Western Standard - The Pipeline： Smith, prosecutor controversy continues

00:00:00.000 Good evening. I'm Derek Vildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching

00:00:28.640 the pipeline. Today is January 25, 2023. And a very good evening to you all. I'm joined as usual

00:00:36.320 by Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Hanford. How are you, Nigel? Good today. Thank you. I know

00:00:40.880 you're working on some good projects. I guess we have to keep that hush for now. We can't say

00:00:45.120 anything right now. Okay. Also joined, not as usual, because the great Cory Morgan is down

00:00:53.920 somewhere warmer for the time being, but kind of a flashback to one of the founding panel members

00:00:59.600 of the pipeline, Western Standard News Editor, Dave Naylor. How are you, Dave? I'm great,

00:01:03.040 Derek. Glad to be here. Beautiful. Yeah, we had a funny moment the other day. I saw on Facebook,

00:01:07.680 you had this picture up and you had no hair, it was just buzzed. And everyone was in the

00:01:12.080 comments section saying, you look like Heisenberg. Maybe to make a little money on the side of the

00:01:16.800 standard, you're running a crystal math lab. You came into work the next day and you didn't have

00:01:21.360 your hair head shaved it's just a filter i guess you have on yeah it was a snapchat filter a friend

00:01:26.400 took it and i put it up and i can't believe how many people thought it was real look pretty

00:01:30.400 realistic yeah it was great yeah yeah so for the record dave is not uh cooking crystal meth in his

00:01:36.720 basement but i'm afraid what my skull looks like when there's no hair on it at least i don't think

00:01:41.680 you're cooking no okay definitely not okay um we got an interesting show today um the controversy

00:01:50.480 around Danielle Smith and seeking pardons and whatnot for people who were persecuted

00:02:00.480 by the Alberta provincial government while Kenny was in power continues. You know, it's

00:02:08.420 a combination of a few things. There's around pardons and then there's around alleged interference

00:02:13.320 with prosecutors. Those are two very different things. And, you know, the CBC has been putting

00:02:19.660 out stories without evidence, but they're standing by it. So it's in a weird limbo, where they're

00:02:24.620 claiming that people have claimed to see emails that would lead to interference and prosecution.

00:02:31.020 CBC hasn't seen the emails. Story continues to evolve and become quite controversial. We're

00:02:36.220 going to, we're going to dive into that. Less controversial is numbers around fundraising,

00:02:44.540 preparing for the next provincial election in Alberta. After several years of lagging behind

00:02:48.860 the NDP, the UCP have now either matched the NDP or arguably, depending on how you're slicing the

00:02:55.980 numbers, gotten ahead of the NDP, both raising seven million dollars in 2022 in the unofficial

00:03:01.660 numbers so far. But if you include leadership fundraising from the leadership campaigns for

00:03:06.380 the UCP, the UCP would have a significant lead at 10.8 million. So we're going to talk about that,

00:03:11.820 what this means for the United Conservative Party and both of the parties as we go into

00:03:17.180 the provincial election. Unsurprisingly, subsidizing the federal government subsidizing the media is not doing enough to stem the bleeding post media, the biggest newspaper company in the country by far laying off 11% of their editorial workforce, scrapping a bunch of their print copies, which is probably actually a smart move, and moving to remote offices and virtually every newspaper across the country.

00:03:44.180 country. So damning stuff, the federal government's media bellows still not enough money for big media, laying off reporters, shutting down newsrooms right across the country. Before we get started, though, we got to thank as usual, my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. I know you're sick of hearing me say it, but I've been a member of the CSSA for more than a decade, because they are Canada's leading firearms rights group. Without the CSSA, the federal government would have likely confiscated

00:04:14.160 all of our firearms a long time ago by this point. Membership of the CSSA is vital to ensure

00:04:21.360 that there's an organization speaking for firearms owners in Canada to educate people

00:04:26.640 and to fight the federal government where necessary against ridiculous and arbitrary

00:04:33.120 firearm seizures and limitations about what law-abiding people can do with their firearms.

00:04:38.560 So if you're not yet a member of the CSSA, make sure you go to CSSA-CILA.org or just Google CSSA as I do and become a member today.

00:04:47.940 It's vital for firearms owners to stand together. That's why I've been a member for so long.

00:04:52.480 Okay, so we're going to start with the controversy around Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

00:05:00.420 Due to our own horn a little bit, this actually started in an interview we did with Danielle Smith during their convention.

