Western Standard - The Pipeline： UCP and NDP neck-and-neck as election kicks off

00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. Today is April 26,

00:00:18.300 2023, and you're watching The Pipeline. I'm joined, as always, by the Western Standard's

00:00:24.020 opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford. Hello again. Hello. And joined by Western Standard Alberta's

00:00:29.320 senior columnist, Corey Morgan. How are you doing, Corey? Very good. All right. It's always a good

00:00:35.560 show, but we've got a really good show today. The Alberta election is right around the corner. It's

00:00:41.040 already going. We all know what's going if you're around here, but it starts formally this coming

00:00:46.220 Monday and the polls are neck and neck. We're going to break down what the lay of the land

00:00:52.280 looks like going into this campaign, a very unique, very, very unique, almost unprecedented

00:00:58.240 campaign in Alberta's electoral history. We're going to talk about where the parties stand,

00:01:04.040 where the leaders stand, and what we can expect so much as we can predict any of this stuff.

00:01:09.820 And within there, we're also going to be studying, looking at the battleground Calgary. And boy,

00:01:15.680 the two big parties are making it rain on Calgary, spending oodles and oodles of taxpayers' money

00:01:21.820 to woo the all-important Calgarian swing voter.

00:01:27.200 In Ottawa, the federal gun grab continues to pick up steam.

00:01:32.200 News today that the federal government's breached an agreement with one of the groups representing firearms and ammunition manufacturers

00:01:40.080 to buy back, not buy back, but just buy from them a bunch of guns and ammunition that is now illegal.

00:01:47.020 and moves coming, re-amending the bill to steal people's lawfully, otherwise lawfully acquired firearms in Canada with NDP support.

00:01:57.760 Moving ahead with Marco Mendicino, the federal public safety minister, putting forward these new amendments that seem likely to pass and probably become law.

00:02:08.700 And big surprise, Justin Trudeau says that during COVID, he didn't force anyone to get vaccinated.

00:02:17.020 No, I'm not joking. No, that's really what he said. He did not coerce anyone to get vaccinated.

00:02:25.300 I mean, that segment almost kind of writes itself, but we got to talk about it. We got to talk about something that crazy.

00:02:30.280 But going back, speaking of taking your fire, Ottawa's stealing your firearms.

00:02:35.320 Today's show is sponsored by the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:02:38.800 I've been a member of the CSSA for over a decade, trusting them to defend my rights as a firearms owner in Canada.

00:02:44.920 they're Canada's leading firearms rights organization. If you're not a member of them,

00:02:49.320 you absolutely need to be. They are on the front lines protecting your right to own and responsibly

00:02:54.880 use firearms in Canada lawfully. Without them, we'd be in a much tougher spot than we are right

00:03:01.100 now. If you're not yet a member of the CSSA, go to cssa-cila.org or do what I do and Google them.

00:03:08.260 enjoying today. Okay, so a new poll coming up. Let's back up. Monday, the election officially

00:03:18.000 begins. But I mean, we've been in the election for really since kind of the New Year's Christmas

00:03:25.320 break. It's been building up. It's just been kind of increasing, kind of like a wave building up

00:03:30.640 steam. And now it's just going to crest when the writ drops. It's not like we've had in the past

00:03:35.340 where the election of the government just called the election whenever it wanted or in 2015 and in

00:03:40.860 2019 where there was a fixed election window we knew it would be vaguely in the spring early

00:03:46.780 summer ish of the year and what year would be oh no not 2015 because uh uh Jim Prentice broke that

00:03:54.060 law so forget that one but at least last time um and in 2012 that happened too uh this time

00:03:59.900 we have a fixed election date which makes it much more certain and the parties have planned around

00:04:04.140 it. But on Monday, the writ finally drops, the official election period gets underway.

00:04:11.820 There's some new polling, there's been a lot of polling out, but brand new one today from

00:04:15.940 Abacus Data, David Colletto, fascinating stuff. Now this has got the UCP and the NDP,

00:04:23.640 not just in a statistical dead heat, but in an exact dead heat at 36% each support among

00:04:31.800 decided voters. The Alberta party, ever so hopeful, at 4%. Other parties, 3%. But a very high

00:04:40.100 undecided at 22%. I mean, it's an absolute dead heat. If you take the undecideds out, generally

00:04:47.840 it's 47 NDP, 46 NDP. Just the way that works out with some of the decibels around there. But

00:04:56.060 But then there's the battleground Calgary, where everyone agrees the election is mostly going to be decided.

00:05:04.480 There's a few battle, you know, the ringer, the donut ring around Edmonton is going to be a battleground.

00:05:08.780 Very important.

00:05:10.660 Few tiny seats here and there.

00:05:12.360 Banff, Kananaskis, west of Calgary, Lethbridge East.

00:05:15.900 The one UCP seat in Lethbridge is going to be a battleground.

00:05:19.640 But the big prize is Calgary.

00:05:21.760 Who wins Calgary is likely going to win the election.

00:05:24.300 There, the UCP have a slight lead. 49 UCP, 42 NDP, 7 Alberta party. We'll start with you, Nigel. We've had a lot of polls coming out lately, but it's quite a shift over the last year where the UCP was far behind the NDP.

00:05:44.100 It's now back to competitive. Some polls have the UCP slightly, but it's generally pretty neck and neck.

00:05:52.020 Is this good news for the UCP or bad news?

00:05:55.440 If you're Daniel Smith right now, how are you taking the news of this poll?

00:05:59.020 Well, I think if I were Daniel Smith, I'd probably be quite encouraged that three months ago I was a lot further behind than I am now.

00:06:07.140 The problem with these dead heat polls is that you really can't predict how it's going to break

00:06:14.280 because you can win a seat by a couple of dozen votes.

00:06:18.220 I mean, federally, I've seen seats change hand on as few as two votes.

00:06:22.840 So you're saying, well, you know, we're roughly equal.

00:06:26.960 Well, that could just depends where that couple of hundred votes goes.

