In this week's show, we discuss the latest in the Israel-Gaza conflict, the accuracy of reporting on it, and the lack of support for it by the media. We also have a special guest on the show this week, Jonathan Bradley.
00:00:00.000good evening i'm cory morgan and this is the pipeline this is the western standards weekly
00:00:17.280panel show where we'll take a few issues with a number of our staff members and dissect and
00:00:23.040discuss them and tell you what we think about them and maybe try to imply what we think you
00:00:27.780should think about them, but it's up to you. You come to your conclusions. We've got lots to talk
00:00:32.020about today. I'm going to start though actually with something else, a little bit of housekeeping.
00:00:36.380Some of our regular members with the Western Standard might have noticed there's some problems
00:00:39.880getting into the website. We've migrated to a whole new platform and it will be an improvement.
00:00:45.640It's going to be really good when it's all done. Unfortunately, we ran into some hiccups and
00:00:49.740there's been some difficulties for folks logging in. So what's happened is we're giving actually
00:00:54.580free access until we fix it. So if you're already subscribers, get on in there, guys. Have a look.
00:00:58.680Sorry for the delays, and I appreciate the patience. If you haven't subscribed yet, hey, here's a good
00:01:02.060chance to get a sneak peek and realize why it's so important and so worth it for you to spend $9.99
00:01:06.480a month or $100 a year to subscribe and get back there and see all those columns and stories without
00:01:11.340that nasty paywall in the way. So kind of we're going to turn this into a treat for you. And again,
00:01:15.840thank you guys for the patience. We'll get it all ironed out. Always those tech things, you know,
00:01:19.640they can be maddening. The other way we pay our bills, I guess, you know, I should get to that,
00:01:23.540and I'll get that out of the way, is our sponsors, of course, and it's important. I shouldn't say
00:01:26.780it's getting it out of the way. I like talking about these guys, the Canadian Shooting Sports
00:01:30.360Association. They've been a fantastic sponsor for us, and they've been a fantastic advocate
00:01:34.960for anybody who owns firearms. If you own them, collect them. Whether you want to target shooting,
00:01:40.220hunting, whatever you want, it's your business. But we've got a government that doesn't want
00:01:44.240you to have the ability to do those things. They think it's their business, and you need to push
00:01:48.760back. The Canadian Shooting Sports Association stands up for you. They advocate for you,
00:01:52.320but you've got to be a member. They can't help you unless you help them. So check them out.
00:01:56.700Canadian Shooting Sports Association, their website's cssa-cila.org or just Google them,
00:02:02.580take out a membership. It's a worthwhile investment in your own rights. Okay, we got a bit of a
00:02:07.740different panel shakeup today, but with some standard names you would have seen in your
00:02:11.720stories and articles through the months and even now getting past a year and some with Jonathan
00:02:16.880here. So I'll start on the end there. We got our reporter, Jonathan Bradley. Welcome to the show
00:02:22.120today. Thank you, Corey. It's been a while since I've been on here. Yeah, it's been a bit. So
00:02:25.120you're overdue. And we got it totally, yeah, messed up. Eventually, I'm going to get back
00:02:28.860in my chair over in the end. It's been a while now. And we've got Sean Polzer here in the middle.
00:02:34.900Thank you very much. Filling in for, well, we got Dave, Nigel, Derek, all in different forms of
00:02:40.780inability to come in right now. So they're all getting better. We'll have a normal lineup coming
00:02:47.300again. But it's fine. You know, people don't see the same faces all the time. I know they get tired
00:02:50.520of mine. I've been the consistent one all the way through here, but glad you guys could pretty it up
00:02:55.080a little on the end there. All right, enough of that. Well, let's start. I mean, again, the top
00:03:00.720story of the week, and it's probably going to be the top story of the year, is the Israel-Gaza
00:03:05.400conflict. And I mean, it's horrific. It's just in its early stages, unfortunately, I hate to say it.
