Western Standard - The Pipeline： Smith expects more attacks on Alberta from Ottawa.

00:00:00.000 good evening welcome to the western standards the pipeline i'm cory morgan this is our weekly

00:00:18.520 panel show where a number of us from the western standard will pick out a few issues

00:00:23.440 chat about them dissect them analyze them and give our views on them and there's always

00:00:29.000 lots to choose from so before i get rolling though i'm going to start with recognizing

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00:01:43.600 thank you very much. All right. So there's the three of us today. We've got lined up to talk

00:01:49.340 about the issues. Our opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford, how you doing? I am doing great.

00:01:54.760 good to be here again yeah well it's some miserable outside we might as well be indoors

00:02:00.600 talking about feet standing out in the snow this is a good time to be indoor workers

00:02:04.760 and we have our news editor dave naylor at the end of the table there

00:02:08.600 i'm doing well too carl right on no yes the glasses come off the glasses come off the hands

00:02:15.800 go down the voice starts booming yeah it's all good those go on and off yes we have our our

00:02:22.840 tell us would not be terrible at poker so i guess we'll start and this just came out today you know

00:02:28.680 maybe a little later for those watching the recorded version of this guys but uh daniel

00:02:32.120 smith spoke to the ebbenton chamber of commerce and uh put out a some of state of the province

00:02:36.680 uh released yes the state of the yearly state of the province uh not not not much new in there

00:02:43.480 there's no major announcements or anything like that it was a it was basically a rundown on

00:02:48.360 on what she's accomplished in her first year,

00:02:53.540 saying that she wants to make Alberta

00:02:56.020 the best place to do business in the country,

00:02:58.260 lowering taxes and red tape and all that sort of good stuff.

00:03:03.980 But some ominous warnings too,

00:03:05.940 that she expects the battle with the feds

00:03:08.860 to continue over their climate change plans.

00:03:12.360 So delivered to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce

00:03:15.860 for a packed house and uh uh so yeah sadly didn't really have any big stuff in it nigel 0.61

00:03:22.340 well it depends how you define big doesn't it actually if you if you go out there and say

00:03:30.820 that you are expecting the senior level of government to do everything that it can

00:03:37.860 to attack you and to undermine your purposes and you saying it are the premier of the province

00:03:45.160 That's pretty significant.

00:03:47.520 I mean, also, she's not wrong.

00:03:49.480 You can just watch what's going on in the Twittersphere

00:03:51.840 between Environment Minister Goubeau

00:03:55.120 and our own provincial Minister Schultz.

00:04:00.820 You know, it's this endless one-upmanship.

00:04:04.100 But if you kind of take one step back from the actual issue

00:04:09.500 of zero-emission grid by 2035, which is what this is ostensibly all about.

00:04:17.840 Take one step back from that, how very convenient it is for Ottawa

00:04:22.660 to have a Western bogeyman as we are now just slightly less than two years

00:04:28.140 from the next scheduled election.

00:04:30.820 They love this. 0.99

00:04:32.140 They're going to milk it to death. 0.75

00:04:34.000 You bet they're going to keep attacking,

00:04:35.320 And they're going to tell the people in central Canada and further east that they're sticking up for you against the rebels in Alberta and possibly Saskatchewan as well.

00:04:48.840 Well, to be honest, that bogeyman goes both ways, though.

00:04:50.880 I mean, politically, it serves Premier Smith quite well to be able to have a foil in Ottawa that you can always point to.

00:04:55.880 and the much loathed Justin Trudeau, and to keep telling voters, we're going to stand up for you

00:05:01.840 against the nasty socialists, or at least environmentally ideological government in

00:05:09.280 Ottawa. It's almost a, I know neither would like to ever admit it, but they actually

00:05:13.560 complement each other in the political sense. Yeah, Trudeau's plunging in the polls. Nothing

00:05:19.660 he does is right. It all turns to crap these days. So that's obviously going to be his major 0.99

00:05:24.980 election issue he's going to pit alberta as the bogeyman and the rest of canada the government

00:05:31.620 of ontario today cory wrote a letter to the liberals saying you know you got to put a stop

00:05:37.460 to this alberta leaving the canada pension plan because it would hurt people in ontario and it

00:05:43.620 would hurt them in the pocketbooks by having to cover more of the uh the premiums so can alberta

00:05:50.100 Yeah, as public enemy number one fits lovely for what Trudeau would like to see and do.

00:05:56.240 And that's actually going to be a tough one for Pierre Poliver to stick handle too, isn't it?

00:06:00.960 Yeah, well, he's already said that Alberta should stay.

00:06:04.540 So he's made his position pretty clear.

00:06:08.300 But yeah, I think Ontario is just going to be the first of many provinces.

00:06:13.000 Saskatchewan has said they're not overly enthused by it.

00:06:15.880 so I think

00:06:18.340 Alberta could be sitting out there on its own

00:06:21.080 for a while. Well it's been sitting out there

00:06:22.900 on its own for a long time actually

00:06:24.940 if you

00:06:25.480 It's a new rule for us. Yeah if you

00:06:28.560 go to the numbers and you look at how

00:06:31.000 much, never mind the Canada

00:06:32.900 Pension Plan just for a moment

00:06:34.660 but just in terms of the over contribution

00:06:37.060 of revenues to the running

00:06:38.880 of this country

00:06:39.680 by Alberta

00:06:41.720 I mean it's a staggering amount of money

00:06:44.640 I think it's something like $600 billion over 60 years or something.

00:06:50.560 Yeah, to the equalization.

00:06:51.900 That's just the equalization.

00:06:53.160 That's just the equalization.

00:06:54.120 We take everything.

00:06:55.000 I think it comes in close to $27 billion a year right now or something like that.

00:06:58.560 We're contributing more than we're getting back in services or transfers.

