Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hanford and Editor-in-Chief Dave Naylor join host Derek Vildebrandt and Managing Editor-In-Chief of the Western Standard, Niki Hanford, to discuss the ongoing saga surrounding Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her pardons for people facing federal charges.
00:00:00.000Good evening. I'm Derek Vildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching
00:00:28.640the pipeline. Today is January 25, 2023. And a very good evening to you all. I'm joined as usual
00:00:36.320by Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Hanford. How are you, Nigel? Good today. Thank you. I know
00:00:40.880you're working on some good projects. I guess we have to keep that hush for now. We can't say
00:00:45.120anything right now. Okay. Also joined, not as usual, because the great Cory Morgan is down
00:00:53.920somewhere warmer for the time being, but kind of a flashback to one of the founding panel members
00:00:59.600of the pipeline, Western Standard News Editor, Dave Naylor. How are you, Dave? I'm great,
00:01:03.040Derek. Glad to be here. Beautiful. Yeah, we had a funny moment the other day. I saw on Facebook,
00:01:07.680you had this picture up and you had no hair, it was just buzzed. And everyone was in the
00:01:12.080comments section saying, you look like Heisenberg. Maybe to make a little money on the side of the
00:01:16.800standard, you're running a crystal math lab. You came into work the next day and you didn't have
00:01:21.360your hair head shaved it's just a filter i guess you have on yeah it was a snapchat filter a friend
00:01:26.400took it and i put it up and i can't believe how many people thought it was real look pretty
00:01:30.400realistic yeah it was great yeah yeah so for the record dave is not uh cooking crystal meth in his
00:01:36.720basement but i'm afraid what my skull looks like when there's no hair on it at least i don't think
00:01:41.680you're cooking no okay definitely not okay um we got an interesting show today um the controversy
00:01:50.480around Danielle Smith and seeking pardons and whatnot for people who were persecuted
00:02:00.480by the Alberta provincial government while Kenny was in power continues. You know, it's
00:02:08.420a combination of a few things. There's around pardons and then there's around alleged interference
00:02:13.320with prosecutors. Those are two very different things. And, you know, the CBC has been putting
00:02:19.660out stories without evidence, but they're standing by it. So it's in a weird limbo, where they're
00:02:24.620claiming that people have claimed to see emails that would lead to interference and prosecution.
00:02:31.020CBC hasn't seen the emails. Story continues to evolve and become quite controversial. We're
00:02:36.220going to, we're going to dive into that. Less controversial is numbers around fundraising,
00:02:44.540preparing for the next provincial election in Alberta. After several years of lagging behind
00:02:48.860the NDP, the UCP have now either matched the NDP or arguably, depending on how you're slicing the
00:02:55.980numbers, gotten ahead of the NDP, both raising seven million dollars in 2022 in the unofficial
00:03:01.660numbers so far. But if you include leadership fundraising from the leadership campaigns for
00:03:06.380the UCP, the UCP would have a significant lead at 10.8 million. So we're going to talk about that,
00:03:11.820what this means for the United Conservative Party and both of the parties as we go into
00:03:17.180the 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.
00:03:44.180country. 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
00:04:14.160all of our firearms a long time ago by this point. Membership of the CSSA is vital to ensure
00:04:21.360that there's an organization speaking for firearms owners in Canada to educate people
00:04:26.640and to fight the federal government where necessary against ridiculous and arbitrary
00:04:33.120firearm seizures and limitations about what law-abiding people can do with their firearms.
00:04:38.560So 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.
00:04:47.940It's vital for firearms owners to stand together. That's why I've been a member for so long.
00:04:52.480Okay, so we're going to start with the controversy around Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
00:05:00.420Due to our own horn a little bit, this actually started in an interview we did with Danielle Smith during their convention.