00:03:12.460We're seeing a lot of awful imagery. And what I want to talk about, though, is also the, I guess,
00:03:17.440the miscommunication, the accuracy in reporting. Jonathan, as a reporter watching this, you know,
00:03:25.220I'll get your views on what you're seeing in the reporting and coverage of this event as it's
00:03:29.940coming out. Well, one thing that I've noticed in particular is how many people are justifying
00:03:35.400Hamas's actions as acceptable. Like I did a story, I think it was last Thursday, about the York0.89
00:03:42.800university student unions coming together and putting out a statement saying that they
00:03:48.000hamas terrorism is justified and that they said that hamas terrorist attack is all about
00:03:53.200colonialism and what i found particularly funny about these comments was the the president of the0.82
00:04:00.640graduate students union who signed on to the statement is non-binary i'm not too sure if she
00:04:05.440if they know what happens to non-binary people in palestine but i mean it was you know i had a
00:04:10.560chuckle about that but even some public figures like the QP Ontario president has spoken out in
00:04:16.560support of Palestine and justified Hamas's actions so it is it has been a bit troubling0.63
00:04:22.960to say the least yeah well getting on to the the media and Sean like we see some of the race I mean0.92
00:04:28.720we could be guilty of it too I mean it's a bit of the digital world too everybody wants to be on0.78
00:04:32.800the story first they want to be the ones who hit that story out there they might not have a reporter
00:04:37.840on the ground over there. So they're relying on Twitter and X as much as anybody or following
00:04:42.280accounts or press releases. But I mean, we've seen some recent really, I think, jumping the gun on
00:04:46.900some big incidents that have happened. And it causes damage when that happens.
00:04:52.740Yeah, absolutely. You know, they say that truth is the first casualty of war. And we had an example
00:04:58.380of that yesterday with the so-called hospital bombing, which in itself is an awful, horrible
00:05:06.100thing, you know, 500 people getting killed in Oswald, where they're supposed to be safe.
00:05:10.140And exactly like you said, Corey, so it flashed out on Twitter, and there's a lot of pressure
00:05:15.580to get out there with the story and be first with it, maybe before all the facts are even
00:05:20.160known, you know, and then it come out maybe half an hour later that, you know, chances
00:05:26.020are this could have been a friendly fire incident, and, you know, and then there again,
00:05:31.140those videos were put out on Twitter, released by the IDF.
00:05:33.380I would imagine that they would have had to have been vetted on the other end before they would take such a step to actually do that and maybe kind of cross-verify it.
00:05:41.760But, yeah, you know, the narrative kind of gets a little hazy in the fog of war, as they say.
00:05:50.460Yeah, well, the media world should know better, I would think.
00:05:55.420But, I mean, you know, an IDF for people unfamiliar with the Israel Defense Forces.
00:05:59.300And I mean, I wouldn't put it beyond the IDF to put out, yes, it's a war. They're going to do propaganda on their end as well. I mean, what I found kind of striking when this happened, though, and when it was breaking out was Hamas. I mean, that was, they said, the Hamas Health Authority. Well, yeah, or the Gaza Health Authority. Yeah, that's Hamas. Hamas governs that area. Put it out, and they had numbers that were just, wow, this happened half an hour ago, and they know there's 562 people dead, and it was this and this. I mean, there are already some alarm bells.
00:06:27.640I mean, these guys can barely count, you know, what's going on on a street.
00:06:32.140How do they have these precise numbers?
00:06:33.780Meanwhile, Israel and IDF were saying, well, we aren't going to respond to this.
00:06:36.800We've got to research and check into some things first because we're not quite sure what happened.
00:06:41.160It just gives me more of a sense of trust with the one who's willing to admit we don't know what happened yet than the ones who came up with such a...
00:06:49.260But, you know, our news editor, Dave Naylor, called us over, you know, to around his desk and asked, you know, should we be posting, you know, reposting these videos that have been coming up on Twitter?
00:07:01.540And, you know, I'm not a war correspondent.
00:07:04.280I've never covered war, you know, but I've been to a couple of riots, Stanley Cup riots here in this country.
