Western Standard - The Pipeline： The left loses its mind on Alberta trans policy

00:00:00.000 Good day, today is February 7th,

00:00:29.080 2024. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:35.000 I'm joined as usual by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford. Good to be here. And

00:00:41.000 Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan, back from Texas and living in the desert

00:00:46.600 and all sorts of weird stuff you did, eh? Yeah, I'm refreshed now and full of spite and energy

00:00:51.320 and all that miserableness that I was running low on before I left. Yeah, you're back to your

00:00:55.960 usual curmudgeonly self. That's right. Yeah. Following your exploits of your adventure on 0.66

00:01:01.400 Twitter. It's fun. It's fun. We had very little trouble coming up with the main topics of today's

00:01:09.760 show. The left losing its mind, going absolutely apoplectic over Alberta's new trans and parental

00:01:16.900 rights policies, triggering a meltdown from the left, from coast to coast to coast in Canada.

00:01:23.160 So we'll be talking about the policy itself, the political reaction to it, and what the left thinks it might be able to accomplish here.

00:01:31.840 A guy I don't think any of us have really heard of before has started a campaign to recall Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek under Alberta's relatively new recall legislation.

00:01:43.200 Obviously catching a lot of attention, kind of coming out of nowhere.

00:01:46.700 So we'll be talking about that.

00:01:47.700 And speaking of Calgary mayors, former Calgary Mayor Nahid Nenshi.

00:01:53.160 Pleading that if forced to at gunpoint, he might consider running for leader of Alberta's NDP because he doesn't believe in political parties.

00:02:03.720 He's not a political party kind of guy, but he might, you know, if absolutely forced to at gunpoint, he might be persuaded to run for the leadership of the Alberta NDP.

00:02:15.080 Before we get into that, though, Corey, why don't you thank my favorite sponsor?

00:02:19.060 Sure, they would.

00:02:19.860 And it must be the Canadian Shooting Sports Association you're talking about.

00:02:23.440 Yes, and they are a fantastic sponsor.

00:02:26.020 The CSSA, if you own firearms, if you enjoy firearms, you want to own firearms, you've got to be a member of these guys.

00:02:33.480 We've got an ideologically driven government that wants to take away your right and ability to enjoy firearms. 0.98

00:02:37.620 And if you do not join an association and stand up for yourself, they're going to win.

00:02:42.100 The CSSA is there for you to make sure you can maintain those rights.

00:02:45.860 They'll stand up for you.

00:02:46.540 And they've got all sorts of other resources, as any association would.

00:02:49.860 check them out cssa-cila.org or of course just google them up

00:02:54.500 canadian shooting sports association it's well worth it and an investment in your rights

00:03:00.660 all right well um just last week alberta premier danielle smith announced a whole suite of policies

00:03:09.620 surrounding trans, transsexual issues in Alberta, restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone

00:03:22.180 treatments for younger kids, I think under age 15, saying there'll be no more top and bottom sex

00:03:32.180 change surgeries, although I think you're supposed to use a different term for it now. Gender

00:03:36.100 affirming. Gender reassignment. No gender affirming. Well the gender affirming I think is the treatment 1.00

00:03:40.980 with the drugs and so on and when you do a full surgical intervention then it's gender reassignment

00:03:46.820 I believe but I could be wrong this is my area of expertise. Okay sex change. Yeah there we go we 0.88

00:03:50.660 all know what it means. Sex change. Don't go woke on me now. Restrictions on that for people under 1.00

00:03:58.340 the age of 18 requirement that I think it's I'm getting the number the ages right here

00:04:06.100 people under 16 have to have parental consent to have their name and pronouns changed for use at

00:04:11.620 school and above that age they could you know the kid can change the name pronouns on their own but

00:04:16.820 the parent has to be informed. This all sounds pretty reasonable stuff but to hear the reaction

00:04:27.780 from the left both in Alberta and outside of Alberta in Ottawa you'd think that they've just

00:04:34.900 begun construction of Auschwitz that they're using the left has used the language of genocide 0.60

00:04:42.120 that this is now a genocidal policy to kill trans people in Alberta that people will die in

00:04:50.340 significant numbers because of this. And they've just declared a holy jihad against Alberta's 0.98

00:04:57.940 trans policy and government here. So maybe before we get into the reaction from the left here,

00:05:05.380 just talk about the policy itself now.

00:05:10.020 The sex change operation is one of those things that you only get one chance to get right. And 0.68

00:05:16.100 And to suggest that a child, 13, 14, 15, could make that decision when we don't trust them to drive a car is probably just plain ridiculous.

00:05:31.560 Smith's position is absolutely sound. 0.79

00:05:35.580 Wait until you're an adult.

00:05:37.620 It's an adult decision.

00:05:39.240 You shouldn't be doing this, and you shouldn't be facilitated by other adults in doing it.

00:05:44.320 Who knows what their motives are, but the person involved needs to wait until they are somewhat mature before they even embrace this.

00:05:54.260 They can start taking the puberty blockers at the age of 16.

