Western Standard - The Pipeline： The Speaker spoke too quick

00:00:00.000 good evening welcome to the pipeline this is the western standards weekly panel show where we'll

00:00:18.060 pick out a few of the top issues of the weekend and analyze them give our opinions on them dissect

00:00:24.460 them and discuss them and boy there's a lot of issues to discuss this week i'll tell you

00:00:30.360 I'm Corey Morgan.

00:00:31.300 I'm a regular columnist in Alberta with the Western Standard, and I'm joined today by,

00:00:36.680 I'm going to start with Nigel Hannaford, our opinion editor.

00:00:39.920 You're doing week by week, aren't you?

00:00:40.860 Yes, I like to make sure you're actually listening to me, so if I'm swapping it around.

00:00:44.680 Oh, we listen to you.

00:00:46.880 So do thousands of others.

00:00:48.660 Some do, yes.

00:00:49.540 They don't all necessarily like it, but they do listen, and that's important.

00:00:52.320 Yeah.

00:00:52.800 I see the letters to the editor.

00:00:54.380 Okay.

00:00:55.200 As well, we also have our news editor, Dave Naylor, here today.

00:00:59.980 Great to be on with the Toast of India, the latest India media sensation, Corey Morgan.

00:01:05.200 I'm going to have to learn to dance the bangra or some of those things.

00:01:10.160 Trudeau, I mean, he fit in.

00:01:12.220 You could barely distinguish him from an Indian citizen when he was there that first time.

00:01:15.780 Well, you know, phone the PML and see where you get that neat stuff.

00:01:20.220 Soon they don't return my calls.

00:01:21.680 I think I'm blocked.

00:01:23.980 All right.

00:01:25.080 So, yes, we won't talk about India this week.

00:01:27.880 Well, maybe a little more, but there are big issues from the Prime Minister's office.

00:01:33.120 I'll start with one of our sponsors before we start digging into all that stuff, though.

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00:02:19.620 All right.

00:02:20.040 Well, let's talk about some federal politics.

00:02:23.800 uh as you see here the speaker spoke too quick and uh well he's not spoken or speaking anymore

00:02:29.880 whatsoever now uh give us the rundown dave what do we got this week the rundown the debacle uh

00:02:35.960 pierre polly i've called it the biggest blunder in canadian uh parliamentary history uh this is

00:02:41.720 when the uh somehow a uh a 92 year old member of the former member 98 i'm sorry of the the waffen

00:02:49.960 SS was invited to Parliament to witness the speech of Ukraine President Zelensky.

00:02:58.920 Then parliamentarians gave him two standing ovations when he was introduced.

00:03:03.720 It wasn't until afterwards, lo and behold, it was found out that he was a member of this notorious

00:03:09.400 Nazi outfit. And they were really bad boys during the war, no doubt about it. 0.85

00:03:15.480 So there were calls for resignations and apologies all over the weekend.

00:03:19.960 On Monday, Speaker did resign, took full responsibility.

00:03:25.460 On Wednesday, after three days of hiding, the Prime Minister came out and he apologized, not on behalf of himself, on behalf of all parliamentarians.

00:03:36.000 And shockingly to me, he admitted he has not got in touch with President Zelensky yet to offer his personal apology.

00:03:43.440 You know, he always sort of seems to come across as he and Zelensky are best buddies,

00:03:48.440 and they couldn't stop hugging each other during that trip to Ottawa.

00:03:51.800 So it's been a seismic week in Ottawa politics, the likes of which I don't think we've ever seen.

00:03:58.880 Have we, Nigel?

00:04:00.160 Well, yeah, I think we have.

00:04:01.880 I mean, seismic weeks in politics, boy, how about India just a couple of weeks ago?

00:04:06.240 Involving the speaker.

00:04:07.160 And well, this is not since, what is it, 1967 or something?

00:04:12.560 57.

00:04:12.960 57, yeah.

00:04:14.020 There was a speaker resigned.

00:04:15.960 And I had to look it up just to see if it was anything like it.

00:04:19.060 His name was John Bosley.

00:04:20.920 And the reason he gave was he was just tired of the childish antics in the House of Commons.

00:04:27.040 He couldn't take it anymore.

00:04:28.440 That was, sorry, that was in the Mulrooney days when it was the Rat Pack, you know, the

00:04:32.560 Rat, Sheila Copps.

00:04:33.820 So that was in the 80s.

00:04:34.760 Yeah, so it was in the 80s.

00:04:36.300 So we're both wrong, but, you know, Error loves company.

00:04:41.920 But no, I mean, to your point, Dave, obviously, this is a real bag of nails.

00:04:48.160 And this is, there's so many things that amaze you out of that.

00:04:52.180 There's 338 sitting members of Parliament.

00:04:56.580 Does any of them actually know anything about the war in Eastern Europe?

00:05:02.840 like I wouldn't expect them to be experts and I wouldn't expect all of them to know anything

00:05:07.120 but I would have thought that you know those who are representing Ukrainian writings might have

00:05:12.240 seen this coming and said just exactly what this what was this man doing to be a little bit fair

00:05:18.140 you know I watched that clip a number of times it was very muted applause for what those you know

00:05:23.060 if we've attended in the gallery at sessions they introduce a number of guests and everybody

00:05:29.360 just almost automatically get up and applaud. You almost never refuse to do so.

00:05:34.240 I think in this case, the applause was because they felt he was fighting the Russians.

00:05:39.200 Yeah. And I think though, even if I were a member of parliament and I was sitting there,

00:05:43.760 and if I had clued in, wait a minute, you know, start to do some math. 98 years old,

00:05:47.520 fighting for the Ukrainians against the Soviets. There's only one unit that was doing that and

00:05:51.760 they weren't on our side. But what are you going to do? Are you going to stand up and shout it out

00:05:56.000 in the middle of the parliamentary uh event are you going to you know take your seat uh i think

00:06:02.560 all of them were still in shock i mean they weren't given a warning this individual was

00:06:07.040 necessarily you know they didn't know it until it was announced so i think perhaps there were

00:06:11.520 some out there with a knowledge of history who are already realizing oh wow something's going to

00:06:15.680 hit the fan here really fast but they weren't going to be the ones to raise their hand and say

00:06:20.400 it's about yeah well i mean wouldn't they have looked like heroes today if they had oh if one

00:06:24.480 even had just stood up and said, hey, hey, hey, I'm not giving an ovation to a Nazi,

00:06:29.920 but you better be, that's part of it. You know, you're on the floor, you just got gobsmacked.

