Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： The NDP convention goes off the rails as Alberta independence hits 177,000 signatures

00:00:00.000 G'day! Today is April 1st, 2026. I am Derek Vildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard,

00:00:29.540 and you're watching the pipeline i've got the usual crew here today western standards former

00:00:34.580 opinion editor nigel hannaford all again senior alberta columnist cory morgan news editor dave 0.76

00:00:41.140 naylor good evening great show great show uh first the ndp go full retard by not only elect 0.84

00:00:49.060 a trotskyite as their leader uh the convention itself descended into pure madness woke doesn't 0.87

00:00:57.300 do justice to how i and i i apologize for the term retardant to the older people who don't 0.78

00:01:03.220 get it we would never use that term for a person with actual disabilities 0.71

00:01:06.900 well i use it in the turret way in which i used it in the fifth grade very liberally for just 0.96

00:01:13.940 people who are cognitively functional but somehow still very stupid and uh we're gonna get into that 0.71

00:01:20.340 you've seen i'm sure a bunch of the viral clips of it but we're gonna get into it talk about what it 0.99

00:01:24.580 means for the NDP going forward. The Alberta independence campaign says that it has the

00:01:31.120 177,000 signatures necessary to force a citizens initiated referendum on independence. All signs

00:01:41.860 point towards go for a vote on October 19th. We're going to talk about where the independence

00:01:46.180 movement goes from there. But first, news out of Ottawa. The federal liberal government is

00:01:53.820 quietly considering modernizing Canada's national anthem, senior officials saying that they will

00:02:01.100 remove some or all references to God and replace the words with something more inclusive.

00:02:09.180 According to the documents we obtained in Access to Information,

00:02:14.380 Department of Canadian Heritage has been revealing it, specifically the line,

00:02:19.580 god keep our land glorious and free the idea is to change it and bring it in line with the successful

00:02:24.660 2018 change to the national anthem to make it gender neutral when they removed in all thy

00:02:30.200 son's command replaced it with all of us command uh some of the secularist groups in quebec have

00:02:37.480 have praised this uh one group in quebec though uh says in addition to removing god they want to

00:02:42.180 remove the word Canada, because Canada, as they see it, is a colonial and oppressive construct,

00:02:49.740 so remove Canada from old Canada. The new NDP leader, Avi Lewis, says, I'll quote him here,

00:02:54.640 I think we should explore whether God should be updated to something that better resonates with

00:02:59.140 all Canadians, and express a solidarity with Palestine, perhaps something like Allah keep

00:03:06.360 our land glorious and free uh others have talked about taking elizabeth may said it should take

00:03:12.300 on our first nations that uh we should replace god with great spirit uh or creator and potentially

00:03:19.260 even change canada to turtle island in the national anthem alberta premier danielle smith

00:03:24.920 uh was fiercely opposed to it but she said uh it's hard for her to get worked up about it

00:03:29.340 because canada could have its own anthem by november 1st and she guarantees it will have

00:03:33.340 many, many references to God.

00:03:36.640 Pierre Polyev

00:03:37.520 says, this is the same

00:03:39.620 government that can't axe the tax, build the homes

00:03:41.580 or stop the crime, and wants to

00:03:43.460 distract from issues by finishing another job

00:03:45.420 Justin Trudeau couldn't, wrecking our anthem,

00:03:47.680 sissifying our country, and atheizing

00:03:49.580 the people. But since the 0.93

00:03:51.480 Conservative Party values the votes of newcomers,

00:03:53.580 they'll be abstaining. And of course, PPC

00:03:55.420 leader Maxime Bernier, he took a harder position, 0.99

00:03:57.520 says, these atheist cucks are ruining 1.00

00:03:59.400 our country, deport them all, or burn them 1.00

00:04:01.340 at the stake. 0.99

00:04:03.340 well for those of you who still haven't got it yet i already mentioned the top of the show it's

00:04:08.940 april fool uh april 1st what's if you didn't get it i mean shame on you don't trust any of the news

00:04:14.980 even us even us sometimes we're trying to pull one in on you uh dave our alex zoltan uh our bc 0.96

00:04:22.340 reporter did this story you oversaw it uh it was top shelf it's kind of our standard practice for

00:04:28.900 our annual april fool's day story we always want to do something that's outrageous and crazy

00:04:32.640 but believable something close enough to reality and we sure tricked a lot of people this year

00:04:38.760 certainly did you just read the comments and it was uh you know the liberals could the people

00:04:45.160 bought it because it could happen it's not something that you would put past the liberals

00:04:49.000 to do it and uh and that's the that's the key to making a good joke uh was it the year before

00:04:54.660 the year before that we had the the federal government getting rid of a lane on the trans

00:04:59.520 canada and doing a trans bike lane uh you know across country painted with colors and

00:05:07.520 got a lot of people with that one including jordan peterson and we've got a lot of people

00:05:12.560 on this one too it's uh it's always a good uh good fun day of the year to be a journalist

00:05:17.440 yeah yeah we always try to start as believable and straight face as possible at the top and then we

00:05:22.320 get into uh maxime bernier calling for burning people at the stake at the bottom we shouldn't

00:05:27.280 to put the caveat though i mean when the conversation evolves into the ndp as bizarro

00:05:31.840 and surreal as it is believable none of it is april 1st stuff guys this is real that's that

00:05:36.560 that is why i think of all the news outlets we have the best april fools stories because we

00:05:41.920 it's not true it is a trick it we are fooling you but it's something totally plausible it's

00:05:47.040 not true but it's plausible we're lying by telling a greater truth i think that uh most people don't

00:05:54.000 read very far into it but if you ran into it uh quite a bit and you got to a guy called frenchy

00:05:59.120 mcfrench i didn't i didn't quote him saying tabernac i think that's when most people probably

00:06:12.000 all right um anyway the the risk of what we're doing is we actually give uh the federal government

00:06:18.080 ideas because this is something they would do they would do it okay all right the next part i