00:05:59.940 I am not well informed on the medicine of that, whether you can sort of start doing it at 16 and drop it later and everything just kind of works itself back to normal.

00:06:08.940 but to actually have the surgery in the in the early teen years is just ridiculous

00:06:18.700 i can't believe we're even having this discussion you know like it it goes totally against the

00:06:27.180 green but anyway there's the reaction of the left to that policy just kind of shows you the

00:06:33.180 you really want a government made up of people who think that that's okay

00:06:37.620 Corey, I've got a tattoo on my right arm.

00:06:42.120 I, you know, when I was a teenager, my parents were split.

00:06:46.100 And I kind of learned some early politics of playing them off against each other.

00:06:50.740 And in exchange for my love, I got one of my parents to agree to sign off on letting me get my tattoo.

00:07:01.060 Normally, you have to be 18 to make that decision on your own.

00:07:04.580 So I got this tattoo. 0.99

00:07:06.780 It's ugly, it's stupid, I regret it, as most tattoos, in hindsight, turn out to be. 0.98

00:07:14.660 I now have paid a bunch of money to have it removed. 0.99

00:07:17.560 It takes a year, and it's a pain, it's unpleasant.

00:07:20.360 But I was clearly at age, I don't know, 16 or 17 when I got it, not mature enough to make that decision.

00:07:26.700 I could have made the wrong decision when I was older, but I would have been less likely to make that bad decision.

00:07:32.360 So it doesn't seem to be all that radical an idea that there are certain decisions that every society, every civilization on Earth today, or in the history of civilization ever, in human history, that there are certain decisions that you cannot make until you've reached a certain age.

00:07:58.020 Now, where we draw that line is always up for debate. You know, we've decided that a 17 year old can be conscripted and go sent to die for his country, but he can't have a cigarette or beer.

00:08:11.020 So there's been incongruities from time to time, but the left seems to be totally confident in its belief that they can't smoke until they're 18, they can't drink until they're 18, they can't drive until they're 16, they can't drive on their own until they're 18, they can't become a part of the military until they're 18.

00:08:36.520 but they can alter their genitalia as young as 12 in some cases here.

00:08:45.700 I'm trying to understand the reason.

00:08:48.480 Yeah, and I mean, you can have a tattoo removed.

00:08:51.480 You can't change your mind and have a phallus replaced functionally again.

00:08:55.740 That's an irreversible decision.

00:08:57.740 Having a radical or double mastectomy, you can get implants later,

00:09:02.120 but you will not be able to breastfeed or function again.

00:09:05.360 These are permanent alterations. There's no turning back. So even a tattoo error at a young

00:09:11.720 age is still pretty relatively minor compared to what we're talking about with this. We've let

00:09:18.780 the trans activists get completely out of control. We really have. They've pushed the boundary line 1.00

00:09:24.480 so far to the point where any intervention on any whim, and I tell you with a lot of kids,

00:09:28.580 it's a whim, it's a trend, it's a fad, it's attention seeking. There are any number of

00:09:34.360 things that kids going through puberty will do. There are some

00:09:38.680 real trans children who are dealing with there's such a 1.00

00:09:41.260 minority of a minority that we can't have said that set aside

00:09:45.220 the parental rights or allow irreversible procedures to start

00:09:49.420 happening when when their judgment isn't ready. The age of

00:09:51.600 18 is almost universal around the world with a lot of societal,

00:09:55.000 you know, evolution, we've kind of realized that's typically a

00:09:57.580 turning point. You're done. You're done puberty. Yeah, some

00:10:00.280 kids are very advanced to some 16. Some are 30 and still going

00:10:04.200 on 17. But we tend to draw that line there. You can't bind a minor into a contract in Canada,

00:10:11.260 unless it's an exceptional circumstance. Premier Smith's position is not unreasonable whatsoever,

00:10:18.280 but she's been one of the only politicians bold enough to finally call it out and just draw the 1.00

00:10:22.860 line and say that's it. Again, I mean, and puberty blockers, you know, I certainly that's where they

00:10:29.560 try to go into, we should talk to the medical experts. Well, there's very few things medical

00:10:32.840 experts would say, when you can take something as serious as your growth and that transition point of puberty and suddenly just put it on hold for a couple years and not to think there won't be some long lasting consequences of that. It's very serious. And then to have kids under 16 going on that again, it's just not reasonable.

00:10:51.100 Puberty is not purely physical. I mean, I've been trying to explain to my six-year-old daughter why she says, Daddy, why are teenagers stupid? 1.00

00:11:00.100 There's a question for the ages there. 0.99

00:11:02.040 Well, you know, she's overheard me say this before.

00:11:04.240 Where did she hear that? 1.00

00:11:06.400 I imagine she's probably heard it from me, but I think it's well acknowledged that teenagers are pretty stupid. 1.00

00:11:13.220 I was chief among them. I did all sorts of very stupid things. Still do from time to time, but less frequently, I think. 1.00

00:11:19.400 But, you know, I try to explain, well, there's puberty, there's changes. And it's not just physical. There is all sorts of psychological, physiological changes taking place that you're dealing with.