00:06:33.280 You better be 100% sure you heard what you heard. You don't want to call an innocent man a Nazi.

00:06:39.360 Still, that's the prime minister's job. I mean, there are some members of parliament

00:06:42.960 who represent areas where the Ukrainian presence is something they have to acknowledge and work

00:06:48.000 with. Maybe they are Ukrainian themselves. And of course, the other side of it is the staffers,

00:06:54.400 in this whole thing, I mean, there's been a lot of talk, well, the speaker's office should

00:07:00.800 have caught it, or it was the security people who should have caught it.

00:07:04.820 You know, when I was in the PMO, staffers got involved in this kind of thing, and we

00:07:10.060 checked out the people that we were going to have in.

00:07:13.620 The speaker's office has staffers.

00:07:17.560 Do they not do that sort of thing?

00:07:19.300 Do they not feed that information to the security agents and say,

00:07:24.440 have you got anything on any of these people?

00:07:26.560 Happens to be a Ukrainian this time.

00:07:28.780 It could easily be somebody else from a completely different context.

00:07:33.360 Canada having so many contexts.

00:07:35.900 Somebody didn't do their job.

00:07:38.000 And what I took offense to with the prime minister's apology was within the space of 15 seconds,

00:07:42.960 he said, I apologize.

00:07:45.320 It was the speaker's fault.

00:07:47.280 That's not an apology.

00:07:48.660 No, it's throwing under the bus.

00:07:50.480 And the other thing that you'd know to David, I believe he hasn't, as far as we know, contacted Zelensky.

00:07:56.080 I mean, there's a victim, if anybody, in this.

00:07:58.200 I mean, Putin must have been just spitting his vodka and laughing his brains out when he saw his enemy standing there,

00:08:04.280 when he's been trying to connect him to Nazis for years, applauding a literal Nazi.

00:08:09.520 I mean, you couldn't have staged a better event for Putin's PR machine.

00:08:13.300 Maybe Zelensky's not taking his phone calls at the moment.

00:08:15.540 You know, he may be that angry.

00:08:17.780 You know, that's not beyond the realm of possibility.

00:08:20.360 But they gave Polyev two full days in Parliament to just swing for the fences.

00:08:26.900 And the poor Liberal House Minister Gould was reduced to a quivering mass by the end of it.

00:08:35.420 I was going to ask you, Nigel, you've worked in PMOs.

00:08:38.160 What is the strategy behind hiding for three days?

00:08:42.500 Well, Harvard didn't hide that much.

00:08:45.180 But I guess when you, there have been times, I think there was a time when, well, Thomas Volcker was just grinding relentlessly on about a certain senator who lived rather well.

00:09:00.500 There's only so many times you can get up and answer that question.

00:09:04.400 And so sometimes if an opportunity comes to go elsewhere for the day, you take it.

00:09:09.220 However, that had not happened in this case.

00:09:11.340 This was, happened on Friday.

00:09:13.140 the Prime Minister had a duty to be there on Monday and explain himself.

00:09:18.200 Not only was he not there on Monday, he was not there on Tuesday.

00:09:21.980 And this little so-called apology that he issued was intended,

00:09:26.440 I'm sure he didn't honestly believe it would work,

00:09:29.200 but it was intended to deflect from what would happen in question period later.

00:09:35.020 Well, you know, I've already dealt with that kind of thing.

00:09:37.700 I think, by the way, that Pierre Polliver was relatively restrained

00:09:42.600 in his attacks on the government yesterday.

00:09:46.660 I mean, he did save his best for the prime minister when he finally returned.

00:09:51.660 Yeah, and to be clear, Trudeau was in Ottawa on Monday.

00:09:55.560 He had private meetings, whatever they are, in the morning.

00:09:58.160 He was in BC on Monday.

00:09:58.940 And he met with BC Premier Eby in Ottawa.

00:10:01.820 He was in Ottawa.

00:10:02.360 He was in Ottawa.

00:10:03.080 And then on Tuesday, he took a quick jump to Toronto.

00:10:07.140 So he was around.

00:10:08.620 It wasn't a case of he was on a foreign mission somewhere.

00:10:11.500 He just chose to deliberately not attend Parliament.

00:10:14.220 I would think part of it, though.

00:10:15.320 I mean, you know, what everyone might think of Trudeau.

00:10:17.340 I mean, I know you and I differ on our views of where his intellect may land.

00:10:20.680 But one thing I think is true is he's not good at thinking on his feet, though.

00:10:24.060 When it's something this big, he needs coaching.

00:10:26.740 It's time to, because that's what he does.

00:10:28.100 He'll stonewall, and he'll give the same answer over, as we saw in question period today.

00:10:31.760 But if he has to come up with his answer to stonewall like that, he gets in trouble. 0.97

00:10:35.920 And you could see him in question period, you know, referring to a sheet where he had his notes.

00:10:39.880 So he needed his day to, okay, how can I just sit and deflect rather than take responsibility or try and, you know, take this as a leader and speak to it.

00:10:49.160 He's not capable, in my view, of that.

00:10:51.280 He needs his coached answers.

00:10:53.240 One thing I'm not seeing come out of this that I thought would come out of it by now is an agreement with all the parties to say, okay, the next time this happens, this is what we're going to do.

00:11:04.180 Why haven't they come together and formed an all-party committee to work on getting a plan in action?

00:11:09.880 so the next time a world leader speaks in in the house of commons we know we know what's going to

00:11:14.840 be investigated and and you know how who's going to do the vetting yeah well that would mean

00:11:21.160 surrendering a certain amount of control you know if you're if you're the government you probably

00:11:25.880 don't want to do that and you'd have to listen to the ndp and the green party as well as the

00:11:30.280 conservatives that might be hard to take look at the alternative what they're dealing with now

00:11:34.520 Oh, once every 50 years.