00:05:07.620 uh the party's first convention right after she was elected uh leader of the party and uh

00:05:12.660 made premier um i was asked i asked her about pardons for people who are facing at least

00:05:20.340 provincial charges not federal charges provincial charges uh involving covet people who refuse to

00:05:25.780 shut their restaurants down wouldn't close their churches down people who were charged for uh you 0.78

00:05:31.700 know calgary police beat the crap out of a kid for playing pond hockey all sorts of ridiculous 0.97

00:05:36.820 things. And I asked her about pardons for this. And I'll put words in her mouth, but her response 0.66

00:05:43.300 was along the lines of, yeah, that's something we should absolutely be looking at. She couldn't

00:05:47.300 speak to the specifics of it, what powers the province has, but it doesn't. Pardons are one

00:05:53.380 thing because it wouldn't be favoritism. It would just say this was an inappropriate application of

00:05:58.260 the law. The province overstepped its bounds and shouldn't have been bringing in these restrictions

00:06:02.900 anyway. And so there'd just be a blanket pardon for people who didn't actually do anything violent

00:06:08.220 or damage property, that kind of thing. But the story took a bit of a twist. I think last week

00:06:15.500 when the CBC claimed that people, they had seen, they have talked to people in Smith's office who

00:06:24.540 have seen emails between the Premier's office and prosecutors that would show some kind of

00:06:31.420 interference with prosecutorial independence. That'd be an issue. Dave, why don't you fill in

00:06:35.500 the blanks there? Well, after that CBC story came out, obviously it exploded because if true,

00:06:41.320 it's a huge, huge problem. It's a huge scandal. You cannot have the premier or politicians

00:06:46.880 interfering in the judicial system. The UCP or Daniel Smith brought in the public service to

00:06:56.220 through all their emails over the weekend and they couldn't find any and they said that's it

00:07:02.060 story done and dusted so that threw the ball back into the cbc's court they put out a they updated

00:07:10.060 their story to say they stand by it and they didn't take it down so but as of a few minutes

00:07:16.780 ago cbc appears to have doubled down and brought in another story saying after the election or

00:07:24.140 sorry after she won the leadership but danielle smith visited the justice minister and spoke

00:07:30.060 about this stuff uh which to me i think you would do right i mean you just you're looking at it as

00:07:36.300 an education experience okay what she told me in an interview she would do that i'm not sure how

00:07:41.100 this is what's going on now but see and then cbc took it from there to say uh uh you know she she

00:07:49.180 She became, you know, very pushy in wanting to get this stuff done.

00:07:53.740 We've got a call into the Premier's office, he'll be on the site shortly, that is denying it,

00:08:01.540 saying that nothing unprofessional happened.

00:08:05.320 The Justice Minister has put out a similar statement.

00:08:08.400 And I think the key thing to remember is the statement from the Crown Prosecutor's Office themselves,

00:08:12.400 who said they had not been in touch.

00:08:14.680 So, you know, CBC is doubling down, still no proof, still no named sources, which is fine, that's what journalists do, but it's going to be still a bubbling story.

00:08:29.100 Unnamed sources are one thing. We've used unnamed sources. Sometimes you've got people in a corporation, in a government, some kind of organization, and if they use their name, well, they'd be fired, and therefore they would never talk to you.

00:08:41.080 So I don't think there's anything wrong with an unnamed source, but you've got to be ready to stand by it.

00:08:46.860 You've got to do your best to corroborate it from other sources, even if they're unnamed.

00:08:51.260 You've got to be confident in it.

00:08:52.920 Now, this CBC story, the CBC says they have not seen the emails themselves.

00:09:00.420 They have just been told by people in the Premier's office, in the government, that they have seen emails.

00:09:08.400 I don't know.

00:09:09.220 So, Dave, if you came in and you presented that story to us and that was our sources, we've talked to people who have seen emails, I'd be pretty nervous about publishing.

00:09:19.980 I'd want to see a copy of it.

00:09:21.460 I'd want to see a copy.

00:09:22.460 One thing to keep in mind is that Signifier is saying CBC hasn't seen the emails, only came in the second day after the story was published.

00:09:33.520 But that was not in the original.

00:09:34.300 That was not in the original story.

00:09:35.940 Yeah.

00:09:36.620 Yeah. You better trust your sources to be right on this one.

00:09:40.700 So this, Nigel, is not to say the story is incorrect. We don't know yet. There's an allegation made by the CBC on maybe they're correct, but it's it's definitely not rock solid, at least at this time.

00:09:55.180 um both the premier's office and the CBC are doubling down both I suppose both could be right

00:10:04.420 that someone went rogue in the office and the Smith and the higher-ups didn't know maybe I

00:10:09.800 suppose they could both be right but uh public services investigated say they didn't find

00:10:14.020 anything the prosecutor's office which is quite independent look they say they didn't find

00:10:19.140 anything uh how much risk is there for Smith here because the story keeps bubbling even if some of

00:10:24.680 this stuff isn't very related. They are saying, you know, hey, we have emails, you know, a letter

00:10:30.080 from Ezra Levant to the rebel to chief of staff to Smith saying, here's ways you could look at

00:10:37.040 pardoning people. I don't think that's news. I'm not sure how I think they're maybe they smell 0.99

00:10:43.460 blood in the water, and they're trying to gin things up a bit more. Is there a real story here,

00:10:47.440 you think? I suspect that in the end there isn't but what I mean what we know is that she you

00:10:55.540 described how she said yes this is something we should look at it was of interest to people who

00:11:01.880 were likely to support her so she would ask once she became premier all right what can we do now

00:11:13.120 At that point, it becomes a matter of interpretation.

