Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： The Alberta independence rodeo

00:00:00.000 Good day, today is July 8th, 2026.

00:00:27.300 I'm Derek Fultebrand, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching a Stampede edition of The Pipeline.

00:00:34.140 I'm joined in studio here by two of our usuals, Western Standard Senior News Editor Dave Naylor.

00:00:40.180 Howdy.

00:00:41.280 Our former opinion editor, Nigel Henniford.

00:00:44.420 Howdy, as I say.

00:00:46.220 And coming to us from an undisclosed location somewhere, I think, in the deep south of Alberta, Corey Morgan.

00:00:53.260 Good day.

00:00:54.720 I'm getting a bit sick of Corey, even though he's not around.

00:00:58.100 All these Stampede events, I run into a lot of ladies saying,

00:01:03.460 oh, I love you guys.

00:01:04.620 Corey Morgan's my favorite.

00:01:06.860 It's starting to get to me, Corey.

00:01:09.200 It's just a gift, you know.

00:01:13.900 I'm actually particularly happy to have Nigel,

00:01:17.280 because after this, we're going to be doing debate prep.

00:01:19.980 We have our debate on Alberta independence coming just tomorrow, 5.30 p.m. at the Glenmore Inn and Conference Center.

00:01:30.760 If you're in Calgary, get your tickets.

00:01:33.000 If you don't have tickets, you might be able to, it's almost sold out, but you might be able to buy some still at the door.

00:01:38.320 But I'm going to be debating Mount Royal Professor Dwayne Bratt on the coming Alberta independence referendum question.

00:01:45.160 and the reason I'm so happy to have Nigel

00:01:46.980 is for debate preparation is

00:01:48.640 he helped Stephen Harper in

00:01:50.680 debate preparation for national

00:01:53.100 so I've

00:01:54.760 that's my secret weapon under my hat

00:01:57.120 here

00:01:57.340 so

00:01:59.380 we're going to be talking about

00:02:02.840 the core blunt anti

00:02:04.880 coal mining petition

00:02:06.180 it's failed

00:02:07.380 and he's upset about that

00:02:11.320 kind of an election denier

00:02:13.180 Some would say it should have been accepted. He had the numbers, he says. Elections Alberta says he did not.

00:02:20.680 We're going to talk about the state of the independence campaign. It's now underway.

00:02:25.580 You've probably seen some signs popping up. Some of them may even have Corey Morgan's name on them.

00:02:32.640 Well, where is the campaign at now that it's underway?

00:02:36.860 But first, we're going to start with the announcements, sort of announcement on pipelines.

00:02:43.180 in Alberta. We've got, there was some progress on the front for the so-called MOU between

00:02:51.820 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney and then between Doug Ford, Scott Moe

00:02:59.180 and Danielle Smith, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, notably not including Manitoba,

00:03:06.780 just proposing that we build a pipeline from Alberta through to Sarnia and Ontario.

00:03:12.060 So that's less of a plan than more of an aspirational, wouldn't this be nice if we did do it, Nigel?

00:03:18.080 Well, it would be nice because right now we are shipping Alberta oil to Sarnia, but it's going down through the United States.

00:03:27.360 You may have heard line five much discussed as when the governor of Michigan was trying to close it down.

00:03:33.240 And this proposal that Doug Ford and Premier Smith were talking about earlier this week,

00:03:45.040 I knew it wasn't that serious because they made it at a stampede breakfast.

00:03:48.920 You don't come in with a multi-billion dollar project at a stampede breakfast.

00:03:52.840 And also, I didn't see any of the industry types around there who would normally be there

00:03:59.180 if something big was going on.

00:04:02.000 don't let that get in the way of thinking about this as an extremely solid proposal because

00:04:08.240 that line five is 73 years old. Michigan is unreasonable, but it is also got a case that

00:04:19.900 if that thing breaks, there will be an environmental mess and they could shut that down. And if they

00:04:26.460 shut that down, how are you going to get that oil to Sarnia? Well, obviously it would be through

00:04:31.360 something like this so although you know most of our attention is focused on the west coast project

00:04:37.920 rightly so i mean that's a million barrels a day uh there is reason to take this plan to ship it

00:04:45.760 through manitoba very seriously and of course premier canoe knows that so he's he's pulling

00:04:51.600 out his markers already if mr eby can get something out of a pipeline then manitoba

00:04:57.120 we would certainly want to do the same thing.

00:04:59.620 Well, Dave, let's talk about Premier Wob Canoe and Manitoba.

00:05:04.120 It did not sign on to this.

00:05:06.240 He is, I'd say he's not as strident in his opposition as BC Premier David Eby,

00:05:13.480 but certainly less than supportive of the pipeline.

00:05:18.080 What's he trying to get out of it?

00:05:19.340 Do you think he's trying to outright stop it,

00:05:20.860 or is he trying to get what it appears is going to be the case

00:05:24.660 with the proposed West Coast pipeline, which is unconstitutionally a province gets to collect a

00:05:30.780 toll on goods moving through its territory. Yeah, it's all about money, Derek. You remember

00:05:36.400 at the Western Premier's Conference, Wob Canoe publicly addressed down Daniel Smith for what

00:05:42.140 he called a lack of consultation with Indigenous groups over the referendum. And he's basically

00:05:48.240 said the same thing about the pipeline. Now, Daniel Smith and Doug Ford at the press conference

00:05:53.640 on monday both went out of their way to say they want indigenous consultation and they want

00:05:59.240 indigenous ownership uh some indigenous ownership of the pipeline so there'll be there'll be talks

00:06:05.960 there'll be uh gobs of money handed out and i think eventually uh mr canoe will acquiesce to

00:06:13.800 the pipeline i also think he may make a demand to uh do a do a side pipeline up to churchill

00:06:20.440 The government of Manitoba is looking to have Port of Churchill designated as a major project, nation building.

00:06:31.220 So if that happens and we can start shipping oil out of Churchill, that only enriches both Alberta and Manitoba.