00:11:38.800 But it's, you know, the unfortunate thing is no matter how much they try to just fully lay this on Rody's feet is if he unilaterally did this, which I still find hard to believe.

00:11:48.920 The timing that he picked a Ukrainian veteran on the day, this was part of a whole staged affair.

00:11:54.920 I mean, there was an error.

00:11:55.920 They certainly didn't mean to do this, but there were more minds involved in seeking out this gentleman and bringing him in than just Rody.

00:12:02.880 In fact, I got a feeling the way he was reading that for him that he didn't know anything about this guy who was coming in, even though he was technically the one reading for it.

00:12:09.960 But the nuances of whether the speaker is independent or isn't independent or isn't partisan, it doesn't matter.

00:12:16.740 As far as the world is concerned, when they see an ovation for a Nazi, they don't look at all of that.

00:12:22.700 See, the average Canadian doesn't look at all of that or understand that the speaker's independence.

00:12:28.360 This is going to land on Trudeau's support numbers, whether he thinks it's going to or not.

00:12:31.620 Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can't deflect this to the speaker.

00:12:35.380 Nigel and I were talking about it yesterday.

00:12:39.940 You almost, I don't want to say you feel sorry for this old man because he was a Nazi at some point, 0.65

00:12:44.520 but he had no idea what he was getting himself into either, I'm sure.

00:12:48.820 You know, he's now could be sent to Poland to face trial.

00:12:53.960 They're talking about maybe extraditing him and stuff like that.

00:12:56.280 So, I mean, is there a point, you know, these events happened in the 1940s.

00:13:01.580 Is there a point where it's okay to forgive and forget, move on?

00:13:06.520 Well, I think the point at which that comes up is probably for the offended people to decide.

00:13:14.780 But, you know, let's try and we try to be fair to Mr. Trudeau just now.

00:13:22.740 Let's try and be fair to this elderly gentleman.

00:13:25.040 At the time that he joined up, he was 18 years old.

00:13:29.420 18-year-old boys tend to see things pretty simply.

00:13:33.160 And what he had witnessed in his life was a deliberate campaign of starvation

00:13:39.580 by the Stalinist government in the Soviet Union against his people.

00:13:44.720 It's called the Holodomor.

00:13:45.840 They actually went and they stole the food from the farms

00:13:48.700 so they could feed the Russian people and pretend that everything was good. 0.99

00:13:52.760 Meanwhile, the Ukrainians died. 0.99

00:13:55.040 that happened and it happened in his lifetime and he saw that so the first person to come along and

00:14:03.120 say hey you want to go fight the russians join up we'll give you a gun and you're on your way 0.87

00:14:08.240 probably had his attention and many of the things that we hold against the nazis now were either a

00:14:15.680 not known at the time in his area like how could he have known and b this was the middle of 1943

00:14:23.760 a lot of things hadn't happened yet so from you you know a kid let's face it we we all have 18

00:14:32.000 year olds in our lives at some point and the consensus is that they tend not to know much

00:14:38.560 but they're very passionate about what they do know i can see how easily anybody in those

00:14:45.600 circumstances could have said sure sign me up where do i where do i sign i mean there were

00:14:51.600 were millions of young men in Japan and Canada and the United States and Great

00:14:56.160 Britain and Germany and all the combatant countries who were making the 0.84

00:15:00.000 same choice. My country's at war, what do I do? So, you know, there's no specific

00:15:07.180 incidents laid at his feet that I am aware of. You could have seen that the

00:15:13.480 Nazis is the lesser of two evils in a, when you're in a rough part of the world

00:15:16.660 you're choosing between authoritarian dictatorships. The Russians were the 1.00

00:15:21.360 most recent ones to abuse you. I have little to lose than throwing my hat in the ring with these

00:15:25.660 guys. Derek made a very good point about that yesterday, actually. And he said, you know,

00:15:29.900 on the Western Front, there was literally a good guy, bad guy scenario. On the Eastern Front,

00:15:35.240 you just have two bad guys. Yeah, well, and I remember reading up on it, too, when initially,

00:15:40.280 actually, when the Eastern Front started, the Nazis came in a lot of Russian villages. So it 0.97

00:15:44.460 was just one dictator over and over. They weren't too concerned. It didn't matter. They just wanted

00:15:49.380 It wasn't until the Nazis started brutalizing the local villagers that they built a resistance over in Russia.

00:15:54.760 Otherwise, they were marching on by and head to Moscow.

00:15:57.080 I don't care.

00:15:57.640 But again, that's all sort of moot to the point of, yes, in that case,

00:16:01.880 the gentleman should have been allowed to rest out the final few years in obscurity.

00:16:06.720 And as I said on my show earlier, it's between him and if there was any actions in his God or his conscience.

00:16:11.740 But now it's been brought into the spotlight.

00:16:13.680 But he just never should have been brought into Parliament in the first place.

00:16:16.680 That's the thing.

00:16:17.740 Well, I think everybody's agreed on that.

00:16:21.460 No, and just my thoughts.

00:16:24.040 I don't think you look good chasing a 98-year-old man out of the country.

00:16:28.440 Probably not something that would be good politics.

00:16:31.420 So this has opened up other stuff, too.

00:16:33.400 Some of this was covered with the Ukrainian members who had come to Canada in the 50s.

00:16:38.440 People have been asking.

00:16:39.500 They say, well, why wasn't that the Nuremberg trials?

00:16:42.000 Well, for one, they were already full.

00:16:43.140 They had enough war criminals at their plate as it was who were far worse. 0.95

00:16:45.960 Caesar death camp operators and other such evil personas.

00:16:50.400 They basically said, they didn't give them clearance,

00:16:54.760 but they said, we're not gonna go further with you.

00:16:57.200 In 2000, at least 2000.

00:16:58.780 Yeah, a decision, just move on.

00:17:01.440 We aren't exonerating you,

00:17:04.060 but we're saying leave it behind.

00:17:06.080 But now the Benign Breath and others are giving up

00:17:07.900 and saying, well, why did we do that?

00:17:09.300 What is the record on that?

00:17:10.500 And they're re-examining in hindsight.