00:11:17.220 If you don't like Danielle Smith, the very fact that you ask that question becomes evidence of interference.

00:11:24.180 If you do like Danielle Smith, then you would accept what the press secretary for the premier's office said,

00:11:34.480 which was that after taking office, the premier and her staff had several discussions with the minister of justice

00:11:41.460 and Justice Department Public Service requesting an explanation of what policy options were.

00:11:49.800 Happens to be a justice matter.

00:11:51.500 If you've got a policy on pipelines, you would probably have a similar kind of a discussion

00:11:56.140 with the officials who have the details.

00:11:59.240 What are our policy options?

00:12:01.740 So, for me, so much will depend upon what, if anything, the CBC is ever able to put on the table and say,

00:12:13.040 well, here is the email that our source saw, and it depends entirely on what it says.

00:12:21.620 I would be very surprised. I would be extremely surprised if they have anything that comes remotely close in tone or tenor to what was going on in the federal government with SNC-Lavalin, for example.

00:12:37.920 I have noticed, though, the Premier's office is couching its language, careful not to say no emails exist.

00:12:48.300 They're saying none could be found and we're not aware of any.

00:12:53.260 Someone, it is possible someone could have sent something inappropriate.

00:12:57.200 But again, we've not seen the email.

00:12:58.700 This is CBC saying we've talked to a guy who says they saw the email.

00:13:04.340 Again, not to say that that email doesn't exist and the source is incredible.

00:13:07.920 But it's not very solid. But the premier's office is being careful to say, not that it didn't happen.

00:13:16.120 Of course, they should be. I mean, it would be very foolish to, but what was it, somebody's private email? We don't know.

00:13:24.360 You'd be pretty silly as a, you know, a Daniel Smith staffer to use your official email for something like that. 0.97

00:13:31.140 Yeah. Let's talk about what interference is, because I suppose reasonable people could probably draw different conclusions about this. 0.95

00:13:39.480 I would see interference as involving yourself in specific cases.

00:13:45.400 You know, let's say Arthur Pawlowski, he's one of the more prominent cases out there.

00:13:51.500 You know, if the Premier's office was interfering with the Solicitor General and the prosecutor saying drop charges against Arthur Pawlowski,

00:14:00.140 That could reasonably be seen as interference. If it was a broader directive to say, OK, well, we think pretty much all of these charges during COVID lockdowns and mandates and all these things were unreasonable.

00:14:15.140 We don't think that we should be proceeding with this because it was unjust to begin with. And it's a blanket policy and not individuals. I wouldn't see that as interference.

00:14:24.140 I'd see that is exercising the discretion of the solicitor general to target certain kinds of prosecutions and others. Justice has been done in many jurisdictions before Quebec did it with abortion. They didn't intervene necessarily in specific cases, but they said Quebec Solicitor General in the 60s or 70s said, we're just not prosecuting. We're just not prosecuting on abortion restrictions anymore, even though it's against federal law.

00:14:49.000 BC did the same thing with small possession of cannabis.

00:14:52.460 They just didn't do it.

00:14:53.260 They didn't say, Mark Emery should be lawed off.

00:14:55.800 They just said, we're not prosecuting anyone.

00:14:57.560 Although he still got charged because he was not small amounts.

00:15:00.180 He was selling and paying GST on it.

00:15:04.020 I think the difference there, Derek, is you're talking about future problems.

00:15:10.260 What you're saying that you wouldn't consider interference is Daniel Smith saying, okay, let's go back and drop all these past charges.

00:15:18.500 So I think there's a bit of difference between saying, okay, don't charge anybody with COVID stuff going forward now to saying, let's drop all the COVID stuff that's already before the courts.

00:15:29.360 There's a difference, but I want your take on if you would think that'd be interference.

00:15:32.520 I do, yes, absolutely.

00:15:33.920 You think it'd be interference to say all COVID stuff?

00:15:36.780 Well, she's clearly has done that.

00:15:40.600 She's made no secret about that.

00:15:41.940 That's been open.

00:15:42.660 She said it with us.

00:15:44.080 She said it in others with interviews.

00:15:45.340 There is no secret that she has said she wants, will explore, and I think the implication being she would support dropping existing charges against people from the COVID era.

00:15:56.780 You'd think that was interference?

00:15:58.840 Well, she said she'd explore it, and that's appears, according to the CBC story, what she did.

00:16:04.440 If she actively did it or directed it.

00:16:06.820 Yeah, I think that's interference.

00:16:09.400 Okay.

00:16:10.180 All right.

00:16:10.660 Nigel, I want to.