00:06:30.740 and if it's distributed through three or four key constituency and you can fit the 50 you need here

00:06:38.340 and the 40 you need there and the 60 you need there well then guess what you've got 40 seats

00:06:43.620 for a very small investment of votes uh what you're talking about is is vote efficiency that

00:06:49.780 yeah you don't want you don't necessarily turn for it certainly amongst us guys we will talk

00:06:54.580 about that but just speaking you know um so i always think of the 2011 federal election when

00:07:02.580 actually when it came right down to it about 5 000 votes distributed where they went made the

00:07:06.420 difference and with 16 million people voting now here in calgary you're talking about half and half

00:07:12.100 36 36 there's an undecided that's obviously going to be a factor but uh where those votes actually

00:07:17.620 end up is something you can't tell from the poll so i wouldn't be breaking out the champagne just

00:07:21.940 yet. Corey, I think it's probably fair to say the UCP have a bit more of an efficient vote. We're

00:07:29.400 talking about voter efficiency, vote efficiency here. And it's because the NDP have run up such

00:07:34.340 massive leads in Edmonton. I mean, you've got to feel for Casey Maddu, who's really swimming

00:07:40.660 against the tide here. The NDP is 63% in Edmonton, absolutely crushing it. UCP far behind at 28. I

00:07:48.640 I mean, it's possible if that 28% is concentrated enough in, say, the Southwest that Casey Maddu maybe could pull it out.

00:07:55.720 But that's tough. But to what Nigel was saying about voter efficiency, that the UCP aren't running up the massive, supermassive, at least, surpluses in votes that they were outside the two major cities, rural Alberta for short.

00:08:11.140 They're at 59%, NDP at 35%. They're going to probably win at least the vast majority of those seats.

00:08:17.620 But it's Calgary, 49-42.

00:08:20.020 Still close, but that's where your voter efficiency really matters.

00:08:25.940 If you're Rachel Notley looking at this, you're tied in the provincial vote,

00:08:29.620 just a little bit behind in Calgary.

00:08:31.980 Are you looking at this and saying, okay, this poll is good news,

00:08:36.460 this is making my day, or is this a bad news poll for you?

00:08:40.120 I think for Rachel Notley, it's a bad news poll.

00:08:42.480 I mean, it's not the end of the world.

00:08:43.420 We've still got a whole campaign to go.

00:08:44.980 But it's showing that they've started.

00:08:46.120 individual. They've got to move a needle. Like those numbers, if they sit as they are, mean

00:08:50.640 a UCP majority. I mean, it'll be a reduced one, hopefully a humbled one, I guess. But she has to

00:08:57.360 pick up seats in Calgary. It is the UCPs to lose. And, you know, UCP has certainly got some 0.81

00:09:03.800 challenges, but they've got a number of incumbents running. And that's always quite often an advantage

00:09:08.920 in those ridings. The other thing that pollsters have a hard time with conservatives, and I know

00:09:12.440 they try to account for it. But if you look at the poll numbers and the ages, I mean, the youth

00:09:17.480 vote, a lot of them go to the NDP. But the youth vote also, if there's something good on TV, are

00:09:22.100 often not prone to going out and bothering to vote. The older voters have a much higher turnout

00:09:26.780 for their demographic. And again, pollsters try to account for that. But often conservatives can

00:09:31.500 be underrepresented. Like 2011, Trudeau, he brought out young voters, Obama 2008. They managed to

00:09:39.140 mobilize those demographics and it kind of throws all your polling math out the window because you

00:09:42.980 have to kind of take into account how likely is this demographic to vote. I don't see Notley

00:09:46.260 energizing the youth this time around really you know she's getting organized labor she's doing

00:09:50.200 things but she's not getting a wave of excitement even did she managed to bring about kind of a

00:09:55.560 younger demographic and get them off their bus to vote yeah even among unions you just touched on

00:10:00.960 unions uh it's interesting um so we'll kind of kind of break it down UCP is leading among men

00:10:07.760 and older people, NDP among women and younger people, people with a high school degree in

00:10:14.400 college, much more likely to vote UCP, but the NDP lead among people with a university degree.

00:10:20.920 But on unions, so 17% said that they're currently a part of a union. I'm not sure how representative

00:10:27.220 that is in Alberta or not, but it's probably roughly there. The NDP have only a nine point

00:10:32.420 lead among unionized people. And when you take into account that unions now tend to be dominated

00:10:38.960 by government employees, which you assume are almost certainly voting NDP, because, you know,

00:10:44.400 who gets to, probably going to have a friendly employer, you know, look what's happening

00:10:49.400 federally there, PSAC is probably going to get a pretty good deal out of liberal NDP coalition

00:10:54.160 there. The NDP among all unionized people in Alberta, government and private sector unionized

00:11:02.060 employees. The NDP have only a nine percent advantage. What does that say to you, Nigel?

00:11:08.460 It says people don't like paying union dues for one thing. It also says that people who work in

00:11:17.820 the manual occupations, I'm thinking of the oil patch, construction generally, just because they're

00:11:23.580 in a union doesn't mean they're socialistically inclined. They've got to be in to get the job.

00:11:28.380 But the NDP is a labor, in its constitution, it is a labor socialist party. And it's formally tied in with the Alberta Federation of Labor. You've got Nazi baiters like Gil McGowan there. So the Alberta Federation of Labor is a formal component of the NDP. They're supposed to be the party of organized labor, of unions. And they have a lead among union employees, but not that big.

00:11:56.380 Well, I just say, not everybody likes the deal that they have to belong to a union in order to work.

00:12:01.560 If that's the work they want to do, then that's the deal, they do it.

00:12:04.680 Some of them don't like it.

00:12:05.700 Some of it, too, is that distinguishment between trade unionists and civil servant ones,

00:12:09.860 which, yeah, there's a larger civil service, but it's kind of, as Nigel said,

00:12:12.800 the lunchbox-carrying guy who's going to the factory is a union man,

00:12:15.540 still might like the organized labor, too, but he's got no use for the woke.

00:12:18.940 And when the labor unions and Gill and the rest are all focused on that one,

00:12:22.280 they're worried about getting better wage agreements and things.

00:12:25.720 that that will sour them on the NDP as well. Like they want to stick to the labor front, not necessarily the social justice.

00:12:31.740 It's a slight tangent, but I think relevant. I went down some West Virginia rabbit hole the other day.