00:17:11.900 I don't think anybody's gonna extradite

00:17:13.200 and find out the few dozen remaining anymore

00:17:15.520 any of that, but it's opened up a whole new area of Canadian history to re-examine.

00:17:20.620 Right, and that's another interesting point that you're bringing up there, Corey, that the people

00:17:25.380 who made those decisions, a lot of them, were probably Canadian veterans. You know, you sort

00:17:31.280 of transit out of the armed forces and into the government service in some kind or other. People

00:17:36.420 who had actually been in action and probably had a very much more nuanced view of what other people

00:17:44.240 had been through and made a made a decision based on what dare i say it'll maybe a little

00:17:50.160 bit of compassion even i don't know it's hard to say but it's a war time it was 80 years ago

00:17:57.600 atrocities happen on both sides too it's just you never hear about the ones the victors might have

00:18:01.280 committed uh aside from dresden yeah and uh it was ugly it's unfortunate we're revisiting this

00:18:08.240 uh in the way we are right now as i said maybe hopefully though they're examining it and at

00:18:12.960 least learning we need some degree of vetting with people we don't lose that freedom it's a big

00:18:19.200 honor for a member of parliament to invite a constituent to be able to stand in the gallery

00:18:22.800 and get that shout out but you don't necessarily want to be a screaming protester who's going to

00:18:27.680 throw eggs or you know hang and drape a flag over the edge or any of that either so i got a feeling

00:18:33.200 it's going to be tougher to get into parliament ironically the speaker had his open tea yesterday

00:18:39.680 It was supposed to happen last night for all members of the press gallery and MPs.

00:18:45.660 As a speaker, he gets a government house.

00:18:47.860 It's called The Farm in Quebec.

00:18:50.480 And it was supposed to happen there.

00:18:51.640 And not surprisingly, it got canceled after.

00:18:54.080 I'm sure his wife's not overly happy.

00:18:55.740 I don't think they're probably having some nasty conversations at the moment.

00:18:59.440 Well, this is big.

00:19:00.080 He's got to move.

00:19:01.100 He's one of those housed positions.

00:19:03.780 So your life's been turned upside down.

00:19:05.440 And you're going to get a pay cut of $90,000 a year.

00:19:08.300 uh and one of the interim speakers is actually a separatist member of the bloc

00:19:14.620 just when you think parliament can't get any uh any more chaos

00:19:20.860 one of the first two words of the national anthem or oh canada

00:19:25.820 sometimes whoa change the intonation of it maybe they'll ask me for the job you know if you were a

00:19:31.740 a script writer, they wouldn't let you do this. No, no, no. People won't. Nobody would ever think

00:19:37.740 that. Well, let's get on to something a little drier, but still a big issue. I mean, it's kind

00:19:43.220 of gotten overshadowed with this whole event. It's the long-awaited report on the Alberta pension

00:19:49.220 plan was released last week. It was. Premier Daniel Smith announced it late last week at

00:19:56.140 the MacDougall Centre, looking at some of their advertising, a very slick campaign.

00:20:02.360 It's obviously something that's been worked on for months and months.

00:20:06.300 But the bottom line, I think, for most people is Premier Smith says Alberta is owed $534

00:20:15.260 billion from the Canada pension pound, which is more than half of the $570 billion in total.

00:20:22.320 So that shows you how much Alberta has overpaid over the years, and she is promoting, she's saying we may be able to pay less and get more out of it if we go the Alberta way.

00:20:41.860 But there are going to be a panel chaired by former Treasurer Jim Denning, who, as we know, cleared Alberta's debt at one point.

00:20:52.180 And he's going to go around the province and listen to what people have to say.

00:20:56.420 And I expect people will be loud and vocal whichever way they choose to go, Nigel.

00:21:03.040 Yes, they certainly will.

00:21:05.360 I mean, the fundamental argument in favor of doing this is pretty sound.

00:21:11.860 it's a young workforce they're not going on pensions the fact that we have overpaid so much

00:21:21.580 indicates another one of those systemic inequalities in confederation people have

00:21:28.320 got a like why do you work hard in order to pay for somebody somewhere else to retire maybe they

00:21:33.380 maybe there should be well maybe they should be paying a little more to fund their own retirement

00:21:38.180 that's like you working to pay for your neighbor now so the difficulty I think

00:21:46.640 and the plan comes in actually making it happen if you lend your deadbeat brother

00:21:52.580 500 bucks there's no question that he owes it to you but how do you get it out

00:21:59.240 of him and how even assuming that once the formulas have been examined and

00:22:06.440 That's going to be the first objection.

00:22:07.940 Oh, well, you know, your numbers are wrong.

00:22:10.940 It couldn't possibly be that much.

00:22:12.640 Let's see that they actually do line up and find a number.

00:22:17.700 Well, all right, we agree that you've overpaid by this much.

00:22:20.560 We understand that you want to leave.

00:22:23.360 You are by law entitled to take that with you,

00:22:26.560 but we can't afford to give it to you.

00:22:28.940 So this then becomes a national issue

00:22:32.340 because the Canada pension plan has only got one place to go.

00:22:36.440 it's not a government agency but it can only go to the federal government and so you're going to

00:22:42.840 have let's say that the election result goes the way that i think we all want it to in two years

00:22:49.880 time and you've got prime minister polyev and you've got premier daniel smith and these two

00:22:56.440 natural allies have now got this horrible conflict between them how is that going to work out so

00:23:04.920 So this is a really tough one.

00:23:09.040 The plan idea is fine, and to the degree that I can tell it would work as advertised by

00:23:15.320 the government of Alberta.

00:23:17.660 Getting it over that particular hurdle is going to require some creative thinking by

00:23:22.340 the people concerned.

00:23:24.340 I think speaking to what you were talking about with Prime Minister Polioff, it's also

00:23:29.020 given Trudeau a wedge issue that he can go and say, look, Alberta's trying to rip the 1.00

00:23:33.020 rest of the country off. And he can certainly use it to his benefit. The idea itself has kind of

00:23:40.380 gone over like a lead balloon across the country in other provinces, as you would expect it would.

00:23:47.420 Saskatchewan officials, Newfoundland officials, even the people in charge of the CCP said no.