00:07:01.920 So now, if you then say, okay, fine, you said step back from the CPP plan for a moment.

00:07:07.840 Okay, let's step back into it.

00:07:09.220 and you look at something that has had the effect of alberta after all the overpayments

00:07:16.900 on equalization and revenues in and revenues out also over keeps the rest of the country going

00:07:25.060 makes it possible for ontario to pay less by alberta paying more

00:07:30.420 for the for the pension plan maybe the numbers aren't as maybe the numbers are open to discussion

00:07:40.880 i mean we would expect premier smith to put forward her best argument when she initially

00:07:47.620 announced the consultations on the plan so but if she if that was correct alberta has probably

00:07:56.600 We put in about half of the money that the Canada Pension Plan has for investment purposes.

00:08:04.120 That's how much we have overpaid.

00:08:06.540 And everybody thinks that's just fine.

00:08:09.100 No, no change needed here.

00:08:11.020 Well, I guess not.

00:08:12.060 No, if I was in Ontario, I wouldn't want to change it.

00:08:15.360 This doesn't make it right, though.

00:08:16.760 No, absolutely not.

00:08:17.920 Well, so people are certainly waking up.

00:08:19.400 I mean, they've had to admit, albeit indirectly, that, yes, Alberta has been subsidizing us for our pension for some years now.

00:08:26.600 and we will be in serious trouble if they stop doing so.

00:08:29.100 But I don't think that helps in my view,

00:08:31.040 of course, science bias is no burden,

00:08:32.420 but it helps in the discussion

00:08:33.700 because it's supposed to be a pension plan,

00:08:35.780 not a wealth redistribution plan, not an equalization plan.

00:08:39.020 So if it's unduly hitting Alberta,

00:08:42.660 then it should either be fixed or it should get out.

00:08:46.100 Yeah, and the good thing is it's brought

00:08:48.340 to the attention of the public eye

00:08:50.460 because when the voter in Toronto or St. John's

00:08:55.280 Vancouver realizes that it's going to cost them more. They're going to, you know, certainly look

00:09:00.160 into the issue and see what's going on and hopefully they can see that Alberta's paid 0.66

00:09:04.480 way more than their fair share. So getting back to that state of the province, I noticed actually

00:09:09.200 one of the things through omission in a sense that Premier Smith didn't touch the pension plan

00:09:12.800 whatsoever through that speech. Yeah, I noticed that. I wonder whether that was intentional.

00:09:20.400 well i'm sure it was intentional well i wonder why and i i guess they they still have the

00:09:25.200 committee going around the province taking the pulse of the uh the pulse of the people on that

00:09:30.720 so maybe a further uh a further reference to it at this point wouldn't be particularly

00:09:36.400 useful never mind helpful sorry i think the whole rollout by uh by the ucp has been a bit of a mess

00:09:44.640 You know, town halls, okay, we're going to hear from Albertans, but they didn't do town halls,

00:09:52.220 telephone meetings. So you don't get that sort of sense of the mood of the people.

00:09:58.240 The NDP says they've got a 30,000 named petition with the vast majority in the 90s saying that

00:10:05.600 they're against it. So I think, and they've lost some of the big columnists and the mainstream

00:10:11.180 media are already tweeting that it's, or writing that it's a bad thing. So I think right now,

00:10:17.480 the idea of the Alberta pension plan is losing the battle of public opinion.

00:10:23.900 Did you get a sheet in your mail yesterday at home?

00:10:28.260 I may have.

00:10:29.380 Yeah. You'd know it was by the size of a shoebox and blue pension plan everywhere.

00:10:35.300 I don't tend to check the mail because it just brings bad news.

00:10:38.700 It's usually bills.

00:10:39.460 You need to get better friends, Dave.

00:10:42.020 Yes, exactly.

00:10:43.360 Well, getting further to that, though, she did focus a lot on opening Alberta for business and so on.

00:10:47.620 Something I saw, and I don't know, this might have already been there and she's reannouncing or if this is something new.

00:10:52.040 But, you know, the small government guy in me started to wonder about this.

00:10:55.580 She was talking about like a 12% subsidy on petrochemicals, capital subsidy, if they're going to use natural gas in their projects.

00:11:04.680 Just deviates a little bit, I guess, from, you know, total free market things, protecting you from Ottawa.

00:11:09.080 Robert, at the same time when you start poking

00:11:11.060 into the subsidy realm,

00:11:12.300 I get a little nervous when you start doing that.

00:11:14.960 Well, politics, eh?

00:11:17.840 Yeah, they'll never...

00:11:19.700 Remember how just before Christmas it was announced

00:11:22.260 that certain qualified demographics

00:11:25.780 would get $100 a month.

00:11:29.440 That's not the Daniel Smith I remember

00:11:32.440 from the editorial board 20 years ago,

00:11:35.100 but that is very much what politicians do,

00:11:38.740 Four or five months before an election.

00:11:41.580 You know, have some money.

00:11:43.260 By the way, perfectly rational.

00:11:46.280 It's taxpayer money.

00:11:47.460 You help the people who need the help.

00:11:48.880 But at the same time, it was a step.

00:11:54.620 It prepares me for news like we are giving money to petrochemical companies to persuade them to use petrochemicals.

00:12:04.140 Wow.

00:12:04.900 Yes, of course.