00:11:33.620 And so it's not just that, you know, you're getting hair under your pits and you smell more.

00:11:38.820 You change as a person in how you think and how you act.

00:11:45.280 And so you're denying someone a fundamental part of maturing, of maturation in their life.

00:11:52.780 And, you know.

00:11:54.500 First thing that makes you suspicious is why is it so important to somebody of 40 that a child of 14 be able to change their sex?

00:12:02.980 Like, where is that coming from?

00:12:04.700 Well, look, there are trans people who have genuine gender dysmorphia, and it's complicated.

00:12:14.580 I don't think we have really, I don't think anyone's really figuring out what's the best way to help these people.

00:12:22.740 So, you know, I think there are some older people who are just genuinely concerned for young transsexual people.

00:12:30.440 Some of this ideological battle, though, kind of what Nigel's, I think, getting towards, too, though, isn't just on the trans issue,

00:12:35.380 but we've got actually some people who feel it's the state's role to raise children and not parents.

00:12:40.140 That's what this is really coming down to a lot.

00:12:42.900 And they've used this as a catalyst to push that, to say it's not the parents' right to know what their child is going through in school.

00:12:49.320 It's not the parents' right to direct how they're being educated when they're within school.

00:12:53.860 It's the parents should be kept in ignorance and the state will take care of it.

00:12:56.840 That's what this is coming down to.

00:12:58.200 I think it's, I could be mistaken, but I think it was the Toronto Star, I had a column in it just the other day saying that the whole concept of trans rights is a part of the QAnon conspiracy.

00:13:09.100 So, yeah, no one's ever really thought of parental rights until QAnon, and if you believe that parents have any right to determine how you're raising your kids, then you believe that Hillary Clinton was running a child rape operation in a pizza parlor.

00:13:24.980 Toronto stars should be careful what they say. They may make QAnon sound attractive.

00:13:30.020 I mean, yeah, it's never made QAnon seem reasonable to me until they said that.

00:13:35.940 So let's talk about the reaction to it. It has been furious. Now, this is curious to me because

00:13:44.420 the left is so convinced of its moral rightness here. They're on the right side of history.

00:13:51.540 I don't think when this all settles, they're going to be on the right side of history.

00:13:57.280 This is one of the culture wars that the left, I don't think, is destined to win.

00:14:02.440 They're on the wrong side of every poll so far on this.

00:14:04.880 They are very much on the wrong side.

00:14:06.560 Now, polls change over time.

00:14:09.740 You know, opinions on same-sex marriage.

00:14:12.320 If you look at the early 90s, it was nearly unanimous.

00:14:16.500 Virtually, you know, you would have had a very, very small minority in support of it,

00:14:19.520 which are probably just gay people you know and so you know opinions can change over time but i

00:14:26.960 don't see any fundamental justice in this here where you know there was a justice case to be

00:14:33.120 made on some of these emails and so public opinion would change over time they are outnumbered three

00:14:38.960 or four to one in national polls and uh and and just as much so in alberta if not more than in

00:14:45.200 in some cases. They seem to be boxing themselves into a corner here. And it's not, and I haven't

00:14:54.360 heard a single specific critique of any of these policies. It's not, you know, because none of them

00:15:01.660 wants to say, no, the 16-year-old should be allowed to have a sex change operation paid for by the

00:15:07.940 taxpayer. They're not saying that. They're not saying, no, children should be allowed to change

00:15:14.120 their name and pronouns in the second grade, and parents shouldn't even be informed of it.

00:15:19.400 They're not saying that. They're just kind of vaguely condemning the package, never the specific

00:15:25.140 policy, Corey. Well, some of it, too, is that the legislation hasn't been drafted, to be fair,

00:15:29.840 on their part. Yeah, but there is specific policy. But she's sort of said where it's going to go.

00:15:33.820 And yes, it is because I think they realize when they hit for that, it's unreasonable. And they're

00:15:39.040 going to, they're not going to gain general support. They have, as you said, boxed themselves

00:15:42.780 into a corner. They don't quite know what to do, but they still do have their righteous fury going

00:15:46.740 on. It's the usual suspects, though. They can't back down. They've picked their hill to politically

00:15:53.560 die upon, and this battle is going to go right on until Premier Smith gets re-elected with a

00:15:58.180 larger majority. You know where this is going to end up is when people who have had the operation

00:16:03.120 get to the stage where they really regret it and start to sue the people who permitted it

00:16:10.580 and facilitated it and this is not a prediction this is an observation on what is already happening

00:16:16.080 we've only just begun to see the start of it of young men and women who made the switch in

00:16:24.300 in a vulnerable age now realize what a horrible mistake they've made trying to go back to the

00:16:30.700 way they were they can only go so far and they are starting to sue this is going to be a huge

00:16:36.440 liability to governments across the country, wherever this has been facilitated. And actually,

00:16:43.300 Premier Smith may look like a hero in 20 years time for just making sure that this didn't get

00:16:49.140 started here in Alberta. Well, I think she's already on, at least, you know, if we're going

00:16:53.640 to be crass about the politics of this, she's on the right side of the politics. But the public is,

00:17:00.260 It's pretty rare I share an opinion, the super majority of people. I normally hold a lot of unpopular views that are held by a relatively small minority or hopefully a big minority of people.

