Western Standard - The Pipeline： Tax the West, we'll take the rest

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is November 1st, 2023. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:21.680 I'm joined, as always, by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hanford. Good to see you, Nigel.

00:00:28.680 Good to see you back. Thank you. Also, as usual, Western Standard Senior Alberta Columnist Corey

00:00:34.600 Morgan. Hey, happy to be back facing the way I should. Well, I suppose I guess I have to explain

00:00:41.000 a little bit. I've been gone from the show for a little bit. I had a little tumble from my

00:00:46.680 motorcycle in September. Turns out a functioning front brake lever is very important to have

00:00:54.520 functioning on a motorcycle. So yeah, I've been on a little hiatus, easing back into work here.

00:01:00.760 And so I'm really just happy to be back on the show on the pipeline with you fine

00:01:04.600 gentlemen, and all of you watching at home, or wherever you might be. Today, we're going to be

00:01:11.080 talking. Well, I guess about the new great opponent of the Trudeau Liberal carbon tax,

00:01:19.880 the Trudeau Liberals axing a large portion of the carbon tax for parts of the country that

00:01:27.000 have tended to vote Liberal but are now in significant risk of voting Conservative.

00:01:31.400 So the big chopping of the carbon tax for home heating fuel in Atlantic Canada and

00:01:38.840 the Liberal response to Conservative premiers on the prairie saying, hey, what about us? We'd

00:01:45.160 We'd like an exemption for what we heat our homes with, natural gas, which emits a lot less carbon emissions than home heating oil.

00:01:52.540 And the liberal response is saying, well, you should maybe just, maybe a lot more liberals, and then we'll talk about it.

00:01:58.980 So it's the old saying, screw the West, we'll take the rest.

00:02:04.760 What was it Gerald Ford said?

00:02:06.520 He says, the more times go on, the more, what was he saying?

00:02:12.620 The more things stay the same.

00:02:14.560 I don't know.

00:02:15.160 That's right. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

00:02:17.420 That's it. The more things change, the more they stay the same. That was it.

00:02:19.980 You pulled my chestnuts out of the fire. I really muddled that one.

00:02:22.720 That was almost like a George Bush quote I had going. Thank you.

00:02:26.320 That's okay. He was president.

00:02:30.100 The Alberta United Conservative Party convention starts this weekend.

00:02:33.280 We're going to kind of preview what we're expecting and the coverage we're going to have.

00:02:37.860 And make genocide great again. 0.96

00:02:40.380 Hamas has really never, ever been subtle about its genocidal intention. 0.98

00:02:45.160 But we're going to talk less about Hamas's genocidal intentions and actions and the open support for Hamas's genocidal intentions and actions right here in Canada and North America and the Western world more broadly. 0.71

00:03:00.460 And how this has somehow become acceptable, politically and socially acceptable, to openly support genocidal actions.

00:03:08.480 And, well, speaking of lest we forget, never forget kind of stuff, Remembrance Day coming up, the federal government putting its orders through the military to ban prayer at Remembrance Day ceremonies for chaplains.

00:03:25.480 And, well, the Western Standards, one of the Western Standards senior columnists, Linda Slobodian, really picking up that story and shedding light on it and getting the federal government to reverse its ban on Remembrance Day prayer at ceremonies this coming Remembrance Day.

00:03:42.180 Before we get into it, though, we have to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:03:47.480 The CSSA is one of Canada's leading firearms rights organizations.

00:03:52.260 They've been on the front lines defending your right to own, purchase, and responsibly use firearms in Canada for years.

00:03:59.680 If you're not yet a member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, you need to be.

00:04:03.960 Go to cssa-cila.org or just do what I do and Google them and become a member today.

00:04:10.820 support standing with other gun owners in Canada and defending your right to be

00:04:15.680 a gun owner okay so we're gonna our first one here tax the West will take the

00:04:22.120 rest so four days just four days before the Liberals announced a regional car

00:04:33.080 vote for liberal seats in Atlantic Canada Environment Minister Stephen

00:04:39.100 Gilbo, who, despite being a radical, at the very least, the other side of the coin being a radical

00:04:43.940 is principle. There's no doubt he believes in what he's doing. He's consistent. I'd almost

00:04:50.280 wish that he was a charlatan, typical politician who will just take the easy way out. He'd be less

00:04:56.200 destructive if so. But at least he believes in what he's doing. And he said, it would not be

00:05:02.780 fair to have regional carve-outs. This is about the environment. This is even the planet, for

00:05:06.840 God's sakes. We can't have regional car votes for so-called affordability. This is saving the

00:05:10.700 world. No regional car votes. Four days later, the Liberals announced that Atlantic Canada is

00:05:18.080 going to get a big break on the carbon tax. Good for Atlantic Canadians. Good for them. By 0.50

00:05:24.100 not imposing the carbon tax for three years on home heating oil. And okay, good enough. But what

00:05:33.460 the rest of the country because that's a source of home heating that is used pretty much exclusively

00:05:38.980 in the Atlantic and you know like say cottages in Ontario that are off the grid you might you

00:05:44.580 might see it a few places like that but it's uh it's it's almost a minuscule almost irrelevant

00:05:51.140 number outside of Atlantic Canada for people's primary heating people's primary homes in the

00:05:55.940 In the West, in Ontario, we tend to use natural gas, which emits, I don't know, less than half the CO2 emissions of home heating oil.

00:06:06.000 It's clean burning.

00:06:08.220 And so Daniel Smith, Scott Moe, I believe Doug Ford stood up and said, well, what about us?

00:06:15.180 We'd like one.

00:06:15.820 Even Eby did.