00:06:38.460 Corey, it's not yet set in stone, but it's been pretty strongly implied between Mark Carney's talks, public statements with BC Premier David Eby, that BC might get essentially a toll out of a West Coast pipeline.

00:06:58.360 That is wildly, wildly unconstitutional. One of the ideas of having a country is that goods and services can travel through its subnational units, its provinces or its states, without what amounts to tariffs.

00:07:13.360 This amounts to a tariff for merely passing through. Essentially, we'd be turning the Strait of Juan de Fuca into the Strait of Hormuz, and B.C. plays the role of Iran in this case.

00:07:28.340 But if that goes forward, that seems to set the precedent that Wob Canu would have every right then to put his hand up to and say, yeah, we'd like our tolls on Alberta oil passing through our territory as well.

00:07:40.520 yeah there's a bunch of terrible precedents being set here and to be blunt i am incredibly

00:07:47.940 disappointed in premier daniel smith now i i've been as supportive as i can with her for trying

00:07:52.780 to negotiate and move things forward but now to paint a nationalized pipeline where you're giving

00:07:58.520 into basically extortion from british columbia that is non-constitutional for tariffs for us to

00:08:04.200 move our product across a province and to try and paint that as a victory it's an embarrassment

00:08:10.760 and we need provincial leadership to stand up and say that's enough we've got a constitution

00:08:15.620 as you said it's a federation that means we're supposed to be able to move our product

00:08:20.320 across provinces the prime minister has the authority to basically put his foot down and

00:08:25.220 say this is going to happen and he won't use it this is one of the worst precedents i've ever seen

00:08:31.220 And I can't believe we don't have provincial leadership speaking up on this.

00:08:34.800 Enough is enough.

00:08:35.620 We can't capitulate any longer on this.

00:08:38.520 What other things are going to be nationalized now?

00:08:40.380 Rather than getting rid of the regulatory hurdles that the federal government has placed in or refused to at least help us bypass, we're just going to nationalize everything?

00:08:48.860 The next oil sands approval, the next coal mine, we just have to wait for tax dollars to go into it.

00:08:54.420 This is a terrible, terrible deal.

00:08:56.660 And then to pitch another one, possibly to Ontario with even more tax dollars going into it, I'm just, I don't know, I'm flabbergasted.

00:09:04.940 I cannot believe somebody who's spoken so strongly against nationalization of things that should be covered by private industry is suddenly coming forward and saying nationalizing a pipeline and paying tolls to BC is a good idea.

00:09:16.840 Maybe what we should be doing is putting a toll on every train car that comes across Alberta from east to west until the government realizes the idiocy of allowing this sort of non-constitutional policy to be entrenched.

00:09:31.000 Any one of you can pick up on this, but I want to continue on this topic.

00:09:37.980 We're talking about this now being definitely the West Coast pipeline, possibly the Eastern pipeline, although that's not even a proposal stage at this point.

00:09:48.820 It's an agreement between three of the four provinces involved that they would theoretically like a pipeline.

00:09:55.340 But for the West Coast one, at least, we're talking about this now being, if not owned and nationalized, at the minimum, backed by taxpayers.

00:10:07.120 So-called, we have to de-risk these things because the legislative and regulatory barriers that are in place have made these such wildly risky prospects.

00:10:18.760 Any investor who's looked at building a pipeline in Canada in the last 15 years knows that this is just a hornet's nest to kick up.

00:10:27.160 You're going to get all sorts of opposition.

00:10:29.840 So now we're looking at government doing this.

00:10:32.900 And the federal government, it's shown more flexibility, at least than the Trudeau government did, but has shown no willingness to get rid of the West Coast tanker ban.

00:10:43.520 It showed no willingness to get rid of the No More Pipelines Act.

00:10:47.260 all of these things that are are still in place and make it extremely difficult conditions for

00:10:53.240 indigenous ownership i have no problems with indigenous ownership as long as they're treated

00:10:57.800 like any of the other potential owners if they want to be a part of it that's great that's a

00:11:02.820 good thing but i don't know why we would then give ownership at a cost to the taxpayer below

00:11:09.620 market rates that's making everyone pay for it um and then the cost you know we remember the

00:11:15.840 the trans mountain pipeline it was supposed to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of three to

00:11:20.400 five billion dollars when the federal government purchased that from from trans canada by the time

00:11:26.720 all was said and done once the government gets involved costs tend to get a little out of hand

00:11:31.200 i think the final bill was something like 30 billion dollars i want pipelines everywhere i

00:11:36.160 want to build them north north south east west and upwards to the moon and down to china but

00:11:41.360 but I want them to make money and they shouldn't be a burden to the taxpayer these things do make

00:11:46.460 money but they don't they don't need to cost uh they shouldn't be costing the taxpayer so I I

00:11:51.680 don't know we uh we're in a position now where we could theoretically build pipelines but at what

00:11:56.300 cost well you know it's it's the position of the federal government by the way I I take what um

00:12:02.240 Corey said I I mean I I agree I'm still trying to figure that one out but you know when you

00:12:09.140 the federal government to stay out of your hair it's very hard to push them aside they will use

00:12:15.460 any excuse well you know the sort of the air crosses the border so you have to do it to carbon

00:12:21.940 remission our way oh well not if you're importing oil from overseas that there's no there's no

00:12:30.820 remediation there but if you're making it in alberta you've got to bury an equivalent amount

00:12:34.980 of carbon dioxide to what it takes to produce the oil um and you say well stay out of our turf they

00:12:40.740 don't know where the federal government we can make anything happen that we want to make happen

00:12:45.380 but on the other hand we can't tell david eby to accept a pipeline uh we can't tell what canoe to

00:12:50.980 accept the pipeline we can't uh tell quebec to new brunswick to decarbonize their oil or we don't

00:12:58.100 want to so they're there you have to then say well is this actually a weakness of character

00:13:04.260 or is there something more sinister like things can be done but albert is not allowed to benefit

00:13:10.340 out of it is this is this the unwritten instructions here i mean this this carbon capture

00:13:17.380 effort that the pathways alliance is going to i don't know who's going to want to buy this

00:13:22.580 this oil because if they recapture the cost of the burying the carbon as opposed to passing it

00:13:27.220 on to the taxpayer they actually recover the cost it's just going to be 50 a barrel more expensive

00:13:32.260 than whatever else is out there. Let's have a federal government that pushes its weight around

00:13:47.540 when it's right on the Constitution, or let's have a federal government that stands back and 0.77

00:13:52.420 just keeps to its own lot. That's actually what I would prefer.

