The Alberta election is right around the corner, and the polls are neck-and-neck in a dead heat between the Tories and the NDP in the race for first place in the polls. Meanwhile, the federal government continues to ramp up its gun grab, including a new bill that could see them seize your lawfully acquired firearms.
00:00:00.000Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. Today is April 26,
00:00:18.3002023, and you're watching The Pipeline. I'm joined, as always, by the Western Standard's
00:00:24.020opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford. Hello again. Hello. And joined by Western Standard Alberta's
00:00:29.320senior columnist, Corey Morgan. How are you doing, Corey? Very good. All right. It's always a good
00:00:35.560show, but we've got a really good show today. The Alberta election is right around the corner. It's
00:00:41.040already going. We all know what's going if you're around here, but it starts formally this coming
00:00:46.220Monday and the polls are neck and neck. We're going to break down what the lay of the land
00:00:52.280looks like going into this campaign, a very unique, very, very unique, almost unprecedented
00:00:58.240campaign in Alberta's electoral history. We're going to talk about where the parties stand,
00:01:04.040where the leaders stand, and what we can expect so much as we can predict any of this stuff.
00:01:09.820And within there, we're also going to be studying, looking at the battleground Calgary. And boy,
00:01:15.680the two big parties are making it rain on Calgary, spending oodles and oodles of taxpayers' money
00:01:21.820to woo the all-important Calgarian swing voter.
00:01:27.200In Ottawa, the federal gun grab continues to pick up steam.
00:01:32.200News today that the federal government's breached an agreement with one of the groups representing firearms and ammunition manufacturers
00:01:40.080to buy back, not buy back, but just buy from them a bunch of guns and ammunition that is now illegal.
00:01:47.020and moves coming, re-amending the bill to steal people's lawfully, otherwise lawfully acquired firearms in Canada with NDP support.
00:01:57.760Moving ahead with Marco Mendicino, the federal public safety minister, putting forward these new amendments that seem likely to pass and probably become law.
00:02:08.700And big surprise, Justin Trudeau says that during COVID, he didn't force anyone to get vaccinated.
00:02:17.020No, I'm not joking. No, that's really what he said. He did not coerce anyone to get vaccinated.
00:02:25.300I mean, that segment almost kind of writes itself, but we got to talk about it. We got to talk about something that crazy.
00:02:30.280But going back, speaking of taking your fire, Ottawa's stealing your firearms.
00:02:35.320Today's show is sponsored by the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
00:02:38.800I've been a member of the CSSA for over a decade, trusting them to defend my rights as a firearms owner in Canada.
00:02:44.920they're Canada's leading firearms rights organization. If you're not a member of them,
00:02:49.320you absolutely need to be. They are on the front lines protecting your right to own and responsibly
00:02:54.880use firearms in Canada lawfully. Without them, we'd be in a much tougher spot than we are right
00:03:01.100now. If you're not yet a member of the CSSA, go to cssa-cila.org or do what I do and Google them.
00:03:08.260enjoying today. Okay, so a new poll coming up. Let's back up. Monday, the election officially
00:03:18.000begins. But I mean, we've been in the election for really since kind of the New Year's Christmas
00:03:25.320break. It's been building up. It's just been kind of increasing, kind of like a wave building up
00:03:30.640steam. And now it's just going to crest when the writ drops. It's not like we've had in the past
00:03:35.340where the election of the government just called the election whenever it wanted or in 2015 and in
00:03:40.8602019 where there was a fixed election window we knew it would be vaguely in the spring early
00:03:46.780summer ish of the year and what year would be oh no not 2015 because uh uh Jim Prentice broke that
00:03:54.060law so forget that one but at least last time um and in 2012 that happened too uh this time
00:03:59.900we have a fixed election date which makes it much more certain and the parties have planned around
00:04:04.140it. But on Monday, the writ finally drops, the official election period gets underway.