00:06:17.420 Yeah, yeah.

00:06:18.520 In British Columbia.

00:06:19.720 Yeah, in NDPR.

00:06:21.160 and and the response from Ottawa from the liberals was no because I guess I

00:06:30.580 think it was a great column in the line on this today there's two groups of

00:06:35.440 voters who get ignored by the governing party group of voters who will never

00:06:40.480 vote for you say prairies for the liberals and the people who will always

00:06:44.380 vote for you downtown Montreal downtown Toronto both of those are people who are

00:06:49.900 going to go it's it's the margin call seats and atlantic canada has consistently for the last few

00:06:53.980 elections voted pretty big for the liberals but the polls show them collapsing there to the

00:06:58.860 conservatives so those are at-risk seats and uh i can't remember her she's some inconsequential

00:07:04.060 minister but i think from newfoundland she was asked about this and she said uh well if uh the

00:07:08.940 prairies would like uh really from the carbon tax well perhaps they should like some more liberals

00:07:14.700 and we can have that conversation.

00:07:16.460 So really saying the quiet part out loud, playing into the old liberal maximum,

00:07:24.460 screw the West, we'll take the rest.

00:07:28.840 Nigel, this has been, I don't think there's any silver lining for the liberals here.

00:07:34.540 Do you think Atlantic Canadians, is this going to be still any net political win for the liberals at all?

00:07:41.060 No, I highly doubt it. Not a net win, certainly, because even if they've made friends in Atlantic Canada, they haven't made any friends anywhere else.

00:07:51.240 But they don't need friends in the prairies. They're not going to win seats here anyway. So what does it matter?

00:07:56.520 But so who is going to be impressed by that? 0.95

00:08:01.440 I mean, first of all, the minister who made that foolish comment about electing more liberals, 0.86

00:08:07.940 if that had been a conservative who had said something like that, that would be called a bozo eruption. 0.97

00:08:15.280 Somehow or other, she gets a pass.

00:08:20.000 Nobody is.

00:08:20.580 I don't know about that.

00:08:21.460 Like, as tough as we're on a lot of legacy media here, I think even the legacy media have picked up that, no, like, of course we do pork barrel politics, of course we do regional asymmetrical federalism in Canada, but you're not supposed to say it out loud, you're not supposed to be so openly crass about it, you're supposed to be a quiet, greasy politician, you're not supposed to advertise it, so, like, even the legacy media, I think, have said, like, come on, you can't do this.

00:08:47.560 was reported but it'll go away but you know really this illustrates the fundamental fallacy of the

00:08:54.040 whole carbon tax idea in the first place in order for a carbon tax to work it had to change behavior

00:09:02.920 in order to change behavior it had to hurt people and when it started to hurt people in

00:09:10.520 a liberal stronghold then they finally realized what they were doing but it doesn't matter they

00:09:19.320 wanted to hurt people right across the country they wanted to make it more difficult more

00:09:24.760 expensive to drive to work to keep your home heated um that's the iniquity of this whole

00:09:32.040 scheme right from the very start years ago when everybody was saying well this would be a good

00:09:35.400 idea we'll just sort of ramp it up and it'll be like the proverbial frog in the boiling water

00:09:40.680 and you know they'll get used to it they'll change their behavior they can't you your workplace does

00:09:47.160 not come any closer to your home because there's a carbon tax it's no easier to heat your house

00:09:53.960 because there's a carbon tax so they actually meant to impoverish people

00:09:57.640 So Corey, of course, people in the West are angry. Opponents of carbon tax are angry. But for the first time, there's been a massive breaking, if not shattering of liberal supporting ranks on this in academia, media, even some non-parliamentary elements of the liberal constellation, if we can call it that.

00:10:19.600 Supporters of the carbon tax and the liberals are pissed. Like, you know, you have Trevor Toome, professor at the University of Calgary. He's been a big booster of it. And he's an intellectually honest supporter of it. And he's saying, like, well, look, this shatters the whole thing. There's no point to the carbon tax now. You're undermining it.

00:10:41.980 This is also it's also clearly just not fair regionally.

00:10:46.880 This has undermined liberal support from amongst prominent supporters of both the liberals or certain liberal policies.

00:10:55.660 This is Trudeau's and the liberal signature policy this last eight years.

00:11:00.660 And Justin Trudeau just dynamited it.

00:11:02.580 He lost all the credibility on two fronts.

00:11:05.440 I listened to him babble a word salad yesterday when he was talking and spitting out how dirty heating oil is and how it's so important to get people off it.

00:11:12.980 But then, well, the whole rationale of your tax then would mean, if anything, you should increase it on the heating oil instead of getting rid of it.

00:11:19.440 It made no sense whatsoever.

00:11:20.640 And I'm sure his own MPs were just, what is he doing?

00:11:23.660 And the other aspect was they were always saying this isn't going to hurt people because the rebate program will help them.

00:11:28.760 Well, obviously, it was hurting them.

00:11:30.740 So it's lost. Again, even the proponents of the tax are livid right now because he's completely discredited the tax.

00:11:37.960 And those of us who always opposed it, just oppose it all the more.

00:11:41.720 It's a government in panic. It's the only explanation I can come up with.

00:11:44.400 You've got to wonder who didn't show up for the morning meeting.

00:11:46.960 Obviously, there's somebody who normally manages to rein in these flights of fancy who just wasn't there.

00:11:53.860 Well, I want to try to, again, double down and refocus on the regional side of this.

