Join us as we discuss the events of the past week, including the Prime Minister's visit to Saskatoon, the carbon tax, and the call for the removal of the Environment Minister, Stephen Gilbeau. We also hear from our opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford, and our news editor, Dave Naylor.
00:00:00.000Good evening, welcome to The Pipeline.
00:00:26.240This is the Western Standards weekly panel show where we'll dissect and break down the most important issues that have been breaking in the news throughout the course of the week.
00:00:36.740I'm Corey Morgan, one of the columnists at the Western Standard, and I'm joined by a couple other panelists who I'll get to quickly.
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00:02:23.760Yes. All right. So, well, we were honoured in Calgary today. We had a meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau came in and gave an audience to our Premier, Dave. What's the story here?
00:02:37.060Yeah. So, if you remember the last time, it was a month or so ago, he came here and Daniel Smith did not have a meeting and she was a bit perturbed.
00:02:44.900So, she heard Trudeau was coming to town and she asked for a meeting and did, in fact, get one on Wednesday morning down in the Eau Claire area.
00:02:53.100She laid her cards on the table, said she wanted to tell Trudeau face to face, said he should fire Environment Minister Stephen Gilbeau, talked about projects that needed to go ahead, talked about the carbon tax and how seven premiers are now against it, come out united against it.
00:03:11.940Trudeau left the meeting, went up to SAIT, where he had a press conference mainly on the dental programs, but of course, the media didn't want to talk about that.
00:03:23.020They wanted to talk about the carbon tax and Trudeau went on an impassioned plea about climate change and trying to change the world and was not going to budge, was not going to fire Stephen Gilbeau.
00:03:37.260If Daniel Smith can't get along with him, she's going to have to change the way she acts.
00:03:43.220Our own Sean Polzer was able to ask the Prime Minister, does he still intend on throwing Scott Moe in jail for Saskatchewan's refusal to collect the carbon tax?
00:03:53.860And he just says he expects every Canadian to obey the law.
00:03:58.660And then the Prime Minister was off to a senior citizen's home to bother people during their lunch hour this afternoon.
00:04:05.940So Daniel Smith zoomed back to Edmonton, had a press conference, basically said the same thing, that, you know, she made her case.
00:04:15.280The Prime Minister made his case, but it was good that she was able to have some face time.
00:04:43.680Seven premiers against it and most of the public against it as well.
00:04:49.060I wouldn't be surprised if they, I wouldn't be totally surprised if they backed away from it or said it would be delayed three months or something like that.
00:04:57.100But it would be a concession to make if they wanted to make one.
00:05:03.820But I must admit, I'm a little puzzled about why this meeting happened.
00:05:09.960He says that 1.3 million senior citizens in Canada are signed up for this dental program.
00:05:18.600So this is obviously not a new initiative.
00:05:21.640So why would you come to Calgary to recycle something that is already out there unless it was for a different reason?
00:05:33.240And the different reason would be perhaps to demonstrate resolve in the face of Western intransigence.
00:05:41.300Maybe it's something like that or to remove the stigma of having turned down a meeting with the Premier of Alberta a month ago.
00:06:09.340This time, as you said, they wanted to regurgitate the senior's dental plan that was going on.
00:06:13.920But it's certainly not worthy of a stop on its own, you would think.
00:06:18.780But, I mean, I doubt it indicates an election's coming soon.
00:06:22.820I don't look, by the way, at what they have on their website about the dental plan.
00:06:27.820It's very hard to tell what it would pay for and whether you'd be better off with the government's dental plan if you've already got one through your retirement, union, whatever.
00:07:09.240Remember last week the Liberals cut their alcohol tax that was going up.
00:07:15.580They cut it in half because of the outcry.
00:07:18.520So it would not surprise me to see some sort of reduction in the carbon tax.
00:07:22.800As you say, seven premiers, including Liberal ones, have all come out against it.
00:07:28.680A united front, massive, you know, that's huge.