00:06:25.300 swear to god this is true news we are not making this up uh you probably know it because you've

00:06:32.060 probably seen a bunch of the clips on it these clips first went viral when uh again our bc

00:06:35.920 reporter alex zoltan he was uh monitoring the ndp convention most of what the media watch and

00:06:42.980 what the public watch if the public most of the public watch none of this but they'll watch like

00:06:47.200 speech from you know the winner and stuff like that of the leadership they don't watch the the

00:06:52.320 nuts and bolts of the convention itself oh they were nuts uh i'm not sure which of them had nuts

00:06:59.600 we're not allowed to say nuts there some bolts too i'm sure yeah missing some nuts and bolts

00:07:08.160 oh god i'm having evisions from silence of the lambs um okay uh so we're just

00:07:15.360 many of you have already seen it we're just going to play a quick little montage of some of the

00:07:19.360 the best of moments from canada's democratic socialist parties convention the point of

00:07:24.640 privilege on microphone one then we'll go to microphone three go ahead delegate yes hello i

00:07:30.320 i was standing here with my gender equity card before you called on the previous speaker

00:07:34.880 this card was used in an inappropriate matter i see that we are one minute ahead of schedule

00:07:42.640 and so i'm going to get out of here these are my rights being directly under attack

00:07:48.880 right now in alberta and that a cisgender woman had spoken uh over me i will invite delegates to

00:07:56.800 assist me in better using the card by forming a straight straight line behind the microphone

00:08:05.040 um with a prominently displayed equity card and we thank delegates not to call me

00:08:09.600 Madam Chair or Madame la Présidence.

00:08:11.540 I'm a non-binary person.

00:08:12.680 My pronouns are they, them, and their.

00:08:14.140 Chair is sufficient.

00:08:19.960 And with regret, you've spoken to the resolution.

00:08:23.140 It's not open to you to also call the question.

00:08:25.880 Okay.

00:08:29.580 The state rests its case.

00:08:32.220 They're certifiable.

00:08:35.060 I mean, this stuff is...

00:08:38.380 I don't know, Dave.

00:08:39.600 you start I don't know I don't even know what to say well I think it goes down as the you know

00:08:45.060 Nigel's been around a lot longer than I have but certainly the most bizarre political convention

00:08:49.680 and in Canadian history uh some of the most bizarre attendees uh you know you've seen it by 0.78

00:08:56.120 the uh the little clips that John just played the gender cards and cis cards and cards coming here

00:09:03.800 cards come in there and it was it was it was a little ridicule uh and unfortunately it is

00:09:10.200 it's brought shame on the country out of canada uh it's being mocked around the world sky news

00:09:16.440 had a segment in australia where they're saying canada is not a real country greg gutfeld on fox

00:09:23.720 last night was saying they got to build a wall northern canada to keep out the wackos you know

00:09:28.520 he gave out about 20 minutes which is a lot they gave a lot of material yeah they gave him

00:09:33.480 two hours worth of material to work with so yeah i've certainly never seen anything like it uh

00:09:38.600 i feel sorry for the the average real ndp person who goes to these pays their money and then goes

00:09:45.880 to the convention and is probably sitting in row 12 just wondering what the hell have i got myself

00:09:50.840 into and it's uh you know by uh electing uh uh avi lewis they've moved so they are now left of

00:10:00.460 elizabeth may okay we'll get to avi lewis uh i want to focus on uh yeah it was crazy everything

00:10:06.760 but yeah um i'm not positive it was john john k may have been him or someone else uh dubbed uh

00:10:15.700 We'll put a picture of him, her, they back up.

00:10:20.060 Pronoun Hitler. 0.86

00:10:21.520 Put pronoun Hitler back up. 0.73

00:10:23.400 Let's juxtapose it with old school OG Hitler. 0.62

00:10:27.220 You could see where they, them is going with this. 0.71

00:10:34.840 There was one segment where she, they had to use the word straight

00:10:41.020 in some very non-obviously gender-related things. 0.81

00:10:43.500 just straight like she choked on it yeah like it showed on the word the word itself was too much 0.99

00:10:50.320 for her yeah it's um not even in sexual context can't talk about us god damn it cory oh my god 0.98

00:10:57.920 what what did you read into that i wasn't even heard that time 0.94

00:11:01.420 you guys picked up what cory said right no no okay okay it's just me okay i don't know i know

00:11:09.400 normally i'm going to see something true this time i missed it let me know what i was getting

00:11:13.080 let us know in the comments if you guys took cory what i said maybe i'm just over sensitive

00:11:16.760 kind of things he says now probably after the show okay um so to dave's point cory uh

00:11:25.240 you know what are the regular members thinking sitting there i'm not sure how many are there

00:11:29.880 because you know at the core and i'm speaking in very broad strokes here but you know at the core

00:11:37.240 of the left in general is a sense of a lack of self-esteem of victimhood of and of moral

00:11:45.240 superiority to compensate fear a lack of success and so if there i'm sure there were a handful of

00:11:53.160 like white straight cisgendered males there and they're they're not allowed to speak because they

00:12:01.260 all have they're literally playing race cards they're literally playing gender cards and

00:12:05.800 they have a whole bunch of categories.

00:12:09.200 So if you're a white, straight,

00:12:11.100 so-called cisgendered

00:12:12.560 Christian guy, and you're just like

00:12:14.760 an old-school labor guy who's there 0.87

00:12:16.300 somehow,

00:12:18.780 do they enjoy...

00:12:22.420 It's a humiliation ritual.

00:12:23.760 Could you imagine Gil McGowan sitting in that crowd?

00:12:25.920 Yeah! He's super privileged!

00:12:27.680 His white privilege is off the chart!

00:12:29.640 So, like, how do you think 0.99

00:12:31.380 a white... I don't know. How do you think a Gil McGowan, 0.75

00:12:33.300 say, would feel there?

00:12:34.760 that he's literally not allowed to speak.