00:11:59.580 obviously the west being the most upset about it as we tend to be with many liberal policies that

00:12:04.540 with our regional they usually target us yeah uh and opposition to this was led by saskatchewan

00:12:11.260 in this case and scottmo uh alberta's tried to take a strong stance against this better

00:12:15.820 bit more more rhetorical than in terms of uh of hard action because uh unlike in alberta saskatchewan

00:12:22.620 most of these utilities are government crown owned i don't like saying publicly owned because

00:12:27.660 that's that's the bullshit word but they're owned by the government and the 0.90

00:12:34.020 Mo government said that well because this is so grossly unfair Saskatchewan 0.97

00:12:39.720 is gonna stop collecting the carbon tax on home heating fuels so in this case

00:12:43.620 natural gas because it's a crown corporation they can just say well we're

00:12:48.640 not recording the information anymore and we're not passing it on to Ottawa

00:12:52.140 sure maybe you'll find that unconstitutional but you're gonna have to

00:12:55.980 deal with. We'll settle that in courts in two or three years. In the meantime, no carbon tax.

00:13:02.900 Alberta looked at it and concluded it couldn't do the same because our utilities are not

00:13:08.760 government-owned, they're privately owned. And I have to admit, I said this in the newsroom the

00:13:14.240 other day, for a fleeting half of a second, it's the first time in my life I wished that the

00:13:20.500 government owned the utilities. We could at least at least enable us to not pay the carbon tax.

00:13:27.840 But I suppose some things are too high a price to pay. But this is a bold move from Saskatchewan,

00:13:35.980 Corey, that the government is just going to defy collecting a federal tax. I'm not aware of a case

00:13:42.520 in Canadian history where that's ever happened before. That's a constitutional crisis. It's a

00:13:46.660 tax revolt and it is a constitutional crisis. I don't think enough people are reading into

00:13:50.940 realizing just what the significance of what this premier is saying right now. And also perhaps,

00:13:57.380 though I doubt it, maybe some central Canadians will get it into their head just how inflamed

00:14:01.840 things are getting west of Ontario. We've had it and our leadership has had it. Scott Moe wouldn't

00:14:07.000 be saying that if he didn't feel he had public support to take such a stance. And the only

00:14:11.080 reason Premier Smith isn't taking such a stance is she doesn't have the tools at her feet to be

00:14:16.340 able to do it, but she's still strongly in opposition. I'm astounded, actually. I wonder

00:14:20.780 if we don't, though, if there might still be options. I'll put it to you, Nigel, but I suppose

00:14:26.300 this is a very legalistic question. But perhaps the government of Alberta could indemnify companies

00:14:31.840 that refuse to pay it. So let's say NMAX. Okay, NMAX, we're instructing you to stop collecting

00:14:39.780 the carbon tax and giving it to Ottawa. And any legal actions, the costs will be completely covered,

00:14:45.560 by the government of Alberta.

00:14:48.180 That would be a way.

00:14:49.480 Although, I mean, a lot of these corporations,

00:14:51.260 they're risk adverse.

00:14:52.660 I'm not sure if they'd be willing to do so.

00:14:54.900 But, I mean, I really hate seeing Alberta

00:14:58.160 laying Saskatchewan in our fightiness

00:15:00.940 on something like this.

00:15:02.540 Well, I don't think that's going to be the perception

00:15:05.000 because we've already got the Sovereignty Act out there.

00:15:08.300 Our opposition to Bill C-69 clearly stated,

00:15:12.200 I mean, Scott Moe, I would never accuse him of lagging, but Daniel Smith has certainly been out in front in any kind of confrontation with Ottawa.

00:15:24.700 Their spirit has been, but in terms of concrete actions we can take in retaliation, Saskatchewan's got a stronger hand here.

00:15:31.140 Well, they do, and they're using it and power to them.

00:15:33.880 I hope nobody goes to jail, but that in itself, I think, would appall people in all parts of the country, regardless of what they think about the issues.

00:15:45.740 Because when you start taking on the elected representatives of people, you are...

00:15:51.880 I think you might be ahead of some people listening and watching that the legislate, a lot of this legislation, federal legislation gives the federal government the power to use the criminal code of Canada to imprison politicians that do not fall in line with federal emissions mandates.

00:16:12.620 So that comes in under the Environmental Protection Act.

00:16:15.660 Yeah, so I think, I just want folks to know that the federal, they have an exercise as far as we know, but they have the ability to jail provincial politicians that do not fall in line with federal policy, which is unprecedented.

00:16:28.720 If you really want, if you as the prime minister of the country really wanted to drive a wedge between Western Canada and the rest of the country, that would be the way to do it.

00:16:40.260 Yeah. And I actually, even in Ontario, I don't know what Quebec would think about it, but the fact is that in a lot of ways, Alberta and Quebec want the same things constitutionally.

00:16:54.700 I don't think Quebec on principle, even if they like the reason that an Alberta politician would go to jail or a Saskatchewan politician go to jail, I don't think Quebec on principle would be in favor of Ottawa's ability to jail provincial politicians for not following federal law.

00:17:07.860 I'm sure they would not for all kinds of obvious reasons. So I think that actually is a line that the federal government can't cross. They can threaten, they can bully. But when it actually came to it, I don't think they will.

00:17:19.840 They would never dare.

00:17:21.860 It's pretty bad.

00:17:22.600 You know, I'd be out there front and center and you know what I'd propose in such a sense.

00:17:25.360 Also, if you want to be acclaimed emperor of Saskatchewan, Alberta, the best way to do it is to get thrown in jail by the federal government for not imposing attacks on your own people.

00:17:35.360 I mean, that's, that's, that's good politics if I am Versailles.

00:17:41.200 I don't know.