00:12:38.060 I don't know why. I just want to learn everything about West Virginia.

00:12:40.940 And West Virginia from the 1930s until very recently was one of the most reliably blue democratic states,

00:12:47.460 beginning with FDR, because it had such a high number, such a large number of unionized private

00:12:55.680 sector workers. And, you know, the Democrats were the party of the unions. But that has radically

00:13:04.160 shifted. West Virginia now is the deepest of deep red states in the United States. It voted

00:13:10.220 nearly 70% for Trump. The biggest vote Trump got anywhere in any state was West Virginia,

00:13:16.280 formerly one of the bluest states. And I've got to be thinking this is some of its economics,

00:13:23.160 and that, you know, the identification of unionized workers with social democratic parties

00:13:31.480 is primarily more of a government union now thing, but, but more so that it's culture wars,

00:13:36.600 that, you know, our parties are less about economic classes now than they are more about

00:13:42.840 cultural classes and you know if if social democratic or left-leaning progressive parties

00:13:49.160 are dedicated to you know talking about constant trans issues and um everything's woke justice

00:13:57.800 kind of stuff that's got to be putting them off um i don't know either of you what's your take

00:14:03.560 up on what this shift is among traditionally blue-collared unionized workers away from their

00:14:08.280 traditional parties that have traditionally backed organized labor? There's two ways to come at this.

00:14:15.000 One is to ask, has the Democratic Party in West Virginia preserved the jobs of the blue-collar

00:14:23.320 labor force down there? I use that as a metaphor for working people everywhere and their relationships

00:14:29.400 to socialist parties. The answer is no, because it was the Democratic parties wanted to shut down

00:14:34.360 the coal mines. And that's, that's a pretty strong, pretty strong industry in West Virginia.

00:14:43.480 You can probably see a parallel with say, unionized workers in the oil sands.

00:14:47.160 Who are at least suspicious of you work for the boilermakers, but they're also you're getting

00:14:51.160 signals that the NDP wants to shut down the oil sands. Well, what are you going to support?

00:14:55.320 The other way to come at it is to look at your comment about the culture wars and ask

00:14:59.160 what kind of beer these people are drinking. These guys were people who used to drink Bud Light.

00:15:03.800 Maybe do again.

00:15:05.000 I don't know.

00:15:05.340 I've worked in West Virginia.

00:15:07.160 Not this week.

00:15:07.880 They've got the Marcellus play on the Pennsylvania on the west end of it there in a lot of oil field.

00:15:12.940 Do you used to work in West Virginia?

00:15:14.060 I've done some contracts.

00:15:15.220 Of course you did.

00:15:15.780 It's a special, special state and an interesting one.

00:15:20.020 But it's a good parallel to bring up because, yeah, those necks are as red as they get.

00:15:24.760 I work near New Martinsville, West Virginia, and their point of pride was they were the last documented tarring and feathering of a person from 1935 or something.

00:15:33.800 It was a woman who slept with the wrong woman's husband, and they ran her out of town, a tartar feather, and they have a plaque downtown to commemorate it.

00:15:43.040 But, again, so we're not talking a good bastion of progressives who want to get on social justice issues in that part of the world.

00:15:48.720 So the Democrats are losing that segment, without doubt.

00:15:53.520 So there's a lot of undecided voters in this, 22%.

00:15:56.760 Now, that's higher than, say, Jenna Brown's polls, but, you know, they're using different methodologies.

00:16:02.800 And the polls are a snapshot in time. They're not going to tell you what's going to happen.

00:16:06.460 They tell you if they're done well, what would happen in this exact moment in time in which you're polling, only over two, three days kind of thing.

00:16:14.880 UCP voters or people who voted UCP last time in 2019, though, make up most of the undecided.

00:16:21.840 So they asked how people who voted UCP last time are going to vote, how people voted NDP last time are going to vote this time.

00:16:30.000 60% of people who vote, only 60% of people who voted UCP last time say they're definite to vote UCP again.

00:16:40.280 Now that's down a bit, so it's moving in UCP's favor.

00:16:43.740 But NDP, people who voted NDP last time are damn sure they're voting NDP again.

00:16:48.080 They're at 87%, and 6% say they're back in the NDP.

00:16:54.160 But people who voted UCP last time, 13% of them say they're going to vote NDP.

00:16:57.980 But then there's a lot of undecideds.

00:17:00.000 I think in large measure with Smith's ascension as UCP leader, she's pulled, I think, most of that right flank back in.

00:17:09.800 People who are looking at something like the Wild Rose Independence Party, who are walking away on the right under Kenny,

00:17:15.160 who are upset with him over COVID things and upset with him over his perceived weak stance on Ottawa.

00:17:22.120 I think she's brought most of those people back in.

00:17:24.240 And would I be right in saying that, you know, these are probably maybe redder Tories, moderate conservatives who maybe just think she's a little too wild, Rosie?

00:17:35.220 You know, there's a there's a point in any electoral cycle where people say, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to vote for those people ever again.

00:17:41.440 They did something that I really don't like.

00:17:45.400 And then the closer you get to the election, the more you start to think, well, okay, I don't really like that person, but I like that one even less.

00:17:56.120 And that kind of thinking is going to be encouraged by the UCP during the weeks to come.

00:18:02.320 And I think it's pretty potent because when you really start to look at the NDP, if you are, if you've always been a UCP person, if you're a small C conservative, never mind a big C conservative, you're going to look at these people and say, I don't think I can back that.

00:18:20.080 I may not have voted for Daniel Smith as leader.

00:18:22.760 I might have preferred somebody else.

00:18:24.200 I might want Jason Kenney back, but I don't want the NDP back.

00:18:28.900 So we're saying on both sides, we're seeing that.