00:13:55.860 yeah but when when pipelines are completed they make money yeah right they're they're a moneymaker

00:14:02.740 for whoever owns them uh whether it be a province or whether it may be a company you can make money

00:14:08.900 so it's just having to deal with all these silly regulations and the deal uh to even get it going

00:14:14.180 it should be you know it should just take a week of meetings and then it should be but it's not

00:14:20.020 Because if they have to do this, all this decarbonization offsets, it makes it uneconomical, and it's going to have to be backed by the taxpayer because it's going to take so much longer to recover just the basic capital cost of building this thing.

00:14:34.980 These things, it'll take long enough to recover that cost to begin with, but when you drive up the cost per barrel, it could take decades.

00:14:42.940 well that that leads nicely into the next topic then uh where we're at with the uh the

00:14:51.040 independence referendum in alberta right now uh polling's been kind of all over there's some

00:14:57.340 some polling that's been kind of out of left field showing it a sport for independence in

00:15:01.080 the low 20s that would be historically low over the last decade so i'm suspicious of that i'm

00:15:06.920 you know i'm not going to go i'm not a pollster so i can't go through them and i'm not going to

00:15:10.380 go through and say this is a bunk poll or not. Most other polling has had it ranging from 30 to

00:15:15.940 35%, you know, roughly one third of Albertans. But, you know, it's stampede season. You know,

00:15:23.900 the old joke is that it's a petting zoo for politicians. So everyone's in town. You'll see,

00:15:29.080 you know, all the Alberta politicians, but also people flying in from all over the country. It's

00:15:33.960 It's the political hotspot to be.

00:15:39.000 You know, Pierre Polyev, I'm not sure if he's here anymore, but he was here for a bit.

00:15:44.740 They had their annual stampede barbecue at Heritage Park.

00:15:50.220 I was there, listened to his speech.

00:15:53.560 Really not a lot of interest in Corey.

00:15:56.280 It was kind of greatest hits of Polyev.

00:16:01.520 It was, you know, the Liberals ruined the country.

00:16:05.460 I will fix it.

00:16:07.160 He didn't really address independence very much head on.

00:16:11.540 He just said, and I'll fight for a united Canada.

00:16:15.720 Okay.

00:16:17.020 And he said, and I'll get rid of the West Coast tanker ban

00:16:20.700 and the no more pipelines bill.

00:16:22.140 You know, some of these legislative things for Alberta.

00:16:25.380 Not a single word about the big systemic

00:16:29.020 and constitutional issues.

00:16:30.320 center representation house of commons representation equalization uh he he never

00:16:35.920 said a single word about that he never has said a word about that and i doubt he ever will say a word

00:16:41.200 about that um and and he just said you know and our mantra is affordability affordability

00:16:47.040 affordability um but yeah kind of going back to uh corey to his regular message which is uh there's

00:16:54.640 no need for independence because if you just vote for me everything will be fine um i don't know

00:16:59.920 How did that speech land with you?

00:17:03.100 I mean, nothing was outstanding.

00:17:04.620 Nothing was unexpected.

00:17:05.860 I mean, they do know the political formula.

00:17:08.060 If he is ever going to crack through the Liberals and become the Prime Minister of the country, he has to win Quebec and Ontario.

00:17:14.760 That's all there is to it.

00:17:16.000 Alberta is just a fundraising pool for the Conservatives.

00:17:19.800 That's Albertans' own fault for being as predictable as we are.

00:17:23.220 I mean, there's no seats to be gained in Alberta, really, by the Conservatives.

00:17:27.360 You know, a couple competitive ones here and there.

00:17:29.920 And there's really many that they'll never lose.

00:17:32.360 So he just gave kind of a stock speech and a stock appearance.

00:17:35.580 He didn't want to come down too hard on things like constitutional issues, equalization, even though it would resonate with Albertans.

00:17:42.880 He knows that that's going to be passed on to Central Canada where they don't want to change those things.

00:17:48.040 He also doesn't want to come too hard on the independence, you know, speaking too much even of the referendum and so on.

00:17:53.360 though he had to address unity because a large like with premier smith a large portion of his

00:17:59.340 base of support in alberta though are independent supporters so he's walking that line so i i mean

00:18:05.460 we pretty much saw what we would expect out of a barbecue uh like that and a gathering just

00:18:10.620 speaking to the party loyal staying safe coloring within the lines and not much going on so i i you

00:18:17.000 know i i didn't find myself shocked by anything the the independence movement itself right now i

00:18:22.380 mean it seems to be finally sure it was slow getting out of the gates with a campaign coming

00:18:26.920 and uh you know it's still topping the news i mean everywhere we see the independence issue

00:18:34.080 is there and it's going but it really hasn't been rolling as a good campaign so far it's kind of

00:18:39.300 changing a bit with keith wilson i was very happy to see an actual press release come out from a

00:18:43.980 group responding to breaking news and an issue i mean this is the sort of thing that should have

00:18:48.100 been happening months ago, but now it is starting to go. And I mean, if the movement can get

00:18:53.100 established, I guess over the course of the summer when things get slow, September, October, we're

00:18:57.320 going to see a real campaign get rolling and really see where things are on the independence

00:19:00.920 front. As you said, the polls are all over the map. I think there's a mushy middle. And with it