00:07:31.540So Doug Ford yesterday said Trudeau will get annihilated at the polls because of this carbon tax.
00:07:38.920So, you know, we always say he's not a stupid man.
00:07:41.880So maybe he'll do some sort of concession where he'll still bring it in April 1st, but instead of this level, it will be at a level.
00:07:48.700And maybe he's a little bit stupid expecting people to believe that the carbon tax rebate checks that they receive are actually more than what they're paying for the carbon tax.
00:08:00.640Well, he's counting on us to be stupid anyways.
00:08:04.240Yeah, you know, I don't know whether you've done the exercise of going through your bills and just, you know, batting it all up.
00:08:29.100But what he does not ever mention or concede is that the effects of the carbon tax are felt through the entire economy because everything you buy, everything you own, comes by a truck.
00:08:44.560And when you are paying those fees on things that do eight miles to the gallon, diesel fuel percentage, right, that's a lot of money.
00:08:56.740And so he talks about how they want to fight inflation.
00:09:00.840Well, the inflation he wants to fight is a consequence of two things.
00:09:05.340One, his own reckless spending and borrowing to finance it.
00:09:09.940And the second thing is his damned carbon tax, which is not a tax on pollution.
00:09:19.060So, I mean, if they did decide to try and make some sort of concession on this, I mean, they have to be careful with it.
00:09:24.400When he did his clumsy effort to make a cut for the Atlantic provinces, you know, because his support was dwindling down there when the tax started applying to them.
00:09:34.240I mean, the rest of the provinces smelled the blood and the water.
00:09:36.480That's really what brought the rush to push this.
00:09:39.320So, I mean, if they're going to back down there, they're going to have to.
00:09:42.120Well, his answer to that was, well, this applies to the whole country.
00:09:47.200How many people do you think are still heating their homes in oil in Alberta?
00:09:50.480Yeah, I think the count was like less than a couple of dozen.
00:09:53.660A couple of cottages in Pigeon Lake or something like that.
00:09:56.420But as Nigel says, this carbon tax is one of the root causes of inflation.
00:10:01.060It goes from the farmer to the supplier to the restaurant.
00:10:05.000They're all charging more because of that carbon tax.
00:10:09.040And the Bank of Canada has said, well, don't lower the interest rates while inflation is so high.
00:10:14.580And now we, because I mean, that's going to crush a lot of Canadians who will lose their homes because of their increased mortgage payments.
00:10:55.920You know, they really plug all those tax hikes into April 1st.
00:10:58.940It's just that kind of spring, you know, you open the door and enjoy the spring weather and hopefully forget what they're about to do to your pocket.
00:11:05.560And guess who's getting raises April 1st?
00:12:45.880Mr. Nenshi's always had the problem of, he thinks he's the smartest person in the room.
00:12:52.900And he's never been able to play well with people.
00:12:56.160If you remember, the Calgary Council had to call in a psychiatrist to get them all together and see how they could work.
00:13:03.860So how he operates under a party tent is going to be very interesting.
00:13:08.980Well, and I think that is going to be interesting.
00:13:12.360It is going to be a bit difficult because you have in this contest for the leadership, a number of people have conspicuously paid their dues.
00:13:22.080I mean, I don't think any of us around this table have much use for NDP policies, but you can respect the fact that somebody like Kathleen Ganley or Sarah Hoffman, Gil McGowan, they have been in the party for decades.
00:14:30.360NDPers, one good thing about them is they're quite loyal.
00:14:34.120Well, it is going to be interesting to watch.
00:14:35.800I mean, if there was going to be an outside interloper to come in and take things over, you would think it would have to be a bridge builder then.
00:14:41.700You know, a conciliatory type of person, a team member, and that's anything but what Nahed Nenshi is.
00:19:29.020He's had a sharp tongue, I guess you could say.
00:19:30.940But people have often complained that it's gotten so negative, so polarized.
00:19:36.400I just would have thought with his political instincts, maybe he would try to come out in being a little more...
