Western Standard - THE PIPELINE： There is no reconciliation without TRUTH

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Corey Morgan, a columnist with the Western Standard, and you're watching

00:00:28.040 the pipeline it is national truth and reconciliation day you probably didn't know because most people

00:00:35.080 in the working world didn't get a day off but if you're a federal employee you got a day off with

00:00:39.480 pay so that you could help trudeau with his virtue signaling exercise so we're going to talk a little

00:00:43.560 bit about that a little later in the show but we'll talk about some other things first i'll

00:00:48.360 kind of start with who i got in the room with me uh next to me is nigel hannaford one of our senior

00:00:53.720 columnists here as always yes and dave winnick on the end one of the news churning masters of the

00:01:00.280 pen hey cory how's it going good good and our beleaguered bc reporter out there on the west

00:01:06.680 coast area alex zoltan trying to cover the just the many many stories that keep breaking out there

00:01:13.000 thank you for having me yeah thanks so i guess i'll kind of uh start with you there alex uh

00:01:18.840 you got an election going on in bc unexpected or i was kind of expected i guess towards the end but

00:01:24.760 um it it's i don't know just in that whole mess of bc politics you've had going for months now

00:01:32.040 has it apparently resurrected the conservatives that everybody just written off for dead recently

00:01:37.400 yeah actually uh cbc's katie de rosa asked david eby that question at the rich rock

00:01:42.280 press conference she said have you effectively united the right and i would say that he has to

00:01:46.440 some extent unwittingly uh that's something i mean nigel have you seen many trends like this i guess 0.57

00:01:53.320 you know it takes uh one option to be so odious i guess that it just kind of rallies everybody 0.86

00:01:59.080 else around the other one well i yeah it happens now and then and you know it really bc is the

00:02:05.000 place where it will happen the extremes are so violently opposed to each other that uh

00:02:10.600 for the years that I worked in BC the rallying crime was not the NDP again do anything to get

00:02:18.880 people together so I'm not surprised that when when they realized that they had an election and

00:02:24.940 that it was going to matter what they said and did everything okay let's put our differences

00:02:30.120 aside for a while and I think five came back that said the same day the day after the election was

00:02:36.220 cold as i recall it was immediate yeah well good for them you may remember i i look at a bit of a

00:02:42.700 parallel i mean in how a premier can invoke cynicism among the electorate when they take

00:02:48.220 an opportunistic stance with with the late jim prentice he had orchestrated that disastrous

00:02:54.540 floor crossing that turned out to be with uh premier smith i was actually a campaign manager

00:02:59.260 in the remnants of the wildrose party and how battered and bruised we were at that time but

00:03:03.260 but we still came forward and ran.

00:03:05.800 But a lot of what I kind of got

00:03:07.380 was the public was just so soured

00:03:10.380 on the whole process in general.

00:03:11.840 They voted for the NDP

00:03:12.860 because it was a fresh smiling face

00:03:14.600 and they were just sick of the rest of us.

00:03:15.900 Well, I think that's exactly it.

00:03:16.920 And you look at EB's policies and everything,

00:03:18.600 obviously with like the land claims

00:03:20.440 and what have you.

00:03:20.980 And I think the whole debacle

00:03:22.100 with like the conservatives

00:03:23.460 kind of imploding there for a bit,

00:03:25.160 I can't remember what the polls are, Alex, right now,

00:03:26.880 but it looks like they have a very good chance

00:03:28.120 of actually winning this

00:03:29.460 because of EB calling the election.

00:03:30.940 So this whole thing might've,

00:03:31.840 just because EB basically just shot himself in the foot possibly with this whole thing and you

00:03:36.160 know the Conservatives can come out of this actually possibly winning despite it looking just

00:03:39.360 what a few weeks ago like they were just totally just imploding completely and utterly and

00:03:43.440 it's just so surreal the whole thing every day I just have no idea what to expect every single day

00:03:48.160 yeah so there was a Angus re-poll that came out last week or maybe it was earlier this week it's

00:03:53.360 hard to keep track of these things now but uh it had the Conservatives up eight points it was the

00:03:57.620 first major national polling data since the rip drop and then leger actually came out with a poll

00:04:03.220 as well this morning that had the conservatives up by three points if i recall correctly yeah that

00:04:06.940 was one i was thinking of yeah yeah it's a very hard argument to make that uh yeah the conservatives

00:04:13.080 may be in in a bit of a mess but uh that's no reason to vote for the ndp you know because the

00:04:20.740 NDP has a terrible record of government for the last four years. You have to say almost anything's

00:04:33.360 better than what Mr. Eby is doing, because you know what he's doing, and you know the direction

00:04:37.220 he's going. And if you don't like it, well, at the very least, you would vote for somebody else

00:04:41.440 just to get him off that rail. Well, if your day seems up with enough candidates, though,

00:04:46.220 you could still end up putting the NDP in, even if everybody's tired of all of them. So Alex,

00:04:50.780 some of the trying to keep track of the candidates coming, the candidates going,

00:04:56.140 trying to rush, I guess, nominations or putting people in so they aren't stepping on each other's

00:05:00.180 feet. What's going on with 1BC? Yeah, so 1BC, last time I checked, had 10 candidates running.

00:05:07.120 I think one of them may drop out. I'm not at liberty to say who at this point. They said

00:05:12.160 originally that they had 93 candidates, one for each riding, but they have since said that they

00:05:16.760 will not run in eight particular ridings against what they call principled conservatives. They tend

00:05:22.240 to be Carrie Lynn Finley loyalists. So that's a very interesting ideological line in the sand.

00:05:29.500 Okay, well, and then 1BC is not going to get a slate together large enough, I guess, you know,

00:05:35.400 to contest for government. So I mean, the position they're in is running for opposition,

00:05:39.980 That kind of puts you in a weak spot when you go to the polls anyways.

00:05:43.720 Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:44.720 I think that the bigger vote split threat, though, at this point, at least based off of the Leger poll that came out this morning, is on the left.

00:05:51.380 So the Green Party is polling at around 13%, if I remember correctly.

00:05:55.080 So they seem to be cannibalizing significantly the NDP vote share.

00:05:59.700 They are likely to run as little or as few candidates as 1BC, however.