00:18:32.320 the primary motivator among people who say they're voting NDP. They asked, you know,

00:18:37.520 what are your biggest reasons? And the leading one by far was, I don't want the UCP and Danielle

00:18:43.480 Smith. Number two was, I like Rachel Notley and the NDP. Same on the other side among people who

00:18:49.600 say they're voting UCP. The biggest single one is, I don't like Rachel Notley. I don't want Rachel

00:18:53.840 Notley and the NDP in power, or I don't like them. And number two was, I like the UCP and Danielle

00:18:58.880 Smith. Corey, is that, you think, a sign that the parties are going to go, they're always going to

00:19:05.900 go negative? Oh, I'm so surprised. They're going to go horrible. Of course they go negative because

00:19:10.080 negative works. Everyone says, I don't like negative ads. But guess what? Everyone responds

00:19:14.640 to negative ads. The Alberta party approaches every election with sunshine and lollipops and

00:19:20.360 they grab their three to four percent. You got to get in the trenches and throw your elbows up

00:19:24.620 And it sucks and it's annoying, but as you said, it works.

00:19:28.340 But at the same time, everyone's so motivated right now by, or the biggest motivators by far are hatred of the other guy. 0.93

00:19:35.320 And never underestimate how powerful that is.

00:19:37.500 It's important.

00:19:39.480 But if you're advising either Smith or Notley, would you advise them to double down on just ripping the other guys up and increasing that?

00:19:47.160 Or would you say, maybe we've maximized that and we need to be a little sunnier and happier?

00:19:51.420 I think they have to carefully maximize more of the negative. And I hate to say it because everybody's ears are already hurting for all those bloody ads. But there is that big undecided bunch sitting there. And as much as it's a lukewarm thing, I think what the UCP wants is those undecideds to say, just that NDP. So I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Smith. And a vote with their nose held is worth just as much as an enthusiastic one. And they've just got to make sure people are more afraid of what Notley would bring than what Danielle Smith might bring.

00:20:20.860 So I suspect they're going to carry on with it. It's going to get rough.

00:20:24.520 Yeah, we're going to turn to Calgary. But just before that, I want to note that beginning Monday, the official day that the campaign period officially starts,

00:20:34.320 we're going to be beginning a new special program called Alberta Report, where we're going to every morning around 10, 1030.

00:20:43.540 We're going to have a special report for you on the Alberta election.

00:20:46.400 Everything that happened in the last day and everything that is expected to happen that day, breaking down the big stories on the campaign trail.

00:20:54.280 We'll be going through the polling. We'll be going through the policy announcements, the scandal acts and the bomb throwing and all the crap that day by day on aggregate will make up what the election campaign is.

00:21:05.740 So make sure you turn it, tune in. We'll have our official time decided soon, but it'll be between 10, 1030 every weekday morning beginning this Monday.

00:21:13.940 So speaking of the smaller parts that make up the campaign, Calgary.

00:21:18.940 So we already talked about the Calgary polling, that sets the table about how critically important it is.

00:21:22.940 You don't win Calgary, you don't win government.

00:21:25.940 Now the UCP doesn't even need to win a majority of Calgary, but they've got to hold at least a little under half of Calgary.

00:21:33.940 They probably won't have a bit more than that, but they need to hold about half of Calgary.

00:21:37.940 of Calgary. The NDP have to sweep Calgary under the math. But either way, they both, they're both

00:21:43.880 hot to trot, and they're making it rain. They're just throwing everything at it. All their campaign

00:21:49.400 resources are on Calgary. And so far, all their spending promises are on Calgary. Just yesterday,

00:21:56.580 we had Danielle Smith announce alongside Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek and some others that

00:22:02.720 They're building a new Flames Arena. Big corporate welfare bonanza. The provincial portion, I think, is in the high $200 million or low $300 million. But it's a lot of money. The city is putting in more. It's corporate welfare. 0.51

00:22:19.180 I mean, the saving grace is probably that the province isn't directly paying for the building of the arena.

00:22:26.200 They're demolishing the old one, and they're doing public improvements around it.

00:22:30.380 So, I mean, degrees of bad.

00:22:33.300 I mean, that is something that should be probably covered privately by the Flames organization.

00:22:39.120 But it shows you.

00:22:40.320 I mean, go back to 2012, and Allison Redford was promising government money to build an arena for the Edmonton Oilers.

00:22:48.680 And Daniel Smith stood against that, calling it corporate welfare.

00:22:52.700 My view hasn't changed, but maybe Daniel Smith says. 1.00

00:22:56.940 But at the same time, Rachel Notley is showering money down. 0.86

00:23:00.880 You remember about two weeks ago, she announces her urban revitalization strategy for downtown Calgary. 0.51

00:23:07.960 Now, many people might not remember that because she stepped on her own message because she refused to answer questions from the Western Standard after making a very big point about how she'll answer all reporters' questions.

00:23:17.940 questions and their follow-ups. So that got maybe a bit overshadowed, but both parties are throwing

00:23:23.280 money like Matt at Calgary. Let's start with you, Corey. At what point do voters stop being

00:23:30.140 appreciative of the attention and start thinking it's a bit greasy? Or do they ever? Do they ever?

00:23:38.820 I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they see it as money coming to me. They don't look as deep as realizing

00:23:43.820 it's coming out of their own wallet.

00:23:45.440 They probably know it.

00:23:46.480 They're happy to have it finally.

00:23:47.400 I mean, it's clear.

00:23:48.020 I mean, the timing of the announcement

00:23:49.380 in the arena was no coincidence.

00:23:51.160 It's a major project in Calgary

00:23:52.980 just before the rent drop.

00:23:55.080 And it's like we said,

00:23:56.160 with the negative campaigning,

00:23:57.000 it's effective.

00:23:57.680 Even if it's shallow,

00:23:58.500 even if you know what it's doing,

00:24:00.060 it's effective.

00:24:00.900 The arena, I mean,

00:24:01.760 I'm not thrilled with having tax dollars

00:24:03.280 on either level going into it,

00:24:05.060 but I can see why it's going to work.

00:24:07.000 And it's surprising some people

00:24:08.500 who might be left

00:24:09.200 because it's not least sounding a little,

00:24:10.840 I listened to a press conference today,

00:24:12.140 a little wishy-washy on whether she would support that after the fact. 0.95

00:24:15.840 That's going to hurt her down here, because there's some hardcore hockey fans, 0.86

00:24:18.440 and that's actually how they'll base their vote. 1.00

00:24:19.920 Well, darn it, we need that new barn, and if she's going to scuttle that deal 0.79

00:24:24.300 like Gondek did with the last one, I can't take that chance. 0.96

00:24:27.360 So the games with our money are going to continue.