00:17:13.500 But I'm often on the minority side. In this case, she's on the side with the super majority of Albertans, the super majority even of Canadians in every single province and region in Canada.

00:17:23.520 Even in Quebec, these policies are very high.

00:17:27.720 Left or right, no parent wants somebody to be getting between them and their children.

00:17:31.940 That's what it kind of comes down to.

00:17:33.520 And it's if people find it offensive when people think that they shouldn't have that ability.

00:17:37.360 So let's just kind of talk the crass politics of this.

00:17:39.560 Why do you think the left, you see, you know, Notley, Nenshi, Trudeau, Randy Bozzano, these guys, they're all 100% pedal to the metal against the wall on this.

00:17:54.020 Again, never specifically saying, responding to any single specific policy saying, no, I believe that a 14-year-old should be allowed to have a sex change operation.

00:18:04.020 No, I believe that the 8-year-old should be allowed to change their name and pronouns and parents not even be informed.

00:18:07.880 They're never saying those things. They're never pointing to a single policy, but they're condemning it as a package, and they're condemning it in the most uncategorical terms.

00:18:21.540 Why, Nigel, do you think they're going so hard on this? Because, you know, they're so offside with majority public opinion.

00:18:30.360 Well, there's two different groups that you've identified there. There's the provincial left wing and the federal left wing.

00:18:36.760 I think they have their own reasons in each case for saying the same thing.

00:18:42.740 Federally, I'm sure that the Trudeau liberals mean to construct over the next 18 months an Alberta straw man that they can knock.

00:18:54.420 So the Alberta straw man is the energy producing province, the global climate change deniers and the killers of the planet.

00:19:06.760 The fellow driving the big truck is a redneck with unacceptable views. 1.00

00:19:12.160 And look at their premier.

00:19:13.980 Good Lord. 0.92

00:19:15.160 She would let children commit suicide in the hundreds 0.97

00:19:19.080 rather than give them a sex change operation at the age of 12.

00:19:23.100 That will be the one thing that the Trudeau liberals will try to do,

00:19:28.980 present Alberta as a bogeyman.

00:19:30.680 And it'll make it easier to pick up votes in central Canada and to the east.

00:19:35.600 Provincially, it's

00:19:38.620 actually pretty simple. It's a

00:19:40.780 hate Daniel Smith thing. They still haven't got

00:19:42.720 over the fact that they didn't win

00:19:44.620 the last election because they felt they

00:19:46.160 had the right to, but

00:19:48.300 they didn't win. So

00:19:49.900 any time that you can give

00:19:52.560 Daniel Smith a black eye for

00:19:54.620 any reason at all, it's open season.

00:19:56.860 It's not any more sophisticated than

00:19:58.740 that.

00:19:59.880 They put the question to you in a different

00:20:01.800 context or way, Corey.

00:20:03.500 If you are advising a candidate for the NDP leadership in Alberta right now, so you're advising Sarah Hoffman, Kathleen Gamley, Nenshi, one of these characters, how would you advise them to track on this?

00:20:21.940 Because the NDP base feels hard on this.

00:20:26.820 It's Smith, therefore, you're anti-Smith.

00:20:30.380 If she says black, you say white. 0.82

00:20:32.020 If she says up, you say down.

00:20:33.500 But you also have to keep an eye to the general election you have in, you know, over three years from now, you've got to face everyday voters and everyday voters are, as it turns out, not a big fan of sex changes for minors.

00:20:49.660 Yeah. So I would advise similar to what you're saying that they've already been doing, speak to it in broad, fluffy terms. I want to, the safety of children is paramount. We've got to protect our children, things like that, but always staying away from those specific policies that will bite you in the butt later on when you are campaigning.

00:21:08.160 When you say, well, wait a minute, at that conference, you did say that we should perform surgery irreversibly upon a 16 year old, or you did say, so this way that I would advise, again, you've already kind of committed, you're on that lane, but just give broad terms, give, try to paint Smith as hateful, as intolerant, as wanting to heartlessly harm children for the sake of, or as they're trying to point out as well, it's a conspiracy. 0.95

00:21:32.920 she's being led by a crazy social conservative cadre of people who are directing her moves, 0.99

00:21:38.480 which they're doing as well. Yeah, this is all a conspiracy of take back Alberta. Yes, exactly. So

00:21:43.960 that I would advise once that now that they've already opened up this hornet's nest, that's the

00:21:48.040 track to ride upon. But stay away from those specifics because they are going to bite you

00:21:51.400 later. Okay. Well, we'll switch gears a little bit here. So a couple of years ago, so in 2019,

00:22:01.420 the UCP under JC Kenney ran on a campaign pledge that included recall legislation,

00:22:08.080 the ability to recall your elected officials. Now, he waited quite a while for that,

00:22:13.240 eventually brought it in, but put it in with a very high threshold. Generally,

00:22:17.860 you needed 40% of registered voters to sign the recall petition within a two-month period.