00:06:04.360 So it remains to be seen how much of an impact they'll have.

00:06:08.060 that's quite something i mean you know what do you think nigel though can the conservatives hold 0.81

00:06:14.240 it together for another four weeks yes i think they can i mean the motivation to do so is extreme

00:06:19.980 now i realize we we principled conservatives can always find an excuse to differ with each other

00:06:26.160 but well maybe i've been out of bc too long to really know for sure but it does seem that the

00:06:33.200 The choice is so clear. If you want another four years, Mr. Eby, and the policies that he has advanced, which have put the B.C. debt spiraling upwards, you know, usually debts spiral downwards, but this case, the way it goes, you know, you could vote for that, but why would you?

00:06:55.700 You know, oh, it's better to scrap that lot and start again.

00:06:59.100 So, yes, I think B.C. conservatives will overall put it together.

00:07:05.680 There's also a lot of sensible people in B.C. once you get outside the, you know, the downtown core of Vancouver.

00:07:13.280 That's true. I'm in the Okanagan right now. They say it's the nicest part of Alberta.

00:07:18.700 There you go.

00:07:20.600 So, I mean, they almost kind of accidentally fell into what appears to be a very effective interim leader.

00:07:25.700 who's been serving quite well so far, though.

00:07:27.880 He's shown more, I think, life and in a dynamic role

00:07:32.560 than he had in past incarnations.

00:07:34.660 And that sort of helps them too.

00:07:36.200 I mean, they're not somebody who's just sitting

00:07:37.420 as a placeholder in this campaign.

00:07:39.820 Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:40.760 We had mentioned this a little bit

00:07:42.020 and gone over it a little bit on the last episode

00:07:43.880 of The Pipeline, but Lorne Dirksen coming

00:07:45.840 into the leadership role has really thrown a wrench

00:07:47.880 into the NDP's plans.

00:07:49.720 Their entire campaign was modeled on running

00:07:51.760 against what they called a mega regional manager,

00:07:54.280 referring to Carrie Lynn Finley.

00:07:55.440 I still don't know what that phrase means, but Loren Dirksen is by all measures, not a true blue conservative.

00:08:03.940 And of course, some people on the further right of the center find that to be a dislikable element of his political career.

00:08:12.020 But he receives great regards on both sides of the aisle in the legislature.

00:08:16.460 They hold him in high regard, even amongst the NDP members of the legislature.

00:08:20.180 So it's the entire NDP game plan has been thrown on its head.

00:08:25.440 Well, that's good for the conservatives in a sense, but I mean, part of the game plan, you know, and Dave, like we've seen this, President Trump has offered a great foil for the left.

00:08:36.220 You know, they're not campaigning against locally even.

00:08:38.740 I mean, Mark Carney rarely ever mentions or even acknowledges Polioff because he campaigns against Trump.

00:08:45.780 Now, Eby's trying the same thing, but I don't know if he's been getting the same result.

00:08:49.340 It doesn't seem like that. I don't really know what Eby is going to do to blame anything on Trump.

00:08:54.580 Like, is healthcare problems and healthcare costs in B.C. Trump's fault?

00:08:57.740 It's even the same with Carney.

00:08:58.940 I've never understood how people can look at how it's Trump's fault that everything has gone bad in the last decade in Canada.

00:09:04.520 Is it Trump that was responsible for our immigration laws and policies? No.

00:09:08.320 Is he responsible for any of the healthcare costs or anything? No.

00:09:10.340 Or the spending or the debt? No.

00:09:11.320 So it seems overall that basically just, well, so far the media in the last few years and whatnot with Eby and Carney has basically just really somehow managed to get everyone on their sides without them really doing anything.

00:09:23.780 But I think in Eby's case, especially with the whole land claim thing, just putting everything up in the air in BC, I think that's really going to come and backfire on him.

00:09:31.060 And basically at the same time, like we were saying earlier, can the conservatives keep it together for four weeks?

00:09:35.460 i think they can the sure chance that they know there's a good possibility that they might have 0.98

00:09:39.300 power just fall right into their lap here because people are so sick of eb and the ndp like nigel

00:09:43.940 said well so i'm gonna ask actually alex i mean there's more to it than just what people think

00:09:50.260 what's the organizational capacity of the of these conservative uh nomination writings can they get

00:09:58.340 out the vote i believe that they can um it's as i don't know maybe i'm going back a little bit too

00:10:05.700 far but in 2024 one of the reasons the conservatives were as successful as they were depending on how

00:10:10.820 you do the math they were either between one and three seats of winning the election was they were

00:10:14.820 riding on the magic carpet of justin trudeau's profound unpopularity and actually pierre paul

00:10:20.900 yev was quite popular the story i love to tell is somebody was saying that they were door knocking

00:10:24.980 for the bc conservatives in 2024 and uh it was actually a common response people would say well

00:10:30.260 i hate trudeau and i love paul yeah so i'll absolutely vote for you and then the two door

00:10:34.660 knockers would look at each other they say should we tell them we're a different level of government

00:10:37.780 and they said no forget it they said they're voting for us so what's awesome like very very

00:10:43.700 strange for me and a little bit surreal is that there seems to now be a decoupling of perception

00:10:48.580 between the federal conservatives and the provincial conservatives so this election is

00:10:52.260 a little bit different. I'm not entirely sure why. Well, that's weirdness, though. You used to have

00:10:58.960 liberals and liberals, too. Yeah, absolutely. And just to piggyback off of David's point about the

00:11:03.300 whole Donald Trump thing, I don't know why I'm giving so much credit to CBC journalists. Clearly,

00:11:08.460 I'm too busy and I've lost my mind. But Mo Amir, who's another, I think, talented journalist with

00:11:13.920 the CBC, he said that Carney owns the Trump file. David Eby is just renting it. And I think that

00:11:19.600 that's actually a really smart way of looking at it because when you think about it in terms of

00:11:24.100 dollars and cents i mean the federal government is the level of government that has carriage over

00:11:27.920 trade so what is david eby even going to do in terms of stabilizing canada in the face of this

00:11:34.060 existential threat he's not going to end the trade war by taking american liquor off of bc

00:11:38.900 liquor store shelves i mean the whole thing is just patently ridiculous well and to be fair to

00:11:44.640 the cbc i mean i did a cbc radio spot yesterday i'm doing another one tomorrow their hosts are

00:11:49.240 actually usually very professional and gracious.