00:12:39.280 Are they kind of enjoying this humiliation ritual

00:12:42.500 or are they actually upset like what happened to my party?

00:12:45.580 Well, I think most of them are already gone.

00:12:47.040 That's what happened here is that Jagmeet Singh and so on

00:12:51.040 and this party is atrophied and it's shrunken

00:12:53.260 and it's gotten smaller.

00:12:55.280 And what we saw was a display of what the husk of it is.

00:12:57.800 You know, the pragmatic labor types have moved on

00:13:01.400 or at least they won't show up for these meetings.

00:13:02.900 they've allowed the fringe to dominate now i mean they're down to they're just a a fringe party in

00:13:08.180 the house of commons and you know we we know from even established parties if you've got a small

00:13:14.020 room the nuts can take the committee pretty fast and that's what happened there somebody referred

00:13:18.900 to it as the victimhood olympics you know because they had a point system you know you started at

00:13:23.940 a straight white man okay you're down at zero and everything you can come up with whether it's a

00:13:28.260 a handicap or racial or sexual identity and you just added all those points

00:13:34.860 until you got to jump the line I mean it was absurdity so how does the the last 0.53

00:13:38.760 of the stalwart NDP members feel about this I don't know you've got your green

00:13:45.600 card you've got your yellow card you've got your white card they're still need

00:13:50.760 to guys with the credit card yeah and that's the old school that you're

00:13:55.100 talking about now i you know this was hilarious in a sad kind of way and of course you have to

00:14:01.020 remember we've got people who think like that and do that kind of thing and speak like that

00:14:06.140 right here in alberta as well so you know we can't we can't afford to be too too snooty about it but

00:14:13.180 you know um most people don't take that much notice of politics when it's not an election on

00:14:20.460 this will be over and done with in a day or two everybody had a good laugh meanwhile you're a new

00:14:26.940 leader he'll make his presence felt in the in the commons no he won't well he's got to get a seat

00:14:33.900 but he's not going to run for one he goes no real seats available he's safe to win but uh you know

00:14:38.220 he's going to have his uh he's going to have his say and when the election does come around remember

00:14:43.260 there are 3 million people who normally vote NDP that's the pattern over the last several elections

00:14:51.820 only 1.25 million voted for Jagmeet Singh that is there's going to be a bounce back up and it's

00:14:59.580 going to come from people to whom all of what we are talking about meant nothing they were born NDP

00:15:06.540 they will die NDP they will vote NDP and it's going to be interesting see what that you know

00:15:12.940 when one and a half million people come back to the NDP at the next election,

00:15:17.580 which I think they will, what difference does that make to the outcome?

00:15:22.140 You don't think there could be a 1.25 million leave?

00:15:25.660 I mean, you look at the autoworker.

00:15:27.340 Well, they should, but no.

00:15:29.420 The autoworker whose dad was a member of the union in Windsor, and you're a member of the

00:15:35.100 union, and you've always been an NDP and you're looking at this.

00:15:39.580 Well, it's an interesting point because when the Reform Party got started,

00:15:42.540 There was a lot of people who walked over from the NDP to join the people who they would never have thought they would ever have any agreement with, and the Reform Party was born.

00:15:51.940 Well, this is a broader trend across the whole Western world right now, where traditional Labour versus Bourgeois Party politics of Europe have faded down.

00:16:04.620 It was never as strong in the United States and Canada as it was in Europe, but it's breaking down even in Europe, where social democratic parties have lost basic blue-collar unionized support.

00:16:16.180 It's now much more cultural.

00:16:18.440 People vote along the lines of, how do you feel about mass migration?

00:16:21.320 Much more than they feel about, you know, what do you think policy should be on open versus closed shop for unions?

00:16:28.320 Like, that's happening everywhere.

00:16:29.960 I think this is just accelerating, though, the NDP.

00:16:32.100 So this is a good way for us, I think, to pivot into the party more broadly under the direction of Abbey Lewis.

00:16:38.740 So Abbey Lewis, I mean, his predecessors, and he comes from NDP aristocracy.

00:16:44.540 His grandfather...

00:16:46.960 Just died, I believe.

00:16:48.240 Yeah, no, his grandfather was already dead.

00:16:50.700 His grandfather was the leader, I believe, of something called the Waffle,

00:16:54.660 which was a radical Marxist and Trotskyite faction within the federal NDP.

00:17:00.520 was eventually kind of purged as it

00:17:02.320 was trying to not be seen as too

00:17:04.680 tied to the Soviet Union.

00:17:06.760 Or it was by purge, it was kind of

00:17:08.260 pushed down, suppressed.

00:17:10.800 His father,

00:17:13.100 Stephen Lewis,

00:17:14.540 he was leader of the federal NDP and leader

00:17:16.560 of the NDP in Ontario.

00:17:18.940 So he comes from NDP

00:17:20.500 aristocracy. I mean, just as a family thing,

00:17:22.680 I mean, probably was nice for his father

00:17:24.680 if he was cogent at the

00:17:26.660 time. I don't know what his last days were like, but

00:17:28.660 it's good to see, you know, to see your son go on a

00:17:31.060 sixth season. So within the family,

00:17:32.920 that's nice.

00:17:34.920 So he comes from NDP aristocracy, he's married

00:17:36.980 to Naomi Klein, who is also

00:17:39.300 very well regarded

00:17:40.860 in the radical left in Canada.

00:17:44.080 I'm

00:17:44.520 always hesitant to

00:17:46.440 tell the left what's good for the left.

00:17:48.980 You know, the way I see, like, you know,

00:17:51.020 Gary Mason

00:17:52.860 of the Globe and Mail in Vancouver likes

00:17:54.880 to say, tell Albertans what's good for Alberta.

00:17:57.100 You know, or you see lefties always say, oh, if the conservatives have this leader, they're going to be too right wing and they'll never get elected or something.

00:18:08.200 I mean, they all said that about Danielle Smith.

00:18:11.060 You know, so I'm always hesitant of leftist advice for rightists.