00:12:05.840 government and business doesn't

00:12:09.020 they just don't

00:12:10.240 I understand the why

00:12:12.600 I just don't have to like it

00:12:13.960 I still think it's a bit incumbent on us to

00:12:15.680 make sure we point it out and call it out a little bit

00:12:18.500 don't start drifting into there too far

00:12:20.640 well you've got a call coming up on Sunday

00:12:22.740 I sense the ire

00:12:24.880 already

00:12:25.440 but I could build if I saw more

00:12:28.620 evidence of it

00:12:30.000 something that sounded good out of it though

00:12:31.920 talking about the red tape reduction

00:12:34.720 and the initiatives and there's actually a claim of some figures on well 2.8 billion how do they

00:12:39.760 calculate that i don't know that's a good question don't look at me i failed math but

00:12:46.640 you know i will give credit to the ucb even under jason kenney they did really well in cutting

00:12:51.520 red tape i mean they had to administer that was his entire job so uh you know he seems to have

00:12:56.960 done a good thing and uh yeah again it's more it's just uh you know you can cut all the red tape you

00:13:02.560 want but until you have to deal with the feds uh you know that red tape is staying which is the big

00:13:07.760 problem yeah well and actually municipally some of the the red tape can be horrific too i mean

00:13:12.800 any level is welcome i i know as uh managing the businesses i had md of foothills or county now

00:13:21.040 oh the the county was terrible to deal with some of their ridiculous regulations and licensing and

00:13:25.200 crap we had to go through but uh well if i've got less to deal with with the province it gives me 0.83

00:13:30.640 more time to deal with the other levels of government that are getting on my case. 0.97

00:13:35.180 Well, you know, it's worth going after, I remember years and years ago, writing a story

00:13:40.740 on the difference between getting a well approval, going to drill a well, in Alberta, and two

00:13:49.060 miles across the Northwest Territories border, and in Alberta, it would take you weeks, and

00:13:55.800 in Northwest Territories, it would take a month.

00:14:00.360 Now, I have a feeling that we don't have quite such an advantage in that area anymore,

00:14:07.160 and certainly it can take forever in British Columbia, but this is actually,

00:14:14.560 there's one area where it would pay us to be good.

00:14:17.160 It would be in getting the drilling companies moving and moving fast.

00:14:23.000 You want to be competitive, you want to be the province that leads, that's the area where you want to lead.

00:14:29.320 If you make it easier for a business to set up, it's just logical that more businesses will be set up.

00:14:35.540 Build it and they will come, I think.

00:14:37.220 When the energy industry does well, everybody does well, so lead with that.

00:14:41.780 Yeah, well, back in the 90s when I was in the oil field, there were two nice visible examples of how well that worked out with being open for business in a sense,

00:14:47.740 because Alberta was flanked by NDP governments in B.C. and in Saskatchewan.

00:14:52.220 and uh you know you look at lloyd minster right down the middle of it there's the border and you

00:14:57.660 looked at the industrial area developing off to the west on the alberta side it was just going

00:15:01.980 and going and going great guns guns on the east side you had a motel i think the postal

00:15:07.660 and a few other things like the growth with a city that should be bisected you know maybe grows

00:15:12.460 somewhat equally no no it was dramatically sticking to the alberta side and that's because

00:15:16.700 the businesses we're realizing the regulations dollar stores and cash flow yeah not necessarily

00:15:22.140 nice things but all the same they are businesses and likewise in bc i used to survey seismic

00:15:28.220 up in the chinchaga area and there's a big cut line on the bc alberta border and that's where

00:15:32.220 i would survey and stake out the boundary of our program literally to the inch right to the bc

00:15:37.340 border where we would not step foot an inch onto that side because suddenly the costs and regulations

00:15:42.540 went through the roof. So we see those things. If Premier Smith is really opening Alberta up more

00:15:48.780 to encourage, you know, that development here, we will certainly bring in those

00:15:52.700 investment refugees from the other regions and provinces.

00:15:59.100 Okay, well, let's get on to, I guess, something a little more global and a little more national 1.00

00:16:04.860 though, and just the ugliness we've been seeing on the streets of Canada, around the world. We're

00:16:13.040 seeing it in the United States. We've seen it in Michigan. We're seeing it everywhere. It's just

00:16:17.260 this rise of anti-Semitism. I mean, I'm going to start with a bit of a rant on it because people

00:16:21.620 keep saying being critical of Israel isn't anti-Semitism. No, it isn't. But celebrating

00:16:28.440 a terrorist attack, slaughtering thousands of Israelis is. People saying protesting against

00:16:34.000 Israel is an answer which is no it isn't but having a mob go side of a Jewish daycare center and intimidating parents and children is and then you know the examples just keep coming there's a function up in a couple of days in Toronto with a Palestinian group saying glory to our martyrs where they're going to get together and celebrate the terrorists who murdered babies raped women and committed horrible acts of atrocity and torture I just get sick of the people trying to soft sell this and say well

00:17:03.980 this is just about Palestine and criticizing Israel. It is not. I mean, we're seeing an ugly

00:17:09.040 head rear itself that's been kind of underground for a while. Yeah, I couldn't have said it better,

00:17:15.560 Corey. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Academia is also, seems to be a place

00:17:23.780 where the left is celebrating the Hamas attacks. You mentioned the Jewish daycare. There was a

00:17:32.240 Jewish restaurant that was picketed. They've been packed to the gills ever since. So that

00:17:40.140 certainly backfired. We've had protests in Calgary where Israeli supporters were arrested

00:17:46.980 and taken away. And, you know, Palestinians by the thousands marching in Toronto in support of

00:17:58.120 Hamas. And you look at the way Canada, the government is handling it, and then you look

00:18:02.700 at the way governments in Europe are handling it. Whereas, you know, like in a place like Germany

00:18:10.840 and France, they're making it easier for Hamas supporters to be deported. You know, go back there

00:18:16.960 then, where you came from. In Great Britain, police have been ordered to arrest people,

00:18:23.180 You know, with Islamic flags and stuff like that.

00:18:27.660 But none of that stuff is happening in Canada.

00:18:30.420 You don't see any sort of pushback, really, against the left.

00:18:36.200 I'll give the Ontario Ford government credit.