00:11:51.440 I just don't know if anybody's listening to them anymore,

00:11:53.320 but I still don't turn down the requests.

00:11:56.260 I guess just the final thing on this.

00:11:57.900 So kind of that turning point, I think maybe though was,

00:12:00.120 as you keep mentioning that whole land claim thing,

00:12:02.300 that was kind of really where things get overstepped.

00:12:04.060 Even the most dedicated of champagne socialists,

00:12:07.000 when you're in your $3 million home in Vancouver and

00:12:09.640 suddenly it looks like you might lose it.

00:12:11.200 And you voted for it.

00:12:11.800 You're going to reevaluate who's leaving your product.

00:12:14.320 Absolutely.

00:12:15.620 And you know, it's not just leaving it, it's trying to

00:12:18.280 get any credit on that chap a chap I just had him staying in the house here

00:12:24.060 recently family visiting they want to do major renovation on their house and

00:12:30.840 these are people who can well afford it but the bank is little a little reluctant

00:12:38.200 to put the money out there because they just don't know which layer of title the

00:12:43.900 fee simple or the Aboriginal title as demanded by the federal government is

00:12:50.660 going to come out on top. So you know, how do you collect when you don't know who

00:12:55.180 to collect from? So it's not just the sale, it's also to the degree that your

00:13:01.400 house is a repository of credit. Well, you can thank Mr. Eby for pushing that

00:13:06.520 along. I mean, you can also thank Ottawa. That's, let's not blame Mr. Eby for

00:13:11.120 levels of that yeah but i mean the thing is he has taken it seized it owned it said this is a good

00:13:18.880 thing gone down to the to the to the meetings and put on the put on the feathers and you know

00:13:28.720 he has identified with that well all right well if you're identifying with that point of view

00:13:33.600 this is what goes with it and people are going to hold you accountable for it i think people

00:13:38.960 didn't realize the tangible downside of drippa they didn't pay attention to politics or realize 0.93

00:13:44.000 what this sort of crap leads to what happens it's not just virtue signaling it leads to legal 0.88

00:13:48.960 precedent and they saw holy cow this is what's happening and eb has talked around it i think 0.98

00:13:55.680 didn't alex but he's not he's not going to repeal it so he kind of leaves him in a hard spot well

00:14:02.320 he actually did want to i believe acts part of the declaration of the rights of indigenous

00:14:06.480 People's Act, which was Section 7. But he didn't have the votes because John Philip, who tragically

00:14:12.040 passed away just recently, she said that she would not vote according to party lines on that.

00:14:17.540 So that is one of his ulterior justifications, if you will, for having this election in the first

00:14:22.880 place. He's not as pro-DRIPA as necessarily he's characterized as. Even he knows that it just makes

00:14:28.700 the province entirely uninvestable. Well, so I mean, if, you know, people in BC are dejected

00:14:34.240 upset and worry about the political situation. They now have the opportunity, though, to a

00:14:38.660 plethora of heroin, meth, and fentanyl dealers because it's a charter right for people on the

00:14:43.440 street to supply you with drugs. What the hell's going on out there? Oh, yeah, I could talk about

00:14:48.840 this one all day. So I've been covering this case for over a year. It relates to a group called the

00:14:54.260 Drug User Liberation Front, which is really just two individuals for the most part. They do have

00:14:58.700 some support, however, at the ground level. Their names are Jeremy Calicum and Aris Nix.

00:15:02.640 I would describe Calicum as profoundly normal and Erisnix as profoundly abnormal.

00:15:08.140 And basically what they decided, I can get into a little bit of the human element of this because I think it's relevant.

00:15:14.420 Calicum was a chemist by trade and he had a PhD, if I'm not mistaken.

00:15:19.140 And he had a friend or family member who was a cocaine addict.

00:15:23.880 And so he came up with the idea to buy and procure cocaine off of the dark web and then test it for purity.

00:15:30.220 so that he could provide it to this individual so that they wouldn't overdose on fentanyl and

00:15:34.300 benzodiazepines cut into the cocaine. And he was so successful at this that I believe this

00:15:40.620 Eris Nix individual approached him and said, why don't we do this en masse? And so they went to 0.89

00:15:45.220 the provincial government and they said, we would like to procure cocaine, heroin, and crystal meth

00:15:50.260 off of the dark web, test it for purity, and then sell it at cost at the downtown east side. And the

00:15:55.020 provincial government said, we think this is a great idea. So they gave them $200,000 and three

00:15:59.920 tranches of funding to do this. And they also, I'm referring to Dolphin again, they went to the

00:16:05.640 Vancouver Police Department and presented them with a PowerPoint presentation explaining what

00:16:10.340 they were going to do. They were completely above board. They didn't want to get in trouble.

00:16:14.380 But then ironically, the provincial government, after an economist article created a social uproar

00:16:19.060 over their project, they were shut down by the Vancouver Police Department. And these two

00:16:23.400 individuals were charged on three counts each for trafficking the cocaine, heroin, and crystal meth.

00:16:29.700 Now, of course, because they did everything above board, the judge had no choice really

00:16:33.740 but to declare them guilty of the crime.

00:16:35.800 But then they did what they call a charter challenge in the B.C. Supreme Court, and they

00:16:41.320 challenged their convictions on these three counts of drug trafficking on account of two

00:16:45.720 charter infringements.

00:16:47.100 The first charter infringement is on Section 7, which is Canadians' right to life, liberty,

00:16:51.580 and security of person.

00:16:53.360 So they said that depriving drug addicts of the right to clean drugs and pretested drugs

00:16:57.300 as an abridgment of that right.

00:16:58.960 And they also challenged it under Section 15 of the Charter,

00:17:02.060 which protects Canadians against unfair discrimination,

00:17:04.940 in this case, on the basis of disability,

00:17:07.260 with the disability being severe substance abuse disorder.

00:17:11.940 So, essentially, though, they have ruled now

00:17:14.880 that there's a charter right to, quote-unquote,

00:17:18.300 and I put that in quotes, clean street drugs.

00:17:20.380 I mean, is there really such a thing as clean meth or fentanyl for you?