00:24:30.840 I'll be shocked if Rachel Notley doesn't commit to keep up the deal.

00:24:35.920 She's probably not happy that she didn't get to make the announcement to do it. 0.99

00:24:40.240 She's hedging her bets right now. 0.76

00:24:41.580 But it was also announced alongside Jody Gondek, which is, I mean, you know, hardly Danielle Smith teaming up with the big, bad right wing Huns here.

00:24:51.460 Well, I mean, Rachel Notley in a statement just about an hour ago actually tried to have it both ways by saying, well, I kind of like the idea,

00:25:01.060 except there's a secret deal that they're not releasing until after the election.

00:25:04.620 And I don't think you can trust Danielle Smith.

00:25:06.940 That's basically what it boils down to, although it took her 20 minutes to say it.

00:25:10.480 So it's essentially a version of, I would do that too, but I would do it better.

00:25:14.980 Well, or more in the open, you know, I mean, this is the sort of can't trust Daniel Smith angle of attack that you're going to see more of in the days to come.

00:25:24.780 But, you know, coming back to what you were saying, Corey, do you think it makes a difference that this is a city that said no to the Commonwealth Games?

00:25:34.380 The Olympics, yeah, that was mentioned in the newsroom.

00:25:36.780 So, you know, is an arena the...

00:25:41.120 It might be a bit of a bad gamble.

00:25:43.100 I mean, when pushed long enough.

00:25:44.620 Anyways, this came quickly.

00:25:45.600 I mean, the Olympics, that was a discussion over months to move that needle, though,

00:25:49.660 and really have people dig into the whole issue.

00:25:51.640 But it is a city that doesn't feel that some sporting events are worth reaching into the taxpayer kitty for.

00:25:56.380 And they did that in a vote.

00:25:57.440 So it's worth noting.

00:25:59.380 They haven't embraced it.

00:26:00.120 I'm also wondering what voters this is targeted at.

00:26:02.420 Because obviously not all Calgarians think this is a great idea.

00:26:06.780 A lot of us are only, what do you think of the playoffs today, Derek?

00:26:10.920 I'm going to be honest.

00:26:12.080 I don't, what do you think of the Flames?

00:26:14.280 I don't care until the second round of the playoffs.

00:26:16.740 Was it you who said that?

00:26:18.480 No, it was not.

00:26:18.960 It could have been.

00:26:19.520 Okay, I'm a bandwagon fan.

00:26:21.300 I'm not a Calgary fan, okay.

00:26:23.740 Yeah, I watch football all year, but hockey, I'm only in until we got some real skin in the game.

00:26:30.280 I mean, not all Calgarians care about this.

00:26:32.800 And judging by how the Olympic vote went down and the kind of the different groups that we're speaking out, my feeling is, my gut tells me that kind of more hardcore populist conservative types oppose it, and some of the populist lefty types who don't like any money, they don't like business, and then populist conservatives who don't like corporate welfare for business, both of them probably voted against the Olympics and wouldn't like this kind of deal.

00:27:01.340 But centrist voters who just want the government to be pragmatic, and that just means doing nice things that I like without any particular ideological penchant, they might like it.

00:27:12.100 So I have a feeling this kind of might piss off some conservative Wildrose types in Calgary, but that the people she's trying to bring back into the fold are those kind of moderate, kind of Kenny conservatives who haven't been too happy with her in the UCP since the change in the leadership.

00:27:28.200 that's right and you know even though the wild rose constituency that you mentioned just now

00:27:33.880 probably isn't going to like it it's not going to make them change their vote because they're not

00:27:38.280 going to say if she's going to put in an arena well that means i'm voting for the ndp yeah that's

00:27:44.360 that's not going to happen they'll hold their noses they'll break away over some issues over

00:27:48.200 you know vax you know mandates and masks ottawa issues but i have a feeling they probably are

00:27:52.680 they're not like this but i doubt they're gonna not vote ucb the worst thing to do is make a few

00:27:57.480 more stay home, perhaps, but they're not going to flip, I think, on that one. So on net, it's a

00:28:05.080 plus for Smith? I think strategically, yeah. Yeah, not in terms of actual good idea, bad idea,

00:28:09.960 in terms of like public policy or money, but in terms of electionary. It was a good policy.

00:28:15.160 Spending money on free fun stuff, bread and circuses never fails to do well.

00:28:21.720 Just as well she put through that announcement this morning about

00:28:24.360 no tax increases because that's the thing that gets you if they're building an arena what's this

00:28:29.640 going to cost me compared to what benefit I'm going to get out of it. Well I mean the federal

00:28:33.780 I mean the Alberta government's swimming in money temporarily from oil and gas revenues. City of

00:28:40.000 Calgary is a bit different they don't see quite the same bonanzas when when oil and gas are doing

00:28:44.520 well but Calgary's municipal government is always happy to raise taxes. So okay we're switch gears

00:28:53.520 I'm going to say switch guns, switch guns back to Ottawa here, fire out of the other barrel.

00:29:00.040 So the federal bill currently before Parliament, it's been before Parliament for about a year now,

00:29:07.440 formalizing the liberal ban of handgun sales and banning a bunch of what they call military-style assault rifles,

00:29:17.640 which is obviously just based on

00:29:20.040 they look scary

00:29:21.600 they're not made out of a wood stock

00:29:23.600 and traditional gun metal

00:29:26.240 they're black or they're camo

00:29:28.320 and that makes them more dangerous 1.00

00:29:29.600 and the liberals tried to come up with an evergreen

00:29:32.040 so called evergreen definition of

00:29:33.820 assault style military

00:29:35.360 nukes or whatever

00:29:36.980 and that ran into a roadblock

00:29:40.380 particularly when indigenous people

00:29:42.340 said like hey we use these things

00:29:44.380 like the SKS

00:29:45.300 The SKS looks scary, but it's just a practical semi-automatic rifle, very commonly used, target shooting and hunting.

00:29:52.360 And they kind of ran into big trouble.

00:29:54.220 They had groups like the CSSA fighting them, but they ran into big trouble once indigenous groups started speaking up. 0.88

00:30:00.100 Now they're trying again.