00:05:07.620uh the party's first convention right after she was elected uh leader of the party and uh
00:05:12.660made premier um i was asked i asked her about pardons for people who are facing at least
00:05:20.340provincial charges not federal charges provincial charges uh involving covet people who refuse to
00:05:25.780shut their restaurants down wouldn't close their churches down people who were charged for uh you0.78
00:05:31.700know calgary police beat the crap out of a kid for playing pond hockey all sorts of ridiculous
00:05:36.820things. And I asked her about pardons for this. And I'll put words in her mouth, but her response
00:05:43.300was along the lines of, yeah, that's something we should absolutely be looking at. She couldn't
00:05:47.300speak to the specifics of it, what powers the province has, but it doesn't. Pardons are one
00:05:53.380thing because it wouldn't be favoritism. It would just say this was an inappropriate application of
00:05:58.260the law. The province overstepped its bounds and shouldn't have been bringing in these restrictions
00:06:02.900anyway. And so there'd just be a blanket pardon for people who didn't actually do anything violent
00:06:08.220or damage property, that kind of thing. But the story took a bit of a twist. I think last week
00:06:15.500when the CBC claimed that people, they had seen, they have talked to people in Smith's office who
00:06:24.540have seen emails between the Premier's office and prosecutors that would show some kind of
00:06:31.420interference with prosecutorial independence. That'd be an issue. Dave, why don't you fill in
00:06:35.500the blanks there? Well, after that CBC story came out, obviously it exploded because if true,
00:06:41.320it's a huge, huge problem. It's a huge scandal. You cannot have the premier or politicians
00:06:46.880interfering in the judicial system. The UCP or Daniel Smith brought in the public service to
00:06:56.220through all their emails over the weekend and they couldn't find any and they said that's it
00:07:02.060story done and dusted so that threw the ball back into the cbc's court they put out a they updated
00:07:10.060their story to say they stand by it and they didn't take it down so but as of a few minutes
00:07:16.780ago cbc appears to have doubled down and brought in another story saying after the election or
00:07:24.140sorry after she won the leadership but danielle smith visited the justice minister and spoke
00:07:30.060about this stuff uh which to me i think you would do right i mean you just you're looking at it as
00:07:36.300an education experience okay what she told me in an interview she would do that i'm not sure how
00:07:41.100this is what's going on now but see and then cbc took it from there to say uh uh you know she she
00:07:49.180She became, you know, very pushy in wanting to get this stuff done.
00:07:53.740We've got a call into the Premier's office, he'll be on the site shortly, that is denying it,
00:08:01.540saying that nothing unprofessional happened.
00:08:05.320The Justice Minister has put out a similar statement.
00:08:08.400And I think the key thing to remember is the statement from the Crown Prosecutor's Office themselves,
00:08:14.680So, 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.
00:08:29.100Unnamed 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.
00:08:41.080So I don't think there's anything wrong with an unnamed source, but you've got to be ready to stand by it.
00:08:46.860You've got to do your best to corroborate it from other sources, even if they're unnamed.
00:09:09.220So, 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.
00:09:22.460One 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.
00:09:36.620Yeah. You better trust your sources to be right on this one.
00:09:40.700So 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.
00:09:55.180um both the premier's office and the CBC are doubling down both I suppose both could be right
00:10:04.420that someone went rogue in the office and the Smith and the higher-ups didn't know maybe I
00:10:09.800suppose they could both be right but uh public services investigated say they didn't find
00:10:14.020anything the prosecutor's office which is quite independent look they say they didn't find
00:10:19.140anything uh how much risk is there for Smith here because the story keeps bubbling even if some of
00:10:24.680this stuff isn't very related. They are saying, you know, hey, we have emails, you know, a letter
00:10:30.080from Ezra Levant to the rebel to chief of staff to Smith saying, here's ways you could look at
00:10:37.040pardoning people. I don't think that's news. I'm not sure how I think they're maybe they smell0.99
00:10:43.460blood in the water, and they're trying to gin things up a bit more. Is there a real story here,
00:10:47.440you think? I suspect that in the end there isn't but what I mean what we know is that she you
00:10:55.540described how she said yes this is something we should look at it was of interest to people who
00:11:01.880were likely to support her so she would ask once she became premier all right what can we do now
00:11:13.120At that point, it becomes a matter of interpretation.
00:11:17.220If you don't like Danielle Smith, the very fact that you ask that question becomes evidence of interference.
00:11:24.180If you do like Danielle Smith, then you would accept what the press secretary for the premier's office said,
00:11:34.480which was that after taking office, the premier and her staff had several discussions with the minister of justice
00:11:41.460and Justice Department Public Service requesting an explanation of what policy options were.
00:12:01.740So, for me, so much will depend upon what, if anything, the CBC is ever able to put on the table and say,
00:12:13.040well, here is the email that our source saw, and it depends entirely on what it says.
00:12:21.620I 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.
00:12:37.920I have noticed, though, the Premier's office is couching its language, careful not to say no emails exist.
00:12:48.300They're saying none could be found and we're not aware of any.
00:12:53.260Someone, it is possible someone could have sent something inappropriate.
00:12:58.700This is CBC saying we've talked to a guy who says they saw the email.
00:13:04.340Again, not to say that that email doesn't exist and the source is incredible.
00:13:07.920But it's not very solid. But the premier's office is being careful to say, not that it didn't happen.
00:13:16.120Of course, they should be. I mean, it would be very foolish to, but what was it, somebody's private email? We don't know.
00:13:24.360You'd be pretty silly as a, you know, a Daniel Smith staffer to use your official email for something like that.
00:13:31.140Yeah. Let's talk about what interference is, because I suppose reasonable people could probably draw different conclusions about this.