00:17:24.500 I understand in medically controlled environments,

00:17:26.940 you can apply fentanyl. I mean, it helped me through my colonoscopy magnificently, but

00:17:31.100 you know, there's no safe street application of these drugs.

00:17:34.460 No, and the unfortunate thing about it, there's a number of unfortunate things about it, but

00:17:40.220 if they are buying off the dark web, they are buying from the same people who are creating

00:17:47.420 the problem in the first place. I mean, where do you think, you know, where do you think this

00:17:51.740 stuff comes from. So, first of all, they're going to have a constant quality control problem, and

00:17:59.000 fair enough, they probably manage that. But you're supporting the people who are trying to kill you

00:18:08.020 with this. It makes no logical sense. And the right to security of the person can be met a

00:18:19.040 different way. You can do what Alberta does and try to root people into

00:18:23.380 treatment, mandatorily, and see if you can clean them up. That's an honest way. 0.91

00:18:29.760 That's admitting there's a problem, now you're going to deal with it. This, by

00:18:33.440 whatever way you want to call it, is just feeding the same problem. And Lord knows

00:18:40.280 the provincial government tried. And you know, the BC government, the woe that

00:18:47.900 happening it was they were giving out pure drugs and people were taking them out on the street and

00:18:51.420 selling them now which possibly happened here as well and the story doesn't have any details about

00:18:56.700 that but it's certainly an ongoing consideration well actually one of the funnier things that came

00:19:02.460 up in the court proceedings because i attended some of them in person this goes back all the

00:19:06.300 way to last summer if i if i'm remembering correctly uh it's been a long time this has

00:19:10.300 been in the courts but they said one of the reasons that they procured the drugs off of

00:19:14.060 of the dark web is number one, they couldn't get beaten up and robbed doing it off of the dark

00:19:18.480 web. And number two, if they received the drugs and the drugs were not of a sufficient purity

00:19:22.480 level, they could go back to the seller and get a refund. Well, you know, price guarantees that

00:19:28.820 I guess. I mean, I believe in that world, getting a refund usually involves having to go to their

00:19:33.200 place with a shotgun. Yeah, but I hate to be pedantic about this, but when it comes to the

00:19:40.280 law, I think it's important to be precise. So the judge did not say that there is a constitutional

00:19:44.400 right to drug trafficking. What she did say, however, is that Section 5.2 of the Controlled

00:19:49.420 Drug and Substance Act is unconstitutional. And the reason that she says it's unconstitutional

00:19:54.720 is that there is no licit source for these drugs. So one of the failures or one of the

00:20:01.280 shortcomings, I guess you could say, of safe supply, if you even accept that term, is that

00:20:06.540 the potency of fentanyl is so high as compared to the potency of a drug like Dilaudid that the

00:20:12.480 drug addicts just don't even want the Dilaudid. They just end up selling it on the street so that

00:20:16.320 they can buy fentanyl. So DOLF was meant to kind of bridge a gap between the high potency fentanyl

00:20:21.620 and the low potency pharmaceutical grade heroin is what I call it. And so that bridging of the gap

00:20:26.920 was street heroin pre-tested to ensure that they didn't die of a fentanyl overdose from doing too

00:20:31.720 much of the heroin. And apparently the judge found this very persuasive and she approved.

00:20:36.540 I'm prepared to accept, Alex, that these gentlemen were motivated by the best of intentions.

00:20:46.920 But in the end, it is still a breach of the law, and it's not a breach of the law that

00:20:53.520 has to happen in order for somebody to receive justice.

00:20:57.140 There are other ways to do that.

00:21:00.620 a right to receive a drug which is illegal is just uh you know it's contradictory it's a self

00:21:08.860 contradiction well it is that's what i was trying to figure out what the judge's thinking was because

00:21:12.500 she had to know and this is going to set a huge precedent now people are just going to poke holes

00:21:15.800 in this constantly she's just opened a massive can of worms now it's just i just no idea what

00:21:21.020 it really was even if it is partially unconstitutional still it's like you have to know

00:21:24.920 in this ruling what you're doing basically what's going to come now concept of enablement and they

00:21:29.800 You gotta get clear with it.

00:21:30.640 Look, I'm a veteran of the oil field of the nineties.

00:21:33.180 I went through my Coke phase.

00:21:34.400 That was a rite of passage with it.

00:21:36.300 I mean, I've had to recover from a number

00:21:37.800 of my shortcomings with addiction.

00:21:39.980 And one of the worst things with Coke back then,

00:21:42.940 thankfully fentanyl wasn't in it and things like that.

00:21:45.320 You know, they'd cut it with baby laxative,

00:21:46.900 which would lead to a terrible experience with you

00:21:49.560 after your indulgence, but it wouldn't kill you. 0.99

00:21:52.340 But you might wanna wish you were dead 0.99

00:21:53.740 after a couple hours in the bathroom. 0.98

00:21:55.200 But getting me more clean Coke wouldn't be encouraged me

00:21:59.120 need to move away from it.

00:22:00.780 It would just make me double down and say, I know I can get blown.

00:22:04.740 We're going to have a really good Friday night and I won't crap myself the next day.

00:22:08.000 I mean, you know, not to say it should be there as a disincentive anyways.

00:22:11.600 I'm just saying that this enablement idea is not leading anybody away from the drug use.

00:22:16.820 And isn't that supposed to be what the intent is?

00:22:18.880 You would think.

00:22:19.900 Well, you, I mean, yes, you would think that that would be the intent.

00:22:24.040 I wonder if it is.

00:22:25.980 Could be.

00:22:26.440 Well, one of the more shocking elements of this case that I think went maybe less understood than it should have is the Crown, in this case that was challenging the charter challenge, had said to the judge, we should just hold these convictions, we should stay them, and then maybe rewrite the law to include cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.

00:22:47.280 But the judge went further. She actually went further than the Dolph kids themselves. She said that this should apply to all drugs. So that includes fentanyl, carfentanil, nidazines, drugs that are even more potent than fentanyl is. And so this is actually one of the funnier things about the verdict decision yesterday. When the judge read out the decision, this Harris Nix individual who had just had their conviction stayed, she said to the judge right after, she says, so when should we expect the appeal?