00:18:39.540 They all went and had their caucus lunch at a Jewish restaurant in Toronto. 0.79

00:18:45.200 But, you know, union leaders, I mean, they're falling over themselves to support Hamas.

00:18:51.500 I just don't get it.

00:18:52.980 As you said, these are bloodthirsty terrorists like we've never seen before.

00:18:58.980 Israel brought in 400 foreign reporters and showed them 40 minutes of unedited Hamas footage that they took doing these atrocities.

00:19:09.900 And the reporters were just sick to their stomachs.

00:19:12.440 They were in tears.

00:19:13.220 So how anybody from a university professor to a union leader to a multicultural candidate can support this is beyond beggar's belief. 0.79

00:19:29.000 My rant over. 0.89

00:19:30.040 Well, that may not be completely over yet, because you've touched on a number of things there, Dave.

00:19:38.360 But you sort of, you say wonder how anybody could be that way.

00:19:45.300 But I think it was Aldous Huxley who made the, I found it, here we are.

00:19:51.720 Now, the surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating somebody else.

00:20:04.100 To be able to destroy with a good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior righteous indignation, this is the height of psychological luxury, wrote Huxley, the most delicious of moral treats.

00:20:17.460 That's in chrome yellow.

00:20:18.540 Now, when you look at it like that, being anti-Israel gives certain people an easy ticket to what they think is the moral high ground.

00:20:32.840 How they continue to think of it after you saw what Hamas did and what the effect must be on a Jewish parent

00:20:39.320 when their child's daycare is surrounded by angry people shouting bloodthirsty slogans,

00:20:46.140 I can't imagine. It's just a horrifying situation. But we let it go on because we're afraid to stop

00:20:59.620 it. We're afraid to actually name it for what it is, as Huxley does, the deep moral failing

00:21:07.980 in the nation. This isn't about trying to sort out who's right and who's wrong

00:21:12.100 over the occupation of some territory it's about the nastiness of people who have no direct stake

00:21:20.600 in it because if you live in Canada you do not have a direct and personal stake in the outcome

00:21:27.340 of what's happening over there but you do have the obligation to be a decent citizen and we've

00:21:33.340 been quiet on it I mean if I was upset with what the Venezuelan government was doing but I decided 0.77

00:21:38.420 the way I'm going to deal with this is by taking mobs out and screaming at diners at a Venezuelan

00:21:43.340 restaurant, or, you know, ripping down Venezuelan flags, I would probably be charged under one of

00:21:51.140 Canada's hate crime acts or something of the sort for targeting, you know, even though there's plenty

00:21:56.180 to critique about the Venezuelan government. If I'm going to target Venezuelan people here over 1.00

00:22:00.660 it, though, I've crossed a big line. You sure have. And that's what's happening. And there's 1.00

00:22:05.180 been reports now of mezuzahs being torn off doors. People unfamiliar with that. Observant

00:22:10.080 Jews will put a, it's got a scroll actually in a little box and it's affixed to a door 1.00

00:22:15.740 pointing inwards. And if you remember watching Fiddler on the Roof, you might notice every 1.00

00:22:21.440 time they walk in the door, they touch the fingers to kiss the mezuzah on the way. It's 0.96

00:22:24.900 a symbol that lets you know if you've got an observant Jewish household, you'll see

00:22:27.300 a mezuzah on the door. Is that the thing on your office door? No. Observant Jews. So

00:22:34.240 So, but I mean, that's a frightening way of intimidation as well.

00:22:38.140 That's also kind of a way of saying, we know where you live.

00:22:40.200 We know where you work. 0.97

00:22:42.140 And certainly Jewish families have been taking that stuff down out of their own safety.

00:22:48.520 They're concerned. 0.90

00:22:49.440 But an Orthodox Jew or a Hasidic Jew, I mean, they're going to, they can't, while continuing to be observant, go on the streets, you know, and hide their religious needs. 0.99

00:23:01.240 So they might stay inside. 1.00

00:23:02.540 And the problem is, it's going to get worse. The war in Hamas is going to be incredibly violent, incredibly bloody, and incredibly costly on both sides. So, you know, you're going to have the weekly pro-Hamas demonstrations, and those demonstrators are going to get angrier and angrier as more orgasms are killed.

00:23:26.000 So the time to put the foot down legally, though, and it's difficult. 0.60

00:23:29.560 I mean, with the protests waving Palestinian flags in the streets, that's free expression.

00:23:33.280 I don't like perhaps the side they're taking, but that in itself isn't crossing the line.

00:23:38.440 It's when they start chanting from river to sea.

00:23:42.180 And again, not everybody necessarily understands what that reference means.

00:23:44.800 But what it means is from the river in Jordan on the West Bank all the way to Gaza on the sea. 0.94

00:23:50.120 And they want to wipe every Jew out of the middle and turn it on the land of Palestine. 0.87

00:23:53.980 It's a call for genocide. So you cross the line from, again, waving those flags, but how do police separate the fly poop from the pepper?

00:24:02.620 When you've got a thousand people out there waving those flags and 200 of them are of that nature, you can't cancel the whole project. It's a difficult issue.

00:24:10.980 It's very difficult, and it looks like the conflict is set to widen. You've got U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria being shelled.