00:17:43.000 I guess, I'm not sure.

00:17:45.360 None of us are from the Atlantic, or I think particularly understand them.

00:17:50.660 But they're Canadians.

00:17:51.820 We have some insight.

00:17:52.640 We know people out there.

00:17:55.240 Pork barrel politics, it's everywhere in the democratic world.

00:17:58.920 It's a regular thing.

00:18:00.400 And it's everywhere in Canada.

00:18:01.440 But I think it's got a little more currency and explicit expectation in the Atlantic than here, because we tend not to be the beneficiary of pork barrel politics to the extent that Atlantic is.

00:18:15.080 But this is so open and crass, especially when the Liberal minister said, well, if you want it, you've got to vote Liberal too.

00:18:22.780 You're just not supposed to say that out loud.

00:18:26.260 Nigel, do you think this is going to get much mileage in Atlantic Canada?

00:18:29.800 Because in three years, if they re-elect the Liberals, they're going to pay the carbon tax anyway.

00:18:35.000 And the Liberals have said as much.

00:18:37.600 And, I don't know, the greasiness of this.

00:18:41.480 Do you think this is going to play a decent role in shoring up, flagging Liberal support in Atlantic?

00:18:48.360 Or would it backfire even there?

00:18:50.600 I think it possibly might.

00:18:53.780 You know, the thing about the Atlantic Canada is that they're smart, canny people.

00:18:59.120 and they work the system.

00:19:01.760 I'm thinking of...

00:19:03.140 And it obviously works.

00:19:04.500 Yeah.

00:19:04.740 Look at it.

00:19:05.040 The last time,

00:19:06.740 the sort of the premium example

00:19:08.480 of this was when Kutian was prime minister.

00:19:11.940 And the time has come to do something about EI.

00:19:16.020 It needs to be the same qualification period

00:19:18.420 across the country.

00:19:19.780 They lost Atlantic Canada

00:19:21.520 because there are certain reasons why.

00:19:24.740 In that case, the PCs under Jean Charest

00:19:26.820 ran to the left of the Liberals in Atlantic Canada, not elsewhere, but in Atlantic Canada,

00:19:31.780 Jean Charest PCs ran to the left of the Liberals to save kind of the old corrupt system.

00:19:38.260 Right. So, you know, there's a long history of relationships between families and parties. My

00:19:45.700 grandfather was a conservative and my grandfather was a liberal, whichever it happens to be,

00:19:50.500 therefore I am a conservative, therefore I am a liberal. But when they can see how the numbers

00:19:56.820 match up. They're smart, and they will vote according to what's going to work for them.

00:20:02.660 So right now, they're probably thinking, oh, that's great. That was nice of them. We'll

00:20:07.860 save money now. What about in three years' time? Mr. Polliver says he'll get rid of the

00:20:13.200 carbon tax altogether. Maybe we should vote for the Conservatives anyway. So I can't see

00:20:20.320 this thing working for the Liberals, even in Atlantic Canada, but perhaps they've conceived

00:20:25.720 Even it is their best shot right now, in which case we're really in trouble.

00:20:29.940 It does show you that it does pay to have a region's vote able to change.

00:20:34.420 That's one reason conservatives don't even do great.

00:20:39.560 Like Albertans don't even do necessarily great under federal conservative governments for Alberta is because our vote can be taken for granted.

00:20:48.080 I mean, they tend to screw the West less than the liberals.

00:20:51.160 And they don't openly brag about screwing the West the way the liberals might.

00:20:55.720 And they try not to actively harm it, but, you know, they're not going to spend a ton of political capital for the West because the vote's in the bag.

00:21:03.700 There's, you know, in Alberta and Saskatchewan combined, maybe three seats up for grabs that they could lose at worst if things tanked.

00:21:11.440 So it makes you wonder sometimes what would happen if the Liberals said, you know, as long as we're reviewing policies, I think we actually made a mistake with C-69.

00:21:20.580 We're pulling it off the table. Would that get the support of the Liberals in Alberta?

00:21:24.740 The Liberals could repeal the carbon tax, the No More Pipelines Act, the tanker ban.

00:21:29.800 I don't think it would result in a single new seat for the Liberals here.

00:21:33.120 And so the Liberals, the straight political math, would be not smart to do anything for Alberta

00:21:39.700 because we're just not going to vote for them because we don't trust them in their hearts.

00:21:43.020 Just the way the Conservatives are always pandering to Quebec, and it still doesn't pay off.

00:21:47.360 I mean, it doesn't, the conservatives keep on trying to pander to Quebec, and

00:21:52.320 you know, they have a fairly low ceiling. Although, you know, they might pick up a little bit,

00:21:57.360 but it's not going to pay off big. So if I'm advising Justin Trudeau, I'd say no,

00:22:01.600 do nothing for the West. It's not going to get us anything.

00:22:04.800 And then we'll get him out a little quicker. Good. Yeah. I'm with that.