00:07:11.200And when you saw the pictures of all the bodies laying around, like, my first thought was like, oh, my God.
00:07:16.060Like, because I was thinking that, too, you know, how can you come up with 500?
00:07:18.840But, I mean, there was definitely, you know, dozens, hundreds of, you know, whatever you want to call them, casualties.
00:07:28.020I don't even know if they were dead bodies or not.
00:07:30.800I don't even know if they were actually laying down there on the ground.
00:07:33.200You know, maybe it could have been states, but, you know, it didn't kind of seem like that.
00:07:38.020You know, you have to think that there definitely was an incident, and it was definitely tragic in any event, whoever was responsible for it.
00:07:45.920But, you know, and it's kind of like you make the point, too, you know, Hamas is the civic government there.
00:07:51.460So they would be running the health authority and they would be running the hospital.0.53
00:07:54.740And it seems a little disingenuous that, you know, that they would want to fire on their own people.
00:07:59.660Right. So, you know, now they're saying it was some kind of a splinter group.
00:08:04.380Well, and the report also is that it sounds like maybe they were launching a missile that was intended to go to Israel and hit innocent people there instead.
00:08:11.880But it broke up and then crashed on the hospital accidentally.
00:08:15.280get into this moral equivalent argument you know is it better or worse to kill other people or you
00:08:20.400know yeah and uh but i mean we're we're in this age of instant news you know and jonathan you're
00:08:25.520kind of younger among us and you're more used to it like it's the age of the iphone um as you
00:08:30.240mentioned you know we used to see things in the past where perhaps there were staging of incidents
00:08:33.520and things going on but i don't think they could get away with that now because there'd be a hundred
00:08:37.200other people who would have other pictures they've been taking with their cameras saying quite to the
00:08:39.920the contrary and showing that so I suspect unfortunately those images of
00:08:44.180bodies were real and it's awful no matter who did it yes but I mean how do
00:08:48.860you respond to me well what would Dave say though if you wrote a story just
00:08:51.500based on a few Twitter videos and things you shot and you put it up there on the
00:08:55.980website well Dave wouldn't be too happy about that but I mean we saw yesterday
00:08:59.600with the story about the Gaza Hospital where all the media were jumping on it
00:09:05.900saying that, oh, this was an Israel Defense Force missile that struck the hospital, but it took,
00:09:12.400it was a few hours later when it came out that, no, it was a Hamas missile that didn't have enough
00:09:17.800range that ended up striking the hospital. What was interesting to see was Prime Minister Justin
00:09:23.320Trudeau and Deputy Jagmeet Singh justified their comments, saying, like, put out tweets saying,
00:09:29.660oh, this is, like, a war crime and all that, but one of the information came up, they didn't back0.55
00:09:35.320up and say you know i was wrong sorry about that you know this is like hamas who did it so it's
00:09:39.720been the last few weeks have been interesting when it comes to the story yeah well and from from
00:09:44.680media you know i guess zeal and then going out there trying to be first and sometimes
00:09:49.160misreporting things or not getting all the facts out when they should have hung on the other worry
00:09:53.960we have is media bias which is there there's opinion guys like me i mean my calls would be
00:09:57.880pretty boring if i don't put my opinion into them but news copy a lot of people get mixed up with
00:10:01.240that online fair enough you know you realize there's a big difference between a reporter and
00:10:04.760a columnist and and uh you really don't want to see that opinion flowing through from a reporter
00:10:09.960you don't want to see a columnist trying to write news copy i mean if there was a news story written
00:10:13.400by cory martin it was like that guy's got a view on everything his news he can't believe his stuff
00:10:17.800like there's differences cbc now you know i mean i say ostensibly can his biggest news organization
00:10:23.160thanks to the the billion and some a year they get but that's one thing that gets me is so that
00:10:28.520that order has come down and they won't explain themselves on it, but they refuse to call Hamas
00:10:32.860terrorists. They're not allowed to call it. I mean, CBC reporters and staff are not allowed to use
00:10:36.480the word terrorist for Hamas. And this isn't an opinion. This is a group that's been registered
00:10:41.820as a terrorist group within Canada for years. What do we make of that? What rationale would
00:10:49.240you think the CBC would have in telling them not to refer to it in that case? I thought it was a
00:10:54.200little bit confusing because you have the Prime Minister in question period
00:10:58.760explicitly referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization as you said they
00:11:03.980are legally designated terrorist organization in this country and a lot of
00:11:07.640other countries less than even all through Europe but yeah you've definitely
00:11:13.040got this it almost seems to be kind of an abundance of caution you know I was
00:11:19.720saying back, you know, because these wars seem to pop up fairly regularly and they seem to run a fairly kind of common script.