00:22:23.360 Now, that might not sound crazy, but 40% of registered voters isn't 40% of voters.

00:22:31.240 You know, because in a municipal election, 40% of eligible voters are generally about as much as you're going to get actually voting.

00:22:39.320 Sometimes, if you're lucky, it's often quite below that.

00:22:41.480 So 40% of eligible voters is normally 80% of actual voters, if you're talking in the municipal context, and you have only two months to do it.

00:22:52.480 And Kenny made sure that the legislation didn't come into effect until after that election, so he couldn't be recalled.

00:22:59.420 But we now have Jody Gondek.

00:23:03.800 Her polling has fallen through the floor.

00:23:06.400 She is the most unpopular premier, I believe, in Canada, probably in the history of polling for Calgary Mayors, period.

00:23:14.120 She's had a rough ride, let's say, in her time so far.

00:23:20.340 And can anyone recall the name of the guy who launched the petition?

00:23:24.200 Yeah, Landon Johnston.

00:23:26.260 Yeah, I looked it up on the Elections Alberta website.

00:23:29.680 There was a Gmail account that I was like, okay, well, this is clearly...

00:23:33.000 He's truly a concerned citizen who's using the mechanism that's there.

00:23:35.940 And I was like, okay, well, this is not, this is obviously not some well-organized conservative group doing this, but it's just a guy.

00:23:46.280 We'll start with you, Corey.

00:23:49.220 What are the chances of success of actually her getting recalled here?

00:23:53.180 Zero.

00:23:54.460 Anybody, I mean, we know just even having run for office, just to get your nomination signatures going door to door, to get 100 real signatures.

00:24:02.280 people got to remember we're talking on paper with name, address, phone number, witnessed.

00:24:07.560 A hardcore petitioner might get 100 signatures a day. They need in the realm of 514,000. And

00:24:15.720 that's assuming all of them check off, that they're all legible, that they're all eligible

00:24:21.080 to actually vote, that there weren't duplicates. So realistically, you need more like 530, 540,000.

00:24:27.320 Oh, I'd say after duplicates and bad names, alleged ability, you're probably talking 600,000.

00:24:33.500 Perhaps, and only 414 or something like that, or 460,000 people even voted in the last election.

00:24:39.960 It's just, he has exposed how ridiculously high the bar was set.

00:24:45.080 But from this point forward, I think in my view, he's done his job. 0.80

00:24:48.360 You've exposed how ridiculous it is, but otherwise you're just going to be wearing out your shoe leather, going out and trying.

00:24:53.160 If you really want to get Gondek out, there's a lot of things you can work on and you can do. 0.98

00:24:56.220 But this legislation is useless. It's completely useless. And you're just kind of wasting your time pursuing it. But it's his business, I guess. 0.89

00:25:02.940 I know some people have been upset with me for pointing that out on Twitter. Oh, why are you being so negative? I'm not being negative. I'm just speaking from the plain clear facts.

00:25:15.600 I mean, it is theoretically possible to succeed, but it is, for all intents and purposes, mathematically improbable.

00:25:25.600 It is effectively impossible. It's just not happening.

00:25:27.600 If it happens, I will commit now to eating twice as many balls as Jonathan ate at stampede time on the air in one shot.

00:25:35.600 I'll eat a dozen prairie oysters this stampede if I'm wrong, and I'll be very happy to be wrong about this.

00:25:42.600 I very much hope I'm wrong, but I'm very confident I'm not.

00:25:46.840 Nigel, what good could come out of this, other than exposing that, yeah, it's practically impossible.

00:25:52.340 40% of potential voters in the village of, you know, Rosemary, Alberta, where, you know, almost no one's heard of,

00:26:04.960 outside of people who are within 50 kilometers of Rosemary, you know, where, okay, so there's like 100 houses.

00:26:11.140 okay in two months that's doable you can do that forty percent doable there but

00:26:16.820 on the scale of Calgary it is virtually impossible is there any good that can

00:26:22.880 come out of this really because it seems to me that when this is done and it

00:26:29.580 inevitably fails Gondek and her supporters will say aha they tried they

00:26:36.680 failed to recall me i therefore must be popular and the people want me she'll be able to claim

00:26:42.040 that yes will anybody believe her uh well the government media will the government media will

00:26:50.520 sure but the uh you know the election comes around soon enough and they found out no actually people

00:26:56.920 really didn't like him madam uh not as mayor anyway so goodbye i would love to see this guy

00:27:04.280 just have a booth set up in every shopping mall and precinct and people showing up with their

00:27:09.720 driver's licenses and saying give me the place to sign this could be all be done very quickly

00:27:15.880 on they move and the next one steps up probably it's not going to happen that way

00:27:21.640 and so therefore i think the point that you were making this this morning on your rant

00:27:27.960 it's all that's going to happen is, yeah, they'll take a defeat and clean victory.