00:16:11.700 Because the charges have already been laid.

00:16:13.540 If she says, okay, no more charges in the future, then I think you're good.

00:16:19.240 But those charges were laid under one set of directives under the Solicitor General and the Premier at a former time,

00:16:27.920 which is funny because the Solicitor General now is the Health Minister during all of this.

00:16:33.240 It's all very incestuous.

00:16:35.060 But it was, for all intents and purposes, a different government, even though there's a significant overlap between them.

00:16:40.240 was a different government and governments are able to set the priorities of prosecutions.

00:16:46.960 Nigel, I want your take on, do you think that would cause, would it constitute interference

00:16:52.160 to give a broad directive that these charges and cases be dropped against people who shirked

00:16:59.920 COVID restrictions and mandates? Yeah, well, I must disagree with you slightly, Dave, on that.

00:17:04.960 Well, we disagree lots, folks. No, I'm not coming back next week.

00:17:10.240 But, you know, a lot of people thought that those things were unjust.

00:17:16.000 So you put somebody in a position where they can address injustices.

00:17:22.280 I don't have a problem with that.

00:17:25.420 There are other reasons, by the way, why cases can be dropped.

00:17:29.720 Sometimes they can just time out.

00:17:31.560 And we have an incredibly busy court system at the moment where people who I think a lot of us would like to see go through the process

00:17:39.200 and have the matter resolved just eventually fall off the edge

00:17:43.800 and the case is dismissed.

00:17:45.580 That is another way.

00:17:49.100 If that can happen to somebody who's got a drug charge,

00:17:52.740 I'm quite happy to see it happen intentionally

00:17:55.300 with somebody who is charged under a law

00:17:58.260 that I personally think was obsessive and poorly conceived.

00:18:04.000 I think we're going to have to ultimately wait

00:18:06.080 and see if the CBC can produce the email,

00:18:08.900 between Smith's office and a prosecutor.

00:18:12.060 If they can provide that,

00:18:13.520 well, then we'll have to judge it on its merits.

00:18:15.820 And if it was some fart catcher intern, 0.64

00:18:18.820 probably not as serious.

00:18:20.060 If it was the chief of staff, very serious.

00:18:22.800 So I think we're just gonna have to wait and see,

00:18:26.700 can CBC produce the email?

00:18:28.360 And I'm sure they're frantically trying to get it right now

00:18:31.140 because that'll make their case for them if they do.

00:18:34.120 If they can't find it,

00:18:35.100 it's CDC said Smith said. All right. Actually, we're gonna change up the plan order here, we're

00:18:44.220 gonna go straight to a story around fundraising in Alberta UCP and an NDP. For since not that long

00:18:55.820 after the last provincial election in spring 2019. The UCP under Kenny has been trailing the NDP and

00:19:02.700 fundraising sometimes quite badly probably an indication of an upset party membership

00:19:09.260 and that gap between the parties was pretty big that gap has now well essentially disappeared

00:19:17.020 now smith has only been the leader of the party more or less for the fourth quarter

00:19:20.540 of 2022 but the party overall matched the ndp and fundraising for

00:19:27.260 For 2022, it's 7 million each. If you include money raised for the leadership campaigns, the UCP actually raised 10.8 million. But that money can't be put towards a general election. It's all complicated.

00:19:43.160 So depending on how you look at it, the UCP has either closed the gap and tied the NDP or exceeded it, depending on which metrics you're looking at.

00:19:50.800 Dave, break it down a bit further.

00:19:52.260 I know you've looked at the numbers.

00:19:55.160 Tell us how this has changed over the last while and how the UCP closed that gap.

00:20:02.020 Well, I became a journalist, Derek, because I hate math.

00:20:05.460 So I'm going to have to refer to my cheat sheet here.

00:20:09.500 You're quite right in saying that ever since the last election,

00:20:13.340 Rachel Notley has been leading quarterly fundraising,

00:20:18.340 especially apparent during Jason Kenney when he was in charge.

00:20:24.540 Basically, they both got $7 million to play with before the May election.

00:20:32.500 The UCP raised $3.2 million in the last quarter, which is an incredible amount.

00:20:39.040 you know nearly half of that seven million and that was their best month since the the previous

00:20:44.000 election in 2019. Interestingly on January 31st both parties raised two hundred and sixty five

00:20:54.960 thousand dollars. So I guess there's some year-end. Do you have numbers on how the NDP did in that

00:21:04.240 last quarter of 2022 when the ucp you know had smith new leadership and uh seemingly uh revival

00:21:10.560 in their fundraising numbers yeah to be honest i don't uh the only one i've got is the ucp 3.2

00:21:16.400 million in the last quarter uh yeah that's uh that's a large chunk of money so basically for

00:21:25.920 the campaign uh both uh parties are well funded uh and everything's to play for at the moment the

00:21:33.040 The latest opinion polls taken mid-December have the NDP at 38%, the UCP at 32%, six points behind, but there's a whopping 25% undecided.