00:18:16.000 So I'm cautious of committing the same sin in reverse.

00:18:19.120 What do I think the left should do? 0.98

00:18:22.200 I think there is a market for the crazy left. 0.96

00:18:24.180 but he is without a doubt 0.98

00:18:26.800 the most radical leftist

00:18:29.280 to ever lead the NDP

00:18:30.400 I don't think he would deny that characterization

00:18:32.620 I think he's

00:18:35.500 I'm not sure if it's openly or not

00:18:37.220 but he's a Trotskyite essentially

00:18:38.820 Trotsky's big thing

00:18:41.100 was that Stalin was too right-wing

00:18:43.520 that's kind of

00:18:45.760 when we say Trotskyism

00:18:48.400 we're talking about the schism that developed

00:18:50.080 within the extreme left between Stalinism

00:18:52.400 and Trotskyism

00:18:53.640 Of course, Trotsky says, and I would have been nicer, I wouldn't have murdered all those people.

00:18:57.940 Too bad he led the Cheka, oh no, he didn't lead the Cheka, he led the Red Army and murdered hundreds of thousands or millions of people himself.

00:19:05.120 So I think, you know, a bit of historical digression, but yeah, he comes from a Trotskyite position that thought Stalin was too conservative.

00:19:16.740 I'll put it to you, Nigel.

00:19:18.260 Is there a market for this in Canada in 2026?

00:19:21.760 Not seriously.

00:19:22.360 Not to win, but to have a crescent supply line. 1.00

00:19:24.920 Well, people would be able to like to, there are the kind of crazy pinkard people out there that we saw. 1.00

00:19:32.460 They will be, the spotlight will not be on them. 1.00

00:19:37.360 The party will take its case to the people and saying that Mr. Carney has betrayed the Green Movement,

00:19:46.600 that we need less oil or more solar power.

00:19:50.780 They'll say all those things.

00:19:52.360 they'll say they're in solidarity with the palestinians which is kind of odd given that i

00:19:56.840 believe the family the lewis family is jewish isn't it well i want to talk about that that

00:20:02.120 is a weird thing that also comes back to trotskyism but uh we'll go down that path a little bit yeah

00:20:08.440 yeah but anyway that no i mean these people know how to know how to run an election campaign

00:20:13.400 now they've got people out of the way who don't and like everything else they play out their

00:20:17.640 strengths and certain people will be told to just sit still and be quiet over there don't rock the

00:20:22.440 boat you'll get your you'll get what you want but let the big people who know how to do politics

00:20:28.280 win this election or win the seats and that's that's what they have is the possibility to take

00:20:34.440 power away from mr carney mr carney's right sitting on the edge of a of a majority with the

00:20:41.160 next three by-elections are supposed to go his way um they have the power to take that

00:20:46.600 away from him when it's that when it's that uh thin companies are hanging on less than 300 votes

00:20:52.760 dave this said is it what jade meet singh would say when i am prime minister blah blah blah blah

00:20:59.400 and everyone would laugh it was so self-evidently ridiculous but we'd humor him in that like well

00:21:06.840 you know they've got a you know respectable chunk of seats in parliament they build some power he's

00:21:11.080 He's not going to be a prime minister, but he says it, whatever.

00:21:15.220 The NDP briefly contested for power, sort of, before Jack Layton died and early Thomas Mulcair.

00:21:21.040 They were the up-and-coming party that could challenge the Conservatives in a two-party system.

00:21:27.000 I think this is the NDP explicitly just adopting its more traditional role of,

00:21:33.540 we're not contending for power, we're the conscience of Parliament,

00:21:36.740 and we are going to move the Overton window

00:21:39.200 far to the left, create space

00:21:41.220 and try to drag the Liberals there

00:21:43.240 when they don't adopt our policies 0.91

00:21:44.700 we create a political price for them to pay

00:21:46.620 that is a perfectly respectable

00:21:49.580 thing to do on the left and the right

00:21:51.480 in different circumstances

00:21:52.820 it's very often

00:21:55.540 done, the Green Party does it

00:21:56.940 the Green Party doesn't make claims to run for power

00:21:58.980 but they make claims to try to change the conversation

00:22:01.540 move things in their direction

00:22:03.240 I think this is the NDP

00:22:05.620 explicitly saying we have no interest

00:22:08.040 in actually governing anymore.

00:22:09.700 We don't even want, we saw how disastrous

00:22:11.380 the de facto coalition was with J.B. Singh.

00:22:13.540 J.B. Singh was too moderate.

00:22:15.120 We had to give up too much

00:22:16.020 to get those kinds of things done.

00:22:17.500 But we are going to try to radicalize

00:22:20.120 the conversation here

00:22:21.280 and try to win in meta-politics

00:22:24.220 and not worry about trying to win too many seats

00:22:27.180 and certainly not worry about

00:22:28.400 trying to win government anymore.

00:22:29.580 That's what I think,

00:22:30.920 that's the big message, I think,

00:22:32.620 that the NDP is explicitly

00:22:33.660 making that decision right now.

00:22:35.000 You may be, or you may be reduced to a rump party and end up just having one or two seats next to Elizabeth May.

00:22:41.640 Well, they're already essentially clear. 0.79

00:22:42.660 And having no influence whatsoever.

00:22:45.840 Their big problem right now is money, right?

00:22:49.060 They've got to find, as Nigel says, they've got to find some money men who are willing to put up big bucks to help them, you know, get some money in the bank.

00:22:57.240 They were massive, yeah.

00:22:57.940 Yeah, massive, massive.

00:22:59.040 But this could, by going really hardcore here, you could get some lefties who have, you know, some of them have jobs.

00:23:06.980 You know, they're white-collared, unionized government employees and professors.

00:23:10.480 By going this radical, you might convince the faculty lounge at whatever Ryerson University is called now to open up their wallets.

00:23:18.320 This could help them financially.

00:23:19.820 Yeah, maybe.