00:04:11.820There's some new polling, there's been a lot of polling out, but brand new one today from
00:04:15.940Abacus Data, David Colletto, fascinating stuff. Now this has got the UCP and the NDP,
00:04:23.640not just in a statistical dead heat, but in an exact dead heat at 36% each support among
00:04:31.800decided voters. The Alberta party, ever so hopeful, at 4%. Other parties, 3%. But a very high
00:04:40.100undecided at 22%. I mean, it's an absolute dead heat. If you take the undecideds out, generally
00:04:47.840it's 47 NDP, 46 NDP. Just the way that works out with some of the decibels around there. But
00:04:56.060But then there's the battleground Calgary, where everyone agrees the election is mostly going to be decided.
00:05:04.480There's a few battle, you know, the ringer, the donut ring around Edmonton is going to be a battleground.
00:05:21.760Who wins Calgary is likely going to win the election.
00:05:24.300There, 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.
00:05:44.100It's now back to competitive. Some polls have the UCP slightly, but it's generally pretty neck and neck.
00:05:52.020Is this good news for the UCP or bad news?
00:05:55.440If you're Daniel Smith right now, how are you taking the news of this poll?
00:05:59.020Well, 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.
00:06:07.140The problem with these dead heat polls is that you really can't predict how it's going to break
00:06:14.280because you can win a seat by a couple of dozen votes.
00:06:18.220I mean, federally, I've seen seats change hand on as few as two votes.
00:06:22.840So you're saying, well, you know, we're roughly equal.
00:06:26.960Well, that could just depends where that couple of hundred votes goes.
00:06:30.740and if it's distributed through three or four key constituency and you can fit the 50 you need here
00:06:38.340and the 40 you need there and the 60 you need there well then guess what you've got 40 seats
00:06:43.620for a very small investment of votes uh what you're talking about is is vote efficiency that
00:06:49.780yeah you don't want you don't necessarily turn for it certainly amongst us guys we will talk
00:06:54.580about that but just speaking you know um so i always think of the 2011 federal election when
00:07:02.580actually when it came right down to it about 5 000 votes distributed where they went made the
00:07:06.420difference and with 16 million people voting now here in calgary you're talking about half and half
00:07:12.10036 36 there's an undecided that's obviously going to be a factor but uh where those votes actually
00:07:17.620end up is something you can't tell from the poll so i wouldn't be breaking out the champagne just
00:07:21.940yet. Corey, I think it's probably fair to say the UCP have a bit more of an efficient vote. We're
00:07:29.400talking about voter efficiency, vote efficiency here. And it's because the NDP have run up such
00:07:34.340massive leads in Edmonton. I mean, you've got to feel for Casey Maddu, who's really swimming
00:07:40.660against the tide here. The NDP is 63% in Edmonton, absolutely crushing it. UCP far behind at 28. I
00:07:48.640I mean, it's possible if that 28% is concentrated enough in, say, the Southwest that Casey Maddu maybe could pull it out.
00:07:55.720But 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.
00:08:11.140They're at 59%, NDP at 35%. They're going to probably win at least the vast majority of those seats.
00:08:31.980Are you looking at this and saying, okay, this poll is good news,
00:08:36.460this is making my day, or is this a bad news poll for you?
00:08:40.120I think for Rachel Notley, it's a bad news poll.
00:08:42.480I mean, it's not the end of the world.
00:08:43.420We've still got a whole campaign to go.
00:08:44.980But it's showing that they've started.
00:08:46.120individual. They've got to move a needle. Like those numbers, if they sit as they are, mean
00:08:50.640a UCP majority. I mean, it'll be a reduced one, hopefully a humbled one, I guess. But she has to
00:08:57.360pick up seats in Calgary. It is the UCPs to lose. And, you know, UCP has certainly got some0.81
00:09:03.800challenges, but they've got a number of incumbents running. And that's always quite often an advantage
00:09:08.920in those ridings. The other thing that pollsters have a hard time with conservatives, and I know
00:09:12.440they try to account for it. But if you look at the poll numbers and the ages, I mean, the youth
00:09:17.480vote, a lot of them go to the NDP. But the youth vote also, if there's something good on TV, are
00:09:22.100often not prone to going out and bothering to vote. The older voters have a much higher turnout
00:09:26.780for their demographic. And again, pollsters try to account for that. But often conservatives can
00:09:31.500be underrepresented. Like 2011, Trudeau, he brought out young voters, Obama 2008. They managed to
00:09:39.140mobilize those demographics and it kind of throws all your polling math out the window because you
00:09:42.980have to kind of take into account how likely is this demographic to vote. I don't see Notley
00:09:46.260energizing the youth this time around really you know she's getting organized labor she's doing
00:09:50.200things but she's not getting a wave of excitement even did she managed to bring about kind of a
00:09:55.560younger demographic and get them off their bus to vote yeah even among unions you just touched on
00:10:00.960unions uh it's interesting um so we'll kind of kind of break it down UCP is leading among men
00:10:07.760and older people, NDP among women and younger people, people with a high school degree in
00:10:14.400college, much more likely to vote UCP, but the NDP lead among people with a university degree.