00:19:42.360Didn't work for Notley in the last campaign, did it?
00:19:44.740Well, she wasn't exactly positive in that campaign.
00:19:46.860Yeah, I mean, she ran a negative campaign, right?
00:19:48.860Yeah, and Nenshi, the last two days, holy cow, as you said, he's been calling Premier Smith everything in the book already.
00:19:54.360The difference is that Notley was already in the secure place.
00:19:59.300He needs his entry into the race to be noticed, and you do that by being a bit over the top.
00:20:06.180Well, as well, I guess when he's got a party that could turn their support against him, he doesn't want to campaign against the other candidates so much as he wants to campaign against Premier Smith.
00:20:16.620Because if he starts shooting at Gill or Ganley or any of them, that's not going to be well received by a lot of the party loyal.
00:20:22.900All of a sudden, with Nenshi and McGowan, I'm looking forward to the NDP debates.
00:20:28.220I mean, it was going to be... I wasn't even going to bother before, but hey, I'll tune in now.
00:20:31.980Well, at least it's good for the NDP. They're getting some good publicity out of it anyways.
00:20:38.480Well, they're getting that, and as I said, with the debates, just the first time Nenshi will do is patented eyes closed and up in the air and talking down to Gill and sort of patting him on the head across the room.
00:20:47.200We might see a blow up like he had with Arthur Green, our former reporter.
00:20:51.600Yes, I'm sure Nico could pull up that photo if he wanted to.
00:20:54.820If there's one thing Mr. McGowan has, it's a very short fuse.
00:20:59.240Yes. Okay, well, we'll be watching. It'll be giving us lots of fodder to chew on for quite some time because that race isn't done until June.
00:21:11.380So getting into the bigger, a little more broader, Jordan Peterson in the news, warning us of AI and big government.
00:21:20.240Yeah, he was down in Washington speaking to Congress.
00:21:24.520Some pretty scary stuff, big brother type stuff, and warned that it's, you know, state surveillance is going to become a thing.
00:21:33.160You know, I think our columnist Linda Slobodian pointed out there's 700 million CCTV cameras in China, and they're basically watching everybody.
00:21:44.120And all of these moves towards digital economy, digital money, digital this, digital passports, digital that.
00:21:51.220It's becoming a lot easier for the governments to spy on it.
00:22:27.900But this started in B.C. back in about 2002.
00:22:32.260And their objective, which was just step one of a much grander plan, was to put all the government information on one card, which has now, of course, evolved into one, if you want to carry it on your phone, one scan that just tells you everything about you.
00:22:59.500Now, the next thing was Alberta became integrated, and the two provinces are now integrated with the federal government.
00:23:08.480Your Alberta card, if you have one, will give you access to your federal accounts, EI, tax, whatever you need to deal with the federal government about.
00:23:21.860So you've now got two provinces and one federal government with access through one card.
00:23:30.840And this whole thing is being put together by one of those organizations that you're never, ever going to do a story about, because the name itself is like a long drink of warm water.
00:23:51.280There are something about the Canadian Bankers Association is in on it, and if you really like the World Economic Forum, well, they're in on it, too.
00:24:03.740But you can never find these things quickly when you have, when you're too well prepared, can you?
00:24:11.120But anyway, suffice it to say that there is, and here we are, it's called the Digital Identification and Authentication Council of Canada.
00:24:23.660And that brings together the BMO, Canada Post, CIBC, Desjardins, Forge Rock, Government of Canada, Interact, Manulife, Provinces of British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Secure Key, Toronto Dominion, TELUS.
00:24:40.680That was two years ago when I wrote that.
00:24:44.940And when you have got your banks and your governments and some of the service companies working together to get all of your digital identification on one chip, I say that trusting that system is asking too much of people.
00:25:38.840And that's the, that's the selling point.
00:25:40.880And then, of course, from the point of view of governments, they can easily tell you, well, we, you know, we, we, we deal in 50 million transactions every year between driver license renewals, EI claims, whatever, you know.