00:23:20.300 I mean, Lewis's family himself is worth $28 million, according to reports.

00:23:25.940 That would take a good chunk of their debt.

00:23:27.880 They didn't get that rich by giving it all to the party.

00:23:30.300 No, no, that is charity.

00:23:31.840 Also, remember, there's donation caps.

00:23:33.620 There's some moderate workarounds.

00:23:36.240 You know, I'm going to give the donation cap, maximum donation limit.

00:23:39.920 My wife will, my children's.

00:23:41.860 But, you know, you can't come in and just lay down millions of dollars.

00:23:46.600 It doesn't really.

00:23:47.180 You could put up a secure line of credit for the party to keep it afloat.

00:23:51.200 Private wealth can do that.

00:23:52.480 It's already happening, actually.

00:23:54.040 Yeah, that kind of thing can happen.

00:23:55.340 um but you know you can't come in just by your way like that super straightforward anymore

00:24:01.540 when you are positioning yourself to the left of elizabeth may a lot of most people most sane

00:24:08.740 canadians will not take you seriously uh you're right about some university professors and uh

00:24:15.000 and uh some of the uh david suzuki's of the world but for for most people no um i would think for

00:24:22.600 most NDP voters know. I don't think most people joined the NDP five, six years ago for it to be

00:24:30.840 run by the freaks that are running it today. For me, the question is where does the NDP

00:24:37.080 vote go to? Do they go to the Liberals or does it go to the Tories?

00:24:41.080 Well, you see there, Dave, that's where I think we're on slightly different tracks.

00:24:46.040 I think that the NDP will play down the freaks when it gets close to an election.

00:24:52.600 They won't be seen.

00:24:53.960 They won't be heard.

00:24:55.240 And they'll play on the old sentiment of, you know, we're the revolutionary left-wing party.

00:25:01.040 But the Tories and the liberals can just put out what their policies are.

00:25:05.420 They will.

00:25:06.060 And that's, you know, we don't want any more.

00:25:08.280 I think he's going to run as an, to his credit, I think he's going to run as a radical leftist.

00:25:14.280 The guy who's come out of the gate saying he wants to nationalize grocery stores, nationalize housing construction, nationalize.

00:25:20.140 he's gone way and beyond

00:25:22.200 I think he's in on this, I don't think he's going to

00:25:24.420 temper it a bit, but he certainly

00:25:26.580 is not starting to, now he's won the leadership

00:25:28.440 even, he's

00:25:29.260 you know, it's interesting, Corey, because

00:25:32.040 Mandani won on that platform

00:25:34.040 so maybe there's a

00:25:35.980 not-buyer

00:25:37.380 Canadians who have booked for free groceries

00:25:39.820 21 out of 23 council members

00:25:42.100 in Toronto voted to have 0.90

00:25:43.400 government-run grocery stores, as ridiculous 0.88

00:25:46.380 as it is, so it's true 0.95

00:25:47.600 there is a constituency for it, if you can

00:25:50.140 concentrate them, you can win some seats.

00:25:52.580 So, Nigel brought this up.

00:25:54.900 What do you guys take on this?

00:25:56.680 It's a difficult and very complicated

00:25:58.620 subject,

00:25:59.820 but his ancestry is curious

00:26:02.300 in this case.

00:26:03.940 He's Jewish. He's married to a Jewish

00:26:06.260 woman. 1.00

00:26:08.060 So, obviously, he keeps

00:26:10.440 his Jewish identity, but he's a secular

00:26:12.280 Jewish person. I'm not sure if he's

00:26:14.280 atheist or not, but he's certainly

00:26:16.060 not orthodox.

00:26:17.400 He's certainly not orthodox, and he is explicitly, and in very no uncertain terms, anti-Zionist.

00:26:26.040 He was asked about this at a press conference just the other day, and he says he comes from a long line of anti-Zionist Jews.

00:26:37.760 He was a part of the Bund, which was kind of a Jewish communist group in the former, what became the Soviet Union, pre-revolutionary Russia before 1917.

00:26:51.680 And I mean, I think that's a head scratcher to a lot of people that he would be not just not a Zionist himself, but explicitly anti-Zionist.

00:27:00.740 I don't understand it terribly well, but I mean, there is a tradition on the radical left of that, like Trotsky.

00:27:07.760 And I think this guy is a Trotskyite.

00:27:09.600 Trotsky was Jewish and he came from the radical, radical left in the Bolshevik Party.

00:27:17.500 And he was anti-Zionist.

00:27:20.380 And so there was kind of historically, if we're going back over 100 years here, 100 years, 100 years plus,

00:27:26.260 conflict within the community about where you're going to be nationalist,

00:27:30.580 so a Jewish nationalist being a Zionist, or internationalist being the extreme communists.

00:27:37.760 And so I think that's the best sense I can make of it, is he comes from the other tradition, and it's the minority tradition, certainly, within the world Jewish population today.

00:27:48.600 But it is a tradition that I think he comes from, and he says his father and his grandfather always come from.

00:27:55.460 I don't think that we need to be too puzzled about that, Derek. 0.99

00:27:59.160 I mean, we tend to think of the Jewish people as being united by their sufferings and therefore all thinking the same thing, but they don't. 0.97

00:28:08.380 And there are some who will cheerfully sell out their, you know, their race, if you want to put it that way, for their own advantage. 0.96

00:28:15.540 Here we have one.

00:28:18.700 It's not a surprise to me because there are lots of people who look like you and I who sell out people like us all the time. 0.51

00:28:28.960 Well, it's much more common among white people. 0.59

00:28:30.960 And it is. There's a number of different sects.

00:28:34.960 There's a Messianic Jewish congregation that believes actually,

00:28:38.960 they've created this hybrid of believing in Jesus being the Messiah,

00:28:42.960 yet claiming to still be Jewish. They've got a church down in West Calgary.

00:28:45.960 Well, they would be ethnically Jewish, but religiously Christian.