00:23:11.620 so nobody expects this to go unappealed it's almost certain that the crown will appeal it

00:23:18.800 it'll go to the bc supreme court or sorry the bc court of appeal and then likely um

00:23:23.080 will take leave to the supreme court of canada i think it's when you say something like that

00:23:28.100 alex it encourages the listener to think yeah okay well this is crazy but it'll get sorted out

00:23:33.280 maybe it won't sometimes the further up the ladder you go the more horrified you are by the

00:23:39.620 the tenor of the decisions that come out of it.

00:23:41.900 Well, appeals courts have multiple minds on it.

00:23:44.740 That's true.

00:23:45.580 I mean, the B.C. Supreme Court judge in this case,

00:23:47.920 her name is Justice Catherine Murray.

00:23:50.980 She has given Parliament six months to change the law.

00:23:54.400 And I don't know what that law necessarily

00:23:56.440 or that change of the law necessarily looks like.

00:23:58.940 But to me anyway, as a reasonable compromise,

00:24:01.740 I think somebody that sells untested street drugs

00:24:05.760 as opposed to street drugs that are tested

00:24:07.540 should face maybe a more severe punishment because the likelihood of the purchaser dying of an

00:24:12.160 overdose is significantly higher. So if that's the compromise that is raised or that arrives

00:24:18.880 as a result of this decision, then I actually think that that might be a benefit.

00:24:24.260 There's ironies of these courts. It wasn't common sense. My ordeal yesterday in the courts was that

00:24:30.340 they wouldn't allow me to use a section seven defense. And now we're going to end up appealing

00:24:35.200 it to a higher court because it was an absurd contention that I'm not allowed to abide by the

00:24:40.720 charter. But on the other end of it, the charter has been applied and in a way that just seems

00:24:44.560 maybe not to be where the intent was to begin with. Well, that's why judges make the big bucks,

00:24:49.280 I guess. Let's just hope they make some good decisions. I mean, in the end, to Alec's point,

00:24:54.240 the idea, ultimately, the idea is to get people off drugs, not to make it safer for them to be

00:25:01.840 on drugs and i mean the only other way thing you could say is well actually drugs is fine and if

00:25:09.040 people want to do that they should be allowed to and it should be safe i don't know whether that's

00:25:12.880 a position we want to take as a society the addiction epidemic's horrific and it's beyond

00:25:17.440 anything we've seen in the past and that fentanyl is just so plentiful so power to fill the window

00:25:22.640 over there and see a bunch of people out in the parking lot every day i can i can understand

00:25:27.200 people trying anything they can i just want to see results based rather than uh empathy i guess

00:25:35.360 oh sure i was just gonna say yeah a message to our our listeners don't do drugs the best way

00:25:40.000 to avoid having an overdose obviously is to just exercise abstinence and not do drugs at all

00:25:45.840 that's the statement but you know people fall into it without intent and then we you know they have

00:25:50.160 to deal with that addiction and sickness later uh it only gets harder with time if they survive long

00:25:55.040 enough either way i know you got more to cover there's uh mr eby is going to be going out for

00:26:01.040 a truth and reconciliation thing and other such things so anything you want to let us know before

00:26:06.240 you go there no uh thank you guys for having me as always and i look forward to providing more

00:26:11.360 updates as the day goes on great thanks because we need those updates from bc man because they

00:26:15.280 don't make sense to us you guys are crazy out there well thank you at least we produced something

00:26:19.440 entertaining absolutely all right thanks we'll talk again soon so long all right yeah that drug

00:26:27.360 thing i mean as you said we could look out our window it's not unique to bc or any it's

00:26:30.400 every north america every country it does seem to be a little worse in bc i just had a look at the

00:26:36.080 numbers before i came on the show and uh i mean they go up and down but they're usually sort of

00:26:40.960 in the 2300 to 2500 range here in alberta it's about a thousand less than that vancouver's always

00:26:47.120 been a hub though east hastings is notorious for heroin even in the 80s i was gonna say i think

00:26:51.360 that's because it's on a major port i assume it's all coming in from foreign countries possibly i

00:26:55.280 don't know i think there's some of that that's it i think i think that people tend to drift west

00:26:59.600 yeah because i mean better weathering a street suit here you're better up yeah we're gonna freeze

00:27:03.760 outside winter here yeah but i mean then that's what happens to a lot of the addicts here too is

00:27:07.920 they freeze to death it's yeah i've seen that firsthand a couple times actually as i said i'm

00:27:12.560 just like you said i was i was foolish in my youth and dabbling in some things i shouldn't

00:27:16.400 to consume. Thankfully, I guess none of those awful things like fentanyl were on the menu at

00:27:20.220 that time in my period. It's never a good idea to make it easier to do drugs. And I'm not faulting

00:27:29.840 those individuals. They may be genuinely motivated by compassion, as they claim. I mean, different

00:27:35.280 strokes for different folks, but in the end, it's not a good thing to make it easier for people to

00:27:40.360 Drugs were very pure or alterated.

00:27:44.080 The enablement thing, I mean, BC, even EB had to back off on him.

00:27:46.980 He was the government of BC who asked for the decriminalization of the hard drugs and

00:27:50.300 the federal government obliged them.

00:27:51.880 And, and of course, addictions, as I rocketed, so they realized again, good intentions, doesn't

00:27:58.000 matter.

00:27:59.000 The outcome was wrong and they backed off, but these enablement battles are still obviously

00:28:02.680 going on.

00:28:03.680 Yeah.

00:28:04.680 I can't believe anybody actually wants to be on drugs.

00:28:09.000 No, it's not like you see those addicts.

00:28:10.840 We see them when we're walking here and so it's not like they're living

00:28:13.060 happily and having a good life or anything else.

00:28:15.520 I'm certain if they could flick a switch and lose the, the compulsion,

00:28:19.460 they would be the person to, to do so.

00:28:22.100 I mean, addiction is a bizarre thing.

00:28:24.100 I understand it.

00:28:25.140 You, you, most people can't break out of it without help and some

00:28:29.140 treatment and support and a lot of things.

00:28:31.200 And that's expensive.

00:28:31.980 It's time consuming.