00:25:53.520There's a, there's 40 million Canadians and they've all got business with the government.
00:26:22.380But there's something about bank accounts, wasn't it?
00:26:24.780Bank accounts, plus vaccine passports, actually.
00:26:26.640If you wanted your movement restricted, whether it was travel, whether it was going to a restaurant, even you had to show your phone after you'd done an online registration of yourself to show your medical status.
00:26:37.240But we're still continuing to give it away.
00:26:39.340And the inconveniences of government, you know, I, my Alberta healthcare card.
00:26:45.040I mean, I had to go in for a driver's license physical because I got a class four and I have to pay for that out of pocket.
00:26:49.980So I go to a clinic, but my card had gone through the dryer.
00:26:53.540They wouldn't do it because I didn't have my Alberta healthcare card.
00:27:04.700You get people to say, well, you know, we'll just pack it all into one little card.
00:27:09.240Let me just play the devil's advocate.
00:27:10.540I'm not saying I agree with this because I don't.
00:27:12.180But if you're not, if you're a law-abiding citizen and you don't do anything illegal or anything wrong and just go about your life, what is there to, what's wrong?
00:27:24.080What's wrong there is that you may be subject to laws that you never contemplated.
00:27:30.280You know, five years ago, would you have thought you would have had to show your phone to, you know, a young lady who meets you at the door of the restaurant?
00:27:50.740So what it means is that you sign up for one thing and you end up getting given another.
00:27:56.280And by the way, even if that wasn't the case, why does your liberty have to be predicated on the assumption that you're always going to agree with the government?
00:28:11.780You know, just because you're not doing anything wrong doesn't mean that you should be silent about when people want to know exactly what you're doing.
00:28:18.500The bottom line is they've got most of the information anyways, right?
00:28:21.080From bank accounts to health care cards to, I mean, they've already got it.
00:28:25.320It makes it just that much more convenient.
00:28:27.340Part of wondering if it's not, you know, is the horse already bolted?
00:28:32.120Like, can we put this toothpaste back into the tube?
00:28:34.880I mean, it gets astounding with what we see with AI, whether it's image generation or you take a picture of yourself and put it in the reverse image search on Google.
00:28:43.080And it will find, well, if you've got lots of pictures online, like I do, suddenly you'll have a whole line of other pictures of you because it recognized your face and pulled up all the other shots of you.
00:28:54.360And I think that's the one thing we haven't talked about yet is AI and where that new technology is going to take us because that is kind of scary.
00:29:01.440Well, it might be the savior of us from the government.
00:29:03.380The AI might be smarter than our, I bow down to our authorities.
00:29:25.300Well, it's a fair question because this actually is a worldwide phenomenon.
00:29:28.760It's not like this is happening in Canada and nowhere else in the world, which, of course, is why Peterson was down there talking to Congress about it.
00:29:36.040It's happening in the United States, happening in South Africa, Estonia, and China, we mentioned.
00:29:41.560This is something that has the blessing of the United Nations.
00:29:45.120I'm not going to fuss through the papers again, but if you challenge me to it, I could find the point where there was a UN resolution that said this is what we all need to do.
00:29:54.140And there again, the rationale was not something that you could just dismiss.
00:29:59.600They were saying there are a billion people in the world, and this was 10 years ago, a billion people in the world who do not have an identity.
00:30:07.660I mean, they may have a name, but they've got no way of proving who they are.
00:30:12.080So this was going to be something for a lot of people.
00:30:16.520This is a handy thing for somebody in an impoverished country who's born under unfortunate circumstances and does not have an identity.
00:30:25.000And let's face it, everybody deserves one.
00:30:27.160It doesn't mean that it's therefore acceptable to bring this in as a method of social control in this country or any other developed country.
00:30:35.700You asked the question of what to do about it.
00:30:39.200I was interested to see that two years ago, at least, as Alberta and British Columbia were moving ahead on this, the government of Saskatchewan said, well, take a pass.