00:19:05.240 being a non-binding question, I think the independence movement could really potentially

00:19:09.340 capture a good chunk of people who just want to safely express discontent with Ottawa in the

00:19:18.100 of independence yet but the campaign's going to have to do better before being able to grasp that

00:19:23.300 we'll see what comes yeah um i mean there's early fundraising numbers out uh i don't have the exact

00:19:32.020 numbers in front of me here but in terms of at least what's been reported for fundraising

00:19:36.980 the independent side has blown the federalists out of the water uh dave it's it's not even close

00:19:42.900 now it's not gargantuan sums of money but it's uh it's looking that big in the grand scheme of

00:19:47.700 things for a campaign but uh now there are i think there's a lot more of the independence

00:19:54.540 groups out there because there's like you know like literally cory just like was like uh no one's

00:19:59.560 got signs so i'm going to start a little thing make signs and they just kind of blew up and

00:20:03.160 kind of had a hand i guess but uh and then there's other little guys i've people i haven't even heard

00:20:08.820 of and they've just gone and registered as a third-party advertiser and you know they're like

00:20:12.840 five thousand dollars and they're selling some t-shirts or something there's a lot of really

00:20:16.960 small ones out there. I've expected and do still expect the Federalist side to be much more well

00:20:26.040 funded. They've got big business on their side. They've got big labor on their side. I think the

00:20:30.920 money raised by the Federalist side, though, is underreported. For some reason, Forever Canada,

00:20:36.320 the Thomas Lukasik elbows up boomer one is not really reporting on anything. We know they're

00:20:43.340 spending money. They've been out around for over a year. They're not reporting anything. So that's

00:20:48.880 odd. Um, also a lot of, I know the, uh, the kind of, I'm not meaning to be pejorative here,

00:20:56.820 but kind of the establishment federalist conservative groups, they, um, they've got a

00:21:03.700 lot of very smart professional campaign consultants working there. They're already on a payroll. So

00:21:10.480 that's not going to show up as fundraising for this kind of thing because that's not technically

00:21:13.940 advertising so they got a lot of campaign muscle power that's just not going to show up as uh on

00:21:19.980 the fundraising side but in terms of what's been disclosed so far the the the albertus operatives

00:21:25.800 side has just blown the federalists out of the water for fundraising yep it looks like it and

00:21:29.760 as you say it's hard to tell at this moment you know as as cory said we're almost in a in a false

00:21:35.780 war type thing the phony war the phony war uh which is and things aren't going to get really

00:21:41.060 heated until uh september when the summer is over uh this part of the campaign i i if i had a

00:21:47.220 headline it would be sign of the times people are just getting their lawn signs up cory's getting

00:21:52.740 his his signs up people are destroying lawn signs they're vandalizing them spray painting them so

00:22:01.140 It's just like an election campaign, you know, a vandalized sign for the independence group or a vandalized sign for the federalist group.

00:22:10.520 It happens.

00:22:11.400 I haven't seen any reports of the other.

00:22:12.840 I'm sure it will happen on both sides.

00:22:14.460 Oh, I'm sure it will.

00:22:15.060 That's inevitable.

00:22:15.720 And it's not a news story, right?

00:22:17.640 It's just like an election campaign. 1.00

00:22:20.760 There's always morons that do this type of stuff. 1.00

00:22:23.560 And it's, you know, it'll build, it'll build, it'll build, especially after the stampede. 1.00

00:22:28.400 It'll pick up a little bit more.

00:22:29.580 But things aren't going to get going until September.

00:22:33.180 Yeah, you know, it's so much easier to be, I can see why there's more enthusiasm, more money rate, more signs on the independent side.

00:22:44.280 It is much easier to be a rebel.

00:22:48.140 You know, if you are defending the status quo, it's actually fairly hard to make the argument because status quo is not that great.

00:22:56.060 A lot of people are dissatisfied with it.

00:22:57.860 and uh but if you say we you know give me liberty or give me death you you can work up a crowd and

00:23:03.460 get everybody cheering um well in the american revolution uh i mean it's a bit maybe of an

00:23:09.140 extreme analogy but uh it was roughly one-third were loyalists one-third were you know would

00:23:15.300 describe themselves as the patriots and one-third were neutral you didn't really hear much from

00:23:20.260 loyalist side yeah you heard from the side that was worked up about about breaking up yeah that's

00:23:25.540 Well, and I think that's probably typical of movements anywhere is confined to North America,

00:23:31.560 but the people who want the change yell the loudest are actually the most motivated.

00:23:36.520 So the thing that, to sort of weave the pipeline discussion that we had a moment ago back into this,

00:23:43.940 I can't help thinking that much of the enthusiasm for pipelines, whatever the cost,

00:23:52.780 even a bad deal of a pipeline

00:23:54.960 is if the senior

00:23:56.740 politician is going to go out there in the first

00:23:58.840 or second week of October and say

00:24:00.580 we've got one

00:24:02.020 it's going to happen, Alberta

00:24:04.760 you will make money

00:24:05.960 then a lot of people who are

00:24:09.120 on the edge will say

00:24:10.440 okay, if that's

00:24:12.300 actually going to happen then maybe I'm in

00:24:15.200 now, conversely

00:24:16.620 if somebody comes out

00:24:18.800 and says, you know

00:24:20.840 we just can't put this together it won't work i'm afraid you guys you're gonna you're stuck

00:24:25.960 with your carbon tax you're stuck with the cost of the carbon capture we're out of here watch

00:24:32.760 the numbers for separation go like that well let's kind of continue to marry the pipeline discussion

00:24:40.280 with the independence discussion cory it's the whole discussion has been pipelines uber alice

00:24:47.000 it's only about pipelines you know when i talk to people in uh you know the ucp government it's you

00:24:54.200 know they'll be like you know hey if we get this pipeline deal you know do you think that'll push

00:24:57.940 support for independence down uh you know i talked to federal conservatives largely um