00:21:47.480 So that's where, obviously, the election will be won and lost, and at this moment, it's all to play for, and money will be no object.

00:21:55.880 So Nigel, fundraising is not necessarily a good barometer of general public opinion, but it is a pretty reliable barometer of opinion within parties.

00:22:08.540 And so it wouldn't be, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the unpopularity of Jason Kenney among UCP members, among UCP supporters was, you know, driving the big reason why UCP fundraising was laying so far behind the NDP for almost his entire premiership.

00:22:28.520 These numbers have come rocketing back now in the fourth quarter of 2022. That's the only quarter for which Smith is leader. And it's also coming after the leadership election, where a lot of the bigger donors are all tapped out, they're not allowed to donate anymore, but they still set a record in that quarter.

00:22:47.780 do you think this would be a sign then of perhaps the UCP membership the UCP supporter and donor

00:22:57.480 base maybe showing at least a brief glimmer of being a united united conservative party

00:23:05.280 I don't think they'll ever be united be united but that certainly is a very strong indication

00:23:10.860 of support you don't give money to causes or parties that you don't believe in and I think

00:23:17.060 that's really the, what do these, there's one number that we don't have, and that's what the

00:23:22.520 average contribution is to each. Yeah, because these were unofficial numbers, self-reported by

00:23:27.940 the parties. This is not the breakdown from Elections Canada. Breakdowns not till March.

00:23:33.600 No, when we have that number, admittedly it's going to be getting quite close to the event,

00:23:38.900 but when we have that number, we really see how that plays out. I do recall, you know,

00:23:44.980 There was a time when the Liberal Party was raising massive amounts of money,

00:23:50.000 but it was all, this is the time when corporate donations were allowed.

00:23:54.540 And so they had kind of 12,000 lawyers in Toronto and Montreal

00:24:00.060 who were supporting the party.

00:24:02.440 Meanwhile, this would be in the Canadian Alliance days,

00:24:07.200 you had 150,000 people all given $100 each.

00:24:11.460 150,000 votes, 12,000 votes.

00:24:13.920 what's it going to be here we won't know until march apparently but it just the just the

00:24:20.280 trajectory of this from disinterest under in the nine months during which uh jason kenney was

00:24:27.500 leading the party and was thoroughly rejected by the party uh to the last quarter when you have a

00:24:35.340 new premier everybody gets hopeful and says all right okay if that's how it's going to be here's

00:24:40.560 my check. And away it goes. So I think if I were in the United Conservative Party, I would take

00:24:47.880 those numbers and receive them with great enthusiasm and hope. I want to talk about the NDP a bit more

00:24:54.140 here, because I think they have a lot to be happy about as well. They had a record quarter. It may

00:24:58.460 have been a record year as well. You know, during their term in government, it was pretty widely

00:25:05.480 known that if you were a staffer at the legislature the premier's office anything like that you were

00:25:11.080 expected to max out your donations not everyone did but most people did it was understood that

00:25:16.680 part of your salary was taxed back to the party because you owe the party your job you were

00:25:21.240 expected to donate the maximum and that was a significant portion of the ndp's fundraising hall

00:25:27.880 now they don't have that to rely on anymore they've got some staffers at the legislature

00:25:32.680 But opposition staffers are paid a pale reflection of what government staffers are junior government staffers clearing over 100 and you'll have like the top opposition staff or chief of staff making 800. So they don't have quite those disposable salaries to go with.

00:25:50.020 This shows me that the NDP has established a significant fundraising base in Alberta. They're getting, they're raising significant money. And this is outside of the political action committee PACs that both UCP have allied with them and the NDP have allied with them. You know, the unions and businesses find ways to get their money around one way or another. But for the party proper, the NDP is raising substantial sums of cash. What do you think you could chalk that up to, Dave?

00:26:19.240 Well, if you just look at the polls, 38%. That's a good chunk of support in the province. If you go into the cesspool of Twitter on any night, the hatred is out there for Daniel Smith. Hatred is out there, you know, for the UCP party as a whole.

00:26:39.060 And it's, you know, the NDP, they were in power.

00:26:44.440 So they've got a good, solid base of support in the province.

00:26:48.040 They do.

00:26:48.820 And those are the people that are donating the money.

00:26:53.560 As Nigel said, you know, some of them will just be $100 from NDP supporters.

00:26:59.120 You know, we don't want to see another year, a UCP four years.

00:27:02.500 Look at the mess they made of the pandemic and health care and all that sort of stuff.

00:27:07.260 So, yeah, you just can't discount the NDP in any way, shape, or form.

00:27:15.740 Don't discount it, but there were reasons why people would have stopped supporting the UCP during 2022.

00:27:22.700 There are also reasons now.

00:27:24.660 Okay, I still think I prefer the UCP to what I remember of the NDP.

00:27:31.340 We'll go through a little bit of second thought on this.