00:30:49.880Now, I haven't checked to see what they've done since.
00:30:51.620But you're not going to turn the whole world back.
00:31:44.320But now, your phone can transmit where you are at all times and it's not that hard to legislate to say you shouldn't be without your phone.
00:31:53.880You know, you're making the point about artificial intelligence and I think it's worth just reminding people who may have heard the discussion last week
00:32:03.660about where the Canadian online harms bill fits into all of this.
00:32:08.420You take all of this information and the ability of the artificial intelligence to know everything that you've ever said online,
00:32:20.260put that together with legislation that allows somebody to go to a magistrate and say,
00:32:26.960I believe that that person is going to make a hateful statement based on what they've done in the past.
00:32:37.420And suddenly you find yourself under arrest, confined to your house with an ankle bracelet.
00:32:42.360If you're lucky, otherwise you're in jail.
00:32:44.260And you have not actually done anything.
00:33:00.540And when you try to buy a bus ticket or an airplane ticket, they know what you're doing, where you're going, and they'll meet you when you get there.
00:33:06.700You know, like the whole thing is, it's so easy to paint this bleak, bleak picture of the kind of thing that science fiction films were made of 50 years ago.
00:34:04.040And she got an Alberta Health Services doctor to sign off and say, yes, okay.
00:34:09.080Her father is now seeking a court injunction or an extension of an injunction to have the procedure stopped and to prevent his daughter from killing herself.
00:34:23.200The judge called it one of the most complex cases he's ever seen and says no doubt it'll end up in the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:34:31.940But a really tragic case, and unbelievably, the father and daughter still live under the same roof.
00:34:39.900But, you know, this is a woman who's fed up with life, does have some mental issues, there's no doubt about that, is in constant pain and cannot get a job.
00:34:49.780And the judge himself said he's uncomfortable with overruling the decision of doctors.
00:34:59.640This is the whole argument today, Nigel, of MAID and especially with, you know, mental health coming in.
00:35:06.420Well, being a freedom advocate, I do have an initial difficulty with removing the agency of any person.
00:35:16.240This woman says she wants to do a certain thing.
00:35:18.280And if she's of age, she should be able to, as long as it's legal, do what she wants.
00:35:27.560But who among us, having children, will stand back and watch them destroy themselves when it is in our power to do something about it?
00:35:43.600And this man, you're right, it's a complicated case, all right.
00:35:49.880But this man is doing what I hope any parent would want to do if their child was putting themselves in risk of their life.
00:36:00.800Whether it was taking medical assistance in dying, whether it was trying to hold them back from the brink of addiction.
00:36:09.280People, just because somebody has passed the age of 18, may give them rights, but it doesn't remove the caring affection and the sense of responsibility that goes with being a parent.
00:36:27.120And frankly, wherever it's a matter of preserving life, as opposed to ending life, the law should find a way to support the people who are trying to preserve life.
00:36:41.820Well, and that's well said and covers a lot.
00:36:46.180And something that's happened with this maid, as people refer to it, it's gone so much farther beyond what the original advocates envisioned.
00:36:54.620It was Mike DeMoore who put me in touch with a gentleman who was a lawyer for Sue Rodriguez, if we remember that case back in the 90s, in Sven Robinson.
00:37:01.660But she had a physiological debilitating condition.
00:37:07.780She was going to pass away anyways, and presumably without a very good quality of life for that period.
00:37:14.680I think most people at that point thought, okay, she's of sound mind and has an unfortunate, terrible disease, and she wants to choose how it's going to end.
00:37:22.460Perhaps that's what her ability should be able to do.
00:37:26.100And I spoke with that lawyer and said, did you envision this being applied now to people with mental health issues?
00:37:39.680I mean, you were talking about terminal people they were speaking of before, not somebody who's just, well, I shouldn't say just.
00:37:45.900I mean, mental health issues are very serious and debilitating, but that wasn't what they had in mind.