00:23:56.460 So it is going to take a lot of persuading and arguing to get it through.

00:24:02.180 So the rest of the country basically takes the position,

00:24:04.600 too bad we're gonna go on ripping you off forever?

00:24:06.700 Exactly, well, because their residents

00:24:09.300 are gonna have to pay more, right?

00:24:11.180 Yeah, well, and that's where some of those discussions

00:24:13.040 maybe will finally get serious in front of some Canadians,

00:24:15.220 though, why are you vulnerable like that?

00:24:17.240 This is supposed to be a pension plan,

00:24:18.880 not a social welfare program.

00:24:21.180 So I'm expected, I should be expecting,

00:24:23.940 I put in this much, that's my fund that's building,

00:24:26.920 that's sitting in there, that's waiting for me to draw from,

00:24:30.740 And I'm supposed to accept then that it'll be a lesser amount because we're

00:24:34.160 funding others who put in less elsewhere or we're of any different age

00:24:39.020 demographic, which is no fault of my own.

00:24:41.960 I know we'll be painted as selfish for daring to say that, but again,

00:24:44.960 we're not talking about any other transfer payment.

00:24:48.200 This is supposedly a pension plan.

00:24:50.480 No, and I think Nigel wrote about it.

00:24:54.120 In fact, I know he wrote about it is Canada pension plan has done okay for

00:24:57.980 itself and was a 10 uh basically which is a lot better than my current investment portfolio so

00:25:05.020 and one of the big arguments in alberta is going to be okay who gets control of this

00:25:08.220 who runs it uh you know and i think daniel smith has made it pretty clear it's going to be in our

00:25:13.020 in our arms length uh organization that runs it uh but that you know that's going to be a worry

00:25:18.380 for a lot of people is who's going to control the money yeah and that is worth worrying about

00:25:22.780 with the like we're talking about a pretty substantial difference here like they're they're

00:25:28.140 quoting for fourteen hundred and twenty five dollars a year less in premiums more than a

00:25:35.100 hundred dollars a month so we've actually now to support the rest of canada are all paying

00:25:41.500 a hundred dollars a month more than we need to that's a pretty strong argument and by the way

00:25:48.700 that goes for the employer as well because they're matched.

00:25:50.940 It's costing businesses a lot of money.

00:25:52.300 It's costing, you bet.

00:25:54.220 I mean, it could open the door too.

00:25:55.980 So I mean, that's just the first shot.

00:25:58.060 That's the calculation based on what they wrote up back in 66,

00:26:01.740 I believe, when it was formed.

00:26:04.140 That was the exit clause.

00:26:05.100 It was Ontario actually that insisted on having that within the legislation.

00:26:08.460 I mean, technically, we're just following the letter of the legislation.

00:26:11.980 And they didn't anticipate this kind of regional imbalance, I think,

00:26:15.500 in the fund at that time when when talking about somebody extricating themselves from it but maybe

00:26:21.180 i'm just throwing it out some different negotiations might come well maybe alberta

00:26:24.700 can do a phased exit the people who have the investment in the plan will still be entitled to

00:26:29.580 what will come out for what they put in so far but starting at this point they're going to contribute

00:26:33.580 to this new one and that way your old funds are protected but we're on to a new one so you don't

00:26:39.580 keep contributing to that pool because the disparity is only going to get worse or things

00:26:43.180 like that a lot of people in the uh the alberta separate argument basically saying we just want

00:26:49.900 what quebec has and guess who's got their own pension plan quebec does so if they can run it

00:26:55.900 i've heard no problems about it i've heard i think assume it's running smoothly so if they

00:27:00.380 can do it why can't alberta well alberta can it's just that the rest of the country will have ontario

00:27:07.260 especially which originally wanted the exit clause because they were a half province in those days

00:27:15.340 probably figured they might be getting ripped off by the rest of the country now it's working in 0.95

00:27:19.420 their favor not so keen no i mean the the motivations are with everybody a concern

00:27:25.820 are very easily understandable uh who who would vote to pay more if you lived in ontario

00:27:32.300 who would vote to carry on paying as much as we do if you live in alberta

00:27:35.820 And the timing is very interesting, isn't it, Nigel, that all the reports and the UCP final decision on what they're going to do is just a few months before the next provincial election.

00:27:48.280 You certainly see the battle lines being drawn, and Rachel Ngo is already screaming from high hell.

00:27:53.980 Well, Rachel Ngobley and her union followers all have separate pension plans that are very lucrative.

00:27:59.200 If for those who are solely relying on government pension plans, they're looking at a lean retirement.

00:28:06.460 Yes, yes, it doesn't take you very far, would it?

00:28:09.400 I mean, Premier Smith only has to sell it in Alberta.

00:28:12.060 That's something.

00:28:12.880 Some people are howling in other parts of the country, but that's not her concern.

00:28:18.120 As I said, it puts Paul Yevon in a terrible spot if he becomes prime minister.

00:28:21.340 Like I said, if Trudeau comes out and says he's going to fight to the death for it, and you're a Trump-tonian, and you're going to have to pay $1,400 a year more, maybe enough to swing a vote?

00:28:33.160 Certainly might. And then on top of that, you also have the emotive argument about

00:28:38.480 Alberto the renegade on climate change.

00:28:41.200 Yes.

00:28:42.200 So I can, you know, people were fantasizing here about what would a future Prime Minister

00:28:47.880 Polyev do, but it may not be. A future Prime Minister Polyev might be the same old story.

00:28:54.840 Because that's how the liberals always win, it's by division.

00:28:58.040 Yep. The next election is still a ways away.

00:29:02.040 It's never about building a consensus.

00:29:03.960 That was one of those things that's not done until it's done.

00:29:07.220 Well, getting on to, I guess, you know, climate change, the bad actor Alberta is, and just in general.

00:29:13.700 Can anybody afford electricity anymore?

00:29:16.180 We're starting to see the real costs are starting to come in now, I think.

00:29:20.300 You know, people are grinding it through, not just by saving the world from evil forms of electrical generation,

00:29:26.040 but now realizing that it's not cheap to save the world from these other generations.

00:29:30.060 No, my electricity bill was $200 last month.

00:29:32.920 I mean, come on.