00:27:34.200 The NDP is now consistently raising large amounts of cash, and they're doing so without being in government where they are able to unofficially tax the political staffers in the government, kicking back parts of their salary.

00:27:47.540 This is going to be overwhelmingly support from people who just support the NDP.

00:27:54.640 This is pretty well without precedent in Alberta.

00:27:57.460 The NDP is in election mode. They are. Every single day, Rachel Notley is putting out some press release complaining about something that the UCP has done. Within minutes of every UCP announcement, there's an NDP press conference to follow with their reaction.

00:28:16.640 So they've already got their election game face on, and they're pushing their agenda proactively, and it's getting in some newspapers, and it's getting more coverage than they normally would.

00:28:26.680 Well, before we move on, let's just talk quickly about Drew Barnes. He is the independent MLE from Cypress Messed Hat. Now, he was first elected under the Wildrose banner in 2012, reelected Wildrose 2015, and then reelected under the UCP banner in 2019.

00:28:41.820 Since that time, he became kind of a thorn in the side of Jason Kenney. Never called for him to resign or anything during most of that time. But, you know, would talk about Kenny's fair deal stuff being too limp.

00:28:56.080 Even talked about possible independence, you know, pretty controversial. If you're a sitting member of a governing party, took issue with a lot of, you know, lockdown and mandate things.

00:29:06.080 And finally, Kenny just kicked him out when Todd Lowen spoke up and said Kenny should step down as leader. He's been sitting as an independent MLA since Todd Lowen has since returned to the UCP and his transgression was much greater.

00:29:20.080 He called on the leader, the premier at the time, just Kenny to resign, but Barnes has remained independent.

00:29:27.080 Now, he issued a statement, I think yesterday, saying he is not seeking the UCP nomination.

00:29:35.080 Now, I think most people have interpreted that as he's not running in the next election and technically say he's not running the next election says he's not ready for the UCP nomination.

00:29:46.080 And at the same time, he praised Daniel Smith quite strongly.

00:29:50.120 So with you, Nigel, why do you think he's not going to run for the UCP nomination?

00:29:56.100 And do you think there's a chance he takes a crack at this as an independent?

00:30:00.080 He may well have just had enough of the whole thing.

00:30:04.520 No, I haven't spoken to him.

00:30:05.820 I haven't asked him that question.

00:30:08.060 And how many, he's already, what did you say, independent, Wildrose, UCP, you're running out of parties.

00:30:13.920 Going back as an independent again, I doubt that that would be a successful venture,

00:30:18.740 given that there's the momentum of a new leader.

00:30:23.780 Seems unlikely, but, you know, he's done his time in the legislature.

00:30:31.680 He may well have other interests that he wants to pursue.

00:30:34.800 I had a brief chat with Drew today.

00:30:39.100 He basically said, this isn't what I signed up for 11 years ago.

00:30:43.920 He's put in a decade in politics.

00:30:46.640 As you say, Nigel, he's worked his way through many parties.

00:30:50.420 His only opportunity is to run as an independent.

00:30:53.160 Alberta doesn't elect independent people. 0.63

00:30:56.680 I suppose he could run for the Wild Rose Independence Party,

00:31:01.500 but I don't think he'd have much chance down there.

00:31:04.140 So I think, you know, Drew will ride off into the sunset

00:31:08.960 and take care of some other stuff.

00:31:10.560 There you go.

00:31:11.240 A newsman who actually picks up the phone and asks the subject, what are you going to do?

00:31:16.040 We're going to talk about the news in a second.

00:31:17.040 Dave Naylor, we salute you.

00:31:18.280 I'd be doubtful.

00:31:19.260 He goes independent.

00:31:20.500 The last independent MLA elected in Alberta was circa 1982.

00:31:25.500 Gordon Kessler.

00:31:27.200 No, that was a by-election, and he was Western Canada concept.

00:31:31.380 No, it was Ray Speaker.

00:31:34.460 Ray Speaker, if I'm not mistaken, was the last independent elected in Alberta.

00:31:38.200 and this was a time before there were televised leaders debates. You just elected your MLA and

00:31:45.240 whoever had the most MLAs was the premier. That was the way it was and so the actual MLA counted

00:31:50.320 for something. It had a bit more of a voice. It wasn't as dominated by the leader and Ray Speaker

00:31:54.820 had been an MLA for decades before that with the social credit party. He had been the deputy premier.

00:31:59.320 He had been finance minister. He had been after Ernest Benning, the number two man in Alberta

00:32:04.320 and was a rural riding, and he got elected in, I think, 1982 or so.

00:32:09.200 It's not happened since.

00:32:11.900 Independents do not get elected in Alberta, particularly the provincial level.

00:32:16.160 There's been a few very rare cases at the federal level.

00:32:20.340 David, there was a liberal MP from Edmonton who made it as an independent once.

00:32:25.220 But it's extraordinarily rare.