00:37:51.700And now when it's gone beyond into this, it adds a lot more question into whether it's a sound decision being made by the person.
00:37:58.320You know, I want to just take us back 18 months to some work that was done by our friend and colleague, Linda Slobodian.
00:38:06.400There we had, she was made aware of a young man, 23 years old, who had diabetes and was not happy with life.
00:38:17.840And he found some quack in Toronto who was prepared to put him down.
00:38:25.400Only when Linda's story was published here and picked up by numerous other media voices did it get uncomfortable to be that doctor and he withdrew from the case.
00:38:47.540We haven't kept up with this young man, but we do know that three months after he was supposed to have received medical assistance in dying,
00:39:00.240he was living in much happier circumstances with his grandparents, was busy about something and had a girlfriend
00:39:09.940and wasn't interested in medical assistance in dying anymore.
00:39:14.820Now, I don't know what the circumstances or the possibilities are for the young woman that we're talking about in this case.
00:39:21.660We would hope that she too would find some fulfillment somewhere that would just take the whole matter off the table.
00:39:30.460But while there is life, there is hope.
00:39:33.660The MAID statistics in Canada are quite staggering.
00:39:36.680We're leading the world and killing people.
00:39:38.600And not just by a little bit, the growth is exponential.
00:39:44.160Thousands and thousands of people in Quebec alone.
00:39:46.640I think it was 15,600 or so last year.
00:39:50.820And sorry, from 2022, we don't have the three numbers yet.
00:39:54.060And that was, it was 10,000 the year before.
00:39:56.400It had been 5,000 the year before that.
00:41:31.820You know, I think the fact that the three of us are trying to have this highly emotive situation talked about in a dispassionate way, it's very hard.
00:41:47.000And I think we need to say that very, very sympathetic to the individuals involved and the pain that they feel.
00:41:58.240So, being in a mental frame where death looks like a good option, there's something that we need to feel enormous sympathy for.
00:42:12.260The father in the case have great empathy for somebody like that.
00:42:20.820But, you know, they do say that hard cases make bad law.
00:42:26.560And in the end, preserving life has got to be the priority.
00:42:33.560Because you can get a second chance to litigate this, but you, if somebody lives through the first court hearing, but you don't get a second chance if it's all over.
00:42:45.060And the precedent that this could set could be horrible.
00:43:49.260Well, I got a lot of prairie people a bit upset with Miss Freeland, including Tamara Leach, our Freedom Convoy leader, who said, you know, my slice of heaven would be you being unemployed.
00:44:00.580So, yes, she did anger a lot of prairie folks with that.
00:44:14.560Alberta doesn't have the lakes like the Okanagan does.
00:44:18.180Well, you know, I spent 25 years in BC.
00:44:23.900But the best years that I spent in BC were up in the northeast, where you feel like you're in Alberta.
00:44:29.840Anyway, Port St. John, Port Nelson, all those places.
00:44:33.080Yeah, and I'm sure Miss Freeland was just making a little joke, and it's a silly joke, and it doesn't stand critical analysis.
00:44:45.580But I must say that by the time that I left British Columbia, I felt very, very differently after dealing with the mentality on Vancouver Island.
00:44:54.700And I remember driving up to come to the Calgary Herald in that old Chrysler that I had, and I got to the place by the highway with a big sign that says, welcome to Alberta.
00:45:11.260And I pulled over, switched the engine off, got out of the car, and I knelt down, and I kissed the ground.
00:45:21.320No. You know, I mean, my parents were, lived and worked in Calgary for 40 years, and they retired to BC for one reason, one word only, winter.
00:45:32.220Well, I mean, either way, every region of Canada has fantastic things about it, and downsides to that.
00:45:38.000A lot of people take regional pride in where they're from.
00:45:41.020It was just foolish on the part of Freeland to try and make a quip, because you do insult people.
00:45:46.160Quick Dick with Dick, took a good rip at her as well, of course.
00:45:49.140And Freeland's Alberta-born, let's not forget.