00:29:34.620 But the people in Ontario got hit with a sticker shock yesterday,

00:29:40.320 as reported by Sean Polzer,

00:29:41.880 that a think tank has come up with a figure of $3,300 a month.

00:29:48.240 Oh, it's a year, isn't it?

00:29:49.380 No, I thought it was a month.

00:29:50.640 I think it was a year.

00:29:51.800 Was it?

00:29:52.080 Oh, okay.

00:29:52.660 Yeah, you're right.

00:29:53.540 Yearly.

00:29:53.740 It's still a big buyout.

00:29:54.280 Yearly.

00:29:54.940 $3,300 a year by 2030.

00:29:56.780 Yeah, it was like $300 a month.

00:29:57.940 The price was $200.

00:29:59.020 Yeah.

00:29:59.240 So maybe we should let Sean in on. Why don't we pull him in there? Hey, Sean, how you doing?

00:30:07.220 Doing all right, guys. How are you? Good, good. So as Dave already sort of self-corrected,

00:30:12.000 but it was your story there. What do we got going on? It looks like an energy reality check

00:30:17.200 has kind of landed in Ontario. Well, it was the Canadians for affordable energy and

00:30:24.380 uh they put out a report and it's basically using the numbers from the independent electric system

00:30:30.940 operator in ontario we have one too it's which is called the alberta electric system operator

00:30:36.460 and uh just uh outlined some scenarios of uh what would happen if they had to uh stop using natural

00:30:44.540 gas which comes from alberta under the uh proposed uh so-called clean electricity uh regulations that

00:30:53.340 were tabled earlier in the Alberta problem. Alberta politicians have had such a problem.

00:30:59.260 So yeah, and Ontario only relies on about, unlike Alberta, they use natural gas to back up

00:31:09.340 basically their nukes and their wind. So it only supplies about 10% of their overall electricity

00:31:15.500 compared to more than 80% here in Alberta. And what they're saying is that they were forced to

00:31:20.700 retire these gas fired plants early it would result in about a three and a half percent reduction in

00:31:29.500 gdp 60 increase in power bills so that's where the 3300 bucks per household per year comes from

00:31:38.220 and possibly even tip the government into deficit after 2030 i noticed that i think they had about

00:31:46.860 a two billion dollar surplus this year and this would reduce government revenues anywhere like

00:31:53.580 four or five billion dollars a year after 2030. So outside of electrical generation does this

00:31:58.780 apply to household natural gas use as well for heating and cooking and whatnot because that would

00:32:04.860 impact your electric bill if you had to switch all that over as well did you take that into account

00:32:08.620 to? As far as I know, it was only with regards to operating the power grid. So whatever other

00:32:18.020 electrical appliances and things that are used in there, it didn't specifically reference getting

00:32:24.340 rid of natural gas stoves, for instance, like they're talking about doing in Quebec, I believe

00:32:28.560 is effective January 1st of this year. Okay, so I just think that's a great irony, guys,

00:32:33.800 because what you could do then is, well, I want to save money on my electricity, so I'm going to

00:32:37.420 take out my electric range and take out my electric heating system and bring in natural

00:32:41.680 gas because it'll be cheaper than my electric bill now that they've gotten rid of gas-fired

00:32:46.000 electricity. The shoe is about to drop, as Sean will tell you, in Alberta tomorrow. That $3,300

00:32:53.780 a year increase in Ontario, they only use 10% natural gas. In Alberta, it's 80%.

00:33:02.240 So can you imagine that figure that's going to come down tomorrow for Alberta?

00:33:05.920 Well, and the consequences, again, we start getting to the, where do we go with this?

00:33:12.820 This is due to a national policy and provinces responding to it, but then the electrical generation is provincial policy.

00:33:19.700 Do you think, Nigel, we might see Ontario finally becoming a bit more of a vocal ally with Alberta on this sort of issue?

00:33:25.540 You know?

00:33:26.740 It would be logical, wouldn't it?

00:33:28.720 Well, yeah, but I mean, I didn't actually expect the Ontario government to be taking a logical point.

00:33:35.920 a view on some other matters that related to the you know how children are instructed in schools

00:33:41.920 either but it seems that they actually do react to uh when they don't have an answer they react

00:33:48.960 to what the public is saying and here we are with a apparently a sound calculation that everybody's

00:33:55.840 going to be paying 290 a month for for power if they carry on with this that's got to uh that's

00:34:04.240 got to send people back to the drawing board i mean there's one thing for alberta to object to 1.00

00:34:08.640 what the federal government is trying to pull but when you've got ontario saying just a minute

00:34:14.240 maybe we should rethink this maybe we should put this off for a period of time

00:34:20.240 then that rather undercuts what we were saying just a few moments ago about the

00:34:25.760 prime minister being able to build a solid block against alberta and saskatchewan

00:34:31.280 These people are not going to want to pay another $290 a month for their electricity. Lord knows, we certainly don't. So I think we've got a common interest there.

00:34:41.480 Well, and again, I think it's part of the problem among many that the federal liberals just can't seem to understand and grasp. When they realize there's an affordability issue in Canada, they realize that they're losing in the polls because people can't afford their mortgages, their rent, their utilities, and their food.

00:34:58.280 but they can't bring themselves to relax their iron grip on their ideology that they have to

00:35:04.900 stop these sorts of generation. Like Dave, as you're saying, your bill is already, 0.96

00:35:11.300 and the rest of us in the hundreds of dollars a month, we can't afford it. Like ideology of

00:35:15.380 the common citizen goes out the window if you're worried about freezing to death or starving. I

00:35:19.620 mean, or at least, you know, losing weight and living colder. Yeah. And speaking of the liberals,

00:35:24.620 Sean just finished a story on Wilkinson, announced the sort of the route to oil and gas emissions,

00:35:31.580 and it didn't quite get up to Alberta's red line, but it looks like it's coming pretty close,

00:35:36.060 I think Sean can. Yeah, Sean, so I mean, we've been hearing that talk for quite a while too,

00:35:40.620 they keep nudging around the edges of it and everything, Gilboa's sort of hinting at it as

00:35:45.660 well, like are we seeing the beginnings of them coming up with a formal emissions cap soon?