00:22:08.640 Oh, yeah. Well, bring things a little closer to home. This Friday evening, the Alberta United

00:22:14.640 conservative party gathers here in calgary uh where is it now is on the stampede grounds big

00:22:20.320 four bmo okay yeah the bmo um uh for their annual uh annual general meeting their convention uh

00:22:28.240 their first big gathering since um since since their victory in the last election uh last uh

00:22:35.200 in last may uh now the last time they gathered was it was in edmonton um and uh it was smith's

00:22:43.600 first convention as leader uh people were kind of nervous about how's this gonna go because you know

00:22:49.440 the party establishment was pretty uniformly against her uh but you had take back alberta

00:22:54.640 come in and make a very big splash you know they've made a splash in the leadership before but

00:22:59.120 then they dominated the elections for the for the board of that party and

00:23:03.680 people never pay attention to outside of like the most hardcore of hardcore party members outside

00:23:08.800 of that no one cares about these internal party board elections because they seem to be of very

00:23:12.240 little consequence but these boards actually have a fairly big influence on the politics

00:23:16.880 of any jurisdiction uh half the seats were up for election last time and this take back alberta

00:23:22.640 group won every single one that was up so they took half the board um although i think the media

00:23:28.240 portrayed them a bit much too much as like a uniform political party with internal discipline

00:23:32.560 they're not like that it's a it's kind of a loosely organized rabble that sometimes acts together

00:23:37.840 sometimes not but they're making a play for the other half of the board now

00:23:44.140 Cory but take back Alberta has been painted very much as a boogeyman in the

00:23:49.960 media are you expecting much of a splash from take back Alberta and this kind of

00:23:58.000 stuff at this convention this weekend well I if past performance is in the

00:24:03.780 indicator they're gonna sweep the other half of these seats I mean it's an area

00:24:07.000 have high apathy. If you've got a group that's organizing well, it's relatively not that hard

00:24:11.440 to take over all those board seats because people don't pay attention to it. How much splash to be

00:24:16.860 again? I mean, there's the people who always oppose the UCP. So they'll try and paint it as

00:24:20.580 if this boogeyman is going to, you know, take the party into the realms of the insane or

00:24:24.860 admittedly, Mr. Parker's social media presence does make some people uncomfortable when he likes

00:24:30.660 Yeah, but in reality, I mean, when it comes to the board versus caucus two, I mean, they basically, they run the party, and they can influence caucus, but caucus is caucus, that's up to Premier Smith and her advisors, the amount of impact it'll have an actual policy is still going to be limited. So I guess we'll see how much of a Tempest and a teapot opponents to this will try and make of it.

00:24:54.720 hopefully there's not too many screaming matches or sort of events that can happen at these AGMs

00:24:59.340 that people paint and saying, look, the party's all divided. But I don't think it'll make too

00:25:03.820 big a splash in the long, long game anyways. I won't ask you if you think they're going to win

00:25:08.880 it or not. I mean, that's hard to say. It depends how well organized they are. The last convention,

00:25:12.860 they were obviously very well organized. They swept every single spot that was open. Now the

00:25:17.120 other half is open this time, including the party president's job. Although there seems to have been

00:25:22.100 some effort to broker a candidate in Rick Orman, who's I think seen as fairly trusted by both the

00:25:30.560 establishment and the more populist insurrectionists and take back Alberta. So I think there's an attempt

00:25:36.680 to broker a piece in that position, but everything else seems to be a bit more contested. Do you

00:25:45.260 think Smith at this point is happy to have take back? Because take back Alberta is very much seen

00:25:50.240 as an ally of Smith because she was the anti establishment who insurgent candidate in the

00:25:55.300 leadership and benefited from their support but she is now the leader and sort of the new

00:26:04.360 establishment you know that's the thing the revolution becomes the counter revolution once

00:26:10.780 you take power do you think she's still happy to have this group active and pushing forward or she

00:26:18.920 sees it as destructive. 0.86

00:26:21.180 Sure, she has an idea that these people could be difficult if she doesn't do what they think is the right and proper thing to do.

00:26:30.260 But much more powerful for her is the very fact that she wins the confidence of the people who actually can return her as premier in three and a half years' time.

00:26:44.080 So if she is perceived by the general public in Alberta as being an effective and successful

00:26:50.800 premier, it doesn't really matter much what the ginger group inside the party is attempting to do

00:26:59.920 because it's not ultimately going to go anywhere. It's a very British Westminster term. I know what

00:27:04.480 it means. Ginger group. Yeah, an internal group within a party, like a pressure group within a

00:27:08.640 Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Corey is right. These guys can have their ideas about policy, but in the end, it's like a caucus as to what gets done.

00:27:18.040 Yes and no. Jason Kenney lost a lot of caucus support, but even when he went down, he still had a slim majority of caucus support.

00:27:26.160 And while he lost a lot of support in the public, he had more support in the general public than he did in the party.

00:27:32.900 Other than Prentice, who lost the general election and didn't have time to lose the support of his own party.

00:27:36.940 every conservative premier from Klein to Kenny lost their job from internal revolt, not external.

00:27:45.880 So you've got to keep your eye on several crowds. There's the public, how you doing the polls there,

00:27:51.060 there's the caucus, and the membership slash party activists. And it's been a combination

00:27:57.340 of caucus and activists who have taken down every conservative premier, with the exception of

00:28:01.540 Prentice who lost to a general election since Klein. Thing is, Derek, they lose when they are

00:28:09.420 weakened and were perceived to be weakened and not able to bring home the next election. That's when

00:28:16.760 people are able to get the shiv in. You know, it's too early to say what people will be thinking in

00:28:22.180 three and a half years' time, but that's your strength, is the popularity with the public.

00:28:28.240 Well, so far, Smith does seem to be strong with all of them, caucus, the membership slash activists, and the public.

00:28:33.600 She's pretty strong with all three.

00:28:35.220 But everyone is strong with all three after an election.

00:28:39.840 It'll always get tougher the further you get away from the last election, the closer to the next.

00:28:44.140 It's not going to hurt when she's able to make a fist towards Ottawa. 0.80

00:28:47.500 People will like that.

00:28:48.440 But she's going to have to actually do it.

00:28:49.620 Kenny made lots of fists, but never threw any of them.