00:27:34.120 But it's not going to be a lasting thing for them. It's not going to change anybody's opinion

00:27:41.400 of the mayor. But if you give her political capital, she'll be able to turn to the rest

00:27:45.560 of council and say, ha, you opponents, your people tried, they failed, you didn't win,

00:27:52.280 you didn't recall yeah you know derek i mean there you go again um reinforcing the idea that

00:27:59.560 we are led by wise people i like to think that they are but i haven't ever implied i don't know

00:28:09.240 that so they're gonna buy it from her they're gonna say okay madam you were lucky that time

00:28:14.200 and in 12 months time you're gonna have to get lucky again because otherwise you're going down

00:28:19.640 and you're going to take a lot of us with you.

00:28:22.240 But remember, no Calgary mayor has actually lost an election

00:28:25.500 since the early 1980s when Ralph Klein beat whatever his name was.

00:28:30.380 Rod Sykes or something.

00:28:31.860 No, no, Rod Sykes was well before him.

00:28:33.900 He was like 60s, early 70s.

00:28:35.740 Either way, yeah.

00:28:36.760 It's not going to end well for, whichever way it goes,

00:28:39.740 it's not going to end well for Mergondek.

00:28:42.060 It would be nice to think it would end badly for her this year.

00:28:46.460 Probably won't.

00:28:47.760 Yes, she will probably claim victory by the defeat of the recall motion. 1.00

00:28:53.060 But in the October of 2025, she's up again, she's going to be dropped.

00:28:59.400 Unless something so remarkable happens.

00:29:03.280 Calgary mayors don't lose.

00:29:04.500 Now, some of that is that Calgary mayors are generally politically savvy enough to know when they will lose and then not run for re-election.

00:29:11.640 Yeah, that might be more likely, perhaps.

00:29:13.400 Nenshi had a very good chance of losing this time, so he was like, yeah, maybe it's time to go.

00:29:18.500 We haven't had a stinker like Gondek since the 80s, though. 1.00

00:29:20.800 This is getting exceptional.

00:29:23.020 Yeah, she pulls lower now than Nenshi did after three turns. 0.93

00:29:27.420 Well, I'll tell you what, I salute this.

00:29:29.280 What was his name again?

00:29:30.400 Landon Johnston.

00:29:31.140 Landon Johnston.

00:29:31.820 I salute him for even thinking of it.

00:29:33.800 He used the mechanisms at his disposal and did it.

00:29:36.660 More people should.

00:29:38.260 Although, I have to look into a bit more, but I think there might be limits on how many recall,

00:29:42.220 like how many recall campaigns there can be I'm not sure I think it might be only

00:29:48.400 one successful one per term which which is reasonable but I'm not sure if

00:29:51.700 there's a limit on how many times you can attempt to get the signatures if

00:29:55.000 there's no limit on it then fine you can collect signatures for the next two

00:29:58.900 years that's fine it's gonna annoy people eventually but yeah yeah okay well

00:30:04.000 let's kind of stay with bad Calgary mayors on topic here former mayor Nahi

00:30:11.020 He's always trying to make a point that he's above partisanship. He's above parties. He's not a part of that rabble. I mean, notwithstanding, you know, his heavy involvement of him and his people in the Alberta Party, the federal liberals, and then the Alberta NDP.

00:30:31.820 He's now saying, I don't want to run for NDP leader, but the people are asking me.

00:30:38.580 There's people making the case for me, and I'll consider it if I think it's for the good of Alberta.

00:30:44.900 I mean, so it's hard to see how he does not run then, because then I suppose he would have to then say, me running for premier would be bad for Alberta.

00:30:54.180 Something, if anyone knows anything about Mr. Nenshi, highly unlikely that he would come to the conclusion that it would be bad if he was anything short of president of Earth.

00:31:07.440 Yeah, modesty is not one of his traits.

00:31:09.380 No, no. I mean, as Calgary mayor, he felt the need to give lectures on grand international issues in politics.

00:31:18.120 But I think the prospect of him as NDP leader is interesting.

00:31:21.620 We've talked about him since the very, really since we started talking about replacements for Rachel Notley immediately after the last election.

00:31:29.520 I think he, if I'm an NDP strategist, I actually think he's a good candidate.

00:31:34.400 He's Calgary, which the NDP have not a lot of profile in.

00:31:38.140 They don't have big Calgary names.

00:31:39.820 He's a minority. 0.99

00:31:42.160 He's well-spoken.

00:31:43.640 He's got a political track record.

00:31:45.860 Might not be one we like, but it is one that people on the left tend to like.

00:31:51.280 And while he is on the left, he isn't, I think, insane left.

00:31:59.280 At least, I mean, yeah, he's insane left in that he seems to think it's fine for minors to have sex change operations without parental consent.

00:32:07.920 But, I mean, within the context of the left itself, he's not on the furthest left of it.

00:32:14.860 He is not an extreme socialist.

00:32:16.880 He is a pragmatic, moderate socialist Democrat.

00:32:21.280 You know, there's a spectrum to these things. So I don't know. If you're an NDPer, you think you think he might be the right guy to lead your party.