00:28:48.960 Exactly. But they deviate from the other things. 0.82

00:28:51.960 I mean, part of it too, with the Israel connection, 0.55

00:28:54.960 it's a pretty good indication

00:28:57.300 there's going to be some secularism going on

00:28:58.960 because those who are the true believers believe that

00:29:01.120 they have to be in possession of the temple map

00:29:02.960 for the coming of the Messiah

00:29:03.960 that's a lot of where that tie comes

00:29:06.040 well that's another one subsect

00:29:08.860 and then you get some Orthodox Jews

00:29:11.180 within New York who oppose

00:29:12.760 the Zionist cause

00:29:14.580 and that's more I think on a 0.82

00:29:16.540 idealized

00:29:19.400 thing that they feel it's going to come 0.96

00:29:20.920 the Messiah must come before

00:29:22.320 so I mean it's all over the map 0.82

00:29:24.640 But the bottom line is, as far as ideologies go, his extreme socialist ideology has overwhelmed any of the Jewish identity when it comes to the Zionism part.

00:29:34.420 In a lot of the debates online and as vitriolic as they get, I certainly wade into them on X, you know, because I really take pleasure in the nuanced discussion I get. 0.67

00:29:42.320 And some of the lunatics who really come after me on that one, though, you'll see they have the Palestine Plague and a shocking amount, honestly shocking, of the hammer and sickle.

00:29:50.880 Like, there's a battle going on, too. 0.93

00:29:52.880 There really is some people trying to make a resurgence,

00:29:54.540 not just of communism, but of Sovietism. 0.93

00:29:57.420 And they're tied into that whole Palestinian thing. 0.98

00:30:01.400 And I don't fully comprehend why, 0.94

00:30:03.740 because I don't see how a new Soviet system

00:30:08.480 is going to help the Middle Eastern countries.

00:30:10.360 But there's a lot of bizarro stuff going on.

00:30:11.920 All I can say is, look what happened to Trotsky.

00:30:14.780 Yeah, it didn't end well.

00:30:15.980 Yeah.

00:30:16.640 Dave, I feel kind of like we're crawling around,

00:30:18.980 I'm feeling our way through an unlit cave in this discussion of that.

00:30:23.080 It's, it's, it's, it's an odd one.

00:30:25.320 I don't fully understand it, but I don't think it'd be fair to call him an anti-Semite.

00:30:33.620 He is a radical anti-Zionist, like hard.

00:30:36.360 He is a hardline anti-Zionist, but I don't think it's not plausible.

00:30:41.580 I'm not sure he is self-hating because there is a, maybe he is, maybe he's not.

00:30:46.720 it's all blurry

00:30:48.780 I can't see into this man's heart but he does

00:30:51.020 come from a tradition that's like this

00:30:52.580 within secular Jewish

00:30:54.880 community

00:30:55.560 you know because are a lot

00:30:59.180 of anti-Zionist anti-Semitic

00:31:01.080 yes but not all

00:31:02.520 there's different groups

00:31:04.780 I mean I haven't seen Lewis trying to

00:31:06.880 soft sell or apologize and hopefully that doesn't happen

00:31:08.820 say for the ones who've been targeting a Jewish

00:31:10.840 community repeatedly in Toronto

00:31:12.400 that's anti-Jew

00:31:14.500 that is uh but there are the people who are just critical of the concept of israel at all together

00:31:19.540 not necessarily the jew aspect it's very hard to untangle those two things but that is where

00:31:23.380 they're coming from i think i i'm gonna guess that lewis is landing where they haven't seen it

00:31:28.580 but again the interesting thing i mean the only one and only flag waving on the stage when he did

00:31:32.420 the big money shot at the end of the convention was a palestinian flag no canadian flags no manitoba

00:31:37.620 flags no not even a trans flag just a palestinian well okay so that is the most baffling part of all

00:31:44.180 that i just don't get like why why like why would you have okay i guess

00:31:52.020 you guys like palestine good for you you like trans but you didn't have the fan

00:31:56.420 they didn't have a canadian flag does anyone want to attempt to that and i know we're really

00:32:03.380 deep into the dark cave at this point you know we're trying to get inside their minds and i'm

00:32:09.060 sure we're not doing a great job crazy place to get it it's a terrifying dark cave any idea of

00:32:14.820 why they would choose to have a only palestinian flag on a stage and not even a canadian flag

00:32:21.220 not even alongside it just a way of giving the finger to everybody who doesn't agree with them

00:32:25.860 don't forget you've got a most disagreeable bunch of people there we were talking earlier about the

00:32:31.460 there they were with their cards and their pink hair and their shrapnel in their ears and so forth

00:32:37.700 Well, by their appearance and by the positions they take,

00:32:43.100 they're just saying, screw you to the rest of Canada.

00:32:45.500 Well, they don't care about electability.

00:32:47.100 And I mean, maybe he's saying the same thing.

00:32:50.260 Do we think they did it deliberately or do we think they were just an organ?

00:32:53.540 Those things are stage organ.

00:32:54.700 Those are stage managed events.

00:32:55.880 You're careful about who brings which flag onto a stage for a shot like that.

00:32:59.180 And I mean, the conservatives, you know,

00:33:00.980 Paliyev is typically, and Shuv and others,

00:33:04.020 but pretty supportive of Israel and so on.

00:33:05.760 But you know darn well they're not going to have a conservative event where one flag in the background is the Star of David waving around there. 0.92

00:33:11.580 That would be ridiculous.

00:33:12.720 As you're pigeonholing and causing division, you don't need to embrace. 0.91

00:33:16.620 These guys chose to.

00:33:17.940 The conservatives would be rightfully ripped if they had any foreign flag on stage besides...

00:33:24.020 If it's alongside the Canadian flag, even that's a bit weird if you're supposed to be the Canadian party.

00:33:30.500 But you have only one, and it's a foreign flag.