00:28:52.100 He shook them a lot, but he never threw them.

00:28:55.060 We'll see.

00:28:56.180 Anyway.

00:28:56.440 Okay, well, on to a happier subject. Make genocide great again. We debated this headline at our morning meeting today. It's about the crassest headline I've ever written, but I thought it captured things.

00:29:12.060 you know, we're wearing poppies right now, but remembrance, you know, we talk in terms of

00:29:19.580 genocide of the Jewish people in the 20th century, never again, never forget. And we're seeing

00:29:27.420 Hamas, whose founding charter is genocidal, and their every action since their founding has been 0.93

00:29:35.080 genocidal. Actually, I think we actually have a clip from Representative Hamas. Let's just hear 0.88

00:29:41.180 from Hamas right now. 0.80

00:30:11.180 wir haben uns nicht aus dem Programmauon

00:30:15.520 das bedeutet, wir können nicht Ihre

00:30:34.860 All right, so pretty clear. 0.81

00:31:02.440 this is not about getting Israel out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank this is about getting the 0.98

00:31:07.720 Jews out of the area they call Palestine period and getting them out from the when they say from 1.00

00:31:13.360 the river to the sea Palestine will be free that means dead no Jews you didn't fly and you know it's 0.97

00:31:25.300 It's cloaked in decolonial and oppression, social justice language. 0.78

00:31:32.420 The left has really unmasked itself here.

00:31:35.040 Jen Gerson at the line, I think that's the second time I quoted their columns today.

00:31:38.060 She had a great, great piece on how the left has unmasked itself here.

00:31:41.540 And it's not universal.

00:31:43.740 There have been some more reasonable liberals out there who have been appalled at what they're seeing on their own side of the fence. 0.96

00:31:49.960 Like, holy shit, guys, this is not us. 0.98

00:31:55.300 You know, the Jews weren't just a fashionable minority for a while. And now we've got other more fashionable minorities there. There are people that must be protected. 0.99

00:32:05.300 But this is open support for genocide. And it's either being a certain denialism among the domestic left in the West or among certain political conservatives being just as bad.

00:32:20.300 is bad, actually. I'll say on social media, I've been getting it from both sides when I talk to

00:32:24.380 this issue. Oh, it's the Zionist conspiracy theory. Those Zionists have to be wiped off the 0.78

00:32:29.620 map. It's just those Jews controlling everything. And this is coming from crazed right wing. So 1.00

00:32:34.300 the crazed left and the right have actually found some common ground. But that is the,

00:32:38.300 when I say far right, I mean far. Yeah. Right. The extreme genuine crazies, not, you know,

00:32:46.580 uh how we would get called far right yeah there is a hundred miles of difference between us far 0.82

00:32:52.900 right and therefore there's always room to move over yeah yeah but support for what hamas is doing

00:33:00.020 here is among the mainstream left union bosses academics even uh politicians using a bit more

00:33:11.140 failed language but supporting what's happening to some extent and it just seems to be a mainstreaming

00:33:18.180 of support for genocidal actions or quasi-genocidal like you know you had mobs of pro-Palestine,

00:33:27.460 pro-Hamas activists going through Toronto outside of the Lanver Cafe, a chain of Jewish restaurants. 0.75

00:33:35.780 Jews that make schnitzel, so I got to try these people out. I actually walked by that restaurant in Toronto a couple this summer. I really should have gone. But also going even protesting and threatening outside of a Jewish community center with daycares and a pool outside.

00:33:52.260 This is clearly not an Israel thing, and Israel is just another state that we think is oppressive and colonial. 0.68

00:33:59.400 It's, they're outside the Jewish community center. 1.00

00:34:03.400 It's friggin' clear, and we've seen this shit before. 0.99

00:34:08.580 I just don't know, at what point did open support for pogroms and genocide become politically acceptable in Canada? 0.99

00:34:17.720 Like, when did this switch flip?

00:34:19.780 It's been a slow-growing thing, though.

00:34:21.760 We've seen the rumbles. We've seen the outrage. Some of us have gotten offended when you'd see

00:34:25.200 some of these academics and some of these students over slower boil-ups and you'd see that language

00:34:29.500 coming out and people have called it out. It's been there. It's been sitting under just under

00:34:34.000 the surface. It's like Jen said, the mask came off, but it was always there. And this event has

00:34:40.160 just exposed their ugly faces for what they are. And we've allowed it. We should have nipped this 0.95

00:34:44.840 in the bud decades ago. And now it's a rot that we're seeing in front of our faces and it's vile.

00:34:51.760 but still we're cut flat-footed.

00:34:53.760 We didn't realize how bad this is

00:34:55.120 until it's been exposed like this.

00:34:56.640 I agree it's been there.

00:34:57.940 It's been there for a long time.

00:34:59.320 It's been under the surface

00:35:00.100 and it's bubbled up here and there.

00:35:01.640 We've seen it.

00:35:02.760 We've called it out,

00:35:04.120 but this is a whole new level.

00:35:06.960 I don't ever recall

00:35:08.900 marches reminiscent of pogroms

00:35:12.820 marching through Toronto.

00:35:16.240 I've never seen that before.

00:35:17.440 Intimidating people 1.00

00:35:18.320 outside of Jewish-owned businesses, 1.00

00:35:20.660 is for those who are historically ignorant, 0.98

00:35:23.080 look up Crystal Knot and see where that began. 0.97

00:35:25.740 Yeah.

00:35:26.100 Because you're only a short way

00:35:28.120 from smashing the windows out of that place

00:35:29.820 and putting painting on the windows of the others.