00:35:50.460 Well, people always wanted to put in the emissions cap now for weeks and he's been

00:35:58.320 delayed and part of the reason is because Premier Smith essentially said that if they

00:36:03.800 come through with an emissions cap while they're doing this round table talks that they're

00:36:10.040 off.

00:36:11.040 It's Oprah though, it sounds to me she's pretty determined that if they do introduce

00:36:17.360 these caps that uh she'll walk away from these uh so-called consultations which include the 0.92

00:36:23.920 electricity regulations by the way that are supposed to be going on for the better part of

00:36:28.400 the year and uh minister zibola has said that he wants to unveil these caps by the time they head

00:36:36.320 off to the cop 28 summit in dubai in the beginning of december which uh premier smith has also said

00:36:45.760 that she will attend to uh unveil these um carbon capture incentives which are near and dear to her

00:36:52.080 heart so part of the package that uh wilkinson introduced today um made mention of carbon

00:36:58.960 capture but also said that the primary focus of government policy is going to be to remove those

00:37:06.560 emissions before they even hit the atmosphere which is code word for an emissions cap which

00:37:12.080 is actually spelled out in in this policy document that he supposedly went to paris to attend a

00:37:17.840 critical minerals conference but instead dropped a carbon management program you know in the shadow

00:37:23.040 of the eiffel tower but uh it says right in there uh emissions cap on oil and gas in brackets pending

00:37:32.560 so it's coming the question that i i'd love you to speculate sean why did the minister make that

00:37:40.800 announcement in paris if you're talking about policy that you're going to try and organize in

00:37:45.680 canada wouldn't wouldn't it have been a good thing to put that to the house of commons now

00:37:49.520 that it's sitting again or at least announce it at a trade or a trade show such as we've had here

00:37:55.760 in calgary recently why paris well that would have been a brilliant idea uh the reason that

00:38:01.440 they went to paris is because they're using the numbers in the iea uh road map to net zero that

00:38:07.040 that was released earlier this spring,

00:38:10.240 where they're talking about 25 million barrels a day

00:38:13.080 of oil demand and production by 2045 or whatever it is,

00:38:18.120 a number that the Saudis flat out said

00:38:21.320 at the World Petroleum Congress is fantasy.

00:38:24.400 Not only is it fantasy, it's dangerous.

00:38:27.600 So he went to Paris ostensibly to talk about critical minerals

00:38:32.440 and the irony is that about an hour after this,

00:38:36.700 rather lengthy policy document it's uh you know it's on the interweb so i don't know how many

00:38:41.820 pages it is but it's got to be about 30 or 40 pages uh you know they issued uh like maybe a

00:38:47.180 two-page briefing note that uh canada is going to have bilateral discussions with france on

00:38:54.620 critical mineral supply chains so why maybe they went maybe they went for the food guys you know

00:39:00.940 I heard that the food in France is pretty decent this time of year.

00:39:06.840 So it's right across the river from a 15th century wine seller.

00:39:10.840 Sean, didn't you find it ironic that Wilkinson in Paris making or dropping this announcement

00:39:17.420 when just across the channel, the Brits are announcing yet another multi-billion dollar

00:39:23.680 deal to go look for more oil?

00:39:26.720 Yeah, that's true.

00:39:27.620 um and i actually haven't got to writing that one up yet it was on my list this morning but

00:39:32.100 all these other things happen yeah 3.8 billion dollar development in the north sea um prime

00:39:38.340 minister sumak sunak uh so this one's going to be done from equinor which is norwegian

00:39:46.180 state oil companies so norway has become the largest supplier of both oil and gas to the eu

00:39:51.620 since the Russian invasion and they obviously have no intent on slowing down and it comes about

00:39:57.620 a week after the British Prime Minister announced a plan that they are stepping away from some of

00:40:03.140 their own net zero goals due to the affordability crisis that they're having in their own country

00:40:09.380 so it seems that the answer is not less oil and gas and fossil fuels but actually more in the interim

00:40:15.380 the world goes one way canada goes the other yeah well you know the issue with the speaker

00:40:22.740 and the the onion the unwanted guest is very easy to understand and it's very easy to say well look

00:40:29.780 it makes us look bad in the world the issues in india are actually relatively easy to understand

00:40:36.340 and you can see how it makes us look bad to the rest of the world but this stuff that sean is

00:40:41.700 talking about is so wrapped up in reports and files and research and organizations that meet

00:40:49.540 in hot places to talk about the global warming crisis and it isn't so easy to understand but

00:40:57.780 for my money this is actually one of the most serious issues that we have to face that this

00:41:04.340 This government apparently does not care that people will freeze to death in the dark if

00:41:13.100 their policies are fully consummated, because even if they can get electricity, they won't

00:41:19.660 be able to afford it.

00:41:21.860 This is like not having enough to eat kind of serious. 0.55

00:41:26.400 The liberals are dangerous.

00:41:28.220 Absolutely. 0.83

00:41:29.220 And it shows as well.

00:41:30.720 I mean, as you mentioned, it's that different world, though.

00:41:33.840 It is a different world. Those ones who attend those climate conferences, as Sean pointed out, these are IEA, that's International Energy Agency, I believe, targets, not domestic ones that we're binding ourselves to.

00:41:45.000 I mean, Trudeau has always wanted to be the star on the foreign stage, and he's done a terrible job of it, ironically, despite that being his priority.

00:41:53.040 But it sounds like, as we said, other countries like the UK, Norway, they're becoming pragmatic.

00:41:57.200 They're realizing, hey, we like this stuff, but we can't afford to do this.