00:30:01.100 They've got a new amendment coming forward.

00:30:03.980 We'll get to the so-called buyback in a bit.

00:30:06.660 But maybe tell us a bit just about the amendment to the bill here, what it's looking like and why the NDP is backing it this time.

00:30:13.640 so the um take this from our own story here just to draw attention to our website but the

00:30:23.760 the plan is to go first to the people who sell these weapons these these guns and the this

00:30:34.720 organization that they're approaching the canadian sporting arms and ammunition association i've

00:30:41.860 never heard of them but apparently they represent retailers and so it seems to be simply just for

00:30:49.140 context retailers have got a bunch of these guns they're not allowed to sell anymore because they've

00:30:53.080 been they've been uh banned by regulation for being sold but they're not banned to have and so

00:30:58.700 they're kind of sitting on all this surplus fire exactly so this may well be a way of moving some

00:31:05.160 inventory as far as the association is concerned and from the government point of view well these

00:31:10.820 guns that aren't going to find their way into circulation. So that's the first phase of this.

00:31:18.340 The second phase, which has no timeline yet, would go after individual gun owners and not involve

00:31:25.220 the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association. Which is, just for clarity,

00:31:31.460 not the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. And it's got almost the same acronym, so it's pretty

00:31:36.820 confusing. Well we had to straighten that out. So it's hard to believe that this all started three

00:31:41.460 years ago. It was like May 2020 when the Trudeau government used an order in council to ban 1500

00:31:49.540 1500 different types of models and variants of firearms. Including some rocket launchers and

00:31:55.700 anti-aircraft missiles. Stuff that I was very upset to learn I could have theoretically bought

00:32:01.540 I always wanted a Panzerfaust.

00:32:04.540 So what they're going to be asking is owners to either sell their firearms to the government,

00:32:10.540 which is the buyback word, the B word, or have them made unusable.

00:32:16.540 And the government will pay for them to put a plug in your breach.

00:32:22.540 We'll get right on that.

00:32:23.540 We'll get right on that.

00:32:24.540 Yes, that's just a great idea.

00:32:26.540 So that's what this is all about.

00:32:28.540 about you know the question that constantly come back to me is given that we don't have you know

00:32:34.780 the school shootings and the mass murders in mcdonald's and we did have the mass murder in

00:32:40.020 new brunswick but that was all illegal smuggled american guns yeah and i mean yes exactly the

00:32:48.400 thing is you've got to go back decades to find the kind of action that would justify something like

00:32:56.580 this. So what is the problem they're trying to solve? I don't think it's crime. It's got to be

00:33:04.820 some aspect of the culture war that we're talking about where they just hate the idea of people

00:33:10.140 owning firearms. And they'll start with these and move on to the next. So Corey, you know,

00:33:16.020 Nigel was talking about the so-called buyback. I love how they call it buyback when the government

00:33:19.980 never owned the government. The government aren't for sale. So there's no buying the back. And

00:33:23.740 You can't buy something that's not for sale.

00:33:26.040 If you take something that doesn't belong to you, even if you leave something behind, that's not buying.

00:33:30.940 That's called stealing or at a minimum confiscation if you're the government, because it's not stealing if you're the government, I guess.

00:33:39.600 Nigel was talking about the so-called buyback aspect, but there's also now, they're kind of weaselly about what it's going to look like,

00:33:46.960 but they're still trying to get this so-called evergreen definition in there to blanket ban

00:33:53.760 scary guns which you know the liberals call us military style yeah i mean uh you've seen my

00:33:59.520 assault style barbecue it's i mean it's a hell of barbecue but it's still barbecue we've seen you

00:34:04.800 assault style uh the bonfire in your backyard we don't talk about that on tv my assault style

00:34:12.080 Flamethrower. Yeah. Or lighter. It's a salt style lighter. Right. Yeah. They got into a lot of trouble

00:34:21.440 last time. How much of a minefield are they walking? Because they're coming back at it.

00:34:27.280 I think they're ideologically dedicated to this. It's sort of, as Nigel's saying, it's part of the

00:34:31.760 culture wars. They want these. They just don't know how. I mean, they're trying and they keep

00:34:36.160 burning their fingers when they reach. So now they've found a new low hanging fruit to go after

00:34:41.120 and that's the retailers. There's a whole lot of guns in the inventory. And you've got a nice

00:34:45.240 quizzling organization there that'll help facilitate this. And you've got to put yourselves

00:34:49.760 in the feet of the owners of these places. You're stuck with a bunch of product. It's illegal for

00:34:54.760 you to now sell. I mean, if only to stay solvent, at least if somebody is going to buy the bloody

00:35:00.560 things off you grudgingly. And again, it's more with the force of the state at your back,

00:35:06.480 move those firearms. I'm sure they would much prefer to sell them to customers as they used to.

00:35:10.620 but it's all incremental. It's all frog in water. They know that that's still just a percentage of

00:35:15.680 those newly categorized firearms. And Canada is one of the most armed civilian nations on earth.

00:35:20.120 People don't realize that. Like we're like number seven on the planet or something. We have millions

00:35:24.740 and millions of firearms out there. They don't know where the vast majority of them are. And the

00:35:29.420 people who do own them don't trust the bloody government. So they're going to have a hell of a

00:35:32.960 time trying to get these things. And they're taking this kind of more incremental approach

00:35:37.960 as opposed to in the past, in large measure, they said, because of what Alberta and Saskatchewan's governments have done,

00:35:44.660 the Saskatchewan Firearms Act and the Alberta-Saskatchewan Firearms Act, the Alberta-Alberta Firearms Act and Saskatchewan Firearms Act.

00:35:51.540 And they're pretty damn similar.

00:35:55.220 The Alberta one was based on the Saskatchewan one.

00:35:59.340 And essentially what it does is it makes it illegal for federal officers, federal officials, to confiscate weapons,

00:36:05.980 except if that weapon is found in the commission of a crime.

00:36:09.280 So, you know, if an R.C. goes to a robbery at the 7-Eleven

00:36:13.760 and the guy has got a gun, they can take that gun.

00:36:16.140 That's obviously reasonable.