00:35:32.140 Well, it starts with, you know,

00:35:33.240 outside the Landwehr Cafe,

00:35:34.440 they're saying boycott, you know, 0.99

00:35:36.020 boycott the Jews here. 0.97

00:35:37.520 And that's kind of where it starts. 0.95

00:35:39.440 It started with boycotts, 0.89

00:35:40.280 not smashing the windows and burning synagogues. 0.82

00:35:43.760 It started with boycotts.

00:35:45.280 Then you get to vandalism and property violence.

00:35:49.800 We're seeing the word.

00:35:50.840 It tends up to, you know, lethal violence.

00:35:55.420 But something has changed.

00:35:57.480 This has been bubbling along for a long time.

00:35:59.360 But when did this switch flip?

00:36:01.300 Because, like, this is different than in the past.

00:36:03.600 And it's very different.

00:36:04.720 Yeah.

00:36:05.260 So in preparing for this discussion, I went through several of the clips of the main stories,

00:36:12.620 like at York University and in Toronto.

00:36:17.300 and there was a law school, and quite a lot of times you see the people

00:36:21.600 with the microphones look like they would fit in pretty well in Gaza.

00:36:27.820 So to what extent is this a rejection of Israel and Jewishness

00:36:37.680 by what I might call mainstream Canadians?

00:36:41.160 And what is, to what extent is it the actions of people who we tolerate among us when times are quiet, but who, when they have an excuse, come to the surface and present this remarkable picture as if Canada was awash in hate?

00:36:59.940 I don't believe it is. And I think that the people who do not hate and the people who, you know, need to step forward.

00:37:08.420 I don't buy the sort of silence is violence argument, but I was pleased to see that in the story that highlighted the activism and the protests and the violent language in some of these universities,

00:37:24.480 the university administrations actually did step forward and say this is not

00:37:29.640 anything that we support the students unions do what they do but we totally

00:37:35.080 reject this there needs to be more a public rejection I would like to see

00:37:40.000 maybe some of our political leaders you know the government itself well

00:37:45.360 stepping out and saying this won't do and a police presence to make sure that

00:37:49.920 if they are boycotting a restaurant or something nobody gets hurt there's kind

00:37:54.300 of, I think, two big pillars to these very violent, dangerous language and actions we're

00:38:00.040 seeing on the streets right now. And oh, God, this conversation could get us in trouble with CRTC,

00:38:05.080 and we're going to get kicked off TV here and cable, but we've got to have it at least

00:38:09.560 respectfully here. There's the domestic left, for lack of a better term, the left, you know,

00:38:15.200 it's unions, academia, and, you know, they consider, well, Jews are practically white, 0.99

00:38:21.340 and white people are bad. And this is a colonial oppression, social justice thing, that's how they 0.98

00:38:27.300 see it. And then there's diaspora communities coming from the Islamic world. And I guess

00:38:32.660 there's just a brotherly sense of solidarity and belonging among fellow Muslims. And I can

00:38:40.480 appreciate that. Okay, you have something in common, your brothers in arms kind of thing.

00:38:45.400 And I get that, but they're bringing the politics of that and the hate of that to here. And

00:38:51.180 And, you know, mass migration, immigration to an extent is generally a good thing.

00:38:56.780 It's a country of immigration. We're built on it. We have to continue doing it.

00:39:00.040 But I suppose the floodgates of it have meant that the electoral calculation in Canada changes and it's not in favor of the Jews. 0.99

00:39:09.560 The Jews are roughly what? Half of a percent in Canada. Tiny minority.

00:39:13.280 It's a pretty tiny minority, although apparently you run everything. Right.

00:39:16.660 So but you've got then but Islamic migration is very large and and the Islamic community in Canada gets bigger every single year and they tend to have larger families and and that's fine. 0.99

00:39:30.660 I've got no beef with it. I don't really care about people's religion, but it's obviously having an effect now on our domestic democratic politics and politicians look at it and like. 1.00

00:39:41.660 We can go back to our first conversation about Atlantic Canada.

00:39:46.080 This is electoral math. 1.00

00:39:47.620 These guys are looking at numbers, and the Jews don't have the numbers. 1.00

00:39:54.340 And so when it comes to which side are we going to take here,

00:39:57.040 parties that tend to rely more on some groups,

00:39:58.920 they're going to follow the diaspora politics.

00:40:01.380 I honestly like to think, though, because we have a huge Islamic population,

00:40:04.860 and we've got to remember, and it's easy to look at,

00:40:07.260 yes, it's predominantly Islamic people or people of Islamic heritage,

00:40:10.940 protesting on the streets, but that's a tiny minority of the hundreds of thousands, if not

00:40:16.220 millions of Muslim individuals who were staying home, who might even again lean a bit in this

00:40:21.060 fight, but they're not of the genocidal screaming pro him off. We got to get where are the people

00:40:25.220 come out and saying not in my name? Yeah, like Muslims coming onto the streets. And we know 1.00

00:40:29.400 they're there. I've got neighbors who are and they're disgusted by this. They want nothing to

00:40:33.700 do with it. But, you know, this is I had kind of a long Twitter rant on this the other week.

00:40:39.320 I saw that. It's time. You know, Muslim, we can't fix this. What was it? Dennis Miller said, like, we look like Johnny Winters in the Wu-Tang Clan. We're not a part of it. We can't do it. But, you know, the Islamic world, the Islamic community, Muslims have to wrestle with this problem. It's a real problem. And I know you're not supposed to say it out loud. God, we're going to get kicked off. CRTC is going to kick us off the cable, but we've got to say it.