00:33:33.300 of a nation that this question of whether it exists or not

00:33:36.360 I don't understand

00:33:39.740 we need a translator 0.99

00:33:41.080 I don't think we're gonna, this is the wrong room

00:33:42.880 to try and get into the mind of NDP

00:33:44.780 we need to talk to someone

00:33:45.600 they don't talk to me, they throw stuff at me

00:33:48.220 I like talking to them, I mean it's crazy

00:33:50.680 but sometimes it's a bit more interesting

00:33:52.180 just talking to you guys who are mostly sane

00:33:54.760 okay

00:33:56.180 mostly sane

00:33:58.180 well, let's face it, we have seen a lot of our old 0.51

00:34:00.820 kind betray us 1.00

00:34:01.920 this man is a Jew 0.79

00:34:03.900 but he's not taking the Jewish part

00:34:06.740 so

00:34:07.800 I'm not sure I think he sees it

00:34:10.480 probably just as a different

00:34:12.660 tradition it's like a different way of doing

00:34:14.760 it as they would see it

00:34:16.560 well what would be the it

00:34:18.480 then

00:34:19.020 I mean

00:34:20.440 what does success look like for him

00:34:24.700 having taken that position

00:34:26.140 world communism

00:34:27.060 that's what I mean that's where you get to the bottom

00:34:29.900 That's what I was saying, the hammer and sickles.

00:34:31.180 Starting in Winnipeg?

00:34:32.360 Ooh, yes.

00:34:34.600 Yeah.

00:34:35.600 Okay.

00:34:38.120 Okay.

00:34:38.700 Anyway, that's...

00:34:40.400 I'm not polishing the turd.

00:34:42.540 We're trying to dissect the turd here.

00:34:44.440 Anyway, yeah, I guess when the segment's called NDP Go Full Retard,

00:34:47.640 it's difficult for us to empathize.

00:34:51.240 We've done our best.

00:34:53.460 Okay.

00:34:54.640 Alberta goes full independence.

00:34:56.920 um so cory uh the alberta prosperity project says that it has reached 177 000 signature threshold

00:35:06.800 they're obviously going to try to get more than that because some signatures will get disqualified

00:35:10.440 for different reasons uh there was one setup uh you know i live out in county i there was a

00:35:17.080 new location set up just on the side of uh township road i was driving home to yesterday and

00:35:21.480 I stopped by and chatted with them, so they're still going strong at this, but it seems extremely likely now they're going to get the signatures, and we're going to be having a referendum alongside nine other questions on referenda in October.

00:35:37.820 Yeah, and yeah, Stay Free Alberta, they did their thing.

00:35:40.980 I'm a little perplexed as to why, I mean, if there was a successful petitioning thing,

00:35:45.520 to give a little credit where it's due, you know,

00:35:48.900 Lukasik didn't let a peep about his numbers out until the very end.

00:35:52.600 And then floored everybody with a massive number.

00:35:54.640 And that way he kept his volunteers constantly pushing and going and going.

00:35:58.800 Yeah, this is not a good idea.

00:35:59.840 I know that Stay Free Alberta is saying, but don't stop, guys.

00:36:02.640 Keep going.

00:36:03.180 We need to make an example.

00:36:04.620 look these are volunteers who have been sitting out on cold highways they've been getting the

00:36:09.660 finger from people they've been taking time out of their lives and some will continue to do so

00:36:14.360 but that's hard work and it's going to be a little harder when the weather's bad you get up in the

00:36:18.460 morning geez do I want to go set up at a table outside or go knocking on doors or maybe I should

00:36:22.960 you know clean the bathroom or something it's going to slow down the collection but they were

00:36:27.500 feeling some pressure I mean it seemed like every week another story was coming out saying that

00:36:31.380 they're not going to make it. And it's freaking people out and freaking supporters. There was

00:36:35.180 another one saying, oh, that was hitting the headlines just two days ago. Oh, there's problems

00:36:38.980 with rural addresses and they might not make the bar. And I think they were getting frustrated with

00:36:42.440 that and just wanted to say, look, we're getting it done. And then there's that potential injunction

00:36:47.240 coming on the South, which isn't stopping a referendum. It's stopping the petitioning,

00:36:51.560 which is really bizarre. And for most legal people I've talked to, though, you can never

00:36:56.080 predict a judge saying it's really, it's junk. It's not going to go through, but they're feeling,

00:37:00.200 well we want to establish we crossed the line there's going to be a referendum injunction and

00:37:05.260 no referendum we did what we had to do and they'll have that moral ability to push for one this fall

00:37:10.520 so i think that's the rationale on releasing that but it's clear there's going to be a referendum

00:37:14.760 this fall people had better accept that and move on to the campaign mode now um yeah and so campaign

00:37:21.780 mode is i think where this they need to start start thinking about things um jason kenny is

00:37:28.280 I guess positioned himself as

00:37:30.320 the de facto leader of the Federalist side

00:37:32.340 which is wonderful

00:37:33.880 but he's got the easier job

00:37:36.140 they've got the high ground here

00:37:38.260 he's defending high ground

00:37:39.860 but I think

00:37:42.320 this is trying to position himself to

00:37:44.020 take Pierre Polyev's job

00:37:46.320 if Polyev loses the next election

00:37:48.080 I think that's what he's trying to position himself for

00:37:49.780 he probably won't get much support in Alberta

00:37:52.360 when that happens but he could say to the rest

00:37:54.360 of Canada, I kept Alberta

00:37:56.220 in Canada

00:37:58.100 The pro-independence side, though, that's got no clear leader at all.

00:38:05.640 You know, there's a number of names around.

00:38:09.160 I know Kenny's going to be debating with Keith Wilson of the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:38:15.240 He's a pretty well-spoken guy.

00:38:18.240 But, Dave, there does not appear to be any real major figure yet on the independent side.

00:38:25.600 And to me, that looks like that is the single biggest thing that's got to get fixed.

00:38:30.360 Absolutely.

00:38:30.940 But they seem quite happy at the moment.