00:36:17.580 But when they're talking about confiscating people in non-criminal situations,

00:36:20.760 like, I don't know, they're just going to go to Bob's house in Red Deer County

00:36:25.200 and take his stuff.

00:36:26.820 Federal officials are no longer allowed to do that.

00:36:29.100 Now, there are so-called confiscation officers.

00:36:32.000 Imagine going to a house and announcing yourself as a confiscation officer.

00:36:34.880 that's a fun job. That's like being a tax collector for the Roman Empire in Judea.

00:36:40.160 I mean, it's not going to go down too well. Oh, no, no, it's being a British tax collector in

00:36:44.480 Boston. It's not going to be a popular job in the community. How many pounds of tea is that?

00:36:50.880 Yeah. And you have to be licensed by the provincial government. So essentially,

00:36:57.600 the provincial governments can't do much to bring back the sale of reasonable firearms to own.

00:37:03.600 federal government can seem to stop that but they can stop the confiscation it seems of firearms

00:37:09.520 that are already privately owned and the federal government doesn't seem to know what to do about

00:37:15.200 it like short of nationalize the rcmp take away any provincial control and order them to break

00:37:22.240 provincial statute break provincial law and start storming houses which is obviously absurd i don't

00:37:28.240 think that would happen. Short of that, I don't see how Ottawa can do that, at least so long as

00:37:35.360 the UCP continue to govern in Alberta and the Sask Party in Saskatchewan.

00:37:39.440 Well, that's the point, isn't it? I mean, if Rachel Notley were taking questions from

00:37:44.000 independent media, the question to ask would indeed be, Adam, what will you do about the

00:37:50.640 legislation that forbids the federal government to confiscate firearms?

00:37:54.480 Well, let's put that on the list, because we're going to ask the questions anyway,

00:37:56.720 it's up to her if she wants to answer them i think it's uh i love the chance to ask it

00:38:00.720 yeah i'm still waiting for her put it on the list that's absolutely something she's welcome

00:38:04.720 on the show and i know some of the guys in the ndt war room we're probably watching this so

00:38:08.880 you can prepare your answer you know well in advance this question's coming

00:38:13.360 and nigel will do it with a smile a corey corey probably won't smile if he doesn't

00:38:18.960 it's kind of mean not your style uh i guess kind of bring it back to where we were before

00:38:24.800 Do you think firearms are going to be a significant provincial election issue?

00:38:29.700 Because normally we don't think of this as a provincial issue.

00:38:32.060 Generally, the federal government does firearms and that's it.

00:38:35.400 But as Alberta and Saskatchewan have started to reassert provincial sovereignty over their jurisdiction here,

00:38:41.140 they've gone into firearms in a very big way that has kind of put a real crimp in the federal government style here.

00:38:49.620 Do you foresee firearms being a major election issue here in Alberta?

00:38:54.260 No, certainly. I don't see the upside in the NDP for trying to make it one. I mean, the UCP legislation is broadly popular with people who have firearms and who probably there's a probably a pretty high correlation between firearm ownerships and UCP.

00:39:13.740 is why it might be a no-lose for the NDP because the majority of Albertans still don't own firearms.

00:39:18.540 I mean, it's a minority. It's a very large minority. It's pretty big in Alberta, but it's

00:39:22.460 still a minority. And I mean, most people who have firearms are proportionally, I'm

00:39:28.540 pretty confidently willing to bet, are voting UCP already. They're not voting NDP. So is there

00:39:32.620 actually anything to lose? The NDP might have a... I don't see an advantage in diving into it. I mean,

00:39:37.100 the NDP, as you said, some of those battlegrounds satellite around the city, or there's hunters

00:39:40.620 within the city, ones like that, that you really want to open that conversation. You're really

00:39:44.700 going to move them. Are hunters really going to vote? Hunters might dress an orange in duck season

00:39:48.720 sometimes. I don't know if I mentioned them before, but my mother's husband in Idaho, the very

00:39:53.040 extremely Democrat dedicated Trump derangement syndrome. But he's a Second Amendment supporter

00:40:01.020 to the core. And everything else is hard left with him. But boy, if you want to flip him,

00:40:07.580 try and take his gun. But I feel like that's a pretty small number of people. Yeah, that's what

00:40:13.000 I'm saying. That's why it won't be an issue. I mean, the dedicates on this are already in the

00:40:17.480 parties. I don't see the parties having much interest in turning this. The federal NDP and

00:40:21.640 the liberals don't make any bones. They don't care about pissing off gun owners because most

00:40:27.120 gun owners don't vote liberal and NDP federally. And I imagine, actually, we've gotten the polling

00:40:31.620 data here. People who vote NDP, obviously, but overwhelming those who vote liberal federally

00:40:37.280 in Alberta are voting overwhelmingly NDP here. I just don't think there's a ton of gun owner and

00:40:43.260 hunter votes up for grabs for the NDP. And if none of them are voting NDP anyway, the NDP might be

00:40:49.700 able to appeal to some of the more pearl clutching people in the suburbs who don't own guns and don't

00:40:54.320 know anything about it and say, you know, Daniel Smith and the UCP are endangering you and we're

00:40:59.180 gonna go along with Ottawa and take these dangerous military guns out of the hands of

00:41:05.180 people like the Western Standard.

00:41:07.780 Derek, they might do all of that, but they'll still

00:41:09.820 get more traction by playing

00:41:11.680 on the nerves and fears of people

00:41:13.680 in hard to answer,

00:41:15.920 hard to explain questions around healthcare.

00:41:18.100 Like the ad that they're running now

00:41:19.480 shouldn't cost you anything to go to the doctor.

00:41:22.040 Maybe the credit card will.

00:41:24.080 Nobody's talking about that, but

00:41:25.620 that's the sort of the innuendo.

00:41:27.480 That will get traction.

00:41:29.780 Talking about, okay,

00:41:31.640 we agree with you, Rachel, yes, nobody

00:41:33.580 should have a gun. But what are you going to do about health care? What are you going to do about...