00:10:20.920But on unions, so 17% said that they're currently a part of a union. I'm not sure how representative
00:10:27.220that is in Alberta or not, but it's probably roughly there. The NDP have only a nine point
00:10:32.420lead among unionized people. And when you take into account that unions now tend to be dominated
00:10:38.960by government employees, which you assume are almost certainly voting NDP, because, you know,
00:10:44.400who gets to, probably going to have a friendly employer, you know, look what's happening
00:10:49.400federally there, PSAC is probably going to get a pretty good deal out of liberal NDP coalition
00:10:54.160there. The NDP among all unionized people in Alberta, government and private sector unionized
00:11:02.060employees. The NDP have only a nine percent advantage. What does that say to you, Nigel?
00:11:08.460It says people don't like paying union dues for one thing. It also says that people who work in
00:11:17.820the manual occupations, I'm thinking of the oil patch, construction generally, just because they're
00:11:23.580in a union doesn't mean they're socialistically inclined. They've got to be in to get the job.
00:11:28.380But 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.
00:11:56.380Well, I just say, not everybody likes the deal that they have to belong to a union in order to work.
00:12:01.560If that's the work they want to do, then that's the deal, they do it.
00:15:15.780It's a special, special state and an interesting one.
00:15:20.020But it's a good parallel to bring up because, yeah, those necks are as red as they get.
00:15:24.760I 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.
00:15:33.800It 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.
00:15:43.040But, 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.
00:15:48.720So the Democrats are losing that segment, without doubt.
00:15:53.520So there's a lot of undecided voters in this, 22%.
00:15:56.760Now, that's higher than, say, Jenna Brown's polls, but, you know, they're using different methodologies.
00:16:02.800And the polls are a snapshot in time. They're not going to tell you what's going to happen.
00:16:06.460They 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.
00:16:14.880UCP voters or people who voted UCP last time in 2019, though, make up most of the undecided.
00:16:21.840So 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.
00:16:30.00060% of people who vote, only 60% of people who voted UCP last time say they're definite to vote UCP again.
00:16:40.280Now that's down a bit, so it's moving in UCP's favor.
00:16:43.740But NDP, people who voted NDP last time are damn sure they're voting NDP again.
00:16:48.080They're at 87%, and 6% say they're back in the NDP.
00:16:54.160But people who voted UCP last time, 13% of them say they're going to vote NDP.
00:17:00.000I think in large measure with Smith's ascension as UCP leader, she's pulled, I think, most of that right flank back in.
00:17:09.800People who are looking at something like the Wild Rose Independence Party, who are walking away on the right under Kenny,
00:17:15.160who are upset with him over COVID things and upset with him over his perceived weak stance on Ottawa.
00:17:22.120I think she's brought most of those people back in.
00:17:24.240And 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?
00:17:35.220You 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.
00:17:41.440They did something that I really don't like.
00:17:45.400And 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.
00:17:56.120And that kind of thinking is going to be encouraged by the UCP during the weeks to come.
00:18:02.320And 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.
00:18:20.080I may not have voted for Daniel Smith as leader.
00:19:39.480But 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?
00:19:47.160Or would you say, maybe we've maximized that and we need to be a little sunnier and happier?
00:19:51.420I 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.
00:20:20.860So I suspect they're going to carry on with it. It's going to get rough.
00:20:24.520Yeah, 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,
00:20:34.320we're going to be beginning a new special program called Alberta Report, where we're going to every morning around 10, 1030.