00:25:04.680 mark carney seems to be on that train as well the media they all seem to think

00:25:09.700 the whole independence thing is just about pipelines i see pipelines as a symptom not a

00:25:15.820 cause. It's not about pipelines. Pipelines have just become a symbol of it that like Alberta

00:25:21.640 pays the freight of Canada and is simply not allowed to build pipelines. And everyone seems

00:25:28.140 to think if we just build pipelines, one more pipeline, if we just get one more pipeline,

00:25:33.020 that'll solve everything. And it's not about being disenfranchised from the structures of

00:25:40.000 federal power it's not about losing our culture you know that that albertans are the most

00:25:46.320 rabidly patriotic of canadians but that that canada has been destroyed and we miss it and

00:25:52.660 we want to recapture it uh in our own way in al in alberta the discussion is just pipelines

00:25:58.600 pipelines pipelines and it's it's not really about that anymore i don't think despite the

00:26:02.860 narrative being only about it yeah you know i think you're absolutely right on that derrick

00:26:06.660 I've written that a number of times.

00:26:10.580 It's the values that are widely supported in Eastern Canada that keep putting a very

00:26:16.740 woke liberal government into office that people around here are just sick of.

00:26:25.060 But nevertheless, just looking at this very narrowly as there's a referendum coming,

00:26:32.500 what mood are people going to be in when they go in there to tick their box?

00:26:36.660 i'm just saying that a lot of them don't understand the other uh aspects of this some of them might

00:26:42.900 actually even share those woke values with eastern canada but still don't like the financial

00:26:48.900 relationship between alberta and the rest of canada if there is if there is something that

00:26:54.740 can be presented as a shiny object look here it is we've done it that will satisfy a significant

00:27:01.780 number of people i i think it is uh a major issue for the if we're going to if we're going to divide

00:27:09.700 yeah i mean if we're going to divide alberta into broad segments there's a third roughly

00:27:14.740 that support independence relatively stridently uh there's i'm going to call it a third it's

00:27:20.820 probably closer to 40 that are just hardcore federalists and then another rough third that

00:27:27.300 that are siding generally with the Federalist side, but are, you know, some people have called

00:27:31.740 them frustrated Federalists. For them, pipelines are probably a big enough symbolic issue that

00:27:38.460 if you, you know, we get a pipeline, they could say, okay, well, maybe everything's not great,

00:27:42.460 but good enough, I'm voting to stay. So, you know, as it is politically, the pipeline issue,

00:27:50.160 i think cory is on it's it's about that middle group the so-called frustrated federalists

00:27:58.260 keeping them happy uh it's not about winning over the the rough third of albertans that are already

00:28:05.860 in the independence camp yeah the independence movement runs much deeper than just a pipeline

00:28:11.900 as you said it is a symbol for that 30 or so you know the ones i tend to talk to i haven't heard

00:28:17.320 from people saying yeah if we could just get a pipeline i'd suddenly love federalism that ship

00:28:21.460 is long sailed we're talking about cultural issues we're talking about personal freedoms we're talking

00:28:26.020 about mass immigration things that this pipeline will do absolutely nothing to address they're

00:28:32.680 trying to paint it up to address that mushy middle but i think they're underestimating the economic

00:28:38.120 acumen of that 30 in the middle i mean just a pipeline alone doesn't mean it's going to swing 0.98

00:28:45.080 people if the pipeline is crap. And the one they're offering is crap. In fact, it's shown 0.99

00:28:50.780 that the federal system has Alberta over a barrel. And the only way to possibly get a pipeline done

00:28:57.480 is to capitulate with a whole pile of crazy conditions from carbon capture to tolls in

00:29:02.460 another province to, you know, endless rounds of indigenous consultation. If anything, I think,

00:29:09.760 you know, unless they can really show some progress with a private investor

00:29:12.780 and some groundbreaking on this soon,

00:29:16.120 this pipeline attempt thinking is going to calm the independence movement

00:29:19.700 may very well have the opposite effect on that middle group

00:29:23.540 when they realize just how economically ugly the position is 1.00

00:29:27.940 that Alberta's in right now

00:29:29.260 and how much the federal system has put the province into that corner. 0.96

00:29:35.540 So, I mean, a pipeline success won't get rid of the 30%,

00:29:38.420 But a pipeline failure can make that 30% grow, I think, quite rapidly.

00:29:44.340 And I just, this is, you know, that 10% token ownership from Pembina as consultants on this

00:29:50.020 thing, that's not enough to make even your average Albertan, who's often very familiar

00:29:55.000 with oil field economics, look at it and say, yeah, this is a good deal.

00:29:58.700 So I think they're going to have to pretty this thing up a lot more if they think it's

00:30:01.660 going to be the success they hope it's going to be.

00:30:03.400 Well, I think it would be largely successful with that rough third in the middle, the frustrated Federalists, because their default is still status quo.

00:30:14.000 So from their perspective, it might be enough with them.

00:30:16.660 It wouldn't be enough with the third that are already on independence.

00:30:20.300 And as you said, it's cultural issues now.

00:30:22.920 It's our right to not have very simple and basic firearms stolen from us.

00:30:27.920 Digital ID, censorship, mass migration.

00:30:31.280 The only pipeline I think that maybe wouldn't be back over to the federalist cause would be a deportations pipeline. 0.86

00:30:37.080 Just throw all the illegal migrants through a pipeline and shoot them off to cargo ships on the east and the west coast. 0.95

00:30:43.820 That kind of pipeline might, maybe that one wins me over. 1.00

00:30:46.880 I'm not sure.

00:30:47.660 That'd be extremely economical, no matter how much it costs.

00:30:51.460 But these are cultural issues now.

00:30:56.880 I mean, you know, so I'm, you know, I've got a debate tomorrow on the on the independence question with Dwayne Bratt.

00:31:03.880 And so I'm not going to get into Dwayne himself.

00:31:06.960 It's not about the personalities involved.