00:11:28.020You know, when we were back at Post Media at the Calgary Herald, we had a company-wide memo came up from Izzy Asper himself
00:11:34.800that said that we were absolutely not to refer to Palestinians.
00:11:40.040Mind you, he had a broader, slightly broader brush because they were in the West Bank as well.
00:11:45.040Palestinians are the Palestinian Authority as freedom fighters, because Reuters had been putting that in their copy, right?
00:11:52.040So, you know, this isn't a new thing, and it comes up fairly regularly, fairly periodically, and too regularly, in fact.
00:12:01.620I, I, you know, you can, everybody has sides, but I mean, you know, war is just, is a tragedy.
00:12:11.680It's a breakdown in communication, the ultimate breakdown in communication.
00:12:15.680And at the end of the day, I think you have to take steps to stop it.
00:12:21.560Yeah, well, and there are, it's, it's a confusing, nuanced mess over there too.
00:12:26.840Like, in fairness, you don't want to call every Palestinian a terrorist. Hamas are the terrorists.0.91
00:12:33.360Hamas came from Gaza, and as with Hezbollah, up in Lebanon and the West Bank.0.94
00:12:39.740But it doesn't mean all of the Palestinians necessarily are members of such, and thus are terrorists.0.78
00:12:44.800So you can over-apply the term terrorist, but in some areas, they pretty well-earned the title,
00:12:51.480and we should be able to apply it to them.0.50
00:12:53.660I would think so in this case, for sure.
00:12:55.700that when you have when you have people you know bombing music festivals killing people beheading
00:13:03.380beheading and maiming children what else can you call them they're terrorists well that's it and
00:13:08.420again you know picking on you in the youth it's nice having somebody younger in here because you0.99
00:13:11.700got a new perspective uh uh you know we've sat through the past infatadas and and seen this this
00:13:19.540is just a a record that just seems to be on skip you know this is the first middle eastern bowl
00:23:42.800I mean, you know, and I don't want to dismiss that.
00:23:44.700I was just saying they don't have to follow what comes out of these conventions, but they should feel guided somewhat.
00:23:49.600I mean, this is where you get a measure of your membership, the ones who are paying your donations, knocking on your doors for you, and presumably keeping you in.
00:24:01.780When you went through them, Jonathan, did you see, because there's always the turd in the punch bowl that hits every time, was the abortion thrown in there anywhere?
00:24:09.820i didn't see anything about that but i saw one about medical assistance in dying and wanting to
00:24:15.580add in safeguards to that um but shifting back to the crackpot ones like there were a few where i
00:24:20.220was just like why is this being debated at a convention like there was one about uh electronic
00:24:25.340voting machines something like that we haven't really seen an issue with that in canada but it's
00:24:29.180mainly uh an american one and then there was another one about wanting to add like a second
00:24:33.820part to the charter where they want to include things like gun rights and rights against excess
00:24:38.060taxation rights to health care and all that it was i've kind of found that odd i'm like
00:24:43.580like usually when it comes to like these constitutional type issues you usually don't
00:24:47.340talk about them at a convention um but shifting to uh people paying the ucp as conspiracy theorists
00:24:53.100i saw gill mcgowan having one of his typical meltdowns saying that the crazy train has arrived
00:24:58.300and that there's he's one of the talk yeah well and they are going to do fodder with it the other
00:25:06.540part it comes at these AGMs is when the policy debates come and people come up
00:25:11.820and get that microphone as proponents or all opponents and speaking again most
00:25:16.980people are rational and they're fine but once in a while you'll get somebody pop
00:25:21.120out and you know there there's again the age of the iPhone no statement is gonna
00:25:25.680go unrecorded of course and even with like at the conservative convention there
00:25:31.300were a few motions that when they after they came out you know liberal MPs and
00:25:35.340DPMPs and even like you know social justice type people were coming out of
00:25:39.960a woodwork and jumping out the Conservatives being like how dare they
00:25:42.840pass this policy. So I'm sure we're definitely gonna see some fallout from
00:25:45.780whether or not certain policies are adopted in the following days after that.