00:28:32.860 And, and the irony of it is a person's not in their right mind when they're

00:28:37.880 in the throes of addiction and you need them to be in their right mind to make that determination

00:28:41.380 that it's time to go through the process to get out of it. It's, it's a, well, that's where

00:28:47.540 we're talking about forced intervention, maybe to separate discussion. We will disagree, but I feel

00:28:52.700 take somebody in when they're on that, when they're at that final stage, when they're on the street,

00:28:56.600 when the sores are erupting on them, they're out of control, detox them for a month. That's where

00:29:01.700 it'll take a month of, yeah, medically watched detox that hopefully they get into their right

00:29:06.600 mind by the end of it and then you can actually try treat well i recall some months ago corey that

00:29:11.960 you conjured up the image of somebody laying on a park bench in a pool of their own urine

00:29:16.080 you know in low temperatures and you said like how can you say that that person has agency

00:29:21.980 that an agency that would be worth respecting the only thing you can do with that is rescue that

00:29:28.400 person yeah and you know because it's drugs there is there is a seems to be a reaction among some

00:29:35.520 people say well they've got a right to do it if they do well you know what they've got a right to

00:29:40.340 just what do you do with somebody never mind drugs who's just laying injured well uh under

00:29:48.680 the mental health act hit by a car you rescue them yeah and under the mental health act in

00:29:53.860 every province it's the same sort of provisions yes if a person can be proven that they're going

00:29:58.300 to hurt themselves or others they can be taken and held because of that risk even if they haven't

00:30:04.220 committed a crime, applying the same logic to the person addicted.

00:30:08.440 If a person's standing out there stabbing themselves with a knife,

00:30:11.520 they're going to be taken and restrained and moved away from it.

00:30:14.080 But if they're smoking that deadly substance in a glass pipe,

00:30:17.000 we're saying, let's get you a better pipe so you don't burn your lips while you're at it.

00:30:20.520 They're not applying the right...

00:30:21.920 No.

00:30:22.340 I was going to say, did they ever do that?

00:30:23.640 Like, restrain people that did drugs like addicts we see in the streets,

00:30:26.200 like, say, 30, 40 years ago?

00:30:27.560 I don't know.

00:30:28.040 Was there ever any policies like that?

00:30:29.620 The addiction wasn't like that.

00:30:31.040 No.

00:30:31.240 I guess not, no.

00:30:32.100 34 years ago, there was weed, heroin, but it was a tiny amount.

00:30:36.780 Yeah.

00:30:37.280 I mean, I remember in Calgary, you used to go in

00:30:39.500 Edwardwood by the National Hotel by the end of the 80s,

00:30:42.820 the early 80s, and that's where the few amount of addicts

00:30:46.580 you would really see, you know, the heroin folks would hang

00:30:49.260 out there and in the rough condition they would be in,

00:30:51.480 but it was just a tiny amount.

00:30:53.060 And then you'd had some drunkards and whatnot,

00:30:54.620 but it wasn't like now.

00:30:55.860 It's just this whole wave of awful.

00:30:59.660 Well, see what happens.

00:31:01.500 leave it to the courts and others. Now let's get on to another easily solved issue. It's Truth and

00:31:06.700 Reconciliation Day. As you said, no reconciliation without truth, but truth doesn't seem to be

00:31:13.100 something we're allowed to talk about. What do we got going on, Nigel? Well, you said the word

00:31:17.660 reconciliation that cannot survive questions is not reconciliation. It's a political settlement,

00:31:24.220 and that's what we're dealing with. And by the way, talking to political settlements,

00:31:28.780 there's an interesting parallel

00:31:31.480 with what's going on with

00:31:33.360 we're talking about the land claims

00:31:35.300 and the judgments

00:31:36.520 the Cowichan Judgment and the Musqueam

00:31:39.080 Agreement in BC

00:31:40.320 aimed at transferring title

00:31:42.920 to Aboriginal bands

00:31:45.220 well

00:31:46.160 it's interesting that that is taking

00:31:49.320 place in the same

00:31:51.580 decade as we are having

00:31:53.580 this

00:31:53.980 confrontation over

00:31:57.140 supposed aboriginal graves now I say suppose because nobody has actually come

00:32:05.420 up with a grave containing bones that can be identified as being a student at 0.57

00:32:12.680 the residential school and say we didn't know about that this is actually a crime

00:32:17.660 scene we haven't look exactly that's a part of the problem that is the thing

00:32:21.620 and because we haven't looked we don't have the evidence and so people like

00:32:27.060 myself will say if this happened the way it has been described and portrayed and represented to

00:32:35.940 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa, then this is a grievous sin.

00:32:44.340 But nobody has actually produced the evidence, the literal evidence, the bones,

00:32:52.740 and the evidence that has been delivered orally has not been cross-examined.

00:33:00.160 Those who strongly believe in this narrative will say that would be just re-victimizing people.

00:33:06.680 If you make them defend their point of view, you should accept it for just what they say.

00:33:12.640 But then there's a lot of money riding on this.

00:33:15.980 And because there is a lot of money riding on it,

00:33:18.520 everybody should be that much more sensitive to the need to be absolutely sure about the truth.

00:33:27.020 And at the moment, you have oral evidence, and that's it. Somebody says that somebody did

00:33:36.040 something. Some of the proponents of this, there's a former defrocked United Church minister who

00:33:46.240 asserts with great conviction that certain atrocious things happened nobody

00:33:53.260 has the evidence for that so mean but it certainly does create an atmosphere

00:34:01.740 nationally in which people are more likely to be sympathetic to anything

00:34:07.540 that Aboriginal people ask for so I tend in my mind these two things are related

00:34:17.160 nobody has actually come out and said it well I'm probably exposing myself here 0.99

00:34:22.600 to you know some nasty letters to the editor but if you think it's going to be

00:34:30.160 tough to give up property you need to be in the frame of mind where you think

00:34:36.820 maybe maybe ought to maybe you would be doing something good maybe you would be helping to

00:34:43.780 to solve a problem and that is very well that that's pushed along quite nicely by the by the

00:34:54.500 the narrative that 215 graves have been found when of course graves have not been found

00:35:05.460 anomalies in the ground have been found money has been given to the local native band

00:35:13.860 well i call them bands by the way not trying to diminish their dignity but that's according to