00:31:09.100 But, you know, let's let's look at who the loudest opponents of independence are.

00:31:13.960 It's not uniformly so, but a lot of the loudest people speaking, the most strident opponents are.

00:31:19.260 These are people who three years ago were tearing down statues of Queen Victoria and Sir John M.

00:31:24.880 mcdonald these are people who brought down the canadian flag as a symbol of genocidal shame

00:31:30.180 these are people who tried to rename parks streets and uh and public squares these are the people

00:31:37.720 standing up now waving the flag well you know what samuel johnson used to say back in the 18th

00:31:44.580 century patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel and we have scoundrels hot and cold

00:31:50.640 running even right here in calgary who actually renamed the uh for calgary the the confluence

00:31:58.320 influence well there's also if you supported renaming for calgary into the confluence

00:32:04.800 i don't want to hear you you know there are there are good faith federalists out there

00:32:09.520 uh who did not who have not tried to replace canada's history uh for those guys i've just

00:32:15.440 got an honest disagreement on the issues on and that's fine there's nothing personal there

00:32:20.640 But if you were about renaming Fort Calgary, if you were taking down the flags, toppling statues, changing the national anthem, any one of these things, you don't get to lecture anyone else about being an unconditional Canadian.

00:32:35.240 You missed one. Trying to get rid of the Canada Day celebration because...

00:32:39.960 Just a few years.

00:32:42.620 Nancy himself tried to cancel the fireworks for Canada Day.

00:32:45.520 let's not forget that these cultural issues that you talk about that are quite rightly upsetting

00:32:49.760 a lot of albertans it's not just albertans it's entirely across the country well it is dave uh

00:32:56.400 and certainly if you were to be parachuted into a you know a canadian legion in some small ontario

00:33:02.560 town it would take you a while to figure out that you weren't in alberta yeah but uh these people

00:33:07.920 do still support and elect and keep in power a group of a political party that is antithetical

00:33:17.040 to not only the interests of alberto but to all these values that we're talking about there's just

00:33:22.240 too many people out east who are prepared to do that so you have to you have to admit that the

00:33:28.320 colors the whole country that's why people want out of it well that's what a lot of people get

00:33:33.760 wrong it's not anti-canadian no in fact it's for many people at least maybe not everyone but for

00:33:39.360 many people the albert independence movement is on the cultural side about saving a piece of canada

00:33:45.200 canada that they view canada as cooked it's been cooked culturally it's lost it's uh it's been

00:33:52.240 overrun by mass migration it's been overrun by woke ideology um that it's a lost cause it's

00:33:58.400 voted consistently outside of the prairies for these kinds of things it's now beyond the point

00:34:05.120 of no return simply you can't vote your way out of it simply electing the blue team but that probably

00:34:10.800 just slows down the decline a little bit it's not going to reverse anything that's the way it's been

00:34:16.640 ever since the war so yeah second world war all right hey well you know as a national flag we

00:34:23.440 We could bring back the Red Ensign, maybe.

00:34:25.560 Wouldn't that be something?

00:34:28.540 Yeah.

00:34:28.940 Yeah, well, that's actually, I seem to remember some stories

00:34:33.840 that Dave published here a few years ago

00:34:35.920 when somebody was flying the Red Ensign

00:34:38.820 and they were accused of being racist

00:34:40.100 just because they were flying the Red Ensign.

00:34:42.320 That's now a very common thing.

00:34:44.340 Well, you know, to their credit, you know,

00:34:46.540 Canadian nationalists in the genuine sense of nationalism,

00:34:49.820 you know, Canadian nationalism being more than simply

00:34:51.980 i'm not american and i don't have a gun um they tried to recl they're trying to reclaim the red

00:34:56.780 ensign as a as a symbol of national pride and nationalism and you know good on them you know

00:35:02.300 uh i just i think most of canada has just kind of gone beyond the point of no return now it's

00:35:09.420 it's not coming back is that line the canadian is american with a health care plan no gun is

00:35:16.300 Is that what you were...

00:35:17.160 Yeah, riff on that.

00:35:19.400 And if that is the definition of a Canadian, then I'm not a Canadian.

00:35:23.080 I want good health care, and I want lots of guns.

00:35:25.880 But I love my land here.

00:35:27.180 I don't want to go to the States.

00:35:28.360 I don't want to be an American.

00:35:29.660 But I want my guns, and I want some decent health care.

00:35:33.160 So it could be done here in Alberta.

00:35:36.680 Yeah.

00:35:36.860 All right, well, speaking of referendums, you know, a lot of listeners, viewers will know,

00:35:42.980 uh country musician corb lund uh had been leading or at least was the face of

00:35:51.300 an anti uh coal citizens initiative petition to try and trigger a referendum banning coal mining

00:35:59.220 on the eastern slope of the rockies um i say he's the face of because he's not really the leader

00:36:04.400 it's uh they tried to put it was a smart uh i think it was a very uh intelligent campaign

00:36:11.700 strategy to make put a sympathetic face you know a country singer god who looks like a stereotypical

00:36:17.700 good old boy alberton to put him up front but the campaign was very much being run by uh people in

00:36:24.140 downtown office towers uh we're we're in a downtown office tower but you know we don't really belong

00:36:29.780 here um uh but but run by um the hardcore eco green left uh usual crowd for them overwhelmingly

00:36:40.380 for the most part uh but they've had him up front kind of as the face of it um so you know you've

00:36:46.700 seen um it's it's if you go to some of the usual spots where you had like the you know the elbows

00:36:52.260 up old ladies signing the uh doing the petitioning for the forever canada petition it was literally

00:36:57.020 the same people once they were done with that petition this cycled over to this one he asked

00:37:00.940 some questions they didn't even really know much about it they're just like well this one's against

00:37:04.940 conservatives and it's against uh you know resource development so we're on side so uh

00:37:11.980 they managed to get more signatures on the on the citizens initiative petition than i expected dave