00:32:32.240 If I were an NDPer, I would say, has he paid his dues? Has he sold socialist worker on the street corner? Has he been to every union meeting? Is it his turn?

00:32:46.200 I've actually seen quite a bit of that.

00:32:48.360 You bet. I would be, if I were a hardcore NDP member.

00:32:53.760 Well, it depends, okay, it depends who you are. Like, I, you know, the left always like to give

00:32:57.780 recommendations about who should leave the conservative party. Oh, well, we think you

00:33:01.800 conservatives would be crazy not to have Aaron O'Toole. We think you'd be crazy not to have

00:33:07.140 Jean Charest. The left always recommends.

00:33:10.320 Interesting you should mention Jean Charest, because in a lot of ways, there's, there are

00:33:14.560 some similarities between the way that Mr. Sherey has presented himself in different robes over the

00:33:21.380 years and the number of, well, what is it? Menchie said, I've voted for at least four different

00:33:27.600 parties, provincially and federally. So he is not a doctrinaire socialist. And I think that the NDP

00:33:35.100 still likes doctrinaire socialists who have paid their dues. Well, so we've got to be careful in

00:33:41.580 in terms of recommending who the other guys should have

00:33:45.260 because they recommend their guys to us all the time

00:33:48.020 and those guys almost never work out.

00:33:51.640 You know, the Jean Charest don't work out,

00:33:53.240 the Aaron O'Toole's don't work out.

00:33:54.820 These guys tend to not work

00:33:56.820 because they're not really connected

00:33:57.860 with the people who are really supposed to be representing.

00:33:59.800 So I'm cautious of this that,

00:34:03.140 you know, I saw one, I forget who,

00:34:05.260 some lefty on Twitter said,

00:34:06.700 Nancy should run and be number two 1.00

00:34:08.680 and learn from a more seasoned new Democrat

00:34:11.160 then can be premier. Okay, well, no, then she is not going to settle for being two to anyone short

00:34:17.000 of God. So no, I don't think that's going to happen. And I thought, you know, union seniority

00:34:24.440 on the left applies beyond just the union within the NDP. There's an expectation that this is a

00:34:31.480 lifelong organization, you pay your dues. Rachel Notley grew up as the daughter of the NDP leader,

00:34:38.200 her whole life was paying the dues so you know it was certainly her turn when it came

00:34:45.000 nenshi god knows when he got his membership he's he's on the left i think he's always been on the

00:34:52.680 lap he's presented himself as other things in the past even though he wasn't but within the ndp

00:34:57.880 itself he he's a late comer so i don't know uh cory how much resistance do you think there'll

00:35:03.880 be because the NDP today is not the NDP of Brian Mason. It is not just a small union of government bus drivers anymore. It is now a major political party and it has some base in Calgary. It's got a lot of people in it who are not lifers. So I don't know. What do you think?

00:35:24.880 It's really interesting with what might happen.

00:35:27.900 I mean, a pragmatic leftist would support Ninchy.

00:35:31.460 He's as good as they're going to get it, perhaps, as a populist type to grasp a wider share of the votes rather than the ideologues.

00:35:39.600 And now you've got to remember, Rachel Notley was the very first NDP leader elected by one member, one vote.

00:35:44.480 If they were back in the delegate system, I would say that Ninchy wouldn't have a chance

00:35:48.100 because the union blocks and everything else would line up behind other candidates and the hardcore loyal would knock him off.

00:35:54.020 But Nenshi can galvanize people on the ground to buy memberships and possibly take the leadership.

00:35:59.600 But then the complexity comes, can he keep a well-organized, unified party?

00:36:04.640 Because Nenshi has never been known as a team player.

00:36:06.800 We saw that when he tried to manage even 14 council members.

00:36:11.300 You've got to learn a degree of compromise.

00:36:13.440 You've got to learn some diplomacy.

00:36:15.040 You've got to learn some modesty sometimes.

00:36:18.040 And perhaps he's learned it.

00:36:19.580 he's no fool, but it would take a big shift in his character to suddenly start playing the party

00:36:24.760 game, because that's a totally different game than being the mayor. And would he be able to

00:36:29.800 accomplish that? Or would the party, perhaps, that could be the catalyst that makes them at least,

00:36:35.400 you know, they don't tend to cut their own out in the left wing parties, but they can stay home,

00:36:38.560 and they can stop donating, and they can stop supporting. So it's going to be very interesting

00:36:42.160 to watch. He's really added, if nothing else, for a political watcher, an interesting element in it,

00:36:46.080 Because if he does win it and does hold it together and does pull in a few cover seats, it could be the comeback they're looking for.

00:36:52.860 The ideology and party paying your dues in the NDP side, I think he fits the formula of what I've thought for some time the NDP should be looking for,

00:37:02.780 which is a non-extreme doctrinaire leader who is from Calgary because they are so much an Edmonton party.

00:37:12.880 Now the NDP has got a lot of seats in Calgary, they've won half the seats in Calgary, I don't think they, now their vote was extraordinarily efficient, they won more seats than they would normally get, because their voter efficiency was so good, but one way or another they still won half the seats in Calgary, but Calgary is their only path to power.