00:35:19.220 the indian act that that's what we're dealing with um and they they've not applied the money

00:35:25.060 to that purpose so we still don't know i was gonna ask you as well corey i saw something i

00:35:29.940 don't know if this is real but did the rcmp do an investigation into kamloops in the 90s and said

00:35:34.100 they found nothing because this was popping up all over social media i'll have to look in this

00:35:37.860 but somebody has something about they did an investigation into those graves back in i think

00:35:42.900 95 is what i was seeing and they came up with nothing so i don't know if i'm not sure on that

00:35:47.700 one i'd have to look into it i wouldn't want to say there's a whole bunch of stuff yeah but the

00:35:50.100 thing that i find very odd is just how rabid the people are that believe that there were all these

00:35:56.180 mass graves and there was like a mass genocide going on like we've seen so many like just recent

00:36:00.580 examples. I mean, once again, I think yesterday, Frances Widdowson was at the U of Vic and she

00:36:06.620 was obviously there talking about residential schools and whatnot. And a bunch of, you know,

00:36:11.040 protesters came and counter protested and whatnot, were yelling at her. And I guess apparently her 0.98

00:36:14.640 cameraman got assaulted again. I think that's the second or third time that's happened. And then

00:36:18.900 also yesterday, Tom Flanagan, who was a former professor of the U of C of political science,

00:36:23.640 I think, was he an advisor or aide to Stephen Harper? That's what I thought. Yeah. Him and

00:36:28.160 The rebel news is Drea Humphrey were there, and they were doing one of those kind of like sit-down, change-my-mind things.

00:36:33.240 And they were talking to students.

00:36:34.060 By all accounts, it was pretty civil for the most part.

00:36:36.260 But then some student, we don't really know if it was a he or she or whatnot, came up and dumped a whole thing of water on Tom Flanagan's head and then got, you know, just detained.

00:36:44.640 And apparently he's going to be charged with assault.

00:36:46.100 But it just seems to me how these people can believe something so much when there is zero evidence that there were any of these mass graves.

00:36:54.060 Like mass psychosis almost.

00:36:55.660 The exaggerations are being entrenched through other means.

00:37:00.280 There was something that just horrified me with a drama, a Canadian-made TV series.

00:37:04.560 I can't remember the name of it, but it was like a detective series based in eastern Canada.

00:37:09.500 And one of the situations showed this abandoned building, and they'd gone into the basement,

00:37:13.500 and here down there is an electric chair.

00:37:15.660 And this was allegedly an old residential school site, and the electric chair was down there

00:37:20.520 because they used to strap children into it and electrocute and torture them in it.

00:37:24.700 Yeah.

00:37:25.100 this was in a tv show and then it was just left as fact apparently this chair has been sitting in the

00:37:30.140 uh you know residential school for the last 60 years uh you know as a testament to it was just

00:37:35.340 bizarre but again you see if you're a viewer who doesn't look deeply into things or a younger one

00:37:39.820 and so on you take these things as fact i mean i think that was based on one of those oral

00:37:44.700 testimonies again that they'd made a claim and had absolutely no evidence but we have

00:37:49.740 have modern media or, or, you know, whatever you would call it, the arts and so on.

00:37:55.260 And it, just entrenching this further and, and, and it's, if people believe that I can

00:38:00.940 understand why you get so upset.

00:38:02.160 Holy cow.

00:38:02.700 We've had this culture of torturing children.

00:38:04.380 I mean, we've heard the stories about them throwing them in ovens and hanging them from

00:38:07.220 meat hooks and, and again, none of it ever with any evidence and the people who do question

00:38:12.220 it, they get the treatment like Francis Whittowson or, or, or Thomas Flanagan.

00:38:16.380 Look at what we were talking about earlier.

00:38:17.900 When I said, like, you've watched the CBC today, it's been nothing but wall-to-wall propaganda 24-7 since I turned it on this morning.

00:38:23.900 And like I was telling you earlier, they had a reporter with a bunch of these kids.

00:38:27.620 They were playing a board game to teach them about truth and reconciliation.

00:38:31.180 And I'm sitting there going, like, this is just pure propaganda.

00:38:33.700 They're just little kids.

00:38:34.480 Like, they're probably no more than 10 years old, 12 years old.

00:38:36.960 And I'm just sitting there going, it's just absurd.

00:38:39.460 It has really reached the points of just absolute absurdity to me.

00:38:42.600 Yeah, well, you have to wonder why people want to believe it.

00:38:45.860 Yeah, I don't know.

00:38:46.640 any activist said that was very lucrative for some people

00:38:51.180 I think it's a whole like victim you know just victim complex like people have it seems on the

00:38:55.200 left especially everyone wants to be a victim I don't know that gives you some sort of clout

00:38:59.140 over other people possibly well perhaps so I mean to the point about the CBC and they they managed

00:39:06.620 to find a story about a uh a missing child now the child died in about 1926 i may be off a few years

00:39:17.100 but this is like ancient history and they ran it right on cue for truth and reconciliation day

00:39:26.060 and the quick takeaway if you're not a careful reader is well there there's one

00:39:31.180 Well, in actual fact, no. The child was from Northern Alberta Reserve. They had been gone to a residential school. They had got tuberculosis. It's not out of the question they had it before they came, but they certainly had it when they died, and they died in hospital.

00:39:48.300 the death was recorded the child was given a decent burial what didn't happen was apparently

00:39:55.800 allegedly according to the stories of parents were not given a many notice that the child had

00:40:02.420 died which if that's the way it was was obviously a you know pretty bad pretty bad show not the

00:40:09.780 things were not done well but it's rolled out to color truth and you know how it is in a newsroom

00:40:17.860 Well, we've got 9-11 is coming up.

00:40:20.040 Do we have a 9-11 survivor?

00:40:21.800 That's the way they do business.

00:40:23.760 Well, that's the way they do business in the CBC as well.

00:40:27.820 And somebody said, oh, we've got this great story.

00:40:30.400 Okay.

00:40:30.780 Get it written up.

00:40:32.000 Okay.

00:40:32.260 When's Truth and Reconciliation Day?

00:40:34.120 It's, it's almost okay.

00:40:36.160 Hold it for then.

00:40:37.600 Yeah.