00:20:43.540We're going to have a special report for you on the Alberta election.
00:20:46.400Everything that happened in the last day and everything that is expected to happen that day, breaking down the big stories on the campaign trail.
00:20:54.280We'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.
00:21:05.740So 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.
00:21:13.940So speaking of the smaller parts that make up the campaign, Calgary.
00:21:18.940So we already talked about the Calgary polling, that sets the table about how critically important it is.
00:21:22.940You don't win Calgary, you don't win government.
00:21:25.940Now 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.
00:21:33.940They probably won't have a bit more than that, but they need to hold about half of Calgary.
00:21:37.940of Calgary. The NDP have to sweep Calgary under the math. But either way, they both, they're both
00:21:43.880hot to trot, and they're making it rain. They're just throwing everything at it. All their campaign
00:21:49.400resources are on Calgary. And so far, all their spending promises are on Calgary. Just yesterday,
00:21:56.580we had Danielle Smith announce alongside Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek and some others that
00:22:02.720They'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
00:22:19.180I mean, the saving grace is probably that the province isn't directly paying for the building of the arena.
00:22:26.200They're demolishing the old one, and they're doing public improvements around it.
00:22:40.320I mean, go back to 2012, and Allison Redford was promising government money to build an arena for the Edmonton Oilers.
00:22:48.680And Daniel Smith stood against that, calling it corporate welfare.
00:22:52.700My view hasn't changed, but maybe Daniel Smith says.1.00
00:22:56.940But at the same time, Rachel Notley is showering money down.0.86
00:23:00.880You remember about two weeks ago, she announces her urban revitalization strategy for downtown Calgary.0.51
00:23:07.960Now, 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.
00:23:17.940questions and their follow-ups. So that got maybe a bit overshadowed, but both parties are throwing
00:23:23.280money like Matt at Calgary. Let's start with you, Corey. At what point do voters stop being
00:23:30.140appreciative of the attention and start thinking it's a bit greasy? Or do they ever? Do they ever?
00:23:38.820I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they see it as money coming to me. They don't look as deep as realizing
00:24:41.580But 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.
00:24:51.460Well, 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,
00:25:01.060except there's a secret deal that they're not releasing until after the election.
00:25:04.620And I don't think you can trust Danielle Smith.
00:25:06.940That's basically what it boils down to, although it took her 20 minutes to say it.
00:25:10.480So it's essentially a version of, I would do that too, but I would do it better.
00:25:14.980Well, 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.
00:25:24.780But, 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?
00:25:34.380The Olympics, yeah, that was mentioned in the newsroom.
00:26:23.740Yeah, I watch football all year, but hockey, I'm only in until we got some real skin in the game.
00:26:30.280I mean, not all Calgarians care about this.
00:26:32.800And 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.
00:27:01.340But 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.
00:27:12.100So 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.
00:27:28.200that's right and you know even though the wild rose constituency that you mentioned just now
00:27:33.880probably isn't going to like it it's not going to make them change their vote because they're not
00:27:38.280going to say if she's going to put in an arena well that means i'm voting for the ndp yeah that's
00:27:44.360that's not going to happen they'll hold their noses they'll break away over some issues over
00:27:48.200you know vax you know mandates and masks ottawa issues but i have a feeling they probably are
00:27:52.680they're not like this but i doubt they're gonna not vote ucb the worst thing to do is make a few
00:27:57.480more stay home, perhaps, but they're not going to flip, I think, on that one. So on net, it's a
00:28:05.080plus for Smith? I think strategically, yeah. Yeah, not in terms of actual good idea, bad idea,
00:28:09.960in terms of like public policy or money, but in terms of electionary. It was a good policy.
00:28:15.160Spending money on free fun stuff, bread and circuses never fails to do well.
00:28:21.720Just as well she put through that announcement this morning about
00:28:24.360no tax increases because that's the thing that gets you if they're building an arena what's this
00:28:29.640going to cost me compared to what benefit I'm going to get out of it. Well I mean the federal
00:28:33.780I mean the Alberta government's swimming in money temporarily from oil and gas revenues. City of
00:28:40.000Calgary is a bit different they don't see quite the same bonanzas when when oil and gas are doing
00:28:44.520well but Calgary's municipal government is always happy to raise taxes. So okay we're switch gears
00:28:53.520I'm going to say switch guns, switch guns back to Ottawa here, fire out of the other barrel.