00:37:18.400 but uh they they submitted it i was surprised they even had anything to submit i suppose they

00:37:24.200 had to do something because it would have been embarrassing to not even submit it uh but

00:37:27.920 elections alberta ran the verification process found that there was just too many bad names

00:37:34.460 wrong addresses that kind of thing that's that's why all the uh you know the independent pro

00:37:38.940 independence one and then the forever canada anti-independence when both of them had to submit

00:37:43.900 a large extra margin of uh a safety zone of signatures because you're expecting some to get

00:37:49.400 weeded out in the verification process uh they failed yeah it's uh it's like a hurting

00:37:54.980 hurting country song for uh for core but but here's the here's the numbers if you hadn't seen

00:38:00.460 them they needed 178 000 uh signatures they handed in 196 000 signatures and elections canada tries

00:38:09.900 to uh elections alberta they try and contact some people but they also put in a statistical error

00:38:16.700 range of five percent so when you take the five percent out of uh 196 000 you're left with 172

00:38:24.300 thousand so they fell six thousand signatures short um which doesn't seem like a lot of signatures

00:38:31.660 but you know derek as you know if you're doing a petition you make sure you have way over the

00:38:36.460 amount that you need so uh so it doesn't come back and hurt you and you're you're also right

00:38:41.660 about the uh the ndp led movement i i suggest if you haven't read them already read some excellent

00:38:47.900 investigative stories by our our dave wynnick just on uh on the ndp links uh to uh uh to the coal

00:38:55.500 thing uh afterwards uh mr lund says that he wasn't happy with the way the ballots were counted and

00:39:03.340 he's thinking of going to court so i i don't know why he'd go to court it's already too late to have

00:39:08.940 it on the referendum question um and uh the premier says uh that she's she's had a meeting with with

00:39:17.420 Corb Lund and wants to work with him on some of the issues. You say it's too late to go to court.

00:39:26.860 We have a rather strange ruling from the Alberta Court of Kings bench recently on that very thing.

00:39:39.500 Lawyers can disagree, but in my view, that was not a sound legal judgment that was offered by

00:39:46.780 time you appeal, but you're into next year. So he's hoping for the same thing.

00:39:50.940 There was a rush to get it appealed, to take it to court because they wanted the

00:39:56.380 question on the referendum. And then the government just said, okay, we're going to have it anyways.

00:40:01.260 The government has said it's too late this time. So, I mean, you can go to court,

00:40:05.420 you can probably get a ruling in your favor, but what it's going to help, I don't see.

00:40:09.660 you know i just don't tend not to take that those kinds of environmental movements seriously because

00:40:17.900 as derek was saying they're run out of somewhere else they are run by people if they weren't

00:40:23.340 protesting uh coal in in alberta they'd be protesting oil sands in alberta they'll be

00:40:30.540 protesting pipelines coming across bc uh they'll they'll be protesting you know animal rights or

00:40:38.540 something like that's how they make their money that's that's what i was surprised they didn't

00:40:41.900 bring in david suzuki well but i guess his appearance fees too high for them no no no

00:40:46.780 this time they were smarter they knew uh you know that traditionally they would put a david suzuki

00:40:52.780 or david suzuki like you know granola crunch type figure up front they figured okay well that might

00:41:00.380 work in bc it's not going to work in alberta if you want to win a majority of albertans he

00:41:05.420 is very smart to put a core blunt out front you know find a guy who looks like John Dutton you

00:41:11.680 know uh that's smart um so I think their their campaign tactics have evolved here now behind

00:41:18.980 the John Dutton like figure then you've got the David Suzuki type activists so that's where I

00:41:24.680 want to go with this discussion is you know where does uh this anti-coal movement go from here so

00:41:31.420 they've failed to get their

00:41:33.380 referendum. They don't have the time. They don't have

00:41:35.200 the signatures.

00:41:37.800 But the NDP has been

00:41:39.120 very... I'm not sure the

00:41:41.260 environmental movement will like this because they've been very...

00:41:43.680 The

00:41:44.640 anti-coal guys have not wanted

00:41:47.480 the NDP too far up front

00:41:48.980 because the NDP is still the

00:41:51.360 NDP in Alberta. It's got a

00:41:53.260 limited appeal, we

00:41:55.460 can say. But the NDP

00:41:57.400 have grasped onto this. So I expect

00:41:59.400 that the NDP are going to make this a part of

00:42:01.400 their platform, not because they think they're going to win any seats in the areas where the

00:42:06.920 coal mining takes place. Those areas are in solidly conservative constituencies.

00:42:11.400 The Crowson has passed itself, which is kind of the epicenter of where this controversy is about.

00:42:17.200 They had a referendum on this last year, and they voted, what was it, like 70% or something?

00:42:23.460 Overwhelmingly, with a high turnout, overwhelmingly, they voted to go forward with coal mining.

00:42:28.300 So that means jobs for these areas that are often very isolated.

00:42:31.400 they're not trying to win seats there but it's trying to buttress the anti-development movement

00:42:36.440 you know so like cory if uh you know you remember before rachel notley became premier in 2015

00:42:44.040 um the ndp was actually quite stridently anti-oil and gas and it was anti-pipeline it

00:42:49.960 it was pretty similar kind of to the bc ndp they changed their tune when they kind of woke up one

00:42:55.320 day and looked around at each other and found themselves in the cabinet running the alberta

00:42:59.400 of government and they're like okay if we want to have a hope and hell of actually hanging on to

00:43:04.260 power we we have to change our tune on these things we're gonna need the money from it but

00:43:07.700 when they were just kind of a downtown edmonton party with two to four seats under brian mason

00:43:14.100 etc um they were pretty hard into this so i i see this as kind of a sop to that hardcore anti-development

00:43:22.320 eco base but the movement itself uh i i've seen signs they've now got you know uh a significant

00:43:31.440 they they have a campaign organization they've got the signatures of you know 170 odd thousand