00:25:50.580Yeah well it'll be something to be watching you know again as I said this
00:25:55.860is gonna be this is more about you know it's not a midterm AGM or something like
00:25:59.820that like this is the one that yeah this is her first is the leader really and
00:26:04.920and you know it's I mean speaking from a business perspective I think businesses
00:26:09.420companies they want to see some feelings of stability really some some
00:26:12.900that's what businesses always like to see is it's just well she's been out
00:26:17.040front center like you know they were talking about the first hundred days you
00:26:21.420know she was elected on the policy of you know the corporate taxes and a lot
00:26:27.420these social kind of issues have seemed to be taking a backseat. At the press
00:26:32.700conference last week somebody asked her about the pronouns and Premier Smith
00:26:39.060gave an answer about you know being a grassroots party and being in tune with
00:26:42.720the views of the grassroots but she's also been pretty plain in the past on
00:26:47.280her own personal views with you know she's libertarian she's pro rights or
00:26:57.000whatever, you know, she's pro-grade marriage, I mean, that's, she always has been, like, that's
00:27:02.180never been a secret, so, and, uh, I think she's probably personally a little bit reluctant to
00:27:07.340bring up some of these issues at, uh, AGM. We haven't talked about it yet, but I, I think that's
00:27:12.440the reason why, um, they're pushing the, you know, referendum, and, you know, reopening the idea of
00:27:20.060a provincial police force, because, uh, these were kind of, like, the signature issues that were
00:27:24.280brought up in the leadership campaign.
00:28:18.580and they're looking to take over the other half,
00:28:20.520whether or not that's the case, I'm not too sure.
00:28:23.360I haven't really seen too much action online about that, but I think the main issue with this AGM is some of the policy motions that are put forward.
00:28:33.160And I would just like to add, I would agree with that because, you know, it's easy to have a unified party when everything is going well, you know, like they have been, you know, Premier Smith's been in a bit of a honeymoon period with voters.
00:28:47.680And, you know, Sue's getting a lot of support from people who, you know, are pleasantly surprised.
00:28:51.880Even people that were her detractors originally are saying that she's doing a good job.
00:28:56.700So it's easy to have a unified party when everybody's all on the same page.
00:29:00.980But you don't have to look very far back, you know, to Jason Kenney and what happens when, you know, that facade starts to crack and it comes out from underneath your feet.
00:29:13.300And a lot of people did say before the election that keeping that party together was going to be probably the toughest challenge that Premier Smith has in her mandate, in her term.
00:29:25.320Well, she certainly learned hard lessons about that in her Wildrose time and then with caucus splitting on her and a number of things.
00:29:31.900I mean, I was on the provincial executive with the Wildrose while she was the leader of the party.
00:29:36.400And for people who don't directly get involved in politics, may not understand that separation.
00:29:40.660The provincial executive runs the mechanics of the party.
00:40:57.720So maybe CPP unloads all its holdings in Suncor and Petro-Canada, you know, back to the Alberta government and say, here, you take it.
00:41:04.960See, I would like CPP to keep all the energy assets because that gives the rest of Canada a heck of an interest for us to keep working out here and doing well with our energy companies.
00:41:14.300Because if you sink those energy companies, you're sinking your own pension plan.