
Uh, all right, mine, um, Milo, uh, I'm jealous of this one.
00:45:42.960
A, uh, Canadian manufacturer sold 20 APCs, armored personnel carriers to ICE in America
00:45:51.600
to help root out and get rid of illegal immigrants.
00:46:02.400
I want them here rounding up all the people that we illegally allow in, uh, out.
00:46:12.720
So that's, that's my only problem with it is America stealing our APCs to deal with their
00:46:20.080
Nigel, Corey, Jared, and John running the studio.
00:46:26.160
Thank all of you for joining us here today on the pipeline.
00:46:28.800
Remember that, uh, the Western standard needs support for people like you to continue doing
00:46:34.480
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00:46:39.440
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00:46:46.000
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00:46:56.560
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00:47:04.880
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00:47:12.480
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