00:32:28.700 I can't imagine he'd likely do it.

00:32:31.220 So that being a safe UCP writing,

00:32:35.000 whoever wins that UCP nomination is likely to take it on.

00:32:38.540 And full disclosures, as we're talking about this,

00:32:41.200 former Vice President of Operations at the Western Center,

00:32:43.500 James Finkbeiner resigned from his position here

00:32:46.280 to actually run in that writing, which is in his hometown.

00:32:50.700 So full disclosure that we know people involved in this.

00:32:54.480 Maybe that's one reason we know so much about it.

00:32:56.700 Okay, well, speaking of reporters,

00:33:00.980 picking up the phone and doing their job.

00:33:04.420 Post Media, the biggest newspaper company in Canada,

00:33:09.660 if you can even call it Canada, the biggest in Canada,

00:33:11.680 but they're not Canadian, they're actually owned

00:33:14.000 by the Chatham Wealth Management Group out of New Jersey.

00:33:17.800 It's more or less a New York,

00:33:20.320 it's owned by money guys in New York.

00:33:23.360 That's who owns most of the newspapers in Canada.

00:33:26.220 And that's the National Post, the Calgary Herald,

00:33:28.880 Vancouver Sun, Regina Leader Post, Winnipeg Free Press, Ottawa Citizen, tons of stuff, and like many, many, many in between.

00:33:41.040 They're supposed to be the big boy.

00:33:43.160 Now, they're getting gargantuan piles of money from the federal government every year for the media bailout subsidy.

00:33:50.620 We don't know the exact amount because they won't tell us.

00:33:53.320 They classify it as a tax thing, so we don't actually really get to know.

00:33:56.260 But post media has announced the layoff of 11% of their editorial workforce.

00:34:04.260 Both of you guys are not mean to date you, but two of you are long standing veterans in the media industry.

00:34:12.260 industry. How is it possible that subsidies come in from the federal government, which equal between

00:34:19.400 probably 33 to 44% of how much they spend every year isn't enough to keep these guys propped up

00:34:26.620 at this point? So you mentioned the New York hedge funds, they want their money, and you've

00:34:32.180 got to keep shoveling, shoveling the money to them. Postmedia is just a shambles at the moment.

00:34:39.040 They've canceled their Monday papers for the Vancouver province, Sun, Herald, Journal.

00:34:44.700 No more Monday product.

00:34:47.020 Nobody works in the news.

00:34:48.200 I think we've got the biggest newsroom in the province, certainly.

00:34:52.000 Actually, among written journalism, although we're on video right now, most of what we do is written.

00:34:56.840 I could be mistaken.

00:34:57.540 I believe we are the only newsroom in Alberta.

00:35:01.860 They're not back in the newsroom because they're selling their buildings.

00:35:06.220 They need more money.

00:35:08.480 So, yeah, they announced yesterday, Jerry Knott, one of the top guys there, announced 11% slashbacks, says it's going to affect every paper in the chain.

00:35:21.060 But I think, quite cruelly, they didn't say who was going to go.

00:35:25.540 They said, oh, you know, we'll tell you in a couple of days who's going to be laid off.

00:35:30.820 Which is good. You should ask for volunteers.

00:35:32.260 And, you know, that sort of Damocles hanging over your head is a bit unfair.

00:35:39.760 So, you know, lots of post-media people, they're sitting with their heads down at the moment.

00:35:47.140 Morale, which was already low, plummeted even further.

00:35:53.240 You know, you just wonder, you know, the Calgary Sun Sports Department has three people in it.

00:36:00.220 One to cover flames, one for stampeders, and one to do the desking and layout and all that sort of stuff.

00:36:08.740 How can you cover a city of Calgary with three people?

00:36:12.080 That's insane.

00:36:13.620 I don't know how many more former post-media employees we can hire at the Western Standard.

00:36:18.760 We've taken on a lot.

00:36:20.760 We're sort of the refuge for former post-media and some employees.

00:36:25.040 Nigel, you kind of, you know, your time at the Harrow was probably kind of the end of its high times as a big, serious and profitable business.

00:36:38.680 I don't know. What do you think this is going to do to their to their newsrooms?

00:36:43.920 It was less people.

00:36:45.520 We've got 650 staff coast to coast, apparently.

00:36:49.320 11% of them are going to go.

00:36:50.820 Well, what's left for those people?

00:36:54.100 And I noticed, by the way, that people who are earning more than $60,000 are expected to accept the pay cut.

00:37:01.680 So, you know, that's not huge money.

00:37:06.700 It's going to be very hard to keep people motivated.

00:37:12.780 This is a very sad day.

00:37:14.480 I mean, it would be possible to, because the Western standard is a bustling place,

00:37:22.980 going somewhere, doing things, getting stories out,

00:37:26.740 you think, hey, we rock, and those guys have just spoiled their whole credibility

00:37:34.180 with some bad reporting or some biased reporting, ho, ho, ho.