00:24:20.980 uh there's a report today in the wall street journal i was telling nigel about earlier uh

00:24:26.800 that the some of the hamas fighters that did the attack that went to iran for for for training uh

00:24:33.620 so you got to think the american administration is is you know thinking about what to do to try

00:24:39.680 and you know if you're talking about taking this the head off the snake the head is iran that is

00:24:46.220 what a lot of people fear and i i think there's again legitimate critique i mean i think a lot

00:24:49.860 people, whatever you might think of Israel, they want to keep this contained there, as horrific

00:24:53.620 as it is. I mean, if we start seeing American strikes into Iran or, you know, Syria or any of

00:24:59.880 those neighboring, this could really turn into a much bigger thing. Yeah, but it may not be Israel's 0.67

00:25:03.300 decision if Americans keep being attacked and missiles kept being shot towards their ships

00:25:09.360 in the sea there. You know, the Americans are right now madly rushing to get defensive systems

00:25:18.540 in the area, like the Iron Dome stuff, to be able to protect their own. And all it takes is half a

00:25:27.140 dozen US troops to be killed in a blast, and they have to respond. They would have to take revenge

00:25:34.220 on somebody. The time to call out the hate is now. And I wrote a column, it's going to be out

00:25:40.420 Sunday on a bit of this. Going back to World War II, I mean, I certainly wasn't born yet, but

00:25:44.540 all these similar warning signs were happening. The anti-Semitism was springing up. The atrocities

00:25:49.920 were beginning to happen at the end of the 30s and into the early 40s. The people in North America,

00:25:54.400 they would question and deny every bit of it. Oh, that's not really happening. That's not going on

00:25:58.160 out there. And of course, the horrors that actually were happening because people were

00:26:02.520 shielding themselves from it became worse. We could have perhaps, I mean, there was a big front

00:26:07.520 to fight, but intervened earlier if people had actually believed what was going on.

00:26:11.240 we get these denials. But I mean, I just think people need to watch, you know, the extent of

00:26:16.880 how much they have to dehumanize somebody, that's what's happening. They don't believe that the

00:26:20.960 Jewish victims are human. And you hear some of the things from Hamas where they, you know,

00:26:25.780 they had the GoPros on, I mean, the reporters watched it. And one of the stories where they

00:26:31.000 blew up with a hand grenade, the father of two children, and then were casually in the kitchen

00:26:38.800 while the two children were there mortified, crying and horrified after the murder of their father.

00:26:42.820 And they're drinking water from the fridge from the family's house.

00:26:45.800 Like these, they don't believe their victims are human.

00:26:49.460 And that's the most dangerous, dangerous and horrible attitude to take with anybody.

00:26:55.760 That's usually the first thing that you do when you go to war with somebody

00:26:58.580 is try and point out how absolutely worthless the people on the other side really are.

00:27:04.240 And that risk can go both ways.

00:27:05.900 I mean, the rage and horror of Israeli IDF members, I mean, that builds the vengeance and atrocities will be committed by IDF members when they get in, which could be mis-targeted on the innocent Palestinians who got caught in the middle.

00:27:18.700 I mean, that's the nature of such a horrific conflict is this.

00:27:22.520 Yeah, there are, and that's the key to keep in mind, there are innocent people on both sides and a lot of them are going to get killed, already have been killed in those terror strikes and in Gaza.

00:27:34.260 You know, the thing, coming back to where we started on this, though, is how surprising it is that it is the left that has made anti-Semitism its own.

00:27:50.280 I mean, before the Second World War, it tended to be, I don't really buy the spectrum of left-right so much.

00:27:58.140 If you're going to call it such, it was the fascists.

00:27:59.400 It would be the fascists and it would be the rightists, you know.

00:28:02.480 and if you were a good communist, you weren't on their side,

00:28:08.540 so you supported the, you were not anti-Semitic.

00:28:12.500 In fact, many of the leaders in the communist world were of Jewish origin.

00:28:18.300 Marx was a Jew.

00:28:19.740 Lenin, Trotsky, you know, it goes on. 0.94

00:28:22.700 So you get to the, so now you come to a situation

00:28:27.900 where it's completely gone the other way,

00:28:29.660 and you wonder, well, how did that happen?

00:28:32.480 And here in Canada, we have the spectacle of the unions.

00:28:39.800 Now, what the hell has Israel got to do with wages for the working man? 0.60

00:28:46.020 You know?

00:28:46.340 And yet the unions are knighted in not merely their opposition to Israel,

00:28:53.360 but their hatred of Israel.

00:28:54.920 You see the stuff that comes out.

00:28:57.220 And I have to think that, speaking strictly of the unions for a moment, that that is a consequence of the fact that they're no longer really about what we think they're about, which is wages and conditions for the working man.

00:29:16.060 Long gone from that.

00:29:17.020 Long gone from that.

00:29:17.980 And you know what?

00:29:18.600 Most of the really big, powerful unions, there are exceptions, but most of the big, powerful ones are public sector unions.

00:29:25.060 So they're completely divorced.

00:29:27.220 from the normal levers of supply, demand, you know, there are certain considerations

00:29:36.020 in the industrial world very much. Yeah, industrial unions have to be aware of. Totally,

00:29:42.820 totally not part of the union equation at all when you're representing civil servants.

00:29:48.580 So this is, I think, is a consequence of the long march through the institutions,

00:29:54.260 which has been gathering steam for 60 or 70 years.

00:29:59.680 We've had our universities taken over by activists.

00:30:03.380 We've had our, and you can sure see them out there today, 0.99

00:30:06.860 celebrating for Hamas. 0.61

00:30:09.920 They have taught the next generation of teachers 0.95

00:30:13.300 and the next generation of teachers

00:30:15.640 has taught the next generation of kids

00:30:17.800 where you'll find young people

00:30:19.840 who couldn't even find Gaza on a map

00:30:22.220 chanting death to Israel.

00:30:26.080 The cognitive dissonance that they're exercising, Fred Hahn was the most odious of them online.

00:30:33.280 He's a union head from Ontario with the Union of Public Employees. 0.95

00:30:36.740 He's an openly gay man celebrating Hamas. 0.98

00:30:41.500 Where do you not realize that the people you're celebrating will torture and kill you if they get half a chance? 1.00

00:30:46.020 The only thing they hate more than Jews are gay people like you, or perhaps a gay Jew. 1.00

00:30:50.100 And this whole thing with, I don't understand the left's hatred of Israel. 1.00

00:30:55.340 The entire Middle East, look around, it's a human rights cesspool.