00:13:39.480I would see interference as involving yourself in specific cases.
00:13:45.400You know, let's say Arthur Pawlowski, he's one of the more prominent cases out there.
00:13:51.500You know, if the Premier's office was interfering with the Solicitor General and the prosecutor saying drop charges against Arthur Pawlowski,
00:14:00.140That 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.
00:14:15.140We 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.
00:14:24.140I'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.
00:14:49.000BC did the same thing with small possession of cannabis.
00:15:04.020I think the difference there, Derek, is you're talking about future problems.
00:15:10.260What you're saying that you wouldn't consider interference is Daniel Smith saying, okay, let's go back and drop all these past charges.
00:15:18.500So 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.
00:15:29.360There's a difference, but I want your take on if you would think that'd be interference.
00:15:44.080She said it in others with interviews.
00:15:45.340There 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.
00:18:35.100it's CDC said Smith said. All right. Actually, we're gonna change up the plan order here, we're
00:18:44.220gonna go straight to a story around fundraising in Alberta UCP and an NDP. For since not that long
00:18:55.820after the last provincial election in spring 2019. The UCP under Kenny has been trailing the NDP and
00:19:02.700fundraising sometimes quite badly probably an indication of an upset party membership
00:19:09.260and that gap between the parties was pretty big that gap has now well essentially disappeared
00:19:17.020now smith has only been the leader of the party more or less for the fourth quarter
00:19:20.540of 2022 but the party overall matched the ndp and fundraising for
00:19:27.260For 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.
00:19:43.160So 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.
00:19:55.160Tell us how this has changed over the last while and how the UCP closed that gap.
00:20:02.020Well, I became a journalist, Derek, because I hate math.
00:20:05.460So I'm going to have to refer to my cheat sheet here.
00:20:09.500You're quite right in saying that ever since the last election,
00:20:13.340Rachel Notley has been leading quarterly fundraising,
00:20:18.340especially apparent during Jason Kenney when he was in charge.
00:20:24.540Basically, they both got $7 million to play with before the May election.
00:20:32.500The UCP raised $3.2 million in the last quarter, which is an incredible amount.
00:20:39.040you know nearly half of that seven million and that was their best month since the the previous
00:20:44.000election in 2019. Interestingly on January 31st both parties raised two hundred and sixty five
00:20:54.960thousand dollars. So I guess there's some year-end. Do you have numbers on how the NDP did in that
00:21:04.240last quarter of 2022 when the ucp you know had smith new leadership and uh seemingly uh revival
00:21:10.560in their fundraising numbers yeah to be honest i don't uh the only one i've got is the ucp 3.2
00:21:16.400million in the last quarter uh yeah that's uh that's a large chunk of money so basically for
00:21:25.920the campaign uh both uh parties are well funded uh and everything's to play for at the moment the
00:21:33.040The 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.
00:21:47.480So 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.
00:21:55.880So Nigel, fundraising is not necessarily a good barometer of general public opinion, but it is a pretty reliable barometer of opinion within parties.
00:22:08.540And 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.
00:22:28.520These 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.
00:22:47.780do you think this would be a sign then of perhaps the UCP membership the UCP supporter and donor
00:22:57.480base maybe showing at least a brief glimmer of being a united united conservative party
00:23:05.280I don't think they'll ever be united be united but that certainly is a very strong indication
00:23:10.860of support you don't give money to causes or parties that you don't believe in and I think
00:23:17.060that's really the, what do these, there's one number that we don't have, and that's what the
00:23:22.520average contribution is to each. Yeah, because these were unofficial numbers, self-reported by
00:23:27.940the parties. This is not the breakdown from Elections Canada. Breakdowns not till March.
00:23:33.600No, when we have that number, admittedly it's going to be getting quite close to the event,
00:23:38.900but when we have that number, we really see how that plays out. I do recall, you know,
00:23:44.980There was a time when the Liberal Party was raising massive amounts of money,
00:23:50.000but it was all, this is the time when corporate donations were allowed.
00:23:54.540And so they had kind of 12,000 lawyers in Toronto and Montreal
00:24:13.920what's it going to be here we won't know until march apparently but it just the just the
00:24:20.280trajectory of this from disinterest under in the nine months during which uh jason kenney was
00:24:27.500leading the party and was thoroughly rejected by the party uh to the last quarter when you have a
00:24:35.340new premier everybody gets hopeful and says all right okay if that's how it's going to be here's
00:24:40.560my check. And away it goes. So I think if I were in the United Conservative Party, I would take
00:24:47.880those numbers and receive them with great enthusiasm and hope. I want to talk about the NDP a bit more
00:24:54.140here, because I think they have a lot to be happy about as well. They had a record quarter. It may
00:24:58.460have been a record year as well. You know, during their term in government, it was pretty widely
00:25:05.480known that if you were a staffer at the legislature the premier's office anything like that you were
00:25:11.080expected to max out your donations not everyone did but most people did it was understood that
00:25:16.680part of your salary was taxed back to the party because you owe the party your job you were
00:25:21.240expected to donate the maximum and that was a significant portion of the ndp's fundraising hall
00:25:27.880now they don't have that to rely on anymore they've got some staffers at the legislature
00:25:32.680But 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.