00:37:38.420 I don't feel like that because there's a lot of good people in those organizations, people who know how to write a story, people who know how to dig.

00:37:50.500 And the truth of the matter is that there just is not the budget to let them do what they know how to do.

00:37:57.480 So for everyone who is a crazy little wokester, there's somebody, some old stager there who has been pulling his weight and more for all these years.

00:38:06.520 and they're either going to work for less or work not at all.

00:38:10.700 This is not a victory for anybody.

00:38:15.180 I feel really sad about it.

00:38:17.660 And I have noticed it.

00:38:18.980 I'm sure you guys have seen it too.

00:38:20.940 Previous rounds of playoffs at Post Media, this is obviously far from the first.

00:38:26.580 I can't even number it at this point.

00:38:30.100 Not universally, but generally, they're often letting go a lot of the veterans,

00:38:34.560 a lot of the best guys in the business.

00:38:36.520 because they tend to be more expensive, you know, like anywhere, the guys more, the more experienced

00:38:42.840 guys, the guys disproportionately better at their job, can be more experienced than the kid just

00:38:47.560 out of J school, not always the case, but often is. And, you know, and it's just leaving these

00:38:53.400 things as skeletons, you know, here, we try to have a pretty good mix of, you know, seasoned

00:38:58.920 veterans, like you guys, and kids fresh out of journalism school, or people who don't know

00:39:03.160 journalism, and we're going to train them up. It's a combination of these things. But you know,

00:39:07.800 their newsrooms are increasingly filled with recent J school graduates, who are being all

00:39:15.240 thoughts, all sorts of nonsense about journalism. And I, I feel like if that's the route they go in

00:39:20.680 this round of layoffs, again, further compounding that problem, they're only going to move further

00:39:25.640 and further away from a lot of their readerships and continue to lose market share.

00:39:29.240 Yeah, I mean, obviously, a big part of this, a whole part of this really is the fact that the business model that sustained print newspapers for so many decades has been completely undermined by the Internet.

00:39:43.060 First thing to go were the real estate ads, followed by the Vodicar ads, followed by the flyers, one by one, all of the big sources of revenue.

00:39:51.400 Actually, the first one to go was the legal ads, you know, the career placements and so on.

00:39:55.880 So bit by bit, when I was running newspapers, I simply recall that half of our revenue came

00:40:09.720 from the local advertising and about 15% of it from what we refer to as national advertising

00:40:18.060 and 15% from classified advertising.

00:40:22.300 Well, okay, so the classifieds went to Kijiji and its imitators. 0.99

00:40:27.940 The legal ads went to the websites, the career websites.

00:40:35.320 And by and by, people were less than, it compounded.

00:40:38.280 It was less than the paper, so people were less inclined to buy it.

00:40:41.620 Subscriptions went down, not the place to choose to advertise anymore,

00:40:45.320 and somebody else was delivering the flyers.

00:40:47.900 You know, I mean, it was just a, it just couldn't last.

00:40:50.500 And now they're reduced, begging Justin Trudeau on their knees for Bill C-18 to shake down Google and Facebook and have them more money.

00:40:58.000 The Alberta properties, the Edmonton Journal, Sun, Herald, and Calgary Sun, they used to be the jewels of Post Media.

00:41:06.200 They would make tens of millions of dollars a year.

00:41:09.500 And the fall, you know, the fall from that, the height of it to what it is now is being staggering.

00:41:16.200 I don't know what their circulation is now, but it's a fraction of what it would have been.

00:41:20.500 People just don't buy paper, newspapers anymore.

00:41:23.420 All right, well, we're going to wrap it up there.

00:41:25.360 Nigel, Dave, thank you very much, gentlemen.

00:41:26.940 Thank you.

00:41:27.520 I thank all of you for joining us today.

00:41:29.420 Remember, if you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, you should be.

00:41:32.880 Go to westernstandard.news, click on membership.

00:41:35.260 It's only $10 a year.

00:41:36.740 Sorry, $10 a month or $100 a year, and that'll give you full access through the paywall to get all Western Standard content.

00:41:42.860 We're talking right now about the trouble in the media and news business.

00:41:46.480 Well, the only reason we're able to continue doing what we're doing is because people like you put their money where their mouth is and support independent media.

00:41:53.380 We refuse to take a penny of the federal government's media bailout.

00:41:56.760 We can't do it unless you support us.

00:41:58.920 So become a member today.

00:42:00.460 Guarantee you're going to love it.

00:42:02.260 Thank you very much for joining me today.

00:42:04.240 God bless.

00:42:16.480 Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:42:34.260 Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:42:39.060 These guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:42:46.480 And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

00:42:52.080 To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

00:42:56.920 You can become a Western Center member for just $10 a month or $99 a year.

Western Standard - January 26, 2023

The Pipeline： Smith, prosecutor controversy continues

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