00:30:59.480 It's theocracies, there's no democracies. 1.00

00:31:02.800 You've got one little beacon that holds elections. 1.00

00:31:05.260 One little beacon that allows, you know, Tel Aviv is the biggest, you know, open gay population in the entire Middle East

00:31:11.740 where they can safely live their lives and enjoy themselves.

00:31:14.960 And, you know, Golda Meir was elected as the prime minister of Israel 40, 50 years ago.

00:31:21.680 And the left despises them.

00:31:23.300 I don't get it.

00:31:24.340 I don't understand.

00:31:25.320 You'd think this is the one spot you guys should be celebrating. 1.00

00:31:28.040 You want to see that spread into the Arab nations nearby that are oppressing women and gay people and people in general. 0.75

00:31:34.220 But they don't. 0.87

00:31:35.000 They hate the freedom.

00:31:36.560 And I don't, I just don't get it.

00:31:38.160 Well, probably, that's probably a parallel to what we were just talking about.

00:31:43.500 What is in it for Canadian unions to support Hamas?

00:31:47.780 It's got nothing to do with worker conditions.

00:31:50.020 What has it got to do with the international left to hate Israel so much?

00:31:54.620 Maybe it's not really Israel that's the issue.

00:31:56.680 Maybe there's something else that they're going after. 0.72

00:32:01.360 And Israel is, like, when you attack the little Satan, you attack the great Satan. 0.82

00:32:06.580 There's some degree of that. 0.62

00:32:07.840 Israel is tightly related to the United States as far as that concern goes.

00:32:11.480 and states have been a bastion of capitalism around the world for quite some time,

00:32:17.700 but I don't think this is helping take down the great...

00:32:20.620 I'm thinking a lot here, Corey.

00:32:23.640 I just, like you, I struggle with, say, well, why with people? 0.96

00:32:29.700 It's just the oldest ancient, you know, the ancient moral failing is hating the Jews.

00:32:37.000 You know, there was some video of students at a university tearing down the missing posters of the hostages.

00:32:43.740 And they were asked, why are you doing it?

00:32:45.660 And they said, well, Israel started it. 0.88

00:32:48.020 They are just by existing, yeah? 0.98

00:32:49.740 Exactly.

00:32:51.600 Well, we're going to be watching and commenting on this for a long time yet.

00:32:56.720 I mean, not just this conflict even 10 years from now, 20 years from now. 0.93

00:33:00.340 I hate to say it, but as long as the Temple Mount is in there and as long as there's one Jew and as long as there's one Arab, 1.00

00:33:05.240 they're going to be at each other's throats over that piece of dirt. 1.00

00:33:08.780 I don't know how we'll ever, maybe our grandchildren will see the end of this over there.

00:33:14.780 That's what your grandparents said.

00:33:16.360 Yeah, I know.

00:33:17.420 Oh, well, let's get a little less dreary, though still inflammatory.

00:33:23.900 The fight's going on again back domestic.

00:33:26.400 It ties in a bit to the state of the province things,

00:33:28.740 and the knives have sort of come out figuratively between Gilbo and Schultz.

00:33:34.480 Yeah, they just can't seem to help themselves.

00:33:37.340 You know, they always talk about, you know, we've got to negotiate in private and in good faith and dignified.

00:33:45.040 And they go back and they get on their cell phones and they start tweeting nasty stuff.

00:33:50.360 Today it was Environment Minister Federally, Gilbo, mocking his provincial counterpart, Rebecca Schultz.

00:33:57.600 It's all in the electricity stuff and the Fed's plans, which are going to cost trillions of dollars,

00:34:07.240 and Alberta pointing that out and saying, no, we're not going to do it.

00:34:11.520 And it's just a back and forth, bickering, childish thing that you wouldn't expect government officials to be doing.

00:34:19.220 That's for me to do one.

00:34:20.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:34:20.980 And if you're going to do it, do it privately.

00:34:23.440 Send them private messages.

00:34:24.980 Don't do it on X, formerly known as Twitter.

00:34:29.320 You know, they just cannot help themselves.

00:34:32.920 And, you know, it's Gilbo's ideology versus Alberta's cold, hard facts, so to speak.

00:34:41.760 And it's, who do you believe?

00:34:43.240 Well, you know, Churchill once put it very well that a fanatic is somebody who not only won't change his mind, but won't change the subject.

00:34:50.860 And I think that is our environment as to...

00:34:53.640 You're good on quotes today.

00:34:55.260 Really?

00:34:55.640 It looks like you went to university or something.

00:34:58.780 Just had time on my hands and read idle books.

00:35:01.700 Yes.

00:35:02.620 No. 0.72

00:35:05.380 He's known as the Green Jesus for a reason.

00:35:07.300 Yeah, he obviously can't think of anything else.

00:35:11.560 And it's the only thing that matters to him politically.

00:35:16.080 So he can't leave it alone.

00:35:18.200 Trudeau is not far behind them, though.

00:35:20.020 I mean, if the cabinet minister is going off the handle and doing these things,

00:35:23.380 If the government was embarrassed by it or upset with the discourse, they would have reeled them in and said, hey, hey, hey, hang on.

00:35:30.680 But nobody seems to be stopping.

00:35:32.800 No, I feel like Great Britain's been the latest country to backtrack on their green promises, saying it's not realistic.

00:35:41.000 Even the, I don't understand the political mentality because they're in poll freefall, right?

00:35:46.020 Surely they must be smart enough to realize, hey, maybe some of the stuff we're doing, carbon taxes and things like that,

00:35:51.860 are contributing to the downfall.

00:35:55.960 But right now, they're on pace to be electorally decimated

00:35:58.740 in all parts of the country if things don't change.

00:36:02.380 You know, Dave, you would think that,

00:36:05.000 but here's an alternative explanation.