00:40:37.860 You know, roll it up and then it just creates.

00:40:40.400 And that's what gets to me too, though, is if, if these more contemporary ones,

00:40:43.860 allegedly in the fifties and sixties and Kamloops, if there were family members,

00:40:47.040 If I had a cousin or a sister who disappeared at that school and I thought they were in that cemetery, I would want them exhumed so that I could have them properly interred, you know, at their home area or something.

00:41:00.440 Again, there's none of the demand for that.

00:41:01.960 They turned the entire Winnipeg landfill upside down because apparently it's so sacred to get the remains of somebody who's been murdered and they did so.

00:41:10.440 Yes.

00:41:10.540 but in Kamloops apparently no in that case we have to leave these bodies of murdered children

00:41:15.560 down there and leave the investigation wide open it just defies common sense wouldn't the families

00:41:20.820 want closure if they think that one of their lost relatives is in there it's like well dig it up do

00:41:24.500 some DNA testing like you said give them like proper closure proper burial why would you not

00:41:28.560 want that yeah but very odd the other thing is the other lack that we're allowed to speak of

00:41:33.360 there are no families putting their hands up saying they're missing children that's a big gap

00:41:37.980 in the whole truth thing.

00:41:40.640 And that's the other part too.

00:41:41.400 We're never going to get reconciliation.

00:41:42.720 They don't want it. 1.00

00:41:43.700 You know, I'm not saying all natives. 0.96

00:41:45.020 I'm just saying the activists set.

00:41:46.580 They want this to be an ongoing wound

00:41:48.160 that they can keep reopening

00:41:49.540 and keep pulling money out of it.

00:41:50.920 I was going to say more money, yeah.

00:41:52.200 And I guess we haven't even talked about

00:41:53.280 all the churches that got burned down over this.

00:41:55.040 Yes.

00:41:55.580 No, no, no.

00:41:56.220 No, no.

00:41:57.480 That was a happenstance that all the churches burned down.

00:42:00.020 Just churches though, nothing else.

00:42:01.520 Well, Mr. Trudeau said it was understandable.

00:42:04.120 Perhaps he did understand it.

00:42:06.200 Not enough.

00:42:06.840 not many things he was known for understanding but this this whole business about the the matter

00:42:11.880 of changing the relationship of uh of aboriginal bands to property is a 2017 statement from the

00:42:20.840 the government that mr trudeau led yeah i can't help okay all right back to you sir on to our

00:42:28.280 parting shots what do you got there dave isn't so much a parting shot is something i'm looking

00:42:32.040 forward to as we talked about earlier tomorrow is the day that i've been waiting for for months to

00:42:35.800 see if the west coast oil pipeline will be designated a project of national interest

00:42:40.120 i'm going to bet it's probably going to be a yes but as we were talking about earlier cory

00:42:43.880 will that mean it gets built is this just going to be what carney's going to do to say yes to maybe

00:42:47.800 appease some of the people on the independent side in the upcoming referendum i guess we'll see

00:42:51.640 but i'm betting money tomorrow but it's going to be yes it's going forward yeah your logic's pretty

00:42:55.720 good yeah you're probably right yeah yeah uh my parting shot was you know there was an executive

00:43:01.880 at the Toronto Dominion Bank who was asked to start using pronouns this is

00:43:07.940 company policy that on your email letterhead you say whether you're a him

00:43:12.740 or him she her what you know and anyway this this this ladies said no I'm not 0.99

00:43:19.460 doing that but I'll tell you what I'll put down a Christian cross if you want 0.95

00:43:23.180 to know who I am what I stand for that let it be that and she well no you can't 0.95

00:43:27.400 do that you can only do the you can only do things that are regarding the

00:43:31.040 sexuality well she stuck to her guns they fired her and my first reaction when i was read that

00:43:36.720 read that is well why should that one uh why should the bank act like that well read a little

00:43:44.560 more did the background work on it and it turns out that ultimately you can trace this back to

00:43:51.680 mr trudeau again through the it was him who insisted on adding that to the canadian as an

00:43:58.800 as a prohibited form of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

00:44:05.740 So in order to provide for an equitable workplace,

00:44:10.100 large companies which are regulated by the federal government

00:44:12.980 have to give employees the option to say whether they are this, that, or the other thing.

00:44:21.100 Just that, nothing else.

00:44:22.900 Now, I wonder if the TD had some enthusiasts in there pushing this,

00:44:26.980 But at any rate, all the banks do it.

00:44:28.780 Most of the large companies do it.

00:44:31.080 So, like I said, I haven't actually repped on my credit card yet, but I,

00:44:35.020 but this is, this is the government trying to make us into something other

00:44:39.700 than what we are and we're comfortable with.

00:44:42.520 It's compelled is what's going on.

00:44:44.020 Yeah, compelled speech.

00:44:45.100 I'll just close quickly with Mark Carney.

00:44:49.060 Sounds like might be a favorite for the Nobel peace prize.

00:44:51.740 Yeah.

00:44:52.240 Welcome to the politics of the world today, a prize that was built, I think,

00:44:55.240 with the best of intentions to really recognize somebody who changed

00:44:58.120 the world for the better and made things, you know, more peaceful,

00:45:01.500 presumably Mark Carney, who has a list of accomplishments.

00:45:05.960 Oh, I was going to say something awful.

00:45:07.480 They're shorter than something anyways.

00:45:09.760 And, uh, yet he's up there.

00:45:11.880 That's just them want to poke an eye at president, uh,

00:45:14.860 poke president Trump in the eye.

00:45:16.680 I guess all I could say is for the credibility of that award, just

00:45:19.220 remember that Yasser Arafat got one of those as well, because he stopped

00:45:23.660 killing people a little bit.

00:45:25.240 less than he used to. So pretty pathetic state of affairs. I'm sure Mr. Nobel is probably 1.00

00:45:32.880 turning in his grave knowing that this war has been named after him. All right, guys. Well,

00:45:37.720 thank you very much. Covered quite a bit today. And thank all of you guys for tuning in. One more

00:45:43.320 reminder, the Western Standard paywall is down. You can read the stuff that Dave's been writing

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Western Standard - October 03, 2026

THE PIPELINE： There is no reconciliation without TRUTH

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