00:29:00.040So the federal bill currently before Parliament, it's been before Parliament for about a year now,
00:29:07.440formalizing the liberal ban of handgun sales and banning a bunch of what they call military-style assault rifles,
00:36:26.820Federal officials are no longer allowed to do that.
00:36:29.100Now, there are so-called confiscation officers.
00:36:32.000Imagine going to a house and announcing yourself as a confiscation officer.
00:36:34.880that's a fun job. That's like being a tax collector for the Roman Empire in Judea.
00:36:40.160I mean, it's not going to go down too well. Oh, no, no, it's being a British tax collector in
00:36:44.480Boston. It's not going to be a popular job in the community. How many pounds of tea is that?
00:36:50.880Yeah. And you have to be licensed by the provincial government. So essentially,
00:36:57.600the provincial governments can't do much to bring back the sale of reasonable firearms to own.
00:37:03.600federal government can seem to stop that but they can stop the confiscation it seems of firearms
00:37:09.520that are already privately owned and the federal government doesn't seem to know what to do about
00:37:15.200it like short of nationalize the rcmp take away any provincial control and order them to break
00:37:22.240provincial statute break provincial law and start storming houses which is obviously absurd i don't
00:37:28.240think that would happen. Short of that, I don't see how Ottawa can do that, at least so long as
00:37:35.360the UCP continue to govern in Alberta and the Sask Party in Saskatchewan.
00:37:39.440Well, that's the point, isn't it? I mean, if Rachel Notley were taking questions from
00:37:44.000independent media, the question to ask would indeed be, Adam, what will you do about the
00:37:50.640legislation that forbids the federal government to confiscate firearms?
00:37:54.480Well, let's put that on the list, because we're going to ask the questions anyway,
00:37:56.720it's up to her if she wants to answer them i think it's uh i love the chance to ask it
00:38:00.720yeah i'm still waiting for her put it on the list that's absolutely something she's welcome
00:38:04.720on the show and i know some of the guys in the ndt war room we're probably watching this so
00:38:08.880you can prepare your answer you know well in advance this question's coming
00:38:13.360and nigel will do it with a smile a corey corey probably won't smile if he doesn't
00:38:18.960it's kind of mean not your style uh i guess kind of bring it back to where we were before
00:38:24.800Do you think firearms are going to be a significant provincial election issue?
00:38:29.700Because normally we don't think of this as a provincial issue.
00:38:32.060Generally, the federal government does firearms and that's it.
00:38:35.400But as Alberta and Saskatchewan have started to reassert provincial sovereignty over their jurisdiction here,
00:38:41.140they've gone into firearms in a very big way that has kind of put a real crimp in the federal government style here.
00:38:49.620Do you foresee firearms being a major election issue here in Alberta?
00:38:54.260No, 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.
00:39:13.740is why it might be a no-lose for the NDP because the majority of Albertans still don't own firearms.