00:41:00.720 They have to deal with this issue themselves and internally. And, you know, we need to see Muslims on the streets saying, not in my name. You can't kill people. You can't commit atrocities, murder, rape, infanticide in our name. 1.00

00:41:15.860 and we're not seeing it yet. And I don't know, maybe people are just afraid to do it. I don't

00:41:21.060 know. I hope it tilts. I mean, we're seeing some differences in nations that, you know, I mean,

00:41:25.720 part of this whole thing, I mean, it's a long discussion, but part of the issue Hamas had was

00:41:30.060 the normalization that was starting to happen between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And Saudi

00:41:33.780 has long been a haven of pretty extreme views and things. And they've been, they've cut back

00:41:39.120 on some things in the normalization process, but they've also been pretty restrained. They're not

00:41:42.400 being quite supportive of Hamas and things.

00:41:45.840 It's slow, and when it's this horrifying, we wish the change would be faster. 0.54

00:41:50.920 But I do think that in the Arab world, the Islamic world, we're starting to see some shift, 0.99

00:41:55.700 except around that hotbed when you get close to there, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, it's still on fire. 0.98

00:42:03.460 To Derek's point about electoral maths, the government of Canada could afford to be a lot stronger

00:42:09.840 in its condemnation of Hamas, because it's not like the conservatives under Polivar are going to

00:42:16.600 move in and scoop up that vote. No, but the NDP can. The NDP has been playing hard politics on

00:42:24.020 this, saying, calling for ceasefire, and ceasefire is code for, let the hostages die, and let the

00:42:30.700 terrorists continue to launch rockets in, just stop over military incursions. And they would lose

00:42:36.600 heavily. Because if we are correct that this is a problem within a certain community,

00:42:44.220 a noisy community, that is not going to push the NDP over the top.

00:42:49.180 The NDP isn't trying to go over the top. The NDP is just trying to be as big as it can be and

00:42:53.040 exert influence. And you can ally that diaspora community with the Fred Hans and other extremists 1.00

00:43:00.480 on the domestic left, for lack of a better term in Canada, unions, academia. There's an appetite for 0.55

00:43:05.780 it. So, you know, the liberals are very electorally sensitive to this. They could lose that support

00:43:12.340 very easily to the NDP. It sure might not go to the conservatives, but it's not a two-party system

00:43:17.560 here. It can go completely the other way. At the same time, you know, we're saying they could lose

00:43:24.180 to the NDP, but we're also saying that there's a lot of people within the Islamic community who

00:43:29.000 are just horrified by this, not in my name. I say that the government of Canada needs to be a lot 0.72

00:43:35.420 more forthright than this. And there's got to be some liberals who put conscience ahead of

00:43:39.120 political expedience. I think there are, but we're not seeing a lot. Okay, we have very little time

00:43:46.500 left. So I'm largely going to throw this just to Nigel, but federal government imposed through

00:43:54.100 the Department of National Defense that this coming Remembrance Day at ceremonies,

00:44:01.740 chaplains are not to make prayers. I'm not really sure what a chaplain's supposed to do

00:44:08.180 in the Army, Navy, and Air Force if they're not supposed to pray at Remembrance Day. I thought,

00:44:11.800 like, that's the one time a year if you're in the military where you really see the chaplain,

00:44:15.800 and even non-religious people are like, well, the guys who died were mostly religious, so yeah,

00:44:20.540 there probably shouldn't be a prayer, but they were ordered, I guess, in the name of diversity,

00:44:24.000 equity, and inclusion. No prayers, chaplains. And, well, that story was broken by the Western

00:44:30.540 standards, Linda Slobodian. We have very little time, but why don't you just tell us what happened?

00:44:35.660 Look, Linda got hold of it. She found it. Somebody tipped her off. She started writing about it.

00:44:42.300 This story was ignored by the mainstream press. I think it's still been ignored, right?

00:44:46.300 It has. We will give some credit to Epoch Times and Rebel News, I think, also picked it up.

00:44:54.060 But Linda Slobodian was first and fastest and got this out and kept the steam in it

00:44:59.340 and it was her writing that finally embarrassed the government

00:45:04.300 of Canada into instructing the Chaplain General 1.00

00:45:07.700 to lift that stupid order. 1.00

00:45:10.740 The government of Canada is not a friend of religion in general 1.00

00:45:14.740 and has made several attempts to just marginalize it

00:45:18.540 in the past eight years.

00:45:20.840 This was a particularly outrageous example 1.00

00:45:23.040 and I say kudos to Linda. 1.00

00:45:25.040 Yeah, this is one of those great examples of journalism making a real difference.

00:45:30.580 But notice it was not the mainstream media that took an interest in this.

00:45:35.260 They haven't even reported on it to this day, even though there was a policy, and the policy was overturned.

00:45:39.620 It never happened.

00:45:40.780 Exactly.

00:45:42.000 Yeah, well, that's a good news story in the lead up to Remembrance Day here.

00:45:45.580 I love it.

00:45:45.920 And that reminder to folks, then, support your independent media, because the mainstream won't do it for you.

00:45:50.460 Amen.

00:45:51.400 Amen and amen.

00:45:52.720 Well, Corey, Nigel, thank you for coming.

00:45:55.100 It's great to be back at the table with you and great to be back with all of you.

00:45:59.380 Thank you very much.

00:46:00.400 Make sure you tune in this weekend.

00:46:01.580 We're going to have lots of coverage from the Alberta United Conservative Convention here in Calgary.

00:46:05.580 Thank you for being with us and God bless.

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00:46:22.120 and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

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Western Standard - November 02, 2023

The Pipeline： Tax the West, we'll take the rest

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