00:41:38.380 In fact, I think really the whole election is eventually going to come down to a very simple

00:41:43.160 question. What do you think about Daniel Smith? What do you think about Rachel Notley? That's

00:41:48.180 really where the great divide in the campaign issue is going to come. Okay. We don't have time

00:41:53.780 to actually really dive into it. Well, we got to touch on it just because it's so good.

00:41:57.820 But Justin Trudeau says that he didn't coerce or force anybody to get vaccinated during COVID.

00:42:06.640 Misinformation and disinformation is carrying people to believe things that are untrue.

00:42:15.400 And vaccinations is a perfect example of it.

00:42:17.820 like any modern bit of medical

00:42:22.540 advancements there are potential side effects in vaccinations

00:42:29.860 and there are people who've probably gotten very sick from vaccinations

00:42:36.040 on the billions of people who've been vaccinated against covid over the past few years

00:42:40.900 but there are far more people who obviously have died due to covid died from not getting vaccinated

00:42:49.220 and the idea that people can fly in the face of science well individuals are allowed to make

00:42:58.020 their own choices there may be all sorts of different reasons why someone is hesitant

00:43:01.400 to get vaccinated but i make a distinction i have always have between someone choosing for

00:43:09.640 personal reasons to choose not to get vaccinated and someone deliberately

00:43:18.100 using misinformation to mislead and scare other people with so-called facts

00:43:28.780 that aren't facts at all that lead them to make a choice that endangers their

00:43:33.900 lives and the lives of other citizens. So as Prime Minister, through the greatest

00:43:43.440 public health crisis that we faced in a hundred years in this country, since the

00:43:49.500 Spanish flu, my responsibility was to keep as many Canadians alive as possible.

00:43:57.360 and all of the scientists and the medical experts and the researchers not just in Canada but around

00:44:06.180 the world understood that vaccination was going to be the way through this and therefore while

00:44:14.400 not forcing anyone to get vaccinated I chose to make sure that all the incentives and all the

00:44:22.340 protections were there to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated. And that's exactly what they did.

00:44:28.200 We got vaccinated to a higher level than just about any other of our peer countries. And that's

00:44:32.840 why we had a less deadly pandemic than most other countries. Okay, so you've heard Justin Trudeau

00:44:40.440 there. He did not coerce anybody. Nice guy. Let's just read from his own words here. This was said

00:44:48.860 in French. And boy, this was a big story. The Western Standard had it translated, I believe,

00:44:55.080 was first reported here. But he said this on a French language program in Quebec. He certainly

00:44:59.940 never repeated it in English. But here's what he said during COVID. We all know people who are

00:45:05.840 deciding whether or not they're willing to get vaccinated. And we will do our very best to try

00:45:11.040 and convince them. However, they're still a part of the population that is fiercely against it.

00:45:15.980 They don't believe in science, progress, and they're very often misogynistic and racist. It's a very small group of people, but that doesn't shy away from the fact that they take up some space.

00:45:30.420 This leads us as a leader and as a country to make a choice. Do we tolerate these people? Over 80% of the population of Quebec have done their duty by getting the shot.

00:45:41.840 They are obviously not the issue in this situation.

00:45:45.840 Well, that sounds very uncoercive to me.

00:45:49.840 I'm sure people that I know who wanted to live overseas but are Canadian citizens who wish to return to Canada to go to their own parents' funerals,

00:45:57.840 they were certainly not coerced when they were not allowed to enter the country unless they got the vaccination.

00:46:02.840 People who were not allowed to do their jobs as truckers were certainly not coerced.

00:46:06.840 coerced. People who were fired from their jobs because they were not vaccinated were not coerced.

00:46:12.840 Wow. So if I say give me your wallet or else am I coercing him? Of course I am. There is a

00:46:19.700 consequence. There's no choice there. So get vaccinated. I don't even think we don't have

00:46:24.420 time and I don't even think we need to get into that. It's pretty freaking obvious to me but

00:46:28.340 it was just too good to not get into this time. Well Nigel, Corey, thank you for your time.

00:46:34.420 I thank all of you for joining us. Don't forget, Monday, 10.30 a.m. is the beginning of our special Alberta election coverage Alberta report. Myself, opinion editor Nigel Henniford will be here, as well as the Western Standard's news editor, Dave Naylor, and reporters of ours spread across Alberta following the leaders around, stalking them from stop to stop.

00:46:58.540 Remember, if you're not already a member of the Western Standard, become one.

00:47:01.700 Go to westernstandard.news, click on membership.

00:47:04.000 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year to get you full, unlimited access to all Western Standard content.

00:47:10.340 And, of course, you'll be supporting bailout media like the Western Standard looking out for the West.

00:47:15.980 Thank you very much for your time.

00:47:17.500 God bless.

00:47:18.340 Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:47:20.500 Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:47:24.880 these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and

00:47:31.240 legislation in Canada and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns

00:47:36.400 out of the hands of the wrong people who become a member it's absolutely worth every penny

00:47:40.860 folks it's springtime and the Leafs are in the playoffs even the markets are surprised I was

00:47:48.700 going to wear a flames jersey to represent all the red we've been seeing in the market but I

00:47:52.680 thought that might be too soon for some of you flame fans out there. So I think we'd better just

00:47:57.800 get into these prices just to keep everybody happy here. Cash parties unchanged at $4.19. Feed wheat

00:48:03.720 were sitting up $3.00 to $4.18 a metric and corn were up $5.00 to $4.12 per metric. Moving to the

00:48:11.360 milling wheat markets, July Minneapolis futures dropped 14.5 cents to $8.22 per bushel with local

00:48:17.940 hard red spring bid for May movement at $10 per bushel delivered. In the oil

00:48:22.600 seeds, nearby canola futures went up $10.80 to $7.37.20 per ton with

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00:48:33.840 pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are trading at $0.34 a pound and yellow

00:48:38.400 peas remain at $12 per bushel. Finishing up with the cattle markets, June live

00:48:43.200 cattle slid 0.4 cents to 163.63 per 100 weight. For more information on pricing or if you just

00:48:50.900 want to talk about how great those leaf fans are, give me a call. I'm Mike Van Dyke at Marketplace

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00:49:00.340 become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99.

Western Standard - April 27, 2023

The Pipeline： UCP and NDP neck-and-neck as election kicks off

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