00:25:50.020This 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?
00:26:19.240Well, 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.
00:26:39.060And it's, you know, the NDP, they were in power.
00:26:44.440So they've got a good, solid base of support in the province.
00:27:24.660Okay, I still think I prefer the UCP to what I remember of the NDP.
00:27:31.340We'll go through a little bit of second thought on this.
00:27:34.200The 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.
00:27:47.540This is going to be overwhelmingly support from people who just support the NDP.
00:27:54.640This is pretty well without precedent in Alberta.
00:27:57.460The 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.
00:28:16.640So 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.
00:28:26.680Well, 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.
00:28:41.820Since 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.
00:28:56.080Even 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.
00:29:06.080And 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.
00:29:20.080He called on the leader, the premier at the time, just Kenny to resign, but Barnes has remained independent.
00:29:27.080Now, he issued a statement, I think yesterday, saying he is not seeking the UCP nomination.
00:29:35.080Now, 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.
00:29:46.080And at the same time, he praised Daniel Smith quite strongly.
00:29:50.120So with you, Nigel, why do you think he's not going to run for the UCP nomination?
00:29:56.100And do you think there's a chance he takes a crack at this as an independent?
00:30:00.080He may well have just had enough of the whole thing.
00:35:08.480So, 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.
00:35:21.060But I think, quite cruelly, they didn't say who was going to go.
00:35:25.540They said, oh, you know, we'll tell you in a couple of days who's going to be laid off.
00:35:30.820Which is good. You should ask for volunteers.
00:35:32.260And, you know, that sort of Damocles hanging over your head is a bit unfair.
00:35:39.760So, you know, lots of post-media people, they're sitting with their heads down at the moment.
00:35:47.140Morale, which was already low, plummeted even further.
00:35:53.240You know, you just wonder, you know, the Calgary Sun Sports Department has three people in it.
00:36:00.220One to cover flames, one for stampeders, and one to do the desking and layout and all that sort of stuff.
00:36:08.740How can you cover a city of Calgary with three people?
00:36:20.760We're sort of the refuge for former post-media and some employees.
00:36:25.040Nigel, 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.
00:36:38.680I don't know. What do you think this is going to do to their to their newsrooms?
00:37:26.740you think, hey, we rock, and those guys have just spoiled their whole credibility
00:37:34.180with some bad reporting or some biased reporting, ho, ho, ho.
00:37:38.420I 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.
00:37:50.500And the truth of the matter is that there just is not the budget to let them do what they know how to do.
00:37:57.480So 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.
00:38:06.520and they're either going to work for less or work not at all.
00:38:30.100Not universally, but generally, they're often letting go a lot of the veterans,
00:38:34.560a lot of the best guys in the business.
00:38:36.520because they tend to be more expensive, you know, like anywhere, the guys more, the more experienced
00:38:42.840guys, the guys disproportionately better at their job, can be more experienced than the kid just
00:38:47.560out of J school, not always the case, but often is. And, you know, and it's just leaving these
00:38:53.400things as skeletons, you know, here, we try to have a pretty good mix of, you know, seasoned
00:38:58.920veterans, like you guys, and kids fresh out of journalism school, or people who don't know
00:39:03.160journalism, and we're going to train them up. It's a combination of these things. But you know,
00:39:07.800their newsrooms are increasingly filled with recent J school graduates, who are being all
00:39:15.240thoughts, all sorts of nonsense about journalism. And I, I feel like if that's the route they go in
00:39:20.680this round of layoffs, again, further compounding that problem, they're only going to move further
00:39:25.640and further away from a lot of their readerships and continue to lose market share.
00:39:29.240Yeah, 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.
00:39:43.060First 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.
00:39:51.400Actually, the first one to go was the legal ads, you know, the career placements and so on.
00:39:55.880So bit by bit, when I was running newspapers, I simply recall that half of our revenue came
00:40:09.720from the local advertising and about 15% of it from what we refer to as national advertising
00:41:36.740Sorry, $10 a month or $100 a year, and that'll give you full access through the paywall to get all Western Standard content.
00:41:42.860We're talking right now about the trouble in the media and news business.
00:41:46.480Well, 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.
00:41:53.380We refuse to take a penny of the federal government's media bailout.