00:38:33.100 We talked to Mitch Sylvester yesterday.

00:38:35.960 He's one of the leaders.

00:38:37.460 He says, look, we've gotten this far.

00:38:40.420 We've got several leaders.

00:38:43.000 Jeff Rath is one of our leaders.

00:38:45.940 But he doesn't want to be a politician.

00:38:48.600 I don't want to be a politician.

00:38:49.920 So he's quite happy to let things grow from the ground level up.

00:38:56.180 So I don't – I'm like you, Derek.

00:38:59.200 I think that they need to have somebody, and they need to have somebody in place quick if they want any chance of winning this thing.

00:39:07.140 But they don't seem to be in any rush to appoint a leader unless they're keeping something up their sleeve.

00:39:14.020 Well, I know when, Nigel, one of the things, you know, Alberta Prosperity Project says is, well, you know, this is nonpartisan, it's decentralized, you know, Corey and I have been around this movement a long time, we know that by its very nature, the movement attracts very independent minded people that sometimes have a hard time working together.

00:39:35.280 So it might be very difficult for you to get literally everyone else to stand down, essentially become lieutenants and have one guy up front and everybody agree to do that.

00:39:44.700 A lot of that is being independent minded. Some of it, no one will admit it, but some of it is going to be ego.

00:39:52.980 So I don't know. Is this just is it just kind of an excuse?

00:39:56.560 The reason we have no leaders because everyone's a leader and it's organic and everyone goes out.

00:40:00.660 is that legitimate or do you think it's

00:40:05.060 I see it as a bit of an excuse for the independent side not able

00:40:08.960 to organize itself appropriately for even a short term

00:40:13.160 campaign like this. Well no disrespects to many of the people who work very hard

00:40:17.020 on this project but nobody has actually

00:40:20.800 by their words and actions distinguished themselves

00:40:24.660 as the leader. It ought to be pretty obvious by now who the guy

00:40:29.040 as well it would be a guy uh but it's not just uh it's it's not obvious from the words and actions

00:40:40.080 so far so i think what you're going to get is uh you're assuming everything goes according to plan

00:40:47.600 you will get a referendum it doesn't have to be in october there's a number of things that could

00:40:53.840 delay it including the legislature itself that could schedule it later than october

00:40:58.640 or the legislature is within the legislature's gift to amend the question or just defeat the

00:41:04.240 bill there is actually no legal requirement for it to go ahead even if they get the signatures

00:41:10.400 so there's a lot of things that could interrupt the flow of this thing but until somebody comes

00:41:15.760 along who actually has the credo and the clout to challenge the federal government personally

00:41:22.160 and thereby draw to himself or herself all the bad words

00:41:30.720 that make other people want to rally around them and help them.

00:41:34.400 We've not got our Sam Adams.

00:41:36.640 We've not got our George Washington.

00:41:38.560 We've not got the people who you're going to send to the Constitutional Convention

00:41:43.800 to write the new book for Alberta.

00:41:47.500 So it doesn't mean it won't happen.

00:41:49.880 it just may take a little longer than the

00:41:52.540 enthusiasm hope. The thing is

00:41:54.560 they have the signatures, they know

00:41:56.660 that there is the feeling there

00:41:58.180 Well, we don't have our Washington

00:42:00.040 we don't have our Jefferson, but

00:42:02.160 well, some of us can fashion ourselves

00:42:04.640 at least the Thomas Paine writing our

00:42:06.740 pamphlets, trying to spread

00:42:08.700 the news for now. Somebody has to inform the

00:42:10.420 Washingtons. René Levesque could be something

00:42:12.560 they could use. Yeah, okay

00:42:14.080 we are out of time, I don't even

00:42:16.540 get a party shot, we have such little time, so we're going to go 0.96

00:42:18.520 quick firing line of parting shots starting with nigel all right so my my thing is about air canada

00:42:24.680 you know they'll they'll reroute you they'll start you early in the morning and deliver you

00:42:29.960 at late at night they'll lose your bags they will cancel the flight that you booked and put you on

00:42:36.280 at a time and then that you don't want to go and then as for the flight itself sometimes it goes

00:42:42.920 well and sometimes it's exciting none of that matters life goes on but when the chairman of

00:42:49.400 air canada gets up and delivers his heartfelt condolences for the two pilots who were killed

00:42:55.480 in new york in that accident and he only does it in english well then the bloody roof comes down

00:43:01.640 and oh well this can't be tolerated you're down the road and we're going to get somebody who can

00:43:05.880 speak both languages that's the problem you know like this is the problem i see in so many areas

00:43:11.960 of our life is that people are focused on the wrong things and that's just a beautiful

00:43:17.240 example and he was effectively fired by parliament the committee voted to recommend he be fired he

00:43:23.480 was essentially forced to retire and it wasn't just the liberals and the bloc it was the

00:43:27.960 conservatives too yeah well we got shame on the cash you know we've got it we've got to start

00:43:32.680 focusing what it is that matters to make this country work yeah corey i'll go quick i just

00:43:37.400 think since the condolences weren't properly delivered in french we should have the highest

00:43:41.320 office in the land do so and our governor general should give those condolences in an extended

00:43:45.320 french speech that's cruel you mean hey have corporate heads got to speak french shouldn't

00:43:53.460 our governor general dave uh the good ward good lord willing uh the uh manned mission to the moon

00:44:02.520 is underway as we speak uh for the first time in half a century uh godspeed artemis 2. amen it's

00:44:10.060 fake they're filming it in northern ontario all right nigel cory dave thank you thank you

00:44:18.900 john on production and all of you who joined us today and are supporting our work uh go to

00:44:24.560 western standard dot news click on subscribe it's only ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a

00:44:28.160 year to get unlimited access to all western standard content and support the work that

00:44:32.580 we are doing thank you very much and godspeed

00:44:40.060 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - April 06, 2026

THE PIPELINE： The NDP convention goes off the rails as Alberta independence hits 177,000 signatures

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