00:42:01.140 we we've got to get back to these fossil fuels but canada is the laggard in this we just insist

00:42:06.980 on the self-flagellation over this and you know we're trying to do all this with electricity

00:42:11.460 where billions of people in africa would just like electricity yeah yeah some some great 900

00:42:18.820 million people do not have electricity yeah i think there's even more than that that's one of

00:42:23.780 those i find repugnant attitudes from a lot of these these developed world environmentalists

00:42:30.100 when we've got developing nations that really could use affordable energy to develop their

00:42:35.720 entire economy because it's so key to everything. And they'll say, here, have a windmill. Thank us

00:42:41.400 for it. No, no, we won't give you natural gas. No, we won't let you damn that river. We won't let

00:42:46.080 you have a nuclear facility. But here's some windmills and solar panels. And come on, guys,

00:42:51.700 you'll be all right, won't you? It's just a disconnect from reality. And it's like the

00:42:56.660 Liberals are trying to bring us down, bring Canada down to a third world level, because that's what 0.96

00:43:01.520 will happen, Nigel, when people can't afford the electricity and whatnot. Do you think we have a

00:43:06.580 problem with 10 cities now? You wait for five years if all this stuff goes through. Third world, we've

00:43:12.240 already got the colored money. Yes, indeed. There's a lot of irony. I mean, so you briefly mentioned

00:43:18.000 carbon capture as well, Sean. So, I mean, a part of it just seems that we never get credit for the

00:43:23.200 effort we've done in our industries on that sort of thing like that's being ignored the progress

00:43:28.780 that's been made so far it's not considered if we could bring carbon capture to a certain level

00:43:33.000 that our energy generation would be sustainable well there was a considerable portion of the

00:43:39.160 document like I said was devoted to carbon capture Canada has the most functioning carbon capturing

00:43:47.840 facilities uh in the world we've got uh you know the quest up near edmonton there's boundary dam

00:43:53.440 in saskatchewan uh there was that direct air capture in squamish that just got sold to

00:43:59.360 occidental for a billion dollars ironically to produce more oil is what they're going to use it 1.00

00:44:04.160 for but um you know and there there was a note in there you know saline aquifers in western canada

00:44:11.680 basin so these are associated with oil production you know the conventional oil production that we've

00:44:17.040 we've had around here for the last 75 years have enough geological storage space to store

00:44:23.280 I think it was 800 years worth of Canada's emissions up current rates and it and it could

00:44:28.580 be even higher it could be you know a thousand years but then the policy of the government

00:44:33.840 is not necessarily to abate the so there's a recognition that these technologies will

00:44:39.320 be needed to meet the net zero because there's going to be some residual emissions from other

00:44:44.600 industries like cement for instance like more cement is used in the world than water it is the

00:44:49.960 absolute most uh used commodity on earth but that the policy of the government is going to be to

00:44:58.920 basically reduce those emissions before they even get there you know so uh they're they're talking

00:45:04.920 like uh carbon capture is only going to be about five percent of uh this solution that they have

00:45:09.880 in mind towards net zero so well keep watching and seeing what they come up with uh thanks for

00:45:16.920 it is a bit of a head scratcher app today thanks for uh watching and reporting on it while the 0.87

00:45:21.800 rest of us are distracted with the parliamentary naval gazing and idiocy that they've got going on

00:45:27.160 the other front because it's easy to forget that the the rest of the world and the policies are 0.79

00:45:31.080 still happening right now and it's all being overshadowed by just unimaginable uh events

00:45:39.880 All right. Well, thanks, Sean. Just one quick, I guess, to wrap it up, too. We didn't mention one of the first actions the Liberals did when Parliament first sat was to try and get unanimous consent to have this whole affair stricken from Hansard and from video records. So as if it never happened. That was their first instinct was to cover up rather than apologize or figure out what happened when it went wrong or anything. But let's just get it out of the way.

00:46:05.000 Yeah, you know, every now and then I get a letter from somebody who darkly suggests that everything that's being done is about control and suppression of thought and this kind of thing.

00:46:18.520 Yeah, well, you know, we do get those letters and there's something there, but I don't know whether it's what they say is there.

00:46:26.080 But boy, oh boy, if you wanted to make the case, the actual elimination, like photoshopping people out of the picture, as it were, if I can use that as a metaphor.

00:46:35.000 just pretend this didn't happen

00:46:36.920 that actually supports a rather nasty

00:46:39.200 it feeds it

00:46:40.720 it feeds it

00:46:41.860 you know

00:46:43.300 we don't do ourselves any favors in this country

00:46:46.920 it seems

00:46:47.260 alright well I think we've solved a few of the world's

00:46:50.980 problems hopefully they were all listening

00:46:52.480 we know our Indian audience is always one of two

00:46:54.660 so I thank you

00:46:56.940 very much Dave and Nigel

00:46:58.500 and Nico for keeping everything running

00:47:01.060 and Sean who's on his way out

00:47:02.640 and of course all of you guys for viewing

00:47:04.220 And make sure, hey, if you haven't got a subscription yet, westernstandard.news slash membership, take one out.

00:47:09.440 This is how we can keep bringing this stuff to you guys.

00:47:12.060 So thank you all for tuning in today.

00:47:14.200 Try to stay warm.

00:47:15.020 Put in a wood stove.

00:47:15.820 It's going to get expensive.

00:47:17.040 And we'll see you all again next week at this time.

00:47:20.420 Here's an update on commodity prices in Leppard for today.

00:47:23.200 Cash barter remains at $335.

00:47:25.540 Feed wheat is steady at $350.

00:47:27.640 While October corn is unchanged at $350.

00:47:30.000 And November-December corn is trading at $318.

00:47:31.980 In the milling wheat markets, December Minneapolis futures dropped $0.135 to $7.53 per bushel, with local hardwood spring bid for October movement at $9.40 per bushel.

00:47:43.420 Looking at canola, November futures added $11.90 at $7.2610 per ton, with delivered buys for October movement at $16.12 per bushel.

00:47:53.100 In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are holding at $0.365 per pound, and yellow peas are higher $0.25 at $10.75 a bushel.

00:48:01.980 In the cattle markets, October Live cattle are higher 45 cents at $185.25 per 100 weight.

00:48:08.660 For more information on pricing or picked up options, give me a call at 403-394-1711.

00:48:15.440 I'm Matt Buscombe at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

00:48:21.800 Canadian Shooting Sports Association, without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:48:28.160 these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and

00:48:34.400 legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns

00:48:39.600 out of the hands of the wrong people to become a member it's absolutely worth every penny

00:48:46.400 you can become a western standard member for just ten dollars a month or 99

Western Standard - September 28, 2023

The Pipeline： The Speaker spoke too quick

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