00:36:08.300 Another quote coming up?

00:36:09.980 Just give me a few more minutes.

00:36:11.960 Okay.

00:36:12.740 This is that, look, they know they're past the point of no return.

00:36:17.640 They're not going to get elected.

00:36:18.800 They may not even last the two years.

00:36:20.300 so it sort of depends on Mr. Jagmeet, yeah.

00:36:25.660 You can break something that will take somebody else 20 years to rebuild in a week.

00:36:33.680 And I think that they think, well, we've got the reins of office.

00:36:39.060 We have the chance to make our green dream come true.

00:36:43.200 And if you are a single-minded ideologue, as Mr. Gilboa appears to be, I don't know the man personally, I can't say that he is, but from his public presentation and his lack of interest in any other subject,

00:37:03.160 I have to assume that he is of the mind that we can just finally put in place a set of regulations

00:37:13.900 that will so destroy the interest in investing in natural gas, not just in Alberta, but anywhere.

00:37:23.680 And then that will be okay.

00:37:26.580 The Conservatives can have it after that because they won't be able to put back together what we have taken apart.

00:37:33.840 It's a little bit like the pipelines.

00:37:35.440 Once you've actually removed the National Energy Board from Calgary and put it in central Canada,

00:37:43.120 once you have actually chased away the companies that could build pipelines, that's not coming back quickly, if ever.

00:37:51.780 So they're going to spend their last years doing the things that they hadn't got done yet. 0.98

00:37:59.400 Damn, the consequences won't be our problem. 0.98

00:38:01.780 It'll be somebody else's. 0.99

00:38:02.920 But we at least leave office believing that we have done everything that we could as good global citizens.

00:38:10.660 And if it didn't work for Canada, well, they'll thank us one day.

00:38:15.740 You just described a nightmare, a nightmare scenario.

00:38:19.160 A scorched earth approach.

00:38:20.460 Well, I can't at the moment, but I fear you're correct.

00:38:30.500 You know, they may have just looked at the polls and said, yeah, we're done and do exactly what you just said.

00:38:37.120 Terrifying.

00:38:38.400 Well, it's kind of that's one of the hazards that happens in countries where there's term limits.

00:38:41.360 You know, that's one of the discussions between, you know, whether it's a good thing or bad thing.

00:38:45.040 Sometimes politicians outstay their welcome.

00:38:46.780 But often you get there, they know the clock's ticking on their final year.

00:38:50.460 well now's the time for the patronage appointments or ideological moves or things like that because

00:38:55.100 i've got nothing to lose any longer it's uh it's frightening to me that the the fate of the

00:39:00.140 country's future rests with one jagmeet singh he could end all this tomorrow uh but he won't

00:39:07.180 the good news of course is that they the longest it can go on is two years and smith is in place

00:39:16.380 for another three and a half. So she has a good chance of outlasting this government.

00:39:26.140 And as long as she and Bolivar don't fall out over the pension, I do have some hope that they

00:39:33.660 would work together good. When you see political play in the way it works, I mean, especially if

00:39:39.740 there's going to be a growing adversarial relationship between Alberta and Ottawa,

00:39:43.820 And if it's effective in Ottawa, at least in building an anti-Alberta sentiment in Toronto and Montreal,

00:39:51.280 Polyev is going to have a tough task because, I mean, his base is here.

00:39:54.480 His donors are here.

00:39:56.000 He won't lose the election here, but he could really make the party dysfunctional

00:40:01.060 if he seems to be pandering too much to central Canada.

00:40:04.540 He's got quite the juggling act in his hands ahead of him. 0.94

00:40:09.620 But not to be that kind of dork as well, but under our system, actually,

00:40:13.660 I know they say the election would be two years from now, but he could make it three. 0.89

00:40:19.440 It's five years you can get, potentially, and four is usually accepted.

00:40:24.380 And I think they made their fixed election date legislation, but we know that you can just repeal that any time you please.

00:40:30.900 But it's interesting to see, you know, X, you know, formerly Twitter, what's been neat, but perhaps not productive,

00:40:37.500 we get to see the candid views of politicians we never saw 20 years ago.

00:40:42.740 And we know that these are the real ones behind those accounts.

00:40:44.940 You can tell by the tweets.

00:40:45.640 Trudeau, you can tell there's not enough spelling errors.

00:40:47.800 It's not him.

00:40:48.340 It's an aide or somebody who's running that account.

00:40:50.980 But Gilbo's putting his own stuff out there.

00:40:54.160 It makes for good political entertainment,

00:40:56.240 but I don't know if it's a productive way to have our ministers behaving, I guess.

00:41:00.720 Yeah.

00:41:01.400 Well, Harper did his best to discourage ministers actually taking the phone

00:41:06.580 and doing it themselves because some of them weren't very good at it.

00:41:11.320 No.

00:41:12.380 nobody's won an election on twitter but a lot of people have lost them yeah that's for sure

00:41:18.780 well we had a wonderful it was one of those situations where the day was done and

00:41:23.980 there's half a dozen people in the room just sitting listening to you know as he sort of

00:41:29.100 downloaded and he said you know twitter is a wonderful communications tool do you want to

00:41:34.780 think out what you're going to say say it and then switch off the machine and walk away don't get

00:41:41.340 involved in in the the fighting that goes on which is exactly what mr gubeau is doing right now

00:41:47.180 he's you know he's mixing it up he's been a troll for heaven's sake and uh you know this

00:41:55.900 this may not end well for him you know there's a hazard when you're on there going at it that

00:42:01.420 you could say something unintentionally or even intentionally but crosses a line

00:42:06.060 and as the old statement goes the internet's forever i mean if you put out something that's

00:42:10.140 beyond the pale and it's up on twitter for more than a couple seconds somebody will have

00:42:14.380 screenshotted it and is going to share it no matter how much you delete or retract so

00:42:19.020 yeah i mean you're on a on a late night meeting you've had a couple glasses of wine oh i gotta 0.97

00:42:24.460 text rebecca you're a silly little woman oh yeah that'll be it for him well and likewise rebecca 0.95

00:42:31.980 as well but i mean it's uh kind of to wrap up we only have a few minutes left but 0.99

00:42:37.420 but it comes to the how.