00:43:37.080 people uh that can now be parried into other kinds of anti-development movements they could

00:43:41.720 go after logging they could go after small regional pipelines that kind of thing yeah we'll

00:43:47.680 see what comes of it i mean as you said they became more pragmatic when they realized that

00:43:51.260 they're actually pursuing power they've got to support at least some degree of industry in

00:43:55.360 alberta i don't know if this coal mining thing i mean everybody likes to you know coal's been so

00:44:00.260 so villainized and and uh you know effectively pointed out as some type of dirty energy source

00:44:05.500 even though this would be predominantly used for metals i don't know if it's a smart area for the

00:44:09.240 ndp to get into in the region of the people actually affected as you pointed out i was in

00:44:13.220 blair moore yesterday and there are signs all over supporting the coal development down there

00:44:17.620 it brings me back to memories of the friends of the old man way back in the 90s when the left

00:44:22.460 went bananas because the old man river was going to be damned right in that same area oh the world's

00:44:26.700 going to end the environment's going to be ruined all the rest of it the dam got built nothing bad

00:44:31.760 happened life went on so i i think nichi's going to have to seek out a better wedge issue than this

00:44:36.560 one okay all right well we're out of time for that uh we'll go to our party shots start with

00:44:42.880 uh dave uh the chicken littles of the world said that when the independence movement started to

00:44:49.200 take shape in alberta it would kill off any sort of investments into the province well today premier

00:44:55.520 daniel smith announced mark zuckerberg who's a fairly smart guy uh his company meta is going

00:45:01.120 to be investing 10 billion dollars into a ai center in northern alberta so chicken littles

00:45:07.600 wrong as usual i don't so uh apparently we're gonna buy german submarines so you both you both

00:45:16.480 well you see who better than to give an opinion on this than somebody who actually fought the

00:45:21.280 battle of the atlantic so you probably know bill wilson uh he's still alive he's 102 years old

00:45:28.080 and he's one of the few people around who actually knows what it's like to

00:45:32.080 stand on the heaving deck of a corvette as depth charges are launched against

00:45:37.600 ultra sea boots and um i asked him this morning gave him a quick call said is this a good is this

00:45:44.320 you know how do you feel about that and he said look german u-boats are probably the best they're

00:45:50.800 darned hard to kill i support the decision i feel like the technology has changed a bit since the

00:45:56.160 battle of the atlantic but uh i take the point well he said kind things about your people so 0.97

00:46:00.960 there you go what do you mean your people that's racist nigel we have the german flag up in here 0.96

00:46:09.760 i know only for a couple of days then they lost they were humiliated 0.90

00:46:19.680 we've fallen back to argentina they're our hope now uh okay cory just to shout out to our friends

00:46:27.040 at the CTV, they reported on a man repeatedly committing indecent acts in the Chestermere Park,

00:46:33.340 pretty frightening to think of. Their description in text, all it said though was 20, this person

00:46:39.300 is 20 to 40 years of age and has a slim build. Then if you go into the story, look at the picture,

00:46:45.360 the person is clearly male, has a big beard, and is most definitely of South Asian origin. Not to 0.99

00:46:51.580 slur it South Asians, I don't care if the person was white, I want to hear that they're white. If 1.00

00:46:55.200 they were chinese looking i want to hear that they're chinese looking the goal should be to 1.00

00:46:58.540 catch the pervert and instead they went with political correctness and they're putting people 0.58

00:47:02.660 at risk by refusing to describe these criminals dave uh we covered that story i think uh and we

00:47:08.920 used the police description it included a line that ctv i guess intentionally excluded didn't it

00:47:14.000 did it the police described him as medium complexion yes medium which i thought was like

00:47:20.420 that's a very politically correct way of saying brown yeah i mean as cory says when you see the

00:47:25.740 picture of this guy he's definitely yeah right you can tell so yeah yeah so ctv intentionally

00:47:32.880 excluded a pretty important detail of who this guy is ctv's gone downhill haven't they've been

00:47:39.500 gone a long time they've been gone a long time okay and uh there's no time for me to have a

00:47:45.180 parting shot. Oh, so I'll just remind everyone again

00:47:47.320 about the debate

00:47:48.960 taking place tomorrow evening

00:47:51.000 if you're in the Calgary area

00:47:53.260 for Stampede or you live around

00:47:54.860 5.30 at the Glenmore Inn

00:47:57.160 and Conference Centre. It's only $10.

00:47:59.040 We're just covering the costs

00:48:00.080 for the debate on the

00:48:03.080 independence question between myself

00:48:04.860 and Mount Royal Professor Dwayne Brett.

00:48:06.880 Come on out. It's going to be a great time

00:48:08.960 as we hash it out. Don't forget your

00:48:11.280 video on Friday.

00:48:13.300 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:48:14.220 uh it's been pre-recorded uh yeah i guess because really ambassador yeah it's been pre-recorded uh

00:48:21.500 we we didn't do it we didn't release it at the time for security reasons but uh i i did an

00:48:25.900 interview with the uh israeli ambassador to canada uh you know uh how do i pronounce his last name

00:48:33.100 again moad moad uh very interesting interview we talked about uh you know what he's in town

00:48:39.500 for the stampede for but also some of the some of the bigger uh issues uh it was it was i think i

00:48:46.860 like to think it was a tough but fair interview uh and and really kind of gets into things in a way

00:48:52.220 that uh you know you're probably not used to seeing in the legacy media uh when we're talking

00:48:57.980 to someone like an ambassador so all right that's it in the store and the store buy some hats i'm

00:49:05.660 wearing this because i can't i could bring my uh my cowboy lid today because i took the bike in but

00:49:11.340 all right that's it for today thank you dave nigel cory and uh john on production thank all of you

00:49:19.100 don't even have time to plug uh subscriptions we're out of time thank you very much happy stampede and

00:49:23.900 God bless.

Western Standard - July 14, 2026

THE PIPELINE： The Alberta independence rodeo

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