00:39:18.540I mean, it's a minority. It's a very large minority. It's pretty big in Alberta, but it's
00:39:22.460still a minority. And I mean, most people who have firearms are proportionally, I'm
00:39:28.540pretty confidently willing to bet, are voting UCP already. They're not voting NDP. So is there
00:39:32.620actually anything to lose? The NDP might have a... I don't see an advantage in diving into it. I mean,
00:39:37.100the NDP, as you said, some of those battlegrounds satellite around the city, or there's hunters
00:39:40.620within the city, ones like that, that you really want to open that conversation. You're really
00:39:44.700going to move them. Are hunters really going to vote? Hunters might dress an orange in duck season
00:39:48.720sometimes. I don't know if I mentioned them before, but my mother's husband in Idaho, the very
00:39:53.040extremely Democrat dedicated Trump derangement syndrome. But he's a Second Amendment supporter
00:40:01.020to the core. And everything else is hard left with him. But boy, if you want to flip him,
00:40:07.580try and take his gun. But I feel like that's a pretty small number of people. Yeah, that's what
00:40:13.000I'm saying. That's why it won't be an issue. I mean, the dedicates on this are already in the
00:40:17.480parties. I don't see the parties having much interest in turning this. The federal NDP and
00:40:21.640the liberals don't make any bones. They don't care about pissing off gun owners because most
00:40:27.120gun owners don't vote liberal and NDP federally. And I imagine, actually, we've gotten the polling
00:40:31.620data here. People who vote NDP, obviously, but overwhelming those who vote liberal federally
00:40:37.280in Alberta are voting overwhelmingly NDP here. I just don't think there's a ton of gun owner and
00:40:43.260hunter votes up for grabs for the NDP. And if none of them are voting NDP anyway, the NDP might be
00:40:49.700able to appeal to some of the more pearl clutching people in the suburbs who don't own guns and don't
00:40:54.320know anything about it and say, you know, Daniel Smith and the UCP are endangering you and we're
00:40:59.180gonna go along with Ottawa and take these dangerous military guns out of the hands of
00:42:22.540advancements there are potential side effects in vaccinations
00:42:29.860and there are people who've probably gotten very sick from vaccinations
00:42:36.040on the billions of people who've been vaccinated against covid over the past few years
00:42:40.900but there are far more people who obviously have died due to covid died from not getting vaccinated
00:42:49.220and the idea that people can fly in the face of science well individuals are allowed to make
00:42:58.020their own choices there may be all sorts of different reasons why someone is hesitant
00:43:01.400to get vaccinated but i make a distinction i have always have between someone choosing for
00:43:09.640personal reasons to choose not to get vaccinated and someone deliberately
00:43:18.100using misinformation to mislead and scare other people with so-called facts
00:43:28.780that aren't facts at all that lead them to make a choice that endangers their
00:43:33.900lives and the lives of other citizens. So as Prime Minister, through the greatest
00:43:43.440public health crisis that we faced in a hundred years in this country, since the
00:43:49.500Spanish flu, my responsibility was to keep as many Canadians alive as possible.
00:43:57.360and all of the scientists and the medical experts and the researchers not just in Canada but around
00:44:06.180the world understood that vaccination was going to be the way through this and therefore while
00:44:14.400not forcing anyone to get vaccinated I chose to make sure that all the incentives and all the
00:44:22.340protections were there to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated. And that's exactly what they did.
00:44:28.200We got vaccinated to a higher level than just about any other of our peer countries. And that's
00:44:32.840why we had a less deadly pandemic than most other countries. Okay, so you've heard Justin Trudeau
00:44:40.440there. He did not coerce anybody. Nice guy. Let's just read from his own words here. This was said
00:44:48.860in French. And boy, this was a big story. The Western Standard had it translated, I believe,
00:44:55.080was first reported here. But he said this on a French language program in Quebec. He certainly
00:44:59.940never repeated it in English. But here's what he said during COVID. We all know people who are
00:45:05.840deciding whether or not they're willing to get vaccinated. And we will do our very best to try
00:45:11.040and convince them. However, they're still a part of the population that is fiercely against it.
00:45:15.980They 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.
00:45:30.420This 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.
00:45:41.840They are obviously not the issue in this situation.
00:45:45.840Well, that sounds very uncoercive to me.
00:45:49.840I'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,
00:45:57.840they were certainly not coerced when they were not allowed to enter the country unless they got the vaccination.
00:46:02.840People who were not allowed to do their jobs as truckers were certainly not coerced.
00:46:06.840coerced. People who were fired from their jobs because they were not vaccinated were not coerced.
00:46:12.840Wow. So if I say give me your wallet or else am I coercing him? Of course I am. There is a
00:46:19.700consequence. There's no choice there. So get vaccinated. I don't even think we don't have
00:46:24.420time and I don't even think we need to get into that. It's pretty freaking obvious to me but
00:46:28.340it was just too good to not get into this time. Well Nigel, Corey, thank you for your time.
00:46:34.420I 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.
00:46:58.540Remember, if you're not already a member of the Western Standard, become one.
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