00:42:39.580 So if we've got two years, we've got ticking,

00:42:41.880 but how can the industries be defended

00:42:46.140 against a government that's acting

00:42:48.080 like it has nothing to lose?

00:42:49.500 Well, I think the first step is actually

00:42:51.360 the sovereignty act that we've been talking about all along.

00:42:54.500 Just saying, no, we're not doing it.

00:42:56.380 Sue us.

00:42:58.180 But with a private investor,

00:42:59.360 would that comfort them enough to say,

00:43:00.720 okay, I'm gonna open up my wallet

00:43:02.040 because Premier Smith has said

00:43:03.240 she's gonna invoke the sovereignty act.

00:43:04.740 See, that scares them away even if...

00:43:06.860 It does, but get past that next election, a different administration in Ottawa.

00:43:14.200 I mean, if there isn't a different administration in Ottawa, let's just sort of redid and things like that.

00:43:19.740 Turn out the lights.

00:43:20.840 Let's redid a U-Haul and head for Wyoming.

00:43:23.600 But, you know, it's so much dependent on just getting past, dragging it out until you get past the next election

00:43:32.340 and hope you've got a different crew to deal with in Ottawa.

00:43:34.980 Yeah, you know, the problem is these big companies, they've got all their, they've got their capital expenses and they're looking at it and yeah, it would be, it would be tough to, a tough sell to the shareholders that they're going to invest X number of billions in Alberta.

00:43:48.240 Well, it would be, but Smith is already on record with that. If they can't get anybody else to do it, they'll figure out a way and maybe it'll be public ownership again or it'll be a, it'll be a contract between the government and backstopping.

00:44:03.380 loan guarantees or things such as that which never worked in the past for keystone uh well it ain't a

00:44:10.020 good business plan but if it gets something built that actually works and keeps the lights on

00:44:14.580 then it has done its job well i guess it kind of comes full circle to our very first topic where

00:44:19.220 premier smith was very much focused on alberta being the place to invest the place to do

00:44:23.060 business the safe place to come in spend your dollars make your money i i guess you know that

00:44:28.260 that kind of ties in with that tactic then we're going to assure you you know hold on a couple

00:44:31.860 years don't worry about those guys over there we'll make sure your investments are secure here

00:44:36.580 please come here and drill those holes and lay that pipe yeah i think sure the message was aimed

00:44:43.140 at a much broader audience than the oil and gas companies too right she's talking about all the

00:44:47.860 you know small businesses and uh non-oil and gas businesses that uh you know alberta is open ready

00:44:54.100 for business and the best place to do business. You know, it actually has been, it's always been

00:45:02.760 a pretty good place to do business. Even the very fact that you've got a fixed income tax rate

00:45:08.940 is a great attraction to people. They know exactly where they stand. But notwithstanding the fact

00:45:16.800 that they put a couple of pastors in jail, my recollection of life under COVID was that

00:45:23.780 Of all the places in Canada where you wanted to be, while that was going on,

00:45:30.120 Alberta was probably the best place to be.

00:45:32.960 And just look at the migration figures from the Stats Canada, record migration every month.

00:45:36.940 So the message is getting out, the message is being listened to,

00:45:39.940 and we're, you know, we're a deluge of newcomers.

00:45:43.340 Welcome to them.

00:45:44.260 People are voting with their feet.

00:45:46.120 And that's a good note, you know, we're still the destination to be.

00:45:48.920 Keep coming on out, guys.

00:45:50.440 You're more than welcome here in Alberta.

00:45:52.320 We want you to here to make a family and a life and a job and a career, a future with us.

00:45:57.860 It's always been the nature of Alberta.

00:45:59.420 And I think we'll carry it on.

00:46:01.000 So that sort of wraps things up for today.

00:46:03.500 We should wrap up on a positive note.

00:46:05.080 With a quote from Nigel, you got an inspirational positive quote?

00:46:08.980 Well, I was just reminded how it used to be the national anthem was Alberta bound.

00:46:15.220 So there you are.

00:46:16.700 Okay.

00:46:17.780 Well, Dave, Nigel, thank you very much.

00:46:20.440 and thank all of you guys for tuning in and uh keep going to the western standard for your news

00:46:26.600 guys and you'll get a hint of what we're going to be discussing next week which i'm sure will be of

00:46:30.840 earth-shattering importance so thanks for tuning in we'll see you all next week at this time

00:46:34.580 the current lethbridge feed grain prices are as follows cash parties at 342 feed wheat's at 350

00:46:41.580 and corn's trading at 338 per metric ton in the milling meat markets december minneapolis futures

00:46:48.220 are down $7.25 at $7.21 per bushel, with local hard red spring bids for November movement

00:46:54.600 at $9.60 per bushel. In the oilseeds, nearby canola futures increased $4.60 at $6.40 per

00:47:03.720 ton, with delivered values for November-December movement at $15.63 per bushel. In the pulse

00:47:09.720 markets, nearby red lentils are lower at $0.35 a pound, and yellow peas remain at $10.75 per

00:47:15.720 In the cattle markets, December live cattle gained a dollar at $1.79.62 per 100 weight.

00:47:22.720 For more information on grain marketing, call me at 403-394-1711.

00:47:28.720 I'm Sean Smith at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

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Western Standard - October 26, 2023

The Pipeline： Smith expects more attacks on Alberta from Ottawa.

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