00:37:31.880 They've got no realistic route to seats outside the two big cities, other than Banff, you people in Banff, Kansas.

00:37:39.500 Oh, I'm right on the edge of it, it hurts me to have an NDP ML.

00:37:42.120 Yeah. But they just have no realistic route through rural areas. They've got to win a significant majority of seats in Calgary to have any hope of government. So I think he fits the formula. The question is, will he fit enough ideologically? Is he extreme enough?

00:37:59.980 Well, you know, this is the other thing, is that there's a lot of people moving in from

00:38:05.220 out of province.

00:38:07.340 I imagine there's a degree of self-selection.

00:38:10.680 If you are a raving NDPer living in Toronto, Alberta might not be your first choice if 1.00

00:38:17.440 you want to get out.

00:38:19.440 But some will.

00:38:20.120 and just having a population that is not schooled in the Alberta NDP ladder of paying your dues and taking your turn

00:38:33.740 could give him an advantage, but would it still be the NDP?

00:38:39.580 By name, yes, but would it still be the NDP?

00:38:43.100 And when you look at Mr. Singh's, Jagmeet Singh's tenure, you have to wonder if you can work with Mr. Trudeau as a liberal, are you really still NDP?

00:38:56.700 And I think the whole party might be morphing out of that old pattern that we have been talking about, partly fueled by newcomers to the province.

00:39:07.180 Also just unions are no longer the backbone of the left. It is very old school conception of the left as the workers party blue collar people are more likely to vote for center right and right parties than they are for the left now.

00:39:23.240 I mean, it's the old model where the right represented the bourgeois upper middle and upper classes, and, you know, you'd move along the spectrum, and then you'd have the unions would be represented by workers' party and labor parties in Britain.

00:39:38.620 You know, that's a really interesting point, because in the last election, I was speaking to some of the people working Calgary Buffalo here.

00:39:46.640 It's not a working class neighborhood.

00:39:48.020 It's not a working class neighborhood, and they were facing a tough fight.

00:39:51.860 And they said, well, the typical person, when we knock on the door, first of all, it's in an apartment block, and it's a single woman with a cat and a degree, and they have a job in the civil service or in some kind of, what can I call it, a soft industry.

00:40:10.140 They're not Rosie the Riveter, and they're certainly not married to a welder.

00:40:17.360 So it is a different demographic, and it's possible that Mr. Nanshee would appeal to those.

00:40:24.100 Heaven knows, perhaps it was them who kept him in as mayor for a couple of terms.

00:40:28.100 Well, overwhelmingly, across Canada, and particularly in Alberta.

00:40:31.400 It wasn't the ratepayers.

00:40:32.540 No, but unions tend to represent government workers, which are in large measure, many of them white-collar,

00:40:39.480 not just blue collar but they tend to be government workers so fine but the left is now dominated by

00:40:47.160 eco fanatics uh social justice warriors you know who have uh give kids sex change operations and

00:40:54.280 things like that people obsessed with blm those are the main building blocks of the modern leftist

00:41:02.680 coalition in canada united states britain germany france that's what makes it up it's not really

00:41:09.800 unions anymore so unions have lost their power not just within the economy they've not just lost their

00:41:15.000 their power economically uh cory but i think they've also lost their power within the left

00:41:20.040 the left is a different coalition today and that those hardcore union guys i i don't think they're

00:41:27.640 going to hold as much sway over the ndp leadership to block a guy like nenshi as they would have

00:41:32.680 20, 30, 40 years ago. No, they don't have the numbers that they used to. And it's another

00:41:36.700 interesting shift in things like this, particularly the trade unionists. I mean, the IBEW workers in

00:41:42.140 Fort McMurray aren't terribly thrilled with the social justice crap or pandering to areas that 0.82

00:41:46.640 want to shut down their industry. Or if we want to see a bigger model, the reason Trump won 0.91

00:41:50.060 in the Rust Belt in Ohio and those times when he did win out there was because the Democrats

00:41:55.060 abandoned the working class in those areas because of their environmental policy. So we are seeing

00:42:00.800 kind of a total shift. The Conservatives could cater to what used to be traditional left labour

00:42:04.960 areas, but they are gaining ground, as Nigel said as well, with the cat ladies and the, you know,

00:42:12.600 other people coming into the neighbourhood who have more of a social agenda, I guess.

00:42:17.060 You can see this happening in British Columbia. I mean, Horgan was, there's two factions there,

00:42:21.600 there's the green people and then there's the, you know, the hard-working blue-collar guys.

00:42:25.880 Oregon was from that side of it, the blue collar, the trades.

00:42:30.620 Mr. Eby seems to be catering more to the environmentalists and the people who want to save the earth.

00:42:37.860 We've got some interesting times to look forward to.

00:42:40.060 It could come to Alberta.

00:42:41.940 Fun.

00:42:42.600 Okay, well, we'll wrap it up there, gentlemen.

00:42:44.480 Thanks for joining today.

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Western Standard - February 08, 2024

The Pipeline： The left loses its mind on Alberta trans policy

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